Chapter 12

It wasn't unusual for Shirou to be awake in the middle of the night. It was a bit less usual, even for him, to be staking out a place. Currently, he was watching Sahashi Takami's place.

It was a relatively modest house, considering the kind of paycheck she probably received from MBI. Although it was in one of the nicest residential areas of the city, it was rather low key.

A rather intelligent choice, in Shirou's opinion. Flaunting wealth attracted the wrong kind of attention, and she probably received enough of that because of her position at the company..

Also, it would have been quite the waste buying a luxury mansion, since apparently she was never there. For the past two days and a half, Shirou had been watching over the place with very few breaks in between, but Takami had never once returned.

Only a teenage girl had been seen coming and going, and judging by the obvious resemblance, it was probably her daughter.

Finding this address hadn't been easy. She might have been low-key, but she was still high profile. Shirou had to shake his meager network to find the information, and it hadn't come cheap.

Unfortunately, it had largely been a waste of time and money. There was some benefit to knowing where her daughter lived, in case he ever needed to use her as leverage, but that was the end of it.

It appeared that Takami spent her days and nights inside of MBI. This level of workaholism wasn't unheard of, especially in Japan, but it was unlikely that he could get to her between her house and her workplace.

One less vulnerability for Shirou to exploit.

With a sigh, he decided to head back home. With this avenue closed, there was no point hanging around any longer. There were things he needed to do in the morning anyway.

He had left his van far away from this location. A banged up vehicle like that in an upscale residential area like this would have had the cops patrolling the streets in a matter of minutes. He had a long walk ahead of him.

Hands in his pockets he started to made his way back.

Everything was inevitably quiet at that hour. Other places in the city would get a decent amount of traffic even at night, but the residential area was almost completely quiet. Everybody was sleeping soundly in their beds.

After a few minutes, Shirou stopped for a moment and listened.

Nothing but silence. That was how peace sounded like.

However, Shirou didn't like the it. For a longest time now, he had come to associate it with death. When everything was silent, it meant that nothing lived to make noise anymore. When everything was silent, his own thoughts were all too loud.

He resumed walking, trying no to think about anything.

However, if there was one thing that could be said about silence, was that it was all too easy to notice when it was broken.

"...?"

For a moment, he felt like the ground had shaken.

"An earthquake?"

They weren't uncommon in Japan, and one as light as this one would have gone completely unnoticed at any other time of the day.

With a mental shrug, Shirou began walking again, only to stop a few steps later. Frowning, he titled his head upward.

"Could it be?"

He looked the distance, to his right.

The smell of smoke drifted to his nostrils. So faint that he could have easily missed it, if he weren't already familiar with it. And it wasn't just that. There was another smell mixed in with it. Something that reminded him of a old dusty room.

Two Sekirei and in close proximity to one another.

"Trace On."

A moment later, if anyone had been up and awake, they could have seen a human-shaped blur rushing down the dark streets.

[br]

The air burned in her lungs. Her heavy breaths drowned out the sound of her panicked footsteps.

She needed to get away. She needed to hide.

However, no matter how fast she run, she couldn't shake off her pursuer. Every time she looked behind her shoulder, he was right there.

She knew that if he managed to get her, she would be done for. Dragged back to his master and chained to his will forever and ever.

She didn't want that. She refused with all of her might. However, when the heel of her shoe broke and she fell to the ground, she knew that she had already lost.

"Are you done running, yet?" he asked.

Unlike her, he wasn't even remotely winded. Thrice damned power-types. Brutes that could only get their way through violence. She glared at him and said nothing. She wouldn't cooperate in the slightest. She wouldn't even deign him of an answer.

Unfortunately he neither seemed to want or care for one.

"Come," he said, holding out a hand.

She slapped it away. Her defiance didn't even get him to change his expression.

"If you prefer the hard way, then so be it."

With a flick of his thumb, the katana at his side revealed its sharp edge.

"I do not wish to harm you, but I will if you refuse to listen."

"I was about to say the same to you," a third person said from, up above.

A moment later, a fireball scorched the asphalt where her pursuer used to be. Without even turning he had smoothly stepped away from the path of the incoming attack. He fully unsheathed his sword and put up a defensive stance, turning to face his ambusher.

On top of a lamp post overlooking the parking lot, stood a man dressed in black from the eyes down. The only distinguishable features where the mop of gray hair and the flames dancing in his palms.

"It's you," said the katana wielder. "This time, I won't let you run, Homura."

"I don't recall every running from you, Mutsu."

He threw another fireball, much stronger than the previous one. However, rather than dodging 'Mutsu' cleaved it with a swing of his sword, making the two halves splash harmlessly at his sides.

The two opponents glared at one another. That was her chance to run. Without a word, she jumped to her feet and made a break for it..

"Stop!" said Mutsu.

As if following his command, the ground rumbled and shook making her trip and fall again.

She thought he was a Power Class, but he was actually an Elemental Class all along?

"Should you really be looking elsewhere?" asked Homura, right before he sent a torrent of flames raging at him.

Mutsu had turned his back at Homura to advance towards her. Rather than facing the incoming attack, he slammed his foot on the ground and a veritable wall of dirt and concrete rose to shield him from the flames.

With another tap of his foot, the asphalt cracked and tendril of dirt wrapped around her ankle like a snake, trapping her in place.

"I'll deal with you later," he said, already turning to face the only real threat to his person.

"Damn it!" she cried, trying to free herself from the constriction.

However, the formerly malleable material had solidified and became as hard as rock. The only thing she managed to achieve and scraping her skin on the rough surface of the shackle, making herself bleed.

Now, even if she managed to free herself she wouldn't even be able to run properly.

All she could do now was hope that Homura would win, but she had no idea if that meant jumping from the pan and into the fire. Half-literally at that.

The two Sekirei's battle raged on.

[br]

Shirou followed his sixth sense for quite a while. It wasn't exactly a precise tool at a distance, but the closer he got, the easier it became to track down the source of the disturbance.

He came across empty parking lot. Empty, except for three human figures. One laying on the ground and the other two waging a supernatural battles.

Burst of flames danced around a sword-wielding figure, who cut them off or blocked by making the ground rise at his command.

It was impressive to look at. Their respective control over their elements would put any Magus to shame. They had no need to recite an Aria. At worst, they seemed to produce Magecraft through motion of their bodies.

He speculated that it was merely a preference, because Akitsu did not seem to need that to manifest her ice.

Shirou watched the battle way they fought was different from any other he had seen in his life. Possessing both superhuman strength and astounding control of their respective element, they battle was a mix of magic and acrobatics.

However, Shirou had the impression that both of them were holding back a great deal.

He took a good look at the sword in the Earth user's hands. Even at a glance, the forging process looked extremely advanced. At the very least, it was made entirely of materials originating from Earth. Nothing alien about it.

Eventually, his eyes were drawn to the prone figure, who was struggling to free herself from a shackle that was no doubt a creation of the Earth user.

Was she a Sekirei as well? With two Sekirei already present, it was difficult to discern a third supernatural signature even for him. Could she be the Ashikabi of the fire user? It would explain why the other had trapped her. Even if Sekirei abided by the rule of not attacking another's Ashikabi, simply having them stuck on the battlefield would heavily limit how hard the opponent could fight.

However, it was also possible that she was a unlucky human that had come across this scene and was kept from feeling. If that was the case, what would the Sekirei do with her? If they had captured her it meant that they didn't plan to just let her leave.

Takami said that MBI controlled the media, but she also stated that they should keep the fight out of the public's eyes. Would they be willing to go through a lot of trouble to make sure a single witness kept her mouth shut, or would they pick the easy option?

Should he intervene? If he got closer, he could tell for certain whether she was human or not, but once he got out of his cover he couldn't hope to hide again. If he waited for the battle to be over, then he would have to contend with the eventual winner.

Ultimately, he knew he couldn't risk it. He couldn't risk that an innocent bystander was hurt under his watch. If he were that kind of person he wouldn't have been there in the first place.

He waited for the right moment and then made a run for the trapped woman

"Hold on," he said.

"Ah! Who…?"

"I'm getting you out of here," he said, barely sparing a glance at her.

Now that he was this close, he knew that she was Sekirei as well, but now that he had committed to this course to this course of action he couldn't second guess it. One extraction coming right up.

With both hands, he took hold of the chunk of compressed earth around her ankles and pulled. The muscles of his arms bulged. He had already Reinforced his body earlier, so it took less effort than it would have otherwise. The restraint cracked and shattered in small pieces.

He then unceremoniously picked her off the ground, threw her over his shoulder with an indignant squawk on her part, and made a break for it in the direction he had come from.

"You, stop!"

He felt the ground quake behind him, as if something big was rolling in his direction.

He jumped aside out of instinct, and a shockwave swept past him ripping through the ground. He just kept running without looking back.

"There you go, looking elsewhere again," he heard the Fire user say.

Shirou felt the following heatwave even from far away. So the Fire user was holding back because of the trapped Sekirei. He would have to keep that in mind.

"Damn you!" the Earth user growled in pain.

Whatever his motives, it appeared that the Sekirei of Fire wasn't bothered by Shirou's actions and instead doubled down on the opponent. Shirou did not stop to see how things would play out. He knew he wasn't being chased after, as the two presences got further and further away as he ran.

"He...Hey…! Put me down!" cried the squirming Sekirei on his back.

"It's not safe yet!" he told her.

They had to get further away that this if they wanted to play it safe.

The Sekirei seemed to agree with that, because she stopped fighting him.

A few minutes later, they arrived to his van. He unceremoniously opened the door and threw her in the back, jumping inside with her and closing the door behind himself.

"Alright… we should have lost them. Are you… GHHH!"

There was a crackling sound and a powerful electric current shook his body. He reacted out of instinct and decked her across the face with his Reinforced fist.

She immediately dropped unconscious.

"Ooww, what the hell?" he said. His entire body hurt. "She's a lightning user? Why didn't she use her power earlier?"

However, his eyes fell on the small rectangular object in her hands.

"A taser?"

Of all the things he'd expected a magical alien to attack him with, a taser was not one of them.

Was she really a Sekirei? He had that impression from her earlier, even though it was faint. Was she an Ashikabi after all?

He finally took a good look at her.

She appeared to be a woman in her early twenties, with short gray hair. She wore a long white skirt with a thigh-high split on one side and a light blue blouse. She also had sleek square glasses, which had been knocked off her face by Shirou's punch.

There was something about her that reminded him of Akitsu, like they were not too distant relatives. She had similar body proportions as well, but Shirou didn't linger on those.

He turned her around, and sure enough there was the Sekirei crest on the back of her neck, just like Akitsu had said it would.

What was the deal with her then? From what he had seen so far, she was neither a Power or Elemental type. One from the Special Class?

He couldn't recognize her smell right away. After racking his brain for a while trying to pinpoint it, he realized it reminded him of the inside of a newly bought car, but not quite. What kind of ability could his mind be trying associate with that smell?

Only she could give him the answer, but she was out cold.

"Might as well restrain her while she's passed out," he decided.

Among other tools, he had plenty of rope inside his van. He bound her legs and wrists and also gagged her for good measure. She didn't seem to have much in the way of strength, but he decided that Reinforcing the rope couldn't hurt.

Once he was sure she couldn't free herself even if she woke up before he arrived back home, he moved to the front and started the van.

At least he wasn't likely to be stopped by a random road check at that hour. He'd have a hard time explaining the police why he had a bound woman in the back.

As he left the area, he wondered how the battle between the other two Sekirei had gone. Which one had come out as the victor?

[br]

Mutsu sheathed his blade and let out a frustrated sigh. Homura had fled after keeping him busy for a while, so that he couldn't chase after the other Sekirei.

After that he said he no longer had any reason to fight him and left. Mutsu would have give chase, but he already knew it would have been pointless. He couldn't display his full strength in an aerial chase.

If it had been a less skilled opponent, then it wouldn't have made a difference, but Homura was good for a feather of the new generation, fully deserving of being a single digit.

Not surprising, since Mutsu had been responsible for his training.

He was stronger between the two of them, but Homura wasn't trying to beat him. If Mutsu advanced on him, he would just retreat, while if he stepped back, Homura would hinder him. A thoroughly annoying fellow, always playing to his own strength and never the opponent.

Mutsu had taught him well. Too well, in fact.

Still, there was nothing to be done about it. Both prizes had fled the scene.

"Tch," he scoffed as he turned around to leave the scene.

He wasn't looking forward to the earful he'd get once he reported his failure.

[br]

Homura landed atop of a skyscraper. As expected, Mutsu had not followed him. His old instructor was good, but as an Earth Elemental he was at his strongest on the ground. If he gave chase, he'd lose the advantage.

That didn't make him an easy target by any stretch of the imagination, but they both knew he wasn't going to catch Homura.

The Sekirei of Fire wasn't concerned about him anymore. Rather, he was worried about the man that had taken the unwinged Sekirei. In the middle of the fight, Homura didn't have the chance to see how it happened, but he had no idea how he could have freed her from Mutsu's earth shackles.

Breaking free would have been tough even for Homura. He was no Power-Type, so his physique wasn't all that strong, but it was still stronger than a human by several orders of magnitude.

Matsu had probably gone easy on the other Sekirei and didn't put much power into the restraints. The human appeared to be rather on the big side as well, probably much stronger than average as well.

The combination of two factors were the only thing that made sense.

Well, Homura had done his job and could now finally head back home. He was tired as heck. He wasn't worried about the Sekirei he had rescued. Things would surely play out for the best, and maybe they already had.

[br]

Shirou's van pulled into the warehouse, and he immediately rushed to pull down the shutter. It wasn't likely that anybody would be around yet, but he wasn't about to take any chances with the Sekirei trashing the back of his van.

She was bound and everything, but she was trying damn hard to free herself, if the ruckus from inside was any indication.

Not that he wouldn't do the same in her place. Thrown by a stranger in the back of a battered van in the middle of the night, anyone would try to escape. She had no way of knowing he didn't intend to harm her, and eve if he told her she would have no reason to believe him.

Even a Sekirei would probably worry, especially since she didn't seem to be a strong as the rest of them.

"Master? Is everything alright?" asked the sleepy voice of Akitsu from atop the stairs.

"Yes, please come give me a hand with this," he said without looking up.

The sound of Akitsu's bare feet echoed down the metal steps.

It was then that he saw her.

She was wearing one of his old shirts and pretty much nothing else. His shirts were big, but so was she. As such, it didn't do much to cover anything below the waist, and thus Shirou got a good look at the sort of underwear she had bought the other day.

They were remarkably flimsy and…oh god, was the back just a string? He could see it. He could see all of her posterior, down from the curve of her back to the tip of her dainty feet.

'Why the hell does an alien species have to be so attractive by human standards?'

His protest might have had a bit more credibility to them if his eyes weren't glued to Akitsu's backside as she hopped down the stairs in such a way that made her soft part bounce just the right way.

He felt his throat clamp shut, so by the time he managed down the knot, she was already at the bottom of the stairs. Too late for him to tell her to go get something on.

"What do you require of me?"

"There's a Sekirei in the van. I sort of rescued her from two others, but there was a misunderstanding, and she attacked me. I managed to knock her out and bind her, but she's awake now and clearly upset. I need you to help me calm her down."

"She attacked you, Master? Are you hurt?" she asked, her hand reaching for his face in worry.

"I'm fine," he replied, pushing her hand away. An action he immediately regrets it at her crestfallen expression. "Anyway, she's not very strong, but I don't know what's her ability. Be ready to subdue her, but try not to harm her. I just want to talk with her."

"Yes, Master," Akitsu agreed.

He opened the door, and just as he did so he had to move aside or she would have been headbutted by the belligerent Sekirei, who all but threw herself out.

Shirou grabbed her with one arm before she could fall flat on the floor. With her hands bound behind her back, she would have surely smashed her face on the concrete.

Her jaw was already bruised from Shirou's punch. He wasn't looking forward to add to that.

"Calm down. Calm down, I said. No one is going to hurt you. I just want to talk, I promise. Look, if you hadn't attacked me first, I wouldn't have to resort to these methods. … Do I have to knock you out again before you let me untie you?"

At last, she stopped struggling. Shirou straightened her so she wouldn't fall when he let go of her.

For the first time, they really looked at each other in the eyes. She looked scared, defiant and even somewhat curious, no doubt sizing up whether he could trust his word or not.

"I'm going to release you know. Please don't try to run or fight. If you do, Akitsu here will stop you. Once we are done talking, you'll be free to leave.

She looked from him to Akitsu and back again. Eventually, she nodded her agreement.

With a small knife, Shirou cut off the rope.

The Sekirei took a few measured step away from him. The temperature immediately dropped, a few degrees as ice started to form around Akitsu.

"Easy, Akitsu," he said. "Let her stretch her legs a bit."

In the meantime, the Sekirei removed her gag.

"Here, these are yours," he said, offering the glasses that he had knocked off his face earlier.

She gingerly accepted them and put them back on her nose.

"... who are you?" she finally asked.

"My name is Emiya Shirou and this is Akitsu. And you are?"

"You don't know?" she asked, frowning.

"I'm not with MBI, if that's what you assumed by my association with Akitsu. Also, you haven't answered my question, What's your name?"

"... My name is Kochou. Sekirei number Twenty-Two, if you really must know."

"Huh. Well, I'd like to say nice to meet you, but there was nothing really pleasant about that."

Kochou massaged her jaw. "You tell me."

"You did taze me first," he said defensively.

"A stranger locked me into the back of his van. What was I supposed to do? And how did you remain conscious anyway? Those were 50,000 volts right there."

"I'm sturdy," he replied flatly.

"Yeah, I can tell," she said, eyeing him from head to toe. "I almost thought you were Sekirei too, but you don't have the physique."

"Sekireis have a specific body type? No, wait. Look, this is awkward. Would you like to come upstairs and have a cup of tea? Sit down and talk things out?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes. I know I basically abducted you but that wasn't my intention. I just want a few questions answered, then you really can go."

"...fine. It won't be any worse than being tied up in the back of your van. My ankle is killing me anyway."

"Oh, sorry. I didn't think about that. Akitsu, could you help her walk?"

"Of course."

With Akitsu's aid, they went up the stairs and into the apartment.

In the past few days, Shirou had bought a few more chairs and other basic appliances. There was no reason not to splurge MBI's money on comfort things. The place still looked in need of renovation but there were at least enough chairs for everybody to sit on.

Upon entering the place, Shirou noticed Kochou looking at all possible exit points first and then the rest of the apartment. If she had any opinion about the state of things she did not voice them.

"Akitsu, please get the first aid kit from the bathroom. I'm going to bandage your leg if that's fine."

"I'll do it myself, thank you," she replied.

"As you wish," he agreed. "I'll heat up the water for the tea."

"Do you have some ice for my face too? You hit like a truck. A human would have had their head knocked clean off their shoulders."

"I didn't hit you that hard," he sighed with his back turned to her.

It was probably true, though. Under Reinforcement, a human would have probably died if he had punched them the way he had done with her. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to measure one's enhanced strength under the effects of 50,000 volts

"You probably have already figured out that I'm not much of a fighter, but I'm still a Sekirei. Even the weakest of us is several times more resilient than any of your kind."

"Speaking of which, you were saying something about the physique of your species."

"You are deflecting," she said.

"I am," he nodded. "Ah, thank you, Akitsu. So, in which way do Sekirei differ from me?"

Kochou snorted at his blatant dismissal of her curiosity but accepted the bandages that Akitsu had retrieved and started to treat her wounded leg. Her skirt fell to the side, and her leg became exposed up to her thighs.

Shirou looked immediately away and put down three cups on the table, which he filled with hot water. Then he fetched the teabags from the shelf.

"All Sekirei are effeminate by human standards," Kochou explained. "Our few males can be described as bishounen, at best. You won't find any Sekirei with your build. … not that I've seen many humans with your build either."

Shirou acknowledged that statement with a shrug.

He hit a serious growth spurt in his late teens, although he suspected that his inward application of Magecraft might have played a role. Using Reinforcement to augment his body functions might have had a few unintended side effects. It made blending in rather difficult but on the other hand he could make most people back out from a fight with just his presence.

"So, those two other Sekirei back then were males, right? I wasn't a hundred percent sure. What did they want from you? How'd you end up in there?"

"That Earth guy, Mutsu… he wanted to bring me to his Ashikabi so that he could wing me, what else? Then that Fire guy Homura attacked him. He probably wanted to do the same for his own Ashikabi."

"And you thought I wanted to do the same."

"Of course," she nodded. "The moment you reached for me in the middle of that battle, it became obvious that you knew what I was. Naturally, I believed you wanted to wing me yourself."

"You still think that I'm going to," he said, sipping a bit of tea. "You have been considering how likely you'd be able to escape through the window for a while now."

"So much for that plan, then," she sighed resignedly.

"You are not the first unwinged Sekirei to pass through here and leave unscathed."

"You mean besides the Scrap?"

"Her name's Akitsu. Please don't call her that. It's demeaning."

"Hm? Oh, I don't mean it that way. To be honest, I'm jealous of her condition."

"...what?"

It was the first time that Shirou felt something resembling outrage in Akitsu's voice.

Shirou himself was extremely surprised. Not only Akitsu but also Kazehana had stressed the importance of the Winging to their species. Yet here was a Sekirei that envied one that could not have that.

"I thought that all Sekirei wanted to find their Ashikabi," said Shirou. "Don't you?"

"I understand that humans often crave things that are not good for them. My species can be quite the same in that regard."

Shirou leaned forward on his chair.

"Isn't it a natural process of your biology?"

"Being winged? Of course, it is. My objection is getting winged by a human. It's not that I don't like your people. It's just that getting winged by one of your kind is an unfair proposition for me."

"How so?"

"Right… you probably don't realize this since she's a Scrap. The winging process creates a psychic bond between Sekirei and Ashikabi. You know that much, right?"

"So I've been explained."

"What you probably haven't been told is how it affects us. Over time, our mind changes, and it adapts to… please our Ashikabi better. To what degree depends on how intense the personality of the Ashikabi is, but any amount is still too much for me. Your species looks down upon rape, but being winged by a human is so much worse than that, in my opinion."

"That's not true!" Akitsu objected vehemently. "The bond between Sekirei and Ashikabi is one of love."

"Originally it was, I'm sure. After all, if two Sekirei winged each other, the psychic bond would be mutual. It would foster a greater understanding of one another. Humans aren't the same as us. They are not affected as we are by the bond. It's a one-sided relationship, no matter how you look at it."

"The other Sekirei know of this?" asked Shirou

"Of course they do. It's no secret at all. They have just been sold this utopia of love for so long that they don't care about how it affects them. They look forward to it, in fact. The most repugnant part is that even I will come to enjoy it when it finally happens. It makes me want to retch just thinking about it. In your crippled state, sister, you are the only Sekirei with a realistic shot at having an equal relationship."

"... I see," said Shirou, feeling mildly nauseous as well. "You want to be winged by another Sekirei?"

"If only. MBI has altered us in such a way that we can't find an Ashikabi among ourselves, and even if we could, there is only a handful of males to choose from. Even if my fated one was among them, they have probably have all been winged by now."

Shirou put down his half-empty cup of tea and walked to the window, looking outside.

It was almost dawn.

"What do you plan on doing then?"

"... I wasn't planning anything, really. I know I can't run from the city. It's only a matter of time before I'm caught. I would have been already winged by now if you hadn't abducted me."

The ensuing silence was heavy. After a while, Kochou stood up and put her weight back on her wounded leg.

"Alright," she said. "Let's get this out of the way. I'm ready as I'll ever be."

"... what are you talking about?"

"The Winging. Let's do it."

"Did I punch you too hard? You just finished telling me how much you hate the concept."

"I loathe it," she confirmed, "but it's going to happen anyway. Maybe two days from now, maybe a week. I'm not a fighter. I can't even protect myself. The only alternative I have is to kill myself before it happens, and… well, I really don't have the guts."

"Are you reacting to me?"

"Not in the least. This is my conscious decision, not the consequence of a mind addled by an emotion."

"Just a few minutes ago, you were trying to run even though your hands and feet were tied. What changed?"

"What changed is…. I'm not likely to run into another person who'll give me a choice in the matter like you have. The way I see it, this is the best deal I will ever get. I might as well pick it."

"That's it?" he asked. "Just like that? You are not even going to ask for something, a promise of any kind?"

"Why bother? Even if you went back on your word later, I wouldn't even be able to resent you for it. I don't do pointless things."

Shirou stared at Kochou and pondered upon the weight of her circumstances.

Either live as someone else's puppet or die. No other options.

'Senpai.'

His lip twitched, almost making him show how hard his teeth were clenched. He forced down that memory. It wasn't the same. It wouldn't be the same. He wouldn't let it.

He stepped closer to her. Her shoulders tensed, and her jaw clenched.

Just like the other Sekirei in the room, she was extremely beautiful. Her quivering lips looked extremely kissable. He was so close to her now that he could feel her body heat radiate from her clear skin.

She wasn't as tall as Akitsu, but Shirou would only have to incline his neck to touch his lips to her. Her fate had been sealed the moment she was born a Sekirei, and now she finally resigned herself to it.

Kochou swallowed thickly and then closed her eyes.

[br]

She was waiting for the feeling of the winging to burn through her.

"No."

"Ah! W-What…? "

Her eyes snapped open. She was so tense that she nearly jumped in fright the moment she heard those words, even though she didn't really understand what he said right away.

"What… What do you mean no?"

"I mean no. I not going to wing you. I refuse."

Kochou stared in disbelief at the giant human, not knowing what to say or how to feel.

She settled for bitter disappointment despite everything.

"Fine. I was a fool to believe I could have any say about my own life."

She turned around and made for the door. She wasn't expecting his hand to grab her wrist and prevent her from moving.

"What?" she asked, glaring it him from behind her shoulder. "Make up your damn mind already."

"I've already come to a decision. I'm not going to wing you…. and I'm not going to let you get winged either."

"...eh?"

Right now, what did he just say?

"You heard me. You said you don't have the ability to protect yourself, but that doesn't mean you have to. I'll do that for you."

"Are you… are you serious right now?"

"I wouldn't joke about this."

Kochou had never considered the option of seeking shelter under another. After all, those with the power to protect her, would be the least willing to do so. The possibility was so remote it never crossed her mind.

Yet here it was.

She could not have trusted anyone who made such an offer. Surely they would wing her the moment she lowered her guard.

Except she already had lowered her guard. Twice already she had been at his mercy.

"They… They'll come for me. The Game…. All Sekirei must be winged for it to advance."

"What's your point?" he asked. "The Sekirei Plan is a battle royale. We'd have to fight everyone else, eventually. At least now I have a good reason. Anyone who tries to wing you forcibly, I don't mind giving what they deserve."

"You are… you actually mean it."

Not only that. There was something about his eyes that made her feel like he would and could follow through on it.

"I do. I'll protect you, no matter what."

Thus, Kochou, Sekirei Number Twenty-Two, was reintroduced to an emotion she had not felt in a long time.

Hope.

[XXX]

AN: for more chapters, join my free Discord server : discord gg / HaHZJdncJB