"What happened Yohko?" the doctor asked in something like shock after she finished her examination. The devil hunter nodded resignedly.
"You know about the devil hunter posters my friend Chigako has been putting up, right?" Yohko asked.
"Yes, a rather silly thing to consider," the doctor said. "Really, demons in this day and age."
Yohko smiled briefly and then conjured a small globe of spiritual energy which she quickly allowed to dissipate. The doctor stared palely at the place where Yohko had just demonstrated her power.
"Demons exist, Dr. Tomoe," Yohko said. "A few weeks ago I let myself get careless, and one of them speared me with a claw through here." She circled the gap just under her ribs. "I was healed by my ancestors' magic, but...I guess it didn't take all the way."
"I'm sorry, Yohko," the doctor said after a long moment considering the impossibility. Yohko nodded soberly.
"Don't tell my mother or grandmother about this, okay?" Yohko asked. The doctor looked doubtful. "Please, I'll find my own way to tell them later."
"As you wish," Dr. Tomoe conceeded after a moment.
"One hundred and eight generations of Mano devil hunters," Yohko sighed, shaking her head. "Tokima made sure of that."
*****
"Is something the matter, Yohko?" Chigako asked. The concern was obvious in her voice. Yohko looked up at Chi and smiled with quizzical expression on her face.
"No, of course not," Yohko said. "Why do ask?"
"You just seem kind of out of it these days," Chi said. "You haven't had a crush in the last week or so."
"I've just been thinking rather hard, Chi," Yohko said. "That last fight was the worst yet, though I did get to meet my ancestors."
"Well, snap out of it," Chi said. "You worrying me."
"Don't worry at all," Yohko said. "I plan to be back to eating, drinking and making merry in a little bit."
"You...drink?" Chigako said, confused and, interestingly enough, a little hopeful.
"It's an European saying I found translated, Chi," Yohko explained. "Eat, drink and be merry." She didn't finish it, after all, that would just worry her friend more.
*****
"What do you mean there's another branch of the Manos?!" Yohko demanded.
"It is the only possible explanation for this twin you saw of yourself," Madoka said, she went on to explain the old schism between herself and her sister.
~The Mano line won't necessarily die with me then,~ Yohko thought with immense relief.
*****
Yohko watched her cousin and her own Azusa walk off into the distance with her grandmother angrily berating her. The old woman was probably angry with Ayako for speaking to her cousin with civility.
Yohko didn't think Ayako was going to let her grandmother get to her any longer, the other girl had actually left with a smile on her face. A genuine smile rather than the wicked, vicious smiles she had displayed until then.
~Stay safe, Ayako,~ Yohko thought. ~The hope of our line's future lies with you.~
*****
"I bear no ill towards those coerced into evil," Yohko declared. "But against those that beings that fool the innocent along a path of pain and darkness...there can be NO FORGIVENESS!!! The 108th generation of Devil Hunters is here! Mano Yohko!!"
Madoka watched as her granddaughter launched into her spiel and transformed into the magical garments of the devil hunter. Since her encounter with Ayako, Yohko had been taking her training much more seriously, and it was showing in her power. She was still a ditz sometimes off the field of battle though.
The demon was an ugly crocodilian thing that seemed to be more than part bear. It cackled hideously with it's long snout and lashed about at her nimble granddaughter while boasting on how it would feast on her soul. The demon proved to be little to no match for Yohko, however, and it was quickly destroyed.
"Why are we over here in Nerima anyway?" Yohko asked as they headed home later. "They've got their own defenses."
"Yes," Madoka agreed. "But the majority of them are terribly ill today and Tendo-san asked me if we could cover for her sister's iinazuke while he watches over his family."
"Oh yeah," Yohko said. "Heard about that, that must be some flu to put people like us out of action." Madoka nodded in response.
*****
"This just in," the news caster was saying. "The Neriman flu epidemic has been identified as some entirely new strain of virus."
"And gah it's strong," a very miserable Yohko said from her bundle of blankets. Across from her, her grandmother was wrapped up as tight as Yohko and nodded irritably. "Grandmother, I thought the newscaster was a man..."
"Perhaps there is a substitution today," Madoka groaned. Azusa came in with steaming bowls of chicken noodle soup.
"Here you go," Azusa said brightly. She was really worried about Auntie Madoka, after all, Yohko's grandmother was old. "Eat up!"
"Thanks, Azusa," Yohko said. "But you should watch out around us you know...don't want you getting sick too."
"Oh, I'm fine," Azusa assured her.
"It seems that the last stage of the disease," the newscaster spoke as Madoka and Yohko started to sip their soup. "Inacts a major physical change on the victim. Men become women and women become men." The soup went flying out of the Mano's mouths.
"Oh dear," Azusa said, equally shocked. And then she sneezed.
*****
"Well," Madoka said. "Apparently a male can trigger the demon-hunter ring, unless it recognizes that you were born a woman."
"That's certainly a relief," Yohko agreed. "I don't care why it works, just that it works."
The ring had even adapted the outfit to the male body. Yohko's tall, slender and rather well-defined male body was dressed in a red jumpsuit with black highlights. The characteristic yin-yang of her line was still in the center of her front.
All in all she looked like something out of an American comic book.
She was going to have to fix the hair though, some sort of pony tail to use both magical hair ornaments, but that would look good as male and female. Her hair was mostly darker, black almost, but it had a touch of red to it in places. It sort of looked like a blood pool lying in the dark actually, she thought with a shiver.
"If we had to go searching for another devil hunter in all this mess..." Yohko indicated the television where someone was interviewing another victim.
"Actually," Madoka said. "Have you noticed? There haven't been many new invasions from the demon worlds recently."
"I had noticed," Yohko said.
"And you're still worried," Madoka smiled. "I might finally be rubbing off on you."
"Anyway, I've gotta go," Yohko said. "The movie's starting in a bit."
*****
It was only a week later when Yohko was able to return to his natural form. She stretched out and smiled as she considered the feminine body she hadn't been certain that she'd ever have again. She heard an overjoyed cry and giggle that told her that Azusa was unlocked as well.
The term "lock" was something that had drifted in from Nerima and those people had to deal with shapechanging before this. Yohko smiled as she stood up and walked to congratulate Azusa on her return.
"I've got to go visit, Chi," Yohko waved to her family. "She'll be getting unlocked sometime tonight."
*****
"YOHKO!!" Chigako gasped. "You're...you!!"
"Yep!" Yohko cheered. "Great isn't it!" Chigako walked over and looked Yohko over very carefully. She looked somewhat wistful for a moment.
"I was thinking I'd never see you like this again," Chi said.
"Well, you know what the news said," Yohko responded.
"Yeah, but you're the first I've seen recover," Chi said. "Kind of sad really."
"Huh?" Yohko said, confused. "Why?"
"Well," he blushed brightly and then leaned in. "Remember back when I was possessed?"
"Of course," Yohko said. "You tried to kill me! I always wondered how they got you actually. The other guy (AN: I forget the guy's name) was seduced by the principal but he didn't have time to get to you before coming to see me I thought."
"No he didn't," Chi said. "I sorta...fell for the same routine he did." Yohko blinked a moment in confusion and then turned bright red, taking a step back as she figured it out.
"You mean that..." Yohko trailed off a little.
"Yeah," Chi said. "I always sort of hoped that you'd give up on the guys and...you know. So that's why it's kind of sad. I only have a few hours left as a guy to spend with you."
"Uhhh," Yohko said. "Chi, you know that the change is still triggered by hot and cold water right?" Chi duplicated Yohko's earlier perplexed expression before looking really nervous.
"Sorry about that," Chi said nervously. "Let's just forget it okay?"
"Why should we?" Yohko asked.
"Huh?" Chigako said.
"I doesn't really matter anymore what we were born as, does it?" Yohko asked. "There aren't many other people out there that could handle my life, and you've made yourself part of it."
"Hmm, and how better to manage the talent than from an inside perspective," Chigako considered. She sidled experimentally up to Yohko. "Are you sure about this, Yohko?"
"Eat, drink and be merry," Yohko said, shrugging and smiling before letting Chigako kiss her.
*****
The first few months of dating Chigako were pure heaven. Yohko had never actually had a boyfriend that wasn't possessed, unwanted, or else died within a few days of meeting him. And here was a boyfriend, sometime girlfriend, that understood her, and had known her since they were little kids. Somebody that now knew how to avoid the collateral damage that went with Yohko's life.
It didn't last, unfortunately.
It first started when their dates began to have tendency to be at places that were haunted or otherwise needed the help of a devil hunter. Yohko had thought it was her bad luck at first, but it began to grow.
As time went on Chigako's acting got to be weaker in regards to these "unexpected" interruptions. Not to mention that Chi seemed to have no end of money of late, admittedly, some of that was showered on her, but still. Among other things there was the fact that she was putting herself through college and providing herself housing, a small apartment near their college.
Still if it was just the way that Chigako seemed to be using her for monetary gain of late, then she might have found a way to resolve the issue and worked through it. There were other situations, however.
Chigako did not like Yohko to be male at any time. She, or he, could get quite insistent about the matter. Yohko was starting to get annoyed with the lectures that came from accidental splashes.
Then there was the sex issue. They had been intimate a few times, unbeknownst to Madoka. Yohko had always been female at these times, though Chigako had experimented, a fact that grated on Yohko's nerves. If Chigako wanted to experiment she shouldn't get up in arms when Yohko wanted to. And Chigako always seemed to push the idea of sex forward, and get unreasonably upset if Yohko said no.
It had been getting worse for a while, when Chigako seemed to suddenly grow up. She still refused to do anything, socially or privately, with a male Yohko, but at least she didn't insist on bedroom activities for every date now. It was the fact that Yohko responded to this with distrust rather than relief that clued her in to the fact that relationship was dead.
Yesterday, Azusa had told Yohko that Chi had hit on her. Yohko didn't want to believe it, but after so long, she could no longer outright deny it. In fact, she had been thinking such thoughts herself for nearly a month.
Which was why she was paying a surprise visit to her boy/girlfriend. She leaped up to the balcony of Chi's apartment and crouched near the window.
"Did you hear that?" a girl's voice said nervously. It wasn't Chi. Actually Yohko recognized the voice. It was that Cold Water Goth Girl from Nerima, Gosunkugi or something. The person had some potential as a witch.
"Oh don't worry," Chigako-kun's voice said. "I have it on very good authority that this is one of the safest places in town."
"I don't know, Chi," a second girl said. "That certainly sounded like something was out there."
Yohko's eye was twitching angrily. To have been told and guessed was one thing, to hear it was something else entirely. She glared at the window and waited for Chi to make his appearance.
"Oh look, I'll show you," he opened the door, looking back at his two girlfriends, they were getting dressed. "See nothing the...uhh...Yohko..." He had turned around to see the blazingly angry face of his official girlfriend.
"Ummm, Mano-san," Gosunkugi said nervously. Yohko glanced at her for only a moment before glancing to the other girl. A wererat with purple fur and a very generous chest. Two girls, at least one born as a guy, with supernatural potential or powers. "I'll be going now."
"Don't bother," Yohko said coldly. "Chigako is now officially single and no longer my 'manager.' By the way, girls, did Chi tell you she hit on my apprentice. Eat, drink, and be merry....for tomorrow you die." With that, Yohko glared at the speechless Chi and leaped down to the ground, five stories below.
"Oh, damn," Chi muttered. "I hope she wasn't serious."
"Wait a minute," the wererat said. "He's got both of us and he isn't, like, satisfied? Romeo was right, you are just a jerk."
"Where'd I put my mallet," Gosunkugi asked, a voodoo doll in one hand. Chi shuddered as he turned to face the consequences for cheating on people with magical powers that he lacked.
*****
Next week found Yohko standing on a hill and looking out over a valley filled with the green of trees and other plants. He was currently a male for no better reason than that it would have driven Chigako insane. There was a relationship she wished had never happened. Yohko wondered if there was anything of the old friendship to salvage.
"Your grandmother is going insane," a voice behind her said. "She actually called me to accuse me of trying something."
"Oh?" Yohko responded, shrugging. "I just needed some time to think."
"Any more time thinking," Ayako said. "And I might just feel obligated to take the office of devil hunter as my grandmother wants."
"I'd rather you didn't Ayako," Yohko said suddenly. He stood up and walked to the edge of the hill and looked down to a couple that was casually working their way up the cliff to this same look out spot, pushing a baby carriage along the way. He sighed wistfully and shook his head.
Ayako walked up to him and looked down to see what had affected him. She snorted and looked up to her identical rival.
"I don't understand you," Ayako said. "You probably understand more about living as a devil hunter than my grandmother does." Granted that wasn't difficult since Ayako's grandmother was more focused on revenge than devil hunting. "And yet off the battlefield you're probably the most irresponsible idiot I've ever seen. And what's more, you obviously don't want to live this life forever, and yet you cling to it like driftwood in a storm."
"It's my duty, Ayako," Yohko said. "You should know that."
"I can fulfill the duty and without a fight if you want to go on to what you call a normal life," Ayako said, irritably waving at the couple heading their way.
"That's just it," Yohko said sadly. "I can't. Chigako was the closest I had gotten to it, and that's over now."
"Feh, what's that little moneycounter done now?" Ayako asked.
"Apparently, as long as they're currently a good looking female," Yohko said. "Chigako doesn't care who she's with. Azusa told me she hit on her."
"Azusa could be mistaken," Ayako said, though there was a suspicious time in the past when Chigako had "mistaken" her for Yohko.
"And then I found her in bed with two girls," Yohko said bitterly.
"There are other people out there," Ayako said after a moment. A part of her was selfishly trying to get Yohko to drop the office so she could take it.
"It doesn't matter," Yohko said. He indicated the couple heading up to them. "I'll never have that. Anyway, Ayako, much as I'd rather you kept yourself safe, what makes you think there isn't room for all of us as devil hunters in this world?"
"What do you mean you'd rather I kept myself safe," Ayako asked suspiciously. Yohko frowned and walked away from the look out point as the couple began to get close.
"There's a good ice cream shop this way," Yohko said, pointing. "There's going to be a bad fight coming, I can feel it. I'll explain along the way."
"And you'd prepare with ice cream?" Ayako asked, surprised as Yohko grabbed her hand and started walking down the hill.
"Ayako, I'd rather you didn't take an active role," Yohko said. "Because you're the last hope for the continuance of the Mano line."
"What?" Ayako snapped, stopping for a moment in straight shock before moving forward to catch up to Yohko. "What do you mean by that?"
"The last major battle before I met you," Yohko said. "I was stabbed through here." He circled his abdomen just below the ribs. "I was healed magically, but...I'm barren."
"And your advice to me is stay home and make babies," Ayako growled irritably. "I can't do that Yohko, this is my duty as well as yours."
"I know," Yohko said. She shrugged again. "Anyway, on to the ice cream, I need a lot of it."
"This is a serious matter, Yohko," Ayako snapped angrily. "When are you going to take things seriously outside of a fight?"
"Ayako," Yohko said, his normal cheerful expression appearing on his face. "Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we die."
"I'd rather prepare to avoid the death," Ayako said solemnly.
"Still, it could be the last day we stand on Earth," Yohko said. "Tomorrow some demon is going to come into our world, and we'll have to stop it, or else."
"And what will you do on the last day of your life?" Ayako asked.
She was worried at the pseudo-cheer the young man before her was producing. Apparently Yohko's diztiness and eternal cheer was more like a type of depression than true joy. Ayako had thought she'd known him much better than that.
"I just have to see what comes around," Yohko said, she turned to Ayako with a smile and quickly kissed the unprepared devil-hunter. Ayako's eyes widened in confusion as the kiss began, then Yohko pulled away. "Come on, the ice cream isn't going to wait forever."
Ayako followed in something of a daze, wondering just what had possessed Yohko to kiss her like that.
*****
"Oh damn," Yohko muttered as he woke up in his motel room. "This was stupid." The woman next to him stirred at the sound and sat up, crossing her arms irritably.
"That is not what I usually hear after a night like that," Ayako muttered.
She grumbled inwardly for being soft and feeling sorry for Yohko. Picking people up off the rebound was not her usual practice, she certainly didn't like being picked up by someone on the rebound. Much less someone that she had trained her entire life to defeat in combat.
The cousin part didn't particularly bother her. After all, it was more like Yohko was the daughter of her mother's cousin. Americans might call it fourth or fifth cousin or something like that.
"Did I get drunk or something?" Yohko asked.
"My ego suffers yet another blow," Ayako said bitterly.
"This isn't about you, Ayako," Yohko said. "Once you got over that whole revenge kick you turned into someone anybody would be lucky to have. A little vicious and harsh, but basically a nice person. I just don't know what I was thinking to do this."
"Thank you again," Ayako said tapping her fingers.
"Look, sorry about this," Yohko said standing up quickly and gathering her clothes. "But we should get going, monster coming tonight. Just forget this ever happened." Then Yohko was gone through the door to the bathroom.
Ayako grumbled irritably, trying to work through the what Yohko's problem with last night was. It certainly hadn't been her ability, it better had not be. Then she remembered and rolled her eyes.
"She doesn't want anything to do with me because she's barren," Ayako reasoned. "She probably thinks I took this as more than a one night stand."
Ayako shook her head irritably and glared in the direction of the shower and waited as she collected her clothes. She tried to ignore the empty part of her that hid the hurt she felt. She still believed that Yohko was the best devil hunter of them, and she tended to look up to her in that regard
Ayako walked into the bathroom and glanced at Yohko taking her shower. The hot water had returned her to her birth form, and Ayako found herself admiring the woman's curves. Curves she knew very well as they were as much her's as Yohko's.
"Uh, hi," Yohko said nervously, avoiding looking at Ayako. "What are you doing?"
"Oh please," Ayako said. "I felt sorry for you, that's all. As if anything come of a one-night stand off of a rebound."
Ayako shook her head and picked up a bucket to wash herself off. As the cold water washed over her back she noticed that she hadn't changed. Yohko also noticed and blinked nervously. Both had heard enough about the change to know what could lock it.
"Tell me," Ayako said cooly, not yet looking up. There was a tiny smirk on her face that Yohko could not see, and Ayako didn't quite understand. "When you acquired the virus, did you bother to see if your male form was sterile as well?"
"Well...." Yohko said. Ayako took a deep breath to steady herself.
"After this demon you're sure is coming tonight," Ayako said. "I'm going to kill you." Yohko swallowed nervously. Still, Ayako couldn't help but feel as if she'd won somehow.
*****
"Yohko!!" the demon-hunter turned to face her
grandmoth...err father with an annoyed glare. "How
can you date that...PERSON!?!"
"Hey, she's cool once you get to know him," Yohko
shrugged. "Besides, she's trustworthy unlike certain people."
"That's not the point," Madoka shouted.
"Oh give it up, Grandma," Yohko snorted. "I'm not
dumping Ayako, and that's that. In fact she's moving in."
"What?" Madoka said in disbelief.
"Well her grandmother disowned her," Yohko said. "And the other Azusa for sticking up with her, so they're coming here to live with us."
"What did she do to get disowned by that morally decrepit hag?" Madoka asked.
"She got pregnant," Yohka said, a little embarrassed.
"I'd think my sister would count that as a victory," her grandmother said.
"Well...it's my baby," Yohko said. Mano Madoka almost thought she was having a heartattack.
"You know about the devil hunter posters my friend Chigako has been putting up, right?" Yohko asked.
"Yes, a rather silly thing to consider," the doctor said. "Really, demons in this day and age."
Yohko smiled briefly and then conjured a small globe of spiritual energy which she quickly allowed to dissipate. The doctor stared palely at the place where Yohko had just demonstrated her power.
"Demons exist, Dr. Tomoe," Yohko said. "A few weeks ago I let myself get careless, and one of them speared me with a claw through here." She circled the gap just under her ribs. "I was healed by my ancestors' magic, but...I guess it didn't take all the way."
"I'm sorry, Yohko," the doctor said after a long moment considering the impossibility. Yohko nodded soberly.
"Don't tell my mother or grandmother about this, okay?" Yohko asked. The doctor looked doubtful. "Please, I'll find my own way to tell them later."
"As you wish," Dr. Tomoe conceeded after a moment.
"One hundred and eight generations of Mano devil hunters," Yohko sighed, shaking her head. "Tokima made sure of that."
*****
"Is something the matter, Yohko?" Chigako asked. The concern was obvious in her voice. Yohko looked up at Chi and smiled with quizzical expression on her face.
"No, of course not," Yohko said. "Why do ask?"
"You just seem kind of out of it these days," Chi said. "You haven't had a crush in the last week or so."
"I've just been thinking rather hard, Chi," Yohko said. "That last fight was the worst yet, though I did get to meet my ancestors."
"Well, snap out of it," Chi said. "You worrying me."
"Don't worry at all," Yohko said. "I plan to be back to eating, drinking and making merry in a little bit."
"You...drink?" Chigako said, confused and, interestingly enough, a little hopeful.
"It's an European saying I found translated, Chi," Yohko explained. "Eat, drink and be merry." She didn't finish it, after all, that would just worry her friend more.
*****
"What do you mean there's another branch of the Manos?!" Yohko demanded.
"It is the only possible explanation for this twin you saw of yourself," Madoka said, she went on to explain the old schism between herself and her sister.
~The Mano line won't necessarily die with me then,~ Yohko thought with immense relief.
*****
Yohko watched her cousin and her own Azusa walk off into the distance with her grandmother angrily berating her. The old woman was probably angry with Ayako for speaking to her cousin with civility.
Yohko didn't think Ayako was going to let her grandmother get to her any longer, the other girl had actually left with a smile on her face. A genuine smile rather than the wicked, vicious smiles she had displayed until then.
~Stay safe, Ayako,~ Yohko thought. ~The hope of our line's future lies with you.~
*****
"I bear no ill towards those coerced into evil," Yohko declared. "But against those that beings that fool the innocent along a path of pain and darkness...there can be NO FORGIVENESS!!! The 108th generation of Devil Hunters is here! Mano Yohko!!"
Madoka watched as her granddaughter launched into her spiel and transformed into the magical garments of the devil hunter. Since her encounter with Ayako, Yohko had been taking her training much more seriously, and it was showing in her power. She was still a ditz sometimes off the field of battle though.
The demon was an ugly crocodilian thing that seemed to be more than part bear. It cackled hideously with it's long snout and lashed about at her nimble granddaughter while boasting on how it would feast on her soul. The demon proved to be little to no match for Yohko, however, and it was quickly destroyed.
"Why are we over here in Nerima anyway?" Yohko asked as they headed home later. "They've got their own defenses."
"Yes," Madoka agreed. "But the majority of them are terribly ill today and Tendo-san asked me if we could cover for her sister's iinazuke while he watches over his family."
"Oh yeah," Yohko said. "Heard about that, that must be some flu to put people like us out of action." Madoka nodded in response.
*****
"This just in," the news caster was saying. "The Neriman flu epidemic has been identified as some entirely new strain of virus."
"And gah it's strong," a very miserable Yohko said from her bundle of blankets. Across from her, her grandmother was wrapped up as tight as Yohko and nodded irritably. "Grandmother, I thought the newscaster was a man..."
"Perhaps there is a substitution today," Madoka groaned. Azusa came in with steaming bowls of chicken noodle soup.
"Here you go," Azusa said brightly. She was really worried about Auntie Madoka, after all, Yohko's grandmother was old. "Eat up!"
"Thanks, Azusa," Yohko said. "But you should watch out around us you know...don't want you getting sick too."
"Oh, I'm fine," Azusa assured her.
"It seems that the last stage of the disease," the newscaster spoke as Madoka and Yohko started to sip their soup. "Inacts a major physical change on the victim. Men become women and women become men." The soup went flying out of the Mano's mouths.
"Oh dear," Azusa said, equally shocked. And then she sneezed.
*****
"Well," Madoka said. "Apparently a male can trigger the demon-hunter ring, unless it recognizes that you were born a woman."
"That's certainly a relief," Yohko agreed. "I don't care why it works, just that it works."
The ring had even adapted the outfit to the male body. Yohko's tall, slender and rather well-defined male body was dressed in a red jumpsuit with black highlights. The characteristic yin-yang of her line was still in the center of her front.
All in all she looked like something out of an American comic book.
She was going to have to fix the hair though, some sort of pony tail to use both magical hair ornaments, but that would look good as male and female. Her hair was mostly darker, black almost, but it had a touch of red to it in places. It sort of looked like a blood pool lying in the dark actually, she thought with a shiver.
"If we had to go searching for another devil hunter in all this mess..." Yohko indicated the television where someone was interviewing another victim.
"Actually," Madoka said. "Have you noticed? There haven't been many new invasions from the demon worlds recently."
"I had noticed," Yohko said.
"And you're still worried," Madoka smiled. "I might finally be rubbing off on you."
"Anyway, I've gotta go," Yohko said. "The movie's starting in a bit."
*****
It was only a week later when Yohko was able to return to his natural form. She stretched out and smiled as she considered the feminine body she hadn't been certain that she'd ever have again. She heard an overjoyed cry and giggle that told her that Azusa was unlocked as well.
The term "lock" was something that had drifted in from Nerima and those people had to deal with shapechanging before this. Yohko smiled as she stood up and walked to congratulate Azusa on her return.
"I've got to go visit, Chi," Yohko waved to her family. "She'll be getting unlocked sometime tonight."
*****
"YOHKO!!" Chigako gasped. "You're...you!!"
"Yep!" Yohko cheered. "Great isn't it!" Chigako walked over and looked Yohko over very carefully. She looked somewhat wistful for a moment.
"I was thinking I'd never see you like this again," Chi said.
"Well, you know what the news said," Yohko responded.
"Yeah, but you're the first I've seen recover," Chi said. "Kind of sad really."
"Huh?" Yohko said, confused. "Why?"
"Well," he blushed brightly and then leaned in. "Remember back when I was possessed?"
"Of course," Yohko said. "You tried to kill me! I always wondered how they got you actually. The other guy (AN: I forget the guy's name) was seduced by the principal but he didn't have time to get to you before coming to see me I thought."
"No he didn't," Chi said. "I sorta...fell for the same routine he did." Yohko blinked a moment in confusion and then turned bright red, taking a step back as she figured it out.
"You mean that..." Yohko trailed off a little.
"Yeah," Chi said. "I always sort of hoped that you'd give up on the guys and...you know. So that's why it's kind of sad. I only have a few hours left as a guy to spend with you."
"Uhhh," Yohko said. "Chi, you know that the change is still triggered by hot and cold water right?" Chi duplicated Yohko's earlier perplexed expression before looking really nervous.
"Sorry about that," Chi said nervously. "Let's just forget it okay?"
"Why should we?" Yohko asked.
"Huh?" Chigako said.
"I doesn't really matter anymore what we were born as, does it?" Yohko asked. "There aren't many other people out there that could handle my life, and you've made yourself part of it."
"Hmm, and how better to manage the talent than from an inside perspective," Chigako considered. She sidled experimentally up to Yohko. "Are you sure about this, Yohko?"
"Eat, drink and be merry," Yohko said, shrugging and smiling before letting Chigako kiss her.
*****
The first few months of dating Chigako were pure heaven. Yohko had never actually had a boyfriend that wasn't possessed, unwanted, or else died within a few days of meeting him. And here was a boyfriend, sometime girlfriend, that understood her, and had known her since they were little kids. Somebody that now knew how to avoid the collateral damage that went with Yohko's life.
It didn't last, unfortunately.
It first started when their dates began to have tendency to be at places that were haunted or otherwise needed the help of a devil hunter. Yohko had thought it was her bad luck at first, but it began to grow.
As time went on Chigako's acting got to be weaker in regards to these "unexpected" interruptions. Not to mention that Chi seemed to have no end of money of late, admittedly, some of that was showered on her, but still. Among other things there was the fact that she was putting herself through college and providing herself housing, a small apartment near their college.
Still if it was just the way that Chigako seemed to be using her for monetary gain of late, then she might have found a way to resolve the issue and worked through it. There were other situations, however.
Chigako did not like Yohko to be male at any time. She, or he, could get quite insistent about the matter. Yohko was starting to get annoyed with the lectures that came from accidental splashes.
Then there was the sex issue. They had been intimate a few times, unbeknownst to Madoka. Yohko had always been female at these times, though Chigako had experimented, a fact that grated on Yohko's nerves. If Chigako wanted to experiment she shouldn't get up in arms when Yohko wanted to. And Chigako always seemed to push the idea of sex forward, and get unreasonably upset if Yohko said no.
It had been getting worse for a while, when Chigako seemed to suddenly grow up. She still refused to do anything, socially or privately, with a male Yohko, but at least she didn't insist on bedroom activities for every date now. It was the fact that Yohko responded to this with distrust rather than relief that clued her in to the fact that relationship was dead.
Yesterday, Azusa had told Yohko that Chi had hit on her. Yohko didn't want to believe it, but after so long, she could no longer outright deny it. In fact, she had been thinking such thoughts herself for nearly a month.
Which was why she was paying a surprise visit to her boy/girlfriend. She leaped up to the balcony of Chi's apartment and crouched near the window.
"Did you hear that?" a girl's voice said nervously. It wasn't Chi. Actually Yohko recognized the voice. It was that Cold Water Goth Girl from Nerima, Gosunkugi or something. The person had some potential as a witch.
"Oh don't worry," Chigako-kun's voice said. "I have it on very good authority that this is one of the safest places in town."
"I don't know, Chi," a second girl said. "That certainly sounded like something was out there."
Yohko's eye was twitching angrily. To have been told and guessed was one thing, to hear it was something else entirely. She glared at the window and waited for Chi to make his appearance.
"Oh look, I'll show you," he opened the door, looking back at his two girlfriends, they were getting dressed. "See nothing the...uhh...Yohko..." He had turned around to see the blazingly angry face of his official girlfriend.
"Ummm, Mano-san," Gosunkugi said nervously. Yohko glanced at her for only a moment before glancing to the other girl. A wererat with purple fur and a very generous chest. Two girls, at least one born as a guy, with supernatural potential or powers. "I'll be going now."
"Don't bother," Yohko said coldly. "Chigako is now officially single and no longer my 'manager.' By the way, girls, did Chi tell you she hit on my apprentice. Eat, drink, and be merry....for tomorrow you die." With that, Yohko glared at the speechless Chi and leaped down to the ground, five stories below.
"Oh, damn," Chi muttered. "I hope she wasn't serious."
"Wait a minute," the wererat said. "He's got both of us and he isn't, like, satisfied? Romeo was right, you are just a jerk."
"Where'd I put my mallet," Gosunkugi asked, a voodoo doll in one hand. Chi shuddered as he turned to face the consequences for cheating on people with magical powers that he lacked.
*****
Next week found Yohko standing on a hill and looking out over a valley filled with the green of trees and other plants. He was currently a male for no better reason than that it would have driven Chigako insane. There was a relationship she wished had never happened. Yohko wondered if there was anything of the old friendship to salvage.
"Your grandmother is going insane," a voice behind her said. "She actually called me to accuse me of trying something."
"Oh?" Yohko responded, shrugging. "I just needed some time to think."
"Any more time thinking," Ayako said. "And I might just feel obligated to take the office of devil hunter as my grandmother wants."
"I'd rather you didn't Ayako," Yohko said suddenly. He stood up and walked to the edge of the hill and looked down to a couple that was casually working their way up the cliff to this same look out spot, pushing a baby carriage along the way. He sighed wistfully and shook his head.
Ayako walked up to him and looked down to see what had affected him. She snorted and looked up to her identical rival.
"I don't understand you," Ayako said. "You probably understand more about living as a devil hunter than my grandmother does." Granted that wasn't difficult since Ayako's grandmother was more focused on revenge than devil hunting. "And yet off the battlefield you're probably the most irresponsible idiot I've ever seen. And what's more, you obviously don't want to live this life forever, and yet you cling to it like driftwood in a storm."
"It's my duty, Ayako," Yohko said. "You should know that."
"I can fulfill the duty and without a fight if you want to go on to what you call a normal life," Ayako said, irritably waving at the couple heading their way.
"That's just it," Yohko said sadly. "I can't. Chigako was the closest I had gotten to it, and that's over now."
"Feh, what's that little moneycounter done now?" Ayako asked.
"Apparently, as long as they're currently a good looking female," Yohko said. "Chigako doesn't care who she's with. Azusa told me she hit on her."
"Azusa could be mistaken," Ayako said, though there was a suspicious time in the past when Chigako had "mistaken" her for Yohko.
"And then I found her in bed with two girls," Yohko said bitterly.
"There are other people out there," Ayako said after a moment. A part of her was selfishly trying to get Yohko to drop the office so she could take it.
"It doesn't matter," Yohko said. He indicated the couple heading up to them. "I'll never have that. Anyway, Ayako, much as I'd rather you kept yourself safe, what makes you think there isn't room for all of us as devil hunters in this world?"
"What do you mean you'd rather I kept myself safe," Ayako asked suspiciously. Yohko frowned and walked away from the look out point as the couple began to get close.
"There's a good ice cream shop this way," Yohko said, pointing. "There's going to be a bad fight coming, I can feel it. I'll explain along the way."
"And you'd prepare with ice cream?" Ayako asked, surprised as Yohko grabbed her hand and started walking down the hill.
"Ayako, I'd rather you didn't take an active role," Yohko said. "Because you're the last hope for the continuance of the Mano line."
"What?" Ayako snapped, stopping for a moment in straight shock before moving forward to catch up to Yohko. "What do you mean by that?"
"The last major battle before I met you," Yohko said. "I was stabbed through here." He circled his abdomen just below the ribs. "I was healed magically, but...I'm barren."
"And your advice to me is stay home and make babies," Ayako growled irritably. "I can't do that Yohko, this is my duty as well as yours."
"I know," Yohko said. She shrugged again. "Anyway, on to the ice cream, I need a lot of it."
"This is a serious matter, Yohko," Ayako snapped angrily. "When are you going to take things seriously outside of a fight?"
"Ayako," Yohko said, his normal cheerful expression appearing on his face. "Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we die."
"I'd rather prepare to avoid the death," Ayako said solemnly.
"Still, it could be the last day we stand on Earth," Yohko said. "Tomorrow some demon is going to come into our world, and we'll have to stop it, or else."
"And what will you do on the last day of your life?" Ayako asked.
She was worried at the pseudo-cheer the young man before her was producing. Apparently Yohko's diztiness and eternal cheer was more like a type of depression than true joy. Ayako had thought she'd known him much better than that.
"I just have to see what comes around," Yohko said, she turned to Ayako with a smile and quickly kissed the unprepared devil-hunter. Ayako's eyes widened in confusion as the kiss began, then Yohko pulled away. "Come on, the ice cream isn't going to wait forever."
Ayako followed in something of a daze, wondering just what had possessed Yohko to kiss her like that.
*****
"Oh damn," Yohko muttered as he woke up in his motel room. "This was stupid." The woman next to him stirred at the sound and sat up, crossing her arms irritably.
"That is not what I usually hear after a night like that," Ayako muttered.
She grumbled inwardly for being soft and feeling sorry for Yohko. Picking people up off the rebound was not her usual practice, she certainly didn't like being picked up by someone on the rebound. Much less someone that she had trained her entire life to defeat in combat.
The cousin part didn't particularly bother her. After all, it was more like Yohko was the daughter of her mother's cousin. Americans might call it fourth or fifth cousin or something like that.
"Did I get drunk or something?" Yohko asked.
"My ego suffers yet another blow," Ayako said bitterly.
"This isn't about you, Ayako," Yohko said. "Once you got over that whole revenge kick you turned into someone anybody would be lucky to have. A little vicious and harsh, but basically a nice person. I just don't know what I was thinking to do this."
"Thank you again," Ayako said tapping her fingers.
"Look, sorry about this," Yohko said standing up quickly and gathering her clothes. "But we should get going, monster coming tonight. Just forget this ever happened." Then Yohko was gone through the door to the bathroom.
Ayako grumbled irritably, trying to work through the what Yohko's problem with last night was. It certainly hadn't been her ability, it better had not be. Then she remembered and rolled her eyes.
"She doesn't want anything to do with me because she's barren," Ayako reasoned. "She probably thinks I took this as more than a one night stand."
Ayako shook her head irritably and glared in the direction of the shower and waited as she collected her clothes. She tried to ignore the empty part of her that hid the hurt she felt. She still believed that Yohko was the best devil hunter of them, and she tended to look up to her in that regard
Ayako walked into the bathroom and glanced at Yohko taking her shower. The hot water had returned her to her birth form, and Ayako found herself admiring the woman's curves. Curves she knew very well as they were as much her's as Yohko's.
"Uh, hi," Yohko said nervously, avoiding looking at Ayako. "What are you doing?"
"Oh please," Ayako said. "I felt sorry for you, that's all. As if anything come of a one-night stand off of a rebound."
Ayako shook her head and picked up a bucket to wash herself off. As the cold water washed over her back she noticed that she hadn't changed. Yohko also noticed and blinked nervously. Both had heard enough about the change to know what could lock it.
"Tell me," Ayako said cooly, not yet looking up. There was a tiny smirk on her face that Yohko could not see, and Ayako didn't quite understand. "When you acquired the virus, did you bother to see if your male form was sterile as well?"
"Well...." Yohko said. Ayako took a deep breath to steady herself.
"After this demon you're sure is coming tonight," Ayako said. "I'm going to kill you." Yohko swallowed nervously. Still, Ayako couldn't help but feel as if she'd won somehow.
*****
"Yohko!!" the demon-hunter turned to face her
grandmoth...err father with an annoyed glare. "How
can you date that...PERSON!?!"
"Hey, she's cool once you get to know him," Yohko
shrugged. "Besides, she's trustworthy unlike certain people."
"That's not the point," Madoka shouted.
"Oh give it up, Grandma," Yohko snorted. "I'm not
dumping Ayako, and that's that. In fact she's moving in."
"What?" Madoka said in disbelief.
"Well her grandmother disowned her," Yohko said. "And the other Azusa for sticking up with her, so they're coming here to live with us."
"What did she do to get disowned by that morally decrepit hag?" Madoka asked.
"She got pregnant," Yohka said, a little embarrassed.
"I'd think my sister would count that as a victory," her grandmother said.
"Well...it's my baby," Yohko said. Mano Madoka almost thought she was having a heartattack.