OreImo: My Little Sister Can't Be This Much of a Bitch

01

"When did you first notice?"

Shifting my gaze from the monitor in front of me, I turned to regard the other occupant of my bedroom. One bare foot kicked idly up and down, leaving pale calves and upper thighs exposed—the uniform skirt she wore having ridden up at some point, nearly to the point where her long, dark hair ended.

It was a dangerous—and tempting—sight, made even more so by the seemingly disinterested blue eye turned my direction. I knew better. Once you knew how to read her, Goko Ruri's 'disinterested' glances did more to broadcast her curiosity than hide it. She was much like her handle that way—Kuroneko, or 'black cat.' And like a cat, she liked to feign disinterest one moment and demand attention the next.

Of course, I was only distracting myself with thoughts along those lines to drag out answering. She knew I would answer eventually—it was only a question of how much she would have to prod to drag it out of me. She was far better at reading me than I was at reading her. Finally, I gave up any pretense of going back to the work I was doing and turned the seat to face her. I glanced at the lock I had installed on the bedroom door after one too many instances of Kirino—or worse, my mother—barging in without knocking. I considered getting up to lock it, but with everyone else gone for the night there wasn't much of a point. Ruri and I had the house to ourselves—which was a rarity in and of itself. Crossing my arms, I kicked one foot up on the bed and leaned back slightly, settling in for what would likely be a long story.

"So, you believe me now?"

Ruri hummed quietly, turning back to her book—very wordy porn disguised as a light novel—and in doing so, told me just how interested she was. That is, very. "No. It's outlandish—and I say this realizing the irony, given my own… proclivities towards outlandish things." As I shrugged and began to turn back to the computer, she tilted her head enough to look at me with both eyes. "However," she added, trying and failing to disguise the haste she had put into the word, "I would perhaps reconsider if you were to tell the story. I need evidence. We live in the internet age, now—and as the saying goes, 'pics or it didn't happen.' I am willing to lower the burden of proof."

"How gracious," I rolled my eyes. Blue eyes narrowed into a glare, locking with my own storm gray in challenge. "But I suppose I'll take what I can get." The girl on my bed gave me a look that clearly said 'get on with it.' "It's not a matter of noticing or not. It just always was."

Across from me, Ruri blinked. "So, no sudden change…?"

"No," I denied. "I've known for as long as I can remember—which is probably longer than most people. If I had to put an age on it though, I'd say I first became 'self aware' some time around when I was three. Well, this time."

"You just said—"

"I know what I said," I cut her off. "Do you remember when you were that age?" When she shook her head, I continued. "So, for all intents and purposes, for as long as I can remember."

Considering that, Ruri nodded. "And you remembered a past life?"

"Two. And something like that," I shrugged, uncomfortable talking about the subject. I'd been an atheist in that first so-called 'past life.' As far as I was concerned, you got one and only one life. Once you died, that was it. No heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, nothing but nothing. And then the world had to go and prove me wrong.

Twice.

"Explain."

Leave it to Ruri and her cat-like curiosity to just keep pawing away at my secrets. "There are some differences. For one, when I—"

"Died?" the part-time loli-goth supplied, and I nodded.

"Died," I agreed. "The first time, it was 2022. The second time, it was 2017." Ruri blinked twice. "It was obviously not either of those when I could string together enough thoughts to call myself a sentient human being. The first time, it was around 1988. This time—"

Doing some mental math, Ruri asked, "1995?"

"Summer of '95," I confirmed. "Anyway. Both times, once I got old enough to do so I borrowed a computer and set about looking for my other self—selves. Whatever. I figured I'd do myself a solid and give me a heads up a few years early of what to expect."

Frowning, Ruri shook her head. "But wouldn't that cause a Grandfather Paradox?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "I know every online thing I did at that age. I checked the old emails—nothing. None had been created. Checked social media, or what there was of it before it really became popular anyway. Nothing. Checked BBS, IRC, and other places. Not a damn thing. Dug deeper. The first time I reincarnated, I found my first family, but no me. At all. This time, it took a little longer to get access to a computer, mostly because I had to learn the language. Found my second family, but not my first. Didn't find myself, either."

"You're leaving something out," the girl deadpanned. I rolled my eyes and pulled out my cell phone. Opening it, I dug through my photos and found the one I was looking for. Ruri's phone chimed at the incoming message and she dug it out of her pocket. A moment later, she turned an amused look up at me. "You make a cute girl," she teased.

"Not really. I'd argue that without my specific circumstances, she's not me at all—she's simply the firstborn child of the people who were, in another life, my parents," I countered, before turning a rueful look on the girl grinning my way. "On the other hand, yeah, she's kind of hot in an 'attractive sister' way."

Ruri's lips twitched upwards into a smirk. "You would know all about that."

"Blow me," I shot back.

The smirk widened. "Careful. I may take that as an invitation."

"Empty promises," I rolled my eyes. "Back on topic: I'm about ninety-nine percent sure this is an alternate dimension to the one I was in, both times. A lot of my future knowledge has been invalidated, where people and events concerning people are concerned. The families of the mes that would have been, for instance, were a coin flip both times. But other things, events that can't be influenced by people, are the same."

"Hmm," the girl rolled over onto her back, regarding me upside down and sending her hair spilling onto the floor.

Despite being small, Ruri was not flat, and the position pulled her uniform tight enough to remind me of that. I knew damn well she did it on purpose, too—the tease. That was our routine, lately—ever since Kirino had left for America and Ruri had started attending my school. We had been spending more time together lately—usually at my house. We talked, we argued, bickered, fought, teased, and flirted with each other. There was a mutual attraction between us and we both knew it—hell, Saori, Ayase, and even Manami knew it—but neither of us had given give voice to it yet.

I was older than her, but it didn't exactly bother me. By Japanese law, both of us were legal. I wasn't going to count my time in other incarnations against myself here and, quite frankly, I didn't feel like an adult talking to a child or like I would be robbing the cradle if anything happened between us. I didn't bother to count the difference time travel made—it wasn't worth worrying about. As far as this world was concerned, everything that happened in my 'past lives' was a lucid dream on my part and I was as much a teenager as my peers. Just a bit more mature, and with a bit more hypothetical life experience.

"How did you die?"

Leave it to Kuroneko to skip the whole Japanese politeness routine and go straight for the throat when she wanted something. "The first time? In my sleep. Second time? I.E.D.," I shrugged. "Last thing I remember is some woman yelling and an explosion."

"Why would someone be yelling…?" she prompted.

"For a little backstory: the America of my second timeline, and their allies, had been fighting a proxy war with the Soviet Union over oil resources since the 1960's. The C.C.C.P. stepped in and teamed up with the U.S.S.R., so that proxy war stretched from Lebanon to the Chinese border, which was constantly moving west. I was born in Britain the second time. I joined up not really expecting to be deployed, because I went for a technical role to pay for college and because Britain wasn't committing a large number of troops. Yeah, no. Turns out, they rotated everyone through combat duty, as I found out. And my squad was deployed to some little mountain village pisshole in the middle of Tajikistan.

"We were patrolling the town and our Second Lieutenant turns right onto what passes for the main road. A Chinese truck with a mounted gun comes slamming to a stop on our front bumper just as we pass this little coffee shop. I've got my rifle out and up, already covering the threats and both sides are just kind of staring down each others' barrels, hoping no one shoots first and we can all just back away and pretend this never happened… When a fat woman in a burqa comes running out of the coffee shop. Turns out, she wasn't fat—she was strapped with enough explosives to take out my squad, our Humvee, the coffee shop, and the Chinese guys in the truck. I didn't think anything of her until she started shouting, since everyone in the coffee house scattered. We'd been told to be on the lookout for 'insurgents' because the locals were getting antsy to get the big powers to stop shooting up their towns, but we were too focused on the mounted gun in our faces to notice the suicide bomber."

Grinning a bit, I finished my story with, "I can learn from my mistakes. No joining any armed services for me, this time around. With my luck, this being Japan, something like a fucking gate to an alternate universe would open in the middle of Tokyo and I'd get caught up in the middle of whatever came out of it."

"Did it hurt?"

I blinked at that then shook my head. "Pretty sure my brain and the rest of me attached to it was vaporized faster than nerve conduction velocity. I don't remember any pain. Just a flash, then I woke up with a poopy diaper."

Ruri snorted softly at that. "So you have nothing nearer in time? Nothing that would stand out? Perhaps a virus that turns people into mindless zombies or something?"

"A few years. And no," I denied. "I fucking wish. There was a virus in the first timeline, but not the second. Nothing worth writing home about. I think I caught it, had a fever for a day one weekend, then went right back to work."

Crossing her arms under her breasts, and incidentally pushing what little there was up slightly, Ruri nodded. "You're crazy, then." I turned an annoyed look on her and she smiled back. "But that's fine. 'We're all mad here,'" she quoted, in English.

"Wait," I held up a hand. "There is one more thing. An incident specific to Japan, down to the time and place. I didn't want to bring it up because, well, there's nothing I can do about it. It happened both times."

Raising an eyebrow, the smaller girl asked, "What? The way you say it, it would have to be some sort of…" She blinked and her blue eyes went wide. "Tell me."

"March 11, 2011, 2:45 PM JST. Seventy klicks east of the Oshika Peninsula, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan will happen. This earthquake will trigger tsunamis up and down the east coast of Japan that rise upwards of 40 meters in Miyako and travel as far as 10 klicks inland. Over 15,000 people will die. One of the nuclear plants in the area may or may not go into meltdown and that may or may not become another natural disaster in and of itself, on par with Chernobyl. Well, no, you didn't have that here. But it could cause massive contamination of the Pacific and dump radiation into the food supply. It didn't really do much the first time, but the second time it got pretty bad. I think the reason it happened at all in both worlds, if they were alternate universes, is that while people and circumstances changed, geologically the Earth remained mostly the same. There was no butterfly big enough to change geological processes."

Closing her eyes, Ruri fell silent. I waited for a moment before she finally asked, "Will this disaster create Godzilla?"

I snorted softly. "No. Just a whole bunch of death and pollution. Like I said, wasn't even that bad the first time around. The second time, it was a whole lot worse because of the specific way in which things failed and maybe some minor changes in geography and location of the plant that went critical."

Pulling out her phone, she began tapping things in. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to wait a couple of years to see." Turning blue eyes on me, she sighed quietly and added, "And you're right. There is nothing you can do. If you try and it doesn't happen, you're just like every other nut preaching the end of the world. If it does happen, you'll either be taken in by the government and dissected in a lab to learn the secrets of your future sight, or you'll be lynched by an angry populace."

"I'd rather avoid both of those. You're the only one who knows about Miyagi. Let's keep it that way." Sighing, I turned back to my computer. "Right, back to work then," I muttered.

"Tell me a story," Ruri demanded, and I heard her shifting on the bed.

"What story do you want to hear?"

The younger girl was quiet for a long few moments before answering, "Tell me about Kirino."

I snorted softly. "What about her?"

If I had expected her to ask me something along the lines of why Kirino liked the things she did, I was mistaken. Leave it to Ruri to go for the difficult subject. "Why do the two of you treat each other as you do? You're like…"

"Cats and dogs?" I asked, turning to raise an eyebrow at her. The smaller girl nodded and I smirked. "Because I don't put up with her shit. There are limits to what I'll tolerate and she knows it, but she's the sort who has to always test that. You tell her not to touch the stove and she has to get burned to figure it out for herself—then wants an occasional reminder, because she likes playing with fire and hates being told what to do."

"I think your metaphor wandered."

"Shut up," I chuckled. "I'm telling this story. Or do you want me to stop?" I asked, and she shook her head. "Thought not. I think the biggest change was after the accident."

"What accident?" Ruri asked.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "There was a hiking accident a few years back. I had a friend whose parents decided to move after the accident—probably because I forged their signatures to get Akimi there and they were pissed that she was upset by what she saw. Kirino was fine. A little bruised, but otherwise okay. Akimi was fine. Manami's leg got broken and I carried her down the mountain. At the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that I checked all of them over, evaluated the situation, and took care of the worst injury first. Manami was…" In my debt. Mine for life. My wife in all but name, my mind supplied all of the things she and her family had occasionally said over the years following that event.

Ruri nodded. She had met Manami and the pair got along well on the surface, but I could see the jealousy there in Ruri's eyes occasionally. Manami, strangely enough, didn't feel that way at all. I had asked her once and her answer had been to smile and say that she didn't feel like competing with Ruri for what they both wanted.

I was still trying to figure that girl out. Even if she felt like she owed me, that was no reason to… act as she did.

"And I take it Kirino felt spurned that her onii-chan didn't see to her above all others."

"Pretty much," I deadpanned. "We grew apart from there. We both got jobs, though somehow we managed to keep them secret from each other. I made friends with you and Saori, so she's always sort of resented the fact that you were always my friends first. Then there was the nut-shot." Ruri raised an eyebrow at that. "She kicked me in the balls one night as we were going to bed. I don't know what I said or did to set her off. She was storming off and I told her that was her one freebie and next time she took a shot at me, I'd return fire. Kirino being Kirino, she took that as a challenge and attempted to punt me in the dick as soon as I got to my feet. I trapped her leg between mine and punched her in the cunt."

Ruri winced, hissing quietly in sympathetic pain. "I take it that went over well."

"Like a lead balloon. As soon as she could stand, she went crying to mom and dad. They were pissed, until I explained that it was the second time she'd tried it in a row, that I'd warned her not to, and that I didn't really feel like getting sterilized before I'd had a chance to produce offspring. That shut mom up and put her on my side and dad folded like a house of cards. Kirino being Kirino, she occasionally tries it again when she thinks I'm not expecting it—except I'm always expecting it now. Pretty sure she took up martial arts for a while just so she could kick better. She's about even on successes given her habit of using sneak attacks, but I always get her back."

"Then why do you still go to the lengths you do for her?"

I turned an amused look on the younger girl. "Because while she's a violent, antagonistic, egotistical, self-centered, narcissistic bitch she's still my sister."

"I'm surprised you didn't take advantage of the 'eroge' situation. You never did explain how that all started."

"Ah, well. You see, what had happened was…"