That, along with various other profanities, were flooding Oberon's mind. Despite the fact that nobody knows what the hell is going on in this scuffed Holy Grail War, someone really thought they'd try to get it going anyways, huh? He supposes he can't blame them, the general basis of the ritual is focused around the general rule of last-man-standing, that's how it's supposed to be... but understanding doesn't make him any less frustrated.
He supposes he should be grateful, at least, that his foolish woman of a Master remembered the Command Seals on her hand. Whether it was intentional or instinctual, Oberon found himself flung through space itself, directly to his Master's side.
At least all that time spent lazing around their apartment eating junk food all day hadn't diminished his combat abilities in the slightest. He's a Servant, after all, he doesn't even need to eat at all in the first place.
Still, they had been a tough challenger, especially considering the meager amount of mana Ai provided. She's not a broken faucet, at least, but she still wasn't a mage. They must have been an Assassin, too, seeing as how they took every opportunity to aim for his Master... meaning Oberon had to spend a good chunk of the fight defending her instead of moving in for the kill.
Y'know, now that he thinks about it, the odds really were stacked against them, huh? Yet he still managed to repel the Assassin. Low mana supply or not, he's still the Abyssal Wyrm. One should never underestimate him. In fact, if he hadn't been occupied with protecting his Master, he might've even had a few chances to go for the kill.
...but it's pointless to think about hypotheticals, isn't it? Because even though he fought his fucking ass off, he still failed. That skull-faced bastard seemed especially fond of using daggers, and despite his efforts, one went into his Master.
The fact that he had obstructed the Assassin's aim enough that the dirk went into her thigh instead of anything vital wasn't nearly as comforting as he would have liked. ]
Hah... hah...
[ Something must have snapped, because he started fighting much more intensely when that happened. Intensely enough that he heard the enemy click their tongue before vanishing, having deemed the risk of fighting him higher than the reward.
So here they are, Oberon jumping from rooftop to rooftop with his Master in his arms, blood running down her leg. It's even raining, which means the world must truly have it out for them tonight. During the fight, Oberon had been forced to carry Ai around for brief periods, usually either by tossing her over his shoulder or carrying her under his arm like a football. It was almost comical, he might have made fun of her for it later if they had come out unscathed.
Right now, though, shes in his arms... properly this time. Carefully in both arms, close to his chest, gripped so tight it might even hurt... though the stab wound in her thigh probably hurts far more than a tight grip right now. ]
Shit...! Shit!! You went out too far tonight, woman! Where the hell even am I!?
[ It takes entirely too long for Ai to sleep that night. Physically, she's beyond exhausted - though the wound in her thigh is healed, her body has still done the hard work of knitting her skin back together and she feels appropriately drained. The fear, the adrenaline, the shock and terror of the fight have burned through her nerves too and she feels like a candle wick burned down to the point of scorching the wax.
But she can't sleep. Her thoughts are a blur. Once again, she's been someone's victim. Once again, there's someone here who wants her dead. Even with someone here to protect her, that sense of safety she had so slowly been getting used to has been snuffed clean out.
But it's that having someone to protect her that's the scary part. Even someone as stupid as her knows what it means when someone holds you and she knows what it means when she's the one who asks to be held. It hadn't gone any further than that, a momentary lapse in judgement and an indulgence to go with it, and that's good - it can't be allowed to go further. She'd been shaken up and afraid and that's as fine an excuse as any, but that's where it has to end. She won't allow it to affect her any more than that.
Surely Oberon would think the same. They can cheerily return to the status quo and pretend nothing happened. And if he doesn't... well. Dealing with one-sided feelings is an idol's job. She can manage it.
When she finally sleeps that night, Ai dreams of blood, pain that rots deeper than bone marrow and the voice of a beloved fan snarling "Does that hurt, bitch? Huh?!". She dreams of Aqua trembling in her arms, Ruby's voice breaking into sobs. She dreams of somebody's hand cradling her face and after that, she doesn't dream of anything at all.
When she wakes, it's well beyond noon and she feels no better rested for any of it. She's still a little shaky and when she rises from her bed, her head swims. When she washes up for the day, her hands are ice cold and when she forces herself to practice her smile in the mirror before she heads out into the front room, her face is ghostly pale.
She's worked under worse conditions. She can handle this just fine.
It's Ai of B-Komachi, then, who comes breezing out into the living room. She's talking even as she makes her way in, as if to pre-emptively send the message that she absolutely, unequivocally is not going to talk about it. ]
Good morning! Or I guess it's not exactly morning anymore, huh? Oops! I guess that's what I get for lazing around in bed for so long. Heehee.
[ Fighting is a goddamn pain. Why couldn't everyone just stay peaceful instead of stirring the pot? Well, to be fair, most of the Master/Servant pairs agreed on not being reckless and starting fights in hopes of getting the Holy Grail to manifest, but the fact remains that there are others who held a different opinion on the matter.
Still, Oberon is strong. Regardless of whether it was coincidental or not, Ai's Servant was powerful... and no matter what, he protected his Master.
No matter what.
He wonders, as he fights to keep his body from dematerializing, what Ai must have thought just now... when he called out to her for a Command Seal. A boost that would allow him to release his Noble Phantasm without sucking Ai's life completely dry.
"Lie Like Vortigern", "Eye of a Dream Falling Yonder"
The Abyssal Wyrm, the hollow insect, a hole in the world itself. By all means, it was also his true form. He can't help but wonder what his Master thought of it as it fell on the enemy, swallowing both Servant and Master alike. Just like how a Noble Phantasm has been described to her, it was truly a trump card to end all trump cards.
It was also too much for just one command seal to power, Oberon realized, but instead of asking for her third and last stroke... he simply took the alternative, refusing to use mana from Ai and using solely his own. To his credit, it worked.
Unfortunately, it does also mean he's on the verge of disappearing. Shit. ]
Ugh...
[ It hurts to move. What a painfully nostalgic feeling. Did he black out? Is it even possible for Servants to black out? He can feel the edges of his body fraying at the seams, a light glow as the spiritrons that make up his body start to unravel while all he can do is lay there in the aftermath of the battle, frustratingly trying to keep himself from disappearing... but he's drained.
Is this it? He thinks. One use of his Noble Phantasm and that's it? What will happen to Ai, then? A Servantless Master in this mysterious Grail War where nobody knows what the hell is going on? Where the Masters themselves aren't even of this world?
Well, it's not like he'll be able to think of it much longer at this rate. Even with his blurring vision, he can just barely make out the figure of Ai running towards him. He'd say sorry, but then it'd be a lie. ]
[ Okay, so - Sei's not that much of a gossip anymore. Seriously, she's not! When Chaldea's relationship chart is as crazy complicated as it happens to be, you learn really quick to exactly what degree you should be staying in your lane. Berserkers can cause a whole lot of hassle if they get upset.
But just because she's not a gossip anymore doesn't mean she's totally lost the itch. She kind of loves drama, so long as it's harmless and she's done such a good job of keeping her nose out of what's going on with the pretty Master and her weird fairy Servant that she thinks she's earned this.
"Nagiko-chan, thanks for- ah, my mouth? Oh, I just had a little accident. But listen, what happened was-"
Sure. An accident. Like Sei doesn't know what a hickey looks like. Honestly, she's kind of surprised Oberon had it in him.
So call her curious. Call her nosy. Call her totally sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. But she really can't pass up the chance to investigate a little further.
So on a day she knows that Ai's out of the apartment, Sei comes knocking. ]
Yoooo, Ai-chan! It's me! Open up, wouldya?
[ She knows Ai's out of the apartment but she fully intends to stand here being loud and annoying until Oberon lets her in anyway. ]
[ She wonders just how transparently obvious it is that she's avoiding the apartment. She doesn't really have anywhere to go and it's not like she has a job in this place, but Ai's been slipping out of the door in the mornings and returning late in the evening for the last few days. She wears a mask to cover the still livid bite mark (she won't let herself think of it as a hickey even though that's so clearly what it is) and wanders the city, trying to pretend she feels like she belongs there.
It isn't as though she doesn't want to be at home. It's not like she doesn't want to be around him. It's just...
Well, it's just like she'd said. She doesn't know what to do about any of it. And when Ai doesn't know what to do about something, the only thing she can think to do is avoid it.
Of course, that's a whole lot easier when you don't have an interfering girl like Nagiko in your life. It's taken a little getting used to - she's never had a friend quite like Nagiko (or uh, a friend full stop) who's invested enough to get herself involved. Most times, Ai appreciates it. Today, after the talk she was cornered into having, she feels considerably... less so. Not that Nagiko had necessarily been wrong about any of it but... she kind of feels like a kid who's just gotten the mortifying birds and bees lecture from their parent.
She's still churning it over and over in her brain as she makes her way home for the day. It's just late enough that it's starting to get dark and chilly out and she thinks, not for the first time, just how cold it'd been that first night when those cracks had first started to show. She wonders if she could've avoided this all by being just a little less careless - or if it was just a matter of time before something else had come along.
Her heart's been splitting open for much too long, after all. Bleeding out over whoever gets close enough was an inevitability. ]
Oberon...? [ She says his name in a way that sounds both like hesitation and an apology as she steps in through the door. ] I'm home...
[ She hangs up her coat, toes off her shoes - and then off comes the mask. That mark left behind by their kiss somehow seems even darker and more vivid than it did before it'd started to heal. ]
[ Objectively speaking, going for an entire night must have been a mind-blowing experience for Ai. Possibly the most exhausting experience in her life, sure, but still mind-blowing. Somehow, for better or worse, Oberon is good at what he does... especially when Ai has such a vulnerable M-streak to her.
Weird to think about when you consider that... that may as well have been his first time. It's not like he ever did anything like that at any point during his time in Faerie Britain, least of all Chaldea, and now he's done it here. One can only suppose that it just comes with the trait of being Oberon. It all just came naturally to him.
The price of that mind-blowing night, however, is that it is currently a few hours past noon... and Ai is going to be waking up to the sorest body she's ever felt in her life. Forget feeling sore after exercise and stamina training... she has to deal with both the physical fatigue, and the fact that her body is covered in bites.
The amount of bite marks on her body only increased as the night went on, spreading to her thighs and even her arms. They were already dark after Oberon gave them to her, and they've gotten even darker as they slept. Finally, there's the fact that at no point during the night was Oberon anything but rough... and for how long they went, it doesn't even need to be said what state that particular part of her body is in.
She's as ruined as she can possibly be, and that might be the point... hell, since it's Oberon, he's probably proud of it too.
Speaking of... ]
Morning~
[ ...being a Servant who doesn't need to sleep, and also a piece of shit, means he woke up before Ai and has been laying here with her, arms wrapped around her from behind as the big spoon to her much littler spoon, for god knows how long. He's quiet, letting her sleep for as long as she wants, but once he sees her open her eyes... the urge to tease could not be resisted. Hell, it's not even morning anymore! They fucked into early morning! It's well past noon, you liar!
At the very least, it had been very touching when Oberon finally exhausted himself and laid there with her in his arms. Even if they don't need sleep, they still can, and it's one of the best ways to deal with exhaustion. He had fallen asleep close to her, just as she wanted. ]
[ Ai doesn't quite know when the dream starts. In fact, she doesn't even realize it is a dream, at least not right away. Everything seems a bit too solid, a bit too tangible. It's only when she pokes and pulls at her brain to try and work out how she got from her bed and Oberon's arms to this empty movie theater that she realizes the thread of logic is broken - she was simply there one moment and here the next and it's then that everything begins to make sense.
Still, though. What a strange place to end up dreaming about. She's been in movies herself but she doesn't ever really go to see them - she realizes, with a pang in her chest, that the last time she went was to see Aqua in the director's movie. Trying to ignore the squeezing in her stomach at the thought, she makes her way to the counter to see if there's anyone here at all - and starts when she spots her reflection in her glass across the back wall.
She'd half expected to see herself as she was... last time. The white dress, the sweater. But this time it's different. A loose, comfortable t-shirt tucked into a long skirt. The sort of clothes she'd pick herself to go out somewhere, if she could.
The sight of it unsettles her a little and she doesn't know why. So she turns away and follows the helpful signs all the way to the screen, the one and only this place seems to have. Posters blown up so huge she can see the print pixelation are slapped all over the walls but she doesn't recognise any of them.
This really is such a strange dream.
She doesn't quite know what she's going to see when she sits down to watch but her curiosity gets the best of her and she pushes the door to the screen open and makes her way inside to find a seat. It's only a dream, after all. It won't be anything she hasn't seen before. ]
[ It'd been just a few weeks ago that the weather had stung with a wintery bite and Ai had foolishly assumed that the seasons were going to make any sense whatsoever. Now all of a sudden it's blazing hot out, just as bad as Tokyo in the dog days of summer and Ai's resigned herself to understanding this city about as much as she did when she first arrived, which is too say, not in the least.
But it's not all bad - even if Nagiko had made a point of ominously warning her and Hibiki that summer was supposedly "a cursed time" for Servants and Masters. It's a little hard to believe that when the weather's so nice and when a beach that absolutely, definitely wasn't part of the city before is having some kind of open-invitation party with free food and drinks.
It's been entirely too long since she was allowed to go to something like that outside of work, so of course Ai's going. Of course she's wearing a cute two-piece swimsuit. And of course she made it very clear to a certain somebody that she'd be very upset if she had to pick out a different swimsuit for any particular reason.
Speak of the devil, though... ]
Are you really not about to pass out like that? I know you're probably sensitive to the sun, but...
[ She feels a little nauseous on his behalf just looking at that hoodie??? ]
[ As much as Oberon would've liked to continue just... spending time with Ai, whether it be lovey-dovey couple shit or him chewing her to pieces (god knows that ended up being the majority of their summer), their "duties" as Master and Servant couldn't be avoided forever.
He really thought he could've escaped the hell of farming just because he wasn't in Chaldea, huh? Granted, it's not like it isn't normally possible to do so, but...
Halloween. Is. The. Worst. He'd like to go after whoever had the gall to summon Elizabeth Bathory to this place and throttle them, as not only is it entirely her fault the city has that abominable stack of buildings nonsensically stacked on top of each other sitting smack-dab in the middle of the city, as well as overrunning said-city with pumpkin-themed mobs, but it's also her fault that they specifically can't ignore it.
Because upon seeing Ai, she yelled some kind of nonsense about "idol power", flew into an indignant rage(?), and has declared that this won't end until they challenge her and Oda Nobunaga at the top of the Csejte Pyramid Himeji Honnoji Castle... to an "Idol-off", which Oberon could tell is actually just... fighting as usual, just with a side of singing at the same time.
Seriously, they couldn't have targeted Nagiko and her Master for this!? Isn't that exactly what her Master does!?
Oh, right, and also Nobunaga is here... which means that, by extension, there are also Mini Nobbus. Mini Nobbus wearing pumpkins. ]
ARGHHHHH!!
[ ...Well, at least he's able to take out all of his frustration by going nuts on all of them, right? ]
WHY ARE THERE SO GODDAMN MANY OF THESE THINGS!? I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL THOSE TWO WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON THEM!!
[ A pause... ]
...Ah, my bad. No profanity allowed, right~?
[ So he says, before promptly kicking his massive pillbug "friend" at a group of Pumpkin Nobbus, knocking them over like bowling pins.
...Well, at least Ai finally got a Mystic Code that she can use for supporting Oberon in battle out of this, right? It's also her idol costume, which... he can't say he's actually bothered by, but still. She also has Blanca on her shoulder, which he will complain about, but even he begrudgingly recognizes how cute they are together. ]
[ The laundry list of Ai's flaws is nearly endless but the one thing she knows she's good at is making mistakes - no matter how she trips and stumbles, she'll get back onto her feet so gracefully you'll forget she ever fell in the first place. She's a fast learner and she never makes the same mistakes twice. All that combined means she thinks she's doing a... not so terrible job of figuring out how all this magic stuff works, especially considering she comes from such a normal world by comparison.
But practice makes perfect, obviously. And while she and Oberon have, uh, one part of all this pretty well practiced, she's still got more to learn. So they're here on the roof of the apartment, settled in the shade and out of view of the door in case anyone comes up and Ai's... doing her best to practice. ]
So, reinforcement... how exactly does it go again?
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That, along with various other profanities, were flooding Oberon's mind. Despite the fact that nobody knows what the hell is going on in this scuffed Holy Grail War, someone really thought they'd try to get it going anyways, huh? He supposes he can't blame them, the general basis of the ritual is focused around the general rule of last-man-standing, that's how it's supposed to be... but understanding doesn't make him any less frustrated.
He supposes he should be grateful, at least, that his foolish woman of a Master remembered the Command Seals on her hand. Whether it was intentional or instinctual, Oberon found himself flung through space itself, directly to his Master's side.
At least all that time spent lazing around their apartment eating junk food all day hadn't diminished his combat abilities in the slightest. He's a Servant, after all, he doesn't even need to eat at all in the first place.
Still, they had been a tough challenger, especially considering the meager amount of mana Ai provided. She's not a broken faucet, at least, but she still wasn't a mage. They must have been an Assassin, too, seeing as how they took every opportunity to aim for his Master... meaning Oberon had to spend a good chunk of the fight defending her instead of moving in for the kill.
Y'know, now that he thinks about it, the odds really were stacked against them, huh? Yet he still managed to repel the Assassin. Low mana supply or not, he's still the Abyssal Wyrm. One should never underestimate him. In fact, if he hadn't been occupied with protecting his Master, he might've even had a few chances to go for the kill.
...but it's pointless to think about hypotheticals, isn't it? Because even though he fought his fucking ass off, he still failed. That skull-faced bastard seemed especially fond of using daggers, and despite his efforts, one went into his Master.
The fact that he had obstructed the Assassin's aim enough that the dirk went into her thigh instead of anything vital wasn't nearly as comforting as he would have liked. ]
Hah... hah...
[ Something must have snapped, because he started fighting much more intensely when that happened. Intensely enough that he heard the enemy click their tongue before vanishing, having deemed the risk of fighting him higher than the reward.
So here they are, Oberon jumping from rooftop to rooftop with his Master in his arms, blood running down her leg. It's even raining, which means the world must truly have it out for them tonight. During the fight, Oberon had been forced to carry Ai around for brief periods, usually either by tossing her over his shoulder or carrying her under his arm like a football. It was almost comical, he might have made fun of her for it later if they had come out unscathed.
Right now, though, shes in his arms... properly this time. Carefully in both arms, close to his chest, gripped so tight it might even hurt... though the stab wound in her thigh probably hurts far more than a tight grip right now. ]
Shit...! Shit!! You went out too far tonight, woman! Where the hell even am I!?
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But she can't sleep. Her thoughts are a blur. Once again, she's been someone's victim. Once again, there's someone here who wants her dead. Even with someone here to protect her, that sense of safety she had so slowly been getting used to has been snuffed clean out.
But it's that having someone to protect her that's the scary part. Even someone as stupid as her knows what it means when someone holds you and she knows what it means when she's the one who asks to be held. It hadn't gone any further than that, a momentary lapse in judgement and an indulgence to go with it, and that's good - it can't be allowed to go further. She'd been shaken up and afraid and that's as fine an excuse as any, but that's where it has to end. She won't allow it to affect her any more than that.
Surely Oberon would think the same. They can cheerily return to the status quo and pretend nothing happened. And if he doesn't... well. Dealing with one-sided feelings is an idol's job. She can manage it.
When she finally sleeps that night, Ai dreams of blood, pain that rots deeper than bone marrow and the voice of a beloved fan snarling "Does that hurt, bitch? Huh?!". She dreams of Aqua trembling in her arms, Ruby's voice breaking into sobs. She dreams of somebody's hand cradling her face and after that, she doesn't dream of anything at all.
When she wakes, it's well beyond noon and she feels no better rested for any of it. She's still a little shaky and when she rises from her bed, her head swims. When she washes up for the day, her hands are ice cold and when she forces herself to practice her smile in the mirror before she heads out into the front room, her face is ghostly pale.
She's worked under worse conditions. She can handle this just fine.
It's Ai of B-Komachi, then, who comes breezing out into the living room. She's talking even as she makes her way in, as if to pre-emptively send the message that she absolutely, unequivocally is not going to talk about it. ]
Good morning! Or I guess it's not exactly morning anymore, huh? Oops! I guess that's what I get for lazing around in bed for so long. Heehee.
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Still, Oberon is strong. Regardless of whether it was coincidental or not, Ai's Servant was powerful... and no matter what, he protected his Master.
No matter what.
He wonders, as he fights to keep his body from dematerializing, what Ai must have thought just now... when he called out to her for a Command Seal. A boost that would allow him to release his Noble Phantasm without sucking Ai's life completely dry.
"Lie Like Vortigern", "Eye of a Dream Falling Yonder"
The Abyssal Wyrm, the hollow insect, a hole in the world itself. By all means, it was also his true form. He can't help but wonder what his Master thought of it as it fell on the enemy, swallowing both Servant and Master alike. Just like how a Noble Phantasm has been described to her, it was truly a trump card to end all trump cards.
It was also too much for just one command seal to power, Oberon realized, but instead of asking for her third and last stroke... he simply took the alternative, refusing to use mana from Ai and using solely his own. To his credit, it worked.
Unfortunately, it does also mean he's on the verge of disappearing. Shit. ]
Ugh...
[ It hurts to move. What a painfully nostalgic feeling. Did he black out? Is it even possible for Servants to black out? He can feel the edges of his body fraying at the seams, a light glow as the spiritrons that make up his body start to unravel while all he can do is lay there in the aftermath of the battle, frustratingly trying to keep himself from disappearing... but he's drained.
Is this it? He thinks. One use of his Noble Phantasm and that's it? What will happen to Ai, then? A Servantless Master in this mysterious Grail War where nobody knows what the hell is going on? Where the Masters themselves aren't even of this world?
Well, it's not like he'll be able to think of it much longer at this rate. Even with his blurring vision, he can just barely make out the figure of Ai running towards him. He'd say sorry, but then it'd be a lie. ]
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But just because she's not a gossip anymore doesn't mean she's totally lost the itch. She kind of loves drama, so long as it's harmless and she's done such a good job of keeping her nose out of what's going on with the pretty Master and her weird fairy Servant that she thinks she's earned this.
"Nagiko-chan, thanks for- ah, my mouth? Oh, I just had a little accident. But listen, what happened was-"
Sure. An accident. Like Sei doesn't know what a hickey looks like. Honestly, she's kind of surprised Oberon had it in him.
So call her curious. Call her nosy. Call her totally sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. But she really can't pass up the chance to investigate a little further.
So on a day she knows that Ai's out of the apartment, Sei comes knocking. ]
Yoooo, Ai-chan! It's me! Open up, wouldya?
[ She knows Ai's out of the apartment but she fully intends to stand here being loud and annoying until Oberon lets her in anyway. ]
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It isn't as though she doesn't want to be at home. It's not like she doesn't want to be around him. It's just...
Well, it's just like she'd said. She doesn't know what to do about any of it. And when Ai doesn't know what to do about something, the only thing she can think to do is avoid it.
Of course, that's a whole lot easier when you don't have an interfering girl like Nagiko in your life. It's taken a little getting used to - she's never had a friend quite like Nagiko (or uh, a friend full stop) who's invested enough to get herself involved. Most times, Ai appreciates it. Today, after the talk she was cornered into having, she feels considerably... less so. Not that Nagiko had necessarily been wrong about any of it but... she kind of feels like a kid who's just gotten the mortifying birds and bees lecture from their parent.
She's still churning it over and over in her brain as she makes her way home for the day. It's just late enough that it's starting to get dark and chilly out and she thinks, not for the first time, just how cold it'd been that first night when those cracks had first started to show. She wonders if she could've avoided this all by being just a little less careless - or if it was just a matter of time before something else had come along.
Her heart's been splitting open for much too long, after all. Bleeding out over whoever gets close enough was an inevitability. ]
Oberon...? [ She says his name in a way that sounds both like hesitation and an apology as she steps in through the door. ] I'm home...
[ She hangs up her coat, toes off her shoes - and then off comes the mask. That mark left behind by their kiss somehow seems even darker and more vivid than it did before it'd started to heal. ]
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Weird to think about when you consider that... that may as well have been his first time. It's not like he ever did anything like that at any point during his time in Faerie Britain, least of all Chaldea, and now he's done it here. One can only suppose that it just comes with the trait of being Oberon. It all just came naturally to him.
The price of that mind-blowing night, however, is that it is currently a few hours past noon... and Ai is going to be waking up to the sorest body she's ever felt in her life. Forget feeling sore after exercise and stamina training... she has to deal with both the physical fatigue, and the fact that her body is covered in bites.
The amount of bite marks on her body only increased as the night went on, spreading to her thighs and even her arms. They were already dark after Oberon gave them to her, and they've gotten even darker as they slept. Finally, there's the fact that at no point during the night was Oberon anything but rough... and for how long they went, it doesn't even need to be said what state that particular part of her body is in.
She's as ruined as she can possibly be, and that might be the point... hell, since it's Oberon, he's probably proud of it too.
Speaking of... ]
Morning~
[ ...being a Servant who doesn't need to sleep, and also a piece of shit, means he woke up before Ai and has been laying here with her, arms wrapped around her from behind as the big spoon to her much littler spoon, for god knows how long. He's quiet, letting her sleep for as long as she wants, but once he sees her open her eyes... the urge to tease could not be resisted.
Hell, it's not even morning anymore! They fucked into early morning! It's well past noon, you liar!At the very least, it had been very touching when Oberon finally exhausted himself and laid there with her in his arms. Even if they don't need sleep, they still can, and it's one of the best ways to deal with exhaustion. He had fallen asleep close to her, just as she wanted. ]
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Still, though. What a strange place to end up dreaming about. She's been in movies herself but she doesn't ever really go to see them - she realizes, with a pang in her chest, that the last time she went was to see Aqua in the director's movie. Trying to ignore the squeezing in her stomach at the thought, she makes her way to the counter to see if there's anyone here at all - and starts when she spots her reflection in her glass across the back wall.
She'd half expected to see herself as she was... last time. The white dress, the sweater. But this time it's different. A loose, comfortable t-shirt tucked into a long skirt. The sort of clothes she'd pick herself to go out somewhere, if she could.
The sight of it unsettles her a little and she doesn't know why. So she turns away and follows the helpful signs all the way to the screen, the one and only this place seems to have. Posters blown up so huge she can see the print pixelation are slapped all over the walls but she doesn't recognise any of them.
This really is such a strange dream.
She doesn't quite know what she's going to see when she sits down to watch but her curiosity gets the best of her and she pushes the door to the screen open and makes her way inside to find a seat. It's only a dream, after all. It won't be anything she hasn't seen before. ]
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But it's not all bad - even if Nagiko had made a point of ominously warning her and Hibiki that summer was supposedly "a cursed time" for Servants and Masters. It's a little hard to believe that when the weather's so nice and when a beach that absolutely, definitely wasn't part of the city before is having some kind of open-invitation party with free food and drinks.
It's been entirely too long since she was allowed to go to something like that outside of work, so of course Ai's going. Of course she's wearing a cute two-piece swimsuit. And of course she made it very clear to a certain somebody that she'd be very upset if she had to pick out a different swimsuit for any particular reason.
Speak of the devil, though... ]
Are you really not about to pass out like that? I know you're probably sensitive to the sun, but...
[ She feels a little nauseous on his behalf just looking at that hoodie??? ]
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He really thought he could've escaped the hell of farming just because he wasn't in Chaldea, huh? Granted, it's not like it isn't normally possible to do so, but...
Halloween. Is. The. Worst. He'd like to go after whoever had the gall to summon Elizabeth Bathory to this place and throttle them, as not only is it entirely her fault the city has that abominable stack of buildings nonsensically stacked on top of each other sitting smack-dab in the middle of the city, as well as overrunning said-city with pumpkin-themed mobs, but it's also her fault that they specifically can't ignore it.
Because upon seeing Ai, she yelled some kind of nonsense about "idol power", flew into an indignant rage(?), and has declared that this won't end until they challenge her and Oda Nobunaga at the top of the Csejte Pyramid Himeji Honnoji Castle... to an "Idol-off", which Oberon could tell is actually just... fighting as usual, just with a side of singing at the same time.
Seriously, they couldn't have targeted Nagiko and her Master for this!? Isn't that exactly what her Master does!?
Oh, right, and also Nobunaga is here... which means that, by extension, there are also Mini Nobbus. Mini Nobbus wearing pumpkins. ]
ARGHHHHH!!
[ ...Well, at least he's able to take out all of his frustration by going nuts on all of them, right? ]
WHY ARE THERE SO GODDAMN MANY OF THESE THINGS!? I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL THOSE TWO WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON THEM!!
[ A pause... ]
...Ah, my bad. No profanity allowed, right~?
[ So he says, before promptly kicking his massive pillbug "friend" at a group of Pumpkin Nobbus, knocking them over like bowling pins.
...Well, at least Ai finally got a Mystic Code that she can use for supporting Oberon in battle out of this, right? It's also her idol costume, which... he can't say he's actually bothered by, but still. She also has Blanca on her shoulder, which he will complain about, but even he begrudgingly recognizes how cute they are together. ]
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But practice makes perfect, obviously. And while she and Oberon have, uh, one part of all this pretty well practiced, she's still got more to learn. So they're here on the roof of the apartment, settled in the shade and out of view of the door in case anyone comes up and Ai's... doing her best to practice. ]
So, reinforcement... how exactly does it go again?
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