zombiesleuth: A minor note from someone that speaks Arabic. The most direct translation would be "God (he) is greater" not "God is great". كبير (kabir) is the Arabic word for large or in this case great while أكبر (akbar) means larger/greater than. The he comes from the use of the word هو (huwa (Can also be pronounced huwwhich would directly translate to "he is". This probably doesn't matter but translation is finicky so I wanted to elaborate a bit on it.
Re: I recall hearing about the "God is greater" thing in one of the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard audiobooks. Though the thing is, in the heat of the moment, he/I might not feel it important to make the distinction. The joke being in bad taste notwithstanding, it is around a memory of Hellsing Ultimate Abridged since it's a Self-Insert and one of my favorite Abridged series.
Harleking31: Why the hell would I ask you to apologize for a HUA reference, those are based as fuck
Honestly, very brave Orc society. They know what they want and taking hostages is easier than paying for commissions
Kazuma would be proud
... Honestly I'd fall for the J-cup offer as well.
STAIN LISTENING TO THIS STORY *WHEEZE*
Re: The apology that I wasn't making was also a reference in of itself~
I had to change a bit of the context since they didn't have "Diplomatic Immunity" like in Daily Life with a Monster Girl. That's why the police response was much more serious.
That thought had come to mind, yes. In fact, KonoSuba is one of my favorite LN series, that I have in paperback. I had contemplated making my next long-form fic a KonoSuba one… but I might do a Percy Jackson/Danmachi crossover instead… Who knows.
The "self-negotiation" was the trickiest part since he couldn't just cheese it without risking his friends' skins. Because of what happened to Zombina in this continuity, he is paranoidly wary of anything to do with Perverts.
Re-framing ALL THAT in a- "And that's what happened." -sorta way was in of itself, another Hellsing Ultimate Abridged reference~ That, and, having Stain/Stendhal be the one to hear it also added some dimension as Takei venting to one of his internet friends.
*AHA*
As I chained by bike next to Mitsumi's in the Churinjo, any hope I had of my weekend exploits being forgotten in lieu of the currently-popular cat and/or "epic fail" video were succinctly dashed as I felt everyone's eyes on me. And it wasn't just the stares, but the muttering too, some of them with videos playing on their phones. With my elongated ears, I was able to pick up subtle notes of my "ninja Catholic suicide bomber" episode; which was weird because I don't remember my hearing being that good last week.
To make matters worse, by the time I got to homeroom, another of my worst fears had been realized. Shiori, Kuromi, and Yomi-chan had been regaling my peers with their first-hand accounts of my quote/unquote "heroic exploits" at the manga store.
Thankfully, the 2D Girl had kept it to herself that I was still in possession of her striped panties.
I could've just up and mailed them to her, but the twin-tailed chuuni had threatened to just give them back in a time and place of her own choosing whose only guarantee was the presence of a viewing audience.
Suffice it to say, I chose which hill not to die on, and just stashed aforementioned panties in an envelope I kept under my mattress. Doppel would give me absolute hell over it next time she searched, but that was a story for another day, probably.
As for my guy-friends, Togami and Tomu were keeping their heads down since their role in things was considerably less-than-heroic, and Naruki wasn't even there, so at least they weren't adding their two yen to that utter menagerie of a weekend-gone-wrong.
"Just get through the day. Just get, through, the day," I told myself as I made my way to the window seat.
*AHA*
"Well, at least it's a pleasant day out," Naruki told me hopefully during gym.
"Says the guy who wasn't getting pestered all day more than usual."
"What'd you go to the doctor's for anyway?" Togami asked.
"Um… Chest pain," the bishounen answered.
"If you ate fewer 'offerings', that might be less of an issue," I said blurting out the first thing that came to my mind.
Something I'd begun to notice, and thus fight back against more and more, was the seeming "Infantile Regression" from my original personality. Sure, what Shiori had said in that garbled Bible quote made sense, as though I were being given permission to act my physical age, but even then, I could still feel embarrassed whenever I "broke character" like this and acted like a juvenile.
I guess the key to not completely losing my shit, was moderation…
"Hahah. I'll be sure to keep that in mind," the prettyboy replied as he raised his water to his lips.
My ears flicking at the low *thump* with slimy undertones I picked up, looking over to Naruki's drink, I saw that he too had become transfixed by the slight rippling of the normally-still water.
"The heck…?" Togami blinked as he held up his own water, which was acting the same.
Our eyes drawn toward the perimeter fence, a little higher than during the pre-Paranormality era once Quirks started manifesting amidst pedophiles and other degenerates, ours and many other pairs of eyes went wide as a maaaasive frog hopped the fence. Colored green with darker stripes along its eyes and a lighter-colored bellly, the thing looked large enough to swallow livestock in a single bite.
"That is a really big frog…" Naruki gawped at the size of the thing.
"That or someone decided to go streaking…" I deadpanned.
Some of the wilder-acting Transformation-type Quirks also came with some variant of [Gigantification] as a sub-Quirk, like Ryukyu's [Dragon] Quirk, so it wouldn't surprise me if I were right. And the only reason I cared enough to remember the name of a Hero I'd never seen in-person, and her Quirk, was because I was a sucker for American Dragon: Jake Long back when it was airing.
Hopefully no Rifts ever connected our dimension to the pocket-dimension the Dark Dragon got sealed in at the end of the series, because I had no idea how he scaled to real-life if he ever made the crossover.
"I mean, he's big, but he's kinda cute too," Yomi grinned as she plopped herself down in my lap.
"Yomi-chan…" I groaned, feeling my face heat up as she looked over her shoulder with a cheeky grin.
"Hey kids, I wouldn't get too close to that thing if I were you!" Moji-sensei called out worriedly as some of the girls approached the darn thing.
"At least someone has a lick of common sense," I muttered.
"Hey there, little guy~ What's your name~?" the 'Tiny Girl' Chisa cooed as she approached it.
For whatever reason, that thing seemed really familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.
*NOM*
Ohp… Theeere it iiiiis…
Well, shit.
"EYAAAAAAGH!" Kyouko screamed as her friend got eaten, the giant frog rearing back its head and proceeding to slowly swallow her, Chisa's legs kicking about frantically.
"OH GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! GORDYYYYYYY!" I shrieked as I threw Yomi from my lap and ran for the nearby storage shed.
*AHA*
"LET GO OF MY STUDEEEEENT!" Moji-sensei roared as he let his bestial nature take over, his fur standing on end as he proceeded to rain blows on the thing's exposed belly. While Kyouko tried to pull the thing into a Heimlich, a couple of the other students brought their Quirks to bear as well.
One was the silver-haired student with shark-like teeth whose Quirk let him transform his body into living steel. Another was the orange-haired girl with the side-tail whose Quirk let her hands grow to gigantic proportions like Chopman from Sternbild's Second League. The girl with the petting zoo head slapped her hands to its skin, becoming a frog-girl and trying to talk the thing down. The white-winged girl chose a good day to not play hooky and was at-present trying to pull Chisa out with every ounce of wing power she could bring to bear. The class cat-boy was trying to claw the thing into submission, going absolutely feral in wake of Moji-sensei's example.
All of this of course was in vain as the thing's thick blubbery skin acted like a shock absorber.
Just when all hope seemed lost-
"SECRET TECHNIQUE: MOP BUCKET SLINGSHOOOOOT!"
The loud *SNAP!* of rubber sounding through the air, everyone looked up to see the knife-eared Takehiko Tokei flying off the nearby hill astride a yellow mop bucket, his schoolbag clutched to his chest as he sailed toward the monster frog. Getting his legs underneath him, to everyone's amazement he leapt off the mop bucket mid-flight and completed his journey in full, landing atop the frog monster's mouth and grabbing onto Chisa's other ankle, everything down to her knees in the maw of the beast.
"CHISA! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, CURL UP!" Takei shouted as he cast aside his schoolbag in lieu of its contents.
"IS THAT A GUN?!" Haruna chirped terrifyingly as a cobalt-colored P-90 SMG with orange accents saw daylight.
"BITCH AT ME LATER!" the long-eared blond shouted as he jammed the muzzle into the thing's lips. "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA*DA!*
"SHIT! I'M OUT!" he swore as the last of the casings fell from the gun stock.
"YOU ONLY HAVE THE ONE MAG?!"
"WHY THE HELL WOULD I PACK MORE AMMO! I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO EVER NEED IT AT ALL!"
The giant frog beneath them quivering, the next moment it reared back before throwing its head forward.
"CHISA-CHAN!" Kyouko cried as the tiny girl sailed through the air amidst a flume of bloody mucous, Tobita sent pinwheeling away while Takei held his grip on the slime-covered girl's ankle.
"DAMMIT THIS IS GONNA SUUUUUCK!" Takei cried as he yanked on the tiny girl's ankle and wrapped his arms around her, a disconcerting *THUD!* sounding as he hit the ground in her place once, twice, and then thrice-over before slowly rolling to a stop, his body turning purple with bruising.
"TAKEI-KUN!"
"HOLY CRAP!"
"DID YOU SEE THAT?!"
"WHERE DID HE GET A GUN!?"
"THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE ASKING?!"
*AHA*
"God that sucked…!" I groaned as my limbs sprawled outward, letting the slime-covered Chisa roll off of me.
"Oh god, it smells like ass!" the little girl retched, covering her nose with her hands only to immediately regret it. "OH GOD! IT'S IN MY MOUTH!"
The sound of roaring turbines familiar to my knife-like ears, looking up, the glaring sun was suddenly eclipsed by an R.D.A. hovercraft. Men and women in their hazmat suits rappelling down, while some of them surrounded mine and Chisa's blood and slime-soaked landing zone, others went over to the giant frog. The thing was still alive, but bleeding profusely from the mouth courtesy of my emptied P-90. And the thing wasn't moving, so they didn't really need those plus-sized cattle prods; which looked suspiciously like Electrostaves from Star Wars.
Huh. Guess I managed to hit something important back there. Yay me!
"Takehiko Tokei, Osanai Chisa. Please remain motionless. Prepare for decontamination."
"Aw crud," I croaked as they dropped a familiar metal ring onto the ground around us.
*AHA*
"Takei-kun! Why on earth did you have a gun at school?!" Hitomi cried at me through the intercom to the cell that Chisa and I were being forced to share in the back of the hovercraft.
"In case something like that happens," I said pointing in the general direction of the giant frog that I'd pumped full of lead.
"How long are they going to hold us like this?" Chisa huffed indignantly.
"They um… They're worried about the blood and possible parasite exposure," Hitomi answered. "They detected traces of non-terrestrial elements on the body, so it's possible the pathogens you two were exposed to actually are dangerous-enough to warrant a lengthy… observation period."
"Lengthy? How lengthy!?" the little spitfire demanded.
"Anywhere from a week to a month," the nearby lab tech answered.
"A MONTH!?" she shrieked, my hands going to my ears.
"Joy…" I ground out sarcastically.
*AHA*
One flight into the Japanese wilderness later...
"Why the heck'm I in here with you?!" Chisa demanded angrily as we were ushered into the quarantine dorm.
"Because we were exposed to the same pathogens and long-term isolation for Humans is a bad thing," I answered as I sat myself down on a familiar-looking couch. It wasn't the exact same couch, the cushion didn't have the same amount of 'give', so it's possible this is just an identical cell/suite to the one Papi and I were kept in prior.
"W-Well…" she stuttered, unsure how to lambast me for such a frank response. "D-d-d-don't think I'm grateful to you or anything!"
"What's your problem with me, anyway?"
"YOU ALMOST SHOT ME!"
"Oi! I told you to curl up, didn't I? And what would you have rather I done? Let you get eaten!?"
"HRRNNNNNGH!" she growled in restrained, indolent fury.
Suffice it to say, I didn't feel any immediate need to coddle her…
Which was a good discovery to make because it meant pamper-able girls were not, in fact, my "Kryptonite".
. . .
And now I'm wondering what Red Kryptonite would do to Quirk Factors. Fantastic. That shit's gonna be swirling in my brain all day now...
*AHA*
Unlike the last time where Papi and I were simply observed and left to our own devices, Chisa and I were almost-immediately recalled to receive an intense physical screening. The lab/clinic we were transferred to was blindingly-white, and I wouldn't have been surprised if they sterilized the place with microwaves or something like the "clean rooms" in Mass Effect 3.
The testing was only minimally invasive, but Chisa who was actually a twelve-year-old at heart sure raised a stink over it. I on the other hand donated blood and plasma before reincarnating, so the needles didn't bother me as long as I didn't look at them.
"So doc, will I ever play the piano again?" I asked partway through my physical.
"Huh?" the man in the streamlined hazmat suit blinked.
"Nevermind…" I sighed. "Anything stick out on my tests?"
"Well, other than some elevated MGH levels, everything looks normal, but we'll have to fully process this and a few more batteries of bloodwork to be sure."
"MGH…?"
"Meta Growth Hormone," the man said flicking the tip of one of my knife-like ears. "Assuming you aren't born with your lifelong Heteromorphic traits, some of which can complicate the birthing process, MGH is released by your Quirk Factor to help compensate for rapid cellular changes and transformations that come with the growth of additional limbs, the zoomorphic development of faunal features not native to 'standard humans', and so-on. While the 'Toe-Joint Test' still has some basis in modern medicine, in recent years it's been more and more difficult to take that-alone as anything conclusive, what with how some Quirks don't begin to manifest until the onset of puberty due to the growing complexities thereof. To be honest, the idea that Quirks only manifest at the age of 4 and never after, is an outdated idea that too many in my line of work still cling to."
"So like, what, one day you're a regular guy, and the next you have a bird head?"
"I mean… It isn't unheard-of for the zoomorphic changes to be that instantaneous…" the doctor replied. "In your case, while you are technically Quirk Factor Negative, it isn't unheard-of for a Latent Quirk Factor to trigger the release of Meta Growth Hormone in response to stress or other environmental factors," he said looking at his tablet. "This systemic release of MGH through your system is still relatively new, so we have no way of knowing just what the end result would be once you finish your growing phase."
"What, you mean the pointed ears aren't enough?"
"I mean… have you begun developing super-human senses?"
"Maybe…"
"We still aren't entirely sure why some Heteromorphs develop animal features, and others become more 'fantastical' than that, not to mention the Quirks that cause 'machine parts' to manifest without causing any buildup of glial tissue, but with the way Quirk Factors blend together with each generation… You can probably understand why at the outset of Paranormality, people were afraid for their 'humanity'."
"Being 'human' isn't about what your body looks like. It's about being decent and moral."
"An ideology that's in short supply, I imagine," the doctor shrugged. "Anyhow, let someone know if you or Chisa-chan become symptomatic in any way, and we'll see you tomorrow after school."
"I'm sorry, did you say 'school'?"
*AHA*
"Hey there, kiddo. How's the reception treatin' ya?"
"Hello, Gordy," Takei said to the ferret-headed custodian from his monitor the following morning.
Obviously, he and Chisa wouldn't be able to attend classes in-person until they were out of quarantine, but the RDA had pulled enough students off the streets for "sick leave" over the years that they had left a semi-autonomous drone behind to take classes in each of their stead. Equipped with a live camera feed and monitor so their faces could be seen (and teachers could check if they were actually paying attention), the pair of "iStudents" wouldn't be forced to miss out on their education even as their systems were swept for parasites and other off-world pathogens.
"But man, I still can't believe that 'Mop Bucket Slingshot' actually worked~" the man tittered as he cleaned the screen. "They sure made some craaazy sitcoms down in the back-when times."
"Yup," Takei nodded, a game controller in his hand as he controlled the spherical camera mounted atop the drone's screen. "So what'd they do with the body?"
"Took it away somewhere. But man, imagine the frog legs they could've made with that thing."
"Oh, you have no idea…"
"What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing."
What was I supposed to say? That I recognized the thing from a two-hundred-year-old lightnovel that may or may not exist?
"Well, it was nice chattin' with ya, kiddo, but a second-year started drooling liquid mercury in class, soooooo…" the man said looking down at the notice on his phone before grabbing a re-breather and oxygen tank from his cart before walking off.
"Good luck with thaaat."
In the old days, a custodial engineer was considered the lowest of the low. Doubly-so for a childrens' educational facility.
When Quirk Saturation Ratings neared and then exceeded 50% however, they were thusly expected to handle all variety of messes and patchwork repairs as inexperienced children and careless teenagers let their meta-abilities run rampant. In the modern day, it was even worse for schools near Hero Academies due to how lax teachers were in enforcing Quirk Restriction Guidelines on public property.
Never let it be said that "Gordy" didn't do a good job while not chasing that escaped Rhesus monkey.
Which was why I'd ironically/unironically given him the nickname "Gordy", by the by…
*AHA*
"So how are you holding up?" Naruki asked over lunch.
"I mean… They're feeding us… and they're stopping us from infecting everyone we know with a horrible virus or germ or something, so I can't really complain," Takei said angling his drone's camera to the other side of the cafeteria where Chisa's drone was situated in front of Kyouko, though back on his end, she was only a few feet from him. "That giant frog was seriously gross…"
"Well, at least your quarantine should only last about a week," Togami hummed.
"Unless we've legitimately contracted something, in which case we could be here longer."
"You're taking this all remarkably in stride…" Naruki hummed.
"I mean, I can't really blame them for being wary of non-terrestrial germs and such. Do you know how many horror movie zombies have something to do with space debris?"
"Honestly, I think that troupe is over-played," Naruki hummed.
"Reality's stranger than fiction, to be honest…" Togami added.
"Tell me about it…" Takei said as he ate from his own tray of foodstuffs the RDA had delivered.
It wasn't any fancier than what his peers were eating at-school, but the taste was noticeably worse given his present company.
"Hey, can you keep it down over there!? I'm trying to have a conversation here!" Chisa shouted in the background, which was just the same as her screaming it to her own circle of friends.
"So I take it the co-ed lifestyle isn't treating you well?" Futabayashi Kageto, the lizard-necked teen, inquired aloud.
"No it is not…" Takei sighed, praying the cohabitation would not be for the long term.
*AHA*
The *HSSSSSSSS* of rice, meat, and vegetables frying in the wok rising from out of the kitchen, the scent would've filled the dorm to every corner if it weren't for the robust air-filtering system.
"Glad they stocked the kitchen with actual food this time around," I hummed as I worked the wok, fried rice leaping into the air with each practiced roll. It took a little haranguing, but I was able to get the RDA to stock the fridge with some shrimp for Shrimp Fried Rice, Kotetsu Kaburagi's favorite and signature (as well as mine since I was an unrepentant fanboy), since we were going to be here for a week minimal.
He was never popular-enough in his lifetime to warrant a solo cookbook, but somewhere along the line, Hero TV gathered recipes from all of the top grossing Heroes in America and made a compilation so people could feel like they were eating the same stuff as their favorite heroes. Back then, the Quirk Saturation Rating was far lower, so even though they were fewer in number, the Heroes of that age were still as popular as some of the top-grossing Heroes of the modern day.
Kotetsu did eventually write a moderately-successful book about parenting when he formally retired from the industry, and given he was a single parent who was much-beloved by all of Sternbild, even centuries later it was standardized reading for most Heroes attempting to balance their work with child rearing. It was actually kind of vindicating how-successful Kotetsu became in the later stages of his life, and Kaede becoming "Tiger Lady" with her dad as "pit chief" too did my nerdy fanboy heart good, even if I didn't get to see it happen in-person.
*Growrrrrrr*
Looking over my shoulder, I caught Chisa staring at me expectantly with drool running down her chin, the tiny girl snapping her head to the side after getting caught.
"This kitchen's big enough for two. I'm not stopping you."
Chisa's face heated up, her eyes averting as she muttered something under her breath too low for even me to catch this close.
"What was that?"
"I said I can't reach the counter!" she shrieked, face a deeper shade of red.
And what a problem that was for a twelve-year-old to have.
And was it just me, or had she gotten shorter…?
Nah, probably just imagining things.
*AHA*
Like clockwork, Chisa and I woke up each morning (her taking the bed, and me on the pull-out couch since it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the little spitfire would not be amenable to sharing "arrangements"), got freshened up, ate breakfast, and spooled up our drones so we could attend classes. Since the drones had been left in homeroom after school the previous day, we could afford to hold off on logging in until the last minute, which meant I could make myself a more-traditional Japanese breakfast to make my working exile a bit more comfortable.
Chisa for her part might not've made for pleasant company, but even I couldn't hold enough of a grudge when she looked down at her own disappointing-in-comparison pre-packaged breakfast with a mournful sigh. Maybe it was just the home cooking, but we were slowly warming up to one another, even if the traditional gender roles commonly associated with the kitchen had been reversed; and while it was obvious to me she were some form of '-dere', I knew better than to say as such to the little hot-head I was presently locked in an airtight box with.
The results of our daily physicals continued to come back negative, by some miracle, and while their medical instruments weren't Star Trek-level, what we were being subjected to was easily more-advanced than what I had seen back before reincarnating. Whenever we weren't attending classes or doing homework or being poked and prodded, we would watch TV for lack of anything better to do, and while it may've been unfair of me, I did, nonetheless, leverage my cooking to secure television rights for most evenings.
"So wait, that's actually her Super Move…?" Chisa gawped incredulously.
"Blue Rose is a bit of an acquired taste," I replied as Karina Lyle once-again used her Cutie Escape to get herself out of a sticky situation. "Though to be fair, she gets much more competent later in her career."
"Huh…" she hummed, staring intently at the Hero TV Live! I had pulled up on the TV. There was a computer she could've used to stream her own stuff, security measures notwithstanding, but apparently she didn't want some 'Area 51 rejects' knowing about her internet search history.
With that in mind, I idly wondered just what people thought was kept in Area 51 now…
"And that's the guy you modeled your Gamertag off of?" she asked as Wild Tiger clad in "the crapsuit" once again caused collateral.
"My admiration makes more sense with context," I once-again reply.
"Yeah, I heard you the first time. He's basically the less-successful version of All Might, right?"
"Nooo. All Might is the more-successful version of him."
"Don't let the fanclub hear you say that," the 'Tiny Girl' chuckled. "Still, looking at that 'Point System' they're using, I have to wonder how many people got killed back then, just so they could squeeze more drama out of some disaster," she said as Sky High got a 200 Point Capture Bonus.
"Thank god the Corporate Age did end," I hummed, and we continued watching.
*AHA*
When the weekend arrived, Chisa and I no longer had access to the drones at school, so for security purposes we had been cut off from the outside world. While we could send out emails, for security purposes, the order and some of the wording had to be altered so as to prevent the orchestration of any form of break-in. The location of the RDA forward operating bases weren't exactly public knowledge, but they weren't top secret either, so other than their isolation, the secrecy surrounding their security details was their greatest defense.
Or at least that's what I inferred, since they wouldn't say as such out loud.
It had actually taken a tremendous amount of security revisions just to allow for "streaming rights" when trans-dimensional pathogens caused lengthier quarantines for afflicted individuals who touched something they shouldn't have with their bare hands.
Which had me wondering what happened to all those kids, and Moji-sensei, who'd been touching that damned frog with their bare hands...
"Man, you're going to make some girl real happy someday…" Chisa hummed as she watched me make katsu by hand.
"So I've been told," I replied as I took the puck-shaped treat out of the fryer and laid it on a bed of shredded lettuce atop bread.
"No, I really mean it. Yomi, Shiori, and Kuromi-chan won't stop talking about you in the changing room."
"TMI, Osanai."
"I told you to call me Chisa-chan. We haven't killed one another or anything, and you did save my life, so you can owe me that much," she pouted cutely.
Thankfully, I didn't detect any romantic undertones, because while my taste in women was currently flexible, "legal Loli" was not one of them.
And seriously, it couldn't just be my eyes playing tricks on me; she had definitely gotten a little bit shorter in the time we were here…! Just a hair mind you, but I was anal-retentive about details thanks to the previous tenant's penchant for clockwork mechanics, so I just knew…!
"Moving on…" I hummed aloud as I drizzled some sauce and topped the sandwich with one last slice of bread. "How have your test results been going?"
"Like I told them, I was exaggerating when I said I got some 'in my mouth', but they've been insistent that they test me more-rigidly since I was in its gullet for an extended period."
"Well, better safe than sorry when it comes to pathogens," I shrugged as I split the sandwich in half with a knife, plating the two triangles before passing them over, the 'Tiny Girl' attacking the comfort food ravenously. "Remember that botched bio-weapon attack the Chinese did in the 2020s?"
"The what now?"
"From history class, remember?"
*AN: Prepare to be triggered.
Before Reincarnating, I had made it my HeadCanon that the Covid-19 outbreak was a botched bio-weapon attack courtesy of the Communist Republic of China, and learning that such was actually the case in this timeline… was more than a little bit satisfying, if not vindicating~
I mean, it still sucked that all those people died, but at least since then everyone was on enough of a watch for intentional bio-weapon attacks, that something like Covid didn't happen once every couple years. Every few decades when some communist regime tried to be cute, sure, but at least it was getting harder and harder to concoct, let alone deploy, bio-agents.
Which in part was why Quirk users were so-diligently screened before they were allowed to travel overseas. And people with Quirks in the Explosive sub-class certainly weren't helped by past sins of Alquaeda and so-on. While it was true that "villainizing" certain Quirks was stupid if the person who had them hadn't actually done something villainous yet, for security purposes, it made sense to flag people whose Quirks were literally things like [Germ Warfare], which one of the kids in Damoto's current second-year was rumored to have...
"Ah, well, I forgot that bit because it wasn't going to be on a test," Chisa hummed, her body quivering in orgasmic joy as she ate her sandwich.
At least I wasn't hallucinating her with no clothes on. Presently.
Though in my defense…! I hadn't known that the Tio who suddenly had no clothes on after eating my first real success at a Katsu sandwich was actually Doppel in disguise and fucking with me.
I had the good sense not to ask why she had such a detailed transformation of Tio's naked glory… nor how-accurate that particular transformation actually was.
"You're making that face again." *Crunch*
"What face?"
"That face you make when you're thinking something incredibly heavy," Chisa shrugged.
"Really gotta start turning away when I rub braincells together…" I sighed.
*AHA*
"Kami, if I ever have to go to the doctor's again, it'll be too soon," Chisa sighed as the RDA drove us back to school once we cleared quarantine.
"Ditto on that," I hummed. I wasn't normally claustrophobic, but that airtight box was starting to get a little stale.
Not literally, of course, but you know what I mean.
"Rest in peace, Kaeru-chan," the 'Tiny Girl' sighed.
"You're mourning for the thing that almost ate you?"
"Kawaii is kawaii!" she defended as our ride came to a stop in front of the school gate.
"I'll keep that in mind the next time some thing from another universe tries to make you into its mid-morning snack, Bite-Size-chan~"
"Bite me, Gun-Nut-kun," Chisa snarked back.
A few steps into the school courtyard later...
"THANK YOUUUUUUUU!" the 'Giant Girl' squealed as she scooped me up from the ground and held me to her proportionally-modest bosom.
Which, from a non-proportional standpoint were easily a match for Tio's...
"Can't... breathe...!" I gasped as all eyes fell on Chisa and I.
*AHA*
"And things steadily devolved from there," Takei told the kobold-like Heteromorph he had been sitting beside after fleeing from Damoto Junior High's prying eyes.
"That sounds like a pretty wild ride," the pretty kobold-like Heteromorph, Polt, replied.
She was a wolf-like humanoid as opposed to reptilian, her body covered in a thin layer of light-brown fur, with the hair atop her head, large ears, and tail colored a darker shade of brown, the tip of her nose canine-like with sharp fangs poking from her lips. She had pretty blue eyes, large hands with filed-down nails and black paw pads, with a curvy athletic frame clad in white shorts, a black tank top, a headband to match keeping her bangs out of her eyes, and a thin green jacket over her shoulders.
"Yeah… Suffice it to say, any hope I had for a 'normal middle school life' is sufficiently over," Takei huffed as he re-cast his line.
After being in quarantine for a week and getting a clean bill of health, the media circus around that living nightmare was almost as bad as the "Bacon Bits Episode" as Takei jokingly called it; or at least that's what he would jokingly call it once he actually could "laugh at it".
There was a bit of controversy around a twelve-year-old carrying a live gun to school, but by the same measure, the fact that a girl had almost gotten eaten were it not for the thirty 5.7x28mm rounds belched down its gullet, took some of the heat off of Takei and the Mon Squad. That Takei had been frequently and repeatedly attacked by Villains even before becoming their Young Ward, actually put some of that pressure on the Pro Heroes in general since a child wound up feeling "vulnerable-enough" in their society that they "had" to go to school armed.
Of course, that easing of such didn't prevent Takei's first day back at school from being a complete nightmare with people pestering him incessantly. Chisa was fierce, like a "palmtop tiger", so she was able to force the others back, but Takei was still riding the popularity wave from that whole hostage thing with the Orc Culture Recultivation League. To make matters worse, all the media attention dredged up the other "Rift Beast" incident and now his schoolmates were asking him to sign their "No Tongue-kun" T-shirts or star in their phone's voicebox messages…
"Well, don't feel bad, I'm sure everyone will lose interest eventually~" she beamed, tail wagging back and forth excitedly.
She was excitable like a dog, cute as a button, and it took all of Takei's willpower not to pat her atop the head. Heteromorph she might be, but he doubted any of them would appreciate being treated like animals.
No matter how impossibly-cute she was…
"I hope so… I really do…" he sighed. "So, do you always bury the little buggers when you catch them?" he asked looking at a pile of upturned dirt.
It was both amazing and horrifying that even after 200 years, American Catfish were still an invasive species in Japan. Of course, he would only find out later that they hadn't been a nuisance constantly over the last two centuries, but that they had-in-fact, been "re-seeded" over and over again after Japan had managed to force the little buggers out, because they were a cheap and plentiful food source for those that didn't mind destroying their environments.
Ah well, at least catfish were still delicious; assuming you pre-soaked them in milk before frying.
"Not all the time; I'm still full-up on fillets from the last time I went fishing~" she grinned. "Oh, but I'd be happy to help you take some home to your family."
"That'd be appreciated, yes."
Surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, Polt had already known who Takehiko was when they met by the river. To his relief, she treated him like an ordinary person, shooting the breeze with him and letting him vent his frustrations over all the epic bullshit. If anything, it felt like talking to a best friend.
'Once again, widening the gap between my number of female to male friends…' Takei thought to himself as he pat his pocket; somewhere along the line, after she found out about his "Hundred Power" training menu, she'd given him an invite to the health spa she coordinated for, Sports Club Kobold.
The facility was actually tailored more toward Heteromorphs than "standard humans" with extra-deep pools, wind tunnels, plus-sized treadmills, and the like. Gang Orca and other Heteromorphic Heroes made use of the Sports Club Kobold chain, but the venue was still less-popular than its leading contemporary, the Silverman Gym. A world-renowned gym chain that catered towards "standard Humans", was a facility that All Might himself had endorsed for in his younger days and had himself used until his might eclipsed everything the Silverman Gym could offer. For those that couldn't afford their own facilities, Sports Club Kobold and the Silverman Gym were godsends for Pro Heroes who wanted to remain fit and competitive in an over-saturated industry.
"I'm still confused about something," Polt said tilting her head.
"What is it?"
"What was this about a 'Mop Bucket Slingshot'?"
"Oh, the school custodian helped me out with that," Takei replied scratching his cheek. "His name isn't really 'Gordy', but it's a bit of an inside joke between friends because his Quirk gives him a ferret-like head and he's always chasing an escaped Rhesus monkey around the school."
"How does that explain the slingshot…?" Polt blinked.
"I think his Quirk just makes pre-existing elastic materials more-powerful," I shrugged. It wasn't unheard-of for people to have physical mutations that had nothing to do with their actual Quirk, and while 'Gordy' did have a ferret-like body from the neck up, he didn't seem to have any other sort of ferret-like ability beyond a really flexible neck.
But I digress.
"Oh, I see," Polt hummed, something tugging at the line. "OH! I GOT ANOTHER ONE!"
"Man, they're really biting today!" Takei grinned as something pulled on his line as well, the two laughing merrily as they fished well into the evening.
*AHA*
AN:
It wasn't originally the plan to introduce the "AHAverse" version of Polt (the Kobold) and have all the events prior be in the form of a flashback, but it's just one of those things that happens in writing like this, and it just felt right to add it in.
Getting to reference Danberu Nan-Kiro Moteru? (lit. "How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?") was also a fun little surprise I found for myself when the opportunity presented itself (thanks to Polt's inclusion), and it just makes too much sense that there would be rival gym chains for Heteromorphs and non-Heteromorphs in the My Hero Academia world. Especially since the demand would be so high due to all the people wanting to become Heroes, as those truly serious about pursuing that career would in turn pursue measures of physical excellence.
The KonoSuba frog was also too good to pass up, and the "Dimensionality" gives me all sorts of leeway for crossovers as long as I don't make them too crazy~ The more-blatant Ratchet & Clank crossover elements are still a little ways away, but Rift Apart was a real godsend in this regard.
The other major reference, on-the-nose, is an oldie but a goodie I really enjoyed and recently re-watched. Try to guess what it is; because god that reference makes me feel old...
Anywho, looking forward to hearing from you all next time!