Chapter 60: Ko-chan’s Despair (3)
My stomach lurched as the world was ripped away from me. I felt like I was falling through a vacuum, before I found myself face to face with the floor once more.
A number of other sounds rang out in my surroundings, and when I looked I saw the others landing on the ground nearby.
"Welcome, ladies, to my Arena of Despair!" A voice caused me to look away from the others towards a girl in a black dress and a flowery opera mask covering half of her face.
"I'd love to say 'I hope you enjoy your stay', but I'm going to make sure this is the most miserable day of your pathetic lives!" The girl immediately got aggressive as she spoke.
Naruyo growled as she climbed to her feet, "Zetsuna. What are you doing?"
Hinari gasped "The Chain Princess? Why is she attacking us?"
"The Chain Princess? A quaint nickname, but now I go by the name Ribbon Princess. I'm sure you can figure out why." She swished her skirt and flared her wings made of interwoven ribbons.
Sakari got to her feet and got into a fighting position. "Whatever your name is, what's your game?"
"Oh? Don't worry, you're about to find out all about the games I'm playing."
With the snap of her finger, the surroundings changed, and I found myself looking down at Hinari, Sakari, and Naruyo confronting the enemy. I looked around and found I was stuck in a glass cage, and next to me was Asami.
"Since you don't look like you can actually resist at all, just stay there until I have time to deal with you." Zetsuna started her mocking already.
"I won't forgive you!" Sakari rushed at Zetsuna, but ran into a similar glass wall.
"Ha ha, do you think I have time to fight all of you myself? Don't kid yourself. I've selected the perfect opponents for each of you." She jumped backwards, and with another snap, glass walls burst out of the ground, separating the three girls. The ground shifted, moving the three apart, and while they were off balance, strands of ribbon shot at them from behind them.
With a dull snap, the ribbons wrap around their necks, and immediately tie into a large bow below their necks.
"I hate to say this, girls, but you've just lost." Zetsuna laughed as she saw all three girls get hit with her collars.
"What the hell is this?!" Hinari reached up to pull the ribbon off, but instead, the collar spawned a ribbon that slapped her hand so hard it stung.
"As soon as you wear my collar, your clothes become mine to control. It won't take long now~" She smiled as if she was explaining their doom to them.
As a few seconds went by, she noticed her tutu shifting around on its own. Before long, it disassembled itself into ribbons and retracted into her collar, leaving all three girls naked.
"Hahaha! You look so much better this way! Imagine Matsuko's dogs, wearing someone else's leash. I have been waiting for this day for so long!" Zetsuna continued her tirade of mockery from a distance.
"Now, shall I show you true despair? Go!" She put her hand out as if commanding an army, and some mechanical noises were heard, like something being launched.
Seconds later, robotic automatons landed in all three arenas and their eyes glowed in activation.
"Now, let me see how you three girls will fight against fate itself!" Zetsuna sat down on a throne of ribbons that wove itself behind her as she was sitting.
"Caution. High-level automatons." Naruyo recognized her opponent, and she grit her teeth. Automatons are extremely expensive mobile combat units, and to see three at once proved how serious Zetsuna was about this fight.
"Detected: Snow magic user. Countermeasures: Flame magic aura." A cold voice emitted as the center of the automaton in front of Naruyo started to spin, and the entire arena started to rise in temperature.
Her first slice with her daggers were bounced off with a *Ting*, as she heard another voice from the robot. "Detected: Small bladed weapons user. Countermeasures: High density Earthsteel armor." Naruyo frowned as she discarded the dagger and started to dodge the fireballs being spit around.
"Detected: Subspace magic user. Countermeasures: Spatial lock field." A turbine started to spin inside the automaton, and Hinari panicked.
"Shit... they are targeting us directly. I don't have much time." Hinari spread both hands to try and eject as many weapons as she could before the field grew to full power.
The spatial magic circles flared, but what came out were ribbons, not weapons. The ribbons immediately reversed direction and wrapped Hinari's arms up to the shoulders into tight mittens.
"W-w-what?!" Hinari was completely caught off guard as she lost her finger mobility in the first attack.
Hinari grit her teeth and jumped backwards, preparing another attack. She had trained for this, for many hours mittened and naked, moving peanuts.
"Come on, just this once! Work damnit!" She forced more magic into her spell circles, but what came out was even more ribbons than last time. The ribbons grabbed her arms and forced them behind her into a reverse prayer. In addition, they started wrapping all around her torso, quickly cinching her arms to her back in an inescapable grip.
"That...How did you..." Hinari couldn't believe her magic was hijacked twice.
"How did I do that? I didn't tamper with your magic. Foolish girl, do you think there's anything left in your inventory other than my ribbons? I think you should worry less about me, and more about those cute ribbons wrapped around you so tightly." Zetsuna gloated triumphantly as Hinari was severely bound by her own spells.
"This...draining? I can barely feel the space magic now..." Hinari's eyes grew wide as she realized the horror of the ribbons surrounding her.
"That's right! My ribbons drain and block all magic! Once you get caught, your life and freedom are over!" She burst into uncontrollable laughter as she watched the girls desperately fight against her automatons.
Sakari wasn't faring much better than Hinari. Her opponent was totally robotic, with no mind or emotions, so her magic wasn't doing anything to it. What's worse, is that every time she tried to use magic, her collar would spit out more ribbons to wrap around her body in various places.
Her torso was wrapped in ribbons, compressing her waist to steal her breath, and slipping between her legs to hold a pair of vibrators that thrust in and out non stop, powered by her own magic energy.
Despite being horny nearly all the time, she could not handle the amount of pleasure rolling around her body from the vibrators.
She focused one last attempt at magic into her mouth and shouted "Stop!", but to her despair, the magic burst inside her mouth, filling it with ribbons and spilling out to wrap around and form a tight ribbon muzzle around her face.
The collar reacted as well, sending ribbons to wrap around her arms all the way down to her hands and form a pair of tight mittens on them.
She looked down at her hands, bit down on the ball of ribbons, and looked at the automaton that hadn't even taken a clean hit yet. This was... not a fight she was going to win.
Right when she was falling into despair, a pair of ribbons shot by the automaton hit her arms, causing them to fly back behind her. The animated ribbons quickly took advantage of the situation and tied her arms into a reverse prayer before wrapping all around her torso.
She couldn't believe she was going to lose this easily...This wasn't supposed to happen...
Hinari found her space magic completely locked away by the spatial lock field, and could only try and dodge the shots from the automaton chasing her around. She seemed to be doing okay for a while when, after a particularly frantic jump, she landed on her stomach. The second she landed, the flare of a magic circle was found and she had a sinking feeling from her stomach. The magic circle exploded with a blast of air, launching her into the air.
Being launched robbed her of all her control over her own direction, and all she could do was flail around until she was hit three times in a row before landing. The impact drove the air from her lungs, and she struggled to get up on her hobbled feet. The ribbons were still wrapping around her legs from where she was hit, but she didn't give up and tried to hop away.
Her struggles were finally put to rest when a metal pole landed right next to her and stabbed itself into the ground. She tried to hop away, but she was bombarded with ribbons knocking her into the pole and starting to wrap her to it.
With her mobility robbed, it was no time before she found vibrators thrusting into her as well, and her last few remaining revealed patches of skin were covered by ribbons.
I stared on in horror as all three of my friends were fighting and losing against these terrifying automatons. And all the while Zetsuna was mocking them mercilessly from the side.
"NO!" I tried to send messages to them, but my telepathy didn't seem to be able to escape the box I was trapped in.
"This...why is this happening to us..." Tears started to fall down my cheeks as I desperately struggled to escape the gear that had, just hours earlier, felt safe and comforting.
"Objective: Process opponent." Two mechanical arms clamped around Sakari's neck and lifted her into the air, reverse prayered and frogtied, as more mechanical wrapper arms started to wrap around her body. In mere minutes, Sakari was buried under a half dozen layers of sticky ribbons, and she was unceremoniously dumped to the ground to squirm.
"Looks like you're the only one left, Naruyo. Not that I'm surprised. You were always the only one worth a shit under Matsuko." Zetsuna went on and on while Naruyo was having a death-defying battle. The automaton seemed to be targeted against her snow and ice moves, but that meant it did not have many countermeasures against her ability to slow projectiles and increase her own speed.
"Hahaha, Naruyo, can you feel the noose tightening around your neck every time you use your magic? I can't wait to see how much despair you will fall into when you run out of luck." Zetsuna cackled with glee as she started adding her own projectiles into the fight to make Naruyo expend more magic and bind herself faster.
"Situation: Extremely unfavorable." Naruyo dodged another fan of projectiles, but she had to use more magic, which caused the ribbons pulling her arms behind her back to drag another little bit.
She backflipped out of the way of two projectiles, but she didn't notice Zetsuna cast a spell circle at the very spot she would land on.
The second she touched the ground, the circle erupted and wrapped around her ankle tightly. Suddenly tethered to the ground, she lost her balance and fell, and that's all it took for a storm of ribbons to overwhelm her.
Seconds later, her legs were crossed in front of her, and ribbons were pulling her torso closer and closer to her ankles. "Escape... Unlik--" Her final complaints were silenced by ribbons flooding into her mouth and forming a muzzle over it.
Her face reddened as the ribbons continued to pull her tighter until her chest completely met her ankles.
"No... Naruyo looks like she's in so much pain... What can I even do from here..." Tears streamed down my face as I saw the last of the three completely subdued. I banged against the glass case, but behind me Asami just looked on with glee.
