BIG NEWS!

Written by Mugen7

The signs were all there.

"How's your headache?"

Tired eyes rolled heavily his way.

"Better... Thanks..." Kokonoe slumped into her seat on the couch. She hadn't been feeling like herself lately. When she got the gnawing sense that life wasn't working out in her favour, the cat-woman over-exaggerated her 'low HP' and shitty state with a list of ailments, chronically expressing a need for 'healing and buffs'. Having felt so awfully grotty for what seemed like an eternity, Kokonoe was of the firm belief that she wasn't long for the world, soon to be knocking on Heaven's door.

So melodramatic, it took something serious to break the woman's composure; for the 'machine' to grow unstable. Fortunately, Ragna knew precisely what the cause was. To reiterate, the signs were all there. "You really don't know, do you?" He asked, rather perplexed by the hybrid's lack of awareness.

Triggered, Kokonoe shot Ragna a wide-eyed dirty look which doubled as maniacal with how red her eyes appeared.

"What...!? What do you expect me to know!?"

Ragna posed a similar question to her once before, thinking she would've clocked on by now. But Kokonoe remained oblivious.

"Instead of leaving me hanging like a spider with no fly, how about you quit dicking around and spell it out for me!"

He couldn't help but laugh at the irony. Usually he was the one getting annoyed with not getting a straightforward response.

"Don't make me hit you!"

He wouldn't hold the choleric behaviour against her. She may have a bad temperament at times (currently far worse than usual) but not everyone could empathize with the weight of what she was experiencing, nor how much more mercurial she was going to get further down the line.

"Kokonoe," the bone-tiredness, rise in temperature, and her already heightened sensitivity to smells increased further; palate swap (one thing he figured would've been a dead giveaway, at least) and tenderness, alongside the frequent pissing, nausea and vomiting, and contrary to how horrible she might look, there was a certain glow about her that seemed about ready to kick in early. "You're pregnant."

"...!"

"... Kokonoe?" He called her name, but the hybrid didn't respond. She was paralysed; shocked into silence and unblinking. Ragna was keen to joke about how 'Kokonoe-exe has stopped working', but chose instead to terminate that proceeding. "'Kay."

He picked up a magazine and made himself comfortable, flicking through the pages.

"Whenever you're ready."

"..."

This would take a while.