July 29th, 2015
Tetsuo woke up. He could not see anything, he could not move. But, he could hear, he could feel, and he felt like he was floating in syrup. Green-tinted light entered his eyes and he struggled to force them open and a distorted image filled his view, like he was trying to see the world through a glass bottle of green tea and honey. The feeling of something that was forcefully shoved down his throat and his inability to move caused him to panic. Bubbles formed up in from of his eyes as his breathing accelerated and he continued to struggle.
“Doctor, the subject is awake!” Tetsuo heard a female voice call out, muffled by the liquid he was submersed in. The shuffling of feet and shouts of surprise was muffled further by the sound of his heart pounding out his ears at over 160 beats per minute.
“Subject is having a panic attack, administer sedatives,” a male voice this time. The edges of Tetsuo’s vision went from red to black as he felt something being pushed into his veins and his heart rate returned to normal levels. And then he went out like a weak flame against the sea.
The next time he woke up, it was in a sterile-looking hospital room. He was positioned slightly upright, enough to get a clear view of a flatscreen television mounted to the corner of the room playing an English-language news report about anti-Russian protests in Sapporo. While he was immediately able to identify it as a television, it was like no television he had ever seen before. The first thing he noticed was how crisp and clear the color and sound were. Certainly there were color televisions before, but they were tiny, box-like things. This television looked almost flat. It could not have been more than a few centimeters thick. An LCD screen perhaps? Impossible, LCDs were monochrome and tiny, this television was practically a literal window.
He ripped his head away from the television and turned his head to the right. His long hair which reached far past his shoulders brushed against the bed, giving him some degree of annoyance. How had it gotten this long? There was a glass of water on the bedside table and he tried to reach over for it. His arm felt like it was being weighed down by lead and, upon closer inspection, it looked scrawny and weak. Muscle atrophy. How long had he been out? It couldn’t have been more than a few months if he was still able to move to this degree, right?
He pulled the cup over onto his chest, now soft and thing instead of the muscled martial artist body he had before. It took both hands just to lip the cups to his lips, which he promptly drained of all liquid before dropping it on his chest. The next thing he noticed was how long the bed was. His legs barely went past 3/4ths of the length of the bed.
“That’s odd,” his voice came out, weak and effeminate sounding. Was it not odd if the bed was more than 200 cm long? Muscle atrophy couldn’t have lopped off 30cm from his height, right? He looked to his right again and saw a call button which he struggled to reach over and press it.
Five minutes later, a young, female, Japanese nurse walked in. Tetsuo only got a brief glimpse of her before she was pulled aside by a tall, Russian-looking woman in military uniform. A worst case scenario immediately rushed into his imagination and he immediately struggled to pull himself up and scanned the room for weapons.
“Calm down, I am Major Yuri Takakawa of the JSDF,” she said in English, with a slight Japanese accent, before sitting down and taking a seat next to his bed.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, eyeing the woman. Platinum blonde hair that would have reached past her shoulders if it was not tied up in a Japanese-style bun,, sharp eyes, and body proportions that would have fit better on the cover of a European fashion magazine. And a Major? She couldn’t be much older than twenty. There was no way she could hold that rank, this had to be a soviet trick of some sort. They even had a proper officer’s uniform and ranking insignia. Even more impressive was that they got the English accent commonly heard in the JSDF down perfectly. He must have failed in extracting Dr. Sokolov and was now being interrogated.
“I suppose that’s no surprise, I told the higher ups that you wouldn’t trust me, so I brought in some help. I was also afraid you would be missing memories too but that doesn’t seem to be an issue,” she motioned to the nurse who opened the door and a very familiar-looking middle-aged Japanese man walked through the door.
“Dad? No wait, Hiro?” Tetsuo’s eyes opened up wide. He almost jumped out of his bed but his muscles failed him. The man looked just like his father, though with bits of his mother mixed in. In other words, like his kid brother but much older.
“Yea, that’s my name. Kurogane Hiro,” he said, in a voice that deeply resembled Tetsuo’s father’s. There was not much emotion in his voice. Instead, the man scanned him top to bottom with a suspicious eye.
“Are you really Tetsuo?” Hiro finally asked.
“Do I look that much different?” Tetsuo looked at Major Takakawa when he asked. He was starting to believe her a little more now. Hiro started to say something but the Major cut him off with a quick raising of her arm.
“I was trying to think of a way to ease you into this but I hear you’re adaptable so I figured I might as well just drop it on you in as few words as I can. You’ve been dead for thirty-one years, Major Kurogane,” she paused to let that sink in for a moment. It made sense, the high tech television and his brother looking like he was in his forties were clear indicators. Thirty years was a long time, but it was not like he woke up after being frozen in the arctic at the end of World War II. It would take time to adjust, and it would likely be slow and frustrating, considering he was an old man now too. Years of drugs and artificial physical enhancements probably prevented the worst of the muscle atrophy, but it also seemed to have left him tiny and frail.
And then it dawned on him just how long thirty years really was. His family, his friends, what happened to them? He looked at Hiro again, seeing the same age lines on his face that he remembered his father having. How old was their dad now? Eighty? Dead? What about their mother? And his teammates? Aokabuto and Kikabuto? Were they still around? If anything, the fact that he could never hold a steady relationship because of his job meant that he was single when he died. Then at least there was no girlfriend waiting for him back home. He had not considered any of that when he was dying, partly because he was too focused on the mission and partly because Ilya Sokolov was distracting him.
“I’m a major?” he asked, not certain if he was ready to hear the fates of his old comrades. Not that it mattered because her answer would make him promptly forget all of that.
“Posthumous promotion, for bringing over Dr. Ilya Sokolov. Also, you’re a thirteen year old girl now,” she added.
“Oh, I see... Wait. What!?” He shouted, or at least tried to. He tried to pull himself out of bed and almost fell out. Major Takagawa caught him, easily lifting his thin frame up as though he weighed less than a feather. She motioned at the nurse to bring them a mirror and the nurse obliged. The major helped him sit himself up too.
In the mirror was a bony little girl with twigs for arms. She looked like a gust of wind would topple her over and shatter her into a million pieces. Her appearance was borderline skeletal, with large, round, red eyes nearly popping out of her head and sunken cheeks. She even had long, wavy, black hair that sagged down to her waist. With some worse lighting, she would not have been out of place as a ghost in a low-budget horror movie.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“What the-?” he said, swearing, eyeing the gaunt little girl looking back at him. No, it was ‘her’ now, was it not? That at least explained the voice. His, no, her voice was not just weak and feminine sounding, it was actually female.
“Now you may be wondering why they brought you back as a girl,” she said, before Tetsuo interrupted her.
“I’m first wondering why they brought me back at all, but yea, why am I a girl?” she said, before receiving a blood-freezing glare from the female major. It seemed that she was the type that despised being interrupted. A little hypocritical he, no she, thought, as the woman did not seem to have any qualms about silencing ‘her’ brother earlier.
“There’s a variety of reasons, most of them bothersome, political, and boring, and I don’t know where to start so I’ll try to keep it short, simple, and chronological. After you passed out from blood loss in your getaway submersible, Dr. Sokolov and the rest of the crew tried their best to keep you alive. They stuck your body in a cooler until they could bring you back to Aomori where they extracted and preserved your brain, as per Dr. Sokolov’s request,” She crossed her legs and leaned back a bit, crossing her arms beneath her bosom as well. Tetsuo’s eyes were immediately drawn to them for a split second before they snapped right back up to the Major’s face, though not without her notice.
“Oh? Is that female breast envy or leftover male sexual instinct?” she asked, giving him a smug, teasing look.
“Nevermind that, continue with the history lesson, please,” Tetsuo snapped back at her. Major Takagawa clicked her tongue in annoyance, muttering something about ‘being no fun’ and continued her explanation.
“In 1981, the Americans, discovered the source of the powers of the Soviet Supersoldiers. Since the Americans seized the only Ubermensch subject from the Nazis, the soviets trailed behind in supersoldier development. But they did eventually manage to get somewhere. Unlike the americans who used drugs, surgery, gene therapy, and alien technology, the Soviets found a source of magic,” she paused for a moment to gauge Tetsuo’s reaction.
“Wait, magic?” the not-quite-coming-to-terms-with-his-genderswap Tetsuo asked.
“Sounds crazy right? Turns out they found the hut on chicken legs of Baba Yaga legend back in the 50s and forcefully conscripted them, yes, multiple Baba Yagas, into helping them develop their supersoldier program. They managed to keep that a secret until the Mujahideen captured one of their soldiers alive in ‘81, just a few months after your death. He spilled the beans after some interrogation. I think he’s an old man living on a farm in Virginia now, teaching magic. The fifth generation of American super soldiers and third generation of Super Sentai ended up heavily incorporating magic into their programs,” she said, glaring at Tetsuo as she opened up her mouth to interrupt again. Tetsuo promptly closed her mouth and let Major Takagawa continue without further interruption.
“Magic capability is partially genetic, partially luck. In order to use magic you need to have physical compatibility with it, but also with enough mana reserved to actually do anything with it. It turned out females generally had larger mana pools than males, and that training from a young age could drastically increase the size mana pools. So Japan started their Mahou Shoujo, or Magical Girl program. The first generation started recruitment in 1993, mostly 10-13 year old girls. At the same time, Dr. Sokolov took control of the previously dead-end artificial human project. They had been unable to produce a functioning human being as each baby would be brain dead pretty much by the time we could test for brain activity. It turned out the key was in human souls.”
“So Dr. Sokolov immediately requested funding to restart the project and received enough money to create exactly one artificial human. The bigwigs spent the better part of the second half of the nineties debating on what they wanted out of the project. Ultimately, they decided on the body you’re in right now, a primordial genetic soup mix of the greatests superheroes and supersoldiers America, Europe, and Japan had to offer, including a sizeable portion of your own original DNA, for compatibility reasons,” she gently pressed a finger onto Tetsuo’s sternum. Tetsuo was starting to see where this was going now.
“So Dr. Sokolov ripped your soul out of your brain and stuck it into this body, They kept you in an induced coma until the body aged to suitable age, figuring you probably didn’t want to deal with years of being a baby and a child. They tried to develop your muscles too, with magic and electroshock therapy, and it seems to have worked, to some degree. Anyways, you didn’t wake up immediately like they hoped would happen as the body still had not fully accepted your soul. It instead ended up taking another three years for your soul to fully bond to this body. And now you’re awake,” she leaned back, a satisfied look on her face.
“Couldn’t make a male body?” Tetsuo asked again.
“Bigwigs thought it would be more appealing if their genetic monstrosity of a super-supersoldier was a cute girl I guess,” Major Takakawa shrugged.
“That’s the dumbest reasoning I’ve ever heard,” Tetsuo did not know how to sort through his muddle of emotions so a blank look stuck on his face, “But I suppose it’s better being a little girl than dead.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Hiro finally said something. He was not looking at his brother-turned sister but Tetsuo could not help but feel he was angry about something.
“Where is Dr. Sokolov anyways?” Tetsuo finally asked. Major Takakawa’s face turned solemn as a sad expression crossed her face. It was not just a look of condolence someone had when they spoke of the dead. It looked more like she had personally known the doctor and was reliving some painful memories.
“Dead. Car accident ten years ago. We suspected foul play initially but no evidence pointed towards that,” she said, calm and cold, all trace of that previous facial expression gone. Tetsuo sighed, even if it was as a female, she wanted to thank the man who had brought her back to life.
“We’ll test the size of your mana pool tomorrow, if it’s minimal, you’ll be free to live out the rest of your life as you choose, even end it if you choose, though I doubt you’re the type to do that. Besides, if the late Dr. Sokolov’s calculations are correct, and I have no doubt they are, you should have a sizeable mana pool,” she changed gears, talking about the future now instead of the past.
“And what if it’s as large as Dr. Sokolov thought it would be?” Tetsuo asked, picking up on a but from Major Takakawa’s earlier comment. Her answer brought back that previous name, the funny-sounding one that he was unfamiliar with.
“Unfortunately, you are, well at least your body is, government property so you will have no choice but to make a contract with us and become a magical girl.”