Trux-Killer: So this guy just came in as a baby and man I feel like an asswipe for sorta reading his fast or 'fast reading' for this so, again sorry
*Hmmmm so this guy just got born and soon his whole life might be watched by Clank, hehehe just like his father
Re: Not a baby; a prepubescent coma patient. Niche, but still a staple of the Isekai genre. "Fever" just felt a bit over-done.
As for you fast-reading… I have no right to throw stones, I tend to do the same thing on the "dry" sections of "Another World"-esque stories. Still, that you took the time to read and Review this rather Niche story, I appreciate the sentiment at all.
LoamyCoffee: Hmm, so knowledge chapter. Along with learning our MC's new name. interesting choice. I look forward to their possible freakout~
Re: Oh trust me, "Takei" is definitely going to freak out. He isn't as-unflappable as most Isekai protags.
Not by a long shot.
Vandenbz: I'm curious if Takei will end up converting into a full-fledged Lombax in the end with his hair being only the first alteration. Ratchet had a wrench, Rivet a hammer, maybe Takei will get some sort of screwdriver to wield like a sword?
Re: No "Lombaxicization" here. Clank's work with the Intelligent Philote (that used to inhabit the flesh-and-blood body that was once "mine") in question was to "bind" it to the new body like glue, not "converting Diesel to Electrical." And trust me, between his Commando Training and lightspeed feats, he is infinitely more-impressive than diesel.
An over-sized screwdriver to wield like a sword... Now that sounds interesting, I'll have to give it some thought~
*AHA*
I suddenly jolt awake, out of what I think is a nightmare about getting hit by a freight train dropped from orbit made of sheer nothingness, and my body spasms all over like I hit the gym too hard in too short a period after being in quarantine. The machines around me are beeping and squealing loudly, there are needles stabbed into the joint of my elbows, and the room is unbearably bright. My body won't move like I want it to, and I'm flailing against all sorts of wires and electrodes and tubes stuck to my skin and into my body.
In summary; I'M WIGGING OUT!
Oh, and did I forget to mention the plastic tube snaking down my throat that I'm currently retching and gagging to death on like a Facehugger's... junk? Because it feels like I'm retching and gagging to death on this thing!
Also… WHAT THE HELL is up my ASS!? And is that a CATHETER?!
Before I can reach up and pull the thing out, the door on the other side of the room from me opens up with a loud *BANG!*, an incredibly-beautiful woman with a shapely hourglass figure, raven colored hair, and a single beautiful eye a lovely shade of gold comes barging in, her eye going every which way before landing on mine.
It takes me a moment to realize she doesn't have an eye missing, she only has the one eye, dominating the upper part of her face. Part of me wants to be freaked out by that, but another part of me, the part that I feel like I'm swimming in, is telling me there's nothing weird or unusual about a cyclopean nurse.
What the hell is happening to my brain?!
"Oh my god! You're awake!" the woman gasped, her big golden eye blinking rapidly before it shifted into a pretty shade of pink, large wet tears forming at the bottom of her single eye. "I… I knew you'd wake up…" she said happily. "I just-"
It took another instant for her to recognize I was flailing about, the needle in my elbow starting to sting as it brushed against the inside of my vein, though I can't help myself.
Like I said, I'm wigging out.
"Ah! Wait! Stop moving please!" she cried as her eye blinked to yellow and she threw herself atop me, her voluminous… bosom, pressing into a torso I don't remember being that small, delicate hands grasping onto my biceps and elbows pressing my forearms down.
I want to say something; ask where the hell I am, what happened to me, amongst a million other questions, but all I can get out is-
"AAK! GLUUUGH! RETCHHHH!"
"SHHHhhh! Shshshshshshshsh…!" the beautiful cyclops cooed hastily, yet soothingly, as she leaned in and started stroking my hair and cheeks, looking me directly in the eyes with her own. "It's okay! It's okay, Takei-kun! You're going to be okay!"
Takei?
Who the hell is that?
Is that… me…?
I don't think it's me, and yet the part of my brain I feel like I'm swimming in is telling me it is "me".
Why did I think "me" with big quotation marks?
Something about her voice sounds familiar, though I can't place it, and yet, she's having an effect on me, calming down when I should be the farthest thing from.
Though she does have "a rockin' bod", with the way she carries herself, she's more "cute" than "sexy".
"Takei-kun, I'm going to put you back to sleep for a little while. JUST A WHILE!" she amended hastily when I started to freak out at the thought of going back to sleep; a sleep I seemed deathly afraid of, one that felt like it'd lasted forever. "Just long-enough to get those nasty tubes and wires and needles out of you. I'll be here for you when you wake up, okay?"
Something else I'm starting to notice as this haze goes away… She clearly isn't speaking English, yet I can understand every word of it, like there are subtitles only my ears can perceive… For some reason I remember there's a distinction between "English" and… whatever it is she's speaking…
Blinking a couple of times as I collect myself, I can only nod my head, my fecal matter sufficiently-less-misplaced than it had been moments before as I stopped writhing beneath her.
"That's my little Hero," she smiled beatifically, and for some reason, I can almost hear that that word is in Proper Tense. "Don't worry, I'll be here for you when you wake up. Doesn't that sound nice?" she asked as her hand went over to one of the nearby machines.
I nod my head, and then everything starts to go black as what I assume is anesthetic enters my veins.
*AHA*
The next time I awake, true to her word, this "Hitomi" if her nametag is any indicator, is sitting at my bedside. All the needles, tubes, and wires are gone, my elbows are bandaged, but my mouth and… other orifices, feel sore like something's been taken out of them that's been there for a very long time.
"Oh, you're awake," the beautiful cyclops says, smiling my way. "I have to say, you're looking better already."
"Hi… to… mi…?" I blink, my voice dry and raspy, as though I hadn't used it in a long time.
Though that might've just been the breathing tube down my throat…
"Yes, that's right!" she smiled. "I'm your nurse, Hitomi. I've been taking care of you since…"
"Si… nce… wha… t…?" I rasp before coughing loudly.
"Oh dear…" Hitomi says as she goes over to me, raising a glass of water to my lips.
Some of it dribbles down my chin, but I can't bring myself to care. My body hurts too much to worry about something like… what's the word? Dignity?
Yes, dignity.
"You… don't remember… everything?" she questioned.
"Head… fuzzy… like… fog…" I manage, as every time I look inward, all I feel is how scrambled my brain is, one set of memories contradicting with another, both of them with more holes than Swiss cheese.
Even in my coma-addled state, even I can tell that's not normal.
Normal like a nurse with one eye?
Yes. Normal like a nurse with one eye.
…right?
"I see…" Hitomi nodded, taking my hand and stroking it. "Well, don't you worry about a thing. We'll get you all better."
I feel my face heating up from all this pampering, but at the same time I feel like I'm wearing a skinsuit three sizes too small and that my body didn't get a very important memo…
*AHA*
"AAAAHHHHHHHH! WERWOOOOOOLF!"
-is what I screamed when a giant hound-like man with a darkened star-shaped pattern and two horns on his forehead came into the room.
I also might've rolled out of my bed and onto the floor landing on limbs that felt too thin and too short, but like the saying goes; fuck dignity.
"He really doesn't remember anything, huh?" the giant wolf-man asked.
"No, I'm afraid not," Hitomi returned as she lifted me up like I weighed next to nothing, laying me down on the bed and throwing the covers back over my legs.
As she does this, I see the ends of my toes for the first time, and I know that they're too-close to my body.
Come to think of it, it's the same with my fingers, and my waist is closer to my head than I remember it being…
Seriously, what the hell happened to me? Or did anything happen at all?
Aagh! Stupid brain! Get your shit together!
"Why don't you come back in a minute. I'll get him caught up to speed."
"Okay," the giant man-wolf returned with a nod, though I could just feel my "werewolf" comment had upset him.
"Takei-kun, I know this is all going to sound strange, but I need you to bear with me," Hitomi said as her pretty pink eye looked into my own. "Everything I'm about to say is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; okay?"
I could only dumbly nod, my mouth going dry, and not because I was still recovering from a plastic tube down my throat.
*AHA*
Quirks…?
Superpowers…?
Eighty percent…?
"That's right," Hitomi nodded, glad I was catching on.
Oh shit was I thinking that out loud?
"My Quirk lets me change the color of my eye," she said blinking her large beautiful orb, her pink iris changing colors as she made different expressions ranging from happy to sad to angry to scared. "When I get drunk I can also fire lasers! Pewpewpew!" she says excitedly before her cheeks turn a dark shade of red. "Though… that might just be the alcohol…" she said as her eyes darted between me and anywhere else in the room, as though she'd admitted something shameful.
"So these… Quirks…" I say rolling the word on my tongue.
It feels foreign, like I've never used it as a Proper Noun before, yet it comes to me so-naturally I must've always used it in the Proper Tense.
Damn you, brain. Make up your damn mind! I'm either familiar with it or I'm not!
"I… have one of them…?" I blink, trying to shake some of the fog out of my head. It isn't that my head hurts or anything, it's just… I feel like someone threw an invisible ghost blanket over my brain… Or I climbed into a newer model of car made by the same company that I also own -the car, not the company- but there's fries and random crap under the seats and in the glovebox I don't remember putting there, but I was the only one who could've put them there.
"Well, you should, but the Villain that attacked you-"
"Nurse Hitomi, I think that's quite enough."
I turn my eyes away from the pretty nurse to see a stern-looking doctor come into the room, back straight, shoulders stiff, and… Is that a head mirror growing out of his forehead?
When Hitomi said Quirks could be "anything and everything", I thought that was just a catch-all.
I mean, how-many different Quirks can there actually be? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions?
Surely it can't be billions with a "B", can it?
"Takehiko-kun, I'm glad that you're awake, and we'd like to give you more time to recover, but it's very important you tell us what you remember of the Villain who attacked you before you went comatose."
"Villain? What Villain?" I asked dumbly, my head still to foggy to remember much of anything.
" . . . Nurse Hitomi, can you translate? I don't speak English."
"Can't speak…? What's he going on about? He's speaking English right now," I retort toward Hitomi, stating the obvious.
"Erm, actually, the only one speaking English here is you," she said causing me to blink in confusion. "The rest of us are speaking Japanese, and I only understand a little English," she elaborated, a thick accent coming in.
. . . Okay not-so-obvious…
"Hm. The language center of his brain must've been damaged," the doctor stated as though I weren't in the room. "No matter. If the detective can't speak English, I'm sure we can get an interpreter. Until then," the man with the head mirror said turning to me, "don't go anywhere."
'Not like I really can,' I think wiggling my toes beneath the sheets, feeling like someone had taken me out below the knee and put new feet there. 'What the hell is going on…?'
*AHA*
"Takehiko-kun, my name is Naomasa Tsukauchi," the detective who finally arrived, after a full hour or so, greeted. He was a tall man with short black hair and somewhat rectangular black eyes, a strong jaw, and a face that was somewhat plain. His attire consisted of a tan overcoat and matching hat with a black suit underneath and a green tie around his neck, black dress shoes, and white gloves.
He reminds me of someone famous, but I can't put my finger on it…
"Yo," I croaked, my voice too dry to say much more. I reached over for the glass of water at my bedside, but once again my arm was too damn short to reach the damn thing!
"Oh, you uh… can't speak Japanese?"
"Big talk for a guy speaking English," I say after getting my hands on the damn thing.
"I'm not speaking-" the man rebutted before stopping. "I was told the language center of your brain might've been damaged, but this is a rather acute case. Tell me, could you speak English before?"
"Before what? Everyone says something happened to me, or I wouldn't be in this damn bed in the first place, but no-one wants to tell me anything," I say shakily downing the water with limbs too-thin to be mine.
"Ah, I guess a short debrief is in order," Tsukauchi conceded. "Tell me, how much do you remember?"
"Bubkiss," I say flatly. "Next question."
"I see," the man said taking a note. "Well, the long and short of it, you were orphaned by a Villain attack when you were nine, and a year later you were attacked by a Villain with a rather nasty Quirk."
"Like what? Putting people in year-long comas?"
With the hour it had taken for this guy to get here, I was able to get Hitomi to tell me a few things. "Mr. Head Mirror" might've ushered her out as though she were an intern, but I was able to call her back in by hitting the Call Nurse button on my bed; which for obvious reasons hadn't been used until I regained consciousness.
Gotta love those loopholes.
"Not quite…" the detective said growing tense. "Tell me… have you ever heard of… All for One?" he questioned.
"What, like the Three Musketeers thing? 'One for all, and all for one'?" I returned, which for some reason caused the man to flinch with a capital "F", before he blinked confusedly.
"I'm… sorry… Three Musketeers? Is that… a Hero team of some sort?" he asked, shifting nervously in his seat.
"No. Jeez, what is it with you people and Heroes? 'Hero' this, 'Hero' that," I groan tiredly. "I'm talking about that French book written by that one dead guy," I dredge up, though I'm not sure how-reliable my damned brain actually is right now.
"A book, you say…?" the man questioned as he went for his phone, slipping one of his gloves off before he looked something out, a sigh of relief sounding after he found what he was looking for. "Oh. Oh, I see."
'Geez, what crawled up this guy's asshole and… Damn, what's the rest of that metaphor?' I questioned.
"Well, um, the long and short of it is…" the detective said putting away his phone. "All for One is basically a Boogeyman in this country, with parents telling their kids that if they don't behave, 'All for One will steal your Quirk'."
I want to make a comparison between this "All for One" guy and another power-sapping individual with a Southern Bell voice I had a crush on as a teenager, but once again I'm finding my brain woefully uncooperative.
The detective wanting an answer, I decide to shake my head. "Sorry. Don't remember that either. Why? Did this 'All for One' guy put me in this bed?"
"Not exactly… Before you were attacked, someone with the Quirk [Air Wall] was attacked and had their Quirk stolen, but they were able to get away and tell others about it. The fact that they remained Quirkless afterward means it isn't a simple power-sapping or copying ability," the detective explained. "Based on witness testimony and security footage captured at the orphanage you stayed at, we suspect you were attacked by the same individual; however, when he entered your room, video coverage ceased, and since all the caretakers saw was the Villain leaving in a hurry like he was wounded, you were the only witness to the fact, but…" he trailed off nervously looking at the bed and the life support equipment around, now inert. "What can you remember of that night? Any detail, no matter how-small, could be tremendously important."
I try to remember what happened before my coma, which I don't remember anything about because, duh, coma… but as I try my damndest to draw out a specific memory, all I get is the annoying sound of dial-up internet.
"I'm sorry, 'dial-up'?"
Oh shit, was that out loud?
"Yes, yes it was."
Damn you brain! First you don't remember anything and now I have no filter?!
Based on the man's face, that too I had said out loud.
"So what now? You going to arrest me 'cause you couldn't get anything out of me?"
"What…? No! God, why would you think that?"
"No, you're right. It's the Chinese that are communist," I amend. "Huh. Wonder where that came from…"
"So you really don't remember anything then?" he asked.
"Listen, Inspector Gadget!"
Huh. So that's who this guy reminds me of…
"Read. My. Lips," I said getting real tired of this guy. Apparently I've been in a coma for a year, so understandably, I'm significantly cranky. "I… dooooon't… rememberrrrr… shiiiiiiiit…" I say to the man very slowly. "Did you get all that, or should I play that back to you a bit slower."
"Well… it's obvious you've been through quite an ordeal," the man hummed steepling his fingers in front of himself, and the look on his face told me he knew something I didn't.
Yeah. Story of my freakin' life ever since I woke up.
"If you remember anything, anything at all, you can reach me on my private number," he said taking out a business card, scribbling something on the back, and holding it out to me with both hands. I look between the man and then the card in his hands, reaching out for it a moment later, though apparently I can't close the gap with what equates to half a damn sit-up!
Fucking coma-inducing supervillains…
"I'll… just leave this here," he said placing on the nearby table. "I hope you get well soon, Takehiko-kun."
I'd wave the man off, but I think that failed sit-up burned out the last of my energy for the day…
*AHA*
"So he really doesn't remember anything?" Hitomi asked the detective worriedly as he was leaving.
"No, and my [Polygraph] never lies," Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, aka "True Man" replied. 'Then again… if his memories were doctored in some way…' he mused before shaking it off.
Even if All for One had attacked this boy, if he wanted to make a false trail, there wasn't any reason for him to have left a potential lead in a coma for a full year; any trail he could've set in this hypothetical either would've grown "cold", or would be untrustworthy if it was still there. Plus, Toshinori had said that he had white hair, while the Villain they'd been tracking following his defeat allegedly had purple hair. Sure, Quirks that could change other people's appearances were rare, but not unheard of, and there were plenty of decent hair dye companies out in the world. For all he knew, this Quirk-stealing Villain was someone completely new and unrelated to All for One.
Though his gut-feeling told him it wasn't.
"In the event he does remember anything, please have him contact my hotline," he stated, since he had been briefed that Hitomi was his "personal nurse" and would be in the best position to remind him.
"Excuse me for saying this, but I'm not sure if this is something we should want for him," Hitomi said firmly, her single brow furrowed and her sole eye narrowed. "Before you got here, I asked him if he missed his parents, and do you know what he said to me?"
"It's kinda hard to miss two people you don't even remember… Like, at all."
"That. That is what he said to me, and you just want him to… relive that trauma?"
"That isn't my goal," Tsukauchi said holding up his hands placatingly.
It didn't take a police detective to figure out you don't screw with a woman's "cub"; not when her maternal instincts are in overdrive.
And though Takehiko wasn't Hitomi's own blood, that she cared this deeply for his wellbeing was the sign of a good nurse.
Especially at the medical wing of the Hero Public Safety Commission Headquarters; the law enforcement agency responsible for investigating the most-dangerous cases of criminality. A place where such sentiment was in short supply as the darkness of a world time hadn't forgotten, continued to beat and batter the minds and wills of those trying to keep up the façade of a world at peace.