WITCHBLADE II

            Flashes of her life played before her eyes. When she was in elementary school, and they called her Pez dispenser, in middle school when she went through her violent phase, in high school when she thought she lost everything with her father's death, in college when she realized that he could live on in her, her first day on the job.  Simple pictures flashed too. Pictures of Nottingham, of Gabe, or Irons, even.  It was sort of ironic.  She was dieing of, of all things, cancer.  Blood cancer. Leukemia.  The irony… 

            Most wielders die violently. In battle. She lived longer than all of them. Maybe because she was stronger, or maybe she just didn't accept death like they did.  But she was accepting death now.

            For all the treatments they tried to force on her, she knew nothing would work.  After it happened, she couldn't even name it, she had gone through a long, stressful time, and she had assumed her fatigue and other ailments were because of that.

            But at a routine check-up, Sara was sent from one doctor to the next.  The cancer shouldn't have spread as fast as it did.  None of the doctors, for all their modern medicines and equipment, could figure out what was killing Sara so quickly.

            But it was Leukemia.

            She kept it to herself for a while, but when she realized that she didn't have the years and years she though she's have, everything changed.

            Irons couldn't use sick blood.

            She was of no use to him.

            No use.

            Nottingham, surprisingly, was there for her.  He helped her get through it.

            Not used to being helpless, Sara wanted to fight back, but the kicked puppy wasn't having it.

            Nottingham took care of her for a while, but seeing the woman he loved, the woman he was supposed to protect, deteriorate before his eyes was killing him.

            The blade had abandoned her, and Sara supposed it was for the best.  She would not be tipping the balance anytime soon.

            Maybe she was really a pretender.  She didn't know.

            What she did know was this – she wasn't going to make it to 45.

            It was for the best though.

            She wouldn't suffer, she wouldn't be used, and she could die relatively happy.

            So many things she wanted to change. To do differently.

            But it was too late.

            And she would have to accept her fate.

            And accept it she did.