Our outing had finally come to an end. It was getting late, and we were all on our way back home.

When I say “we,” I mean Shizuka, Kiyoshi, and myself.

And when I say “home,” I mean Kiyoshi’s room, of course.

Then the thought of the inevitable crossed my mind…

Oh God…

Shizuka is currently harboring those lascivious motives for my newly acquired marshmallow body!

I keep telling myself I should be confident in my lack of certain holes, that it might be enough to turn her off, but the anxiety keeps bothering at me.

My body now reacts like a human’s, sensitive to the smallest touch, and for some absurd reason I can even feel sexual pleasure if things go far enough.

If Shizuka were to actually perform her works on me, I might not survive the night.

Damn it! Why did I have to go and strike such a reckless deal with her in the first place?

And to make it worse, I never even received the reward I was supposed to get.

What a disaster.

Though…

As we drove back toward the lab in the mountains, I noticed Shizuka—who was sitting in the back seat—staring out the window with a strangely melancholic expression.

What the hell was going on with her? Was she feeling sad about something?

Kiyoshi was focused on driving, and I sat beside him, quietly bracing myself for the ordeal ahead.

Meanwhile, her eyes stayed fixed on the passing scenery, and her face unreadable.

Maybe she was homesick...

Ah, but then again, I don’t really know much about Shizuka at all.

Honestly, I never really did. 

She was always so high up, the very best out of all the Talents, and the rest of us just assumed everything in her life was going perfectly well.

But now that I think about it… that couldn’t have been true.

If she’d had a proper home and happy circumstances, she never would have been part of that hellish program to begin with.

Most of the Shinobis in the Yamigami clan carried some kind of personal burden, some deep-rooted issue that pushed them forward.

Otherwise, they never would have climbed so far.

Take a look at my own parents, for example. They’re crazy jerks who would thoughtlessly give their one and only daughter away.

 My situation wasn’t exactly ideal, yes. But even so, I still had Yasuna, I had Nakamura-sensei, and at least I sometimes played with the other Talents back in those days.

But Shizuka... Who did she have?

I was close enough to her to notice that she usually stayed alone, deliberately keeping herself at a distance from everyone else.

We didn’t treat her as a normal friend or partner, but rather as our leader, our role model.

More like a big sister figure than anything else.

At the time, I really thought that was how she wanted things. But she earlier explained that all of that was just our own speculation, and it had nothing to do with reality.

Thinking about it now, I actually feel kind of sorry for her.

I can remember times when she invited me to have fun with her, but back then I always assumed she was testing me.

I thought she was waiting for me to slip up so she could suddenly scold me, telling me I shouldn’t waste time playing around.

Quietly, I slid into the back seat and wrapped my arms around her from the side.

“Hey… is something wrong?” I asked, gently nudging her with my head.

“…Not really…” she answered, her voice soft and distant.

Her eyes stayed locked on the view outside, watching the blur of passing trees and signs.

I didn’t let go. I stayed clinging to her, determined this time.

“If something is bothering you… you can tell me,” I whispered. “You can tell me anything now. I promise, I’ll always listen.”

She remained silent for a while, still facing the window. But then, slowly, she turned toward me.

Her expression carried a weight of worry I wasn’t expecting.

Poor girl.

“Then… I’ll tell you, I guess,” she said at last, her brows furrowing. “How in the world… am I supposed to f**k a cyborg that doesn’t even have holes…?”

“…”

Shizuka, please refund me my sympathy.

The true horror here was that I was still clinging tightly to this absolute degenerate.

It seems my alleged “heart” really is artificial. Because if it were real, it should have been pounding out of my chest by now.

{Permission: I can remodel–}

(No, thank you.)

I tried to pull myself free from her grip and return to the front seat, but she held me tightly and said nothing.

And even as time went on, she didn’t stop clinging.

She stayed latched onto me when we left the car, when we stepped out of the garage, when we descended the elevator to the underground Lab—only until we entered Kiyoshi’s room did she finally release me... Probably, to strip.

At the very least, I still had the freedom to tremble, so I did that much, letting my body shake to show my fear.

“Hey, Kiyoshi-chan,” Shizuka suddenly called out, turning toward Kiyoshi just as he was about to step into his kitchen.

“If you don’t want to join in, then at least watch us.”

“…Why?” he asked flatly, his tone dry and unamused.

“Because it’s more exciting that way.”

The very moment those words left Shizuka’s mouth, Kiyoshi bolted straight for the door.

A thin, glistening line of web shot out of Shizuka’s hand and wrapped itself around his leg.

Without hesitation, he immediately whipped out a scalpel and sliced himself free in one clean motion, his movements sharp and precise to escape imminent danger.

“I’ll be in my lab!” he shouted from a distance, already fleeing, abandoning me to deal with the devil herself.

“Damn virgin,” Shizuka mocked, her attention sliding back to me. “So, are you ready for paradise?”

I nervously looked away, my throat dry.

Shizuka was already peeling off her shirt as she sat on the bed, moving slowly, deliberately, like she was savoring every second.

Meanwhile, I remained planted near the door, hovering close enough to make escape feel possible. But was it still an option?

“Just so you know,” she continued, slipping off her shorts to reveal sleek black underwear—

(Author’s note: Haha… uh… what a, uh, nasty cliffhanger I did there…)