The Girl in the Mirror
Thick, oversized pajamas draped over my frame, and with my body now noticeably smaller, I couldn't make out the exact shape. Yet I could still feel it. Right now, I had become a woman.
Thinking about it, it wasn't all that strange. Superpowers were all a little unhinged to begin with. There were telekinetics whose range stopped at ten centimeters, flame users who couldn't handle heat. My own Regeneration had occasionally produced two right arms or sprouted an exoskeleton—things that shouldn't exist on a normal body. So I'd always suspected that one day the ability might target my entire form and rewrite it completely. That was why my fingerprints and irises changed so often; authentication relied on the opposite hand's prints, voice, or personality patterns instead.
"But why did it have to change my gender too…"
I stared at the girl standing opposite me in the mirror. Her legs had thinned, her thighs grown plump. Her waist was hidden, but the feel of it suggested it had narrowed considerably. Her chest seemed fairly developed… though smaller than what I'd had before. Her face had become small and round, her hair now reaching just past her chin. I'd been active for so long that I might have only glimpsed this reflection in passing, but I knew with certainty: this was a face I'd never seen before.
That meant I hadn't transformed into someone else. This was a form my own power had created. So the girl in the mirror was… 'If I had been born female, would I have looked like this?'
I had no complaints about the appearance itself. That was the problem. The girl in the mirror was quite cute. I couldn't judge her exact height from the reflection alone, but her proportions were unmistakably those of a girl who had only recently come of age. Her eyes looked enormous even though she wasn't deliberately widening them. Was it simply because her head had shrunk? The face staring back was undeniably adorable. Even if I tried to be objective, every detail—overall and in the small things—was pretty and charming.
The sudden change left me deeply flustered. Still, I'd always known this day might come, so my only real feeling was a quiet well, it finally happened. At least the result wasn't grotesque or frightening; that much was a relief. Of course, that didn't mean I was happy about it. The biggest complaint was simply that this was now me.
There were dozens of reasons to be unhappy, but starting with the lighter ones—
Knock knock—
Someone tapped lightly on the door. I had no way to see through it, but the person on the other side could only be my manager. At this hour, in my house, knocking on my bedroom door, no one else fit the description. It was obvious even without looking.
She herself wasn't the issue. The real problem was—
Creak—
Before I could even finish the minimal debate of whether to say "come in," the door swung open. Normally I would still be asleep at this time, with my manager waking me. Today's early awakening was only because of the strange event. The knock had been purely ceremonial; she hadn't actually been waiting for an answer. The door opened before I could decide what to do.
A brown-haired woman in a suit stepped through. We froze, staring at each other with no preparation or warning. Silence. Neither of us made a sound or moved. We simply stood there, rigid, faces locked on one another.
Then my manager, Mari, broke the stillness first. She rushed straight at me.
"Kyaaah! You can do this too!? Why didn't you show me sooner!"
"This isn't something I can control!"
She scooped me up and shook me back and forth. She was tall and physically capable, but the ease with which she lifted and swung me around made it clear my height and weight had dropped dramatically. More than that, the sensation was deeply unsettling. Being shaken like a soaked puppy being wrung out was something I couldn't even begin to describe.
This was exactly why I had complaints about the new appearance. Her standards might be vague, but she was hopelessly weak to anything cute. If even I thought the form was cute, then of course she would too.
"Can't you just stay like this?"
"No."
I answered firmly and grabbed her wrist, prying her arm off me. She didn't seem to grasp how serious the situation was. Normally she was composed and professional, yet the moment something like this happened she forgot her own job entirely.
"Shouldn't your first reaction be to worry about me?"
Growing a second right arm wasn't a problem in combat or in public. At worst it meant tailoring clothes or cutting holes in them; it never interfered with daily life or work. But turning into a woman—into a girl—created far more complications. There were countless villains in this world. Last year alone I'd caught an average of seven per day. Including the decimal, it was 7.23. Now I was supposed to keep catching seven villains a day in this body. Physically it might be possible, but repeated deployments would eventually expose my appearance. If my image as a hero collapsed because of it, crime rates would only rise, making everything harder—for me and for innocent civilians alike.
"Um… since you don't feel pain, periods shouldn't be a problem either, right?"
"That's not the issue!"
First, I had to do something about this manager.
"Still, shouldn't we head to the Association first?"
Mari spoke while gripping the steering wheel. She was my manager, but she belonged to the Association. More precisely, she wasn't employed under me—she was Association staff. So of course she had an obligation to report my current condition.
"Yeah."
"You're not… sulking, are you?"
"…No."
The car felt unnaturally quiet, cut off from the outside world. She didn't speak again, simply driving in silence. The vehicle that had always felt cramped now seemed comfortably spacious because of my reduced size. Combined with having slept far less than usual, drowsiness quickly crept in. The drive to the Association took only about fifteen minutes—not far at all. I couldn't afford to sleep; I needed to think about what to do next.
Mari had recognized me, but what about everyone else? I was wearing the suit the Association had provided, yet the waist was far too loose, so I'd been forced to wear a belt for the first time in my life. I'd tightened the tie as much as possible, but my neck was still too thin; the collar kept slipping down, threatening to expose my collarbones. When I'd seen myself in the mirror, the reflection hadn't looked like a hero at all. It looked more like a sasaeng fan who'd broken into my house to steal clothes… or simply a little girl wearing her father's or uncle's oversized suit. Closer to a mascot than a hero. Who would ever believe me? The future ahead felt impossibly bleak.
"We've arrived."
"Haa…"
I'd needed to figure out how to prove my identity, but I'd spent the entire ride just worrying. Planning had always been a luxury for me, yet I wished I'd at least been given time to organize my thoughts.
I reached for the door handle, pulling while pushing the door with my other hand—
Clunk.
…?
I pushed the door again—
Clunk.
…?
Door—clunk—push—
Why…! It won't open…!
I grabbed the handle with my left hand and pushed the door with my right. A simple, straightforward action. But this damned body kept missing the handle my left hand was supposed to be holding. I tried using my right arm to push the door open before the handle slipped away, but with the strength that kept dropping the handle, there was no way I could shove the door open in time. Realizing raw strength alone wouldn't suffice, I leaned my weight into it—
Whoosh—!
The door suddenly flew open and my body pitched forward. I registered that I was about to fall before I even processed that the door had opened. Too late to react—
Poof—
Fortunately, instead of hitting the ground, something dark and soft caught me. My face was completely buried, so I couldn't see, but it seemed Mari had thrown herself forward to cushion my fall with her own body.
"Huuuuh…! Are you hugging me to say thank you!?"
Had she rushed over to catch me? No—her physical abilities were good, but not that good. And from her reaction, this clearly hadn't been intentional. Had she opened the car door for me in the first place…?
"More importantly, could you let go?"
"Yes!"
She lifted me up and set me back on the seat. My heart had been pounding from the shock, but it quickly calmed. At least my superpower remained, even if my residual physical strength had mostly vanished. I couldn't confirm whether the ability was at its original level, but the fact that it still existed meant there was a chance I could return to my original body someday.
I turned to get out of the car. Mari was waiting with an expectant expression, one hand extended, her waist slightly bowed.
"?"
"!!"
When I simply stared at her in confusion, her smile grew even wider and she leaned closer.
"??"
I kept staring. She shifted her eyes around, trying to convey something without words. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she spoke first.
"You need to get out, don't you?"
"Yeah?"
"But how's your body right now?"
"I'm not so weak that this is a problem."
No matter how my appearance had changed, I was still someone who made a living with a single superpower. Did she really think a mere regeneration-type hero would lose strength in their legs over something this small? I extended a foot to step down—
Dangle. Dangle.
My feet swung in the air, never quite reaching the ground. Roughly fifty centimeters short. No—because my overall size had shrunk, my sense of scale had changed too, so it was probably closer to thirty or forty centimeters.
"I'm not talking about your condition. Your height is the issue, isn't it?"
Crack—
Her words struck a nerve. Even if my feet didn't reach the ground because I'd shrunk, that didn't mean my pride had hit rock bottom. I swatted her hand away and jumped out of the car. Or rather, I tried to. Her hand didn't move, and my jump never landed.
Thud!
The difference in body size was so extreme that even the sound of falling was smaller than usual, giving the whole thing a comical feel. My body, however, had taken real damage—unlike the comedic impression. Knees, ribs, wrists, under the eyes, nose. Pain flared in multiple places. I'd thought I'd grown fairly numb to pain, but it seemed my changed body had restored some of that sensitivity.
'This is going to be a serious problem for fieldwork too.'
But the damage didn't last. Regeneration kicked in immediately, restoring me to perfect condition. I stood up, brushing off the dust that had clung to me during the fall. My limbs were small, so even dusting myself off wasn't easy, but the reduced surface area meant it was over quickly. If this was how things were going to be, I might as well have let her help me down in the first place.
"Um… well… sorry?"
"It's fine. Let's go."
She had tried to catch me, so I supposed I should at least thank her. I told her to lead the way and checked my clothes. I already knew my body was fine, so I was really checking the suit. It wasn't torn or damaged. The Association had made it as durable as possible precisely because of my ability, so of course it had survived. The waterproofing, however, was gone—my own request for convenience—so the white shirt underneath now had red stains from blood. Self-inflicted, I supposed. I buttoned the suit jacket closed and tucked the bloodied shirt into my pants. The collar slipped lower, exposing my collarbones, but at least the red stains on the white shirt were hidden. Problem solved.
Now that my outfit was presentable, I just had to follow Mari to the Association director's office…
…I looked around, but Mari was already gone from sight. I wondered if she'd hidden to tease me, but I couldn't sense any presence nearby. In this vast, dark, cave-like space, I was completely alone.
"Mari?"
She hadn't actually left me behind and gone on without me, had she?