An Alliance with the Enemy
An alliance?
With Benelov?
Neige pried off Chaelin, who clung to her without pause, and gripped her wand.
"What kind of trick is this!! You say you're Benelov!?"
"Calm down. If I wanted you dead, you'd have been dead already. Let's talk first."
Just hearing that man's voice made her body burn. It felt like she was losing her mind. Give in — I have to give in. Such thoughts crept unbidden into her head.
No — any man would have done. It was simply that this one gave off such a good scent. Here was the perfect chance to find some relief.
Vendetta stepped toward her.
"Deviluke, hold Neige for a moment."
"Deviluke will comply."
"L-let go of me...!"
Step. Step. Step.
And then he touched her lower abdomen—
"Hiik...!?"
"No theatrics."
...He did nothing at all. He simply rested his hand there and quietly closed his eyes.
"Huh?"
It was Neige who ended up surprised. Just that much — and she could feel the heat in her body settling, if only a little.
"...What did you just do?"
"Feeling like talking now? Good work, Deviluke."
Deviluke released Neige and, with practiced ease, moved to Vendetta's side. Then, just as naturally, she sank to her knees and pressed her face against his crotch.
Vendetta affected a troubled expression and clicked his tongue.
"Nothing to be done about it. Don't misunderstand, Magical Girl Neige — this is nothing more than supply."
"What is that supposed to...."
"Excuse me," Deviluke murmured.
Still wearing that sullen look, she took his zipper between her teeth and drew it down with a long, low hiss.
"Wh-wh-wh-wha...!? What do you think you're—!?"
Deviluke's face bloomed into a full, radiant smile. The cold mask melted away as flush and anticipation rose in her cheeks, and she drank in that scent — sniff, sniff.
"Ahh...."
Eyes closed, savoring it. She laid her hand on herself in gratitude — gratitude that this cock was the one that could pierce her womb.
At last, what Deviluke drew out was Vendetta's cock.
"So magnificent today as well...."
She was happy. As though beholding something she had long worshipped, she pressed it against her cheek and felt gratitude well up from the depths of her chest. She placed a reverent kiss upon its tip, then nestled it between her breasts.
"Ngh... gh."
"Then, excuse me.... Mmhm."
Neige's face flushed crimson in an instant, flooded with shame.
'Don't tell me this freak kidnapped me to force this on me!?'
Neige quickly leveled her wand at Deviluke and cast.
Sense and emotion sharing.
It was a power that should only have linked her with her younger sister — one that had evolved over her years as a magical girl.
"...!"
Neige doubled over on the spot.
— Master, Master.
— More, please. Give me your cock.... Give me your cock...!
'Wh-what is thiiis...!?'
A pleading voice. The fevered sensation of an aroused womb.... Neige caught herself absently stroking her own stomach and hurriedly severed the link.
It was real. That woman truly, wholeheartedly wanted that man. What on earth had he done to her...?
Neige reached a hand toward Vendetta — then gave up. The power was meant to link with her "little sister." It could never be used on a man.
'If I could use it on men, I'd have confirmed the Manager's feelings long ago....'
Clicking her tongue, Neige spoke.
"You dragged me all the way here just to show me THIS!?"
"I didn't."
Vendetta waved a hand, even as his body shuddered beneath the wet, slurping sensations.
"This is merely an act of mana replenishment. You know perfectly well that Benelov is hardly a clean organization."
"...Are you threatening me with my junior?"
"A threat... yes, I suppose, to some extent."
"Spit it out."
"I want you to work with me and bring Benelov down."
Neige jabbed a finger at him as if she'd misheard something impossible.
"You — you said you WERE Benelov."
"I was. An executive, once."
"Was...?"
Slrp. Shlurp. Turning her back on the obscene act unfolding behind her, Neige did her best to ignore it.
"Yes — that tentacle monster was never my jurisdiction. I tried to keep it from coming to that, and in the end I failed. That was something I should have stopped myself...."
An internal schism, Neige thought.
Come to think of it, that man had no reason to save her. If all he'd wanted was to toy with her at his leisure, there could have been no better moment than this one.
And yet, to push away a man practically drooling for her and ask for cooperation instead — there had to be something behind it.
"...You really are an evil organization, no two ways about it. Infighting among your own ranks."
"Because forcibly tinkering with people's minds — remaking them, breaking them — isn't to my taste."
"Huh...."
"Back to the threat, then. If you don't cooperate with me, I will report that location to the Magical Girl Management Bureau."
Neige's brow furrowed deep.
"That's... where the Manager is."
Into her mind floated a certain softly handsome man, and a magical girl of utterly blank expression. The Bureau's Manager, and the First Magical Girl. The mere thought of him made Neige's heart beat a little faster.
"I have no intention of harming the Manager. You know that as well as I do — a Bureau magical girl is, for all intents and purposes, a weapon that carries out the Manager's every word. If the Bureau learns of this situation, what do you suppose happens to Magical Girl Mana? Will they stop at confiscating her wand?
You know full well they won't."
The Bureau itself was, unequivocally, hardline. It refrained from running wild only because its leash was held by the gentle Manager. And if, in a situation like this, it were handed a justification even the Manager could not contain — then Magical Girl Mana's fate would most certainly not end at expulsion.
"I intend to find out whether people in that state can be restored to what they were. You will help me — handling the magical girls while we eliminate the tentacles one by one."
"You can restore Mana...?"
"Can't know without trying, can we? Who knows — that magical girl might even cooperate with us, once she comes back to herself."
"...So she hasn't just hit one or two places, then. No wonder they said the monsters have been multiplying lately."
"So — will you cooperate?"
"There's something weirdly off-putting about you, you know that?"
Neige cleared her throat, then turned around to face Vendetta — doing her level best to ignore the wet, rhythmic slurping behind her.
"My body burned up because of that strange mucus coating the tentacles, and Chaelin's state right now has to be because of it too. Something that punches straight through the Power of the Heart and the magical girl outfit even when both are fully raised — an aphrodisiac like that, I've never heard of such a thing.
So how did you push it out of me? The way you tell it, it sounds like you're just setting aside my suspicions so you can have me exactly where you want me."
"Hmm. A fair point. Then a bit more explanation is in order."
With that, he spilled himself into Deviluke's mouth. The sound of her gulping it down carried all the way to Neige's ears.
'...Is she out of her mind.'
Neige covered her reddened face with her hands — and yet she kept watching through the gaps between her fingers.
'To think she's actually happy, being handled like that.... Her mind must be completely broken. That woman's too. There's no way something like that could feel good.'
Deviluke shut both eyes and began to savor it, throat working as she drew on Vendetta's cock with a wet, obscene shlurp — and then, with a soft pop, she let it slip from her lips.
"Deviluke gives her thanks to Master...."
Pwah — she exhaled a hot breath and opened her mouth wide to show him. Proof that she had swallowed every last drop without wasting a bit.
Vendetta ruffled her hair roughly. Even treated like a pet, she clearly found the touch delightful — and pressed her lips to it once more.
"What I used on you was, in the end, nothing more than a stopgap. I merely employed a method befitting the 'evil organization' you all speak of."
Vendetta held up a certain pendant.
"A Benelov transformation device, made by analyzing magical girls. I used it to infuse a small measure of mana into you."
"...What?"
"The tentacle fluid has already been largely analyzed. I simply suppressed its effects through an antagonistic reaction using mana."
"What? So you didn't remove it?"
"That would be impossible to cure unless it's released from the body first."
"That's ridi— no, wait. Released? If it's released, then...!"
"Exactly what it sounds like."
"...Ugh."
Neige forced herself to look calm.
"R-right. You're an evil organization, so of course. Of course.... Released..., released means..., ha."
"You magical girls, yes. You certainly do love your purity."
"And what's that supposed to mean, all of a sudden...."
"If the fever starts climbing, come to me. I'll relieve it for you — same as today."
"...Really?"
"It wouldn't do for my collaborator to be in poor condition, now would it."
Vendetta drew a slip of paper from his coat.
"The address. There's a cognition-interference field over the place, so you'll need to commit it to memory or you'll never find your way back. Bear that in mind.
And bear this in mind as well — if you ever breathe a word about that location, I'll have no choice but to breathe a word about Magical Girl Mana's."
"You're a real piece of work, you know that?"
Neige turned the situation over in her head.
"So.... If I join hands with you, what exactly is it you'll be doing?"
"Dismantling a tentacle that has fused with a human — and the containment of that magical girl."
"That magical girl?"
Only now did Neige remember — the woman who had once been the magical girl Rika.
"Ha... right."
'Say what I will, it's true that it's a decent offer. If I join hands with this man, at the very least I can save Mana and the others. But if I accept right away, he'll see straight through to the bottom of my hand, won't he?
'Maybe I should hear what my sister would say.'
"You — Vendetta, was it?"
"It was."
"I can't give you an answer right away. There's something I have to do first."
"I thought you'd say that. You'll need time to think — but I won't always bend to your convenience. I'll have your answer tomorrow at eight in the evening, here."
"...Fine."
"And one more thing."
Vendetta tossed something over, and Neige caught it on reflex. It was a liquid sealed inside an ampoule.
"Consider it a token of trust. If the heat keeps you from sleeping, drink it. You'll be able to sleep."
"Ha. You actually think I'll use it?"
"We'll find out tomorrow, won't we."
Neige shot one last look back at Vendetta, clicked her tongue, and pulled the door open with a creak. Then it closed.
Vendetta followed her invisible retreating figure with his eyes for a while, then let out a long, deep sigh. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the smartphone-sized communicator that had been buzzing insistently and answered it.
— Dexter: "I simply cannot understand you at all, you know. To squander a golden opportunity in such a fashion."
"And here I thought you of all people would understand."
— Dexter: "It was hardly the right moment to plant a brand, I grant you. But this Power of the Heart impresses me more the deeper I analyze it. I had meant to toy with the other magical girls using my findings, and yet — a power that shifts so wildly and unpredictably.... Humans truly are incomprehensible creatures."
"Still, I did hand over that drug, so surely I've earned at least half your praise. My hard work wasn't for nothing, was it?"
— Dexter: "Hm...."
— Dexter: "I am a researcher, and you are an ambitious schemer. I know full well this is not a thing I ought to say, but.... You truly intend to take that thing before you sleep?"
"Honestly, I can't be certain. But... the more of a magical girl that Neige is, and the more dearly she loves her sister, the more certainly she'll take it. Without fail."
— Dexter: "Yes, well, be that as it may. Your lies are first-rate, I must say."
"And what lie, precisely, would that be?"
— Dexter: "You got her to interpret the entire scheme — the one to bind Magical Girl Mana and remake her wholly into Benelov's possession — in some utterly different light."
I rested my chin on my hand and gave a soft snort of laughter.
"Haha."
"She interpreted it that way all on her own. I never once told a lie."
— Dexter: "Sinistra would be absolutely delighted to hear that. Whoops — I must cut the line here. I have preparations of my own to attend to."
"Go ahead."
The call ended.
"Deviluke thinks Master has worked ever so hard today."
"You're the one who did the work."
"Which is why...."
Deviluke lifted her skirt just enough, gently lowered her soaked pussy down onto his cock, and wound her arms around his neck.
"...Give me my reward, please."