Monstrous Distinction (Ichika Lamia TF) (Patreon)

“Where is Ichika? I am positive that she wanted to meet me in front of her apartment at 3 pm sharp,” Uesugi Fuutarou sighed and checked up on his somewhat old mobile phone again. Sure enough, the message did say exactly what he remembered, and his phone told him that it was already a quarter past three.

But thankfully out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a girl sprinting down the road, one that looked very familiar to him. Fuutarou would have loved to say that he knew for sure that it was Ichika. Her short hair and sparkling earring would definitely match her description, but ever since the last school trip, he was constantly second-guessing himself when it came to the Quins.

They just looked way too similar. How was a normal human being even supposed to tell them apart?

“I am so sorry Fuutarou-kun. I lost track of time with the girls and you know… Did you have to wait long?” The girl asked, leaning forward apologetically. The late arrival, this seductive lean, apologetic tone that had a hint of ‘not taking the situation seriously at all’. Yep, that was Ichika alright.

“You had me waiting for 15 minutes! But okay then. Do you mind telling me now why you wanted to meet me in secret while your sisters were out, Ichika?” Fuutarou asked, impatiently tapping his finger against his arm.

“Sure, Sure~ But let's get going for now. I’ll tell you on the way,” Ichika chimed and started walking again but into the opposite direction of where she came from. This place must have been convenient for her to pick him up.

But the way she was barely affected from running all the way here. Was Ichika really that sporty? Would she really be able to do this…?

Fuutarou shook his head. There he was again, second-guessing himself. He had seen all five earlier at school today and therefore knew what all of them were wearing. This was Ichika, no doubt about that… hopefully. It was honestly driving him a little bit mad inside.

“You know how all five of us recently passed the exam last week? I know we already celebrated, but… I don't know. I guess I just felt that the big sister that was the only one that actively earned money should give them all a little motivational gift,” Ichika explained, though her voice was a bit shaky at times.

“So why did you drag me along?” Fuutarou asked, giving her a skeptical look.

“Because I can't really ask my sisters to join me to buy a surprise gift for them. And you are definitely the one that knows all four of them the best besides me,” Ichika explained, then let out a small laugh. “Honestly, I didn’t think this through too much. I was just hoping that inspiration would come to me if I wandered around a bit. And I just didn’t want to be alone. How about, no matter if I find something or not, I'll treat you to dinner?”

“Fine,” Fuutarou sighed. As far as he knew, Ichika was never one to be even remotely organized, but she did take it very seriously to be the oldest sister of the five. Fuutarou looked back at the girl next to him. “Because I’m already here, I’ll tag along with you. Do you have any stores you want to visit first?”

“I do~ There is a small souvenir shop just down the street. It's on the way to the city and it sells great stuff last I checked. It's a perfect place to start,” Ichika pointed down the street and gave Fuutarou an honest smile. He replied with a slight nod.

Despite everything that had happened between the girls and him, Fuutarou was actually kind of proud at his progress with the girls. He had always told himself that he didn’t need any friends, he just needed to study hard to get further in life. Yet being invited out to spend time with a good friend, even if the reason for it was a bit shaky… It felt surprisingly good.

“Excuse me, good sir and young lady,” A female voice snapped Fuutarou out of his thoughts. A girl with long brown hair, blue eyes and a uniform that he had never seen before stood before the two of them, holding pamphlets in her hand. “Would any of you two want their deepest wish to come true?”

“The better question is ‘who wouldn’t want their deepest wish to come true’, am I right?” Ichika replied sarcastically, causing both girls to giggle.

“Then I have the right thing for you. I can…,” The other girl started, when…

“Noemi!” Another woman shouted from the doorway of a nearby building. The brown-haired woman winced when she heard that and slowly turned towards the building. An orange-haired and dark-skinned woman wearing some sort of overly skimpy shrine maiden outfit walked towards the three of them and shook her head at the brown-haired girl who was seemingly called Noemi.

“What? I was just advertising for your shop. It’s not like people will stumble in randomly after all,” Noemi justified herself, making the orange-haired woman sigh.

“Thank you, Noemi, but I think I’ll take it from here. If the two of you don’t mind following me, then I can show you what my friend was talking about,” She said, then gestured towards the building she just came from and led the way.

There was something odd happening that Fuutarou couldn’t quite put his hand on. The words of the woman in black sounded so seductive, almost hypnotic even, yet at the same time as normal as it could be. And even though he was a naturally skeptical person that would under no circumstances follow a stranger for no reason, he found himself following the woman without a second thought.

The shop wasn’t really all that big on the inside, just a small room with a single counter and a few chairs on the inside. The black-robed girl casually walked behind the counter and sat down, while Fuutarou still had to process why he even followed along. And judging from the confused look on Ichika’s face, she was wondering the same thing.

“I don’t think I have introduced myself yet. My name is Nagisa, and I am the owner of this little fortune shop here. I am happy you decided to be my first customers,” Nagisa spoke with a smile.

“Hold on a moment. I never said that we were here to buy something.” Fuutarou spoke, slightly offended that she would assume that.

“Uhm… Yeah, we were just kinda approached by that lady back there,” Ichika added, her attitude way more forgiving than Fuutarou’s.

“Is that so? Well, do you at least have time to hear me out on what I can offer you?” Nagisa asked as she gestured towards two seats opposite her table. Fuutarou and Ichika looked at each other briefly, then Ichika giggled and sat down, making Fuutarou roll his eyes. He reluctantly sat down as well.

“I want to make one thing clear. I’ll hear you out, but I will not buy. Ichika might, but I will not,” Fuutarou spoke in his serious tone. He knew that this was important to tell her outright, because otherwise she would probably bore him with offers of things that he was going to decline anyways.

“That is fine. Young lady, as you might have heard from my friend already, this is a shop about granting wishes. But to make it a little more fun, I thought of a little game to determine what kind of wish will be granted,” Nagisa spoke, while pulling out 3 cards from her drawer.

The cards were initially blank, but not for long, as when Nagisa flipped them face down, and then face up again, three names were suddenly written on them with a black marker. ‘Fuutarou’, ‘Ichika’, and of course, ‘Nagisa’.

Fuutarou tried to think back if he had mentioned his name to Nagisa before, but couldn’t quite remember. It was obvious to him that she had used some sort of trick to mark the cards, but Ichika clapped excitedly, so he didn’t feel like bursting her bubble and ruining her fun.

“Uh~ Sounds interesting. What kind of game are we playing?” Ichika asked, leaning forward on the desk.

“I call the game ‘Fortune Wish’ and it goes like this. In a moment, I will give these cards a shuffle, then place them face down on the desk. Then you get to pick one of them.” Nagisa started and gestured at the card in front of them.

“If you draw your own name, I will grant you one wish of your choice. If you draw the name of your friend beside you, I will grant him his deepest wish that would also affect you the most. If you draw my name, then I win and nothing happens. There is no entry cost, but you can only play one round,” Nagisa raised her gaze to look at Ichika with a smile. “Are you up for it?”

“Sure~ I can play one round with you. That game doesn’t sound like it would take that long,” Ichika laughed and let herself back into the chair.

Granting one wish? Only one round max? And she can make the names appear on the cards at will? This might just be the most obvious scam Fuutarou had ever had the misfortune of witnessing.

There was no way Ichika believed any of that wish granting nonsense. He knew that, while she wasn’t exactly booksmart, Ichika was actually quite the cunning strategist with very sharp instincts. On top of that she was definitely the most mature one out of the five sisters. So judging from the smile on her face, she definitely knew that she wasn’t going to win that game, but went along with it because of fun and giggles.

“Very well then. Let’s begin!” Nagisa spoke and suddenly everything went way too fast. The cards practically disappeared from the desk, only for her to reveal that she was now holding them in her hand. And while keeping them face down, Nagisa placed each card on the table again, then gave an expecting smile.

Ichika was caught off guard and had to catch up with what had just happened. Fuutarou was also stunned, but that also intensified his belief that Nagisa was a scammer. She clearly knew how to handle cards insanely well.

“Okkaaayy. I pick… this one! The middle one!” Ichika pointed at the middle card on the table. Nagisa reached for it and slowly and dramatically turned it around. Fuutarou rolled his eyes again as she revealed the name Nagi… Wait.

“Wait. I got Fuutarou-kun’s name?” Ichika shouted, just as surprised as Fuutarou himself. But the card definitely said Fuutarou and all three were witnesses to that. Did the girl screw up her trick?

“So it seems. Too bad, I am sure you would have wanted your own name.” Nagisa shrugged her shoulders as she put the cards away.

“Does that mean you are going to grant his wish now?” Ichika asked. Fuutarou shook his head and stood up from his chair.

“Yeah, no. I don’t believe in this wish granting business. I am leaving.” He said and walked towards the door.

“Game rules are game rules. If you don’t tell me your biggest wish about Miss Ichika, then that matters little to me. I will simply read your mind and grant it that way,” Nagisa shrugged her shoulders again, but this time with a big smile on her face.

“Oh? You can read Fuutarou-kun’s mind? Now I am interested. Mind telling me what his wish about me is~?” Ichika leaned forward again, and Fuutarou stopped in his tracks. He too was interested in what the lady in black was about to say.

“Let’s see. His deepest wish that involves you… is not actually about you specifically. You and your sister… are too similar for him. He can’t tell you apart. He wishes to change that. That there was an easy way for him, as a not really social person, to still tell you apart at a glance,” Nagisa spoke and opened her eyes.

Fuutarou was stumped by Nagisa once again. Even if it was a bit insulting and embarrassing, it was something that he had thought a lot about lately. It was something that he really wanted to change, but how was she supposed to help him with that?

“Oh wow. Was that really bothering you so much? You do know that we are used to confusions like that by now. It happens all the time. We don't mind anymore,” Ichika laughed it off, but Fuutarou started clenching his fist.

He did mind. Very much so. But he wasn’t going to say anything. He decided to just pretend like Nagisa had read his mind wrong. Yeah. That probably was the fastest way to get out of this shop anyways.

“I know how to solve your little problem for you. You can’t tell them apart, because you are bad with humans. So what if they are not human anymore?” Nagisa spoke, vanishing behind the desk and appearing next to Fuutarou.

He almost jumped back in surprise, but Nagisa gently grabbed his hands until both of them started to emit a faint glow. As she let go of him and chuckled, the glow also vanished quickly.

“I gave you a new and very special ability. Just touch one of the sisters and think of her name correctly, and I promise you now that you will never have any problems anymore telling her apart from the rest of the sisters.” She said and disappeared again, only to appear sitting on her chair again.

“Now then. Thanks for playing my little game. I am sorry to excuse myself so abruptly, but I still have some business to attend to. Feel free to visit me again anytime.” Nagisa spoke with a smile.

Fuutarou was sure that he wanted to say something to her, but his mind just drew a blank suddenly. So he just turned around and left the shop together with Ichika, who was also oddly quiet. It was like they were mysteriously compelled to do so.

Before they knew it, both of them were already out of the shop and back on the streets. The weird advertisement girl from before was also no longer here, so that only left the two of them.

“...Do you want to try it out?” Ichika spoke to break the silence between the two.

“Try that out?” Fuutarou answered.

“That thing Nagisa talked about. Wanna try touching me and see what happens?” Ichika asked with a playful grin.

“I’ll tell you. Nothing is going to happen. And before you say anything, here, I’ll even show you!” Fuutarou reached out and grabbed Ichika's hand. Ichika just giggled in response.

The two of them started walking towards the city again without thinking too much about it, but even just a few meters later Ichika started to slow down and seemed to be getting oddly out of breath. Ichika wasn’t exactly the most sporty person on the planet, but still…

“Something…pant… is wrong… pant… with my legs,” Ichika said between her breaths and completely stopped where she was standing. She tried her best to catch her breath while she was looking down at her legs. “It feels like there is a rubber band tying my legs together.”

“I don’t see anything.” Fuutarou answered matter of factly.

Ichika tried her best again to make a step forward, but this time her leg just straight up snapped back next to her other leg, making her almost lose her balance. With a shocked expression she tried again, but her legs wouldn’t move at all anymore.

Ichika groaned as she fell to her knees on the sideway. Fuutarou quickly looked in all directions, worried that everyone would stare at them, but there was nothing. No one seemed even remotely interested in the girl that had just fallen to her knees in broad daylight.

“What is… this?” Ichika asked, which snapped Fuutarou back to reality and made him turn towards her. Because she was wearing a very short shirt with quite the midriff he could see something yellow creeping up on the sides of her body. They almost looked like… scales?

“Ah~! N-no! Hmm!” Ichika quickly covered her mouth, as she also seemed to favour not screaming in public.

It seemed like the scales were spreading downwards more than upwards, as within seconds both of her legs were completely covered with yellow scales, even down into her shoes. Fuutarou was completely at a loss at that moment. He had neither seen nor heard of anything like that happening before.

And that wasn’t even the end to the weirdness, as he could watch her legs getting pressed even more together and into each other, as if they were fusing together. The more they fused together, the more the rest of her legs lost their form as well. Her knees just disappeared before fusing together, and her shoes fell off as her feet also ceased to exist.

Fuutarou was speechless as he watched the rest of her human lower half being fused together. While the colour was a bit off, now that he looked at it a bit closer, it almost looked like Ichika's bottom half had turned into that of a snake. Like those from Lamias straight out of legends.

He breathed a sigh of relief. While he still didn’t know why and how Ichika was changing like that, he at least had a rough idea what she was changing into. Though according to her continued groaning, it wasn't done just yet.

Her snake-like tail continued to push itself outwards, making it longer and longer by the second. 3 meters. 4 meters. It just continued to grow to lengths no human had reached before. 5 meter. 6 meters. Fuutarou could only roughly estimate the tail’s length, but it wasn't hard to tell that she was getting ridiculously long.

7 meters. The growth finally started to slow down a bit, and Ichika's breathing also became more normal. Until finally… after 8 meters… everything seemed to be over.

For a couple of seconds both Ichika and Fuutarou couldn’t help but stare at the behemoth of a tail that Ichika’s legs had just turned into. Ichika placed her hand on it and slowly patted it a bit. She then turned to Fuutarou and gave him a worried smile, while ‘standing up’? More like, moving her body to be more upright.

“...I don’t think you will have much trouble telling me apart from the others now. Hehehe…” Ichika let out, though even through her poker face, it was clear she was panicking.

“That's it?!? You just turned part snake and this is what you have to say?” Fuutarou responded.

“Listen. I am even more freaked out than you and trying to stay calm here. Could we please just…” Ichika shouted back.

“Heyho! Ichika~ Uesugi-san~ Whatcha doing~?” A voice almost sang from behind both of them. Yotsuba happily skipped towards them without a care in the world with two grocery bags in her hand, seemingly coming from the city.

“Uhm… Eh… We are… We are going shopping together.” Ichika answered hesitantly and worriedly gave a look down at her lower half.

“Ehhh~? You too? Nino sent me to buy some groceries for dinner… tomorrow… I think?” Yotsuba gasped and put her hand before her mouth. “Wait! Then it's a good thing I ran into you right now. You don’t need to go grocery shopping anymore. I already went~”

“Hahaha… Don’t worry, we won’t. Thanks for that Yotsuba.” Ichika laughed it off. Fuutarou was about to say something, but Ichika put her hand in front of his face and shushed him, then spoke up herself. “Say, Yotsuba. Do I look different to you today? Like, does my snake tail stand out to you?”

“Oh no! I hate these. I always was terrible at ‘spot the difference’ puzzles.” Yotsuba struggled as she intently stared at her sister. Both Ichika and Fuutarou were stunned. Not even Yotsuba should be so blind that she didn’t see something as huge as an 8 meter long snake tail.

“Uhm… Did you use a new shampoo? Your scales look a bit shinier than usual… I think.” Yotsuba said, making the two others look at each other.

“Yes, exactly Yotsuba. Now, weren’t you supposed to bring these groceries home?” Ichika laughed and Yotsuba's face instantly became panicked.

“Ah! I forgot! I have to go home, see you two later.” And with that, Yotsuba ran off, leaving the two of them alone together again. There was a moment of silence again between them.

“...Do you think Yotsuba is that blind?” Fuutarou asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“She is my quin sister. She knows me for only minutes less than I am alive. And also she said ‘shinier than usual’. She definitely saw my snake half and somehow thought it was… normal.” Ichika pondered, then shook her head.

“I am doing a quick experiment.” Ichika said and pulled out her phone. “I am going to send Itsuki a quick message. ‘Fuutarou-kun thinks that my tail is orange. Back me up here. It’s clearly yellow, right?’ and send. I think that was the most casual message I could have sent her. Let’s see how she reacts…”

“Why is this suddenly about me though…” Fuutarou sighed.

ping.

‘It’s definitely yellow. I am on your side here.’ The response read.

“So Yotsuba isn’t the only one who thinks it's normal. Interesting…” Ichika murmured to herself.

“What do you plan on doing now? Should we go back to the shop?” Fuutarou asked.

“I don’t think that will lead to much. I have a feeling Nagisa isn’t there anymore. The best course of action is most likely just to act like everything is normal and proceed with what we had planned. Just because I am part snake now doesn’t mean I don’t owe you dinner anymore.” Ichika shook her head and slithered skillfully forward. “Come on, let’s try to get some shopping in.”

Fuutarou reluctantly shook his head and started to follow his friend, the newly transformed Lamia on her way into the shopping street.