There was a demon on the loose stealing energy from the occupants of the Hinata dorms. This was a very risky thing for it to do given her presence, but then again that might indicate some sort of a trap being laid out for her. It would make sense after all, the Aoyama family were one of the biggest threats to their kind. Lure out an admittedly inexperienced member of their family into a trap, and then - Who knows? Once they had her the possibilities were endless, nightmarish scenarios. Turn her against her family, drain her dry of her life energy. It made her skin crawl. Therefore, she absolutely had to be careful. Anything could be a trap. Any one of the other residents could deliver that trap. Motoko couldn’t drop her guard, not even an inch for even half a second. At the first sign of anything even remotely related to anything demonic, she should treat it with the utmost suspicion.
“Motoko! You seemed so stressed! Here, have a delicious devil’s food cake!”
“Thank you, Shinobu,” Motoko said, grateful for the little chef’s generosity. After Mitsune’s earlier visit, this was a much welcome reprieve. Why the rest of her fellow dorm residents could not be more like Shinobu, quiet, helpful, selfless… It was far beyond Motoko’s reasoning. It certainly didn’t hurt that the cake was quite the mouthful. In fact, it was so tasty that Motoko could swear that the walls were melting.
“Um… Are you feeling alright?” Shinobu asked, which was a little odd given that her head was turning into a teapot.
“I’m not sure,” said the person sitting next to Motoko who happened to look just like her. Sounded just like her as well, except that the fake’s voice had a strange green hue to it and tasted like yummy chocolate. “I think the demon is doing something to me.”
“Oh, no!” Shinobu gasped, putting a hand up over her spout in shock. The wall behind her finished melting, revealing a dark room full of men that all looked just like their manager. “In that case there’s only one possible solution,” Shinobu said. Her voice and body were shifting, ripples expanding out across her body. Instead of the short pleasant chef, there was now a completely different person. Naru Narusegawa, clad in some form of belly dancer’s outfit. “You’ve got to shake that sexy booty.”
“… This seems an impractical solution,” Motoko said, idly noticing that her own clothing had transformed into an even more revealing version of the outfit Naru was wearing. Curious thing was, just behind her Shinobu and Su were walking around in the crowd dressed as adorable bunnygirls, delivering drinks to all of the Keitaro patrons that had come to watch the show. “How is this supposed to deal with the demonic possession?”
“I’m not sure,” Naru said, shifting suddenly into Mitsune holding the book of her ancestors and flipping through it. “But it says right here that you should do it. So maybe you should give it a go?”
Motoko snatched the book away from Mitsune and stared at the shifting words upon the surface. Her eyes felt watery. Her knees felt weak. However, she did have the impression that it did at least say what they were claiming. Maybe she should do as it says… In front of her, Mitsune morphed into a perfect replica of Motoko herself, and began to dance in an erotic, seductive manner that she couldn’t help but imitate.
<hr>
An indeterminate amount of time later, Motoko returned to reality. It was not a pleasant journey. She was cold. She was wet. She had a throbbing, pounding headache that was only matched by the fact that every muscle in her body felt like it had spent the last three days trying to escape a meat grinder the hard way. Even opening her eyes felt like a really bad idea, but she did it anyway and pushed through the pain until her eyes could focus properly again.
The first thing Motoko did once she could stand the pain was look at her necklace. It wasn’t glowing anymore, which her lessons indicated meant that the demon had been vanquished. Motoko felt a brief swelling of pride, which was diluted by the fact that she couldn’t actually remember doing anything of the sort. Then she took a closer look at the necklace and felt her blood chill. The reason it wasn’t glowing was for a very different reason, that she should have noticed sooner.
It was broken. Not crushed. More as if it had exploded from the inside. Which meant it had been overloaded. Which meant that it had encountered a demonic presence <i>so powerful</i> that this artefact had not been able to withstand it. Given what similar artefact had been exposed to over the course of the family’s history, Motoko’s resolve was at first shaken and then bounced back to become stronger than ever. It was up to her to find and destroy this demon, wherever it lurked. She found her sword easily enough, then carefully stalked through the corridors of her home in search for -
“Eeep!” said an unfamiliar woman clad in only an apron. “Motoko! P-Please, it’s alright, just calm down!”
“… Do I know you?” Motoko asked, her hands gripping the handle of her blade. The woman gasped. Strange. The more she looked at this stranger, the more familiar she seemed, but there was something just slightly off about… Wait… Could this be? “Shinobu? Is that you?”
“Wah!” the inexplicably adult Shinobu wailed, wrapping her arms around Motoko in a moment. In the process illustrating both enhanced strength and, she had to admit, a bust that put Naru’s considerable rack to shame. “You’re back to normal! Thank goodness, that was so scary!”
“Back to normal?” Motoko repeated, struggling to remove herself from the amazingly strong grip and only succeeding because of her martial experience. How did she become so strong? “How long was I… Not normal?”
“About three hours,” Shinobu sniffed. Three hours? That was not possible! How could Shinobu have apparently aged years in that amount of time, unless -
“You are the victim of a spell?” Motoko asked. Shinobu nodded. “How insidious. Could you not at least put some clothes on?”
“I can’t! Everything else I try to put on shrinks until I can’t wear it anymore.” Despicable. No doubt the demon’s true ploy was to keep her incapacitated, and then wreak havoc among the other residents. “B-But the others have it even worse than I do.”
The situation was more grave than Motoko realised, then. A powerful demon. Very tricky, very sneaky and mischievous. As careful as she had already intended to be, it was now obvious that she would require even more care and even more caution than she’d dreamed.
Of course, it never occurred to Motoko for a second that, for example, the cake Shinobu fed her was full of chaotic magic mixed with a demonic energy refill spell. Nor could she speculate that the combination of those magics had, in effect, made <i>her</i> do some rather terrible things as well. Nor was it likely that Shinobu would mention any of this out of fear that it might trigger some of the… Errant behaviour the supposed demon hunter had engaged in during her time under the influence.
“One moment, Shinobu,” Motoko said. “I need to check the Shinmei Ryu Guide to Demons. It might be able to give me a way to counteract these spells.” Or it might make things even worse for everyone. Not that Motoko knew that either.
- The demons are all suffering from their power being over exaggerated beyond their ability to control.
- The demons are all suffering from one another’s powers affecting them.
- While in her trance, Motoko was able to wield the combined powers of the other residents.
- One of the above, and “Trance” Motoko is now her own separate physical entity with her own goals and motivation.
- Any of 1-3, and “Trance” Motoko is now an alternative personality residing within Motoko.
- Something else
I really love that "illusion" scene! Shinobu's head turning into a teapot? LOL
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