Yuriko stood in front of the mirror with her lips pursed. It was just about dawn, and she was ready to head over to the university campus, though she was early by an hour. In the wardrobe, she found five sets of near identical outfits and with a little prodding, ‘remembered’ that those were uniforms for students. She put them on, and unfortunately, her increased height and more slender frame meant that the clothes fit oddly over her.

The uniform during the Season of Earth was a blue plaid skirt that should have fallen to her knees, but hem was now well above it. She had white knee-high socks that Yuriko managed to tug as far up as they could go, but that too fell short. She had a white button down, long-sleeved shirt, that, thankfully, was long enough that she could tuck it into the skirt’s band. A pity that it was a bit tight around her shoulders. The narrow necktie and lapel pins would have matched no matter what, so that was fine.

Lilibeth’s brassieres were too big for Yuriko’s cup size, though not by much. It was just loose enough that tightening the straps worked, but was still slightly uncomfortable. She could live with that, or she could forgo it and just support her bosom with her Animakinesis as she normally did. The button down’s fabric was thick enough that it wouldn’t show up, especially with skin tone brassiere underneath…well, it would have matched Lilibeth’s complexion, but Yuriko’s skin was alabaster white, though the shift hadn’t completed yet. She expected her skin tone would change to match her true body’s in a few days or so. Ah, that and if she got water splashed on her shirt, it would be blatantly obvious if she wore anything underneath it or not, and anyone who touched her would probably be able to tell. If Lilibeth had a chemise this wouldn’t have been a problem, but the woman didn’t. Yuriko looked up the price of bras through Lilibeth’s phone, and it was drastically out of budget.

Lilibeth also had a drawer full of makeup, mostly blushes, lipsticks, eyeshadows, and mascara, but Yuriko opted not to use them for now. The knowledge of how to was within Lilibeth’s memories, at least. Well, Lilibeth went without some days so Yuriko figured it shouldn’t matter much.

The most pressing issue was that the woman had pierced ears, and Yuriko didn’t. And she wasn’t about to do so now, or ever, for that matter. She could hold the earrings next to her lobes with kinesis, projecting her Anima from the contact point, but if she made a mistake, or slipped up her control, it would, again, be blatantly obvious. Well, she could just hide her ears with her hair, which had grown an inch longer since yesterday, though it still only fell to her shoulders. Lilibeth’s hair colour was closer to brown than blonde, but now, it was headed into gold. Well, people did dye their hair, and ear piercings eventually closed if left alone, so Yuriko only had to hide it for a few…days?…maybe?

Sighing to herself, Yuriko took a blue ribbon and used it to keep her fringe off her forehead. Not having a high ponytail somehow made her feel as if she was being intimate, but putting on that hairdo would definitely expose her ears.

She put on a couple of Lilibeth’s favourite accessories, mainly a simple silver chain on her left wrist, and an empty gold locket. The photo windows inside the circular pendant were empty but Yuriko saw a sliver of photo paper caught near the hinges. She wasn’t sure who had been inside, as Lilibeth had purged it from her memories with a vengeance, but she remembered that the locket itself was from her maternal grandmother. There was an echo of melancholy, but absent any details. Yuriko simply sighed and went to get her breakfast. She studied the microwave oven as it reheated her breakfast, keenly interested in how it did what it did. Unfortunately, the most she could get was that the electricity from the socket moved a motor that somehow did something to some tubes made of some kind of material.

If she spread her perception into the oven as it operated, she felt small movements, the microwaves bouncing around the interior and into the food, which then heated it up. She’d yet to figure out how that worked, but she thought she might be able to replicate it. Not now, though.

She took out the plate and consumed her breakfast, which was about twice what Lilibeth would normally eat. After a day of forging her physique, she’d lost some of the tummy fat and toned her muscles. She also grew a tenth of an inch, and was less than three inches from reaching her true body’s height. Her body proportions were slowly matching her true body’s, but until it did, she still felt a bit awkward. Nothing she couldn’t compensate for, but she wouldn’t want to fight anyone strong while handicapped like this.

Once she was done, she grabbed her purse, made sure her wallet and phone were inside, and headed to the campus. She took the scooter with her and drove down Patience Street, into the roundabout, and down Trinity Avenue. The campus was open to the public and most of the colleges were placed around an oval park that was about a couple of longstrides from end to end. Her destination was the general education building where all the introductory classes were held, Palmer Hall, that was on the southern side of Trinity Park.

Early morning fog made the trip seem more lonely than it was, but when she spread her perception aura, she could feel students walking down the pavement. Most were yawning and rubbing the gunk off their eyes, but some were cheerful and peppy.

The student parking lot was next to the building and once she secured her scooter, and stowed the helmet underneath the seat, she headed towards the side entrance. Her phone had her schedule, but the lock screen was littered with unread messages from Lilibeth’s friend, Scarlett.

Scar: Oi, why are you ignoring me?

Scar: Heard you dumped Evan a while ago. Heard from Angie he’s drowning his sorrows to his pals.

Scar: Oi, whatcha doing? Wanna go hang?

There were dozens of such messages and Yuriko was rather ashamed to say that she hadn’t answered a single one. From the message history, Lilibeth and Scarlett corresponded frequently, even if the only content of the message was, ‘Oi’.

Yuriko was…wary of talking, meeting, even messaging Scarlett. There were another two girls that corresponded in a similar manner and Yuriko didn’t know how to present herself to them. Her body now might have been Lilibeth’s, but ever since she started tempering and reforging her physique, traces of the other woman were already deteriorating. She didn’t feel guilty about that, since Lilibeth died by her own hand, or probably by someone’s hidden motives. Either way, she was dead when Yuriko’s incarnation arrived, and nothing she could have done would have saved Lilibeth.

But to these other girls? To Lilibeth’s family? She was still alive.

Yuriko had decided to assume the identity, but who knew how long that would last. Did she really care if she was outed? It would be inconvenient, sure, but that was it. It wasn’t as if she could just abandon the body. Her incarnation had already bonded with it, and she could no more remove her influence than tear her own heart out of her chest. Perhaps if both bodies were at the same place at the same time, then they could reintegrate? Hmmm. Yuriko wasn’t sure if she could separate another incarnation out though. It wasn’t part of Manifestation, she was sure. Manifestation only separated bits of her Anima to infuse into a construct, and while the range wasn’t unlimited, it wasn’t short either. She didn’t know how far a manifested Intent could go from her true body since she wasn’t at that stage yet, but she was sure it couldn’t cross planar boundaries either.

She wasn’t even sure where she was now. She controlled both bodies at once, but she couldn’t determine where the other was. There was a barrier that isolated this place from the greater material world. Thankfully, there were no temporal anomalies between the two bodies.

Ah, she arrived at the classroom. Natural Sciences 102 was held in one of the big lecture halls that could seat a hundred students. The room was climate controlled and was pleasantly cool. The seating was tiered so that the ones behind the first row was a couple of inches higher, giving the lecture hall the feeling of an arena.

There were already a few students inside the classroom despite it being half an hour before class started. The male version of the uniform simply replaced the blue plaid skirt with blue plaid pants. Most of the other students had their sleeves rolled up above their elbows, too.

She drew gazes as she entered and headed towards the third level. Her assigned seat was close to the centre and she sat down as soon as she reached it while holding in a sigh. She could still feel the gazes lingering on her and she could hear their whispers.

“…who’s that? Looks familiar.”

“…isn’t that the Lawson girl?”

“…looks different.”

“…pretty.”

Her Mien was tightly reined in. She leaned back, though became somewhat conscious of the fact that if she sat wrong, she’d flash her panties at the professor and anyone else looking towards her. She crossed her legs, leaned back, and closed her eyes, seeking to fall into a meditative trance.

Her true body had switched swords again. She affixed a curved blade at the end of a metal pole, essentially forging a glaive, and was using it to carve up the antibodies. Since it had a sword blade, wasn’t a glaive just a sword with an extra long hilt? The stances were similar if she held the pole near the head, but she was constrained by the length of the pole. It moved more like a quarterstaff than anything else, but an advantage she felt was that the force of the cutting or chopping blow was magnified by the length. It reinforced the idea of leverage, she thought.

Back in Astoria, the murmuring and gossipping didn’t quite stop, but Yuriko was able to ignore most of it. It was only when she heard hurried footsteps approaching her did she rouse herself from her half-trance and look up.

It was to the sight of an entirely red girl stomping her way up the steps, feisty green eyes burning into hers. Ah, red? No, she was just completely flushed. In anger, Yuriko supposed, and her mane of red hair made her head look aflame.

“Lily! Why are you ghosting me!” the red-haired girl yelled, and no doubt it was Lilibeth’s friend named Scarlett. She had to wonder if the girl’s parents named her that because of her hair…

There were a couple of other girls trailing behind Scarlett, but Yuriko focused on Lilibeth’s best friend. Memories rose from where she suppressed them, but she held them back from overwhelming her senses, tasting only the gist.

Scarlett stomped in front of her, fists on her hips and glaring straight at her. Ah, what were Lilibeth’s words? Scarlett smol? The edges of her lips quirked upwards, and Scarlett’s face reddened even further, though Yuriko didn’t know how that could be possible.

“Well? I had to hear from seven degrees away!”

“Hear what?” Yuriko asked innocently.

Those green eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you…? Yes, you’re messing with me. You! Why? Why is your sense of humor so bad!”

Yuriko shrugged, feeling that at least there were some bits of Lilibeth’s personality that matched.

Then, Scarlett slammed her palms on her seat’s ledge. She brought her face close to Yuriko, and there was barely half an inch between the tips of their noses.

“You’ve changed.”

Those pretty green eyes almost drowned Yuriko in their depths.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep