Chapter Text
The moon hung high above, pale and swollen like it had too much sake, spilling its silver light across the trees. The night was thick with silence, only the rustle of leaves breaking through. Subaru blinked once, twice, then again, harder this time, as if maybe the act of forcing his eyes shut and opening them would make sense of what had just happened.
Nope. Still here.
The very last thing he remembered was the universal joy of finishing a long, well-earned piss behind the corner store—pants zipped, whistling, life good. And now… now he was in a forest. Not just any forest either. The trees stood tall and jagged, their bark warped like old scars. Their branches reached for the sky in crooked fingers. The air was cool, damp, heavy with the smell of moss.
“What the hell…?” he muttered. His breath puffed faintly in the moonlight, his voice strange in his own ears.
Then came the weight in his hand. He looked down.
An axe.
Subaru tilted his head, blinked, squinted. An honest-to-god axe. He wasn’t the type to handle tools—hell, even a butter knife was dangerous if you left him in the kitchen too long. Yet here it was, resting easy in his grip, as if his body had swung axes since the day it was born.
“Uh… huh? Why an axe? Did I get lumberjack DLC? Where’s my tutorial screen?!”
He tried to drop it, but his fingers clung tight. It felt natural. Too natural. That alone gave him a shiver.
Then he noticed something even stranger. The fabric brushing against his arms and legs. It was soft. Flowing. A little tight in certain places.
“What the—”
He pinched at the hem of the fabric and pulled it up slightly. Frills. Ruffles. A skirt. His jaw went slack. He tugged further. Stockings. Tight stockings hugging smooth legs.
His pupils shrank.
“…No. No way. Why the hell am I wearing… this?! Some kinda crossdressing event? Did someone prank me?!”
The skirt swished when he shifted. Definitely real. Definitely on him. He staggered back, heart hammering, and almost tripped over a root.
Was this it? Was this finally it? His isekai protagonist moment?
The thought struck him like lightning.
He snapped his gaze skyward.
The stars. The stars would tell him the truth.
He tilted his head back, eyes widening. The heavens glittered with countless jewels, but none of them were familiar. No Orion’s belt, no North Star pointing smugly in the distance. The constellations were alien, dancing in foreign patterns across the velvet sky.
“Yes!” Subaru pumped his fist at the heavens, practically hopping. “Yes, yes, yes! Another world, baby! Finally! Yoooosh!”
The axe gleamed in his hand like the starter weapon from every RPG ever. His gaze drifted down to his frilly attire. Maybe this was his beginner’s gear. Once he leveled up, surely he’d unlock something cooler. Some flashy cape. A trench coat. At the very least pants.
For now, he’d take it.
“Step one,” he whispered to himself, nodding seriously. “Slimes. Gotta kill slimes.”
He clenched his free hand into a fist, feeling a strange excitement buzz in his veins. His tongue felt odd in his mouth, though. Like it was sharper somehow. His canines brushed his lip. And his breath—was it… heavier? Musky? Weird. Probably just the air here.
“Magic…” he muttered. His grin stretched wide. “I wonder if I can use magic. Fireball! Kamehameha! Hadouken!”
Nothing. Not even sparks.
“Alright, alright, calm down. Basics first. Slimes. Then fireballs. Easy.”
He adjusted his grip on the axe and took a step forward.
The sound was soft, but there—a faint jiggle.
His brows furrowed. He froze, looked around. Nothing moved.
He took another step.
Jiggle.
Subaru’s face twitched. “Wait a second…”
Slowly, carefully, he looked down at himself.
The stockings hugged his legs. The skirt swayed faintly in the wind. But higher up…
His throat went dry.
Two rounded shapes pressed against the front of his dress.
“No way…”
He lifted his trembling hand. His fingers were slender, delicate—nothing like the hands he remembered. He poked gently. The sensation shot straight through him like an electric current. His heart thumped hard.
He froze. Stared. Then poked again.
Foreign. Soft. Real.
“Oh… oh crap. No, no, no.”
His hand didn’t stop. It cupped. His eyes widened further.
“Don’t. Don’t do it, Subaru. Don’t—”
He squeezed.
The world tilted.
“Mhm—” His breath hitched. “N-nope! Nope! Too real! Way too real!”
He yanked his hands back like he’d touched a hot stove. His entire body shivered.
His mind raced.
“Wait wait wait… Did I just…? Am I in a… femboy’s body? That’d make sense, right? Right? Some girly boy with an axe? Yeah, that’s not too bad, I can roll with—”
The moonlight stretched long and pale across the ground, catching his shadow.
He saw it.
Short bob-cut hair, tied in neat twin tails. A silhouette smaller, slimmer than his own had ever been. But what made his blood freeze were the two shapes jutting from the head.
Horns.
Long, curved horns. Eight, maybe eleven inches, sharp and gleaming faintly under the moonlight.
“…huh?”
Subaru reached up slowly. His fingers brushed against smooth, hard bone. His stomach dropped.
“They’re real…” he whispered. His legs gave way, and he fell onto his butt. The impact didn’t hurt, but something else did.
The sensation between his thighs.
A hollow emptiness.
His eyes went wide. His hands shot down. He grabbed. He searched.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
The blood drained from his face.
Subaru’s scream tore through the forest, high-pitched, shrill, and unmistakably girlish.
The sound startled birds from their branches, echoing across the trees. His own ears rang with the voice. That wasn’t his voice. That wasn’t him.
“Oh no no no no no—” he gasped, clutching his head. His twin tails bounced with the motion. His horns gleamed in the moonlight.
His entire body shook as he stared down at the dress, the stockings, the axe clutched so easily in his delicate hands.
This wasn’t just another world.
This was another body.
And his voice—his scream still lingering—was proof.
A girl’s.
