Archive of Our Own

The Penacony mission had been well done, and there was another planet on the list to hit. Though... there was some time to kill before that Script was due to pass. Kafka flipped through a few brochures for nearby attractions, mulling over her options. Usually she wouldn't bother with local attractions, but perhaps if she lingered, she'd catch a glimpse of Stelle or Caelus running around.

A large, multicolored eye met hers, and a dialtone rang before it blinked and a tinny voice resounded. "Dr Edward's chatbot and remote service! How can I help you?"

Well. That was certainly one way to advertise. Kafka smiled slightly, considering the eye for a brief moment before she spoke. "Can you provide a Dream Bubble to make me feel 'fear'?"

"Of course! We have drowning, abandonment, spiders, YOU name it! Which would you like?"

"All of them."

The brochure eye blinked in surprise, glowed briefly, then replied. "Of course, valued customer! Please make an appointment to visit our physical store in Oti Mall. This Dream Bubble is too potent for remote transaction."

Of course it would be. Oh well, Oti Mall was quite conveniently placed for a run-in with the gray haired twins. Kafka sighed and booked an appointment in an hour, shuffling the remaining brochures off the desk into a bin. Elio hadn't mentioned Penacony as a place of interest for her, so she doubted it would be here she learnt how fear tasted, but she may as well try her luck. Perhaps she could bring Bladie along, it could be a good distraction from his visions of Dan Feng. After the Luofu where Dan Heng looked more like his past self, the Mara had been hitting more frequently, fiercer, and her Spirit Whisper barely managed to subdue him. Resorting to more physical methods had proven effective, and while she didn't mind the extra action, it would be quite the chore to handle if it struck again during the next mission.

She showed up at Oti Mall a few minutes before the scheduled time, Blade in tow. A brief scan revealed that the twins weren't around, which was a pity, but not one to lose time on. Kafka easily found the giant eye, which brightened upon seeing her.

"Welcome to Dreamscape Sales Store! Please enter the leftmost door. Your custom Dream Bubble awaits!"

His booming voice was completely unlike the little one she'd spoken to earlier. The indicated door swung open soundlessly, and she stepped in without hesitation. The steps behind her told her that Blade was still following, despite being unconvinced at first. The room was plain, the Dream Bubble floating in the center and a piece of paper on the floor beside it.

' This Bubble contains a variety of experiences with the attached emotion `Fear`. To move from one experience to the next, tap your wrist twice. If there are multiple participants, both must tap their own wrists for the scene to proceed. Any experience that ends in `Death` will automatically move on to the next. To end the experience, both parties must tap each other's wrists. '

Seems simple enough. Kafka gestured for Blade to put his hands up to the Dream Bubble, and they entered it together.

Kafka opened her eyes to find herself at the top of a skyscraper, too high to see the ground. Heights then, a fairly common phobia. Blade stood beside her silently, eyes scanning the surrounding. She was about to tap her wrist twice to move on before an invisible force pushed her off the edge, her body instantly tensing before relaxing in the free fall. A few minutes passed before she concluded there would be no floor to hit, and tapped her wrist twice. Blade must have been ready to move on, since the scene changed instantly.

She was underwater. Kafka swam in the direction of what seemed to be up, only to be met with a solid wall. Drowning, then. Her heartrate was strangely regular for having one breath of air. Her oxygen ran out, and the scene changed.

This time, she woke up trapped in her own body, unable to move. She was helpless to do anything but watch, as SAM, Silver Wolf and Elio said their goodbyes and she was lowered into the ground and dirt covered her body. Once she was sealed in, she could move again, and tried digging up against the dirt above her to no avail. Perhaps this would be more effective if she weren't aware of it being a Dream Bubble. Most people's survival instinct would likely have kicked in to make them forget it, but she simply couldn't feel anything but bored.

The process repeated with various common fears before it seemed to get more specific, diving into their memories for fuel.

She experienced Blade stabbing her, eyes red with Mara, the red fading and his eyes widening with horror as he saw it was Kafka he had killed, not Dan Feng or other ghosts in his past. He dropped to the floor, cradling her bleeding body. Well, at least the Dream Bubble seemed effective for him. Then again, he had experienced fear before so perhaps the emotion came easier to those familiar. Blood choked her, and her vision went black.

She detachedly watched the missions she had coming up fail miserably, watched as Elio abandoned her, saying she had lost her usefulness in the Script. None of it had her feel fear, not in the way she had heard it described — a gripping, all-consuming sensation that made one go blind to everything and everyone else. Annoyance, then a relative listlessness as she returned to wandering the cosmos alone. Perhaps she could pay an old paramour a visit, stay on the train awhile to keep an eye on the twins.

She entertained the fantasy for a while, allowing herself to indulge in a quieter life as one of the Astral Express, reformed as Sunday had been. Himeko still didn't quite trust her enough to let her back into her bed, but allowed Kafka relative freedom to supervise the twins and their partners. Frustrating, but she would fold eventually. The fantasy followed the Express through various planets, many of which she had already been to, the memoria using her memories to create a more lifelike experience. From one jungle planet, a plea for help to handle a killer arose, said to be more beast than man in his ferocity. Long, dark haired male with pale skin, the letter described, with lifeless eyes the color of blood. His sword long and covered in golden cracks. They had succeeded in killing him once before, but he came back fiercer. So this must be where Blade ended up in this simulation, the fear he was put through the ending he was bound for regardless, trapped by his Mara. She sighed and tapped her wrist twice. Much as she enjoyed this time, it wasn't fair to make Blade suffer that fate. Surprisingly, the scene didn't change, and she was still in the Express car. Blade must have forgotten the way out through the Mara then, he couldn't possibly want to stay so long in that state. She would have to go pull him out of it before they could leave.

The Express Crew didn't want to let her go to him alone, but she had shown them her control over him on the Xianzhou, and so they reluctantly agreed, with the threat that if she didn't return within one system day they would come after her. So overprotective, her little death stars. She set off into the trees, passing a few areas where Blade had fought various bounty hunters, if the dried blood staining the ground was anything to go by. She had spent nearly a year with the Express now, so if Elio had lost control over Blade soon after then he must have been stuck in this state for a long time. Poor Bladie. Finding a cave where some tattered bits of cloth lay, she wove her lightning threads across the entrance and settled down to wait for her prey. Immortal or not, Blade was not immune to the forces of nature, and whatever animalistic instincts he was running off now would still drive him to seek shelter soon enough. She could only hope it was before the twins arrived, bats swinging.

It was late when the sound of leaves rustling caught her attention, and she walked towards the entrance silently. Upon seeing her in the cave, Blade launched himself at her, only to be pitifully caught up in her web trap in the entrance. He thrashed wildly, trying to use his sword to cut through them and failing. He really must be quite far gone, usually he retained enough memory to know that wouldn't work. Not wasting any time, she held his chin firmly, forcing his crazed eyes to meet her calm gaze.

"Listen to me."

His body went still and his eyes glazed over, staring blankly at her, nothing more than a puppet.

"Come back to me Blade. Yingxing is not you, your ghosts are not here. You will wake up as Blade, my obedient Bladie." His fingers twitched at each call of his name, the only sign of his processing it. He blinked, and the glossy look in his eyes faded.

"Kaf- ka." Blade's voice was rough, unused to speaking for some time now. But his eyes were still red, despite the Spirit Whisper doing enough work to pull him back to her. "Welcome back, Bladie. Looks like we'll need a little more work to get you back to normal this time." She released him from the web, allowing him to tap his wrist twice.

As he tapped, she remembered the note at the start. Right. They had to tap each others' wrists.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself with Blade in was in a red-lit room, body scantily clad in a black leather and lingerie. Blade was worse off, decorated in a black rope harness and spared the privacy of boxers. Not that she minded the view. His eyes were still red, and she could feel him watching her as she made her way to the bed.

Fascinatingly, this room lacked a door, only having a bed and cabinet to decorate it. A piece of paper lay on the cabinet, reading —
` You have 24 hours to escape this room. The only way to get out of this room is to have penetrative sex. Materials can be found in this cabinet. Have fun~ `

This was not something she had been expecting in a collection of fear-inducing experiences, but if it hadn't been Blade she was stuck with, perhaps it would have been more of a concern. Kafka beckoned him over, and he silently walked over to her. Considering the suitable setting, she may as well make use of it to clear up his Mara, make sure he didn't kill anyone on the way back to the starship. She pulled him forward by the harness the last few steps, pulling him into a bruising kiss. Blade could easily break through the rope, his arms flexing where they were restrained. Yet, it stayed on, a show of his obedience.

She flipped their positions with practiced ease, her legs now straddling his bare thighs. Blade was clearly interested, the lack of underwear making it obvious. He set upon her neck like a man starved, sucking and biting at her skin like she was the first meal he'd had in ages. Considering the time he spent Mara-Struck in the jungle, she probably was. She ignored the errant thought, focusing on the sensation of his skin under her trailing fingers, skipping over the rougher texture of the ropes, tracing his scars. Her hands reached his bound ones, their fingers intertwining as his mouth worked at her collarbones, gradually moving lower. A loud moan left her lips as Blade suckled at her breast, giving the puffy nipple a kiss before shifting his attention to her other side.

Kafka shifted her hips towards him, clothed crotch grinding down on his erection. His hips jerked up to meet hers, a choked gasp when the head of his cock caught on her entrance through the quickly soaking lingerie. "Please Kafka-" She pushed him back against the bed and found the lube in the cabinet beside them before returning to him, squirting a generous amount into her hand and stroking him a few times. Settling her weight down onto him, she canted her hips back and forth a few times, his cock sliding between her labia tantalizingly. Blade whined, hips jerking upward in protest. Taking mercy on him, she pushed her panties to the side and lined him up, sinking down easily. Mmmh... it had been much too long since she had allowed herself the company of another, the stretch almost painful. She braced her forearms against Blade's chest, rolling her hips forward and punching a gasp out of him. He was always extra sensitive like this, eyes fixated on her as his arms strained in the harness. The Mara wanted him to take control, destroy her, but for them to purge it he had to let her take her fill, make him nothing but a toy for her pleasure.

She kept up a constant rhythm, riding him even as her thighs burned from the effort. It really had been too long, because Blade's breath quickly came in gasps, head falling back as warmth filled her. "So easy for me Bladie, such a good boy~" She crooned at him, caressing his face, unrelenting in her movements even as he whined from overstimulation. Her own orgasm followed soon after, hips stuttering to a stop as she rode out her own high. Blade's eyes were teary from the overstimulation, but had regained their usual sunset hue.

She lifted herself off him slowly, drawing out another whine from the man beneath her. "We need to get back to the ship Bladie, we've had our fun with this thing." Kafka tapped his wrist twice, then placed her own next to his somehow still bound hands. He grunted agreement, stretching out his fingers and returning the gesture.

In a blink, they were back in the room, their modesty restored to what they had worn before entering the Dream Bubble and Dr Edward's voice echoing through the door. Entertaining as that had been, none of it felt the way fear was supposed to, but she hadn't had particularly high hopes going into it anyway. A quick check on Blade showed he was back to normal, the looming Mara episode striking and having been dealt with in the dream. Time to move on to the next mission then.