“Hello?” “Hey, Rias-chan?
Uh, it’s Jiro.” “Oh!
Hi, Jiro-kun!
Akeno was just complaining you haven’t texted her yet.” “President!” “Haha, yeah I meant to after training, but we got a little sidetracked.
So, uh, since you’re the devil in charge of Kuoh, you should know about like, monsters and stuff, yeah?” “Oh?
Have you run into something?
You never did tell me you knew a fallen angel…” “Not exactly one I wanted to brag about there…” “Liar, you told me as soon as you got home!” “Shut up, Kaori!
Anyway, we’re getting off topic, point is there’s a giant cryptid here that I figure you don’t want to get on the news, so I dunno if there’s a process or…” “I’ll send you over a magic circle diagram.
Just draw it somewhere then think of me and I’ll be right over!” And that’s how I end up smearing still warm monster blood on my finger again and again while using it to draw out the circle Rias sent me a picture of.
Saeko watches the whole thing with detached interest while Kaori is far more animated, fluttering around and looking like she wants to criticise me or offer suggestions but she actually can’t.
Surgeon’s hands, baby.
Steady as a rock!
Soon the circle is done, and my finger is filthy.
There’s some blood spatter on my tracksuit too, though Saeko looks pristine despite how many gushing wounds she inflicted.
Guess she had a knack for directing them away from herself.
Pressing my finger against the outer edge of the circle, I think of Rias… Boobs.
Red hair.
Cute smile.
Long legs.
Nice ass.
Sexy voice.
Blue eyes.
Fuck she’s so hot.
Space above the circle twists and warps, an eerie purple shimmer in the air and a strange atonal noise emphasising the unreality, and from out of it steps the gorgeous redhead of my dreams.
Even better she’s wearing the living suit, looking all neat and pristine rather than drooly or tentacle-y, offering a great view of the middle of her chest as I straighten up and pass my phone over to Kaori so she can set it up at an elevation to provide light over the whole area for us.
Her nose twitches, the tang of blood heavy in the air, and she looks over the chunked up ruin of now decapitated and pulverised monster nearby.
Even on the ground like this it’s as big as a truck.
“You didn’t say it was already dead!” she blurts out, stepping closer, her high heeled boots treading over the blood puddle and making me wonder if the suit is going to be having a taste from that contact.
“Trust me, I’d have sounded a lot more panicked if this thing was still moving, damn near ran me over when it first charged,” I laugh a bit self-consciously.
“You showed good reactions with your dodge, Jiro-kun.
Even after facing the undead, a creature like this was a novel foe,” Saeko says supportively, and I push out my chest a little from the praise.
We’d all contributed, it’s true we could definitely feel proud of not just winning but coming out without any injuries.
“It’s a stray devil, it’s impressive you were able to win,” Rias says, stepping back and holding out her hand with a spinning red magic circle glowing just past it, a black aura building around her figure and contrasting with the bright white lines of her erotic ninja outfit.
“Wait, that thing was a devil?
Like you?” I ask in disbelief as waves of darkness pour out from Rias’s outstretched hand and unmake the corpse, leaving nothing behind.
“Not like me,” she scoffs a little, turning towards me with her hands on her hips after that casual display of power.
“You know how I offered to reincarnate you and Kaori-chan as devils?
What sometimes happens is people who undergo that go mad with their new power, they strike out away from both devil and human society, believing themselves powerful enough to do as they please without respect for anyone else.
Whether you’re a devil, an angel, a fallen angel, or a human, they’re the enemy and should be killed on sight.” While that sounds kind of harsh, I am very much reconciled to the fact I just helped kill a living and thinking being.
Who had a great pair of tits.
Sorry but when you start talking about eating the skin off of people’s faces, you lose your human rights.
Or devil rights as the case may be.
“I mean, she did try to lure us in here by pretending she was hurt, then immediately charged while talking about eating us, so yeah that sounds totally fair,” I say in agreement.
“A thing that only desires to kill and eat people does not deserve our consideration,” Saeko voices her own agreement for the concept, the parallels to zombie behaviour blatantly obvious.
“Imagine going that mad just because you had a taste of power.
I would never!” Kaori declares loudly, and I really have to bite my tongue.
I mean, she has got power now, and she hasn’t gone mad yet, I should give her the benefit of the doubt no matter what creepy stuff she might say about wanting to sell her soul.
“It’s a shame you couldn’t join my peerage with that attitude, Kaori-chan,” Rias smiles up at the protesting-too-much fairy.
But then she looks at Saeko and tilts her head, “Speaking of, to have fought a stray devil… I can tell you’ve got a lot of potential, Saeko-san.
Are you perhaps interested?” “The student council president already offered, but for now I’m still adjusting to my new circumstances,” she demurs, putting a pout on Rias’s face before she smiles and insists it’s fine.
Poor girl, she really got spoiled by Kaori’s instant acceptance before the rest of us started having to think about it.
I wonder what recruitment was like for the rest of her peerage?
“Now I should check the rest of this building.
Stray devils are solitary by nature so I doubt we’ll find anyone else here, but if there were previous victims we’d need to know so we can give their families closure,” Rias says with a sense of heavy responsibility on her.
“We do keep an eye on things like missing people reports and haven’t seen anything, so we might be lucky and this one only just came here and hadn’t killed anyone else yet.” It does put a pall on things as we head down first in the direction the monster first appeared from, finding what might have been its den, a few old dirty mattresses and rugs all piled up to make some form of comfortable bedding for a creature of that size.
There’s little else of interest, the place all ruins and neglect.
If it had killed anyone else, they must have been eaten right down to the bones.
“I think we got lucky and you caught this one early,” Rias takes the optimistic approach.
“You did the right thing calling me, Jiro-kun.
This might’ve been coincidence, but as you get more involved in the supernatural world you’ll be more likely to end up directly targeted, so let me know if anything suspicious comes up so I can help.” For a devil it’s crazy how nice she is.
“I will.
See you at school tomorrow?” “See you tomorrow!” she agrees with a cheerful smile, and then with the glow of a red magic circle and some weird purple space-warping effects, she vanishes back from whence she came.
“You know, if teleportation is part of the devil package, it might be worth it for that alone,” I say in her absence, receiving no argument from my two companions as we head home, training having escalated into live-fire and leaving us all needing a bit of a rest after that.
Though really, if all I have is a little soreness from fighting a monster like that, I can definitely say I got off lucky.
But I’m feeling well enough to broach an idea on the topic of training as we go.
“Hey Kaori-chan, do you think you can increase my gravity again?
Not as much as before, but enough that I can feel it?” “Huh?
Why do you want me to do that?” she asks in confusion from where she’s sitting on my shoulder as we emerge out onto the quiet streets of Kuoh’s outskirts.
“Gravity training!” I answer with a grin.
“Like in Dragon Orb.
If I get used to moving under higher gravity, it’ll make me stronger.
If I train under one hundred times gravity like Satoru, I’ll be invincible!” “I think you’d die with that much gravity, I’m not sure I can even make it that high,” she says dubiously, and fair, yes, that much would pancake me.
Even Satoru couldn’t handle that until after he’d trained in the afterlife.
“Well yeah, that’s why I said just a bit.
We can work our way up.
It means I’ll be working harder to do everything, it’d be good training.” Or possibly ruin my joints, but that’s kind of a risk with most kinetic forms of exercise.
“Like training with weighted clothing,” Saeko says.
“I would like to try this as well, Kaori-san.” “Alright, if you insist.” I suddenly feel the difference, my knees buckle and my posture sags, a constant pressure dragging me down but not as overwhelming as what I’d felt when turning myself into an improvised anchor against that monster.
“Awwh yeah, that’s the good stuff!” I say with maybe a bit of bravado, straightening my back and forcing myself to power through it as I walk home, Saeko making a soft murmur when Kaori hits her with the same but otherwise maintaining impeccable posture as she walks alongside me, her effortless poise spurring me to work harder at forcing myself through the self-imposed ordeal.
Just imagining my power level rising is enough to motivate me as the walk back home becomes something arduous rather than a mere chore, though I realise I’m kind of hungry when we get there and that athletes do tend to eat a lot of carefully tailored foods when working out.
Given my current budget woes and the state of my kitchen, I’m not sure I can really maintain this at least until the money starts coming in for my medicine.
Which is assuredly going to be a fuckton of money, generational wealth bare minimum.
But until it comes in… well, I’ll see about making sure there’s an advance or something on the contract I work out with Sitri tomorrow.
The metal staircase leading up to my apartment creaks ominously when I step onto it, but seems to hold up even when Saeko follows.
Similarly the floor of the apartment makes more noises than I’m used to as we get inside and move around, both of us changing separately in the bathroom, with me taking a quick shower and tossing my blood-spattered tracksuit in the laundry basket.
When I emerge, it’s to the sound of sizzling and the sight of Saeko over the stove wearing a rather snug t-shirt and leggings, her hair up in a ponytail as she looks back at me with a charming smile.
“Since we worked hard all evening I thought an additional meal would go down well.
I’m making tofu stir fry.” It’s a good choice for something quick and filling using the ingredients we have, and certainly the smell of it is making me salivate.
“Good call, it’ll help us get in shape for any more fights that come.
I can feel myself getting stronger by the second with this gravity training!” There’s something magical about it.
Jogging?
Callisthenics?
Going to the gym?
That shit’s all boring and too much work.
But this is elite anime power-up tactics, and my life is now full of supernatural battles and danger, which provides plenty of motivation!
Of course doing all those exercises while under increased gravity would only compound the effects, so it’s something to consider.
Really the only thing that could be better would be if I could actually see numbers going up to quantify my development, if I had that I’d be unstoppable!
In the meantime I take a seat and look at my phone.
“What should I text Akeno?” I muse aloud, hoping I might get some good advice from having actual girls to talk to.
“Tell her your power activated because you were thinking about her,” Kaori suggests helpfully.
“It depends what your intentions are towards her,” Saeko gives a more measured response from where she’s watching the stove.
“Are you texting her as a friendly classmate, or as a prospective boyfriend?” My face heats up at having it put out there so bluntly.
“I don’t know, I mean… I like her, she’s really hot, but I never would’ve thought I’d have a chance.
Plus there’s other stuff going on, like with Kaori…” I nod my head towards the sexy fairy I’d used like an onahole yesterday morning.
“Oh no, he’s two-timing me right in front of my face,” Kaori moans out dramatically before laughing.
“We’re sex friends, not lovers.” “I mean… yeah, probably that’s the best way to put it, but it’s still a whole thing,” I say awkwardly.
There’s an uncomfortable awareness that I do kind of see Kaori as more of a fetishised object because she’s so small and easily available.
When she first appeared she was this intimidatingly beautiful and confident young woman… now she’s a magical onahole.
I feel like if she hadn’t turned into a fairy, our relationship would have taken a different trajectory, but I’ll never know what it might have been.
That’s way too heavy to put out there, and makes me sound awful besides, so instead I play it off with, “Dating a girl who wants to sell her soul to the devil sounds like it’d be a disaster anyway.” “Oh but dating an actual devil is fine?” Kaori jabs back at me.
“What would the wedding vows sound like anyway?
It definitely wouldn’t be a church wedding…” “How modern you are,” Saeko says which might be a criticism coming from a traditional seeming girl like her, but she comes over bearing plates of noodles, vegetables, and tofu to place on the table for us, along with glasses of water.
Kaori even gets a bottlecap filled with a tiny bit of shredded tofu and chopped up noodle.
We really do need more dignified tableware for her.
“I hope my presence isn’t disruptive to your relationship, however you describe it.” “It’s fine, we like having you around, Saeko-chan,” I give her a smile, even if communal living has its challenges.
“You’re quiet and easy to get along with,” Kaori adds.
“I don’t think the apartment would be so harmonious if Nanael had stuck around.” One can only imagine how that would have played out.
In any case, I eat up my stir fry and praise Saeko for her cooking, formulating up something to say to Akeno in the meantime.
>Hey it’s Jiro, just got home.
Hope your night was more peaceful than mine!
I send a sticker with it, of a tired looking blue chibi koala conked out with a bubble growing out of its nose.
That’s cute, right?
Fuck I have no idea how to text a girl.
“There, I sent it!” I say, the message transmitted across the digital ether and past the point of me taking it back.
I’m committed now!
The two girls with me just watch with detached interest, not feeling nearly the same sort of tension as I am over a thing like this.
I pointedly place my phone down on the table, take a deep breath, and then a nice soothing bite of seasoned tofu when my phone buzzes and I jolt in place, scrambling to grab my phone again.
“Shit, she replied!” “That was fast, you better not keep her waiting,” Saeko advises me gently.
>I heard from President!
Stray devil hunts are fun, I wish I’d been there!
There’s a sticker with it of the same chibi koala cheering with its fist in the air.
>President has us training too.
What do I have to do to get a suit like hers?
“She knows exactly what she has to do,” Kaori says, having flown over to get a look at my screen.
“I told you what to say to her already, you know she’s interested in it.” In it.
Haha.
Yeah.
“Um, yeah.
Uh… you think I should?” I ask a bit nervously but excited over the thought of taking this in a sexual direction.
Should I just ask for nudes?
Or try and play it cool and be roundabout?
“She’s giving you an opening,” Kaori advises, and I nod.
Who better to know the heart of a girl than another girl?
Admittedly Kaori’s heart is perhaps a bit non-standard, but couldn’t you the say the same for Akeno?
>Give me a little motivation and I’ll see what comes out?
I send it, feeling mortified and immediately wanting to take it back.
This is sexual harassment isn’t it?
No!
It’s flirting!
It’s flirting with a hot girl who gave me her number and said I’m in my popular period, I’m doing nothing wrong!
The meal’s forgotten as I stare at my phone, no focus for anything else.
Every second that passes has me second guessing myself, wondering what must be happening on the other end of this conversation.
Is Akeno mulling over a reply?
Is she talking about it with Rias the way I’m talking about it with Kaori and Saeko?
Is she- bzzzt bzzzt.
The phone vibrates and a new message appears!
>You greedy boy!
>I thought just thinking about your sweet Akeno-chan would be enough for you… Oh no, I’ve fucked it!
Despair blooms on my face at being called out while Kaori laughs and Saeko just watches the whole thing and surely forms her own conclusions from the one side she’s getting without a view of the screen.
But then another buzz of my phone heralds not just text, but a picture.
It’s a bed.
Akeno’s bed surely.
Dark red silk sheets, very decadent and appropriate for a devil.
And placed atop it, side by side?
A see-through black lace nightgown that looks very short, and a set of pinkish purple pajamas with a black trim.
“Oooooh!” Kaori makes an interested noise, and it’s enough to have Saeko huff and then shift around the table so she can see what’s got us all so excited.
>I was about to go to bed but I can’t decide what to wear.
What would you pick for me?
A message appears underneath the picture and my jaw hangs slack.
“Holy shit,” I say, imagining Akeno’s voluptuous figure barely hidden at all by sheer black lace… “It’s a trap though, right?
I gotta pick the pajamas?” Because come on, it’s got to be some kind of reverse psychology.
“You idiot,” Kaori says scathingly.
“Jiro-kun…” Saeko’s voice is more mild but no less disapproving, “A woman does not show that side of herself if she doesn’t want it to be desired.” Oh thank fuck these two are here, I could’ve just outsmarted myself into failure.
“Right, duh.
Of course!” I laugh giddily, fingers flying over the touch-screen keyboard.
>Black lace!
See-through!
Nightie!
If ever a message calls for an eggplant emoji, it’s this one!
All of us stare at the phone as seconds tick by longer, but it’s less with fear and more anticipation.
She could be changing right now!
And then she’ll send me a picture of her in it!
[5-3 Fate/Grand Order Halloween 2015 Event Re-Run An event which awards Elizabeth Bathory (Halloween) after completion.
Due to the low power, all this does is provide a CD of Elizabeth Bathory’s Halloween single.
Which does not brainwash the listener, guaranteed.] There’s a light thump as something appears on the table, a jewel CD case the front of which shows a cute looking girl in a witch costume, pinkish-red hair and pointy ears.
With all the ruffles of her outfit and her petite build and the fact she has fangs, I’m a bit reminded of Mittelt, but I put it out of mind to focus solely on my phone.
“The anticipation is that good?” Kaori asks slyly, floating over to examine the new object while Saeko seems happy to wait and see the results of my flirtation with Akeno.
And the fact I’m already getting some chub over it is something she mercifully does not comment on.
“There’s a lot of anticipation!” I insist defensively, waiting, and waiting, and… bzzzt bzzzt.
It’s here!
A picture!
There she is.
Akeno Himejima, kneeling on her bed with her arm raised up surely holding her phone to take the selfie.
Her hair’s down, falling around her face and over her shoulders rather than up in its usual ponytail, her lips curved into a smile with her tongue stuck out… and she’s wearing the pajamas.
Yet I can’t find it in myself to be disappointed, not with how unguarded and adorable she looks in her casual sleepwear.
And also there’s enough buttons undone so that the high angle of the shot offers a fantastic view of her lush creamy cleavage.
If I didn’t have company, this would definitely be worth jerking off over.
>That one’s too sexy to wear if I’m sleeping by myself!
>But maybe one day I’ll get to show it to you… “Congratulations, Jiro-kun.
It looks like you passed,” Saeko says supportively, causing Kaori to flutter back over so she can see the phone.
“Told you.
If you’d picked the pajamas she’d have been disappointed, even if it wouldn’t have changed what she wore… then again, she might be the kind of contrary girl who’d send you a picture of the nightie and complain you didn’t think she could pull it off…” she trails off thoughtfully while considering Akeno’s character.
And you know what, maybe, I wouldn’t put that past her.
But I’m happy with this outcome!
“Well, I should show her what she won, huh?” I take a picture of the CD sitting on the table, bright orange text on it proclaiming ‘Elizabeth Bathory’s Spooky Hits’ and then send it to Akeno with my own message.
>This is your fault.
Her own doesn’t take long to reply.
>That’s a booby prize!
I’ll have to keep trying for something better!
The message ends with a winking emoji and I smile, leaning back in place.
I’d actually had a fun flirty text conversation with a hot girl.
Never knew I had it in me.
Since she’s going to bed, and really we should be doing the same soon, I send her a final message wishing her goodnight and offering to let her hear the CD tomorrow, which she returns by wishing me pleasant dreams.
“Alright, lets see what this actually sounds like?” I bring my laptop over so we can put the CD in it, I don’t actually have a dedicated music player, so the speakers aren’t exactly the best, but it’s good enough for the odd anime OST I listen to on it.
A bouncy musical beat starts up, and then it dives right into a peppy girl’s voice singing about how spooky and scary skeletons are.
She has a voice that’s… how do I put this?
Like she’d probably be fine just talking, but when it comes to singing, it’s uneven and borders on screeching.
Like the longer it goes on the more it feels legitimately painful to listen to.
All three of us are wincing and I stop it before it gets thirty seconds in.
Maybe I don’t want to let Akeno hear this one after all.