Just According to Keikaku

Blood was everywhere. I had seen a lot of blood at Reiko and Dan’s previous two fights, but this was something else. It was surprising how much of the stuff could come out of one woman’s neck.

“Jesus Christ, Reiko. I thought you were just going to stop her, not slit her throat!”

The words echoed my own thoughts, but I wasn’t the one who said them. Instead, they came from a small figure a little way down the corridor, who was now crouched by Aoife, holding her hands over the unconscious woman’s head as a faint light emitted from them.

“I am sorry, Dan-san,” said Reiko flatly. “But the only way to stop her was to kill her.”

“You’re not planning on killing anyone else though, right?” I asked, while gingerly hopping away from the blood pooling around Fusae. The living ropes had stopped moving by themselves, allowing me some degree of movement as they no longer actively resisted me, but they were still performing the function of normal non-living rope.

As Reiko shook her head, I tried to assess what ‘type’ of Reiko she currently was. Definitely not cutesy school girl. Not quite emotionless robot. And she hadn’t gone to find the nearest window to jump out of, so she wasn’t in crazy mode. She just seemed kind of… Tired. I decided that was probably good. Tired was understandable, given what she had been through.

“I am done with killing,” Reiko said, lifting her hands up as though in surrender. “I will not hurt you. I understand now what Fusae-sama… What Fusae did to me. She said she gave me power. But she took away my choice on how to use that power. She put memories in my head that were not mine.” She hesitated, as though now only just processing what that meant. “I did not kill my parents. She killed them.”

Reiko stopped speaking. I thought it best to leave her to ruminate a bit, and so directed my next comment to Dan.

“You could have cut it a bit finer, you know. Arrived a few minutes later, just to really make it exciting.”

Dan, still crouched beside Aoife, grinned up at me. She also looked incredibly tired, as though she had only just regained consciousness, and then ran all the way here. In fairness, that was probably exactly what she had done.

“You should be grateful that I came here at all, dickhead,” Dan said. “And even more grateful that I went along with your crazy plan. I woke up and found the note you left me, about trying to get rid of the manipulation spell on Reiko. We’re damn lucky that it worked. Looks like the magic Fusae used directly affected Reiko’s brain, which is why I was able to fix it by healing the tissue to a natural state. If it had been something different, less physical, there’s no way I could have done anything. And it was only by chance that I made it here on time. My aunt… Ms Matthews was right to tell you that it was stupid to try.”

“Stupid, sure,” I agreed. “But it all ended up okay, right? Not for Fusae, but I mean, we beat the bad guy. My man-hymen is safely intact. Reiko…” I eyed the Japanese girl, who was still deep in thought. “Reiko seems like she’s less of a psycho killer now. Hopefully. How’s Aoife?”

“I’ve just finished with her,” Dan said, struggling to her feet. “She should come to naturally in a few minutes or so.”

“Well, there you go! Victory on all fronts!”

It did feel a bit inappropriate, speaking so happily when a dead woman lay at my feet. But after she’d used some kind of substitution magic when I thought I’d killed her earlier, I was really just relieved that she was staying down this time.

“One thing I don’t get,” Dan said. “Is why Fusae suddenly changed like that. I snuck in while she was doing her villain speech, and she looked like she was on the verge of putting you to sleep. I was sure I wouldn’t have enough time to heal Reiko before she turned around and discovered me. But then she suddenly got the horn for you. What happened?”

Reiko spoke up. “Biyaku… The aphrodisiac magic. You found my tome.”

It hadn’t been a question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah… I did.”

Well, saying that, it had technically been my sister who found the tome. During the encounter at Reiko’s flat Hayley had looked around for an effective weapon, and found a massive book to bonk Reiko over the head with. After Dan had saved us both, Hayley the budding kleptomaniac had decided to take her makeshift club home as a souvenir. I had forgotten all about it, until I came across it in her room during that period of waiting for Fusae to show up.

I had started flicking through it and recognised the same strange symbols that had been in the Vindeca tome. They hadn’t done the same dance onto the page as they had in the other book, maybe because the Vindeca tome was protected by some additional layer of magic that this one didn’t have. Regardless, with Hayley’s permission, I took the tome to my bedroom desk and stared at the first page. Sure enough, instinct took over, and I flipped through the pages as though each one had a picture of a kid gradually transforming into an animal in its bottom corner.

I had hoped it would give me the power of Reiko’s breath darts, as that would have been super helpful in the upcoming final battle. Instead, I knew that it had given me the ability to breathe out an aphrodisiac. It was the same as when I read the previous tome: the power just seemed to suddenly be there in my body, ready for me to use whenever I wanted. It was better than nothing, I guessed, but pretty useless when it came to fighting. Also, not the kind of thing I could ever see myself wanting to use if I still planned to maintain my virginity until I was 30 years old. And that’s putting aside the very obvious moral issues that would come with using it.

All the same, I wanted to at least test out my new ability, just to try it. Then I remembered I was confined to the house with only my mum and sister, and quickly decided that I did not want to test it out after all.

The opportunity came when Fusae started delivering her rant about hating men. When she mentioned the magic I had gained from the Vindeca tome, it reminded me of the other tome I had stolen knowledge from. At the same time, Dan had climbed through the window of one of the disused classrooms and stealthily entered the corridor, and began healing Reiko. I whispered so that Fusae would have to get nice and close to hear what I was saying, and hey presto, aphrodisiaccus attackus.

“I thought it might be helpful to distract her,” I said to Dan. “To buy you more time to heal Reiko and maybe Aoife, so the three of you could launch a joint counterattack. I didn’t realise it would make her that horny straight away. I mean, when Reiko used it on me it was pretty effective, but never that effective.”

“That is because I was not using it at full strength.” Reiko smiled at me grimly. “It was a tome I stole from my coven so I could use its powers to seduce you. That is why I had it here. I was still studying it.”

Dan nodded. “That makes sense. For witches, spells are a sliding scale. We get better at them the more we study their tomes and practise them. Whereas for male magic users, it goes straight from 0 to 100. That’s why it got Fusae so hot and bothered.”

“What, so you’re saying it wasn’t just because I’m an incredibly sexy guy?” I asked in mock outrage.

“Mate, sexiness has nothing to do with it. If Mr Panchal used that spell on you at full power, you’d be spending form time under his desk.”

“Bloody hell, what a disturbing image,” I said, laughing.

Dan laughed, too. Reiko didn’t, but I thought I saw one side of her mouth twitch upwards. Maybe.

“Anyway,” I continued. “As much as I’m loving standing around chatting while Fusae’s corpse decorates the floor, I would appreciate it if you could untie me so we can get out of here.”

Reiko raised her hand to her mouth, and I quickly added, “Untie, specifically. I trust your aim, but would rather play it safe and just get these ropes off me in a less dangerous way, please.”

Reiko shrugged, and then she and Dan both came towards me and began to tug on the ropes around my arms. But after only a few seconds, they stopped.

“You know,” Dan said. “This is actually a good look for you. The whole tied up thing. What’s that Japanese rope bondage called, Reiko?”

“Shibari,” Reiko replied. “And yes, I agree. Jamesu-san does look very… Erotic.”

“Okay, very funny,” I said. “But I really would appreciate it if-”

Dan put a hand on the right side of my chest, Reiko put a hand on the left, and both pushed at the same time. Unable to maintain my balance without the use of my arms, I slipped in the blood and fell helplessly to the floor.

“You just lie down, Jamesu-san, and we will take care of you.” Reiko removed the red ribbon around her collar and unbuttoned her blouse.

“Yeah, bud. You’ve been through a lot. Let us take the pain away…”

Dan didn’t bother to remove her t-shirt. She instead kicked off her trainers and went straight to removing her tracksuit bottoms. She was wearing boxer shorts, not unlike my own, presumably a habit from posing as a boy for so long. After she pulled them down, however, I saw the first physical evidence that she was indeed a girl. Definitely a girl. No doubt about it.

Reiko, meanwhile, had stripped down to delicate white underwear. Dan’s healing of her mind appeared to have also cleared up the wounds on her face, so she was back to her usual level of attractiveness. Which was a very high level indeed.

The girls fell on top of me, stroking my chest in a way disturbingly similar to the late Fusae.

“Both of you, stop!” I shouted. “It’s just the aphrodisiac! It must not have worn off yet!”

Neither of them replied. At least, not in words. All they seemed capable of now were moans. Moans that, I had to admit, were very sexy. I wasn’t sure if perhaps I’d breathed in some of my own aphrodisiac, or if that was even possible, but I found myself getting excited.

In perfect sync, each holding one side, the two girls pulled down my pants. This was a ridiculous situation. Reiko, a girl who had tried to kill me. Dan, my best friend for years, who I had only found out was female a few days before. This should not have been happening. And, more importantly, I should not have been enjoying it.

I had been moving around, trying as best I could to move away from their caresses, despite my restraints. Gradually, I stopped resisting. I lay back and accepted the pleasure they were giving me. The two girls who had been mortal enemies, now united in making me feel good.

A deafening noise abruptly cut through the waves of pleasure, and at the same time, the ground seemed to shake beneath me.

I only heard later about what had happened. Aoife had woken up, still dazed from Fusae’s attack, and had seen me in a large pool of blood with two naked girls climbing on top of me. Instinctively, she had let out her most powerful scream. More powerful than she even knew she was capable of. So powerful that the wave of force the sound emitted caused vibrations to shake through the entirety of the already rickety Old Building. Vibrations too strong for the building to handle.

The shaking grew stronger, and as I looked up at the collapsing ceiling, I remember having just one thought.

“Guess I’ll need to find another lunch spot.”