Tensei Skill Shop Chapter 24

Tensei Skill Shop

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 24:

“Is someone there?” 

I froze, carefully turning my head to look over at the right. 

There was a bald man in priest robes standing in the doorway, looking around the large atrium we were in. His eyes passed over my location without pausing, several times over, before he finally turned away.

“Must have been my imagination…” His muttering was audible in the silence of the place.

I carefully let out my breath. Invisibility and muffling are still working… Must have been some keen senses to pick up on my presence. 

When the priest finally left, I continued onwards, ascending the steps and passing into the corridor beyond. It was impressive to see the glowing glyphs on the stone walls, even with no apparent tech responsible for them, but I didn’t come here for archaeological purposes. My destination lay beyond the elevator that took me further down underground.

My skill detected no one else ahead, even though the place was still illuminated by burning torches, so I released the spells keeping me concealed.

<Rick-tan, how is it?> Matsu asked me through the mental link.

<I’m nearly at the spot. Hold on a bit.>

Finally, I entered the last chamber. Round in shape, the only source of light came from a glowing ring set in the floor. Within the ring was my objective; a petrified relief of the back of a winged person, visible through the transparent glass protecting it.

I knelt down on the glass and placed my palm on it. <Alright, I’m about to start.>

<Ready when you are!>

Activating my skill, I began drawing on the remnants of the information within the stone relief, transferring it into the large crystal in my other hand. Meanwhile, Matsu was helping me maintain the channeling, ensuring that it wasn’t overwhelming me.

In FFX, Yuna played the role of a summoner, being the only one in the party who could summon aeons to fight in the battles. For her to gain an aeon, she had to go on a pilgrimage, visiting the various temples across Spira and communing with the respective fayths in each one. However, the end of that story saw all aeons pass on to the Farplane, leaving only the petrified remains where the fayth used to be. Summoning was no longer available to Spira.

Except it didn’t exactly apply to me. Those petrified remains had their own memories and records, if one had the appropriate skill to access them.

My current location was in one of those Chambers of Fayth. The Besaid one, to be exact. 

<Eighty percent… ninety… and done!> Matsu reported with a satisfied hum. <It’ll take some tweaking, but a Valefor summon should now be available.>

I hissed, feeling the pounding in my head. <Good.>

<Are you okay?>

<Just a little headache,> I assured her, <I’m coming back now.>

<Alright, we’re waiting for you.>

Storing the glowing crystal away in my inventory, I left the chamber to make my way back aboveground.

<Honestly, even though we’ve done this a few times already, I still can’t believe it works,> I confessed, <I’m glad you thought of it.>

<No, no, it’s Rick-tan who chose to believe in my suggestion.>

Summons weren’t exactly a popular skill to sell customers on, given how iffy they were to adapt to a world’s system. It’s more than just calling out Being A, because of all the mechanics and conditions involved.

To begin with, what exactly was Being A supposed to do? If it was just to unleash a special attack, then that was the easiest to accomplish, since that was the equivalent of having a program executing a script when run on the operating system. However, if the intention was for Being A to do battle on the summoner’s behalf, then things became much more complicated.

What sort of combat behavior should it have then? A puppet acting on the will of the summoner? A manifested automaton that will undertake certain preprogrammed actions? An incarnation of a spirit that will grow and learn alongside the summoner? 

Even the racial summons of Ivalice which I managed to obtain alongside Marche and Clan Nutsy weren’t exactly useful to me or Sano. I had Matsu look over Sano’s records of them, and summarize it for me.

By breaking the crystals holding them, those summons became linked to that world’s system, where anyone who met the required conditions could draw on their power. Considering that each summon required ten Judge Points, it was a costly price to pay for an instance of great power… especially when it only worked within that world’s system.

The same worked for Conjuration in Skyrim. The mage casting the spell was pulling a native of Oblivion into the real world, and it would act on its natural behavior, even if restrained by the conditions imposed by its summoning. 

Both examples involved extraplanar spirits that were a part of their respective world’s system, which made it difficult for a world without such a setting to utilize those skills. Simply put, there wasn’t really a general option that would fit every situation.

The fayth summoning in Spira was largely similar, though with a few minor differences that made it possible to adapt. In this case, the spirit stayed in its container, the fayth, but it generated a form that the summoner could call upon and direct. Sure, there were some Farplane shenanigans involved with the whole pyreflies coalescing into a physical form here, but it represented a workable component that could bridge the gap to make summoning skills viable.

Matsu first brought up the idea of trying to get the summoning system, and even though I knew it was no longer working by the time FFX-2’s story started, I heard her out and let her convince me to give it a try. 

It took more than half of my considerable LP stock to [Create] and [Edit] the skills required for it though, but it was paying off for sure. We already visited a few other temples before Besaid, and gained access to the Aeons from those fayths.

The reason why I had to use a soul gem as storage instead of the usual glowing boxes that I handled skills as, was because the extracted data wasn’t able to compile into that form, forcing me to utilize a physical storage medium for each fayth. Turning them into actual skills required us to return back to the shop and its divine technology.

<Don’t put yourself down,> I told my Sekirei, <It’s your wisdom that let you come up with it. I wouldn’t have thought of it myself.>

<Whatever you say, Rick-tan! Can I expect a reward from you later then?>

Ever the dirty-minded Sekirei… <Alright. You’ll get one later.>

<Yay!>

<But right now, we’re on a time limit.> I slipped out the door of the temple, and broke into a run. <I’ll see you back at the airship.>

In the story of FFX-2, the Big Bad’s grudge was so strong, it eventually corrupted the spirits of the former fayth, resulting in the formation of Dark Aeons. It also resulted in holes opening up in the former Chambers of Fayth all over Spira, from which stampedes of fiends came pouring out from the Farplane.

So if I wanted to grab the data for each Aeon, I had to act quickly before the petrified fayths were destroyed. There were only two more left.

But first… 

I peeked around the corner, spotting the black haired woman chatting with several other villagers in the main square, which confirmed that she was where my locating skill placed her. Her redhead husband was marked as down at the beach, quite a distance from my current spot. That meant that their tent was currently empty.

Sneaking into the tent, I quickly located the items I was here for, and found them in a small box containing several other items of a personal nature. I moved the white top, yellow belt, and blue skirt out of the way, before replacing them after grabbing the two glowing spheres.

One of them was the Summoner’s Soul, which converted items into learnable abilities for Aeons, while the Aeon’s Soul could convert spheres into stat growth. Both were useless since summoners and fayth were no longer around, but not to me.

Stashing them away into my inventory, I quickly retreated from the tent.

Back on the Celsius, I found Matsu and Uzume waiting for me in the dimensional pocket we used to stay hidden. It was small, but comfortably furnished thanks to the convenience of an Inventory skill. There was even an auto-recall function to teleport us back there no matter where we were in Spira.

“Welcome back,” Uzume greeted me in the outfit of a Gun Mage, twirling her magic gun flamboyantly.

“Were you grinding skills?” I asked her, handing off the crystal to Matsu.

“Yup! I’m nearly done with it, thanks to your [Triple AP] skill.”

The Gun Mage was the FFX-2’s version of the Blue Mage that used monster skills after learning them, but it also came with the Fiend Hunter skillset, which dealt greatly enhanced damage to certain types of enemies at low cost. Since that wasn’t something that existed in the Ivalice skills, we agreed it was worth going to the effort to obtain.

“What about you, Matsu?”

“I’ve been working on the special dressphere that Yuna found recently. It’s very interesting with so many cool functions!”

“Isn’t it unique to her?”

The redhead nodded, her expression giving away her excitement. “There’s that too, but even if we can’t make use of it now, I’m learning a lot from how it works.”

Special dresspheres were like an ultimate form, with one for each of the three player characters. When activated for that character, she would serve as the main controller, with two subunits supporting her with their individual abilities. 

Actually, I could see some similarity between that and the use of summons. There was no reason why the summon had to be purely one type, right?

The sound of a bell interrupted us, and we looked at the computer terminal it came from. 

“Looks like they’ve decided on their next destination.” Matsu peered at the screen. “And it’s not Guadosalam. They’re following the advice in your notes.”

“Nice. Where are they going?”

“Macalania, it seems.” She flashed me a smirk. “Better dress warmly.”

We both knew that I had [Cold Resistance], so it was obviously meant to be a joke.

Unfortunately, out of the various Aeons available in the original FFX, Shiva was not one of those we could obtain. The reason for that was that the fayth in the temple was responsible for maintaining the ice on which the temple was built. Without it, the ice melted, and the temple itself sank to the bottom of Lake Macalania.

I could probably [Create] a water breathing skill, but Matsu and Uzume stopped me. For one, it cost more than I currently had after creating the Aeon extraction skills, and two, there were too many fiends in the water to risk combat when I wasn’t used to fighting in that environment.

“Alright, then I’ll head straight for Bevelle from there,” I decided.

Then I looked up and realized that the two girls were stripping naked.

“Umm…”

“You spent quite a lot of LP, didn’t you? Why don’t you lie back and let us help you replenish some?”

I saw no point in refusing, and let them push me down onto the bed. We might be working hard to obtain more skills, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t find the time for some leisurely play.

…

“Is it me, or does it feel like there’s someone’s been here already?” Rikku wondered as they walked through the hidden tunnels underneath Bevelle.

Paine crossed her arms. “It’s not just you.”

Yuna stopped and turned to look at her friends. “I think so too.”

One of the notes they found in the Celsius guided them to a chest containing a new dressphere, but it looked like the chest it was in had been opened and closed, without the contents being touched. They weren’t going to use it right away given that it lacked the skill development of their other dresspheres, but when Paine suggested having Shinra inspect it first, the other two girls agreed.

“But it’s strange… we had to activate a lot of systems in order to make our way down here, so there shouldn’t have been any way for them to get ahead of us.”

“Unless… they can fly?”

“I don’t think there’s a machina small enough for that yet. Even the best hovering machina needs to be pretty big to lift a person, and I don’t think it would fit in here without someone noticing.”

“Another mystery for the Gullwings!”

Paine tensed. “Quiet.”

They soon realized what the grey-haired girl had noticed; footsteps coming from around the corner up ahead. The identity of the person was soon revealed to be a young man in green Yevonite clothes, with his white hair held back by a blue headband.

“Baralai? What are you doing down here?” 

“The Gullwings? I was wondering who was there.” The praetor of New Yevon greeted them, albeit a bit coldly.

Yuna didn’t expect anything different; after she had turned the Awesome Sphere over to the Youth League, the members of New Yevon saw the Gullwings as their enemy, and treated her with hostility whenever she saw them.

He guessed that they had come down to the depths of Bevelle to destroy Vegnagun, the ancient machina weapon that threatened all of Spira. While they didn’t respond, he continued on, explaining how people had tried to do so in the past, only to end in futility. Despite that, Baralai tried to persuade them politely to give up their quest, having appointed himself as a guardian to keep people away from Vegnagun.

Not that it deterred the Gullwings, who after a rather tough fight managed to subdue the man and make their way past him. 

A short while later, a different trio passed by him as well, a blonde woman followed by a pair of men, one thin and lanky, the other wide and heavyset. Leblanc and her goons ignored the unconscious man, intent on following in the Gullwings’ wake to find Vegnagun.

Several more minutes passed. Then there was a soft whirring sound, before a pair of wheel-mounting feet stopped near the man.

“[Appraisal]. Hmm… Oh, two good skills to grab. Nice to round off the success I had.”

YOINK. YOINK.

“[Blue Bullet: Drill Shot], for seventy-five percent damage to enemy’s max HP, and [Looming Glacier]... inflicts Stop status and zeroes out MP. Damn, that’s broken.”

“Uhh…” Baralai groaned, his bleary eyes catching sight of the strange footwear near his face.

“Tough guy. Here, have a quick heal from me as thanks. [Cura].”

Green sparkles surrounded his body, alleviating the aches and pain, though it didn’t do anything for the concussion he had.

“Gotta go now!” Those words were followed by a whirring sound that rapidly faded in the distance.

When the New Yevonite finally recovered enough to get up, there was no one around to be seen, with only his healed condition as an indication that someone else had been present.

As for the Gullwings, their quest came to a halt when they found a huge hole where Vegnagun was supposed to be. Going deeper after it would be a very dangerous task, but before they could decide, an emergency called for their urgent return to the airship.

The emergency was a stampede of fiends pouring out from every Yevon temple, compounded with the disappearance of the leaders of the three factions of New Yevon, the Youth League, and the Machine Faction. So for the time being, the Gullwings suspended their sphere hunting activities to assist the people of Spira.

And yet, the mysterious notes continued to appear on the Celsius.

“We found another one,” The Al Bhed pilot informed the trio when they returned to the airship after dealing with one of the hotspots, “Take a look.”

“Let’s see… ‘For a lucky break, check out the tour of Luca’s sphere’...” Yuna looked at her friends, “What do you think this means?”

“Do you think they’re referring to the blitzball stadium? That’s the only sphere there that I can think of.”

“I doubt it,” Paine said, “These notes usually aren’t that direct.”

“Well, the only way to find out for sure is to visit Luca.”

“By the way,” Shinra interrupted, making them look at the young boy, “I’m done checking out the dressphere you found.”

“Was there anything off about it?”

“...” He didn’t reply right away. “It checks out as normal.”

“Great!” Rikku skipped over. “Then we can go ahead and try it out next time!”

“Alright!” Yuna turned to look out the window. “Set course for Luca!”

Contrary to their expectations, there wasn’t any trouble to be found at that place. Instead, the only source of high tension turned out to be a game tournament. It was for a newly created game called Sphere Break.

“You should enter. The grand prize is a dressphere,” Shinra told them.

Yuna looked at her friends. “Let’s go take a look.”

The Gullwings joined the crowd gathering in the city square, where they witnessed the Al Bhed tournament sponsor announce the opening, wishing good luck to all the participants. Encouraged by her friends, Yuna decided to join for a try at the prize.

As she wandered around the city looking for people to challenge, she encountered a familiar face.

“Hello again, Lady Yuna.” The man sitting on a bench greeted her when she drew close.

“You’re… Rick, aren’t you?”

“Glad you remember me. Oh,” He indicated to the redheaded woman next to him, whom Yuna had seen with him before, “This is my companion, Matsu.”

“Hello! Fancy a game of Sphere Break?” The bespectacled woman asked.

Yuna didn’t hesitate to nod. “Sure, I’m in.”

Unfortunately, she ended up narrowly losing. Unexpectedly, the winner was the woman Matsu, who managed to achieve a perfect win record. At the award ceremony, the Gullwings watched as the redhead lifted the glowing sphere up in the air for the cheering audience to witness, including the young Shinra who suffered a loss to her.

“Aw, don’t feel down!” Rikku said to him consolingly.

“My goggles fogged up,” He gave as an excuse.

“Maybe if we ask them for it, they might share it with us,” Yuna said hopefully.

Paine had a thoughtful look. “Worth a try.”

The trio approached the woman as she was talking to Rick, and made their request.

“Actually,” Matsu responded pleasantly, “I have a proposal I think you might be interested in.”

Yuna blinked. It wasn’t a rejection.

“I’m listening.” 

Matsu was aware that the Gullwings were making good use of dresspheres, and how one could unlock skills as they gained experience with them. If they accepted her offer, she would give them the dressphere she just won.

Her proposal was as such: she would help them increase their mastery of a selected dressphere’s skills in exchange for leaving that dressphere with her. However, it wasn’t a service paid for with Gil. She was more interested in accessories instead. The more valuable the accessory, the further the skill mastery would progress.

Yuna recalled the special bowl they found that allowed the enhancement of accessories, and it didn’t cost that much to buy an accessory to upgrade it. Truly a convenient piece of treasure.

“Believe me,” Rick added, “When she said that she could do it, she really can.”

“I believe you.” Yuna exchanged glances with her friends. “Alright. I accept your offer.”

Matsu grinned. “Great! So which dressphere would you like to leave with us first?”

“It might not be wise to try a new dressphere against the fiends we’ll be facing in the temples,” Paine cautioned.

“We’ll leave this sphere with you first then.”

“Alright! Since this is your first one, it’ll be a free service!” 

“That’s nice of you!”

Matsu grinned at her. “Come see us when you feel like exchanging it for a different one! But you’ll need to bring an accessory when you do!”

“It was nice seeing you again, Lady Yuna,” Rick added. “All the best with your sphere hunting.”

“Oh, we aren’t doing that right now,” Rikku replied, bouncing on her feet, “We’re going around dealing with the fiends!”

“Is that so? Well, good luck with that then.”

As they left to return to the Celsius, Yuna decided that even if she didn’t win the dressphere directly, visiting Luca truly turned out to be a lucky break.

…

“You know, this makes me wonder if we’ve been turned into a sidequest mechanic for them,” I remarked.

“That’s… actually quite a strong possibility,” Matsu said, with some uncertainty.

“I mean, we do know that some worlds have directed plot mechanics, like Skyrim…”

“...”

“...” The thought that a world can just fold us outsiders into the storyline…

“Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay?”

“Agreed.”

“What are you two talking about now?” Uzume asked as she strolled up, enjoying a snack bought from a street stand, with Leafeon tagging along next to her.

“Nothing,” We chorused.

“Ooookay,” She eyed us with some nervousness, “If you two agree like that, it’s definitely something I don’t want to know.”

Changing the subject, Uzume congratulated Matsu on her win, and inquired about what the dressphere offered.

It was the Lady Luck dressphere, a class that relied on chance to direct its abilities, with high Luck granting more chances of critical hits. Similarly, the Reels abilities could generate all sorts of effects if lucky, but with the risk of severe self-damage if a dud was hit. 

Matsu handed the sphere to me and watched as I sat there with it cupped in my hands.

Four different types of Reels, Attack, Magic, Item and Random, each offering multiple skill options depending on the icons lined up. Most of them were already available on other dresspheres, or offered as part of a particular Garment Grid’s benefit, but others were only unique to that Reels result.

[CONGRATS!], [Mighty Guard+], [Megalixir+]... 

Skills akin to pressing an ‘I win’ button if they could be activated at will.

But extracting those skills weren’t what I was after at this point of time.

[2000 LP], [7000 LP], [25000 LP], [36000 LP], [44000 LP]...

The numbers kept popping up in my mind as I consulted my skills on the costs involved.

“How is it?”

I opened my eyes. “Yeah, [Editing] can work on these.”

Adjusting the speed of the reels, modifying the symbols to increase the chances of a desired outcome, altering the results of a positive or negative roll result… the dressphere’s ability might be dependent on luck, but I could skew that towards the beneficial, and that had a lot of potential. 

Not that I was going to do any [Editing] for the time being, since it wouldn’t be a good use of LP. While making it easier to land a sequence wasn’t that expensive, directly reducing the randomness of a Reel cost significantly more.

“You think the shop’s customers might be interested in such an unreliable skill?”

“Given how some of them want more chaos in their life, I’d say that’s a high possibility.”

“You sound very sure,” Uzume observed.

“Remind me to explain to you about the dangers of gacha in the future.”

“Oh.” 

Matsu’s face told me that she knew just what I was referring to.

I didn’t trust myself to not get engrossed in such things, which was why I firmly decided never to even attempt trying those out, lest I end up sinking too much of my time and money into it. 

Though if they get into it… I don’t know what I would do.

After letting Leafeon take a few curious sniffs on the dressphere, I passed it back to Matsu, who placed it in her pocket. 

There were also the loot-boosting skills, like [Gillionaire], [Double EXP], and [Double Items]. Passives that worked conditionally on winning in battle, interacting with the world’s system to generate more rewards. Sano had his own versions, though I didn’t know how they worked in worlds that leaned towards more realistic mechanics. More stuff to explore for later, I guess.

“Alright, so now we should try to unlock some of those skills so YRP can use them when they come back for it,” I said, referring to the player characters by their acronym. “Or so I’d say, but it honestly won’t take that long. We can deal with it as we’re relaxing.”

“I agree. You two have been working too much trying to follow the script and getting skills,” Uzume sat down on my other side, “At least try taking it easy once in a while.”

“Leaf!” Leafeon echoed as though in agreement, hopping up on her lap.

The brunette distributed the snacks to the rest of us, and we just sat there enjoying the fried food in the cool breeze.

“I’m still stunned that you managed to find Ve- the last boss still there,” Matsu said, without turning her head to look at me.

“I’m just as surprised as you are. Didn’t think I would be that early.”

“It’s supposed to detect if someone is approaching it with the intent to harm, right?” Uzume asked.

“Yeah. I suppose I wouldn’t qualify, since I was more interested in its functions. The ancient people sure built stuff differently.”

“Can’t say the same for their design sense though,” Matsu joked. “A giant bug? Seriously?”

“Oh, and what about the musical keys control panel?” Her fellow Sekirei added with a grin. “It’s like the person who made it wanted to be all dramatic about it.”

I reached out and laid a hand on Matsu’s one, making her glance at me out of the corner of her eye. “It’s not affecting you, is it? 

When I infiltrated Bevelle to get access to Bahamut’s fayth, I decided to investigate a bit deeper, and managed to enter the underground area where Vegnagun was. That place really reminded me of the whole Tropaion Tower in Air Gear, with how deep the place went with machinery all around. Though it did make getting around quite easy with the ATs I had, and the fiends didn’t even pose the slightest bit of obstruction.

Perhaps that was what allowed me to reach the gigantic chamber where Vegnagun was kept. Compared to the insectoid body I was familiar with, it was curled up in a compressed form resembling a cocoon, held in place over a deep hole by multiple metallic supports extending from the walls. There was a walkway that extended to just in front of its head, where the machina’s control systems were.

I didn’t pass up the opportunity to take a closer look, and it didn’t respond no matter how closely I approached, even when I was standing in the cockpit area. 

It was there that I realized two important things. One, I had no idea how to even work the controls. Two… Vegnagun was currently open to my meddling.

Obviously, the second one took precedence.

I wasn’t able to activate Matsu’s Norito, so she pushed her powers as much as she could in order to assist me with hacking into Vegnagun’s controls. On my end, I [Created] and [Bestowed] skills enabling interfacing and extraction of data, sidestepping the whole piano keys control system. However, I was still low on LP after all the fayth extractions, so I was forced to be economical about it.

We might laugh about the whole design issue, but when it comes to function, Vegnagun was terrifyingly effective as a weapon. Sensors meant to detect enemies who intended to harm it, self-defense features to counter their attacks, auto repair functions to handle whatever damage was incurred, and genocidal firepower to tie it all off.

The only lacking thing was its inability to separate friend from foe, but otherwise, it was the perfect weapons platform.

There was even a power conversion system that enabled it to draw on the energy of Spira’s Farplane for more powerful attacks, which explained its storage location. If it needed to charge up, it was better for it to be close to the biggest source of energy.

Kind of like using a Grass-type move in Grassy Terrain. The move will get powered up, I realized as I was carefully examining its systems.

Unfortunately, while it was in its compressed state, Vegnagun was still slightly active, and it detected an approaching enemy. The weapon activated itself and sought to flee, forcing me to evacuate quickly. After that, all I could do was watch as it tore a hole in the side of the chamber and tunnel away to safety towards the Farplane.

The connection skills were still loaded onto Vegnagun, so Matsu had a link to the weapon and was receiving signals from it.

She smiled at me. “I’m fine. I can block the connection. Its AI honestly isn’t that malicious or anything, but the amount of computing power can get a bit tough.”

“Do you need a Norito?”

“Hmm… the results of seeing how it responds to a Norito’s effect might be interesting to see… so yes.”

“Never change, Matsu,” I told her fondly. “I- oh!”

Leafeon had moved over from Uzume’s lap over to mine, nuzzling against my face in an obvious attempt at distraction. I gave in and began petting her, listening to my Pokemon let out a rumbling-like purr.

“The Norito can wait, I guess,” Matsu agreed.

Still, the link to Vegnagun gave us a better eye on the timer, so to speak. 

As for the rest of Spira, the Gullwings were handling the various issues that popped up. We still stepped in stealthily to handle the tiny things they missed, but for the most part, the three of us didn’t have much to do other than just enjoy things leisurely.

Although our method of doing so was…

“Now, don’t make any noise… you don’t want anyone to notice you, right?” I whispered into Uzume’s ear.

“Mmm… ah…” She moaned softly as I fondled her body from behind. “Meanie…”

The Sekirei gasped as my hand slipped beneath her dress, fingers gliding over her smooth skin until it reached the hardened nubs I was seeking. A teasing twirl around them, followed by a pinch-!

“Hnnnngh!” Uzume’s body shivered hard, her voice muffled by the hand she clapped over her mouth.

“You look so sexy in this… I just can’t keep my hands off you…” I confessed to her. “You don’t want me to stop, right?”

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye without saying anything, but still nodded. Her hips pressed back against mine, grinding her butt against my crotch in an unspoken invitation.

I obliged her, withdrawing one hand from beneath her top, and going down along her front, following the exposed strip of her navel. Uzume made a needy whine when it lingered over the womb, before veering off to the side. Her outfit had several cutout sections including the upper thighs, which allowed my hand easy access to the spot between her legs.

Said outfit came from the Lady Luck dressphere. It was fairly risque with lots of exposed skin, and body-hugging enough to emphasize my Sekireis’ buxom figures. 

In other words, too lewd to resist.

“Did you hear something?” Someone else asked from further down the corridor, speaking the Al Bhed language.

Uzume stiffened at the sound of that voice, then twitched harder when my fingers made contact with her covered pussy.

“I don’t hear anything.” A second voice answered. “You must be imagining it.”

I could feel the heat of her crotch, as well as the moistness soaking into her panties. Keeping with the teasing roleplay, I paused until I felt her start to relax… and then I struck. Licking that sensitive spot near her ear, groping one of her large breasts while digging two fingers into its nipple, and a stroking rub over her covered pussy.

“Mmmmm!” She let out a muffled squeal at the triple stimulation.

“There! Did you hear that?”

“What do you think it is?”

I held onto Uzume’s body to keep her on her feet, still constantly stimulating her sensitive spots. She turned her head towards me, opening her mouth and extending her tongue with a pleading look.

“Ah-mmph~” Her moan was cut off by my mouth covering hers, starting an intense bout of tongue-kissing.

Immersed in pleasure, neither of us cared when a pair of approaching footsteps came to where we were, opening the door to the room. By rights, they would have seen us… if not for the concealment spell currently hiding us. 

Not that either of us cared, being too immersed in making out.

“It came from over here… but there’s nothing.”

“You really think this ship is haunted?”

“It can’t be… Buddy and Brother have been using it for quite a while already-” The pair of Al Bheds began walking away, causing the door to slide shut.

“Pwaaah…” Uzume gasped as I ended the kiss. “Rick… I want… to taste you…”

That twinge I felt when I looked into her hungry brown eyes… was probably my self-control snapping.

We didn’t get to go all the way because of YRP’s return to the Celsius, but let’s just say Uzume got her wish, though with quite a bit of spillage.

…

“Any new notes?” Paine asked as she met up with Yuna after exploring the area she was in charge of.

“No, none.” Yuna shook her head. “Where’s Rikku?”

They found the blonde in one of the lesser-used rooms, peering around the place.

“What is it, Rikku?”

Rikku glanced at them when her name was called, then went back to searching.“Say, do you smell something?” She asked. “I think it’s something I’ve smelled before in Brother’s room.”

Yuna took a few sniffs. “Hmm, I’m not sure… Paine?”

The grey-haired Gullwing member had a light dusting of pink on her cheeks. “It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

“Paine? What is it? Paine!”

The last remnant of a scent, accidentally missed by a [Clean], faded away with the ventilation caused by the open door.

Afterword: My muse was stumbling slightly while writing the later part of this, but I think it managed to come out well. What do you guys think about the whole summoning skill thing? I feel like it’s got a lot of potential to explore, especially when combining it with other skills from other worlds. So many ideas, but so much difficulty putting them into words. 

Thanks a lot for the support!