"Finally…"

Pulling herself away from the wall and shaking like a sinner in church, Tristessa celebrated as she felt her insides burst into flames of panic. Deep terror at having that woman—that Wraith—in her presence again, and relief at knowing the opportunity she'd been waiting for had just arrived.

"H-Hello!"

Her voice was brittle, fear evident and embedded between her words. The Wraith didn't stop at that greeting, her footsteps echoing throughout the alley and creating a symphony of dread along with Tristessa's heartbeat.

It was only when they were a few meters from each other away that the Imperial Assassin stopped. So close, the frightened, gray-eyed girl could see in greater detail her black tunic-like uniform, but made of a durable, leather-like material with metal guards hidden between the layers of fabric. Black boots, pale hands with long, claw-like nails. And her white mask, the sealed slits around her mouth and nose, the dark bird design on her cheek, and the unnatural darkness around her eyes…

"…"

Worthy of nightmares, silent, Stormcrow waited for Tristessa to speak. Unaware that this girl, intimidated as she was, knew perfectly well why she was there. In broad daylight, showing herself to a civilian who had the tools to take the beast by the horns.

"I was waiting for you," Tristessa blurted out, her lower lip trembling, fearing that this woman would pounce on her at any second like a hungry, bloodthirsty creature. Her hands felt clammy with perspiration, and her nerves building in the lower part of her abdomen. "I want to talk to you."

"…who are you?" Stormcrow's question, uttered in that dark, guttural voice, filled Tristessa's heart with the same horror she had that time in the dungeon of the Lord's Castle. A whisper of doom, echoing throughout the alley. "You're not a local citizen. From what Dominion do you come from? How did you get into the city?"

"None of that matters now."

"Is that so? Well, then it won't matter if I arrest you and torture you until I get the answers I want."

Tristessa's legs begged to flee. It was her sense of survival screaming to get out of there, from that a terrible fate awaited her if she fell into that woman's hands. The natural instinct that failed to perceive something that the girl's mind, burdened with information from nonexistent pasts, saw clearly: Stormcrow hadn't taken a single step closer to her, and it didn't look like she was going to do so anytime soon.

The reason was obvious, thanks from knowledge gained in the last loop. And such knowledge was power over that dreadful woman.

"You won't do that…Stormcrow," Tristessa whispered, and saw a tiny spasm in the fingers of the assassin's right hand. Surprise. Something unexpected.

"How do you know…?"

"I know many things about you. As a sign of goodwill, I will tell you that I own a Divinity that grants me certain…limited information about topics that interest me. I cannot give any further details, otherwise you and I will die. Horribly. Anomalous effects of my Divinity, I hope you understand."

Tristessa almost smiled, in the utmost irony given how scared she was. It was a miracle she could speak clearly, despite trembling like a child listening to a horror story, unable to stop staring straight into those two abyssal vortexes where those eyes she had known were hidden.

She would never be able to forget those yellow eyes of the first person she had killed with her own hands, and whom she had forced back from Death.

"One thing I know about you is that you own the [Divinity of the Evil Eye]. I know what it does, I know how it affects you," she continued, taking a brave step forward. "And I know how much pleasure you feel when a source of Discord gets closer to you."

That simple action made the Wraith tremble. A powerful shock that forced her to take two steps back, overwhelmed. Not only from the shock of a civilian possessing that kind of information, but also from something invisible that was taking over the alley.

Emanating from Tristessa's soul, an ethereal, dark mist threatened to trap the masked woman in an addictive atmosphere of madness. The spider had fallen into the trap.

"You knew I was coming to you…"

"Yes. You can't help it, can you? You sensed my rancid, rotting soul, and you were compelled to come here by a greater force." Tristessa took another step toward the Wraith, spreading all her delicious and irresistible Discord. Stimulating even the deepest, darkest place inside the woman, tempting her with a magnitude similar to the fall of the Evil Dream. "I need your help, Stormcrow."

"Help?" she repeated, with the rage of a vicious devil who would give anything to destroy that person in front of her. So much hostility that Tristessa felt like she was swinging like a pendulum between Life and Death. "What kind of help could a girl need from a Wraith?"

"An audience with the Lady of the Dominion. I have very valuable intel for her regarding the Coven. And only she can hear what I have to say, no one else."

If she were honest with herself, Tristessa was following the same logic as when she requested Silas Roy Khan, the Hidden Shadow of Aurelia Eramisaptor, for an audience with his master. The difference lay in the level of exposure: no one besides her three allies knew about her Divinities, her status as a Stranger, her connection to the Mercer-Archeos…

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The previous loop had failed because of all those elements. In the present, there were no loose ends. There were no potential suspects who knew about her alarming number of Divinities. There was no exiled family waiting at the city gates. And she knew very well that Astoria, Auron, and Severus weren't going to betray her; there was no way, after watching them carry out a suicide mission in the previous loop to save her life—a Stranger they had known for a couple of hours.

This time, she had cards with which to play that risky game.

"You want a meeting with Lady Eramisaptor alone? You're out of your mind, child... You could be a witch of the Coven trying to attack the Lady...!"

Before Stormcrow could finish her accusation, Tristessa instantly lost her temper and screamed from all loud:

"I'm not one of those damn lunatics! I want them dead! Every single one of those witches, DEAD!"

The outburst caused the assassin to lunge at Tristessa, grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing her against the same wall she'd been leaning against for hours. A violent grip, enough to scare her to Death.

"Is that true? You are not a little witch? What are you then? Tell me!"

Tristessa had forgotten to breathe; her heart had almost stopped. Only when she realized that Stormcrow hadn't drawn her poisoned knives and was merely digging her nails into her shoulders did she find a modicum of reason to regain some of her composure.

Hearing her labored breathing, feeling her tremble at the uncontrollable temptation her Divinity kept sending her… Tristessa realized that, in this circumstance, she had the advantage over the Wraith.

"I'm just a girl who wants to save people threatened by the Coven. And I'll do anything to save them and see those witches dead. Even…" Gathering her courage again and imagining the Wraith's yellow eyes amidst all that perfect darkness, she raised a hand and placed it right that cold, porcelain mask. On top of the drawing of the black bird. "…I'd accept to be your lover."

Absurd. Saying it out loud sounded very, very stupid… So much so that Stormcrow, a professional assassin who had surely never been in a similar situation before, couldn't escape the shock.

"L-lover?! Something mundane, insubstantial! Madness! How can you even think I'd accept something so ridiculous, you…?!"

"Tristessa. My name is Tristessa," the girl whispered, more than certain that all the dread that dominated her was helping to expel an astronomical amount of Discord that, behind that mask, was causing the madness she was accused of. "Don't you want to? Are you really going to reject me, Stormcrow?"

The nonexistent past had shown her how extreme Stormcrow's desire for her and her Discord-saturated soul had been. So much so that she would abandon everything and commit treason if that could make Tristessa all hers. That desire, riddled with maddening lust, was now a weapon for Tristessa; she just needed to mold it into a form of optimal use.

And what could be better than a secret romance? Tristessa didn't have much to gain from the assassin who nearly killed her, whom she killed, returned from the Dead, and who desired to desecrate her defenseless body in the solitude of a cell.

But Stormcrow did. She didn't have to throw her life away, but rather commit to a certain...discretion. That way, she could have insane doses of evil and deliciously rotten Discord all to herself. An offer impossible to refuse.

Tristessa didn't know what other consequences she would suffer from for making that decision, but there weren't many other options available. In order to save the Mercer-Archeos from the cruel fate that awaited them... She needed the help of that Wraith, one way or another.

That's why she closed the few centimeters that separated her from that assassin, and the latter couldn't bear it any longer, releasing her shoulders to enclose her in a desperate embrace.

"Ah... ah... Damn you, temptress... Ah, by Xiliarra...!" Stormcrow moaned and breathed raggedly, pressing her body against Tristessa's as if her life depended on it, digging her nails into her back. She pressed her against the wall, wanting to further close the gap with the core of her being that emitted all that delicious and abundant Discord. "N-no, no, nonono... I need to control myself... Your soul, your Discord...! Oh, ah! Damn you!"

"…"

While the Wraith fought her own desires, a battle already lost, Tristessa made a titanic effort not to vomit. She tried to ignore the screams inside her head that begged for it to stop. Her heart and soul agonized, creating a tidal surge in the dark ocean of her memories. Wanting to bring up from the depths images of the past, horrible and forbidden.

"Tessa… WHY EVERYTHING THAT YOU LOVE DIES?"

That voice from the past, malevolent and terrifying. Unknown, Tristessa couldn't place a face on it. It threatened to break her sanity, it was more dangerous than when she remembered her mother's smirk inside her cell.

If she wanted to stay sane, if she wanted to avoid falling into the deepest abyss, Tristessa knew what she had to do: she focused her fragile mind on that cell in the Lord's Castle, on the hands of that same assassin who had caressed her with sensual desire, on her sweet and poisonous words… A horrible memory that supplanted infinitely worse ones.

"You want me…don't you, Stormcrow?" she whispered, her lips brushing the edge of her mask, very close to her ear. Seeing black hair as dark as night and pale skin that had hardly ever touched the sunlight. "Help me, and we can do this as many times as you want, without anyone knowing. Help me… Come on, I know you want to do this. You can't resist. You know you'd give anything to feel the touch of your soul with mine."

There was no way not to feel that desperate desire. The voracious appetite of that Wraith, starved for Discord.

"Ugh…!"

The Imperial Assassin abruptly pulled away from Tristessa, as if she'd just let go of something that was burning and causing her great pain. There was no way to tell with the mask in the way, but Tristessa imagined those yellow eyes, riddled with conflict. Wide open, perhaps with a hint of fear, accompanying the pale and—in her adolescent imagination—beautiful face of a young woman a little older than her.

Without saying anything, Stormcrow escaped. She fled at great speed, disappearing into the shadows of the alley, leaving no trace. The spider, fearing its natural predator, be it a bird or a reptile, Tristessa… It retreated to its hiding place.

To that maze of spiderwebs inhabited by the mother of all spiders in Entrana. With black hair edged with blue, a ruthless violet gaze, and carrying a terrible glaive with a dark saber that had a name that invoked terror.

"Now, I just have to wait…" Tristessa thought, who didn't realize she was crying until later, when she finally emerged from the alley and found herself standing against the dirty glass of the first abandoned storefront she passed by. Signs of the eternal fear of the Wraith and whatever decision she might make. "It's all up to her now."

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