Shirabe Meshi 46 dropped last night and let's just say that girls aren't feeling quite like themselves in this chapter
The chapter starts with a group made up of Hibiki, Shirabe, and Kirika teamed up with Saint-Germain, Prelati, and Cagliostro cornering an alchemist. He asks why those who used to be in a leadership position in the organization are tracking him down and Saint-Germain answers that from this point forward, she wants to try to save as many lives as she had sacrificed for the sake of her revolution
He calls that hypocrisy and declares that since it's come down to this, he's going to unleash his alchemy on the area
They all try to stop him but get caught up in it. Afterward, they see he got away (the agents nearby run to look for him) but also realize that something feels off. Kirika and Shirabe look up at each other and...
They're looking at their own faces
The group realizes pretty quickly that they've swapped bodies so basically:
It then goes back to before all this started, when they were getting briefed on the mission
Genjuro explains that they're after an aging alchemist who is attempting to live on forever by swapping his personality into a younger person's body. There have also been signs of Alca-Noise at sites where people have disappeared. The girls are told to cooperate with Saint-Germain's group and...well, we know what happened after that
Since Carol and Elfnein specialize in alchemy regarding human brains, they've been brought in to help find a solution
Saint-Germain starts wondering how to even go about searching for information at the alchemist's hideout leading Shirabe to think how it makes it look like Hibiki is actually intelligent. Kirika needs to use the bathroom but she's too embarrassed to go do it in Shirabe's body (Shirabe: "Go now"). Carol starts taunting Prelati about how someone who had made plans for the Chateau could end up in such a state and Cagliostro starts complaining about not wanting to be in a body like this one ("does it not have enough estrogen?!") so Prelati's getting annoyed from multiple sides
Of course, it'll take time for Carol and Elfnein to figure things out so they're stuck like this for a bit
After leaving those two to figure things out, Hibiki suggests that it may be "like amnesia" and a shock to the head might fix it (she read it in a manga...oh dear).
Obviously that won't work, but Genjuro thinks about how people with amnesia have sometimes kept certain habits and abilities afterward, so maybe if they engage in things like that and stimulate their senses, they'll switch back? (Prelati: "Basically, that's a puzzling theory based on leaps in logic")
For the time being, Hibiki, Kirika, and Shirabe are on standby until the situation changes, so if anything happens, they'll call the other Gear wielders in. Hibiki is starting to worry about Miku so she asks Saint-Germain to go check in with her in her stead ("Ah, but don't try anything weird, got it?" "What exactly do you mean by 'weird'").
Kirika and Shirabe realize their pendants won't respond to them so they have no choice but to take a break
Shirabe: "What about school? The fact we've been swapped would be a classified incident, right? Am I going to have to act like Kiri-chan?"
Kirika: "Will I not be able to hold my beloved Shirabe anymore? Ah, I'm Shirabe now so should I hug myself? But Shirabe is me...?"
And both realize that they could potentially be stuck like this the rest of their lives
So Shirabe says that in order to calm down, they should cook something
Meanwhile, Saint-Germain has showed up to Hibiki and Miku's dorm and immediately starts explaining that even though she looks like Hibiki, she's not, but she had to be the one to come because they wouldn't let outsiders into the dorms. Miku starts thinking about how her aura is kinda cool while Saint-Germain assures her she won't do "anything weird." Miku then invites her in for tea
And on Hibiki, Cagliostro, and Prelati's side, Prelati is telling Hibiki that her line of thinking is totally amateur. Hibiki defends it saying that food stimulates all five senses so surely eating something memorable to the other person would get them back to normal, right?
Cagliostro starts to say that she (as in herself) should drink some wine but Prelati throws her frog at her saying "That's MY body!" Hibiki tries to get them to calm down but Cagliostro says that Hibiki's demeanor with Saint-Germain's face is really off-putting.
Hibiki wonders what food would be memorable to Saint-Germain anyway and if it's something really high-class, but gets handed some plain looking bread. She starts eating it and thinks to herself that it's not good at all and on top of that, it's not even working
It turns out it was the same type of bread that Saint-Germain's mother didn't live long enough to eat so she ended up eating it herself to survive
Back with Saint-Germain and Miku, Saint-Germain is talking about how she is taking the path of saving enough lives to atone for the 73,808 she took for the sake of her revolution, though it may be hypocrisy.
Miku states that she's protected the futures of those people, confusing Saint-Germain. Miku goes on to explain that if it were Hibiki, she would've lost count of how many people she's saved and Saint-Germain realizes she's been reducing the lives of both the ones she's sacrificed and the ones she's saving to mere numbers
Miku feels a chill and thinks that normally she'd huddle up next to Hibiki for warmth. At that moment Shirabe calls her, asking if they're able to eat some cream stew because they ended up making too much while overthinking and worrying about the future
Shirabe comments that even though she switched places with Kirika, she still managed to make something, while Kirika excitedly comments that she had Shirabe's muscle memory when handling a knife
So apparently Shirabe had called everyone else too. Saint-Germain states that eating it won't fix their situation but Hibiki tells her that thinking while on an empty stomach won't lead to any good answers
After everyone enjoys the stew together, Genjuro comes in and tells them they caught the alchemist. Through the investigation it was revealed that the one who provided the alchemist with a hideout and sponsored him was Fudou Kazanari ("Why him again?")
It seems he wanted to uh...use the technique for personal reasons which are uh *checks notes* switching places with a girl
Prelati says that the important thing now is to get that alchemist to spill the beans on how to reverse his technique and Cagliostro agrees because otherwise she'll be stuck with a pathetic body and mentality
...except it came out of their original selves
The girls get excited upon realizing they're back to normal. Saint-Germain wonders if it's because they ate the stew together, but Carol explains that the alchemy was still in the research stages and therefore incomplete. It merely corrected itself after enough time passed
Naturally, Hibiki/Miku and Kirika/Shirabe celebrate the only way they know how: Holding each other
Cagliostro starts whining that her skin is in bad shape due to all the stress and Prelati states that they're leaving
Before going, Saint-Germain turns to Hibiki and tells her she has a good partner. Hibiki gets confused and asks what she means and then Miku comments that she thought it'd be nice to have Hibiki be a bit melancholic and cool like that sometimes for a change, leading Hibiki to once again ask what she means as Saint-Germain walks out the door
annaxmalina
dededos
blakekathryn
stormborns
germansingergirl
izzy806
baratheonpilled
