Preparing for Entry, and Persuasion (1)
I made a point of looking away from their stares as I sat Miho up. She had been clinging to my waist, flopped over in a heap. Grown now to roughly the size of a middle-school second-year, she had her fox ears drooping in pitiful disappointment, as if the discovery that she still had no chest to speak of had crushed her. When I stroked her head, the folded ears slowly rose.
"So. Now that you've grown another tail, what new power did you get?"
"Ung? Ung. I can use the earth attribute now."
She turned her palm up toward me, and with a soft rustle sand rose and spun itself into a little whirlwind. The vortex caught the air and whirled out the window.
"You can handle four attributes, then? Is it the same as what an earth-attribute user does? Miho, could you shape the soil in this flowerpot into something like this?"
"Ung? I'll give it a try."
Astonished that she could command all four ordinary attributes, Yeongeun flicked on her Certifier, brought up a bizarre-looking doll, and started putting her through one trial after another—make this out of soil, generate it in empty air, and so on.
In the end we learned that earth was only the beginning. Fire, wind, and water as well: she could manifest them and steer them by will, just as an ability user would.
Back when Miho had only a single tail, she was nothing but an Energy Eater that fed on Phase Power. After she consumed my TP her constitution changed, and every tail she grew from then on added another ability. The one she had gained this time, evolving into a high-tier subspecies, was earth.
That left her able to absorb Phase Power, reinforce her body, take human form, and wield fire, wind, water, and earth. If her tails really did grow out to nine, then whatever the last two abilities turned out to be, her potential alone was a broken, cheating spec that could catch up to mine.
It made plain enough why aberrants of the nine-tailed fox line ranked among the most difficult and troublesome of their tier.
"Still can't hide the fox ears and the tail?"
"Can't hide them."
As if the regret were genuine, Miho kept stroking the flat of her own chest—then her eyes, dark as the night sky, flashed, and she threw herself at Hiarid, seized those watermelon-sized breasts, and started shaking them.
"The Breast God definitely crammed every bit of chest that was supposed to be mine into these!"
= "Wh-what are you saying? I had these long before I ever met Miho..."
"Share some with me~! They're this big, so you can spare a little~!"
As if a chest were something you could peel off and stick back on at will.
Whether Hiarid's words were reaching her or not, Miho roughly kneaded breasts bigger than her own head and delivered the nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
Thrown by the absurdity of it, Hiarid tried, flustered, to pry her off...
"Hiarid's keeping them all to herself. Mean!"
= "Th-that is not... what I... ngh."
Miho lit one of her seven tails and charged, and Hiarid was overwhelmed completely, reduced to offering up her chest without a fight.
In raw strength, there was no way Hiarid could match a Miho who had physical reinforcement.
Miho plastered herself close, buried her face in the cleavage, and threw her tantrum, while Hiarid watched in distress and turned to me for rescue.
= "My Lord... please help me."
"She only evolved a little while ago, so her mind is still young. Give it a few days and it'll grow to match her body. Just bear with it until then."
= "I... see."
Yeongeun, watching Miho whine and manhandle Hiarid's chest, nodded as if relieved.
"Her personality doesn't seem to have changed all that much, does it?"
"No. This is right after an evolution, so the old personality is still there. As Seoha says, her mind will align with the grown body before long, so we cannot relax until then. It was the same when she had only just evolved into a higher subspecies."
"Was it?"
Franc caught the whispered exchange between Hwayeon and Yeongeun, then went to Miho, gathered the hair spilling everywhere, and began tying it up like a braided ribbon-tail.
"Uung? What are you doing?"
"Your hair is sweeping the floor, so I am tying it up. Done like this, Seoha will like it too."
"Really? Then tie it up pretty!"
"Yes, yes. I will make it pretty, so be good."
"Okay!"
The head stayed still. The seven tails, however, began to sway and tickle Franc's body.
"The tails, too. Behave!"
"Hehe."
For several days after that I watched carefully for any shift in Miho's personality, but aside from a slight new maturity and a mind that had grown a little... deeper, she was the same as ever.
Ah—puberty had set in, so a prickly side showed itself now and then. Even that was cute enough to indulge, nothing that would become a problem.
Her manner toward the other ability users had softened a great deal as well. The old habit of ignoring them outright, or treating them as if they were not there, had mostly faded. Franc's lessons in ethics and morals had taken. Because of it, Grand Blue's staff and raiders made a commotion, startled by the changed Miho—but they turned into followers soon enough, and whenever she went down to the street-level shops, people could be seen trailing after her.
The one real change in her days since growing up was this: at her own request, she graduated from ethics and morals and began training in how to use her attributes effectively, in combat and evasion with her body, and in the control of her strength.
She had grown strong because she wanted to help me. Of course she had.
A few days later, home again after school, the first thing I saw to was Hiarid's growth.
Miho's personality had stabilized, and if I formed a Phase Stone inside Hiarid she would be far stronger. Even if a high-tier variant suddenly appeared, the Grand Blue Building would not fall easily.
Grand Blue, in other words, would be that much safer.
"Then today, let's make a Phase Stone in Hiarid's body."
= "Do you mean me?"
Hiarid—who had been surrendering her ample breasts to a Miho now sworn against the Breast God—looked faintly startled.
"Yeah. Don't want to?"
= "Not at all."
Her face brightened visibly. She rose, set Miho down beside her, came to stand in front of me, and began drawing up the hem of her dress.
White lace panties came into view, and the faint outline of a cleft, and I stared like an idiot for a moment before I asked.
"...What are you trying to do?"
= "As on the day I received your grace..."
"I'm not using that method anymore!"
Whoa. Thank god none of my lovers were home. If they had been, this was one short step from a major incident.
I smacked the hand that had hiked her skirt above her thighs to bare those white panties, made her lower it, and sat her in the living room. Then I sat down behind her... and found her back entirely hidden by four enormous wings. There was no posture from which I could get a hand on it.
I needed skin contact close to the torso to inject. I forced a hand through the gap in the wings and touched her side, and the wings flapped and started beating me.
And it hurt. The wings themselves served as both club and shield, and taking the blows without physical reinforcement felt a great deal like being hit with a stick.
"Kgh! Hold it—what are you doing! That hurts!"
= "I-I am sorry."
"Don't just say you're sorry—stop the wings!"
= "Y-yes! Nngh...!"
Even so she could not hold them still. They shivered, and every tremor of those huge wings struck my head, my face, my chest and shoulders. This was no state for an injection. I scrambled out of that wing-hell in a hurry.
Ah, this was getting on my nerves. The places I had been hit throbbed. I treated them with Healing Touch and ground my teeth.
"You did that on purpose just now, didn't you? Didn't you?"
= "N-no. I did not."
I caught a nipple on a breast bigger than most watermelons, twisted, and growled. She let out a small gasp and answered in broken pieces.
I kneaded that chest—its feel nothing like a human woman's—roughly enough to tear it off, and for some reason she began to breathe in heated pulls and grow aroused.
Tch. I don't like it, but there's no helping it.
Nothing for it. I went into the dressing room, brought out a large scarf and a long skirt, handed them to Hiarid, and told her what to do.
"Take the dress off and put these on. Wrap the scarf around your chest."
At which Hiarid slipped the dress off right there in front of me.
I looked at the nipple I had pinched and the breast gone red, then turned my back and sat. Beside me, Miho—who had been fiddling with Darky—tilted her head and spoke.
"Hiarid is Master's pet, so why is she so embarrassed about having her body looked at?"
"She's not embarrassed. She may be a pet, but on the outside she's a human woman. If I just stare and touch however I please, Franc and Hwayeon and Yeongeun get jealous and angry."
"Uung. I'm a pet too, and Master touched me all over and saw me naked."
"...Don't go around talking like that."
"Why?"
"Because Master will get called a pedophile. Or a lolicon."
She had never heard the words and did not understand them, only tilted her head, so I explained again.
"You were a little kid back then. You've grown a lot since. And I haven't seen you that way since, either."
Miho drew her brows together as if something about that displeased her, looked down at Darky, and started stretching him left and right.
Squelch. Blorp.
"Shut it! Be quiet, you lump of water."
Squelch!
"I said be quiet!"
...Is this what a daughter looks like once puberty hits?
Her hair had been gathered and braided, a few strands drawn out and bound like a circlet, so she looked every bit the demure young lady—while she worked off her stress by tormenting Darky.
Darky resisted in his own way, putting out tentacles to smack her head and her arms, but Miho's bullying showed no sign of stopping.
= "I have finished dressing."
I turned. The fashion was a spectacle.
A knee-length skirt on anyone else was a miniskirt on Hiarid, and the scarf had been tied in front to gather her chest like a front-tie swimsuit. A thoroughly indecent little ensemble.
I set the thought aside and sat facing her. Breasts already more than large enough asserted an overwhelming presence and pulled my eyes in.
Large in every respect—and from where I sat, her chest was right at eye level, which only made it worse.
Mmm. Yielding just slightly to gravity, they drew a pretty curve and drank my gaze down like a black hole.
The firmness of my lovers, defying gravity outright, was good. But breasts that sagged just a little, and prettily, were good too.
I reached out on impulse and cupped one from beneath, and a heavy weight filled my hand.
No wonder Miho envied them.
I indulged the impulse and laid a hand on Hiarid's chest, then came to my senses quickly enough, signaled that I was starting, and set my hands at her waist.
As I began to pour TP in through the point of contact, a wave of blue-green light flowed into that white, slender waist, visible to the eye.
= "Haaa..."
Skin so white it seemed powder would come off at a touch flushed pink in an instant, and from the valley between Hiarid's thighs a spring began to well.
And moans that needled the ear.
= "Hnn. Haaang... Aaaah! Hahp."
I ignored Hiarid, who had no thought of holding the sounds back, checked the Phase Power gathering inside her, and kept pouring TP through the hands at her waist.
Her Phase Power stood at 2.4 million. She had originally been at 2.2 million, and the TP I had injected over a full day of training her came to about two hundred thousand. Pour in roughly 2.5 million TP and a Phase Stone of about 1.2 million ought to form. That would be enough.
= "My... Lord. Haah."
"...Could you at least pretend to hold it in? If you throw your whole body at the sensation like that, how am I supposed to—urk?!"
The rims of her eyes reddened, and suddenly she reached out and pulled my head into her chest.
"Hey! Let go!"
= "Hnn. My Lord."
Ah, seriously! I cut the TP injection, caught her shoulders, and shoved. Hiarid reached back with a look of regret, stroked my face, and her eyes brimmed.
= "My Lord. My Looord...!"
What? Why is she suddenly like this? As wretched as a mother whose baby has been taken.
I eased the strength in my hands, and she drew me in again, wings trembling, and began to sob.
A hollow feeling I could not name settled over me, and I let my shoulders go slack—then I felt eyes on me and turned. Miho was watching the show, half her face hidden behind Darky.
I looked back at Hiarid and tried to read what she wanted.
Mmm. Something like hurt, mixed with sadness.
Taking my TP into her body and getting worked up—that part tracked. So why cry with a face like that? Because I treated her as a pet? Or because I had never once given her the grace she spoke of, the TP, until now?
Either way, held to her chest and breathing a scent like clouds, I reached up and stroked the abundant hair, gold as thread, and the arms around my head tightened, pulling me in harder still. As if she meant to absorb me into herself.
Whatever grieved her so, Hiarid sniffled on for a dozen minutes and more, and only stopped when the light of sunset began to stain the living room.
Franc and Sophia's shopping had run long, so they had missed the scene—a relief. Had Franc seen it, she would have come flying. Even so, I could not begin to understand why Hiarid had suddenly broken like this.
The sniffling had stopped, but she seemed ashamed; she would not loosen her hold, and started to squirm. I took that for calm, caught her shoulders, pushed her back, and asked.
"All right. Talk."
She drew away slowly under my hands, hiding eyes reddened from crying and the red tip of her nose behind a wing, as if embarrassed.
I pressed her.
"I won't get angry. Just tell me, quickly, why you suddenly cried."
= "...Lonely."
"Lonely?"
That single syllable was all she managed at first. She bowed her head and went on in a small voice, like a xylophone being touched.
= "I was lonely. I had been enduring it, but when you poured TP into me, my feelings overwhelmed me, and I..."
Mm. Well. It was not impossible to understand. Now that I thought about it, until now she had lived with a pegasus. Did she need a friend? Or one of her own kind?
"Do you need a friend?"
I asked already thinking that if she said yes, I would find her someone to befriend, one way or another. A companion like the pegasus she had lived with was out of the question, but a single white horse would not be hard to come by. I had land wide enough to raise a ranch, if it came to that.
"I'm not Hiarid's friend?"
Miho asked it with a slightly hurt face, hugging Darky to her. Hiarid shook her head gently, as if that were not it. Miho turned to me then, looking as if she understood.
"Oh. You were lonely because Master wouldn't hold you?"
Huh? Because I wouldn't hold her?
I turned to Hiarid at the ridiculous explanation, and she nodded as if that really were the reason.
Ah.
Aaaah! Was this a side effect of the brainwashing I had done with Mana Vision and Mana Voice?!
No—of course a side effect like this would show up! Mana Vision draws out a target's affection, and Mana Voice focuses their sense of self on me!
A heavy, choking frustration rose in my chest, and a stifled sigh escaped on its own.
After the brainwashing, the Hiarid I had seen was quiet and taciturn, following every order without complaint—the image of a loyal retainer. I had taken that for the obedience the brainwashing produced. In truth, she had been hiding what she felt.
So when I injected the TP, the truth burst out with her emotions, like a dam giving way.
What do I do with this... Ah! Is Choi Soohan carrying feelings like this inside her, too?!
...Sophia as well?
Deciding a crisis had just landed, and that I had to deal with what was in front of me first, I picked up the scarf that had slipped and covered Hiarid's bared chest again.
"From now on... I'll pet you now and then. So don't cry."
As a stopgap I stroked the hair that glittered like golden thread, and her four wings began to flutter, pleased.
Satisfaction and regret shared her face, and looking at it I knew this was a stopgap and nothing more. A bomb set down beside a powder keg. If it went off, how would my lovers react...
"Pet me too!"
Miho, oblivious to my mood and simply envious of the petting, thrust her small head at me and demanded her share.
"Yeah, yeah."
Ah, whatever.
In a come-what-may frame of mind I petted Miho's head as well. Her white fox ears flapped, and her seven tails swayed like the tentacles of a sea anemone.
"Let's finish before Franc gets back. I'm starting again, so don't throw yourself at me like before. Endure it."
= "Yes, my Lord."
I had been pouring TP in for a long while, and a Phase Stone was just beginning to form near Hiarid's heart, when Franc and Sophia came home with the shopping.
Franc saw me gripping Hiarid's waist and injecting TP, looked faintly startled, passed the baskets to Sophia, sat down beside me, and asked.
"Are you intending to evolve Hiarid as well?"
"No. Just making her a Phase Stone."
Franc looked at Hiarid—flushed now over her whole body, sweating from the pleasure tearing through her—and nodded as if that were acceptable.
"I read a paper not long ago, What Is a Phase Stone to an Aberrant Organism? It said the difference in strength between aberrants that possess a Phase Stone and those that do not can run to nearly double, at the outside."
"Double? That isn't them comparing the weakest of a grade against one whose Phase Power has climbed right up to the edge of evolution, is it?"
"Not to that degree. It was a study comparing an aberrant of middling Phase Power with a Mid-Low Rank Variant that carried a middling Phase Stone."
"They sure went out of their way to compare those."
"Most research of that kind, I was told, is funded by the state and conducted jointly with the Ability User Association."
= "Huaang."
The moment the Phase Stone forming inside Hiarid filled to two million, I took my hands from her waist. She let out a sweet moan, clutched her chest, and folded forward.
I stroked the head of Hiarid, wrapped in her wings like a cocoon, then headed for the bathroom to wash hands gone slick with sweat. Sophia brought cleaning things and began wiping up the puddle of fluids Hiarid had spilled, and Franc asked Miho to lift her on the wind and carry her to the second bathroom.
...Franc hadn't noticed how Hiarid felt, had she?
Around the time dinner preparations started, Hwayeon came home from work with Ispect in hand, and Yeongeun got off right behind her. The house grew noisy in no time.
Blurp! Blurble!
"Your opinion is overruled! You're going to be my toy, and you're going to behave!"
Bluuurp?!
Miho's shout pricked at my chest for no good reason.