After spending one more night in the village (at a newly built luxury hotel, christened "The Maximilian") Akira knew it was time for the party to move on.
But first, there was some final business to tend to…
"I'm handing you the reins," Akira said to Rumia; as she, along with the rest of the party, was standing on the edge of a dark forest at the outskirts of the village, with Rumia and a handful of Macaque gathered to see them off. "The business, and full control over what I've helped create."
"R-really?" Rumia's eyes widened, brimming with vulnerability. "You're entrusting me with such a huge responsibility?"
Akira smiled. "You seem like a woman who knows how to take charge of a situation."
Rumia sniffed—like she was about to cry! But then abruptly huffed, as she bore an aggravated look. Crossing her arms, and pridefully sticking her nose in the air.
"Of course I am. There's only one true Queen around here."
Akira gave a small wave. "I'll be in touch."
With that, Akira turned with Ai and Kanna—and Vash, with a groan—holding the [Big Business Tie] out in front of her, pointing a direct path through the dark forest ahead.
They only made it a few steps, before Rumia yelled after them, "wait!"
Akira stopped, facing her expectantly.
"You shouldn't go that way," Rumia warned, her brows curved in concern. "It leads to the Swamps of Loss, in the Shadowlands."
Her tone was dire, showing real fear.
Still, Akira was unconcerned, nonchalantly cleaning out her ear.
Rumia gave a frustrated growl. "Idiot! Quit screwing around!" she snapped. "The gas in the swamp does things to screw up your brain! And beyond that, in the Shadowlands, there's—"
"Why don't you save your worries for your own people?" Akira countered, wearing a wide grin. "And I'll look out for mine."
And with that, she resumed walking, with the knowledge she was heading straight into danger. Holding up an arm to wave farewell, as she did—this time, for real. While Rumia could only watch her go, with bated breath.
"Stubborn fool," she grumbled, as a smile unconsciously crept across her lips. "Don't go and get yourself killed."
...
The party had trekked for an hour, the forest having gradually given way to inhospitable swampland.
Clouds were gathered, darkening the skies overhead despite it still being midday. The entire atmosphere became thick with noxious mists of an unknown, sickly substance: reeking of rotting detritus, stifling the nostrils and clinging like densely packed mud, to the back of one's throat when inhaled.
The vegetation had become scarce, with what trees there were being black and emaciated, stripped of all leaves. The gleaming white, forgotten bones of fallen players protruded from the loamy soil, rising in small islands from the depths of the swamp's knee-deep, curiously purple-dyed waters.
It was nothing but death and decay, spreading in all directions.
"Damn it!" Akira snapped, having a miserable time of it wading through the murky, knee-deep, curiously purple-dyed waters. "I just got this new outfit, and now it's all freakin' muddy!"
Kanna and Ai both immediately appeared at her side, beaming profusely.
"Eh? Why are you two still wearing those rags?!" she exclaimed, upon seeing that they had ditched their brand new armor sets Vash had bought them, in favor of the [Oo-Aa-Oo-Aa Outfits]—the bare bikinis forced on them by the Macaques.
Kanna lifted Akira out of the swamp, holding her bridal-style in her arms. "Darling, I'll spare you the difficult chore of walking!"
"H-hey, stop it! I never agreed to this!"
"Nonsense, darling! What better use is there for my strength than to serve you?"
"Okay. Whatever this is, I don't like it."
At the same time, Ai began furiously licking Akira's mud-covered legs and feet.
"Ai-chan! You've gone crazy as well?!"
Ai looked up at her with a cute smile, ruined by the presence of swamp mud caked around her lips, until she wiped it off onto the back of her arm. Then spoke with her tongue hanging out, and a lewd expression: "But big sis, I was only cleaning your feet."
After which she resumed doing so, as Kanna proceeded to carry Akira along.
Meanwhile, Vash trailed behind, viewing all this depravity with a sour expression. At one point stopping, then turning, as if to go in the other direction. But halting immediately after, with a defeated sigh—realizing that he had nowhere else to go—before begrudgingly running after the trio.
"It has to be the swamp gas Rumia was talking about," he said, slowing to a walk again once he'd managed to catch up, feeling a growing sense of dread while casting his fearful gaze across their increasingly gloomy surroundings.
"Eh, I guess it isn't too bad," Akira said, making herself snug in Kanna's arms with a satisfied smile. "I should bottle some of that swamp gas up for later."
Vash cringed. "You're deplorable."
"And you're jealous!" Akira returned, following it with a mocking laugh.
They continued following the light of the [Big Business Tie] in silence, through the tedious stretch of foul swamp. Pushing onward, undaunted, only stopping when a scale-riddled back breached the still surface of the waters.
Kanna gasped. "I'll protect you, master!"
"Wait—ahhhh!"
She flung Akira aside, landing her with a splash into the swamp.
"Nuh-uh!" Ai said, quickly drawing her pair of knives. "I'll protect her first!" Then scurried ahead of Kanna, beaming with eagerness to reach the snarling [Level 7] [Flesh-craving Crocodile]. "Because I'm the better wife!"
At this time Akira was sitting upright, where Kanna had flung her, with a scowl. Now caked in mud and detritus, spewing out a mouthful of the foul-tasting swamp liquid.
Vash came up beside her, grinning.
"It would be my honor to help lift you up, Master," he teased, with a bow.
"Hah! Hilarious. Kindly go fuck yourself."
"It looks like those two are in a battle for your affections," he said of Kanna and Ai.
"Yeah? Well they're both losing."
Despite her harsh words, if this was indeed a race between the two, it would seem Ai had gained a huge head start in the seconds it took Kanna to empty her hands. An disadvantage which Kanna seemingly had no chance of overcoming.
However...
"Ara ara, you may be faster than me..." Kanna said, nonetheless with a confident smirk. Crouching, as she pulled up her inventory.
"But I have a secret weapon up my sleeve!"
Ai was lunging through the air, about to pounce on the hapless [Flesh-craving Crocodile]. When suddenly, a glowing sphere came zooming by in front of her—blowing through the reptile in a spray of splattered gore and obliterated bone; its body disintegrating into pixels even faster than Ai could stick a landing.
"What?" Her eyes were wide in anger; her evil side shining through.
Kanna was standing with a hand on her hip, watching from a distance with a smug air. "I would move out of the way, if I were you."
Ai lunged aside, with only a split second to spare as the sphere came speedily soaring through the air to return to its origin; landing perfectly at Kanna's uptilted foot. Whereupon, its true form was revealed:
"No fair!" Ai exclaimed, her eyebrows arched in anger as she rose to her feet.
Kanna waved a finger at her. "Tut tut, all's fair in love and war," she said whilst bending over to pick it up, and hold it under her arm. "Better luck next round, sweet little Ai."
Akira and Vash were looking on in awe.
"I know it was able to kill Sugary before," Vash said. "But it's still incredible to see Kanna's [Memento] in action."
"Yeah," was all Akira could muster, still unable to restrain herself from gawking.
Now brimming with pride, all her previous wrath was gone as Kanna came to help her regain her feet.
Kanna's voice was smooth and sensual. Her eyes narrowed, with confident allure.
"Shall we continue on, Master?"
Driven speechless with overbearing lust, Akira simply nodded.
...
From there, the party had continued on through the muck and mist in mostly silence, but for Kanna and Akira's hushed words between each other.punctuated, now and again, by brief choruses of giggles, as Ai's stomach was growing increasingly sick from listening to it.
"It's so unfair," she complained to Vash, whom she had joined in taking up the party's rear, following her humiliating defeat. "I only got this piece of shit eyepatch for a [Memento]."
Jealousy was bubbling over like a cauldron of acid in her gut, as she stared daggers into Kanna's back.
"Looks as though Akira-kun's tastes have moved on to women that look closer to his age," Vash taunted her. Because for him, there was a small feeling of glee to be found from seeing this secretive, evil side of Ai placed on full display. What's more, on the losing foot of things for a change.
"That's bullshit," Ai grumbled, her lips then twisting into a conniving smirk. "Every man prefers younger-looking girls over tomboys."
"Uh, that's a...fairly bold claim."
"Trust me: a woman who looks like a child is every man's wet dream."
"As a man myself, I can definitively say—"
Ai glared at him sharply. "Quiet, you. You hardly even qualify as a man, so your opinion isn't valid."
Vash bristled, but kept his cool.
"I wasn't aware there are prerequisites to being called a man."
"Oho! Using big words like 'prerequisites' must make you feel really big!" Ai said as she bore a crazed look—one eye squinting and the other wide, intensely staring. "But in reality, all you do is follow Akira around like you're another one of his bitches!"
Her words immediately stopped Vash in his tracks.
And so once again, he found himself being left behind as the rest of the party proceeded, oblivious to his absence. Excluding Ai, looking back on him with cruel delight at the sweet sweat and despair shown clearly on his face.
Vash wanted to argue against her assessment of him: to defend himself, and his honor as a man.
But instead, he felt paralyzed.
'Paralyzed, by what? Is it fear? Am I too afraid of Ai to even disagree?'
No, that wasn't it.
'I know the reason I can't say anything…'
It's because Vash understood she was right.