Chapter 83: Heist*

Marisol’s futon was two rooms down from mine. I went to talk to her about what we’d discussed but, along the way, she ended up on top of me.

"So here’s the plan," she said, and dropped her hips, taking the entirety of my cock into her pussy.

[FUCK!]

Whatever I’d been about to say came out as a grunt. She kept going.

"Tonight, after dinner, they’re doing the viewing. The warden’s bringing the prince and the professor down to see the old sword, and the rest of us get to stand in the hall and clap. Two hundred students in one room, Sakana. Are you listening?"

"Y-Yes."

Marisol wasn’t going slow about it. She had one hand flat on my chest and the other in her own hair, and she was bouncing hard. Every time she came down, I could feel her squeeze around me on purpose.

[Where did a Noble Course girl learn to do that!? SHE’S DOING TRICKS ON IT!!!]

"Good. So, once the speech is done, and before they put the sword back where it was originally, I faint."

"In front of the warden? He’s like ninety. You’ll kill him."

"I’m very good at it. I did it at three tea parties last year and nobody has ever questioned me."

"That’s not what I- ACK!"

She rolled her hips in a circle, slowly, then went right back to bouncing.

"As I was saying~ Every teacher in the room will come running, because I’m a Vantecca, and even though I’m not that important, if I die on a field trip somebody’s father loses his job. That’s your window."

I grabbed her thighs. She slapped my hand off.

"Hands down. I’m working."

"You’re the one who..."

"Your window, Sakana, is the side passage on the left, the one the warden took them down this afternoon. While everyone’s looking at me on the floor, you go. You’re a fox. You people are sneaky, it’s in your blood, it’s the entire reason anyone puts up with you."

[... You’d get canceled so hard for saying that back on Earth.]

She leaned down until her tits were in my face and I could feel her breath on my ear.

"You go down the passage, you find the sword, you take the sword, you come back up before I finish my recovery. I can stretch a faint to about ten minutes if I’m allowed to sob. Can you do it in ten?"

I couldn’t answer, because she’d sat all the way down and stayed there, grinding, and my brain had turned off.

[Ten minutes for a sword, a passage, and a rock. Sure. Fine. Oh my god, she’s doing it again.]

"Sakana?"

"Ten! Ten is fine! Ten is great!"

"Then here’s the last part, and it’s the part you’re going to hate." She sat back up and picked the pace up with it, faster now, her curls stuck to her forehead. "The sword’s in a rock, for some reason. Odette says they’re interred. So you’re not lifting it off a shelf, you’re pulling it out of stone, and I have no idea how you do that, so I’m going to assume you figured that out already. Otherwise this entire plan is me lying on a floor for nothing."

[Well, I’m not the one who has to pull it out, so I won’t be doing that. Lily will.]

"I’ve got it handled," I said.

"You certainly don’t look like you do. I’ve seen my father make the same face you’re making right now every time the tax collector paid us a visit."

"I’ll have it handled by tonight, then. Is that better?"

"No, but it’s what I expected." She put both hands on my chest and really went for it, and I stopped being able to hear the plan. I could hear the futon creaking, plus her, plus me, and I was pretty sure the paper walls were getting all three of us.

[Everyone in this hallway is going to know. Fenna’s going to know, and then Fenna’s going to want to be next. This is doing nothing for the rumors!]

"You’re close," Marisol said, like she was reading a schedule off a wall.

"H-How do you..."

"I pay attention. Go on, I’m not stopping."

She didn’t stop. I came inside her with my tail thrashing against the futon and my hands grabbing at nothing, since she’d banned them, and she rode me through it without changing speed once, chin up, looking down at me the whole time.

When I could see again, she was still on top of me, catching her breath and pushing her hair out of her face. She looked very pleased with herself.

"So," she said. "Any questions, or can we get to round two?"

My legs weren’t going to work for a while anyway.

"Yeah," I said. "Round two would be nice."

---

{Lily}

I had the sentence ready. The perfect way to start the conversation.

I had been working on it in my head while I folded my uniform, while I ate, while I pretended to listen to the steward explain the bells. It was a good sentence. It started with "about what I said in the room," it moved on to "I have thought about it," and it finished with a question, because Odette once told me that if you end on a question the other person has to answer you.

We had two hours before dinner and the whole shrine had gone quiet for it. I was lying on the futon with my eyes shut and my hands folded on my stomach, resting. Or, trying to, anyway.

Kohaku came in smelling like somebody else’s soap. I chose not to ask about that.

She dropped onto the futon behind me. She scooted closer. Then her arm came over my waist and pulled me back against her.

"Lily~"

I held back a gasp.

Her mouth was right at my ear. Her breath went down my neck, her chest was against my back, and there was something else against the back of my thigh that I was absolutely not going to think about. I lay very still. My pulse was going hard enough that I could hear it.

[She’s going to say it. She picked now!? Oh gods, the lines I rehearsed, I’m forgetting them!!!]

"Are you awake?"

"I’m awake," I whispered. My voice came out thin. "I’m very awake. I’ve been awake the whole time, actually."

"Good. I need you for something."

[SHE NEEDS ME!?]

She said it low, right into my ear, in the voice she uses on the girls in the courtyard. Her hand spread out flat on my stomach. I went warm from the middle of me outward, all at once, and I thought about how thin everyone said these walls were, then about the girls resting two rooms down, and I still didn’t tell Kohaku to stop.

"Okay," I said. "W-What do you need me for?"

I tried to prepare myself. In a moment, she was gonna turn me around and put her lips on mine and-

"Let’s steal the sword."

I opened my eyes.

"What?"

"The old one in the vault, the one the warden’s showing off after dinner. Let’s steal it."

[WHAT!?]

I sat up so fast her arm slid off me. She stayed where she was, propped on one elbow, ears forward, no shame anywhere in her face.

"Kohaku, we are guests here. The shrine has been very kind to us. There are rules on a board in the front hall, one of them is about the vault, and I read the whole board." I was whispering as loud as a person can whisper. "That’s a crime. That’s a real crime, in a holy place, and my mother would find out somehow. She always finds out."

"Probably."

"Then why would you ask me?"

"Because you’re the only one who can pull it out of the rock."

I opened my mouth. What came out, before I could stop it, was:

"Is that the only reason you..."

[No.]

My mind played the rest of what i was about to say and I stopped myself.

"... How long would it take?" I finished.

"Twenty minutes, maybe less. You’re quick with that sort of thing."

I sighed.

[Okay... I mean, it’s Kohaku. She’s smart. And clever. And hot. And- anyway, there has to be a reason for this.]

I pulled my knees up and put my chin on them.

"But... why do you wanna steal the sword?"

I probably should have led with that.

Kohaku sat up too, and for once she wasn’t doing a voice.

"Because somebody else is going to take it first. There’s a blade down there that killed the Calamity Queen, Lily. Everyone in the province knows which room it’s sitting in, and half the people standing in that hall tonight are going to do the math. If it walks out in the wrong hands, it doesn’t come back."

"So... you want to safeguard it?"

"Aha! That’s the word I was looking for. Yes, exactly. Gosh, Lily, unlike yourself, I’m linguistically challenged. Brilliant. Safeguard, yes... We need to safeguard it."

I nodded slowly.

[So... Someone is going to steal it?]

I thought about it. If it was as valuable as Odette made it seem when we made small talk earlier, then... I could see it happening.

"Then we give it back," I said. "When this is over we hand it to the academy, and I do the explaining, because you will lie."

"Deal."

"And one more thing." I made myself look at her. "When we get home, you and I are going to sit down and talk properly. About something else. A-Actually, not when we get home. I’ll tell you when!"

Kohaku waved a hand at me like I’d asked her to pass the rice.

"Sure, whatever you want."

[She has no idea.]

"F-Fine!" I said. I lay back down facing the wall. Her arm came over me again about four seconds later.

[... Gods, she’s warm.]