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The rain hadn’t stopped for hours. Days, in fact. Victoria’s weather was numbingly dreary, just like her mission here. She missed her days as a real shinobi in Higashi.
Kazemaru slammed her apartment door shut, her court recorder’s uniform soaked through, her hair plastered to her face. The weight of the day pressed down on her—endless testimonies, ink-stained fingers, the suffocating politeness of Victorian bureaucracy. She exhaled through her teeth, fingers curling into fists at her sides, and clenching at where her sword would normally be sheathed. She kicked off her shoes and stalked into the unit, dropping her bag by the door.
I need to feel something.
Her tail twitched restlessly. Not the dull ache in her shoulders from hunching over documents or sitting upright and at attention in the courtroom. Not the hollow exhaustion of another day playing the perfect clerk. Not the warm hazy sensation that welled up in her at this time of month. She needed danger . The kind that made her blood sing, her instincts sharpen—the kind she hadn’t felt since her last combat mission.
Her eyes landed on the desk. A stack of fine paper sat in the middle. Her tail lashed again and her pupils dilated.
That would be reckless…
As if on puppeted by a will other than her own, she threw her wet blazer across the entranceway onto a coathook and bee-lined to the desk. Her fingers moved before she could second-guess herself, folding the paper with sharp, precise creases, taking a familiar shape. It had been months since she’d done this, but the muscle memory of this particular origami was as unforgettable as her swordsmanship
Just a little more.
She grabbed the craft knife from its spot in the corner of the desk and made a small incision on her arm, fully focused on the ritual and not reacting at all as blood welled up. A single drop fell onto the origami figure. That would be sufficient.
Then another. That would be more than enough for a simple doppelganger.
And another. This was enough for a doppleganger more than fit for difficult combat.
Slaying the defiled undead in Sami, back to back with her cleaving through Seaborn monstrosities in Iberia, eliminating cells of lingering Reunion
Her mind was too dulled to exercise self control today. That was a bad sign.
Another drop hit the paper figure as her mind wandered into memory, before she could wipe it away. The paper drank it in, the crimson spreading like veins across the effigy.
Kazemaru placed the little knife back in its position on her tidy desk. She could simply decide not to give the paper life and act like nothing had happened. It would be dangerous to create such a powerful simulacrum without purpose, not to mention irresponsible. She should scrunch the paper up and toss it away.
It would be the sensible thing to do, but…
Even as she thought better of it, her hand moved with its own volition to her arts unit and a shudder ran through her as she sent a mote of energy into the origami. The air in the room shifted. In a flash, a perfect copy of herself sat on the desk in front of her. It was wearing the same damp button up shirt and suit skirt as she did, still wet hair stuck to its forehead, and bags under its eyes not quite fully hidden by expertly applied makeup.
Do I really look that tired?
She stared at it for a second before the doll’s eyes opened and it drew breath.
The creature didn’t wait for instructions or permission. Of course it didn’t, it already knew exactly what she wanted. What they wanted. The doppleganger acted on her instinct before she even had to command it, just like it always did.
It grabbed the craft knife off the desk without even looking, and stabbed it forward in one terrifyingly fluid motion.
Kazemaru barely twisted out of the way, the doppelganger’s blade missed her eye, but its fist grazed her cheek. That would definitely leave a bruise. She countered with a sharp elbow to its ribs, but it caught her arm, yanking her forward. Their faces were inches apart.
“You’re slow,” it murmured, its voice her own. But… was that a hint of smugness in its tone?
She snarled, driving her knee up—but it twisted, flipping her onto the floor. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs.
Oh shit.
She rolled just as its heel slammed down where her sternum had been. Scrambling up, she grabbed a knife from its magnetic rack on the kitchen wall, the blade glinting in the dim light.
The doppelganger smirked. It reached into its skirt pocket and pulled out an identical knife.
“Cheater!” Kazemaru breathed. She couldn’t help but grin.
The doll tilted its head and grinned back, its tail lashing. “You wanted a fight. It’ll be good for us.”
Then it wiggled its hips and pounced.
Steel flashed. The doppelganger’s craft blade grazed her arm, cutting a clean line through her shirt and skin, a thin line of red blooming. She hissed, slashing back—it ducked, her knife embedding into the wall. She wrenched it free just in time to parry its next strike, the clash of metal ringing through the apartment.
A vase shattered as she pressed her opponent into a low side table. Papers scattered. The coffee table upturned as she kicked it between them, but the doppelganger vaulted over, landing with feline grace.
“What, tired already?” the doll taunted, circling her.
She wiped sweat from her brow. Her hair was in her face, adrenaline filled her veins, and she was breathing hard. “Hardly!”
They clashed again, blades flashing, bodies straining. The doppelganger was relentless, not even reacting to the cuts that she inflicted on it, ignoring the red ink blood that dripped from its superficial wounds onto its clothing, and pressing her back until the back of her knees bumped against the couch.
How could I fail to-
Her doppleganger feinted with its tail, and as she reacted to dodge, it stuck the small craft knife straight into her abdomen, sinking the entire blade and an inch of the handle into her gut.
Kazemaru inhaled sharply as the familiar sensation spread through her gut. Electric, white hot,
Pain
In her moment of distraction, the doll punched her hard in the gut, knocking her back onto the couch. The pain from the expert strike coupled with the pain of the knife embedded in her caused her to gasp, and she wasn’t able to stop herself from falling. She knew instinctively that if it was really aiming to kill her, it would have driven the knife into her with the strike, upwards and into her heart. It was a move she’d executed a few times herself.
The doll leaned down and used its free hand to pin the wrist of Kazemaru’s knife hand to the back of the couch above her head. She tried to kick up at it, but with the creature pressed up right against her at this awkward angle, it was of little use. It twisted out of the way. In one quick motion it stabbed the kitchen knife into the cushion next to her throat and through the collar of her rain and blood soaked shirt, drawing another thin cut on her neck.
Kazemaru was panting. So was the doll.
A thin cut marred its cheek. Another on its collarbone. A few cuts through its shirt hadn’t marked its skin, and a few had. She could feel a plethora of far more small wounds on herself—stinging, warm. It was embarrassing.
She should be fighting back! A shinobi wouldn’t give up a fight just because she was put in a tight spot. She tried to summon the will to move again. Her doppleganger pulled and twisted her arm higher above her head, and she hissed as the wound in her abdomen stretched and the tiny knife shifted. Her jugular was dangerously close to the kitchen knife embedded next to it.
The doll leaned in, lips brushing her ear, hot human breath on her neck.
“You didn’t just want a fight,” it murmured. “You wanted to lose .”
Her breath hitched.
Its knee slid between her thighs, pressing up—
Oh.
Heat flooded her. She was wet . Had been for a while, she realized. The adrenaline, the ache of exertion and all the cuts, the way its body— her own body— pinned hers…
The doppelganger smirked, reading the desires she hid even from herself like an open book.
Then it leaned in and bit her.
Sharp teeth sank into her neck, not enough to tear, just enough to hurt . She gasped, arching against it as pain and pleasure twisted together. It drove its knee harder against her groin, pushing her skirt up and grinding gently but firmly.
Her knife clattered to the floor behind the couch.
Her doppleganger’s other hand gently caressed her cheek before it wrapped around her throat and squeezed hard. Kazemaru let out an involuntary animal noise as she choked. It leaned in again and took another, much harder bite, sinking its fangs into her. This time it did draw blood, and it drank deeply. It lapped her neck eagerly with its rough feline tongue. Kazemaru’s gut clenched and her thighs squeezed around the doll’s. Electrical heat spread from the bite, as well as from much lower and deeper within her.
“Mine,” it growled against her skin, mouth and shirt dripping with their own blood.
Kazemaru could only muster a needy whimper.
Yes.
Bonus: A drawing I did before writing this which gave me some ideas
