Chapter 11
Sorahiko Torino was definitely an interesting sort. Like expected of any retired Hero who actually lived to retirement age instead of "heroically sacrificing" themselves, he had his fair share of war stories. Unlike the interviews and talk show specials filmed in Sternbild, with him I could ask specific questions, press him for more details when a story started to get interesting. And sometimes the tangents he went off on were more-interesting than my original question.
I never did find out what his Quirk was. Wasn't all that important. Everything he achieved belonged to him, not his Quirk, which he too asserted was only a 'tool'; just one that was a part of your own body.
As for who that 'student' of his was, he never got around to telling, I certainly didn't ask, but he made no secret that this "Toshi" guy went on to become a real juggernaut in the industry.
He also never shied away from telling me how much of a meathead his student was, irregardless of his professional successes, but that was neither here nor there.
It was still kinda hard to wrap my head around, people completely eschewing secret identities; back in Wild Tiger's time, secret identities were still the norm, corporate sponsors notwithstanding. In fact, Barnaby Brooks who I would always call "Bunny", was the first government-sanctioned Hero to really break the mold. I don't know if he started the trend of Heroes having their identities become part of public domain or if he was just the first to do so, but it certainly offered many fiscal opportunities. Way more than you could've back-then while still being in costume.
In the few days he was at the hospital with me, Sorahiko taught me a great deal about how to fight, even how to fight Quirk users. Wasn't sure if I would stay in touch with the guy once I left myself, but it couldn't hurt to have someone on call who wasn't completely enamored with the Commercial Age of Heroes.
As for my newfound hobby, whenever I wasn't working out, I was getting "reacquainted" with the craft.
Though at first glance it was all new to me, practically 'Greek', like unlocking the 'nodes' in a Skill Tree, I rapidly grew to understand the context of what I was reading. Though Takehiko's memories weren't inherently my own, I could still make use of them like they were my own; only real issue was I didn't have access to the Table of Contents, so I had to sift for those memories the old-fashioned way.
I still wasn't sure what my future held, or if the eventual, inevitable collapse of Hero Society would happen within my lifetime, but in those few days I found more purpose for myself than I ever could've on my own.
Though it was cheesy as hell to admit this, friendship really was power.
*AHA*
"Takehiko-kun!" a voice whispered into my ear.
"What… What time is it?"
The fact Hitomi was using my real name meant it was something serious.
"I need you to come with me," she whispered as she kneeled at my bedside, a birthday balloon blocking the camera up in the corner.
"But it isn't time for my therapy yet…" I said shaking the cobwebs as the clock on the wall flitted into view.
"Takehi… Takei-kun. Do you trust me?"
"Always," I replied immediately.
"Good. Then I need you to come with me. We're getting out of here.'
Ah, okay. What the heck.
*AHA*
Pretending to be a dead body as I'm wheeled out of the hospital…
I'll admit, that's definitely a new one.
The body bag I'd climbed into at a security blind spot was a little disconcerting, a little claustrophobic, but Hitomi cracked the zipper just-enough that I could still breath and catch a ray of artificial lighting. And if it got to be too much for me, she'd handed me a pink yandere-style boxcutter for that exact occasion.
When it came to the timing of this Shawshank Redemption-esque escape, it was still dark outside the window when she'd come in, but the fact that there were still people out in the halls shuffling about yet groaning like the undead, had me thinking that maybe it was so-early that not-everyone had gotten their morning coffee yet. If you were smuggling a "dead body" out of the hospital, it certainly made sense to do so when everyone's attention was lax, but why couldn't she just take me out for noodles or something and then escape? I mean it wasn't like the HPSC would try and keep me here against my will, right?
. . .
Right?
. . .
Oh shit, they really might, wouldn't they…?!
"Hey, you! Where're you going? The incinerator's the other way!" someone from back in the hallway shouted a few minutes into our exodus through what I assumed to be the ground floor.
The fact that the wheels under my gurney were rattling louder than before, was proof enough that Hitomi was starting to lose her cool.
"Hey! Get back here!"
And that was proof the 'bad guys' were on to us.
"NRRRGH!"
With what I could only assume to be adrenaline coursing through my veins, I flicked the blade of the box cutter out of its plastic sheathe and got ready to do something incredibly stupid.
*AHA*
"NEVER! You'll never take me alive!" the would-be runaway said after cutting his way free of the body bag he'd been hiding in. Tossing his nurse onto the gurney and getting in a pushing position himself, with what the HPSC's president could only assume to be adrenaline fueling him, Tokei Takehiko and Hitomi Manaka left their pursuers firmly in the dust as they shot down the hall.
If the President hadn't known any better, she'd have though Takehiko were an Olympic Athlete-aspirant.
From back when the Olympics were still "a thing", at least…
She'd been keeping an eye on that young man since he'd come into their care a year ago, and while the genetic material he provided had the potential to become the 'magic bullet' that'd stop Him in his tracks, it shamed her to admit that Dr. Shiga's more eccentric tendencies fell to the wayside in the presidential shuffle.
The President watched the two's escape attempt with rapt attention through the security feed connected to her desk monitor. Disturbingly-enough, all Takehiko had to do to clear a path was scream- "VILLAIN!" -at the top of his lungs like a complete jackass, and anyone they did come across in the hall parted before them like the Red Sea.
She'd heard the boy was alarmingly-shrewd after waking up from his year-long coma, but to see him so-blatantly take advantage of the average person's knee-jerk reaction to the V-word… Truly, it said a lot about the society they lived in that you could "cry wolf" and it be so-effective.
Whatever the boy had experienced during his coma, it must've been a hell of its own if an eleven-year-old could become so-jaded upon awakening.
At the home stretch, the final door featuring a red EXIT sign, Hitomi dismounted the gurney and held it open. Takehiko on the other hand, gave the gurney a mighty shove back the way they came, sending it whirling down the hallway with the force of a small motorized bicycle. A moment later, the President could only wince as the gurney struck the two guards, completely upending them in a tangle of limbs and a capsized gurney, Hitomi and Tokei making good their escape.
Switching over to the most-external feed, in a show of her own adrenal response, Nurse Hitomi threw Takehiko over her shoulder, vaulted over the exit's railing, and bolted toward the exterior wall where a large black van with tinted windows had either just pulled in, or had been idling for a few minutes.
If there was any secrecy concerning the vehicle's driver, any such mystery was swiftly abandoned as the driver's side window rolled down and a cup of coffee flew out into the nearby dumpster.
And of course, it didn't help that Kuroko Smith leaned out of aforementioned car window to do so…
By the time Hitomi had tossed Takehiko into the side passenger door, the guards from before had recovered and were already out the door. By the time they spotted her, the van was already pulling away.
"Dammit, they're getting away!"
"If we put out an APB, we can still-!"
"Let them go," she ordered through her comm. system, having seen enough.
"Huh? But… But ma'am, we can still-"
"That won't be necessary. They have my permission to leave. Please return to your regular posting."
"I… But… Okay, you're the boss."
With a nod, the president looked out her window, eyeing a speck of black driving speedily away before rounding the corner and vanishing. Maybe it was Smith's van, or maybe it was another identical van, but she felt confident that Takehiko would be in safe hands. Anonymity was the best security, after all.
'Of course, this'll be a pain in the ass to explain to the others, though,' she thought to herself as she fell into her chair with an undignified grunt, her mind racing.
Thanks to Dr. Shiga's Quirk, they'd been able to harvest DNA samples from the child's body every few days for about a year, so they definitely had plenty in storage. And All for One was still out there, she just knew it; he might not've been in any shape to get up on his own after his last battle with All Might, but All for One had definitely had a cadre of allies willing to spirit him away after his defeat. Whether it was All for One himself, a clone and/or that Quirk-stealing Supervillain they'd lost track of a year ago, they needed to prepare something for when the time came.
They had no idea when they'd need the 'magic bullet' by, if they could even make it in the first place, but the loss of Takehiko's biomass would definitely impact research on that front. And she was doubtful they could convince him to cooperate even if they could find a Medical Quirk that would cover up any scarring, because the fact that Dr. Shiga had tried to dissect him under their watch, would definitely do nothing to ingratiate him toward the HPSC's goals. Nor would it assuage him of their competence in keeping him safe from future like-incidents.
As for why she hadn't told All Might about All for One's body going missing after their 'final battle', or the fact that there was a Quirk stealer running around, the man had already given so much of himself for Japan, for the world, even as his health continued to deteriorate beyond the ability of modern medicine to remedy. She owed it to the Symbol of Peace to let him find and train his successor at his own pace. Telling him without being able to do anything about it would only hurt his morale.
She would of course have to personally ensure that Hitomi wasn't punished for what she had done. As the boy's nurse, it was her ethical and moral duty to ensure his safety and health. And if she allowed him to be experimented upon now that he was awake, she'd have failed in both regards.
Not to mention, if the HPSC did try to experiment on a living test subject, the whole thing could devolve into a PR nightmare. Though what had truly transpired with Lady Nagant had been covered up under the pretense of her 'going rogue', the bigger problem was that they'd had more failures and scandals of epic proportions since then, and though they had a Spy, they no longer had an Enforcer of equivalent caliber.
If the public ever found out they'd experimented on a comatose body, that they could get away with. What they couldn't get away with was if it got out they were carving up a live person; doubly-so if they tried to do so against his will. America, Russia, and China could get away with shit like that, they were big countries with lots of places to hide their dirty little secrets, lots of people to do the actual hiding, and Quirk users ran amok doing as they pleased creating plenty of distractions; but in Japan, there was no way they could do so for very long. It was a miracle they'd been able to keep the truth of All for One as nothing more than an urban legend parents told their unruly kids to make them behave.
Truly, the Quirk-reliant society they all lived in, was a double-edged sword.
She could only hope that Tokei Takehiko, even bereft of his Quirk, would be able to make a peaceful life for himself. After all the boy had endured, he deserved nothing less.
*AHA*
"Stop looking out the back. It looks suspicious," Ms. Smith replied from the driver's seat.
"Oh believe me, I would if I could, but I can't because there is some… luggage in the way."
"Mou…! You big meanie, calling a delicate maiden 'luggage'!" aforementioned 'luggage' pouted from the rear of the black van.
She was a very tall woman, dressed almost identically to Ms. Smith, her skin a luscious tan, her eyes a lovely red, and her flowing hair an elegant blond going down to her waist. She had fangs, pointed ears, breasts bigger than my own head apiece, but more-noticeable even than that… probably… was a single large red horn protruding from her forehead. I couldn't tell how tall she was because she was sitting with her ankles crossed and her body stooped forward in the van's spacious rear, but she was definitely more than seven feet tall, and very curvaceous.
It also made me think that this van must've been modded out the wazu, otherwise there's no freakin' way the rear bumper wouldn't be dragging across the ground. She wasn't fat by any means beyond her breasts which technically were fat, so I could only assume she was crazy-strong since 'muscle weighs more than fat'. The fact that she likely wielded the massive 'anti-tank' shields flanking her in the back of the van was the only evidence I had to go on, though.
"Why is she here, exactly?"
"In case we needed a little muscle~" Ms. Smith replied casually.
"I mean, sure, if we needed to flip an Abrams tank over. Anything short of that and…"
"Tionishia. My friends call me Tio~" she greeted sweetly.
"And Tio would be quadruple-overkill," I finished. " . . . Thank you, for extracting us from that… sticky situation."
"You're welcome," Ms. Smith replied.
"I didn't get to do anything though…" Tio pouted cutely.
Jeez, was everything this lady did cute?
"Maybe next time," Hitomi replied kindly. "Although… I might be out of a job by now…"
"Just tell them I put you up to it," I replied. "Say all my working out and eschewing my hobbies was 'a desperate cry for help' and it should blow over."
"I can't ask you to do that for me."
"You're not. I'm telling you to tell them that of my own volition. Of course… They might drag me back anyway…"
"Well then, it's a good thing we have a workaround~" Ms. Smith grinned.
" . . . Well that doesn't sound ominous at all…"
"Hey!"
*AHA*
Leaving the Chiyoda Special Ward in Tokyo behind us, our ultimate destination was Asaka-shi in the nearby Saitama Prefecture.
A spot of research with my tablet, which I guess I wound up taking with me without even realizing it, told me that Asaka-shi was known for having a higher percentile of Heteromorphs per square kilometer than was the norm, architecture tailored toward "plus-size body types", and little else besides. Crime rates were low, more a result of the increased concentration of Heteromorphs than anything All Might did, since Quirk Restriction Laws had less bearing on Heteromorphs whose Quirks couldn't be "turned off" like Transformation or Emitter-Type meta abilities. Amazingly-enough, Quirk Bias was lower than normal as well, though that may've been born of a community that remembered when the inverse was true, and an unwillingness to repeat the mistakes of a storied past.
With an hour's drive between here and there, barring any Villain-related incidents on the highway, there was more than enough time for me to ask-
"So… What happens now?"
"Now?" Smith hummed. "Now we stop you from becoming a ward of the state."
"And how do we do that exactly?"
"By making you a ward of me~"
" . . . Is there a third option?" I ask hopefully, since something in my gut tells me this woman is a bit of a "slacker".
"Hey, that's not very nice~" Smith pouted.
"Don't worry, Takei-kun, everything will work out!" Hitomi said earnestly beside me. "There are good people waiting to take you in, and we've got you set up to go to Damoto Junior High in the spring along with Mitsumi-chan! Soon enough you'll have loads of friends!"
"I don't need 'loads of friends' to be happy. Just a few really good ones," I say letting my thoughts on the matter slip. Something I learned a long time ago was that being "the popular kid" didn't mean jack shit outside "those doors", it was what you knew, now "who knew you", that would have any bearing on your future. No-one reading your resume cared if you were "the cool kid" or if you were declared "Most Likely to Succeed" in the school yearbook, since stuff like that was completely arbitrary.
"Awwww! You sounded so mature just then!" Tionishia squealed with twinkling eyes, reaching up and mussing my hair… and almost breaking my neck in the process.
"Anyway, glad you made it out in time for Thanksgiving~" Kuroko grinned. "We were going to just grab a chicken from KFC, but I think this year we'll go all-out and treat you as a way of celebrating you getting out of the slammer~"
"Will there be rice stuffing?" I found myself blurting out loud, my hands going to my lips as my cheeks reddened.
"Never heard of it, but sure, we'll whip some up for ya. You know the recipe?"
" . . . Yeah," I returned awkwardly, hoping no-one would dig too-deeply into what Takehiko's family had for Thanksgiving, since this was exactly the sort of inconsistency that'd oust me as an impostor.
Did it count as being an "impostor" if you were reincarnated…?
"Are you worried about something?" Tionishia asked aloud. "Don't worry, there's nothing to be scared of moving to a new place. We'll keep you safe!"
"It's nothing like that. Just… a crisis of identity I guess…"
"Well, don't you worry about that. Every boy going through puberty feels that way," Smith hummed cheekily. "And hey, if you have any 'awkward questions', you've always got a hot nurse on speed dial you can call~"
"Yeah, just one problem with that. I don't actually have a phone," I said off-handedly.
" . . . "
" . . . "
" . . . "
"SHIT, you're right!" Kuroko swore, my face hitting the window as she suddenly veered off toward an exit.
*AHA*
Thirty-seven minutes later…
"Are you sure that's all you want?" Kuroko asked as we walked out of the electronics store, an ordinary-looking touchscreen phone equipped with a screen protector and phone case in my hand. "I can always get you something a little more expensive, charge it to the Agency's flex account."
"Is that really something you should be telling me as your 'ward'?" I deadpan at the suit-clad woman as I compare the phone in my hand to what I had in my previous life.
Even though it was the "22XXs", the only major advancement in commercially-available cellphone technology was that the highest-end models had free-floating hologram projection technology like something out of Yu-Gi-Oh!. While currently-available models were thinner and more-flexible, and even smaller in the case of some Support Items used by Heroes, I didn't count those as "advancements" because those were more about the form of the cellular phone, not the innate function.
For my purposes, all I needed was something functionally equivalent to the iPhone 11, which I remember having before I got 'Isekai'd'. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find all my favorite artists on this alternate Earth, but seeing as how I'd gotten my fill of App Games and didn't want to go down that rabbit hole again, all I'd really use this one for was Music and Phone Calls, maybe a bit of Wireless Internet.
Something else I idly noticed while we were inside getting a phone for me on the "Hero Agency Plan" was that VR technology from a recreational standpoint was practically Ready Player One or Sword Art Online level; albeit, the digital infrastructure wasn't quite up to fictitious standards, and the level of immersion wasn't as-deep. The sales rep tried to sell us on a model that Hero Academies were beginning to use for their training regimens, allegedly, but annoyingly-enough, I was the one who had to keep us on-task and stop Ms. Smith from buying one under the guise of Christmas shopping.
All this talk about VR Games did have me idly curious what kind of console and PC games there were out there in the world, but given how much time I'd sunk into t in my previous life, I figured I could hold off on that sort of thing for a while yet…
But first, I'd have to make peace with whatever it meant to become the ward of Kuroko Smith and this "Mon Agency" she'd brought up when it came time to assign phone plans on my Sim Card.
Chapter 12
From what Kuroko was willing to divulge once we got back on the road, I was going to be living in a guest room within the apartment complex that the Mon Agency owned. It meant I'd be rooming with five other ladies, Smith included, but considering I was still "a little kid" in their eyes, they didn't seem to have any sort of problem with that. I guessed Hitomi had a significant amount of pull with them if they were willing to take in a complete stranger.
I was definitely grateful to get out of the hospital, make no mistake about that, but I figured living with five attractive ladies (presumably) would be an utter hell for me once puberty came about full-swing; the whole thing had 'lucky pervert moment' written all over it.
Not that I'd ever tell them that…
Point of fact, I'd be meeting the rest of my "roomies" today, so I might as well bite the bullet. I wasn't going anywhere else for a good while.
*AHA*
The "Mon Apartments", apparently home to members of multiple Hero Agencies and their tangential affiliates, looked like a completely ordinary four story upper-middle-class apartment building. Lush foliage around the ground floor offsetting a white concrete exterior, beige-colored boards walling the balconies, a robust fence on the roof housing a large public space, and on each side a zig-zagging exterior stairwell surrounded by glass pane walls.
I was tempted to ask how one agency could afford an entire building, which they were possibly collecting rent from, but I just held my tongue and assumed they saved the life of some big-wig somewhere down the line and Kuroko wrung the deed out of them, or gave it over of their own free will. With how curvy she was, on top of Japan being known for its sexual predators and repressed perverted tendencies, at least in my time/world, it wasn't that far of a leap in logic to take.
The ceilings, I noticed, were slightly higher than on the hospital wing I'd been staying in, most-likely for those whose Quirks made them taller than "average", which was evidenced by how Tio didn't have to slouch but could instead stand at her full height. Venturing through the first floor common area with my escort of three lovely ladies, while I felt the eyes of those lounging about land on me, I chose to ignore it as I took the space in. It looked like a receiving space for visitors, a meeting point for friends, somewhere to go if you wanted to step out of a stuffy apartment but not want to venture off into Asaka-shi proper.
While we were perfectly capable of taking the stairs, Kuroko waved some sort of badge over the panel for what I assumed was an express elevator, and we made our way up, Tio humming to herself as we rose from ground level. Following that, we stepped out into the landing, the number of apartments fewer I assumed than were on the lower floors. Something else I noticed on the way up was that this building seemed to be more robustly-built than the buildings I'd been in before I'd reincarnated; it was one thing to read about it, and another to see it inside and out.
Eventually we arrived at our destination, Hitomi letting out a relived sigh and no longer looking over her shoulder, while Kuroko fiddled with a ring of keys before finding the right one for the lock, and swung the door wide.
To our shock to varying degrees, there was someone waiting for us; though it was less about that there was something there and more about what they looked like.
They had skin as fair as snow, a narrow waist, wide hips, a G-Cup chest, their ebony-black hair pulled up in a ponytail, and a jewel-colored mono-eye. Apart from the short, frilly pink apron she was wearing, there wasn't a stitch of clothing on her.
"Welcome home, Takehiko-sama~ Would you like dinner, a bath, or… me~?" the woman that looked exactly like Hitomi Manaka cooed seductively.
Kuroko, rubbed the bridge of her nose, Tio, hid her blushing face behind her hands, Hitomi, was frozen in a rictus of horrified shock, and as for meee…
*Bop~Bop~Boop*
"Yes, one-one-zero? I'd like to report a sexual predator in my area."
"Whoa! Hold on a second!" Kuroko cried out as she grabbed for my phone. "Doppel! What have I said about impersonating people that aren't dead yet?" she cried as I pulled away from her, the 110 people putting me on hold.
"Geez, you never said we were living with a stiff," Hitomi's look-alike huffed indignantly, her blinking eye changing to gold with black sclera as she put her hands on her hips, chest bouncing tantalizingly.
"Between me being a stiff and you being a sexual predator, which do you think the police will care about more?" I taunted.
And that's the story of how I met the Mon Agency's resident shapeshifter…
*AHA*
After Kuroko stopped the local constables from registering one of the Mon Agency's Heroes as a sex offender, I was ushered inside.
I didn't know what I was or wasn't expecting when I got there; as far as furnishings went, the place looked completely ordinary. Nothing overtly cutesy or feminine in the kitchen or common areas, but the chairs were definitely well-used and well-cared-for, with a plus-sized sofa big-enough for someone like Tio to comfortably use, the appliances upper-middle-end, the fridge extra-large. All things considered, it looked like a well-cared-for place lived in by five people; now six including me.
Which reminds me for whatever reason…
"I'm surprised no-one raised a stink about my hospital scrubs," I hummed as I looked down at my state of dress, taking the time to realize I'd actually gone out in publiclooking like this. 'No wonder it was so cold outside…'
"Oh, it's actually more-common than you'd think for a person's entire wardrobe to be destroyed by a Villain," Kuroko waved off as she guided me down the hallway past a number of doors with tailored signs on them.
"So what will I be wearing then?" I asked aloud.
"Oh, I had tou-san send over some of Fumio-kun's hand-me-downs. I hope you don't mind," Hitomi hummed nervously.
"I don't have a problem with hand-me-downs, don't worry about it," I replied.
While I had never received hand-me-downs before reincarnating, being the first-born in my family before I "Reincarnated", Hitomi had possibly put her job, and her professional reputation, in jeopardy for me. There was no way in hell I'd spit in her eye like that just because the clothes I'd be wearing from now on were second-hand. As long as they were clean and bereft of "suspicious stains", nothing else really mattered; I preferred a blend of form and function, but brand names didn't mean shit to me.
"Well, here's your room," Kuroko said once we got to the end of the hall. "After we sort out what kind of allowance you'll be getting, you can decorate it however you want," she said swinging the door in. "Until then, make yourself at home!"
The room itself wasn't too big, wasn't too small, mostly done in neutral colors. It had a single window facing the Asaka-shi cityscape in the distance, ordinary-looking furniture a bedroom would come pre-furbished with, a closet off to the side, and a western-style bed in the corner. Situated next to the dressers were cardboard boxes filled with clothes.
"Hey, Kuroko!" Hitomi pouted. "You were supposed to have it all unpacked by the time we got here!"
"Well what if the way Takei-chan organizes his clothes is different from mine?" Ms. Smith readily deflected.
"You just wanted to get out of doing more work…"
"It's alright. Ms. Smith is probably right about that, anyway," I said trying to smooth things over. "I always was rather particular about how I packed my belongings…"
"Was'?" Kuroko blinked.
"B-Back when I still had 'stuff', y-you know…?!" I stuttered. 'Crap, did I let something slip?' I thought nervously. "A-Anyway…!" I said digging into the nearest box. "Uh, Hitomi, I think some of your sunglasses got mixed in with the bunch," I say holding up a black rectangular mono-lensed sunglasses.
"Oh, no, those are Fumio-kun's too. He grew into his mono-eye after puberty hit while I had mine from the start," she said flipping out her phone before showing what was obviously a more-recent photo. Like Hitomi, he now had a mono-eye, but with two pupils instead of just one, which had me wondering if he technically had binocular vision or not. He also had pointed teeth, and he looked grumpy as hell. His attire consisted of black pants and a hoodie with fur lining the hood, and at the moment he stood in front of a moving van looking like he just wanted to "get going already".
I'd guess this more-recent photo was taken when Fumio moved out of the house to go to college.
Though that had me wondering why she didn't show me a more up-to-date photo the first time around…
"Hm… Doesn't quite fit…" I hum as I try them on, just for kicks. With the sunglasses' nose guard in place, half the darkened lens covered my forehead, doing little to actually shield my eyes. Which I guess made sense; glasses tailored to binocular vision had the nose guard between the two lenses, while for a mono-eye, the nose guard would be below the eye… "Cool design though," I hum admiring the rectangular lens, since turning to the nearby mirror, it kinda looked like a censor bar~
The rest of Fumio's hand-me-downs were pretty ordinary. Long pants, shorts, graphic Ts, blank Ts, long-sleeves, jackets, hoodies, a few nicer outfits with button-up shirts. I'd have to give the sneakers and socks a try, but beyond that, everything else looked like it fit.
If this were a video game or an Isekai genre manga with a game-style format, this would be the point where I got a notification that said- [Wardrobe has been acquired!]
*AHA*
After getting everything packed away just the way I liked it…
"Kuroko! Tio! Weird question to ask, but what's the bathroom situation like living here JESUS FUCKING CHRIST?!"
"What? You never seen a 'chocolate loli' before?" aforementioned 'chocolate loli' questioned with a raised brow and a cock of her hip.
She was a tiny little thing, barely more than four feet tall, in the form of a small, petite young girl with budding curves. Her skin was a dark dark brown and luscious like chocolate, her almond-shaped eyes gold with black sclera with a mischievous glint, thin eyebrows, and her long platinum-colored hair coiled prehensile-ly around her body in a spiral down to her ankles just above her bare feet, arranged in such a way that if she were naked, would've just barely skirted censorship laws in a graphic medium. Her quote/unquote "outfit" (and, quoting a certain deranged Cerebrocrustacean, "and I use the term loosely") consisted of a teeny-weeny itty-bitty black and white bikini, and shorty-short-short-shorts so small and sheer, they may as well have been drawn on her skin with marker!
I hoped that was how small and sheer they were and that they weren't actually drawn on with marker…
"You! The sex predator!" I blurted out before my filter could stop it.
"Geez, and here I thought boys your age were still interested in T&A," she said striking a pose, her hair continuing to strategically place itself between my eyes and her… delicate areas.
"I'm eleven…!" I growled, partly in anger, partly in embarrassment, and partly at being eleven again and the hellish cocktail of pubescent hormones to follow.
" . . . Oh shit, really?" she blinked.
"Yes, really!" I repeated.
"Oh… Well then…"
Her hair swirling around her body and flaring out like a curtain, a moment later she had transformed into a pretty, petite Japanese schoolgirl with shoulder-length black hair clad in a white summer "sailor uniform" with a black pleated skirt, a black collar with white stripes and cuffs to match, and a red scarf. Her limbs were long and slender, her thigh-high stockings drawing one's attention toward her legs, and if it weren't for the shape of her eyes, face, and the swirling cowlick still present atop her head, I'd have thought some stranger wandered into the apartment by accident.
That, was how-flawless her transformation was.
"So uhhh, if we could just keep that little mishap at the front door between the two of us, I'd really appreciate not getting written up again," she said with an awkward wave of her hand in front of her face, having the decency to look bashful.
"How many times have you been written up?!"
"Too damn many!" Kuroko called out from the kitchen. "Doppel, Takei-chan. Takei-chan, Doppel. Make sure you get along. And no more walking around the house naked!" she ordered. " . . . At least not until Hitomi has given him 'the talk'~" she amended with a chuckle.
"I can already tell you're going to be a bad influence…" I deadpanned at her for what felt like the fifth time among many.
"Which is exactly why everyone in Mon will be given 'joint custody'~" Kuroko grinned behind her coffee mug. "Lucky you, having five smokin' hot 'moms' looking out for ya~ Six if you count Hitomi."
Christ, was she hopped up on caff 24/7?
"Oh please, that's just another excuse to get out of doing more work," Doppel said with a flat-lidded stare. "And as for the 'bathroom situation'," she said turning back to me. "You're sharing an apartment with five chicks; what do you think?"
"Doppel, don't tease him," Tio pouted from her place on the plus-sized sofa. "You know we have a guest bathroom he can use."
"Not like it'll do much good between six of us," Doppel shrugged. "Just do your best to ignore the lingerie and 'feminine hygiene products', and you'll do just fine. Probably~" she grinned salaciously. "Don't worry, if we 'scar you for life', just wait until puberty and you'll be able to… 'clear your palette'~"
"Oh joy…"
What, did I reincarnate into a cheesy harem anime where everyone was into little boys…?
Christ, I couldn't wait for my second puberty to be over with… And was Takehiko even a Christian in the first place? Does it count as "converting" if this body is Buddhist or some other eastern religion and not Christian by default?
An inquiry for another day.
*AHA*
"Well, Hitomi, I think you're pretty much in the clear," Kuroko hummed a while later as the lot of us sat on the plus-sized couch and channel surfed. "If they were going to fire you for that little break-out, they'd have called you out on it by now."
"Ah, that's… that's good…" the mono-eye sighed, relieved. "Takei-kun, I'll have Kaminaga bring anything we left behind our way after work."
"How's she going to get there? Wasn't I in some kind of… private floor, or something?"
" . . . I should probably go with her…" she amended, getting up from her seat and getting ready to head out.
" . . . Good luck," I called out, albeit lamely. " . . . You're sure she'll be safe out there?"
"Well, I mean… as safe as someone can be in this country," Kuroko shrugged. "We don't have too many Villains here that can level a whole city block or anything, but we do have enough troublemakers around to bring in a decent paycheck, even between the five of us."
"Hmmm… I guess if she gets into a bind, she can fire another eye-laser."
*SPURRRRT!* "Holy shit, that was real?!" Doppel gawped after spewing her drink. "I thought that was just one of her drunken, chuuni fantasies!"
"Well, I mean… It was a recent development…" I admitted.
*Thump-shfff* *Thump-shfff* *Thump-shfff*
"Uhhh… What was that?" I blinked as something thumped and shuffled its way down the hallway from the bedrooms.
"Gruuuuugh…!"
The hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, my head mechanically turning, shambling around the corner was a patchwork woman, looking like she were stitched together from numerous pieces like Dr. Frankenstein's monster. Her left iris green, her right yellow, both were glazed as her sharp and pointed teeth gnashed angrily together, her shoulder-length hair messy and dark red. Her breasts large, her figure slender and curvaceous, she was clad in little more than a green pair of panties and a dark green loose-fitting tank top.
My "Tactical Time Dilation" flaring in my panic at the mere sight of her, her shambling body halting as the second hand on the nearby clock slowed to a ghost of a crawl, my eyes remained wide as I took in every detail. Every line of stitches, every skin graft, her countenance; everything that marked her undeniably as a member of the undead.
Faced with such a creature, as time resumed, I did the most-sensible thing I could think of before I became terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.
*AHA*
*CRASH!*
"OW! TAKEHIKO, WHAT THE HELLLL?!" the zombie-like woman cried after getting a bar stool broken over her head.
"HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAAAME!?" Takehiko cried in retaliation.
"Well… That could've gone better…" Ms. Smith deadpanned as the prior chased the latter around the living room in a shambling gait, the latter throwing whatever wasn't bolted to the floor at the prior, starting with the stool legs in his hands. "Think we should tell him?"
"Naw. Give it five… ten minutes, tops," Doppel replied holding up a phone with her prehensile hair, recording the whole thing with a grin on her face.
*AHA*
Suffice it to say,thatwas monumentally embarrassing.
'DAAAMN you eleven-year-old braiiiin…!'
Of course, given how-much damage a zombie epidemic could do to an island nation like Japan, could I really be blamed for my reaction? Hell, with around 5 billion (give or take several million) possible Quirk or Quirk combinations thereof on this planet, the possibility of there being some sort of "Zombification" Quirk was alarmingly high!
Maybe not mathematically high, but that the possibility existed, was what frightened me the most.
All things considered, Zombina was surprisingly cool with it after I explained my reasoning, and not so surprisingly, I wasn't the first person to "wig the fuck out" when seeing her for the first time after she'd just woken up.
Something else I learned about her was she seemingly had no sense of shame or personal boundaries, because after I had apologized, she put me in a headlock that smooshed my face directly into her rather impressive bosom under the pretense of giving me a noogie. Lady had a rockin' bod, but between how cold and clammy she was, and how she didn't "jiggle", it was a little… confusing.
And no, I don't interpret my hypothetical boner as me being a "necrophiliac". Her blood might've been replaced with a preservative blood-like fluid, but her synapses were still firing, I assume, so I didn't count her functionally as being "dead", even if her pulse was largely nonexistent...
And speaking of which, while she technically was a carrier for some kind of "Zombie Virus", it was actually incredibly weak compared to the "one-scratch-one-kill varieties" you see in popular media. The only people Zombina's particular strain was effective against were those who were already Immunocompromised; AIDS, miscellaneous "rare diseases", etc. Anyone remotely healthy would be able to fight it off under their own power, and since I'd become a bit notorious for being a "fast healer", I basically had nothing to worry about from her.
Which of course, brought up a more pressing question…
"So do you just… you know, go by your Hero Name or something?"
"Nope! 'Zombina' is my legit, legal name!" she grinned. "Wanna hear how I got it?"
" . . . Sure, why not. Not like anything else could possibly upset me today."
*AHA*
So… Yeah… Turns out what came next could possibly upset me after everything I'd been through…
To make the whole thing relatively palatable for the eleven-year-old they thought they were talking to, seemingly ignoring the fact that I'd had my parents killed, my Quirk stolen, and almost been vivisected on three nonsequential occasions by three unrelated Villains…
Basically, I was told that Zombina had forgotten her original name after "some bad men in a van" did "something horrible" to her in the back of said van, and that they then left her out in the woods where she became "un-alive". Because her brain had been left intact, her Quirk, [Zombie] was able to trigger because it had the rare "Posthumous Quirk Activation Threshold". After shambling her way back to town where her missing person's report had been waiting for her, once she'd oriented herself, she "pointed the finger" at "the bad men from the van" who "did the bad things to her in the van". Once that snafu had gotten resolved, she got her posthumously-activated Quirk registered, had her strain of the "Zombie Virus" rigorously analyzed to find out how it worked, arranged for her bi-monthly preservative fluid 'oil changes', got her Hero License from an accredited technical college a while later, and the rest, as they say, "was history".
Of course, to my reincarnated brain, which wasn't nearly as stupid or gullible as they assumed it to be, two words immediately came to mind; Rape Van.
I'd read about the troupe in fanfiction, read a statistic somewhere I'd long forgotten, saw it for the first time in the Killing Bites manga right before the main heroine Hitomi Uzaki went full-on "Werehoney Badger" form and tore the guys to shreds… and I'd always just assumed no-one in real life (at least in this world) would be dumb-enough to try it (in this world) because an enclosed space like a van with no windows was a really shitty place to have a terrified, scared-shitless woman discharge her Quirk at point-blank range while you literally had your pants down.
As for the victim of this story, even after she'd been told her real name by the police who identified her by her dental records and fingerprints, the Nom de Guerre "Zombina" simply stuck with her.
Maybe it was originally meant as an insult from some petty asshole who got off on making people who'd literally died feel small after they "not died", but she turned it on its head and made it her own as a point of pride? Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened, I suppose. Someone calls you "bitch", you turn it into something "empowering", and suddenly "bitch" stops becoming an insult altogether.
Supposedly. Me being a guy in my previous life, I was never called "bitch" in the exacting context that a woman would be called "bitch". Nor was I ever called "nerd" for that matter. "Wallflower", maybe, but nothing overtly derogatory.
All of the latter of course was implied rather than outright spoken in the declarative sense, and given how-much effort they'd put into trying to make it PG-13, I decided to let them think they'd spared me all the graphic details.
"Sooooo…" I hummed looking for something to change the subject. "If you aren't technically dead, why were you shuffling down the hall like a zombie?"
"Oh… you know…" Zombina said sheepishly scratching her cheek. "I forgot to do my stretches before bed, rigor mortis set in before I woke up, and… well… I think you can figure out the rest."
" . . . Shouldn't that be part of your routine you've 'done to death', pun not intended," I swiftly amended, "like your bi-monthly 'oil change'?"
"Yeah, well… Sometimes I just get lazy after a long day of work and wanna sleep in."
"Well… The next time this happens, I'll make sure not to break a barstool over your head."
"Much appreciated! Welcome to the family kiddo!" she said wrapping her arm around my neck and smooshing my face into her right can, my protests muffled and my flailing limbs ignored.
*AHA*
"Okay, so we've got Kuroko, Tio, Doppel, and Zombina," I counted as we all got dinner ready. "Where's Manako?"
"On loan to the nearby police academy. She should be coming through that door riiiiight… abouuuuut… now," Kuroko said from her spot on the barstool 'supervising'. " . . . Nnnnow… Now. Nnnnowwwwwww…"
"Kuroko, repeatedly saying 'now' isn't going to-"
*Knock*Knock* "Hey guys, I'm home," a tired-sounding voice suddenly called out from the entryway, Kuroko shooting me a self-satisfied smile while I resisted urge to give her the finger. "How'd the break-out at the hospital go? Anyone get arrested this time?"
"This time'!? How-many people have you smuggled out of hospitals before me?!" I asked incredulously, barely able to believe that needed asking.
"More than I'd like to admit, fewer than I'm proud of," Kuroko shrugged.
Not even going to pretend I know what that meant.
Turning my attention to the entryway where a large-caliber sniper rifle was being propped against the nearby wall, a part of me was immediately put at ease by the face that greeted me.
A mono-eye like Hitomi a little under five feet tall with a slender build, she had a single cyclopean eye that was a lovely purple color to match her hair, which was done in a short, shoulder-length bob-cut; something I noticed about her look was that while Hitomi's bangs were cut around her mono-eye and drew attention toward it, Manako's bangs did the opposite, half-covering hers.
Her attire looked like a blend between a Hero costume and a member of the Swat Team. With a black neck-length catsuit as the base, over it she wore black fingerless gloves, combat boots, yellow sleeves with brown trim and angular metal pads on her elbows and knees, a yellow flak vest with orange shoulder pads, and a brown utility belt with orange pouches. Underneath the MON insignia on her right breast were two lines of bullet-shaped stamps, like the "victory decals" you'd find on the side of a fighter or a bomber plane. Which made me wonder if they meant "Confirmed Kills", or something less-direct like big busts against Villain organizations.
All in all, she was cute as hell, and based on how her cheeks were lighting up red after the way I felt my face starting to heat up, I could only assume my blushing had triggered hers.
"H-Hello, it's nice to meet you," I bowed, hoping neither Kuroko nor Doppel would see my expression.
"H-Hello. It's nice to meet you too," Manako replied nervously with a bow of her own.
"Um… Do you want me to put your sniper rifle away? Draw a bath?"
"N-No, thank you, but, if you could open my door for me," she said shouldering her beast of a rifle, "I'd really appreciate it."
"Looks like someone's got a crush~" Doppel purred.
'Dammit, someone did see…'
I wasn't even going to deny it. Now that she'd gotten the idea in her head, any form of denial would be construed as a "confirmation" of aforementioned crush.
*AHA*
"Um… Takehiko-kun."
"Please, call me 'Takei'. It's what I want my friends to call me," I offered, hoping I was being polite.
"Ah, Takei-kun," she nodded. "I… apologize if any of my roommates were a bit… much…"
"It's fine. I basically got inoculated to 'a bit much' back in the hospital," I returned, thinking back to Kaminaga, who would be 'a bit much' for any sensible person. "I… figured, but didn't want to assume, that you're Hitomi's 'friend' who mediated my whole break-out?"
"That's right," she nodded. "Hitomi and I met at an eyeglasses store that caters to mono-eyes. We've stayed in touch since, and, after you woke up and things got… difficult… she reached out to me and I convinced the rest of my team to take you in."
"I'm grateful, but… I'm sorry if I inconvenience any of you," I say bowing my head. "I understand how much of a burden another mouth to feed can be."
"No, no, it's fine," she said waving her hands frantically. "Honestly, if we can't even save 'one boy' from a bad situation, what kind of Heroes would we be?"
"Hm. Well, I'm glad to know you're some of the 'good ones'. I couldn't be in better hands."
"But, I mean… We aren't all that famous…" she returned dejectedly. "Outside of town, no-one really knows who we are."
"Just because you aren't famous nation-wide doesn't mean you aren't great heroes. It isn't about doing 'big things', sometimes, it's about doing 'the right thing'; even when no-one is looking," I asserted. "You four might not be household names like… the guy that shows off too much teeth… or the grumpy guy that lights his mustache on fire… or that other guy who wears wayyy too much denim," I listed off, eliciting a small chuckle from the cute mono-eye. "But to me, you're my heroes. You took me in even when there wasn't anything in it for you in return, agreed to protect me from being some nutjob's science experiment, and even if I can't pay you back right away-"
Setting her sniper rifle aside, Manako stepped forward and held me with deceptive strength, her eye watering onto my shoulder.
"How can you still trust us…? How can you still have faith in us when you've lost so… so much… and us Heroes weren't there for you when you needed us most?" she questioned somberly.
"Right now… 'faith' is all I have to my name. Trust might be an expensive commodity, that much is true… But Hitomi trusts you… so I don't mind turning out my pockets for all of you here at Mon," I answer, hoping that sounded less-corny in my head as I reciprocated the gesture.
" . . . You're a good boy, Takei-kun," Manako smiled, gently patting my head. "If you ever need someone to scrub your back and not make it weird like the others, I'll be there."
"Ooooh~ Groomin' him early, ain't'cha Mana-chan~? Hoping he'll be a good-looking stud after high school~?"
"Z-Zombina! Don't ruin what was supposed to be a tender moment!"
"Oh trust me, Takei-kun isn't going to be 'tender' for much longer~" the zombie woman grinned salaciously, causing Manako's face to explode in a crimson blush to the roots of her hair, the cute mono-eye stuttering protests impotently.
"Hey, stop picking on her, you hopping zombie!" I snapped out. 'Note to self: Come up with better material.'
"I ain't Chinese! I'm Japanese! The Chinese have a whooole other thing going on!"
"Run. Save yourself," I whisper waving Manako toward the open door, now that Zombina was sufficiently distracted.
*AHA*
"Girls, a toast! To our 'young ward'!" Kuroko grinned after we'd all convened at the dinner table, a can of beer in her hand.
"Here, here," Doppel and Zombina crooned while Tio sipped at her strawberry milk and Manako her tea.
"Hey, Takei," Mon's leader said my way. "Sorry Hitomi and her family couldn't be here for this. I guess we were all still in the headspace that the HPSC wouldn't let you go without a fight," Kuroko said noticing my somber expression.
" . . . Guess I can't put anything past you, huh?" I hummed.
"Not on your best day, kid~" she grinned, chugging her beer without a care in the world. " . . . Don't worry. If they didn't have you on lockdown after that quack of a doctor tried to strip you for parts, I don't think the HPSC was all that against letting Old Yeller run free."
"Didn't they shoot Old Yeller in the end?" I asked while the rest of Mon exchanged confused looks.
"Urk! Didn't think you'd catch that…" Kuroko deadpanned, probably wishing she had a stronger beer.
"So you really are a history buff," Manako hummed with a small smile on her face.
"Only for niche history. My world history's a bit rusty, and, when was the last time schools cared about anything that happened before Quirks were a thing?"
"I don't know. I barely paid attention in school," Zombina shrugged.
"Why did they shoot Old Yeller?!" Tio whined pitiably.
"Really? That's what you fixate on?" Doppel questioned.
"Apparently so," I hummed. "Excuse me, Manako, can I ask you a… question?"
"W-What kind of question?" Manako stammered.
"Hitomi has one eye and one eyebrow, Mitsumi has three eyes but two eyebrows, yet you have one eye and two eyebrows… Is the number of eyebrows not a constant among mono-eyes, or match for people with more than two?"
"And here I thought you were going to ask if she were a middle schooler~"
"Z-Zombina!" Manako cried, sounding affronted. "As for the eyebrow thing… Honestly, I never gave it much thought," she said turning back to me. "What brought this on?"
"Well… Hitomi's was the first face I saw after waking up from that year-long 'power nap', and I guess maybe I got… enamored by mono-eyes?" I said trying to find the right word.
Manako for her part blushed, brushing her bangs down over her mono-eye.
"Maybe this doesn't mean a lot coming from me," I said taking notice, "but I think you have a really pretty eye, and it's such a shame for you to hide it."
"S-Sorry but… I'm not nearly as confident as Hitomi…"
"Are you still on about the whole boob thing?" Zombina asked flat-out. "Because if you are, most Japanese guys are into smaller breasts. Guys liking big honking 'melons' is a western thing. Right, Take-chan?"
"I wouldn't know; I'm not a westerner. Also, I'm twelve!"
"Technically eleven."
"Same fucking thing!" I snapped Kuroko's way.
"Well, nice to see our new mascot has some teeth~" Zombina grinned.
"Welcome to the family, Take-chan!" Tio grinned, everything going black as I was smothered by her enormous bosom.
And that's the story of how I met my mothers.