<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/4/4a/Iris_Heart_-_Hyperdimension_Neptunia_-_2x3_portrait_-_mischeivous.png)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Natsuki Akuzawa<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Erotic lingerie store... then running through alleys... then a blind alley... then a rooftop<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Second day, afternoon<br/><strong>Wearing:</strong>School uniform<br/><strong>With:</strong>Biscuit<br/><br/>Natsuki should have been ready for it. But her mortification at being outplayed at her own “embarrassment game”, coupled with the still echoing shy blush after Biscuit complimented her in the boots, had her off balance. The saleswoman had a firm grip on her wrist before Natsuki was even aware of the danger.<br/><br/>By the time Natsuki got over the initial shock, Biscuit had surely already seen the red card. She cursed to herself. Oh well, that ship has sailed. That can’t be fixed.<br/><br/>But the problem of being held fast still needed dealing with. She was far too savvy to outright attack the saleswoman. Even if it was perfectly justified – and it certainly was, in this case – it would boil down to her word against the saleswoman … the word of a level-3 Abnormal against a non-Abnormal businesswoman. That was a fight that there was no way she could win. Had she been prepared – as she had been at all the previous stops – she could go intangible and walk away before the saleswoman could react. But she hadn’t been prepared this time. She cursed herself for her carelessness.<br/><br/>She started concentrating, preparing in her head the incantation she used before going intangible. She blocked out whatever Biscuit was doing behind her – she would have to deal with explaining things to him, but that wasn’t the immediate problem, so she put it aside in her mind. She started mentally itemizing everything she needed to bring with her, but she kept hearing shouting and loud noises behind her that broke her concentration, forcing her to start over.<em>Come on!</em>she chided herself.<em>Concentrate! From the top: four hairpins, two earrings, blouse, ribbon, blazer, ….</em><br/><br/>But she never managed to get through it, finally being jolted out of her concentration by Biscuit grabbing the woman’s wrist. She was free, but now they were in serious trouble – probably more than Biscuit realized.<br/><br/>She didn’t argue when he grabbed her and ran for it. That seemed the only sane course of action at the moment. She had no idea how quickly he could get his bike started, but at the moment it seemed like their best chance.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, that avenue of escape seemed blocked. So it was on to plan B… blindly run away from their pursuers, hoping to shake them.<br/><br/>For a moment, she thought that plan might even work. Then they found themselves in a blind alley.<br/><br/>Biscuit realized their plight at the same moment she did. However, he decided that the only way out was to fight. Natsuki bit her lip. It would be so easy to follow his instructions… to scale the wall and run… to never reveal that she was a freak.<br/><br/>But she couldn’t live with herself if she abandoned him like that.<br/><br/>So what she did next… would probably shock the hell out of the poor boy.<br/><br/>Without a word of warning, she started thrusting her hands into his pockets… all of his pockets, one by one, reaching into them fumbling around with the items inside, then moving on to the next pocket.<br/><br/><strong>“Bi-su-ki-to-san,”</strong>she murmured, in a quavering, nervous voice.<strong>“I’m sorry. Please, trust me.”</strong><br/><br/>Rapidly she felt her way through all of his pockets. Then she got even<em>more</em>invasive, bending down and lifting up the cuffs of his jeans to look at his socks, and even reaching into the waistband of his jeans and pulling them aside so she see his underwear.<br/><br/>There was a shout from the entrance of the alley. Apparently their pursuers had regrouped, and now they were approaching.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, Natsuki was frantically but methodically poking her fingers into every nook and cranny of Biscuit’s outfit. It was like a pat-down to search for weapons, done to the extreme, because Natsuki was not just looking for weapons, she was itemizing every single item of clothing he was wearing, every single item in his pockets, and every single accessory he was wearing.<br/><br/>Several people poured into the alley, completely blocking any escape. They approached slowly, fanning out, taking advantage of their superior numbers, wary of the board Biscuit was still holding.<br/><br/>Natsuki either found everything she was looking for in her desperate search of Biscuit’s person, or decided there was no more time to look. She pressed against Biscuit, keeping a tight grip on him, eyes squeezed shut as if she were desperately trying to tune out the world around her. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were reciting something to herself.<br/><br/>Their attackers closed in very slowly, wordlessly coordinating as they approached. Their primary concern was Biscuit’s “weapon”, but with Natsuki pressed against his side, his options for using it were limited. Nevertheless, no one wanted to be the person to take a hit from it, so they moved in carefully, hoping to stymie his efforts to swing the board and defend himself, and overpower him all at once.<br/><br/>But they stopped their approach abruptly when Natsuki moved.<br/><br/>She stepped between Biscuit and the attackers, her back to them, and threw her arms around Biscuit’s shoulder, pressing her body against his.<strong>“Trust me,”</strong>she whispered one last time.<br/><br/>With Natsuki in that position, the attackers realized Biscuit would be helpless to defend himself, so they surged.<br/><br/>And then… something very peculiar would happen.<br/><br/>To Biscuit, it would almost feel like the entire world suddenly went slightly out of tune. Sounds would become muffled, and distant. Everything he could see would be come blurry, as if everything in his vision except Natsuki had started vibrating at a high frequency. Indeed, he would feel a kind of warm vibration in his own body.<br/><br/>Even stranger, the board he was holding seemed to just fall right out of his grip. No, rather, it seemed to fall<em>through</em>his grip.<br/><br/>It clattered to the ground, along with the tinkle of other items: some coins, a few hair pins, a 10 mm socket that had been hidden deep in one of Biscuit’s pockets.<br/><br/>The attackers froze in their charge, stunned, and though they were looking right at Biscuit and Natsuki, it was like they couldn’t see them. They looked around, confused.<br/><br/><strong>“Don’t make a sound,”</strong>Natsuki whispered.<br/><br/>But in doing so, she violated her own advice.<br/><br/>“I can hear them!” one attacker cried. “They’re still here! They must just be invisible!”<br/><br/>So they charged again, swinging blindly with punches and kicks at the place they had last seen Natsuki and Biscuit. Alarming some of their swings went right<em>through</em>Natsuki and Biscuit. Biscuit would feel nothing but an odd pressure, and a slight tingle, as the swings passed through him, but his clothes and Natsuki’s hair would react to the breeze as they passed.<br/><br/>Natsuki realized that simply waiting, invisible and intangible, would not be good enough. They needed to escape. So she looked up… and then Biscuit would feel himself being lifted up into the air by some invisible force.<br/><br/>They rose out of the crowd of blindly swinging attackers leisurely into the air, rising up, up, higher and higher, until they were several storeys up. They rose all the way to the rooftop of the building, then glided gracefully to a gentle landing on top.<br/><br/>And then the strange muffling of sound and fuzzing of vision ended, and Biscuit would hear and feel the crunch of the rooftop’s gravel beneath his and Natsuki’s feet, and the chill breeze of the rooftop air.<br/><br/>Natsuki would sigh with relief, and Biscuit would feel her physically relax again him. But… she didn’t let him go. She remained standing on her toes, leaning her body against his, her arms around his neck.<br/><br/>In fact, Biscuit would find that he was physically unable to remove any of his clothes, or any of the items from his pockets, and – most importantly – anywhere he was touching Natsuki, he would be unable to remove himself.<br/><br/>Natsuki herself was blushing furiously, her face only millimetres from Biscuit’s, desperately avoiding his eyes. Every few seconds she would try again to unwrap her arms from around his shoulders, or pull her chest away from his. But she couldn’t.<br/><br/><strong>“It… I…,”</strong>she stammered.<strong>“This won’t last long! It just… it just takes minute… then we can… we can… move again.”</strong>