Author’s Note: Capcom vs SNK 2 is one of my all-time favorite games and I figured, “Hey, I’m a writer, why don’t I write something involving CVS?” I’ve also wanted to do something featuring Iori and Morrigan, a pairing that I first became a fan of through the decisively wacky Hong Kong Capcom vs SNK comic. Hopefully there will come a day where we will see a translation of it, but I’m not exactly holding my breath on that one. In the meantime, be sure to enjoy this oneshot that I have titled “Thoughtless” after what I was listening to at the time.
Osaka, Japan?
It was a city that she had visited many times in the past. While not quite as big or as busy as its more popular sister city Tokyo, it was still one of the livelier places in the world. Old architecture dating back to the Feudal Era merged with modern buildings and structures to create an atmosphere that resembled a city-wide theme park. Its population numbered in the millions and to compensate for this abundance of citizens, Osaka had more than enough sights and activities to occupy them.
In addition to all of these sights, there was a spectacle in the city that would soon commence: the third martial arts tournament sponsored the Masters Foundation and the Garcia Concern. The last time there was such a tournament, Osaka Castle was left devastated and a significant portion of the city was left ablaze. If not for the brave efforts of the competitors that took it upon themselves to take down the culprits, the city might have been delivered a permanently crippling blow. Some time had passed since then, and to celebrate the successful recovery of the city, the two organizations arranged another tournament with the promise of strong adversaries and worldwide exposure acting as the main lure.
When she entered the previous tournament, Morrigan Aensland’s heart was stirred. As a succubus from Makai, Morrigan sought constant stimulation not just for her amusement, but for her survival. While most succubi were content with exchanging carnal pleasures with a human male in exchange for their soul, Morrigan preferred to split her time between enjoying the warmth of men and the heat of battle. Even with her natural powers and the personalized martial art that she crafted, there were more than enough mortal opponents for her to test her mettle against. While she did not win the tournament, she found herself hot and sweaty, just as she had hoped she would become when engaged in battle with a worthy opponent.
Back then, Morrigan was carefree and whimsical. Though she was supposed to be burdened with the responsibility of the heir of the Aensland clan and, by default, the protector of the Makai realm, the succubus only cared for amusing herself with strong warriors. Lucien and Mudo, her two servants, always warned her that she shouldn’t play with her food, but Morrigan couldn’t help herself. She was fascinated by the human world and those who lived in it, beings who, by nature, were cruel and selfish, yet were capable of great acts of kindness. Those were the type of souls that Morrigan loved most, and this affinity earned her several friends from the tournament that she was looking forward to meet again.
Sadly, the present state of affairs for the succubus tempered the anticipation of catching up with old friends and looking forward to new challenges. Normally she would fly over the city and seek out some form of amusement from up above, usually a handsome man who fit her picky requirements. On this night, however, she opted to stay on the ground wearing a white shirt, a pair of jeans, and a black coat: something that decisively didn’t attract attention to her person, which was highly uncommon for a succubus. Morrigan wasn’t in the mood for partying?not when her mind was so preoccupied that she wouldn’t be able to fully enjoy it.
“You’re looking a little glum, Miss Aensland,” the tuxedo-sporting, fair-haired King said as she finished cleaning her glass and put it down on the table. As part of a rare breed of female Thai fighters, King was also planning to enter the upcoming tournament with hopes to win, but as a barkeep, she also hoped to make some extra spending money by providing a convenient outdoor bar cart where a few passerbys could enjoy her drinks that she had learned to make via years in the trade. Seeing the green-haired femme fatale Morrigan come up to her and ask for a drink was a surprise, to say the least, especially when the succubus wasn’t sporting her trademark smile.
“‘Glum’?heh.” Morrigan let out a soft chuckle before finishing her wine and placing her glass down on the table. Looking up at the full moon in the sky, Morrigan continued. “Such a funny word: it’s used to describe sadness or depression, yet it sounds innocent enough to mask the dark feelings associated with it. You humans certainly have an interesting way of coping with bad emotions, pretending that it’s something it’s not?”
“I didn’t know you could be so philosophical,” King replied as she put her elbows on the table and leaned in so that she was resting her head on her hands. “You seem like you have a lot on your mind. As the provider of your alcohol, I’d be more than happy to listen to your problems?”
“I hope you are aware that due to being a succubus, I have a much higher tolerance for alcohol than humans,” Morrigan interjected as she looked away from the sky and back towards King, still sporting an unusually cold expression. “If you’re trying to get me depressed so that I will buy more drinks, I’m afraid you are wasting your time?”
“I’m not doing this to get you to buy more drinks,” King replied nonchalantly, obviously not offended by Morrigan’s attitude. “I’m asking you because from what Mai and Yuri have told me, you’re usually an upbeat kind of girl. Right now you look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders, and I’d like to make it my business to know why that is.” The French-born barkeep smiled and tilted her head playfully. “Besides, should it come down to the two of us in the tournament tomorrow, I don’t want to have any unfair mental advantages!”
“‘The weight of the world on my shoulders’?that is strangely appropriate,” Morrigan said with a faint smile. “If you must know, then I might as well tell you that I am now the ruler of the Makai Realm. When I was born, my soul was split into three separate parts, which were to be returned to me once I was ready to inherit the immense power that comes with it. Now that I am whole again, I have inherited my father’s position as the leader of House Aensland, which is the most powerful house of nobles in Makai.”
“So?you’re like the Queen of Demons, then,” King concluded before whistling in amazement. “Not bad for a Scottish girl! I don’t see why that would make you so glum! Now all the demons in the world will have to do whatever you tell them to: you could do some real good with that kind of power! I know a few demon hunters in Southtown who would really enjoy having a break from all of the hard-”
“I hate it,” Morrigan interrupted with her lips curled back in a snarl, a feature that most certainly didn’t compliment her beautiful face. “Before I became whole, all I had to worry about was finding something to amuse me long enough until I had to return to Makai. Now that I am complete, I feel emptier than I’ve ever felt before. At first I was looking forward to looking at my existence through a different perspective, but now I see that it is all work and no play. That is not the kind of life I wish to lead: the reason I even started going into the human world was because I wanted to avoid it.”
“Well, if you’re from a house of nobles, don’t you have a way to vote for a new leader?” King suggested as if the answer was plainly obvious, though Morrigan’s enticed expression told the barkeep that the succubus didn’t really like the suggestion. Clearing her throat after looking away from the glare that had made demons cower in fear, King continued. “The aristocracy where I come from always has a way to look for a new heir or leader when the next in line is unfit to rule in some way. I bet if you looked hard enough, you could find a successor.”
“Things don’t work like that in Makai,” Morrigan answered curtly, perhaps thinking that King was trying to be cute but failing completely. “In the Makai hierarchy, power is given to those who are the strongest. My father, Lord Berial, was the strongest being in the entire realm, and I was born as S-class noble, the highest rank of power there is. If there was someone in the house more powerful than I was, then I would not have been appointed the rank. Worse yet, if I did shirk my duties completely, then Demitri or Jedah would most certainly take control of my house and become the new ruler of the realm?and that is something I dread thinking about. Demitri is a fiendish tyrant who wishes in enslave not just Makai, but every realm he can access, and Jedah is a nihilistic madman who would raze the human world to the ground if it meant furthering his insane goals.”
“?then why are you here in the human world for this tournament?” King asked curiously after absorbing Morrigan’s story. “Shouldn’t you be in Makai worrying about all the bad things that can happen with you not there?”
“I’m hoping the tournament will provide enough worthy adversaries for me to stretch my arms a bit not have to worry about holding back so much.” The succubus explained as she suddenly found her smile again, anticipating the battles to come. “You humans are the one thing that I can consistently look forward to make me excited, especially when you hold tournaments such as these. Perhaps, just for a brief moment, I can forget about all of the responsibilities that I’ve been burdened with and truly enjoy myself with the greatest warriors in the world acting as my playmates. Besides, if Demitri and Jedah do try something, I imagine they would do it here in the tournament.”
“Heh?I guess I figured you wrong, then.” King said with a smile of her own. “Everyone I spoke to who knew you said that you were just a thrillseeker, and everything you did was because you were bored. From what you just told me, I’d say that they weren’t exactly spot on.”
“And what exactly am I then, Miss King?” Morrigan asked with a raised eyebrow.
“You’ve got a sense of duty that you can’t ignore no matter how hard you try.” King explained as she straightened herself and took out the bottle of wine that she had previously opened for Morrigan. “Even though you want to just have fun, you know that if you ignored what you had to do, a lot of people would get hurt and you just can’t let that sit with you. We’ve got a term for that here in the human world: ‘upstanding.’ If only there were more people in the world like you, human or not.” The French Thai fighter poured the contents of the bottle into Morrigan’s glass until the bubbles fizzed over the top like a volcano. “Don’t worry about paying for this one, Morrigan: it’s on the house.”
“Ah, such generosity for a potential rival in the tournament tomorrow,” Morrigan said as her grin widened while King poured herself a glass of the wine. Once that was done, the two women lifted their glasses and clinked them together. “Here is to a wonderful battle that will surely have a climax that will be talked about for years to come?”
“?and to thrashing any uncouth hooligan that tries to spoil our good time,” King finished before the two women drank deep from their glasses. While it seemed uncommon for a succubus and a human to be having a drink together, considering their natural alignment as predator and prey, Morrigan found the company of humans much more preferable than the company of her fellow demons. This wasn’t because she had an obvious power advantage, but because humans were the one race that Morrigan could interact with and truly feel that she was among friends, and not amongst subjects.
“AGH!”
With the sudden outburst of pain, Morrigan and King coughed as their drinking was unexpectedly cut short. Turning around to see where the sudden shout had come from, the two women quickly saw what was going on: there was a small crowd gathering a few meters away from them. “Seems like something has their attention,” Morrigan observed before stepping out of her stool as her jacket transformed in a flash of energy to reveal black demonic wings. “I’m going to see what what’s going on: we’ll finish our drink in a few minutes.”
Before King even had a chance to say goodbye, Morrigan took flight and looked down at the crowd below from a birds-eye view. What she saw were two men fighting a third: the purple-clad ninja Eiji Kisaragi and the staff-sporting, bandana-wearing Billy Kane teaming up to face what appeared to be the red-haired Iori Yagami. While she was not intimately familiar with Billy and Eiji due to their absence from the previous tournaments, Iori was someone that she had the honor of encountering several times in the past. From what Morrigan understood about him, he was an exceedingly good-looking youth with an exceedingly bad attitude. He wasn’t exactly evil, but was more anti-social than anything else.
Something else she knew about Iori was that he would never attack someone unless he was provoked first, and when provoked he was a very dangerous person indeed. With her curiosity getting the better of her, Morrigan swooped down into the conflagration so that she was right between Iori and his nemeses. Turning towards Billy, the green-haired succubus spoke, “What seems to be the problem here, boys? There are rules that we cannot fight before the tournament commences?”
“He started it,” Billy shot back as he pointed towards Iori. “Eiji and me were in the arcade enjoying a drink and a game when we spotted this bastard stumbling in like a drunkard from the pub. Iori and us have some serious issues, but we were willing to follow the rules and wait until the tournament to get our payback?too bad Iori here had other ideas. He suddenly went berserk and attacked me while I was playing some Sengoku. Eiji saw the whole thing and came to help me, and we’ve been tangling with this loony ever since!”
Morrigan turned her head to see the red-headed man in question stare at her with blank yellow eyes and a speckle of rapid foam on his mouth. “The poor thing has lost his sense of reason,” the succubus said with a frown as she turned to face Iori completely. “I’ve heard rumblings from the other fighters that Iori suffers from a condition that causes him to enter a berserk rage under certain circumstances: I cannot say that I envy him.” With other flash of light, Morrigan’s clothes transformed completely to reveal a black one-piece that exposed her cleavage along with purple stockings and long gloves. With dark high-heels and a pair of wings in her head completing her battle attire, Morrigan lifted her hands and prepared to battle. “You two may leave now: I will take it from here.”
“W-what?!” The navy-colored-jacket-sporting Billy blurted out as his red-and-white bandana furled up as he tensed up. “You think you can just come on up and interfere with our business just because you’ve got a nice set of knockers and weird-colored hair!? Go find your own brawl to get involved in: Eiji and I have got this under-”
“It might be wise to listen to her, my friend,” the brown-haired ninja whispered in Billy’s ear while holding him back. “This woman is Morrigan Aensland, the most powerful demon in Makai. Even a fourth of her power would be enough to send us in a world of unearthly pain.” Gently motioning to Iori, Eiji continued pressing his case. “We should let her do as she pleases: she could soften Yagami for us so that when the tournament starts tomorrow and one of us faces him, it will become easier for us to take our revenge and offer his broken body to Master Geese.”
“?yeah, I guess,” Billy grumbled before he and his companion turned around and began pushing back the crowd forming around him. “You people better get the bloody hell out of here. There’s going to be some crazy rubbish going down and you definitely don’t want to be a part of it!” When the crowd didn’t budge, Billy let out a growl and began swinging his cane around, summoning his fiery ki and engulfing his weapon in flame. Upon seeing THAT display of power, the crowd listened to what he had to say. “Try not to kill him, love!”