Anna tossed in her bed, unable to sleep. She was still high on hours old adrenaline and the incessant never-ending, burning, fury simmering behind her heart. Everything had been a haze of red and fire and death, and even after she had ostensibly calmed down, a ring of scarlet remained at the corners of her vision, looming like a silent specter waiting to overtake her again even as she tried to sleep.
    She had done more than just lost control. She turned into something monstrous and frightening; she saw it in Shirou's eyes when she pulled away from him, she saw it in Misaki when the girl tried to share the burden of her turmoil and was injured because of the uncontrollable rise in fury. But at the same time...
    It was exhilarating.
    For the first time in her life, Anna felt free; able to let out how she finally felt and let the world know... 'I am not happy'. 'I am more than upset with my lot in life'.
    She rolled over again, tossing Gretch's words over in her mind over and over.
    'Try and let go of that anger.'
    She let it go alright, just not in the way he had told her to. Her relief felt short-lived before the fury only came back stronger than ever before, and in the heat of the moment, when she had watched her cherished tribe get slaughtered before her very eyes, her boiling point had been reached. For too long she had been treated like the royal family's favored doll, and now, she could break loose.
    More thoughts tumbled around in her head in a jumble.

    'I get the feeling that this was an assassination attempt, your highness.' Misaki said.

    'This reeks of an ambush that was set up to wipe out this tribe. Whether it was to kill you or what, hard to say, but...' Valerian agreed.

    Someone was out to get her. Someone wanted her dead. Anna could not think of anyone she knew in particular who would, unless it was someone else in line for the throne. But it didn't matter.
    A rustle of motion stirred in the darkness. The door to her room opened quietly. A handmaid slipped in as quiet as a mouse. Her eyes were dead and dry blood caked the corners of her lips.
    When the demon hiding inside the maid's bones and flesh emerged to kill her, Anna was already ready for it.
    It wasn't ready for her to snap its neck and savage it to death with her bare hands, returning back to the hellish plane it belonged to, a failed assassin.

    'Right now you should consider that anywhere you go has a chance of demons appearing. Until you know otherwise.' Valerian spoke again.

    'You should definitely kill them all, though. Kill your way up the chain until you get to the mastermind. That's the only way to guarantee it stops.'

    His words rang in her ears as the red receded from her vision once again, giving way to clearer thought. A little breathless, Anna grabbed a bag from her closet and began hastily packing. No place was safe, especially not in her own home kingdom. The demons would find her again and again. But...
    She would be ready for them.