Ginji put his… Akabane's… hand on the cool brick wall of a nearby building and eased his way down the alley. His… Akabane's… Gods this was confusing… ankle hurt, possibly sprained in the force of the explosion.
He made it as far as a bus stop bench before having to sit down. This was ridiculous. He didn't know what to do about finding himself in his nightmare's body. He didn't know what do to about the fact that he could barely walk on his wounded ankle, let alone make it to… to… to where?
He wondered if he had enough cash in his pocket to get a taxi back to the Honky Tonk. Paul would… well, maybe Paul wouldn't know what to do, but Paul could call Makubex. Since he lived in the virtual world, he might know something about body swapping. At the least, he'd probably be able to find something on the Internet that would help Ginji.
The first thing he pulled out wasn't money, but a rumpled and bloody tissue. "Eeeew!" Ginji said, dropping it on the ground. Well, he knew that was littering, but there was no way he was going to pick it up.
There was a cell phone, but he couldn't figure out how to turn it on. It had some kind of key lock that he didn't know how to deactivate on it. Frustrated, he set the phone down and dug further into Akabane's pocket, finally managing to fish out a small black wallet.
He opened it up, and found himself holding more cash in his hands than he ever had before in his life. His eyes grew large and joyful, sparkling slightly. His ankle, miraculously cured by the concept of being able to use the money to buy himself a decent meal, ceased to throb.
"Ginji, stop," a little floating angel-Ginji fussed. Strangely, it still looked like Ginji's normal body but with little angel wings and a white robe. "That's not your money!"
"Take it, Ginji. Akabane-san owes you for all the mental torture he's inflicted on you," a yellow-haired Ginji devil smirked, waving his tiny pitchfork about.
"It's not your body, Ginji. Even if you do eat-"
"It'll mean that you're doing a favor to Akabane-san. Can't you hear your… er… well… this body's tummy rumbling? He's hungry. He's most certainly eat something if he were in his own body."
"Well, I guess that is true," Ginji in Akabane's body mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, even if this isn't my body, it still needs to eat something."
"That's right! So go out and get yourself some meat. The real stuff that they only serve in high class joints," Ginji-devil argued.
Ginji stuck the wallet and cell phone back in Akabane's pocket. "I suppose Akabane-san probably likes meat…" Ginji only made it a single step before his injured ankle made itself known again, and he fell flat on his face. "Ouch," he muttered, wondering if the pavement would leave an imprint mark on his face.
He struggled back to his feet with the aid of a light post. "Maybe I should stop into a convenience store and get a Band-Aid…"
Pushing open the door and hobbling in, Ginji was for once happy to have Akabane's gigantic hat, as he wasn't sure his eyes could handle the harsh yellow lights of the all-night store after such a stressful evening.
"Welcome. Can I help you?" a brunette clerk asked. She had three piercings on her left eyebrow and red shocks through her hair, suggesting that she was probably the sort to like a night job. Which meant that she likely didn't usually great her customers so… enthusiastically, if it could be called that… but he looked like one of her own people.
"I just need an ace bandage. I hurt my ankle and…"
"Isle 3, near the antiseptics. If you want, you can come behind the counter to put it on."
"I'd really appreciate that," Ginji said, smiling earnestly at her before limping down isle 3 to find that he needed. Borrowing a small brown metal folding chair from the clerk, he slowly worked the black shoe off and then the sock underneath.
The ankle looked horrible. It was black, purple, and several shades of brown and blue. It was so badly swollen he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get the shoe back on, even if he didn't bandage it. This wasn't good. It could be a fracture. What would he do if Akabane's ankle were fractured? He wasn't sure he could go into a hospital safely as a patient, even if Akabane had done it as a visitor. What if someone connected his name to Dr. Jackal, who was surely a wanted man?
"Sir?" the clerk asked, jarring him out of his mental stupor. "Are you… okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry about me!" Ginji replied nervously, wobbling back onto his injured ankle. "Just a little hungry." He looked about the store, seeing lots of good food to be had. The weight of the money in Akabane's wallet practically burned through the thin fabric of his dress pants.
He pulled out the wallet again as he paid for his choices. Yes, he was right. The address listed on Akabane-san's driver's license was near the store. He could go there and call Paul, hopefully to arrange for someone to drive over and pick him up. Even if Ban-chan couldn't, maybe Himiko-chan could.
Ginji found himself limping into a decrepit high rise apartment complex. He squinted beneath Akabane's hat against the harsh, sterile, overhead lights. The lobby reminded him of the locker room of a pool: empty, concrete, and smelling vaguely of chlorine. It took two or three tries, but Ginji managed to find which of the keys in his pocket controlled the worn out elevator, which screeched on its cables as it arrived and opened to allow him in, a good three inches between the floor of the lobby and where the elevator had stopped. Frankly, it made Ginji a little nervous, but what other choice did he have? He couldn't climb to the seventh floor with the throbbing in his foot.
After about four tries, he finally managed to get the three heavy bolt locks guarding the door to Akabane-san's apartment to yield him access. Holding tightly to the bag of groceries he'd purchased at the convenience store along with his bandage, Ginji crept into the silence of Dr. Jackal's apartment.
There were three rooms that Ginji could see from the front entrance, all of them so tiny that they would have qualified more accurately as closets instead of rooms. The main room, the one he was standing in, contained a single table and a worn-out computer sitting on the floor. A half dozen or so exotic looking plants lined shelves on one wall. The main room also had a kitchenette area set off to one side, and what actually looked to Ginji like a closet with a toilet in it. The second room was probably the bedroom, but the door was closed enough that Ginji couldn't see into it from his vantage point.
Ginji took another step into the apartment when he heard the sound. Shuffle, shuffle, scratch. Ginji opened the eyes he was borrowing from Akabane a bit wider, looking around in alarm. What was that sound?
There it came again. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, drag, drag. Something was in the apartment, something alive. Ginji found himself swallowing hard, trying to swallow down the fear that was sending Akabane-san's heart into palpitations. Drag, drag, drag. He couldn't tell where the sound was coming from.
Ginji took another step forward, looking about cautiously, his attentions on high alert. He was about to take another step when it sprang. Ginji screamed, the sound of Akabane's voice foreign to his ears. Something hard and fast impacted his chest like a fist, slamming into him and throwing his body backwards. He continued to flail, reaching out for something, anything to stop his fall.
His gloved fingers temporarily found the counter, but then lost it again. He felt a shock of pain as his body impacted with the tile on the floor, his head bouncing against it as his hat, knocked off by the impact, fell over his face.
The thing that had flown at him was sitting on his chest, moving. He could feel sharp, needle-like claws dragging against him, piercing through his white cotton shirt and brushing against his flesh. He felt no fur, and he knew whatever the thing was, wasn't a cat.
Slowly, with trembling gloved hands, Ginji reached up and lifted Akabane's hat off his face. Surprised flushed over purple-gray eyes when he saw his attacker. "I-Iguana-san?!" Ginji asked in confusion.
The great green reptile regarded Ginji boredly for a second, seeing not Ginji but Akabane, then shuffled off to another dark part of the apartment. After taking a few minutes to try to put his wits back together, Ginji realized that the iguana beast had taken a dump on his arm, and it stunk.
"Eeeeeeeeeew," Ginji commented, grabbing a paper towel off the towel rack and rubbing iguana dung from the black sleeves of Akabane's trench coat. Looking down, Ginji realized with a dull sense of irony that the paper towels Akabane had in his apartment were covered in images of hearts and flowers.
Ginji peered into the darkness of the apartment beyond. "Iguana-san?" he asked. "Iguana-san, I'd appreciate it if you didn't scare me again… I'm not really Akabane-san and I'm not used to flying kamikaze reptiles…" Ginji looked down and noticed an empty food bowl sitting next to Akabane's foot, which was temporarily his foot. "Iguana-san is hungry?" Ginji asked the empty air. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what Iguana-san eats… Maybe there's a bag in here labeled Iguana Chow," Ginji mused, digging through the shelves. No luck, so just threw some lettuce in the bowl. He'd heard Iguanas liked lettuce.
The iguana regarded Ginji from the other side of the room, bored. Ginji regarded the iguana fearfully from his own position. Ginji wondered if any of the others were having as bad of time as he was.
Ban, in Hevn's body, walked alongside Shido in Kazuki's body. "Monkey boy?" Ban said hesitantly. "I think Hevn is sick. I feel kind of bloated, my chest hurts, and I'm having the strangest cramps in my lower body…"
Shido froze. "Wait, repeat the symptoms again?"
"Bloated, chest hurts, cramping…"
Kazuki's face turned a light tint of red in embarrassment. "Ma-Madoka… sometimes… feels bloated… and gets… cramps."
"Oh," Ban said shortly. "So it's a woman thing."
"Yes… you could… say that. You could definitely say that."
"What is it?"
Kazuki's face turned an even deeper, deeper shade of red to reflect Shido's embarrassment. "Oh… uh… how to put this… it um… have you ever heard of PMS?"
Hevn's face reflected a combination of horror and disgust. "Oh, no. Oh no no no no no no. Hevn can't be on the rag while I'm in her body!"
"Regardless of whose personality is inside it, a woman's body is still going to do what a women's body is designed to do."
"No… no no no no no!" Ban chanted again, having made "no" his personal mantra since seeing a mirror and realizing he was trapped inside Hevn's body, massive breasts and all. "Could this get any worse?"
Shido regarded him calmly. "It could. Look in Hevn's purse. Does she have any pads, or just tampons?"
Ban opened Hevn's bag. "Oh, crud…" was the only reply Shido needed to get the answer. Shido grinned through Kazuki's face.
"Good luck figuring how to insert that," he smirked.
"Pervert!" Ban replied, hitting Shido squarely in the middle of his borrowed face with Hevn's purse.
"Ow! What the heck is in that purse, bricks?" Shido asked, staggering backwards and holding Kazuki's nose, from which a little blood was dripping.
Ban looked back into the purse. "Actually, her camera is just really heavy. She should upgrade to a newer, lighter one. Maybe she likes having a heavy camera so she can smack perverts like you."
"Perverts like me? Who has been fondling himself for the last half hour with a dementedly happy look on his face!?"
"I'm not fondling them!" Ban replied indignantly. "I'm carrying them because they're damn heavy and they hurt my back!"
Shido snorted. "Tell that to the men who have been becoming brain-dead when you walk past them with your boobies in your own hands. I think I saw one of them walk straight into a light post after you passed him."
"Then they deserve it," Ban answered with a snort, flipping Hevn's hair back. Unfortunately, he'd underestimated how much that hair could weigh, and the force of flipping it threw him off balance and he nearly toppled over. "This body is so badly balanced! Why do comic authors insist on drawing women with bodies like these?! I can barely move in it, let alone fight!"
"Yes, but remember the reaction you got from all those guys back there? And those guys are the comic industry's target audience."
Ban frowned through Hevn's lips. "You mean the guys who asked how much it would cost to buy my panties?"
"Yes. Oh yes, and how DO you plan on explaining to Hevn that you sold her underwear to an otaku?"
"I… I'll think of something," Ban said, pushing past Shido in Kazuki's body. "Come on, we have to get to the Honky Tonk and figure out what to do before I have to figure out how the heck you use a tampon, because I have a feeling that would really make Hevn detest me forever. I wonder if anyone else is suffering as much as I am right now…" Ban sighed dramatically, staring off into the night sky.
"Kazuki?" Himiko asked softly.
"Yes, Himiko-san?"
"I have to go the bathroom," she answered from inside Shido's body, a small and miserable whimper escaping from her lips.
"So? We'll stop and find you a men's room."
"That's not it. To go to the bathroom, I'm going to have to touch Shido's… you know…"
"I'm sure he'll forgive you, considering the circumstances," Kazuki said, looking up at Himiko with her own eyes. This must be even weirder for her than for me, having to look at her own body…
"I don't really want to touch it, especially since I hardly know Shido…."
"It can't be avoided, I'm afraid," Kazuki said sympathetically. He didn't want to admit it, but he was dreading having to use the bathroom in Himiko's body. "All the more reason to get to the Honky Tonk and contact Makubex to get us back in our own bodies as fast as possible. Here, this looks like a quiet convenience store. I bet you can use their bathroom and no one will notice if it takes you a long time."
Kazuki let Himiko wander to the back, noticing her hesitate when she got the signs reading "men" and "women" before deciding, and rightfully so, to enter the men's bathroom. He leaned against the front counter, waiting patiently for Himiko to finish with the business that had to be done.
He raised an eyebrow when he saw the clerk doodling. "Excuse me," he said politely, pointing to her doodle of a man with an incredibly oversized black hat. "Do you know that man?"
"No, he's just this really hot Goth guy who came in here earlier tonight," she replied, shrugging Kazuki in Himiko's body off.
Kazuki raised Himiko's other eyebrow. "How did he act when you saw him?"
The girl looked up, confused. "How did he… act?"
"Yes, please. This is important. I'm trying to figure out if I know that guy."
Himiko in Shido's body rejoined Kazuki at the front, looking humiliated. Kazuki pointed to the drawing. "I think our friend Akabane-san stopped in here tonight. I'm trying to figure out if he's… himself, or…" he let his words drop off, and Himiko understood.
The clerk frowned, looking down at her drawing. "Well… he had a hurt ankle. He came in to buy an ace bandage, some ice cream, some milk, um, eggs…"
"Wait, did you say eggs?"
"Yes, why?" the clerk asked, looking confused. Himiko in Shido's body looked down on Kazuki in her body.
"Someone else is in Jackal's body."
"How can you tell?" Kazuki asked, confused.
"Jackal's allergic to eggs in any way, shape, or form. Makes finding bakery goods he can eat heck on him."
"And the person who has his body doesn't know this. Will it kill him?"
"No, but it'll make him wish he were dead if he eats them."
Kazuki cringed. "I feel sorry for whoever has his body then."
Himiko essentially grabbed herself by the wrist. "Come on, we have to hurry. We have to stop whoever is in Jackal's body, and I want my body back as soon as possible! I just hope nothing else happens to anyone else in the wrong body."
Akabane, meanwhile, looked at Ban's body in a mirror. Anger flicked in those dark, hateful blue eyes, and it wasn't Ban's anger. It was Akabane's raw anger at not being able to figure out how to use the freaking Jyagan.
He smashed the mirror to pieces, not caring if he forced seven years of bad luck on Ban's skinny frame. What good was having the most powerful attack in existence if he couldn't use it?! It was worse than being in his own body, because at least there, he didn't know his final power. Here, he could feel Ban's final body. He could taste it, he could smell it, he could touch it, but he couldn't use it. It was frustrating enough to make him want to rip Ban's brown hair out by the roots and scream through the streets of Shinjuku.
That, and he frankly missed his scalpels. He missed their smooth feel, the beautiful colors they would glow with when he commanded them, the soft yet squishy feeling when they collided with someone's helpless flesh. He missed them, all one-hundred plus of them, in much the same way that a mother misses her children when they're off at school.
Well, maybe I wouldn't miss them so much if I could figure out how to use the Jyagan, but that was beside the point. He'd figure out the evil eye eventually, with enough practice. Some part of him wondered if his knives for the Jyagan was a fair trade, seeing as how he'd lived his whole life with his skills, practicing hard to get where he currently was, and the Jyagan had just been dropped with all its power into his lap. However, his ego, the part of him controlling his mind, decided that it wanted the power associated with the Jyagan at any cost, and so he refused to admit that maybe he didn't truly want it in any part of his consciousness.
He'd figure it out. Even if it took a year, two years, he'd figure it out, and then the others had best beware.
---
Now, for the completist, "What about Hevn in Ginji's body?" is probably the next important question that begs to be answered. Yes, what of Hevn-san? The last we heard of her, she was marveling over the fact that she could suddenly pee standing up. Perhaps we shall hear more about her condition later. Such are the vague promises the night held for several confused young men and women.