Waking up with a headache of the 'hungover'-type wasn't what I would specifically call a rarity to me, even if it was simultaneously far from being a common occurrence either.
Post university, I only got pissed on the weekend, occasionally, because my relatively introverted ass tended to cave under social pressure and followed the lead of my more outgoing, socially expert, and generally older, friends.
Not that I wasn't unaware of that fact, no: I knew perfectly what I was doing and why, but, at this point, it was kind of in my habits to spend at least a couple unnecessary complicated sunday mornings a month, after coming back from an evening at the bar that may or may not have stretched until the wee hours of the morning and may or may not have been spent consuming a lot more alcohol that my lanky, railroad thin, frame would imply.
This fact, combined with a history of powerful migraines -which had abated somewhat since I stopped smoking years ago, but still plagued me once every two months to this day-, gave me what I would modestly call a rather solid background pertaining to everything cephalalgia.
So, understand that coming to consciousness to an incessant, background, everpresent, bUzZiNg was most definitely a new one.
Groaning, cradling my temples, it was all I could do to fight my way out of my bedsheets, my brain pointing at some discrepancies I couldn't be arsed to examine too deeply since I had the lovely impression of having white-hot icepicks screwed in my gray matter, and shambles out of my bedroom, the lights still shut in a gamble not to worsen the current awfulness.
It was only when I managed to reach the shower, shuffling out of my bedclothes, my mind trying to tell me that something fucky was going on, again, turning the faucet open, cranking the hot water to near scalding by force of habits and letting myself slide against the cold ceramic of the wall, my head angled skyward to maximize my ratio skin-water under the shower head, that I vaguely started to feel like a human being again.
I don't know how long I stayed there, vegetating under the artificial rainfall, the BuZzInG headache not abating one bit, impressions of wHiSpErS reaching me, VoIcEstalking right in my mind, but, eventually, as I started to breathe in a pattern that seemed familiar yet not, all of it started to quieten, but not totally, NeVeR tOtAlLy, and I could finally open my eyes-
-and immediately frown because I wasn't familiar with that ceiling.
And I was very familiar with the one in my bathroom, even in a similar low-light setting, since, again, headaches and I were old acquaintances by this point, and the shambling zombie beelining to the most holy falling curtain of blessed warmth routine was old news by now.
…What the fuck did I do last evening, exactly?
My frown deepens as the headache recedes even further, the bUzZiNg now a mere susurrus, and I try to parse my most recent memories-
-only to come to a sort of blank?
I mean, I was fairly certain that yesterday had been a weekday, and I never spend the evening drinking on those, bar the occasional cold one when it took me, which wasn't often, so I could more or less eliminate the 'got drunker than a sailor and somehow hooked up' theory that immediately jumped to my mind.
I say more or less because I had done both cringier andweirder, but that was when I had been in college, which was years ago, but history had a way of repeating itself in funny manners to screw with me, so I couldn't totally void the possibility.
Nonetheless, it seemed highly improbable, so I immediately started to look for another hypothesis, but I was, once again, drawing a blank, my mind woolgathering on a multitude of topics, each of them becoming more and more ludicrous, but none of those rising a bleep of familiarity.
It was only once I was feeling like a functional homo sapiens that I got the courage to rise my ass out of the shower, the damned bUzZiNg still here but tremendouslymore manageable, that I started to parse some oddities.
The first thing that comes to my mind is that my balance is shot, for some reasons, since I have the feeling that I'm more top-heavy than usual, which puzzles me greatly.
The second thing that reaches my higher cerebral functions is that I'm somehow familiar with the room, again, for some reasons, and that the showerhead is very distinctly outside of the bathtub, which is a configuration I've only seen in anime or during a vacation in Japan.
I want to chuckle, only to stifle a wince as my temples remind me that my brain is still very much tender.
A shame, really, since I would have found it quite hilarious if I had somehow landed in a Japanese expat's bed who missed her -their, I know how I can get when under influence, so let's be honest here- country's bathing routine and wanted a taste of home after a long day of work.
Always fantasized about being a stay-at-home husband, to have some time for my writing hobbies, so I wouldn't have been adversarial to find myself a sugar-mommy, and having the money to refit an entire bathroom would have been a good sign.
Yet, something was telling me that wasn't it, so I shuffled back toward the sink, flicking on the light, and hesitantly open my eyes after screwing them shut for beat, stupidly forgetting that I still wasn't at one hundred percent and that light and migraines were a big no-no-
-only to stare at the reflection in the mirror.
Because I knew that face.
Only it wasn't the one I was born with.
Shoulder-length dark-brown hair, with a side-shave on the left side, thin eyebrows, dark-blue eyes, a rather angular jaw, button nose, two dimples instead of cheeks and pulpous lips.
Googly eyed, my hand, thinner than I'm used to, comes to trail on the tattoo under my throat, at the level of my collarbone-
'Duty is Forever' it reads, in one of those stylized scroll look-alike banners, albeit with the level of artistry expected of a prison tattoo artist.
-before palming one of my breasts, in a daze.
I lose control of my breathing.
I scream, in a rather girlish-yet-husky voice.
The BuZzInG redoubles.
I release an uncontrolled shockwave.
The mirror shatters.
***
A panic attack, a headache and a second therapeutic shower later, I was back in my bed sheets, staring aimlessly to the second stranger-yet-not ceiling in as many hours.
Everything was making a lot more sense, yet at the same time, it didn't.
Somehow, I awoke this morning in a body eerily similar -yet noticeably younger, cuter and with a very distinctJapanese phenotype- to my W40K Darktide Psyker, which, in hindsight, explained the incessant bUzZiNg I was still dealing with, since, you know, innate connection to the Immaterium.
A mad dash toward one of my windows latter, almost wrenching the shutter out of its frame in my frantic attempts to open it, I successfully confirmed that I wasn't in a Hive City somewhere in the far future -where there's only War™- which had lifted a non-inconsequential weight of my shoulders.
I was adaptable, always written so in my CVs -eh-, but I could not deal with Warhammer bullshits on a daily basis without instantly telling myself that putting a lasgun in my mouth sounded like a very good idea all of a sudden.
No, for all intent and purpose, I was in what looked like a bog-standard late 90 - early 2000 Japanese city, which, again, I knew not yet somehow did.
Plus side: I only had to manage a psychic potential so strong that it could turn me barmy on the drop of a hat if I wasn't careful.
Negative side: I had to manage a psychic potential so strong that it could turn me barmy, murderous, and possibly invoke a bonafide Chaos Entity, if I wasn't careful.
Fucking.
Great.
Understandably so, suddenly having a tushy rated significantly lower on my 'list of things that freaks me out', compared to 'is tapped into the collective unconscious of a whole universe', '-which can potentially end badly', 'doesn't know where they are' and 'isekai bullshit'.
I take another deep breath, settling myself in a meditative pattern I somehow knew -add 'had their brain tampered to gain relevant knowledge' to the list- yet don't, as I feel my anxiety rising, and the damned BuZzInG getting louder.
…This was going to take some time to get used to, I can already tell it.
***
After having managed to settle down, somehow, I managed to do some basic bitch detective work, and found out where I was.
Good news: I roughly knew where I landed.
Bad news: suddenly, W40K didn't look so bad anymore.
The answer had been, as it is wont to do, in my closet.
…I feel like there is a joke here, but I think I'm not really in the proper headspace to fully appreciate it.
Specifically, it was the brand new school uniform, freshly bought, still under its dry-cleaning plastic wrappings.
More specifically, the Kuoh High-School girl uniform, the same which I distinctly remembered having jerked off a few times when I was still a young adult with too high of a libido.
I can't help but whimper.
Not only because I am in DxD, but because I had a feeling that a certain someone at the Student Council wouldn't take me not wearing the very, very short skirt lying down.
But, hey, at least it was a sunday, if my little -and verypink- flap screen cell phone was to be believed.
Which meant I had a whole, entire, day to speedrun the five stages of grief, before it was time to go outside in the totally-not-run-by-a-supernatural-faction town, so as to take a very cautious lay of the land, if only to get an idea of the exact timeline and about how much I'm fucking screwed.
Yay, me.
***
I had a basement.
No, let me reformulate: I had a Basement.
Notice the capitalization? It is important because it indicates something special, something unique.
Even as I wanted nothing more than to wallow in my bed about my newfound lot in life, I still soldiered on and tried to make as much sense about what was happening before jumping in the deep end.
What I had discovered did shine some modicum of lights on my current situation.
I was an orphan, who lived through the major part of my early life in an orphanage affiliated with the JSDF, which somehow offered a plausible explanation as to why my upper body and left thigh were riddled with military-style tattoos -if definitely not why they were all written in English and of the gothic style-, even if the very conspicuous discovery of a full tattooing kit under my bed tended toward me being the 'artist'.
No wonder they were 'rough' -read, shit-tier-, because I never was gifted with an artistic bone in my previous life, something which looked like had somehow followed me to this one too.
As long as I considered the fourteen-ish years I/she went through 'mine' anyway.
So, in short, both parents from military backgrounds deceased in action, orphaned from a young age, went through the standard Japanese cursus before landing a scholarship in a prestigious high-school, being Kuoh in this case, due to I/her above average academia.
I had a relatively honest state-sponsored allowance, which didn't grant me much leeway but would guarantee that I wouldn't starve nor would have to wear second-hand clothes when out of my school uniform, which I would lose if I started faffing around in school too much.
Zero pressure, absolutely.
Now, I wasn't annoyed about having to go through high-school for a second time, if I had to be completely honest, seeing it more as a new opportunity, considering I kind of fucked up things the first go around.
I was more anxious about the fact that it would potentially be under the probing gaze of two young devils looking to flush out their peerage while I wasn't fancying selling my freedom one bit, even if it was to two relatively well meaning members of their species.
Plus, I had no clue what 'Imagination Magic™' would do when mixed with 'Unlimited Warp Powaaah!', but something keeps telling me that it would be a Bad Idea.
As I more or less fully expected, the new term would start tomorrow, if my acceptance letter, which I had found carefully folded on top of my desk, was any indication, and so, I was effectively hours away from learning how much I was fucked.
Best case scenario? Kuoh is still an all-female high-school, which means I am years before canon, I speedrun my education, land a cushy job somewhere far away from this hot mess, and go from there.
Worst case scenario? My eyes land upon a certain perverted trio and all I can do is pray to a deader than doornails god that the power of boobaz will save the day, multiple times.
I had, of course, a very huge preference for the first option, but I wasn't counting on it if I had to be completely honest.
It wouldn't, after all, be fun.
And what was I, if not some ROB's entertainment, if the famous formula held true?
Yet, despite not rolling in dough, I still had a little two story home, for some unfathomable reason, and that was while I was trying to make sense of that particular tidbit that I stumbled upon the basement.
Or, rather, the Basement.
At first glance, it would look like the workshop of someone really invested in some form of arcane cosplay, but there was no denying what my eyes bore witness to.
Besides the 'Obvious Basement Things™' -read boiler and other, underground, things, like big ass pipes-, there were exactly five things which prompted my jaw to drop.
A meditation mat in some sort of memory-foam material.
A skull-shaped censer atop its pedestal.
A skull-shaped, cybered, hovering, its orbits emitting an eerie and baleful blue light, honest-to-god servo-skull.
A complete, fully sized, Storm Witch's Redemption Rainment's regalia, on its little mannequin.
Three thingies which look furiously like Icons -Relics, my mind corrects- and which emits a strange, esoteric, power in my more arcane senses.
And a bonafide Force Sword, Illisi Mk.V, on a rack.
So, in short: all of my best-in-slot gear was here, for some god forsaken reason, my favorite handgun excepted, which wasn't actually much of a bummer, considering gun ownership laws in Japan were tighter than a virgin's ass if my memory held true.
Not that I was complaining, mind you, but I was understandably very rattled by the discovery, especiallyby the servo skull, who behaved more like a neglected puppy than anything else as soon as I opened the door, bumping itself against my chest while trilling some form of -probably- binary cant.
It would probably be endearing if, you know, it wasn't creepy as hell and clearly made with an authentic human skull.
I had no idea how my gear had landed here, but I could more or less infer that the whole spot was for both training and makeshift armory related purposes.
Granted, the armor was more for cosmetic purpose than anything else-
-and my 'memories' instantly contradicts me, telling me that it is both a protection of the mind and body as well as a crutch to handle my power, due to some totally logical technobabble bullshit, which makes me frown.
I despise the word crutch, as a rule of thumb.
Which means that I was going to do my best to be as efficient, safe and powerful without the armor and-
-the servo skull trills once again, stopping itself from bashing itself against my chest and wrenching me out of my fugue in passing, before stepping -or is it hovering?- back a few steps, projecting a hologram-
-which I can decipher, and my eyebrows raise in astonishment.
Because, if my eyes don't deceive me, this, right there, is a complete 'how to/training guide' for your baby psyker, if the table of contents is to be believed.
I hum consideringly under my breath.
I step further inside the room, settling myself on the meditation mat, the servo skull correcting its position so as I have the 'book' in front of my eyes the whole time.
Intrigued, and eager to quieten the BuZzInG another notch if possible, the damned thing always present, nEvEr LeAvInG, I start to read.
***
Hours later, the night truly fallen, I step outside of the Basement, the smell of incense trailing me, making sure that Skully -had to give the thing a name at some point, if only for the peace of my mind, which had delighted it if its excited bobbing had been any indication- doesn't follow behind me, I have approximately as many questions as when I had started the impromptu learning session, but had gained a lot more answers than I had expected when I started looking around.
Granted, most of those answers were regarding my newfound connection with the pseudo-soup of all this universe sentients's psychic powers, but it was better than going in blind.
Infinitely better.
In very short terms, I wasn't as fucked as I thought I'd be.
Going through what the 'manual' called a First Stage Meditation, I had determined that the local Immaterium was way less violent than what I would've expected, which was, in a way, logical.
After all, there wasn't, as far as I know, a race of psychic supersoldiers left to rot by their creators after a milenia long war to fuck things up harder than their opponents did in this universe -I'm looking at you, Eldarii and Necrons-, so it was a given that the situation was leagues better than the cosmic hell I had expected.
Here, the 'soup' wasn't missing the more 'positive' ingredients, contrary to what I had anticipated, but was seamlessly mixing those with the 'neutral' and 'negative' ones.
My frayed state of mind this morning had thrown me off kilter, psyker-ly speaking, and made me conscious of only the 'darker' voices when I was busy freaking out and hyperventilating.
It was, also, uninhabited, as far as I could tell, a very good thing indeed since it meant that I was less likely to go daemonhost due to an external, malignant and pervasive influence, and that the chances that I spontaneously mutate and start murdering everything around me until I got 'myself' killed were drastically lowerthan I had feared.
I still could go mad if my Will dulled, mind you, but I'll only be reduced to a drooling mess instead of, you know, spreading incurable plagues in a fifty kilometers radius for shit and giggles.
For example.
At least, I had a rough guide of 'the correct things to do', as well as a rather extensive list of 'things to never do', so I was flying less by the seat of my pants than I would've been led to believe.
Only thing was that the guide was tailored for the 40K universe, where the Immaterium was noticeably 'darker' and 'madder', which meant I'd have to improvise some uses for the more positive side of the 'soup', but it is what it is.
At least, I had a wealth of ways to weaponize my connection written right there, even if they were all variations of the '-and they ded'-type.
The 'book' had been very conspicuously empty of non-lethal options, believe it or not.
At least, I had ways of improvement, even if I apparently already knew most of those in the back of my skull, my cursory read acting more as a refresher than anything else, but having the theory bluntly laid in front of me would help when I started experimenting in the future.
If I had the time.
If I didn't, well, I at least had a full 'spellbook' at the ready, and every annoyance throwing themselves my way was guaranteed a Bad Surprise.
Still probably would do jack-shit against Trihexa, but I had to trust that a certain boobs obsessed moron would pull it through in this case.
At least, my immediate future didn't look so bleak anymore, and that was with a weight off my shoulders that I stepped inside my kitchen to make myself a late dinner.
I had avenues to handle my life as a Psyker, now I only had to find those to handle living with a pu-pu.
Baby steps, baby steps.