AN: A bit on the Old Man of the Jewels past, some going on's due to the bad dimensional transfer among other things and the beginning of a Fool's journey. Thanks for all the support guys and gals! I appreciate the reviews, follows and favourites of every one of you!
Chapter 25: A Fool's Journey
Germany, somewhere in the 1600's…
If he had to describe the idyllic town he would have said "Anything but Weissenburg"
His home 'town' was a Free Imperial City, meaning that they could wage war, make peace, and control their own trade with little interference from outside forces, or to be exact, they did not permit much interference.
All of which mattered very little to the young teen Kischur Schweinorg, who had snuck past the guards of the castle walls with little difficulty.
It was all a matter of probability for him.
He could safely say he had a 'sixth sense' of sorts for predicting this sort of thing.
How likely would it be for a guard to turn left instead of right? If he threw a rock in this direction how many people would be bothered by such an action?
Also, his own questions on how likely is a marriage going to last tend to be guessed accurately as well.
Needless to say, he didn't mind chalking it up to skill and making some money as a fortune teller.
Disguised, of course!
The brown haired youth didn't want his father or older brother to raise any questions he didn't want to answer.
Although if he had to be honest, the rest of his family were pretty secretive so that line of thought should have been the other way around.
Come to think of it, he did wonder why he termed it as a 'sixth sense' even as he didn't know what it was in relation to. But that's a thought to ponder for another time.
"Ah, what a beautiful day!" He said to himself whilst overlooking the bustling town before starting a countdown.
"3…2…1!" He pushed
"You simpering fool! Look at what have you done to my clothes! I knew I should not have hired a filthy commoner as a guide!"
Johann von der Recke, a lesser known son of a Margrave.
The only reason why he's particularly known was for his contempt of those of 'low-birth', incompetence and certain crimes that only Kischur had knew about thanks to his sixth sense (along with his own investigations, aka, information through bribery).
The young teen had a rather heavy rock in his hands.
Outside of his sixth sense he did have many other skills. Things like lying, disguising, sneaking, calculating, throwing, bartering and of course-
Magic.
Well, he didn't really know if it was magic or not, to be honest it was like a well of energy he could 'switch' on or off.
It was a rather strange term he used in his head, he knew that this energy also somehow gave him all sorts of knowledge that he had to learn to sort out by himself.
He pushed the energy into the rock, making it harder.
And he did the same to his arm.
He waited a few seconds, and threw the rock high up into the sky.
After that, he reversed his clothes whilst sneaking into the shadows.
A minute later, news had spread that the noble had been assassinated.
Kischur didn't feel terribly bad.
The man was evil.
Evil made him feel furious.
So the man needed to die.
He didn't think much of it.
After all, there were so many evil men in the world to the point where nothing he would do would make a difference. Still, it didn't mean he couldn't ignore what he could deal with.
If he hadn't did what he did then that commoner would have a worse fate awaiting him, that was what his sixth sense told him.
He ignored the commotion and paid for a room at a local inn.
He had a lot of personal wealth and his family cared little for what he got up to.
He laid himself down on the cheap bed, looking up at the wall for no particular reason.
There was a need to be here, and he didn't know why.
Closing his eyes, he focused his senses whilst preparing for something to happen.
A few hours later he was getting bored, hungry and annoyed.
Night had fallen in the town where the noble's guards were interrogating people to no avail.
A creaking sound echoed through the barren room, he knew that the window had opened as he heard the sound of shuffling clothes.
… It sounded like a dress of sorts, how he knew that he would never know.
"Hm, hm, hmm… yes! I got in! I knew learning how to break into homes from that fake maid trying to rob me would come in useful." A feminine, mischievous voice said in a hushed tone.
Wait a second, what kind of person would learn from someone breaking into their own home?
His sixth sense must be leading him to some sort of strange conspiracy involving someone that should be in a mental asylum.
Kischur wondered what the heck a 'mental asylum' is and what the hell is 'What the heck' supposed to mean.
Honestly, this 'magic', energy, sixth sense… it's all beyond him, really.
"So this is the one that administered death by falling rock… ohohoho, he looks adorable asleep."
Alright, no one calls him cute and gets away with it!
He lunged upwards, turned and pinned the intruder's arms onto his bed with his quick movements.
"Eep!" He quickly covered her mouth with a hand whilst he forced her hands against the bed.
"I don't take kindly to insane women standing over sleeping men while calling them 'adorable'. Honestly, you have no idea how sick it sounds like. Now, give me a reason why I shouldn't snap your neck." I allowed her to speak.
"Um, so you can unleash your beastly urges on my body? Wait, please don't tell me you prefer corpses!" She said quietly.
This… this little… does this woman have any sense of danger or seriousness?
He scowled and would have done something to punish the intruder if his sixth sense didn't tell him to do otherwise.
"Do you actually think I would leave you alive for such an accusation?"
"Well… what if this misunderstanding would start a new story in our lives leading to a beautiful outcome?"
'Is she mad?' He thought to himself.
"I highly doubt a misunderstanding and an accusation have that much in common."
"Well, I am not screaming 'rape'? Don't you think I have a real secret ulterior motive for being so obvious?"
"That last sentence had redundant words you know? And sexual assault was the last thing on my mind why are you even talking about that? Are you a pervert?"
"In any case-"
Is this woman even listening to him? He was so close to tearing her limb from limb.
"-I've come to tell you that your methods, whilst effective… lacks charm and humour."
"Death should not be 'charming' and 'humorous'." He scoffed.
"I suppose not. But don't you ever stop to wonder if such a plain death had any meaning? Nobles die rather often, mostly due to plots and such. The point is that everyone knew that the man was scum, but why settle for just killing him when you can humiliate him?"
He was getting really unnerved by this woman.
"I've followed your work. No, it's better to say that I've been following the brief expulsions of a large amount of prana just before a murder that looks just like an act of god happens. It seems strange that it always happens that way, but I can't help but wonder if this is fate. Well, being pinned down and at the mercy of a man like you was not part of the plan, but I guess I should see the fun side of it."
"You… are the most irritable woman I've ever had the displeasure of meeting. But what are you talking about? Prana? Are you talking about magic? This… this energy I feel. Tell me everything."
"So you are aware of it… amazing. Well then, I swear on my name as the sole heir of the Zelretch family crest to explain the fundamentals of magecraft truthfully whilst I remain in this room."
Kischur Schweinorg was startled by the bright white glow of an insignia-like tattoo that briefly appeared on the woman's right arm.
"What was that?!" He almost shouted too loudly.
"That was me binding myself with a Geas. I'll explain further if you'll let me set up a Boundary Field to prevent sound from escaping." She said.
He followed his sixth sense's guidance and allowed her to do so.
"Well… since you went ahead to swear yourself to explain things I might as well introduce myself. Kischur Schweinorg, second son of Kasimir Schweinorg."
She stepped in front of him, and also in front of the window where the moonlight illuminated her face to a greater extent.
She looked to be around his age, although the beautiful curly long silver hair was extremely unusual to say the least. She dressed like a rich woman born of nobility, but her dress sense was rather extravagant in comparison to the duller and more 'appropriate' colours for women of her station. He couldn't help but notice her rather ample bust and soft lips.
Curse his isolation from any actual peers for his weakness to beautiful women!
"Adelaide Zelretch, sole heir to Wermut Zelretch. I'm a Magus, but you can just call me Adelle. That's what my imaginary friends call me!"
Great, he's on the level of an imaginary friend. This girl is clearly mad!
He didn't need his sixth sense to know that this woman would be on his list of top headaches of all time.
Elsewhere, a few things were happening…
At MBI, people were going mad, paper was all over the place, everyone was screaming and the head scientist of MBI, Sahashi Takami, wanted to beat up Minaka again.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STOP SCREAMING!"
Let it be said that the woman had a fierce temper and was a big reason for Minato Sahashi's meekness. Well, it had more to do with how stern she was, but the temper was a contributing part of it.
In any case, things were going terribly wrong.
A handful of Sekirei along with an Ashikabi being nearly untraceable? Terribly bad, but still doable.
Superman? Well, they started lining everything in lead and began experimenting in red sun lighting.
Psychic Ashikabi that winged the Scrapped Number? On the watch list but not the priority.
The fact that DOZENS of Sekirei had somehow became Un-winged without being terminated?
Now that's a big cluster fuck.
Meanwhile, the child responsible for it was taking a joy ride on the Vimana, an Indian flying machine Noble Phantasm.
On the Vimana were two Sekirei which the younger Gilgamesh had graciously allowed to fly on.
They were #38 Mitsuha and #39 Mitsuki, former Sekirei of Hayato Mikogami.
Why were they joyriding on a plane that could fly at the speed of thought?
Well, it kind of went something along the lines of both blond Sekirei that looked remarkably alike thinking to themselves.
"Kyaa! Gil-kun is such a cute child!"
And so, with permission, Gil-kun winged them because why the hell not?
And then he realised that the 'wagtails' can't even fly and thought this was unacceptable. At the very least his knew servants, lovers, little birds should know what it was like to be in the sky, hence, the really insane flying experience.
Whilst he wasn't as cocky or arrogant as his future self, he was still THE KING and his servants MUST be better than other servants. Well, one way to fix that problem was to make sure they experience things that the servants of other mortals would be able to experience.
Yes, he saw the two women as servants, possessions and entertaining big sisters. Did he love them? Well, in a sense. He wasn't sure if he could come to love them the same way they did, but he would surely love them as unique treasures of his. After all… blonde hair is close enough to gold hair, and gold is his favourite colour. Sure they probably had little in the way of brains, but at least they would be entertaining.
Meanwhile, Yu was taking advantage of this trip by advancing his Social Links as much as he could. Whilst he got a few levels with everyone, he eventually hit a snag with Yukiko, probably because her goals were still related to Inaba so he needed her to actually be there.
Ah well, extra Social Link time is always good.
Oh, and the near non-stop sex with Yahan was great. She was seriously into role-playing, so far his favourite was him playing the police officer 'punishing' the Yahan the criminal. It wasn't too difficult to get handcuffs, all he did was ask his sugar daddy Adachi-kun earlier in the week.
In a hidden room somewhere, Matsu, Uzume and 'Kagari' were laughing and drinking their asses off.
They were celebrating the chaos in MBI and the liberation of their kin.
And all this just because of some botched teleportation circle that was targeted at Zelretch, Adachi-san, or whatever his name was.
Miya would have stopped them and punished them for drinking. But she was too preoccupied with dealing with her rage against Yashima that she admitted to herself, was more like a jealous schoolgirls rage. And she hated that she was feeling that way.
Minako and Aigis, were enacting a certain plot of theirs which involved vandalising MBI's headquarters using their Persona's ability to fly and drop pink paint onto the building. Adachi's pocket dimension magic was instrumental for this operation.
It was petty and annoying, but they were new to the pranking business.
And outside around Earth's atmosphere… there was a ship and a certain terraforming machine being brought along.
"Jax-Ur? What happened, why did we lose the signal of the beacon?" General Dru-Zod asked his leading scientist of his most loyal soldiers, the Sword of Rao.
"I'm not entirely sure. After passing the storm of unidentifiable cosmic energy we stopped receiving the same signals as before… however, I am completely certain that the planet over there was where the beacon originated from." Jax-Ur told his commander.
"I see… it makes no difference then. Kal-El is on that planet, and so it the Codex. We will harvest the Codex from the corpse of the son of Jor-El, as planned. Set course for the planet and prepare to hijack their primitive communication devices so that I can relay those monkeys a message."
"It will be done."
Moving away from the prison ship with an overly edgy name of 'Black Zero', we see a certain refugee of a collapsed world that took advantage of the destruction of both Gaia and Alaya after he was deployed too late to stop the corrupted Moon Cell's functions.
"Alright then… this has got to be the second strangest Tokyo I've been to. I blame Zelretch."
The silver haired counter guardian went ahead to actually blame someone that was actually responsible for once in is life. Most of the time, it was usually his E-Rank Luck's fault. That, or it was his naivety, recklessness or general idiocy… and some emoness that was the cause of his problems.
Well, his situation sure beats being a killer machine for sure.
Back to Tohru/Kischur/Whatever his name is…
"Adelaide…"
The name passed through my lips as I shuffled my head around, I opened my eyes and found my vision obscured by two mounds.
Oh? The infamous lap pillow? Yes please.
"Mmm, thanks for the treat Yashima."
"Eh?!" Huh, what is she surprised for? Her face is flushed for some reason, but I don't recall tripping any flags for this sort of event.
"I meant thanks for the lap pillow. That's one thing crossed out of my bucket list now."
"Oh! Of course! I'm glad you liked it Tohru-sama. But are you alright? You were crying back then."
Ah, so I was.
To think that I was crying when saying that troublesome woman's name… it doesn't take a genius to know the implications of such a reaction.
I read enough stories to know that whatever relationship I had with that woman probably ended in tragedy. After all, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg originated from the Nasuverse, and no one is ever happy there.
And judging from my original name and her last name… it is more than likely we married each other, or at least had a close relationship that I began to use her name. Perhaps I was adopted into her family or something like that.
Ah, but that is irrelevant. The point was that my involuntary reaction from my lingering impressions of her made me cry. She was close to me, that I was sure of.
Even if I could only remember parts of my early life up till meeting her, I can already picture the situation.
Edgy justice seeking teenager with savant magical skills meets manic pixie magical girlfriend who mentors him in the ways of the supernatural.
There are enough tropes to make an anime.
"Yes… yes I was. Even if I can't remember much of that troublesome woman, I'm certain that she was close to my heart. I'm sorry if I worried you." I stroke her cheek tenderly to reassure her. She smiled as if she was soothed by those words alone.
"Even so… I want to know more about her. I hope you can understand that."
I know it will pain my heart as I recall more memories.
But even so… I want to know her more. What makes her smile that way, what gives her that manic energy and that disregard for normal convention… what made her want to seek me out.
I could tell by the way she spoke, the way she dressed and the way she smiled. I could tell that she wasn't an average magus by far, I wasn't sure if she was talented but she was… different.
That mischievousness, and thrill seeking attitude… it was obvious where my first incarnation got it from.
Even if it were to end in heartbreak, this isn't something I would turn away from.
I want to remember.
I'd like to think I'm not some angst filled character that gets too dramatic and conflicted over past hurts. I'd be more than happy to avoid the pitfalls of those 'Immortal and Alone' Naruto Uzumaki's, Master of Death Harry Potters and 'Everyone's Dead' Ichigo Kurosaki's I see in so many fanfictions.
I'm not the type to be massively butthurt when life beats on me. To each their own I say!
I already went through that phase when I was driven to ritual suicide in a manner to create a stronger Kaleidoscope being in a way that was strangely reminiscent of a certain event. The birth of the God Emperor of Mankind, well, in my case it was just the case of a Kaleidoscope user that was actually attuned to the fabric of the Multiverse.
"I understand and I will support your decision." Yashima said with a small smile.
"Whew, almost thought you would go full yandere mode."
I explain my thoughts on the matter of not bothering to angst over it and accept my past.
"When you put it like that it makes it even more unreasonable to feel the slightest bit jealous of a woman that managed to be so close to your heart. But it's likely she's dead and I would be mentally ill or have crippling insecurities if I were jealous of a dead woman… Oh! I'm so sorry for that! I didn't mean to insult her or anything I just-" She looked mortified when she realised that she sounded like a bitch at the end despite the fantastic opener.
"Yashima, chill! There's nothing to apologise for, do I look like a soft teddy bear? I'm not so emotionally weak that I will mope and go into depression just from someone bringing up my oh so sad past or some nonsense like that! What am I? Sasuke Uchiha? I'm not a fucking emo! Geez! I'm not a drama king that would hurt the people around me for some stock protagonist reasons that could be found on Tv tropes!"
I rambled on and on for a bit, Yashima smiling all the while.
"Sorry for rambling on again."
"It's alright. I love it when you speak your mind." She reassures me.
'Thou art I… And I am thou…
Thou hast established a new bond…
It brings thee closer to thy Fate…
Thou shalt be blessed when creating Personas of the Fool Arcana…'
So this is my 'fate' huh… although I wonder, is it to rediscover my past or to make sure history does not repeat itself?
I stroke her cheek tenderly with my right hand from my position on her lap to show that I appreciate her being there for me.
I can admit I was impressed. I was almost certain that she would be jealous or feel insecure as she usually apologised in an over eager manner when we had just met back then. I'm glad that she has enough confidence to feel secure in my feelings for her.
"…Heh! Since when did you become so strong? I'm honestly admiring you for having way more self-control than I do." I say honestly, making her blush lightly.
"W-Well, it's all thanks to Tohru-sama's strict encouragement! Every day I'm being encouraged to learn many things by myself so … um, I can really see that you want what's best for me no matter your own fetishes."
Ah yes, she did know I do enjoy submissive women on occasion. But honestly? It's better for her as a Sekirei that she becomes a strong person.
"Heh, so true… so true. How long has it been since I passed out by the way?"
"Two hours, Tohru-sama."
"Right then, give me… a 20 minutes break. I'll go heal some sick and maimed people as 'Superman' to buff up my messianic archetype PR. We'll cuddle and do some things that would be considered… too lewd for the widow of a certain inn."
She had a gleeful expression and licked her lips in expectation.
I disguised myself, double checked and got to work.
I'm not sure if it was a benefit from the Fool Arcana or simply the effect of embracing the past but I'm beginning to discover the benefits of the Worm CYOA Kaleidoscope that I took from that bastard along with rediscovering the 'sixth sense' I had back when I was younger.
That 'sixth sense' was literally a 'Number Man' or 'Path to Victory' in a limited form, and that was when it was untrained! That aspect of the Kaleidoscope… was lost to my older self after fighting and beating back the Crimson Moon.
As for the Worm CYOA's Kaleidoscope? I can begin to feel right at my fingertips, right now, manipulating space and time in almost any manner that doesn't outright make the universe try to kill me is easily doable. Drawing alternate versions of people to fight under me? Still a long way to go.
I need to grow in this power, this is different from the calculation heavy True Magic from back then. This power is ingrained in my very being, independent from Prana, needing little to no energy other than my imagination.
At the same time, I could easily mess up if I'm not careful.
In any case, time to go do some heroics so I can get in some sexy time. I think the mood for sex is ruined quite a bit, but I can be imaginative.
Also, I went ahead and bitch slapped some scum into bloody chunks with my super strength. I did that when no one was looking and used magic to erase all evidence.
Heh! They expected a big blue boy scout but it was I! Tohru Adachi! Murder (former) Cop extraodinaire! Bitch please!
Ah, calm down! This is not the time to go on another power trip!
Adachi's Social Link:
Fool: 1/10, Discovering one's Fate
Jester: 4/10, Aqua
Fortune: 8/10, Iris
Star: 5/10, Yu Narukami
Strength: 9/10, Yashima
Priestess: 8/10, Akitsu
Hierophant: 5/10, Ryotaro Dojima
Justice: 3/10, Nanako Dojima
Lovers: 9/10, Minako Arisato
Death: 6/10, Miya Asama
Emperor: 1/10, Hyoubu Kyousuke
Moon (Dormant): 5/10, Ajimu Najimi