Chapter Text
Invader Atsuno smiled and hummed happily as she mingled around the kitchen, intent on making her and her wife a nice breakfast. Tomorrow would be their two-year anniversary and she was going over her plans for it as she wandered around the kitchen.
She halted her work when a pair of soft but strong arms wrapped around her waist and she felt her wife's breath on her ear.
[Good morning Darling~] Lum whispered. Even after 2 years of marriage the other woman still managed to send shivers down her spine.
[Good morning love] Atsuno replied. Small comfortable zaps of electricity arced between their exposed skin as the two Oni women relaxed into the embrace.
After a minute Atsuno spoke up, [Babe, as much as I enjoy this we do have things we need to do today,] she said.
[Do we have to?] Lum asked, tightening her arms with a teasing edge in her voice.
[Hmm, probably not,] Atsuno said, turning around to return the embrace and pepper her wife with kisses.
Lum squirmed under the affection and laughed. [I'm kidding, I’m kidding, we really have to do stuff today]
[I can think of some things we can do,] Atsuno said, wiggling her eyebrows.
[Save it for tonight Darling,] Lum laughed before continuing, [The Forgross are not only our closest stellar neighbors but the largest exporter of Radiant matter in the Milky Way. If we didn't show up it would be considered a political insult] she lectured before giving the slightly shorter girl a pec on the lips and heading off to get dressed.
[Fiiiiine] Atsuno mock-groaned. She smiled as she watched her wife leave, then frowned as their habitat saucer made a noise it was most definitely not supposed to make followed by a small explosion.
"What the fuck?" Atsuno said in Japanese. Taking off her apron, the Oni woman floated over the counter and made her way through the ship's many blast-proof airlock doors before finding the room responsible for the noise.
As the last set of doors slid open with a hiss, Atsuno felt a wave of heat threaten to push her back. "Again, what the fuck?" She said to herself as the room beyond the doors was covered in smoke and flames that were slowly being extinguished by the ship's fire suppression system.
[Darling what was that?] Lum asked, floating towards her.
[I swear I found it like this,] Atsuno panicked.
Lum gave her a look and said [I believe you, we can figure out what happened when we get home. We really need to start getting ready, close the door and let the ship take care of it.]
[Kay] Atsuno said as she watched her wife float back in the direction of their room.
Once she was around the corner, Atsuno did exactly what she was not supposed to do and went into the smoldering room.
[Ugh, what happened?] She muttered to herself as she hovered over the still-burning mess.
She never got an answer to her question. Instead one of the mostly intact machines started to emit an ominous glow and Atsuno knew she should have listened to her wife.
As the machine detonated, she only managed to let out a [FU-
-C̸̦̟͂̽̈́̈̏̔͌̋̆K̶̢͇͈̣̰̝̗̫̩̼͎̜̪͚̆̄̽̽̅́̾ͅ" She yelled, shooting upright in her futon. …wait, that's not right. She had slept in a California King western style bed every night for the past 4 years. When did she get a futon?
She was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming pain in her throat as if her vocal cords had attempted to make a sound they were never designed to make. She doubled over in a coughing fit which made the sudden changes to her body very noticeable.
She was missing some things, namely her breasts. After a few moments, she was able to get the coughing under control. Her throat still felt like someone had taken sandpaper to her windpipe, but at least she could breathe.
Atsuno wiped away the tears that had formed during her coughing fit and looked at her surroundings. She was in her old bedroom back on earth, it looked like it did back when she lived in it rather than the storage closet slash hobby room her parents had turned it into after they disowned her.
She looked down at her body only to find it very very wrong. Something had happened, she was back as a guy! Did she get hit by a Tengu ray in the lab? She was pretty sure they didn’t have one on the ship, she knew they had an Issiod’rian model but it was gathering imaginary dust in subspace storage, not laying around ready to go off.
She tried to float out of the futon only to discover the situation was much, much worse than she thought. She wasn't only back in a boy's body, she was human again. Her hands shot up to her head only to feel her smooth scalp under locks of short, brown hair.
Atsuno was starting to panic. Being forcefully de-transitioned AND losing the freedom of flight was not a very good combo for her mental health.
A knock at the door didn't break her from the panic attack, but it did get her attention. "Ataru! You better be awake or you're going to be late again!" Her mother said, her biological human mother. Not the woman who had taken her in as if she was her own and shown her all the love and acceptance the woman in front of her never had.
When she didn't get a reply she threw the door open but stopped at the sheet-white expression of horror on her child's face.
"What is wrong with you? Are you sick? You can't afford to take sick days with grades like yours!” She fumed before closing the door.
Atsuno heard her egg donor walk off muttering about her worthless child all the way down the hall.
‘Oh gods this is real.’ She realized. ‘This isn’t a dream, this is actually happening.’ She scrambled out of bed, only to trip over her own feet and slam back onto the floor.
“Ow,” she muttered and cringed at the deep, distinctly male voice that came out. Then was hit with another coughing fit, her human vocal cords having not yet recovered from trying to speak Oniboshigo.
After a moment she collected herself and attempted to stand once more. This time paying attention to how her body moved instead of relying on muscle memory.
Atsuno eventually made it to her desk and saw the calendar sitting atop it.
March 23rd, 1981. Exactly one month before the invasion, one month before she could do anything about the horrible oppressive body she found herself in. One month before she could see the only person who had ever really had her heart.
That started another panic attack and it was far past time to leave for school when she finally recovered. Nobody had come to check on her once since her m- that woman last came up.
It was another two hours, alternating between crying and panic before she was able to completely calm down and start thinking rationally.
'Alright, Atsuno think, it doesn't matter how you got here. If you were in an alternate timeline or dimension you would have been rescued by now, time is relative and Lum wouldn't let even the entire Oniboshi Royal Navy stand in her way of reaching you. That means you're stuck in your original timeline, essentially a universe reset.'
'Fuck those are the worst to deal with.' She thought to herself, still not trusting (or liking) her voice.
She grabbed a pen and an unused notebook and sat at her desk. The desk would have felt almost nostalgic if not for her inner turmoil.
'You can do this. You can see her again in a month. One month.' She told herself. 'You can make it one month,'
This time, she wouldn't win The Game by dumb luck, and she wouldn't expose her wife to every camera in the world she thought with a cringe. If she really was stuck back in time then she needed a plan, and this time, this time things would be better.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Soon her notebook was almost filled front to back with Oniboshigo. She was the only one on the planet capable of reading the language so she figured it was safest to keep notes on time travel. She wrote down everything she could remember of the next 6 years. All the crazy events, the wacky hijinks, everything she could remember that her new knowledge and maturity would likely get her through. ‘Gods I could have won an award,’ she mused, ‘World’s most hormonal teenager goes to drumroll please… This fucking egg!’ She giggled at her own joke.
‘Hmm, I could avoid meeting Cherry at all if I just don’t loiter on that bridge? No, the old weirdo would just follow Sakura-sensei to school. And all the mystic hijinks that we went through allowed him to grow powerful enough to detect and lift my Interesting Times curse.’ she mused ‘Do I have that again? As much as it pains me, he is my best bet on getting that taken care of.’
For The Game itself, she needed to be stronger and faster. As much as she hated this body she needed it in peak condition, so she worked out an exercise routine that involved quite a lot of running and stamina training. School would be easy, she had the space equivalent of a master's degree in galactic politics and deep-field bioengineering. High school is going to be a breeze.
She needed to show she could be a normal and respectful student to minimize the backlash of her coming out. That would be the easy part, Atsuno cringed when remembering how she used to act. The things she did to repress or make sense of the dysphoria she didn't have a name for would likely live in her mind’s cringe vault till the day she died, every once in a while sneaking back out to remind her just how horrible she used to be.
The sky outside her window was turning orange before her stomach politely informed her she hadn’t eaten anything all day by letting out a loud growl and taking all the sugar in her blood for itself.
She stretched her arms over her head and yawned, her throat having mostly recovered from the morning. Tomorrow she would start her workouts, but for now, food.
Still in her pajamas, Atsuno made her way downstairs, hoping it was around the time when dinner was served. She had been away from this place for so long she had forgotten the details of their routine.
Walking into the living room, Atsuno made her way to the table and sat across from her birth parents. ‘Man it’s going to get hard coming up with things to call them after they disowned me I always just referred to them as ‘Those Bastards’ and everyone knew who I was talking about’ she mused.
“Ataru,” her mom said.
Atsuno flinched, she hadn't been called that name in years.
“How are you feeling? You looked sick this morning so your father and I left you alone but you really can't be missing class.” She said.
Atsuno looked up at her mom, ‘that's not the mom I remember…’ she thought slightly shocked.
“I don't want to be accused of child abuse, honestly what would the neighbors think?”
‘Ah… There she is,'
“S-Cough Sorry, I think I just had a bug, ill be able to go tomorrow.” She said.
“Son you sound like you've swallowed a frog,” her dad commented.
Suppressing another flinch, she replied, “Sore throat…”
“Well here, have some Daikon,” he said moving the plate closer to her. Astuno nodded a thank you before starting to eat.
Right, this was how it was before. Mom and Dad started most of their shit after the invasion. Most she reminded herself, remembering her baby album. Her parents were more concerned about appearances than actually being good parents. ‘Hell, the first time around when I was losing, mom’s only concern was how she was going to explain things to the neighbors, rather than her child’s welfare.’
The Moroboshi’s one goal in life was to be a normal middle-class family but all the chaos and media attention they will receive starting next month will break them. Coming out in her third year of high school had been the final straw.
Atsuno picked up her chopsticks and started to eat, only for her eyes to widen in surprise when the flavor hit her tongue.
That's right, she was human again. She was so used to Earth food being bland and flavorless that she hadn't expected to taste it.
After becoming an Oni, she didn't really miss Earth food. The galaxy was huge and offered much more culinary variety than Earth. Being able to taste this was just another reminder of what she lost.
[Let the ship take care of it]
"I should have listened to her," Atsuno mumbled, her eyes watering.
'Ataru crying over food? He must be really sick,' Mr. Moroboshi thought, scooting a bit away from his son.
'Did my son just use atashi? I thought we broke him off that when he was little. I'll scold him tomorrow' Mrs. Moroboshi thought with a scowl.
The family finished the meal in silence and both parents were amazed when their son volunteered to do the dishes.
'Something is definitely wrong' they thought, peeking their heads around the corner, watching as their son willingly did a chore for the first time in his life.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
That night Atsuno went over her notes on the next two years, adding in more events as she remembered them. If she was truly stuck here then she would make things better. She won't need all 10 days to win, she won't justify her reputation as Tokyo’s worst skirt chaser, and she won’t wait four years to accept her feelings for Lum. ‘It would likely be closer to 4 minutes’ she told herself.
Atsuno set aside the notebook and turned off the light, she crawled into her futon and tried to sleep. It was only 8:00 pm but she needed to get up early to start preparing for The Game.
‘I can't remember the last time I slept alone…’ she thought. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, she sighed and went to her closet to retrieve an extra pillow. Now armed with something to hug, she was finally able to drift off.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Atsuno’s alarm woke her up at 4:30 am. She groaned as she searched the floor for the offending noise only to find nothing within reach. Sitting up, she remembered she moved it to her desk the night before to make sure she got up. Crawling over, she reached up and silenced the machine.
She let out a yawn and by habit, tried to float up only to stay firmly rooted to the floor.
“Right not a dream…” she trailed off or more accurately nodded off. Five minutes later the shrill beeping of her alarm, this time right next to her ear, reminded her she was awake at this hour for a reason.
“Fuck time travel,” she muttered as she turned the alarm off and moved to get dressed. 10 minutes later she was wearing some basic workout gear similar to what she was given for The Game.
“Alright, I’ll start with the school and back,” she said before heading off in a jog.
20 minutes later she was gasping for air on the side of the road. “How was I this out of shape?!” she yelled at the night sky. After a few more deep breaths she straightened up, ‘No, this is to be expected you just got to push harder. The more you do it the easier it will get!’ she told herself.
She made her way back home around 7:00 am tired and sweaty and in desperate need of a shower and some breakfast.
She opened the door and took off her shoes, “Tadaima,” she called out only to hear a scream of fright from the kitchen, her father came rushing out of her parent’s bedroom. “What is it? Are we being robbed!?” he yelled. Atsuno just stood in the doorway with a dumbstruck expression as she listened to her parents panic thinking a stranger had just come into the home.
After a few moments, and the sounds of pots and pans being thrown, Mr. and Mrs. Moroboshi rounded the corner at high speed, both wielding kitchen utensils ready to defend their home.
“Uhh, good morning,” she said with a wave. Both her parents froze in place at the sight of their notoriously lazy child wearing a tank top, shorts, and running shoes looking for all the world as he had just come back from a jog.
“Honney, are you seeing what I am seeing?” her father asked, not taking his eyes off her or putting down the frying pan.
“If you are seeing our son looking like he came back from a run then yes, I think so.” her mother replied.
Atsuno suppressed yet another flinch, “Uhh, guys please step aside, I need to get ready for school.” She said.
“He is being polite!?” Her father cried.
“He is worried about being late!?” Her mother added.
“WHO ARE YOU AND WHERE IS MY SON?!?!” Mrs. Moroboshi screamed, waving a metal ladle at him threateningly.
Atsuno decided to play along, “I killed him and buried him out back, I’m taking over as your new child. Nice to meet you,” she said with a deep respectful bow.
After a moment both her parents decided that their grasp on reality had been tested enough and passed out in the entryway.
“Yeesh, some people can’t take a joke.” She laughed. Stepping over their bodies, she made her way upstairs and started getting ready for school.
By the time she washed up and put on her gakuran (which had taken no small amount of mental fortitude), her parents had recovered and her mother was setting the table for breakfast.
‘Oh this is going to be fun’ Atsuno thought to herself.
“Hey Mom, do you need any help with that?” she asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible.
Both of her parents stopped what they were doing to look at her with slack-jawed expressions of amazement.
“I-I-It wasn't a dream?” her father choked out, lowering his newspaper to look at her.
‘Were they always this dramatic?’ Atsuno asked herself. “Yeesh would yall give it a rest? I do something nice once and you two blow up about it.” she said, sitting down at the table she continued, “What's for breakfast?”
“M-Miso and rice,” Her mother said.
Soon the family was sitting at the table quietly eating breakfast. The only noise was the tv spokesman going over the latest news.
After Atsuno finished, she took her dishes and put them in the sink. Grabbing her bookbag she made her way out the door. “I’m heading to school, I’ll see yall tonight,”
Atsuno closed the door on their still stunned expressions, “Hehehe, their faces might be stuck that way until the invasion.” She laughed.
Walking down the street her good mood soured as she tugged at her gakuran, hating how the distinctly masculine outfit fit her lanky frame. ‘Come on Atsuno, it’s only a month. You can make it a month.’ She reminded herself.
After messing with the jacket a bit she stopped as a thought popped into her head. “...I COULD HAVE WORN THE TRACKSUIT!” She yelled.