Work on this chapter was kinda pushed aside during the mid-point of September since my birthday came up and I celebrated it quite a bit, so I focused on that for a bit. Aside from that, I had work as usual and ALSO like usual, I moved around a few things about the events of what's going down in the next couple chapters.
I'm gonna TRY to make up for it in October since the Halloween season is coming around, but I can't make promises.
Mature felt like she just got her heart blown out of her chest cavity with a shotgun blast.
Her hands were off of Ash at a moment, coming close to her chest as she felt a connection in her soul suddenly grow weak.
For the past god-knows-how-long, she had been toying along with Ash's defenseless body, handling him as a sort of sentient love-toy for her needs – the plan was simple: use the young man as ransom to force Shermie to submit to reason, and bring the Hakkesshu closer to a semblance of success on this 'pathetic' Earth.
What she didn't count on was the possibility of Vice actually losing...
"It couldn't be... there was no way that girl could actually beat us...?"
Mature's body slumped slightly forwards against Ash's, as she tried her hardest not to let out any frustrated tears from her ducts.
"Vice... how did you let that happen...?!"
The brief misery of the blonde sadist earned a hearty, though very muffled, chuckle out of Ash, shamelessly taunting the only way he was able to – he was smiling as much as he could beneath the tape that bound that smile into silence.
Mature didn't take that well.
"Oh shut up, you slime!" She swung a hand and smashed it against Ash's face – and cuts formed on the right side of his face from the mark she left on him.
"What do you know about our relationship? Nothing – absolutely nothing!"
Mature was not above the urge to start dismembering Ash in a power-play to just utterly crush Shermie's dreams with a bloody 'Fuck you' with a supposed 'lesson to be learned'. However, if there was anything to learn from Vice's defeat, there was a decent possibility that things would not turn out well for Mature either.
Her rage was slowly bottled back into her interior – Mature climbed off Ash's body fully, no longer needing use of him due to a need to figure out a new strategy...
"Malin, watch him for me. I'll be back whenever I can – there's going to be a change of plans."
Malin the camera-handler, having sat in the corner for most of the time she was in that room, almost dropped that camera as the opportunity fell squarely onto her shoulders.
"You don't even need to ask, ma'am~"
The moment Mature vanished – not simply opening the door and leaving, but actually fading through like a ghostly spirit, drifting to elsewhere (presumably to return to Vice's side) – it was all riding on that little rascal to handle Ash.
And in Malin's eyes, there was probably going to be a lot of 'handling'.
And especially 'riding'.
…
Her first act while sat upon Ash's body was to rip the duct tape off of his mouth.
VHRIP~! "Urgh...!"
Thus earning a brief grunt from him, due to how swift her flick of the wrist was, from removing the tape – before placing it back onto him, on the side of his face that was wounded by Mature's 'parting gift' to him.
As soon as he could feel 'freedom' on his lips, Ash took a moment to express what he was feeling right about now.
"Gonna risk letting me speak, huh?"
"It's worth it," Malin responded. "Not a chance I'm letting you bleed on me like that. Not like it matters – I'm sure most of that blood's already rushing somewhere else, right?"
She didn't need to say any further more before she started to undo some of her own clothing to match up to Ash's literally balls-out situation – first to start dropping was her shorts and underwear, both grabbed and pulled down in a single clutch.
From the moment her nether regions started to make even the slightest contact to his, she felt his member twitch against her – almost as though
She almost didn't want to admit it, but she expected further resistance at this point, especially in the situation of one-sided, relatively dubious consent she engaged upon Ash with.
"Are you... actually kinda liking this? N-not that I think you shouldn't but... I'm surprised you didn't start shouting out as soon as I ripped that tape off ya."
Ash shrugged. "Meh. I don't really give a shit anymore – I'd rather get laid against my full will than get actually tortured."
"Heh... well, I'm glad Mature made the decision on that, too."
"And she gives good head, too. Better than I thought, but not better than Shermie-chérie, obviously..."
"I've heard all I want to about her from Ms. Mature," Malin said, with an addition of slight negativity in her tone. "If I wasn't feeling the hots for you right now, I probably would've cut you a little extra – but I wouldn't want to ruin that cute face any more."
"If you were anyone worth lashing out at, I'd show you how 'hot' I could be. You're lucky you're kind of a cute kid."
"Not gonna be a 'kid' for much longer."
Malin shifted her hips slightly higher up, until her tight and enticed slit started to finally make some semblance of contact against Ash's tall-standing cock.
"Today, I'll make myself a woman. I'll ride you so good, you'll fuckin' overflow my insides with your wet, sticky—!"
Creaak~thud!?
The light came into the room from the opened door that startled Malin still as soon as she heard it slam. Sweat dropped down her face in a fusion of 'nervous fear' as she stared back at the one who decided to bust in on
...meeting back at the intruding force – Aoi, who had managed to get 'lucky' in finding the room carrying Ash's state of captivity within the first hall of doors; though clearly she didn't feel that luck in the air as she looked away almost immediately upon realizing the near-coitus situation that she had opened the door to.
The biker groaned, utterly repulsed at having to deal with Ash more than anything.
"Of course he's got his fuckin' dick out..."
"O-occupied! This is a private moment!"
Malin reeled her body back and grabbed the knob to try and close the door shut again...
...only to be stopped by Aoi's foot stepping in as the doorstopper.
"Sorry, kid – we gotta get Ash back, Chizuru's orders."
Continuing to keep eye-contact away from the 'exposed' collective, she forced her way into the room and in a matter of seconds, she had already swooped Malin into her grasp with the hook of an arm and was dragging her away.
Malin flailed madly, like the child she still was at heart. "Get off me, you weirdo! You're ruining my one chance to get laid!"
"Trust me, you're better off," Aoi answered. "He's been all over the place from what I've heard – he even almost got himself in me somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up catching something already."
Suddenly, Malin pulled a knife from her waistbag.
"I'll stab ya! I'll slice your ankles!"
"No you won't."
Aoi quickly shifted the way she handled the brown-bandana'd rascal, heaving her around like she was carrying a bodybag...
...before slamming her against the wall where her head made most of the first direct contact – after a couple more stomps against the gut and face, Malin was completely leveled out onto the floor, barely conscious as Aoi stood over her.
"Holy shit you're fragile. Now where was I again? Right – the perv..."
Aoi walked back in the direction of the now opened door leading into where Ash was laying.
Naturally, the French horndog's thoughts went in a similar direction to where his loins were pointing.
"What, you wanna get on all this, too?"
Immediately after saying that, he felt the full brunt of Aoi's harness boots suddenly stomping him almost directly on the balls – somehow probably the most painful sensation he had felt this week, and he had suffered wounds that drew blood.
"So that's a no?" he just barely managed to squeak out.
"That's a 'fuck no'. Now hold still..." Aoi stepped over Ash's exposed nethers like stairs as she climbed over on top of him, her focus going directly towards the handcuffs keeping him bound to the bed.
She pulled, and pulled, and pulled – and she was able to break the cuffs with just the grasp of her strong hands, one followed by another until all of Ash's limbs were completely free from the debatable 'hell' that he was bound to since the morning.
Turns out, all it needed was just the near-pure strength of the Kusanagi to break through.
And in Aoi's eyes, it was kind of disappointing – and to her, it also said a lot about Ash's strength beyond just those pesky green flames.
She ultimately commented, "If this was what you had trouble with, then you need to lift some weights, twink."
Ash gestured back, "Take it easy – I didn't choose to get pulled into a situation like this."
"You chose to hang around because there's a bunch of girls here. That's your fault."
"You try being a guy in a sea of ladies, then."
Aoi snorted, keeping back laughter as she started to pull Ash off the bed. "Don't try to imply there's any dudes I'm interested in."
"Ohh... so you swing that way, do you?"
Ash's interest peaked for a few moments... before getting smacked out of him from Aoi's forearm striking the back of his head.
The pulling force of the biker's clutch on Ash's arm slightly intensified, causing him to wince. She almost wanted to rip that arm clean off.
"I said don't imply, jerkoff," Aoi retorted through gritted teeth. "Let's go – you can go get patched up, but after that, your 'mommy' needs to see you in her office..."
"Alright, alright, I get it, Betty's looking for me... Just, don't tug so hard, okay?"
"I'll tug as hard as I damn well please, thank you very much!"
Aoi would rather keep Ash from being completely comfortable in her grasp, if just for her own personal amusement at the dismay of the Frenchman.
"Save some of that tugging for me, will you, Kusanagi?"
A few footsteps further was as far as Aoi went when trying to transport the Sneering Blaze – as a familiar voice found its way into her business for far from the first time.
Her head hung low, and her free hand became a fist so clenched that her nails almost tore through the leather of her gloves.
"Motherfucker..."
Aoi turned around and was met with the familiar red bangs of probably the person she's seen the most just in this week alone, regardless of whether she wanted to.
"Speaking of 'mommy'..."
Shermie stretched her arms out, smiling towards Ash specifically.
"Come here, my sweetie~" Then she brought those arms in, wrapping them under her chest as though to push her 'goods' up more. "I know you missed these milkers..."
Something was already rising back up within Ash, but he was admittedly feeling a bit awkward considering who else was here besides him and Shermie...
"Heh... good to see you too, but... laying it a bit thick there, no?"
"You fell in love with me – clearly there's nothing thicker that you can't withstand."
Suddenly, the raw embodiment of sex that was Shermie, was approaching with arms and chest wide for her degenerate lover's grasp.
"Let's not tiptoe around it – come here; I want you, now."
Almost immediately, the French beauty was stopped before she truly began with her renewed drive, as her glance on Ash was promptly cut off by the presence of something in the middle.
Aoi stood right in the middle of a growingly sensual pathway.
She stood tall, with her sight lowered to the ground so that much like the lady before her, her eyes couldn't be seen beyond the hair flowing down in front. Perhaps moreso than the Orochi-aligned redhead, she was already standing out with a potentially more threatening aura.
"Shermie... do you want to know, over these past few days, how hard I've been trying to resist the urge to punch you in the face?"
Her voice matched the low-key stillness of her body in the moments before a potential explosion, low and all too calm for anyone around her to feel safe.
"Tell me – do you really want to know?"
"Ngh..." winced Ash, who peeked from behind Aoi's body after feeling a particular uncomfortableness on the part of his body she was holding.
"Aoi, I don't want to have to burn you if you don't stop trying to crunch my hand—"
THWOMP!
Ash was suddenly, and quite brutally, punched in the stomach at full-force as Aoi smashed her fist into her body with such force that it felt like she was trying to impale him on her arm.
The rattling force, the rage of a Kusanagi put into that fist, shockwaved so hard throughout Ash's body that his body quaked as a whole. He almost felt like vomiting from that one punch alone, but his body had its own plans with less function needed.
"M-merde..."
He simply fell limp and then slumbered into impromptu unconsciousness, splatting down against the floor, right besides the wall to his right. Much like Malin moments before, he was quite easily taken down in one swift move, at the hands of a Kusanagi.
"Ash!" Any resemblance of Shermie's unsubtle horny nature towards Ash had fallen apart, to make way for care and worry over her now knocked-out lover. "Oh baby, I'm so sorry, I'm sure she didn't..."
As she briefly cradled her motionless boy-toy, she absorbed all the feeling that started flooding in her body that would've otherwise come out as tears from beneath the hair shrouding her eyes. Instead, she showed signs of frustration, an increase of 'venom' within herself, as she confronted the Kusanagi rebel with the unforgiving fist.
"W-what the hell is wrong with you?! You didn't have to do tha—"
SMACK!
Shermie's head suddenly cracked to the right from sheer whiplash, as Aoi's hand swiped across her face with absolute impact – it felt like Aoi put almost as much momentum into that as she did trying to pop Ash's stomach just seconds before.
It took a couple seconds for her to register the pain of the bitchslap, before holding the afflicted side of her face with the comfort she knew in her own hand. Somehow, despite having been sliced and bitten not too long ago, that single slap felt like it hurt worse than anything before it.
She would've probably shed tears if she wasn't already approaching 'truly-pissed' levels.
Then Aoi lifted a hand up and jolted it closer to Shermie's face, and the pink-clad beauty almost flinched this time, thinking she was about to have her beauty tarnished further – but thankfully, Aoi's hand stopped short of contact, instead providing three fingers to provide for thought.
"Three days. Three days here, Shermie – that's all it took to push me this close to my limit."
"L-listen... Aoi... this isn't meant to be about you—"
Trying to get over the stinging pain of the slap, Shermie approached quickly, and was cut off even faster.
"No you listen – listen good, and keep it in your brain for as long as possible..."
The way Aoi met back on Shermie's approach, allowed her to almost overshadow the seductive force, despite being a slight bit shorter when comparing height.
"Before we started bumping into each other this week, I just thought of you as someone to regret meeting after a long time thinking on my decisions – what I've done, what all that business with the Orochi guys did to me. Now, after seeing what you and your 'friends' were dealing towards me, and after how you dragged that thing into this..."
Aoi gestured down at the KO'd body of Ash right at her feet.
"...now, I just think about how great it would be, to beat the shit out of you."
Shermie sighed, feeling a little disappointed that things have gone this way...
"Why am I not surprised you have nothing but bad things to say about me?"
She may not have been the smartest lady of the whole tournament's roster (especially when she was her normal 'dancing sex symbol' self), but she knew when she was being berated when she heard it – and after what she went through just a little while before, she didn't feel the need to bite back.
"Every time, I should just expect to just get mud slung at my face, if that's what I deserve."
"You're definitely providing a lot of that mud. Though it's more like literal horse shit – it smells a lot worse, let me tell you that..."
"A lot? As in, not all?" Shermie immediately took notice to that certain piece.
"…This isn't about just me, is it? It's about him, too, right?" She too gestured to the unconscious Ash Crimson between them. "It's about Mature, about Vice—hell, is Leona in this, too?"
"I don't care about all that, Shermie..."
Aoi took a moment to bury her face in her hands as she continued to circulate the thoughts in her mind into something worth the time to vent.
"I don't care if I had to go through one of you bitches to get up to this point. I don't care if I'm spared the blood-loss not needing to face the other, from how you turned out. Hell, I don't even care that Chizuru had to drag me further into this business just because you didn't have a tight enough grip on your fucktoy over here... On the other hand, I sure as hell care a lot about Leona; you might unfortunately be right about that, but she wasn't supposed to be involved to begin with! Just like me!"
"Aoi, please," Shermie said. "Can we get to the point before I start to go crazy?"
"My point is, fat-ass—"
"I-I'm not fat!"
"My point is..." Aoi jabbed a pointing finger towards Shermie's face as they got suddenly closer to each other... before taking a couple steps back to breathe.
"There's only so much one woman can take before it starts running around in her brain like bullets that never find an exit wound, bouncing like mad before it drives her as close to the realm of insanity as goddamn possible. I don't give a shit if you don't intend on it, but something is definitely luring us together. Like moths to... a flame?"
As soon as the thought of fire came to her mind, Aoi projected a bit of that element.
However, it was not the pure orange flame, but rather... the tainted purple of a cursed being.
By this point, Shermie had heard enough to know that she should stop pondering vindictiveness for Aoi's growingly abusive tendencies around her and Ash, and probably start feeling worried about who she personally felt was a friend in her times where she was truly alive.
"Aoi... please, just tell me... when does it end? When do you finally put that anger aside, and give me a chance?"
"There's only one way it could end..." The flame vanished as Aoi clenched the element-wielding hand.
"...and that may be by fighting and beating you."
"Y-you don't have to do that..."
"I don't have to – but I feel like I have no choice."
"It isn't your choice to begin with..." Shermie took a few steps closer, approaching with caution...
"It all falls upon Betty, more than anyone else in this place. It's her tournament, after all – and there's an equal chance she might put you against Leona somehow..."
For a moment, Aoi fell silent, deep in thought.
What if she did wind up against Leona in the next round?
Especially after the damage Lien dealt to the soldier, Aoi couldn't bear the thought of having to go through her to potentially get to Shermie.
"It is her choice, isn't it?"
No. No, it shouldn't have been worth the risk...
Aoi turned around fully and started walking away, completely leaving behind the two French lovebirds – one conscious, the other not – to tend to themselves.
Shermie wished she could get a read on what Aoi was really thinking.
"Aoi, I... I don't understand..."
She glanced around at the hallway around her, before her eyes eventually fell squarely on Ash on the ground.
"A-and what do I do with him?"
Aoi stopped briefly. "Just go suck his dick till he wakes up – that's what you came here for, isn't it?"
She turned her head back halfway.
"As for me? 'Betty' and I have some negotiations to deal with."
Then she continued walking – this time, she didn't stop.
She wasn't going to stop until she found Elisabeth in her sights.
And from there? Who knows what might go down...
Nakoruru was feeling scared for Mother Nature.
It was nice and sunny a few moments ago – then the clouds formed, and it rained for a moment, even thundering a couple of times.
And then it went back to being bright and sunny almost immediately.
She wasn't going to let such weather oddities distract her for long, however – she had something she needed to do, and it led her a good distance away from the mansion that carried its own world of discourse.
Down the farthest side of the green valleys, the nature warrior knew exactly the type of discourse she was in for as soon as she discovered a cave that was somehow hidden behind the heavy flow of an otherwise unassuming waterfall.
As soon as she stepped through the dark roots growing around the outline of the opening, was met with a path of gradual darkness – the sunlight just simply couldn't reach that far as she walked down the uncertain path.
Such sights were so grim and ghastly that the usually-protective Mamahaha shivered against the atmosphere, atop Nakoruru's shoulder.
It felt like minutes had passed as she walked, and it was only by this point that she started to get a sign of progress as the near-silence of nothing but her own footsteps soon found something else to accompany it.
Chains.
From what she was accustomed to back in her own time, there weren't many things that were a close connection to the sound of chains rattling. Those that were connected, were things that were considered the farthest from 'well-natured goodness'.
Just from that alone, Nakoruru knew she was getting closer to the origin of that sinister aura – the recurring threat that found its way here like she did.
Eventually, she met the very deep end of the uncomfortably-long path, and she didn't want to admit whether it was worth it or not to make it to that point...
The dead-end of the cave was as eerie and surreal a sight as Nako would expect from someone like Shiki:
Barely any lighting to give the patrons within any sight to see, chains darting from random directions with only some being used as a binding tool, random splatters of blood where a normal person couldn't deduce what splats came from who and/or where...
...and in them middle of it all, above a floor of stones that was painted in several odd symbols, Shiki herself was clung around the (thankfully still living) body of another – that being Angel, formerly thought to be missing since the end of her bout in a losing effort against the blue-clad slitherer.
Beyond the dirty chains, the noticeable wounds opened upon both ladies' bodies and the overall nearly-macabre setting, the two were somehow engaged in something that could only vaguely resemble tongue-to-tongue action – it was almost as though Shiki somehow found Angel fond enough to take in and make love with, though knowing her, there was much more on the inside going on that she had planned, specifically with dark intent.
Nakoruru stood there for much longer than she really needed to be – though it was mostly by choice; due to the very minimal acknowledgment of sound in the cave, she knew she wanted to avoid making noise, as the slightest crackling of a rock crunching under her feet would've tipped off the jet-black haired oddity asserting herself with her captive in the back end of the cavern.
However, there was an opening to be capitalized on, if she were to impose force upon Shiki – and she had very little choice but to with the consistent resistance made against compliance that had been going on since Shiki quite-literally fell into this modern world.
At her command, Mamahaha hovered off from Nako's shoulder so that she could cling onto the hawk's strong talons and slowly drift through the air without risk of making contact with the crunchy material that would've otherwise caught attention.
After a short flight across, Nakoruru dropped down and successfully caught Shiki off-guard by landing on her back and slashing her sword across the shoulder.
Shiki was not as phased as one would be if someone just hopped up on their back and started slicing them – but it had enough of an effect on her to drive her attention completely away from the bound-up Angel right in front of her. Her weapons were laid at the side of the room, away from her reach at the moment, so she had to rely on the strength of her own limbs to try and rattle Nakoruru off of her.
This quickly culminated in the two time-displaced fighters fighting to the floor – just as quickly, the two dispersed and kept their distance. Nakoruru had her short-blade backhandled with ease, while Shiki found herself closer towards her twin-blades in the corner of the cave.
All the while, Angel stayed dangling off the ground from the chains, staring on in a mixed state of disorientation, pained numbness and possible horniness led on by the ritualistic 'methods' used upon her.
"Little girl, go play elsewhere," Shiki said. "I have to serve my purpose no matter where I am."
Nakoruru pointed her weapon towards the opposition. "Your purpose in life is even more of an abomination to nature when it's beyond our timeline – understand that you and I both don't belong here..."
"Hmm. That is true," Shiki retorted, as she clutched her two swords, "but if one of us has to fall here... it won't be me."
Both black-haired warriors were primed with weapons in their clutches – the cavern provided no real audio to the inevitably violent meeting other than the sound of Mamahaha's wings flapping alongside her owner, and the breathing in and out from both ladies involved.
Shiki's breath was, by comparison, the more silent, with only the slightest shudder giving proof to her being alive in some fashion even as she was standing and primed for combat.
However, Nakoruru's breathing was not as consistent or even as confident, despite how she physically stood out with her blade jutted towards her opponent and her feet firmly planted with not even the slightest quake in her boots.
More than the snake-tattooed fighter before her, Nako knew that the atmosphere was not right for a round of blade-swinging warfare such as this – were it maybe centuries before, where the both of them truly belonged, then maybe the wind would fit the tides of battle?
As soon as Shiki's presence started to shift forward, even just the slightest little bit, Nakoruru tensed up with identical tightness as the grip on her blade.
"I don't want to have to kill you," she warned. "Especially not in this world... before either of us even makes it back home... if we make it back home."
Shiki tilted her neck, the twin-blade expert shifting a bit of hair out of the way of her eyes as her gaze rested even deeper on her good-natured opposition.
"I'm not going home – and neither are you. You'll be chained up, just like poor Angel is. You might die... you might not... but either way..."
She lifted her blades, the twinning metal sharpness crossing over top one another, as her expression turned, and in her mind, the dial of 'sadism' was turned further into the higher numbers.
"...I still have a long way to truly feel alive."
The dark servant bent her posture forwards and tightened her bending elbows further – she lunged...
...and suddenly, just as she seemingly vanished from plain sight, so did the flames of the torches giving the cave any light...
Nakoruru was unable to remain purely calm anymore as she was given nothing but darkness. She could tell just how unnerving it had quickly become just by the silence around her – even the sound of Mamahaha flapping around had stopped, as her guardian pet was similarly struck with uncertainty.
Then she felt two sharp points start to dig against her back.
"Ahh!"
Nakoruru instinctively turned around with her arm swinging the blade at the blind darkness. She felt no contact made, and she could tell that there was nothing but emptiness ahead despite what had just poked her from behind.
That emptiness filled up with a complete lack of warning as sensations started grazing past her face, as though something was trying to jet through her body to little success. The noise of rattling returned alongside the sudden emergence of something around her, and she could already tell what it is just from reflecting on what she saw entering the cave.
The sensations continued to overlap around her body, as though those chains, unseeable through the pitch-black darkness, were trying to close in on her. She felt a need to just start running forward, maneuvering around the few chains that presumably emerged in front of her through blind trial-and-error before continuing to sprint further in a desperate hope to actually find light and, in turn, a chance to fight without paranoia over the shadows.
Within moments, she was starting to see the light on the opening end of the tunnel where she came from – it would not be long before she could regain the advantage...
…only for something to just completely stop her still in her tracks before she could even dip a toe back into something more resembling the human world.
A feeling of something trying to drive its way through her from behind, just like before.
Only this time, it broke through.
One only pierced through loose clothing.
The other penetrated skin, and muscle – and beyond.
Nakoruru had come far enough to see some semblance of light make its way into her sight, but now she was in witness to her own impalement as a bloodied blade emerged from one side of her body, from the back and out the front...
...and an arm slowly wrapped around from the other side, half-hugging around her upper-body and neck as Shiki peered over to make some heavily unsettling eye-contact.
"Make me feel alive again, guardian of nature."
It was still not determined whether this was something truly worth for, for either party – but regardless, both had a long way to accomplish what they needed to within this world, long evolved from what they were used to...
Next Chapter: A bit more venting frustration, more drama, more impromptu fighting, etc. It's all fucked at this point, but how does Elisabeth feel right now? Find out in the next chapter, I guess?