A strange brightness awaits Kuroo Tetsurou when he finally blinks his eyes open, only to hiss and squeeze them back shut, the light causing the throbbing in his head to increase tenfold.

Huffing out a groan, Kuroo rolls over to stuff his face in his scratchy pillow.

Wait a minute, Kuroo opens his eyes tentatively to stare at the unfamiliar gray pillowcase, my sheets are made of silk, not whatever...this abysmal fabric is.

With a great amount of caution, Kuroo sits up on the slightly uncomfortable bed, eyeing the foreign room with suspicion. His eyes trailed over the mess of clothes tossed haphazardly in the corner of the room, dragging his gaze to the desk piled high with thick books, loose papers, and a mysterious silver contraption. He did a double take at the off white walls covered with pictures of eerily familiar people and himself, scrambling out of the bed to drag his exhausted body over to the wall and tear one of the pictures off to clutch desperately in his unfortunately shaky hands.

Drinking in the scene on the picture he snatched off the wall, Kuroo couldn't help the confused furrowing of his brow. In the scene before him he was positioned between two of his closest confidants, Oikawa on his right and Sugawara on his left, all of their arms thrown over each other's shoulders and their faces captured mid laugh.

This scene in and of itself was not an uncommon occurrence.

What was uncommon - no, completely impossible - was the addition of a handful of his sworn enemies behind the trio, matching expressions of joy on their faces as they too hung on each other, eyes boring into the man holding the picture with trembling hands.

Kuroo dragged his eyes over the picture once more, scrutinizing it more closely as he observed more and more impossibilities.

One, they were all shirtless and appeared to be at a beach of sorts, no sign of any of the scars Kuroo knew marked up their bodies beneath the layers they typically wore.

Two, if Sugawara and Oikawa were with him, then that meant he was only missing the fourth member of their quartet and no matter how hard he looked, Kuroo couldn't find Tendou at all.

Three, he would, under no circumstances, willingly associate with those bastards grouped behind him and two of his best friends. They were mortal enemies for a reason, after all.

As distressing as impossibilities one through three are, they paled in comparison to impossibilities four and five.

Impossibilities four and five would be the fact that the him captured in the picture was missing a few very important, distinctive characteristics...and Kuroo couldn't sense any illusionary magic on this picture or within the room at all, for that matter.

Gulping, Kuroo set the picture down on top of the desk, stumbling over to the full body mirror that hung off the back of a door.

Despite the hint the picture gave him of his appearance, Kuroo couldn't quite hold back the gasp that escaped his mouth when he took in his reflection. He recognized the perpetually messy hair, his face, and the lean muscles of his tall body, but that was where the recognition ended.

Lifting his left hand up to brush through his black fringe and the rest of his messy hair, Kuroo swallowed thickly when his hand ran across a hornless head, his right hand going behind him to feel the smoothness of his back, not even a hint of the black and garnet wings and tail he knew should be there.

Despite the missing extremities, the most jarring change to his physical appearance had to be his eyes.

The size and shape were identical to the ones he was used to seeing in the mirror, however, shocked hazel stared back rather than the dark red irises he was accustomed to.

Trying - and failing - not to panic, Kuroo inhaled a shaky breath before letting his confusion and frustration out in a loud, drawn out groan, slapping his face with both hands in the process. "Okay, Tetsurou, okay. This is fine. It is probably a prank Satori and Koushi are pulling on you for ignoring their diplomatic advice. That's it. Besides, it's not like this unsettling morning could get any more horrifying."

"Hey, hey, hey! Kuroo! I stopped by that coffee shop you like on my way back from my run, come get breakfast." The door to the room burst open, Kuroo jumping back into a defensive stance before taking in who had entered the room, suppressing a shriek of rage. The man in the doorway furrowed his brow, tilting his head to the side when he saw Kuroo's position and appearance. "Kuroo? You good?"

No, I am decidedly not good, seeing as my number one mortal enemy, the man who loathes me almost as much as I loathe him, who wants to see me die a thousand deaths and seize my kingdom, who I have fought countless wars and battles against...is standing in the doorway of this strange room and offering me breakfast.

Coming to the quick conclusion that the only way out of this humiliating situation was to play along and mine the buffoon's brain for information, Kuroo forced his body to relax, plastering on a very fake replica of his usual confident smirk. "Yeah, I'm good. And dying for a coffee." He nodded to the open door with his chin. "Lead the way."

Receiving a blinding smile in return, Kuroo followed the man out of the room and into an even stranger living compound, dropping his smirk and replacing it with a glare aimed at the back of the man's obnoxious head, promising himself he would play along until he could return back to his normal.

And when he did, he was going to fry his two bastardly best friends.