Orion was both disappointed and surprised by Rias's stubborn will to not allow him to touch her. He'd thought that after her indifference and the casual way she displayed her naked body to him, she wouldn't have any issues letting him touch her. But he had been wrong. She didn't care about him looking at her naked body, but touching seemed like some kind of hard limit. Which was weird in and of itself, since she had previously acknowledged feeling him wrap around her body during the initial bonding process. Her obstinate refusal to let him touch her had thrown him off, considering her inviting demeanor.
Even more confusing was when she politely asked him to continue healing her. After healing the initial cut for testing, Orion had stopped due to the situation taking a turn. She didn't have any issues when he was healing her through the same method as before—individually healing her cuts and bruises by, yes, touching her with individualised parts of his true body.
"Isn't this the same as me touching you, Rias?" He asked. "If you have a problem with my human form, I could take up my slime form to massage your breasts."
"Why the impatience?" She asked, turning on her side to look at him with a slightly lazy expression. She was still naked, save for the black spots on her body where Orion was healing her. He gulped as his eyes went to her dangling breasts.
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
"You seem easy to tease," she said with a playful smile. "Look as much as you want, but no touching, okay?"
"There will come a day, Rias. When you will be begging me to touch you, and I will still refuse. Mark my words," Orion said solemnly.
"Are you going to make me regret teasing you and find someone better?" She asked.
"No, I'm going to drug you with a potent aphrodisiac," he said bluntly. "And watch as you writhe and beg me for reprieve."
"Don't divert the topic and answer my question," she said. "I said we can take things slow, right? Why the impatience?"
"It's because of a new technique that I want to try to use to heal you," he said. "It only awakened after we bonded. I know how to activate it, but that's all."
"So you are curious about a new ability and want to test it?" She said, turning again and putting one arm behind her head while folding one leg. "I'll see what we can do about it."
"Okay, I can't take this anymore," Orion said with a suppressed fury.
"W-what?" Rias turned to look at him with wide eyes and a slightly flustered expression. She seemed ready to retreat immediately as her body tensed.
"I'm putting clothes on you."
She blinked and felt the slimy material move along her skin and coalesce into a simple sheet that wrapped around her body, going from her breasts down to the middle of her thighs. While still looking positively delightful, her current state was much more bearable for Orion.
"Simple, no?" He said as his eyes roamed along her body. "I'm not very used to creating constructs. I'll need some time before I can replace your clothes."
"When it comes to slime-based creatures such as yourself, a reference point usually helps. See if you can consume that uniform and understand its make and form. It's tattered anyway, so its disappearance won't matter."
Orion nodded with a shrug and picked up the uniform that had already turned black due to his bonding with Rias. More black mass extended out of his hand and enveloped her clothes, soon disappearing back into his palm.
"Any luck?" Rias asked.
"I think so," he said, looking at Rias with a focused expression. She felt the towel wrapped around her body stirring, and it quickly morphed into the exact same uniform that she'd been wearing when she arrived in this world. Aside from its black color, the only other difference was that there weren't any rips or tears on it, making it look perfectly clean and brand new.
"Good work," she praised with a bright glint in her eyes. "Can you do color? I'd let you take over my clothes then. This is much more comfortable than even stuff that I conjure for myself."
"Not yet, I'll have to think about color for a bit before I can do that. Forming my body into shapes is simple, but changing colors is more along the lines of camouflaging, and I can't really do that yet."
"You can take human form, right? You'll be able to do it. I believe in you," she said encouragingly. "Come here."
He raised a brow before approaching and sitting beside her on the bed. "What?"
She sat up and put her hand on his head, running her fingers through his hair. "I think you'd be a very nice partner to have with me as I move along this lonely path. Would you like that, Orion?"
He was a little surprised as a sense of peace washed over his mind the moment he heard her words. "I'm already planning that, Rias. I'm not sure if we can break this bond in the first place without me getting fucked over. As far as I know, this is already for life."
"That's good," she said. "I'll take good care of you."
"No need to treat me like a child. I'm older than you, you know?" He said, enjoying the feeling of having her fingers move through his hair.
"Oh? How old are you?"
"Twenty-seven," he said. "You can't be older than twenty-five, even after adding your five-year-long multiversal adventure.
"You really are older than me," she nodded. "Though keep in mind, I'm nineteen physically right now. That's the age of my dead variant that you merged into me."
"Why don't you want me to touch you?" He asked, circling back as he raised his hand and slowly brought it to her thigh, giving her plenty of time to retreat.
"I'm not ready," she said, immediately taking the chance to retreat and sliding over to the other side of the bed. "Please respect my wishes, okay? If my magic weren't suppressed, I would have let you try whatever you wanted under an illusion. No need to worry, however. I will allow you to test and practice your new ability on somebody else very soon."
"Fine, I won't try to push you again," he said, relenting. While he could be more forceful, he didn't want to risk seeing what would happen to him in case she went crazy and destroyed his body completely.
Ultimately, after ten minutes, Rias had been completely healed by Orion and recovered a little less than fifty units of her magical capacity. If only to maintain appearances, it would allow her to cast a few spells. Once she got up to leave, Orion disappeared inside her body, and she got a fresh set of clothes out from the closet. Quickly dressing up in the uniform, she cast a teleportation circle that directly led her to the front gate of the school.
Rias slowly stepped through the main entrance, looking around as she made her way to the main building.
[Feeling nostalgic?]
[In the past few realities I visited, Kuoh had already been destroyed. I haven't seen this place in over a year. Do you feel that?]
Hearing her words made Orion pause as he sensed what Rias was talking about. It was a faint, almost unnoticeable sense of warmth that was slowly being suffused in both him and Rias. His connection with her wasn't strong enough to sense her magical energy without the system's interface, but he could sense his own magic energy—the five pitiful units that he had for now. The warmth was making his energy stir, both condensing it into a more concentrated form and enhancing its growth by a minuscule amount. Though for him, even that minuscule amount was significant. By his estimates, in two days, his magical capacity would double if this effect continued at this pace.
[I do… Where is this enhancement effect coming from?]
[Territorial Authority. Why do you think every pantheon in the world has a territory on Earth despite having separate individual dimensional bases away from here? It's because of this authority. The enhancement effect is dependent on quite a few factors like prosperity, happiness index, population, and more.]
[I'm assuming that this information is confidential?]
[Naturally. No one other than the four Satans among the Devils is aware of it. The Evil Piece system is a means to siphon away this authority to feed to the ancestral beings of the main houses.]
[These ancestral beings seem pretty ominous.]
[Depends on the version and reality, really. People like Zekram Bael, Runeas Gremory, and the like usually spend their time sleeping to maintain their longevity. Of course, this does vary from reality to reality. I've seen ones where these ancestors treat the Satans like puppets, ones where the Satans are the ones who lay claim to this authority, and more.]
[So this reality is one where everyone is free to enjoy the benefits of this territorial authority?]
[Quite the opposite. It's still channeled away. The spell that allowed me to devour everything of that other Rias included the authority she held over her Evil Pieces, but I made sure to modify it according to my own framework. This authority is important if I want to recover my strength quickly.]
[Do you have multiple Evil Piece sets now?]
[Can't. I can only take myself between multiverses. Nothing else. I couldn't even bring the authority that allowed me to control my Evil Pieces with me.]
[But…]
[That's the reason I believe that you might be the key that helps me achieve a Multiverse Independency. You could come with me despite the restrictions of my spell. That makes you special, Orion. No more questions now. We have an important meeting to deal with.]