Disclaimer

I do not hold the intellectual property rights to the Strike Witches franchise, or any other book, comic, song, movie or other work of art i reference. Original Content created by me is copyrighted by me alone. All brand names are property of the respective parties owning rights to them. This disclaimer is valid hereinafter and won't be repeated in the following chapters.


First of all, I want thank Doran Maya for being my 'beta reader', heh… Without him, I wouldn't have the energy to power through. Be sure to read his stuff!

The second guy I would l like to thank is OneGiantNinja from Reddit. He's the one who made the cover art. :3


Hi! This is my first ever piece of fiction that I wrote outside of school assignments, so please don't gather a mob against me just right now. ;)
This little piece of fiction will cover the first season of the Strike Witches anime from the perspective of a new hero, a male witch, or wizard if you like. I'm already planning out the second season and movie to be included in the second fic, so stay tuned after you'll eventually get to the last chapter of this one.

Be warned, the M rating isn't just for shits and giggles. Profanity will be a part of this fanfic, but in a rather 'toned' manner, so it doesn't get defenestrated for being too lewd or abusive.

Without further ado, I wish you guys and gals a good read, just like I enjoyed writing it.

Cheerio!


Chapter 1 – The Fated Encounter

"Toshiro, you can finish for today." Said a man in navy uniform.

"Okay Sergeant, will do." Responded a young man in blue, grease stained overalls.

After tidying up, he covered the engine he was working on, a true masterpiece of engineering, a Mitsubishi Kinsei 62 engine. Is sustained heavy damage after the plane in which it was fitted, the A6M8 Type 0 Model 64, had miraculously landed after being hit a by a Neuroi beam.

This was his job, a plane mechanic in the Imperial Fuso Navy.

His name was Toshiro Lucas Akayama, seventeen years old. He didn't look like a typical Fuso citizen – having one hundred ninety five centimeters of height, a Caucasian look and the posture of a lumberjack from Liberion sure made him stand out in the crowd. His jet black eyes and matching short-ish hair were the only things he apparently inherited after his mother, Akiko Akayama.

She didn't make a secret about his father, Lucas Andrew Edelweiss, a Karlsland officer and scientist, which was the love of her life, although a rather short and tragic one. He died in an accident while assisting Dr. Ichiro Miyafuji with his research on Strikers, never meeting Akiko after he departed from Fuso. The letter informing about his death had arrived on the beginning of a new school year and was a shock to the little Toshiro, because he would never meet his father, but time could heal every wound, although sometimes it left a nasty scar.
Speaking about scars, he had a very peculiar birthmark under his left wrist, which his mother also shared – a strange symbol, not kanji or in any other known alphabet. When he asked his mother what it could mean, she shrugged and honestly replied:

"I truly don't know, my son…"

Toshiro went out through the main gate of the Yokosuka Naval Base. This was his working place since a year. After his mother got ill, he had to be the man of the house and earn money, and having a knack for mechanics he enlisted in the Navy. The pay of a mechanic in the rank of a Private wasn't much, but it was sufficient for both him and his mother.

Strolling down the street of the city, he witnessed many people living their daily lives, as if the war with the Neuroi in Europe wasn't their concern in the slightest. His home was in the fields at the outskirts of town, so he always had time to contemplate during the long walk.

It was around 1600 when he arrived home, although home was too much to describe the decrepit shack in which they were living. The only things inside were two bed rolls, a fireplace, a chest and a pile of various books in Karlsländish. The Wehrmacht probably knew of Toshiro, and wanted him to brush up on Karlsländish, which was a success, since Toshiro got fluent in the language in just over a year. He had some books for language learning, Latin, and various other literature, both prose and scientific.

Some time ago, they were living in the center of the city, but after father's death and mother getting ill they couldn't afford to pay the rent there.

He opened the sliding door and uttered the usual 'I'm home!'. His mother turned around from the fireplace and replied with the usual 'Welcome back, Toshiro', and then she went back to stirring the content of the pot, which was hanging over the fire. Mom was making soup as usual, with lots of potatoes, since that was all we could afford.

"How was your day in work son?" Akiko asked kindly.

"Good mom. I'm making progress on repairing that engine I told you about" He replied with pride.

"Good. I hope it will serve another brave airman in the war against those abominations." Akiko said without hiding her disgust and anger towards the Neuroi.

"Yes mom, I hope so too. Oh, should I go fetch some herbs from the nearby mountain to spice up the soup?" Toshiro asked.

"Oh goodness, my Toshiro is a mind reader" Akiko laughed gently. "Yes, I was just about to ask you about that."

"Ok mom, will do" He replied with a smile on his face.

Toshiro took the pouch that was hanging on a nail hear the door, walked out of the house and jogged to the nearby mountain. Halfway he turned back to enjoy the view, and to his surprise he saw a faint blue glow coming from a far field. He tilted his head and pondered what could that be, and the glow disappeared in a few seconds after.

"Weird…" He muttered under his nose. "Oh well, back to my errand."

When he arrived at the summit, he started looking for herbs. Looking was an exaggeration, because he was living here long enough to know each square meter of this place. He gathered a full pouch of fragrant herbs that could turn a bland soup into something edible.

When he was about to go back home, something caught his eye. It was a small shrine with a snake in it. A shrine that wasn't here when he arrived at the summit.

"What the hell?" – He asked himself

He approached the shrine with mixed feelings. The shrine looked so old that it was probably built by someone in the age when gods roamed the earth freely. Overcoming some primal fear he touched the stone snake that was in the shrine.

At the same moment, his body went numb, and he fell down to the ground before he could even comprehend what happened.

"Where am I…" The first thing he thought about when he regained consciousness.

He was at a beautiful lake at night. The stars were shining with an eerie intensity, and to his horror he saw something, which would even throw Buddha off-balance: there were two moons on the sky, one crimson red and one pale blue.

Toshiro's heart was pounding like a hammer, because he didn't understand the situation in which he found himself. When he turned around to see what's behind him, he saw and massive rock wall, and the shrine to which he was attracted earlier. However, one thing made him almost drop dead, because he suddenly heard a thunderous voice behind him calling:

"Toshiro…"

He jumped as if a demon would prick him with a giant needle and turned around in a split second. What he saw mesmerized him: on the surface of the lake there was a giant white snake. Not just a normal white snake you would see in the mountains, but a snake of legends – a tsuchinoko.

"What… Who… How…" Toshiro's mind was racing, and he was sweating like on a midsummer day.

But instead of an answer, the snakes eyes sparkled red and a vision came to Toshiro.

He saw a brown haired girl with a blurred face, engulfed in a radiant blue aura fighting a monster resembling a Neuroi from what he could tell with some blurry figures sticking out of it. The girl suddenly charged rapidly at the enemy she was fighting, and as the sword started sparkling with innumerable particles, she rammed into it. The Neuroi was cut in half and exploded in a million white flakes.

The vision ended and Toshiro fell to the ground, gasping for air and with heart pounding.

"Toshiro…" The thunderous voice uttered again. "Toshiro …., I am an envoy of gods, and you have been chosen by them because of your heritage. I shall become your familiar, and thou shalt battle the Neuroi for the benefit of mankind and to redeem your family name." The thunderous voice continued.

Toshiro couldn't believe what he witnessed now: a snake of legend floating above water, was talking to him about some mythical quest of might and magic. And what the hell is a familiar? Furthermore, what was that noisy sound he made after mentioning my name? What the...AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHH!

His wrist was suddenly as hot as the sun itself, it burned as if a medieval torturer would inflict pain upon him with a red-hot iron.

Then he saw another vision.

In this one, there was a slightly older girl, or even a woman to pay her justice, with long, jet black hair. She was standing with her katana in some kind of doorway, in the direction of the rising sun. One could hear the sound of water dripping, but on closer inspection it was not water, it was blood. The katana almost entirely red from it. Suddenly the viewpoint changed to show the interior of the place in which the girl was. It was a shrine full of slaughtered black haired girls and women. They were all killed with clean cuts, but all the walls, the floor and even the whole ceiling was crimson. Suddenly the viewpoint changed again to show the brown haired girl. She dropped on her knees, tossed away her katana and started lamenting:

"What have I done!? My whole family, cousins, fellow witches… What kind of demon possessed me to do it… Gods! Why have you forsaken me?!"

Suddenly a loud and clear female voice spoke from the sky:

"It was not the gods that have forsaken you, it was your thirst of power that brought doom upon your loved ones."

"But… how… why…" The girl couldn't make a single sentence.

"In your quest for improving your magical power, you temporarily overloaded your body with a power you could not possibly control, and that you were warned about – the Sacred Fire – Seika. Instead of harnessing its power, your mind and body went berserk, the results of which was this massacre. That power still dwells in your body however, and I sense that you are pregnant after you have committed the sin of adultery with a man from outside the shrine. Normally I would smite you were you stand, but in this case however I shall make an exception. From this day forward, your family name will be erased from the annals of history, and from the minds of the whole human race, you are now Keiko Akayama, so the future generations will know of your crime of staining this mountainside retreat with the blood of the innocent. I shall also seal your magic power for this and the future generations, until a worthy heir will be found, and the sign of it shall be this mark under your wrist" The voice from the heavens said with in a mighty tone.

What the hell? Akayama, birthmark, what is happening herrYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHH!.

Both Keiko and Toshiro screamed in unison as the mark appeared on her wrist.

Before he passed out, he saw a flaming text appear before his eyes:

'A man borne of the outcasts will rise amongst the women, and destroy the scourge of humanity.'

He found himself in the mountain summit in which this wicked dream started. The sun was setting, and there was no sign of lakes, moons, shrines and talking snakes. He also had a feeling that he forgot something important from that dream, as if part of what he saw wasn't yet meant for him to witness.

"What in everything that's holy was that?!" Toshiro screamed angrily.

Then he looked under his wrist, and to his surprise, there was nothing there. Nothing meaning that the birthmark had also disappeared. While thinking about the meaning off all this, he noticed the herb pouch near the place where the shrine was.

"Oh shit! Mom is waiting for the herbs!"

He ran down the mountain as fast as he could, and when approaching his house he heard his mother screaming

"NOOO!"

As if chased by the devil himself he ran into the house and saw a mortifying scene: a sergeant from the naval base was trying to rape his mother.

Fueled by pure rage he grabbed that pervert by the neck and smacked him so hard he fell out of the house.

The sergeant was surprised that someone could do something like that to him. But he wasn't going to lay in the dirt and watch the sunset all day, so he did something that made Toshiro's heart skip a beat – he pulled out a pistol. A standard issue Nambu Type 14, with an 8-bullet magazine, sufficient not only to kill one guy like Toshiro, but eight of them.

"Hey, I recognize you! You are the son of that whore, Toshiro. Oh boy are you in trouble for attacking a superior!" The sergeant mumbled.

It was obvious that he was drunk, but the pistol in his hand was a force to reckon with. And what's right is right: a private attacked a sergeant. The least I could get for this is being fired, and at worst, I could say hello to the firing squad. Nevertheless, for what I did, I would gladly stand in front of ten firing squads!

"What you were trying to do to my mother was unforgivable you drunken swine!" Toshiro screamed with anger.

"And what if she invited me herself, you little runt?" The sergeant replied with a smirk face.

"Bullshit, you are lying!" A swift reply went out from Toshiro's mouth.

"Now now… Would you look at that, adding insult to injury…? You know what; I'll relieve the firing squad of their duty and kill you on the spot!"

The sergeant pulled the cocking knob on the pistol, and fired.

At the same moment when he pulled the trigger, Toshiro could only close his eyes. But after the loud gunfire, he didn't feel a thing, and what's more mysterious, he heard the bullet shattering on something. When he opened his eyes, he almost jumped back from what he saw.

Before him there was a blue magic shield floating. The same shield he saw being used by the hero of the Fuso Sea, Tomoko Anabuki in that war propaganda movie. It was covered in outdated kanji and symbols he couldn't decipher.

But how… I thought only witches could use magic!

But before he could gather his thoughts he saw a muzzle flash, and another bullet shattered at the shield. The sergeant had fired his whole magazine at the shield, to no avail. Seeing that he didn't have a backup, Toshiro wanted to throw himself at that slimy bastard, but a frail hand caught him by his collar and a soft voice sad:

"Enough violence for today my son."

"But mother!" Toshiro replied.

The sergeant didn't need an invitation. He dragged himself up and ran away screaming:

"You will regret the day you met me you little runt!"

Toshiro turned around to his mother and asked her:

"Mother, is it true that you invited him yourself?"

"Y-y-yes…" She replied with a stuttering voice.

"But mom, prostituting yourself won't…"

SLAP!

The sudden hit on the cheek made Toshiro fall to the ground.

"How dare you! I am still faithful to your father, although he is dead for so many years!" She screamed with tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry mother…" Toshiro said sadly.

"That sergeant told me he had a way to end our problems with money and my health issues. But after he got drunk he tried to… he tried…" Akiko couldn't finish her sentence because she started crying so hard that the sight itself would wring a tear out of a rock. Toshiro hugged her and they both wept for the next few minutes.


So, how did you like it? A keen eye probably fished out some references. Look at the notes section at the end of each chapter to satisfy your curiosity.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed it!

If you want to praise/rant about my story, please leave a signed review, so we can continue via PM's.

Also! Make sure you pop-in on our Discord server! We have other Strike Witches authors, and more! Link in my profile.


NOTES!

Toshiro's familiar – More will be revealed about it in the later chapters, for now I only can tell that I used a white tsuchinoko, because I liked that 'bonus' in Metal Gear Solid 3, heh…

. – The sound of static (if you watched Mirai Nikki to the end you should know what I'm yacking about). What was meant to be said? A secret!

"Bullshit, you are lying!" – A (rather) well know quote from a certain bald trader in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl