Ch 227: storm clouds gathering.

"… and I can't believe I was so blinded by my feelings for Gai." sighed Ayase, using Darkness's smartphone to talk with Noah. "If I had kept the blinders on until it was too late, I wouldn't have been able to live with it."

"Did he admit the truth about his plans for Inori?" asked Noah, nodding.

"Yes. I was expecting him to deny it, and part of me hoped that we were wrong about him somehow, that Sakura had misunderstood something about him."

"Instead, he admitted it like it was a minor thing, and he didn't understand why we were making a fuss about it. He truly sees Inori as… not a real person, and he expected us to agree with him once we learned she was a clone."

Ayase suddenly snorted. "If you had seen his face when Inori told him she wouldn't let him use her as a sacrifice anymore. He was completely stunned. And then he got angry. I never saw him this angry."

"He was about to slap Inori, but Sakura gave him a good trashing. And when the rest of Funeral Parlor heard about the commotion and came to check what was happening, and we told them exactly what Gai intended to do… Let's just say that our tactician Shibungi is now our leader, and we won't let Gai get close to Inori without us being present."

"I'm happy for Inori and you guys." nodded Noah. "It's been some time since Sakura, Darkness and Medea entered your world, so I expect Alaya to get the location of the Demonic Pillar soon. Which means you may not have too much time left to settle things in a satisfactory manner. How is the situation with GHQ?"

"There's getting out of Japan." grinned Ayase. "With all the victims of the Apocalypse virus cured, they don't have a justification to remain in Japan anymore, and our government is using the opportunity to reclaim its sovereignty."

"The GHQ did try to bring in fresh forces before they gave up, but we intercepted them and crushed them all. Now they are evacuating, claiming they're the ones who ended the epidemic, and they are leaving on their own initiative. We don't care, as long as they do leave."

"That's good to hear. Since everything seems to be doing well on your world, you should use the time to make some memories with your relatives and friends and take souvenirs." suggested Noah.

"That's the plan." smiled Ayase.

The two of them talked for a few more minutes until someone knocked at the door.

"Time's up, it's Tsugumi's turn. Talk to you later." nodded Ayase.

"Later, take care of yourself."

Ayase smiled as she opened the door, handed the phone to Tsugumi, and left the room.

It was the first time she had talked alone with Noah, and there was something about him that she found… captivating. It wasn't the tall, dark and handsome, bad boy vibe that Gai naturally exuded.

Oh, he was handsome enough, more than Gai. Noah was the best-looking man she had ever seen, which she supposed was to be expected, sine he was the Champion of the Goddess of, among other things, Lust. And she also supposed that his enhanced charisma explained a lot of the impression he gave her.

But there was also the way he looked at her through the smartphone's screen, and how he carefully listened to everything she said.

Even though the phone, Ayase could feel that he wanted her. Not simply as an Endlave pilot like Gai, and not just as a pretty girl, like some of the boys who had confessed to her before she became wheelchair-bound. He wanted all of her, her body, her mind, her heart.

And, she decided, he was someone that she could see herself devoting herself to, even independently of having already agreed to it, after being trained by Sakura.

…

Akeno's phone rang as soon as she and her regulars left yet another conquered dungeon, and she frowned. It was Heejin.

"Yes, Heejin? Is there an emergency?" Asked Akeno as soon as she accepted the call.

"No immediate emergency. I had set up an online service to call you back as soon as your phone is connected to the network. Eight gates have appeared all over the northern hemisphere. Big ones, easily three hundred meters wide. And unlike normal dungeon gates, we can't enter these ones."

"So the war is about to start." nodded Akeno as she exchanged a glance with Jinah, Jeanne and Alter.

"I'll see you at your apartment tonight." said Akeno.

"Yes." nodded Heejin, ending the call.

"Akeno, what did Heejin say?" asked Jinah.

"Eight huge gates have appeared all over the world. It is happening as we were told."

"…Which mean, the real attack will happen in Canada, right?" asked Jeanne.

"Probably." nodded Akeno.

If things kept happening as the Champion Torri had informed them, the real attack would come from a gate located in Toronto, Canada. The other seven were decoys intended to convince the Shadow Monarch to spread his troops thin.

Antares was smart, and he wouldn't let the remaining Monarchs attack separately, only to give his old enemy the opportunity to defeat them separately and turn their monster armies into more Shadow Soldiers.

"I'm a bit nervous." sighed Jinah. "Everything's coming to a head."

"Yes, jitters are normal, considering the stakes." smiled Jeanne.

"it will be fine." said Akeno. "There's a pattern to those things, when it comes to us. Only those who slack off end up failing, and we did everything we could to grow stronger."

In the original fiction, Sung Jinwoo defeated Antares almost be himself, using only his own personal power and his Shadow Soldiers.

She suspected that Jinah, currently lv 127, didn't have quite as much personal power as her brother did in the fiction. That is, until you factored in the attribute boost from the Soul Contract, and Augment.

And Jinah wouldn't fight Antares alone. Akeno would be there, with her Divine Dividing and her Bullet Time, among other things. Joohee would buff them, Alter would lower Antares's defenses, and so on.

The Other monarchs would try to interfere, but Akeno had many Enhanced Hunters under her command already.

For a few seconds, she wondered if the remaining Monarchs had any real idea about what was about to hit them. With just a bit of luck, they didn't have any means of instant communication. The defeated Monarchs likely died without a chance to tell the others about how they had died exactly, and all the Architect and Antares should know was that Akeno and Jinah were strong enough to fight the average Monarch, but they would be largely unaware of the others.

Still, she didn't have time to ponder about this right now, and she took her smartphone to call Go Gunhee.

Akeno intended to insist on a thirty to fifty kilometers evacuation radius around each of the eight gates, and Jinah would need to meet a few Hunters from each area.

…

Shino's eyes opened, and she sighed as she felt her body free of restraints for once and was back inside her room.

It was happening again.

She felt an almost overpowering urge to stick a hand inside her skirt and masturbate while she still could, but she didn't want to give him a show.

She turned to the door, and as expected, Noah was standing there, a kind smile on his face.

She wasn't free. She was simply having another one of these lucid dreams. Even in her dreams, she couldn't escape them.

"Welcome back, Shino."

"…what will it be this time?" asked Shino with some irritation in her tone, trying to muster her strength to endure whatever indignity she knew was about to be visited upon her.

"That isn't how a sex slave should welcome her Master, you know? You'll have to work on that." smiled Noah, showing amusement rather than anger.

Shino nodded begrudgingly. She had never seen him angry, even when she allowed herself to talk in a way that would surely earn her a punishment from Asuna. Which, in hindsight, maybe wasn't very wise of her. He was, after all, the man who slaughtered thousands of soldiers in the middle-east not so long ago.

Noah entered the room to sit in the middle of her bed, and Shino felt her body float toward him. The schoolgirl uniform she wore disappeared, and she didn't try to resist as her arms were guided behind her back, and leather cuffs appeared around her wrists and ankles, connected to each other. She landed on his lap before she felt gravity reassert itself.

If she was being honest with herself, Noah's training was the hardest to endure.

Asuna was a perfectionist and demanded constant improvement of Shino's 'service'. But she did it in a nurturing, if lewd, way, praising her when she did well, giving her advice without mocking her, and only becoming unpleasant when Shino actively refused the training.

Something that Shino had quickly learned not to do. Being edged almost constantly was bad enough. But what broke her resistance shortly after it started was when Noah told her about the effect of the special collar she was forced to wear.

Shino had then understood that she couldn't escape enslavement. She was already starting to like being edged and denied. Not to mention the restraints and the fetish outfits. If she was regularly punished on top of it, with spankings or worse, she would surely become a full-fledged masochist.

She didn't want to fall to such an extent, so she had resigned herself to follow their instructions, cooperating just enough to avoid being punished, and hoping that the Japanese government would pressure him into releasing her before she fell completely.

Even though she knew it was very unlikely to happen. The police may not even know she was missing.

As a trainer, Aria… wasn't good. Shino though that Aria mostly used her role as a Mistress as an excuse to have sex with her. Shino was forced to lick Aria's pussy or do many other lewd things, and she was kept restrained and edged by a chastity belt (excepted when Aria used a strap-on on her), but that was about it. And once she was satisfied, she tended to just lay in bed while treating her as a body pillow. Her training, if it even deserved that name, wasn't too mentally taxing.

No, the most dangerous time for her was when Noah himself was taking over. He seemed to always know what buttons to push to make her putty in his hands, and he loved making her beg for release. Where Asuna seemed mostly interested in making her obedient and proficient at pleasuring others, Noah was more interested in making her humiliate herself, wanting her to admit that she wanted to be a slave.

And it was starting to become true.

"Tell me in details about what Asuna made you do today, Shino." ordered Noah, one hand on her left breast and another slowly rubbing her skin around her clit, and Shino shuddered in both shame and desire.

"…Asuna made…"

"Call her Mistress." cut in Noah. "You're still in training."

"…Mistress dressed me in a black latex catsuit, ballet boots, and put my arms into an armbinder."

Shino didn't know how these garments and restraints had been called before, but she had just recently gotten a crash course on all things related to BDSM.

"She made me sit on a sybian, and there was that pole in front of it, with a black rubber dildo attached to it. Asu… Mistress blindfolded me, then made me lean forward and give a blowjob to the dildo. The sybian wasn't vibrating strongly enough to… you know. "

"To make you cum? Say it." grinned Noah, gently fingering her clit with his index.

"…To make me cum." gasped Shino. "…After a while, she made me try to deepthroat the dildo. It was hard. I kept gagging… But she made me persist, and after a while… I started being better with it... Taking it deeper… I do not know how long this training lasted... Eventually, Mistress was satisfied, and she used a strap-on to… make me cum."

Shino was starting to pant under his ministrations.

"What happened after that?"

"She fed me and cleaned me. She changed the armbinder for another type… those who keep your hands against the opposite elbows, and put the chastity belt back on me… Ah… She made me recite the slave mantra, hundreds of times… while the belt was edging me… Oh God…"

Shino could feel another orgasm building, and focusing on anything else was becoming difficult.

"Asuna… I mean Mistress… chained me to the bed… Ah… She said that… I would only cum after I pleased her… She sat on my face…"

"How was she dressed?" asked Noah.

"Red latex catsuit… Oh… Black thigh-high leather boots… long black latex gloves and… wide black leather belt… When she was… satisfied, she made me… do the same to Chiyo… and then… ah…"

"And then?" asked Noah.

"…And then… the two of them together… removed the belt, and they… had their way with me…"

"How many times did they make you cum?"

"…Five… no, six times." admitted Shino as she squirmed and panted. She was so close.

"And after that?"

"Mistress fed me again, showered me… she put the chastity belt again… and put me into a latex sleeping bag strapped to the bed. And after… oh… after the belt stopped teasing me… I fell asleep."

"Good girl. Do you want to cum?"

"…Yes, please." gasped Shino, straining against the cuffs. She knew what he wanted her to say. But she was too far gone to care about the humiliation. The shame would come after.

"Who do you belong to, Shino?" smiled Noah.

"You… I am yours, Master."

Noah was suddenly naked, and her ankle cuffs disconnected from each other. He laid her on the bed, and with a swift motion, entered her. And her mind went blank from the pleasure.

…

When she regained awareness, she was lying on the bed, in his arms.

"Welcome back, my slave."

Shino nodded slightly, not wanting to move or speak. She felt good right now and wanted to prolong the moment.

Noah seemed to know, and didn't move or speak for a while.

Shino was almost dozing off, when Noah spoke.

"Shino, have you managed to deal with your gun trauma?"

She stiffened, her eyes wide.

"H-How do you know about that?"

"Do you think Aria chose you randomly?" smirked Noah. "You were already on my to-do list. But you didn't answer me. Has playing Gun Gale Online lessened your fear of real guns?"

When Shino was younger, she and her mother had been involved in an armed robbery. When her mom had been taken hostage, Shino had fought the robber, and in the struggle for the gun, the robber had been fatally shot.

Shino had saved her mother, but the incident had left her traumatized, and even a hand gesture imitating a gun had been enough to make her panic. It was to deal with her trauma that she had decided to play Gun Gale Online, to get used to guns.

"…More or less." sighed Shino. "The sight of a real one still makes me uncomfortable, like someone seeing a coin-sized spider, but I don't panic anymore."

"I am happy for you… And what about futuristic weapons?"

"…I don't think they would make me react. Why are you asking?"

Noah smiled and told her.

…

"You bad bastards! What have you done to my Onee-sama!" yelled Kuroko, charging Takina and Chisato when they returned from their date.

"Kuroko, stop it!" shouted a red-faced Mikoto, running after her.

They were in front of their dormitory, and bystanders were staring.

Takina and Chisato looked at each other, eyebrow raised.

"Is there a problem, Kuroko?" asked Chisato as the raging girl screeched to a halt in front of them.

"Yes, there is a problem! Onee-sama didn't respond as usual to my attempt at molesting her! She akakaka…"

Her words were interrupted when Mikoto grabbed her neck and zapped her. Mikoto glared at the few bystanders who had stopped to watch, and they abruptly decided to make themselves scarce.

"Sorry about that."

"Did something happen?" asked Takina, and Mikoto blushed.

"She grabbed my chest by surprise, and I made a noise when it reminded me of… you know what."

"I can fill the blanks, no need to continue." smiled Chisato.

"Since she admitted to molesting you, should we punish her?" smiled Takina.

"…That would be a reward for this pervert." sighed Mikoto. "But we may as well. I guess we should get this over with while we do not have any emergency."

"In that case, I bring bad news." said a male voice from the side, and the girls turned to see Kaori Kanzaki, Stiyl Magnus, and two more pretty girls they didn't know. One was dressed as a nun, while the other wouldn't look out of place in a crowd of civilians.

"Kaori, Stiyl, welcome back!" grinned Chisato.

"Welcome back." echoed Takina. "But what do you mean, bad news?"

Kaori smiled and Gestured to the nun. "This is Angelene, a battle nun-in-training, and Itsuwa, from Necessarius. After we told everyone back home about you troubleshooters, and what you did, they both volunteered."

The two girls bowed politely.

"That's great. More companions to share the workload with. I am Chisato Nishikigi. It's nice to meet you!" grinned Chisato as she examined the two girls closely.

Angelene was a petite young woman with light brown eyes, appearing almost golden from certain angles, and long blonde hair gathered into two braids that reached her waist. Her modest nun uniform gave her an impression of neatness and purity.

Itsuwa, on the other hand, was of medium height, had a shoulder-length bob of black hair, light brown eyes, and was dressed in light blue jeans and a pink sleeveless T-shirt.

"How about we go inside the dormitory?" asked Takina, understanding that the matter might be too sensitive to be talked about in the streets.

Kaori and Stiyl nodded, and the group, dragging a still stunned Kuroko with them, entered the dorm and gathered in the room Takina and Chisato shared. Takina created tea and snacks for everyone while Chisato Used Greater Healing to get Kuroko up.

"Hitomi, Arisa, Shutaura, Tamamo and Mikoto's mother are on a shopping trip. So it's just us for now." shrugged Chisato as they sat down.

"What are the bad news?" asked Takina.

"After we returned with your warning, we paid closer attention to what God's Right Seat was doing." said Stiyl. "They are coming to Japan next week."

"Uh oh." nodded Chisato.

"They will likely attack during Good Friday." said Kaori. "The magic they use is slightly more powerful during that day."

"I see. And I assume since you guys came in person rather than call us that you intend to participate?"

"Yes." said Stiyl, lighting a cigarette, only to find the burning bit severed by a small light blade, and Takina pointing at the window. He sighed before continuing. "Above all, we want to avoid the Science side launching indiscriminate retaliation against the Magic Side as a whole. I wouldn't put it past them to detonate a nuclear weapon on Rome or do something equally drastic, if Academy City was destroyed. That's why we will help defend the city."

"Even setting this consideration aside." added Kaori, "We know the kind of methods the magicians of God's Right Seat use. They are the opposite of the word 'proportional'. We aren't certain the defenses of Academy City would be enough to stop them from killing thousands, so we want to help."

Itsuwa and Angelene nodded firmly.

"I see. Well, any help will be welcome, and we're grateful for it." smiled Takina. "And have you made a decision about joining us troubleshooters?"

"I accept." nodded Kaori. Saving people from danger was her whole raison d'être, and the offer Chisato and Takina had given her was too good to decline.

"You mentioned that you have seen God. That He spoke to you. Is it true?" eagerly asked Angelene, her eyes almost glowing.

"I didn't, but Chisato did." smiled Takina.

"Yes, if you're referring to the God of the bible." nodded Chisato. "But I have also seen seven other gods or goddesses.

"How wondrous. Did God resemble the popular depictions?"

"No. I am sure Alaya, that's the name of God in that other world, could take any shape at will, but she appeared to us as a glowing sphere of blue flames surrounded by a Halo of the same flames."

"Her?" gasped Angelene, her eyes wide.

"Yes. She is the being revered as God by the Catholic faith in that other world, but in this one, this isn't necessarily true, however." shrugged Chisato.

"Oh... But still, what did God ask of you?"

"That we do our jobs as troubleshooters, just like Lilith-sama asked of us."

Mikoto's phone made a noise, and she looked at the incoming message with a frown.

"It's that guy Ale… I mean Academy City's Director. He's spying on us again." said Mikoto as she looked back at them.

Kaori and Stiyl stiffened and looked around as if expecting to find microphones or cameras on the walls.

"No need to look around. He has billions of surveillance nanites in the very air of Academy City. What does he want?" asked Takina.

"He asked me to go tonight to a warehouse within Academy City. He wrote that it holds a weapon called Anti-Arts Attachment, specifically designed for me to use against magicians."

"Well, since he said nothing about you guys, I guess you guys have his tacit approval to help defend the city." said Takina as she looked at the magicians, and they nodded doubtfully.