Chapter 1

The Seraph Special Intelligence Building, Sheiramoth City…

Alaric Rald looked up when Elvira Neiva walked into his office.

"You asked for me, sir?" the girl asked, as she stood before him.

"Yes. Please, have a seat," he said, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk.

After she was seated, Alaric clasped his hands together and leaned forward. He regarded the girl in front of him for a moment, before reaching into his drawer and took out a yellow file, which he handed to Elvira. "This is your new assignment."

Elvira took the file and turned to the first page, where a picture of teenage boy was attached.

"You know what to do."

Elvira closed the file and looked up. "I'll take care of it right away."

Alaric nodded his head. "Good. I've already informed Vipponah about your assignment. He'll be providing you with everything you need. New identity, credentials… you know the usual stuff."

"Yes, I know." Elvira stood up and turned to leave.

"Elvira."

Elvira looked at Alaric.

"Be careful, will you?"

Elvira gave the Head of the Seraph Department a grateful smile. "I will." With that, she opened the door and left the room.

-

In another part of the building…

Elvira knocked on the door, before calling out, "Vip, it's me, El. Can I come in?"

When nobody answered her call, she knocked again. "Vip, are you in there?"

After waiting for one whole minute, she turned the knob and pushed open the door, stepping into the room cautiously.

"Vip? Vip, where are you?" she called out.

"I'm here," came a voice from behind of her.

Elvira turned around to find herself looking at… nothing. She narrowed her eyes. "Vipponah Isidro, this is not funny. I'm here on business, so let's get down to it, alright?"

There was a sigh. "Alright. Stand back a little will you?"

Elvira took a step back, and the air particles of the empty space in front of her started swirling and twirling, slowly coming together until an outline of a figure could be seen. Then, it began to take on colour after colour, until finally, a man in his early twenties materialized himself before her.

"Geez! You're as serious as ever, El," he grumbled good-naturedly. "Anyway, I've been expecting you. Come with me please."

He led Elvira across the room, which was filled with rows and rows of shelves, each of them reaching the ceiling and filled to the brim with documents of all sorts, until they came to a stop in front of his desk. He rummaged through the huge pile of papers on the table, obviously finding for the one which belonged to Elvira.

"You're hopeless, Vip," said Elvira.

"No, I'm not. Watch," Vipponah replied defiantly. He snapped his fingers, and immediately, the pile of papers flew up in the air, rearranging themselves accordingly, before falling back down onto the table in one neat stack.

Vipponah snapped his fingers again, and a single sheet shot out from the middle of the pile into his waiting hands. He handed the paper to Elvira with a flourish. "Ta-da!"

"Bravo," said Elvira, her face expressionless. She carefully went through the contents of the paper, while Vipponah busied himself with the other paperwork on his desk.

"Hold on a second. What is this?" Elvira asked in an incredulous tone, as she pointed to a particular section in the paper.

"You can read, right? It's exactly what it says," said Vipponah nonchalantly.

Elvira eyed the other person disbelievingly. "This is ridiculous. I never had to do this in the past. Why do I have to do it now?"

Vipponah smiled sweetly, so sweet that even the bees and butterflies would drop dead from too much of it. "Well, I thought that it would be fun to do things differently once in a while. Besides, you can't let your shape-shifting and gender-bending abilities go to waste you know. It's a sin."

"Right…" said Elvira, totally unconvinced. "Is there something about this guy that I should know and you're not telling me about?"

"No, nothing," Vipponah answered innocently.

"Are you sure? You can't hide anything from me, Vip. I'm your cousin after all, and we grew up together literally."

"Well, even if there is something you should know and I didn't tell you about, I'm sure you'll be able to handle things just fine. I mean, you're a Seraph, for crying out loud. Plus, the blood of an Aphrodonis runs through your veins. You're a cut above everyone else." Vipponah fluttered his eyelashes at her, and Elvira shook her head.

"You know Vip, sometimes I think you should just change into a girl and stay as one."

"Oh, I can change into a girl alright. That's what an Aphrodonis does, after all." As he was saying this, his short blond hair began to grow until they reached his waist, his skin became smoother and softer and fairer, his chest grew bigger and his figure grew slimmer until he could very well pass himself off as a lingerie model.

"I look good," he said, admiring himself in the mirror which suddenly appeared in front of him out of nowhere. His voice had already changed into a high-pitched woman's one.

Elvira rolled her eyes. "Oh, please."

"However, I think I prefer to stay as a guy," said Vipponah, not paying attention to Elvira. In a blink of an eye, he changed back into his male self. Then, he turned to Elvira. "So?"

Elvira heaved a sigh. "Fine. Whatever. I'll do it."

Vipponah's face broke into a big smile, and he patted Elvira on the shoulder. "That's my girl! Now, let's continue with the briefing, shall we?"

-

Ryonan, Kanagawa, Japan…

"Akira! Akira, wake up! You're going to be late for school."

Groggily, Sendoh Akira sat up on his bed. "Yes, okaasan. I'm up," he called back to his mother.

"Hurry up. Your cousin's waiting for you downstairs."

Sendoh's eyes widened in surprise. "Cousin? What cousin?" he asked, but Mrs Sendoh had already gone downstairs and didn't answer him.

Curious and eager to know what was going on, Sendoh quickly got himself ready, jumped down the stairs 2 steps at a time and bounded into the living room, where he saw his father talking to someone he didn't recognise.

"Akira, you're finally here," Mr Sendoh exclaimed. "Come and meet your cousin."

Sendoh appeared not to have heard his father, as he was too busy staring at said cousin. He slowly took in the longish black hair, the icy blue eyes behind the pair of glasses, and the very, very pale complexion of the other boy. He was shorter than Sendoh himself, but tall nevertheless, and was dressed in a white collared long-sleeved shirt and white pants, with the shirt not tucked in and the top three buttons opened, revealing the pale smooth chest underneath.

Kirei… thought Sendoh, wondering if this was just a dream.

As if he could read Sendoh's mind, the boy raised an eyebrow, causing Sendoh to cough and clear his throat in an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

"Ah… sumi masen. I guess I'm still not fully awake yet," said Sendoh, rubbing the back of his head and laughing embarrassedly.

"Don't mind my son, Yuki-kun. He's always like that," Mr Sendoh spoke up. "Anyway, Akira, this is your cousin, Yuki-kun. He's your grandmother's sister's daughter's son from Okinawa, and he's here to stay with us for the rest of the year. He'll be joining you in your school, probably in your class too."

Sendoh looked confused. "Um, can you repeat the first part, otousan? The part where you were saying he was whose and whose son?"

"He's your grandmother's sister's daughter's son. Your grandmother's sister's grandson. Your grandmother's grandnephew. Your grand- oh, never mind. Your mother and his mother are cousins, and that makes you and him cousins too. In a way."

Sendoh blinked, and then slowly nodded his head. "Um, ok."

Turning to his newfound relative, he held out his hand and smiled. "Nice to meet you. My name's Sendoh Akira, but you can just call me Akira."

The boy smiled back at him, and Sendoh thought he was going to faint from ecstasy.

"Nice to meet you too, Akira. I'm Tenchi Shiroyuki, but you can just call me Yuki."

Tbc...