To minh180621's comment, yes that was an Overwatch reference, though that wasn't the intent at the time. Credit where credit is due to the writers at Blizzard, it was such a powerful line that it stuck with me even when I wasn't thinking about Overwatch.
Thefallenjedi66: Report waifu, ACCQUIRED. Also, can't till he decides to go 'fuq this' and go straight for the mercenary big boss route
Re: Well, given he's an "Isekai Protag-kun" (according to Shiori and Kuromi's "genre awareness"), that statement isn't completely inaccurate.
As for the "Big Boss Route"… I mean it's certainly feasible, but the public would have to be really fucking desperate before they turn off their five-year-old brains and accept help from any sort of militant body. I mean obviously the USA lends military assets to their Heroes, but that's more because Japan was demilitarized after WWII and the Second Amendment in America was resultant in loosened restrictions on Improper Quirk Use Laws. But I digress.
MagicalGeek: At this rate Takei should have a Tactical Team nearby on Standby 24/7... or in fact that a Special Assault Team Platoon should be stationed near by and publicly and a permanent Kidotai Anti-Firearms Squad Platoon should be on rotation...
Re: While that might help in the short-term, in the long-term, it'd just make him a more-enticing target for any Villain in want of "cred". What the HPSC intends to do, is give Takehiko Tokei the "latitude" to defend himself and become his own "deterrent". He legit killed a guy and crippled another, so it's their hope that his willingness to (quote/unquote) "defend himself" will make any future aggressors think twice.
To LoamyCoffee, yeah, Curious was always one of my favorite characters from the manga, and I got bummed at what a raw deal the MLA got, which is obviously something I plan to change or I wouldn't have given him an eventual "portal" toward Re-Destro. That I started this story 3-4 years before the Canon gives me the latitude to experiment with the worldbuilding and actually change things.
I'll never understand why people have the gall to complain about deviating from the Canon when that's explicitly what this site is for…
Momo bringing her family's doctors and having them do Super Sentai poses, basically came from the same place she was in (or "will be" in) when she wants to use the Don Quijote store to source disguises during the "Hideout Raid Arc".
Linking Elma to the Mon Squad's merchandise and retroactively back to Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid was also a ton of fun.
P.S.
I'm stoked that so-many people (comparatively) had such strong opinions about the Kars question I posed last-chapter, so I definitely have a broadened opinion about how he scales.
Suffice it to say, that one's going to be a very fun chapter (or Arc, more-likely) to write, though I hope I can give it a satisfying ending; twist or no twist.
If you want some more behind-the-scenes content and/or contribution, be sure to hit me up on Discord~
*AHA*
"So I heard you killed couple of guys. Wanna share?" Dust_2_Dust inquired at our next live session as we stalked a Fireteam that fancied themselves "PK Hunters".
"One guy. I crippled one and killed the other. And even then, he could've easily died from the fall instead of the bullet through the mouth."
"Somehow, I doubt everyone will be of the same opinion," Sefgas contributed.
"Yeah, well, his Quirk turned him into some kind of bulletproof ogre, so I pulled a Yuyu Hakusho on him and shot at his soft squishy insides."
"Who?" Dust_2_Dust asked quirking a brow.
"Don't worry about it," I waved off, adjusting the black mantle around myself, my all-black attire and gray accenting letting me blend into the shadows.
"Still, to have a Villain come after you because of your family… I thought that only happened in comic books," Sefgas hummed.
"Why would it be fake? A young ward is basically a target of opportunity," Dust_2_Dust hummed a little too casually.
"Yeah, and going after a Hero's family is like the nuclear response," Sefgas huffed.
Not necessarily untrue. In the same way that Heroes defended civilians, if a Hero got in hot water for beating the tar out of a Villain that went after friends or family, in most cases the jury would side with the Hero. When the Hero was in a bind in the courtroom, being sued by some criminal or Villain, it was usually a foregone conclusion that the Villain would lose that battle. Because if Heroes felt like their constituents didn't have their backs, it might set a bad precedent.
It was unfair in some cases, but in others, it was the only way to stop the Villains from getting through on a loophole or a technicality. And it certainly helped stem the number of frivolous lawsuits directed against Heroes and their affiliate agencies.
They were ripe targets during the Corporate Age, sure, but toward the beginning of the Commercial Age, the laws regarding Proper/Improper Quirk Use had developed enough that most of those leaks had been plugged. And while this did of course necessitate the formation of the HIA (Hero Internal Affairs), any group with the political or social power like the Hero Association needed some form of oversight to maintain the public trust.
"Apparently, they were a couple Yakuza from a family my aunties helped take down. I always figured someone like that would come after me, but I just didn't expect them to be so blatant about it."
"I just wanna state for the record; he wasn't one of mine,"Bullet Punch chimed in from the comm.
The guy wasn't exactly stealthy, so he was staying a little ways away, held in reserve until the presence of an "STR Build" player was confirmed.
"BP, seriously, I know you dig your roleplaying, but one of these days you're going to piss off a real Yakuza by talking all that shit."
"But I'm not talking shit! I really am a Yakuza!"
"Right, whatever," Dust_2_Dust waved off. "So, tell me again why you're getting your edge lord on?"
"Because there's a certain satisfaction in using the thing that scares me to scare other people," I said brandishing my jet-black hook-like sickles from my sides.
Similar to Death Gun from the Sword Art Online series, I took some [Galactic Warship's Plate Armor] from the Mon Squad's reserves and player-crafted a pair of sickles in emulation of "Capital-D Death" by exploiting the [Bayonet Creation] Skill as far as I could. My fight with him, if it could even be called a "fight", was incredibly brief, but because of all the "Image Training" I'd been doing since our encounter at the edge of the spirit world, I'd gained a certain appreciation for blade play that I hadn't quite gotten from all my spars with Stendhal. And it was probably only thanks to all the training I'd done with him that I hadn't gotten (re-)killed by that first upward slash toward my face.
I had yet to encounter anyone who came at me with a Photon Sword after I made my presence known and "got my Chuuni on", but I bet it'd be a real mind-fuck for someone to find that I could parry their bootleg Lightsaber with what looked like a farmer's tool.
"Hm? You say something?" Dust_2_Dust asked.
"Nothing. Nothing. Let's do this thing."
Leaping from my hiding place and landing in a crouch, I filled my virtual lungs with air before letting that somber tone that even now still haunted me loose, the physics engine causing my sound to echo off the walls of the abandoned residential district my Fireteam were stalking through.
*Lick*
"Ahhhh… Nothing I love more than the smell of fear~" I said as I licked my chops, the glow-in-the-dark contacts that Dust_2_Dust turned me towards causing my eyes to shine like twin crimson pinpricks from the depths of my cowl.
"Wh-Wh-What… What… What the fuck?!" the man quivered as my whistling tune continued to play even when I myself had stopped; courtesy of the [Sonic Lure]s the rest of my team had deployed around us.
Psychological Warfare at its… Maybe not "finest", but it was certainly enough for some randos on the internet.
The man reaching for his gun in a panic, I shot at him with the full weight of my AGI Stat, juking around the Bullet Lines his weapon projected before leaping upward. My cloak flaring out like a fallen angel's wings, my sickles crossed before my chest as though I were Anubis himself, and I dove for his throat.
*AHA*
"And you should've seen the look on his face!" Sefgas guffawed as he and I chatted with 5ilencer through video chat after racking up some kills for the VirtCam. "I swear to Kami, he must've wet himself back in the IRL! Haaa ha ha ha ha ha ha!"
"Look, I get that the internet's all about roleplaying, but don't you think you're taking this a little far?" my fellow Fireteam member questioned.
"Hey, if I'm going to have a near-death experience and have it haunt me for the rest of my days, I might as well spread it around."
"Misery loves company," Dust_2_Dust hummed as he downed a scotch.
"So you're a full-time edge lord now?"
"Part-time," I clarified as I changed my kit on the Equipment screen to my original Preset, momentarily flashing cobalt and orange-colored boxer shorts like a Sailor Moon transformation.
"Honestly, I'm surprised you're playing GGO so casually. I mean, even I heard what you did, even if it's only because I'm following you."
"Well, hopefully this blows over as-quickly as it did with the frogs."
"Somehow I doubt it. Not that there's nothing wrong with a little fear," Dust_2_Dust shrugged. "That T-shirt of you walking away from the hospital bed, ripping out those cables and getting ready for 'Round 2' was bitchin' by the way~"
Right. For a moment I forgot the shirts…
Make no mistake, I love Elma to death, but I just wish some of the Goods weren't so cringe.
"Hm. Well, it was nice hanging with you guys, but my auntie's pinging me," I said as a notification came up on my HUD, a minimized window of Elma waving her hand in front of my AmuSphere Ultra back in the IRL notifying me I'd reached my time limit. "Same time next week?"
"What, you not available during the rest of Golden Week?"5ilencer inquired.
"I am, but after that last dust-up with those Villains, all the real people in my life want to assure themselves that I'm still alive, so I'm more or less booked solid."
"Uh, ruuude," Dust_2_Dust pouted as I logged out.
*AHA*
"I'm up, I'm up," I huffed as I slipped off the ASU and rolled out of the bed. "I miss anything interesting?"
"The Mon Squad sends their love. Told me to give you lots of hugs and kisses for them," she said with a completely straight face.
"Well, let them know when they get back, I'll give them as many hugs and kisses as they want. But not in a creepy way."
"Not in a creepy way. Got it. So!" she said nodding her head excitedly. "You ready for a feast?"
"I am. So, where are we going?" I asked following her out of the apartment and toward the stairs.
"Hokkaido!"
"Says the Dragon OL with a completely straight face," I replied in turn.
*AHA*
As soon as we got up on the roof, I felt the familiar tingle of magic wash over me as Elma enveloped us in [Perception Blocking]. A feat that made immediate amounts of sense because right before my eyes, she transformed into what was basically a Leviathan from the Final Fantasy franchise.
And it was one thing to see Elma's dragon form in an anime; it was quite another to see it in real life. Nothing against the people that animated Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, but there was just something so… majestic about a sea dragon live and in full color that couldn't be captured with a pen and paper. Even in the more-serious "Battle Shounen style", the sheer power and… impact of a real-life dragon, just couldn't be emulated by mortal hands.
"Hop aboard!" Elma cooed as she lowered her head, her trident-tipped tail scooping me up and depositing me atop her neck before she took to the air.
That she was basically slithering through the sky like a snake and leaving Asaka-shi as little more than a dot in the distance, proved to me that she could fly like she was portrayed doing in the anime's Opening.
That in of itself left me with a problem of my own.
"DAMN YOU GRAVITYYY!" I cried as I slid down her scaly neck, incapable of finding some kind of purchase.
"Don't worry. I've got you," Elma said as one of her scales morphed upward out of her back, taking the shape of an easy chair like Tohru had done for Kobayashi to help with the backpain that came with riding dragons bareback.
Well, that and Kobayashi's horrible work posture.
"I should be freezing my butt off right now… Is this more magic?"
"Hai. I layered a [Barrier] spell over my [Perception Blocking]. Apparently, humans aren't as inured to the cold as we dragons are," Elma said as we continued to rise higher and higher, the cityscape below us continuing to shrink until we'd basically reached cruising altitude!
"Please don't drop me…" I whimpered as my stomach sank and I pressed myself as-deeply into my recliner as I could, only for a five-point scaly blue harness to wrap itself around me and bolt me to my chair.
"Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to my little hatching," Elma cooed reassuringly, seeming to pay no mind to how completely bullshit her shapeshifting prowess was.
I appreciated the sentiment, I truly did, but it would obviously take more than the one flight atop a magical dragon's back to treat the arrangement as-casually as Kobayashi-san was eventually able to…
"Hot soup? Even with [Barrier] magic, it'll still be pretty bracing up here," Elma said as another scale rose up like a tendril, holding out a familiar thermos.
" . . . Yeah, alright," I replied. Not like this was the weirdest place I'd ever be offered hot soup.
I couldn't think of anywhere weirder… but I'm sure I still could.
*AHA*
If there was one thing Hokkaido was known for, it was its seafood, and given Elma was a "Sea Dragon", it only made sense that she had a finer appreciation for the "surf" over the "turf". In a way, it made sense for her to have our first dedicated day trip being to here; now that she had a human tagalong who knew she was a Dragon in her life again. For anyone else, she'd have to plan around their schedule instead of the time-saving that came with using Dragon powers.
Of course, it didn't really occur to me until we'd landed and were walking the streets, that magical [Perception Blocking] was basically the worst operational security nightmare to ever exist in the world. I mean… we'd basically traversed half the country, an eighteen-and-change-hour trip by car (a less-than-two-hour trip by plane) in mere minutes, all completely undetected to any government or military body. The ability to cross borders in such a way was only rivaled by the Warping sub-class of Quirk users, and those were basically an SSR-class rarity in the genetic lottery.
On the way over, I had asked exactly how-many Dragons were squatting in this world, either by accident or by design like Tohru had done. As it turned out, it wasn't completely unheard-of for Dragons to pop a squat for one, two, or even three centuries before going back home. Just like it wasn't unheard-of for a Dragon to forget to put on their [Perception Blocking] whenever they decided to take a bath in the river; hence why there were so many myths and fables about Dragons in our world despite flying lizards being such a rarity.
She did go on a bit of a tangent about "Lolicon Dragons" demanding virgin sacrifices and how that gave Dragons everywhere a bad reputation (because those were the exception instead of the rule); but I just figured that was another regard where Dragons and Humans were alike.
"Um… What're we going to do if someone recognizes me?" I asked sliding off of Elma's neck after she threaded the needle into a secluded alley a ways away from the fish market.
"Can I see your phone?"
"Why, you forget yours?" I ask passing it over.
"No. Just wanna install an app," she said pressing the backs of our devices together, a chime like something from a magical girl anime sounding before she put the phone in my hand and tapping a new icon; a white magical circle atop a red backdrop.
"Um… Elma…!" I said nervously as a magical circle like the one she'd used to transform etched itself into the air above my phone screen. The next moment it bathed me in light and-
"Takei-kun, you're so cute!" Elma cooed as the light faded and I looked myself over.
"What… What… What the-"
"Language!" Elma chastised as my gold-scaled dragon tail waggled behind me.
Yeah, that's right. I now had a gold-scaled dragon tail not unlike Elma's cobalt waggling behind me from my backside. The collagen membranes between the rays on the end and running up my newly-extended spine were red compared to Elma's turquoise. My hair, still falling to shoulder length, was instead black with golden tips, and my Lombax-like ears had vanished with the transformation. Instead of a single brown unicorn-like horn protruding from my forehead like Elma's, I had two antlers sprouting backward not unlike Shenron's from Dragonball Z; a single beam with two burrs on opposing sides. The last change I took notice of were the eyes, which had become slit-pupiled and were the emerald green of fictional Greek Fire.
"Awwwww!" she squealed giddily. "Who's my little ocean wave? You are! Yes you arrrre~!" she cooed happily as she took me up in her arms and rubbed our faces together, making me realize that my visage had a little more baby fat than I recalled. "I could just eat you up~!"
"Elma, what the heck is going on?! And why's your stuff out too!?" I hissed under my breath as I realize she'd let her horn and tail out, albeit she was still clad in her super-casual skin-tight troussers and a Mon Squad T-shirt.
"Oh, don't worry, you and I are hiding in plain sight!" Elma beamed happily, her ocean-colored slit-pupiled eyes glittering with excited energy as the scent of the sea and seafood suddenly washed over me.
"Wait… Is this that 'Idea Conversion' thing? Like from the 'Hot Spring Episode'?" I blinked as something like that niggled at the back of my mind; that basically by Dragon standards, Tohru and the rest of them were 'good-looking with nice figures', so their Human Forms reflected that.
"Yeah. Kobayashi-san said somebody named Plato talked about 'Natural Form'," Elma hummed, looking nostalgic.
"So for all intents and purposes… I'm a Dragon?!"
Oh boy, now I was getting American Dragon: Jake Long nostalgia…
"Yup! A hatchling of my own! My little ocean wave!" she gushed with reddened cheeks.
"And you did this to me with a phone app?!"
"Why is that weird? Computer coding is the closest thing to magic humans can use without using actual magic," Elma shrugged as though the idea of a magical phone app was completely normal for her.
And taking a moment to digest that comment, I guess she wasn't wrong…
Quirks in of themselves seemed magical, but they still had biological components; a physical limitation that prevented them from being too bullshit. Computer programming on the other hand was practically magic not only because of what programs could do, but to even be able to make them, we had to move from transistor tubes to microprocessors so we could teach rocks how to "think". Any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic, and as I just experienced, the reverse was inordinately true.
Not to mention, Kobayashi-san's computer dialogue was implicitly magical in nature…
Well, technically she only found that out when Tohru tried to teach Kanna and Ilulu some more magic of their own, but the point still stood.
"Elma, isn't this a little over-the-top?" I asked as I waggled my tail behind me, feeling as though I'd always had it.
Given the magic probably worked "retroactively", that wouldn't technically be untrue…
"Well, we can't have anyone recognizing you," Elma pouted. "Not when we're this far from home and there's no plane manifest with our names on it."
"Gee, I wonder why…" I muttered before my stomach let out a growl, followed by Elma's own.
"Ah, don't worry, hatchling! I'll feed you!"
" . . . Roll with it," I told myself as she scooped me up under an arm and ran into the market.
*AHA*
"You know, it didn't really occur to me until just now how-easy it was for Dragons to hide out in this world," I hummed as Elma's scaly cobalt tail swished behind her, her spiraling brown horn proudly on display as we walked through a seafood market.
Not the wholesale market reserved for restaurants, but the ones that households would use to stock up on essential proteins. And Kami forbid what a mess it'd make if Elma bought a whole tuna before eating it raw on the spot.
"Mmhm. The only other place us other-worlders could really stretch out our legs before were comic book conventions," Elma nodded, her draconic features barely warranting a second glance by the myriad of fish-headed fish-mongers we passed; and for all intents and purposes, we looked like a mother and child on an outing. "Of course, when Quirks started to proliferate, it got easier and easier for us to wander around until eventually, we didn't need to hide anymore."
That… frightened me a great deal actually.
Not because I discriminated, but just because somebody could be legit magic and Quirks might not even work on them if they decided they didn't feel like working a desk job.
"Oh, but don't worry. There's plenty of Guardians around to keep the other-worlders in line," she said to me reassuringly.
On the off-chance someone heard us, I hoped Elma was smart-enough to play it off as roleplaying for a TTRPG or LARPing, or something.
*AHA*
Hokkaido wasn't only known for its seafood. Apart from being surrounded in all four directions by the Pacific Ocean, the Sea of Japan, and the Sea of Okhotsk, Hokkaido was home to a variety of magnificent mountains, extensive woodlands, beautiful lakes, marshes, rivers, forests, and more.
Thusly, after stocking up on food from the stalls nearby the fish market to quell our raging stomachs, we went off on a high-speed hike that didn't get us pulled over by sheer merit of more [Perception Blocking] magic. Apart from marveling that I could move faster IRL than I could in GGO, I was mostly following behind Elma who, unlike me, seemed to know where she was going.
And while I did feel a little ridiculous at first for "Naruto running" alongside her, when I stopped to consider that competent pros like Ingenium adopted the same posture, it actually made a lot of sense. Unless you were moving at literally superhuman speeds, there wasn't any point; but if you could move at superhuman speeds, the gains were too great to ignore.
Of course thankfully, Naruto had been inert as a franchise for long-enough that I felt slightly less-foolish for doing this.
Eventually our hike brought us to a little out-of-the-way alcove on Mt. Hakodate. Hakodate-shi was visible in the distance, but that wasn't why we were here. Instead, it was because of the natural hot spring that had miraculously remained undisturbed in the intervening centuries. And it only occurred to me upon seeing the monkeys already indulging, that the weather here was actually quite cold, and the only reason I wasn't bothered was because of how-powerful the [Ideal Conversion] magic actually was.
No wonder Tohru was so proud to be a Dragon…
Though all things considered, she had every right to be.
"Er, Elma, I think we're freaking out the wildlife…" I deadpanned as the monkeys were all frozen in fear upon our approach.
"Don't worry, they'll get over it," Elma said discarding her clothing with way too much ease.
" . . . "
For my part, I just decided to conceal as much nudity as I could and climb into the hot water. When one is in Rome, one does as the Romans do, and Japan was real big on mixed bathing; thankfully, I didn't have to worry about Elma being some kinda "Shota-gon" like Lucoa was. I also remained largely nonplussed about Elma's own nudity because there were times when some of the bustier members of the Mon Squad would walk around the apartment in their underwear.
Sorta like Bulma did with Krillin and Gohan on the way to Namek…
That being said, I didn't actively ogle her. Centuries-old dragon as she was, there was this certain "innocence" about her that made me feel dirty about staring at her D-for-Dragon-sized "flame sacks" like a pervy pre-teen.
"Fuwaaaaaaah…~!" Elma sighed contentedly with a dopey expression on her face, her draconic anatomy bobbing in the water and the local simian wildlife still quavering in terror. "Humans sure have it great, huh, Takei-kun~?"
"Hm. Indeed," I replied as I leaned back and just enjoyed the novelty.
"Did you ever go to an onsen the first time around?" she asked curiously.
"No. Closest I ever got was a hot tub up at a ski resort," I replied. "I always wanted to go to a legit onsen, but that was more of me being a colossal 'weeb' than a true enthusiast."
"Well, now you're a 'reverse-weeb'," Elma nodded thoughtfully before going somber. "Erm… Takei-kun…?"
"Hai?"
"I'm… I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you really needed me."
. . . Oh.
"Elma, it's fine-"
"I know I'm not supposed to interfere, but… as soon as word got out on Twitter that your school was being attacked… that you had been targeted…!"
Ah, dammit, Elma, don't cry. You're going to make me cry too…!
"If I thought for even a second you might've really died…!"
Flame sacks or no flame sacks, I rushed over and hugged her. I hugged her as hard as I could because no matter what, even like this, it wasn't like I'd actually be able to hurt her.
"It's okay."
"But-"
"It'd break my heart if the other Harmony Dragons found out you broke their cardinal rule and you got repatriated to the other world for it. Even if they only had you on probation for a century, for me it'd be the same as never seeing you again! That's why I'm going to get strong. I'll get strong-enough that you and the others won't ever have to worry about me!"
" . . . You're such a good boyyyyyy!"
Elma. Your flame sacks. Your flame sacks!
I can't breathe! I can't-
*AHA*
Thankfully, Elma had the good sense to let me go before I wound up seeing the Sanzu River. Though I'm sure any hot-blooded Japanese man would kill to die in the bosom of a busty "Dragon OL Waifu", if I was going to punch out, I intended to do so with a tad more dignity.
And thankfully, no-one was around to see how red-faced I'd gotten; and not because of the hot water I was steaming in.
" . . . I won't stop you from becoming a Hero. Not if that's what you really want," Elma said somberly.
"With how-much trouble seems to find me, it feels like a foregone conclusion at this point," I sighed in a deadpan. " . . . Wait, is Ryukyu a legit Dragon?"
"No, of course not."
Oh. Okay good.
"She's only part-Dragon."
-said Elma with a completely straight face…
" . . . "
" . . . Hm?"
"Nothing. Just, processing…"
Yes. Yes, of course it made sense. Japanese folklore was filled with Hanyou/Half-Demons, just like how European and pre-European folklore was filled with tales of Demi-Gods. And with legit magical creatures crossing over, including but not limited to magic users, there was sure to be some… "intermingling" of bloodlines.
And given the way Heteromorphic aka "Mutant" Quirks had begun proliferating in recent decades, it only made sense that mythical beings could hide in plain sight the way they had with near impunity.
That and sow wild oats like rabbits, but I digress.
"Hey Elma. If you can hide in plain sight, why don't you?"
"Hm?" she blinked. "Oh, well, I guess it just felt like the most-natural thing to do for a while," Elma hummed, the end of her tail bobbing up and splashing the water a bit. "Also, it isn't fun getting your tail caught in a closing door."
"Hm. I guess that made sense."
A random bit of nostalgia came to me at that moment. That in a hypothetical Familiar of Zero & Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt fanfiction I would've written, a necktie-wielding Angel would've told Louise that the reason he kept his wings hidden (once his Seraphic nature was revealed during that "jobber-fight" with Guiche; a common troupe that was done to death for better or for ill) was because it really sucked getting them caught in a closing door.
"Elma. I lo-… I'm glad you're a part of my life."
"Me too~" Elma cooed as she hugged me into her side, her body supple and pleasant to the touch even if it did make me turn red to the roots of my antlers. "Now come on! You've filled up my heart, so now, let's go fill our stomachs!"
*AHA*
For our Hokkaido "Munchie Tour", we (mostly Elma) ate only the best that the region had to offer. Kani (Crab), Ikura (Salmon Roe), Uni (Sea Urchin), Kaki (Oysters), Ika (Squid), and so-on amidst a veritable truckload of comfort foods from cheaper, hole-in-the-wall establishments to the high-roller places you needed to reserve weeks if not years in advance to enter.
That Elma could get us into the latter like magic, might've been quite literal.
"Elma…" I whispered. "Where… exactly is the money for all this coming from?"
Every credit card transaction thus-far cleared without any problems, but it still made me wary the number of zeroes I was seeing on each in the long line of bills…
And it wasn't just because I was a westerner reincarnated into a Japanese setting. Even for a Japanese person, those bills still had a lot of zeroes.
"Oh, well, once I started living on Earth long-term, I made a habit of deep-sea diving and looting any unguarded treasure hordes for valuables to sell back on land so I could make myself a nest egg," Elma said between bites. "Oh! But it's not stealing! If the treasure is unguarded, the only one that can be blamed is the Dragon leaving their treasures out for anyone to run away with!"
I didn't feel the need to tell her that those weren't Dragon hordes she was looting all this time, but the hidden gems left behind by the age of piracy untouched for untold centuries…
Which made me wonder, once Heteromorphic Quirks started proliferating, how did all those sunken ships not get picked clean over the intervening centuries? Were there really that-many in the unreachable depths that only Dragons could get to them? It was the only explanation that made any measure of sense beyond people just being lazy, or too-afraid of what else was down there.
In fact it was equally possible that even if people could go down there, the cost of the Support Items required to even explore down there for Heteromorphs without some form of [Bioluminescence], were simply too cost-prohibitive to make deep-sea salvaging a viable method of livelihood-assurance compared to being a Hero, which in all likelihood was far more "glamorous"…
" . . . To sunken treasures, unguarded by lazy Dragons," I said raising my cup of water for a toast, Elma's face beaming as she returned the gesture, and then went back to eating, the restaurant-goers around us just-as-incredulous at how-much she could put away as those at the previous restaurant.
At least I didn't feel the need to stuff my face as-badly as she did. Even if I did wind up eating more than I would've in my Human form.
*AHA*
"Elma… Aren't we maybe under-dressed?" I asked as we stood before a place called Sushizen, the entire block the very definition of opulence.
In response to this, Elma pulled a pair of cobalt Dragon scales the size of dinner plates from her bosom before slapping them onto both our torsos. The next moment in a shimmer of light, our casual war was transformed into a pair of elegant kimono that perfectly complimented the color of our dragon scales. She sheen and the embroidery were so-exquisite that my attire alone looked more-expensive than my middle school.
"You're lucky no-one was around to see that."
"Oh, don't worry. I've been using [Perception Dampening] the entire time. We begin to fade out of people's memories as soon as they blink."
Yup. Magic is bullshit.
Walking inside, there was already an appointment waiting for us. But that wasn't why I was shocked.
Why in the hell was Yaoyorozu Momo here?!
*AHA*
"Forgive me for saying this so-openly, but… have we met?" Momo inquired with an adorable tilt of her head.
"No, not that I recall," I replied from my seat to her left, Elma on my own left and seemingly nonplussed that someone I knew was already here.
"Hm. No, I suppose not," Momo conceded as she turned her attention to her yellowtail.
"If I might be so bold as to ask, what brings you to Hokkaido? Or are you local?"
Keeping my own "Isekaitis" a secret as long as I'd been doing, it was actually quite easy to throw out little white lies.
"Oh, no, not local. I'm on an outing with my mother," Momo replied as she gestured over her shoulder towards a woman that looked… basically like a mid-30s version of Momo herself; all elegant lines and curves with an hourglass figure any woman would kill to possess. Everything from the small amount of makeup to her jewelry was tastefully immaculate, and she was easily the prettiest woman here, second only to my own mother-
Wait… Why did I think/know that Elma was my own mother-
No. Never mind. Magic.
That's why that thought came so-naturally…
"Mmmmmmmmm~!"
"Your own mother seems quite taken with her meal," Momo hummed as my quasi-mother squealed happily, her cobalt tail waggling merrily through the tail-slit in her kimono.
"Ah. Yes. She has an innate gratitude for all parts of the process. Everything from the fish in the sea to the fisherman on the boats to the sushi chef who makes the end product."
"My, what a lovely sentiment," Momo said pressing her palms together and tilting her head cutely.
Well, at least Momo didn't recognize me. Unlike Superman's infamous "Clark Kent Glasses", unless you saw me transform, you'd have absolutely zero reason to think that myself and my "Dragonborn" alter ego were one in the same.
Ugh, and now I'm having Skyrim nostalgia. And I hardly even played that game!
*AHA*
Thankfully, I was able to put up enough of a "wall" that Momo had no interest in exchanging numbers with me in my present… configuration. Not to mention, I'm not really sure what I'd have even called myself when I was like this.
The antlers made me wanna call myself "Shenron", or maybe "Shen Long", but that felt kinda pretentious, so I'd just keep my name to myself.
"Elma?"
"Hai?"
"Why'd you give me a magic phone app? Why not just use the magic on me?"
"Well, I won't always be there when you need my magic, so I just pulled an App together for emergencies."
" . . . Wait… You mean this has any magic in it?!"
"Only the ones I'm innately familiar with. [Ideal Conversion, [Perception Blocking, [Perception Dampening, [Memory Alteration, [Clairvoyance, [Restoration]…" she listed off on her fingers like it was no big deal. "Of course, if you learn Jigokumeguri's programming syntax, you can program or even use your own magic. Albeit, your own stores of Mana will still be limited for quite a while."
"Ah. I see…" I nodded.
. . .
Wait…
My own magic?
"What do you mean 'my own magic'…?"
"Erk…!"
"Elmaaa…! Why do I have magic?"
"Oh… You know… No reason… There are human mages out there, you could've easily been descended from-"
"Don't you mean 'you are descended from'?" I asked putting my hands on my hips.
" . . . "
*AHA*
And as it turned out, Elma had succeeded where Tohru had largely failed.
Though to be fair, I never actually ate any of her tail MEAT. All she'd been doing was steeping her tailfin in boiling water, boiling that down, and then feeding me the clear fishy broth that remained.
. . .
For some reason I'm perfectly alright with this.
"Wait… Is that why this magic makes me think I'm actually your kid?"
"I mean… mayyyybe…?" she said averting her eyes. "Dragons adopting mortals isn't too uncommon. It's pretty rare, but it still happens, you know…"
" . . . Okay, but why me? What makes me so special?"
Besides the flagrantly obvious.
"Well, you're a Reincarnate, so that's one reason…" she admitted bashfully.
Well, she isn't wrong...
"Another is… Your compassion reached me when I needed it the most," she said taking my hands in her own and holding them to her chest. "And even if we'll only be together for a century, give or take a few decades… I want to spend as much time with you as I can. I want to see you grow, and prosper. I want to see you have kids of your own. I want to see those kids to have their own children," she said with an eager glint in her eye before it dimmed. "Is that… Is that selfish…?"
" . . . Most people would take offense to being treated like a pet…" I replied, and her shoulders slumped. "But the thing is, you're an Immortal. I'm not. So maybe this sort of thing is perfectly normal. I mean, Humans treat 'lesser creatures' as pets literally every day, so taking issue with the reverse would be kinda hypocritical, don't you think?"
"You're…" she paused. "You're taking this surprisingly well."
"Yeah, well, like you said; I'm a Reincarnate. I wasn't especially brilliant back home compared to some of the really smart people that were wandering around. I was completely 'Commonplace' and the farthest thing you'd ever find from the 'World's Strongest'; but the one thing I have in spades is 'Perspective'. And though it's a really low fucking bar, I'm way smarter than the five-year-olds that get to run the world now."
"Hm. Yes. It seems like critical thinking does cease developing after five or so years…" Elma said with crossed arms and a thoughtful expression.
"Sooo… If you didn't slip up and I didn't find out something was up with that soup, how long would you have fed it to me before you told me the secret ingredient?"
"Er… Only up until you started showing noticeable side-effects."
"Side-effects? Like that 'Beast Person' medicine Tohru gave to Kobayashi!?"
"Er, I don't think my 'Dragon Fin Soup' would've caused that sort of change…" she replied with a blush. "Maybe… Probably… B-But I abstained from feeding you any tail meat for that very reason!" she added hastily.
" . . . I suppose I'll just have to take your word for it."
. . .
"You're not going to try and slip me some 'Pills of Immortality', are you?"
"N-N-N-Not unless you want me to!" Elma gasped. "Maybe it's hypocritical of me to say this, but a life only has meaning because it can end. Kobayashi-san hated the idea of Immortality, so I have to think that she willingly chose death for a valid reason."
" . . . Well, who knows. Maybe there'll be a medical breakthrough some time this century and 'life extending therapies' will become available on every street corner."
"I hope so. But even if they don't, that's okay too."
" . . . Well, that kinda took a turn," I hummed after an awkward moment. "Are you still hungry?"
"Always!" Elma grinned, puffs of steam coming from her nose.
"Right. Yeah. Forgot who I was talking to for a moment."
*AHA*
A few more hours of Elma making a spectacle of herself, later-
*BOOM!*
"Oh what now…!"
Rounding the corner, I saw Momo and her mother both being accosted by a bunch of Heteromorphs with fish-like qualities. Interceding on the two's behalf were a number of men in black suits, sunglasses, and earpieces, most of which I recognized from our momentary meet-up.
The whole lot of them were using their Quirks, a stray fireball or something having caused a motorcycle to explode, and that more fish-like men were coming in from the direction of the harbor dripping with seawater, gave me the impression that the new faces were "reinforcements".
Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the two of them were being targeted, so far from home…
"Elma, how good is the [Perception Blocking] on this thing?" I asked holding up the App.
"I mean… it'll probably break if you try to outright fight anyone. That magic's a bit of a balancing act."
"Yeah, that figures… What about Dampening?"
"Oh, that would definitely obscure your identity."
And boy is that frightening…
"Ah, fuck, shit, I left my stuff at home!"
"Takei-kun, right now you're my hatchling; my little ocean wave. If the anime was really as extensive as you implied, then you should already have some idea of how-powerful a nascent Dragon is even when compared to most Humans."
" . . . You're saying I'm super-strong right now?"
"Compared to Humans? Yes. Compared to Dragons? No; you're still a wee little hatchling that Elmama has to protect and cuddle~"
"You mean 'coddle'?"
"That too~"
" . . . "
*AHA*
"Holy shit! Is that All Might skydiving in a bikini?!"
"WHAT?!"
"WHERE!?"
"HOLY SHIT!"
"Ohhh myyyy~"
*WHIF!*
*SOK!*
*BIF!*
*POW!*
*BAM!*
*CRASH!*
*BANG!*
*WHACK!*
*BOOM!*
*THUD!*
*SLAP!*
*SMASH!*
"Don't forget to tip your server!"
*AHA*
In retrospect, Dragon power and [Perception Dampening] were probably a bit overkill.
Doubly-so because Elma cleaned up after me with [Memory Alteration] so we could use these identities again without worrying about some kind of pending manhunt.
Only later would I learn that Elma had taken my- "Hey look! A distraction!" -line super-literally and make it so dozens of people hallucinated All Might skydiving in a bikini.
Obviously, I couldn't feasibly intervene on Momo's behalf every time some slimeball and all of his friends thought they could squeeze some easy ransom money out of the Yaoyorozu Conglomerate. But I was here now, and I had the power, so I might as well-have.
That, and, Momo had penciled in tomorrow as a hang-out day with Mei, and I couldn't just disappoint two lovely young ladies.
. . .
I think having barely any male friends is becoming a problem.
*AHA*
Before we made our way back home for the day after more eating and keeping our heads down, there was one last thing that came to mind.
"You aren't going to try and fuck me, are you?"
"What?! NO! I am not a lolicon dragon!"
And boy was that a sentence…~
"I love you, Elma."
"And I love you too, my little ocean wave~" she beamed as she ruffled my gold-tipped hair.
"Let's go home."
"Hai!"
And Thus I Found Myself Adopted by a Dragon OL in Another World.
*AHA*
. . . Or at least that's the upbeat note this chapter of my life should've ended on...
"Elma, why're we flying in the wrong direction?" I asked after Elma took to the sky, leaving Hokkaido and the rest of Japan well in the metaphorical rearview mirror.
"Oh, just thought we'd take the scenic route home~"
"Okay, but how-scenic are we talking, because Japan is getting really far away!?" I said as the last of Japan's lights vanished over the horizon, leaving an infinite inky expanse of sea all around us.
"Well, you got a little nostalgic for your previous life, so I thought we'd swing by your hometown in America. You can show me around!"
"Elma, no, that's a terrible idea."
"Why? Did your shoddy reincarnation make you forget where you used to live?"
"No, but that's not the point. My point is..." I sighed dredging up a strong memory so I could make a convincing argument. "When Ben 10 crossed over with Generator Rex, he flew back to Bellwood to find his family and friends. Only, it wasn't the same 'Bellwood', which meant his cousin, his grandpa, his best friend, they didn't exist in that world. And best-case scenario, even if my hometown is still in the same place with the same name on this Alternate Earth, it's been two-hundred years, nothing would be recognizeable. Worst-case scenario, my hometown isn't even there anymore."
"So... you don't care about your homeland?"
"Technically I was born somewhere in Europe, but that's not the point..." I deadpanned. "My 'home' isn't in America; my home is Hitomi, and the Mon Squad; it's Asaka-shi and all my friends from Damoto Chugakko. You as well... you are my home. Your homeland isn't a plot of dirt in the middle of a map. It's where all the most-important things in your life are. And to me, in this life, all of that is in Japan."
"Ah, I see..." Elma nodded her head.
To my relief, she turned a 180 and took us back to Japan, the ocean a blur as it rose up to meet us.
. . . Wait what?
*SPLOOOOSH!*
*BUB!*BUB!*LUB-LUB-LUB-LUB-LUB!*
"Hm? Oh, don't worry about the water. As long as you're my little ocean wave, water can't hurt you~" Elma said with a merry little grin in her voice.
" . . . Oh," I hummed, realizing she was right.
Ahem. As I was saying...
Thus I Found Myself Adopted by a Dragon OL in Another World.
*AHA*
A little feel-good with a little worldbuilding plus a little nonsense. All in all, a very fun chapter to write~
I'd like to thank Ken Akamatsu for helping expand my understanding of how Immortals interact with Mortals from a narrative standpoint. It's made writing for Elma a complete joy, and in case I didn't make it obvious enough, for me, Elma is "Best Girl"; in the context of her own anime at least.
Got some more Golden Week goodness, so keep an eye on that Inbox!