“You know Sui, it’s starting to get awkward with just you on my shoulder” said Aife suddenly. The weight had double three times since anyone had last spoken.

Sui heard this, and stopped fixing up Aife’s shirt to take notice of this, but instead of looking at Sui she seemed to be directing the comment towards Trina who looked uncomfortable under the weight.

It’s not that bad right. Sui shifted her shoulders up and down. Sure, it’s a bit heavy… maybe… 10kg? Bit less? I don’t really have anything to compare it to, so it’s rather hard to compare, but I don’t think it can be more than that.

And Trina has a much better set up. I’ve started to notice that my weight leans to the right. Seems I wasn’t quite as good at balancing it as I thought I’d been… Sui’s thoughts were interrupted by Trina starting to speak.

“Look, just because you put a bunch of points into strength doesn’t mean I want to sit on your shoulder the whole time” said Trina pouting.

Aife raised an eyebrow and slid Sui down her thick arm before using her elbow to throw Sui back onto her shoulder. “You were saying?” Oof, that was a bit of a hard landing Aife.

Trina glared back “Look, we don’t know how long we have to hold this for… if… if it means that only you can possibly pass this round then you should be doing everything you can to stay refreshed”

Aife laughed “This weight is nothing. I was merely commenting that it’s awkward on just the one shoulder. I may be stronger but I’m not heavier I don’t think. So, when I have close to my whole weight resting on my left shoulder and nothing on my right in throws a girl off”

Trina glared “Well perhaps it would be best if you had nothing on either shoulder”

Sui cut Trina and Aife off “I’m currently fixing Aife’s clothes and reinforcing them, I refuse to be put down just yet”

“Sui! This is more important than fixing Aife’s clothes” said Trina with an edge to her voice

Sui glared back, and Ito joined her for good measure. “How so?”

Trina spluttered before spitting out “Well, I mean, if we all fail there will be no clothes to fix? Did you think about that?” more as a question she was asking then a statement

Sui narrowed her eyes “Are you asking me that or telling me?” said Sui with her tongue sticking out slightly.

Trina growled “Telling”

“Well, in that case Aife said she was fine, and I trust her own estimate of her strength over yours. Not only is she the most physically capable, she is also the most well versed in physiology and potential physical ability. I cannot think of anyone better suited to judge her strength” said Sui with Ito nodding along as if she was speaking some important truth.

And I mean it to. Aife might not know as much about physical stuff as I do sewing, but she spends extra time training, so I bet her instinctual responses are on par with my own despite the fact she does things other than training every once in a while.

Trina growled “Well… well… can’t you guys just take it seriously? I mean these things seem to double in weight whenever they want. There is no pattern I’ve been able to find with them… and what are we going to do if they get much, much worse?”

As if Trina had called forth the embodiment of jinxing the weight on everyone’s shoulders doubled the moment, she finished her sentence. Ooo, I can actually feel this one quite a bit. Sui adjusted her posture so that she was sitting more cleanly on top of Aife’s metal resting on her shoulders before wrapping her arm around the back of Aife’s head to make contact with her outfit again.

“Come on Trina, it’s not that bad even now” said Aife clearly leaning to the side.

“You’re about to fall over!” shouted Trina wobbling slightly as she tried to gesture at Aife.

Aife raised an eyebrow at this “You seem to be having more trouble than I am. Come on, Sui can fix my stuff until the next weight gain, then I’ll let you suffer on your own if you want”

Trina didn’t look very happy at this suggestion, but Aife was staring at her, and Sui was completely fixated on doing what she could for Aife’s outfit in terms of durability. She had even gone so far as to use a bit of her thread she’d been planning to use for attacking. It matched… well enough for her purposes considering she was planning to redo Trina and Aife’s whole closet once she got the chance.

Eventually Trina let out a long sigh “Fine”

Nodding, Aife easily scooped her up and deposited Trina on her other shoulder. Once Trina was deposited, Aife was able to straightened herself but quickly gained a thoughtful look. “What?” asked Trina

“Well, you seem to be almost twice as heavy as Sui is” said Aife

“Aife, do I need to have some stern words with you. Perhaps you should watch it considering you sleep next to me” said Trina

Aife gave a light chuckle “I’m including all the weight from the cube. Yours is heavier than Sui’s by a good chunk, but still nothing compared to my own. You guys probably weigh… about half of me put together”

Trina still had a frown on her face, but she looked away to disguise the slight shaking of her shoulders indicating she laughed at Aife’s awful joke. Sui of course, was smiling to herself, because she had finally finished with Aife’s outfit, and didn’t even hear the joke.

And so, once again, with the keenest timing, the weight increased. Trina grunted and started to fall sideways at the sudden increase. Sui was already leaning towards Aife and was able to recover quickly, but could see that Aife was going to have trouble.

Sui’s eyes went wide as she examined the situation, Aife can’t move properly because she might make things worse. It’s not the weight but the position we are both sitting on. The only reason we can actually fit on her arms is because the metal sticks out a bit.

Guess I should do something. Sui unwound the thread she’d grabbed earlier, and sent it around Trina’s waste, laying it several times to try and keep her upright. As soon as Sui managed three loops she’d run out of time and had to pull them tight.

As soon as she gave the command to pull the thread back towards her, she felt like her head was being smashed repeatedly with a hammer. Her breath started to come in heavy bursts as sweat started to drip down.

“Aife… get… get her down I can’t hold her for long” said Sui.

At this point Trina was ‘balanced’ to the side but was unable to properly pull herself back. Sui in her haste to help had wrapped the thread around her arms as well, and was unable to use them as leverage.

Aife nodded, almost making Sui fall as well, and looked over at the mess, that was Trina’s current position. “Ok, so Sui, I’m going to lean forward and let Trina fall into my arms ok? Can you guide that?”

From Aife’s perspective she couldn’t Sui struggling. Despite this there was only one answer “Yes. Don’t nod” said Sui through gritted teeth.

Aife managed to force her head to remain still. As she did this Sui carefully pulled Trina forward and down while making sure that she would slide gently into Aife’s hands.

Slowly, Trina was lowered into position, and Sui could tell she’d done her part when the pressure on her head drastically decreased. Ah… I managed it. Sui let herself relax, but this turned out to be not the best idea.

She started falling down. Without noticing she had been leaning backwards to counterbalance Trina, and now that she had let her thread unwind, she had nothing supporting herself. Ito panicked, pulling the thread out of Sui’s shoulder and diving into Aife’s.

The thread snapped taught, and Aife stumbled slightly but held steady. As this was happening Sui could see the spider silk slowly pulling out of her skin, and extended her fall slightly.

Well… I suppose relaxing was the wrong thing here. Sui tried to pull herself forward, using the silk Ito had provided, but it just kept spooling out of her skin. Hmm, seems like Ito’s strange technique can’t quite support my whole weight.

During this Aife carefully put Trina down, who was able to stand, albeit shakily by herself and was keeping her mouth firmly closed as she watched Aife and Sui try to struggle to stay upright.