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"Work well with them, sweetie," Hitomi Sagan said as she saw her nine year-old daughter Iris off at her classmate's home to complete a group project for school.
"I will, Mom!" Iris said back cheerfully as she headed off towards the house, before halting her march and turning back to her mother. "Oh, you don't have to worry about picking me up. 'Mr. Fuku' is gonna show me the way back today!"
Hitomi smiled knowingly. "Of course he will."
Iris grinned back. "Thanks Mom!"
Usually, the possibility leaving a child unattended at a stranger's home would be nerve-wracking for a mother, especially one with a daughter whose life was unknowingly marked by tragedy.
However, Hitomi headed home knowing she wouldn't have to take such precautions, even if her good friend Renju Okiura was more than willing to use his connections to provide such support if need be. She already had a means to be her daughter's watcher.
It all stemmed from a natural talent.
She still found it amusing that Iris still referred to the cat as "Mister". Then again, Iris was probably still too young to tell the genders of cats apart at a glance.
By the time she finished her lesson plans and assignment grading, the afternoon had transitioned to evening. It was about time for "Mr. Fuku" to pick Iris up.
After making sure the door locks were secure, she opened the window in her bathroom. It was far too small for any human to fit through, but for a small animal, it was perfect.
Hitomi didn't know if there would be a point where she was comfortable revealing to Iris that she had unknowingly become friends with her own mother the entire time.
She slipped out of her shoes and leggings before pulling her underwear down just ever so slightly, just enough to keep the base of her spine from being obstructed. In regards to clothing, that was pretty much all the preparations she needed. Everything else would just tent or slip off of her body soon enough.
An energizing tingle ran through her body as she lowered herself onto her hands and knees, likely her biology identifying her intention to shift. She exhaled slowly, allowing her nerves to fully calm. Any stress would cause her unnecessary pain during the shift. Her fingers gently curled as she shifted her toes forward as far as she could without causing them to cramp, making it easier for her to envision the general shape of the cat.
Growing her whiskers was the easiest part. Just a few quick pricks on her cheeks and the long glossy strands sprang forth, their sheen visible even in her peripheral vision. Next up were the ears. It took a bit more than a stray thought, but their shape was easy enough to grasp. She focused on willing them up the sides of her head, feeling them part away her hair as their increasingly pointed lobes poke through. The itch that covered them when the thickening fuzz sprouted along the edges always caused her to giggle.
A slight shiver ran down her entire body. Speaking of itch, she soon felt thousands of soft hairs budding across her skin. It was admittedly somewhat irksome having the growing fur pushing against her undergarments and sweater, but that would become a nonissue once she became small enough to shake her clothing off. She focused on guiding the fur down her limbs, her eyes locked onto her hands as they became enveloped in striped brown fur, the shade just slightly lighter than her own head of hair, though it would darken once it thickened.
It was time for the more taxing alterations to begin. Forming her front paws was a bit esoteric in concept, essentially imagining her slim digits as being significantly shorter and stubbier, allowing their joints to be absorbed into her palms. As she watched her fingers shrink down into thick nubs, she felt a tingling lace her former hands' undersides, the telltale sign of the dark, plush pads forming. With an awkward flex, she unsheathed her trimmed nails into thin, curved claws. The process was somewhat hideous to witness, but the resulting dainty paws looked cute. At least, that's what Iris had unknowingly told her about her other form.
She let out a groan as she stretched out her back. Her spine arched up far more than a human's was capable of as the feline's flexibility began to assert itself, signaled by a series of light pops that dotted her vertebrae. The tingling sensation washed down her body like a series of taps, each one remolding her torso little by little. She took in a deep breath through her steadily expanding lungs as she put a focus on her legs, trying to get her knees off of the floor.
Her body tensed as her shoulders hunched up before pushing closer together, stiffening her stance for just a moment as she restructured her lower limbs to make them level with her forelimbs. The concentration also always made other parts of her shift concurrently. She could hear her clenched teeth grinding as they etched into sharp points. Her vision blared and several of the floors hues faded into grayness. Though she didn't have a mirror with her at the moment, she knew her brown eyes had lightened to amber, irises expanding until they nearly covered the entirety of her sclera while her pupils narrowed into slits.
Forming the hind legs has always been somewhat taxing. Stretching out her feet and broadening her toes into her second set of paws was simple enough, but getting the calves just short enough and shifting most of the muscle into her thighs to shift them into flanks took much more concentration. It took close to a minute, but she was eventually able to let out a sigh of relief as her torso became propped up by four completely level limbs.
Hitomi would need her four paws to properly brace herself for the next part. With a hiss, she pressed her hips back as far as she could, focusing the transformation on stretching out her now nubile spine. It thankfully didn't take long for her to feel the mounting pressure at her tailbone. There was a crack followed by a series of pops, and her body shuddered. The corners of her lips curled up in a small smile as she felt the beginnings of her tail wagging back and forth. She continued to stretch her tail out further, her brain buzzing with both the new signals of her newly-grown fifth appendage and the prickling sensation of the glossy coat of brown fur sprouting over it. The sheer control she had over its movements almost was enough to elicit a euphoric moan. That was a feature she never grew tired of.
Every wave of her tail seemed to send waves of changes back over her body. Her midriff gradually stretched out. She could feel the vibrations of her chest and waist being wrapped in rippling muscle. With a deep breath, her lungs swelled, pressing out her ribcage and forcing it to barrel out. Despite forcing her bust to retreat, her rounded chest pressed tightly against her black strapped undergarment. By this point, the fur on her body had thickened enough to become aggravatingly itchy underneath her remaining clothes.
Hitomi took a deep breath, knowing what had to happen next. Pressure akin to several large hands wrapped around her body. She closed her eyes, not wanting to experience vertigo as her body and limbs rapidly compacted. Her clothes becoming baggier, her underwear slipping down her legs, and her hair band weighing slightly down on her shrinking head before sliding onto the floor were indication enough that it was happening. She shook her head, letting her necklace fall to the floor as well.
As her scalp tingled from her hair shrinking back into her head, she slowly opened her eyes, expectedly finding the floor now closer to her face. That was when she noticed her nose twitching. Speaking of face, there was one last part of her that still needed to shift.
She gasped as her face began to twist, but her vocal cords twisted in an instant, warping the gasp into a feline yowl. Her upper lip was curling upwards to her nose. Air blew from her increasingly wet and cold-feeling nostrils as her slight pointed nose flattened into a dark inverted triangle. As the fur finally began to finish off at her nose's broadening ridge, her jaws twitched. With one last pop, her skull pushed out, forming a small, blocky muzzle. At the same time, she could feel the rather sharp yank of her pointed ears moving to the top of her head, fully reshaping into dark grown triangles once they reached the top.
With one last shiver and a few clicks, Hitomi knew that her transformation had concluded. It was the same sensation that had preceded every prior one as well.
The only person to know about Hitomi's ability to transform outside of her departed parents was her best friend Manaka Iwai, Iris's birth mother who was murdered before she could even give her daughter her name.
After Hitomi had taken up the responsibility of raising Iris, she had no time to transform, far too busy instead figuring out the intricacies of childrearing. After a few years, she had simply forgotten she had the ability in the first place. That was until the day Hitomi got the call from Renju that a five year-old Iris had wandered off from the daycare parking lot where she should've been waiting.
Even after Renju assured her that he had sent his men to search for Iris, Hitomi couldn't help but panic. All she wanted to do was rush out and search every nook and cranny of the block for her daughter. And in that desperation, she transformed into a cat again after staying away from that form for so long.
After scaling some scaffolding and rooftops, Hitomi found that her daughter was thankfully completely unharmed, though lost. Her ever-imaginative daughter took Hitomi's other form to be a kind of mystical guardian, who arrived just in time to guide her home. Hitomi gladly obliged to, only running ahead to slip back into the house through the open window after Renju's men had finally arrived to escort Iris the rest of the way.
It wasn't exactly the end of it, and as obvious by the present, as Iris unknowingly asked if her mother could walk her home the next time. Hitomi couldn't say no to that face.
Maybe one day, Hitomi would give up this charade entirely. After all, Iris was a girl who seemed open to the world being bizarre, already showing an interest in things like aliens.
However, until that day came, Hitomi was more than happy to be her daughter's feline playmate.
With one last stretch to test her flexibility and muscles, Hitomi slipped out of her tent of clothing and gracefully climbed up to the open bathroom window. Soon she was sprinting off into the larger city, ready to be her daughter's guide once again.