A slightly critical OC gets Isekai'ed into the world of TLR with imperfect knowledge, or something like that. This story will be relatively slower paced, attempting to create an organic flow of events, to bring about slight changes to canon events, which builds up to greater character development.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to To-Love Ru, if I did, then the series would still be on-going.

Regular exposition text looks like this.

"Speech looks like this."

'Internal thoughts appear like this'.

"Mindscape discussions appear like this."

Proclamations appear like this.

:=:

Death is an interesting phenomenon. Little research can be done on it, since there's no real way to obtain empirical evidence, yet it's experienced by everyone who happens to live, unless you're one of those crazy immortal bacteria creatures. The greatest sample size, yet only conjectures exist about what happens to a person who's dead. Nirvana? Heaven? It's anyone's guess.

Reincarnation was not what you'd quite expect.

A child sits, staring at a wall, as if trying to break it down with the intensity of the stare. Sadly, the wall is made of some composition of cement and concrete and a child's stare is no threat to it.

"Naoto! Can you help feed the young ones?"

A feminine voice can be heard from someplace nearby, urging the child to move so that he can assist the speaker.

Naoto Suzuki, or Suzuki Naoto however you may call it, that is the name of that child. But that is also not who he is, or not who he was. Reincarnation being at the end of the road is truly an unexpected instance. As he walks to the adjoining room to help feed the gaggle of 2–4-year-olds, he returns to the constant internal turmoil he's been subject to for the past few months.

At the age of 6, 'Naoto' remembered memories of living another lifetime. Unlike many stories, these memories were not of a long forgotten fantastical knight or a wizard that mastered all sorceries 9000 years ago. They were of a regular, unremarkable human who lived through a usual human life, and met a rather sudden end due to an accident in his early 20s. There's no need to ponder on the details of the previous life however, as holding onto the past is a fruitless venture, just as predicting the future is.

Reincarnation however is significantly more interesting to ponder about, he thought as he masterfully failed at feeding one of the many orphanage kids that consume food without an end. How they can be so adept at hunger, while being entirely inept when it comes to sating that hunger is a topic to think upon another time.

Reincarnated back to the same world, just placed in Japan. While he does not quite know why and how he's ended up at an Orphanage, the matron is unlikely to share such information even if prompted as he was too young to know such details, what puzzles him even more so is being able remember his previous life.

If retaining your memories was a regular phenomenon, then there would have been information of it in the modern world. Countless amounts of research would have been made on how it was possible, how to control it and, most likely, monopolize it for their own benefit.

Any such discussion however did not exist, which has been confusing him for the previous few months he's had his past memories.

"You don't believe I can find the truth behind the cycle of reincarnation, do you?" He asks one of the toddlers, who constantly appears to refuse the food that she was crying for just a few moments ago. The only answer he gets is a sputter as the toddler appears to be in serious thought.

"I guessed so". It might be better to put a rest to this line of thought after all, whatever reasoning there might be, he was certainly not the groundbreaking genius to bring it to the world. He had toddlers to feed and a life to have a head start on! Well, as soon as he wiped himself clean of what the toddler's ultimate answer was. A truly colorful response.

:=:

Kanji sucks. That's all he could think as an 11-year-old, trying to understand what he could of more advanced texts from a local library.

Somehow, not only had my reincarnation gifted him with memories of his past life, but also put him in an alternative timeline where technological advancements had been rather sparse. Somehow, even in the year 2003, the internet did not exist and neither did any smart devices. Computing was still an incredibly expensive hobby or was purely for research purposes.

While this gave somewhat of an answer to some of his reincarnation related questions (Earth prime theory perhaps?), it did make life much more difficult as knowledge and information was much harder to come by before the age of information and internet.

He had been making an attempt at receiving a scholarship admittance to one of the premier schools, but studying the previous curriculum was incredibly difficult given the lack of such resources at the orphanage, and his inability to earn funds as a kid. Even newspaper delivery was already filled in by older citizens who were much faster on a bicycle!

"This world is quite a lot happier than I would expect though" he mumbled, flipping through the library resources. He'd noticed differences here and there, including a lack of any notations of wars, maybe he was simply unable to access those archives given his age, but the overall sentiment of people too was rather jovial. Smiling people all around, as if straight out of an optimistically written story. Even if all he'd seen was rather rural compared to a modern metropolis, it felt calming.

"Maybe this is what the characters from those farming or rural manga would feel like" he wondered, handing back the book to the librarian. he was confident that he had gotten enough prep done. He was ready. This calming environment while welcome, was not what he was looking for.

"Sainan Metropolitan Middle School, I will ace the scholarship exam!"

:=:

So maybe he'd overprepared a little. 15-year-old Naoto Suzuki sat comfortably in his corner seat of class 1-C of Sainan Metropolitan High School. His perfect performance as an 11-year-old for the Middle school entrance had not only obtained him the scholarship he was seeking, but also the title of a prodigy, who was exempt of all tuition fee as long as he studied at the Sainan escalator.

"It's likely unsaid that my scores are to remain perfect" he said to the empty classroom, being the first to the class on the first day of the new semester. Already in high school, it seemed like this year too will be relatively quiet.

'Haaaah, I swear I'm too old to be a high schooler.' he sighed. His title as a prodigy and relative aloofness in class had garnered him relative peace throughout the years but a peaceful life also meant an uneventful life in a world without much technology. The most popular teen activity was sending each other messages of all things! Personal computing was still in a pre-windows equivalent era while being extremely overpriced.

'Not that it stopped me from buying one anyways' he smiled, thinking back to the machine he had purchased after saving up money over the years, as students start shuffling into the room.

"Everybody stand, bow, and greet!" Class president A proclaims as Homeroom teacher A enters the class. Their names escape him. Perhaps he'd been too aloof in his middle school years. While he had a relatively good relationship with his class during middle school, it was largely as acquaintances. They admired him as a prodigious talent and let him be.

Class continues as usual, if a little more active compared to any usual day. It's the first day of the school year, surely this will die down in the coming days.

'But aren't they even more so excited today?' Naoto thinks as a multiple students run through the school corridors on the 3rd day of the school year.

"Hey, what's got everyone in a rush? Did something happen?" Naoto asked Class president A, who'd just come back to the classroom after leaving the horde of male students who had passed by.

"It was a pink beauty! A beautiful girl with pink hair appeared in the school!" He answered excitedly.

'Huh, to think things like that do really happen in Japanese high schools. Maybe all those manga weren't written without basis after all', Naoto thought, returning to his desk as the class president was swamped by students who wanted to know more. Surely, this must be an incredibly rare occurrence.

'But why is it happening again?' he wondered once again as a similar horde of male students was seen running through. Is this a more common occurrence than he'd first assumed for high schools? Hopefully not, such a horde was clearly not safe for any passerby's nor for those within it. Maybe this too will die down as he gave it some time.

'Or maybe it will become a common part of my high school life', Naoto wondered as similar occurrences kept repeating over the next week.

"Class president, what's with rush of activity lately? Has the Pink beauty been coming to the school every day?" he jokingly inquired of the student who was furiously typing at his phone during break time.

"Oh?! Are you not aware Suzuki-san? To be not bothered by the world of teenage love, truly you are as much of a prodigy as your reputation claims!" he answered, a little to excitably. This was usually why Naoto avoided making small talk with his classmates, they were a little too excitable about certain topics for some reason.

"It is of course about the newest transfer student in 1-A, Lala-chan! The Pink Haired Beauty transferred into our school! Ah! To think Yuuki Rito of all people has this goddess in his grasp, how truly env-" The class president continued, as if the topic had consumed his mind.

"Lala and Yuuki Rito?" and so had it consumed Naoto's, as his mind could come to only a singular point in past lives' history.

"To-Love Ru?" I softly whispered as his world came crashing down.