As Sofie Fatale slowly emerged once again from oblivion into foggy semi-consciousness, the first thing she became aware of, as before, was the beeping of the hospital monitor above her bed. Sofie had been drifting in and out of consciousness for days now; how many days she could not be sure.

As before, she found the incessant beeping of the monitor, keeping time with her own heartbeat, reassuring. She was, at least, still alive.

But, also as before, that momentary comfort was quickly overwhelmed by the now familiar pain coursing through her body. The drugs being pumped into her veins helped, but not enough. Sofie winced and moaned softly at the worst of the pain, which seemed to come from deep within the bones of her left arm – her missing left arm. Her morphine-addled brain couldn't decide whether that was funny or just hideously cruel.

And then she drifted back into unconsciousness.

It was sometime later. The windows were dark now.

Sofie felt as though she were drowning in terrible, heart-rending sorrow. Her mind replayed again and again the gruesome scene that Beatrix Kiddo had dragged her into the garden of the House of Blue Leaves to witness. O-Ren Ishii's petite body lay crumpled and still upon the cold ground. A sickening halo of red stained the pristine white snow beneath her head. The top of O-Ren's skull rested in the snow several feet away from her lifeless body, where it had landed after the tempered steel of Beatrix' Hattori Hanzo sword had so cleanly sliced through hair and flesh and bone and brain.

Sofie's shock and sadness at the brutal death of her friend had already begun to give way to anger even as Beatrix dragged her to the parking lot and tossed her into the trunk of her own car. By the time that trunk had reopened, with Beatrix standing over her and demanding answers, that anger had become blinding rage and defiance.

"Burn in hell, you stupid, stupid blonde! I'll tell you nothing!" she had shouted.

That defiance had cost her dearly.

This time Sofie awoke to a wave of sudden panic. Someone was standing over her! Had Beatrix come back to finish her off? Or was it Bill who was standing over her, ready to snuff out her life in repayment for her betrayal?

For she had betrayed him. Under the punishment of Beatrix' blade, she had divulged everything she knew about the members of the Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad – in particular, their current whereabouts.

Sofie Fatale was not a warrior in the mold of O-Ren Ishii or Beatrix Kiddo, and neither of them would have expected her to hold up for long under physical torture – and, indeed, by their standards she had not. But her utter rage at Beatrix had given her the courage and the spite to endure the horrible assault for longer than any of them would have anticipated.

And in the end, it had not been the actual pain that had finally broken her, but rather the sheer horror of what she saw: that blade repeatedly slicing into her own flesh, her blood welling up into the wounds and then washing across her pale skin. Sofie began trembling at the memory of it.

She felt soft fingers gently encircling her forearm, and the shadowy figure bending over her in the darkened hospital room spoke to her. "Are you all right, dear? You're shaking! Are you cold?" Sofie felt a rush of relief. It wasn't Bill or Beatrix after all. It was just the nurse.

But Sofie knew that sooner or later she would have to face Bill. What would he do to her? His brutal retribution against Beatrix Kiddo four years earlier was ample proof of the kind of savagery of which he was capable.

Sofie had taken terrible damage at Beatrix' hands, and now she faced even more violence at the hands of the very man who had once been her own mentor. Could Bill really be that devoid of pity – that incapable of mercy? Sofie feared she already knew the answer.

At least when she did see Bill, she could tell him what she had told Beatrix. At least Bill and the remaining Vipers would be warned. They could take steps to protect themselves.

But delivering that warning would constitute no redemption for Sofie Fatale because that, too, was exactly what Beatrix Kiddo had demanded of her. "I want you to tell him in person everything that happened here tonight," she had said. "I want him to witness the extent of my mercy by witnessing your deformed body. And I want them all to know they'll all soon be as dead as O-Ren."

Among those who coldly commit mayhem and murder as a simple matter of commerce, personal vendettas, driven by genuine passion and emotion, could often attain remarkable levels of cruelty. Beatrix didn't just want to kill her former friends; she first wanted them tortured by the anticipation and dread of their own approaching doom.

Guilt.

Horrible, stabbing pangs of it slashed through Sofie's heart and soul as she remembered O-Ren's last night alive.

It had been barely over one month since they had heard the news of Beatrix Kiddo's disappearance from the hospital ward where she had lain comatose for the previous four years, put there by a vicious beating from O-Ren and the other Deadly Vipers and a .45 caliber coup de grace from Bill himself.

But after the initial reports of her disappearance, there had been absolutely no news or sightings of the former "Black Mamba."

It was Sofie Fatale's opinion that Kiddo had slunk away into hiding, hoping to live out the rest of her life free from further retribution from Bill and the Vipers.

Johnny Mo, head general of O-Ren's private army, the Crazy 88s, was more cautious. He continued to recommend a low profile and heightened security for his boss.

Although O-Ren herself professed to be unconcerned about her former fellow Viper being on the loose, Sofie could tell the news had affected her. Her self-assurance and decisiveness had noticeably faltered. And she seldom anymore ventured outside the fortress-like, high-rise building in downtown Tokyo that served as her home and base of operations.

And there was one other change.

Sofie Fatale had always considered herself basically heterosexual – and, as far as she knew, so had O-Ren Ishii. Nevertheless, over the years, the two women had become to each other the closest either had to a true confidante and friend, and they had, on sporadic occasions in the past, shared a bed together, passing those fleeting, stolen nights with soft caresses and delicious, private tendernesses.

Since the news of Beatrix Kiddo's escape, however, O-Ren had begun bringing Sofie into her bed almost every night.

Now, when they made love, O-Ren displayed a feverish intensity that Sofie had not seen before, as though she were trying to escape the outside world in a haze of all-consuming passion.

More often, though, O-Ren spent her nights lying quietly with Sofie in her arms, waiting for the morning sun to chase away the threatening darkness.

Sofie was devoted to O-Ren and loved her more purely and on more levels than she ever had any man. She wanted desperately to help ease her friend's torment. And so it was that on that fateful day, it was Sofie Fatale who had championed a night of rest and recreation at the House of Blue Leaves.

"Johnny Mo will have a fit," protested O-Ren.

"Johnny Mo worries too much," scoffed Sofie. "Look, I'll get him to assign us a security detail. We'll be fine!"

Sofie decided to try to get a smile out of her friend. "And I'll ask him to be sure to assign Miki to the detail. That should make Gogo happy."

O-Ren gave Sofie a quizzical look. "Excuse me?"

"Haven't you noticed the way Gogo's been looking at him lately?" Sofie lowered her voice to a whisper, even though she and O-Ren were alone in the room. "I think she wants to fuck him!"

O-Ren laughed out loud at Sofie's no doubt intentional absurdity. "Oh? You think Gogo wants to steal his heart, do you?" She laughed again. "Well, maybe literally…and with the aid of a sharp blade!"

Sofie smiled at her friend. "It feels good to laugh again, doesn't it? It's been over a month since I last heard you laugh." She stepped closer to O-Ren and reached to take her hand. "Come on, let's go out and have some fun. It'll do you good!"

In her hospital bed, a single, bitter tear rolled down Sofie Fatale's cheek as she once again slipped into unconsciousness.