Taimanin Asagi: Apocalypse 2

A rumbling came through the ground as the soldiers tried to keep the grasping hands away from the vehicles and their own weapons. "Another earthquake?!" a soldier screamed, but Ingrid shook her head.

"Something big," she said to Asagi.

The crowd, now grown to thousands and stretching for blocks, began to surge away from a cross-street in the distance in mad terror, trampling over each other in desperation. Asagi and Ingrid braced themselves for what would come into view, but even their most vivid nightmares hadn't prepared them.

A giant demon-worm, twice the diameter of a subway train, of sickly khaki-colored flesh, and with a maw lined with tens of thousands of flexing teeth, came rushing out of the cross-street into view. As it whipped its mouth side to side, it scooped up scores of shrieking men and women, who plunged into an immense, pulsing sphincter.

"Oh God…" Asagi breathed out. The worm turned to the mass of humanity fleeing towards Asagi, and began building up speed. Asagi looked at the humvees and the barricade, and hesitated. Ingrid made the same calculation that Asagi did, but she was decisive.

Ingrid grabbed Asagi and leaped away from the convoy as the soldiers started shooting into their approaching death. "No!" Asagi yelled, watching as the worm ran through the crowd, swallowing hundreds and crushing hundreds more, and then two whole vehicles of the convoy, before smashing through the barricade.

With a crash, the pair shattered the glass wall of an office overlooking the carnage. The sound of their violent entry made some people, hiding under their desks, whimper in abject terror.

Asagi wheeled on Ingrid, grabbing her cloak. She didn't even need to speak her thoughts, her face showing her emotions to the demon clearly.

"Self-sacrifice is a virtue when it's in the service of a higher cause, and it achieves a concrete objective, ninja," Ingrid answered, her own voice wavering with barely-held emotions. "You can't kill that thing, neither can I, not right now. We need to figure out what's happened. If this… congruence of Earth and the Dark World is isolated or not."

Ingrid's voice and reason helped stave off some of the helplessness, but it was hard. Asagi felt sick of herself. "Gosha…" she said. "If it's still standing, it's the best place for me to go to. It's in the west, in the mountains."

Ingrid nodded. "Convenient. There's a place in that direction that Edw-… Black… used to use as a personal retreat. If he's involved in this monstrosity, there may be some clues as to what the plan was I can find there."

"Then we need to get out of the city. But we can't just cut and leave everyone to die!" Asagi pointed at Ingrid. Ingrid was about to respond when gunfire from below, wild and frantic, caused the hiding workers to moan again.

Ingrid's sword, black fire that didn't burn Asagi, roared out, and the floor beneath the two evaporated. As they fell to the floor below, they saw the kicking legs of a soldier go limp with a sickening crunch, as his top half was being consumed by a smaller version of the giant worm. The two blades swung, and the murdering demon was torn apart in revenge.

Then the ground shook again, making the phones and monitors on the desks rattle. The two turned and ran, but it was too late. The outside wall of the building shattered as the giant worm raked across the side. Dozens of slick tentacles flew into the building, trying to catch anything big enough to notice. Asagi got one around her neck, and Ingrid got three on her limbs, both of them yanked off their feet by the shock of being tethered to the worm.

They were pulled into the maw, with a dozen other howling individuals. Going through it, Asagi saw many of the captives get sliced by the teeth, and they started climaxing with insane, inhuman howls.

"Ingrid!" she shouted, but Ingrid was too constrained, and her arm got cut. The demon's eyes widened and her mouth turned into a rictus as her back arched, a spray of liquid squirting through her clothes.

Again and again Ingrid came, squealing like an animal, as they passed into the interior. Asagi dodged the teeth, holding onto her sword as tightly as she possibly could, knowing that losing it would be her end. The whole crop was pulled through the sphincter into the worm's insides. They passed into horrid, wet and fleshy tubes that tightly wrapped around their limbs. Asagi tried her best to hold onto Ingrid's leg as they were swallowed, but the poisoned, shuddering demon was sent down one esophagus, and Asagi another.

A wet, syrupy slurping sound accompanied Asagi being deposited out of her tube, into a chamber of horrors. Pools of acid bubbled violently, filled with the half-dissolved ruins of flesh and clothes that had once been human beings, their blood staining the flesh around the pools.

In the walls, another, even more horrible crime was taking place. Dozens of women were embedded in the walls in various depths. Some were hardly more than exposed torsos with scraps of clothes caught between their backs and the walls, their bellies already engorged with something inside. Others had their heads encased in fleshy tubes that pulsed rhythmically. Others were mostly free, but the wild, poisoned orgasms that racked their bodies rendered them unable to fight back as they were raped by tentacles emerging from the walls.

Asagi watched as a new arrival had three tentacles stuffed into her holes, deep enough that she could see the wriggling heads filling her insides. "Fill me! Fill me! Fill meeee!" she repeated over and over again, until her voice was tearing apart.

For a split second, Asagi almost wondered if Shiranui had been right. Wasn't any kind of obscene slavery better than this? Wouldn't Asagi have been happier if she'd just accepted Shiranui's offer at first? But then she'd have to still think about her failures.

What if she just dropped her sword? The little black voice of despair whispered behind Asagi's mind. Wouldn't it be better to go mad? To let this thing devour her brain, reduce her to an egg sac? She could forget everything except for insane bliss.

Asagi's sword sliced out and cut through the tentacles assaulting the woman, but she saw more and more begin to emerge from the walls. She didn't have time to save everyone, and she had to find Ingrid. She had no time for despair.

Listening for Ingrid through the cacophony of muffled moans and yelps was difficult, but Ingrid was lucky she had a powerful voice, able to be heard even in this hell. Asagi sliced, and a bloody chunk of the organ wall she was in fell out, showing her another chamber behind.

"Ingrid!" Asagi shouted as she stepped through the wound, the great worm not even shivering in pain. Asagi looked at this gallery of victims, and watched as one woman had fleshy eggs pumped into her womb. Each one was orgasming unrelentingly, agonizingly, maddeningly; their voices were a choir of praise and despair.

Asagi saw Ingrid in the distance, being sucked into the wall, and ran towards her. Already tentacles were pushing into her holes, and her eyes looked at Asagi with ecstatic pain. "K-kill me!" she begged. "I don't… GGNNGHH! I don't want to break like this!" Her eyes bulged and her voice sputtered out. As Asagi watched, her eyes rolled back, and slime began to pour out of her open mouth. A bulge passed up her chest, through her throat, and a tentacle pushed out of Ingrid's mouth. Her orgasms were so intense, Asagi was worried her muscles might flex hard enough to break her bones.

A few slices, and Asagi could pull the tentacles inside Ingrid out, from one hole or another. A few more, and Asagi pulled Ingrid free from the wall. The demon was near-defeat, and the Taimanin knew they had to get out as quickly as possible. She cut through a few more flesh walls, carrying Ingrid and fending off probing tentacles, until she reached a thick muscle she couldn't cut through. Near her, she saw the top half of a soldier, a group of grenades on his vest. Asagi thanked him for his sacrifice, and took the explosives.

The explosions were enough to finally make the worm shiver in pain, blowing a hole in its internal muscles deep enough that Asagi could cut through the rest. Emerging into the city again after the biological hell made Asagi feel like she was alive again.

Asagi carried Ingrid through the horrors of Tokyo, hiding as only a Taimanin could when danger came too close. It took hours of concentration, and too many times Asagi felt in the distance the unclean auras of Shiranui and her pawns, looking for their escapees.

When night came, Asagi set Ingrid down next to a tree in the forest around Sayama Lake. In the distance, gunfire and explosions could still be heard, as people tried to defend what they could in the chaos. The demon shivered, her eyes having trouble focusing on Asagi. "W-why?" Ingrid asked weakly. Why hadn't Asagi killed her and taken the simpler route of going alone?

"No one deserves that," Asagi replied, emptiness gnawing at her stomach. Ingrid's eyes closed as her pummeled body tried to burn out the worm poison, painful orgasms making her grimace.

"And… I could still… I could save you…!" Asagi whispered as she screwed her eyes shut and slammed her fist into the ground over and over again. Never before had she ever felt failure as heavily as she did then. Never before had she desired nothingness to take her, so she could be free of her guilt. Shiranui's evil whisperings kept clawing at Asagi's mind, her own emotional state gladly giving it purchase.

She was almost ready to stand up and find a way to kill herself, when Ingrid's hand weakly reached out and took hers. It brought Asagi out of her self-recrimination like a bolt from the blue. Slowly, trembling, Ingrid brought Asagi's hand to her mouth, and gently kissed it. "Thank you…" the words shuffled out of Ingrid's mouth, before she fell into a fitful sleep.

Her head bowed and her shoulders heaving, tears started pattering onto Asagi's thighs.

Moving into the mountains slowed the two down even further, as they dodged groups of feral demons, surviving civilians and soldiers, and the questing hunters over days, hiding where they could, sleeping under gnarled roots and empty covered benches for hikers.

Asagi did what she could to help the people they came across – killing nearby demons, finding food and leaving it for a group of families, leaving notes telling people to stay away from Tokyo – but kept herself to the shadows as much as possible. Drawing the eager attention of the hunters was her biggest worry, especially with Ingrid still recovering from the worm poison.

At one point, they came into a forest clearing, on a flat bit of mountainside high above the valley floor, only to find a giant, wild boar, like any other in Japan. But this one had obviously been set upon by a small group of goblins, who'd thought him easy prey. The boar was wounded, bleeding, and would have scars from this, but he was still standing. The goblins were corpses around him. From one of the boar's tusks, a mashed goblin head still hung, the spine dangling from the ragged stump of the neck. The boar seemed unperturbed by the arrival of further invaders, only watching the two women. When they made no aggressive movements, the boar snorted and whipped his bloody tail around, and marched off back into the forest, as if to say that no matter who these new invaders were, his domain would be his forever.

The ninja and demon began to develop a language between the two of them. Hand signals to indicate demons or humans, imitating the cries of birds native to the Dark World that could now be heard in the forests around them to indicate food or shelter. Ingrid took to it better than Asagi had thought she would.

"I get why Murasaki thought so highly of you before," Asagi complimented Ingrid quietly one evening.

"Even I know to trust your instincts of stealth over mine, ninja," Ingrid replied, "it's still your world." Ingrid seemed to think that way, but Asagi wasn't sure she believed it anymore, not when demons ran wild through cities.

Their language was not purely for battle, either. Eating yakisoba sandwiches from an abandoned convenience store, Ingrid's hand rested on the back of Asagi's neck, massaging gently. At night, the ninja held Ingrid as she shuddered, still sweating out the last vestiges of the worm's poison. Without words, through their shared ordeal, the two came to know what the other felt intimately.

A later morning, the two of them awoke to stomach pains. Asagi doubled over and vomited briefly into the grass. Washing her mouth out from the canteen Ingrid had used herself, a shared conclusion flashed between the two with a look. There could be no illusions.

"Maybe they're daughters," Asagi muttered, trying to salvage what she could from the awful revelation of their pregnancies. She squeezed Ingrid's hand tightly in hers, and Ingrid squeezed back. They would have to deal with it, but it would have to be later.

Finally, they reached the point that Asagi had known was coming, but had almost convinced herself might not happen. They reached a fork in the river valleys, one way going to Gosha, the other to Black's retreat. Asagi couldn't deny that she wanted to stay with Ingrid, that the demon had become important to her in scary ways. But she also felt the pull of her concern for Sakura, Murasaki, Fuuma, and all the other Taimanin wanting to make her break into a sprint for Gosha, and damn the consequences.

Ingrid turned to Asagi. She'd picked up on Asagi's hesitation, and knew where it was coming from. "Go, ninja," she said, "you have a duty to others still. I must see if my loyalty meant anything." Asagi opened her mouth to protest, and Ingrid quieted her with a finger on her lips. "If you need me, I will be there." Ingrid smiled warmly, confidently. "That's an oath from a Hell Knight, and those are not given cheaply, nor broken easily, ninja." Asagi nodded, understanding.

Then Ingrid took Asagi's cheeks in her hands, and pulled her in for a deep, passionate kiss. Their tongues met, and for a moment, Asagi could forget the horrors she'd been through. All the evil, mocking kisses the orcs had given her were nothing compared to this, coming from the heart of a proud, beautiful woman. Asagi melted into it, knowing that this is what a kiss was meant to be – from a lover.

When Ingrid broke the kiss, both blushed. But Asagi smiled from a place of sincerity. She didn't see Ingrid as a victim of the assaults of orcs and tentacles, and neither did Ingrid see Asagi the same way. They'd both been through evil, but it hadn't bested them.

"Go, Asagi!" Ingrid gently encouraged, and the ninja found her legs moving on their own, desperate to know the situation at Gosha. Before she was totally out of sight, she looked behind her, to see Ingrid saluting her in the distance, until the trees were too deep.

Getting to Gosha took another two days. When Asagi got close to the secret valley, she saw some wisps of smoke rising into the air in the distance. The need for secrecy fled at that, and Asagi began racing through the ancient boughs of the primordial forest around the village. She sprinted down paths she'd known as a child, and as she approached, she knew that Gosha had seen an attack like none other in its history.

Dead demons were everywhere, their corpses pinned with shuriken, riddled with bullet holes, blown apart, burned – Asagi saw evidence for practically every kind of battle technique, including hidden ones that some clans had done their best to keep for themselves. She saw human blood in places – lost limbs, bone, and the like – but no full corpses. These attackers – and they looked like NOMAD soldiers from the look of their uniforms, but others had a sigil that Asagi had seen on the clothes of Shiranui's orcs – had clearly paid dearly for every yard of ground they'd advanced.

But it was cold comfort when Asagi emerged from the treeline to see Gosha in ruins.

The academy was gone, razed to the ground. The old mansions of the founding ninja clans were gutted, blackened timbers standing in plains of gray ash. The new housing additions, the village square, the major and minor shrines, all had been horribly wrecked or torn down. It hurt Asagi's heart.

Going down into the ruins though, for all the dead demons – and there were even more here than the mounds in the forest – there were only a few dead Taimanin. Asagi checked each one, remembering their names and faces, praying their spirits were in a better place. They might have died, but they had not gone quietly.

At the site of the Igawa clan manse, Asagi found her ray of hope. A subtle sign, from Sakura, saying to go north. It was in their private, sisterly tongue, and Asagi wanted to cry out in relief when she saw it.

She hadn't been forgotten.

She hadn't been callously abandoned.

Asagi knew then that she'd been in Sakura's and Murasaki's and Fuuma's thoughts the whole time, and only the raging conflict had stopped them from doing everything they could to find and rescue her. And even in what must have been a horrific assault, Sakura had still known that Asagi would come here, and would need to know where to go next.

Lingering doubts were washed away. Asagi knew that there were plenty of hidden locations in the Tohoku region that the Taimanin kept for safety's sake. She'd find them somewhere, if she moved fast enough.

"Thought you'd show up, finally," came Kirara's voice from behind Asagi, oddly liquid in its intonation.

Asagi turned, to see Shizuru, Kirara, and Mirabell about 30 yards away. Behind them stood Shiranui, no longer sporting her gravid belly. Shiranui looked wrong, but the other three corrupted Taimanin looked even worse. Things bulged below Kirara's skin. Mirabell looked at Asagi like she was meat, her eyes empty of all meaning. Shizuru twitched uncontrollably, her doll-like smile a mockery of the erotic confidence she'd had before.

"Do you like what's been done to the place?" Shizuru giggled. "We smashed the rat's nest, made them runrunrunrun-"

"We even picked a few up for some fun stuff! Don't you want to see them break like we did? It's time to come back, Asagi," Kirara cooed. "We've been coming up with lots more fun things to do to you! Aren't you excited?!"

Mirabell let out an ugly noise like a strangled bear.

"There's nowhere to run, Asagi," Shiranui said, like she was lecturing a child. "It's all chaos out there. You've seen all those weaklings die and die and die even as they beg for it to not happen. There's no more civilization. No more hypocrisy." Shiranui shivered. "I'm cumming just thinking about it!"

The ninja said nothing, for no response was needed for the insane. Asagi bared her blade, and fell into an unusual stance.

The three corrupted Taimanin leaped for Asagi. The way they moved, they clearly thought Asagi was going to break and run. They thought her resolve a facade, a mask she wore over the nothingness that was her actual self, pure cowardice that pretended to virtue.

But it was no mask, it was Asagi's self. In the face of their unnatural powers, Asagi called on the deepest wells of her training, the most basic demand of self-control, to not let fear control her.

The corrupted Taimanin passed Asagi, blinking in confusion as her stance seemed to change from one micro-instant to the other. "Huh…?" Shizuru mumbled, wondering why Asagi hadn't turned around. Mirabell and Kirara had the same confusion. But when Mirabell tried twisting her head to look around, it fell off her neck to hit the sandy ground with a wet thud like a rotting apple. Kirara tried to make a sound, but the left and right halves of her body sloughed apart. Shizuru let out a disappointed groan, before popping apart at the joints and limbs.

Shiranui clapped, but Asagi took no pleasure in it. Asagi merely readied herself in a different way, staring down Shiranui, daring her to approach.

Shiranui shook her head. "I don't think so, not after that. Rinko!"

The shock was enough for Asagi to be blindsided. A long, heavy arm, stretched out to obscene lengths, grabbed Asagi by the shoulder and yanked her off her feet to the side. Asagi was grabbed tightly, and saw what had been done to Rinko.

Rinko's limbs were horribly elongated and misshapen, like her bones had been melted. But her face was the worst part – not just for how her eyes no longer looked like they were in the right places, nor how her mouth didn't seem to quite fit with the rest of her face anymore, but how the expression on it was one of psychotic vindication.

"You left me senpai…! You left me there…!" Rinko giggled. "But it's fine! It's fine now! I'm going to take you apart and make you watch it all happen! JUST! LIKE! ME!"

Rinko's tongue dove into Asagi's mouth, longer than any human tongue, going deeper and deeper until Rinko was licking at Asagi's stomach. And yet even with her tongue buried in Asagi, Rinko kept talking, a cacophony of differing voices, saying different things all at the same time. "loveyouloveyouloveyou" "gonnacumgonnacumgonnacum" "nosadnosadanymore" "feelgoodfeelgoodfeelgood" all repeated in Asagi's head, trying to batter down Asagi's mind.

For a moment, Asagi's resolve wavered, her guilt coming back in a surge. It had been her fault. She could have aborted the mission. She could have done more to fight. She could have done more to support her team.

"There there, Rinko dear," Shiranui patted Rinko on the shoulder. "You can play with her a bit now, but we have to go back to Master Ryuuji's fortress soon." Rinko's hand tore the crotch off Asagi's suit, and started fingering her, her digits morphing, surging, pulsing inside Asagi like worms. "Oh, alright! Some fun now."

Asagi tried to get out of Rinko's grip, but it was hard to think as she climaxed. It was impossible to breathe, and it made her orgasms even harder. Her legs kicked uselessly as she squirted juices onto the ground below her. And Rinko's tongue went deeper and deeper through Asagi.

Asagi struggled to hold onto consciousness. The moment she lost it, she knew she was done for. But where was her opening? What could she do? Hopelessness began sneaking into her limbs, carried by oxygen deprivation.

"Ingrid, I'm sorry."

It was at that moment that flame, darker than night, hotter than hell, more violent than a volcanic eruption, engulfed Asagi. A vague, draconic shape whirled and lifted Asagi and Rinko into the air. It covered her, but it protected her. It went into her, but it did not violate her. It was there only to burn the invader.

And burn Rinko did, not even her brand protecting her from the nearly-nuclear onslaught. She evaporated, her insane choir of disassembled voices snuffed out one by one, until only one remained. And there, in a voice that Asagi knew had been Rinko's true feeling: " WHY?!"

Asagi, still wreathed in the flame, gently fell to the ground on her knees. For an instant, she saw the dark dragon in it, and knew Ingrid was keeping her promise. The flames dissipated, and Asagi coughed heavily, catching her breath. She looked for Shiranui, but the monster had clearly fled, not interested in dealing with whatever absurd violence Asagi could pull out, at least not alone.

It was enough breathing room for Asagi. She could run north, find Sakura and the others. But she had heard Kirara's comment. Other Taimanin were in captivity. Looking at the melting corpses of the former Rangers, Asagi vowed that she would do everything to stop others from facing that abyss. She felt for Shiranui's tainted aura, and started shadowing in that direction.

*****

On the southern coast of Japan, a cold winter wind blew through the city, making precious gas lamps flicker and gutter in rooms packed with exhausted and scared refugees. Their whole world had fallen apart in hours for some, days for others, weeks for the lucky ones, as so many things they'd taken for granted had fallen apart. A thin perimeter of anyone who could carry and aim a gun was some protection against feral demons, but rations of everything vital were running low.

Asagi looked out the window of the small room she'd been given by the leaders of this safe zone. She'd used it as a place to rest and get information about other Taimanin she could rescue, and had taught as many volunteers as she could the basics of Taimanin skills of self-defense and stealth. But this night would be her last here. She could kill demons, but she couldn't kill hunger, and an offer had arrived that the leaders of this camp had been unable to ignore.

The Incubus King, as he styled himself, had declared himself ruler of Japan and all of Asia besides, and offered safety and power to all who obeyed him. But most importantly for the decision-makers in this city, he offered food, for a price. The men and women who had risked so much to maintain this little place of peace hated the idea of submission, but they hated the idea of mass starvation more.

Asagi understood their decision, but made sure to warn the leaders that even the most nominal and feigned act of submission held power. They had promised Asagi that they'd never betray her kindness to them, and they'd do what they could to be the most unruly subjects possible.

Hands reached around Asagi's hips and then her pregnant belly. The child, growing rapidly within her, moved enough to make Asagi a little uncomfortable. The hands began rubbing her skin with soft oil, and the moment of discomfort faded. The oil warmed Asagi's naked skin, and she didn't feel the cold as badly.

"Why are you going?" the ninja asked. Not "are you going?" because that question had obviously been decided, and not even she would try to gainsay it or say it was wrong. But she needed to hear her lover's reasoning for it.

Ingrid pressed her own gravid belly against Asagi's back, embracing her as tightly as she could, and kissed Asagi in the nape of her neck, before resting her chin on her shoulder. She had a ship to catch in the morning, a vessel bound for North America. "Too many of the surviving leaders in the shards of the UFS were the vampire's men. If he's fled Japan, he's gone there to work the shadows. He's not so foolish as this Incubus King, to make himself the focus of opposition. He'll let his warlord pawns battle each other, and whoever wins he'll make sure is under his complete control." Ingrid's voice was calm, but Asagi could hear the restrained rage in Ingrid's voice as she talked about Black.

Black's retreat had been wired to explode when Ingrid had arrived and stopped the self-destruct, allowing her intimate access to Black's last records there. Fuuma had been right – all the great demon factions had been brought together in the months leading up to the first of the hellquakes, as people had coined them. Black's price of admission to the Incubus King's plot had been Ingrid, and he'd sold her gladly. Shiranui's attack on her had been a trap from the start, a way to keep Ingrid in the dark about whether she'd ever be rescued.

The Hell Knight had not taken the insult lightly. She no longer spoke of Edwin, or even Black. Only the vampire, or the bastard, and each time she said it, Asagi could feel the heat of her anger, like a deep volcanic flow. It was that that worried Asagi.

"You told me not to throw my life away once," Asagi said, her hands intertwining with Ingrid's, their fingers locking together. "You're not going just to die, are you?" Asagi spoke of her fear openly. No more barriers were between the two. The heat of Ingrid's body radiated into Asagi's back, loosening her muscles.

Ingrid shook her head. "To face him directly… by myself I could do it, but it would require years of preparation, and even then my chances would be low. To cut him down would be satisfying, but I will not let the desire for vengeance get the better of me." The Hell Knight's personal inability to lie was a great comfort to Asagi. "But I know how his mind works better than anyone, even Oboro. I might be able to stop many of his plans before they get too far along. There are too many innocent survivors in the UFS, and I cannot leave them to him. The vampire cannot go unchallenged."

Closing her eyes, Asagi breathed in the scent of the oil Ingrid was rubbing into her skin – a smooth blend like the smoke of delicate incense. Ingrid's hands glided over her body as Asagi's had gone over hers, under her growing breasts, up and down her toned legs, along her back and down and between her ass. Asagi knew that the gentle but insistent need was not in her womb alone.

She couldn't disagree with Ingrid's assessment of the situation, and Ingrid's resolve to do what she could to battle Black, no matter how hopeless it seemed, only added to the high feelings Asagi had for her, but the thought of not having her love with her was a bitter dagger in Asagi's heart.

Looking over the buildings of the safe zone, she saw another painful symbol of failure. Out in the distance, in the middle of the fields being slowly reclaimed by the people here, Asagi could see the immense figure of an elephantine demon. It harmed no one, and Ingrid's assurance that the type was docile and only defended itself had led to it becoming a bit of a mascot for the refugees, especially after it had crushed a tank used by some bandits.

But it wasn't meant to be here, on Earth. It was a sign of Asagi's failure to protect her home, to do her duty, and it pained her to see children playing around its eight trunk-like legs. Would this be their world forever? Would they ever know peace, or even personal safety?

Yet if Asagi had thought it was purely her failure that had led to this, then Ingrid had disabused her of that notion. The Incubus King's plan had been to shift Earth directly into the universe of the Dark World, allowing his power free reign, and demons utter dominion over Earth. But he'd overestimated his own resources and those of the influential demons he'd recruited, and under the pressure of Taimanin, Chinese Union, and UFS counter-attacks, the demons had all begun to do what they did best: betray each other.

The Incubus King's ritual had been forced too early, lest it never happen, but the magical resonances hadn't been strong enough. Earth was still in its home universe, but it was periodically racked by a new kind of weather, demon-storms, when the boundary between it and the Dark World was thinnest. Those days were always bad.

Ingrid knew what Asagi was looking at, and kissed her neck again. "Will you be cruel, and force me to voice my desires in vulgar ways?" she whispered.

Asagi smiled and turned around, shifting Ingrid's hands onto her hips. "No, though you were very cute saying 'I want to eat your pussy out' last time."

Ingrid's dark cheeks glowed in the dim room, and Asagi pulled her in and kissed the other woman. Their lips glided on each other, pliant yet rough from their hard living. Their tongues wrestled with each other, not out of any desire to dominate, but out of the pure human need to share themselves with the other. Each time she kissed Ingrid, Asagi felt like she was flying.

Ingrid stepped back from the window, pulling Asagi with her, each step leading the couple to the small bed. Her hands reached down and around from Asagi's hips, to grasp at Asagi's ass, and her fingers squeezed, making Asagi giggle in Ingrid's mouth.

"You like my ass so much, it's not that much bigger than yours…!" she mumbled as Ingrid assaulted her neck with a flurry of little kisses, leaving faint purple marks on Asagi's pale skin.

Getting to the bed, the couple sat down, and their hands began wandering around their bodies as they continued kissing. Asagi's palm brushed over Ingrid's stiff nipple, feeling the bumps that would eventually start leaking milk. Asagi squeezed at Ingrid's breasts, larger than her own and heavier, making the demon moan gently in their kiss.

Ingrid's hand went lower, below her lover's pregnant belly, questing at Asagi's thick thighs, her nails leaving pale pink lines as she scratched closer and closer to Asagi's crotch. Asagi slowly parted her thighs, inviting Ingrid closer and closer. It was a game they played, and Ingrid knew what to do. Her fingers traced delicate trails on Asagi's skin, making the ninja shiver, until her fingers played at Asagi's soft pubic hair. Ingrid pushed her fingers against the top of Asagi's pubic mound, making the ninja gasp.

At that moment, Asagi's thighs clamped shut on Ingrid's wrist, trapping her hand against Asagi's crotch. Asagi grinned at the demon, before nibbling at her bottom lip. "Just fingers first, love," she whispered.

The pink-haired demon complied, her pointer flicking across Asagi's engorged clitoris. She pressed on it, then swirled her pad around it slowly one way, then quickly the other way twice. Ingrid put all her attention on her fingers.

Each touch made Asagi tremble and gasp, as electric shocks shook her frame. Here, she could let down her defenses. Ingrid knew how Oboro had abused Asagi's sensitivity, and how at times Asagi could feel the memories of those 3000 times stronger sensations. But for the lovers, it wasn't a wall between them, but something else that Ingrid could love about Asagi, and use it to make her ninja feel actual pleasure, and not the painful simulacra of it they'd been subjected to.

Little rivers of saliva dribbled out of the corner of Asagi's mouth as Ingrid's tongue pushed into hers. The ninja was too engrossed in Ingrid's skillful finger-flicking that her hand had stopped on Ingrid's breast, squeezing randomly. Feeling an orgasm welling up inside her, Asagi didn't fight it. She didn't need to push it down, or deny it, or feel like it was a failure. It was a natural, human reaction to being loved.

Asagi came, her body shuddering and shaking so much that the metal legs of the bed squeaked against the flooring. She held onto Ingrid tightly, her fingers digging into the demon's shoulder, until she could breathe again. Her thighs spread, showing how much she'd squirted all over Ingrid's fingers and her own legs.

Ingrid slowly, carefully, lifted her hand from Asagi's crotch, and eagerly sucked on her wet digits with a grin. The demon had told Asagi before that she liked the strong flavor of her arousal, especially after a long period of exertion. Panting, Asagi let herself fall over on the bed, turning towards Ingrid as she crawled to the other side and laid down next to her.

Face to face, Asagi quickly dove in and pecked Ingrid's lips, making the demon smile. It was such a genuine smile, so full of warmth. Asagi could have stared at it forever.

The demon took advantage of Asagi's momentary dazzle to rub her fingers against Asagi's outer lips, wetting them with the ninja's arousal. Asagi knew what was coming next, and she instinctively raised her right leg up, exposing her pussy and ass. One of Ingrid's hands covered Asagi's pussy, fingers squeezing and rubbing her dark, engorged petals. The other went behind, to play at Asagi's asshole.

Asagi did not allow herself to be totally passive, though. She sent her own hands to engage with Ingrid's pussy. She felt the gnarled folds, the thick outer lips. Asagi knew Ingrid was no virgin, and though she'd never asked, she knew that the demon must have been centuries old, if not older. She'd had lovers. Asagi wondered if her own ministrations could ever be enough for Ingrid to remember her in the future, and her hands trembled.

Breaking their kiss again, a line of saliva connecting their lips until it drooped onto the pillow between them, Ingrid knew what was behind Asagi's hesitation.

"You're you, Asagi. That's all you need to be, and all I want you to be." The force of a heavy kick from the baby in Ingrid's belly went into Asagi's body and broke the moment of tension, and Asagi nodded. She began to push her fingers into Ingrid's hole, warm and tight and just as wet as Asagi was.

Ingrid's fingers pressed both at Asagi's leaking vagina, but at her sphincter too, coating the latter in the juices of the former. Asagi's breathing deepened as Ingrid's nail traced an agonizingly slow circle around her sphincter, scraping along every fold of her donut, then sinking into every valley between. Asagi's ass flexed over and over again in anticipation of more invasive maneuvers, but Ingrid was seemingly content to take her time.

"You're going to make me say the embarrassing things this time, aren't you?" Asagi panted, catching onto Ingrid's plot. A satisfied purring sound from her lover was her confirmation she was correct. "Ohhh…" she moaned dramatically. Gently, Asagi pressed her forehead against Ingrid's. "Make me cum, Ingrid… Fuck my ass…" Asagi groaned. She shot a pleading look at Ingrid. "Please…"

No one could resist such an entreaty, let alone Ingrid. Ingrid's fingers dove deep into Asagi's pussy, immediately pressing against Asagi's g-spot. At the same time, her other fingers pushed aggressively against Asagi's sphincter, and with some worming motions, her fingers slipped into the muscular ring. "Nnggaaahh!" Asagi let out a throaty cry, holding onto Ingrid's pussy for dear life as the demon fingered her to orgasm over and over again.

But at no point did the terror touch Asagi. At that moment, she wasn't a ninja, and she wasn't burdened by awful responsibility and guilt. She was a woman with her lover. Only their gravid bellies, pressing against each other and making movements more awkward than they should have been, brought unwelcome thoughts into the lover's bower the couple had made for themselves in that bed.

Ingrid did not let up her hands, even as Asagi's voice started getting loud enough that she knew some of the neighbors would hear. Asagi deserved to be loved, the demon knew, and she deserved to be pleasured in the right way.

It was also cute hearing Asagi's squeals when she hooked the fingers in her ass one way, and those in her pussy another, to rub against each other through the thin wall of muscle in between. Was it selfish of her to do it over and over again, making Asagi's pleas for her to slow down melt into orgasmic yelps and blissful moans? Maybe. But that didn't stop the demon.

What did stop Ingrid was Asagi finally snapping out of the good girl act. One moment Ingrid had Asagi mewling, putty in her hands. The next, Asagi was on top of her, her panting holes above Ingrid's face, Ingrid's legs bent over and back so that Asagi had access to the demon's pussy and asshole. "You're so mean, my love…" Asagi panted. "It's not fair if I'm the only one cumming…!" Asagi's fingers spread Ingrid's ass cheeks.

"Wait, Asagi…!" Ingrid said, but Asagi dropped her pussy onto Ingrid's mouth. At the same moment, she dove down, and began lavishing Ingrid's asshole with a bevy of kisses. With small kisses, big ones, wet ones, slow ones, again and again Asagi's lips dove in and around Ingrid's winking asshole. The demon's ass-cheeks shivered at the attention.

Ingrid's tongue rolled over Asagi's pussy, as Asagi's tongue whirled along Ingrid's ass. When Asagi felt Ingrid's muscle freeze and her donut quiver, she knew she was doing something right. And so she'd do it again. And a third time. And more. Spit began to run down Ingrid's body, front and back, in thin rivers leading from her asshole.

Asagi wriggled her tongue back and forth on the creases of Ingrid's asshole, and finally, she pushed through. The demon's muscles squeezed on her tongue, but she used that to her advantage, pulling on it from the inside, stretching it in ways that made Ingrid freeze in lusty bliss. The demon's juices were strong everywhere, spicy and tingly on her tongue, but here was the strongest Asagi could taste.

For the rest of the night, the two lovers explored their bodies, speaking without words, reaffirming the bonds that could never be broken. At one point, before dawn, their belly buttons against each other, it had felt like their children were pushing against each other.

"They'll be strong," Ingrid said, "I can feel it." Despite her usual trepidation, Asagi agreed.

When the gray frigate slipped from the docks of the city in the morning sun, having given the camp as much food as the sailors could spare, Asagi stood on the coast, watching it sail away. Ingrid looked back at her, and all the emotions they'd felt, all the hardships and joys they'd shared, were clear as daylight for both of them.

Duty called, and they answered because they were the only ones who could do it, but that didn't make the parting any easier.

Asagi watched as the ship sank below the horizon. At the last moment, before it slipped out of sight, she saw a flash in the air, and she raised her sword with a cry. "Ingrid, I love you!" she shouted across the sea. For a moment, she knew it was a foolish gesture, but she had to do it.

"I love you, Asagi!" drifted back over the waves, and Asagi knew she'd always remember this moment. Without tears, she left the safe zone.

*****

"Fuuma, can we spread the west patrol to this city?" Sakura pointed on the map of places their little group of Taimanin was protecting. For long, painful months the circle had been shrinking and refugee camps were lost either to feral demons or the so-called "demon kingdoms," despite their best efforts, but with the intrusions of feral demons dropping in number as Spring came into being, Sakura wanted to protect as many people as she could.

Fuuma sighed. Before he opened his mouth, Murasaki let out a disapproving noise. "Going out there means that for two days anyone on that route is right next to that Tsuchigumo." The demon spider had proven to be a horrible foe to fight, and artillery fire only made it more active. Its lair was now a grotesque collection of webbed bodies, of humans, demons, and anything it could catch. Sakura had almost gotten webbed by it herself a few weeks earlier, and she shuddered at the memory.

The door to their little forest headquarters opened, and the three whipped their heads to see the intruder. Sakura didn't even need to fully see who it was before she jumped over the table and embraced her.

"Nee-chan!" Sakura cried, bawling into Asagi's chest before Fuuma and Murasaki could even move an inch. Asagi hugged her sister back as tightly as she could. Fuuma and Murasaki quickly joined Sakura, joy and relief filling the building. Sakura felt something big between her and Asagi, but it was Murasaki and Fuuma who could see what it was – a pregnant belly.

"I'm glad to see everyone's OK," Asagi said through Sakura's teary apologies, a real smile on her face. "But I think my water just broke."

The labor was hard. Harder than she'd hoped. But then, she had a big child in her. She'd pretended it could be otherwise, but when the crown emerged, and Murasaki gasped, Asagi knew the truth. It couldn't be denied anymore.

When it was all done, Asagi felt empty. Exhausted, but her voice cold and collected, Asagi asked for her baby. Sakura opened her mouth, but Fuuma stopped her. He nodded solemnly at Murasaki, who gave the swaddled child, already the size of a year-old baby, to Asagi, who held the half-orc stiffly. She asked for them to leave her, because she was tired.

"Nee-chan…" Sakura muttered, wiping at her eyes, "what should we do with…?" Murasaki grabbed her arm and shook her head. Sakura stopped at the threshold and started crying as she closed the door.

That whole night, Asagi contemplated killing it. The baby nosed at her sometimes, wanting her to feed it, but she pushed it away, and eventually it fell asleep. She could hardly bear to look at it.

It was a sign of her failure. Her failure to the Rangers, her failure to the civilians she'd sworn to defend, her failure to the Earth she lived on. When she imagined the future of this child, it made her sick to her stomach. He was part of the problem, part of the demonic invasion of the world. He needed to be erased, like all the other demon ic invaders she'd been fighting.

She took a scalpel, and held it close to the infant's throat. He needed to die, but then so did she. Her failure had seen the souls of four of her comrades warped into horrific monstrosities. Her failure had seen the death of the society she'd sworn to protect. She, and by extension the Taimanin, had failed beyond all hope of return. The only thing left to do was to kill the monster, and then slice her throat. Her blood would run and run and run until Asagi's guilt was gone, gone, gone, and she could finally be free of the souls of all the dead accusing her.

The blade almost glowed with the moon's reflection, and the demon stars around it. Asagi saw in the mirror-bright edge the two red stars that Ingrid had pointed out to her as the stars of loyal lovers, for they never strayed from the other as they whirled through the heavens. Ingrid had said they sometimes spent time apart, but they never let another star in between.

The memory hit Asagi like a punch in the gut. She looked at the baby's sleeping face, and when his mouth opened in a tiny yawn, Asagi realized how close she'd come to finally, evilly, proving Shiranui right. How close she'd been to losing her humanity.

This child was not his father, whoever it had been. He had done no evil, deserved no hate. He was a demon, like Ingrid. To kill him because he somehow impinged on her honor, because she was terrified of even the appearance of weakness, because he was a half-demon and she'd failed to stop the demon invasion, was pathetic. He was a sign of her resolve to keep fighting, to never give up.

Asagi wasn't the animal Shiranui had said she was, thinking only of herself, clawing for safety by any means necessary, lashing out mindlessly in rage and bitterness. She was a woman, a Taimanin in an age of demons, a lover of a Hell Knight, and now, a mother. She threw the scalpel to the ground.

Sakura burst in at the clattering sound, her face expecting the worst, to find Asagi bent over her nursing son, sobbing uncontrollably.

*****

Almost two decades later, Asagi crouched on the outskirts of a slave-camp in Hokkaido. The Incubi had been pushing hard to expand in this area ever since the Incubus King had been sent fleeing to mainland Asia years before, and Asagi was not willing to cede ground to the bastard again.

The world had almost gone to hell, and the patchwork of free nations, warlord territories, demon-realms, and dangerous wastelands was not what Asagi had ever wanted to live in. But it was her home now, and she'd fight to make as many places and as many people safe as she could.

And these Incubi really pissed her off.

"Mother, when do we start?" came a deep adolescent voice to Asagi's right. Her son, Hidekichi, stood taller than her even in his youth. He wore his grandfather's halberd lightly, and spoke calmly and carefully, as befitting stoic warrior he thought he needed to be. But Asagi had seen the other side of him, the smoldering rage and endless hate inside him that rose to the surface at times.

"Yeah, come on, teach! I'm getting bored just sitting here! I wanna cut some orc nuts off!" came a peppy female voice. A brunette, with an improbably curvy and womanly body despite her age, bounced from one foot to another. Ichigo, as she'd asked to be called, had been Asagi's revenge against Shiranui – it was Shiranui's daughter from that underground prison, liberated by Asagi three years earlier, and trained as a Taimanin. The girl was a surgeon with her rapier, and most of the time had an upbeat, spunky attitude. But the savage glee in her eyes in battle made Asagi a little worried sometimes.

But they were her students, among others, and this was their world. They needed to know how to live in it, and how to defend it, and she'd teach them as best she could, by word and deed.

Explosions bloomed in the distance, the pealing thunder hitting a second later as Asagi's plan went into action. She unsheathed her sword and stood up.

"Now, let's go!"