(takes place between chapter 77 & 78)

(plz let me know if you find errors. and enjoy ^_^)

Chapter 77.5

Her empty body called her back, and she filled it like water, sinking in from toes to forehead. She opened her eyes as if from a dream. She was aware of certain things — Tomoe was there, blurry (she blinked away a tear) — her heart was racing. Nanami raised a hand against the light, and there they were: human fingers. Her human fingers.

I'm...back in my body!

"Tomoe," she said in amazement, "I'm back —"

And then she realized that his mouth was against her neck. It was soft and warm. Her heart, already darting in her chest, gave an extra flutter, and for a moment she felt like she was going to rise right up out of her body again.

"...wait. What are you doing, Tomoe?"

He was gazing down at her, fingers locked in hers. He was holding her down. "Great," he purred. "What shall I do next?"

He moved; his hand wrapped around her ankle, lifted it up to his shoulder, and he gazed down at her with a smirk. "You know, I'm tired of worrying, running around trying to find you all day. I might as well break your leg."

What...?

"From now on, I won't let you go anywhere else." The smirk left; his eyes grew somber. "I'll love you forever, until you can't stand it. So...stay with me."

Her head felt light. What was going on? Had her spirit not returned to her body after all, but in fact to some human in an alternate universe? Tomoe leaned down toward her again. She felt his breath against her throat.

"...To..."

And then his teeth sank into her neck.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

The air crackled with ethereal green light; deity magic made Tomoe straighten instantly, arms up and eyes wide with shock as Nanami pressed her hand to her neck and then pulled it away to find her palm moist and red.

"You bit me! Augh, it's bleeding! It HURTS!"

Tomoe smiled broadly. "...you've returned, Nanami. That's great. Really wonderful —"

Her face turned to him, dark, and he stammered: "Don't get the wrong idea — I only did that because your body was being possessed by a vicious spirit, and I wanted to chase it out — really, you're always getting into trouble —"

"Kneel," Nanami growled, and the magic sparked out and bent Tomoe's body over like clay while he shuddered nervously.

"I don't care if there's wind or rain, kneel there for three days and three nights!"

::

Later, when the Mikage Shrine had been restored (albeit dripping) to its rightful place, and after Mizuki ended up somehow bandaging his hands together while attending to her, Nanami relented and allowed Tomoe to take charge of first aid while Mizuki retreated, whining for Onikiri or Kotetsu to come and free him.

"It's stopped bleeding already," Tomoe pointed out, and Nanami frowned at him.

"Bandage it up anyway." Who knew what kind of diseases foxes had? They had kissed before without consequence, but biting — and drawing blood! — was completely different. Hours had passed and it was already evening, but she still felt lightheaded since returning to her body, and worse, feverish too. She didn't even want to imagine what she'd have to pay to see a doctor for some weird demon disease — and she definitely didn't want to miss school again—

Nanami gasped in pain as Tomoe dabbed at her neck with an alcohol-dipped cotton swab. Tomoe stared impatiently, and she pursed her lips and remained silent as he finished cleaning the bite.

"That damn snake," Tomoe muttered, snipping tape with the end of a long fingernail, "is a completely useless familiar."

He placed a cotton pad over the wound, and positioned the tape over it. As he pressed the tape firm against her skin, Nanami gasped again.

"What's the matter now?" he demanded, "I didn't even touch the bite," but for just an instant he had touched her, and the feeling of his skin against hers made heat bloom across her entire body. Nanami shook her head, not just to fend him off, but to try and clear it.

"No, it's...nothing." She gazed down at her hands, half-curled in her lap. "I'm just tired. Thank you, Tomoe," she added, looking up at him. He snorted.

"If you really want to thank me, you should get rid of that snake," he told her, "and save us both the trouble of dealing with him. I'm the only familiar that you need."

"I'll love you forever, until you can't stand it."

Nanami reddened. "At least I could count on Mizuki to be there for me while you spent your time trying to seduce the swamp servants."

"I told you, I was only doing those things to chase that spirit out —"

"I know that!" she snapped. Like he would ever say those things seriously to Nanami herself. Tomoe watched her, eyes narrow and calculating, then stood.

"Well, it's all bandaged up. If you have any other insignificant wounds that need my attention, let me know." He started for the door, tying up his sleeves. "I'll be fixing up the shrine, since I'm the only familiarhere capable of doing so properly."

To her disappointment, he left the room. Soon after descended the usual atmosphere of the shrine, and Nanami closed her eyes and laid back on her futon and listened to Tomoe yelling and Mizuki bawling and Onikiri and Kotetsu dashing back and forth, and occasionally screaming frantically as they slipped on the swampy floorboards.

Everything was back to normal.

::

Except for her growing fever. Feeling restless, she stood and tried to tidy things up, but stopped after a while and retreated to the futon after cleaning failed to dissipate any symptoms. In the past months she had been through quite a bit, but maybe being stuffed with a foreign spirit and then bitten by a fox demon was the last straw for her poor body. Yes. She might not return to health unless she rested properly.

The problem was that when she just laid still, she felt like something was humming, just beneath the surface of her skin. Something about her body had changed while she was gone, and it was like her spirit no longer fit properly into it. Nanami closed her eyes, determined to relax.

"I'll love you forever, until you can't stand it."

He didn't love her at all, and she already couldn't stand it. She tossed and turned until the sun set, and couldn't dislodge the words from her mind. Her memory opened its jaws wide, close to her neck, and sat over her, warm and firm and soft and whispering.

"I'll love you forever, until you can't stand it."

What else had he said to her, when she hadn't been there? Where else had he kissed? What sort of face had Tomoe shown whoever had been in her body? Something boiled up at the bottom of her belly at the thought of it — his lashes sweeping against her cheek — his mouth grazing her throat —

It was so — unfair— it was so —

She stared at the ceiling as it dawned on her. Her body wasn't feverish. It was, in fact, very —

She flushed. She imagined these things with Tomoe sometimes — that is — being close — but they had never made her feel like — like this— restless, almost angry. It wasn't out of obliviousness that she had never imagined things too definitively (what sort of person could be oblivious about physical matters and still be Kei's friend?). Her mind's shying away from anything far from her lived experience was due to a lack of foundation. All the television dramas in the world could describe how wonderful it was to be kissed, but Nanami's kisses rarely proved to be anything more than brief and dutiful. The strongest feeling that had ever been evoked from them was probably shock. Maybe panic?

But now her body knew about something that she didn't. She swallowed and moved her palms over her belly. After sharing a boyfriend story with Nanami and Ami and receiving puzzled looks from both of them, Kei had advised them both in unrelenting detail on how to self-medicate what she described first carefully as "ignorance," then "loneliness," and then, with an exasperated sigh, as what it actually was.

"Horniness, okay?! Being turned on! In the mood! Sexual arousal! Good grief, have you guys really never done it at all? Are you still in elementary school or what?"

"Of course I've done it!" Ami yelled, to Kei and Nanami's astonishment, and she turned bright red and refused to say anything else for the rest of the day.

Nanami took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, retrieving the memory of Tomoe's weight on her. He must have leaned over her before — even if it was to force her out of bed for school — but imagining it had never been so potent. It had never been something that made her feel lightheaded, achy, desperate. She swallowed and listened carefully for anyone moving out in the hallway, and then slipped her fingers beneath the elastic band of her underwear.

She'd once had a dream that Tomoe had come to visit her in the night, long hair draping down over their shoulders like threads of moonlight. It was at the god conference, when she thought that he would leave her for good, and when she saw him in her room she had wanted to grasp him, but her arms were heavy with indecision and fear. Don't go away, she wanted to say, please, and he had leaned forward and her words faded against his mouth.

"I'll be your familiar forever, Nanami," Dream-Tomoe whispered as Nanami flushed and buried her head beneath her blanket. Dream-Tomoe pressed his lips against her brow. "I'll never leave you. I'll make you feel this nice all the time."

Dream-Tomoe kissed the lobe of her ear. "How's that, Tochigami-sama?"

Really good, Dream-Tomoe...

"Good, good. Hey, Nanami, maybe tomorrow we can go and ride the ferris wheel again. And, I'll never make you eat shiitake again."

She grinned to herself. Dream-Tomoe was so perfect...

"Nanami," Tomoe's voice called as her finger nudged gently, "Nanami...what are you doing?"

That — was not Dream-Tomoe —

Nanami sat up with a shriek and Tomoe jumped back, tail fluffed and ears flared in alarm. His hand was on the door, which was halfway open.

"T — T-T-Tomoe —"

She pulled her hand above the covers and behind her. Tomoe regarded her suspiciously.

"H-how long — have you been —" No, she didn't want to know that. She scratched her head and laughter began falling out of her mouth. "Is something the matter, Tomoe?"

Tomoe's lips pursed. "No. Nothing." He gave the room a long, slow scan, inhaling deeply.

"What's going on?" Nanami asked, frightened. Her stomach churned. "Do — do you smell smoke?" She took a deep breath, trying to detect cigarettes. She pushed the blankets off.

"No," Tomoe said as Nanami started to search for lights in the room, "not smoke."

His sleeves were still tied up from cleaning, and he let them down. He had been relishing the thought of sleep when a strange smell had caught his attention and he immediately went to investigate. It smelled exactly like one of those girls at the school who constantly swarmed around he and Kurama during their arbitrary moments between classes, and he had fully expected to come in here and find one or even a dozen of them squirming underfoot here.

"No one's here except you?" he asked, and Nanami looked confused and shook her head.

He considered. "Not even that cat friend of yours? Or the one with the phone thing?"

"Um...you mean Ami-chan and Kei-chan? No, neither of them." Nanami swallowed. "Is...is there an intruder?"

He stared at her, mouth pursed, and Nanami stared back and then said, in a too-high voice, "What's wrong, Tomoe?" He saw her wiping her hand furiously on the blanket.

Ah...so it's like that. Well — his deity was, after all, still a young human, and subject to the same human vagaries, as Kurama had so astutely pointed out before. Tomoe smiled brightly, and Nanami flushed as he entered the room and sat down beside her.

"How are you feeling, Nanami? Is your horrendous wound faring any better than it was before?"

"U-um — yeah — I feel much better —"

"Are you sure? No fevers? Nothing I can do for you? I would hate for my most beloved master to miss school because she became feverish." He reached out and pressed his hand against her forehead and was rewarded with a deepening flush and near-visible sweat rolling off her skin. His grin deepened. He watched her carefully for any response, and stiffened when a tear rolled down her cheek.

Nanami wiped the tear away furiously and he backed up, startled. Wasn't she aroused? There was no way he was mistaken — just being in this room made himfeel too-warm, too-friendly. "Wh — what's the matter?"

"You!" Nanami yelled, and he held his arm up as if to defend himself. "You'rethe matter!"

"Me — what did I do?" he demanded, and her expression turned vicious.

"I don't know!"

"You...don't know?"

"How could I know?! I was trapped in that frog! While you were — flirting with that spirit — in my body!" She took a breath. "And now — now Iwant — I mean, my body wants —"

She cut herself off and Tomoe pieced it together for himself.

"That'swhat you're upset about?" he said in surprise. The memory of teasing that old toad had already fallen beneath the suds and business of cleaning up the shrine, and anyway he had imagined that she had already forgotten about it — after all, it wasn't as if she had experienced it.

Except, he supposed, she actually had.

"Interesting. Wow," he said, and couldn't help it; he snickered. "I didn't imagine that spirit wanted to do anything with your body other than run away with it, much less use it to sleep with me." Foolish. It was a mark of the toad's inadequacy that she had failed to make Nanami's body even as marginally appealing as Nanami was doing now, unconsciously. The true Nanami before him smelled strong and sweet, much like she had during the New Year, when her fragrance seemed to call at him, despite the years of warping. Even in her disheveled state she drew him in, made him want to comb his fingers through her unkempt hair, to tuck himself into her futon beside her...

...well, though the fact that she looked stricken did get in the way, a bit. He looked away from her, uncomfortable. Too-warm.

"Tell me what you did with her," Nanami growled, and the words glittered and struck his esophagus like lightning; the words were ripped from his mouth.

"She embraced me," he heard his voice saying. He clutched his throat but couldn't stop. "I stroked her hair and asked if she was well. She kissed me and told me that she liked me and asked me to take her away."

Nanami looked away and Tomoe felt his chest twinge, but the words continued, brimming, spilling out into the cold room. "I held her face and told her I didn't realize she thought of me this way. I told her I was happy. I asked why she liked me. I told her I already knew that she liked me. I told her that I have always loved her deeply. I leaned toward her and —"

"Stop," Nanami said quietly, and Tomoe's mouth snapped shut and instantly opened again.

"That didn't happen," he said quickly, "I mean — it happened, but that's not why I —"

"Stop," Nanami told him again, "stop talking," and the magic clamped his mouth shut again. Her eyes were glassy, bright with tears and sharp with anger. Her mouth opened.

"Kiss me."

His body, shocked with deity-magic, and reacted faster than he could think; in a moment he had crossed the space between them and had taken his face in her hands and pressed his mouth to hers. She closed her eyes. He thought that maybe she would be startled too, or push him away; but instead she placed her hands against him, and kissed him back.

It was different than the previous kisses he had received from her, or maybe more accurately, her body — different from their first free-falling kiss that had bound him ruthlessly to her, different from the most recent sloppy kiss bestowed on him through the Nanami before him now kissed him commandingly, possessively, so firmly that some form of her magic reached through to him without words.

Kiss me back, it ordered, and Tomoe closed his eyes and obeyed. Something bloomed in him, something candescent that twinged again in his chest, flooded into his belly. His ears flattened and he leaned into her. She was so soft — her mouth wet, and sweet, and yielding, and demanding back, more, more,so his skin felt like it was sparking with this other magic of hers. His chest ached exquisitely. Her fragrance — her warmth against his skin — he wanted to linger, to appreciate every moment, and yet wanted to gorge.

They fell back against the futon, him over her. He drew his tongue across her throat and she trembled against him, moaned, and something about the sound of it compelled him more than anything else she'd ever said. She trembled, but rather than pushing him away, she clutched him, so fiercely that his right shoulder slipped from its sleeve. His thoughts began to grow hazy, to leave nothing but a desire to taste her, to encompass her, fulfill her. He ran his tongue across her lips and she gasped, and the sound was lovely. He had never heard Nanami made such a noise. He repositioned, moved himself to the crook of her neck and traced it with the tip of his tongue. He felt her back arch in his palm.

"Tomoe…" Real-Tomoe was so much better than Dream-Tomoe. Nanami tried to look at him, but the sight of the living, breathing Tomoe put her heart into fits — Is this really happening?— so she closed her eyes and felt everything inside her leap with panic and delight every time he moved somewhere new. His lips against the lobe of her ear set off little fires that raced through her veins and converged in the pit of her belly. He kissed her lightly behind her ear, and gave a slight spasm, pulling his clothing off further so its collar rested on his elbow. When her hands rested against his skin she was surprised at how hot it was, and also how smooth, and also how Tomoe gave a shudder and flattened against her, until her palm was flat against his chest. She sucked a breath as she felt his teeth lightly close on her earlobe.

"No biting," she murmured, and he stopped. She felt his smile against her ear.

"What, then? How about this?" His left hand moved, rested on her breast.

"Ahh…" Pleasure pulsed through her as he made a languorous circle, then squeezed. Her skin prickled, all the way down to her ankles. Her breath shortened.

"Well?"

"Ah…huh?"

His hand took her other breast and he began flicking his thumbs at the tightening peak of her breasts, playing. "How's this, Nanami-sama?"

She reddened and looked away and down. "Ah…yes…it's…it's okay."

"Justokay?" In a moment, somehow, he had undone the front of her pajamas and pulled the sides apart. She wasn't wearing a bra, and felt a moment of panic when she was exposed completely to him; but before he could do anything he bent down and nuzzled the space between her breasts. His hair tickled her chin. A moment later he laid his tongue on her nipple and her cry of shock became one of startled pleasure.

"Ahhh— T-To —"

She put her hand over her own mouth, clenched it into a ball as if to contain the tingling that had spread throughout her entire body. He licked her slowly, lapped, and she felt like she was melting. She bit her fist to keep herself quiet and her breath staggered hot against her knuckles.

The smallest of his motions reverberated through her, amplified. The sight of her gasping trembling beneath him, her back arching in his palm, made his chest twinge all the more, made his head spin. It had been a while since he had shared a bed with someone — life since Nanami's arrival had been too hectic, too busy, and (he realized) far more interesting than spending the night in the scarlet district lounging beneath the tanuki girls until sake made the night blurry. He felt a familiar hunger tighten his muscles, but there was something different about it; he wanted to wait, to savor it, to make her ask for it, this human girl who was both so free and so coy with her confessions to him.

"I really like you, Tomoe."

He wanted to hear it again from her — and hear her beg him to satisfy her — hear her not retreat into her downcast uncertainties about liking him, but gasp orders for him to continue.

"That was much better than just 'okay,' wasn't it?"

"Y…yeah. It was…really good," Nanami mumbled. Admitting each word was like shoving boulders up a hill, no less because half of her fingers were still poised over her mouth to prevent unwarranted noises.

Smiling slightly, he covered her nipple with his mouth and sucked, and was rewarded with a moan that made it past her curled sound of her pleasure reverberated in his ears, and he lapped at her breasts until they were hard as pebbles in his fingers, until her entire body was covered in goosebumps. His kisses began to migrate towards her navel in little warm steps. The smell of her arousal was even stronger now, and filled him. Suddenly he felt as if he'd been starving, and now here was food before him: supple, sweet, absolutely delicious.

Nanami curled forward slightly as Tomoe's hands moved down her sides, as he moved down lower, pulling down the elastic band of her pajama pants to expose her stomach. Instinctively she recoiled and wanted to cover herself up, but — it felt so — good — he was so soft, and gentle, and her body felt wracked with lightning and buzzing and delighted numbness. Numbness, at least, until Tomoe placed is hand between her legs and rubbed, precisely.

She gasped in surprise as the simple touch made her whole body spark. She looked down at him with astonishment. Tomoe smiled at her.

"Did I get it?"

He licked the pad of his thumb and eased it beneath her underwear, between her folds. He gazed up at her, eyes piercing. She flushed but didn't look away.

"Get what?" she asked back rebelliously and then shut her eyes and shivered when he brushed his thumb across. Once, twice. She felt as if he were strumming her whole body.

He paused and she bit back her indignation. "Shall I keep going, Nanami?"

"Yeah…" She shut her eyes and pursed her lips and then said it, strong: "Tomoe — keep going —"

There wasn't a flash of magic, but the sound of her voice weakened by pleasure moved him to a frantic pace. He hooked the band of her pants and underwear together in his fingers and tugged down, revealing her. She didn't wince, nor cry out, but watched him. He rubbed his thumb against her clit, bare and already wet, and then made a circle around it with the tip of his tongue.

Suddenly he felt Nanami's fingers curled in his hair; they were tense and tight and he looked up at her face, her mouth pursed, her breathing ragged. Oh — she was so, so lovely.

"Relax," he managed, hoarse, and she nodded vehemently, and he laid his tongue back on her again, even more gently, light circles around her clit. She started to breathe heavily and her fingers tightened in his hair again — tangling in it — drawing him closer.

She was so delicious — this simple human girl — his deity. He alternated his motions, alternating lengthy, lingering licks with short, fast laps that made her wriggle and tighten her thighs against his cheeks. Her trembling became consistent and he felt her entire body becoming tense as a tightly coiled spring. Her grip had started to become so tight that her tugging on his hair was almost painful. She was very wet now, and so, so soft; he wanted to take her into his arms, pull her into him, swathe himself in the smell and sound of her. He ignored her cry of shock and frustration when he sat up, and stared at her, licking his lips hazily.

Their breathing was similar, ragged and fast. Tomoe pulled her forward so that she sat up as well. His hands slid down her back, lingered beneath her soft thighs, and he parted her legs and lifted her onto his lap. In the process she lost her balance somewhat and leaned toward him, so that her breasts pressed against his chest, lovely and warm. Her weight settled down on him and before he could compose himself a moan escaped him.

The sound of it surprised her and for a moment Nanami was knocked out of the haze of her pleasure. She flushed as she felt him beneath her, hard and protruding; he enfolded her in his arms and pulled her down onto him more heavily and in his embrace she became aware for the first time of his own fast pulse, the strain of his ears folded back and buried in the hair she had tousled. This whole time she had forgotten about Tomoe, and with a swallow and a burst of courage she began to undo the front tie of his hakama.

His grip tightened around her, and she heard his voice in his ear, strained, wordless. Trying to imitate him, she dragged her mouth across the line of his throat, kissing lightly and reaching into the loosened folds of the hakama until her fingers met his shaft, hot and firm.

She gripped him and he groaned and squeezed her so tightly that it almost hurt. She smiled.

"Did I get it?" she whispered towards one of the flattened ears after a beat he muttered, "Yes."

She massaged him, rubbed him up and down. Her embarrassment flooded her but his occasional twitching and gasps encouraged; she continued, determined despite her clumsiness and slightly odd position. She saw his tail arch and lash against the floor with fierce sweeps and thumps. "How good?"

"Really — very — good."

She laughed happily, and his ears flared. This girl — this simple, straightforward human girl — laughing at a time like this, enjoying him, when he would have expected her to cringe or curl away from him in squeamishness or (worse, but understandable, given that he was a demon) fear. Truly — she was — something special —

"Nanami," he said suddenly, in a voice so quiet she hardly heard it, "can…can I…"

"Yeah," she heard herself saying, "do it," and he released her momentarily to untie the front of his hakama completely. Faster than she expected he embraced her again, and she squealed as he gripped her bottom and lifted her up and toward him once more. Her legs spread further than she expected around his hips.

He lowered her onto him. The first contact was a shock — she was startled by how hot he was, how firm — she swallowed as he parted her, and breathed steadily as he entered, every millimeter sending thrills through her that pushed out all her uncertainties and fears, all thoughts unrelated to him and his warmth and gentleness. Her thighs rested, finally, on his hakama. His tail curled, and she felt it brush against her lower back, twitching.

"Nanami," he groaned, and she was delighted to hear the pleasure in his voice, something other than his usual assurance or sobriety. This was something that Dream-Tomoe could have never done: gazed at her with hazy tenderness, pulled her close so that his head nestled beneath her chin. He lifted his sleeve around her and she felt enveloped by him, inside and out.

"It doesn't hurt?" he asked.

"No. It feels...it feels really good."

For a moment they just sat there. Tomoe's head felt light, filled with a curious feeling that he could only describe as something beyond pleasure, something that in his present mood he could only describe as contentment, or (more ambitiously) utter happiness. To feel someone here, to fold her close to him, to feel this intimate…it felt like something he had been missing for a long time, though he was sure that none of the tanuki girls had ever evoked something in him this tender or curiously fulfilling. His heart pounded, almost painfully, giving off that strange twinge. He was still musing when Nanami covered his mouth with hers, and curled her fingers again in his hair.

Ah…

Whatever semblance of coolness he and maintained until this moment collapsed at her touch. He lifted her up and down against him, a little awkwardly, and she gave a low moan of surprise and delight.

"Ahhhh,Tomoe — that feels — so —" Precariously, strangely, wonderfully good. Every movement of him stirred up bright butterflies in her stomach that fled and fluttered in every vein and muscle, each wingbeat a bright pulse that soon drowned out any coherent thought. He was lifting her against him but she began to move on her own, grinding against him to take him further, to stir herself up more. Their mouths connected and moans spilled together.

"A little slower," he told her, "longer," and his hands guided her into long thrusts that nearly made her see white. Despite his guiding she moved fast, feeling desperate, like she couldn't have enough of him. She tilted her head back as his hands found her breasts again, rolling the tips of them in his fingers, licking them and then rolling them and then pinching them as their fervor grew more strong and more desperate. He felt so hot, inside of her — his heat was reaching deep — filling her with fire. Every inch of her was burning. She felt the pressure of it all mounting, mounting, felt his nails dig into her back as she moved more fiercely, hungrily. She gasped with each movement, exhilarated, and suddenly she felt as if she was on the brink of shattering.

She cried out his name as all the flames and butterflies and foxfire-bright nerves in her burst; she thrashed in a pleasure so sharp it was like pain, and Tomoe continued thrusting as she gripped him, yanking at his skin, his hair, for purchase. Tomoe too was shuddering, and smothering her against him, and groaning into her hair as she felt flooded with heat. After an eternity of feeling like a taut string, Nanami slackened, exhausted, against him, panting and sheened thinly with sweat. Tomoe, too, glistened with it. The hair of Tomoe's bangs was stuck together in moist tapers.

They extricated themselves from each other, and Tomoe shifted so that Nanami could lie against him. They breathed together, heavily, their breath coming out in plumes in the winter-cold room. Her vision started to clear, slowly, and she began to make sense of the ruffled futon bedsheets, her cast-off pajamas, and worse (or best), the nearly-naked Tomoe whose chest she was plastered to, whose fluttering heartbeat pulsed loudly in her right ear. She felt him breathing heavily above him, saw his throat bobbing with exhaustion.

"Thank you," she managed. She realized her voice was hoarse. She glanced up slightly and saw the curve of a smile on Tomoe's face. A finger coiled in her hair.

"Of course," he answered, and then his cheeks reddened. He fumbled and said, "That is, something like this…between a human and a demon…it's not so much that…I mean, this is all due to my duty to you as your familiar."

"Of…of course," Nanami said. Tomoe swallowed and looked down at her, bracing himself to see her dismayed — but though her gaze was away from him, a light smile still played on her face.

"So…so you must have carried out a similar duty to Mikage-san as well, right?" Nanami asked, and Tomoe flushed even more deeply than before and looked away from her.

"That's — well, of course I — that is —"

He forced himself to stop stammering and resigned himself to flustered silence when Nanami began laughing and then threw her arms around him with a happy grin. She rubbed her cheek against his sternum and squeezed him tightly. He felt like a plush doll suddenly, like her play thing, an amusing pet. His ears flattened with embarrassment.

But they still heard when she whispered.

"Tomoe?"

"Yes?" A glance revealed that her face had a smirk that sent strange shivers down his spine. He tipped his left ear toward her, and her next words gripped him with green light.

"Do it again."