Chapter 12 - Date A Otaku

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After Natsumi and I beat the hell out of each other in Mortal Kombat, Kurumi comes back for the living room, telling me that Nia's finishing getting ready.

Natsumi and I stop playing and I wait on my date.

Not long after, Nia comes out, wearing a black ribbed turtleneck and tight blue jeans. She also has on short, grey boots. In her hands is a thin green jacket, perfect for this time of year. It's November now, or at least the end of October, so it's starting to get chilly.

Nia looks at me, confident, yet blushing.

"So, what do you think of her?" The black haired Spirit asks.

"Very cute. You did a great job again, Kurumi." I say.

"Why thank you." She smiles.

I walk over to Nia, stopping in front of her. "Though, we're missing one thing." I hold out my hand and create a pair of red glasses on her face.

Nia looks surprised for a moment, before calming down. "How...? Oh, right, light novel." She says, remembering Date A Live.

"You do look cute with glasses." I say, causing her blush to strengthen. "Well, shall we?" I ask, motioning to the door. She nods as we begin to leave. I create a red jacket on myself.

"Don't stay out too late, Issei-kun." Kurumi teases me.

"We'll be back before sunset, Kurumin." I tease back, causing her to blush and smile. Nia and I walk outside, closing the door behind us.

"Kurumin? I like the sound of that." Nia says.

"Thanks, I stole it from you. Or rather, the you in the light novel." I say, uncaring.

"Really? Haha, that's too good!" She says with a laugh. "So, where to first?"

"Well, I remember you were into cosplay, so wanna go to a cosplay store, or somethin'?" I ask, having no idea where to go.

"Oh!" Her eyes light up. "I know just the place! I hope they haven't closed down!" She shouts, as she grabs my hand and begins to run.

"Nia! Calm down, dammit!" I shout as she drags me through the chilly city.

Not long after, we reach the store. "Yeah, it's still here!" Nia shouts in joy as we stand in front of a small store.

"I'm glad, but did you have to drag me all the way here?" I ask. I'm not tired, just a bit annoyed that she decided to do this.

"Of course! How else would I have done it?" She asks, with a smug smile.

I merely sigh at her antics. "Fine, fine. Let's just go inside, yeah?"

As we enter, I see a kindly old woman at the counter. "Hello, welcome to-NIA?!" She shouts at the end, recognizing Nia.

"Long time no see, Obaa-san." Nia greets as the old lady hugs her.

"Nia-chan, I'm glad to see you safe. You scared me when you disappeared, girl." She says, breaking the hug to look at Nia.

"It's a long story." The bespectacled Spirit says awkwardly. "I'm glad to see you're still open, Obaa-san."

"Well of course! You help reignite my passion for helping people with cosplay, after all!" She half shouts. "I wouldn't have stayed open back then if you hadn't helped me."

I quietly stare at this scene, with a smile. I'm glad Nia has some people she knew before those assholes at DEM kidnapped her.

"Oh?" The old lady says, noticing me. "Is this your boyfriend, Nia-chan?"

Nia blushes up a storm, her face resembling a tomato. "I- Er- Kinda? We're on a first date right now." Nia attempts to explain.

"Well that's nice." She walks to me. "My name is Miyamoto Kirino, the owner of this store. Pleased to meet you." She greets with a slight bow.

"Nice to meet you as well." I say, mirroring her bow. "My name is-" Shit, I thought up a first name, but not a last one! Well, I took my first name from a harem anime protagonist, might as well do the same for the last one! "-Sahashi Issei." I've only ever read fanfiction of Sekirei, but oh well. "Though I'm not one for being overly formal, so please just call me Issei."

"Well then, just call me Kirino, or Obaa-san, Issei-kun." She says with a smile, before turning to Nia. "This one's a keeper, Nia-chan." She teases, causing Nia's blush, already massive and bright, to somehow grow bigger and brighter as she recoils a bit.

I laugh quite hard at this. "Oh, you and I are gonna get along just fine, Obaa-san!"

Obaa-san lets out a bark of laugh. "I agree, Issei-kun."

"Geez, stop teasing me you two!" Nia shouts.

I chuckle a bit. "Sorry, Nia."

"Well, now that we're all calmed down, what can I do for you, Nia-chan?" Obaa-san asks her. Nia merely smiles and I already know what's gonna be next.

Yup, Nia got us set up for some cosplay. I've never tried this stuff, but it was pretty fun.

Not long after, I see Nia come out, in a cosplay from one of her favorite animes, one I've never heard of. I've found some animes here never existed back home, but pretty much all the ones back home exist here. Only my head is peeking out from the curtains of the dressing room.

"Well, what do ya think?" She asks, gesturing to herself. She wears a black coat with grey trim covering a white shirt and black tie. She also has a small, black cloak that's red on the inside, just like her coat. Her pants are grey. There are also black boots with grey trim, of mismatching height, the right ending above her knee, the left in the middle of her shin. She also has twin silver pistols in her hand and her glasses on her face.

"Badass." I say. "I guess great minds think alike."

"How's that?" She asks, confused.

"Well.." I say, leaving the room. Nia gasps at my outfit. I'm wearing an exact copy of Dante's outfit from Devil May Cry 2. That game may suck, but it has the best looking outfit for Dante in the whole series. I won't describe it because my words won't truly do it justice. I put on my white wig and pull out the copies of Dante's pistols, Ebony and Ivory. "We both went for the gun-slinging badass outfits." I say, with a Dante-esque grin.

"Whoa! You look badass!" The grey haired Spirit shouts.

"I can't believe I doubted Obaa-san. She really outdid herself with this!" I say, looking at myself.

"I know right? Obaa-san's the best at makin' cosplay stuff." Nia says, with a grin.

After that, we tried out a few more outfits and bought them. I never knew how expensive this stuff was, so I had to use Helel to make money and literally re-write the governent's data on the money they've printed.

People might think 'Oh, I'll just make money!', but no, if I did that, I'd have the feds, or rather their Japanese equivalent, on my ass in mere seconds.

Hope this doesn't cause inflation...

Afterwards, we walked around the city a bit, until something catches my eye. One of those ramen stalls. I always see them in anime and stuff, but seeing one in real life is kinda odd. "You hungry?" I ask Nia, pointing to the stand.

"Ramen stand? Kinda cliche." She says.

I shrug. "Never seen one in real life, so why not?" Nia shrugs too and we go in.

We sit down and order, a moment later we both get big bowls of noodles placed in front of us. "So, what do you wanna do now?" I ask between bites.

"Hmm? I dunno. I didn't plan this date out, y'know."

"No, I mean-" I cut myself off to gather my thoughts. "You've gotten away from those guys after so long, whaddya want to do in the future?"

The otaku Spirit stays quiet for a moment, then takes a bite of her ramen. After she swallows, she speaks. "No idea." She says with a smile.

"Heh." I let out a bark of laughter. "Fair enough. You'll figure it out, eventually."

"Then again... I haven't updated my manga in four years..." Nia trails off.

"Oh right, Silver Bullet. I'll have to take a look at it later. I never read Silver Bullet in this world, despite knowing about it beforehand."

"You'd better! I'd really like to hear what you think of it." She says, sort of ordering me.

A few minutes pass and we finish our meals. We get up to leave as I notice that it's getting rather late in the evening. Looking down at my watch, I say "Damn this late already?"

Nia notices this. "We did spend a while at Obaa-san's."

"Fair enough." I ponder what to do now. "How about we finish this off with something we can do together?" I ask.

"Like what?" Nia asks, tilting her head a bit.

"Well, I figure DEM probably knows where you used to live, so how about we go and teleport your stuff to the apartment?"

"Oh?" Nia says, a teasing smirk on her face. "First date and you wanna go in my house? Real smooth, boy."

"Oh hush." I shut her down, jokingly. "We should get you stuff, though."

She ponders for a moment. "Alright then, follow me."

Not long after, we reach Nia's small apartment. "What the hell happened?!" Nia shouts upon entering. Coming inside, I see the incredibly cluttered main room. There's a small table in the center, one that you sit on the floor to use, instead of a chair. There's documents and drawing scattered everywhere. Empty beer cans in and around a trash can in the corner. There's also two other rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom, both just as cluttered as this one. Lastly, everything is covered in a thick layer of dust.

"Guess no one dusted the place." I joke.

"Ah man, this is gonna be hell on my allergies." Nia complains.

"Step outside a sec." She just raises an eyebrow at me, but does so. As we both step outside and close the door behind us, I hold out my hand and use Helel. A moment later, we both enter to a clean room. Or rather, a cluttered, yet dustless room.

"Holy shit!" Nia shouts. "How did you do that?"

"I used Helel to rewind time on the room to a day after you left. Imagination magic, remember?" I ask, with a smile.

"Okay, that is way more useful than I thought it'd be." She says, still a bit stunned.

"Well." I begin to say, as I summon Michael and open a portal to her room in Kurumi's apartment. "Guess we'd better get to work." I say placing our outfits in the portal. Nia nods and we begin.

As we clean up, I pile up all of her trash so I can disintegrate it later. Why throw it away, when this leaves no waste?

Nia shows me some of her drawings for Silver Bullet and other stuff. She decides to keep on drawing her manga. Since I drew a bit in my past life, I offer to help her out a bit, if needed.

Throwing her stuff into Kurumi's apartment took a while, but not as long as I though it would. Looking outside, I can still see the sun a bit.

"Welp, that's the last of it." I say, placing the final box in the portal.

Nia scans the room, most likely for the last time. "You gonna miss this place?" I ask.

"...Kinda." She says a bit, before turning to face me. "Though, probably not that much, seeing as how I'm not gonna be living alone anymore." She says with a smile.

"Yeah... You ready to go?"

"Just a sec." She says, walking up to me. She quickly and unexpectedly places her lips on my cheek, surprising me. Acting as though nothing happened, she quickly says "Alright, let's go!" as she walks to the portal.

My brain eventually catches up. "Alright then." I say with a chuckle.

"Hey, Issei." She says, facing away from me.

"Hmm?"

She turns back, a shy smile and blush on her face. "I had fun."

I smile. "I'm glad."

"C'mon, then." She says, walking through the portal.

As I look around her apartment one last time, something in the window catches my eye. A head of yellow hair. I can only see the hair, not the face or anything below the bangs. As I focus on it, it disappears from my vision.

'Mayuri...' I hum and smile. 'Don't you worry, I'll be seeing you soon.' I walk over to the portal and go through.

Today was a good day, I had a lot of fun with Nia. More than anything, I'm glad she had fun too.

Tomorrow's another day, and another date, this time with Natsumi. Hopefully she'll have more fun than the last one, if you could even call that a date.

Then there's Mayuri...

Oh well, one thing at a time, I guess.

AN

Not a super long chapter, but I hope you all enjoy.

Writing Nia was kinda fun, and I hope I wrote her well.

For those reading this on Wattpad, an image of Nia's cosplay can be seen at the top.

Not much else to say here. Next time is the date with Natsumi.

Also, I started a Blue Archive story. Go check it out if you have the time.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and look forward to the next!