Becoming Monsters

Honoka lay on the damp crimson covers of the bed in the Harmony Room. Although someone kindly turned up the heat, Honoka wore three towels after her Happy Ending massage and bath. The Ymirian never felt so relaxed, her body smelling of the fragrant oil and fermented honey. In front of her was a large tray with two gallons of holstaur milk and a dozen raw Dire Chicken eggs. Taking her time to crunch the hard shells and let the gooey centers slide down her throat, Honoka practically glowed at the idea she would soon be a mother…father…fmother?

“Will you stop smiling?” Diane sat across from Honoka, her wig of long black hair framing a grouch face mingled with a bit of sad pouting, emerald horns coming out of the headpiece with well-tailored holes. The succubus went all out, finding a magenta t-shirt with the famous lips and tongue sticking out band logo on the front, the shirt too small as her massive tits and erect nipples stretched it to nearly tearing, her exposed abdomen leading down to a pair of peekaboo black panties that hid nothing, only emphasizing her prodigiously toned rear and sopping pussy. With her glasses on, it completed the perfect roleplay outfit of Honoka’s favorite bit of porn from the BustArtist collection.

Honoka stopped smiling, realizing how sensitive the subject of children would be to the succubus.

“Did you know?” Diane asked, her kelly eyes boring into Honoka’s cobalt ones.

“She literally told me as I shot into her.” The black woman finished another egg and picked up a gallon jug, tipping it back and chugging.

“Hmph.” The succubus didn’t say anything else, but she turned her head away and looked at the wall, her tail making circle patterns on the sheets.

“Its a delayed thing with Padmava, she promised she’d wait. If you want, we can harmonize you quickly and spend those twenty-five points to fix…”

“I’m fine.”

Honoka finished the last egg, the crunching sound loud in the quiet room. “You are not fine, and I would prefer you to speak to me instead of trying to forced me to read your mind.”

Diane flinched, closing her eyes and breathing in and out before turning back to Honoka with an apology on her face. “Sorry. You’re right, I’m not fine. I wanted to be your first.”

“Still the plan. Specifically, your plan.” Honoka popped the top to the second gallon and chugged that one. “You want to change the plan?” she asked between gulps.

“No.” Diane looked like she was metaphorically bikini waxing when she said it, yet her mind remained resolute. “I can wait a couple of weeks.” Sighing, the freckled woman leaned forward and pushed the empty tray off the bed, going over to her potions cabinet and opening it. “What are your numbers at?”

Honoka checked, winching as the Status headache reminded her there was no such thing as a free lunch. “Stamina is fine, that massage made it go up to 78%, but mana is low at 32%. Oh, and before I forget, Padmava went up to 38%. Guess Quinn is still the champ.”

Diane pulled out a dark blue mana potion and tossed the vial to Honoka, grumbling up a storm when she closed the cabinet forcefully. “I should be the high score, I earned over sixty points in one go.”

“Ah, is someone jealous?” Honoka removed her towels and hopped off the bed, wobbling a little as her brunch food baby caught her off balance. “Do you need kisses?”

“Maybe,” Diane replied in a tiny voice, her bottom lip out in the most adorable way.

Honoka giggled and came over, giving the succubus a big hug and pulling her head down, beginning a long round of kisses between the two of them. Honoka tasted like the milk she just finished. Diane tasted of mint and desire.

“Now, I’ve been thinking, that sex swing over there needs testing and I have a bit of a surprise for you,” Honoka announced, guiding Diane over to the corner. The sex swing was industrial strength, utilizing solid pitons drilled directly into the stone ceiling and a box in the corner filled with alternatively sized straps. It would even support Banda, but for today it was only a hoist with four padded velcro lines that adjusted to any size or height.

“A surprise?” Diane asked, her tail sweeping up and caressing Honoka’s black vulva, which caused the shorter woman to stumble. “I like surprises. What is it?”

“Get strapped in and find out,” Honoka replied, slapping a perfectly rounded, freckled buttcheek and watching the ripple and jiggle with a feisty leer. Honoka had been soft only a few minutes before, yet the Beast quickly rose to the occasion.

Sex swings are designed for suspended comfort, allowing a woman to hang at the perfect height for futa entry without strain and being able to relax while in some complicated positions, but they are difficult to get into. Diane made it look easy, this obviously not her first rodeo after slipping out of her panties. In minutes, she lounged back, offering her naked and glistening snatch at the correct height with her legs up and behind in the straps, Honoka only needing to step forward and she would be inside her waiting wife.

“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about this morning,” Honoka began, using her hands to rock her meaty head up and down the succubus’ drooling slit. “A couple of things come to mind.” Moving slowly, Honoka eased herself inside, though no matter how slick a woman is, no one is ever completely prepared for sixteen inches (41 cm) long and thirteen inches (33 cm) girth of hard cock.

“Ah! W-what things?” Diane gasped, nibbling on her lip as she took in more and more of Honoka’s hard length.

“Allocation things.” The black hermaphrodite was wholly inside now, hilting out but stopping as she pulled up her Status and scrolled down to the menus. “For instance, there are six points of Endurance to play with, I can probably go all night if I need to.” Honoka slid it over to a 100%, feeling a rush of energy as Diane lost some of hers, succubus breath coming out like she ran a mile. Honoka also received a surprise when her slightly rounded belly – from the food earlier - flatten out quickly.

Interesting, Honoka thought, discovering Endurance played a part in how quickly she absorbed food. “And maybe a little Strength to prove I’m the one in control.” Honoka only gave herself 50% while adding 50% to her agility, but a total of twenty points in Strength and thirteen points in Agility still put her in the levels of an Olympic bodybuilder of yesteryear, her muscles swelling over a hundred extra pounds (45 kg) inside the small woman’s body. It didn’t affect her dick’s size, but the hardness of her erection increased. When Diane felt that rigid inflexibility push forcefully up into her g-spot, she writhed and moaned, her own body losing some toned musculature, though still able to clamp and caress that hard cock inside herself with the magical ministrations of a succubus’ vaginal canal.

“Then I got thinking, there are a few things we missed.” Honoka went into Banda’s menu and grabbed eighteen inches (46 cm) of breasts with the Class Feature Milk Of The Taurines, her chest ballooning outward and downward like black avalanches, firm and thick nipples larger than thumbs jutting outward and forming small droplets of white on each tip, both breasts resting on top of the succubus who cooed with delight as their weight and the sound of sloshing milk covered her. “We didn’t miss breasts, got those working. What we missed was Charisma. Do you know what happens when you add points to Charisma?”

“…makes boobs…bigger…” Diane panted, turned on by being out of control, Honoka dominating.

“I don’t think just boobs.” Honoka pushed the dial to 100% Charisma, twelve points.

Diane’s eyes widened when she realized it. Honoka’s breasts jiggled and burst out a few more inches, becoming rounder and firmer and squirting out thin jets of milk. Honoka’s hips widened, her waist narrowed, her skin softening along the hard lines of her toned and muscled body. Her lips pouted a little as they grew juicy and thick. All together, Honoka felt like a heavenly goddess. Diane lost some of her curves, her shirt deflating a bit and the luster of her skin turned dull, but she remained well within the realm of knockout. The last changes caused the succubus to squeal as her pussy stretched further inside of her abdomen, Honoka gaining another four inches (10 cm) in length and three inches (8 cm) in girth, the Beast testing the limits of a succubus’ elastic snatch with a loud rubber rubbing rubber sound filling the room.

It was enough stimulation, because without either of them gyrating Diane came, her body convulsing in a seizure as she reached up and grabbed those milky teats in front of her and cranked hard, showering herself in titty juice as she kept screaming in ecstasy. Honoka joined in as she felt a form of release, an orgasm of her breasts that kept flooding her body as she realized the satisfaction of being milked for the first time. With her strong hands, she grabbed onto Diane’s thighs and braced herself, eventually reaching up and kneading into the pliant flesh under her breasts, pushing more and more milk through to shower Diane in. For minutes this was all they did, locked in climax and relief, until Diane shuddered and went limp and Honoka ran out of milk, her breasts sagging down and draping over the panting succubus.

“That was unexpected,” Honoka gasped out, leaning on Diane as she caught her breath. “I think I need to help Banda the next time she milks, that was intense.”

“Quinn is the most helpful,” Diane replied, her pussy still contracting in the aftershocks and keeping Honoka hard as she sputtered some of the milk out of her mouth and nose, “she grew up in the country and knows how to milk cows.”

“Good to know. Anyway, I wasn’t finished.” Pulling up the last part of her fun experiment - her eye twitching from the pain in her head - Honoka smiled mischievously as she looked down at Diane and put the Size+ tab up to 100%.

“Great googly moogly! AAAAHHH!!” Honoka wasn't cruel or unkind, she researched and researched and asked Diane about the Racial abilities of a succubus over and over before planning this little size experiment. There were documented videos of sixty-five inches (165 cm) tall succubi taking in the mammoth penis of thirty-foot (9.1 m) tall giants. The girls look like fleshlights held in massive hands, yet the videos didn’t end in blood or succubi being torn in half, just girls covered in giant spunk and left with dazed smiles. The vagina of a succubus was a vagoo of holding that fit any cock, no matter the size.

Good thing, too, because Honoka was getting huge.

The former architect was no stranger to math and - partially from her schooling and partly from her fetishes - was familiar with the Square-Cube Law. Simplified, if a creature is doubled in size, they gain four times the strength but now need to move eight times the mass. It is a fast diminishing return where a creature’s size is dictated by physics. That law, of course, still applied; though Status Attributes changed the law into a loose guideline. Not that the ratio changed, only that Strength points were capable of overcoming the previous hard cap on a person’s musculature limits, creating physiologies that worked within the 2:4:8 size/muscle/mass ratio and obtain genuinely frightening proportions.

Between Banda and Padmava - with a few inches from Diane - the Size+ slider added up to an increase of eight feet (2.4 m). Which didn’t translate, as they discovered this morning, into Honoka stretching to thirteen feet ( 4 m) tall and looking like Jack from the Christmas/Halloween stop-motion movie. She proportionally expanded eight feet (2.4 m), her Attributes and Status smoothing over many of the pesky problems physics tried to bring up, like the limits of musculature, bone structure density, heat displacement and oxygen-to-cell-size differences.

All things being equal, the most disorienting thing about Honoka’s adventure was the change in perspective. It wasn’t just that the room suddenly grew smaller, her eyes grew physically larger: she continually adjusted her focus to see properly. Looking at Diane, Honoka got a taste of Hichcock as she experienced a dolly zoom effect before the squirming succubus became eclipsed by chocolate tits. When her head hit the ceiling, Honoka ducked and knelt down, finishing her growth half a minute later. During the growth, she felt the same building expansion as before, her body forming mass from somewhere extradimensional inside herself and pushing outward. And while her musculature wasn’t bulking up, it was increasing in mass amid the sounds of stretching skin Honoka associate with a growing body stretching taut chocolate derma.

“Nnnn! Slower, slower!”

When the allocation petered off, Honoka moved her ginormous boobs out of the way to look down at the Woman Body Balloon. Previously working out the math, Honoka knew her penis was now over four and a half feet (137 cm) long, three and a half feet (107 cm) girthed and a solid fourteen inches (36 cm) diameter at its thickest. She was so large and inside the succubus already that much like when Honoka’s mouth and throat enlarged to consume large foods, Status magic stretching Diane far beyond human dimensions. Yet even magic had its limits. Less than three feet (92 cm) of Honoka’s tree trunk was buried inside, the head of her outlined penis pushing under Diane’s shirt and into her chest cavity. Her pelvis rearranged itself to make the needed room for the veiny black pole thrust up and in, the ascending curve of Honoka’s colossal Beast pushing the succubus’ abdomen inches out, individual veins outlined on her spotted white skin.

The freckled ginger herself looked short of breath and covered in sweat, her eyes wide as she stared up at Honoka. She passed her second orgasm, her pussy quickly contracted even now with female ejaculate trickling out, her tail wrapped around the bottom half of Honoka’s exposed shaft and constricting as hard as possible. Yes, there was some pain there, some shock and fear, but she gave a nod and a hesitant smile as she adjusted herself and shakily pointed double thumbs up.

“Always too scared to try this myself,” Diane said, massaging her stomach up and down and causing Honoka to tremble as she felt it through the taut skin.

Honoka appreciated the immense tightness, so constricting it became painful. It reminded the young woman the few times she tried silicon masturbators. They never sent her one large enough, too small, and all it took was a single ejaculation with the force of a car wreck to tear it apart. Too expensive to use regularly, but the few times she experimented it had been bliss for the young futa.

“Ready to find out what it feels like to be a condom?” Honoka’s voice was as deep as Hellen Shapiro and as loud as a rock concert, forcing Diane to cover her ears, yet the succubus nodded emphatically as Honoka smiled her apology.

The black woman moved one leg up in a ninety-degree position next to the suspended succubus, keeping the other leg under her for support. This raised her high enough to worry about hitting her head, keeping her neck bent and putting her right palm up against the ceiling to brace herself, her left hand reaching down almost entirely around Diane’s waist, her wings gently slotting between Honoka’s giant fingers. From her point of view, intellectually she knew she was over thirteen feet (4 m) in height, but the reality was it felt like the world shrunk. Diane seemed to be two feet (61 cm) tall and felt like she weighed only ten pounds (4.5 kg). Usually, that was still too large and heavy, but with her increased muscles and the help of the swing, Honoka moved the woman up and down her enormous shaft without any trouble.

...hmm.

Honoka wasn’t experiencing much difference in moving Diane along her rod as the minutes went by, causing the muscled giant to subconsciously be a little disappointed. Yes, she was stronger, yes, her tits were large enough to apply for Statehood, but aside from the extremely tight and wet pussy she sloppily moved up and down half her jumbo-sized sausage, it was just good sex. In her mind, maybe she played her fetish up too much and had been expecting some more…whatever, something ethereal. It was like a kid wanting the pretty doll from the commercials and then finally opening the box…it’s just another doll, joining the others in the bin the same day. This disappointment translated into Diane pistoning up and down faster, harder, rougher.

Diane, on the other hand, was losing count how many orgasms she experienced. Beyond control, beyond thinking, the succubus became a limp toy in the palm of her wife. Diane never realized she was such a submissive, how maybe her time in that basement broke her into craving someone to control her life despite her conscious mind emphatically denying it. This was a physiological response to her vaginal canal expanding the length of most of her abdomen and chest, gaining that much more nerve endings shooting pleasure into her brain. After the tenth climax - her body cresting into yet another explosion of ecstasy - the succubus stopped caring and just drifted along, fading in and out of consciousness.

While Honoka plunged Diane up and down her shaft like the succubus was riding a mechanical bull - a furious workout that should have tipped Honoka over the edge already - the expanded Strength and especially Endurance scores had the black giant working Diane for over a half-hour. Perhaps if Honoka paid attention to the time, or wasn’t running through her frustrations and trying to piece them together, she might have been prepared for the onslaught about to transpire. Because everything about Honoka had grown in volume, yet her size came with an exponential capacity of another kind.

It began innocently enough, the puddle of precum underneath her feet that splurted out of Diane with each thrust covered the entire floor in ooze. The dungeon dutifully slurped it up, but Honoka couldn’t see much past her tits, so she didn’t notice even as it lapped at her feet. Next came a gurgling noise, something Honoka thought was her stomach, though since the Change she never heard it make the sound like someone would experience at the site of a Yellowstone geyser. She ignored it, keeping up the fast pace. Soon she felt her whole abdomen contracting and relaxing. Her muscles were now large and robust, so it was not the painful experience she expected, but as she pulled Diane down one last time, she gained an inkling of her mistake.

Honoka felt her penis thicken to almost double its size in a few seconds, the succubus coming out of her stupor to cry out in pain, but the increased capacity wasn’t in the shaft, it was mostly in the urethra, making her cum tunnel an impossible six-inch (15 cm) diameter pipe. When Honoka realized what was happening, she tried to pull Diane off. However, the succubus was still adapting to the unexpected size, stuck in place.

Which is where Diane stayed when Honoka came.

Honoka had become used to her dick fire hosing regularly in the last week, shooting a constant stream of high-pressure jizz. This was an effect of flow rate restricted by the size of her urethra. She was backing up, the pressure forced through a tiny hole, like trying to empty a water tower with a plastic straw. As a giant, though, and with the effects of Banda’s blessing multiplied as well, when Honoka ejaculated it was reminiscent to most of her adult life with a penis, a contraction and gout of sperm shooting out, each contraction bringing another pearly white rope of thick gravy. It was an intense orgasm, and she carefully did not squeeze Diane too hard as her hand clenched and she bit down a yell. To Honoka, it felt rather like a callback to those lunch breaks she would take in the office bathroom and rubbing one out more routine than pleasure.

The reality of the situation was much more extensive and expansive. With a single contraction, forty gallons of cum exploded out of Honoka’s cock moving at twenty miles an hour (32 kph), instantly cumflating Diane to absurd proportions and knocking her out cold with the impact. The second contraction put another forty gallons in her and pushed her off with the help of a semi-tug from Honoka, who absently set the succubus down as her other hand reached down and tried to guide her penis in a direction more towards the floor to limit the damage. Twelve more contractions, each in the realm of forty gallons to sixty gallons, and when Honoka collapsed on the floor, she created a splash, about two inches (5 cm) of splooge flooding the entire room.

In a panic, the giant woman looked over at Diane, but the succubus lay on her back with her head turned up, so she wouldn’t drown, though it was hard to see past the massive beach ball of a stomach the succubus sported at the moment, her twat a veritable waterfall of cum leaking out of it as her body slowly returned to its normal state. Counting herself lucky, Honoka pushed through her headache and post-coital exhaustion to bring all her allocations back to normal, soaking in her own spunk as it absorbed into the floor.

“[You know, some of us were trying to sleep,]” Banda complained on the other side of the door. “[And I don’t want to be a prude, but you need to send out a group text, or else girls are going to end up thrown to the floor by expanding boobflesh and…]” When the holstaur opened the door to the Harmony Room and got her hooves drenched in a river of warm, honey-scented cum like a fast-moving white blob, she ran out of words. Banda only stared at the two women, swimming in spunk, one still shrinking down and the other three times her typical tummy size and leaking a white Viagra Falls out of her cunt. Behind her, Padmava - who had suffered some similar allocation weirdness - forked out her tongue and scrunched up her face at the assault of sexual smell coming from the room and washing into the commons.

“Anyone want lunch?” Quinn called from down the hall, jogging into the shared common room and observing the disaster Honoka and her ginger wife created. Pausing, taking it in, Quinn suddenly stamped her foot with a little squish of girlchowder.

“Poo! Now I reckon’ Diane got the high score!”

********************

Diane was delighted to find out she was the new High Score holder at 58%, though her celebration was subdued by three mid-grade healing potions, a handful of aspirin and a giant bag of ice on her crotch. The succubus cheered weakly from the cushions in her section of the home. Too tired to put on clothing, the succubus just draped a blanket over herself and slowly munched on the delicious tacos Quinn prepared. Cleanup wasn’t so bad, the dungeon loved Honoka’s magic penis butter, though Padmava liberally lit sticks of incense all around the complex to fight the smell of musk and honey.

Eve was next on the schedule, but Banda stepped up and let her sleep for another hour, switching their slots. There was nothing crazy, Honoka tired and suffering from a sensitive dick, Banda renewing the blessings, a tender Missionary on the bed for one orgasm each, 28%. Both worked on quickly washing the room down after. Honoka did promise she would help the holstaur with her evening milking and Banda left skipping, she was so happy. When the goblin roused, the sleepyhead was too tired to do much, sticking a dildo in Honoka’s snatch and mechanically jerking the black woman off. Twenty minutes later, with a double orgasm of both types and the goblin yawning into one hand while the other carefully aimed the love gun into the floor, 19%, Eve went in search of any leftover tacos with a promise to do better tonight, she wanted that High Score.

Honoka was enjoying a soak in one of the smaller baths. The TC aligned in this room gave out hot water mixed with rejuvenating minerals and some mana infusion. The half Japanese woman never experienced a better bath in all of Japan - capital of the world for great baths - and tried to ignore her phone on a stone ledge nearby buzzing, reminding her the meeting with Miaka started soon.

She’s Nihon-jin, she’ll understand, Honoka thought, grumbling as her alarm didn’t care. I wonder if we can do the meeting here?

Honoka eventually relented, splashing up and putting on the clothing she prepared. As she was meeting someone from her homeland and Honoka wanted to make a good impression, the afro-asian woman wore a white kimono with yellow dragons stitched into the silk, the obi a darker gold with blue trim to match her eyes. Honoka even put on some makeup - light pink lipstick and dark blue eyeshadow dusted around her eyelids.

She spent far too long on her hair, eventually settling on a double looped pair of buns that looked cute but also professional. Doing her hair also reminded her there was a patch missing from when Benedict blasted her, but the dark color, only missing some hairs and multiple healing potions since then made her forget about it. Not as much of an emotional wreck as that night, Honoka only pondered if she should cut her hair. Before taking any more time, she wondered if maybe she was overdoing it and hustled down the hallways to the front hosting room of the complex.

Everyone else arrived and were dressed to impress. Padmava and Jaya wore matching sari, the mother naga in red with gold designs and the daughter in gold with red designs. Jaya, when she saw Honoka, held her hands up to her face in a squeal of delight and rushed over, only barely stopped from touching Honoka’s hair by a quick-thinking Padmava.

Diane was upright but walking gingerly, wearing the barely decent Office Slut outfit from earlier that week: white blouse unbuttoned enough to show off the bright red pushup bra peeking through the partially sheer fabric lifting an impressive amount of cleavage topside, black pencil skirt short enough that if she leaned down Honoka was sure everyone would enjoy a magnificent view of a matching red thong, a pair of garters holding up black fishnet all the way down to shiny red pumps. On anyone else, it would have been indecent, but not only was it kind of tame for a succubus, Honoka noticed Diane remained extra careful how she moved around Jaya to keep the girl from seeing too much.

When in public, Eve liked a grunge gothic look. She traded that in today for something approaching more gothic lolita. Wednesday Adams would be proud. While she didn’t have a lot of hair on her head, the goblin usually kept it back in a ponytail. Today she let it out, and it added to the black dress that reached up to her neck with white accents.

Quinn filled a strapless sundress with cartoon cats printed on it, the general coloring scheme a light brown. She wore a strapless bra underneath because her furred puppies were high and tight, the otter girl also wearing a wide-brimmed sun hat and a white scarf tied at her neck. She stood next to a table with drinks and artfully plated sliced fruit. Honoka helped herself to some cantaloupe.

Banda looked slightly odd, her outfit a simple white classical short toga with green and brown trim. Also, evident if she spun too quickly - from her protruding nips to bare butt - commando. When questioned, the embarrassed holstaur woman said this was an official uniform of her Patron Teteoh. She received bonuses for wearing it, but was expected to dress up for formal occasions. Honoka lacked complaints, two vertical cloth wraps loosely holding Banda’s massive mams in place leading down into a skirt belted at the waist, both hips open and bereft of any signs of underwear, the short skirt itself cutting off above mid-thigh and probably only an inch or two away from flashing the room.

The wives didn’t wait long as the door chime rang, Jaya zooming towards the front gate. A few moments later the green naga girl returned, leading what Honoka would describe as an owl person.

“Before you ask or look stuff up on your phone, my race is kikiyaon.” The woman’s voice was accented Japanese and Honoka got giddy hearing those airy tones here in the States. “I’m not a beastkin owl type, and as far as I’ve been able to determine comparing my face to bird websites, I most closely resemble a weird breed of Snowy Owl.”

Exotic would have been the word Honoka used, but who was she to care, married to a cobra naga, a holstaur, a succubus, a goblin and an otter beastkin? Honoka didn’t know much about birds, but she was pretty sure owls didn’t come in bright red with spots of neon blue feathers. Also, unlike most beastkin, she boasted a full head of electric blue hair cut into a ragged pixie, the framing of the do giving her face a more human appearance. Her eyes were huge, shōjo anime huge, and colored a vivid hazel, the blues and greens of her eyes bright and unrealistically primary instead of colors found in humanity. Her mouth was a small black beak poking out of the red down but she spoke without any problem other Races without lips exhibited, likely the beak was in front of a pair of lips hidden under the feathers. She wasn’t very tall, between five feet (152 cm) and five-six (168 cm), and she wore a worn Japanese style of martial art attire that looked like a hakama and keikogi but altered for her Race. The keikogi was black and missing sleeves entirely, a magic rune glowing white over her flat right breast. The lack of sleeves was obviously needed because her arms were longer than average and fanned out both sides of her in dominant red and blue spotted wings that reached almost to the floor and fanned out a foot to either side. Her hands were hidden by the feathers and appeared like golden talons with black claws. With her shoulders bare it was apparent this woman’s arms were nearly as defined as Banda’s, thick traps only partially hidden by the folds of the keikogi. The hakama was black and reached down to her feet, large golden talons and black claws that scrapped into the stone as she walked. Over one shoulder, two metal sticks stuck out while the other shoulder showed a combat shotgun stock. The last was her belt, which looked like a tactical SWAT styled utility and in the hip holster a tanto knife gleamed with mithril silver.

Honoka grew so excited she rushed forward and bowed low with her hands politely crossed in front. “はじめまして!” she shouted, completely forgetting the decorum of welcoming someone into her home.

[Nice to meet you], Miaka replied, giving Honoka a curious look at her dark skin mixed with Japanese features before shrugging and continuing in fluent Japanese. [My name is Watase Miaka. Please take care of me].

[I’m Jefferson Honoka. I’m counting on you]!

“Ahem.”

Honoka wasn’t sure who behind her interrupted, but it caused Honoka to straighten sharply and Jaya to stifle a giggle. “I’m sure you are a busy woman, so if you would be so kind, I will introduce you to my family and we can get down to business.”

Miaka’s feathers around her beak turned up, probably her form of a smile, and she graciously accepted a glass of aam panna. Introductions were quick and straightforward, but what happened after Padmava was introduced made the room fall silent.

Immediately falling on her knees in front of Padmava, Miaka pressed her head directly into the ground and stayed like that for a full minute, the dogeza a traditional form of Japanese bowing used only when pleading for one’s life or other similar depths of despair. Padmava became incredibly confused and moved to help the woman up, but Honoka’s shocked face and small urgent wave stopped her.

“Padmava Nair, I humbly ask that you forgive me, though I do not deserve forgiveness.” Miaka’s head did not lift from the ground. Her face was hidden as she spoke, but there was a tremor in her voice. “Your husband, the good and honorable Arun Nair, whom I considered a friend and mentor, came to me two days before his death and personally asked me to join his raid of the Bone Castle. At the time, I was aligned with my former disgraceful guild and would not accept his offer because I feared I would lose face. Karma and my own lack of enlightenment show me how wrong I was. Forgive me, I beg you please, forgive me.”

No one was sure how to act, what to do. Jaya, possibly the best of them, moved forward and helped Miaka up. It was clear the owl woman was crying inside the torments of Hell. Jaya looked at her and asked the most loving of questions, her childish snake face a mix of sad happiness. “You knew my daddy?”

Chuffing out a laugh past her grief, Miaka nodded. Jaya bent inward to hug the hurting woman. Padmava also joined in the hug and said with gentle understanding, “There is nothing to forgive, but you have my gratitude. My Starlight would never want anyone hurt for his sake. I hope you can always feel welcome in the home he built.”

When the hug ended, an embarrassed Miaka looked around at everyone and scratched the back of her head. “Sorry,” she said bashfully, giving a half-smile, “I’m told I’m a bit of a drama queen.”

“She’ll fit right in,” Eve murmured, elbowing Diane, who promptly swatted the goblin with her wing before stepping forward and offering the Binding Contract with a pen.

“As discussed, before we go any further, here is an NDR in the form of a Contract and necessary before we can work together.”

Miaka didn’t hesitate, going over to the table and flipping to the back page, signing without reading anything to the tune of a few shocked gasps. “If I knew Nair-sama was with you, I would have come sooner. I owe her a debt.”

All things considered, the rest of the meeting was quick and uncomplicated. Diane and Honoka led the discussion, outlining some of the safer (and censored, because of Jaya) aspects of Honoka’s Class and what that meant in practical combat without going into the complete elements of harmonization. Miaka didn’t ask many questions, only a few clarifying details. When the group explained what it meant to fully gain access to all Class advantages of the guild, Miaka politely but firmly declined, happy to join their guild but not willing to marry at this time. With everything finished, the Japanese woman agreed to the terms and left, promising to return late tonight with her things to move into the complex and would be ready to start training bright and early with everyone tomorrow morning.

It was only after the kikiyaon left that a premonition of dread crept into Honoka, her childhood memories of early morning training with her mother still haunting her to this day.