Chapter Text
Ash has seen a lotta weird sh*t, to put it simply. He thought “regular” white-eyed deadites were bad. Then some started to extend their necks out to freakishly long lengths; then he had to fight the physical manifestation of the Kandarian demon. Then he had to kill an evil clone of himself and fight harpy-like deadites with human-shaped heads. After that, he had to fight and blow up the aforementioned resurrected evil version of himself, after defeating the evil clone’s skeleton army. But, what he saw as he crossed the hilltop? Might be the weirdest weird sh*t he’s ever seen.
The size is the first thing he notices; the inky-black colored Deadite (what else could it be?) has three legs per side and is standing on two legs as thick as tree trunks. It has three segments: a head, a middle, and its rear, each of them the size of an elephant. Its curvy antennas flicker about the setting while trying to pursue a small, black-haired, Asian boy. He is undoubtedly the source of the screaming Ash heard earlier.
Ash pauses for a moment, thinking “Huh, reminds me of that co*ckroach in the hotel room,” but another screech from the kid kicks him into gear, as he drops his bag at the top of the hill, and sprints towards the Deadite.
“
” the Deadite says in not-english, for once.
“Maybe Kandar— Ah, who gives a sh*t,” Ash momentarily thinks. The Deadite grabs the screaming kid with two of its four free limbs, bringing him up to its mouth, the two hook-like appendages lining it flaring out as its maw opens bigger.
“Yo, bug-bitch!” Ash shouts, revving his chainsaw, pointing his boomstick, and firing from five feet away from the Deadite, blasting at its oddly human-like eyes.
A spray of green blood explodes from the popped eye, coating the kid’s face as eye bits and blood fall onto Ash.
The Deadite screams in pain; dropping the boy and trying to knock Ash away with a leg. He ducks and yells at the kid to retreat.
The kid gives him a blank stare for a moment like the words didn’t register- but as the Deadite starts talking, he starts running.
“
!” The Deadite screeches at him in not-English, again, as it shifts its massive body to face Ash.
“If ya plan to yap, do it in my language, buggy!” Ash replies.
He aims the boomstick at its other eye but abandons that plan as he darts left, narrowly avoiding a stabbing strike from one of its legs. With that leg having embedded itself in the ground, he tries cutting it off. As he puts the running chainsaw to it, something odd happens. It sounds and feels like trying to cut through pure metal. The Bug-Deadite starts cackling, one good eye staring down at Ash with evil glee.
“
!” it says, sounding like it’s taunting him, before it promptly starts trying to grab him with its pincers or impale him with the sharp ends of them—he can’t tell which.
He ducks and rolls to the left, but is unable to prevent one from scraping against the right side of his torso. It tears open his blue button-up and makes a gash from his chest to above his belt.
He grunts in pain, forcing himself up and standing as the Deadite laughs at him, and says more bullsh*t he doesn’t understand.
“Alright your whining is getting annoying now, pest!” he exclaims, as blood starts to drip from the surface-level slash. He aims the gun at the chest-scratching leg of the Deadite-co*ckroach, and fires.
It lets out another screech of pain, the tough outer covering visibly cracking as blood oozes out of it.
“
!” The Deadite shrieks.
Another round of yapping from the co*ckroach Deadite catches Ash off guard, making an opening for the co*ckroach-Deadite to slam a leg into Ash’s chest.
“OOF!” Ash grunts, losing his grip on his boomstick in the process.
It’s knocked more than ten feet away from him, as he tumble-lands next to his bag. He remembers the Kandarian dagger in the bag, and how he used it back in the cabin. When Scotty stabbed Deadite-Shelly, the dagger smoked and bled. A blood-filled light bulb might as well have appeared over his head, as he quickly pulls it out of the bag.
“
” The co*ckroach taunts him, crawling over on all six legs.
It reverts to towering over Ash, wrapping its pincers around his waist, a mixture of his red blood and the co*ckroach’s green blood, and liquified eye chunks covering his upper body. Ash raises the Kandarian Dagger, about to stab it into the leg grasping him—but then he stops.
“If you’re so tough on the outside…” He murmurs to himself, revving his chainsaw.
“Then how tough are you on the inside?” He finishes saying to himself, trying to resist the urge to fight back as the co*ckroach opens wide, its throat as big as a kiddie pool.
Ash falls in, spotting sharp teeth halfway down the bug’s throat. He quickly jams his chainsaw into the side of its throat and his descent is slowed. Oh, he’s still uncomfortably close to the throat-Sarlacc pit, but he’s stopped before the teeth can tear him to shreds.
He grimaces, already knowing he’s not getting out of this one without covering himself in even more Deadite blood. He goes ahead and stabs next to where his chainsaw is lodged, hanging off of it.
The blade pierces through its throat like butter and breaks through its exoskeleton. Ash can feel the internal vibrations before the cacophony of screaming from the co*ckroach.
It’s working, something’s finally working, now all he needs to do is cut its head clean off. As Ash slices through the neck flesh of the Deadite, he finds himself motivated by the sounds of pain.
“
” the Deadite shrieks out.
He carves through more and more of what he can reach, light from the outside starting to seep in from the outside. Steam and dark red blood leaks from the head of the dagger, blood covering his hand.
He’s cut all he can reach, and he just starts stabbing instead, commanding it to “Just…“ stab. “...die…“ Another stab. “...already!”
He stabs it a third time, and the wails stop. He can feel it fall over flat on its back, and he slowly crawls out of its mouth. He’s covered in green blood and liquified eye, and some of his red blood has mixed with the co*ckroach’s blood, forming an unpleasant shade of brown around his torn-open shirt.
He looks down at the dagger, blade slick with blood, and thinks “Huh, that was handy,” making a mental note of what just happened.
He takes a moment to breathe, wipes off his face, and begins looking around for his bag and boomstick. As he’s searching, he hears a voice behind him. It’s not the child, but it’s not a deadite either. Hopefully.
“
” the voice behind him says.
Ash turns around and finds himself face to face with who he presumes is the father of the boy from earlier, considering the kid is hiding behind the man’s leg. The man wears a straw hat and a thin coat with wide sleeves. He wears a simple brown shirt, along with brown pants. He looks like he’s wearing boots, but weirdly, they have a small yet noticeable seam in the middle of the toe box. Ash looks down into the calloused hands of the man who spoke to him and sees him holding his bag and boomstick, before gently taking it from the man.
“Alligator,” Ash says, attempting to say thank you.
This gets a quiet laugh out of the child. The man looks down at the boy quickly, a look that says “Stop that,” causing the boy to go silent. The man looks back up to Ash before speaking again.
“
” the man says earnestly, bowing and chuckling slightly at the end of his sentence.
Ash stares blankly at the man, unsure of what he just said, before giving him a thumbs up and an unsure smile. He has no idea what he’s saying. The man sticks one hand out and points at himself.
“Tatsuki Hikaru,” he says.
Ash wipes his blood-covered hand on the back of his pants and takes his hand. He awkwardly points the chainsaw blade at himself, “Ash Williams,” legally it’s Ashley, but he doesn’t give him that detail.
It’s weird to talk to a stranger who doesn’t think of him as “Ashy Slashy,” but he guesses saving his son’s life gets him a couple of points. Hikaru starts walking away, and Ash hesitantly follows, putting the boomstick and dagger in the bag. Crickets chirp and field mice skitter, all while someone else listens…
After some walking, Ash can tell Hikaru is leading them to that cottage-like house he saw when he first landed here. The kid looks back at him a couple of times like it’s his first time seeing someone like Ash in this place. Eventually, they reach the house, and Ash awkwardly stands outside, still aware of the substances dripping from him.
“Uh, You guys have a shower? Bath?” He asks, gesturing at his body.
Hikaru nods.
“
” he says, as he and the kid enter the house, before returning less than a minute later with a bucket, towel, a small bar of soap, and wooden… sandals?
And what looked like a big red bathrobe, with silver dragons on it. He points at a nearby river.
“What? You expect me to bathe in the stinkin’ river?” He exasperatedly asks.
Hikaru nods, expression unchanging; Ash sighs and walks down to the river with the bathing supplies.
Ash hesitantly makes his way down to the river, occasionally looking back towards Hikaru, before eventually reaching it, no one visible nearby. He quickly looks around before undressing hastily and hopping into the river.
It’s cold. Very, very cold. The moment Ash finds himself submerged he hugs himself tightly, before moving his way toward the bathing supplies and beginning to wash off. He washes himself off for a while, before getting out and putting the big red bathrobe on.
“Damn. This is some high-quality stuff,” Ash thinks to himself before he proceeds to put his clothes in the water to wash them off as well as carefully scrubbing his chainsaw, boomstick, and the Kandarian dagger. Once done with all his washing, he puts the envelope of bank money in a pocket on the sleeve of the robe. He puts his stuff away in his bag again (putting on the metal hand beforehand), uncaring for how wet everything is, and makes his way back towards the cottage.
“
” Hikaru says to Ash as he returns. Hikaru has changed into what looks like a fancy, faded, green cloth robe, with a white belt. Ash gives him another thumbs-up before the man leads him inside.
Hikaru takes the bag from Ash, seemingly trying to be nice, and leads him to a guest room. After some time, Hikaru returns with some clothes; a robe similar to the one he wears, except a pale blue with a gray belt, and white slippers like the ones he wears now. To Ash’s surprise, they fit perfectly alongside his bag. In fact, to his surprise the clothes he was handed are a bit big on Ash (after he took five minutes putting the robe on), making him feel suspicious of what this man in this small cottage in rural Japan with a very expensive feeling robe is up to. That was until Hikaru offered Ash some alcohol from his fridge. Ash nods, murmuring a quick “Thanks,” as he takes a sip of the beer bottle.
He takes a moment to look around the cottage; it has a very lived-in feel, and oddly, the table—in what he assumes is the dining room—has no chairs, only soft mats. He’s just about to ask where the kid’s mother is when light footsteps are heard from the staircase leading to the second
An Old Man, shorter than Hikaru yet taller than the kid, descends the stairs, wearing what looks like more luxurious, navy-blue pajamas. Wrinkles are plastered on his forehead and cheeks, yet his eyes twinkle with curiosity and alarm when he sees the random American with a metal hand standing there, sipping beer, while wearing leftover clothes, from when the business partner of one of his two sons visited.
“You are American, yes?” the older man asks, catching Ash off guard.
“Hello? Are you American?” the older man asks again.
“Yes! I am. You speak English?” Ash replies.
“Yes. I taught some in time ago. Why you here?”
“Long story.”
“Make short,” the older man says sternly. Ash looks at him with slight suspicion for a moment, and right when he’s about to speak, the older man turns to Hikaru instead.
“
” the older man says to Hikaru.
“
” replies Hikaru.
The older man turns back to Ash stunned, staring at him in shock for a moment before speaking up again.
“You killed a devil?!” says the Old Man.
“You mean deadite?” Ash responds.
“What?”
“...what?”
The Old Man stares blankly for a moment again then looks back towards Hikaru.
“
” the older man says. Hikaru simply gives a small nod in response.
“I don’t know what deadite is, but you kill devil. No deadite. Devil,” the Old Man says to Ash as he looks towards him again. Ash simply stares blankly at the Old Man for a second, unsure of what to say,
before finally responding.
“Whaddya mean that wasn't a deadite?” Ash says confusedly.
The Old Man looks at him with confusion.
“You joke?” he cautiously asks. Ash has a concerned look on his face.
“Dead. Ight,” he slowly sounds out the word trying to make himself as clear as possible.
“What you talk about?” The Old Man says, regarding Ash with the same caution as encountering a psych-ward escapee.
“You hit head out there?” he says as he points to his head, Ash shaking his own in response. Ash sighs, taking a swig of the beer bottle.
“Nope. If that wasn’t a deadite, what the hell did I just kill?” Ash says, his eyes a cauldron with a mix of confusion, exhaustion, and a few drops of panic.
The Old Man looks exasperated and glances at the kitchen, where Hikaru has started cooking dinner. The Kid is now downstairs as well, playing with action figures on the floor of the living room; a
bookcase where Ash would expect a TV.
This, the setting, and the cluelessness about what had to be a Deadite prompts him to ask,
“Gramps, when and where am I?” he asks, hoping the answer is rural Michigan in 1982.
“
It’s 1997, you in Tokyo. Where you think you are? How much you drink?” he answers, looking bewildered at his question.
Ash laughs like it’s a joke told by your manager.
“Sorry, it sounded like you said Japan, in 1997,” Ash says, the nervous smile on his face squished into a dead stare with the next words.
“Is no joke. Is truth.” The Old Man says.
He stares at him like that for a few seconds, almost dropping his drink until he punctuates the silence with a drawn-out, “f*ck.” The Old Man puts a single finger up to his lips, telling him to shush.
“Not while child is here,” he says, pointing at the Kid from earlier, who’s still distracted by his action figures.
Before Ash can contemplate things more, the Old Man sighs and rubs his temples, then asks “What is name?” he says, pointing at Ash.
“Who’s askin'?” Ash replies.
The Old Man stares at Ash annoyedly, before mumbling something Ash can’t understand under his breath, and then replying.
“My name is Tatsuki Takashi. Now you,” Takashi says, a clear level of impatience audible in his voice.
“Ash Williams. It’s nice to meet you, Takashi. What’s with—”
A sudden knock on the door interrupts Ash before he can say anything. Hikaru rushes over to the door, instantly welcoming the one who knocked into the home.
“
” Hikaru says to the man he just ushered in.
The clothes the man wears are similar to those of Ash, but they look more expensive, a shade of green, and the dragons are gold. He carries a black suitcase, and his black hair is styled into a punch perm.
“That’s my other son. Respect him,” Takashi says to Ash sternly, with what seems like a level of fear in his voice.
“Is he scared of his own kid?” Ash thinks to himself before he notices Hikaru gesturing him over.
“
” Hikaru says, gesturing between both his brother and Ash.
“Tatsuki Kenshi,” the brother says coldly to Ash, bowing towards him.
Ash quickly retracts his hand and bows as well, still feeling clueless about Japanese culture. Ash watches as Kenshi walks off with
Hikaru towards the dining room, noting the suspicious look Kenshi gives him over his shoulder.
Ash feels Takashi tap his arm, before promptly following him to the dining room. Everyone takes their seat on the floor, the only available seat left being across from Kenshi. Ash is briefly confused by the floor seating but quickly takes it. The meal being presented is one Ash hasn’t seen before—except for the rice, the only food he recognizes.
Ash ignores the glare coming from Kenshi, instead focusing on scooping a hearty amount of rice onto his plate, as all the people around him simply converse in a language he doesn’t know. Ash stares at the chopsticks, completely unsure of how to use them.
“Uh, you guys have regular spoons?” He asks.
Takashi and Kenshi shoot him a glare, and the kid shoots him a look of confusion. Takashi translates, and Hiraku sits up and is shortly back with a spoon that’s used for soup. Ash decides this will do.
At some point during the meal, Kenshi speaks up, looking at Ash like he’s assessing a threat.
“
” He asks.
“How you get here, Ash?” Takashi is quick to translate for his son. Ash takes a moment to answer this, going with a half-truth.
“I flew,” he answers, and Takashi translates back. Kenshi’s face shifts like he doesn’t believe him, but chooses not to prod. However, after about 10 minutes of conversing with his family…
“
” He asks, light brown eyes staring into Ash’s own.
“Where are you from?” Takashi translates.
“Uh… Michigan. Why?” Ash responds, and Takashi relays it to Kenshi.
“
” Kenshi says annoyedly.
“He says you…” Takashi looks over at Kenshi with worry in his eyes for a moment before looking back at Ash.
“He says you look not from here,” Takashi tells Ash.
Ash stares blankly at Takashi then looks at Kenshi.
“Yeah. I’m American. What, you couldn’t tell?” Ash coolly states while Takashi translates.
“” Kenshi answers.
“He not has seen any yet,” Takashi translates again.
Ash stares at Takashi, then at Kenshi.
“Uh-huh,” He skeptically says. Right as Ash is finished chewing his food, Hikaru pipes up.
“” he asks.
Everyone at the table seems to stare at him with that question, even the little kid turns his head towards him.
“Is Deadite American name for Devils? And have you fought before?” Takashi translates.
“They…” Ash thinks back to the co*ckroach Devil fight and then to his deadite encounters.
“They’re very different, so far,” He answers, as Takashi translates.
“And yeah, why do you think I have a metal hand?” He adds on, deciding to omit the fact he cut his real one off after his girlfriend’s severed head bit it.
Takashi finishes the translation and the kid looks at Ash as if he’s a badass action hero (he’s right if you ask him).
“” Kenshi asks, his brown eyes staring at him with alarm and curiosity.
“Where they come from?” Takashi translates.
“Evil book. A passage in it summons them,” Ash explains, and Takashi relays the information back, then asks a question himself.
“Where is it?” Takashi asks suddenly. His eyes stare more deeply into Ash’s as if this is the most important question of the night.
“Safe with me. It’s how I got here,” he answers, and Takashi translates for the others.
They resume eating, but it’s obvious that Kenshi’s attention isn’t on the meal or his family. Spiders are on the corners of the ceilings, listening to the peaceful dinner conversation. Or rather, someone else is hearing through them.
After a couple of hours, they all finish dinner, and Ash eventually goes back to the guest room from earlier. On his way to the room on the upper floor, he passes by a small table, a framed photo, and lit candles, which catch his attention. He peers down a bit to look at it; the wood frame contains a photograph of a woman with black hair. There’s a small offering of rice, and an apple in two separate, smaller bowls.
“What you doing?!” Takashi yells, his voice ringing out from the top of the stairs.
“Who’s this?” Ash asks, picking up the frame, and holding it up.
“Put it down!” Takashi quickly demands. “It my daughter-in-law. Wife of Hikaru, Chiyo,” He answers.
“What happened to her? What’s with the food?” Ash asks, confused. “Is she—”
“Dead. A Devil kill her while in city, four year ago,” He answers solemnly.
“How common are Devil attacks?” Ash asks with a hint of surprise in his voice.
Takashi’s eyes almost glaze over, like even thinking about it makes him want to disassociate entirely from the situation.
“Devils kill all seven of 20 people. Worldwide,” he answers, sounding depressed. “Largest devil attack, kill 1.2 million people, all over world, in five minute,” He finishes.
Ash… doesn’t know what to say, that’s…
“—1.2 million Lindas. 1.2 million Cheryls, 1.2 million Scottys, 1.2 million Shellys,” That inner voice pipes up, listing his dead friends out.
“Oh, I almost forgot, and 1.2 million Ch—” Ash decides to silence it by asking Takashi a question.
“So is this a Shrine? Food’s supposed to be… gifts?” he asks, trying to fill in the blanks verbally.
“Is offering,” Takashi says, walking up to Ash and gently taking the picture of Chiyo and putting it back.
Ash nods, scratching his strong chin that’s decorated with light stubble. He hasn’t shaved since he got back from medieval times. That was only a week ago. And it had only taken a week for everything to derail again.
“And it’s all your fault, Ash. You’re no hero—you’re a worm who only hurts people,” that voice reminds him, as Ash’s eyes can’t help but flicker to his prosthetic hand, “Even yourself.”
“Ash? You… all there?” Takashi asks, breaking him out of his thoughts, as Ash realizes he’d spaced out looking at the shrine.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he quickly says, nodding.
Takashi stares at him like he wants to ask something, but cuts himself off, turning and walking to his room. He grumbles something about being tired as he walks away. Ash turns to a clock on the wall. It’s a bit past 9 PM, he thinks. The clock uses different symbols, but they’re still in the same position as the ones back at his home. Ash decides to resign to the guest room. That Devil fight from earlier still weighs on him, and the large cut across his chest certainly hasn’t started to fade.
Unbeknownst to him, Kenshi is keeping a careful eye on Ash as he takes the Necronomicon out of his bag, as he forgot to close the door. After a few moments of watching, taking mental notes as he watches Ash silently flip through the strange-looking book, he goes back to his brother and heads to a separate room on the opposite side of the house from Ash.
Ash ignores the sound of conversation outside the door, continuing to focus on the Necronomicon, not caring to see Kenshi anymore.
“There’s gotta be something to get me back…” Ash mumbles to himself, before stumbling upon a page with a sticky note that simply says translate.
Before he has a chance to chant anything though, Takashi and Hikaru poke their heads into the guest room and say goodnight to Ash, ignoring how abruptly Ash shoved whatever book he was reading behind him. They exit the room and leave quickly after speaking.
He quickly goes back to his book, reciting the incantation.
“Bet that’ll help me read everything written in this stupid thing,” Ash thinks.
“Aliquid de nunc posse intelligere et alias linguas copiose loqui quia nolo amplius interpretari molestare,” Ash carefully recites.
Nothing happens. Ash decides to spend the next hour looking through the book trying to find something to send him back. Maybe there was a recipe for a potion that would do the reverse of what the one he drank a week ago did, while also bringing him back to his universe. It seems in his trip here, presumably when he was watching that slideshow, a fair amount of the sticky notes were ripped out, and lost to the space-time rift. That one he just read off? One of the few lucky exceptions.
Defeated, Ash closes the book (using all his willpower not to angrily chuck it out the window), puts it back in his bag, and goes to sleep.
The next morning, Takashi wakes up Ash, telling him “It's best if you leave now,” prompting Ash to quickly grab his things and begin to leave. He had another nightmare, but he’s already trying to forget it. Right as he reaches the door, he hears the sound of footsteps behind him and turns around to see Hikaru and Kenshi standing there.
“Goodbye, Ash,” Hikaru says, bowing, while Kenshi just stands there unmoving, continuing to stare suspiciously at Ash.
“Goodbye Hikaru,” Ash says in fluent Japanese without realizing it.
Before Ash sees their faces of surprise, he goes outside and closes the door, taking a deep breath as if he just escaped a life-or-death situation. He turns around to face the greenery once again, only to be met with the sight of a red-haired woman in a suit who is several inches shorter than he is, as well as two men in suits standing on either side of her. She has a smile you’d find in public service on her face, and her body language is giving Ash no red flags. Yet, the moment she speaks…
“Hello, Ash. I’m Makima, with Public Safety, we’ve… ‘heard,’ of your killing of a Devil yesterday,” She speaks with a Japanese accent, her voice sounds like it’s trying to be soothing, mimicking being fragile.
She… didn’t sound right. There was nothing wrong with her at first glance, so why did he feel something akin to dread building in his body?
Then he notices her eyes.
His pupils dilate, as he stares into her yellow, ringed, almost bullseye-like eyes: his breathing and heartbeat becoming rapid.
“Look at her eyes. Look at her eyes! For God’s sake, what happened to her eyes?” Shelly’s voice echoes in his head, as he remembers what she said as he and his friends stared at the ghoulish, hollow, and inhuman face of what remained of his sister.
Her pupils and iris were gone, only the whites visible.
“Ash?” Makima asks, tilting her head, and he snaps back to the present.
His shotgun feels heavier on his back, and he can feel his chainsaw weighing down his bag. His breathing and heart rate return to normal, and he can feel the sweat on his forehead.
