In the short time since he came to Inaba, Yu Narukami had become a lot of things to a lot of people. To his friends on the Investigation Team, he was their cool, unflappable leader. To his uncle, he was a loyal and helpful nephew. To his little cousin, he was nothing short of a god.
However, beneath all of these things, Yu Narukami was still a teenage boy growing up in a sexually repressed culture. As such, when one of his best female friends spontaneously grew to six times her normal height, his train of thought docked at the same perverted station any teenage boy’s would.
My God… I could use them as beanbag chairs!
Sensing the giantess looking at him, Yu craned his neck up further to meet Yukiko’s eyes. They were wide with a confusion that was rapidly becoming fear. She started whimpering. Yu was taken aback by how loud it seemed, despite probably only being a whisper if she were her normal size.
“Yu-kun, help me…”
Yu snapped out of his reverie. His dirtier thoughts on the subject could wait until this evening, when he was alone in his room and sure the Dojimas had gone to bed. Right now, his friend needed him. It was time to be the leader.
“Yukiko, stay calm and listen to me,” Yu said, a little louder than normal to ensure Yukiko heard him clearly from thirty feet above. “Right now we need to get you out of sight. If too many people see you it could start a panic. There’s a clearing behind the shrine. Follow me there as quickly and carefully as you can.”
Yukiko steeled herself for the ordeal ahead. “Alright, Yu-kun. I’m in your hands.”
Yukiko took a step forward. To Yu’s relief, she wasn’t big enough to cause earthquakes with a single step. However, her footfall was still the equivalent of a sledgehammer striking the pavement of the shrine. Her sandal left a noticeable indent on the concrete ground. He gave this careful thought as he led Yukiko to the clearing.
Let’s see… according to the Square-Cube law, she must weigh at least eight metric tons by now. We’ll have to be careful. I don’t think many manmade structures can support her weight…
As if to prove this point, Yukiko’s hips inadvertently swayed into the wall of the shrine, knocking a hole into it.
“Yukiko! Be careful!”
“Ohmygosh! I’m sorry!” In her haste to distance herself from the shrine, Yukiko backed into a nearby tree only reaching up to her waist. The tree was knocked over and fell towards Yu, who barely dodged it.
Hearing the commotion, the fox poked its head out from underneath the shrine. It considered Yukiko briefly, and then thought better of getting involved and retreated back out of sight.
“Yu-kun! I’m so sorry! Here, let me help…” Yukiko bent down to pick Yu up. An image of an old American cartoon entered, unbidden, into Yu’s mind.
And I’ll hug him, and squeeze him, and name him George!
“NO! I’m… I’m fine,” Yu quickly arose, shoving Yukiko’s gigantic hands away before she could inadvertently pulverize his bones.
“But you’re hurt…”
“Worry about me later. For now, you need to get to safety.” Yu looked towards the shrine entrance. Fortunately, this was a slow day at the shopping district, and the commotion had only captured the attention of an old man that had just left Konishi Liquors. He took a long, hard look at Yukiko, took out his newly bought bottle of sake, poured the whole thing onto the ground, and calmly walked away.
“Now might be good.”
With that, Yukiko and Yu made their way to the forest clearing behind the shrine. To Yukiko’s credit, now that she had gotten over the shock of the situation, she was putting the grace she learned playing a hostess at her family’s inn to use, and was only causing moderate collateral damage. Reaching a place where she could sit down, she did so. This actually did cause a slight tremor, making Yu wince.
“Alright,” Yu said once he recovered. “I think our next step should be to call the rest of the team, or at least Chie. Is that okay with you?”
“Um… just Chie for now, please. This is embarrassing…” Yukiko said, curling up to make herself as small as she could. Given her size, this was a futile endeavor.
“Alright. She can help us figure out where to go from there.”
“Yu… thank you,” Yukiko peeked out from the fetal position she was in to look down at her friend and smile, a slight blush coming to her cheeks. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you weren’t here.”
“Don’t worry, Yukiko,” Yu said with an easy smile. “This is what friends do.”
“Friends… right…” Yukiko said, softly enough that if her voice weren’t amplified Yu wouldn’t have heard. As Yu brought out his phone to call Chie, he felt a familiar tingle in the back of his head. The Priestess social link he had with Yukiko just reached level eight.
“Yu-kun… that reporter I kicked… do you think he’s alright?”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Yu replied absently as he dialed.
---
The reporter was not, in fact, fine. After Yukiko kicked him, he hit an antenna on top of Tatsumi’s Textiles in such a way that he was killed on impact, his body left dangling from it haphazardly. The first to spot it was Kanji Tatsumi, who came out to investigate the noise. Ordinarily, someone happening upon this sight would panic and then call the authorities. However, Kanji was having an unusual year, and thus reacted to this sight in an unusual way.
“God damn it. Not again.”
Behind him, Kasai, having run here all the way from the shrine, stopped to catch her breath. She looked up, saw the body, screamed, and started running again.
---
Back at the clearing...
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
