Kyouko groaned harder than she had that entire night as the rigid strand of lace tore into her like a superheated garrote wire she would have read about in her favorite mystery novels. "Ugh... You've had your fun... So cut this out already!" The nonsense she was being subjected to -which sat proudly at a magnitude likely to stretch even the most wary investigator's comprehension- was to blame for her next emotion-filled raise in pitch that sent her spiraling once more.

Celestia caressed the still-quivering rope in hand, calming its play but also threatening to strum its chord again. "If you had some clue as to what fun this is, Detective... you wouldn't stop either." Another poisonous chortle gave weighty finality to her words. Oh, how she would make this victory last.

And last it did...

Ugh!

Frustrating...

Too frustrating for words...

"..."

But no too far for words to still liberate...

Grasping fiercely for her usual composure, Kyouko put all she had into forcing her features to soften, knowing well how many times and how spectacularly showing frustration had failed. She needed a new strategy: needed to remind Celestia that they were still classmates, who would have to see each other at school the next morning; remind her that -against all of her extraordinarily long list of faults- she still held some respect for the Gambler's keen understanding of psychology and mathematics.

"Please... Celes-san... let me down already... this... hurts..." Holding her tongue as she softly swayed again, Celesta could almost swear those solemn amethyst eyes looked ready to tear up if what remained of her pride would allow it. "Please... I don't think I can take any more of this..."

If she absolutely must be humbled, then she'll humble herself; that's what she thought. For the first time in a long time, her emotionless mask wasn't there at any layer or any level. All that remained was the absolute truth.

"Hmm..." the girl in all black simpered again.

Talking her way out of this? It seems the sleuth had forgotten that this wasn't a court room and that she had nothing to bargain with here. Celestia gave what she knew would be the last smirk her captive would be seeing that night. "Kirigiri... once again, you misunderstand me." Her hands came together as if it made her point any clearer. "You know full well I'd never allow you to throw away your pride by going back on the deal." Kyouko's eyes visibly widened. "I would absolutely never call you my rival otherwise." She chucked again as Kyouko trembled in some mix of dread and that same frustration she'd decidedly left behind bubbling up again.

"And besides... I haven't quite claimed my prize just yet."

Knowing the detective's eyes were cautiously taking in her every move like cornered vermin before taking the cat's unfurled claws, Celestia produced what looked like a wound up strip of lace from her sleeve, bridged taut in both palms. "I'll have to have you hush up, now." With that, she raised the snow white material past Kirigiri's defiantly swerving neck and up to her pale jaw-line pressing it against tightening lips and clenching teeth before the tensing rope's next painful sway made by the same pressure made such meaningless defiance sway enough to force it past both. As its perfect bow landed firmly behind her head where she couldn't reach, Kyouko fought back the urge to chew down on the cloth gag out of contempt for its very existence.

"Hehehe..."

As adorable as she'd begun to find that violet glare, Celestia looked forward to blotting out its laser-locked fury in beautiful raven black. She would reduce every single feature her captive took pride in -nakedly opposing the lie she'd given about preserving it- until only a thoroughly tamed detective remained.

After a shortest pause carrying a hidden urgency, Celestia retrieved what seemed to be a frilly black sleeping mask camouflaged well in her frilly skirt and thus matching the rest of the room's Victorian decor. Lifting lilac bangs out of place for only a moment, she gently wrapped the mask just above Kyouko's nose, darkening the amethyst jewels of her eyes as if leaving her gothic mark on the still-squirming girl.

Once more Celestia stepped back to admire her work as if she'd put the finishing touches on a painting, still testing if all the pieces in place aligned with the fantasy she'd kept of this so very mortified lady sleuth receiving her so very well-deserved punishment. Snow white lace shackling slender wrists and trapping clever words within that smart mouth of hers; raven black blotting out those overly wide eyes from scanning so obsessively for weaknesses; strung up like a beautiful doll on display in a prison of her own making by a gamble she'd foolishly agreed upon. Yes, she looked perfect.

Now, all that remained was to capture this perfection.

Darkness...

This darkness was terrifying in a way that terrified a girl who usually thrived in the darkest shadows. She couldn't move her hands. She couldn't touch the floor. She couldn't even see how far away it was. She just knew that it felt farther than it ever had before.

All that was left to her senses was an acrid grating, utterly removed from anything she could do to avoid or prevent and the sound of hundreds of black threads splitting slowly -too slowly to withstand or make sense of- through their attritional grind against the softest and most sensitive contours of her pelvis in this blackened gothic room she found herself trapped in like some medieval dungeon. It was as if every perception and every kind of feeling she had was taken away, to make way for the agonizing pain of this painful reality.

Seconds of this passed. Seconds in which Celestia could drink in this precious sight through wine-red hues before throwing it all back into the face of her well-earned prize with the only words that might ever suit such a finale.

"If you haven't already figured it out..." she giggled, "you will be spending the night like this."

Kyouko's shoulders jerked and her heart-rate quickened as that malicious string of words bombarded her one after the other in the order she most feared.

Mmph phnt ve pherrus! ("You can't be serious!") She tried again not to worsen the pain by squirming more, but again her emotions betrayed her logical mind.

Celestia smiled for herself right then. "Well, perhaps I'm not serious..." she spoke softly, showing just how well she could understand the girls muffled grievances with a pride in all the disturbing implications held by such a skill. "Perhaps I plan on freeing you in due time, after deciding when you've learned your lesson..." she paused to let that statement linger. "Or perhaps I don't."

As that familiar saccharine giggle laced with poison ignited inside her ears, Kyouko's world seemed to stop in the seconds following that ultimate declaration and its many horrors. "Now you'll have no choice but to wonder. I'm sure that will provide you some distraction, at the very least." Kyouko squirmed more and more in the only outlet for her frustration she had left, logic be damned.

There was that singsong giggle again at such a blatant display of emotional overload, her captor's signal to let the world and all its unworthy opponents know that she'd truly won; that she'd shattered the stony expression she promised she would shatter someday. "Normally, I appreciate fine music to accompany my evening reading... but since tonight is special..." her fingers steepled next to her most wicked smile, "I'll have to ask you to fill that role."

Mmmph! Vrreph meiph aph vmph! ("No! Release me at once!") Kyouko barely knew which direction to complain in.

"But before I do that..." her voice lowered dangerously.

Only once in the entire night, Celestia retrieved another tool not from out of nowhere but this time from the center-dresser that was seeing more use than usual, a borrowed pink camera adorned with a magical girl character; not that Kyouko would know any of that from where she was hanging.

"...A little something to commemorate this wondrous occasion." She took aim like the huntress before canned prey that she was.

'What in the ever-living hell is she talking about?' Kyouko asked herself.

*CLICK*

...

No...

Anything but that scenario...!

*CLICK* *CLICK*

VAAPH! ("STOP!")

*CLICK* *CLICK* *CLICK*

She squirmed fiercely and kicked her legs just the same under the mistaken hope that her panties might rip when they'd survived every other trial this night without a single true tear, her pulse shooting up rapidly as the distinctive, machine gun CLICK of a camera's shutter fired off again and again like by firing squad.

*CLICK*
*CLICK*

Vaaph viph arevvy! ("Stop this already!")

And yet the sound of the shutter going off wouldn't stop; it only increased its rate of fire.

*CLICK*
*CLICK*
*CLICK*

Mmph! ("No!")

Hopeless. This was hopeless. Utter humiliation at this evil girl's whims and she'd gone and left her cell phone at the table that had started it all, cut off from any and all rescue, or or the very least some kind of sympathy from a friend (since she knew the door was locked anyway). Hopelessly doomed to suffer in torturous gagged and blindfolded silence, save for that incessant CLICK commemorating it.

*CLICK*

Perhaps it hadn't been in the exact manner she'd imagined, but all of her deductions had broadly been correct: the closet had been the harsher instrument Celestia prepared so that she could be bound up like a spider's catch with all of these humiliations captured on camera forever; all while Celestia kept 'her prize' to herself. How badly she'd wanted -just once- to be wrong.

*CLICK*

*CLICK*

Before long, Kyouko's stream of complaints degenerated into a string of soft whimpers as their total futility set in. She really was just a prize on display now, still for the camera's benefit.

*CLICK*

*CLICK*

*CLICK*

She didn't want to think anymore; couldn't stand thinking about how many shots Celestia had taken, from however many deplorable positions and embarrassing angles. She stopped bothering long ago to keep count of all the CLICKs that had been pushed past her ears. Whatever sort of answer that she didn't want to have answered had come up, eventually it seemed to satisfied her captor's cruelty. "Ahh... music to my ears" she heard from beneath the blindfold with no response that the gag would allow.

*CLICK*

It was the tally of all her humiliations... and it just kept on counting upward.

Soon, Celestia retired the well-used camera to its home atop the cabinet-dresser, knowing it had done its job immaculately. She looked forward to having Yamada develop the prize it had captured in the morning.

The gambler took on an unseen, devilish smile as she finally reached the denouement she'd been grasping for. "I must thank you for a very enjoyable session, Kirigiri." She reached out one last time to fully, completely admire the scallop-edged hip-band and its embroidered rose pattern within her dainty fingers, which was now stretched far passed their wearer's hip. "And I must add, you have exquisite taste." She giggled aloud at their owner's boundless disapproval as her admiration of the garment inadvertently sent said owner swaying unpleasantly to the left. "Since these undergarments look expensive, naturally I'll be sure to replace them."

'How kind of you' Kyouko snarked internally if only to comfort herself.

"But for now, it's gotten late, so I'll have to be heading off to bed..."

Kyouko's sharp set of ears made it clear by the soft rhythm pattering off a pair of mary-janes she'd heard many times before pressing against carpet that Celestia was indeed walking away. Leaving her like this.

Already she was dressed down to her raven black, fine silk sleepwear. Already she had the raven black covers of her luxurious bed rolled up to her chin. Already her lithe fingers rolled across the tiny knob of the lamp set atop the nightstand. "Sleep tight, Detective."

Gepph vaph hrrrph! Celephvia! ("Get back here! Celestia!")

And right then, the terse CLICK of the lamp shutting off and blanketing the room in total darkness atop the darkness of her sleep mask made it abundantly evident that the gambler wasn't bluffing and that she, despite her last feeble hopes, wouldn't be escaping any time soon, save for some newfound mercy from a captor who had none to give.

Still darkness. Still immobility. Still with every grueling second came a new layer of fresh, unbearable pain thrown atop the pile, burning brutally like a funeral pyre closing in on her until she was crushed. Nothing she could do could make it any better.

Kyouko had no idea how she was going to be able to withstand this, but she suspected that Celestia had wanted that question to echo through her mind all through the night, knowing the only answer she'd ever reach was that she probably couldn't.

And there it was.

That undesired answer came to her circumspective mind as a side-effect of those detective's instincts she was so proud of. The worst possible alternative to her tireless hunt for the truth was when all the possibilities that she'd meticulously overanalyzed decreased in favor of some horrid, undesired situation with fewer and fewer alternatives to escape it; the dead end variable as the case really and truly closed. So with all of these horrid factors staring her in the face, the mystery -which she might have preferred to remain uncertain- was solved without ambiguity; her imagination run dry with any other scenarios and no other conclusions left standing. This... wedgie... was her one, single truth.
Hands tied.
Eyes covered.
Hanging off the ground.
By her panties.

Kyouko gave one last weak squirm of combined discomfort and discontent -both totaling higher than she could last remember- before her energy finally died down fully and completely, and her head slumped low in turn with lilac bangs spilling across her face as if to mask her shame.

"Owwie..." she whimpered weakly from beneath the gag; near-sobbed if her progressively-tiring voice would allow it. That weak sound and others like it were all she was or would ever be allowed for the rest of this ever-living hell of a night.

...

Vammph mmph t'heevvph! ("Damn you to hell!")

...

...

Phhh vvph hllvv ophv GOPPH hllph meiph vowmmph! ("For the love of GOD, let me down!")

...

...

Phhl-eevvee...! ("Ple-eeease...!")

...