The twist of the mind
The Tiger’s Skin and the Pervert’s Soul
The afternoon sun over Tomobiki High School was, as usual, a witness to a scene that would have baffled any sane observer of the human condition. Ataru Moroboshi was currently pinned against the brick wall of the gymnasium, his feet dangling a good six inches off the ground. The source of his vertical adjustment was a very irate Shinobu Miyake, who was holding him up by his collar with one hand while the other was curled into a fist the size of a small ham.
"I told you, Ataru!" Shinobu shouted, her voice vibrating with the kind of Herculean fury that had made her a local legend. "If I caught you trying to drill a hole into the girls' locker room one more time, I’d send you into orbit without a space suit!"
"It wasn't a hole, Shinobu! It was an air vent!" Ataru squeaked, his legs kicking uselessly in the air. "I was worried about the ventilation! Carbon dioxide poisoning is a silent killer!"
"The only silent killer here is going to be my right hook!"
Before Shinobu could deliver the promised blow, a familiar crackle of ozone filled the air. The sky, which had been perfectly clear a moment ago, suddenly darkened with the presence of a very jealous Oni princess. Lum hovered above them, her tiger-striped bikini shimmering in the afternoon light, her blue-green hair standing on end like a field of static-charged grass.
"DARLING!" Lum shrieked, her eyes glowing with a dangerous, flickering intensity. "You’re being a naughty boy again! I told you, you’re only allowed to look at me!"
"Lum, honey, tell her! Tell her I was doing a safety inspection!" Ataru pleaded, his eyes darting toward the safety of the school gates.
"I don't care about safety! I care about your cheating heart!" Lum’s hands sparked with blue-white energy. "Take this, you big dummy!"
Usually, Lum’s shocks were a standard affair—a few thousand volts to the spine, a bit of smoke, and a charred school uniform. But today, fueled by the sight of Ataru being held so closely by his ex-girlfriend, Lum didn't hold back. She channeled every ounce of her jealousy into a jagged, pulsing bolt of pure celestial electricity.
At the exact moment she fired, a stray alien device that Ten had dropped earlier—a "Quantum Polarity Stabilizer"—bounced off the gymnasium roof and fell directly between Ataru and Lum.
The bolt hit the device. The device hit Ataru. The resulting explosion wasn't just loud; it was a sensory overload of neon pink and electric blue that seemed to turn the world inside out for a split second.
Shinobu was thrown backward into a bush. Ten, who had been watching from a nearby tree, was knocked out of his branches. When the smoke finally cleared, two figures were lying in the center of a blackened circle on the pavement.
One was a seventeen-year-old boy in a tattered school uniform. The other was a beautiful, voluptuous girl in a tiger-striped bikini.
The boy stirred first. He sat up, rubbing his head, his fingers brushing against... small, yellow horns?
"Ouch... my head feels like it was hit by a Mendō-sized bank vault," the boy said. But the voice that came out wasn't Ataru’s raspy, energetic bark. It was a sweet, high-pitched, melodic soprano.
The figure in the tiger-striped bikini sat up next. "Ugh... Darling? You really went overboard with that one... wait."
The girl froze. She looked down at her hands. They were large, calloused, and definitely not hers. She looked down further, seeing a navy-blue school uniform instead of the familiar yellow stripes. She reached up to her head, feeling not horns, but a mop of dark, messy hair.
"My voice..." the girl said, or rather, the boy’s body