zombiesleuth: I just now realised that Agent Smith is a Monster Musume reference.
Harleking31: *Victory*
Tio best girl fight me
Sorry I got excited where was I? Oh yes, will there be Darling cameo? If this OC is meeting Mido (I assume they are going to UA and becoming friends with him right?) will he mention something about a Torino to green boy and All Might may or may not overhear?
Actually that'd be pretty interesting
Re: Daily Life with Monster Girl is an old favorite of mine, and all in all, it's just so much more fun working them into the world of My Hero Academia instead of making a bunch of OCs from-scratch. I mean sure, I pride myself in my well-crafted Original Characters, niche as it is, but Multi-Crossovers are just a joy to write because they create so much opportunity, with so many possibilities~ So yes, you can expect to see more of MonMusu showing up.
As for Yuuei… That's where he's heading, but there's going to be so much more nuance to it "than that".
LoamyCoffee: Fantastic chapter. Literally what the chapter title is.
It's rare for me to see the greyness shown in the HPSC as usually in stories, I see them being corrupt as hell and simply not wanting to lose the power they've accumulated. Your version has valid explanations for why they haven't told All Might about All for One's survival and why they're letting Takehiko go. It's great. And it provokes more thinking in my head.
And we have Tio!~ My huggable back breaking waifu~ I'm quite in favor of the destination for them. A community of Heteromorphs, this is going to be interesting~ And he's a ward of MON, a favorite group of mine. Such lovely ladies.
I'm getting chills~
Re: Well, as I got older, I realized there was this little thing known as "nuance", that the world wasn't White & Black, but infinite shades of Gray. This discovery became reflective in my writing as I introduced more of it into my works, instead of having a strict dichotomy of 'Good v Evil'. It also helped when I started watching Lore Videos and learned how messed-up the Jedi Order from Star Wars was; one example among many. That my "take" on the HPSC was "thought-provoking" is a joy to hear, because compared to Tiger & Bunny and One-Punch Man, there's a great deal of nuance between respective "Hero Organizations" that run the whole thing.
As for MON, they're a favorite group of mine that could fit well into the world of My Hero Academia, and it's a lot more satisfying working a pre-existing group into a story world, instead of trying to fill it with a fleet of OCs no-one will remember.
Big Fan (Guest): Good Stuff, Man Hell Great Stuff! Keep It Up Hey Quick Question Have You Heard or Seen New Series Arcane: League Of Legends ?
Re: Yeah, saw Arcane, but, never played League of Legends, so I wouldn't be able to write something faithfully. Which is kind of my "No. 1 Rule"… Never write a Story, Crossover, or Cameo unless you're/I'm familiar-enough with the material to "do it justice". Because if there's one thing that can totally kill a story for me, it's reading a story by someone that doesn't know what the hell they're talking about…
I mean I am interested in getting Ruined King: A League of Legends Story because it plays just like Battle Chasers: Nightwar, which was massively fun for me to the play to the point I sought out the original source material… But the problem is, I still have a huge backlog of games I got from Steam and Epic Games on sale, so… it would be a while before I made a hypothetical Battle Chasers x League of Legends crossover. Which is the angle I would take since, with League of Legends' rich variety, it'd be hard for me to make any OC that doesn't come off as a "re-skin".
Which, unironically, is the problem I have with most poorly-written OC-centric stories.
*AHA*
From what Kuroko was willing to divulge once we got back on the road, I was going to be living in a guest room within the apartment complex that the Mon Agency owned. It meant I'd be rooming with five other ladies, Smith included, but considering I was still "a little kid" in their eyes, they didn't seem to have any sort of problem with that. I guessed Hitomi had a significant amount of pull with them if they were willing to take in a complete stranger.
I was definitely grateful to get out of the hospital, make no mistake about that, but I figured living with five attractive ladies (presumably) would be an utter hell for me once puberty came about full-swing; the whole thing had 'lucky pervert moment' written all over it.
Not that I'd ever tell them that…
Point of fact, I'd be meeting the rest of my "roomies" today, so I might as well bite the bullet. I wasn't going anywhere else for a good while.
*AHA*
The "Mon Apartments", apparently home to members of multiple Hero Agencies and their tangential affiliates, looked like a completely ordinary four story upper-middle-class apartment building. Lush foliage around the ground floor offsetting a white concrete exterior, beige-colored boards walling the balconies, a robust fence on the roof housing a large public space, and on each side a zig-zagging exterior stairwell surrounded by glass pane walls.
I was tempted to ask how one agency could afford an entire building, which they were possibly collecting rent from, but I just held my tongue and assumed they saved the life of some big-wig somewhere down the line and Kuroko wrung the deed out of them, or gave it over of their own free will. With how curvy she was, on top of Japan being known for its sexual predators and repressed perverted tendencies, at least in my time/world, it wasn't that far of a leap in logic to take.
The ceilings, I noticed, were slightly higher than on the hospital wing I'd been staying in, most-likely for those whose Quirks made them taller than "average", which was evidenced by how Tio didn't have to slouch but could instead stand at her full height. Venturing through the first floor common area with my escort of three lovely ladies, while I felt the eyes of those lounging about land on me, I chose to ignore it as I took the space in. It looked like a receiving space for visitors, a meeting point for friends, somewhere to go if you wanted to step out of a stuffy apartment but not want to venture off into Asaka-shi proper.
While we were perfectly capable of taking the stairs, Kuroko waved some sort of badge over the panel for what I assumed was an express elevator, and we made our way up, Tio humming to herself as we rose from ground level. Following that, we stepped out into the landing, the number of apartments fewer I assumed than were on the lower floors. Something else I noticed on the way up was that this building seemed to be more robustly-built than the buildings I'd been in before I'd reincarnated; it was one thing to read about it, and another to see it inside and out.
Eventually we arrived at our destination, Hitomi letting out a relived sigh and no longer looking over her shoulder, while Kuroko fiddled with a ring of keys before finding the right one for the lock, and swung the door wide.
To our shock to varying degrees, there was someone waiting for us; though it was less about that there was something there and more about what they looked like.
They had skin as fair as snow, a narrow waist, wide hips, a G-Cup chest, their ebony-black hair pulled up in a ponytail, and a jewel-colored mono-eye. Apart from the short, frilly pink apron she was wearing, there wasn't a stitch of clothing on her.
"Welcome home, Takehiko-sama~ Would you like dinner, a bath, or… me~?" the woman that looked exactly like Hitomi Manaka cooed seductively.
Kuroko, rubbed the bridge of her nose, Tio, hid her blushing face behind her hands, Hitomi, was frozen in a rictus of horrified shock, and as for meee…
*Bop~Bop~Boop*
"Yes, one-one-zero? I'd like to report a sexual predator in my area."
"Whoa! Hold on a second!" Kuroko cried out as she grabbed for my phone. "Doppel! What have I said about impersonating people that aren't dead yet?" she cried as I pulled away from her, the 110 people putting me on hold.
"Geez, you never said we were living with a stiff," Hitomi's look-alike huffed indignantly, her blinking eye changing to gold with black sclera as she put her hands on her hips, chest bouncing tantalizingly.
"Between me being a stiff and you being a sexual predator, which do you think the police will care about more?" I taunted.
And that's the story of how I met the Mon Agency's resident shapeshifter…
*AHA*
After Kuroko stopped the local constables from registering one of the Mon Agency's Heroes as a sex offender, I was ushered inside.
I didn't know what I was or wasn't expecting when I got there; as far as furnishings went, the place looked completely ordinary. Nothing overtly cutesy or feminine in the kitchen or common areas, but the chairs were definitely well-used and well-cared-for, with a plus-sized sofa big-enough for someone like Tio to comfortably use, the appliances upper-middle-end, the fridge extra-large. All things considered, it looked like a well-cared-for place lived in by five people; now six including me.
Which reminds me for whatever reason…
"I'm surprised no-one raised a stink about my hospital scrubs," I hummed as I looked down at my state of dress, taking the time to realize I'd actually gone out in public looking like this. 'No wonder it was so cold outside…'
"Oh, it's actually more-common than you'd think for a person's entire wardrobe to be destroyed by a Villain," Kuroko waved off as she guided me down the hallway past a number of doors with tailored signs on them.
"So what will I be wearing then?" I asked aloud.
"Oh, I had tou-san send over some of Fumio-kun's hand-me-downs. I hope you don't mind," Hitomi hummed nervously.
"I don't have a problem with hand-me-downs, don't worry about it," I replied.
While I had never received hand-me-downs before reincarnating, being the first-born in my family before I "Reincarnated", Hitomi had possibly put her job, and her professional reputation, in jeopardy for me. There was no way in hell I'd spit in her eye like that just because the clothes I'd be wearing from now on were second-hand. As long as they were clean and bereft of "suspicious stains", nothing else really mattered; I preferred a blend of form and function, but brand names didn't mean shit to me.
"Well, here's your room," Kuroko said once we got to the end of the hall. "After we sort out what kind of allowance you'll be getting, you can decorate it however you want," she said swinging the door in. "Until then, make yourself at home!"
The room itself wasn't too big, wasn't too small, mostly done in neutral colors. It had a single window facing the Asaka-shi cityscape in the distance, ordinary-looking furniture a bedroom would come pre-furbished with, a closet off to the side, and a western-style bed in the corner. Situated next to the dressers were cardboard boxes filled with clothes.
"Hey, Kuroko!" Hitomi pouted. "You were supposed to have it all unpacked by the time we got here!"
"Well what if the way Takei-chan organizes his clothes is different from mine?" Ms. Smith readily deflected.
"You just wanted to get out of doing more work…"
"It's alright. Ms. Smith is probably right about that, anyway," I said trying to smooth things over. "I always was rather particular about how I packed my belongings…"
"Was'?" Kuroko blinked.
"B-Back when I still had 'stuff', y-you know…?!" I stuttered. 'Crap, did I let something slip?' I thought nervously. "A-Anyway…!" I said digging into the nearest box. "Uh, Hitomi, I think some of your sunglasses got mixed in with the bunch," I say holding up a black rectangular mono-lensed sunglasses.
"Oh, no, those are Fumio-kun's too. He grew into his mono-eye after puberty hit while I had mine from the start," she said flipping out her phone before showing what was obviously a more-recent photo. Like Hitomi, he now had a mono-eye, but with two pupils instead of just one, which had me wondering if he technically had binocular vision or not. He also had pointed teeth, and he looked grumpy as hell. His attire consisted of black pants and a hoodie with fur lining the hood, and at the moment he stood in front of a moving van looking like he just wanted to "get going already".
I'd guess this more-recent photo was taken when Fumio moved out of the house to go to college.
Though that had me wondering why she didn't show me a more up-to-date photo the first time around…
"Hm… Doesn't quite fit…" I hum as I try them on, just for kicks. With the sunglasses' nose guard in place, half the darkened lens covered my forehead, doing little to actually shield my eyes. Which I guess made sense; glasses tailored to binocular vision had the nose guard between the two lenses, while for a mono-eye, the nose guard would be below the eye… "Cool design though," I hum admiring the rectangular lens, since turning to the nearby mirror, it kinda looked like a censor bar~
The rest of Fumio's hand-me-downs were pretty ordinary. Long pants, shorts, graphic Ts, blank Ts, long-sleeves, jackets, hoodies, a few nicer outfits with button-up shirts. I'd have to give the sneakers and socks a try, but beyond that, everything else looked like it fit.
If this were a video game or an Isekai genre manga with a game-style format, this would be the point where I got a notification that said- [Wardrobe has been acquired!]
*AHA*
After getting everything packed away just the way I liked it…
"Kuroko! Tio! Weird question to ask, but what's the bathroom situation like living here JESUS FUCKING CHRIST?!"
"What? You never seen a 'chocolate loli' before?" aforementioned 'chocolate loli' questioned with a raised brow and a cock of her hip.
She was a tiny little thing, barely more than four feet tall, in the form of a small, petite young girl with budding curves. Her skin was a dark dark brown and luscious like chocolate, her almond-shaped eyes gold with black sclera with a mischievous glint, thin eyebrows, and her long platinum-colored hair coiled prehensile-ly around her body in a spiral down to her ankles just above her bare feet, arranged in such a way that if she were naked, would've just barely skirted censorship laws in a graphic medium. Her quote/unquote "outfit" (and, quoting a certain deranged Cerebrocrustacean, "and I use the term loosely") consisted of a teeny-weeny itty-bitty black and white bikini, and shorty-short-short-shorts so small and sheer, they may as well have been drawn on her skin with marker!
I hoped that was how small and sheer they were and that they weren't actually drawn on with marker…
"You! The sex predator!" I blurted out before my filter could stop it.
"Geez, and here I thought boys your age were still interested in T&A," she said striking a pose, her hair continuing to strategically place itself between my eyes and her… delicate areas.
"I'm eleven…!" I growled, partly in anger, partly in embarrassment, and partly at being eleven again and the hellish cocktail of pubescent hormones to follow.
" . . . Oh shit, really?" she blinked.
"Yes, really!" I repeated.
"Oh… Well then…"
Her hair swirling around her body and flaring out like a curtain, a moment later she had transformed into a pretty, petite Japanese schoolgirl with shoulder-length black hair clad in a white summer "sailor uniform" with a black pleated skirt, a black collar with white stripes and cuffs to match, and a red scarf. Her limbs were long and slender, her thigh-high stockings drawing one's attention toward her legs, and if it weren't for the shape of her eyes, face, and the swirling cowlick still present atop her head, I'd have thought some stranger wandered into the apartment by accident.
That, was how-flawless her transformation was.
"So uhhh, if we could just keep that little mishap at the front door between the two of us, I'd really appreciate not getting written up again," she said with an awkward wave of her hand in front of her face, having the decency to look bashful.
"How many times have you been written up?!"
"Too damn many!" Kuroko called out from the kitchen. "Doppel, Takei-chan. Takei-chan, Doppel. Make sure you get along. And no more walking around the house naked!" she ordered. " . . . At least not until Hitomi has given him 'the talk'~" she amended with a chuckle.
"I can already tell you're going to be a bad influence…" I deadpanned at her for what felt like the fifth time among many.
"Which is exactly why everyone in Mon will be given 'joint custody'~" Kuroko grinned behind her coffee mug. "Lucky you, having five smokin' hot 'moms' looking out for ya~ Six if you count Hitomi."
Christ, was she hopped up on caff 24/7?
"Oh please, that's just another excuse to get out of doing more work," Doppel said with a flat-lidded stare. "And as for the 'bathroom situation'," she said turning back to me. "You're sharing an apartment with five chicks; what do you think?"
"Doppel, don't tease him," Tio pouted from her place on the plus-sized sofa. "You know we have a guest bathroom he can use."
"Not like it'll do much good between six of us," Doppel shrugged. "Just do your best to ignore the lingerie and 'feminine hygiene products', and you'll do just fine. Probably~" she grinned salaciously. "Don't worry, if we 'scar you for life', just wait until puberty and you'll be able to… 'clear your palette'~"
"Oh joy…"
What, did I reincarnate into a cheesy harem anime where everyone was into little boys…?
Christ, I couldn't wait for my second puberty to be over with… And was Takehiko even a Christian in the first place? Does it count as "converting" if this body is Buddhist or some other eastern religion and not Christian by default?
An inquiry for another day.
*AHA*
"Well, Hitomi, I think you're pretty much in the clear," Kuroko hummed a while later as the lot of us sat on the plus-sized couch and channel surfed. "If they were going to fire you for that little break-out, they'd have called you out on it by now."
"Ah, that's… that's good…" the mono-eye sighed, relieved. "Takei-kun, I'll have Kaminaga bring anything we left behind our way after work."
"How's she going to get there? Wasn't I in some kind of… private floor, or something?"
" . . . I should probably go with her…" she amended, getting up from her seat and getting ready to head out.
" . . . Good luck," I called out, albeit lamely. " . . . You're sure she'll be safe out there?"
"Well, I mean… as safe as someone can be in this country," Kuroko shrugged. "We don't have too many Villains here that can level a whole city block or anything, but we do have enough troublemakers around to bring in a decent paycheck, even between the five of us."
"Hmmm… I guess if she gets into a bind, she can fire another eye-laser."
*SPURRRRT!* "Holy shit, that was real?!" Doppel gawped after spewing her drink. "I thought that was just one of her drunken, chuuni fantasies!"
"Well, I mean… It was a recent development…" I admitted.
*Thump-shfff* *Thump-shfff* *Thump-shfff*
"Uhhh… What was that?" I blinked as something thumped and shuffled its way down the hallway from the bedrooms.
"Gruuuuugh…!"
The hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, my head mechanically turning, shambling around the corner was a patchwork woman, looking like she were stitched together from numerous pieces like Dr. Frankenstein's monster. Her left iris green, her right yellow, both were glazed as her sharp and pointed teeth gnashed angrily together, her shoulder-length hair messy and dark red. Her breasts large, her figure slender and curvaceous, she was clad in little more than a green pair of panties and a dark green loose-fitting tank top.
My "Tactical Time Dilation" flaring in my panic at the mere sight of her, her shambling body halting as the second hand on the nearby clock slowed to a ghost of a crawl, my eyes remained wide as I took in every detail. Every line of stitches, every skin graft, her countenance; everything that marked her undeniably as a member of the undead.
Faced with such a creature, as time resumed, I did the most-sensible thing I could think of before I became terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.
*AHA*
*CRASH!*
"OW! TAKEHIKO, WHAT THE HELLLL?!" the zombie-like woman cried after getting a bar stool broken over her head.
"HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAAAME!?" Takehiko cried in retaliation.
"Well… That could've gone better…" Ms. Smith deadpanned as the prior chased the latter around the living room in a shambling gait, the latter throwing whatever wasn't bolted to the floor at the prior, starting with the stool legs in his hands. "Think we should tell him?"
"Naw. Give it five… ten minutes, tops," Doppel replied holding up a phone with her prehensile hair, recording the whole thing with a grin on her face.
*AHA*
Suffice it to say,thatwas monumentally embarrassing.
'DAAAMN you eleven-year-old braiiiin…!'
Of course, given how-much damage a zombie epidemic could do to an island nation like Japan, could I really be blamed for my reaction? Hell, with around 5 billion (give or take several million) possible Quirk or Quirk combinations thereof on this planet, the possibility of there being some sort of "Zombification" Quirk was alarmingly high!
Maybe not mathematically high, but that the possibility existed, was what frightened me the most.
All things considered, Zombina was surprisingly cool with it after I explained my reasoning, and not so surprisingly, I wasn't the first person to "wig the fuck out" when seeing her for the first time after she'd just woken up.
Something else I learned about her was she seemingly had no sense of shame or personal boundaries, because after I had apologized, she put me in a headlock that smooshed my face directly into her rather impressive bosom under the pretense of giving me a noogie. Lady had a rockin' bod, but between how cold and clammy she was, and how she didn't "jiggle", it was a little… confusing.
And no, I don't interpret my hypothetical boner as me being a "necrophiliac". Her blood might've been replaced with a preservative blood-like fluid, but her synapses were still firing, I assume, so I didn't count her functionally as being "dead", even if her pulse was largely nonexistent...
And speaking of which, while she technically was a carrier for some kind of "Zombie Virus", it was actually incredibly weak compared to the "one-scratch-one-kill varieties" you see in popular media. The only people Zombina's particular strain was effective against were those who were already Immunocompromised; AIDS, miscellaneous "rare diseases", etc. Anyone remotely healthy would be able to fight it off under their own power, and since I'd become a bit notorious for being a "fast healer", I basically had nothing to worry about from her.
Which of course, brought up a more pressing question…
"So do you just… you know, go by your Hero Name or something?"
"Nope! 'Zombina' is my legit, legal name!" she grinned. "Wanna hear how I got it?"
" . . . Sure, why not. Not like anything else could possibly upset me today."
*AHA*
So… Yeah… Turns out what came next could possibly upset me after everything I'd been through…
To make the whole thing relatively palatable for the eleven-year-old they thought they were talking to, seemingly ignoring the fact that I'd had my parents killed, my Quirk stolen, and almost been vivisected on three nonsequential occasions by three unrelated Villains…
Basically, I was told that Zombina had forgotten her original name after "some bad men in a van" did "something horrible" to her in the back of said van, and that they then left her out in the woods where she became "un-alive". Because her brain had been left intact, her Quirk, [Zombie] was able to trigger because it had the rare "Posthumous Quirk Activation Threshold". After shambling her way back to town where her missing person's report had been waiting for her, once she'd oriented herself, she "pointed the finger" at "the bad men from the van" who "did the bad things to her in the van". Once that snafu had gotten resolved, she got her posthumously-activated Quirk registered, had her strain of the "Zombie Virus" rigorously analyzed to find out how it worked, arranged for her bi-monthly preservative fluid 'oil changes', got her Hero License from an accredited technical college a while later, and the rest, as they say, "was history".
Of course, to my reincarnated brain, which wasn't nearly as stupid or gullible as they assumed it to be, two words immediately came to mind; Rape Van.
I'd read about the troupe in fanfiction, read a statistic somewhere I'd long forgotten, saw it for the first time in the Killing Bites manga right before the main heroine Hitomi Uzaki went full-on "Werehoney Badger" form and tore the guys to shreds… and I'd always just assumed no-one in real life (at least in this world) would be dumb-enough to try it (in this world) because an enclosed space like a van with no windows was a really shitty place to have a terrified, scared-shitless woman discharge her Quirk at point-blank range while you literally had your pants down.
As for the victim of this story, even after she'd been told her real name by the police who identified her by her dental records and fingerprints, the Nom de Guerre "Zombina" simply stuck with her.
Maybe it was originally meant as an insult from some petty asshole who got off on making people who'd literally died feel small after they "not died", but she turned it on its head and made it her own as a point of pride? Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened, I suppose. Someone calls you "bitch", you turn it into something "empowering", and suddenly "bitch" stops becoming an insult altogether.
Supposedly. Me being a guy in my previous life, I was never called "bitch" in the exacting context that a woman would be called "bitch". Nor was I ever called "nerd" for that matter. "Wallflower", maybe, but nothing overtly derogatory.
All of the latter of course was implied rather than outright spoken in the declarative sense, and given how-much effort they'd put into trying to make it PG-13, I decided to let them think they'd spared me all the graphic details.
"Sooooo…" I hummed looking for something to change the subject. "If you aren't technically dead, why were you shuffling down the hall like a zombie?"
"Oh… you know…" Zombina said sheepishly scratching her cheek. "I forgot to do my stretches before bed, rigor mortis set in before I woke up, and… well… I think you can figure out the rest."
" . . . Shouldn't that be part of your routine you've 'done to death', pun not intended," I swiftly amended, "like your bi-monthly 'oil change'?"
"Yeah, well… Sometimes I just get lazy after a long day of work and wanna sleep in."
"Well… The next time this happens, I'll make sure not to break a barstool over your head."
"Much appreciated! Welcome to the family kiddo!" she said wrapping her arm around my neck and smooshing my face into her right can, my protests muffled and my flailing limbs ignored.
*AHA*
"Okay, so we've got Kuroko, Tio, Doppel, and Zombina," I counted as we all got dinner ready. "Where's Manako?"
"On loan to the nearby police academy. She should be coming through that door riiiiight… abouuuuut… now," Kuroko said from her spot on the barstool 'supervising'. " . . . Nnnnow… Now. Nnnnowwwwwww…"
"Kuroko, repeatedly saying 'now' isn't going to-"
*Knock*Knock* "Hey guys, I'm home," a tired-sounding voice suddenly called out from the entryway, Kuroko shooting me a self-satisfied smile while I resisted urge to give her the finger. "How'd the break-out at the hospital go? Anyone get arrested this time?"
"This time'!? How-many people have you smuggled out of hospitals before me?!" I asked incredulously, barely able to believe that needed asking.
"More than I'd like to admit, fewer than I'm proud of," Kuroko shrugged.
Not even going to pretend I know what that meant.
Turning my attention to the entryway where a large-caliber sniper rifle was being propped against the nearby wall, a part of me was immediately put at ease by the face that greeted me.
A mono-eye like Hitomi a little under five feet tall with a slender build, she had a single cyclopean eye that was a lovely purple color to match her hair, which was done in a short, shoulder-length bob-cut; something I noticed about her look was that while Hitomi's bangs were cut around her mono-eye and drew attention toward it, Manako's bangs did the opposite, half-covering hers.
Her attire looked like a blend between a Hero costume and a member of the Swat Team. With a black neck-length catsuit as the base, over it she wore black fingerless gloves, combat boots, yellow sleeves with brown trim and angular metal pads on her elbows and knees, a yellow flak vest with orange shoulder pads, and a brown utility belt with orange pouches. Underneath the MON insignia on her right breast were two lines of bullet-shaped stamps, like the "victory decals" you'd find on the side of a fighter or a bomber plane. Which made me wonder if they meant "Confirmed Kills", or something less-direct like big busts against Villain organizations.
All in all, she was cute as hell, and based on how her cheeks were lighting up red after the way I felt my face starting to heat up, I could only assume my blushing had triggered hers.
"H-Hello, it's nice to meet you," I bowed, hoping neither Kuroko nor Doppel would see my expression.
"H-Hello. It's nice to meet you too," Manako replied nervously with a bow of her own.
"Um… Do you want me to put your sniper rifle away? Draw a bath?"
"N-No, thank you, but, if you could open my door for me," she said shouldering her beast of a rifle, "I'd really appreciate it."
"Looks like someone's got a crush~" Doppel purred.
'Dammit, someone did see…'
I wasn't even going to deny it. Now that she'd gotten the idea in her head, any form of denial would be construed as a "confirmation" of aforementioned crush.
*AHA*
"Um… Takehiko-kun."
"Please, call me 'Takei'. It's what I want my friends to call me," I offered, hoping I was being polite.
"Ah, Takei-kun," she nodded. "I… apologize if any of my roommates were a bit… much…"
"It's fine. I basically got inoculated to 'a bit much' back in the hospital," I returned, thinking back to Kaminaga, who would be 'a bit much' for any sensible person. "I… figured, but didn't want to assume, that you're Hitomi's 'friend' who mediated my whole break-out?"
"That's right," she nodded. "Hitomi and I met at an eyeglasses store that caters to mono-eyes. We've stayed in touch since, and, after you woke up and things got… difficult… she reached out to me and I convinced the rest of my team to take you in."
"I'm grateful, but… I'm sorry if I inconvenience any of you," I say bowing my head. "I understand how much of a burden another mouth to feed can be."
"No, no, it's fine," she said waving her hands frantically. "Honestly, if we can't even save 'one boy' from a bad situation, what kind of Heroes would we be?"
"Hm. Well, I'm glad to know you're some of the 'good ones'. I couldn't be in better hands."
"But, I mean… We aren't all that famous…" she returned dejectedly. "Outside of town, no-one really knows who we are."
"Just because you aren't famous nation-wide doesn't mean you aren't great heroes. It isn't about doing 'big things', sometimes, it's about doing 'the right thing'; even when no-one is looking," I asserted. "You four might not be household names like… the guy that shows off too much teeth… or the grumpy guy that lights his mustache on fire… or that other guy who wears wayyy too much denim," I listed off, eliciting a small chuckle from the cute mono-eye. "But to me, you're my heroes. You took me in even when there wasn't anything in it for you in return, agreed to protect me from being some nutjob's science experiment, and even if I can't pay you back right away-"
Setting her sniper rifle aside, Manako stepped forward and held me with deceptive strength, her eye watering onto my shoulder.
"How can you still trust us…? How can you still have faith in us when you've lost so… so much… and us Heroes weren't there for you when you needed us most?" she questioned somberly.
"Right now… 'faith' is all I have to my name. Trust might be an expensive commodity, that much is true… But Hitomi trusts you… so I don't mind turning out my pockets for all of you here at Mon," I answer, hoping that sounded less-corny in my head as I reciprocated the gesture.
" . . . You're a good boy, Takei-kun," Manako smiled, gently patting my head. "If you ever need someone to scrub your back and not make it weird like the others, I'll be there."
"Ooooh~ Groomin' him early, ain't'cha Mana-chan~? Hoping he'll be a good-looking stud after high school~?"
"Z-Zombina! Don't ruin what was supposed to be a tender moment!"
"Oh trust me, Takei-kun isn't going to be 'tender' for much longer~" the zombie woman grinned salaciously, causing Manako's face to explode in a crimson blush to the roots of her hair, the cute mono-eye stuttering protests impotently.
"Hey, stop picking on her, you hopping zombie!" I snapped out. 'Note to self: Come up with better material.'
"I ain't Chinese! I'm Japanese! The Chinese have a whooole other thing going on!"
"Run. Save yourself," I whisper waving Manako toward the open door, now that Zombina was sufficiently distracted.
*AHA*
"Girls, a toast! To our 'young ward'!" Kuroko grinned after we'd all convened at the dinner table, a can of beer in her hand.
"Here, here," Doppel and Zombina crooned while Tio sipped at her strawberry milk and Manako her tea.
"Hey, Takei," Mon's leader said my way. "Sorry Hitomi and her family couldn't be here for this. I guess we were all still in the headspace that the HPSC wouldn't let you go without a fight," Kuroko said noticing my somber expression.
" . . . Guess I can't put anything past you, huh?" I hummed.
"Not on your best day, kid~" she grinned, chugging her beer without a care in the world. " . . . Don't worry. If they didn't have you on lockdown after that quack of a doctor tried to strip you for parts, I don't think the HPSC was all that against letting Old Yeller run free."
"Didn't they shoot Old Yeller in the end?" I asked while the rest of Mon exchanged confused looks.
"Urk! Didn't think you'd catch that…" Kuroko deadpanned, probably wishing she had a stronger beer.
"So you really are a history buff," Manako hummed with a small smile on her face.
"Only for niche history. My world history's a bit rusty, and, when was the last time schools cared about anything that happened before Quirks were a thing?"
"I don't know. I barely paid attention in school," Zombina shrugged.
"Why did they shoot Old Yeller?!" Tio whined pitiably.
"Really? That's what you fixate on?" Doppel questioned.
"Apparently so," I hummed. "Excuse me, Manako, can I ask you a… question?"
"W-What kind of question?" Manako stammered.
"Hitomi has one eye and one eyebrow, Mitsumi has three eyes but two eyebrows, yet you have one eye and two eyebrows… Is the number of eyebrows not a constant among mono-eyes, or match for people with more than two?"
"And here I thought you were going to ask if she were a middle schooler~"
"Z-Zombina!" Manako cried, sounding affronted. "As for the eyebrow thing… Honestly, I never gave it much thought," she said turning back to me. "What brought this on?"
"Well… Hitomi's was the first face I saw after waking up from that year-long 'power nap', and I guess maybe I got… enamored by mono-eyes?" I said trying to find the right word.
Manako for her part blushed, brushing her bangs down over her mono-eye.
"Maybe this doesn't mean a lot coming from me," I said taking notice, "but I think you have a really pretty eye, and it's such a shame for you to hide it."
"S-Sorry but… I'm not nearly as confident as Hitomi…"
"Are you still on about the whole boob thing?" Zombina asked flat-out. "Because if you are, most Japanese guys are into smaller breasts. Guys liking big honking 'melons' is a western thing. Right, Take-chan?"
"I wouldn't know; I'm not a westerner. Also, I'm twelve!"
"Technically eleven."
"Same fucking thing!" I snapped Kuroko's way.
"Well, nice to see our new mascot has some teeth~" Zombina grinned.
"Welcome to the family, Take-chan!" Tio grinned, everything going black as I was smothered by her enormous bosom.
And that's the story of how I met my mothers.
*AHA*
AN:
Funny thing… Back when I was writing the earlier chapters, I was still in the middle of reading Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary, and thus had only seen Fumio in flashbacks with his face covered by his bangs, or foreshadowing having him turned away from the camera so I couldn't see his face at all. Hence, I assumed he had 2 eyes and didn't change any during Puberty.
Of course what did turn out happening was that in Canon, Fumio developed a 2-pupiled mono-eye later in life, during puberty, while Mitsumi herself started out with 2 eyes Canonically, and developed the 3rd eye later. So, all things considered, I didn't actually have to Retcon much of anything, at least as far as Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary was concerned.
Since I'm blending a bit of Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary with My Hero Academia, it's my Headcanon that even if you don't manifest a Quirk at 4 years old or aren't born with Heteromorphic traits, that Puberty can cause Heteromorphic traits to appear as your body begins to exhibit "secondary sex characteristics". And given how many changes a body undergoes during puberty, it isn't all that hard to imagine that the Quirk you've had since you were 4 would suddenly mutate along with your body into something different. I mean, a boy's Adam's Apple protruding and deepening his voice has to have an impact on sound-based Quirks, right? I can only imagine what happened with Present Mic's Quirk when his voice started cracking.
And of course, the fact that Damoto Junior High is Canonically a Middle School, means I won't have to retcon anything on that front either. That was a pleasant surprise, since initially I was worried that Nurse Hitomi's Monster Infirmary was in a high school setting, before I re-familiarized myself with it. In fact, the first time I heard about NHMI were through cameos in Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls.
Anyway, tell me what you think of the character introductions. I know the Exposition can be a bit grating and even a little boring, but I hope the character interactions are enough to keep you all entertained and keep you all reading!
Until next time!