Chapter 50
Issei Hyoudou hadn't had the easiest life. His parents weren't poor, and he lived comfortably, but they had struggled to have children before he came along, and, perhaps as a consequence, they sheltered him a great deal when he was young. He had friends as a child, including one nearby neighbor boy who moved away many years ago, but he'd always felt a certain restlessness, as though there was something inside him just burning to get out that he couldn't understand. That restlessness made him prone to a degree of obsessive behavior, and as a child, he developed a tendency to make whatever toy or show he was focused on at a given time his entire world until he moved on to the next thing. That continued for years until one time, as he was hanging out at a nearby park with some of his friends, he was introduced to what would become his most lasting obsession of all.
"Hey kids," an old man in a long trench coat said, grinning down at them. "You want to see something cool?"
"What is it?" Issei asked.
"The greatest thing in all the world," the old man replied, running his fingers through his long, white beard. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a magazine and opened it for them, earning a chorus of gasps from the boys.
"Holy crap!" one of them exclaimed.
"She's not wearing clothes!" another breathed.
"They...they're beautiful," Issei stammered, his eyes utterly fixated on the woman's round, full breasts.
"They are, aren't they?" the old man chuckled. "Ah, the stories I could tell you kids."
"Stories?" Issei asked, already enthralled.
What followed, before a number of other adults noticed what was going on and chased the man off, beating him with sticks, forever altered the course of Issei's life, giving him an obsession with women's breasts that he never moved on from. In middle school, he met Matsuda and Motohama, two equally perverted boys with whom he could share his obsession.
"Holy shit, it's just like the one that old man showed me years ago," Issei breathed, staring down at the pornographic magazine in Matsuda's hands.
"I swiped it from my brother's room just before he left for university," the curly-haired boy grinned, sounding immensely proud of himself, though as his hair started poking into his eyes, he scowled and brushed it back. "Why the hell can't I just have normal hair like you two?"
"Because your dad's foreign," Motohama replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "If it bugs you so much, why don't you just shave it off?"
"Go bald?" Matsuda asked. "Don't you think I'd look weird?"
"You already look weird," Motohama replied, laughing as Matsuda swiped at him and he ducked under the playful blow. "I'm just saying it would bother you less."
"Her breasts are so amazing," Issei sighed, barely hearing either of them. "What do you think they feel like?"
"Soft, I guess," Motohama replied, "yet kind of firm, too, like water balloons or bags of sand."
"Bags of sand?" Matsuda snickered, and the other boy blushed in embarrassment.
"It's not like you know either," Motohama muttered. "Regardless, I think this girl's breasts are too big."
"Too big?" Issei asked incredulously. "No way! I saw a girl once in a movie whose breasts were bigger than her head. I don't think I've ever been so happy."
"Nah, give me one with tiny titties any day," Motohama replied.
"You're nuts," Issei chuckled.
"There are other girls in here," Matsuda replied, flipping through the magazine.
For the rest of the afternoon, the three friends did little other than stare at it and speculate about girls.
Unfortunately for him, obsessing over girls and their breasts did not translate to being able to talk to them, and Issei found himself rejected at every turn as he tried to ask out the girls in his old school. Matsuda and Motohama fared no better, and just as they were beginning to despair, they learned about Kuoh Academy, an all-girls school that decided to change that policy and allow boys to attend as well. Math was on their side, they thought. They'd drown in babes, they were sure. It hadn't turned out that way, of course, as their basic personalities continued to serve as girl repellent, all until one day when Issei found himself with a girlfriend.
"Man, how the hell did you end up with a total smoke-show girlfriend before either of us?" Matsuda whined later that day as the three of them hung out in his bedroom.
"She just walked right up and asked you out?" Motohama asked in total disbelief. "How does that even happen? Girls don't do that!"
"This one did," Issei grinned, leaning against the wall with his hands behind his head. "Yuuma, even her name is hot."
"Where does she go?" Motohama asked. "How had she even heard of you?"
"I guess she'd just seen me walking around, noticed what a total stud I am, and asked around," Issei chuckled, feeling better than he ever had in his life. "I guess I won't be needing porn for much longer since I'm gonna have the real thing."
Matsuda and Motohama both flinched at that, filled with an all-consuming envy that neither of them stopped to consider for a moment that this was both incredibly unlikely and more than a little suspicious.
The next day was Saturday, and Hermione thought it would be well worth it to take advantage of the day off to try again to create her ring, this time using everything she had learned from Sauron's notes. She hissed as the sharp blade slid across her left palm, cutting a deep slit that would have worried her if she didn't know that she could heal it with ease. The heat coming from the kiln before her was immense but it was nothing that she hadn't become very used to over the past few weeks.
In the center of it was a small pool of molten gold shining in the magical light floating above her, and she couldn't help, despite the numerous precautions she'd taken, feel a little hesitant to take this next step. Taking a slow, steadying breath, she brought her hand over to the kiln and squeezed, watching the blood pour into the gold. Adding liquid to molten metal would normally be a bad idea, but there was nothing normal about this process, and her blood quickly wove itself into the metal.
"It worked," she thought to herself, feeling how the metal that would form her ring seemed to resonate with her own magical signature.
She's been reluctant to take any of these steps before, not wanting to give herself the terrible weakness that Sauron had in creating his ring and being more than a little perturbed by the similarities between it and Voldemort's horcruxes. As she researched the matter, though, she eventually realized that her fears had been misplaced. As a devil, her soul was immutable, and it turned out, as a few devils had learned centuries earlier in trying to find a way to counter the effects of light weapons on them, they could not partition them. She would, by following Sauron's forging process as she had up to this point and pouring her blood into it, bind the ring to herself, but she would not actually place any of her soul into it and would not die if it was taken from her.
That was the theory, anyway, and while she felt confident in her research, she'd still wondered if she was, perhaps, wrong, right up until that moment. Looking inside herself, she noticed no changes, no way in which she'd weakened herself or wounded her soul, and she grinned, feeling more than ready to move forward. Lifting the kiln with a wave of her hand, she poured the blood-infused gold into its mold and set to work weaving the remaining enchantments into it. Once finished, it would be nigh-indestructible as the One Ring was, breakable only if thrown into the molten core of the Underworld, from whence she'd drawn the heat that melted the gold. The red minions had helped her with that, and more than a few of them were watching from the corner, intrigued by the process.
Summoning her hammer, she lifted the rapidly cooling ring from its mold and brought it to her enchanted workbench. There she struck it again and again, using the hammer to weave the last and most important of the enchantments into it. Her minions watched with glee and cackled at the seemingly violent process, but she didn't hear them, having silenced the corner she'd forbidden them from leaving until she was done. Blow after blow from her hammer rained down on the ring, not one of them even denting it, but then, they weren't meant to. It had been shaped in its mold, the runes that she'd carved and enchanted into it having each imbued the initial enchantments into it to strengthen it enough to withstand this process. Nearly twenty minutes of constant hammering passed until it reached the point where all the others had failed, and as she struck it the final time, a blast of concussive force was unleashed which sent the minions flying into the wall and knocked over nearly everything else in its path save for her.
Shielding her eyes instinctively, she snarled, "For fuck's...oh!"
Lying in the middle of her workbench was a small golden ring, unadorned save for the Elven script she hadn't been able to resist inscribing into it.
"It worked," she breathed, holding out her right hand and gasping when the ring flew onto her index finger.
It was still too hot to wear, but that didn't matter where she was concerned. What was bound to her could not hurt her, and she let out a triumphant cry as she felt the power coming from it. This was enchanted to do everything that the gauntlet and helmet Gnarl had wanted her to make and wear was supposed to and more besides. With it, she could summon and command the minions far more easily, and, to her pleasant surprise, she found that she could actually sense them all too. It wasn't too distracting a thing and wouldn't bother her throughout her normal day, but in the back of her mind, she knew instinctively how many minions she had at her command and roughly where they were.
"Mistress?" one of the reds asked, and she smiled as she noticed that it was Bernadette.
"It worked," Hermione announced. "Return to the house at once. Thank you for your assistance."
"Yes, Mistress," they all said before scurrying out of her workshop.
With a wave of her hand she set everything back as it was and teleported back to the Rookery.
The living room looked empty, but she knew that Gnarl was in there somewhere.
"Gnarl?" she called out.
"Dark One?" the Minion Master asked, poking his head up over the couch and as she made her way over, she noticed him counting what looked to be quite a bit of money.
"Gnarl, where did you get all that...is that yuan?" Hermione asked.
"Sirius and I took a little trip up to a delightfully evil little city called Macau the other day," Gnarl replied. "We were quite successful."
"Mac...Sirius?!" Hermione called out, watching as he came downstairs.
"What is it?" Sirius asked.
"You took Gnarl gambling?" Hermione asked.
"I was the one gambling, though I don't know if it actually counted," Sirius chuckled. "It turns out, for some reason, that the enchantments that magical governments set up in muggle casinos to stop wizards and witches from robbing them blind and drawing too much attention to themselves don't work on minions at all. I disillusioned him and gave him shoes enchanted to let him float around, and he helped me cheat my arse off the entire day. It was great."
"The depths of despair we drove more than a few gambling-addicted humans into warmed the cockles of my heart," Gnarl sighed happily.
"You still could have easily gotten caught," Hermione growled, and Sirius chuckled.
"Relax, Hermione," he said. "I was careful not to make it too obvious that I was cheating, lost enough not to draw any unwanted attention, and while we made off like bandits, I made sure not to get too greedy."
"Why did you even do this?" Hermione asked, shaking her head. "You're not exactly hurting for money."
"Sirius introduced me to poker, and I asked him to show me one of the great gambling cities," Gnarl replied.
"It was Macau or Vegas, and I really didn't want to have to deal with the Yanks," Sirius replied. "MACUSA is bloody awful, trust me."
"China's magical government is better?" Hermione asked, genuinely curious.
"China's magical population is among the smallest in the world," Sirius replied. "Apparently a bunch of them got killed about thirty to forty years ago; no idea why, and while I could still sense the charms I expected around the casinos we checked out, I didn't come across any wizards or witches while we were there."
"I have quite a few ideas that I could let you use...is that the ring?" Gnarl asked, his golden eyes focusing in on her right hand, and Hermione smiled.
"It's done," she replied, showing it off.
"Excellent," Gnarl grinned, jumping to his feet. "Would you like to try it out?"
"What do you have in mind?" Hermione asked.
"Right this way, Ma'am," Gnarl replied, leading her down into the basement. "The existing minions are still mostly in the Underworld, living in that home Mistress Rias' parents let them use, but I took the liberty of having a few go out hunting the other day and sacrifice the animals they brought back in here."
"Why?" Hermione asked.
"For the life force, Dark One," Gnarl replied. "If that ring does all that it should, you'll be able to harvest and transmit life force directly into the hives here and then summon new minions through gates from there, but while it was unfinished, I figured it would be best to keep some on hand here. I sent the greens specifically, and they were not spotted, I promise."
"Alright," Hermione replied. "What do I do?"
"Reach out towards one of the hives and will a minion to come forth," Gnarl replied, and she nodded, reaching out with her right hand.
The ring began to shimmer as she focused her will on the brown hive, and she barely resisted the urge to gasp. She could feel the hive, feel the swirling life energy thundering within it. She couldn't feel the specific animals that had been killed to get it, as it was more as though she was feeling the essence of life itself, completely devoid of characteristics. It was warm and soothing, pleasant in a way that she couldn't really quantify, and just as she thought that she'd gotten a grasp of just what she was feeling, out popped a brown minion.
"Very good, Dark One," Gnarl beamed. "Try summoning one from each of the other hives."
She did so, reaching out to each of them one by one and summoning a red, green, and blue minion to join the brown one looking up at her in awe. With each one it became easier, the process quickly becoming automatic, and she knew instinctively that this was going to be incredibly easy for her before long. Once she'd summoned the minions, she sent them back into the hives and grinned down at her ring.
"That ring has improved your control over them at least as well as the gauntlet would have," Gnarl replied. "I still think that a suit of armor capable of striking fear into your enemies would have been better, but…"
"Don't go off to another country without my permission again, or I will be very displeased," Hermione hissed, and Gnarl smiled widely up at her.
"Needs a little work but not bad for your first threat," he tittered. "I will, of course, obey you, Overlady."
"Why did you want to check out casinos anyway?" Hermione asked.
"Because I think gambling could be a great source of income, influence, and power for you, Ma'am," Gnarl breathed. "I put together a little presentation that I think you'll find quite interesting if you have another moment to spare."
Hermione closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, wondering just what the ancient minion had in mind.
"Okay, let's hear it," she sighed, following upstairs.
"Black or grey," Issei muttered to himself as he stared into the bathroom mirror. "Black or grey. Oh, this is stupid; it's not like Yuuna's actually going to care about the color of my jacket. But what if she does? She's a chick; chicks are into fashion. Damn it!"
"Issei?" Miki, his mother, called out. "Is everything alright in there?"
"Mom!" he exclaimed in his mind. "She's a woman."
"Hey, Mom, um, could I get your opinion on something?" he asked, opening the door.
"What are you all dressed up for?" Miki asked. "You didn't get into any trouble, did you?"
"What? No, nothing like that," Issei replied. "I have a date and…"
"I'm sorry, what?" his mother asked, her jaw dropping.
"Yeah, I asked a girl out...kind of, and I have a date," Issei replied. "I was wondering if the black or the grey jacket looked better."
"Are you feeling okay?" Miki asked, pressing her hand against his forehead to check his temperature. "Because I swear you just said you have a date and…"
"I do, Mom," Issei muttered. "Her name is Yuuma, and she…"
"Oh!" Miki exclaimed, looking more excited than he'd ever seen her. Whipping around, she ran downstairs and yelled, "Gorou! Gorou! It's finally happened! Our son has a date with a girl!"
"What?" his father asked. "For real?!"
"Ugh," Issei groaned, banging his head against the wall. "I know they don't like how perverted I can be, but is it really so strange that I...oh, who am I kidding? Of course it is. I reacted the same way yesterday."
Shaking his head, he looked back in the mirror, checking the two jackets again, and decided that he preferred the grey one.
"I just hope she does," he thought to himself, and as he went to put the other one away, he noticed something sticking out of the pocket of the pants he'd changed out of.
Pulling it out, he smiled when he saw what it was.
"I don't get why they hand out these weird flyers," he thought to himself. "'Your wish will be granted.' Yeah, well my wish has already…"
"Wait a minute, maybe this thing is why Yuuma asked me out," Issei breathed, staring down at it in shock. "Holy shit, if this has been my good luck charm, then I absolutely need to take it with me."
Pocketing the flyer, he put his other jacket away and hoped more than anything that he wasn't going to screw this date up.
"Fuck," Harry grunted, letting go and spilling a load into Fleur's eager mouth.
The Veela, whose beautiful blue eyes hadn't left his through the entire slow, leisurely blowjob, practically purred as she swallowed every drop of his seed. Letting his softening cock slip from her lips, she kissed the tip, making his legs shake, and giggled, nuzzling his thigh with her cheek.
"You enjoyed that, I trust?" she asked softly, staring adoringly up at him.
"If I had known fucking your mother would make you this happy, I'd have suggested it weeks ago," Harry chuckled, setting down his pen, and she grinned.
"All done?" she asked.
"I think I rewrote the same line a few times back there, but yes," Harry replied, standing up and putting his homework away. "I had no idea that blowjobs could make me so much more productive with my schoolwork."
"I told you to trust me," Fleur grinned. "I am your school nurse, after all, and if I prescribe something, I expect you to take it seriously."
"I put myself in your capable hands," Harry chuckled.
"Harry?" Koneko asked. "Could I speak to you?"
"Come in!" Fleur called out before he could say anything, and the nekomata opened his door only to freeze when she saw that he wasn't wearing pants and Fleur was completely naked.
"I…" she stuttered, and Akeno chuckled behind her.
"Oh, go in," she said softly. "It's nothing you haven't seen before."
"That is true," Fleur smiled, sitting down on Harry's bed. "I remember all too well the time I looked over to see you watching us. You looked so cute and so very sexy."
"Sexy?" Koneko asked.
"What's going...guys," Rias muttered as she joined them.
"It's okay, Rias," Koneko sighed. "What I have to say concerns all of you anyway."
She walked in, followed closely by Akeno, and Rias and Luna joined right after, closing the door behind them.
"Where's 'Ermione?" Fleur asked.
"Trying to make her ring again," Luna replied, walking up and pulling the Veela down for a deep, passionate kiss. "Mmm, I thought you had that 'I just drank Harry's cum' glow."
"It is delicious," Fleur purred, pulling the blonde into her lap.
"You're all just like this, huh?" Koneko asked.
"I know we can seem a little over the top at times, but…" Rias went to say, but the white-haired girl shook her head.
"I meant happy," Koneko said, "and comfortable. Sex, as it turns out, is fucking awesome, but...that's what I really envy most about all of you."
"It is when you're with someone who's good at it," Fleur smiled. "I'm glad that your first time was so wonderful."
"It was," Koneko said, leaning against the wall. "Thank you, all of you, for giving me space afterward."
"None of us wanted to push you into anything that you weren't ready for," Harry assured her, and she gave him a slight smile.
"I know you all know what happened to me, so I won't waste time repeating it, but I've lived in fear of myself for a long time now," Koneko said. "I never saw what happened to my sister coming, and the idea that the same thing could happen to me, that I could just lose it and become a feral beast, terrified me like nothing ever has, even when it looked like the devil council was going to kill me for what she'd done. I froze myself emotionally, thinking that if I just didn't feal that whatever animal instinct drove her nuts could never happen to me. I let myself feel with you, though, Harry, and it...I was okay."
"You are," Rias said softly, smiling at her. "You're not your sister, Koneko. You're your own person, your own devil, your own nekomata."
Koneko let her ears and tail show at that, and Luna did her best to muffle her squeak at the sight.
"I am," she replied, looking down at herself. "I'm not going to pretend that part of me still doesn't fear that I could lose it, but I allowed myself to feel, and the world didn't end, so I'd like to try that out again, maybe not now, but down the line."
"It will be okay," Luna smiled, walking up and taking one of her hands in hers. "If you don't want to jump straight into our orgies, maybe a hug would be a good next step. I know it's a step down from sex with Harry; everything is, really, but a good, warm hug is always nice."
"Sure...oof!" Koneko exclaimed as the deceptively strong blonde pulled her in and hugged her tightly.
"We'll take good care of you," Luna whispered, gently scratching behind her ears. "May I pet you?"
"Sto...oh, fuck," Koneko moaned, feeling her stress melt away as Luna started scratching her scalp.
"Come," Luna said, flying her onto the bed and continuing to scratch her gently. "Could I scratch your back too?"
"Do whatever you want to me," Koneko sighed, feeling so relaxed she thought she might start purring as Luna's magic fingers continued to drive her right into nirvana.
The blonde removed her shirt the next moment, leaving her cute little bra on, and, after laying her down onto her belly, began to scratch her back like her mother used to do for her.
"So how long have you wanted to do that for?" Akeno giggled.
"Since I saw her cat ears the first time," Luna replied, beaming as Koneko started purring.
Harry chuckled and shook his head, saying, "So I don't have anything else to do today. Rias, do you want me to shadow one of you on a summoning, or do you think we won't get any today?"
"To be honest, it wouldn't shock me if we didn't, given what a nice day it is out," Rias replied, peering out the window. "I…"
"I did it," Hermione announced, walking in and showing off her ring.
"Really?" Harry asked.
"Congratulations," Akeno smiled, taking her hand and looking at the ring. "It looks like a wedding band."
"It's a pretty simple ring," Hermione nodded. "If I stick it in fire, some Elven words appear, but otherwise it's quite ordinary."
"What do they say?" Luna asked without looking back at her, and Hermione noticed the half-dressed, purring Koneko for the first time and cocked an eyebrow at Rias.
"A bit of a breakthrough," the redhead murmured.
"It reads 'knowledge is power' written repeatedly," Hermione replied. "I couldn't think of anything else, but I wanted to inscribe something on it just because of what I took inspiration from. I'm not enough of a poet to come up with anything like the inscription on Sauron's ring."
"You've tested it out?" Rias asked, and she nodded.
"Yeah, I ran into Gnarl downstairs and tested it out on the hives," Hermione replied. "I'll have to test them out against an enemy at some point."
"You might get your chance soon," Rias said, and all the others, even Koneko, turned to look at her.
"Did one of you find more evidence of the fallen angels?" Harry asked.
"No," Rias replied. "My brother sent word this morning, though, that a stray devil was tracked to a town near here, and he thinks she might be on her way."
"She?" Koneko asked, instantly on alert, and Rias shook her head.
"It's not Kuroka," she replied. "I check with Grayfia pretty regularly, and there haven't been any signs of her since that night. From what he told me was this stray is female and had a particularly bad reaction to the evil pieces."
"How bad?" Fleur asked.
"Her lower body was transformed into a bizarre, centaur-like form," Rias replied. "She was human originally."
"I imagine she's less than pleased by that," Hermione said.
"She's apparently gone quite insane," Rias replied. "He said she calls herself Viser and that, if she comes here, she's likely to burrow herself into somewhere dark and vast and start feeding on the locals. We'll all need to keep our eyes peeled for any signs of trouble for the next little while."
"For both this stray and potential fallen angels," Harry muttered. "Fun."
"This Viser could be a good test for the minions," Hermione murmured, tapping her fingers on the desk, "and something I'd much rather involve them in than a vast criminal enterprise."
"What?" Rias asked, and she sighed.
"Sirius introduced Gnarl to poker, which led to a surprisingly in-depth discussion of muggle gambling rings, which led to him learning about the wonders of organized crime," Hermione muttered. "Now he wants me to ask you if we could buy up some casinos so that we could have easy access to a host of desperate souls for contract purposes in the hopes that it will eventually lead to me running a massive vice empire that spans the globe."
Rias laughed out loud at that as the others all looked at her in surprise.
"At least he's creative," Harry chuckled.
"Oh, is he ever," Hermione muttered. "As he was researching illegal gambling, he came across stories of fight fixing and came up with a detailed plan about how we could reduce all sports around the world to fuel for a massive gambling ring meant to siphon money from poor people until they become so desperate that they'd agree to any deal we devils offered them. When I pointed out that sports gambling is illegal almost everywhere and this would be a huge pain in the ass to maintain, he just said, and I quote, 'just bribe the human leaders until they legalize it.' The sad thing is I think that it might work."
"Oh, it would take a while, but I'm sure it could," Rias murmured. "Widespread legal sports gambling could be worse for the population of Earth than any drug. My mother would honestly be impressed by his vision."
"Well, I told him that I'm not going to even consider getting into that until after I graduate," Hermione replied. "I figure that will give me a few years to redirect his focus."
"Why don't you just tell him no, outright?" Luna asked.
"Because then he'll try to change my mind until I order him not to, and I'm trying to keep direct orders to a minimum," Hermione replied. "I didn't ask to be made master of an entire species, and I'm still far from comfortable with the idea. I imagine you went through the same thing with the master-servant..."
She trailed off at that, but it was too late, and Koneko, sensing that she'd just heard something she wasn't supposed to have, perked immediately.
"Master what now?" she asked and Rias glared at Hermione.
"The master-servant contract is a thing from another world that Harry used first on me, unwittingly, and then on most of the others," she replied as the brunette projected her apology into her mind.
"It's a pact that binds two people in, at least the way we do it, a sexual, magical relationship," Harry added. "When they trigger the punishment of the pact, they become incredibly horny until they call me master and submit."
"Kinky," Koneko said flatly. "Why do I sense that you didn't want me to learn about this?"
"The servant in the pact is more thoroughly bound to the master than any of you are to me," Rias sighed, figuring that the cat was out of the bed and wishing she could be amused by that turn of phrase. "Harry doesn't abuse his authority with us, but even I could run into trouble if I directly disobeyed him."
"It's why I generally make sure not to order any of them about, not wanting to accidentally trigger it," Harry said, and Koneko just stared at him with her jaw hanging open.
"So if you order them to do something and they don't, they get hit with debilitating arousal until they submit to you, and none of you jerks were planning to tell me about this at all?" Koneko demanded, giving Rias a betrayed look. "This would be perfect for me! Bind me; bind me right now!"
"That's why I didn't tell you!" Rias hissed. "I don't want you trading one crutch for another. The only way that you're ever going to heal is if you learn to actually trust yourself as much as we all trust you."
"It also can't be done except on the full moon," Luna added.
"You...really trust me that much?" Koneko asked slowly.
"Yes," Rias replied. "When you asked me before you slept with Harry the first time to promise you that I'd do whatever it took to stop you from hurting any of us if you tried, even up to killing you, I agreed because I knew that I'd never need to keep it. You've adjusted as well as anyone in this room to the gift of Devilry, Koneko. It doesn't matter that you're a nekomata or that things went so tragically wrong with your sister because you're you, you're strong, and I dearly hope that you manage to see that some day."
The two of them both went quiet at that, and after a moment, Fleur broke the silence by humming a soft little tune that calmed them all downright.
"I never would have slept with him, even with how much you were all driving me nuts with the constant sex, if I didn't at least mostly trust that letting myself feel and indulge in my desires like that wasn't going to drive me off of the deep end," Koneko said. "When I say that I want this, and I do want it, it's for the same reason that I only agreed after you promised to put me down if I became a threat to you all. I'm not as terrified as I used to be that I might lose it like Kuroka did, but I don't think I'll ever fully quiet the little voice in the back of my mind that keeps saying that it could happen, that at any point I could snap and become just like her. You want me to trust myself, and I do more than I used to, but I can't really relax, not fully, but with this, with this little bit of insurance, I could let go completely. I could be one hundred percent normal; is that not worth it?"
"Rias," Akeno said softly. "It might help her, and it can always be undone if she wants to and feels like she could trust herself without it."
"I will think about it," the crimson-haired devil sighed, so tense that she actually flinched when Luna touched her shoulder. "Now, it's going to be winter soon, and I think it would do all of us some good to take advantage of the warmth while we still can."
"I think that would be lovely," Luna smiled. "How about we explore the town and you show off some of the nicer parts we haven't seen yet?"
"Sounds like a plan," Harry murmured, and Rias nodded, eager to put a pin in that conversation for the time being.
"I think it suits you," Yuuma giggled as Issei held a shirt displaying the bare chest of an almost comically ripped man.
"You think?" he asked with a laugh, amazed at how relaxed he felt around her.
He'd been a stammering idiot when he first saw her, trying and failing to get out that he thought she looked great, and all it had taken was a giggle and a compliment in return to set his mind at ease. He'd never been on a date before, and neither had either of his closest friends, so he'd had to rely on his imagination and things he'd read before for ideas, but he thought he'd come up with some good ones, and Yuuma seemed to be enjoying herself so far.
The romantic stroll through the town seemed to have gone well, and when she'd stopped by a clothing shop and suggested they go, though he'd read often enough that taking women shopping, especially for clothes, could be torture, so far he had concluded that everyone who ever said so was either lying or a moron. Taking women clothes shopping meant that they had to change into the clothes to try them on, which meant they had to undress in the change room, which meant they were stripping down mere feet away from him.
"This is great!" he thought to himself as she returned to the change room, already undoing the buttons of the latest shirt she'd tried on. As she turned, he got just the faintest glimpse of the purple bra she was wearing and swore that he might faint.
She returned a moment later, back in what she'd been wearing before, and set the muscle shirt down, saying, "Actually, I changed my mind. I much prefer you as you are."
She grazed her fingers against his barely-existent bicep as she said that, and he had to turn away to hide his erection.
"As fun as this is, none of it seems to be my style," Yuuma said, and he swore for a moment that her voice grew a little deeper for a second, though he quickly dismissed it.
"I'd feel bad if I didn't get something, at least," Issei said, looking around and smiling when he saw a bunch of scrunchies. Picking up a purple one, he asked, "What about this? It would match your eyes."
"Dude, that was totally smooth!" he thought to himself, smiling when Yuuma looked surprised for a moment.
"Well, if you insist on getting me something, I suppose it would be rude to object," she purred, and he had to turn away again.
The two of them continued on from there, her scrunchie around her wrist, and he smiled every time he looked at it, thrilled that he'd actually picked out something she liked. Their impromptu shopping trip had taken a lot longer than he thought, and he feared for a moment that the place he intended to take her for dinner might be full, but, to his relief and joy, they had a table available, and he tried not to grin like an idiot when she sat across from him and leaned forward, giving him an amazing view of her supple breasts.
"Order anything you like," he smiled.
"So the wagyu feast is okay?" she asked, sounding completely serious, and he froze. She burst out laughing a moment later and said, "Relax, Issei, I'm just kidding."
"I love your laugh," Issei breathed, and as she smirked in reply, he thought for a moment that her eyes seemed to harden and grow colder, but as he blinked, she looked completely normal, and he just smiled.
He didn't think he tasted his meal at all, utterly focused as he was on his date, and before he knew it, he'd paid for everything and was watching her finish her ice cream as he sipped on his sweet tea.
"So your family just moved here?" Issei asked as she finished telling him about Osaka, where she'd apparently lived before.
"Yeah, an opportunity arose that was too good to pass up, and we moved," Yuuma replied. "It's been a bit of an adjustment, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terribly bored at first, but I'd say things are looking up."
"Really?" Issei asked, taking a drink, and she grinned.
"Yeah, I met this really cute guy, and we seem to have really hit it off," Yuuma purred, and he choked.
As they finished up, he decided to take her to the nearby park and, as they entered it, felt brave enough to take her hand.
"Holy shit, this has gone great!" he thought to himself as he saw her blush prettily. "I've always loved this park."
"It is quite pretty," Yuuma murmured, sounding suddenly bored as they neared the fountain that lay at its center.
"It's also where I was introduced to my greatest passion in life," Issei thought to himself, peering over at cleavage as subtly as he could.
Yuuma suddenly pulled her hand out of his and rushed forward towards the fountain before turning around to smile at him.
"Issei, there's something I'd like you to do for me," she grinned, "in honor of our first date."
"She wants me to kiss her! This rocks!" Issei exclaimed in his mind. As she walked back towards him, he said, "Of course; I'll do anything you want."
She grinned up at him, her violet eyes suddenly turning icy and her gaze almost cruel as she said, "Would you die for me?"
"Wha...what?" Issei asked, blinking in confusion and wondering if he'd somehow misheard her.
"Thanks for today," Rias sighed, moaning as Harry slowly and firmly brought his thumbs up along her right sole.
The two of them were alone on her bed, having just returned from their day of exploring Kuoh.
"You needed to get your mind off of things," he replied, "and with the others all scattering to do their own things, I figured the two of us could just have a relaxing day on the town."
"You're so good at that," Rias moaned, leaning back and stretching her arms over her head.
As she did so, her left foot grazed against his cock, and he groaned, earning a smirk from her.
"One of my many inherent gifts," Harry grinned. "I didn't realize it at first, and Leviathan didn't tell me about it, but as an incubus, I can sense any tension in the body of someone I touch and instinctively know how to relax it."
"Really?" Rias asked, intrigued.
"Mmhmm," Harry replied. "I couldn't tell from all of you since you rarely have any tension in you at all…"
"With how often and how very well you fuck the life out of us, I can't say I'm surprised," Rias purred, her eyes darkening with lust as she stared at him.
Harry grinned at that and started gently tugging on her toes one by one. His cock throbbed at the breathy sigh she let out, and as he switched to the other foot, he said, "At the risk of making you tense again, I would like to know why you're so resistant to the idea of me binding Koneko with the Master-Servant Contract."
Rias sighed and scowled at the ceiling.
"She's never going to get better until she finally accepts that she isn't her sister and never will be," the redhead replied. "I don't know what went wrong with Kuroka; maybe she was just unstable from the start, and turning into a devil was ill-advised in general; maybe something went wrong with the process, or maybe her master did something to set her off, but whatever it was, I've seen no signs of danger in Koneko. The reason I didn't tell her what the contract did before today was that I knew damn well that she'd jump at it, and I won't have her impede her own progress by just finding a new crutch."
"Rias, I don't think you're giving her enough credit here," Harry argued. "If this was still a month ago when she was desperately trying not to feel anything out of fear, I'd agree completely, but she has made progress…"
"Progress that could be completely undone here," Rias muttered, pulling her feet back and getting out of bed. "If we do this, she'll be relying on you rather than herself, and she could easily slip back into just going through the motions rather than living her life, falling into a comfortable, numbing malaise like she had all this time."
"I know that, and I love how deeply you care for all your servants and their well being but I think you're wrong about what this would mean for her," Harry said, standing up.
Rias glared at him, getting increasingly annoyed, and muttered, "I've known her for over a year now, Harry, and in all that time I have slowly, patiently coaxed her back to a mental state where she doesn't loathe herself just for being what she is. I don't understand why you seem to think that after only knowing her for about two months, you know her better than I do."
"Because I know what it's like to live in a state of constant fear, and, frankly, you don't," Harry said. Sighing, he added, "At the risk of offending you, you're a bloody princess, Rias. Aside from the camel incident, prior to your forced engagement to Riser, had you truly known anything like the hardship Koneko's gone through?"
"I understand what a nightmare it was for you between the point where your name came out of that goblet and when you summoned me, but…" Rias went to say, and Harry shook his head.
"That's not what I meant," he replied. "The tournament sucked, and I was sure for weeks that I was going to die, but that's still not the most scared I've ever been."
Despite her annoyance, Rias softened immediately when she saw the haunted look in his eyes, and she took one of his hands in hers, rubbing it soothingly as she whispered, "Talk to me."
"My relatives didn't beat me," Harry said, staring off at nothing. "The abuse was never that bad, but I was disciplined frequently enough and more than that, I knew that they really didn't like me. I slept in a cupboard under the stairs growing up while the spare bedroom upstairs was given to my cousin's extra toys."
Rias pressed her lips into a thin line, rage welling inside her, but she said nothing, just continuing to ghost her fingers over his forearm as she waited for him to continue.
"Any time I messed things up, they'd become angry, but worse than that, any time that something weird happened around us, they became furious," Harry whispered. "It was accidental magic; I know that now, but I didn't then. All I knew was that at any moment in any day something might happen that would set them off."
"I'm going to enjoy helping my father torment them down the line," Rias hissed, and he chuckled, kissing her forehead.
"Like you said, you don't know what set Koneko's sister off, and neither does she," Harry whispered. "All she knows is that one day everything was fine and the next, her sister was gone, having murdered the devil that took them in, and powerful people suddenly wanted to kill her for fear that she'd go the same way. I understand that, in a way, that fear that something around you that you don't understand could hurt you at any moment and you'd be powerless to stop it. She meant it when she said that a small part of her would always fear that she was going to snap and hurt one of us, and she's probably right."
"I just want to make her all better," Rias muttered, and he chuckled, hugging her.
As she wrapped her arms around him, Harry said, "I know you do, and I love that about you, but while you can work to help people through trauma, even with your powers you can't just destroy it."
"You really think this would be good for her?" Rias asked.
"I think it wouldn't be bad for her," Harry replied. "Would it be a bit of a crutch? Yeah, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Numbing herself and going through life as a living robot was an unhealthy coping mechanism, to put it mildly, but this wouldn't be the same thing. If knowing deep down that she'd never be allowed to hurt anyone she cares about is what it takes to get her to start letting go and truly living rather than just existing, would it really be so bad? It can be undone in a year, or even a century if, by then, she's reached a place where she doesn't think she needs it anymore."
"Admittedly, that doesn't sound too bad," Rias murmured. "After spending so much time working to help her move past what happened, I guess I just sort of feared that this would make her regress."
"I won't say that it isn't a possibility, but I will say that learning that those strange things around me were magic and that I could control them brought me peace on a level I can barely explain," Harry replied. "She's taken some big steps forward recently, and this could be what she needs to take more."
"The fact that you'd be regularly fucking her has nothing to do with this argument at all, of course," Rias teased, and he chuckled.
"You're the one who almost said outright that my penis had magic healing powers," Harry replied, and she burst out laughing.
"You know, I think this was our first true fight as a married couple," Rias said.
Furrowing his brow, he murmured, "I don't know if it truly counts as a fight. A minor argument, maybe…"
"If it was a fight, it means we can have makeup sex," Rias purred.
"A terrible fight," Harry said immediately. "I don't know how we even survived it."
Rias laughed at that and kissed him hungrily, snaking her arms around his neck. He returned the kiss with equal passion, walking her back to the bed and grunting when she fell back and pulled him on top of her.
"A princess, am I?" the redhead asked, running her hands over his neck and jaw.
"Your brother is pretty much the king around here, and your ancestor runs the council," Harry replied, brushing her hair behind her ears and gazing lovingly into her eyes. "If that doesn't make you a princess, I don't know what would. At any rate, you're my princess."
She gasped and moaned when he pressed his lips to her neck and started nibbling on her earlobe. Squirming under him, she felt heat pool in her core, the hot kisses he was trailing up and down her neck lighting a fire in her. Their clothes disappeared with a wave of her hand, and she gasped as he started grinding his rock-hard cock along her already slick folds. She trailed her hands over his broad shoulders and thick biceps, and as she slid them along his back, she couldn't help but comment.
"Fuck, your workouts are starting to really pay off," Rias moaned, and he chuckled, moving back onto his knees and giving her a good view of his body.
He had been training seriously for nearly a year at that point, and while for a normal human that wouldn't have given him a physique quite like what he'd developed, as a devil and an incubus at that, he had put on some serious muscle. He was still lean rather than bulky, and Rias bit her lower lip as she stared at his well-defined abs, wanting little more just then than to trace each one with her tongue.
"I think you might just be enjoying your view as much as I'm enjoying mine," Harry smiled, taking one of her bare legs in his hands and pressing her lips to her sole.
Rias gasped and squirmed as he started kissing his way down along her leg, tracing her calf, knee, and inner thigh with his lips. He moved slowly, teasingly, his eyes never leaving hers, and he throbbed with need when he started to smell the sweet arousal wafting from her hot, wet pussy.
"Harry," Rias moaned, gasping when he started planting hot kisses all over her hairless mound.
"You smell so fucking good," Harry rumbled, spreading her nether lips open with his thumbs and staring at her pussy.
The fleshy pink folds were every bit as beautiful to him as he'd thought they were the first time he saw them, and her clit, engorged and poking out from its hood, almost beckoned to him, but he decided to avoid it for the time being, looking lower. Her little rosette quivered under his heated gaze, her inner muscles clearly already starting to clench and unclench as her desire overwhelmed her.
"You're so fucking wet already," he grinned, watching as a drop of her tangy fluids dripped from her quivering cunt and fell across her asshole.
Time almost seemed to slow for him as he watched that droplet covetously, seeing it slide down across her perfect skin, and her strangled cry when his tongue darted out to collect it made his cock pulse almost painfully. He split it down the middle, giving him a forked tongue worthy of what he was, and began to devour her holes greedily.
"Shit!" Rias shrieked, clenching her thighs around his head and kneading her massive breasts as he alternated between making his tongue dance through her sensitive folds and swirl around her ass.
He spread her thighs apart with his large, strong hands and grinned up at her, his green eyes nearly black with lust.
"I could spend hours with my head between your thighs, baby," Harry rumbled. "Maybe I will."
"Or you could...gah!" Rias shrieked, feeling the two halves of his tongue envelop her clit.
He wrapped his lips around it too and began to alternate between sucking on the throbbing nub and massaging it with his tongue. Rias didn't know which she preferred, and soon enough she was struggling to remember her own name, something that he made even worse by pushing two of his thick fingers inside her, stretching her tunnel open and making her cry out in pleasure.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh...yes!" Rias screamed, her eyes rolling back when he pushed a finger into her ass as well.
She let her breasts go, clawing at the sheets on either side of her for dear life as though she feared she might float away otherwise. Her body was so tense, the pressure in her core becoming almost unbearable as she soared higher and higher towards a blistering peak. He knew her body like the back of his hand, had known it that well even before he became an incubus, and it rarely took him much time at all to get her from barely aroused to squirming and begging for more.
"Make me cum, please make me cum, baby," Rias begged.
"How do you want it?" Harry asked, his forked tongue reaching out and brushing so perfectly over her clit that her ass bounced off the bed for a moment.
"I don't care!" Rias exclaimed. "Anything, please!"
"Mmm, dealer's choice," Harry grinned. "So many fun options that gives me."
Part of him wanted to speak Parseltongue against her clit, knowing that that never failed to make her scream, but he decided against it, wanting to test something else out. Lowering his head back down, he pushed his forked tongue inside her quivering tunnel and moaned at how intensely he could taste her like this.
Luna had asked Leviathan the last time they summoned her if Harry needed to consume vaginal fluids to survive, having read erotic stories about incubi that had such a requirement and the ancient devil had been both amused and baffled by the question, wondering how, if that was true, we wouldn't have already known. When the blonde pointed out that she didn't think he'd gone a day without eating at least one of them out since long before he became an incubus, Leviathan had merely giggled and said no, looking at Harry in amusement.
"So I love doing it," he thought to himself. "Sue me."
From the way he could make them squirm and beg him during it, to the looks of tired adoration that they always gave him afterward, to even the tangy, salty, musky taste of them, there wasn't a single thing about the act that he didn't adore, and this was no different. He pushed his tongue, so much longer and more dexterous than most, further and further in until he found the rough, spongy patch that was her g-spot and started brushing his tongue against it, taking full advantage of the fork of it so that he was massaging the sensitive spot constantly.
"Fucking hell!" Rias cried, grabbing the headboard above her head and squeezing so hard she feared she might shatter the magically reinforced wood. "Don't stop; don't you dare stop. That feels so good!"
Harry grinned, his eyes not leaving her beautiful face for a moment, and he watched her turn redder and redder as she barreled towards her orgasm. He could have made her cum instantly, he knew, but he wanted to build up to it, wanted to watch her grow more and more desperate for the coming release. His tongue was in constant motion, massaging her g-spot like he'd massaged her feet earlier with firm, unceasing pressure, and just as her back staretd to arch off of the bed, her entire body drawn taut as a bowstring, he spoke a single word in Parseltongue and watched her whole world become nothing but ecstasy.
"Cum," he hissed, and her orgasmic wail was so loud it made him glad that her thighs were pressed against his ears.
"HARRY!" Rias squealed at the top of her lungs, cumming so hard she squirted all over him.
He kept going, reciting entire love sonnets to her in Parseltongue to keep his tongue vibrating inside her as Rias's screams grew louder and louder. Wave after soul-searing wave of pleasure thundered through her entire body, making her vision go spotty and her mind go blank. A chain of orgasms rocked her one after the other, seeming like one long, unending cycle of ecstasy, and by the time Harry finally relented, she could barely think.
"Rias, you okay?" he asked, smiling widely down at her, and she giggled.
"I'm...perfect," Rias panted.
"You are," Harry replied, kissing her softly and cocking an eyebrow at her when she started giggling again.
"You taste...like pussy," Rias panted, finding that hilarious for some reason.
Harry laughed and settled down on his back next to her, pulling her in until her head was resting on his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, he spent the next several minutes alternating between brushing her hair with his fingers and lazily doodling on her back with them while waiting for her to come down from her high. She nearly passed out in his arms; the combination of his warm body under her, his fingers soothing her, and the floaty feeling her mind was locked in was absolute bliss for her, but after a little while she returned to normal and kissed him passionately.
"That was cosmic," Rias sighed, flying up until she was hovering above him. "You, my loving husband, are going to get quite the treat for that later."
"I think I already had my treat," Harry smirked, licking his lips, and she grinned devilishly down at him, picking up his cock and enveloping the entire thing in her pussy in one swift movement.
"I am not resting tonight until I've made you cum at least as hard as I just did," Rias replied, resting her hands on his broad shoulders for support as she started to ride him.
Harry groaned in pleasure, the feeling of her squeezing her inner muscles each time she lifted herself up along his length making already, perfect pussy feel even better, and he grinned when she shifted herself forward so she could brush her breasts across his face. He caught one of her nipples with his lips and grazed it with her teeth, making her gasp and moan, and brought his hand down on her wonderfully round ass. Rias squealed and picked up her pace, riding him faster and moaning when he started to move with her. He was so big and filled her so completely that just the feeling of his thick cock brushing against her inner walls, seemingly hitting nearly every spot inside her at once, was incredibly intense, and when she finally found the right angle to make him hit that sensitive little pocket near her cervix, she shrieked.
"I fucking love your cock, Harry," Rias moaned. "I...I...oh."
"What is it?" Harry asked, furrowing his brow as she went still.
"I'm being summoned," Rias replied.
"Well, tell them to bugger off," Harry replied, lifting one of her heavy breasts to his lips and sucking on her nipple.
"No, this feels...I've never felt a more desperate soul before," Rias replied. "Could you cum? I think I really need to take this one."
As an incubus, Harry had complete control over his orgasm, meaning that he could hold himself back indefinitely or let go at will, and so he did, groaning as he filled her up. She continued to ride him until she sensed that she'd gotten every drop and then flew up off of his cock, putting her clothes back on with a wave of her hand.
"If whoever's summoning you is as desperate as you say, they might be in danger," Harry pointed out, flying out of bed and trying to will his cock to wilt enough for him to put pants on. "Take me with you."
"Fighting alone while I can't feel my legs might not be the wisest choice," Rias admitted, taking his hand. "No shirt?"
"You soaked that one, and I don't feel like wasting time to grab another," Harry replied, grinning as the sight of his squirt-soaked shirt lying on the foot of the bed made his wife's face redden until it nearly matched her hair. "Let's go."
Rias stopped resisting the summon, her grip on Harry's hand firm, and as a crimson summoning circle appeared around them, the two of them vanished the next moment, reappearing in the middle of a park they both recognized.
"So who...oh shit," the incubus breathed, and Rias' eyes narrowed as she saw the condition of who had summoned her.
Issei Hyoudou was lying just in front of the fountain in the center of the park, barely clinging to life as blood poured from the gaping wound in his stomach. His eyes were wide, his lips parted as he gurgled up blood, and in his right hand lay a familiar summoning paper that he'd clearly used by sheer will alone. As she looked around to see if his assailant was still around, Harry approached the gravely wounded boy, trying to think of the best way to deal with a wound that terrible.