Kämpfer: A Polishman in Tokyo

by TranslatorPS

When the leading four Kämpfer of Seisetsu get rid of what has become their enemy, they are approached by somebody who's been looking at the entire show. And that's not the rooftop show, but all of the Kämpfer activities. The history is finally provided with some light, and some explanations come about too. All of that from a surprise from the Central Europe.

2. Chapter 2 - Suggestion

Alrighty, so. This is the second chapter of Kämpfer: A Polishman in Tokyo.

LANG. NOTES: I'd like to take back whatever I said about honorifics and Japanese. As some changes happen in relationships, honorifics become obsolete and therefore they don't make too much of an indicator as to what language is actually spoken.

The story, as before, as is, and as will, sticks to the present tense first person format.

CHAP. INTRO: This chapter slightly follows the pre-intro sequence of E13, or Kämpfer für die Liebe E01, call it whatever you wish. It also sticks to the episode's "Natsuru's a girl for the day" theme. However, changes do happen compared to the episode nevertheless. The chap ends in kind of a cliffhanger for explanations.
This chapter sees some development of my character and provides a little bit more explanation to the Kämpfer history. Certain parts of my character follow my true persona in real life, others are slightly amended. The Poland part is true all the way, though. It also sees potential room being made for Natsuru's character being finally developed in such a way that he won't be the idiot of the school.

FORMAT NOTES: Also, I forgot. Any italics are my own thoughts. Any bolds in the text itself are implications on the word in the spoken language. Otherwise, all is clear, I guess.
Also, I plan on making my chapters quite some length. The original text for this chapter was counting at just above 4,700 words and these notes put it just past 5,250. The reason why I want them of such a length is because they'd seem quite short in my text editor (I write them with Helvetica 13pt) and also I'm not exactly the fan of short creations :)

DISCLAIMER: I may have bought some things in my past, but none of these were any rights to Kämpfer. I only own myself, really, and the OC. Real placenames used.

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Ch. 2 – SUGGESTION

August 15th, 2019 - 11.45pm - Tokyo, Japan

Just a few minutes after the four people who would be staying over at my house got around the bathrooms and the bedrooms, and after I walked into my own room, do I finally get a chance to look at myself in the mirror. Nothing has changed about my looks – the same long dark blond hair, the same navy jeans, the same sweatshirt that I put on almost two hours ago before leaving. I sigh and sit down at the desk in my room. Besides being slightly incapacitated with a variety of books that I run out of shelf-space for, it also has the liberty of being the spot for my two monitors. The accompanying mouse and keyboard were stored away safely on a sliding shelf just below.

I get my hands on one of the more recently opened books, or rather booklets, and start reading through it at the point where I left off, when I hear the door being opened. I look towards the door, not changing anything else in my body position, only to see Shizuku walking into my room.

'Guess you would like to know a bit more, so you don't actually stab me to death in my sleep?' I ask, jokingly enough. I still don't close the book, and considering what the book is, I am glad that I don't.

'I wasn't planning on anyway, we're on the same team, aren't we?'

I sigh, with a hint of relief and realization. She continues, 'Back on the rooftop, you mentioned school records. What exactly do you mean?'

At this moment, I close the book that I'm reading, or at least trying to do so, and lightly slam it on the desk. She notices it straight away. It's the special supplement on the curriculum of the English language teaching for Seisetsu.

'You'll be teaching us?'

'Some of you lot have made a mess. I'm only making a bigger one, at least to you. The cover up story is that I'm a student teacher traveling around the world, teaching different languages at different schools. I found it that it'd be easiest to follow the local scene here if I enrolled somehow in Seisetsu. However, my age doesn't allow for a student – but for a student teacher, yes.'

'Hah... interesting. So we'll have a Polish teacher teaching the English language at a Japanese school. What else do you plan on doing?'

'Language clubs are out of the question anyways, so nothing. I don't want to bother you guys too much with things. I'm an easy-going person when it comes to education affairs, and I'll be trying to be as effective and as light as possible at the same time,' I answer with the kind of relaxed, political voice Shizuku herself usually puts on. She looks at me with a cold impression that warms up very fast.

'I don't know about the others, but, for me, you're more than welcome in our fight against the Moderators,' she finally says after 30 seconds or so of silence.

'Thank you, seitokaichō-san,' I reply.

'And don't call me that, please. Outside of school, call me Shizuku...'

'Right, well, I'll return you the favour, and likewise call me Piotr outside of school. In school or around other students not in this affair, my surname, Sekuła, please,' I allow her to call me by my name. Then, like a bolt of lightning, something strikes me.

'Tomorrow I'll be going to Seisetsu to take a proper look at the school, and I'll be getting familiar with the school layout as well as the timetable. As for the latter, I don't know if a timetable has been finalized for me or not, but...'

'You want me to sort it out so you teach the classes that us lot are in?' she asks me as if she knew the answer already.

'You four and Sakura-san. I'd like to keep close tabs on her as well,' I answer.

'Well, I won't be able to do much until tomorrow, will I be?' as she says that, I already reach my hand out to the computer and press the on button. I'm amazed that I haven't put this thing to sleep before rather than switching it off altogether. Perhaps I didn't expect to be doing such things. When the good old machine boots up (takes ages in the current standards, because I never moved forward from Windows 7. I just couldn't digest the newer systems), I enter the password, making sure that Shizuku caught on to as little of it as possible, and offer her the chair. As she sits down and fires up the Internet browser (good old times seem to still come back), I take the curriculum for Spanish language in Irish secondary schools and go to my bed, where I sit down and open the book.

I haven't spoken that language in ages now, I think. I wonder how much have I forgotten...

'Is it just me or the Internet is slow...' Shizuku mutters to herself as I look back at the Direct Object pronouns. I know them anyway; I'm only putting on a show. While one part of me is acting as if I were reading the curriculum, the other, bigger one, looks at Shizuku's actions on the computer.

It isn't that I want to know how she does it, as this is outside of my interests. It's more keeping an eye on what she actually is doing on the Internet – whether she's setting up the timetable or looking at things any 18-year-old might be eager to get themselves familiar with. Not that I question that part, I'm sure she already is.

Five minutes later, she turns around in the chair and says, 'Well, everything's all good. You'll have the same class numbers in both male and female sections. I set you up with eight classes altogether, which is a lot I think myself, but if you need to see us all, then you might as well... The original timetable wasn't too different from this one anyway...' she stands up, with a smile.

'Thank you very much,' I reply. She starts heading for the door, when I ask her another question, 'How good is your English?'

She turns around and says, 'Not too bad, I think. I can communicate, but just the accent seems to throw the odd people I spoke with before off.'

'The accent is always an issue with speakers of English that didn't learn it as a native language,' I switch to English, much to her small startle. 'Don't worry about that too much,' I smile, reassuringly.

'Thank you,' she answers, in English also.

You don't even know how you can tell where one comes from just from their accent of English... I think, in a positive manner of course, as she leaves the room.

A bit later...

I decided to let the guests wash first. I don't care too much about what they are doing, as I'm busy with getting familiar with the timetable Shizuku just set up for me there. After a while, however, I decide to scrap that and head to the bathroom.

When I get myself a proper wash at last, there is no other way for me to go but pass the extra bedrooms before getting to my own one. Wearing a somewhat rugged t-shirt and rather new boxers, I walk down the corridor, to hear sounds that only suggest one thing.

As I thought, some action was going on. No Kämpfer fights, not at all. Rather, a fight for a guy. But by this time, the guy had become a girl. I don't want to guess what had happened here when I was in the bathroom, but at this stage I'm staring at four girls – one standing shocked in the doorway, the other three on the bed. All of them pure naked. I span my eyes over them for a couple of seconds, and decide to let it go.

'Have fun...' I say as I wave my hand down in the same manner that I always did when I ignored something or let something go and, with a stable step as if nothing had ever happened, head over to my room. There, I collapse in my bed and let the sleep overpower me. Before it does, however, I decide to play a little trick on Natsuru. Ändere Senō Natsuru.

'Finally, Natsuru, I thought you'd never change...' I hear Shizuku, who says it in a playful tone. I smile and fall asleep.

The next day - 7.20am

I am already awake, standing in the kitchen and making some food. I decide to go for simple scrambled eggs on the traditional Polish sausage. I make a good supply of it – not only is it going to be breakfast for five, but also my lunch. Buy eggs sometime later on, I make a mental note.

Soon enough, I hear some people getting downstairs and heading towards the kitchen. As I turn around, Natsuru and Mikoto are standing side by side, followed by Akane behind them. Not to mention Shizuku walking down the stairs.

'So, how was yesterday night?' I place a question, aimed more at Natsuru than anybody else.

'I didn't force that change, somebody else did. And all of them here denied it...' he snaps at me.

'Well, Sangō-san and Mishima-san denied it because they didn't do it. Kondō-san denied it because she couldn't do it in the first place. Yes, it was my doing,' I say playfully.

'Thank you!' the three girls say energetically, as they head over to the sitting room. I nod in response and see that Natsuru wasn't exactly over the moon.

'Stop looking at me as if I were the biggest criminal this century has seen so far. Stop looking at me and get it into your head, please, that one day or another, you'll have to make a choice. Your own choice, on top of that,' I tell him.

'What choice?' he asks dumbly.

'Which of these three you'll get with,' I answer as I take out five plates and share the scrambled eggs evenly between the five, leaving a portion for my lunch. 'If any of these three at all, of course. Sakura Kaede-san is well out of question as you have seen yesterday. She doesn't want you the way you're standing there, and you've made your choice in front of nine people yesterday,' I continue as I bring the plates one by one to the sitting room. 'Even better, these three have, one way or another, bloody confessed to you!'

He sighs. 'True... but it's just that... never mind,' he replies in a quiet voice as he sits down.

'That what? You've been hooked onto Sakura-san for years now and can't get her out of your head?' I stare into his eyes. The girls follow me.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa. I've only known you for less than a day and you're already telling me things as if you knew me for months!'

'Because I do,' I place the last word as I move onto the breakfast. 'Itadakimasu.'

Six minutes later, we're finished and I bring the plates back to the kitchen. I leave them in the sink, they can wait. Then I head upstairs into my room, where I change into more representable clothes than a tracksuit that I put on myself just for the breakfast.

When I put on the black jeans, I look at myself in the mirror, not for the first and probably not the last time. The jeans' fate is followed by a clean t-shirt, a clean shirt and a dark-coloured sweater. Then, I take out a black jacket out of the wardrobe and have a final check on my presentation. With satisfaction, I grab my bag with some files and books in it, as well as my laptop bag, which, obviously enough, has the appropriate contents.

Downstairs, it seems that the four teenagers are already ready and just about to leave. Natsuru seems to have changed into a girl for today, however, I let that pass. He's not the only one eager to know about Kaede's doings in this array, I guess. I come along and say, 'I'm offering a lift to Seisetsu.' They don't seem too keen on accepting the offer, but Shizuku makes the choice for them. I already notice that she puts a fair amount of trust in me.

A bit later at Seisetsu

As we arrive, I already see students slowly walking into Seisetsu, with a certain bit of dismay on their faces. I don't blame them, it's Friday and they all want to get to the weekend already, I assume.

When the car finally comes to a halt, I switch the engine off, not forgetting about the handbrake, obviously, and we all come out. All but Shizuku seem to have a little bit of shock on their faces, along the lines of 'why is he coming along with us?', as I follow the lot towards the school.

While the four teenagers go into the girls section of the school, I head for the boys as it seems more natural for me. I find an entrance for the teachers and walk in.

'Sekuła-san! I'm glad you could make it here today,' the principal welcomes me warmly as we both walk into the teachers' room.

'Thank you. I found it rather necessary to be able to appear today, so I would be ready to start with next week,' I reply with an adequate warmth in my voice as well as with the adequate level of politeness.

'If you're ready, we might even give you two classes today. A male one and a female one. Just so you can get a jist of the kids, you know.'

'Err... actually, that isn't a half bad idea. I might as well,' I reply, after a little bit of thought.

'So here's your timetable, a map of the school in case you'd get lost, and the class lists.'

I look at the last of the three items given to me. A quick stare down the eight lists and am reassured in my mini worry. There is no latinazation of the names on it. I look at the principal and ask, 'What are the odds of this list being also available in rōmaji?'

The principal looks a little bit startled, but soon approaches a computer and hits some commands. Soon, out of the nearby printer plop out eight lists, much like the ones I'd already been given, but with latinized names.

'Thank you,' I say cheerfully as the principal hands them to me.

'Can we speak outside for a second?' he asks me. I can tell from his face that there is something unusual he wants to tackle.

Once outside, he starts, 'Sekuła-san, I may have done a bad thing letting you teach here, or I might have done a good thing. Please make sure that I believe the latter. I don't want to waste the hours I spent trying to get you a teaching permission here.'

'What are you exactly worrying about?'

'Your language skills.'

'Ah... when it comes to English, they'll have the best insight into it.'

'It's not the English that I'm worrying about, it's your Japanese.'

'With respect and no offense meant, what language are we speaking right now? I can assure you that I'll use the best of my knowledge to ensure that these teenagers get the best English they can get in any Japanese high school.'

'Well, I count on you then,' the principal says as the Big Ben style bell rings right across the school. 'So, do you want these two classes today?'

'Yeah, nothing changes here.'

'Then take the first two that you have today and that's that,' the principal says and I can tell that this is the end to the conversation. As he walks away, I look at my timetable. To my mini-shock, the first class for Fridays that I see reads none other than "F-2-4" during third period. Curse you, Shizuku...

Same day - 10.10am

Just before the bell rings, I leave the teachers' room for my first class of the day. I head over to the female side and head for the second floor where the homeroom for the female class 2-4 is. Exactly when the bell rings I stand in front of the class door. The teacher which is currently teaching probably has already given the appropriate homework, as she quickly packs whatever she needs to pack and heads for the door. When she opens it and sees me, we exchange bows and she passes me on her way to the next class. At that, I enter the classroom, which is astonishingly quiet.

The array of girls sitting in single desks right from the front to the back looks at me. I return the gaze as I span my eyes over the classroom. As I expected from the female 2-4, I found Natsuru and Akane sitting in their own desks. Them two carried a "what!?" look on their faces as opposed to the "eh?" look on the rest of the class' faces. Without a single word yet, I settle my bags beside the teacher's desk and look at the blackboard. It doesn't take a genius to notice from the different numbers that their previous class was Maths. I take the eraser and clean the whiteboard. Then, with some white chalk, I write the two kanji characters for "English language", which in effect read as "eigo". Only then do I turn around to face the class.

'Hajimemashite,' I greet the girls. 'My name is Piotr Sekuła and I will be your new English teacher from now on.'

Still responseless. I don't think that they know how to handle the situation. After all, I'm probably the first male teacher that has been teaching this class.

'Close the notebooks, we won't need them today. This will be an explanation class rather than an actual teaching class.'

Finally! A response! The nearly-thirty girls close their English notebooks they'd taken out just a broken second ago, probably expecting one's typical class rather than such a surprise.

'OK, it seems that I'm getting nowhere this way...' I mutter to myself in Polish nevertheless. Then speak out in Japanese, with my hands twined together right in front of me, 'Oh-kay. So... you see the kanji I've just written on the board?'

They nod.

I take the eraser and wipe the chalk off. 'Well, with me, you won't be using this name much. My way, we'll be trying to use more English than Japanese in the classroom, therefore, well...' I write "English" on the board, 'this will be the more appropriate description of this class.' I then get my bag and pull out one of the A4-sized booklets. 'This thing here is another thing that I'm supposed to adhere to that I won't. It's the guideline for the girls side of the school for English teachers and I won't be keeping to it. Why? Because I'll also be teaching the boys and I'll be teaching them the exact same thing as you.

'For you, it means that the level will ever so slightly drop down. The work that you'll be getting will be slightly easier than what you're originally supposed to get. On the other hand, the guys will have it a little harder, so please, nobody tell them that because I'm not telling it to them either,' I smile. The girls smile too, albeit weakly. They seem to slightly warm up to me.

'I'll be dropping the use of notebooks and textbooks to a certain minimum as well. In other words, learning English with me will be about the experience of speaking the language, with a certain element of some rules. In yet other words, I'll make it easy on you and yet you'll learn. A lot.'

I can see clear relief on the girls' faces by now. Not so much on Natsuru's, because he knows that whenever I'll have him for the English class on the other side of the barrier, it'll be a bit harder than what he's used to.

'OK, before I move on to the lesson proper, any questions that are relevant either to the subject or to my teaching?'

A girl from the exactly middle of the class puts her hand up and asks, 'Your surname did not sound English, sensei. Can you tell us where you're from?'

'Fair enough, I can. I'm from Poland. And, because I can tell that somebody is going to ask this one, I speak quite the few languages.

'My native language, obviously enough, is Polish. My second language is English, and then, in this order, Spanish, German, Japanese, some Irish and some Russian. Overall, I speak seven languages good enough to communicate,' I say with a small smile. Once again, I smile in class, which I'm well aware of being a mistake.

After a little while, I continue, 'So, is that it? Can we move on?'

Same day - 11.00am

The class is almost finished. Being aware of the shortly-upcoming bell, I decide to give them homework for the weekend nevertheless.

'OK, class, this will be this for today. I would like you to do a little bit of homework for me, or actually yourselves, over the weekend. I know I said, notebooks to a minimum, but it's something that I want to see so I can get an idea of what kind of English you have when you have time to think it through. So, what I would like you to do is write something about yourselves or anything else. I want you to express yourselves as much as you can, tell as much as you can. This is kind of a self-assessment on your English – I don't want you asking anybody to help you, just do it on your own and your own only. If you have any doubts, go on, use a dictionary, but please, as much as I can trust it with Japanese and English, hold off with Google Translate.

'So, with that done, I would like to wish you a happy weekend, class has ended,' I finalize today's affairs with the female 2-4 just exactly as the bell rings. When the four-tone ends, I also say, 'Ah, before I forget. Senō-san and Mishima-san, could I speak with you outside for a second.'

They both stand up and walk towards the door. As I grab my bags, I can see the girls eyeing Natsuru as always. I roll my eyes at that and head to the door, which I open. I let the two walk outside first, follow them and then shut the door behind me.

'So, any issues with a Kämpfer teaching you English?' I ask them.

'N-no, I'm OK... I think I'll do fine,' Akane answers.

'And you, Senō-san? You didn't seem all over the moon when I said that I'll be upping the standard for the boys.'

'I guess I'll manage. You're a good teacher, from what I saw today there,' he answers.

'Great. Also, before I left for this class, I got a message from none other than the forsaken Student Council. Seitokaichō-san wants us to meet during lunch break, you know well where.' They nod and I let them go back to class. Myself, I head towards the teachers' room.

Same day - 12.42pm

I approach Shizuku's office (ugh, the Student Council here has much better facilities than what we had back in secondary school...) with a brisk step. I see that nobody else is standing outside, so I knock six times (my trademark knock) and upon hearing 'Enter!' I enter without hesitation.

Just as I expected, Shizuku is sitting there in her chair, with a desk right in front of her. The room otherwise has very little furniture to it, just two more chairs roughly in the middle of the room on a carpet. The back wall is decorated with a large golden-coloured emblem, and the walls are painted in a dark navy colour, but otherwise the room is actually pretty empty.

She may have quite the space, but it's as empty as a piece of newly-manufactured paper, I think. On second thoughts, I think that despite not having a dedicated room, we had a little bit more to the Student Council that I used to be part of years ago.

'What do you think of the office?' she asks me.

'Rather bare, little character, if you ask me,' I reply, honestly. I get the feeling that my honesty could yet be the end of me.

'You're an honest person, aren't you?'

'I've rather little choice.'

'Anyway, I asked you and the other guys to come for a little reason. I think that we need to discuss the future of our truce here and what's going to happen.'

'Yeah, well, it'd help if the others were here, wouldn't it?'

'True,' she says and presses some sort of a button under her desk. This must have been some sort of a lock release as a door to the right of her desk that I didn't notice before (how could I have anyway, it's a concealed entrance!) opened with all the others walking out of it, in their Kämpfer personas. By that time, Shizuku has transformed herself.

'However, we still don't know how you became a Kämpfer, or what your weapon is, or anything like that,' Shizuku says in her trademark calm voice.

I look at the four Kämpfer standing around me. I don't show any signs of alarm so as to not to provoke them. 'Explanations, they are easy enough to come by,' I say as I sit myself into one of the chairs.

'Before the Assigners or the Messengers came about, a way of creating a Kämpfer was to force them to put on a black bracelet, much like the Contract Bracelets that we all here wear. If done nicely enough, the girl put on the bracelet without questioning her actions. She would have locked it on her arm, initiating the Contract and the bracelet itself would dissappear within an hour.

'As for me, I was told directly to put the bracelet on, under pressure, actually. The girl who had me put it on was a classmate of mine, a friend even so to speak. I didn't know what to think of it, but... well, the next night, I suddenly wake up around 3am and it's like, where's the contents of my underwear, how the heck did my hair grow that long and why on earth do I have breasts on my chest.'

'But... how did you know that you'd become a Kämpfer without a Messenger or anybody like that?' Natsuru asks me.

'Well, the next thing I notice is this red bracelet on my arm with a note sticking out of it. The note explained why the hell am I a girl, what are Kämpfer and so on so forth. There was a small footnote as well, saying that "the only way for me to read this is if I became a Kämpfer". In other words, she was testing if a guy could become a Kämpfer,' I reply.

'And did he, though?' Shizuku asks me and I understand her question perfectly.

Änderung. In an instant, I am sitting there as a girl. In the transformation, besides the general gender-swap associated things like the pants issue and the breasts, my hair grows much, much longer, reaching my elbows. It also takes a pure white colour as opposed to the dark blond that I have as a guy.

'Not bad...' Shizuku nods in approvement.

'Alright, I've proven that I'm a Kämpfer, what now?' I ask rhetorically. 'Ah yeah, weapon.' When I say this sentence, I'm actually glad that Japanese doesn't make a difference between singular and plural, as it's all the same to them. I stand up

Arsenal rück. Another one of my thought-induced commands forces my bracelet to give off a very short flash, only for me to carry my weaponry.

'The first four Kämpfer can use all three Kämpfer weapons as they wish,' I announce.

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Well, I guess that this was some sort of a cliffhanger that needs explanations. These are bound to come, don't worry!

Thanks, over and out!