Book 1, Chapter 17

Author's note: In case it's not obvious by this point, one of the major themes of this story is that anime contains many common tropes for entertainment purposes that would be horrific to live through in real life. In this chapter and the last, an underage girl gets propositioned. It is intended as an example of one such horrific trope, not as an endorsement of said behavior, nor as an invitation to view the character in a sexual manner.

“Hai, dame! Dame, dame, dame! Zettai ni dame!” Aina exclaimed as she gently pushed Momo off her.

“Nyaze?” asked a frantic Momo. “Because I’m a nekomimi?”

“Iie, I—”

“Because I’m an onnya?”

“Iie, I—”

“Jya, because you don’t like watashi?” Momo sounded like she was about to cry.

“Momo, I’m jyuu-sai. Jyu-u-sa-i.” Aina enunciated each syllable. “I don’t know the first thing about koi, or about s—s—s—ecchi stuff. Soshite, neither do you.”

“I know what I’m feeling right now,” Momo insisted. “My body is so atsui. It’s throbbing. It needs to be touched. Maybe I don’t love you that way, but I need to do it with someone, and when I think of doing it with any nyan else, it feels gross.”

“I’m too young. Gomen. Maybe in a few years.”

“I don’t have the luxury of waiting!” Momo growled. “I’m not a ningen like you. I don’t get to choose. I’m trying to hold myself back. Demo, I can’t wait, not even for you.”

“You can,” Aina informed her. “Come with me.”

“Doko are we going?”

“The infirmary.”

“I daikirai that place. Nyani are you going to do, spay me?”

“Relax, I’m just going to give you some medicine. It should calm you down for tonight. Tomorrow, you can talk to a doctor about controlling your heat cycle.”

“They won’t let me,” Momo said.

“They will. Controlling your reproductive cycle is a basic ningen right.”

“Ningen ja nyai yo! Don’t you wakaru? They want me to pump out as many koneko as I can.”

It was true. Nekomimi were originally created through genetic engineering techniques similar to those the Soviet Expedition used to create their monstrosities, and which were opposed by ‘Murica for that reason. In order to avoid an all-out war with ‘Murica, the Weeaboo Federation had begrudgingly signed a treaty banning the further use of such technology, which left only a small population of nekomimi, with barely enough genetic diversity to ensure the continuation of the species. Breeding was strictly controlled by a central authority, which had directed both Mimi and Momo to mate with Diaho. It was the reason that the three of them all lived in the same mansion.

“I’ll think of something. For now, let’s just get you calmed down,” Aina reassured her, opening the door. Light from the hallway spilled in and illuminated Momo’s body. Her hair and nightgown were disheveled, and her skin flush with heat. Aina took her by the hand and lead her out of the room, towards the infirmary.

They were halfway to their destination when they ran into Diaho.

Unlike Momo, Diaho was fully dressed in his usual suit, which looked as immaculate as ever. But his face was the same red color as Momo’s, signaling his arousal.

“Found you,” Diaho purred. “I could smell you from my room. This close, the smell is driving me crazy.”

“Go away!” Momo hissed, retracting her lips much farther than a normal human could, exposing her sharp, needle-like teeth. “I don’t want you.”

“Iie,” Diaho hissed back, exposing his own set of much larger and scarier teeth. “I’ll take you right here if I have to.”

“It’s a false heat,” Aina bluffed. She hadn’t expected to find him outside the barrier at night, and that was the best she could come up with on the spot. “She’s still a year too young to get pregnant.”

“Kamawan,” hissed Diaho. “It is my ninmu to try. Leave us, ningen.” He leaned menacingly above them.

“Tasukete,” Momo mewed, retreating behind Aina.

“Diaho-sama, why don’t the three of us go somewhere more private?” Aina suggested. “I’m sure we can work through—”

Diaho pushed Aina aside before she got a chance to finish her sentence. She may have been able to keep up with him on the racetrack, but his reflexes were still much quicker than hers. With a loud hiss, Momo leapt backwards out of Diaho’s reach, but he bound after her, and grabbed her wrists forcefully.

Luckily for Momo, Aina didn’t stay down. Immediately after he grabbed Momo, Aina grabbed his right wrist with her left hand, Momo’s left wrist with her right, and pulled them apart. She released Momo, but kept a grip on Diaho, who clung to Momo’s right wrist with his left hand.

The three of them froze in place, each waiting for one of the others to make a move, but also conscious of the eyes watching them intently from behind cracked-open bedroom doors. The commotion had awoken the residents of the hallway, who were all smart enough not to get involved in a fight between nekomimi, especially when one of the nekomimi outranked them, but who were nevertheless curious about the outcome. Whatever the three of them did next, they knew they’d be judged for it, and even in their current physical condition, the two nekomimi still worried about how the humans would treat them after this.

While they were weighing their options, Aina came to the realization that, since she had disobeyed a direct order from the butler, she was already in trouble, so without hesitation, she punched Diaho in the solar plexus. He howled in pain, drowning out the sound of half a dozen doors slamming shut in unison, and keeled over on the floor.

“Oh Ainya, you saved me,” Momo purred, hugging Aina from behind.

“Don’t let your guard down yet,” warned Aina, as Diaho shakily got to his feet. She had been counting on a one-hit KO, but for once in her life, she had held back too much strength. She was beginning to worry that she would never be able to reach Naomi’s level of control, but had to quickly push those thoughts to the back of her mind in order to deal with the situation at hand.

“That hurt, Ainya-chan,” growled Diaho. But at least he called her “Ainya-chan” and not “ningen.”

“I’ll do it again if you don’t play nice.”

“Shoganyai. We’ll do it your way. Somewhere private, ne? Lead on.”

“Momo goes first,” explained Aina. “You and I follow a few paces behind. I’ll be watching you.” Diaho nodded his head.

The next few minutes were tense, as Aina walked backwards down the hallway, just a few feet in front of Diaho. He could have lashed out at Aina at any time, and she probably wouldn’t have been able to block or dodge, but he seemed to realize that he couldn’t overpower both of them, so they made it to the infirmary without further incident.

There was no nurse on duty when they entered, much to Momo and Aina’s relief. A nurse would probably have sided with Diaho. But that also meant that Aina would have to quickly come up with something on her own, and she didn’t know the first thing about medicine. Before Diaho could enter the room, she rushed over to the cabinets and started rummaging through them. Momo immediately backed as far away as she could from Diaho.

“What are you looking for,” he growled, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“A compromise,” replied Aina, tossing a roll of bandages to Diaho. “Go lie down and wrap these around yourself like a blindfold.”

“I’m not into that kind of thing,” Diaho scoffed. Aina honestly didn’t know what kind of thing he was referring to.

“This isn’t for you; it’s for Momo. Look at her, the kawaii sou. Can’t you see how hazukashii she is?” Diaho glanced in her direction, and Momo once again bared her fangs at him.

“She looks more angry than hazukashii,” he pointed out.

“She’s just tsundere, Diaho-sama. She doesn’t really kirai you. It’s just that she’s in heat, and you’re so attractive to her, that she’s hazukashii by it.”

“That makes sense,” said Diaho, smiling. “I am very attractive. Demo, nyaze do I need to blindfold myself?”

“Mou, Diaho-sama! It’s her first time! Have some consideration for an onna’s feelings.”

“Alright, wakatta, wakatta. Demo, don’t think you can try to take her place. I can tell the difference, even if I can’t see you.”

“I would never try to trick you, Diaho-sama,” Aina assured him, while still rummaging through the cabinets. Casting one last smirking glance over at Momo, Diaho walked over to a bed, sat down, and tied the bandages over his eyes.

“Let’s get started, my patience is running out,” he declared. Aina made a series of hand gestures to Momo, instructing her on what to do next, and Momo, although she didn’t understand how it would help, trusted her friend, so she nodded in agreement.

“She’ll be ready in just a moment, Diaho-sama, and then I’ll leave you two alone.” Momo approached Diaho, purring disarmingly, as much for her own nerves as for Diaho’s. “Please lie back on the bed. Momo is going to be on top, so she can keep control, ne?”

“OK,” Diaho assented, unbuckling his belt.

“Leave it, Diaho-sama,” cooed Momo. “Let me take care of that.”

“That’s more like it.” Diaho swung his legs up onto the bed and rested his head on the pillow, realizing his mistake a second too late.

Laser restraints shot out from the side of the bed, enveloping Diaho’s body at the speed of light. He struggled against them, but they were designed to hold even the strongest meido against their will.

“Temee!” he roared. “When I get out of here—”

“When you get out of here,” Aina explained calmly, “you are going to act as though you got exactly what you wanted. You’re too proud to admit that you were so easily tricked.”

“I will have you next time,” he swore.

“Iie, you will never have me,” spat Momo. “I daikirai you. I daikirai everything about you. What I daikirai most is that you’re ashamed to be a nekomimi. You hide your ears, hide your tail, and try to talk like a ningen. No self-respecting nekomimi would ever want to be around you.”

“Look who’s talking,” Diaho shot back. “Do you honestly think I desire a gaki like you? Demo, I understand my ninmu as a nekomimi. You’re the one rejecting your identity. So what if I hide my tail? How many times have you carelessly let Chikako-san grab yours? I just don’t want to expose such a weakness. So what if I talk like a ningen? We talk the way we do because that’s how they designed us. They find it amusing. Well, I refuse to play the clown. I will overcome my limitations.”

“Chigau yo!” retorted Momo. “They find your pathetic attempts to appear ningen all the more amusing. Soshite, you care nothing about your ninmu. You’re allowing yourself to be controlled by your hormones and your pride. You daikirai being a nekomimi, and I daikirai you for it.”

“Hai, sokomade,” Aina interrupted. holding some dried catnip leaves up to Diaho’s nose. He was breathing heavily from his attempts to free himself, and he inhaled the scent of the leaves before he realized what was happening. Within a few seconds, he relaxed, and began giggling as he attempted to roll about in the bed.

“Nyani’s that?” asked Momo.

“Catnip. It was the only thing in those cabinets I knew how to use. He’ll recover in a few minutes though, so let’s go.”

“Doko?”

“Back to your heya. Once you take some of this, you should calm down.”

“Are you sure we can’t to back to your heya?” Momo asked, looking at Aina with lust in her eyes.

“Dame.”

“You can’t solve your problems with drugs,” Momo pleaded.

“In this case, I think I can.”

“You may be able to drug my body. Demo you can’t—” Aina held the catnip up to Momo’s nose, stopping her in mid-sentence. She knew what Momo was going to say, and she didn’t want to hear it.

⁂

“You should have called me earlier,” Sena admonished. “I could have helped.”

Sena and Aina were walking to the doujou in the middle of the night, mops slung over their shoulders. Adrenaline was still pumping through Aina’s system, and there was no way she could get back to sleep, so she had called Sena to ask if she was available for some late-night mop practice. The mop was Aina’s worst weapon, but she was determined to master it. This wasn’t the first secret late-night training session for the two of them.

“Gomen, I thought I could handle it myself. I didn’t expect to run into Diaho-sama.”

“You were lucky with the catnip. There was a good chance that it would have increased Momo’s arousal.”

“Sou ka? Do you know about medicine? Maybe you’re right. I should have called you.”

“We know more about medicine than most doctors. Soshite, we often assist in the infirmary.” By now, Aina knew better than to ask the obvious question: why weren’t the doctors assisting the gynoids? She also knew that asking Sena how she felt about that wouldn’t produce a meaningful answer.

“Jya, do you know of any medicine Momo can use to control her heat cycle?”

“Birth control pills should work.”

“Momo says she’s not allowed…”

“I am aware of that. Demo, I do not want you to be assaulted in your sleep again.”

“Arigatou,” Aina blushed, looking at the ground.

“As you might imagine, there is money in the budget for reproductive health care. If, in a few years, you needed the pill—not that I’m encouraging you to—you need only ask Naomi-sama, and she’ll provide it.”

“I thought Chikako-sama controlled the budget.”

“Naomi-sama is still responsible for some departments. In this case, she’s been alive for a long time, and there is no aspect of sexuality that can surprise her anymore. She was put in charge of this because she won’t judge. Soshite, Chikako would never approve of giving Momo the pill, whereas Naomi-sama won’t object, as long as it remains a naisho.”

“Hontou?”

“Ee.”

As they reached the doujou, Sena slid open the door. As usual, there was nobody else present this late at night. They made their way to the middle of the doujou, faced each other, mops in their right hands, and bowed slightly.

“Onegaishimasu,” Aina recited.

“Show me what you have learned,” Sena replied.

The first few matches did not go well for Aina, which surprised neither of them. If Aina had improved at all, it wasn’t noticeable. The mops they were using were practice weapons and lacked the retractable blades of a normal meido mop. The matches ended when one of them would have been cut or stabbed by the blade, if it existed.

“Mou,” Aina whined after the third match, “I just wakaranai.”

“Perhaps you should try a shorter mop.”

“Iie,” insisted Aina, as she once again found her resolve. “I would be at a disadvantage. Besides, the whole point of this is to help me get better with bigger weapons.” She detached the head from her mop, and once again got into sparring position.

“Without the mop head, you will not be able to conceal your arm movements as easily,” cautioned Sena.

“Maybe against most opponents. Demo, your gynoid eyes are not so easily distracted,” Aina pointed out. “I just want to try it to see if it makes a difference.”

It did make a difference, but the outcome was still the same. Sena easily defeated Aina, without ever relinquishing the upper-hand. However, Aina was able to fend off many more strikes aimed at ending the match.

“You did better,” Sena admitted. “Demo, you are still far behind your peers. Even Tsukasa-sama can do better than that.”

“Alright, let’s try this.” Aina grabbed the middle of her mop and began to twirl it around, finally grabbing it close to the bottom with her right hand, leaving her left hand near the center. She advanced on Sena, spinning and weaving out of the way of her strikes, lengthening and shortening the reach of her mop as she slid the bottom of the mop up to her left hand and then pulled it back.

Again, the outcome was the same: Sena won the match. This time, however, Aina had forced her into a defensive posture for part of the match.

“Mou ichido onegaishimasu,” Aina said without hesitating. Once again, she advanced on Sena, but this time her moves were larger, and more erratic. She lifted the mop over her head and brought it down hard onto the mat. She rolled under Sena’s mop as it made a horizontal swipe towards her, and then jumped, spinning midair to face Sena’s back, ready to drive her mop downwards and win her first match, when she was interrupted by Chikako’s shrieking voice.

“Nani are you doing?” The two of them froze. Aina landed behind Sena, her mop still aloft. Chikako stood in the doorway, looking aghast. “Was that wushu?!”

“H—hai,” Aina admitted.

“Nani do you think Naomi-sama would do to you if she found out?” Chikako shouted.

“That is a very good question,” said Naomi, emerging from the shadows at the back of the doujou.