Disclaimer: All creative rights to the Kill Bill characters belong to Quentin Taratino; I am not getting any profit from this story.

The event that created Beatrix Kiddo happened like this:

She was coming home from kindergarten, her new pink backpack bouncing on her back. Her lunchbox swung in her hand, the remnants of her meal shifting inside with each wide swing up and down. When she got home she planned on eating a snack and watching the TV, and she thought for a moment what show she wanted to watch most.

Beatrix walked through the front door of her house just in time to watch her mother’s decapitated head fall to the floor. There was suddenly blood everywhere; she had enough scrapes to recognize the red liquid spraying out of her mother’s body, but she couldn’t comprehend it. She stared at the unrecognizable, grayish face and blood-stained torso crumpled on the ground. Where was her mother in this mess?

The blond woman took her sword and wiped it with a cocktail napkin she grabbed off of the coffee table nearby. She seemed aware that Beatrix was standing there, mute and motionless, but she didn’t acknowledge her.

Inch by inch the gleaming steel became pure again.

Finally she sheathed the sword and seemed to see Beatrix; her flinty eyes scanned her critically. But something in her stiff face relented, and she turned away with an ironic, bitter smile.

“I can’t pretend to be sorry for your loss. But when you grow up and it still hurts--

"I’ll be waiting.”

And with those words the woman stalked past her and into the bright afternoon.