The Hazy Full Moon
When the Full-Moon Quirk seized its bearer, if she bound herself so the hunger could not be fed, or shut herself inside a sealed space from which there was no escape, the fit ended in self-harm.
There was more. When the full moon slipped behind cloud, reason returned for a little while and lived alongside the frenzy, and if one interfered on purpose and hid the moon, the result was the same as the first.
Summer, then, with the rainy season drawing thick and near. Did the people of House Genova welcome that?
The answer was no. To meet the Full-Moon Quirk while one still possessed reason was, in itself, a terribly dangerous thing.
Of course, if one's will were so overwhelming it could hardly be called human, one might endure until morning broke. But it was no different from a person starved to the bone trying to hold back with food set before their eyes, or from being kept under sexual stimulus without ever being allowed to reach the peak. Unlike the times when only the unconscious moved the body, reason was present now—and with reason, how meticulous, how cruel, might the work become?
There was something else besides. In the course of carrying out what the Full-Moon Quirk desired, the people of House Genova were granted a pleasure that might as well have been heaven's own. Experience that while still conscious, and most of them suffered a side effect: a deadening of sensation, an inability to feel. And so those who inherited the blood of House Genova were, for the most part, little more than wood and stone.
I ought to go... and tell him.
Five in the afternoon. Her day's work finished, Laura soaked in the bath and held a brief agony in her chest. She was not without a private wish to know what Perzen did while she suffered the quirk. But hiding it seemed likelier to turn to poison, and in the end she shook her head, sank into the warm tub, and closed her eyes.
Summer. The season when the days grow long. If she arrived by seven, allowing herself plenty of time, that would be enough.
Leave to stay out for the night secured, Laura opened her umbrella and walked the streets of the capital. As an albino she was glad enough of the rains, and yet with the dark clouds lasting so long she found herself wanting to see the sun.
At last, the outskirts. She stood before a mean, rundown house, and carefully took hold of the handle and opened the door.
A creak. The familiar complaint of old hinges. Beyond them, Perzen sat quietly in a chair.
"Ah, hel... h-hello."
Offering the greeting sidelong, Laura folded her umbrella and stepped inside.
"You're here."
"Yes..."
Perzen quietly closed his eyes. She knew what that meant. With her back turned, Laura stripped off the clothes she was wearing, drew a change of clothes and underthings from her Subspace, and dressed again.
A creak. Then she handed over the rosary she had made her Altar, climbed onto the bed that smelled of mildew, bound a rope about her own waist, and looked at Perzen.
"P-Professor..."
"Why haven't you put the gag in?"
"Th-there's something... I n-need to say."
"Speak. I'll hear you."
"Th-the full moon..."
She gave him a careful account of the Full-Moon Quirk, then hesitated, folding her hands rather tightly. It occurred to her, uneasily, that there was something of a contradiction in her knowing all this when she had suffered the quirk only a handful of times—but she added that she had learned it in the experience of her first fit, and cut any question off at the root.
"Is that so."
Having heard her out, Perzen frowned, just slightly. He was a man who gave off a high-handed air to begin with; that alone was enough to sour his face at a glance, and Laura flinched and fumbled the gag into her mouth.
Time passed little by little in a stillness where each of them offered nothing but silence. The clouds were thick, and neither stars nor moon showed properly in the sky, yet from the change coming over Laura's body Perzen had no trouble sensing that night had fully arrived.
"Hhh... nn."
Perhaps it was because reason still shared the body with the rest. Even looking at Perzen before her, Laura only twitched, comparatively docile, and her slender hand twisted the bedsheet into a tight grip.
Is it right to go closer...? If reason was still there—then, when that reason could no longer hold the quirk's instinct down, or more precisely, when it gave up holding it down—would choking his throat be enough to satisfy her? The great veins of the neck lie deep. He could tear himself free before the wound turned fatal, but...
A step. For the moment he rose, and Perzen approached the bed. Hearing the footsteps, Laura stared at him without blinking. Saliva had already pooled at the gag and was dripping steadily down. The hand that had been clutching the sheet reached toward him at some point, stretched out like a baby demanding to be held. From the way her fingertips trembled, she was enduring, in her own fashion.
"Hhh, br...!"
The edge of the bed. When he came to a stop there, Laura moved her shaking legs and, on her knees, carefully closed the distance between them. Watching her, Perzen opened his mouth with perfect calm.
"Charles."
He set off the trigger branded into her body. At once Laura rolled onto her back where she lay and clapped without meaning to.
Clap. Clap.
Because reason still coexisted in her, no small amount of bewilderment showed on her face. But her body had been trained so that a command of this sort was always followed by a reward, and the conditioned flesh was already imagining that moment, steeped in a pleasure she could not put into words.
A creak. Her slender waist bucked. The hem of her skirt rode up, and a stain had bloomed at the center of the white panties laid bare. The fresh scent of her body, cut through with the musk of a female—it was a thoroughly obscene sight.
When Perzen sat on the edge of the bed, Laura crawled to his side on all fours like a dog and reached out a trembling hand. No—she reached, and then drew it back. Perhaps because even that withdrawal had consumed a tremendous force of will, not many minutes had passed before Laura's body was soaked through with sweat.
"Hhh, hnn... mmph!"
With the gag between her teeth she could not form proper words, and so with a pitiful moan she pleaded how hard it was. Watching her, Perzen reached out, caught both of Laura's hands, and carefully brought them up near his throat. Judging by the look of her now, the act of strangling him might let her hold on to a little more reason. But an adult's concentration lasts, on average, sixty minutes. Laura was in the grip of the quirk. Would she even last thirty?
A hard squeeze.
"Hnn!"
In the very process of strangling a person to death, Laura felt an enormous pleasure and shuddered without cease.
"Kh..."
And perhaps because reason was still with her, even in a choking no different from the usual, she cunningly set both thumbs against Perzen's throat and pressed down without mercy. The discomfort was worse than he had expected, and his brow furrowed of its own accord.
"Hee... hnn..."
But Laura did not so much as glance at his mood. She smiled with her eyes, full of rapture, brought her face a little closer, and studied the pain in his expression. Then she buried her face beneath his jaw, drank in his scent, gazed at the throat working irregularly as though it were something lovely, and mouthed at the gag she held between her teeth—the ball gag—as if she meant to grind them.
Yes. Already she had grown tired of merely choking him. She wanted to bite into his body.
"Charles."
Ten minutes at most had passed. When reason showed signs of wearing thin and failing in its duty as a leash, Perzen called, in a low voice, the name of the woman he had tamed—but Laura only loosened the strength of both hands for a moment, and would not answer to any proper control. When at last she twisted both hands behind her of her own will and tried to tear the gag off—
A creak. Perzen seized her hands, bent them back, turned her down onto the bed, and pinned her hard. But Laura did not thrash in rough resistance. She simply stopped breathing.
"...You've grown cunning."
He had thought he was training a puppy, and found it was a wolf. Fatigue had seeped into the words. She was suffering the Full-Moon Quirk, and reason coexisted with it besides. Keep her pinned like this, and Laura would truly hold her breath until she reached suffocation. So Perzen had no choice. He took his hands away.
At once Laura flung the gag aside, came to his side with crimson eyes shot through with rapture, and stroked his solid body with both hands.
Thump. Thump.
And then, like someone in the withdrawal of a drug—
"Hah... hhh, hnn..."
With shaking hands she pitifully undid the buttons of his shirt, buried her head against his bare skin, listened for the hard beat of his heart, and raised her nails like a she-cat.
Of course, when Perzen quietly stopped her, Laura—both hands caught—stared at him without a word. White hair plastered to a nape and collarbones soaked in sweat; eyes gone slightly unfocused, hazy. The air she gave off was thoroughly erotic.
"I-if I... h-hold my br-breath anyway... y-you're going to l-let go..."
"P-Professor... y-you're a s-slow... l-learner..."
Stammering, the words she managed carried a snicker of mockery. But rather than grow angry at it, Perzen felt the opposite: pity. Reason dragged along by instinct. He himself had known that experience more than a little.
The face of Laura, holding her breath, went past white and colored itself pale. A wordless protest, demanding he let go of the hands he held. Perzen sighed and gave her her freedom, and Laura dragged in a rough breath and swept her hand over the place near his heart.
"P-Professor... w-will you... d-do it w-with me?"
"S-scratch the f-flesh... and g-grip each other's... h-hearts..."
"And b-burst them."
A raking sound. The moment she finished speaking, Laura's nails clawed across Perzen's chest. Beyond mere choking—at the act of seeing blood—her lower abdomen, as if she had lost control and wet herself, soaked the sheet through.
"Hhh, hnn... I-I'll..."
"P-Professor... sh-shall I... t-take your s-seed...?"
"Y-you'll die... th-though. Th-the child... I-I'll c-carry it... for you. Th-the moment you... c-come... I'll b-burst your h-heart..."
"Finish what you were doing."
Even as the scratches multiplied across his chest, Perzen did not so much as twitch an eyebrow, and let her words pass unheard.
"I am not going to die at your hands. So..."
The hour was 7:40 in the evening.
"I'll see you at five in the morning. Nine hours and twenty minutes from now."
Perzen's face, indifferent to the last. Looking at it, Laura curled the corner of her mouth in a sulky little hook—a sneer, as if a little devil were smiling.
"...Funny."
Laura's lovely voice, giggling, circled at his ear. And right after, she sank her teeth into his forearm without mercy.