Tamara does indeed lacks any real experience in fighting, be it with her bare paws or with any weapons. When she was a little cub, wandering alone on the streets, she used to flee at the first danger, and after Arkain picked her up from teh pet store, she never had to fight.<br/><br/>She tought Ji would try to flee in fear when she jumped on the table, and then she could jump on her back and get rid with the zebra. The attack was completely unexpected, and the young tigress let out a high-pitched yelp of pain when the knife cuts deep into her soft tummy, making her feel like she's about to be gutted, and another one as Ji slashes her legs, cutting through the skin and the layers of fat and muscles.<br/><br/>The burst of such an unexpected and unbearable pain makes her whole body shudders, her eyes immediately filling with tears. She feels the blood flowing out of her wounds, spraying the zebra and matting down her fur, and her muscles becomes instantaneously weak, more because of the psychological trauma than the physical one. For the first time, she realizes that she can die. She always loved to think of a her as a strong and skilled predator, able to fight and fend for herself and thoses she considers as her family; hence why she decided to take Ji alone, instead of calling the police. But Ji's easy strikes just showed her that she's nothing but a foolish teenage feline, who can be disposed of as easily than when she was just a cub trying to survive alone on the streets.<br/><br/>All theses thoughts crosses her mind in a split second, her brain working at light speed, makign her feel like the time has been temporarily slowed down to an agonizingly slow speed. She feels her legs wobbles, and she knows her muscles are becomign weaker by the minute, and she'll soon fall on her knees, thus becoming an easy target for Ji's deadly kives. The zebra will just have to hit Tam straight on her heart, or maybe she'll slit her throat, severing her head to take it with her like she threatened to do, letting Tam die a most gruesome death. The young feline feels doomed, she feels like she's already dead. But she can't let the others die because of her own failure. She doesn't know if there is an afterlife, but she'd hate to be sent there, and see Arkain, Anna and Charles join her only minutes after, after Ji killed them all in a blazing fireball. They don't deserve it<br/><br/>Arkain gave her a life she'd never had if she remained on the streets, or even at the pet store; Anna acted like a mother when she needed one, helping her grow as a woman, teaching her female things that Arkain never heard about; and Charles was more like a big brother for her than a butler and employee of Arkain. And there is the rest of the crew, all nice and gentle with her, that she came to consider as family, and who'd be devastated next morning to see the house burned and learn that the four of them died.<br/><br/>So, as her knees began to shake and her legs to give up, without a care of her own life, who is coming to it's end anyway, she let herself fall on Ji, unable to jump anymore. She extends her arms, paws aiming a the zebra's throat, claws unsheated, a weak growl vibrating her throat as she falls. Ji strikes while Tam is still in midfall, plunging the knife deep into the tigress chest, missing her heart by mere centimeters. Tamara doesn't even feel it, even when the kife hilts into her chest, digging into her flesh and her lungs, focused on closing her paws around Ji's throat. The zebra realizes the danger way too late, and she's unable to prevent Tam's paws to get a good grip on her neck.<br/><br/>As the both of them hits the floor, Tamara's claws sinks into Ji's neck, cutting through it as easily than Ji's kives cut through her own flesh. With a swift move, the tigress turns the zebra's neck into a gaping and bleeding wound, severing the windpipe and the arteries with one strike. A sick gurgle can be heard as the zebra's blood flows out of the severed arteries, filling the open windpipe, while Ji reflexively put her paws to the wound, uselessely trying to prevent her blood from flowing out of her body in great spurts, her face distorted by pain and horror as she realizes what just happened.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">- Gotcha...</span>whispers Tamara to the zebra, grinning.<br/><br/>Then she tries to get up, and that's when she feels a wave of immense pain hist her, radiating through her body from a point located on her chest. She grits her teeth hard, unable to breathe, then she has a spasm and she coughs out a large glob of blood. Looking down at herself, she sees the knife sticking out of her chest, the fur around it already reddened by the blood leaking from the wound. Her arms give up, and she falls back on the dying corpse of Ji, couching even more blood, her vision darkening. Her last thought is for Arkain, Anna and Charles, and the fact her sacrifice saved them. They'll mourn her a lot, fo course, but, at elast, Arkain and Anna will be together, and that makes Tamara happy. Said happyness is the last thing she feels before everything goes dark and her mind shut down, sending her into unconsciousness.