After their afternoon testing the game together, communication between Shino and Suguha had been somewhat awkward and short-worded. Shino went back to try out a few other parts of the simulation and she could see that Suguha had done the same, but they didn't talk to one another about it. Until a few days later, when she sent her another text message.

Leafa 11:43
1v1 me at ID

Leafa 11:44
If you want



Shino joined the established lobby and saw Suguha's avatar right away, sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed. She waved to her as she came over.

"1v1 me? Really? Do you have any idea what year it is?"

"You're really gonna shame me on my slang? We tested the multiplayer, but not the VS mode, right?" Suguha shrugged. "You need that for your review, don't you?"

Shino sat next to her friend. "True... I didn't really think about it." A window popped up in front of her with a play offer. Apparently, Suguha had already prepared something beforehand. "Wait, how does this mode even work?"

"Oh, it's easy. You start with a bag of tools and we track each other down. Once one player has the other restrained, they can declare victory from the menu. Unless your captive gets free within a time limit, you win."

Shiho nodded slowly and looked over the settings presented to her. She was still unsure about the air between them, after how abruptly they parted ways the last time, but at least it seemed like Suguha didn't see much of an issue. She reached out and tapped the Accept button on the menu.



Time passed, slightly more than usual, it seemed, before the simulated environment loaded in. Shino stood to the side of a busy pedestrian zone, in some suburban part of a city she didn't recognize. People were moving past her in small crowds, quietly going about their day, with the soft murmur of low voices and traffic noises from some distant street filling the air.

As always, first order of business was to check her avatar. It was unchanged from the basis, but she was wearing a different simulated outfit, one she had put together the day before: Dark jeans, a light turquoise top, a grey summer jacket, and sneakers.

With that part confirmed, she turned her attention to the courier bag that had spawned immediately next to her, but not before taking a long look around. She was up against another player, who wouldn't hesitate to come at her right away, she didn't necessarily have the luxury to check everything first. But Suguha was nowhere to be seen in the crowd, at least not yet.

The supplies in the bag were few, but varied. She had two coils of rope, a roll of black tape, two thin folded scarves, and a pocket knife. The last item gave her pause until she concluded that it must have been intended as a tool for escape. She took it from the bag and slid it into her back pocket, before closing the bag and putting it over her shoulder.

Taking a careful look into the crowd again, she finally moved from the corner she had spawned in and started mingling, just going with the flow of the pedestrians. She usually blended in rather well, but who knows if that would be enough if Suguha was specifically looking for her. Still, going looking for her directly would just make her easier to spot, so for now, surveying the layout of the map was probably the best bet.

The road led past blocked-off entrances and side-roads, possibly to keep the players away from the edge of the map, to avoid them running into invisible walls. But there were plenty of alleys and buildings that were open as well, so there were definitely opportunities for encounters off of the road as well. But still no sign of Suguha so far.

Shino almost wondered if there was something wrong with the multiplayer functionality, not properly matching them or spawning them into separate instances, when someone grabbed her wrist and yanked back her arm. She stumbled and tried to pull herself free, but her arm was twisted onto her back and another hand clasped over her mouth as she was being dragged backwards, towards one of the alleys.

Shino tried to pry away the hand from her mouth and plant her feet, but she was no match for Suguha's strength and couldn't avoid being pulled away from the street, into the dark but clean side alley, no more than four feet wide.

"I've got you.", Suguha's voice sing-songed into her ear as she was pushed to the side against the wall. The taller girl's body pushed against her back, she could feel her knee against the back of her thigh and her other leg against her side, not giving her any room to step away or to try and kick at her to fend her off.

Suguha removed her hand from Shino's mouth and pulled away from her free hand to grab the strap on her shoulder, pushing it off, the satchel of supplies falling to the floor. Shino tried to push herself away to the side, but Suguha quickly seized her other wrist and twisted it on her back as well.

"Where even were you?", Shino asked between the grunts of trying to somehow twist her arms free, a fruitless attempt against her toned friend.

"Stalking you.", Suguha said flatly, waiting for Shino to momentarily relax her arms to grab both of her wrists with one hand, quickly pulling rope from her pocket with the other. It was slipped over the wrists quickly and pulled tight almost right away.

Shino tried to pull her wrists apart, but the rope was already looped around them several times, making it easy to quickly tie off. Did Suguha prepare a loose loop beforehand or was the assistance mechanic just very forgiving? Either way, her wrists were tied tightly and she was already at a disadvantage.

With Shino's wrists tied, Suguha opened her own satchel to reach for the next tool, taking back a half step in the process, taking pressure off of the back of Shino's legs. Shino immediately raised her foot and stomped down on Suguha's toes. She would have felt bad about it, if she didn't already know that the pain would be dulled. But dull or not, the sudden attack was enough to make Suguha flinch and back off further, just enough for her to move to the side and run towards the first door she could see, which was conveniently ajar. She pushed her shoulder against it, stumbling inside, and ran down the hallway into the building.

The walls were painted white and there were no discerning features about the place. If she had to guess, it was likely the back entrance to a larger store or an office building. Her initial guess was confirmed, when she pushed through another random door, finding a small storage room for office supplies, shelves lining the walls and standing free, as well as cardboard boxes stacked in the corners. She hurried to one of the back corners to try and hide, crouching down outside of view from the door and listening.

Her heart was beating in her ears and she took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself down, but she didn't hear Suguha following her, at least not in any hurry. Maybe now she had time to think about strategy.

Suguha was stronger than her and she now had all of their supplies. Not to mention her own hands were already tied behind her back. She was at a severe disadvantage that wasn't going to be easily made up. But surrender was not an option. If Suguha wanted her, she had to come in and take her by force.

Shino shook off the sudden rush of excitement that thought stirred in her and slipped her fingers into the back pocket of her jeans, fidgeting with the pocket knife, trying to get it out. Removing it from the pocket was easy, but trying to open it without looking and with her wrists touching was more of a challenge. And when she had finally managed that, she started hearing footsteps in the hallway.

Keeping her breath quiet and watching the door from around the corner of one of the shelves, she carefully tried to align the blade of the knife with the rope, but whenever they seemed to touch, her grip wasn't steady enough to start cutting. The steps got closer and the door creaked open. Shino's heart was in her throat, her lips felt dry and she was trying desperately to at least get a little cut into the rope so she could try to break out. But she fumbled and the knife clattered to the floor, seeming impossibly loud in the silence of the store room.

"Shit!"

If she could have, Shino would have clasped a hand over her mouth as she darted behind the shelf, out of view. The door slammed shut and the light switch was flipped, the dim halogen lamps in the ceiling flickering to life.

"Do you want to surrender, Sinonon?", Suguha asked loudly into the room.

"Bite me."

"If that's the way you want it."

She heard the steps moving toward her, so she got up on her feet and waited, her posture slightly crouched. When Suguha came around the corner, Shino pushed herself forward, trying to knock her over, but Suguha reacted in time, moving aside and giving her a firm shove as she went past, making her stumble and fall. In real life, the fall would have hurt pretty badly, since she didn't have her arms free to catch herself, but even in the simulation, she grunted at the sudden impact.

With her hands tied, trying to scramble back up was difficult, not that Suguha even gave her the chance, immediately sitting down on top of her, straddling her thighs. She took a handful of Shino's hair and pulled her head back.

"You're such a bad girl, Sinonon, trying to run.", she chided her, pushing two of the thin scarves between her lips, filling out her mouth, before putting one hand under her chin, making her close her mouth, and placing the end of a strip of black tape over her lips, winding the roll around her head twice before ripping it, making a very secure tape gag.

Still keeping the tape in hand, she wound it around Shino's wrists, reinforcing the rope, then winding it up her arms, slowly encasing them further in carefully laid tape, creating an improvised, clingy armbinder, only stopping once she got to the elbows.

Shino tried struggling, but her arms were now firmly taped together with no space for wiggling or moving. She wasn't going to get free. Finally admitting defeat, she let out a frustrated sigh and stopped putting up resistance, allowing Suguha to tape up her legs as well, from ankles to knees. Finally, Suguha folded up another thin scarf and tied it over her eyes as a blindfold.

"There... looks like I win." Suguha got up and looked down at her friend, wrapped up in tape and barely struggling. She opened the menu and hovered over the Declare Victory button that had lit up with the confirmation of Shino being completely restrained. "Do you want to try and get out? I'll even give you the knife."

Shino seemed to think about it for a moment, but then shook her head, mumbling something into the tight gag. Suguha shrugged and pressed the button, starting the countdown.

"Then we have a few minutes to fill." She put down her satchel, which she had filled with Shino's supplies as well, and knelt down on the floor, leaning against the wall. She reached down to her bound friend and carefully put an arm under her shoulders and another under her thighs, helping her move up into a sitting position and pulling her against herself, finally sitting back against the wall and stretching out her legs to either side of Shino, gently holding her with her arms around her waist and having her lean against her.

"Oh, that reminds me. You told me to bite, didn't you?", Shino heard Suguha say, just as she was starting to get comfortable. She turned her head as if to look at her, despite the blindfold, but Suguha took her chin and turned her head back forward. In the next moment, she felt her friend's lips brushing against her ear and then suddenly her teeth softly nibbling at her earlobe. She flinched in surprise and moaned quietly into the gag, shifting in her tight restraints.

Suguha let off again and simply held her for the remainder of the countdown, sitting with her in comfortable silence until the game declared her victorious.