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–
Standing in a clearing, he made sure that he was in the right clothing. A tracksuit, something that was an extremely tight fit simply because he had never been an exercising type, and he had no time or the extra money to get the appropriate clothing required. Hopefully, while his body adapted, it did not make him bulk up too much, because that would definitely make things harder to explain.
Shrugging, he decided to do the basic warm up exercises one must do before any heavy workout. He ran in circles, stretched all his limbs, and made sure his range of movement was decent enough. The results were decent, as he had expected. As it turns out, spending most of the day in either school or on hobbies best left unmentioned created a body that was not athletic in the slightest.
Being a teenager with high metabolism and a diet with good amounts of meat and protein in it meant he was not stunted in the slightest, but his body was unused to any exertion. Now, that was where his powers came in. He could quite literally feel his powers kicking in as he moved his body around.
With the dillydallying done, he looked around and lifted a sharp looking stone in his hand, positioning it above his hand. Now, he would freely admit that he was shit scared of hurting himself, both the set of memories being of fairly well adjusted people. Okay, maybe not well adjusted, but well enough that self hurt was never on the table, but as his mind went to the Devils in the school, the Fallen who could be roaming in the city, and all the threats in the future, his hesitation went away, or rather, was suppressed forcefully in front of the fear he felt at the consequences of not doing anything.
Not having power and then not doing anything was one thing, but being unable to do anything slimy because he was afraid of properly using his power was another. And just like that, he had successfully shamed himself into self hurt, a good start to getting better resistance.
Praying to God, even though he was dead, that he would get pain suppression as part of the adaptation, he lifted the Rock and carved a line in his skin using the pointy end. The result was…
“Urgh,” He grunted, cursing himself as, in his haste, he had just slashed it across his forearm and not even cut it enough to bleed. Sure, some skin had—
He paused in his thoughts, eyes wide as he looked at the torn patch of skin, which wriggled in its place, as if dozens of worms were travelling under his skin. Then, the skin turned a darker shade than the rest of his forearm, then it scabbed over, before that skin was just pushed out of his forearm, falling on the ground as he looked at his now smooth skin, as if the previous injury hadn’t happened at all.
Dropping the damned stone on the ground, he ran his finger over the forearm, finding nothing different. Same sensation as before, and even when pushed with his nail, he found the pain response as well as—
He flinched, his hand snapping back as he felt a weird sensation on his hand. His eyes widened as he saw the same worm wriggling scene on his hand, no, it was on his entire body. He could feel the slight itch all over his body, everywhere. He could feel it even on his face, as he rushed towards the bag, taking out the mirror he’d brought to make sure to check his appearance before leaving.
Also, he’d already taken a photo before he started the whole training thing to make sure that not too much of his face was altered. It would be bad to walk into a school run by Devils as a human who’s gone through obvious overnight changes. It would basically be a giant billboard above his head, constantly screaming He has a Scared Gear! Reincarnate him!
As he was going on tangents in his mind, the itch abruptly stopped, as he took one look at the rest of his exposed skin, finding nothing amiss. It was the same soft skin as before, without any scars whatsoever, which was a bummer because he would have loved to keep some badass scars if he got them.
Atleast this confirmed that his body adapted to everything as a whole. He would not have to figure out how to hurt his entire body with something to get it to adapt, which seemed like a silly thing to think of, but he wouldn’t be the first one who must have gotten shafted by the ROBs, so a little caution was warranted, based on all the stories he’d read before he came to this universe.
Shaking his head, he stopped procrastinating and picked up the rock. There was only one way to confirm if his powers had worked or not, so without wasting any more seconds, he just slashed the rock with even more force than before, slashing across his forearm. The pain was there, but much more muted than before.
Cracking one eye open, he looked down and…
“Yes!” The stone forgotten, he pumped a fist in the air as the skin that healed over was the same as before. Not even red from the stone damage. It also made sense that there wasn’t much pain this time. Pain was the body’s way of informing the brain that there was something wrong. His eyes lighting up in excitement, his gaze moved all around the forest, his mind conjuring up all the ways he could use the forest to hurt himself.
Before he could find an even pointier rock or a heavy enough rock to do some blunt force damage, he felt a pang in his stomach, the onset of hunger setting in. Well, at least that confirmed one thing for him. At least part of the energy required for the adaptation came from his body.
Sighing, he moved to his backpack and opened the last pocket, revealing all kinds of chocolates. Well, it would be wrong to say that they were actually chocolates. They were just sugary treats, but alas, this was the only calorie dense food item he could think of that was not just cheap but also available en masse in a way so that buying it wouldn’t raise any suspicions and could be carried in his backpack without having to worry about it going bad, though he was sure that his body would adapt to bad food as well.
The fact that he was going to have to do that in the near future, to gain resistance to poison, made him slightly queasy, but food poisoning was probably the first step to gaining actual poison resistance, so it was unavoidable. It was not like he was stupid enough to start directly from rat poison.
Shaking his head, he tore open the chocolate and ate three big bars before he finally felt the hunger go away slightly. Looking at the dozen or so bars left, he realised that he wouldn’t be able to adapt to all that much if only a single tearing wound required so much food. Not to mention, he had already eaten more than usual. If things went like this, he would much sooner run out of money and food before he could become anything impressive.
He couldn't trouble his mother for that. She already worked way too much, what with paying the EMI for the home, his expenses, on top of her almost religious savings for his college. He still had no idea how he was going to explain that no, going to college was not worth it in a supernatural world that looked at humans like an expendable resource. Maybe he could enter one of those human magical education societies?
Shaking his head, he stopped his thoughts from advancing more in that direction before closing the bag shut and standing up. With the tearing baseline, he was now far more conservative in his approach, as he moved around in search of a slightly more pointed rock or a stick that could actually stab through his skin.
…..
…
..
“Motherfucker!” He swore as he stabbed himself in the arm with a rather pointy stick he’d found in the forest, and just because he was a masochistic asshole, he twisted the branch inside, before yanking it out. Blood freely poured out of the window, and he belatedly realised that maybe, just maybe, he was going about this like a room temperature IQ person. What if there was an infection? And his body ran out of food before it could properly adapt to the infection? What if chunks of the branch were actually left inside his bloodstream?
What if those chunks punctured his arteries and he ran out of food before they could be repaired, and he had bled out in the middle of the forest? Wouldn’t that just be suicide, but with added steps?