The Good, The Bad and the Banging Uglies. (Part 1-3, Chapter 10-12)

(All three chapters consisted of over 8k words and this was the original way the chapter was meant to be read.)

---

Finding the red light district wasn't as easy as Cole had thought. As a suspicious looking stranger most people gave him wide berth. He wasn't entirely alone in that he was mummed and too queer for the general public. But no one wanted to risk the attention of the former when combined with a stride filled with very overt purpose, elsewise one ran the risk of getting silenced in their sleep.

Every question resulted in a fruitless cringing, every store was suddenly much too preoccupied with accrued orders and appointements. Neither did Cole want to risk engaging one of the many, actual ninjas that roamed the alleys. Masked strangers met for two reasons and two reasons only: either for some underhanded grifting and skulduggery, in the most seedy of back-streets, or to duke it out in a battle of guile and entrigue. Since Cole wanted nothing to do with either he found himself in quite a pickle. Badgering one of the many non-disguised ninjas patrolling or socialising all over town would result in much the same.

Cole sat down on a bench along one of the many greens Konoha sported. It was getting stuffy underneath his headscarf and sweat ran down his brow. The night was temperate, the wind was blowing gently. It would have been perfect for a friendly get-together with his friends, over juicy grillables and a pitcher of sparkling top-fermented. They would have talked about the dumbest shit, told insider jokes underneath so many layers of irony they became their own language. The end result was always a squalid bunch of shit-faced idiots. And now he was here. In Konohagakure, the Hidden Leaf Village, locating the nearest brothel to cure the whores from ninja STDs. Cole leaned into the bench and gazed at the stars, beautiful little diamonds dotting the firmament. God, this would have been a blast with his pals; christ, the absolute dickery that would have ensued.

Hands clenched, Cole dispelled his fugue. He had more pressing matters to attend to than mental self-flagelation. He could figuratively flog himself whenever.

Reinvigorated, Cole continued his search into the second half of the night, eyes peeled for the tell-tale signs. Red paper lanterns strung along the lengths of buildings, casting eerie and sensual light at once. Perhaps an even more flagrant demarcator, like a gated street, decorated with all the gaudy baubles native to a pleasure district: golden streamers, streetwalkers beckoning from high-up balconies and bemused gutter folk occupying the ditches. It was to no avail.

Nothing of the like caught his eye. Only more streets brimming with drunkards and their companions, noisy but ultimately tame.

He could only consider one possibility as to why he didn't find hide nor hair of his destination. Like every other unpleasent eye-sore in a world of ninjas, it too was hidden away. It made sense. Shinobis were a prideful bunch that boasted strict, unbending principles and personal honor that was almost limitless. A righteous place like Konoha would never allow something as base and proscribed as prostitution to see the light of day.

What then could he do? The answers was looking the part of customer that would find such goods appealing. Money tend to make people much more talkative.

Cole perused the open-air pubs and bought the finest - cheapest - liquor he could find. At last, now that money was in play, people paid him attention. Dodoki, the girthy owner of the Burned Leaf, assured Cole that his home-brew, a turbid sake that emit wafts of burned rubber, was the most delecteable spirit in all of Konoha - Dodoki assured him it would put hair on his teeth. Cole listened half-heartedly to the man's sales pitch and passed a 50 Ryō bill over the counter. He dropped another 100 Ryō on the wood besides the flask of Dodoki'ki and fixed it with a finger.

"Now, Dodoki, my good friend. See, I appreciate your drink.", he pulled his scarf aside and took a swig, trying hard not to wince at the liquid fire that coated his throat, and wiped his lips. "Pahhh! Wonderful stuff. But ye' see I'm thirsty, you know. 'Been on the road for weeks, no girlie wit' me. Just me and me' self. Got a real man's thirst." he slurred.

Dodoki regarded him down his protruding belly, fortunately his hat covered his eyes. One meaty finger stuck to the proffered bill. And he pushed it back to Cole. "Sorry pal, no can do." A distinct disrespect had grown in the man's voice and Cole knew, from that point on, that his stay was limited to the contents of his flagon.

Cole put the bottle to his lips and nipped. That much was expected. But it was bait in the end, to lure the more disreputable sort of men. A bartender rarely denied a customer his wishes, endlessly curious to anyone that dipped his toes in shady business.

Ever so slowly Cole drank away at his craddled bottle, one sip at a time and one eye on the ongoings of the city.

It didn't take long until a cloaked individual broke away from the throng of people and joined Cole at the counter to his left. It was a very conspicuous individual with a mask of grainy wood.

Arms crossed, the person propped themself on the wood, one bandaged hand fingered a cherry-blossom engraved card. It dangled there limply for a moment, until Cole took it from the stranger's hand, free from any resistance.

Cole stilled for an instant to brood but stashed the card finally. He took a mighty pull of his bottle, stood up and left the bottle and the establishment behind. Liquid courage was good and all, but he could ill afford to be smashed where he went. "Thanks boss!", he shouted over his shoulder back at Dodoki. The man ignored him and assiduously served his other customers.

The stranger joined into the jostle like smoke, always just a few steps ahead of Cole and gesturing patiently, leading him down snaking back-alleys. "Thanks, by the way.", he whispered. The person remained close-lipped and moved on. Cole eyed them warily under the brim of his hat.

So far he had refrained from using Insight on passerbys to preserve his stamina, but he couldn't risk the same with the shady figure before him. Antecedent was collecting as much information as possible, a problem if the thug kept his mouth shut. Cole withdrew the business card and fiddled around with the piece of paper.

'The Dancing Cherry Blossom' was written atop in bold. It was a quaint pink emblazoned with the motif of a cherry-blossom tree, abstracted into the shapely figure of a woman.

"Call me curious, buuuut... what kinda gals does your establishment offer?" Cole shimmied closer, all intrigue and roguish. The person distanced themself quickly.

"Aw! Come on, don't be like that! That'll just make me more curious!" Cole drawled. He closed the gap and elbowed the stranger. "Tell me, what kinda gals do you like? Big tits? Perky ass? Pillowy thighs? Nah, don't tell me... you a feet-man! You one of those kinky fuckers!"

The stranger cringed away from him. "Neither." They mumbled and put two steps of distance between them, content with the quiet.

'Fucking finally.' Cole groaned and activated Insight.

---

Name: Yuya

Sex: Female

Age: 14

Level: 14

Emotions: Impatient, Irritated, Tired

---

Cole decided to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the night and follow Yuya like a good little duckling.

They walked past bends and blind-alleys, straightened up into pedestrian zones and ducked back away into hidden paths. With every step they took the houses became less bright, in colour and architecture. Plaster started to flake, walls were crumbling, a few windows were nothing more than boarded up gaps. Everything got a touch more derelict, more drab, the few people they crossed had no joy left in them. Cole figured, after all the walking, that this must have been one of the epicenters of the Nine-Tails destruction. A look into the past and the lasting effects of the beast's rampage.

Governments loved to promise rebuilding and renewal, only to drop the projects halfway through the moment the populace's attention shifted and leave a shambled ghetto behind.

Yuya led him far into one of the many dead-ends. She turned towards a distinctly undistinctive wall and flashed hand-signs, too fast for Cole's eyes to follow, but he had an ability for that. A moment later Screen pinged back at his consciousness.

---

Ability used: Dispel Transformation Technique

Dispel a targeted Transformation Technique. Only useable when the aforementioned Transformation is known to the User.

---

In a puff of white smoke the wall disappeared and revealed a crimson bathed passage.

Cole tried to step inside but Yuya held a hand against his chest. "400 ryō."

He looked at her askance. "You tellin' me I can't choose which babe I shag, or is that the entrance fee? Both?"

"Both." She responded with the nonchalance of somebody that knew they had him beat.

Cole clicked his tongue. "Fine." Money exchanged hands and Cole was ushered in - just like that he was 400 Ryō lighter, his four remaining days of lodging turning into three.

The passage, a downwards concrete slope, was lit by humming, fluorescent tube lights running along the ceiling, casting absolutely every corner and crevice in shades of red. Yuya led him deeper inside, going straight for an entire minute, before rounding an incoming corner and walking farther into a growing racket of the red light district. He followed closely behind.

Narrow entrance opened up into a massive underground market the size of a factory hall. Cole fumbled at the sight of ninja nightlife. A tide of heady scents assaulted him; of fragrant cinnamon and zesty lemon playing nicely with flowery lavender and smells he couldn't put name on. They invigorated his body in a single breath - intoxicating. The visuals of Konoha's sordid underbelly were the complete opposite and rattled at the constraints of his morals, screaming at him to leave this place. Gaunt, strung-out prostitutes were folded over railings and waved from their run-down brothel fronts at whoever passed. Their eyes unveiled a spirit full of avarice, molded through a lot in life they never had a choice in. Those same eyes followed Yuya and him, analytical, cold and treacherous. The men, almost all the same variant of gloom and doom, took the whores with undisguised hunger into their respective brothels. None struggled at the violent macking and let themselves get led away. You couldn't quite hear the sound of flesh slapping on wet flesh, but you almost did.

Few places stood out as well-administrated pleasure houses and all of them were neatly-tiled pagodas overflowing with light. They towered well and good, up close to the ceiling, majestic castles amid wretched shacks.

Yuya led him past these giants until they reached a dingy barrrack with a pantone pink roof smattered with wood blossoms. Here their jaunt ended. One door opened and beyond were string-curtains of pearls and coloured glass. A well-lit interior belied the rotten front.

Cole's eyes took in the flamboyant pink tones of the furniture and walls and the tasteful imagery painted on the latter: Women in the nude, twirling and dancing as a rain of petals cascaded down their naked forms. His eyes roamed across the confined lobby, stopping at passages leading further in and then finally at the front desk where a woman lounged. She was just a little shorter than himself, dressed elegantly in a violet qipao that hugged her curves tight, tighter than looked comfortable. A mane of chestnut locks fell over her shoulders, glossy hair led his gaze by the hand, down her tantalizing bust. No cleavage, what a shame. She drew on a particularly western pipe, a hazel quaver puffing like a chimney. A visible haze pooled around her form and the ceiling, the smell, cloy and slightly spicey like the red light district's air, fired up heat in his unmentionables.

Cole was received with a sultry stare of her own, full of demand and rapt creases. The green eyes of a lioness raked over his body, cataloguing every inch of his form as if he wasn't hidden underneath layers of cloth. The stare leveled out and dragged past him. He felt Yuya and the madam cross eyes before he was set upon by the same gaze again.

Tension sloughed of Yuya's shoulders and she turned towards him. "The madam will explain everything else." That was it. Not one more word wasted and her part done she slinked through one of the adjacent doors and disappeared inside.

A pregnant pause passed, where Cole used every ounce of his will not to Insight the cougar of a woman, before the madam stood up from behind the counter.

For all her sashaying hips and waist, she had a subtle limp, though it didn't diminish from the ingrained, sensual beauty of her every move.

"Well, good evening, stranger," she said in a throaty purr, that carried through the loud row from outside, then somewhat spoiled the sultry effect by coughing. Her voice was deeper than her face let on. And each of her words was accentuated by a growl-ish rasp, which said she'd been at the pipe steadily over the years. A dainty hand landed on his chest, fingers, with nails too sharp for his liking, traced over his formless robe. "The Dancing Cherry Blossom welcomes you. And while we do appreciate the mysterious and unknown, a delectable spice in the right hands and circumstances, you will need to show your face before tasting one of our girls. We don't want our customers to ruin the pretty ladies and get away scot-free, now that won't do. If you do value your privacy over your privates, you can leave. The money we'll keep." She smiled thinly at him. She took another long, slow drag, and very pointedly blew it in a thin stream at him. Her eyes were waiting.

Cole loosened the cowl and scarf, pulling at the stretch of rags, taking his time. Insight was invoked.

---

Name: Janaka

Sex: Female

Age: 32

Level: 18 (-)

Health: 150/150 (-)

Vitality: 15 (-)

Ailments: Lung fibrosis (Worsening), Misaligned hip joint (Right, Stabilised), Echinaroot addiction (Temporarily Alleviated)

Emotions: Intrigued, Aroused (!), Confident

---

From her decreasing total health to the crowded list of ailments, a lot of things felt wrong about her status. It gave off the same sickly sweet scent as the billowing, blue-hued smoke she was inhaling and it was present in absolutely everything that made Janaka who she was. 'Echinaroot'. Cole belatedly realised that her full-blooded movements and undisguised horniness did not stem from him being a stud of a man, but long-time exposure to a mind-altering drug. The same drug that pervaded every iota of this place.

"So?" The vowel was dragged over her tongue like candy. Janaka's green eyes had lost their lustful glimmer and only looked wild and dangerous now.

Cole pulled his hat and shawl off in one fluid motion, focusing intently on the hand that was set against his robe. Repose activated and in that second he delved into his imagination. He became a cleric. A man representing divine principality, on a pilgrimage to the farthest reaches of the world. His mission was single-minded: to cleanse where cleansing needs doing; to relieve pain and suffering; to rid the world of its wrongfullness and banish the darkness; to unmake disease; to shepherd the lost and return what was taken. A grand undertaking and even grander aspirations. And they all had a start, his was here. The bells toiled and Cole channeled his thoughts, directed at the worst of the affliction. The thread of power hummed an angel's hymn and blazed with deific light.

Lay on Hands!

Silver tongues flared around her. They were bands of celestial energy that latched onto her skin like grafts and sank unopposed into her flesh. Janaka straightened up and suddenly was eagle-eyed and holding a wicked looking needle to his throat, which was a lot more impressive than all her afore seductive posturing, because Cole legitimately couldn't conceive of where she'd been keeping that implement.

"You whore son, cocksu-…" She trailed off, eyes going wide. Her hands instinctively twitch and then stop, as she wanted to reach for her throat. A harmful proposition, with a glowing pipe in one and her hiltless poniard in the other hand. However, an understandable reflex; now that the woman spoke every word - albeit colourful curses - like she was singing an aria, with no trace at all of the smoker's rasp.

Her chest heaved slowly as she gulped in the fetid air of the room in a drawn breath, then she breathed out, and back in again, and back out again. Her expression twisted, more and more with the rythm of her breaths; from something furious and ferocious, into disbelief, bewilderment and lastly amazement. She inhaled twice more with ease, Cole suspected the first breaths in years that allowed as such, but kept her eyes trained on him the whole time. The woman stared, genuinely drinking in Cole's face for the first time, locking eyes, and coming to grips with what he had done.

"What did you do that for?" She asked in clipped tones. "I never asked for this."

Cole shrugged slowly, painfully aware of the weapon that was still hovering close to his jugular. What did he do that for? "I heal people, that's what I do." That was the half-truth he decided to go with.

Not yet absolved of suspicion she regarded him with a bitter smile. "Though I do appreciate what you did, a trained medical-nin would never offer his services to people like us, without first bleeding us out for every ryō we have. You didn't, not yet. The question then is, what is your angle?"

He raised his hands defensively. "I didn't do it for money, no angle there." Apart from grinding his healing skills, obviously.

"So it's for one of my girls. Is that it? Taken a liking to one of mine?" She spat back. The needle trembled against his skin, from rage or wavering resolve, he couldn't tell. He had blundered again and failed his gambit. He took up the guise of unsung hero, without thinking for a single second how people would perceive his 'charity'. Running a business like this demanded a shrewd and sharp mind, here, suspicion was everyone's modus operandi. For all the clergyman persona he wanted to play, people like Janaka would never accept his alms without also inspecting him for the dagger he was hiding, for the exploitation that would follow. What he had to do, was change the situation from: 'Altruistic handout' to 'a transaction they could both partake in'.

"No, neither," Now he knew how Yuya felt. "I- I'm short on cash and got no place to stay, so..." He trailed off and let Janaka fill in the gaps.

At last the needle-point blade was lowered, though it never left her hand. She limped back to her desk, falling into the cushioned chair, before looking back up at him again. She looked resigned. "Got a good eye over the years, seen people like you. Men too kind for their own good. Now, how many times can you do... that?" She gestured through the empty air.

Cole kept quiet for a moment and let her statement linger. The thread was resonating with barely contained fervor and topped up with as much energy as it could fit.

"A dozen times perhaps? Depends on the... severity of the issue." That was his entire deck of cards unveiled and Cole shuddered to think what might happen now. As he hoped, his honesty was finally rewarded.

The madam rose up smoothly and imposing. "I don't know what other kind of tricks you have, but mark me: if you harm any of my girls, I'll make sure you suffer for it."

"No one will be harmed unless they offer me harm first." He answered back, remaining as stoic as he could.

She smiled, turned and marched through one of the doors. "Follow me. Yuya, desk duty." They met the former, masked scout - a pretty girl with big, blue eyes and pastel pink robes - but Cole ignored her to the best of his ability.

"Are you okay? Your... your voice is..."

Janaka tapped her nose with the pipe. "We'll talk later about this." Yuya nodded and Janaka and him proceeded in lockstep into the bowels of the brothel. She walked with a habitual sway and Cole did his best to keep his eyes level to the back of her head, not that he didn't appreciate the gratuitious gesture, he just couldn't risk getting knifed so close to his goal because he was distracted.

The main passage, with its dozen closed doors to either side, made a turn. Janaka keyed a secured metal door, marked as employee restricted, and led him into a common room coupled with a kitchen, full of scantily clad woman, either coming and going, or passed out like cats over tables and chairs, drawing on cigarettes, pipes or drinks; their breasts and thighs spilling underneath their loose robes. They eyed him and the madam curiously but knew better than to intercept the proprietess. Deeper they went, to the end of the back room, until they came upon another locked door.

"If you want to heal," she said quietly, "if you really want to heal, this is the place to start." With these ominous words, and the now openly gawking stares of the prositutes, she turned the latch, shoved the door open, and stepped inside the utter darkness. "Shut it after you."

Cole didn't let her tell him twice and closed the door with a soft click. Light sputtered on and dispelled the encroaching shadows. The room was a cramped, if glorified, cubbyhole, with six beds side to side like sardines in a can and likewise occupied. A young woman stood up in alarm from the bedside; she wore the same skimpy gown like the women outside, only less nude underneath and less ruffled, suggesting that this was her day off. She wrung her hands on a bloody towel, kneading out the foul liquid over a washing basin. Cole looked past her and to the girl that was being administered treatment.

Her face… was a mess. There was a distinct split in her swollen lips, that rose from chin to cheek in a terrible, jagged line - overcrusted and purple on its edges. It looked as if it had only recently stopped bleeding; indeed, the basin of water on the bedstand was alarmingly pink, as were the sheets the girl lied on. Her chin was set too far to the side, entirely blue and black, broken teeth showing through the split lip. One eye was so badly bruised it looked as if her skull around the socket had been distened and broken. Her nose was definitely broken. The short, chopped throes of her labored breathing filled the room painfully. And she was only one of many.

Cole drew a shaky breath through his teeth, ice crawling along his spine - he was glad he hadn't eaten yet. The girl was so badly beaten, he wasn't sure how much longer she would make it. And with that thought the ice was traded for gluttonous wroth that made his scalp tingle.

The girl with the towel turned towards Janaka, questions on her mind, but the madam silenced her with a single gesture. She turned towards him and he spoke involuntarily.

"Who did this?"

Janaka's face crumpled into a scowl full of pain and surrender. He felt her bite the snark back before she responded.

"Some Shinobi bastard. Fine man in the first hour and suddenly he starts whailing on her. Full of sadistic glee as he beat little Rui half to death. Barely managed to get him off her before he disappeared. Couldn't stop the cocksucker even if we tried. If it went my way he'd be trying to put his gut back into his insides. Monsters, the lot of 'em and a perennial plague to boot."

Cole kneeled at the bedside under the wary gaze of the madam and the other girl. "Likes and dislikes? Name of her friends and family?" He was already drawing on thoughts of divine intervention, fey sorcery abundant with miracles and thaumaturgic energy. Both regarded him with a raised eyebrow, something Cole didn't need now. "Humor me.", he snapped.

The girl to his side was about to whip him with words but Janaka lifted a commanding hand again. "Rui loves plum candy, the fullmoon and men that shave. She hates liquorice, winter and... ninjas. She's friends with Yuya, girl you saw, and Nino here. No family as far as I know. Anything else?"

"No." He responded drily and used Insight, his hand rested on the girl's.

---

Name: Rui

Sex: Female

Age: 17

Level: 4 (-)

Health: 9/40 (-)

Vitality: 4 (-)

Strength: 2 (-)

Agility: 1 (-)

Perception: 0 (!)

Ailments: Fractured Skull (Critical), Internal Hemorrhage (Worsening), Fever (Worsening), Fractured Ribs (Stabilised), Broken Jaw (Stabilised), Severe Bruising (Stabilised), Lacerations (Stabilised), Comatose

Emotions: N/A

---

'My God...She's barely alive.'

Cole wasted no more time and let loose the channeled Lay on Hands.

The flare of silver was blinding in the confined space; the incandescent tongues preceding a golden corona that spun down the length of his arm and into Rui's broken body. Her face rippled and shone. Bones reset beneath glowing skin and the lumpy flesh evened out into a placid, restless expression. The light of healing dawned intensely but sputtered out too soon and Cole knew it wasn't enough. Her fractured skull had been healed, one of eight debilitations, and her health ticked one point down.

Coming into this place Cole knew what to expect, a night of nightmares and sanity-draining work; good, honest work, but terrible just the same. What he wasn't prepared for was the immediate need for his ace.

Janaka and Nino rubbed the stars from their eyes and Cole used this moment to imbue the dying girl with his own strength. Lay on Hands' third skill activated.

The thread within him burned brilliant. Golden fire blazed and licked over his flesh, spurred by the relentless energy of the thread into a roaring inferno. The flames tore through his heart and devoured pieces of it, using his vitality as fuel. They grew into a conflagration he couldn't contain and burst free from the palm of his hand, painfully.

Cole screamed in tandem with the crackling of the fire, his very lifeforce ripped from him in a gilden whirlwind.

[Lay on Hands' Level increased by 1!]

[Vitality increased by 1!]

He ignored the notices and craddled his swooning head. The pulsating headache left him sore and feeling raw. Even without using Insight his own body pinged back a missing total of 20 HP. A fifth of his life had been immolated for the sake of a stranger. Cole felt many, different ways about it, but decided that it felt good in the end. Naturally, he couldn't use his ability consecutively and he desperately hoped he wouldn't need to. The girl stirred weakly and Cole immediately shifted his head away at the revelation of pale skin underneath the sheets. He used Insight on the restored form of Rui.

---

Name: Rui

Sex: Female

Age: 17

Level: 9 (-)

Health: 64/80 (-)

Vitality: 8 (-)

Strength: 6 (-)

Agility: 5 (-)

Perception: 0 (!)

Ailments: Fractured Ribs (Stabilised), Broken Jaw (Stabilised), Severe Bruising (Stabilised), Lacerations (Stabilised), Fever (Recovering), Unconsciousness

Emotions: N/A

---

A great part of strength had returned to the girl and Cole pat his back for a job well done. However, his night was not over yet. Many patients needed attending to and many levels needed to be ground.

After finishing up with Rui, under the watchful eye of Janaka and Nino, Cole continued his ministrations on the other residents.

Word spread, attributed to the commotion of flashing lights and bewildered exclamations, and suddenly a small, adoring crowd hang around him like a grapevine. Healing those with cuffmarks and bruises around suggestive places made him especially popular. After a stern tongue-lashing by their madam the women left him to his devices - a good thing too, because invoking the clergyman persona was difficult with hot, tender skin pressing all over him and beauties moaning sweet nothings into his ears. The tittering group disbanded, Cole could refocus on the shivering form before him.

Ichika, a girl just treading the line between kid and teenager, had nothing obviously wrong with her. "You did... you can heal things you can't see, right?" Janaka had asked him with the worry of a mother, hovering protectively around the sweating girl. She told him they had tried everything they could, but her body wouldn't recover.

Cole nodded curtly and began his spiel of '21 Questions'.

Through Insight he was told the girl was suffering from a lethal case of 'Widowers Rot'. The name told him nothing but the infection let Ichika teeter dangerously between 1 and 2 HP, out of 10. Healing her took a lot out of him and was the second time he made use of his self-immolating heal.

She wasn't the only girl with non-superficial afflictions, but she was the worst case out of all. A day or two later and they wouldd have had to find a coffin her size.

That was his routine for the following hours. Treating women keen to be free of their pangs - their incredible pain threshold burgeoning deep respect in him -, resting when his brain was about to well from his ears and gorging on plates upon plates of food they served him. It didn't end until midday of the following day was well underway. For his troubles he was given a room to board in, a bright thing with a sprawling bed crowded in fluffy pillows; but he couldn't sleep, didn't want to sleep. Cole's mind was awash and reeling and burned out. Images of scabs and raw flesh and thick blood and wailing women played over his eyes in an endless circle. For all its beauty portrayed through the anime, the world of Naruto was build upon violence and strength, the law of the jungle made manifest, and Cole never felt it deeper in his bones than in those crawling, agonising hours.

That Lay on Hands leaped to level 4 was a small reprieve. Over the night of toiling it came easier and easier to him and its potency increased manifold. If it hadn't, he'd still have the women ingratiate themselves with him.

Cole worked the kincks out of his neck with a mighty groan when a knock came from the door. Janaka sauntered in, closing the door with a flourish of her hips. With her health restored the woman's countenance has truly become a sight to behold, moreso with the snug robes she wore that parted above a mesmerizing cleavage; she flashed pearly white teeth in a salacious smile. Cole's heart pound against his chest.

Janaka balanced a tray on her hands with a bulbous tokkuri and two shallow bowls on top. She set the salver on a nightstand, grabbed the bowls and fingered the tokkuri by its neck and nestled by his side.

Cole had doffed the stuffy robes in favor of his breathable modern wear, and was now acutely aware of the soft curves pressed around his arm.

Janaka kept her eyes on him, even as she handed him a cup and topped it with clear and fragrant sake. Her gaze burned into his cheek and when he finally began cracking under the pressure, she let loose with a tinkling laughter and Cole joined in. Between the giggles she threw her head back and downed the contents of her own cup in one gulp. Cole supped his own drink cautiously. He'd much rather eye the spectacle that was Janaka's undulating body and the swallowing ripples of her throat. He watched a drop spill from her full lips, tracing past her jaw and down her neckline, vanishing in the valley of her décolleté. Her nose flared with a content exhale; she reached for the bottle again.

"Thank you." she said through the refill. "Truly, thank you." Over the rim of his cup he regarded the coy madam, he let her speak.

"We can never pay you back for what you did today. You should know that your... service is worth much more than a grimy little room in a down on its luck brothel, right?" Something warred with the curiosity and sympathy in her eyes, alas, he had no energy left to spare for an Insight.

He chuckled. "Not often a brothel's gotta pay its customers, ay?"

Janaka smiled ruefully. "You don't understand. You," she interrupted herself and quirked an eyebrow at him. "How should I call you?"

The question was so banal and left-field, Cole spilled his drink with a peal of laughter. His body shook a few times before he had himself under control. "Damn, woman! You come into my room, while weak old me is all defenseless, try to get me sloshed and only then got the nerve to ask me for my name? You naughty little thing." He wagged a finger.

Janaka playfully slapped his accusing finger away and pouted demurely. The look fit her even at her age. "Come on, tell me." She cooed softly.

He grinned. "It's Cole. Cole Marin. Call me however."

Janaka's ears perked and she tasted his name, rolling it over her tongue in contemplation before smiling mischievously.

"So, Mr. Marin," she purred and suddenly straddled him, and he let her. She was hot, literally and figuratively, raking her fingers up and down his neck. "My girls are very thankful for your help, as am I. My only question now is," Her face cheeked his, lips and teeth daintily nibbled on his ear. Everything felt wet and warm. "Why shouldn't I keep you to myself... Why shouldn't I make you my toy and have you healing my girls, forever." Instead of caressing her nails now dug into his skin, her eyes glinted with thinly veiled malice. Cole smiled at the lukewarm threat and took her hands in his.

"Because, silly, I believe in the goodness of your heart and will heal you guys' anyway, as long as I'm not out and away on some week-long mission. I'm just that nice."

Her steely stare broke away from his and she fell bonelessly on top of him. "I think I know how to pay you back." They craddled one another in a limp embrace before Janaka planted a tentative kiss on his lips, catching him off-guard and making his eyebrows climb up into his hairline. It didn't take long for him to reciprocate though, and her mouth parted, allowing a long tongue to slither sensually out to meet his own. Even as his tongue battled with hers though, he was with half a mind on the dangers and traps inherent to this situation.

Then any thoughts beyond what was currently happening went flying straight out of the window as Janaka pushed forward, practically pinning him to the creaking bed as she set about running her tongue over every nook and cranny of his mouth. She tasted sweet and flowery and held none of the quiet, almost civility he'd come to expect from the brothel owner, instead it felt like he was being ravished by a wild animal as her hands roamed across his chest. They parted for a breathless pause, spittle trailing between their lolling tongues, in which Janaka tore his shirt off over his head, and recapitulated their feverish tussle.

A part of masculine pride rebelled at the woman's dominating approach, but a greater, wholly content part of him, could only enjoy the sensation of Janaka working her way down his body. Her wet tongue traced a shimmering line over his chest and stomach, stopping short along the waistband of his shorts and his bulging groin and coming up again. Soft and suprisingly powerful hands dug past his underwear and settled around his dick.

Through the kisses he could feel her heart pounding. Her robes had been ruffled and pulled apart, the supple globes of her breasts pressed against his chest. She was clearly enjoying herself as one hand gripped his shaft almost possessively, the other roaming up his chest. He would argue that one part of his arousal stemmed from the fear of razor sharp nails teasing along his chest and abdomen. Something that Janaka seemed all too aware of as her eyes took on a somewhat sadistic glint as he squirmed under her ministrations.

The thumb of the hand on his cock paused at the head, her nails grazing past his sensitive glans even as her thumb slid over it. The sensation sent jolts of pleasure shooting up his spine, which arched in response, forcing him to press even further up against her hot body, dipping his cock in the wetness between her legs.

She held him in place though, pinned between her and the silky sheets. Cole loved the aggressive histrionics and played along. A sound almost akin to a purr erupting from her chest as he bucked against his restraints, a sadistic grin on her features as she stared down at him. Seesawing hips worked drooling folds up and down the length of his dick. He had to wonder if that was her true self but Janaka's exploration of his own anatomy had him struggling to recall even basic math.

She settled back and let her hips climb up on his stomach, straddling thighs around his ribcage, while one hand resumed pumping his twitching member relentlessly, out of sight and hidden by the gorgeous nakedness of her body.

Faster and faster her fist went, up and down the lengths of his cock and shaking it free of his clothes, until his arousal climbed a dangerous peak. Soon he could resist no longer, surrendering to the pleasure that dammed the heat of his core.

His entire body trembled as Janaka expertly wrung his orgasm from him, his ejaculate staining both her pale ass and expensive sheets as it exploded from him.

Janaka watched him, amusement clear on her face as his burning muscles squeezed rope after rope of semen forth, coaxed by the viperish she-devil atop him. His mind fogged, sweat beading in droplets along his forehead as he leaned back and let it all go with a last, mighty capriole.

Eventually though, it was done and he was spent, a slack husk of a man. Janaka was content to let him enjoy the afterglow, throwing her legs back to survey her handiwork. If he didn't know better – and he didn't – he'd say the woman was preening at the fact that she'd managed to ruin him so completely. Which he couldn't refute. She'd done exactly that.

"How was that?" she asked after a minute had passed.

"Yeah," Cole drawled absentmindedly "That was real nice." he craned his neck to level a challenging gaze in the seductress' direction. "But now it's my turn."

He rolled out from under her and slapped her shapely ass. Now that he'd had his fun, his pride had been stoked and that former masculine ego was raring to give it a go. He'd been putty in her hands and refused to let that go uncontested.

"Sit and part those pretty legs for me." He was going to mess this milf up.

Janaka seemed both amused and surprised in equal parts but did as he instructed. She untied the barely holding knot and slipped out of her robes. Lazily she crawled the width of the bed, her ass shaking side to side and then lied over onto her back. Her legs came apart, in a manner that would have made seasoned sailors flush, and she looked down at him, over her smooth stomach and between over the groomed splendour of her pussy, with a bemused expression that said: 'Try me.'

The admission that he smelled a whiff of anxiety rankled him deeply, but that wasn't what he was here for. Cole dragged off his half-worn shorts, in the customary one-legged dance, and slipped out of his sticky underwear.

He closed in like a shark on those deliciously exposed lips, already dripping syrupy strands of arousal down her ass-cheeks, anus and finally sheets, and took a drag of the feminine scent roiling of her nectar and oozing hole. Cole gulped as he watched another glob of juice slide down between her legs, before going into close-quarters with her waiting womanhood.

He examined the lips of her entrance when his head abruptly shot forward, Janaka's legs clamped possessively around his shoulders and back. Her musky heat burned against his cheeks as his lips finally met her pillowy, naughtier pair. Her scent tickled his nose as he tasted her spilling juices, full of tang and saltiness, lapping over the entirety of her quivering vulva with a tremulous slurp.

Janaka shuddered against his tongue. "Oh... Gods..." she murmured and Cole idly wondered if this was her first time receiving cunnilingus.

Emboldened by the positive response his hands joined in on the fun, teasing along the inner flesh of her thighs, needling the nook where legs turned to nether regions and finally stroking her shaking labia. Eagerly he kissed and sucked and nibbled, until he felt Janaka scuttling her pussylips closer whenever he came up for air, then he parted her lips with ease, exposing unblemished pink flesh and another breath of her female scent. His tongue dragged over and into her folds like a living thing and her pleasure translated through trembling legs and a covetuous grip on his hair.

"Cole... Don't." She was loving it.

Pleased with the mess he was turning her into, Cole grinned as sticky fluids dripped down his chin all the while. He sucked, bit, kissed and licked up every droplet, even those that ran down her perineum and over her puckered asshole. His tongue dove inside her pussy, and he could feel her smooth walls tremble at his entrance.

Janaka whined and he felt himself driven deeper in, as she practically burried his face into her crotch, driven by little more than lust. He gripped a thigh for purchase and control, digging his fingers into the soft flesh, eliciting an adorable yelp from the madam.

Whenever he breathed it was full of her clinging smell and only for a moment, because Janaka's pussy tracked him as if possessed, always within sight and just the distance of a tongue away. Encouraged by her mewling he traced higher and higher along her flesh, until he came upon her bashfully hidden clitoris. His mouth cupped over the hooded nub, fingers searched out the promised g-spot, and he sucked, like a bedeviled vacuum.

The reaction was impressive.

Her thighs tightened like a vice around his head - hard enough that he feared for his well-being - as Janaka thrust futilely up at him, panting like a dog. Her climax was a delicious deluge of salty spray and Cole drew it out as long as possible, his tongue incessantly assaulting her clitoris, licking and battering away. Janaka twitched minutely and then reared up until she was on her tip-toes, howling piteous cry as she rode out her orgasm. Eventually though it ceased and with it the spasmodic trembles.

Cole wiped the spittle and grool from his face, smirking in triumph. But he, they, weren't done yet. They were evenly matched and now Cole set his sights on the match point. Fortunately, his dick felt like a piece of rebar beneath him, as cocked to despoil the panting woman's insides as himself was.

As his glans pressed apart Janaka's folds, he grunted, her lips like coals on his erect member. And when he guided his cock deeper, prying open her honeyed tunnels, engulfed by writhing and sloppy walls, it was her turn to moan. Janaka arched at his intrusion and her hands rivet the bed like a pin cushion.

Satin walls gripped and pulled at his erection, plunging him into her most intimate depths. Her lubricating juices spilled out around his shaft, as her clinging passage drew him into an abyss of pleasure. When he was finally devoured all the way up to the base, when her outermost petals kissed his pubis, she shuddered and dragged him into her bossom with a relaxed sigh. Which was fortunate, as he felt her tightness tear down the restraints he put on his climax.

They both used this lull in action to rollback on predatorial kisses. Janaka opened her mouth and presented him her slovenly wetness. Tongues coiled and lips pressed messily against one another in an effort to make the other 'lose' the conceived battle. Cole remembered Janaka's untended to breasts and began kneading her pink nipples between his fingers. Not to be one-upped, Janaka, in a stroke of genius, did the same to him and pinched and pulled at his sensitive skin.

That was enough time spent cuddling for Cole to feel safe in his movements again, even if Janaka's passage was draining away at his cock with the strength and vigor of a pneumatic pump; She was trying her damn hardest to knead the orgasm out of him.

Cole couldn't concede the contest that easily and thrust as if his life depended on it. He angled his dick in search of her most sensitive parts, be it along the lining of her dripping cervix or the rough texture of her g-spot. He assumed from her legs, hooked around his like iron vices, and the sharp hiss that heralded waving convulsions, that he did a good job. Unfortunately, the same move tickled him all the way from his testes to the crown of his head, while also suffocating him in one of Janaka's supplicating embraces.

"Fuck me more!" Janaka breathed, eyes glossy even though she kept circling her hips, grinding him ever deeper, far enough that he doubted her frothing slit ever had an end.

Fingers tenderly scratched at his head while Cole drank in the sweet smelling sweat of her bossom. Every bump and wrinkle of her piping hot and gooey insides transmitted themselves as spikes of pleasure into his brain, they rubbed and dragged along his glans and frenulum in fluid motions and tensed whenever he wound for another thrust. Cole realised that their bout was coming to a close, even through reciprocating foreplay he never had a chance against a true professional. In a final, desperate gambit his hands dug into Janaka's pliable breasts, his lips closed around her puffy nipples and he pistoned his cock into her like a diesel engine. His thighs slapped audibly against her bubbly ass and through the roiling convulsions of her silken flesh he felt the end closing in on him.

Janaka howled along his desperate thrusts, she whined when he drummed a rapid beat on her clitoris, she leaked when he gorged on her heaving tits, but she was tenacious, too tenacious.

He could hold no longer, and he felt his own orgasm - barred for the past thirty minutes the way an animal would - fire off like a cannon. He doubted, even if he had intended to pull out, that he could, such was the older woman's grip on him. Instead he could merely stand in trance, hands supporting himself on her loft hips, which dragged him so high into the air his feet left the ground entirely. His cum washed over her insides in a tidal wave of milky white seed, filling her greedy womb and bubbling out through the air-lock that was her pussy entrance when it couldn't hold no more. The pair of them locked in place, paralyzed in pleasured, mutual destruction.

It was a heady, primal moment.

One that ended all too soon.

Janaka went slack and Cole took a short tumble from the bedside. With his ass on the floor he had prime viewing spots of what was an infirm and slavering mess of a pussy. Ropes of his cum and her squirt and viscuous juices collected as a large, musky puddle on the bed. In the end it had been more of a draw than a loss, Cole told himself.

They listened to one another pant for air, Janaka on her back and Cole on his butt, before both broke out into uproariously laughter. Cole howled into his fist while Janaka wiped happy tears from her face.

"Fuuuuck, that was good." Janaka moaned and rolled away from the pooling liquids that kept dribbling out of her cunt.

Cole nodded along, entirely too tired for anything more than that and filled himself a cup of the aromatic sake. The smell coupled entirely too well with the room's odour. He eyed the clear liquid and smiled wolfishly.

Downing his drink he pounced a wide-eyed Janaka, who, for her part, yelped with a coquettish mewl.

The battle had been lost, but the war was far from over.

(So, how did you like the first sex scene? Leave a comment my friends.)