The gods were cruel when they created Bella, to have turned the scent of blood into poison for her body and then gifted her with such sharp claws and a prodigious talent for violence. She's lost count of how many places just this evening where the air has turned to red mist in her lungs. It's passed beyond the realm of nausea, beyond even simple misery. It dampens her fur and runs down her arms, her chest, and across her thighs. It drips noisily from her claws and her talons in a mockery of song. Everywhere it touches, it burns her skin straight down to the core of her muscles. It squeezes her chest until breathing feels like torture. 

Is this punishment for bringing so much death to Her Majesty's world, where none is allowed? Her vision blurs. Tired. So tired. She should rest. Needs to rest. She's fought. So much. Already. She should. Close. Her eyes. And. Just.

Fresh pain explodes across her cheek following the trail of her talon as she drags it across her face. Bella snarls as she rises to full height again and pounces with animal fury on the remains of what passes for Beljani's army. The air rings out with the sound of crunching bone on cracking stone, snap pop rip. A dagger hides among two reeds. Bella's knees grind in protest as she circles around her ally with all the seeming of a starving tiger. 

"You moron," hisses Beljani, "I always knew you were too stupid to live. Just give up! Why do you insist on doing everything the hard way?!"

"...It wouldn't [i]be[/i] the hard way if you just fucking let me through!"

"Idiot! You've got brawn and tits enough to fill a ship with, but when it comes time to actually follow orders you... just look at you! I'd rather we just brought a bomb! At least [i]that[/i] would only blow up in my face if [i]I[/i] screwed up!"

They clash. If they'd done it sooner, everything would be over in an eyeblink. But Bella's arms have filled with lead in the face of her war with a planet. She bleeds from a hundred cuts, and her shoulders sag with a weight that has nothing to do with Oratus magic. Her fingers close around the knife instead of Beljani's throat, so when she tears it's only her palm that's sliced open before the steel cracks into splinters under her death grip. 

A spear whistles through the air toward her head. Bella ducks low, and flips backwards over top of the follow up strike. She springs and slips off her bloody hand and finds herself sliding and spinning away again. Too far to end things. She reaches up and squeezes her head to make the spinning stop. Everything tastes like blood. She gags, a wretched noise that's half mucus and half bile. Her stomach does another flip without the rest of her.

"Bella, this doesn't... we don't have to do this. We're so close. Just finish the plan, and we'll be ok. Just finish the plan. That's our way out."

"You dipshit, look at her! Look at her! Just fucking... I can save her! Let me save her! Get the fuck out of my way you useless fucking songbird!"

Beljani's face registers hurt for just a second. Her eyes widen in surprise and her mouth falls open without her meaning for it to. She pulls her arms across her chest, feet sliding backwards against Bella's latest charge. Bella lunges, and Beljani becomes diamond hard in an instant. Bella's vision explodes with stars as a fist collides with her jaw from out of nowhere, sending her sprawling to the ground. 

A lone Kaeri warrior stands above her with a spear. She drops to one knee and plunges the shaft deep into Bella's shoulder. Her arm screams. Her heart screams. She screams, like the dying. Like the damned. With a wet, gurgling snarl she kicks the owl servitor in the stomach and pushes herself back off the ground to the sound of a chorus of fabric and muscle tearing. She spins on the balls of her feet, wrenching the spear free and plunging it halfway up the shaft into the Kaeri's stomach. 

The look of betrayal turns Bella's blood to ice. She sucks in a breath as she takes a step forward. And then another. She drops to one knee. In front of her, tainted red, Beljani hangs her head.

"...There's no way out, Bella. No way out but this. I'm... I'm sorry."

"Shut up! SHUT! UP!!!! You're a liar, I hate you! You fucking traitor, come here so I can kill you!"

Across the din of battle, a shotgun blast roars overtop of everything. A lone, brave mouse levels the barrels at a pair of monsters, and calmly pauses to reload. The shining of her eyes in her beautiful lantern's light are sharp enough to cut entire worlds in half. It was useless buying a djinn after all, if they'd had this all along. 

There's no telling who her target is, what she means to happen. Jil aims her gun again, and plants her tiny feet against the recoil, but the next shot never comes. Beljani flinches. Bella screams. Her claws bite flesh, and when Beljani falls she clutches at a line of bloody gashes trailing across her stomach. She curls up around her wound, shrinking into the pain. Small. Weak. Pathetic. Her breathing is shallow, so timid and afraid to be heard. 

Bella towers over her with her good arm poised to strike. She lifts her hand to shoulder height, points her claws at her prey, and tenses for the killing blow. Her wet, hot, heaving breath beats down on Beljani's secret, tiny gasps with the force and fury of a nightmare. She hangs there for eternity. An inevitability. Every second is a year, and the blow does not fall. In just a second more, it will. No more tricks. No more lies. Nothing to stop her. 

Bella's ear bends to catch a noise behind her. She turns her head in time to follow the Master's gaze all the way across the roof to Beautiful. And she snarls and falls down on Beljani like a comet. There's a shriek and an explosion of debris. Bella shuffles to her feet again on unsteady legs, with a look of raw intensity permanently stuck across her face. 

Her injured arm is trembling under the weight of Beljani's writhing body. Her tail flicks like a whip, and then in the space of an eyeblink she disappears. 

The syringe is in her empty hand. She needs steady aim for the work she has to do. There's chaos on the roof, too much too fast, and nothing marks her. She crosses the distance between herself and Beautiful, without stopping even to watch Redana struggle. 

She plunges the syringe into Beautiful's shoulder right at the base of the neck, just where she'd been told to aim an entire week ago. Follow the plan. Yes, thank you, she's doing that. She pushes the plunger, and injects the lethe into her last remaining friend. Those gorgeous violet eyes flash with surprise just before they start to glaze over.

"But... why?" she asks through an inhuman smile.

"I'm sorry." 

Bella's voice is thick and hoarse. She has to stoop to catch Beautiful, and her legs tremble visibly under the burden of two fallen Assassins.

"I can't lose you. Not you too. You're... all I have left."

Bella's eyes are wet as she turns to glare down all the witnesses gathered here before her. She drops, almost to her knees, once. Then twice. Three times before she manages a step to the edge of the roof. Her stare passes over Jil. Over the sheep who came with her, watching her like he would a child-snatching creature in the night. Over Redana, herself doubled over with the effort of not crying. She watches the Master of Assassins. 

Above, the hand of a djinn collapses into sparkling dust that sprays down across the city. Bella stands there, frozen in the rain.