Chapter 27

1.

The surroundings were utterly different. It felt as though the walls of flesh were writhing.

No, they really were walls of flesh. The blood trickling between them and the oily fluid that looked like meat broth proved it.

They even swelled and shrank in a rhythm like a beating heart.

And in that bizarre, unnatural place, unlike anything in the world above, a woman was writhing in pleasure.

"Hh, ah! Hah!"

"That's right, that's right… Why don't you cry out a little more?"

Each time the doppelganger wearing Lapis's appearance crooked a finger, Ribel, bound before her, writhed in pleasure.

Black liquid had bound Ribel's hands and feet as tightly as iron.

Her hands were held above her, her waist stretched out, and her legs fixed wide apart.

Water tentacles groped at her intimate parts and breasts.

Her clothes were already scattered across the floor, and the device that activated her Nano Suit was now in the doppelganger's hands.

"Hah! Y-you…!"

Ribel looked at the doppelganger with eyes that occasionally cleared. At some point, her outfit had changed, too.

The white frilled blouse dress she had worn had become a black Gothic dress.

The skirt had once been long enough to cover her thighs, but at the front it barely covered her hips. The sides were much the same as before, while the back hung below her knees…

"Me, what?"

"Get out of that body right now…!"

Grating her teeth, Ribel forced the pleasure away and shouted. She hadn't known Lapis for long, but she trusted in her kind heart and had no choice but to stake everything on that gamble.

The doppelganger, smiling brightly, met her eyes and closed the distance between them.

Soon, they were so close their noses nearly touched.

"No."

As it answered, the tentacle teasing Ribel's most intimate place writhed.

"Hah, ah! Huh!?"

"I've been way too careless with you until now, haven't I? This time, I'll add something to make it even more intense."

As the doppelganger wiggled its finger, the tentacle began preparing to force its way inside her.

It had been teasing her around her most sensitive spot, but now it slowly took on a phallic shape, pressing at her entrance and stretching it open.

"N-no…!"

The thought of losing the virginity she had guarded so carefully made Ribel's mind go blank.

She was the daughter of a chaebol family, after all. She had considered marriage, but she would never lose her virginity through this kind of insanity.

She had become a Hero because she had no intention of marrying the idiots in other chaebol families.

Even so, she still had a girl's heart. Believing that she might someday meet a prince of her own, she had taken strict care of herself.

Her healthy bronze tan was for that very reason, and despite having mana, she had kept up her exercise to maintain her muscle mass.

She had cherished and cultivated herself so carefully.

And now she was going to lose her virginity at the hands of a monster!

Overwhelmed by humiliation, Ribel bowed her head and shouted.

"P-please… stop…!"

"That doesn't sound like a request."

Smiling brightly, the doppelganger seized her chin and made her look up.

"You know how to ask properly, don't you?"

"P-please… I beg you…"

At the sight of Ribel trembling, the doppelganger smiled. Maybe it liked what it saw.

"When you're shaking like that, it sounds like a threat. I don't like it."

"L-let me try again… please!"

Desperate, Ribel clung to the doppelganger. She had no way to resist anymore.

She couldn't move her hands or feet, and the tentacle teasing her entrance kept making it clear that it intended to force its way inside. She felt like a herbivore being chased by a lion.

"Now, give me a little giggle."

"…H-hehe…"

What kind of insane thing was this?

That was all Ribel could think as the doppelganger made her say it.

"Come on, smile, too… When we do it later, you need to keep a proper smile on your face, okay?"

Whatever it found so amusing, the doppelganger…

"Say, 'Please don't take my virginity.'"

It said with a beaming smile,

"Say, 'Please torment me until you're satisfied with my ass.'"

It promised to leave her virginity intact if she said so.

"Th…at…"

The humiliation was worse than having her virginity taken, and it made her tremble.

She was a Hero, after all. If she had to endure that level of humiliation…!

"Oh, and if you don't… I'll get you pregnant with a doppelganger's child."

Ribel's body jolted.

As if the doppelganger had caught her thinking she couldn't go through with it, she trembled like a child trying to hide something she'd done wrong.

"You weren't thinking that, were you?"

The doppelganger pinched her cheek with a bright smile. It was the sort of gesture one might use to show affection… but the one doing it was a monster.

No matter how intelligent it was or how human it looked, the doppelganger was still a monster. There was no way she could enjoy being doted on by something like that.

"N-no…"

Ribel answered slowly, pretending to be concerned about her pinched cheek making her words slurred.

Even if her cheek hadn't been pinched, her answer would probably have come out just as slowly.

"Now say it with a smile, okay?"

"Please… don't take my virginity…"

With a faint, helpless smile, Ribel did as she was told.

The thought of carrying a doppelganger's child frightened her more than losing her virginity.

Pregnancy.

There was no threat more effective for pressuring and controlling a woman.

"Please… torment me… until you're satisfied… with my ass… Hh…"

Her body trembled with humiliation. She seemed to be clenching her fists hard enough for her nails to dig into her palms.

If not for the black liquid that made her hands feel like iron, she would have been trembling even more.

At the sight of her own miserable state, tears came naturally.

"Wow, I didn't think you'd get it right on the first try!"

The doppelganger laughed broadly, clearly delighted by the sight. A throne made of flesh rose up behind her.

Without losing her smile, the doppelganger sat on the throne.

Ribel was now the plaything of the one seated on that throne. A sacrifice.

"Then I'll play with your ass, okay?"

"Hh, ngh!?"

A thin tentacle of water forced its way into her from behind. The sensation of it pushing against a passage that normally only went one way sent a shiver through her.

Before long, a burning heat rose from where the tentacle touched her and spread through her body.

2.

Dojin arrived about twenty minutes later.

The nest was filled with an energy called 'demonic energy.' It was foreign, yet similar to mana, and it prevented him from teleporting.

What he saw when he arrived was…

"Hah, ah, hah! Big, big sis!♡"

"Mm, that's right. That's right. You're so cute."

Ribel was writhing as a tentacle teased her from behind, all the while making advances toward Lapis.

"…Don't fool around with another woman using my girlfriend's body."

Dojin wasn't pleased by what he saw. Even though they were both women, he didn't like seeing Lapis doing something like that with another woman.

They were clothed, and about a meter apart, but there was no mistaking that the doppelganger was using its ability to restrain and torment Ribel.

"Oh, don't be so petty… The only part of me that touched her was a finger."

The doppelganger, grinning with Lapis's face, twisted and squirmed when its eyes met Dojin's.

"H-hehe… Even just looking at me gets me all wet, Dojin. Did you know that?"

"……"

Dojin didn't answer.

"It was the same when we kissed, too. Did you like having such a lewd girlfriend?"

"…Hey."

"Yees?♡"

Dojin used telekinesis to flick the doppelganger wearing Lapis's face on the forehead.

It had about the force of an actual flick.

"Shut up. You're distracting me while I'm watching."

"…Are you insane?"

"Actually, that outfit's nice, too. I'll have to ask Lapis to wear it next time."

"You think that's going to happen?"

"Yeah. I can make it happen."

Dojin unleashed his telekinesis. The walls of flesh shuddered.

"You think you can't?"

"You insolent human…!"

"If you're wearing Lapis's face, talk like Lapis!"

With a crunch, the flesh throne the doppelganger had been sitting on twisted out of shape. It hurriedly jumped down from it.

At the same time, more than a dozen tentacles shot up around Dojin. Some were made of flesh, others of water.

"Your assimilation rate's only around 30%, right? I can see everything."

"This is my nest! You think you can beat me here!?"

Tentacles writhed up from every direction, reaching out for Dojin.

The moment Dojin smirked, every tentacle crumpled.

"Aaaagh!"

The flesh walls shuddered all at once, as if the nest itself were in pain.

The doppelganger's left arm scattered into black mist.

That didn't mean the arm had disappeared. Lapis's arm was still there; the doppelganger had simply lost control of it.

"Hey, if you wanted to fight me, you shouldn't have brought me to your nest."

Dojin took a step forward.

At the same time, explosions erupted from the surrounding flesh walls. They crumpled, compressed as if drawn together, and were destroyed.

Dojin could destroy things with nothing but his mana, without even moving his body. He was a calamity in human form.

"Y-you…!"

Black dust scattered from the doppelganger's body. It had already lost control of both legs, and only its right hand and upper body remained.

With both legs useless, it couldn't even run away, and with its left arm unresponsive, it couldn't do as it pleased.

"Is stupidity a common trait among monsters?"

With a cracking sound, the flesh wall forming the ceiling split in two.

Seawater dripped from the stalactites in the dark, damp underwater cave, falling into the nest.

"You haven't forgotten that you're linked to the nest, have you?"

Dojin continued to indiscriminately destroy everything around him with telekinesis.

Shock waves of telekinetic force slammed into the flesh walls, tearing them apart, while slashes flew through the air and cleaved them open.

"Ghh, you…! Stop! If you keep going, I'll die, too!"

"Then die already."

"D-do you think I'll be the only one to die? This bitch will die with me!"

Ribel was already collapsed on the floor, more or less unconscious.

Dojin kept an eye on her to make sure she wouldn't die, then looked at the doppelganger.

When their eyes met, the doppelganger trembled and lowered its gaze.

"Is that true?"

"I-it is… Unless the host personally… overcomes me…"

"Really?"

Before anyone knew it, Dojin had walked right up to the doppelganger.

The doppelganger seemed on the verge of tears as Dojin approached, perhaps out of fear.

"D-don't come any closer…"

"Don't come closer?"

"P-please don't…"

The doppelganger cowered like a frightened puppy. But it couldn't even run away now. It had already lost control of both legs.

Even if it hadn't lost control of its legs, it could probably only have slumped to the ground.

To the doppelganger, Dojin was death itself, come to reap it.

"Hey. Get out on your own."

"N-no… Dojin will kill me!"

The doppelganger flailed its only movable arm in defiance.

Perhaps because time had passed and its assimilation rate had risen, it had begun using honorific speech and the name Lapis used for him.

Dojin gently caught it by the right wrist and stood directly in front of it.

"P-please… spare me…"

Trembling, the doppelganger begged Dojin. If they had met outside the nest, the body it was occupying could have served as a hostage.

It had let the desire to play with its toy cloud its judgment.

Dojin thought of Lapis on the bed, her eyes damp as she pleaded with him. But he decided he had to be a little firmer now and looked away.

For now, he had to ignore that sort of thing.

A slash split the flesh wall, sending blood gushing out. The wall spewed blood as violently as a bursting underground spring.

"Ghh!"

The doppelganger sprang about, its face twisted in pain.

Because it was linked to the nest, every attack on the nest filled the doppelganger with such overwhelming pain that it could barely think straight.

The Dojin before its eyes felt like an abusive husband, someone who used violence to intimidate and control it.

It had to use its last means of protecting itself.

Overwhelmed by its fear of Dojin, the doppelganger couldn't think clearly.

"I-I'll call the Leviathans! I'll bring this cave down…!"

The doppelganger resorted to its last measure. If the cave collapsed, no one here would survive.

That included the doppelganger. The only possible exception was Dojin himself.

But even if he teleported out in time, would the volcano simply sit still if the cave collapsed?

It squeezed its eyes shut as it spoke, showing just how terrified it was. After all, it meant it would die, too.

"Hey."

The doppelganger flinched at Dojin's call. As if frightened, it slowly opened one eye halfway and looked at him.

Dojin continued, his voice a low, deep rumble—the same tone he used when revealing his S side.

"Stay still."

"Y-yes!"

Trembling, the doppelganger answered. It wanted to run away from fear, but looked like a slave bound so it couldn't escape.

Dojin thought its assimilation rate had gotten far too high. If he left things as they were, Lapis's identity would be overwritten.

He had tried to lower the assimilation rate by destroying half the nest. But since the doppelganger was intelligent, it seemed to have raised its assimilation rate out of a desire to survive.

If things had gone as he expected, the doppelganger would have been unable to withstand the pain and fled.

With no other choice, Dojin made a gamble of his own.

"Lapis. You said you didn't want to become a doll."

That was Lapis's answer when he had asked if she wanted him to help with the fight against Iris.

She had said that if she couldn't accomplish it on her own, she would be no different from a doll. She wanted to do it herself.

The doppelganger, trembling with fear and pain, looked at Dojin in confusion.

Dojin stood still, but even now his telekinesis was tearing through and crushing the flesh walls.

As the pain grew, the doppelganger could barely breathe.

But Dojin before its eyes was so frightening that it couldn't even writhe in pain.

"Is a life consumed by a doppelganger any different? It's no different from being a doll."

The doppelganger knew that Dojin was trying to kill it now.

"So I'm going to kill you now, Lapis."

For the first time, the doppelganger experienced how hard it was to speak when overwhelmed by fear.

Everything it experienced was a first for it, to begin with.

Born in the deep sea, the doppelganger had never eaten anything.

That was why it couldn't even understand that Dojin was making a gamble. His hand was trembling ever so slightly.

To Dojin, Lapis was like the first flame, the one that had lit up the world. He could go on living without her, but would that life be worth living?

That was why he had made the gamble.

3.

I couldn't see anything.

I couldn't hear anything.

I tried to move my arm, but couldn't even feel that I had moved it.

…So this is what it means to be consumed by a doppelganger.

It's worse than I thought.

To a human, the senses are proof of being alive. What you're doing and what you're feeling are vital signals.

But I couldn't feel anything at all. If even these thoughts stopped, could I still be called human?

I had to think… I had to think.

Not knowing what to think about, I decided to look back on the past.

My past as a man didn't matter much. I had already decided to live as a woman in this world.

So I decided to recall the past I'd experienced in this world.

I remembered meeting Dojin,

remembered the first time we shared our bodies,

remembered embracing him every day and telling him I loved him,

and remembered smiling as I prepared lunchboxes for him.

I remembered meeting Ruby and Peridot,

remembered how we'd honed our skills together,

and remembered proudly bragging about Dojin to them when they showed an interest in 'men.'

I remembered that there was a crazy bitch named Iris.

…I couldn't die yet. I didn't want to die. I couldn't accept being devoured by a monster like a doppelganger.

No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't accept dying and leaving Dojin behind. There were still so many things we hadn't shared.

Someday, we could change my contract with 'Party A,' or even adopt a child. I wanted to start a family with him.

I wanted to spend my life with him as a family.

No matter how I looked at it, I couldn't accept dying with a record of zero wins and two losses against that crazy bitch Iris.

Never, never, never. I had to beat that bitch, even if it was at the very end. The one who wins in the end is the true victor.

I can't die. I can't die. I can't die!

I can't die yet!

'So I'm going to kill you now, Lapis.'

…If Dojin were the one killing me, I could accept that with a smile.

But I knew that wasn't what he meant this time.

"…Get out of my body, you pathetic monster."

At last, a light appeared before my eyes.