AN: OK so a few reviews on the last chapter were...kinda scathing, well I guess you can't please everybody every time. :) Honestly I was pretty happy with that chapter...and I assume 'most' people generally were. But...just for the hell of it, I thought I'd add the alternate ending, one I considered but ultimately set aside, where...instead of Lakyus finding 'redemption' by choosing her sister over her religion, a much 'darker' course took hold. The next (I don't know...is canon the right word to use here? The next 'actual' part of the story, will still be out today, but I wanted to do a few edits to it. There are a few chapters left to go, then it is BACK to 'God Rising' again, to the blood and death of Wenmark.

In THIS version...Lakyus chooses her gods over Evileye...watch...and see what ALMOST happened... :)

The sword came down in a flash, it cleaved through Evileye where the neck and shoulder joined, rending flesh and bone asunder as if they were soft butter. Evileye has managed to wrap her arms around her sister as she wished, one final embrace for the hero once known as Landfall. The sword didn't stop until it has passed below her heart and well into her guts, and the twins and Gagaran managed to pull Lakyus away, breaking her grip on the demon sword. Not that it did any good, Evileye stood for a fraction of a second, not bending so much as an inch under the impact of the sword, but when the grip was lost, so was the unlife that sustained her, and when she lost her sister's embrace as Lakyus was pulled back, she fell forward on her face, her blood red eyes opened, not that her sisters could see that, nor could she see them, she heard their screaming, but that was all. Lakyus was screaming too, Evileye could tell that much.

"What have you done?!" Gagaran said, letting the twins pull Lakyus back as she rushed to Evileye, pulled the sword out that had fallen with her, and cast it aside. She turned the woman of legend, her sister, her Evileye, over onto her back so she was looking up.

Lakyus was screaming, "I didn't want to do it! I didn't want to!" as she went to her knees, screaming at the uncaring sky.

Gagaran fumbled for a healing potion, only for it to be obviously to late for that. Evileye managed one last smile, coughing up blood as she whispered, "Beautiful..." and closed her blood red eyes for the final time.

Unbeknownst to any in this world, the brain remains active for a short time, and it allowed Evileye to hear what they were saying, even if she could not move, speak, or even weep, and she heard Gagaran get up and go to where Lakyus was screaming and shout, "Bring her back!" And the sound of a meaty armored fist connecting to Lakyus's face, and the crunch of bone beneath it, and with her heightened vampiric senses functioning to the very end, she heard Lakyus fall backwards into the grass, and then Evileye, Landfall, the woman of legend, the greatest magic caster in the Re-Estize kingdom...knew no more.

She did not hear the twins come to her body and scream for her to get up, she did not hear Lakyus's heartbroken sobs, she did not hear the sound of Gagaran beating her, it was the end and that was that, not only for Evileye, but for Blue Rose, the years of victory were done, the rose had withered away.

...Aftermath...Gagaran

Like the broken petals of a dried, dead rose, the former sisters went apart. Gagaran did not kill Lakyus that day, she had beaten her...hard...and Lakyus had not even tried to stop her, if she even noticed the beating in her own entranced and hysterical state, Gagaran never did know. She only knew that when Lakyus fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut, she would never see Lakyus again. She abandoned the contract and her sisters, and wandered the world a broken soul, but worse, a violent soul who threw herself into combat as if all she wanted was to die herself, just not alone. She was given the nickname 'Suicide' over the years, and eventually found herself in the great Arena of the Baharuth empire, facing off against Go Gin in a matchup of legends.

The announcement had hardly begun, she had hardly walked into the arena, when she saw her opponent. She cared nothing for the crowd, for the cheers, for the accolades, she simply charged, and Go Gin met that charge, she bashed him recklessly, violently with her Fel Hammer, knocking him to one knee for the first time in his life, but a human and a war troll are different things, and he smashed back with equal force. She gave perhaps the greatest showing the Arena had ever seen, before at last his club connected with her head, and gave her a sudden, blessed death.

Her showing was so outstanding that Go Gin reached out to the only one to ever defeat him, the Sorcerer King, and informed him of what he'd experienced, it so intrigued Ainz that he acquired her body for Nazarick, and when her preserved corpse was brought to him, still in her armor with her hammer by her side, he said aloud, "I wonder what marvelous undead I can make with this for material."

...Aftermath...Tia & Tina

Tia & Tina had been inseperable as members of Blue Rose, and this did not change after Blue Rose had drowned in the shower of Evileye's blood. They could not bring themselves to kill Lakyus, ironic...considering that had been their first goal so long ago, but nor could they remain with her. They buried the body of Evileye where she fell, with all her equipment, and left a stone marker reading, "Here lies a sister, loved in life and unlife, Evileye, Landfall, woman of legend, may her story life till nobody does". When they finally left the area, abandoning their contract, they returned to their role as assassins, and returned to it with a vengeance that defied reality itself.

Though they could not bring themselves to kill Lakyus, they made it their personal business to kill those who served her religion, they began targeting the priests of the Slane Theocracy, they began a reign of terror over the territory of the Slane Theocracy's churches that lasted for years, despite countless attempts at bringing them to heel, all the Cardinals got in return were bodies to bury, it was not until they committed the guardian of the treasury to deal with them after they personally killed one of the cardinals, slaying Dominic in his own bed. Using the Windflower Scripture to track her, and Zeshi Zetsumi being tasked with fighting, they were at last brought to bay. They fought tooth and nail, without regard for death, they forced Zeshi to use multiple martial arts at once. Eventually however, Zeshi brought down Tia, then Tina, within seconds of one another. "It was a good fight." She said somberly as she offered the highest praise she knew. It had been, and blood, hers and theirs, dripped from her body and left tracks behind her as she walked back to the stunned Windflower Scripture.

Their bodies were stripped of anything of value, then thrown back to the ground, two naked, mutilated, female corpses, abandoned to be eaten by animals. But the long term tracking project the Sorcerer King had undertaken after the defeat of the Gray Scripture told him where they lay, and he had their bodies retrieved when the others were gone. When their bodies were returned, Ainz was delighted as he prepared to create a whole new type of undead.

...Aftermath...Lakyus

Lakyus, despite having struck the killing blow, having showed faith in her gods even to the point of choosing them over her precious sister, was not rewarded by the gods in whom she placed her faith. Her actions, if anything, had damned her, even if only in her own mind. She sat at the grave and begged forgiveness from Evileye's corpse for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, she never ate nor drank as she begged her sister to forgive her for her death. Her adamantite constitution and her items sustained her, but the environment did not, her beautiful golden hair turned bedraggled and snarl ridden, she didn't bath and was covered in dirt and grime, and her grip on reality continued to devolve as she slowly wasted away. There she died, months later, falling forward over the place where Evileye rested.

When Ainz Ooal Gown eventually scoured the woods himself after claiming the Holy Kingdom and driving out the forces hiding in the woods, his scouts found the body of the legendary Lakyus, and he learned at the same moment, the fate of Evileye. He had both bodies removed and brought to Nazarick. His delight over what he found was palpable. "What a marvelous undead I will make of you." He said to the silent corpse of Lakyus.

And when he looked to the corpse of Evileye, he was surprised to find her a vampire, but nonetheless Nazarick was not without its resources, and could do with even the corpses of the undead, things that others could not, and he used her body as a reagent, enabling him to create a new unliving champion of Nazarick.

So one by one the heroes of humanity fell into his skeletal hands, and he raised them to his service in a new unlife, reunited them in a common bond. He did what he could to keep their memories intact, but he bound them unbreakably to his service.

When the five of them knelt before him in his throne room, as the last of them was raised to unlife, he swept his hands before them and said, "Welcome to Nazarick my Unholy Roses."

"How may your Unholy Roses serve you?" They asked in unison.

AN: Well I hope you liked this one. I had fun with it. :) I decided against this ending, but honestly, I like this one too. I went the other way primarily because of the main story, rather than because of any defect in this one. I preferred Lakyus's redemption, rather than for her to break the way Remedios did, because in the end the differences between them were the deciding factor. Remedios lost the only one she really loved, despite her best efforts. Lakyus however, had a choice to make about what mattered most to her, and she chose the people she loved rather than the gods she served. Remedios has nothing left but her madness and her devotion to her beliefs. The two had striking similarities, but I thought the story better to see them go apart. If there is any real interest in THIS story as a branch, or even if there isn't because...I'll write what I want. ;) Well, I may do an 'alternate timeline' detailing the Unholy Roses, but I have enough on my plate for now, and will be returning to God Rising in a few days, once I wrap up the Unholy Rose arc officially...which will be in 2-3 chapters at most I think. I could have ended it already, but the disappearances tie in to both the Queen in the Sword AND God Rising, soooo...kind of have to finish it.

As always...reviews NEEDED. :) Next chapter will probably be out today.