Kissy Suzuki plunged down the mountainside at frightening speed. The Japanese agent's oil black hair billowed out away from her bare shoulders as she ran. If she tripped at the speed she was going she'd probably injure herself badly, but nothing mattered except getting back to Tiger as soon as possible. Right now that British spy James Bond was making his way into the secret rocket base hidden in the dormant volcano, trying to stop the plot that threatened to push the Cold War into an atomic holocaust. Her job was to get back to the village where Tiger Tanaka, head of the secret service, and his army of ninjas were waiting and bring them back with her.
The slap of Kissy's boat shoes on the rocks was muffled by the humid twilight air. The girl threw her head back and gasped with exertion. She was clad in nothing but a pearl white bikini of a bluntly practical design save for a distinctive knot between her breasts, the alluring twist that drew attention to her cleavage the only stripe of vanity she allowed in her choice of swimwear. Despite her sparse clothing however, the girl was overheating with the effort of sprinting down a mountain it had taken the best part of the day to climb. Her bosom heaved with every shallow breath. Sweat beaded on her chest; on her bare midriff. She felt it drip down her back and pool at the hem of her briefs, and more ran in rivets from her brow, shining her cheeks and sticking lengths of hair to her face.
The agent slowed as the ground levelled out as she approached the shoreline. She assessed the situation coolly. She had no way to signal for help. All she had with her was the diving knife sheaved at her right ankle and James' watch on her wrist. He'd suspected the volcano base was shielded against radio waves and the tracker fitted into it would be of more use to her. However, it could be hours before Tiger scanned for them and came looking, not wanting to inadvertently blow their cover with rash action. She'd have to swim for it. Her firm swimmers legs were burning from the run, but the stamina she'd built as an ama diver would allow her to make far better time than she would circling the curve of the island on foot- speed was her ally, time her enemy.
Kissy made a beeline for the water, sore legs pumping, arms swinging with steady determination as she moved to dive right into the bay. Her muscles bunched in anticipation…
… but then she was skidding to a halt as a man in a black jump suit sprang from the cover of a large boulder. She didn't need to note that he lacked the craggy features of a local- clearly a city dweller- to realise he was a hired thug for whoever was running the terrorist operation here.
All around, other men were throwing off camouflage nets or scrambling from natural hiding holes. There were eleven in total, and they had her surrounded.
"Well well, what have we here?" the man in front of her smirked. "A little ama girl lost in the dark."
Kissy smarted at the mockery in his words and sinister smile but swallowed her pride.
"Please," she all but whimpered, maintaining the image of a simple diving girl amidst the desire to punch that condescending grin off his face "I was just looking for clams in the shallows. I was on my way back to the village."
"Oh you can't go yet, girl," the man hissed with supreme satisfaction. "We haven't yet shown you any hospitality."
As one, the men advanced on young woman. The one in front of her pulled a cattle prod from his belt.
Kissy heard the blood start to pound in her ears as her heart rate accelerated. She was already panting for breath after her dash from the mountaintop, but as she turned to look as the approaching thugs, all well rested and bulked with muscles as they converged on the exhausted, semi-naked girl less than half their build and a head and shoulders shorter than all of them, her throat began to close up with fear. She knew full well the ordeal she was about to be put through. She was in more danger, and more terrified than she'd ever been in her life, but of far more importance was the fact her mission was on the verge of failure. She fought down the rising panic. She was an agent of the Japanese secret service. She had a job to do, and she wouldn't give up until the last breath fled her body.
With a bark of laughter the man ahead of her stabbed the cattle prod towards Kissy's plump left breast. What should have been a revoltingly amusing display of agony for the cruel minded brute became a haze of confusion as the girl easily sidestepped the attack and used his own momentum to flip the man over her shoulder into one of his comrades.
The shock that followed the exchange gave Kissy the chance to drop another assailant with a palm heel thrust to his face. She may have been hopelessly outnumbered, but the girl was a nidan level expert in karate and judo and would not go down without a fight.
Someone rushed her from the flank, a billy club swinging down to crush her skull. Kissy dodged the careless blow, her lithe body weaving and spinning to safety with the grace of a dancer. She sent her would be killer stumbling away with a simple trip, before kicking the knees out from under another and pirouetting behind him to knock him out with a karate chop. Someone with a particularly heavy build body slammed her from behind, pinning her to the ground with his bulk. Without missing a beat, Kissy struck backwards with her right hand, slamming James' watch into his face, forcing him to roll away hissing in pain.
'Huh, amateurs,' Kissy thought exuberantly. 'At this rate maybe I can defeat them and still get to Tiger in time.'
No sooner had she thought, than someone was dragging her to her feet with strong hands around her throat. The grip was tight, cutting off her airway. Kissy responded instinctively, clawing at the palms around her neck. Her moment of lost focus cost her dear, as the few seconds she was immobilised was all it took for two more thugs to pounce on her. Her hands were pulled away and forced behind her back. Kissy struggled to pull free and lash out, but someone had wrapped a length of rope about her wrists. The knot was cinched tight, and she cried out more in outrage than pain as the rough cord closed around her hands. Her arms were pulled close together and her whole body jerked as her shoulders arched back.
"Get off me!" Kissy gasped furiously as her throat was released, the men readjusting their grip to hold her upright. "Let me go you ba-argh-hmm-mmmMMM!"
The young woman's exclamation was cut off as a rag was forced between her teeth. Nausea struck as the taste of oil and the sheer intrusiveness hit her, but before she could spit the wadding out a band of fabric was snapped over her mouth, covering her face beneath her nose. She felt the knot being tightened at the back of her head beneath her hair.
Kissy twisted her head away, straining against the gag to no avail. The scream she tried to loose came out as nothing more than a muffled groan. It felt pathetic to her, so frantic to free her mouth, as if speech would do her any good now. But the helplessness of such a limitation, unable to give voice to her anger and fear even if she wanted to, was more distressing that she could have possibly imagined- horrifying even. Her heart was speeding with unadulterated terror as the defencelessness of her situation pressed in on her. A whimper bubbled in her chest, but the girl quashed it contemptuously. She was a trained spy. Nothing these men could do would make her bring shame upon herself or her agency. She instead howled furiously and fought against the bonds and hands holding her.
The men had gathered around her now. There were growls over injuries she'd dealt and several jeers and crude jibes. They forced Kissy on to her knees. A fresh wave of humiliation stung the girl at the submissive pose she was put into, bound helplessly by these unscrupulous mercenaries, kneeling at their feet while the rocks chaffed her skin, gagged with oily rags. It was not lost on Kissy that her arching shoulders were pushing her chest forward, thrusting her breasts out from her body. The leers of the three men in front of her told Kissy it wasn't lost on her captors either.
"HMM!" the young woman glared at them, but they barely even glanced up from her bosom to meet her gaze.
Something snapped around her ankles with a metallic clang. The girl looked sharply over her shoulder to see a medieval style shackle clamped on tight, affixed to a heavy iron ball with a long chain- where the hell had they got that from! ?
"Damn hellcat!" someone snorted through a broken nose.
"Check out the goods. Worth the effort, definitely," someone else sniggered.
A hand flicked at the shoulder strap of Kissy's bikini. She flinched away and grunted in protest, but was incapable of resisting in any real way. The obvious futility of her resistance seem to trigger an instinctive reaction in the men surrounding her, and next thing a swarm of hands descended upon her body.
"MMMOOOO!"
Kissy burned with shame as she shook her head frantically and struggled in her bonds. Giving in to such meaningless hysteria was an affront to everything she held dear, but to have these men lay their hands on her against her will, against such guarded places on her body, was more than she could bear. Nevertheless, without any way to resist physically or verbally, Kissy had no choice but to endure as the men proceeded to molest her.
One hand slipped into her briefs to examine her buttocks. Another crept up her inner thigh. Both breasts were completed enveloped in calloused palms, moulded carelessly through her bikini top.
"MMPPHHH!" Kissy's moan was drowned out by the surrounding laughter. She screwed her eyes closed and turned them skyward, trying hopelessly to shut out the fondling and groping. Another moan of dismay escaped her as a hand cupped the V of her bikini panties and a lone finger firmly rubbed her cleavage. The girl briefly reflected that anyone who believed that such enforced stimulation without consent could in any way be arousing was a liar. True, her body was responding to the treatment, heating up and becoming even more sensitive to the touch of her captors while her breasts filled out as blood rushed to them. But her body's automatic reaction under such circumstances only revolted her all the more. Her skin crawled with every touch like the swarming of a thousand insects, and the taste of bile gathered at the back of her throat in self-disgust. She bent her elbows as much as she could and tried to draw her breasts away from the clutching hands, but still they bulged out ahead of her, firm and erect after all the unwelcome massaging they'd had.
Kissy was jerked from her thoughts as someone shoved her forward. She was held face first against the ground. She welcomed the brief respite from the hands crawling over the front of her body, even though the rocky ground scratched at her skin. That relief soon faded however as she felt a hand begin to play with the strap of her bikini top. More vulgar laugher and perverse comments filled the air, while a finger slipped under the strap and traced its length where it encircled her torso.
This time the agent didn't give them the satisfaction of responding in any way
Kissy stilled her body, fighting the tremors of fear and humiliation that surged down her spine and through her limbs. She didn't even try to bend her arms to shield her exposed back and limited clothing. She stayed rigid and defiant, biting down on the wadding to keep from crying out, breathing deeply through her nose. There was no denying that she could do nothing to defend herself from these men, but she wasn't going to compound her ordeal with any more futile struggling. They could strip her of her dignity and her modesty, but she'd be damned if they strip her of her pride. With that though giving her courage, Kissy steeled her nerves as she prepared herself to be stripped naked.
"Stop."
The voice was quite, but seemed to carry all the more authority for it. Kissy's assailants froze, a sudden undercurrent of uncertainty and fear gripping them. Kissy felt it reach out for her as well. Her muscles tensed and she strained with her senses to detect the presence of this new arrival.
"Report," it was a man who spoke, shale crunching as he drew closer. It was difficult to tell from just two words, but the accent sounded German. What was unmistakeable was the dispassionate tone that flattened his words till they sounded almost artificial. Kissy felt a shiver down her spine.
"Hans-sama," one of the men replied (confirming that newcomer was German) "We've found the trespasser. We… haven't yet reported in. We only just caught her."
Kissy scowled, squirming fitfully. Maybe reporting in wouldn't have been delayed if these men hadn't been devoting all their efforts to trying to grope their captive to death!
"The patrol chopper reported two suspects. Your efforts are unacceptable."
Kissy was hauled up as unceremoniously as she'd been thrown down. Her feet skimming the ground as she was passed around like an object, the goons thrust her forward like some sort of shield against their unsatisfied taskmaster.
"It's just an ama diver. The other probably went back to the village hours ago."
Hans was standing a foot away as Kissy was pushed face to face with him. Well, face to chest- he was a tall and lean European, dressed in a black jumpsuit like his men. His hair was blonde and he was handsome in the hardy way that James was, but transparently without the same charisma or dry humour as the British agent- the man's expression was that of a stone with a face. A hard, uninviting gaze swept her from head to toe, and the woman glared in defiance, all too aware of the sight she presented, breasts swollen tight in her bikini top, the briefs tugged down in the rough treatment till they were bunched low on her hips, only just concealing her intimacies. She was an utterly unthreatening figure, being passed around by a dozen hands ready to force her to submit to whatever they had planned for her- the binds and gag were just to degrade her.
The man known as Hans absorbed the sight of her with all the emotion of a machine. His eyes scanned her whole body before meeting her gaze, and what she saw unnerved her- there was no lust in his eyes. No amusement or disgust or anger. He was completely blank. Kissy had been in the spy game long enough to know the eyes of a psychopath when she saw them; a man who snuffed out lives as casually as she might swat a fly.
"The final stage of the operation is tonight," Hans shot a look back to his men. "There can be no mistakes. Keep searching for the other intruder."
"What about this one?"
"Leave no trace of her."
Kissy's heart froze as she heard the words. It was hardly unexpected, but the way Hans put it had been so clinical- he hadn't even looked back at her. Whether he truly thought she was a local diving girl or not was irrelevant to him. This was a man without remorse- without conscience- who killed simply because he saw no reason not to.
In a moment of desperate fright, Kissy threw herself forward, struggling towards Hans in a futile effort to fight back.
"HMM! HMM!" she mumbled pathetically, fists swelling against the ropes at her wrists. The thugs crowding her easily overcame the agent's strength, and Hans was already walking away. Kissy cried out, twisting frantically as she fought the gag and strained at her bonds. If she couldn't find some way to get free right now…
Then someone coshed her on the back of the head. Kissy stiffened and her eyes bulged out. The whole world seemed to fade around.
Then she slumped, and everything turned to black.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
Kissy awoke in a flash of cold, to a world strangely muted- her sight was blurred and sound seemed muffled and distant. Some instinct made her hold the breath currently in her lungs, even though she didn't understand what was going on.
Memories came back to her in a jumbled haze. Running through the night- the climb up the mountain- lying against the agent James Bond, lips meeting his as she was unable to conceal her attraction to him, tingling with the anticipation of feeling his touch on her bikini clad body- the sick parody of her earlier desires as the squad of mercenaries bound and gagged her, violating her with their hands while she could do nothing but take it- Hans' command-
"Leave no trace of her."
The icy words pushed everything into sharp focus. She looked around. Everything was dark and cloudy. The air was thick, stinging her eyes and making the movement of her head feel sluggish. Her entire body was engulfed in a rushing sensation, far more absolute than the blindly searching hands of the thugs, though strangely not as intrusive. There appeared to be nothing around Kissy in the form of people or landscape. As far as she could tell she was falling through air.
No… not air.
Water.
The girl's eyes bulged in shock. She looked up, only to glimpse rapidly fading moonlight and a dancing tongue of black flame; her sable hair, caught in the slipstream.
"MMM!" the horrified expletive bubbled from behind the packing in her mouth as she realised. Her captors had thrown her into the bay- and she was still bound and gagged!
Kissy thrashed in place, feeling with chilling inevitability the pull of the cannon ball chained to her ankles, dragging her into the depths. The girl pulled at the ropes with all her might, twisting her shoulders to try and find and angle to just slip her hands free. Her knees locked together as she strove to pull her ankles apart, but her efforts were all in vain- the shackle was solid, and the rope was unaffected by the water. Grunting with effort, Kissy flexed her knees and threw her weight upwards over and over again, trying to shake off or at least slow the plunging weight holding her. Her efforts were mocked as her body jerked up and down but continued to fall at a steady rate, the ball and chain a solid line until the weight thudded into the sea bed.
Kissy squirmed ineffectively as her face pinched in new discomfort. Though the bay wasn't particularly deep, it was enough that the water pressure was squeezing her torso, trying to force the air from her body. Kissy strained her chest out, using all her upper body strength to push back against the water, but with her lungs only half full she couldn't apply the force that was needed to fully resist the weight of the sea.
The agent's face crumpled with fear. All the training and experience she'd earned in Japan's secret service could not make her ignore the peril she was in, nor could it avail her of her situation as she floated in the darkness. The sense of weightlessness added a new layer of hopeless terror to her predicament- just as the gag stuffing the young woman's mouth denied her the fundamental faculty of her voice, however useless it may be, the inability to even influence her surroundings with her very presence felt soul-destroyingly degrading, as though her value as a human being was diminished by the lack of power she had over her own fate.
"OMMM," Kissy moaned as her chest began to tighten unbearably. Her struggle to hold her breath was taking its toll. The knowledge that her time was draining away was pushing her to the ragged edge of panic, and she longed to take a deep breath to calm her harried nerves. It was of course impossible to do so, and the mounting anxiety had her convulsing with need for even more air. The girl had no choice but to simply fight down her writhing hysteria by sheer force of will.
A shadow swept past Kissy's line of sight. In the dark water it resembled nothing more than a bat fluttering across a midnight sky. Nevertheless her eyes were inexplicably drawn to where the shadow settled.
"MMMHHH!"
The girl's cry was one of mixed shock and relief. She couldn't believe it.
Her diving knife! It was there, in its sheath less than five feet away. How it had become detached from her ankle and ended up where it now was she didn't know… nor care. The woman lunged for the weapon-
-and came up short, her whole body shuddering to a halt. Kissy looked behind her, only to see the iron ball squatting belligerently in the wet sand.
A furious burble of wasted air was all that resulted from the Japanese agent's curse. The wretched thing was sunk up to the waist and holding her in plain sight of her knife. The sadistic intent was clear, and Kissy turned her gaze back on the weapon with wild determination in her eyes.
The young woman began the painfully slow process of working her way towards the blade. She flexed her legs and back, undulating her body in a dolphin-like swim to pull the chain taut then jerked her ankles side to side, but only partially dislodged the ball from the sand. She threw her chest forward, and thrust with her shoulders one at a time, slogging her way doggedly through the water to her prize.
The girl inched forward, the chain holding stubbornly to her, the ball stirring reluctantly with each drive. She groaned as she fought on, using her whole body to work her way towards the knife, throwing her upper body behind each thrust, swinging her hips to add their weight, bucking her legs to tug at the shackle.
Kissy's body was on fire. Her muscles, already sore after running down the mountain without a chance to stretch them during her capture, were pushed to the limit as she worked them tirelessly. And her lungs…
'God, I've never been in so much pain.'
Never before had Kissy put such a strain on her body to hold her breath like this. It felt like her torso was contracting, and the oxygen deprivation was making her light headed. The strain forced a painful cough from the girl's aching chest, and huge, undulating bubbles of precious oxygen escaped her, leaving her behind as they fled to the surface. The sight seemed to underline the urgency of the situation, and the agent pushed on even harder.
Kissy's grunts of effort took on a pathetic, yelping quality as she continued to strive for her knife, each surge of her body moving her by a minute fraction. The only progress she could make would take her hours to complete. But she didn't have hours- she had moments. An urge to burst into tears began welling up inside her. The weight was only there to sink her, not hold her back from her one hope of salvation. It wasn't fair!
Kissy threw her torso out with all her strength and jerked her legs inwards as hard as possible, and suddenly she felt a slackness in the chain at her ankles. She looked back, and with a rush of excitement she saw the ball roll down the side of a dune that she'd been able to drag it over, making more progress than all her efforts alone had managed. This was surely her chance. She turned back and with an awkward swim, made her push for the knife.
The young woman's body was tugged to a halt as she pulled the chain to its maximum extension.
She had stopped with her face a mere inch away from her knife.
With a supressed wail, Kissy thrashed and twisted wildly, impotent rage and desperation achieving nothing. She probed forward with her head, hoping to somehow nudge the blade within reach of her hand, but she was just out of range, the weapon tantalising close yet still too far.
All at once the girl stopped fighting, the cruelly snatched away hope robbing the spirit out of her. Even if she still had the heart to try, the iron ball was wedged immovably in the valley two sand dunes. She was trapped.
Kissy pulled her bound arms in close; the closest she could get to hugging herself as despair gripped her. Her body trembled with more than mere exertion, emotionally overwhelmed by her plight. Her head sank into her chest, eyes closing in defeat, and had it not been for the water engulfing her, it would have been possible to see a single tear escape from her eye before it mingled undetectably with the ocean.
With a final muffled whimper, the last bubbles of air escaped from behind Kissy's gag and the girl fainted, sinking to the ocean floor, hair trailing after her.
For a moment there was a still silence, broken only by the plume of sand rising where the Japanese agent touched down on the seabed. The girl moaned as her subconscious made her breath, forcing water into her lungs. Her arms jerked reflexively. She moaned again as James Bond's watch poked her rump through her bikini briefs, but the touch that stirred memories of the terrorist thugs molesting her did not rouse her from her daze.
The watch face lit up dimly with the physical contact, but then quite unexpectedly the outer edge of the watch started to spin at high velocity- a feature installed by Q department at MI6. The miniaturised circular saw buzzed against the ropes wrapped just above it. The blade sliced through the cord with ease, and the bind unravelled completely, freeing Kissy's arms! As they began to float apart, her hands turned at a different angle and the still whirring watch face grazed the opposite wrist.
Kissy snapped to wakefulness violently as pain seared up her arm. She flailed in confusion, spotting and tearing off the dangerous watch before survival instincts pressed home more vital information.
Her hands were free!
Too stunned to understand what had happened but not caring, the woman snatched at the shackle on her ankles. Her fingers immediately caught something, and what she found made her want to cry with joy.
A latch! Not locked with a key but latched!
The girl threw the latch, and the shackle sprang open instantly. Now completely free, she twisted her bunched body upright and kicked off the seabed, powering toward the surface.
Kissy could see moonlight above her. It wasn't a long way up; she must have been thrown into the shallows. Nevertheless, in her weakened state the surface seemed like it was miles away. Kissy had no idea how she was managing without any air in her lungs. Her chest was so tight it was like concrete shell squeezing her without mercy. Every heartbeat was a wave of agony, and her torso shuddered as it forced tiny breaths from her, sucking at the water. Whatever adrenaline rush that was allowing the Japanese spy one last chance to resist inhaling water and sealing her fate, it was running out.
Kissy swam as hard as she could, legs unfolding and then slapping back together as they pushed her higher, arms pulling at the ocean with all her strength. The urge to rest her aching body was tremendous, each stroke a triumph in itself. The young woman's arms were numbing with weakness, and her thighs throbbed with pain. Panic rose again as her strong legs began to reach their limit, cramping up in protest. If that happened now it would be the end of her. Her swimming pace felt ploddingly slow, but a rational part of her mind knew that if she lapsed into a splashing frenzy she'd all but stop moving. The steady rhythm was her only chance.
A choke forced more water in. With a sound that was part way between a cry and a growl, the girl kicked out with all her remaining strength, making one last concerted effort to save herself.
Kissy Suzuki burst from the waves like an eruption from some undersea volcano. Cool air finally replaced the smothering water. Elation blazed within the girl, but was short-lived as her attempts to spit out sea water was delayed by the gag still in her mouth, and she fell back under before she could take a breath, black hair fogging her vision. With furious haste she ripped the gag away and surged up again. She broke the surface and tossed her head back, hair lashing the ocean defiantly as she took a single, wonderfully deep breath, her upward straining body caught gloriously in the moonlight, exalting her victory over what should have been an inevitable death.
The heady joy of being alive- of just being able to breath- left Kissy in a haze, but somehow she found herself making the swim back to the nearby shore at the base of the volcano. She lay back against the rocks where the water only came up to her waist, taking a moment to collect herself. She noticed for the first time she was shaking; not surprising under the circumstances. The chill of shock was running through her. Kissy put a hand to her breast, applying some warmth over her pounding heart as she tried to come to terms with everything that had happened in the last few minutes. A few sobs escaped her, as she allowed herself to respond naturally to her ordeal, but she quickly pulled herself together and forced those feelings aside. Right now her mission remained uncompleted and she lost vital minutes to this diversion.
Kissy steeled her nerves. There'd be time to recover later. She had to bring in Tiger's reinforcements, and she intended to settle the score with Hans and his cohorts if she could get the chance before the mission ended.
"This isn't over yet," Kissy assured herself determinedly, and without further delay, slid back into the cool waters.