Akabane awoke the next morning with high hopes. He took a deep breath, yanked down the covers, and… sighed in misery. "Hello down there," he dryly said, referring to the still-present female chest. "I had rather thought you would have moved out by today. You are freeloading on my hospitality, you know."
He stretched out. He was going to have to go grocery shopping today. The only pair of female clothes he had was beginning to smell a little bit funny from having been worn so many days in a row…
He rubbed his aching head as he got out a Styrofoam tray of take-out to reheat for brunch. What had been wrong with him last night? He was not one to act on his impulses, and he was not one to take sexual activity lightly. He prided himself in his reserved, quiet nature. Then why in the world, he wondered to himself, had he been practically throwing himself at Ginji? It wasn't like him…
He padded back into the main room and picked up the white shirt. "No buttons, strange smell…" He threw it down and picked up the pants. "Safety-pinned together at the sides, really strange smell…" He threw those down as well, picking up the underwear he'd left scattered across the floor. "Really, really strange smell," he declared, throwing those in the hamper. He paused to sniff himself. He didn't think he smelled as weird as his clothes did. At least, he hoped he didn't. He wasn't quite sure what a normal woman smell was, as most of the women he had dated wore perfumes to mask it.
Well, there was always the clothes his client had disturbingly gifted him. After trying on the undergarments to discover that they actually did fit, he pulled on what he took to be a top. Only after getting it on did he realize that it was, indeed, a complete dress. A complete dress if one needed to cover only from what was necessary to avoid being arrested of the chest to just under the swell of the butt. It covered so little of his chest that it looked as if the rest were attempting to claw its way to freedom.
Frowning, Akabane went to evaluate the gift in his bathroom mirror. Only then did he realize it was supposed to look like a black nurses' uniform. He made a very disgusted face at it in the mirror. "I dislike puns," he said to no one in particular. "Especially doctor puns. If it exists, I have heard it a hundred times, and it probably was not funny the first time."
No. He would not wear it. It was far too revealing. As he was about to take it off, a little voice spoke up in his head. "Why not at least try it?" the little voice asked. "You are so old-fashioned, wearing clothes that cover you from your chin to your feet. What harm could it do to wear something just a little sexier?"
He looked down at his chest, then back up at himself and decided to argue with the little voice in his head. "Have you forgotten that changing into a female has not taken away my sense of modesty?"
"What you mean is, hasn't taken away those scars."
"I've never been embarrassed by my scars," Akabane argued back. He was getting a little bit tired of arguing with himself. After all, he'd made his decision. If only he could get himself to agree…
"Then explain why you hide yourself behind so many layers of clothes that you sweat yourself to heat exhaustion in the summer months," the little voice argued, tone childish and slightly snippy. "Come on, just wear it out once. I'm sure Giiiinji-kun would love to see it, when you go to make sure he and Ban haven't decided to go back on your agreement."
Akabane hesitated. Ginji-kun… the expression on his face when he saw this outfit would be worth the humiliation actually wearing the outfit in public would cause. He was also imagining the look on Ban-kun's face. Ban did seem to have a weakness for beautiful women. He liked the ladies almost as much as he liked money, with the emphasis in that sentence being on the word almost.
"I will wear it out, but no one will know I did," he told the little voice in his head, pulling on his trench coat and buttoning up every last button on it. He made a face at the resulting appearance in the mirror. "It looks as if I am naked underneath my coat now."
"Leave your coat open then," the voice suggested. "Let them stare!" Akabane did not know it, but the voice in his head was what was commonly referred to as his 'biological clock.' For his body was a bit older, and while he was completely unaware of it, his newly acquired female ovaries were busy ovulating. Thus, his biological clock was putting in its two cents. Those two cents, essentially, boiled down to "Find a mate, have a baby before it's too late. Find a mate, have a baby before it's too late. Find a mate, have a baby before it's too late." Over, and over, and over again.
Of course, this pitted his clock against his brain. Even the change to a female body had not changed what his brain wanted. His brain wanted to become more powerful, to fight any male it should happen to encounter. His brain wanted to defeat the Get Backers in battle to prove that his battle skills were superior to theirs. His reproductive organs, on the other hand, wanted to jump on any male carrying suitable genes for offspring it should happen to encounter. The clock wanted to peel the Get Backer's clothes off, prove something about reproductive skills, and to carry superior heirs.
As he went out that day, he was completely oblivious to the fact that his fighting instincts and his biological clock were squaring off. A no-holds-barred grudge match, it truly would be. The crowd gathered in hushed silence as the two contestants put on their boxing gloves. The prize? Control of his body, of course.
Meanwhile, on the other end of town, Ginji twitched and turned in the front seat of Ban's Ladybug. He was making little pained noises deep in his throat as he tossed and turned. In his dream, he was facing off with the female Akabane, and she did not look happy at all. "It's been nine months since you promised to get my male body back, Ginji-kun," she said, eyes misty with tears. "And now it is too late!"
"Don't say that, Akabane-san," Ginji insisted. He hated seeing a woman cry, even if it was a woman Akabane. "We'll get your body back, we will!"
"No, it is much too late," she sniffled, wiping her eyes.
"Why?" Ginji asked. "Why is it too late?"
"Because… because if go back to being a man, what will happen to our son!" the female Akabane asked, pointing angrily to a baby carriage. In the carriage, a giant battery was lying there, wearing a diaper and sucking on a pacifier with a light bulb attached.
Ginji woke up then, sitting straight up in the seat, eyes blank white circles. "What a scary dream," he commented, saying it rather loudly to try to reassure himself.
"Mmm, Ginji, stop talking," Ban muttered, a pillow shoved over his head. "My head hurts. Feels like a hangover. Little noises so loud… What happened to me?"
"Ano…" Ginji began, whispering. "You got hurt and so Akabane-san and I drove you to Gen's place, and he gave you a really strong anesthetic because he had to stitch up your-" Ginji stopped, then lowered his voice even further as he pointed to his groin, "man bits."
Ban pulled the pillow further over his aching head. "How did I get hurt?"
"Eto… Akabane-san… didn't like it when you grabbed her boobies."
Ban lifted the pillow up, eyebrow raised. "Ginji, Jackal is a man. He doesn't have breasts."
"He said someone cast a spell on him and made him into a girl, and then he or she had big boobies like this!" Ginji said, holding up two of the melons that he'd stolen out of Akabane's fridge last night "Then you were all woo-woo-woo and singing," Ginji said, flapping his arms around in a jelly-like fashion for emphasis, "and Akabane-san said 'Get back my male body,' and you said yes and I was going to say no, but she put her chest in my face like this," he said, sticking the melons right in Ban's face, "and my mouth wouldn't work right! I'm sorry, Ban-chan!" Ginji wept.
"Calm down, Ginji. Now, you said I was on anesthetics, right?"
"Mmm, mmm," Ginji nodded, trying to dry his tare-tears.
"Then our agreement with Jackal is invalid. Contracts can't be negotiated when one party is drunk or drugged."
Ban's words failed to comfort the tare-Ginji. "But… but… Akabane-san will get mad if we tell her that…"
Ban sat up, wincing at the pain of his freshly-stitched wounds. "Too bad for him. What is he going to do about it?" He stretched, trying to evaluate the extent of the damage and how it would affect his movements. If he was going to have a confrontation with Jackal, male or female, he wanted to know his limitations.
Ginji trembled, hiding behind the front seat rest. "She could get really mad and slice us up into itty-bitty bits?"
Ban reached up and ruffled Ginji's blonde hair condescendingly. "Don't worry, Ginji. I'll take care of everything. Now, let's just enjoy breakfast," he said, picking up one of the melons.
"Okay, if you say so, Ban-chan," Ginji answered. His voice had a strange tone in it, a tone of neither resignation nor acceptance. Ginji just did what Ban told him to, and generally, they managed to keep all their limbs intact. Of course, they were always broke on Ban's plans, but Ginji had enough faith in Ban to overlook that fact.
"These are pretty good melons, Ginji. How much did you spend on them?"
Ginji sighed, shoulders slumping forward. Of course Ban would follow up a compliment with a question about money. "Actually, Ban-chan, they were free. Akabane-san gave them to me when I went to her apartment."
Ban suddenly spit melon all over poor Ginji. "You went to Jackal's apartment!" he cried, hitting Ginji over the head. "What were you thinking? It could have been a trap! You would have been his prisoner and I would have had no way of finding you to save your butt! Worse, you could be dead!" he screamed, berating Ginji into the floor.
"But Ban-chan!" Ginji protested, "I couldn't let Akabane-san walk home alone in the dark. Someone might have hurt her!"
"Ginji, this is Jackal we're talking about, not some helpless waif. You were probably more in danger walking with Jackal than Jackal would have been alone!"
"It didn't seem right to make a girl walk alone at night," Ginji whimpered, head down, playing with his fingers to avoid having to look up at Ban's angry face. "No matter who that girl was."
"What if he/she'd killed you?" Ban snapped, not willing to put down the argument until Ginji admitted he was wrong.
"But she didn't, and it was the gentlemanly thing to do!" he said stubbornly, just knowing he was right.
"What are you two fighting about?" a familiar voice questioned. Ban and Ginji both jumped, causing Ginji to hit his head on the roof of the Lady Bug. "I could hear you shouting from halfway across the parking lot."
"Himiko! What are you doing here?" Ban asked, stopping to hold his wounded head. He was being so loud that he was irritating his own hangover. "And please be quiet, my head hurts."
"I'm grocery shopping," she said, holding up a plastic bag containing food products. "The question is what you are doing here, having a screaming match in the parking lot." Himiko grinned, "Who is she?"
"Who is who?" Ban groaned, lying back with a hand on his head.
"The girl who could cause a split in the iron-clad partnership that is the Get Backers," Himiko replied matter of factly. They had been arguing about Ginji's actions towards a woman; she'd heard them. She made a gesture with her hands, indicating that they should know who she was talking about. "Who is she?"
"She's no one," Ban snarled, glaring at Ginji to indicate that he hadn't forgotten last night's transgression.
"I am no one? I am hurt, Ban-kun."
Ginji spun around in alarm. "We're surrounded by transporters, Ban-chan!" Ginji cried, waving his arms in alarm.
"What are you doing here?" Ban snapped, glaring at Femme-bane. She was bending over so that the vast majority of her chest showed through the gap in her coat, causing Ginji to turn red and begin whistling out of his ears like a teapot.
"Ginji-kun left this at my apartment last night," Akabane answered perfectly innocently, holding up Ginji's moth-eaten wallet. "I stepped on it on my way out this morning, or I might not have noticed it." He made a bit of a face. "You left in such a hurry I almost thought you were trying to hurt my feelings, Ginji-kun." His strange expression turned into a vicious smile. "You would not want to hurt my feelings, would you, Ginji-kun?"
"No, no, Akabane-san," Ginji said with a tremble in his voice.
"You got implants to win a bet?" Himiko suddenly cried, finding her voice again after having lost it at the sight of Akabreast. Her mouth was agape. "That's taking it a little far, don't you think?" She asked. After a pause, she added, "And why aren't you wearing anything under your coat?"
Akabane sighed, voice distant. "I have something on under it," he answered, opening his coat. Ginji's nose started bleeding again, so Ban threw a box of tissues at his head.
"Why are you dressed like a cheap hooker?"
"I had no other female-fitting clothes," Akabane answered, shutting his coat. That was not very nice of Himiko, to accuse him of purposefully looking like a slut. It was not his fault his client was a pervert.
"And why did you happen to have that dress, then?" she asked, a vein appearing on her forehead. Her hand was twitching itself into a pummeling fist.
"It is not my choice; a client sent it to me. He requested I wear it, but it was not really my desire to do so. I had no other female clothes. As for my chest, these are not implants. I just woke up one morning with them, which explains why I had not prepared for their arrival. You may ask Ban-kun if they are real. As hard as he squeezes, if they were implants he would have burst them."
Himiko and Ban turned red at the same time, but not for the same reasons. "Why were you squeezing his chest?" Himiko asked slowly, taking deep breaths, the vein on her head becoming more pronounced and beginning to throb. Both her hands were curled into fists by that point.
"I- I thought he was Hevn!" Ban cried, hands thrown up in a gesture of defensive innocence. Well, at least one hand was thrown up. The other was protecting his already injured man-bits.
"And that excuses it?" Himiko shouted, burying her pummeling fist in Ban's skull.
Ginji caught the wavering Ban, who had pain stars dancing in his eyes. "Himiko-chan, Ban-chan is injured! Don't hit him!"
Himiko just rolled her eyes, reaching out and grabbing Akabane by the wrist. "Come on, we're leaving."
"But… but… I wanted to ask them about my case!" Akabane protested as Himiko dragged him away. Realizing that she had no intention to stop, he glanced over his shoulder and menacingly called, "Do not forget that we had an agreement!"
Himiko dragged a reluctant Akabane all the way to her motorbike. "Get in," she ordered. "We have to talk." She threw the bag of groceries in his hands. "Carry these." She swung her leg over the side of the bike. "Come on, I don't have all day."
Akabane sighed and did as she ordered. Over time working with her, he'd learned it was best to just keep the peace and do what she asked of him. She glanced over her shoulder at him as they pulled out of the small parking lot. "I'm not buying that you didn't buy falsies, at least, to prove your point."
"Mmm… in this outfit, you can tell that they are attached to my skin," he pointed out, literally pointing at the swell of his chest under his black jacket.
"Then you really did get implants just to prove a point?" Himiko asked. Akabane didn't like the way she weaved in and out of traffic while talking to him in a highly agitated voice.
"As I believe I said, they were not implants. I woke up female for no apparent cause," he insisted. At least Himiko was reacting wit the shock and disbelief he'd expected and which he had not received from the Get Backers.
"I don't believe what you believe you said," Himiko emphasized, diving her bike out of the way of a menacing truck. She pulled into the parking spaces in front of her own small apartment. "Help me carry the groceries up," she ordered.
He obliged her, following her silently. "If you got those things because you wanted to, I guess it is not my place to say anything. If you got them just to prove me wrong, I think you're impulsive and stupid," she finished, opening her door. "Put them on the counter, if you would."
He did, and then turned around. "Himiko-chan, if you must be insistent I can prove to you that I was transformed into a woman, and that I did not seek implants." Before Himiko could ask how, he grabbed the end of the short skirt and yanked it up around his waist. "See?"
Himiko stood, staring and blinking, for a good two minutes before slamming her apartment door shut. "Put that thing down!" She screamed.
He obeyed her. "What is wrong, Lady Poison? We are both females here," he innocently declared.
"Women don't pull their pants up or down like male high-school shenanigans!" she screamed, arms flailing. "The last thing I wanted to know what that Dr. Jackal wears women's underpants!"
He felt insulted. "That was not the point. The point was that I am severely lacking in body parts I would very much like to get… to have returned to me." He was afraid that saying get back might set her off again. "Do you need a closer look?"
"You leave that skirt down," she ordered, waving an angry finger in his face, "And I promise to believe you." She sighed, letting out a breath of angry air. "You can't just go flashing your panties at people! Men may think that underwear showing is funny, but if you do that as a woman you'll likely end up getting molested!"
He made an innocent, hurt face. His hands were clasped together in front of his body. "You wound me. I have not even shown Ginji-kun my nice new panties."
"You had better keep it that way," Himiko warned. "Ban would kill you if you tried anything." She paused in her tirade to take a breath. "You said a client gave you that dress. Did they also…?"
"Give me the underwear? Yes."
She snorted, beginning to put her groceries away. "A rather unprofessional gift, if you ask me."
"I agree, but I had no other female garments to wear. I am not in the habit of owning women's clothes just because." He frowned when he noticed the time on Himiko's wall clock. "And it has gotten late enough that I do not have time to buy a change of clothes before meeting with my client. Well, he did request that I wear this…"
Himiko suddenly dropped the tomatoes she'd been intending to put in her refrigerator. She spun around as Akabane reached down and grabbed a runaway fruit.
"Don't do that, I can see all the way down your shirt. The client, does he resemble a penguin in a cheap purple suit? With a thick Osakan accent?"
"Yes, Himiko-chan. Do you know my client? I was under the impression that he was new at hiring transporters." He didn't notice it, but he was gently squeezing the tomato he'd picked up.
"His name is Fujimoto, isn't it?" Akabane nodded. "He's definitely not new to it. Almost no female transporters, disposers, or protectors will work for him."
Akabane frowned. He had an idea of why, but he chose to ask rather than guess. "Why is that?"
"The better question would be, why not? He gets really possessive and insists that because he hired them once, he owns them. He has his thugs attack their boyfriends and their other clients. He even attempted to have a disposer kidnapped last year, but she disposed of his agents. After that, all the underworld women blacklisted him. Of course, being a male transporter, you probably never heard of him."
"Yes. We men do not usually have to deal with worries like those."
"Cancel your meeting. Don't go."
"I may be late, but I have never failed to meet a client," Akabane coldly informed her. "Just because I am female does not mean I intend to start now."
"He could do something to you," Himiko warned.
Akabane flicked out a few blades. "I will be fine, Lady Poison. After all, I am not really a woman."
"You look like one, which means you have to play by our rules."
He shrugged. "You may do as you will, but I will not disappoint my client." He slammed the door behind him, leaving Himiko with a worried look on her pretty face. Jackal was leading himself right into a trap, and refused to acknowledge it.
Rather than just sit around and brood about it, she decided she was going to do something. Yes, she was, but it was not going to be worrying about him. He was a big boy, or girl, and he'd made his bed. Now he'd have to lie in it.
She decided a trip down to the Honky Tonk to further berate Ban for his breast touching habits was in order. Perhaps that would lift her spirits, she thought as she walked in the direction of the bar. Nearing it, she spotted a pair of familiar shorts and sneaker-clad legs sticking out of the trash can. "Ban must have lost his temper again, huh?" he asked as he freed Ginji.
Ginji picked a banana peel off his head. "He did, but he only stormed off. He didn't stick me in the trash can." Ginji posed himself so that he resembled a large ape, knuckles on the ground. "A big gorilla-man walked in and asked me if I knew Akabane-san. All I said was yes and he threw me in the trash and told me never to call her again," Ginji whined, dignity hurt by the trash incident.
A large frown crossed Himiko's face. "I knew it!" she snapped. "Come on, that idiot Jackal's ego is getting him in trouble right now. If we go save him, maybe we can make him eat some humble pie."
"Humble pie?" Ginji asked, face blank and mouth watering. "Is it any good? Do you think he'll share?" Ginji asked, as Himiko dragged him towards her apartment. She had to go get her bike. "Shouldn't we get Ban-chan first?"
"Forget him; he'd just complain and refuse to go. Let's hurry." She absolutely could not wait to see the humiliated look on Jackal's face when he/she realized not only had Himiko been right, but she'd saved his multiple-gendered butt.
Author's note: sniffle I'm so lonely, and not to mention sick. I'll update when I can, but working fifty plus hours a week really takes the energy out of me.