While you're fumbling to at least get your underwear and pants back on, Tanya looks around again, still staying in the circle of course. She examines the gory chunks of flesh that once were Vera and reaches down with a taloned hand.

She tastes some of the blood and then pops the whole thing into her mouth.

"If you're going to get rid of your curse, you best do it now while she's trapped. While she's in that circle you can command her to release you and she has no choice but to do so. So get on with it!" Heather exclaims.

With your pants now back on, you approach Tanya, who stares at you from the circle. She doesn't look pleased, but then you aren't sure if that's just here natural look now.

"Tanya, I command you to take off this curse you put on me." You say trying to be as authoritative as you can, but honestly you're scared shitless.

And Tanya knows it. In fact she just steps closer to the edge of the circle.

"You command ME? Have you grown so arrogant in your meager mortal life that you believe you can even do that?" Tanya asks.
"No, but…" you start to say before you're interrupted.
"Then you've just grown stupider."
"Tanya…"
"That isn't even my name anymore worm. I have become something much greater and I have long shed any connection to my pathetic mortal years."
"Even me?"

Tanya doesn't answer you, but instead just gives a huffing growl.

"The one on the floor who I tasted. This one loved you, yet you obviously sacrificed her to summon me. Why?" Tanya asks.
"I told you, I want you to lift the curse that…" you begin to answer.
"No! I mean why did you sacrifice her?"
"She betrayed me."
"I see. And you felt that she deserved this horrible fate?"

You're about to answer yes, but then on reflection you stop yourself.

"No. She probably didn't, but I made a pragmatic decision because I needed something and she was the best way to get it."

Tanya nods at your answer, meanwhile Heather is getting impatient.

"For fuck's sake stop talking so much and just COMMAND it to lift the fucking curse! The more you talk, the more it's going to beguile you into doing something stupid, like stepping into the circle with it!" Heather yells.
"Silence wizard! I will deal with YOU later. If my former…human wishes to speak with me, then he will do so until our business is done. Now then, before we move on to this curse you speak of, I wish to ask more questions about you, one of which is why have you not moved on from me? I asked you to do so." Tanya says.
"I can't! You put a curse on me that prevents me from having sex with any other woman! Anytime I do, they wind up dead a few days later!" you answer.
"So why blame me? I haven't been anywhere on this world until you summoned me."
"Well who else would it be? Yag fucking around with his magic dice? I mean I have a hard time believing its coincidence; there were too many women that died! I mean maybe you didn't mean to place it on me, maybe it was some sort of after effect of your power of something."
"Oh I assure you human, I'm fully aware of my powers, but placing curses? Not my style and never will be. I learned a long time ago, even when I was here in my last remaining years tethered to this world that I enjoy direct bloodshed."
"But…it had to be you…I mean…wasn't it?"
"Maybe it was YOU."

This accusation causes you to step back a bit.

"Me? That's absurd." You say.
"Is it? Think hard now." Tanya replies.
"I think I'd know if I had killed all those women and some of those were accidents!"
"Or maybe you made them look like they were. It's Holgard, not like the Watch was going to double check for barmaids and whores."
"I can't believe it."
"Okay…if it makes you feel any better, perhaps I AM to blame indirectly. Obviously you didn't get over me the way I told you too and were still obsessed with my magnificence. I suppose I can't fault you, after all a mere mortal woman would pale in comparison. But those women? I had no direct hand in causing their deaths. That was ALL you. Even now I can see it in your mind."
"What?!"
"I can see into your mind. We're bonded remember? Now granted that bond was severely weakened when I left this realm, but now? You're like an open book. I can see shit in your mind that you've blocked out which is exactly what you did when you were on your whore killing spree."
"But…"
"Why? Because you love me madly obviously and you always will. You killed those women out of fear that you were betraying that love. However, you have a strange morality about you and that caused you to block it out. How you did it so easily, well that's probably thanks to our bond and you gaining a very tiny bit of my mental powers. Except you didn't even realize you were using it of course."
"But if all this is true, I must have moved on because I stopped doing it."
"Well yes, but that's mainly because your conscious mind came to the conclusion that I must have put a curse on you so you used THAT as an excuse to not get involved with another woman again. Even this Vera woman, that you obviously had a lot of affection for. I dare say if you had actually given it a chance you might have even broke the cycle. Enough time had passed between us by then and your feelings for Vera were much stronger than they were for the other women. But your love for me just proved too strong. Think about it. Even though she betrayed you, you could have just killed her or even forgave her if you so desired. Instead, you sacrificed her to summon me."
"But I did it because I HAD to see you!"

Tanya folds her arms and smiles a bit.

"And there it is…and here I am." Tanya says.
"By the gods…" you say suddenly coming to an epiphany.
"You are a fool to listen to this demon and when she eats your soul, I am not going to be able to help you." Heather interjects.

You might be a fool, but unfortunately Tanya's words are proving correct. Your memories are all suddenly flooding back. You see the murders as clear as yesterday now. You see what you did and how you even enjoyed doing it at times. It was you. It was you the entire time and you blacked it all out.

You slowly slump to the floor trying to process everything and you can't do it. You just stutter a couple of words and trail off.

"You cannot command me to lift a curse that I never placed on you mortal. The only curse you have is your love of me and I can't help you with that. I wish I could, but you didn't listen to me when I told you not to pursue me in the first place and this is where we are now." Tanya says with a bit of sympathy in her voice.

While you're coming to grips with your uncovered memories, Heather is done with this whole thing.

"Enough! We've apparently solved your problem, now we're moving on. Demon, I command YOU to transfer the life essence of that woman over there to me." Heather yells.
"WHAT?! Grand Matriarch you can't mean that!" Gwen answers.
"Oh shut up! This shouldn't even be a surprise to you, never liked you anyway. I'm tired of looking and feeling like an old bat while I'm only in my thirties!" Give me this woman's youth and then you may return to your own realm."

Gwen attempts to leave her circle but soon learns that she's trapped within it. Attempts at casting a spell to escape or even attack Heather similarly fail. Lacking any other means of freedom, Gwen panics and begins to plead for her life.

"You keep interesting female company since we parted mortal. Based on the mewling waif, the old hag over there and the meat chunks on the floor apparently they've all been a bunch of treacherous backstabbing bitches, pathetic naïve weaklings or both. No wonder you still long for me. At least even with my infernal heritage I never lied to you." Tanya says.
"Demon! I AM in charge here! I COMMAND YOU in Dorna's name to perform my task!"

Tanya starts to laugh.

"I don't recognize your gods and that's not how it works! That's not how ANY of this works!" Tanya says.
"What?!" Heather remarks.
"Someone isn't up on their guide to infernals because you can't command me to do shit for you. This one probably isn't in most books about us because it isn't a common occurrence, but you cannot command an infernal whose heart belongs to someone. And my heart unfortunately belongs to this mortal until he dies or purposely breaks it. And in any case, this circle you made to hold me doesn't even have the correct symbols on it…"

And with those words Tanya slowly steps out of the circle to Heather's horror.

"Oh shit! Gwen you fucking idiot!" Heather shouts and quickly begins to call for help, along with casting a beam of frost at Tanya.

Tanya blocks the beam with one hand and then waves her other arm and suddenly most of the furniture in the room is thrown against the door to barricade it. Meanwhile you get out of the way so you don't get hit by Heather's magic or get stepped on by Tanya's cloven hooves.

You look on in slight awe as you see Tanya draw her sword, which is now on fire and Heather just barely blocking it from cleaving her in two by casting a magic shield.

"Please! Help me out of this circle!" you suddenly hear.

You forgot all about Gwen who out of everyone here is innocent in all this.

You aren't sure how this magic circle shit works, but you can't think of anything else to do except try to pull Gwen out of it. And to your amazement it actually works.

"Come on, we need to get the hell out of here." You say and rush to the barricaded door, though some books on the floor suddenly distract Gwen.

"What the fuck are you doing?! We gotta get out of here before those two bring this whole place down on our heads!" you shout.
"If Heather doesn't win, then we're going to need something to stop your ex, I'm looking for some sort of spell. Just focus on unbarricading the door. Hopefully the other students are working on the other side to get in here." Gwen says as she hastily goes through book pages.

Lacking any other plan, you go with Gwen's and start trying to move the various desks, tables, chairs and cabinets agaist the door. You can hear shouting on the other side to which you yell back for them to blow the damn door open and get their asses in here.

You've moved and thrown aside exactly one large desk and that's when you hear a scream. You slowly turn your head and see that Tanya has broken through whatever magical defenses Heather had and cut her in half. Heather was no slouch as a wizard, for Tanya to have easily killed her like that...it just defies words of how powerful she's gotten.

Be that as it may, it would seem that Gwen found something to harm Tanya because she unleashes a blast of magic energy straight into her back causing a monstrous howl.

It slows her down, but not much as she's already spun around to face Gwen. She stomps on the ground causing the floor to crack and forcing Gwen to jump out of the way lest she fall into the Holgard sewers, though maybe that would have been a better idea. At least then there would have been multiple escape routes.

At this point some of the other students have manages to blast part of the door open. Several begin trying to climb over the furniture still in the way.

"BURN." Tanya utters and you jump back just in time to see all of the furniture barricade go up in flames along with unfortunate wizards that were climbing over it at the time.

The screams of burning wizards are soon drowned out by another bellow of pain by Tanya when Gwen hits her with another blast of whatever magic she's using. This time Tanya falls to one knee briefly, but it isn't enough and now she's heading straight for Gwen like an angry charging minotaur. Gwen however is surprisingly holding her ground and preparing another magic blast.

You spy your pistol on the floor and you grab it, but as strange as it may be, you aren't sure who to use it on.

The whole time during Tanya's arrival, you've had a stirring within you again. Namely your obsessive love for Tanya. Even this monstrous demonic form, she is still the object of everything you desire in heart and you don't want to see her hurt no matter how well she's able to defend herself.

But you'll never be free if you hang on to the idea of a relationship that can never be.

You aim for Gwen

That's it; you'll always be a slave to loving Tanya. You were doomed when you first laid eyes on her.

You've also learned that you did a bunch of terrible shit because of it and what you did to Vera was terrible too despite what she did to you.

You're not a virtuous person and you most likely never will be, but never let it be said that you're all bad.

You aim for Gwen, but not a kill shot, instead you shoot just so the bullet whizzes in front of her face causing her to break her concentration and even stumble back a bit. Then you quickly address Tanya.

"TANYA STOP! DO NOT KILL THIS WOMAN! I COMMAND YOU!" you shout.

Just a few paces away from Gwen with her sword in hand, she manages to stop herself from trampling over her. She snorts and turns a scowling face towards you.

"Why do you stop me mortal?! Do you love this woman?" Tanya asks.
"No. I don't, but she doesn't deserve to die either." You say and walk towards the pair of them.

You see Gwen attempting to cast another spell and that's when you really point your pistol at her.

"Gwen, you will NOT harm Tanya. If you continue to attack, I'll kill you myself." You say.
"But…but we've got her! She can't do shit right now! I can kill her and then you'll finally be free, isn't that what you wanted?" Gwen remarks.
"No. I love this woman. Why would I want to be free of that?"
"Because she's a demon that is incapable of it?"
"If that were true she would be ripping my head off right now. Gwen, I saved your life twice today, you can do me this favor."

Gwen backs off and nods.

"Very well, but I'm not sticking around and I suggest you and your…love leave as soon as possible, because I doubt the Holgard Watch is going to be as understanding when they arrive." Gwen replies and quickly runs over to the burning barricade and casts a spell to put it out before proceeding out the destroyed door opening.

Now you're alone with Tanya who doesn't look pleased with you. You're about to speak when she suddenly grabs you and suddenly jumps in the air and takes to flight. Using her wings as a shield she envelopes herself (and you) as she breaks through the ceiling of the school.

Afterward, she spreads her wings our again and flies high above the city. You never thought you'd see Holgard from this view again.

Tanya is silent the whole time as she holds you close to her body and flies away from Holgard and eventually landing in a spot not far outside it, but away from anyone else.

She drops you to the ground when you're close enough and finally she speaks when she lands near you.

"You're a fool. A complete and utter fool. You always were." Tanya says.
"I know." You answer.
"I wish you had shot at me instead, then you would have ended both of our torment when I ripped you apart for breaking my heart."
"Couldn't do that."
"If you REALLY loved me as much as you claim, you would have! Do you realize how hard it is for me to ignore my feelings for you? Why do you think I look like a soldier of war rather than a seductress now? I tried to eliminate everything and anything that even reminded me of intimacy. I had to fight and struggle not only to block you out of my mind and the weakness that entailed with it, but also endure the taunts and challenges of other infernals who refused to see me as anything other than a succubus with human blood in my veins."
"But you proved them wrong didn't you?"
"Yes! I proved them all wrong. I thrived on the hate, their hate, my hate, all of it. I used it to achieve greatness. I am now a general in the Infernal Legions! I have personally beheaded and carved up celestials and won battles against seemingly impossible enemies. I am no mere succubus. I am a personification of rage, war, and hate."
"I always knew you'd do well."
"And you know what I really hate? YOU. I hate the day I ever met you. I hate that you were instrumental in my current status. I hate that you summoned me back to this pathetic world. I HATE the fact that I love you."
"But without it, where would you be?"

Your last words are too much and Tanya takes a step towards you and backhands you across the face. She probably wasn't even using half of her strength either and you go sprawling to the ground in a daze.

After spitting a bit of blood and rubbing your head a bit, you slowly get back up and that's when you hear quiet sobbing.

You look and you see Tanya sitting on the ground with her knees tucked in and her head buried in her arms.

Except this isn't the demon of war form that you've been seeing. This isn't even her succubus form. It's the form of the girl you fell love with. Even her clothes are the same.

"Tanya…" you say and walk over to her, but she pulls away a bit when you go to touch her.
"But what I hate…(sob) most of all… is…that we can't be together…"

You don't know what to say. There isn't anything you can say. She's right and it sucks.

Instead you just sit next to her and hold her. She holds on to you back, finally giving in to her human feelings for you, no matter how buried they were.

"I have to go back." Tanya says with a sniffle.
"I know, but you could stay, just for a little while. Let's just enjoy what we have right here. Right now. Hey, we never watched the sunset together, why don't we do that?" You say.

Tanya wipes her eyes and nods.

"Okay."

The pair of you just sit and hold each other in silence for quite awhile as you watch the sunset and then later the stars. One of the benefits of being bonded is not even having to speak. Sometimes one of you remembers a fond moment from your collective past and you both give a smile at each other, even an occasional laugh.

During one of those moments, you both look deep into each other's eyes and you finally move in to kiss. From there, you both do what lovers tend to do.

And for those moments of intimacy under the night sky, the pair of you has blocked out everything else and it's just you two.

Afterwards, the pair of you fall asleep under the stars.

The next day you wake up. You feel some of the aches from yesterday's events, but you're not too bad off. You look and Tanya isn't next to you and you expect her to be gone, but after looking around a bit, you see her standing by herself (still in her human form) over looking a small cliff by the sea. You walk over to her.

"I sort of figured you'd be gone when I woke up." You say.
"Couldn't leave it like that. You deserve a proper goodbye." Tanya says still looking at the ocean.
"No way you can stay a little longer I guess."
"As nice as last night was, it's best I don't get used to it. The longer I stay here, the more I'll lose myself. I can't afford that weakness. I know to you I'll always be that girl you fell in love with, but I assure you I am much more now and very different. I have responsibilities that you couldn't hope to know."
"Well I can imagine leading hell armies is pretty taxing."

Tanya turns to you.

"You really don't judge do you?" Tanya says.
"Isn't that what unconditional love is all about?" you say.
"I suppose. But it's one thing to love someone despite them being say a thief. It's quite another to love someone who has committed genocide on a whole populace."
"I'm guessing they had it coming."

Tanya chuckles at your remark.

"You always did know how to make me laugh despite my best efforts not to." Tanya says.
"Besides, you just informed me that I murdered a bunch of innocent women that I had sex with and blocked it out. I'm hardly in a position to judge you." You reply.
"Oh you didn't kill all of them."
"What?!"
"You didn't kill all of them. You missed one, but I sort of get the weird impression that you wouldn't have anyway. It's odd. You had some real harmony with that one and it was just a one-night stand. I dare say you didn't even get to that level with that Vera girl and you knew her quite well."

You think for a moment of who Tanya could even be talking about. At first you think it might be Naji, but you only had sex with her before Tanya left. Then you remember.

"Wait. That masked blonde at the baroness' party? Fuck! If I wanted to kill any of them, it would have been her! That bitch fucking picked my pockets while I was asleep and ran off!" you exclaim.
"Heh, smart girl. In any case, I never saw in your mind that you killed her, so who knows, maybe if you ever meet her again you should hang on to her, she might just be the one that allows you to get over me."
"I don't think there's going to ever be a girl that does that."

Tanya strokes your face with her hand and gives a faint smile.

"No. Probably not." She says and then kisses you one last time.

"Please do not summon me ever again. Goodbye my love."

She steps away from you and before your eyes you see her disappear in a small red flash.

And she's gone again. This time forever.

You sit on the ground and stare at the ocean for awhile. You weep a bit at your loss and a sense of depression hangs over you. You even briefly consider heading over the cliff, but you dismiss that idea pretty quickly. Suicidal thoughts have never been something you've dwelled on and you can only imagine how disgusted Tanya would be with you if you did.

She'd want you to move on not give up and that's what you'll try to do.

You eventually get back up and decide you probably should be making your way back to Holgard, you can only imagine the shitstorm that's going on there right now. Though you guess that Gwen will take the initiative and blame everything on Heather (Which is sort of true anyway; you didn't expect that twist) and take over what's left of the school.

You sort of wonder if maybe you should follow up on Gwen's flirting now, but then would she even be interested any more given what she's learned about you? You suppose the best way to find out is to just go for it.

If she isn't then you'll move on to someone else. If she is, well you'll have to remember not to try to kill her and blackout about it.

With a new positive attitude in mind, you set off towards Holgard.

"Goodbye Tanya." You say.