Finally, it happened. Finally, Ganondorf initiated something that could be considered an attack against me. An attempt to lure me in to the possibility of her getting my scroll. Or maybe it was just her testing out a newfound power, trying to see what she could do with it.

That was the most foreboding possibility. And also the most likely. Great.

It was a pleasant Friday afternoon, and Tris and I had just gotten home from school. I'd changed out of my school uniform already, and into a nice comfy tank top and shorts I intended to wear to go to sleep later. You know, after sitting outside in the nice weather for a bit, on the apartment's tiny little balcony, and chilling with a book or something. It took me entirely too long to pick out something to read—Zelda telling me I had undiagnosed ADHD started to explain a lot, actually—but I'd finally chosen something. I brought the book outside, along with some cookies and a soda, and got comfy on the crappy balcony chair. And of course then my phone went off.

It was a message from Haruka.

"Hi cutie, hate to bother you but there's kind of an emergency downtown, and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with that crazy redhead Hebijo girl you're all freaked out about? So I mean, not to be a bitch or anything, but you should probably get your cute spankable little booty down here. And bring a weapon."

Well, shit. That didn't sound good. I scrambled up from my seat, snack and book forgotten, as I made sure to grab my sword and my scroll, and crammed my feet back into my shoes again already. All the while, I frantically typed back to Haruka, deciding to focus on what was important... and ignore the whole "spankable" thing.

"Be there in a second. How do I find you?"

"It's at the playground." And she sent me a street address.

"How do I find that though?" I was already hurrying down the street, not having bothered to try to communicate with Tris that something was going on. She was probably busy having an extremely inappropriate video chat with Ryona or something...

"GPS, silly. Hurry up, though. Homura and Hikage are with me, and so we're splitting up so that some of us can hold off the monsters and the others can bring the kids away from the playground to safety."

Well, shit. That sounded even worse than it did a second ago. I punched the address into my phone's GPS and hurried as fast as I could.

I could tell I was getting close when I felt the energy from the barrier. And then I saw that one girl Asuka was really "friendly" with, Homura, trying to lead a bunch of small kids down the sidewalk and away from wherever the monsters were. But she was gruff and intimidating and armed with like six swords at one time, and so the kids were listening to her more out of abject terror than out of any realization she was helping them. I gave her, and all the kids, a cheerful wave, trying to be remotely reassuring. But she just shook her head at me.

"Get in there and figure out what's going on. You're the one who knows about all the weird shit that Ganondorf girl does, so you'll know better than us."

I mean, I would probably be way better with kids than Homura was being, but she was right that I was the only one that'd really be able to tell what was going on. Me and Zelda, but she wasn't here, and I wasn't sure Haruka had her number. Actually, I didn't even have her number. I just had that weird shared destiny telepathic connection thing with her. And at that moment, I expected her to pick up on the fact that I was thinking about her and butt in with something.

She didn't, the one time I actually wanted her to. Go figure.

I sighed and cut through the barrier with my sword, entering through it to find Haruka and the green haired Hikage girl fighting a huge bunch of different colored Chuchus. Chuchus? How did I know they were called Chuchus? I wasn't sure, but something inside me told me that was exactly what they were.

"What are these stupid yoma?" Hikage asked, her voice perpetually deadpan, as she sliced through one of them with her knives, cutting it from a blob the size of a kid, to like ten blobs each the size of a tenth of a kid. "I've never heard of any like these before."

"These look like someone's first attempt at summoning a yoma, and maybe failing," Haruka said, from on top of the playground structure, sitting up there casually pressing buttons on the remote that controlled her battle robot.

If I were better at words, I would've told these two that these gelatinous glob monsters were called Chuchus. That the goo they leave behind after you kill them makes good medicine for healing all sorts of crap. And that these were a common enemy I'd fought before—in past lives—so it made sense this was the first "yoma" Ganondorf would try to summon against me.

Wait a minute... didn't summoning yoma require the blood of shinobi? I thought I'd heard that somewhere.

"I know, right?" came the perfectly timed voice in my head. Damn it, Zelda. Way to be late, which was supposed to be my job. "Where's he—she—whatever getting this blood from?"

I don't know, I thought to her, but since you can actually talk to people, mind bringing up that concern for me at some point?

"I'll do that."

Thanks.

Yeah, she'd have to help me figure that out later, because right now it was time to clear the Chuchus out from this playground. Haruka was having an easier time of it, controlling her battle robot from all the way up on the playground tower, but Hikage was in the thick of it, getting slowed down by their stickiness as they clung to her. And then one of the ones she was trying to cut off herself was... a blue one. One that charged itself up with electricity as soon as she stabbed it with her knife. Her green hair stood straight up as she yelped, and between the goo all over her and the electrical zap, she was stuck still in place.

I waited until the blue Chuchu had finished discharging its electricity before taking my sword and carefully slicing it off of Hikage. I sliced it to bits until it was unable to reform itself, and then it poofed away into nothing. Well, not nothing, because it left behind something.

It left behind a glob of chu jelly... and a used tampon.

I guessed that was what passed for blood enough that Ganondorf could summon yoma? Which was disgusting, but hey, at least now we knew she wasn't cutting up her classmates for their blood. Yet.

And of course now that I killed one of the Chuchus, they all got pissed at me. They all detached themselves from Hikage—ripping away scraps of her clothes with their stickiness as they did so—and attached themselves to me, despite my flailing attempts at stabbing them away.

"Damn it, time for new jeans," she said, her voice still vacant of emotion, like it was barely even a concern for her. And she just kind of shuffled away toward the barrier, like this was all my problem now.

Haruka kept having her battle robot attack the Chuchus, but the problem was, they were all stuck to me now. So it just kind of... decked me in the stomach, causing me to double over with a grunt. I glared up at her where she sat, but she just giggled.

"I keep forgetting you're not that much of a masochist. I mean, you're definitely a submissive, I can tell that much, but apparently you're the boring kind of submissive who doesn't get off on pain." Ugh. Now is not the time, Haruka. Although, if it were up to me, it would never be the time.

So, yeah. I was completely covered in Chuchus, and couldn't even attack them with my sword, because, well, they were stuck to me, so I'd basically be attacking myself. If someone could help me get them off me, then I could kill them easy. I glared at Haruka, giving her a look that pleaded for her to help me out. Well, not so much pleaded, as demanded. Thankfully, she listened.

"Here, let me try this. It might hurt, though. Try not to squeal too much if it does."

Her battle robot took its massive hand and grasped tightly onto a red Chuchu that was stuck to my chest. Then, with immense force, it yanked backward, tearing the Chuchu off me. I was tugged forward along with it at first, then yanked myself backward, stumbling and having to take a moment to regain my footing on the playground's wood chip surface. But, as soon as I did, I swung my sword at the Chuchu in a bunch of little rapid movements, slicing it into bits as it writhed in the battle robot's hand. Once again, it poofed away into a glob of jelly and a used tampon. See? Easy, once it wasn't attached to me.

It wasn't until afterward that I noticed the front of my tank top had been torn away with it. The rest of my tank top was only still sticking to me because of all the other chu jelly all over.

Haruka barely waited a second before punching in more commands for her battle robot to yank another Chuchu off of me. And she was right. It did hurt, and I did squeal. But she kept doing it, having the robot yank off huge fistful after huge fistful of Chuchus, tossing them away from me and leaving me with a lack of clothing and a stinging sensation. I swiped my sword at the loose Chuchus, cutting them down to size until they each poofed away the way they did when fully defeated.

Finally, with Haruka's help, I'd managed to clear the Chuchus out of the playground. I plunked myself down at the bottom of a slide, to catch my breath and survey the aftermath of the battle. I was coated in sticky chu jelly. And, uh, the playground was covered in used tampons, strewn all over everywhere, given that they were what was left behind after each Chuchu's demise.

It took Haruka a few moments to notice that part, probably because she was spending too much time ogling me in my state of undress. But when she did...

"Is that how she was summoning yoma?"

I shrugged and nodded, like, yeah, I guess so. Because, uh, what else would explain that?

"It looks like it," Hikage said, still deadpan, as she casually strode back over to the playground. "I was wondering where she'd get shinobi blood, without hurting herself or attacking her classmates. Looks like this was close enough." She picked one up, without even flinching, considering what she was touching. Like, we didn't even know who it was who used the thing. I guessed she really didn't have much emotion about anything at all, did she? "I'll have to clean these up."

I nodded. After all, I didn't want to have to be the one who did it, even though I would if I had to. I was the one who stabbed all the Chuchus to death in the first place, so it was only fair.

"In the meantime, I'll help clean Linkle up," Haruka said, smirking a little too much. "I mean, she's covered in sticky, sticky goo. Someone has to help peel it off her, don't they?"

I sighed. Here went nothing. I mean, I would rather just go home and peel it off myself in the bathroom or something, but Haruka had decided she'd "help," and it wasn't like I could argue against it.

As I sat there with Haruka helping me remove all the gelatinous goo, I couldn't help but think that nothing ever tried to humiliate me this way before. Why was it that as soon as I was female, it was suddenly fair game to make me fight in my undergarments—

"Don't act all pure and prudish now all of a sudden," came the voice in my head, causing me to flinch twice—once as the voice chided me, and another time as Haruka ripped another piece of gooey tank top remains off of me. "Your male form has definitely gone about fighting in his undergarments. But, see, the difference is the way society treats men and women. Teen boy runs around fighting in boxers, that's cute and funny and rated to be acceptable for everyone. Teen girl runs around fighting in bra and panties, that's lewd, and inherently sexualizing her, and she has to be ashamed of it and be squealing and desperately trying to cover herself."

I couldn't tell if I was cringing more at the attempt at social commentary, or at the fact that I was now sitting on a park bench in only frilly pajama short shorts, clasping my hands over my chest and feeling super grateful that no kids were around anymore. And that it was nightfall. It was harder for Haruka to see anything as she looked at me, her head tilted, tapping her chin.

"Part of me wants to be nice and give you my lab coat to walk home in, so you at least have something to cover you," she said. "But the other part of me doesn't want any of that goo to get on my nice lab coat, and also wants to watch you squirm in complete and utter humiliation."

I made grabby hands at the lab coat. Why should I have to be that humiliated? I killed all the Chuchus, thereby saving the poor innocent kids, and figured out exactly how everyone's favorite evil overlord was summoning these monsters anyway. Just because I ended up like this... no fair. I pulled my phone out of the sticky remains of my shorts, wiped it off right on myself, and started typing a message to Haruka immediately.

"I'll make you a deal, you lend me lab coat, I give you all the chu jelly when I scrape it off me. I'll put it in bottles or something. I'll even sort it by color."

She glanced down at her phone, then back up at me.

"Why would I want the... chu jelly?" she asked.

"Healing properties," I typed back.

"Interesting." And she yanked off her lab coat, to drape it around my shoulders. I tugged it shut over my boobs as much as I could get it to. "But make sure you give it back to me freshly washed."

I nodded, then got up off the slide and started making my way out of the playground, across the minefield of tampons that Hikage was still picking up. I gave the two of them a wave goodbye before punching my address into my phone again so I could follow the instructions to scurry home.

When I got home, Tris was already asleep. That made it easier for me to sit myself down on the toilet lid and get the chu jelly off myself without being questioned. I pulled it off, glob by glob, sorting it into piles by color on the surface of the bathroom sink. When I'd gotten myself mostly cleaned off, I shuffled into the kitchen to get some empty bottles out of the pantry, and brought them into the bathroom to scoop each pile of jelly into them. Then, I attached little notes onto them, to give Haruka any information I could possibly remember about these jellies from my past lives.

"Green chu jelly. Restores magic energy. Maybe would make it easier to use secret ninja art?"

"Red chu jelly. Restores health. Heals wounds. Test to see if it fixes clothes damage?"

"Blue chu jelly. Works like both red and green at once. Might have residual electrical properties because blue Chuchus have that?"

Who knew what she'd figure out she could do with these things? It seemed like she was always carrying around tons of little glass vials of who knew what. Stuff that could poison, burn, paralyze, or even heal. I felt like she'd appreciate this, more possible ingredients for her weird concoctions. Maybe a little more than she deserved, considering her abuse of me. But, hey, if I could say so myself, I was always pretty altruistic, and wouldn't mind helping almost anyone, no matter what. So if this made her happy, well, that'd make me happy too.

Now it was time to get the last residue off me by taking a freaking shower.