Stepping out of the light-filled portal, the two women placed their feet on the grass-covered ground and looked at their surroundings. No longer were they within the expensive and highly decorated mansion on Greenwich village, though the scent of incense still lingered from the portal (Dr. Strange claimed that inhaling it would prevent them from going mad from the wonders and horrors that the other end of the portal would give them, though both women had their suspicions). Instead, they had stepped foot on a beautiful rural landscape completely untouched by modern civilization. There were colorful flower fields all around them, with castles peppering the distance that looked like they were taken straight out of a Beowulf adaptation.

"So…this is Valhalla?" Jill Valentine asked rhetorically as she reached into the side pocket of her blue battle fatigues and pulled out a miniature video recorder: a piece of equipment that was given to her by SHIELD agents when she first accepted the mission proposed to her. Turning the video recorder on and placing the pen-shaped device in her breast pocket, the brunette warrior placed her hands on her hips and continued to scan her surroundings. "It seems like a nice enough place, but it's not exactly my idea of Heaven. Where are the pearly gates and the angels?"

"From what Wolverine tells me, the angels in this universe are all major assholes," Jill's blonde companion Trish replied as she reached back and pulled out the scimitar-like lava-red sword Sparda, given to her by her usual partner-in-crime Dante. "We should probably count our blessings that there are no angels here." Whereas Jill's battle fatigues indicated that she was about to undertake a deadly mission such as the one assigned to them, Trish was clothed in black leather pants and corset, with her long blonde hair flowing in the wind. To the untrained eye, she looked like she was preparing to go clubbing as opposed to go slashing.

A closer look, however, would show that both of these women were carrying firearms at their hips, and that neither of them were to be trifled with. Both Jill and Trish had seen their fair share of battle, witnessing horrors that would make grown men piss themselves in fear. Jill Valentine was a rare survivor of the Raccoon City zombie infestation that resulted in the city's atomic destruction, while Trish was a defector of a demon warlord who turned to the side of heroes. Due to these experiences, they, along with a slew of other qualified individuals, were selected by Nick Fury to travel to different dimensions and seal off portals that would allow Amatsu-Mikaboshi, the embodiment of universal darkness, from re-entering reality after being unintentionally sealed by Fury's universe and Jill and Trish's universe fusing together.

"Hey, Jill, don't take this the wrong way," Trish added as Jill reached into another one of her many pouches to pull out a glowing green rune: the object that would lead them to what they were looking for. "Did SHIELD tell you why they paired you up with me? Usually when I take up assignments like this, I like to have Dante or Lady watching my back…"

"They told me that I was to keep an eye on you in case you decided to betray us," Jill replied bluntly as the rune fired off a thin beam of light to the north, to which the two women stared walking forward with Trish's sword held at the ready in case an enemy tried to attack. "You have a history with demons and they said that having a full-blooded human watching you would make sure that you didn't pull a fast one."

"Awww…that makes me sad," Trish answered with a smirk as she turned her head to the edge of a forest, thinking about how it would be a great place for an enemy to spring an ambush. "Who would think that little old me would do something like that when the human world is such a great place to live? Tell me, Jill…do you think I'd try to pull a fast one?"

"Of course not," Jill replied with a smile of her own as Trish slowly put her sword back in its sheath across her back, once it was certain that there were no enemies nearby. "I've heard stories about how the Devil May Cry agency has rescued people from demons and monsters time and time again: as far as I'm concerned, you and I are kindred spirits. We fight the horrors that the world has to offer when everyone else pretends that they don't exist…"

"You know, if shooting zombies isn't your fancy, I could put in a good word with Dante and see if you want to work for us," Trish offered thoughtfully, though Jill remained focused on the task at hand. "Still, if this Amatsu-Mikaboshi is as bad as everyone says he is, it looks like you'll get a first-hand look at the differences between fighting off a swarm of infectious living dead and fighting off a swarm of blood-thirsty…demons…DAMN!"

Upon letting out that loud curse, Trish once again pulled out her sword and pointed it back towards the nearby trees. "Trish?" Jill said out loud as she took note of Trish's tensed body position and stern face. Slowly pulling out her combat knife and holding it up in a ready position with the rune in her other hands, Jill leaned in next to Trish's ear and whispered. "Do you sense something?"

"I didn't sense it before, but I definitely saw some movement just now," Trish whispered back as Jill stepped forward so that the two women were now side-by-side. "He must have been masking his ki so that I couldn't pick him up, which means that we're dealing with a pro…" With the subtle sound of crackling leaves entering both their ears, the two femme fatales prepared themselves for the worst. "Come on out: your cover's blown!"

Both women had battled their fair share of terrifying opponents, ranging from zombies to mutants to demons to gods. Now that they were in a strange new universe, there was a morbid curiosity amongst the two women about what kind of monsters it had to offer. They had already seen a green giant that could easily turn some of their zombies and demons into a bloody paste, and an armored juggernaut that seemed completely impervious to any kind of injury and wound. What sort of monster lurked within the forests of Valhalla, where only the mightiest and noblest of heroes gathered when their time had come?

"(Western maidens, be not AFRAID,)" a young man's voice responded in a language that both Jill and Trish immediately understood as Japanese, though they couldn't think of any dialect that would allow the voice to shout that particular word. "(Long have I WAITED for reinforcements to arrive and help me undertake my great QUEST to smite the evil of this land!)"

Stepping out of the dark cover of the trees and into the light, Jill covered her eyes slightly as the stranger's shimmering white armor almost blinded her once the sun reflected off of it. The stranger was most definitely Japanese, as made evident by both his youthful visage and the style of his body-hugging armor, with the shoulderpads of his armor and the tips of his helmet colored bright red to contrast his white armor. With a katana at his hip and a red buckler shield around his left armor, the two women quickly came to the conclusion that he was a samurai, and likely one of the residents of Valhalla.

"Ummm…(sorry for the confusion)," Jill said as her eyes adapted to the gleam of the stranger's armor, being thankful for being drilled in Japanese during basic training years ago. "(We are travelers from Ea-I mean, Midgard, looking for any kind of suspicious supernatural activity. Is there any chance you can help us find what we're looking for?)"

"(You SPEAK of the darkness that threatens to cover our LAND)," the samurai replied, once again using his very odd method of shouting random words while speaking normally for the rest. "(There is a castle located 120 jo from HERE, radiating an evil aura that can come FROM demons. I have tried to alert OTHERS of the evil, but they all turn a BLIND eye to it, like it doesn't EVEN exist! If you are SEARCHING for it, then that means that my FEARS are not unfounded!)"

"Is there any reason that he SCREAMS every odd word?" Trish added in English, already quite annoyed by the stranger's manner of speech.

"Just a sec," Jill said before turning back to the samurai and speaking in his language. "(Sir, could you please remove your helmet?)"

"(Of course, Western maiden)," the young man said as he removed his helmet to reveal long black hair with two particularly accented banging hanging down in front of his ears. "(The bonds of TRUST are formed when one removes their helmet so that THEY can show their allies that they trust that they will NOT attack them while vulnerable, after all…)"

"As I thought," Jill nodded her head as she pointed out a purple bruise on the side of the young man's forehead. "It looks like he took some head trauma, and it affected either his frontal or his temporal lobe." Looking back to the young man, Jill once again returned to speaking Japanese. "(Sir, did this wound come from facing the great evil that is affecting this land?)"

"(This wound came FROM my final days in life, when my fiendish brother-in-law Oda Nobunaga shot ME down. As I died in my wife OICHI's arms, I woke up still bearing the honorable SCARS of battle)," the young man explained as best he could, though this time Jill was careful to put a few steps between them as she didn't want to go deaf from his erratic screaming. Turning his head and pointing northward, the young man's eyes narrowed as he put his helmet back on his head. "(My WIFE has been missing for several days! I am certain that she is within the castle of EVIL that only we can see! Onward, my maiden comrades, and my WE find GLORY in victory and justice!)"

Pulling out his katana and letting out a wild yell, the young man charged northward, leaving Jill and Trish slightly perplexed at his odd behavior. When they realized that he wasn't going to wait up for them, the two women ran after him. "So, Jill," Trish spoke to her companion as they tried to keep pace with the young samurai who wasn't all right in the head. "What did that guy say to you?"

"He said that he got that bump in the head from gunshot wounds, probably ricocheting off his helmet," Jill explained as they followed the young man. "Judging from what he told me, I'll say that this guy is Nagamasa Azai, a 16th century Japanese samurai." A rare smile crept up on Jill's lips as the two women finally caught up with Azai so that they were running with him as opposed to after him. "Heh…what better way to make history than to fight alongside history?"

"So…this is it?" Trish said to no one in particular between tried breaths as the three warriors looked up at the castle that stood in front of them. The castle's physical structure did not contrast the other buildings that peppered their surroundings, having the same basic Viking motif as the others, but the castle's spiritual structure was another matter entirely. It literally radiated dark, evil ki and it seemed impossible for any of the other Valhallans to just ignore it. "How the hell…can people just ignore…this thing?"

"I want…to know why…we had to run here," Jill added with equally tired breaths as she turned to the young man that she identified as Nagamasa Azai. "(Hey…handsome…I hope you know that as women, we have a little extra weight to carry when running!)"

"(I APOLOGIZE, fair maiden)," Nagamasa bowed his head in forgiveness before turning back to the castle that was literally radiating evil. "(This castle has been LIKE this for five days now, and Oichi has been MISSING for four. I am certain that she is in here, and I could not WASTE any time now that I had found others who acknowledged ITS presence.)"

"…there's a weird spell surrounding this castle," Trish said as she ran her glowing yellow hand across the wall of the castle. "It looks like it's the kind of spell affects the perceptions of those in the area…but it only affects individuals in the vicinity. The only reason we can see it and others can't is because we weren't here when it was first cast, so it's lost some of its potency."

"So how come our friend here can sense it?" Jill asked as Nagamasa looked at the two women, no doubt wondering what they were saying.

"Being it's a spell that affects the senses, I'd say that his brain damage makes him immune to the spell," Trish surmised as she turned back to the samurai. "Hey, Jill…ask him why he hasn't tried breaking in himself. For all we know, this guy could be leading us into a trap."

After Jill relayed Trish's concerns to the noble samurai, Nagamasa stepped forward and literally walked through the castle door. Before either Jill or Trish could say something to one another about the phenomenon, Nagamasa just as quickly walked back through the door and in front of the women. "(All I see when I walk THROUGH is the rest of this land,)" Nagamasa explained to Jill as Trish placed her own hand on the door only to have it feel solid. "(It is as IF this castle is an illusion and I am the ONLY one who really sees it)."

"He says that he can walk through the castle, but he can't see what's inside of it," Jill relayed the message to Trish while the blonde woman rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "What do you make of it?"

"It looks less like just an illusionary spell and more like a type of reality warping method," Trish said with a frown as she took a few steps back and charged her crackling yellow energy into her fists. "Those kind of spells are reserved only for high-level entities, so when we break in there like we're about to, we have to be prepared for all Hell to break loose."

Pulling out her handgun and turning off the safety, Jill pointed her gun towards the door and narrowed her eyes. "(…Nagamasa)," the woman said sternly to the samurai next to her. "(Trish tells me that when we break in there, we're going to be facing some major problems. If you want to leave this to us, we won't hold it against you: we'll find your wife and-)"

"(Do not INSULT me, brave maiden)," Nagamasa retorted as he unsheathed his katana and entered a ready stance. "(I would journey to the depths of hell to find Oichi and smite the evil that threatens this land. As a defender of justice, I will protect my friends even if my soul is ripped to SHREDS and my body is fed to DOGS.)" Turning to the crackling Trish, Nagamasa let out another battle cry. "(For HONOR and JUSTICE!)"

Though she didn't really understand what the samurai was staying due to how her Japanese wasn't as fluent as Jill's, it was enough of an indicator of Nagamasa's readiness for Trish to let out her own shout and forcefully strike the door with a ki-infused palm thrust. With her demonic powers negating the powerful spell placed on the castle, Trish smiled as the doors flung open. Pulling out her two handguns that had been sitting at her hips, Trish entered the room with Jill and Nagamasa cautiously trailing her.

What they saw within was enough for even the brave and stoic Nagamasa to gasp in horror.

Within the walls of the castle were not mortar and stone, but red, pulsating flesh that made the entire building seem more like a creature than an inanimate shelter. There were arteries peppered across the floor and walls, some of them containing a white substance that greatly resembled cholesterol, and every step the trio took made a sickening squishing sound. "…this…this isn't so bad," Trish said with a nervous smile as Jill and Nagamasa carefully stepped forward, expecting some kind of monstrosity to attack them. "It kind of reminds me of my old home…"

"Remind me to never ask you about what your life was like growing up," Jill deadpanned as she scanned the area to see if there were any doors they could use. Unfortunately, while looking for doors might have been smart in any other building, any kind of opening in the "innards" of the castle could lead to being digested and ultimately broken down. "Whoever warped this place did a good job of making a security system: what better way to protect the castle for foreign germs than by turning it into a giant organism with its own immune system?"

The trio carefully stepped forward, being very careful to not make any sudden movements or else turn the organism that acted as their surroundings against them. "(I have never in my life or afterlife seen such a curious BUILDING)," Nagamasa observed out loud, with his trauma-induced speech disorder almost causing the two women to jump out of their skin. "(I can ONLY hope that we find the source of this ANOMALY soon and smite the EVIL of this place.)"

"(If we work together, then we stand a better chance of getting out of this place alive)," Jill whispered back. "(For now, please be quiet and stay calm.)" Turning her eyes frontward, Jill reached into yet another one of the several pouches on her person and pulled out a pair of night-vision goggles. Wrapping them around her face, Jill raised an eyebrow before leaning next to Trish's ear. "There's a person at the edge of this room. It might be that woman that our friend keeps referring-"

"(Nagamasa…sama…)"

"(Oichi)," Nagamasa whispered as he heard the sound of a young woman weakly calling out his name. Snatching the goggles away from Jill and putting them to his eyes, Nagamasa's eyes widened as he too saw the outline of a person several meters in front of them in the poor-lit room. "(OICHI!)" Tossing the goggles aside, Nagamasa abandoned all semblance of stealth and charged forward, desperate to rescue his wife and completely oblivious to how the entire castle seemed to groan and vibrate with every hard step he took.

"That idiot is going to kill us all," Trish growled as she and her brunette companion ran after him, dreading the anticipation of how the castle was going to react to their brazenness.

Finally approaching the figure they saw in the night-vision goggles, the trio looked up to see a Japanese woman with long black hair and pink-and-black armor (who didn't seem to be wearing any pants, the two Western women noticed), suspended a few feet into the air with the fleshy tendrils of the castle keeping her in the air, embedding themselves into her legs and arms. "This is…disgusting," Jill said with her voice low with anger as she took a look at the sad, pained expression in the woman's beautiful face. "What kind of monster would do something like that to this woman?"

"The kind that's willing to bath the universe in eternal darkness," Trish replied as she lifted up the rune given to them by Dr. Strange, noticing how its thin beam of light was pointing straight at Oichi's head. "It looks like our damsel in distress is the portal that we were told to look for: I'm sensing a dark, black power emanating from her soul, which is probably what's turned this castle into an organism. My guess is that this castle is amplifying that darkness and priming her to become Amatsu-Mikaboshi's vessel into this universe, so if we can break the-"

"(Oichi)," Nagamasa walked forward with his katana in hand and reached out to put his hand on Oichi's tear-stained cheek. "(Tell me that YOU'RE alright, Oichi! I'm sorry that I broke my PROMISE to you about protecting you forever, but I'm here NOW!)

"…(Nagamasa-sama)," the woman Oichi murmured as more tears started to well up in her dark eyes. "(Oichi…has disappointed you. Nagamasa-sama told Oichi that she should stand up for herself and fight those who make the innocent cry, but,)" the woman sniffed as the tears streamed down her cheeks with her voice cracking with sorrow and fear. "(…Oichi is frightened. Oichi is scared that the darkness within is going to hurt the innocent…Nagamasa-sama.)"

"Brrr," Jill shivered as she watched the very painful reunion of husband and wife, feeling a chill go down her spine. "Hey, Trish…do you get the feeling that there's some kind of evil presence in this place? I can't help but feel like something horrible is about to happen…"

"…yeah, I sense it, too," Trish nodded her head and she too shivered a bit, prompting the two women to ready their guns in preparation for the worst. "You should tell our friend to step away: if that lady is the prize, then chances are she's booby-trapped. The only way we're going to get out of this alive is if we put our heads together."

"(Sir, please step back. If our enemy could turn this castle into this monstrosity, then it's safe to assume that he's also set up traps to prevent us from freeing your wife from it.)"

"…(Oichi)," Nagamasa pressed her forehead against the crying Oichi, doing his best to comfort his companion. "(My comrades and I will do OUR best to cut you free from this demon castle and…and…)" Suddenly, the same chill that went down the spines of Trish and Jill affected Nagamasa, causing him to slowly lift his head past Oichi and to the darkness that was directly behind her. Although the room was poorly lit, there was no reason for there to be such a dark void behind Oichi, since she wasn't very far from the wall.

Not unless the darkness wasn't truly from a lack of light…but a lack of soul.

Suddenly, a pair of long black arms with fingers as long and as sharp as swords pushed Nagamasa away from his wife and towards his two female comrades, wrapping themselves around the frightened Demon Queen of the Sixth Heaven before the source of the arms opened his glowing red eyes and stepped into the light, revealing to the trio the enemy that felt approaching them. The humanoid creature was close to ten feet tall and completely ebony in color, with long quill-like spikes acting as its hair and long toenails like talons, along with a long tail that was spiked at the end. With his red eyes glowing fiercely, the creature "spoke" to his visitors, transmitting his voice into their minds so that there was no mistaking his intentions.

"I went through much trouble to prevent prying eyes from disturbing my business with the sow," the creature rumbled as he squeezed Oichi tightly, causing her to let out an anguished shout. "She has been chosen to be the vessel for the Chaos King Amatsu-Mikaboshi's return: inference will not be tolerated, lest of all from mortals!"

"…Blackheart," Trish identified the creature.

"You know this guy?" Jill asked.

"I was debriefed about him by Strange," Trish explained as the trio carefully readied themselves to attack. "He was the ruler of one of the circles of hell, until Amatsu-Mikaboshi conquered it and enveloped everything in darkness. Blackheart was supposed to have been killed…but anything that Amatsu destroys, he resurrects as his slave. I guess this explains that 'high-level entity' theory I had about the reality-warping spell…"

"(Vile DEMON)," Nagamasa screamed as he pointed his blade at Blackheart's heart as he leaned in closer into the dim light of the castle organism, revealing the kanji "ankoku"- darkness – etched into his large forehead in the same dark purple fire that enveloped the exterior of the castle. "(Release my wife AT once, or I shall cut you to RIBBONS and send you back to the DEPTHS of whence you came!)"

"You failed to protect her, and now you both shall suffer," Blackheart retorted as he continued to squeeze Oichi with his sharp hands and supernatural strength, almost as if he was squeezing the tears out of her. "It was your weak tenderness that allowed me to approach her, masquerading as an injured cat that caught her attention. As soon as she picked me up, I subdued her and brought her here, using my powers of reality manipulation to prevent any unwanted visitors."

The demon turned his head to make eye contact with the anguished Oichi, chuckling in what could only be described as a sound like the hounds of hell barking while the woman turned away from the fiery pits of his gaze. "This sow's power of darkness increases as her soul is filled with more and more anguish. By merging her body with this castle, I have slowly been pumping more and more despair into her. Very soon now, her darkness will reach its zenith and she shall act as the engine that fuels the Chaos King's re-entry into this universe…like the reactor of what you humans call a 'power plant.'"

"I've heard just about enough," Jill growled as she pointed her gun directly at Blackheart's head and pulled the trigger. The sound of gunfire echoed throughout the room and the organism squealed accordingly as the former STARS agent unloaded an entire clip of high-powered ammunition into the demon's head, creating a small fiery explosion each time.

"(STOP it)," Nagamasa shouted as he pulled Jill backward, pointing at the screaming Oichi. "(What would YOU have done if you had hurt OICHI?)" As the smoke cleared, Nagamasa breathed a sigh of release as he saw that Oichi was unharmed…but at the same time, Blackheart showed no signs of damage, and he was still clutching the woman while at the same time using his dark power to force the tendrils embedded into Oichi's body to dig deeper, once again causing her to shriek in agony. "(STOP IT, DEMON!)

"Force me to stop, mortals." Blackheart said as he removed one of his hands from the woman and fired off a stream of black lightning at the trio, forcing them to scatter as the demon let go of Oichi and stepped in between her and her would-be saviors. "The Chaos King shall not be denied, and any attempt to rescue the sow will end in failure…but if you think you can stop me, then allow me to show you the futility of your efforts!"

With a snap of his dark fingers, Blackheart folded his arms as the arteries of the castle spit forth what appeared to be grotesque parodies of human beings, with a thin layer of pink flesh covering exposed yellow skeletons that revealed poorly-designed organs beating within their ribcage. "So…would these count as zombies or demons?" Trish said as she pointed her handguns towards the sextet of creatures that had emerged from the castle walls and were now lurching towards them.

"We'll just say they're both," Jill replied as she reloaded her gun before pulling out her combat knife. "Let's get to work, everyone!"

"(DIE, REVENANTS!)", Nagamasa screamed as he unhooked his buckler and tossed it into the horde, hoping to decapitate all of the zombie-demons in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, the buckler became lodged in the head of only the first victim, while the others were completely unharmed. However, neither this setback nor his brain damage inhibited Nagamasa's bravery as he dashed forward to swiftly slice through the neck of the demon and watch its head roll onto the floor. Even as the opened neck sprayed dark red blood like a morbid fountain, Nagamasa's eyes remained focused as he pulled his buckler out of the severed head and tossed it to Jill. "(Catch, Westerner!)"

Catching the buckler shield just as the zombie-demon closest to her reared its head back, Jill held it up and narrowly protected herself from a glowing green goo that the zombie-demon spewed forth. Hearing the hissing sound of the goo, Jill immediately assumed that it was something acidic and wasted no time firing off a shell into the zombie-demon's head. The zombie-demon paused for a moment, as if not sure how to react to literally having the back of its head exploding outward, before continuing to lurch towards Jill with its bloody teeth gnashing. Taking a cue from her Japanese comrade, Jill lifted her knife plunged it deep into the monster's chest, rupturing its exposed heart and causing it to go limp, though now Jill's lovely face was stained in blood as it had been many times in the past.

"Looks like we might as well save our ammo," Trish said as she emptied two clips from her two guns into two of the zombie-demons closing in on her, only to see that they weren't doing much damage. "We'll have to get up-close and personal to beat these guys." Putting her guns back in their holsters, Trish pulled out her sword and charged forward, skewering the two zombie-demons at their stomachs and lifting them into the air. Charging her yellow ki, Trish then sent a powerful electric current through her blade and the two zombie-demons still trying to attack her even as they were suspended into the air.

The smell of burning flesh filled the noses of the trio as Trish poured all of her ki into her blade, watching as the zombie-demons blackened like steaks but still refused to die. "Ugh…give me a break," Trish grumbled as she pulled out one of her firearms and stuck it directly into muzzle of the demon-zombie closest to her. Pulling the trigger, Trish watched the bullet travel through both demon-zombies, forcing them to cease their struggle enough for them to be completely incinerated by her power.

Taking deep breaths as she shook what little remained of the demon-zombies off her blade, Trish's eyes widened as she realized that there was someone else heavily breathing next to her: another zombie-demon. Just as it seemed that the monster would attack Trish before she could fully catch her breath, Nagamasa's blade suddenly erupted forth from the creature's forehead, stopping it dead in its tracks as the samurai dashed forward with his buckler at his wrist and pointing at the monster. In its death throes, the stunned monster turned around to face his killer…but received Nagamasa's buckler colliding with its face and completely obliterating its skull. "(What frightening MONSTROSITIES)," Nagamasa said as he pulled his katana from the ground and looked at the blood that stained it. "(but I promised myself that I would go to the depths of hell to protect the innocent…now I am MERELY living up to that PROMISE!)"

"And then there was one," Jill said as she turned her attention to the final obstacle keeping them from facing Blackheart. With her body giving off a floresecent aura, Jill lunged forward and plunged her combat knife deep into the heart of the zombie-demon. It was rare that she had use for her ki in battles such as that, but being these zombies were much sturdier than the ones she faced in Raccoon City, some extra thrusting power was necessary. With her body still radiating power, Jill forced her knife upwards and bisected the zombie-demon's skull, going through it's brain and forcing it to go limp and fall down in front of her while she exhaled deeply…

…before Blackheart suddenly materialized in front of her and wrapped his huge hand around her neck. Forcefully injecting his evil ki into her body, Blackheart once again let loose a horrible laugh as Jill screamed while she had the power of the abyss literally pumped into her like a steroid. "You mortals are such fools! If one of you had attacked me while the other two died at the hands of my creations, you might have caught me by surprise. Instead, you acted nobly…predictably…HURK!"

Blackheart's taunting, and the arm that was holding Jill, was forcefully cut off by Trish's sword Sparda flying through him and back to Trish like a boomerang. Ever the noble hero, Nagamasa dashed over to the fallen Jill and knelt down next to her. "(Noble warrior, are you ALRIGHT?)" Nagamasa said as he looked at how Jill's lips had turned blue, and her eyes now had a milky white hue while she shivered uncontrollably. Seeing that she was unresponsive to his cries, Nagamasa's eyes narrowed in rage as he pointed his own blade at the demon. "(Villainous HELLSPAWN! I, Nagamasa Azai, SHALL be your opponent now!)"

"You are no opponent of mine," Blackheart growled as effortlessly teleported away from Nagamasa's slash, appearing behind him with his arms folded. "To be an opponent means you provide some kind of threat. No…what you are is an annoyance!" With his red eyes suddenly glowing yellow, Blackheart looked down at Nagamasa's feet. Feeling the ground below him grow hot, the samurai's eyes widened in shock, but it was too late. Using his powers of reality manipulation, Blackheart trapped Nagamasa within a pillar of yellow electricity that enveloped him unimaginable agony…agony that was potent enough for him to scream.

With his eyes turning blue, Blackheart turned the pillar of electricity into a pillar of ice, silencing Nagamasa by turning his unimaginable agony into crippling numbness that prevented him from doing much of anything, except feel his limbs lose feeling. "(N…n…no,)" Nagamasa managed to say as he looked across the room to see Oichi still groaning in pain as the tendrils continued to dig deeper into her body. "(Oichi…O…ich…i…)"

"It is too late to beg for mercy," Blackheart retorted as his eyes once again turned red as he prepared to finish off the upstart Valhallan. "Now you shall burn in the pits of Hell, forever to be separated from your beloved while the anguish of how you couldn't save her fuels your eternal punishment…suffer forever, Azai Bizan no Kami…Nagama-hm?"

Feeling hail of holy bullets bounce off his back, Blackheart turned his focus away from Nagamasa and granted him respite from his Inferno, causing the samurai to fall to the flow and shiver uncontrollably while rubbing his arms in an attempt to put some warmth back into him. Turning his attention to the armed Trish, Blackheart looked at the stump of his severed hand and sprouted a new one before looking back to the blonde beauty. "And then there was one," Blackheart mimicked Jill's line as Trish put her guns back in their holsters and readied Sparda once again. "You are like me: a demon. Why do you side with the humans?"

"I learned a long time ago that the life of a human is much preferable to the life of a demon," Trish replied as she held her blade in front of her and prepared for the worst. "Being human means being free to make your own choices, and I'd gladly put my life on the line to defend that freedom from monsters who'd try and take it away from us…monsters like you, Blackheart!"

"Strong words…but easily broken once I destroy your shell and take your soul back to the depths from wence it came," Blackheart said as he gathered his dark ki into a swirling vortex that formed in front of his chest. "Your soul shall belong to me…but your body shall be torn apart by my minions." Throwing his arms outward, Blackheart unleashed a flood of pink hog-like demons from the vortex and towards Trish. "It is time to meet your Judgment Day, wench!"

Putting her sword in front of her and using it as a shield, Trish let out a shout as the flood crashed against her. Turning to her left to see Jill still unconscious with the milky look in her eyes, and to her right to see Nagamasa shivering, Trish fell down onto one knee as the flood threatened to crush her against her own blade. "This is not good," Trish said out loud. "If I fail, then the entire universe goes with me…but how can I make victory possible when it looks so…impossible!"

It is said that it is darkest before the dawn, and with her two comrades in no condition to fight and the enemy wielding the powers of a deity, there was certainly no time darker than the situation that Trish, and indeed the rest of her universe, was faced with. It was at that time, however, when things seemed bleakest, that the dawn finally came in the form of a blinding flash of light that enveloped everything in the room, forcing even the mighty Blackheart to cease his attack and cover his eyes. "AAAAGH," he roared as Trish squinted her eyes, confused as to what was happening. "That light…impossible! She…she is supposed to be dead!"

As Trish silently wondered what was happening, she put her hand down on the floor, expecting to feel the soft flesh of the organism that the castle had become…but instead, she felt the more natural sensation of solid rock. With her eyes widened in surprised, Trish looked around and saw that the flesh of the castle walls were literally being burned away by the mysterious light that had enveloped it, revealing the stone walls and banners that had belonged to the castle before Blackheart's hostile takeover. While Trish was aptly familiar with the horrors that the Underworld had to offer…this was the first time that she was witnesses what humans called "a miracle."

In addition to melting away the layers of evil that had enveloped the castle, the light was also reviving the warriors of justice that had put their lives on the line to rescue the universe from them. Color returned to Jill's eyes and lips as she pushed herself off the ground and groaned, while Nagamasa finally stopped shivering and felt his strength return. Finally, the evil grip that Blackheart had on the castle faded enough for Oichi to finally be released from the organism's strangehold and allow her to fall on the floor, free from the evil but completely exhausted in doing so.

Once the former Demon Queen of the Sixth Heaven was freed and the evil organism had been completely vaporized, the light finally pulled itself inward and took solid form between Trish and Blackheart. Jill and Trish had made small talk about angels when they first arrived in Valhalla, but standing in front of Trish was the closest thing to it: a white wolf with red marking across its canine face and a brush of solar fire sprouting from its back. "(The heavens…the HEAVENS have answered our call to justice,)" Nagamasa said as he fell down onto one knee and bowed his head in respect. "(The goddess of the sun, Amaterasu…has come TO help us in our darkest hour!)"

"Impossible…the Chaos King destroyed his archrival the Light," Blackheart growled as energy crackled into his hand, preparing to vaporize the wolf where she stood. "I know not who this pretender is…but I shall explode her flesh and serve the Chaos King's ambitions by destroying all that reek of the Light!" However, even Blackheart's Dark Thunder could not penetrate the light that the wolf gave off, with the brush of fire moving in front of her and creating a shield that completely nullified the attack. "This is inconceivable…inconceivable!"

Lifting his foot so as to stomp the animal, Blackheart's eyes widened in shock as the wolf anticipated his attack and jumped up to with its fangs bared. "It's very conceivable, Blackheart," Trish said as she scooped Oichi into her arms and ran over to where Nagamasa and Jill were watching while Amaterasu literally bit through Blackheart's ankle, which exploded in a burst of darkness and eliciting an inhuman howl from the demon. "Amatsu-Mikaboshi might have beaten your Amaterasu…but we've got our own Amaterasu ready to play spoiler!"

With his footing disrupted, Blackeart fell to one knee as Amaterasu ran over to the trio of heroes, thoughtfully placing the severed foot in front of Jill while wagging her tail. "…I'll pass," Jill said before turning her attention to the demon that moments ago brought them to the brink of the abyss. Opening yet another one of her pouches to pull out something as small as a cake sprinkle, Jill tossed it into the air…only to have a full-sized missile launcher fall back down across her shoulder ready to be fired.

Quite confused as to how Jill was able to make a missile launcher appear out of nowhere, Trish raised an eyebrow and simply asked, "…how?"

"I picked up some Pym Particles before we left," Jill said with a smirk as she put her eye next to the targeting scope. "I thought they'd come in handy in case we dealt with some particularly nasty customers…just like we are now."

Lifting her canine head, Amaterasu let loose a shrill howl, causing Trish's fists, Jill's rocket launcher, and Nagamasa's sword to glow with holy energy. "(The goddess has given our weapons the BLESSING necessary to dissipate the VILLAINY that troubles this realm)," Nagamasa said as he ready his katana for one of his several killing techniques that had been perfected through eons of war. "(Fair maidens…let us EVISCERATE the darkness and bring JUSTICE to the wicked!)"

"What did he say?" Trish asked Jill as she focused the energy into her hands, creating a pentagram of ki in front of her in preparation for her own ultimate attack.

"He said, 'let's kick ass, girls,'" Jill replied with a smile as Blackheart looked up with his eyes widening with horror. Karma was about to give the demon a very harsh greeting, and it would be the side of good that would deliver the message. With Nagamasa's sword slashing the air rapidly to give off slicing shockwaves, Trish's pentagram exploding to fire off bullets of lightning, and Jill's launcher firing off powerful rockets, the trio of heroes diced, fried, and completely obliterated Blackheart's hellspawned form, with his death screams being drowned out by Amaterasu's howling that heralded his destruction.

With the smoke finally settled, Jill and Trish let out a sigh of relief while Nagamasa exhaled and knelt down next to the fallen Oichi. "…you know, I was expecting vaporized demon bits to smell rank as rubbish," Jill said with a thin smile as she tossed her launcher back into the air, activating the Pym Particles and shrinking it back down to pocket size, "…but all I smell are burned flowers."

"You'd be surprised how good some demons smell once you burn them," Trish replied with a smile of her own as she cracked her knuckles and watched Amaterasu kneel down next to Oichi and gently lick her forehead, awakening the young woman. Watching the canine goddess continue to lick Oichi until a smile finally formed across her face, the demon hunter ran her fingers through her long hair and turned back to Jill. "Well…looks like another mission complete. What are you going to do with your money?"

"Stick it in my account and look for the next assignment," Jill answered truthfully as she put her hands on her hips. "I didn't take this job for the money: I took it so I could blow away the bad guys and make sure that evil doesn't get a proper foothold in our world." Pulling out a hankerchief from another one of her pouches and wiping off the zombie-demon blood that still caked her face, Jill countered with her own question. "How about you?"

"Buy some nice clothes, maybe visit that little girl Dante hangs out with and spoil her rotten because he won't," Trish answered. "But like you, wallowing in riches just isn't my style: there's always more missions to undertake, and more evil butt to kick…"

"(You…you both HAVE my sincerest gratitude,)" Nagamasa said as he helped Oichi back to her feet and bowed his head. "(You two were the only ONES who listen to my cries for help, and you RISKED your lives for a stranger like myself and Oichi. If you EVER need help when visiting this land, be NOT afraid to ask for the AID of my wife and I, and we SHALL return the favor one-hundred fold!)"

"(T-thank you very much)," Oichi slowly bowed her head in thanks and gently smiled. "(Oichi will always be thankful for this)."

"(I was an honor fighting alongside you, sir)," Jill replied as she and Trish bowed their own heads before the latter pulled out another rune, this time a blue one, and opened another portal that would send the two women back to Earth. "(I'm usually used to fighting the living dead…but it was great to fight alongside them, for once.)"

Before either woman could step through the portal, Amaterasu gently tugged on Trish's pants, causing the blonde beauty to look down to see Amaterasu's pleading puppy eyes looking at. "…you want to come with us," Trish concluded before turning to Jill. "Is she allowed to come with us?"

"It'll probably be for the better," Jill said Trish leaned down and picked up the wolf, letting her lick her face. "If Amaterasu is really the anti-thesis to Amatsu-Mikaboshi, then it would be smart to take her back to Strange's mansion so that she can seal off the other portals."

And so, the two female soldiers of justice and fortune, Jill Valentine and Trish, returned to Earth with a goddess in tow. Though on the exterior they may be pleasing to the eye, within all of them lie a burning passion for virtue and light that no villain could possibly stand against. Regardless of what world they may come from, humanity can rest easy knowing that there are heroes that will protect them.