View source for A Feeling of Something Extra (Ikiko Hisakata)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2016/02/22
|Location=Around Tokyo
|Synopsis=On the day of the full moon, Ikiko gets hints of some ethereal additions.  What could they be?
|Cast of Characters=75
}}
It had started that morning.

When Ikiko was brushing her hair in the morning, she found herself moving the hairbrush in odd directions, as if her hair flared outward near the back corners of her head.  When she focused on it, she could brush her hair normally, but for some reason it felt somewhat ''off'' to run the brush through that part of her hair.  It wasn't a physical sensation; the feeling was more like the sense of a reluctant juxtaposition.

Later that day, Ikiko accidentally knocked a piece of paper off of her desk.  She wouldn't have thought much about it, but she knew she hadn't actually touched that piece of paper -- she wasn't even facing it, and she was standing a couple feet away.  But there was the sensation of touching the paper with a ghostly limb, a half-moment before the paper fluttered to the floor.  She would've written it off as coincidence, except... that sense of touch reminded her of being Cute Wolf Tsukiko and having a canine tail.  But as Ikiko, she's human, and doesn't have a tail.  So why...?

On her walk home, Ikiko kept seeing things out of the corner of her eye.  But whenever she turned to look, all she saw was her own reflection in storefront windows.  Is it her mind playing tricks on her?  Because nobody else seems to be noticing anything unusual, and the things that keep drawing her attention only seem to be around her reflection.  Perhaps it's something to do with magic?  But in that case, what could it be?

Ikiko was still pondering this when she got home.  When she got to the room she shares with Ayana, the hairbrush on the desk reminded her of what happened that morning.  The oddities she had noticed in reflections seem to be around her head, so maybe...

...maybe there was a reason for it?

Carefully, she turned so that she was sideways to the mirror.  This time, when something appeared in the corner of her eye, she focused on it without turning to face the mirror.  There, right where they would be on Tsukiko, were two canine ears and a tail, with dark brown fur that matched Ikiko's hair color.

Ikiko blinked, then brushed her hair away from the side of her head.  Her human ears were still there, but if she focused she could move the canine ears around, just like as if she was currently Tsukiko.  If she turned to face the mirror, the canine touches faded from view, but they came back into sight once her eyes were elsewhere.

She reached up to touch the canine ears, and found them to be real, albeit insubstantial.  Her ears could tell that they were being touched, but their sense of feel was weak; likewise, her fingers could easily tell where the edges of the ears were, but the ears felt like thick air.  She could even move her fingers ''through'' the phantom ears, but that felt '''really''' weird -- at least, as long as she was focusing on the ears!

Her tail was just as ethereal as her ears.  Ikiko could even use her hands to move it around, but when she tried to look at it -- even from the corners of her eyes -- she couldn't actually see it.  But it was still there; she could still see it in the mirror when viewed from the corners of her eyes.

So... phantom ears and a tail.  Ikiko had never heard of great-grandfather Yuuki ever mentioning those... but then, her seven and a half months of using the Lycan Locket is '''much''' longer than how long he used it.  Is it just a quirk of using the Lycan Locket for so long?  A side effect of helping Ayana get her human form back?  A change caused by the strength of her love for Ayana and its reciprocation?  Something else entirely?

Ikiko shrugs.  Whatever the cause, it doesn't seem to be causing any problems, and it's not very visible -- nonmagical people didn't even seem to notice!  Just something to chalk up to the odd life of being a magical (wolf)girl.

(('''OOC Note:''' Ikiko now has wolf ears and a wolf tail!  These are '''only''' visible to magical folk, and ''only'' if viewed through two stages of indirectness: "corner of the eyes" counts as one stage, and reflections count as another stage.  In other words, you'd have to view her reflection from the corner of your eyes in order to see them!  Likewise, they're not very substantial -- even if a magical person knows that they exist, the ears and tail are only partially solid, and can be passed through like ghosts; nonmagical people can't even tell that they exist!))