Alternate Dimension (Part 89)
After briefing the measures that Powell Research should be doing with the current situation, I had to rush to where Kotomi is: her parent's place. It's not urgent, but it isn't something I should be taking my time to get around to doing either. Kotomi has this curse where she needs to see Itsuki as a male regularly to keep her sanity for years now, but as I head to her place, the severity of what happened earlier becomes clearer, but still filled with unknowns.
Judging from Kotomi's call earlier, she doesn't sound like her usual self. However, she did mention that she is aware of it, but unable to do anything about it. She was too shocked to mention where she was, but since her parents and siblings were mentioned, I assume she is with them. The likely place they would be is at her parent's house, though it is possible that they went out.
Ever since it happened, I never ever saw anyone being aggressive, though I did hear people whining on why they are unable to do things the masculine way, and leaning more towards the feminine way. It's odd to hear people complaining about their own behaviour, but in this case, femininity is kind of forced onto everyone while still retaining the mindset from before it happened. It's the awareness that they are behaving differently from before that lead to the complaining. However, once you have been doing things in a particular way for a while, it slowly become used to it and becomes a part of your behavior without you being aware of it.
When I arrived at Kotomi's place, I encountered a large group of teenage girls who are all wearing different school uniforms. Except for Kotomi's dad and son, I can't identify who the others are, or what schools they belong to. What they are doing at the Miyazawa household? Is there a party going on? I don't think anyone has their wedding anniversary or birthday today.
One of them spotted me and ran towards me, smiling, with her clenched hands around the height of her shoulder. What she is about to say threw me off my guard with her total mismatch of her expression.
Girl: "Saeko-chan... Help me! I don't know what happened me. Out of the blue, everyone transformed at the same time. I don't even look like myself!"
The tone and voice sounded exactly the same from the call with Kotomi earlier.
Me: "Kotomi?"
Girl: "Yes, it's me. I don't know what's going on... Everyone around me transformed into what we are now with no warning. I don't like this girly behaviour that me and everyone else has, but it's no use; we can't behave any other way even if we are able to think of it. It also seems that men has been completely wiped out from existence..."
She paused for a moment before she screamed in horror. Believe me, that scream was loud.
Kotomi: "What am I going to do? I don't want to go insane from not seeing my husband as a man. He might look completely different from you now. This body is weak and gets scared easily. What am I to do..."
Can you worry about this later?
Me: "So those identically dressed girls you were with are..."
With everyone having new faces at an age range where the difference between the maximum and minimum is not that great, they could be anyone. I don't even know if Kotomi has brought over some friends earlier.
Kotomi: "Those are my parents, siblings, and children... ARGH! I don't even know who is who with their completely different faces and identical looking ages!"
Seriously?! That is her whole family there? The number of girls there do add up to the number in Kotomi's family, but there are no boys there. Kotomi's dad had already been turned into a girl not too long ago, and still looks like he's the daughter of Kotomi's mother and oldest brother. Those two has been transformed into young girls that now bare no resemblance to their former selves. Before I could say anything, Kotomi added:
Kotomi: "My son and my brothers had been turned into some of these girls. Dad has already been turned into a girl before all the remaining males transformed at the same time, as I told you before. Kousei's behaviour is quite recognizable since his usual behaviour is quite feminine to begin with and scarily looks quite matching now that he's a girl. The only one who hasn't changed at all is my son. Not sure if he would turn back into a guy if he manages to take off the uniform, but he was already behaving like a girl that he would be better off as a girl instead of as a boy, despite contrary to what I wanted. I guess it's hopeless now that everyone is a girl and forced to behave like one. What is happening at your place?"
Come to think of it, anyone who is currently working or enrolled into Mizuho seem to be largely unaffected, as if it's the same thing, but more stricter. In fact, who is affected by this new phenomenon, and what they had been turned into, is similar to that of Mizuho, but relaxed on what you can and can't do, affects a much larger area, and permanent. By permanent, I mean you can't turn back; it's forced onto everyone without warning or choice.
Me: "Somebody called for a major urgent mass meeting right after the change happened. At the meeting hall, I could see that everyone is a young female, with no males or anyone with grey hair in sight. There are reports that anyone who was below 15, including newly born babies, instantly became a teenage girl too. People are also getting worried about humans becoming extinct since females can't produce a child without a male involved."
One of the other girls came up to me and stood next to Kotomi.
Girl 2: "I'm sure my brother would come up with something, like how this girl was born, or her third and fourth child."
Kotomi: "Mom!"
That girl was Kotomi's mother? It's creepy that they look of the same age with no resemblance to each other with their new body unlike before. Why is this? Would children born from now on resemble their parents, but with the parent's new look, or no resemblance at all?
Girl 2: "Seriously speaking, this change could completely change how we live our lives. The concept of marriage and family has reduced just a group of girls who are closely affectionate with each other. Since the newborns instantly become teenagers on being born with reasonable amount of knowledge and developed behaviour already there. Things that usually cater to young kids, the elderly, or the disabled, could disappear since there are no such people now. I don't know if newborns from now on would even understand what those things are when the generation from before this happened has passed on."
Kotomi: "I don't even know if the way our bodies work are different now, or my body's genes can't be biologically linked to any of my family members here."
Kotomi's mother: "It's strange that my husband and sons could reproduce themselves as a girl now..."
Voice of 3 girls: "Hey!"
The voice came from three of the girls Kotomi and her mother were with before I came, with one of them being Kotomi's father. They looked scared on that idea, so I guess the other two are Kotomi's two eldest younger brothers, though not sure who exactly. Kousei and Kotomi's son did not respond to that remark despite appearing to have heard it.
I think this is was the final phase of men and the elderly being turned into young women that started years ago, because I don't see any man or old people at all. Not sometimes, but never. I never thought it would actually happen since the previous phase was a long time ago, and long enough to think that there won't be any more.
It has been two months since something turned every single human into a young female. Kotomi has been brought in to study her body, particularly relating to studying her sanity levels from not seeing Itsuki as a male. We weren't sure if it had weakened over the length of time or disappeared with her complete body change (her DNA says she is a completely different person that doesn't match with anyone in their database), but her sanity level remained unchanged despite having not seen the male Itsuki, or any pictures of him, for a long time. It seems that the curse Kotomi has had since High school has disappeared now.
We still have no idea what is causing the mysterious transformations to everyone, but we did find out on what effects the transformations did to people.
As two months has already passed, more people noticed that they did not have their monthly period since then, long overdue as a mater of fact. A period is where unfertilized eggs inside a female gets discharged monthly during the ages between puberty and menopause, which is about 30-40 years. To the female herself, this process is beyond her control and painful, but until menopause, it only temporarily stops when she actually gets pregnant. As that is also a sign that she can bare babies, everyone was worried, though the issue of being able to reproduce babies with the now-extinct males becomes more of an issue.
With what we found out, the female reproductive system has been completely changed: the vulva has been relocated so that it points directly downwards, and reshaped to look like a tiny air valve commonly found on balls. It is almost as if it's specifically designed for a syringe as it fits in perfectly inside, and you will know it can go no further as the only organ there that can make a girl aroused is triggered only when the needle is fully inserted. As if self-aware that the needle is dangerous, this needle cannot fall off by accident, or be removed by the person it is inserted into while in an aroused state. Funny how the female reproductive system has redesigned itself to only be able to get pregnant via a man-made method. The female desire for wanting sex still lingers, but that is physically and pratically impossible now: men are extinct, and the woman's reproductive system has been completely redesigned in a way that they can't simulate sex either.
Using a similar reproduction method used to produce Kotomi's third and forth child (it's complicated to explain in detail), women could actually still produce children endlessly, albeit only one at a time. The offspring would resemble the mother and whosoever gene was used to create the fertilizer. The technology has improved so that it is possible to produce a male child through this method, but one of the parent has to be male, and the success rate is only 12% - 25%. As men are extinct now, this method still works by using a woman in the man's place, but the child would have 0% of being born male, and instead as a female. With males turned into females, and the reproductive system of females completely redesigned, this seems to be the only way humans could ever reproduce themselves at all, though them unable to get old has greatly reduces deaths from medical problems relating to old age.
All babies born today already have a body and mind of a teenager with clothes already on. Since this newborn already has a teenager's body, she could, in theory, be able to produce children of her own already, which, to people from before the change happened, is very surprising.
People now have two different ages: their actual age, and their biological age.
Since even the youngest in actual age are already having the knowledge as if they had already attended primary school, primary schools, kindergarten, and related services, has been closed down. However, since primary school accommodates 6 years worth of classes, they can be easily be converted into a middle/high school that could accommodate double the number of classrooms than the average. Of course, things like small tables has to be changed first. People who have already attended schools at least once in their life are no longer required to attend schools. They may be allowed to attend school again for college courses. For levels lower than that, they have to meet one of the following criteria: unable to complete or attend (drop out, hospitalized), had major disruptions to studies (family issues, transfer to different schools many times, natural disasters), or had been transformed with their current biological age be below 19 and had not attended school since being transformed. Priority to the places in the school goes to those who has never ever attended school before and whose ages (either actual or biological) would turn 13 (for middle school) or 16 (for high school) during the school year. Transformed people are allowed to keep the jobs they had before the transformation, but jobs that require people to be strong or fearless are difficult to do: the forced transformation into feminine women has turned workers of these jobs to be weak and easily scared. They can't dismiss these people for under-performing because there is no one who could do the job properly.
As everyone is also forced to wear short skirts (or a dress with the same hem line) that can't be worn over and either have the rest of the legs exposed or covered (partially or completely) by socks or stockings of specific colours, tasks that require the legs to be fully covered, like radiation suits or fire-fighting, have to be redesigned just to be able to wear these safety clothes. The redesigned outfits makes them look silly, but I guess that is what one could come up with at such short notice. Designing an outfit that protects against dangerous elements, and yet feminine in design, is not easy. It has to be feminine design or else they would be unable to wear it at all. I can hear people complaining about the problems directly related to the forced transformation, but nobody is able to do anything about it besides making it "more comfortable".
The good thing about this change is that, except in a harmless way, be able to become evil or cruel to others: the body could manipulate the mind in a way that the person would not be even be able to think of saying or doing evil things that would negatively affect another party. Unlike me, they can express anger too, but it's mixed together with crying. You can cry without being angry, but you can't get angry without crying, though the crying while angry is not noticeable unless the anger level is high. As evident by the sharp drop in bullying, fighting (along with injuries from it) and people being cheated, this does seem effective. It's hard to differentiate between not thinking of being evil on their own, and the body forcing the person to not be evil as nobody could tell if their mind has been manipulated.
What everyone is afraid of is how anyone who has not experienced what life was like before the phenomenon started would grow up to be, or if humanity would even exist. Since a newborn starts of as a 15 year old girl that is capable of bearing her own children already, people are worried about population explosion. Would they even know what being a baby, a man, or an elderly person is like? Would the new generation even know what family is? The Miyazawa household now looks like a group of close friends that makes up of nothing but teenage girls that don't even look alike.
This is a completely different world now. So different that a lot of familiar concepts don't work with the new world. Somehow, I have this odd feeling that I caused all of this to happen, but at the same time, it wasn't me.
Judging from Kotomi's call earlier, she doesn't sound like her usual self. However, she did mention that she is aware of it, but unable to do anything about it. She was too shocked to mention where she was, but since her parents and siblings were mentioned, I assume she is with them. The likely place they would be is at her parent's house, though it is possible that they went out.
Ever since it happened, I never ever saw anyone being aggressive, though I did hear people whining on why they are unable to do things the masculine way, and leaning more towards the feminine way. It's odd to hear people complaining about their own behaviour, but in this case, femininity is kind of forced onto everyone while still retaining the mindset from before it happened. It's the awareness that they are behaving differently from before that lead to the complaining. However, once you have been doing things in a particular way for a while, it slowly become used to it and becomes a part of your behavior without you being aware of it.
When I arrived at Kotomi's place, I encountered a large group of teenage girls who are all wearing different school uniforms. Except for Kotomi's dad and son, I can't identify who the others are, or what schools they belong to. What they are doing at the Miyazawa household? Is there a party going on? I don't think anyone has their wedding anniversary or birthday today.
One of them spotted me and ran towards me, smiling, with her clenched hands around the height of her shoulder. What she is about to say threw me off my guard with her total mismatch of her expression.
Girl: "Saeko-chan... Help me! I don't know what happened me. Out of the blue, everyone transformed at the same time. I don't even look like myself!"
The tone and voice sounded exactly the same from the call with Kotomi earlier.
Me: "Kotomi?"
Girl: "Yes, it's me. I don't know what's going on... Everyone around me transformed into what we are now with no warning. I don't like this girly behaviour that me and everyone else has, but it's no use; we can't behave any other way even if we are able to think of it. It also seems that men has been completely wiped out from existence..."
She paused for a moment before she screamed in horror. Believe me, that scream was loud.
Kotomi: "What am I going to do? I don't want to go insane from not seeing my husband as a man. He might look completely different from you now. This body is weak and gets scared easily. What am I to do..."
Can you worry about this later?
Me: "So those identically dressed girls you were with are..."
With everyone having new faces at an age range where the difference between the maximum and minimum is not that great, they could be anyone. I don't even know if Kotomi has brought over some friends earlier.
Kotomi: "Those are my parents, siblings, and children... ARGH! I don't even know who is who with their completely different faces and identical looking ages!"
Seriously?! That is her whole family there? The number of girls there do add up to the number in Kotomi's family, but there are no boys there. Kotomi's dad had already been turned into a girl not too long ago, and still looks like he's the daughter of Kotomi's mother and oldest brother. Those two has been transformed into young girls that now bare no resemblance to their former selves. Before I could say anything, Kotomi added:
Kotomi: "My son and my brothers had been turned into some of these girls. Dad has already been turned into a girl before all the remaining males transformed at the same time, as I told you before. Kousei's behaviour is quite recognizable since his usual behaviour is quite feminine to begin with and scarily looks quite matching now that he's a girl. The only one who hasn't changed at all is my son. Not sure if he would turn back into a guy if he manages to take off the uniform, but he was already behaving like a girl that he would be better off as a girl instead of as a boy, despite contrary to what I wanted. I guess it's hopeless now that everyone is a girl and forced to behave like one. What is happening at your place?"
Come to think of it, anyone who is currently working or enrolled into Mizuho seem to be largely unaffected, as if it's the same thing, but more stricter. In fact, who is affected by this new phenomenon, and what they had been turned into, is similar to that of Mizuho, but relaxed on what you can and can't do, affects a much larger area, and permanent. By permanent, I mean you can't turn back; it's forced onto everyone without warning or choice.
Me: "Somebody called for a major urgent mass meeting right after the change happened. At the meeting hall, I could see that everyone is a young female, with no males or anyone with grey hair in sight. There are reports that anyone who was below 15, including newly born babies, instantly became a teenage girl too. People are also getting worried about humans becoming extinct since females can't produce a child without a male involved."
One of the other girls came up to me and stood next to Kotomi.
Girl 2: "I'm sure my brother would come up with something, like how this girl was born, or her third and fourth child."
Kotomi: "Mom!"
That girl was Kotomi's mother? It's creepy that they look of the same age with no resemblance to each other with their new body unlike before. Why is this? Would children born from now on resemble their parents, but with the parent's new look, or no resemblance at all?
Girl 2: "Seriously speaking, this change could completely change how we live our lives. The concept of marriage and family has reduced just a group of girls who are closely affectionate with each other. Since the newborns instantly become teenagers on being born with reasonable amount of knowledge and developed behaviour already there. Things that usually cater to young kids, the elderly, or the disabled, could disappear since there are no such people now. I don't know if newborns from now on would even understand what those things are when the generation from before this happened has passed on."
Kotomi: "I don't even know if the way our bodies work are different now, or my body's genes can't be biologically linked to any of my family members here."
Kotomi's mother: "It's strange that my husband and sons could reproduce themselves as a girl now..."
Voice of 3 girls: "Hey!"
The voice came from three of the girls Kotomi and her mother were with before I came, with one of them being Kotomi's father. They looked scared on that idea, so I guess the other two are Kotomi's two eldest younger brothers, though not sure who exactly. Kousei and Kotomi's son did not respond to that remark despite appearing to have heard it.
I think this is was the final phase of men and the elderly being turned into young women that started years ago, because I don't see any man or old people at all. Not sometimes, but never. I never thought it would actually happen since the previous phase was a long time ago, and long enough to think that there won't be any more.
****
We still have no idea what is causing the mysterious transformations to everyone, but we did find out on what effects the transformations did to people.
As two months has already passed, more people noticed that they did not have their monthly period since then, long overdue as a mater of fact. A period is where unfertilized eggs inside a female gets discharged monthly during the ages between puberty and menopause, which is about 30-40 years. To the female herself, this process is beyond her control and painful, but until menopause, it only temporarily stops when she actually gets pregnant. As that is also a sign that she can bare babies, everyone was worried, though the issue of being able to reproduce babies with the now-extinct males becomes more of an issue.
With what we found out, the female reproductive system has been completely changed: the vulva has been relocated so that it points directly downwards, and reshaped to look like a tiny air valve commonly found on balls. It is almost as if it's specifically designed for a syringe as it fits in perfectly inside, and you will know it can go no further as the only organ there that can make a girl aroused is triggered only when the needle is fully inserted. As if self-aware that the needle is dangerous, this needle cannot fall off by accident, or be removed by the person it is inserted into while in an aroused state. Funny how the female reproductive system has redesigned itself to only be able to get pregnant via a man-made method. The female desire for wanting sex still lingers, but that is physically and pratically impossible now: men are extinct, and the woman's reproductive system has been completely redesigned in a way that they can't simulate sex either.
Using a similar reproduction method used to produce Kotomi's third and forth child (it's complicated to explain in detail), women could actually still produce children endlessly, albeit only one at a time. The offspring would resemble the mother and whosoever gene was used to create the fertilizer. The technology has improved so that it is possible to produce a male child through this method, but one of the parent has to be male, and the success rate is only 12% - 25%. As men are extinct now, this method still works by using a woman in the man's place, but the child would have 0% of being born male, and instead as a female. With males turned into females, and the reproductive system of females completely redesigned, this seems to be the only way humans could ever reproduce themselves at all, though them unable to get old has greatly reduces deaths from medical problems relating to old age.
All babies born today already have a body and mind of a teenager with clothes already on. Since this newborn already has a teenager's body, she could, in theory, be able to produce children of her own already, which, to people from before the change happened, is very surprising.
People now have two different ages: their actual age, and their biological age.
- Actual age: Number of years they had lived through (including time travel) since birth. Anyone who was transformed at the very first batch of men being turned into girls years ago do not remember who they were previously, so their "actual age" is based on the age they think they were back then, plus the time since then. This also applies to those who have a body that is older than their actual age.
- Biological age: Based on how long since birth to reach their current body development before the era of transformation happened. Nobody could become younger than 12 or older than 30, though 15 is a common age for someone to be transformed into.
Since even the youngest in actual age are already having the knowledge as if they had already attended primary school, primary schools, kindergarten, and related services, has been closed down. However, since primary school accommodates 6 years worth of classes, they can be easily be converted into a middle/high school that could accommodate double the number of classrooms than the average. Of course, things like small tables has to be changed first. People who have already attended schools at least once in their life are no longer required to attend schools. They may be allowed to attend school again for college courses. For levels lower than that, they have to meet one of the following criteria: unable to complete or attend (drop out, hospitalized), had major disruptions to studies (family issues, transfer to different schools many times, natural disasters), or had been transformed with their current biological age be below 19 and had not attended school since being transformed. Priority to the places in the school goes to those who has never ever attended school before and whose ages (either actual or biological) would turn 13 (for middle school) or 16 (for high school) during the school year. Transformed people are allowed to keep the jobs they had before the transformation, but jobs that require people to be strong or fearless are difficult to do: the forced transformation into feminine women has turned workers of these jobs to be weak and easily scared. They can't dismiss these people for under-performing because there is no one who could do the job properly.
As everyone is also forced to wear short skirts (or a dress with the same hem line) that can't be worn over and either have the rest of the legs exposed or covered (partially or completely) by socks or stockings of specific colours, tasks that require the legs to be fully covered, like radiation suits or fire-fighting, have to be redesigned just to be able to wear these safety clothes. The redesigned outfits makes them look silly, but I guess that is what one could come up with at such short notice. Designing an outfit that protects against dangerous elements, and yet feminine in design, is not easy. It has to be feminine design or else they would be unable to wear it at all. I can hear people complaining about the problems directly related to the forced transformation, but nobody is able to do anything about it besides making it "more comfortable".
The good thing about this change is that, except in a harmless way, be able to become evil or cruel to others: the body could manipulate the mind in a way that the person would not be even be able to think of saying or doing evil things that would negatively affect another party. Unlike me, they can express anger too, but it's mixed together with crying. You can cry without being angry, but you can't get angry without crying, though the crying while angry is not noticeable unless the anger level is high. As evident by the sharp drop in bullying, fighting (along with injuries from it) and people being cheated, this does seem effective. It's hard to differentiate between not thinking of being evil on their own, and the body forcing the person to not be evil as nobody could tell if their mind has been manipulated.
What everyone is afraid of is how anyone who has not experienced what life was like before the phenomenon started would grow up to be, or if humanity would even exist. Since a newborn starts of as a 15 year old girl that is capable of bearing her own children already, people are worried about population explosion. Would they even know what being a baby, a man, or an elderly person is like? Would the new generation even know what family is? The Miyazawa household now looks like a group of close friends that makes up of nothing but teenage girls that don't even look alike.
This is a completely different world now. So different that a lot of familiar concepts don't work with the new world. Somehow, I have this odd feeling that I caused all of this to happen, but at the same time, it wasn't me.
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