Mitsuo is a promising martial artist and dating the most popular girl in school. Life seems perfect until his sixteenth birthday when he comes into his mother's heritage and his father's curse.     Winter's Child Chapter 2 Reborn By Amethyst

I woke up to a ringing in my ears, no wait, it was music, very familiar music. That’s right, it was the ring tone for my phone. I shook my head and looked around at my surroundings. I was in the woods and the position of the sun indicated that it was probably after breakfast time. Rei was sleeping beside me and had her arm around me. “Oh kuso!” I cursed as I fumbled through my pocket for my phone. I took a look and saw that it was November 28th, my birthday, and I had 21 missed calls. Mom and Dad were going to be pissed. I might as well get it over with.

I hit mom’s number and tried to focus past the pounding of my head as I pressed the button to connect the call. It hadn’t even finished ringing when mom picked up. “Mitsuo?!” She sounded panicked and my mom never sounded panicked.

“Hai Okasan, it’s me,” I replied.

She let out a heavy sigh on the other end of the phone. “Are you alright? We’ve been worried sick. Where have you been all night?!”

“I’ve been unconscious in the woods,” I grumbled. “Five guys jumped Rei and me last night. We managed to give better than we got and escaped by running through the woods but I took a blow to the head and I must have passed out.”

“Where are you? Your father is out searching for you and one of us needs to get to you as quickly as possible.” She sounded really worried.

“We’re somewhere in the woods near Meiji Shrine, the lake isn’t far away, I can see it from here. I don’t think this is the time to be worried about our camping trip Okasan,” I replied.

“Is the Fujimoto girl still with you?” she asked.

“Yeah, she’s asleep right beside me,” I answered.

I had never heard my mother curse before so it was somewhat of a surprise when she let forth a long litany of practically every Japanese curse word I knew. “Wait by the lake. Your father will be there as soon as he can. If you start to feel any strange sensations in your body like cold shivers or strained muscles get out of sight. Do not let Rei see you if that happens.”

“You’re scaring me Okasan,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

I could hear her take a deep breath. “You turn sixteen today Mitsuo. With your mixed heritage we can’t be sure what will happen but you will go through changes today and you cannot let anyone see what happens. If you feel the changes coming then get out of sight.”

I groaned and rubbed my temples. “Domo arigato Okasan,” I replied sarcastically. “You’ve explained everything and nothing all at once.”

“Wait. By. The. Lake.” She responded in a chilling tone. “I’ll let your father know where you are.”

She hung up and I disconnected the call and turned to start to gently shake Rei’s shoulder. “Rei-chan, wake up.”

Rei’s eye’s fluttered open and she looked blearily at me for a moment before suddenly putting her arms around me. “Thank goodness you’re alright Mitsuo-kun! I was so worried when you passed out last night! I was going to go get help but it was too dark to find my way back and even if I got help I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to find you again.”

“Don’t worry,” I said in an attempt to reassure her. “I’m fine other than a massive headache. I just talked to my haha and she wants me to wait by the lake. Maybe you should get heading home. Your parents must be worried and I think school has already started.” I helped her to her feet and started to lead the way to the lake.

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” she replied sternly. “Can you call my phone? I think I dropped it near here. Then I’ll call my parents and let them know we’re okay.” I made the call and we heard her ringtone a short distance away. We soon found it and as we got closer to the lake she called and I led her to a quiet part of the lake, heavily wooded and away from the benches used by the tourists who may be visiting the shrine today. Mom had said to be ready to hide and I wasn’t about to go against her advice even if I didn’t have any clue why. Here I would be able to hide quickly and I could see the tourist area to know if my father arrived.

I climbed up onto a thick low hanging branch that stretched out to hang over the lake as Rei moved away a bit to speak with her parents. Despite the distance and her back being turned I could hear her end of the conversation. “Hai Otosama. Sorry to worry you. Daisuke and some of his friends caught us by surprise last night. No I’m fine, we managed to hurt them enough to get away through the woods. Mitsuo took a hit to the head and he passed out after we got away. ” She turned and looked at me and smiled before turning away again as she listened to her father on the other end. “He seems fine now Otosama. I asked him but he didn’t get a chance to answer me before we were attacked, I’ll ask once I’m done talking to…” I got kind of distracted at that point as all my muscles locked up and it seemed like my entire body was frozen and threatened to shake itself apart from the shivering.

I hardly noticed when I fell off the branch and into the lake. It felt like my bones, muscles, flesh and my entire being were suddenly being stretched, pulled, and pounded. I was vaguely aware of sinking below the water’s surface and then splashing in the shallow water as I instinctively tried to stop myself from drowning and tore at my wet clothes which threatened to entangle me. Buttons popped and my shirt seemed to burst at the seams and then fall off from my contortions as I practically fell out of my jeans. Suddenly the pain was gone and I made my way back to the shore, coughing and sputtering water. I heard Rei calling my name as I crawled up the bank toward her but she suddenly stopped and I looked up to find her staring at me, a look of confusion, fear, and anger spread across her face.

I tried to ignore that and crawled onto the top of the bank, soaking wet as I put one hand in front of the other to crawl toward her. My whole body felt off and looking down I quickly realized why, I had paws and fur. A quick look behind me showed a white feline body with black rosettes and a long fluffy white tail. What the hell? Did I fall into the pool of drowned cat or something? No wonder Rei looked so scared; she was frozen in place just staring. How the hell do I calm her down?

Should I run or just try to do something else? I wasn’t sure I could run like this, my whole body felt wrong and I was having problems with my coordination. People don’t just turn into wild cats every day, maybe I could convince her she was seeing things, hell maybe I was seeing things. Am I stuck like this? If I turned into this there must be a way to turn back. Maybe I need some hot water? Dammit I need to be human, how do I become human? Think about being human.

Something clicked and there was a tingling sensation as I could feel myself changing again. It wasn’t accompanied by that pain or cold feeling this time. I could feel and see the toes on my forepaws lengthening into fingers as my legs lengthened and changed into more human arms and legs. My muzzle retracted into a human mouth and nose and I could feel my ears changing and moving into position at the side of my head. Finally long black hair cascaded down the side of my head down to the ground. I was on my hands and knees and moved to get to my feet.

Something was still wrong. Maybe I was tired from changing back so quickly, I could barely stand, my balance still felt off, and my body felt different even now that I seemed to be human again. There was a shifting weight on my chest as I got to my feet, and the shifting weight I was used to between my legs was conspicuously absent. I looked down to where my hair covered my breasts. Breasts? What the hell?! I didn’t have much chance to think about it though as I heard Rei’s angry voice. “Yōkai! Tell me what you’ve done with Mitsuo!” Aww shit, she looked pissed, and the flaming spirit ward in her hand did not bode well for me.

I raised my hands above my head as I stepped toward her, “Ummm… look, can we talk about this?”

“Stay right where you are! The only talking I want to hear from you is telling me what you’ve done with Mitsuo!” She looked at her phone and pressed a button, still holding the spirit ward in her free hand. She lifted the phone to her ear as she watched me. “Hello Okasama. He’s on his way? There’s a Yōkai here, I think it killed Mitsuo.” She was starting to shake a bit and tears were running down her face. She nodded and sniffled. “I’ll try to hold it here until you can get here to seal or kill it.” Well there went any hope of getting her to listen to reason, not that my story would sound reasonable.

I figured even if she wouldn’t believe the truth I should try something though. “I didn’t do anything to your boyfriend Rei, if I did wouldn’t there be a body and such? Here walk with me to the water and I’ll prove it,” I offered.

She narrowed her eyes at me, “You’re just trying to get me into the water so you can drown me like you did him. I’m not falling for it.”

I shook my head as I tried to think. “Okay then why don’t you watch me from the top of the bank while I look for proof?”

“So you can escape into the lake you came from? I don’t think so.” She kept her spirit ward held out in front of her like a talisman.

“What did I look like when I came out of the lake?” I asked, hoping maybe she didn’t see the whole cat thing after all.

She glared at me, still shaking and looking uncertain. “You were some kind of big white spotted cat.”

Well so much for that thought. “Yeah and cats and water don’t mix. I didn’t want to be in the water, so why would I drag anyone else in there? Let alone live there? I’m going down there to find proof, if you want to try to stop me then do it but we both know you’re new at this and don’t think you have the power.” I turned and jumped down the short bank and looked back around to find her at the top watching me carefully. “See no body here, just clothes.” I picked up my jeans and shirt that were floating at the water’s edge and displayed the latter for her to see once I had climbed back to the top of the bank. Then I noticed the torn seams and the claw marks that had nearly shredded the front of the soaked garment at roughly the same time she did. “Aww shit.”

Rei had reacted poorly to the shredded shirt, her face a mask of raw fury so I did the only sensible thing, I ran like hell. Luckily there was a layer of fallen leaves on the ground so my feet weren’t getting too beat up. Now here I was hiding behind a tree and hoping I had lost her. It’s not that I couldn’t have taken her, I knew I could have, but I didn’t want to hurt her doing so. I fished through the pockets of my soaked jeans for my phone and extracted it. I checked it and found to my great relief that it really was as waterproof as it had been advertised to be. I fumbled with it and hit my mom’s number. “Come on, answer.”

I heard her voice on the other end after the third ring. “Moshi moshi.”

“Okasan? Please tell me Otosan is on his way.” I blurted out as I looked around to make sure I wasn’t being seen.

There was a long silence on the other end. “Mitsuo? Is that you? Your father is on his way, are you still at the lake?”

I darted my head around to make sure I was still safe, “Yeah it’s me, at least I think I am. About the lake, I fell in and had to run for my life when Rei thought I killed… me. I don’t think the lake will be a safe place to meet. Rei talked to her mother on the phone and said she was going to try to keep me there until her mom could show up to kill or seal me. She had some kind of spirit ward and called me a Yōkai.”

I could hear a long sigh. “I take it you’re female now? I guess you took after me after all. I told you that girl would be trouble. This is exactly why I told you to be careful. When you get home you are going to tell me everything and we are going to have a long talk young lady.”

Rei’s voice rang out through the woods, she was getting closer. “Yōkai! I am going to hunt you down and kill you for what you did! I’ll find you! You can’t run from me forever!”

“Kuso!” I cursed before whispering into the phone. “It’s comforting that you’re assuming I’m going to make it home Okasan, but Rei’s closing in, I’m tired of running naked through the woods and my phone’s battery is going to die any minute now.” I looked back around the tree to see Rei’s search was bringing her in my general direction, though she wasn’t too close yet. “I think I have a way of getting away but I’ll have to leave my phone and wallet behind.”

“Do what you need to get away,” my mother replied, “Those things can be replaced, you can’t.”

“Hai Okasan, I’ll try to double back to the lake and meet Otosan there. I love you.” I felt the need to say that to her as I disconnected the call, just in case I didn’t make it home. I dropped everything and hoped that I was right and could turn back into that cat. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes thinking about being the cat and what it had felt like. I felt the tingling feeling again and hoped that was a good sign as I opened my eyes to look down at my paws. It worked!

I tried moving around a bit to get used to it and I found that it was easier if I just stopped thinking like a human and let my instincts guide me. Everything around me was so clear, the sights, smells and sounds were all in sharp focus. I didn’t need to see Rei to know she was closing in, I could hear her clumsy shuffling through the trees and brush and could smell her. I quickly took off, a bit clumsily, in the direction I knew the lake was in, slipping through the cover of the thicker trees. Soon moving became natural to me and I was running through the woods, revelling in the speed and grace of my new form.

I had almost made it to the lake when I smelled something different than all the other forest smells that I had been growing accustomed to. I followed my nose and ended up face to face with a cat that looked a lot like me with the same kind of spots only larger and grey in color. The larger cat began to slowly change, becoming human. It was my father and he looked as shocked as I was. “Mitsuo?”

“Otosan!?” I tried to reply but only hisses and mews seemed to come out.

“There’s no time to talk here, there’s a man and a woman searching the woods for you and your girlfriend and I overheard them talking about a Yōkai girl that turns into a hunting cat, I can only assume they meant you. Come on, I left some clothes for us to change into near the lake,” my father said as he turned back into a cat and padded off toward the lake.

The clothes turned out to be a pair of my sweatpants that were now too short in the legs and too tight on the hips, a t-shirt that was way too tight on my chest, and a pair of sneakers which I had to lace tightly and wear two pairs of socks under and they were still too loose. The t-shirt was especially bad, being tight enough to show off my very prominent nipples. Luckily he had also brought my bomber jacket and although my chest was too big to zip it up all the way at least it covered up the trouble spots.

Dad had looked away while I changed. He didn’t seem too surprised by my turning into a girl but actually seeing his son as a naked female probably wasn’t easy on him. Hell it wasn’t easy on me. Everything about my body felt both wrong and right at the same time. I think the worst part though was that I wasn’t freaking out near as bad as I thought I should be. There was this acceptance that this was how I was and I probably couldn’t change it and that was freaking me out. I thought that I was probably in shock or something.

The trip home was largely uneventful. I think that was due in large part to our caution as I knew that I for one was keeping a very careful eye out for Rei and her father. We walked as casually as possible through the streets of Shinjuku but I found myself getting a lot of strange looks. At first I chalked it up to my ill-fitting clothing, but as we got closer to home I realised that the guys were looking at me a lot like they looked at Rei. I also seemed to be getting near-glares from a lot of the women and wondered what I was doing to piss them off. Maybe it was because they thought I should be in school or something?

Once we were home my father led me to the dining room where my grandfather and mom had set out a large lunch for us all. I was really grateful and quickly dug into the meal since I was starving. I hadn’t eaten since the night before and all that running through the woods and changing back and forth between cat and human had seemed to take a lot out of me. My mom seemed to expect that and waited until I had some food in me before she asked me to recount everything that had happened since the night before. None of them interrupted me but all three of them looked like they wanted to a few times, like when I mentioned my transformation and Rei’s reaction.

When I was finally finished they were both shaking their heads as my mother said. “This is exactly the kind of situation I was hoping to avoid. It looks like Rei really is from a Yōkai Hunter family like I thought, and now she believes that you killed Mitsuo and we can’t really prove that you didn’t since there’s no body to be found. The real problem is that she believes you to be a Yōkai capable of murder. She as much as told you she wants you killed or sealed.”

“A Yōkai capable of murder, but I’m not…” I began.

“No you’re not a murderer,” my mother replied. “But she obviously doesn’t believe that, nor will her parents when they only get her side of the story.”

“Why did you only dispute the murderer part of that statement?” I asked, worried now.

She sighed and looked me right in the eyes as she said, “Because you are a Yōkai, or at the very least part Yōkai. Do you remember the stories I used to tell you when you were small about the Yuki-onna?” I nodded and she continued on, “Those stories were true. My mother guided my father out of the woods one snowy night and they slept together and had me. They fell in love and she stayed with him to raise me as a human. When I turned sixteen I came into my heritage and became a Yuki-onna, and you appeared to have as well.”

I just stared at her, trying to process this impossible data. I looked to Grandfather and he only confirmed it with a grave nod of his head. “Why the hell didn’t you warn me about this?!”

She shook her head sadly and took my hand. “Your father is under a curse. His father was the boy in the story about the snow leopards he used to tell you. His curse took effect when he was sixteen as well, although he seems to be able to control his ability to change, unlike his father. I don’t know of any Yuki-onna who has ever mated with a cursed man before and when you were born a boy we weren’t sure which of us you would take after when this time came. My mother told me that even boys born to Yuki-onna will become one of us so we knew there was a possibility that you would become like me. I tried to prepare you through the stories and other small things as your father tried to prepare you with his stories. When we registered your birth we claimed to have twins, a boy and a girl, just in case. Your female name is Miyuki by the way.”

I sat with my head in my hands. “So now I’m some kind of female cursed Yōkai, my girlfriend thinks I murdered my male self and wants to kill me, and she’ll probably get the police to believe her too, is there anything else I should know?”

She looked deep in thought as she answered, “You don’t need to worry about the police dear. Rei’s family wouldn’t involve the humans. Even if they tried to, Rei has no idea who you are and they’d lock her in a padded room if she tried telling them what she believes happened. They’ll just try to kill or seal you themselves.”

I banged my head on the table in front of me. “Domo Arigato Okasan, that’s so comforting.”

She gave me a serious look. “I’d rather you be prepared for the worst than not prepared at all. These days, so long as we’re not harming the humans for no good reason most Yōkai Hunters leave us alone and we leave them alone. But they will hunt down any Yōkai they believe are dangerous and some families will hunt down Yōkai regardless of whether they’re dangerous or not. Rei’s family will be after you and possibly others as well. I think we need to explain some things to you and then decide what we’re going to do now.”

Mom explained to me that magic, Yōkai, and many other creatures thought to be myths do exist but the governments often cover up incidents to avoid panic. Most countries have government agencies that operate under the radar to deal with these beings. They have departments that deal with the bad ones and recruit the more benign ones for various purposes. Sometimes Yōkai , Cursed or other such beings even work for these agencies. My mom and dad actually worked for the government at one time performing mountain rescues.

Department Nine handles all matters that deal with Yōkai in Japan and consists of three smaller agencies; one that polices Yōkai and other supernatural creatures native to Japan, one that scouts and recruits promising Yōkai for various government branches, and one that deals with foreign supernatural threats. Rei’s family was one of the independent Yōkai Hunter families that have been hunting our kind for centuries and work outside the government. They don’t care if the government has you labeled as an asset or a dangerous Yōkai and use their own judgement. Mom said that I appeared to be both a Cursed and a Yōkai and she and my father explained what I could probably expect.

As a Yuki-onna I am beautiful, not bothered by the cold, can feed on the heat from people and things, have an infallible sense of direction, and have control over snow and ice. I am also stronger, faster, and more graceful than a normal human. This heritage also has weaknesses that make it hard to blend in though. Beauty attracts a lot of attention, and my skin is very pale, almost pure white, and cold to the touch, and if I don’t consciously stop myself from feeding on the heat of things around me things might freeze. I also don’t give off a lot of body heat on my own and infrared or other methods of detecting heat might pick up on that absence. From my father’s side of the family I got the Curse. I have the ability to turn into a snow leopard and some of the benefits of being a cat such as really good vision, hearing, and sense of smell.

Once they were finished telling me about my situation we started to talk about what we planned to do now. There wasn’t much we could do at the moment except try to avoid Rei’s family seeing me and prepare in case we needed to leave quickly. I wasn’t too thrilled about the possibility of leaving Tokyo but my parents felt we were better off preparing for the worst case scenario. So it was decided that we would go see one of my father’s government contacts and try to put a rush on a passport for me. They also talked about registering me in the same private school they both had gone to. We were lucky in the fact that my parents had prepared and ‘Miyuki’ already had a birth certificate, social security card and medical card. That would make getting a passport fairly easy.

After we were done talking my father and grandfather went to go to the lake to launch a fake search for me at the lake and surrounding woods in case Rei or her family decided to question their lack of concern about Mitsuo being missing. I was about to go upstairs and quietly sulk in my room when my mom took me by the hand and shook her head. “Now that the men are gone let’s have a mother-daughter chat. There are a few other things I need to tell you about being a Yuki-onna. I didn’t want to embarrass you though, so I thought I would wait until we were alone.”

I groaned as I sat back down and asked, “Do I really want to know what this is all about if you didn’t want to talk about it with them here?”

“Miyuki,” she said, stressing the female name. “You need to know this, but first tell me how you feel about this change.”

I sighed as I tried to figure out how to answer that. “I don’t know Okasan. I know I should be completely freaking out and my body should feel wrong. But it doesn’t feel wrong and I think I’m only freaking out because I’m not freaking out. I mentally wish I could still be male but my instincts don’t seem to agree that this should feel wrong. It’s really confusing.”

She wrapped me up in a hug and kissed me on the forehead like she used to do when I was little. “As a Yuki-onna it is your very nature to be a beautiful and sexual woman. That’s why your instincts aren’t fighting it and your body feels right. It will likely take a while for your mind to adjust and accept it though. It is your body that is the biggest concern though as your natural instincts could cause you difficulties if you do not have mental discipline.”

I looked at her wondering what she meant, “Why do I not like the sounds of that?”

Mom gave me her serious look again, “I told you it is your nature to be a beautiful and sexual woman. Yuki-onna have very high sex drives and when we don’t practice safe sex we have a much higher than average likelihood to conceive. If you have sex with a boy you must practice safe sex. I am too young to be a grandmother.” The last was an attempt at a joke, but I could tell she was serious.

I couldn’t believe I was getting the birds and bees talk from my mom and that she was warning me that there was a high probability I could get pregnant. I wanted to be sick. “I really don’t think I will ever…” I started to say before she cut me off.

“You will want to, it is your nature. You must be prepared. The heat generated by sex is delicious and a great source of energy for us. But you must also be careful not to steal too much heat from your partner during sex or you could kill them and freeze them solid.” With that she gave me a long lecture on the various forms of birth control before finally adding, “When you’re alone you can try to take the edge off any pent up sexual energy in the usual way.” Oh my God, she did not just encourage me to masturbate. That is not something I wanted to hear from my mom, but apparently she wasn’t finished yet. “I know you don’t think you’ll want or need to do that but you will. But there’s another way you can get rid of that sexual energy as well, you can throw yourself into combat practice. It’s not as effective or enjoyable as the other methods but it can help.”

My face felt flushed and I could barely look at her. “Okaaaasan! Fine, I get the point! I’ll want to have sex and you have done your duty and had the talk with me, can we stop talking about this now?”

She nodded and grabbed me by the hand. “Let’s go out to the dojo so you can work off some of your frustration. You’ll need to get used to your new center of gravity as soon as possible in case you need to fight. Bring Yuki no Hana, you should get used to her weight and balance as well.”

When I got down to the dojo with Yuki no Hana my mother tossed me a bundle of cloth. The bundle contained a practice gi and a small shop bag. She told me that the bag contained some new pairs of panties and two sports bras she had bought last week ‘just in case’. She had guessed at the sizes but they would have to do until we could do some actual shopping. The important thing was that they would keep me decent and my new assets contained while I worked out. She had to show me how to properly put on the sports bra and it was a bit tighter than was really comfortable but it would keep my breasts out of the way.

Once I was properly attired my mom made me go through my kata both unarmed and with my new sword. Yuki no Hana was a very well balanced and beautiful blade and I wondered if it was one of those preparations for if I became a girl with its feminine name. Once I had finished my kata we practiced bare handed sparring and kendo against one another for close to two hours. Mom was right about my body feeling natural to me. It hardly took any time at all to get used to my new sense of balance and I found that I could keep up with my mom even better than I could before my change.

Finally I couldn’t put off the moment I’d been dreading any longer. “Ummm mom, I need to ummm you know…”

She didn’t make me say it, she just nodded and said, “You might as well get cleaned up and get to know your new self in the mirror while you’re in there. I need to go start preparing dinner so you can find me in the kitchen if you need me.

“Hai Okasan,” I replied as I gave her a bow and headed into the house, dropping Yuki no Hana off in my room first. Once I got into the bathroom I shed my sweaty clothes and undergarments and tossed them in the hamper before standing in front of the mirror. My mother was right, I was beautiful. I had waist length wavy black hair, deep brown eyes that almost looked almost black, and a heart shaped undeniably Asian face with pouty lips. My skin was pale almost white and had no visible flaws and I had a really nice figure with wide well rounded hips, a slim waist, long shapely legs and breasts that were generous without being overly large. I stood there for a while gazing at that beautiful woman in the mirror but she did nothing for me other than make me feel an odd sort of pride.

“So this is me now,” I said with a sigh. My mind was trying to wrap my head around the idea but I still wasn’t freaking out, it felt and looked like… me. “I’m not a girl, should be freaking out about this.” With another sigh I went to the toilet and made sure the seat was down before sitting. Even relieving myself, one of the most familiar and everyday acts one can perform didn’t feel wrong or unfamiliar to me. It felt normal, although I had to remind myself that girls are supposed to wipe afterwards.

I made sure the bath was hot and then knelt by the drain filling a bucket with cold water. I dumped the water over my head to find that the cold water didn’t bother me at all. I filled the bucket several more times to get my hair and body completely wet before beginning to soap myself and shampoo my hair. As I scrubbed the sweat away I couldn’t shake the thought that this should feel wrong and the fact that it didn’t bothered me greatly. Washing between my legs and my breasts only confirmed what my mother had told me as well; I got turned on very easily and found it hard to keep myself from doing more than just washing. I had hoped that rinsing with the cold water would shake me out of it but the fact that the temperature didn’t bother me at all dashed that hope.

I climbed into the bath and soaked in the hot water until I felt like I would become a prune. It relaxed me and took my mind off the desire I had been fighting against and I somehow managed to finish the soak without having done anything crass. My body might feel familiar and want the sexual release but my brain was still saying that I wasn’t ready for this, that I should be male and that giving into this would be like giving up a part of me, the last remnant of Mitsuo. Besides, the hot water had quickly gotten cold.

Finally I climbed out of the bath feeling a bit more energetic and towelled both my body and hair dry. I put on a clean pair of the new panties and the other sports bra, if only because I didn’t want my breasts bouncing all over the place. Not that their moving around bothered me. No, it was the fact that their moving around didn’t bother me that bothered me and not wearing a bra would be a reminder of that. I would almost rather have them painfully squeezed by the sports bra as that seemed to be against my new nature, maybe it wasn’t sexy and female enough or something. Once I was in my new underclothes I went to my room and put on a baggy pair of grey sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt that wasn’t too tight on my chest. As for my hair, I brushed it out and had it half obscuring my face in an attempt to make me look less attractive or at the very least obscure the fact that I was.

My father and grandfather still weren’t back from the lake yet when I got downstairs and from the smell of it dinner was just about ready. I walked into the kitchen where mom was still making dinner; it looked like we were having beef sukiyaki tonight with miso soup and rice. I offered to carry the dishes to the table for her but she was afraid I may make the food go cold. “Tonight,” she said, “You will start to learn to control your new abilities. I am hoping that the mental discipline I have been instilling in you through training all these years will help you to quickly master them.”

There was a knock at the door and Mom made me wait out of sight while she went to answer it. From around the corner I could see a tall well-built Japanese guy close to my own age with white hair and jade green eyes. He looked kind of familiar; though I was pretty sure I would have never forgotten knowing someone with hair and eyes like that. “Hello,” my mother greeted the stranger cautiously.

The boy looked nervous, scared and wore only a pair of really tight-fitting torn jeans, showing off a very well-muscled chest and abs. Much to my chagrin I immediately categorized him as yummy. “I’m sorry to bother you but I didn’t know where else to go. I need to talk to Mitsuo, I know what happened to him… her. Can you tell her I’m here? Tell her it’s Rei.”