To Thefallenjedi66, the whole "But that, is a story for another day." line is actually a reference to the The Storyteller: FALLOUT by ShoddyCast on YouTube, a Fallout universe machinima series that I'm very fond of. It isn't meant to be taken as an explicit "out" as it is something funny to allude to; like "The Spaghetti Incident" that was popularized by Calvin & Hobbes.
Or at least that where I saw it first.
To superpierce, yeah, it was fun showing other people being put out of their depth for a change. Unlike what the angry villagers who came at Deku with torches & pitchforks thought they were owed, there's no "expectation of etiquette" when it comes to C.O.s. As opposed to Villain outbreaks, animals from other worlds do trigger a Fight or Flight response, not a Sit-on-Your-Ass-and-Spectate response.
To Raidentensho, I have… something in mind for Medabots~ Robot technology is certainly advanced-enough to reverse-engineer and then manufacture something like a Medabot, even in the Canon; though the "self-repairing metal" might only be able to be manufactured at a place like I-Island. I can definitely see self-repairing prison cells being a seductive proposition for containing meta-criminals.
To grx1318, yeah, an Isekai story can't be "all action, all the time"; "feel-good" moments are a necessity for contrast, otherwise any one thing becomes too bland. As for the worldbuilding, happy you appreciate it; flooding a story with one-note OCs just doesn't do it for me, both for writing and for reading, so when I can, I try to make crossovers. Makes the world feel lived-in.
To The Viking Stranger, love where that energy is about the HTTYD topic, but as I said on Discord, giving Takei a [Night Fury] would be a biiiiit on-the-nose.
By "squirrel", I assume you meant [Skrill] and your phone just auto-corrected; and if so, kudos for making such a lengthy Review on a touchscreen. The [Whispering Death] and [Screaming Death] by looks alone would send normal "spectators" running for the hills, and their "non-conformative" dragon shapes would mesh very well with the aesthetics of a Villain as well as the "aesthetic", since some villains in MHA have non-conformative thought processes that could've just as easily been remedied by a little government sponsored therapy; something All Might could've easily advocated for if he legitimately cared for anything other than punching all the world's problems in the face and smearing them all over the asphalt. The [Nadder] definitely has utility with its spike-throwing and as a convenient mount given the size of Japan's parking spaces. The [Nightmare] with its gel-based self-immolation is also way cool, but would be very hard to use in a heroic capacity given the whole arson vibe… The [Frightmare] might have a hard time sneaking up on people given the whole… you know… glow-in-the-dark thing, and you'd have to be a real sucker to drink tainted glow-in-the-dark river water!
But yeah, I've added these Dragons to "The List", and on Discord I'm hashing out where some of them will wind up, and more-importantly with whom. So, you know… Hit me up on that Discord and become part of the process!
But anyway, more plot progression!
*AHA*
It's an interesting problem, having more moms than you know what to do with.
Oh, but I'm probably getting away from myself. I should probably clarify…
*AHA*
Math class was largely impossible to fall asleep in. Why exactly?
Because our teacher, Saito Takumi, has skin like a fine mahogany desk and wooden beads in his dreadlocks that made him sound like an abacus whenever he moves.
Apart from English, which I had an edge in because I spoke the language "like a foreigner", Math was also a favored class of mine because unlike Social Studies, there was only one right answer for each question in this subject. Nothing ambiguous with those questions.
This of course made the "retro" Metal Gear Codec ringtone coming from my Communicator wristband stand out all the more, all eyes in the class turning toward me.
"Emergency line. Gotta take this."
Getting up from my chair and being let out because "emergency" was code for "Hero-related" and the faculty all knew who my family was, I stepped out into the hallway and brought my phone to my ear.
"Sweetie! Are you okay?!"
"Tio, I'm fine. What's going on?"
"Listen, don't freak out, but my momma's back in the country and she knows where you go to school!"
For some reason I'm imagining a taller, more-matronly version of the Mon Squad's tank. And if I could lose an entire afternoon using the daughter's lap as a pillow, I shuddered to imagine the number of days I'd lose with the mom…
"And I need to be worried becauuuuuuse…?"
"Because she's baby-crazy and you're her new grandbaby! Now run! Run fast and run far!"
"Well, Gran Torino's manning the gate, so unless your mama wants to break the law or something-"
*Crash!*
"Would you excuse me for a second? I have to take this," I said slinking back into the classroom, everyone in the process of freaking out as Gran Torino shook glass from his costume after coming in through the window. "What fresh hell blew in this time?"
"Ogre woman… Huge titties…" the Jet Hero groaned.
"How huge we talking?" Hanyuu asked fondling his own for emphasis. "Bigger than mine?"
"Very."
"That doesn't answer my question but I still want to hear more."
"Down, boy. Your libido is showing," I deadpanned.
"WHERE!?" he cried flattening his hands over the front of his skirt.
"You're truly a credit to cross-dressers everywhere," I deadpanned as I poked my head out the window Sorahiko came through, mindful of the glass as I beheld a woman scaling the building.
She looked a bit like Tio around the face, though her skin was much lighter, her eyelashes were longer, and she had two horns instead of one poking through the ballcap she was wearing. Her hair was jet black to Tio's blond and shoulder-length, covering her right eye. Her attire was completely ordinary, aside from the fact that she shopped at the Tall & Large section of the store, but something else I noticed was she was jacked! Like, seriously, Tio's mom didn't have "a man's body" by any stretch of the imagination, but if Tio could chuck loaded vending machines with little trouble, I doubted her mom could bench an entire van, if not a small bus.
"Mago-chaaaan~" the huge ogre-like woman cooed as our eyes met.
"I'm starting to see what Tio meant when she said this woman was baby-crazy," I said after retreating. "Should I flee in terror?"
"Politically I'm obligated to say 'no', but my back is saying 'RUN BOYYYYYY'!" Sorahiko cried as the woman got to our level and forced one of the windows open, her muscular frame barely able to fit through as I proceeded to bolt into the hall, screaming like a barnyard animal so as to broadcast the current state of emergency.
*AHA*
Unlike the two Trigger junkies from before, Tio's mom, Oga, was able to catch me relatively quickly. As I would later learn, she was a former Pro Hero who, like Sorahiko, went on to become an Instructor after A) becoming a mom and B) lapsing on her mainstream law enforcement qualifications; hence she was able to stay fluent in all the modern techniques of apprehending a fugitive on the run.
Which I supposed in Japan meant having more than two braincells to rub together.
In fact, prior to her return to Japan, she'd been on loan to a handful of Hero Academies in America where Quirk-related crime was at its most-varied. Unlike Japan where they gave half of all applicants a Provisional License, the vetting process was more stringent in the rest of the world, so the services of Instructors of her caliber was much-coveted. While she'd known about Tio "adopting" me for a good while, it was only recently when her employment contract lapsed that she was able to come back home; something Tio only learned about once she got off the train from the airport and had arrived in Asaka-shi.
While her pampering, baby-crazed nature was a bit overbearing at first, I took it in stride because there wasn't anything overtly malicious about her conduct. Thankfully though, I was able to distract her from coddling me to death by offering to treat my "obaa-chan" to lunch.
So here we were, waiting in line for our food and God DAMN, the legs on this woman!
Seriously, she looked like she could pulp a redwood between those thighs!
And I wasn't the only one to notice. A number of sexually developing boys and sexually confused girls also took notice, though their gaze was more sexually overt than my own. And the less said about Hanyuu's gaze, the better.
Honestly, if it weren't for the slight beer belly pushing against her shirt, I'd have assumed she were still an active-duty Pro Hero.
Then again, there were plenty of "C-Rankers" with beer bellies in the active-duty roster, soooo… Tomato, tomatoe.
"Who the heck says 'tomatoe'?" Shiori blinked from my side.
Ignoring the fact that Shiori's meta-awareness gives her privy to my innermost thoughts, I took a seat in the corner of the cafeteria away from the windows, giving me a bit of space to get to know Tio's mama better.
"Here comes the choo-choo train~ Choo-choooo~"
I'm starting to see why Tio told me to 'run fast and run far'…
"Oga-san… I love you like family-"
"Me too, mago-chan~!"
"-but please respect the fact that I'm in middle school."
"You're going to ruin that cute face being all serious like that~" the giant of a woman pouted.
"Well, I'm hoping when I'm strong enough to adequately defend myself, I'll be able to relax more."
Huh. Maybe that's why All Might is smiling all the time. Not to let people know they're going to be "okay", but because he knows nothing can hurt him?
Must be real fucking nice…
"Oh! I can help with that!" the giant of a woman gushed excitedly.
"I mean… I won't turn down the extra help," I hummed to placate her. "But I also don't want to stunt my growth with too rigorous training."
"Aw, don't worry, obaa-chan would never let that happen to her little mago-chan~" Oga cooed reaching across the table to ruffle my hair.
"I suppose I'll have to take your word for it," I hummed, thankful to have the extra muscle around in case of a home invasion or something. " . . . Would you be interested in helping my friends train too?"
"Oh? Who did you have in mind?"
*AHA*
Meanwhile, off to the side, Kendo Itsuka felt a shudder run up her spine, while Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu felt himself getting pumped.
Both would come to learn just why in the coming days.
*AHA*
First time I saw Gordy's workshop, I was almost as amazed as the time I saw Mei-chan's Jimmy Neutron-style secret laboratory. That one of the walls was dominated by shelves of odds-and-ends like the Mythbusters' own headquarters meant there'd be plenty of parts for me to tinker with if I wanted to work on something away from Mei's place.
When I asked why he had enough wiring and circuit boards for a small electronics franchise, it turned out that Gordy was real into DIY in regards to catching that loose rhesus monkey that's been galivanting around the school like "The Weasel" from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide.
After that was a follow-up inquiry as to why he hadn't just called Animal Control.
As it turned out, he'd used up the school's "yearly quota" of calls to A.C. and they refused to answer his summons anymore. And the Heroes were a fucking no-show because anything to do with animals was always a dicey subject because this-century's equivalent of PETA would get on their asses and make their life hell. Which is real fucking ironic because groups like that kill more animals than they save, and the only way to burn the stump of the hydra's head is to wait for one of them to euthanize someone's kid because they can't tell the difference between a toddler with a Mutant-type Quirk and a dog in a sweater-vest.
No, seriously, that is how one of the PETA-clones got the hammer dropped on them after social media painted them as a Villain Organization.
But I digress. Despite only being a custodial engineer, Gordy was actually really handy with his tools and fabricating stations, and if he wasn't so-dedicated to outsmarting a supposedly more-intelligent lab monkey, he might've been able to get a job making Support Items. That or make a killing on YouTube.
And it really curdled my cheese that nowadays, it took almost zero effort to become popular by doing meta-powered party tricks. The only solace to be found was that people who used that as their platform, had a very short half-life. In the endless quest for more fame and more Followers, eventually everyone fucked up and did something in front of a cop that got them arrested.
"Hey uh… kid. I know I gave you a pass to make those micro-flails after what happened to Tomei-chan, but I'm a little wary of you making actual weapon-weapons in my workshop," Gordy hummed aloud as I worked after-hours following my return-trip from escorting Shizuru home.
"Relax, it's not a weapon; it's a flight stabilizer," I hummed as I flexed my wrist, the thing I made with my Cheat Ability emitting a *vreeeen* before- *BLAT!* -throwing me off my feet by the wrist and punching a hole through the workshop wall. "I can fix that!"
"Let's just blame it on the Rhesus monkey…" Gordy sighed as he gathered together materials to mend the baseball-sized hole I'd made, his attention shifting to the power source connected to the gauntlet. "That super-puck of yours sure packs a wallop."
"With the number of gigajoules I can squeeze out of this thing, it better," I hummed as I made sure the sudden power draw hadn't damaged the improvised particle accelerator.
After discovering that my pre-order-game-inspired Lombax-like Cheat Ability was basically the same [Mechanical Intuition] as Ben 10's more-intelligent aliens, my immediate nerdy fantasy was to make a full suit of Iron Man-style armor, quite possibly styled after Ratchet's from Deadlocked.
And sure, it was a long way off and a hobby I'd need to sink an inordinate amount of time (as well as money) into before I had something usable, but I figured if I got something ready by the time I got to Yuuei, maybe I could get a sponsor, or maybe a research grant, so I wouldn't have to pester Momo for everything.
No way in hell I was gonna try for a "double-major", and I didn't exactly trust the glory hogs out there with anything powered by a Miniature Arc Reactor. Anything I made with my Cheat Ability was going to stay strictly "in-house", even with all the brickware and anti-tampering measures my Lombax-like mechanical abilities and Elma's SE lessons let me put in these things.
Not to mention, as soon as I got out of the mindset of "tinkering", the blueprints for my dream armor I "auto-drafted" turned into incomprehensible gibberish that only someone like Tony Stark would've been able to understand. I almost immediately torched what I assumed were comprehensive blueprints because I wasn't arrogant enough to believe that no-one without a Cheat Ability would be able to make use of those things. Albert Maverick almost replaced Heroes with Battle Androids once before, and I wasn't in the mood to contribute to the upheaval of the current society; even if I did think more than half of Japan's roster were hot garbage who could go die in an apartment fire.
Of course, even if someone had gotten their hands on those prints, there was already a damn good reason why there weren't any Iron Man-style Quirkless heroes out there in the world, even if I-Island could definitely provide the hardware.
In short, it was because it was too damn expensive.
Sure, maybe someone like All Might could afford to sink the money into a custom-tooled super-suit to level the playing field with Quirks, but there was a point on the power scale where the tech became so prohibitively expensive in terms of tactile payoff, it was simply more-economical to hire someone with the appropriate Quirk. If I ever did get my Iron Man-style suit off the ground, figuratively and literally, it would be little more than a vanity project to fulfil my nerdy fantasies, give me a bit more stopping power that wouldn't level a city block like some of Ratchet's wackier weapons did.
But I digress…
"You know, you could probably win a Nobel Prize with that thing," Gordy hummed looking at the hockey puck-sized clean energy generator.
"And probably blow up the entire planet in the process."
"Is this another one of those history lesson things?"
"Yuuuup."
If people couldn't be trusted not to use their natural-born abilities for self-destructive purposes, there was no way I was letting a functionally infinite power source out into the world. I'll let someone else open that box and doom humanity, if only so no-one can say I caused the apocalypse.
Sure, that might be Hubert J. Farnsworth's ambition, but it sure as hell ain't mine.
Yet.
" . . . Fair enough," Gordy shrugged as I disconnected the MAR from the 'Repulsor Gauntlet' I cobbled together, making a show of stashing both in my school bag and sliding them into the opening of my [Item Box] when I was sure he couldn't see. "Soooo… Tio's mom's in town. What do you think of that?"
"Well, the apartment's a lot less lonely since she started crashing on Tio's plus-sized bed," I replied. "There's certainly a lot more beer cans on the floor, though."
And given the size of the woman, obviously there were more compared to in Kuroko's room before I cleaned up.
Might never get the booze-smell out of her plushies…
"Still though, if you don't mind me saying, did you see the legs on that woman?!" Gordy gawped. "I mean, whoever Tio's dad is… He's gotta have balls, and hips, of military-grade steel."
"Yeah, I noticed the legs. So either Tio's limbs are as thin as they are by choice, or Oga's own [Ogre] Quirk got diluted by whatever her dad's was. Assuming he even had a Quirk at all…" I shrugged.
Unless you were using Quirk Marriages to "breed" complimentary meta-abilities together with a specific goal in mind, like a [Fire Production] + [Fire Control] Quirk, you were basically playing Russian Roulette with those things.
Like… what asshole thought you'd be able to cross-breed a Fire and Ice Quirk together and get what you wanted immediately?
"Fair enough. Not everyone marries with what their kids' Quirks might be in mind," Gordy shrugged as he scratched at his ferret-like face. Or maybe just 'ferret face' given… Oh, whatever.
My Metal Gear Codec soundtrack going off again, I tempered my sense of decency in expectation.
"Manako?" I blinked at the FaceTime.
"Hey therrrre… I heard Tio's kaa-san came to town," the mono-eye hummed awkwardly.
"Yeah. She's crashing in Tio's room now."
"Oh, I see," Manako hummed. "So, ummmmmmm… Just a heads-up, my kaa-san's coming to town to see you too."
"Is she baby-crazy like Oga is?"
"No."
"And like that, you have not lost me."
"Hitome's pretty laid-back… though she is a bit of a battle-junkie when provoked."
" . . . Explain."
"I mean… What's to explain? If someone she cares for is threatened, or her competitive side gets stoked, she'll turn into a real bruiser."
" . . . How much does your mother look like you?"
"Well, um… I'm the runt of the litter soooo… not at all," Manako answered with a bashful cheek-scratch.
"Oh, you have siblings? I never knew that," I hummed. "But if she isn't grandbaby-crazy like Oga, why does she want to see me?"
"Well… I still feel really bad about leaving you behind like this, so I asked her to come by and look after you in my absence," Manako answered, my insides going all gooey at that. "That, and, I don't want to leave you alone with Oga after I found out she was moving in."
"Why don't Sorahiko and Elma count?" I asked. "No, wait, no, never mind. Just answered my own question."
Couldn't exactly admit that Elma was stronger than Oga looked like she was…
"Oh, but it isn't just so she'll keep Oga in line. She's also a craftswoman, and while Support Items aren't really her thing, I think you and Mei-chan would really be able to bond with her over what you love."
"What does your mom make for a living?"
"Weapons and jewelry."
"What, like blacksmithing?"
"Yes, actually," Manako nodded. "I don't know if it's a side-effect of her Quirk, but her commissions are used by Heroes all over the world. Most heroes nowadays over-rely on their Quirks or fancy Support Items, but the ones that do use actual weapons need the best of the best; tools that can take a real pounding. Yoroi Musha is actually one of her best clients."
"Really?" I blinked amazingly, an appreciative nod coming to the surface.
Yoroi Musha, the "Equipped Hero", was a member of the Top 10 with one of the (if not the) longest-standing records of active service in the country, having been a Pro back when heroes like All Might, and Endeavor were still in diapers. Coming from the same generation as Gran Torino, unlike most Heroes today, Yoroi Musha didn't flaunt the exacting details of his Quirk on social media for everyone to hear, instead allowing his actions to do the talking for him. As such, people weren't exactly sure what his Quirk was, similar to All Might who actively deflected from the topic; and while people speculated his Quirk had something to do with his samurai regalia, there was plenty of evidence to the contrary since many Heroes out there chose aesthetics over what sort of costume would functionally work best with their Quirk.
Native for example, and I only knew about him because of how racially insensitive his costume was for a Japanese person to be wearing, had a Quirk that had absolutely nothing to do with his chosen aesthetic.
Back to the topic at hand. The main reason I knew so much about him and the Musha Agency, other than the fact that his attire reminded me of the Musha Gundam from the Dynasty Warriors Gundam series, was that the Heroes and Sidekicks under his employ, even if not strictly adhering to the "Warring States Era" aesthetic of Yoroi Musha himself, all supplemented their Quirks with melee weapons; a comparative rarity in the current industry. As such, the Heroes of the Musha Agency, pound for pound, were more physically-impressive than the majority of their contemporaries.
That in of itself was enough to earn my respect, if only because of the sheer discipline and effort needed to learn how to use such weapons, let alone combining them with their Quirks with any measure of proficiency. And to learn that Manako's mom made weapons for people like that… Color me intrigued.
"I figure, but don't want to assume, that she has some kind of [Cyclops] Quirk?"
"She does, actually; that's why I sometimes wondered if her proficiency in blacksmithing was a side-effect," Manako hummed. "That might've actually helped with her branding, now that I think about it."
"I mean, how could it not?"
In Greek mythos, a prevalent theme was that the Cyclopes were the master craftsmen of their participating pantheon. Zeus' thunderbolts, Hades's helm of invisibility, and Poseidon's trident, the titular implements of the Greek pantheon's "Big Three", were just some of the implements made by the one-eyed giants of myth. It only stood to reason that a one-eyed blacksmith would be able to get their foot in the door from the aesthetics alone.
Having one of the Top 10 as a client… meant that even if melee weapons had a niche client base in the modern landscape, Hitome likely wasn't hurting for funds.
"So will she be staying in your room as well?"
"Um, no. My bed isn't nearly large-enough," Manako hummed aloud, shoulders slumping a little.
" . . . Wait, how-big is she?" I blinked.
*AHA*
As it turned out, pretty damn big… Oga was maybe 216 cm, but Hitome was an even 230!
No wonder Manako called herself "the runt of the litter"…
And it wasn't only that Hitome was tall and wide, she was also as muscular as Oga, albeit with a little extra "padding" that gave her a softer look despite her titanic size. She had shoulder-length light-blue hair worn straight, split away from her mono-eye by a small singular horn protruding from the top of her forehead, and while her mono-eye took up less real estate compared to Manko's, she too had two eyebrows instead of Hitomi's one. Attire-wise, her clothing was geared more toward "cute" than strictly casual, the BIG MAMA graphic on her shirt reminding me a bit of how Tio dressed in her off-time.
Suffice it to say, I could easily imagine her and Oga folding those Trigger junkies in half like laundry.
"Hitome-san, it's nice to meet you," I greeted with a small bow, happy she had the decency to wait outside the school gate instead of bulling through like Oga had.
"Nice to meet you, Takehiko-kun. Thank you for looking after my daughter," Hitome replied with a small bow of her own, which still left her looming pretty tall over me.
"So… I hear you're a blacksmith when you aren't making jewelry. What sort of smithing do you do?" I inquired as I made my way home.
"A little bit of everything, really, mostly armor and weapons. I'm not really one for needless embellishments; fancier weapons tend not to last long against Villains," the cyclopean woman replied as she scratched her cheek. "Or at least the decorations don't."
"Makes sense," I hummed.
A favorite YouTube channel before I reincarnated, Man at Arms, sometimes made weapons based off anime and video games. And while they wrought havoc on stationary targets like watermelons and milk cartons, I sincerely doubted that the fancier weapons like the Spear of Longinus from Neon Genesis Evangelion or the Sword of Kahless from Star Trek would be able to stand up to the rigors of actual super-powered combat unless they were just made prohibitively-heavy.
Though admittedly, real-life superpowers probably made it so weapons could be heavier in exchange for the needed durability. And who knew what advancements had been made in metallurgy to cope with the wide-scale emergence of meta-humans.
"So what made you take up jewelry?" I asked, spying a pretty-looking band on her finger decorated with colorful beads.
"Oh, well, the bigger I got, the harder it was to find cute accessories that would fit me, so after a while I started to make them myself," she answered as she fondly stroked her ring.
"Makes perfect sense," I nodded.
It was one thing to manufacture plus-sized clothes and even fill entire stores with them, but when it came to actual accessories that wouldn't be "too small" for someone that tall or with fingers that thick, it made perfect sense why it'd be a niche market not too many would be inclined to fill.
"What made you get into sword and armor smithing?"
"Don't know. I just sort of felt… drawn to it. And it helped that I've always been strong for my age," she smiled making a Rosie the Riveter pose, her flexed bicep bigger than my head.
"You know, I can understand how you feel," I hum. "Whenever I get in front of a workbench and put tools in my hands, everything just…"
"Comes naturally?" Hitome offered.
"Yes! Exactly!" I replied, feeling like maybe this 'intuition' I got when my Cheat Ability went off wasn't so abnormal after all. And maybe a bit less 'cheat-like'.
"So what does your Quirk make you make?" Manako's 'big mama' inquired.
"Gadgets, mostly," I answered. "Oh, but Mei-chan loves gizmos all by herself. She doesn't need a Quirk to help her along like I do."
"Well, just don't let anyone accuse you of 'cheating' as long as you genuinely love what you do," Hitome said softly as she laid a giant hand on my shoulder. "Your Quirk doesn't decide what you do in your future; you decide what to do with your Quirk in the future."
" . . . Thanks. That actually puts my mind at ease," I replied.
For some people in Kuroko's horror stories about middle school, they let their Quirk define the course of their entire lives, only to have nothing left when it turned out they couldn't cut it and the praise of the masses was for naught. Like, sure, you could have a Quirk "perfect for a Hero", but if you didn't have the grit or the stomach for it once you got out of school and into the real world, all that training would go to waste. And in the worst-case, some people got so-drunk on the "power" they felt from using their Quirks, they'd rather turn to villainy than a life where they couldn't make use of their meta-abilities; as though they felt "entitled" to it and everyone else was "in the wrong".
"So where're you staying now?" I asked.
"I actually opened up a little smithy in town," Hitome answered. "Having Manako-chan reach out to me after so-long, getting to meet the boya she adopted as her own, made it all worth it."
" . . . Can I ask why it's been so-long?" I asked after a moment.
"Well… being the 'runt of the litter' surrounded by giants was always hard on her. Maybe that was why she became a sniper; to put some distance between her and her targets?" she supposed. "Not that I was ever disappointed in her. She has the best eyesight in the family, and she's saved a lot of lives, stopped a lot of Villains with her gifts. I couldn't be prouder."
"I'm happy to hear it," I nodded. "Not everyone can say they have a healthy relationship with their family. Zombina's more or less disowned her after… the incident… and Doppel hasn't said a thing about her family. Mei-chan more or less raised herself, and trust me, it really shows. As for me… I can't really remember mine, so even though I have pictures of them, they feel like complete strangers to me."
And it didn't help that the memories I had of my actual family would never be as-accurate as a picture. I could generalize, but it just wasn't the same, and thinking for too-long about how I'd never see them again…
My discontent must've shown on my face, because Hitome took a knee next to me and wrapped me up in a well-padded hug that felt more like a security duvet than a mere blanket.
"Don't worry. You'll see the Mon Squad again, someday," the cyclops said soothingly. "And if you really need to see them again, Oga and I will keep you safe."
"Thank you. I might just take you up on that," I replied happily. " . . . Have you ever made a trident before?"
*AHA*
My first time crossing over into "the other world" was somewhat… underwhelming, to be honest.
It's like… there wasn't any fanfare. It was just Elma pointing her finger into the hallway, a smoky portal leading to an open field appeared, we stepped through, and… that was pretty much "it". If we'd crossed over onto a hill overlooking a Medieval kingdom with fantastical architecture, maybe it'd have felt more-fantastical, But that we'd basically walked out onto an island in the middle of nowhere didn't really scream "fantasy" beyond the fact that the "door" was a tear in space-time "pulled open with Magic".
I might as well have been hopping off a bus for how mundane the whole experience felt.
"So why are we here? Are we intensifying the day's training?"
Admittedly, if we "commuted" to the other world to train, we wouldn't have to worry about setting up camp like before. That, and, like I groused, if we were doing anything truly crazy, jumping ship to another world where "three islands" can disappear and no-one would bat an eye, would certainly let us act with more impunity and not worry about looky-loos sticking their noses where they don't belong.
With spy satellites and social media back home, it'd be pretty difficult to hide any sort of Dragon-level training.
"That's part of it. Anotherrrrrr…" Elma hummed awkwardly as her eyes drifted to the side.
"OHAYOOOOO!" a cutesy voice greeted from over the hill.
Looking over my shoulder, I spotted a young girl in cutesy villager clothes. Her hair, tied in two pig tails with pretty ribbons, was dark-blue bordering on black and shoulder-length, one recurving horn poking out above her right eye, while over the left was a broken-off horn that'd been filed down like one of Hellboy's. Her eyes were a stunning ocean blue, and almost immediately I felt like I were looking at one of Elma's younger cousins.
"Takei-kun, this is my-"
"Onee-sama, Telne~" the now-named Telne said striking an adorable pose like an idol, or maybe a magical girl.
"Obaa-sama, Telne," Elma added curtly causing the Dragon girl to stumble.
"Mouuuuuu! I'm not nearly that old!" Telne pouted, throwing a tiny fit like a small child.
" . . . OH! I get it! She's using [Ideal Conversion] to make herself look like a small girl and not 'a human grandmother'," I hummed snapping my fingers.
"UGYA!" Telne flinched, visibly mortified at being called out.
"So, why is she here?"
"Obaa-sama… found out about you and wanted to take your measure," Elma sighed tiredly.
"Oh, is that all," I hummed as I gave her a once-over. "Anything I should know about her?"
"She might try to rope you into a political marriage within the Faction, even though I expressly forbid it," she growled with narrowed eyes.
"H-Hey! I learned my lesson last time!" Telne squeaked. "I won't pressure your darling little Hatchling, okay?"
" . . . I'll take your word for it," Elma nodded after a moment.
"Well… even if you are my obaa-sama… kinda… I still think you're adorable."
"Awwwwww! Elma-chan, why can't you be as loving and nurturing as hiiiiim?" Telne asked sweetly as she wrapped me up in a hug.
"Because you tried to marry me off to a deranged lunatic with multiple personality disorder."
"YOU DID WHAT?!"
"O-Only one of their personalities was a deranged lunatic!" Telne cried at my outburst. "B-b-besides, that's ancient history now!"
"For a Human, maybe; but not for a Dragon," Elma pouted.
"How-recent in 'dragon years' are we talking here."
"Two centuries."
"Oh, is that all…" I said with an eye roll. " . . . So when do we do this, and for how long?"
"Whenever you're good and ready, and only until you're all tuckered out," Telne smiled.
" . . . Yeah, alright."
Cue Mighty Morph'n Power Rangers OST – Go Go Power Rangers
Activating my Magic App and triggering the "Dragon Form" preset for the [Ideal Conversion] spell with a mutterance of- "Hensin." -, I then drew back my sleeve and revealed the orange bone-accented silver bangle before invoking-
"It's Morph'n Time!"
Uncrossing my arms before backflipping, ribbons of magic spawned from the ether before coiling around me and forming the Lagiacrus Armor. A knightly visor materializing in front of my face, the rest of the helmet was soon to follow, cladding me head to toe in monster armor as well as making me to the size of a grown man.
"Lord of the Sea: Leviathan Ranger!" I called out as I summoned my Leviathan Trident, the illusion of a breaking wave manifesting behind me as I struck a pose.
"Ohhh! Nice presentation!" Telne applauded happily.
"I feel as-awesome as I feel ridiculous…" I deadpanned inside my helmet.
"Well, even if you don't like it, I'm sure the kiddos will!" the older Dragon grinned. "Now…" she said growing deathly serious, holding her hands out in front of herself at eye level, palms inward and slit pupils narrowing. "Show me what the child that Elma-chan chose is made of."
Bringing her hands together, out of nowhere, two invisible walls sandwiched me in from both sides.
"THE HELL…?!"
Wait… This power…! It's the same as Dana's! The power to ignore the Laws of Perspective!
"The farther away I am… the more-powerful it becomes…!" I grit out amidst Star Wars trash compactor flashbacks, wondering what the hell a power like this was doing in a slice-of-life feel-good Reverse-Isekai anime.
My only option…
"IS FORWARD!"
Pushing back against the invisible walls on my flanks with my full draconic strength, in the brief instance of freedom I made for myself I leapt forward, foregoing the use of my Trident in its entirety.
Unleashing a barrage of high-speed punches at my much smaller opponent, having the high ground didn't mean a thing as the more-experienced Dragon swat my hits aside like an umbrella deflecting raindrops. This exercise in futility went on for several seconds before Telne leapt back in an attempt to break away, but I refused to let her. An at-range fight was the absolute worst option; doubly-so because Telne was inhumanly strong on top of her ability to treat anything as if it was the same size it appeared in her eyes.
I had no idea how high-up she was within the Harmony Faction, but if she was Elma's grandmother, that meant untold centuries of fighting experience. Heck, I didn't know one way or another if Dragons actually got weaker as they pushed a thousand years of age, or just continued growing stronger and that was why their stalemates lasted for so-long; even by their standards.
That being said, my goal wasn't to win; I'd never be able to bridge this gap of experience, even if I became an Immortal myself.
No, what I needed to do was show that the time Elma invested in me wouldn't go to waste; even if it were only a drop in the bucket of a nigh-immortal lifespan.
And so that's how I spent the next half-hour; using my draconic power-boost to assault who looked like a prepubescent child. From the outside looking in, it might've looked like something from late-series Dragonball, given we weren't flying through the air or having "beam struggles" that lasted five episodes. And even though a "sub-routine" of my Leviathan Morpher had given me the proportions of a grown adult, it hadn't done a thing for my actual strength and stamina.
It also served as an opportunity to push my Dragon Form to its limits, seeing how-strong, how-fast, and how-long I could fight until my tank finally ran out. And even though I hadn't been able to land a single clean hit on Telne, what I knew for certain was that in Dragon Form, I was definitely, deeeefinitely stronger than half of Japan's current Hero roster.
When I was twelve!
Makes me shudder to imagine what sort of hellscape Japan will turn into when All Might isn't around to keep the filth in line any longer…
Ah, whatever. Natural Selection exists for a reason, after all.
AND WOULD SOMEONE SHUT OFF THAT FUCKING THEME MUSIC?!
END OST
Thaaank you.
"Whoo. Almost worked up a sweat there~" Telne grinned.
"Don't patronize me."
"Well, now that I have your measure, wanna raze a bandit camp to the ground? You know, for Peace?"
" . . . Yeah okay."
And that's how I committed my first premeditated murder in another world.
That and learned how to make my Dragon Form breath fire.
And does it actually count as "homicide" if I'm a Dragon while killing Human bandits…?
I'm… seriously asking.
*AHA*
"So, where're we going this time?" I asked from my place atop Elma's head as we flew through the night sky, already in my 'Dragon Form' disguise.
"Our old stomping grounds," Elma hummed as she dipped low like a roller coaster, her serpentine body sailing over the highway to reveal a road sign that said-
Welcome to Oborozuka
-in both Japanese and English.
Wait…
"Oborozuka? As in that Oborozuka?" I balked as Greek fire-colored eyes took in the sparsely illuminated cityscape, searching for any sort of recognizable landmark that I could recall from the anime but finding none.
Not too surprising. It has been around two centuries…
"Hai," Elma replied as she swooped back upward before the wind from her passing could cause an accident. "I can never quite get used to it. How much things change in the intervening decades. Maybe that's why we all retreated into our hobbies. Unlike the other world, things are always changing in this one…" she hummed somberly.
"It's because as Humans, with our short lifespans… we want to make our mark on the world," I hummed, patting her head consolingly. "So… Who're we going to see?"
"It shouldn't take you too long to figure out."
*AHA*
I was only half-surprised when Elma walked me into a maid café, right before closing time. And despite how many centuries had passed since the events of the anime in-universe, the whole premise of a maid café had changed very little. Every once in a while, the maids at some places would change up their looks to resemble popular Heroes, either by popularity or in response to endorsement deals, but the very heart and soul of the industry had remained the same.
A temporary escape from the real world, where a pretty girl in a cute outfit could pamper you as you indulged in over-priced drink and food.
The maid outfits here were strikingly familiar as well; a modest dark-blue dress with frills and puffy sleeves, a pink ribbon around the waist and a matching tie, elbow-length lace gloves, and a frilly maid cap. What made it different-from or maybe similar-to Tohru's was that the maids in attendance openly wore their horns and/or wings and/or tails, adding a bit of spice to their appearance. The clientele was also split pretty evenly between Heteromorph and "Normie", and the atmosphere was very relaxed.
"Ah, excuse me, but we're about to close," one of the maids spoke up.
"Don't worry, I'm an old friend of the owner's," Elma replied casually, her horn and tail on full display.
"O-Oh, I see…" the maid replied, idly scratching at the ram's horns on her head. "Well, if you're sure, I guess you can take a seat. Would you like anything while you wait?"
*AHA*
The waiting was the most-awkward part, and you can only re-read the menu of a maid café so many times before even that starts to lose its appeal.
One by one, the late-night customers filed out, and that we hadn't been ushered away meant who I suspected was in charge, told the other maids we could stay.
That being the case, we still had to sit through the café's closing preparations, the employees filing out one by one until there were only three entities left. All of whom were capital-d Dragons, even if for me it was just because of a magic spell that worked almost exactingly like the Omnitrix.
When the sound of footsteps from the kitchen began to draw towards us, I looked up from my phone to see who I had suspected we'd come to this Maid Café to see.
Tohru… looked more or less exactly the same as when I saw her in the anime. Or at least her body did. Her eyes… Now those had mileage on them, and while she was momentarily surprised to see Elma waiting for her, that light had quickly dimmed to its original levels.
"Elma… I'm surprised you didn't order enough to feed a small village," Tohru huffed derisively, though with most of the animosity gone. As though she were going through the motions. After a few seconds her eyes landed on me. "Who's the hatchling?"
"Tohru…" Elma paused, a light blush adorning her cheeks as she found her words. "Remember when you said you'd… commit bigamy with me?"
At that her blush intensified, and I wondered where she was going with this.
"Yeah, but what does that have to do with-"
The next moment Tohru did a double-take, looking me dead in the face, the color draining from her own and an uncomfortable silence stretching on for several seconds before-
"OH MY GOOOOOOD! I'M THE DEADBEAT MOM!" she shrieked with her hands going to her head.
"Wait what?" I blinked. "Elma, what's going on?"
"Takei-kun… This is your other mother," Elma replied bashfully.
"Um. Elma…! CONTEXT! Need, context! NOW, please," I insisted as my own memories, Tokei's surviving memories, and the information that came with the [Ideal Conversion]'s 'Info Dump' swirled within my mind into an incomprehensible mess. "Tohru! Please, comport yourself! You're causing a scene!"
"Actually, we're the only ones here."
"Not now, Elma!"
*AHA*
"Mouuuuu! Elma, you really scared me there…!" Tohru groaned a while later after learning that the 'Hatchling' in her maid café was not in fact 'the result of a night of drunken passion she couldn't remember' ("like what happened with Lucoa & Petla"), but a Human that the Harmony Faction dragon had adopted as her own. "Still, though, isn't this one of those 'Interfering' things you always got on my case about?"
"Y-Yes, well… there are extenuating circumstances behind that…" Elma blushed.
"Circumstances like what?" Tohru hummed.
From there, Elma proceeded to explain what she'd been doing the last century, framing it like one talking about the week's weather.
How she'd hopped from place to place doing SE work, moving on whenever people started to notice she wasn't aging and altering their memories on the way out; how her appetite started to wane until she only felt the need to eat the bare minimum; how the Mon Squad opened up bidding for a Site Admin for their digital assets and how she moonlit as their merchandise provider, so-on and so-forth. All of it culminated in the explanation that I had "Reverse Isekai'd" and used meta-knowledge to get through to her and get her to truly enjoy living again after she'd become a hollowed-out shell from the burden of immortality among the short-lived.
"Waitwaitwait…! Like in those manga Taketo liked to read?" Tohru squawked with waving hands. "He's actually one of those guys?!"
"Please don't point. It's rude," I found myself blurting out.
The dragon maid's flame-colored eyes turning to regard me, if I were in my base form, I'd have quavered like a mewling quim. However, the formulae for the [Ideal Conversion] that Elma concocted had been so-thorough, I was entirely convinced that Tohru, my "other mother", wouldn't actually hurt me since a Hatchling's life was too-precious for petty infighting and infanticide. Sure, the only Dragons that delineated age metrics by "child" and "adult" were those that had lived alongside Humans, but since it was usually at the whim of the female when and where and with whom to rear offspring…
"I was reluctant to believe it at first too, but he knew stuff he had no way of knowing about… Not to mention his reincarnation here is clearly the work of some form of Time God," Elma replied.
"Time God? Like Kouronos?" Tohru blinked as she cast her eyes on me once more before leaning across the table and giving me an experimental sniff.
"AH!" I squawked as her prehensile tongue shot out and traced a wet line up the bridge of my nose the next moment.
"Huh…" Tohru hummed as she mulled over the taste, her expression less-skeptical than it had been before. "Well, with the locals getting 'Isekai'd' left and right, I guess it only makes sense we'd get a 'Reverse Isekai' every once in a while…" the Chaos Dragon conceded with crossed arms. "So, Takehi-… Takei-kun," she amended as her expression softened, her gloved hand reaching over the table and stroking my hair between my antlers. "Has your mama been giving you a hard time? She been teaching you any bad habits? Has she been making you eat too much? Or has she been plucking from your share~?" she asked tauntingly.
"H-Hey! Just what kind of caretaker do you take me for?!" Elma squawked cutely, her face blushing as the blond dragon maid cooed my way.
"I mean… I'm just happy I could get her to stop being such a shut-in. For however long this life of mine lasts at least…" I said brightly before my expression turned somber.
"Hm… So how's this second life of yours treating you?" Tohru asked as she passed me a root beer float, courtesy of her Magic, getting over the fact that I reincarnated from another world relatively quickly.
"Well… I mean… Have you looked outside lately?"
"Oh, so that-bad, huh?" the dragon maid hummed knowingly. "I was able to keep Meiko safe through most of it, but…"
Oh, so that's Kobayashi-san's given name.
"Wait, you watched the anime based off our lives, but you didn't even know her name?"
Hold on, did my thoughts show on my face?
"To be fair, I only ever watched the anime. I kinda died before I could read the manga," I admitted.
"Ah… Was the anime any good?" she asked slowly, juggling the weird string of words on her tongue.
"Heh~ It was fantastic~" I smiled, Tohru's expression softening as she reached across the table once again and stroked my head between my antlers, a strange warmth filling me up at the affectionate gesture.
"Well, even if you aren't my child by blood, I guess you're close enough," the dragon maid sighed contentedly, Elma's expression brightening.
"So that means-!"
"I'm not committing bigamy with you," Tohru returned, Elma's expression turning crestfallen. "I mean… It's not that I'm going back on my word…" she said scratching her cheek as she averted her eyes from the Harmony Dragon. "It's… you know… Meiko isn't really here anymore, so our marriage kinda got annulled after a while."
"Tohru! Will you marry me!" Elma cried with a maddened blush as she fell to one knee.
" . . . Takei-kun, I'm sorry your mom's such a spaz," Tohru said turning my way.
"Hey, I'm not a spaz! I'm being serious here!" Elma squealed in protest as she flailed her arms.
And such was the story of how I got two adorable Dragon Mamas for the price of one.
*AHA*
PLOT TWIST!
But yeah, while Takei assumed that the [Ideal Conversion] Elma cast on him made him "A Dragon" and that she was just treating him like her offspring, as it turned out, the truth was that the [Ideal Conversion] actually made him "Mine and Tohru's progeny" from Elma's perspective, since she was the one who wove the Formula for the Magic.
You know, since [Ideal Conversion] is basically "Reality Stone Lite".
Oga and Hitome are characters from another "Reverse Isekai" I'm very fond of, Plus-Sized Elf aka "Ms. Elf Can't Lose Weight"; which is kinda-sorta exactly what it sounds like. Having them be Tio and Manako's respective mothers was also something I was able to work in because I didn't "close the door" so to speak by saying something like "no other family" or something to that effect. And the fact that the more-fantastical cast of that series comes from a Fantasy World running parallel to Earth, also makes it blend into Ms. Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, which I'm also quite fond of because it means the two worlds could realistically co-exist~
Telne's bit was fun to write in, and since "Takei" didn't read the Manga before he died, her own Cheat Ability really comes out of left field for an "Anime Only" fan. Especially since it's the same ability as the "signature" of one of the strongest characters in UQ Holder!
Anywho, it'll still be a while before the Slice-of-(School) Life portion ends and I can get more into the Adventure/Friendship aspect of the story, but all I can promise is I'll put my all into this quasi-wish-fulfilment story. So until next time…
GOTTA BLAST!