In round 2, Kazuichi pulls more people in.

Earlier, the brief moment where Kazuichi hadn't yet gotten his triggers rolling had felt like failing to solve a puzzle. Conversely, now that he was spanking the bare bottom of one of his most disagreeable friends while she clenched her teeth in an unmistakable smile, he felt like he was on a winning streak. Like a gambler with a hot table, Kazuichi reasoned that going all in could only be the right call. This wasn't actually about punishing Hiyoko, after all: it was about exploiting her triggers. "Well, everyone but me has somethin' to take advantage of. It's a waste if I leave them just standin' around, huh? Now's the time for me to get everyone in on the action!" The young man rubbed his stinging hands together hungrily, deciding how to put the pieces in place for the most satisfying result.

As he considered, Kazuichi continued laying absent-minded slaps on the red cheeks of Hiyoko's bare bottom, surprised at how easy he found it to take his brain off that work and put it to the task at hand. "So, right now... for Mahiru, the only active thing would be getting someone to take a photo with both of us. With Mikan, is the only active thing having her do nurse work? I got an idea, but I'll hold onto it... For Hajime, I could either pull him into an argument somehow or ask for his help with something. Wait, is that really it? Just ask for help?! I gotta try that one out right away! But on what...?"

The mechanic chose to swallow his pride and just ask straight-up. Couldn't he complete a weird condition trigger here and now, if he played his cards right? "Hey, Hajime!" Kazuichi shouted over Hiyoko's recurring moans. "Can you make Mikan wear somethin' else?"

Hajime just stared at him in confusion. Mikan, on the other hand, rose startled to her feet. "H-huh?! But I always dress like this... W-wait, just cause I got a little wet, are you saying I s-s-smell?! I'm sorry!!"

Kazuichi thought to himself that he might actually have triggers to bend this how he wanted, but for now, he was more interested in figuring out why his first shot had failed to get Hajime moving. He got an idea after a brief bit of thinking. "Oh yeah, duh. I asked for his help, but that ain't an actual 'problem' I have, like the trigger says. Lemme try it that way..." Kazuichi waved his hand dismissively at Mikan's panic. "Uh, forget that. Hajime, my arm's gettin' tired. Think you can take over?"

This got another interesting reaction, but not the one Kazuichi had expected. Everyone but Hiyoko seemed horrified by the suggestion. This time, Hajime was the one to protest. "Are you nuts, Kazuichi?! You and Mikan are the ones that Hiyoko owes an apology to! It'd just be sexual **** if I did what you’re doing!"

Kazuichi clenched his filed teeth in a frustrated grin. "What the heck? This topsy turvy logic is gettin' more annoying than I thought... Gah!" Determined not to give up, and feeling the pressure that his trigger's hold on Hiyoko could run out at any second, he ran back through the words he'd said. "Bingo, I think I got it!" He cleared his throat and tried a third time, not bothering to try and make excuses to the digital constructs of his friends for his previous attempts. "Hajime, my arm's tired. Please... uh, help me... by taking over spanking Hiyoko."

"Got it," Hajime agreed immediately as a distant chime sounded. "Pass her over."

Kazuichi pumped his arm in excitement, hurriedly passing Hiyoko off his lap and into the arms of his buddy. "He... Hehehe! Look at that! It's that easy!" he muttered to himself, biting his fingers in excitement in spite of what he'd just been using that hand for. He stood up and watched his handiwork: the serious Hajime, with just that bit of urging, was now paddling Hiyoko bent over his lap. The flush on his face could just as easily have been from exertion as any embarrassment.

Hiyoko, meanwhile, had a new look of surprise on her face, but was still smiling through it in a shaky way. Although she still wasn't complaining, tears had begun forming at the corners of her eyes, for any number of possible reasons. "Ah...~ Kazuichi did give himself a mmmf~! Pretty tough workout... Ahn!~ He deserves Eep!~ A break!"

"That's right, I do!" he cackled to himself. “Kyeheh, my hand was getting a little numb… Turns out, this is almost as much fun to take in as it is to dish out! Hajime gets to have a little fun this way too, right? Everybody wins!”

Finally, one of the bystanders who’d been mostly quiet stepped forward, the only one who seemed to have a problem with how this inexplicable chain of events was proceeding. Mahiru had her fists planted on her hips, and Kazuichi was already bracing against the tirade he was about to get. If he only got an ear-chewing for subjecting Mahiru's friend Hiyoko to what he had, he’d be lucky. Already, he was considering if he’d need to rely on Hajime’s trigger to get the guy to defend him.

As it turned out, she only had words for him. “You creep… We all agree Hiyoko needed to be taught a lesson, but did you have to do it like that?!”

“L-like what? Oh, you mean publicly?” Kazuichi rubbed the back of his head with one of his stinging hands, speaking apologetically more to try and calm her down than from any regret. “That was the best way to teach her, don’tcha think?”

“Well, obviously, but not that.” Instead of placated, Mahiru looked more frustrated. “Are you gonna make me spell it out?”

“Sorry for bein’ an idiot, but I think you’ll have to…”

Mahiru rolled her eyes, then moved her arms from her hips to cross them below her chest, glancing away from Kazuichi. “I mean… the way you pleasured her, obviously.”

The mechanic gave her a vacant, apologetic grin, his mind catching up to what she’d just said. “Uh… What? Pleasured her? I-is that what that looked like to you?”

“Are you telling me you that isn’t what you were doing?” Mahiru looked genuinely shocked. “But it looked like it felt so good! I mean, it looked like she thought it felt good!” Now the red-faced redhead was scrambling, waving her hands defensively. “I mean, she looked like she… didn’t hate it as much as you’d expect a normal person in that situation to hate it! Gosh, it’s so weird, it's got me feeling like I can hardly speak straight…”

“Ah… Ahah,” Kazuichi laughed dumbly. Earlier, he hadn’t recognized this for what it was, but now that he had a better idea of what the triggers were and how they worked, it added up. Even he could tell this was an effect of his trigger that activated when Mahiru saw him doing something she perceived as “manly.” But what was it she considered manly, exactly? That wasn’t something Kazuichi had ever thought about before… Regardless, something was clearly turning her on, so, smelling blood in the water, the young man continued to try and press it. “You wanna try that?”

“Wh-Huh?!” Mahiru’s eyes widened and she recoiled defensively. A mixture of offense and embarrassment showed on her hot, freckled face. “As if! I-I didn’t do anything you can punish me for, anyway!”

The mechanic saw he hadn’t gotten Mahiru so hot that she was going to drop panties and bend over for him in public just for love of him, but that didn’t discourage him. Instead, he tried to think of how he could twist logic into getting what he wanted, coming to an idea with a quickness that surprised himself. He crossed his arms and winked one eye in an exaggerated gesture of thoughtfulness. “You’re right, but… Well, I thought maybe you would. And if I thought you would, isn’t it normal that someone else would think you would?”

“Not everyone is as much of a blockhead as you,” Mahiru countered confidently. After only a second of watching Hajime paddling Hiyoko and being alone with her thoughts, however, she seemed to reconsider. “L-look, you have some responsibility, too! You and I both know I’m just a bystander here. I mean… if someone was to, um, talk about us having gotten into something here… you’d set them straight, right? If you’re-“

“A real man?” Kazuichi finished her sentence, almost finding himself laughing. “Yeah, yeah, sure I would. But, without any evidence, would they believe me?”

Mahiru was clearly giving his argument more weight than it deserved, watching Hiyoko’s spanking with concern and biting her nails subconsciously. “Why should you have to provide evidence? If it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen…! Oh, all right, fine! There’s one logical thing to do, right?” Mahiru raised the camera hanging on a lanyard around her neck with renewed confidence. “If I have a normal photo of us with that going on in the background, I can just show that as evidence! I really hate selfies, but… I hate being the target of scummy rumors more.”

“Great! Let’s take a photo together.” Kazuichi put an arm around Mahiru’s shoulder, cackling at the little jump and squeal he got from her at the overly-familiar gesture. He could feel her heart pounding next to him as she allowed herself to be guided to a spot a short distance from the bench where Hiyoko was being punished. In position, he gave a cheesy grin for the camera, looking like he was posing in front of a tourist spot with his girlfriend rather than strong-arming a photographer into taking a photo of the two of them in front of a public exhibition.

“Wh-what are you thinking? People’ll get the wrong idea if we-“ Mahiru started, before Kazuichi heard a familiar “ding” from the direction of his pad. He saw the light briefly leave Mahiru’s green eyes. Her brow slackened and then furrowed again as the light returned, leaving her looking exceptionally pensive. “Composition… composition… even for something like this, I’m not gonna take a picture with no composition. I have my reputation, after all…” Frowning, Mahiru hurried to break away from him and wheel a chair from the nearby reception desk to the spot they’d chosen. “Take a seat.”

Kazuichi did as instructed, sitting and gripping the arms of the chair. He knew he was getting what he wanted without yet knowing what that was.

“Okay, so you sit like that…” Mahiru nodded with a sparkle of creativity in her eyes, like an expert watching her masterpiece come to life. This professional appearance was offset by the fact that she was had removed her hands from the camera, letting it hang from its lanyard so she could slide both hands up the sides of her skirt. While her eyes fixed on the scene before her, she grabbed the sides of her panties and pulled them down, carefully stepping out of them and leaving them on the floor. “Carefully” might be the wrong word, as while she was being neat about it, she hadn’t managed to avoid flashing Kazuichi with a brief glimpse of her red bush as she prepped herself. That lasted less than a second, though, so what was really catching his attention was the pair she’d taken off: a skimpy side-tied dark pair with white details. He was struck by what an impossible sight this would be in the real world. If he accidentally caught sight of Mahiru’s panties there, whether she was wearing them or not, he knew he’d never hear the end of her berating him.

His newly breezy photographer stepped forward and approached the side of the chair briskly. She turned her serious eyes on him. “Put your feet down, brace yourself on the floor.”

Kazuichi put his feet on the floor, not understanding, but in a second, he would. Mahiru pulled herself over the arm of the chair on her stomach, and since the mechanic hadn’t pumped the brakes himself, the office chair they were both occupying began sliding across the floor. Before they could topple, he grit his teeth and planted his feet hard, eliciting a loud squeak as his sneakers dragged on the tile.

“For God’s sake, guys like you really can’t listen, huh?!” Mahiru scoffed. “Can’t make a photographer’s job easy, can you…?” Still rolling her eyes, Mahiru reached back to flip up her own skirt, revealing her own cute, pale, and freckled ass like she was asking for a spanking herself. For a moment, Kazuichi almost took it that way and began raising a palm. At this, Mahiru took him by surprise with a light elbow to the gut. “What kind of moron are you? Isn’t the point of this photo to show I did NOT let you spank me here?! Why are you so set on ruining this photo?” She sighed, then continued, glancing aside. “Look, you put your hand just over me, like you’re about to spank me, but don’t actually do it. If we could do the shoot another way, that’d be great, but this is the only way to get a good-looking photo.”

Even though Mahiru was supported more by the arms of the chair than Kazuichi’s body, he could feel the girl’s heart hammering as she put the pointing finger of one hand in her teeth and bit down softly and sensually, then lifted the camera up with her free hand to an angle that would get both her face and her ass. “Three… two… one…” She hit the button and took the photo, letting out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Okay. That’s over.”

“Cool, cool,” Kazuichi muttered, his eyes traveling between his friend’s “ready to go” expression and the still-pale skin of her backside. “Is it fine for my face not to be in it? Actually, Hiyoko wasn’t in it, either. You sure you got what you needed?”

“I spent so much effort setting up that shot, you really think I’d screw it up? The date will prove it without Hiyoko actually being in the shot. Nobody needs to see that, anyway. And who else would be wearing your jumpsuit?”

The mechanic was tuning her out. He didn’t think he had a trigger to help this along, but the situation alone and his power-drunk feeling spurred him to another action. Without warning, he brought his hand down hard on the ass presented to him. As he saw Mahiru’s freckled skin bounce with a new, stinging palm mark, he thought to himself how remarkable it was that his hand, which had hardly touched a woman in the years he’d been alive, was now in a position to compare the firmness of two of his most standoffish friend’s asses. As much as a good spanking seemed to suit Hiyoko, Kazuichi considered Mahiru might have the nicer butt.

For her part, Mahiru yelped and then hurriedly rolled off his lap, landing gracelessly on the floor with her skirt still up and revealing herself. Even in that position, Mahiru was slow to recover, regarding him with her knuckle still tellingly in her teeth and her chest rising and falling quickly. “Y-you…” Finally, Mahiru straightened her skirt and rose to her feet, snatching her panties up off the floor hastily. “You can’t do that here! In front of everyone! I… I’m not like that...” she began to babble, clutching her underwear to her chest before running off. “I’m going to my room!” she declared. She gave it a few steps as an annoyed stomp before breaking into a full sprint, looking back over her shoulder briefly as if to see if she was being followed.

Kazuichi only shot her a grin and waved goodbye, kicking back in his throne-like office chair. He half wondered if that odd goodbye was supposed to be an invitation for him to chase her, but he thought he could safely leave that for the time being. He whirled it in place to see how Hajime was doing…

It turned out he’d been a moment too late to avert disaster here. The scene told the story, with Hajime doubled over in pain and Hiyoko on her feet again, holding her untied kimono together as best as she could, staring at Kazuichi hatefully. “It’s over, okay? I apologized, I took my licks, and it’s done. I’m not putting up with any more of this bullshit!”

“Well, that depends on whether you changed your behavior, doesn’t it?” Kazuichi raised a hand to evoke the threat of another spanking.

Hiyoko clearly recoiled from it, but showed him a look of disgust. “What a creep… We all get I deserved it, but you really get off on hurting your friends, huh? Gross!”

The young man only laughed, surveying the scene as Hiyoko accused him, Mikan fussed over Hajime, and Hajime struggled to catch his breath. Mahiru was probably somewhere dealing with the unexpected feelings from the spanking he’d nailed her with, too. He'd gotten hard from all the spanking play he'd given the girls, but he hadn't actually gotten off... In that case, should he manipulate Mikan or Hiyoko into doing it for him? Which would he choose?

Kazuichi felt more powerful than he’d known in his life, and it felt great. All he could think of was how great it felt. It felt great…

To control his friends...? To exploit and **** weaknesses in fake versions of them for his own pleasure...? To secretly get jacked off by a machine and virtual constructs of his same friends that were cheering him on in the real world?

He looked back at the digital Hiyoko’s face, and the memory of his real friend Hiyoko who’d given him a clumsy gift that morning and wished him luck finally **** its way back into his head. The promise he'd made to himself to stay on track, completely forgotten a moment ago, hit him so hard it felt like a slap.

Suddenly, the mechanic sprung to his feet, kicking away the chair in reflexive disgust, turning to watch it slide across the floor and then looking down at his own stinging hands, the proof that what he was doing wasn’t just in a dream. “Wh-what the fuck? What the hell am I doing…?!” He turned to where Hiyoko had been, burning with a new need to apologize for what he’d just done, to somehow defend himself to his friends… Already, though, Hiyoko was gone, and Mikan had led Hajime somewhere to take care of him. Kazuichi was alone, with only himself.

“What is this…? What is this…?!” Kazuichi only muttered, looking around in vain for someone who could explain. “It can’t have been more than an hour ago I was sayin’ I wouldn’t do this again, and now… I'm not just doin' it, I’m doin’ it to everybody?! Am I screwed up in the head after all?!”

This session of shouting at himself wasn’t proving productive, so he tried to invoke the next person he thought could help. “Chiaki? Chiaki! Get your ass out here and… and explain why the heck your screwy program is makin’ me act like this! Why would I wanna do this kind of thing to my friends? I wouldn’t, right?!”

No answer came. Kazuichi had braced himself to be pulled from this place into some digital space where he could speak to Chiaki directly, and had reflexively clenched, expecting pain. Instead, he was only greeted by more biting, judging silence. If anyone was watching him, they weren’t making themselves known.

The mechanic picked up the pad Usami had given him earlier. He was determined not to even look at the new triggers he’d unlocked. “I’m done with this messed-up game, you hear me?! Wh-whatever your AI’s tellin’ ya about me and what I want, Chiaki, I’m a normal, healthy guy who respects his friends! I didn’t ask for this kind of therapy, dammit!!"

His echo was the only response.

Kazuichi made up his mind. “This is too much. I need to ignore everyone else I see before I do something- I mean, before this program makes me do something terrible I can’t take back! I need to find Chiaki… But how? Is she even in this place?”