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Speech: "What"
Thoughts / Inner speech: 'What'
Speech in non-japanese language: "What"
Demonic/Distorted voices: "What"
Tiamat Speech: [What]
青竜帝 - SEIRYUUTEI
THE BLUE DRAGON EMPEROR
=CHAPTER 2=
=FILLERS OF INFANCY!=
= First Word Dramas… =
-Shidou Residence, Living room-
-Hiroshi 1 year old-
I got to say, while the the stages of infancy is infuriating for me due to the total lack of ability to do anything by myself as I am now; however if there is one thing I'm highly grateful about, is that I practically never get bored with a family and family friends like this!
"... Honey... You seriously need to stop sulking and get out of the corner, please. You're embarrassing us both!" Maria exasperatedly called out from her spot on the couch of Shidou residence's living room, as she massaged her temple with a thumb in a highly annoyed manner, while her other hand was wrapped around the now 11 month old Irina, who was currently seated over her mother's lap.
(Yup, this time it was our family's turn to visit the Shidous' humble adobe and also, yes, there even was that one holy sword, neatly placed over the racks above the fireplace in front of us, that Yuuto Kiba had managed to point out amongst the photos of Hyoudou family album.)
Meanwhile my father was seated by the kitchen table behind the counter across the room, feeding Issei (who's seated in a high chair) his share of baby food. That mushy stuff is horrible I tell ya, especially the meat-related baby food products! Anyhow, while dad was feeding Issei, he clearly took some special intake of amusement from seeing his friend's dismayed state.
Touji was currently facing the corner of the room, sitting in a fetal position with his head in between his knees and he had an actual rain cloud hovering and pouring over his head! (Note; at this point I've almost reached the point where I'm not even batting an eye at these illogical, physic breaking factors that just KEEPS popping up in this world...)
As for me; I'm comfortably seated on my rightful throne aka Haruna's Lap™ while watching these peasants putting up this comedy show in front of us.
Thy King is amused, do jest me more!
"My little Hime's(1) first words..." Touji mumbled in depression.
The reason for Touji-san's depression?
Weeeell, technically that would be me, if only due to the fact that his daughter's, Irina's first words just happens to be MY name, which filled me with odd sense of pride, flattery and finally smug satisfaction against Touji.
It went a little something like this-
-Earlier-
"Come on Irina~ say, Papa! Pa-pa" Touji urged on her daughter with an excited look, since at this point kids should start to learn their first words.
"Ba~ woh~" Irina cutely gurgled out.
"You're getting there darling! Pa-pa!"
"Hi~ Wo~"
"Huh?" Touji and Maria blinked
"Hiwoo~"
"Noooo" Touji lowly said.
"Hi~"
"No-no-nooo!" Touji started to panic.
"Hiwoshi~~!" Irina gleefully yelled out.
-Now-
And that specific moment had lead us here, ladies and gentlemen!
While she obviously couldn't really form out the R, but hell I will take it! Admittedly for her to even word out MY name was pretty damn impressive if you ask me. Not to mention I also find this a suitable payback at the Shidou patriarch for how he always seems to have a beef against me and my brother for, I quote: "trying to steal his daughter's affection"... Honestly that guy is not right in the head if he feels threatened by a pair of one year old infants...
Karma at its finest if ye ask me, hah!
"Touji. Get out of the corner. Now..." Maria repeated, and you could tell from her tone that she was getting less amused with each second.
"Don't wanna..." Touji whined back.
Seriously is this man TRYING to get his sorry, whipped ass murdered?
*Tick!* Uh oh... And judging the way how an angry vein mark just popped over Maria's right temple, her lips being set in a straight line and the way how her eye begun to twitch; she may just go through with the murder if Touji kept this up...
"Touuujiii~" Maria said her husband's name in overly sweet tone that promised pain if he didn't comply...
"It's comfy here..."
"Oh for the love of—! Touji! You're being a bigger baby than your own daughter!" She snapped.
"B-but that ruffian ruined our Hime's first words~!" The Shidou patriarch complained while swinging one of his fists back and forth.
"Touji-kun... The parents of that "ruffian" happens to be under the same roof right here, so we'd highly appreciate it if you didn't diss my son in our presence, lest you want a second scorned mother after your hide." Father warned out in a neutral manner, but there was a definite hint of warning there. And I could see Haruna nodding firmly in full agreement with her husband as she hugged me a bit tighter to herself protectively, while glaring at Touji for his choice of words.
"Babaah~" Ise gurgled out in complain, when dad ended up pulling the full spoon away from Ise, when he was just about to feed him in favor for Touji's attention. Noticing Ise's annoyed stare, dad gained a sheepish, yet apologetic look.
"Oh right, right. Forgive me lil' fella, here." Keisuke said playfully and slowly brought the spoonful of babyfood towards Ise, while making exaggerated plane sounds earning a delighted giggle from my twin as he opened his mouth in expectation.
I honestly have no idea why he is so eager for that stuff... As far as the food goes, in my past life I was considerably picky whenever it came to my choice of diet, but now I really have no choice but take it with grit teeth and a grain of salt, since babies of my age can't really eat much of anything else than mushy food that an infant can digest properly. It's also worth the mention that denying myself the essential nutrients in my childhood would only result in a stunted growth.
Speaking of growth... I really should think about my and Ise's future before the canon events starts. I wonder if I should pick myself some martial arts to train my body with? It could be worth the shot, but that shot may matter jack shit, if in the end it turns out that I lacked any kind of Sacred Gear to be of any use against the Supernatural... If it comes to that; my sole hope to take a part in canon events is if Sona Sitri takes a notice of me and is willing to take me into her Peerage. To my knowledge, quite a majority of Sona's Peerage members lacks a Gear and that she picks up people who she finds a great potential in. So if I played my cards right, I may get a spot in her group, since I'm sure as hell (no pun intended) that Rias would immediately dismiss my presence if I lacked a Gear, especially due to the certain Kentucky chicken dilemma she's suffering from at the time. Rias simply does not have the privilege to waste any of her Pieces on someone who may not be worth the investment... Rather disheartening thought, I admit...
But then again, I have a strong gut feeling that gunning for Sona's group would demand one thing out of me...
Intelligence, since I'm pretty confident that Sona would not exactly be keen on taking in people whose IQ is lower than her boot size... Which means more studying for me. Fuck... Definitely not going to look forward into that one, as I've never really been the fan of studying in the first place.
"Besides who the heck cries over a baby's first words, for God's sake!" Maria's voice brought me out of my musings of the future plans, but whatever she said turned my expression drier than a desert in an heartbeat.
In a further response over Maria's remark; both me and Haruna (in a perfect sync) craned our necks over to Maria's general direction and gave her our driest deadpan stare that screamed 'Hypocrite!'.
"W-what's with the look?" Maria asked nervously.
Both me and my mother raised one of our eyebrows in a taunting way, again at the same time (getting a rather disturbed look from her for how in sync the two of us were). "Why indeed..." Haruna sarcastically pointed out.
"Bah!" I gurgled out in an agreement.
"Huh?" Shidou matriarch blinked in confusion.
-Flashback-
-3 months ago-
"Wheeere is Aunt Marie~? Here she is!"
Siiiigh~... Really? Are we seriously going through this pattern again?
Yes, Maria is at it again! This time playing the classic "pika boo!" baby game, where she covers her face momentarily before revealing it with a silly face packed in... Why won't she go bother her own child instead of the one who simply doesn't give a damn!?
Honestly by now I'm rather heavily convinced of Maria being a bipolar individual. My solid reasoning for that is how she turns into this overly eccentric crazy (but all-in-all nice) lady, whenever she's dealing with children, but turns into something demonic whenever her husband acts out, meaning Touji being stupid in her presence...
Which unfortunately (for Touji) happens way more often than one would expect...
Anyhow back to my adversary who's once more hovering over me, but this time instead of a crib, my back was resting on a soft blanket, that was spread over the floor of the kid's (my and Ise's) room with Maria kneeling right by my stubby feet.
"Humuhh! You're one tough opponent to crack!" She stated in mock-ire, as she puffed up her right cheek like that of a chipmunk's, while crossing her arms and giving me contemplative mock glare, which I've gave one right back in response.
Haruna, who's seated in a wooden chair by the wall and gently rocking my sleeping twin in her arms; clearly had the expression of someone who is just barely holding back the amusement from showing as she once again got the front row seat on the show about Maria's persistent attempts to get the reaction out of me. "I'm honestly surprised you haven't given up by now. I mean it is clear that Hiro-chan isn't a baby who gets entertained by usual means." She reminded.
If there ever was a understanding mother; Haruna would DEFINITELY be it!
C'mon listen to my mom's advice woman and just let it— !
"Nevah~! I won't quit until I get him to laugh at least once!" She dramatically declared while pointing her right index finger towards the skies (read: roof).
... Persistant hag, tch...
"Aaah!? Haruna~ he even clicked a tongue at me~" Maria whined in half-hysterical manner.
Oh sh— I didn't mean to do that physically!
"Little Hiro hates me~~!" She cried out in dramatic manner.
I saw Haruna raising dubious eyebrow at our eccentric neighbor, but seemingly decided to humor the Shidou matriarch as she turned her gaze towards me, to which I gave her my most innocent look I could muster in response.
Just an innocent baby here, no one suspicious here~
We kept staring each other for a good couple of seconds, before Haruna merely snorted and rolled her eyes. "You are imagining things. He's barely over 9 months old and has yet to know what loathe even mean. Besides, babies don't even know how to click a tongue!"
I whistle to myself inwardly, she must not know...
Maria pouted and narrowed her eyes down at me. "I could've swore he— " Before she shrugged "Oh well." Then one of her hands reached behind her back to pull out... A pen and notepad? "Hmm, now to cross out 'Pika-boo' games off the list... Next thing written down is— "
My expression could make even oceans look dry right now... This woman had actually made herself a list on things to try out on me...
While admirable dedication, BUT again, for what has to be like a umpteenth time now; THAT. SHIT. IS. JUST— .
"Uzai wa!" (2)
I heard a loud gasp and then I noticed the women in the room were gaping down at me...
Crap, I said that out loud, didn't I?
To clear things up; I just frank up called her annoying just now... And to be fair, if you are decent enough with the language; japanese words rolls (or in this case slips) off the tongue way easier than it would in my original language.
"H-Hiroshi's first words..." Haruna muttered in shock.
Maria's expression on the other hand was priceless. But by the look of it she's one second away from—
-10 minutes later-
And that specific slip of my tongue had lead to a scene that could only be described as the face for insanity, since none of the shit in front of me made any sense whatsoever...
These were exasperated my thoughts as I stared at the ridiculous scene before me with the driest look I've ever manifested from my new spot in Haruna's arms, (who had picked me up, before she went after her friend) the latter possessing the same bemused expression as I did.
"Uwaaaaah~~!"
"Baaaaah~~!"
Mrs. Shidou was rocking in a fetal position in the corner of the Hyoudou residence's living room, bawling out with (literal) waterfalls for tears all the while she cradled equally crying Chibi-Irina against her chest for comfort.
Oh, also for the offhanded note; Mr. Shidou, (who has so far been hanging out with my dad downstairs, while taking care of Irina) had at one point rushed into the room hearing the cries of despair of his beloved, but since he was once again seen mimicking an ostrich in the middle of the room, you can pretty much take a guess that his attempts of appeasing his distressed wife had failed spectacularly... As ridiculous as it is; finding Touji's head planted inside a floor is starting to become a common occurrence whenever this specific couple is involved...
Which always brings me to these two questions;
How in the actual fuck is he still alive?
And how the hell does our insurance cover for the damages done to our house!? Since I'm pretty sure that insurance companies don't usually write down "faceplanted neighbors" into their contracts... Although I'm confident to say that the carpenter group who has been responsible for all the repairs done to our house needs a freaking raise...
It was also at this point I made it official... Sayo-fucking-nara all sense of normalcy and embrace the madness that is my current life...
-Flashback over-
-Back to Present-
"... I was going through a phase..." Was Maria's embarrassed response as she tried to find an excuse.
Mom deadpanned. "You go through a phase during puberty, you go through a phase during a period— " Ew... "And you go through a phase during pregnancy... Whatever sparked your lunacy back then sure ain't that..."
Maria pouted and averted her eyes with a blush. "Meanie..."
Teasing smirk formed over Haruna's lips. "But at least mentally behaved."
A tick mark found its way over Maria's temple. "What was that supposed to mean!?"
Mom begun whistle in a faux innocence, while looking towards opposite way from her friend, who only became more distressed by the second.
"Haruna~~!"
While the two were bickering back and forth; All of sudden absolutely brilliant (Read: evil) idea struck my being, something that I just found way too tempting to merely pass up. My facial features twisted into the expression akin to a cat that just ate the canary, as I shifted in my seat (Haruna's Lap™) slightly, so that I was facing chibi Irina, who was situated to my left on her own mother's lap.
"Iri? Iri~" I "cutely" called out to her, with a small wave of my arm. By now I've gotten a pretty good control over my speech despite my (physical) age, but even so I firmly believe that it would be for my best interests to express my words in a broken grammar whenever there's any onlookers present just so I appear more natural one year old. Call me paranoid, but I've read enough stories where exposing your intelligence during young age is NOT the best of ideas.
So that being said it is for the best to keep my true nature hidden to avoid any suspicions that could lead to unnecessary controversies, where I'm branded as either unnatural child or some kind of a genius. The latter of which I can assure you I most certainly am NOT. Showing some hints of tactful cleverness and mischief as a baby is fine every once in a while, but go overboard and you'll only receive the kind of attention that could be detrimental for my life. And it doesn't really help my case when you're family friends with Shidous, who already ARE aware of the supernatural with Touji being a motherfucking Exorcist, so if I act too unnatural in his eyes, he may think I'm some kind of possessed child... Which I technically am...
I already appear in the bad light with him enough as it is, so what I'm about to do next should be considered blatantly suicidal, but damn do I want to see that rigid old man squirm~!
Once I managed to get Irina's attention to me (along with our mothers who stopped their little squabble in favor of watching the spectacle with amused interest), who tilted her head sideways like some curious squirrel "Hiwo~?". Daww that made even me coo a little inside at her cuteness.
Anyhow, now that Irina's focus was solely locked on me; time to proceed with the phase 2 of my evil plan. I smirked devilishly and raised my right hand up to gesture the (literally) cornered Shidou patriarch by finger-pointing him, before I said a simple word loud and clear. "Aho~!"(3)
The silence that followed was palpable, but was soon broken by my parents, who begun to snicker uncontrollably. Mom tried to hide it behind her knuckles while Dad was having harder time judging by the way he's shaking and made his best attempts to avoid facing anyone. Maria on the other hand seemed to be stuck somewhere between amusement and bewilderment as she looked down at me with her eyes wide.
"Wha—!?" My smirk only widened, when I noticed the clearly scandalized look Touji had.
"A-ahoo~?" She parroted, rolling the word in her tongue, while looking at me for approval.
Feeling proud, I nodded. "Aho!" And confirmed with a toothless smile.
Irina looked at me for a couple of seconds before she shifted her gaze towards her, now slightly panicking, father. "Ahoo..."
"Iri-hime, darling? Please, for whatever is holy; don't listen to the whispers of that little Devil beside yo— !"
"Aho... Aho~!" And to my utter glee; Irina started to repeat the word like a broken recorder (or a parrot), all the while giggling and pointing at her father, who now looked like a sheet of paper and I could easily imagine the scene where his proverbial soul tries to escape through his mouth from the sheer shock. To think I'd manage to teach Irina her second words in her life and incite her to use it in insulting her own father by calling him an idiot.
*Sniff* I'm so proud!
Over the sidelines Keisuke nearly fell off his chair when he started to laugh his ass off.
Maria turned over to stare at Haruna. "Where does your son even pick up these things?" She inquired in a scandalous whisper.
Haruna shrugged helplessly. "In my honest opinion I'd say he got it from you... My little Hiro is an attentive child, after all."
"ME!? What in Lord's name gave you that impression!?" Shidou matriarch demanded in a scandalous tone.
"Mari... In case you've not been paying attention; you cuss at your husband a LOT within the hearing range of our kids..." Haruna dryly stated.
"Why I never— Name one day I've done that with children present!" She argued or at least tried to, since even I could smell the bullshit miles away...
"How about naming a day you haven't." Mom retorted.
Ouch! Holy damn mom, you're in a brutal roll today!
"..." As expected Maria couldn't find any comeback at that one.
Just another day with Hyoudou-Shidou families everyone!
.
TBC
AN - That's a wrap!
And thanks for everyone in your opinions and concepts for the Karma Gear's creation!
Below is the current build for it so any input on the following abilities are highly welcome as well, such as should I roll with them, scrap or re-design the concept on some of the abilities?
Chaos Karma Gear current build.
I can right up tell you that I suck with names, so if ye got any better names to offer for any current and future abilities I'm all ears.
Also since Chaos Karma Dragon is basically Tiamat's own title, so I thought it would be a tad bit too unoriginal to merely name her Gear as "Chaos Karma Gear", so I've been trying think of a different naming options for her Gear counterpart. So far I've come up with the following;
- Karmic Repelling Gear.
- Karma Counter Gear.
Opinions?
MAIN ABILITY (BASE FORM):
Karma Counter
Unlike with the other Dragon based Sacred Gear counterparts; Chaos Karma Gear's wielder has to take more defensive approach when it comes to the usage of the Gear's main ability "Counter".
This ability is based on the grounds of Instant Karma, namely reflecting any sort of damage back towards the enemy. The Counter move varies on how the attack is dealt to the Karma Gear's host, however each Counter has a 10 second cooldown.
(Also; what'd ya think? Should the Karma Gear's main ability's voice exclamation be "COUNTER!", "REPEL!", "RIPOSTE!", "REPULSE!" or something else?)
- Magical Variant
Attacking Karma Gear's host with a magical attack is far more risky than a physical one, since its ability to reflect any magical attack back to the offender two-fold, which is vastly similar to the Sacred Gear, Mirror Alice.
- Physical Variant
Whenever the Karma Gear's host is struck in melee combat; he/she can redirect the shock caused by the attack back to the attacker twice the original force (this has a change of breaking the limb of the attacker) or force the offending limb/object to a specific direction of Karma Gear wielder's choice. However this does NOT make the Karma Gear's wielder invulnerable. Since the ability requires manual activation at the host's mental command, so to utilize this ability at its highest efficiency; the host MUST have effective reflexes along with strong perception skills. For example, in case of a surprise attacks, where the host is caught unaware; (even with the Counter ability at ready) if the host doesn't react in time to activate the skill; the attack will get through.
BALANCE BREAKER (Chaos Karma Dragon Scale Mail):
Once the Balance Breaker is achieved; The base "Counter" ability evolves into far more powerful variants, "Chaos Zone" and "Karmic Barrier". However the evolved variants turns into channeled abilities with stronger drawback where they can be held active for 10 seconds, but the cooldown this time around will be twice the amount depending how long the ability was kept active for. Base forms of the Karma Counter can also NOT be used during the cooldown.
- Void Zone
Karma Gear's host deploys a magical sphere around him/herself to act as a metaphorical sponge to absorb all magical attacks on contact, and transferring that accumulated energy into the host's body for increased power. If the gathered power proves to be too much for the host to handle; this excess energy will burst out from the back plates in the form of ethereal energy wings.
- Karmic Barrier
This ability runs with the same basis as the "Chaos Zone", except this time instead of a sphere that only absorbs magical attacks; the Host forms an transparent energy barrier an inch above the Balance Breaker armor, which in turn will absorb and nullify any physical force received all the while increasing the power of the host. "Karmic Barrier" can also absorb minor magical attacks, but the barrier will be broken from the higher tier magical attacks (this of course depends entirely on the power gap between the Karma Gear's host and the enemy).
- Overdrive
Overdrive is a double-edged sword, that allows the Karma Gear's wielder to freely use all of his/her abilities and ignore the cooldown limitation rule entirely for a short period of time. However this move drains host's stamina greatly and could potentially harm the user badly if used carelessly.
SUB-ABILITIES:
- Zealot
Hiroshi takes a page from a game character of his original world, Protoss Zealots and reverse engineers their psionic wrist blades, but using dragonic energy as the substitute for the Psionics.
- Implosion
Works in a similar manner as Boosted Gear's "Explosion" ability, where the Karma Gear's host can choose to release all of the gathered Karma Energy in single explosive blast around the host. When Implosion is activated; the host draws all of the power gathered inside the Energy wings to be pulled back inside the wielder's body, creating a momentary gravitational field around him-/herself pulling surrounding objects towards the Karma Gear's wielder, then the wielder releases all of the accumulated energy around him-/herself in a single blast, causing everything within the gravity field to be pushed into the opposite direction with a tremendous force. Like with Boosted Gear's "Explosion"; using Implosion resets the wielder's power level back to the original state.
- Implosion Ray
Basically the same thing as the normal Implosion, except instead of an explosion; the wielder shoots out a destructive beam, that has its own gravitational pull, out of the armor's chest orb in front of the wielder.
- Presence Concealment
Tiamat was an expert in stealth skills despite being dragon, a trait which has carried over to her Sacred Gear. However while this sub-skill passively dampens the wielder's presence by some degree; full concealment on the other hand requires Tiamat's cooperation for it to be truly efficient, due to it being one of Tiamat's original skills.
TRUMP CARD:
- N/A
One of the Reviewers also asked for the Harem list; this is DXD story after all so Harem road is more or less obvious thing to go with.
Well while I do have my debatable candidates in mind, at the moment I still wish to keep the majority of them in secret~. :3
Although to give a few hints about Hiroshi's harem;
1) My main Harem plan will certainly have less than 10 girls (At least I try my hardest to keep it below that perimeter...) unless some monkey wrench is thrown into it... Although the members are pretty much decided by now, so I'm pretty confident there won't be any changes in the list.
2) It pretty much consists solely of brunettes and ravenettes.
3) At least 3 of the members are girls that are barely (if ever) used in any author's harems (at least to my knowledge). They're NOT OCs by the way.
.
Hiroshi harem list:
(Image in my profile)
- Irina [Confirmed!]
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
.
Issei harem list: (Yes, the horny bastard gets one as well xD)
(Though I'd say the majority of his Harem are pretty much canon members, but few of them are debatable.)
- Rias
- Koneko
- Xenovia
- Asia
- Ravel
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
- Secret!
(1) Hime = Princess
(2) Uzai wa = So Annoying
(3) Aho = Idiot/Moron