TW: This chapter includes mention of torture, trauma and violence. Read at your own discretion.

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She sat up, hearing the distinct sound of footsteps approaching her cell. Dark spots were clouding her vision but she caught sight of Talia Al Ghul who had come to stand in front of her cell, the bars separating the two.

"Bring Ryuu back," Sayuri spoke up, her voice threatening despite the pain she was going through.

"Easy there, girl. I came here to talk to you, not to see you demand your lover to be returned."

Sayuri turned her face away, not wanting to talk to the woman.

"What's your name?" Talia asked, "I suggest you answer or I will torture him to death right in front of you."

"Sayuri," she spoke through gritted teeth, her eyes darting around to see if Ryuu was anywhere close by.

"You are an excellent warrior, Sayuri," Talia remarked, a sinister smile playing upon her lips, "it is pitiful you have to stay imprisoned here for the rest of your life."

"I am not going to stay here forever," she replied, "I will not."

"Your Ryuu might have done his very best to fool me into thinking that he was the leader but I know that's not true," her voice had taken an amused lilt, those words freezing the blood in Sayuri's veins, "I know exactly who you are, Sayuri. And I know you have a son, supposedly safe at the base of your clan, right?"

Sayuri tried to break free from her chains so that she would be able to reach the bars that separated the two and claw at Talia if she dared bring up her son again.

"Right now your partner is in the throne room and I am sure Father will look after it that he does not leave the room alive," Talia remarked triumphantly and Sayuri tugged at her chains again only for her ankles to bleed further, "I only came here to see if you can save him by owning up that you are the leader instead."

She paused but she knew it was a trap. Talia was the one who had made that deal with Ryuu and now she was provoking Sayuri to confess as well.

Nothing good would come out of it for Sayuri, Ryuu, and the rest of the clan. They were all doomed no matter what they did next.

"So you won't say anything? Pitiful." Talia stepped back as if to leave and Sayuri was praying deep down that her words weren't true and Ryuu wouldn't die.

But that hope shattered when Talia's voice ordering the guards sounded, Sayuri didn't quite understand as she had spoken in Arabic.

Shortly after, the gates of her cell were opened and she drew back in alarm to see the guards carrying someone in.

Her heart sank and it got twice harder to breathe as the stench of blood filled up the place. The assassins threw in the lifeless burden they had been carrying and her grey eyes widened in alarm to see that it was Ryuu.

The gates were closed again as she rushed towards him, not caring that the chains dug deeper into her flesh, "Ryuu!"

He was badly injured, his body seemed like a sieve made out of sword blows. Everywhere she could see were deep cuts with blood trickling out. Even his face was scarred deeply with a dagger struck across.

"No, please don't die," she cradled his head in her arms, "you can't leave me!"

His lips parted and she saw that he was still alive despite his terrible state. It seemed as if he was trying to say something to her so she bent closer to listen, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Itsu... made mo... aish..." But he was unable to complete the sentence as his breath got stuck in his throat, his hand struggling to lift up and caress her cheek in order to wipe away her tears.

The words he had uttered were what he had told her on the day they had gotten married.

Itsu made mo aishimasu. I will love you forever.

His hand touched her cheek, the blood trickling from the cuts smearing her face as he tried to wipe off her tears. She was terror-stricken, knowing it was only a matter of time for him to give up.

The amount of blood he had lost by then and the intensity of the cuts he had received made it very clear that he would not survive for long.

And true enough, his brown eyes widened as one final breath raked through him, his hand falling from her cheek.

Sayuri froze, her hand reaching out towards the reddened hand lying lifeless beside her. The struggling rasps of breath he had been taking had come to a halt as well.

It was so silent in the cell that the sound his limp hand made upon falling to the floor felt no less than a crash. And it was just as impactful for it seemed that Sayuri's whole world had come crashing down on her.

She had lost Ryuu Ishikawa, her lover, her friend, her partner, and her husband. Now he was no more than a bloodied corpse.

"Ryuu, please don't die," her hands clutched onto him tightly, the same words passing her lips again and again.

Shinanaide kudasai. Please don't die.

But no matter how much she pleaded with him to come back, his eyes had turned glassy, and the raspy breaths that he was struggling to take due to the countless wounds he had borne stopped.

And it seemed that each wound he had suffered, the pain from it was piercing through Sayuri's heart.

Her head dropped down on his shoulder, unable to stop her tears as her hands still clutched onto his ripping shirt, the red smearing her as well.

"Shinanaide kudasai... Shinanaide kudasai..."

Her voice too was getting dim with every passing second and finally, it faded into a deathly silence, her eyes falling shut.

The pain and grief from losing Ryuu had been too much for her to bear and she wasn't able to struggle against it any longer. At last, she had passed out as well, her hands still fastened onto Ryuu tightly.

She had never wanted things to come to that point. But there was nothing she could do right then to make time reverse and stop it from happening.

The war had come to an end but with gasoline lighting up the fire even brighter. And in that fiery furnace, she had lost Ryuu as well as her clan.

Everything had gone up in flames.

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