A blink, which banished the darkness of Death and restored light to Tristessa's eyes.

Once again, she stood in the atrium of the Mercer-Archeos house, intact and in perfect condition. With that tray containing the tea set in her hands—the right one, beginning to tremble somewhat uncontrollably.

There was no fire, no ashes, no charred corpses, and no noxious, invasive smell of Death. The second floor was where it was supposed to be, like the separating wall with the dining room. Everything in its right place, as it should.

Once again, the varg's head behind the showcase's windowpane, staring at her with immortalized, malignant hunger. Those sharp teeth, glistening tongue, and the blackness in the depths of his throat…

It was almost hypnotizing, beautiful in its own morbid way, as if calling to stick her head inside and let herself be devoured. A strange manifestation of the call of the void. A disturbing intrusion into the first seconds of reasoning Tristessa had in that new loop.

"…"

It was strange that the first thing she thought about upon returning to life was being devoured, as had happened in her first Death. The intrusive thought persisted, the only continuous thread within her now-awake mind.

Paradoxically, this made it clear that it wasn't actually strange to cling to that thought. It was something that came from her subconscious, trying to protect her from everything that had just happened seconds ago in a past that no longer existed.

"…huh…"

A small sound emerged from the depths of her throat. Vocal cords that effortlessly converted the passage of air into sound. Cold air that reached young lungs to pump vital energy into all the blood circulating through her body, covered by those clothes consisting of men's pants and a shirt.

A complete harmony and synchronization that made one thing evident: Tristessa Irandell was a healthy, young adult woman, with no preexisting illnesses or adverse conditions.

Tristessa was full of Life, after she had encountered Death for the fifth time. Now she was back at that fixed save point.

She had to thank the persistence of the Baptism in Ruins on her chest, which was the same way it had been when she first realized she possessed that mark. Smaller, thousands of times less vile, and without emanating a coldness that nothing could have done to appease the hell her subconscious could no longer keep hidden.

"...agh...!"

Tristessa gasped, her eyes unfocused and her mouth parted, her lower lip trembling as the wave of terror crashed down on her like a downpour. Ironically, amid the colossal chill, she felt the heat of the magical fire that killed her.

They were small stimuli that catalyzed the return of memories. Each breath brought the echo of the flames burning the inside of her lungs. The contact with the house's cold, laidback atmosphere brought back the echoes of her skin disintegrating, her muscles and body fat dehydrating and melting, and her bones carbonizing.

The short time of agony she had experienced before her nerves evaporated along with all the blood in her body was a new torment she would have to live with. A malignant memory that was here to stay.

But…

"Are you afraid of vargs, miss?"

There was something far worse than the memory of physical pain: the wounds inflicted on the spirit. Wounds that would never heal, no matter how much one searched for peace or let time pass.

That voice was like pouring salt on that kind of wound that couldn't be healed, and a sigh laden with anguish from her now-complete soul left Tristessa's mouth.

"Ah…," she let out, a moan that announced the arrival of tears. "Ah…!"

"Miss?"

He was standing beside her, and she didn't deign to look at his face. She felt like she would die again if she did.

That voice was filled with curiosity and a hint of concern, coming from the child she had forced back into the material plane. Forced into an existence that couldn't be classified as living.

Having a broken soul and a body reduced to ashes was no life by any stretch of the imagination. But she had brought him anyway, uncaring of the anguish of seeing his parents die before his eyes, or the horror he must have felt at being murdered by his older sister.

And now she was going to feel and remember all that reborn and perpetual hatred forever.

"Miss, are you all right?"

Tristessa didn't answer. Her hands, unable to control her anxiety and trembling, lost strength and let the tea set fall to the carpet. The teapot shattered into a few pieces, the cup surviving, and Lucahn let out a small cry of surprise. That sound of breaking chinaware caught Tiara's attention, and, like other iterations, she exploded with anger at the now silent Tristessa.

"Stupid girl, that was the only tea set in the house! Now we'll have to wait for Severus to come and…!"

Tristessa no longer heard complaints and insults directed at her. She couldn't, as her mind had just fallen into a dense, inescapable darkness the moment Tiara said the name of the blood elf.

Everything was lost, every effort—hers and all those who lent her a hand—wasted. They all died, and nothing remained. The future was unchanged. It remained condemned at the hands of the Coven and the Dullahan.

Only endless pain remained, atrocious memories, and an abyss of loneliness that left a new scar on her heart and soul alike.

"A-Auron…!" she moaned, seeing in the reflection of the glass herself lying inside that tent, a lamp illuminating her face, playing at passing a soul jewel with that gunslinger who kept talking to her about money.

His boundless greed, his lack of concern for others if riches weren't involved… And yet, he gave his life to save her during the attack by the Imperial assassins. And she desecrated his body and spirit in return.

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"F-forgive me…!"

Now she could say what she couldn't, now that the inside of her neck wasn't saturated with blood. Now that her soul wasn't struggling uselessly to avoid vanishing into the void, broken and unforgivable for all the mistakes she'd made.

And that cry for redemption didn't end there...

"S-SEVERUS...!" Tristessa's scream echoed throughout the hall, with Lucahn and Tiara as stunned witnesses of her imminent crash out. She saw his smile from ear to ear, that piercing gaze that could be so gentle and sadistic at the same time. That man willing to give his life for his loved ones. That man she loved. "WHAT DID I DO?! MY GOD, SEVERUS!"

Her feelings were dying embers inside her heart; each beat a pulse of pain. Not only had she brought the blood elf to his Death, but in an act of utter desperation to see the Dullahan defeated, she had lured his lost soul back to life. Disrespecting his memory, his sacrifice, his will to fight in the name of his dead friends and ancestors.

And what had been the result of her stupidity? In result of her selfishness? Karma hadn't taken long to knock on her door and deliver a reality check through the bittersweet irony of fate.

That it was Severus himself, dead and resurrected as a revenant, who killed her… Pure poetry, from the confines of the cosmos and written with the fingers of the Gods.

"Fuck…fuck, fuck!"

Tristessa had begun to hyperventilate. Her heartbeat was out of control, cold sweat running down her body. The full weight of her mistakes and failures in the last loop fell upon her in an instant.

The Mercer-Archeos family was going to die, no matter what she did to try to prevent it. The Priestess of the Black Eye would always be one step ahead, that much had been proven, thanks to her skill -her Simulacrum- bestowed upon her by the Lord of Forbidden Knowledge.

"Shit! Fucking shit! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…!"

Everyone she had met in Entrana, all the relationships that had begun to form… Nothing existed anymore. Everything had returned to the beginning. No one she had met in those days would remember her, but she would, like the tattoo artist Caius fighting with his apprentice Cyela; the woman who visited the monument to the Vanishers; the unpleasant and proud Urias Janus; the austere and friendly Higgs Vendrick.

The gunslinger, Auron Casimir…

The thaumaturge and alchemist, Severus Malak Drakan…

One-way feelings. The feelings of someone who doesn't exist in their lives.

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Tristessa screamed at the top of her lungs, her vision blurring with tears and a trickle of drool falling from her open mouth, which kept trembling and releasing moans filled with anguish and suffering. The loneliness was heartbreaking; she couldn't bear that reality. It was a free fall into madness. "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO…!"

Suddenly, she fell silent, holding all that pain in the center of her chest. For a moment, her vision cleared amidst so many tears, and she glimpsed her pitiful reflection against the glass.

"…I hate you."

A face that disgusted her. It made her nauseous. She wanted to vomit just looking at herself. Not even the smell of the burning corpses of the Coven witches provoked such a feeling of repulsion.

"I HATE YOU."

All the anguish she felt was replaced by pure anger. So much fury toward that person reflected against the stained glass… So much loathing toward Tristessa Irandell.

"I FUCKING HATE YOU!"

With that bellow, Tristessa braced her hands against the glass, reared back, and butted her head hard against it.

A few lines of crack spread across the transparent surface, too strong to give in so easily. Fresh blood began to trickle from the cut on her forehead, leaving a small stain at the point of impact, and a sharp headache spread across her head.

"What are you doing?! Are you crazy?!" she heard Tiara's scream, distorted and distant. "Lucahn!"

"Mommy, Mommy, what's wrong with her?! She smells like Discord, she smells like Evil Dream!"

Neither the dizziness nor the screams of mother and son stopped the girl from smashing the glass again, this time harder. Somehow, she had to punish that pathetic, useless woman who remained there, her image interspersed with the varg. The crack grew larger, but the glass still hadn't broken, and now the bloodstain was much more evident. Her vision darkened, and the throbbing pain in her head was unbearable.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

Only making Tristessa Irandell disappear from her sight.

"DISAPPEAR! GO AWAY! DIE, YOU DISGUSTING BITCH! DISAPPEAR!"

Screaming nonstop, Tristessa lashed out at the glass case, this time determined not to stop until she managed to kill that woman. Until she erased her existence once and for all. Blow after blow, the glass shattering more and more, blood constantly splattering in all directions from the grievous wound on her head, and Tiara's desperate screams as she covered a crying Lucahn in her arms so he wouldn't see.

"Di... D...is...sap…pea...r..."

With her consciousness fading, the front of her skull cracked and her face completely covered in blood, Tristessa delivered one last headbutt to the glass.

Like an explosion, the glass surface shattered, and two things happened simultaneously.

First, among the many pieces of glass of different sizes and shapes, one lodged in the girl's right eye, piercing the entire eyeball and extending further, severing the optic nerve. And second, as she fell forward, the broken glass attached to the base of the display case sank into her neck.

"A…kaj…!"

Her movement stopped, and the length of her neck quickly became a cascade of blood, flooding the interior of the display case. Jugular veins, carotid arteries, none were spared from that deadly trap. Soon, all the antiques resting on the gleaming mahogany-like wood were met by the unstoppable wave of blood that covered everything.

"…"

Tristessa heard the frantic beating of her own heart in her ears, the only sound that remained. Everything was a chaos of lights and colors, and warmth that enveloped the interior of her mind.

"She's dead! She is, she is dead! Yes! Finally, she died and will never come back! Fucking Tristessa, now you got what you deserved! Burn in hell, bitch! Burn and suffer for everyone you sent to their graves! Bitches like you only good for dying! Ha ha ha, look at me! Laughing at your demise, BITCH! HA HA HA!..."

She could no longer speak, or even breathe, but in her broken mind, she was laughing.

Smiling and laughing. For finally making Tristessa Irandell disappear. To achieving that fear before all that warmth that enveloped her turned into the terrifying cold of Death, and everything faded into that darkness where the only the sound of chains echoed…

A blink, her eyes showing her the display case with the stuffed varg inside again. The glass was intact, no blood pouring down. Her mind was clear and pure, no wounds on her head or neck. No crack on her psyche.

As if nothing had happened.

Her reflection looked back at her with in the same way, staring surprised and with a lack of understanding. Of being completely alone and lost, not knowing what to do.

The reflection of Tristessa Irandell. Someone she hated with passion. Someone that was bound to stay.

"Are you scared of vargs, miss?"

This time, Tristessa looked to her right and found the adorable, chubby Lucahn Archeos, dressed in those short trousers and wool vest, hugging his large book and gifting her a smile.

A smile destined to fade as she saw the girl's gray eyes begin to shed silent tears whose meanings he would never know.

"Yes... They scare me so much that I'd like to disappear, just so I never have to see them again."

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