Yuri Worlds

[49] Execution

The entrance to the hot spring bath area was so inauspicious and understated. Just some decorative traditional ornamentation on the walls and soft, friendly flags. And there was only one opening. There was only one path for everyone and anyone. Girls. Women. Ladies. And whatever other terms Kosame was likely intimately acquainted with.

Chika moved briskly towards the entrance until it loomed and consumed her sight. She had the initial demeanor of someone bold and confident, but that bluster soon sank beneath the sight. Chika didn’t retreat. Rather, she nervously turned and sought out Misaki with tiny, frantic words before grappling for the simplicity of, “Big sis…big sis. Please, please…I need you.” Her scared voice was small enough to be heard by ants. Tears rushed down her cheeks as she frantically reached for Misaki. Yuka lingered but gave them some space.

Misaki resisted the old instinct to turn away her childhood friend. A stronger instinct filled her with fear and uncertainty about whether some wristband override decided to drain Chika of her usual spirit. But Misaki’s strongest instinct swarmed to soothe her fears and dry her tears. Not simply because she was a cute girl but also to right the wrong she long ago perpetrated by turning her away simply because she thought it was the proper boy thing to do. It was all rather confusing with what Chika confessed yesterday afternoon, but her heart knew her path.

She encouraged Chika to hold her hand. She warmly and comfortably supported her with that grip and guided her into the fancy shower section around the left turn of the entryway. Lockers and closets for clothes were linked to guest rooms. Plenty of space with comfortable tiles and clear drains lined up in a row before them, with sections leading to indoor baths as well as natural outdoor arrangements with sulfuric aromas and milky waters.

Kosame was one of the very first to disrobe down to her pale pink underwear and then naked with the draping flourish of a towel nearby. Her form was understated but still artful, with distinctly wide hips. In the right clothes, she approached the sense of a pretty boy. Her sibling cut a much less ambiguous figure when undressing, from a pronounced front to lean but squishy legs. The moms casually undressed, with Fuyuki and Ayame both very close to the pinnacle that Namiko attained. Kei’s modest figure was also nothing to turn up one's nose at.

It wasn’t long before a fresh level of discomfort emerged for Misaki. Although, in all honesty, the entire situation carved out fresh ways for her to feel like running away. Grandmother Okura shed her clothes as nonchalantly as any of the other mature ladies. She still appeared strikingly young, like one of those late-night commercials where some mysterious oils from an Amazon plant managed to make fruit last for several weeks as arrows and animated lines flowed through pores. The grandmother carried a certain presence, asserting she both didn’t give a single care what others thought about her but also paid attention to where Misaki looked.

With so much distinct flesh surrounding her sight, it literally started to get boring for Misaki. Oh, sure, this was the fantasy of so many random men from her world to be naked amongst a group of lovely girls and women. And Franklin wasn’t above swooning and feeling taken aback by indulgence. But these were people. Again, so obvious. Girls are people.

Seeing everyone so quietly vulnerable and softly exposed didn’t kindle a lurking salacious urge. Of course, she had been placed on the same level, but a physical change didn’t mean that all the internal engines just blinked off. People are more than just their flesh. And she apparently had the soul of a consummately maternal woman who belonged in this world. Well, at least something like that wasn’t as achingly complicated to explain to her friends and roommates compared to any prior situation.

How seriously should she take the feeling she had right then? Was she more Franklin, or was he more Misaki? When she got home, how much would not expressing any of this bother him or her? How legitimate were these feelings when the possibility loomed that experiencing this world truly naked would annihilate her atomic structure?

Yuka clearly wanted to try being a boy, but was that because it fulfilled something she never realized she was missing or because it was a curious otherness that captivated her to explore? Could they be together if they truly traded spots? Would they still feel the same things? Did a girly anime world even have something similar to masculinizing hormones, or was it beyond the biochemical sphere? Maybe she didn’t need to solve everyone’s mysteries while standing naked near the showers.

Misaki and Yuka had no qualms about one another’s exposed bodies, but the combination of each other plus Chika plus the whole ball of wax felt dizzyingly complicated. Chika fidgeted in place without anywhere to tuck her hands until she received her towel from Kei. Her tears had dried up, and the panic had been traded for a sensation similar to being driven down that cliff without brakes. Following on instinct, Misaki wrapped her arms comfortingly around her dear friend.

Navigating around all the uncomfortable parts of a pair of female bodies was practically impossible, so she resigned herself to the fact that she was likely going to brush a nipple or grab something fleshy and soft. They both had those parts, deal with it, and get over it. The point was that Chika felt her love, not her discomfort. She even threw in a sisterly peck on the forehead to drive the point home.

Her subtle act struck Chika like a divine revelation. The purple-haired girl’s soft brown eyes somehow managed to practically double in size. Her voice squeaked softly, like she’d been transported all the decades back to their first meeting as hopeful neighbors. Misaki again plunged a look of suspicion and mistrust at the black band fastened to her wrist. It better not be manipulating her like some doll or toy. But gazing into Chika’s truly animated eyes revealed a showcase of genuine, simmering warmth. The girl carried herself with a natural, shifting gait to her wide hips as she knit the towel playfully across her body. One reassuring trace she clung to was the subtle relaxation of her little sister‘s smile.

Her alter ego, pushed through the mold of unbridled happiness and feminine glee, was mechanically wound up and restrained. This brightening of Chika was by her own honest determination. If only she could find the same path. What would everyone actually say if she was sincere and open?

Her Bible-warrior aunt would denounce the very first sliver of thought she projected. And the reactions of everyone else she might try to overcome emotionally would just get worse from there.

This other world isn’t real, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that you would get hung up on something like that! Only the Kingdom of Christ is true, and you must surrender your soul to Him!

That example inside her head was maybe a bit flippant, but she knew the outline of what they would say. Just hanging out around someone so radical as Guy Horner, who was especially on the list to wag judgmental fingers at, was a mark against Franklin’s soul. Dwight was the good, proper, true, manly, devoted man who took care of things in their eyes. He just needed to get himself with a good woman.

Yeah… The world they inevitably had to return to spun with complications, frustrations, and entanglements. The organization of religion could foster the same confinement as the companies that wanted to place his brain in a precise monitoring box and know whenever he attempted to step out of right thoughts and rigorous schedules. Why choose to go back when you had to sever yourself from the hearts and spirits you loved and who loved you? Sure, nothing was perfect. Although, she was beginning to suspect some of the flaws were imported and leeching off their wrists. These were the kinds of thoughts both Franklin and Misaki had to keep quiet about, lest they scream.

They gathered together in a row beside the shower faucets. Returning to physical thoughts, Ayame contained grandiose secrets, softly curving across her front. Still not in the realm of Namiko, but easily the runner-up. Haruka softly cloaked her shape with skillful towel management but clearly outpaced her little sister. Maharu practically wielded her pair like an intimate weapon, even though it couldn’t reach far. Yasha stood in stark contrast to Namiko. Just the faintest suggestion of a bump rising from her soft, sleek shape.

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Yasha reminded Misaki of an ivory doll animated by an unseen hand, with frail, faint legs pivoting and slim arms shifting and searching as she sprayed water across her body and darkened the sunny sweep of her short, bright blonde locks. Namiko got literally everyone to at least take a quick glance. They looked starkly unreal. Each vast, pink nipple would’ve eclipsed her face. The volume of each sloping swath put magnificent watermelons to shame. Seen without pretense, they truly cast the presence of a fertility goddess of old brought to impossible life. Namiko actually rested a dainty hand on her hip and posed with a cheeky smile to let everyone get their glances in without judgment. Maharu was the only one adventurous enough to unabashedly celebrate her stupendous boobs.

This broke a film of ice as they chatted to one another about sizes and comforts. Namiko led the proceedings while Misaki endeavored to keep her brain from smoking. She had plenty of distractions, with her little sister and Yuka both wanting to make sure she was rigorously clean before they slipped into the nearby steaming waters.

She acquiesced to manipulating this body but still felt fretful about manipulating it too hard. The others had no qualms about getting in there while she meandered through uncertainty about how to politely suds a boob without making it look scandalous or suggestive. The reminder kept coming around that this was her body for the duration of the trip, and whatever she did with it wasn’t an imposition against anyone but herself. For all that was submerged in her identity, the schism still existed: Misaki was a separate person, and Franklin persisted in his own distinct zone.

It didn’t take long before Chika pointed out to Yuka that Misaki was getting pensive and internally thoughtful. They remedied this by making sure she got drenched. All this naturally escalated, with Maharu‘s help, into a full-on water fight with twists, leaps, and wide sprays. For the first time in days, Maharu and Yuka actually met eyes, even though it was to douse each other in the face.

The spectacle managed to stop short of using soap to slide like an invisible skateboard across the tiles, even though Maharu gleefully suggested that possibility. A young, red-headed girl with Ayame’s fiery locks wanted to pick up that note of possibility and run with it. Her moms struggled to catch, let alone contain, her ignited energy in the presence of Maharu. Plunging into the main pool's waters only put out some of the fire.

Soaking together, Misaki did her best to finesse the proper censorship threshold for her bust. But there was no constant level. Some of the group were deep, with their mouths barely above the surface, while others rose with pendulous bobbing. Namiko had her own obvious island chain, no matter where she opted to settle.

The water wasn’t immediately a rich and rejuvenating experience without qualification. It stunk sharply with that rotten egg aroma, but not to the point where it was sickening. The brisk warmth called for that stereotypical little towel placed on the head to keep from overheating. Misaki felt blissfully pushed past her melting point. She still managed to hold herself together.

This enveloping, deeply therapeutic immersion evoked a twisting gyre of spirits crawling around her while everything remained still. She had to resist the urge to surrender to the water everything she held back… oh, screw it, she told herself. Stop holding back. That immediately worried her—that she would somehow pee in the pristine depths. The real release came more like a drunken loosening than concentration. She floated over to Yuka and confidently remained in her presence. She ambitiously splashed and tickled Chika to make up for lost little sister time. The filter and the separation dissolved, as it didn’t matter that her friends were a bunch of impossibly cute anime girls that signaled all sorts of warnings in her brain. It was a better and happier thing to have fun with them without stressing that every single action might have an accidental adverse effect.

She assisted Kosame with a touch of iambic pentameter for jiggle physics. Her own efforts stumbled with the stresses while avoiding limericks she knew, not so much because they might be embarrassing, but because so many invoked the complication of men.

( . ) ( . )

But fair and supple hues with tenderness to use, so pliable and soft that muscles sweetly lift aloft.

A chest that crests upon the waters, tis the fate of all these daughters.

Neither small nor massive holds the crown, and no mere gravity can keep them down.

Loving sentiment shapes feelings raw, all that dwells within a bra.

It was absolutely ridiculous and surely didn’t follow the intended assignment, but it got plenty of giggles and even a few smirks from the older ladies present. Yasha maintained her typical level of annoyance but flashed a faint glimmer of amusement. Chika had a hard time keeping a straight face as she quietly repeated her favorite bits. Namiko sped through another verse of her own with visual aids but didn’t quite capture the same spontaneous surprise as all that coming out of uncertain Misaki.

The original was erudite enough that it didn’t ruffle any parental feathers or fully connect with the youngest girls, who found far more entertainment repeating, "Booby booby booby booby booby booby…booobies!" As though blowing a raspberry in fate‘s face.

Misaki wanted to extend the same friendly indulgence to the other Nishikawa sister but couldn’t twist her brain into anything beyond the base concept of a boob conspiracy at the moment. She casually probed the possibility that maybe this world started out with more than just girls, but the brassiere manufacturing consortium unlocked secret sacred divine powers to remake the world and double the needs of the populace and their profits. Not that she wanted to sink back into hesitancy, but she was perfectly fine with vetoing a public presentation of that idea.

Getting away from conspiracies, Bianka noted that she adored hiking. She downloaded a mini-encyclopedia of local fauna and flora up here in the hills to keep an eye out for on nearby trails. She celebrated cute critters and delighted in sharing the video they took of the docile does.

Haruka still had her big leather book just barely above disaster with the waterline. The little redheaded girl, who loudly proclaimed her name was Hana, came up with all sorts of games, with Maharu throwing out a whirlpool of spinning possibilities. The group shared smiles of encouragement about game prospects while settling in the water. Play some games, but also let there be relaxation. Perhaps a game after all this? A relaxing one that emerged from the inquisitive mind of a child.

Hana had just the game…

—-

The aftermath of the game left a lot of urgent questions for Misaki. But, particularly, what happened to Kanako‘s eviscerated remains? As a traitor to the Dread Goddess Kingdom of Kaldash, her messy execution was typical. She was made a political example by the rioting crowds, most of them insurgents loyal to Blood Princess Kurenei, during her most recent purges of the disloyal merchant class.

Maharu was quite good at acting out the most recent assassination attempt on Fallen Flower Lieutenant Kita. That fate was well earned with the ruthless sack, siege, and scouring of the small village of Ralgaleth. Misaki really thought that Queen Moriko would survive to challenge Kurenai for the Crystal Throne. But she was given a drink tainted with Anguistian herbs, which made her belly violently rupture and expel burning bile before she finally succumbed, screaming, after seven days.

In the aftermath of the "game", Yasha was the first one to speak up and offer feedback to Hana: "I thought it was fun."

Hana sheepishly admitted that she did a lot of pretending in the Kingdom of Kaldash, and some of the characters started out as her stuffed animals before she wanted to give them really interesting backstories. The Queen’s Guard’s twisting of thumbs with hot pokers ritual thankfully wasn’t exactly reenacted.

There was more. So much more. There was enough spilling forth from the kid to cover several seasons of a television show she shouldn’t have been old enough to watch. Misaki had to ask at one point if all this was normal for a girl like this, but the locals grimaced a few times and eventually had to admit that they all knew at least one girl who played this hard with their imaginations.