Tickled Pink

[Commissioned Piece]

"So… the mall…?"

"The mall."

Karin's eye twitched, glancing over at the tall blonde with a noted irritation, decidedly trying to ignore the large glass entrance looming over them.

"….The mall?"

Fuu rolled her eyes, brushing a long lock of hair from her face before stepping forward into the building, "You're not going to complain about this, are you? I thought it was a perfectly amicable middle ground."

"It's not training…" Karin replied, lids slit and venomous. "You said we'd be training. Going to the mall is the opposite of training."

"You're right, it's not training in the traditional sense, no," the leader agreed, humming pleasantly to herself, "But if you look at it from another direction you'll see it for what it really is…"

The brunette glared at her sempai, puffing her cheeks, "You playing the cryptic veteran isn't winning you any brownie points, Fuu…"

Fuu rolled her eyes, casually using the motion to check out the storefronts nearest the entrance to the grandiose mall, "What this really is is… well… 'endurance training'."

"Really now?" Karin nodded, raising a skeptical brow, "and what is it that I'm supposed to be 'enduring' today, exactly? The obnoxious smells? The slow pace at which you walk? Standing for prolonged periods of time?"

The blonde grinned and did a kick turn on her heel, grinning at her shorter compatriot, "You have to endure pretending to be my friend for an entire day."

Karin's face twisted in both hurt and disgust, so much so that she actually reached for her chest reflexively, gripping at her school uniform. She stopped walking.

Fuu, who had been walking backwards at this point, gradually slowed her pace, the smile slipping from her lips. Had she said something wrong?

"…Karin, if this really bothers you that much, you don't have to be here…" the blonde drawled, her words slow, deliberate and apologetic.

The brunette's face went red, her fists beginning to shake at her side. She glanced up at her sempai, biting her lip in the process, "But… I already consider you a friend, Fuu…" Almost realizing what she said, she diverted her eyes, suddenly finding the children's store display on lions to suddenly be far more interesting than her 'friend'.

Fuu opened her mouth, gaping at the admission before closing it and taking a cautious step forward, "…I'm sorry Karin, I… I didn't… It was a joke. I was playing with you, you know that. In reality I lied because I knew it was the best way to get you out here today."

The red faced girl slowly turned towards Fuu, briefly meeting her eye before diverting again, "…You didn't have to lie to get me out here… And it's mean to pretend that I'm not your friend after everything that's happened…"

"…I know… Sorry, reading you and getting your humor down isn't exactly easy… You also would have totally complained about not training had I told you what I really wanted to do today…" Fuu apologized, scratching her head.

"And I'm not going to complain now?" the other girl retorted.

Fuu gave a lax shrug, "I can hope? We're not heroes anymore; you need to learn how to relax, so I thought a girls-day-out would be a good way for you to acclimate to civilian life…"

Karin crossed her arms and began to tap her foot, "Maybe, just maybe, I want to stay in shape?" The younger girl sighed, composing herself, "Okay, so, what's sooo important that you had to trick me out of training to do it?"

The blonde smiled, clapping her hands together, "I'm glad you asked! You see, Itsuki's birthday is pretty early in December, and I was hoping to get a jump on shopping for her. I was thinking maybe a new set of tarot cards, or a nicer microphone? And while we're out, maybe we could even get presents for Yunna, Mimori and Sonoko while we've got the chance…"

"You know, you could have just told me it was shopping for Itsuki's birthday, I would have come…" the brunette growled, gritting her teeth.

"Yes, but you would have been adamant about getting some kind of practice in beforehand or afterward. This way you had no time to plan!" Fuu snickered, beginning to walk forward again.

"…I could still make us do laps, you know…"

"Phhwah, yeah right, it's too cold outside to do anything like that," the older girl giggled. However, at the lingering silence she took a look back and almost froze at the sadistic, infuriated smile growing on Karin's lips. "You're… You're serious, aren't you…?" she meeped.

"As I've ever been," the younger girl replied, walking in front of her sempai now.

"Aww, and there goes my plans for after we shopped… I thought we could hit up that udon noodle shop on the way home…" Fuu lamented.

Karin grabbed at her stomach, a distressed waver making it to her mouth, "Uh, do you remember last time? Those bowls are so damn big… that udon was delicious but it nearly killed me… I think Itsuki made the right call tapping out after half a serving…"

"And here I thought you had a big stomach, what with how much niboshi you swallow down on the regular… Maybe smothering you with udon is your big weakness… Should I do that today? Weigh you down with udon to make sure we don't do laps?" Fuu teased, energy slowly returning to her after that rather adamant suggestion from her partner.

Karin paused in her thoughts, though kept walking, debating whether or not to take the girl up on her offer. She decided to go halfway, "Maybe… if you're payin' for it."

That earned a grin from Fuu, "Oh, my, does that mean we'd be going on a date together Karin? Shopping and then food? Classic, simple and romantic!"

The red hero matched her mankai, scrambling away from the blonde in pure embarrassment, "What? N-no! We'd be going out to eat as friends, nothing more!"

Fuu slid up closer to the tomato sprout, pearly whites ashine the whole way through, "Why, Karin, now you sound really hypocritical. You complain about me joking about us not being friends, and now you're here, cruelly teasing me about not being 'more' than that…" The latter words were said with a faux kissy face, mushing syllables against one another in a way that was hard to pick apart from a distance.

All of Karin's skin had taken on the properties of the sun and leaving her to panic, looking left and right for a way past the ever encroaching kissy-faced Fuu.

That was until a loud electrical crack erupted from just behind the blonde's head. The leader gave a brief spasm of shock before passing out at Karin's feet. The brunette blinked.

"What?"

The question was only met with another harsh crack as a shadow lunged forward and jammed a twin-pronged taser into her neck. In almost an instant, Karin's world went black.

O/o\O

Karin blinked, the fuzzy world slowly coming into focus around her.

"-arin… Karin… Karin, c'mon, wake up!"

Whispers broke from the brunette's right, leading to a faulty attempt to crane her head to peak at the source, wincing at a thick bruise that was growing at the base of her collar bone. Static clung between her skin and her clothing.

"Karin! Karin! Hey, are you okay?"

With her eyesight finally clear, she managed to get a look at the concerned speaker, though it most certainly left the poor girl confused. It wasn't surprising that it had been Fuu whispering the entire time… but what was surprising was how Fuu was positioned. The older girl was tied down to a chair to Karin's right, her thigh-high socks and shoes completely removed and her legs strapped down to a low table.

"What…?" Karin whined, blinking. She tried to move only to find herself restrained in an almost identical fashion, her feet jut out in front of her on full display. "Oh what now…?" the brunette whined, leaning her head against the chair's back.

"There were some men in here earlier, they were just leaving when I woke up and they said they'd be back," Fuu started explaining. "If we're quick maybe we can get ourselves out of this…"

Karin tugged at her binds, the leather straps locked tight and giving no room to argue, "Uh, yeah, easier said than done…"

"Oh don't be like that," the blonde scowled, glancing around the darkened room. Only a single light above them gave them any real vision, the rest was completely obscured. "We've been in tougher positions than this before when we were heroes, we can get out of this!"

"Oh ho, but you're not heroes anymore."

Fuu and Karin snapped their eyes forward as a figure emerged from the inky space, a fox-shaped kabuki mask obscuring the man's face.

The team leader stared at him, only wavering when what he said sunk it, "W-wait… what do you mean by that?"

Another figure, wearing a cat kabuki mask, emerged, carrying a small tray of utensils. The fox man continued, "It means that we represent a divergent faction of the Taisha, defectors in a way." He stepped forward between the two girls glancing down at them with condescension, "You need not worry about your situation; I know who you are and what you've done and I need very little from you. Answer my questions and we'll be right as rain."

Karin scowled, "Screw you asshole! If what you're askin' is so harmless, why not just ask us to our faces?"

He looked towards her, squatting to be at her eyelevel, "Because Taisha trains their agents to be rather… averse to pleasant chats. I'd rather be more direct when they'd rather you be more elusive." The fox stood, turning to Fuu, "This one first. Tell me, Miss Inubouzaki Fuu, how does the Taisha recruit members for its 'hero' program?"

Fuu's eyes narrowed, "Weren't you part of their organization? Shouldn't you know?"

The man shook his head, "Being part of the organization does not mean we were privy to all of its secrets, such programs hold the highest of security of any branch. And yet they would entrust it to children…" He cocked his head at the musing, slowly reaching his hand down and floating it just above the table at Fuu's feet, "So, tell me, how does recruitment occur?"

Fuu eyed the curling fingers on the man's hand warily, scowling with unease, "Wh-what are you doing?"

"Are you going to tell me, or are you not. It is a simple reply that warrants no question," the man replied, his voice never once becoming too curt with the girl, always its soothing, muffled tenor.

"And if we don't tell you?" Karin snapped, speaking on the uneasy Fuu's behalf.

The Fox straightened up slightly, turning to her with irritation, "You are punished. As such."

With one, smooth, taunting motion, he ran a finger over Fuu's heel, drifting up through the arch of her foot before pulling off at the pad. The motion was light, airy and Fuu sucked down a breath as her face twitched.

Karin's heart dropped. At a slumber party with the girls it had been outted that all of them, save Yunna, were particularly ticklish in some way or another… Her and Fuu managed to bond over their mutual sensitivity on the bottoms of their feet. But… actual tickle torture? It sounded ludicrous.

In fact, she thought she heard the Cat disbelievingly mutter to himself, "I can't believe he's actually going to do this…"

"Tell me what I want to know, or it's going to become far harder to breath…" the man warned, fingers poised over her whole foot.

Fuu barred her teeth and snapped her lips shut. In any other situation Karin would have quipped about how long it took for Fuu to finally shut up.

"Fine then, I guess questions are out of the question for the meantime. Remember, you had your chance," the man shrugged.

And before Fuu could blink, his fingers were upon her, digging at the underside of her toes, the back of her heels and the tips of her pads with endless aplomb, each gentle stroke making the girl squirm a little more where she was tied.

"F-Fuu…?" Karin asked, concern blossoming from her chest.

A choked snort echoed out of Fuu's nostril as she tried desperately to hold back a laugh, her lips pulling down against the impulse to reflexively smile. A small tear pooled in the girl's left eye and dripped down her cheek just as the man's fingers pulled away.

He rolled them tauntingly in her face, the smile leaking through his mask, "So, tell me will you talk now?"

Fuu winced, breathing heavy. A stifled giggle eeked from her lips, but she maintained her composure quite well. She gave him a wincing grin of challenge, "I've fought monsters bigger than you; a little tickling doesn't hurt."

The man huffed with amusement, "Spirited, aren't you? In that case…"

He snapped his fingers and the Cat approached, handing him an implement from the tray; a multicolored feather of a rather generous length. Both Fuu and Karin gulped at the 'tool'. Appraising it, he lowered it to the girl's arches and pressed the tip only a fraction of an inch against her skin.

Almost immediately her toes curled in response, muttering a weak "No…" under her breath.

But the man did not heed that command, swapping it up and down her feet, top to bottom, side to side, and every permutation there in on each foot. And, even worse than with the fingers, each stroke brought Fuu closer to breaking, her lips almost immediately twisting into a corrupt smile and her teeth biting down into her lower lip to stay any coming laughs. This did not work for long as eventually she craned her back as best as she could and began to belt out laughter to the ceiling, her fingers desperately clawing into the chair's armrests. This kept on for at least a minute, if not two, before the man pulled back.

"How about now? Are those lips loosened?"

"Never!" she barked, her hair frazzled and sticking to the two small streams of tears dripping down her cheeks.

"Well then… Insolence is to be rewarded…"

He reached back to the Cat's tray, grabbing a small, fine-haired makeup brush, gently rubbing it over his forefinger before looking her dead in the eye. Fuu gaped openly at it, her lower lip quivering. She shook her head. He nodded his.

And like that, the brush was to her feet, breaking new ground with circular patterns that kissed every sweet spot of her foot, from the pads of the toes, to the pads of her foot, to the arch to the heel. He even pulled a momentary switch, brushing over her exposed ankles and catching the poor girl off guard.

By that point, however, Fuu had already lost all semblance of self control. Her laughter was full and broken, echoing into the ceiling as her eyes became jeweled with tears, her voice growing hoarser and hoarser as the brush continued, sliding in and out of ever toe's cranny. She hopped in place, struggling against the binds in the futile notion she could pull away from the assault.

"P-please! Please, stop! STOP! STOP!" she begged, her voice hiccupping at every other beat. "I can't… I can't breathe… I ca… I can…" her laughter and words began to die down in unison as, over the course of a few seconds, her body went limp.

"…F-Fuu…?" Karin asked, panic growing like wildfire in the warrior's chest.

"Nnngmf… Passed out…" the Fox grumbled. He turned to look at her, "She certainly wasn't talkative… but I know that you have quite the mouth on you, Miss Miyoshi…"

"You… You pervert!" Karin shouted. "You son of a bitch! When I get out of here, I'm going to do the same thing to you and see how you like it! How dare you hurt my sempa-EEP!"

The girl choked on her words as the man's finger grazed over her toes, giving her a solid ten seconds of frozen pause.

"You do indeed say quite a lot… Too bad none of it is what I want to know. Tell me; how does Taisha recruit you heroes?" he asked, his voice dropping any hint of friendly façade.

Karin almost had to bite her tongue with the way his finger stayed hovering over her skin, "Go suck off catboy over there, you perv!"

"Hey," the Cat replied meekly, "Totally uncalled for…"

"Let me out of here and we'll talk about 'uncalled for'!" Karin shouted back.

The Fox man slid closer, holding up the feather once more, "I can see that we're going to need to go for the medium grade option from the start with you…"

"Like hell, now let me ou-heheh…"

Karin clamped down her mouth as the feather met contact with her arch. Of all things, Fuu was the most resistant to being tickled. But Karin… she'd fold like a house of cards. She grit her teeth, scratch blops of air forcing their way up her throat with the immediate need to escape into a laugh as her toes curled around the gentle implement. All too soon, she gave way, straining against the straps and bruising her wrists as she belted out an even higher, more pained laugh than Fuu had. He had her hopping in place for a few seconds more before retracting the feather.

"Does Taishi's secrets really hold that much value to you?"

Karin shuddered, sucking in breath after breath to still her beating heart. She growled at him without even verbalizing, her teeth gnashing in her head.

"Suit yourself," he muttered, pulling out the brush. Karin's eyes widen.

The minute the brush hit her skin she was a slave to the laughter, tears flowing freely down to her neck, staining her shirt with dark splotches.

"STOP IT! STOP IT DAMN YOU! PLEASE!" she yelled, bashing her rear against the chair's seat as much as she could in a last-ditch effort to escape. Soon enough it was began getting harder to breath, and within a minute the world began to go dark.

And, in one last fit of laughter, the whole world went black.

O/o\O

Karin awoke the moment she felt herself tumbling out of a car. She groaned as she hit asphalt, her shoes and knee-high socks following shortly after.

"You girls are goddamned useless…"

The voice was the Fox's, unhindered by a mask, but her eyes refused to open until minutes had passed and the car that had driven them there had long driven away.

"…Karin…? Karin are you alright?"

A set of scrabbling hands found their way around Karin's body, pulling her close to another source of warmth. The brunette cracked her eyes and found concerned green eyes staring down at her.

"I should be asking you that, Fuu. You alright?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Kouhais come first, afterall," she smiled.

Instead of arguing, Karin lay limply in the girl's lap and nodded.

A few seconds passed.

"Fuu?"

"Yes Karin?"

"Let's go to the mall another day… I want to go home and sleep…"

Fuu gave a rough, light chuckle, pulling the other girl to her feet.

"Alright, alright… Let's get you home…"

And as the two staggered to the edge of the alley they'd been dumped in, Karin spoke one last time for the day, "Let's never mention this ever again…"

Fuu nodded, "Agreed."

O/o\O

And here we go, another commission, this time a little outside my knowledge base. Never predicted I'd be writing a tickle-fetish piece, but I also never predicted I'd be making astral projection molestation smut either back in Phantom Touch...

Kinda odd how this is my first dive into the YYiaH fandom as a writer. I watched the show a few years back and thought it was pretty good. XD

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed, and be certain to remember that my commission door is open 24/7! Production might be a BIT slower considering I have a job again, but I'll try to keep it more consistent.

Catch ya on the flipside!