It had been at least over an hour since Sonoko had willingly gone down Gin's gullet to find Sumi. Over an hour of being churned around inside of the stomach that saw Gin's closest friends as nothing but food to digest and fuel her growth. Thankfully, the makeshift 'pill' Sonoko formed with her weapon had kept her and Sumi safe from becoming nutrients to the lake of stomach acid they were at the bottom of. They likely had been down there even longer than an hour, might've even been well over two and bordering on three if she had to guess, but after a while, Sonoko stopped checking her phone for the time as it got boring. Playing with Sumi was a much funner way to pass it anyway. Even with how much fun having Sumi at her fingertips to play with however she wanted, at least in the confines of the capsule, Sonoko still hoped Gin's stomach would let them out soon, getting thrown around with the occasional churn kept interrupting things and wasn't fun. Sumi had even got briefly squished under Sonoko's butt by one.

"Leeeeeeeeet's see… What should we do next…" Sonoko muttered to herself, lying down on her stomach and eyeing Sumi curiously.

"I just want this to be over…" Sumi whined with a pout. "I'm not going to look at eating the same way again."

"Hey, if it makes you feel better, you can grow back once we're out of Mino-san's belly and this pill." Sonoko spoke with a reassuring smile, giving Sumi a gentle poke with her finger. She couldn't completely relax till they exited Gin's body, she didn't know what to expect from the rest of the digestive system past the stomach, but surely the worst would be behind them once out of the gurgling chamber and they were presently safe in it.

"You say that like we'd be growing back to normal." Sumi answered, her spirits thoroughly unlifted. "But it will be nice to not be so small, I keep getting shrunk."

"Hmmmm…" Sonoko hummed in thought, thinking of ways to cheer up her friend. It was so fun to play with her friend but Sumi had issues relaxing at times. And she had been through quite a lot. Sonoko herself had yet to even be the 'smallest' of the group to get an idea of things from her perspective. Something she was a little curious about.

"How about this, we can switch sizes and you can carry me the rest of the way? You won't feel so small then~. I wanna take a break after keeping this up so long. I carried you around the model city." Grinning, Sonoko commented. It wasn't that tiring to keep up the 'barrier' of shapeshifting her weapon, but keeping it constantly shifted against the digestive fluids for hours was a tiny but not insignificant hit to her stamina. And there was probably quite the ways to go through Gin's guts, so a little break wouldn't hurt.

"Eh?" Sumi tilted her head with a furrowed brow. "I'm not sure if that would help, but if you need a break, I wouldn't mind."

"It'll be fun! You liked playing around with Mino-san and I on your palm earlier!" Undeterred, Sonoko continued. Sure, it wasn't the best situation for it, but every little bit helped.

"T-That's true, but it's hard to enjoy that like this. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad not being smaller than everyone again…" It was tiny like her body was, but Sumi's expression did lighten up by a small amount, as Sonoko was hoping for.

Everything lurched and sent the world spinning, another churn knocking the capsule everywhere.

Caught utterly unprepared by the motion that was more violent than the previous ones were, Sonoko tried to plant her arms against the sides of the pill, keeping a firm grip on the hammer to ensure nothing accidentally got hit.

"Wo-"

Something entered her mouth and Sonoko reflexively clamped it shut. The only thing which had prevented the foreign object from being swallowed on automatic reactions had been Sonoko facing downward, and even then she felt the candy sized object fly halfway to her throat.

But with the split second for her mind to catch up with her body's reaction, Sonoko immediately used her tongue to pin the now squirming object against her cheek, firmly locking it in place to ensure there would be no chance of if accidentally becoming a snack. Because that wasn't any snack in her mouth, that was Sumi.

'Sorry, Wasshi!' Sonoko mentally apologized. With them being thrown around so much and Sumi struggling, Sonoko didn't dare unpin Sumi from her tongue to vocally give any apologizes, merely hoping her friend would understand afterward. If she ate Sumi here, there would be practically zero chance to get them out before Sumi went from 'friend' to 'fat'.

Feeling the salty tasting bulge in her cheek being jostled around from their own squirming and the disorienting spins, Sonoko did the best she could to plant her body in place like a tree. The capsule spun without any rhyme or reason, zero predictability. What was up turned into down from moment to moment. Sometimes, Sonoko was on her back, others her stomach. It even reached the point she was forced to close her eyes. The immense spinning going on around her was beginning to make the Hero dizzy from merely keeping her eyes open. The momentary disorientation even loosened her tongue's hold on Sumi for a split second, which was enough to send the microscopic girl flying around her mouth again. In desperation, Sonoko rolled her tongue flat as far back in her mouth as she could to act as a physical 'wall' toward her throat as her last line of defense, the sensation of Sumi's snack sized form bumping between it, her cheeks, and teeth without restraint. She didn't dare try closing her teeth as a second wall for fear of crushing Sumi.

No matter what they did or how hard Sonoko struggled, she and Sumi were entirely at the mercy of the automatic functions of Gin's overpowering stomach. The spinning would only stop once the organ decided upon it, not any sooner. Sonoko could only pray it was soon, or even their last line of defense could end up overwhelmed by the chamber vigorously trying to dissolve the morsels that were trying to escape the fate of everything which was sent to the stomach. 'If I lose too much focus I won't be able to keep up the barrier!'

With a final spin, Sonoko landed flat on her back and the chaos ceased. She only felt a very gentle, gradual sense of motion, similar to floating down a river, if not exactly that as it felt slower, moving in something thicker than water.

And the squirming in her mouth.

'Oh, Wasshi!' Leaning up, to avoid her friend slipping further into her mouth, Sonoko gently used her tongue to push the girl between her lips, keeping them gently puckered to hold her in place. Sonoko could barely see the top half of Sumi's wiggling form past her lips, more knowing her location by touch than sight. Her small friend was pushing against the walls of Sonoko's soft lips, their entire being fitting easily between them without any of her lower half free to flail around in Sonoko's mouth.

Using one hand, Sonoko plucked Sumi's damp, saliva soaked, form from her lips, gently inspecting them with concern. "Wasshi, are you okay?"

"I-I'm alive." Sumi sputtered. "I thought I was going to get swallowed again…"

"Sorry, that toss was way rougher than the other ones. But, I think it's stopped now. Maybe we're finally out of Mino-san's stomach?" Sonoko thought aloud, looking around at what little she could see from her transparent capsule, yet she couldn't make out many details with her phone's light unfocused. "Hang on, Wasshi. I'm going to check."

Very carefully setting Sumi in her lap, Sonoko used the same hand to grip her phone and flash the light around. With more illumination, their surroundings became far clearer. There were in some kind of narrow, fleshy tube with many slime covered folds surrounding them on all sides, with an almost fuzzy lining along it, the thick soupy chyme of Gin's stomach likewise enveloping most of Sonoko's protection, a small portion of the top end left uncovered, enough to not flood the inside if Sonoko removed it.

"Are we finally out?" Sumi's tiny voice squeaked.

"I think so, Wasshi~." Some cheer returning to her voice, Sonoko answered. She wasn't an expert in biology, but leaving the stomach surely meant the hardest and most dangerous step of their journey was over.

Feeling safe, for once, Sonoko dematerialized the top flap of the capsule in a small flash of purple light, briefly providing further vision in the darkness of Gin's guts, enough to see the liquid looked about knee deep if they were to step outside of it.

Fiddling around with her hands, Sonoko briefly placed her phone aside, plucked Sumi from her lap, set the girl down between her legs after sitting more upright, and tapped her with the hammer.

With a slight rock of the 'boat' Sumi shot up in size till she was standing up in proper scale with Sonoko, just barely taller. Sonoko had long since lost track of how tiny they both truly were in absolute terms, it was probably somewhere in the low-mid micrometers. They were tiny enough to fit inside Gin's gut, who herself was already massively shrunk to less than a few centimeters in size and stuck inside a large doll house. All she knew was, as normally 151cm, Sumi was only 2cm over Sonoko's own 149cm, a distance which was many times both their actual heights right now.

"I'm finally bigger…" Sumi let out a long sigh, exasperation written all over her face.

Before Sumi could sit, the tube they were in pulsed, contracting with a small rumble that almost brought the walls crashing down on the duo, before expanding and giving a push to the 'boat', rocking it enough to cause Sumi to fall back on her rear with a grunt and splash some of the fluids into the makeshift raft.

"Eww, some of it got in here…" Sumi whined with a scowl. "Maybe we should have kept this closed."

"A little late for that Wasshi, sorry." Sonoko apologized. She knew she was a smart kid, but biology on how exactly food traveled through the body wasn't something she knew beyond broad strokes, that it got digested mostly in the stomach and how it left the body. Sonoko recalled where they were now was what she thought were called the intestines, not that she recalled exactly how they worked, but it was something about helping digestion or processing food wasn't it? She would've thought they'd left the danger behind with Gin's stomach, but what else would her gut have in store, still determined to make them food? 'Are we going to have to keep worrying about digestion with all the liquids?'

Even with the thought, Sonoko held more confidence in their transformations as they had a path to follow till her and Sumi could leave Gin's body, unlike the stomach where it was everything was a constantly churning mess the likes of which neither knew how to escape. Maybe it would've been better to ride it out in her 'capsule', but too late for that and she already offered to make herself smaller. If she was going to do that, it would likely be better to do it sooner while Gin's guts were still somewhat peaceful. On the up side, the two of them would likely escape this far quicker with Sumi going forward than costing along all sealed up. Sonoko didn't want to spend several hours more trying to avoid being a snack if it could be helped. Part of her was looking toward having a break after keeping her shield up so long.

"Hey, Wasshi, you wanna step off this? It'll be bad if I get smaller with our boat and you don't." Sonoko stated, gesturing over to the side.

Sumi's face scrunched up in clear conflict, looking over to the side at the shallow digestive juices, another convulsion splashing the boat around. "If it gets us out of here faster..." On the same page as Sonoko, yet with the disgust written over her face, Sumi shifted over the side of the makeshift boat and into the thick fluids with a splash, it going up to slightly below her knees. "Eww, it's so slimy."

"We can take a bath after this, Wasshi. I put some warm water in a thermos in the house and it should still be warm after this. It'll be fine~." Sonoko reassured her friend.

"Eh? That helps a little, but wading through this is still…" Sumi trailed off. Her expression seemed to raise somewhat at the prospect of being able to clean herself off quickly once they escaped, but there was still awkwardness all over her face.

"Now, get your phone ready for some light, mine's about to get too small." With one quick warning, Sonoko gently tapped herself with the magic hammer and prepared to shrink.

In a blink, the world suddenly became far darker. The light of Sonoko's phone diminished with her to where she could no longer even see the walls of the narrow tube anymore. Without anything to compare herself too properly, it would have been difficult to know how much she and the raft shrunk exactly, if at all, but there was one large landmark that made it quite easy to measure again.

From almost waist up, there was Sumi's slime covered dress, her half beneath the chyme loose sleeves resembling super sized boat sails. Above that, even with her arms somewhat covering her as she raised them to fiddle with her phone and most of the light of Sonoko's own mobile swallowed by the darkness, the mounds of Sumi's impressive chest stretching out her body suit and clothes were on the edge of vision, appearing more massive than a large truck. However, almost comically, that was where Sonoko's sight largely cut off with her light. She could barely make out the nondescript shape of Sumi's head in the shadows, but any finer features were lost to the same shadows which swallowed up Sonoko's phone light.

'I've saw Wasshi big before, but a few times makes a biiiiiiig difference.' Sonoko thought to herself in her brief moments to take in their friend. This was technically Sonoko's first time being the 'smallest' of the group. Relatively speaking, having shrunk herself to slightly larger than Sumi's fingertip, she was multiple times tinier than she had been when first seeing her friend. She had looked big before, but even with only the upper half of her body visible, Sumi easily resembled a large skyscraper. It gave Sonoko more appreciation for what Gin and Sumi's perspectives had been when they were this relative size. Under better circumstances, it might have been more fun to appreciate and jump around her friend's gigantic body at a bug sized perspective, but now wasn't the time.

All at once a blinding light appeared to illuminate the world and forced Sonoko to snap her eyes shut on reflex, still able to feel the glare invading her sight even with lids clamped tight. No wonder Sumi had complained about the brightness now and again.

"Sorry, Sonocchi. Let me pick you up now." Almost as soon as it'd appeared, the light subsided to a much more tolerable level in time with Sumi's voice, letting Sonoko finally open her eyes, where the sight of Sumi's pillar like finger and thumb were reaching over Sonoko and effortlessly gripping the entire boat. With a lurch, Sonoko rocked with the boat as it was easily hoisted from the lake of fluids and into the air toward Sumi's curious face. Not a minute ago, Sonoko makeshift transport ranged from a small cruise ship to a rowboat for Sumi, yet now she was able to pick up the entire thing without the slightest effort, as if it were a toy.

The world started to shift and suddenly the light was gone, replaced by almost total darkness once more, alongside a great pressure of something soft and purple colored, from the little Sonoko could see of her own phone's light. It was all Sonoko could make out before she was momentarily shaken vigorously and what little vision she had blurred.

"Sonocchi, are you okay?" Almost as soon as it'd been broken, peace returned, the pressure was gone, and Sumi's booming, concerned voice echoed out. "Everything churned again and I was worried about dropping you."

"I'm okay, thanks for the save, Wasshi." Relieved to be resting back in Sumi's palm, Sonoko answered, waving up at her friend to try and ease her concerns. If Sumi had stumbled and dropped Sonoko, she might have been in trouble at this size in such a dark, rumbling place and with the liquid deep as it was to her, but Sonoko trusted Sumi to protect her, they always had each other's backs against the Vertex.

"We should get moving soon though, but where am I going to stay?" Sonoko thought aloud to herself, looking over Sumi's body for inspiration. She had to think of something before the next convulsion happened, Sumi couldn't carry Sonoko in her hand the whole time, they needed one for the phone light and her other could help get around, plus it was also not a stable platform unless Sonoko was held in a fist. It had to be something reasonably tight so she couldn't slip out during anymore jostling, but also higher up as to not get buried in the liquid. Staying inside Sonoko's capsule would have been easier, but far too late for that.

'But where could I go…' Hero uniforms didn't have much for pockets and shrinking herself tiny enough to slip under Sumi's bodysuit would be far too small. But there had to be a good gap somewhere on the upper body.

'Gap on the upper body…' Sonoko eyes wandered toward the centered of Sumi's torso, her two eyes looking on two other generously large and round objects the size of a small house, bound tightly by Sumi's inner body suit with another snugly fitting outer layer of white and purple cupping them around the underside and mid section.

"I could hold you, but that might not be the smoothest traveling. I don't know what else could work though." Sumi muttered with a frown.

"I know just the place, Wasshi!" Barely giving Sumi a chance to process her words, Sonoko jumped off her boat in the same instance she dematerialized it. Just as Sumi's faced started shifting in confusion, Sonoko landed directly atop Sumi's right breast, her shoes catching on the slight gap in the layer between fabrics to give her further footing. The slight slope put gravity slightly against her, but at her size and that of Sumi's own generous mounds, Sonoko was able to find a reasonably flat spot even with where she was being anything but, feet sinking into the softness beneath.

Acting quickly before Sumi could start bouncing in protest, Sonoko pried the fabric open with the front of her, enough to let Sonoko work with the ensuring bounce to slide past her waist as Sumi started reacting to the assault on her chest.

"S-Sonocchi, w-what are you doing!?" Sumi stammered, shuffling backward with her surprise in a motion that gently swayed her breast just enough for Sonoko to feel it with her tight fit.

Finding a spot not a moment to soon, another undulation staggered Sumi around before Sonoko could speak with her less seeing the movement in low light and feeling herself jiggling around against Sumi's chest. The cushioning beneath it, coupled with the layers of fabric she was under, made it as if Sonoko were lying snugly against a warm, soft bed with her waist down tightly pinned against the cushioning as she could feel her body sinking into the squishy material of Sumi's body suit and breast beneath.

"Woah!" Sumi's voice shouted as Sonoko's world started to shift backward and a large splash echoed before it ceased, a tremor running through the soft orb she was pinned toward, sliding her body several whatever-equaled-centimeters deeper between the layers, nearly buried to her bellybutton.

"Sonocchi, W-What was that for?!" Sumi demanded as Sonoko rapidly ascended upward, likely from her friend standing up after falling.

Having stability for the moment, Sonoko craned her neck upwards, the giant face of Sumi looming above and looking down on her with an expression combining both embarrassment and annoyance into a package only her friend could wear so well. Even with the low light of Sumi's phone, she would recognize that pouty expression anywhere. "I was finding a spot for myself, Wasshi~." Sonoko proudly answered, as if Sumi were asking the obvious.

"D-Do you have to use my chest all the time…" Sumi whined, frown deepening.

"Well, I can't fit anywhere else without you holding me the whole time. This spot's nice and secure so I won't fall out!" Sonoko replied with a smile. It was true that she felt secure where she was. The fitting was snug enough that, had she not been transformed and empowered with superhuman strength, trying to move the parts of her body under the outer layer would have been very hard, effectively trapping her from the stomach down. But with her enhancements, it merely served as a very comfortable and softly padded place that felt snug instead of binding. "I didn't fall out while you were bouncing around, so it'll be fine!"

Sumi's face started reddening at Sonoko's choice of words.

"It's better than being small, like me, isn't it?" Trying to placate Sumi's mood, Sonoko spoke up reassuringly. "You can play with me and Mino-san later~."

"I guess… It'll be better once we're outside of here." The attempt made some progress, with Sumi expression raising slightly at the prospect of playing together without being the smallest one anymore. Sonoko understood the mixed reaction, however. Even if Sumi's breast was like a squishy bed and her outer layer a blanket, being inside of Gin's guts wasn't the ideal situation for her either.

Sounds of bodily groaning and sloshing liquid heralded another spasm as Sonoko's world became bouncier once more, but this time her sense of gravity told her Sumi was falling backward. But, unlike somebody falling backward onto the floor, it didn't stop.

"W-Wah!" Sumi screamed, flailing around through the air in a manner which rapidly destroyed Sonoko's sense of direction beyond a vague sense of going 'down' even with the, limited though it was, light of Sumi's phone. "H-Hang on, Sonocchi!"

Bracing herself just in time, a loud splash erupted all around Sonoko as Sumi dropped into more chyme back first. With her position, the impact was softened greatly, but Sonoko could feel the liquid was high enough to lap at her waist with the slight angle Sumi fell like she was slightly propped up by something.

Before either could speak a word, a waterfall of digestive fluids crashed upon Sonoko, completely burying her under the liquid. It was thick, completely unlike water and more comparable to some kind of viscous slime. She had felt it before briefly, but it had been at such a bigger scale and barely covered her, now she was totally submerged under it like a bug in honey.

On instinct, Sonoko started to try and struggle and move to the surface, but almost 2/3rds of her body being firmly held in place by Sumi's form fitting clothes put an immediate stop to her first reflex. One part of her mind urged Sonoko to push herself free, but the other kept her still. If she lost her position and Sumi started moving, it could send her tumbling all over the digestive juices and make her impossible to find, while with her size being lost underneath the still churning liquids in such a dark cavern would be doom. At her size, the acids were much more concentrated and already starting to tingle. She could trust her much larger friend to surface and bring her out too. For all Sonoko knew, the 'waterfall' to her could've been barely a bucket's worth to Sumi.

Trust in her friend rewarded, the tomb of chyme soon vanished as Sonoko rose upward, shedding the majority of it with Sumi and gravity's aid, yet some pieces still clung to Sonoko in sticky clumps.

"S-Sonocchi, are you okay?" Sumi's worried voice came from above, alongside the light of her phone and a few more shakes of what sounded like her brushing bits of fluid stuck to her own body off.

"I'm a little slimy, but okay Wasshi." Sonoko answered with an optimistic tone and casual wave toward the small bit of Sumi's face she could see. If they weren't sticking their neck out, Sonoko was sure she wouldn't have even been able to see Sumi's face past her breast. Not helping her feelings of being small were some of the spots of slime stuck to Sumi's outfit looked bigger than her.

Sumi let out an audible, relieved exhale which raised and lowered Sonoko gently. "I'm glad to hear that, but I feel so gross too." Sumi muttered, looking upward and moving her face from Sonoko's vision. "It looks like we fell off a ledge or something. I guess we'll have to be careful about that happening again. I wonder what else is inside here." Sumi muttered discontentedly to herself.

"Mino-san's body is complicated huh~." Sonoko voiced with some restrained humor to keep the atmosphere up. Were her and Sumi in better circumstances instead of seemingly not completely safe from the automatic functions of Gin's body to try and melt them into the soup of nutrients Sumi was wading through, Sonoko may have had a little more fun with the situation from how bizarre and unique it was. However, she was intent on going to Gin's butt as a person and not the padding her guts wanted to turn Sonoko into.

'I wonder how this is from Mino-san's side, if she even feels us.' The stray thought pricked at Sonoko's curiosity. She hoped Gin might be able to somehow feel them and know the duo were alright. Sonoko knew she would be concerned if they had eaten Gin and Sumi with no way to tell if her stomach had turned both from 'friends' to 'food' or not for possibly hours.

"Let's just go before anything else gets dumped on us." Sumi whined with a huff, starting to wade through the chyme with a quick shiver. Not more than a few seconds after she did so, a loud splash sounded from where the girl had just been standing.

It was going to be a long trip

Gin's past hour or so, maybe it'd been more she wasn't good at keeping track of time, had been far from pleasant. Ordinarily, she was an active girl with hobbies ranging from sporty activities, video games, to cleaning her house. But, she couldn't move around a bunch with her friends inside her, it didn't look like there were any video games in the house, and it was already very clean. With wanting to keep her movements to a minimum, Gin hadn't been able to even attempt looking for a bunch of activities, even bending down much she was concerned over. In the end, the tomboy had settled for sitting patiently and still, mostly playing with her phone. Gin normally had some trouble staying still and there wasn't a bunch to do on her phone, but for the sake of her friends she could endure some boredom for a while. Their lives were on the line, after all. She just hoped her gut hadn't already made them into a meal. Who knew how long it'd be until she got some kind of sign they were even alive inside her. The nerve wracking concern wasn't helping her mood.

"I hope they don't take too long…" Gin sighed to herself with a frown. She wished she had at least something to do. Sonoko couldn't have shrunk a video game console to put in here or something? Or, perhaps she did it just wasn't somewhere obvious. The doll house felt like a disturbingly realistic mansion at Gin's current size. With how much time she spent in it so far, Gin had to sometimes remind herself she was still actually incredibly tiny, despite the rest of the world being 'in scale' with her inside the house. A glance outside the windows now and again, where she saw Sonoko's room stretch on like a vast city, furniture as landmarks and skyscrapers, was a quick reminder of that.

Gin blinked once.

And suddenly felt like she had been shoved into a small box.

"W-Woah, what the hell!?" Gin bellowed, instinctively trying to shift around, feeling various objects and things pressing into parts of her body, cracking around, some even breaking. But, her movement was severely limited, it was like she was pushing against a wall that creaked and groaned with her motions. "What's… Going on?" Gin grunted, trying to move.

A few things started to strike Gin as odd once her brain has some seconds to process the new surroundings. Her face was right up against a material that looked suspiciously like the ceiling of the room. Moving her neck to look around, the most movement she could make without causing sounds that felt like things were breaking or about to. Gin noted that the walls likewise were the same color as the room she was in before. Not only that, she saw furniture too, exactly like she was around earlier. Yet, it was all now vastly too small, easily several times if not more

She may not have been the most book smart girl, but Gin wasn't an idiot. Pieces slowly started slotting together as she scanned over the room. This was the exact same room she was sitting in moments ago, but somehow, it was way too small! Everything felt like it was 10x too smaller, or more, for Gin. She had to keep her knees bent and legs bunched up, with one awkwardly pulled up vertically, like Gin were trying to use it to push herself off the floor, and the other with the leg leaning to the side, knee horizontal to the ground as if she were crossing her legs, and head angled to the side, partially pressed against the ceiling. It even looked like there were a few cracks in places.

'How did I suddenly grow like this?' She didn't have the hammer, so there was no way she could've gotten bigger or smaller. Sonoko had it before Gin ate her.

The girl's eyes went wide upon the thought.

That was right, Sonoko had it and they were still in her guts, hopefully. Gin herself wasn't moving around too much, but her body was busy trying to processing food. Maybe the hammer accidentally grew her or something from a stray tap? Sumi, alongside Gin's hair tie, got shrunk when Sonoko dropped it by accident.

Yeah, that's what Gin was going to believe. It would mean her friends were still alive and not her nutrition. That was a good sign!

'But… They'll realize what happened and make me smaller, right?' After a minute or nothing more happening, Gin thought uncomfortably. She wasn't going to be staying like this the whole time till Sumi and Sonoko got out, right? If she moved wrong, Gin felt like she would end up breaking out of the whole room, it already felt as if it were barely able to contain her, and Gin didn't wanna break the thing Sonoko had worked so hard on setting up.

'Well… Any more than this room…' Gin mentally corrected herself as she felt something, she had no clue what, definitely break under her body from a slight shift in a vain attempt to get more comfortable.

This was not what she had in mind to break her boredom.

'When is this going to end?' Sumi hadn't bothered to keep track of how long they had been traversing Gin's guts, because all she knew was that no matter how long it took to get through her friend's body, it was too long. The fleshy tunnel simply never ended, no matter how many twists, drops, or climbs Sumi had to make. Were she not transformed and blessed with super strength, it would've been a near certainty her and Sonoko would've been hopelessly trapped at the first straight up vertical incline until they were pushed up with the rest of the chyme. She never figured the human body to be so dangerous, yet at her current scale, the automatic functions of Gin merely existing would have ended Sumi. 'I thought this was supposed to be easier after her stomach.'

The fact Sumi had eventually gone far enough to get mostly ahead of the liquid was the only solace and indication she was making progress in the otherwise unchanging cavern. It was small compensation for being occasionally churned and rocked inside the gut that still seemed determined to make nutrients out of her and Sonoko. It was claustrophobic to suddenly have both sides of the tube close on Sumi and trap her for several seconds.

"We've been in Mino-san for a long time huh." Sonoko eventually spoke up non-nonchalantly. Her friend was taking the incident better than Sumi was, occasionally shifting in the improvised breast pocket she had made out of Sumi's suit. Still, Sumi was thankful for somebody to talk to during this. The whole incident and traveling so long alone would've made the already awkward journey even more unsettling. Even with the occasional comment about Sumi's chest being comfy and bouncy.

"I hope she's doing better than we are." Sumi muttered with a glance down at her passenger. "Why is this taking so long? Gin isn't even tall and we're only going through her gut. It feels like we've could've gone the length of her whole body more than once."

"We have been going around a bunch of turns, so maybe we have. We are super tiny too, especially me~. I think I'm smaller than those fuzzy looking things on the walls." Sonoko responded.

"They don't feel fuzzy…" Sumi trailed off with a shiver. They felt fleshy and sticky whenever she got pressed into them by an undulation. But, now that she thought of it, they did look bigger than Sonoko. Even without the digestive juices bothering her now, Sonoko could've easily gotten lost among the folds, were she to fall out of her secure spot with all the movement.

"Huh? Is that… The end?" Sumi, seeing a wall with no drops or way up, spoke up before Sonoko could respond. Like the rest of the tunnel, it was slimy, fleshy in appearance. The only distinctive marking was the horizontal wrinkle that was over twice Sumi's height in its width and its own height nearly her's. It looked similar to when the walls of Gin's intestines would close on both sides and the exits of the small alcoves made wrinkled up. 'This doesn't seem like the way out.' It didn't look like what Sumi expected, embarrassing as that was to imagine.

"It's closed pretty tight. We could get smaller and maybe slip through. We don't wanna hurt Mino-san trying to force it open." The squeaky voice from Sumi's torso commented.

Pushing her hand to the sticky wall, Sumi applied a little force and pressure at the fold for a test, find it was pretty tightly shut. If she truly wanted to, Sumi could've likely pried it open with her enhanced body, but Sonoko did have a point. It wasn't Gin's fault her body's automatic functions didn't distinguish Sumi and Sonoko from anything else she ate. Though, Sumi had to wonder why it wasn't opening up if food was supposed to go through. Maybe they moved too far ahead of the body natural rhythm for this? Or, perhaps they were too small to trigger that reflex? Whatever the reason, if it wouldn't open, it would be easier to crawl her way through at a smaller scale. "As long as we're not too small, Sonocchi."

Not even feeling so much as a tap on her chest, the world changed in a blink. By now, Sumi was almost familiar with the sensation and suddenly losing her size, yet some of the differences still took her off guard. The most immediate was the thick layer of mucus which nearly went to Sumi's waist, feeling unlike the bile she had dealt with earlier in Gin's guts. Where's that had been more akin to a thick soup, now it was like Sumi was in syrup from the waist down, but thankfully still able to move with her enhanced strength. The second was how the same cave which had moments ago appeared slightly over twice her height, now felt like it went on nearly forever with how the light of her phone was swallowed up, impossible to see anything but the ground directly beneath her and the wall she had been looking at, which itself she couldn't see the top of anymore, only barely up to the fold that had been eye level before. Compounding the unsettling feeling of the infinite cavern of Gin's body, was the various groans and wet sounds of her friend simply existing was tremendously louder. Were Sumi not profoundly aware of her location, it would've inspired feelings of some terrible monster roaming and growling about the cave. That might've been preferable to the truth of her situation.

"Sonocchi, are you going to be okay? That might be a tight fit with where you are. This slime's so deep, I don't know if that's safe for you." Concern lacing her words, Sumi craned her neck to look at her diminutive friend. Sumi didn't even want to imagine how this must have looked from her perspective, that brief time on Sonoko's ankle was more than enough of being that tiny for a life time.

Never deterred, Sonoko waved an enthusiastic hand toward Sumi, with what looked like a smile from the little light Sumi could see. "I'll be fine, Wasshi! I'll just lower myself down more and I can get smaller too! I can make another capsule for myself and you're squishy enough, I won't get crushed."

Before Sumi could indignantly respond, Sonoko started shuffling in the improvised breast pocket, shimmying her body down till it completely vanished from sight. Sumi had to really crane her neck forward to see the tiny, nondescript bump in her clothes where Sonoko was, barely noticeable in its wiggling to slide deeper. And even then, were she not already aware of where to look, Sumi could've easily missed it if unaware.

"Hang on, Sonocchi." With a deep breath to steady herself, Sumi braced herself, then jumped upward with all the force she could muster, easily kicking away from the mucus gripping her like it were nothing. Familiar with such agility from her battles, Sumi landed on the edge of the folds with graceful motions, and a very ungraceful wet glop as she landed in the same mucus from earlier.

Standing before the same folds once again beat into Sumi how small she was. It was like looking at cracks that stretched across an entire side of a mansion, and that was only the extent she could see with her phone's light. Even this close, the folds themselves were still close enough that Sumi couldn't see out the other side. There appeared to at least be just enough space for her to squeeze through a small opening. 'I hope it lasts till the other side.'

With one more huff to prepare, Sumi dematerialized her phone, it wouldn't do much good with the slime everywhere, and reached her hand forward to start pushing, hand sinking past her elbow in the mucus coating in the process. Though it provided little resistance to Sumi's supernatural strength, her enhanced body did little to resist the sensation of disgust it brought over her. The feeling quickly spread across Sumi's entire body as she was rapidly swallowed up by the fold by pressing forward.

Slowly, but surely, Sumi was able to shove her way deeper, rapidly reaching the point she could not see the outside anymore when looking in either direction. It inspired a claustrophobic feeling, barely several centimeters afforded to her to move without hitting something, and none without having to deal with the slimy walls, which soaked much of her uniform nearly to the skin in short order from how absolutely surrounded she was. The only grounding fact keeping Sumi sure she was going in the right direction, was her physical orientation of when she entered.

'It can't be far, it can't be far…' Sumi repeated to herself as a mantra to keep her mind off the glob of slime that'd attached itself to her hair and was starting to drip down her back, thankfully still outside her clothes. Or, at least she thought. It was hard to tell anymore. Time, damp clothes, her progress moving, she couldn't keep track of anything.

As if to make her journey even harder, her path was far from a straight one, the folds within sometimes curving and changing direction, forcing Sumi to shuffle and shove in an attempt to reorient herself whenever one came up, trying to be conscious of her chest as well to not squeeze Sonoko, but her predicament was not so kind as the tight, fleshy walls pressed into her breasts, compressing them to fit the narrow space in an uncomfortable manner. This in turn resulted in her chest being almost entirely bathed in the slime coating her passage, and though Sumi trusted Sonoko to be safe with making another capsule, it did little to ease the gross feeling Sumi felt wading through the mucus she was half entombed in. Once more, the girl was thankful for her transformed abilities, or else she could've gotten stuck like a fly in honey at this scale, being stuck in honey would've even been preferable to what really surrounded her anyway. But, comparing herself to a fly right now would've been far too generous, even a flea would've been a towering monster to her. 'The sooner we're out and back to normal size, the better…'

Eventually, somehow, after she felt utterly soaked to the bone in the juices of Gin's guts, Sumi felt her hand touch freedom, the first time she could move her arm around without being bound in the tiny fold she was navigating. Emboldened by the sensation, Sumi's limbs found extra strength to push the rest of her body even quicker toward the exit, wiggling her way through till the ground beneath her abruptly dropped away at the very edge of the fold. For once, the knee deep mucus worked to Sumi's advantage, helping keep her anchored to the walls without any concern of falling.

"Sonocchi, I think we're out now." Sumi muttered with a gentle, if awkward, poke at the tiny bump on her breast in the same breath she resummoned her phone to provide light once more.

In this new stretch of the chamber, there were a few differences, at least from the little Sumi could see. The wall immediately around them was a similar looking texture as before, fleshy and covered in slime, but everything felt bigger. Sumi wasn't certain if she was imagining it or not because of being smaller herself, but the chamber felt as if it were multiple times bigger. Sumi couldn't even see the other side of the wall with her phone, merely seeing an infinite expanse of darkness. No matter which direction she looked, up, down, left, or right, her light was swallowed up by the seemingly never ending shadows. Sumi couldn't even see the curve of the walls, unlike in the previous section where she could see the vague circle shape it was making, even after being shrunk to such a tiny size. It really added to the feeling of Gins guts going on seemingly forever. 'How small did Sonocchi make me?'

In a blink everything suddenly felt smaller, Sumi could see the other side of the wall, the sensation of mucus, at least past the bits which had soaked her outfit, was gone from her knees. She was big again!

And she was falling.

With a squeak, Sumi suddenly dropped like a rock for a second, tumbling till she landed on her side with a wet, glopping splash into more of the slime.

Sputtering to her feet, Sumi glanced down with squinted eyes at the only possible culprit making the bulge, well smaller bulge than her body naturally did in the same area, in her clothes. "Sonocchi! G-Give me some warning before you do that!"

In response, the bump started wiggling, a flustered feeling stirring in Sumi as she felt Sonoko's tiny limbs digging into her breast and pushing around to try and get herself visible again for a few seconds, until the yellow and purple dot her friend was finally emerged, barely keeping their shoulders and above outside of Sumi's clothes.

"Whoopsie! Sorry, Wasshi! You said we were out, so I thought we could grow back to normal." Waving a small hand, Sonoko casually answered.

Inhaling sharply through her nose, Sumi sighed. "At least we're back to normal." Sumi paused and caught herself with the thought. No, she was not back to normal, she was very far from back to normal. Had she spent so long at a tiny scale she was almost getting used to being such a small scale? She even had that brief thought of being 'big' again a moment ago. After changing their sizes so much, spending as long as she was being so tiny beside Gin and using them as a 'normal sized' reference to avoid thinking about their true scale, and having to get used to being inside of her for hours, Sumi's mind was starting to adapt its frame of reference to the change in scale as well. 'I-I'm not supposed to be bite sized like this, I'm supposed to be taller than Gin!' Being small enough she got effortlessly swallowed like food, and almost digested too, was the furthest thing from normal! And Gin herself wasn't even that big, she could have likely been eaten by somebody truly normal sized with the same ease Sumi had been devoured! 'Please, let the exit be close.'

"Looks like we gotta go up now." Taking the whole thing far better than Sumi at every corner, Sonoko's high pitched voice spoke up to pull Sumi out of her flustered head.

"Eh?" Taking a second to refocus herself, Sumi looked upward and saw her friend was indeed right. Now that Sumi was nor- bigger, Sumi could take in a lot more details. Her earlier thought about the new section being so much larger was correct, as with both sides of the walls visible, it had to be over double, maybe even triple, the diameter Gin's intestines were earlier. This extra size even extended vertically, as while Sumi had made some jumps before with the many tangled turns, this distance felt comparable to staring from the feet of a Vertex, still not able to see the top, but it was also slanted to one side instead of going perfectly up. Could that meant Gin was leaning back? Whatever the reason, it was still hard to believe everything was merely the inside of Gin's body at times. It really gave perspective on just how massive she was when Gin's guts alone were a labyrinth like dungeon with no indication of where they ended.

"Hang on, I think I can jump up there." Bracing herself, Sumi gave Sonoko a few seconds to do the same before she kicked off with a grunt and soared upward. The wall of folds rapidly passed by Sumi as she ascended, becoming a blur as the 'ceiling' soon came into view. Taking advantage of the mild incline, Sumi gently landed with a squelch, somewhat like stepping in wet mud.

"It doesn't seem like there's as many twists and turns here." Sumi commented, looking down at how she was once more greeted by an incredibly long, straight forward cavern she couldn't see the end of, equally spacious as before, yet laid out horizontally. 'Everything looks a lot more straight forward now, maybe this will make it easier for us to go quicker.'

Before, Sumi had need to keep mostly to walking, both on account of there not being enough room to actually jump and to conserve some energy. But, here, Sumi knew she had the space. And some part of her felt they had to be getting close with it opened up like this, but perhaps it was simple desperation and wishful thinking after how long Gin's body spent trying to be their prison and tomb. Regardless, the thought made her want to abandon any thought of going nothing short of the fastest she could without causing any harm.

"I'm going to see if I can keep jumping through this, Sonocchi." Once again, Sumi gave a brief warning before she leaped forward, this time jumping more in a short arc that still sailed her tens of meters, at least from her scale reference, and brought her seemingly halfway through. Sumi could see another change in direction, this time sloping downward with a similar slant as before.

With another jump, Sumi started flying toward the edge of the decline to land more steadily. But, in her desperation to go the fastest she could, Sumi soon realized she had overshot her landing by a few hairs as she descended to the ground. Trying to realign herself in the air, Sumi attempted to plant her feet in the ground the moment she grew close enough, yet it was futile. The viscous slime, with her bigger size, acted more slippery than adhesive with her momentum, carrying Sumi forward as she slipped, starting to tumble down the tube like a hill.

"W-Wah!" Sumi screamed as she rolled, more and more mucus coating her during her roll. No matter her attempts to try and steady herself, there simply wasn't anything to use as a foothold or grab. Any folds were coated in the same slime as Sumi, causing them to slip right between her hands. Other times, she would grab a slick wall with nothing to grip. Sumi could do little to slow or right herself, but even with her situation, Sumi tried to align herself so that her chest avoided whatever impacts she could make it. She had to keep her friend safe, they were even more powerless than Sumi was in the situation.

Mercifully, the descent didn't last long and Sumi finally slammed into another wall that stopped her, back first, with the flesh like material and slime helping cushion the impact, oddly enough.

Shaking her head to banish any dizziness from the tumble, Sumi immediately spring to her feet, looking down at her chest in a panic to check on Sonoko. To her relief, she still saw the little bump in her clothes that represented the girl, but it had slid down quite a lot, almost to the center of her chest.

"Sonocchi, are you alriiIGHT!?" Her voice going shrill in surprise, Sumi yelped as her back and another, much smaller part of her body stiffened up. With Sonoko sliding down between her layers of clothing enough, and how form fitting they were, especially her inner body suit being near skin tight, her confused flailing to try and respond inadvertently started grinding her against a sensitive part of Sumi's breast. The reaction only inspired further confused squirming from Sonoko, which likewise worsened the sensation on Sumi's end as the slight bump where Sonoko was grew, causing the outline of her form to appear against the rising bump on Sumi's chest pinning her even more tightly in place.

"W-Watch where you're s-squirming, Sonocchi!" Sumi, feeling her cheeks flush, clamped a finger over the location, suppressing the slight shiver it caused her, to keep her small friend in place. With her finger pressing down on one side and sensitive chest on the other, now Sumi could much more clearly make out Sonoko's shape underneath the outer layer of her uniform, but her body was so tightly squished by the pressure of Sumi's form fitting clothes, she could have done that with her chest alone. Her arms and legs were sprawled out to make her body as wide as possible, yet even then her whole form felt smaller than the sensitive peak of Sumi's personal mountain. The pressure from it pushing outward against her tight uniform with Sonoko caught in the middle, likely could've kept the Hero pinned securely in place without Sumi needing to do anything. Especially with Sumi's finger on the other side, the tiny girl didn't even appear capable of moving.

Face burning like fire, Sumi shoved her hand down one layer of clothing. Trying to grab at Sonoko, her fingers pinched another part of her body and sent a jolt up her, seemingly squishing and rubbing Sonoko even further into it. Awkwardly shuffling her fingers around and trying to ignore the growing heat, Sumi finally managed to grasp Sonoko, and nothing else, between her index finger and thumb, rapidly pulling her out.

"W-What were you doing?" Sumi stammered, bringing Sonoko up to her face with an accusatory look, but remembering to keep her grip strength in check.

Head visibly spinning, Sonoko took a moment to steady and grab her bearing again before finally looking at Sumi. "H-Huh? What happened, Wasshi? Everything started tumbling and then it got even tighter when something really hard started pressing into me. But I was still in your chest pocket…" Sonoko trailed off briefly, looking down at where she last remembered being. A hint of realization came over her, with the tiniest hint of red, as they noticed the large bulge still on Sumi's chest, which had been noticeably bigger than Sonoko herself was. "Ooooh… I didn't think I was smaller than Wasshi's ni-"

"S-Stop!" Sumi shrieked while making a sound that resembled a dying animal. "L-Let's just keep going! W-We have to be close soon, s-so I'll carry you for a little." As odd as the excitement and flustered feeling Sonoko being there caused, no way was Sumi going to put her back there so soon after this incident. She would find another place for Sonoko to go if she needed it and hope she crossed that bridge never.

"Okay, okay~." Thankfully quick to move on, Sonoko shifted gears quickly as she formulated novel ideas. "But, don't hold me too tightly if you're gonna carry me!"

Sighing to calm herself, Sumi nodded in agreement to the terms before taking in her surroundings again. Now that she had a moment, she could see there was another, less sharp, downward incline. Not quite perfectly level, but enough she could have perhaps walked down it carefully.

Moving with care, Sumi slowly walked along the path, keeping her phone light ready. After the curve, Sumi noticed that the tube gradually narrowed the further down it went, yet it was still significantly wider than she was, more than enough room to spread her arms without touching the walls. Not long after, Sumi saw another wall enter her vision. The end of her road, and the end of Gin.

Like the previous wall, there was a tightly compacted set of folds, making a vague, somewhat circular shape. But unlike her previous encounter, this one was much bigger, covering the majority of the new wall in front of her. But, to Sumi's dismay, it looked almost as tightly sealed.

"I think this might be our way out." Sonoko spoke up, with even her normally cavalier self sounding a little awkward.

Sumi let out a whine. She sure hoped this was the exit and she would be so pleased to escape, but at the same time, she was not happy to confront what getting out would entail her going through. She had been so focused on continuing to move forward and looking forward to getting out, the final step of actually doing so had been pushed to the back of Sumi's mind, yet that was something which could be done no longer with it staring her in the face.

With trepidation and slow steps, Sumi drew closer to the wall, occasionally seeing it twitch, till she could've reached out and touched it. "Could you make us smaller again? Maybe we could slip through without Gin feeling us." It was going to be unpleasant afterward, no matter what happened, but maybe some of it could be mitigated if Gin wouldn't have to feel Sumi wiggling out of her butt. And it might cause less problems with her reactions that way. Sumi wasn't sure who'd be more embarrassed from something like that.

"On it, Wasshi~"

In a flash, Sumi was almost waist deep in the sticky coating of the walls once again, and the 'wall' before her had turned into the side of a skyscraper she could not see the end of. The slight 'twitches' now felt like she were watching an earthquake almost. It was enough to make her start second guessing her plan. But, it would potentially save a lot of awkwardness getting out and if Gin started feeling them, they could get squished on reflex. 'No, this will have to do.'

But Wasshi, I gonna need to hide again. I can't stay in your hand the whole time here." Plainly, and shamelessly despite what it implied, Sonoko interjected.

Once more, Sumi groaned. Part of her was glad to finally be at the exit, but the other was less enthusiastic with having to put Sonoko back. But, given how the last one went and this looked even more difficult, she didn't have much of a choice.

"Fine…"

Immediately, the familiar sensation of Sonoko jumping into the gap of her clothes, on the other breast than she had originally rode in, and start shifting around to make herself comfortable, lowing themselves to be completely beneath the clothes for safety, but still staying high enough to not touch anything she shouldn't have. Sumi would've sooner carried them in her mouth if her friend did that again intentionally.

Once confident Sonoko was secure, Sumi took a single breath to ready herself and jumped into the folds near the center. The first thing she noticed, was that it didn't appear as tightly compact and narrow compared to last time. She actually had some room to wiggle around and breath. On the other hand, she noticed there were significantly more folds and wrinkles around her on all sides, some big enough she could have easily squeezed into, themselves part of larger creases. Unsettling, was how deep some of those wrinkles were, more than enough Sumi could've been swallowed by them. At this size, if she were to be thrown off course like that, finding her way back onto it would be near impossible. She could only pray things would be easy as Sumi desummoned her phone, taking away it's light, and started moving inside. She could need both hands for this.

Shuffling her way through, the whole appeared to move at once, pressure lightening for the briefest of seconds on Sumi as she lost her footing and fell sideways. The next second, a crushing pressure, much greater than anything before, slammed into Sumi from every possible direction at once, locking her in place. So great was the force trapping her, Sumi could barely even twitch a muscle, the mucus covered walls squeezing her so tightly, she could barely keep her nose uncovered to breath.

'Why is it so… Tight…!' Sumi thought to herself, trying to struggle, yet barely able to even crawl. Everything had shifted without warning before this, could that have been one of the twitches she saw before? Yes, she saw it from the outside, but this inside perspective was far more violent and disorienting. However, making matter worse, was that the pressure did not lighten up, it stayed at a level to keep her still. Shouldn't it have gone back to normal after a few seconds? That shouldn't have happened, unless…

'I fell somewhere else!' Worry flooding into her mind, the realization dawned on Sumi. With the twitch, she must have fell deeper into one of the many folds and gone off track. The gap created by the motion she tumbled inside then clamped even tighter on her.

She had to move, she had to try and get to a better position, but which way to go? In the disorientation, Sumi completely lost her sense of direction, unable to tell up from down, left from right. And not helping the matter was how she had absolutely zero light. It was dark, it was oppressive, it was tight, the perfect storm for a sense of claustrophobia to creep in. Sumi felt like she was being squeezed into a slimy pancake from her position, but she had to do something! Even though she could barely move at a crawl, Sumi frantically tried to move and push her way out, figuring that somewhere would be an exit, even if not the one she wanted. She could even attempt to tell Sonoko to grow them anyway, because mucus would've invaded her mouth and Sumi refused to even entertain the possibility.

Another twitch, this time the pressure increasing further and totally stilling Sumi's attempts to move while trying to crush her like an egg, but then it relaxed and Sumi was able to move again. Slowly, but surely, she tried to worm her way through in hopes of freedom.

Eventually, Sumi's hand touched a space where nothing gave. No gap, no fold, just an entirely solid wall of flesh and slime. Panic started creeping into Sumi's mind at the sensation. She had wiggled her way into a dead end!

Just as the realization hit, the crushing sensation ebbed away beneath her, yet Sumi still felt the fleshy walls on her back alongside being lifted up, almost like she was glued to it, sliding slightly downward with the mucus coating to even deeper within the fold.

The next second, she was crushed once more from everywhere, this time one side of her body against the 'pocket' of the deepest reaches of the fold.

'I'm… Stuck…!' Try as she might, Sumi could not get her bearings, the pressure being too tight to properly switch her position. Her arms could not get the leverage to reach far down enough into the slime to try and push against it to align herself, she could barely breathe, she was barely able to even move. Her strength could push against the walls, but it was impossible to gain the leverage to properly move between the slime and slippery walls.

She was trapped.

Sumi was actually trapped within the folds of Gin's butthole.

What was she going to do!? How was she going to get out? There had to be a way out, there just had to be. She could not be stuck in this spot after coming so far, being a microbe on Gin's ass like this was even worse than being one for her digestive system! Sonoko would have to realize something was wrong eventually, but… How long would that be before she tried to make them bigger? Could she even while still staying safely inside a makeshift capsule?

Another spasm and Sumi was ground between the wall, shifting her around with her elbow now aligned with and pressed into the bottom of the fold she was stuck in. Even the unconscious twitches of the small part of Gin's body could do way more to Sumi than she ever could with her own strength right now.

Panic seeping in, Sumi still defiantly tried to do anything.

Her forearm pushed against something.

Sumi moved.

Briefly, the girl paused. 'Wait, maybe I can use this spot?' Like a ray of light, the hopeful thought brought an idea to Sumi. With her elbow wedged against the bottom of the fold, she could sort of push against it. Furthermore, on the same side of her body, with the little movement she had, Sumi could dig her foot into the same line, using it to push. With all that, just maybe she could slowly start inching her way forward. She just hoped it wouldn't be another dead end or a spasm would dislodge her.

Putting her plan to action, relief flooded Sumi's mind as she felt herself slowly worm along the crease and begin progressing again. She had no idea which direction it was or if it would even take her out, but the mere fact she could do anything helped remove the feeling of helplessness that had been steadily growing.

After a time, another shift of the world happened without warning and Sumi braced herself as she was squeezed, praying to not be moved from her spot. To her relief, she stayed close enough to keep using it. Not as much as before and it did slow her, but she still had something to pin her hopes on. Maybe she could start trying to brace herself for any twitches and use it to try and get closer whenever the pressure lightened.

Steeling her resolve, Sumi continued her progress, focusing on the one path out she had, pushing with all her strength when she could while trying to remain in place when a twitch occurred. Once, Sumi was thrown away from her foothold and worry begun to take root in her head yet again as the sense of helplessness return, but another spasm luckily brought her near enough to make progress again.

Once more, Sumi wasn't sure of how long she spent doing this, but by some miracle, she felt a ledge her hand could grip. It was fleshy, coated in mucus, but it was some kind of end.

Will to escape giving energy to her now tired limbs, Sumi reached her other hand forward during a gap in pressure. With every bit of force she could muster, Sumi pulled hard. Slowly, grunting and groaning, the Hero brought her elbows free, then her head, and finally her torso.

Immediately, the air felt different to Sumi. It wasn't anywhere near clean, it still had the smell and humid feeling to it, but her lower half, still pinned inside the fold, and her upper half, outside of it, felt marketably different. Opening her eyes to further see for herself, Sumi had quite the sight greet her vision.

In front of her, downward from the sense of gravity she could feel again, there were two monolithic, flesh covered walls that appeared to stretch on forever, a small gap between them that appeared to be tightly closed not far in front of Sumi. The walls were clearly skin tone in nature, Gin's skin tone at that. Were she not uncomfortably aware of her location, Sumi wouldn't have had a clue what the massive mounts were, she couldn't even see the curvature of them. But after her terrible ordeal… Sumi knew she was looking at Gin's massive ass, the outside of it for once.

She had actually done it. She was in the outside world again, Gin's body was no longer her world. She was covered in slime, sense of smell completely desensitized, exhausted, and in desperate need of a bath, but she was out.

"S-Sonocchi! W-We're outside again!" Relief overcoming her, Sumi called out. Her ordeal was almost over and done, she could put this behind her soon. She just had to get out of Gin's first. "Give me a minute to push myself out!"

Nothing was going to stop Sumi from a long bath after this.

Gin couldn't even pretend to try and keep track of the time, lacking any ability to check her phone. She couldn't manipulate her arm into the right position to look at it without seriously risking the room's integrity. Trying once had caused some worryingly loud creaking. Which had left Gin to do nothing but wait. She was really starting to feel kind of sore holding this position for so long.

A jolt ran up Gin's spin and caused more creaking with the movement. She felt something around her butt as if she had something like a large piece of lint caught between her cheeks. That had to be her friends right? Why didn't she feel them… Earlier? With how they were getting out.

'N-Never mind!' She wasn't going to think about it, they had to get them out of the confines of her butt now. But, as the last maybe few hours made quite clear, Gin couldn't move very well.

"Nrg… Sumi, Sonoko, if that's you guys, I'm a little bit stuck, can you make me smaller so I can reach you?" Gin said, trying to keep herself as still as she could. The more pressure she could keep off them, she was already kind of in a sitting position on her rear, the better.

A few seconds ticked by, till in another blink, the room felt 'normal' again, and Gin was left sitting down to witness the wreck she had made purely by getting bigger. The room was, bluntly, a wreck, though perhaps not as much as it could've been due to the toy nature of the furnishings. A couch had all its cushions removed and the furniture itself turned over, pressed into a corner of the room. A bookshelf was overturned and stacked on top of a table, which had one of its legs broken clean off and another bent at a misshapen angle only plastic could make. Two chairs were completely crushed almost flat, another was half broken. A few dents and chips were visible on the walls from where Gin had applied any pressure, alongside a couple cracks. Ironically, not being a real house may have been partially what prevented Gin from breaking the walls down.

'Ah! Sumi and Sonoko!' Carefully springing to her feet, and catching herself to not jump too abruptly, Gin used a hand to reach inside her underwear for the source of the object between her cheeks. Almost instantly, she found the sticky object and brought it up to her face.

To her delight, She saw a very haggard, slime covered, frustrated, but very alive Sumi.

"Eh? Wait… Sumi, where's Sonoko?" Worry creeping back into her voice upon not seeing the blonde, Gin asked with a frown.

"She's right here." Sumi's squeaky, exhausted voice pointing to one of her breasts.

Squinting, Gin stared intently at where Sumi gestured. At the very edge of her vision, she saw a small trace of a yellow dot, which surely had to be Sonoko's hair. It was borderline impossible to see, even with Sumi pointing it out, but the yellow was there and if Sumi said that was Sonoko, that was enough for Gin.

The tension that'd quickly risen, left Gin's body soon as it'd come at the confirmation both her friends were okay and Gin felt her mood rapidly returning to her usual cheer with some teasing words. "You gotta let me ride there again, Sumi. I'm jealous of Sonoko."

"Gin, now's not the time." Sumi tried to lecture, yet between her helium like pitch and tired voice, it sounded anything but like the normal authority, she tried to carry.

"S-Sonocchi! Don't mention that!" Face turning red, Sumi clamped a hand on her chest over where Sonoko was at some unheard comment.

"Don't mention what?" Curiosity peaked, Gin pressed.

"N-Nothing!" Sumi quickly corrected. "C-Can we just take a bath, please. I need one after that…"

"Hehe, sorry…" Gin shyly muttered with some heat coming to her cheeks. It wasn't intentional, but it was still from her body, so she felt kind of responsible. Gin didn't even want to imagine, or ask, what kind of torment her digestive system put Sumi and Sonoko through, especially the end of their journey. She wasn't going to argue though. A hot bath would've been nice for how sore she was feeling having to hold that uncomfortable pose after she grew bigger.

"Eh? There's a bath in here, Sonocchi?" Sumi spoke up, once again speaking to a voice far too small for Gin to even pretend to hear.

"Woah, what!? How did you get a bath in here, Sonoko?" Gin, impressed, asked wide eyed.

"She… Said she used a thermos and attached it to the bathroom to keep some hot water that could be opened to fill a tub, and made a couple things like sponges small with the hammer.”

"Well, what are we waiting for, let's go then!" A good bath always helped her relax, and all three of the girls desperately needed that.

"Couldn't we just take a bath at normal sized?" Sumi protested.

"It'll be way faster this way, come on! We'd have to leave the doll house, grow back to normal, go set it up, that's a bunch of extra time!" Gin argued.

"Well, I guess that's true… I would like to get a bath immediately." Sumi conceded, still sounding unsure of herself. "B-But we're growing back to your size first!"

"Alright, just tell us where to go, Sonoko!" Gin addressed her almost invisibly small friend, waiting for Sumi and Sonoko to jump back up to a more recognizable height.

Embarrassing as everything had been, at least it had ended with everyone safe.