Ch.23
"Walk me home?"
The ORC meeting had ended ten minutes ago. Rias had gone to the Student Council building for something with Sona. Kiba was already gone. Koneko had left with a bag of chips and a look at me that said she knew more than she was saying, which was always.
Akeno was standing by the door. Her ponytail hung over one shoulder and her school bag was in both hands and she was asking me with a voice that had none of the usual teasing in it. Just a question.
"Yeah. Sure."
We walked. December evening, the sky going dark blue at the edges, the campus emptying out. Students passed in pairs and groups and none of them paid us much attention because the Two Great Ladies of Kuoh didn't walk with second-year perverts, and if Akeno Himejima happened to be walking in the same direction as Hyoudou Issei, it was clearly a coincidence.
She was quiet. Akeno was never quiet. Akeno filled silences with teasing and warm laughter and casual touches that landed in places a normal classmate wouldn't touch. The girl walking beside me had her hands on her bag straps and her violet eyes were on the path ahead and she hadn't said a word since we left the gate.
"You okay?"
"Mm."
We turned off the main road onto a narrower path that climbed a shallow hill. At the top, a torii gate. Red paint fading at the edges, the wood old and smooth. Behind it, stone steps leading up to a small shrine. She slid the door open and stepped out of her shoes and I followed.
Inside was warm. Tatami floors, a kotatsu table in the center, incense burning somewhere. The air smelled like green tea and sandalwood.
"Sit." She put her bag down. "I'll make tea."
I sat at the kotatsu. Through the window the torii gate was a silhouette against the sky. A crow on the crossbeam cawed once and flew off.
Akeno made tea with her back to me. Her movements were practiced, a girl who'd grown up doing shrine things, and she was stalling. Using a kettle to put off a conversation.
She brought two cups. Sat across the kotatsu. Held hers in both hands and looked at the steam.
"Ise-kun."
"Yeah."
"I need to tell you something before this goes further."
She set the cup down. Her hands were flat on the table. She looked at me with violet eyes that were steady and scared.
Then the wings came out.
Two of them. One from each side, pushing through her shirt without tearing it. The left wing was a Devil's wing. Bat-membrane, dark. The right was different. Black feathers, long and layered, iridescent where the lamplight caught them. A Fallen Angel's wing.
She sat there. Wings out, watching me, braced for whatever my face was about to do.
"My father is Baraqiel. A Cadre of the Grigori. A Fallen Angel." Her voice was flat and careful. "My mother was Shuri Himejima. A shrine maiden. The Himejima clan killed her because of what I am." Her fingers pressed into the table. "Rias is the only person who's ever known and not looked at me differently."
I looked at the wings. The Fallen Angel wing was gorgeous. The feathers shimmered with deep purple and midnight blue in the black, each one individually shaped, and the wing had a curve to it that was built for flight rather than function.
"They're beautiful," I said.
Her mouth opened. Closed. Her chin dipped and her shoulders pulled in and the composure cracked. Her eyes went wet. Her lower lip pressed between her teeth. She was right at the edge, her whole body rigid against it.
I came around the kotatsu. She looked up at me with wet eyes and the wings behind her trembled, both of them, a shudder that ran from her shoulders to the feather tips.
"Ise-"
She stood. The distance between us was nothing and she closed it.
Rias kissed like she was handing you something precious. Akeno kissed like she was taking something. Her mouth hit mine hard, open, her teeth catching my lower lip and biting down. Her hands grabbed my shirt at the chest and pulled, bunching the fabric. Her tongue pushed into my mouth and she tasted like green tea and the salt from tears she hadn't let fall and her body was hot where it pressed against mine, her breasts flattening against my chest, her hips grinding forward. The Fallen Angel wing's feathers brushed my arm and the touch was electric, a literal tingle that ran from my wrist to my shoulder.
She pushed me down. Both hands on my chest, and I went back onto the tatami and she followed, straddling my hips. Her thighs squeezed around my waist and she was breathing hard, her chest rising fast, and her violet eyes were wide and dark above me.
"I've been waiting," she said. Her breathing was uneven. "I've been waiting and I'm done."
She kissed me again. Biting, her tongue against mine and her hips rolling against me through our clothes. I was hard and she could feel it and she ground down against the bulge and a sound came out of her throat, low and pleased, and her hips kept moving, a slow deliberate grind that she controlled.
Her hands went to my shirt buttons. Fast, pulling them open, spreading the shirt across my chest. Her palms were warm on my skin and her nails dragged down from my collarbones to my stomach and she watched the red lines appear with that expression she wore during combat. The sadist. She was enjoying the marks.
She slid down my body. Her breasts dragged against my stomach through her shirt, heavy and soft, and her mouth followed her nails, kissing down my sternum, biting at the skin above my navel. Her fingers found my belt. Unbuckled it. Opened my pants. Her hand wrapped around my cock through my underwear and squeezed, and my hips jerked up.
"Nn-"
She pulled the waistband down. My cock came free and she looked at it with her lips slightly parted and her breathing audible. Her hand wrapped around the base. Long fingers, warm grip.
"Ara ara." Low, private, meant for me. "Rias is lucky."
She lowered her mouth. Wet. Hot. Her tongue circled the head once, slow, and her lips closed around me and she sank down. Her tongue pressed flat against the underside and her cheeks hollowed and the suction was precise. Akeno Himejima knew exactly what she was doing.
Her head bobbed. Slow, deliberate, her violet eyes looking up at me through her lashes. The ponytail swayed over one shoulder and the orange ribbon was coming loose and her mouth was stretched around my cock and her eyes were locked on mine. She was watching my face. Reading every reaction and adjusting. Her tongue swirled around the head on the upstroke, pressed hard against the frenulum on the down, and her hand at the base twisted the opposite direction.
The room was quiet. The incense hissed faintly. The only other sound was wet and rhythmic and my own breathing getting shorter. Her mouth was hot around me, slick with spit that was running down my shaft and over her fingers, and the cool air of the shrine hit the wet trail she left on the upstroke and the temperature contrast made my stomach clench.
I was getting close. My hips were pushing up into her mouth. My hand found the back of her head and her hair was thick and warm between my fingers and she hummed around me and the vibration shot straight through my cock into my spine and I was at the edge, my abs tight, my thighs tensing, my hand tightening in her hair-
She stopped.
Pulled off. Her mouth leaving me with a wet pop. Her hand stayed at the base, gripping, holding me right at the crest. A spit string stretched between her lower lip and my cock and caught the lamplight before it broke. Her lips were swollen and wet. She licked them.
"Nn-nn." A small sound. Denying.
"Akeno."
"Not yet." She kissed the tip. Light. My cock twitched against her lips and the ache of the denied orgasm was a physical pressure in my lower stomach. She started again.
Slower. Long strokes with her tongue, base to tip, barely touching. She took me deep, held me in her throat, swallowed once, and the tight squeeze made my vision pulse. Then slow again, tongue lazy, teasing, and I was climbing back toward the edge, slower this time, the build longer, and when I was there again, my hand fisting in her hair, my breathing ragged through my teeth-
She stopped again.
Pulled off. Held me. Watched my face while my cock throbbed in her grip. The ache was worse now. My whole body was shaking with it. She'd built me up twice and taken it away twice and the sadist in her was visible in her face. The gentle smile. The pleased eyes.
I grabbed her ponytail.
Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened and the sound that came out was short and sharp and surprised and her pupils blew wide and the violet was a thin ring around black.
"You're not supposed to-"
I pulled. Firm. Her head tilted back. Her throat exposed. Her body arched and her breathing changed, went from controlled to shallow and fast through parted lips. Her chest was heaving.
I sat up. She was still between my legs and I pulled her up by the ponytail with one hand, the other on her jaw, and I kissed her hard. She tasted like me and green tea and salt. I bit her lip the way she'd bitten mine and she whimpered against my mouth, high and thin.
I rolled us. She went onto her back on the tatami and I was over her and her wrists were above her head before she processed it. My left hand pinned both wrists against the floor.
She struggled. One second. Her body testing my grip, hips bucking up, arms pulling. I held.
Then she stopped.
Her whole body went soft. The tension drained out of her arms and her back settled against the tatami and her legs fell open underneath me. She looked up at me with eyes that were wet and dark. Her breathing was fast and shallow, her chest rising and falling, and the wings behind her trembled against the floor.
"Ise." Quiet. No suffix.
I unbuttoned her shirt with one hand while the other held her wrists. Slow. She'd gone slow when she had the power and turnabout was fair. Each button revealed more skin, pale and flushed. Her bra was white, simple. I pushed the shirt open. Her ribs expanded with each fast breath. I reached behind her and she arched her back to let me unclasp it and it fell away.
Her breasts were larger than Rias's. Fuller, heavier, the nipples darker and already hard, and they moved with her breathing. I lowered my mouth to one and she inhaled sharply and her back arched off the tatami.
"Ah- that's-" Her wrists strained against my grip. I sucked her nipple into my mouth and bit gently and her hips thrust up against nothing.
My free hand went down her stomach. Under her skirt. The cotton of her underwear was soaked through, hot and clinging to her, and when my fingers pressed against her through the fabric the wet heat was immediate.
"You're already this wet."
Her face flushed darker. She turned her head to the side. "Don't- I've been-"
She didn't finish. My thumb pressed harder through the cotton and her hips ground against my hand and the sound she made was halfway between a moan and a sob.
"Ah- please-"
I pulled the underwear aside. She was swollen, slick, and her clit was hard under my thumb when I found it. Her whole body jerked. Her back arched and her mouth fell open.
"Ah- ah- Ise, please, I need-"
I pushed two fingers inside her. Tight. Hot. Wet. She clenched around them immediately and her hips rolled against my hand and her head turned and her eyes squeezed shut and the sounds coming out of her were continuous now, broken syllables and my name and her breath catching on each push.
I curled my fingers. Her eyes flew open and her mouth made a shape that wasn't a word and her back bowed and her thighs clamped around my wrist.
"There- right- nn-"
I pulled my fingers out. She whined, high and desperate. I pushed my pants down with one hand, keeping her wrists pinned. She opened her legs wider without being asked, her skirt bunched at her waist, her underwear pulled to the side. I positioned myself against her. The heat of her against the head of my cock. Her body was trembling.
"Look at me."
Her eyes opened. Violet, blown wide, tears at the corners. She looked up at me and her lips were parted and her breathing was shallow and fast.
I pushed in.
The first inch was tight, her body squeezing around me, and the heat was immediate and slick and enveloping. She was so wet that the slide was smooth but the grip was constant, her pussy clenching around me as I sank deeper. The second inch she gasped and her hands flexed in my grip. The third her back arched and a moan started in her throat. I bottomed out and she was full around me and the heat was everywhere and the wet grip of her was different from Rias, tighter, hotter, and the sounds our bodies made when I settled fully inside her were obscene in the quiet shrine.
"Ah- oh god- Ise-" Loud. She wasn't trying to be quiet. Rias had bitten my shoulder to stay silent. Akeno threw her head back and let the sound fill the room and the shrine walls caught it and sent it back.
I pulled back. Pushed in again. Her body jolted under me and her legs came up and wrapped around my hips and her heels dug into my lower back. The wet sound of each thrust was audible in the silence of the shrine, a slick rhythmic obscenity that Akeno heard because her face flushed deeper and her eyes went sideways, embarrassed, but her hips kept meeting me and her moans kept coming.
"Nn- ah- don't stop-"
Each thrust sank into slick heat and each withdrawal dragged against her grip and the friction was wet and tight and I could feel her getting wetter with every stroke, the sounds between us getting louder, the slide getting easier. Her breasts moved with the rhythm, heavy and swaying under the open shirt, and her nipples were dark and hard and I watched them bounce with each thrust and my hips drove harder.
"Ah- ah- ah-" Matching my pace. Getting louder. Her nails in my grip scraped against the tatami above her head and her legs tightened around me and her breathing was gone, open-mouthed panting, each exhale a sound.
I let go of her wrists. Her hands went to my back immediately, nails digging in through my open shirt, and I grabbed her hip with one hand and braced the other beside her head and drove into her. The angle changed and she screamed, sharp.
"There- right there- keep- ah-" Her nails dragged down my back and the pain lit up my skin and my hips responded by going harder, driving the angle she'd screamed about, and the wet slapping sound of our bodies was filling the room.
"Don't stop- please- I'm- ah- AH-" She was loud and desperate and the shrine was so quiet that every sound she made and every wet noise between us echoed off the wooden walls.
Sweat was on her forehead and between her breasts and on my arms. The tatami was warm under my knees. Her thighs were slick against my sides and her pussy was gripping me in pulses now, squeezing on each thrust, and her moans were continuous, each one riding the exhale of her breath, each one louder.
I could feel her building. The grip was tightening, the pulses getting shorter. Her fingers on my back were curling and uncurling rapidly, nails digging in and releasing, digging in and releasing, a rhythm she didn't know she had. Her breathing went short, staccato, a pattern that was different from the moans.
"Ise- I'm going to- I can't- nn-" Her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw clenched and her whole body pulled tight around me.
Lightning.
Yellow arcs crackling across the ceiling. Small, thin, branching across the wooden beams. Her fingers on my back sparked and the shock ran through my skin, sharp and tingling and alive. My cock was inside her and she was tightening around me in waves, each one harder, and the lightning crackled brighter with each wave.
She came. Her back arched off the tatami in a full-body bow and her legs locked around my hips and her pussy clenched so hard I couldn't move and the scream that came out of her hit the ceiling with the lightning. Her wings flared behind her, both of them, the Devil wing and the Fallen Angel wing spreading wide, knocking a cushion off the kotatsu. The feathers on the Fallen wing stood on end with static. Her eyes rolled back and her mouth was open and she was gone.
Her body clenching around me in rhythmic pulses, pulling at me, hot and tight and wet. I was close. I'd been close since the second edge. I thrust into her clenching body twice, three times, driving through the grip, and came inside her with my face pressed against her neck. Her pulse hammered against my mouth. Her skin tasted like salt and ozone and her body was still sparking with residual electricity that made my teeth buzz and my cock throb with each aftershock.
The Boosted Gear's gem flared green on my arm. Bright. The energy transfer was different from Rias. Two flavors pouring in at once, hot Devil energy and cold metallic Fallen Angel energy, mixing in my chest.
From deep in my skull, very quiet:
"Interesting."
I collapsed. She caught me. Her arms around my shoulders, her chest heaving against mine, her heartbeat hammering through her ribs into my chest. The tatami was warm under us. The ceiling had thin scorch marks where the lightning had branched. Somewhere the incense was still burning and the shrine smelled like sex and ozone and sandalwood.
"The ceiling," I said.
She looked up. Saw the scorch marks. Her face, already flushed and wrecked, went redder.
"That's- I didn't-"
"It's hot."
She stared at me. Her eyes were glassy and her hair was everywhere and the ponytail was ruined and the ribbon was gone and she looked at me and her mouth twitched and she let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
Her fingers found the scar on my ribs. The one from Raynare. She traced it with her nail, light, following the raised line.
"She touched this too," Akeno said. Quiet.
I didn't deny it.
Her hand stayed on the scar. Her breathing slowed. Her wings folded behind her back, both of them, settling against the tatami. She curled against my side, her head on my shoulder, her leg over mine. My cock was still inside her and I could feel her pussy clenching softly in aftershocks and neither of us moved to separate.
"Ise."
"Yeah."
"Stay."