Sakuraba Ryo pushed open the door to a quiet private room and motioned for Obey Your Master to go in.
The lighting inside was soft, and the air carried the faint, calming scent of herbal essential oils.
A wide, comfortable massage bed sat in the center of the room.
Obey Your Master did as told and lay down on her side, adjusting her posture slightly as her long golden hair spread out across the dark sheet.
She relaxed her body, but her starry eyes remained half-open, tracking Sakuraba Ryo as he prepared a warm towel and arranged the oil bottles, her gaze tinged with curiosity and a hint of scrutiny.
Sakuraba Ryo returned to the bedside, but instead of beginning with the usual shoulder, neck, or back massage, his eyes lingered on her for a moment before settling on the feet that hung naturally over the edge of the bed, still covered by knee-high socks.
It felt oddly familiar.
Different setting, different person, same thing to do.
Honestly. I'm supposed to be an investor, so how am I getting better and better at foot massages...?
Sakuraba Ryo couldn't help grumbling to himself.
But with Obey Your Master's small foot right there in front of him, he said nothing. He simply bent down and, with calm, practiced hands and not the slightest hint of impropriety, took hold of one ankle.
Feet this small? I could wrap one hand around them and have this done in no time.
"Hm?"
Obey Your Master stiffened slightly and instinctively tried to pull her foot back, only for him to gently stop her.
"Relax."
Sakuraba Ryo's voice was low, steady in a way that was hard to resist.
"When you're massaging the feet, socks only get in the way."
His fingers deftly found the edge of the sock. With a small tug, he slid the white fabric down past her ankle, baring the pale skin of her foot.
The movement was smooth and professional, as though it were the most ordinary preparation in the world before a massage.
The slightly cool air brushing her skin made Obey Your Master inhale softly, and her toes curled on instinct.
A rush of surprise, slight embarrassment, and intense curiosity welled up together.
She looked at Sakuraba Ryo's calm profile, then at her own foot, stripped of its sock and fully exposed to his gaze and touch. The little schemes she had brought in to fish information out of him were, strangely enough, pushed aside by a much more immediate awareness of what her body was feeling.
"Sakuraba-san... do all your sessions start from the feet?"
She tried to sound casual, but her voice came out lower than before.
Sakuraba Ryo did not answer right away. He set the removed sock neatly to one side, and his warm palm settled lightly against her arch.
The pressure and warmth that came through her skin were exactly right, carrying a strangely soothing comfort.
"Sometimes there's a lot of fatigue and tension hiding here."
His fingertips pressed a little harder against a certain pressure point, and at once Obey Your Master felt a numb, aching jolt shoot up through her calf, drawing an involuntary little sound from her throat.
"And fatigue and tension..."
Sakuraba Ryo lifted his eyes and looked calmly at her widened gaze.
"Often come from carrying too much on your mind."
His fingers kept working with steady patience, slowly kneading along the meridians in her sole.
Obey Your Master had been tense at first, but as that precise, rhythmic pressure seeped deeper in, the soreness built up in her feet and calves was gradually worked loose. In its place came a warmth and slackening she could hardly describe.
Resting against the pillow, she stared up at the soft halo of light on the ceiling. The lively outer shell she had been deliberately keeping up seemed to begin, little by little, to soften under the waves of comfort spreading up from the sole of her foot.
"...!"
The distinctive stars in the girl's eyes had begun to waver with Sakuraba Ryo's movements.
Obey Your Master bit down on her lower lip, forcing back the soft sound that had nearly slipped out of her throat.
The feeling coming from the sole of her foot was too strange. At first it was pure ache—so sharp her toes curled tightly against the sheet—but then a deep, warm comfort began to seep into that ache. With each precise press and kneading motion of Sakuraba Ryo's fingers, it spread upward along the meridians, leaving her whole calf tingling.
She tried to stay clear-headed, tried to analyze his technique, tried to think of how to keep prying information out of him even in this relaxed state.
But her attention kept getting dragged back to those hands, steady and unhurried as they worked over her foot.
Just as she was beginning to adjust to the initial pressure, just as the tension in her nerves had eased slightly with the release in her foot—
Sakuraba Ryo's thumb seemed to notice something. It paused briefly at a slightly sunken spot on the inside of her arch, where the muscle felt a little too stiff. Then, without warning, he pressed down harder, rotating into it with deeper, more sustained force.
"Ugh—!"
Obey Your Master shuddered all over, and the sound she had been desperately suppressing finally leaked out between her teeth as a short, startled gasp.
It was as if a faint current had shot straight from the sole of her foot up her spine, leaving even her back numb for an instant.
This is bad!
Alarms went off in her head.
This doesn't feel right!
Sakuraba Ryo's technique... was nothing like the gentle comfort of an ordinary massage.
The precision of it was terrifying. Every press felt like it was punching through the outer shell of fatigue wrapped around bone and fascia alike, reaching the deep, accumulated strain she herself had never clearly noticed.
Ache, swelling, numbness—and along with them, that bizarre, scalp-tightening sense of release as everything started to come undone—crashed over her in waves, battering her ability to endure it.
She instinctively tried to curl her foot up, to escape the onslaught that was working far too well, but Sakuraba Ryo's hand held her ankle firmly in place. Not only did the pressure not ease, it kept pressing and kneading along the curve of her arch in a clear, relentless rhythm.
"W-wait... not there..."
Obey Your Master's voice was already starting to shake. The easy, playful tone she had deliberately put on earlier was gone without a trace.
She wanted to tell him to go lighter, wanted to say she did not need service this thorough, but before the words could fully form, the next wave of sensation hit and shattered them apart.
A faint flush spread uncontrollably across her cheeks, and her breathing lost its rhythm.
The eyes that always glittered with sly, starry mischief were now glazed with involuntary moisture. Her focus drifted as she stared up at the ceiling, trying to gather her scattering will.
Too late...
She dimly realized that the comfortable setting she had carefully chosen, the trap of relaxation she had walked into of her own accord, was now turning back on her in a way she had never anticipated.
This calm, professional massage of Sakuraba Ryo's was dismantling her shell more directly, and more irresistibly, than any test or scrutiny from his words ever could.
And Sakuraba Ryo, as if completely unaware of her struggle and loss of composure, simply kept his lashes lowered and focused on the changes in the muscle beneath his fingertips, adjusting his pressure and angle with every tiny reaction she gave.
His profile looked utterly calm beneath the soft light. Only those steady, unquestionable movements showed that everything remained firmly under control.
And just as the roaring tide of sensation was on the verge of drowning Obey Your Master's consciousness completely, just as her defenses were about to break—
Sakuraba Ryo's fingers stopped without warning.
The precise pressing, the deep kneading, the force that had been prying fatigue apart without mercy—all of it vanished in an instant.
"...?"
That strange rush, a mix of ache, numbness, and release, cut off abruptly, like a climbing vine suddenly snipped in two. Obey Your Master gave a jolt all over. The lingering sensation in the sole of her foot and the sudden emptiness left behind stood in such sharp contrast that for a moment she felt dazed.
She turned her head. Her misted starry eyes held confusion—and a trace of urgency even she herself had not noticed—as she looked at Sakuraba Ryo.
"...Why... did you stop?"
Her voice still carried the breathless aftertaste of what had just happened, softer than usual by far.
Sakuraba Ryo straightened up and wiped his hands with the warm towel at hand, unhurried as ever.
Looking at Obey Your Master's flushed cheeks and the eyes that clearly still had not fully recovered from the shock, he explained in the same calm tone:
"This is probably enough for one session. If I keep going—especially on those especially stiff overstrain points in your arch..."
He paused, his gaze resting on her face for a moment.
"...You might not be able to take it. You could even pass out. There's such a thing as overdoing it."
"P-pass out?"
Obey Your Master blinked, clearly finding that a little exaggerated.
The strange lingering sensation in the sole of her foot was still quietly stirring. The dissatisfaction of being forcibly dragged back from the brink of an overwhelming sensory high, mixed with her refusal to back down, made her protest almost on instinct.
"How is that possible... I-I'm not that fragile. And besides..."
She pressed her lips together. The flush had not faded from her face, but she still forced up the corners of her mouth, trying to reclaim a bit of the initiative. Even so, her voice came out soft.
"Isn't Sakuraba-san's service... supposed to have a 'hidden menu' that works the best? This is only... just getting started, right?"
"?"
Sakuraba Ryo looked at her. The corners of her eyes were still damp, her breathing still uneven, yet she was stubbornly trying to put on an I can still take it face. After a few seconds of silence, he let out a nearly inaudible sigh.
"Are you sure?"
He sounded perfectly flat.
"...I'm sure!"
Obey Your Master answered almost immediately, even moving unconsciously with the foot that still remembered the warmth and pressure of his fingers.
"I-I'm an Umamusume. This much... is nothing."
Even so, the tips of her ears had turned even redder.
Sakuraba Ryo said nothing more. He merely sat back down by the bed and took hold of her ankle again.
No talking sense into someone asking for it.
His movements remained steady, but this time Obey Your Master could clearly feel that the force at his fingertips was heavier than before, the points he targeted more concentrated, the technique carrying even more subtle, intricate variations.
"Then... as you wish."
The moment the words fell, a new wave hit—deeper, more thorough than before—surging straight up through the most sensitive and vulnerable meridians in her foot without the slightest easing in.
"Mm—!!"
Obey Your Master bit hard on her lower lip, choking the cry in her throat, but her body still jerked upward uncontrollably before dropping heavily back onto the mattress.
This time it was not just ache, numbness, and release. Mixed in with it was the uncanny sensation of having every secret in her body seen straight through, every hidden trace of fatigue and tension found with perfect accuracy and forcibly worked loose.
At last, she was beginning to understand what Sakuraba Ryo had meant about passing out.
This was not pain. It was a release so intense it went beyond the limits of ordinary endurance and struck straight into the deepest part of her nerves.
In the end, the sensation broke free as sound.
"Oooouuuuooouuo~~"
Then Obey Your Master's head lolled to one side, and she fainted.
"I told you... you'd pass out."
Sakuraba Ryo picked up the towel by the bed, wiped his hands, and shook his head.
A chance encounter with the owner of a roadside massage shop. Even going all out, she still couldn't beat him; his technique was monstrous.
It was a "narrow" defeat.