The Abandoned Mine
This is doable.
I was out of breath, but conviction was swelling at my fingertips. If it hadn't been for the ambush — if I had only kept my guard up for one more moment — this was an opponent a rookie like me could have pushed back on my own, easily.
That carelessness was the problem.
The tentacles binding Mio yanked her body up toward me.
"……Huh?"
My feet froze in place. Right before my eyes, Mio was lifted toward me — squarely in the very center of my shield's range. And one newly sprouted tentacle slowly wound itself around her slender nape.
Squeeeze.
"Hhk… H-Hinata… senpai…"
"Mio!"
Mio's toes flailed helplessly in the air. The pressure around her throat tightened little by little, but with terrible certainty. Her pale face flushed red, then flushed past red into a creeping pallor, and tears welled up in her clear blue eyes.
The moment I saw those tears, my gaze wavered.
The timing of the Release came half a beat too late.
The tentacle did not miss that gap.
BOOOOM!
"Kyaaaaaaaagh!"
The thickest tentacle drove straight into her solar plexus. The tip wasn't even sharp. And yet her breath caught all at once, gone in a single jerk. Her body lifted off the ground — and then went flying backward.
KWAAANG!
Her back slammed into the cave wall, and my vision flashed blinding white.
……Huh?
My body wouldn't move. My arms, my legs, even the shield that had burned so hot with power only moments ago — all of it had slipped from my hands and lay rolling across the floor. And on its surface, the heart emblem still glowed — glowed very brightly — dim and distant through my blurring sight. Power I had never once spent to its fullest, still sitting intact inside it.
At the far edge of my vision, the tentacles squirmed urgently and turned — toward the rift. And just as naturally, the bound Mio was dragged along with them.
"……Mi- Mio."
My voice wouldn't come out properly.
I had to get up. Force my body upright, seize that tentacle if it was the last thing I did. My head was screaming it — but my body couldn't so much as twitch a finger.
"Hinata… senpai…! Save m—"
Mio's voice grew fainter and fainter toward the rift. That small hand, still reaching for me even with her throat being crushed, flailed a few times at empty air — and then vanished completely into the rift.
Crack.
Like a shattering windowpane, the rift split apart in every direction and broke with a sound that rang through the cave.
Only silence remained. The collapsed rubble, the shield rolling on the ground, her — back braced against the wall, unable to move — and last of all, the scar of the rift, blinking dark red.
"……Mio."
No answer came back.
Even as my vision dimmed, I couldn't tear my eyes from the spot where Mio had just disappeared.
"Hhk… Mio… Mio……"
Until the very last moment before consciousness slipped away, only that hollow, empty place remained burned into my eyes.
Dampness trickling down the cave wall caught the faint light and glimmered in the darkness. Somewhere overhead, water dripped from the ceiling and tapped a puddle at steady intervals.
Drip… drip…
Nothing filled this space but a humid, freezing silence, sealed off entirely from the world outside.
And at the very heart of that silence, several black tentacles reaching out from the soaked rock wall had wound themselves around a small body.
Sky-blue hair spilling down past her waist hung limp and sweat-damp, and through its strands the white ribbon at her temple swayed feebly. Her petite 157cm frame hovered just off the ground, both arms bound completely above her head, while the tentacles held her thighs spread apart with a cruelty in their thoroughness.
Her magical girl outfit — white trimmed with blue ribbons and frills — was already nearly half in ruins. Only her white knee socks kept anything like their original shape, the blue ribbons at the knees trembling pitifully.
Her large, once-clear blue eyes shuddered violently somewhere between terror and the pleasure flooding in, and her young, soft-featured face burned scarlet, spilling broken, sobbing breaths one after another.
Schlick… schlick… schlick…
Slurp.
"Uuuuuughh!!"
He pushed his tongue inside, scooping the sweet nectar seeping from the inner flesh straight into his mouth. Her slender, splayed thighs kicked and strained desperately to close, but the ankles held fast by tentacles could only shiver helplessly in the empty air. One flick against the small bud that had risen up within her, and she went limp in an instant.
"Hiiik!! N-no… not there…"
Her little body arched like a drawn bow, and her sock-wrapped toes scratched uselessly at the air. And of course, the sweet cries came bundled along with the package.
Schluuuurp…
The man — Nox — who had been drinking down the endlessly welling nectar in a daze as he licked, drew back slightly and exhaled a sigh of relief.
"That was close."
Nox
Primordial Erosion
Level —
Energy:2 / 100
Even the energy he needed simply to survive was hanging by a thread. Crossing between dimensions had vaporized every scrap of his power, and at the very brink of annihilation, by sheer luck, an "energy source" had found its way to him.
"Mio?"
He had confirmed the name through a small trinket discovered somewhere on her body.
"A magical girl, is it. How quaint — wielding such wondrous powers."
Ordinarily he should have been drawing energy through his tentacles. Instead, Nox hooked both thumbs against either side of her groin and slowly pulled her open.
Shhhk—
Her slender flesh, slick and glistening with sweat and nectar, resisted for a heartbeat before giving way, parting helplessly. And within, the wet crimson of her inner folds lay bare in full.
"Don't loooook! That's — that's a woman's most precious—"
Mio shrieked, shaking her scarlet face from side to side. Her bound arms shuddered in the air, and her knees, pinned by the tentacles, struggled desperately to press inward — but her delicate thighs did not move so much as an inch. She had nothing at all with which to hide herself from his eyes.
Squirm.
Squiiiirm…
Within that spread opening, the red flesh began to move, wholly without its owner's consent. As if trying to force shut a door that had been flung wide — the inner folds crept toward one another, wriggling to fill the narrow entrance once more.
Squirm… shhhhk…
The damp membranes pushed inward in layer upon layer, then fell open again, spent. Each time, the clear nectar pooled within was pushed a little further out, stringing down along the parted seam in a thin thread before snapping.
"Nn… nngh… I told you… not to look…!"
Her voice cracked under the weight of her shame. Her mind was screaming at it to close, begging it, please, stop moving. Her body ignored the command entirely. If anything, the wider she was spread, the more desperately — the more brazenly — it writhed, baring itself of its own accord.
Plip.
Plip…
The entrance that had fought to close puckered inward as though breathing, then bloomed open again, over and over. That rhythmic motion looked less like refusal — far closer to a gesture of craving. Not that its owner would ever admit it, not on pain of death.
Nox gazed down at the sight for a long moment. The contractions of that living flesh reached the fingertips holding her open as the finest of tremors.
"Interesting."
And then, without a moment's hesitation, he lowered his face.
"Hah…? W-wait, wait, I'm still—"
Mio twisted her body, only now understanding what was about to happen. But her bound body was granted the freedom to move not even a single finger.
Slurp.
"HIIIIIK!!"
Something hot and wet traced slowly along her spread seam, from bottom to top.
His tongue.
"N-no… not agaaain! If you lick me there…!"
Her small, delicate body sprang upward like a snapped bowstring. Her arms bound above her head trembled as though hauling against the tentacles, and her sock-clad toes clawed futilely at the empty air.
Schlick… schluuuuck…
Nox's tongue burrowed into the parted seam. The red flesh that had been squirming shut flinched and clenched at the intrusion, then was pushed open all over again.
"Nnnnngh! D-don't go inside… that place, that place isn't—!"
Every time the tip of his tongue traced her shallow depths, the flesh flinched and tightened, trying to force him out — and every time, the clear nectar pooled within her gushed out in a rush.
Schluuuuurp.
And Nox drank down everything that spilled, leaving nothing behind.
"Hiik!! Y-you can't… d-drink it like that…!"
At the sensation of being sucked, Mio's hips bucked and flailed into the air. Her damp sky-blue hair swayed, her young face burning scarlet to the ears. Even turning her face away in shame, there was no escaping the sensation. If anything, her body was far more honest than she was.
The more he licked. The more he drank. The deeper flesh writhed all the more feverishly, surrendering more and more of itself.
Schlick… schluuuuurp…
And each time that sweet liquid slid down his throat, Nox felt something slowly, steadily filling the desiccated hollow inside his body.
Energy:2 / 100 → 3 / 100
"……As I thought."
Nox rose, wiping his mouth clean against the back of his hand.
It was recovering. The amount was minuscule — but it was recovering, unmistakably. This individual was a serviceable energy source.
Except—
"Far too slow."
At this rate, all he was doing was postponing his annihilation a little longer.
Nox's gaze dropped once more. There, still held open, the clear nectar went on dripping, drop by drop, utterly heedless of how its owner burned with mortification — enough of it to gather into a small puddle on the floor below.
"Hhk… please… please stop now……"
Mio begged, her voice thick with tears.
Nox did not answer. Instead, he drew forth a single slender tentacle from the tip of his finger. Its glistening surface shone wetly in the dark.
There was a more efficient way. Not catching and drinking what spilled out — but reaching the source directly.
"H-hiik… wh-what are you… going to do…?"
Mio's eyes went wide with dread.
The tentacle slid forward, slowly, toward that spread seam.
"No! No, not there, please, anything but— nothing's ever… nothing has ever been put inside me before!"
She thrashed and pleaded — but the tentacle did not hesitate in the slightest.