(Credit to 00-26-32 of BEArchive for this amazing concept that deserves far more attention)
Ask anyone how to prepare for a test, and they will not say that you should stay up all night cramming the night before. Almost anyone will not say that, and if they do they're idiots or possibly don't like you very much. Sleep is fun and healthy and keeps you from going insane.
Otohime Honoka did not ask anyone, and for that reason she was going insane. 3:44am is not a proper time for almost anyone to be awake. Even many television stations sign off for an hour or two at night, and 3:44am is roughly in the middle of the even your television thinks you should be asleep o'clock. And she couldn't even tell the impertinent inanimate object off, on account of her little brother being asleep in the same room.
Taking a moment to stand up and stretch, Honoka looked over at her sleeping brother and allowed herself to be jealous. Nagi wasn't in high school. It scarcely mattered what his grades were. Nagi didn't have to go to cram school or take hard practice tests or stay up all night losing his marbles while trying to figure out integral calculus. All he had to be was a little boy.
Suddenly he wasn't.
As quickly as blinking, though Honoka hadn't blinked, her brother had been replaced by a cute girl. The person sleeping in front of Honoka was suddenly about Honoka's same height, about her same age, and exactly her same gender and body type. Aside from her hair, which was short, black, and a little wild, in contrast to Honoka's voluminous red-gold tresses, the person she was looking at was exactly her twin. Stranger yet, she could remember having a twin sister, Nagisa, just as easily as she could remember Nagi being her brother.
It wasn't just Nagisa that was familiar and terrifyingly new at the same time. Nagisa's bedsheets were more floral and pink than Nagi would have ever tolerated. Her clothes that had been tossed on the floor certainly didn't resemble those of a boy. The books on Nagisa's desk were the same textbooks that Honoka had been suffering over all night, and on Honoka's own desk, the photo of herself and her parents from the entrance ceremony now showed Nagisa right next to her, along with two other girls where their parents should have been. Honoka's new memories identified the girl with the pink braids as her sister, Erika, who should have been Honoka's mother. The girl beside her with the aquamarine pageboy haircut was Erika's wife, Tsubomi, who would have been Honoka's father, Tsutomu. The couple were wearing the uniform of a different school, and were already parading around with the veils for their wedding later that same day.
Girls could marry each other? Part of her insisted that it was strange and abnormal. Her other self understood that any two girls could marry so long as they'd both started high school, and what high school girl wouldn't want a cute bride?
Of all people, Nagisa had caught the bouquet. Now there was a memory that both parts of Honoka found strange.
Was that really the world she was living in now? Unable to calm herself, Honoka crept out of the bedroom she shared with her sister, slipped quietly down the hall, and peeked inside her parents' bedroom. The bedroom shared by her married sister and sister-in-law. Impossible as it should have been, it was definitely the latter. The whirlwind leavings of clothing and accessories scattered haphazardly across the floor and twin vanities betrayed no hint of any male or adult occupants, and the petite figures snuggling together in the early morning moonlight were definitely the teen girls that only half of Honoka's mind could believe even existed.
How could any of this have happened?
Honoka returned to her room. Nagisa was still asleep, perfectly oblivious to having become a girl in her sleep. Honoka grabbed her sister's shoulders and began to shake her.
"Nagi! Wake up, Nagi!"
The other girl stirred fitfully, opening her eyes so slightly that she might as well have had them shut still.
"Watizit, Sis?"
"Nagi, you turned into a girl!"
Nagisa groaned and rolled to face the wall. "Am girl. Go sleep, y'airhead."
Honoka tried again. Nagisa responded by groaning and trying halfheartedly to kick her. Seeing that it was no use, Honoka gave up and went back to her studies.
Yeah, that wasn't any use either. Honoka was tired, upset, and her world had turned upside down right in front of her. Who was she to say that math was even real anymore? Maybe this and that and the rest were all part of some twisted, sadistic nightmare.
When her alarm went off some three hours later, Honoka was to be sorely disappointed.
Returning finally to her dormitory bedroom, Gloria Swift rubbed her eyes not for the first time that morning. Just because there were more hours of daylight available in the late spring didn't mean that she enjoyed or could afford to interrupt her beauty sleep every time some crisis manufactured itself. But here she was, shuffling around in her nightie having already spent two hours on the phone with Her Majesty's government in London when the time wasn't yet half past six in the morning. All because, in the view of her beloved homeland and seemingly the entire rest of the world, on this 23rd May, 2015, at the stroke of 3:45am Japan Standard Time, every living human in Japan, in Japan's territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, or in the air overhead had instantly become a high school girl.
That wasn't how Gloria remembered it, of course. Whatever London or anyone else might say about it, she was pretty sure that Japan had famously been a nation of schoolgirls close to her own age from the first time she'd learned about it. Why else would Her Majesty's government see fit to not only appoint a girl of seventeen years to be their official ambassador, but also to staff the embassy almost exclusively with girls of high school age and establish a boarding school in combination with the embassy? Why, aside from schoolgirls, they had so few staff at the embassy that Gloria could even say that none of them were presently even in Japan!
Actually, that was a point in favor of the outside perspective, but Gloria wasn't feeling like yielding that point at the moment. She was the one who had been awakened at what-is-bloody-wrong-with-you in the morning. She was the one who had had to convince the foreign ministry that she was who she believed she was, who their own records affirmed she was, and that she and her staff were able to do the work they'd been sent abroad to do.
Gloria looked in the mirror and sighed. Dark circles under her eyes. Nothing she couldn't cover up with makeup, but it was the necessity that rankled.
Shucking her nightie and her panties, Gloria examined her naked form in the mirror. Pale and slender, some would say lanky, 178cm tall and dusted with freckles. Bright orange-red locks, cascading down her back instead of being done up in her usual braids. Her breasts were far too small for a girl of her height, and for the briefest of moments, she wondered how she had convinced her wife to marry a flat-chested ginger beanpole.
The moment passed. Knowing nothing of Gloria's temporary lapse of confidence, her wife Marian, who was unquestionably the cutest girl in school, continued dozing on the queen-sized bed the two of them shared.
After taking a deep breath, Gloria opened her wardrobe, then pulled out and put on her most comfortable matching bra and panties. Then she pulled out her school uniform and wished like she did every day the student council would consider her request to redesign it with a shorter skirt and some colors that were cute and not butt-ugly gray.
With another sigh, Gloria got dressed for school. At least she'd have plenty of time for tea before class.
As several young girls moved through the queue to be served by a couple of cute baristas, a television overhead played the news. As expected, the newscasters were also high school girls, though rather than wearing their school uniforms, they were fashionably dressed.
The one with the wavy blonde hair chattered to her companion. "So, today's top story! Early as it is, I think we can safely say ain't nothing topping this one: The sky is blue! Water is wet! And isn't this the cutest dress?"
The other girl, with her lavender hair tied back in twin ponytails, chuckled. "Sure, sure. But for those who don't know what you're talking about, the whole world has gone mad! Perhaps because they're jealous of our youth and beauty, the other nations of the world have just this morning begun insisting that we were until now a nation with an even balance of both genders and a wide range of ages, trending toward the very old!"
The blonde took up the announcement. "Reason enough to be jealous, right? But there are a bunch of Japanese saying the same thing, on account of all our non-high school girl citizens seemingly being overseas. And it's not just our overseas citizens saying these things! Girls are coming forward all over the country who say that they were awake when everything changed and can remember both versions of their lives!"
The lavender haired girl took over again. "There's a word for people who don't sleep at night: Insomniacs! And if these Insomniacs want to be taken seriously, well... actually maybe we should. Interviewed separately, unconnected Insomniacs have consistently given the matching answers for the alternate-world names of such famed individuals as the Empress and Empress-Consort, the Prime Minister, and popular sports and film stars!"
"Wait! The Empress-Consort? The Prime Minister? They're naming people that I couldn't name in real life!"
As the bimbos on the news continued to banter, Manaka Yukiho reached the front of the line, paid for her espresso, and carried it over to the table where her partner was waiting. Like herself, Serinuma Sachi was wearing the navy blue uniform of the law enforcement division of their high school, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police & Bailiffs Girls Academy.
Sachi lifted her own espresso in a mock toast. "To the water of life."
Yukiho nodded and took a drink from her cup. "Best part of waking up."
Sachi took a sip from her own. "What do you think of this news?"
Yukiho scowled. "I think that if they're going to put a pair of bimbos up in front of a camera, they oughta just have them wrestle in jello. Topical humor is a job for people who are actually funny."
"We're prettier than they are." Sachi laughed. "Wanna go find a pool full of jello instead of going on patrol?"
Yuhiko just managed to swallow her coffee before laughing. "No way, partner. Jello wrestling is a bimbo job, and we're supposed to uphold the public order. If go on patrol and nothing happens, that's a good thing!"
The two police girls finished their coffee and went on their patrol. Since most girls went to school at about that time, nothing much worth mentioning happened while they patrolled. After patrolling for a few hours, they got on the train to their school. Even though they were going to school much later than most girls, there were plenty of other girls with similar schedules. Since there were also fewer trains running than during the morning rush, they managed to be almost as crowded as during peak hours. There were even several other cops.
There was also a molester.
Yukiho nudged her partner, and they made their way toward their target, a tall, dark-haired girl wearing an allergy mask and a sailor-type school uniform. The pervert was taking indecent liberties with the butt of a smaller, trembling girl wearing the uniform of the Paramedical & Fire Response School for Girls.
Sachi caught the tall girl by the wrist. "Hey, girl. You've got a lot of nerve, feeling up a first responder!"
Yukiho grabbed the girl's other wrist. "You're coming with us."
The tall girl was surprisingly strong, and shook free of the pair seemingly without effort. She made a break for it, running out onto the rail platform and toward the stairway out of the station. Yukiho was right on her heels, and made it out before the train's doors closed. Scrambling after the miscreant, she immediately began losing ground against the other girl's longer stride.
Sachi, having not gotten off before the doors closed, was trapped as the train started moving. As it accelerated, she was carried past Yukiho, then past the groper, and onward down the tracks in the same direction. Rather than resigning herself to her situation, she grabbed a fire extinguisher from next to the exit, bashed out the window glass, then hurled herself out of the train. Sachi rolled as she hit the ground, getting to her feet just in time to block the tall girl from getting to the stairs.
The girl skidded on the concrete, swinging around in a wide arc to avoid being intercepted by the maniac who had just jumped out of a train. This put her nearly on a collision course with a bank of vending machines, so she tightened her turn, pumping her legs like a track runner to get going again in the opposite direction.
That was when Yukiho hit her with a flying kick to the face. The masked girl flew backward into a vending machine, dislocating the transparent plastic window and half-burying her in a cascade of drinks, snacks, and shrink-wrapped panties. Yukiho and Sachi were on her a moment later, and handcuffed her to the vending machine's innards.
The police girls high-fived.
"That's right! This is Double Cute Justice, and You! Are! Busted!"
Once she was outside the building, Patricia Wilcox took a moment to stretch. Being a freshman at the Kadena Air Base campus of the USAF Preparatory Academy, she wasn't technically a foreign exchange student, for all that she was living and studying in Okinawa. It was an American institution, even if it was in the Land of the Rising Schoolgirls. However, differences between the American and Japanese school systems meant that the entire freshman class, including Patricia and the general in command of the whole base, were among the youngest girls in all of Japan. At the same time, they were full, paid members of the US Air Force, and definitely not cadets like most students their age would be. Patricia herself was an Airman First Class, and her classmates included plenty of other ranks between herself and the general.
Ordinarily, Patricia would be stuck in classes for the afternoon, but some incident or another had resulted in her being called down to the hangars to take over another technician's maintenance shift. This was fine. Patricia loved working on the airplanes, to the point that she would have preferred doing that work to having the day off to go bask in the tropical sun.
"Patty! Patty Wilcox! Yo, Patty!"
Patricia stopped and turned, only to realize that she was being hailed by one of their school's most infamous social butterflies. Wearing a miniskirt, a halter top, and a winning smile, eighteen year old Tanya Smith-Perkins was 6'2" with all the legs thereby implied, and also had curves that would put a Super Bowl cheerleader to shame. Such a pity that Tanya didn't like cheerleading, really. She was more into pickup lines and one-night stands, or at least that was what Patricia had heard.
Tanya was also a Staff Sergeant, so Patricia stopped and saluted. Tanya stopped and looked behind her, before realizing that she was the recipient of the salute.
"Gah! Drop that salute, girl. This ain't for work. What I've got for you is a purely informal invitation. I need you... to play hooky with me... on the beach... in a skimpy swimsuit."
Patricia did her best not to frown. "What."
"What? What?! Come on, Patty! You can't tell me you're the only girl in America who doesn't want to cut class on such a beautiful day!"
"We're not in America, and I'm not going to class right now. I've got a work shift. Right now, I'm on the schedule to do maintenance on our lovely jets."
"Patty, lots of girls can maintain the planes. They're not even allowed to fly right now! You and I, we've got unique qualifications. We're the two hottest girls in school, and we should be out on the beach!"
"Look, I'll grant that you're hot, and I certainly don't mind the compliment. Thanks, but I've got responsibilities. Hell, I've got standards."
"Patty, you misunderstand. Look at me. I am the hottest, blackest bitch on this whole island. I'm not asking you to come with me because I'm hard up for sex."
"Tanya, I'm not going to blow off work just to help you pick up chicks. Jets are like delicate little flowers that zoom around at supersonic speeds. Somebody's gotta take up the wrench and pamper them like a baby out of the cabbage patch, or they shake apart in the air."
"Come on, Patty! I need your synergy here! You and me got letters under our shirts that Japan hasn't even heard of yet! Hottest black bitch, hottest white bitch, skimpiest swimsuits, out on that beach. We go out there and show them that we're hotter than they are, make 'em all so green with jealousy that they'll be able to photosynthesize!"
"Look, it's not that I'm not flattered-"
"And then we run a booty train!"
Patricia felt a headache coming on. "Y'know what? Fuck it. I'll go out there and help with your stupid super slut orgy, but first you've gotta do one thing- just one thing- for me."
Tanya's face lit up with a radiant grin. "Hey, that's what I like to hear! I'll do whatever. Anything you want."
"Anything anything?"
"Anything anything." Tanya managed to look more earnest than any time since she'd first called out to Patricia.
"Turn into a jet."
Weird. Everything was weird.
Since suddenly finding herself in the body of a girl ten years younger than her former self, Minori had found that absolutely everything had turned weird.
The former Okano Minoru had been playing video games late into the night, because he was a hikkikomori and time didn't matter. Apparently turning into Minori hadn't made her dislike video games, but her game controller had turned pink in her hands, and even the game disc in the console had changed! Her former self wouldn't have been caught dead playing an otome game, but somehow Minori had been outside the house at a midnight release, and had sworn to complete all of the main routes in the game before going to school in the morning!
Actually, aside from the fact that Minori had apparently left her room that night and was planning to do so again in the morning, it was the kind of thing her former self would have done. Her former self wouldn't have finished an otome game, though. He wouldn't have been able to stomach it, let alone enjoy it. The fact that she had was weird.
Her former self would've done what every boy was supposed to do when transformed into a girl, but Minori hadn't. Weird. Her former self had been a disgusting butterball of a man, while Minori was short, slender, and needed glasses. Weird. Sky blue hair. Nobody had hair like that, but Minori did. Weird. Her former self would've missed the signs of her period starting until there was already a bloodstain on her clothing, and would've completely lost his shit over it. Minori had just put in a tampon and gone back to her otome game. Weird, but also kind of better than the alternative.
Her former parents wouldn't have come into the room when her former self didn't answer their call to breakfast in the morning. When Minori had tried it, her sister and her sister's wife had come into her room like it was nothing, dragged her out of bed, and made her eat breakfast in the dining room with them! And not only that, but Minori could remember it like it was part of her own routine! Her sister and sister-in-law had the exact same jobs her former parents had had, but they were working at them part time while attending high school! And one of them was a doctor, of all things! It at least explained how the family supported themselves, but it was still weird.
Minori could vaguely remember being raised until middle school alongside her sister who should've been her mother and her sister who should've been her mother's mother by her great-grandmother who had died in 1983. The three of them had a brother, who was sixty-five years old and on vacation in Hawaii. Minori had fond memories of him, despite having never met her great-uncle in her previous life. The age difference in her memories didn't come close to how much older than her he actually was. Weirder than weird, and potentially super awkward.
Going to school of her own free will, and not even feeling nervous about it. Weird. Going to a completely different school than the one she'd dropped out of in her former life, and not getting at all lost or confused on the way. Weird. Friends from her new life calling out to her, people she was perfectly familiar with but whom her former self had never met. Super weird.
Virtually every building seemed to be a school or a dormitory, and those that weren't were owned and run by students. Weird. Jobs that were too dangerous or disgusting for girls to do were being done by drones or robots. All of their teachers were robots, even. Weird, but also kind of cool.
Not everybody was beautiful, but even the girls who were a little plain had their cute points and nobody was ugly. Even though that was weird too, Minori couldn't find it in herself to complain.
Her situation didn't get any less weird after Minori fell asleep in class. It wasn't like this was completely unexpected: she had spent all night playing an otome game. No, what was weird after that was that she woke up in detention. Detention! In a school with no teachers! Well, it wasn't like Minori had an excuse for that. Even though it was her former self who had made the decision to stay up all night, Minori had had her own reasons for pulling an all-nighter and should have known that the student council would discipline her if she couldn't stay awake. That wasn't so weird.
Weird was the girl suffering the student council president's lecture next to her, having also fallen asleep in class. She was a full head taller than Minori, with larger breasts and a rounder butt. She had rich, reddish-gold hair that cascaded down her back like a waterfall, cute, pink lips, and bright orange eyes. Dark circles under her eyes that hadn't been completely covered by makeup, but beneath Minori's eyes were probably markings that were just as noticeable. If not for the uniform skirt and blazer, the girl would look exactly like Katarina, Minori's favorite out of all the boys and girls available as lovers in the game she'd been up all night playing.
That was too weird to even be possible. Even if everyone in Japan turned into schoolgirls overnight, there was no way an otome game girl could appear in the real world.
"I've heard you claim to be an Insomniac."
Minori started to point a finger at herself, but quickly noticed that the stern-looking upperclassman was looking at the redhead. She'd heard that people who could remember both versions of the world were being called that, but she'd gone out of her way to avoid letting others know that she was one. Could it really be that this older girl, who looked like she'd stepped right out of an otome game, was also an Insomniac?
"That's right!" The other girl answered boastfully. "I, Otohime Honoka, remember everything from before the world changed this morning, and I also remember everything the way it is now!"
"Senpai!" Minori turned suddenly and wrapped her arms around the redhead, hugging the girl as tightly as she could with her slender arms. "I'm an Insomniac too!"