Chapter 1

November 1997

Rain… The one thing she would always remember was the rain, the constant downpour of water.

It hadn't been raining when Buffy arrived home after she had rescued Angel from Spike and Drusilla. The weather had been nearly perfect at the time; it wasn't until a week later that the rain started.

Like everything else, it started innocuous, one day her mother had been late in coming home, but when they called to the Gallery there was no answer. That wasn't a problem, the two sisters told each other, it probably meant their mother had just left and would arrive any moment now. They waited ten minutes; ten became fifteen and they remained optimistic; but when after half an hour she still hadn't arrived the two of them really started to worry.

Buffy decided she would go looking for her while Dawn would stay home, just in case their mother happened to arrive while she was outside looking for her. But at the very moment that Buffy stepped out of the door Dawn knew what was going to happen. And, when at the same moment a rainstorm broke loose, her heart moved to her throat.

Still, she tried to convince herself that everything was alright. Mom probably only had a flat tire and hadn't had a chance to call them. But in this town even a flat tire might mean death. It was dark and there were vampires out there. Please Buffy, hurry up and find her quickly.

Time passed and she kept ignoring the gnawing feeling in her stomach. Everything would be alright. Looking at the clock Dawn realized that her mother was now over an hour late and Buffy had gone out almost thirty minutes ago. Something was wrong, something had gone horribly wrong and she was just sitting there. And it wasn't long before she just couldn't stand it anymore.

Dawn stood up from the couch where she had been worrying and went to her room to get her knife. Hiding it under her jacket, but still within easy reach, she then slipped out into the downpour. Within moments, her clothes stuck to her body and she probably looked like a drowning kitten. But that was inconsequential.

Her minds were in total agreement about what was likely to have happened. Her mother and sister were in mortal peril, and she just hoped she'd get there in time to rescue them.

Not once did she think about asking for help, and years later she would still be wondering if that might have made a difference. Maybe if she hadn't waited so long before going after her sister, or if she'd called Giles, maybe even Xander or Willow. And what would have happened if she hadn't gone home that night, when Kendra had collected the others in order to rescue Buffy from her own follies?

Everybody always wonders, what if? Everybody knows the past can't be changed and yet, everybody keeps wishing there was a way to do so. That night however she didn't wonder. She was scared; scared that once again she might lose the people that she cared about most. And therefore, while running through the night, she subconsciously allowed her body to follow the commands of the Kirika personality. That night, nothing could hear her, nothing could see her, and nothing would dare to try to stop her.

Then the world crashed to a sudden halt.

She could see three people, two that she knew very well and someone she had only heard described. Two who were dead and one who should have been.

"No." The word escaped her and her arrival was finally noticed by the assassin.

"Ah, the last one. The professional, at least according to Norman." The smile on the woman's face was meant to enrage her, and if it hadn't been for the watch it would have worked. But the watch was there, the fake watch that calmed her down.

But even that enforced calm wouldn't be enough this time around. She knew the techniques, she knew how to kill the woman in front of her; she just didn't have a body actually capable of doing it. Tonight, she realized with sudden clarity, all the Summers women would die. It didn't matter if her body lived through the night. With her mother and sister dead it was unlikely she would come out of the night as the same person.

Slowly it started happening then. Staring at the ground she could feel the change coming over her, no half measures this time around. She would fight like she had been taught to fight; she would kill like she was born to kill. And she was completely confident in the knowledge that nothing could possibly stop her from doing so. The agony of loss, that moments ago had filled her entire being, lost its significance. Even the hatred for the target in front of her disappeared into the emotionless void as she raised her slitted eyes to look at the target's face.

Eyes that she knew were as expressionless as the rest of her body, eyes that later would hide her black soul behind a screen of sadness and innocence. And, as she felt the world focus on that tiny part where she was now standing, Dawn knew that while she would no longer exist, something very much like her would.

They must have stood there in the pouring rain, silent and unmoving, for several minutes before one of them finally made a move. It had been the target who moved first, maybe she had been unnerved by the total lack of any response, or even feeling, on Dawn's face, but that didn't matter. She used a gun, but that didn't matter either. All the odds were in the target's favor but none of that mattered.

She should have made her move the moment Dawn arrived. The taunting and the long wait before she acted had been her biggest, and last, mistake. That time had been all that was needed. Dawn was no longer the personality controlling her body. Every muscle, every single nerve, had come under control of Kirika. The target thought she was facing a little girl who knew how to throw a knife; Kirika knew she was facing a fellow assassin. But Kirika also knew that no simple assassin could possibly stand against the True Noir.

The gun's movement seemed to be so incredibly slow and she could almost imagine hearing the exact moment the target pulled the trigger, the moment that the cordite ignited, and even the sound of the bullets speeding through the air. Bullets that were aimed at a place where she was no longer standing.

Hitting the ground in a smooth roll, Kirika had the knife in her hand before she was even back on her feet. The target was turning in an attempt to adjust her aim, but wasn't nearly fast enough.

In this heightened state of awareness Kirika could almost see the individual raindrops as they slowly made their way to the ground. And when the knife left her hand it seemed to cut through the raindrops as it too moved in slow-motion. However, she only spent a moment watching the knife fly, as she knew that it wouldn't be the end of the fight. She might have killed her target instantly, but she couldn't take the risk of being unarmed if her only knife missed the heart. A knife that couldn't be as accurate a weapon as a real throwing knife.

By the time she heard the impact of the knife she had already reached Buffy's body, and didn't pay any attention to the surprised cry of pain, followed shortly by the sound of someone falling to their knees. The target should have known better than to cry out anyway. Sure hands quickly found what she was looking for, and she grabbed the wooden stake that she knew her sister would be carrying.

Turning around she saw exactly what she had expected to see. The target was on her knees and holding her chest, a chest that was now decorated with a firmly embedded knife. Obviously it had missed the heart, but tearing it out would cause the lung it was embedded in to collapse. Triggering a race between two causes of death, the collapsed lung or the loss of blood.

"I should have killed you when I saw you," the target breathed heavily, while once again moving to aim her gun. But Kirika hadn't remained standing there, and instead of answering such an obvious statement she increased her speed to ensure she didn't make the same stupid mistake.

The target was desperately trying to bring the gun up before Kirika reached her, but they were too close and Kirika too fast to get a clear shot. It was obvious to both combatants that the weapon was useless in the fight that would follow. In order to stand a chance the target let the gun fall to the ground while reaching for the knives she'd hidden elsewhere.

Neither of them had a choice about what was going to happen. The target couldn't run away, or shoot Kirika. Kirika on the other hand was filled with determination to kill the target and wouldn't let anything stop her.

Even so, it seemed to take an eternity before Kirika finally reached her target. A target who during that time had once again started to rise to her full length while making the first move in the dance to kill each other.

Maybe the target still believed a little girl couldn't possibly kill an assassin of the Order of Teraka, even a wounded one. And she was good. Nothing that had been sent after a Slayer could be anything but good, as her skill would need to compensate for the greater physical abilities the Slayer had. But she wasn't nearly good enough.

Kirika had killed her partner's parents at an age when most people are still struggling in an attempt to learn how to write. She had been trained how to fight practically from the moment she was born. Her entire training had been based upon facing people who were stronger, faster, bigger and heavier. In fact, she had been taught how to face people like the one now standing in front of her.

And she had been everything her teachers could have possibly wished for.

The fight itself was one thing she would never be able to clearly remember, not even in the moments immediately after she had plunged the stake into the target's heart. But the expression of pain and surprise, that adorned the former target's face as she crashed to the ground, would remain with her forever. With the death of her target came no relief of the pain for her though, nor a lessening of the grief.

Standing there crouched over the corpse she still didn't feel anything, as if the demise of her family had taken that ability away. Before walking away, Kirika took the ring from the assassin's finger and, after checking the corpse for anything useful, she collected the weapons. Except for the stake embedded in the assassin's chest. After wiping her fingerprints from it she left that as the only silent witness to her Pyrrhic victory.

And all the while the rain continued its steady fall.

When she arrived home she didn't think about what she needed to do. All the actions that needed to be taken were automatic, so without any regard for modesty she took off her clothes and put them in a plastic bag. Walking through the house naked, she went outside and placed it with the other garbage in the backyard, where nobody would notice it. The garbage would be collected the next day and nobody would ever know she'd had bloodstained clothes.

Dripping wet, but ignoring the cold, she walked back inside and took a shower. Once cleaned up she treated the minor wounds the former target had inflicted upon her. And only then, clean of anything that might connect her to the scene of the crime, did she take care of the weapons. She had no immediate use for the gun and so disassembled it and hid the parts in different places of her room. Her own knife went back to its usual place, caring for it would come later, and she put the ones she'd taken next to it.

With her mind still working more or less on automatic Dawn ate some bread in order to quiet her rumbling stomach, before cleaning the house. She had been walking through it completely soaked and she had no intention of having anyone question her about where the drops of water had come from.

It was only then, when there wasn't a single trace of evidence connecting her to the fate of the assassin, that she called Giles.

"Hello?"

She couldn't be totally emotionless in this conversation so she let herself slip slightly out of that state. Just enough for her to know what emotions she ought to project, but not enough to actually be overwhelmed by them. "Mister Giles?"

"Dawn? What is it? Are you alright?" He sounded worried so she must have used the correct tone of voice.

"It's mom and Buffy. They're not home yet."

"How do you mean?"

"Mom was late but we couldn't reach her, and then Buffy went out to look for her, but she hasn't returned either and I don't know what to do now."

"Your mother and Buffy are both missing?"

"Yes. Please, could you go and find them? I'm afraid something might have happened to them."

The British man tried to calm her down, not realizing that it wasn't necessary. "I am sure they will both be fine, Dawn. Can you tell me when this happened?"

"Mom had to be home two hours ago and Buffy went looking for her after she was thirty minutes late. Please go and find them." The pleading note in her voice was how she figured any terrified teenager would sound like.

"That long? Why didn't you call sooner, no wait, that is not important. I will go and try to find them now, why don't you call Willow or Xander and ask them to come over?"

"I-I'll do that. Thank you Mister Giles." And with that she hung up the phone. The conversation had been more difficult than she had imagined. It seemed that only pretending to feel the emotions wasn't possible, a minor feedback occurred nonetheless, and for a moment she had been on the verge of admitting that she was already aware they had died.

The next hours passed in a blur. She remembered when Willow and Xander arrived to support her. She remembered that Giles had come to the house in the company of police officers, and how she had broken down despite the fact that she had already known about the fate of her loved ones. The platitudes of the officers didn't help her, nor did the comfort that the others offered her. Phone calls needed to be made but they could wait. Her father didn't need to be informed until the next day about what had happened to his ex-wife and oldest daughter.

Someone, she never found out who, had called her friends though, and before long both Jane and Sarah were standing at her door. The adults talked about the things that needed to be done and questioned her decision that her father shouldn't be informed yet. But she remained adamant about that; she had no wish for another adult to come to Sunnydale that night. There was something she still needed to do, and the fewer people she needed to dodge the easier it would be.

Uncounted minutes later she was staring out of her bedroom window, into the dismally black, rainy, night, when she realized that she knew. She knew why they had died. She knew who had killed them. She knew who had hired the assassin. And most importantly, she knew what she was going to do about it.

….…

The next morning she quietly made her way out of the door. Everybody had stayed over but by now they had all fallen asleep, something she couldn't do until she had finished her mission. The moment she stepped outside she was once again soaked, but even the rain wouldn't stop her from doing what needed to be done. Mister Giles' car was parked in front of their house, and she quietly loaded everything she needed into it.

They had always known where the vampires stayed, but had never undertaken any direct action. She was certain there were reasons for it, but at that moment she didn't care about what they might be. It should have been done before, but since it hadn't she would now be the one to do it.

Approaching the warehouse, she wondered about the entrances. Surely there had to be a way for the vampires to get inside while the sun was up? A cellar, maybe an entrance to the sewers a voice seemed to whisper in her head. Was the fact that she was hearing voices an indication of madness? She shrugged the thought off; it didn't matter if she was going crazy.

Nothing mattered right now.

Nothing, except for the mission.

She soon found a manhole and moved the lid onto the street, she was using her muscles in a capacity that shouldn't have been possible, and she was sure she'd suffer the consequences later. But for now it was a simple case of mind over matter.

Inside the stinking sewers she soon found the only other way the vampires could get out of the warehouse. A manhole linking the building directly to the sewers. That was alright. She had been prepared for something like that. Buffy's weapon chest had contained many useful things, including religious icons. Crosses had seemed to be her sister's favorites, but there were others as well.

It didn't take long for her to put them in useful positions. Stepping back once she'd completed that task, she looked over what she had built. For any vampire to step in there it would mean excruciating pain. Buffy might be dead, but for now her spirit would live on in this task that would avenge her. She shook her head to dispel this crazy idea of taking the easy way out. This was all her, her sister had nothing to do with it.

Forgetting where she was, she took a deep breath. The sudden invitation for the terribly smell in the sewer was taken up and she had to do her best not to betray her position as she fought the urge not to vomit. She needed to hurry up. The crosses and such were nice, but would do nothing to stop the vampires from escaping what she'd planned for them. To accomplish that she needed other supplies, and she quickly moved to get them from the car.

Back in the sewers, she walked back to the manhole while taking along the drenched cords. Putting the bottles, cans, and other closed items containing combustibles around the crosses she placed the ends of a cord in each one. Alcohol was liberally sprinkled on everything until the smell was heavy enough to drown out even the environment. And only then did she put the last item down. It wasn't all that much, but without any remote detonators it would have to do.

What seemed like only moments later, she was once more standing in front of the warehouse. She had never actually done anything quite like what she was about to do. She could remember killing countless humans, but always in a direct manner, this time she would use a tool that couldn't be controlled. The rain didn't make it any easier, but it didn't matter, Dawn thought, or was she Kirika now? The distinctions between them seemed to have evaporated. The shock of everything that had happened the night before had probably been enough to speed up the merging process.

Dawn walked to the car, and started taking out the rest of what she'd brought. It was amazing how many combustible things a common household contained. From bottles of alcohol to cleaning fluids, all of them were highly flammable and, in this case, very useful.

And once the building was burning it didn't take all that long before the vampires started to try to escape. Over the radio, one of a pair she'd found among her own toys, she could hear the sudden sounds of screaming as the first vampire encountered the crosses. That was her signal.

Striking a match she held it against the cords that led down the manhole from where she was standing and waited for the inevitable. The little blue flame quickly made its way down into the sewers and in the direction of the surprised vampires. These stupid creatures were trying to remove the crosses so that they could quickly get away, but didn't pay any attention to the other things that she had placed there.

Not even when the flame reached them and split up in different directions did they realize what was about to happen. To the vampires it only seemed like another useless attempt to kill them. The flames didn't care about their opinion and continued merrily on, already starting to ignite the alcohol and making their way to the explosive containers awaiting them.

The explosion was clearly audible over the roaring fire, and Dawn knew for a fact that no vampire would try to go out that way again. Sooner or later they would try to get out by the only way that was left to them, the main entrance. So she stood there, warmed by the fire that would soon attract the attention of the fire brigade.

"The Green Lady." The shocked words came from a vampire who was carrying the one she knew was called Spike. She had no idea why the creature would call her the Green Lady but like everything else, it didn't matter.

She could use every hand-held weapon designed by man, and today she was so focused that nobody would be able to beat her in a fight. Dawn pulled the crossbow's trigger and, had she been able to do so, would have felt satisfaction when the bolt pierced the vampire's heart.

"Dru!" The heartrending cry came from the other one. Her main target. He fell down to the ground and she could see how it hurt him. More importantly, she could see that he was unable to walk away from her.

That didn't mean he gave up. Even using only his arms, a vampire can move pretty fast and this one didn't care about anything but revenge. Unfortunately for this one, he wasn't the only one. She didn't go for the painful option very often but in this case Dawn wanted her target to suffer.

The death of his mate had started that, but she would never make the mistake of leaving him alive. After all, she was the living proof of how dangerous someone like that could turn out to be. Burning to death is one of the worst ways to go and she had no intention of letting him off any lighter than that.

For this purpose she had saved one bottle. A bottle of the finest brandy. She would have preferred to use a certain bottle of wine. There was a bottle of good wine, a bottle that her parents had bought the year her sister had been born. A bottle that had been meant to be opened only on Buffy's wedding day. But wine wouldn't do for this purpose; and, while there wasn't as much sentimental value to the brandy, it too came from that same year.

Lighting the piece of cloth that was now sticking out of the bottle Dawn sadly reflected on the knowledge that she would never drink this, or anything else, at her sister's wedding. But she could at least make certain it was to be used in a manner her sister would definitely approve of.

She lobbed the Molotov cocktail at the crouching vampire.

She watched it explode and distribute its burning liquid all over the creature's body. Emotionally she remained empty, even while the vampire was screaming in pain and trying to douse his burning body. But when the vampire finally burst into ashes she got out of her seeming paralysis and moved to collect what remained of both Spike and Drusilla. Only once she'd put some of the ashes of both creatures in two small vials did she walk back to the car so she could drive back home.

And the heavens continued their own weeping for the fallen.

When she returned nobody asked her where she had gone. Nobody even asked her where she had learned to drive. Everybody understood that she had needed some time alone. It was only later that day, when they heard about the fire, that she received some questioning glances. But nobody voiced their questions.

….…

Days passed. Her father arrived, the funerals were arranged, theories about how her mother and sister had died were mentioned, but, as expected, no witnesses had come forward.

People in Sunnydale didn't go outside to investigate strange noises during the night, and while her father was angry about it, Dawn didn't care. Those responsible were no more. She was certain of that and she knew that some of the people around her had an idea of how those people had died. But none of them dared mention it.

It was a double funeral. Two caskets would be lowered side by side. And, to continue the theme, it rained.

People made speeches, but she remained silent. There was only one thing she wanted to say and that could wait a while. She stood there silently until they all thought it was over. People had expressed their grief and it was now time to go home and remember all the good things about those wonderful people who had died.

It was only then that she moved. The caskets had been lowered but no dirt had been shoveled on them yet. She walked until she stood exactly between them. The scent of the grass and dirt wafted up her nose and she could feel everybody staring at her. But that didn't matter.

Dawn kneeled between the two graves and held out her hands, so that one was over each grave. She turned her hands until all those behind her could see the glass vials containing the ashes of those responsible for this funeral. She didn't pay any attention to the gasps from those who now understood. They might have suspected but it would have still been hard to believe. The tubes dropped into the graves and she spoke only one single word before turning around and leaving, clearly showing the single golden ring she carried on a necklace.

"Aequitas." Justice.

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