Sera's Secret Ritual
More than a month had passed since I first met Sera in that dust-covered warehouse.
Until relatively recently—no, until just a few hours ago—it had been rare for the two of us to occupy separate spaces.
To survive together, we had become an inseparable pair. Naturally, we came to know every last detail about each other.
Her personality was rigid and stiff. She had few hobbies or preferences worth mentioning, and the only things she showed any attachment to were, at most, airlocks or her uniform. Her will was steadfast, her mental fortitude unyielding; even in the harshest environments she never once let out a word of complaint.
The only moment she had truly wavered was when she confirmed the true nature of the military, but even that seemed to have been overcome by now.
In the face of the end, the human shell peels away all too easily. The understanding, rational side she had shown until now was surely her true nature.
But perhaps it was because we moved as one body and I believed I knew everything about her. The actions she showed when she approached me were ones I had never seen before.
The repaired sections were not immediately obvious. The deeply gouged scratches on the helmet and the abdominal armor that had been torn clean away remained exactly as they were. Yet the traces of hands other than her own were unmistakable—lubricant smeared along the rear of the chassis, a few strands of golden hair caught on the shoulder.
She laid her neatly folded outer clothes on the bed and her first words were pure reproach.
"......You've been to that woman again."
"Is Jin a dog? Just feed him and he wags his tail and chases after anyone, even if they're not his owner."
She knew the cautious Jin would never have followed Illeyna without reason. Even if some sort of relationship existed between the two of them, she had no right to restrain him. It was nothing more than a tantrum she was throwing because she knew he could not hear her.
"In the first place, why does the suit move on its own?"
While she was at it she let more blatant words spill out. They were her true feelings.
"And why is that voice so pleasant? Spouting the spirit of a knight you've never even learned, captivating people. Are you seducing them?"
If one thought about it carefully, the only person who had actually been seduced was Sera herself. After listing every one of Jin's virtues and all the things she normally never said aloud, she reached this conclusion:
"You must have learned them all from me."
Practical thinking. Reliable judgment. The bearing a knight ought to possess. The playfulness... that part seemed to have been original, though.
So it could not be helped. Developing these feelings for someone who seemed to project her own ideals was only natural.
"That's right. Jin's pilot is me."
When she pressed her palm against the soft inner lining, she felt a plush, slightly sticky texture that was neither fleece nor leather. There was no sign anyone had entered and left, and a small relief settled over her.
Sera carefully lifted her skirt and straddled him in the opposite direction from usual. At some point, whenever he slept, she had begun climbing onto the suit like this—riding him as if he were a horse.
"This is... only because I need the power. That's all."
The series of actions always ended with that sentence she repeated to herself. It began with stretching her slender arms upward to grip the space between Jin's neck and shoulder. Even though the cockpit was open, the height forced her to hang on as if clinging.
She had removed only her top; stockings, underwear, and everything else remained in place. The moment she leaned her weight the way she did when taking liquid nourishment, gravity pulled her down. As her bent knees naturally pushed her hips backward, the hard external plating of the suit—something that never touched her under normal circumstances—settled firmly between her legs.
"Eut... haah."
The sensation felt through a single layer of cloth grew steadily clearer. Ticklish and shivery at first, then gradually turning into a sharp, electric tingle. If she loosened her grip, her full weight pressed down and the insides of her thighs went numb. Even easing her clenched legs the slightest bit produced the same effect.
Long before her waist began to straighten, her breasts were already crushing against the inner back of the suit. The mere rise and fall of her breathing was enough for a tingling pleasure to bloom between the functional underwear and the lining.
In that posture that looked for all the world like a plea for affection, the memory of Jin's low, gruff voice reached her. Even while she bashed her forehead in shame, her hips began to move of their own accord—hesitant, almost reluctant.
"Ah, eut...!"
Swish, swish, swish—
The sound of cloth rubbing against flesh filled the room and returned to her ears; her bowed head sank lower and lower. The earlobes that occasionally peeked through her swaying hair burned red as if set alight. Yet hotter still was the place deep inside her body.
To release the pleasure rising from the pressure against her most intimate flesh, her lips parted on their own. While her mouth exhaled heated breaths, her half-lidded eyes turned unconsciously toward Jin's face.
I want to kiss him.
The thought alone set her body ablaze. It had nothing to do with gathering power. After a long internal struggle she finally gave up—partly because the height required her to haul herself up as far as possible while still mounted, and partly because simply enduring the coming wave of pleasure without being swept away was already her limit.
Strength drained from her trembling legs; the hands that had gripped his shoulders now rested on the sheet. The tips of her breasts, which she had rubbed against him so coquettishly, stood hard enough to be obvious even through her clothes.
"Eut, heuut...!!"
Wearing an expression anyone would call lewd, she arched her body hard once. Both legs stretched straight; the beads of sweat on her forehead and the clear saliva she had been holding at the tip of her tongue fell like dew. Once, twice—each time her hips shuddered, the underwear beneath her skirt grew darker and wetter.
Sera unclenched the fist she had been squeezing white. She needed to pull herself forward so that her bare sex would press directly against the suit's lining.
"Haah, haah... with this... heuk... it should be enough...."
Afterward the suit would absorb the sticky, transparent fluid, and mechanical arms would emerge to wipe away the sweat. A pleasant, boneless exhaustion settled over her, along with a guilt she could not name. The latter, she knew, came from using Jin as she pleased to satisfy her own desires.
She understood he needed the power, yet she could never bring herself to do this while he was awake. Outside of a loving relationship—no, even between people who loved each other—it was a shameful act she would never perform, and she had no confidence she could hide her feelings.
— Ziiing.
As always, the mechanical arms rushed in to consume the bodily fluids. Yet today something felt off. Their movements were oddly hesitant; they did not pounce the way they usually did.
"Huh? Kyaak!"
The instant her eyes met the camera-equipped arm, restraints locked around Sera's body.
I had no mind left to celebrate the energy remaining that had jumped a full five percent in a single breath. Only the scene unfolding before my eyes mattered.
So this was why the power had been charging while I stayed dormant. The feeling was complicated, yet somewhere deep down I was pleased.
Had Sera regarded me as a man? There had been signs, certainly, but I had assumed it was only because I was the sole person she could lean on in extreme circumstances.
How had it come to this? She needed to supply power, she liked me enough not to feel revulsion at the method, yet because I was not human she had hesitated—was that the result? Given her personality she would never mix bodies with someone before a proper relationship, so the guess felt sound.
"W-wait...! Heuut!?"
I did not release the body I had seized without thinking. With power still in the single digits, the thirst remained ferocious. The single circle shining inside her rekindled my desire. As before, cracks marred the ring and red mana leaked out, yet the original form still held.
There was no way such a clumsy method could ever satisfy true hunger. Mere masturbation at the level of rubbing against the corner of a desk—wherever she had learned it.
"Why—why are you grabbing me? Eut, you can't...! Heuk!"
The moment the restraints locked around her pelvis, a far stronger stimulation than her own weight had provided slammed into her sex. When I raised both of her arms and bound them as well, the posture was the same as before, yet her reactions turned far more violent.
She still seemed not to have realized I was awake, so I moved the mechanical arms as naturally as possible. Pretending to absorb sweat, I suckled greedily at her armpits and the nape of her neck with wet, smacking sounds.
"W-why...! Normally it wasn't... like this... Hyaak!?"
I thoroughly chewed the spot behind her ear that she liked so much. Even though her skin was pure white, red marks barely remained; it was almost a shame. Another blessing of her unique recovery ability, no doubt.
I examined Sera's smooth abdomen. Despite taking a mutant strike powerful enough to shatter the suit, almost no trace of injury remained—only a faint blue bruise below the navel. When I brushed it with a fine, feather-bristled arm, her belly contracted from the tickle.
Now, intent on properly shattering the circle, I moved upward past the wound. How full of mana they were—her large, soft breasts could have been called mana pouches. The only thing I disliked was that they were wrapped in the synthetic fiber I hated most.
Just as I prepared to strip it away, a voice came from above.
"Haah, haah... hey, Jin?"
I shifted the camera to look at her. Sera had called my name, yet she only exhaled frail breaths through half-unfocused eyes. Even though I still had not spoken a single word, the situation was clearly different from when I had been sleeping.
If she refused to go further, I could not force it. In the worst case she would come to hate me. That would become a problem directly tied to survival, so I had to be careful.
"......"
Even when I poked her cheek she did not react, and my feet went strangely numb. Wondering if she was angry, I was on the verge of releasing the restraints when she spoke.
"Do you remember what you said before, when we made the trap on the spaceship?"
She was looking not at the camera but at one of the suction-equipped arms. The trap—yes, the one we had used to lure the soldiers. I had no memory of what I might have said then. When I tilted the mechanical arm in place of a head, she craned her neck forward.
Then she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue with a soft beh—.
On that cute, bright-red tongue tip, sweet saliva glistened in a full pool. Human muscle is flexible; pouring the saliva that rested on a widely opened tongue was as easy as breathing.
— Shuuup!
Before the precious fluid could fall onto that unpleasant underwear, I swallowed it whole. Seeing my reaction, Sera's expression shifted in a subtle, complicated way.
What now? Continue, or stop?
While I hesitated, the next words made me doubt my own auditory sensors.
"......Do as you please."
Covering her face with one elbow, she uttered words that were unmistakably permission.