Story: Worst Demon Hunter in History

It's one of those unfortunate twists, really. Some people describe alcoholics they know as being completely different people once they get a drink in them. Quite literally the case for Motoko, it seemed. She was not the sort of person to become nervous easily but she certainly felt it right then. If her... Other self had done this to Shinobu, yet the others had it worse, then what terrible fate had befallen each of them?

"Will you be alright by yourself?" she asked the fully adult Shinobu, who nodded slightly and wrapped her arms around her admittedly impressive bosom. "I shall return with due haste. First, I must make sure the others are well."

And if they weren't... Oh, dear. It would not do to show her terrified friend anything less than confidence in this situation, although it might be for the best that she kept in mind that she didn't know exactly how bad things were out there. Balance that realism versus confidence and walk out with her head held high. Unless she was brave enough to investigate then she would be unable to help her friends in this time of need.

It didn't take long to find the first of them. By sound rather than sight. A loud "Yipe!" followed by a thud was exactly the sort of thing to draw attention in this situation. Motoko rushed along, fearing the very worst. What might she find when she arrived? When Shinobu meant worse, in what way did she mean worse? Were they missing limbs? Had some form of horrible transformation been imposed upon them? Become monsters? Lost their minds? What horrors might she behold when she discovered her other fri-

"Ah!" blurted a busty brunette bunnygirl bursting bungling down the corridor. Motoko didn't even have the time to raise her guard before the girl fell upon her, and there was a rather awkward moment when both girls had their lips mashed right up against one another. The two of them struggled to extract themselves from the situation, but for some inexplicable reason this accomplished exactly two very different things:

1: Their lips remained in contact no matter how each of them tried to move.
2: Motoko's robes slipped clear off her shoulders, and she learned that her underwear had vanished into the ether.

Eventually the pair managed to extract themselves and both girls rubbed at their mouths as if trying to wash out the taste. Well. More Motoko was doing that. Mitsune almost seemed to have enjoyed the experience. If Motoko didn't know better she'd swear the girl had done that deliberately. Although... She was about to learn that it was indeed an accident anyway.

"Sorry about that, hun," Mitsune said, remaining seated on the floor. "You're back to normal, right? You're not smiling that freaky smile you were before when you cast that spell on me."

"Spell?" Motoko asked. Any new chance for information had to be seized immediately and not let go. "What spell? What did I... Do to you?"

"Some sort of clumsy pervert spell," Mitsune said, pushing off the ground and trying, really actually trying to push herself back up onto two wobbly legs. And in the process giving Motoko a look at her cleavage that many boys would pay many yen to see. "It seems like I can barely even - Woop!" Down she went, back onto her betailed bunny butt. Legs spread wide open as if inviting anyone around to take a gander. "Stand up without accidentally doing something perverted."

"So I see..." Motoko considered. Yes, she could see what Shinobu meant now. In a way Mitsune did have it sort of worse than herself. At the very least Shinobu could do things and wander the grounds without slipping or tripping or her own body completely betraying her. Then of course there was the jet-black leotard, high heels, stockings, rabbit ears and the little poofy white tail. "And I suppose I also cursed you to wear the bunny suit to maximise the effect?"

"Nah! I just figured, if I'm gonna embarrass myself, might as well look good doing it. I mean. For some reason I'm not even hurting myself, so I figure best to go with the flow."

Ah. Well. Of course it sort of made sense that what Shinobu thought of as "worse" Mitsune would not. Motoko got up to her feet and pointed back the way she'd come.

"Shinobu is through there," she said. "It appears as though during the period of my... Senseless spell-casting rampage, I made her appear physically older, and unable to wear clothing. The two of you should take care of one another while I investigate the fate of the others. And please accept my most sincere apologies."

"Hey, no need to be so serious about it," Mitsune said, waving off the complaint and accidentally causing part of the leotard to spring down and bare her breasts briefly to the cool, fresh air. "Actually, I thought it was kinda fun to see you cut loose! You'd be a lot more fun if you weren't such a stick in the mud."

And off she went leaving Motoko feeling... Strange. She did think of the others as her friends; yes, that much was certainly true. Yet there was something about Mitsune's expression there that bothered her. Fun to see her cut loose? A stick in the mud? Did they really see her as too serious?

She quickly shook her head to get rid of that kind of superfluous thinking. Her friends were in trouble from unidentified spells! Her duty, her first duty should be to investigate and determine the damage. Then figure out how to fix it!

"Hi, Motoko!" a cheery, upside-down, tanned male face said, very nearly causing her to jump clear out of her skin. "I've had fun being a boy! So much more upper body strength, and their thing is so much fun to play with! It's like having a toy around all the time!"

Did you ever have this moment where your brain is telling you "that is a bad idea. Don't do that. Whatever you do, do not do exactly that one thing. It will not end well for you"? Those kinds of thoughts are like flames for a moth. A siren's song for the body to follow irresistibly after. No matter how much the mind struggles, the body doesn't listen.

Motoko had exactly that kind of moment, and the thought was "don't look up." Which, of course, she did. And beheld a dick. A penis. A cock and balls. Meat and two veg. A shaft that flexed and, to Motoko's muted horror, grabbed a wrench and tightened a very different kind of nut.

Without saying a word the swordswoman pointed off towards where she'd sent Mitsune, and the gender-flipped inventor plopped along the ceiling using some sort of combined harness/plunger combination. The sound of the vacuum sealing and unsealing did rather unsettling things to Motoko's imagination when coupled with the thing she had just beheld.

Right. So. She was going to need a moment, probably. Just had to find Naru and Keitaro. Since she was already on the ground floor she might as well start with the manager, then use the shortcut to get to Naru's room. As soon as she caught her breath.

"Pervert!" she heard Keitaro yell as she approached the room, followed by a slap.

"B-But I didn't do anything..." Naru said. "Also, remember this is your body."

"So I can do what I like with it! Hmph!"

"Then, why do you hit me all the time?"

"Because you're an idiot!"

It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened there. In fact, you'd have to be pretty stupid not to realise what she had done to these two. How unfortunate. Deep down, a small part of Motoko said, "Oh no, this will bring them even closer together," but it was crowded out by the guilt for putting these two through such an experience. Bad enough that Su had to experience what it was like to be in a boy's body, but for Naru the pain must be unbearable.

"It's alright," Motoko announced as she threw open the door. "I shall return you to your own bodies... Post... Haste....?"

Her thinking changed track right about then as she looked at the two of them. Indeed, from the way they were moving someone that knew the two of them quite well could tell that they had transferred into each other's bodies. Keitaro's mind in Naru's body, her mind in his body. She'd sort of expected to see something like that even before opening the door.

What she hadn't expected to see was... How to put this into words? Coherent words preferably. Not simply "yum" or "buuuuh" or something of similar nature that was outside of Motoko's normal character. Far, far outside of it. Sort of like thinking to do this type of thing in the first place.

Let's start with Keitaro. Or rather, Keitaro's body. He was wearing (and only wearing) a pair of shorts that Mitsune had once described as a "banana hammock", and now that she was seeing a man wearing one she could understand why. Consuming a certain yellow fruit whole did rather pass into her unready mind the moment she laid eyes upon it, and in the next moment her cheeks tinged a little red and she forced herself to look elsewhere.

Like, say, at a chest and torso that couldn't become more perfectly chiselled or muscular if Keitaro spent a hundred years straight alternating between eating nothing but protein shakes and working out at the best gym in the universe. She knew he wasn't anywhere near that level of perfect physique. His clothes wouldn't fit. The muscles themselves were so big that he must've gained a half foot in height from them and them alone.

Needless to say that Motoko, who was still a young woman, felt rather... Moist being in the presence of masculine perfection (to which the glasses he was still wearing added just the right amount of juxtaposition to play two strings at once, so to speak, upon her rapidly beating heart). Her awareness of those feelings compelled Motoko to look elsewhere. Like, say, at Naru's body, which Keitaro was nervously fidgeting in while wearing cutoff jean shorts that hugged the waist and a tight orange shirt that didn't even know what a navel was, never mind that it should be covering it. As for her figure...

To cut that analysis short, Motoko entered the room a straight woman that wasn't actively seeking romantic partnership. She left it as a bisexual woman struggling to control newfound lust for two of her best friends.

<hr>
Haruka put down the phone and shook her head. Unbelievable. Her nep- cousin simply couldn't keep out of trouble, could he? He should just find some sap to drain already and get his luck sorted out before it got him into a hole he couldn't climb out of. At the very least it sounded like whatever crawled up Motoko's butt had crawled back out again, so maybe she should head up to offer some friendly cousinly advice on how to resolve this situation.

At least, that was what she was thinking. Until she saw a certain figure pressed up against the doorframe in a seductive manner. One foot resting upon one part of the frame while her back was pressed firmly and squarely on the opposite side. Barring exit. Haruka looked her over while taking a long, long drag of her cigarette.

"You look like Motoko," Haruka said, looking the girl over. "The very spitting image. Except that Motoko would never wear something quite so daring or make such a lascivious pose. And I know for a fact that Kanako is out of the country. So tell me. Who is the person I'm about to beat up?"

"I don't have a name," the girl said. Even the voice was similar, but off. "I guess I'm the part that Motoko keeps wrapped up and hidden away. The part that knows what she wants and knows how to get it. The part that's not afraid to have a little fun."

Haruka narrowed her eyes while the shade examined her nails. Just as she thought. A side effect of... Something or other.

"I'm also the part that knows what she might have to do to her - to <i>my</i> friends if she ever finds out what they really are," the shade sighed wearily, rolled her eyes and smiled warmly at Haruka. "That's why... I'll be her villain. I will keep them safe. The only way I know how."

Right. She'd heard enough of this nonsense. Haruka reached out to drain away this girl's luck. Let's see how mysterious she wanted to be when she couldn't take two steps without stepping on something unpleasant. Let's see how she... What was she doing with her robes?

The answer apparently was "dropping them to the ground and letting Haruka stare in wonder at perfection." There wasn't anything actually particularly impressive about her, if Haruka were thinking clearly. It was just... Magic. Glamour. Something based on succubus or kitsune magic, perhaps? Or... Or maybe both at once?

"I will be her demon," the pretty girl said, suddenly dancing naked around the cafe while Haruka could do nothing more than stare in amazement. "I will be her enemy. I will protect her friends. From herself. By making her protect them from me."

And so, a scant minute later, the shade of Motoko scooped up her discarded robe and wrapped it around her body while Haruka stood exactly where she had been since noticing her. Except that she wasn't quite the same Haruka as before. She had lost a whole foot in height, and it had seemed the mass had gone elsewhere on her figure. She seemed, well, younger. Also, rather than her usual dress and apron she was wearing a short, frilly skirt and a tube top. Both with the same colour: Bright red with yellow frills.

"Bye, bye, nice lady!" Haruka yelled, waving her hand around. Clutched in that hand, indeed both of them, were a pair of small, spherical, bright and colourful objects made of ribbons and a baton. "Ptooie!" the girl spat, dumping the nasty-tasting cigarette right on the ground. "Teehee! Such a nasty habit! I should go say hello to my cousin and cheer! Him! Up! Yaaay!"

1. Motoko learns what it's like to herd cats
2. Motoko uses the book to try to fix this. Mitsune realises too late it's the one she wrote up.
3. Haruka arrives at the inn to cause a little chaos.
4. The shade heads back to the inn to cause a little more chaos.
5. Something else