(Chapter 21)

Oborozuka

Things were relatively uneventful for the next few days.

Riko briefly got jealous of Mizuchi and Kanna spending a lot of time alone together, until she found out Kanna was being taught how to adjust her human-transformation spell to synchronise with Riko's aging. (She had already found out that Kanna wasn't human just after the 'Azad Incident' happened. She didn't care that the love of her life was a dragon.)

The O'Reillys moved into their new residence, with the old apartments becoming an (unlisted) emergency accommodation centre for any humans affected by liminal abuse, and the spare rooms at the new place being emergency accommodation for liminals. Freya also moved her inherited fairy colony over from America. (The resultant paperwork resulted in having to bribe Smith with off-world sourced coffee for a month to get her to speak to her again.)

===/===

Oborozuka High School

"Settle down class two-three," said the teacher. "This week is our annual health-check time. Over the next few days you will be called in, based on your PE groups. This means that you and class two-four will be called either after lunch today, or at the start of tomorrow. Are there any questions?"

"I have one," said Hirada. "Will the twin freaks be seeing a vet, or a mechanic?"

"That's enough of that," said the teacher. "You have been warned before about your attitude."

"She's just upset because being a closet chuunibyo looks more pathetic, when there are people out there, like the two Yuki-onna middle-school girls, with actual powers," commented Hikari. "Kuroko and I saw the goth-loli outfits you and your friends were wearing a few nights ago. Your eye-patch should be on the other eye, by the way."

"W-what are you talking about?" spluttered Ruri, from the other side of the classroom. "We don't dress up and pretend to be dark wizards. That's only something middle-schoolers do."

===/===

Doctor Edo looked at her paperwork. This was the first time having to include non-humans in her reports, so ICEP assigned her an assistant. "Andromeda-san, do you know what these green forms are for?"

"The green ones are for people with a non-standard body type," she replied. "Wings, extra limbs, and so on. It's so the data-entry clerk knows to use the new program."

"Oh, yeah. Doctor Edo saw the Kobold girl this morning."

"The class two-three and two-four girls should be coming in a few minutes."

"Let's see, the first student from my group is Kobayashi, Kuroko. According to this, she's a variant of Weaver Arachne. Height 182.5cm, chest 95cm... she's way underweight for an arachne of her size."

"You'll know why, when you see her. Kuroko-chan, you're up first."

In walked a girl, if her paperwork wasn't on the green forms, she wouldn't have realised she was looking at an arachne, as the 'spider' part of her body was missing.

This explains why her weight is so low, thought the doctor. "Good morning Kobayashi-san, I'm Doctor Edo. Could you please strip down to your underwear, so we can begin your examination."

Kuroko's right arm and both legs appeared to be some sort of prosthetics. "Andromeda-san, you don't seem to be surprised by these," Doctor Edo said, as she did the usual ear-nose-throat checks and Andromeda used some small tools to make adjustments to Kuroko's arm.

"Why do you think I was assigned to assist you?" stated Andromeda. "Hikari and myself are the only two ...uh... people in the syst- country who know how to fabricate, repair, and maintain techno-organic components."

Doctor Edo checked Kuroko's eyes next. Unlike most arachne, her central eyes appeared to be her 'main' eyes, with the two smaller sets appearing to be facial-jewellery at first glance. "Kobayashi-san, has your main left eye recently been injured, or become irritated?"

"No, Doctor. Why do you ask?" she replied.

"It is distinctly yellow, and your file says all six of your eyes are green."

"What?!" Kuroko and Andromeda exclaimed simultaneously.

Andromeda interrupted her work on Kuroko's left leg, to look at the eye. "Yep. Definitely yellow. Did you let your sister 'experiment' on you overnight?"

"No. She was too busy 'testing out' her Sylph form with a certain holographic arachne," she replied.

"You're going to have to have a chat to your aunt Lucoa," said Andromeda, checking Kuroko's hair for some reason. "Doctor Edo, could you include in your miscellaneous notes section the following, please? 'Classified section: QZ/003. Inherited eyes, horns. Increase check-ups to every three months until further notice.' Thanks."

"What's that about?" asked Kuroko.

"Your body is either adapting to your new body-type, or some dormant genetics are kicking in with your sixteenth birthday coming up."

"Both of your hearts are fine," said Doctor Edo. "That's something I've got to get used to. You can get dressed again, Kobayashi-san."

As Kuroko turned, to put on her uniform, Andromeda hesitantly commented, "...Doctor... could you add two more notes? First one is 'Dominant species change, refer to QZ/003 or VS/02B.' The second note is "Classified section: VS/02B inherited wings.'"

"What's going on?" Kuroko asked.

"I don't know how to put this," said Andromeda. "Your Grandmothers' genes are kicking in. Oborozuka now has eight dragons, and we're going to have to re-tailor your shirts."

A pair of wings, with rainbow-coloured, crystalline feathers had materialised on Kuroko's back.

===/===

"Did you hear, Sannae-chan?" asked Miko. "The doctors found something wrong with your friend, Kuroko, and they sent her home."

"Oh my," replied Georgie. "That doesn't sound good. Maybe something went wrong with one of her prosthetics."

"Maybe," said Miko. "someone did say they were experimental."

"Let's go ask Hikari-chan," said one of the other girls in their group. "She's her sister, so they might have told her."

They easily found her, eating lunch with the rest of the auto-shop students. "Excuse me, Hikari-chan," asked Georgie. "Do you know what happened to your sister?"

"Only a little bit," she replied. "It's something to do with her parents."

"I thought you said you were twins," one of the auto-shop group said. A hint of suspicion was in his voice.

"She's my Quantum Twin," said Hikari.

"Your what?" most of the group asked.

"I know!" said Miko, excitedly. "She's you from a parallel world isn't she?"

"How did you come up with that answer?" Georgie asked.

"Didn't you look at my video collection, last time you visited?" Miko replied.

===/===

O'Reilly Residence

Lucoa, and Freya were examining Kuroko's wings, while Erika was handing Smith a cup of coffee.

"Does this mean extra paperwork for me?" Smith asked.

"No," replied Freya. "That was the whole point of the green medical forms. The hospital system gets to deal with medical paperwork from now on. While I think about it, doesn't coming here break your cover as a lazy bureaucrat?"

"Of course not," she replied. "As far as anyone's concerned, I've just skipped out on filing reports, to sponge free coffee, using the flimsy excuse of a school-child sent home with the sniffles."

"Clever idea, Kurko-kun," commented Lucoa. "Kuroko-chan, have you noticed anything different when you look at people?"

"A bit of a coloured glow seems to be around everyone."

"Close your left eye."

"Everything looks normal again."

"Looks like you have my ability to judge the quality of a person's soul. Kuroko-kun probably got her similar ability from my Japanese counterpart having a child with one of her ancestors."

"How does that work with Hikari and myself?" Freya asked. "I'm a monster, both literally and figuratively, and Hikari is me with her own hang-ups added."

"Explain why you think you're a monster," stated Smith.

"Once, I had single-handedly eliminated an entire planetary system," said Freya. "With extreme prejudice. Not even children were exempt from the slaughter."

"Were their deaths necessary?" asked Smith.

"Yes. They'd all been engineered as bio-weapons, by their government. They were carriers for an incurable, lethal, virus, and I was the only one immune to it. I had to hunt down every single one of them, or countless lives would be lost in the ensuing pandemic."

"How did you feel afterwards?"

"Like shit. I can still see the terror on some of their faces."

"Then you're not a monster. You have a conscience."

===/===

(Chapter 22, onwards involves a time-skip of about 5 or 6 years)