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On a hill not far beyond the outskirts of the capital stood an impressive but unkempt manor, casting a long shadow as the sun sunk towards the West. A traveller who stumbled upon it might think it abandoned, for it was overgrown with vines and it was rare to see any light shining through its many glass windows. At present, however, there was little doubt that there were people on the premises, for sounds echoed from the sparse forest behind the manor.
They were the sounds of violence.
Woomf!
A cloud of dust scattered into the air where the blade of an axe struck the ground. The woman swinging it took a deep breath, her shoulders heaving. Her short leather vest was askew, and the white shirt underneath stained with grass and dirt and damp with the sweat that plastered her long blonde hair to her forehead. She growled in frustration, glaring at her opponent. “Sorawo! Stand still!”
The woman she was addressing backed away even further, brandishing a short, narrow blade. Her head was lowered, the dark hood she wore casting deep shadows over her face but for her right eye, which even in the dimness glittered like a fine blue gem. “What,” she scoffed, “and just let you kill me?!”
Her opponent rolled her eyes. “If I wanted to kill you, I would just shoot you!” she retorted, gesturing to her right leg, where a fine looking pistol was holstered. “So stop skittering around and fight me properly!”
Honestly, what did Sorawo think she was trying to do? Well, alright, she may have put a little too much oomph into that last swing — even with a blunted blade, it could have done some real damage if it connected. But it hadn’t connected, because of course it hadn’t. It never did.
“I do not skitter,” Sorawo replied indignantly, “and this is fighting you properly.”
She so skittered.
“Toriko, don’t give me that look,” she continued. “You’re the one who said we should practice together.”
Sorawo was right, she had said that. She had envisioned it being kind of a fun bonding exercise for them, but instead it was turning out to just be frustrating. She yanked her axe out of the ground with a sigh.
To say she was having an off day would be an understatement. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how to fight — she specialized in firearms, but her Mama had taught her the basics of hand-to-hand combat as well. She would even go so far as to say she was pretty good at it, as more than a couple ne’er-do-wells had discovered.
But Sorawo… Sorawo barely even fought like a human being. It wasn’t like she was any stronger or faster than a normal person, but there was something unnatural about the way she moved. Like a wild animal, predatory in a way that Toriko was having trouble keeping up with.
The way she skittered—ahem, darted—around, ducking under attacks before lunging forwards and delivering a bite with her dagger, her style combined extreme caution with a kind of ruthless opportunism that Toriko had rarely seen in any other person. The kind of past that would have taught her to fight like that… Toriko knew the broad strokes, but she could scarcely imagine all the details Sorawo hadn’t yet shared with her.
In a way, she fought more like some of the monsters they had faced than most of the humans. Maybe that was fitting, for a monster hunter. Even so, Toriko knew how to fight monsters. She’d done it plenty of times. The thought of getting into that mindset to fight Sorawo, though… it left a bad taste in her mouth somehow.
As a result, she had gone all day without managing to land a single good hit on her sparring partner. Sorawo, who didn’t seem to know how to not fight like she was fighting monsters, had peppered her from the chest down in little bruises from a dull knife point, matching the wounds inflicted on her pride. Sore and frustrated, she absolutely refused to let her accomplice get away with this.
“Alright!” Toriko declared, setting her axe down. She removed the red neckerchief she wore and tucked it into her belt — it was getting way too stuffy. “Let’s start over. One more time, winner takes all!”
“That seems like kind of a bad deal for me,” Sorawo pointed out. True, she stood to lose a lot more than she stood to gain, at least in terms of imaginary sparring points.
In which case, perhaps there should be something more tangible on the line. “Okay,” said Toriko, “then how about this — whoever wins, they get to ask whoever loses to do one thing for them. Any one thing, and the loser needs to do it. Sound good?”
It was sort of a childish challenge, but she felt like the best way to get her head back in the game would be to shake things up somehow.
Sorawo smirked at her. “Well, I guess it would be fine to have you do something for me.”
Oh, now those were fighting words. Toriko was going to smack that smug look right off her face.
The two of them took their positions, several paces apart from each other in the clearing they were using as a sparring ground. They turned to face one another, weapons glinting in the warm light of early evening. Toriko rolled her shoulders and bounced her weight from one foot to the other, getting ready to move. Sorawo lowered her stance, legs ready to spring forward at a moment’s notice. Her face grew cold and distant, like she had forgotten everything but that Toriko was currently her enemy.
On second thought, Toriko would much rather she have kept the smirk.
For a few moments they circled each other, looking for openings. Sorawo was the one to break the standoff, sinking low to the ground and lunging at Toriko’s midsection. She caught the attack on the haft of her axe and shoved it aside, retaliating with a swing at Sorawo’s shoulder. Sorawo sprung backwards, the axe whipping through the air where she had just been standing.
Toriko followed, looking to press the advantage. She swung at Sorawo’s side, forcing her to block with her dagger. She pushed a little further, trying to hook her weapon around Sorawo’s and pull it away, but Sorawo wriggled out of the lock and nearly gave Toriko a jab in the arm for her trouble.
They pulled away at the conclusion of their clash, eyeing each other once again. Toriko’s arms and legs stung from the numerous hits she had received throughout the day, but she knew Sorawo wasn’t in peak condition either — dodging and weaving like she did had to be slowly taking its toll on her.
Not that see seemed keen to show that. She ducked to the side and charged Toriko again, practically on all fours as she aimed for her legs. Toriko stepped out of the way and swung downwards, only for Sorawo to deftly pivot out of the way and strike up at her chest instead. Toriko stumbled backwards, almost losing her footing as she held off a small flurry of attacks. Before she could retaliate, Sorawo was already gone, circling for her next attack.
Their exchanges continued, neither of them sustaining a hit. Toriko was keeping up so far, even coming close to landing an attack, but she could tell that she was slowly losing ground, while Sorawo was only growing bolder. As Sorawo prepared to pounce again, she realized she needed to try something else.
She gestured with her axe, drawing Sorawo’s attention as she brought her left hand to her waist. She hooked the cuff of her glove on her belt, tugging it off. Beneath, her hand was a transparent, shimmering blue down to her wrist. She held it out behind her, feeling around like she was trying to grasp something. She normally had help for this part, but…
There. For a moment, her hand seemed to catch on something. It was cool, like a stream of water flowing through the air, somehow both solid and intangible at once. She held out her first two fingers and traced a symbol in the air. The cool sensation seemed to follow her fingertips, folding over itself and intensifying in her hand until it felt like she could physically grasp it.
As Sorawo lunged at her, she scooped up the feeling in her hand and pivoted, drawing her axe back and extending her left hand to meet Sorawo’s weapon in its place. Sorawo’s eyes widened, but it was too late for her to stop herself.
Contact with the dagger seemed to ignite the energy in Toriko’s hand. With a brilliant flash of sparks it was sent careening off like it had struck a solid object. Sorawo lost her balance, and Toriko swung forward with her other hand, clipping Sorawo’s shoulder as she regained her footing. Toriko was forced to back away by a vicious swing, and she took a stance with her left hand held out in front of her, crackling with residual energy.
She had made contact, but just barely. It wasn’t the decisive blow she needed to call the match in her favour. It was, however, good enough to put a crack in Sorawo’s emotionless facade, just enough for her to pout. “Hey,” she said.
“Weren’t expecting that, were you?” Toriko asked. It had taken her a lot of practice to be able to do that.
Her ghostly left hand was able to touch intangible and otherworldly things, and shapes flows of ambient energy into useful forms. These were invisible to her, it was normally with the help of Sorawo’s right eye that she was able to. Correctly forming a sign blind was no mean feat, if she did say so herself.
“That’s kind of cheating, isn’t it?”
Cheating? Toriko's chest tightened, like she had just made a big mistake. She thought she had been being pretty clever, but… no, she had been totally above board. There was no way she had forgotten some kind of weird technicality. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Sorawo seemed to have had the same thought. “Well, not cheating, it’s not like we ever made rules for this, but… I mean, if I ever used my eye, it wouldn’t be much of a contest, right?”
Neither of them really understood the specifics, but beyond the otherworldly perception it provided her, Sorawo could focus on a person with her right eye to make them go… loopy. The effects depended on the person, sometimes simply incapacitating them and other times driving them berserk. Toriko had no idea what it would do to her, but there was no doubt that it would bring their friendly sparring match to a screeching halt. She nodded.
“Right,” Sorawo continued. “So, I kind of assumed that your hand was off limits too, but I guess I never said that.”
“I see your point,” said Toriko. “Though, my hand doesn't really do what your eye does, right?” Technically, her could also affect human beings, but she had only ever done that to reach some supernatural ailment inside of someone. She had no idea what it would do to a regular, healthy person, and no particular plans to find out.
Sorawo nodded. “It doesn’t, but… well, sure. I guess you can use your hand if you want.”
“I’d feel kind of bad about it now, though,” she said. “So, how about you get to use something too? I can use my hand, and you can use your potions.”
Sorawo’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
Toriko nodded. “Yeah, go ahead.”
Her hand and Sorawo’s eye made for a powerful combination on their own, but the two of them had a few more tricks up their sleeves. Sorawo’s almost obsessive research into different types of monsters and supernatural occurrences had given her a robust understanding of different substances found in or around them, and how to process them into tools, weapons, and special elixirs.
The potions tasted foul, every last one of them, and Toriko hated using them. Even so, their effectiveness could not be denied.
Given permission, Sorawo brought her hand down and undid the latch on a pouch at her her belt, extracting a small black bottle marked with a light grey band. Quicksilver, which fortunately did not contain any of its namesake, was a favourite of hers, augmenting speed and reflexes to complement her natural talents. Remembering the last time she had seen it in use, Toriko began to have second thoughts about allowing it.
Well, too late. Toriko got back in position as Sorawo threw back the potion with a grimace. Almost the moment it touched her tongue, something about her seemed to change. It was like she became sharper, somehow, her features appearing thin and gaunt. When she stepped forward, it was with an eerie, slinking motion that seemed to barely disturb the grass beneath her feet.
“You ready to start back up?” she asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Toriko blinked, and the next thing she knew Sorawo’s dagger was suddenly halfway to her abdomen. She pulled away, the blade scraping against the leather of her vest, only for Sorawo to wheel around and strike for her side instead. She used her hand to knock it aside with another flash of sparks and swung her axe. She met only air, feeling for a moment that Sorawo had simply vanished. Then, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.
Behind her?
Toriko ducked, hearing the sharp sound of the dull blade cutting through the air just over her head. She used the last of the energy she had gathered to trace another sign in the air, throwing her left hand out behind her. A thunderous bang rippled out from her palm, forming a shockwave that sent bits of grass and dirt flying through the air.
Sorawo, naturally, had leapt out of the way, but Toriko had managed to create some distance between them. She groped around for more energy to gather, preparing for the next assault. This was more intense than she had anticipated — she had seen this potions in action, and even used them herself, but this was her first time on the receiving end of them.
Her left hand managed to find purchase right as Sorawo came flying back at her. She shaped it into another shield, deflecting blow after blow as she looked for an opening. She feinted to the right, making a vicious cut to the left that nearly wrenched Sorawo’s weapon away as she twisted to catch the blow.
Their harrowing dance continued. Toriko was gradually adapting to Sorawo’s speed, but she was still avoiding her attacks by only a hair’s breadth, and the energy in her hand was running out. After a hasty attack left her perilously exposed, she was forced to push Sorawo back with another shockwave. She half considered trying another sign, but of the ones she knew, there were no others she would use against someone she wasn’t trying to seriously hurt.
For now, the shockwave had done its job. Sorawo stepped back and let out a heavy breath. She was visibly tiring, and her detached combat persona had begun to slip. “You,” she huffed, “are actually kind of scary, you know? These things weren’t really made to be used against human beings.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty good, right?” Toriko replied. She tried to grin, but her aching body and her own mounting exhaustion transformed it into more of a grimace. She had no idea how she was still standing.
She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t take much more of this, though. Thanks to her potion, Sorawo’s speed was inhuman, but her endurance was not. She was consuming a lot of energy to go on the offensive like this, and it was causing her to slip. The longer it took for her to finish things, the more her advantage began to erode.
Sorawo’s thoughts seemed to arrive at a similar place, her mask returning as she raised her dagger.
Toriko thrust out her hand again, but this time found nothing. She tried again, and again, but she couldn’t manage to catch anything. She saw the barest hint of a smile on Sorawo’s face, telling her that she could see exactly what Toriko was reaching for, but Toriko couldn’t tell where it was. Before she could find it, Sorawo leapt forward again, forcing her attention to defending.
With a thunk, she caught the dagger on the haft of her axe. Again and again. Without her signs, she was being given no opportunity to retaliate, steadily being pushed further and further across the clearing. She felt herself slowing down with each attack — it wouldn’t be much longer before she just couldn’t keep up.
She had gotten pretty close. If she had been this focused while she was still at peak condition, there was no way she would have kept losing.
But… she had. And Sorawo had gotten so, so smug over it. Guess I wouldn’t mind having you do something for me, she said, like it was silly to even challenge her. Just where did she get off acting like that, huh? Maybe she should have to compete in a shooting contest next, see how awesome she was then.
Toriko grunted in frustration. Her speed increased, knocking Sorawo’s strikes aside one after the other as got increasingly worked up. The burning in her arms and legs only made her more irate. Just who did this girl think she was, anyway? There was no way she was going to let Sorawo give her that big smug grin and get away with it. Just thinking about it made her want to throw something.
Sorawo seemed surprised at her renewed vigour, and backed off before she pushed herself to exhaustion. She immediately began looking for another opening, but she seemed shaken, strafing like a human opponent instead of prowling like a wild beast. Toriko had a feeling that this would be her final assault, which would be fantastic if she wasn’t just as sure that it would be her own. She could tell that Sorawo had no intention of giving her the chance to use her hand again, which meant she would need to finish this the old fashioned way.
That said, she didn’t really have a plan.
She was keeping up her defence, barely, but needing to keep her guard up denied her the opportunity to attack. She needed an opening. It would be one thing if she could back up and exploit her longer reach, but Sorawo’s augmented speed was just too great for that — Toriko could get maybe one desperate swing in before she closed the distance and engaged on her terms.
Oh, now there was an idea. If she couldn’t make enough distance for her axe, then…
Toriko smiled to herself. She might just be able to turn things around. She faced Sorawo head on, priming her legs to spring forward instead of hanging back to defend. Sorawo watched her change of posture with suspicion, but prepared her own charge regardless. A beat passed, and the two of them began to move.
Naturally, Sorawo’s enhanced speed let her close the distance in a matter of moments. Toriko hoped she was getting enough of a run-up. Sorawo’s dagger flashed forward, trying to snake past Toriko’s guard. If she abandoned her charge right away, she would probably be able to catch it.
Instead, Toriko let go of her axe.
Just defending was getting her nowhere. If she couldn’t get enough distance to attack, then she would just need to get up close and personal instead. Sorawo’s eyes widened in shock as Toriko took a running leap towards her, twisting to avoid being struck head on by her dagger. It still scraped painfully against her side, snagging on her shirt and ripping a hole in it, but it wasn’t enough to stop her.
She threw herself directly on to Sorawo, planting her knees on her midsection and grabbing one of her arms in each hand as her weight sent them tumbling to the ground. Sorawo landed hard on her rear, her weapon flying from her hand, and Toriko shoved her down, straddling her and pinning her wrists to the ground. Lacking a weapon to confirm that she had struck a decisive blow, Toriko instead leaned down and placed her teeth against Sorawo’s throat.
“H-Hey! Don’t bite me!”
Sorawo tried to lean away from her, but she lacked the leverage to actually escape Toriko’s grasp. She could get used to this.
“I’m not going to bite you, dummy,” she whispered against Sorawo’s neck. “But I could. Know what that means?”
“Ugh…” Sorawo squirmed at the feeling of Toriko’s breath against her skin. “T-That, uh, you win. I guess.”
Toriko smiled. “Yep. I win.”
“That means you can get off me, right…?”
She loosened her grip on Sorawo’s wrists, but also lowered her weight down on her more fully. “Mmm, I dunno…” she mumbled, “it’s kinda comfy here…”
That fact was, she wasn’t sure if she could actually move. As the adrenaline of the fight faded, she began to feel a little like all of her muscles had been replaced with mush. Sorawo must have felt something similar, as despite her grumbling she made no real effort to push Toriko away. The two of them lay there for a short while, before Toriko finally gathered the energy to roll off to the side and lay on the ground instead.
It was hard. She preferred lying on Sorawo.
Sorawo took a deep breath. “Hey, has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of heavy?”
“Don’t make me regret not actually biting you.”
It was a few minutes after that when the two of them finally began to regain their strength. Toriko winced as she pulled herself into a sitting position, her hand going to her right side — she didn’t seem to be bleeding, but there was an angry scrape all the way along her side, just under her ribs. That… probably didn’t count as Sorawo landing the first clean hit.
Sorawo dragged herself up as well, her hood falling down to reveal hair frazzled by their frantic movement. Toriko thought she seemed a little sluggish as she retrieved her dagger — she was worried that her tackle might have injured her, but then it occurred to her that the quicksilver potion was probably wearing off. After witnessing its effects, normal movement seemed slow and clumsy by comparison.
After picking up her dagger and sheathing it, she also collected Toriko’s axe and carried it over to her. She used it to gesture at Toriko’s side. “That was stupid, you know. Even if these are blunt, you could have gotten really hurt.”
Toriko grabbed the axe, pulling it out of Sorawo’s grip. “It worked, didn’t it? Besides, it’s not like you were trying to actually hurt me.”
“If you throw yourself on a sword, there’s not really much I can do about that.”
She was completely right about that, but Toriko was in no mood to admit that to her. She stood up and slid the axe into the holster across her back with a pout. She was about to suggest they call it quits for the day and get something to eat, when she noticed Sorawo shuffling around like she had something on her mind.
“So…” said Sorawo. “You won.”
“Yeah?” Toriko replied. They had already established that, hadn’t they?
“Yeah. So, let’s get this over with — what do you want me to do?”
Toriko stared at her for a second, before her own words came back to her. ‘Whoever wins, they get to ask whoever loses to do one thing for them. Any one thing, and the loser needs to do it.’ She had kind of just been running her mouth, but Sorawo had agreed, and now she had actually won. That meant she got to make a request.
“Well,” she said, “I haven’t really thought of anything yet.”
“You haven’t?” asked Sorawo. Toriko supposed it was fair to be surprised, since she had proposed the challenge in the first place, but Sorawo looked downright dumbfounded.
“Not really. Why, did you think I had something specific in mind?”
“Oh, well… never mind, just forget it.” Sorawo looked away, her face a little red. Was she… embarrassed?
“Now hold on just a minute, now I’m really curious.”
“It’s nothing,” she insisted. “I guess I just figured you going to ask me to…”
“To…?” Toriko repeated.
“…to kiss you, or something.”
She expected Toriko to make her kiss her? She pouted. “Hey, do I really seem like that kind of person?”
Sorawo met her eyes. “Yeah, kind of.”
Well she didn’t need to be so blunt about it. That wasn’t even really fair. Sure, the idea was definitely pretty appealing. Toriko would be lying if she said the thought hadn’t crossed her mind when she first proposed the challenge. Still, though… “It’d be kind of messed up to make you do something like that, though, wouldn’t it?”
Sorawo shrugged. “I mean, this was just a friendly competition. We’re not really making each other do anything. If I didn’t want to, I’d just—”
Realizing what she’d just said, Sorawo’s voice died and she became very, very still.
Toriko smiled at her. “Sorawo?”
“…Yeah…?”
“Are you saying… you would want to kiss me?”
“It’s not that I want, er— it’s not like, w-well—” she looked down at the ground. “I was just kind of assuming you would ask for that, right? So it was on my mind. And I figured that, uh, if that was what you really wanted then it’d be… fine?”
“That’s thinking awfully far ahead when you were so sure you were going to win.”
Sorawo was staring very intently at a nearby blade of grass. “Best to be prepared, you know?”
Toriko’s smile expanded into a devious grin. “Guess so, yeah. I suppose it’d be a shame to let that preparation go to waste, huh?”
“Hey. You don’t need to go doing it just because I put the idea in your head.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not.”
Sorawo snapped her gaze back up to look at her. “You mean—”
“But if I did it because I wanted to,” Toriko continued, “what would you say?”
The shade of red Sorawo’s face was turning contrasted pleasantly with her right eye. She looked somewhere off to Toriko’s right, probably thinking she was being pretty subtle about avoiding eye contact. “So that is what you want, then…?”
Toriko stepped to the side, placing herself back directly in Sorawo’s line of sight. “The first thing I want is an answer, Sorawo.”
Sorawo shot her a look, and Toriko’s first thought was that she was about to refuse. That was okay — no matter what she thought, it wasn’t like Toriko was going to try and force her. After a couple of seconds, though, she seemed to lower her guard a little bit. “I told you already, right? That’d be fine.”
Toriko put her hands together, practically hopping with delight. “Seriously?!”
“If you ask me one more time, I’m refusing just to spite you. Now get over here.”
Toriko bounded forward. She half wanted to embrace Sorawo and plant a kiss on her herself, but that wasn’t her request. Instead, she stopped a step early and looked at Sorawo with a grin. “Alright, I’d like to make my request, then.”
“I think we’ve established what you want already…”
“That’s not official, though!”
Sorawo sighed. “Alright, let’s hear it then. Officially.”
“Okay! In recognition of my complete and total victory—”
“I can do without the embellishment, thanks.”
“—Sorawo, I would like you to please give me a kiss.”
Rolling her eyes, Sorawo stepped forward and put an arm over Toriko’s shoulder. “I… accept your request, I guess?”
Their eyes met. Toriko felt a sudden rush, the kind she always felt when Sorawo managed to look her fully in the eyes. If she ever told Sorawo about this feeling, she was sure she would assume it was the fault of her right eye and just never look at her again.
In fairness, there was certainly something enthralling about seeing herself reflected in that otherworldly blue, but she doubted it was anything supernatural.
Her view was cut off as Sorawo’s eyes fluttered shut, and began leaning in. Toriko could smell her as she approached, sweat from the day’s exertion mingling with a floral scent of the fancy soap Toriko had spent part of her cut of the last bounty on. She tilted her head down to accept Sorawo, feeling their lips begin to touch.
Sorawo was… a bad kisser.
There was no helping her lack of experience, but Toriko’s expectations had been low and she was still impressed. The kiss began with her clacking their teeth together hard enough for both of them to wince a little, and it did not improve from there.
She supposed it was sort of endearing, in a way. There was just something so earnest about the awkward attempt. That did not stop Toriko from trying to take a bit more control and steer the kiss somewhere that wasn’t kind of unpleasant for them both.
There was only one solution for inexperience, right? She would just need to help Sorawo practice.
Sorawo accepted more readily than Toriko would have expected, relaxing and essentially letting her do whatever she wanted. Remembering how their first kiss had gone, she debated with herself just how far she should push things on their second, but Sorawo soon made the decision for her, pulling away as she seemed to reach her limit.
She was looking flushed and breathless. For somebody who had just thought it was ‘fine’, she seemed to have gotten pretty into it. “So,” she said, “how was that?”
Toriko smiled softly at her. “Sorawo…”
“Y-Yeah?”
“That may have been the worst kiss I’ve ever had in my life.”
Somehow, Sorawo’s face became even redder. Did she even have enough blood for that? “Wha— that’s— you—” she stammered. “I’d like to see you do any better!”
No sooner had she said it then her hand clapped to her mouth, as if that would somehow put her words back into it. Toriko leaned forward with a smirk, close enough for Sorawo to feel her breath. “Would you really?”
Sorawo froze, like she thought Toriko would pounce on her if she moved so much as a muscle. A second passed, and then two, and Toriko began to feel anxious. Did she break her? Had that been going too far? She was about to apologize when Sorawo finally responded.
“Sure.”
…What?
“Sorawo,” she said, “I was just teasing you, you don’t need to actually agree with that. You’ve done my request already.”
“I didn’t need to agree the first time either, remember?” Her whole body was tense, as if she’d made a decision but was struggling not to lose her nerve.
It was Toriko’s turn to freeze, her heart pounding as she looked at Sorawo. She hadn’t needed to, that was true, but Toriko had still kind of assumed that she had just been humouring her. If she had been serious about it the whole time, if she had really wanted it, then…
“If you insist.” Taking a step towards Sorawo, she wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. Sorawo let out what could only be called a squeak as their bodies pressed together. Toriko looked down at her, gauging her expression. It was… defiant, somehow, as if to say ‘Oh, you think you’re so great? Prove it.’
She hoped she wasn’t about to embarrass herself. She was definitely more experienced than Sorawo, but all that really meant was that she’d fooled around a bit when she was younger. Most girls got tired of her too quickly for them to have really done much. Still, she had a feeling she’d be fine.
Sorawo had not set the bar very high.
Toriko couldn’t hear the world around them any more, drowned out by the sound of her own heartbeat. She wondered if Sorawo could hear it too. The tips of her fingers ran over the dark leather of Sorawo’s outfit, feeling the small scratches etched here and there over the supple surface.
Curtains of blonde hair framed Sorawo’s face as she leaned down towards her, blocking her view of anything but Toriko. Her mouth was hanging open, just a bit, as if she were caught in the middle of a thought. Toriko smiled as she closed the gap between them, her lips meeting Sorawo’s.
Sorawo’s lips were chapped and rough, but not so much as to feel unpleasant. Toriko brought her left hand to the back of Sorawo’s head and pulled her further in. She was surprisingly accepting — passive, but relaxed in a way she hadn’t been the last time Toriko had initiated a kiss.
She also didn’t taste like vomit this time, which was a welcome improvement.
Emboldened by her reception, Toriko decided to take things a step further, poking her tongue through Sorawo’s lips. She didn’t recoil, gripping Toriko’s back with both hands as she meekly reciprocated. Even though the whole point was for Toriko to show her how it was done, she kind of wished Sorawo would be more assertive.
But having her at her mercy held a certain appeal as well. Her right hand climbed up Sorawo’s side, lamenting the presence of the sturdy leather she wore but appreciating how form-fitting it was. As she crept higher, Sorawo squirmed a little, but didn’t break away. Stopping with her fingertips sitting just at the base of Sorawo’s chest, she wondered — should she?
She wanted to, but she was already pushing her luck.
Instead, she traced her hand back down Sorawo’s front, earning a muffled mmph as she approached her lower abdomen. She stopped again, drumming her fingers against Sorawo as she leaned into the kiss one last time before coming up for air. She had a feeling Sorawo might just pass out if she didn’t.
Indeed, the first thing Sorawo did was gasp for air, a trail of saliva running from the corner of her mouth as she panted. She looked positively dishevelled, and Toriko wanted little more than to throw herself right back onto her. Instead, she looked her in the eyes and grinned.
“So,” she said, “how was that?”
For a second it seemed like Sorawo was thinking of a serious response, before she realized Toriko was teasing her. “S-Shut up,” she said flatly, her hands balling into fists as she looked away. Toriko reached out for one of her hands, trying not to laugh too hard.
“Hey, come on, everybody’s got to start somewhere, right?”
“I do not have to start anywhere, thank you very much. You’re the one who wants this to be a thing we do.”
Toriko tugged on her hand, which she had wrapped around Toriko’s even as she snapped at her. “And do you want it to not be?”
“That’s— I didn’t…” Sorawo started and stopped a reply a couple times before she huffed, staring at the ground. “Agh, whatever, just let me think about it.”
Personally, Toriko felt like Sorawo had gotten plenty of time to ‘think about it’ already, but she was getting used to waiting at this point. Just hearing that directly was progress. She wasn’t going to stop wanting to move things along, but as long as she didn’t need to beat Sorawo in a fight every time she wanted her to make a move, she supposed she could live with that.
She nodded. “Yeah, I know. That’s fine. Anyway, do you want to head back? I’m getting pretty hungry, and Kozakura’s probably wondered why we got quiet all of a sudden.”
Sorawo looked up at the nearby manor. “She probably just assumes we both tripped and broke our necks or something.”
“That’s not very nice, you know. She’d definitely come check on us if she was worried.”
“Who said she was worried?”
Toriko rolled her eyes. Sorawo would probably be snappy like this for a little while, the sore loser. She started the walk back to the manor, slowing to a halt when she noticed Sorawo trailing behind her. Turning to look at her, she just barely heard her speak.
“Toriko…” she murmured. “Yo… …in…”
Her voice had dropped so low that Toriko couldn’t make out her words. “Pardon?”
“You win!” she practically shouted, glaring at her. “Yours was better! It was… fine!”
Toriko was momentarily stunned by her intensity, before the meaning of what Sorawo said filtered through to her. She snorted, doubling over with laughter. “Fine, huh?” she said. “Maybe I could use some more practice too. How about it?”
Sorawo muttered something that Toriko was pretty sure was quite rude, pushing past her towards the manor.
“Hey, come on,” she said, following after her. “I’m just kidding!”
She would probably be more convincing without the obvious delight ringing in her voice. Nonetheless, Sorawo’s posture seemed to relax a little, though she did not slow down. Toriko let her have some space, following at a distance. She grinned wickedly to herself as Sorawo reached the rear entrance of the manor and let herself inside.
Was she being too cruel, she wondered, by not reminding Sorawo to wipe the spit off her face before someone saw?