EP.3 Three-Legged Crow -2
EP.3 Three-Legged Crow -2
What had been the greatest crisis of my life?
When I got stabbed in the gut? No.
When I got jumped by a gang? No.
The time I got hit by a truck and hovered between life and death—that was what I'd considered the most dangerous so far.
But nothing was ever absolute. That day, I faced an even greater crisis.
"Oh my~? What's this birdbrain that looks like it got char-broiled doing here?"
On one side stood a fox glaring murderously in our direction,
"What? A beast in heat walked into my room?"
and on the other, a crow answering her with a sneer.
Two bombs capable of leveling the entire neighborhood were in the same room...
"Kkyu-it!"
Make that three.
"That birdbrain is our investigation target, right? Then the investigation is over. Let us hurry back and report that she was a bird-bitch with avian influenza."
"I did know there was one crazy bitch at my husband's side, but seeing her in person is truly astonishing. I never imagined it would be a rabid fox."
A tense war of nerves unfolded, with neither side yielding an inch.
Watching it all, my mind gradually grew hazy.
"Who gave you permission to call my dear husband 'husband'?"
"I gave myself permission, obviously. What's it to you what I call my human companion?"
"Human Companion? As if my husband would ever contract with a birdbrain like you."
"What a shame. We have already contracted."
Yata grabbed my right hand and lifted it up for all to see.
There, revealed on the back of my hand, was a third mark I hadn't even known about.
When... No, before that, how did she...?!
"This is my husband's, and right here is mine too."
After that, Yata lifted the skirt of her dress and even showed off the mark engraved on the inside of her thigh.
The mark on her thigh perfectly matched the third mark on the back of my hand. There was no mistaking it.
"How about that? Got nothing to say now? Then will you stay quiet? I need to enjoy some quality time with my husband."
"Do I look like someone who'd dutifully follow a birdbrain's words...?"
"Come to think of it, you're right. How could a bitch who's nothing but a beast understand human speech?"
"Let me correct you: you aren't human, you're avian. You stupid birdbrain."
Words would not settle this. The next step would be violence.
That, at least, I had to stop.
"H-hey! Can we calm down and talk this through? Let us at least try to be civil."
"...If that is my dear husband's wish, I shall comply."
"Fine by me. Following my companion keeper's words is how you become a good companion animal, after all."
Thank goodness! Maybe this would improve the situation a little.
We would talk calmly, learn about one another, and surely reach a good outcome...
"Then, since my dear husband might catch your bird flu, would you please step away? Miss Birdbrain?"
"It'd be a disaster if my husband got bitten by you. Get your shots first, then talk, Miss Bitch."
...Like hell it would. It only got worse.
"Then shall I personally prove I don't have rabies by taking a bite out of you?"
"I'll pass. I'd rather not get chewed to the bone."
"Oh my? You know all about it?"
"I'm not called the Divine Beast of Prophecy for nothing."
"Guess your oh-so-great prophecy ability didn't see the future where I kill you?"
"Sadly, that future doesn't exist. Even if there is one where you lose pathetically and get thrown away by my husband."
-Crack...!
-Crunch...!
Both were smiling, but their true feelings were the exact opposite. Their anger made the veins on their foreheads bulge.
This meant the situation I'd been dreading was becoming reality.
If I failed to stop them, there was no telling how much damage they would cause. Yet I could not think of any way to end the fight.
How could I put an end to this fight? How on earth could I...
"Kkyu-yi!"
Tia, who had been in my arms the whole time, jumped out and tapped the back of my hand.
"Tia. This is no time for games."
"Kkyu-it!!"
"Ow!! What's with you all of a sudden?"
Finally, Tia used her tail to slap the back of my hand.
I had no idea why the child had suddenly started acting this way.
"Kkyu-i-it!"
"You say there's one way to stop the fight?"
"Kkyu-it!"
"What is it? Please tell me!"
"Kkyu-yi-yi! Kkyu-it!"
Tia pulled my right hand toward her body, then turned her back and fluttered her wings.
"Kkyu-yi!"
"Stroke the mark under your wing, you say?"
"Kkyu-it!"
Time was short, and I had no other option, so I followed Tia's instructions.
I slowly stroked the base of Tia's wing with one finger.
As I wondered what the gesture meant, the mark on the back of my hand suddenly began to glow.
"W-what is this?"
Tia's mark began to glow alongside mine, and she let out a contented, purring trill. Kororong-kororong.
Still wondering what was happening, I continued stroking beneath her wing until Tia smiled as though she were the happiest creature in the world.
"Ah...!! Now that I think about it, I did learn about this once."
Because I had never owned a Companion Animal, I had barely paid attention to the Companion Keeper training video. Only now did I remember it.
It had explained how to calm a Companion Animal that was extremely agitated or out of control.
The instructor in the video advised bringing the mark on the companion keeper and the mark on the companion animal as close together as physically possible.
Bringing the marks together caused them to resonate, filling the Companion Animal with intense pleasure and calming it down...
"So that's what it was! Thank you for telling me! Tia."
"Kkyu-it!"
The baby dragon gave me an adorable thumbs-up and wished me luck.
A surge of emotion and gratitude washed over me at the sight.
"I really have no one but you."
Meeting Tia might have been the last stroke of luck in my life.
Shit, thinking of it as my last stroke of luck made me really fucking sad...
Anyway, I couldn't let Tia's help go to waste, so I resolved to jump into the fight between the two.
First up, Yata.
"You finally came."
"You already knew?"
"Of course, I prophesied it."
From behind, I wrapped my arms tightly around Yata's body.
"In that case, you must also know what I'm about to do. Is it okay if I do it?"
"What if you don't? That fox bitch won't stop, will she?"
"You could have chosen to get along from the beginning."
"My pride will not allow that. I especially refuse to back down in front of my husband."
"I truly don't understand how I became your husband, but fine, I guess I have no choice..."
I slipped my right hand inside her skirt.
Was it around here?
Just as I began feeling along her thigh for Yata's mark—
"Husband, dodge right."
At Yata's brief warning, I twisted aside on instinct.
A kitchen knife flew past the spot where I'd just been and embedded itself in the wall.
Had I not moved, the knife would have struck me.
"Dear husband~? What do you think you're doing right now~?"
"Ah! Aaah...!!"
Miho held kitchen knives in both hands, madness glinting in her chilling eyes.
She had probably snapped because I had embraced Yata and pushed her jealousy to its limit.
I-I messed up! I should've started with Miho!
Miho had always been dangerously jealous.
And I had let her see me getting affectionate with another woman. Of course she had gone berserk.
Why hadn't I considered that?
"L-listen! This isn't what you think it is!!"
"If it's not what I think, then what is it? Hm?"
To avoid repeating my mistake, I tried switching my first target from Yata to Miho.
"Husband, where are you going? You need to finish what you started and then go."
Yata caught hold of me, leaving me trapped between them.
"You just saw what happened, you know that! If I don't start with Miho, it's dangerous!"
"So? You picked me first, husband, and now you're going to go to another woman?"
Yata's eyes grew every bit as murderous as Miho's. She was just as dangerous...
"You can relax. I'll predict every kitchen knife that fox bitch throws. So do me first."
"But if anything at all goes wrong...!"
If a knife struck me and I collapsed, the two Divine Beasts would immediately start fighting and devastate the surrounding area.
No one but me could stop them.
"I told you not to worry. Trust me, and just follow my instructions well, and you can finish without getting hit even once."
"Even so, that's a little..."
"Trust me. We are already bound by a Companion Contract, and I even gave you my precious first kiss."
"Hah... Fine. But in exchange, once this situation is over, you tell me everything you know. There are so many things I want to ask you."
"Sure, I'll tell you as much as you want. So now... hurry up and come to me, husband!"
I placed my hand over the mark on Yata's thigh. As with Tia, the mark on the back of my hand began to glow.
At the same time...
"Kya-heung!"
An indecent moan escaped Yata as the contact began transmitting pleasure to her.
"Hnn...! H-husband! Duck!"
"Urk!!"
I ducked, and two kitchen knives narrowly passed over my shoulders.
"You're too cruel... To cheat on me so blatantly right in front of my eyes!!"
That was not what this was... It was difficult to put into words.
"I suppose it can't be helped. Correcting a companion keeper's womanizing is also a companion animal's duty. Prepare for bloodshed, dear husband!"
O-oh boy...
"Left, right, then jump, right again, haa-eung...!!"
I followed Yata's directions and dodged Miho's kitchen knives.
I felt like a video game character.
"Aheut! After you jump, spin right once... kya-heung!!"
The only problem was that the player holding the controller was moaning indecently.
"Euh-eut...! Hah...!! Now back to the le...ft-aaahng♡"
Even so, it was astonishing. Despite the overwhelming pleasure, she directed my movements while dodging the knives flying at her.
What did we look like from an outside perspective?
We could only have looked grotesque—or perhaps simply bizarre.
"Hah...! Hah...! A little more...!! Just a little more and I think I'm going to come...!"
"Huh?"
What did you say?
C-come, you say?
"Don't just hold it against me, rub it...! Stroke it...!! Don't keep me in agony~!!"
Yata abandoned verbal instructions, seized my body, and moved me herself to dodge the knives.
She even begged me to rub her more intensely.
Shit... I did not even know anymore.
"Kya-heu-eung...♡"
When I gently caressed the spot where her mark was, exactly as she wanted, her moans began to grow even more sultry.
"Th-that right there, I li-ike it...♡ Do it more...!!"
Pink hearts seemed to bloom in her pitch-black eyes.
I was certain it had to be my imagination, but she was so excited it genuinely felt that way.
That meant she was nearing her limit...
"Huuu-eut...!!"
At last, Yata reached her climax, her body shuddering violently.
Then she collapsed to the floor and began panting heavily.
"I-I feel so goo-ood...♡"
...Strange. The Companion Animal in the training video had not fallen apart this badly.
It felt as though I had flipped some kind of heat switch...
Once the act ended, a crushing wave of self-loathing washed over me.
So much so that I couldn't even grasp what it was I'd just done...
"Dear husband? Are you all done now?"
"Ah...!"
I had forgotten that one more Companion Animal still needed to be calmed.
"I understood what you were doing partway through. That was bonding between a Companion Keeper and Companion Animal, was it not?"
So this act was called bonding...
It felt totally different, though.
"In that case, you'll do it for me now too, won't you? Bonding...♡"
"Euh-eung?"
Miho unfastened her jeogori, a faint smile on her lips.
Two mounds of flesh, one hundred percent soft, appeared before my eyes.
Now that I thought about it, the location of the mark engraved on Miho was definitely...
"L-listen? Can't we put it off until later?"
"...Do you think we can?"
Miho held my right hand tightly while pressing a sharp kitchen knife against it.
I quickly shouted that I was joking. Otherwise, she might have cut off my wrist.
"I-I want to bond much more than that bird-bitch did, so you have to touch me a lot, okay? Understood?"
"Uwaaah...!!"
"Haa-eung...!! Dear husband~♡"
Miho pulled my right hand against the mark on her chest.
And so the bonding act began once again...
After a long while—and after listening to both the fox and the crow moan—I finally managed to end their war.
"Haha!! Why the hell is my life like this...!!"
I sat between my two Companion Animals as their bodies shuddered and heaved, forced to endure the crushing clarity that followed.
Ahh, shit. I thought I was losing my mind!!