Sister Panic

He shakes her and asks, "Why are you in my girlfriend's body?

"You're telling me that Onee-chan's dating you? I don't believe it." Masashi hears Mai speak in a different tone from how she usually speaks.

"Onee-chan, you say? Are you that half-sister of hers that she told me about? What's her name? Yes, Toyohama Nodoka, right?"

"Yeah!" She says still a bit absent-minded.

"I'll leave for a bit. You get your thoughts together."

Masashi leaves and tries to contact Mai through the telepathic connection.

'Mai? Mai? I need you to wake up, honey. There's a bit of a situation.'

'Masashi? Where are you?'

'I'm at home. I don't know where you are though. Can you come to my apartment?'

'Yeah, I found out where I'm at. I'll be there in 5 minutes.'

'Great, I'll meet you downstairs with your sister.'

'Yeah, thank god we didn't have sex last night.'

'That's fortunate, huh?"

…

Masashi and Nodoka are downstairs, waiting for Mai to arrive.

Masashi is surprised to see Mai walking down from her own apartment building.

[Gamer's Mind has resisted the illusion caused by the will of the universe.]

'I see, I guess they didn't swap bodies. What actually happened was the universe's will exchanged their locations and changed their physique to look like the other instead. It was impossible to affect Mai's Gamer's Body so it did the next best thing and cast an illusion around her so that everyone perceived her as Nodoka.

'This situation honestly makes me want to fucking destroy the universe will. Motherfucker's messing with all kinds of stuff related to Mai again.'

[Main Quest #2 Generated]

[Main Quest: Sister Panic

Objective 1: Find out the reason for the effect of puberty syndrome and fix it.

Objective 2: Help mend the relationship between Mai and her sister.

Rewards: 25 Levels Each, [World Travel], Masashi Plushie, ???]

Looking at the question marks, Masashi finally remembered that he forgot to check out the third unknown reward that he got when he helped Mai.

He looks into his inventory and sees an ability coupon. He just wills it to be used.

[Conceal LVL MAX: Allows The Gamer to conceal their traces from any being in existence, regardless of their strength. (Note: It does not make The Gamer invisible.) Cost: None. Cooldown: None.]

Masashi can't help but look shocked looking at the absurd ability that he just got. This makes going to worlds with omnipresent entities like gods so much simpler.

While Masashi was spiraling in his thoughts, Mai finally arrived before him and Nodoka, who looks like Mai.

Masashi smiles at Mai as she gives him a light hug, "Morning."

"Morning," Masashi replies.

"Onee-san!?" Nodoka exclaims.

"Any idea why this is happening?" Masashi diverts the topic.

"A dream! It's all a dream."

"We seem to have swapped bodies, or probably some other puberty syndrome thing," Mai says subtly hinting to me that she understands the situation but isn't willing to talk about it in front of Nodoka as it would mean revealing our abilities.

"How about we go to your apartment to talk Mai?"

…

"You know, It's weird that I haven't come to this place like ever, except like once. We always hang out at my apartment, no?"

"I'm used to living there anyway, even though I'm not here that much anymore."

"Nani! Onee-san is living with her boyfriend?" Nodoka exclaims. "This is a dream, if this isn't a dream then what is this? I can't believe this."

"Face reality, Nodoka," Mai suddenly goes into an Onee-san mode that Masashi never knew she had.

'Now, all she's missing is an ara ara.'

"So, how's your idol group going, 'Sweet Palette,' right?"

Not 'palette,' 'bullet'! Sweet Bullet.

"How do you even know her? I don't remember telling you about her."

"You mentioned that you had a half-sister. That was enough for me to find out the rest."

"So, you're stalking my Onee-san?"

"I like to call it being hopelessly in love with her."

"Anyway, I'm curious Mai why did you walk down from your apartment?"

Nodoka says, "About that… I was in the area and it got too late to go back, so, I just used the key I had and slept here."

"I see that unhealthy hiding of feelings is a family thing, eh Mai?" Masahi looks at Mai teasingly.

"Shut it."

"How are the two of you so calm about this situation?" Nokoka asks in a panicky tone. "A body swap is messed up on just so many levels."

"It is," Mai says.

"That's all? Onee—Mai-san, are you really okay with this?"

"Okay or not, we have to deal with this," Mai says in a steady voice.

"Anyway, until we go back to normal, I have to live as you and you have to live my life."

They bring out their planners to compare their schedules.

As Mai shows her schedule Masashi realizes that it's rather empty and doesn't have a lot of things.

"Mai, your schedule seems to be freer than I thought."

"That's because someone was complaining to me that he wants to spend more day time with me. I've kept a good amount of time in the second term free."

"Fuck, I love you. You are just amazing. Not that it's going to help much, with someone taking over your body? But still, it's the thought that counts."

"Go, I'll deal with my sister. Can you meet us downstairs at 7:50? I need you to take Nodoka to school."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

…

The next day, Masashi was walking with Mai and Nodoka.

"Um… I have my doubts about this. I don't think I can pretend to be Mai-san. Her close friends will notice immediately that something's off."

"Don't worry, Mai doesn't have any friends. She spends pretty much all her time in school hanging out with me."

"I feel like punching you in the face." Mai interrupts as Masashi just continues speaking.

"We're in the same class and all. If anything goes wrong, I can just cover for you." Masashi says walking ahead.

"Anyway, there you have it, taking my place in school will be easy."

"Just sit through the classes, you don't really need to talk to anyone other than Masashi. You don't really have to worry about much, Masashi can just take care if you slip up a little."

"Okay. Uh, I'm the same. Ever since I got chosen to debut last year, I've had no time to hang out with my friends."

…

Finally reaching the train station, Mai pulls Masashi to the side to talk with him alone.

"Well, I'll head to Nodoka's school."

"It's a rich-girls school in Yokohama right?"

"Yeah, I already have a bit of an idea about what happened but still, ask her what happened. I'm probably the cause."

"Pretty rough having a national celebrity for a sister, huh?"

"There's also the matter of our mother's egos."

"Your dad remarried another woman, of course, there's bad blood between the ex-wife and the new."

"Yeah, pretty much. My mother enrolled me in an acting troupe just to spite Nodoka's mother and father.

"When Nodoka's Mother found out, she enrolled her own daughter in a troupe too."

"So your mothers basically used you both as pawns in a proxy war, huh? That's rough."

"No shit, you think someone with a simple childhood would be into all the things I'm into?" Mai smirks at Masashi and leaves on her train.

As Nodoka and Masashi are waiting together for their train, "What were you talking about?"

"Private couple stuff. Are you curious?"

"Gross."

As the train finally arrives, they get on and leave for school.

…

In school, walking to class, Masashi says, "You've got the seat right behind mine. You've got the acting like Mai part down pretty perfectly, expressions, manner of speech, everything. Pretty good."

"I mimicked her a lot as a kid. She was my pride and joy, who I wanted to be."

…

Masashi left her alone for the lunch break and decided to talk to Futaba about the situation. She usually gives insightful opinions.

"You have the theory that Puberty Syndrome is caused due to some extreme advent of emotions. It applies pretty well in this situation." Futaba told Masashi as he explained the situation to her.

She continues, "I'm pretty sure that you understood the reason by now for this too."

"Yeah, she's got this big ass inferiority complex 'cause Mai's just so much better than her."

"…That's one way to put it."