Aika sat Hank on the edge of her bed and entered her closet, as he implored in earnest. "Please don't cosplay with me anymore. You're so pretty, I don't think I can take it."

"I'm not playing with you," Aika said in all seriousness. "You're playing with me."

As Aika rustled about, a mewing sound came from the closet. Hank was about to ask if she was okay when a cat the size of a small dog emerged. It had a huge mane the color of snow slush, with feet that looked like mittens. It walked up to Hank and rubbed on his leg, as Aika answered his question before he asked it.

"That's Carolus. She's a cat."

Hank spoke in baby talk. "Well, of course you are. A very big kitty cat!"

Carolus mewed again, swishing her bushy tail high. As Hank scratched her back, the bushy tail swished faster. When he stopped, the cat easily reached up to his knees and placed her front paws on them.

She mewed at his face while purring and kneading him, trying hard to not use her claws. "She likes you," Aika said. "Pick her up."

Carolus was adorable. Her front legs and forehead were striped in gray, with the lighter stripes the color of her mane. The tip of her tail was the darkest of all, as ever more shades of gray worked their way up from her slush-white butt.

Hank picked up Carolus, who was about to jump on him anyway. Like Fuji, the cat was hard-packed and weighed a ton. Also not unlike Fuji, the cat wanted to rub as many of her body parts on Hank as she could. He intended to compliment Aika on the cuteness of her pet, but he was unable to speak when Aika came out of her closet.

"Me-ow," Carolus said to Aika, speaking for Hank while sitting on his lap.

Aika stood as big and tall as her tiny body allowed. Legs spread wide and arms akimbo, she twisted back and forth while maintaining eye contact with Hank. "I must admit," she said, sensing his approval, "it's nice having a strong man dream for me."

Hank could do nothing but stare. Aika was the embodiment of so many fears, both real and those imagined. In particular, fears that had been forced into his brain by a woman known as Rio. The world was going to Hell according to Rio, but if it did, Aika would fight for it there. Like her cat, she was soft and pretty, but if she had a mind to, she'd extend a claw to rip out a jugular.

Aika's costume gave Hank the notion that fear could be made to work for a person, rather than against him. If he embraced fear he could use it, much in the same way as he wanted to embrace and use Aika right now. And if he did use her, as she so obviously wanted, perhaps the world could be changed for the better.

Carolus' main concern right now was that no one was petting her. She sunk a claw into Hank's knee to remind him of his obligation.

"That is an awesome outfit," he said to Aika, while doing as her cat demanded.

Aika intoned as she displayed her body. "This demon warrior fears no evil, for evil now fears me."

Aika was sexier than any demon warrior ever drawn up on a storyboard. She wore deep purple platform boots, almost the color of her hair, with blood red accent stripes that twisted into strips of red and purple latex heading up from her knees. The strips crisscrossed as they gathered at her pelvis, knotting like veins and arteries to cover the barest amount of her private parts, both in front and in the back. Thick metallic bands of gold wrapped round her ankles and thighs, with black hydraulic hoses running through them, until they disappeared into the latex covering her crotch and ass.

Aika's costume continued with a coarse mesh body stocking made of purple fabric that was brighter than her boots. The mesh was torn in places, marring her with bullet holes. Its shredded ends were tucked into the knots of the latex making up her panties. Two fake leather belts criss-crossed her chest, forming a half-cup bra. Where her soft teats normally hung low, the crossed belts held them high. More strips of purple latex came down from her shoulders, covering her breasts and keeping them in place. The straps lay mostly hidden under her tangled indigo hair, giving her the appearance of standing before Hank topless.

The whole effect was crazy. Hank marveled while finding his voice. "I'd fight evil with you every day if you wore that while we did it."

Carolus agreed. She leapt from Hank's lap to circle Aika's ankles, who squared her shoulders and stuck out her chest.

She demanded he swear his fealty. "Say it like you mean it."

"I do. Let's kick some bad guy ass."

Bits of mesh and latex were wrapped around Aika's right forearm like a hastily made bandage. Her left arm, however, was encased in an intricate assembly made mostly of metal, with her hand and forearm in solid gold. She extended that arm away from her body and reached into the assembly with her right hand at a spot along the back of her wrist, where a pommel protruded. With the sound of steel on steel, she unsheathed a very real sword made of gleaming silver. It was slightly curved and hinged at its center until, with a deadly snap, she locked the blade into place.

Startled, Carolus let out cry. Hank was flabbergasted.

"Wow," he said, fawning over Aika's increased level of hotness. "That is a real mean sword. I bet you could kill a lot of bad guys with a sword like that."

Aika laid the weapon across her forearm, offering it Hank. "This sword doesn't kill its enemies…" she began.

Hank stood up from his seat on Aika's bed, tucking his fingertips in his pockets. He leaned forward to look at the sword. The word DILIGENCE was etched along the length of its blade, surrounded by runes and hieroglyphs.

"…It compels them to obey." Aika finished. She flipped the sword over, offering it again on her forearm to Hank. On this side, the decorations surrounded the word KINDNESS.

Hank gasped. "That's the most amazing thing I have ever seen."

Aika cocked her head, pondering Hank's timid nature. She then snapped the blade off her forearm, using so much force that Hank had to pull in his nose. With a well-rehearsed flick and a twist, the blade unlocked at its hinge, and a mighty swing ran it back in its sheath. Once there, the blade traveled up her arm to a point near her shoulder, with the hinge at her elbow.

Aika resumed displaying her body, twisting back and forth. Hank lowered his eyes, bowing reverently.

"Aika-san, you are amazing," he said. "You really are. Where do you get your costumes? They're so beautiful, and I've never seen anything like what you're wearing now."

"I make them myself. I wear them to show why we're here and what we are to do, some things because we want to, while others because we must."

Hank lost track of what Aika was saying, for he was under the influence of his hormones. "Does Teek know about this outfit?" he asked, imagining what a devil like her might do with a real sword.

"Only I am this demon warrior. I've been waiting for you, Hank-sama, to show you what to do."

Aika re-entered her closet, with Carolus close behind, leaving Hank alone to stew on her last words. He scarcely had any brain cells left, as he fried them all watching Aika's nearly naked ass bounce into the closet. After she had disappeared, Hank reminded himself that he'd never met Aika before in his life, and she most certainly had never heard of him.

Why would she be waiting for me?

As Aika rustled about, Hank tried to not think about her white and so soft body, with its tangled indigo hair and sage-and-honey eyes. It was an effort almost as futile as the one Teek found herself in earlier when she tried stuffing Aika's boobs back into her Neko cat outfit. To ease his mind, he thought of some things he'd like to talk about with Aika when she reappeared. He hoped it would keep him from going bonkers, and having sex with everyone in the apartment.

It was his third day of constant titty teasing and butt squeezing with six different beautiful women, if Rio was included. Any virile man, who Hank most certainly was, would want to offer his services at least one these sexy, yet cruel mistresses. He figured he'd start by asking Aika why she had Anna bring him to her.

As he worded that question—and others—in his mind, Aika began answering them in her own odd way. "You're a true man," Aika said from her closet. "I'd perform any role for you, if you gave to me in kind. Such is true of any of the women who desire you."

More so than with anyone else, Hank wanted to submit himself to Aika. He knew she would do anything, be anyone, and give all she had to offer. He could take from her whatever he wanted, and she would keep giving more willingly. She'd perform any act for his pleasure, submit to any role. And if what Teek had said was true, there was a closet full of costumes Aika would love to wear, each one after the other, if Hank so much as asked.

She'd be so good for me.

"It's not the same with you," Aika said, still hidden. "Others become jaded. They're boring and predictable. But not you. You are big. So strong. A young man, very fertile. You never tire of fantasy. You impose them on yourself without fear. You don't let what's real constrain you."

Hank could hold it in no longer. He entertained wonderful thoughts about doing wicked things to a sex doll named Aika. He imagined what she'd do in return, ferocious and endlessly.

He begged her to give more. "Gosh, Aika, please don't stop."

Hank fantasized about Neko cats and demon warriors while Aika spoke from her closet. "You can learn a lot by embracing who you are. Rage becomes peaceful purpose. Madness brings you clarity. Those who perform heroic acts don't do so from a state of tranquility. They do so with a maddened fury, hell-bent on destroying anything impeding them from their goal."

Aika's next words seemed to come from inside Hank's own head. "And you do them, most of all, because you can."

It suddenly became very quiet. Aika made not a sound while hiding in her closet. Hank thought over her last bit of bent-up logic, and it actually made sense. Something prevented the bus he was on from ending up in the river when the seiche took out the bridge on the day of his second PEP Test. Cars had fallen in all around, but the bus traveled on unharmed. The same could be said of his heroic acts during the nightmare he experienced while being PEP tested. As people around him died by the billions, he spent his time not concerned about himself, but on how to save the lives of what few people he could.

The voice of a true genius came quietly from her closet. "Hank? Are you still with me?"

"Sensai, I am here. Come out and be with me."

"I want you to do what you want," Aika demanded, soft yet also stern. "Do you want Teek, and want her to want you?" It took a second for Hank to realize Aika had asked a question. "Do you want Anna and her friends? Her urges and her womanhood, her passion and her joy?"

Hank moaned as he surrendered his mind to the demon in the closet. "Oh my heavens. You're so right about Anna."

Aika peeked at Hank to marvel at him from her closet. "Wow. You want Anna to want you in the way she wants you to be. That's kind! Thank you very much!"

She emerged wearing her big man's white dress shirt, unbuttoned and unbridled, and naked beneath it. She lay on her bed, using the shirt's hems and buttons to play with her cat.

"You want to have your way with me," she said without emotion to the man gaping before her.

"Who wouldn't?" he replied, mimicking her way of stating questions. "You're very uninhibited." He watched her enjoy her nakedness, her legs open, with Carolus laying between them.

"Dream for me," she said. "Dream big."

Hank crumbled like feta cheese. His body screamed for the temptress centered on her bed, offering everything. He could use her however he desired, and for as long he cared to do it. She'd be as demanding as she was compliant, willing and belligerent, fulfilling all his fantasies, submitting to any fetish, no matter their range or number, so long as he allowed her to do the same in kind.

He could only mumble as he slobbered like a dog. "Oh Aika."

She held out her arms to welcome him in. "Come," she said as an order.

Reality changed in an instant. He found himself between her legs, where Carolus once laid, curled up like a kitten as she stroked his hair.

"Sensai," Hank confessed, "It's been a terrible past few days. I've seen so many things I can't make any sense of."

Aika offered no explanation. "Before," she began, while bringing his head up to hers, "I showed you what you wanted to see. Then you were shown what I wanted. Now you will be shown what you need to see."

When she had finished talking, Hank laid at her side, their bodies intertwined. She held his temples with both her hands, but instead of remaining eye to eye, she snuggled her face against his neck, soft and warm and peaceful.

"Dream," she demanded, speaking into his chest.

A space opened up between them, empty and airless and dark. A place possessing no up or down, no here nor there nor anywhere, only a constant now. And in this now was Aika, gently turning Hank's vision, rotating the whole of the Universe until the world appeared, bright and round and blue.

A voice like Aika spoke. This is what you want to be. But this is what truly is.

The image of Earth swung around as if orbiting their bodies, turning day to night. What was once serene now seethed with godless horror. Zooming in, monsters appeared, roaming the Earth by the billions. They disguised themselves as humans, devouring, destroying and blighting. Demons the size of mountains joined them, and clawed beasts with grizzly bear teeth. They took delight in creating chaos, enormous swaths where no life was spared, not even that of an insect. Every leaf, every tree, every forest crisped up, withering and turning to dust as if having never existed.

Hank felt a terrible anguish, but with Aika hung on his chest like an amulet, no harm came to him. This time, a voice like Hank spoke.

Save them!

There's nothing you can do. They're lost, as they have always been.

"No! I can save them!"

The Earth spun around their bodies again, this time at Hank's insistence. Tiny specks of blue appeared, rising up from the black on stark cliffs. As if on a jetboat trawling the ocean, Hank roared across these islands of blue, gathering up souls stranded there, like how a bee gathers pollen. He soon held so many souls in his hands that he could no longer see. Moving faster and faster and faster, the blue and the black spun itself into gray, featureless and bland.

Aika had let go of his temples. She moaned from self-induced rapture, her head upon his chest.

"Something terrible has happened," she said offhandedly. "You really have to go."