Illusion Queen

Chapter 20

X Drake stood at attention as Sengoku walked over to him and awarded him the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade. X Drake's superior and the crew he was assigned to cheered and clapped for him. They later threw a party for him, celebrating his promotion. Drinks and food were passed around, everyone was talking merrily, and there were a couple marines dancing drunkenly despite only drinking half a tankard.

X Drake shook his head in amusement at his fellow colleagues and sipped his booze. He never really liked the taste of booze but he grew used to it. It's a must in celebrations and it's a tradition so he's not going to be picky about it.

His thoughts went back to the celebration at Celeste Island. While it was an honor to actually step foot on the elusive island and be introduced to the townspeople and rich history, he can't say that he fully enjoyed the party. If he were to fully enjoy the party, then he wouldn't have to experience that and have his fellow marines tease him occasionally for it.

He can just see it: a few months later, it's going to be Rickard's (one of the marines) birthday and they're going to celebrate at a brothel. He's going to refuse to come but got forced to come, and then they're going to tease him on being awkward around women.

X Drake shuddered. He hoped he never met that kid again, that orange-haired, mischievous devil.

***********

Mayoi sneezed, spilling some of the liquid in her beaker into the pot, causing the pot to overflow with mysterious purple smoke. "Oh, no..." Mayoi stated.

"Mayoi...You left this at..." Tsukimi's voice faded away as she opened the door to find the purple smoke now at Mayoi's waist while Mayoi was looking at her with a shocked look.

"...It's not as bad as it looks."

Tsukimi quickly covered her mouth and ran towards the window, opening it and letting the purple smoke out.

Mayoi sighed as she put down the beakers on her table and slid her goggles up her head. "It was going to be perfect too...Why did someone have to talk about me when I'm conducting such a great experiment?"

"Mayoi...what was your experiment supposed to do?" Tsukimi asked suddenly.

Mayoi sighed and looked at the still rising purple smoke from the pot. "It was supposed to give a temporary boost to the senses. Y'know, like increasing your eyesight, hearing, sense of smell...Why?" Mayoi turned around to look at Tsukimi. "Huh? Why does she look different?" Mayoi can't place a finger on it but she knows that Tsukimi seemed different somehow. Tsukimi's appearance didn't change but there's something about her that changed...

Tsukimi stared at Mayoi. "Do you feel anything different?"

"What? No...Oh." Mayoi said. Now she knows why Tsukimi felt different.

A moment of silence was shared between the two newly transformed boys until a crow flying outside Mayoi's house crowed, "Fool! Fool!"

Mayoi ran her hand through her orange hair. "Fascinating!-"

"-No." Tsukimi interrupted Mayoi.

"-But"

"-No."

"I can-"

"-No."

Mayoi pursed his lips and crossed his arms. "You are no fun, Tsukimi."

"That's because your view of 'fun' is more skewed than the normal person." Tsukimi said, thinking of the unfortunate incident involving X Drake.

"Come on, admit it! That was funny!" Mayoi protested.

"Mayoi-"

"Mayoi!" Mark came into the room with his eyes glued to the notepad in his hand. "Are you finished with the final product of..." Mark trailed off as he noticed Tsukimi in the room too.

"...Tsukimi, I'm not sure why but you look different today."

"...I figured." Tsukimi turned to Mayoi. "Please fix this. And don't try to experiment more by 'accidentally' making a mistake in the antidote." Tsukimi left Mayoi's room and headed straight to the cafe. Along the way, the townspeople would say hi and make small talk, not noticing her changed gender.

Her parents, on the other hand, knew that something was different about her. Mamoru was the first one to pick her up and stare at her for 15 seconds and declared, while raising her up in the air like Lion King, "We have a son."

"...Dad, please put me down."

************

Mamoru, while he missed his daughter being his daughter, wasn't against the new change in gender. He did the same things he did with Tsukimi when she was a girl. The only difference was that he imagined what life would be like if Tsukimi was originally born a male. His imagination didn't get that far because he had no doubt that Tsukimi would act the same. At the same time, Mamoru feels upset that Tsukimi is not a daughter anymore. He thought of a future where Tsukimi stayed a male and ended up getting married to whoever it was, be it male or female. Mamoru didn't care who Tsukimi married, as long as she won't get married. He wants her to stay his little girl forever. No one is going to steal her away.

It was a few days later when Mayoi came up with a possible antidote and tried it with Tsukimi. Thankfully, it worked although there was another incident involving turning the entire population, save for Tsukimi and Mayoi into the opposite gender.

Mayoi's parents weren't happy. The townspeople in Sola Town took it well, probably because they were used to Mayoi's antics when she used to live there.

As Tsukimi did her weekly illusion visits to the ASL brothers, she did drop hints on asking them and the bandits to move to Celeste Island. It'll take some persuading but each day, they seem more and more inclined to accept the offer. Of course, the bandits do think that being on Celeste Island will mean they'll be even more difficult to find if someone's looking for them. (They'll also finally be rid of taking care of the three brats since Tsukimi's family offered to adopt them but what's stopping them is Garp.) They fear that Garp would report them to the marines. Tsukimi assured them that she'll talk to Garp about releasing them from their duties of taking care of the ASL brothers. That made the bandits call Tsukimi a goddess for a couple weeks. Tsukimi asked them to stop calling her that.

***************

Tsukimi called Garp on her parent's den den mushi, waiting for 5 rings before it was picked up.

There was a lot of crashes, what sounded like screams of pain and panic, and a familiar voice that called out, "Come on, pirates are going to kill you if you keep dodging! Catch these cannonballs with your hands and throw it back to me!", before a smooth voice finally answered.

"Bogard speaking."

"...Hello, Bogard-san. My name is Tsukimi, Garp-ojiisan's (adopted?) granddaughter. May I speak with him?"

There were more sounds of feet running and muffled crying before Bogard answered. "Ah. I've heard a lot about you. Yeah. Hold on." 

"Garp! Your granddaughter is calling for you!"

"Tsukimi-chan?"

Tsukimi supposed Garp stopped training (beating) the marine soldiers based on the sudden silence and small sighs of relief.

Footsteps sounded until Garp's voice answered. "Tsukimi-chan! How are you?"

The marines that Garp was mercilessly beating (training) with thrown cannonballs mentally thanked Garp's granddaughter for the interruption. Even Smoker, who has been a lieutenant for 8 months was glad for the break. He regrets asking to be trained alongside the marine lieutenants.

Garp didn't agree with his grandsons being moved to Celeste Island because of the fear that they'll be discovered or followed to Celeste Island. As he ended the call, he sighed heavily, dreading the time when Tsukimi called again to persuade him and roped Misaki into the conversation. Sometimes, he thinks that he's dumb for letting Tsukimi win an argument but he's long since disregarded that feeling. Sure, it's a bit concerning that a three year old wins in most (if not all) verbal arguments or persuasions but Tsukimi's not an average three year old. Garp is fine with losing arguments and persuasion. He'd like to see anyone try to win against Tsukimi's advanced use of rhetoric.