Me? Human? : Chapter 3 : Breaking friendships, improving reputations & It's really hard staying human.....
Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.
Kuoh, Japan
–Motohama Kenji–
His eyes snapped open, and for one moment, he expected to see himself not here. Anywhere but here. But nope. He was back in the one bedroom of the side character in Kuoh that was not mentioned after the beginning, not in any meaningful capacity anyway.
Sighing, he got up, immediately feeling the difference from his past life, and the previous Motohama of this life. His body, it was energized. It was as if he’d followed a rigid training and rest routine and made sure that he followed the advice of some specialist for months on end, instead of just sleeping for two hours.
It was an...odd feeling, but he welcomed it. Of course, he would have loved to become yet another character, but he was he now, and that was it. It wouldn’t do to gain identity issues so early in his isekai adventure. It was too bad that he did not get the Gamer’s Mind or something close, so he could just ignore the implications of there being an entire multiverse out there or the fact that someone could just pluck some poor schmuck out of said universe and mash it together with some idiot in the Second year of Kuoh Academy.
His hand instinctively inched towards the glasses, only to pause as he realised what his powerset was. He didn't need no Puny Glasses! He had evolved past them!
Giggling at the chunni dialogue, he got ready, his motions practiced and unhurried, as if he’d done this exact thing hundreds of times before, which he had! But the transition was smooth in his body language and slightly jarring in his mind. He expected even that to be solved soon enough.
After all, he had the supreme Adaptive body now. If it could adapt to mentally damaging soul/memory fusion, then it could easily resolve any lingering body issues he might have.
Shaking his head, he got ready, ready to face the day at large. Within minutes, he was done being ready as he went down to the kitchen/living room. He smiled at the breakfast already made and covered for him, along with a tiffin ready for him to take to school. A note with a heart at the end of it told him who’d done it, as he smiled fondly at his mom, before scarfing the food down.
“Hmm,” He hummed to himself as he looked at the now empty plate. She’d made him scrambled eggs, like usual, and she’d probably only used 3 eggs, which was his standard breakfast. The problem was that his body had overnight changed into a biological engine. He needed more food, or could he adapt to that even? He winced as he refused to contemplate that.
He knew, from both his life’s memories, that hunger and starvation felt really, really bad. He had no wish to experience that feeling again if he could feel it. He had a loving mother, who worked hard and made more than enough for them. She was some sort of high level accountant in a medium sized firm that, for some reason, had multiple office spaces in smaller towns instead of a single large office in Tokyo or Kyoto. He never questioned why, but now that he was in the Ecchi Death world, maybe he could look at his mother’s employer?
It wouldn’t do for him to realise that his mother was being employed by some flavour of supernatural who decided to get back at him using her. The flash of anger at the possibility was entirely genuine.
The only way to safeguard his mother was to grow strong enough to simultaneously protect her and terrify everyone else. Absolute Power trumps everything, after all. Alteast in this universe, anyway.
Swiping the tiffin from the dining table, he slipped on his backpack and, after carefully locking everything, he walked out of his home and took the usual route. The one that took him—
He paused mid stride, as he realised he was about to take the same route as well. The one that was twice as long as the fastest route, the one that put him on the same path as the other two-thirds of the Perverted Trio.
Sighing, he turned around and began walking to Kuoh, his mind whirling as he debated on what to do about his friendship with the only two people who’d talk to him at this point. Well, Aiko didn’t count since all she wanted to do was engage in a competition of telling people’s asset sizes from the roof of the school. The memory was of fun, but now it just felt cringe to even think of doing that.
He couldn’t just abandon both of them. No, that would be far too abrupt and warrant investigation by someone, or maybe not? Gradually distancing himself from them would be best, but that was assuming that the Devils who ran the town actually cared about them enough to investigate the anomalous behaviour of one of the Perverted Trio.
Do they care that much? His memories told him no. The School Council President openly disdained them, her face twisting in disgust whenever one of them entered her field of vision, and Rias? Rias was just amused by their antics. He didn’t think Rias thought of them as anything more than quirky and amusing humans. More akin to pets than actual people in her eyes.
He would think the same if he were part of a biologically immortal, imagination magic wielding civilization of Devils, whose supreme leader was his loving family member who loved nothing more than fulfilling every one of his wishes. It was a miracle that she didn’t grow up to view humans as lesser than her. Well, they were lesser but not completely.
Now, if only he could initiate a clean separation from the Trio, he could start working on creating a good reputation for himself. After all, this was an Ecchi universe, no matter what the original packaging might contain. He would be foolish not to take advantage of the hentai physics this world seemed to run on.
Shaking his head, he turned around a corner and reached the road that led straight to the school gate. The gate that was probably about a ten minute walk away from the actual main building of the school. Seriously, how did people think such a prestigious academy popping up in the middle of rural Japan was anything but suspicious?
Japan didn’t even have the birth rate necessary to support such a large school in a town like Kuoh. Hell, it was probably why half the school was always empty. Entire sections of the school had been cordoned off because it was just so large.
Also, he just realised that there was no way the Devils didn’t employ large scale mind control because the school only had about 10% male students. The overwhelming majority were female, and how that came to be, despite Japan having a pretty stable Sex ratio, was a mystery. Sure, they were only an All girls school until three years ago, but for them to only accept a few male students each year must have been suspicious to someone. It was not like their criteria to accept male students were too strict or anything. That, coupled with the low fees and huge campus, should have attracted students like flies, and yet, here they were, with only a handful of boys in the entire school.
In fact, in their entire class, the Perverted Trio were the only male students, which was just sad.
Shaking his head, he ignored that and walked to the gate, looking at Sona Shitori, the Student Council President, standing bright and early at the gate, a notepad in her hand, as she looked at him with a raised eyebrow, her eyes moving up and down his uniform before she checked something on her notepad.
He glanced at her and her Queen, Tsubaki, before moving on, walking into the main building.
Sona Sitri and Rias Gremory.
The Two Devil overseers of the town. The two devils who were basically the owners of the land and the people here. They were sold off to the Devils by the Shinto faction. He would have felt outrage had he not been raised without a religious entity in mind.
To think that every single Supernatural entity was actually real, just hiding behind a veil that kept most of the human population woefully unaware of just who actually ran the world, and just how vulnerable they were even to the lowest of the supernatural entities.
On second thought, it was good that humanity was kept unaware. It would just result in panic, and the end result of that planetary panic would either be a resurgence in some religions, humanity developing weapons that ended up killing humanity off the planet, or, in the unlikely scenario, actually fighting against supernaturals.
Underestimating the human will to go down fighting instead of bowing down and living could never be underestimated. Humans really were stupid like that.
And just like that, he’d made the decision to stay human. He was not going to become a Devil, despite the rather tempting rewards. All of the rewards overshadowed one simple fact.
He was just going to be beholden to the King piece. Sure, he, being who he was, he might just adapt to the issue and not go crazy, like Kuroka, but why risk that? He was fine being a human, and with his power, he would eventually gain all the advantages that devils seemed to have.
No point changing his race if he could gain all the benefits and none of the weaknesses just by waiting a little bit more.
His mind made up, he walked up the stairs, his legs running on autopilot when he smelled it. He smelled her before he saw her. A faint jasmine smell mixed in with flowers as he unconsciously looked up and froze.
Lush red hair that seemed to shine even more in the sun. A supernaturally perfect and symmetrical face, with a soft smile on her face. The Kuoh School uniform practically painted on top of her, accentuating her….everything.
She caught him looking and just smiled at him before moving on, as he stood there, his brain desperately trying to reboot itself. He supposed that this was not an attack for his body to adapt to, but goddam did that girl just freeze him with a look?!
And just like that, he was back again to contemplating becoming a Devil Slave in all but name if he could just get closer to her.
…..
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DOWN, Horni!