"Ara, ara, what happened?" Miya asked.

"It's... a long story," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "You may want to get a drink before I begin."

Miya continued to fuss over Akitsu, wiping off blood and dirt with a wet rag, and generally fussing over the very, very disheveled woman who was having a very, very bad day.

"Here, I'll get some drinks," Kagari said, setting down the bathrobe- or was it just a fuzzy kimono?- Miya had sent him to retrieve. "Want anything? Beer, sake, tea?"

"I prefer water," I said. "Thank you."

Sekirei was a harem anime set in modern-day Japan, starring a race of aliens called Sekirei- they looked like humans with, sometimes, outlandish hair colors and the fattest of knockers, and had superhuman physical abilities alongside latent/subconscious psychic abilities and sometimes supernatural abilities beyond that.

One good example was Akitsu, who could create and control ice, when she wasn't busy dissociating like hell from fresh trauma. Or Kagari, real name Homura, who worked at a host club with his bishonen good looks and had Akitsu's power but with fire instead of ice.

"So it all started yesterday, when I got very, very drunk," I said. "I don't actually remember what happened between my first drink and waking up, but I do know I woke up on a plane to Tokyo, and freaked out. Luckily... I had an internet friend in Tokyo, and as bad as I felt for imposing on them, I didn't have many other options, and messaged them with my predicament."

"This really is going to be a long story," Kagari said, handing me a glass of water.

"I have had a day," I confirmed. "So my friend gives me their address and tells me I can crash at their place, and then sends out Uzume to hold my hand through the process of using Japanese public transit, because I am a stupid American from a barbaric backwater that doesn't understand trains. Complication number one: Musubi."

"I'm not that complicated," Musubi protested.

"That's adorable," I said, patting her head. "So we had to walk, so as to not provoke the people Musubi was only technically not running from. And that's where we encountered Akitsu, looking even worse than she does now, sitting on a park bench. Obviously, we couldn't leave her alone, and she ended up coming with us. Musubi's persuasive like that." I took a drink. "So that brings us to now, where I get to go upstairs, talk to my friend Matsu, and try to explain to her how I've ended up bringing her two new roommates."

"There's nobody named Matsu living here," Kagari said.

"I talked to her five minutes ago," I said, turning my phone around to show him my chat logs with Matsu.

"...We may be thinking of different people," Kagari said.

"I talked to her, she sent me out to grab this chick from the airport," Uzume added. Man am I glad I'm a shapeshifter now, and don't have to worry about getting misgendered. "Also, she's seen enough that she needs to be in-the-know, and I for one am more than happy to pawn that off onto Matsu."

"That's... a fair point," Kagari said. "Mmn. Well, I've got work soon. I'll be back in the morning."

"See you around," I said. "So... where's Matsu?"

----------------------------------------

Behind the false wall at the end of the upstairs hallway, of course.

"Someone's had an interesting day," Matsu said, backlit by her wall of computer monitors. She was pale and freckly, with long red hair tied back into twin braids that went down past her hips. She wore coke-bottle glasses and a long white dress that was slit up the sides to allow her legs to move, along with the long, flowing sleeves being nearly detached to show off some shoulder.

And, of course, there was an obligatory cleavage window, because just like every other woman I'd met with a name today, Matsu had large breastesses. Well, kinda. Like, objectively, by any reasonable standard, they were big, but admittedly, considering the time I'd spent around Musubi, and Akitsu, and Uzume, and also to an extent Miya, Matsu seemed a little modest compared to them. But it was an illusion- those things were still big.

I wondered what it said about me that I was attempting to maintain a sense of perspective about breast sizes of all things. Who fucking knows.

"It's more like an interesting day has had me," I said. "Hello, Matsu. It's nice to see you in person. It would've been nicer to do so on purpose, but oh well. How are you?"

"Excited and worried," Matsu said. "To explain why, though... well, it's a long story."

"I don't have anywhere else to be," I said. "Musubi, Akitsu? Either of you have anything you need to attend to soon-ish? Need to use the bathroom, anything like that?"

"Nope!" Musubi said cheerily while Akitsu shook her head.

"Well, I suppose we're your captive audience, Matsu," I said, turning back to the woman I'd expected to be meeting when today started, and away from the two women I hadn't. "Go on. I'm aaaaall ears."

"Hrm... where to start..." Matsu murmured, tapping her chin.

"From the beginning, chronologically?" I suggested. I already knew the story she was about to tell me, having read the entire Sekirei manga and also a hell of a lot of fanfiction, but aside from there being no good way to admit to any of that shit, there was also the fact that, perhaps, just perhaps, I might need a bit of a refresher on what's going on.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"...If you say so," Matsu said, shrugging. "So! Twenty years ago, a pair of grad students found a crashed alien ship on a rock out in the middle of the sea."

"...Rock?" Akitsu asked, tilting her head.

"It's a legal thing," I said. "In maritime terms, a rock is something that's permanently above the water but unable to sustain human life on its own. Which means it's small and has no real soil to grow plants in. An island, therefore, is something that humans can live on- there's dirt and plants."

"Ah," Akitsu said, nodding.

"If you're going to keep nitpicking, maybe I should skip to the good parts," Matsu said.

"If you know what the good parts are, then yeah, skip the prelude," I said.

"Everyone in this room except you is an alien," Matsu said. "We are Sekirei- psychic, human-like aliens from that crashed alien ship unearthed those twenty years ago. Mid-Bio Informatics, the company founded by those grad students to bring secretly reverse-engineered Sekirei tech to market, raised all of us in secret, and now, we've been turned loose into Tokyo as part of something called the Sekirei Plan."

"Turned loose to... do what?" I asked.

"To find our Ashikabi!" Musubi supplied. "We seek out our fated special someone, the one who makes our heart pound and our bodies react, and we seal our bond with a kiss! And then... we fight! Sekirei and Ashikabi fighting as one, against the others, until only one Sekirei is left, to ascend to the Higher Skies!"

I blinked.

"To do that, yes," Matsu said, nodding.

"So... what you're saying is that these... 'Ashikabi'... are playing a combination of Pokemon, Huniepop, and Highlander?" I asked. After all, 'Pokemon with tits' was how anime fans described Sekirei back when it was culturally relevant to anyone.

"Not how I would say it, but yes," Matsu said. "I would've said the Ashikabi are playing a PvP gacha game."

"I suppose gacha games do imply horny collecting on their own," I admitted. "Alright, so, you three are all aliens who want to find your soulmate and then get into shipping wars to find the ultimate OTP. What... do you want me to do about this?"

"You are an Ashikabi," Matsu said. "I want you to kiss me about it."

I blinked, long and slow.

"The Sekirei Plan is cruel and destructive," Matsu said. "It must be opposed, however we can. And a Sekirei is stronger with an Ashikabi by her side. Especially if that Ashikabi is a particularly good Ashikabi, who can wing- er, bond with- more than just one Sekirei."

I slowly turned to gaze at the two other Sekirei in the room, who had apparently liked me enough to follow me to some random house.

"...I'm beginning to see the shape of your plan," I said mildly.

"And, as a side benefit-" Matsu began.

"I'm going to cut you off there, before you go on another hour-long rant about polyamory, group sex, and whatever weird-ass kink you're hyperfixated on this week," I said. "I get it. You are an adult who experiences sexual desire. You want to fuck, and are willing to expound at length about it. I get it. Please stay focused."

"On what?" Matsu asked. "I'm done explaining the situation to you. You're caught up on what's going on and what I want you to do about it, and even why."

"...Okay, point," I said. "It's just... Alright. So, you want me to kiss you, and thereby tie us together for the foreseeable future?"

"Permanently, actually," Matsu said. "Til death do us part."

"Ah, great, that doesn't make me even more apprehensive at what should be the straightforward prospect of smooching a curvy redhead."

"You like redheads?" Matsu asked.

"Hair color isn't a huge factor for me, but I do have a thing for red hair, yes," I said. "But that's beside the point. The point is... give me a moment to think."

Admittedly... I was being kind of ridiculous. Oh, sure, normally it would be perfectly reasonable to be apprehensive about this, but I was a Jumpchain protagonist, and I knew for a fact I was in Sekirei for one year on the dot. "Permanent" was not actually the case, provided I did not elect to take any of the Sekirei with me when I left. Which... Okay, I probably would take them with me, because of my other point:

I am a lesbian. I am horny and I want to fuck hot women. Matsu is a hot woman who wants me to fuck her. This is embarrassingly straightforward.

"...Alright," I said, nodding. "Together as one."

"Does that mean sex would be masturbation?" Matsu asked.

"I changed my mind, eat shit," I said.

"Ehehehe," Matsu said.

Of course, now that I was thinking with my head again, I remembered, we are in Sekirei. Matsu didn't bring it up, but Sekirei were compelled to be loyal to their Ashikabi, meaning that, once I kissed Matsu, she would be effectively incapable of telling me 'no.'

This was, uh, less than ideal for people I intended to stick my dick in, if I liked sleeping well at night and being able to consider myself a good person.

"Matsu," I began, slowly. "...If I wing you, would your nature as a Sekirei compel you to do what I want?"

"Ehhhh," Matsu said, wiggling her hand uncertainly.

"Then no," I said, interrupting her.

"Hey, I wasn't-" Matsu began.

"Matsu," I continued. "I like talking to you, and also you are very attractive, and it's pretty clear to me that we both want to fuck each other. But. If I wing you, and that impairs your ability to tell me to kick rocks? Then we can't fuck each other, and then nobody is happy."

"Counterpoint," Matsu said. "We met online because I liked some weird porn you wrote, and in the years since then, we've talked all about the kinks we do and don't share. Also, I am literally on my knees begging for this."

"Prior consent is essential yet insufficient," I said. "It has to be ongoing. You have to have the option to change your mind."

Matsu groaned, and cradled her face in her hands. It... hrm. Okay, she was upset now. Things had gone... seriously south. So... hrm. In the name of supporting my friend, and also in recognition of the fact that this is a necessary prerequisite for unfucking the plot...

"...But," I said carefully, prompting Matsu to look up. "I... suppose that, considering the complicated nature of what I want... we could negotiate things after the fact."

"So..." Matsu said.

"Provided you're willing to have a long talk about boundaries afterwards, and also that you do still want to kiss me-"

"Somehow," Matsu confirmed, nodding.

"-then yeah. We can do this. Together as one."

"Together as one."

And then we kissed.