Bellator and Veronica enter the house, Bellator sits down on the bed and takes off his boots. Miles away Toriaku speeds towards the forest abode.

Veronica yawns a little, sitting down in her magic circle and sketching something on the ground.

“What are you drawing?” Bellator inquires.

“I don't know, just doodling. It starts to form a complex sigil” Veronica replies.

Bellator opens his satchel and takes out some bread. “Hungry?”

“Don't need to eat, thanks.”

He walks over and sits down next to Veronica. “It certainly doesn't look like doodling.”

“This is my kind of doodling.” The sigil glows and burns into the ground, and she starts working on one next to it.

“How do the sigils work, exactly?”

“I don't know exactly, they just do. It's sorta natural.”

A brief, slightly heavy silence is held in the air.

“Do you like me?” Bellator asks.

Veronica responds, with a hint of sadness in her voice. “Why should I? You're a rage-driven egocentric hypocritical violent rude mercenary who got drunk on fame to the point of losing it.”

“You shouldn't.”

“You shouldn't like me either, but you seem inclined to anyway.” The second rune singes and she continues with the third and fourth runes, starting to create a new circle around the old one.

“No one has liked me since my mother died when I was twelve. I thought hooking up with women, I'd find someone who wanted to stay. Instead, they were all just looking to feel good for a night.”

“I see that went well for you.” She completed about half of an arc, now drawing runes in a straight line to the point where she has to move across from Bellator to reach.

“Yeah, went about as well as anyone could expect.”

The line of runes continues for about seven feet before it begins to curve again. “Maybe it didn't go well because you weren't really trying.”

Bellator chuckles, “I certainly am now.”

“Hmm?” She looks up for a moment before turning to her drawing, finishing the second curve and working to connect the lines.

“Well... the woman I've fallen in love with is about to hurtle her self at a demon, and she'll die whether she wins or loses. Clearly, the stars are not aligned for me.”

She continues, pretending she didn't hear, working almost feverishly to finish whatever she is working on.

“I love you, Veronica. No reason you should feel the same, though.”

She only has three...two...one rune left. The oval of runes glows faintly, and she immediately turns to her own hand, using a small dagger to make a cut on her palm.

“It's the fact that I feel the same way that's causing problems, so I'm sorry for this.”

She puts the blood spilling out into her mouth, then reaches over the line of runes and pulls Bellator into a kiss.

Bellator is shocked, only for a moment, before the power of the blood overcomes him, falling out of consciousness.

She pulls away, leaning his body into the circle of runes, making sure that limb is left outside of the protection. She uses some of her blood still spilling out to activate one rune at the top, glowing a bright blue. This rune activates the others in a chain, until they are all glowing. Nothing is visible to the naked eye, but to Veronica, there are several threads holding Bellator's body in place. Tears roll down her eyes, but there is nothing she can do now. She glances, watching as a blue skull appears on one hand, signifying that the spell will not break until Veronica is dead.

“Toriaku teleports through the wall of the cottage, to face Veronica.

“Hello, child”

“I see that you’ve put your boyfriend to sleep”

“That is the worst way to enter a room, you know.” Veronica replies. She stands up, brushing the blood from her hands. “Besides, I don't think you have the right to call me a child.”

“I am a primordial evil, born at the beginning of space and time, and you are a two-thousand-year-old woman, trapped in the body of a twenty-year-old. I think I can call you a child.”

“At your own risk.” Veronica retorts.

“Fair enough, Wiccan scum. Let’s fight already.”

“You seem impatient to die, but let's find somewhere a bit more suitable.”

“Why not here? You have a wonderful cottage.”

“I’m sure you are quite aware of why.”

“Oh, of course. Your boyfriend. Maybe we should duel where I killed everyone yesterday, The Capital.”

“That works for me.”

She wistfully looks back one last time, before teleporting to the ruins of The Capital.

Toriaku unsheathes his blades.

“So you made those weapons just to kill my sisters? Pitiful.” Veronica taunts.

“No, I forged them after brutally murdering your sisters. I knew they’d come in handy.”

“So that means you made them just for me. How thoughtful.”

“Hope you know what to do when my blades are forged specifically to murder you magic people.”

“Interesting.” She holds a chain between her hands, wrapping it tightly around one wrist.

“We'll see if they're powerful enough to kill a goddess.” She pulls the chain as tight as she can, ripping her right hand off. Nearly black purple blood pours out of the wound into a pool on the ground.”

“Good job ripping your hand off, sure that’ll help.”

She grins as the blood starts to evaporate into a cloud of black mist obscuring her from view.

“And now for the part of the show, where I kill you.”

“Say hello to Shino and Hakai!” Toriaku screams.

Flying towards the Wiccan, he aims a strike at her heart with his twin blades

As he comes closer the mist engulfs him, the blood beginning to singe and burn his skin, blocking his vision of Veronica for the time.

Feeling the burning sensation, he screams and withdraws to regenerate his wounds.

Just as fast as he can do that, the blood sticks and forms a coat of black growing thicker on Toriaku's skin. No longer burning, but remaining in place.

In reaction, he skins himself with his blades, revealing the muscle beneath.

The blood falls to the ground with the skin, only to start twisting and trying to pull towards Toriaku again.

Manipulating the air around him, he propels himself into the air as the blood follows. Despite his efforts, the blood does not change targets.

Veronica dodges through her growing cloud of mist, waiting for Toriaku to make a strike. She holds her last burning candle in her hand, the flame still lit.

Waiting to see a reaction or mistake Toriaku keeps dodging the blood not striking at Veronica learning from his prior mistake

She smirks at his cunning, allowing the mist to get thicker and grow further and further.

He sees this and begins to fly into circles faster and faster each loop creating a clone of pure light.

Veronica waits patiently, the blood thick enough that it isn't sucked away by the winds. Voices whisper in her ears, and she places the candle at the edge of her robes, setting herself on fire.

The wind eventually gets strong enough to create a small tornado, but the wind does not put out the fire.

Veronica takes a deep breath as the flames engulf her body. “All I have, I give to thee, Hecate grant your strength unto me.”

She whispers over and over as the flames start to spread into the winds, chasing Toriaku through his running.

Toriaku continues, running faster and faster.

In a single moment, the flames recede and collapsed into a ball in the center of the mist. Where once one woman stood, there is now three. The center one is missing her right hand like the previous Veronica, but a cloth now covers her eyes with blood escaping out from under it. The other two appear like dark shades, each with one eye of the witch and the other covered by a cloth. In a flash, the two shades track Toriaku through the images and lock him down, keeping him from running.

He struggles to escape but he can't, his body bound by ethereal chains

The third body moves forward, the blood from her right hand forming into a blood blade.

“You took everything, now it's my turn.”

Toriaku darts out of the confusion among his light clones, behind Veronica, stabbing one of his blades through the back of Veronica’s throat.

Veronica only smiles, grabbing the blade with her hand and pulling it through her throat, ripping it from Toriaku's hands. The shades jump in, ripping Toriaku away and throwing him while the body recovers, the wound stitching itself with a thin black thread.

“You'd think that a killer like you would aim for the heart.”

With each word trickles of blood spill from her mouth.

“This is futile, we will both fall in the end.”

“I'm already dead.”

She lunges at Toriaku, aiming with both her blood blade and the one from Toriaku.

Toriaku picks up his other blade and darts around cutting down the shades at light speed.

Finally, he arrives at the real Veronica. They jab at the same time, both hitting the heart.

Back at the cottage, Bellator awakens, unable to move, see, or speak, almost as if everything but his brain refuses to function. The few strands of Wiccan blood course through his veins, telling him something is wrong.

The blades pull back as Veronica falls to her knees.

“No...Not yet...Not...yet...”

The shades disappear as Veronica slumps to the ground, her candle shattering on impact with the ground. A mist still pours out of her wound, refusing to quit, but no breaths escape her lips.

Toriaku, grievously wounded, teleports to his old home, places his blades back on their pedestal, before returning to the courtyard.

His body dies, and his apparition escapes.

Bellator feels warmth return to his body, and he quickly grabs the dagger from the satchel still sitting in the circle, fighting back tears.

The Wiccan blood in his veins goes into a rage, allowing him to teleport to where Veronica’s cadaver lies. He stabs the dagger into the back of the remaining apparition, feeling as if the apparition is solid. A blinding light appears and as it fades the apparition fades with it. Toriaku is dead, for now.

Bellator, still weak, crawls over to Veronica's body, crying silently.

“No.....” He whispers, before collapsing onto her body.