Because it had gotten really late in the small village bar they came across, or early, depending on how one would interpret it, the next day didn't start before noon for the group. After they had lunch together and Fen didn't feel like his head would explode any second anymore, the three left the village again. They were currently walking through a lush, green field.
"..."
"..." There was an awkward silence between the couple, and they were unable to look at each other, their faces slightly flushed.
"I'm not sure if I should ask because I doubt I want to know, especially because my head still hurts, but... did something happen?" Even though he was still hungover, Fen didn't fail to notice the mood between them.
"N-Nothing happened..."
"Nothing at all."
"Y-Yeah."
"After we entered the b-bed... Maya fell asleep in under a minute..." Sophia's voice was a complex mix of subtle relief and utter disappointment.
"I-I simply passed out before-" She didn't finish her sentence. While the cat-girl clearly sounded disappointed as well, there was also a considerable amount of shame mixed in.
"The bed was comfortable, though." She wasn't sure what else to say anymore.
"T-That's true..." Neither was Maya.
"Okay." Fen decided that he really didn't want to push the issue any further. He felt that his current headache was more than enough already. With that, the group continued to walk for a while longer in silence.
"Sophia...?"
"Hmm?" She glanced at the cat-girl.
"I'm sorry. For last night..."
"W-What exactly? Starting what you started, or falling asleep before going through with it?"
"Uhh, both? I shouldn't have done it in the first place because we were drunk, but falling asleep was really rude, as well."
"I see. I wasn't drunk, though."
"Eh?"
"Didn't I mention that? Thanks to my boosts, I'm basically unable to get drunk. They made me more or less immune to alcohol."
"W-What? I never heard about that! W-Wait, does that mean you were fully conscious when I-"
"Mh-hmm." Sophia gave her a slight nod.
"T-Then!"
"I-I think, all things considered... it was a good thing you fell asleep. I-I lost myself in the moment, thanks to your overly sweet purr-like voice... b-but, while I-I... I don't think I would've r-regretted it, just, uhh, I think it would have been a l-little early...?" She was having trouble keeping the last bit of calmness she had left during her explanation.
"Y-Yes, I acted completely on... i-impulse..." Maya, too, had become really flustered.
"I-I mean, I'm not one to talk because I was the one who, let's say, j-jump-started our relationship-" She remembered the excessive amount of kissing she initiated right after the two got together. "We agreed that not holding back is no problem and all. If it h-happens, it happens kinda deal, but, uhh, just..." Sophia had gotten nervous when thinking about last night again.
"Y-Yeah, I fully get what you mean..." She agreed. "Also, I don't want it to happen when I'm drunk, even though I remember everything. Painfully so..."
"A-Anyway," Sophia wanted to change the topic. "It seems that I have to apologize as well, though..."
"Huh, why?" Maya didn't understand.
"Well, yesterday when I, let's say, got upset over the topic of my breasts... It appears that you were indeed... honest."
"E-Eh?" She still couldn't follow.
"You tried to go after my body, regardless of the size, after all."
"W-Wha-?!" There was nothing she could say in her defense. "Y-You're still angry about that, aren't you?!"
"Who knows~."
"Uuh... there are actually times where l miss my shy Sophia."
"Ehehe~, I'm getting better at this!"
"While I'm happy for you, I'm also... not." She was having mixed feelings about the matter right now.
----------------
"Okay, Fen, how does your head feel?" Sophia decided to change the topic for real this time.
"I don't want to rely on it, but I decided to apply some healing magic after having had to listen to two flirty idiots. I'm fine now. "
"That's goo- Oi! Well... I can't blame you." She had to accept that they were idiots.
"So, what do you want?" The wolf stared at her, knowing she didn't just want to know about his well-being.
"The appearance alteration magic thingy!" Sophia was getting excited just thinking about it.
"The what now?" He tilted his big head.
"Huh? Don't tell me you forget everything about yesterday again?! Fenny, you drink too much!"
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"I do not."
"Really now? Then, you should definitely remember what we talked about in the bar."
"Urgh..." He stopped for a moment. "A-Ah, right! You were unhappy with your chest size and wanted to make them bigger! See, I totally remember!"
"My dear Fen, while this topic indeed came up during our conversation yesterday, this was not what I had in mind right now." Her voice sounded warm, but her eyes were far from looking friendly.
"S-Somehow, I'm sorry..." He stepped away a couple of steps to increase his distance from her.
"I want animal ears! And a cute tail!" Fortunately, she had more important things going through her head.
"R-Right... there was a topic like that." The fog inside his brain was clearing up.
"Okay, teach away!"
"You're way too hyper. Okay, whatever... Well, as you know, I exclusively use that kind of magic to shrink myself. Like you'd expect, it's category-less magic because it's completely unique. For the imagination, think about a smaller version of yourself and start by shrinking a small part like your hand and visualize it inside your head. Do that with every part of your body, and-"
"Nope." Sophia interrupted the wolf. "No more shrinking for me. That idiot, err, Canir did enough of that to me already. I've gotten small enough already." She glanced at a part of her body that had gotten way too much attention lately.
"Eh? What do you mean?" Maya was confused.
"Hmm? I told you that I'm older than I look, did I not?"
"Yeah, just like me... But what has that to do with what you just said?"
"Huh? Ohhhh!" She opened her eyes wide when she realized the part she missed." Err, right, you see... that only happened when I came to this world. Becoming younger, that is. In my old world, I looked like my actual age."
"W-What?! Seriously? A-An older Sophia...? You're already stunning... H-How would a more mature version of you look?! S-So unfair! I wanted to see that!"
"Hehehe, my looks were actually the one thing I was proud of in my old world."
"Grmnn!" Maya almost looked in pain when she was trying her absolute hardest to imagine it. "F-Fen, help a girl in love out here! Make it possible that she can transform into her old self. Only for a second! T-That's all I want!"
"..." Sophia wasn't sure how to react.
"I-It's not like that, okay?! I-I just found out there's a version of my girlfriend that I don't know. Of course, I'm curious about that!" The cat-girl tried to talk her way out.
"While I doubt your sincerity, I applaud your excuse. That was a good save." She didn't fully believe her. "Fen, is that possible? To turn to my old self again?"
"If you still remember how you used to look, I think that would be even easier compared to shrinking yourself. You already know how you want to look, after all."
"Awesome! So, what do I have to do? Simply imagine how I used to look and, uhh, give it a go? Pour some magic power into my imagination?"
"More or less."
"Isn't this world's magic way too half-assed?!"
"It's great, isn't it?" Fen looked smug.
"He's definitely the one responsible for destroying every trace of Sophia's common sense..." Maya couldn't help but sigh. "For most people, it's not that easy, you know?!"
"Well, normally, you have to put in a little more effort in changing your appearance, but as she's only changing to her previous self, it's not much work." The wolf corrected himself a little.
"Hrmnn~!" She already stopped listening and was instead concentrating on her task.
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Sophia stopped responding altogether for around half an hour while concentrating hard because she didn't want to rush and make any mistakes. She shuddered at the mere thought of messing up while altering her own appearance.
"I-Is it really going to be okay?" The cat-girl was slowly becoming worried.
"It should be fine. But then again... we're talking about Sophia, so... maybe?" Fen couldn't predict how their resident walking oddball of a catastrophe could mess up this time.
"Uuh..." She got nervous.
"Okay, I think I got it! Alright, do your thing, magic! I want to look like my old self!" Announcing so, Sophia was suddenly swallowed by a cloud of smoke after activating her magic, just like Fen when he shrinks or enlarges himself.
Once the smoke disappeared, a familiar but also different-looking girl appeared. Sophia grew by around five to seven centimeters and was just a few cm short of Maya now. Her usual, ash-blonde hair got closer to a honey color with a slight orange shift and also got longer. Instead of roughly around the girl's shoulders, it now reached almost all the way to her middle back. Her face had lost a bit of its roundness, making her features slightly more defined. It gave her a more mature look befitting a girl that had stopped being an adolescent and was turning into a young adult.
While being even more trained from all the sports in her old world, Sophia's body had also gained a lot more curves and a bit of a tan while still maintaining her slender image. More than anything, her chest had grown by one or even two sizes as her sought-after growth period had finally happened again.
Because her clothes had become a little too small, thanks to her new body, the girl's changes became even more prominent. Her shirt had gotten rather tight, and her shorts were even more revealing now because mostly her legs were responsible for Sophia's height gain. Thanks to that, she was showing off even more of them now.
"..." Maya was mesmerized and could only stare at her girlfriend in utter silence.
"Oho, so that's how you looked like in the past, huh? Yeah, I can see the resemblance." As Fen wasn't interested in her, he could calmly comment on her new, old looks.
"Hmmn..." Sophia twisted her body, looked at her chest, arms, chest, stomach, hips, legs, and chest again. She grabbed a couple of strands of her hair to look at it and then touched her face before stretching her new, old body some more. "Yeah, that's the me I remember."
"..." The cat-girl was still staring at her with a slightly agape mouth.
"What do you think?" Sophia did a cute twirl in front of her girlfriend to present herself.
"Uhh-" She was in the middle restarting. "W-Wow!" A single word was all she could squeeze out.
"T-Thanks."
"Ahh, n-now I get it! Y-You were illegal in your old world, right?" Maya could finally speak again, but the words that came out of her mouth made little sense. "That's why you came to this place, right?"
"Illegal? What are you talking about?"
"I-I mean, nobody would be allowed to be this beautiful, after all!" Her opinion on the old Sophia had exceeded all expectations.
"T-Thank you...?" It was too much for her to appropriately react to such overly high praise.
"I am so happy that you were unable to talk with women in your old life!"
"W-Why?!" Sophia was shocked by her statement.
"Because if you could, there would've been no way you were single and ended up in my world! You would even make straight girls question their sexuality for a moment if you started flirting with them!"
"N-Now you're just overexaggerating..."
"I am not. I am so not!" Maya was dead serious. "Y-You're so beautiful that I'm having problems staying sane right now!"
"R-Really? Then I better change back, huh? Wait... back? This is the original me, so l already changed back? Back to the future? The present? Past...? Uhh... change to the previous me? Which is the previous one? Eh? The new... old me...? The old... new me? Huh? Wait a moment? Who was I again? Aaaand I'm confused!"
"Just take the younger one, idiot!" Fen couldn't deal with the dorky girl any longer.
"A-Ah, okay, thanks!"
"W-Wait!" Maya interrupted them. "J-Just give me a minute, okay?! Just five minutes to burn this image into my head!" She changed the time in the middle of her plea.
"You do know that I will naturally turn into this girl eventually, right?"
"Yeah, in a couple of hundred years at the earliest." The wolf wasn't helpful. "If ever."
"J-Just ten more minutes, okay?" The time increased again. "15 minutes is all I ask of!"
"Fine..." She gave up.
----------------
Doing as told, Sophia waited with turning back, and the cat-girl used every second to burn every detail of the adult version into her memory. Circling around the girl a couple of times, making sure that she didn't miss anything.
"Thank you very much!" Precisely 30 minutes later, Maya let her obediently turn back.
"A-Alright..." Smoke swallowed her again, and a familiar, younger-looking girl was left behind.
"..."
"..."
"..." Maya stared at the new, old Sophia
"..." She stared back at her.
"..." Fen glanced at Sophia as well. "Girl, you forgot to turn your chest fully back to before."
"Fen, you idiot!" Both girls instantly and loudly scolded him. One of them was slightly teary-eyed, as well.