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"How did you find me?"

It was Nicole. Somehow she tracked him down to his personal retreat: a cove off the eastern Newport shore, quite a ways away from the nearest dock. This was his favorite location whenever he needed to think or find himself, and he would always come at sunset. There was something about the way the fading orange light would glisten off the treacherous looming rock formations that calmed him, enhanced by the susurrus of the tide, and the infinite blue expanse that lay before his eyes. He would stare out at the sea for hours, think of his actions, who he was, his purpose, and then clear his mind. But his ritual was now broken.

She gave a dry smirk, ambled over to a nearby rock at sat down. "It wasn't very difficult... you always had an eye for 'inspirational scenery', not to mention sand makes for some very evident footprints."

Sandoval turned to face her. There she was. Nicole: young, beautiful Nicole. Blonde and pale she had grown more womanly in the past two years, and of course far more deadly. It was a shame; she had a comely face, but it always seemed sad to him. Even at her angriest, happiest, or calmest, there was always a glint of sadness folded into her face. How much more beautiful would she be if she could just cast that sadness away?

He wasn't much older than she was, three, four years at most, but he was her teacher, or had been. His years of training with Alarice had built him up to be something deadly, and it had been his job to share what he learned with her. Even more so than he, she was Alarice's prized pet, her unnamed successor, and anything but the most painful, rigorous training would not be permitted for one with such potential as hers. Their time together was begotten by brutal training, violence, fostering killer intent... He wished he could take it all back; perhaps have met Nicole in some other time or some other world... they might have grow up to be lovers, or at least dear friends.

Her expression darkened. "Tell me Sandoval... are you really going through with this? There's still time... you can flee, come back another day to take her down, just not... you can't do it like this. You're running straight into the lion's den..."

There it was. He knew it was coming. He matched her stare and sighed. "I have no intention of backing-off on my word, nor do I have the fancy to strike like a coward any longer... I'm going to face this lion wide-awake."

She scowled, letting out and angry tsk. Anger never suited her, but just like his former master, she knew how to use it to frightening effect. "This is crazy... you think she's going to fight fair? This is Alarice_we're talking about here, _thee Alarice who gets off to deception, torture, and wholesale murder!" she shouted with an incredible venom in her tone, and anger rising from deep down inside. "Just because she accepted your terms to a duel doesn't mean she meant anything that she said. Lying is second nature to her, you must realize this... She's probably got an ambush of ten men waiting to kill you on sight right now. Look, I don't know how else to get this through to your dense skull, but if you go through with this, you're going to die! Horribly."

He hated it when she got like this. He knew she just wanted to protect him, but when Nicole was truly angry she spoke with such aggression that made him ache. He turned away from the sea to look at her, and saw her in her conflicted state. A sudden longing began clawing at his stomach. How badly he wanted to embrace her, kiss her, run away with her and just forget everything... But no, just as Nicole had her reasons to stay, he had a duty, a_responsibility_ to see what he started through. He had to redeem himself, right all those wrongs that he tried to justify over the years, or else the pains of hollowness in his soul would never cease.

He took a labored breath, filling his nose with the seawater and ambled back toward her, looking downward at his books, carefully observant of every impression his boots left in the drenched sand as he walked. When the distance between him and Nicole all but vanished, he looked her in the eyes once again. There was so much to say about those blue eyes, about what they told of the young woman that bore them: about her hate, her sorrow, her desire, her hurt... He couldn't bare to look any longer. Breaking the stare between them, he cast his gaze to the vague but ominous rocky figure to the south. The Overlook... It was a treacherously tall cliff that loomed over the sea, adorned with lethally jagged rocks jetting off the sides and down at the base, where waves would crash dangerously into the imposing figure in an explosion of seaspray. It seemed almost as a sword to Sandoval for a moment, trapped onto the earth, reaching for the heavens.

It was the spot of his duel, and likely, his death.

He closed his eyes. "Hate begets hate, honor begets honor... Let not hate cloud your eyes, but justice be your beacon..."

There was a pause, and then a laugh, one part sardonic, one part bemused. "I'll take it that's one of those proverbs you love so much?" she said mockingly as she stood up close behind.

He nodded weakly, opening his eyes and gazing off to the cliff in distance. "It was a saying from my father, the same father whose teachings I selfishly forsook... but now, looking back at them, I've finally found recourse, I've finally found my way. I know now that if I fight like a demon to defeat a demon, I will change nothing..." he said quietly as if in a trance.

There was an eerie slowness to her response, both cold and measured. "You already figured it was going to be a trap didn't you?"

Another weak nod. "If we just claw at each others' throats in anger and spite, the world would never see peace, so reckless as it may be, this is the path I choose. I will end not just Alarice, but the mechanism of suffering that she created... with eyes unclouded, and with justice held firmly to my breast. This is how it has to-"

"-You just don't get it do you? YOU DON'T GET ANYTHING!"

He was startled by the sudden outburst. He turned around to face her once more, only to receive a powerful blow to the jaw, knocking him onto the ground. It was a powerful blow, as he would expect from Nicole, though this amount of pain didn't bother him in the slightest. From down on the ground, he looked up at the heaving figure looming above him: to call her angry would be a grave injustice. She looked as though she was about to kill him.

She gripped the handle of one of her so hard Sandoval could see her knuckles turn white. "You don't think I want her dead too?! I want her dead more than anybody, but not just that, oh no, I want her to suffer and bleed and choke before she dies! I want to see her slowly tortured, see every muscle in her body peeled out from under her skin as she screams in agony, and then see her chopped into little bits and fed to dogs! But this isn't about want, or hate, or honor, or good or evil, this is all about power, it's always been about power! Why can't you see that!? Why can't I get you to see that?! What will it take for you to realize that your damn ideals won't give you the power you need to stop her!?"

Having heard her harsh words on the cold wet sand, Sandoval found himself smiling, and then soon laughing. It started as a chuckle but then turned into a full-bellied guffaw as he soon rolled around, pounding his gloved fists against the sand, making little holes here and there.

Nicole took a step backward, hand still at the ready to pull out her blade. "Are you insane?" she spoke, now more disgusted and appalled than angry.

Sandoval tried to stop laughing as he wiped the tears from his eyes, but it wasn't until another good minute that he was able to cease. It was a peculiar thing: with her words she had denied every last piece of reconciliation that Sandoval found, practically attacking him at the core of who he was, so why did he find it just so damn funny? There was some truth to her words, of course... but he and long since accepted what he was doing was reckless, foolish, and perhaps even insane... but for once, just this once, he was finally playing his own game. And neither Nicole, nor Alarice could take that away from him.

A smile still beaming on his face Sandoval finally stood up, and wiped the sand off himself. He couldn't explain why, but he felt somehow refreshed now, lighter, as if a heavy weight had just lifted itself off his shoulders.

He was ready now.

"Maybe I am just some delusional fool dancing on the razor's edge of insanity... But even if what you say is true... this is the path that I chose, a path that I know is right, and even if I might perish, I can at least know that my last moments were ones I would not regret... And to be quite honest with you Nicole..."

He took a moment to stretch and maneuver his injured jaw. As Nicole stared him down in anticipation he took more time still, and unsheathed his swords. He began inspecting them for any little specs of dirt, as then he casually finished his sentence, "I'm pretty damn sick of living anyway."

That got to her.

There was a small twitching in Nicole's lips. She clenched her teeth, furrowed her brow as she glared fiery daggers at him. It was obvious that there was a turmoil of many different emotion mixing in her, clashing and battling with each other with fury at the helm, but then it all just disappeared. She was suddenly calm again, and her expression loosened.

And there was that sadness again.

"I used to think highly of you Sandoval... I thought that maybe if we worked together we would have a shot at stopping her... finding an end to all of this pain and bullshit... But I guess you're just another fool who can't accept how the world works... how life works."

He shrugged light-heartedly at her response, and then sheathed his swords back into their scabbards. "Oh Nicole, no need to be so _salty_about things. If I have to pick between being a fool or being a demon, then I'd gladly wear my breeches on my head for the rest of my life."

She was not amused. "Go on then... go get yourself killed. I'll spit on your grave when she's through with you."

He gave her a playful smile. "Well if you insist, then I suppose I better be off then, last minute preparations and whatnot. I just want to say that it was a pleasure teaching you, Nicole. You were a bright light to my miserable days. Who knows? Maybe we'll even meet once more," he said cheerily with an over exaggerated bow, theatrically flinging his cape sideways and turned to face his destiny.

After he took his first step, she had one last comment.

"If somehow we _do_meet again, I'll fucking kill you."