Waking up was a slow, agonizing process of reassembling a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces were missing and the rest had been damaged.

  My first sensation wasn't sight or sound - it was the feeling of fabric. I was lying on something soft - a velvet-textured couch that smelled faintly of vanilla and electronics. I could also feel the scratchy fabric of an oversized cotton t-shirt draped over my frame. It felt like sandpaper against my new, hypersensitive skin. Every time I breathed, the fabric shifted, sending a jolt of awareness to those two, heavy unfamiliar weights on my chest.

  I didn't want to open my eyes. If I kept them closed, I could still pretend that I was Kenji Watanabe, 32-year old IT helpdesk technician, recovering from a particularly nasty electrical surge in my San Francisco apartment.

  But Kenji didn't have a chest like this, my mind whispered. Kenji didn't have hair that felt like silk brushing against his hips.

  I forced my eyes open, needing to confront the truth.

  The room was bathed in the warm, artificial glow of LED light strips - currently showing a soft pink and electric teal. To my left, a desk was cluttered with a dual-monitor setup, a professional-grade microphone on a boom arm, and a high end gaming chair. But as my vision cleared and I took in more of the room, I saw the shelves.

  Rows and rows of high-end PVC figurines. My heart skipped. I recognized the poses - the "haughty queen" stance, the "clumsy sister" trip, the "battle damaged" crouch. But the faces were wrong. The costumes were variations I'd never seen, more vibrant and aggressive. The logos on the boxes were in Korean characters. In this world, it didn't look like "Culture" had come from Tokyo; it had originated in Seoul.

  "Hey you! You're finally awake!"

  I bolted upright - or at least tried to. The sudden movement made the world spin, and the sheer, unaccustomed mass on my chest threw off my balance, sending me flopping back onto the cushions with a pathetic, airy "Oof."

  The woman from the alley was sitting at the desk, spinning around in her chair. She looked like a "Girl Next Door" fantasy - messy brown hair tied into a loose ponytail, eyes that shone with a honey gold color, short skirt, knee high socks, and a cropped hoodie. She looked cute and approachable, with a playful energy that felt almost comfortable to look at.

  "Easy, girl. You were trying to cross the border into the afterlife, right?. You took one hell of a tumble," she said as she hopped up and walked over with a glass of water. "I'm Yuna - Yuna Kim. You literally fell out of the sky and nuked that creep. I managed to drag you up here to my apartment. You're surprisingly light for ... well, for how 'built' you are."

  I reached for the glass, but my hand was so small. The skin was a perfect, pale cream color, mirroring my own half-Japanese heritage but refined into something flawless. No scars, no moles, no imperfections. Porcelain.

  "I ... I think I'm okay," I croaked. The voice was a bell, melodic and high, vibrating in a chest that felt both hollow and heavy at the same time.

  "I'm an accountant by day, but I stream Aura Legends at night," Yuna chattered, seemingly unfazed by my silence. "If you hadn't dropped in, that 'Phantom Pincher' jerk would have had my purse - and probably a lot more. He's only F-rank, but that 'Mist-Pinch' of his is no joke against a civilian like me. He had me completely locked up and unable to move."

  There were so many things she just said that I didn't understand. Aura Legends? Phantom Pincher? F-Rank? What the hell? This sounded like a bad anime.

  I looked down at the shirt she'd put me in and my face went hot enough to boil water. It was a black tee featuring a screaming, wide-eyed protagonist from what looked like a vintage 90s Korean manhwa - a girl with blue hair being hoisted in the air by glistening, barbed tentacles. The print was massive, her expression one of _pure culture_, and her clothes were barely a suggestion.

  "Oh, you like the shirt?" Yuna grinned, noticing my gaze. "It's a vintage Slime Despair promo. Super rare. I thought it suited the ... uh ... 'vibe' of our meeting. Plus, you were literally glowing when I found you."

  "I need a mirror," I whispered, the irony of the shirt's print and the situation that led me to be in this strange place making my skin crawl.

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  "First door on the right," Yuna pointed. "Bathroom's all yours. And don't worry, I don't mind you borrowing the shirt. It was the first thing I could find that would actually cover ... all of that. You're a bit more gifted than I am."

  I stood up, and it was learning to walk on a ship in a storm. I felt top-heavy, my center of gravity shifted forward by the weight of my breasts and backward by the flare of my hips. I navigated the hallway like a newborn giraffe, my hand trailing along the wall for support.

  I pushed open the bathroom door and flicked the light on.

  The girl in the mirror was ... an impossibility. She looked an SSS-Tier character that I'd have gladly dropped thousands of dollars on trying to pull in a gacha game. Her hair was a river of dark, midnight violet that spilled over my shoulders and reached all the way down to her waist. Her eyes were the same striking violent - wide, crystalline, and framed by thick, dark lashes.

  She looked eighteen. Maybe nineteen at the absolute most. A peak-performance, high-definition fantasy that any man of culture would instantly recognize and covet.

  I reached out, my fingers trembling, and touched the glass. The girl in the mirror did the same. I touched my cheek - the skin was like silk. I slid my hand down to my neck, feeling the delicate pulse of a jugular that felt far too exposed. Then, with a trembling hand, I pulled the collar of the Slime Despair shirt to the side and peeked.

  The sight of my own breasts - real, physical, and reacting to the cool air of the apartment - send a jolt of sheer dysmorphia through me. I reached out and cupped one, the weight of it in my hand feeling absolutely, terrifying real. My nipple hardened at the touch and a jolt of pleasure shot straight to my crotch - a place that was now an empty, sensitive ache.

  "Oh my god," I whimpered, leaning my forehead against the cold glass of the mirror. "I'm a waifu. I'm a literal, god-tier waifu."

  The irony was a physical slap in the face. I had spent my entire life worshiping these forms, wanting to own them in every possible way. Body pillows, figurines, wall-scrolls, and more. And now, the universe had decided to give me exactly what I wanted. By making me into one.

  I walked back into the living room, trying to keep the shirt from sliding off my shoulder while also tugging it down to cover as much of my waist and thighs as possible. I felt a strange, latent heat under my skin - a faint crackle of energy that seemed to respond to the way that Yuna was looking at me. It was almost like I was a battery, starting to charge.

  "You're ... really striking," Yuna said, her cheeks flushing as she looked me over. "Like, 'Pro Hero' vibes. What's your hero name? What Rank are you?"

  "Uhm ... what?" I stared blankly at her, confused. "Rank? And I ... don't know my name." I couldn't possibly say my name was Kenji. But what name could I say?

  I quickly started sorting and filtering the list of female names that started with K, wanting something familiar. Purple hair, body of a goddess, is there anything that would fit? My mind spun, trying to think of something.

  Kurumi.

  It worked in so many ways. Kurumi Tokisaki from Date A Live, Kurumi Imari from Bible Black, and others. I had a lot of good memories tied up with the name Kurumi.

  "Kurumi," I hesitantly offered as I met Yuna's gaze. "You can call me Kurumi."

  "Great to meet you, Kurumi!" Yuna's enthusiasm was off the charts as she practically bounced in her chair. "And amnesia? What a classic!" I blinked in surprise. "Okay, well, you're in Bay City. You know where that is?"

  "Never heard of it," I mumbled. It was Yuna's turn to blink in surprise.

  "You know, Bay City? Capital of the Western District? In the United Districts of North America?"

  "The ... what?" What in the world is going on? I've never heard of that in any manga. But it still doesn't feel like a game.

  "The UDNA? You're telling me you've never heard of the country we live in? How much memory did you lose?"

  Shamefully, I shrugged at her, a helpless look on my face. "All of it?"

  "Woooooowwwwww, okay. Well, Bay City is just the coolest - but you'll probably never leave because of the roving monster packs. Then again, you're a Super of some kind, obviously, so maybe? I wonder what Rank you are? Even Supers aren't safe to leave the city unless they're Rank-B or higher. Oh SHIT. If you don't know who you are, are you even registered?"

  "Registered?"

  "Yeah, with HeroHub. Unregistered supers get tracked down and thrown in prison by the Peacemakers, so we'll have to sign you up. And the good part is that it's all DNA-based so if you have an existing registration, it'll tell us who you are. That said ... I don't mean to brag, but I'm a bit of a hero fanatic. I know all the top heroes, the up and comers, probably every single super in Bay City. And ... I've never seen you before. Trust me, I'd recognize that body."

  "What if I don't want to be a hero? I just want to go home." My voice was a whisper, fingers clutching the hem of the borrowed shirt, as tears threatened to pour down my face. Where am I? WHO am I? How do I get home? As amazing as this body looked, it wasn't mine. I wanted to be me again. I'm not brave enough to be a hero.

  "This is your home now," Yuna said gently. "At least until we figure out who you are. You can stay with me, I'll help you get settled, okay? Bay City is a dangerous place and us girls need to look out for each other."

  "Okay," I said, struggling to project a little confidence into my voice. Trying to channel my inner Asuka. No matter how many times she got knocked down and beaten up, she always stood back up strong. I could be like Asuka. "What do we do first?"

  "First," Yuna grinned, "We find you some more clothes - clothes that aren't advertising a 90s porn series. My cosplay bin is in the closet. Let's see what will fit those breasts of yours."