New Shape, New You

New Shapes, New You

Michiru was not what most people would call a bad friend. If anything, most people would've described her as being loyal to a fault. And yet, as she sat on the couch of her apartment, she could only feel like the worst friend imaginable.

She'd abandoned Nazuna; no, she did worse than that. She did nothing. She did nothing but stand there after her friend vomited onto the pavement; she did nothing as her friend writhed in pain on the ground, bits of skin sloughing off to reveal bloodied fur underneath; and she did nothing but run as the police 'detained' her. And she hated herself for it.

She wasn't sure when, exactly, she started to feel ill. All she could remember was doubling over in pain, and it being all that she could do to get to the bathroom before emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet, small dark flecks floating around among the bile.

And she ITCHED. Good god, did she itch. It wasn't the kind of itch where it was only a mild irritation, no; it was the painful sort, like when you leave a mosquito bite unscratched for far too long. She'd started with her hand; each scrape of her hand across the back of her palm brought some relief, only for it to quickly give way to the same itch, returning in force.

So, she did what any sane person would do. She scratched harder, and harder still, and it would just. Not. Stop. And then her fingers began to itch as well; she couldn't exactly scratch them, not with her hands. So she did the next best thing.

Placing two fingers into her mouth, she bit down, hard. And PULLED.

The skin on her fingers gave way easily, and with it, the itching subsided as well.

If she was in her right mind at the time, she would've noticed how little it actually hurt; currently, however, she was concerned with little more than putting an end to that infernal itching, so much so that she nearly missed the claws that now tipped her fingers.

Again, she kept scratching, digging away at whatever skin she could reach, gouging out chunks of the stuff with each pass, blood-caked fur revealing itself beneath each patch of skin that was sloughed off.

She could only cackle madly between sobs, whatever pain she felt being quickly subsumed by a distinctly overpowering sense of relief while what little part of her sensibilities remained could only tell her how WRONG this all was.

She should not have claws, nor should she have fur; she was human, after all. Wasn't she?

As the itching grew to be too much to bear, she decided on one final attempt to end it. Reaching behind her back, she dug her claws into the skin around her spine, and pulled.

With a wet, sickeningly STICKY sound, the skin gave way in sheets, small lumps falling away from her attempt at self-flagellation. Her sobs were fully overcome by her own maddened laughter, even as her legs buckled beneath the pain.

This continued for what seemed like ages, her discarded flesh now littering the bathroom floor.

Evidently, she must've passed out at some point, as she awoke to a bathroom caked in discarded skin, and the distinct (and familiar) urge to vomit.

That urge only intensified as she tried to get her balance back, only to slip and fall into the vile slurry face-first. And so, to the surprise of no one, she vomited. Out from her mouth came a vile concoction of bile, mucus, blood and... were those teeth?

Yes. Yes, they were. Hers, as she discovered after a brief feel around in her jaw, had apparently been forced out by an entirely new, sharper, set. And, with that, the dam broke, and she could only sob uncontrollably as the reality of her situation finally struck home.

This wasn't her, she'd cried, desperately clawing at whatever fur she could see in a vain attempt to undo her transformation. This can't be me, she'd said, as she tried to pluck out her new claws at the roots.

And she kept trying, desperately wounding herself in a mad attempt to return to her old self, until it became too much to bear.

She passed out not long afterwards.
______________________________________

That was a month ago. Her mother had reached out to Shirou about a week prior, and attempted to hire him to look for her kid.

...Shamefully, a part of him regretted even taking the job. That part only became more vocal, and more convincing, once he actually managed to find her apartment. Getting in was easy; the lock was simple to pick, and nobody was around.

Opening the door, he was met with the expected sight- dark rooms, messy furniture, the like.

What he DIDN'T expect, though, was the lack of a scent. The entire apartment just felt... dead, really. Nothing to see, no scent to pick up, nothing.

'Wait. I haven't checked the bathroom yet.'

He wasn't exactly sure how he missed it; after all, he'd made two rounds through the rather-diminutive apartment. Surely, he would've checked in the bathroom at least once, right? Unless...

Unless something else was at play. And so, with a certain degree of caution he usually reserved for more... sensitive, cases, he pried open the door...

... And retched at the sight before him. Live flesh coated every surface of the room; he could feel it throb and pulse beneath his feet, and he swore he could see a malformed eye look back at him.

What really struck him, though, is the smell. Or, rather, the distinct lack of one. Where he would've expected the telltale stench of carrion and rot, there was just... nothing. Actually...

There was something, now that he really focused on it. It was faint, almost imperceptible, but...

There it was. Petrichor and... cedar? What the hell?

His confusion only worsened as he surveyed the bathroom. Everything, and that meant EVERYTHING, was covered in flesh; whether it belonged to the girl or not, he didn't know.

He was sure, however, that she wouldn't have thrown what looked like a necklace down the sink drain. The cord itself was pretty badly lodged in there; as much as he hated the idea of sticking his hand in that muck, the promise of finally getting out of this place was just too much to pass up.

It took him longer to pull the necklace out of the drain that he would've liked to admit. As he did, though, he couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of relief. Evidence, at last; after all, people wouldn't believe a story about an apartment that just... wasn't there, y'know?

...Come to think of it, what kind of necklace was this? The pendant seemed to be carved out of wood- cedar, if the reddish tinge and smell had anything to say about it- carved into the shape of what looked to be a small human covering its eyes, with an eyetooth fixed to the back of the-

He nearly dropped it as the realization hit him. This wasn't a necklace, it was a fetish. A well-crafted one, at that. And, given what he knew about that kind of stuff (Admittedly, very little), breaking it should also fuck with whatever it's tied to...

... Well, this was embarrassing. The tooth was set pretty tightly in there; and... was that hair tying it to the figure? Best not to ask questions.

Eventually, he decided on his method. Shifting into his more bestial shape, he wedged a claw between the wood and enamel, and... *pop*.

Almost immediately, the room seemed to blur and shift, the fleshy growths replaced with a much more reasonable (albeit tacky) wallpaper, and what he'd thought was the sink instead revealing itself to be the toilet.

And then the smell hit him. He'd had to deal with carrion before; kind of a necessity in his line of work, really, but nothing quite this BAD. It smelled like meat that had been left out in the open for weeks, without any of the usual vermin cleaning it up.

That turned out to be the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were, and Shirou quickly found the contents of his stomach fighting to vacate the premises ASAP.

Suffice to say, they won.

(To Be Continued?)