Behold, another chapter of the most inconsistently-updated longfic currently ongoing in the KoF fandom! (maybe second to jojoDO's Dusk After Kumite)
In the two months or so since the last chapter, KoF XV is finally starting to get into that next phase of their pre-release whatevers – most of all, Ash got announced to make his return (though let's be real, we all knew it was happening), and with that, I can now play my OTP of Ash and Shermie together, in an official King of Fighters game.
Beyond that, I figured I'd try to get one posted close to the anniversary point of this story's first publishing on September 11th, since I'm likely not to get the next chapter done and uploaded on the exact day of the anniversary.
There's gonna be quite a bit to nibble on in this – not just of the last rush of the Shermie/Vice fight – so get ready.
The dust had freshly cleared after the clashing negative energy erupted into an explosion, in the umpteenth occurrence of one this week – momentum had tipped back and forth way too much to count, and it had gotten to the point where it was basically split down the middle after that last big clash.
Neither lady in the bout could stand at the moment – Shermie had succumbed to her hands and knees after the big red snake of death came clashing at her devastating leg-lariat, and on the other end, the big evil Orochi energy that emerged from her spirit-animal snake tattoo took quite a bit out of Vice as she opted to sit down.
"This is getting us nowhere, clearly..." Vice was about ready to just lay down on the ground and sleep things off. "I'm hard to keep down, and you just outright refuse."
Shermie let out a slightly strained giggle, almost ready to rest on her side.
"Hey, look at that – something in common, at last~"
Vice rolled her eyes with whatever facial strength she had left. "Whatever... I've already exhausted more energy than I thought I would dealing with you. Hopefully it was enough time for Mature to get her late work done..."
Shermie smiled, as yet another bit of breath escaped her throat from the growing pressure of exhaustion...
"You've got a lot to hide, Vice. You've got a poker-face that can't be read by even a microscope – but it won't matter. You can't hold down a woman in love..."
"Heh... 'love'..."
Vice shook her head towards the floor, as an expression of complete disregard grew on her face.
"I doubt you've even learned love like the back of your head. All you really know about love is how much you get yourself filled up with it by any man that gives you leeway."
"What do you call what you and Mature do 9 out of every 10 times you two are alone? Is that or is that not love – what do you really know?"
"I clearly know more than you. When you think love, you rarely ever think about genuine emotional well-being, trust and care – all that matters is how hard he's plowing you, no matter if he's big... or if he's Chris."
Vice's words hit Shermie's heart like a point-blank shotgun blast.
"You don't want to go there. Stuff like that, that's different between us..."
"That's your perspective. You think I'm the problem here, but I think it's you – what you are, and what you do, and how you go about doing it..."
"You're not fully wrong about that, Vice – me and probably almost everyone you've ever met can list a bunch of things wrong with you..."
Shermie crawled closer. "...but tell me – what kidn of problem do you think I have? Hmm?"
Vice paused, that stare lingering in on the other Hakkesshu representation as she expressed nothing disadvantageous on her face.
"All these ladies and you manage to find the one man that managed to be in the right place and the right time. That's the problem. You see opportunity and you take it, even when it shouldn't matter."
Shermie had difficulty figuring out how to respond to Vice's statement; something in her wanted to slap or stomp some sense into her fellow redhead, but that's something she would've only considered deeply if she knew Vice was wrong.
But she wasn't.
Shermie knew she had to form some sort of ultimatum with her fellow Hakkesshu – regardless of whether it was in her best judgment or not.
"I just want to see him again."
"...Are you sure?" Vice asked.
Shermie nodded. "Absolutely."
"Do you even have a clue of how he's doing?"
"As long as he's not dead, I'll take what I can get..."
As soon as Shermie gave her word on what she wanted, Vice's lips curved into a smile...
The odd collaboration of Mature and Malin was already an interesting sight in itself, but there was still another wheel in the vehicle of surreal villainy surrounding around Shermie and Ash's well-developed fling...
Nagase was just as hooked into this situation through Mature's grapevine as Malin was – she didn't necessarily have a real, reasonable connection to either of her collaborators, but the offer personally given to her was the peak of the little honeybee's interest.
That interest was quickly fading, however, starting from the moment she realized her input was mostly going to be non-physical.
Right now, she was in a random hallway (surprisingly unsurprising scenery at this point), butt planted on the ground, back against the wall, and she was simply getting bored.
Bored, bored, bored.
Only thing worse for her was to be bored and horny – she was lured in with the prospect of being able to find Angel after her suddenly-going-MIA after her encounter with Shiki, and so far, she's gone less than nowhere with it.
All she had at the moment was the activators wired into her to trigger hacked-into tech throughout the building when necessary, a communicator to talk with her short-term partners (of which, considering the Hakkesshu collective's intent, she was getting sick of talking with rather quickly), and a pair of hands that were trying not to dig underneath her yellowjacket-patterned dress and give in to the urges she slowly realized she had.
Those urges were mainly about Angel.
Sure, the grizzled 'daddy' figures she was accustomed to were the honeybee's main thing, but those big Mexican grapefruits were an interest of their own.
God, if she wanted to pass the time even harder than she was right now, she could've easily just dropped as much of her clothing as she could and go to town on her—
"Hello there~"
—self...?
Nagase's eyes blinked back into reality as she heard a voice just intrude its way into her presence.
She turned to the right and there was Chizuru, the second-in-command of the tournament-planning team (though admittedly a team of two), staring down on her with a gaze that was too motherly for Nagase's preference.
"I'm sure you aren't in a rush to do anything right now, right?" Chizuru asked. "Would you mind I asked you a few questions?"
Nagase sprung up, slightly nervous. "Uhhhh, what do you need to ask about?"
"I'll only need you for a moment – we're just trying to scope the mansion for clues from anyone on what's been happening the past couple hours at the least. I'm... hoping you're aware already, but..."
"I have no idea what the fuck you're on about," Nagase spoke rapidly. If she could sweat honey, she was doing her damn hardest trying not to right now.
"Oh no? You haven't heard anything? About the kidnapping or the borderline 'domestic terrorism'?"
"That just sounds like a whole lotta weird crap to me, what you just said," Nagase retorted, before immediately turning tail. "Got no time for this, whoever you are – if you'll 'scuse, I gotta find a better place to sit around doing damn near nothing..."
"Hey!"
Something zipped past Chizuru's side, sprinting up against the wall to launch past the maiden and spring straight into the path of the target.
Landing right in front of Nagase, Aoi had her sights immediately locked down on the small-but-fierce bee – the interrogation had jumped from being in the hands of Chizuru's 'good cop' to Aoi's 'bad cop' equiv'.
"The lady said she heard explosions. Last I saw, you were blowing shit up in more ways than one when you were in the running."
Nagase quickly knew what the bodysuited Kusanagi was talking about – the tournament body-count that, up to this point, included Malin in Round 1 and Kula (even if technically battling to a draw instead of a decisive finish) in Round 2.
These were the exact details she was trying to avoid bringing up.
"Shit. You got me there."
"I got ears and eyes, nerd," Aoi responded, savoring the slow steps she took to further tower over the suspect. "From the looks of things, you got a mouth that tends to say too much."
"I was being reasonable, and you tried to get out of it." Right behind Nagase, Chizuru followed suit in isolating the honeybee. "All it really did was raise suspicion."
Now standing so close to Nagase that she could almost step on her feet, Aoi grabbed the ninja girl by the back of her head and forced her into eye contact.
"Talk. Now."
Unfortunately for the 'sacred duo', the tech-ninja preferred to talk with her blades – as Nagase reached behind her with a subtle and swift movement, and unsheathed into an even faster slash.
With a sharp SHING~ ringing against her ears, Aoi was barely fast enough to swerve backwards from the defiant slash, which now made a small rip and a matching wound beneath in the side of her gut.
"Shit...!"
As quickly as she reeled back, Aoi charged back in with a swinging, flaming fist that only managed to clash with one of Nagase's blocking blade – the other blade similarly made contact when Chizuru swayed in with a wide-range kick, failing a direct hit of her own as Nagase was caught in the middle of a double-deadlock.
Eventually, the holding force of the ninjato pair gave way as the 'treasured' fighters broke past her guard and threw themselves even closer.
A puff of flame and smoke occurred suddenly, as Nagase escaped from being caught in the middle – and Aoi and Chizuru wound up making contact with each other instead, accidentally kicking each other in the face and falling to the ground simultaneously.
Nagase reappeared a few feet to the left from where her attackers laid momentarily – from the looks of things, she was looking to make a quick exit through the sunlight-welcoming windows...
"Listen – I'd love to stay and shut you up, but I've got people waiting on me to make the next move. You ain't getting none of this...!"
She lifted her right hand, prepping a sort of hand-sign to bring herself out of the scene with a bit of flick-of-the-wrist ninja magic, but...
KRSSHH!
The window in front of her was smashed inwards, as a arm charged through from the inside and grabbed her by the signaling hand, clenching in with a kind of strength that tried to straight up break Nagase's hand, one finger at a time.
Nagase tried to pull away, but the other arm of the intrusion clutched her by the head and pulled as they started to climb through the remains of what used to be a window.
The half-bandaged face of Lien Neville was soon peering down on her with a simmering blaze of rage against her nemesis...
"Did you miss me?"
Nagase couldn't speak much beyond a pained gasp.
"No, not really."
As Lien fully made her way through the window, into the room, she pinned Nagase against the wall, lifting the lightweight ninja off the ground a couple feet with a single choking hand.
"Good – cause I wouldn't want you to feel bad dying at my hands."
The smile across Lien's face spelled not just the mentality of a woman scorned – but one who wanted to finally settle things permanently.
She pulled a blade from her gauntlet and clutched it with almost enough tightness to unintentionally cut her hand open – she reeled back, aiming for the jugular...
...only for that arm to stay reeled back, as Aoi latched onto Lien with her own two arms with a disadvantageous embrace.
"Stop! We need her to talk!"
Lien put extra strength into the briefly-bound arm, rushing it backwards into Aoi's body to knock her aside.
Chizuru had also gotten back to her feet around the same time as her partner, tending to Aoi's aid quickly.
"Lien – don't make us do anything either of us might regret."
Right at this moment, on the other side of Lien's sandwiched struggle, Nagase had dropkicked the rival assassin away, feet slamming on breasts to bounce the blonde off – it was here where Lien fully understood the increasing numbers against her.
Despite it, she stood her ground against the trio of enemies against her.
"I don't care if you're with or against me. I've gotten sick of this shit the moment my deadly beauty was fucked with."
She continued to clutch the blade as she pointed it across. "Now step aside and take your punishment, or step forth and die."
"Fine. Just this once, you can have your way..."
Vice had given her answer. Somehow, she came out of this sounding somewhat reasonable – as though she felt this was actually the best decision.
That wasn't the oddest thing about it, however; because, as though it was seemingly encouraged by the 'Red Snake' granting Shermie's demand, the nearby television sparked to life – very staticky life, but still nonetheless – and looked prepared to broadcast something.
This was followed by a warning from Vice. "But don't be surprised if you stumble upon something you would not wish to see."
Shermie was naturally uneased at how Vice was ultimately willing to 'grant' her wish. This made her unable to really trust what she was about to see.
"...This isn't gonna be some gross trick, right? You haven't mauled him like you did Luong?"
"Oh, no worries," assured Vice. "We've made sure he hasn't suffered since we hooked him in."
The screen finally found a recognizable image.
There he was, back in Shermie's sights, through the TV, was Ash himself – still very much intact, and looking barely tampered with (mouth-covering tape disregarding). Though, through the up-close camera shot that maintained mostly from neck-up on his person, there was an expression in his eyes that still looked slightly out of circumstance – as though he was fighting back a slight struggle going on off-screen.
"Don't worry about his fidgeting about; he's in no real danger right now," Vice assured. "In fact... I feel like he may be starting to experience the type of 'attention' that you like to get for yourself..."
From there, the camera panned off to the left – down from his face to his neck to somewhere around the middle of his upper-body.
Then it turned to form an angle that peered lower on his body, towards his legs, and this was the moment Shermie confirmed to herself why she still felt worried.
Right beneath waist-level on Ash's body, there was Mature, staring back at the camera now pointing at her – and she was fellating on Ash's penis with the fullest of sensual movements, as her lips took a very slow, very fulfilling travel up and then down on him. From millisecond one on camera, Mature's oral talents were taunting Shermie.
The blind-banged individual was admittedly mixed on what she was witnessing. Any situation to see Ash get pleasured was one to behold, but to see either of the snake-secretaries have that kind of handle on him was something she would've rather not imagined, especially in the midst of their in-fighting throughout the week.
Watching on as Mature continued to go down on the unwilling Crimson's cock on the 'broadcast', Vice almost let her viper tongue twirl out of her mouth with a slurping satisfaction.
"I suppose even we were curious about why you desired this boy so much. I don't want to say I'm jealous of this – trust me, I wouldn't want to go to these levels with him unless I had to... though what I am jealous of, is her 'lip service', if you catch my drift."
"I guess that's meant to be funny – but I don't hear myself laughing. What's this supposed to prove, other than how she's hogging him away from me?"
"Let's just say, there's a reason for everything," Vice responded. "I'd like to make a deal, Shermie."
"Already don't like the sound of this..."
"I'm not surprised."
The conversation these two held was the only thing keeping the ambiance from solely consisting of the audible suction noises of Mature giving Ash the best/worst oral of his life...
"I hope we've done more than enough to make our point by now, Shermie; you seem like you have good intent – and we know you do – but you needed to learn one way or another."
Vice again gestured to the TV. "If you want to get him back, we'll be willing to do so – but, it's only if you do one thing for us."
"And what's that?"
"You forfeit this match to me."
Shermie could somehow feel the twintails of her hair shiver like it was lightning down her spine. "You've got to be kidding."
"I can already see you're already having difficulty understanding."
Vice explained the thick end of the tough wager, "If you give up now, I'll tell you where he is – and I'm sure Mature would be willing to get her lips off of him, too. But, continue to resist, and we'll be certain he'll make a good breeding pet for any woman who ever becomes curious to the idea. Hell, even the cameragirl recording this probably wants a piece of him."
On the screen right as Vice mentioned 'the cameragirl', there was another development in the broadcast; a fingerless-gloved hand, belonging to Malin, reached out from behind the camera and felt up on Ash's erect anatomy during a moment where Mature had her mouth and hands away from him – but the blonde Hakkesshu servant caught wind quickly and smacked the hand away.
"What did I tell you about copping a feel, kid?"
"Gimmie a break here – I've been wantin' this dude longer than YOU have!" whined Malin from behind the camera.
Mature snarked back, "I'm not doing this simply to satisfy *him*, kid. It's all in the mindgames, truly..."
There was an off-screen grunt of frustration coming from Ash as Mature let one of her fingers run down on his member, the sharpened nail digging on his foreskin – this prompted her to bring that finger straight up to the tip and dig her nail straight into his cockhole.
"Quiet, you," she demanded."Try to fight back again, and I'll split you like a sausage."
Shermie visibly winced when she saw Ash's member get nail-fingered like that – if anyone was going to be toying around with him, it sure as hell wasn't going to be the likes of Vice and Mature.
It should've been her.
"Make a decision, Shermie," Vice tasked, her focus half-set on the 'performance' being broadcast beside her. "We only have so much time to take with that pesky little manwhore."
As Vice continued to nudge on her to make her choice on the lifeline, Shermie stood there, staring at the floor, completely unmoving.
She hadn't opened her mouth to speak for almost the past minute, ever since before Vice cleared things up. Something was starting to spark within her – a dark feeling she was trying to repress throughout this whole trip away from the afterlife and back onto the Earth.
This wasn't just any result of rage – in fact, it was barely powered by that rage. If anything, it was more powered by love somehow. Not necessarily a romantic strength, but a motivated strength nonetheless, one that demanded she take things in a direction that she would prefer.
What used to feel like a warm September day was suddenly starting to feel rough and stormy.
"Vicey-baby, you just don't get it, do you? He's not just any simple 'manwhore'..."
A sudden crackle and a brief boom of thunder occurred.
Her Orochi roots were definitely starting to take form. It was clear it wasn't a complete embrace, as alongside the beginning of a cyan-blue aura of crackling energy, her hair mostly maintained the shade of red but showed signs of a dark purple shade coloring at most the end-tips of the bangs coming down over her eyes.
She lifted a hand, where she gathered most of that leaking energy.
"Simply put, he's my bitch."
Vice's eyes narrowed, and her lips curved.
"Hard way it is, then?"
She settled down into a slumped combat stance, right hand lifted up by her chest in a clawed position while her other arm lowered against her knees.
"Guess I should've seen this coming..."
Shermie's arms stretched out at her sides.
"Come and get me if you can."
Vice proceeded to dash forwards at top speeds, a feeling of ocean-depths-deep energy – almost feral dark red aura trailed as she flung herself in with 'claws' out.
As soon as her blood-red darkness clashed with the lightning of the partially-Orochified Shermie's strength...
KKKHRSSH~!
The building shook.
The lights flickered in agony.
The whole mansion was slowly falling into a moment of spiritual darkness.
And elsewhere in the building, another fight had briefly come to a halt before it could fully get started.
Lien was the most unflinching to the boom of thunder, with Nagase, on the opposite end, being the most to flinch, quaking within the clutches of a Lien-led sleeper hold.
On the other hand, Aoi and Chizuru found themselves glancing up towards the ceiling, taking focus on the lights as they risked burning out under such a sudden overturn building up in the sky – and both were dreading what this truly meant.
"Chizuru?"
"Yes?"
"Please tell me the weather's just going to shit..."
"If only..."
During another brief moment of light trembling into darkness, there was an audible thump!
"Fuck!"
Lien was smacked on the burned side of her face from the back of Nagase's head slamming upwards into her – the ninja quickly slipped out of the assassin's grasp and was halfway across the room in the matter of just a couple seconds.
Nagase quickly stuck herself to the windows on the side – even if it was probably right about to shower her with suddenly-spawning rain and lightning, this was her best direction of escape.
But before she left, she decided to throw a bone to the duo of 'Sacred Treasures'.
"He's on this floor; just keep running around. If you start hearing dick being sucked behind one of the doors, that's where he is."
Then she slipped out into the darkening of a no-longer sunny day.
"Alright..." Lien smashed into the wall with her gauntlet-wearing arm, making a head-sized hole.
"Who's the bitch I have to blame for letting her fall out of my grasp?"
"If I was to guess," Chizuru answered, "one of Vice, Mature or Shermie." Unlike Lien, she had enough of a mind to remain calm.
On the other side, Lien had a mind that... admittedly had barely a clue about any of the Hakkesshu beyond the rumors.
"...I'll be honest, I don't give a fuck about any of them enough to know what any of them look like."
Such a lack of knowledge calmed the flames of anger in her.
"No need for you to know. This is mine."
Aoi shoved past Lien and was already running down the halls. Of the whole collective of four that encountered each other, it was her that had the most reason to chase after those who were preaching the snake-god.
Chizuru initially tried to catch up, but the Kusanagi relative was already too far out of sight – even the power of the Yata Mirror was incapable of truly catching up, for Aoi's hateboner for the Orochi-adjacent probably made her unlikely to be pinned down any moment soon.
As for Lien – something about what Nagase said got stuck on her mind for longer than she would ever want.
"...Is there a reason why she was talking about 'dick being sucked'?"
Chizuru glanced back, personally sharing the confusion.
"You never know with this place. It's already been far past bizarre..."
Clashing, distorting auras of bright blue and dark red were crackling as Vice and Shermie crashed into each other – pairs of hands were clutched against one another's as the ladies pressed against each other's rivaling strength. Somehow, with Shermie only at about half of her usual Orochi strength, it was about enough to meet at Vice's level in almost equal footing.
Despite the vicious flickering of the clashing auras, neither lady were particularly damaged just from being within contact – the scenery was taking more of a beating with the lights above them struggling to stay alive, and the paint of the nearby walls chipping very slightly from the sheer presence.
After what felt like minutes of a test-of-strength that gave no advantage, the two redheads let go of each other, swinging arms aside in the separation.
Following up from the reelback, Shermie immediately transitioned into a wide swing, throwing a kick that Vice ducked with ease. Vice swiped in return with a couple swinging slashes, but Shermie dodged with a similar level of reflexes.
Within moments, it became clear that direct punches, kicks, slaps and the like were not going to make contact unless one of them lost focus – so for the next good minute of the match, the Hakkesshu-aligned women were spending most of their heavy loads of energy throwing strikes that missed and then dodging the other's counter-strikes.
Swipe, duck, swing, weave, rinse and repeat for seconds on end, until Shermie made a perfect read on a future strike and blocked it off by bringing an elbow and knee together on opposite ends of Vice's arm, catching it and crunching down with force.
Rather than spend time groaning through the pain, Vice kept pushing on through – even as her arm was caught within her opponent's guard, she rolled through, trying to claim some open territory behind Shermie, and wrapped her other arm around the Frenchwoman's neck.
Breaking away the guard to focus on what was behind, Shermie wrapped an arm around one of Vice's and pushed herself diagonally upwards to carry the opponent over into piggyback before dropping Vice back down right in front.
With another swinging kick, Shermie finally broke through with a knee crashing into the side of Vice's head, marking the first successful strike made since Shermie's Orochi roots started to flourish through just moments ago.
If it was any moment before then, that kick would've just felt like such – but right here, Vice felt like she just got bitchslapped with a taser. The electrical feedback shivered her skin and raised goosebumps in her flesh, and though it didn't completely take her down, Vice could still feel the painful tingles of lightning trying to attach to her skin like a symbiotic creature.
She responded, "You aren't getting him back that easily, you know..."
"Oh, I know." Shermie adjusted her posture, starting to stand over the half-kneeling Vice with an extended arm.
"I don't need to dance with him just yet."
Vice stared at the supposedly 'offering' hand.
"Ungrateful bitch; don't act like this is a performance."
She swung an arm, whipping it upwards and across at Shermie's face with a lot of reach...
...and it missed. Shermie evaded with ease, inching her upper body backwards by just a few inches – and she caught the swinging arm into her own clutches.
"It is – for me."
She pulled Vice up and into close contact, and for a moment, the vicious secretary was being used like a sort of dance partner, her body being toyed around as Shermie had her way for the moment. Vice attempted a few wild strikes to try and buck Shermie off, but the pink-clad beauty just continued to pirouette around with heightened reflexes, occasionally switching arms to clutch around Vice's body and arms with as she just... did whatever she wanted.
As Shermie ultimately pulled her in and clutched her from behind in a teasing embrace, Vice felt more annoyed than harmed by the end of the exchange.
"Fuck off already..." Vice palmed Shermie by the side of her face and tried to shove her against the wall – but Shermie had her feet planted with an almost glued-to-the-floor steadiness.
"Getting all touchy-feely already?"
Shermie retorted by lifting Vice off the ground into a very deep dipping maneuver, bringing her closer down towards the floor...
...before lifting upwards, and slamming Vice's head against the wall...!
Shermie's body bridged backwards as she balanced beneath Vice's body – Vice had to deal with the momentary after-effects of skull meeting wall. Her body experienced brief tremors – she might've hit a stud in the wall from how much it hurt that time.
It was only going to continue from here, as Shermie's legs swung upwards and intertwined, thigh-hugging onto Vice with raw strength.
The two quickly found their way back to the ground, as Shermie transitioned on top of Vice, into a camel-clutch style hold, continuing to hold her foe down and crank her back and neck like she was truly trying to 'make humble!'
Vice overpowered with lifting strength, trying to buck off the consistently-clingy Shermie with a few slams against another of the walls, but she was met with mostly-electrical resistance – Shermie's hands roamed Vice's face with a tangible carefree attitude able to be felt just by the touch, and her fingers were like very tiny tasers pricking the more vicious redhead.
Shermie's consistent hold maintained partially as her legs unwrapped from Vice's sides – but her arms still almost full-nelsoned the arms of the opposing sadist, and her hands pinched at Vice's face with the lightning-like synergy, hugging around the head.
A foot of Vice's eventually found a way down onto a good position, crunching down for toe bones as she stomped onto one of Shermie's feet and used her current footing to stay sturdy as she finally fully overpowered Shermie's underlying strength and tossed her into a non-optimal position that eventually forced the motivated lightning-bearer to break things off completely.
"Fine – if that's what you want..."
Shermie kept a short distance from Vice – but not without one more swift boot to the face to keep that hungry fighter groggy and leaning against the wall.
Seconds later, she could feel the presence of her opponent creeping back up on her – she extended an arm and blocked off Vice's path right where she stood.
"Don't get too worked up; it's not like you have any more of a chance than you may have thought before..."
A moment after that, Shermie could feel that outstretched arm get pulled down by mere brute force being brought down on her.
And, after that, a feeling of teeth suddenly sinking down and chomping onto her neck.
For once, Shermie felt some semblance of pain break past that voltaic partial-Orochi exterior as she nearly crumpled to her knees, while Vice chowed down on her, confirming in her defiance that she was basically running out of ideas and resorting to quite literal blood-sucking savagery.
The thigh-chomp earlier in the fight was fine enough for a scrap such as this; it was a tried-and-true 'dirty tactic'. This time, Vice was seemingly trying to take it literal when it came to 'going for the jugular' – and she was pretty damn close with her targeted hunger.
Shermie started to fight back almost immediately, pulling Vice forwards until she was back in front of her with just the strength of the grabbed arm, before forcing the lady with cannibalistic tendencies off of her neck and retorting with a fitting strike to the jaw – a volt-filled spinning kick that crashed her knee against the side, trying to knock teeth out of those flesh-tearing chompers!
Vice again was trying to keep herself from flopping fully against the floor – she wasn't giving that foolish Frenchwoman even the slightest chance of feeling completely superior.
Even then, Shermie expressed something closer to unamusement than pain and frustration, despite the rise of glistening red blood over the right of her neck.
"Do you usually just resort to eating people when you're not leading the ass-kicking? Where'd your sense of strategy go?"
Vice stared upwards with the sharpness of snake-fang blades. "Sometimes, you just gotta say 'Fuck strategy' and go for the kill. We've seen your limits before – do you really want to break through them just for this?"
Before responding verbally, Shermie acted physically upon her opponent, clutching Vice by the collar of her suit as she 'helped' (quote-unquote for sure) her up to her feet and kept her steady, spine-to-wall as Shermie loomed closer, face-to-face...
"For love and for lust? I'd say it's fair."
Vice felt the pounding headache, spawned in her head from the frustration she grew towards Shermie, get worse...
"Even in my eyes, you're putting yourself out there more than anyone would be goddamn comfortable with..."
She promptly charged forth with a shoulder-charge, only slightly budging Shermie before she was pulled around and thrown towards the opposite wall – of which Vice briefly vaulted upwards on before jumping off with a diving splash that proved even less successful. On this instance, Shermie stretched her arms wide and caught her opponent with relative ease.
Forming a bit of distance between the two by simply tossing Vice across the room like a wet garbage bag, Shermie re-entered proximity with a leaping twirl. Vice was already back up and bracing to block as Shermie gracefully landed back on her feet with one more swing of the leg upon dismount – which was dodged as the battle regressed back to the flinging of limbs against one another with some decent semblance of calculated strikes. These were definitely not absolute experts in martial-arts – there was a clear savagery that slowly grew as the two continued to brawl with further detail than a written piece could perfectly describe.
Somehow, the culmination of the umpteenth back-and-forth was Vice climbing past Shermie's shoulders, wrapping her arms up from behind, and slamming down with a powerbomb – there was quite the implication of impact from how hard Shermie smashed down this time, but some of that inner strength seeping out of her helped absorb the pain as she escaped quicker than you'd think, as she pushed herself off the ground. In this instance, Shermie's limbs (mainly her legs) were doing more of the grabbing than Vice's as she completely disregarded gravity just to 'undo' the power.
Shermie's legs extended and her strong thighs pushed full-force onto Vice's body, causing the more violent of the redheads to get flung across the room and into the wall – the exact same wall with the TV currently on.
For a moment, Shermie again had to deal with looking at the captive-sex still going on between Mature and Ash, somewhere in the building.
Though, Shermie did have to admit to herself, given how much combat had been going on between the last time she looked at that screen and this time, she was surprised Ash hadn't orgasmed yet during that, under all that sinister pressure...
Fuck... watching Ash 'in action', even when involved within the wrong person's grasp, was just making her want him more.
The TV quaked slightly from the brief burst of power engaging underneath it, as Vice clutched her hands against the wall, slowly climbing to her feet.
"I know where your eyes are wandering, Shermie. We both know there's only two ways where this ends in you and Ash reuniting."
Vice's body eventually blocked off direct sight upon the TV screen as she rose back to spine-straightened posture.
"Either you break past me and find your way to that flaming twink... or he somehow gets himself out of there and has to figure out how to penetrate a body covered in blood and bandages."
Shermie couldn't help but smugly smirk back as she walked closer, lessening the distance just a little bit more.
"Hmm... I like my odds on at least one of those possibilities..."
With faster hands than her opponent's, Shermie threw an arm forward and clutched Vice by the throat – Vice reacted by bringing one of her own hands against Shermie's with a perhaps tighter and sharper clutch.
"Why do you think that?"
Vice then grunted as she struggled – and then in the very next moment, she was pressured further against the wall until she suddenly met her head against a now-cracked television screen.
It didn't take long for Vice to sense something tangible coursing through into the body of Shermie – she could literally feel the electricity getting pulled from the TV from the back of her head as it shifted through her body, sparking through nerves in her physical form as Shermie outstretched her other arm...
The immediate reaction from Vice as she saw a more visible semblance of lightning course through Shermie's left arm, was to start kicking the French beauty in the gut to break off the choke-against-choke deadlock.
The resistance to the inevitable attack was probably a bit too late; by the time the two split apart from each other's grasp, Shermie already had more than enough energy flowing through for her to release at any time into something devastating.
Vice wasn't budged – in fact, she was banking on the mass-proportioned clash...
She pulled on the collar of her suit jacket, once again giving some exposure to that accursed tattoo crawling beyond her shoulder...
"Come on, you reckless shit," she dared. "Show me what it's like to re-embrace your inner demon after so long...
Shermie could already feel the world around her start to fade into a temporary darkness as she felt the blood-red spirit looming past Vice with a hunger for ultimate victory.
Yet, she still stood her ground – even as that wave of red slung at her for what was a second time.
Shermie lifted the lightning aura around her arm to brace – and she was met with the enemy's impure energy within seconds...!
For a moment, there was nothing but a big tidal-wave of destruction soaring down through the hallway like an elevator releasing a flood of blood – by the time the full extent of the snake god's wrath finished coming down, Vice was unable to stand straight anymore. She fell to her hands and knees, growling with just exhaustion on the brain and body before everything else, and she wouldn't be able to tell how much of a number she did on her opponent until the redness eventually cleared.
What was the result when it did?
Shermie being budged only a couple feet back from where she initially stood.
And the mighty thunder energized within her was sparkling even stronger...!
Vice could barely lift her head to look up after all that stamina spent... "What the hell...?"
Whatever conclusion Vice didn't count on, her fellow redhead was fully aware of.
Shermie knew.
She could tell that this wasn't exactly Vice at her full strength anymore, after so much time and energy spent on what could be considered an avoidable situation if the bracketology didn't request blood for blood within the cult.
Surprisingly, she managed to tank it well – even though her body still felt like it got hit head-on by an avalanche, it was sheer willpower (even if partially coasted by Orochi energy) that left her standing regardless.
She let out a slightly tense chuckle, managing a grin against the sheer annihilation that she had just braced.
"Hmm. What do you know – I guess judgment's against you tonight~"
Vice didn't know true frustration until she saw Shermie remain cocky in the face of danger. She almost wanted to rip apart the carpet right beneath her with her bare hands – hell, she almost pondered wanting to rip Shermie's hands off and use the fingers to rake through the ground for sick kicks.
In short, she was just simply pissed off.
"This is not a damn performance, Shermie; I don't give a damn what you think...!"
The sexually violent wench was even less capable of standing up than she was before – she stumbled with a drunken, numb feeling despite being completely sober, unless you were to count the frustration she felt for Shermie as a sort of 'high' that she was on right now.
"I'd eat your face, your ears and eyes – I'd even rip you apart, limb for limb, and eat your fucking heart and you'd still be standing, would you?"
Shermie simply gestured enticingly.
"You wanna come at me and find out?"
Vice, at heart and mind, was more than willing to do so.
Unfortunately, her body wasn't up to the task. As soon as she tried to rush forth, even just a couple steps...
"Urgh!"
She nearly collapsed. She was back to a half-kneel as her arms wrapped around herself protectively. As she delved deeper into her blind frustrations trying to keep Shermie down, she failed to keep a spotlight check on her own physical form's wellbeing.
She didn't realize the extend of what all that electricity ghosting through her did to her body; it wasn't just technology being siphoned into Shermie's body to give her the energy she needed for a necessary final blow – some of that seemed to have been taken from Vice's own nervous system somehow, to the point where she probably couldn't fully function again.
That, combined with Vice having to grasp at one of her last resort techniques twice in this one fight, meant nothing but bad news for the more vicious half of Rugal's infamous maidens of death.
Shermie looked down on her with an achieved sense of superiority – she strutted slowly towards the opponent, knowing there was going to be no effort made on the other end to try and stop her at this rate; not while almost all the energy of the fight had been given into her hands (one hand more than the other, admittedly).
At this point, Vice's motivations had already tipped and fallen off a metaphorical cliff. She knew exactly where this was going, and her body was seemingly in no shape to fight back anymore.
"You did this to me. You just couldn't keep your mind off that guy's dick for just a few minutes. Was it worth it just to fuck over your true calling?"
Shermie giggled. "You know... you've taught me a lot about myself, you really did."
Shermie's right hand lifted down to the side of Vice's head, resting against the darker-red hair of the woman with cannibalistic tendencies as their faces met closer.
"I know it seems like I've grown to be against you and your friends, but... look at it this way; if I didn't come and join you, I wouldn't have seen what I've seen – I wouldn't experience what I did. Hell, this was probably the only way we would've wound up fighting each other. And you know what? I think it's only made me stronger."
"Ugh, whatever..." Vice wasn't one to sit and deal with listening to life lessons. "Are you gonna finish me off now?"
Shermie cupped her cohort's chin, lifting her head up slightly. "Heh-heh – in time, Vicey~"
And then she suddenly met her lips against Vice's, much to the surprise of the latter.
It wasn't a 'romantic' kiss, per se – there was emotion felt, but there was no real lust, no tongue in the matter. This was more of a goodbye kiss.
Or, in a way, the 'kiss of death'.
Shermie broke away seconds later, and her hand moved from beneath Vice's chin to her neck as she lifted the red-and-black-clad secretary back to her feet, against the wall where that TV sat, now with a cracked screen and broken.
Her left hand stretched back as volts upon volts finally found their way to a release point at her hand, quickly forming a cloud of purplish-blue lightning that grew much larger than the scale of her own hand in a matter of seconds.
"Ankoku Raikouken!"
Shermie buried the heavy orb of electricity against Vice's body, and the impact sounded like ground-zero in the midst of heavy thunder exploding into a lighting bolt.
The wall blasted apart almost instantly as Vice wound up propelled through the rubble. She was already pretty much out of commission before she was fully flung out of bounds from the mansion...
A drop of around fifteen feet was not much to write home about, as her body unceremoniously smacked onto the grass and dirt of the outside world that was opened out from the mansion in what was only the latest of several incidents where holes were blasted in the walls of the accommodation.
After a moment to survey the destruction – most importantly, to look down upon Vice's convulsing, defeated body – Shermie was already feeling the weight of the aftermath on her shoulders. The direct influence of Orochi was already leaving her body again as the purple streaks in her red hair faded away and the stormy weather outside was suddenly overwhelmed by the returning sunlight.
Then her body as a whole collapsed onto the ground, flattening out as she exhaled into the world no further sounds other than of her heavy breathing.
She earned this rest, even if for a moment.
Because in the next moment, she was going to get herself that throbbing French-twink cock even if it meant having to go through the other half of that dreaded duo...
WINNER: Shermie
And the fight's finally done. I want to mention that I was dealing with the whole arc around Shermie vs. Vice (which started up in Chapter 56) ever since October of LAST YEAR. It's September. At this rate, hopefully I can get the next round started by the time the anniversary of the story's first chapter comes around NEXT year.
Next Chapter: The round is over and the threat of evil is dwindling – will Shermie finally get Ash back? ...Yeah, probably. Also probably some other shenanigans, but whatever, my hands need a fucking nap after this chapter.