Life is a wheel, the misguided angel reflected, and so too is death. An ouroboros feeding on itself in an infinite loop, with the end of each iteration being devoured by the start of the next.

That was why she loved the shape of her blade so much. No start, no finish, no safe grip; it was a perfect ring of death, and the only refuge from its edge was to dwell inside of it. The blade sang morosely as it orbited her body again and again, but the angel had no interest in its plaintive cry for blood; she was too focused upon its shape.

The head of the ouroboros was looping around for the angel; she felt in her blood that a new beginning was soon to start devouring her end. In this certainty, as the end drew closer, she thought of the beginning. Her beginning.

Tira.

No. That wasn't where she began. That name was the beginning of a trusting family's end. Here, so close to the conclusion, that name didn't mean anything anymore.

Eiserne Drossel.

No. That wasn't where she began, either. That name had been thrust upon her by the men that felt they could name their weapons, and she in turn had bequeathed it to her own. That name meant even less to her now than Tira; even her weapon was important only as a ring now.

Engel.

Yes. That had been where she started. That name had set all of this in motion. It seemed appropriate now that it was all about to end.

Rain began to fall, first in a light pitter-patter, but soon in a torrential downpour that drowned out the infernal hum of the ring blade as it spun around the angel. She took little notice of the water beating savagely upon her while she stood pensive, but the sound of raindrops striking the ground too rapidly to distinguish tickled memories. The first memories.

Yes, it had been raining the day the angel was born.

A little girl huddled in the gutter, nearly invisible in the heavy rain. Her clothes were tattered rags, the remains of a pretty green dress now barely enough to cover what decency demanded, but she tried to warm herself with ragged and battered blankets drawn around herself. The girl was small and scrawny, and her hair was a disheveled brown mess; she had tried to put it up, but either rain or simple lack of time for grooming meant that her hair was brown and snarled with one obstinate pigtail trailing off to the side. Her bangs were heavy, and with her head down, they left little view of her face. She didn't make a sound, just shivering as the rain soaked her to the bone.

She didn't really remember how she'd come to be in that place, and trying to recall interested her less than struggling for a measure of warmth in the icy rainstorm. How she'd come to be in the gutter was just a painful blur. Later, all she would consider important was that she'd been there when it happened.

A man ran into the alley where the girl's gutter lay, his movements drawing the girl's attention as he disrupted the harmony of the rain. The angel would remember for the rest of her life the splashing of desperate feet, and the soft pitter-patter of his blood pouring dripping to the ground to mix with the rain. The man left a trail of red behind him as he staggered in search of shelter, and the girl found she felt nothing watching him sink to his knees mere feet from her, too weak to even cry for help.

A man and a woman descended upon him, and their movements were so quiet the girl was unsure if she was seeing ghosts. The bleeding man was killed so quickly he had no time to even make a sound, and the corpse was quickly tucked into the gutter, ragged blankets piled on it so that it would not be found until far too late. The girl frowned, tugging her own blankets tighter around her. Even seeing a man knifed to death in front of her, all she felt was concern her own shelter would be stolen.

It was that movement that finally brought the girl into the same world as the ghosts, as the man turned rapidly, drawing out his knives. The woman stopped him, shaking her head.

The man said something angrily in a language the girl did not understand, and the girl wondered idly if he would strike her dead before she could notice his movement. But the woman restrained him, and walked calmly over to the girl, kneeling down curiously.

She had been wearing a mask under her hood, but removed this over her partner's protests. The girl found herself looking at a beautiful face, as pale as alabaster. Her hair and lips were blacker than anything the girl had ever seen, seeming like darkness itself compared to her complexion. Between the stark contrast of black and white, however, there were her eyes; cold, dead eyes that nevertheless had a curious glint of detached amusement in them. They were an intense green that made the girl think of poison. The woman reached out without any concern and brushed the bangs out of the girl's face, revealing a pair of curious purple eyes looking intently back at her. The woman cocked her head, rather like a bird, and then smiled a little, saying something to the man in his own language before standing up and taking the girl by the hand.

"Come with me, engel."

That was all. The angel's name was never asked or given. No permission was sought. The past was of absolutely no interest to either party. The angel was told to come along, and she could not imagine doing otherwise.

To anyone that called her anything, the woman was known as Raven. Seeing her unnaturally dark hair, the angel could think of no better name for her. But Raven's masters gave the angel a more cumbersome title. Eiserne Drossel. "Iron Thrush." The angel had little affection for the name, but it was hers now. Not even Raven would call her anything else, and so the angel accepted it.

Raven smiled little at Eiserne Drossel after their eyes met for the first time, but she took the little girl she'd taken from the gutter under her wing all the same. It was Raven who draped a heavy iron ring around her shoulders and told her it was to be her only friend from that day forth.

Eiserne Drossel had no feelings as far as anyone could tell, but even with the coldest heart, she was still a tender child unused to combat and unfamiliar with pain beyond that which had landed her alone in a gutter. Raven sensed this tenderness somewhere beneath the empty eyes she seemed so fond of and contrived to bleed it out of her. The girl learned to fight wielding a ring entirely composed of sharp edges. She cut herself when she picked it up. With each motion she practiced, her new friend sliced into her mercilessly. Each blow she struck in training rebounded on her. But Raven watched her train, and Eiserne Drossel sliced herself again and again without complaint, training until her hands bled and her clothes were shredded to rags like the ones Raven had found her in. Only when the girl dropped and could not rise on her own would Raven approach, treating each wound in turn. It did nothing for the pain, but Eiserne Drossel's daily self-torture left not a single scar on her perfect skin. She was soon numb to the pain she felt as she performed the Dance of Death, each step and every movement Raven gave her to learn written in blood on the pages of her memory. And yet, even when Eiserne Drossel felt nothing soaked in her own blood, Raven did not end her training. When her student completed every step of the dance without even noticing her own pain, Raven said only three words to her as she treated her wounds.

"Feel the Dance."

For torturous days, Eiserne Drossel did not grasp her meaning, but one day the numbness broke, letting in not pain but pleasure. The girl's eyes were opened, looking past the bite of her weapon as she danced and into the dance itself. She felt powerful. She reveled in the beauty of the dance she performed. As she sliced the air in twain, the girl felt one with death and laughed with joy at the sensation, overcome with giddiness as she re-discovered the destructive force of each step and swing of her blade. When the dance was done, the girl turned, bleeding from dozens of thin red cuts in her skin, and bowed to Raven, grinning despite the fiery pain prickling along each little red line.

It was the first time she'd heard Raven laugh. It wasn't like the coarse cry of a real raven; it was a more musical sound, like a songbird's. Raven picked her up and spun around with her, planting a kiss on her forehead. Eiserne Drossel had never seen her teacher so happy, but they laughed together. The lesson had been taught as Raven desired, and this time she had only two words for Eiserne Drossel as she attended to her cuts.

"You're ready."

From then on, Raven took her student with her when death was called to spread its wings.

The first person Eiserne Drossel killed did not even register in her memory. Oh, she would remember the first assignment Raven gave her; some corrupt French nobleman, living out in the country. It was a large house, but lightly guarded; only five or so men were there to defend the target and his family. She remembered vaguely that she killed all five by herself, but who they were and what they looked like did not stick in her memory; they were no different to her than the straw figures she cut to pieces learning the Dance.

She remembered Raven took care of the target, however; her job was to clean up the witnesses she'd missed. The nobleman and his wife were both in Raven's path, but that left one room that hadn't held guards or the target. Eiserne Drossel had entered and found herself standing in a soft pink room, face-to-face with a girl her age.

It was the pause that made this worthy of memory; one of the few times in her life the angel had ever frozen in surprise. The girl had been exactly her height, but they could not have looked more different. She was a pretty, soft little thing, her hair a mass of blonde curls and pink bows and a frail, demure figure hidden beneath a pretty pink dress. Where Eiserne Drossel clutched her precious ring blade, the girl held a rag doll in her arms. There was fear in the large brown eyes as they beheld a disheveled, bloodstained girl in black standing in her doorway, but there was something curious there the angel would have difficulty understanding for many years; relief, perhaps, at what she had thought to be a monster outside was just a small girl like herself, or maybe even a strange hope born of ignorance that the peculiar child across from her could be a friend. The two children stared at each other for a long moment, neither seeming sure what to do.

"Qui êtes-vous?" The little child finally asked.Eiserne Drossel stood dumbly; she neither spoke nor understood French. There had been no need to communicate with a target. She simply stood there, unable to even think of what to do next, until Raven came in a moment later.

"Quickly, Drossel!" She hissed, seeming irritated her student had not finished clearing the house in the time it took her to kill the target. "We need to get going. Kill her, now."

"But..." Eiserne Drossel muttered, troubled both by the order and the fact that it was making her resist Raven's instruction. She expected Raven's impatience to turn to anger at the murmured defiance, but surprisingly the dark-haired woman seemed to soften, as if she understood. Before Eiserne Drossel could make sense of this, Raven drew out a knife, and the little girl had time to scream before Raven slew her. The assassin drew back quickly, putting away her knife and gently winding an arm around her pupil's shoulders, letting Eiserne Drossel see the bloodstained child lying on the ground with her face frozen in fright.

"Don't feel sorry for them, little one. They're not real people." She murmured, gesturing to the corpse. "Look at her. Does she still look innocent now that she's dead? What do you see?"

"...Fear." Eiserne Drossel murmured, staring at the frozen death-mask at her feet. Raven kissed her on the cheek.

"Remember this, engel. Never forget this. Anything that lives can lie to you. You can't trust anyone but me." Raven said quietly, nodding to the corpse. "It's when people die that you can see the real face under their lies. A person shows their true self only when you've severed them from their future. Take her...she looked innocent so she could fool you, but when she died, you could see there was nothing in her but fear. You won't get fooled again, will you, engel?" She whispered.

Eiserne Drossel stared at the corpse, her compassion for the dead girl warping into contempt as Raven spoke. She nodded mutely; she would never trust anyone but Raven.

"Tira..." A strange voice, half the soft whisper of a child and half the guttural growl of a wild animal, cut across the angel's reverie. The angel turned slowly to see her death crouching in the rain, staring at her as it rose slowly to its feet.

The angel wasn't sure what to make of her creation as it stood watching her forlornly. A part of her named it Nightmare, as he should have been on returning, but it was only a small part. The differences were too great to see her creation as a continuation of the one she had all too briefly called master. Another part of her saw only the wench, the wretched little girl she had guided with such painstaking care to this moment despite one disappointment after another with her puppet's fragility.

Mostly, however, the angel saw her future and her death in the miserable creature standing before her. Men had found her beautiful, once; Pyrrha had been quite the prize with her gentle face and soft, golden hair. How many had the angel killed to keep the girl safe from those that would keep her from her destiny? Far too many to remember. In retrospect, the angel wished she'd taken her death more strongly under her wings, back when she was younger. She'd even fretted sometimes that the plans she'd stewed for seventeen years would fail, and she'd be left with a useless, fragile puppet after all her hard work. But it had all succeeded in the end; where men might once have drowned in Pyrrha's blue eyes, those same eyes now shone a familiar, baleful red the angel found comforting. The delicate hand barely fit to wield her mother's sword had warped into a ghastly claw to better clutch the short, brutal-looking red blade she now wielded. Her simple white dress had been stained so dark with the blood of others that it was practically black.

Men might not find Pyrrha so beautiful now, but to the angel, seeing her death staggering slowly towards her, Pyrrha was finally perfect. Pyrrha came to a stop only a step or two away from her, slowly raising Soul Edge; the angel saw the familiar eye within the sword swivel to look at her and smiled. It was time, then.

"I need souls." The girl said quietly, her voice still a mix between a sigh and a snarl. "We need strong souls..."

It was the first time the angel had seen the evil sword's host maintain a semblance of their original personality after bonding with the blade. Normally, this might have been of great interest to her, but the angel could feel her end coming fast enough that she couldn't bring herself to consider it very much. A nostalgic feeling welled up in her as the angel smiled at Pyrrha, bringing her spinning ring blade to a stop.

"That's right, Pyrrha, you do. There's just one more thing to do." She hummed approvingly. One more test before her task was complete...

"This is the last test, Eiserne Drossel. If you do this, you will truly be one of us. Do you understand?" The man asked sternly. The angel regarded him coldly; she was coming to resent the name they had thrust on her, and hearing it spoken provoked a little twitch of irritation in her. But there wasn't a question of refusing this test over that; she wouldn't be able to keep killing alongside Raven if she shrank from whatever they asked of her. As such, she simply gave a little nod.

Confusion welled up as Raven walked slowly into the room with her, fully armed but not wearing a cloak or a mask. The man nodded in Raven's direction.

"Your mother bird says you are ready to become a full-fledged member. Prove it." The man pointed at Raven. "Kill her."

Disbelief flooded the angel. Who did this man think he was, demanding such things? She didn't trust him, and she certainly had no intention of killing Raven to please him. She turned, preparing to strike him down instead, but Raven's voice called out.

"Drossel! Defend yourself!" She said sharply, lunging in and kicking the angel into a wall. Only a quick block from the ring blade prevented Raven's knife from going into the angel's heart.

The angel soon found herself desperately fending off her mentor's attacks, realizing in cold panic that Raven meant to kill her if possible. She sought some sort of explanation in Raven's face, but her expression was blank, and the cold green eyes revealed nothing. Raven wasn't feeling anything as she tried to kill her.

But that could be a lie, the angel realized, barely evading another strike. If anything that lived could lie to her, Raven had the power to betray her trust. The only way to know the truth, to see Raven's real face...was to kill her.

But knowing this didn't help the angel as her face and legs were cut by badly parried stabs. She didn't know that Raven's true face was something she wanted to see. What if the real Raven she revealed by cutting her down was the same as the one she saw now, the one that would kill her when asked? What if the Raven she'd trusted in was the lie?

"Fight back , Drossel." Raven snarled coldly, kicking her in the side and sending the smaller girl sprawling. "I taught you better than this."

Lying there on the cold stone floor, the angel realized that it was a very simple decision; she had to reveal Raven's true self or die here and now. As she rose from the floor, the angel knew she was not ready to accept death. Clarity of purpose translated into strength as the angel suddenly fell upon her mentor, performing the steps of the Dance of Death so strongly and savagely even the now mostly-dull inside edge of her ring blade began to slice into her as it once had with every move. It took one blow to knock Raven off guard, two more to disarm her. With a scream, the angel swung her blade in an arc that ripped her mentor's belly open.

Dead silence fell as the angel realized what she'd done, and Raven stood there, stunned for a moment as blood seeped down her front. Finally, she coughed, spattering red droplets all over the floor like mercury, and staggered a step closer to the angel, who watched her fearfully.

And then Raven smiled, embracing the girl weakly.

"Good girl..." She murmured into the angel's hair. "I'm so proud..."

The angel looked up at Raven, purple eyes meeting green as they had that first day. Raven's true face, her dying face, was a warm, motherly smile, but the angel could barely see it through her tears. Raven leaned down, kissing the angel on the cheek.

"Be strong for me. I love you...engel..." She whispered, and the strength slowly drained out of her. As the angel stood there, holding her savaged and bleeding teacher, Raven grew still, her last breath escaping as a contented sigh.

For a while, the angel thought nothing, but gradually, she understood the lesson. Even Raven had tricked her and lied to her in the end, but it had been out of love, so she could become an adult. Raven in death, her true self, was loving and beautiful, and nothing could take that knowledge away from the angel. And yet, equally immutable was the knowledge that Raven would never teach her anything more, never run with her, kill with her, smile with her ever again. The joyous truth and sad reality tore at the angel's mind until she thought she was going mad.

She began to slash Raven's dead body with her ring blade, desperately giving action to the conflict within her. Laughing so hard she couldn't breathe, crying so hard she couldn't see, the angel cut her mentor's remains into pieces, dancing madly in the spray of her blood.

That was how the angel had become an adult at the age of twelve.

The angel waited, but Pyrrha surprised her. Despite the desperate hunger in Soul Edge's eye, Pyrrha dithered and did not seem capable of bringing herself to strike. Seeing her long-awaited death hesitate made the angel aware that despite the rain pouring down on both of them, her throat and mouth were dry.

Why was she hesitating? Hadn't Pyrrha been taught to kill well enough? Didn't she want to complete her bonding to Soul Edge?

"Tira..." Pyrrha whispered, shaking and flinching as she raised her shield arm to brace her head. "He...wants your soul..." She was shaking, frightened. It seemed even becoming fully malfested had not bled the softness out of her entirely. The angel again regretted that she had not been a proper Mother Bird for the miserable child before her. "I...I...have to kill you...but...but..."

And in a moment it became clear to the angel that her duties were not yet concluded. Pyrrha was incomplete, and had to be guided to the last step. The poor child would not become an adult and achieve her destiny unless the angel acted now. The angel let the gloomy face she kept inside herself like a mask slide over her face, twisting it from a gleeful, indulgent smile into an irate glare. Thunder boomed as the angel took her stance, realizing she had no choice but to meet her death head-on.

"If you want my soul, then take it from me, you useless wench!" She snarled, charging at Pyrrha and slinging her precious ring blade at the hesitant girl. With reflexes she had not possessed before, Pyrrha deflected it and roared in rage and pain, starting to fight back.

Memories poured down with the rain as the angel was slowly driven back. She could see how her entire life after Raven's death had been leading up to this point.

Yes, this end had been inevitable ever since she had accepted the name Tira.

Four years, the angel reflected as she looked at the corpses around her. She had been Eiserne Drossel for Raven's superiors for four years after her mother bird's death. Four years of isolation. Four years hating everything around her. Four years only being able to feel anything when she killed others. Four years knowing there was no one in the entire world she could trust.

And then it had happened. The event that men would come to call the Evil Seed had occurred, and now the Birds Of Passage were no more. Insane, or dead, in complete disarray. They would no longer bring death to anyone in Europe. She was alone again. Free.

It was the end of the only life she'd ever really known, but the angel found she was glad to be rid of it. Raven's death had destroyed any desire to go on as she had, and she had stayed with the Birds Of Passage merely because there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. But with the group destroyed, with nobody but her to determine her destiny, the angel lost her desire to kill.

She threw away her ring blade and knives and wandered the countryside aimlessly. She didn't think to eat, drink, or sleep; in truth, she didn't think at all. She simply kept on moving until her body gave up and collapsed.

Maybe it should have ended there. To pass away, alone and unnoticed. But destiny refused to let the angel die in that way. It intervened on her behalf.

A little girl found her behind her family's house. The angel would never quite be sure why, but the girl and her mother didn't think twice about taking the angel into their home. Fevered, starving, sleep-deprived and dehydrated, the angel spent over a week lacking the strength to even leave her bed or speak. She was barely aware of the woman looking after her, or the small girl that stayed next to her bed for hours, talking to her, even though they had saved her life and gradually nursed her back to health. To the woman's husband, or the older girl that peeked into the room from time to time, the angel must have seemed like an unresponsive doll.

Awareness gradually returned as the angel rested, sleeping dreamlessly and regaining her strength thanks to the charity of the strangers. The little girl seemed quite surprised when the angel actually looked at her for the first time.

"Who are you?" The angel had asked, her voice faint and weak.

"My name is Cara! I found you on the ground behind our home." The child said cheerfully, seeming very pleased that the angel was finally awake. "What is your name?"

The angel found that she had no idea how to answer such a simple question, and Cara went to get her mother.

They believed her to be an amnesiac. It didn't surprise anyone but Cara much; the angel had been so lost in her own mind for so long that it seemed natural she'd lost her memories. The angel, for her part, adopted the mistaken belief she didn't remember anything as another excuse to forget the past. The family discussed a great deal while she remained in bed, but eventually the decision was reached that with no memories and nowhere to go, the angel would be named "Tira" and be a part of the family from that day onward.

Part of the angel wanted to flee, return to the endless push to get away from everything. Raven had taught her she couldn't trust anyone or anything. She shouldn't stay with these people, unable to trust them.

But the rest of the angel refused, and let herself become Tira. There was nothing inside of her worth protecting and there was nothing outside of this little family that wanted her to stay. Cara and her mother Greta were the first people since Raven that had ever been kind to her, and Raven was gone. The angel didn't want to fight or kill anymore. She wanted to be Tira and live among the normal people she'd once hunted.

Cara, her new little sister, took to her immediately. Tira had never had a friend before, or imitated the way ordinary humans acted for more than the brief time it took to spring a trap and kill her target, and so she did her best to try and bond with and imitate the little girl. To the older girl, Fran, Tira was still a stranger, not family. Tira was older than Fran, but the girl regarded Tira's amnesia with suspicion and seemed to believe from Tira's childish behavior in imitation of Cara that the girl had lost some of her wits along with her memories. Tira didn't really care; the two tolerated each others' presence and Fran's distance meant little to her despite Cara's attempts to make them get along.

For a time, it was good. Tira was a normal girl for the first time in her life; one with the temper of a child and the strength of a grown man, but with time her family's neighbors accepted her as a funny but harmless sort. Greta taught her how to cook and sew instead of how to fight and kill. Her family gave her "proper clothing"; dresses and hats so she didn't burn in the sun. Tira hated how they felt, but she'd rather have swallowed her tongue than tell Cara she hated the short yellow dress the girl made for her. The only thing that made Tira feel out of place was the man she had to call "father" now.

Cara and Greta trusted Tira completely; Fran didn't like treating her as an older sister, but tried to avoid rather than confront her. But Greta's husband bothered Tira. He didn't say much to provoke her, but she could see and feel well enough that he did not care for her presence. Tira wondered if he thought she didn't notice his unease when she handled a knife or an axe, even though she was just using them to do chores, or how he endlessly encouraged Cara to stick close to Fran and not her. Affection was a strange thing to Tira after years without Raven, but hostility she knew well, and she could feel the man's resentment each time he saw the girl he still considered a stranger amongst his family.

She ignored it, of course. What else could she do? Greta's husband was a part of the family, and Tira feared acting against him would leave her adrift again, as nothing and no one. She didn't need her "father"'s affection anymore than she did Fran's; so long as they tolerated her presence, she was content.

She did hear Greta arguing with her husband sometimes, when they thought she and the girls were asleep. About her, usually. Tira smirked in contempt as she heard the man's excuses that he didn't want Cara becoming too close with a girl as strange as Tira, or trying to recast Fran's indifference as fear.

"I don't want Cara or Fran going off alone with her. I've seen what she's like when she's holding a blade, Greta! It doesn't matter where she came from, she holds a knife like a thief and she chops wood like she's trying to kill someone. She's dangerous, and I don't want her here if she starts remembering more violent days."

"You're overreacting," Greta replied quietly, trying to calm him down. "She's harmless. If you'd actually been watching her with Cara, you'd know that. She's like a child herself. She'd never hurt anyone."

"But-"

"We are not going to be suspicious of that poor girl just because she's strong!" Greta snapped. "Cara has nothing to fear from Tira, and neither does Fran! And I for one am glad those girls have Tira to look out for them. If she's so strong and knows how to use a knife, then Cara's safest with Tira protecting her when she goes out." A long silence followed. "She's part of this family, darling, and she has nowhere else to go. If you won't trust her, then trust me and stop treating her like a stray dog."

He hadn't warmed to her afterwards, but his open hostility had diminished. It made Tira sick, seeing the insincere coward try to pretend he wasn't watching her like a hawk to make up for his own powerlessness. Tira was worried Greta would scold her if she confronted the man that was supposed to be her father now, but she never lost an opportunity to needle him. She was closer with Cara than ever before, going everywhere with the little girl by her side. She even started to be friendly with Fran. And she smiled at the poor, stupid man's silent outrage as his daughters trusted the girl he was so suspicious of. Didn't he feel stupid now, seeing how safe Cara and Fran were with her? HE was the superfluous one.

Tira had never understood human nature that well. It had never occurred to her the family man forced to tolerate her saw Tira's behavior not as mockery of his paranoia, but an ongoing threat. She didn't see the horror in his eyes when she gave Cara a little knife as a present and showed her how to use it safely. And so Tira had no understanding of the desperation in the gifts the father started giving to win his youngest daughter's affection back, away from her.

Dolls and clothes; Tira wanted to laugh at him. She'd given Cara something USEFUL. The knife and the skills to wield it would be with Cara into adulthood long after she outgrew the dresses and lost interest in the dolls.

The songbird was different. It wasn't funny at all.

Tira didn't know how he'd done it, but he'd caught a wild Song Thrush and presented it to Cara in a cage. She loved it. Cara delighted in hearing it sing, or pointing out its spotted plumage to Tira.

"Look, Tira, look! The dark spots on him are the same color as your hair!" She proclaimed with delight. Tira stared at the small, miserable thing behind the bars, trying to hide her feelings from her sister. Inner flames licked at the back of her eyeballs, and she couldn't avoid a shiver of rage as she watched it.

"Singdrossel". Of all the birds he could possibly have captured, the bastard had to put a thrush in an iron cage.

She felt the ring blade biting her skin. Wounds that had never left scars prickled from her neck to her legs.

He'd trapped a living thing to steal Cara from her. He'd taught HER CARA to smile at a bird kept from the sky.

Tira heard the bird sing out, but all it sounded like to her ears was a cry for help.

It took five days for her to take all she could stand of the bird's captivity, and while Cara fed and watched her pet diligently, Tira was eventually able to remain home while the family was going about their business outside by feigning sickness. It took her only a moment to free the thrush from the cage and loose it into the sky, crushing the thin bars of the cage under her heels. Cara didn't need a captive bird to hear its song. Tira would take her into the woods and teach her how to get wild birds to trust her. Yes, that made Tira feel proud; something from her past would be useful again. If Cara had loved the bird hopping morosely around its small cage, she would love the sight of many singing freely in the sky more.

Cara didn't see it that way. She'd never been trusted with a pet before, and she didn't understand Tira's reasons for letting the thrush go. She ran into her room, crying, before Tira could explain herself.

If it had been her so-called father that had taken Tira to task for it, she wouldn't have cared; she'd have just shrugged it off and focused on making Cara see why she'd set the bird free. But it was Fran who yelled at her for making Cara cry, and Greta had scolded Tira when she was done. All the real culprit had to do was watch.

Tira barely avoided lunging at him that night. He'd USED her! The present had been a trap to make the family trust her less! She'd killed men of power in public and walked away unimpeded before anyone knew something was wrong, and yet she'd fallen for the trap of a halfwit farmer!

Perhaps it was her rage at being tricked that led to Tira going to chop wood with the father the following day. He refused to let her carry the axe; as hours went by, he wouldn't even let her touch it. After he'd forced her to wait the better part of the day, he finally turned to her.

"No more knives. No more axes. I don't want you touching those kind of things anymore, Tira." He said bluntly.

"Why? Because you feel scared seeing that I'm stronger than you are?" Tira shot back, but the hostility in his response had surprised her.

"I never wanted you in my home, but there's nothing I can do about my family's fondness for you! But I will not let you continue to act like a wild cat while my children are near!" He grabbed her, shook her. Nobody had been this violent to her since she'd taken the name Tira, but to the angel sleeping beneath, it was familiar, sharp and focusing as a splash of ice water.

Her long-healed wounds from learning the Dance of Death were prickling again, and rather than fire, a haze started to descend across Tira's vision as the man shouted at her.

She hadn't meant to kill him.

Many times she'd tell herself she had, that it had simply been her true nature coming out from under the mask she'd been wearing, but Tira knew she hadn't meant to kill the man. She only shoved him, hard, to make him try and get away from her. She was ready to fight, to scream at him, to show him what she thought of his resentment of her, but simple ill fortune brought the falling man's head down on a jutting rock and ended his life.

Tira had been a normal girl for nearly a year, and yet she realized even trying so hard to be just like Cara and her family, she felt nothing watching the life drain out of the man who was supposed to be her father through the back of his head. She wasn't happy, and she wasn't sad. She was just dazed. She'd been able to hate him a minute ago, to feel anger or contempt at the sight of him, but now he was just a corpse, something she'd seen so many of that the only thing she had any interest in was what his true face looked like as he died.

Senseless. Slack-jawed. How predictable.

She was unable to collect herself enough to move before Fran came looking for them. Tira was shaken out of her daze by Fran's gasp, looking up to see the girl's face was white with horror as she looked at her father's corpse.

"He fell." That was all Tira could say. Not that it was an accident. Not that she was sorry. He'd fallen, and now he was dead. That was all.

It didn't surprise her when Fran went for the axe she was barely strong enough to lift, but it had hurt. She'd really thought she could live with Fran.

"You MURDERER!" Fran screamed, swinging wildly at her.

Tira knew, looking back, that there was no reason Fran had to die that day. Disarming her would have been simple. But the angel was awake in her now, and dodging the swings and breaking the distraught girl's neck was as natural as exhaling.

Fran's last expression was a grimace of pain and hate, and in that moment Tira knew she had ignored Raven's teachings too long. Fran had come to smile and laugh with her, and yet in death Tira knew Fran truly hated her.

Becoming Tira had made her weak. She'd forgotten never to trust anyone. She'd forgotten how easily humans lied to her.

Greta's kindness. Cara's love. Were those things lies, too? Tira's fists clenched. Had it ALL been a lie?

"You know how to find out." The angel whispered inside her. "Make Raven proud."

She took the dead man's knife before she went home. Greta rushed out of the house to greet her in alarm.

"Tira! I sent Fran to go check on you and your father nearly an hour ago! Where have you-"

Strangely, it was all the easier to stab Greta again and again because Tira had liked her. Tira could have lived not knowing what Fran was truly like, but she couldn't go on wondering if Greta had ever truly cared for her.

All Greta had to do was smile. The way Raven had smiled when she died.

But Greta let her down. She grew still with a face full of agony and confusion.

"Tira...why...?"

Tira didn't answer. Greta, the sad, bewildered creature underneath the pleasant woman she'd liked so much, didn't mean anything to her anymore.

She left the knife in Greta's stomach, and ignoring the blood dripping down her fingers, she walked into the bedroom she'd shared with the girls to find Cara staring out the window. She paused, waiting for Cara to look at her. The girl didn't even notice the blood in the growing gloom.

"Do you think the bird is happier now that he's back out there, Tira?" She asked quietly. Tira's throat tightened, and she wanted to be sick; she'd just murdered her only friend's entire family and she felt more guilty about making her cry over the bird she'd returned home. All she could do was nod. Cara seemed to take some comfort in that.

"T-That's good, then. I'm not mad at you anymore..." She said shyly, walking towards Tira. Had she been deciding she forgave Tira for taking away her pet even while her adoptive sister had been stabbing their mother to death outside? To Tira, it didn't matter. She needed this. She needed one thing from her new life to be REAL.

"I'm sorry I hurt you, Cara." She said quietly. Cara ran to her then, hugging her. The angel inside watched coldly, but Tira had never been more scared in this life or any other than of what was about to happen. If she wasn't certain any god in this world was malevolent, she might have prayed.

"It's all right, Tira. I still love you!" Cara said, the sincerity in her voice giving Tira the faintest, most tenuous hope.

"I love you." Only Raven had said that to her before. Cara had to be like Raven. She had to be real. Tira slowly knelt down to Cara's level, smiling at her.

"I love you, too, Cara." She said quietly. "I need you to do one more thing for me."

"What's that, Tira?" Cara asked it so innocently Tira almost took the risk of living a lie if it meant keeping Cara alive. But there wasn't any going back, and Tira's hands closed around Cara's throat with a grip a big man couldn't have broken, let alone a child.

"Smile for me." Tira whispered, practically begging as she crushed the life out of Cara with her bare hands. "Please...just smile..."

Cara tried to say her name several times. She didn't beg or scream, just continued to try and get out Tira's name in a strangled whisper, as if saying it would make the pain stop. And then, all too soon, Tira's little sister was gone. She was left holding a corpse staring at her with fear etched in the dimming eyes. The lost and betrayed expression that formed Cara's true face mirrored the churning sting in Tira's gut as she dropped Cara's remains to the ground.

Lies. All of it, lies. Even Cara hadn't loved her. She was just a frightened child who'd been scared of her, like the girl Raven had killed so long ago while teaching Tira the way of the world.

"Even you lied to me." She whispered accusingly at the body, alone in the still house.

She told Pyrrha later that it was the same as it had always been afterwards. Her feelings had bled away into contempt, and she'd cheerfully gone on her way, gathering her ring blade and returning to her blood-soaked life.

That had been a lie. As a living thing, Tira couldn't be expected to tell anyone the truth.

She cried that night, with no laughter to join it as it had when Raven left her. The life of Tira ended, and the angel devoured her from the inside out. Tira would never cry again after that day, and neither could she laugh innocently. Her emotions were broken, made into masks to cover the murderous bloodlust the angel knew to be her only true feeling.

Raven's associates had lied to her and left her alone, and now normal humans had done the same. The angel understood now that all life was against her; all of humanity was her enemy. To remind herself every day of the betrayal that trusting in others would bring, she kept Tira's name as a decoration to attach to her sad and happy masks, and thrust the name the Birds of Passage had forced on her onto the ring blade she carried.

It was this experience that led the angel disguised as Tira to her destiny with Soul Edge. Things could never have turned out differently.

Despite the cold rain that had been beating on it during the entire fight, the blade of Soul Edge was as hot as if it had been newly forged when Pyrrha drove it into the angel's stomach. She gasped, feeling hellfire blossom in her belly. Her limbs felt leaden, and she was vaguely aware of her ring blade clattering to the floor. The angel could feel Soul Edge's delight at finally being able to devour her, but she looked at Pyrrha's face, seeing the desperation in the mad red eyes. Pyrrha seemed frozen, unwilling to pull her sword free when she knew doing so would rip the angel open and let her bleed out quickly. It didn't matter; the angel knew that stab had been fatal. Her life was over. Now there wasn't anything left but the true face she would show Pyrrha after all these years.

The angel had worried for much of her life that, in the end, she would not be like Raven. That she might meet her end with a snarl or tears, nothing but a weakling or a brute underneath it all. It was a relief when the emotion that flooded her as she realized Pyrrha had finally killed her was an overwhelming explosion of pride; in that moment, the angel could not have loved Pyrrha more if she'd been her own child. Looking at Pyrrha's horrified, guilty face, she smiled kindly, reaching up with a shaking hand to caress the scared child's face.

"My pretty little Pyrrha..." She whispered. Her throat was blessedly clear of blood, but with her life seeping out around the jagged blade in her guts, it was hard to speak. "I'm so proud..."

Her legs folded under her, Soul Edge tearing free at the sudden motion to rend her open from her navel to her ribcage. The angel was a little sad she'd only had the strength to touch Pyrrha's face before she died, but she was surprised when Pyrrha dropped the sword to the ground and caught her as she fell, holding her tightly as if she could hold the enormous gash closed by refusing to let go of her.

"Tira! Tira, don't leave me!" Pyrrha begged, tears flowing from her unnatural eyes. The angel struggled to focus, but her vision was already dimming at the edges. She settled for looking at Pyrrha's face as she waited for the world to go black entirely.

Why are you crying for me? She wondered, still smiling as she felt death creeping up on her. You've killed me. You're an adult now. You should be happy...

"Don't leave me alone again!" Pyrrha begged, her eyes glowing. "Stay with me!" She reached up to touch the angel's face with her twisted claw, and the angel suddenly felt Pyrrha's touch in her very soul. "Become one with me, Tira!"

Part of her wanted to tell Pyrrha that wasn't how it worked. She'd passed the test, and become an adult. There wasn't anything the angel could do for her anymore. It was time to pass on with pride, like Raven had.

But the angel saw there was one more thing she could do for Pyrrha. She could stay here, instead of going wherever Raven had gone. Tira...Nightmare...Pyrrha...they could all become one. Though she could no longer feel her arms, the angel reached up and touched the claw caressing her, holding it with what little strength she had left.

"Of course I will, Pyrrha." She said quietly, eyes drooping. "I told you, didn't I...? I wouldn't...leave you...alone..."

To Pyrrha, it was like watching her friend fall asleep. She didn't gasp or choke, simply closed her eyes and sighed contently. And then she breathed no more.

Tira was gone.

With a scream of grief, Pyrrha rose, grabbing her sword.

She was her own master now. She was powerful enough nobody would ever threaten or control her again. And yet all she wanted was for Tira to open her eyes and tell her what to do. She had everything Tira had told her she was destined for, and the only price had been her only friend. In her final moments, Tira had lied to her about staying with her.

Laughing insanely as she wept for Tira, Pyrrha stabbed the corpse at her feet again and again, trying desperately to exorcise the turbulent, insane extremes of emotion rushing through her with violence. Eventually, she stopped, leaving Soul Edge buried in what was left of Tira.

"I'm...alone again." She whispered.

Never.

The voice was not Pyrrha's own, but it had come from inside her. Pyrrha looked around in confusion, but after a moment, she touched her claw to her chest, feeling warmth flare next to her heart.

"It's here," She said to herself, relief slowly washing across her face. "You're right here."

Despite sitting in the pouring rain covered with Tira's blood, Pyrrha hugged herself, laughing like a child as she felt the warm presence inside keeping time with her heartbeat.

"We'll never be alone. Never again." She whispered, and mixed in the sound of her own voice she could hear Tira's speaking to her.

Tira hadn't lied, after all. Nothing would ever part them again. The new angel of death laughed and cried once more, this time in simple, mad joy.

The infinite cycle would begin again with her, and continue on forever.