Hoshino Aquamarine was a little embarrassed to be referred to by the second half of his full first name by Mana, but considering Mana's current predicament, he felt like he got the better end of the stick.

As embarrassed as he was to be referred to as Marine and teased by Mana and Ruby in front of everyone, he would have been mortified to be in Mana's position, where the teacher was pointing out various weakpoints in his body as an example for self-defense.

"People have various weaknesses." The instructor started listing them out, her red laser pointer flickering on and off.

She probably wasn't planning to use a human example, because she already had an example projected into the screen, but she made Mana stand right beside it anyway just to make him feel uncomfortable.

"Eyes. Nose. Throat. Ears. Temple. Chin." she started rotating the 3D human model on the screen while Mana dutifully followed every pose. A laser pointer highlighted every weakness she mentioned. "Back of the head." she continued.

As a doctor in his previous life, Aqua already knew that all of the parts that the instructor was introducing. He knew them intimately well. He'd been trained on them, he studied them day and night. He knew every part in ways that he was sure the others in the room did not.

And yet, the lesson was a new experience. It was new because this time, Aqua was essentially learning to break his oath. To hurt people. That it was for self-defense justified it to him, but only barely. And only because he experienced what it was like to need that self-defense.

As a doctor, he'd gotten to know multiple people who had suffered in ways that normal civilians couldn't even imagine. Given a choice between whether he liked or disliked violence, he would never give the naive, edgy answer of advocating violence. He's seen beaten. Bruised. Battered. He has seen the effects of violence and he has been there, once upon a time he was one of those attempting to treat it.

Sometimes he was successful. Sometimes he was not.

And yet, despite his experience, Aqua couldn't help an involuntary shiver as he recalled his past life's grizzly end. Back of the head. It hurt only for an instant.

It was the first time he'd experienced anything worse than a scraped knee or twisted ankle. He was never an aggressive person in his previous life. He had never gotten into any real fights. He had never hurt anyone nor had he hurt anyone before.

And in the one so-called fight he got into, it all ended in an instant.

Aqua exhaled. He was no longer that doctor. He was now Hoshino Aquamarine, child of his favorite idol.

Aqua refocused.

"Solar plexus. Ribs. Kidney. Knee. Shin. Feet." she continued, pointing out each part before explaining the general simplest way to strike it when you have an opportunity, and how to disengage after that strike to get away.

Which made sense to Aqua. This was a self-defense class, after all. Every strike you make should go towards the goal of disengaging and getting somewhere safe. Aqua wished he learned this in his past life. He might have been able to bash that bastard in the head. Like in his eyes, or his nose, or his throat.

Then again, Aqua was thankful to that bastard for giving him a chance to be reborn as his favorite idol's kid, so maybe he should cut him some slack?

The self-defense instructor, Hayasaka Nao, continued professionally yet unrepentantly. "Crotch." She stated blankly before slowly continuing her explanation, her gaze daring someone, anyone to make an immature giggle or peep.

Aqua wouldn't have been surprised if someone did giggle. Considering the gathering of kids around them.

And so he wasn't.

Ruby giggled. And Aqua noticed Shirogane Miyuki's eyes light up with childish amusement.

Meanwhile Mana winced, probably a byproduct of being the example on stage who, in theory, would be getting hit in the crotch. Every male instinctively shivers at the thought of getting hit there.

Aqua felt for him. It was a shame that Mana learned of such instinctive fear at a young age. Mana may have pranked and teased him a bunch today, but even he didn't deserve to be hit in the crotch.

Among the people Aqua knew that deserved it… He would probably pick just his murderer. And maybe his father for daring to leave Ai to raise children alone as a single mother. And maybe Sarina's mother and father for abandoning Sarina. And maybe that damn nurse who called him a lolicon. And maybe that guy who-

'Well, that last one's a bit much, but I can't believe how many people I'd kick in the crotch when given the chance.' Aqua was surprised by the increasing capacity for violence he was developing in his new life.

"But this is all for self-defense…" Aqua muttered to himself, catching the attention of the one beside him.

"Yeah! It's so we can beat the baddies and protect our friends and family!" Kana's eyes sparkled as she focused intently on the lesson.

Aqua nodded. His eyes flickering to his sister and mother beside him. "Right."

When Miyako, mother (in public, at least), to Ruby and Aquamarine, and manager of Ai was first told about Mana's surprise, her first reaction was to giggle.

'What a precocious kid.' she thought. 'Self defense? Is he trying to impress his beautiful Ai-nee? Or is he trying to impress his friends?' her gaze washed over Mana's various invites once more.

She noticed that Mana instantly got attached to Ai. As Ai's manager, she was there on the day Ai and Mana were filming, after all. Ai was fully focused on her role and staying in character. She was very determined to do well that time because of her earlier lacklustre performance in the TV drama. The fact that she got another chance, and that it had to come through the bartering of her own child with the director must have stung somewhat.

And Ai did very well that day indeed. But what surprised Miyako was that afterward, Mana matched her level and delivered strongly with a strange ad-lib. And whatever that ad-lib was really brought out the emotion and acting in Ai. Miyako was too far and she couldn't hear it.

'Well, doesn't matter.' Miyako shrugged to herself. 'I'll see it in the movie later if the director chose to include it.'

Since Mana got really attached to Ai, and then to the twins right after, if Miyako was to be a little honest with herself, she felt a little left out. It felt like Mana was avoiding her almost, considering he really physically leapt to pat Ai on the head, and then Ruby and Aqua as well.

It really made her feel that she was nothing but a babysitter. Just someone who takes care of the kids. Just another person.

It hurt more than it expected.

Which is why she distanced himself from him. During playdates, she stayed more with Arima Miura, his mother, and minimized interaction with him as much as possible. It was the natural thing, anyway. The parents would sit back and talk amongst themselves while the children played. She didn't want to join the children in playing, anyway. She was young, but not young enough to whole heartedly throw herself into playing with 3 year old children.

On their 4th playdate, Arima Miura suddenly opened up. She opened up about the Arima family situation. Apparently, the father cheated on her for someone younger and subsequently left. She was in tears the whole time as she told the story. Miyako had to signal Ruby, who went back to the adults to get a bit of water, to be quiet and then subtly shoo her away when she noticed her listening in.

All in all, it made Miyako feel deeply uncomfortable, as someone who harbored secret hopes of remarriage with a younger actor in the future. What made her different from someone like the Arima family's father? Just a bit above a year in the past, she had nearly destroyed Hoshino Ai, and subsequently, the Hoshino twins' lives by attempting to destroy their mother's privacy and livelihood alongside that of her husband's.

It took divine intervention to stop Miyako's dirty actions and ambitions. Literal divine intervention.

Those twin children were precious to her. Perhaps not back then, but they were precious to her now. And she felt validated to be attached to them. She probably spent just as much, if not more time with them than even Ai did. It was around her that they opened up, it was around her that they shared their divine gifts of intelligence and wisdom. It was her who they approached when they truly needed something.

This bond she had with the twins felt warm. It was the warmest Miyako had ever felt in her life, she realized.

But the realization only made her feel worse when she remembered what she was going to do to them.

She felt dirty. She felt like Mana's avoidance of her was justified.

Arima Miura went on to talk about her children afterward. Kana, apparently, didn't really understand why their father had suddenly left. And so she kept on acting, so that her father could see her in her roles.

It was an amazing backstory, and kind of dark for a child nearing 5 years old of age. It was the kind of backstory one could imagine on a manga protagonist, where the girl was the underdog and would rise to stardom after making it through various obstacles and getting together with a rival character in the end. Miyako resolved to buy her a little gift the next time she could.

Mana, however, was different from his sister. Vastly so, Arima Miura had pointed out to her. In the night, after his older sister had fallen asleep, he would go into his mother's room, climb onto her head, and just stroke it. And then he would whisper things like 'It's alright.', 'Kana and I are still with you', and 'We can be a complete family without him.'. And then he would hum, as if singing a lullaby, before going off to his own room to sleep.

And many times, Arima Miura couldn't keep her facade up and would cry in his small child shoulders. "I felt warm." Miura admitted to her, and Miyako was about to reply to her when the woman continued "…but I also felt extremely ashamed." she said.

Those words slapped her in the face and suddenly, Miyako could relate. Mana had clearly done an amazing thing. He'd been empathic, beyond his years, surely, and he climbed into his mother's bed and essentially soothed her to sleep. It was a nice thing to do, and anybody, mother, sister, whoever, would be blessed to have someone do that to them.

But it was also a wake up call. It was a wake up call, as an adult, when you had to rely on your children.

Granted, Miyako's experience was a little different. Her wake up call started when the children she was taking care of were touched and moved by the divine. Miura's wake up call started when her son's empathy moved beyond his age.

But she could relate to that deep sense of shame from having to be given a wake up call from a strange direction.

Miura continued on. She was worried about Mana apparently. Not because he was doing bad, no, but because he was doing too well. He did well enough to support his mother too. When she'd asked him how he was doing with the situation, all he said was 'I'm fine, mama.' with an everyday smile on his face.

Miura went on to confide in Miyako that at times, she felt like Mana didn't need her, and that Mana could raise himself.

"How do you think Mana's doing?" Miura asked her after that, pensive as she stared at Mana, who was doing random stretches with Ruby. It seemed he was trying to copy the stretches shown in an anime he was watching.

'Mana?' Miyako thought. She didn't like him. He made her uncomfortable. For his standards, he was essentially avoiding her. And so she avoided him as well. But in other situations…

With Aqua, Miyako approved. The boy was already quite shy and standoffish. He didn't really play with toys or outside like Ruby did. He was always reading a book or browsing something on his phone. He was only really interested in Ai. But Mana, Ruby, and Kana could get him interested in other activities as well. He seemed really happy to swim the other playdate. Miyako could see the two of them become very close childhood friends.

With Ruby, Miyako approved too. Ruby wanted to play outside, explore, and try lots of things. Mana was also interested in doing a lot of things. Mana was trying a lot of activities and he was already dragging his friends into them. Miyako could see the two of them become very close childhood friends too.

With Ai… Miyako hesitated. Ai wasn't really one of the kids, for sure. She was their mother, not a kid. She was only a few years younger than Miyako. But she was her ward. And Miyako wasn't entirely sure how to feel about Mana's aggressive wholesomeness towards Ai, especially his habit to headpat her as soon as he saw her.

Back in Miyako and Miura's discussion on Mana. Miyako had given a generally positive response to Miura. She told her "Mana's a strong boy, and very kind based on what you've told me and what I've seen of him so far.". And Miura was relieved, somewhat. Miura thanked her, both for her answer and for listening to her. Miyako and Miura had gotten somewhat closer, after that.

Now, however, at Mana's birthday party, Miyako wondered to herself. How differently really were her and Miura's situations?

She recalled listening to him convince the president, her husband, to allow Ai to come to the birthday party, a combination of childish determination and sparks of deep insight. A combination of determination and insight that was mature beyond his years. She realized something.

'Can any normal kid really organize all of this?' she wondered.

Miyako considered the help of mother in organizing it. As the public mother of the twins, she had spent a fair share of time interacting with the mother of the Arima siblings. Despite her best efforts to place Arima Miura as being the guiding force behind this strangely specific birthday party, she failed to do so.

The mother was just too busy. She had a job of her own, no matter how flexible and forgiving her workplace was with her time. She also essentially works part time as something of a manager to both of her children, one of which was already a famous child actor while the other one seemed to be following suit.

And yet, this birthday party seemed very specific. It was a birthday party where one learns self defense. If one didn't know that the Arimas had some sort of tradition to learn something on birthdays, one would be suspicious. But if one knew this, certainly, their suspicions would simply amount to 'What a strange family.'

And Miyako's thoughts went in that direction. Because, honestly, Mana was a strange and eccentric individual, who had a tendency to drag everyone into all sorts of strange shenanigans. Self defense classes on his birthday weren't something she would call out of character for him.

However, the birthday party itself was strange. Mana had an activity prepared for everyone, and everyone was dragged into his pace.

He dragged everyone into projective tests, which Miyako recognized from the few introductory psychology classes she'd had in college.

Even then, Miyako wasn't worried. After all, nobody really highly believed in projective tests, not even psychologist. Projective tests were just too unreliable and difficult to verify. People often do them for fun, even.

But her wards, the three members of the Hoshino family reacted strangely. Considering it was the three of them, each with their own often used mask, she'd go so far to call their reactions overt. The worst reactions were from the two girls, Hoshino Ai and Hoshino Ruby. Aqua too had an adverse reaction, but it was more muted compared to the other two.

'What is going on?' she worried.

No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't imagine Mana doing such things on purpose. 'What purpose could one even have that combines self-defense and psychology?' Miyako wondered to herself.

Not even Ruby and Aqua, as weird as they were after the touch of the divine, were doing something so targeted as that. 'But what is the goal?' Miyako furrowed her brows in worry.

'Could it be the work of another divine being? Divine influence working this time through Mana?' she questioned.

As Miyako refocused and listened to Mana's chosen self-defense instructor, she resolved herself to learn as much as she could from the stern and professional looking lady.

'Just in case.' she assured herself. A seed of worry burrowed into her heart.

A bit of a longer than usual chapter. This is both a continuation of the lesson as well as some more backstory. Among other things ehehe... I just realized how very much in the long haul I am for this fic and how deep my plans are for this fic.

I kinda have an idea for pairings too, although they're not quite set in stone. Truly, characters will do as characters will do. I wonder who, from a reader's perspective, would work as a pairing in this fic? I can't tell if my ideas are affected by my personal biases or not... I'm trying not to force any romance and just let things flow.

But I feel like Mana would only ever be partnered with anyone if he could resolve some of his issues.

Welp, Mana ain't resolving any of his own issues for a while since he's so busy resolving other people's issues. And I feel like you guys got a glimpse of how many issues he has to deal with in the previous chapter.

Ah, it's time to lie. The Oshi no Ko fanfic production is slowing down! We need more, more, more! And so I lie again: WE WILL HAVE MORE!

Please, let's lie together so we can make it happen!