It's a Scoop!!
Kyle's urging did nothing. Sera only bunched the fabric in her fists; she could not bring herself to pull it up.
"Be a good girl. Come on."
"I-I can't."
She pressed her face into his chest, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her head hard.
"Why not? Just do it like last time."
Kyle asked it so innocently, as if he genuinely didn't understand — as if all she had to do was lift her clothes, the same as before.
"You know why. Thaaat..."
But the place was different. The outfit was different.
"We're outside..."
Not their room — the inside of a dungeon. Just the two of them, yes, but wide open air all the same. In a setting like this, lifting her clothes the way she had before was far too humiliating.
"And also..."
She couldn't even finish the sentence. If it had only been her belly, she would never have fought this hard.
But the moment she pulled the fabric up, her panties would be exposed before her lower belly ever saw the light. That filled Sera with a fierce, visceral refusal.
"I'll warm you up with my hands. Just like last time."
When she kept refusing, Kyle dangled the promise in front of her like a treat. For a girl who had already begun to crave his touch, it was a dangerously tempting offer.
"N-no! And it's over now!!"
Apparently the humiliation right in front of her outweighed even his carrot. Declaring that they were finished, she tried to pull free of his arms.
"Who said you could?"
Kyle wrapped her up again before she could slip away. Then the right hand that had been fondling her breast pinched down on her nipple.
"Hyaah—?"
The springy, plump give of it between the pads of his thumb and forefinger. The lewd little moan that spilled into his ear. Satisfaction and anger rose in Kyle at the same time.
"After you work me up like that."
She thought she could just stop whenever she felt like it. Kyle found Sera unbearably selfish.
"S-seduce you...? I was just..."
Sera was stunned. When had she ever tried to seduce him? All she had done was—
"I just wanted Kyle to smile..."
That was all.
Silence. Something in him went still.
Kyle's voice dropped low as he issued the order — lift my clothes, or he would tear the coat. A threat, plain and simple, if I refused to obey.
"You can't!!"
He couldn't. Kyle was a famous hunter; the attention on him never let up. Reporters showed up at every raid, took our pictures, and ran the articles. If I walked out of here without the coat, this outfit I had worn in would be photographed exactly as it was and spread across the entire world. That, I could not allow.
"Then lift them."
He repeated the command and set his left hand on my left hip.
His palm slid down along my pubic bone, drifting toward my groin — a wicked, lingering hand that felt ready to slip inside at any second.
"Don't!"
"Then hurry up."
Even as I tried to stop him, Kyle only pressed me, his tone stripped of all warmth, to carry out his order. I couldn't understand why he had suddenly turned like this. I had dressed up for him. I had even let him have my chest. And what I got back was a humiliating command wrapped in a threat.
"Y-you're being too cruel... I did it for you."
That was all it had been. I had wanted him to be happy. I had wanted him to smile. So why was Kyle—
"Should I tear the coat...?"
—threatening me in that merciless voice?
"Nngh..."
I couldn't let him. I didn't want anyone but Kyle to see me like this.
Slowly, I took hold of the fabric covering my crotch and began to draw it up. The hem started to rise. I bunched what I had gathered into my fist, reached again, and pulled higher.
My hands were shaking. It felt as if my own body were sounding an alarm, warning me that I was exposing a place that was supposed to stay hidden. I couldn't stop. Not even for that.
The hem that had hung to my ankles climbed past my knees.
Then it reached my pubic bone — and there they were, my white underwear, laid bare. High-leg panties with thin little straps; I had chosen them because of how the outfit sat on my hips.
"Nnh..."
My sex, offered up by my own hands. The thin cloth covering it met the cold wind. On Kyle's order, I had surrendered a place that was supposed to be protected — surrendered it myself.
"Hhk..."
Tears came. The situation was humiliating, and it was wretched, and I couldn't tell which hurt more. The clothes I had worn for him had gone unnoticed. The chest I had offered him had been toyed with without a shred of consideration. And when I resisted his shameful command, Kyle had answered with a threat in a voice that didn't sound like his at all.
"Hh... hhk..."
"Keep going."
The instant my hands stopped, he pushed me again. This was not the man who always whispered warm, sweet things against my ear. The Kyle who used to know my heart before I did, who used to take care of me — that Kyle was not standing behind me now.
The hem climbed all the way to the underside of my breasts. Shame and misery tangled together and spilled down my face as tears, and the arms holding my clothes trembled pitifully.
"H-hhk..."
It was cold. The wind blowing in. The skin beneath my chest catching that wind. Kyle's sudden cruelty. This whole humiliating moment. It was all so cold I couldn't bear another second of it —
—and then a warm hand settled on my lower belly.
"Good girl, Sera. You're beautiful."
A familiar voice in my ear. The moment I heard Kyle's words, a warmth seemed to wrap around my whole body — a heat that sank through skin and flowed straight into my heart. His hand warmed my lower belly. His praise slipped in through my eardrums and melted something inside my chest.
"It's because you were too pretty. You looked so beautiful in those clothes."
Relief. Because he had called me pretty.
"You looked like that and then said what you said — I liked it so much I couldn't hold myself back."
Better. Because he had said he liked it.
"I did it because I like you too much."
Happy. Because this whole situation, right now, had come from Kyle's affection for me.
"Hhk... th-then why did you wait until now..."
The moment my heart settled and I understood how he felt, resentment bloomed in its place. Resentment that he hadn't said any of this sooner — that he was only saying it now.
"I'm sorry. You were so pretty I was afraid I wouldn't be able to control myself, so I avoided you."
I hated that. No matter how pretty I was, to avoid me for that reason — and I had sat there suffering over it all by myself, not knowing a thing.
"Your body felt so good I lost the words."
The man who had just humiliated me in that cold voice — I had hated him, resented him so much —
"Idiot..."
His honesty melted the resentment away. An idiot. He was an idiot. All he had to do was say he liked it...
"You idiot. I hate you..."
"I'm sorry... and you're so, so beautiful, Sera."
He said it, then crossed both hands — the one on my chest and the one on my belly — and pulled me hard against him, wrapping my stomach in his arms.
"Nnh... ah."
It felt good. His warm body heat. His solid chest. His big hands. His low voice.
"Holding you feels so good."
I didn't hate it. Not him. Not even this.
A humiliating situation — outdoors, my lower half and my belly exposed. But Kyle was right here. Dizzying and dangerous as it was, the safest, most reassuring person I knew was at my side.
"Nnh..."
A strange, tangled moment full of contradictions I couldn't name. Some feeling I didn't understand pulled a moan out of me.
"Sera. What about you?"
Was he asking how I felt? I didn't know. I hated it, and I liked it. I wanted out of this humiliating situation, and I wanted to stay in his arms.
"Do you like it too?"
No. There was no way I could like having my lower belly bared like this. But if Kyle was here...
If Kyle's hand would cover my belly for me...
"Please stroke my lower belly. Th-then..."
Then I thought I might like it. If his warm hand would soothe my stomach, I thought I might be happy.
"That's my good girl."
At my request, Kyle swept his right arm in slow, round strokes across my belly.
"Aah..."
The warm sensation I had been hoping for, heating my lower stomach.
"Does it feel good?"
"I-it feels good..."
I understood it now. I liked it. I liked this — this situation I had made with my own hands, my sex and my lower belly laid bare.
"You're beautiful."
If I could feel Kyle, then dizzying and dangerous was fine. Humiliating was fine.
"You did well today, Sera."
And now, he was...
Sera made a small, wordless sound. Kyle was carrying her out of the dungeon, her body folded against his chest.
The moment she heard him tell her she had done well, the strength went out of her legs. She sank right where she stood. She tried to get up, but her legs refused to listen, so Kyle slipped one hand behind her knees and the other behind her back and lifted her into his arms.
He walked toward the dungeon exit like that. Sera covered her face with both hands.
"Give me a second."
He asked her pardon and set her down, then fetched the coat and wrapped her up in it until not an inch of her showed.
"Let's go."
He gathered her up again. Together, they stepped out of the dungeon.
In front of the A-class dungeon that had spawned in Washington, D.C., the gathered reporters stirred and muttered among themselves. They had come to see Kyle.
"You don't think something happened in there, do you?"
"No, Chief — they still haven't come out."
"It's been a while since a raid took them this long..."
Kyle and Sera cleared every dungeon in under thirty minutes. An hour and a half had passed since they went in, and the dungeon still hadn't fallen. The reporters, with no way of knowing what was happening inside, were trading theories when someone shouted.
"They're out!!"
Kyle emerged with Sera gathered in his arms.
The reporters fell silent at a sight they had never seen before. Then the shutters erupted.
"What happened in there?"
"Hunter Sera, what happened inside?"
"Why is she being carried?"
Questions poured over them the instant they stepped out. Sera hid her face in both hands and buried it against Kyle's chest. Kyle, holding her, did what he always did — ignored every question, cut a path through the crowd, and climbed into the car.
The engine turned over, and the vehicle carrying them pulled away.
Among the reporters left behind, one of them shouted.