Note: edit4/22/21  far amount. grammar and added

Chapter 12.2 – No Simple Bath, Clean or Dirty

John released his tight grip to pull her hair around. He soaks it and starts to brush it at the tips with the tool.

“Sakura, I want you to pay close attention to my words. There are terrible men who will try and satisfy their own desires. With their moment of lust they could try to steal your body for their own selfish pleasure. They could see you or see me looking like an attractive female, and given a good opportunity they will try use us to satisfy that lust.”  John firmly pulled her hair back while securing her at the waist. John clenched her back against him for just a couple of breaths emphasizing the words. “Or they could try to take me, and have their way with such a beautiful body. They would do that for their own desire, against us while ignoring our wills or refusal to be subjected to them. ”

Sakura being overwhelmed with different emotions, concerns and thoughts had slowly regained her calm. And remained silent while John continued to wet and comb her hair. One part of her was excited beyond anything before with the close physical contact and the touching. But the other part of her becomes concerned over his words, and the implications.

“Sakura, Do you understand why I don’t want people to see you naked now?” John said with a gentle voice.

After a few moments Sakura started to nod in agreement. “Yes, yes I think I do.” She said with a somewhat subdued voice.

“If you are not careful someone could hurt you in a way that is worse than the death of your core. A lot of people don’t get over this kind of hurt or pain.”

“I um.. Please, I have questions Mistress.”

Cringing again at the word “Mistress” John sighed and gently encouraged her questions.

“You don’t want others to take me from you? Right?”

“yes, You can say that but there is more to it than just that.”

 “You like my body right?”

John let out a slight groan… “yes, you have a nice body. But everyone is more than their body. Sakura if you are terrible on the inside then I won’t like you.”

With a bit of concern and angst “What do you mean? Is there something wrong with my core? Do you or don’t you like me?”

“Try and understand, I mean if your behavior is bad, if your character is bad, if you just go around and kill people with no restraint, or if you let others have their way with you then I won’t like that. That type of stuff I don’t like. Also if I keep telling you to stop being naked in front of me all the time I want you to be modest a bit. I want you to keep others from trying to take you. If you will be with me then please honor the things I tell you.”

“So Mistress likes me? Do you want me to be your partner?”

John groans again and considers everything again. Finally he nods. “Yes I like you. And I suppose if you work well with me, and we work together then I guess we could be partners…”

Over eager she cuts him off, “OH Really? You’ll be my partner?”

“I’m not done explaining things…”

 “Ah, sorry.. Then finish explaining. And then will we be partners?” Excitedly she starts to fondle John’s legs and lean back for more contact.

When his arms start getting pinned between her back he pulls her hair and pushes her shoulders forward to continue the combing. He started at the tips of her hair and worked half way up to her head getting dirt and knots out of it.

“Like I was saying, partners work together for a future together. They also make babies. That being men and women…”

Nodding in agreement “yes, you said something about that before. But I can make just about anything with enough energy, and because I’m getting low again, you could share some with me right? And we could make something then. But what creature is a baby?”

John slapped her in the back of the head making a wet slop sound. “You cut me off again. A baby is with biology. It isn’t slime, or spider or anything of the sort. Focus on my memories let me try and explain it better this way…”

The two share long moments together in embrace while she tries to pick up on all the meanings of couple, pair, baby making, giving birth, and the detail parts of men and women relationships. By the end of those long moments the water around the two has heated up a bit and the two have very red faces.

“Well, wow… I didn’t know people could do that. So men and women do that to make babies?” Sakura turns around in Johns lap and gives him a very hungry eager look.

“ah, no well. We can’t at least for now. I’m very… Um I’m like you.. so… um no two women can’t make babies like that I don’t have .. I’m not equipped for it. Right now.” John tries to explain with a straight face. He is feeling hyper aware of the fleshy contact of her bottom parts sitting on his lap, and seeing their reddened face while their perky parts touch above the water surface. Remembering all the adult and lewd things he just shared directly with her mind. He started to feel a twinge of regret. The way he grabbed her, the way she responded just the memory of the moment ago sets his heart to pound like it’s ready to leap out his throat. Unlike in his other life this core has seemed to adopt him into her life so fast. Sakura is so welcoming but other women in his life all ended in betrayal.  And still this core, she’s encouraging him to hold her, fondle her. But no, this is not the time, not right now, not like this.

“Well Mistress, partners feel good together right? We can still...”

“Not right now Sakura…”

Forcefully he grabbed her shoulders and turned her around, then grabbed her hair to continue to comb and use it as a measure of control should she try and get more direct.

“Don’t get too excited Sakura…  Part of what you need to know is that the bad men will try and force themselves on women. They try to force baby making, and they hurt women. This is why I want to protect you from them. Or, you could look at it as me keeping you to myself, if you are serious about wanting to be my partner.”

She tries to turn around on the partner talk, “So this means you’re going to be my partner then? Right?”

His heart jumps, and if he was a cartoon he would have a nose bleed right now. Focus, he must focus.

Controlling her shoulder movement with her hair he turns her back forward facing. “I said we could. IF that is something you really would like, and something we can do together. But I’m going to say this now. If you can’t control yourself and you won’t try and work with what I’m talking about then we won’t have a future together. Dungeon Master, or no dungeon master. I won’t accept wanton slaughter; I don’t want a loose and frivolous partner who will spend their time with all sorts of other men. Nor do I want to be abandoned, or a partner who gives up on working together for this future. What I value is honesty, compassion, and companionship. So should you want to work with me then here is something I hope to do. I’d like to make a home for my family and myself. I want to do some good things here in this world, especially sense I’ve now got a body. And if you really want to work with me for these goals and you and me keep peace between each other so we don’t fight all the time then this is a great start for a partnership.” John explains it out well to Sakura and how he hopes to work to provide ways to accomplish this type of life. His dreams and his hopes are put out for Sakura to hear it all.  

He has told her so much more than anyone else that has ever been in his life, and he realizes it. His dreams, his heart break and betrayals, the way he failed to accomplish this in his previous world. And by the time he is done speaking he realizes how much of his life he has spilled. His failures and petty wants when he dreamed of a well functioning house hold. Yet all he could do before was wallow in pain from a body that was failing him, and the lack of help he got from doctors. He ended up relying on his father as an adult while being unable to make a family of his own. This is completely embarrassing. It’s enough to make his eyes water up.

By the end of the hair combing the two are turned to face each other. Sakura still excited over such heartfelt things, and the potentials he described for the future. She is breathing a little heavier than a before. It is easy for her to feel how sincere his emotions are, how raw the pain is. Even just sitting on John’s lap she is able to get fragments of memories. Clearly John is able to love deeply, and stay in hard times. He is full of experience, and can be a very caring Dungeon Master. If she can keep John then this will insure her new home, and it could be with him. She hugs John’s shoulders and head several times all wrapped into her bosom.

“Yes, yes, yes! It sounds wonderful Mistress. I want to try to make this future you described. If you help me I can build this home you want. And if you want a baby, or you want to make a little fox together, then we absolutely CAN! We can share this love, and EVERYTHING!!!” She says with an ever increasing enthusiastic voice.

John mixed with emotions of everything he just laid out bare to a dungeon core is not even sure she could truly know love. But he can only acknowledge the more he shares with her the more this dungeon core seems to grow. She even shows some maturity when she shows actual understanding, and practices self restraint or refrains from some things.  Sure, it is small steps, and Sakura is not great at it yet. However the constant slaughter mood has greatly diminished. And despite the over skin ship she does seem to want to go where he dreams of going. But that was as far as his thoughts could take him, because in the next moment something happened.

Several voices called out “MASTER, LORD, LOOK OUT!”

All the exuberance left Sakura when she was struck from behind. First something struck off of the back of Sakura’s head. The impact dazed her a bit, so she tried to turn around.

Schlop, POP!!!

            A fish grazed off the side of Sakuras’ face and exploded off the top of Johns head. Followed immediately by a hail of rocks, sticks, and everything else the colony of rock squirrels could pick up.

Just after the fish impacted john, a chocolate covered strawberry popped out of nowhere to plop and bob in the water below the two. In mid retreat, John and Sakura grabbed the silk, comb, and sponge before hopping and jumping bare foot across the rocks fleeing from the colony. The three monsters used evasive maneuvers while dragging the spoils from the Eagle nest. They seemed to dodge slightly to the left. Once the party got down far enough the Rock Squirrels stopped throwing things and ended the pursuit.

            The group found a water runoff, and paused there.

            “Mistress, I AM DIRTY AGAIN!”

             “What do you mean you’re dirty? I’ve fish spattered on my head!”

            Sakura looks over Johns face and forehead. “Mistress, hold still…”

            “What do you see some bones stuck in my hair?” John closes his eyes as Sakura reaches up.

            Without warning John receives an impact straight in the forehead, and promptly falls backwards. Just then a chocolate covered strawberry popped out of nowhere, and Sakura catches it and takes a bite with a satisfied smile.

            John looked up stunned at Sakura, watching her eat with a satisfied smile on her face.

            “num, num, num…  You know what Mistress, You aren’t just pretty but you have an amazing ability too, you can produce food. Do you wa…” She started to say before taking an impact in her face, and have water ruin the flavor of the strawberry.

            John frustrated at her flippant behavior takes the sponge, dips it in the water and promptly nails Sakura in the face with it just as she without warning got John.

            With mouth agape, “What was that for? You ruined this wonderful food, you know that? Now it tastes like fish and water and whatever this is…” Sakura blurted out with indignation. 

            “Don’t just smack me to get a bit of food… If you do this then I will respond in kind. If it ruins your food you got by being rude to me then so be it. I will not put up with that. Besides you straight up knocked me to the ground. That’s ignorant and not very kind for someone who you want to be a partner with. If you be kind, I will gladly be kind as well.”

            Being a little put off, Sakura capitulates. “Ok, but could you please make one of those for me later?”

            “If you ask like that, ask nicely then I’ll consider it. I’ll probably even try. Just don’t hit me out of the nowhere like that for such a reason.”

            The group having come to an understanding stayed there for a while talking more about what they will try to do to get to a human town. Sakura and John also used the stream to finish cleaning off from the thrown fish attack, and the fleeing into the woods.

With effort Sakura accepted a great deal of energy from John to try and give the worm an alternate humanoid form. The easiest one was that of a short stout dwarf with bands of muscle like a miniature body builder and a short brown topknot. After that Sakura continued to convert the energy over to mana and used it to make clothing for the now three humanoids. The dwarf got rugged trousers and leather vest, giving her an overall look of a porter. For Sakura the clothing came out as shorts under a puffy knee high skirt to deal with her tail. She had a pull over off white shirt with leather vest and actual backpack. John had to layer several shirt types, and tube top to try and hide the mini wings on the back. It gave the look of keeping a pack under a water proof throw over. The bottoms were like leather trousers over the equivalent of shorts. All the humanoids had the equivalent of short boots or tall shoes depending on your point of view.

            Once they were all geared up Sakura kept the slime on her backpack. John carried the spider on top of the wings to keep the cloth in place. And the dwarf carried the left over scraps from the Eagles’ nest.

            John reminds himself to just take small steps with the core. She gets better with small steps.