The girls laughed. Calypso’s ca first and loudest, warm and open, and even Aria’s lips cracked into a grin she tried to smother with her hand.
The chat agreed.
Now twenty-seven million won had just watched the feared Shadow Monarch drag her clearly incestuous teenage daughter away from following her brother to bed, and the collective response was a mixture of disbelief and secondhand embarrassnt that only deepened their investnt.
It wasn’t sothing anyone had expected to witness on this stream, and yet it had beco the most entertaining thing they’d seen all day, which was saying a lot considering the Kaiju fight that preceded it.
Alice was quickly gaining sympathizers, too. The little sister who loved her big brother far too much was becoming an underdog nobody had planned on rooting for, and the fangirl chat was quietly, chaotically split on the matter.
Quick footsteps echoed down the corridor.
Alexandra rounded the corner at a pace her frilly maid outfit was not designed for, the hem of the skirt flaring against her thighs as she balanced a silver tray on one palm.
"Refreshnts!" she announced, slightly breathless but beaming.
The tray held strips of seared monster at, a small vial of sothing dark and viscous, and five cups of warm amber liquid giving off a sweet steam.
"Monster at for quick energy," she presented the tray to Kaiden with a practiced curtsy. "Eel extract for vitality." The vial was offered separately, her smile bright and completely unbothered by the implication. "And for the girls, a drink I’ve been hearing about. It helps with circulation, relaxation, and... readiness. Works within minutes!"
She’d delivered the briefing with the earnest precision of a woman who saw nothing unusual about any of this.
Luna took a cup, sniffed it, and looked at the blonde maid with reluctant respect. "You made us get-wet-quick tea."
"If you want to be vulgar about it, yes! Among other benefits!" Alexandra bead. "I hope it’ll help!"
"..." The Storm Valkyrie was lost for words, which was an almost never before seen cosmic event.
"Please enjoy!" Alexandra curtsied, the maid skirt fanning perfectly, and disappeared back down the corridor to finish the real cooking, because the job was never done and she was never not working.
...
The bedroom door closed behind them, and the energy shifted like a switch being thrown.
Warm stone and low light. The bed at its center wide enough for all of them, and the lanterns along the walls casting everything in amber that softened edges and deepened shadows.
Scarlet found a side table, planted herself on the edge with her legs crossed and the bottle in hand. Front-row seats, and she’d brought her own wine.
Kaiden looked at the five won in his bedroom, and grinned.
[Phase Ti Remaining: 39:14.]
"There’s no ti to waste, ladies. Let us begin."
Aria reached him first.
Her hands found his chest, and her silver eyes went still.
There was no shirt left.
Dried layers of ichor and his own blood caked over skin that hadn’t been clean since the first wave, and beneath it, her fingers found what Gluttony’s battlefield dicine had papered over.
The shoulder fracture was sealed on the surface but the bone ground underneath when she pressed, a patch job that held through combat and would crumble without proper healing.
He’d fought the entire second half of Phase 1 like this. Greatswords through chitin armor with a cracked shoulder and nothing but adrenaline and Combat Drift keeping the pain from registering.
"Kai..." Her thumb rested on the joint. "You didn’t tell us."
"Doesn’t matter. We have to hurry. I can fight perfectly."
"Kaiden Grey!"
Her foot ca down against the stone hard enough to ring.
Both fists at her sides, silver hair swinging across her face, and the cold fury behind her eyes could have frozen the room.
Aria was trembling from head to toe, furious, and the tears began to well.
She’d spent most of the two hours on the other side of the chokehold knowing he was in the Mire, knowing he was outnumbered, knowing there was nothing she could do about it, and he’d walked out of it smiling like nothing had happened with bone grinding through his shoulder and his own blood caked into every crease of his skin, and the fact that he genuinely did not care about his own body made her want to scream until the dungeon shook.
"I hate this... You always do this!" Her voice trembled and broke as the tears went from welling in her eyes to pouring down her cheeks.
"You know we care about you so much it hurts, but you don’t even care about yourself... I look at you in pain, and there’s a void in my heart, it feels like it’s tearing apart..."
He saw it all. The trembling, the heartbroken tears, the way her jaw locked, and the grin bled off his face.
"Aria, I didn’t an—"
He reached for her.
His hand found her cheek, his thumb wiping at the tears the way he’d done multiple tis before, and Aria’s breath hitched at the touch.
Her eyes closed. The trembling slowed, not because the anger left but because his palm was warm and it was there and he was alive, and for a second that was enough to hold everything else at bay.
She opened her eyes, and she smiled.
It arrived through the tears and the fury and the trembling like sunrise through a storm, and it was so beautiful that the air left his lungs.
Her finger pressed to his lips before the apology could finish.
"Sit down, dummy," she said softly.
He sat. When Aria looked at him like that, the Paragon of Sin was hopeless. He could stand up to terrible monsters more than twice his level with a steady heart, but when his Beautiful Moon’s tears began flowing and her voice breaking...
Whatever she wanted, she’d get.
She reached for a dicine kit stashed away for ergencies, and pulled out a vial of healing and a jar of thick restoration paste, and the gentleness in her hands was so precise it almost hurt more than the tears had.
"Let take care of you..." she whispered, softer than ever before.
The other girls, thus far watching silently, smiled. "Let us join. Dummy Master needs scolding... Good job, Aria," Bastet murmured as she stepped up, with the others in tow.
The greatest adult stream in recorded history began as such: Five amazing won pampering their valiant lover!
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