CHAPTER 3 – THE TRANSFORMATION
As the thunder boomed throughout the night and all the way to dawn, an eerie silence hung over the ancestral pagoda where the statue of all the fallen warriors and relatives of the Sakuragi bloodline lay. Besides lighting a candle every time you want to pray to the ancestors, the Amazon Island people carve a miniature statue of the person who died 7 dasy after his/her death to be placed inside the pagoda. The folklore of the Amazons about these statues is that if you really have a serious trouble and you pray to the ancestors for help, they will come alive in the middle of the night and discuss the problems together before giving their living family a sign on how to solve that problem.
And that’s exactly how it happened. It wasn’t much of a folklore at all. As soon as Mrs. Sakuragi made a silent prayer to the ancestors that they protect her son and keep him from harm before going into the house with her husband, the pagoda soon became bright and glowing and one of the statues began to grow into full human size and stood tall among the rest of the mini statues before his feet. He had a really long beard and a plump body, with a majestic aura around him which made him looked like the first of the Sakuragi family. His body was the colour of the oak that he was made of and as he stretched his body, he bellowed and summoned a bronze cat that holds the candles lit for them to awaken.
“Mido!”
Almost immediately, the bronze cat blinked its eyes and the bronze covering fell off it like powder. It put down all the candles that it held and looked up to the old man, “Hait, kobanwa! What can I do for you, Ojisan Sakuragi?”
“Wake all the ancestors up, Mido,” the man the cat called Ojisan Sakuragi replied. “We have a crisis at hand.”
Mido the bronze neko obeyed. He walked towards each and every statue and nuzzled his nose at theirs, and within second, they grew into full human size one by one, making the pagoda pretty crowded. Almost at once, they started bickering.
“I knew it! I knew that Hanamichi is just a troublemaker!”
“Well, he certainly didn’t come from my side of the family!”
“Neither is he from my side of the family! We are perfectly civilized and noble for the likes of this little ragamuffin redhead! He doesn’t act like the boy he should be!”
“Of course not! Your son was a gigolo before he was taken as my lovely redhead daughter’s husband! I bet that’s where he got all that spunk from!”
The bickering went on and on, each ancestor blaming another for the reason Sakuragi acted this way. Their argument came in all at once that it made the whole pagoda sounded like the market just moved in to town. Ojisan Sakuragi looked at them silently for a few minutes before clearing his throat to make himself heard. Slowly, they ceased bickering one by one.
“Now that I have your attention, I would like you to discuss about how we are going to keep our Hanamichi from the harms of war. After all, he is our next of kin,” Ojisan Sakuragi said in a leveled tone. Everyone nodded.
“Well, he only went out of the house for about 10 minutes or so,” an ancestor from Mr. Sakuragi’s side said. “He might not be far. The forest of Gaia is much further a distance from here.”
“Yes. We should send someone to take him back before it’s too late,” another one agreed, which came from way back of the woody crowd.
“Very well then,” Ojisan Sakuragi nodded in satisfactory at this good idea. “Who wants to go and fetch Hanamichi back from the war zone before he gets himself killed?”
No one said anything. None of them wanted to have anything to do with the girlish Sakuragi Hanamichi even if their lives depended on it (that is, if they still have life left). Obviously Sakuragi has done enough damage in life to make even the ancestors wary of him. Ojisan Sakuragi sighed. He had expected this.
“Please? Anyone? He’s is, after all, our descendant.”
“I’ll go.”
Everyone turned to the timid voice coming from Mido the bronze neko. His eyes flashed in eagerness as he looked from one ancestor to another. They all looked back at him as if he had announced that he was going to become the goddess of Amazon Island. Ojisan Sakuragi lowered himself until he was the same level of height as the bronze cat. Though the bronze has come off his body, his eyes remained bronze. A really magnificent bronze indeed.
“Are you sure you want to do this? You know that danger is afoot once you set foot out of this pagoda and into the wide world, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. But I own him a favour and it is time for me to finally pay it back.”
“Favour?”
It turned out that a few years ago, when Sakuragi was about 5 years old—give or take—Mido’s bronze tail was broken when one of the chickens flew the coop and broke it while trying to escape from the hysterical Sakuragi Hanamichi during last spring. Sakuragi caught sight of the poor chap’s broken tail, and with some superglue he got from the shed behind the house, he glued the tail back into place and placed a candle for him to hold, just for ‘good health’. Mido had felt in debt with Sakuragi since then.
“I will go to the ends of the earth just for Master Hanamichi because of this,” Mido said. “It’s a very appalling thing for cats to lose their tails. A very unhounourable thing it is.”
Ojisan Sakuragi considered a moment and rubbed his chin, looking at the tiny cat with bronze eyes. He looked at the other ancestors and they all nodded in agreement. Ojisan Sakuragi sighed and patted Mido and replied, “Oh well, since no one else around here wants to volunteer and Mido is willing to venture out into the humanly open, I suppose I’ll have to agree that you go after our Hanamichi. Remember, Mido, you must bring him back safe and sound and try to keep him out of trouble. It’s a jungle out there, and I mean a real jungle for the likes of you.”
Mido nodded eagerly and replied, “I will not fail you, Ojisan Sakuragi! I will bring Master Hanamichi home without a scratch on him. Trust me on this!”
As he scurried down the pagoda and out of the Sakuragi home compound, Ojisan Sakuragi looked out from the pagoda and before he shrank back into his statue size as the dawn began to hit, he muttered, “May the gods and goddesses protect Mido and Hanamichi.”
“Hi, I am so glad to be with you girls. How do you…OK, that’s lame.”
Sakuragi Hanamichi was in the forests of Gaia and about a few miles away from camp, hiding from view. He didn’t want anyone from the camp to see him there without being thoroughly prepared. He was afraid that if he ever walked in just like that, the girls would see right through him immediately. He was now keeping a safe, inconspicuous distance from the camp to practice how to actually sound like a girl.
“Hey, girls! What’s kickin’ around here? Wanna check out my sword?” Sakuragi practiced again, trying to pull out the sword as majestically as his mother used to do, but it couldn’t come out. Oukutsu whinnied a horse laugh and earned a head butt in return.
“I’m working on it, OK?! I may used to hang out with girls back in town but I never actually go out for war like this!!” Sakuragi yelled at his kaput stallion. “Well, gang-fights might be excluded, but then again I never dress up as a girl…”
“Do you need my help?”
Sakuragi turned around and saw a cat with a pair of bronze eyes staring back at him. On top of his head was Noma the lucky mynah. It looks like the mynah also took the liberty to follow the cat to save his master, whom he had a fondness of. Sakuragi and the cat stared at each other for a really long time. The cat decided to break the ice.
“Hello, Master Hanamichi. My name is Mido. Can I be of your assistance?”
“YAGH~!!! A talking cat~!!! A demon~!!! YAGH~!!!” Sakuragi immediately went into a fit of hysterical yelling as he saw the bizarre oddity displayed in front of him. Mido sighed and shook his head in dismay.
“The ever gullible Master Hanamichi,” Mido sighed before explaining himself calmly. “Don’t worry, Master Hanamichi. I am sent by Ojisan Sakuragi, your ancestor to guide you on this quest. Well, actually he wanted me to send you back home, but I know you, so…”
“Ojisan Sakuragi?” Sakuragi Hanamichi said as he sat on top of Oukutsu. “You mean you were sent by my great-great-great-great-great…grandpa to send me home?” His face showed a little sing of relief, but after realizing something, his face changed sternly. “Hey, I’m not going back! I’ve come all the way here just to help my mother to fight this war and not get her killed! I’m not going back! You go back and tell Ojisan Sakuragi about that!”
“I knew you would say that, that’s why I’ve changed my mind of sending you back,” Mido smiled. “I’m here to help you go through this war.”
“You…You will?” Sakuragi asked as he got off Oukutsu. “But…But why? What have I done to deserve your servitude?”
“Remember the chicken that flew the coop and broke the tail of the neko candle holder?” Mido asked as he wagged his tail at Sakuragi. “That’s me!”
Sakuragi stared at Mido as the memory came back. He picked up the bronze-eyed cat and smiled, “Oh, so it’s you! Long time no see! So, uh, how are you going to help me out?”
“Leave that to me,” Mido said and leaned forward to lick the tip of Sakuragi’s nose. Sakuragi sneezed and let go of Mido in the process. He was about to rub his nose but Mido stopped him, “Don’t rub it! Stop! Just take off your clothes now.”
“Take of my clothes? Doushite?”
“Just wait and see.”
Sakuragi did as he was told. He stripped himself off the armour and the bra and girl underwear and everything else, leaving his whole body bare and exposed to the cold autumn wind. Suddenly, Sakuragi felt a slight heat radiating from inside his body. The heat soared from his fiery red head down to the tip of his toes. He could feel a great change happening to his body but he kept his eyes shut tight, afraid to see what was going on his body. This lasted for about a full 15 minutes or so.
“OK, you can open your eyes now.”
Sakuragi opened them tentatively. He looked down and yelled in shock at what he was seeing. He covered his mouth when he realized that his voice was high-pitched instead of his usual masculine yell. With a piece of the armour, he covered himself and looked at his body again with a face as red as a tomato. He saw that his breasts have actually become full and were huge—the exact size of a D-cup women’s breasts and that his Adam’s apple was gone. His body was perfect in every way—his original broad shoulders have shrunk a little to the size of an average woman who had done quite a number of workouts through her life, his waistline has also shrunk to fit a waist of a model, his arms and feet were slender like a girl and if he were to enter a beauty pageant he would be a winner for sure; and his face looked feminine, although there were still a few itsy-bitsy traces of masculinity in it. And the most important and bizarre thing was that his penis was replaced with a woman’s vagina. He blushed terribly at upon looking at it.
“So, Master Hanamichi,” Mido said as he produced a mirror out of nowhere, trying hard not to experience a serious nose bleed, “How do you like your new look?”
“It’s…It’s horrible!!! Terrible!!! What have you turned me into??!!” Sakuragi was in a stage of ranting and raving and was about to grab Mido to give him a head-butt when he noticed the features of his face on the mirror. His copper-brown eyes have gone softer and larger, like a girl, and his lips were rosier and a little bit fuller. His nose was a little bit higher and more feminine-looking and his long shoulder-length red hair has increased in length until it reached his elbows. He pouted at the image shown on the mirror and at Mido’s smug look before admitting, “I guess…I guess you’ve done a good job. But what’s this for?!”
“Well, if you want to be a girl, you better start by looking like one,” Mido said as he climbed up to Sakuragi’s shoulders and started combing his hair and tying it up into buns (like Chun-Li’s hair in Street Fighters). “You may act and hit and punch anyone like a real girl, but if you set one foot out there in that camp with that original male look and you definitely won’t last for 3 seconds before they start cutting your head off. I gave you the magical lick so that I can transform you into a real girl. 100% foolproof and you won’t have to worry about getting caught. Stuffing cloths into that bra of yours is not going to make you look like a girl enough, you know.”
Sakuragi nodded as he picked up the armour and underwear he had thrown in a careless heap and started dressing up. He realized that the bra he took form his mother’s dressing room wasn’t big enough to fit his D-cup sized breasts. Mido poked his claw at it and it expanded to fit. After putting everything on, he scrutinized himself in front of the mirror again and this time, he didn’t need to convince himself that he really looked like a real girl.
“Yada~! Sugoi desu-ne! I really am a girl right now! Kewl!”
“Arigatogozaimas, Master Hanamichi. It’s one of my powers I’ve mastered throughout the years. But there is one condition if you want to keep this look just right after the war. You must shed no blood or you will lose everything feminine on you.”
“Everything?” Sakuragi asked, his face showing worry.
“Everything,” Mido nodded. “All the looks, your breasts, everything. You’ll turn back into a complete man and all will be lost, if you know what I mean.”
Sakuragi gulped as he thought of his head being decapitated. He nodded and made a mental note that whatever he does, he will not let himself get hurt and bleed.
“Are we ready?” Mido asked eagerly as he climbed onto the back of Oukutsu. “Then let’s go! Ganbatte!”
Before he knew it, Sakuragi was walking towards the battle training camp.
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