“What do you mean?” I looked at the woman and frowned like she was insane, and then turned back to Judgment. Certainly, Judgment’s current appearance was one that could only be appreciated by a true connoisseur of kink, but that wasn’t a reason to think that I’d wronged the A.I.

Wait… “What did you just say?” I asked, making sure I was hearing correctly. The woman covered her mouth, and the masked man stomped his foot.

“Damn it, you should have kept your mouth shut! Don’t tell him anything!” The woman nodded, and glided behind the man.

“Wait, I recognize that mask.” The man reached for something at his back, and Judgment held her hand up. The man froze in place, and shouted something.

That’s Gedo’s mask from the video! Judgment, materialize a rifle in my hand. Publically, I commanded, “Judgment, don’t release him!”

“Understood, Master!” Judgment rose up high into the air, and spread her arms. The area around us turned dark, and I brought up the smg that Judgment had given to me.

The woman behind Gedo snapped her fingers, and his movement resumed, whereupon he pulled out a massive gauntlet from his back.

I raised an eyebrow and said, “Ah, I see that you too have been watching too much anime.” With a derisive snort, the man put on the gauntlet, a pitch-black weapon.

Judgment, why can he move again? “I am not quite sure, Master. I felt someone interfering with my programming. Regardless, the Bulkhead Protocol has been run, so there is no escape for these two.”

That woman then. Fuck, fighting is such a pain in the ass. Judgment, what will happen if I dilute my perception of time?

“It will have the effect that you are used to, but the same effect will also apply to Gedo. Since the program affects your subspace, there is nothing I can do to prevent it from being used by both parties.”

Damn. There goes that plan. Judgment, keep the woman occupied, and I’ll try and incapacitate the mask-wearing idiot.

“Master, you are also wearing a mask.” I grabbed at my face, and found that the mask I had been wearing the entire day was still on my face.

Did I forget to take it off? Wait, that’s not important. You know damn well who I was talking about. I complained to the A.I. as Gedo charged at me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Master, I was just making an observation.” I grunted as I propelled myself backwards and away from Gedo’s wild swing.

Well finish your job before making any more. That’s an order! I said to her through our mental link as I sprayed a volley at Gedo, who simply held the massive gauntlet in front of his face, blocking most of the shots. A few grazed his torso and legs, but save for those minor injuries, he was relatively fine.

I was about to fire some more shots, when I noticed that the woman was no longer behind Gedo, and was nowhere to be found. Cover me, Judgment!

My premonition came true as a volley of arrows rained down from the thunderclouds at me. I put my hands up for a moment to shield some of the damage, but immediately set them down again as I noticed the Tengu leader coming for me once more.

I clicked my tongue, deciding that if I didn’t want to get completely destroyed, I’d have to just believe in Judgment and focus on the man in front of me.

It was a decision which ultimately paid off, with the arrows disappearing from left to right, as if being extinguished by a massive eraser. Judgment appeared behind the man and in my point of view, holding an unconscious woman in her arms.

I smiled, and dodged another telegraphed blow from the man. Good job, Judgment. How did you do that?

I fired some more bullets at Gedo as the A.I. explained, “It was nothing much, Master. I merely waited until she was about to launch her program at you, and then simply hit her with a sleep-inducing code. After that, it’s merely as easy as countering her attempts to undo the program, so we’re locked in a stalemate, but one in which she is already asleep.

I nodded and groaned as Gedo nicked my shoulder, and looking at the wound, I could only see a hole with a chunk of data in it. As numbers and letters flew out of my arm, I gritted my teeth and motioned behind Gedo.

“You might want to look at what’s happened to your partner, dumbass. I’d be really kind to us moving forward, unless you want her deleted from existence.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Gedo’s eyes widened, and he turned as instructed to see the masked woman dangling from Judgment’s arms, and he screamed. Funny, it was higher pitched than I thought it would be.

He started running towards Judgment, who was still floating in midair. I was curious about what he’d attempt, but he just jumped.

I laughed at the desperation move, but that was before he just kept getting higher and higher off of the ground with that single leap. I sighed, but decided to make up for my mistake in the only way I could figure out how to.

Gedo had almost reached Judgment, and was winding up for a punch with the gauntlet when I snapped my fingers. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, and then, like a puppet with its strings cut, the Tengu leader free-fell to the floor.

He landed with a loud thud and a puff of smoke rose up from the crater his impact made. He grunted and groaned while struggling to get up, but apparently a fall from some odd fifty feet in the air really did the man in.

“What-urgh. What the hell did you do?” Gedo finally collapsed in the crater, and didn’t even attempt to move, instead opting to shoot me a murderous glare.

I smiled at the man, and swung the smg around on my finger. “Well, you decided to break the chivalrous agreement we had, so I figured that I’d do the same.”

When Gedo just gave me a confused stare, I dropped the gun accidentally and sighed. “What agreement? I don’t remember discussing anything like that.” Gedo asked, so I replied while picking up the gun.

“Oh, was that just me then? I thought we were just having the close quarters fight for fun. I do have a bit of a flare for the dramatic.”

“You’re actually insane.” Gedo said incredulously, and, despite how little I cared about the man in front of me I frowned at that.

“I don’t want to hear that from a psychopath like you. What kind of person programs a sexual relief android to attack a person in their own home. Not to mention, having the balls to dive into my subspace and try to steal my possessions.”

“The kind of person who wants something greater than who they are! The kind of person who knows that a greater destiny awaits than decaying as a tycoon in a backwater hick town like Chika!”

“Oh? Please fill me in, what destiny did you believe you had in mind?” I wore a vicious smile underneath my mask. I can’t wait. Please, tell me that you won’t say anything. Just give me an excuse to enforce my will on you.

“Someone like you has no use for that information. Now let me go.” I just stared dumbfounded at the request that I had heard.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said to let me go.” Gedo said, in the same exact intonation he had used previously. It was if he was ordering a cup of coffee with all the calm his tone held.

“I don’t think you’re exactly in a position to be making requests. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re buried about a foot deep in cement inside my subconscious. Idiot.” I couldn’t help myself adding the last comment, but it felt completely justified once I heard his response.

“I wasn’t requesting. That was a demand, and before you ask, you’ll obey me because if I don’t return to my body by a certain time, I have several rail guns aimed for your room in the Steel Palace. They’ll kill you, and then I’ll just get away at that time.”

I looked down at Gedo, and grabbed his head in my hands. I ripped the mask off his face to reveal a somewhat androgynous appearance, with full lips, thin eyebrows, and lacking a single piece of facial hair. The short bob on his head did nothing to help the look.

“Give that back!” Gedo shouted, and I started laughing. He stopped making a fuss, and just looked at me with a hint of fear in his eyes.

“You’re an awful liar. Even if I were to assume that you had people on the way, I have people that I know would take care of me. Besides…”

I grinned and materialized a long, brutal looking whip in my hands. Upon seeing the object in my hands, and the expression in my eyes, Gedo’s own face paled. “I’m sure I can convince you to part with some of that information you seem so keen to keep a hold of. All it will take is a taste of my talents.”

Gedo’s breath started to become shaky, and he tried to struggle out of the crater he was in once more. I walked closer to him, and looked up at Judgment. “Judgment, please warp the space around us. I would do it myself, but it’s taking all my concentration to keep this whip corporeal.”

“My pleasure, Master. Torture Room C again?” Judgment flew down to land beside me, still holding the feminine form of Gedo’s partner in her arms.

“No, make it D. That room has ceiling shackles. We’re going to need it for what this interrogation is going to be.”

“As you wish, Master. Morphing the space inside the Bulkhead into Torture Room D.” The dark space inside the barrier transformed into a stone prison cell. I grabbed Gedo’s limp body and tied his hands to the aforementioned shackles, and used a spreader on his ankles. After chaining the spreader to the ground, I was left with Gedo in a very compromising position.

“You piece of shit! I swear I’ll get you for this!” Gedo was blushing, and his struggles against the bindings as his strength slowly returned to him were like music to my ears.

“You don’t have to worry about certain things, I don’t swing up that alley after all. However, I don’t recall ever saying anything about letting you live.” That shut the Tengu leader up, and I put an arm around his shoulder like I was his friend.

“That’s right. You won’t live to see tomorrow, or really, any time of day unless you tell me what you’re hiding. Do we have a deal?”

When I was met with silence and a grimacing face, I sighed. “Oh well. I didn’t necessarily want to do it this way, but you leave me no choice.” I took my arm away from Gedo, ripping off his shirt in the process.

As expected from his stamina and the way he fought earlier, he was toned, although not made out of pure muscle. His pecs especially were large, and a chiseled six pack rested where his abdominal muscles were.

Gedo tried to turn away from facing me, but the spreader bar left him with nowhere to turn to. He looked up at me, eyes filled with shame and whispered, “You monster.”

I hit Gedo with the end of the whip then, an action which he clearly wasn’t ready for as his eyes went wide and he lost the strength in his legs, only hanging by the cuffs on his hands.

“Oh come on, that was only the first hit. If you’re going to act this way throughout the entire interrogation, I’ll end up needing to torture your partner sooner rather than later.” I cracked the whip off to the side, eliciting a violent flinch from Gedo.