Chapter 16

No one pursued them, no one stopped them. Ash, Satsuhiro, Metsumi, their daughter, and Keiko managed to leave without any trouble. Kaori didn't approach them again.

Hopefully, Ash thought, that's the last I'll see of any of them. Varcon, his priests, and... She remembered the other Savior, how she'd stood above her, about to end her life, how she looked at her with guilt afterward. Ash shook her head. And her.

A few hours after they left Jade, they got back to the farm.

Ash found herself sitting alone in the field behind the house. Inside, Satsuhiro and Metsumi bickered back and forth about what they'd make for dinner tonight, and Keiko waited for Ash to tell her to help her train again.

But, for now, Ash needed a moment.

Ash didn't want to experience that again. She knew she'd fight stronger beings than herself when she signed up for this, but still, it wasn't a good feeling. If she could prevent it, she would. So, when Satsuhiro walked outside and went to ask her about what she wanted to do, she let him know.

"So," Satsuhiro said, coming out of the house with a flask full of cold water in his hands that he passed to Ash, "you're just going to train?"

"Yeah." Ash nodded.

"Understandable. Fighting your way up is faster though. A few minutes of combat a day over hours of swinging an ax, you know."

"I know." Ash nodded without looking at him as she took a sip from the flask. "I thought about it. I don't want to feel that weak again. I need to get better before I take any fight again."

"I suppose I understand." Satsuhiro sat next to her. "Though, it's been a while since I've fought someone or something that was a higher level than me."

Ash looked at him. His bored eyes were scanning over the field.

"When was that?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" He replied.

"When was the last time you fought something stronger than you?"

"Ah...." Satsuhiro closed his eyes and, with a serious expression, sighed. "About two years ago."

"Um... Can I ask what happened?"

"Yeah." Satsuhiro nodded. "I remember I was sitting with Metsumi in the living room, just reading Opah, my daughter, a story. Then, we heard some knocking on the door, I went to answer and it was a courier saying that the Royal Council was requesting my help."

"With what?" Ash asked.

"A siege," Satsuhiro explained. "Well, it was kind of a siege. Basically, they found out that there were a lot of demons held up between some canyons south of Jade. They wanted my help, along with this other Savior, Ginovea." He told her. "She was younger than me, about 24. I was 28 at the time. Yeah, this was after I retired, or rather, tried to retire. They figured two high-level Saviors were enough for the job. Well, we went out there with a small army, but, the issue with fighting demons is that we can't see their stats. We can guess them based on the levels of the monsters in the area, but even then there's always a chance we run into a high-level creature. And, uh," he scratched the back of his neck. "We ran into this huge thing. It had the biggest, fattest stomach I've ever seen and no eyes. Its mouth was pretty much its whole face."

Ash pictured what he was saying and found the image that came to her frightening.

"And yeah," his tone didn't change as he spoke. "That thing ate Ginovea whole." He shook his head. "It caught her by an arm when she went for a swing, pulled her up, and just swallowed her, right in front of me. I couldn't do anything because the damned monster had injured me before that. I watched as she just disappeared into its gut."

"Holy shit." Ash looked down. "That's terrifying."

"Yeah. That's why I'm not exactly happy about how much the Royal Council and the church seem to not care about my retirement."

I'll probably try to retire early too. Ash thought. But, that day's nowhere near close to today.

"Anyway, you should get to training. If you're going to raise your stats one by one, every minute is precious."

"Right."

Hearing him leave, she got up. Ash got to work.

---

Later, the night was starting to set in. Ash trained all day. She got right back to chopping wood, one swing at a time, one log at a time, she poured her energy into this act until her Strength reached 6.

Fuck. She wiped away some sweat as the moonlight hit her back. She remembered how it felt, how powerless it was to fight someone who was of a much higher level. She was convinced that if Kaori had been level 4 or 5, she may have been victorious. Especially with her Demon Form. However. that disparity had made her slightly nervous with regards to her future fights.

"Alright, I think I'm done for today." She thought. Ash let the axe she'd been using fall. She was about to come back inside, but she stopped.

Oh, right. My Lust rating. She breathed in, popping it up in front of her.

Lust Rating:

3/4

I don't think I can be near Keiko in this state. I don't trust myself. She crossed her arms. I mean... she's just so beautiful. The twin moons hung over her. Ash's eyes were kept on the field, almost black in the nighttime, but her mind was being flooded with images of her Zayama trainer. Then, she did something she'd never done before. She tried to picture Keiko naked.

She imagined a pale, thin body made firm by years of exercise. In Ash's mind, Keiko would likely have an abdomen almost as defined as her own. She pictured Keiko almost looking regal, in a way. Maybe wearing a transparent white veil that teased what was underneath but left little to the imagination.

She'd gotten close enough to Keiko, physically, to where she could picture herself taking that last step. Closing the distance just as the woman in her visions had done to her and tasting the girl's lips for herself. In her mind, Satsuhiro's house was empty and Ash was walking back to her room to find Keiko on the bed with her legs spread and...

Ash didn't realize this, but she had started touching herself. The act was clumsy and awkward because, well, of course, it was. She quite literally did not know her own body. She hadn't done anything remotely like this before, Ash never felt compelled to. But, the more she got lost in her visions, the more she could actually feel Keiko's soft body under her fingers, the more into it she got.

After a while, she forgot that she was actually behind Satsuhiro's house and that at any moment the Savior could come out to check on her. That didn't register in her mind at all.

However, it never happened. Instead, a few minutes later, Ash's fantasy progressed to where she was imagining herself lowering her head and dragging her tongue over Keiko's lower lips.

Breathing heavily, she massaged her chest while her body kept warming up. After a while, it reached a point where it was almost on fire.

She could see actually see a violet aura coming from her, almost like when she went into her Demon Form. Only, unlike that, this didn't feel wrong at all.

She didn't know how long she was there. All she knew was that, eventually, the moons were directly over her head as she bit down on her bottom lip and held back a cry as her body shook. She didn't understand what had just happened. She looked down and it was like she'd pissed herself.

She breathed in, slowly.

Immediately, guilt flooded her. She had just done something weird while thinking of her trainer, a girl who would literally be sleeping right next to her later. But, as the guilt came, relief was paired with it.

Lust Rating:

2/4

Holy shit. Ash thought. It went down. Okay. She gulped. I can work with this. Just... need to relax every now and then.

She got up and, checking to see if there was anyone inside first, still awake, walked back into the house. It was empty. She could hear Metsumi snoring in the back. The door to her own room was open.

Inside, was Keiko sitting with her legs crossed on the bed.

Ash looked at her, and although she still felt that pull, it had lessened in intensity, back to a level she could tolerate.

The girl sniffed the air and turned her head towards the door.

"Ash?"

"Yeah, it's me." The hybrid replied as she walked in. "What's up?"

"Um, nothing, I'm just... Practicing."

"Practicing what?"

"My... my Spirit Eye. Ash," she said. "Uh, no offense, but you smell weird."

Ash nearly fainted. She hadn't even thought about how Keiko's slightly heightened senses wouldn't allow her to just throw her pants aside and replace them without so much as a comment.

"UH..." Ash cringed. "Y-Yeah, I'm good."

As quickly as she could, she changed into fresh clothes, stuffing what she'd just worn into a container.

"Alright," Keiko said.

"Give me some room? I want to go to sleep." Ash said and Keiko quickly did so. "Thanks."

And, thanks to her newfound method, the rest of the night was uneventful, with both girls facing away from each other as they slept.

---

Kaori

In the morning, Kaori was sitting in the Spirit Gardens District, where she'd met the Zayama girl. She was still pondering the matter with the demon.

So, I said no, everything blacked out, and when I came back I had my swordstaff over her. Kaori thought for the third time, shaking her head. What happened in between? She could see flashes, little moments where she and the demon clashed, but nothing more detailed.

She wasn't wearing her Savior's armor today. A part of her felt like she'd thrown away the right to wear it when she threatened Ash's life. She'd put it on again someday, maybe the next time she was given a real task instead of just, "kill this creature we brought in", but, at least for an hour or two, she didn't want to be Kaori the Savior. She just wanted to be Kaori.

She wouldn't get that chance though.

Behind her, a man walked up. Kaori turned when she heard him approaching and found someone wearing a golden ji, with a pair of glasses and a quaint smile on his face.

"Hello!" He said, politely, but Kaori quickly noticed that his voice was strange. Almost like two creatures were speaking at once. "Kaori, I assume?"

"Uh, yeah." She replied, trying to smile back. "What can I do for you?"

"Ah, well, it's funny you should ask that. May we sit?"

"Of course." She replied, shifting to the side. "Uh, we?" She asked.

"Yes. We." The man laughed. "This body is but a vessel. You are speaking to a few different members of the Royal Council at once right now, sharing a consciousness. This form is useful so that we may go out, experience something, have a conversation, and then come back knowing exactly what transpired. Differing viewpoints can be problematic, after all."

"Wow, the council!?" She asked, shocked. The man... or thing, sat down and watched the spirits float around the tree with her.

"As I just said, we work for the Royal Council. You may call this vessel, Talo. We are here to inform you of a mission. We wanted to visit you and the other Savior to give you both the task and allow you to decide for yourselves what you would do."

"U-Uh, what is it?" Kaori asked, turning further to face him.

"Simple. There is a highly dangerous creature to the north, between Sapphire and Jade. We want one or maybe both of you, to go and deal with it."

"How strong is it?" Kaori asked.

"The area holds creatures ranging from level 5 to 10. Now, we cannot possibly know the demon's own stats, because that's how demons work, but we can guess that it too is between this range due to the area it inhabits. Creatures generally tend to stay within places that are close to their own levels."

"Oh. So..." Kaori looked away to think for a moment. "Wait, you said you're going to tell Ash about this too?"

"The half-demon? Yes." They replied. "Although her lineage is somewhat troublesome, she is still a Savior and the Royal Council will treat her as such... despite the desire that the archpriest seems to have for her death."

"What?" Kaori asked.

"Oh, yes. We spoke to him." They shrugged. "It appears he holds no love for, what was it? Ash? Yes. He seems to rather despise her."

You're... So, could he have been what drove me to almost kill Ash? Kaori asked herself. But, he wouldn't! He's an archpriest, not some random shady street merchant!

"I... The mission. Is that all?"

"Yes. The point is for it to serve as good training while also removing a fairly important factor on the enemy's side. Do you know what a Nightmare is?"

"No," Kaori replied.

"They are demons capable of transforming others into demons themselves. In other words, they are demons who produce demons. They are the main way the demon army maintains its numbers. They are hard to find and when we do happen upon one, it is usually stronger than any low-level warrior could face. However, here, knowing this one must be weak, we decided you should be given the task, to serve as training. Will you go?"

Kaori crossed one leg over the other. She thought about it. She'd been eager to do some actual heroics, really. Everything so far had felt... grey. She didn't like it. This was an opportunity for her to live the actual dream she'd wanted to do when she signed up for this.

But, there was a second opportunity here as well.

"You're going to go tell Ash?" She asked.

"Yes," Talo replied. "We will be heading to her location as soon as this conversation is over."

"... Can I come?" She asked.

"Sure." They shrugged.

Kaori nodded.

"I need to say goodbye to my family first. Where can you wait for me?"

"We may as well head with you." The vessel replied. "Is that alright?"

"Uh, sure." Kaori nodded.

And thus, she walked all the way to her family's house, with Talo tagging along. When she got there, with the representative there to confirm what she was saying, she told them about her intentions. Aside from the mission, she simply wanted to head to see Ash in hopes that she could also maybe apologize further.

There were a few tears, her family had always been close, but they let her go with smiles in the end. She picked up her armor and her Savior's Weapon and exited her home. Kaori felt as alive as ever as she and Talo walked to a carriage that had been waiting for the representative.

And so, she and Talo made their way to Ash's location.

---

Ash

The morning proved to be everything but uneventful. Someone had arrived at the farm and was knocking on the house's front door. Ash was having breakfast with everyone in the living room. Satsuhiro stood and went to answer it.

Ash looked past him to see who had come.

"You're joking." She said.

In front of Satsuhiro was a young official-looking man and next to him was the last person Ash had expected.

Kaori.

"Hi." The other Savior awkwardly greeted Ash from afar.