Chapter Text
It was hard to hear anything over the din of battle, of the Holy war.
But a cry pierces through. Hoarse and pained.
"Beatrice!"
Ava's on her knees. The pain of her harsh landing and gravel cutting through the knees of her battle suit is nothing but an echo in the back of her mind. Too occupied was she with the bleeding and broken body before her.
"Get up! Get up Bea!," she begs, pulling her lover's limp body into her arms. Her heart catches in her throat from the way Beatrice's head rolls limply with the motion.
The battle rages on around them, filled with the sharp shrieks of demons and Tarasks alike accompanied by the sound of gunfire and the sharp clanging of swords and staves.
"Bea, get up! Please..please.." Ava begs into the crook of Beatrice's neck, her safe haven which was currently sticky with blood and sweat and grit.
She tries hard to ignore the weird angle Beatrice's leg is in, how there is white peeking through the red. She ignores the feel of hot blood seeping through her hold on Beatrice's side, ignores the feel of torn skin and muscle and something else entirely. Too afraid was she to assess the damage done by a vicious swipe of a Tarask's claws.
The rapid puffs of air in her ear were the only indication of Beatrice being alive and still anchored to this world with her. In this life.
"Please…please get up."
A shudder. A gentle hand at the back of her head. A weak voice whispers in her ear.
"I'm sorry, darling but I don't think I can."
Ava sobs harder, pulling the other woman closer, "It's okay, it's okay. I can take it from here and once I'm back, we can go back home and search for that missing Lego piece that's been driving you crazy, yeah? So we can finally finish that Lego set."
Another shudder from Beatrice, that rattles Ava's bones.
"You forgot the dishes too," Beatrice rasps out.
Ava pulls back, lips quivering as she tries her best to smile.
"I'll get to it as soon as we go home okay?" Ava's voice warbles, a hand on Beatrice's cheek, directing her wayward gaze onto her.
She's bleeding heavily onto the ground, a growing sea of red surrounding them and Ava's begging for her to look at her, to stay just a little longer.
Screams echoed around them, tearing Ava’s gaze away for a second. The Tarasks were gaining an upper hand against the miniscule warriors. But they were so close.
More shouts reverberating in her ears. The war was going to end today. Ava just knew it.
"Bea, I need to go. I need to fix this," she says as she cradles Beatrice's head gently in her hands.
Beatrice's throat bobs with the effort to speak as she struggles to focus her fading vision on Ava's tear-streaked face, "Will you come back to me?"
"Always, Bea. I'll always come back to you."
"Go, darling. I have faith in you," Beatrice whispers through blood-speckled lips, “I always have.” The pain has long gone for her, replaced with worrying, tingling numbness.
The ground shakes beneath them and Ava ducks down to protect the wounded woman under her. There's the sound of crunching gravel and when she looks up, Camilla is crouching next to them.
It's happening, she says. Ava is needed for one last time.
She takes Beatrice from Ava, gently cradling her head on her lap and promising to keep her safe until Ava returns.
So Ava leaves, with steel in her resolve and a promise to keep. The cruciform sword clutched tightly in a white-knuckled grip.
The fight rages on in the distance as Camila watches on, hands pressed tightly on the grisly wound on Beatrice's side, trying to keep her insides from spilling out any further.
"Cam?"
"Yes Bea?"
"Is she winning? I can't..I can't see.."
Camila looks down and bites back tears at the sight of Beatrice's eyes. They're open but unfocused and unseeing. Her breaths are shallow now, each exhale taking more time.
She smoothes back sweat-slicked bangs to comfort the dying woman and leans down to kiss her forehead.
"It's almost over Beatrice. She'll come back to you, please hold on."
Beatrice shudders at that and takes a ragged breath and Camila has to pull her gaze away from the sight.
Her heart breaks.
She knows. She knows that Beatrice won't make it.
She just hopes that Ava makes it in time.
Her attention is divided between Ava, a blur of blue and bursts of gold as she expertly weaves between strikes and parries with her own and Beatrice, whose chest is rising and falling slower with each minute.
Beatrice exhales and the next inhale takes a worrying amount of time so Camilla waits with bated breath. One second, two and it stretches to 10 but then Beatrice exhales and Camilla finds herself releasing her breath in tandem.
She's breathing still so she turns her attention towards Ava.
One day, when she is alone with her thoughts, playing the scene over and over in her mind and in the midst of cleaning what was left of Beatrice and Ava's room, she will blame herself for not noticing it sooner.
She could have done something about it.
Maybe, Beatrice would still have been alive if she had paid attention.
It only took a second. A second of her attention when Ava lets out a yell, letting out a Halo blast so big that it shook the earth and disintegrated anything that stood in its path.
There's another quake and the sister warriors around them are cheering.
She did it. Ava won.
"Beatrice! Bea! She did it! She's-!" Camilla stops short when she looks down, "Bea?" her voice wobbles as she gently shakes the still woman on her lap.
Beatrice looks peaceful. One would have thought she was sleeping if not for the gory mess underneath Camila's bloodied hands and by the way her chest is so, so still.
She's come to the realization that Beatrice had breathed her last without her knowing.
Camila feels a wail pressing against her throat but she chokes it down when she sees Lilith, in all her winged glory, bearing upon them with a limp body in her arms.
The soft look in her eyes is a stark contrast to the blood splattered on her face and she lands gently next to them and Camila shelters Beatrice from the wind buffeting from her wings.
"Ava?" she asks once Lilith gently deposits Ava next to Beatrice's prone form.
Lilith gently shakes her head at Camila and Camila's heart breaks. She carefully removes herself from underneath Beatrice and deposits her head gently onto the ground.
Beatrice looks at peace. Camilla is glad for that at least.
Underneath them, Ava groans out a soft "Bea?" and a hand blindly reaches out.
Taking pity, Lilith takes her hand and gently places and intertwines it with Beatrice's cold hand.
Ava breathes out a sigh of relief at the contact and her grip tightens.
"I'm back..Bea. I'm back. We did it," she says and turns her head to the side, sees the peaceful features of her beloved and she knows that Beatrice is gone.
The sun is starting to peek through the grey haze of battle. The dawn of a new day for many but the end for some.
Ava struggles onto her side, never letting go of Beatrice's hand and Lilith scrambles to help her shuffle closer.
Ava tucks her head into the familiar crook of Beatrice's neck, her safe haven and shivers at the feeling of cooling skin.
The small group around them watches as the Halo sputters as Ava breathes out, "In the next then, love. In the next."
The Halo gives one final glow that blinds those who are watching and then it dies, along with its final bearer.
Lilith reaches out with shaking hands to turn Ava over.
The Halo is dark. It's gone.
Into the next, like the soft whisper of love that dissipates at the end of a life, only to trail to places unknown.
"She did it," Camila breathes from behind her shoulder, "The last warrior nun."
Empty silence.
Grief heavy on their hearts but the air of a new beginning, one without the burden of divine suffering inflicted relentlessly on so many young lives.
The news reaches Mother Superion who stayed behind to coordinate the attack.
The ground beneath her feels unsteady.
She hasn't had to use the cane after being miraculously brought to life by Ava. However, at that moment, she really wished she had it with her after she finds out that not only one, but two of her daughters have died, nonetheless the hopelessly in love ones who she'd watch grow so much.
The ones who she'd watched sob over each other. The image of Beatrice pleading as she clutched Ava's lifeless body after the fall still stuck in her mind.
She falls to her knees when she hears the news. Sobbing in earnest when they tell her that Beatrice went first and how Ava had followed, clutching onto her lover in an act of devotion.
They did it. They'd saved the world, and given everything.
They deserved this. One final, quiet peace.
In this life, they weren't bestowed what they'd deserved, but in the next.
They commemorate the last Warrior nun, a quiet affair for a girl who lived a life that was anything but.
In the courtyard, a statue stands – of two lovers, hand in hand.
"Who is the other?" the new sisters ask, for Mother Superion to whisper, voice catching in a rare show of emotion:
"The holiest of us all."
Warm sunlight filters through their curtains. A gaudy thing that Ava had purchased from the flea market that Beatrice had winced at when Ava wasn't looking.
Ava wakes from the warmth and stretches languidly because she knows she has time now.
She has all the time in the world.
There's a familiar presence behind her and she turns onto her side and is greeted with a soft smile.
"You came back," Beatrice whispers, sleep-warm and content. She reaches out to tuck a lock of hair behind Ava's ear and her hand lingers, thumb softly caressing the apple of her cheek
They move in sync, pressing close, arms and knees tangling together and sigh at the soft press of warm lips.
"I told you. I'll always come back to you Bea."
Beatrice nods, eyes crinkling as she yawns and Ava pulls her in, tucking her head under her chin.
"Go to sleep, Bea. We have all the time in the world now," Ava whispers, burying her nose into the softness of Beatrice's hair.
"In this life.”