Nikolai faces the five disgusting clones, who smirk at him. He couldn’t help but detest Doctor Franz more and more as their tails moved from side to side like drifting silk.

Their bodies leaked the same pink mist as Kumiko, slowly guiding it along the ground, hooking around Nikolai’s ankles, and smothering across cracked concrete and broken scaffolding.

Each clone shifted to the side, forming a loose ring around his massive black frame.

’These things are quite skilled at using her powers...’

He couldn’t help but shift backwards as Kumiko’s dense fragrance flowed into his nose, her sweet and fruity scent filling his lungs.

’These whores!’

"Darling, what’s with the angry look?" One whispered.

"Honey, you look lonely, come to me, and I’ll make you feel good."

"Oh my, baby, you look so big and thick..." The last one glanced between his legs, sliding her long pink tongue across her plump lips.

Nikolai’s claws sank into the concrete, creating sparks as he slowly dragged his right leg back.

"You really have a disgusting hobby."

The nearest clone lunged at him after he spoke, her light steps barely making a sound as her claws gleamed with a faint flame.

Nikolai twisted his shoulder and let her strike graze across his stomach. Her smile faded as the sharp claws barely sliced through his dense fur.

"Hah!" His fist struck her jaw from below.

Her body skipped across the floor, smashed through a pillar, and vanished beneath concrete dust, leaving only the remaining four, who rushed at him before the rubble fell.

They were much faster than the copies of Nikita or Selene.

Each clone seemed to specialise in a different aspect of Kumiko’s powers, one summoning a blinding sweet mist, another using sharp blades made of foxfire, and the last two moved similarly to Rika, darting around his body.

"Nikolai, please stop..." One of the clones mimicked her voice perfectly as she clawed at his face like a beast.

’These bitches!’

His body froze for a moment, struggling to ignore his wife’s voice.

This tiny pause was enough.

The first clone used it without rushing. She stepped back instead of forward, letting the pink mist gather around Nikolai’s legs. It coiled around his ankles, slid over his calves, then thickened into something sticky and warm and clung to him like glue.

’Shit, did she have a power like this?!’

Nikolai dragged one foot forward, cracking the concrete beneath him. The mist stretched with the movement, resisting just enough to steal his balance. The clone smiled from beyond the haze, tail swaying behind her.

"Stay still, Darling. You look tired."

He glared at her.

"Fuck off!"

The second clone attacked from above. She dropped through the hanging plastic sheets with foxfire wrapped around both hands, not as blades this time, but long curved talons. Nikolai raised both arms to cover his face as the burning claws raked across his shoulder, cutting through his black fur and leaving lines of blazing wounds.

She landed behind him and immediately retreated.

There was no follow-up, as she quickly escaped his range.

The third clone slipped beneath his waist as he turned. She moved faster than the others, her steps light and erratic, almost like Rika’s footwork but missing the wild instinct that made Rika dangerous. Her claws flicked across his ribs, opened a shallow line, then she slipped away before his hand could close around her throat.

Nikolai growled under his breath.

They weren’t trying to overpower him with pure force; they were testing him. Each attack pushed him further and further, as if seeking his limits. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

The fourth clone stayed behind him and spoke instead.

"Nikolai, please come home."

His muscles locked for one ugly heartbeat.

The clone knew exactly which tone to use, and Franz had clearly designed her to twist the knife rather than swing it.

Then cold fingers touched his back.

The illusion broke.

Nikolai drove his elbow backwards with enough force to fold her around the blow. Her body flew into a broken pillar, smashing stone loose in a shower of dust.

’That’s one down.’ He cracked his neck, no longer willing to hold back.

Taking this chance, the fifth clone pulled herself free of the concrete and stone pillars.

She walked through the mist slowly, her five tails drifting behind her with perfect grace. Unlike the others, she didn’t tease. She watched his wounds, his stance, his breathing, and the way his claws flexed whenever they used Kumiko’s voice.

Nikolai turned toward her.

"Well, hello there, you must be the main bitch."

"Oh my~ baby, how can you be so cruel? I thought I was your favourite."

"Well, how about you turn around and bend over for me then?"

His sudden vulgarity made her eyes twitch, before lowering to his exposed crotch, the most perverted woman he had ever been with was Kumiko.

After sex, she would sniff his cock while still coated in the mixture of their filthy fluids, until eventually reaching climax.

That’s when her face twisted and the delicate smile vanished.

"Vulgar, Bastard!"

"Heh, short fuse?"

The main clone’s face twisted for a single heartbeat, and that tiny break in her false elegance gave Nikolai the information he needed. She had Kumiko’s body, Kumiko’s tails, and enough borrowed instinct to imitate her habits, but the woman beneath that was nothing like his wife.

Kumiko became embarrassed when she was teased like that. At most, she would tap his cheek with her tail while blushing.

This abomination got angry and disgusted.

The mist clone moved first, perhaps trying to cover the main one’s agitation. She swept her arm outward, sending another thick wave of pink fog rolling across the floor. It slipped between broken pillars and scattered rebar.

Nikolai watched it quietly from the corner of his eye.

The mist reached his legs for a second time and slowly slithered around his calves, attempting to trap him in place. The clone’s smile faltered as his massive black form pushed through her spell, each footstep grinding cracks into the floor.

"What?" she whispered.

Nikolai reached her before she finished speaking.

His claws wrapped around her face, palm covering her nose and mouth. She tried to retreat, but his black blood surged into his muscles as his muscles pinned her body in place. Her tail thrashed wildly, scattering seductive mist in desperate bursts.

"You’re nothing but a fake."

He slammed her head into the ground.

The first impact cracked the concrete.

The second broke her skull.

The third made the mist vanish entirely.

Her body spasmed once beneath him, then collapsed into black fluid and pale strips of failed flesh. Nikolai released the ruined head and stood slowly, letting the remains slide from his claws.

He’d taken out two of them.

In the next breath, the foxfire clone, unable to hold back, rushed at him.

She came from the right with both hands burning, her five tails forming a crescent behind her as she launched herself across the ruined site. The flames around her claws seethed more than before, turning the damp air white with steam and making the plastic sheets above curl inward.

Nikolai shifted his weight.

The first strike grazed his chest.

The second ripped along his forearm.

The third would have struck his throat, but he caught her wrist with one hand and crushed it until the bones folded. Her mouth opened, vomiting blood, but he headbutted her before she could use it.

Her nose shattered.

The copied face warped.

He drove his other hand into her stomach, claws sinking through soft flesh until they found the hot core buried inside. The clone shrieked as foxfire burst from her mouth and eyes, burning his arm up to the elbow.

Nikolai tore out her core.

The flame died instantly, leaving only a smoking body hanging from his hand. He threw it aside like trash, and it burst apart against a pile of rusted pipes.

The fast clone used that opening.

She crossed the floor in a blur, with rapid steps and her sharp fangs aimed at his exposed crotch, and she aimed to destroy him as a man.

Nikolai’s tail snapped behind him.

The thick black limb struck her ribs before she escaped, sending her skidding sideways. She rolled across broken glass, recovered beautifully, and rushed again from another angle. Her movements were sharp, clever, and annoying enough to remind him of Rika.

She darted at him without hesitation.

Nikolai dropped his elbow and caught her shoulder beneath the joint. The blow drove her body downward. Her knees smashed into the concrete, and before she could slip away, he planted one foot against her spine.

The clone twisted, hissing.

He grabbed all five tails together.

Then he yanked her head, tearing it free with a wet and ugly sound.

The body jerked twice, then went limp.

Only the main body remained.

The broken voice clone crawled from the rubble where he had thrown her earlier. Her body was bent badly, one shoulder sunken inward, but she still wore Kumiko’s frightened expression with disgusting precision. She looked at him through dust and blood, lips trembling.

"Nikolai..."

His ears flattened.

"Don’t."

"Please..."

He crossed the distance before she finished.

There was no flourish this time.

He brought his fist down once, directly through her chest, punching through the copied ribs and the core beneath them. Her expression remained soft for half a second after death, as though Franz’s design refused to stop acting even when the thing was already gone.

That offended him more than the attack.

Nikolai pulled his hand free and shook the black fluid from his claws.

The main clone stood alone now, no longer smiling or joking around.

Her tails swayed behind her, slower than before, while pink mist gathered around her feet but did not spread. She looked at the dead clones, then back at Nikolai; her beautiful face tightened with hatred.

With each death, she regained a new power.

Yet Nikolai didn’t care.

"You bastard..."

Nikolai turned toward her fully.

"There it is."

She bared her teeth.

"You think killing failures makes you strong?"

"No."

He stepped over the corpse nearest him.

"But killing your pathetic master will, right?"

The main clone’s fingers curled, foxfire forming between them, but she did not rush. For the first time, she measured the distance between them like someone who understood she could die.

Nikolai smiled through bloodied teeth.

"Now we can talk properly."