A photoshoot for Akane and Sonia.

After a bit of preparation, Mahiru clapped her hands together, trying to look more confident than she felt. "Good, everyone's in position... Ibuki, thanks for getting Akane's clothes out of the staging area... We're all set."

Everyone gathered was understandably quiet, with the exception of Yasuhiro, who couldn't stop running his mouth under any conditions. Mahiru could feel Chiaki's eyes on her, probably still trying to guilt her into backing up and taking a look at what she was doing. After taking Mikan's shots, however, Mahiru knew she had what it took to do it. In a way, it felt like she'd be betraying the conviction of her friends who'd agreed if she gave up now.

She found herself standing in front of the sleigh prop they'd constructed earlier, also on a fake snowy rooftop and surrounded by a starry sky backdrop. Her two models were in position: first, at the front of the sleigh, posing on all fours with a bit for reins between her bared teeth, the Ultimate Gymnast Akane Owari was in position as the sleigh-pulling reindeer. As directed, she'd taken off every scrap of her clothing, putting her fit and incredible tanned body on display for all of her classmates. She had a vacant forward stare that showed impatience more than anything else, without so much as a trace of a blush across her face. Earlier, Mahiru had tried coaching her friend on how she might make this scene look playful or fun; she could see now that, predictably, Akane had forgotten all of that coaching and was back to doing her own thing. Of course, the original presentation had counted on something like more like reindeer pajamas and an antler headband than stark nudity, so she supposed there was no point in complaining.

With that in mind, the Ultimate Princess Sonia Nevermind was doing an admirable job of trying to hold the original holly, jolly character Mahiru had coached her on, playing the part of a Santa preparing to deliver toys... Only, without a costume and with the modifications Mahiru had been **** to make, she didn't look like Santa at all. True to her promise, Sonia had also taken off every scrap of her clothing, even the accessories that kept her hair in its elaborate shape. There was only a single scrap of clothing she'd been allowed to keep on for the sake of protecting her identity, if not her dignity: a pair of ornate, dark, high-coverage panties that were inappropriately placed over the head of the princess, hiding the upper half of her face from those who would try to identify her. Unlike Akane, she had a healthy and human redness on her fair cheeks, but she also wore her characteristic smile like a trooper and held the reins aloft.

"Looking good," Mahiru told the two of them, trying to ignore her brain screaming at her in retort. From the angle Mahiru had found for the shot, Akane's arms shielded the peaks of her breasts from view while leaving most of them visible, and the arc of her back made it so only the curves of her meaty ass were visible rather than any of the area between her legs. Similarly, Sonia held the reins at the chest so that even bare as she was, her nipples were protected from the chosen angle; additionally, the lip of the front of the sleigh came just high enough to cover the valley between her legs, so that only a hint of well-groomed blonde hair was visible above it. This was the closest Mahiru could get to a tasteful artistic framing in this position. Still...

"I didn't see it in the original set-up, but now that they're dressed this way... Oh, God, it looks like an S&M thing, doesn't it...?" Mahiru couldn't help but mutter under her breath as she got the photos she wanted. This would serve as the overall, and she'd get two that were better character focuses to follow.

Akane spit out the bit from her mouth and rose to her feet as soon as Mahiru stopped taking photos. Without bothering to cover the wild bush of her lower hair, she gestured with her hands freely. "Okay! Mahiru did her thing, now I'm goin' to-"

"Hold on, please!" Mahiru interrupted. "I still need you for two more scenes. Keep that pose on the ground, okay? You need the rein thingy, still..."

"Aaah! Chewin' on this thing is just makin' me hungrier!" Akane growled, although she was picking it up off the floor again (apparently having no concern putting it back in her mouth like that). "Look, Mahiru, you're the director or whatever, aintcha? I hope you learned the most important job for the director is havin' a mountain of food lined up for us actors!"

"The term is 'models'... Sonia, would you mind getting over here? I'll change up the poses a little bit from what I planned earlier. How about this?"

After convincing Akane back into her position on all fours on the floors, Mahiru directed Sonia to sit on Akane's back so the two were facing perpendicular to each other. She got Sonia to put on a haughty smile crossing her legs with one hand to her chin and the other crossed to the opposite arm, allowing her to cover her breasts again. Positioning the camera to face Sonia, she'd capture her entire body in shot this time, but with all of the sauciest bits still covered. On the other hand, this side view of Akane did nothing to hide her huge breasts. The gymnast didn't seem to care, staring forward with no emotion than irritation. It was become hard to ignore that drool was starting to drip around the bit as Akane daydreamed about what she'd be eating afterwards.

Wondering how on-theme this was staying as a Christmas photo shoot, she nevertheless took a couple of photos that captured the emotions of her models well.

Sonia dropped her hands to her knees, leaning forward and looking more comfortable than she should using her friend as a throne. "Are the pictures coming out well?"

Mahiru flashed a hesitant thumbs up. "Great, thanks... Good to see you're getting into it. I need a sec to think up the next scene, though."

This seemed to catch Akane's attention. She rose quickly, sending Sonia tumbling with a squeal onto the rooftop next to her. "Hey, I decided I'm not okay with this crap after all!"

"Y-you're not?!" Mahiru started, shocked. "But you didn't look embarrassed at all in the photos!"

"Hell, I ain't embarrassed! Stuff like that's for wimps. But I was just thinkin' about it, and, like... Sonia sittin' on top of me while I'm on all fours, ain't that like she's supposed to be stronger than me? I look like a wuss in these photos!"

The photographer hadn't anticipated that complaint as a sticking point. She tried to find some way around Akane's logic... Surely, it wouldn't be hard to talk a circle around it. "No, uh... In this case, it's like you're the strong animal, right? You're supporting her with your muscles, y'know?"

"No, it's like she's the princess and I'm her servant!"

"She's... literally a princess, so..." Mahiru reminded Akane sheepishly.

"Well, whatever! 's fair if we take turns, ain't it?! She got to be the princess once, now it's my turn! We're doin' it my way." Heeding no complaints or protests, Akane reached down to Sonia on the floor and pulled the underwear off of her head, placing it on her own head without a second thought. "'Kay, now you pony up!"

With her big blue eyes now exposed, Sonia bunched her arms at her chest on the floor. "E-excuse me? Akane, I cannot allow myself to be photographed without those, and a princess certainly shall not do something so uncouth as 'pony up'!"

"Heck, it's easy." Akane thoughtlessly took the bit that had been both in her own mouth and on the floor and shoved it between Sonia's teeth, forcing her to bare them in a disbelieving grimace. "Now just put your hands and knees down like you're playin' Twister."

The princess seemed to understand she was at Akane's mercy, so she did as she said, shaking her head at Mahiru with fear in her eyes to register her complaint. As if to cut that off, the muscular gymnast took a seat on the princess's back much less gently than she had in turn, causing Sonia to let out a grunt around the bit and go red-faced for a different reason, suffering under the packed weight of Akane's dark body.

Mahiru frowned deeply. "I... guess this is how the last shot's going, huh..." Akane may have dictated the shot, but Mahiru recognized she still had a responsibility to hide Sonia's identity. "Well, there's one way to hide her face even without a mask..." Wincing, the photographer did what she needed to do. She shifted her position so that Akane was in side profile now, with the camera facing Sonia's rear end. At this angle, Akane could have hidden her breasts to make herself decent, but she didn't, keeping her hands carelessly at her sides instead. Sonia, on the other hand, was protecting her dignity as best as she could manage. Mahiru could hear the princess's physical exertion as she tried to support Akane on the bridge of her back while shifting her own hands to cover her slit between her legs, bringing her shoulders closer to the floor. It was a hard effort, and even with it done, she couldn't manage to get them in place to cover her other hole.

Mahiru couldn't possibly say it, but the thought stuck in her brain like a lead weight. "I'm photographing a princess's butthole, huh..." Cringing, but doing what she had to, Mahiru quickly took the shots she needed, then shouted out. "I got it, I got it! This shoot's over!"

"Hell yeah!" Akane rose to her feet, peeled the panties off of her head, and threw them onto the collapsed body of her makeshift stool. "C'mon Sophia, Mahiru says we can go! Last one to the cafeteria's a rotten egg!"

"Please get dressed first," Mahiru begged, adding Sonia to the list of people she owed a special apology to, along with... "Oh! Oh no, Mikan! Akane, please get Mikan out of the chimney first!"

Akane had begun dressing herself again, walking towards the door even as she shifted her skirt back up her hips and not having bothered with her panties at all. "No way, I got a serious emergency here! If I don't eat, I'm gonna die. I'll do it after I'm back."

Mahiru pinched the bridge of her nose, helping the dazed Sonia up off of the ground and turning her head. "Peko, Ibuki, you're both next..."

Both of them nodded, although Ibuki's nod was more of a headbang. As the songwriter skipped over to their scene, the swordswoman glanced at the chimney. "I'll get Mikan first..."