Such unyielding faith it was that saw the young Russian's fingers plunging forth into the waiting darkness, probing where her eyes could not in an effort to discover her uncle's familiar frame. She would have waited, presumably quite vulnerable, in the darkness for none other than he and her father... the youthful Hunter's faith in either man having been cultivated and nurtured by blessedly patient hands for a century and more. And so does his hand find hers just as she knew that it would, the outline of his frame peeling somewhat from the otherwise utterly impenetrable shadow that surrounds him by virtue of the blades that he wields.

Her uncle's poorly-timed jest might have otherwise caused the exasperated rolling of sage eyes had it not been for the pressing nature of the current circumstances. Humor had always been both a virtue and a vice inherent within the Frenchman, this axiom apparent from the very moment that she had made his acquaintance all those decades ago. "It would be much worse if I were Catholic. Their predatory holymen are far more... plentiful." It is a statement delivered with the same acidic and plainly deadpan jest that was both stereotypical and symbolic of Russian humor. Surely Alexander would have heaved a momentous sigh at the pair of them and their proclivity for inappropriately-timed verbal tennis were he present. But there is hardly a spare moment in which to consider the hypothetical admonishments of her father for in the following second a brilliant bloom of crackling energy penetrated the darkness of her near-blindness, accompanied solely by the ethereal glistening of her uncle's blades. The clash of steel and sorcery is deafening, drowning almost entirely the crumbling of the cathedral's foundation that erupts thereafter.

Just as Anastasia is about to issue her understanding of Matteo's direction, a blinding rectangle of artificial light pours out unto the marbled tile of the church floor illuminating a wide swatch of the alter and the lone clergyman standing wide-eyed in the backlight doorway. His indignant cry garners not only the attention of the Russian duchess, but so too does the now-singular eye of their assailant land with such heft upon the elderly man. She moves with renewed athleticism by merit of the generous swath of light that has shunned the darkness inhibiting her ailing eyes, reaching the elder deacon and forcing him to his knees behind her own crouched figure only a sliver of a moment before the veritable meteor-blast of Rasputin's power obliterates a sizable portion of the stone archway at their backs.

Anastasia straightens herself even as the first pebbles skitter against the marble tile, a ribbon of silver skating against her dagger's edge despite the thick crimson sludge that swathes it as her arm swings skyward in a calculated arc. She can see her adversary now, illuminated in the ample lighting cast from the room at her back, a single blackened eye narrowing to a horrid slit as Rasputin's lips crack into a demonic grin. The dagger leaves her hands as skillfully as it always had... as it always would, though in that moment does her nemesis succumb to the darkness of his own making, coalescing into the ether just as the dagger passes through the space wherein he had been. The blade lands its mark against a far wall, a handful of grizzled, black hairs forced into the crumbling mortar proving her only prize.

"Der'mo!" (Shit!) The word parts from her lips as somewhat of an inhuman snarl, the tortured lament of a defeated predator, before a gasp of disbelief pierces the pregnant quietude. Anastasia turns upon her heels to assist the holyman who, laboriously, seeks to right himself within the mangled doorway of his quarters though he quickly rebuffs her helpful advances. Instead does he shuffle a few paces further into the ruin of his cathedral, piercing blue eyes slicing from Hunter to Fae, his arms outstretched, balled fists shaking furiously towards the pair as a voice far grander than expected erupts from him. "DER'MO!"

Anastasia Romanova

Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia