"… And I believe it's important to enjoy ourselves while we can. Being sad sucks, you know! I've been there, I've done that, and I hated it," you continue, even as you stick out your tongue in disgust upon saying those last few words.

Bleh, being sad is just… The worst.

Life should be fun. This is a motto that you've clung to in your life—the idea that no matter what happens to you, no matter what hardships you'll have to endure, you'll meet all the challenges in your life with a big smile on your face.

Even when your mother hit you and browbeat you into giving her drinking money, you smiled. Even when your boss forced you to work weeks upon weeks of overtime, you smiled. Even when your nose bled, and your head was spinning, and vomit filled your guts, you smiled. Because If you smiled, you could delude yourself into pretending like everything would be alright.

How silly you were, back then.

There was a time when you stopped smiling all the time. Why? Well, that's just because there's no use pretending that there are some things in the world that just aren't fun. This world's a wretched, diseased place, filled with filthy things that kill the hearts of poor, innocent, cute girls who just need some tender love and care and make them ugly and so uncute.

Which is something you refuse to abide by, especially for your loves.

"So I want you to enjoy yourself too! Especially if we hang out more!"

Life should be fun.

And in order for life to be fun, when cute girls smile, those smiles should be genuine. Genuine happiness makes cute girls even more lovable and precious.

Perhaps that's why you lean in now to try to hug Max – To put that kind of genuine, happy smile on her face. The same sort you're so fond of wearing now~! You sigh softly, letting your breath waft across her neck. You feel your tits squish against Max's, enveloping her daintier chest underneath your heftier boobs.

Ah~! This feeling, the way you can feel her body against yours~! This close, if you listen, you can hear the soft mechanical noises of Max's cybernetics working away underneath her sexy body. The steady hum of her artificial heart, the mechanical chittering of her subdermal implants, the electric tingle and hydraulic whine from her limbs…

Of course, there are other things you're picking up on, like the way Max gulps silently, the way her breath hitches just so from how nice and cozy your hug must be…

Ooh, she's getting warmer~! Probably because you're using this hug as an opportunity to slam oodles upon oodles of corruptive essence into Max's system. Wonderful tendrils of pink energy are seeping from your pours and soaking through Max's skin, tendrils that are undoubtedly giving her warm, fuzzy feelings right about now.

She hasn't pushed you away yet, which is a good sign.

Hmm, hmm! This is nice. Even if you're cheating a little bit, hitting Max with essence like this. Well, all's fair in love and war. And besides, you aren't going into this with the intent of changing Max too much, like some sort of Bad Girl. You aren't even making your essence do anything too nefarious. All you're doing right now is making Max feelbetter.

All those nasty stress hormones she's been building up? Gone! Poof! Max's horrid muscle tension, those aches and pains that have been building up because she hasn't been able to rest properly? All gone. You can even feel her breathing even out as feel-good endorphins start to be released into Max's bloodstream.

Kaina made you promise to try being a Good Girl, after all.

And what sort of Good Girl would you be if you saw someone who was obviously struggling and didn't help them? What Good Girl wouldn't offer themselves up as the only warmth and comfort they'd ever need in this cruel, hard world full of cruel hard choices?

Maxine Steele is proving to be one of the more difficult of your loves to conquer. She's so stubborn, so insistent on clinging to these boring rules and regulations. She's so tenacious. She's so genuinely, surprisingly good, and caring despite her history. Despite this wretched city with its garbage people. Despite a hundred and one different factors that are constantly jading her soul, making her that much more cynical and bleak.

There's really no need to break Max. Not when the great wheel of the world's crushing her underneath its weight. Not when she's willingly broken herself championing a hundred different doomed causes. In this cold, lonely world it's only natural to seek comfort. A kind shoulder to cry on, an understanding friend to confide within…

A cute, sexy pink-haired girl to make love to in a torrid three-way with the best friend you have the poorly-hidden crush on.

So you hug your love. You hug her like she's about to leave, and once she's nice and dazed…

"Chu~!"

You plant a kiss right on the side of her cheek. Nothing too sexy, just a brief press of your lips against Max's face. Honestly, the French probably kiss people more sexily as a greeting than you just did. You didn't even use your tongue at all!

You did use more Essence, though, which is why even that brief contact's doing something to Max, just judging by the way her back went ramrod straight and a strangled noise escaped her throat.

Yes. You don't need to break Max to fix her. You don't even need to twist her, change her, turn her into your lewd pet. You don't need to soak her in lewd thoughts, pickle and brine her in aphrodisiac, irrevocably alter her desires or her sex drive. You don't need to do any of that.

All you need to do is to fix her so she can keep breaking herself on the hard anvil of the world, over and over.

All you'll need to do is watch and wait with avid anticipation in your heart as the time comes to scoop up Max's disparate pieces—to watch as she comes willingly. In the throes of her despair, as she cries out for salvation, she'll probably welcome being made more beautiful. It's only a matter of time.

You don't need to be cruel to blacken another girl's soul – Kindness is more smothering than cruelty can ever hope to be.

What fun~!

+50 Corruption

Max's Corruption: 65/100 (Stage 1)

"You don't have to be ashamed to look at me. It's allowed. You can be lewd without hurting people."

Over and over, Max replays Alice's last words in her head, hours after Alice has left. Absentmindedly, Max reaches up to touch her cheek – The cheek that Alice had kissed.

"… Fuck," Max groans upon realizing what she's been doing. "No wonder Kaina fell head over heels for this chick."

Compassion is rare these days, and empathy is even rarer, especially when it's genuine. Kaina must have stood absolutely no chance against Alice's onslaught of good intentions. And right now, Max is finding that she's standing no chance either.

"Fucking dammit all," Max swears again. She's been doing that too, ever since Alice left. Swearing sporadically up at the sky as filthily as any sailor. "Fucking shitballs cu-"

"Shall I send the drones now?" SILEA asks over Max's implants, and Max freezes as her VI system makes its presence known.

"… How long have you been listening in?" Max asks.

"Over fifteen minutes. Ever since Alice Takanashi left the premises. Miss Steele, I'm detecting irregularities in your hormones. Is everything alright?"

"… Yeah, surprisingly so. What kind of irregularities?" Max blinks, realizing that she really does feel… Better. Less sleepy, less stressed, significantly more relaxed.

"Your stress hormones are down across the board. Your heartrate's slowed, your breathing's steadied-"

Holy shit, are hugs from Alice that therapeutic? Or maybe it's the kiss. Or maybe just the sight of her naked bod? Dang. No wonder Kaina's been in such a good mood recently. Now that Max's thinking about things more and more…

Dang, Max does feel that much better. It's like a million tons were lifted off of her shoulders. Like Max's lungs are finally full of clean air instead of toxic smog, which means Max can finally breathe for once.

… Huh.

"Leave it. Are you seriously – Holy shit, was I that stressed?!" Max blinks, realizing exactly what SILEA was saying. "… I need a vacation, jesus christ. What the fuck were you saying about drones, SILEA?"

"Miss Steele, you ordered me to prepare drones in order to-"

"In order to spy on Kaina's girlfriend like a creep if she was super sussy, yeah, I know. Why the fuck are you still talking about those drones?"

"Miss Steele, miss Takanashi's behavior meets all the parameters you laid out for suspicious behavior. She exposed herself, she propositioned you, she-"

"Yeah, she's a pervert, but I already fucking knew that," Max points out dryly. "There's really nothing wrong with that as long as, I don't know, she isn't doing anything nefarious. And it looks like she's just… Weirdly wholesome about how depraved she is."

Which is strange, but honestly, in this shit-sty of a city, it's no big deal.

"Miss Steele, I must protest this decision," SILEA says, and Max rolls her eyes.

"Look, if someone who gives out hugs that feel that nice really is a horrible monster, we're all fucked," Max replies flatly. Because seriously, Alice's hugs are way better than Yumeko's ever were. "Just - Nix that. No drones. Got it?"

"… Confirmed," SILEA replies after a brief pause. "I will not send drones to spy on Alice Takanashi."

"I'm glad we got that sorted," Max groans, stretches, and pops her shoulders. "… I'm going to go sunbathe for a bit before turning in. Get the prototypes in storage, won't you?"

"Understood, miss Steele," SILEA dutifully replies.

With that, Maxine Steele heads off to lounge in the sun, surprisingly pleased with how her impromptu date went.

She remains blissfully unaware of the corruptive essence swirling through her system.

Or the fact that, deep in the bowels of Steele Arcanotech's headquarters, an antiquated android printer just switched on. Mechanical arms whir to life, welding parts onto an industrial gantry, watched over by a hundred artificial eyes tied into the tower's mainframe and its governing program – SILEA, Max's prized Semi-Intelligent Learning Algorithm.

It's a pity that Max only specified that SILEA couldn't send drones...