The facility on the outer island is a windowless concrete building, with a long, narrow corridor inside. On one side of the corridor is a solid concrete wall, in which three custom-shaped openings are cut at equal intervals, each contoured to fit the wearer’s waist as if tailor made, precisely locking around their sides. From the waist down, the thighs, knees, and calves are embedded into the opposite side of the wall, leaving only the buttocks and feet exposed on the corridor side. The three are fixed side by side, with about half a meter between their buttocks. From the left side of the corridor, the order is: Satou Shizuka, Konoe Hideko, Imagawa Aiko. They are completely naked. Their bodies are bent into a Z shape inside the wall — thighs pressed close to the abdomen, knees raised high almost touching the collarbone, yet deliberately left with a slight gap to keep the muscles constantly tense. From the knees down, the legs are folded, soles facing upward. Each ankle and calf is encircled by a metal control cuff lined with thick medical grade rubber padding, preventing abrasion while rendering every feeble struggle futile. From the corridor, what is visible on the wall are three rounded buttocks and, a little above them, three pairs of upturned feet. Between each pair of feet, a roughly ten inch CCTV monitor is embedded. The screens are on, showing live close up footage of their faces, captured by miniature cameras installed in the recesses of the wall. In the footage, their hair is styled as usual: Satou’s mid length black hair is tied up in a neat, practical bun; Konoe’s long hair is combed smoothly and tucked behind her ears, revealing a clear forehead; Imagawa’s dark brown hair is coiled into a large bun on top of her head, without a strand out of place. They even have their familiar glasses on. Their faces show deep exhaustion. Dark circles mark the area under their eyes, their gazes somewhat vacant, their lips dry and slightly parted. Occasionally, a faint, hoarse sigh escapes from behind the wall. Yet even so, they remain attractive middle aged women — their facial features still defined, and under the overhead light, their skin retains the distinctive quality of mature femininity. Occasionally, a member of the organization walks past at the far end of the corridor. Footsteps echo on the concrete floor. No one speaks. Only the low drone of the ventilation system carries the mingled smell of disinfectant and salty sea air, circulating slowly. About twenty centimeters above their feet, hanging on the wall, is a filthy rag scrawled with the words “LEGAL ADVISORY TEAM” in crooked black letters — a crude, contemptuous graffito. However, because their heads and faces are completely embedded into the opposite side of the wall, none of them can see the rag from their current position. But what makes it crueler than invisibility is this: before they were locked into place, the organization lined the three of them against the wall and made them watch as the words were written, then slowly hoisted the rag up. They witnessed the ink bleed into the coarse fabric, saw the scrap of cloth tied to a rope and raised to a high point on the wall — a place they would never be able to see again. Now, they can only rely on memory to imagine that rag still hanging above them. Every fiber is soaked with mockery: a “legal advisory team” composed of a former public prosecutor, a former Minister of Justice, and a former judge, now unable to control even their own bodies, reduced to offering their naked buttocks and feet to any member of the organization who walks past. This is a humiliation deeper than any physical restraint — they know the label they have been given, yet they can never lay eyes on it again. Out of sight, but the shame is everywhere. Even harder to endure is the tickling that strikes without warning. Sometimes it is the soles of their feet — as if invisible bristles gently trace between their toes, making the arches involuntarily curl. Sometimes it is the edges of their buttocks — a faint, intermittent breath of air brushes across, like a sigh, or like a malicious fingertip. There is no rhythm to these stimuli; they appear at completely unpredictable moments, last for a few seconds or minutes, then vanish. They cannot struggle, evade, or even voice a protest. Their bodies merely react passively — muscles tighten, toes clench and grasp, buttocks twitch slightly, then go slack again in a gasp. On the monitor screens, they burst into uncontrollable laughter. The sound is muffled by the wall into ragged breaths, but the contortion of facial muscles, the pulling at the corners of their mouths, the tears forced from their eyes — all are faithfully captured by the high definition cameras. Sometimes Hideko is the first to break down, her thin rimmed glasses sliding slightly with the tremor of her shoulders. Sometimes SShizuka clenches her teeth, but a suppressed snicker escapes from her nose. Sometimes Aiko’s entire face crumples, her mouth stretching open in a soundless grimace that could be crying or laughing. The organization’s people standing in the corridor cannot hear the laughter, but they can see three pairs of bare toes helplessly curling, spreading, and curling again in the air. But this is only the warm up. Those depraved criminals then use special grasping hooks to pry open their vaginas and anal clefts. The metal tips are covered with thin rubber — cold, but inflicting no wounds. They force the most hidden folds apart, exposing them to the cold air of the corridor and to the occasional passing gaze. Every inch of skin that should never have been seen now has no protection left. They cannot close their legs, cannot twist their hips away. They can only endure as the hooks strip away the last remnants of their dignity. This is a humiliation far more complete than tickling or laughter — in this primal exposure, they are forced to realize that they are no longer human beings, but merely marked, displayed flesh, to be toyed with at will. Then, without distinction between soles, vaginas, or anuses, they begin to stimulate relentlessly. They target the most sensitive areas, with the sole purpose of making the women moan and convulse with hysterical laughter. Metal tools wrapped in thin rubber — sometimes a rotating brush head, sometimes a vibrating probe, sometimes just a cold, precise jet of air — move back and forth across their arches, clitorises, and anal openings. No rhythm, no pause, no mercy. Each contact precisely detonates a cluster of nerve endings, forcing their buttocks to twitch and spasm against the wall openings, their bare toes to spread and curl wildly. On the monitors, laughter and moans blend together until they become indistinguishable. Their glasses fog with sweat; their hair, though still styled, is soaked with tears and convulsive perspiration. Those in the corridor cannot see the faces behind the wall, but they can hear the muffled, broken screams and gasps through the concrete. The air is thick with disinfectant, the saltiness of sea water, and a certain secret, humid smell. This is the final step in reducing the body to a mere object — not to cause injury, but to make them, in their own uncontrollable responses, completely forget who they once were. Tickle and sexual pleasure — alternately or simultaneously — assault their brains. The tickling on their soles forces out uncontrollable laughter, while stimulation of their clitorises and anuses makes them twitch, moan, and even grow involuntarily wet. Two entirely different sensations intertwine into a net from which there is no escape. There is no violent pain here, yet the erosion goes deeper than any brutality. The organization does not rush to kill them, nor even to make them faint. On the contrary, each round of stimulation is carefully calibrated to maintain the threshold of “about to break, but not yet broken.” What they want is for these women, through endless, protracted sensory torment, to thoroughly regret and repent their own actions. To regret why they pushed for those anti organization laws, why they led prosecution teams to trace those money trails, why they sent organization operatives to prison. The organization does not seek a coerced confession. It seeks a penitence that grows from the very marrow of their bones — voluntary, even grateful. When tickling and sexual sensation simultaneously burn their brains, when every breath is accompanied by an uncontrollable moan or gasp of laughter, they will begin to doubt the very justice they once believed in. That is the organization’s true victory — not the destruction of their bodies, but the destruction of their convictions. In the years to come, Satou Shizuka, Konoe Hideko, and Imagawa Aiko are planned to be permanently kept inside the organization as “tickling slaves.” They will no longer be former public prosecutors, former ministers of justice, or former judges. They will become designations 76, 58, 67 three breathing, trembling, sound making pieces of flesh assets. The organization plans to conduct their daily “training” with scientifically precise rhythm: progressive enhancement of plantar sensitivity, sustained development of the mammary gland and nipple nerve plexuses, recalibration of tactile thresholds around the anus and vulva. Drugs and physical stimulation will be used alternately, making their skin ever more ticklish. A single light touch will trigger convulsive, hysterical laughter, as if jolted by electricity. The lips that once eloquently debated in the Diet will eventually produce only vague gasps and broken laughter. The fingers that once signed arrest warrants will be able only to curl weakly against their restraints. The organization is in no hurry to destroy their bodies. Quite the opposite — each round of stimulation will be precisely kept within the limit of “no permanent damage,” because they are renewable, reusable, high value consumables. Their suffering and loss of control will be regularly recorded and sold on the dark web to select clients at high prices. Their flesh may be rented out to senior members of the organization as a “stress relief tool.” They may even be used to intimidate other opponents who have not yet submitted — “See? This is what happens to those who oppose us.” Years later, they will no longer remember who they once were. The conditioned reflexes of tickling and sexual pleasure will replace all autonomous will. When someone approaches, they will instinctively tremble, contract, and even arch their bodies on their own — not out of obedience, but out of a preemptive despair over the response they know is coming. What the organization seeks is not their “submission,” but the state where that submission has been carved so deep into their spines that it can never be peeled away. This is the organization’s envisioned final outcome for the “Legal Advisory Team.” Not death. Something slower than death, silent, and endlessly running — the penance of their own flesh. Inside the organization’s facility, at the end of a corridor, a monitoring room. Two men stood in front of three side by side screens. On each screen, a woman was laughing uncontrollably, tears and sweat mingling on her face. The shorter, stockier man on the left took a sip of his coffee and spoke in the same tone one might use to evaluate frozen meat at a supermarket. “Sure, they’re all getting on in years… but still, they’re pretty rare beauties. Look at this one — former Minister of Justice, and her skin is still this fine. Next to her, that prosecutor — her breasts are unbelievable. And the judge over there, her legs have a really nice shape.” The taller, leaner man kept his hands in the pockets of his white coat, his eyes fixed on the twitching toes in the footage. He didn’t touch his coffee. “And on top of that, they’re ticklish and sensitive — plus they come with those titles… not bad merchandise at all. The clients on the dark web love this kind: respectable faces that still cry and laugh at the same time.” On the screen, Imagawa Aiko’s laughter suddenly spiked into a short shriek, then dropped back to broken gasps. The stocky man smirked. “Came again? What number is that today?” “Lost count,” the lean man said. “But their thresholds are already lowering. Three more months of training, and just a puff of air will make them collapse.” The stocky man put down his coffee cup and let his voice go cold. “Make them understand: they have to become tickling slaves, and only being tickled to death will atone for their crimes. Don’t give them any hope.” The lean man finally turned his head, a slight curl at the corner of his mouth. “Afraid they’ll kill themselves?” “They don’t even have the strength to kill themselves anymore.” The stocky man pointed at the screen. “Look at their fingers — can’t even make a fist. But… between despair and hope, they’d still choose hope. What we need to do is delete that option altogether.” Silence fell over the monitoring room for a few seconds. On the screen, Satō Shizuka’s glasses had slid down to the tip of her nose. She blew weakly upward, trying to clear the fog from the lenses, but only managed a muffled laugh. The lean man turned back to the screens, his tone as flat as if he were reading an experiment log. “Alright, here’s the plan. After each day’s training, play them recordings of their families — the daughter saying ‘Mom, I miss you,’ then cut it off immediately. And then play their old speeches. ‘I will protect this nation with the law.’ Alternate them. Over and over.” “Let them realize,” the stocky man took over, “that the past won’t come back, and the future will never arrive. The only thing they have left is this very present — this ticklish, laughing, crying piece of flesh.” The screens never went dark. The laughter never stopped. The door of the monitoring room closed, leaving the corridor with nothing but the smell of disinfectant and the low drone of the ventilation system.