Touji P.O.V
When you think of reincarnation-type situations in a world where there are everything from wizards to gods to dragons, you would normally intuit that the person in question who is reincarnated would gain some kind of ability, advantage, bloodline, or whatever that fits the "golden finger" category, it's just common sense, right?
I mean, why else would you be reincarnated in a world where powers exist? Just to quietly live out your second life?
If that was the case, wouldn't it be better for anyone to be reincarnated in a slice-of-life world or one where there was a mix of lots of rom-com worlds like in those Chinese novels?
Well, the being, God, or unknown entity that decided to send me to the world ruled by tits seemed to think that I wouldn't need such things, I mean, why be reborn with something as unimportant as a means to protect myself, right?
Better just leave my knowledge of this world somewhat intact, have me born late enough in the timeline so that I wouldn't even be old enough to be taken seriously, and leave me near the epicenter where all the supernatural nonsense would happen, yeah, that sounds like a solid plan.
During the first few months after regaining my memories, I seriously thought about the possibility of having offended some ROB, according to me, that was the only way to explain the reason for my precarious situation.
But this was something that happened a long time ago, after my dreams and hopes of flying through the skies and shooting beams from my eyes were destroyed came the annoyance, then the fear, and finally the acceptance.
After all, throwing tantrums, shaking in fear, or hating life in general wasn't going to get me anywhere, so I put aside the things I couldn't do and focused on what I could accomplish, it was the least I owed to the only member of my family in this life.
My brother was a curious person, for a part of the time we grew up in an orphanage he didn't try to get too close to me, in fact, I was almost sure he was actively avoiding me.
The reason? I had no idea, maybe he just didn't like me, maybe I reminded him of our deceased parents, or maybe there was no real reason at all.
And I never knew why he changed, I only knew that from one day to the next, he went from interacting as little as possible with me to behaving like an attentive and slightly overprotective big brother.
As I said, I didn't know what caused this change, but I did have a slight suspicion of who had something to do with it.
You see, my brother's solitary attitude, if you want to call it that, was mainly focused on avoiding me, that's true, but until before his change, he didn't associate too much with anyone in particular, he was like that character in anime who would go eat alone during lunch somewhere where no one else would pass by.
He didn't cause any trouble either, so beyond an occasional glance, the nuns who ran the orphanage and the volunteers who came from time to time didn't pay him any attention, except for her.
Sister Daria, if I had to give a brief description of her, I would start by saying that she was the complete opposite of what one would expect from a nun, she looked no less than 80 years old, and she drank so much alcohol that I was sure she was single-handedly paying for the education of the son of the owner of the liquor store where she shopped.
She spoke in a language that would embarrass even the rudest sailor, I never saw her pray or read the Bible, and I never once saw her do anything like cook, clean, or help with any kind of task at the orphanage.
And curiously, the other nuns never reprimanded her for her behavior, the most I saw them do sometimes was give her looks of disdain or repudiation, but if she noticed them, she didn't care in the least.
She didn't seem to care much about the children either, after all, beyond the occasional pat on the head and the advice of "don't be like me when you grow up" she didn't seem to interact much with anyone.
Once again, I was lacking information, because before I knew it, she and my brother began interacting more and more frequently, whether it was her chatting with him in the yard in the afternoon, him covering her with a blanket and taking the bottle of liquor from her hands when she fell asleep in her chair, or just the two of them going for a walk down the street, plus my brother's name was the only one she truly learned, while the rest of us were either "brats" or some random name in an attempt to guess.
So, taking all that into account, I was sure that if anyone had anything to do with my brother's change or knew what caused it, it was that woman, it was a shame she died a couple of years after arriving at our orphanage.
And although I hadn't interacted with her more than the average orphanage resident, I was grateful to her for being a support for my brother when there was no one else by his side.
Time after that, my brother finally got in touch with our mother's family, and we both moved into an apartment in "surprise surprise" Kuoh.
Damn clichés!
I never knew what kind of arrangement they came to, how much my brother knew about them, or they knew about us, but before I knew it we were in a new apartment, and being visited once a month by an employee of our mother's family who took care of the household expenses, at least for the first year, because after that the responsibility was assumed by my brother, and "the money man", as he called him, never came back.
And I'm not going to lie, it was pretty complicated at first, my brother barely knew the basics of cooking, cleaning, and other household things, in that sense, our neighbor, Karasuma-san, was a complete blessing, because thanks to her, Ryuichi went from barely being able to keep the house in order to be an exemplary househusband in less than a year.
Time passed, and just as I said before, the fear of living in Kuoh faded away little by little, we never met any character from the series, and my brother studied in an academy that I was almost sure did not exist in the original plot.
In that line of thought, I found myself thinking about my brother's life, I was quite happy that after getting used to his role as a househusband, he had time to relate to more people, like that kouhai he mentioned a few times, or the friend he played online with from time to time.
But the surprise came when his teachers came to visit, being completely honest, discovering that there were characters from other series didn't surprise me as much as one would expect, after all, they came from worlds where there were no mystical forces or problems that could cause this chaotic world to be even more dangerous.
But, what if there were other characters from series that could change the events in this world?
Well, that wasn't my problem, Issei, Rias, and their group would take care of that, I had no way to help, and I wasn't going to risk them harming my brother or snooping through my memory when they found out I knew things I shouldn't know.
I would focus on living my daily life, studying as hard as I could, entertaining myself by bothering my brother while watching his romantic comedy with both teachers unfold, and making sure we both lived a good life when I could get a job that paid outrageously well.
That was my plan, at least it was until everything went to hell, literally, and my brother came into contact with the two heiresses of devil clans that lived in this town.
Watching my brother interact with devils and then fight one was… confusing, I didn't understand what was going on, but I noticed that my brother didn't seem to be really "friendly" with devils.
And if I was honest, it kind of bothered me to see Kiba beat him up, but it was also very exciting, like watching one of those animes with amazing animation, only, you know, in real life, watching Kiba make a sword appear out of nowhere, watching them both move so fast I could barely see them, martial arts clashing with swordplay, clones, the glow, and that end clash where my brother managed to land a decisive blow.
I wasn't going to lie, I had gotten a little more excited than I was willing to admit, if a fight of this scale was like this, how would it be to see more impressive things? Like Issei's balance breaker, the fight with Raiser, the Excaliburs and Durandal, Kokabiel, and the rest of the events and fights that would be crazier and crazier.
But I repressed that excitement in favor of something more important, I needed to get answers urgently, luckily it didn't really take any effort to get them, first from Mafuyu and then from my own brother.
After those events, things seemed to calm down a bit, I doubted my brother would ever become something like the best friend of the devils or the main cast, but it seemed that the few meetings and conversations he had with Rias opened the possibility for peaceful communication and cooperation in case of emergencies.
I just hoped that nothing remotely romantic would happen between those 2, not only because it would be incredibly cliché, that was the least of it in my opinion, the real problem was the obscene amount of trouble that seemed to haunt the redhead and her peerage, but from everything I had seen so far I was pretty calm because something like that seemed incredibly unlikely no matter how tsundere my brother seemed now that he was more at "peace" with the supernatural residents of Kuoh.
Because that was another point to take into account, despite his persistent "reluctance and distrust" towards devils, he was open to cooperating a little with them in non-obligatory scenarios.
Like train Issei a little, not being really upset when he found out that Rias had been alone with me while he was gone, and the biggest proof, he went to help with the whole fallen angel thing, he didn't tell me, and I only found out when it was all over, but it was obvious, after all, that was the only viable explanation for the "guest" he brought home one night.
Mittelt, one of Raynare's group members, a clear example of what a stereotypical goth loli was, seeing her arrive with my brother that night was… not a very pleasant surprise.
I mean, the fandom had come up with a lot of alternative scenarios where one or more of the fallen angels survived, but they usually chose the other female fallen angel whose I couldn't even remember the name, and they clearly chose her for… "purely plot reasons", hell, even Raynare, despite being a psychotic lunatic, was a more used option than this loli.
The only one less likely was the guy with the hat, because, well, he was a guy, too bad for him.
So, while this fallen angel looked at our house as if evaluating it, my brother tried to lie to me about who she was and why she was here.
According to him, he would have to go meet our family in China in a few days, and that was why he had "hired" this mage, as he called her, to protect me while he wasn't here, and in exchange, she would stay at our house and get paid when my brother returned.
I wanted to say a lot of things, seriously, like that this was an incredibly convenient time for him to have to leave, shortly after he awakened his powers, and I suspected that our family in China had something to do with said powers, but he already seemed worried enough about all of this, and considering the kind of world we lived in I doubted that his trip would be free of supernatural problems, so I swallowed my doubts and simply wished him a safe trip.
But now it was decided, the moment he returned I was going to interrogate him, I was going to find out who exactly these relatives were and if the ties we had with them could affect us in the future.
But this was something to be solved in the future, since my brother was not there and would not be back for almost half a month I could rest easy, at least for the moment, I would have enough time to think, besides, it was safe to say that now that the next problem of the main cast was that fried chicken, no dangerous supernatural event would happen in Kuoh, right?
#####
40 minutes after Ryuichi left Touji with Karasuma
Third Person P.O.V
Karasuma opened the door of his house and spoke while leaving the shopping bags on the floor. "Kids, I'm back"
A couple of seconds later, she heard the sound of footsteps approaching, Touji and Koichi stopped in front of her, greeting her back before taking the bags from her hand and walking towards the kitchen.
"Thanks for the help." She said while changing her shoes and following them.
Shortly after they finished tidying up and putting everything away, Karasuma looked at them. "Well, now that we have everything we need for lunch, does anyone want to help me cook?" He asked, knowing what they would both answer.
""Me."" They both answered at the same time, which made her let out a short laugh, Koichi wanted to help because he liked cooking and wanted to be a chef when he grew up, while Touji helped out every time he was a guest at her house because that's how his older brother had raised him.
"Well, in that case, go to the bathroom to wash your hands, I will wait here, don't take long." The woman said, watching as both boys turned around, but after taking a few steps, Touji seemed to lose all his strength, his complexion turned pale, his eyes went blank, and as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut, he fell to the ground unconscious.
"Touji! Wha-!" Karasuma was about to approach when a feeling invaded her, she was able to think properly for another 10 seconds before the feeling overwhelmed her, but then her legs trembled, and her knees gave way.
An infinite sadness.
An unbearable pain.
A shame that had no reason.
A regret that threatened to consume her.
The tears fell without her realizing it, Karasuma felt as if she had lost something incredibly valuable, as if she witnessed the death of her son, as if all hope was torn from her being.
Karasuma gritted her teeth, and using all her willpower, she looked up to see her son, he had fallen sitting on the floor, crying with his eyes closed, trying to wipe his tears with the back of his hand, but the moment he did so, more ran down his cheeks.
Then she remembered, she remembered this tightness in her chest, the pain and sadness, this was the same thing that had happened 10 years ago.
Karasuma couldn't stand to see her son like that, her concern and love for her family drove her to stand up even when the tears falling from her eyes wouldn't stop, she took her son in her arms and carried him while doing the same with the unconscious Touji, who now seemed to be burning with fever, before leaving her house, she had to move, she had to take the child to the hospital, she couldn't stay still leaving everything like that.
And as she left the house her suspicion of what was happening was confirmed, a landscape similar to the one she saw 10 years ago, all the people on the street were shedding tears, some stood while clenching their teeth as if they were trying to resist what was happening to them although the tears fell anyway, others stopped their cars and were sitting on the sidewalk holding their heads while the tears fell, and some others were still kneeling while crying.
Karasuma didn't stay still, moving as quickly as possible to the Kuoh hospital to get help for Touji.
Without her noticing, a circle made of Chinese inscriptions and Nordic runes shone on Touji's back for a few minutes before fading, and the inscriptions sank into his skin, disappearing as if they had never been there.
#####
Third Person P.O.V
Rias rubbed her chin as she nodded to herself, in front of her, Issei panted as he rested his arms on his knees, and the red gauntlet on his arm faded a few seconds later.
"You're improving faster than I expected, well done, Issei." She congratulated him, she was quite satisfied with the enthusiasm and desire for improvement that he began to show after discovering his Sacred Gear, further enhanced after the incident with the fallen a couple of days ago.
"Thank you… president… I… will try… harder." He said between breaths while giving a bright smile.
Rias smiled back and walked over to give him a bottle of water. "I know you will, but remember that rest is also important." She decided to scold him a little, after all, she didn't want him to get hurt in an attempt to meet her expectations.
With that warning given, she turned around to call the girl accompanying her. "Asia, please give him a hand." She said, and instantly, the nun approached with a smile.
"Good job Issei-san." The blonde also congratulated him while raising her hands, which glowed with a soft green light.
The healing lasted a few seconds, and after repairing the young devil's tired muscles, Asia stopped.
"Alright, take a break for a few minutes Issei, I'll go check on Akeno, and then I'll send her to meet you so you can talk to her like you asked." The redhead said, turning to look at her queen, who was flying a few dozen meters away from them.
"Yes, thank you." The brunette replied before taking a long drink of water.
Rias turned around to move forward, but she didn't even have time to take the first step when she heard the bottle of water Issei was holding fall to the ground.
"Issei?! Asia?!" Rias looked at them, and her expression turned into one of surprise and alarm as both of their eyes began to shed tears.
"W-why?" The brunette said, touching his face, while the nun, who didn't say anything, seemed more distressed than him.
Rias turned around to call her queen and noticed that she had stopped flying, now she was standing on the ground, touching her eyes while also shedding tears.
"What is going on?" Rias was nervous and turned around to look in the direction of the house where they were staying, Kiba and Koneko had recently entered to get more drinks and some supplies for their own training, but if the same thing was happening to them, then that would make her the only one who seemed to be unaffected by whatever was happening.
#####
Third Person P.O.V
Staring at this… thing, the Great Red one felt a little uneasy, a few years ago this "thing" had appeared in this part of the dimensional gap, and since then, it stayed there, just floating, it reminded him a little of how Ophis acted when he saw her, only this thing didn't really seem to care about his movements, acrobatics or anything he did.
He had seen similar beings before when he had been passing through the barriers that separated the worlds of the lesser beings, and even Ophis had appeared before him once with a similar appearance.
This "being" had a humanoid form, the shape of a not-fully-formed baby of a couple of hundred meters, and from it came two thick chains that extended for several dozen meters before disappearing, as well as numerous other chains the thickness of threads that extended for a few meters before disappearing too.
Normally, the big red stayed away from this thing, mainly because it never stopped emitting negative feelings, but not the evil kind, but the depressive kind, it exuded sadness, regret, pain, and shame to the point where the dragon didn't even want to attack it, just stay away.
But today, the big red came closer because the thing seemed to be moving, writhing, suffering even more than it normally did, and that somehow sent ripples through the vastness of the dimensional gap.
The big red looked at the thing for a moment and found the problem, one of the two largest chains that "held" it seemed to have lost its anchor, and that seemed to cause it suffering.
The loose chain swayed a few times before stretching out like a snake attacking, sinking into space, seeming to find something to "hold on to" once again, but even after this, the "thing" seemed not to calm down completely.
#####
Third Person P.O.V
Touji couldn't see anything, thinking was difficult for him, his senses were dulled, and his thoughts were fluctuating, residing as just a consciousness in the infinite darkness that was his mind.
He had no form, so he couldn't really move, but in his semi-conscious state, this didn't seem to really bother him either.
That was until something within that darkness gave off an enormous glow that completely caught his attention, and in that no longer seemingly infinite darkness, Touji could hear voices.
"What we wish is a future without sorrow!" A woman's voice said in a firm tone.
"Wonderful! This is wonderful! With you, the birth of our God, the only true God, will become a reality!" A man's crazed voice shouted.
"It doesn't matter if every muscle in my body is torn apart! What does it matter if every bone in my body is broken! I won't stop even if the last drop of my blood boils!" Another male voice shouted in defiance.
"We all swear loyalty to our king, our one and only king!" The hopeful and joyful voices echoed.
"Fate? Even if our lives end today, we will shout that we were freed from those chains to choose our own path!"
The voices overlapped one another until finally everything fell silent after a few seconds, and one last voice, one that was similar but different from his brother's, said one last sentence.
"Why? Why has everyone abandoned me?"
.
..
...
Touji slowly opened his eyes, his head hurt, he felt hot all over his body, and his throat felt a little dry.
"What happened?" He said, his voice sounding a little raspy, he tried to stand up, but it took a lot more effort than it normally did, and he could almost swear he heard his joints as his elbows and wrists creak like old, un-oiled door hinges.
"Touji?" A voice came from his right side, and when he turned around, he saw his best friend, Koichi, sliding a glass door open to enter the room he was in.
"Mom! Touji woke up!" The boy turned around and screamed, pushing the door open further, and a couple of seconds later, a woman Touji knew well quickly entered the room where he was.
"Karasuma-san?" The boy asked, seeing the woman's worried expression, but she didn't answer, instead she walked over and hugged him.
"Thank goodness you're awake!" She said in a relieved tone.
Touji's entire body felt uncomfortable, but he didn't push the woman away, it was obvious she was worried, and if this would calm her down and bring her some comfort, he would bear the discomfort with a smile.
The hug lasted for about ten more seconds before the woman let Touji go, and when she finally did, he gave her a few more seconds to calm down completely.
"Karasuma-san, what happened?" The boy asked worriedly.
#####
Touji P.O.V
I was nervous, I was incredibly nervous, Karasuma-san and Koichi had left a few moments ago, the doctor who left with her a little while ago said that I needed to rest for now in order to recover, which I was grateful for, because now I could wallow in my fear without anyone watching me.
Three days, I had been unconscious for a total of three days, and why? What was the reason? The doctor had no idea, and I, who had a deeper knowledge of the world I lived in compared to the average human or magical resident, also had no idea what was going on.
But the truth was that my fainting was the least of the problems here, the reason? A damn supernatural event on a global scale.
Everyone around the planet shedding tears of sadness, at the same time, and for no apparent reason? What the hell is that supposed to mean? There was no scenario like that in this world, in fact, I didn't remember something like that happening in any franchise I knew of.
And the worst of all? It wasn't the first time it happened, apparently the same thing had happened 10 years ago, I had no idea that something like that had happened, after all, I was 2 years old at the time, and I didn't recover my memories until I turned 6, so I hadn't experienced it personally.
This was problematic in many ways, because it meant that, somehow, my birth or actions before I turned 6 could have caused all of this, how the hell did that make sense? I didn't know, but the butterfly effect was the only suspect I could think of.
Or at least the only one I wanted to consider, because the other option was an incredibly more worrying one.
Another reincarnated person.
The very thought of it made my hair stand on end, that couldn't be possible, right? I mean, the events of the series already started, so following stupid anime laws, if there was another reincarnated person, he would already be here to meet the main cast, right?
No, although less likely, it's also possible that he or she was somewhere where other characters were, like with the exorcists, accompanying Irina and Xenovia, or in Asgard with Rossweise.
I just hope it's not one of those situations where someone reincarnated into Riser, and if it is that he has enough brains to just straight up call off the engagement with Rias and just stay in the Underworld fucking with his generic harem, because if for some reason the main cast loses, the wedding happens, and they go to the Underworld then we're all screwed when Kokabiel comes and there's only Sona's peerage and the exorcists to stop him.
Well, and my brother too, if he decides to step in to stop the town his teachers/crushes live from doing kabom, but to be honest, if he could barely beat Kiba using his wits and tricks, I don't see him making a difference against a fucking 10-winged fallen angel.
I have to calm down, I can't think so negatively, while it's true that the possibility of another reincarnated person is not 0, it is incredibly low.
But even if that scenario is avoided and it turns out that this situation is a butterfly effect caused by my intervention, I need to find insurance in case other unforeseen things happen.
Situations like 'Oh, surprise, Kokabiel was hiding that he gained another pair of wings, and he doesn't monologue like a stereotypical villain, which makes him even more dangerous than in canon', or 'Who would have seen it coming, the terrorists who attacked the peace meeting of the leaders of the 3 factions actually had more than two brain cells, so this time they made a plan that doesn't fall apart like a house of cards after step one'
If I wanted to prevent situations like that from happening, I had to start influencing the plot, so if the worst happened, I would have an idea of why the world was heading straight to "we're all screwed" village, and I could at least try to think of a plan.
But what could be that insurance? Issei? Rias? The rest of the cast? Well, while I didn't dislike them, they weren't a good option, I didn't have a way or an excuse to interact with them directly, and who knows, if I did I could put myself in more danger than it was worth, you know, all that "dragons attract power" thing, which in my opinion would work better if you traded "power" for "trouble".
That only left my brother as my only option, I was sure that he would not only listen to me, but he would actually value my opinion almost above his own, and all that with almost no awkward questions like "How do you know that clearly suspicious guy is the white dragon?" or "How did you find out that that blue-haired girl with the attitude of a church minion who can't think for herself has a super sword in addition to the one she carries on her back?"
…
Thinking about it, although I was sure he would believe me, I didn't want to create a gap between us by hiding things from him that could make him return to his paranoid state, especially when he just seemed to be starting to accept devils as allies and not as beings from hell that would eat our souls.
Giving him important information without context could make him think I was kidnapped and some supernatural creature took my place.
I had to make him strong, strong enough that he could deal with, or at least defend us from any idiot who wanted to come and cause trouble in Kuoh or who had funny ideas like "I want to rule/destroy the world because yolo".
So, to achieve this and not make him go crazy suspecting me, I would have to tell him the truth, or at least a part of the truth.
Tell him that I'm reincarnated? Yes.
Tell him that we live in an anime series where boobs offer more power-ups than years of training? No.
I would simply say that I was having visions since I saw the devils, and when the first of them came true, he would surely be ready to cooperate with me.
That was the best I could do.
With that settled, I exhaled as I tried to let go of my worries, I would have to think carefully about how I would talk to my brother when he returned, luckily, I had almost two weeks to think about it.
Unfortunately, it seemed that whoever controlled reality really didn't like me, because just when I was about to regain my calm completely, a semi-transparent blue box with unintelligible text appeared floating in front of my face.
M͊̈́̐3͝͝/̽͐̓͒̀͑>0̿͌͝m͋͐͘3̓͒͝ ⊥͌͋̓0̔͘ ⊥̐̕͝H͆̒͝3͒̓ #/͋͆͝⊥̽͊͋3̽̾̈́r̓̕͝n̈́̀͋#⊥̒͆͠3̓͑̐ M̿̀u̽͌/̒͛̓⊥̓̔͑!̿͑̿̈́͌v3͒̽͝r̿̕&͐̾̚3͑̈́͝ >H͌͆̕#⊥̐̕͝ 6̈́̓̕®͑͒̚0͋̚͝u͒͛q̓͊͌ - T̶a̶g̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶
"What?"
X-X-X-X-X
Okay, finally here it is, the last thing I'll be posting about this story, at least for now, and since this was the winning option in the P-atreon poll (Touji's side story) I decided to add as many details, mysteries, and foreshadowing as possible, so I can resolve them during the arc that will focus on Touji and Ryuichi's past.
I'm a bit of a fan of the Warhammer universe (that's why Guilliman was one of my choices for chat members) so if there's anyone here who also knows about that universe, I think they might get an idea of what happened in this chapter and what I'm basing it on.
And I also wanted to tell you that the harem option was the winner, but, if you've made it this far you know that I like to take things slowly (sometimes more than necessary, but I promise to try to improve that) so maybe this will affect the romantic development a little, even so, I promise to do my best.
On the other hand, I also wanted to know if anyone has a recommendation about a reward for the other chat members, whether it be items, weapons, materials, or powers that come from a different universe.
After all, I gave Ryuichi something from the Dragon Ball-verse, so it would be unfair not to do something similar with the others.
Looking back, I think this volume has had a bit of each genre, from ecchi to mystery, I hope I did well and that it was to everyone's liking, I'll do my best to bring the second volume as soon as possible, and that it's more entertaining than the first.
But I won't be taking a complete break, because remember that I still have my other story, "The Tales of Saiyans, Demons and Gods", so if you can, go check that out too.
Once again, thank you all very much for joining me so far! And I hope to see you all when we start the second volume!