Archive of Our Own ^beta

Iz was wandering through a new dungeon that she'd found, though perhaps the term, demolished would fit better. She had a lot of bombs, and no regard for the destruction she could cause with them. It was a miracle she hadn't been banned for griefing yet, but she did refrain from destroying player made structures. 

"Ooohh! Loot!"

Iz excitedly opened the loot chest she spotted, in place of where a boss fight would've been, had she not been an in-game war criminal. Inside the chest lay a most adorable witch outfit, styled after Japanese robes, black in color, hemmed with red, at first glance, it seemed the kind of outfit Kasumi would wear, though once Iz put it on, she discovered that it had a remarkably short skirt, and that the way the robes wrapped around her chest, left her with a good amount of exposure, so it was unlikely that Kasumi would actually be caught in such a garb.

It also came with a hat, though this one was of more typical witching style, with a wide brim, and pointy top, complete with a twinkling star to hold the red ribbon in place. In the place of whatever weapon the dungeon might've offered to a more combat focused class, or perhaps there to compliment the lacking item, there was a broomstick of most intricate craftsmanship, with kana engraved upon the handle, along with beautiful stars. 

The items offered similar skills to her current gear, along with improved stats, and a few new skills. The broomstick was a curious item, being labelled as a weapon, but not being linked to her class, and even having a unique skill tied to it in [Hypnosis]. 

"Don't mind if I do."

Iz took very little care for the immodesty of the robes, and placed the hat atop her head, finding that she made an adorable witch. The broomstick flew to her hand when she stretched it out, allowing her to climb upon it to fly out of the dungeon.

Later that day, Kasumi was wandering around the fourth stratum, being a bit peeved that the new dungeon had already been raided by someone else who clearly had no cares for the culture of this stratum. 

Her wanderings were interrupted by a most unusual sight, Iz, wearing a ridiculously attractive outfit that seemed almost designed to make Kasumi lose her head, appeared to be practicing with skills of some kind, despite the fact that she barely had any that were of use in combat. Kasumi moved closer, intrigued by this most queer vision before her, wondering what Iz was doing.

"[Vexing Bolt]."

Iz fired a bolt of energy from the end of her broomstick, which hit a tree, relatively close to where Kasumi was hiding. It left a small scorch mark, but otherwise did no harm. 

"Okay, so that's what that skill does! Cool! Now, if only there were mobs around for me to test [Hypnosis] on,"

Iz said to herself, really wanting to try her new skill out. Kasumi, overhearing this began to formulate a plan to be able woo Iz, without it seeming too out-of-character for her to be so open with her feelings, which she herself barely understood. 

She emerged from her hiding place, and offered a simple solution to Iz' problem, knowing that safety regulations would prevent Iz from being able to use any kind of mind control on another player, but also that such a fact was well hidden in the game's code.

"Perhaps, you could test it upon me?"

Iz seemed to consider this for a moment, her conscience battling with her curiosity, before ultimately losing out as she raised her broomstick and pointed it at Kasumi, who secretly opened her avatar menu behind her back, ready to apply a cosmetic that she'd acquired a while back as a joke from Mai. 

"I guess if you volunteer, then there's no problem. [Hypnosis]!"

A swirling vortex spun from the end of Iz' broom, and met Kasumi's eyes for a moment, before swirling into her pupils, as her eyes glazed over and her form went slightly limp, forcing her into a sitting position. 

"Kasumi, get up."

Iz issued a simple command, which Kasumi obeyed without hesitation, causing Iz to blink in response, before making another command, one that a non-hypnotized Kasumi was unlikely to follow through with,

"Slap yourself."

Kasumi did so without a moment's hesitation, making Iz jump up and down in excitement, making Kasumi's ruse a bit harder to conceal with the motion of her exposed chest, forcing the samurai to conceal her blush with some degree of effort and focus.

"Oh my Maple! You're really hypnotized! Oh.... what to do? What to do?.... oh! I know!"

Iz got an amazing idea. She had her reasons for making Kasumi such cute outfits in the past, after all. 

"When I snap my fingers, you will fall madly in love with me!"

Iz snapped her fingers, and Kasumi seemed to shake herself out of the hypnotic trance, the swirls in her eyes being replaced with hearts. The samurai moved swiftly, closing the distance between her and Iz, her gaze showing nothing but pure love for the crafter. 

"Oh, Iz, my liege, my sweetest love. Every moment with you is sweeter than being in Takama no Hara. Every time my eyes get to behold your beauty, I bless whatever Kami sent you my way."

Kasumi's voice sounded completely honest, mostly because it was, though Iz assumed it was part of the hypnosis and just smiled while blushing like a bride. She turned away for a simple moment, before being pulled back to face Kasumi, who blessed her lips with the most passionate kiss Iz had ever experienced. 

She could tell that she was going to need a change of clothes from that kiss alone.

Kasumi was an amazing kisser.

A few minutes later, and Iz was struggling to escape from the seemingly obsessed Kasumi, who was still giving her kisses every chance she got. Eventually, Iz managed to get the time needed to hopefully undo the spell, now that she'd had her fun.

"When I snap my fingers, you will return to normal with no memory of being hypnotized!"

Iz snapped her fingers, and much to her surprise, nothing happened. She tried again, and still nothing. Finally, she tried something else, and pulling a bell out of her inventory, she said,

"when I ring this bell, you will return to normal with no memory of being hypnotized!"

Once Iz rung the bell, Kasumi instantly retreated, her eyes returning to normal, as did her emotional processing, at least on the surface.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

If Iz could read her mind, then she would get the world's worst headache from how loudly Kasumi was squealing internally. 

"Did your skill work?"

She questioned, her voice having the same tone as normal, carrying a sense of honor and loyalty, though it was unclear who that loyalty was directed at.

"It kinda did? It wore off before I could do anything fun..."

Iz lied, not wanting to admit she'd hypnotized Kasumi into loving her. Now that it was over, she kinda felt bad about it. At least, she assumed it was over now. 

Little did she know...

It was the day after the initial incident, and Sally was discussing some plans with Maple and the hammer twins, while Iz worked on forging something rather important and Kasumi practiced her swordplay skills outside.

"Yeah, it'll be a snap!"

Sally snapped her fingers for emphasis, which Kasumi unfortunately heard, triggering the effects of her ''hypnosis.'' She was going to take this opportunity to mess with Iz completely. 

"Sally, would you happen to know where I might find Iz?"

She asked as Sally, Maple and the twins left the guild house.

"Oh, she's just inside, forging something. She said she doesn't want to be interrupted until it's done,"

Sally said, answering Kasumi's question, and telling Kasumi not to interrupt Iz while she was forging. Kasumi promptly ignored this, and went to interrupt Iz while she was forging.

"Iz~, oh, my darling, Iz. You are more beautiful than even Kichijoten."

Her flirting was top-tier, causing Iz to blush severely. She was just glad nobody else was around. She just needed to find that bell. Where did she put it?

"Kasumi, the flirting is nice, but I need to focus. Please just wait for me to be done with this."

Iz was making a mental note to keep that bell where she could see it at all times from now on. There was only so much of flirty Kasumi she could take. Her new outfit did not help things, but it had amazing stats.

"Of course, my liege."

Kasumi backed away, and sat very nicely, just beside where Iz was forging. Out of the way, but not out of sight. Iz took a few moments while her project was heating up to message Chrome.

Iz: Chrome, could you get the bell that's lying on my desk?

Iz: the one that looks like a ghost.

She made a guess that with her luck, she could only get Kasumi to stop being so desperately smitten with that one particular bell and only if she herself rang it. She then busied herself with forging, trying not to think about how patiently Kasumi was waiting for her to be done, though occasionally, she did hear a small whimper as if waiting pained the samurai. This did not make her feel better about having ''hypnotized'' Kasumi, but she could only stall for so long, and once she had run out of things to do at the forge, the love-struck Kasumi pounced, smothering Iz with her love.

After a moment, Chrome came down, placed the bell on Iz' workstation and quickly left, not wanting to witness this unexpected scene. It took Iz a few minutes longer to actually be able to ring the bell, which promptly caused Kasumi to be rather flushed with embarrassment, being in such an intimate position with Iz. She quickly got up, and left without saying anything, her face mimicking confusion in a most convincing manner.

Later that same day, Iz was most concerned to find that Sally had taught the twins how to snap, and like most kids who'd just learned a new trick, they rarely passed up a chance to show it off.

While this would've been annoying enough on its own, snapping caused other issues for Iz, those being the consequences of her own actions earlier in the week. Over time, the twins did grow curious about why Iz would ring a bell whenever someone snapped in relative proximity to Kasumi, and while grinding up their levels alongside the samurai, they brought up their curiosity.

"Why does Iz ring a bell whenever we snap our fingers near you?"

Mai asked, after being pushed by her sister, who also found this habit rather odd.

"Ah, that would be part of a funny trick I am playing upon her,"

Kasumi answered, smiling in a genuine manner. It seemed she enjoyed messing with Iz.

"I happen to have particular feelings towards her, but my typical behavior does not translate well to acting on them. A day back, Iz obtained a hypnotism skill, and I offered to let her test it on myself, figuring it would be funny to play along for her entertainment. A chance for me to let loose a little, nothing much. Those types of skills don't work on other players for reasons of safety, but... it appears she has the same feelings for me, but finds it unlikely that I could feel the same,"

she continued, sheathing her katana and turning towards the twins, both of whom were in complete surprise at the fact that Kasumi could ever be a prankster.

"I would enjoy it if you did not let Iz in on the joke. I do look forward to her reaction when she realizes that not only was I never hypnotized, but also that my behavior was 100% genuine."

The twins both nodded fervently, both glad to be in on the joke, and wanting to help Kasumi with her endeavor. The trio returned to their grinding for a moment, before Yui got an idea! An awful idea! Yui got a wonderful awful idea!

"What if... you pretended to be hypnotized, and took Iz on a date as a result?"

She proposed the idea to Kasumi, who smiled in a rather mischievous manner, finding the idea of a date with Iz quite alluring, especially if Iz wore that eastern witch garb. 

"That is not a bad plan, Yui. The only issue is, the biggest difference between me as a samurai and my hypnotized persona, is how clingy I am towards Iz. Me being hypnotized would not be likely to reasonably lead to a date."

Kasumi found that it had a few holes, but did want to make it work anyway.

"Reason? You're in Maple Tree. Reason doesn't exist here."

Mai had a fairly solid counter, however, so Kasumi's doubts failed to mean much of anything. 

Iz was slightly confused, as she walked through a wooded area in the fourth stratum, having heard that Kasumi had a surprise for her. She had a feeling that this was due to someone snapping their fingers in general proximity to her, and so, Iz felt that she had to deal with the consequences of ''hypnotizing'' her crush. 

Finding that Kasumi had set up a rather splendid picnic for the two of them, she opted to try and enjoy it and moved to sit next to the samurai, but was instead pulled onto Kasumi's lap.

"Kasumi!"

Iz yelped with a blush, as Kasumi held her close.

"Is anything wrong, my liege?"

Kasumi asked, wanting to ensure this date was perfect for Iz, who seemed put at odds by the tone of Kasumi's voice, equal parts guilty and reassured.

"No, nothing really,"

was Iz' reply, as she shifted her sitting position to be slightly more comfortable. Kasumi seemed to accept this answer, and gave Iz some minor relief in allowing the crafter to feed herself. After a moment, it occurred to Iz that Kasumi wasn't flirting with her as they ate, and instead seemed to be carefully considering the words she should speak. The thoughts of how she forced Kasumi into loving her plagued her mind as the samurai spoke,

"Iz, I have been entranced by you, left unable to get you out of my head for weeks, and while I know my flirtations have not been welcome to you, I have failed to tell a single lie. I love you, Iz."

Iz sighed and pushed Kasumi away, certain her words weren't real. She considered the bell, but decided against it, and before she realized it, her thoughts had left her tongue.

"No... you don't. I was testing out some new skills, and you offered to be my guinea pig for [Hypnosis], and I hypnotized you into loving me. As much as I love the things you've done because of it, I can't bring myself to enjoy it because if I just ring this bell, it all goes away,"

she said, before being astonished by Kasumi's reaction. She smiled, her gaze loving and genuine, before speaking again,

"you seem to be overthinking things, my liege. I love you, do I not?"

Iz wasn't sure why Kasumi's voice was so comforting at the moment, but she couldn't quite shake the guilt.

"No, you don't. I made you love me,"

the crafter said, her voice downtrodden and sad. Kasumi remained smiling, her voice calm, comforting, and filled with love as she spoke,

"of course, you did, but that was long before you obtained that adorable witching robe, or that mystical broom. I have loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, but I could not find a way to express that."

Iz couldn't wrap her head around what Kasumi was saying. It didn't fit with her understanding of things, but it sounded correct. 

"Really? But what about the hypnotism?"

She allowed herself a small portion of hope, but it grew a great many sizes as she heard Kasumi laugh, before making a reply.

"skills such as that, do not work on players in response to concerns of safety and fairness."

This realization hit Iz like a hammer from the twins. This meant that her skill hadn't affected Kasumi in the slightest, and the samurai had just been playing along for her benefit.

"You idiot. You didn't have to do that for me,"

Iz said, her face blushing even harder than before. 

"For you, I would go against Sally and win,"

Kasumi said, kissing Iz on the lips, her words and the kiss making the crafter melt into her arms. 

Anonymous Greatshield: Iz and Kasumi are together now!

Anonymous Bow: How'd that happen?

Anonymous Greatshield: Both refuse to tell, but Iz does comment that Kasumi's an amazing actor.

Anonymous Staff: Why does that matter?

Anonymous Longsword: Good for them! 

Anonymous Daggers: Man... this thread makes me feel lonely.

Anonymous Staff: Maybe you should try talking to people

Anonymous Daggers: No thank you.