Book 10: Chapter 5:

“Are you a parking ticket? Because you have fine written all over you,” Serra said, trailing behind Saya as they moved through the forest.

That wasn’t the only pick-up line that Serra tried, either.

“If you were a chicken, you’d be impeccable.”

Saya covered up her canid ears and pushed them down against her head to try and hide from the sound of Serra’s cheesy pick-up lines.

“Are you a camera? Because I look at you and smile.”

“Please,” Saya said. “Please stop. I—I can’t. I can’t handle all of these lines. They’re not even seducing me, they’re just making me want to die.”

“But I’m seducing you. Are you seduced yet?”

“I don’t think it works that way!”

“It does. Seduction is like a health bar. You have to drain your target’s health bar with smooth lines until it’s empty, and then you go in for the kill.”

“Then at least use smooth lines instead of cheesy ones!”

“Any chance you have an extra heart? Because mine’s been stolen.”

“Then I suggest you go find it!”

Serra sighed and shook her head. “You’re bad at getting seduced.”

“Don’t turn this around on me! You’re the one failing to seduce me!”

“Those lines would have worked on any of the others.”

“I doubt that!”

“It’s true. If I tried using those on Cass Cass, she would be stripping by now just to get me to shut up.”

“Somebody trying to shut you up by distracting you with sex isn’t the same as you successfully seducing them!”

“But the end result is the same, so it doesn’t matter.”

Saya whined and sighed, unable to think of how to defeat Serra’s logic. “I’m not going to strip for you just because you—” She looked over her shoulder to take a look at Serra. That was when she saw Serra in the process of undressing, or at least looking like she was.

Serra took her oversized hat off and was in the process of unbuttoning her blouse. Her chest was already visible, still protected by her bra, but Saya doubted that any part of Serra would be protected for much longer. That was why she jumped forward to grab Serra’s hands, stopping them from their perverse task and then buttoning the blouse back up herself.

“You can’t just seduce me by stripping! I’m not that easy!” Saya whined.

“This is harder than I thought it’d be,” Serra said. “How should I seduce you?”

“Just… be yourself!”

“I am.”

“… you are. Then… talk about something else that you like other than lewd stuff?”

“But lewd stuff is at least ninety percent of what I like.”

“You have to have another hobby, right? Another interest? Anything?”

“Hmm… I like guns. They go pew pew, just like penises.”

“Is everything sexual to you?”

“Almost.”

“Alright. Good. Only almost. What isn’t sexual to you?”

“Stuff you use toilets for.”

Saya stared straight into Serra’s eyes for a few more seconds before sighing. “I can’t make conversation off of that stuff.”

“Heh. It’s okay. I’m purposely trying to overwhelm you with lewd stuff.”

“Wait, why?”

“Because you look fun to tease. And you always look like you enjoy it when Fen teases you.”

“Well… I—I do, even if I pretend that I don’t.”

“Are you having fun now?”

Saya blushed a little and wanted to look away but didn’t. “I… I am.”

“Good. Mission successful. We’re comfortably talking to each other. The seduction has worked.”

“You—wait. Was this all planned?”

“Yeah.”

“You weren’t trying to seriously seduce me with those cheesy lines?”

Serra shook her head. “They were for fun, not serious. If I really wanted to try and be lewd and sexually seduce you I would call you cute and a good girl, like Fen does.”

All it took was hearing “good girl” to make Saya’s ears twitch and her tail wag. “I—I see.”

Serra couldn’t help but to snerk at that. “I just wanted to make you comfortable. You were anxious and awkward before. Now we’re talking normally. I seduced your comfort, not your body.”

“I guess I don’t really know how to do this seduction stuff.”

“It’s okay. I’ll teach you. The first step is that you have to make sure the person you’re seducing is comfortable. Like with Cass Cass. If I randomly go grope her boobs, she probably won’t appreciate it. But if I act cute and stretch across her lap, she’ll lower her guard and then her boobs are mine.”

“Didn’t you just describe acting like a cat?”

“It works. Acting like a cute cat distracts her even though she knows what always happens afterward.”

“Alright. So… make sure that whoever I’m trying to seduce is comfortable around me first, and then just… act like a cat—I mean, flirt with them?”

“Yeah. But you have to be comfortable, too, or else it will feel too awkward. Make sure both you and whoever you seduce after me is comfortable. Then you’re in. That’s all you have to do. You don’t even need to try and seduce us.”

“Well, I know I don’t need to actually seduce you all, but… I don’t really know how else I’m supposed to go about this. I need to make you all like me the same way you like each other.”

“I think you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

Saya tilted her head. “How?”

Rather dramatically, while maintaining her usual, expressionless face and monotone voice, Serra pointed up at Saya and said, “You’re the one who needs to get comfortable around us. We all like you. You’re close to Fen and we trust Fen, and you’re cute, and you’ve been nice and not weird, so we already like you. You don’t need to seduce us. You need to seduce yourself to us.”

“I… I need to seduce myself to you? That… I hate how much sense that makes.”

“Here. Whenever we see a new girl who likes Fen, we already make ourselves start to like her because we know what’s probably going to happen. We all knew what was going to happen as soon as we met you. So, we’ve been open to the idea of you joining us ever since then. We’ve been thinking about hanging out with you, being together, checking you out, and all that stuff. You could ask any of us out on a date at any time and we’ll accept it.”

The more Serra talked, the more Saya blushed.

“The only person who isn’t ready is you. That’s why you have to seduce yourself to us. And if you won’t seduce yourself to us, then we have to seduce you, like I did.”

“I—I see. That… that makes a lot of sense.”

Serra nodded. “I’m smart.”

“You really are.”

“But only when it comes to lewd stuff.”

“You’re not talking about lewd stuff right now. You’re talking about personal relationships, and you explained everything to me in a way that I didn’t even know to think about.”

“Personal relationships are lewd. If you’re a couple, you do stuff like hold hands and kiss each other, and that’s super lewd. That makes all personal relationships lewd.”

“I think that’s a bit of a stretch.”

“You can stretch me whenever you want.”

Saya stared straight into Serra’s eyes again and sighed. “I won’t be able to keep up with your jokes.”

“Good. I want to be at the top of the lewd joke chain. If anybody tries to catch up to me, I’ll have to put them in their place and assert dominance.”

“Hearing that from somebody who looks so small and cute is something else.”

“Heh. You called me cute.”

“I—well, you are. I’m just pointing out the obvious.”

“You wouldn’t have done that twenty minutes ago. See, my plan was a success. You’re comfortable with me now.”

“I… I am. But now what? I feel like there’s something else I should do, but I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do now. I don’t know what step comes after this.”

Serra held her chin and tilted her head as she thought about it. “Kiss.”

“Ki-kiss?!”

“Yeah. Kiss. Wait, I forget. Have you kissed Fen yet?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Dang. I kind of wanted to beat him to it. Oh, have you kissed Nell yet?”

Saya shook her head.

“Good. I get to kiss you and rub it in her face. She’ll be jealous since she likes you so much, but she’ll also like being jealous. It’s a win-win.”

“I—I see. Yeah, that sounds like her.”

“Then let’s kiss.”

While Saya definitely wasn’t opposed to kissing Serra, suddenly jumping into it like that was something she wasn’t so sure she could do.

“If you’re not comfortable, all you have to do is close your eyes. I’ll do the rest of the work.”

“I—I might need that,” Saya said. “At least… for the first time.”

Serra nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. “I’ve got this.”

Going along with Serra’s plots since that seemed to be working the best for her, Saya began to close her eyes and even began to pucker her lips a little… before her eyes shot wide open, her arms reaching out to grab Serra and pull her away to the side. That ended up with knocking Serra over and Saya landing on top of her just in time for a ferocious bear with two, massive tusks protruding from its lower jaw to lunge over where they just were.

Not having any time to waste, Saya drew her bow and an arrow, her arms wrapped around Serra holding her close, and shot an arrow into the bear. It was no normal arrow, either. It was an arrow enhanced by one of her skill that had enough force in it to knock the bear back and buy them some time.

As for Serra, she was actually blushing a little. There she was with another woman protecting her, arms wrapped around her while fearlessly fighting off a massive bear several times their size.

“I guess we reached the bears’ territory,” Saya said. “Let’s—”

Saya was cut off when Serra brought her lips against hers, stealing that kiss she was just about to get before being oh-so-rudely interrupted by the bear. While Serra only intended on it being a quick kiss, she had to keep it lasting for just a few seconds longer than planned due to the cute noises Saya was making because of it.

Once she was satisfied, Serra ended the kiss and wiggled out from Saya’s arms. “Time to get revenge for thinking it can interrupt us.”

Saya went from flustered and ready to kiss, to full-on combat mode, back to being even more flustered than before as she blinked up at the tree above her with reddened cheeks. She had no idea how she was supposed to react to that. So, instead of processing what just happened, she decided to temporarily act like it didn’t, in fact, happen. That was why she stood up, shook her head, and cleared her throat before returning her attention to the bear. “Want to help?”

Serra nodded and held her right hand forward toward the bear. “I’ve been practicing my special attack. If you keep it busy, I can finish it off.”

“I’ll count on you then. I wasn’t expecting the bear to be this big.” With that, Saya nocked another arrow and loosed it just as the bear began charging at them again.

That was when the bear swung its head to intercept the arrow with one of its tusks, knocking it out of the air and snapping it in half with ease.

“I’ll distract it!” Saya shouted before charging at the bear herself, jumping at the last moment to jump over it and shoot an arrow into its back before landing behind it.

Since Saya proved to be the bigger threat so far and was closer, the bear changed directions to focus on her which bought Serra time to begin her special move. The charging process would take a while, though, and looked like nothing more than a large, golden circle of magical runes hanging in the air behind her right shoulder.

The bear’s hide turned out to be incredibly durable. Even Saya’s strongest shots were barely doing any damage to the bear. While she might have been able to make quick work of those zombies from before, that was before their bodies were weakened by rotting. Against a living being, especially one as huge and as powerful as the bear chasing after her, it was a different story.

The only vulnerable spots on the bear looked to be around its head, such as going for its eyes or mouth, but the bear’s tusks destroyed any arrow that got close to its face with incredible speed.

“Shouldn’t you be getting whiplash from jerking your neck around that fast?!” Saya shouted at the bear before backflipping onto a tall branch from a nearby tree. Being high up would buy her time to charge an extra powerful shot that could hopefully punch a hole through the bear’s body.

Or so she thought.

The bear might not have been able to reach where she was, but it didn’t need to. All it needed to do was charge straight into the tree with all of its strength, shattering the trunk and knocking her out of her perch as the tree fell above her.

All of Saya’s focus went into scrambling around the branches as both her and the tree fell in a desperate attempt not to get crushed by it. She succeeded, just narrowly avoiding getting pinned if not instantly killed by the tree’s trunk slamming into her from above, but the bear was waiting for her on the ground.

There was no time to get away as the bear reared up on its hind legs while lifting its right paw into the air, ready to slash it down into her.

“Fire,” Serra commanded.

When Saya looked over to Serra, she saw that the magic circle behind her now had the barrel of a naval cannon sticking out of it. It wasn’t just any normal cannon, either. It was a seriously big cannon several times the size of anything that was ever onboard The Shoebill. The barrel alone was large enough for either of the girls to fit their bodies into.

That meant the cannonball within was very, very big.

And that cannonball erupted from the cannon with a loud blast. Aimed directly at the bear, the cannonball punched into the side of the bear and absolutely obliterated its surrounding body. Chunks of meat and blood went flying in every direction, pretty much leaving only the bear’s head and legs intact, and the head dropped onto Saya’s abdomen still wearing the expression of murderous intent.

All Saya could really do at that point was blink a few times, her entire body drenched in bear blood. A couple of seconds later and a slab of meat dropped onto her head with enough force to hurt, but that didn’t change her expression of awe.

It was only when Serra walked over to Saya with a chunk of meat under her arm to give her a thumbs-up while saying, “Mission success,” that Saya managed to snap out of her confusion and process what just happened.

Saya was looking forward to more, potential kisses after dealing with the bear… but something about being covered in blood with chunks of bear flesh everywhere really ruined the mood. Not to mention the decapitated bear head on her.