Those fingers look softer than they should. Longer and more perfect. But that is surely her hand. Her expression is all wrong, too. The silly smile and the intensely furrowed brow that comes from thinking too hard has been replaced with a look of grim clarity and righteous anger. Those mismatched eyes, the green and the blue, shine with divine understanding and mortal determination. That, then, is surely her face. The smell of her sweat is pungent and... familiar, yes. But she is missing the complex rose perfume she uses to cover it up, so every sniff tells her no, no, no. She's wrong again. 

And this, of all things, is what confirms it at the last. The name on written on her skull burns in agreement. 

Bella reaches up with one trembling hand to grasp Redana around the wrist. Her touch is soft to the point of weakness. Until the claws dig in. They pierce the skin and quiver as godly blood trickles down to her palm. Her eye grows wide, and then unfocused, and she pulls herself up and throws Redana down in the same motion. 

She howls as an animal would: a beast with a thorn in its paw. Her claws become a whirlwind that tears gouges into the earth that will never heal, that crush rocks into dust so fine nobody would notice if they breathed it in until it choked them, that rip deep gouges from Redana's flesh that only manage not to split her open because the glowing staff has become a lasso to protect its master and catches Bella by the wrists in the nick of time. Even then, she cuts deep and with an eye for pain. 

She can't help it. She can't help herself at all. There are two names carved into her flesh, one in ritual sacrifice and one in blood, and whichever one of them is closer becomes the only thing that she can see. Right now that's you, Redana. She switches to punching, and her fists leave holes in the sand where you roll out of the way. Each time she wrenches her wrist free with a spray of sand it gets harder to see, harder to dodge. The next blow catches your jaw and sends you spinning. 

She leaps and pounces, inches from your face. Close enough to eat you. Her teeth are bared as though to do just that. Her spittle foams around the corners of her mouth, dripping pink from the blood that won't stop pooling in her mouth and splashing onto your face. Even now you can see the way her body trembles. She coughs straight in your face even as she pins your arm down and presses herself down on you, close enough to start smothering you in that hard, sharp, and spiny armor. 

She can't see what she needs to cut right now to kill you. That's why this is sloppy. But that's fine. That's fine, right? If you forgive her, then it doesn't matter if it's messy. If you forgive her, then it's fine if it hurts. If you forgive her, then block her blows, little weakling! Idiot princess! Live so she can hurt you more! Struggle so she can savor it! If you forgive her, if you love her, then die, die, [i]die[/i] and make the name on her head stop burning!

You can throw her at Sagakhan, and this whole story will flip. She'll return instantly to murdering her mother, and you'll instantly fade so far into the background that you'll stop existing. That's what it means to be a Diodekoi, and every second that armor powers her brings her closer to transforming into Artemis' divine avatar until the strain crushes her body like an ancient star. But before even that, Sagakhan's venom will kill her. The more she strains, the more her heart pumps lethal toxins through her, ones her body has no defenses for. She'll dissolve from the inside out before she figures out the riddle. 

Unless you can make her stop. You'll lose your strongest weapon against the [i]other[/i] monster here who has only not killed you yet because her daughter is doing such an excellent job of it at the moment. But Bella will live, if you can figure out how to pull Bella out of Servitor Candidate Number XIII. Tredecima is a past you barely even know about. How are you supposed to reach through those thorns and find her heart?

And while you're pondering that, take damage.