Now, the average temperature of the Academy City at this time of the year was around 86 Fahrenheit, which explained why Haru attracted weird looks from people, as he was wearing a full trench coat and scarf during normal weather. In his defense, he looked skinny, and therefore more susceptible to the cold—in reality, he was trained to handle harsh conditions. Including sweating inside his trench-coat. All for the name of fashion.
He snooped around within the alleyways, checking around within the surrounding areas. He couldn't afford to lose any kind of development regarding the Tree Diagram. If others realized its importance as much as he did (and they did), the surrounding factions would immediately send agents in order to intercept such packages. Understandably, the weather news handled by the Tree Diagram was now flawed, as it lacked the ability to calculate the movements of all particles within the atmosphere. People would notice that sooner or later as they relied on the weather prediction heavily. Even still, they must have had some sort of grace period, due to the computer predicting the weather for the entire month at one go.
The gigantic plasma HD screen on the tall building nearby caught Haru's attention. It was currently displaying a news channel, reporting events around the soon to come 2012 reelection of the President of the United States that would take place in November. The two candidates for election, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, were locked within a debate surrounding the issues of the country.
However, rather than showing the candidates themselves, other entirely different people were participating within the argument. One was for some reason the actor that was in the Matrix... What was his name, Keanu? Kenue? And his opponent within the debate was that protagonist within the Rush Hour series... What was his name, Chris Carter? Tucker? Well, whatever. Haru scratched his head in confusion as he began to suspect the news channel to be a some sort of parody... also, the secret service agents surrounding the debate room had some irregularities. Instead of being tall burly bodyguards, some of them were a little girl, another a teenager who barely looked over 18. What was going on here?
Looking around, Haru again noticed more unnatural situations surrounding the people. The regular store owners for some reason were replaced by students. A child was pushing around a baby carriage, occupied by a full-grown adult. How did he not notice this phenomenon while he was walking around? Everything was backwards! Slightly entering into panic mode Haru began to frantically tear into the streets, checking out the surroundings to make sure he wasn't insane. The usual Judgment members that took care of the sidewalks around the city were replaced by hardened criminals he previously saw within the ghetto part of the districts. Within his own phone the Wikipedia articles were all messed up, the pictures for each individual person scrambled to the point of ridiculousness. This was way too elaborate for some sort of prank... Haru looked around the place despondently, pinching himself to see if this was a gigantic nightmare he experienced from time to time. What the hell was going on?
"UI-HA-RU!" Etzali yelled as he flipped his best friend's skirt high into the air, showing his underwear for all people to see.
"KIIYYYYAAAA!" Kihara Gensei shrieked as he desperately attempted to hold his skirt down.
"Eh, strawberry with white background? Really, Uhiaru?" Etzali questioned his friend's taste in lingerie.
"Saten-san!" Gensei protested in a weak voice. "Don't do that out in the public!"
"Gomen, gomen." Etzali held his hands out in apologetic motion. "But I just wanted to see what my friend was wearing today!"
"You don't have to show it to other people too, and you know that!"
Everything, from books to all forms of media, had people with absolutely different appearances posing as someone else. It was truly terrifying when the entire world went mad and you were the only one who knew this horrific error.
Sitting down and logically thinking through situations was his forte, so he did exactly that. For whatever reason, apparently every single person within the world had their appearances switched to another. Why? How? Who had enough power to be able to scramble the bodies of 7 Billion people living on the earth? Very few candidates qualified for this position. And there also was the question why he apparently was the only one seemingly unaffected by this event. Well, he did consider himself rather unusual compared to others... but this was just simply flat out insane!
Who should he contact in order to discuss this huge change? Everyone else was blissfully unaware of the chaotic situation they were within, so proper authorities would have absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Flipping his phone open, he uselessly scrolled around within his contacts, fully knowing that it was futile...
Until he came across Touma's number.
Wait, logically, his Imagine Breaker would probably have negated whatever change that came upon the world... quickly, he pressed the dial button, and placed the phone near his ear, desperately wishing that Touma would pick it up...
"Ah, hey, Touma..." Haru chuckled nervously as he called him. "... Notice anything strange, as of late?"
"Ah, Haru." Touma replied in a surprised tone. "Yeah, everything seems fine over here. Did anything happen while we were gone?"
"Well, you sure you don't notice anything weird?" Haru replied in an uncertain tone. "Like everybody's appearance flipped for instance...?" he really was gambling by making this statement. He still was unsure whether Touma was unaffected by the switch.
"Eh? Haru, you noticed something happening?" Touma replied. "Yeah, everybody's appearance has changed, and it's really eerie."
"Ah, thank goodness you weren't affected." Haru sighed in relief. "Anyway, I have no idea what is going on. How come no one else noticed this?"
"Well, I talked to some magicians from Necessarius. You know who they are, right?" Touma replied. "Apparently there is a magician who did this to the entire earth's population."
"Seriously? I can only think of very few people with enough magical power to do this." Haru replied, incredulous. "So only you and I and those magicians from Necessarius are the only ones unaffected?"
"According to one of them certain people who had some sort of magical protection of special buildings were unaffected by this spell, and if a magician noticed a change occurring throughout the earth, they could have set up a counter spell in order to prevent this from happening to them. By the way, Haru, you should have been affected by this curse like everyone else. How did you escape the effects?"
He was right. He should have had his appearance unknowingly changed like everybody else. But for some reason that did not happen.
"Well, isn't that the question of the day." Haru dryly replied. If he was to hazard a guess, it would be because of the irregularities within his own body. "So, I guess we should do something about this entire mess." Haru continued into the phone. "Hopefully this won't last forever... right?" If the caster of the spell died, then naturally the effects of the spell itself should wear off presently. Now, as to why exactly the castor him or herself felt the need to switch everybody's appearance was still unknown. This was too much for a prank or a joke.
"Either we have to defeat the spellcaster who did this, or to destroy the ritual center. Then the spell itself would disappear." Touma replied. "At least, that's what they told me."
"Did they also tell you the intentions the caster has in mind for doing all this?"
"I didn't understand most of the explanation they gave me, but the basic gist is that whoever did this, they did it to take the original position of an angel."
"Whoa, whoa, hold on. What 'angel'?"
"Ah, I forgot to tell you. The switching of appearances is apparently just a side effect. The spell itself is called Angel Fall, and its main purpose is to drag an angel down to the earth, somehow, and to either control it or to take its place. I don't completely understand it either. It has to do with Kabbalah and Tree of Life and all that confusing stuff."
"Well, this entire situation is very convoluted." Haru complained. "It's almost like the author of this story decided to write a Freaky Friday Flip story while forcefully shoving religious aspects into the plot. A good example of poor writing..." Haru clicked his tongue impatiently. "I don't think I can do much from here, but if you need any help, you can call me, just in case."
Meanwhile…
"Ah, how careless of me! I accidentally dropped my ribbon into Onee-sama's shower!"
The bathrooms of the Tokiwadai Middle School were filled with girls starting out the day with a fresh cleansing of bodies. "Accidentally" sending the fabric fluttering into the next cell, Tatemiya attempted to reach into the stall where Amata was washing himself.
"KUROKO!" Amata thundered while kicking the ribbon, sending it flying back to where it came from. "Don't even think about coming in here!"
"Ah, Onee-sama is too cruel!" Tatemiya moaned in protest. "But... that's what I love about Onee-sama." he licked his lips seductively.
Amata shuddered as he endured the insanity emanating from his crazy roommate. "Kuroko... BAKA HENTAI!"