Kyouko wasn't a mind-reader; she had said many times, in spite of the accusation that she didn't possess any superpowers. A good detective simply knows how facts fit together.

'You are unbelievab-oh!'

She had some understanding of profiling and criminal behavior, but everyday interactions were still something of a weakness for her. She could pick up on a person's habits, body-language, vocal patterns and the changes in their expressions on a scientific level, weighing their intent by the facts they implied. But reading the emotions that motivated those things was more Maizono's specialty; now there was a girl who could pass for a mind-reader.

'Can you not hear what I'm-ow!'

Since she couldn't read minds, the deep-seated insecurities that provoked Celestia to torturing her own classmate were all lost on her; the only thing she could read was the result which was her own being tortured.

'Are you out of your mi-yeow!'

She knew this girl could be unpredictable, but this brutality was startling in a way not unlike being tossed back and forth both mentally as well as physically.

'Cut it-ouch!'

Having little way of answering why she was in agony right now left her little option besides the squirming and struggling she'd been doing since it began, spurred in self-preservation yet looking like defiance to her agonizer.

'Stop!'

And so with an expectation she had no way to meet, the 'undisciplined' girl wasn't falling in line the way Celestia wanted. With or without a line to follow, she still felt the consequences of the unreasonable girl's unreasonable grievances. Tired of squirming -but not too tired to complain- Kyouko finally planted her heels to the ground despite the pain, just to regain some level of control (all while making those grievances swell).

"You do realize that this hurts, don't you?!"

Her protests managed to draw out the single most sarcastic gasp she'd ever heard in her life. "Nooooo~! Why, I hadn't even the faintest-NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! THAT'S THE IDEA!"

Oh-no...

There was the explanation for her sudden drop from total elation to total hostility. For just a second, her (normally) gentle voice went just a bit gruffer, like it tended to whenever her patience was thinning; thin enough to drop all pretenses of being a refined and proper lady. One of those infamous tantrums, in other words (never a good sign).

"Now, how about you stop struggling and just ACCEPT YOUR PUNISHMENT?!"

Once more, Kyouko felt her planted heels get torn from the ground, faster and more aggressively than the first time.

Any girl on the receiving end of that aggression wouldn't be able to help crying out, and she was no exception. And as she cried out -pitched higher than usual- the aggressor held her high up like a trophy with anticipation of the cries that came next, hungry to savor every one of them.

Even then, Kyouko wasn't like most girls; rather than sate Celestia's hunger by letting out her voice, she instead caught her breath in mid-air, and with it her real defiance. "You're just a sadist..."

Celestia responded with that well-trained smile, like a mask coming back to life. "Guilty... as... charged..." she spoke softly again, through the cadence of another spiteful rhythm.

Fully convinced she was owed something, there wasn't a chance of her stopping now; no matter how many of her behavioral shortcomings were called out (she'd heard them all before). Sealed off in this soundproof room and far from the eyes of their classmates, this sadistic girl's restraint had seemingly vanished with the certainty that her victim would never disclose what had gone on here. All that remained was her cat-like penchant for batting prey back and forth before going in for the kill. The difference was that some cats were simply never taught to properly put down their catch; a cruelty born of naivete.

This cat knew exactly what she was doing and she didn't care.

Kyouko half-expected that thought to get cut off like so many before it, but Celestia was one of the odd people capable of subverting her expectations.

The angry jolts twisting through the fibbers of her underwear came to a sudden stop, and she was allowed a moment's relief as her feet were allowed back to the ground (shaking as they slowly touched down). With that, the lithe fingers loosened their grip on her waistband and then promptly met at her front, not so tightly that they were squeezing against her, but not loosely either.

Suddenly, she found herself enwrapped by the silken-wrapped arms of her tormentor, mere moments from the torment she'd been inflicting so gleefully. Suddenly, she was being hugged.

Once again that night, Kyouko was at a loss to react, and it wasn't just because of the abrupt change in mood that was hanging in the air. She may not have appreciated the reputation she'd earned for being unapproachable, but her naturally distant disposition hadn't prepared her for other people getting so close; this sort of closeness coming from the one girl known to rival her distance could have taken anyone off guard. The sheer surprise of it sent a rosy bloom trailing softly across her face as her struggles softened just the same.

She had less than a second to take in the ruse's hollow warning being whispered into her ear; far too late to realize just how off-guard she'd been taken. "This is for the best..."

Immediately her hands were seized and her wrists pulled together by a long white cloth, probably a handkerchief. Immediately after that Celestia's nimble fingers were turning and gliding through the streams and folds of cloth as if they were lighter than air (faster than its captive could gather).

(Where a professional card shark would gain a skill like that was one of the rare questions the inquisitive young lady would much rather go unanswered).

As the knot finished with a firm tug -like the efficiency only a spider knew as it wraps up its meal- Kyouko briefly wondered to herself when she'd lost her chance to have avoided this.

The offending fingers pulling out of her sights, she looked down closer at the tangle of satin shackling her so snugly and a brief wriggle in both wrists -one after another- confirmed that, despite looking delicate, it was too firm and too inflexible to escape; much like its owner.

She looked over her shoulder to the culprit stepping back with the satisfied admiration that one would exhibit after finishing a painting. Hers was the poise of a girl who could see nothing wrong in the exasperation she'd caused; the proverbial cat that got the cream. "Was this really necessary?"

The self-satisfied girl sent a smug grin, the same look she'd worn before her meltdown. "Well... given your fondness for defying me... yes, it really was."

Those words made clear just how justified she felt restraining her own classmate for not quietly accepting the maltreatment she was doling out, never mind whether she saw anything wrong with it. Things like this were exactly what made the inquisitive young lady question if this girl's entitlement knew no bounds.

After a nod of approval to herself, Celestia approached with the predatory glint in her eye returning. "Now then... let's continue where we left off."

Again that night, the color in Kyouko's face drained with the gravity of those words sinking through her consciousness like a stone, heavier than before. "...Please don't..." she said with an exhaustion and dissent in her voice that few languages could rightly convey.

Celestia chuckled as she invaded the girl's skirt for the second time with even less hesitation than the first. "I hardly think you have a say in the matter."

...!

"Oww!"

Within a single second Kyouko's waistband returned to its earlier height, and just like before she wailed as she felt the onslaught of a thousand angry threads driving into her all at once. She didn't think it possible, but this fiery thrashing had become so much worse than any she'd been enduring so far with her hands being unavailable to lighten the blow.

Had she done something in another life to deserve this?

Before she could further lament the ways such a simple job had turned out like this, the gambler's next move had once again caught her off-guard

(with as many times as that had happened, she'd written the off-night explanation as an excuse).

After that initial brutality, she felt a newer, flimsier tautness bristling through the abused threads of her panties, alongside her ears relaying the unmistakable nip of braided hemp dragging against lace, no doubt scheming to abuse them further.

Those two well-honed senses had told her enough to know what was happening before her eyes verified that Celestia was carefully -perhaps even skillfully- threading a rope through the pair of well-exposed leg-holes she'd been tugging on like a madwoman mere seconds ago.

Moments like these made inquisitive young lady wonder if having multiple personas, personalities and/or levels of sanity was some kind of weird quirk among the girls in their class.

Celestia's latest stunt was far from comfortable, but wasn't anywhere near as painful as her last; the real reason Kyouko's brow furrowed as the rope came into view was from trying to figure out what bizarre intent this bizarre girl had in mind when she'd pulled that rope seemingly from out of thin air.

(Again, she decided she'd rather not know where a card shark had learned that particular parlor trick).

Taking in her newly-recovered freedom from mid-air, Kyouko's foot jerked defensively as she turned to her captor (maybe on some instinctual need to get away). "What do you think you're do-!"

Kyouko winced mid-question as her answer came in the form of Celestia wrenching what little slack the rope had without warning. Playing her part as 'owner', she then walked from the room's center with the shortened leash in hand, again without waiting for consent from the girl on its other end. Robbed of the center of balance she'd been so relieved to reclaim only moments ago, Kyouko could only march awkwardly behind.

"Hey... stop!" she protested as she fought to keep her feet steady.

"Endure it. The finale isn't far off" she replied without so much as sparing a glance for the girl who had been (begrudgingly) enduring every other indignity she had dreamt up.

Perhaps her entitlement was at a level only observable to a mind-reader.