So apparently Haruka had made potions out of the chu jelly I'd given her that one time, and she wanted to give some to me. But she'd said she wasn't sure if she made them right, and I might have to basically be her lab rat to see if they'd work. So that was why I had to take them immediately, while she was around to monitor the situation, rather than waiting until I needed them in battle only to have them fail on me. Yeah. I should've been suspicious of that one way earlier. But I guess I'm always the stupid trusting one, willing to help out whoever's in need without taking a moment to think about it first. Because I was hanging out with a group of them downtown—Haruka, Hikage, Kat, Hibari, Yagyuu, Tris, and Zelda—and I let Haruka cajole me into drinking the bright blue colored liquid out of one of the test tubes concealed in her lab coat.
Big mistake.
I started to feel funny immediately. I clutched my head in one hand while fumbling for my phone with the other, to shoot a text to Haruka that something had definitely gone wrong. But my vision was getting too blurry, and for a moment it felt like I'd pass out. But I didn't. A moment later, the blurriness cleared. But I still felt funny.
"I don't know what's going on, but something's definitely off with this potion. Everything was blurry for a second, and..." I realized what I was doing, and trailed off.
"Linkle, did you just say words?" Hibari looked at me with a beam of pride, like she was about to give me a round of applause.
"Don't get too excited," Hikage said, as deadpan as ever. "It's probably just Haruka's drugs making her do it."
Yagyuu's mouth was hanging wide open.
"You talk like that?"
"Um, like what?" I just blurted out without thinking.
"Seriously, where'd you learn your Japanese? You sound like the most rural country bumpkin imaginable. Tris doesn't talk like that at all, and I would've assumed you learned your Japanese in the same place."
"Oh, yeah. I forgot." I couldn't believe myself, but I was actually thinking out loud, as in, telling people the things in my head. It felt positively obscene, but it was just... happening. And once I started, I couldn't stop. "How in Japanese, the pronouns you use convey different levels of respect and class and gender identity and all that stuff. Like how Spanish and German have formal and informal, but this is a lot more complex than that. And when I text people, I sound like a typical teenage girl. But when I talk, apparently I sound like a total hick. The words just come out differently, I guess." I paused, struck by realization. "Oh my goddesses. I'm rambling. I won't shut up. I can't shut up. I hate this. It feels disgusting and wrong. Make it stop."
"Yeah, you usually never say anything, and everyone assumes you're stupid," Tris said. "As opposed to you saying stuff and removing all doubt."
"Tris, don't be mean to your sister," Hibari said, pouting.
"It's fine, it's how she displays affection," I said. "Although the way y'all are reacting to me talking reminds me exactly why I never do."
Yagyuu snorted in amusement. "Y'all?"
"See? See!"
Haruka's eyes were wide. "I genuinely didn't mean to give you a potion that'd make you talk. I really did mean to give you the jelly potion, and it was an honest mistake. The one I gave you... I think that's the one I gave Hikage that one time, that made her act so crazy and lewd that even Kat beat her up."
"Crazy and lewd?" Now my eyes were wide. "I don't like how that sounds at all..."
"Don't worry. If it was going to make you do anything more intense than just talk, it would've done so by now."
"How long is it going to last?" I asked. "Do I even want to know?"
"Only a day or so," Haruka said. "Or someone can help snap you out of it by beating you up."
"Um, can I pass on that one?" I asked, grimacing.
Tris nodded. "I'd offer to beat you up, but I'm so used to doing that to Ryona by now that it'd feel like incest if I did it to you."
"Good to know you're such a sadist that beating people up is on par with sex to you," I said, once again blurting things I usually wouldn't even have texted.
"You're sassy when you talk!" Kat was laughing out loud at me.
Zelda just nodded. "Yes, that seems about right. Most of the time, you don't say much, because you're so determined to be the very model of a hero that you feel the need to bear all your burdens in silence. But you definitely have always had a little bit of an attitude." She gave me a serene grin. "There have been a very small amount of incarnations of you where you talk a lot, though, and..." She trailed off, her grin turning into a grimace.
"I get the feeling that we try not to talk about those?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes, there was one incident when you were so obnoxious that you could've given Kat a run for her money."
"That particular kind of obnoxious?" I asked.
"Hey, what do you mean, that particular kind of obnoxious?" Kat asked.
"Almost. You certainly needed to learn that when a girl says no, she means no. Maybe not quite as bad as Kat, though..."
"Not as bad?!" Kat puffed her cheeks out petulantly.
"I think I'd rather not know," I said. "Besides, I thought you said girls usually all think I'm hot."
"You are hot though," Kat said, changing her mood in just a second as she reached out for my chest.
"She's usually male," Zelda said.
"Oh. That sucks." Kat sounded disappointed for a second. "But she's a girl right now, so..." And Kat had grabbed handfuls of my boobs and gave them an unnecessarily firm squeeze. I pulled myself from her grasp and gave her a shove.
"I don't like how this whole talking thing feels," I said. "Maybe I do need someone to beat the crap out of me to make it go away."
"I'm not doing it," Tris said. "I've already told you why."
"Me neither," Kat said, laughing. "I think it's hilarious watching you talk and then freak out because you're talking."
"I'm not gonna beat you up either," Hibari said, puffing her cheeks out. "That'd be mean." Yagyuu nodded along, of course, always agreeing with whatever Hibari said, never wanting to upset her. Even though I knew Yagyuu definitely would beat me up for fun if Hibari wasn't watching.
Haruka, though... she was smirking like crazy. I knew she was going to volunteer to beat my ass. I just knew it. And, uh, I kind of didn't want her to do it. Judging by that one time when she hit me and it was kind of a turn on... if she beat me up now, I'd get off on it way too much. And, just how Tris felt like beating anyone but Ryona up was cheating on Ryona... if Haruka beat me up and I got off on it, I'd feel like I was cheating on Murasaki.
That was it. I knew just what to do.
"Hold on a second," I said, all too quickly, before pulling my phone out. And I started texting Murasaki.
"Hi, this is gonna sound really weird, but I need you to do me a favor if you can. If you're not busy. I'm in that one park we usually hang out at. Can you come here and help me with something?"
"ya sure wat do u need help with?" She messaged back within the minute.
"It's a long story, but I need you to fight me."
"fight u?"
"Just do it, please? And don't ask too many questions. I'll bribe you with buying you snacks."
"if u say so. be rite over."
And now all that was left to do was wait.
"Who are you messaging?" Haruka asked.
"Murasaki." I knew I shouldn't tell her, but because the drug was in effect, I couldn't help it. "I asked her if she would come fight me. That way she can beat me up and I'll stop talking."
"Why her? Why can't one of us do it?" Haruka looked a little miffed.
"Because they're a thing," Hikage said, shrugging. "I think she wants being beat up to be some kind of romantic experience."
I could feel myself turning red. All I could do was sit on a bench with my head in my hands, biting down on my lip as hard as I could, until Murasaki showed up. And when she did, I didn't know whether to be grateful, or... not. Especially because, the whole time I waited, Kat kept poking at me.
"Come on, say more words!"
"Mmmm." I kept biting down on my lip.
"Come on, I like it. It's cute when you say stuff like y'all and sound all rural." She turned to Haruka. "Do you have any more potions like that? How much do you think it'd take to get her to basically sing drunk karaoke? She's so hung up on her weird vow of silence crap that she didn't even sing when we did the music showcase."
"Mmmm." Still biting.
"Really, though." Kat wouldn't stop. "What is it? Are you ashamed of your voice? Or your accent? Or, like, you're too heroic to say anything. You gotta be the strong silent type. So you can look badass."
"Ugh, you're making me sound so arrogant," I blurted. "Stop putting things in my mouth."
"That's what she said!"
And of course, at that moment, she started cackling. I mean, I should've seen it coming, shouldn't I? But I guessed I was just too drugged up at the moment to notice what I was saying.
"I mean, don't put words in my mouth. Words that I didn't say."
"Yeah, yeah." Kat kept laughing. Of course, that was when Murasaki showed up, of course with Bebe-tan in tow as usual. "Speak of the devil."
"D-d-devil?" Murasaki stammered. Obviously she'd taken that the wrong way, like she was the one being insulted.
"Yeah, I was just talking about things your girlfriend puts in her mouth—"
I huffed at her. "Goddesses, Kat, shut up before I—"
"Linkle, did you just talk?" Murasaki asked, her eyes wide.
"Please don't ask," I said. "I hate this, and I need it to stop."
"Aw, your voice sounds so cute when you're doing something other than yelling hyah in the middle of a fight." Murasaki was blushing. "I mean, it's cute then too. But, you know what I mean."
"Can you just beat me up already?" I said with a sigh.
"Um, okay, if that's what you really want me to do..." But then I noticed her glancing between me and Bebe-tan. "Um. Bebe-tan needs someone to sit and hang out with while I fight. She gets upset if I just leave her on the ground by herself."
Kat, Yagyuu, Haruka, and Tris were giving her looks already. Come on, guys. I knew it was a little weird, her closeness with a stuffed animal at our age, but she'd been through some crap, so the least they could do was indulge her. But I guessed Zelda must have been reading my mind at the moment.
"I will gladly sit with your dear friend Bebe-tan, if she needs company," she said, smiling serenely as usual.
"Thank you, thank you so much." And Murasaki plopped Bebe-tan in Zelda's lap. "Now I guess I have to, um, beat up Linkle, 'cause, um, she wants me to?" She was still blushing. I didn't know what to make of that. But I nodded.
"Yes, please. Haruka says it's the only way to make me stop talking like this." I conveniently left out the part that it would wear off by tomorrow.
"If you say so..." And she pulled her scroll out of her extremely ample cleavage, to focus her power into it, and transform. Before I knew it, she was in her elaborate gothic style black dress, her huge shurikens tangled within her somehow almost prehensile hair. And I just kind of stood there.
For, like, a minute.
"Aren't you going to transform too?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I don't need to fight. I just need you to beat the words out of me."
"Can you try to fight?" She was fidgeting. "I would feel bad just beating you up one sided without you even pretending to fight back."
"Uh, good point?" And I focused my power into my scroll as well. But this time, instead of wielding a sword and shield, or a bow, or crossbows, I gave myself just a boomerang. That way, if that was all I had, it'd be easier for me to lose, instead of accidentally doing too much damage to her.
Then I waited for her to attack, which still took awhile.
At long last, she flung her head to the side, swishing her long mane of deep purple hair with the massive shurikens tied up in it. They sliced the skirt part right off my tunic, revealing my panties, which happened to be a cute pastel periwinkle today. Oh, and they were pretty lacy, and slightly see through because of that, and, uh. Murasaki definitely flinched at that.
"Y-you have..." She was stammering. "You have a, um. V-very nice, um, butt."
She successfully managed to catch me off guard, and when she unleashed her next reluctant attack, she knocked me backwards, my butt sliding against the solid ground. Bye, back side of those panties. Also, ouch. As I sat there, she kept slamming the shurikens into me, further slicing and dicing up my tunic, knocking me down again every time I was about to try to get back up. I got knocked in the head pretty hard once, and at that point, it felt like everything was spinning. Whoa.
After a moment, she stopped, and stood there with her arms crossed.
"Okay, you have to attack me now. I feel bad just beating you up."
I really didn't want to either, but I figured I should at least pretend. That way, she wouldn't feel bad. So I chucked my boomerang, intentionally missing her, but distracting her from what I was really about to do. When she was watching it pass, I jumped forward, giving a tiny playful smirk, as I, uh... pulled a Kat.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, I was probably enjoying the feeling of Murasaki's huge, soft, and squishy boobs, a little bit more than I should in front of people, even if they were covered by layers of ruffly fabric. And for a second it looked like she was about to get upset. But instead, she gave a coy giggle, and then... well, her jaw dropped when I let go just in time and effortlessly caught the boomerang as soon as it returned to me.
"That was kind of cool," she said, her voice soft. "Are you... um, feeling better now?"
And then I looked up at her, and made as if to tell her, yeah, I'm fine, if a little dizzy. But the words wouldn't come. Yes! I was cured. I gave her a nod and a wide grin.
"Back to not talking?"
I gave her another nod. And, uh, a tiny kiss on the cheek. I couldn't help myself, after all.
"I'm... glad I could help." She was grinning. "Even if I'm not entirely sure, um, how I helped."
I climbed to my feet, then extended a hand to help her get up too. And I dragged her back to hang out with the rest of my friends, which she seemed like she was getting better and better at all the time. Well, of course, after I transformed back into my normal clothes. Sure, she got to see almost all of my butt, but not everyone else deserved that.
"You know, Bebe-tan is very intelligent," Zelda said, handing her back to Murasaki. "She is just the most scintillating conversationalist as well. I can't believe how much she knows about global politics. She must be very well read."
For a second, I wasn't sure if Zelda was taking the piss or what, in which case, I would have had to punch her or something. But then I looked at the look on her face, and realized she might just be as weird as Murasaki in that respect. And, for a second, I felt self conscious around Bebe-tan. Like I wanted to be absolutely sure Bebe-tan liked me, and thought I was good for Murasaki. As though a teddy bear could actually have an opinion.
Well, you never know.
At the end of that afternoon, before I started heading home, Haruka pulled me aside.
"Listen, I'm really sorry I gave you the wrong drug. I wouldn't want to humiliate you like that unless I knew for sure you were into it. But, before I forget, here's the right one. I swear this time. This is made with the jelly you gave me, and it's going to heal you in battle." And she held out another vial, this one the same blue as the other had been.
I looked at her quizzically. Really, I wasn't sure if I trusted it. Even if she meant to give me the right one, really meant to, she could still be making a mistake again. Who knew what other kinds of weird potions she had in her lab coat? But I took it anyway, giving her a nod and a thumbs up. Maybe I'd test it out next time I was sparring with someone I trusted.
Hopefully I wouldn't start rambling again. Or worse.
