1.52: Another Pretty Plan

1.52: Another Pretty Plan

We walked around the corner to where Akuchi was waiting, idling in bus form like the world’s most suspicious public transit vehicle imaginable. Her door hissed open for us.

The moment I stepped inside, I sniffed the air reflexively.
…
It actually smelled normal for a bus.
Kinda new car-like.
Which was not the scent I expected from a shapeshifted tanuki-yokai.

The intercom crackled.
“Susumu-sama! Please take the driver’s seat!” Akuchi’s voice vibrated with excitement. “Susumu is inside me! It’s such a wonderful feeling!”

Oh… creepy.
Very creepy.
I blinked rapidly, as though I could delete what she said from reality.

“We’re going to Natalia’s store now,” Rui announced, springing into the driver’s seat like a sugar-charged bunny.

“D-damn it!” Akuchi yelled through the speakers, shaking the frame.

“Stop complaining! Get moving!” Rui swatted the steering wheel repeatedly… WHAP WHAP WHAP… until Akuchi screeched into motion. Then Rui began messing with the radio, twisting the dial, slapping buttons, and finally jamming her fingers directly into the tape deck slot for reasons known only to her.

“Hyaaaaaaaaa!!! I don’t know where her store is!” Akuchi wailed with a strange note in her tone. The entire bus tilted dangerously left, then right. At this rate, she might actually flip.

“I’ll do it.” Natalia-sama grabbed one of the poles gracefully, completely unfazed by the lurching. “I can drive.”

“But I want Susumu-sama!!” Akuchi tantrumed, shaking the cabin like a budget theme park ride. The windows blurred with the nauseating sweep of scenery whipping by. 

And Oni calls ME a drama queen?

“Please just bear with it, Akuchi!” I yelled, clinging to the pole and squeezing my eyes shut. My stomach acid sloshed like a boiling cauldron. Goths were ricocheting from their seats like pinballs.

“Damn it! Akuchi! I’m gonna vomit! PLEASE stop!”

Akuchi pouted over the intercom. “Get into the driver’s seat!”

A goth suddenly vomited spectacularly.

The entire bus froze.

Akuchi’s frame jolted. “…Come to think of it… I feel sick now…” she whimpered.

“I’m going to vomit…!” Rui declared dramatically, clutching her stomach and leaning over the nearest seat.

“I’m going to be sick… ohhh, my poor dress…” Natalia-sama murmured in a swooning voice, performing a dainty faint that would’ve won awards.

“I’ll hurl right now.” Ume poofed into a large bat, flapping frantically around the cabin like panic given wings.

Then every goth aboard joined in chorus “I’M GONNA BE SICK TOO—!!”

“I’m GOING TO SHIT MY PANTS!” One overeager goth screamed.

Everyone froze and stared at that vampire for a long moment.

One actually was. “Urkkkk!”

“UWAAAAA!! F-fine, FINE!” Akuchi shrieked. “You owe me SPECIAL ATTENTION later, Susumu!! Remember, I’m your fated husband!”

The windows cleared instantly and the bus righted itself… As smooth as silk.

HUSBAND?
HELL. NO!

“Akuchi! I don’t want a freaking hu—” I shrilly screamed, furious…

But Rui slapped her hand over my mouth and leapt onto my back, wrapping her tiny legs around my waist like a deranged koala assassin.
“Shhh,” she hissed, pinching my cheek. “Think, Susumu. Akuchi is useful. We’ll rein him in later. He’ll be my servant in the end too. Hehehehehe…”

She squeezed me so tightly my spine compacted. “Got it?”

I nodded weakly, wheezing. “Yeah, yeah… maybe you’ll rule the world too.”

“Eh? I’m not interested in something dull like that!” Rui swatted the back of my head. “Let’s work hard to make my ancestors proud! Together, we’ll be the greatest detectives ever! Greater than even my parents!”

“Your dreams are wonderful!” Ume cheered, throwing her arms around Rui midair, transforming back to her human form.

“Oooof!”

Unfortunately, the combination of their weight on my back proved too much. My knees buckled instantly.

I desperately grabbed for the nearest seat, trying to shift my weight forward so I wouldn’t crash down on top of them.

Unfortunately… our momentum had other plans.

I toppled forward anyway.

“Hyaaaaaaa!!”

And just like that, the three of us went tumbling in a heap, spilling across Akuchi’s middle aisle like a stack of poorly balanced dominoes.

“Let’s go!” Natalia-sama announced cheerfully from the driver’s seat… just before stepping on the gas.

Akuchi lurched into motion like a roller coaster with no restraint system.

We struggled to our feet as the closest goths scrambled to help Ume and Rui up… somehow ignoring me entirely. I staggered upright on my own, sighing.

“Rui…” I rubbed my temples. “Why are we going to Natalia-sama’s shop? If it’s for clothes, everything there is for girls. Uniklo would make way more sense, no offense. I mean… yeah, Natalia-sama could make something for me with her ridiculously amazing talent, but I’m terrified she’ll slap a giant advertisement on me again.”

Rui’s grin widened… slowly… predatorily.

“We have several excellent reasons for going to her shop,” she announced, holding up a finger like she was lecturing her foolish apprentice. “First… thriftiness. Natalia will give us a better deal than anywhere else.”

Her second finger rose.

“And second—”

Her expression darkened instantly, the oni inside her peeking out with a wicked thrill.

“—you’re going to wear girls’ clothes again.”
A soft, sinister giggle followed.
“Ehehehehe~”

My eyes bulged. “Wh–WHAT? Why?!” I backed away from her. She was definitely in full Oni-mode.

She rolled her eyes. “What’s wrong? You’re acting like that with that face and voice? It’s criminal not to use them. To be the best bait you can be, we’re going to make you look as close to Reiko-chan as possible. She was tall like you, but you’re taller. At a distance, you look nearly identical… but who can see a face clearly at a distance. You’ll just appear to be some loitering guy, even with that pretty face. My point is this: if he mistakes you for her, he might let you in. Then we don’t need to storm his stupid tower!”

“That’s your PLAN?! Your WHOLE GENIUS PLAN?!” I squeaked, my voice breaking in three different registers.

Rui nodded with the confidence of someone who had unveiled her master strategy.
“Exactly. You’ll get close, act natural, and when he least expects it—”
She mimed a swift, brutal kick.
“—give him Reiko-chan’s signature strike right in the balls.”

My soul left my body.

She leaned closer, eyes glittering with righteous vengeance.
“Surely you picked up something from her, right? After he collapses, tell him it was from me.”

“H-how could anyone mistake me for—”

I stopped.

Wait… people had already mistaken me for a girl… in some of my normal clothes.

“Very easily,” Ume purred. “We’ll make sure you look perfect.”

“This dress looks WONDERFUL, Natalia!” Ume clapped. “Another goth dress might have suited the mission… but this peach one is so cute!”

Cute?! I stared in horror at myself in the dressing room mirror.

All the girls were crammed in with me. The blush painting my cheeks made me look even more feminine. I even looked too demure, like a bride.

The peach dress that they’d put me in shimmered under the lights. Shoulderless, strapless, silky.

If I had boobs, it might’ve worked.

But…

I had no chest whatsoever.
My legs were hairy.

My armpit hair screamed “this illusion died on launch.”
I looked like a knockoff Reiko-chan bought on clearance.

As if reading my mind, Natalia-sama said, “Of course we’ll shave your body. That goes without saying. We wouldn’t ask you to do what we have in mind without fully feminizing you.”

My jaw dropped.

FULLY feminizing… What?!

I turned desperately to Akuchi.

“You do it! You look way more like a girl than I ever could, even with this face!”

Her grin stretched to supernatural proportions.
“I hoped you’d ask me!”

And with a poof—

Reiko-chan stood before me.

It was a nearly flawless clone.

I catalogued the tiny mistakes that she’d made.

Longer hair… A bit taller…. Subtly curvier…. And better posture.

Compared with her, I looked like Reiko-chan’s weird tomboy cousin who lived in the mountains all her life.

“That’s… not a bad plan,” Rui admitted, tapping her lips thoughtfully. “But you’ll be transporting us to the tower. Will you have enough energy left to transform after that?”

“Oh yes!” Akuchi bounced up and down… her breasts jiggling in ways I refused to look at. “I’ll do ANYTHING to help Susumu-sama!”

She was objectively a far better candidate for male bait.

“There’s another issue,” Natalia-sama murmured, pointing at my face. “There are now two girls who look nearly identical… at least at face value. Reiko didn’t have a twin sister, did she?”

I winced. “Certainly not… Could I just wear a bag over my head or something? Remember that I can’t see through things anymore!”

“You could see through things?” Ume perked up. “I didn’t know that was in a Noh-face’s list of abilities. Interesting! If you put your face right up close to someone’s outfit, could you see through their clothes like with x-ray vision?”

My eyes bulged.
“I… I don’t know! I WOULD NEVER TRY THAT!”

…Which was true.
I wouldn’t.
I absolutely shouldn’t.
But for one microscopic, shameful second, I did wonder what it might have shown me.
But who would I even try it on…?

That ship had not only sailed… it had rocketed into orbit and exploded.

And the moment I allowed myself a single stray thought…
A certain dream resurfaced.
Not the visuals, but the implications.
My imagination had already done the work that my x-ray vision never could.

A nuclear blush detonated across my face.

“Fufufu… there it is again,” Ume purred, leaning in with the delighted precision of a scent-hunting cat. “That fragrance… absolutely divine.”

“You just love making Susumu blush, don’t you?” Rui accused.

“Of course, I love it,” Ume said, hugging me tightly… pressing her soft chest fully against mine.

My blood pressure tried to spring a leak and escape my body.

And on cue… my nose bled.

“This room is a sugar sauna,” Ume declared with a delighted squeal. “It smells like a bakery full of fresh cookies!” She leaned up and licked up the trickle of blood down my mouth.

“If his blood is that sweet, maybe he’s borderline diabetic,” Rui muttered.

“No! He’s MINE!” Akuchi roared, diving in from the side and crushing me in a marshmallow-suffocation-hug, squishing me deeper into cleavage than I ever imagined possible.

“K-KYAAAAAA!!”

Illustrations Disclaimer: Locations aren't always 100% canon. Usually they are only representative. Character features and styles may stray a little now and again.

(I'm currently adding new illustrations to book 1 since its illustrations were sparse due to the technology that was available when I uploaded book 1.)

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