Book 8: Chapter 2:

After meeting up with Cassiel to get healed back to full health, Fenrir went to meet Saya, Rock, and Shogun by the path that lead to the forest. She already had a heavy bag looked ready to burst held in one hand when he reached her.

“That have all your stuff in it?” Fenrir asked as he pointed at the bag.

“You would like to know, wouldn’t you?” Saya asked in response.

“It’s either a bunch of gear or a dead body with how big it is.”

“It’s not a body!”

Fenrir smiled and gave Saya a pat atop her head. “I’m all good now, so let’s go. I’m excited to see what you’ve been working on.”

Saya pouted and turned her back on him so that she could walk away, leading the way.

Fenrir made sure to give both Rock and Shogun some quick pets before following after her.

Once they reached a good spot in the forest away from the main path, Saya took her bag behind a nearby tree and set it down before coming back over to him.

“I’ve been working really hard… but I’m still getting used to all of this, so don’t judge me if I’m bad,” Saya said.

“I’d never judge you,” Fenrir answered and caused her to smile.

“Stay here, onii-wan.” With that, she went back over to the tree that she set her bag down behind. The tree was more than wide enough to hide her entire body behind it.

“But I’ll be lonely,” Fenrir whined with a playful tone.

Saya stopped, looked at him, and flicked the air aiming directly at his forehead. Fenrir responded to the sudden attack by putting a hand on his forehead and saying, “Ouch,” despite not actually feeling anything. “You’re so brutal, Pupaya. You need to learn to go easy on me.”

“Don’t make me actually flick you.”

“Oh no, you’re going to flick me. Whatever will I do.”

“Did I mention I would be flicking you with a hammer?”

“Al-alright. Maybe flicking is something to be feared after all.”

“You better be afraid! Now stay there!”

“Can I peek?”

“No! Absolutely not!”

“Please?”

“Asking nicely won’t change anything!”

“But I want to peek.”

“Onii-wan, I swear. I’m about to upgrade the hammer into an axe.”

“Look, all I want to do is peek on my pseudo imouto while she’s probably getting changed.”

“Hey, onii-wan.”

“Yeah?”

“Have I mentioned lately that you’re the worst?”

“Not nearly enough.”

Saya sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Why are you the way that you are?”

“What can I say? I love to tease the people who are important to me.”

And just like that, Fenrir succeeded in making her blush a little. “I – I’m going now! Stay there!”

Of course, before she could actually get behind the tree, she was stopped when he had something else to say. “I’ll let you go behind the tree in peace if you give me a hug afterwards.”

Saya grit her teeth before swinging an arm out to point at him. “Fine! As long as you actually let me do what I need to do!”

Fenrir gave her a thumbs-up with one hand while he pretended to zip his lips with his other hand.

Even though he was finally doing as told, that didn’t stop Saya from going “Hmph!” before finally getting behind the tree in peace. She still made sure to wait a few seconds and then peeked around it to check on him and see if he was going to try and peek on her or not, though.

“I promise I won’t check,” Fenrir said when he saw her head poke out from behind the tree.

Saya stuck her tongue out at him and then disappeared from his sight again.

As for Fenrir, he was left alone with Rock and Shogun who were walking all over the place sniffing everything that was even slightly interesting to them. Fenrir wasn’t sure how it worked when it came to Rock sniffing things seeing as how she didn’t actually have what looked like a functioning nose. She had something in the shape of a nose but it didn’t exactly have holes for nostrils.

That meant it was time for science.

Could Rock actually smell or not? Was she just acting out the instinctual need to sniff things as a canine, or could she actually smell?

To perform his experiment, Fenrir looked around and gathered two different items. One of these items was a delicate, red flower with a pleasant smell that reminded him of berries. The other was a piece of wood with a foul-smelling colony of fungus growing on its side.

“Here, Rock!” Fenrir shouted out to her.

Rock happily came running with her tail wagging and ears twitching.

First, just to confirm that he was right, he gently took ahold of her snout and tilted it up so that he could check out her nose. No nostrils. It should have been impossible for her to actually smell anything.

“Alright, here,” Fenrir said, holding the flower up in front of her snout.

Rock practically shoved her nose right into the flower’s petals as she silently sniffed. Her ears twitched every so often and her tail made her look pretty happy to be sniffing the flower, but Fenrir still wasn’t sure if she could actually smell or if she was just reacting that way because of the act of smelling.

The second part of the experiment had Fenrir taking the flower away to replace it with the wood.

Rock sniffed the fungus colony on the wood. She continued sniffing for a few more seconds before cringing at the scent and pulling her head away to bark at it from a safe distance.

Fenrir doubted that she would have a reaction like that if she wasn’t actually able to smell it, so that meant that she could, in fact, smell things despite not having nostrils.

That made sense going by how the rest of her body seemed to work. There was a lot about her that shouldn’t have been possible due to being made out of rock, yet she managed to surpass the impossible. She truly was a good girl.

And that meant she deserved some pats and rubs.

“I’ll have to let Eva know about this later. She’ll probably find it interesting,” Fenrir said as he sat down to relax with Rock, petting her head with one hand and stroking her back with his other as she rested the upper half of her body over his lap. Shogun ended up coming over to join them and to also receive pats and scratches.

Normally, when it came to alone time without anybody to really talk to, that meant it was time for Fenrir to talk to Saya in his head. He technically still could, too. But instead of that, he spent the time with Rock and Shogun this time around. They were in need of all the pats, rubs, scratches, and praises seeing as how they were the goodest canines that he knew, excluding himself and Saya.

Wait, Fenrir thought. If I’m part wolf… what would I be classified as to a scientist? Even if the only wolf-y parts about me are my ears and tail, would that be enough to say I’m no longer scientifically classified as a human? That’s something else I’ll have to talk to Eva about.

“You think some weird things when you’re alone, onii-wan,” Saya said, her voice appearing inside of his head just like usual. Though, ever since she got an actual avatar to play around with, she communicated via his mind far less often.

“Listen, this is important for science. I’ver got to make Eva proud,” Fenrir said out loud.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyways… are you ready?”

“Ready to finally see what you’ve been up to in secret all this time?”

“Yeah.”

“The hype is real. Come on, let me see.”

He didn’t get a response from her after that nor did he see her come out from behind the tree. Not for a few moments at least. Eventually, the nervous Saya did come out from behind the tree that she hid behind and presented herself and her new setup to Fenrir.

While he might not have known what to expect from her, he did know that he couldn’t stop smiling when he saw her.

To start with, rather than what some of his girlfriends predicted she would go with as a path in the game, Saya held a bow in her hand with a quiver full of arrows hanging behind her back. He never would have predicted that she would go the archer route, but it did make sense seeing as how a ranged, physical damage dealer was essentially the only role their group was missing. A dedicated healer could have been nice, but they had Cassiel to help out with healing and Nell to cast protective barriers. There wasn’t anybody who used a proper ranged weapon.

As for her outfit, it was like the kind of fantasy outfit that one could find worn by any ranged class in various games except for one major thing that helped her stand out among the rest of them.

She still had a sweater. She somehow managed to combine a modern sweater with a fantasy archer getup and make it work perfectly.

It was beautiful enough to bring a tear to Fenrir’s eye.

“Wh-why are you crying?!” Saya shouted.

Fenrir wiped at his eye before answering. “Because you didn’t abandon the chosen path of the sweater. I’m so proud of you.”

“Wearing a sweater is nothing to cry over!”

“It is. It’s only natural for a man to cry at the sight of beautiful art. The most beautiful sculptures in the world are nothing in comparison to the sight of a cute girl in a sweater. You deserve to have a marble sculpture carved of you that is shown in the world’s most famous art museum.”

“That’s – that’s way too much!”

“It’s what you deserve for being as perfect as you are.”

While Fenrir might have been acting especially dramatic and silly, it was impossible for Saya to not blush when he called her perfect.

“I’m ready,” Fenrir declared.

“For what?” Saya asked.

“My hug. You owe me a hug.”

“You’re not going to do anything weird while you hug me, are you?”

“No promises. My girlfriends consent to me doing weird things with you. Plus you already know exactly what I’m going to do since you’re in my head, remember?”

Saya’s cheeks turned bright red as she looked away from him, one hand reaching up to play with her nearest twintail. “I – I know… you don’t have to remind me.”

Fenrir opened up his arms to receive the incoming hug.

Saya slowly walked closer to him while struggling to look at him the entire time.

As soon as Saya was close enough, Fenrir wrapped his arms around her and she did the same to him, albeit with significantly less energy than he had.

“You look great, Saya, and you chose a nice option,” Fenrir praised.

“Th-thanks, onii-wan,” Saya replied as she relaxed within his arms. Of course, it became increasingly difficult to relax as she felt his hands moving all over her torso. “Are – are you really going to do that right now?”

“You’re wearing a sweater. How could I resist?”

Next, Fenrir sat down on the ground and pulled Saya with him so that she would be in his lap, her back to his chest which allowed him to wrap his arms around her to her front. There was only one natural thing to do with his hands after that.

Saya, tense in his lap but not refusing any of his advances, stayed still and kept her eyes locked onto his hands as they slowly slipped up her torso toward her chest. She looked away with a scrunched-up face right as he brought his hands over her breasts… and then let out a surprised moan as soon as she felt his hands grope her over the sweater. “Yo-you’re the worst.”

“And you’re the one letting me do this,” Fenrir whispered against her ear.

“Nn… i-it’s not like I like this or anything… ba-baka onii-wan.”

“Being tsundere only makes me even more excited.”

“Li-like I care! I’m not doing this for your excitement!” Saya protested as she obviously did it for his excitement.

“It was already hard keeping my hands off of you.” There was plenty of hugging ever since Saya got her in-game body. “Now I’m going to want to squeeze and grope you all the time. How am I supposed to keep my hands off of you?”

“You’re as horny as Serra when you’re with me!”

“Can you blame me?”

“Do-don’t you think you should consider how your girlfriends feel? You’re going to make them jealous if you can’t stop touching me!”

“Hey, if they want me to touch them just as much, all they have to do is wear a sweater.”

“Maybe… maybe we should keep that to ourselves.”

“Why’s that? Will you get jealous if I stop touching you as much to touch them more instead?”

“No! It’s just… if Serra wears a sweater, you’re going to be stuck in a bedroom with her twenty-four-seven until the sweater comes off or one of you dies.”

“I see nothing wrong with that if a sweater is involved.”

“You need help. Serious, clinical help. Can you give me permission to schedule you for a psychiatric assessment?”

“If whoever gives it is wearing a sweater, sure.”

Saya grabbed Fenrir’s wrists and pulled his hands away from her chest. “You’ve lost groping privileges.”

“So you admit that I had them in the first place, and that they must have been given by you if you have the power to revoke them.”

“You’re about to lose sweater privileges, too. I’m going to change my outfit so that there’s no more swea—”

“I’m sorry. I’ll do anything. I’ll get a psychiatric assessment and I’ll do anything else you say for all of eternity. Just please don’t get rid of the sweater.”

Saya sighed and placed his hands back on her chest. “You’re too easy, onii-wan.”

“Does this mean that I have groping privileges again?” Fenrir was already back to groping before she could answer.

“No comment.”

“You must get your easiness from me. I’m easy against sweaters and you’re easy against… me in general.”

“Do-don’t get full of yourself! It’s not like I’ll do whatever you want just because it’s you!”

“Are you sure about that? I mean, you were originally created to basically be my perfect partner, and now that’s still who you want to be.”

Saya grumbled a little before pouting and grabbing her twintails to smack his head with.

“Ahhh, I’m being physically abused. Somebody save me.” Fenrir couldn’t have sounded less concerned about the “abuse” if he tried.

Rather than say anything like Fenrir was expecting Saya to, she went silent and still within his arms for a few moments.

“Everything alright?” Fenrir asked her as his hands switched to resting on her abdomen.

“I’m… kind of jealous,” Saya admitted in a low voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“You synced up with me as soon as you immersed after your vacation. I got access to everything that happened while you were over there, including all the… bedroom stuff.”

“Right.”

“And ever since then, you’ve been doing it in real life with them almost every single night. And sometimes in the morning. And—”

“I blame Serra.”

“I do, too, but that doesn’t change that… you’ve been doing it so much. It doesn’t matter whether you’re immersed or in reality anymore.”

Fenrir scratched the side of his head as a nervous chuckle left his lips. “Ah… yeah. I guess that we feel like we have to make up for all the lost time spent not doing it.”

“I get it.”

“Is there something in specific about that making you jealous?”

“I… guess that… I – it’s hard to explain. I don’t want to rush things, but I… want to hurry up and do all that stuff with you, too. A-and I know how it sounds! It’s not like I’m desperate for… sex or anything like that. It’s just… everything intimate. The sex, the cuddling, the teasing, being wrapped up in each other’s bodies… I know how nice it is from how you you’ve felt during it, but I want to experience it myself.”

Fenrir tightly hugged Saya against him and kissed the top of her head between her ears before saying, “Thanks for opening up about that with me. I know that you don’t want to rush things and that you want to wait for them, but just remember that they’ve all already given me permission to do anything I want with you. I can give you all of that whenever you want.”

“But it wouldn’t be fair. Everybody else has had to wait until they’re liked by everybody and a part of the relationship. If I get special treatment… it’s like I’m different from them. Kind of like…”

“Like you’re not as legitimate?”

Saya lowered her head a little and nodded to confirm Fenrir’s guess.

“You feel legitimate to me,” Fenrir said as he groped her a little more. “You also sound pretty legitimate from all the times I’ve heard you talk. And you’re legitimately playing the game. You talk and think like you’re legitimate, too.” He might not have been able to see it, but he did manage to make her smile.

“You’re so weird, onii-wan. You know, I actually… talked to a lot of random people online about this in anonymous chats. I didn’t go into the specifics of how I feel, but I gave them a vague idea of things and used a hypothetical AI in the examples instead of me. You’re the only one who feels this way. Everybody else thought the AI – me, wouldn’t be legitimate. They thought that my feelings didn’t matter because I’m the one choosing to feel them in the first place… not to mention that they’re not really real. Not like a human’s. Even now… I ‘feel jealous’ and I’m talking to you about all of this because it’s what I believe I should act like.”

“And nothing that anybody else believes matters. You’re my Saya. The only thing that matters when it comes to you is what you choose to do with your life. Present to me exactly how you want to be seen and that’s who I’ll accept you as.”

“There are some things I could say… but I think you’d get mad if I said them, and all they’d do is put me down.”

“The more you put yourself down, the higher I’ll have to lift you up.”

Saya giggled and sighed. “That was a good one, onii-wan. And thanks.”

“Anytime, Pupaya. Also, when it comes to treating you differently and all that – you see, taking things slower and not wanting to jump right into treating you like my girlfriend would be treating you differently. I’ve known you longer than all of them. I’ve also spent the most time with you since you’ve been in my head this entire time. And we know each other better than anybody else could unless they also get into our heads. You’re also cute as heck and wearing a sweater. By all standards, I should be all over you, constantly wanting to lewd you, and treating you like you’re just as important as all of my girlfriends. Get it? If you really don’t want to be treated differently, then that means,” Fenrir paused and pulled Saya a bit farther back onto his lap, setting her rear down right against his crotch where she’d be able to feel a certain, hard thing pressing up against her, “I have to treat you just like I’d treat them. Especially since they’ve given me permission to.”

“You’re… such a hentai, baka onii-wan.”

“That might be true, but you’re the one pressing down against me and the one who brought my hands back to your chest.”

“It’s not my fault I was created based off of you.”

“So, in other words, you being a pervert is in your soul.”

“Shut up. Also, kiss me.”

“Those are two very different orders.”

“And you’re not doing either of them.”

With a soft smile, Fenrir grabbed Saya’s chin to turn her head to the side and tilt it back enough to allow him to bring his lips against hers from above.

The loving embrace of their lips didn’t seem to want to end anytime, sooner. Every single time one of them seemed like maybe they thought they should stop, the other was able to convince them to continue.

Fenrir got to kiss his cute pseudo imouto with dog ears and a dog tail wearing a sweater, and Saya got to feel physical affection with the one man who she wanted to feel it with.

But more importantly, they both got to spend time with one another and grow even closer as they shared in their desires.

It was only several minutes later that their kiss ended and Fenrir asked, “Feel a bit better now?”

Saya nodded and leaned up to place a kiss on his jawline. “Mhm. Thanks, onii-wan. You’ve been promoted from the worst to the best, but only for the next five minutes.”

“Good enough for me.”

“Also… I was supposed to show off all the new skills I’ve prepared.”

“You can still do that if you want. Or we can stay like this until I have to go back, and I’ll get to see them whenever we’re in combat together.”

“That’s a tough one. I think… I might have to choose staying like this. But only on one condition.”

“And what would that condition be?”

“You can continue groping me the whole time… if we kiss the whole time, too. You’re only allowed to grope me for as long as you’re kissing me.”

“I love how you started off all tsun and acting like you don’t approve of me groping you, but now you’re making me a deal that I can grope you as much as I want as long as I kiss you during it.”

“It’s not like you don’t know the tsundere stuff is just an act for you. The side of me that wants to be cute and do intimate stuff with you is way stronger, but…”

“But the tsundere act is foreplay?”

“I – I guess that’s one way to put it.”

While Fenrir might not have gotten to see what Saya was really capable of now, he did at least get to spend plenty of time groping and kissing her in the forest where there wasn’t anybody around to interrupt them. All they had around them was the sound of nature.

The sound of nature included Rock and Shogun occasionally getting up and scratching behind their ears.