The Orb fixes Hiyoko Saionji, the Ultimate Traditional Dancer (and friends)

"How's the camera, Big Sis Mahiru? Have you got my good side?" Dressed in her usual orange kimono, the Ultimate Traditional Dancer, Hiyoko Saionji, struck an elegant pose with a folding fan spread and held aloft. In the last year of Academy, she no longer looked like a child, with a graceful figure and developed chest, but it was still a little hard to get around the fact that she had a naturally youthful face, with big eyes and rosy cheeks.

Still, her skill was real, and her friend Mahiru Koizumi did indeed have a good angle for the shoot. The red-headed Ultimate Photographer had been happy when her friend proposed the idea of doing a photoshoot of one of her performances, but she privately thought it was a bit of a waste. Her opinions about her own photography aside, she thought Hiyoko's dancing was really best experienced in motion. Seeing performances in person or in the papers were entirely different experiences. Regardless, she counted on herself to get good shots, and there was no need to deny the favor and rain on Hiyoko's parade. "Everything's set. Take a nice, deep breath, and-"

"Let the bodies hit the floor!!" the third student in the room startled the others with a guttural growl. The Ultimate Musician, a pale young woman with long, dark hair dyed multiple colors and styled into horns, was an odd third for their group, but she was trying to psyche her friend up in her own way. She'd brought snacks and, more importantly, a portable sound system. Together with Mahiru's camera and Hiyoko's tatami mats, they had set the room up to be an impromptu dance studio suitable for performance. "Traditional dance is all about breaking the rules, ain't it?!"

"It ain't- I mean, it isn't!" Hiyoko chided her seriously, although she stomped a foot childishly. "Do you know the meaning of the word 'traditional'? Is that definition in there between those brain-horns of yours? This might be a little hard for a genre-hopper to understand, but my form isn't for fun. It's about protecting tradition! Mahiru's here to preserve those traditions on film. You're here because... I dunno, it's all your sound stuff. Be quiet and you might learn something."

"Nobody ever tells Ibuki to be quiet!!" the up-and-coming rock star gasped with an exaggerated look of shock. "W-well, I mean, people tell me to all the time... but nobody expects me to actually do it! That's the difference in the world of traditionals, I see! So, Hiyoko! Which of my jams are ya jonesin' to jam to?"

"... Please tell me you brought traditional Japanese music," Mahiru sighed, wishing this conversation had come up before they'd spent fifteen minutes setting up the equipment.

"Of course! And by 'of course' I mean 'oopsies!'" Ibuki declared, pulling a strange gesture with her fists confidently on her hips but her spine bent in a bow of apology. "Well, lemme just find one streaming! Say, where do you find those traditional tunes on tap? Is there, like... a Youtube for old music?"

Hiyoko groaned. "Y'know, Ibuki, I invited you asking you to play traditional music, and you said you could! I figured you were gonna actually, like, bring an instrument?"

"Right?! It makes sense that you would think that! I can really feel your righteous anger right now," the famous musician admitted with a smile, still trying to find a suitable background track for Hiyoko by searching using the terms "traditional old ancient outdated old people music."

The photographer checked her equipment for the third time, smiling in spite of herself. Even if it wasn't time well-spent, the three of them didn't get to hang out together often enough. Plus, this was Hiyoko's Ultimate talent, and she hardly ever got a chance to display it. She had a feeling that, despite being apparent opposites, Ibuki and Hiyoko had more in common that they realized. Hopefully, this would provide a chance for the three of them to become close before graduation.

[ORB ID: S3XXX.MIU.3

LOCATION: Spare room, Hope's Peak Academy

STATUS: Seventy-five ? ? ? ERROR One hundred

TARGET: Hiyoko Saionji (Three ?)

TARGET FUNCTION: Popular Dancer ?

ANALYSIS: Hiyoko's role is identified as "Popular Dancer." The primary function of a "Popular Dancer" in this universe's society is to provide entertainment through flawless performance of "dances" (criteria undefined ? ? ? not found). [ERROR] - Although the function of the Popular Dancer is to perform popular dances the dances are not popular. Critical error discovered in unit's primary function; rectify immediately.

METHODOLOGY: Provide network to query "popular dances" for missing data. Adapt available technology to enhance broadcast range. Immediately secure the unit and update firmware as required to optimize performance. Recommend diverting all unnecessary processing routines to primary function.

AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY: Multiple (seventy-five) (? ? ? ) ERROR - Three (Code 3 ?) ERROR - Integer "3"]

Mahiru and Hiyoko had taken a break to enjoy some snacks, leaving Ibuki to fix her own problem. Speaking loudly around a mouthful of popcorn, her face in stark contrast with her refined kimono, the dancer voiced her displeasure once more. "How muchf longer?!"

Ibuki held up her device triumphantly. "It's dooone! Well, I'd like to take credit for it, but your name is literally on the site!'

"Finally!" Hiyoko shouted, rising to her feet and trying to get herself prepped once more. "Lucky for you, I can do all the classics, so it doesn't matter which one you picked. Just play something and let me dance already!"

"Oh, I didn't pick one!" the musician replied, looking confused. "You're the one that hooked me up to the network with your fansite, right? The one where everyone's voting on what you should dance to? What a radical idea that is! Ibuki wants this for her next concert! I'm ready to play Freebird and Wonderwall back-to-back all night!"

Now, Hiyoko was starting to get pissed off. She marched towards her friend and snatched the device. "What are you talking about? Like I'd do anything bunch of anonymous randos at their keyboards voted on. I bet none of them can even name a single piece!"

Ibuki laughed hard. "Whaddya mean 'name one?' Do those plucky guitar bits even have names?! News to me!" Her wild eyes scanned over the page. "Hold on! Is this real?! Are they serious?! Is it seriously real?!?! Mahiru! Take a picture of this for posteriority! All of Hiyoko's fans want her to dance to 'Bubble Butt' by Major Lazer!"

While the jovial one among them kicked, rolled, and screamed with laughter on the floor, Mahiru and Hiyoko both hurried to look at the screen. The page they were looking at, on further inspection, didn't seem to be any kind of traditional browser page. There was no way to navigate off of it. All they could see was a garishly decorated pink website, clearly dedicated to the purpose of letting people vote on what dance Hiyoko would perform. There was a chatbox where suggestions whizzed by faster than they could be read. There was, for better or worse, a running tally of the top suggestions at the side, none of which sounded like the names of respectable classic dance music. And, at the very top, was the track Ibuki had named. It seemed someone in the chatbox had organized a push for that particular title, claiming it would be...

"Humiliating?!" Mahiru read with disapproval, wishing she could find where one might enter text on this page so she could give the keyboard mob a piece of her mind. "Why would a bunch of random strangers want to humiliate poor Hiyoko?!"

"Seriously?!" Ibuki giggled, struggling to stand and wiping spit from the corners of her mouth. "Well, put that aside for a sec and put down the pitchforks. Of course there are plenty of folks that wanna see somebody famous humiliated. That's probably true for everyone here, not just Hiyoko. Usually don't get to see it right in front of your face like that, though. But it's harmless, don't you think? Ignore the haters! That's Ibuki's number one rule to super-stardom!"

"No... hold on!" Mahiru gasped, holding her hands to her freckled cheeks and looking at the screen more carefully. "Why is there a camera feed? This is... coming from this room, isn't it?! I thought it was just showing a double image of the screen, but look! You can see the tatami mats!"

All three of them recognized it, but Ibuki was growing concerned for a different reason. "Y'know... I love jokes as much or more than the average Hope's Peak jokester, but uh, this is getting a little weird! If you mess with my head too much, I'm gonna end up writing a weird song about it, and you'll be responsible when people lose months of their lives trying to make sense of the lyrics! Hiyoko set up this weird page and you swapped your camera just for this prank? Is that it?!"

As soon as Ibuki said that, Mahiru felt a snap of realization. She knew where the viewpoint of the webcam was. When she realized that, she recognized the different weight around her neck. And when she realized that... With a shiver like she was being crawled on by an unfamiliar animal, Mahiru undid the strap that supported her precious camera and threw it across the room.

The thing that landed there wasn't her ordinary camera. It was clearly a type of high-tech video camera, and not the kind one bought off the shelf. For starters, when it had hit the wall, it hadn't crashed against it: some vent had opened to somehow give it countering propulsion, slowing its impact and allowing it to fall unharmed to the floor. That same propulsion seemed to be moving it now. Before anyone could react, it zipped past Mahiru's clumsy grab and towards its target.

It embedded itself in Hiyoko's ponytails. It swam into them, moving towards her head.

Hiyoko herself was stunned, but Mahiru leapt into action, unsure if she was trying to protect her friend or reclaim her camera. The thing was clearly advanced technology, but it was still the size of an ordinary tape recorder. It should only take a second to finish fishing through the ponytail for it...

... And yet, as Mahiru reached the base of Hiyoko's ponytail where it ought to connect to Hiyoko's head, she found nothing but hair. No camera; not even a connection to Hiyoko's head! As she tried to process what she was looking at, she saw the camera zip out of the other ponytail like a fleeing animal. The ponytails weren't connected; the move would only be possible if the thing had somehow moved through Hiyoko's head.

For the time being, Mahiru ignored that. She had to deal with one thing at a time. Process one crazy realization at a time. And right now, she was coming to terms with the fact that Hiyoko's ponytails were no longer attached to the back of her hair. Instead, they were floating there; not like the connection to her head was invisible. It was something else. Mahiru had the crazy thought of how toys with embedded magnets would just slightly repel if you held them together.

The ponytails bristled, warbled with noise, split and expanded, then shrank back to their original shape. Now, they weren't just floating: they had transformed into something metallic, lined with speakers like a surround sound system, but still colored the same as Hiyoko's blonde head.

As Mahiru looked closer at the back of Hiyoko's head, she saw something even more startling. The place where the "magnet" ought to be that kept Hiyoko's ponytails levitating... Instead of the back of her hair, there was a smooth, reflective metal surface there. She thought it was how the back of an android's head ought to look. Terrified, she grabbed Hiyoko and spun her around. She sighed with relief when she saw her face: she was still clearly frozen in shock, but she still looked human. "Oh thank God... Hiyoko! Speak to me!"

"Bbbabbuh," Hiyoko garbled. It didn't sound like she was startled, or sick, or woozy. It sounded like a warped recording. When Mahiru didn't respond, she spoke again. This time, her voice was clear, calm, even a bit cheerful. "Bubble butt, bubble bubble bubble butt."

"What?"

Hiyoko shoved her friend back. With a vacant smile on her face, and with her folding fan dropped and long-forgotten, the kimono-clad dancer turned in place with big, graceless steps. There was nothing to look at in the direction she'd turned, only a blank projector screen. It became clear that this turn wasn't to position her to see anything; instead, it was to offer a better view of a particular side of her. She bent her knees, stretching her traditional kimono across the seat of her round bottom, and began a series of jerky, shaky movements. As she began the first twerking performance of her life, Hiyoko's bizarre babbling became a rhythmic barely-there lyric:

"Bubble butt, bubble bubble bubble butt

Bubble butt, bubble bubble bubble butt

Bubble butt, bubble bubble bubble butt

Turn around, stick it out, show the world you got a"

As it repeated, Hiyoko picked up a series of new movements. She held her goofy smile as she shook her hips from side to side: two jerks to the right, two jerks to the left, followed by two smooth full-circle gyrations, raising one arm and lowering the other in time with the hip shift. On the final line, she'd shift to bending her knees to a bowed stance and shaking her ass with fervor as she rose back to standing.

For the first repetition, Mahiru was too stunned to do anything. Her brain couldn't process the large detail of what was happening, so she focused on the smaller detail. Hiyoko's body wasn't quite lined up with her fallen friend, which somehow suggested this wasn't a show for Mahiru's benefit. Instead, when she let her eyes follow the centerline of the room Hiyoko had aligned herself with it, she saw the video camera from before. It was clutched onto the wall, embedded with four metal claws, reminiscent of a spider. Its red lens focused on the dancer humiliating herself in the center of the room.

Ibuki, meanwhile, looked between her friend's performance and the device in her own hands. "This broadcast is still going! Your revolutions ARE being televised, Hiyoko! I appreciate you appreciatin' new music, but uh, are you sure you're cool with this?"

Mahiru took offense on her friend's behalf. "Are you going crazy, too?! This isn't what Hiyoko's dancing is about!! This is..." Her voice trailed off, since she had no idea how to finish that sentence. Instead, she called out to Hiyoko. "Are you okay? Please, say something! Something that's not 'bubble butt,' I mean!"

Hiyoko was either unwilling or uninterested in complying with that command. She didn't say anything, but someone else did. From behind her, Mahiru could hear a computerized voice speaking quickly, as if its words were only intended for itself. [PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATION INCREASED DRAMATICALLY. FEEDBACK INDICATES POTENTIAL FOR FURTHER IMPROVEMENT. TRANSMIT OPTIMIZATION ROUTINE TO HOST NODE; OPTIMIZE HARDWARE.]

Mahiru clenched her teeth and marched over to the camera. "All right, buster! I have no idea what's going on, but your sick little peep show is over!" The upset young woman whipped a handkerchief out of her pocket and cupped it in her palm, then fit it onto the lens of the camera. "Whoever, you are, you better give up a name right now. Do you have any idea who you're messing with? This is Hope's Peak Academy, and Hiyoko is a famous performer! How dare you **** her for clicks on the internet?!"

"H-hey Mahiru!" Ibuki's shaky voice interrupted her. The rocker had one hand in her mouth and one shaky finger pointed at Hiyoko. "Whatever this dude's got planned for Hiyoko's performance, I think we're enterin' act two! And I've got a feeling it's gonna be a big one!"

Either the camera didn't need to see Hiyoko to continue transforming her, or something was already underway that Mahiru had been too late to stop. Either way, their twerking friend grew even more obscene and less recognizable. Mahiru quickly realized that Hiyoko's butt wasn't just shaking: as the kimono began to stretch further taut and split down the middle of the back, splitting the expensive obi sash without a second's hesitation, Mahiru realized her friend's previously cute but shapely behind was taking on new proportions. In no time, it had ballooned out to the point of freeing itself from its confines.

The shocks didn't stop there. Mahiru's imagination had already filled in the blank of what she was going to see: she'd helped Hiyoko into her complicated outfit once before, and she had an idea of what her friend's underwear should look like, as a result. She expected to see that girly, sunny garment stretched to the breaking point across Mahiru's newly disproportionate butt flesh. Instead, what she saw barely seemed to be human flesh. How could it be, after all? People's actual bodies didn't just grow...

"That's right," Mahiru told herself, feeling like she was going insane. "This isn't Hiyoko... Th-this is... some kind of robot, right?"

As crazy as the thought was, it had some basis. After all, the vast, unblemished bottom Mahiru was now training her wide-eyed stare on had an alien, glassy sheen like a computer screen, although it still jiggled and wobbled with every movement. Mahiru could follow the globes to their edges and see something even more bizarre. These ass-orbs were fit into a socket just below the small of Hiyoko's back, as if her torso was a mannequin placed on top of it. Her thighs were plumped up with the same glassy gelatin as her ass, but terminated in similar sockets in the knees. Yet, to Mahiru, it was like an optical illusion: if she put her eyes on Hiyoko's stupidly smiling face, her thin arms, or her legs below the knees, they still had the look of her usual, slender human body.

As Mahiru and Ibuki watched, another change came upon their friend. The color of the synthetic flesh began to change, from a vacant industrial reflection to the tone of regular skin. It color-matched the skin around it, filling in like colored sand dispersing in a pond, taking on Hiyoko's peachy hue. In no time at all, the perverse facsimile of a human body had become the real deal. The seams were hidden. It was impossible to tell any longer that the massive, unnatural dumptruck Hiyoko was backing up was anything but a part of her own body, if they hadn't seen it happening themselves.

Hiyoko didn't seem concerned. With the same empty stare at the wall in front of her and a content smile at how well her performance was going, she continued to sing the lyrics and shake her bizarre new butt repetitively, tirelessly.

As Mahiru stared only at her friend in horror, Ibuki instead focused on the screen, looking for some way to stop it. Somehow, she was sure this had to be her fault for ending up on the site. "This is... this is real life? Really real, right? Well we really really oughta go get some help!"

"No way! I can't let anyone else see her like this," Mahiru hissed.

"A little late for that!" Ibuki commented, pointing to the screen. "This thing says over a thousand people are watching Hiyoko right now, and that number is moving and steady as that moneymaker!"

"I've gotta do something... It's those things, right? Her ponytails! I saw the camera fly into her ponytails, and that's where everything started! Ibuki, you grab one, I'll get the other! These things are messing with her brain, I'm sure of it. If we can just pull them away, break them, and stop the music..."

"Nobody ever expects me to 'stop the music,' either, but I'll give anything a shot once, boss!" Ibuki agreed, holding one hand in a salute as she clenched the device tightly in her other.

The two young women marched over to the ridiculous spectacle their friend had become. Standing alongside her, it was hard not to think about the changes in her body. The block that formed her ass and thighs wasn't inhumanly large, but it was at stark odds with the rest of her slender frame, especially if you knew what she looked like before. Mahiru and Ibuki felt twiggy in comparison. It was a strange feeling, but it only lasted a moment. The music was deafening this close, but another sound was reinforcing their resolve: a strange, springy sound, as if the legs performing Hiyoko's movements were spring-loaded instead of supported by muscles. The two began putting Mahiru's plan into action, each grabbing a ponytail and trying to pull them away from the side of Hiyoko's head.

Ibuki was surprised at the difficulty, but Mahiru wasn't. The photographer was fighting against the magnetic **** she'd felt earlier, a supernatural pull that wanted Hiyoko's mechanical, music-blasting crescent of a ponytail in place. Still, she was making progress: the two women were winning the tug of war, and there was now a solid head's distance between Hiyoko's head and the floating devices.

Mahiru was starting to sweat from the exertion. It seemed as though it would only get so far before the resistance increased. Still, desperately, Mahiru was hoping to feel a dramatic snap as the thing suddenly came free of gravity's pull, which would allow her to take it somewhere else. The music would be silenced, and Hiyoko would be free-

Suddenly, Mahiru's feet left the floor as she was zipped violently in a collision course with her friends. The ponytails contacted something with a loud metal clang. And then...

Hiyoko's big orange eyes focused, then widened, as she regained control of her lips. "Whaaaaaaat the fuck is this?!?!" she shouted, although she wasn't sure who she was directing it to. It was taking her a second to acclimate to control of her body and mouth again, but she had every intention of kicking someone's ass as soon as she could feel her feet again.

Her own voice sounded somehow muffled to her, as if she was wearing headphones. Furthermore, disturbingly, it was competing with the dull, repetitive thud of familiar music that was still playing somewhere in the background. Hiyoko tried to turn her head to get a sense of her surroundings and found she couldn't. She couldn't feel her arms, her feet, or anything else, really.

Then, all of a sudden, she could feel her legs again... However, they weren't her own. Regardless of her will, she felt them backing up towards the wall behind her. When she was almost pressed to that wall...

"Eep! W-what the hell?!" Hiyoko felt a strange sensation as her asscheeks flexed on their own to receive something behind them. She had no frame of reference for this feeling: the closest she could come up with was wiping after using the toilet. Indeed, she'd grabbed some piece of fabric with her buttcheeks... and with that involuntary action, a horrifying picture suddenly came into focus for her.

The room's projector was now picking up a feed from behind her and displaying it on the screen in front of her. Hiyoko could see a massive ass that was somehow attached to her move back towards the center of the room, unclenching so that Mahiru's privacy-protecting handkerchief could drift to the tatami mats on the floor. Then, as Hiyoko's involuntary swagger finally carried her far enough away that her huge butt wasn't filling the entire screen, an even more disturbing scene became clear. Hiyoko wasn't alone: for some reason, she was standing cheek-to-cheek with Mahiru and Ibuki, who were facing away from the camera the same. And that was, in fact, both sets of cheeks for all three women. Mahiru and Ibuki were locked leaning in towards Hiyoko slightly, putting their eyesight all at the same level. Hiyoko's ponytails were gone, giving her an incomplete, bowl-like haircut, but it was clear where that hair had gone: a red speaker-bearing crescent was affixed to the left side of Mahiru's head on Hiyoko's left, and a cotton-candy-striped blue and pink one was affixed to Ibuki on Hiyoko's right. Hiyoko's arms, which she couldn't feel, were wrapped tightly around the waists of her two friends. Each of them had one close arm around her waist and a far arm in a familiar bend, clenching a familiar fist.

And, of course, there were the butts.

To Hiyoko, it was a new shock, seeing that Ibuki and Mahiru's rear ends and thighs had taken on the same futuristic jelly texture they'd seen a moment ago. They didn't have to split clothes to make room, simply lifting the skirts of the two women out of the way on the crests of their new curves. In no time at all, they had inflated like Hiyoko, although they didn't reach the same size, leaving hers the main attraction. If they were any wider, they'd drive the waists of the girls apart. At this size, their bodies could instead be pressed together in a doughy mound of odd flesh, flesh that was now taking on the coloration appropriate for its hosts. Mahiru's was naturally pale but with a hint of rosy color, even filling in with individual freckles as the program got detailed. Ibuki's was pale, too, but added to its decoration with a skull tattoo on the right cheek that the program apparently deemed a necessary optimization.

The viewpoint of the camera shifted, and the girls could picture the spider-like robot legs that were crawling across the wall. Finally, it came to rest, showing each of them their own expressions, posed cheek-to-cheek like a whimsical photo booth shot at a fair. Ibuki, uncharacteristically white as a sheet and at a loss for words as her jaw hung open and her eyes stared white and round through her eyeliner; Hiyoko, glowing red in a mixture of humiliation and anger; Mahiru looking the most different of all, no longer resolute in determination to save her friend but openly crying, tears and snot streaming down her deeply red and freckled face as she saw what they'd become.

Ibuki was the first one to speak, trying to crack a toothy smile as the camera shifted back around to their backsides. "Well! I always figured the three of us would make it big someday, but I never pictured this. If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure your viewcount is through the roof!"

"Our viewcount, dumbass," Hiyoko reminded her crossly. "I can't believe I've gotta have your empty head and your overstuffed ass crammed next to me!"

"Hey, count your blessings! Your own butt is really somethin' else now! And, hey, small blessings, right? The music finally-"

As if on cue, the music picked up volume. Hiyoko's two book-ending friends didn't gain the same vapid smile she'd worn before, as it seemed the programming split between them didn't cook their brains as fully. Similarly, while their voices were controlled, their singing didn't have the same effortless and springy quality Hiyoko's had before.

"Bubble b-b-butt! Bubble... bubble bubble butt...!" Mahiru choked out through humiliated sobs.

"Bubble... butt! Bubble bubble bubble butt...!" Ibuki roared through clenched teeth, immediately losing the fight as she tried to stop her **** metal pipes from voicing the humiliating lyrics about her own body.

"G-get a hold of yourselves!" Hiyoko, the only one still in control of herself, demanded.

That control, it turned out, was limited solely to her head. The bodies of all three were toys, synchronized puppets to the music that animated their new and bouncy bodies. All three of them shook in time with perfect, inhuman choreography, even bouncing and rippling in time when the song reached its twerking chorus.

Even as their rear ends motored, the end of their optimization apparently wasn't in sight. Barely heard, the synthetic voice behind them emitted from the camera-bot once more. [CONTINUE OPTIMIZATION. FACILITIES INADEQUATE FOR OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE. RELOCATE AND SEARCH FOR ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT.]

"Wait! Relocate?!" Hiyoko shouted over the music, trying in vain to shoot a **** glare back at the camera as she felt her legs start to move against her will. "What do you mean... H-hey! Hey, wait a minute! W-we can talk about this, right?!" She realized that her motions were turning her to align sideways with the door that was the sole exit to the room, and the three-woman unit was beginning to crabwalk over towards it. "Listen, you pig-faced perverted shitstain of a human being, robot, or whatever the hell you are! I'm Hiyoko Saionji, the Ultimate Traditional Dancer! And this is... this is NOT traditional dance!!!" she yelled at the top of her lungs to her unsympathetic captor.