Chapter Text
“Please, have a seat, you two.” Maria gestured to Hibiki and Miku. The couple, after sharing a nervous glance with each other, slowly and stiffly sat down on the couch. Maria shared her own look with Tsubasa, before she and Tsubasa settled down across from them.
It was a delight hearing Hibiki and Miku wanted to drop by their apartment for a chat. But when they showed up at the door blushing, stuttering, and fidgeting, in the short walk between the front door and the living room, that delight had turned into a mix of curiosity and concern.
“So. On the phone, you mentioned you had something you wanted to talk about with us?” Maria asked, once the silence lingered long enough to make clear the other party wouldn’t be the first to speak.
“R-right, that. We want to tell you something, it’s just… really strange, and kind of a lot? And I’m just-” Hibiki, after much shirt-wringing, breathed out a nervous laugh. “Oh boy. Where do we start…?”
“If the conversation is of a difficult nature, please don’t rush yourself,” Tsubasa said, as collected as ever. Hardly a hint of being intrigued.
Maria, for one, had a guess of what they wanted to say. After all, it had been a little over a year since Hibiki and Miku’s big confession. Perhaps it was too presumptuous, but one strong possibility sprung to mind.
While Hibiki was busy tripping over her words, Maria leaned close to Tsubasa and kept her voice whisper-quiet. “Who’d you think got the rings, Hibiki or Miku?” she asked.
A beat passed, then Tsubasa understood. “Maria, they’re still much too young to be engaged…!”
Maria shrugged, smirking subtly. “Everyone knows it’ll happen.”
Hibiki continued with her false starts, until Miku’s gentle hand on her shoulder steadied the poor girl. Miku took over, meeting Maria and Tsubasa’s eyes, and properly starting. “To explain this properly, I think, first we have to take off our skirts.”
Maria blinked. Even Tsubasa wasn’t composed enough to not let her mouth briefly hang open. Not where she expected the conversation to go, frankly.
“I suppose… if you think it’s necessary.” Already, Tsubasa had regained her composure. Maria internally scrambled to keep up. “Go ahead.”
Hibiki and Miku slowly rose to their feet. After a deep breath and a shared look of encouragement, with both their faces redder than Maria had ever seen them been, they gripped their skirts and slid it down their legs.
Neither Maria nor Tsubasa could have ever guessed what was hidden underneath.
A belt tightly circled their waists in a slight curve, with a front piece that went down between their legs and connected with the waistband at the small of their backs, covering their crotches. It wasn’t tailored from leather or fabric like a typical belt, but seemed to be carved from a sort of smoothed stone, with Hibiki’s colored gold and Miku’s silver. With the reveal, suddenly it hardly mattered that Hibiki and Miku stood bottomless in the middle of their living room with their skirts bunched around their feet.
“What… is that?” Maria was entranced, nearly tempted to reach out and touch.
“They’re… alchemic chastity belts.”
Both Maria and Tsubasa sat up straighter at Miku’s answer. Alchemy?
“Remember when we faced Carol and her Autoscorers?” Hibiki asked.
“With crystal clarity.” Tsubasa’s voice dropped to a grim low. “They had all of us abducted. Kept out of the way while they enacted their plans.”
Maria recalled the event well, more than she’d like, frankly. Being kidnapped by Leiur and Phara of the Autoscorers, being rendered so utterly helpless, was one of the most terrifying experiences of her life. Elfnein’s defection was a godsend, alerting S.O.N.G. to the abduction and eventually allowing Ogawa to come to their rescue.
“Back then, that Garie girl was the one who kidnapped me, and Miku got dragged along because she tried to help.” Hibiki’s voice was tinged with guilt, and its reason was obvious. Even among the Autoscorers, Garie was a particularly disturbing and unstable individual. Maria shuddered to think how she treated Hibiki and Miku when she abducted them.
Hibiki continued, “There’s a part of that story that we never told anyone…”
“Comfortable, my pretties~?”
Hibiki glared up at her captor. With her arms tied behind her at the wrists and elbows, and her legs frogtied at the ankles and thighs, there was very little else she could do. Even speaking was impossible thanks to the ball wedged in her mouth, garbling her attempts at speech. Miku wasn’t faring much better, bound the same way as Hibiki. She huddled closer to Hibiki upon her captor returning to where they had been stashed, trying her best to mask her fear.
Their captor, the Autoscorer Garie, clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Eeesh. So grumpy.” A faked smile grew as she snapped her fingers. “I know! A lovely little gift should help lift your spirits.”
In a blur, Garie was upon Miku. Her smile was demented.
“Let’s start with the little meddler, shall we?!”
With one motion, she dragged Miku by the thigh away from Hibiki. With another motion, she tore apart Miku’s skirt. With a third, Miku’s underwear was in tatters. Miku cried, hysterical. Hibiki roared, straining with all her might against the ropes.
Garie cackled, and swung. Miku screwed her eyes shut, and braced. Hibiki couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Breathless seconds passed in silence, Miku waiting for the hurt. When none came, she braved herself to peek down from one eye.
Miku was unharmed, but some sort of belt was now wrapped around her waist and over her bare crotch. Garie leaned back, a mischievous tongue poking from between her lips, her eyes flitting over to Hibiki.
Hibiki tried to crawl away when she realized, but Garie easily caught her. “And for the main star of the show!” Another blur, and suddenly her skirt and underwear were reduced to shreds, and an identical belt now hugged her waist and crotch.
“There, all nice and snug. Pretty, aren’t they?” Garie sat back on her knees while her captives were still looking down in confusion at the belts. “But take it from me; pretty things can be most devious.”
Her tongue uttered an indecipherable phrase. The belts, initially a dull grey, changed color, turning silver for Miku and gold for Hibiki. More alarming, as Hibiki keenly felt with a gasp, was how the belt began to lightly vibrate. Harmless on its own, but when it so tightly hugged such a sensitive area, it resulted in an odd sensation that was… not necessarily unpleasant, but certainly inappropriate for the time and place. Miku must be experiencing the same thing, seeing how she squeaked into her gag.
“Yeees. You’re already feeling it. Nice, isn’t it?” Garie giggled, savoring the reaction of her captives. “Wondering what the hell’s going on? Oh, I suppose I’ll explain. But listen closely. I will only explain once.”
“These are chastity belts, set to always tease the unlucky wearer with light vibrations, like what you’re feeling right now. When you wear it, it locks itself and becomes unremovable.” The gasps from her captives drew another giggle from Garie. “Don’t be so scared. Once seven days have passed, the lock disengages, and you can take it off whenever you want. But! Only one belt can be removed at a time.”
“These belts are paired, you see. When one belt is not being worn, the other locks itself, while its vibrations intensify, set to torment the poor wearer’s pussy as close as possible to a climax without ever bringing them over the edge.” Garie taps the front of Hibiki’s belt with a porcelain finger, grinning. “To end this ‘edging mode’ is simplicity itself. The other belt simply has to be worn again. Of course, whoever wears it next now must contend with the belt for a minimum of seven days.”
Hibiki stared down at her golden belt as it continued to tease her, then locked eyes with a watery-eyed Miku, trapped in the same predicament.
“And if you’re wondering, what happens when your human bodies need to expel… waste, the belt will take care of it. No need for sanitary breaks. Can’t have your human needs literally shitting on the fun, can we?”
Laughing like a winner, Garie rose to her feet and spun on her heels.
“No time for questions, unfortunately. We are about to become very busy indeed.”
Garie moved to leave. Hibiki called out to her, garbled by the gag, but there was hardly a bump in her step.
“I hope you enjoy my lovely gift. I only wish it will always remind you of me,” Garie mused, offering a sadistic smirk with a final look over her shoulder, “even after I’m long gone.”
Maria and Tsubasa spent the next few moments in silence, processing everything that they’ve been told.
Tsubasa was the first to speak again. “So you two have been enduring this in silence, never telling anyone, since our fight against Carol?” she asked. Hibiki responded with a vague nod. “That’s… almost two years ago!”
The two looked almost sheepish. Like they’re guilty of something, when they shouldn’t be. If Maria had to say what she felt, she was impressed by their resilience more than anything. “Did you bring this up with Elfnein at least?” she asked.
“We did, but not even she knows how to remove it.” Miku sounded so defeated, it was painful to hear. “By her account, she guessed the other Autoscorers or even Carol didn’t have any knowledge about this.”
“Elfnein even tried to remove it, once, but it just triggered some sort of security mechanism that locked both belts and set it to its edging mode for an hour.” Hibiki grazed her fingers against the belt’s waistbands, reliving the memory. “Then a recording of Garie played, mocking us, and threatening us that if we mess with the belts again, it’ll lock itself and engage its edging mode for the next twenty-four hours.”
Hearing all this, Maria seethed, digging her nails into the couch cushions. “That woman… damn her…” The cruelty to sully something so sensitive, so intimate. If she could destroy her a second time, she gladly would.
Tsubasa sighed. “Scars of the past haunt us still.”
Maria closed her eyes. Again and again, they were reminded, even if they’d emerged victorious, the conflicts they scraped through had marked them for life. But now was not the time for melancholy. Now, they had friends in need.
Maria opened her eyes with a new light. “It’s very brave of you two to come forward on something sensitive like this. We’ll gladly help you in any way we can.”
Hibiki and Miku shared a reassuring look, before Hibiki continued, “Well… we thought of one way. It’s why we finally decided to come out about this specifically to you two, Maria, Tsubasa.”
“See, it’s been a while since Hibiki and I got together, but because of the belts, we haven’t been able to be… intimate with each other. Not properly.” Miku blushed, powering through every word. “We had to… take turns. Then, we can’t do it again for at least seven days.”
“I see. That can certainly frustrate a relationship.” Maria nodded. Frankly, even the possibility of Hibiki and Miku’s relationship being on the rocks was a frightening thought.
“So… this is super selfish of us, but…” Hibiki clasped her hands together, begging, “Please, Tsubasa, Maria, take these belts off our hands! Just for one week! You two are the only couple we know and trust that can endure this, and we really wouldn’t ask unless we tried everything else, but we’re really at our limit on-!”
“Tachibana, please. No need to beg.” Tsubasa placed a calming hand on Hibiki’s shoulder. “You two have borne this burden by your lonesome for two years. We’ll gladly take this burden temporarily. We’ll do it for longer, if needed.”
“Don’t be so hasty, Tsubasa,” Maria said. “We have that charity concert in eight days, remember?”
Hibiki tried her best to not look like a kicked puppy. “Oh, well… we’ve dealt with it this long, waiting a bit longer is fine…”
“Nonsense. It just means they reached out to us at the nick of time.” Tsubasa softened then, turning to Maria. “Unless… do you have any reservations about this, Maria?
Maria wasn’t entirely absent of worries, but for Hibiki and Miku? “We can remove the belt by the time of the concert, so… none came to mind.” She shrugged.
The way Hibiki and Miku’s face lit up made the decision worth it already. They quickly prepared themselves to make the belt transfer as quickly as possible, namely by having Maria and Tsubasa remove their pants and underwear first. A split-second thought passed Maria then, of how strange of a scenario she’d found herself in – herself, her girlfriend, and her two closest friends, standing around bottomless in the middle of their living room. What a life she lived.
“You take yours off first, Miku,” Hibiki said. “You know I can handle it.”
“Right.” Miku placed her palm against where the waistbands and the crotch piece connected at the front. “To take it off, just put your hand on the front plate here, think about removing it, and…”
With a surprisingly soft hiss, both ends of the waistband disconnected from the front plate, accompanied by a relieved exhale from Miku. A second later, Hibiki drew a sharp breath. Her hand quickly shot out to the nearest couch arm to steady her footing. The red on her face, Maria suspected, was no longer sourced solely from embarrassment. The belt’s dreaded ‘edging mode’ was already at work.
Hibiki clamped her free hand over her mouth, trapping an indecent noise from escaping. “D-don’t worry… I… hnnn… can take it…” she whimpered through her hand.
Hearing Hibiki sound like that, right in front of everyone, snapped Tsubasa out of her daze. She practically snatched up Miku’s belt and, without a second thought, wrapped it over her own waist. The pieces snapped into place, the silver belt turning a fitting shade of blue with a shimmer.
Immediately, Hibiki sighed in relief, panting for a moment or three after. A second later, Tsubasa’s eyes widened.
“Oh! Huh…” Tsubasa paused to adjust her breathing, as the faintest red tint colored her cheeks. “Tachibana… you defeated Carol, Adam, and Shem-ha… while having to deal with this?”
“Hah… well… s’not like I was the only one who fought them.” Still recovering, the always humble Hibiki still chuckled awkwardly.
After a moment of fussing over Hibiki, Miku turned towards Tsubasa. “Okay, Tsubasa, let’s have you take five to get you used to the light teasing, then we can-”
“No need, Kohinata.” Tsubasa exhaled. With the same resolve reserved for the heat of battle, she nodded towards Hibiki. “Tachibana. Whenever you’re ready.”
Seeing hesitation from Hibiki and Miku, Maria shrugged. “You heard the lady.”
That was convincing enough for Hibiki. Still with a ginger pace, she pressed her palm against the front plate. A soft hiss, and the waistbands were detached.
One second passed, then…
“Haaahnnn~…?!”
No one in the room, least of all Tsubasa herself, were prepared for the loud, lewd, utterly indecent moan that escaped her lips. She sank to her knees immediately, breaths labored and heavy, cheeks already seasoned a rosy pink, her hands reaching between her legs from the directive of a primal urge.
Hibiki hastily held out her belt for Maria to take. “M-Maria, quick, please put it on!” she urged.
And yet, a devious thought struck at that moment. Maria made very deliberate motions as she took the belt, letting Tsubasa stew in the pot she so eagerly leaped into. She even took a moment to inspect the golden relic, turning it over in her hands. “For such a wicked device, it’s rather beautiful in its construction.” She barely held back a smirk in her words.
“Ma… haaah…” Tsubasa kept her eyes on the ground, hiding her face. “Maria…”
“Excellent color choice, too. Yours match your hair, Tsubasa. Have you noticed?” The smirk was cracking through.
Tsubasa finally looked up, and Maria was stunned. “P-please… not in front of Tachibana and Kohinata…” she begged, with a voice and face Maria had only ever seen within the privacy of their bedroom.
The image of Tsubasa, on her knees, begging up at her, cheeks red, heavy breaths panting past parted lips, eyes glazed, will forever be burned onto Maria’s mind.
“… -ria?! Maria?!”
Maria blinked. Thank Hibiki for bringing her back to reality. She could’ve spent an eternity lost in that image of Tsubasa.
Maria fitted the belt around her waist and snapped it into place, the gold shifting into silver with a shimmer. Tsubasa made another indecent noise as the edging mode shut off, practically collapsing against the couch. Maria would’ve enjoyed that, too, but something else was occupying her.
“O-oh! Oh my.” The belt’s light teasing had begun. The sensation was, frankly, quite pleasant, if a tad embarrassing due to Hibiki and Miku being present. Not a foreign sensation, either; she’d experimented with toys that do essentially the same thing. But she only used them for minutes at a time. To have this belt on, constantly teasing you for days, weeks, even months… “I can see how this can get bothersome.”
“A-Are you two okay?” Miku asked, voicing Hibiki’s thoughts too.
A couple breaths, and Maria was able to put on a brave face for the concerned couple. “We’ll be fine.”
“No thanks to you.” Tsubasa huffed, staggering to her feet, pouting the entire time. So adorable.
“What about how you two are feeling?” Maria asked. “After two years, you’re finally free of the belts. How is it?”
Very typical of the two that it seemed only then did it sink in what had happened. “We… we really are, huh…” Hibiki said with a growing smile, locking eyes with Miku.
“Free to just… be together.” Miku matched Hibiki, their fingers locking a featherlight link with one another.
Maria smiled too, along with Tsubasa, in respectful silence. Whatever the next seven days had in store, for Maria, this sight alone made it all worth it.
“And now, I believe you two have some… catching up to do?”
Still deeply amusing to watch her cute juniors squirm, though.
And squirm they did. Enough for them to break eye contact, face flushed a deep red. The fact that they hadn’t yet put their skirts back on really added to the moment.
“Maria,” Tsubasa chided.
“What? That’s the reason they said themselves.”
Afterwards, they had a moment for skirts and pants to be worn again. Maria observed that, fortunately, the belts were thin enough that it didn’t show through her pants. One less headache to contend with, at least.
At Maria and Tsubasa’s doorstep, Hibiki spun around, beaming like the happiest puppy in the world. “Again, Tsubasa, Maria, thank you so much for agreeing to this! I can’t say just how much this means to us.”
“We should take our leave. It’s probably for the best for you to… adjust in private,” Miku said.
Tsubasa hid a different, brow-raising noise behind a cough. “Perhaps.”
“We’ll be back to take the belts in seven days, on the dot! We promise!”
“Promise us this, too.” Maria leaned in for a suggestive smirk. “You two have seven days. Make it count.”
“We will.”
Hibiki paled upon seeing the serene smile on Miku’s lips. “M-Miku…?”
Miku linked her arm around Hibiki’s, then dragged her out the door. Maria and Tsubasa watched the couple leave, amused and sufficiently distracted, before the vibration of the belts prodded at the edge of their attention again.
Night fell. Several hours had passed since the belt transfer, and Maria’s respect for Hibiki and Miku had only grown. She and Tsubasa tried their best to go about their day like they normally would, but the teasing constantly grating against their sanity was too much. They hardly got anything done, and ultimately agreed to turn in early. At least they’d be free of it in the comfort of slumber.
Maria returned to the bedroom, freshened up and ready for bed in her cream-pink babydoll, and found Tsubasa already clad in her thin sky-blue camisole, observing herself in the mirror. Or, more specifically, observing how the belt clung to her waist and crotch in the mirror.
“Maria,” she said, sensing her arrival, “do you really think this looks good on me?”
Was it wise, while they’re both in this state, to embrace Tsubasa from behind, nuzzle into the crook of her neck, plant ghost kisses against her lower jaw? Perhaps. “Is this a sufficient answer?”
“Maria…” Tsubasa was heating up, especially when Maria’s hands began to wander, slipping underneath her camisole, exploring her belly, and grazing against the underside of her breasts, “You’re just making it worse”
“Hmmm? Then why are you letting me do… this?” Maria tugged up one end of a ribbon string, the other end snugly tied around Tsubasa’s wrists.
Tsubasa stared at her tied wrists, red creeping up her neck. “I… am distracted.”
“Don’t be a sore loser, now.” Maria pivoted Tsubasa away from the mirror, marching her towards the bed. She spun her around, and gently pushed. Tsubasa fell back onto the covers, flushed and pouting, laying her tied hands against her chest. Maria could stare all day.
Maria climbed onto bed next. She took the dangling ribbon, tugged it up and up to the headboard, and tied it securely there. The light prep work done, she dove in, showering kisses and nibbles against Tsubasa’s neck and clavicle, and moving downwards.
“M-Maria…” Tsubasa squirmed away from the kisses, but the sighs and groans through tight lips told a different story. “Isn’t the whole issue with Hibiki and Miku is that they can’t make love properly?”
“Indulge me.”
One hand snuck beneath fabric to cup Tsubasa’s breasts, kneading and teasing, drawing delightful gasps and whimpers. Muscle memory directed her other hand downwards, only to be denied by cold stone. No matter what she did, she couldn’t slip her fingers under to reach Tsubasa’s simmering heat. She shifted position, Tsubasa’s thigh pressed against her crotch, but no amount of wanton humping was able to make the friction to stimulate her own heat.
Maria pulled away with a frustrated sigh. “Damn,” she said. “Really can’t get past the belt.”
“Did you think they were lying?” With a bit of twisting, Tsubasa undid her wrist restraints. She crossed her arms, rosy cheeks blowing a long breath. “Brilliant. Now we’re all riled up.”
Maria laid down beside Tsubasa, sheepish and defeated. Absentmindedly, a finger began scratching against the crotch piece, longing for the ache underneath. The belt’s maddening tease continued, unbothered and unchanged.
This was going to be a long seven days.