Play Test: Stuck in Another World as a Reality TV Contestant

Sin and air alike tasted sweeter in Tokyo. All the annoyances, the cluttered, cramped environments and the city cacophonies that had once kept her bound to a droll suburban existence meant nothing here. All her fears now thrilled. Crowds and strange men, dark alleys and dangerous women, she fit right in alongside them, a pantheress amidst prey. Finally, for the first time in two lifetimes, she was thriving, she was powerful, and she was home.

Erina, formerly Cici, was and had been for two and a half hours now, dangling upside down from two metal brackets above a drop ceiling, perfectly still so as not to jostle the ventilation ducts on either side of her. One slip or stray movement and the sound would echo through the vents, alerting any one of the many Yakuza that frequented Hoshii Hostess Club to her presence; depending on what followed from there, she'd either be dead or in the hole for the significant amount of money she'd borrowed for the job. She couldn't honestly say which she'd prefer of those outcomes. If she was exceptionally lucky in her unluck, she'd end up being captured and ‘tortured’ – from her tormentor’s perspective, that was. From her perspective as a trained kunoichi, a few days of fulfilling all her most deranged fantasies and earning hundreds of Experience in the process was almost pure upside, enough to make her consider throwing the mission. Not that she would do that to her clan; the chance that one of her sisters died in the rescue attempt was too great to risk.

She'd learned a lot about herself recently. Her current predicament, for example, would have been nightmarish at one time – not the hanging over a hostess club bathroom part, that would have never entered her imagination, the being alone with her thoughts part. That might have driven poor fraying and decaying Cici Andersen née Brown to a mental breakdown. It hadn’t been until her first stakeout in this world that she realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been by herself without the sounds of comfort television or music in the background to distract her. Now, on stakeout three, she found she quite enjoyed an anticipatory silence. Waiting single-mindedly for a mark made her feel like a coiled serpent above a nest, fangs ready for the mother bird to return; Omura Erina liked that feeling. She liked it a lot.

Tonight’s appetizer could be heard making small talk with her peers one room over, completely unaware that she’d be spending her night unconscious and bound, tied to a metal beam above a toilet. Erina was happy to let the woman have the time to relax and get prepped in peace; this would be a traumatic night for her. She was planning to make it up to the girl by depositing three million yen in her apartment after the job, but there was no getting around the fact that she was making a victim of the hostess. At least the cruelty had a purpose. The Russo-Japanese girl, stage name Gavrila, was the favorite of tonight's main course, 'Blood-Soaked King' Takamine Iwao, and while Gavrila may not have deserved tomorrow's rope burns and chemical hangover, Takamine deserved only the worst.

As anticipated, at 21:43, Gavrila entered one of the four water closets attached to the group showers, all of which she had access to from her perch in the ceiling. Conveniently for the kunoichi, the hostess came alone to the WCs earlier than the rest of her peers to discreetly purge her small dinner before work. Erina's heart went out to the girl; she had struggled with mental health in her past life as well, though her outlet had been cutting, not purging. But at the end of the day, there were as many broken girls in this city as there were leaves on the forest floor. C'est la vie. She had a job to do, and people of her own to look after.

Erina waited for the girl to kneel in front of the toilet bowl before lifting up a ceiling panel and dropping down on her in one fluid motion. While she hadn't had the Experience to branch out into the more Combat oriented Feats, silently knocking out an unsuspecting bulimic nineteen-year-old was hardly a challenge. She plucked a blonde strand of hair from the girl's head and drew twenty milliliters of blood from a vein in her wrist. Both went into a golden channel that formed a spiraling pattern on the horns of her new Hannya, powering seals that would disguise her for the next four hours. She'd taken a loan of fifteen million yen to purchase the demon mask from the clan's quartermaster and spent all of her stockpiled Tokens from Rewards to Upgrade it further, into something she could bet her life on.

It had been more than worth it. Within ten seconds of pressing the enchanted Hannya to her face, her body had finished shifting into a perfect replica of the unconscious girl on the floor. Her body lost its muscle tone, her skin its mocha color, and her height around five centimeters. Where once was a hardened twenty-seven-year-old half-Jamaican, half-Japanese assassin, was a now fragile half-Russian, half-Japanese teenager. This was no mere illusion either, or else she’d have simply cast the spell herself. No, for the next four hours, Erina was, on a biological level, identical in appearance to Gavrila, Physical Attribute Dice and all. That would be tricky to deal with, especially the hit to Endurance, but her Aura and Affinity were untouched, as were her Sensuality and Feats, which were what she primarily relied on anyway.

She wondered what might happen if she got pregnant like this – something to explore, perhaps, once she rescued her husband from whatever quagmire he was stuck in. Maybe they could steal some legendary bloodlines for their future children! That could be fun and would be sure to Reward them something crazy from the Producers.

Ha. Who was she kidding? Ted had never done anything so fun in his life.

Erina left the water closet after popping the rest of her prepared consumables into her mouth and stringing a now nude Gavrila up between two metal support beams. The two potions, which had cost her another three million loaned yen, enhanced a few relevant Skills and would hopefully make up for her missing ninja tools. Apart from the potent chemicals embedded into the lingerie in Gavrila’s locker, Erina was without her gear. She’d contemplated sealing her equipment into temporary tattoos on the soles of her feet, but there were too many Yakuza at the club to chance it, and not all of them were as new to the game as Takamine's clan. If any of the visiting veterans had the ability to sense hidden space seals, then it would be over for her. That, and Momoe, their tattoo artist, charged a fortune for anything without at least ten days' notice. She'd spent more than enough borrowed money on this job as was.

Even without any research into how their interactions typically went, it was pathetically easy to fool the girl’s colleagues. The teen was an anxious, self-conscious wreck - a familiar headspace to inhabit. A few nervous smiles in the showers, a callback riff to the conversation she’d eavesdropped on, and she was good to go. Unfortunately, she didn't have the space in her role to play around or engage in a little skinship with the other girls; Gavrila was too shy for such business. A shame, really - mouthwatering was how she’d describe the bodies on display. What she wouldn’t give to feel the women tremble in her arms as her tongue got to work on their breasts. Perhaps she’d steal a man’s face and body with the Hannya tomorrow, head to a brothel, and let herself experience the male orgasm to celebrate the mission.

She'd become a bit of an anime-level pervert of late. It had been mostly by necessity and was, of course, heavily incentivized, but she had embraced it of her own will, nonetheless. One of the best perks of their transmigration was finally getting to indulge that side of herself. By the time Cici had realized she was bi or that she wanted more than just to make kiss-kiss, handholdy love in the bedroom, she was five years into having given up on exploring sex and intimacy in general. Lucky for her, sex and intimacy were now her bread and butter and were about to make her a very rich woman if all went to plan.

Takamine Iwao was a degenerate psychopath who viewed himself as an honorable samurai of his clan rather than the butcher he was. He had formed an immediate fascination with the frail, dainty Gavrila, just as he had her predecessors of similar body types and ages. Erina suspected his actual infatuation was with the feeling of being a chivalrous knight, sweeping up lonely little girls into his arms, rather than the women themselves. It followed with what her research on the murders of his past four obsessions had revealed. Once Takamine knew the hostesses well enough that they ceased to be caricatures conjured by his sick mind and started to look like actual people, he disposed of them in brutal ecstasy.

Erina had to accelerate that process of disillusionment and take Gavrila from ‘pure princess’ to ‘contemptible whore’ within a few short hours. She needed Takamine to dismiss his retinue and hangers-on, and the best way she'd come up with to do that was to bait him into the murder. That bestial nature of his would be the leash with which she led him. While everyone of importance knew of the man’s predilections, he still had an obligation to try and cover up his actions; after all, the paper-thin veneer of propriety was the only thing keeping him from being put down like the rabid dog he was. He’d want to take her somewhere secluded before having his way with her.

The first problem arose early in the night. Takamine didn't arrive on time and sent a text to Gavrila's phone that he would be late for their 'date'. Erina didn’t panic, but it would be a lie to say that her nerves were not mounting. It could be fatal if the Hannya’s enchantment failed at the wrong moment; her target was a brute not known for taking his victims alive. And her Challenge from the Producers had reduced her Health Track by 5 as well, effectively eliminating honest fights as an option. If she was alone in the private booth with him when her four hours were up…

She shook off the thought before it could get to her. Erina had put most of her Experience into seducing, sneaking, and escaping – she'd even sacrificed her chance at winning the second Popularity Poll just to set up this job, spending days doing quiet research and espionage instead of anything interesting. She was literally built for this, she reminded herself.

At least there was a bright spot in the delay. Gavrila was effectively Takamine's exclusive hostess these days, meaning she was free to while away the time in the break room. On a stolen phone and outside her clan's compound, she could safely check up on Alan, AKA James Li. She’d had to be extraordinarily careful about doing so at her home in Tokyo of The Gate. Keeping secrets was a dangerous business when you were surrounded by paranoid kunoichi. Luckily with Genevieve, Omura Erina had been into French culture and ballet prior to the transmigration and had been safe to reach out to the other Player. But even there, she’d had to endure her Matriarch’s inquiry into what her plans were and what she knew regarding the ballerina’s secretive Order. If Genevieve hadn’t had the sense to use code in their conversations, and if Erina hadn’t genuinely known nothing about the Red Roses, she could have been relegated to weeks or months of de facto confinement to the compound. And that had been brought on by a few heavily encoded, fully justifiable direct messages. There was no excuse for her to be talking to an American stuntman. Well, other than that he was a prime target for genetic recruitment, but she wasn’t ready to commit to the ‘Adding the Li Family Bloodline to the Clan’ plan just yet.

It did tempt her, though, as she scrolled through his socials. Not only was his body absurd, recruiting him as an auxiliary member would be an easy sell to her sisters. Alan seemed to have embroiled himself in high kung fu shenanigans via a gang war and, according to a fan page, had at least three girlfriends. Those were the sort of facts about a man that could get any self-respecting kunoichi revved up. Strong men who could keep up in bed were to be savored, and those that weren't complete assholes were to be collected and sequestered for regular use. Whether the men had to consent to such an arrangement was only a matter of opinion among her sisters.

She grinned, proud of her ordinarily cautious friend. Three girlfriends and a gang war in one week - no wonder the bastard had sniped the top spot on the Popularity Poll. She’d been a little dismayed to learn she’d dropped from first to third, but if she had to lose to anyone, she was glad it had been to Genevieve and Alan. Genevieve finally had a body that matched her gender and deserved the chance to go wild. And Alan, poor Alan, was sure to be wracked with guilt over his role in their transmigration and was undoubtedly working himself to the bone over it. Silly man. As if his not answering the offer email would have stopped the Producers from having their way.

At least Alan had turned his guilty conscience into something overwhelmingly productive. If only her fucking husband had done the same. It had been gutting to learn that he had fallen so far behind that the Producers had to intervene. Everyone else made sense to her; Victor and Cat were both extremely passive individuals, Mars was probably busy trying to get to Cat, and Nasim was likely crippled by his burdensome Starting Complications. But Ted? What the hell was he thinking?

No, unfortunately, she knew exactly what he was thinking. He was being Ted about all of this, shying away from yet another major change, regardless of how positive or necessary it was. Did he think she would want him to put their vows over his, hers, and their friends’ lives!? They had been kidnapped by an interdimensional porn company with power greater than that of gods! Not only was sex and Social Combat safer than actual fighting, but the Producers also Rewarded it much more highly! She didn’t care about his sexual fidelity; they’d barely fucked in the past five years anyway. She wanted him to walk into a brothel and order the line-up, to get a cyberpunk dick impant! To fuck his secretary, and his boss, and his neighbors! She wanted him to discover ten new fetishes and indulge all of them! Anything! Everything! She wanted him to live, not just to survive. Goddamn it, she was so fucking sick of just surviving, so sick of praying for a change instead of making it happen, so sick of Ted!

Uh oh.

No, she didn't really mean that, did she? This was, was just…residual disappointment from learning that he was— learning about how the bottom five members of their group had fallen so far behind. Erina was just upset about her Challenge and the loss of her Health; that was all. She loved her husband.

A tut from Hoshii’s shrew of a manager saved her from further descending down this line of thought. "Get off your phone, girl. You're up."

God, she hated the Yakuza. This woman had consigned at least four of Gavrila’s predecessors to be savaged to death; she could at least have the decency to not be such a bitch when doing so. When the Matriarch sent a kunoichi to certain death, she bought them all sorts of treats for the trouble, massages, pretty boys, fancy drugs, and just about anything to put one last smile on their faces before the final sacrifice.

“Yes, ma’am,” she obediently replied before heading for the door to the main floor.

The manager stopped her with a tight grip on her wrist. “Not there, empty-headed child. He’s upstairs at a private booth; if you hadn’t been busy playing on your phone…”

Erina had to do her best to look chastened and not as excited as she truly was. Her original schedule had involved slowly getting him worked up enough to take her upstairs. If Takamine was already at a private booth, then she should have more than enough time left in the disguise to accomplish the mission.

The upstairs of Hoshii Hostess Club was dimly lit and loud, both to disguise what might be happening on the other side of the doors to the private booths, and to mask the disheveled appearances of those leaving them. Officially, Hoshii had a strict no-touching-the-girls policy, one that was regularly enforced on the main floor. The same rules applied to the upstairs, though they were much laxer. They did get enforced for anything more than a little over the clothes groping, if you were just a paying customer. However, higher-ups in the Yakuza or members who were being rewarded for exceptional performances earned themselves certain unspoken privileges, such as the staff looking the other way or forgetting to check a booth after the time was up.

There was no individual more exceptional in the Sasori-Sumida-kai than Takamine Iwao, and few as privileged as he. The Blood-Soaked King had carved a path of destruction through the ranks of mortal Tokyo’s Yakuza, earning the small, breakaway clan of Sasori-Sumida-kai a seat at the table with the big boys. But it was his actions in Tokyo of The Gate, or Torii-kyo as it was colloquially known, that had earned him the bounty that had brought her to Hoshii. The Sasori-Sumida-kai had sent Takamine and a few members to negotiate the purchase of a map to several seasonal entrances into the Divine World held by a merchant group in Torii-kyo. Ingresses to the spirit realm, especially those that were unwatched by Torii-kyo's authorities, were highly guarded secrets; she didn't know who had told the clan that they could buy such a map, but it must have been a setup by one of their enemies. No merchant group would part with such information, and when they had understandably declined, the thugs escalated.

Apparently, they were under the impression that the merchants had brought the map with them to the meeting, which was another sign that they had no idea what they were doing. The map, if it even existed outside of the minds of their leaders, would never have left their compound. Regardless, the Yakuza attacked and, shockingly, won. Takamine Iwao was a rare monster, it turned out, the kind that appeared every once in a long while among humanity's martial artists. Who knew, if he survived long enough there was a chance he would be the next Andina Katz or Nagao Haru. But that was off the table now; the fool had earned himself a bounty big enough to catch her attention, one and a half billion yen alive, four hundred fifty million dead. He was cooked.

She slid the small door to Takamine’s room aside and entered with a bow. The private booths were no larger than two and a half meters on a side, not actually meant for more than their stated purpose. They were essentially just large, round tables with cushy seats in a relatively soundproofed chamber, with a small TV for karaoke and a double-sided hatch that servers could pass drinks into without disturbing those inside.

Takamine took up half the room, his arms spread wide, resting atop the seats. His shirt buttons were open, revealing some of his tattoos, and sweat ran off him in rivulets. The man had clearly been in a very recent fight, with fresh blood marring his knuckles and staining his shirt.

“Takamine-sama!” she exclaimed, rushing to his side to check his temperature. Some jerk had interrupted her perfectly good kidnapping plan with an assassination attempt. The Yakuza had been poisoned, though she couldn’t recognize with what just from his symptoms. How annoying, she’d have to be much more delicate with her techniques now that there was an unknown toxin in his system.

His hand lashed out with blinding speed, vanishing from where it was to appear wrapped around her throat. Immense, deep, killing intent filled the room, nearly sending her into the depths of despair. Erina was struck with the image of clawed hands on her ankles, dragging her into black muck to hopelessly suffocate. This creature possessed such unbelievable hatred in him, like a demon born into human flesh. “Told you to call me Iwao-kun.”

“S-sorry,” she choked out, “Iwao-kun.”

The change in him was immediate and terrifying in its contrast. Takamine's entire demeanor softened, from tempestuous to doe-eyed and soft in a second. He pulled her into his chest gently, hugging her like a teddy bear and sniffing dramatically. “Ga-chaaaaan! I’ve had the worst day ever!”

Erina rolled an Empathy + Insight to figure out how to play the dynamic. She had been confident enough in her ability to do so that she’d skipped over what others might deem mandatory pre-mission investigation.

With eight Successes guiding her, she went limp in his hold and giggled. Some hostess club addicts wanted their women to play the role of mother, wife, caring boss, or childhood friend – Takamine wanted a doll, something to take out of the closet when he wanted it. He wanted her to say her lines when he pulled the string on her back and be quiet otherwise.

“What happened, Iwao-kun?”

“Gah! I knew everything was going to go wrong when I ran over a nail and popped a tire on the way to the store this morning. Those damned roofers! Who do they think they are? And then, when I finally got to the store, they were out of my favorite bread! I wanted to cry!"

She listened patiently as the butcher went through every minor inconvenience in his day, making soft sounds of interest and allowing him to pet her pretty blonde hair as he vented. Internally, she counted down the minutes remaining on her disguise but continued waiting on her Insight to let her know when she could safely make a move.

When Takamine transitioned to making vague allusions to actual problems, like the 'dumb guys who followed his car around all day' or the 'needle-dick dipshit' that had made him late to their date, she shifted her body language slightly. A nonverbal ten Success Performance check let her communicate that she wanted to ask him something without giving her game away.

“Sorry, Ga-chan, I’ve been so busy ranting I forgot to ask you about your day. Your manager hasn’t been giving you problems, has she? Want me to talk to her?”

“No,” she said sighing, “not my manager…”

"Eh! Some guy, then!? I'll kill him!"

She laughed him off. “No, no guy. It's—" She bit her lip and shook her head. "I don't want to bother you with it."

“Don’t be foolish, Ga-chan. You can come to me for anything.”

Erina hid her face in his massive pecs, hiding a smile as she saw the results of her Seduction roll; lucky number thirteen. “You’re mine. Heel, doggy.”

She exhaled in thought, letting her breath warm his exposed nipple, earning a shiver from the brute. “I bet Iwao-kun has a big apartment and a landlord that doesn’t bother him…”

He laughed. “Your Iwao-kun has the best landlord of all – no landlord! No apartment either, but a house instead.” A calloused, scarred finger lifted her chin up to look at him. “So, is that it, landlord problems?”

She nodded, looking chagrinned. “It’s my fault. I keep missing my payments.”

Takamine’s eyes narrowed, something cruel and menacing flashing in them for a moment before being replaced with a parody of paternalism. He tutted. “Ga-chan, I tip you well, don’t I? What have you been spending your money on if not rent?”

God, it was easy to lead this man around; Erina could practically read the script as it was projected onto his eyes like a teleprompter. It was his lack of creativity and inability to actually relate to his preferred role, she thought. Takamine’s brain was that of a psychopath, ill-equipped to improvise outside of his instincts, themselves ruled by the same violent impulse that had earned him his bounty.

“This and that,” she answered coyly. “Would you like to see?”

“What does that—"

His breath caught in his throat as she pulled her dress off her body, revealing a stunning set of white lace lingerie. She had slipped these into Gavrila's apartment this morning while she slept as gifts from her 'secret admirer', counting on the girl to bring them with her work clothes to the club as a de facto order from Takamine.

Erina wrapped her arms around the Yakuza’s thick neck and pressed her breasts into his chest. The threads of the lace were embedded with expensive sweat-activated aphrodisiacs that worked remarkably fast. She had paid their alchemist to make them ineffective against her defenses, but Takamine had to rely on his biology alone.

He ground his teeth hard enough that she could hear them. Perhaps it had been a mistake to employ the aphrodisiac against his already poisoned immune system. “Ga-chan, what are—”

“Iwao-kun,” she whispered, voice light and bubbly in his ear, “if I were your roommate, then I could have your favorite bread and breakfast ready for you when you woke up in the morning."

That line would have worked against most men in this situation, she figured, though someone more familiar with honeypot tactics would have made her continue to work for the goal. But the contrast of raw sexuality and almost inane innocence was a kill shot against Takamine. His nostrils flared like a bull, and his killing intent projected images into her mind of his intense desire to fuck her until her organs failed and her bones shattered under the force.

“Ga-chan, a man, erk,” he said through gritted teeth, “has needs. I have…needs.”

Takamine was barely holding himself together. This seduction of hers was simultaneously a betrayal and everything he wanted. He had killed his past infatuations after four months at the earliest and ten months at the latest. Gavrila had been his exclusive hostess for seven months now; she had already been due for a final 'date'.

His grip on her hips bruised her now delicate pale skin and dealt her one Damage. Between the accelerated aphrodisiacs coursing through his blood and her thirteen Success seduction, Erina needed to sap his Qi quickly if she wanted to leave the club alive.

In terms of unexpected complications – which every mission had – this was totally manageable, lucky even. Sure, she was on the verge of being raped to death by a psychotic murderer, but again, she was built for this.

She went to push his hands off her hips so she could slide her breasts down his chest and take him into her mouth, but Takamine would not be moved. He wasn't even looking at her now, just breathing hard with his eyes closed, doing everything he could to not act on the violence bubbling up inside him. Well, there was nothing for it then; she'd have to pull out the stops. Her mouth was a wakizashi compared to the katana of her cunt, but if he wouldn't let go, he wouldn't let go. Hopefully, his poisoned body could survive her technique, but even if it didn't, the bounty for his death would still pay off the loans she'd taken out for the job. Erina might end up owing a few favors to the allies she'd enlisted, but it beat dying.

Any actual words might have pushed the man too far, so she hushed him instead, cooing and stroking his cheek with one hand; in the coos were embedded subtle spells to calm and lull a target. They were mostly ineffective against his depraved fury, but they kept it from continuing to climb further, buying her time. Her other hand reached down to take out his erect cock and pull her panties aside. It was smaller than she'd imagined and felt misshapen, like a nose that had been repeatedly broken, and phimotic, but that was fine; Erina wasn't here to have good sex; she was here to earn the Quest Rewards and enough clout with her clan to buy her a vacation, with the money being an added benefit.

What followed wasn't a great time for either of them, though it wasn't a bad one either - for her, at least. Takamine started crying and moaning as though he was at a funeral as soon as she let him inside her. Other than allowing his grip to loosen enough that she could ride him, he did nothing, not even opening his eyes. She knew he was busy wrangling his murderous impulses, that what he really wanted to do was to fuck her through the table and paint the walls with her insides. For her, though, a former wallflower who'd only ever dated one man, the feeling of controlling such a monster through the power of her sex was incredible - Thrilling enough that she started to get wet and enough pleasure out of the act to enjoy herself somewhat.

Two things occurred when he came inside her: one, her Aura pierced into his extremely Corrupted Qi network a dozen times, driving acupuncture needles of pure energy into him to weaken his mind, body, and spirit; and two, she got a taste of what she'd really come for.

[Hidden Quest Complete!]

Get ‘Blood-Soaked King’ Takamine Iwao to cum inside of you without triggering his homicidal madness.

Reward: 55XP, +1 Strength, +2 Deception

Bonus, Stole the face of his obsession: 10XP, Gain two Artifact Tokens

Erina orgasmed. God, she loved the feeling of a big, meaty Quest Reward rearranging her insides. Even sex couldn’t beat the sensation of growing measurably more powerful in a split second.

“Iwao-kun, should we continue this in our home?" she asked victoriously, panting for both effect and from her reduced Endurance.

Takamine, who was shaking and covered in his own snot and tears, lit up. She had presented him an opportunity to get what he really wanted, somewhere quiet to kill her, and he couldn't help but seize on it.

As she'd expected, Takamine insisted they leave out the back through the staff exit and forewent alerting his men below on the main floor. He really was a simple beast, a dog with a tennis ball. In retrospect, she probably hadn't needed to spend as much money as she had in preparation for this mission. The man was a total imbecile. Someone had tricked him into attacking a group of Divine World merchants, and now here she was, tricking him into his own doom.

All that power and a few glaring weaknesses could bring him to his knees. Yet another reason to earn as much Experience as fast as possible. The Party needed to come together and cover for each other as a group, or else one of them was sure to meet a similar fate eventually.

Erina had to help him down the stairs and into the alley behind the club. Her Master level Cat’s Tongue Technique, in combination with the Feats she had for amplifying sexual magic through her pussy and the poison ravaging his body, had taken Takamine to the edge of death.

That was alright, though. She hadn't anticipated the poison, but she had accounted for the possibility that she might need to destroy his Qi network to the point of near death. Once they were close to the exit of the alley, Erina pressed down on a pressure point on her target's lower back, triggering a cascade of effects through his body. Takamine clutched his chest and hit the ground face-first with a look of confusion.

She screamed as loud as she could, alerting both the security lingering at the edge of the hostess club and her allies not far away. A Yakuza enforcer was the first to the scene, yelling questions at her once he realized what he was looking at.

Erina played the part of the panicked lover, clinging to her man in protective terror, refusing to let the guard yank her off Takamine. Another Yakuza came around the corner and had the sense to jump into action while his ally bickered with the hysterical hostess. The second man, seeing two off-duty emergency medical technicians eating street food next to their ambulance not twenty meters from the alley, demanded that they see to the injured Takamine.

The EMTs, both women, put up a light fuss. They had just finished a twelve-hour shift, they said; they worked for a private hospital, they said; try the emergency line, they said. This infuriated both Yakuza, who decided to forgo calling in the emergency to flash their weapons instead.

Takamine was quickly loaded onto the ambulance after that, joined by the second Yakuza, likely hoping to earn some goodwill from his clan’s strongest member, and Erina, who had clung to her ‘Iwao-kun’ throughout the process.

"At least put these on," said an exhausted EMT, passing Erina and the gang member medical masks while her peer was busy stabilizing Takamine.

The thug looked like he was about to protest further, but seeing the hostess put hers on without complaint, he followed along. Three breaths of the sedative in his mask later, and he hit the floor of the vehicle with a loud thud. Her sisters dropped their illusions as soon as the man was unconscious, their bodies filling in with vigor and muscles, their expressions growing vicious and pleased.

"Nice work," said Himeno, one of her seniors. "Anything unexpected to worry about?"

“Be on guard. He was poisoned in an attack before arriving,” warned Erina. “We might have some competitors for the bounty.”

The driver of the ambulance stuck his head out and looked back. Seeing that the other two had dropped their illusions, he did the same, revealing a dog-headed samurai in full armor. Go was an auxiliary member of the clan and the father of one of Himeno's daughters.

“It’s handled,” he said gruffly. “I killed the scouts. Target going to live, Shimeyo?”

“Of course,” answered the medic. “Who do you think I am?”

Himeno whistled at the unconscious Takamine, running a finger along his leg. "One and a half billion yen for this, huh? Heh, can’t fucking wait to cash that in. Thanks for bringing us in on this job, Erina. You’ll be a legend after this.” She shook her head. “Only three days of prep – you crazy bitch.”

“Thank me once he’s back and secured.” Until she saw the Quest Reward pop up, she wasn’t letting her guard down for a second.

“Relax, relax. Kami-sama, you’re so damn serious when we’re working. My Go said he handled it, didn’t he?”

She sighed. “You’re going to jinx us, Himeno. What do you want to do with the extra?”

Her senior looked down at the unconscious low-level thug on the ground and shrugged. “He’s just some nobody, no point in keeping him." The kunoichi walked over and summarily executed the man with a stomp to his neck. "Only good Yakuza is a dead one. You want his organs, Shimeyo, or should we kick him off a bridge on the way?"

The medic gave the corpse a bored glance. “Guess I should at least harvest the marrow, shouldn’t I? Don’t want to be wasteful.”

Shining golden leaves floated in ethereal winds, lighting the nocturnal landscape of Tokyo of The Gate in their shifting shimmering hues. Tsukuyomi slept tonight, pulling the darkness around her like a blanket, leaving the night sky absent of her glow. Instead, it was lit by dazzling stars; some were mighty Immortals or grand godly realms in the far distance, and others were stranger and more ephemeral. There were the dreams of mortals, both sleeping and dead, the winking eyes of watchers from places even stranger than this, and more, maybe even gates back to Cici's home Earth.

From the highest balcony of one of their compound’s tall towers, Erina could see the ghostly lanterns of a hundred million kami and yokai as they went about their business, as active in the night as they were in the day. The architecture of the Hidden City was that of feudal Japan, but the scales were inconceivable; there were temples that pierced the clouds, walkways a kilometer wide, and trains twenty meters high to accommodate the many giant residents. This was, first and foremost, a home for the gods, and the gods all had a strange need to impress each other with their works. Her Clan, the Shinomiya-gumi, could host ten thousand in their compound comfortably, and their home was but an armored redoubt compared to the great castles the spirits and monsters built for themselves.

Somewhere below on those city streets, strolling through the endless markets, were Himeno, Shimeyo, and Go, celebrating their newfound riches in style. She would have been there herself, drinking away the residual stress of the mission, but the Matriarch had requested her presence.

Perhaps it was for the best that she was here and sober and not down there drunkenly eyeing the many inhuman prostitutes that called the city home for whom she could spend the next night and day with in a hedonic haze. The week had been hectic, and she had been using that chaos to avoid difficult thoughts. That was a habit that had to die lest she become like the Cici of old, afraid even to ask herself questions she knew the answers to.

Cici – she'd never liked the name, though she never disliked it either. Cici was better than Cindy, and anything was better than Cinderella. Ted had suggested the nickname back when they were both twelve, sitting together in art class. He’d been so creative then, full of ideas and dreams, always proactive even if it meant that he made a fool of himself. They'd started dating two years after that, broken up a few times but never for long, and were married ten years later. Everyone had told them that they'd never make it, that high school romances didn't last, and that they would inevitably change and grow apart as they matured. Everyone had been wrong. They were still together twenty years after that fateful art class, in love, and practically tied at the hip. Their friends always referred to them as Ted and Cici – like it was one word, Ted&Cici, as though they were a single unit, rather than two individuals.

Erina laughed bitterly, what a joke. Everyone had been right. She loved her husband; there were things about him that she resented, but she did love him. She didn’t resent Ted, the person. Cici had known for years that if nothing changed and their relationship continued on its trajectory, the status quo would flip around, and she would resent her husband in spite of the things about him that she loved. She had told herself that, obviously, when that time came, if it did, she would do something about it.

With her newfound clarity - and greater Empathy and Willpower - she knew now that it had been cruel of her to do that to them both. They should have broken up because she loved him. It would have been better for everyone. Ted could have had a wife who adored him for the man he’d become and not the boy he used to be. How awful it must have been for him to be constantly, daily, judged against himself as a child by the woman who was supposed to be his partner. It wasn’t fair to him that she held him, a man in his thirties, to promises he had made in his teens and twenties. There was nothing wrong with deciding that you didn’t want to go through the hassle of emigrating to Japan, or that you didn’t want to ask your job to be transferred to their Thailand office, or that you wanted to buy property near your mother instead of taking advantage of your remote job to travel the country. Yes, he should have had the fucking courage and maturity of a man to have those hard conversations with her, his partner of nearly twenty years, instead of sheepishly avoiding them like a scared little child—

But regardless, the point was that she was to blame as much as Ted for the disintegration of their relationship. Cici had been unreasonable, too anxious and depressed to be any fun to be with on her own, and too terrified of failure to try therapy or medication. She’d been unable to communicate properly, ruled by intrusive thoughts that kept her lonely even when she was surrounded by others. Her brain continually conjured every excuse it could think of for her to stay miserable: her friends were actually his friends, so surely they'd never spend time with her after the divorce. She had no real family other than his, so every Christmas would forever be spent alone and miserable. The cat liked her, but he would obviously prefer to be with Ted if he had to pick.

On a balcony overlooking literal Heaven, smelling scents that didn’t exist and seeing colors that weren’t real, Erina realized how ridiculous she had been and how badly she missed her friends. She was capable, charming, and rich; she could finally be the woman they deserved, give them as much as they gave her. She wished they were here now and that she could show them around her home and introduce them to her new family. And...she wished that Ted was safe and happy, but she was grateful to be apart. It was a tragic and unpleasant admission, but the truth often was.

She wiped a tear away, rubbed it between her fingers and watched as it transformed into a small light that began to float into the sky to become a faint star, the Memory of a Romance Lost. Huh. Was it over then? Was that what she would tell Ted after she rescued him?

Yes and no. Erina smiled, sad but hopeful. Cici Brown X Ted Andersen was dead, but who knew? Omura Erina X Antonio D'Antonio - gosh, there might just be something there. They could be a Power Couple with a capital PC. It depended on him, of course, but she wouldn't shoot it down right away.

"Done moping?" asked a voice so close she could feel the warmth of a breath on the back of her neck.

“Gah!” She jumped and whirled on the voice, kicking off the balcony railing for added momentum.

A small hand latched onto a wrist with impossible strength and hip tossed her to the floor relatively gently. The Matriarch must have been pleased by her successful bounty; normally, she'd have made the throw as painful as she could without causing injury.

The catgirl, or catwoman really, sat down on her chest, looking no older than fifty of her two-hundred-plus years of age. She patted Erina on the cheek, her black-and-grey cat's tail swishing, teasing her thighs with their silken hairs.

Erina beamed. “Hello, Mistress! You look so much younger already!”

Her Matriarch preened proudly. "Yes, the serum's working quickly, isn't it? I'll be a hot little teenage slut again in a few weeks at this rate. But speaking of working quickly, I wanted to catch you before you go on your post-mission bender. Three days to set up a job like that – well done, Erina. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks! And for trusting me with all those loans.”

"Of course! I'd have made you work them off if you'd failed anyway.” She shifted slightly, inexplicably pulling out a steaming cup of full tea from her sleeve and taking a small sip. “I won’t keep you from your celebrations long, but I thought I’d offer you an easy job to keep you occupied while the heat dies down. I’d advise you spend a little time outside of Tokyo until the fallout from Takamine’s abduction settles, but it’s up to you.”

“Hmm, I don’t know; I thought my exit was pretty clean.” She was playing it coy; the whole point of the ambitious mission was to spend the money, reputation, and Experience she’d earned to look for her friends and husband away from the ever-curious eyes of her clan. "What's the pay?"

"It's relatively small, but the risk should be manageable. And if you’re clever, or just keep those legs spread and your tongue nimble, you could come out of it with a great deal of knowledge on poisons and the like. Plus, I’ll let you take that extended vacation you’ve been working up to asking me about after you’re done.”

Erina grinned. “I’m interested already.”

"I knew you would be. How much do you know of the Crane Sect from China? Their alchemist leader has an interesting proposal I want investigated.”