Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing from Assassin's Creed…The only things I lay any claim to are the characters that I created!

"You may have won this, but nothing will ever bring her back." The dark haired man told the flaxen-haired woman who knelt over him. He had one hand pressed lightly on his chest to staunch the thick flow of blood from the mortal wound that lay there. His previously white shirt had blossomed to a brilliant shade of crimson, and the cement floor beneath him was rapidly being covered in his blood.

"Why, Darius?" she whispered, tears tracking down her face, her hand still limply grasping the bloodied blade she had wounded him with. She glanced at a nearby figure that lay prone on the ground, sorrow wringing at her soul.

The man coughed out a pained laugh, more blood bubbling from his gasping lips. "Because you dim-witted woman, she stood against the true cause. As you do. Her demise was necessary for the Templar cause to prevail. You are nothing!" he spat, and the woman tensed.

"I may perish, but my cause will live on! The Templar's will prevail, and you assassins, will fail." He continued on with a cruel laugh before dissolving into coughs.

Bright red trickled from the corner of his mouth as he lost even more blood. Her eyes flashed in fury before she knelt down and slowly gathered the prone figure into her arms, heedless of the blood that covered her arms and disregarded the lancing sting down her back.

"Your cause will never prevail…" the man whispered as his eyes slid shut, but she only pushed forward.

"We may fail, but that doesn't mean our order will just roll over and bare our stomachs to you filth." She muttered, making her way from the gleaming colorless room.

Her footsteps echoing down the empty hallway, Amira hurried forward as quickly as she could with her younger sister in her arms. Tears slid down her face as she looked down at the figure in her arms, a woman in her early twenties with dark burgundy hair.

"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you like I should have…" she told the woman.

Sea green eyes flickered open to fix on her grey ones. "'Mira, I'm sorry too. I should have waited for you like we agreed on before I went after him… I just...I just couldn't believe that our own leader would betray us. I had to find out for myself…" she whispered, her naturally soft voice strained with pain.

"Rika…You have nothing to apologize for." Amira's throat clicked as she choked back tears. "I didn't watch after you like I promised I would. I was an idiot to have trusted him as much as I did…and you paid for my mistakes. There's no time for this, I've got to get you back to the base." She softly told her sister, her gait lengthening as she broke into an easy lope, careful not to disturb Rika. She gritted her teeth against the waves of pain each jarring footstep brought her and pushed forward, her jaw tightening as she tried to force back a whimper of pain.

Rika's green eyes slid shut, 'I'm sorry Mira, but I don't think I have the time…' she thought sadly, noting distantly how it was beginning to become more and more difficult to breathe. She reached up with a hand and rested it lightly against her older sister's cheek.

"'Mira. Stop." She ordered, and Amira paused reluctantly. "I'm not going to make it." She said softly, and saw tears pooling in her sister's gray eyes. "But even if I die, there's something you need to know." Her breathing was labored now and her chest heaved as she struggled to make out the words she needed to say. "Darius was concealing some kind of treasure in his quarters. He revealed that much to me when we were fighting. He said something about it being the final item they needed for control. Locate it, and keep it from ever falling in Templar hands." She demanded, and her sister nodded silently.

"One more thing 'Mira." Rika coughed, her face contorting in agony. "I love you, and I'm incredibly proud of you for everything you've done. You always were there to keep me safe, even when I was too headstrong to realize when I was in trouble." Rika said with a quiet laugh before continuing, before dissolving into a fit of coughing. She finally got her breathing under control again, though pain was written across her features and her eyes were clouded.

"Forget Darius. Find someone who's your equal, someone who truly cares for you, and keep him close. Fall in love with him, Amira, and don't hide everything away. No more secrets. Promise me you'll be honest with him, no matter how hard it is." She pleaded desperately, and Amira nodded her head in reluctant affirmation, tears sliding down her face.

Rika smiled at her once more before her eyes closed and after a few minutes, she sighed one last breath. "I love you, Amira…" she whispered before she slipped away.

Amira hugged her sisters limp form to her tightly and began walking again, but more slowly this time. By the time she finally made it back to the base, the sky had already begun to show signs of dusk. She tiredly keyed in the access code, and with a hiss, the hidden steel door slid silently open. She walked inside, and at the sound of her footsteps, two pairs of hurried steps came towards her.

"Oh God…" two male voices said in union, quiet alarm in their voices before they hurried forward. An older man with salt and pepper hair caught Amira as she slumped forward and the younger man lifted Rika from her arms.

"Mark, there's nothing that can be done for Rika…" the younger man said sadly, brushing her burgundy hair away from her face as he felt for her pulse.

"Take her to the infirmary, Alex, and we'll figure out what to do with her. Amira's been injured as well…" Mark told the younger man, who hurried off. Mark glanced down at the unconscious woman in his arms and sighed. "Nothing I can ever say will ever express how sorry I am for you…" he murmured to her before following Alex down the halls.

Both sisters were placed on cold steel tables and the doctor sighed when he saw the amounts of blood that covered each woman. He was relieved to find that much of the blood of Amira's clothing and skin was not her own, but the injury that lanced down her back was enough to make him cringe inwardly. A now retired assassin, the doctor had seen his share of injuries, but even still, he shuddered at the sight of such a wound. His assistant, a woman whose abilities lay in her knowledge of medicines and their applications, began to gather and prepare the necessary supplies needed to treat Amira's injuries.

The gash down Amira's back was cleaned and stitched closed as well as the other small injuries that marked her arms and legs. Mark winced when he saw how long the wound on her back was. It stretched from her left shoulder and curved all the way down her back and ended in a thin curve over her right hipbone.

"This will leave her with a scar, that's for sure. She's lucky the wound didn't run any deeper, else it would have left her with a severe lack of mobility. As it is now, with some muscle therapy, she should be able to recover most of her range of mobility." The doctor said, and Mark nodded.

"Sir, what should we do with the other one?" the assistant asked, motioning towards Rika's still form. The doctor sighed before issuing a series of orders that the she moved to carry out.

It was several weeks before Amira's back was fully healed and several months before she was able to regain most of her mobility. She spent most of her time reading and working on gently stretching out her back as the muscle re-knit. She read to keep her mind busy and off of the death of her sister, a task that consumed all of her abilities. Mark and Alex had tried to talk to her about everything, but she simply brushed them off with jokes, smiles and assertions that she was fine. She knew that they were worried, and somehow that made it even worse. Finally, the doctor declared that she was healed and all that remained was a half inch wide mark that would forever scar her back as a reminder of her mistakes.

She silently made her way to her room, showered and ate before she stood in front of the door to her sister's room. She keyed in the entry code and walked in, looking around at everything as the door slid closed behind her. As it clicked shut, she made her way to the bed in the middle of the room, not bothering to turn on the light but instead feeling her way in the dark. She felt the soft fleece under her fingertips and curled up under the blanket that she had given her sister for her birthday years ago. With a heavy sigh, she finally released everything she had locked up inside, and the tears that she had pent up made their way down her face. She failed to notice the sound of the door opening, and barely budged when the bed dipped behind her.

A pair of warm arms wrapped around her and pulled her closer against their owner's chest. Amira quickly placed the scent, "Alex?" she whispered, and felt him smile into her hair.

"You're not the only one who misses her Amira. I know how you're feeling… If the world were a different place than it is now, I would have asked her to marry me…" he told her, his deep voice reflecting as much sadness as she felt, and she smiled.

"She did love you, you know that right?" she said, sniffing slightly as she turned towards him, and he nodded.

"I know. Now rest." He gently ordered, kissing her forehead softly as he drew her closer to him. "You are, and always will be like my little sister Amira, and I promise to try and keep you safe…" he murmured as she drifted off, and he wiped the tears from her face carefully before resting his chin on top on her head and drifting off himself.

When Amira woke several hours later, she was alone. The bed beside her was still slightly warm although, and Amira sat up with a sigh. She scrubbed at her face before walking out of Rika's room and to the kitchen where the scent of cooking food was wafting towards her. Alex handed her a plate with food on it with a smile, making a plate of his own before joining her in eating. "Where's Mark?" she queried, and Alex frowned.

"Trying to clean up the mess Darius left." He told her, and she sighed before they continued to eat in comfortable silence. "What are your plans for the rest of the evening?" Alex asked as they washed their dishes, and Amira thought for a minute.

"I'm going to look for something I think." She mused, and Alex raised an eyebrow at her. "What kind of something?" he asked curiously, ever the adventurous one, and Amira smiled slightly. She remembered that his adventurous spirit was one of the things that Rika loved best about him, and she felt that odd empty feeling in her chest again.

"Something Rika told me was in Darius's room. She said that we couldn't let it fall into Templar hands ever, or we would be lost… But I have no idea what it is, so I thought I would try and find it." She explained.

Alex nodded, "Go on then." He told her, flicking soapy water at her with a smile. Amira flashed him a small smile before exiting the room.

'If things had ended differently, he would be my brother in law…guess I'll just have to settle for having him as my pseudo brother.' she thought with a faint smile. She halted in front of the room Darius had kept and glared at the door. "Worthless excuse for a human being." she muttered before entering the room.

She stood still for a moment, feeling slow anger building towards the man whom she had loved and who had betrayed her. She carelessly flung open the dresser and searched through it, repeating the same process with the closets and bookshelves until the room looked like a miniature tornado had appeared within the rooms confines. Amira flopped down on the bed with a tired sigh, her eyes closing momentarily as she took several calming breaths.

A thought occurred to her, and her eyes snapped open. She flipped lithely as she could, her back faintly protesting, to the floor and dropped to her stomach as she peered under the bed. With a satisfied smirk, she grabbed the small chest hidden there. The dark wood was smooth and slightly warm under her palms as she turned it over in her hands, examining the exterior for any clues of its contents.

"My, my…Now what could you possibly have hidden in here?" she mused with a frown as she set to picking the brass lock on the front of the wooden chest. After a few minutes of her fiddling with the pins and springs, the lock snapped open and she was able to open the chest finally. At first glance the box was empty, but Amira snorted and rolled her eyes. Darius had always favored objects that had hidden portions that could only be opened with pressure switches, so she doubted this box was as empty as it seemed.

"How stupid do you think I am?" she muttered as she searched the "bottom" of the box for the hidden latch. She ran her finger around the perimeter of the boxes bottom, and the pad of her index finger clicked down slightly in the top corner of the boxes bottom, and a panel popped up.

"Did you honestly think a box with a false bottom would be that hard for me to figure out? I know I suck at puzzles, but I'm not so stupid that I'm not going to guess you had a false bottom in here." she muttered, thinking of how Darius had always chided her for not excelling at puzzle problems. She gently lifted the panel, and her eyes widened at what she found.