化け物, 第2章
“So, this is it,” Yuka said, looking at the weird stone. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
Riho adjusted her glasses, looking at the webpages Tsubasa had brought up on the computer; during the course of the couple of days since she’d acquired the stone, she’d read other pages on it, listing duration, side effects and the like, which she immediately showed to her brainy friend for a second opinion. Like the pegasus, Riho was knowledgeable in English, though not to the degree Tsubasa was, so it had taken her a little bit longer to read the article. “If I didn’t read this page and look at that item, I’d swear all this talk of magic was nonsense.”
“Even with me here?” Tsubasa asked.
“Tsu-chan, no offense, but there’s nothing really magical about you,” Junko said. They were all currently at her home, as her father was a salaryman married to his job and her mother had passed away years ago, leaving Junko to be raised mostly by an older sister that had married and left home last year. “I mean, yeah, you come from a land of magic, but you’re not really magical, if that makes sense. I mean, you have that magi…oh, never mind.”
“Well, magic or not, I know this much: the team is practicing late tonight and won’t be leaving for home until ten this evening. If we have Tsubasa wait for Ryuji in the park just outside the school, the one where the old cherry tree is, it’s sure to win his heart!”
“Oh, I know that one,” Junko said, clapping her hands in excitement. “I’ve made ou…I mean, I met Tetsuo there plenty of times!”
“I’ll bet,” Yuka interjected, giving her friend a knowing glance.
“Well, you’d better do it soon if we’re going to make sure we get something that’ll fit you,” Riho said.
“Well, if you’re ready,” Yuka asked, handing Tsubasa the case.
Tsubasa opened the case, grabbed the sphere and closed her eyes, focusing on her desire to become human, just as the instructions said on one of the pages she’d found. The genderstone began to glow with a brilliant vermilion shade.
And then she exploded, her clothing blasted into shreds, bombarding every inch of the room in fabric. The three remaining girls suddenly screamed, but dozens of motes of lights appeared, encircling the room like a universe in miniature. The sparks then converged on a single location, where the assumed a human form, and a second later a girl fell to the ground, dizzy.
As she got up, her friends took stock of Tsubasa’s new appearance: lithe, fair skin and clearly of Japanese stock, with long white hair and the same lilac eyes, now only in human form. She was also completely exposed to the world as a newborn would be – which she was, in a sense.
It was Junko who spoke first, after a couple of seconds. “How do you feel?”
“Odd,” Tsubasa said, uneasily getting to her feet for the first time, then looking at herself in a mirror. She looked good, like a teen pop starlet, definitely a match for Kanzaki Akane herself. “But I think I look good.”
“Look good?” The look on Yuka’s face was priceless. “Tsu-chan, as a human you’ve got a better body than me! Ugh, I feel so jealous!”
A few minutes later, it was settled; though the other human girls had brought some clothing of their size, Tsubasa fit Junko’s clothing best, so the now temporarily ex-pegasus borrowed a sky-blue yukata and silvery-white obi, as Junko braided Tsubasa’s hair and did her make up. “Now remember, don’t stay out too long. We don’t know how long this spell is going to last since the pages say it depends on the individual’s natural magic,” Riho warned.
“Actually, this sounds kinda funny,” Tsubasa said, “but I can see a timer in the top right of my vision, like I’m wearing VR glasses. Weird.”
“Weird or not, Tsu-chan, we’ll be rooting for you! Now go out there and win your guy!” Yuka said, as the others ushered the newly-minted human out the door and towards her destiny.
His baseball bat over his shoulder, Ryuji Daisuke walked home, tired but grinning happily. The coach had worn them out with today’s practice, but with each day that came, they were getting ready for the Spring Kōshien, the tournament of tournaments. Being the team’s star pitcher, he was sure that his team would climb to the top of the mountain of teams participating and defeat Tokaidai Sagami High, considered this year’s team to beat. He was so sure of it, that nothing would rob his focus of winning the tournament.
And then his breath went away.
Sitting by the pristine pink of the old cherry tree, drenched in the light of a lamppost and what appeared to be a slight halo effect from the lamplight and the reflection off the sakura petals, a beautiful young woman with silvery-white hair sat there, casually looking at the tree. As he approached, he noted beautiful blue eyes and fair skin. Something about her took his breath away; she was hypnotic, alluring.
She looked at him slightly, blushing. Brushing a lock of hair behind her ears, she looked at him and smiled. “Good evening, Ryuji-kun,” she said in a musical voice that wove its way into his soul.
“Who…are you?” he asked.
“Someone you know,” she said, enigmatically.
“I don’t know anyone as beautiful as you,” he said, despite himself. He was utterly bewitched by the beauty seated on the bench. “What’s your name?”
“Umō Kibō,” she said, off-handedly. And it was her name…well, sorta: it was a Japanese translation of her birth name, Featherwishes. She’d been given her human name after her mother’s mother, and in English variations of her Japanese legal name it came up as Tsubasa F. Ueda, a middle name being rare for Japanese.
“Umō…Kibō,” he said, as if tasting the name itself. “That’s an unusual name.”
“I’m…an unusual girl,” she replied; no truer statement could be made.
“So, Umō-san, do you live around here?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I came out here looking for you,” she said, sweetly.
Watching from the other side of the park and hidden behind some bushes, Yuka and the others were sitting there, trying their hardest not to laugh. At Riho’s suggestion, they placed a button-sized remote microphone in the inside of the yukata, so they could cheer their friend on. What they heard, the trio agreed, was a comedy of errors.
“Wow, has she been reading too many shōjō manga,” Junko said, covering her mouth before she erupted into raucous giggling.
“Didn’t we hear that last line in the last episode of Love Love Trouble?” Riho laughed.
“Aw, c’mon, you two! Let the poor girl have her chance!” Yuka scolded her friends. “Although…it is kinda over the top.”
The trio watched their friend as she continued to capture the attention of her would-be boyfriend.
The next day, the school was buzzing with the news that a new girl had captured the heart of Ryuji Daisuke. Some said that she was a student here at Tamagawa Mikami High, while others said she attended any of a number of different schools in the area. One person even went so far as to theorize that she was the spirit of the cherry tree itself, desiring love and a perfect boyfriend so that she could live as a human. Regardless, it was clear that practically overnight Ryuji’s heart was no longer quite his own, having been commandeered by the mysterious girl.
A second rumor also started about Kanzaki Akane. Since the rumored run-in between her, Ryuji and the “college student”, she hadn’t been to school. Of course, that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, since when she had photo shoots she often made the schoolwork up on the road. But she hadn’t spoken to her close circle of friends, and one of those was the older sister of Imae Etsuko, the school’s blabbermouth. Imae had been the one spreading the rumor that Kanzaki was now so distraught at losing Ryuji, that it might even affect her looks.
None of this, of course, mattered to Tsubasa. She was too exhausted and sore to worry about any of that. Barely able to stay awake and feeling like she’d just flown through fifteen straight hours of strong headwinds, she’d almost contemplated not going to school that morning had it not been for the fact that she’d spent the night at Junko’s place. And somehow she’d managed to make it through the morning classes, and now the four were at lunch, seated in their usual location by the gym.
“So – how’d it go?” Yuka finally said, pestering her friend for details. “Did he promise his everlasting love? Did you kiss? Did he tell you that you were his ‘Forever Rose’?”
Junko, however, was a little more observant. “You don’t look so good.”
“I feel like a trainwreck,” Tsubasa admitted. “I feel like I could sleep all day.”
“Well, the page at Modern Magic did say that the side effects could include that,” Riho reminded her. “Just let it rest for a couple of days and then you can use it again. Besides, it’ll give Ryuji-san time to think about you.”
“Yeah, that’s really what you want,” Yuka agreed.
The pitch followed a slow, lazy arc, the kind that could have been hit by a six-year-old with a plastic toy bat, only to lazily flop into the catcher’s mitt. “Hey, Daisuke, you’re really off your game today. It true what they said about you?”
Ryuji looked at his best friend, who was also the team’s catcher. “Which part, Koji?”
Koji gave his friend a grin as he threw the ball back. “Well, not the part about you falling in love with a cherry tree spirit, of course. But do you know who the girl is?”
Ryuji shook his head to answer the question before putting a fastball right down the center. “No, but she claims to be a student here,” he added after. “But I think a girl with white hair would stand out – hell, even the kids with just light brown chapatsu hair stand out.”
“Well, there is one girl with white hair,” Koji noted.
Ryuji rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that umajin girl. Hey, you want her? All you, man – she’s not my type. I prefer my girls RL, not some kemono weirdo.”
“Well, there’s always Kanzaki-chan.”
“Man, I don’t think you understand: I ran into her kissing that college guy – she’s been two-timing me all this time while she sets herself up nicely with some Waseda guy that’d be good for her future prospects. Sorry, I ain’t a stepping stone for anyone.”
“Then what about this girl you were talking to yesterday?”
“Umō-san?” The look in Ryuji’s eyes went misty and far away. “She…she captivated me. I…don’t know how else to say it, but it was like I was bewitched or something. Now she’s a girl worth having. And trust me, if I find a way, I’m gonna make her mine.”
Tsubasa gazed at Ryuji from afar through the window of the Astronomy Club’s room. Her heart ached to be with him…but not just yet. No, she had to win him first as Umō Kibō before she could reveal her true self to him. So as hard as it was, she forced herself to turn away. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Yuka nodding at her in slight approval; obviously her friend knew how hard this was.
Yoshida looked at everyone in the room and asked, “Are we ready to start?” There were no objections, so he continued. “First off, as the Vice President of the Astronomy Club, I’d like to thank you all for coming to today’s meeting. Secondly, I have bad news for you all: Maeda-san, our club president, has resigned from the club effective immediately. As the vice president, I’ll be taking over the presidency, and the treasurer will take the vice president spot. But we’re looking for someone to step up and become the new treasurer. Would anyone care to?”
Sitting next to Yuka, Tsubasa whispered, “Maeda-san resigned?”
Yuka nodded her head. “Not just her – if you’ll notice, half the girls in the club are now gone, too. Apparently those that left used the room for one reason only: to watch Ryuji practice from here.” Hearing her words, Tsubasa winced; while she knew her friend wasn’t talking about her, it made the pegasus wonder: had she been human, would she have joined Maeda and the rest, leaving the club because she stood no chance against the “mystery girl” who now owned his heart?
Meanwhile, Yoshida had just elected a new treasurer, a mousy girl who, like Tsubasa and Yuka, actually wanted to be present. “Well, that’s done and thanks to Saotome-san for stepping up to be our new treasurer.” There was a small round of applause, which died down as Yoshida then asked, “So, what would we like to talk about today.”
“Let’s talk about Subaru!” one guy in the back said, a huge grin on his face.
Yoshida adjusted his glasses. “Didn’t we discuss the Pleiades last week?” he replied, using the foreign name for the Subaru star cluster.
“No, you dork, we’re talking about that mystery babe that Ryuji Daisuke thinks he’s going to get his hands on!” the guy crowed; apparently someone had given the mystery girl the sobriquet of Subaru and that stuck.
“I heard she’s a student over at Holy Cross – you know the all-girls’ Catholic school down in Ōta?” one guy said.
“Naaah, can’t be right. I got a cousin, says she attends Furinkan High over in Nerima,” a second guy did.
“Furinkan?” A third guy shook his head. “Oda-kun, you’ve been reading too much manga – just because there’s a school there by the same name….” The guy laughed. “Seriously, though – I heard she’s actually the daughter of the Chinese ambassador and she attends the American Private School in Akasaka.”
Suddenly dozens of guys started spouting hundreds of ideas, combined with the few remaining girls in the club somewhere between angry at being upstaged by this mysterious newcomer or just hoping that things would get back to normal. As for Tsubasa and Yuka, the two looked helplessly at each other, wondering if they’d created some kind of monster.
“Tsu-chan, you created a monster,” Riho said, just after school. “I think you need to let this all die down for a couple of days before you try to meet with Ryuji-san again.”
“Are you kidding?” Junko interjected. “This so-called ‘Subaru’ is the talk of the school! I had one guy in my class begging me if I had any information on Subaru. Not that I was going to tell him, of course, since I doubt he’d believe me anyway. But you’re a star, Tsubasa! You’re the school goddess now, not Kanzaki!”
Tsubasa blushed furiously at that. Me? The school goddess? The girl every guy wants?
Yuka immediately stopped and got in front of her friend. “Back to Earth, Maetel. Everyone wants Subaru – the mystery girl, not you, Tsu-chan. And isn’t this all about winning Ryuji’s heart, not the spot of school goddess?”
“I know,” Tsubasa said. “It’s just…wow….”
“Yeah, I know,” Yuka replied.
As they walked past the park, there were dozens of guys – mostly from the photography club – setting up cameras. It was as clear what they wanted to do as it was cliché – they intended to take pictures of Subaru and sell them to the “less fortunate”, the guys willing to pay money for pics of the new school diva. Tsubasa saw that and then suddenly had a very different image of what it was like to be the school goddess. Now she didn’t envy Kanzaki anymore; not that she really did, but she was definitely in the other girl’s shoes now.
“Don’t let it get you down, Tsu-chan,” Yuka said, putting an arm around her friend. “Just get some sleep, ignore these morons, and in a couple of days, you’ll be able to woo your beau once more.”
“Little bird, are you feeling okay?” Kyoko asked her daughter that night at dinner. “You haven’t eaten much.”
Tsubasa brushed her hair out of her eyes, hoping she didn’t look too exhausted. “Just tired, Okā-san. Long day at school.”
“I can imagine.” Goro looked at his daughter and smiled. “I was talking to one of your teachers today – he just happened to come by the café for a coffee just before we were closing for the day and he mentioned the school’s going wild over some new girl there and it was making the other girls jealous.”
Tsubasa nodded. “Not me, Otō-san. I’m…happy with who I am,” she said, hoping it sounded convincing.
“That’s good to know. I know it’s hard sometimes growing up with people who are different from you, but if Martinez-san can do it, then I know that my little girl can and can do it better.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling. If nothing else, she knew she had her parents’ love. The rest of the time was spent eating dinner quietly, doing homework, playing some games on her phone, then going to bed early. She was exhausted beyond compare and she could certainly use the rest.
So it was at ten in the evening that she’d found herself in bed, tossing and turning uneasily. Finally, she opened her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping because she felt so suddenly fatigued. But she’d been in bed for an hour now and usually she fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. Not today, however. After a few more minutes of lying there, staring at the Hello Kitty glowstickers on the ceiling, she dragged herself out of bed. She couldn’t sleep.
Walking over to the TV, she clicked it on. She’d downloaded the latest episodes of Love Love Trouble and Usagi Racer Umi the other day and hadn’t had a chance to watch them; maybe if she sat down and ran a couple, she’d finally get tired. She was powering up her computer to run the episodes when there was a sound, as clear as a bell, calling out to her.
She turned her head. The Genderstone glowed, a warm inviting hue. Something about her reached out to it, picked it up in her hands, the hoofspace settling around the spiky ball. As she did, she felt refreshed. Invigorated. Relaxed.
Divine.
“Looks like you got stood up, Daisuke!” Koji sat on the bench next to his friend. He, like dozens of others from the school, sat by the cherry tree, awaiting the arrival of the goddess Subaru. “Knew she was too good for you, man!”
Ryuji looked at his friend. “For one, you’ve never met her. Second, her name isn’t Subaru, it’s—”
“‘Subaru’ will suffice,” a voice said. Every boy in the area turned around and saw the girl walking towards them. Every jaw owned by a male metaphorically hit the floor as she seemed to glow in the rising moonlight, sauntering forth, wearing a cute camisole and skirt that accented her legs and frame. She walked up to him and, without without further ado, kissed him, and he soon joined in. After several passionate seconds, she pulled away from him, leaving him gasping for breath like a newborn tasting the first gasp of oxygen. As trite as it sounded, she’d taken his breath away.
“Will…will….” Ryuji was speechless. He had never felt this way about any girl, ever. Kanzaki? She was nothing compared to this perfect beauty before him. And the angel before him stood, his Subaru, taking up all of his everything. He couldn’t focus. All he could see was her, all he could feel was her. And with that notion, he knew had to make her his; they were destined to be together.
She sauntered up to him and whispered in his ear, “You want me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, absently, knowing only one thing: that he would give anything, do anything for her.
So in turn, she went up to his best friend and kissed him just as potently. As she broke the kiss, she whispered to Koji, “I’d like to see which one of you wants me more,” she whispered.
In turn, Ryuji flared with an uncontrollable rage. “Hey, Koji, what the hell ya doing with my girlfriend?”
“Your girlfriend?” his friend snarled. “It’s clear Subaru-chan wants me!”
“Then what about Imagawa, huh? Ya gonna dump her?” Ryuji’s fists clenched with rage. Best friend or not, no way was Koji going to take Subaru from him….
“You can have her.” He brought a hand around Subaru’s waist and said, “I got all I need right here.”
“No, ‘cause you need this!” Ryuji immediately took a swing at Koji, connecting with his face and sending him staggering back. In turn, Koji rushed and tackled his friend and the two started beating each other senseless, as though they’d had a lifetime of enmity against the other. Subaru merely walked away from both guys and towards another, saying, “Boys,” as if she were amused by what was occurring.
“Hey, what’s going on?” the boy she approached asked.
In turn, she wrapped an arm around his head and whispered close to him, “They’re trying to take me from you. Don’t let them,” before kissing him with as much intensity as she had the other two. As she stopped, the boy looked at her with desire before it turned to rage as he jumped the other two teens, shouting, “Don’t you dare touch my Subaru!”
And so it went. Each boy, wondering what was going on, only to be kissed by the ivory-haired beauty and then rushed into battle to protect his girlfriend. Two boys fighting became four, then eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. By the time the neighbors around the park had started to wonder what the commotion was about, forty-odd boys were suddenly in a battle royale, all of them out to protect their beloved Subaru from the others that would steal her away.
And as for Subaru? She was nowhere to be found when the police arrived by the dozens, wondering how supposedly one girl could be responsible for causing forty-three boys to beat the hell out of each other.
The next morning, Tsubasa woke up, sore and exhausted to the point she could barely keep her eyes open. Her mouth tasted funny, like she’d been rubbing it against sandpaper all night. Her arms, legs and hips hurt, and she felt nauseous. She stayed in bed both when her parents made breakfast and when they left to go to work; they knew she liked sleeping in on weekends.
There was a sudden knock on the door. “Go ‘way. Wanna sleep.”
The door opened, and in burst Yuka, in uniform. “Tsu-chan, get up!”
“Go ‘way. Satud’y,” the pegasus mumbled. “No school today.”
“Yes there is!” she said, pulling the pegasus out of bed. “School called a special session. We all need to be there.”
Finally, with what could only be referred to as herculean willpower, Tsubasa propped herself up, via her wings. She looked incredibly worn out and was forcing herself to sit up. “Why?”
“Rumor has it that about forty guys got into a fight last night, including most of the photography club and guys on the school newspaper. But get this – they all supposedly said they were fighting because their girlfriend was attacked by the others. And I’ll bet half of them don’t even have girlfriends.”
“Oh.” Her head was splitting now, screaming hard. She remembered when she was about six, she snuck a drink from her father’s beer, and drunk the whole thing to the point she got completely plastered. The hangover she got from it was a lesson, he told her, as to why only adults should drink beer and do it responsibly. The throbbing felt exactly like that.
“Tell you what: we don’t have to be there for an hour, so go take a shower and I’ll make something for you to eat, okay?”
Tsubasa smiled weakly. “Thanks, Yuka.”
“Hey, what are best friends for?”
Ten in the morning on what would’ve been their day off. Four female friends fried by frustrated faculty in the facility. Tsubasa heard various teachers lecture the student body over and over again on responsibility, good citizenship and having a sound mind in sound body. It really wasn’t anything that hadn’t already been drilled into them due to a lifetime in the Japanese school system. After a few minutes, two things became clear: the first was that none of the girls had any real clue as to why they were there. The second thing was that there were a number of injured and battered boys in the crowd, as well as quite a few of them missing.
Finally the principal walked up to the lectern, a stern look on his face. “Over the course of the previous evening, I have received a disturbing amount of reports that several members of our student body were fighting at ten in the evening in the park across the street from the school. Furthermore, I have heard rather…interesting…rumors that it had to do with a several boys fighting for the attention for a young girl.”
Riho whispered to her friends, “On one hand, that’s kinda romantic. On the other hand…at our age, that’s kinda creepy, too.”
“In any case,” the principal continued, “we cannot allow this sort of thing to happen. Now, while from what I understand none of the female students were involved in this senseless act, we are all responsible for one another. So as a result, for the remainder of the year, the cherry tree park will be off-limits to all students during school days. Futhermore, because most of the students involved were from the Photography Club and school newspaper, those two activities will not be suspended but their field trips will be restricted for the remainder of the year.” The rest of the time was spent in how the students were going to work harder at ensuring their fellow pupils would work harder at their citizenship for the sake of the wa of the nation.
As the students were dismissed for the day, the four girls walked out of the hall, headed back home. Well, three of them did, at any rate; Tsubasa stumbled and fell on the ground, completely spent. As the girls rushed to help their friend, Tsubasa looked at Yuka and the others and said, “Sorry, jus’ a li’l tired.”
“Tsu-chan, I think you need to see a doctor. You were feeling bad the other day and now you look worse,” Riho commented.
“I’ll be fine,” the pegasus insisted. “Just need to catch my breath and then gotta go help my parents at the café.”
“Oh no you’re not!” Yuka insisted, pulling out her phone. “Let’s get her home. I’ll call her parents and let them know what happened. Maybe then they can convince her to go to the hospital.” The others agreed and Junko flagged down a taxi while Yuka started dialing the café.
“Okā-san, I’m fine,” Tsubasa pleaded in a half-yawn. “I don’t need to see a doctor.”
Kyoko looked at her daughter with concern. “Little bird, in all the years you’ve been with us, you’ve never been sick before. What if you have the feather flu or something else? I’m your mother and I’m supposed to take care of my little girl,” she said, sweetly. “I’ll get you some broth and then I’ll call Sanada-sensei. He should be able to help you or at least let us know if we need to get you to a hospital.”
“But….” Tsubasa protested.
“I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t care about you, my little bird,” Kyoko said sweetly.
Tsubasa wanted to continue protesting, but she knew that her mother was only doing this because they were worried about her. Besides, she said to herself, I do need the sleep. “Okay, Okā-san,” she said, snuggling into the sheets.
“That’s a good girl. Now get some sleep, and I’ll bring you some consommé when you wake up.” Kyoko rose from the chair next to the bed, trying to keep a smile on her face. The truth was, she was a little worried. In the thirteen years Tsubasa had lived with her and her husband, she’d never gotten sick, and according to Martinez-san, only a handful of diseases in this reality affected ponies (Martinez had also admitted that illness was a rarity for her as well.) But now seeing her only child down for the count, Kyoko’s maternal instincts rose to the fore in a way that they rarely did. Hopefully it was just simple fatigue and nothing else. But if it was worse, Kyoko and Goro would go to the ends of the earth for their daughter. They went that far just to adopt her, and they would go farther still to protect her.
As she stood up, though, she noticed a polished red marble sphere with black glass spikes jutting out of it, seated in a glass case. She hadn’t recognized it before, but considering her recent friendship with the older American pony, it wasn’t out of the question that the object was something from their shared Equestriani heritage. She picked up the case and set it gently on the shelf, giving it no further thought as she left the room.
As she did, the other three girls circled around her, worried looks on their faces. “Thank you, girls, for calling me. Do you know what happened?”
The three looked at each other uneasily: should they tell Tsubasa’s mother about the Genderstone? Finally, Yuka spoke up: “She…says she hasn’t been sleeping well the past couple of days. We…know we should have said something sooner, but we promised her we wouldn’t.”
Kyoko gave the three a smile. “It’s good that you three have been helpful to her, but it’s important that you let the parents know as soon as. I would expect my Tsubasa to do the same for any of you. But thank you for being there for her.” Yuka promised that she’d check on Tsubasa later, while the other two promised to come by as well on Monday to say hi.
As the three left the house, Riho looked at her friends. “I hope we’re doing the right thing.”
Junko looked at the window to Tsubasa’s room. “So do I.”
Behind the school gym they met. Usually this was a destination of love, a place where two hearts would confess and meet. Today, though, it was a place for war councils.
A yankii, gaudy as all get out and wearing a blue tokkō-fuku overcoat sauntered over to the first one. “Yeah, Misuzu, what’s up?” she said between teeth holding a cigarette.
A girl, hair dyed in three tones, got up, hefting a bokken, the wooden practice sword looking well-worn from repeated use. “I just found out what caused the boys to fight: apparently some girl named Subaru is the one behind all of this. Apparently she’s some slut from another school and she’s getting the boys to fight in return for sleeping with her. Now, not only is some girl from another school startin’ some shit at ours, but she even went so far as to get my Hideki. An’ that shit ain’t right. So I think we’re gonna pay this bitch a visit and teach her not to mess with Tama-Mika High!”
Several of the girls present cheered at that, while the first one said, “You got a plan, chief?”
Misuzu grinned. “Yeah, sure as hell do, Akira. Here’s what we’re gonna do….”
That night, half awake, Tsubasa stumbled out of bed. Her eyes were half-closed and she felt as if she were numb all over. She hurt. She felt nothing but sheer exhaustion. She needed something to make her feel better. She thought about going downstairs for medicine, but that didn’t help. In the end, only one thing really did.
So she reached for the Genderstone.
Feeling sore as hell, Ryuji sat by the cherry tree, angry from the previous night’s events. Damn Koji, he rued. His now-former best friend had shown his true colors last night, not only by dumping poor Imagawa – Ryuji had to console the poor girl, his next door neighbor, just a few hours ago – but he tried to steal his Subaru…and then got the other guys from school to join in! Ryuji was a baseball player, not some martial artist out of an anime or a kendo club master, and as a result got beat up hard. It had been a small miracle that he’d been able to get away from the fighting just as the police arrived, and the school was so worried about losing its slot at the Spring Kōshien that they’d hidden the involvement of two of team’s baseball stars. But it had come at a price: he and Koji were now so mad at each other, their rhythm was off.
And the worst of it? In all that fracas, Subaru had disappeared. Of course, he couldn’t fault her for that: any girl would have to be insane to stick around like that, and there had been so many guys fighting that there was no possible way that he could have protected her.
But until he could finally be with her totally, the only thing he could do would be to wait here for her until she returned.
He didn’t have to wait long. Wearing a hapi as a shirt and tight jeans, she walked over to him and the first thing she did when she arrived was wrap her arms around him and launch into a long, sensual kiss. Finally, she broke it off, saying, “Shall we go to a love hotel? I think it’s time.”
“I’ll go anywhere with you, Subaru,” he cooed.
“I guess that means that you can keep her company in the hospital, then,” a sudden voice rang from behind the couple. A girl stood there with her bokken in hand, ready for action. Behind her, another stood with a chain, ready to have some fun. A few girls were behind them, offering support. “Ryuji, since you’re the school sports star, we’ll let you off easy. But you,” Misuzu said, pointing with her wooden sword, “are taking a trip to intensive care for fucking with Tamagawa Mikami High!”
Subaru looked at them, then laughed, her voice musical in the night. She then looked at Ryuji and kissed him, much more sweetly this time, whispering, “Sleep, my love.” He instantly fell to the ground like a stone. The ivory-haired girl then turned to look at the others and her visage was much less pleasant. “Ah, and now to deal with the inevitable distractions.”
Misuzu fumed. “Distraction? I’m gonna….” Her response ended as Subaru went up to her and kissed her. Behind Misuzu, Akira and the others stared with disbelief – then completely went aghast as they soon noticed Misuzu didn’t try to break away.
Well, I always wonder why she started dating Hideki, since he’s a little on the effeminate side. This kinda clears things up, Akira mused.
As Subaru broke off from the kiss, Misuzu seemed dazed for a second. But that soon went away as her indignation kicked in, backed up by a lot of embarrassment. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing, freak?”
Subaru smiled. “I always offer a mercy to those I’m about to murder.” And then she grabbed Misuzu’s long hair and threw her against a nearby park bench, face first. The crunch of face against concrete was clearly audible, as was the splatter of blood.
Akira had just enough time for her eyes to widen in shock before the ivory-haired bitch closed the two-meter gap between them in the blink of an eye, an absolute impossibility. People couldn’t move that fast. But before she could even move a centimeter to protect herself, she felt something slam into her face, her mouth move in a weird way, then darkness.
Standing a few meters Misuzu and Akira so they could spread out if the girl somehow knew how to fight, Sumire looked on with shock. In the span of seconds – not seconds as in less than a minute, but seconds as in less than ten seconds – the girl named Subaru had brutally injured both of the gang’s two leaders. She’d destroyed both in a literal blink of an eye.
And there stood Subaru, fist covered in blood, with a beatific smile on her face.
“I would run, if I were you,” she said, smiling as she licked the blood off her hand.
Sumire yelled “YOU BITCH!” while prepping to move forward to teach this girl a lesson. She might be a martial artist, but even martial artists couldn’t fight multiple opponents coming from every direction at once – this wasn’t the movies.
She continued to have that thought as she took a single step, only to see a blur of white move with a speed that people could only do in anime, no way in real life. She then felt a hand wrap around her face and a soft voice saying, “Sorry, not fast enough.”
And then nothing else.
Kappabashi-san sat atop her building, watching the moonlight. The moon seemed much larger than normal tonight, a result of atmospheric conditions causing an optical illusion.
Sometimes. But not tonight. If the familiar scenario played, tomorrow night would start a harvest moon, a yellow hue would come to the moon, and then a week later would come the sackcloth moon, a red moon – and during all this time, the moon would stay, quite impossibly, full and would not wane.
“You stupid girl,” Kappabashi-san said. “Stupid, stupid girl.”
Four in the morning. Subaru heard the gentle snoring of Ryuji beside her; she unwrapped herself from his tender mercies and climbed out of the bed. She then looked at the room with a bit of disgust, the nude anime pictures and the generic “seifuku” clothing she’d been wearing briefly just before they let nature take its course. Of course, that was to be expected: the love hotel four blocks down the road from the school was the one closest to the park, but by no means the best. Junko had confided the classiest one was in Roppongi, mainly because it catered to foreigners hooking up with Japanese girls. Tsubasa had blushed furiously upon hearing that. Subaru, on the other hand….
She walked over to the mirror, gazing at her glorious form. Goddess of Tamagawa Mikami High School – she liked that. Of course, there had been the part about Kanzaki Akane being the goddess…but that wasn’t a problem anymore. By the time they found her, well…. Subaru grinned; Kanzaki’s modeling career would certainly be in the past now; if what happened to her somehow didn’t become public, well, then she’d probably have a mental breakdown once she herself realized what happened to her.
Lastly, she went to the window to look out. Considering the nature of the hotel, these were one-way windows, and only those within could see outside. A shame, that; she’d be more than happy to display her body for anyone to see – proof she was a goddess. But what really brought a smile to her face was the full moon in the sky, starting to turn the slightest shade of yellow. All she had to do was wait a week, and she could begin. And a week after that, it wouldn’t matter anymore.
She would be Subaru, now and forever.
A few hours later, Tsubasa woke up in her bed and had to fight to just get up. She was sore in a way she’d never felt before, this time…she blushed; she was the kind of girl who would never do that sort of thing before marriage, but she’d always heard that the first time, well, hurt. Thankfully, she’d been home, asleep – but it certainly didn’t feel like it.
“Morning!” Tsubasa heard Yuka’s cheery voice; she looked up and saw her friend standing by the door, dressed in normal clothing; it was a Sunday, so of course there was no school. “Your mother asked me to stay here with you today while you stayed in bed. Of course I volunteered.”
Tsubasa smiled feebly. “You didn’t have to, you know.”
The smile fell from Yuka’s face. “Tsu-chan, I’ve never seen you like this. You’re always so strong and so cheery, but the past couple of days – since you used the Genderstone – have made you weak and sick. I think you should tell your mother about it. There might be something wrong with that stone! It might be defective, it might be tailored for someone else – it might not even be a Genderstone!”
The look in Tsubasa’s eyes suddenly reflected worry. She reached out to take her friend’s hands in her own. “If my mother and father find out what it is and what I have it for…I’m in trouble, Yuka. Real, real trouble.”
“I’m worried you’re in trouble now, because it’s making you ill!”
“Yuka-chan, I was bound to get sick sooner or later. I mean, I’m exposed to all kinds of human virii and maybe one just finally hit me. I think it’s coincidental, really. So please don’t tell them about the stone. Please, Yuka.”
“Okay,” she sighed. “I won’t.” There was a knock at the door, and Yuka stepped out for a second, and when she came back, Junko and Riho came into the room as well. “Hey, looks like I’m not the only one who wants to look after you.”
“Always here for my buddies!” Junko said, grinning.
“Tsu-chan, you’re always there for me, so I’m here for you,” Riho replied. She then turned to the others, and asked, “So, did you hear what happened last night?”
“Last night? Hell, did you hear what made the news this morning?”
“No, I was watching the Claude & Monet anime movie the other day – why does Gainax bother with licensing weird foreign comics?” she said. “Anyways, what happened?”
“The Demons got their butts kicked!” Junko crowed. The Demons, of course, were the group of yankii girls at the school who loved nothing more than to be juvenile delinquents. “Ran into Matsui Tomoko, whose mom is a nurse at the local hospital. According to her, the Demons got brought in, heavily beat up. Toyoda Misuzu and Nozaki Akira are in critical condition – they got more than just beat up, they got hurt bad.” Junko shook her head. “And it happened in the park, too, which means we’re gonna hear about it tomorrow at school.”
“No, I think they’re going to cover it because they’ll have their hands filled with this.” Riho produced a tablet set to Let’s! Now!, a gossip website – it was one of her few vices. Junko took the tablet from her and read…and gasped. “Oh, man, I hope they catch the guys who did this to her,” she said, as she passed the tablet to Yuka. Yuka read it, looked at Junko in agreement and gave it to Tsubasa.
Tsubasa read on in horror. Police in nearby Yokohama raided a home in the northern part of town rumored for being a brothel run by college students. While they found that and arrested several men and college-age girls, they also found a juvenile, strung out on some sort of drugs, lying in a pool of her bodily fluids and unclothed as if her previous “customer” had left her as is. Her customer turned out to be someone known to the police as a habitual user of drugs as well as a small-time dealer. But the girl turned out to be none other than rising star model Kanzaki Akane. Though the news had yet to be made public, Let’s! Now! had a notorious reputation for bribing news sources to get the info they wanted…and for all of that news to be devastatingly true.
“That’s crazy,” Riho said as she took the tablet back. “I might not really like Kanzaki, but she would never do that sort of thing, I’m sure.”
“Well, unless they have pictures, they have no proof,” Yuka said, “though yeah, you’re right, if this is even remotely true, the school will want to hide it.” At that point, Yuka’s discussion with Tsubasa regarding the Genderstone was lost as the four discussed the upcoming problems at school the next day and then started talking about other things.
The next few days were the first days in her life that Tsubasa missed school, because she got increasingly worse. She remembered once, just before she was adopted by her parents and lived in Equestria, when she’d had the feather flu and felt horrible. This was a thousand times worse. She’d become so sore and tired that moving at all was a chore, and she didn’t sleep. Plus, she was having horrible dreams she couldn’t explain, monstrous dreams. By Thursday of that week, her parents had called a doctor to check her out. The doctor didn’t have much expertise in equiniatric medicine, but he conferred with another doctor, a visiting one from Canada that had some limited knowledge of the subject and they both agreed that if Tsubasa got any worse, by Sunday she would be admitted to the hospital.
The school, reacting to the strange and sudden increase in violence, reacted accordingly. All school field trips, with the exception of the Summer Second Years’ Vacation, was cancelled, though the baseball team was, not surprisingly, allowed to participate in the Kōshien. The park was now off-limits to students for the remainder of the year and a police presence was in the park around the clock. Lastly, unless they had specific permission from their parents, after-school activities, such as jobs, were now forbidden to all students.
Meanwhile, amongst the students themselves, there was an uproar. There were rumors that yankii from another school had come to beat up the Demons because they threatened their school goddess, Subaru. The baseball team was holding together, but it was clear that all of them were more interested in beating the hell out of Ryuji because he had his dreamy girlfriend, the one he even refused to introduce anyone to and jealously guarded anyone from meeting. It was clear that after the Spring Kōshien, the only way the team wasn’t going to split apart was if they were invited to the Grand Summer Kōshien. Furthermore, they had little reason to be happy with Ienaga Koji, either, since he’d broken up with his girlfriend, Imagawa Ayumi, causing her to quit her position as the baseball team manager.
As for Ryuji, he didn’t care. He was now with Subaru, and every night was heaven. He hadn’t been home but to change and shower, and his parents didn’t care; they were more focused on their own pursuits to notice that their son was an up-and-coming baseball superstar. But Subaru did. Subaru gave him the attention he craved and she showed it with her body. In the past few days they’d spent every night at a new love hotel, only for her to leave in the morning and meet with him at night in a new location. Subaru had even promised him that if he played his cards right, she’d have something special for him soon.
But freakiest of all was the strange meteorological and astronomical phenomenon happening over Japan, an event people in Japan were calling “Eternal Moon.” In Japan – and only in Japan, strangely enough – the moon had never set during the day, and it seemed to be getting larger. Furthermore, it had turned from its normal bluish-white to a yellowing color and as the days grew by was starting to turn redder and redder. Astronomers and meteorologists around the world confirmed this event was only happening in Japan, and scientists from around the world started studying this Eternal Moon event. Equestria had even sent an astronomer of their own who promised to ask the preeminent expert on their moon, but unfortunately Princess Luna was unavailable as she was preparing for an upcoming diplomatic event.
Saturday, a school day. Yuka sat in her chair in the Astronomy Club, who met on weekends during lunch. The chair beside her was empty, and it hurt her so to see that it was. Her parents hadn’t told her anything, but there was something in Yuka that made her fear the worst: that her best friend was somehow dying of a disease, and that everyone skipped telling Yuka in order to spare her feelings.
“How is Ueda-san?” a voice next to her asked; she turned and noted Yoshida walking into the room. It was sweet of him to ask; during the course of the week’s events a few girls here and there had asked, and he turned out to be the only boy who seemed to care.
“Hiroshi…she’s really sick.” Yuka’s eyes blinked tears back; she didn’t have to worry about embarrassing herself in front of him since they were childhood friends. “They’re going to take her to the hospital tomorrow and there’s a doctor there who knows a little more about umajin physiology. But I’m worried about her.”
He adjusted his glasses, then gave her a smile. “Yuka, she’ll pull through. She’s got a best friend like you rooting for her, and I know that Kaneko-san and Saito-san are with you as well. You three will protect her from whatever this is, I know it.”
“I hope she does,” Yuka said, trying hard not to cry as the rest of the Astronomy Club walked in.
That night, watching from a beachside love hotel in Maihama, Subaru grinned as the orange moon became red. “Finally. It begins.”
Poring over scrolls like a madwoman, Kappabashi looked at her assistant. “I know this is rough on you, but please – try again. We need to find that stupid girl soon.”
The assistant stood there, silent, as if asking a question.
“No, I’d rather not involve her parents, because…they’ll be innocents caught in the crossfire. But we are quickly running out of that sort of time.”
There was a knock at the door. “Little bird, wake up. The ambulance will be here in an hour to take you to the hospital,” her mother said.
Tsubasa wanted to vomit. She was sweating now, burning up with a fever and she was now so sore and weak that she wasn’t able to get out of bed yesterday and even just trying to sit up now was taking all the strength she had. She even agreed two days ago that she needed to go to the hospital, and today was that day. “Will Yuka be there?” she asked.
“Your father went to go pick up your friends. They’ll meet us at the hospital. I brought some consommé, if you think you could eat some.”
“Okay.” As her mother started to open the door, Tsubasa forced herself to sit up. As her mother came through the door, Tsubasa finished sitting up and—
CRASH! Ueda Kyoko dropped the food tray, her eyes going wild with terror and she covered her mouth to prevent herself from screaming. She sank to her knees, not once taking her fear-focused eyes off her daughter.
“Okā-san, what’s wrong?” Tsubasa asked, forcing herself out of bed. Something was wrong with her mother and Tsubasa ignored the agony coursing through her body as she raced to her mother’s side. “Okā-san, say something!”
And then that’s when Tsubasa saw it. By the left side of the door, she had a full-body mirror and she could see her reflection as she held her mother.
Tsubasa screamed.
Stats
Page generated in 0.03 seconds
Total duration
996 users online
6,305 hits today, 2,314,256 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
In the immortal words of Rainbow Dash;
That sure was... something.
And I love it!
Poor Tsubasa.
The similarities to an actual manga is entertaining.
Ah, naive young pegasi.
Well this is certainly turning out to be one of the darker side stories so far. I guess Tsubasa is the new Nightmare Moon? Poor girl.
Poor Tsubasa...
Dear readers, it is obvious what is happening to Tsubasa.
She is becoming the very image of the unholy spawn that would be the offspring of Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black.
1913052
vh1.com/celebrity/bwe/images/2011/03/spit_take.gif
1912846 Or she isn't a Pegasus anymore.
This Side story has the whole Dr Jeckle Mr Hyde theme to it, so my guess is she is currently stuck as Sabaru.
Also seems like the human guise is exuding an corruptive aura of lust and command.
Be careful what you wish for...
@Tsubasa
This is not looking good here at all. We have an evil spirit which is a murderer and whore who has begun taking over the young pegasi with a crush.
I know the plot has a set sort of reasoning, but if the old lady knew what would happen, and that people may die from such an event; would she not be also responsible for the death and destruction. Seems a bit over the top to teach a lesson
1914084
I think since this is being written as close to a stereotypical anime as possible, some extremes are allowed to happen.
As long as this doesn't devolve into Higurashi no Naku Koroni, if that happens then Tsubasa is completely screwed.
1914594
EXTREME!! It's the 90's way of thinking in a nutshell.
May I ask, why is she screwed if it devolves into (Japanese Title)
really looking towards the next chapter
1913346 Yeah, that's sort of what I meant. I was just thinking a little more down the road. I mean, this Subaru girl is most definitely evil, overpowered, sadistic, inherently sexual, and her plan involves possessing an emotionally vulnerable young pony as well as the moon being around all the time (with a spooky appearance, no less). She just seems strikingly similar to NMM is all, especially since we don't have any confirmation on who the new host of NMM is yet.
If we go down this train of thought, I'd take a guess that Subaru is only a humanized version with some of Tsubasa's traits (Hair color, etc.) of NMM. Though I guess it all depends on when exactly this is happening. I think it's coinciding with the main story chronologically due to DJ being gone for a few weeks and having met with Tsubasa in "Equine-American" previously.
But then again, NMM is pretty powerful, so she could probably do other dastardly things in Equestria at nearly the same time as what she's doing in Japan with Tsubasa.
Yet if the old lady at the shop is trying to find Tsubasa to help her, then there's a chance that my big old analysis up there is completely useless. But I thought she was in on it when at the end of the first chapter of this side story she was all inhuman and unnatural looking.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
1914614
Basically, in that anime, all the characters turn out to be murderous psychopaths because of the town they live in. You can probably guess where THAT would go if applied to this story.
1914777
NMM can't be related to what's happening to Tsubasa. Remember, at this time in the AAG universe, NMM has already stuck down all the mane six not voiced by Andrea Libman, and whatever the thing Tsubasa stole is, it's NOT an equestriani artifact.
Jesus. Someone call Kamen Rider Wizard or something, because this is getting out of hand.
1914949
1915096
Wouldn't the Japanese version of the FBI come by now? Multiple deaths have occured which would mean a serial killer is on the lose, or enemy combatants from RoP/Chrysalis/NMM
1915278
Nobody's died yet. Yet. Furthermore, this has all happened in one part of Tokyo, the city of Suginami (contrary to popular belief, Tokyo is a defacto prefecture ["the 23 Special Wards"], not a city), so the Suginami City Police are investigating. The Tokyo Metropolitan police ("state police") might investigate if crimes move to an other prefecture, but the National Police Agency wouldn't do a thing - it's an administrative agency and can only do police actions in the event of an emergency.
1915303
Cool, I learned something
1914949 Huh. Well, then let's hope that the two never come into communication with each other, because both their personalities and agendas seem pretty synchronized, what with their respective Endless Night things they got going for themselves. All that power under one flag would be devastating.
1913346
I don't know, Tsu-chan isn't in the driver's seat anymore. But whatever the 'genderstone' is doing to her, I don't think it is changing her into something technically human, merely can look human. There seems to be a succubus like influence around 'Subaru', and she seems linked to the moon somehow. Anyone else know Japanese mythology better? Shapeshifter/possessor, succubus like, moon linked, maybe white haired ringing any bells?
@Last two sentances; Holy crap on a cracker!
1915833
The only remotely Japanese thing I can think of involving "moon" and "white hair" is the moon princes from Avatar, and she was a lot nicer than Subaru!
I'm guessing "Subaru" is actually a vengeful female spirit that's posessing Tsubasa to get revenge? Or is Tsubasa just turning into a were-human(?) sort of thing?