Came the morn, the girls slowly and carefully disentangled themselves from the cover and each other. Ami stretched luxuriantly, face wreathed in smiles. "That was wonderful! I hope we can do that again soon." She had no idea why she felt so good, no inkling of the simple comfort that came from knowing oneself safe from inclement conditions. But she still felt it, and from their expressions, so did her sisters, if not as strongly. The girls filed downstairs, following the scent of cooking. In the main room, the woman was busy cooking, and though they kept a respectful distance, the foods looked not at all familiar. There was more of that bread, and brown cylinders, and brown-and-white strips, and something liquid being poured into a cooking utensil they recognized but couldn't name, shallow, broad, and with a long handle. The man directed them to sit on the floor, since there were clearly nothing near enough seating for all of them, and not long after, the woman brought out a large platter and a few plates.
"Hope ye don' mind sharin' plates," she said. "Don' have enough of anythin' fer nine at once." Then she started to take them through the foods: sausages, hash brown potatoes, toast, bacon, pancakes, and scrambled eggs, and a drink they'd not known before, apple juice.
The girl thanked her for the meal, and enjoyed the new dishes greatly, though they approached the syrup and honey with considerable trepidation, given their less than appetizing appearance and consistency, but ended by enjoying all the foods, even licking their fingers clean. Once they rose, and put the dishes in the sink at instructed, they bowed to their hosts. "We wish to thank you for your kindness," Ashi said. "If you will show us pictures of animals that are good to eat, and of their tracks, we can hunt some down. And if you can tell us which trees are not needed, we can bring some wood for your fires."
The two looked to each other, then their guests. "Ye don' need ta do that," the man said. "But if ye wanna, sure." He went upstairs, then came back, paging though a book to show them pictures. The girls examined them, twittered at each other, then departed. Not long after noon, they returned, bearing their catches, each girl a different animal, large or small. Deer, squirrel, rabbit, petty tyrant, others, a staggering bounty to the elderly couple. Then they looked at the book of trees, and listened to the old man, and departed again. They returned not long before sunset, each bearing or dragging a great log, then cut and split them, filling the woodshed just in time to go to where they could see the sunset and perform their devotions.
"Ye wanna stay anotheh night?" the man asked. "Ye've more'n earned it." They accepted, and spent another night cuddled together, learning at long last the simple comforts of touch, and warmth, and softness.
.oO()Oo.
Another breakfast, and afterward, the woman and man sat on the sleeping platform. "We been wond'rin'. What brung ye from yer temple? If ye wanna say."
Ashi shrugged. "We need to find a woman once part of our temple. We know that she went south, but that's all."
The couple looked to each other, then the girls. "Do ye know how t'live in a city?"
They shook their heads, and the rest of the day was taken up by an extremely basic primer on how to not die in the big city. They agreed to stay one more night, then depart the next day.
.oO()Oo.
Their departure, the first time they'd ridden anything, was both frightening and thrilling, all of them crouched low in the bed of the couple's truck, covering in minutes distances that would have taken hours on foot. The old man directed his truck between two white lines, then stopped and got out.
"This's yer stop. I got business here, then it's back to the farm. City's that way," he said, and pointed down the road. "Take the first road you see that curves off the big one. Follow it, you'll be on the outskirts by night. Good luck to you." They thanked him, and started walking.
.oO()Oo.
The trip was long, but it was clear where the city started: one side of the crossing strips of stone had many buildings, the other had few. As the sun set, they went out into a field to perform their devotions, then resumed their walk, trying not to wince at the sheer volume of sounds and smells and sights, so different from their Temple, so strange and confusing. Remembering their instructions, they went a good ways into the city before they sought out a small place, the kind they'd been told was called a store, and Aki walked up to the man behind the counter. "Where can we go to find shelter?" she asked once he'd greeted her. "Right now, we have no money, but many skills."
He considered the question a few moments. "Can you fight?"
Aki nodded. "Very well," and he smiled.
"Go for the dome. It's easy to find, just follow any main street. If you need to know where it is, ask. You know how it works?"
She nodded. "We've heard of it. Thank you," she said, and she gathered up her sisters, ten they departed.
As they'd done in the store, they stared at everything. It was all so strange, and so much writing! Writing everywhere, it seemed! There must be many very devout worshippers to merit such a vast amount. Several times, they had to go into shops and ask directions, the lights of the street and stores so strange. But they finally made their way to the dome, and after being directed to the door for fighters, they stepped into a relatively quiet space, then into a second space after another door. There, a creature half again their height and about twice their width, with six eyes and no apparent head, raised a flat thing and poked at it, asking their names as individuals and a group, and their combat specialities, at which they produced their weapons, slowly so as not to seem threatening.
The six-eyed being noted this down, and directed them to one of the smaller fighting pits. The pit master, a large man, looked them over. "So. You're good?"
"The best we can be. Our mother trained us to match the Samurai," Ashi told the man, who seemed to find that amusing.
"We'll see. You'll start out fighting the Force Squad. They're not much, to be honest, but it's really just a rating match. Then you'll get a real fight. Win, you get a place for the night, breakfast tomorrow, and a starting stake. Clear?"
Ashi looked to the others, and Aji nodded. "Clear," she answered, and the seven entered the relatively small fighting area. Lightly padded floor and walls, blue with white stripes, round and without cover, bright lighting. Ashi spoke a single syllable and the girls spread wide, weapons out, and their opponents filed in, four people, two men and two women, about their own age. Each had a shield and a short club, and as the two groups circled each other while the announcer introduced both sides, the girls twittered to each other, then two streaks of darkness knocked the four flat.
The announcer said nothing at all for a moment. "Fans, I never expected this. The Daughters of Aku have just set a new Battledome record for shortest ranking match ever! Let's have a cheer for our new championship contenders!" The crowd cheered as instructed. "And for the Force Squad, I ask you to give them your sympathy for this devastation. I assure you, the management won't hold this against them." The crowd laughed, but not unkindly. The Squad, they knew, was composed of decent fighters, this wasn't anyone's fault.
Not knowing what else to do, the girls treated the Squad like bested sparring partners, and helped them to stand. Both teams bowed to the audience, then departed. The Daughters were quickly escorted to a much larger, more complex fighting area, one with simulated ruins and jungle vegetation. "OK. I won't tell you much because you learning about your opponent is a big part of the show," said the fight director. "But I'll tell you this: your opponent's not alive, just a high quality robot. If you do something that would kill a living thing, it'll shut down and you'll win. But it's not programmed not to kill you, so don't hold back."
They nodded to that, though they didn't much understand. They did understand the important part: they needed to kill their opponent. Temple law on killing was clear: kill when you must, for sake of yourself and those in your care, kill quickly and cleanly, never kill for pleasure. This battle was kill or die.
The sisters spread themselves around the arena, taking positions atop the ruins, screening themselves as best they could while they watched the the other entrance. Ashi produced her bow, and Avi hers, the others theirs slings. The metal doors slid aside, and from the opening stalked a huge beast, powerfully muscled, with a row of three heads upon its massively broad shoulders above a row of four heads, each on a short, powerful neck. From its heads to its long tail, it was covered in thick, dappled yellow and brown fur over powerful muscles, and it stood twice their height at the peak of its back, and nearly that wide at its immense shoulders, and it roared with all its throats. Atop the ruins, the girls shuddered slightly, but let fly with arrows and bullets, leaping away to new positions before they struck again. They could easily keep away from the creature, and so victory was sure to be theirs.
Until the creature opened its mouths and breathed fire at the girls, who barely managed to reach cover. Ashi shouted to the others, and on her orders, Aki and Aji leapt toward the creature with her, the others focussing their fire on its heads, kept it focussed on them for the few moments their sisters needed to land on the broad necks. The beast answered by bucking and thrashing, and the girls clung with all the strength of their muscles and the adhesion of their darksuits, taking cuts at its skin as they could, their short weapons best suited to this task: Ashi with the kama of her kusarigama, Aki's katana, Aji's butterfly swords. Here, the beast could not claw or bite or flame them, and they trusted their sisters to stay away from its fire and to keeps its focus on them as more immediate threats.
Aji cut a gash its skin in a long draw cut, then gasped. "Ashi! It's made of metal!" She tore away a patch of the skin, and despite its thrashing, drove her blade into its neck, pulled it out, and drove in again, not quite in the same spot, and again, and the head went limp. Their leader responded by calling out a new order; she sprang from her perch, and Avi leapt up to it, barely twisting enough to dodge a fire blast. While the others did their best to keep its heads busy, Avi pulled at the edges of Aki's cut, opening it more, then braced herself face down on both edges, and pushed with hands and feet, unaware of the lewd display she was making. Slowly, slowly, the rent opened, and as Ashi and Aki disabled the other upper heads, she continued to push while their sisters continued to attack the remaining head, though their bullets and arrows did little more than irritate. But Avi had an idea: she produced a kunai, and struck a carefully controlled blow at the pipe she'd found inside the neck, and yelled at her sisters to spring clear.
At her words, all seven leapt and sprang and ran as far from the beast as they could, while the fire Avi had sparked in the fuel line slowly worked its way down to the main tank. The explosion they feared never came, but the creature thrashed, roared, flamed, as they frantically kept away from its death throes while its internal temperature steadily rose, forcing it to shut down. The crowd, after a moment of stunned silence, cheered, and the girls slowly turned around and around, then walked out of the arena.
.oO()Oo.
In one of the more ornate offices, two men watched the footage of the girls' fight. "We can't keep them on this. They're too good," said the man in the fine suit.
The man in the oversized suit groaned. "Boss, we have to keep 'em! They're gorgeous, they're identical, they'll draw crowds like nobody else!"
"Not on the fighting circuit. They're just too good, there's no tension, no way to build an audience. But I've got some ideas."
.oO()Oo.
The girls were shown to their promised place, a room with eight beds, where they pulled the pillows and sheets together to make a nest of sorts, where they piled together after performing their belated devotions, lengthening them to include an apology, and a prayer for forgiveness of their tardiness.
