"Well then, I won't keep you any further." Aoi clapped her hands together, unfolding her pantyhose-clad thighs that all of the school's boys and at least half the girls drooled over as the group convened in the nurse's office. "I'm going to go out on patrol. Any of you girls care to join me?"



"Me!" Momoko jumped up with her hand in the air. "I got my assignment done yesterday so I'm free!"

"What a good girl you are, Miss Momoko." Aoi said with a mature smile that gave Momoko funny feelings before patting her on the head. "Anybody else?"



"I'm out." Yui said as the nurse's eyes turned to her. "I mean, I'll do my usual route on the way to the cafe, but I'll do it on my own.The last time I went out with you my friends thought you were my mom."

"You could have told them that I'm your older sister." Aoi suggested with a bloodcurdling smile.

"Kuroko and moi have a date… with the flowers, of course." Sakura said a little too proudly, Kuroko quickly hiding her expression. "I must ask for your understanding."

"The gardening club is out then. Akari?"



"Ah, sorry, I'm busy. I should actually really get going now." Akari apologised, realising the meeting had gone on slightly longer than expected.

"Good luck with your date!" Momoko said cheerfully, getting a withering glare from the ponytailed redhead.

"It's not a date!" She said rather hotly. "The kendo club has a tournament coming up and we need to practice! Why do you always assume it's a date?"

"Because it's usually a date." Momoko said innocently. She was merely stating a fact, but the chorus of nods from the others had Akari turning red.

"It's not always a date! I have kendo practice three times a week!” Akari defended herself. “You guys used to never call me out when it was just kendo!”

"Hey, we're the ones who have to hear about it when you strike out for the fourth time this month." Yui sniggered. "You ever heard of quantity over quality?"

"Stick a carrot in it, cosplay maid." Akari retorted, Yui glaring at Momoko as she giggled uncontrollably. Her long, cute rabbit ears stood on end, stiffening unconsciously in a way that made it extremely difficult to not find her adorable when she was mad. Akari didn’t have animal features to express her annoyance, but continued complaining nonetheless. “I swear you guys act like I’m just the romance girl these days. Anyway, I’ll make up for it and go on patrol two days from now. I’ll do it all by myself, if it’ll make you happy!"

“Why not tomorrow?” Kuroko asked a question she already knew the answer to, and it took all of her maid training not to let a knowing smirk show on her face.

“Because I have a date tomorrow… Stop laughing!”

Akari grumbled all the way to kendo practice and through half of it on top of that, leaving the other club members terrified of having to be the opponent of their smouldering captain. She was a fierce opponent and strict leader on the best of days, let alone one where they could tell she was waiting to use somebody as a training dummy. It was a good thing that they were all too scared to open their mouths, as they all assumed that she'd had yet another breakup and would have made things even worse if they'd tried to console her over it. She entered the club fuming and left the club fuming, mumbling to herself as she stared at the ground barely caring what she bumped into.

“It’s not like I’m that boy-crazy… They’re just jealous all these guys are into me… Okay, maybe not Kuro and Sakura… Or Momo… Or Aoi, she’s married after all… Or Yui, isn’t she actually dating somebody right now- Oh forget it!”

Akari kicked at air to vent her frustrations, startling a few bypassers. Ever since she’d been turned into a blushing bride she felt like she’d been unfairly stereotyped by her teammates just because she happened to be interested in securing her dream future husband, and interested in sharing a little gossip, and checking out cute boys… But that was it! She had other things going on in her life! She was really starting to miss the good old days when she was the team’s tomboy, it felt like nobody saw past the layer of makeup she’d taken to wearing to remember the athletic, boyish girl underneath.

But then again, was that much better? Everybody had just treated her like she was a boy dressed up as a magical girl, and Yui had always left her out of her own gossip. Sure, she had been mostly uninterested in romance at the time, but it wasn’t like she didn’t find the peeks into the life of an ultra-fashionable gyaru’s life interesting. But even then, she’d prided herself on her image and tried to hide it. Had she just gone from one stereotype to another? Was it her own fault, or just the transformation that had been placed on her? She knew it wasn’t normal to be this lovey-dovey, but she just couldn’t help it. She saw a guy, jumped right ahead to a potential future with them, and dived perhaps too deep into it before she actually found out if they were really compatible, then repeated. And if it wasn’t her fault, did her team really have to act like it? Then again, it wasn’t like she just blamed the magic every time Sakura’s ego shone brighter than the moon, or Kuroko obsessively tidied their hideout, or Yui gave her some trademark gyaru sass, so why should she use it as a shield for herself?

To avoid too much introspection, Akari attempted to steer things back in a pettier direction. Maybe the reason why her team offered no sympathy was because she was practically the only one who cared about boys in the first place! Or perhaps she was the odd one for being in a group of ultra-colourful ultra-feminine gal-pals while still wanting a boyfriend, logic that was hard to argue with and quickly deflated herself.

Kuroko and Sakura barely made an attempt to hide the fact that they made out next to the lilies whenever they got the chance and had far more than a mistress-and-servant relationship going on at home. Momo occasionally mentioned that she’d like to get a boyfriend someday and maybe even believed it herself, but anybody could tell that eyes completely glazed over whenever an actual boy showed a crush on her. Aoi had initially seemed like a bastion of support as a married woman and had had a number of relationships in her life, but whenever Akari went to her for romantic advice Aoi had just admitted that whenever things hadn’t work out with the guy she was dating, she’d just date girls for a while and had recommended that Akari give it a try, much to her dismay.

She’d thought that she might find some comradery in Yui, who constantly teased her but at least seemed to have also had several boyfriends in her time, right up until she had been sent to pick her up from her part-time job for a routine patrol and had found her making out with another one of the other female employees in full cosplay in the break room. It was “just being faithful to the source material” and “experimenting”, Yui had brushed it off as, but there was nothing experimental about how her tongue was invading that other girl’s mouth…

–

"I'm home, Mom." Akari called out half-heartedly upon arriving home, kicking off her shoes. Her mother Hikari was quick to greet her daughter, wearing a pair of mom jeans that looked like denim-printed yoga pants with how snugly her ass was packed into them, magically enhanced by her daughter's misadventure then handed down genetically in the eventual reality that occurred. She also shared her daughter's plump lips and rapunzel-eque hair that fell down and past her equally tight sweater, although truth be told Akari wasn't quite sure where her magically enforced long hair came into the genetic equation as she remembered her mother having extra-long hair as long as she could remember in both versions of her life.

In fact, her mother hardly fundamentally changed from her daughter's more cosmetic transformations. She'd always had long hair, a healthy layer of makeup, and what could be best described by a neutral observer as a milfy mom bod, with hips and an ass that strained her mom bod to the limit, and sweater puppies pushing out her apron. While multiple pregnancies had given her a belly that was soft to the touch, she managed to maintain a perfect hourglass despite this that gave most of Akari’s predominantly male childhood friends very complicated feelings they weren’t old enough to deal with, and a strong preference to spend lots of time at Akari’s house. Well, the hourglass was technically Akari’s fault, as she vaguely remembered her mother being top-heavy prior to her own ass enlarging having a knock-on effect.

This idealised image was achieved because, as Akari was painfully aware, her mother was the platonic ideal of a housewife. Unless childrearing counted as a career, she'd never seen her hold so much as a part-time job in her life, devoting herself passionately to her husband and raising her family, having apparently gotten married straight out of high school. She'd always been there for her daughter as a result and Akari loved her dearly in return despite their differences, but the side effect was…

"You're home awfully late. How'd your date go?” Akari’s beloved mother, Hikari, asked, instantly causing her daughter to roll her eyes and purse her lips.

"It wasn't a date, mom!"



"I should hope not with the state you're in, young lady! Goodness, I can smell you from here!" Her mother chided her. "I hope your boyfriend didn't see you like this! Boys don't like a girl who doesn't know how to take care of her appearance, dear."

"It was kendo practice, mom! You know I always come straight home after it!" Akari groaned. "When would I have even had the chance to see my boyfriend?"



"If he was a good boyfriend he'd be waiting for you to finish so he can walk you home."

"And see me all sweaty?"



"A proper boyfriend would love you even if you're sweaty, dear."



"I give up! I don't even have a boyfriend right now!"

"Why not?"



"Mom!"

If there was such a thing as too supportive, it was her mother, and like any young woman Akari was destined to be perpetually embarrassed by her. At least her younger brothers and sisters weren’t here to see it this time, her mother having done her duty and pumped out several siblings for her oldest daughter. Akari did enjoy having two brothers and two sisters, but she always cringed whenever her mother told her how many grandkids she wanted to have, or reminded her of how a young Akari had excitedly told her that she wanted at least three daughters, and maybe a boy to round things out. Despite having been eight when she said that her mother had held her to it like a promise, which made Akari want to die.

It was perhaps inevitable that she turned out the tomboy of the family, although her bridal transformation had put somewhat of a dent in that recently. Her rebellious phase had come with a refusal to wear anything remotely feminine or frilly, much to the dismay of her traditionalist mother who was convinced that when it came to attracting boys, the girlier the better. Inevitably when Akari had gained a craving to wear a wedding dress for real, the girly stylings of a traditional marriage had had an immediate impact on her taste, and frilly dresses didn’t seem quite so bad after all. She’d taken her longer hair and prettied up face in stride as a result too, figuring that it meant she didn’t have to worry about actually dolling herself up as often, even if her new mass of hair was hard to cram into a helmet.

“Make sure you do your homework!” Hikari called out while Akari was on the way to her bedroom. “You’re going to need good grades if you can’t find a husband by the time you graduate!”

Sometimes Akari suspected that her mother got blasted by a housewife monster at some point. She wouldn’t have been surprised if there was at least one over the years… If there was a bride monster, why not a housewife one? While she’d had it in her mind as a bit of a magical girl in-joke, the thought began to distract her while she was in the shower washing off the filth of her thankfully still masculine hobby. If that really had happened to her mother, then she’d spent the rest of her life being defined by it, for better or worse.

Akari had figured that her lovey-dovey phase would last until she got married for real, but what was the endgame for somebody who desired specifically to get married? What if she had her dream marriage and then just kept wanting to have it? Would she start being obsessed with other people’s marriages, or would the appeal of her new husband wear off and result in a divorce just so she could get married again?

“I’m not gonna turn out like that.” Akari said under her breath as the thought continued to plague her after her shower, the lead of her pencil snapping as she clutched it too tightly while doing her homework. She hated the idea of being defined by what could be unflatteringly called a gimmick, even if she craved walking down that aisle like nothing else. She’d find the right guy, have her ideal marriage, and then get it out of her system and move on with her life. Just because she was transformed by a monster didn’t mean she had to let it get the better of her. There was just one problem:

“I’m never gonna get that far at the rate I’m going… Please, I just want a real boyfriend who doesn’t dump me after three weeks….” Akari stumbled over to her bed, collapsed, and moaned face-down into her pillow. Nothing seemed to go right for her, and even when it did, something conspired to ruin it. She’d had a good thing going with Takeru and had thought that she might really go the distance with him, and then he went and got himself turned into a girl! Life just wasn’t fair. Particularly with how the same thing happened with Hotaru’s boyfriend and they were still a couple.

If she could just get a stable boyfriend, and maybe keep him out of the line of fire, everybody would stop making fun of her ping-ponging romantic life, and she could stop worrying about this drama! But then, she turned face up and pouted her plump, perpetually rouge-tinted glossy lips that occasionally got her in trouble with teachers who thought she was wearing lipstick. Good for kissing, not that she got to do it half as often as she wanted.

Eventually, Akari’s inner turmoil bubbled over, and she rocketed upright.

“Alright, that’s it! No more dating! No more boys!” She said to herself with fiery eyes. “If they want a piece of this, they’re gonna have to come to me! Until then, I’m just gonna focus on kendo!”



“That’s nice dear, but I think you should focus on your homework first.” Her mother said, poking her head in. “By the way, I just put dinner on, we’re having your favourite tonight-”

“Oh my god, mom, I keep telling you to knock!” Akari hurled her pillow across the room at her intrusive mother…

–

Apparently there’s been sightings of a monster at the following points around the city, but no attacks yet. If you’re close to one of them, can you check out the surrounding area?

Akari sent a quick confirmation that she’d investigate the southern point on the marked map that Aoi had posted to the Kaleidoscope group chat on her phone, glad that she didn’t have kendo practice today. It looked like Momoko would take the east, Aoi would handle the west, and Yui was in the north trying to find an excuse to skip out on her shift at the cosplay cafe, but had warned that she was officially at the point of suspicion over the fact that she kept vanishing as soon as monster attacks were reported. Which left her with…

“Wasn’t expecting to see you all on your lonesome.” Akari peered at Kuroko’s solo appearance, the two of them still clad in their school uniforms as they met up as the two closest together.  “No girlfriend today?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Kuroko instantly stiffened up. The two hadn’t left off on the best note, and although she had gotten friendlier over time, her natural instinct when teased was to go on the offensive. “If you mean Sakura, she had some family business to attend to that she didn’t need a maid- I mean, me around for. What about you? Mad that protecting the city interrupted another first date?”

“I’ve decided to enjoy being single for the time being.” Akari put on her most natural-looking smile. “And don’t worry, I’ll be sure to take command in the fight, so you don’t get all nervous without your mistress here to tell you what to do. Would you like me to schedule out each part of the fight?”

“Just make sure you don’t get distracted by any handsome bystanders mid-fight.” Kuroko pushed back. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to ask the monster out on a date?”

This was the one primary downside to having a team composed entirely of young girls: if there was in-group tension, things could get extremely catty.

“Let’s hurry up and transform already.” Kuroko suggested, running her hand through her supremely long hair, her nails painted permanently a glossy black by her cosmetics-themed transformation.

“Already looking forward to the post-fight cleanup I see,” Akari smirked as the two checked quickly to confirm that there were no others in the alleyway they had stepped into.



“Oh, would you shut up already!?” Kuroko finally snapped, her body engulfed in light momentarily before her long maid dress fluttered into existence around her, her hair nearly touching the ground with how long and flowing it was. “Hurry up or I’ll leave you behind and deal with it myself!”

Akari was slightly slower on the transformation call draw, her frilly bridal gown filling the space around her as her hair was pulled up and bunched into a vivid red bun nearly as big as her head, red rose patterns adding a splash of colour to her otherwise pristine white outfit. By the time she was fully garbed Kuroko had already leapt up onto the rooftop above them, Akari grabbing her skirt and bounding after her, the two’s odd silhouettes soaring across the blue sky as they cut across the city to the nearest monster sighting location.

From their birds eye view they had a clear view of Tokyo’s busy crowds, and with their magically enhanced vision they had long since learned to know how to tell the difference between a bustling crowd and one that was fleeing, making it easy to pick out a point of interest in particular. Their suspicions were confirmed by the sight of hundreds of civilians flooding out of a particular mall, the two landing outside one amidst cheers of admiration and relief that their protectors had arrived. The tension instantly dissipated as the cries of terror turned into fanboy and fangirl squeals.

“It’s the magical girls!”



“It’s Red and Black!”



“No, stupid, it’s Rose and Black! Get it right!”

“Black is so cool and cute!”

“No way, Rose is cuter! Just look at that dress!”



“Why’s she called Black if she’s black and white?”



“Because everybody else is partially white as well, idiot! We’ve been over this!”

“Sign my baby, Kaleidoscopes!”

“Hey, are boys allowed to join? Or is it only boys who turn out to actually be girls?”

“Alright, please form an orderly line and disperse! We can’t get to the monster like this!” Kuroko turned as red as Akari’s roses as her weakness to flattery reared its head once again while she tried to control the crowd of adoring fans. “And no autographs! We only do signings at officially sanctioned events on officially licensed merchandise! No, I don’t care that you have your one-sixth scale statue here with you, why do you even have that on you!?”

“Watch where you’re stepping! Watch the skirt, you could hurt yourself!” Akari tried to shove some particularly clingy fans out of the way. Some fans were a little too handsy, and she felt like her veil would be tugged off her head and taken as a souvenir with how close they were getting.



“Hey! Who just yanked my hair!?” Kuroko yelled, her enjoyment of the hero worship quickly wearing off with how it was interfering with her duty. “That’s it, out of the way! Don’t make me get my broom!”



Kuroko lost patience and started physically lifting some of her fans up and out of the way, most of which appeared to greatly enjoy it. Akari bulldozed her way through, and the two were gasping for breath by the time they got into the mall itself, Kuroko ready to bar the doors if needed. Thankfully the crowd had just enough sense to not follow, and the two let out a deep exhale and tried to get back into the monster-fighting mood.

Once the doors slid shut behind them, they were made immediately aware of how eerily silent the mall was save for the music emanating from various stores, a mall an inherently surreal place when it was so empty.

“This doesn’t feel right.” Kuroko muttered, her instincts flaring up as she entered, materialising her broom while Akari likewise brandished her bouquet. The two made for a particularly surreal sight, a maid and a bride taking cautious steps into a vacant mall, glossy painted lips pressed tightly together as their perfectly made-up and beautiful faces made it look more like they had arrived after-hours for some sort of cosplay shoot.

“They’re waiting for us, I bet.” Akari agreed as the two jumped to a higher floor, trying to find signs of the monsters. “I don’t see anybody affected by them either. Either their victims blended in with the crowd, or they’ve got some sort of limited power…”

“Right you are, you clever magical girls!”

A shrill, rough voice echoed through the mall, the two instinctively leaping apart to avoid any surprise attack, as well as fanning out to lower the chances of both being hit and compromised at the same time. It was a demonstration of the two’s professionalism and ultimate trust in each other that the moment they got down to business, all bad blood was forgotten and the two were intent on working in perfect tandem… mostly. Kuroko was feeling a little insecure about being teased over her relationship with Sakura, and was eager to prove once again that she was more than used to fighting solo.

“Kuroko, over there!” Akari pointed her bouquet over towards a crafts store, where the monster was waiting quite openly for them in the doorway. The monster, unsurprisingly for the two of them by now, had picked a fitting place to reveal itself, as it was made up entirely out of cloth, fabric, yarn, and a multitude of other materials, a patchwork in roughly the shape of a human, with a slightly grotesque set of stitched lips and button eyes. The voice was female and the body had enough stuffing to have a feminine silhouette, but felt as if Frankenstein’s monster were made out of sewing supplies, colourful patterns making up what looked like a bikini to further emphasise their femininity.

“I’m glad you finally found me, it was so boring waiting!” It explained, the two on the lookout for any way it might suddenly attack them. When a monster was monologuing, they were either show-offs or stalling for time, and they suspected that this one was the latter. “My power doesn’t really lend itself to the whole terrorising crowds thing, and we all know that the party doesn’t start until the magical girls arrive anyway, does it? Might as well focus on getting you girls out of the way and then take my time afterwards!”



“Thanks ever so much for making our jobs easier!” Kuroko shot back, wishing that she and Kuroko’s positions were reversed. Akari couldn’t see the monster, meaning that she couldn’t use her ranged bouquet attack to turn the monster into a pincushion. Akari knew this too, and decided to go on the offensive, jumping down to face the monster directly, just far enough away that she could dodge any projectiles they threw back at them.

“Luckily, that gave me more than enough time to finish making these!” The patchwork monster held up four dolls, each in a primitive shape just barely recognisable as female. “I was hoping to get the full set done first, but there’s just the two of you to start with anyway!”

Akari raised her bouquet, pointing it directly at the monster and preparing to fire. With just the two of them, she was taking no chances.

“Which will allow me to do…” The monster said, cramming three of the dolls through a hole in her body directly into her stuffing, and holding up the remaining one in her hand. “...this!”



Akari fired just as the monster squashed the head of the doll down with her hand, Akari lurching as her vision shot downwards and with it, her intended rose bouquet barrage. The roses flew outwards in a wildly disorganised pattern, most hitting the ground in front of her while the rest sailed off into nowhere, taking out several store displays in an explosive barrage where the intended target easily dodged the one or two that remained on course.

“Akari!” Kuroko shouted, jumping down towards the disoriented girl.

“I’m alright, I’m just a little… huh?” Akari mumbled, looking up at Kuroko, and up, and up… She had to crane her neck to make eye contact with Kuroko’s concerned face. Was she on her knees? No, she was pretty sure she was still standing… Her head flickered downward, where the ground was far closer than it was a moment ago, at least as much of it as she could make our past her own milky cleavage. It wasn’t like she had fallen over or Kuroko had gotten taller… She had gotten shorter!

“Oh, you’re so cute! I knew this would be a good look for you!” The monster cackled at Akari and the squashed doll she was holding, the stuffing forced downward and crumpling the doll until it was a good third or more shorter than it had been before. “Hold on, I just have a few more tweaks to make…”

Akari tried to take a step forward and stumbled for real, landing face-first in her own cleavage as she discovered that there was only one place for the extra stuffing to go, resulting in her chest tremendously filling out into a massive jiggly bust almost as big as her head. Owing to the magic of the doll she hadn’t ended up with lopsided proportions, her legs being appropriately short and stubby to match, making her a veritable shortstack between her already padded butt and her now matching boobs.

To make matters worse, she could feel the strength leaving her arms as the monster carefully loosened the thread on a seam of each of her arms and pushed some of the stuffing out of the doll entirely, causing her musculature to fade and her arms to slim down accordingly. The once powerful Akari was left with two stick-thin arms that fit her tiny new body, her washboard abs softened by the excess stuffing forced into it. Magic would make up for her loss of strength while she was transformed, but she would need help lifting any heavy boxes for the immediate future in her regular life.

Kuroko usually would have laughed at the comical sight of the tallest girl in the team after her being squashed down to adorable proportions, were the threat of this happening to her not instantly looming over her head. If the monster could do this in one motion, imagine what it could do with more time…

Kuroko didn’t hesitate further, and leapt forward with her broom raised and ready to strike. The monster however moved faster, and had used the time she’d spent reacting to Akari’s change to dig out Kuroko’s doll too. She held it up smugly and pinched the waist, Kuroko wheezing as the air was driven out of her and her hips bulged out so quickly she could hear her dress rip at one side, tearing to reveal a deliciously plump thigh attached that could no longer be contained by her tight skirt intended to hug her hips and show off her figure. Now it instead showed off her white thigh-high and garterbelt, her modest maid outfit turning into a sexy slit dress in an instant.

The stuffing had gone up as well as down, leaving her with a similarly inflated bust, and assuring that now their entire team had the chests to match the junk in their trunks. This uniformity was hardly of any consolation to Kuroko, who was thrown off and couldn’t swing her broom half as hard, causing the impact to be absorbed by the soft body of the monster with ease.

Akari was still disoriented and reeling from her sudden loss of height, her heart beating too quickly for her to be embarrassed by it just yet. Everything was the wrong length and her centre of gravity couldn’t be less familiar, and she could barely walk straight once she got back on her feet. She’d lost her best weapon out of the gate, and it would take time to generate enough magical power to make a replacement, even harder when she didn’t have her head screwed on straight. What was it that Aoi had advised about never using your finisher right away, again?

“That’s a good look, miss maid! Classic hourglass!” The monster admired her exaggerated figure, her apron tied tight across a stick-thin waist. “But there’s still room for improvement!”

“I won’t let you!” Kuroko recovered quickly, being a simple exaggeration rather than a whole new body to get used to like Akari. She rushed in again, but was blocked by a civilian jumping out of nowhere from behind a shop display into her path, causing her to grind to a halt and try to stop herself from slamming into the human shield, sending her tumbling head over heel until she took got a faceful of her own new breasts, convenient airbags that perhaps her magical defences felt was better than hitting her pretty head on the tiled floor.

Kuroko let out a shout of anger as the woman jumped onto her, trying to wrestle her broom from her, glancing over at the monster who was playing with the limbs of a third, slightly different doll, a blank look on the civilian woman’s face showing that she had been turned into the monster’s puppet. If she’d paid more attention to the crowd from earlier, she might have realised that she recognised this face, as they had been the one who had seized the opportunity to grab a strand of her silky hair, providing the necessary ingredient for the monster’s voodoo dolls. She’d done the same with Akari, groping at her bun until she had black and red strands for her new mistress to weave into the dolls while the magical girls searched for her.

Kuroko let go of the broom and let the woman fall back off her with the strength of her own yanking, jumping to her feet with a bounce of her new breasts. More time was spent trying to not hurt the woman than it would have taken to merely push her off, and Kuroko didn’t want to waste a second. Had Akari recovered her balance in time, or was she on her own with this one?

“Alright, I’ve figured out what to do with you!” the monster said in a chipper, playful voice. “You’re cute, but you’ve got too much dignity. Aren’t maids cuter when they’re clumsy?”



With that, she squeezed the head of Kuroko’s doll, and for an instant Kuroko had the horrific image of her head being crushed like a grape, or flattened entirely. Thankfully her sexually charged foe didn’t have such a violent power, and the effects were more figurative than literal. Kuroko had her thoughts literally driven from her head, and her posture went slack as her intense expression softened into a hazy, dopey look. Her chest puffed out even further, like two massive melons smuggled under her uniform.

“Uh, like, what’d you do to me?” She said in a slow, ditzy voice. “Kuroko’s gonna, like, get super mad at you if you don’t tell!”



Akari, who had finally started to feel like she could take two steps in a straight line, overheard this and almost froze. She instantly stored this away, permanent ammo for if the prideful maid got persnickety with her again, assuming they made it out of this in one piece.

“Oh! Oh, that’s good!” The monster looked elated. “I’m such an artist, I can even fix your personality! What a perfect brainless maid! I bet you’re so dumb right now!”

“Dumb? Kuroko is not a dummy! I’m, like, Miss Sakura’s perfectly cute and smart maid! I, like, don’t need her to help me with my homework or anything!” Kuroko whined in her completely airheaded voice, taking a step forward and immediately tripping over her own skirt. “Ah! Miss Sakura, don’t look!”

“Alright, I’m just about ready to call you done, no need to mess with perfection!” The monster giggled creepily to herself at Kuroko’s helpless whines. “Let me just get some more hair out of you and I’ll sew you up nice and tight! Then, I’ll have you fight your friend, and then I’ll have you both fight the rest of your team! It’ll be so fun!”

The monster was so absorbed with her handiwork and plans for the future that she didn’t notice how Akari had hidden behind the store aisles where the fight was taking place, and couldn’t react in time to the shortstack leaping out and tackling the soft monster to the ground.

Reflexively, the monster squeezed Kuroko’s doll again, pinching her waist even thinner and forcing the stuffing back into the doll’s head.  Kuroko, whining on the floor, blinked a few times as her intelligence was forced out of her boobs and back into her brain. Still bigger than Sakura’s, her mistress was sure to jealously note after all this, but not so big that she couldn’t stagger back to her feet.

The monster gasped and tried to fix the doll in a panic.

“Oh no you don’t!” Akari cried, her weight more than enough to pin the monster to the ground, totally reliant on manipulating others to make up for its lack of substance. Akari might have lost her weapon, but although she was the picture of elegance in her splendid dress, she still knew exactly what magical girls embodied at the end of the day: violence. Glad that her more impressionable fans weren’t around to see this, she grabbed the arm that held Kuroko’s doll with both hands and pulled until the threads holding it to the monster’s shoulder tore entirely, the monster shrieking more in panic than pain.

“No! Do you have any idea how hard it is to sew with one hand!?” The monster yelled. “Alright, if it’s come down to this, I’ll just have to…”



The monster hesitated, its fingers trembling, unable to squeeze Akari’s doll and send her body proportions flying in every direction.

“No, I can’t do it! It’d be an affront to art!” the monster sobbed melodramatically. “I had you just how I liked you, too! I don’t want to change it too much!”

“That’s your problem, not mine, moron!” Akari yelled back barely understanding what the monster was on about, the two rolling around on the floor as she held the doll-like monster woman in a vice grip. “Kuroko, hurry up!”

Kuroko snatched her broom off of the ground, the puppeteered woman going limp without the monsters’s commands, and jammed the end of it through the monster’s chest, Akari letting go and rolling away as Kuroko pumped magical energy through it, the monster inflating like a balloon before bursting at the seams and sending stuffing and magical confetti around the room.

Akari struggled to her feet one last time, brushing off her dress as she caught her breath.

“Well, at least we stopped it from getting any worse-” Akari began to say before being abruptly shoved out of the way by Kuroko and falling onto her back, where her big boobs bounced into her face with a heavy smack that added insult to injury.

“Where is it? Where’re the dolls? There might still be time to fix things!” Kuroko said desperately, her skirt fluttering about as her juicy leg was shown off to the world. She lit up as she saw one of them, only to fall to her knees in despair as it dissolved, tied to the monster and the smouldering scorch mark on the store floor where it used to be.

“Aaaaaargh! Why didn’t you disarm it and then give us a second to fix ourselves!?” Kuroko moaned.

“Hey, you finished it off, not me!” Akari said defensively. “And I don’t see why you get to be the one to complain…”

Akari couldn’t summon much energy to debate who’s fault it was with Kuroko, as the reality was setting in that she was stuck like this, gone from a quite tall girl to well below average. She wondered if she was more than four feet tall, with boobs the size of her head making her torso look smaller and emphasising her tininess. It would take a while to fully take it in, but she wondered just what her kendo performance was going to be like with her like this. Would she have even gotten into kendo, with such a short stature?

“Are you alright, Akari?” Kuroko asked, awkwardly crouching down as if she was talking to a child. “Can you, um, can you walk back like that? Do you need any help?”



“No comments about my height, or I’ll tell everybody about your little episode.” Akari threatened, putting a stop to a lifetime of short jokes in an instant. “And if you need help with your homework, you can ask me as well, you know.”



Kuroko went pale as she remembered her momentary stint as a complete bimbo that put even Hotaru to shame, then took the extended olive branch.

“I suppose it could be worse.” She agreed. “And, um, if you have trouble fighting, maybe we can discuss strategies about you being a long-range specialist…”



“I’m not that short!”

–

“You’re so cute now, Akari!” Momoko squeed with her usual lack of tact. She had been in love the moment she’d walked in the door, and couldn’t contain herself from hugging her like she was an oversized doll the moment her interrogation about her new memories had finished. “That’s better than being tall, right? Right?”



“Speak for yourself.” came Akari’s muffled reply from her face buried by Momoko’s breasts. She looked to Aoi for help, but the otherwise very adult woman looked like she was struggling to hold herself back from declaring Akari the cutest thing she’d ever seen in her life and hugging her as well.

Sakura and Yui opened their mouths to speak, but found themselves receiving death glares from Kuroko. They didn't know exactly why she was suddenly so sympathetic towards Akari's situation, but the look was so fierce that two swallowed their jabs and meekly backed down.

“Well, I hear most guys like short girls.” Yui offered, sounding flustered and embarrassed herself.



“It’s a very… dignified height!” Sakura attempted and struggled with trying to look down at Akari without looking down on her.

Akari returned a pained look that stopped the two from any more attempted consolations. This would prove to be quite the elephant in the room for the next few weeks, as any use of the words “small”, “tiny”, “undersized”, “petite”, or “short” was to be met with awkward silence and attempted rephrasing. Kuroko was initially relieved to find that her own changes had flown mostly under the radar by comparison, but would be less than pleased to find that her hips and legs were now so thick that the slit addition to her dress was now permanent, although her fanclub did immediately increase in size as a result.

“I think I’m gonna go home early today, if that’s fine with you guys.” Akari sounded exhausted. “I’ve got kendo practice tomorrow, and all.”

Akari left the room, Momoko pouting that she didn’t get to spend more time cuddling with Akari…

–

Akari wasn’t really looking forward to arriving home, hesitating with her hand on the door, having to reach much higher than usual. She paused further, running her hands through her now nearly floor-length hair, having not grown any proportionately shorter. She wondered if she should consider braids rather than a ponytail from now on, but that was the least of her concerns. Once she walked in, it really would set in.

 But she couldn’t put it off eventually, and with the sun setting she opened the door as casually as she could, finding her mother waiting in the hallway for her.

“Welcome home, dear. You’re a little later than usual. Did you have kendo practice?” Her mother asked, Akari able to look her equally undersized mother straight in the eye without any effort. If anything her mother was a little shorter, and filled out her mom jeans and sweater even harder than she had in the old reality. The main difference between the two was that her hair was cut short, while Akari was stuck with chronically oversized hair. Her mother’s hair did grow abnormally quickly, but she wasn’t quite stuck with it like her daughter was.

“Is something wrong, dear?” Her mother asked, Akari realising that she had been staring.



“No, nothing, Mom.” Akari shook her head and played it cool. “I just went over to a friend’s house for a bit.”



“A boyfriend’s house?” Her mother said hopefully.

“You wish.” Akari brushed it off, heading to her bedroom, where everything was conspicuously smaller to make up for her own height. It was almost comical, Akari found herself wanting to laugh at the sight of it. Over in the corner was her familiar kendo kit, the biggest surprise of her new height being that it was still there. She had been fully expecting to have been ejected from her favourite sport, ushered down the path of some girlier activity between her bridal transformation and her height and lowered strength reducing her to a significantly less athletic figure.

Instead she found herself still the captain of the kendo club, if not its ace member due to her less impactful strikes. She had been appointed captain not for her natural talent, but because she had worked the hardest to make up for being a tiny girl poorly suited to sports, and was still second best in the club despite that. If anything their importance had improved, and there were several additional members, both boys attracted by the cute captain and girls inspired by her achieving success despite her adorable appearance. Although Akari was naturally competitive, she was more satisfied that she had done her best, rather than disappointed that she no longer had a natural physical advantage.

In that sense, Akari found herself relieved. Perhaps she was still a hopeless romantic who had dated half the boys in her kendo club by this point, but she had gone down the same path even though her past as a natural star athlete was taken from her, and she was less stressed than she thought she’d be by her decision to take a break from dating for a bit, now confident that she was cute enough to land whatever guy she wanted at her own pace. Perhaps she could continue to be whatever she wanted, and not worry too much about being defined by her transformations, and maybe even use them to her advantage.

Although she still wasn’t too pleased about being shorter, Akari smiled as she laid back on her bed. She was a magical girl, and transformations were expected in the line of fire, and well worth it to avoid the city slowly but surely being turned into puppets and playthings for that monster and whoever cropped up after their team had been defeated. Her height was a small trade for that success, she told herself. On the plus side, her bed seemed more comfortable, with all the extra space…