Yeah, yeah, you know the drill; life goes on. Every time I get back into this after a little while off, I'm like 'I'm gonna try to write a bit more of this more often than before', and every time it kinda falls apart again after a couple uploads, and now this time, it's been like three months since this story's last update. WOOF.

Recently moved, actually getting an income, partaking a little bit in greeting the new neighborhood's random stray cats, the works.

You don't need to know the full context; this is a fanfiction site, not a blog compendium. Just enjoy.

Aoi realized real soon after her victory over the 'Psycho Soldier', that Iroha was probably going to be busy already with the ladies in recovery right now (little did she know at the moment...) – and so she had to make the long haul, carrying the KO'd Athena halfway across the mansion.
And for an idol with a likely healthy lifestyle, it was still a hassle to carry Athena. For Aoi, carrying an unconscious body that mainly pushes down dead weight on her arms was not an easy feat.

It took minutes upon minutes to be even somewhere close to the hospice room, and by then, things had set their course – and as she saw the closed door of the room, one of the things she immediately noticed a light mist pouring slowly through the slim opening underneath the door.

She wasn't sure what could be going on there, but as she got through the door, clarity set in as she saw the aftermath of an isolated disaster.

Right there at the far end of the room, were a handful of bodies resting in their collective temporary shutdown; Diana's body was a little off to the right, laying beside her withdrawn weapon, but the rest of them – that being Kula, Mary and Vanessa – were in a little pile on top of one another, completely knocked out from the chaos that ensured.

What she didn't immediately realize was that there was still a semblance of the knockout gas lingering in the air – and as she inhaled, she felt a scratch in her lungs and a sensation in her head that was attempting to turn off her brain.

She crumpled to a half-kneel, coughing like a waft of second-hand cigarette smoke caught her throat, as she felt the leftover gas try to drift her to a painful 'sleep'.

Just like that, she was falling in deep again – she was again seeing red, the same red she refused to be familiar with.

She could already feel as though something was creeping up to her – but this time, Aoi was having none of it.

"I won't let you get to me...!"

She lunged herself backwards at the shadow creeping from behind, throwing an arm forwards to grab it by the throat. She knew Orochi was a religion of bullshit, and bullshit deserved nothing but the sewers – much like where she was going to throw the viscera she was going to tear away as soon as she gave one strong, burning pull—

"Aoi, stop!"
"Hmm?"
Aoi blinked twice and everything suddenly started shifting again.

The demon-red darkness in Aoi's vision abruptly stopped as she fell back into reality again, at the call of a somewhat recognizable voice. Even then, she still felt herself clutching onto someone's throat...

Not Mature's, but rather Iroha's – the loyal maid had a look of strained fear in her eyes as Aoi clawed into her throat, grabbing it raw, and Chizuru was in the middle, trying to pry the Kusanagi rebel's arm away.

"Aoi, for the love of God, stop!" On the second shout, Chizuru's tone turned slightly more worrisome, budged by the potential danger about to set course in front of her.

Thankfully, Aoi immediately let go on command, fully realizing how far she almost could've gone, and she left Iroha to cough and possibly cry as the maid regained full control of her breathing.

Aoi's hands soon found a nesting place in her hair, indicating an attempt to hold her mind together as her downward spiral continued before her eyes.

"Chizuru, I—"

Chizuru glanced up to the darkhorse relative with a stare as sharp as a broken mirror's shards.
"Aoi, don't. I can already tell you might do more harm than good here."

As the maiden cradled Iroha in her arms, Aoi staggered back herself – her throat was rough from releasing the unwanted smoke, and her eyes fixated on her sporadically manic hands. The background imagery of Athena's resting body nearby – alongside what looked to be another mildly mauled and bloodied body (belonging to Luong, as previously established) – didn't help one bit to her thoughts, her fears of primal, murderous intent trying to overwhelm her.

"Don't let everything get to you so suddenly," the words of Chizuru opened out into Aoi's ears.
"There's a reflection in your mind that is cracked; sooner or later, you might reach a point—"

"Y-yeah, yeah, I know, I'm knee-deep in all this," Aoi interrupted, shaking her trauma out through her wrists. "I really want to give a shit, but..."
She then gestured towards the pile of numbness ahead.
"...what the hell even happened in here?"

"An act of terrorism, simply put. Elisabeth sent me down as soon as she felt this place shake – if only it wasn't on the other side of the mansion, I could've helped."

"'Could've'. I'm sure you saw literal explosions in the future with your 'mirror-mirror on the wall' foresight. Hell, you probably thought that was just somethin' to be expected in a fighting tournament."

"I know you're having your own struggles, Aoi, but you can't nitpick flaws at a time like this. Besides, you must've felt it, too – you could've gotten here quicker yourself if you cared enough to think about it..."

Chizuru definitely wasn't wrong.
In hindsight, Aoi did remember the feeling of a quake from across the mansion, of these 'literal explosions' – but she simply assumed it was from Shermie and Vice having an explosive start to their still-ongoing fight.

She must've felt even the slightest stupid from that...

And Chizuru felt she was almost sharing the slight hint of rudeness that Aoi unintentionally brought into the discussion.
"...I'm sorry. I... I have a lot to deal with myself, just working with the host—"

THUMP! The apology was interrupted by the sound of Aoi frustratingly smashing a fist against the stud of the doorway – and somehow ignoring the pain in her hand as she leaned against it.

Chizuru inevitably approached again. "Aoi..."

Aoi interrupted, "Just... gimme a second to figure things out..."
The biker was going through a lot right now...

…

"...Oh no..."
The weight in Chizuru's arms fell suddenly empty as Iroha lurched forward, having looked ahead and recognized something...

What the maid realized before the others, was the noticeable change in scenery between pre-incident and post-incident: the lack of a certain character's bed, normally there right before the door.

Now there was a wide-open space, filled by the confused and scared Iroha, as she scattered frantically across the floor to confirm to herself that she wasn't overwhelmed by some sort of mirage.
"Ms. Kagura – he's gone!"

Chizuru budged past Aoi to finally notice the lack of bed right where there should be. She knew exactly what the maid was talking about.
"Ash..."
In other circumstances, she really couldn't have given a damn about Ash, resulting from what he had done in the past – but with Elisabeth breathing over her shoulder all throughout the proceedings of this whole thing, this was something she had little choice but to deal with, for the noblewoman's sake before everyone else's.

Naturally, as she and Iroha scoped out the sudden absence of where Ash was not even an hour ago, Chizuru's sight befell back upon the barely-acknowledged Kusanagi at the doorway.

Aoi immediately jumped to conclusions on the eye-contact again made between her and the Sacred Treasure-bearer.
"If you think I know something, you're both wrong. I haven't had anything to do with him – and I never want to."

"I don't want to say that it's fate that's trying to link you to him – but with who we've come to deal with these past few days, it doesn't take a genius to figure out who could be responsible..."

"I'd like to spend the better part of a day not bothering with this. I only came here to drop Athena off – you should leave it to someone else for once and let me breathe for just a little bit..."

Aoi turned away from the doorway – only to be clutched at the wrist by Chizuru...

"Aoi... I'm afraid our options are limited," said the mirror maiden.

In response, Aoi yanked her arm away.
"You're kidding, right? Having to send me out to try and deal with this? There's like fifteen other fighters still in this place as far as I know, some of which could probably do a much better job at taking care of business than me – why can't we just get them?!"

"With what we're likely dealing with, we probably wouldn't have time to gather them. On top of that, from the looks of who was in here when the explosion happened, they could be prepared for anyone to come their way."
Chizuru was inching towards the end of her rope with this whole situation with the dark forces of evil – she felt Aoi's pain and frustration with just wanting to have fun with things, and they both knew it was becoming anything but.

After a brief lapse, Chizuru sighed with slight reluctance to the ideas she was left with, as she continued.
"This isn't just a person's life we're dealing with – he's perhaps one of the last few things our hostess has left on this world."

Aoi stared down her superior with her rebellious reflex... "I don't give a crap about him, and you shouldn't either, after what I've heard he did to you; besides, if they're the ones responsible – something I wouldn't be surprised to find out considering they're probably the most evil bitches in this building right now – what do we have to gain from that?"

"A victory, perhaps?" answered Chizuru. "All these centuries of Orochi's history, and it never won. Us sacred families, we all have to work to make sure that doesn't change."
Chizuru knew more than anyone else about the legacy, the tale older than time itself...
"I lament not being in contact with anyone within the Yagami family right now, but I feel we can pull through regardless..."
Overall, the Yata maiden had a sincere trust in Aoi to eventually unleash that potential that she refused to connect with the rest of the Kusanagi family...

On the other end, Aoi knew that whether she would like it or not, she was going to have to buckle down to authority. She would've wanted to do most things her way, but some certain bastards decided the same.
Chizuru was right. There was barely any other option to trust on.

"Chiz, tell me... I really don't have a choice here, do I?"
"This goes both ways here, Kusanagi."

Aoi thought on it a little longer – and in the middle, she gazed down at Athena, whose body had been slumped against the wall, seated

The Psycho Soldier could at least help numbers, if she didn't have all the energy recently beaten out of her in this leg of the tourney.
That other lady that Iroha had been carrying up until the strangulation attempt – well, Aoi hadn't been acquainted to that Luong chick at all up to this point, so she wouldn't know how much of an extra help she would be alongside the rest.

However, the most optimal strategy came at the hands of the 2/3rds-representation of the Sacred Treasures...

It was with this understanding, that Aoi finally made her decision.
"Fuck it. Let's go do this."

Chizuru nodded, with a warm smile.
It took a little less convincing than she thought – but Aoi was a Kusanagi; even if they weren't fully motivated, they eventually knew what had to be done.
Always responsible. Often heroic...

Cleanup definitely had to be a bitch to deal with – but nowhere near as high in 'bitch levels' as the two in heated battle at the moment.

Last we checked in, Vice was crushed within Shermie's legs – but in the moment where the point-of-view lingered away from the active combat, she had slowly gotten the strength back in her arms to ride off from the thunder-thighed storm, slamming Shermie's defiant body against the various walls of the hall until the accumulated damage and struggle against the dust-building atmosphere forced them apart, with Vice dismounting on a forward tumble that slammed Shermie onto her back and finally loosened her legs.

Her legs partially numb from the intensity, Shermie slumped to her side as she caught her breath...
"That feel good for you?"

"It only feels good when I'm the one dominating~!" Despite being borderline exhausted herself, Vice still crawled herself up to a primed, beastly position before flinging herself right back on top of Shermie's body.

A clawed hand swung down with attempted contact to Shermie's blind-banged face, but Shermie grabbed the arm, and tucked it in between her legs as she transitioned from the missionary-esque positioning into something a little more sideways.

Shermie bridged back onto a kneeling pose, her legs pressed over Vice's side as she pulled on the arm with ferocity – 'Fujiwara's Blessing' in the form of an armbar threatening to split the bones on Vice's shoulder.

Slowly but eventually, Vice escaped the hold, knowing damn well a simple submission lock wasn't going to put an end to her. The two were kneeling on the floor at this point as Vice pursued Shermie before vice versa, and managed to briefly hold her against the wall with a hand slamming against the throat.

Shermie slapped away the grappling hand and sprung up fully to her feet first, pulling Vice into a necklock as she spun around and forced the opponent with her back against the wall. Again, she had a good handle onto one of Vice's arms, and hopped up to hook her legs around the neck while still keeping that handle – but it was transitioned quite suddenly as Vice let herself get rolled forwards from the legs around her neck, before slipping out with little notice and rattling Shermie's clock with a single sliding knee straight to the head!

She mounted herself atop Shermie's body, a reclawed hand smooshing up on the French dame's face with the thumb twirling partway between the lips – after a moment to catch air, Vice slowly lifted Shermie up by her head and slammed her right back into the wall, before letting go and letting the body of the pink-clad vixen adjust against the hard surface.

A few slashes and smacks ensued, followed by some rapid-fire kicks that tenderized Shermie's body until she was left almost open for more prepared strikes. The Frenchwoman wasn't without a bit of fight in response, however, as she retorted with a simple but fairly effective thumb-jab against one of Vice's eyes, while slamming her kneecap into the ribs with a couple of strikes before she was eventually caught.

Vice responded, "Settle down, you little rat – I'm not done playing around."

She grabbed onto the layers of clothing keeping Shermie's bountiful chest under wraps, and yanked back to try and rip at both the light pink jacket and the purple undershirt beneath – Shermie shoved back briefly, but Vice dashed forth again, into the opposition with a rushing shoulder-charge, following up with a leap to attempt to send Shermie back down to the floor with another headscissors.

However, her legs were caught mid-flight, and rather than the two going down alongside one another in the headscissor-takedown, Vice was instead dropped straight onto the floor on her head-neck-shoulders—and everything in between—as Shermie brought her down with a slam that was halfway in the direction of being a powerbomb.

Vice was lifted up the hard way, her arms bound inwards by the hugging clutch Shermie transitioned into, hands grabbing on the arms crossways onto opposite sides as she power-lifted her fellow redhead's body back off the floor – while making sure to land in a few kick-shots to the back and head to settle down the resisting attitude of the snakey bitch.

Vice somehow managed to break away from the tight clutch, as she swung her arms widely around and grabbed at Shermie's hair, pulling herself up into a smacking headbutt that, while not completely forcing Shermie to drop the weight around her arms, left her wide open for Vice to maneuver around her shoulders.

The ever-clawing hand of Vice found its way around the back of Shermie's head as the full weight of the black/red-attired 'secretary of violence' tried to bring its way down fully onto Shermie's spine, with the hand trying to push with all of her strength to bring the debauched dame face-first into the ground.

Vice demanded with an ever-present demanding tone... "Come on, you brat – take a hint and eat the dirt...!"

Shermie's retort was barely verbose, being a heavy grunt eeking out of her mouth as she powered herself against Vice's full body stacked atop her back, bringing her bent spine back into straight position as she brought Vice against the wall – once again, the force was forming cracks in the scenery as Shermie then tumbled forwards, this time careening Vice's face into the opposite wall.

The positioning transitioned less destructively than expected, as Vice ended up dropping down after the skull-contact against the wall – she may have hit a significant stud in the wall from how she staggered off of her position as 'the rabid monkey' on Shermie's back.

Without fully turning around, Shermie vaulted herself backwards into a flip that only made it partway as she clamped a hand onto Vice's left shoulder and found a comfortable position wrapping herself around the neck once again. However, as the legs intertwined preparing for one of several particular grapples, Vice responded defensively by keeping her feet planted firmly against the ground, and this left Shermie in an uncertain position...

When faced with difficulty trying to nail a signature move, Shermie just simply readjusted, and she easily threw off Vice's momentum by flipping herself upside down so she was now handstanding on Vice's shoulders, slowly spinning around with her arms circling around the Red Snake's facial proximity while her feet 'walked' around the ceiling.

And then Shermie came crashing down – and she came down hard. Two stone-hard knees attached to thick and strong thighs crushed down onto Vice's face and her body splattered against the floor very abruptly, stomach and face hitting ground zero at pretty much the exact same time.

Vice didn't fully grasp what was hitting her the moment Shermie pretty much dropped her full body weight on top of him – and she handled even less of what was coming next as Shermie handled her by the waist and started to summon up a storm of slams.

First, a German suplex, the usual specialty out of Shermie's grappling arsenal, and with the force put into it, Vice's attempts to struggle out were quickly falling apart as her head basically bounced off the ground mid-slam.
Yet, she was still conscious enough to feel what was coming next – as Shermie did what basically felt like another suplex, yet Shermie did this with her legs instead and somehow managed to utilize the same amount of force as with her arm.
Shermie spiraled around Vice's body to hook an arm around the flesh-eager jaw of the snake-secretary, and what started in position as a 'Sliced Bread #2', suddenly made a 180-spin and fell down into a stunner that could shatter way more than two rows of teeth with peak force, and it managed to cause Vice's body to tumble in a frontflip, rolling past where Shermie stood.

The violent redhead was barely holding it together – her body was hanging on by slight threads as she semi-consciously stumbled a short distance away from her opponent.
Shermie, on the other hand, was nowhere close to done – and barely anywhere near exhausted – as she primed into position for something she hoped was climactic enough for a finale strike...

"Hmmhmmhmmhmmhmhm... you're in for some hell, aren't you?" At a half-kneel, Shermie was prepped for a running start – and her knee was crackling with enough energy to 'shut the lights off' in more ways than one.

Vice stopped stumbling away a while ago, and she had nearly fallen down onto her stomach – but a hand against the ground, poking into the carpet, was enough for her to keep her body relatively elevated.

She glared up at the foe primed before her, with an expression almost resembling readiness – even if her body and face read as so, what about her mental and physical health overall?

"Come at me, bitch..."

Shermie responded to Vice's daring retort with a confident smile as she started sprinting – the sprinting distance was short but she was savoring every footstep to the end, until she made her leap and charged a knee forwards...

...but at the same time, Vice adjusted herself with her own personal touch – her suit jacket slightly loosened around her right half, just slightly revealing some sinister ink trailing down...

Shermie saw very little of a red flag ahead – she just jumped in with her 'Lighting Leg Lariat' with no care to the risk in front of the reward.

She made contact soon enough – but not against Vice's smug and sinister face...

...rather, against a noticeable red darkness that had suddenly formed before the secretary, emerging in an almost tentacle-like shape as the clash defied gravity itself with Shermie basically colliding with a wall of energy that kept her from rushing forwards...!

The crackling of the lightning against the unsettling dark-red Orochi energy turned out to result in something akin to a catastrophic chemical reaction – as to be expected at this point, an explosion occurred...!

A big gust of dust from the literally explosive results blasted across the halls. Despite the shockwave sensation of the blue and red elements clashing and erupting into something that surprisingly didn't completely destroy the fight-locale, even when it was a tight hallway such as this.

As everything cleared up, however – what was even more surprising was that it hadn't sent either lady just flying across the scenery onto opposite walls. Vice and Shermie both had to have felt lucky not to have triggered a double-KO from that, let alone keep all their limbs intact...

However, what they both could begrudgingly agree on, was that they couldn't handle standing for just this moment.
Shermie was the first to let her legs give out, as she crumpled to her knees – the afterburst of what she ended up colliding with just made her feel like her lower half was utter jelly, and she plopped down.
Vice followed suit afterwards – but the way she went about it felt more like a 'Fuck it, I need to sit down and smoke one off' situation for her rather than

Suddenly, a standstill... somehow, in someway, the fight was seemingly nowhere near done...

Just like the last time he woke up, Ash Crimson did so to a change of scenery – though he could tell that, in a loose connection to his last predicament, he was still stuck in this bed, bound and silenced by cuffs and tape.

Along with that, he couldn't see a damn thing in here – the lights were out and his eyes weren't well-adjusted to the darkness. All he could admit to at this moment in time, was a sigh of frustration that was muffled, only reverberating from the sticky end of the tape.

After a moment, however, the lights did come on, giving Ash full access to vision once again. Starting off looking at his sides, he first noticed the odd pipelines and furnace-like structures lining the corners of the room – which tipped him off pretty quickly at this not being a regular room of any sort; more like a boiler room, if anything else.

Surprisingly, the room was wide enough to fit this bed that he was stuck on with space to spare – but it didn't help that the temperature over here was much more warm and musty – he already felt like he was catching a sweat.

Then he looked the other way and saw a far-too-familiar blonde bitch staring down on him from one side of the bed.
Just as she was the last thing Ash saw before drifting into unconsciousness last time, Mature wound up being the first thing he saw with actual clarity once some light actually entered the room.

"Finally awake, are we?" she said, before forming a smirk that was nowhere near 'heavenly'. "Good – we're gonna need you to feel every last bit of what we're planning with you."

Fight-or-flight kicked in briefly as Ash's cuffed hands briefly sparked with flames – but with the limited mobility, he had to admit defeat in that part and let those emerald-green elements fade away before it conducted too much on the metal.
Another groan of aggravation came out of his muzzled mouth...

"Still trying to rebel, young man? Hmph... if there's one thing I can thank Elisabeth for, it's for knowing how to keep you held down."
Mature fondled Ash's chin with a single finger itching beneath, unbudged by the death-stare he delivered to her afterwards; joke's on him – Mature had sold her soul to the snake-god a long time ago.

Ash's eyes lingered on the captor – he was one to believe in karma going both ways, even if he had to potentially take some damage himself to see that happen...
Eventually, though, he slowly found another point of interest to gaze upon, if only because of the sound of a giggle that clearly didn't come from Mature...
There was another person, just partially shrouded, behind the part of the bed that Ash couldn't fully see, and a pair of eyes were barely managing to poke over the top to look up to his bound body.

Mature turned towards this uncertain figure behind the bed, not hesitating to reveal the identity.
"Malin, is it? Be careful – I think he spotted you."

"That just means he noticed me – and it's about time, too~"
Malin poked most of her upper-body out, over the top of the bed near the bottom right corner, as a visible blush fell upon her dirty little smiling face – but the most notable detail, and possibly the oddest one, was that she was holding some sort of camera in her hands; one that resembled the security cameras around the building, which leads to implication that she swiped one for personal use.

"You're probably wondering why we decided to bring you here, aren't you?" Mature asked, knowing the answer while she leaned closer to him.

"We're sure Shermie's introduced you to quite a bit about what it means to 'be a man' for once..."
As she spoke, Mature let a hand drift closer towards Ash's body – and after grooming down his chest, her hand found a particularly testy position, clutching onto the loose bit of his studded belt.

While Malin held that camera close, Mature licked her lips briefly in anticipation...
"Care to share some of that knowledge here for a moment?"

The tournament was looking to be about to experience quite a broadcast, wasn't it...?

Next Chapter: A whole lot of shit continues to go down – and it's not just with Shermie and Vice's continuing battle, which in itself will take some wild turns in itself. Hopefully it doesn't take three months to come out.