The second Yor’s fingers unfurled, Yuri’s minuscule form immediately began its plunge into the fuming shaft of his big sister’s boot. Tumbling head over heels, it was impossible for him to get his bearings as he fell deeper and deeper into the steamy chamber. Occasionally bouncing off the walls until he finally smashed down into Yor’s insole. As he impacted the dented area where her heel usually rested, Yuri could feel an unpleasant bubble of sweat ooze up around his face before suddenly beginning to slide even deeper inside the boot. Carried along by the condensation sitting atop the insole, sending him head-first into the smellier depths of his sister’s shoe.

Yuri had been able to smell his Yor’s powerful foot odour the moment she’d taken them off, clearly having built up and festered within those boots for many years of wear. However, inhaling her condensed scent inside of her boot as opposed to catching whiffs of it as he was apprehended outside of it was like the difference between night and day. Sure, it had smelt pretty unpleasant before, but now it was intolerable. Yor’s hot, moist, overwhelmingly cheesy reek radiated from almost every surface within the dimly lit boot, bringing him back down to his knees almost as soon as he’d struggled up to his feet. And considering how she’d acted towards him, Yuri doubted she planned on giving him a reprieve from it anytime soon.

Back outside of her boot, Yor haphazardly sprung to her feet just as the door slipped open, revealing Loid entering from the other side. He looked just as he had when he’d left. Immaculately put together, only with his handsome face glistening a little more than earlier given the intense heat still raining down outside the apartment.

“L-Loid-san! I didn’t know you’d be home early...” She said, shooting a nervous glance down towards her boots.

“Oh, Yor-san,” Loid smiled, moving over the threshold towards their dining table. “I thought you might’ve been out by now. It’s alright, I’m not staying long. One of the nurses back at the hospital lent me a few documents for a patient that she needed to be returned, so I wanted to check I hadn’t left them here.”

This, of course, was a total fabrication. Loid had only decided to double back on himself upon spotting Yor’s volatile brother marching towards their apartment during his travels. However, having lost sight of him, he’d felt the need to check inside their home just in case something was up. But fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case, considering he saw no evidence that Yuri had ever been there.

Meanwhile, Yor simply beamed as Loid landed his excuse. Always in awe of the kindness he showed towards others. Which was placed into even starker contrast as she eyed up the boot at her side, still containing a human being experiencing quite the opposite treatment from her.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

 As she took a few steps closer, Loid’s nostrils twitched and his eyes flicked up. Catching a particular foul, yet familiar, aroma. As he noticed that both of Yor’s feet were no longer confined within her stuffy boots, though mercifully still contained within her tights, it became obvious why the smell was noticeable.

Having initially tried to subtly push her towards better foot care, and hygiene in general, he’d now long since given up hope that things would get any better. So he’d started evading her whenever she removed her shoes, which Anya also mirrored. Seeming to have the self-preservation necessary to recognize the threat Yor’s feet posed and followed his lead.

“No. It’s fine. I would’ve left them in my room if anywhere. Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“O-Oh. Okay,” she said. “I still need to pick up some ingredients for later, so I might go and get those now.”

“That sounds great, Yor.” Loid was already backing away. Edging towards the door of his bedroom and getting as far from her boots as he was able to. “I’ll see you later then.”

She nodded confidently, still covering up her nerves with a smile. Fortunately, at least to Yor, he seemed too preoccupied to notice her concern.

Once the door had shut behind him, Yor dashed back to the couch and fired a dark look towards the boot she’d dropped the intruder inside of. Still very able to see the visible steam rising upwards from within. Though she’d mostly mentioned needing to visit the shops to avoid getting in Loid’s way, Yor realised she still did need to get a few items for dinner. Maybe the best way to soften up the bug would be for it to accompany her.

“You might’ve spilt your secrets down there already, but I want to be sure you’re going to tell me the truth about who sent you to spy on me before I let you out of there. So you’re coming with me, for now,” Yor hissed into the boot’s shaft. “And unless you want to die down there, flopping around in my sweat, I’d recommend crawling to the end of my boot. It probably smells a lot worse, but at least you’ll live to give me answers.”

Crumpled face-down upon her insole, Yuri was barely coping. All the interrogation and mental fortitude training the SSS had provided him would never have been enough to endure the awful conditions of his older sis’ smelly boot. And now, hearing her voice ringing down from above, it didn’t sound like his situation was about to improve. Somehow, he figured it was about to get even worse.

Sitting back down on the couch, Yor allowed herself a moment to finish the last few bites of her danish before directing her feet back towards her boots. Angling each one above their damp interiors then wasting no time in shoving each foot back down to meet its insole. Finding one slipping back into place perfectly. Whilst the other caught a tiny, little pest on its descent down, and now pinned it face-up against her smelly sole. Guess the little spy was too stupid to take her advice and hide near the toe-end of the boot.

Before Yor had replaced the boot upon her foot, Yuri had been fighting a miserable battle. Doing his best to follow his sister's suggestion and dragging himself deeper into the noxious cave.

 Finding that, quite as she’d said, it really did only get more and more disgusting and smelly the further he crawled. Only once the tiny SSS agent heard the unmistakable sound of Yor’s foot entering to escalate his misery even further did he roll onto his back. With some small part of him being masochistically curious enough to see how his beloved sister’s foot looked from his new vantage point. Only for the entire boot to be plunged into complete darkness as her leg filled the shaft.

Yuri had no time to react. His senses had been seriously dulled due to the minutes of torment he’d already spent inside her boot, so by the time the sound of Yor’s enormous foot rushing towards him rang out, he hardly recognised what was happening before he was completely flattened against her sole and squeezed down into the soggy insole as the material of her tights dragged him further into the boot. Even once her foot found its usual resting place, Yuri had barely enough room to breathe. And now the air was even more repulsive than before.

Getting to her feet, Yor carried her plate over to the sink and swept up her purse along the way. She did pause for a moment, just in case Loid made another fleeting appearance, but soon stepped out of the apartment once it was clear he wasn’t about to emerge from his room.

By the time she was out of the building and down on the streets below, Yor could understand why Loid had looked so flushed. It was unbelievably hot out! Maybe her usual combo of jumper, tights, and boots wasn’t the best choice after all. And she couldn’t go back up to change as it’d just be too awkward if Loid had assumed she’d left.

To say she was concerned about the spy in her boot was a severe overstatement. But she did still want to get answers, so Yor had worried he might end up crushed before she returned home. However, now standing in the heat, she realized the much more pressing threat was likely him drowning in her sweat.

Sure. It would be a fitting end for the pathetic villain now trapped under her foot, spread-eagled and being treated to the combined stench of her unwashed foot and long-suffering boot. But not the end she wanted to give him just yet.

Over the years, Yor had made it her style to deliver quick, clean deaths to her many victims whilst she masqueraded as the Thorn Princess, so this was out of her usual habits. Currently looking like it wouldn’t be quick, instead turning out fairly prolonged, and it wouldn’t be clean, instead almost certainly very, very smelly. At least going by how wet and stuffy her boots felt.

As the bus she’d been waiting for turned the corner at the end of the street and came into view, Yor put any other thoughts of Yuri’s fate from her mind. Deciding to simply see how the tiny spy was faring once she returned, instead of letting her fantastical imagination get the better of her. Meanwhile, Yuri did nothing. He couldn’t move. He could hardly speak. He could barely breathe. The only mercy he could cling to amidst his confinement at the base of his big sister’s boot was a brief end to the brutal cycle of smothering, squashing, and forcible smelling he was subject to as she walked around. Once she’d taken her seat on the bus, Yor graced him with only a light smothering during the journey. Wherein he panted and tried to clear his head enough to conceive of some escape method.

But there was none. Yuri was trapped until Yor wanted him out of her boot.

 And after only a few cruelly short minutes, the bus arrive and Yor began to walk again. Every seismic step she took smothered his entire body, then flattened all the air out of his increasingly fragile lungs. And finally, after keeping him squashed for a few seconds, eased the pressure enough to let him take a deep breath from the only air available to him at the bottom of her boot. By the time the bus arrived, Yor had practically forgotten about the spy inside her boot. Instead thoroughly distracted by ideas of what she might try and make for dinner that night, and just what groceries she’d need to collect to facilitate that meal. So, after thanking the driver, she hopped off the bus and trotted off to the nearest shop. A small, independent place she liked to frequent with and without Anya. Addlers & Co.

Meanwhile, Yuri found himself back in the smothering cycle once more. Barely mustering the energy to squeak out pleas after each time Yor’s foot buried him against her insole.

Mercifully, the store was air-conditioned, so wasn’t suffering the same oppressive level of heat as the Westalis streets outside it. Shame for Yuri that the same couldn’t be said for Yor’s footwear, which could’ve easily cleared the entire store through heat alone by that point if she were to crack them open. But luckily for the customers, her ever-increasing foot odour was saved for her tiny prisoner alone. All in the hopes of shattering his spirit beyond recognition. How successful her efforts were was something she wouldn’t be able to check until she was back at the apartment, but already she was feeling pretty confident in her actions considering how hot and sticky her soles felt.

If they were simmering back at home, her feet were absolutely steaming now.

Yor didn’t pay the spy much mind as she pottered around the store for at least an hour. And even though she didn’t purchase all that much, instead preferring to simply examine and appreciate, she still made sure to get plenty of steps in. Stomping from aisle to aisle, and occasionally lumping even more suffering onto her little brother.

During her second pass of the canned goods aisle, Yor worked her way up to the top shelf where she was forced to step up onto her tip-toes to get a better view of their wares. In the process, she transferred all her weight from being spread evenly across her plush sole to exclusively piling down on top of Yuri’s battered, submerged form. Increasing the pressure tenfold, which forced him to take even deeper breaths in of her cheesy reek when he was able to push his face above the surface of the sweat puddles littering the dents and craters across her insole.

“Oh! Those look nice,” Yor murmured, now fingering a selection of brightly coloured packets. “Hmm, but what would Miss Anya think? I wouldn’t want to buy something she wouldn’t want to eat... But I can't just buy her peanuts again either.”

As if Anya was already anywhere close to being a fan of Yor’s murderous cooking. It wasn’t like she didn’t appreciate the effort and love Yor put into it. Just that Anya preferred being alive more than eating the aftermath of her culinary forays to spare Yor's feelings.

Stepping back from the counter, Yor’s foot shifted, dragging Yuri’s limp form backwards and tucking him beneath her toes. Transferring him into a less pressurised and, somehow, even stinkier environment. All with his comparatively giant sister not even noticing what she’d done or feeling his miserable groan as her nyloned toes wrapped themselves around him.

Once she finally had what she needed, Yor departed the store. Sincerely thanked the clerk on her way out and strode back to the bus stop, where she then had to wait for almost ten minutes for the next bus to arrive. All the while sweating profusely beneath the midday sun.

By the time the bus showed up, Yor had wiped her brow clean so many times that the entire sleeve of her jumper was dripping wet. And even once she was back on the bus, the heat didn’t subside. The windows were all open to their fullest, yet the lack of adequate aeration made the humid bus quite unpleasant to sit inside of. Though when compared to the journey Yuri was enduring under Yor’s foot, having passed out several times by now and certain his hearing had been permanently damaged from his sister’s deafening stomps, the bus seemed quite lovely.

The ride home wasn’t long, yet Yor still felt herself drifting off a little as she stared out of the window. Watching all the people as they passed her by and embracing the warmth of the bus seat beneath her. Long since having forgotten about the tiny person trapped and tortured at the toe-end of her reeking boot. She’d remembered him only a handful of times whilst she shopped and made sure to alert him to that fact by smothering him even more forcefully or trying to smear his face between her digits. But now he was a distant concern in her heat-addled mind.

Yor idly propped the heel of her right boot up against the metal frame beneath the seat, causing her foot to arch and her toes to rest against the floor. She felt something shift inside the boot as she moved but didn’t think about it any further.

As for Yuri, sent tumbling out from under Yor’s toes, all he could do was live through the consequences of her thoughtless actions. Barely having a second after sliding into the rounded tomb at the deepest part of her inhumane boot before a wave of murky sweat submerged him.

Now held down by the dark red nail of her big toe and still barely conscious following over an hour of the worst sensory torment he could’ve imagined, Yuri couldn’t think of any way to survive this. In any other context, his intense training would’ve enabled him to hold his breath for well over five minutes and his physical endurance would’ve made drowning in any scenario an impossibility. But neither of those things factored in being shrunk to a matter of inches and getting shoved inside his big sister’s rancid boot. And so there he was. Helpless and running out of air.

At least being trapped under Yor’s murky sweat meant he wouldn’t have to smell her feet anymore, even if it did kill him. However, life seemed to possess a sense of irony, and right as he could feel himself slipping away for good, her toe withdrew and the boot levelled out. Letting the sweat drain away from him and back down to the dents in her insole.

Flat on his back, Yuri just panted. Spitting out a spout of Yor’s foot sweat. "W-Well, at least I won’t die und—"

Yor’s toes quickly lashed out and snatched him back before he could finish. Pulling him under them once again and pinning his arms out wide. Giving the younger sibling no choice but to return to smelling whatever she gave him to smell until she freed him from her boot.

Standing up, Yor made her way to the front of the bus and hopped out. Looking both ways across the road, then jostled herself up to their building and disappeared inside. Completely unconcerned that she’d just almost killed her boot prisoner, and unaware that the nameless spy suffering underfoot was actually her dear brother, Yuri.