The blade feels heavy in her hand. The loops of leather on the hilt are cool against the insistent heat of her palm. Even as she squeezes tight enough to make it groan and squeak under the pressure, it holds its temperature perfectly. The material feels smooth, but grips into her skin without shifting. It's like holding an ice cube that's been polished and then later etched into a work of fine art. The blade is long and heavy, but balanced with the kind of precision that manufactures starships the weight feels as natural as her own arm. An extension of the limb.

The blade whistles with every flick of her wrist. Bella's eyes are locked on the blade across from her in Redana's hands. She watches the way it twists, the flash of the light across its edge, the tremor running through it that proves it's being gripped too tight. The subtle shifts in the muscles holding it that are unconsciously taking advantage of that tremor, that show the saber is no less a part of Redana's arm than it is Bella's. 

She cuts away her sandal straps with a pair of clean slashes at her legs, and kicks them across the floor. The soles of her feet dig into the grass as she plants them in the soil. The leaf-blades are slick against her skin and wet against her fur. It is softer than any bed she's lied on, but cuts her feet open on hidden prickles as she slips across it. A soft bed to welcome her, when she falls. A bed of knives, grinning in the dark. Demeter is everywhere.

The air is thick with perfumes of all sorts: lavender and goldenrod and seemingly every pollen known to Empire except for roses. Bella sniffs deeply, and kills each one in turn. Farewell to flowers. Farewell to crisp pools of water. Farewell to soil. She focuses all of her attention on the blend of salt and metal that tells her what Redana doing, feeling, thinking at every moment of the duel. 

Her eyes flit briefly away from the plan... from Redana to behold Aphrodite watching over them. Of Artemis there is no sign to be found. Apollo is just as absent. No moon, no sun to guide her here inside this garden. She slashes with her blade through the dirt in front of her, kicking up a massive wave of dirt clumps, leaves, and flower petals.

"If this doesn't work, then just... there's no one else I'd rather be killed by. Redana."

Bella stomps her foot and lifts her sword up into a stance that's no stance at all. The blade is kept high above her head where leverage and power can turn it into a stroke powerful enough to cleave even the ship open. Her eyes burn with battle-fury. The air around her wavers from the heat pouring off her body.

"...This is the last time I will ever hurt you. One way or another, it stops with this. So endure it, Princess. And don't you dare, don't you dare, don't you [i]fucking dare[/i] hold back!"

Bella screams as an animal would. She screams to be heard by the entire ship. She screams to split skulls open. And then her hair and dress whip behind her as if caught in a gust, and she appears in front of Redana with no intervening frames. Rather than taking advantage of her momentum, she pauses just long enough to plant her feet. Her hips twist with her shoulder, and the full power of a Diodekoi comes screaming down on top of the Imperial Princess.

The dueling swords keen horribly as they clash. This is a blow neither of them are meant to endure, but they hold all the same. The floor buckles under their combined weight; Bella's sword slides all the way down Redana's until it catches against the guard. There is a struggle: sweat against sweat, muscle against muscle, steel against steel, breath against breath. Bella's laugh is guttural and her smile is full of teeth. She lifts her sword again and the pressure abates instantly. 

Every blow rains down faster than the one that preceded it. It crushes even harder, trades more and more skill for raw brutality. Each one countered more desperately, but (the scents tell her) more determinedly as well. The skill of an Olympic athlete who trained her entire life to fight with blades like these is on display, and it is enough to hold against the terrifying fury of an unleashed assassin. It is enough. [i]You[/i] are enough, Redana. You're all that's needed. All that's ever been needed.

The ship shudders with the force of the battle happening inside of it. Swords sing their terrible death songs as metal grinds edge off of metal. And then something slips. The dull, wet sound of flesh splitting open briefly sounds through the ears of those straining to listen for it, and the pitter patter of blood dripping down follows just behind it. Bella squeezes Redana's blade in her palm, and wrenches it from her hands. 

Her fist is a meteor aimed at Redana's ribs. Time seems to pause in an instant of exquisite pain met by the snap of a rib exploding into dust. Bella snarls and pounds the attack again, a knee this time with enough force to send her Princess sprawling backwards as though shot out of a cannon to crunch against the far wall. Bella twists on the ball of her foot and whirls about in a full circle and launches the sword as a thunderbolt that bites into Redana's shoulder on its way to burying itself in the wall up to the pommel. 

Steam pours out of Bella's mouth in a sigh. She brings her bloody hand to her mouth and drags her tongue across the wound. Her eyes constrict with a wave of nausea that almost staggers her, but willpower or something darker conquers it. She flexes her fingers with a series of loud cracks and crunches.

Her claws have grown longer. They cover her fingers up to the third knuckle like a chitinous gauntlet covered in wicked, curving spines. She pauses to stare at it. Snarls. The edge of her sword cuts through the air with a snap and a rush that pulls air in all around her. 

"Re. Da. Na. BLEED! SCREAM!" her spine curls with the effort of her war cry, "REDANA!"

Show her. Show her what she means to you. Beautiful's plans are perfect, but did you notice? They are also suicidally dangerous. Maybe no one has the power to fight against a god. Maybe it's impossible to defeat the one god among them that's wrapped the rest up tight to wear as a ring around his finger. This whole endeavor might be doomed from the start. But Bella is pushing herself to the edge of her own limits because she believes in that plan. But her body is a hideous bomb the same way Mynx's is. You're against the clock, Princess.

Do you understand?