Uzume kicked her legs in the air as she heard the sound of an armored car roll by Maison Izumo. The sound didn't irritate her so much as the concept. MBI's security forces couldn't do jack squat against the occupants of the inn, but it seemed the chairman wanted to let everyone know who owned this town, literally. Once they stepped outside, they played by his rules: how he wanted, where he wanted. There wasn't anything they could do about it.
Well, that was true for most, but not Uzume. She'd gotten away with two Sekirei deactivations so far as her alter ego. Even though MBI could theoretically track her down, Minaka, with all his obsession with being the Game Master and letting the chaos of the Sekirei Plan make its own way sometimes, probably told the Discipline Squad to lay off and not investigate. "The Veiled Sekirei" hadn't done anything to cross the line; the logging of victors was more a formality than a hard requirement.
Sighing with boredom, Uzume got up and left her room, kicking a pink teddy bear back into the pile of plushies she'd accumulated for her Ashikabi. At the end of the hall, she saw that Matsu's door was ajar and decided to see if Matsu could find an arcade or a movie theater that wasn't discriminating against Sekirei. With the city locked down, a lot of people had blamed the Sekirei for MBI's hostile takeover.
She poked her head in the dim light of the computer monitors and was just about to talk when she read "Veiled Sekirei" on the one Matsu was using. Change of plans. She wasn't ready to deal with the fallout of her predicament.
"Hey, Matsu!" Uzume chirped, putting on her happy face. "You busy?"
"Yeah, why?" came the redhead's response.
"Well, uh, I was bored and-" Uzume got a light bulb that would've lit the room like a Roman candle. "-wanted to see who's up for a game."
"Not interested," Matsu said absentmindedly. "There's a Sekirei who's not staying with their defeated opponents on the loose. Could be dangerous."
"Know what would be more dangerous?" Uzume said deviously. She slunk up behind Matsu and leaned on her back, making sure her boobs got maximum squish for maximum coverage. "Playing Truth or Dare with me and everyone else, including Minato."
The way Matsu started, Uzume would've snickered if it wouldn't have ruined the play. Out of all the Sekirei she'd met, Matsu was definitely the perviest, probably a side effect of having an internet browser for a brain.
In the black glass of one of the unused monitors, Uzume saw Matsu's horny gremlin smile. "I'm listening."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Thanks for the bottle, Miya," Uzume said as she left the kitchen for the living room. "Okay, guys, here's the rules."
She pulled up a cushion and knelt down in the gathered circle. Kagari had opted out due to work, and Miya was more interested in the remaining dishes, so that left the rest of the household to play the game: Minato, Musubi, Kusano, Matsu, Tsukiumi, and of course Uzume herself. Minato would've been in heaven if he wasn't so polite. They were all in their jammies, which for Matsu and Uzume was glorified lingerie.
Uzume quickly explained the rules. "We spin the bottle. Whoever it lands on gets to ask anyone else: truth, or dare." She set the bottle on the floor in the middle of the circle. "If you complete a dare, you get a freebie, which lets you pass a dare or truth question on to someone else, and they have to do it instead."
She looked at Matsu. "Though, you can't pick the same person twice."
"Why are you looking at me?" Matsu asked.
"Cause I know you, and what you'd drill Minato for."
Matsu chortled. "Can't argue with that."
"I'm kind of surprised you agreed to this, Tsukiumi," Minato said to his newest Sekirei and first-ever wife.
"What for?" Tsukiumi replied, looking humbly resplendent in her powder blue nightgown. "When one is the best, one must worketh to remain thusly so. I could never refuse so simple a request from my beloved."
"Then let's get things started!" Uzume put her hand on the bottle. "Gundam fight! Ready… Gooo!"
Away the bottle went, coming to a stop when it clanked against Musubi's kneecap.
"Oo! I go first! Okay…" She looked around the group and went by the rule of best wives. "Tsukiumi! Truth, or dare?"
Tsukiumi flinched for a moment before she said, "Dare. Though, what be the punishment for refusal?"
Matsu grinned. "Unless you have a freebie, whoever asked gets to kiss Minato on the lips."
"WHAT?!"
Matsu's glasses glinted with amorous intent. "Now those are some stakes."
Tsukiumi's eyes were shooting hellfire at Uzume for talking her (husband) into this, but she'd already planted her flag atop Mt. Best. "Very well. Do thy worst, Musubi!"
"Okay!" Musubi smiled fiercely at Tsukiumi. "I dare you, Tsukiumi…" She stood up and spread her arms. "To act like a bird until the bottle lands on you!"
Tsukiumi's eye twitched. "Which bird?"
"A chicken!"
"Ooooh-ho-ho!" Uzume guffawed. "I didn't know you had it in you, Musubi!"
"Why not?" Musubi asked. "I like birds."
Matsu looked Minato's way. "Oh darn," she said sardonically, "I don't think Tsukiumi's going to go for it."
"NO!" Tsukiumi rose to her feet. "No. I accept the challenge."
Her knees shaking, Tsukiumi wobbled them down to a 90-degree angle and put her hands on her hips. She weakly started moving her elbows back and forth, before turning around and carefully tiptoeing away, the way a ballet dancer stepped with their toes first.
"You're awfully tall for a chicken, Tsukiumi," Matsu called. "Come on! You won't find any worms like that!"
Tsukiumi growled-
"That's a very un-chicken-like sound, you know!" Uzume teased. "Maybe you were right, Matsu. Maybe Musubi should go grab the lipstick."
Tsukiumi's ass dropped like a hammer until it nearly touched her heels. Her arms folded and her head started bobbing back and forth, her long blonde hair swaying along her back.
"Buck buck buck, buck buck, buck…" Tsukiumi's feet thumped the floorboards as she swayed around, flapping her elbows and dragging her nightgown along behind her.
"...But I don't wear lipstick," Musubi said. The rest didn't hear, because they were too busy laughing. Tsukiumi had bent over and was pecking at the ground for 'worms' when she trod on the folds of her dress and fell over.
"With a headstand like that, you should try the Olympics!" Minato offered, half-sincerely.
Tsukiumi growled again and completed her forward roll, blushing furiously. "Continue the-"
"Ap-bup-bup!" Musubi cut her off. "Chickens don't go 'Continue the', Tsukiumi. They cluck!"
Tsukiumi was shaking again, this time from her blood pressure.
Still, this was a game and they were all playing, and tormenting Tsukiumi with snide remarks would only go so far before either she exploded or her increasingly reddening face did. Musubi reached down and spun the bottle, which eventually came to a stop on… Matsu!
"Okay, Minato," Matsu said. "Truth, or dare?"
Minato shrugged. "Dare, I guess."
Matsu cackled. "AH-haha, sucker! I dare you to shave a body part fully, decided by popular vote."
Minato swallowed. "Do I get a say?"
Matsu shrugged. "I'll let you nominate one. Pick something juicy, Mina-tan~!"
Minato looked around at the women in his life, trying to gauge where they were staring… which naturally ruled out Uzume and Matsu, because they were staring at his junk. That left Kusano, who was staring at his face, and Musubi, who was looking at his…
"Chest," said Minato. "I nominate my chest."
"I nominate your eyebrows!" Kusano said. She started giggling uncontrollably. "You'll look so funny!"
"I vote eyebrows, too!" Musubi said.
"Chest," Matsu said.
"Seconded," said Uzume. "Let's see some topless guy action! Woo!"
Which meant Tsukiumi would be the tiebreaker.
"Mama Hen?" Minato called jokingly. "Mind laying an egg and breaking the tie?"
Tsukiumi huffed, clucked and chicken-swayed her way over to her pillow, and sat on it. She thought for a moment-
"The man said to lay an egg, so hop to it!" Uzume commanded, before her tight-lipped authority crumbled into a scrunch-faced snort of laughter.
Tsukiumi clenched her eyes shut and made a low moaning noise, more like a cow's low than a chicken's groan, before she said, "Eyebrows."
"What?!" Uzume was shocked.
"But whyyyy?!" Matsu whined. "Don't you wanna see him shiny and smooth?"
She looked at Uzume, dead-eyed. "Blame thyself." Then, it was back to clucking.
Minato stood up from the circle. "Well, come on. I wear a hardhat to work anyway. Let's get this over with."
The washing up station in the downstairs bathroom seemed a lot smaller when four women, one girl, and one Ashikabi were all crowding around the mirror.
"Dang it, I should've dared him to let me shave it!" Matsu amorously seethed. Minato had his electric shaver plugged in and whirring, carefully gliding it along the ridge of his forehead, his black bangs held back. Matsu could just imagine that same shaver, carefully trimming the hair on Minato's chest, or his arm, or another, forbidden place that Matsu had been itch-... dying to slip into since she first cornered him in the tub. Oh yeah, she'd pay cold cash to see his smooth, male skin, to run her hands all over it, maybe get some oil and rub her hands all the way down to his-
"Hey, Matsu!"
The snapping of fingers snapped her out of her daydream. She took one look at their owner and burst out laughing, soon joined by the rest of them.
"Yeah, yeah, get it all out," Minato said, sighing. "I look good?"
"You look like a hairy Easter Island head!" Musubi shouted, pointing.
"No, he looks like someone cored a pineapple but left the leaves on!" Kusano countered, giggling mirthfully.
Uzume leaned in close, poking her face. "I can see myself in that. You're gonna ride to Valhalla, shiny and chrome!"
"Be nice, guys," Matsu warned. "He's a Super Saiyajin 3 now."
Minato rolled his eyes at that one. "Come on, you know I can't go blonde."
"Not without a bottle," Uzume chuckled. "Maybe I'll dare you to do that."
Even Tsukiumi was chuckling, though still not speaking. She was simply glad to not be the punchline any more.
The next spin of the bottle saw it land on Tsukiumi.
"Ha! At last!" She returned to kneeling, and looked to exact revenge. "Musubi! Truth, or dare?"
"Oo! Dare me!" said Musubi excitedly, hopping on her knees and drawing Minato's eyes to her jiggling bust. Her "pajamas" were the same kind of shirt and spandex trunks that she trained in.
"I dare thee…" Tsukiumi thought hard about her challenge. Her husband's kiss was the prize for breaking an opponent. "-to catch a frisbee in thy mouth!"
"Um…" Musubi looked at Minato, then Tsukiumi, then shook her head. "Nuh-uh."
"Seriously?" Uzume asked. "Why not?"
"Frisbee plastic is yucky."
WHUMP! Uzume, Matsu, and Minato all fell over backwards.
"How do you know what frisbee plastic is like, Musubi?" Kusano asked curiously.
"I found one when I was little and thought it was a cookie."
WHUMP! Now Kusano was floored by Musubi's thinking. Even she knew what wasn't a cookie!
"HA! Victory is mine!" Tsukiumi shouted. She stood up and grabbed the front of Minato's pajama top, hauling him to his feet. She gave Matsu the triumphant stink-eye. "How the tables turn."
"Yeah, yeah. Just kiss him and let's get back to it," Matsu said, picking herself up again.
"How small thy thinking is," Tsukiumi scoffed. She dragged Minato out of the room and around the corner. A radiant blue light was followed by a deep, feminine sigh.
"Woah! Easy, Tsukiumi!"
"I have endured humiliation unimaginable. Render unto me what is owed!"
The group heard her kiss him again, this time stifling a staccato moan.
The pair soon returned, Tsukiumi tugging down the portion of her nightgown covering her left breast, unwrinkling it. Minato's face was red like a thermometer and just as heated.
"Now then," Tsukiumi said, no sign of a blush, "on with the game."
Matsu chuckled lecherously. "Wow. Didn't think she had it in her."
"Have what?" Kusano asked, becoming irritated when no one told her. "What?"
"Tis not important. Spin the bottle."
With a huff, Kusano did so. She laughed and clapped her hands when it landed on her. "Uzume! Truth, or dare?"
Uzume shrugged. "Dare, I guess."
Kusano stood up on her pillow. "Okay. I dare you, Uzume, to sprout the wings of a bat and stomp like a zombie, while whistling 'Row Row Row Your Boat' through a carwash!"
Everyone stared at Kusano with blank expressions, except Uzume.
"I'm happy you liked that show," Uzume said, "buu-uut, all in favor of 'Your dare has to be something both of you can do'?"
Everyone except Kusano raised their hands.
"Noo-oo!" Kusano whined.
Uzume smiled and shook her head, tickled by the protest. "As Double D once said, Ku, 'Try a more reasonable dare.'"
"Okay, fine!" Kusano harrumphed and folded her arms, thinking.
"What 'show' doth she refer to, Uzume?" Tsukiumi asked.
"Low-brow American junk. You wouldn't like it."
"Yet, 'tis intellectual enough for Kusano's development?"
"Definitely," Uzume and Musubi said at once.
Kusano raised her hand, then pointed it at Uzume. "I dare you to push a peanut to the end of the hallway."
Uzume shrugged and-
"With your nose! Ha!"
-felt herself step in it.
Musubi chuckled. "You look like I did when I ate a banana peel."
"Ew!" Matsu blanched. "Why would you do that?!"
Musubi huffed. "Because no one told me you weren't supposed to eat that part."
Tsukiumi stepped back into the room with a dry ginkgo nut. "Miya hath no peanuts, but I'm sure this will do."
Grumphing, Uzume stood up and took her prop. "You know Minato's going to stare at my butt while I'm doing this, right?"
Now Tsukiumi blanched, then coughed. "Well… It matters not. He is a man, not a horse, so I shan't expect him to wear blinders."
Uzume grinned evilly. "Whatever you say, Ms. Proper Wife."
She took the nut out of Tsukiumi's hand and went out into the hall, the one that ran across the front of the backyard. Placing it on the floor, she got down on her hands and feet and wedged the bridge of her nose and brow against the nut.
"Alright, here we go!" Uzume said. She started- "Hey!"
It immediately slipped free.
"Come on, move!"
It moved past her nose.
"Rrrgh! Stupid nut!"
She'd planned on teasing Minato to rankle Tsukiumi, but that was off the menu now that she realized just how hard this was going to be. She dropped to her knees and crawled carefully, pushing the nut about thirty centimeters along, then-
"Darn it."
She reset and-
"Darn it!"
She repositioned-
"DARN IT!"
The tip of her nose-
"DAAH!"
Uzume sat back on her heels, not even a meter down the hallway. She was ready to pull her hair out from how much this tiny piece of dried tree seed was defying her! Who did this nut think it was, anyhow? Minato's?!
She was ready to throw in the towel and get back to the real fun of the game, when she saw the look on Minato's face as she turned to announce her surrender. He had a pleading, desperate fear in his eyes as he silently shook his head. Kusano stood before him, oblivious to her big brother's plight as she started at Uzume excitedly.
That was when Uzume remembered: the penalty for failure and the prize for inducing surrender. Kusano, a small girl not even close to maturity, would get to kiss Minato full on the lips. As a Sekirei, Kusano saw nothing wrong with it. As a mature guy, Minato saw everything wrong with it. He'd be up in a cold sweat all night thinking about what kind of impression it was setting, what kind of messed-up things it might put in Kusano's undercooked brain for him to make out with her like that.
Well, Uzume might have been a girly-girl who loved stuffed animals and frilly pink lingerie, but she knew the bro code. She couldn't let Minato down like that. She'd championed the penalty suggested, so now either she had to pay or Minato would.
She thunked back down on her knees and forearms, turtling both her limbs and her will.
"Okay, nut-boy!" she yelled at the ginkgo three centimeters from her nose. "All aboard the end-of-the-hallway express. Woo-woo!"
Uzume looked like a dog, or maybe a backwards woodpecker, as her nose swept up again and again as she steered the nut across the wooden floor. A couple times she was able to steady her head and actually be like a turtle, carting the nut along with the smoothness of modern industrial conveyor belts.
"Go, baby, go!" Musubi shouted.
"Your wish is my lunch," Uzume replied with a smile, before gagging on some floor dust.
Meter by meter, over the course of three minutes (surprisingly), that ginkgo nut made its way to the door at the end of the hallway. Uzume's long brown hair trailed along behind and beside her like a cape, or perhaps a boa, before pooling around her feet as she sat back on her haunches.
"HA!" Uzume raised the nut in the air, triumphant. "My hair probably smells like floor polish but who cares?!"
She crushed the nut in her fist, opened the door, and threw the broken chunks into the yard.
"Got my freebie!" she declared, standing up. "Okay, let's get back to it!"
Smiles on their faces (even Ku), they returned to their circle of pillows and spun the bottle again.
"Huh." Minato stared at the bottle pointing at him, thinking about who he wanted to target. "Okay, Tsukiumi. Truth or dare?"
"Truth," said the blonde, brushing some of her hair aside.
Matsu chuckled. "Lost your nerve now, Tsukiumi?"
"Hardly!" Tsukiumi laid a hand on her chest. "'Tis an opportunity for my husband to know me better. Proceed. Ask me anything, Minato."
The rest of them shrugged. They couldn't argue with that logic.
"Let me see…" Minato thought to a couple of the questions he'd been asked while playing this game in high school. "What's the weirdest dream you've ever had?"
Tsukiumi blinked. "Come again?"
"Come on!" Matsu whined. "Why couldn't you have asked me that?!"
"Because Ku's here," Minato said.
Matsu sighed. "Fair."
"I suppose," Tsukiumi finally said, "that the strangest dream I've had was a bizarre nightmare whilst on the cusp of womanhood." She put her hands out like a zombie's. "I was pursued by a snarling, rabid gorilla with lipstick smeared on its mouth as mine adjuster's violin music played all around. I was pursued throughout MBI Tower before it became the streets of Shinto Teito, and the cursed beast nearly snatched me into its paws before I awoke."
Some of the other girls were snickering at the visual image. Minato listened, expressionless, before nodding. "I can see why you were anxious about being winged."
Tsukiumi nodded in turn. "Indeed. I'll have no such dreams of thee, husband."
Uzume rolled her eyes. "Cool. Spin the bottle already!"
Round it went, before stopping on Uzume herself.
"Oh yeah, time for some payback." She set her sights on Kusano. "Truth or dare, kid?"
Boy did that slight make her mad. "Dooooo! Dare me, Uzume! I'm not afraid of you!"
"Then be afraid of this: I dare you to stick your face into Minato's sock and take a deep whiff!"
"Hmph!" Kusano folded her arms and scoffed. "I thought you were going to give me something scary!"
Uzume leaned forward. "Then what are you waiting for?"
"Nothing! Gimme your sock, Big Brother!"
Minato wasn't sure how this would go, but he also wasn't sure what his feet smelled like. So, he pulled off one of his socks and handed it to Kusano.
"Now remember," Uzume said, "you need to wear that thing like a mask or it doesn't count."
"I know!" Ku said impetuously. She pulled the cuff of the sock over her nose and chin and in-
-mediately recoiled like she'd be slapped in the face.
"Come on, Kuuu," Matsu jeered condescendingly. "Niiice, biiiig breath full of Minato's feet."
Ku screwed her eyes shut and made an audible effort to smell the inside of Minato's sock. If that sock had been a balloon, it would've been an empty one with how much air Kusano sucked into her lungs… before she tipped back and fell into Minato's outstretched hand.
"I think she's got it," Minato remarked.
"Can I smell it?" Musubi asked.
"Why wouldst thou want to do that?!" Tsukiumi squawked, aghast.
"Because whatever it is, it smells like Minato." Sure enough, Minato's other sock made its way onto Musubi's face and she took a deep breath. Her eyes closed and then bugged out before she put the sock down. "Wow… I need to wash your feet better."
A hannya mask peered at them from the stairs. Everyone felt the temperature plummet.
"May I remind you," Miya said, still dressed in her kimono and dress, "that mixed baths are forbidden in Maison Izumo?"
"Oh, uh, sorry, Miss Landlady!" Musubi said nervously. The hannya mask and its owner slid back out of sight. "She's scary…"
"Wha-What else is new?" Matsu stammered.
Around and around the bottle went again.
"Oo, my turn again!" Musubi exclaimed. She looked around the circle. "Hmm… Matsu, I dare you to… Inhale a line of cinnamon!"
Matsu shook her head. "Nope."
"Goody!" Musubi turned to Minato and kissed-
-Matsu's palm.
"No, I mean that's not possible," Matsu clarified. "Cinnamon has a bunch of stuff in it that's harmless in small amounts, but it can ruin your health if you eat a lot of it straight."
"But I'm not daring you to eat it," Musubi said.
"Inhaling it is even worse." Matsu swabbed her stomach with her hand. "If it gets into your lungs, it can give you pneumonia or lead to infection. If it goes up your nose, it can cause a lot of irritation or burning, even worse if it absorbs into your bloodstream. That much coumarin could mess up your liver, even if you're a Sekirei."
Musubi blinked. "...Oh."
Minato reached across the circle and laid a hand on hers. "It's okay, Musubi. Try again."
"I dare you to draw on the Landlady's face while she's asleep!"
Everyone's breath became visible as the hannya mask returned.
"I do apologize," Miya said, a sickly sweet and sinister smile across her lips as she pivoted around the doorway again. "I could have sworn that you were suggesting one of my tenants violate not one but several rules of privacy of my cozy little home. You didn't do that, did you, Musubi?"
"N-No, Landlady."
"I thought not."
The monster slunk back to its lair and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"Third time's the charm, Musubi," said Matsu. "Lay it on me."
"I know!" Musubi's fist hammered her upturned palm. "Matsu, I dare you to put on your dress, tap fake hair to embarrassing parts of your body, then go for a walk to both ends of the sidewalk!"
"Aw, didn't wanna make me walk outside in my underwear?" Matsu asked, giggling. "Oh well. Saving that one for-"
Hannya mask again. Matsu froze.
"-my, uhhh, doujinshi. That I'm working on."
When the monster left again, Uzume folded her arms. "Hope she doesn't do that too much, or we might have to move this game somewhere else."
"But it's almost bedtime," Musubi said.
"Exactly."
"You know, I could fob this off onto someone else with my freebie," Matsu said as she stood up, posing for Minato in her nightie, "but I kinda wanna see what happens. Just be ready to grab me if the Discipline Squad shows up."
"Matsu, this is your first dare," Minato pointed out.
She stomped her foot. "You weren't supposed to notice! You were supposed to get distracted!"
"You get your dress, I'll get my scissors," Uzume said. "Someone find the tape, double-sided if you can."
"Scissors?" Kusano asked. "For what?"
Uzume held up the end of her long side tail. "Who needs fake hair when we've got the real deal? We can all chip in on this one."
Kusano whimpered and backed against the wall. While Tsukiumi tried to give her an angry pep talk, the participants split from the game space to find the components. Soon, Uzume returned with her scissors, wearing her usual long-sleeve belly top over her "pajamas". She side-smirked when she caught Minato sneaking a glance at her waist. Something about a shirt-and-panty combo really just worked for red-blooded guys.
Rolling up her purple sleeves, she noted the tape roll on the floor in front of her. "Guess I'll go first." She made a loop of tape, pressed a lock of her hair to one side of it, then snipped it off. The hairs were about as long as her head was wide, perpendicular to the tape loop to maximize coverage. She repeated the process with the hair down her back, bringing it around over her shoulder before taking some off the end.
"So, where's this going?" Uzume asked.
It was all downhill from there. By the time they were done, Matsu had blonde sideburns, hairy hands, brunette feet, a zigzagging Wario-esque blonde mustache, fuzzy shins, and a big black unibrow tucked behind her glasses. Not only that, but Musubi had sacrificed nearly a third of her thin ponytail to give Matsu a long, Chinese goatee that disappeared into her cleavage.
"Come on, Ku!" Minato said, tugging at the spot where Uzume had clipped his black bangs. "Just a little."
"No!" Ku huffed. "I don't wanna!"
"You're such a wimp," Uzume teased.
"But she's a nice wimp," Musubi offered.
"I guess Matsu's got enough hair," Minato said.
"Yup!" Musubi nodded, racing to the door and holding it open. "Okay, Matsu. Start walking!"
Oh, she didn't just 'walk'. Matsu strutted down the front path and onto the sidewalk like a fashion model down a runway, putting one heel in front of the other like a gymnast walking a balance beam. Her hips sashayed from side to side, milking all the attention she could from her young (and hopefully virile) Ashikabi standing on the porch, watching. Tsukiumi and Kusano were both pucker-faced with jealousy as, sure enough, Minato couldn't help himself. Courtesy and manners could only go so far before a man had to ogle a girl who was openly and unabashedly into him.
This contrasted the looks Matsu got from the people on the walk, looking at her like she'd just walked up to them and said, 'Hello, I'm a swallower.'
Furrowed brows and widening eyes were abound as Matsu pivoted on her heel and started down towards the first street corner. Gossiping whispers between passing couples at what kind of game show the woman in pink was on, or what perverse Western trend had washed up on Japanese shores this time. Hopefully, it wouldn't be as bad as the cinnamon challenge.
The rest of the players followed, Musubi hopping up on the privacy wall for a better view.
"Hahaha! You look so funny, Matsu!" she guffawed. "Haha-WAH!"
She fell off.
Matsu made it to the end of the sidewalk and struck a pose, putting her hand behind her head and her fist on her hip. She spun around and fashion-walked back to Izumo's front gate. She caressed Minato's chin as she passed. Minato responded by caressing her hairy hand.
"Take it easy, Bigfoot," Uzume said, humorously shaking her head.
"You mean me, Minato, or Other Minato?" Matsu replied.
"There's another Big Brother? Where?"
"Figure of speech, Ku," said Uzume.
Matsu strutted down to the other end of the sidewalk. Her mustache fell off at one point and she had to start wrinkling her lip to keep it balanced. Someone made the mistake of flipping out their phone and taking a photo, prompting Matsu to flip them the bird. She twirled her braided orange hair around as she neared the corner, flipping it around like a cowgirl spinning a lasso, just without the loop.
Hey, there's an idea, Matsu thought as she pivoted. Dare Minato to play a game of horsey with me, where he's the wild stallion and I'm the cowgirl in charge of breaking him.
"Uh oh," Minato said, exasperation creeping into his face. "Matsu's plotting something."
Tsukiumi tilted her head around her husband for a better look. "Most definitely. The trollop schemes of perverse things."
Not as perverse as some of the websites Matsu would have to visit to scrub those pics of herself, though. Everyone was into something, which meant sooner or later "hot girl with fake mutton chops" was going to be a Rule 34 search result.
"Okay, Minato," Matsu said as she started pulling the hair off herself. "Now I have a freebie."
"I think we all do," Minato said.
"I don't!" Musubi said, raising her hand.
Ku raised her hand, too. "I don't eaaaa-aaah…"
Minato chuckled. "Careful, Ku. Yawns that big are contagious. I think it's bedtime."
"Awww, do I have to?" Kusano asked. She answered her own question with another yawn.
"Looks like it." Minato took her hand and led her inside. Uzume followed behind, so her behind would remain obscured from the night strollers with their phone cameras still out. "I think we were about to wrap up anyway."
"One dare left," Matsu said. "This last spin's to see who gets to dare Musubi."
The women all knelt in their circle. With a flick of her finger, Tsukiumi spun the bottle around one last time for the night.
Uzume raised an eyebrow as the bottle clinked against her knee. "Full circle, huh?" She clapped her hands and rubbed her palms together. "All right. Here we go. Musubi…"
"Yes?!" Musubi said excitedly. She sounded like she was about to be dared to get in a fight. "What should I do, Uzume?"
Uzume's eyes studied the ceiling. "Hmmm… You know what twerking is, Musubi?"
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Miya was kneeling before the small shrine to her husband, a candle lit next to his picture. She always cherished the memory of the day it was taken, the first one where Miya herself had been holding the camera. Over a decade had passed since then, with many happy years of being a happy little housewife and letting herself be wrapped around Takehito's finger. She sighed wistfully, for she remembered how she'd wrapped him around her own finger. They simply couldn't refuse each other, too-
…
Miya frowned. She heard what sounded like… clapping? Clapping, coming from her chamber door. It was too soft to be hands, and she had no idea who would be doing it at this time of the evening. Nevertheless, she stood up to investigate. Shuffling over to the door, she slid it open.
"Is there something you need, Musubi?"
"No, I'm okay, Miss Landlady. Thank you, though!"
Miya's most enthusiastic tenant was facing away from her door with an mp3 player in her hand, the headphones disappearing under her brown hime haircut. Miya's room was at the end of the hallway, where she'd heard her tenants hooting and hollering about something Uzume had been doing earlier, but she'd paid it no mind. Now she was a tiny bit suspicious.
Sliding the door closed again, Miya returned to her shrine and her nightly prayer when the clapping sound started again. Now she opened the door more quickly, to find Musubi bent over with her hands on her knees.
"May I ask what you're doing, Musubi?"
"Just stretching."
"...Stretching."
"Yup!"
Miya frowned. "At this time of night?"
"Uh-huh."
Miya's superhuman hearing picked up the sound of snickering coming from the other end of the hall. No doubt her tenants were up to something, but her sixth sense for lewdness and illicit relations hadn't warned her of anything untoward happening in her house.
Sighing, she closed the door-
Slap slap slap, clap clap clap.
There it was again! She opened the door-
"Hi, Miss Landlady!"
Just Musubi again. The snickering was getting louder. Miya had no sense of lewdness, but she did know when she was being made fun of. She rapidly traversed the hallway and found Matsu and Uzume pressed to the kitchen wall, just inside the door.
"And what are you two up to?"
The two conspirators looked at her nervously. "Nothing," they both said.
"Nothing?" The hannya mask came out. "Nothing at all?"
Uzume swallowed. "Just… wrapping up our game."
"Oh." Miya put her demonic visage away. "I see. And what does that entail?"
"'Twas nothing against the rules, Landlady," Tsukiumi assured her, emerging from the bathroom along with Kusano and Minato. "Musubi was merely carrying out her assigned challenge."
"Trust me, we learned our lesson," Matsu said.
"Well, all right," Miya said, relenting in her inquisition. "Come along, Ku. It's time for bed."
"Okay…" Kusano yawned again.
"All done, guys," Musubi said, returning.
The trio of Sekirei waited until Miya's door was closed before they hastily dragged Musubi out to the side of the house.
"What do you mean 'all done'?!" Uzume whispered. "You were supposed to twerk for the whole song!"
"I did!" Musubi protested. "I only stopped when Miya opened the door."
"Then how did-" Matsu's brain clicked and she wrinkled her lip. "You sneaky little minx…"
Musubi smiled at her fellow Sekirei. "You didn't say Miya had to be in her room while I was doing it!"
Tsukiumi nodded. "She speaketh true. Thou should've thought thy challenge through."
"Oh, you want a challenge?" Matsu said, ruffled at her intellect being challenged. "How about this: twerking contest. Two minutes."
"Is, uh, this a dare?" Minato asked. "I thought we were done."
"So did I," Uzume said, "but I'm down! Minato can judge."
"Wait, now, hold on a second-!"
It was no use. Four women hoisted him by the arms and dragged his ankles along the floor, across the house, and back to the living room, where they deposited him on the couch.
"Hope you girls are ready to get cucked," Uzume teased, slapping her ass. "Can't beat this."
A vein bulged on Tsukiumi's brow. "Surely, dear friend and game-rival, thou meanest 'cooked'."
"I know what I said."
"Oh, we'll see," Matsu said, removing her pink dress, leaving her in her 'pajamas' yet again. "I've had a lot of time to study."
Uzume took her mp3 player back from Musubi and put it on speaker. Synth guitars and drums started pounding out a metal tune as the girls lined up in front of the couch.
"Feast thine eyes!" Tsukiumi said, spreading her legs and gyrating her hips.
"Over here, big guy," Matsu said, jiggling her cheeks.
"Nah, over here!" Uzume called, hiking her panties into a g-string which her ass positively devoured.
"Um, look at me, Minato!" Musubi said, sort of just dancing. She had enough cake to make it work in her skin-tight booty shorts, though.
Minato felt like he was in a trance. Four pairs of bouncing buns hypnotized him into a state of arousal he never would've imagined. It was like being in a sleazy 1980s strip club, complete with rock music. Matsu's translucent, veil-like nighty jumped and floated down against her each time she willed her cheeks to jump and draw a circle. Uzume twitched one cheek, then the other, switching in time with the lyrics.
"Just-don't-lie to me," she sang with the song. "Don't treat me like a fool."
Minato couldn't. That's why he wasn't saying anything.
"Minato!" Tsukiumi barked, sashaying her hips as she'd seen Matsu do on the walk earlier. She even hiked up her dress and mooned Minato with her white underwear. She had the mass, but not the force. Thus, her mournful attempts at twerking lacked the same gravitational pull that Uzume and Matsu were exerting. She looked more like she was riding an invisible lover than tempting a tangible one. It was erotic, as Tsukiumi was far too sexy for it not to be, but not nearly as much as her competition.
Poor Musubi didn't fair much better.
"Like this?" she asked, slapping her hands on her butt and rolling her cheeks around by hand. She nearly gave herself a wedgie with how much she hiked up her trunks, and nearly did the splits with how hard she shook her torso. She looked like she was hammering in a railroad spike with her butt.
"Ha!" Matsu's laugh was at the expense of everyone to her left. "Amateurs." She stood straight up, arching her back and maximizing the squoosh of her ass, bulging it out like rising dough. The bouncing, the full, meaty bouncing, beckoned her Ashikabi to come play with it.
"Took the words right out of my mouth," Uzume countered, swinging her ass around like a horseshoe ringing the pole, miming a ringer around Minato's pole.
As the guitar solo kicked in, Minato was torn. He didn't like picking favorites, but they'd put him on the spot and there was no possible way he could admit that Tsukiumi and Musubi had lost. They just didn't have the same level of erotic control as the owners of the best asses in Maison Izumo. But who did he like more?
If Uzume was his Sekirei and he was less mindful of Miya's rules, he'd be clothelining her and Matsu to the floor and going full-blown glutton on those nextdoor bakeries. The two of them standing next to each other, watching their pink underwear hug their back padding as it jumped and flopped like it was full of jelly, was draining all the blood from his good sense. That pale booty flesh was so close that Minato could practically reach out and touch it. In fact, it seemed like it was growing, Uzume and Matsu getting a little more stacked with each horny shake of their asses as all their hormones and fluids rushed to where they were needed.
"Would someone care to explain what the five of you are doing?"
Uzume hastily killed the harmonies of Dokken and turned to face the music. There it was: the biggest, scariest demon mask she'd seen since Minato and Musubi had first started rooming here.
Matsu swallowed. "We were just, um…"
Miya's foot started tapping, as did her wooden spoon against her folded arms. "I'm waiting."
Musubi tilted her head. "Is it against the rules to have a twerking contest?"
Five hard whacks later…
"In a word?" Miya said. "Yes. In more words, there will be no breakfast for any of you tomorrow. Now, go to bed, and I'd better not catch any of you sleeping in Minato's room tomorrow morning."
Nursing their sore noggins, the five sullenly trudged up to bed. As they reached the top of the stairs and were about to split off, Matsu said what they were all thinking.
"Next time, let's play somewhere else."
Author's note:
Something a little different this time. There wasn't a straightforward connect-the-dots outline like I'm used to, so tell me what you thought of this.
Though, if this wasn't spicy enough for you, I strongly suspect the spice will be added heavily by the end of Chapter 3.
As this was a commissioned chapter, if you really liked it, perhaps consider commissioning one of your own. My current rates will be rising sharply soon, but I'll be grandfathering in anyone who's commissioned me for at least 4 chapters of 2000 words or more. So, if you want to be locked in to my current rate (see my profile if it's not too late), don't hesitate to hit me up.
