Aside from the obvious aspect of this chapter being over 6000 words long, things have kinda started to change up for me IRL. Basically, me and the others I live with, all moved to a new house that's slightly pricier (like $25 more to the rent) but also a bit better, especially for me because my room was cramped.
I actually have had this chapter mostly done for a good chunk of time now – but I lost a bit of time and focus due to the big move, along with having to get my new room looking serviceable and having to get something to wire me back onto the internet due to a combination of needing a longer cable to connect to the new router and my computer being too old to understand what a 'wireless' is.
Regardless, enjoy as this churning clusterfuck of storylines becomes even more of a cluster in the next few chapters (and potentially more of a 'fuck' for certain characters, considering this story's rating and what we've seen so far).
Nobody in the hospital room had any idea of what the fuck just happened. There they all were, seemingly left to ponder on what could've easily been nothing but a vague warning from Nakoruru.
Then there was a flash of bright orange, and a big initial blast of smoke to wipe away everyone's clear across-the-room vision. A minute passed of silence beyond the little sounds of loose, blasted-away asphalt clattering across the room, and furniture thumping to a last stance in positions different from what they used to be just before the explosion.
The beds were toppled over on both ends of the room as a result of the effective blast. One side had Momoko in an impromptu fort, shielding herself in fear as she hugged the somehow still sleeping Kula in her scrawny arms.
On the other side, Lien regained her bearings and only then did she notice Mary's arms wrapped around her body in the aftermath of split-second thinking.
Regardless of the save, Lien didn't respond in kind, forcing herself away with her typical coldness as she approached the center of the room in a frustrated huff.
"I knew it – that fucking cunt!" Lien was reminded of Malin, the girl that brought those flowers to begin with – and now she was floor-kickingly pissed that she didn't see it coming sooner.
"Can I go a single day without things blowing up in my face?!"
Mary dusted herself off as she climbed back to her feet.
"Uhh, 'thank you'? 'Gracias'? 'Merci'? Any of those available from someone who nearly just had her ass blown open?"
Vanessa approached, wrapping an arm around to ease her friend's tension. "I got ya, Mary; we can beat her ass together after we deal with this..."
There was a bit of quiet beyond the banter, as the ladies that remained in the room observed the splitting of white paint from the walls it splattered – somehow, there wasn't a hole blown in the wall, but the trashcan, and the flowers that whatever explosive was hidden beneath, were blasted into almost nothing but atoms.
Then...
Pssssssssshhhhhhh...
There was now a faint, consistent noise, akin to something spraying out – and from where ladies in a position like Mary and Vanessa were, they could easily see that the mistiness of where the trash can used to be continued to fluff out more and more of what looked like smoke.
In the eyes of the operatives, they were completely aware of the possibilities, but unsure of which way it could go – considering all they've collectively been through in previous missions. Regardless, they were ready-steady for incoming danger, if simply on instinct...
"Blue, be prepared to hold your breath," Vanessa alerted.
Mary nodded, "Already there, 'Nes."
"What is that?" asked the quizzical yet scared Momoko, poking her head over the beds flopped sideways on the left of the room.
Meanwhile, Kula yawned awake with a noticeable pain in her back from the sudden shift from cushions to hard wood.
"D-did something happen?"
She poked over the beds to see the smoke forming from the middle of shattered trash-can debris – and she saw her auntie-mommy figure somehow struggling.
Diana was closer to ground-zero – and as she focused in on the little, surprisingly durable gadget that remained from what used to be the handful of flowers, the more she realized this wasn't your ordinary smoke or gas. She took too much of a close whiff of the gas, and her body was starting to go limp.
"Shit... it's..."
Diana spoke up a moment too late, as the effects of the gas overtook her and she drifted into unconsciousness, dropping her blade beside her.
"Diana!" Witnessing a close friend under turmoil like this, set off Kula's 'Anti-K' drive big time – her hair changed color at an instant, and she stared down the little piece of machinery responsible.
Mary alerted to the 'Ice Doll', ", that gas is gonna take you out! Shield it or something!"
Ice was Kula's game, after all – and while she wasn't 100% experienced at dealing with toxins or gas, she was at least able to conserve it into an isolated, simply by forming a small dome of ice to cover over the gadget.
The gas beyond it still lingered, meaning everyone was weakened, but at least everyone who remained conscious were able to do so for at least a little while longer...
"Okay – Kula's bought us some time...!"
Mary grew slightly more frantic in how she spoke.
"Quick, ideas-ideas – we gotta figure out something, something effective!" She mentally suggested to herself to not overclock her brain and look towards others for ideas...
"Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do – knock this door down and get the fuck out...!"
Lien was about to boot the infirmary door off its hinges when she was held back by the toned arms of Vanessa.
"If we break down the door, and if that gas breaks free – knowing our luck, it's gonna spread!"
"Then what's your idea, tail-chaser?"
Vanessa's eyes then met back towards where the beds were meant to be placed – before looking up higher, at the long windows stretching across just beneath the corner end that met the ceiling.
"The window," she surmised. "It's open, it leads it not just out of the room, but out of the whole mansion, and I can't imagine the gas getting too far out into civilization – do you see how far those greens go before we see a single building?"
Lien retorted back... "If that's your idea, maybe spend time putting it in action instead of talking about it?"
"I don't want to agree with Ms. Neville," Iroha said, "but I do."
In times like this, further conflict had to wait until later – Mary knew this, as she stared against Lien in what remained of the clash between blondes.
"Fine. Since you said it first, you go and work the window. YOU get us the fuck outta here."
Lien smirked back. "Then step aside, sweetheart."
She shoved her gadget-wearing arm against Mary's chest to nudge her aside, approaching the windows as she roughly climbed up Kula's body as the ice girl wrapped herself over the top of the dome keeping the poisons isolated.
"C-careful," muttered Kula. "I already feel it getting to me; I'm not even at my full strength..."
"Don't care – just try not to crumple while I do this..."
Lien decided to use Kula as simple stairs to climb up, giving her enough height to reach the windows and open then with a simple nudge on the bottomside...
Meanwhile, Vanessa was now standing only alongside Mary, again, while she summed up:
"So let's go over this one more time, and quick: Kula's on defense, the butt-maid can protect, and the then we can maybe get to Elisabeth, somehow – that sounds good, but I feel like we're leaving someone out..."
As though timed as perfectly as God would allow it, there was a noticeable male hum – the quartet of ladies nearby turned their heads, as Ash finally began to wake up in time for some semblance of involvement in the current emergency situation...
Despite the literal explosion that just happened, it somehow didn't snap the 'Sneering Blaze' awake – he was just starting to drift out of his slumber, and his gaze laid lazy over the messy situation, just barely able to understand what was going on. Even then, it wasn't like he was able to do anything to fix the problem, since he was still bound to the bed.
"We might need him just in case," Mary suggested. "That tape around his mouth isn't gonna do enough, so..."
She turned her head towards Iroha, "...you think you got something to keep him from catching any of the gas?"
Iroha paused mentally. "Uhhh..."
Meanwhile, Ash muffled a yawn as he throttled his body slightly in his wake, wrists still snug within the cuffs...
…and then suddenly, his nose was being pushed back, his nostrils cut short from easy access to the air ahead, and his taped mouth further silenced, as he was met with more than enough Iroha booty to eclipse his face.
"Done~?" Iroha sheepishly smiled with a subtle dose of embarrassment very visible on her reddening face.
A very odd spur of the moment decision for the maid, and one that Vanessa wasn't fully happy to witness.
"Guy is lucky this is just an emergency – otherwise, he'd get his balls crushed before he'd be even half-hard..."
"Save your fists for later, okay?" Mary clutched the back of Vanessa's collar as she helped direct her towards the window...
The opening in the window was just enough for Lien to squeeze through – it almost felt like sheer luck that she managed to get even her upper-body through, with how ~top-heavy~ she was. Though the noxious gas slightly followed her out into the fresh air, she fought through and managed to come out of it still conscious, if a tiny bit woozy from the effects.
After that, she was leaning against the wall, off to the side as she met an acre of grass that lined right beneath the window, and a nearby forest just ahead – probably where that 'bird girl' Nakoruru went in search for that 'Shiki' lass.
Something about the amount of unnatural gas that successfully got into her system, opened a lapse in Lien's mind that left her staring ahead at those trees, as she maintained the frustration of hindsight failing her on the bullshit that could've nearly blown her to gibs.
Soon after, the sounds of ice slightly cracking snapped Lien back into focus, catching her glance towards the again-opening door, as she saw Mary clinging onto the border of the window, nudging up the opening with a little more struggle than Lien had – this, on top of being a couple inches shorter than her fellow blonde...
"Hey, Lien – you mind giving enough of a fuck to lift me up?"
Lien didn't have a direct look at the hand reaching out for her – she was in too deep in her thoughts, to act immediately, and she was staring up into the skies to imagine the clouds beyond forming the answer for her.
As soon as the gas-blaster entered her mind, from the little amount she saw of the object itself, she knew from experience there was one person within the building she knew that was capable of putting together something like that with even the most minimal materials like toothpicks and string.
That little bee-bitch...
No – this was was her problems first before everyone else; she was the one that wanted to deal with Nagase, not any of those pissant investigators...!
As for her giving a limb to Mary; Lien didn't reach out a hand – rather, she reached out a foot, one that swung down on the window, forcing it from its open position and crunching it right onto Mary's back.
"Aagh—!" The metal rims of the window, pinching her spine and her gut, forced Mary into an uncomfortable position, as she tried to fight back with her own physical force – and yet somehow Lien's leg provided enough of a push to equalize the struggle, keeping Mary at that unfortunate stalemate.
"Rrrgh... t-the hell?!"
"Have all your 'hard feelings' if you want," Lien said. "You don't realize it's just a little more personal for me..."
Mary continued to try and push herself against the pressing rims of the window... "If it wasn't for me, you would've literally lost your ass in here!"
"I didn't exactly ask for your help..."
What Lien didn't see on the other end of that detective's struggles, were that Mary's legs were not faring much better with her predicament – she was not trying to kick and push down on Kula's back, but she needed something to stabilize her, and this surely wasn't the best method...
Kula tried to brace herself enough for being the 'stepping stool to freedom', but she was not faring incredibly with dealing with the feet stomping down on her spine and her trying to hug the dome without cracking it, to little success...
As soon as the ice-dome inevitably cracked through, the Ice Doll's body went flopping against the mist-spraying gadget beneath her, her face slamming into it and unintentionally catching enough of a huff of that gas that within a couple of seconds, she was overwhelmed, and she clocked out, joining Diana in being out of commission.
"The hell's going in up there?!" Vanessa thought at first that Mary had a little struggle on her own with the window closing on her thanks to gravity being an asshole, but foul play became her second and successful guess as she walked closer to the window – mere seconds before the 'house of cards' of Kula on top of the little ice-dome came crashing down – and discovered that the opposing force was of an asshole pushing down on her.
"Oh, you motherfu—!" She cut herself off as she had a short running start to step over Kula – unintentionally being part of the catalyst to the sculpted ice breaking through – and hop onto the opening alongside Mary.
Lien welcomed the extra body, if simply for more satisfaction in climbing over another in the pecking order.
"Neither of you are taking this away from me..."
Vanessa had switched up her breathing at this point, holding it within in order to avoid sucking up too much of the gas – Mary was a little too late to consider this, being too focused on trying to break past Lien's gatekeeping efforts, and she was slowly being dragged down by the force brought upon her from her body slowly going limp from the ankles up.
She fell as one more booting kick to the face brought her away – and Lien managed to close the window for a moment to leave Vanessa at bay for just a few seconds extra.
The redheaded agent was not going down, however, as she started throwing strong hooks from her unwounded arm against the closed window.
She expected the entirety of the glass-pane blocking her off from Lien, to shatter under her dynamite knuckles – but instead, it took a couple of strikes to get it past the cracking state, before managing to break a fist-sized hole through.
Simply disadvantageous for her, as the shards prickling her were immediate in their sharp touch – and Lien added to the pain by pressing her foot against Vanessa's arm as it jammed through the jagged hole in the glass.
Vanessa's held breath was just starting to escape, only by virtue of the growing, soon-bleeding pain trying to force at least a little squeak of agony. If Lien wanted to, she could try and push harder to have the glass slice deeper into her opposition – if the gas collecting in the infirmary wasn't going to knock her out, going faint from blood loss possibly could.
"You want to almost lose another arm? That's fine by me..." Lien's earlier bullying over Vanessa's previously wounded arm, had been followed up amusingly by her combating back on the other arm with almost as much viciousness. Couldn't exactly match up with Shiki and her swords, but it was slower in its pain and pace, and potentially almost as bloody as well if she tilted just right.
Vanessa wasn't gonna let go, even as her skin slightly paled at the sight of her arm bloodying through, staining the broken window before her as the blade-like shards tried to drain as much as they could out of her. It was still going to take some time to set in, gas or no gas, as her fighting will was able to keep her from... fading... too soon...
Fading... fading... fading... fa...
Suddenly, Vanessa's body finally gave up on her – she flopped backwards, down to Earth, on top of Mary and Kula's prone forms, and on top of the existing mess, was the slowly pooling blood welcomed out from the opened wounds in her arm.
Now all that was left of the current memory of struggle, in Lien's eyes, was the red stains of life force bordering the broken-through hole in the window. She kept her distance as she saw some semblance of the toxins make their way through – but as Vanessa previously assumed, it was no match to the fresh air and wind of the outside world.
The brick-walls between Lien and her personal enemies were smashed down – as she expected, nothing was keeping her from dealing with things on her own terms.
What was learned from this intense encounter?
Namely, Nagase was a dead little bee.
Though there was a growing pile of unconscious bodies in the mist-overwhelmed infirmary – that being the three of Vanessa, Kula and Mary stacked over one another, as well as Momoko having resisted as much until it got too much – there were still a couple who remained.
One of which was Iroha, whose quivering worried posture on top of what she just witnessed drew the true fear she felt in the middle of the situation, and it wasn't helping that she was sinking further against the bed she sat on, getting closer to unintentionally suffocating Ash into unconsciousness before the gas got to him.
"I need to get help – quick~!"
Iroha lifted her tail-end off of Ash's face, and turned it towards and through the door, sprinting in a panic across the lead-out halls and making it out to safety before the gas made her too woozy to maintain stamina.
Now it was down to just Ash, who was already starting to let the knock-out toxins take a hold of his body and shut him down – with the cuffs and the mouth-tape, he wasn't exactly able to easily escape, or to call for help. It was at this point that he stopped giving a damn about burning himself fully, and he tried to set a green light over the situation in hopes to finally reach freedom at a possible cost...
...but he was already weak from the gas finding entry through his nose – however long it would normally take to knock just one of the infirmary's populace out, it would take longer for him specifically since his mouth was a no-entry zone, and so he had to deal with a slower struggle against the inevitable unconsciousness.
On top of that, he noticed another figure entering the room, having stopped the door before it re-closed – one familiar blonde in a black suit.
"Nagase, you're a clever little rat..." said the form entering the room. "Though I would've like a bit of gore, I suppose this will do..."
As his sight faded, he was at least welcomed to a closer look of the person approaching, crawling over him on the bed with an overly seductive overtone in her posture and her tongue...
Conveniently equipped with an effective gas-mask (given to her by Nagase), Mature stared down the platinum-haired prey, making sure she was the last sight Ash had before he faded to black.
"Don't worry, Crimson – you should know by now, that the Hakkesshu always gets what it wants."
THIRD ROUND – MATCH #4 (FINALE)
Shermie vs. Vice
Speaking of the dead – or who probably should've stayed dead – the clash between the yin-and-yang of the Hakkeshu's philosophies, was just starting to set in.
The silent bell had rung in the start of the match, but fists and feet had yet to be thrown and to collide.
"Come on, Vice, I won't bite," teased Shermie. "Or would you rather bite me~?"
"Come over here and find out," Vice teased back.
A decision was not yet made on whether they wanted to start things up close and personal – how damn personal it was starting to get before the ring of the bell, but now... well, they could take as much time as they can get, if it meant settling differences properly.
Eventually, Vice made the first move, sliding in with one hand sliding, just clawing against the floor, and the other swiping further forward, trying to sweep out Shermie's feet – only for Shermie to make a tiny hop that was just enough to vault the hand swipe.
The hop ended in a pink-booted foot dropping down right on Vice's wrist – which she retracted, slightly wiping Shermie off balance as Vice continued to try and chase her down. Shermie was as quick as she usually was, continuing to vault backwards, a perpetual cycle of backwards cartwheels as she continued to play keep-away with her fellow redhead.
Vice's pace intensified in various ways at once, running further with more pickup on her feet as she tried to extend her steps as much as possible.
Shermie retorted by planting her feet against the wall to her right, one boot at a time, and effortlessly sprinting a short line across, ultimately swapping positions with her estranged colleague – she took the brief showcase of athleticism with that beautiful French stride of hers, extending her arms in self-appraisal to a crowd that wasn't there.
"Anything you can do – I can simply just walk past it~"
"This isn't a damn dance routine, this is a fight!" Vice's impatience flourished with hair-matching red rage. "You trying to irritate me?"
"Yes." Shermie was too blunt for her own good, and it earned her a closer look to some of that usually-hidden power within Vice.
Before she could blink, Shermie could see Vice suddenly appear closer than before, prepping to clench her claws onto her person like a hungry zombie, and it earned an intrigued noise from the blinding-bang'd.
Shermie twisted Vice around by the arms, crossing them forcibly across their shoulders, as she cuddled the sadist from behind...
"Okay, that time, I let you touch me."
"Bullshit you did..." Vice answered strength with equaled strength, grabbing back on Shermie's over-wrapped arms and pulling forward with all the strength she bothered with.
What started as a tossover, turned into unintended teamwork as Shermie maneuvered around Vice's head, utilizing all forms of rotations and angles as she vaulted circles for seconds on end...
...before landing in a jaw-jacking 'Diamond Dust'!
Her posture springing up and straight from the whiplash, Vice managed to keep some form of footing as she stumbled against the wall behind her. She felt at her jaw – if a single tooth in her row of flesh-rippers was out of place by the end of this, she was gonna eat someone's tongue.
She pursued first before Shermie did, jamming a hand against her face as she tried to push her against the wall again, but Shermie slapped away the grabbing claw and spun out into a kick that booted Vice in the gut with a thundering force.
Shermie rotated the other direction, ending halfway as she pulled up a leg to meet the front of her ankle in the clasp of her hand, like the coiled tail of a scorpion, before flicking it down with swift force right on the back of Vice's head, transitioning her from bent over to face-first against the floor.
Shermie flourished in her moment on top of the advantage, with a backflipping handspring as she marinated in the mini-celebration.
Vice wasn't down and inactive for too long, however, as she pushed up with one arm against the floor and dragged her face off the carpet.
"Don't act like it's already a victory for you."
Finishing her words, she settled on all fours like a rabid dog as she gritted her teeth and snarled.
Shermie didn't have a rebuttal towards the dog-like hunger of battle in her fellow redhead – she physically shifted to a position matching head-height with her opponent, crouching in a primed position to run like—or in this case, towards hell.
As soon as she saw Shermie approaching again, Vice knew she was in a place she would rather not be – she continued to persist with offense, charging in with a shoulder aiming for gut, as she tried tackling the pink-clad flamboyant against one of the walls enclosing the long line of hallway...
...only for Shermie to cartwheel over Vice's back, slipping right out of Vice's reach with a single vertical twirl of momentum. She went straight into a hugging grasp, looking to suplex the everloving hell out of her opponent and get it over with, but Vice reached back and gouged at her mouth, pulling her forward.
"Down, slag," Vice proclaimed, "or I make sure you won't be able to give head with that mouth."
Shermie met back with a slightly muffled giggle underneath smile of mischief, at the same time biting down with a significant force – but her biting effort wasn't much to Vice as she hung onto Shermie's mandible with that full-hand grip, before throwing her in a 270-degree spin meeting at the end against a wall as she slammed Shermie with a force that would peak partner Mature's interest if she were present here.
Vice let go of Shermie's jaw immediately after the wall-slam, whipping that same arm at a lower proximity to grab one of Shermie's legs and pull upwards in an attempt to sweep the pink-clad grappler off her feet.
Shermie maintained balance on her other leg, however, before swiftly spinning at the exact right opportunity and swinging clockwise from Vice's grasp to meet the back of her head with a swinging back-knee leg kick. As soon as she fell out of the gorefest-bringer's grasp, Shermie twirled herself backwards with her legs clinching Vice's person quickly and bringing her skull-first against the wall with a slam of her own.
The result meant Shermie's fling was halted midway by the momentum-stopping wall, as she pressed Vice's face against the nearly-cracking wall and kept her legs locked around the torso, ankles across the back of the neck, as the momentum of the fight went into a brief stall.
Vice's body pushed weight down in retaliation, slowly forcing Shermie down against the floor as the more violent of the redheads tried to shake off her exuberant opposition. However, luck was not within her reach, and Vice was left with just the need to brute force her way through to break Shermie's legs away from the intertwining, the only way she knew how.
Naturally, she executed this by widening her jaw and bringing her teeth onto the plentiful meat, upon Shermie's inner thigh – and it worked almost instantly; Shermie yelped in pain as she loosened her leg-grip, at the same time pushing her momentum backwards from where she hung, shoving herself pelvis first before most onto Vice's head as she very briefly took a seat upon her opponent's face, while she put her arms to work crunching in on Vice's legs and lifting her up...
...before managing to send the bloodthirsty secretary across the room like an Olympic-grade discus...!
Priorities immediately shifted in Shermie's brain as soon as she stopped having a grip on her ''partner'', in very heavy 'quotes'...
Shermie nearly crumpled under the weight of her feet as soon her brain triggered the unignorable pain coming from the already-bleeding bite mark on her right thigh.
"I'm all for biting in the heat of the moment," she panted, "but with you? I knew I wouldn't even risk you giving me a lick."
Vice had climbed back to her feet by this point, wiping away the enemy's blood that lingered on her lips...
"You're lucky I only got one bite. If I was really in the mood, I'd make those damned gams my lunch."
Shermie tensed up as she took a running-start position.
"You get away from my thighs."
She had no time for foreplay as soon as that line was crossed; she more preferred to give Vice a knee. Across the jaw.
If only she managed to connect with her strong leg lariat, however, because as soon as Shermie leapt up with her legs clenched and thrust forward, Vice lowered herself to make sure that strike missed its connection more than narrowly.
Reconnecting with her opponent, Vice stretched an arm back and caught the back of the waistband, of Shermie's skirt.
"Get that ass back here..."
She pulled her back in and capitalized on the chance to get back the advantage she 'deserved' by wrapping her arm upwards and swinging Shermie over onto the ground before her, with a neck-grabbing toss, before joining her on the ground in an almost claustrophobic clutch with arms vicing around Shermie's head, clawing through her hair and skin.
Vice savored the dominance she asserted over her opponent, smelling it more than she could taste with a flick of the tongue across her fellow redhead's lovingly-colored locks, keeping her arms firmly tightened around the neck, even as Shermie pushed the momentum upwards, only succeeding in turning her own body around on the initial push.
"You thinkin' of accepting your place yet?"
The rough, grooming tension Vice placed was almost enough to start pulling strands of hair out of her similarly-redheaded opposition...
Shermie responded back on the grappling offense, by maneuvering in ways that made it difficult for Vice to keep her down for more than a couple seconds. "Even if I somehow catch some 'wild bitch' rabies from you... I think I'd rather not."
For a moment, Vice had to rely on her limbs from waist-down, as Shermie tried to sneak out of the grasp from underneath – pressing down with her crotch pressuring down on the back of Shermie's head, and her legs trying to twist around to the front from underneath, she almost looked ready to slam down the French beauty with a full-force powerbomb.
Shermie wasn't left with many options to deliver direct contact and have it mean anything – so her options eventually culminated in blind, back-swinging elbows up against Vice's body, specifically against the gut and around the perimeter.
One elbow, two elbows, eventually a third to Vice's ribs, before Shermie managed to break herself free – she celebrated her freedom by immediately striking at Vice's head with a twirling roundhouse kick swiping diagonally-downwards, forming enough crashing force against the back of the cannibalistic cultist's neck. She maneuvered over Vice's keeled-over body with a cartwheel stylishly spiraling from one side of the body to the other, clutching on around the hips as she dismounted before slowly lifting Vice up for what could potentially be the slam of a lifetime.
At least, it would've been had Vice not countered back by shoving a sharp hand down against the bite-formed bite wound dangerously close beneath Shermie's 'regions' – forcing the pink-clad grappler to release as her arms instinctively prioritized her pain over her opponent's.
All this made her wince further in her own personal agony, not to mention making her angrier as a result, based off previous comments.
"You don't listen to me about anything, do you?"
Vice looked back with a slimy smile. "Only way I'd 'get away from those thighs' is if it didn't provide me an advantage."
She had half a mind to want to taste-test the blood left on her hand from where she fingered the wound, but she would rather utilize her arms to capitalize on the opening; she swiped Shermie's ankles out from under her, before pouncing up on top of her to keep her held down on the floor.
Those bloody fingers instead met Shermie's mouth – thankfully the vixen's buds were spared the taste of her own iron, as Vice held onto her upper jaw, away from the tongue. The vicious secretary's travels began on a gradual pace being picked up as she dragged Shermie across the floor, and ended at its speed peak within mere seconds as she pulled upwards and flung the body with gratuitous harm intent.
The ceiling nearly cracked under the harsh impact of Shermie's body smashing into it, before she dropped down as gravity intended...
...but what it didn't intend, was for Vice to meet up to her in midair and for both to come crashing back down in a slam-dunking bomb that had Shermie piledriven into the ground in Vice's sharp clutches...!
Vice held her grip and pinned Shermie's body down as she leaned herself deeper and closer, in an almost sensual manner – from such a harsh slam, she was expecting to be rewarded from utter silence... but as she perked her ears to even the deepest audial detail, she could still hear the very light noises of air entering and leaving Shermie's panting, pained body.
"Fuck. Still breathing."
Vice's words suddenly tensed up something in Shermie's body – the adrenaline went mainly into her lower body, as her legs suddenly pretzeled around Vice's waist and crunched like she would on a watermelon.
"'Still breathing'? Are you being serious right now, connasse?!"
Vice growled in pain and exasperation. "Rrrgh—! I meant you're not knocked out, not dead, you drama queen!"
From her understanding, Shermie clearly started to take things a way she only assumed, based on the consistently-rising tension.
Despite the increasingly-ravaged bite wound on her thigh being rubbed raw by the friction against Vice's suit, Shermie was persistent in fighting back even when her body wasn't able to adjust fully.
All of a sudden, we were back into a straining standstill with both ladies unable to enjoy their freedom of movement in the midst of battle.
It was a deadlock of rough/tough bitches counter-acting each other's strength; Vice was growling down on Shermie with the ferocity of a feral cave-dweller – and Shermie growled up on Vice as she strained her legs, trying to bring them closer together despite the obvious body-shaped obstacle keeping them apart.
The only real way it was going to break apart was if one of them slipped up...
...however – inconvenience had other plans, if for just a moment.
"Uhhhh... excuse me, you two...?"
At the sound of a third-party voice, the two combatants found themselves stopping, dropping focus from each other and towards a few feet away from where they laid atop another – due to the direction of the brief intrusion, it ultimately meant that their position had to be shifted into a full-180 twisted, which was uncomfortable for both parties...
Meanwhile – not too far off from the battlefield, Iroha was only intending at first to travel past the violence in order to get to the higher powers within the building, but one look at that open closet, and she was now slowly dragging Luong's bloodied body out of it, looking at the at-odds Hakkesshu members for answers.
"W-which one of you did this?"
The maid was in no need to actually involve herself in the fight; she just felt herself to be responsible in the clean-up business, even in the most dangerous and inconvenience places, or when she needed to get to Chizuru – though in this matter, she really wanted to get things cleared up and out of the way as quickly as possible, due to all the insanity going on in the range beyond the fight.
Vice's eyes rolled like the dead, in her well-defined frustration.
"Ugh... who's this bird-brain think she is?"
Her violent mind saw no civilized solutions floating within, when it came to – with one hand clawing down on Shermie's face as a means to hold her down, Vice was trying to crawl past, maybe intending to cling on with mainly legs as she attempted to approach the bird-maid in the near-distance.
This went about as well as a foot stepping into a bear-trap – as she met halfway past her opponent's body, Vice was grabbed at the waistline, and she almost went slash-happy in her instinctive response...
...only to be overwrapped in the grapple-experienced Shermie's clutches, resulting in a rolling ball of bitches for a brief moment, until Shermie somehow managed to come out with the dominant edge, locking down Vice's neck, and one of her arms, in a very tight triangle-hold, holding the submission down well with the theatrics of a pro-wrestler, yet with the very real choking-intent of something more brewed in MMA-style combat.
Shermie laughed with a little bit of personal triumph over the feral fighter between her legs.
"You're a dumb bitch sometimes, you know that?"
On the other point-of-view, Iroha was still very much shivering in her shapely thighs, having barely taken a step further with dragging Luong's body out of the frame of the battlefield.
"Uhhh..."
This sparked Shermie's attention back to the maid, as she had briefly forgotten Iroha's existence – and in comparison to Vice, Shermie was unsurprisingly much more friendly.
"Go ahead, run along to wherever you're supposed to be."
"Uhhhh..." Iroha was rendered nearly mute by her own chills.
Then Shermie assured, a slight strain in her voice to compliment the strong torque in her legs. "She might bite, but I won't~... Us thick chicks gotta stick together, right?"
"...I-I guess?" Iroha ultimately decided on huffing Luong's body over her shoulder, as a means to make it easier on her legs as she sprinted the hell out of the scene.
The maid managed a decent amount in the combination of strength/speed, fueled by the situation before her, as she carried Luong off with her, on the way to Madame Kagura's whereabouts...
It was back to the wild women in action, all to themselves... Vice was in too deep trapped in Shermie's leglock, only having herself to blame for letting herself try to get aggressive on anyone who dared step too close to the action – while Shermie was partaking in her own form of pleasure, having gotten some form of advantage over her quote-unquote 'superior' in the Hakkesshu pecking order.
Sooner or later, something was going to break – whether it was mind, or body.
Next Chapter: The situation starts to escalate – not just within the round-ending fight, but throughout the mansion as the seeds are planted for the Hakkesshu Secretaries to weed out what's left of a threat heading into the last few stretches of the tournament... As the fight continues, we will see where the rest of the relevant folk are in the midst of rising chaos...