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A/N: The rough draft for this story was written shortly after the premier of episode 2 of season 5 of Samurai Jack. At the time, reasonable assumptions were made about certain aspects of the Daughters of Aku. A few episodes later, at least one of those was completely flipped on its head. I thought about going back in and rewriting the part that doesn't make sense under the new canon, but decided against it. I figured I'd preserve it, to give future generations insight into what we all thought we knew about the Daughters of Aku.
Also because I'm lazy.
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They had been chasing him for only a few hours, long enough for the sun to set and the moon to rise. Yet, the ferocity of their pursuit made it feel like days to Jack. The fire in his chest refused to relent, even as he felt his legs rebelling against his desire to escape. The coming night gave him darkness to utilize, to hide, but they too were able to use the shadows. Better than he could.
Jack wasn't sure how many of them there were. One? A dozen? Hundreds? They moved with such blinding speed that he could never tell. It had to be more than one, at least, he told himself. No creature, natural or machine, could move so fast as to strike both his chest and his back, in different directions, at the same time. Had Aku finally sacrificed the element of terror and intimidation he liked to put into his machines, for the sake of speed and elegance? Pure killing machines, nothing made to strike fear from their appearance. Only their actions.
With each hiding spot found, Jack was afforded a few moments of rest, to steady his breath and focus. Yet they were becoming more frequently exposed. They were learning his patterns, his movements, and he had next to nothing on them. Jack had grown careless, and rather than take in his surroundings, fully, from his new hiding spot, he dashed out, hoping to find another area before they caught him. The clouds began to part, and the light of the moon shone down into the clearing in the woods that may become his tomb. The moment his foot stepped into the light, Jack felt the stinging force of the pursuer slam into his back, launching him into the middle of the illuminated clearing. Before he could curse himself for his foolishness, the sound of speed danced around him, and he soon found himself pinned on his back to the ground.
Seven, there were seven of them. One on each arm, straddling his forearms and pressing down on his biceps with their hands, using their weight and exploiting his exhaustion to keep him pinned. One on each shin, straddling similarly to his arms. A fifth svelte assassin rode on his abdomen, with its thin hands pressed down onto his exposed chest, his clothes having almost all been shredded throughout the pursuit. His dignity was kept through a minor bit of cloth. A pair of warm thighs squeezed around his head, disallowing him from looking around. Warmth, that was odd, he thought. Machines were cold, and hard. This one, all of them, were soft and warm. He could almost feel blood pumping through the bodies that were pinning him down.
The seventh stood, staring down at her prey, weapon in hand. Her companions looked at her with their same, expressionless, white masks, waiting for her to fulfill the destiny that had been thrust upon them since birth. She watched his chest rise and fall rapidly, his heartbeat and heavy breath the only sounds in the clearing. He was not a demon, nor magic, nothing. He was a man. A man who had been terrorizing their great master, Aku, for far too long, and one who had to be dealt with. Yet how could a man be the cause of such woe? Though her experience with the outside world was only days old, there were a few things she knew as absolute. One was that the samurai must die. The other was that Aku was everything, the creator of all beauty and granter of all strength. Even against all the strength that was Aku, this man, this human, had been such a thorn in her master's side that she was given life. She was trained from birth to fight, to kill. Her suffering was all due to him. Staring at him, she did not feel the same level of hatred she had in her training, in the moments before his bare skin and sore muscles were revealed.
"Do it," one sister said.
"Finish it," another said with more venom.
"Kill the samurai!" the six said in unison.
"No," the standing woman said through her ceramic mask.