Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Please be kind enough to read the author notes at the end. And into the story we go.

Chapter 2: And so it begins.

It took a few days for me to get the transportation technique to work perfectly and once it did, I bid farewell to Ruonxi who was the only one privy of the situation. The technique itself was something that I destroyed completely from every records before I left.

Murim was a place where secrets were hard to keep secret and the last thing I want is some random mass murderer coming to Earth.

The rules of space and time gave way for me as I activated the array and a blinding white light soon encompassed me, marking my exit from a world that had both been kind and ruthless to me.

The first thing I noticed once the light died down was that I was in a forest. Now Chiba had a few light woods outside the city premises but I wasn't exactly sure where I was. The very few things that I remembered about my past included Komachi and a city called Chiba where I should have been living before I was taken away.

The first order of business was to find where I was and at what time period. 20 years had passed in Murim when I was there and I wasn't sure how that translated to Earth years.

Luckily, all I needed to do was to expand my qi senses a little and I soon discovered a large city a little North to where I was standing.

For a being that could travel comfortably at near light speeds, I made sure that I wasn't moving at too high a pace. The City, I soon discovered was Chiba and so the only thing I needed to do was to confirm the date. I had been trucked at the 27th of March 2010 as per my diary which I had kept with me so I just needed to compare the date.

This ended up being ridiculously easy since the date and time was being displayed all across the city in different shops. I confirmed the current date to be March 27, 2010, the exact same day that I had left. Time hadn't flown while I was there at Murim which made me wonder if the same was happening back there. But that was a problem for another day as I had more pressing issues at hand.

Martial Arts were kind to the body of anyone who practised it especially those who had qi. Aging process for Martial artists were painstakingly slow with most living well into their 300-400's easily. But Murim's average lifespan was far lower due to the constant wars but there were people who reached such ages.

One of the elders at the Blood Lotus Clan had lived for 340 years when I took over, relying on nothing but his qi reserves to survive. I had long theorised that with my near infinite qi reserves, I might as well be immortal.

Anyways, in short my body was far larger and better built than what anyone who knew my teenage self expected. The growth spurt after I hit eighteen had left me at a respectable 187cm compared to the 168cm of my 16 year old self.

However, there was an easy solution to this problem which came in the form of the body morphing technique.

The Body Morphing Technique was originally a secret technique of a Demon Clan which was called the Mystical Temptation. They were a group comprised solely of women who fed on the vitality of male practitioners to practice their craft. They had a large network of brothels where select girls used this technique to change their body to please their customers, the strong ones. They had a skirmish with Ruonxi which forced me to act and put an end to their trade. I had confiscated their entire treasury and came across this technique which I learned simply because it seemed useful.

Using it was simple really, all I had to do was envision what I needed to look like which was deceptively hard. In the end I simply reduced my height and reduced the length of my hair to a medium length. Of course, all of this happened completely out of sight of any prying eyes, human and machine included.

Unfortunately, the Body Morphing Technique did not include clothes and my Yukata wearing self was standing out among the passer-by.

"Hey, is that guy cosplaying?"

"He looks like an actor. Is there a shooting going on?"

"Did you see those eyes? It looks like a Yakuza Boss's. "

" Kids these days are getting more and more unscrupulous. "

" Why would anyone wear a Yukata in the middle of the City Street if they aren't Cosplaying or having a shoot? "

The people passing me by were giving me mixed looks.. I could detect faint hostility from some of the younger men who were with young girls and said young girls were giving me a weird look. I decided not to ponder over it too much and had to face the next problem on my hand, meeting with my family.

Before that, I needed an urgent change of clothes. For that I needed money. Fortunately, I had carried a bit of gold with me which I exchanged in a local gold store for some Japanese Yen. The money ended up being more than enough to buy me everything I needed including a smartphone.

As I spend more time here, I could faintly recall some memories of the past which was enough to give me an idea of where I was supposed to live and so I made way to the building that was my home of 16 years.

To be honest, I felt rather impressed by my parent's choice of neighborhood to build a home. It was a quiet little part of the city with almost all the residents being working citizens if I remembered correctly. The amount of traffic was relatively low which was nice.

I walked back at a leisurely pace, enjoying the beauty of the evening as I went. When I was starting out at Murim, it was near impossible for me to be leisurely since every day was a constant struggle and by the time I was strong enough to not be affected by those struggles, the war had broken out. This might very well be the first time I was able to enjoy the evening in three or four years.

After what felt like five minutes, I reached my destination, a normal looking two storied building which was starting to bring back some of memories associated with.

"I'm Home." I announced as I entered the house.

"Oh welcome back Onii-chan. How did it go?" A little girl of about fourteen came out of the kitchen. She had the same black hair as me but with a far better looking face.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting myself to get emotional or anything but I guess my body had other plans since I had already scooped her up for a bear hug. It had been far too long since I had last seen Komachi.

"Ne onii-chan? Not that I mind the hug but did something happen? Did you not get in?" She asked worried.

"Get in what?" I asked as I put her down.

"In Soubu of course. Baka Onii, did you forget already?" She puffed up like a cute little cat.

"Soubu? Ah yes! I did get in." Memories of the incident before I got trucked rushed back. I should have gotten admitted to Soubu High, a prestigious highschool in Chiba.

"You almost scared me onii-chan. Minus ten Komachi points for you."

"Will I get that points back if I were to tell you that you are the best little sister in the world?" These little interactions were pretty much engraved in my soul by now.

" Hmm. I'll forgive you for today. Now go take a bath Onii-chan, Dad and Mom told me they'll come home early today. "

" I'll do that then. "

" By the way Onii-chan? "

" Hmm? "

" What happened to your clothes? "

" Well, stuff happened. "

Once I entered the room that should be mine, a fresh wave of nostalgia came over me. There was a lot of neatly organized light novels and other books in the shelf. I have always been a book lover even when I was in Murim and I could see that it had always been the case.

Taking a bath ended up being a novel experience as well. There were no showers in Murim. I soaked myself in the bathtub for about ten minutes after which I got out. In all honesty, wearing nothing but a towel while getting out of the bathroom was stupid as I came to realise.

"Onii-chan?!" My musings were cut by a high pitched voice that came from my dearest little sister.

"What is it Komachi?"

"When did you get so buff?" The little girl started circling around me with stars in her eyes.

"I worked out?" I don't remember exactly what my previous physique was.

"Why are you saying that like a question? Anyways, I guess I don't have to worry about finding a sister in law now. " Komachi was shedding tears of joy? " Now go get dressed. " She said as she pushed me towards my room.

I don't understand what my little sister is thinking.

The entirety of my evening was spent catching up to my light novel collection and before I knew it, it was time for dinner.

Komachi was the house cook as far as I knew although I was far better than her at cooking now. Murim required you to learn cooking since you couldn't trust food cooked by others as far as you could throw them. Maybe I should teach her more about cooking if I get the chance.

However, the big change from norm was the presence of two others in the dinner table. From Komachi's familiarity with them, they should be my parents.

To be fair, past me was never really close to them and I had a suspicion that he rather disliked them. However, that was in the past and I held no such feelings.I couldn't even remember their name. But I do recall the fact that they were 'Corporate Slaves'.

"Congratulations Hachi. You made us proud." My father was a man who looked quite like me down to same eyes. He didn't look too emotional as he said this which made me wonder if he even felt anything.

"You did great Hachi." Mother on the other hand was a beautiful woman. I could see where Komachi got her looks from, something I was thankful about.

She stood up and gave me a big hug, pressing my face to her bosom and for some strange reason, I felt like crying. I quickly got myself under control but there was no denying that this was strange.

The rest of dinner went smoothly as far as I could see and before I knew it, it was time for bed.

Komachi POV.

Life was pretty simple as far as Komachi was concerned. She had nearly everything that a person needed to be happy, loving parents, economic safety, a large group of friends and quite possibly the best elder brother on the planet.

For a young Komachi, the biggest problem she had was the fact that her parents were rarely at home. She had for the longest time felt unloved coming to an empty house after school until on a fateful day, she ran away from home in rebellion. Her onii-chan was quick to find her and take her back and from then onwards he always tried to come home before her.

Despite his kind heart, Komachi knew that her brother was being bullied at school. Although he hid this well, the pain his eyes held was something she could see easily. She had tried to get him to admit it but he was a little too stubborn to do that. So she could only give him support.

But despite all of this, her brother was kind towards everyone although he hid this fact quite well. He hid behind his mask of unfiltered cynicism all the while still holding on to a faint hope of better days.

When her brother announced that he was aiming to enter Soubu High, a prestigious Private Highschool, Komachi knew he was trying to get away from his Junior High classmates. Something had happened in his second year that had caused major harm to his mentality. He didn't even attempt to try that fake smile of his. The future was looking grim for her brother until one day, everything changed.

Now, when Komachi said change, she didn't mean that he was trying to become better, she meant that his entire personality changed. So much so that even Mom and Dad noticed. Her brother had gone to check whether he passed Soubu's entrance exam and he came back a different person.

Now if Komachi was anyone else, she would have doubted if the person who lived with her now was her brother but she could still see the bits and pieces of her old brother in him but nonetheless he was a different person.

The first and most noticeable change was the fact that he started exercising in the early morning. If Komachi knew one thing about her brother, it was that Hikigaya Hachiman hated waking up in the morning. So imagine her shock when she ran into a shirtless Hachiman doing vertical push-ups in their backyard.

Now her brother was as much a father to her as he was a brother, practically having raised her since she could crawl so she felt no romantic or sexual attraction to him and she could confidently say that it was the same for him. Anyways, her brother was seriously ripped. She didn't think it was possible for a pseudo-neet like him to have such strong looking muscles.

However, the less obvious but more shocking change was the change in his personality. Hachiman had always been a snarky, sarcastic guy who held nothing back in his verbal assaults. However, that seemed to have changed overnight as he became the polar opposite of his previous self.

The new onii-chan was calm, collected and was at peace with himself. He no longer suffered from his crippling self depreciation and knew his own value. The only thing that didn't change was his behaviour towards herself. He was still the kind elder brother that loved to banter with her. He also seemed more mature.

Now don't get her wrong, Komachi knew that her brother had always been wiser than his peers but this was largely due to being exposed to the ugly sides of society at such a young age. The current brother however seemed to have found his own place in the world.

Now if you ask Komachi which version of her brother she preferred, she would say that she missed the old version but would pick the new one any day. She didn't like seeing him suffer and could only hope that he could continue like this.

Hachiman POV.

It has been a week since I returned and everything was going well. I could see at first glance that Komachi was a little worried about me but there wasn't any problems.

The biggest issue I had faced was the fact that I literally had no idea about the things that was taught at school. I had to learn everything from Elementary school onwards in three weeks time since High school started at the second week of April.

Now this might seem impossible but for someone like me, it was a cakewalk. The continuous enhancements to my body due to my qi reserves also served to enhance my brain to unbelievable levels and so the only thing I lacked was time. I had already reached the second year of junior high school in all subjects and will reach the required level of third year junior high in two or three days so I wasn't particularly worried.

Right now I was taking a walk around the neighborhood to get some fresh air since being cooped up in a room all day was exhausting. I was waiting near a signal when a brown dog bolted past me towards the junction. I could see a big black car rushing towards the dog and knew that it wouldn't make it.

Now I had two options, either risk being caught doing superhuman stuff or let the dog die. While I was largely apathetic towards human beings, animals were mostly innocent and I wasn't about to let a poor animal die to preserve my 'secret identity'. This decision was taken in a microsecond and in the next instance, I was off.

I tried hard to make sure that my movements could pass off as caused by adrenaline rush as I scooped up the scared little critter and got out of the car's way. There was only a cm or so between me and the car as it passed us by and came to a halt. The dog was safe and so was I.

It wasn't as if getting hit by that car would hurt me since I had taken hits far more powerful but that would have led to uncomfortable questions being asked. I was here to look after Komachi, not to be a lab rat.

"Are you alright young man?" An middle aged man wearing a butler outfit came out of the car and asked. I could see that he was genuinely concerned.

"I'm alright. I wasn't hit after all. Thank you for your concern though." I replied.

"Oh thank goodness. Is that dog fine?" He asked.

"He is, I think." I said as I raised up the small dog who was cowering in my arms. It was a breed called a Dachshund with a long body and short arms. He started frantically licking my face as soon as I brought him close.

"Sable!" I heard someone tell behind me and I turned around to see a young girl wearing a tracksuit running towards us. By the looks of it, she must be the dog's owner.

"So your name is Sable huh? You should be careful when running. " I admonished the dog who let out a tiny whimper in return.

By now the owner girl had reached us and I could see that she was probably around my physical age. She had loose chestnut brown hair that was tied in a small side bun. Her eyes were red in colour which was probably due to wearing contacts since red eyes were incredibly rare in Earth as I recalled.

"You should be careful with your dog, young lady." The butler next to me said.

"I'm sorry." She apologized as I returned the dog to her.

"That's fine. Just take extra care next time. You are lucky that no one got injured." I said. After assuring the butler that I didn't need any physical check-ups, I left the immediate area not before receiving the young girl's thanks. She was named Yuigahama Yui and was about to be a first year student at Soubu High much like me.

For some reason she was adamant about exchanging contact details with me which I saw no harm in doing before we finally parted ways. Today was a fine day.

Only two days were left until the entrance ceremony and it was time for me to collect my uniform from the tailor's. I had by now completely finished my junior high curriculum and was done with the first year of senior high as well.

For some reason, Yuigahama had kept contact with me, often sending messages at night. Since I had a strict policy of sleeping at 10 pm, she often did this after 8. She talked about how much hard she worked for getting into Soubu, how excited she was about the prospect of making new friends etc..

Even today, she was coming with me to collect my uniform. When I asked her why, she said that she had sent her uniform to the exact same place. While it seemed a bit coincidental, there wasn't any harm in going together.

We were supposed to meet up at the Station at 10 in the morning and so I arrived sharply at 10 only to find Yuigahama already there. She was wearing a light pink dress.

"Did you wait for long Yui?" I asked her.

" Hikki! No I just got here. " She replied.

" Let's go then. " I said only to get a pouty face in return.

"You look cute Yui." I said as I ruffled her hair the same way I used to do with Ruonxi whenever she showed me that face.

"Hehe. Hikki said I am cute." She giggled like a little kid.

"Now come one." I gave her a flock on the forehead before taking her hand and dragging her with me.

The clothing shop we went to was quite famous for its uniform works and so it wasn't a surprise to see that there were a lot of young kids around. Yui and I had to wait a while for our turn which in turn caused her to go on a rampage of window shopping dragging poor me with her. Now I could have easily resisted but I didn't see any reason to not let her have fun. At least this was true until we ran into some supposedly familiar faces.

"Well, well. If it isn't Hikigaya! " A rather loud voice spoke from behind me. I turned around to see a group of ten teenagers standing there. They were four guys and six girls with the tallest guy in the middle being the one who spoke.

"?" I was puzzled. I actually had no recollection of these kids whatsoever. Yui behind me was looking at them with a mix of apprehension and curiosity.

"Why are you walking around with such a cute girl? Did you think that you are hot shit just because you got into a good school?" The guy said as he came face to face with me.

"Yeah tell him Takeo." Some other guy said.

"I am sorry but could you give me some space?" I asked the encroaching guy.

"Did you hear that guys? Little Hikigerma wants his space. He has grown wouldn't you say? "

" Definitely. Let's take him somewhere we can teach him a lesson about space. " The other three guys started getting closer.

One of the guys caught a glimpse of Yui and said, "Hey there beautiful, why don't you ditch the loser and hang out with some real guys."

I wasn't about to let these kids scare little Yui but at the same time I wasn't one to use violence on weak little kids. So I did what every self respecting adult would do in this situation. I caught the tallest one of the group and raised him by the scruff of his neck. He started flailing like a headless chicken and punched me multiple times but stopped after realising that it was doing nothing to me.

" Now now, we might have some problems but fighting is not the way to solve it. " I said to the guy in my hand. The others had long taken a step back in fear.

" Now be a good dear and run off. " I told him as I let him go. He wasted no time in running off along with the rest of the guys leaving the six girls who were frozen there. Well five actually cause one of them looked more apologetic than she did scared.

"I'm sorry but did that scare you Yui?" I asked the girl who was still standing behind me.

"I'm fine but did they hurt you Hikki?" She looked concerned as she checked my face for any damage.

"Don't worry. They were far too weak to hurt me." I said as I ruffled her hair yet again. By this point I might be addicted to this stuff.

"I'm sorry Hikigaya." My internal musing was cut short when one of the girls stepped forward and apologized. She was cute girl with brown hair and eyes.

"It's fine really. They didn't do anything after all. But I must ask you to warn your friends to not behave like this. Who knows someone might get hurt." I said to her before walking off with Yui. It was our time to collect the uniforms. I paid no further attention to the girls.

"Was that really Hikigaya Hachiman? He looks, you know, not wimpy. " Nakamichi Chika asked her friend.

" I'm surprised as well. I never thought he would ignore me. He looked like he didn't even recognise me. " Orimoto Kaori was confused yet excited.

"Are you sure you are alright Hikki." Yui asked as I dropped her off in front of her house. She lived quite close to my house which made it far easier.

" I'm fine. I'll see you again once classes start." I bade farewell her and went back home. It was about time to go to highschool.

Omake.

"Nee Onii-chan?"

"Yes dear imouto?"

"You said that headpats are the birthrights of cute little sisters right? "

" Yes? "

" Then why do I feel that my rights have been infringed upon? "

"... "

" I knew it! You are getting new little sisters without me knowing. Idiot, Nincompoop, Hachiman! "

" Hey! My name is not an insult! "

That's about it. But holy shit. I expected like 20 reviews or so for the two chapters but you guys just blew me out of the water. I read each and every review carefully, even that one in Spanish or something. So do keep reviewing as it fuels me to write.

Now let's go to the important parts. I'll answer some of the questions that I came across unrelated to the plot.

1. Which was the Manhwa that 8-man got trucked into?

The answer is none. It's my own creation. Murim is the Korean Martial Arts world, not Chinese but Ruoxi and Luo Aotian is a Chinese name. I just mashed some of the ideas I got while reading similar novels.

2. 8-man has short term amnesia.

While that idea is pretty great, I was thinking more along the line of spending too much time in Murim so he forgot but not permanently. It's like forgetting the things of your childhood that you don't have particular attachments to.

Anyways, the furst round of poll results is up and the standings are

1. Harem: 6 votes.

2. Ruonxi: 5 votes.

2. Hiratsuka: 5 votes.

2. Miura : 5 votes.

2. Kawasaki :5 votes

3. No ship: 3 votes

3. Yuimama: 3 votes.

3. Ebina : 3 votes.

4. Yukimama : 2 votes

4. Haruno : 2 votes.

4: Shiromeguri : 2 votes.

5. Yukino : 1 vote.

And I just wrote a chapter with Yuigahama who isn't even in the picture. Poor Yui.

Btw, I am down for literally anything as far as pairings go since I'll work on the character before the ship sets sail.

The voting will stay up for maybe three chapters before I close it so if you want your ship to win, don't forget to vote.

That's about it so I'll see you again soon.

Stay safe.

I am going for a quality over quantity approach so the updates for this fic will max put a 2 per week.