One month.
One month since I, yours truly, Aono Tsukune, was unceremoniously dumped into Yokai Academy.
To say things were still shitty would be an understatement of epic proportions. The male dorm still smelled of wet beast and desperation, the nights still were filled with a cacophony of monster sounds, but jokes on you, I got my trusty ear-plugs and iPod if I ever wanted to block the noise.
Since I got in this dorm and I was all paranoid about being found out as a human, which also made it troublesome sleeping, now with that out of the equation, I had no troubles sleeping. No incidents where higher ranked Yokai came to find trouble with me could be reported, since I was alone in my room.
Other outrageous aspects that have not changed, even after I complained a bit, was the cafeteria—it still served things that moved after you chewed.
Meanwhile, the Academy's hierarchy had no change since we, the new batch of first years, have enrolled; it was still a 'gladiatorial pecking order' with the stronger upperclassmen having the superiority.
But.
There was a 'but' now. A significant, life-preserving 'but.'
I can't help but be thankful in my heart for Kurumu's voluntarily serving herself on a platter for me, because while my System was as silent and stupid as it was, it had its limitations. For one, it doesn't reward discriminately killing Yokai; I had to fight hostile beings, and that was it.
You might think, how do I know all of this? Because I killed an aquatic Yokai-type from the Blood River, and no enhancements to my stats were granted. This pulled me into a rabbit hole because it didn't make sense, like, how come the pests in my dormitory granted stats and a stronger fish-yokai had none?
After one day of constipating consideration all day from school to the dorm, making Moka worry that I caught a terminal sickness, and while staring at the bugs squirming over my ceiling, I had an epiphany of sorts.
'Hostility. The bugs are viewing me as an intruder into their domain.'
While that thought surfaced in my mind, I snapped from my bed and, jumping with a force that wouldn't be possible for 'common humans', I snapped at an ugly-ass Yokai Cockroach and crushed it a second later.
[You have slain a Lesser Uwan, gaining a part of its essence.]
I didn't notice any change to my body, compared to my first kill of a Uwan where even an small incremental increase was a significant raise to the human body.
Was it because I had now gained a thick-skin? Might be.
---[Core Stats]---
Strength: D (16/100) -> (+0.001)
Agility: D (14/100) -> (+0.001)
Vitality: C (8/100) -> (+0.001)
Intelligence: C (66/100)
---[Supernatural Stats]---
Mana: C (88/100)
Demonic Energy(Yoki): E (15/100) -> (+0.001)
---[Skills/Passives]---
Shuken no Ippatsu - Crimson Fang Fist (LV.1 - 300 MP/usage)
It is what it is, it would take me a century to raise my stats to C-tier by killing the pests from and around the dormitory. In fact, I think I could get more by spawn-camping the cemetery for the rare zombies that would raise when those creepy emo Necromancer do their rituals.
Shifting back to my bed, plugging my iPod's buds back in my ears, ignoring the chaos of the night in the dormitory, another thought surfaced at the image of the returning bugs since it was no point killing them if there was nothing to gain.
'Should I begin raising a Spider? Should I check with the Jorōgumo girl that likes to collect spiders?' (A/N: Jorōgumo - Yokai: Spider Woman)
[Insert Image]
'Urgh, she gives me the creeps even though her body is so hot that it rivals Kurumu's. So let's just avoid her for now since she's an A-tier Yokai.'
Such were my days in the Yokai Academy, and no, I didn't get my spiders from the Jorōgumo girl, just found them in the forest on my morning runs.
The changes to my body since reaching D-tier in strength and Agility was something I couldn't miss. Moving no longer felt like wrestling a bag of wet sand. My senses were sharper. I could process Shizuka-sensei's lectures on Yokai-Human Relations while simultaneously counting the number of times the Kappa in the next row over adjusted his scalp-dish.
It wasn't much, being at D-tier, and to anyone from this Supernatural World, it was probably laughable.
But you have to remember my baseline. I started as an F-tier kibble. I'd been splattered across the forest floor by a C-tier Orc with the emotional maturity of a horny brick. At D-tier if I returned back to the Human World, and displayed my abilities, I would for sure make any scouting Devil Heiress, scheming Fallen Angel Organization or greedy Vatican Priests salivate at the possibility of recruiting me.
However, while some things were good, other aspects were horrendous.
For example the big question in the room, my Sacred Gear.
Sigh, for all that I held dear to me, I recieved too much heartache and pain from the sleepless nights I pulled in order of solving this problem.
By Moka's thighs, and Kurumu's boobs, I couldn't find a way to awaken my Sacred Gear, even after I put myself in so much danger by facing the Orc, Saizo, then next facing Kurumu and even succumbing to the curse of the demonic sword.
There was no response from my Sacred Gear, not that I believe 'Annihilation' has an 'Ego' of some God-like Monster that can serve as a trigger to my Schizophrenia.
I could draw the comparison with that maggot, Issei, that he experienced death or a great shock of being killed by his 1-day fake girlfriend, which led to awakening his Sacred Gear, but I experienced worse by this point compared to that moron.
You might think that I could find some source of information in the Academy Library, but if I couldn't find a method of activating my human Mana System, you bet your ass that I had no such luck with Sacred Gears.
Yet, after one month, you might say that I had plenty of time to rummage through my memories of what I remember of Rosario or DxD verses, all which happened long ago that I just flooded those memory pieces with other junk content.
But, it left me with three paths if I wanted to force my way into awakening my Sacred Gear.
One is to go directly to Mikogami-sama and request he teaches me about Sacred Gear, since it's without doubt that an SS-tier Yokai that can be compared to a Super-Devil has millennia's worth of knowledge and information, and might also be around when Big G was collecting powerful monsters, artifacts and whatnot for the Heavenly System.
It has its own benefits but also plenty of disadvantages, but I just didn't want to expose myself to Mikogami as a wildcard, since I don't know his true intentions, regardless if I remembered other parts of the plot.
The second path is to continue my search in the Library and also involve the Teachers into helping me gather information about Sacred Gears. I could go with the reason that I wanted to learn more about humans, and a big thing about them was the Sacred Gears granted by Big G.
I am sure, Shizuka(Neko Hero)-sensei, Ririko(BDSM-Master)-sensei, and Ishigami(Art Medusa)-sensei would be willing to share their intel on Sacred Gears for some favors.
Third would be to somehow, get into contact with Azazel since his knowledge and experience messing around with Sacred Gears is second to God himself, but is even riskier than going to Mikogami requesting guidance.
Honestly, I'm leaning strongly on the second path since it is the safest, but if there's no leads that can help me in awakening my Sacred Gear, I will just get an audience with Mikogami-sama and remove the facades. It might break the whole plot and cause a butterfly effect that would turn the world onto its head, but if I'm threading step-by-step I can still be on top.
Ahem, enough of my ramblings since I had to focus on my breathing.
This brought me to the present moment: 5:47 AM, on the cursed jogging path that skirted the Academy's forbidden eastern woods. The air was perpetually chill here, smelling of damp earth, iron, and something faintly… melancholic, like the dust filled morning air of Millan.
And I was not alone.
"Hah… hah… T-Tsukune-san… please… a little… slower?"
The voice, sweet and breathless with exertion, came from my right. Moka Akashiya, the Outer Self, pink-haired, utterly-out-of-her-depth personality of the badass Vampire… friend?
She was keeping pace beside me, a vision of adorable struggle. She wore a baby-pink tracksuit, the jacket zipped to her throat, the fabric somehow both sporty and elegant on her. Her long hair was pulled into a high ponytail that swayed with each of her desperate, tiny steps. Her face was flushed a delicate rose, a sheen of honest sweat on her brow, and her emerald eyes were wide with determination and utter bewilderment.
This was her idea. To join me on my runs and training and keep him company. Also, it was something that her Inner self didn't decline since it would strengthen her mind and help her learn self-defense.
Bubbly Moka was a great addition to my training routine, since it was always pleasant to look at a beautiful girl running, and the jiggle physics of her breasts and butt cheeks.
However, the silver-haired, crimson-eyed scary Vampiress currently slumbering behind the Rosario was my true trainer, and she made sure to voice out her dissatisfaction from the time I teased her to the point of rage-quiting into beating the crap out of me in the first sparrings.
The first two weeks I had no chance at even making her sweat, but then I got lucky and lived to regret it.
The memory was still as fresh as the bruises on my pride. After a session where I'd been pummeled into the dirt, I'd managed, through a combination of desperation and a dumb gamble, to grazé the sleeve of her tracksuit.
That in fact, I learned to be a no, no.
The cost was two ribs that felt like ground glass. As I lay wheezing, she'd loomed over me, lecturing on what it took to learn the proper way of vampire combat, which made no sense currently.
Gall, I'm still a human, my perception, strength, agility and senses haven't reached your level, aren't you asking too much out of poor me.
Dazed and in agony, my past-life brain had made a connection. "So… it's like a hyper-aggressive Queen's Gambit declined?" I'd slurred through the pain. "Sacrifice positional control early to force a tactical skirmish where your innate speed… your 'piece quality'… dominates?"
She'd frozen. The predatory gleam in her eyes had flickered, replaced by unadulterated bewilderment.
'Come on, you don't know about Queen's Gambit? Great TV series.'
'Urgh, makes me nostalgic. I don't even have a TV in my dorm's room. Don't even ask about PCs, it's asking too much out of Mikogami-sama and Nurari-sama, to bring from the Human World the juice of what it is to be human.'
'Back to Moka, while wheezing, trying to bring back my soul into the body, I saw her brain do an error404.'
She stared at me for ten full seconds, the silence broken only by my ragged breathing and the distant cry of some nightmare bird.
"Your mind," she finally declared, her voice flat with utter disdain, "is an incomprehensible, human bog. It is filled with… all sorts of nonsense.." She said the last two words as if describing a particularly vile type of mold. "I refuse to wade in it further until you learn to speak a proper language. We are done."
Then to avoid any further teasing from me that would shatter the 'Ojou-sama' aura, she did a tactical retreat.
Is this the reason she forced me to hand her Rosario back after I clamped off the cross of her chest?
Anyway, she'd been 'asleep' for three days. It was the most peaceful, and yet most perilous, three days of my life. Peaceful because no one was throwing me through trees. Perilous because I was down my most powerful (and terrifying) trainer.
Outer Moka, wracked with guilt over her other self's 'disciplined training' and all the suffering I had endured (which, let's be honest, is part of the journey), had vowed to fill in her spot and help me train.
Which is how we got here, a supernatural human with the power of a D-tier Yokai accompanied by an S-tier Legendary Vampire Beauty who got winded climbing stairs.
'Like… How does it even work? Is she the human or it is myself?'
"Your pace is fine, Moka," I said, my own breathing controlled, the boost to my physicality was real. A month ago, I'd have been the one begging for mercy. "Focus on your breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Don't let your form collapse."
"B-breathing… right…" she puffed, mimicking my rhythm with heartbreaking sincerity. She looked less like a predator and more like a lost fairy trying to complete a marathon. "I… I never understood why you do this, Tsukune-san. We Yokai… our strength comes from within. It's something we're born with. Not from…. from sweating."
"This is just… torture."
I couldn't help a small grin. "Call it a human quirk. We're born weak. Unlike you, one of the strongest Yokais, born into power, with no claws, no fangs, no innate magic, we have to build everything from the ground up."
"Brick by brick, drop of sweat by drop of sweat. This," I gestured at the path ahead, "is how we gain power."
'Just joking. I doubt anyone would get their stats increased by training like myself, but in suffering I cherish the days of peace.'
'However, running and working out is a great medicine for your mind and body. Boys and girls, don't skip on that if you want to be healthy, 20 minutes a day keeps the doctors away.'
She fell silent for a moment, the only sound our footfalls and her labored breaths. Then, softly, "I think… I think I am beginning to understand. It is very… admirable."
The path veered towards the river. Not a nice river. This was the Ketsueki-gawa, the Blood-River. It didn't literally flow with blood (I'd checked, to my simultaneous relief and disappointment), but the water was a deep, rust-red, stained by mineral deposits from the surrounding cliffs. It churned with a sluggish, ominous current, and the air around it was frigid.
It looked like a slice straight out of the Hades game, just that it didn't take you down to the Hades's Underworld.
'I can't say I wasn't initially excited about checking out if it worked out by diving to the riverbed. Sigh, not everything is perfect in life; I'll just have to live long enough to enter the Greek Mythos Sphere in Glory as a Conqueror.'
"Swim time," I announced, pulling off my shirt and toeing off my shoes.
The water hit me like a thousand icy needles. The Ketsueki-gawa (Blood River) had this strange effect of sapping and draining the vitality out of one's body which I couldn't quite comprehend, but Inner Moka told me it would be great at increasing my Vitality by building resilience.
It just so happens to embody the spirit of 'Grinding' which my gamer mind was all for it.
'Grind for the Win. Yes, sir. Only by grinding could we achieve greatness.'
From the bank, a strangled squeak reached my ears. I didn't need to look to know the source.
Moka had executed her now-standard 'modesty pivot,' spinning on her heel to present me with her back, the baby-pink tracksuit suddenly looking very tense. Her shoulders were hunched up near her ears.
"Ts-Tsukune-san! Warn a person!" she protested, her voice a full octave higher than usual.
"Sorry, sorry," I chuckled at that, I wasn't sorry at all. It had become our little routine, a moment of light comedy in the grim dawn in a world of monsters.
The first time, she'd let out a yelp that scared off a flock of crow-demons and had spent five minutes fanning her crimson face, unable to form words. Now, it was predictable, almost comforting that I took great pleasure in seeing her get flustered.
If I could make the scary Inner Moka all flustered, blushing like a virgin, imagine how much I enjoyed teasing bubbly, innocent Outer Moka.
But this time, as I waded deeper into the rusty current, I caught a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye. Through the reflection in the sluggish water, I saw it. Her hands, which had flown up to cover her eyes, had slowly parted. Two slender fingers created a narrow, shameful peephole.
'She's peeking. Tsk, tsk, what a bad girl. Then let's give her a show.'
I made a show of stretching my arms overhead, rolling my shoulders. Compared to the 'whimpy' Aono Tsukune that I found myself one month ago as an unfortunate transmigrator, my progression was visible.
'I have to make my transmigrator brethren proud somehow.'
I wasn't sculpted like a god since it was a distant goal of mine that maybe I will achieve after I get to A-tier or S-tier, but the soft undefined lines were gone.
My shoulders had broadened just enough to be to my taste. My chest and arms now had a lean, corded definition, the muscles visible not as bulk, while beneath the skin there were the silver scars marks on my neck from Moka's yesterday meal, while my right arm still had some of the scars from the demonic sword incident.
In the water's warped reflection, I saw her peeking fingers go rigid. Then, slowly, her hands drifted down to clutch at the fabric of her tracksuit jacket, right over her heart.
'Oh my goodness. I did it again. I looked. It's so rude! He's training so hard, and I'm… I'm being a terrible friend!'
'But I can't help myself. He looks so cool swimming. His shoulders are also so hot.'
'Kyaaa, I said it. I have sinned.'
The boy she'd met a month ago, who she'd dragged around campus with such ease, had been… well, soft. Pleasantly so. Like a comfortable pillow. Now, standing waist-deep in that awful red water, he looked like one of those statues in the human world's museums. Not the big, bulky ones of warriors, but the slender, graceful ones of archers or poets.
A strange, fluttery feeling erupted in her stomach, entirely unrelated to the run. It was warmer than the hot chocolate Shizuka-sensei sometimes made. Her eyes, against her better judgment, traced the line of his back as he dove under the crimson surface.
While she was absent minded, her own vivid daydreaming was hijacked by a teasing voice coming from the river's surface.
"See anything interesting, lookout?" My voice, slightly ragged from the cold, pulled her from her reverie.
She jolted as if struck by lightning, her hands flying back up to her face, this time clapped over her eyes properly. "N-n-nothing! I wasn't looking! I was… watching for lurkers! Very diligently!"
I couldn't help the laugh that escaped me—a real, warm sound that seemed out of place by the blood-red river. "Good to know. The safety of my swim is in your hands."
I hauled myself onto the bank, the cold air biting at my wet skin. She kept her eyes firmly shut, but her ears, peeking from her pink hair, were burning a brilliant crimson. She was sitting on a rock, hugging her knees, her tracksuit now dotted with mist from the river.
After what felt like an eternity in liquid ice, I hauled myself out, shivering violently, my skin tingling and alive.
[Vitality +0.2. Cold Resistance: Minor - Progress.]
'Praise be the way of the Grind!'
Next came the calisthenics on a patch of cold, flat stone by the bank. Push-ups, pull-ups on a low-hanging, grotesquely twisted branch, lunges, planks.
Moka, having recovered her composure, tried to mimic me. Her attempts at a push-up were… tragic. Her arms trembled, she barely lowered an inch, and her face was a mask of intense, adorable concentration that yielded almost no physical result. She was impossibly strong when her vampire nature was engaged, but all of this? I could only feel sorry for Inner Moka that the Outer Moka wasn't up to the challenge.
"It's… harder than it looks," she huffed, collapsing onto her stomach after three attempts.
"Everything is," I grunted, finishing my set. "But you at least are trying. That's what counts."
Finally, before the sun fully rose and classes called, it was time for the main event: sparring.
This was the part Outer Moka dreaded most.
We faced each other on a soft patch of moss. I fell into my southpaw stance, hands up, knees bent. Moka stood opposite, looking hopelessly awkward, her own hands held up in a vague approximation of a guard she'd seen in anime.
"Remember," I said, "we're just moving through the motions. Block, parry, basic strikes. No power. Just form."
"R-right! Form!" She nodded vigorously, her ponytail bouncing.
I threw a slow, telegraphed jab. She yelped, flinched, and stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet and landing on her bottom with a soft "Oof!"
I winced, but couldn't help but stare at the bounty ass bound by that tracksuit. It took some willpower from my end to stay composed and be straight faced.
"Okay. Let's try again. Don't close your eyes."
This was the painful truth. Outer Moka, for all the devastating power her body contained as second personality of the Vampire Heiress, was a pacifist with the combat instincts of a startled fawn.
She was so afraid of hurting me, so disconnected from the concept of violence, that she couldn't even perform the dance of it. However, it was admirable because she was trying to better herself and actually put in some effort in learning the movements.
It just so happens that her personality didn't fit the violence theme.
Still, it was a great sport, because I could train the movements knowing that at least Outer Moka would dodge my attacks. She got that S-tier Agility carrying her.
Going along, it made me miss the brutal, terrifying efficiency of Inner Moka. Her critiques were scathing, her methods were bone-breaking, but she did what she promised me, to teach me how to fight.
As I helped her up for the tenth time, brushing moss from her tracksuit, she looked up at me, her eyes shimmering with frustration. "I'm… I'm so sorry, Tsukune-san. I'm a terrible substitute. She must be so disappointed in me."
I shook my head, a genuine smile on my face. "Are you kidding? You got up at dawn to run by a creepy river and let me throw pretend punches at you. That's not being a terrible substitute, Moka. That's being a great friend."
The frustration in her eyes melted, replaced by a warmth that, for a moment, rivaled the absent sun. Her lips, which had been pressed into a thin line of disappointment, parted in a small, breathy gasp.
A blush spread from her cheeks down to her neck while the fluttering in her stomach returned, but now it wasn't that of confused guilt. It was as sweet as honey having that certainty that he wasn't upset with her or rather disappointed.
He valued her for who she was, and to her it felt that he also liked him just as much as she did.
'He… he really means it. He doesn't think I'm a burden, nor is he making fun of how pathetic I am at sports activities. He also called me his best friend.'
'A-And…he's looking at me like… like I'm the only person here.'
'All that frustration, about not being able to do even push-ups, sweating so much that it almost makes me feel dirty, is all worthed knowing that Tsukune values me so much as a friend. This way I can also spend as much time as possible without Kurumu-chan trying to insert herself between me and Tsukune.'
That simple praise, that acknowledgment of her effort rather than her power, settled in her chest. It was the feeling of being seen and cherished for the part of her she was most insecure about: her gentle, meak, non-combative self.
Her fondness over Tsukune was tipping dangerously into something else entirely.
A gentle chime echoed in her mind as the rosario over her chest flashed with a low crimson glow, followed by an inner sigh.
[Honestly, you're hopeless. A few kind words from Tsukune and you melt into a puddle. You truly are a simple creature.]
'Call me what you wish, mock me for all I care, but don't imply that all of Tsukune's kindness for me is all but an act. It's… It's real. He sees me for who I am.'
Outer Moka, while respecting Inner Moka for being the mature one, and also smarter, knew how to fight, and having knowledge about all that complicated stuff, she wouldn't allow her to mock what she feels for Tsukune.
Outer Moka couldn't deny it furthermore that she in fact had feelings for Tsukune, and this attraction wasn't just because of his human blood. No, it was because he accepted her for who she was, and showered her with his attention and warmth that she had missed for all her life.
[So, he looks at you like the innocent, weak girl that he needs to protect, while for me, is just what? A man looking at a storm about to come, or someone looking at an object he can't obtain, full of desire.]
[You don't have to get too jealous or angry at me. At the end of the day, I am still you, and you are me, but you can't deny that he has more feelings for me. While I enjoy his attention and spending time with him, he's still not ready to receive my affection.]
Outer Moka's felt emboldened that Inner Moka was delaying in accepting her own feelings, so she for the first time since Inner Moka woke up, took the initiative and told her with some boldness.
'It's fine, you can stay back and watch me and Tsukune continue to explore our feelings. Oh, I'm going to tell him my feelings on his birthday. That's right, I'm going to confess my feelings.'
[Tsk, this is not how it works. While you are ready to be loved and feel like a human girl, this is not something I can accept. Do you even have an idea how reckless you could be?]
'Why not? Are you stopping me just because you are jealous?'
[Hmph, as if. It's just complicated. We are one being, bound by this seal! Your childish impulses will become later on my complications to sort out. You also have to be aware that Father has eyes in the Academy, and will for sure take care of Tsukune.]
'He didn't care about what happened to me back in the Human World, and he dares to threaten me with Tsukune?!'
[You, weakling, we should pause our quarrel for later at night. We have wasted enough daylight on your pathetic flailing. My body is growing stiff with your incompetence.]
'You're just lying to yourself.'
[Enough, I don't want to hear it from you. I told you, we'll talk about it later. Now, go to him and tell him it is time. Have him remove the seal.]