|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 17, 2012 17:36:18 GMT -5
Did that make him a lesbian now? The concept was a little too off-the-wall to properly process along with his switch from Y to only X-chromosomes, so he shelved for now.
In the limo Jounouchi and Honda squashed in next to Anzu, leaving Otogi and Yuugi with slightly more room on the opposite bank of seats. Otogi rolled his eyes and gave instructions to his driver.
“Are you okay, Yuugi?” Anzu was watching him despite the elbows jabbing into her from both sides. She shoved her own outwards, reclaiming some room for herself.
“Yeah,” he lied. “Just … worried about the Pharaoh.”
“We’ll get him back,” she said with determination. “Don’t worry.”
|
|
|
Post by cypsiman2 on Oct 17, 2012 19:01:52 GMT -5
Seto Kaiba was back in his room, adjusting to his new body; there was little else to do until the research team unearthed some clues regarding the cult of Hathor that Yuugi had told him about. He paced about, stretched, squatted, put his body through damn near every contortion he could, all to make sure that he would be able to do whatever he had to and that nothing would catch him off guard. It definitely helped a lot to have proper support, but even that could only do so much in the face of what had to be supported; if that detail of his transformation had been deliberate, he would visit upon those responsible a fury not seen since Death-T.
Mokuba, meanwhile, was reading up on everything he could regarding girls his age and what they went through, hoping that this knowledge would keep him from being caught off guard by something unexpected from his own body.
|
|
|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 18, 2012 17:43:35 GMT -5
What he had found, however, left him in a state akin to someone who had just got off a rollercoaster after their safety belt came loose and they had to cling on for dear life during the loop-de-loops. He gazed at the blog of a popular Agony Aunt and hoped those who wrote in were fake or trolls.
“This can’t be serious,” he murmured as he click-click-click-clicked from one heinous discovery to the next. WHAT came out of WHERE for HOW LONG? WHICH BIT of his new body was going to get sore? HOW MUCH was he supposed to worry about this kind of thing if he and his brother couldn’t be fixed? Had he reached puberty yet? Did he have all this still to come?
|
|
|
Post by cypsiman2 on Oct 18, 2012 18:38:24 GMT -5
Mokuba closed his browser and turned away from his monitor just in time for his cell phone to start ringing. Instinctively Mokuba responded. "Hello?" Mokuba's voice came out higher than it had ever come out before, and so he tried to clear out his throat in an attempt to get a lower pitch back.
"Oh Mokuba, you sound awful." A female voice, or at least Mokuba figured it for one. "No wonder you stayed home sick today."
"Wh-who is this?"
"Oh, I'm sorry Mokuba, I'm Sakura Takahashi, and Mr. Kinimoto asked me to bring you your homework after school. Well, okay, I volunteered." She said with a giggle, leaving Mokuba mortified at the exceptionally bad timing of it all.
....
"Welcome!" The tailor said in good cheer as she looked upon the gathered group of Yuugi, Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu, and Otogi. "I suppose you poor souls lost your clothes at the airline as well?"
|
|
|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 19, 2012 9:00:45 GMT -5
They all exchanged looks. “Uh …”
Otogi took the lead. “I made the booking. It was simply a matter of not letting them out of the house with such desultory duds and aimless artistry.” He gestured to his friends. “I mean, seriously, look at them. Country bumpkins to a one.”
The woman’s eyes sparkled. “Oh. I see. Yes, I can see very clearly what you mean.” Her nose rose an extra half inch into the air. “And, uh, you mentioned on the phone that money would be no object?”
“Not at all,” Otogi agreed. “Just make them presentable, PLEASE.”
|
|
|
Post by cypsiman2 on Oct 19, 2012 11:51:08 GMT -5
"I am not a country bumpkin." Anzu muttered; she wasn't a self-conscious fashionista, she wasn't Mai Kujaku, but that didn't mean she didn't try to look nice, so she didn't appreciate being lumped in with those of her friends who'd been guys just the day before. The fact that she was going to be getting a new outfit free of charge was a minor compensation for the indignity.
"My, my." The tailor said as she took Jounouchi's measurements. "You're the polar opposite of Kaiba's cousin."
"Kaiba's cousin?" Jounouchi said with narrowed eyes. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you're so slender and narrow, like a runway model, while she's built...abundantly."
Jounouchi to his credit did not burst out in laughter in spite of how very clearly he wanted to do so.
....
"So anyway Mokuba, I've been gabbing your ear off long enough, especially with how unwell you're feeling, so what time should I come over and bring your homework, and anything else you might need to be right as rain in no time?" Sakura Takahashi said in what felt to Mokuba like a single breath.
|
|
|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 20, 2012 17:31:53 GMT -5
“Ummmmmm …” He struggled to deepen his voice and think up a good reason for her not to come over at the same time. “You can’t.”
“Why not?” She sounded a little put out.
“Because I’m, uh, really, really, REALLY contagious.”
“With what?”
“Uh, conjunctivitis.”
“Conjunctivitis?”
“Yeah, uh-huh, that’s right.”
“That gunky stuff that gathers in the corners of your eyes?”
Crap, was that what it was? “Um, yeah. And laryngitis.” He hoped that was the throat thing he had been trying for the first time.
“Ohhhhh.” Sakura stretched the word out to sound suitably sympathetic. “That’s simply awful. You poor thing.”
“Yeah, it’s all icky and junk over here. My brother’s so ill he can’t even go into work.”
“REALLY?” Shock coated her words. Apparently Seto’s work ethic was infamous even amongst the younger set. “My goodness, no wonder you didn’t come to school! You must be laid out like a dead log!”
Mokuba blinked, wondering how to take that kind of statement. “Uh, I guess so. It’s horrible. Really. Nobody should come near either of us until we’re better.”
A deep voice sounded in the background on Sakura’s end of the line. She put her hand over the phone in that way people do when they’re attempting to conceal what they’re saying, but like always the move didn’t quite work. “I don’t know, Daddy. I can’t just come out and ask something like that!” More baritone burbling. She sighed. “All right, all right.” The hand came away and she asked sweetly, “So who’s going to run Kaiba Corp. in your brother’s absence?”
Mokuba loosed his own sigh. The complimentary nature of her phone call spiralled like a bird with a broken wing and crashed headfirst into the floor of reality. Did people really only ever want to befriend him to get at his brother? No wonder he had fastened upon Yuugi’s group so readily; they were the first people to have no ulterior motive in being his friend.
“Mokuba?”
He snapped back to the present. “Uh, our … cousin,” he said in a flash of inspiration.
“You have a cousin?” Sakura said, milliseconds before the baritone echoed a muffled “A freaking COUSIN? There’s another one of them?”
“Yeah, our cousin Chiyoko. She’s, uh, from out of town.” Mokuba thought of Seto and hoped he wasn’t about to get in trouble for this. “WAY out of town.”
|
|
|
Post by cypsiman2 on Oct 20, 2012 18:20:29 GMT -5
"Well." Sakura's voice became curt and put out. "I shall have to wish your cousin Chiyoko the best of luck in handling the affairs of the Kaiba Corporation until Seto is back in business, and as soon as you're well enough to get your homework you let me know, okay?"
"Right." Mokuba said as though he had a frog in his throat, and Sakura Takahashi hung up the phone. "Hoo boy." Mokuba knew this was not going to go over well at all, but he knew he was going to have to tell Seto that people were going to expect Chiyoko at the Kaiba Corp HQ any time now.
....
"So, I take it you are all satisfied with my work?" The tailor said as she addressed the redressed group and not a moment too soon.
|
|
|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 20, 2012 18:46:33 GMT -5
Jounouchi looked down at the ensemble. Well, at least he was wearing pants and not a skirt. “It’ll do, I guess. Yuugi?”
Yuugi’s deep blue outfit resembled his school uniform in colour but not design. He turned this way and that, attempting to see himself from the back, to no avail. “It’s, uh, fine.”
“You’re not gonna ask me whether your butt looks big in that, are you?”
“… Maybe it’s a pre-programmed hormonal thing; the desire to ask that question?” Yuugi tried a wan smile. It fell flatter than a pancake that had been crushed by a cartoon anvil. He sighed. “At least someone’s happy.”
Otogi wasn’t twirling in the three-way-mirror, but his effervescent preen came close and he was definitely hogging the thing. “Excellent,” he announced. “Elegant yet kitsch. I like it.”
“High praise for a fabric checkerboard,” Jounouchi grumbled, as the tailor simpered over to receive her praise. He dropped his voice to a murmur. “Hey, Yuugi, does my butt look big in this?”
“Are you joking, or do you actually want me to answer?”
“Just tell me.”
“No.”
“Damn it!” Jounouchi raised his head and stalked to the tiny changing alcove, where two curtains had been drawn across the two privacy areas. “Honda! Anzu! Get your asses out here, pronto!”
“No way!” Anzu called back.
“What she said,” growled Honda.
Yuugi joined Jounouchi, glancing over his shoulder to make sure the tailor and her assistant were occupied tending to Otogi. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything!” Anzu cried. “I look awful!”
“You could never look awful, Anzu,” he reassured her, his words genuine. She could wear a garbage bag and look beautiful to his eyes.
“Yes, I can, and I do!” she replied. “I’m not coming out until someone gives me back my own clothes.”
“Not gonna happen,” Jounouchi said. “That woman took off with ‘em.”
“Then get them back!”
“Nu-uh. If I go near her again she’s gonna try to pierce my ears or something.” Jounouchi grunted at her lack of response. “Honda?”
“Fuck off.”
Yuugi flinched. “Aren’t you happier with this outfit than your other one?” He wasn’t ecstatic with his own, but at least the change in seams and pulls made moving easier. The differences between male and female clothing was subtle but noticeable.
“Fuck. Off.”
“Fuck off yourself,” Jounouchi snapped, grabbing hold of the curtain.
“Pull that back and I’ll make you eat your own ass – while it’s still attached.”
“Good luck. I ain’t got one to speak of.”
“Don’t you dare –”
Undeterred, Jounouchi pulled back at the curtain to reveal a livid Honda glowering at them from the folds of a ruched peasant top and brown corduroy bellbottoms. He looked like something from the 1960s Flower Power era. Obviously the tailor had been trying to offset the severity of his haircut, but the effect was that of a butch girl being dressed up by someone who had no idea how to make butch and girly work together. It could be done, but apparently not by this tailor.
“I hope you got some ketchup for your butt cheeks,” Honda snarled.
Jounouchi burst out laughing.
“That’s it!” Honda advanced, fists bunched.
|
|
|
Post by cypsiman2 on Oct 20, 2012 19:07:58 GMT -5
"Guys, guys!" Yuugi forced himself in between Jounouchi and Honda and pushed them apart as far as he could; not very, given the length of his arms, but the fact that he was there was enough to keep fists from being swung all over the place. "I'm sure if we just talk to the tailor."
"I don't want to talk to the tailor." Honda muttered, teeth ground together. "I want things back to normal."
"So stop bickering over there and get this over and done with!" Anzu yelled out from her stall. "There's no way you could be as badly off as me, I don't even know why I'm getting new clothes, I figured I'd be helping give advice on what would compliment your eyes!"
Jounouchi, Honda, and Yuugi all stared at the stall that Anzu was in, irritation and frustration over their own affairs set aside for the moment. "I'll go to the tailor and ask for Anzu's clothes back." Yuugi said.
"...Tell her the flower-power get-up isn't doing it for me." Honda muttered, still unable to keep the growl out of his voice.
|
|
|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 21, 2012 18:37:19 GMT -5
Mokuba knocked hesitantly on Seto’s door.
“What is it, Isono?”
“It’s, uh, me.”
“Mokuba? Come in.”
Even more hesitantly he entered, closing the door behind him. Seto was at the big writing desk he had set up in the corner, the better to do paperwork when he had insomnia or a burning desire to see to the betterment of Kaiba Corp at 3am. He looked up, hair wisping prettily around his face. Was it longer than it used to be?
“I something wrong?” he asked at Mokuba’s expression.
“That depends.” Mokuba shuffled his feet. “Please don’t get mad?”
|
|
|
Post by cypsiman2 on Oct 21, 2012 18:58:18 GMT -5
Seto Kaiba inhaled sharply through his nose, he went over what Mokuba had just told him, saw his younger brother looking even more vulnerable than usual; was that a side-effect of the change in gender, or was he just projecting subconscious ideas onto him? Either way, his concerns need to be addressed. "Truth be told, this was something I was going to have to do anyway."
"Really?" It was disconcerting, the difference in the relief that shined in Mokuba's eyes.
"While Kaiba Corp's position has been stabilized, recent events have still left it vulnerable to scavengers hoping to pick through the carcase of our hard work. An extended absence on my part would create exactly the sort of opportunity they'd been waiting for." A smirk flashed onto Seto's face. "I'd say one of them was behind it, but they would have seized upon the opportunity already."
"So, I didn't mess up?"
"Not at all, and from the sound of it you've even stumbled upon one of our many hidden enemies." Seto then pressed down on the intercom. "Isono."
"Yes, Mr. Kaiba?" Seto was pleased by the fact that Isono was not deceived or confused by the temporary change in circumstances.
"I need you to find information on the Takahashi family; they have a daughter named Sakura who goes to Mokuba's school."
"Yes Mr. Kaiba."
"And now for the hard part." Seto said as he got up and began preparations to go to Kaiba Corp HQ and retain control of what was rightfully his.
|
|
|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 22, 2012 7:21:27 GMT -5
Anzu hunkered down on the little seat in the changing room. She felt like one of those naughty school kids in old movies who were told to sit in the corner and wear a dunce’s hat. She twiddled her thumbs, nibbled her lip, tried counting ceiling tiles and eventually called out to the world beyond the curtain.
“Guys, what’s the hold-up?”
No answer.
“Guys?”
Nothing.
“This isn’t funny.”
Nada.
“I can’t come out,” she muttered to herself. “This is just too ... too hideous.” She tugged at the outfit and sighed, calling one last time: “Guys? Are you still even in the store?”
|
|
|
Post by cypsiman2 on Oct 22, 2012 12:54:00 GMT -5
The spirit awoke again, it did not bother about trying to understand what such a thing could mean in light of how he lacked a body and thus could not truly sleep. The spirit's focus was on a twinge it felt throughout its whole being, like something had just happened to his partner, to Yuugi, something deep in the core of his being.
"Sleep." The soft voice from before spoke to him, and there was the scent of chamomile, so strong it left him woozy.
"What is...who are..." He tried to gather his thoughts, they kept darting away beyond his reach.
"Do not fear, our work will be done soon, and then you will be returned."
The reassurance overpowered him, and the spirit lost consciousness once again.
....
"Sorry about that Anzu." Anzu heard Yuugi's voice and didn't care how obvious her sigh of relief was. "We got caught up talking with the tailor, but I've got your clothes back." His short arm then extended past the curtain, outfit hanging from it, and as Anzu thankfully retrieved it, she couldn't help but notice Yuugi's fingernails.
|
|
|
Post by Scribbler on Oct 22, 2012 15:27:05 GMT -5
“Hey, Yuugi, when did you paint your nails?”
His hand retracted reflexively. “What the … when did that happen?”
“She slipped into her own clothes, zipping herself in quickly, as if the revolting outfit might rise up and reclaim her body if she didn’t. She pulled back the curtain and Yuugi jerked his head up from where he was staring at his curled fingers. Something flashed in his earlobes.
She blinked. “When did you get your ears pierced, too?”
His hands flew to his ears to finger the small diamante studs. His expression went from surprised to vaguely horrified. “I … didn’t.” He raised his gaze to meet hers. “And they weren’t pierced when I looked in the mirror this morning.”
Anzu frowned. “Do you reckon it’s more of … what happened?” She glanced around for eavesdropping ears.
“I’m randomly getting piercings and nail polish?”
“Maybe you should check your belly button.”
Fear flashed in his eyes. He actually turned up the bottom of his top to check, but his enviably flat belly remained unpierced. He breathed an audible sigh of relief, but the worry lines in his forehead didn’t abate as he met her gaze again.
“This is weird.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, weirder.”
“That sounds like the story of our lives: weirder and weirder.”
“Even so, magical earrings and nail polish?” He raised his hands towards her, the bright pink varnish glistening in the shop lights. “What kind of curse does stuff like that? And AFTER the big part already kicked in?”
“Progressive magic,” Anzu considered. “There’s a thought.”
“Not a good one. What else is it going to do to us before it’s finished?”
“I don’t know, Yuugi.”
“Neither do I. That’s the problem.”
|
|