“Hi, I’m Kane. Daisy’s teammate,” Kane said, holding out a hand to Harald.

Harald looked down at Kane’s ruffled white glove and shook it awkwardly. “So y’are. I’m Harald, leader of Sofiane’s team.”

Kane’s eyes widened. “Wait, so you run everything around here?”

“Huh?” Harald looked behind him at the castle town and tent city they were leaving behind to go on a hike. He shared a confused look with Sofiane and Faisal before realizing what Kane meant. “Oh, no, Sofiane runs this whole… thing. I’m his leader when we’re adventuring.”

“Like right now?” Kane asked as the four men trudged through the pine forests of Vermögenburgh.

Harald grinned at Sofiane. “Know what? Yeah, I am the captain of this expedition. You all have to do as I say.”

Kane saluted. “You’ve got it, captain!”

“The only person I take orders from is Gomiko and that's the only reason I’m out here,” Sofiane said.

“You’re telling me you’re not excited for Boys’ Day?” Faisal asked.

“Wow. You could tell?”

In the short time he’d been alive, Kane had made few friends outside his all-female team. His experience so far today suggested men basically acted like Yuna all the time. He made a note to dial down his own excitement and match their attitude. Fortunately, Daisy prepared him for such a possibility and gave him a tactic to deploy if the party wasn’t getting off the ground. Kane reached into his satchel and pulled out a crisp, ice cold beer.

“Beer, anyone?” he asked.

“At 10 in the morning?” Harald said. “Gods-damned. Party hard, do ya?”

“He's at the top. Of course he parties hard,” Sofiane said.

“Heck yeah I party hard,” Kane said, thinking of all the fun special events he'd been to with his team.

“I’m good. I prefer wine anyway,” Sofiane said.

Kane put the beer back and pulled out a box of moscato. “Tada! Daisy said you might say that.”

He tried to hand the boxed wine to Sofiane.

“Uh… maybe later. Let’s just get to the campsite,” Sofiane said, wondering how much of this farce was acceptable before he could hurry back to his job.

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

Daisy, Natsu, and Shui reached an agreement that Shui didn’t have to stay tied up if she promised to see Girls’ Day through and not run. She had since tried to run away twice but soon learned that the two extremely powerful top-tier Heroes were a lot faster than her and gave up. Nonetheless, she only gave short, curt answers that wasted as little time as possible and tried her best not to panic at the fact that the world might end because Daisy and Natsuko were bored.

“Oh. My. Gods. I know exactly what color you should go for!” Daisy said, holding Shuixing’s arm against the "salon" chair.

“What?” Shuixing said flatly.

“Blue!”

Shuixing squinted at her, trying to figure out if Daisy had discovered a way to enter Numberspace and lower her own Cognition stat.

“Wow,” Shuixing said, leaning back in the reclining chair they were forcing her into and smoothing out her blue robes.

“I know, right! And Natsu, you have to get—”

“Red?” Natsuko said.

“Yes! Like a bright, bright crimson! Hotter than the sun!”

The six women were still in the flower shop but had moved to two rows of folding chairs to be tended on by Cascadian nail technicians. By their roles in the Yishang’s universe, the technicians were supposed to be revolutionaries, but a culture of mutual pampering had evolved within the revolutionary forces and ended up becoming a universal skill. It reminded Natsuko of how every single Shikijiman except her inexplicably knew poetry. Except, now she kind of knew poetry too. What awful worldbuilding that would be if the Yishang had done it deliberately, she thought.

Across from Natsuko and Shuixing, Margaret and Gomiko had both begun their mani-pedis. One of the Cascadian women, Justine (no relation), was currently painting Gomiko’s claws a lavender color. Daisy initially protested that lavendar wasn't bold enough, but after Gomiko explained she was getting it because it matched Sofiane’s color scheme, Daisy immediately changed her mind and decided it was the single most adorable thing on the face of Po-Lin. Margaret, meanwhile, was getting her hands massaged, trading the glass of champagne between hands as needed.

Yuna folded her arms at the two technicians in front of her. “You’re not touching me.”

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Margaret turned to her. “You’ll like it, darling, trust me."

“My body has been toughened from scalp to toe by constant warfare. I refuse to undo that in an instant to feel pretty. I don’t even want to be 'pretty',” Yuna said.

Daisy chuckled from across the room. ‘Constant warfare’ except for when the fearsome samurai was playing cards or reading comic books or eating potato chips.

“Aw, c’mon, Yun-Chan! At least let them give you a massage. You can keep your dry, scrungly skin and still get a massage, can’t you?” Daisy said, sipping a mint julep through a loopy straw.

“I would rather not be touched at all. But if you absolutely refuse to let me leave before—”

Daisy giggled. “Sorry, you’re trapped here at my whim.”

“—before I get this stupid massage, fine. You may approach my calves,” Yuna said to the two technicians.

The two Cascadian women shared a smirk. It was now their mission to break the large woman. Working oil onto their hands, they got to work, each to a leg, rolling the thick cords of muscles in Yuna’s thighs, calves, knees, and ankles between their fingers.

With nothing to do while her feet were soaking, Daisy watched Yuna’s reactions with intense interest. At first, Yuna’s hard face and chiseled jaw remained rock solid, treating the leg massage as a minor nuisance. Slowly, however, little twitches in her facial muscles betrayed the fact that the massage was having an effect. Yuna refused to be beaten though, and as the pleasure mounted, she gripped the sides of the chair like a ship in a storm.

“Aw, what’s wrong? It’s just a stupid massage,” Daisy said, grinning evilly.

Yuna ground her teeth. “Vile witch. You put something in my drink, didn’t you?”

Daisy snorted-laughed. “Nope! I’m sorry to say this is all you and your body, Yun-Chan. Why not give into the pleasure? You know you want to!”

“I won’t!”

The two technicians took this as their cue to intensify the sensations. Deploying their Desperation Arts against Yuna, they each took one of her tough, muscled thighs and drove the knuckle of their thumbs directly into her quadriceps.

“Ah!”

Taken by surprise, Yuna’s gasp was uncharacteristically high-pitched and breathy. A brief interlude of silence captured the gasp in perfect clarity. A second later, Yuna regained control of herself and flushed as red as the nail polish on Natsuko’s fingers.

“That was the chair making a noise! What are you all staring— Ah!”

She let out another high-pitched gasp as the penetrating knuckles pressed up towards her glutes. Before she make up another excuse, the two technicians double-teamed her, forcing her silent with a deluge of strokes and squeezes. They soon sapped the rest of Yuna’s resistance and turned the powerful samurai into a drooling, cross-eyed mess under their fingers. Daisy gazed upon this as a personal triumph.

Natsuko reached a hand over and pat Shuixing’s shoulder. “You ready for your turn, Shui?”

“I’m ready to leave,” Shuixing replied.

“Oh-ho! I guess you’re going to be tsundere about it too, eh?”

“Do you even know what that word means, Natsu? Or are you just repeating it because you remember hearing Hemiola say it?”

“The second one.”

Shuixing rolled her eyes. Shui actually did know what the term meant from having read the Yishang’s “character design” emails, and it wasn’t a flattering term. It was one of those stupid shorthand things they used to market a conscious existence to the Celestials.

“I have nothing more to say, Natsu.”

Natsuko removed her hand. “Hmph! You’re proving more of a challenge to wear down than I expected. Maybe…”

Natsuko motioned for one of the technicians to come over and whispered something in her ear. Shuixing grew nervous. When she was done whispering, Natsu turned back to her friend.

“Let’s make a deal. If I catch you having a good time then you are obligated to have a good time for the rest of the day. Deal?”

“Deal? What do you mean deal? I’m not allowed to say no!”

“Makes it a whole lot easier to pick the right answer then.”

Shuixing bit her lip. “In exchange, if I continue not having a good time you have to let me leave after the mani-pedis. And we need to decide on something concrete for what ‘good time’ even means.”

“That,” Natsuko said, pointing at Daisy in a fit of snorting giggles as she watched Yuna make purring noises.

"Fine."

At that point Natsuko knew she had this in the bag. Was her strategy fair? No. But all was fair in love and war and she was in a metaphorical war with Shui’s workaholic nature. For her part, Shuixing also thought she would win. This was a matter of saving their universe from Natsuko and Daisy’s insane whims, and she would prevail. She had to prevail. Compared with the exhaustion and terror of two years beyond the fabric of reality this would be a cakewalk. All she had to do was stay focused.

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

“Good weather for this time of year,” Harald said.

“Yup,” said Faisal.

“Sure is!” said Kane.

“I guess?” said Sofiane.

“What’d’ya mean you guess? It’s a clear blue sky on a nippy day, ain’t it?” said Harald.

“I’m not concerned about the weather unless it affects our combat plans.”

The four male Heroes were sitting on logs in a forest clearing with a small fire crackling away. The method of lighting it involved Kane using Direct Current to create an electrical discharge which leapt to the kindling to create an ember whereupon Faisal used his wind form to get the fire going. After that there wasn’t much to talk about besides the weather. Kane rustled in his bag and brought out the beer again.

“Beer?” he said.

Sofiane sighed. “Listen, man, I don’t think—”

“I’ll take a beer,” Harald said.

He held out his hands and Kane tossed him one and Harald bit the cap off with his teeth and started guzzling the brew. Kane popped one open for himself and sipped on it while pretending to like the taste. Luckily, Daisy had packed a couple juice boxes in anticipation of Kane not liking beer and he double-fisted the beer and juice, sipping the former for aesthetic and the latter for taste. Faisal asked for the other juice box and Kane tossed it across the fire to him.

“Fuck it, gimme the moscato,” Sofiane said.