The following is a fan-based

FICTION

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Chapter 3: The Odd Girl (3)

~Casey's POV~

While I had prepared myself to face quite the insane week when I first stepped inside my office, I wasn't certainly expecting stuff to happen so early in this school session and without major notice.

Once I had bid a good day to both Mea and Momo, I proceeded to march straight for my desk to begin the signing of the not-so glorious stack of paper and ink that that was so dreadfully calling for my name.

Nemesis was here settling in her own desk as she started to unravel the book that she had left yesterday so that she could continue right from where she had stopped.

It had been a surprise to realize how the young woman had deemed not only necessary but also mandatory for her to gain some knowledge over the topics I was supposed to deal with thorough the rest of the day.

In her mind, by obtaining the proper understanding of this subject, she was slowly becoming capable of helping around with the paperwork and thus reducing the worktime I was supposed to face here on my own.

Quite a lovely effort that I would frequently praise her about, but also one that I had tried so many times now to dissuade her from pursuing for good reasons.

Not only couldn't I cut time after finishing the paperwork, but I was quite sure that from a legal standpoint I shouldn't have been even asking her for advice over some of the important matters highlighted by the various documents waiting for confirmation or rejection.

A behavior that was surely connected to the conversation I had with Mea earlier that morning, maybe being the catalyst behind this incredibly-difficult escalation not even now I feel ready to face.

The tanned Transweapon had barely mentioned some interest over meeting my parents and I was sure her fascination stemmed from the fact that she wanted to know what kind of sensation was to have a larger family.

An official one that would solidify the sense of normality that had slowly fallen over Sainan City.

While there were still the usual scenes created by Rito's bad luck and the other girls trying to capture his attention and love even during the school break, the frequency and the intensity had somehow started to dwindle a tad bit compared to how it was back during my first week here.

The principal cause behind this development being the fact that the orange-haired young man had slowly started to grow a little more assertive about the bad luck he had.

The young man had slowly but steadily avoided the happening of some awkward predicaments that would have seen him normally labeled as a pervert, this change actually ending up worsening the already-complicated romantic life he was forced to deal with.

While his stance over his love directed at Lala and Haruna had disheartened some of the pursuers, none had yet showed any interest in pulling away from that 'mad chase'.

Actually, I was fairly sure that the recent change about this part of his life had given Rito a more mature edge that many of the girls found to be highly-attractive and major reason to continue in trying to get in a serious relationship with him.

I was wary about it all as usual, mindful that some of the issues born from the young man were actually beyond his control, sometimes even going over my capacity to predict these new situations.

And that it was why I felt that it was a must to at least try to solve those before they escalated way beyond my chances of intervening about those instances.

After concluding about a third of the towering stack of paper that required my utmost attention, I decided to take a brief break as I glanced to the side and… noticed quite the interesting sight.

Nemesis was carefully scribbling down what could be described as a mix of doodles and notes about the book she was reading, a focused stare directed at the sentences printed upon the paper as she silently read through the entire tome.

I blinked once, then twice.

Finally, I realized that my breathing had grown softer at the scene as my mesmerized state of mind had left awed over the dedication that was being displayed by the tanned girl.

The Transweapon had yet to notice my stare as she was mustering her full concentration in her self-study of the book in front of her.

It was a legitimate and serious attempt that once again got me a little uneasy as I knew that it wouldn't have done much over my time spent here in this office.

…

Yet I felt like I could have taken a little early leave once or twice every week to give her some more time to share together.

I was aware of the fact that she was always bored of 'wasting' time in this place, but the incredible interest in keeping up with my burden was enough to make me consider making her wish come at least partially true.

It was going to take some math to get the schedule to best fit with this development, but I was certain that it was possible to give it a try and see if it worked well with any future plans.

Yawning a little, I finally ended up catching Nemesis' attention away from that book.

Golden eyes stopped to look at my face, a calm expression on her face before a small smile appeared on it.

"Do you need some help?" The mirthfully-given query was met with a sigh as I stretched a little before answering.

"I was actually thinking of taking a pause once I got more than half of the workload done," I suggested with a quiet but giddy tone. "I was thinking about spending a little more than half an hour wandering the school with you."

She blinked, a little surprised by the offer but quickly showing appreciation at what sounded to her like an interesting proposition.

"Is there any particular reason behind this or-"

"Just wanted to spend some time with you," I interrupted with a small smile. "I reckon that it's been a while since we have gone for some walking around the halls of the school. It would be like we are patrolling."

The girl hummed. "It would be interesting to see how things are going today, especially since I want to know how is Mikan doing today."

I blinked at this, a little surprised by that topic as I had indeed forgotten to check and see how the brunette was doing today.

While yesterday had formally been the first day for her at the high school, it was best to keep a close watch on her until I was sure that nothing bad could happen to her during her stay at the school.

Rito was someone that was old and smart enough to avoid falling into some deep holes with the issues that had besieged him and were still creating him quite the hassles.

But his sister was still someone with little preparation to what truly Sainan was and it was only for the best to make sure she was safe and sound in these first few days.

Just as I concluded this little thought over the youngest of the Yuuki siblings, our attention was suddenly shifted to the door as someone opened it abruptly.

Yui Kotegawa looked slightly winded from what seemed to have been a marathon to reach the office and, just as her breathing started to normalize, I saw her looking incredibly angry and ready to pummel someone.

Why is she looking at me like that?

"Headmaster, Mikado-sensei has requested your immediate presence for some concerning developments," The young woman stated with a tense but tight voice, devoid of the usual warmth that she would use while speaking with me, formally and not.

I was partly surprised by this unexpected behavior, yet I quietly nodded before standing up.

Nemesis followed my example just a moment later, taking the lead towards the single entrance that led out of the room.

But before I could step outside my office, Yui suddenly got hold of my collar and held me still for a moment before speaking again.

"I-I can't believe that you- you sounded so-"

The girl didn't conclude any of the two sentences as she let go of me, yet the mere note of distrust in both was more than enough to get my worries rising at the confusing predicament I was facing.

Even the tanned young woman beside me seemed perplexed by this unexpected situation and the issue born from that odd behavior, but she didn't pause in her walk directed to the infirmary ward where the issue was originating from.

I paced closely behind her, keeping some uneasy silence as we turned numerous corners.

The transweapon was silent herself, but her tense posture hinted that she had in fact felt something wrong now that we were out of the office.

Something that had managed to get her this much nervous and unnerved at the same time.

I didn't have enough time to wander in my thoughts over the matter that we found ourselves stopping by in front the door that led inside the hospital ward.

For some reason, the young woman merely made way so that I could be the one entering instead of continuing with her lead.

I was a little bit afraid of why she would do something like this, as if there was something wrong on the other side.

I felt like I needed to brace for some trap.

But just as I concluded this brief consideration, I went to knock at the surface of the door.

"Mikado-san, this is principal Mortimer and-"

"Please enter, Casey-kun."

The red-haired nurse's voice was surprisingly calm and actually at ease despite the previous clues indicating quite the issue happening within the room.

Still, I decided to comply to the permission, waiting no longer as I entered inside the infirmary ward with a guarded stance.

Just as I stepped inside and got a proper glimpse of what was happening inside the place, I was forced to tense up at the scene that I was presented with.

Mikan looked to be fine as she glanced at us with some minor surprise from her little seat.

Her eyes went wide open, but she seemed to calm down almost as quickly as she had tensed up as she recognized who just entered the hospital ward.

It was in that very moment that I noticed that she was continuing with the little activity of keeping her arm over the shoulders of the little girl that leaning on her shoulder..

I went still at the fact that the child herself was the kimono-wearing girl that had appeared during the initiation ceremony that had happened yesterday.

She looked distracted and seemingly unaware of the new arrivals to her proximity, her eyes giving more attention at the little bandage wrapped around her left hand.

Both were sitting by one of the many unoccupied beds within the large room while Mikado was checking something by her computer, glancing away from the device to look as Nemesis and I properly walked inside the room.

"Casey-kun, Nemesis-chan," The woman greeted with a quiet voice. "I hope that Kotegawa-san's little misunderstanding didn't cause you any panic attack-"

"Misunderstanding?" I interrupted with a frown. "She was literally loathing me for no apparent reason."

My little response finally brought the little girl beside the brunette to tense up and glance right to where I was.

I was once again subjected to the fascinated glance coming from her bright orbs, almost mesmerized by the familiar-shaded eyes and their intense emotional glimpse behind them.

"Considering what she had ended up assuming with the first analysis I got from this child's blood, I can see why she would be quite infuriated about it all… maybe just a little."

The admittance from the redhead was enough to warrant confusion from both me and Nemesis, but soon we were granted some more insight over the matter.

"Yuuki-chan has been quite swift in bringing this lovely girl to the infirmary since she was sporting a little injury by her palm that could have been caused by a bad interaction with a dog," The woman stated and Mikan's nod confirmed this summary. "I was trying to get the wound treated properly, but I noticed during the process that the cut itself was closing up with a pace much faster than mere humans."

I blinked. "So you thought that she was an alien."

"Correct," The redhead said with a small smile. "And my quick study confirmed two interesting details about her."

I glanced once again at the little kid, once again distracted by poking softly at the soft texture of the bandage with her undamaged hand.

"The first surprise was that she… is related to you Casey."

My neck almost snapped because of how quickly I had turned my stare back at the nurse.

I was shocked, tensing up immensely at this revelation as I tried to make sense of these words.

"W-What?"

"This child's DNA contains a high compatibility with your own DNA," The woman explained a little more in detail.

"But I don't have any relative that-"

"The thing is that she is… very compatible to you," Mikado continued while ignoring my nervous words, forcing me to pause as to listen to her. "Enough that I could certainly say that… she is your daughter."

While I had braced myself to face quite the newest development, one that would have seen me panic even more than now, I had been completely surprised when the woman dropped this truth bond.

My jaws almost dropped to the floor at the unexpected discovery while my face started to pale to a sickly-white shade.

"W-What? What do you- you mean?" I stuttered, shock riddling my capacity to express myself in coherent sentences.

"This little sweetheart is your daughter, Casey Mortimer and-"

"What is the second discovery?" Nemesis' voice cut sharply through the tense veil established by that revelation, urging me to glance at her in slight-fear when-

I felt her lips pressing on my right cheek.

"Of course I know that you didn't cheat on me, dummy," The young woman huffed while retreating away from my face, a mirthful smirk on her face. "You seriously think I wouldn't have known if you were having an affair?"

I paused at her words, remembering just now that she had in several occasions read into my mind and… oh.

"I'm-"

"A dummy," She concluded giddily. "But while I think I will have to tease you about this later, we have quite the important topic to unravel here. Right, Mikado-san?"

The redhead's smile tensed a little at the icy edge at the end of that question, her green eyes glancing away as she prepared to deliver the last truth bomb.

"While I did find this correlation between Casey-kun and the child… there is also the fact that I discovered how she is healing so quickly."

Nemesis didn't let her continue as she glanced at the little girl, the child staring back at her and… I finally realized what was going on the moment my attention was now on the two.

Their eyes… they were the same color.

"She is my daughter too," The tanned transweapon guessed with some confidence, sighing as she noticed Mikado nodding at her. "But how is it possible that she is here if-"

"Time travel is a possibility considering her age," The nurse interrupted curtly. "I would also avoid excluding some other project commissioned by people formerly working to create Transweapon, but this latter theory is far more difficult to verify and… it just sounds a little difficult to match up with the current whereabouts of this child."

I gave a slow nod at this. "It wouldn't make sense for any scientists to also use my DNA in the creation of another… Nemesis."

I had my hand wrap around the tanned girl's finger, giving her a little comforting squeeze before smiling as I felt a squeeze from her in return.

"It would be also foolish for any 'smart guy' to leave their newest weapon on the loose so suddenly and without any directive," The young woman agreed with a slightly-tense voice. "She is far too calm and… at ease to be under some conditioning."

"That is why I think it might be something connected to dimensional hopping or time traveling," Mikado mused with a tired sigh. "But there are very few means to verify if this is the case or not and the machine required for this particular task would take months to produce any results to either confirm this theory or not."

We both nodded at her explanation, but my eyes turned one last time to see the girl and the child glanced right up at me as I silently started to make my way towards her and Mikan, the brunette was calm about this sudden action and I didn't see any strange change coming from the younger female.

The discussion was over, or at least I was done with talking about this kind of stuff as I felt the sudden urge to approach this little frightened child.

My child. Casey Mortimer's daughter.

The mere thought got my chest in a tight squeeze, my eyes softening in a caring manner as I stopped right in front of her and slowly crouched to her eye-level.

A small smile was on my face and… I spoke.

"Hello."

…

The little girl didn't respond, nor she seemed interest to even consider much my word as she continued to stare right up to my eyes.

"I… understand that you are a little unwilling to speak, sweetie," I continued with a kind voice. "But I can promise you that you are safe here and no one will hurt you."

My verbal approach seemed quite ineffective as she kept quiet even after the little guarantee I just vouched to her.

With this first effort concluding in a bust, I decided to try my hand to something a little more direct.

It was a mere guess, nothing of concrete that I knew would have worked in this situation, yet I decided to test one of the few things I knew that Nemesis loved to be subjected with during our free time spent together.

My left hand hovered over the child's head, her eyes instantly fixed on the palm as it carefully settled atop of her hair and… I started to caress her.

She was a little tense, but her guard melted away in mere instants and her eyelids dropped to a half-shut display.

"We are not going to hurt you, sweetie," I said once more, this time my tone adopting a softer and sleepier note. "There is no need to be afraid."

The little girl started to hum, imitating a noise similar to a cat's purring as she still avoided replying to my comments.

"Do you want to get in my arms, honey?" I pressed on a little more. "I see that you are sleepy and… Papa wants to make sure you get a little more comfy."

Her eyes turned to focus onto my face and… she gave a slow nod with a follow-up in the form of a cute yawn.

Mikan moved a little, enough for my hands to carefully reach for the kid's waist so I could pull her in my arms.

I was mindful of not yanking her so suddenly from the bed as I quietly drew the dark-haired child close enough so that she could settle her head by my chest.

She yawned again and I felt her heartbeat, causing me to tense a little while she softly latched onto me.

I waited some moments, the quietness of the room helping me the best to properly reorganize my scrambled thoughts over the matter.

This little girl, this peacefully-sleeping child that was now resting in my arms and looked so tiny there, was my daughter.

I blinked, nervousness rising at the realization of how much frail she also looked in my not-so feeble limbs.

Oh God, am I going to hurt her if I'm this rigid? I don't want to hurt her and-

A soft giggle broke through the quiet veil that had fallen over the infirmary and I saw a certain tanned young woman peeking over my shoulder with a delightful smile.

"So, how is it going for you, Papa?"

I restrained myself from blushing as… this didn't felt embarrassing.

Quite the contrary, if I had to be honest it actually felt as a prideful title to listen to.

I was a father and…

Oh God, I'm a father!

"Now, now, there is no need to be tense," Nemesis continued with a smooth voice. "Look at how cute she looks there..."

A little pout settled on her face.

"I'm quite irritated that I hadn't been the one to move first," She admitted with a sigh. "I would have wanted to hold her by now."

I sighed and provided her with a peaceful smile. "When she wakes up, you can ask her if she wants to."

The offer was met with a quick nod from the transweapon, but before we could continue with the conversation, I realized that there was a certain brunette looking at scene with some awkward fascination.

"Mikan, I will of course write something that will explain the first lesson you have lost," I assured to the girl, the student smiling nervously but giving a nod back to me. "I think the one that should validate the procedure is Kotegawa and-"

I froze a little in cold realization that there was actually still an open issue in this curious situation and… I was slowly thinking of the ramifications this little problem was going to cause the more it was left unaddressed.

"Uh, Mikado-san," I said while giving a nervous look at the red-haired nurse. "is the little 'misunderstanding' that Kotegawa-san might be thinking is the truth… perhaps connected to some alleged affair I might have committed?"

The woman blinked, looking a little sheepish as she tried to reply to this query-

SLAM!

Only for the door of the infirmary to be furiously opened by a large group of people waiting outside of it.

The one that opened it was a certain red-haired Transweapon that had her wide blue eyes narrowed at me in utter shock, her sight darting between my face and the still-sleeping child in my arms.

Momo was staring at the situation with a confused look just behind the redhead, her pink eyes sporting several thoughts that were trying to explain how it was possible that I had a child.

Beside the pinkette, Yami was giving me an interested look but overall appearing quite calm over the matter.

I could see a surprised Rito, Lala, Nana, Haruna and… other students all reunited in the corridor outside the infirmary.

D-Did Kotegawa just mobilize half of Sainan High?

Before I had the chance to give some explanation, Mea decided to finally break away from her shock-induced frozen state.

Her lips parted and her whole body was vibrating in a mix of giddiness and confusion, bringing some stuttered response over what she was looking at.

"C-Cas-nii, you- you are a father!?"

From this very exclamation, chaos would then explode and the noise would force me to carefully make sure that the child in my hold was left untouched by the sudden sounds coming from the entrance.

I was paling once again, especially with the sight of Momo glancing at the kimono-wearing kid while patting a little above her stomach.

Goddammit Kotegawa, I can't do this again!

AN

Oh my goooooo-d!

Casey is a Papa and… you know what that means?

Dad Jokes?

Dad Jo- Wait, why are you here, Ambar?

Just trying to pull a quick shameless plug. I reckon that the series that inspired this story is pretty much close to another story you are currently writing.

I… I guess I can do that, Ambar.

Okay, some quick plug is a must since I've noticed a parallel between To Love Ru and Learning: Affection.

While there is no 'Ecchi' element within the story, its main theme is school… or rather, University.

The Series is from 'Las Lindas' a webcomic that some might have ended up finding after some wild search in the internet and if you prefer the kind of stuff with 'fur' and some dramatic predicament, please be my guest about it.

For visual help, I would also suggest checking the Forums pages for the story (it is in both SV and SB) as there is an introduction page with the portraits of the various characters.

I think we are done here… I leave you back to your little AN.

…And she is gone. Seriously, I need to find a way to predict her coming in my stuff and- Oh right, back on the plot.

So we have the secret unveiled… but not truly. There is just so much that is yet to be known about the child, like her name and how old she is.

Any guesses?

P a treon . com (slash) socialistbukharin

k o-fi . com (slash) justbukharin

REVIEW Q&A!

Genderbend: Quoting an adorable character: "Justice will be swift, justice will be painful. It will be delicious~!"

Yusaku: Little kimono-wearing girl: I will ruin papa's life… with cuddles. XD

Halo: He would be confused, immensely shocked and unsure of what truly think about it. At 15 he was still stuck in his puberty and to consider the fact that in the future he would end up in one of the main examples of Ecchi Anime, he would surely feel a little bit… eager for this to happen.