Naruto x Sekirei - Part 14

Once Naruto and Miya had disappeared around a corner, Uzume turned to Xanna and spoke in a tone bursting with curiousity. "What are they going to talk about?"

"And are they going to talk, or talk?" Matsu added, her implications quite clear.

"Do not concern yourselves with it." Was Xanna's dismissive answer.

"I find it odd that you are not joining them." Kazehana noted.

"I will hear everything that is said. In the meanwhile, I intend to take a bath." She said and started moving towards the bathroom. Akitsu shook off her earlier drowsiness and went to join her.

"But Miya didn't say you could do that." Homura protested instinctively.

"Irrelevant, I will still do it." The horned woman said offhandedly and turned to look back at the group, seeing that with the exception of Takami and Minato, who were quietly conversing off to the side, the others had nothing to do. After a moment's consideration, she pointed at Musubi, Matsu, Kazehana, Karasuba, Uzume and Chiho. "You, you, you, you, you and you may join me if you wish to brush my tails."

Upon saying that, Xanna willed her clothing to vanish and continued on naked, her hips and tails swaying hipnotically.

Homura spluttered and stared in uncomprehending shock at how much arrogance had just been packed into a single statement. It simply did not compute that someone would appropriate Miya's bathroom without permission and then invite a bunch of her tenants to join as massage girls.

"Pass." Karasuba and Kazehana said in unison, with Karasuba again receiving considerable shock at the easygoing reply.

"Yay!" Musubi cheered at being allowed to pet the tails. She had pouted earlier over being denied the opportunity.

"Fuhuhuhuhu, this could be interesting." Matsu was also eager to go, though her interests were far less innocent.

Uzume hmphed at the near drooling look that her Ashikabi was giving the horned woman's retreating backside. Though Uzume had to admit that it was a magnificent backside.

The hmph attracted Chiho's attention, who turned a pleading expression to her Sekirei. "Can we go Uzume-chan? Pleeease?"

"First you get mad at me for suggesting an orgy and now you're willing to go after the first piece of tail that shows up." Uzume sulked with her arms crossed.

Chiho giggled at the pun, but subsided when she noticed that Uzume was not looking amused for a change. "I'm sorry for getting mad at you Uzume-chan, but you know how I feel about men. I will always be grateful for what Naruto-san has done for me, but I don't want to sleep with him."

Uzume wavered a bit at the apology and explanation. Yes, she had been aware that Chiho was simply unable to see any attraction in males, but she had thought that her Ashikabi might feel differently about Naruto. Apparently his hulking size and physique was a huge turn off for the petite girl, much more than Uzume had thought it would be.

Clearly, she had no problem being attracted to Xanna though.

"You're right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been so eager to go off with another woman." Chiho apologised again, this time in a guilty murmur, taking the extended silence as being a sign that Uzume was still upset. It wasn't like Uzume had done anything more than suggest an orgy and she knew that her Sekirei wouldn't cheat on her, while she had been just about to wander after the horned woman in a daze.

She should have known better, even if those unbearably sexy tails were attached to an already unbearably sexy woman.

"Well...if it's just brushing her tails, then I guess it's ok." Uzume finally muttered and took her Ashikabi's hand. Besides, she wanted to touch those tails too. "Come on, lets go."

Chiho's face instantly lit up and they hurried after the long since departed Xanna.

Takami and Minato had long since returned to their private conversation, while the remaining three Sekirei sat there and watched the two of them leave.

"I wonder why Homura wasn't invited." Kazehana mused.

"Oh that's easy." Karasuba said off handedly. "Naruto is a jealous bastard and would probably kill him if he touched his wife."

While Homura looked alarmed for a moment, Kazehana questioned her former teammate in a puzzled tone. "But he doesn't mind if women touch her?"

"Nope."

"And he doesn't think it's hypocritical of him to get upset over a man touching his wife when he sleeps around all the time?"

"He knows it's hypocritical, but he just doesn't care and neither does she."

"Huh...strange couple." Kazehana said musingly, trying to wrap her mind around how exactly that worked.

"I like it." Karasuba commented, moving away from the table and laying down on the floor with her eyes closed. "I get a good fight, followed by a good fuck, anytime I want and there's no drama to ruin it for me later."

"Well it certainly seems to have done you some good." The Wind Sekirei said, chuckling at how very relaxed Karasuba was being. Usually, the dinner would have gotten ruined within twenty minutes at the most because she would have provoked someone to a fight.

"Want a drink?" Kazehana offered, pulling a bottle of sake from...somewhere.

Karasuba gave the bottle a speculative look, having never really done any drinking before. "Sure, why not?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Miya and Naruto were now ensconced in one of the still empty rooms. Miya certainly had no intention of inviting this pervert into her bedroom.

There was no hint of the stilted air of forced politeness that had pervaded the entire dinner. Miya was now certain that both of the horned duo were much more powerful than her and she felt no need to pretend otherwise. She had felt the need during dinner, both due to the sudden hit to her pride from the revelation and because of the artificially imposed formality that a dinner implied.

With all of that out of the way, it was clear that she would need to play by their rules. She might be the Sekirei pillar, but as previously noted, power was power and they had more of it.

"Ever since you had begun collecting my feathers and removing their wings, I have wanted to know what your intentions were with them. Do you intend to use them as a tool of conquest like so many wish to do, or are your intentions truly as benign as you claim?" Miya began.

"Before we get to that, there are other things that I am interested in." Naruto diverted.

"Such as?" Miya asked curiosuly.

"You use some very flowery language to describe what is essentially a bond of emotional slavery that is imposed on the Sekirei when they 'gain' their wings." He commented idly.

"That is what is has always been called." Miya said cautiously, not very comfortable with the direction he was going in.

"Yes...Minaka has certainly perverted something that could have been beautiful." Naruto continued in the same idle tone.

Miya stayed silent for just a few moments too long and Naruto could easily smell the unease on her, as well as sense her deception.

"Oh..." He said in a tone of realisation and then continued in a menacing purr. "But that isn't right is it? Minaka only thought that he had changed the bonding and you allowed him to believe it, in truth it functions exactly as it was always meant to function."

Miya sighed at having that ugly secret revealed, a secret that she had thought she would take to the grave with her. "Not exactly. Originally, I was to be the one in control of the reaction. It was meant to be my choice who my feathers reacted to, to ensure that the proper Ashikabi were chosen instead of the random selection that has been the case. Minaka's meddling damaged my connection to my Jinki and took away that ability."

"I am assuming that you were to have control because of those Sekirei who were maddened with bloodlust?" Naruto guessed.

Miya gave a little chuckle. "I see you have investigated quite thoroughly Naruto-san. Yes, a method of control was required for those Sekirei. They would have been bound to a suitable Ashikabi with their own emotions and hopefully, would eventually have calmed down."

"They would't." He said dismissively. "Their power was feeding the parts of their brains that enhance agression. If their power hadn't been as restricted as it is, even more of them would have gone crazy."

"Yes," Miya agreed, not even surprised that he knew of the power restrictions that all Sekirei had. "but the Ashikabi of today are not what they were supposed to be. They are descendants of the handful of Sekirei who survived our arrival to this world a thousand years ago. The Ashikabi were meant to be altered humans who were capable of regulating the power of the Sekirei bound to them. Those that showed improvement would gradually have more power unlocked, while those that deteriorated would have it blocked completely in the hopes that they could be saved."

"Ashikabi such as Seo." Naruto stated with certainty.

"Such as Seo." Miya confirmed. "The other Ashikabi are only capable of unlocking a short term power boost for their Sekirei by way of a kiss, while he is capable of completely locking down a Sekirei's power. Takehito was the only one who had ever managed to unravel the secrets of the Jinki to the point where he was capable of transforming an ordinary human into a true Ashikabi and the only one whom I trusted enough to allow to do it. Seo volunteered to have the procedure done to him as a test, though he wasn't told what the final purpose was. As it was, the procedure wasn't completely successful, but it was impressive for a first try. "

"Is there some reason that you can't do this yourself? You are the one who is connected to the Jinki after all."

"A Pillar or Sekirei cannot affect the Jinki, this was done by design to prevent potential abuse. Ironically, it became our undoing as the scientists who were capable of doing this were aboard the other ships. Mine was the last ship to leave the homeworld and had only one hundred and eight Sekirei aboard, instead of the full thousand carried by the other ships, so it was deemed unneeded to have one aboard."

"And when the eight ships came to this world, you were intending to conquer the primitive humans of the time and restart your culture on a new world." He said with a smirk.

Miya froze in surprise and almost reached for a weapon on sheer instict, but seeing that Naruto didn't look hostile or even upset, she slowly let the tension dissipate. Finally, she sighed in defeat and asked. "I must ask how you managed to figure out that part of the plan?"

"Your ship was stocked full of weaponry and pretty much every Sekirei is a combatant, it's not like it was hard to guess. Even if the others were just embryos or fetuses, it would have been a trifle to conquer the Earth a thousand years ago with eight warriors as powerful as you, nevermind that you could accelerate their growth." Naruto said in amusement. "No doubt it was the cause of Minaka and Takami's reluctance to let you out of stasis when they found you."

"That was indeed the plan, but when I woke up as the sole remaining Pillar, in a world where humans had already created an abundance of nuclear weaponry that could render the planet uninhabitable in a chain reaction if even one was fired, I abandoned that idea." Miya confirmed, seeing no point in hiding it anymore. "With everything having gone awry and all hope of our culture being saved gone, I had resigned myself to waiting out my days on this world and allowing my feathers to live in the belief that the winging is something wonderful instead of a chain that was meant to control them."

"Ah, I see how it is now. The Ashikabi were meant to be jailors to keep watch on their charges, the Pillar a warden to keep watch over the Ashikabi and the Jinki as the means by which true Ashikabi could be created, as well as its lesser known function of activating the power of the next generation of Sekirei children. With the Pillar controlling who the Sekirei reacted to, they would never have even realised that they were being kept chained by their own emotions, all of it further covered up by sugarcoating the whole situation with fancy words like 'winging' and 'destined love'.

Sighing again, Miya spoke in a wooden tone that betrayed just how much she wished that it had all stayed buried. "You have discovered far more than I expected anyone to ever manage. Everyone else was too distracted by the idea of a hundred beautiful women on a desperate search for love to notice that they were warriors."

"I always was pretty good at prying apart secrets." Naruto grinned, paying her tone no mind. It didn't matter to him what their original intentions had been and the circumstances were just a curiosity. The only thing that mattered was the here and now. "The one thing that Xanna and I haven't managed to figure out is, why did you even need to leave your homeworld in the first place? Sending eight ships full of unborn children, with no faster than light capability and with the crew in stasis, to a new planet reeks of desperation."

"It seems desperate because it was, we had destroyed our planet and needed to flee."

"How did you manage to do that?" He asked, rather amused at the idea that a people would destroy the very world that they lived on.

"It is something of a long story." Miya evaded, clearly reluctant to speak of it.

"We've got plenty of time." Naruto said and looked at the landlady pointedly.

"I would rather not speak of it." She said outright, seeing that it was pointless trying to be subtle.

"Talk and I might be convinced to resurrect Takehito." He said flatly. He wanted to know damnit and he was not going to be stonewalled now.

Miya froze again and asked in a whisper that failed to hide the desperate hope behind it. "You can do that?"

"As opposed to your false claim on divinity, I can actually do nearly anything. I wouldn't be doing Takehito any favors by dragging his soul back to the world of the living, but I can do it."

"What do you mean, 'you wouldn't be doing him any favors'?" She asked worriedly.

"His life is was over already, even if it was cut short. People generally aren't supposed to come back, especially not after so long."

"But other than that, there would be no harm done?" Miya asked searchingly. "He could be brought back?"

Naruto had an amused look on his face at her hopeful expression. Considering her earlier dubiousness of Xanna's belief that all action was rooted in selfishness, she was being incredibly selfish at the moment. Not that it bothered him in particular, considering that he had done far worse than this in his effort to keep Xanna with him.

"There will be a price to pay for it, aside from just disclosing the reasons of your exodus from Kouten." He told her with a deliberately sinister grin.

"What price?" Miya wasked warily. She had expected that there would be and was willing to pay it, but caution was still warranted.

"It will be revealed to you when it is time to pay. Now, do we have a bargain?" The ominous tone and creepy reverb in the last word didn't make her feel any better about it, nor did the clawed hand that he had extended for her to shake. Considering his apperance and choice of words, you couldn't possibly make a more stereotypical 'deal with the Devil' situation if you tried.

Miya was well aware that if she took his hand now, he could demand practically anything of her later and rightfully claim that she had agreed to it. He didn't seem to have any intention of actually telling her what his price would be. Every piece of conventional wisdom warned that this was a terrible idea and that she should back out while she still had a chance, that she would lose far more than she would gain if she agreed to this. It was the height of stupidity to agree to pay some unspecified price even if you were dealing with a regular human, agreeing to pay it to a supernatural being was so stupid as to be unquantifiable.

On the other hand, she had gotten enough of a feel for the horned man that it made her doubt conventional wisdom. He was clearly fond of being unconventional just for the hell of it and thought it hilarious to make bad first impressions that were somewhat at odds with his behavior. While he had been slinging insults at provocation at her from afar, he had also been saving and protecting her feathers, sheltering them in his home and plotting to create an entire empire for them where they could live in peace. Certainly, he had done far more for them than she had been either able or willing to do after the death of Takehito.

Considering what she knew of him it would be easy to assume that he would demand sexual favors later on if she agreed now, but Miya somehow doubted that would be the case. She had no doubt that whatever he demanded would still be distasteful and onerous to her, but it probably wouldn't be degrading. Probably.

Of course, the entire thing could have been a setup to make her doubt conventional wisdom where she would need it most.

"How can I trust that you will keep your word?" She asked suspiciously.

"I always keep my word." Unless of course he was planning on breaking it from the very start, but that was not the case here.

"And what proof do I have that you can truly bring him back?"

Instead of answering, Naruto upturned his palm and a small bunny appeared in his hand. "I just created this little cutie out of nothing and that is a lot harder to do than bringing some dead dude back to life."

Miya bit her lip as the bunny vanished, oh so terribly tempted to just take his hand. Sure, she had nothing but his word and assurances to go on, but she had a feeling that those could be trusted. Every bit of wisdom screamed a protest against it, but her heart, lonely and in pain as it had been for so many years, urged her to do it.

Looking at him as he patiently kept his hand extended in the firm belief that she would take it, an amused twinkle in his eye the whole time, Miya admitted to herself that she was willing to risk it for the return of her husband. Hesitantly she reached over and placed her much smaller hand into his.

She was startled when his hand snapped closed over her own with the speed of a steel trap, but gently enough that it only felt constricting rather than painful. "The deal is made. For the return of your husband, you will do all I ask until I determine that the favor is repaid in full."

Miya snatched her hand back as soon as he released it and asked a dry question to cover her deep unease over what exactly she had just agreed to. "Must you be so dramatic?"

"Verily, I must, for I am both easily bored and easily amused." He grinned at her. "Now, onwards with the bedtime story!"

Her lips thinning in displeasure over how he referred to the destruction of her homeworld and their desperate escape from it, she began speaking.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Few are aware of this, but the Sekirei are in fact genetically near identical to humans and we likely share common origins.

"Noooo."

"Your sarcasm is uncalled for Naruto-san."

"I vehemently disagree, but whatever. Please continue."

I do not know how the Sekirei came to live on a different planet and it does not truly matter. We had no period such as the Dark Ages, in which scientific progress was outlawed, allowing us to outstrip Earth in technological progress.

Another difference was that instead of hundreds of smaller nations sharing the world, Kouten was shared between only three large ones. Very much like Earth, we progressed, evolved and reproduced. Unfortunately, we also made many of the same mistakes, such as overpopulation and reliance on non-renewable energy sources.

Over time, Kouten simply became too small to sustain us and measures were implemented to halt any further population growth and eventually lower it. Having even a single child required a permit and only one third of all couples were allowed even that much at one point.

"Sounds like your people had waaaaay too much unprotected sex."

"Quite, this was a direct result of another major difference. While there was a religion on Kouten, it portrayed intercourse as a beautiful thing instead of attempting to supress it."

"Sounds like my kind of religion."

"No doubt, now stop interrupting me."

"I'll interrupt if I feel like it, consider it part of your debt to me."

"Ugh."

Moving on, as you might guess, these restrictions were poorly received by the general population and a rebellion occured within a few years of it being implemented. The government was successfully overthrown and the restriction on having children abolished. In the following celebration at defeating 'oppression', many new children were conceived.

The pattern continued for some time in all three nations. Strict population control measures would be implemented only to be eventually abolished or outright ignored by outraged, but short sighted people.

The nation to which I was born was the only one to have a modicum of success with it, likely due to the fact that it was a monarchy instead of a democracy like the other two.

"How did you manage to sustain a dictatorship?"

"It was not a true dictatorship, in truth closer to what the United Kingdom has, though the crown had much more power. It had its advantages and disadvantages just like any system, but in that situation, it payed to have the power more centralized."

"Ah, I see."

While our own nation might have managed to slow down our downward spiral, it meant nothing as the other two continued as they always had.

The years passed and we became desperate. War was on the verge of breaking out over what few resources remained and everyone knew that it would likely end with all of our deaths instead of solving anything.

A solution came from a long ignored and eccentric scientist. He had created the first Jinki, a technological crystal designed to capture the spiritual energies of those who died near it. Energies which could then be used to transform an ordinary person into someone with incredible abilities, who we came to call a Sekirei. With an army of such warriors, we knew that it would be possible to defeat the other two nations before any weapons of mass destruction could be deployed,thus buying us the needed time to save our world.

"And nobody thought that this might somehow come back to bite them in the ass later?"

"As I said, we were desperate."

As predicted, the newly created Sekirei easily overwhelmed all opposition and our world was united under a planet spanning empire.

"You sure showed those capitalist pigs what for, eh?"

"What?"

"Nevermind."

In the following decades, tensions were high as the conquered populations seethed at their defeat, but were unable to act against the armies of Sekirei that were deployed in their former territories. Even harsher population control measures were implemented while desperate research was conducted to discover technologies which could save us.

"Wait wait, don't tell me what happens next! The newly crowned Emperor or his successor had himself a nice little power trip and fucked everything up?"

"Foul language is forbidden in Izumo Inn...but yes that is essentially what happened."

It was in fact the first Emperor's grandson that brought about our ruin. Just like yourself he had a weakness for women and exploited his position in order to amass a harem of women both willing and some not so willing.

"I resent that comparison, I've never touched an unwilling maiden."

"The only 'maiden' that I can imagine would be willing to touch you is an iron maiden."

"And from then on she would be an iron woman."

Getting back to the depressing tale of my people's destruction which are you forcing me to tell you-

"Now that's harsh. I'm bribing you, not forcing you."

-One of the women in his harem turned out to be a member of the persistent resistance movement, a resistance movement which had almost petered out when they saw that the severe measures implemented by the first Emperor were actually having a positive effect, but had been revived by the excesses and blundering of the third Emperor.

She successfully stole the secrets of the Jinki and the resistance soon began creating their own Sekirei. In the apocalyptic battles that followed, most of the civilian, non-Sekirei population died in the crossfire as ever more powerful Sekirei were created.

When it was over a few years later, we didn't have an overpopulation problem anymore and most of the industrial infrastructure was destroyed.

"Do I detect a trace of dark humor in there?"

"There is nothing funny about this!"

"My bad, I guess you're just as much of a killjoy as I thought."

It would have taken us decades to rebuild, but we were not given that much time. Mere years after the last of the fighting died down, substantial numbers of both the surviving and newly created Sekirei began exhibiting signs of restlesness and unprovoked bursts of violence.

"Ah, I see where this is going. The survivors were probably suffering from some rather severe cases of Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder and the newly made ones were probably affected by all the death and violence that was no doubt tainting the spiritual energies captured by the Jinki."

"It disturbs me how easily you perceive the truth with so few clues."

"Well Xanna and I have been examining seven of the eight Jinki for a while. It wasn't hard for us to see that there's something wrong with them."

"Yes, about those...what have you done with them?"

"Destroyed them."

"Those Jinki were the legacy of my people, our greatest accomplishment, you had no right!"

"I'll be taking and destroying the one you have too by the way."

"Did you not hear me?! I will not give you the last Jinki so that you can destroy it."

"Miya-chan will give the Jinki jink to Naruto for him to smashy smash, or else Takehito will continue his dirt nap uninterrupted."

"You are a snake!"

"Yeah, I'm a regular anaconda. I've even got all the right junk in all the right places."

"What?"

"Nevermind, the point is that you're still handing over the Jinki."

"I...you...but there will be no more Sekirei if you destroy it."

"The Jinki is a flawed design and as a consequence, so are the Sekirei. You would use it to grant power to the offspring of the current generation, but that power would turn at least a third of them into bloodthirsty killers. I will not have those children born only to be forced into locking them away, turning them into slaves or killing them."

"...*sigh*fine, I will surrender it to you."

"That's what she said."

"Abomination."

"Coincidentally, that is also what she said."

"Ugh, where was I?"

"Your world was in ruins and the Sekirei were about to lose their shit again."

"Foul language is-"

"Shit, cunt, cock, ass. Now get on with the motherfucking story."

...It was discovered-

"With less gnashing of teeth if you please. Take a deep breath and then continue."

...It was discovered as you said that many of the newly made Sekirei, especially those who had undergone the procedure in their youth, were developing uncontrollably violent tendencies. Males were particularly susceptible, as the Sekirei core stimulated testosterone production in addition to heightening aggression.

"And that would be the reason why there are so many women and Homura's little attempted gender switch."

"Yes, though it should never have activated at such a late age. More of Minaka's meddling in things he does not understand."

More fighting broke out and the maddened ones knew no restraint. They used powers destructive enough to crack open the planet. After that, our only chance of salvation were the handful of space ships that we had managed to research and build during the decades of peace after the empire was formed.

They were not ready, having no faster than light ability and no real crew. We Pillars had been created by then and bound to one Jinki each. I do not know by what method they ensured that the Pillar could not go mad-

"Probably by continually discarding failures until there was a success. Either that, or you were grown in a tube for this exact purpose."

"I would prefer that you not offer anymore of your barbaric theories."

"Hey now, you were the one that said you were desperate. People do barbaric shit when they're desperate, I should know."

ANYWAY,however it was done, it worked and each of us was to watch over a thousand Sekirei, though we ran out for me, so I had but 107.

Space probes had been sent long ago and we knew that this planet was populated by humans, whom we were fairly certain we shared common origins with. Keeping in mind the series of events that led to our downfall, we intended to conquer it and use our second chance wisely. The unborn Sekirei were taken from their mothers in the early stages of development and fitted with winging mechanism that would allow them to be controlled if needed and the Ashikabi would be chosen from human males to ensure the continuation of our kind. The deactivation is a failsafe that was meant to place them in a temporary near death trance that would allow for an inappropriate Ashikabi to be replaced.

When we embarked on the long journey, we did not expect that some unknown peril would cause seven of our ships to crash with only a handful of survivors, certainly not enough to execute the plan, while my ship fell into the ocean and remained there for a thousand years.

"They must have gone native."

"Indeed, and decided to live out their lives in peace among the primitive humans, eventually resulting in the crude pseudo Ashikabi of today."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Miya exhaled as she finished her tale, feeling uncommonly exhausted. She had never liked remembering that story and being made to tell it had not been pleasant. The constant interruptions and callous comentary had certainly not made it any easier.

But if it would get Takehito returned to her...

"Well that was interesting." Naruto commented. "I guess you'll have no problem fitting in with mine and Xanna's empire if you already come from a similar system."

"What makes you think I have any interest in joining this empire of yours?" She asked tightly.

"I'm not really giving you a choice in the matter." He told her in no uncertain terms. "Takehito was obviously helping you and if Minaka hadn't killed him, you might have already subdued this planet. I'm guessing that you probably convinced him that the Earth was on the path to dooming itself and that it would be best to help you conquer it. I'm not leaving the two of you here after I've brought him back."

Miya winced, not even bothering to refute him. She had not expected that he would be so perceptive, though with his reputed ability to read minds, she supposed it was not too surprising. The reminder that Minaka was responsible for Takehito's death didn't grate on her as much as usual now that she had his resurrection to look forward to.

She still wanted to kill Minaka for it though and the only reason she hadn't done it long ago was because it would have ensured an even more terrible fate for her feathers. She had cast aside her sword upon the realisation that she wasn't able to avenge her husband's death without condemning her Sekirei to a life of being hunted, eventually caught and then experimented on in various laboratories scattered across the world.

"He did not require too much convincing." She reluctantly said, pushing aside her troubled thoughts.

"No need to sound so hesitant." He told her, amused. "I actually agree that this world would be better off if it got conquered, but that isn't important right now. Did you know that he was also trying to find ways to block the winging? That's where Minaka got his idea to use Akitsu as an experiment you know."

"I did." Miya admitted. "He convinced me to allow him to do it for those Sekirei who did not need to be controlled. I protested at first, thinking it too dangerous, but I was eventually persuaded that it was barbaric to do keep them all prisoner to their own emotions because of the bad seeds."

"That husband of yours is definitely someone to keep an eye on. The both of you are going with me once he's alive again."

Miya said nothing, but looked frustrated by the ultimatum.

"You don't need to look so pissed, I don't expect either you or your boytoy to actually do anything in my empire if you don't want to, but I'm not bringing him back just so that you can start over and maybe even create another Jinki. That would almost make me feel responsible for leaving behind a mess...well, a bigger mess at any rate."

Miya sighed unhappily. She was not particularly looking forward to living under his rule, especially as he annoyed her to no end. "So our history is to be lost? Our culture swallowed by whatever empire you and your wife create? The offspring of our current Sekirei to be left powerless?"

Naruto was amused. "Aside from you and whatever can be salvaged from your ship's computer, your culture and history is already lost and it's better for them to be powerless and mentally stable than to be powerful and homicidal. I think you and your people have gotten a little too attached to the idea of being powerful, Ms. Goddess of Kouten."

Miya winced again at how very pretentious he made it sound. The title given to her as a Pillar had always been a source of pride to her, but when he said it like that, it truly did seem like they had gotten drunk on the power they'd achieved.

Still, she did feel the need to argue one final point. "But you claim to be a true god, can you not make certain that they would not go mad?"

"You don't actually have any idea how the Jinki works do you?" He asked with much amusement.

"I was always a warrior, not a scientist." She replied irritably, not at all pleased with his smugness.

"Well, let me enlighten you. It works by using the captured spiritual energies of the dead to artificially and permanently link the physical and spiritual energies of the target and enhance them. The resulting power is random, usually being a raw physical upgrade or an instictive weapon skill. In rarer cases, it is a control over a certain element. The younger the target, the greater the power, but also the more severe the consequences of it. All the physical type Sekirei are constantly having their bodies enhanced in preparation for combat, which includes the brain to lower empathy in the expectation that they will need to cause pain and take life. If their power wasn't blocked to the maximum possible degree, almost all of the non-elemental types currently alive would be bloodthirsty berserkers. The only reason that the elemental types are safe is because it leaves their brains alone for the most part."

"But...it was not that bad before. Yes, there were many, but not that many." Miya said with her face going pale.

"I'm guessing that none of the previous generations of Sekirei were empowered immediately after conception, nor were the Jinki that tainted."

"No." She conceded unhappily. "But you did not answer my question."

"When I said permanently, I meant it. I have no idea what that nutjob scientist did, but he shouldn't have done it. Any attempt at making a permanent solution would likely result in destroying the Sekirei's soul, that is how closely the power is fused to them."

He wasn't going to mention that he could easily give them a far safer powerup in the same way as the Sage of Six Paths had given to his followers. That had ended up being a giant clusterfuck and he didn't have enough faith in humanity to think it would go any different a second time. Not to mention that Xanna would object to it most strenuously. They hadn't taken that kind of power away from the shinobi just to hand it out like candy later on.

"I see." Miya sighed in defeat. "I suppose that is it then."

Putting aside her dislike of the horned pervert, Miya forced herself to view the situation in an objective fashion. Their civilization had failed because the third Emperor had been a failure as a person and had ruined everything that the first Emperor, who had been a great man, had been striving to accomplish. For all of his distasteful personality traits, she could not deny that he had taken good care her feathers and did not appear to have any designs on using them as tools of conquest. Still, she wanted to make sure even if she knew that she couldn't realistically stop him from doing whatever he wanted.

"Will you answer my question now? Do you intend to use the Sekirei as tools of conquest?"

"I just love the delicious hypocrisy of that question." Naruto snickered. "But no, I wasn't even intending to bring them out of temporal stasis until the empire was well established and up to a tech level similar to the Earth of today. Then they would be given a proper education to allow them to function in their new surroundings and allowed to live as they wished."

Miya suspected that there was more to it than that, but he seemed sincere enough. If all went as he intended, then her feathers could have the life they wanted without needing any bonds placed on them or Minaka's insane schemes running their lives. As far as she knew, he had already slain all the mad ones and there would be no more with the Jinki destroyed. Truly, his wife was a bigger wild card and she had already said that the Sekirei did not interest her.

Keeping this in mind, Miya stood up from her seiza sitting position and looked at him searchingly for a long few seconds.

With a momentary hesitation, she gave him a bow and spoke in a formal tone of voice. "I, Asama Miya, the Eighth Sekirei Pillar, relinquish the guardianship and protection of my feathers and vessel to you in return for the resurrection of my husband, Asama Takehito, and agree to live under your rule without protest. May you have more success than we did... Tennō Heika."

The words were honestly just a formality considering the debt she had incurred by bartering for Takehito's revival. She still would have preferred to keep the Jinki intact, but it mattered less to her than her husband. In a way, it was a relief to let someone else take over and make the decisions. She had never been meant to rule or lead, that task had been intended for the First Pillar or the Second if something were to happen to the First. Miya had been just another sword when they set out from Kouten and the situation had been against her even when she woke. She had not known how to deal with suddenly being in charge and had performed poorly.

"Oi, oi, no need to go all ultra formal on me and I'm not even Emperor yet." Naruto protested, standing up as well.

Miya lips twitched into a smile at seeing him protest. Perhaps there were some upsides to this after all. If formality bothered him, then she would make sure to be as formal as possible at all times when around him. Insulting him had certainly only seemed to encourage him.

"But I must. His Majesty the Emperor is now my sovereign lord and it would be disrespectful of this humble landlady to refer to Him otherwise. I implore you Tennō Heika, to take good care myself and my little birds."

Naruto's eye twitched at the even more formal speech, he could practically hear the capitalisation when she said 'Him'. So, Miya thought that she was going to sass him with formality did she? Well, Naruto never backed down from a challenge and he was the undisputed master of pissing people off. He would turn this around and make it blow up in her face.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

What went on in the bathroom during Naruto's talk with Miya.

"I must remember to have a personal force of proffesional massage girls on standby once I am Empress." Xanna mused to herself, sitting on a wooden stool. Akitsu, Chiho, Uzume and Matsu were brushing a tail each, while a pouting Musubi poured hot water over Xanna's back every so often.

Musubi didn't have a very good idea of how to properly brush a tail.

"You'd need a lot of massage girls." Uzume snickered, gently running her brush over a tail. They were very nice tails, even if she didn't have Chiho's fetish for them. She was a lot more affected by being so close to a fully naked Xanna and remembering the things that she could do with her tongue. The free tails that wound their way around her and rubbed at certain parts of her body didn't help.

A look over at Chiho revealed that her Ashikabi was even further gone and looked as if she was about to have a tail induced orgasm at any second. Aside from the one she was brushing there was also another two winding their way up her legs, going perilously close to her groin and then upwards to brush past her nipples.

Uzume had a suspicion that she might be getting that orgy she'd suggested to Chiho after all, even if it wasn't going to include Naruto.

"Yes, fourteen I think." The horned woman agreed.

"But you only have ten tails." Musubi said in confusion.

"The extra four would massage my legs and back." She explained.

"Fuhuhuhu, Xanna-tan is quite the hedonist." Matsu chuckled perversely, 'accidentally' brushing her hand against the curve of the horned woman's rear end every time that she went for the beginning of the tail. Matsu was an equal opportunity pervert and Xanna's ass was so firm that she could no doubt bend steel with it.

Xanna frowned, wondering if she should take offense at the childish honorific and deciding not to in the end. It was just how the redhead spoke. "In the absence of any other purpose, it is only logical to seek pleasure and self-gratification. Indeed, it is logical even with other purpose."

"Finally, someone who understands!" Matsu cheered.

"What's a hedonist?" Musubi asked curiously

"Someone who sees the meaning of life as the pursuit of pleasure." Xanna explained. "Though I would argue that everyone is a hedonist."

"How do you figure that?" Uzume asked, more curious than doubtful.

"All of you are certainly here because you derive some form of pleasure from touching my tails, or in the case of Matsu, from her poor pretense of 'accidentally' touching me." Xanna explained with a smirk.

Matsu froze, almost expecting to be hit over the head with a ladle or something, so deep was the conditioning by Miya. "Eheheh, sorry?"

"If I had minded, you would know it."

Matsu relaxed fractionally, but now continued brushing with instinctive caution, only rubbing against the flawless dark skin occasionally.

"But Musubi was just curious about the tails." The fist fighter protested. "My meaning is with my Ashikabi."

"You are here because you wished to satisfy your curiousity, thus you have sought pleasure of the mind."

Musubi looked adorably confused, the philosophical argument clearly going right over her head.

"But if you wish to seek pleasure with your Ashikabi, I can teach you." Xanna continued with a devious smirk.

"That would be amazing Xanna-sama! Please teach me!" Musubi exclaimed, her fists held under her chin in excitement and completely missing the alarmed looks that Uzume and Matsu exchanged.

"Very well." Xanna said and stood up to loom over Musubi, ignoring the small moans of disappointment made by Chiho and Akitsu. "Your Ashikabi is indecisive and has a fear of women, so you must take the lead."

"What do I do?" Musubi asked with determination, punching her fist into her palm and looking ready to do battle.

"Being stronger than him, you will find it quite simple." Xanna began lecturing.

"First, you grab his hands. Like so." She said and grabbed Musubi's wrists. "Then you force him to the ground, like so." Xanna proceeded to manhandle the fist fighter to the floor in time with her instruction.

"He will likely try to fight you and even tell you to stop, but you should ignore him, as he has no idea what is good for him."

"But don't I need to obey my Ashikabi?" Musubi asked innocently, not at all bothered to have the horned woman pinning her to the floor and sitting on her chest just underneath her breasts.

"Not really and especially not in this case, now pay attention. I will only show you this once." Xanna said sternly.

"Okay!"

"The next move would be to grab both of his arms with one of your own, and use your now free arm to rip off any clothing he may be wearing."

"But why would he wear clothes in the bath?" Musubi asked in confusion, now having both of her hands held in one of Xanna's above her head.

"Because you do not need to be in the bath to do this dimwitted one." Was the exasperated explanation. "It can be done anywhere, but since that human is so fragile, it would be best to do it on a bed. And make sure to divest yourself of clothing as well."

Musubi made a noise denoting understanding and Xanna continued. "Now that you have him pinned and naked, move yourself so that you are sitting on his face, like so."

"Ooh, Xanna-sama has one of those too!" Musubi said with a tone of recognition staring upwards into the exposed crotch above her face. "It makes Musubi feel good when she touches that, does yours feel good if you touch it?"

Xanna ignored the question and the not particularly surprising revelation that Musubi had been discovering masturbation. "Pay attention, this is the most important part."

"Okay." The fist fighter said with a look determination, resolved to master this technique that would allow her to experience pleasure with Minato-sama.

"At this point, you must pin his arms with your legs, like so. Once this is done, grab onto his hair with one hand, lower your pelvis and place the part that feels good over his mouth while saying 'lick it, slave!' in a firm, commanding voice."

Off to the side, a wide eyed and rather aroused Uzume leaned over to an equally wide eyed and aroused Matsu to whisper a question. "Did she just teach Musubi how to orally rape Minato, dominatrix style?"

"Fuhuhuhuhuhu, oh yes! Matsu will enjoy watching this on her hidden cameras." The pervert cackled quietly, not wanting to disrupt the 'lesson'.

"Whaths a swave?" Musubi asked, her voice muffled due to having a vagina covering her mouth.

"It is the pet name that you will use for that Ashikabi of yours when you do things like this." Xanna explained and stood up.

"What do I do next?" Musubi asked eagerly.

"If he is any kind of man, he will know what to do next." The horned woman said with a dismissive hand wave and then frowned in thought. "Matsu, take Musubi to your room an educate her on sex. Use videos but stick to the basics, several positons for oral and vaginal sex should do it. Avoid toys or anal sex, I doubt that fool boy has the durability to survive such a thing."

"Matsu will be more than happy to!" The Brain Type said gleefully and dragged an excited Musubi out of the bathroom after they collected their clothes.

"Miya is so going to blow a gasket." Uzume said from where she was holding a flushed Chiho that was quite obviously in a state of extreme arousal.

"Good." Was Xanna's only response as she walked over to the bath and sank into the steaming water.

Do not sit too close to me, I have plans for these two and I will need some room. She sent directly to Akitsu's mind. We will have time for our fun later.

Akitsu gave a miniscule nod of understanding and sat quite a distance away under the pretense of continuing her brushing of the tails. She was a bit upset about not being able to sit close, but it was alright.

Uzume and Chiho exchanged surprised looks when Xanna got herself comfortable in the large tub. Very much unlike how one would expect a woman to sit, she had placed her arms over the rim of the tub and leaned back against it, which coincidentally pushed her chest out. They each separately judged them to be the most perfect pair of breasts they had ever laid eyes on. Certainly not as big as that of many Sekirei, but they had a perfect shape, firmness, color, positioning and proportion in relation to the rest of her body.

In addition, she also had her legs spread lewdly and obviously intended to keep them that way.

"Well, are you two going to join us or do you intend to continue gawking?" She asked with her eyes closed.

Uzume and Chiho snapped out of their daze and made their way over, only then noticing that the horned woman was actually sitting on her tails, using them as some kind of makeshit cushion. Curiously enough, they remained as fluffy as ever even though the water should have made them look like soggy rat tails.

As soon as they made it into the tub, the aforementioned tails started to pull them towards the horned woman. As soon as they were in range, Xanna's hands reached out and cupped each of the two women's cheeks. "That was quite enough teasing I should think. It is time we moved on to foreplay."

Uzume and Chiho shivered in arousal at the pure suggestion in her tone and easily allowed themselves to be guided forward. They ended up straddling a leg each, while Xanna's hands continued to guide their heads towards her nipples. "You know what to do."

Lost in a lust induced daze, they each clamped their lips over the dark pink nipples and started to suck on them.

Xanna returned her hands back over the rim of the rub and leaned back, pushing her breasts more firmly outwards.

Both Uzume and Chiho moaned in pleasure when something unexpectedly trickled into their mouths from the nipples they were sucking on. It was like nothing they'd ever tasted before, but it made the heat between their legs burn twice as hot and they instinctively rubbed their groins against the leg they were straddling in a desperate attempt to relieve the pressure.

Soon they were whimpering needily as the relief wouldn't come and the heat worsened further. Their movements became ever more desperate, they started to rub their groins against Xanna's legs almost violently, sucking on her nipples with force that would have even a Sekirei shrieking in pain and one hand from each had long since wandered to the horned woman's nether regions in an attempt to entice her into giving them some relief.

And then they were unceremoniously pulled away. "That will be enough for now, but I will be visiting you later. Come Akitsu, we are leaving. Naruto should be done with Miya soon and we might as well prepare if we are going to properly defile this place."

"Ah...yes." Akitsu somehow managed to pull off what could only be called a 'delighted monotone'.

Uzume and Chiho just sat in the tub where they had been left for a while, pressing their thighs together and trying to make sense of the world again. For a little while it had seemed as if the very Universe depended on the burning need to satisfy their lust and having it interrupted so abruptly was beyond jarring.

"Uzume-chan, I know that Miya-san doesn't approve of these things, but I need you so badly right now." Chiho whimpered, her hands cupped over her aching nether regions.

Uzume didn't even bother talking as she crashed her lips on those of her Ashikabi and they started desperately rubbing each other between the legs. They both reached a shuddering climax within seconds and never even noticed that the standard lightshow from when a Sekirei and Ashikabi kissed was conspicuously missing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Back with Miya and Naruto.

Thinking with a speed that only a god could manage, Naruto went over everything he knew of Miya and how it could possibly be used against her now that she had formally acknowledged him as Emperor.

It came to him fairly quickly in the end.

"Well, since you asked so nicely, I guess I'll have to take my new duties seriously and take good care of you." He said magnanimously.

Miya's smile faltered, wondering what the hell he was up to. She did not get too long to consider it, as a chair came into existence behind her and she was somehow pushed into it.

It was not a regular chair, but one of those strange wavy things that you were liable to see in every psychiatrist scene on television.

"It has come to my attention that you were never given counseling after the series of tragedies in your life and as you are technically my first official subject as Emperor, it behooves me to ascertain your mental health." Naruto spoke in his best psychiatrist voice from his own chair, legs crossed with a clipboard in hand and having a pair of glasses perched on his nose. Bizzarely enough, he also had a wispy golden goatee hanging down to his chest.

It would have been very Mephistopheles if it wasn't such a bright color.

Disturbed by the abrupt change in dynamics, Miya nonetheless managed to pull herself together in time to answer the question with as much formality as possible. "I assure you Heika, that my mental health is just fine."

"I believe I will be the judge of that." He waved off.

"I was not aware that your majesty was a psychiatrist." Miya commented serenely, determined to win this silly game.

"Karasuba accused me of being one, so it must be true." He replied. "Speaking of Karasuba, I understand you walked in on her attempting to rape your husband. How did that make you feel?"

Miya ground her teeth together at the reminder of that incident, the anger at her former subordinate still not quenched. "I do not see how that has anything to do with-"

"I can hear you grinding your teeth together Miya, clearly this is important to you. Answer the question please."

Miya took a deep breath to calm herself down, knowing perfectly well that he was just riling her up...and damn him for succeeding. Karasuba and what she'd tried to do was always a sore spot, but if she wanted to win, she couldn't let him get to her.

"It enraged me. If it pleases your majesty, I would be more than happy to remove that filth from the earth." She answered once she could speak without growling.

Naruto kept his face from twitching at the ultra formal address. He knew perfectly well that Miya was still a very proud woman, but the expected return of her husband was no doubt having an uplifting effect on her mood, making it harder to rile her than normal. The long conversation earlier had also given her plenty of time to adjust to the idea of not being the most powerful anymore, so that road was closed.

"Have you considered attempting to forgive her? Despite appearances, she was very young and didn't understand what she was doing." He said in a sympathetic tone that Karasuba would have tried to kill him for. The Black Sekirei didn't want or need anyone's sympathy.

"That is the only reason that she is still alive."

Naruto turned to his clipboard and started writing something down on it, muttering under his breath all the while. Phrases such as 'unhealthy attachment to anger', 'replacing grief with rage' and similar things drifted to Miya's ears.

"Are psychiatrists not supposed to be discreet your majesty?" Miya inquired, hiding her irritation at his amateurish psychoanalysis. She just knew he was talking out loud on purpose.

"I suppose it's a good thing that I'm not licensed then, otherwise I might have lost my license." Naruto commented airily. "To move on to what Freud and I suspect to be the root cause of your issues, how often have you been masturbating since Takehito's death?"

"What?" Miya asked woodenly, unable to believe that he'd just asked something so crass right to her face.

"You know, how often have you kneaded the love muffin?"

"I don-"

"Diddled the skittle?"

"I haven-"

"Flicked the bean?"

"I'm not-"

"Stroked the kitty?"

"I've neve-"

"Done some indoor fishing?"

"I-"

"Given yourself some lip service? Brushed the-"

"I DON'T MASTURBATE!"

Miya's face paled to the color of bone the very instant that the words left her mouth. She bore an expression that spoke volumes of shame, regret, embarassment and finally, defeat.

"Well, since you apparently feel the need to scream, perhaps you should consider starting?"

The purple haired landlady could not recall ever before feeling the need to scream in frustration. She did not enjoy the feeling.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I DON'T MASTURBATE!"

Heads turned back in the dining/living room of the inn as everyone exchanged wide eyed looks upon hearing something like that being shouted in Miya's inn.

"Didn't that sound like Miya?" Karasuba asked with an odd expression on her face, her cheeks a bit pink from Kazehana's booze.

More looks were exchanged before everyone shook their heads in dismissal of the wild idea.

"Nah, couldn't be."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Musubi was just getting her crash course in sex when the shout echoed through the building and put a temporary halt to the education.

"What does masturbation mean?" Musubi asked of Matsu while the most perverted of all Sekirei was shocked into silence.

"You remember when you told Xanna-tan that it feels good when you touch yourself down there?" Matsu asked, getting herself back together and saying a silent prayer for whatever brave soul dared utter such a thing in Miya's inn.

"Uh huh."

"That is called masturbation."

"Ohhh." Musubi said in pleased realisation that she knew what was going on. "Musubi likes masturbating."

"So does Matsu Musubi-tan, so does Matsu."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In another room that had formerly been empty, Akitsu was chained to the ceiling by her wrists, naked except for the pair of manacles around them.

When the shout reached her and Xanna, both of their heads went up in curiosity before the horned woman commented on it. "Looks like that husband of mine is finished with the purple prude for the moment."

"Ah...will he be coming here soon mistress?" Akitsu asked hopefully.

"And inside us no doubt." Xanna answered wryly.

"Ah...please let me prepare you to receive him mistress." The Ice Sekirei asked pleadingly.

"Humm...tempting, but I think I will allow you to go first this time." The horned woman said and gently dragged the velvet wrapped paddle that she had previously been using to lightly spank Akitsu across the Ice Sekirei's already moist nether regions.

"Tha-aa-ank yo-u- mistre-sssss." Akitsu gasped as the familiar ecstasy of the heavily chakra infused paddle rubbing across her privates seared her body with unimaginable pleasure. The visible signs of her arousal had already started forming an ever enlarging puddle on the floor under her, but she knew that no relief would be forthcoming until Naruto came to fill her.

Akitsu found herself uncommonly impatient as she squirmed on the paddle.