Title Here: Multi-fandom Writings

All is well in the Schnee household. The stocks are up, the tariffs are down, and Jacques Schnee has a rare moment to spend with his family. A glass of wine and a nice book to unwind, leaving the office for tomorrow, and the night to spend with his wife and young daughter.

Children really do grow up very fast. Why, just last quarter she was struggling to move around, now she’s apparently a little grimm with all her energy. Well, that’s Willow’s concern. Jacques has better things to occupy his time than drooling toddlers. Fortunately, Winter isn’t that noisy. He’d hate to have to get up and do something about it if she was. He’s rather comfortable right now.

“Ma-ma-ma.” Oh, and that’s right, she’d said her first word not too long ago. Only that and disjointed syllables so far.

Come to think of it, he muses as he sips at his glass, this really must be the first time he’s spending time with Willow and Winter since she was born. He probably ought to correct that at least a bit. It wouldn’t do for the girl to not know who her father was. Even now she looks curiously at him, alternating between staring at him and her mother.

On a whim, he’s not feeling this book right now, Jacques gets up and walks over to Willow and Winter. “Willow,” he lays a hand on her shoulder, “how are my girls doing today?”

“Mama.” Winter grabs clumsily at her mother’s shawl.

His wife gives him a distracted smile. “That’s right liebling, I’m Mama. And that’s Papa. Pa-pa.”

Big blue eyes stare up at him. “Mmm-mo-mowa.” Jacques can’t help but roll his eyes. Babies. Winter keeps rolling syllables between fat lips, a frown on her rotund face. “Mo-wa-da. Mo-daw.” It appears that rather than ‘papa’, Winter’s new word of the day will be ‘mother’.

Not that he cares about what words a baby can or cannot say.

Winter suddenly brightens, laughing, and extends a chubby hand in his direction. “Modaffoca!”

Jacques drops his glass. Willow gasps. Winter laughs and repeats the word. “Mo-da-fo-ca! Modaffoca, modaffooca!”

“What in the- Who’s been teaching my daughter such filth!” He explodes.

“Jacques! Please, gods, nobody! She’s just a baby, she’s just playing with sounds!” Willow barely raises her voice, shushing the laughing baby in her arms by bouncing her. “I’ll correct this, don’t worry.”

Of course. Winter’s not even a year old yet, she doesn’t know what her behavior means. Jacques rubs the bridge of his nose. Well, no matter, Willow will handle the situation. Dust help them if Jacques has to be the one to be involved in child-rearing, he’d set her straight one way or another.

And yet, as he shoots his daughter a glance, he can’t help but think (foolishly) that Winter knows something he doesn’t.

---

Spoiler

lol. i've had a couple of 'Schnee Peggy Sue' ideas in the works, but this is the only non-angsty one, involving a 3 schnee team up against their father and the world. did I manage to convey Jacques' sleezyness across, I'm not sure about that...

 

originally posted in my danmachi thread here (https://forum.questionablequesting....w-effort-danmachi-stories.11394/#post-3147088) 13.02.2020
major rewrite of plot and format.

---

Part 1 - Re-start?
+In which there is something in the nothingness

The boy’s scream was cut off as his head was torn from his body. He didn’t even have time to feel pain.

The boy blinked. Emptiness surrounded him. “Aa?” Bell’s voice did not echo.

Was he… dead? He’d just been running from a minotaur! Shoulders hitched as he looked back in a panic. But there was nothing there. Could it have been a terrible nightmare? The monster, the tunnels stretching before him, that last brush of feeling across the left side of his face and neck.

Bell rubbed at his throat, patted his head. He felt his neck. No, everything was in place. His heart was beating.

“... I’m not dead then, right?” The nothingness, void of color, form or substance stretched before him. There was ground beneath his feet but he couldn’t see it. “G-Goddess?”

Nothing answered him.

Bell waited, and waited even more, fidgeting, but nothing happened. It was just him, alone. A strange feeling like fear rose in his gut, clogging his airways and making his eyes water. “Goddess!? Anybody!? Hello!?”

It suffocated him, so Bell acted on instinct. He ran.

In no direction, because there were no landmarks, as fast as he could, Bell ran. Ran and ran until he stopped. He was exactly as he’d begun. In the dark, feeling fine. He was not even tired from a mad dash that should have left him sweating and panting.

“Oh.” The boy realized. “I died.”

It was the only thing that made sense. The last thing he remembered there had been a monster that was so much stronger than anything he was ready for. Obviously, that would lead to Bell’s death.

“I shouldn’t have gone down to the fifth floor.” He told himself after sitting down. “What was a minotaur even doing there!?”

But of course nothing answered him.

Sniffling, Bell tried to remember what he knew of the afterlife. It depended on what God did or didn’t pick his soul. Some divinities kept the souls of the people they liked in special afterlives, like Valhalla… or if you had offended a divine for any reason, you might end up in the Hell of their choice, suffering innumerous torments. The emptiness didn’t feel like any of those options.

Maybe this was what souls felt like as they waited to be purged of the marks of mortal existence before being sent back down to the lower world for rebirth.

It was a kind of hell on its own.

The loneliness.

The isolation.

Bell wished his Goddess would pick him up from this place, but wasn’t that too selfish? To want a Goddess that had just descended to return to the Heavens, forever? Just because of him? The stupid boy that had left her all alone, again?

A sick sense of helplessness rose and rose in the boy’s chest, until all of a sudden, it erupted from him. “Aaaaarghhh!!” Bell punched the non-existent ground he laid upon. “Aaaaaaaahh!!”

Punch. Punch. Smash. Crack–

A fissure of light illuminated the boy’s rubellite eyes. In the nothingness, it was blinding, growing more and more underneath him as the cracks spread. Uncaring of geometry, they rose and descended, cracking the desolate reality that the boy inhabited.

[Error][Error_Identified][Rebooting][Applying:Character_Status]

Bell tumbled back as space broke. The light was words, information, entire libraries of books and stories that slipped between his eyelids and battered his mind. The thunderous whirlwind paused, and he was discarded into a white nothingness.

“What?”

A different emptiness greeted him as he opened his eyes. An almost complete emptiness, if not for the words writ large on the interminable white ground he stood on, devoid of a limiting horizon.

Bell took one step back and straightened up, turned around on himself, reading what the gods had laid down for him.

It was… a summary?

[Name: Bell Cranel]
[Class & Level: Fighter Level 1][Background: Folk Hero][âåÞ¿£Þáñ½Â£舐: Âæ¢??Âðžя—]
[Race: Human][Alignment: Lawful Good][Experience Points: 0]
[[Strength 14][Dexterity 16][Constitution 13][Intelligence 12][Wisdom 12][Charisma 12]]
[Saving Throws: [+4 Strength][+3 Dexterity][+3 Constitution][+1 Intelligence][+1 Wisdom][+1 Charisma]]
[Skills: [+3 Acrobatics][+3 Animal Handling][+1 Arcana][+2 Athletics][+1 Deception][+1 History][+1 Insight][+1 Intimidation][+1 Investigation][+1 Medicine][+1 Nature][+1 Perception][+1 Performance][+1 Persuasion][+1 Religion][+3 Sleight of Hand][+3 Stealth][+3 Survival]]
[[Armor Class: 13][Initiative: +3][Speed: 30][Hit Points: 11/11][Temporary Hit Points: 0][Hit Dice: 1/1d10][Death Saves: ¿/?]
[Features & Traits: Second Wind]
[Other Proficiencies & Languages: Common, Heavy armor, Medium armor, Light armor, Shields, Simple weapons, Martial weapons, Vehicles (Land)]
[Attacks & Spellcasting: [Unarmed Strike]]
[Equipment: [10GP] shovel, iron pot, set of common clothes]

No, to call it a summary would be a disservice to the amount of senseless numbers it contained. Besides Bell’s name at the top, it was a very confusing mess.

But, as he thought about it, it could be… a falna? Some of the basic abilities were there, even if the numbers were really low. And, if he tilted his head this way and that, there seemed to be overlapping or translucent words in some places.

“Oh.” He suddenly realized. “Maybe this is how the Goddess sees her blessing!” Bell, as a mortal, knew very little about the falna, but he knew that the sheet of paper that Hestia gave him every day only had the really important things. Gods and Goddesses actually saw the excelia.

Momentarily forgetting his predicament, Bell knelt down to try and examine the writing from closer up. However, he reached a hand to carefully brush over the letters of his name and as he made the slightest of contact, those writings popped up. Bell fell on his ass, eyes wide and mouth agape as he was again hit with knowledge.

This was what his name was. Declaration. Question.

“I-I-I’m Bell Cranel. Yes!”

The writings subsided. If Bell had been in a state to do so, he’d be pale as a sheet and panting in slowly-mounting panic. Instead, he remained frozen as his mind attempted to wrap itself around what had happened and what it meant.

Slowly, and carefully avoiding touching any other words, he got up and stepped away from the writings. He swallowed, rubbed his forehead with one hand, then grabbed a hold his his head and shook it furiously. Time passed.

“A-Alright. I… I died.” He blinked. It was easier to think about it this time. So long as he didn’t think of how his Goddess was going to… feel. “And that’s my status. Which I can change.”

Separately, it didn’t mean anything in particular. Of course, everything about this was impossible but… well. Bell was dead. What did mortals really know about what after? Sooner or later, his soul would be reincarnated, and whatever new person Bell would become wouldn’t remember anything about this.

Which brought him to his next point. A stray thought. A possibility.

Was all of this related to his next life? Could the Gods– or rather, would the Gods give Bell a choice about what would happen next?

Hestia would. Oh, if Bell could find tears, he would be crying.

+In which the boy explores his options thoroughly

In a place where time did not seem to be a factor, eventually became somewhat of a meaningless term. Nevertheless, eventually Bell knelt back down with something like excitement. Still unsure of what was happening, he was going to take this opportunity as it came and explore everything the maybe-falna gave him.

First off was his name. He liked his name. It was his, and the only connection he had left of his blood family. Besides, he wasn’t seeing how it would matter afterwards… There was something a bit down whose glyphs were unreadable. Maybe that would be his name afterwards. He decided not to touch it.

His level was immutable. Naturally. But his ‘Class’ on the same line, wasn’t! It seemed to be a bunch of different kinds of roles an adventurer could be: fighter, rogue, wizard (mage?), or weirder things like bard, monk, warlock… Not all of them were very heroic options, but one of them called out to Bell in particular.

The Paladin. Like the heroes of the stories his grandfather told him, the ones he wanted to be like. With sword and magic, bright champions that defeated dragons and saved the girls.

With a bit of trepidation, but desire burning bright in his heart, Bell made his first choice.

[Class & Level: Paladin Level 1]

Below that, several changes happened without Bell’s input. Now, different abilities stood out, and other things were written in the Features section. No, some of the numbers had also changed.

[Saving Throws: [+2 Strength][+3 Dexterity][+1 Constitution][+1 Intelligence][+3 Wisdom][+3 Charisma]]
[Features & Traits: Divine Sense, Lay on Hands]

“Paladins have more… wisdom and charisma?” He mused. It made a bit of sense, he supposed. Actually, the basic abilities displayed were the same. It was the ‘Saving Throws’ that had changed. Bell… had no clue what that meant. He tried touching that section but it didn’t budge. Those were things Bell could change himself. “Well… I suppose it’s fine to leave it as it is…”

He went for the next thing but was stopped by a strong sense of wrongness. Like that nagging feeling he had forgotten something after going out… It almost made him shake. He was missing something about Paladin. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that a few sections rippled like water.

His ‘Skills’. He touched them and something like a weight was handed to him. No, two weights. Two weights he could put in the options presented to him. He juggled with the choices for only a little bit. Athletics was the easy choice, it was important. Then Medicine. That could be helpful.

The other section that required his attention was ‘Equipment’, and it gave him options. Options with even more options. The amount of things he had at his disposal was almost overwhelming. Bell went back and forth, reading lists and lists of weapons and materials, until he finally settled on something.

[Equipment: [10GP] Longsword, Shield, Dagger, Explorer’s Pack, Chainmail, Holy symbol, shovel, iron pot, set of common clothes]

And that changed, perhaps obviously, the ‘Armor Class’ into something higher.

[Armor Class: 18]

It also made things appear in the ‘Attacks & Spellcasting’ part.

[Attacks & Spellcasting: [Unarmed Strike][Longsword][Dagger]]

After that, it seemed that Bell was done. It felt done. He sighed.

The ‘Background’... well, he liked the one he had already. The other options were interesting to know about, but not ones he wanted. Especially the bad ones! Why would being a criminal even be an option? As he moved tho, the same sense of incompleted-ness struck.

“Argh!” The boy whirled around and set to correcting what he was missing out on. It turned out to be tool proficiency. The craftsmen that Bell admired the most were blacksmiths, and so he chose that.

[Other Proficiencies & Languages: Common, Heavy armor, Medium armor, Light armor, Shields, Simple weapons, Martial weapons, Vehicles (Land), Smith’s Tools]

Bell gave the writings as a whole a long look. There were several sections with translucent words and words that only seemed to appear if he tilted his head this way or that. If he had to guess, he was going to have to make a lot more choices before he was done.

Far more importantly than that, the next thing was ‘Race’. Bell stared at it for a long time. No, he was too curious. Options blossomed before him. Bell choked. “D-Dragon? O-orc? No way!”

There were options Bell was not going to even touch. Instead, almost timidly, and eyeing another option out of the corner of his eye, Bell chose ‘Dwarf’.

And then Bell was a Dwarf.

The boy looked down at himself and felt his new dimensions. He rubbed his chin and felt with a great deal of surprise the start of a fuzzy beard. “This feels so strange.” He scratched his chin with a goofy smile. “Eheh, I have a beard? Oh, my voice is deeper.” He liked this.

His excitement returned full-force. “How about… a pallum!?”

Bell the Pallum was really short. He felt like a kid and moving was light and easy.

And then the option he really wanted. Bell the Elf. Taller with sharper eyes. And his ears were long and pointy! “I wish I had a mirror…”

However, a strange awkward feeling settled in his belly as he returned to the options. This feeling was born from Bell himself. Bell was a human. He always had been, it was part of who he was. Taking that away would be like taking away something fundamental and integral to his identity. He’d known that elves in particular were very prideful of their ancestry and race. But dwarfs and werewolves and other races; they too had their pride. Humans were in no way an exception.

None of this would matter in Bell’s next life. Yet Bell felt uncomfortable with the thought of becoming something other than human entirely.

He thought about it long and hard, what it truly meant to him and what he wished for. In the end, he decided to compromise. There were, after all, people who fell in between races.

[Race: Half-Elf]

He still felt like himself. Some things were different, noticeably his ears, but all in all he still felt like Bell Cranel. However, the writings changed dramatically in some parts, and he hunted down those sections where new options had appeared. Out of all things, a new language for example!

[[Strength 14][Dexterity 16][Constitution 12][Intelligence 11][Wisdom 11][Charisma 13]]
[Skills: [+5 Acrobatics][+2 Animal Handling][+0 Arcana][+4 Athletics][+1 Deception][+0 History][+0 Insight][+1 Intimidation][+0 Investigation][+2 Medicine][+0 Nature][+2 Perception][+1 Performance][+1 Persuasion][+0 Religion][+3 Sleight of Hand][+3 Stealth][+2 Survival]]
[Features & Traits: Darkvision, Fey Ancestry, Divine Sense, Lay on Hands]
[Other Proficiencies & Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Heavy armor, Medium armor, Light armor, Shields, Simple weapons, Martial weapons, Vehicles (Land), Smith’s Tools]

Mentally tired, he checked out ‘Alignment’. A moment later he was pushing that back down. No, he was fine as he was, thank you.

Then there was… well, it appeared he could change his basic abilities or his equipment. But Bell was okay with what he had. Yes, he liked what he had.

He was done.

And something obliged.

+In which the boy encounters death again

The boy was on the 5th Floor. Bell blinked. He blinked again.

“Wait.” He said and when he breathed back in, and choked on Evil.

Something evil and odious assaulted his senses all at once. The stink of a decomposing corpse on a barren field, the screech of a saw on stone, boots on the ground, the hatred in a cripple’s eye. All around him but especially under him, deep deep under them all. Something incredibly vast and unimaginably evil strained against . It hated them all. His knees hit the ground as he struggled to keep his breathing in check and his lunch down.

His chainmail tinkled and the weight of his shield dragged his arm down. He stared at his hands and the longsword gripped in his right fist. He knew it, was intimately familiar with how to use it… Yet he’d never– He felt different, was different. His body returned unknown sensations. He remembered unfamiliar teachings. His hand let go of his sword and flew to the side of his head. It hit the rounded point of a long elven ear sticking out of his disheveled and sweaty hair. Bell’s mind went blank.

A medallion hung before his eyes, easily visible even under the shadow his body cast. The simple tin medallion with his goddess’ symbol engraved, that he’d never possessed before.

“Goddess... what happened?” He asked, but nobody answered. Gods didn’t answer paladins like him, who’d barely started on their path, not even having swore their sacred oaths. It made no sense how he knew that either, because everything went against what he’d known about gods from the stories, and his own personal experiences with the Goddess of the Hearth.

The writings in the nothingness. After—

He heard the thundering run of a monster, the howl of a beast hungry for carnage. His head snapped up and an uncontrollable shiver racked his body. It wasn’t here yet, his ears heard further now. But Bell Cranel already knew he was going to die. Sheer panic overwhelmed him as his mind became devoid of anything but his last memories of life. His heartbeat raced like a hare away from a wolf.

He ran. Two, three steps in, he heard the beast barrel into the corridor he was in from an intersection. The minotaur that had killed him. The monster’s yellow eyes locked on to Bell’s fleeing form, and he felt himself become the hunted prey.

He screamed, stumbled. The monster roared, surged forward.

He couldn’t outrun it. He hadn’t managed it before, and that was without a heavy chainmail and shield slowing him down. There was no time to think. Training he hadn’t possessed before kicked in, and he launched himself to the side. The minotaur charged past him, sharp goring horns shining in Bell’s vision.

Ah, that had been what had killed him, hadn’t it.

The monster’s charge didn’t take it more than three massive strides before it was turning on its heel and launching itself back at Bell. The first strike hit Bell’s raised shield. The minotaur’s first thunderous blow cracked the shield straight down the middle and sent Bell flying back. It was the only thing that saved him from being gored on one of the monster’s horns. He hit the ground several yards away, coughing as he tried to draw in a single breath.

If he stopped now, he’d die. The reaper’s scythe caressed his jugular lovingly. He groped around for his sword, fingers scratching at the dungeon’s floor. The minotaur appeared above him, great fists raised over its head. Bell squeezed himself under his shield, bracing with both his arms against the blow that was coming.

The impact drove more than air out of him. Bell’s head ricocheted against the ground and he spat foamy blood amidst a choked scream. He wouldn’t remember the sound of his shield splintering or of his arms being popped out of their sockets.

The second blow was open handed, like swatting an insect against the ground and then grinding it until no life remained in the mess of carapace and ichor.

Bell was the insect. Underneath his chainmail and the slivers of wood that had been a shield, his bones cracked. His ribs squeezed his organs, then they broke and started cutting into his vitals. He was helpless, useless arms trapped under the minotaur’s hand, legs weakly squirming against the floor, gasping for air he couldn’t draw in, bloodshot eyes bulging. He was nothing more than a bug.

A brilliant flash cut through the dungeon’s air just as his mind faded entirely into the black.

---

Spoiler

I've been wanting to revisit 5E gamer!bell for a while. I'm sticking entirely to the Core Books for this one tho, because WOTC started making stuff legacy and not and it's just a lot, yeah. Too much in fact. Course, that wrecked my plans for aasimar!bell further down the line, so halfelf bell is now a thing. it will mmmm be fuuun. you'll see.

 

#1#​

ONCE UPON A TIME, having crimson red eyes would be abnormal. In the current era, it was just another color of the human phenotype. Not that the field of genetics wasn’t a chaotic whirlwind of discoveries and counter-discoveries ever since the appearance of ‘Quirks’, or meta-abilities for the scientifically inclined.

So, looking like an anime character was a possibility.

Chikara Bang looked in the mirror. Five years old today, he had to stand on a step-stool to see himself. He scowled. Couldn’t he have been reborn into somebody less… chuunibyou? One parent was blonde, the other was black-haired, and both had spiky hair like shounen characters. So of course Bang had spiky yellow hair with black stripes. The eyes? Crimson with pupils that were just a bit too oval to look normal.

The clock had hit midnight and this midget body had been woken up with the memories of a normal and peaceful past life in which he’d been a regular anime-loving retail worker who still lived with his parents. Now he was five years old in Japan with super-powers.

He wasn’t excluded. In fact, all he had to do was cast his mind to the other set of information free-floating in his brain: a comprehensive database of pokemon everything.

“Way, way too early for this shit.” He hopped down and shuffled back to bed.

Might as well take advantage of the superpower he’d just been given. He burrowed into the nice, warm blankets and activated Soundproof. Sleep had been his past-life’s favorite activity and, in hindsight, actually the best thing ever.

He found himself rudely awoken by his mother shaking him. “Wake up Bang! Why did you sleep through the alarm clock?” She towered over him, hands on her hips.

The kindest way to describe Chikara Natsumi would be ‘intense’. Over six feet tall and built like a comic book character, Bang knew that his mother had been a hero in the past. Now she wasn’t. It was from her that he’d gotten the yellow hair. Quirk: some form of not-physical superstrength. Toxic Parenting Style: “Living out the dream through her child”

The person he was before would have turned over and groaned. Bang however, had inherited this body’s defense mechanisms, so his eyes snapped open and his heart started racing. An apology was immediately forming on his lips. “I’m sorry, it was just my quirk, it came in and…” Well, he’d used it to slack off. Wisely, he didn’t mention that.

Immediately, a transformation seemed to overtake his mother. “Your Quirk came in? Finally! I was so worried something was wrong with you.” Bang couldn’t help how his face twitched as her large hand engulfed his shoulder. “What is it?”

“Uhh… sounds don’t hurt me and I can sleep through what I want?” He hurried to add, “And more I think? I don’t know.”

Now his mother was frowning. “Just that? There’s got to be more than that to it. Well, we’ll see about it when we go to the specialist. Now stop being lazy and get up, you’re late for swim class!”

Oh, that’s right, his mother had booked a quirk specialist for his fifth birthday, to check what was wrong with him. There was nothing wrong with Bang… probably. His mother’s disapproval always made him doubt. There was something about having a grown-up perspective meshing with a kid’s natural instincts. He was already up and getting ready for swimming.

At least, Bang liked swim class.

LATER THAT DAY, the airhorn’s shriek was muted. The doctor scribbled down something more on his notepad. Bang reigned in the urge to sigh tiredly and instead removed the tiny microphone from his mouth.

“Well.” The doctor said. “Until further notice, I believe we can classify Mr. Bang’s quirk as sound-based emitter-type. It seems to nullify any harmful sounds within his body.”

Chikara Natsumi was gripping her son’s shoulder with a bit too much strength. Bang couldn’t see her face, but he was sure it had one of those fake plastic expressions.

Chikara Akihira, by contrast, was all smiles. “We are very grateful for your help, Dr. Fujiyama.” But then again, Bang’s father was always all smiles. Somebody had to play public relations officer to Natsumi. He then started making impressively astute questions that also mollified his mother. Could possibly the quirk expand its range with training, how strong was it, how could it be tested further, was it just sound or vibrations in general?

Bang’s father was a big time hero nerd. Medium height, black hair, but with impeccable teeth and a handsome if unremarkable face, you wouldn’t be able to tell the level of his hero otaku ways. Quirk: slow, medium range telekinesis. Toxic Parenting Style: “enabler”.

That parenting combo was lethal. Bang knew he was being groomed, even if he had lacked the words before. Being a hero in the future was everything. His education was structured and planned for that goal at the behest of his parents, regardless of cost. His quirk coming in so late had been a worry. Five was the traditional quirkless cut-off age.

And now he apparently had gotten saddled with a useless quirk.
A small part of Bang was reveling in the destruction of the long-term plans his shitty parents had made for him. A big part was anxious. Now what? Was he going to get thrown away or replaced, or just worked harder and harder?

And sometimes the answer was all of the above.

 

#2#​

BANG WAS SEVEN when his younger sister was born. To his complete disgust, she had the perfectly reasonable and traditional name Sakura.

In the two years since his quirk had come in, nothing much had changed. His parents still pushed him hard, and within their specific path, but maybe not any more than his own father had in his past life. Extracurricular activities to enrich children weren’t that out of the norm. Past-Bang had ended up a loser with a retail job anyway, so it didn’t seem to matter a lot in his eyes.

But his mother in particular had become more distant and what little praise she used to give him to motivate him was now entirely absent. At first, there had been exercises to expand his quirk but as they kept amounting to nothing, his position solidified. Bang was a disappointment. It hurt… but it was also familiar to a retail worker with a college degree.

Quirk-wise, he’d actually gotten three new abilities: Technician, Overgrow and Mimicry. Only Technician was worth anything. Bang had figured out his attacks sometimes counted as moves and essentially all basic attacks a human body could do were covered by the ability. In a fight, Bang was stronger than he should be.

He never told Natsumi or Akihira. Being a borderline gifted student, with the maturity he had from his other memories, never mattered to them. His passion for games and anime were ignored on the best days, actively shut down on the others. And his mother was quite fond of mentioning how much of a waste it was that his martial arts would always be wasted on a body with his quirk.

Still, neutral relationships weren’t inherently bad. School was really good most of the time. He actually liked martial arts. He slept well and deeply every day.

He knew the moment he noticed Natsumi was pregnant that all of that was going to change.

Naturally, Natsumi’s pregnancy meant most of the house’s resources, always a bit stretched, went to her. That was fine. Her outbursts of temper, that was normal too, according to the pregnancy books. Bang was glad that both of his lives were boys.

He had more time to be alone between all of his extracurriculars.

But then Sakura was born and Bang became invisible. The baby was everything. Now there was no money for swim lessons or martial arts at his dojo. They had to save up, except Sakura got the really expensive baby formula and diapers and brand new toys. Bang’s old toys were given away.

What was so great about his sister anyway? She didn’t have a quirk yet. Maybe it would be just like him all over again and what were his parents going to do then? Have another baby?

Bang kicked a rock away. He knew he was being unfair, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t like he was complaining to anybody, so he wasn’t hurting anybody. And sure, his parents had stopped paying for his expensive extracurriculars outside of school, but it wasn’t like those things were entirely gone. Bang still woke up early to go swimming some days, in the community pool’s free slot. He had to quit the judo dojo, but he’d joined his elementary school’s club. Kung Fu was gone too, but he’d been enrolled in a cheaper Karate school. At his age, it was all physical conditioning anyway.

He kicked another rock. “Still unfair.”

 

#3#​

JUST AS SAKURA WAS TAKING HER FIRST STEPS and approaching her first birthday, Bang became eight. And like every birthday since he’d become five, he woke up at midnight with a new ability. Mummy.

He squinted at the dark ceiling as he parsed the mental database that still lingered in his brain. If he got hit by a physical attack, the opponent's ability would become Mummy too. “Well, that’s useless.” He told himself. Just like he didn’t have grass moves that would benefit from Overgrow, he didn’t have opponents with abilities.

Bang curled up on his side and engaged Soundproof before letting sleep take him away. He was the only person who’d been sleeping full nights in a house with a baby.

EIGHT HOURS LATER, walking to school after missing swim time again, Bang revised his mental schedule and ground to a halt.

“Wait.” Did quirks count as abilities?

A horrible sense of dread took over him. A quirk that changed other quirks, that was strong. What would his mother do then? Start expecting things out of him again? Abandon Sakura? And what would everybody say when they discovered he’d been lying? When it came out his quirk was weird and grew on its own? His eyes darted to and fro.

There were other kids on the sidewalk with him. He had to keep moving. So he did, anxiety churning in his guts every step of the way. Bang was pale and withdrawn the entire day. Scribbles covered the margins of his notebooks. He knew a bit about quirks. There had been a time when quirk improvement had been Natsumi and Bang’s not-fun bonding time.

Mummy would definitely only happen if Bang got hit on purpose, so Karate and Judo were the problems. Mummy would probably only work on passive quirks, maybe. It was a theory. Those were the closest things to abilities. And Bang really doubted Mummy would do anything to mutant quirks.

Like, probably.

But it wasn’t like Bang could quit the club right now. And honestly he didn’t want to quit. He liked martial arts. They were cool.

The dojo and the school club didn’t let them use their quirks in matches, so cautiously, Bang went to Judo like every other day. His luck held that day. The one person in the club with a quirk that was always on was a bubbly-headed girl, whose hair kept producing a soft foam but was otherwise unremarkable. And the teacher insisted on boys and girls sparing separately. For once, Bang was grateful. And Mummy didn’t linger after a ‘battle’ finished, so he didn’t think anybody noticed.

Regrettably, his distraction made him lose his grip every time and landed his ass on the floor consistently for the day.

Mission of the day: Do not get your quirk discovered. Mission accomplished. Collateral damage: pride, anxiety attacks.

Bleeding from his nose, Bang trudged home. That was it, tomorrow he wasn’t going to Karate until he figured out how to turn off Mummy. And then he was going to think about what to do with his powers.

THAT NIGHT, be it was karma or the will of God, he was once again woken up by a new power.

 

_.·✧·._.·´¯`·._.·´✧`·._.·´¯`·._.·✧·._​

Once upon a time, a star fell from the sky.​

No, really.

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"Alright, you've all had time to think this through. Let's see your Future Career printouts."

Arukania's middle school's third year had a single class with exactly seventeen students. For a town in the middle of the Japanese mountains, it wasn't surprising. Most people were old. There was no highschool. It wasn't even a quaint little town with hot-springs, tourism or traditional crafts. It was a mining town for a middling mine that closed another shaft every couple of years.

And if the company needed more workers, it got more workers, and they almost never brought any children.

Naturally, just about everybody wanted to leave. Since there was no highschool, just about everybody put down school in the nearest cities, a few aiming further away.

"Oh." Except for one. "Sachi, that's really ambitious. We're all rooting for you."

Chatter erupted. "You're really aiming for that fancy hero school in the big city?" A girl with a rough texture for skin turned around in her seat.

A white-haired girl with starry eyes nodded. "UA. The more well-known hero school in the country. One-hundred percent main character bait."

"Freak. You and your folks..." Was said with a certain fondness. "Man, but with your quirk..."

"And my brain."

"And your grades, yeah, yeah. I think you'll make it. Show all those capital rich kids what village folk is worth, won't you?" There was general clamor. Over the noise, the bell rang and they were summarily dismissed.

Sachi shrugged. "That's the plan, I guess."

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_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

After a very long train trip, she was at the gates of UA. She gave them a glance, shook her head at the eccentric building design and walked in. She was almost late, due to the previously mentioned long voyage.

As she followed the signs to the amphitheater, she was amazed at the amount of people. This was definitely the first time she'd ever been so close to so many teenagers. It was a little disgusting, all the hormones and competitiveness. She sighed. Life in the city was going to be very different, wasn't it? She almost missed her weird parents and she definitely missed the wilderness and old, abandoned buildings. Instead, she was one of nearly two thousand teenagers applying to the most prestigious hero school in the country.

Well, she'd made her choice.

Paperwork having been handled by mail, she was handed a brochure-like form and assigned a seat in the auditorium.

"GOOD MORNING LISTENERS!!!" Her ears, why. Present Mic was not very popular back home and this was not endearing her to him.

She grumbled under her breath.

"That's his appeal. And kickass music taste." The girl next to her whispered.

She had a downright cool hair-style and fashion choices, with a leather jacket that Sachi very much wanted to own a copy of. Her quirk was some sort of subtle mutant type, giving her long earlobes that ended on jacks. Not wanting to be caught staring, and since she was here to become a hero after all, Sachi re-focussed on the presentation. Then somebody way braver and far too much of nitpicker started asking questions as loud as Present Mic, without getting a sore throat.

She looked down at her brochure. "Battle Center G."

"I'm in A." Her neighbor mentioned as they both got up.

Not direct competition then, that was nice. "After A. They probably had the lines running from A to G round and round. Well, first we have the written test."

"I'm not sure which one I'm more nervous about." The girl's ear-jacks? Turned in a circle.

"Both. Both is good." Sachi smiled and offered her hand for her to shake. "Good luck."

The girl gave her a firm handshake. "You too. Let's see each other when classes start, yeah?"

"You bet."

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_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

The practical test ended up stressing her. Or rather, as she thought about it would go, she realized it would be more of a race than a showcase of her abilities. She would be competing with at least a hundred other people for one spot in thirty-eight. Sachi was confident in her ability to destroy bots, it shouldn't be any harder than wrecking a car, but if it turned into a hide-and-seek game, less so.

It was compounded with anxiety from the written test. It was unfair. She'd never felt anxious about written tests. She ended up jittery in her chair and bounced her leg as she went through her options.

Sachi's quirk was incredibly versatile. So versatile in fact that it turned split-second decisions into freezing in place moments. The way around, she'd discovered, was to prepare a good combo in advance. Like that, she could bring a few abilities into the field quickly, leaving all the others a bit more 'behind'. The sort of things that would require actually concentrating instead of a mere reaction.

For this hunt, she decided, it would be best to go full offensive. Against machines, lightning and water, and rock. Fire would be wasted. Wind as well. Ice to complete the set then. It gave her a nice range of possibilities. Wolf and Frost were quick and in your face, those were easy choices. Gold as well, a powerful ranged weapon. And between Star and Artist, she’d prefer Star’s less intensive elemental blasts. It also gave her a healing option if she wound up needing it for some reason.

She immersed herself in the reflection of the stars, and plucked them one by one, nestling them close to her bosom.

She dropped the bag she was carrying her bokuto with in the locker rooms and took a deep breath. And then she was at the gates to an actual fake mini-city. UA had to have the biggest budget. Just how rich were these people?

"Are you ready!?" The unmissable voice of Present Mic blasted from above them all. Sachi bent her legs and took one last deep breath. All right. "Go!"

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯​

_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

She ran pell-mell, breath steady, quickly getting ahead of most of the competition. The smooth, flat concrete felt very different from the mountain roads she was used too. No matter, hiking boots were all-terrain boots. The first robots appeared from side-streets. One-pointers.

She dodged them and their electronic voices. There had to be more enemies further in and she didn’t want to be caught up in the middle of everybody. The next one she saw was a two-pointer, followed by several other robots of varying types. No more time to waste. Time to see how effective her attacks were!

She planted her right foot in front of her, the robot not two meters away, sword arm drawn back, and swung. A blast of ice struck the robot, hoarfrost clinging to its surface, but didn’t stop it. The two pointer was already moving to swing. Sachi jumped back at the last second and drew water from the air with her left hand and sent it forward. Immediately, the robot was frozen in place, the frost spreading and locking it in place.

That robot would be immobilized for a while. She swung to the next one, jumped, two-handed grip on her sword above her head. The claws of a lightning beast followed her strike. Rents opened in the robot’s armor and it fell down to the road, spasming. A hop back, a second of concentration, and stray rocks and pebbles lifted up with a golden glow, striking an approaching foe and cratering its hide.

She surveyed the battlefield, moving to the side as vines of all things sprouted to the ground and started twisting and immobilizing the robot. The other contestants had arrived. But this had been enough to give Sachi an idea of what worked and didn’t.

With a grin, she twirled in place and called forth the power of water. A ring burst around her with a chime, and she suppressed a giggle. Time to short-circuit these toasters.

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯​

_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

The test hadn’t started very well for some contestants. There had been one burly student who’d straight up dumped two or three packets of sugar into his mouth and started swinging without abandon, but others found themselves unprepared for the sheer size and speed of the opponents.

Others quickly found their rhythm. It’d taken him a full half-minute, but now the headband -wearing boy had figured out how to take the robots out of commission. He just needed to grab one of their legs and the ground, and his quirk would leave the robots unable to go anywhere. Then usually somebody would finish them off, but he was sure that this would count and get him points.

Otherwise he was in quite a pickle.

There was no time to think, he just had to keep moving. Robot after robot became his victims. So far he ran that he overextended, suddenly finding himself between three robots. All of them welded to the ground, but still within range. He managed to duck and fuse the two fists that met above his head, but the third…

With a cry, a white-haired girl jumped into view, a phantasmal werewolf of electricity echoing her movements, and cut through the arm of the attacker. Their eyes met, slate gray and star-shaped pupils, and an understanding passed through them. They nodded to each other and each lept back into the fight, striking in a new direction.

The intensity of battle, teenagers and robots spread throughout the fake, made it so only the regular announcements of how much time they had left were the only way they could keep track of it. At eight minutes, a quake shook the ground. With a plume of dust and smoke, a building-sized shape rose to tower over everything in the vicinity.

“That’s the zero-pointer?” More than one person cried out in their hearts.

With a metallic roar, it reared up before smashing the buildings in its path and started moving towards the greatest concentration of contestants. Wisely, everybody ran. Straight-forward or into side-streets, dodging the other robots, other contestants and falling debris.

Unavoidably, some people were injured. A short cat-faced teen limped forward and had time only to flinch at the bits of broken concrete falling towards his head, before he was carried forward by green, thorny tentacles. A girl with hair made out of vines pulled him towards her. A hemispherical shield of the same vines was set at the entrance of an alley, protecting several students. More than one was also injured.

“Please forgive me,” She winced as she saw the cuts her quirk had left on his exposed arms. “I did not have time to blunt my thorns.”

“Whatever! Thanks.” He collapsed on the floor. “You saved me.”

The shield was attracting several others who saw in it safety. “I’m unsure for how long before this trial defeats me. Lord give me strength.” The girl was sweating, hands clasped in prayer before her. The test still had a minute or more before them, but what had seemed like such little time now extended into infinity for those hidden from the rampaging robot.

“Hey!” A white-haired girl jumped into the protective circle, swirling icicles around her waist dissipating into snowflakes. “Let me help.” With a swipe of her hand, a golden, elaborate pillar erupted in front of the vines and opened into a translucent shield, like a bamboo screen.

“My thanks.” The green-haired girl bowed. “Nevertheless, we should move. Perhaps carry the wounded elsewhere.”

The new arrival surveyed them with furrowed brows. “Hurt? Mm, leave it to me. Huddle up!” She took a deep breath, hummed a few notes, snapped her fingers. “La-ra-la~” Her eyes opened and she hopped, skipped and twirled.

Before the stupefied teens around her, the ground rippled with a blue glow and a glowing shower of stars swept over them. “What?” “Good Lord!” They looked down at themselves as pains and aches disappeared, injuries healing before their eyes. The cat-faced teen felt their whiskers tremble. “What the fuck even is your quirk?!”

Sachi looked over her shoulder, giving him a thumbs up and a laugh that answered nothing. “Let’s go!”

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_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

She’d ended up losing her bokuto. A robot had knocked it out of her hands and she hadn’t had the opportunity to retrieve it. She’d asked teh examiners if she could retrieve it, but was denied. She had received a letter saying they’d retrieved the pieces of it… after finding it under rubble. She could claim that.

Said letter also included a projection disk and now she sat between her parents, ready to hear her results. She had to have passed, but it would be good to hear the news as family.

With her parent’s hand steady on her shoulder, he started the projection.

“I Am Here! As a projection!” All Might!? All three of them leaned back, shocked.

The surprise was almost enough for Sachi to miss her results. She had gotten in. Not only that, she’d made it as the fourth highest ranked student. She felt the pride irradiating from her parents. A good amount of it had come from rescue points, almost as much as from the points she’d gotten by destroying robots.

The family huddled up in a group hug. This was great, but also the slightest bittersweet. UA was far away. “Time to start checking out places for you to rent out next year.”

Sachi burrowed deeper into her mother’s sweater. “We still have a month or so.”

Her other parent laughed. “Ahah, the naiveté of somebody who has never gone house-hunting.”

“It’s that bad?” She looked up at her mother, meeting the place where her eyes would be.

“If you want to get a good place, a bit. Fortunately we’re not hurting for money.” She explained, pushing some strands of hair away from Sachi’s face. “Your parent will show you.”

Ugh, grown-up stuff. Couldn’t she go start filling up the online forms that asked about her hero costume instead?

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_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

Comets and meteors.

When stars leave their nests, do they become shooting stars?​

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯✧¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯​

---

Spoiler

Because Genshin 3.0! Which I should not go play because thesis! ahah fff me.
I'll do a character profile later.

 

[1]
Somehow, it had gone wrong. She wasn’t surprised. Not only had the circumstances been against her, she was well-aware of her own gormless nature.

It was her own impulsiveness. For all she overthought things, when it came down to it, she never thought twice before jumping. And so there she was, a gnawing hole within, and a weapon too powerful in her hands.

She didn't curse the powerful entity that had stolen her breath even as it presented her with an ocean of choices. She avoided those thoughts. She was too afraid.

***
There were many craftsmen's familias in the city. From swordsmiths and potion-brewers to basket-weavers and glassblowers, commerce was abundant and gods were aplenty. Reputation was important for these divines, stripped from their unearthly powers. Obtaining a list of them was as easy as asking for a pamphlet.

Business was good, but never enough.

Of blacksmiths, the greatest and renowned was Hephaestus. She started there. Conveniently, because she was so successful, Lady Hephaestus kept her main office in the very same street as the Pantheon.

The guard at the door was approached by a thin weretiger woman, who greeted him politely. He returned the greeting and mentally prepared himself to turn her down. If she was a client, she certainly hadn't enough to afford them. If she was an aspirant, a single look would tell she lacked the muscles and calluses of even a forge-hand. He was, therefore, pleasantly surprised.

"The requirements to enter the familia?" Despite her appearance, at the very least it seemed she wasn't an idiot. "Well, I can tell you already. You do not possess them."

She nodded, an ear flicking the only sign of emotion. "I'm aware. But for future reference?"

“Aside from being a decent enough fighter…” if nothing else because it was fully expected they be able to procure their own materials, be it by trade or by adventuring. “All members of Hephaestus are already full-blown smiths when they join the familia. And even then, they must prove their skill and potential before the eyes of our goddess.”

The weretigress nodded. “I see, of course.”

“Are you even a smith, tho?” The guard found himself asking.

She wasn’t offended, but a wry little smile broke the dead-eyed countenance she had maintained. “Not yet.”

A smith himself, he saw little opportunities for a grown woman to start learning the craft now, but it wasn’t impossible. “Well, when you do become a smith… then maybe you can try to impress our goddess and join Hephaestus familia.”

“Or you could join my familia right now!!”

She stopped, mouth half-open on the way to a sentence, and looked down. She was a runt of a tiger but this one was short. A short and stacked goddess. Shining blue eyes framed by long pure black hair looked up at her. “... pardon?” Her tail lashed out behind her once, before being brought to heel. Even as a runt, her chin was over the goddess’ head.

“Join my familia! Hephaestus is great and all that but don’t you want to join Hestia familia? We, huh… We are great!” The goddess crossed her arms, her divine beauty emphasized.

Surprisingly, the guard wasn’t insulted. He turned to the woman. “Ah, this is Lady Hestia. She’s a friend of our goddess who’s currently…enjoying her hospitality. For the last two months.” He ignored the squawk coming from below. “Hestia familia currently has zero members. And as such, technically, does not exist.” Another shriller sound.

She nodded. “Ah, I see. Is she a goddess of smiths as well?” The name was familiar, but she didn’t remember exactly her domains.

“I’m Goddess of the Hearth!” The divine interrupted. Her cheeks had flamed up to resemble a tomato. “... and the Sacred Fire and Architecture. And the State too, sometimes! And, hm, Home, Hospitality… Bakers…”

Dull, golden-eyes characteristic of the beast-men tribe met hers. Nearly below the limits of her hearing, she heard the child clearly. “Home? Tch, cruel irony…” Then the weretigress turned back to the guard. “This goddess… is she a good person?”

Both adventurer and adventurer-to-be examined the deity now standing seriously between them, who’d quickly unpuffed her cheeks and tried to radiate as much of an aura of competence as she could. “She’s lazy. Loud. Good-for-nothing. A complete layabout. And a crybaby.” The more experienced of them both declared. “But, yes. I’d have to say that at least she’s a good person.”

“Alright. That’s it then.” The woman turned fully to the goddess. “I wish to join your familia.”

““Wait, really!?”” Both goddess and adventurer boggled at her, one ecstatic, another worried.

“YES! Alright, come on!” And the goddess was grabbing her wrist and insistently dragging her away. The guard was left behind, stuck between going after the stranger that had so carelessly accepted the ditzy goddess’ offer, a goddess good friends with his, and his duty to remain on his post.

***
The goddess brought her to a bookstore. She marveled at the amount of books.

“Do you like reading?” Hestia asked with a self-satisfied smile.

She nodded. “Yes, quite a lot. I used to write a little too.” She traced the spines of books with careful fingers, admiring the work put into the works.

Hestia had gone for a walk, browsing stores. She did leave her room every few weeks, no matter how much Hephaestus nagged her. And just as she was returning to tell Hephaestus about her day, an opportunity had appeared! A weretiger, some of the strongest mortals! And if she was a candidate to Hephaestus, she was going to be a great adventurer for sure. Hestia did feel a bit bad about potentially poaching from Hephaestus… but first come, first served!

Hestia observed the child for a moment. Being a beast-person was the only remarkable thing about her, dressed in the generic clothing of a laborer. Her ears and tail were the same yellow-orange of most common tigers and her hair matched. The markings on her tail were dark brown. Golden yellow eyes were the only thing that stood out, but only because of their iron-like dullness. This child was driven but lost, hiding secrets beneath a calm exterior.

Truth be told, the goddess felt like she was understating the issues. Who answered the request for a name with ‘I don’t have one, why don’t you name me since you are a goddess?’. And it had been entirely truthful. Not that she would ever back down from her very first child! If Hestia had sensed anything bad from her, she wouldn’t even have approached.

“So, hm, have you decided on a name?” After Doris, she had immediately exercised her previously undiscussed right to veto, and now the weretiger had a small list to choose from.

“I like Korina.” Isidora had also been tempting.

“Korina. Kora, Kori… It does fit you!” Hestia clapped and was rewarded by a slow wag of a fluffy tail. She reminded herself she would absolutely not act like Loki or the other gods, even if that tail was awfully fluffy. “Come here. I need access to your naked back to apply my Blessing.”

Obediently, the tiger sat down and pulled her tunic open. A slim back was presented to her, but Hestia’s eyes were immediately drawn by several big tattoos. Jagged runic designs drew a large but simple design on the back of her right shoulder, then a different one on the outside of her right bicep, and a final one ran along the underside of her forearm. It was quite the array of tribal marks.

Then she banished those thoughts from her head and pricked her fingers with the tip of a very sharp letter opener. A nervous fluttering accompanied the smile on her face. She had never done this. Korina would be her first child.

Ichor was spilled, the ritual set. Newly-named Korina stared blankly ahead as divine radiance drew a line separating them from the mortal world. She wondered when the goddess would realize what sort of trouble she was bringing to her doorstep. Dust motes floated in the air, the light from the window only half illuminating the cozy corner on the second-floor storage room of this bookstore.

She found herself poetic. The beginning of a tale, a chapter? It was fitting for her circumstances.

The radiance started to die down, and Korina heard the goddess behind her take a startled breath. She didn’t turn, but she could imagine the look on her face. Horrified, scared? Not eager, she didn’t think, because she was a good person.

“I don’t think I should write down your status.” Hestia’s fingers hovered almost fearfully over her back.

The weretigress nodded. “Makes sense. Not without omitting that part anyway.”

“Korina,” and there was a hint of hardness in the goddess’ voice, a weight that had been completely absent until then. “Did you know you had these spells?”

The mortal half-turned so that she could face the goddess. “It’s a spell then? I knew that three things would appear sooner or later, but not what shape they would take.” She took in the goddess’ pale face. “I’m guessing Mortality is really that… blasphemous then.” The ever present anxiety in her gut was slowly being dispelled now that the secret was out.

Hestia frowned. “How could you know? No god or goddess gave you their blessing before.”

“Can’t you tell?” Korina blinked.

“It doesn’t work like that!” Hestia couldn’t read a mortal’s whole life story in the blessing. Especially not after just granting it. At most, she could get impressions of why certain skills or spells would manifest, as they were indeed roughly tied to a mortal’s soul, self, will and accomplishments. “And… you have three spells and two skills.”

That surprised her. “That’s… hm. Maybe you should write down my status after all.”

The goddess transcribed the status into a blank sheet of paper, muttering how they were going to have to burn it. Korina pulled her tunic back up and, after reading it, told Hestia her tale.

***
The pair returned to Hephaestus’ headquarters after they’d had a very long talk. Korina nibbled slowly on a potato puff snack, authentic jagamarukun brand. Hestia was subdued, pigtails limp. One of her remaining manifestations of power, beyond the inherent physical perfection, was some sort of selective buoyancy. At least, as far as Korina could tell, that was why not only her hair seemed to have a life of its own, but also how her chest moved around according to her mood without hurting her.

Hestia’s dress mocked the very concept of support. Godly perks, apparently and pointedly.

“Is it a good idea for me to enter Hephaestus’ house now that I have your blessing?” She asked. She was fairly sure such things were discouraged. Spying, sabotage, the fact that it was somebody’s home in the end.

“Of course, of course!” Hestia laughed it off weakly before her child caught her eye with a single raised brow. “... I’ll ask Hephaestus…” She did not have to, as when they reached the door they were informed that Hephaestus wanted to speak with them.

Hephaestus was an impressive goddess. Flame-haired, one-eyed, she emitted an aura of both shrewdness and cordiality. In practical but quality clothing, she sat behind a wide desk and her attention didn’t leave the demi-human as she entered the office. Despite that, she was smiling, maybe even relieved. Korina got the distinct feeling that she cared deeply about Hestia. She had to, to have put up with the moocher for two entire months.

“Well, congratulations on finding your first child.” She gave it to Hestia, who smiled brightly.

“I know! Korina is great and super strong!” Behind her, the weretigress shook her head silently at the other goddess. “She’s going to show Loki and all of her children!” The mortal mouthed another negative.

It seemed those two had already established a dynamic. “Well, you’ve certainly taken the first step. I’m guessing that means you’ll finally move out of my home?”

The pointed question hit Hestia along with knowing looks from both Korina and Hephaestus, and her enthusiasm popped like a balloon. “Hm. Well. About that. Could you help me out for a little while longer?...”

Hephaestus was actually surprised. In the time Hestia had spent in the mortal realm, she had never shown a hint of shame about her ways nor a single clue of how the world really worked. And here she was, sweating as she asked for what she’d taken for granted not hours ago. The child’s dead-pan stare was fixed on the back of the shorter goddess’ head and had to be burning mightily. Hephaestus was curious how that conversation had gone.

“Well… seems like you’ve found a reliable child indeed. I suppose I can extend my hospitality for another week.”

Hestia seemed to melt with relief. Korina took that clue to approach a few steps further and bow at the waist. “Thank you, Lady Hephaestus. However, you need only house my goddess. I have enough money for myself for a few days. I’ll start at the dungeon tomorrow and make more detailed plans once I know how much I can make by myself.”

Hestia’s spine made a surprise reappearance. “That’s not true, Kori only has enough money for one night and then she’ll sleep on the streets! Hepha–” The weretigress covered her mouth with an annoyed frown.

“That’s not true.” She lied. “Regardless, we much appreciate your generosity, Lady Hephaestus, but I really have to go now.” She bowed again. “Until tomorrow, Hestia. Don’t forget about that.” Her tail was swishing more violently than before as she left.

The goddess of the forge raised an eyebrow as she eyed her friend. “I approve.” The surly-looking weretiger didn’t seem to be a good match for the child-like Hestia at a first glance, but they meshed well. Hephaestus also wasn’t going to complain about a child with her head on straight.

Hestia huffed. “She’s too serious about some stuff.” A great deal of her afternoon had been getting mercilessly scolded by her own child. Korina, it seemed, had a thing about owing debts, particularly money.

“Hm. It also seems you poached her right under my children’s nose.” A strangled noise escaped Hestia. Hephaestus gave her a serious stare for a moment before laughing. “Well, think about it next time you try to recruit somebody. You’re lucky she isn’t a smith, or I might have gotten cross with you.” She was a bit curious about Korina’s apparent smithing ambitions, nevertheless.

“Hephaestus…” Hestia suddenly asked, and her countenance had turned serious unlike anything Hephaestus had ever seen out of her… in the mortal world. Blue eyes weighted with divinity met crimson. “How do you hide a status?”

---

Code:

KORINA Lv.1
Strength I.0 Endurance I.0 Dexterity I.0 Agility I.0 Magic I.0
Spell
[Celeritas] Chantless aura; this rune boosts speed and damage.
[Pabulum] Chantless aura; this rune heals the user proportionally to damage dealt.
[Mortalitas] Chantless aura; this rune makes any damage dealt by the user lethal.
Skill
[Wound] Thou hast been stricken, robbed, defiled. In search of thyne most precious light, this blessing be given to thee.
[Runeforge] The user can create equipment with the power of runes.

---

Spoiler

look sometimes a quick idea comes and when you grab it... it unfurls.
also, until the end of october, everybody has free reign to call me out on the progress of my thesis. future-me will appreciate it.

Spoiler: cards

Rune of Speed
Rune of Sustenance
Rune of Mortality

 

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The star was found by an eyeless woman.​

She saw more than most.

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

There weren’t a lot of boxes. A large suitcase worth of clothes, a book box, a useful things box and a decorations box. The apartment was unfurnished tho, so a large bag sat to the side, containing her futon, curtains and some towels.

"It’s well insulated." Her mother commented as she surveyed the place again. It was the third time she made that comment today. "Your parent is finishing writing the shopping list." She took a deep breath. Are you sure you don't want us to spend the night?”

Sachi shook her head. Her parents still had to drive all the way back home. Besides, there was something about the adventure of sleeping in your own apartment. It was like camping and she likes camping.

Her mother left with a kiss to her forehead and her parent with a hug. The door closed and she was hit with a sense of loneliness.

She had two and a half days to turn that loneliness into freedom, to explore a bit.

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

The school was as big as she remembered. Huge, much beyond what size-mutants needed. Unless heroics just attracted a lot of vertically gifted students.

Sachi caught sight of the vine-haired girl she met during the exam, ahead of her, before somebody tapped her on the back.

“Hey, we meet again.” It was the girl that had been next to her during the orientation ceremony. Now dressed in the much less cool school uniform. “Did you make it into heroics too? I’m Jiro Kyoka by the way.”

“Yeah. Class 1-A.” The door was just a bit further in the corridor. “My name is Hoshino Sachi, pleasure to meet you, again.”

“Cool! I’m in 1-A too.” Jiro smiled.

The classroom’s door was already open, and the seats were half filled. The seating chart was drawn on the board. Sachi was lucky to be in the file nearest to the window, but she was also on the front row. By chance, Jiro was right next to her. As everybody sat down, she took in her classmates.

Her eyes were inevitably drawn to the most egregious mutation quirks. In Arukania, such were usually rare, or belonging to temporary workers. There was an extremely pink girl, Ashido, a really tall boy with several arms, Shoji, and possibly a boy with a bird’s head, Tokoyami. Other than them, she didn’t see anybody she remembered from the exam or anybody that particularly caught her eye… except for the floating uniform that indicated an invisible person was there. That was interesting.

There was a muffled thump from the corridor’s direction. Jiro winced. “I think that’s 1-B. They’re… rowdy? I don’t even want to hear.”

Sachi eyed her earlobe-jacks. “Enhanced hearing?”

“Yes, and a few other tricks. You?”

“Elemental manipulation with a weird bent.”

The other girl was surprised. “Really? I thought it would be something to do with your eyes.”

She wouldn’t have been the first. Sachi’s white pupils and nebula-coloured irises were attention grabbing. It wasn’t the first time somebody had caught a comet streaking through her eyes. “My mutations are only tangentially related.”

The bell rang. The only ones not seated were a green-haired boy and the chubby girl who’d ambushed him near the seating chart. The teacher ambushed them in turn, gliding silently through the door and looming over her classmates. “If you’re here to chat, go do it somewhere else.”

Red bloodshot eyes roved over the class. “This is the Hero Course. There is not time for chit-chat. I’m Aizawa Shota, your homeroom teacher. Pleasure to meet you.” His tone varied from dead to condescending. “Put on your gym uniforms and move to the Beta Athletic Field.”

Nobody knew where that was. Nobody even knew where the lockers were. And the teacher seemed intent on being less than helpful, answering questions with a long suffering look and clipped answers. When the chubby girl he had reprimanded before raised the question of orientation, he basically told her to go bother somebody else.

Sachi found herself frowning. Hm.

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

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“Uraraka, you placed third in the entrance exam,” the teacher called out. “How far could you pitch a softball in middle school?”

Uraraka, the chubby girl, gave a good number. “Around… 40 meters?” Looking at her, Sachi was impressed that she had scored higher than her in the entrance exam. Then she was asked to use her quirk to throw the ball as far as she could and the brown-haired girl pitched it softly and it just… kept on going.

Aizawa blinked. “I’m marking that down as ‘infinite’.” That was amazing.

A Quirk Apprehension Test to measure their capabilities with their quirks compared to without their quirks. That made a lot of sense.

And as soon as chatter started between them, the scruffy man in charge sadistically declared that he would expel the worst performing student. Which they could do absolutely nothing about. That was, pardon the language, utter bullshit.

She wasn’t afraid. The environment favored Sachi. She could employ her quirk at its maximum if she had a reasonable amount of time to set up and charge up. She was, however, irritated. A frown had settled nicely between her brows. It didn’t help that she was charging Raven for the first test, and her indignation rose much more easily to the surface.

Beside her, Jiro nudged her. She returned a small smile of reassurance with a thumbs up. Plus Ultra? Alright, she’d show him her Plus Darn Ultra.

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

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First, the 50m dash. It was going about as Shota expected it to. Mobility enhancing quirks reigned supreme, so it was interesting to see what students with seemingly less useful quirks would do. #1 had skated using her acid, interesting. #8 had brought along sugar packets, good forward thinking. #10 had propelled himself using the kinetic energy of his footsteps, nice control.

#15 and #16, the invisibility quirk and the elemental quirk. One was likely far more athletic than apparent, and the other had already shown a degree of familiarity with the concept of this test during the exam. He gave the start. #16 transformed into a bird made out of purple lightning that raced down the track with a shrill cry.

Well, well, not just some sort of werewolf, but also a full transformation into birds. Interesting. Another one to keep an eye on. But later, considering #17 and #18 were up, and those two were going to be a headache. He could already tell.

Grip Strength, the Wolf. #16 showed a good degree of control over the wolf-form manifestation. Her hair was ruffled. Independent Quirk?

Standing Long Jump, Gold Trial. Summoned a pillar of earth to gain height and then condensed an explosion that launched her a fair distance away. Rolled without damage.

Repeated Side Steps, Fairy. Manipulated wind to generate and break momentum on a dime.

Ball Throw, Shark. Created a shield of lightning as she charged up a few seconds for an enhanced throw.

At this point, Aizawa checked his notes. #16, Quirk: Elemental Outlook. Manipulation of six classical elements (ice, water, earth, fire, electricity, wind) with parallel exotic effects. Prolonged use proportionally influencing mental state. Right, he was going to need more than that. He put down a note to request her to give him a list of her full capabilities and drawbacks.

Five minutes later, he had to deny her request to heal Midoriya. If he insisted he could ‘still move’ then he had to prove it.

Distance Run, Frost. Apparently used her quirk to cool herself down. Seated Toe Touch and Sit-ups, Star. Also only used her quirk to cool herself down. Regardless, good athleticism.

He regarded this year’s class. A lot of polishing to do, but nobody hopeless. A fair amount of great potential too and even a few surprises. Time to reveal his ‘logical ruse’.

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯

_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

There was something a bit lonely about returning to an empty home. There was also something deeply satisfying about opening the fridge and getting the groceries out to make dinner. First day had come and gone.

Sachi let her call ring in speaker mode as she started cutting vegetables.

“Hey sweetie! How was your first day?” Her mother’s voice rang through the kitchen and attached room.

“Hi mom. It was something. Mostly what you’d expect from a first day. Didn’t have orientation, instead our homeroom teacher took us to have a quirk apprehension test first thing in the morning.”

“Oh, that sounds fun. What’s bothering you about that, daughter o’mine?” Trust her mother to know something just from the tone of her voice. Sachi sighed.

“Don’t like him. Condescending, unwashed, unfair.” She chopped the mushrooms with more force than was maybe necessary. “He was really unhelpful, singled out a couple of people and was a butt that threatened to expel us just because he could.”

“Made that much of a bad first impression, did he?” Sachi winced.

That was a common refrain in her talks with her mother. She had, apparently, the bad habit of sticking to her first impressions of people for a very long time. Particularly if they weren’t good first impressions. It had earned her a couple of bad relationships for no big reason back home. “I know, I know. I’ll reserve judgment as best as I can.” Not that she thought she was going to change her mind drastically about her homeroom teacher.

“That’s all I ask. Now, tell me about your classmates? Did they make a good first impression?” She teased.

“I don’t know everybody yet, but I met a girl that was next to me in the entrance exam? Her name is Jiro, we exchanged numbers.”

So far, she’d only gotten Jiro’s number, but it seemed like they could be good friends. Jito had an expansive music knowledge, played several instruments, had awesome fashion, and she had thumbed-up the rainbow flag sticker on Sachi’s phone case. Succeeded by the comment that she also really wanted Yaoyorozu’s number. Every girl had actually gotten each other’s number, because Ashido, the pink girl, had been enthusiastic about creating a 1A Girls Chat. The girls were nice.

There was an exchange student from China, Hiryu Rin. He’d politely requested their patience and help with his language skills. Yaoyorozu seemed to be on the case.

Aside from that, she had also struck up a pleasant conversation with Tokoyami, whose quirk talked. He’d been interested in her manifestations. Sachi had been tempted to tell him that sometimes, her quirk-bird also talked. They’d exchanged numbers too.

Everybody in their class was probably going to end up in a chat sooner or later, between the social butterflies like Ashido and Kaminari, and the organized students like Yaoyorozu and Shoda.

“Except maybe Todoroki? Turns out we have Endeavor’s son in our class.” Her mother let out a murmur of amazement. “Yeah, but he’s… really distant. An ice-cold ice-boy. Barely spoke a word the whole day and he looked at me funny.”

“Really?”

“Hm…” She drummed her fingers on the flat of the knife. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we both have elemental powers and mine are just… I don’t know, more? Not that he’s weak! He created a mini glacier for the long jump!” He’d been impressive in most tests and his ice was fast and powerful, she could tell. “But, ah, how do I put this, I don’t know about him. I thought he had something to say but when I met his eyes, it turns out what I thought was a mutation mark is really probably a burn scar? Like, on his face.”

“Whoa. That sounds… quite bad. I don’t want to…” To say the obvious thing everybody with a brain would immediately think about the son of the number one pyrokinetic.

“Yeah, hm, that. So it was awkward and I think he’s extra awkward. I can see why too…” Between his distant demeanor and the fact that everybody was trying to avoid staring at Todoroki’s face, nobody had really talked to him that Sachi had seen.

Plus there had been that incident…

Monoma Neito sat behind Midoriya and he had a copy quirk, which was something Sachi had never seen. Then again, she’d never seen a quirk-eraser like their teacher either. Monoma was loud and smug, but during the quirk apprehension test he’d been polite enough to ask people if he could copy their quirk, and between breaks he’d taken to go around asking if anybody’s quirk had serious drawbacks he should know about.

Probably because Midoriya had broken actual bones with his quirk (although, funnily enough, Monoma wouldn't because Midoriya’s was a stockpile type).

Tokoyami, for example, straight up told him Dark shadow could go out of control and he wasn’t sure if it would be safe. Kaminari had warned him that he wasn’t immune to his own voltages and as such could fry himself easily. And Sachi had mentioned her quirk had a big mental component that she also wasn’t sure was safe. She wasn’t exactly comfortable sharing her stars, so she had to think about that too.

Todoroki had almost flipped out. He’d gotten actually aggressive and ordered Monoma to never copy his quirk. The class had basically frozen in anticipation of a fight. It had taken Asui, a frog-quirk girl with a nonchalant courage to tell him to knock it off.

“I really don’t know. Todoroki, I’m really reserving judgment on. It’s only our first day.” But he did seem to have issues. Maybe even subscriptions.

To distract herself from that, she complained about the assignment Aizawa had told her to write up. A complete description and list of everything she could do and the mental effects of her quirk. He didn’t know the amount of work that was going to be. Sachi had begged for another day, since she was going to have the healing assessment anyway. She’d gotten it, reluctantly.

“I’m glad I’m not in 1-B tho. They are really, really loud. We heard explosions several times from their classroom. During lunch, actually, one of them cornered the guy sitting behind me, Midoriya.” Midoriya being the one with superstrength that broke his bones. “Actually, I had to heal him today, he hurt himself during the quirk test. I’m going to have an assessment with Recovery Girl after class tomorrow. Anyway…”

Something had happened during the entrance exam and Iida from 1-B had deemed it necessary to come and apologize to Midoriya. Good for them. Iida took straight-laced and literal-minded to levels she had never seen before. He was also too loud for her.

Then, tomorrow, they were going to have their first Fundamentals of Heroics class. Taught by All Might of all people.

After some more conversation about her settling in, she bid goodbye to her parents. Perhaps she should start on that list.

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_.·´¯✧¯`·._​

As the sun sets, stars become visible one by one.

Does Venus feel alone?​

¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯✧¯`·._.·✧·._.·´¯​

---

Spoiler

i swear i don't hate aizawa or todoroki. but from a teenage perspective who hates commotions and tends to hold grudges, it makes sense.
also wanted to change up the rooster so three people switched with1b, plus mineta got straight up replaced because i don't have the patience

 

[2]
Korina dragged herself out of bed and presented herself at Hephaestus’ door. A rucksack was thrown over her shoulder and she held more than a few rolled up sheets of paper in her free hand.

“I’m here to wake up Hestia and do some division of labor.” She said, and the morning-shift guards smiled widely and bid her to wait a few minutes.

Ten minutes later, a rumpled-looking goddess of the hearth was at the door. Regardless, she was smiling widely and tackle-hugged Korina. “You’re here!” The mortal patted her head, and she didn’t even complain. “So, what are we going to do today?” Pick out weapons, train, shop... whatever gods did while their children went to the dungeon?

Korina passed her the sheets for Hestia to read. The goddess frowned, read it again, checked the sheets behind, paled and re-checked everything. Pleading eyes met Korina’s. “No.” Said the mortal, and Hestia urk-ed.

The first sheet was a list of objectives and instructions, helpfully titled ‘Familia Chores, Day 1, Hestia’. The very first one was: Find out what gods do. The instructions made for Hestia to do a list of gods she knew (minimum of ten), then find and interview them about what activities made up a familia head’s purview. Hephaestus, Hermes and Takemikazuchi were cited as possibilities. A note was added to, before the accorded meet-up at the end of the day, to request available statistics from the Guild about those interviewed. Other chores included scoping out food and lodging prices, research about places, services, and other preparations.

The following sheets were empty tables for Hestia to fill in.

“What about–?” Korina held up a single sheet titled ‘Familia Chores, Day 1, Korina’ and sank the goddess’ argument before it had finished leaving port. “Nggn– My child is too well-organized.”

She allowed herself a rueful smile. “I’m a really lazy person, but I like lists and tables. They’re great tools to get things done.” She patted Hestia’s shoulder. “I believe in you.”

Hestia pouted. Using a god’s intuition against them like that wasn’t fair. “What about your status? You’ve marked it for ‘after-dungeon’.”

“I want to get stuff taken care of at the guild as fast as possible, so I can try out everything at the dungeon today.” A shrug. “Actually, small correction there,” she leaned over to point at Hestia’s chore list, “that should be the first thing, ‘cuz it should be fast and I need to know this afternoon. Oh, and don’t forget to ask for a pencil. I don’t have any extras.”

“Okay, okay! Stop– stop mothering me, I’m the goddess!” A small goddess comically flailed against her mortal follower’s prodding. Finally disentangling herself from a smiling weretigress, Hesetia regained a more serious demeanor. “And Korina… be careful and return to me.”

An honest smile was her response, a wave before the adventurer departed.

***
The first thing a new adventurer had to do was to register at the Guild. She’d been at the Pantheon before, where she’d gotten her list of craftsmen’s familias. In the morning, all adventurers going or gone to the Dungeon, traffic wasn’t horrible.

The single sheet, made out of nicer parchment than the paper she’d procured for herself, was fairly simple. Perhaps strangely, there were very few required fields. Even things like personal history were optional. Nevertheless, Korina filled it as well as she could. There was no information there that could hurt her.

The employee that received her form took a quick look, appeared minutely interested and walked to the back to talk with his colleagues. There were only a couple of things that could have bothered him. The fact that she mentioned she’d been raised by humans, or her preferences about an advisor, where she’d been perhaps too blunt. Or perhaps her age? It seemed petty, but who knew.

After a while, a different employee returned to the counter, a half-elf wearing glasses. “Excuse me, Korina from Hestia familia? Right, my name is Eina Tulle. As of today, I will be serving as your adviser.” She looked serious and competent enough and that was what she’d requested.

The second step for a brand new adventurer was orientation, in a word. In an established familia, senior members would take care of it. Alone, Korina was necessarily going to rely on the Guild. As such, she’d requested somebody with good and in-depth theoretical knowledge. Besides, above all, discretion. Tulle did not disappoint. Step by step, they went through the process of determining what was necessary for her.

The foremost thing that Korina lacked was knowledge. Tulle immediately set out to correct that and found a sharp student. The weretigress had mentioned she had education in several areas, including mathematics and other sciences. It wasn’t common for natural philosophers to become adventurers, but it also wasn’t unheard of. Usually, mages did the reverse, gaining magic and then deepening their knowledge in several areas. Her advisor, Korina learned, was classically educated, and the conversation between tutor and tutored flowed well. As she was only going to try out her abilities in the dungeon today, she needed only to know about the first floor. Her willingness to give some information on her status had impressed upon the advisor the requirement for discretion and a relative sense of confidence in her chances.

Before leaving to pick up some proper equipment, Korina had a question. “One last thing. Would it be correct to assume that the dungeon is more dangerous on the ascension than when going down?”

The half-elf blinked. “Well, to some extent. The dungeon isn’t naturally more dangerous or hostile to returning adventurers. However, adventurers on their path back are inevitably weaker than when they descended, which makes for easy targets.” A grimace covered her features. “There’s also the psychological state of the adventurers to consider. It’s unfortunately common for adventurers, even more experienced adventurers, to dismiss the dangers when climbing up, or to rush back up without proper precautions. Such mistakes are very well fatal.” She was

“I see. Thank you very much.” Korina’s skill Wound, beneath its flowery wording and according to Hestia’s best interpretation, consisted of raising her attributes so long as she was progressing in the dungeon. It did not, however, apply to the travel back to the surface.

Really, it was a bit of a horrible skill. It distorted Korina’s perception of her own strength and facilitated overarching and entrapment.

***
The Dungeon really was just a hole in the ground. A hole with stairs, but just a hole. It was slightly past lunchtime and Korina found herself descending into the underground labyrinth for the first time. She wasn’t anxious, but caution had her on her backfoot and sticking to the plan.

The Guild did provide fresh adventurers with equipment. It was a loan, and the quality was basic, but it was better than going in what amounted to nothing. Taking into account her magic, Korina had chosen primarily armor. A chestplate to protect her vitals, vambraces and greaves. The armor for the upper body was medium, not too heavy but not light. She’d opted to take light armor greaves, making it a mismatched set.

As for weapons, a simple longsword was enough. She wasn’t going to go with anything she didn’t have experience with, so it was either a blade or a staff.

The first floor started with a wide hallway where most rookies, Korina now included, did most of the hunting. As expected, there were quite a few adventurers. If there really wasn’t a spot she could pick and take as her own, Tulle had advised to find the first branching corridors and to keep to their entrances. So she did, and soon enough, found herself confronting a goblin.

What was it like, fighting a monster for the first time? It wasn’t easy. It had been much like her experiences in martial arts tournaments. A deceptively short fight with a strong opponent. Her only edge was the sword. It was a decisive edge. Unlike a bare-handed fight, she had the advantage in reach. And unlike a tournament fight, every blow that connected permanently degraded the goblin’s ability to fight, namely, its health.

The goblin was fatally injured when she interposed her blade between her body and itself. When she managed to push it off, a blow to the head had cracked it open. One last strike had killed it dead. Regardless, it had managed to leave several scratches on her, including one too close to her eyes for comfort.

“Well, it will get easier as I update the status.” She hoped she could feel some significant gains, and had to remind herself not to get her hopes up.

She reran Eina Tulle’s words in her head, checked her surroundings, and knelt down to figure out exactly the magic stone was in the corpse. Considering it was the size of a fingernail, not the easiest of tasks. Financially also not encouraging.

Then it was time for magic. She opened the map of the first floor, the only which the Guild provided free of charge, checked her position well, and plotted her course. A certain person would be quite angry if she knew, but privacy was required. On the way, of course, she encountered two more monsters. Unwilling to deviate from her route and plans, she dispatched them with sword alone.

The shorter the chant of a spell, the less focus it required on the build-up phase. Korina’s spells were all chantless. That is to say, their activation required only their trigger words. The magic would then just happen. Korina had the feeling that it was possible to build-up magic power, focusing the mind that would be used. Those tests could wait. As soon as the first crack appeared in the wall, she activated the first spell.

Celeritas was the simplest, a straight up enhancement. A red glow washed over her and her arm tattoo lit up. She was on the kobold with incredible ease, and her blow crashed through it with strength she should not possess. It was hard to gauge but– the dungeon was not stopping there.

She turned in time to see a kobold drop to the ground, and in time to feel the aura run out. Short. That had been too short. On to the next then.

Pabulum did not improve her combat capabilities, but it would heal her. Provided, she cursed as the kobold scored a hit on her upper arm, she damaged the enemy enough. Green lit up her shoulder. The feeling of her cuts closing was nearly distracting. More evenly matched, she had to recast the spell during battle. By the time she was done, she knew the trigger words were easy enough to call out even during battle, and all her wounds were gone. The only evidence was the dried blood on her skin and clothes.

Now Mortalitas… the dangerous one.

When two goblins appeared behind her, she waited until they were in range and cast the black aura, an ever-consuming darkness marking her forearm. She launched a wide sweep to keep them at bay, the tip of her sword just grazing the charging goblin’s skin, and they turned to ashes before her eyes.

The very touch of death itself.

A feeling of weakness hit her, and she doubled over to combat the sudden dizziness. A headache installed itself between her eyes. In her shaking hands, the sword cracked, then the part of the blade closest to the tip broke off before her disbelieving eyes. She examined the broken tip and the edges. The sword had cracks and weaknesses running throughout, like it had aged and battled years in mere moments. Hurriedly, she took off her right bracer and examined her skin, but nothing had happened to her.

Unfortunately, it still left her with a broken sword in the middle of the dungeon.

***
A goddess stood on top of a desk, defiantly holding a leatherbound notebook out of the reach of her one and only follower. She had to, since she was so short.

“Fine, I promise I’ll take potions next time.” Really, there was no need. Korina knew the importance of potions.

“Magic potions too!” Insisted Hestia.

“Get a job first, o’ goddess mine.” Korina shot back.

Critical hit. Hestia deflated. She’d spent most of her day running around town talking to other gods. Despite being mostly a recluse back in heaven, she did like talking to people and had a lot of acquaintances and friendly relations. She’d even done a smart thing and copied her child by getting a list of familias in the city and their homes first. She’d been productive! She’d also gotten a good look at how hard it could be to prosper in the mortal realm.

Takemikazuhi worked at a food stall of all places. And he had several children!

Hestia had one. That was it. No capital, no assets, no reputation. Just one follower. Hephaestus’ friendship was her one asset, but Korina had been dead certain that she was stretching how far it could go. Really, two months was nothing, right?

Anyway, Hestia had done most of her chores, filled most of her tables, gotten Hephaestus to agree to help her out with a few specifics (see leatherbound notebook as evidence), all of it in time to meet her child… and nearly faint at her state.

Korina wasn’t very injured. Thanks to her magic, it amounted to nothing but scratches. Which meant that she’d been more seriously injured! Somehow, she’d broken her sword, so she had to resort to fistcuffs. The weretiger in question wasn’t bothered, but Hestia very much was!

Korina sat down with the notebook and started by separating three columns on the second sheet. The first sheet was reserved for subject, dating and signatures. It was accounting time.

“The spells worked like we thought they would.” She related as she prepared several pages of Hestia familia’s first Ledger. “Red was much shorter than expected, but quite powerful. White was a bit longer. I think both of those will rise with my abilities. When I was coming back, they were weaker and shorter. We were also right about my skill. Now Black…”

She paused to scratch her chin with the quill, thinking. Hestia kept to herself how she was staining her skin, repressing a chuckle.

“First, Black works as advised. It works so well that not even magic stones were left.”

Hestia frowned. “But then, you can’t use it.”

“It’s the ultimate fall-back, but otherwise… unless I figure out how to control that?” She scratched her ears. “No sense in using it. Oh, and it does have another drawback. It works on some sort of post-activation cost? It consumed my mind only after it had killed the goblins, and the cost is much, much greater than Red or White. Red is cheapest, by the way. I get the distinct feeling that cost might be proportional to the monster? Again, too little data.”

“Such a bothersome spell.” Hestia echoed her thoughts.

“It really is a last ditch spell. It also has another drawback.” The goddess sputtered at yet another negative. “The effect is so powerful it corrodes the weapon it is channeled through. Some sort of entropy effect aged my sword to the point it became fragile.”

“That was how you broke it!?” Hestia gasped. “But then!”

“It doesn’t affect me.” Korina assured her. Or else she wouldn’t have returned from the dungeon at all. “But it’s something to take into account.” She still had half a sword, but even that wasn’t in the best conditions.

“How are you going to go into the dungeon without a sword? You can’t fight with your bare hands!”

Korina averted her eyes. “Well, actually…”

“Kora, no!” Kora, yes.

“Hear me out!” She raised her hands placatingly. “For one, my training is mostly in hand-to-hand combat. I know how to use a sword, but just the basics. I’m fairly sure there are other adventurers that specialize in weaponless combat. And it will be just temporarily, until we have enough money to buy me another sword.” And pay back the one she’d broken.

“I don’t like it. No.”

But Korina was stubborn too. She’d gotten the measure of the first floor’s monsters and she was confident about her capabilities against them. With her magic, if she was more cautious than ambitious, she could handle it. And she still did have half a sword!

Unable to dissuade her, Hestia claimed her lap for herself in protest. Instead, they went over what the goddess had found out during the day. Things like where it was possible to train outside the dungeon, job offers for Hestia or even for herself, cheapest rents, how nice the marketplace had been…

Finally, Korina presented her gains of the day. She’d killed little under ten monsters to get an astonishing +110 vals. It made for a nice little contrast against the starting amount, the pitiful +25 vals she still had from her own savings, and the absolutely horrendous -8250 vals of her armor and -6000 vals thrown away into her sword. They both stared at the ledger, surrounded by the comparative luxury of Hephaestus’ guest room.

“If we only eat the plainest potato puffs, we have enough money to feed us for three quarters of a day.”

---

Spoiler

i considered a guild oc. didn't feel like it. plans to make a martial arts adventurer foiled by practicality. maybe.

 

[3]
Getting established in Orario wasn’t easy. It was one of the richest cities in the world, and prices reflected that. There were no slums in Orario, because the city's architecture didn’t support that. Construction just outside the walls was forbidden for security reasons; beyond, several familias had claimed the closest terrains.

There was Daedalus Street. It would take more trouble than it was worth to clean up.

Hephaestus had known this, but evidently Hestia had not. And then she'd spent two entire months metaphorically drunk on the pleasures of the children's world. She sighed. Just thinking about it ticked her off. Luckily for Hestia, a child had been nearly dropped into her lap. A mortal with much less compunctions about kicking Hestia out of her comfortable nest, and canny enough to keep her occupied while she spent the day in the dungeon. Also a crazy enough mortal that one of her own had reported catching her strangling a goblin to death because she'd broken her sword.

She knocked on the door of the guest room.

"Coming!" Hestia opened the door and blue eyes sparkled at her. "Hephaestus!"

"Hey, I came to check how you were doing." In truth, Hestia gave her daily updates. Despite finally being tired after a long day at work, she was still full of energy and enthusiasm about her follower and her progress. About what she’d done that day,what she’d discovered, how Korina had gotten a drop item, about how it was unfair that she’d gotten scolded… Hephaestus had to give it to the weretiger. She was a professional Hestia wrangler.

"Lady Hephaestus." Said weretiger rose to bow from where she’d been sitting at the desk. The forgemaster's eyes immediately cataloged the damage and use of the mediocre armor she wore. It corroborated the idea she had of her fighting style. "We've been well."

"Indeed?"

"Advancement has been steady, but I understand it will start getting harder soon enough."

"Don’t get discouraged yet." She told her, but her read on the mortal didn't indicate she would. "What about the familia, how is that going?"

Hestia winced and Korina scowled. A guilty silence pressed the goddess' lips together. The mortal ended up answering. "Well, everything is out of our range if we wanted to buy, aside from some properties that are so down run it would be impossible to get rid of later on. We were aiming to rent a small place that wasn't in the worst neighborhoods while I'm stuck on the first three floors, but somebody…" Hestia attempted to magically disappear from the room in vain. "...spent the money we'd saved for the down deposit on overpriced premium copies of street stall food."

Hephaestus had heard about that. The adventurer had truly lost her temper and ended up leaving before she’d even gotten her status updated. According to rumor, of course. Hestia had locked herself in her room.

The weretigress' tail was swishing angrily. "So we can't even afford to move out into a shitty single room apartment in a dark alley. Apologies for my language."

"No, no, I understand." Hephaestus waved it off. She did.

"I said I was sorry!" "And I said I'd be mad about it until you learned your lesson, my goddess!"

What a pair the two made.

The red-haired goddess cleared her throat, breaking up the brewing argument. "So, what are your plans now?" She wanted to hear them before she made her proposal.

Korina rubbed the bridge of her nose. Hestia had clambered over her and now sat on her legs. “Rebuild our tiny a– little cushion, there’s not much more that can be done. I was planning on having, well, we need our own place before we can take the next steps. If my little goddess could get a job, it would be great, but I’m not very optimistic.” One would not wonder why.

“What about that thing we just talked about?” Hestia interjected. “You thought it would be a safe way to gain more money and experience, right?”

Her child blinked at her, then shot Hephaestus a look and shook her head rapidly. “What, no? I mean, it was just a thought! We’re already imposing far too much–”

Hestia took her turn, laying a hand over her mouth to quieten her. A quiet conversation was had just by facial expressions, and Korina lost, slumping her shoulders with a mild frown. But she offered no comment when Hestia jumped off her lap and faced Hephaestus. Her face was serious. It was the first time Hephaestus had seen the mortal submit to her goddess, although it had to have happened before. It was the third time she’d seen Hestia serious in the mortal world, and all of them had been in the past week.

“Hephaestus, I have a proposal. Although,” here she allowed herself to smile a bit ruefully, “it’s really more of a request. Would any of your level 1 parties be willing to take Korina on as a supporter?”

Hephaestus' visible eye widened minutely. Now, that was a proposal, not just between friends, but between two goddess with familias who acknowledged each other.

“Korina’s great! She learns super quick, I swear and she has, huh, can I? Right, she even has a support spell, so she can help your children, so…” Hephaestus was barely listening to her friend’s badly structured sales pitch, examining her instead.

Hestia really was changing a bit, was she not? Bit by tiny bit, and a mortal had to be the one to drag her along, but the mortal world was leaving its mark. This dizzying, fast-paced, powerless life; this was what the divine had left their cozy, boring heaven to experience. Hestia was only at the start of her own journey. Many trials still awaited her, for better or worse. How nostalgic.

But Hephaestus had her own familia to think about too. Even granting some slack to Hestia, would Korina be, perhaps not of benefit but not a burden, to any of her children? She hadn’t taken any new level 1s recently. Not any that hadn’t been integrated in existing parties already. Her level 1 parties, if she recalled correctly, all journeyed down to the middle floors regularly. They wouldn’t want to slow down for potentially weeks for an adventurer from another familia. And the people she had who worked solo, or even in pairs… Well, those rare few were closer to Tsubaki in terms of strength. The less said about her captain, the better. She thought about all the blessings she had, counting them deep within herself.

Well, actually… she remembered one in particular. That problem child of hers, would he do? Was Korina even appropriate for him? She eyed the exhausted-looking woman. She was a shrewd one, but was she greedy? Hephaestus’ intuition was nowhere as good as Hestia’s, not for people, so she didn’t know. This child, who’d chosen a goddess with nothing— after asking if she was a good person.

“Maybe. Maybe I do.” She found herself saying. “Korina, have you met Welf Crozzo yet?”

No recognition. “I don’t think so? What do they look like?”

Hephaestus smiled. “No matter then, I’ll introduce you. After that, it’ll be up to you to convince him to form a party.” The goddess acknowledged the mortal’s low bow with a dismissive wave. “But, on that topic, I also have a proposal for you…”

***
“It’s… it’s…” Hestia was trying really hard not to spit in Hephaestus generosity but…

“It’s perfect!” Korina chuffed (chuffed!) at the dump Hephaestus had given them.

Hephaestus familia also possessed some properties that it couldn’t sell without lowering their price beyond reasonable because they were too damaged and run down. One would think that a property like that would be exactly what Hestia and Korina were avoiding. The correction would be, they were avoiding properties within their price range that were that damaged. And that price range had always been painfully low. This was far beyond their price range, even in its state.

It was an old, abandoned temple with roots dating back to pre-Babel times, although the current building was much more recent. Decay, compounded by recent urban fighting damage in the last twenty years, made it unlivable and unfit for restoration that didn’t involve razing it down. Nevertheless, it was a big property, theoretically three floors high, with enough garden and backyard space to pitch several war tents. That was just before Hephaestus had revealed the building had served as a safe-house during more troubled times. A secret passageway behind the altar led down to an insulated basement, where smiths in-hiding could rest and wait without worries. It was even furnished, with second-hand furniture, and had the basic magic stone appliances, outdated but functioning.

Hephaestus had agreed to sell it to Hestia familia at a very generous discount, with no interest, and leaving them to pay at their own pace. Truth be told, Korina had started getting nauseous at the original terms, and demanded that everybody sit down to work out a payment schedule.

Hestia just had no clue of how much this meant. Or she didn’t, until concrete numbers started getting thrown around. By then, she was seriously considering getting a job after all.

“So you like it?” The forge goddess’ voice came from behind them. She wasn’t alone; a tall young man, with similarly coloured hair and lugging a box under his arm, walked beside her.

“It’s almost too much.” Korina bowed at the waist lower than she ever had. “I cannot express how great this favor is, Lady Hephaestus. I swear we will repay it.”

“Yeah, anything you need, Heaphaestus, don’t hesitate to ask!” Hestia pipped up.

“I’m glad. Now, I won’t have a lazy goddess living in my best guest room.” Hephaestus laughed. “Now before anything else, how about a housewarming gift?”

The man strode forward at her cue and extended the box towards Korina. “Hey, here.” “Thanks.” “Careful, it’s heavy.” “I– oof, whoa!”

The box wasn’t heavy, it was borderline impossible to hold. The smith had to be much stronger than Korina. She carefully put it down, more for the benefit of her back than the box, and opened the lid. Packed in straw were several things that made her jaw drop.

In a pouch, a set of woodcarving tools. A few brushes. A measuring tape. A Hephaestus mentioned these were from those of her children that she had a good relationship with. From the guards she had greeted every day, to those with a soft-spot for Hestia. They were the most basic of basics, old, obsolete tools, or so cheap as to be inconsequential for them. For Korina, a poor novice, they were worth their weight in gold.

Most of the box was occupied by the anvil. A hunk of wrought iron without enchantments, it was functionally useless for anybody in her familia. Hephaestus had been honestly surprised there was one in storage, considering how she provided top-class workshops for all of her followers. Korina was almost crying at the sight of it. She ran her hands over it, ooh-ing and aah-ing.

Hestia leaned over with a mystified frown. Was that a purr?

Hephaestus was satisfied with how the weretigress’ eyes were already darting between her new tools and the closest tree. The smith goddess reveled in the sight of a craftsman in their environment, even if it was one with training in an assortment of areas only adjacent to hers.

She stood with ears twitching in happiness. “I owe everybody many thanks.”

“I’ll pass them on.” Hephaestus presented the human that had come with her. “Now about that other subject. This is Welf Crozzo, he said he’s willing to hear you out. Hestia,” she motioned to the other goddess, “let’s leave the children to talk for a bit.”

Human and weretiger stared at each other for a moment. Although visibly younger than her, he was about a whole hand taller and surely much stronger. “So you want to be my supporter?” He started.

“I proposed as much. Hephaestus familia is one of the few my goddess is in good standing with, aside from a few kibbles regarding her attitude. I cannot do much offensively, but I believe even pure supporter services would benefit a solo adventurer like you. To be honest, our familia is in dire need of money.” She explained. “Even splitting things seven-to-three, eight-to-two, I will make more money than adventuring solo. I’m fairly sure you can’t find supporters with those rates. I can’t say this would be a long-term arrangement, nor every time. You’re a smith, and I have plans regarding my own craft as well. But– well, yeah.”

“Well, you really thought this through. Korina right?” She nodded, as straightforward as the rest of her speech. “I appreciate the honesty, so I’ll be honest too. It’s true that a supporter would be great, but you’ve only received your blessing a week ago. I can't take you past the sixth. I’d have to be protecting you all the time and even… Killer Ants are the worst.”

Korina fought not to wince. “That’s fair. How about I tell you my capabilities and then you decide? Also, if you ever need to farm materials around the fifth or sixth, I can do that.”

Welf scratched his head. “Okay. Sure. I could do that. Tell me what you can do then.”

“I’ve been down to the third, but only to see what it looks like. I’m familiar with all monsters down to the sixth. I can fight with swords or staff, but I’m trained in hand-to-hand. That’s how I’ve been fighting. Also,” she exhaled, “I obviously trust this doesn’t go beyond us, but I have magic.” Welf tilted his head, now interested. “Super short chant magic that can boost speed and power, and another that has healing properties. And I have one ability at H rank.”

“Wait, should you even be telling me all of this?”

“Aside from the magic, it’s all going to change rapidly.” She shrugged. “I’m only a week old adventurer, my abilities still have a way to go before they start plateauing.”

“Ah true, I forgot what it was like to be young.” He joked.

“I’m thirty years old.” Korina mentioned.

Welf choked. “Thirty!? Who starts adventuring at thirty?” He eyed her. “You did that on purpose. Eh. Those are some good points… How about, cast your magic on me so I can feel what it's like and then I’ll decide.”

Korina checked their surroundings. “Of course. Ready?” The smith assumed a ready position. She narrowed her eyes in concentration. She’d tested it with Hestia before, her runes treated whoever they were cast on as the user, but it took extra focus to change it from Korina to another, and more even if there wasn’t physical combat. She could do it, tho. “Celeritas.”

A red light washed over Welf, who opened and closed a fist. Frowning, he tested a few punches, hands moving at a blur through the air. When it faded, he smiled widely. “I can move faster with this too, right? It’s not long, but there’s a real increase. How much does it cost you to cast?”

“Not much at all. I can fire off a dozen without needing to rest, but then I need at least five, ten minutes if I don’t want to risk a mind down.” She waved a hand in a so-so manner. “I’d say my maximum, to exhaustion, casting back-to-back limit is around the high twenties. My other spell works much the same, but instead of making you stronger it makes your attacks vampiric.”

Welf had listened to her explanation, but then said. “That sounds ridiculously useful honestly. But just one thing, that wasn’t a super short chant, that was…”

“It was a suuuper short chant magic, Mr. Welf. Absolutely. You must not have heard the first part.”

“Ahah! I like your style.” She had more spunk than her demeanor would suggest. “I agree then. Let’s party up from time to time.”

They shook on it.

---

Code:

Strength ...I.33 Endurance ...I.53 Dexterity ...I.26 Agility ...I.22 Magic ...H.101

---

Spoiler

the old church is absolutely my favorite place. looking forward for a convo about magic swords being derailed at the very second sentences because of semantics. can't quite tell if i got welf right. his voice is weird, i keep mixing it up with loki's.

 

Red Haired Red Dragon Heir​

Unlike Sona Sitri, Rias Gremory was a girl who followed her gut. It wasn’t just part of her personality, however much she tried to deny it. The true power of the Gremory blood was a razor-sharp instinct, a peculiar ability to sense opportunities that more often than not led to a Gremory being the first to capitalize on them. There was no better example than how Rias herself had gained her Knight.

The old church across town had been bothering Rias for weeks now, and it had only gotten worse the longer time went on.

It was no secret to the two devil heirs that fallen angels had taken residence there, although for how long they didn’t know. It rankled that they could have been in their town for months undetected. It particularly galled Rias that she couldn’t prove for sure that they were behind the death of Hyoudou Issei. The boy had been found stabbed to death in an alley near his home, much to his family’s heartbreak. The police had deemed it a mugging gone wrong, but the humans didn’t know that Hyoudou had been a potential Sacred Gear holder. One that Rias had been in the process of approaching. It was too much of a coincidence, but they had no proof and Rias hadn’t wanted to start a skirmish just then.

That had changed when Koneko had been hurt. Almost a month after the Hyoudou murder, her Rook had been ambushed at the house of a contractor. A rogue exorcist, Freed Selzen, a man skilled enough to take down her Rook single-handedly, had killed the contractor and laid in wait. Only the devil’s own luck had saved Koneko. The other rogue with Freed had actually protected and attempted to heal Koneko, dropping the barrier isolating them and allowing Rias and her peerage to come to Koneko’s rescue. They had retreated that night only because her Rook needed them to.

Rias had been more than ready to charge the church and teach the Grigori why no one was allowed to even touch a single hair on her peerage’s heads, but once again it wasn’t to be. The very same night, Freed Selzen’s head had been delivered to Kuoh Academy by a hypnotized courier, and the rest of his body was found strung up at the same house where he’d nearly killed Koneko. It was distasteful, but the message was clear. Selzen’s actions hadn’t been condoned and the fallen angels took responsibility. It was almost an apology, if fallen angels knew how to apologize. It didn’t make up for the harm done to her Rook, the contractor they’d lost or the rest of his family, similarly butchered, but it had stayed Rias’ hand.

Suffice to say, there wouldn’t be a next time. If she even saw one black feather out of place, she and the fallen were going to have… words.

And so, a week had passed, then a second one. And on the last day of that week, on a night where the old church and the fallen that had made it their base wouldn’t leave her mind, she heeded her gut feelings and sent her familiar to peek in on them. Only for their bond to cut off after a burst of surprise and panic, as something killed her bat. Her own familiar, slain just like that-

The line had been crossed.

But…

“My, oh my… This wasn’t what I was expecting.” Akeno vocalized her thoughts perfectly, standing next to her in front of the old church. Despite her airy words, her brow was furrowed in worry. It looked like they were going to have to be less worried about the fallen angels and more for them.

The church was a wreck. The grand wooden doors had been busted open, a feat that seemed somewhat redundant with all the gaping holes through the stone walls, and from where they were standing, the roof appeared to have partially collapsed. Some of the stones were partially melted, others cut so cleanly it could only have been magic. The smell of dust, smoke and blood permeated the air. All holy protections that had lingered past Heaven’s abandonment of this place had been stripped away, leaving nothing but a very recent ruin.

“This was an attack.” Kiba unsheathed one of his swords, eyes scanning the shadowed trees of the church’s grounds.

“And Carmilla must have stumbled upon it. It can’t have been more than thirty minutes.” Rias bit her lip and revised her expectations. Whoever or whatever had done this had been strong, and fast. “Let’s go. We need answers. Be careful, the enemy might still be around.”

Her peerage assented as one. They approached as a group, meeting only silence and desolation. The doors had crushed one unfortunate exorcist, by the look of his clothes, and splinters the size of spears had impaled two others further inside the nave. More bodies were strewn around amidst broken pews and other furniture, and these showed clear signs of battle. The high windows opposite the entrance were completely done in, letting moonlight inside, and the high roof had indeed collapsed, scattering tiles everywhere and blocking half the aisles. But the centerpiece was the remains of the altar, now tipping into a large, dark hole. The chancel had partially collapsed into a sinkhole, caving into whatever basements and hidden passages the church had possessed.

“Twelve.” Akeno roughly tallied the corpses. It was a worrisome number to find in the middle of a devil-controlled town, more so considering there had to be even more bodies buried in the rubble.

Ahead of them, Kiba leapt into the air and manifested his wings as the floor groaned under him, landing back next to them. The sound of shifting debris under their feet echoed around them. “The whole building is unstable. I’m not sure how long we can stay here.”

“Well, we were already going to have to send a cleaning crew…” Rias muttered to herself before eyeing her peerage. One tough Rook, one swift Knight and her Queen. “Koneko, do you think you can check out the lower levels? Koneko?” The Rook, who had been frowning heavily at the corpses, startled, then nodded. “Good. Kiba, the perimeter.” Akeno stepped behind her without any prompting. “Be careful and remain in contact.”

Kiba and Koneko departed in opposite directions, him flying up while the Rook gently glided into the hole by the altar. Rias reexamined the layout of the church’s ground-floor. The fallen would have used the underground levels, but with the number of exorcists present, they probably had to house some of them above ground. Koneko would notice anything too egregious below, and if the building held until she was done Rias herself would be taking a second look. In the meanwhile, this church, like any other, must have a number of side rooms for storage, meetings, preparations, and even lodging and cooking.

She floated around one of the broken ceiling beams turned columns, finding that it had knocked down portions of the walls and went in. The destruction was less prominent in these spaces, but not the bloodbath. Every room had signs of prolonged occupation, months at least of exorcists and fallen living here. Every single one of them was dead. Some had perished immediately, but most had fought and died standing, guts and blood painting the walls. Those that had tried running had been skewered through their backs.

“This was a complete massacre.” Akeno whispered, disgust tainting her usually composed tone. A heavy frown had settled on her face, something that likely was mirrored in Rias’ own.

“Yes, but who did it? And why?” Only devils would be this aggressive towards fallen, but then why would this be so hidden while in their territory? If a devil had known about the fallen and wanted to intervene, they should have contacted her or Sona. And if it hadn’t been the work of her race, then who would be this strong, bold and aggressive?

“It’s only been humans so far…” The Queen noted carefully. “Maybe whoever it was wanted the fallen?”

Rias stopped, squinting. A single shaft of moonlight caught her attention, coming through a hole that had once been a door, wood, bricks and tiles blocking most of it. She approached it, peeking around the obstruction. “Maybe not.” Through the destroyed doorway, she saw what looked like the tip of a black wing. The May breeze shifted some of the plaster dust on the ground, sending a single black feather fluttering. “I think we just found one of our missing fallen.”

Unfortunately, it seemed they were too late. The fallen angel had been pinned to the ground like a butterfly. She’d been thrown down with enough force to crack the ground, maybe through the roof itself, before the ceiling had collapsed. The smaller debris covered her legs, one wing, and mixed with a large amount of blood. The roof’s support beans had come crashing down like giant spears, one of them traversing her abdomen through and through. Besides that, the body showed clear signs of the fight, bruises and cuts, and her left arm had been severed clean off and laid in its own small puddle of blood a few feet away.

Rias kneeled carefully next to the body. She looked a lot like Akeno, eerily so even. Older, of somewhat more western features, but their shared race was evident. Maybe… She shook that thought away, wincing at what Akeno would do to her if she even suspected she had been thinking of it. Rias sighed and leaned forward to check if the fallen had any pockets and saw the fabric of her shirt move. She blinked. It couldn’t be. She put her hand against the body’s still warm lips, and felt a weak, rattling breath.

“Akeno!” She called over her shoulder, hands flitting over the many wounds of the survivor. “She’s still alive!”

Akeno kneeled next to her, eyes wide. “How?”

“I don’t know but…” Rias hissed. Devil magic couldn’t heal fallen angels. Few things could, and this one was barely clinging to life as it was.

“There is nothing we can do.” Her Queen put a hand on her shoulder, urging her back.

Rias clenched her fists by her sides. Unlike what might have been expected of a devil like her, she felt no particular joy at watching the death of a fallen angel, even one that had caused her and her peerage some trouble. That it was a slow, painful and inevitable death didn’t help at all. Much to the contrary. This whole affair just felt like such a waste. There was nothing to be gained, no information, no closure, nothing.

“Unless...” She mused, noticing only after her voice echoed that it had been said out loud. There was one thing that could be done.

Akeno realized what she meant after a moment of stupefied silence. Then she shot to her feet, uncharacteristically raising her voice at her King. “Rias! You can’t be thinking…” Her voice cracked. “One of them?”

The inflection she put on that last word wasn’t lost on Rias. She cringed, then firmed her expression. She looked over her shoulder, meeting Akeno’s eyes. Her Queen glared back, then caught herself and averted her gaze. Her posture stiffened, and she politely excused herself to keep an eye on the surroundings while Rias was ‘occupied’. Rias sighed but held onto her convictions. She knew this fallen was important, she was the key to understanding what had happened here. She had a very good feeling about her too, one that solidified the more she thought about it. This fallen was a survivor, and her heritage alone would make her good piece. Rias would make sure she became a valued part of her household. There was no reason to feel guilty.

Akeno was only ever that cold when she was genuinely angry.

Perhaps that was why she summoned a pawn piece first.

However, the evil piece didn’t react properly to the fallen. The ritual’s power nosedived after a rapid build-up. One pawn wasn’t enough. She summoned another. But two pawns didn’t work either, so she brought out her remaining knight, then the rook after the same reaction. Rias hesitated. She wasn’t a weak King by any measure, yet this two-winged fallen was worth more than five of her pawns. Maybe there was some sort of mistake? Nobody had ever reincarnated a pureblood fallen angel, but theoretically it should be possible… Could it be that this fallen was unexpectedly powerful? She was still alive, stubbornly breathing on despite several fatal injuries. A frisson of excitement ran down her spine. Had she gotten incredibly lucky?

She set aside her pieces, deciding to trust the ritual to use whatever pieces were necessary.

She rose from her crouch and summoned her power, only for a rattling cough to break the dead silence of the church. Under her, the fallen angel’s eyes struggled to open. Purple eyes looked past the devil, pupils uneven. “A-a. A-zi-a.” She twitched, but no greater movements were possible.

Rias dropped down and pushed the fallen back down as gently as possible. “Stop. You’re too hurt.” Dying really.

Her voice reached the concussed angel, because purple eyes focused on her with an unnerving intensity for somebody with one foot and a half in the grave. Suddenly a force pulled on her collar and Rias barely had time to catch herself with her knees before she fell onto the angel. The fallen’s remaining hand had shot up and pulled her down with a strength she shouldn’t still possess. Now nose to nose, the fallen’s purple eyes flared with purpose, chasing away the shadow of death. “Asi-a. De-vil. Where?”

Rias kept her composure. She recognized the name. Asia, the rogue exorcist that had saved Koneko and yet another unanswered question. And the answer to all of them was dying in front of her. “I don’t know.” She told her truthfully. Rather than let the fallen respond, she went straight for the kill with her proposal. “Do you want to live?”

“Li-ve? I’m al-ready dead.” The fallen spat then paused, uncertainty twisting her face. She looked left, then down. “Ah.” Rias opened her mouth and the fallen pulled on her collar again. Her fist was trembling with exertion now, and her eyes had changed. The raging fire that had dominated her became a hateful simmer. “Ne-ver.” Fingers lost their strength and her arm fell down the rubble, freeing Rias.

The devil frowned and caught her hand. “Don’t give up. I can save you.” Rias ran different options in her head, looking for the right thing to say. She obviously didn’t want to become a devil, but Rias was certain there was a way to convince the fallen angel. Everybody had a price, something they wanted, a wish, a desire…

“You’re… strong.” The fallen looked almost through her, wholly unaware and uncaring of Rias’ mental struggle. “Do you want… to be stron-ger?”

“Eh?” Was she… turning the negotiation… on its head?

The hand in hers started gripping back. “Do you want to be stronger?” The fallen rasped, blood spilling from her lips. At every word, her voice grew steadier, the gravelly tone of abused vocal chords deepening until it flanged, the low subvocals resonating within the devil’s ribcage. “Do you want power? Do you want to stop grieving at your impotency? Do you want to laugh at those you envy? Do you want to sink them to the very depths of the Abyss, to burn the flesh of their bones and dance over their skulls? Do you want to rise up as the true King? Do you wish for the Power of Domination?”

“Yes.”

Rias blinked. Her lips were parted, but she hadn’t ordered them to move. Her heart thrummed in her ears, blocking all other sounds. A force like a vice had her left hand captured.

[TRANSFER]

The last thing she saw were the blazing green eyes of the fallen angel.

Then her soul was on fire.



I Hope You Last Longer Than The Last One I Had Good Hopes For It Too The Dragon Said But How Could She Focus On That Everything Was Fire Everywhere Burning And Hurting Her It Was Unstoppable Consuming Her Defenses Until There Were Only Ashes And Smoke And They Were Alive They Had Names They Had Died Too Soon She Choked On Them Black Lungs And Teary Eyes Not A Promising Start Really The Dragon Sighed Without Control It Is Just Going To Get Itself Killed Shame She Could See Them Feel Them And Oh She Was Next

She

Was

Next

---

Spoiler

Wrote this in 2020, can't remember where exactly I was going with it, but probably just to the Rating Game since my interest in HDxD plot wanes heavily after that.
Ghost Issei and Ghost Raynare were going to be a thing, the metaphorical angel and devil on Rias' shoulders. Raynare herself was already suffering from mental contamination due to the way she acquired the BG.

 

#4#​

THE BIG QUESTION WAS: did Bang want to be a Hero?

He felt like it was a pretty big question to ask of an eight-year old. It was a big question even if said eight-year old sort of remembered his past life.

His parents had wanted him to be a hero. Like any kid, Bang had wanted to be a hero. Superpowers, saving the day, who wouldn’t? Being essentially discarded because of his quirk had left a sour tinge on the whole concept.

Maybe another kid would jump at the opportunity to have his parents return to heap praise upon him and pay him attention. Bang didn’t want fake sentiment or a mother that existed to be his trainer and show him off, always mentioning how it was her experience as a former hero that had done this or that. He just wanted to rub their faces in.

“See here? I am awesome and you were wrong!”

So maybe Bang did want to be a hero, even if his reasons were petty.

His past cousins had always told him he could afford to be more petty. He’d always thought they were like that because their life was much worse than his. Now, himself saddled with a bad home-life, Bang understood. There was a part of him that was always angry or jumpy or sad, and martial arts and swimming had been what helped him keep it content.

Now it was time to grab that feeling and use it.

THE NEXT SUNRISE, Bang used the time he could have been swimming to start on his new goal.

He paused. He scratched out the title he’d given the blank sheet in front of him. He penciled in a new title.

Actually, his first goal was to figure out how to hide his quirk. Going hero or not, he didn’t want people to know about his weird past-life-influenced quirk. This was his first priority.

He tapped the paper with his pencil. Hiding his quirk… he’d have to quit the sports that he needed for his own well-being. And who knew what new ability he’d get next birthday anyway? He jotted down: check all possible abilities.

It would be best if he could just turn it off. There wasn't any reason he couldn't, in theory. It was an emitter-type that wasn't connected to any mutation, but quirks could get weird. He wrote down a reminder to do some research on quirks.

Really, he should have experimented with his quirk before. He just… didn’t like the associations he had with it and thus saw no point.

So what did Bang’s quirk do? Well… it got him minor powers.The abilities. And, apparently, it treated him like a pokemon in terms of mechanics, maybe. It also had a handy manual of sorts.

The rules were: he got a new ability every birthday. And: sometimes he just randomly got a new ability for no discernible reason. Finally: his abilities were always on.

That made sense. Pokemon abilities were always on too.

It was just the opposite of what he needed. Bang banged his head against his desk.

No. He couldn’t give up now. How did abilities work exactly? If his mental database didn’t have a clue, he’d try meditating. That always seemed to work for other reincarnated-into-another-world people.

Pokemon could only have one ability (two in the dungeon games) at a time. But Bang had six. Something didn’t add up there.

Unfortunately, the only thing he could think of doing was meditating. He wasn’t confident, but he made himself comfortable in his bed and started a breathing exercise.

When he finally did grab a mental hold of his quirk, it felt a lot less organic than quirks probably should. He could feel his abilities there, almost visualize them. The immediate image was marbles of different colors. Starting with the easiest one, the one he knew the best and had been the most useful to him in years, he turned his focus to Soundproof.

Could he grab it? Yes? It was slippery. It wanted to return with the others or…

Slot itself right on the forefront of Bang’s mind.

Bang’s anime eyes snapped open. He had one ability slot. How did that work, when his abilities were still all there, working? No, he had to focus.

It was almost nostalgic. There’d been a time when Bang had only had a single ability.

At that point, Bang sat up, turned around and yelled quietly into his pillow. When he’d been a smaller kid, he’d been able to activate Soundproof. Which meant he could also deactivate it. He’d only done it once because he disliked people yelling at him and giving him a migraine. So he’d forgotten about that tiny little detail.

The good: Bang had control over his abilities, including turning them off, when they were in the slot.

The bad: Bang was certifiably an idiot and his consciousness was never going to let him forget it.

The ugly: Bang had no excuse to not be a hero now.

---

Spoiler

the reason is he gets one per 1k words. teehee.

 

#5#​

AN HOUR LATER, Bang had a nice little list of his abilities and what they did. He’d only had to turn off Mummy. Everything else was okay. Unfortunately, they were also really passive abilities that having better control over them wasn’t a game changer.

He could finetune Soundproof to block out more or less sound, which wasn’t… useless? But it didn’t boost his hearing in any way.

He did have a few ideas for Overgrow. Two, specifically. Leaf Blade and Grass Whistle looked like maybe they could be emulated. But then he’d also have to get his life to a third of his healthy self. Really not ideal.

He hoped the next abilities he got would be more directly useful. Trace, Intimidate, Flame Body, Iron Fist…

Perhaps he should focus on testing out Mummy. He was still just speculating about its effects. Bang wondered if he could bribe pre-schoolers to use their quirk on him.

SAKURA GOT HER QUIRK AT THREE, fulfilling Bang’s expectations.

Kinetic Field was a great quirk, of course. Sakura had a forcefield surrounding her body, just two or so inches away from her skin, with which she could control movement. She’d first used it to float just an inch away from the floor. Bang suspected she’d actually first used it to seal her lips shut when she didn’t want to eat gross carrots.

Blasphemy. Carrots were the best root.

Anyway, she was doomed. Poor kid. Akihira was already brainstorming how to turn the quirk to combat. Fairly simple: like a one-inch punch, Sakura would be able to impart kinetic energy to her movements. The field included her body at all times. And the way quirks worked, it was nearly certain that Sakura’s field could grow in size and in capacity for energy as she aged and trained.

Bang? Bang was ten. He had nine quirks and none of them were good.

Klutz was horrible. Bang had deactivated it at once and never touched it again. He couldn’t use items. Well, items wouldn’t have any effects. So his clothes stayed on! They just stopped protecting him from… everything.

Multitype belonged to Arceus! It needed Plates. Bang had no plates. Bang couldn't create plates. Oh, he’d tried.

Now Unnerve… eh. Bang had used it once or twice to intimidate people during lunch.

He had managed to go fifty-percent hikikomori towards his parents. Unnerve a meal here, a meal there… His parents were already letting him not attend ‘family’ meals when he spouted homework bullshit. Now they didn’t even try.

Bang ate leftovers.

He was fine.

He could finally see the end of primary school. Just this year and the next. Five years left before he had to apply for a hero school. Five chances in over two-hundred to get a usable ability.

THIRTY OF MARCH: four chances left.

He didn’t know why he was panicking. Sure, Justified was once again a very situational buffing ability. But not getting into hero high school wasn’t the end. The weird government body that regulated hero work didn’t impose an upper age limit to getting a hero license.

Bang was still biting his pillow to death.

He needed to figure out how he got abilities away from his birthday. He stumbled to his desk and his meager, pathetic notebook on abilities. It was an upgrade from loose sheets.

New abilities had no real rime or reason. He only had a sample size of three. Close to his birthday? Stress? Connected to his sister? Those were his guesses.

It was his birthday. And he was stressed.

Time to do something drastic. Something that had an impact. If he was older, he’d go get an underage tattoo. Maybe he could pierce his ears. Except he had no money. He was eleven, he couldn’t even hold a part-time job.

Well, there were apple slices somewhere in the house. Needles. Alcohol. Did his mother have old earrings she didn’t use? Not like she would bother to look in his direction. Also, scissors and a razor.

Bang was going Punk.

Was it punk to quit always through piercing your ears? Was punk even the right word? Whatever, single-earring was a style he liked. And the hair had gone much better, because he’d lowered his expectations and only went for artfully shaving the side of his head.

Things that did not happen after Punk Bang was a thing: No immediate new abilities. No screaming matches about how he was ruining the family image. No punishments for stealing jewelry. No parental unit action because there was no parental unit interaction.

Things that did happen after Punk Bang: Vacation ended and school started. People told him his hair looked cool. The senseis at the club and dojo sighed and reminded him to keep his ear taped up.

Bang was going to keep the look. When he finally became old enough to get a job for himself, or if he managed to get remuneration for odd jobs here or there, he was investing in earrings and a good hairdresser.

This was the last year of primary. He was only going to get more independent in middle school. Anything to keep away from his family.

 

#6#​

GRADE SIX was good for Bang.

Science and English classes finally became something other than eye-wateringly dumb. Home Economics finally let them handle blunted sharp tools. There was, finally, a school trip that spanned longer than a single day, even if it was just to a neighboring city.

The start of actual independence: Bang could cry.

He was a loner by nature and circumstance. No parents to take him to friends’ houses, being the too smart kid, having a bunch of disconnected activities that ate into his free time. And for his part, it was really hard to talk to and make meaningful connections with people that weren’t even old enough to be chuuni.

He wouldn’t trade his mental age for the appropriate one. One can only appreciate the easy-going nature of childhood and the lack of responsibilities when one knows how bad adulthood gets. Bang could complain and rant a lot about his neglectful parents and the infantilization he was rightfully subjected to, but at least he wasn’t the one paying taxes.

Natsumi, his designated mother, didn’t even hit him anymore. Okay, she cuffed him over the head if he got in the way. But Bang avoided being in the way. Akihira was a condescending prick that still appeared for all necessary meetings and school functions as if he was an actual parent.

To be clear, he was just saying his shitty parents could be worse. In absolutely no way, none, was he given them any credit. If Bang hadn’t been a weird reincarnator person, he’d be a mess of a child.

‘Fuck You, Also Smiley Face’ was still the general sentiment.

THE CLOCK APPROACHED MIDNIGHT ON THE SECOND TO LAST DAY OF MARCH, Bang anxiously twiddling his thumbs. He was about to be twelve, leaving him with only three chances. Three years of middle school that would start the next week.

The moment came. He’d never been awake for it. For a moment, everything blacked out, fuzzy with static.

“Ah.” Bang grinned savagely. “Fuck. Yes yes yes… I can work with that.”

Two abilities had appeared. Merciless was another extremely situational power, but Ice Scales…

Slotting the new ability as his active one, Bang watched as he made tiny scales of ice appear over his arms. They were almost transparent, but the low light made it look like they sparkled. He ran his hands over them.

Cold.

Ice Scales would half damage from special moves, effectively providing a defense against most emitter quirks. Along with Mummy and Technician, Bang now had enough to feel like he had a chance.

It was also a quirk with visual effects. Unnerve made him look more intimidating, but it didn’t change him.

He got up and opened his ability notebook. Quickly, a new page with Merciless joined most of the pages in his notebook. Name and a basic description. For Ice Scales, he also started marking down ideas for quirk training.

Bang could work the active ability a bit like it was a quirk. He’d tried it out with Unnerve and Mimicry. Ice Scales was much more straightforward. It actually had a physical manifestation and he didn’t have to be throwing darts in the dark at an extra small target. While drunk.

Increasing the scales’s toughness, size, their temperature, the speed at which they appeared, maybe even forming layers! Bang had a lot of ideas. If he could make even half of these work, he’d be fighting capable for sure. He could even work with this underwater! The community pool only had one swimming fanatic and an older pair at the hours he went there.

He couldn’t sleep. His time had finally come. He had a fucking quirk! Fuck Yeah!

Who needed sleep? School wasn’t in until next week. He sat down to work through the night.

 

#7#​

IT WAS SUMMER and time had never passed so quickly for a chuuni-looking second-lifer.

Too many people had the pool, because it was summer, so Bang went for morning runs instead. He had to look kinda crazy, running in full winter gear, but it was good training. And he wasn’t in any risk of overheating. A thousand glimmering ice scales covered him from head to toe.

Morale boosted, his training had gotten results.

He would be taking his black belt in judo this year. He’d made brown in karate. He was in great shape for a child. His grades were still unfair to other children without a past life.

Ability-wise, Ice Scales had gotten the most improvement. He’d discovered it was not reptile or even fish scales but, like the bug pokemon the ability originally belonged to: insect scales. If there was a way to make them bigger, he hadn’t found one. They could get tougher, he hypothesized, like a real scientist! But the real value of training laid in making them colder and layering them. Give him a bit of time and he would have functional and flexible ice armor.

He’d gotten some Mummy training in… if he wanted to lie to himself. Some weekends he walked the long way to a hangout spot far away from his area and picked a fight. Punk life.

The real training had been in translating more and more pokemon moves into a fighting style. He had Pound, Tackle, Fury Attack, Mega Punch, Mega Kick… Headbutt… and he was working on Glare and Bide. Technician even worked with a few of those.

Huffing and puffing, he focussed on melting his scales as entered his street. The water was going to melt and make him look extra sweaty. Of course, the elevator was broken, so he was going to have to climb the stairs. All four floors of them.

“Why do I do this to myself? Oh yeah, I hate them and I’m paranoid.” He muttered as he took off the cap plastered to his hair and stuffed it in a pocket. Ice gone, he was in danger of overheating now.

He opened the door to the house, unbuttoned the stupid fleece jacket and looked up to see Sakura staring at him.

Okay. That was new.

Bang and Sakura did not interact. That wasn’t a thing.

“Sakura. Where’s mother?

“Mother” and she used a more familiar term than Bang’s own impersonal and formal speech “is getting ready to leave.”

He blinked. The landlords didn’t usually vary from their schedule. It was why he felt safe enough going for a run or a swim at this time. Natsumi took her to her own swim lessons at a better place.

Most times seeing Sakura repeat his steps felt surreal. Then sometimes, he’d catch her crying in the bathroom while Natsumi scolded her, or he saw a bruise from training, and he just dissociated. It was that or murder.

“Uh.” Bang said. “Where are you going?” Because Natsumi went nowhere without Sakura if she couldn’t help it.

And Sakura, because she was five, brightened. “We’re going to see schools!”

“Makes sense.” He sighed. He’d gotten not-that-shitty public education. But Sakura was going to get the elite private school experience. It was a particularly shitty thing to do to a kid, damaging their upbringing to give their more talented sibling more chances. “See ya little sister.” He patted her hair carefully, since he didn’t want to get scolded for ruining her hairstyle, and left to wait until he was alone in the house.

Good thing Bang wasn’t exactly a kid.

---

Spoiler

Sakura uses Okaa-san, Bang uses Haha.

 

This thing is now on AO3. should i link in the index? i should probably link in the index.​

---

​

#8#​

CHRISTMAS TIME was not family time in Japan. It certainly wasn’t for the Chikara family.

Wow, Bang’s family name really was just ‘POWER’. It sucked. Major cringe. How did every teacher not bust a gut every time they had to do roll call? Was it all the other kids and adults running around with chuuni names? Best Jeaninst was a respected adult jean-person, that reflected on society. Was it because they knew Bang’s family?

Well, nothing like knowing it will be possible to put that hypothesis to the test, because the Chikaras were moving!

“Wait what.” Bang had not been informed of that. Now he was just expected to pack his bags, well expected to start on the packing, so that they could move in March? He’d been in a good mood and everything, having gotten a new ability like it was the universe’s own little christmas gift. (Sturdy was the usual: ok.)

Oooh, Sakura’s going to a good school in another city, so Bang’s going to have to uproot his entire life just like that.

He bit his lip and pointedly did not tell her to get fucked.

ANGRY PEOPLE AT NIGHT make bad decisions. Like drinking. Bang had done the college party scene for a semester before turning around due to, surprise, flunking all the things.

However, Bang was currently twelve and a half, and neither Akihira nor Natsumi kept alcohol in the house. So what did a young teenager with issues and no supervision do?

He took up vigilantism.

Now, that seemed like an overreaction and a terrible idea. It was both. He was aware, he just didn’t care.

Tere were, however, other, good reasons… semi-good reasons for Bang to be stupid. For one, Bang was sure this would help him get more abilities. Major stuff happening to or around him usually resulted in new abilities popping up either the day before or the day after. For another, if there was a time to take up illegal activities, then nothing better than when an escape route was already being prepared. Finally, he stopped being a protected minor under the eyes of the law in three months.

Kids under thirteen couldn’t be criminally charged. He knew, he’d checked.

So really, it was the perfect vigilantism window. He just had to go around in weirder parts of town, patrolling, in hopes of catching criminals and thugs in action.

The weirder parts of town being, as far as he knew, the bars and pachinko parlors that were open most of the night. Alcohol and as much gambling as you could reasonably find in Japan, a recipe for probable trouble. Of course, Bang had no money, so he had to resort to lurking as invisibly as possible in an alley.

Squatted atop a dumpster, reading a book. From the school library. Cuz Bang had no phone. Cuz his parents were shit.

Just as he was, for the eleventh or twelveth time in the last hour, wondering why there was no crime, a skinny dude got shoved into the alley.

 

#9#​

BANG LOOKED AT HIS WATCH: TEN AT NIGHT. Okay, that wasn’t that late.

That explained the highschool bullies pushing their victim further into the alley. One of them swayed. The underage drunk assholes that were probably partying western-style since it was almost january. Bang felt a twinge of second-hand embarrassment, a faded memory of vomiting when the other him had been that age.

Well, he’d never been a bully, so he wasn’t going to feel bad about what came next.

The dudes were trying to get their victim to drop his pants, and Bang didn’t know if it was going to be humiliation or something else but he didn’t like it. “Okay, whoa! That’s heading into sexual assault! Back off, kids.”

Three bleary, and one teary, pairs of eyes turned to the medium-sized figure standing on top of the dumpster. Bang hadn’t had time, and he plain didn’t possess the resources, to make himself a costume. He had a plain and faded dark red hoodie, so dark that it was approaching rust brown in true coloring, a knit cap around the same color and his good sneakers, unfortunately white. White-ish brown by now. The only thing that could have marked him as a vigilante were his black leggings. They were so close to the skin that his scales formed both under and over them. They glittered.

Or they would have, if the alley had any sort of illumination.

Bang wasn’t sure they could even see his mask. Which was an old bandanna with holes, which itself had been an old t-shirt. And ice. If Endeavor could cover his face with flames, Bang could do the same with patchy looking ice.

Yes, he knew that sounded bad, but it looked somewhat cool, honest!

He jumped down and calmly walked towards them, hands out and visibly covered in ice. The victim took the moment to scramble back and put Bang between him and the others.

“The fuck, short-ass? You trying to be a hero or something?” The taller, blonde one in front spat down at Bang. He felt it was a bit hypocritical, since bully number, three let’s say, was a heteromorph that made him shorter and rounder.

“Trying? I am a hero, bitch.” He raised his hands into a guard position. “Now scram.”

There was a hesitation in the air. Drunk and young, they had never been confronted with this scenario. Bullies usually folded when confronted with enough resistance. Bang wasn’t sure if it was because of his outfit or because they were drunk, but somewhere in their brains he mustn’t have looked intimidating enough.

“Like hell you’re a hero!” Blondie lunged, a shiny disk in his hand. It went wide as Bang ducked, grabbed his arm and threw him. It was almost too easy. Really, Blondie had thrown himself.

The clatter of the boy hitting the ground made his companions hesitate. Bang grinned. Number Two, looked like he went to the gym, bald, threw his own punch. Bang intercepted the punch, deflecting it upwards. Before he could respond, Band had hooked his leg around his overextended ankle and shoved him.

“Oof.” The bully hit the ground, barely managing to catch himself on his hands and butt. “Wha- How!?” The wood-like armor he’d been forming cracked and started sloughing off as he squirmed.

Parrying an attack still counted as getting hit by a move! Bang crowed in his head. Mummy had activated, turning the ability from a smooth mental marble into a rough mental rock. “Not that brave without your quirk, now are you?”

The boys freaked out and ran. Bang relaxed. Mummy’s effect would fade now that they had fled, but he didn’t think they’d notice for a while, much less come back. Messing with quirks had that effect. He’d never managed to practice with Mummy because of that. With a sigh, he turned to the victim… who was gone.

“... smart kid, I guess?” He looked down at the groaning teenager still sprawled on the ground. “Now how about you…” He hadn’t made him hit his head, right?

Shit, this wasn’t a dojo with nice mats. Bang knelt down next to the bully and checked his head and neck. He did have a bump, and he’d vomited at some point, but that could be just the alcohol. Fortunately, he did have a phone, so Bang did the responsible thing and called 119 because there was an underage idiot with a head injury that was too drunk to seek medical care.

Then he scrambled home himself. Illegal vigilante and all.

 

#10#​

FOR TWO MONTHS, Bang’s birthcity had a new vigilante. For the city, it amounted to nothing. It was just another dude that hung around alleys and broke off fights between thugs. He caught a mugger and an incredibly minor drug dealer. Both of which were never charged.

No hero license, no ability to drop people off at the police station without sharing a cell. Actually, vigilante laws would be harsher if he was of age to be criminally liable.

It wasn’t strictly illegal to make an arrest as a private citizen in Japan, but not for most minor things Bang stopped or intervened in. Scaring off a car thief, keeping drunkards from starting fights or harassing people, … he hadn’t actually stopped the girl spray-painting on the side of a store. It was harmless vandalism, genuine social protest! Bang’s lawfulness walked a very fine line on some topics. But using a quirk in public oh dear! If it wasn’t a genuine case of self-defense, you were fucked.

Well, Bang had just been getting in some practice, not get more angry at Japan’s stupid societal views than he already was. For that alone, the time on the streets had been useful. He’d even received Gale Wings, which made him just the tiniest bit quicker when he had it active.

But March was approaching and the family was leaving the moment classes ended. Bang’s sole school-free week between grades was going to be spent helping with the move.

Natsumi had to take care of getting Sakura all ready for school, and introduce herself to neighbors, and the like… also, flex by moving the heavy furniture into the new place like it weighed nothing. Akihira had to take care of the bills and get the utility contracts running, being moderately useful at least. Bang had to get everything else.

Cleaning the floor and the windows. Moving smaller boxes. Unpacking. Getting everything in the right place, in the right way, at the right time, or there would be hell to pay. Working his back into an early retirement for the sake of a little girl who was going to grow up spoiled and arrogant and never think about her useless older brother for a second.

He counted backwards from ten in his mind. It wasn’t her fault. She was going to have to think about him anyway when he rubbed his hero license in Natsumi’s face anyway.

SUNSET PAINTED THE BUILDINGS IN WARM COLORS, buildings Bang would not see again for several years. He sat atop the slide in the kid park of his neighborhood. He hadn’t spent nearly any time playing here like a normal kid. Even when he had been the golden goose in the making, it was swimming and training and getting ahead in his studies.

Bang had no friends his age. None. He was too surly and too busy. Teachers always complained to Akihira about his lack of social connections and grace.

Well, there was the Judo Club, but activities often clashed with Karate. And Bang had prioritized the dojo and its all-ages environment over the school club. At least, both the club and the people at the dojo had thrown him farewell parties.

Which was more parties than he’d been to in… literal years. “Wow, that’s depressing.”

Nobody else was really going to notice him transferring out at school. They certainly hadn’t mentioned it to the class today, as they closed out the year. He wasn’t sure the teachers even knew. If the judo advisor did not tell them, would they ever?

It wasn’t like this city was important. But it was more important than the vaguely bigger and more ‘appropriate’ city they were moving into. The prefectural capital and all. Bang had grown up in this city. He had thirteen years of memories here, give or take. He knew these streets and their corners, good and bad, close to home and all the way in the night districts.

He had the buses memorized. The crosswalks. The shortcuts.

He knew which were the good lockers at the pool, the cracks in the pavement on the second street, the orange tabby that lounged on the mailbox of the old lady’s house.

He had more memories here than anything he remembered from his past life. Even if it was just a collection of places, there was more human connection here than he’d ever managed with actual people.

Two years in the prefectural capital. Three years in whichever hero highschool he managed to enter. Then college if he was lucky. Was he ever going to find the time to return and wander these streets again? Be a proper hero this time?

“Cheers! I’ll see you again one day, I promise.” He raised his ramune bottle to the spirit of the city, clinked it on the plastic railing and drank.

 

Warnings for this chapter: An adult get physically abusive towards a child (minor/perceived as a child). There's also an instance of nudity in front of family members that would be culturally ok but that the minor is uncomfortable with due to past neglect and abuse.
There's nothing "on-screen" or graphic, and I will not write such, but the implications are there. I'm going to put a spoiler-ed summary beneath just in case.

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#11#
​

HIS BIRTHDAY STARTED OUT GREAT ACTUALLY. He could now stick a fork in an outlet and live. Volt Absorb was fantastic. It healed him! Keen Eye was cool too, with the way his eyes became raptor-like. And on top of that, it was a sunday, so school was very appropriately going to start on April the first.

Bang did appreciate cosmic coincidences.

He should have remembered 13 was an unlucky number. It started when Natsumi called him out for breakfast.

“Sakura’s school requires her to be accompanied from home-to-school and back by an adult or other family member.” She glared down at him, six foot frame still towering. She didn’t look happy. “Your father and I,” They weren’t actually Bang’s parents, thank you very much. “Are going to be working at that time, so you are going to walk Sakura to school in the mornings.”

Which wasn’t bad… if he was fair about it, most older brothers did that. “Yeah, okay.”

Natsumi scowled. “It’s ‘Yes mother’, have some respect.”

Bang hadn’t had any respect for Natsumi since he was five, and in the years since he’d lost most of the fear he had for an adult who could break him in half. The rest of it was justifiable, in his opinion. Something must have shown on his face, because she only got angrier.

A meaty hand grabbed at his hair and pulled it this way and that. “And what did you do to your hair?” It hurt. “Fuck! Let me go, you bi–” She slapped him. “Watch your mouth!”

“Bang, be quiet.” Akihiro spoke from the sidelines. “That’s no way for a young man to behave.”

He grit his teeth and bit his tongue. He just had to keep his head down. Don’t meet their eyes. Get ignored. Punch them in the dick when they’ve forgotten you exist.

“This won’t do. He doesn’t look at all like a respectable young man. He even” A hand pulled his ear, showing the cheap earring he’d managed to purchase last year, “did this! A disgrace! We’ll look like slobs who can’t raise our children if we let him out on the streets looking like some sort of delinquent.”

The lack of navel-gazing was so complete Bang could scream.

“We can fix that without problems. My electric shaver is–” That was it, Bang couldn’t take it anymore.

It got ugly. He yelled, he got yelled at. Natsumi had super-strength and she was a trained fighter. It was hard to struggle after a hit to the diaphragm, but he did his best.

Bang couldn’t help the tears as the pair of scissors got to work. Entire yellow and black locks fell to the drain of the shower. Natsumi’s hand was as big as a bear’s, holding him by his neck. The buzz of the razor was threatening, set to the minimum as she left nothing but the barest of blond fuzz on his skull. Freezing cold water washed everything away. By then, Bang was too tired to fight.

It wasn’t even nine in the morning. Thirty minutes non-stop of being berated, of being told how much he was hurting his family’s feelings, and their reputation, and how much he owed them, and how bad Natsumi felt that she had let his education slip… It even went into insults about his appearance and his sexuality that he had no idea how she’d gotten there. It became brain-numbing. The anger and frustration and disgust and embarrassment.

“Wash yourself.” She ordered, crossing her arms. “I have to do Sakura’s hair.”

Bitch, he didn’t mumble. Sakura was standing in the corridor. The door had been open the whole time, hadn’t it? She looked scared as Natsumi pulled her into the bathroom. “Are you and Sakura going to let me–?”

“Take a damn shower.” She sat his sister on a stool and started brushing her hair. “What are you talking about, we’re family.”

He was left alone so much in this house he’d almost forgotten this wasn’t abnormal. At least she wasn’t touching him anymore.

What a birthday. He didn’t know what was worse: that they’d forgotten about it in the first place, or if they’d known and decided to do this anyway.

---

Spoiler: summary of part #11

Bang's mother takes issue with his look because he will have to walk his sister to school. This gets physical (hair pulling).
She then shaves him by force, physically restraining him with her super-strength.
After that, she orders him to take a shower while she and his sister are also in the bathroom.
While culturally not shocking/inappropriate for japanese, Bang has showered alone since he was six or seven, and feels discomfort due to habit, but also due to having past-life memories of a different culture and his own hangups about his mental age.
All of this happens during his thirteenth birthday, which none of his parents bothered to remember

 

#12#​

THE NEXT MORNING, Bang didn’t have bruises. Not visible ones. He didn’t bruise easily in the first place.

His anger had gone all the way and cycled back into apathy. It was a trend that should worry him a bit. Instead, he blankly waited for Sakura to put on her shoes. It was a bit crazy to think she was already six years old. That was half his age. She was starting school.

Bang was going to have to think about his sister in more than theoretical terms, if he was walking her to school.

He heaved a long sigh. “Come on, let’s go.”

It was actually still a bit of a walk until the elementary school. Then Bang would have to double back and walk a fair bit more to get to his own school. Well, actually, he would have to run, to avoid being late. Of course, if he was allowed to take Sakura earlier, that wouldn’t be a problem. Sakura had swimming in the mornings. So Bang could be late for all they cared.

“Hm… Big brother?”

He shook himself from bad thoughts. “What is it?”

“What does it feel like to not have hair?”

He almost tripped. He looked at the kid. She was trying not to look at him. “It’s cold. My head. And light, but I’m getting used to it. Even if now I look like a monk.” He’d also lost one of his earrings.

“Ok.” Sakura was pulling at the tips of her ponytail.

Bang blinked and decided to go for it. Maybe he was wrong, but it wouldn’t hurt any of them if he was. “She’s not going to cut your hair, you know?” Wide red eyes met his own. “You’re a girl, and girls are only pretty with long hair. So your hair is safe.”

“Really?” “Top sure kid. … Yes, yes I’m really sure. You don’t see bald heroines on television.”

AFTER HE’D MADE A GOOD IMPRESSION on Sakura’s teachers, looking all like a serious older brother who might be considering Buddism, Bang headed to school. He knew he was scowling heavily. He knew his resting bitch face was legendary.

So was his anger, so it was fine. Fifteen minute walks weren’t enough to process feelings he was still feeling from last night. His stomach was still churning and he felt hot and cold at times. He was going to have a breakdown soon, he recognized the feeling. College had been tough, finding a job had been hellish, and being Chikara Bang was somewhere up there lately.

Perhaps because it was the first day of school, the homeroom teacher didn’t make a fuss. She also didn’t seem very impressed. Bang was just going to love mornings, wasn’t he?

He stood up to introduce himself when prompted to. “My name is Chikara Bang, I just transferred in last week. My Quirk is Soundproof. I practice martial arts and I like swimming. When I grow up,” the irony and bitterness was so much that he deviated from his usual excuse. “I’m going to be a Pro-Hero.”

His declaration rang with more force than he’d expected. He’d never said it out loud.

Then someone sniggered from behind him. Lowly, they whispered something about his quirk. The exact words escaped him.

Bang turned to look over his shoulder, and somewhere in the back of his head he knew he’d lost any and all semblance of a composure. He saw every pore in a girl’s skin as she paled, and he only noticed his teeth were bared when he unclenched them to speak.

“Lo haré o moriré, connasse de puta.”

Nobody understood, but the tone was enough for Bang to be reprimanded. What a fucking auspicious fucking start to a brand new school experience!

---

Spoiler: translation

Lo haré o moriré, connasse de puta = i'll do it or die, [insulting french term also meaning bitch/whore] of a whore.

 

#13#​

THE FIRST FEW DAYS HADN’T BEEN THAT BAD IN THE END. Aside from that little outburst of his. And his general attitude that certainly hadn’t made him any friends.

But Bang was a teacher favorite for a reason. He kept quiet, always delivered everything on time, always knew the answers when he got asked, and had consistently kept his grades in the top three of his year since school had been a thing for him. Unfortunately he was going to be chronically late, but someone had called his family and Akihira had informed them of his need to accompany Sakura.

So his homeroom teacher didn’t like him, but less in a ‘let’s screw Bang even more’ way and more in a ‘I’ll be watching you’ way. He could deal with that. (He couldn’t deal with Stench, who was useful but unfortunately potent, so that had to be shut down.)

Things should have been stabilizing for Bang, but Natsumi had certainly taken the defiance he’d shown seriously. So now Bang was going to eat breakfast with the family. And he was going to get ready at the same time Sakura did. He was even going to the same kickboxing place they would start frequenting.

Not that Bang was complaining about that last point. But having to share time and space with his sister, and their genetic donors, was bad. Worse… were the things he was starting to notice about the way Natsumi raised Sakura, and the attention she paid to him.

Which was why Bang was hoping to all gods that his phone, also a new thing for him, managed to connect to the school’s wifi.

Connection failed. “Fuck!” He’d had this one chance!

The one unsecured network and it wasn’t strong enough. He didn’t have a data plan, Akihira had only gotten him this old brick because it was absolutely necessary. In case something happened with Sakura.

He buried his face in his hands and tried to cycle his breathing.

“Hm, are you okay?” A girl was standing a few feet away. Short, chubby-faced, a small mutation mark on her cheeks, short-haired. He’d seen her around, maybe, who knew.

“I’m fine.” He waved off, but puberty decided his voice had to crack now. Or maybe it was the tears he’d been suppressing for a week. Just his luck, guess he was having his breakdown in front of a girl during lunch break.

She fluttered around awkwardly as he cried and sniffed, sitting down next to him and offering him a tissue as he calmed down. “Oh, it was nothing, you needed it! Are– Are you feeling better?”

“Nothing like a good cry to clean the sinuses. Yeah, thanks.” He’d needed this.

“Hmm, can I help?” Ah, what a good, wholesome kid.

So, Bang wasn’t going to dump on a thirteen year old his problems. He doubted she’d even get, really get the whole: “I’m looking up the law again so that I know what this country considers child abuse and neglect, grooming, and now sexual abuse because I’m being abused and if my little sister isn’t yet it’s just a matter of time. And I have no money. And my only hope of doing private research was this shit of a phone and now I’m back to square zero.” So he didn’t say any of it out loud.

Instead, he said. “It’s been a really long week, we just moved and stuff at home isn’t going great with my parents.” Which was true. “So no, but thanks. You… could distract me from my problems tho! How can I help you?” Flawless delivery.

“Oh, well, I’m Uraraka Ochako from 2-B. I want to be a Pro-Hero in the future too!” She almost sparkled. “Hm, I heard from a friend that you also wanted to be a hero? You’re Chikara-san from 2-C, right?” He nodded. “Oh, good, that would have been embarrassing otherwise. I came to ask what martial arts you did…”

Bang tapped his chin, looking up at the sky. “Well, I did Judo and Karate back in my old town, and I did a bit of Kung Fu when I was in first grade. Here, my parents got me into a Kickboxing place, and I don’t know if I’m going to do anything else yet.”

“Whoa, so much!” A megawatt smile was pointed his way. Holy smokes. “What belts are you?”

“I’m black belt in judo and karate, but only first dan! All that means is that I’ve mastered the basics, it’s not like in movies.”

“Still cool!” She clapped. “Hm, would you mind giving me tips about choosing a martial art for myself? I want to start learning too, but I don’t know where to start…”

Hm, it was hard to tell which build Uraraka would have in the future. She didn’t seem too tall or short, and her weight was also mid-pack at a glance. Also… “Well, first maybe tell me what your quirk is. That can influence your choice a lot if you want to go hero.”

She spread her hands, showing him how the pads of her fingers also exhibited a mutation. They looked a bit like the pads of a cat at the tips of her fingers. “My quirk is Anti-Gravity. I need to touch things with all five fingers and they start to float.”

Bang whistled. “That’s a nice quirk. Five-point contact? Is it automatic?” She shook her head. “Well, regardless then, I think you definitely should look for a grappling art, something with throws. But also something that focuses on striking fast. You touch somebody and they’re yours, but how do I explain, you’re getting in their range to do so… so knowing how to grapple and react when you’re grabbed is essential.”

Uraraka was nodding rapidly. “Teach me sensei!”

“Judo would be good, but if you could find Jiu-jitsu, Aikido… really, any kind of Jujutsu.” He listed. “As for strikes, anything based on punches will do. No Kickboxing or Taekwondo, but otherwise it’ll be up to personal preference.”

“Hm, Judo, Jiu-jutsu and strike arts! Thanks Bang-san.” His schoolmate bowed, smiling all the while. “You’re really good at this. I–”

The bell rang. The kids shared a look, then scrambled back inside.

---

Spoiler

I rolled for 1A character Bang would befriend. I am very happy with the rolls.

 

#14#​

THE NEXT DAY, AND AFTER THAT AND BEYOND, Uraraka returned. She, apparently, liked talking to Bang and spent her lunches with him. She also joined the school’s judo club, of which Bang had nominally become a member. His schedule continued to be packed for the most part, so he was more of a ghost member

So, she probably counted as a friend. Indeed, she went from Uraraka to Ochako.

She wasn’t even bothered by the lack of time Bang had for socializing. Ochako herself had scheduled time to study since, unlike cheating people with past-life memories, she needed to spend some actual time on that. She had also dedicated herself to judo and on top of that she helped out her parents and their business when she could.

Having a phone, finally, completed the friendship circuit. Now Bang could talk to people without being physically present. Beautiful, amazing, revolutionary! And his plan did include unlimited text messages, so he had no compunctions about chatting with Ochako whenever he could.

Chikara Bang had one (1) friend. Applause please.

“Are you coming to the judo summer camp?” Ochako asked after a mouthful of rice.

“Don’t think so.” He bit into his own poor bread. Saving money required sacrifices. “Mother will probably want me home.” Still not over his rebellion, he thought. “Also, here.”

She received the paper bag with a gasp. “Again! Thank you! How do you even manage to find honeycombs like this?” At the rate Bang was giving her honey, her family was starting to share the bounty themselves.

Honey Gather was only activated sometimes, and those were already too much. “I’m lucky and I’m not afraid of bees.”

“Mmmh, but your parents are really strict.” Ochako mused. As the daughter of truly loving parents, she actually had absolutely no clue. “I should invite you over to my house one of these days. You could spend the night!”

Bang blinked. He hadn’t had a sleepover… ever. “I… I’d like that.” He wondered if painting nails were actually a thing people did…

THE BELL RANG AND THE MATCH STARTED.

Kickboxing was useful. Bang dodged, ducked, got in close to trade a jab only to get one to the jaw. With a huff around his mouth guard, he launched a flurry of jabs. Furry Attack hit much stronger than it had a right to, leaving his opponent unprepared for the follow-up kick.

It gave Bang more combat training and a way to vent his feelings on the ring.

He even had the chance to match with Natsumi, even if he always lost.

The big downside was having to participate in Sakura’s training. Natsumi was friends with the owner and had a set of keys to the place.

Bang never hurt his sister. That refusal to hit a six year old hard was also exploited. Natsumi had quickly turned it around into reprimanding Sakura for not doing enough, making Bang into a condescending prick in his sister’s eyes.

That was a theme. Natsumi and Akihira pitting Sakura against Bang.

Bang was the best student in his year. Didn’t seem to matter unless it was to compare with Sakura’s grades.

Bang was a black belt in two martial arts. Irrelevant except as a goal Sakura also had to achieve.

Bang was quiet when Sakura was being too loud. Bang had a delinquent streak when Sakura was being well-behaved. Bang was late, Sakura was on time, Bang was reliable, Sakura needed to work harder, Bang was moody, Sakura was personable, and on and on and on it went.

It turned dealing with Sakura into a landmine field. Usually being nice and attentive was fine. But if she was in a bit of a mood for any reason, probably good reasons, she could take it as condescending or nasty.

He also had to let the kid vent to him when she found the courage. He never let her be physical with him. (She’d tried kicking him once, and he’d had to pin her down and have a good talk with her.) But he got that he was the only person she could safely unload on.

Emotionally, it got draining.

 

#15#​

IT WAS RAINING WHEN HE KNOCKED ON THE DOOR. Damn, it was night-ime. Were they even awake at these hours?

A puzzled Uraraka the Father opened the door. That turned to shock and worry as he took in his daughter’s friend, halfway to soaked. Bang was summarily pulled into the house and bullied into being smothered by a towel.

If he’d had a choice, he wouldn’t have come here. He’d left through the window of his room, taking his old running shoes and setting off after the fight. If it hadn’t started raining, he wouldn’t have come, really.

And now adults, people, that he liked were fussing over him. And he was tearing up.

Okay, Bang was lying to himself. He could have slept on the streets. But he’d wanted… this.

He’d missed this. Parents, actual caring people in a position of authority and responsibility.

He’d just buried his face in Ochako’s pajama clad shoulder when he registered Uraraka Mom saying they had to call his ‘parents’. In hindsight, maybe launching himself into a full dogeza prostration wasn’t the best way to go about it. But it did have the effect of getting everybody to just stop.

And not call Akihira or Natsumi.

But also obligating him to explain why he’d been out on a freezing February night.

“Just… I got into a fight with my parents about grades. I overreacted and yelled and… I ran away. It’s my fault and I’ll go back in the morning before anybody even notices I’m gone. Really, there’s no need.”

Uraraka Dad seemed sympathetic, but, like an adult who actually loved his child, he wasn’t getting the dynamic present. “That’s no reason not to call your parents, Bang. They’ll be worried if they notice you are gone…”

Bang let out a huge, frustrated sigh. “Look, it’s fine now, but if they find out I ran away they’ll hit me and I don’t want that.”

Now alarmed looks were exchanged. Next to him, Ochako was biting her lip. Uraraka Mom leaned forward and, carefully “Bang, darling, what happened? Did your parents hit you?” And that had his friend audibly sucking in a breath.

Oh boy, that was a trap of a question. Bang prayed that japanese propensity to not get involved in other people’s home life would prevail. It was bad enough that he’d shown them this much.

“No, they just… weren’t happy about the grades…”

“But you’re top of the class!” Ochako interrupted.

He deflated. “Not my grades. They weren’t happy with Sakura’s grades. Which is completely unfair!” Everybody at the table knew his little sister went to a private elementary, which had much greater expectations and workloads. “Sakura had great grades anyway, above average. So I said that, and I’ve been stressed with the exams too” lie “so I ended up yelling in my mother’s face” truth “without any reason” lie “and I ended up grounded. That’s it. Nobody hit anybody.”

Natsumi hadn’t hit Bang. She’d hit Sakura for crying.

Then Bang had flipped. And only then did she beat him.

So, to be fair, there had been an amount of violence. But they hadn’t just hit Bang because of his grades. See, he hadn’t lied about that.

“I’ve just been so stressed…” He laid his head on the table so that he couldn’t see their faces. “I’m sorry for bringing my problems into your home.”

After a silent conversation, Uraraka Dad cleared his throat. “Bang… are you sure you really don’t want us to call your parents?” He shook his head. “Okay, okay. Then, just for tonight, I’ll allow it. But! If anything like this happens again, I want you to call us first. Bang, look at me.” He did. “And if there is a next time, I will have to call your parents to let them know you are spending the night over.”

“Thank you.”

 

[4]
It was a simple vegetable stew but it was delicious. A home-cooked meal certainly pertained to the domain of Hestia.

“So what are our plans for tomorrow?” The goddess herself asked as she took care of the plates.

Korina performed her nightly stretches on the floor, body bending forwards and backwards in smooth motions. Hestia had never seen her do it, as this would be the first night they spent together. It was a good feeling, even if their new place was so beneath her expectations.

“I’ll meet up with Welf in two days for a shallow dive, but it’s still the fifth or sixth floor. I’ll spend my morning studying with my advisor. I’ll probably be home late.” She would have to make the most of it on the second and maybe third floors to compensate for lost time. “Ah, I’ll have to set aside some money to buy a supporter backpack. Two-thousand minimum. We’ll also have to start putting aside a percentage for the house payments, hmm…”

Hestia felt the crushing weight of finances as her child started thinking hard. “Please stop thinking about money…”

“No.”

“Korinaaaa…” The short goddess whined. “Just tell me what my chores are for tomorrow!”

The weretigress chanced a look at her from the floor. “Don’t you think it’s unusual, me ordering you around?”

Hestia was silent for a moment, the sound of scrubbing earthenware filing the space. “I do. It’s weird and annoying. Really, just leave me alone sometimes!” She pouted fiercely. “But… I don’t know how to help you at all… And you’re always so worried and so driven…” With the wound within her… What sort of divine was she, to let herself be so affected by the drive of a single mortal who was, by her own words, a lazy one? Also… she really didn't like when Korina was disappointed in her. "And I can do things! I'm proving that to you, aren’t I?"

The adventurer laughed. "Guess you are, my goddess." She smirked. "Slowly."

How mean!

"Well, I think you should get to know the area and who lives around. They'll be our neighbors for a while. Also, if there's anybody dangerous, run. I know you are a divine, but there are always some crazies." Hephaestus wouldn't have gotten Hestia a place in a dangerous zone, but still. "Then, it would really be helpful if you found a way to supplement our income." A part-time job, was what she was saying. "Until I can reliably put food on the table. Then we can think about doing things another way."

Hestia dried her hands and sat down on the ratty old couch. "What about recruiting? You said I could continue when we got a base." And the old temple was a familia base alright.

But the disrepair the temple was in would scare away more people rather than attract them. In Korina's experience, only the desperate would accept Hestia's offer, and not everybody was more or less harmless like Korina. "I will trust your judgment of people's characters, Hestia. We can support another two or three people without having to rethink logistics."

There was one last thing to do before bed then. Korina took a simple branch she had picked from the ground earlier. The carving tools were set in front of her. Just one quick experiment.

First the bark was stripped from it. Then she chose a solid section and whittled it into as good a cylinder shape as she could. The rune was in her mind. She etched it lightly at first, letting inspiration not unlike instincts guide her. There wasn’t a lot of space, and it was just a random branch of an unknown wood. Thoughts for later exploration. Around, she made many patterns as they would fit, to hold the power and diffuse it. Then it was a matter of turning the scratches into marks. Korina’s hands slid a lot, but the end product wasn’t horrible. The twine cord went around the two ends, carved to be better able to tie it around.

She straightened and frowned. Some of her mind had been expended in the making of the bracelet. Perhaps even more than the pithy she used to cast the spell. She turned around to tell Hestia, only to find her asleep on the couch. Korina took a glance at the old clock on the wall. Assuming it was still working well, she’d spent a good hour and such working. It was no wonder she felt sore. Her stretches seemed to have gone to waste.

With a huff, she put away her tools, leaving the bracelet on the table. Then she picked up her goddess and took them both to bed.

***
Eina Tulle dropped several books in front of Korina. She leaned forward and cracked one open to see what it entailed. Diagrams and drawings of monsters, monster parts, dissections; apparent accounts of several explorers and adventurers about those monsters; maps and geological studies… She nodded.

“Thank you. Where should I start?”

The half-elf sighed. The adventurer in front of her was seemingly unflappable. On top of that, there was really no point over which she could criticize her. She had found a party member, and she was a quick study that hadn’t neglected to seek out and inform Eina. “Review the Dungeon Lizard and then move to Frog Shooters. Then, War Shadows. We’ll go over the dungeon layout then… is your partner going to provide maps?”

It was a fair question, since Korina didn’t even have a map of the second floor. “Yes, Welf has his own maps and will lend them to me as we explore.” While it was possible to copy off another adventurer’s map, the Guild provided the best quality maps, down to the resistant parchment and ink they were made of.

“They’re responsible then. Well, I’m not going to ask you to prepare a route, considering that will be up to mister Crozzo, but it never hurts to have an idea of the floor’s layout. Then in the end I just want to go over the seventh floor monsters you might encounter.” Since monsters spawning in one floor would often wander into neighboring floors. “There’s Killer Ants I want to brief you on in particular, but also the start of monsters capable of flight and more exotic fighting like poisoning.”

“Of course.” Korina let Tulle return to her work as she settled down to cram as much information as she could. Besides information compiled by the Guild in a quick and easy to digest format, it was also unspeakably useful to read adventurer’s accounts of their fights against certain monsters. The strategies that worked and potentially fatal mistakes were all there.

There were also all accounts of fighting against irregular monster variants and enhanced species, but today Korina didn’t have time to delve deep into those fascinating stories. As a supporter, what interested her the most were the diagrams of monsters and the location of their stones. That and the drawings and descriptions of drop items for each monster.

Time was quick to pass, and Tulle would often pop in to shoot a pointed question at Korina.

“Well, I’d say you are minimally prepared. I would still not advise going any lower than the six, even with an experienced party member.” Welf Crozzo, at least, had gone solo down to the tenth, a mark of his experience and strength. “You’ve only been an adventurer for little over a week.”

Korina nodded. “Hm. When would you say I could start going down to the seventh and eighth? All the better drops begin there.”

Eina raised an eyebrow. “Alone? Your abilities should average around G at the very least. With your partner… Most if not all of your abilities at H rank, but I would like you to have an ability at G to be safe.”

Korina wasn’t that far from having another ability at H rank. She would also see how partnering up with Welf would impact her growth. Despite not fighting, she would be gaining some excelia from stronger monsters. She tapped her thigh as she thought.

“Is something wrong?” Tulle asked as Korina’s expression remained cloudy.

The weretigress sighed. “Not truly. I’m merely uncertain about something, and I’m not sure I should ask you. I’m not sure it would have been appropriate to ask, even if now it’s a bit too late.”

The advisor tilted her head, puzzled. “Well… I am here to help, not judge. Ask, and then I can give you my opinion about your question, too late or not.”

“Thank you.” Korina graved her with a tired smile. “Well, I wasn’t sure because I didn’t want to offend Lady Hephaestus’ or her hospitality… so I didn’t ask around about Welf. And I know the Guild only gives out publicly available information. But I wanted to know a bit more about him? I do feel like he’s a good person from our meeting, so it’s…quite awkward to ask about it now…”

Then Tulle hesitated. Her elfin ears twitched. “Well… it’s not an unreasonable question at all, but it would be something you’d inform yourself of before, yes… However, if it’s about Welf Crozzo, there’s not a lot of people in Orario who don’t know about it. Or any elf, for that matter…”

Now Korina was curious. “Is it bad?”

“I wouldn’t say so. Actually, maybe it’s better I tell you rather than have you base your assumptions on nasty rumors.” She took a deep breath and started explaining. “The Crozzo family is well-known as a family of smiths from the Rakia Empire, and they were involved with the destruction of several elven forests…” Although the story itself wasn’t long, the history was, and it led all the way to Welf Crozzo, child of Hephaestus.

Korina leaned back. “I see… Well, good thing I didn’t pry.” But ultimately, it didn’t change anything.

***
The second floor had been just like the first, and the third wasn’t much different. The fourth seemed to have a green tint. It was entirely possible it was just in Korina’s head, prompted by her knowledge that the fifth floor had green walls. Her ears were swiveling back and forth.

“You’ve never been this down, right?” Welf said as he noticed her bearing. “Welcome to the fourth floor.”

“Remind me to bring back a rock.” She’d like to compare it to other dungeon rocks.

The way down had been smooth, so far. Welf Crozzo was strong. Goblins and kobolds simply weren’t a great threat to him. Wielding a greatsword, he reaped through the lesser monsters at a speed Korina just wasn’t quite capable of keeping up with. Rather, she did her best to learn his patterns, and how to fight within his range, but not close enough to get in the way.

The whole purpose of this dive was to verify their compatibility as adventurers, and her abilities as a supporter. Hestia had fussed over Korina like she was going to a job interview. Korina herself had prepared herself as well as she could. She carried a new backpack, seemingly overly large, her broken sword in its sheath, a potion she had splurged the last of their savings on, and had taken extra care while wrapping her hands. Even next to Welf, who wore forgemaster’s protective clothes, she knew she looked shabby.

She begged for a moment to check the map before they set off for the fifth floor. That would be the true test of the day.

Welf signaled her as they walked. Three monsters ahead. And, true to his sharper senses, three kobolds awaited them past a bend in the tunnels.

With growling maws, they jumped at them. The smith met them halfway there, cleaving one mid-air and throwing another away with “Do you!?”

“Please leave it!” She stepped up, bringing her hands up.

Welf tripped the last kobold, letting the lupine humanoid stumbled into her reach. Korina was still getting used to the backpack, and had to account for its weight as she threw a straight punch that broke something in its snout. Not letting up. If there was one thing a bare-handed fighting style required, it was to capitalize the most possible from an opening. Her left hand shot out, grabbed the monster by its throat, before her right fist was brutalizing the kobold.

“Tch.” They were tougher at this depth, so it took her more than usual to definitely kill it.

As soon as she was sure, she dropped to the ground, taking her dagger out, and opened its chest. As soon as it was ashes, she moved onto the two Welf had dispatched. No drop items this time.

“What do you think?” Welf asked as they resumed their path.

“I can handle it fine.” Korina reassured him. “Solo, I would have some trouble if I got ganged up on.” She didn’t have to say it, but her offensive power was still lacking. “But if it’s just holding them off, then there’s no problems.”

Alert as she was to every movement, she noticed Welf was side-eyeing her. She looked back at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Okay,” he sighed, “I got to ask. Before we go any lower.”

“Go ahead.” Although she had an idea of what it might be.

“Are you really going to fight without a weapon? What’s that about?” And there was a tone to this voice…

Korina sighed. “I heard Vanargand from Loki familia, Bete Loga, fights without weapons too. And I’m positive he’s not the only one. Why’s it so weird that I stick to my training and strengths and use martial arts?”

He was briefly taken aback. “Well, no…”

“This is about your sordid Crozzo backstory, isn’t it? My advisor told me about it.” She’d rather just cut to the heart of the matter as well. The kid, because Welf wasn’t even eighteen, had understandable hang-ups but those were the last thing they needed in the dungeon.

Welf stopped, eyes narrowed. “Ain’t it? My goddess vouched for you, but all people every want from me are those stupid magic swords.”

His bitter tone stopped her as well, a couple of steps ahead. She turned back with a sigh, shaking her head before meeting his eyes with an impassive, disappointed face. “Kid, I’m gonna burst your bubble… But it’s mighty arrogant of you to think I’d want your magic swords.”

---

Spoiler

why yes i like crafting. also felt like this issue had to come up now, tho it'll reappear later.

 

#16#​

FOR A LONG TIME NOW, Bang had been considering taking one big risk. Telling Ochako about his real power. There wasn’t much time left either. They would start their last year of middle school in just a few days.

If he didn’t tell his friend (his friend!) now, when would he? When they met at UA Highschool’s entrance exams? Ochako and Bang were both aiming for the top. They trained together and everything. He knew her quirk inside and out… but she didn’t know the truth about his power.

The more time passed, the shittier he felt about his big deception. Not that he wanted to reveal his power. He’d have to change it at the quirk registry… later. Once he got emancipated…

Bang’s plans for the future had grown and changed across the years. But they all culminated in roughly ten months.

He wanted to tell Ochako. Wanted to stop holding back with her, both physically and emotionally. He finally had a great combination and a basis for a fighting style! Long Reach would allow him to use Mummy to its maximum extent. Maybe he’d even get to practice Drought.

It was a risk worth taking. Even if he lost their friendship and potentially had to go on the run from his parents and the authorities. He believed in her. He also had a bug out bag hidden nearby and ready to go. But Ochako was good.

He was also going to have to get closer to the truth about his family situation.

Deep breaths.

“Bang! Happy birthday!” His best friend hugged him and suddenly he was floating. All the weight of the world gone from his back.

He laughed. Ochako knew he loved this feeling. He loved this girl. “Thank you!”

Back with both feet on the ground, Bang hesitated before diving head first.

“Ochako. I want to tell you something. It’s… a really big secret. It has to do with my quirk and my family. I… can I tell you and– and you’ll listen to the end? And not tell anybody afterwards?”

His best friend, still holding onto his hands, nodded seriously. The smile that had been on her face had dulled as he spoke. “I promise.” She hit her chest. “Cross my heart. Swallow a thousand needles.”

Bang exhaled. Inhaled. And told her. About his parent’s wishes. About his quirk. About his reasons.

Not everything. Not anything a fourteen year old wouldn’t need to know.

And when they were done, sitting on the empty playground, Ochako made him promise: “Become a hero with me!” So that one day they could both be heroes, unafraid and proud.

It was the easiest promise Bang ever made.

 

[5]
“Arrogant, eh?” A young man flopped lifelessly on his bed. It wasn’t the first time he’d been called such. Arrogant, prideful, stubborn asshole and far worse things. Those that disparaged him as Korina had were usually his familia members, other craftsmen. But it was always about his lack of willingness to, as they said, use his full potential.

The way she had said ‘your’ magic swords wasn’t like elves said it, the only other people he knew wouldn’t take a magic sword from him. There was real hate there. Korina had just sounded annoyed, or maybe vaguely mocking.

“Just a level 1 kid. Look who's talking, she's just a rookie." No matter how old she was, did she have any right to look down on him? She was a craftsman too, and a wannabe at that. He hummed as that thought circled around. Maybe that was why she didn’t want his abilities. There were many smiths in Hephaestus who wouldn’t want to buy magic swords. They wanted to make their own. He supposed that would make her safe enough.

And even if he turned out to be wrong about her later, that didn't mean he couldn’t use her as a supporter until then. He'd almost forgotten how much easier it was to go into the dungeon with somebody else. And Korina was taking less than a hired supporter too.

"Her equipment tho… argh, that bothers me."

***
KORINA Lv.1
Strength I.40…44 Endurance I.62…64 Dexterity I.34…37 Agility I.29…37 Magic H.117…126

"It isn't very different from your usual, twenty-four points in all." The distribution was. Although magic remained one of Korina’s best abilities, endurance had accrued much less points, while agility had shot up. Naturally, since she was only injured the first time she had met a frog's ranged attack, and spent her time dodging rather than meeting monsters head on. Strength and dexterity still gained a few points but Korina had a feeling that wouldn’t last.

"Welf was generous enough to let me kill the last stragglers or solo monsters." As a pure supporter, her job was not to fight, but to keep out of the way and use magic if necessary. "But it was profitable in many ways. And we didn't even go to the sixth floor." That would have been too much for their first team-up.

"When are you partying up again?" Hestia asked as she pulled down her shirt.

"Twice next week. I'll need to get some generic antidotes tho. Welf thinks that we could tip our toes on the seventh after all." That would increase revenue substantially. They'd made a total of a little over six thousand vals, meaning she'd taken home a bit over a thousand. Very good for a short dive and low drop item rates. Korina usually made half as much.

She picked up the familia ledger. Put a third off for short term food expenses, half of what remained into the Hephaestus debt fund, half of that half went for Hestia’s expenses, and she still had… about enough to go to a restaurant. Or she could start paying off her debt to the Guild. Or, she grimaced as she took in the state of her sleeves, she could get a new shirt. At this point, the sleeves just stopped existing past her elbows.

And if she could repurpose the fabric of the old shirt…

Hestia gently knocked the side of her head. “You’re thinking about making items again, aren’t you Kori? You didn’t hear a word I said!”

Korina chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

Hestia bounced on the ratty couch and produced two vials of potion from behind her back. “Ta-da! Home-warming gift from our neighbors! I met Miach and his familia today, they run a pharmacy nearby, and he gave me these for you.”

She blinked, accepting the potions with wide eyes. “He just… gave us these? He didn’t want anything?”

Hestia shook her head. Indeed, she was good at taking a measure of a person's character. Miach would appreciate it if Korina visited the Blue Pharmacy, but this had just been a kind gesture. Hestia had never met him before, but she had the feeling that they would get along quite well. It was also a bit of a shock, seeing a god wearing such humble and ragged clothing. Penia did it, but Penia was her own kind of strange, and Takemikazuchi wore good, practical clothing beneath his uniform.

Well, Korina supposed she could pass by that place. She was going to need antidotes after all. Hestia also had other news. She’d finally tried using that little charm Korina had made.

It had worked. From Hestia’s description of how it had broken, it seemed material really would limit Korina’s craft at the beginning. Unless she could refine her technique… it was a good thing that wood, at least, was a cheap material.

Korina had been selling the few kobold and goblin drops she’d gotten to the Guild. The next time, she should keep one goblin fang and kobold nail to herself. As materials from monsters, their innate magic would undoubtedly be more stable than any kind of ordinary wood.

***
Having enough money to not worry about food for even two days really was a game changer.

The most basic dungeon-rated tunics or shirts started at a thousand vals. Knowing that her current fighting style involved getting in close and taking a few hits, and lacking proper armor, she didn’t bother. After paying off her debt and getting at least some decent gauntlets, she’d think about it.

But it still meant the debts were starting to get paid, and the shadow looming over her shoulders lessened. It was good to return home from a long day and know things were slowly looking up.

The last two days, Hestia had somehow managed to source more branches and twine, old sewing needles, glass bottles and old rusted tools. Well, she’d probably been scrap picking. Korina was so proud. Initiative! Shamelessness! She was even going to try and get a part-time job today.

Korina was taking the day to test out a few things and, in the process, clean the temple’s yard. Huffing and puffing, she carried the anvil up the stairs. Then down the stairs. And back up. Excelia also came from training, said popular wisdom. When she was on the verge of passing out, she left the heavy hunk of metal out in the yard.

She could more or less envision it. A fenced out yard with a smithy on the back, the walls fixed up, a few trees and a small garden for meditation. Perhaps she could build a small out-building on the terrain closer to the street and make a store out of it. The temple itself would need to be heavily rebuilt, the bell-tower turned into a watchtower or observatory, and those were merely her plans for the outside. The inside needed just as much work. Needless to say, the facilities wouldn’t allow for a hygienic environment with more than three or four people. Korina was dreaming big, but how good it felt to have some hope for the future.

The emptiness in her heart seemed less present.

The yard was to be cleaned. First, removing the thorny thicket that had taken residence in the shaded corners. Or, she discovered the small green and red fruits, they could leave the blackberry bushes intact. She followed the stems as much as she could, scratching herself in the process. A fair few did have roots on their side of the terrain. After some consideration, she fenced in that part of the yard with half-rotten pews from the inside of the temple. While Korina was on that task, she separated the usable wood from the useless. The former could be carved, repurposed or even made into firewood, and was stacked on a dry corner. The latter was carried outside and broken, or used as temporary markers.

Morning come and gone, Korina ate a snack and returned to work.

Rubble that could be moved was picked up and used to shore up the property’s outside walls. Perhaps it could be turned into proper stone walls with a bit of mortar, or even without. The problem were the boulder-sized pieces of buildings that had managed to fall within the temple’s yard. They were impossible to move. Or at least, impossible for an adventurer of Korina’s caliber, perhaps even of Welf’s.

Korina wrapped her hand in the remains of her most ruined shirt. Between her fingers and over, winding over and over until her wrists were well supported. In front of a flat rock that had been a wall, once upon a time, she settled into a rigid stance. Low to the ground, she measured the distance with her off hand, letting her arm bend at the elbow.

“Strike without fear. You have known greater pains.” But it was always different to strike knowing the real possibility of pain depended only on your own strength. So she closed her eyes.

She yelled as she launched a punch at full strength, rotating force transmitted from the ground, up to the hips and spiraling down her wrist. Covered knuckles met rock and lost. Korina slumped against the wall, cradling her hand. Pain reverberated up the bones of her arm. Away from the flush of battle, nothing existed to distract the body from the mistake it had made.

Korina took fifteen minutes to rest and regret.

She returned to the rock. One small mouthful of potion had been sacrificed to keep the pain away. What came next likely wouldn’t hurt anyway. She settled into her stance again, half a pace to the side. Her first attack had removed some dirt at the point of contact, but the lowest rank of strength of a low class adventurer was hardly better than a normal soldier’s. In some ways, even worse. Now, she tested her true attack power.

“Celeritas!” The spell rushed through her veins, determination and anger rising in her gut and flashing away as the red aura settled over her. The strike that followed moved an order of magnitude faster and struck with a sharp sound. The stone cracked underneath Korina’s knuckles. She stepped away and examined the spot. The encrusted dirt was gone, and the stone itself had cracks and divots in the shape of her fist. The divots were barely there, but the cracks told a greater story.

The enhancement from Korina’s first spell was nothing to scoff about. Perhaps it meant less to Welf, and high class adventurers likely wouldn’t feel a difference. To a rookie like her, it was the difference between rattling a goblin or killing it in one strike. Unfortunately, Celeritas provided little to no defensive enhancements. Endurance wasn’t her second highest ability for no reason. The aura spell dissipated and the throbbing in her hand returned full force. It was hard to say whether it hurt more or less than before. A strike did more damage for the same impact, but the speed increase also increased the impact.

Another fifteen minute pause was required.

Finally, she had one more thing to try out. “Mortalitas.” Black almost darker than black washed over her. No great force was prepared, for it either worked or did not.

The stone broke like cheap ceramic under Korina’s fist. Great cracks opened, radiating from the point she struck. The entire boulder fell into several pieces, and Korina followed, darkness taking over her vision as her mind went blank. Her insensate form laid on the debris for hours, until Hestia returned home full of cheer, quickly turning to horror.

When Korina woke up, it was to the stone ceiling of their living space underground. She was laying on their one bed. Hestia and Korina rotated their nights between the bed, the couch, and shared in cold nights. A headache pulsed between her eyebrows. As she reached to massage it, she realized her hands had been unwrapped.

“You went into mind-down.” Hestia spoke from the side, sitting on their one chair and looking down at Korina with an expression the weretigress had never quite seen on her. “I was really scared.”

“I apologize. I wasn’t expecting that, but I was training outside of the dungeon for that very reason.” A thought occurred to her. “How did you carry me down here?”

“I didn’t.” Hestia frowned, poked at her arm. “I wasn't sure what happened so I went to Miach, and he had his child carry you down.”

That was the second or third time that god had come up. “Do we owe them anything for this?”

“No! Miach didn’t– Can’t you stop thinking about money for two seconds!” Hestia cried. “I–”

Korina cursed. Hesitating for a moment, Korina took the goddess’ hand. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I was being really insensitive, wasn't I? I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Hestia sniffed. Despite her red-rimmed eyes, she remained a beauty in human eyes. “Well, you did.”

“Shall I buy you a nice meal? A candlelight dinner?” She joked.

“Hmm? That cheapskate child of mine wants to spend money?” Korina was not a cheapskate, she liked quality. “Fine, this miserly child of mine.”

“Let’s do it.” Korina insisted. “Let me take you out for a nice dinner.”

Hestia went very red and stammered, which required Korina to affirm, through her headache, that she did not and would ever be interested in a divine that way. Hestia, for some reason, still hesitated, although it was clear from her demeanor that she really wanted to go out to eat. “I thought we didn’t have money to spend on frivolous activities.”

“I’ll have to dip into our debt-payments, but– I can regain that money later.” She sighed against the dramatic gasp given by Hestia. “If you want to go on a drinking binge” T’was a critical hit. “then you’ll have to use your own money. But the truth is, money’s there to be used sooner or later, and one of them is self-care.” Happiness could be bought. Good food, theater and plays, books and games. And happiness mattered.

Hestia softened, giggling. Her eyes sparkling. “Well, you better take me to a good dinner. You have to make up for scaring me like that!”

***
The Blue Pharmacy was a hole in the wall. It hadn’t always been, from the way the two buildings bordering it, now boarded up or sporting different colors, shared construction elements. It was a storefront that wanted to give out a cheerful feeling in a cramped street, with its blue, hand-painted signage. But the paint was faded and scratched, the glasses were foggy and dark, and so it just looked a little sad.

Korina knocked before entering. At the counter, a dog-woman looked up and greeted her in monotone. The two beast-humans’ eyes met, serious unemotional faces mirroring each other. This one, each thought, is a little bit like me.

“Good afternoon. I came to thank Lord Miach about yesterday and to inquire about antidotes and potions.”

The chientrope nodded, the only sign of interest a slight lifting of one of her ears. “You’re… Lady Hestia’s child. Lord Miach isn’t in right now, but I can pass on the message.”

Korina wondered if this was the one who had carried yesterday, then she remembered Miach was a god with a single adventurer like Hestia. “I’d appreciate it. Also, thank you for yesterday.”

She shrugged. “It wasn’t anything much. Lady Hestia didn’t buy any of our high potions…” Obviously, considering how eye-gouging expensive magic potions were. “About our products. Potions are 500 vals, standard. We have larger sizes available too. Antidotes… for basic poisons found in the upper floors, one standard bottle is 5000. We have a smaller, one-use bottle, for just… 3000 vals.”

Korina was extremely poor. Absolutely everything was out of her price range. Even potions were eating into the money she was supposed to be saving. She looked at the shopkeeper’s lazily wagging tail and mentally apologized.

“I’ll come pick up a standard antidote and two potions in three days…”

---

Spoiler

starting to find their feet after a week and a bit of dungeoning. visible improvement. of course, first week everybody gets gains. then it's a pain. korina will be slowing down in a week, then raising her stats from H up the hard way.

 

[6]
A thought for another day: Mortalitas’ cost was retroactive and based on the target rather than the caster. Killing first floor goblins with that spell could be an efficient way to train her magic.

Today however, Korina wanted money. From equipment she had to buy, antidotes, potions, armor, clothing, soap… to debts she had to pay, to three separate parties and counting… if there was one thing she needed, it was several thousand vals. She descended straight to the third floor, following a path drawn on a map copied from Welf’s. She was tracing a predetermined route, long enough for monsters to spawn and wander into. Of course, other adventurers’ and parties could break that path, so she was ready to adjust her strategies.

Her broken sword rattled in its sheath. Today was about efficiency and endurance, so even a dull blade was useful. Korina’s magic was not vast enough to fight an entire day, not yet. On the third floor, using Celeritas would turn her fists into certain death for several critical seconds. So she made it a point of dragging one or two monsters behind her until she found another small group, gathering up to six goblins or kobolds.

“Celeritas!” The world went red. Korina accelerated, right fist smashing into a monster’s face. On her toes, she side-stepped then hit a moving one-two combo on the next monster. The movement had her do a full half-turn around it, and she took the quick opportunity to refresh her awareness of her foes. It took nary a moment, and then she was running. She’d lost count of Celeritas’ time, but she was familiar enough with it to know she still had just enough. The two kobolds that had been following her threw themselves to meet her, nails first.

Kobolds were larger than goblins, generally slower, attacking mainly with their claws despite having a full muzzle of teeth. The shape of their faces made it necessary to change how she struck. Korina’s first strike went low; she stepped into the first monster’s non-existent guard and twisted her hips to deliver a powerful uppercut. The kobold died with a choked whimper, a smashed lower jaw and broken skull. She skipped back, away from the dead weight, and felt the starting signs her magic was fading.

The second kobold was already charging, having changed its course, both hands raised and ready to grab her. Using the last remnants of her speed, Korina intercepted the attack. Her wrapped hands shot forward, open. They hit the inside of the monster’s arms and she grabbed the muscle and fur just above its elbows. Before the monster could think to use its bite, she snapped a knee up. The magic was gone from her movements. She struck again, harder, then pushed it off. The kobold went wheeling and she followed, tackling it with one arm, the other raising to rain down a flurry of blows until it stopped moving.

She shook herself. Her eyes darted around, checking the walls, the other corpses, but nothing moved.

That last move had been risky, Korina chidded herself, she should have struck with simple strikes. The third floor was no place to try out new techniques or practice fighting, not yet. Already twice today she had been surprised by dungeon lizards, those affectionately named dunzards or more appropriately, newbie killers. Goblins and kobolds didn’t kill new adventurers, provided they weren’t hopeless civilians thrown into the gullet alone. Numbers did, exhaustion did, overconfidence did. But in the first floors, the deadliest monster by itself was the dungeon lizard. It was silent and climbed walls, perfectly positioning itself to strike from where least expected.

Awareness was perhaps the most important skill an adventurer could have, and Korina found herself quickly developing it. Even just that last second thought that something was off was enough to save one’s life. That and Pabulum were what was keeping her upright today.

She counted her findings. A fair amount of crystals, enough that they made tinkling noises against each other rather than her backpack’s fabric, and three lucky drops. She’d snacked on some prepared food several hours ago by now. In between her last task and returning to the surface, it should be just enough.

“Right.” Her tail lashed out in irritation and she futilely tried to make her ears return to a normal, upright position. “Let’s check out the fire.”

From the third floor on, one dungeon feature appeared that might be useful to Korina later on, and that was the pantry. A place where monsters gathered to eat in mass. It was a dangerous place, and going into it was akin to subjecting oneself to an extra large monster parade. But, like extremely dangerous fishes in a barrel, it also meant it was a target rich environment. It wasn’t uncommon for parties with a good enough mage to deliberately seek out pantries in weaker floors and unleash the might of magic for easy enough rewards. Somewhat out of the way, but profitable enough if one could kill monsters en masse.

Korina wasn’t that kind of mage. Her magic was more akin to the kind magic swordsmen used; short, quick, more immediately useful but also more limited. What she was instead was a craftswoman in need of materials. Her practice on wood and bits of ceramic was going steadily, and she believed she could start making her first true magic items out of monster drops. The pantry was worth considering, especially when taking Mortalitas’ little quirks into account.

She approached the pantry’s location cautiously. All she needed was a peek. She would accelerate herself out of danger at the first hint of trouble. She also needed to double back and find ways away from several parties. The corridors around the pantry, already few and distant from the stairs, were popular spots to stick to and wait for monsters to come at you.

Blue-green light seemed to beckon at the end of a corridor. Korina approached on cat’s feet, ears straining. Around the curve of the rock, a massive room stretched out in an oval shape. A pillar of rocky crystal speared it through, leaking a milky liquid like sap and even dungeon plant life appeared in the form of otherworldly flowers and grasses. Monsters flourished there, entire packs of kobolds and bands of goblins, lizards crawling everywhere… and at the corner of her vision, a golden glimmer flit through bunches of vegetation.

A tiny gasp escaped Korina. She was quick to cover her mouth. Still, she couldn’t believe she had seen one of the rarest monsters in the dungeon. A golden Jack Bird.

If only she could kill it… No. It was greed speaking over common sense. Perhaps Celeritas could make her fast enough, but it was already a wild gamble. And with this many monsters around, on a floor for which she had not memorized the floor plan? It was a deadly prospect. Tulle had indeed called the Jack Bird one of the dungeon’s most insidious traps. She watched as the golden bird left through another tunnel as if spooked by her intent.

Still, she thought as she turned her back on the pantry, it was something to remember for later.

***
Hestia had managed to find a part-time job! It was… well, if Takemikazuchi could support his familia by working at a jagamarukun stall selling delicious potato puffs, so could she!

Well, for now she was a trainee, but Hestia was sure to get her own posting soon enough.

And this was fairly embarrassing. Already five children had decided she was just ‘too cute’ and petted her head. Hestia was cute, but she was not that short and, as a goddess, she should not be treated like that! Righteous indignation seemed to do nothing but either get her smiles or be scolded by the manager, so she reigned herself in. Most of the time.

This was for the good of her familia, she reiterated to herself. Once Korina got the hang of adventuring, Hestia could stop and do other, better things, befitting the head of a familia. Of which she had slowly compiled a list. (It had one item: taxes.)

“Twenty plain jagamarukun please.” A beautiful girl asked amidst a quieting of the surroundings. Oh, this one, Hestia knew. Golden hair and golden eyes, suspiciously beautiful, she was one of Loki’s.

Hestia didn’t want to serve any of Loki’s children. But this one… Hestia had a feeling she should. Also, she looked a bit like a puppy and Hestia was weak. Plus, the manager lady would kill her, deity or not. So she smiled her best smile, a work in progress, and chirped a customer appropriate rendition of “Right away! That will be…”

Twenty!?

Did she plan on feeding her whole familia? Uncomprehending blue eyes met eager golden eyes. No. This glutton wanted twenty potato puffs all to herself.

“S-six hundred vals…”

A golden coin was immediately produced. A thousand vals just given away like it was pocket change. Hestia was starting to get an idea of prices, ever since she’d gotten her own share of the money from Korina. She’d never held one of these coins before.

The manager appeared next to her with a full bag. “Here you go, your change and your jagamarukun…” She elbowed Hestia. “P-please come again!?”

The girl nodded. One potato puff was already between her teeth. Actually, the bag looked a bit less full than before, didn’t it?

A familiar tiger-colored head watched the other adventurer leave. “Well, that was interesting. Probably a good thing that I waited, hm…” Korina’s cat eyes returned to look down at her goddess. “Afternoon Hestia.”

“Kori! Good afternoon! Look, I’m at my job!” Hestia puffed out her chest and pointed at her themed headband.

Korina reached out to flick one of the puff-antenas. “I see that. Congratulations.” Someone in line grumbled for her to hurry up. “Well, I’m just here to say the day was productive, so we can eat out tonight. I need to check some things, but I’ll meet you at home?”

Hestia beamed. “Yes! I’m counting on you!”

Korina nodded with a brief smile, the sort she flashed at people when she was content and wanted you to know it, before leaving at a brisk pace. The pallum that had been in the line behind her raised an eyebrow suggestively.

Gck! No!

***
Sunset stretched its rays obliquely over Orario’s walls. The city’s magic stone torches were lighting up, either manually or in response to the lack of sunlight. Hestia and Korina walked down West Main, both wearing their best clothes. So, Korina realized, her one unripped tunic. Hestia’s outfits, at least, had yet to suffer significant wear and tear. Almost a full week had passed since she’d left Hepahestus’ home.

Korina had indeed made a good deal of money in the dungeon. The higher risks had paid off and she’d gathered even more than Welf had paid her. With it she could… would take Hestia out for a nice dinner.

“I asked around about the best places to eat. It does seem like anything on the main streets will have a good offering tho.” She gestured quietly to the various establishments open and thriving around them. “If we were looking for a quieter place however, we’ll have to go further in. Regretfully, everything here of that genre requires reservations.” And not an insignificant portion would also bar their entry on account of their appearance.

Korina didn’t want to be racist, but this afternoon had involved more elves giving her a condescending side-eye than usual.

Hestia pouted, somewhat disappointed. “I guess we’ll have to do with a pub then…”

Several such establishments existed, but most tended to look rougher than Korina would like her tiny goddess to frequent.

“Ooh, look there.” Hestia pointed at a pub with open-air seating and a warm-looking atmosphere. “That one looks nice.” A goddess’ intuition, perhaps? They wandered closer.

“The Hostess? Let’s see.” Korina approached to see the menu. She blinked, feeling like her wallet was being sized up for a good looting. Reluctantly, she admitted it wasn’t out of her price range tonight… and only tonight. She took a look through the windows. It was full of adventurers, but not too rowdy.

“What do you think?” Asked Hestia.

“A bit too full.” Korina scratched her head. “Let’s have another look around?”

An employee, dressed in a green maid-adjacent uniform greeted them as they turned, but was politely declined. Korina had grabbed Hestia’s hand and was pulling her along. The goddess waited until they were further away to ask, “Too many people?” Korina nodded. “Okay, come on then. I think I know some places! Hephaestus did take me out too, you know!”

The situation reversed. The goddess pulled along the child closer to Babel. Eventually, they settled on a smaller restaurant run by a dwarven couple. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but Hestia did have an instinct or something of the sort. A nice atmosphere and low conversations dominated along with the scent of pipe-smoke.

It tugged at vague notions and memories from the deepest recesses of Korina’s mind.

Naturally, the food ordered came with a generous flask of beer. Korina slid hers to Hestia. It was a match made in heaven, the goddess thought, that her child did not drink, because Hestia did!

“So you think we can start getting over a thousand vals per day! That’s great!” She cheered.

“If this is hitting my stride, then we can expect at least a thousand per day minimum on my part. With luck, drop items to turn into more money if needed, or for me to work with.” Korina explained. “That doesn't mean we get to have this lifestyle every day, my goddess.”

“I know, I know…” Hestia slumped across the table. They still had several outstanding debts. But she was hopeful that meant that in a week or two they could eat out nicely like this twice or even thrice a week!

Korina was thinking more along the lines that she needed new everything, from clothes to a haircut. It would be good to be able to take care of it though. A steady income from her solo dungeoning, plus more experience, and hopefully just about as much money, from when she partied up with Welf. A good foundation, so she could start building herself into an adventurer that would break into high class.

And from there, get back what this world had taken from her.

Hestia laughed, a little too happy. Korina sighed. And build Hestia familia for this goddess as well.

---

Spoiler

stride has been hit, now complications can arise. thought it was too soon to introduce too many characters especially when theyll likely remain background. at this point, endurance has risen to H and dexterity is not too far behind, followed by strength, magic has naturally started to stall in the mid Hs.

 

[7]
Hestia was swaying side to side in a way that made it obvious she was feeling guilty about something. “So, this is going to sound bad…” She started, and Korina preemptively dropped her head into her hands with a groan. She was too tired for whatever it was. “But today I did some purchases, wth just my money! And, hm, then I went to work and… things happened and… well…”

“Please, put me out of my misery Hestia.” Korina whimpered. “What happened and who do I need to pay off.”

“... I accidentally broke the stall’s fryer.”

“How?” “Ah…” “Actually, it doesn’t matter. How much is it?”

Hestia winced, but her child didn’t see it. Korina had her head lowered and had her eyebrows scrunched in that way she had when making mental calculations. Her tail hung limply.

“Nothing.” Hestia said. Korina opened one eye and looked at her suspiciously. “Nothing, they’ll take it out from my salary until I’ve paid it all off.”

An ear rose cautiously. “That… that’s good?” The mental calculations returned. “No, you work part time at thirty per hour and a fryer, that’s a magic stone machine, that has to cost several thousands…” It was, actually.

Hestia grabbed Korina’s hands and put her package in them. The weretigress was confused for a moment, opening her mouth only for the goddess to cover it with her hands. “No. I’m a goddess. This was my mistake… somehow… so I’ll take care of it! You’re my adventurer, so you don’t have to worry about that!” Even if it would be very convenient if Korina could accelerate the proc– no! “Here! My gift to you! Open it!” The goddess pushed Korina’s face with a scowl on her face.

The mortal stared at her, dumbfounded. Hestia pouted. The mortal realized her mistakes and set to correcting them, focusing instead on the brown-wrapped package she’d been bestowed with.

It was a sewing kit. Needlecase and threader, scissors, thimble and bodkin, with a couple of differently colored linen threads as well. Nothing ornate, just something Hestia had managed to find in a shop. “Oh.”

“You were talking about stitching your runes on your clothing…” Hestia couldn’t help but smile sympathetically at the pure joy that had overtaken her child’s face. “One day, I’ll even get you that spirit-spun wool you were obsessing about.”

***
Welf and Korina’s second dive had gone deeper, down to the sixth. They’d even stepped on the seventh and fought one single pair of Killer Ants for her to have an idea of how strong they were. Welf had to do the fighting, because even enhanced, Korina’s blows weren’t capable of significantly damaging their carapace.

Still, they stuck to the sixth quite comfortably. Welf felt little challenge against Frog Shooters of War Shadows, but the speed at which a duo could gather magic stones and drops made up for it, and so did the comforting thought that one wasn’t alone in the deadliest place in the world. Welf could admit he was booking forward to advancing in the dungeon with somebody watching his back. Perhaps another week and Korina would be experienced enough to safely follow him to the seventh. There, fighting hordes of ants and rabbits, they would be able to gather much more useful drops and gain some experience. For now, Korina was a pure supporter at those levels but if within the year she got to an acceptable level, three or so months with luck… he could gain an actual partner to work towards level 2 with. Sooner even, if they found another party member.

It would help, he knew, if the woman invested in actual equipment. Her abilities weren’t those of a complete rookie and her magic was very useful in a pinch. She was only lacking in experience, but he saw she was improving every time they met. The big thing holding her back was the complete and absolute shit state of her equipment.

So it was that, two days later, as they split the loot, Welf asked for her to wait a minute. “Your armor is really starting to bother me. We can’t do any deeper with you wearing those scraps.” He said it as it was. Korina’s close-quarters style was literally eating at the metal making up her guild-issue armor. “And you also need at least a backup weapon. I asked around and even Vanargand and Amazon and the like use weapons along with their fists.”

Korina sighed, but it was a quick exhalation that conveyed an awareness of this topic. “Okay, that’s fair.” It wasn’t Welf’s business to know, but with the nearly two thousand she’d made that day, she was going to pay off the debt relating to her first armor. A hard two weeks of counting every valis were over. The rest of her debts were easier to pay and thus less mentally taxing. “I can replace the worst off of my armor until we meet next week, if we do the same again.”

“Actually, how ‘bout you come to my workshop and we can talk options for you.” Welf proposed.

Korina hesitated, looking him in the eyes. Welf met her stare stubbornly. “...are you sure?” They’d been avoiding talking about smiting or his business. Korina had assumed it was his preference, given that the one time they’d even touched the issue it had immediately hit his triggers about the forbidden topic.

“It’s got nothing to do with magic swords and it’s going to remain that way.” The kid huffed aggressively. “I’m a smith. I do normal weapons and I do damn good armors too. You’re offending my professional sensibilities looking like that.”

Her ears flicked and she gave him a small smile. “Well, okay then. But you’ve got to be aware that money is tight for me. You’re going to have to sell me your cheap products.”

“Oh, don’t think partying up with me will entitle you to any discounts.” He warned, a dangerous smile on his face. “But I think you can afford some of what I make. I’ll be using you as a walking advertisement for Welf Crozzo’s armors and weapons!”

“And practice, I assume?” “Ah, now who’s the arrogant one?”

The red-haired smith took them north-east, the opposite way from Hestia’s homebase, and into districts that Korina hadn’t explored much. She’d walked down all the eight roads that divided Orario like a pie, but what she knew more or less well were the western and southwestern areas. She’d resided there in the cheapest places, even before the temple had been given to them. North and east held a much more industrialized architecture. Magic stone factories were further north, Welf explained, Daedalus’ maze bordering East Main. Hephaestus had a workshop for every single one of her members, the great majority in between those two landmarks. Korina had been around before, since Hestia had lived in the other goddess’ home, but she’d never felt comfortable exploring, because the temptation to try and see smiths at work was too great.

Welf’s workshop was luxurious, Korina thought with envy. What she’d give to have a fully equipped workshop of her own, a building on its own… At the moment, she had a sad shack made from old pews and rope, containing one anvil. She couldn’t even keep what little tools she had in it, because it had no door. Welf’s place was… everything. The tools, the furnace, the quenching oils, grindstones…

“Stop looking at my forge with bedroom eyes!” Welf laughed. “It really is true you tried to join my familia, uh?”

“I know better than to believe myself at Hephaestus’ standards. But I was very curious.” Korina told him over her shoulder. Aside from what was necessary for a smith, Welf also had a variety of weapons and pieces of armor laying around against one wall. Korina cast an assessing glance at them. Swords and bladed weapons dominated, but there was a bit of everything, all of it looking professional. Good to know. “Okay, what do you need from me?”

Welf blinked from where he’d been observing her. “Well, first let me see what you have. I’m going to need your measurements, yeah, but for somebody who doesn’t have a very developed fighting style, your current armor will tell me what you need more.”

Korina set about unbuckling her armor and presenting it to him. As always, seeing it away from her body really drove home what she’d been putting it through. It also stopped concealing the many, many dried bloodstains on her under-armor and clothing.

“This is almost painful.” Welf commented as he checked the padding inside her chestplate. The medium armor was actually the least damaged, both due to its inherent durability and the fact that it covered the spots least likely to get hit. Nevertheless, there were several dent and scratches in the metal, particularly in the back. The padding was dirty, but serviceable.

The torso was, unfortunately, the only part of Korina’s armor that didn’t need urgent replacement.

Greaves and vambraces, both lighter armor that didn’t match the chestplate, were half-way to destroyed. Well, he supposed the greaves weren’t too bad. But guild-issue greaves were notoriously flimsy in Welf’s opinion. They weren’t meant to take hits, since the first four floors had very few monsters that went for the legs, unlike frog shooters or killer ants further down. By then, an adventurer was wearing better armor. His supporter didn’t take many hits, but she occasionally used kicks, and she was adventuring deeper than she should on an armor like this.

Vanargand had the Flosvirt, made by Welf’s own captain… maybe… Welf stopped himself from getting too many ideas. Korina was just a level 1.

And the bracers… Welf allowed himself a prayer. Well, the straps had already been repaired several times. In fact, he had noticed Korina protected them by wrapping cloth around the armor… but now he knew those were also extra support. And the metal… the steel had been used as a chew toy for goblins and kobolds by the dozens. Korina guarded with her forearms. Parrying and hitting too. It was full of holes, dented in the good places, scratched and straight up missing a corner.

Welf wordlessly waved the left armguard at Korina. The weretigress shrugged. Shrugged!

“Yeah, this is garbage.” He threw the piece over his shoulder to clatter into a hopefully forgotten corner. It could join the rest of the clutter and garbage he should probably clean up, sometime in the future. “The rest is passable, but this is unforgivable.”

Korina watched the armor go, then looked down at her wrapped hands with a face like ‘you’ll have to do then’. As if.

A box was shoved in her direction. “Try that on.” A full set of light-looking white coloured armor was inside. Welf had gone and picked it up from his familia’s store the day before. “Tell me how it feels and if you can move comfortably in something like that.” He said while he looked for his tape measurer and a piece of paper to write on.

Korina obliged. It was very light and provided good coverage. It was definitely an upgrade, but not exactly what she was looking for. Welf spied the look on her face. He needed her to be honest about it.

“It doesn’t quite fit how I fight? If, well when, I was going to buy an armor, greaves like these are nice, but the chestplate… well I’m small up here,” she gestured at her chest, “but you clearly didn’t design this thinking about girls.”

Welf was suddenly very red-faced. “Ah, hu… crap. Now I feel like an idiot. Like, the padding can be replaced for women but… yeah. That part should have been in the box.” Adventuring did not discriminate by gender. Welf had just assumed that a full set of armor would be sought out by men. He was feeling quite foolish.

Korina chuffed. “Well, for future reference. Anyway, my main problem are the arms. I was going to look for gauntlets that helped me fight.” She jabbed in the air. “And these don’t protect me past the wrist.”

Welf hummed. “I can do something like that. Weight is good though?”

They continued sharing impressions as Welf measured Korina and sketched out a pair of gauntlets that would protect her hands and forearms. Korina needed to be able to wrap her hands beneath the armor as well. The human had noticed that her usual wraps had symbols stitched across their length.

Payment was also touched on. Wef was almost incensed at the price she was owing the guild for an armor she’d wrecked within a couple of weeks. The whole set he’d brought for demonstration purposes was only about three thousand more expensive, even with the reduced prices his works got saddled with. He trusted her to be able to pay him within the week. Just gauntlets wouldn’t be too much. Not much more than an antidote, for example.

“Okay. I’ll have these ready by tomorrow morning, so just pass by before going into the dungeon. I’m sleeping in the shop tonight.” He caught her suddenly low-energy response. “What? Something wrong?”

Korina waved it off. “No, no, just me being silly.” He raised a questioning eyebrow and she laughed. “I mean it, it’s something really petty. I wanted to wear armor I would have made with my own hands, that’s all.”

“Oh, right.” The weretigress was an artisan like himself. It was almost easy to forget it, but then again, Welf had never seen any of her work. “I get that, to be honest. It’s not silly.”

“It is for somebody who’s never really worked at a forge.” She shook her head. “This is me being arrogant. Eventually I’ll learn the craft, I suppose, but for now it’s just fanciful dreams.”

***
Scritch, the line was made. She looked over the ledger’s page. They were still in the metaphorical red. They did not possess the means to buy actual red ink, she huffed at the irony. But besides their home’s payments and their individual debts, Hestia familia’s finances were now stable. Ah, healing magic really did save money on potions, how lucky.

She closed the book and tapped its cover. Next week, she told herself, next week she’d start carving her runes on proper materials. Then it would just be a matter of testing out her items, and she could start selling them. She’d have to check out the free market near the wall…

Her goddess was puttering about the kitchen, peeling potatoes and boiling a pair of eggs. No meat tonight. If Korina wasn’t an adventurer, she knew her nutrition would be severely lacking. Content with the picture in front of her, she got up to store the ledger in its secure place.

Upon returning, she picked up her goddess’ gift and moved to the couch. Symbols in chalk had been sketched on the table. The rune of speed and power, red magic incarnate, tangled with rune-like patterns that did not possess inherent power. They would, however, convey it better. Stabilize it. Prevent too much loss. Korina kept experimenting with the patterns. It was mostly instinct, but she was starting to see a basic pattern. More study and practice would deepen her understanding of runecraft, and runic enchanting with it.

Plain linen thread was sufficient for what she was doing: reinforcing and cleaning up the edges of her wrist wraps. They used to be old clothing, after all.

Colored linen thread made the patterns she was stitching in more visible. They did not have to be, strictly speaking. A cross-stitch pattern, forming the rune by texture over color, would also do the job, but the efficiency would likely depend on the textural difference.

The problem with making her runes with normal threads was that they possessed no inherent power. She had to trigger them. She could charge them as she made them, priming the item for use, but the item quickly lost power, and overcharging would damage the materials. Or she could use them as supports for her spells, but then only she could use the item. It also did not resolve the issue of material degradation and destruction.

Fortunately for stitched runes, it didn’t affect the base material much, if at all. The wear and tear came from re-stitching the runes over and over again, not to mention it was a time consuming process.

Better materials, that was what she needed. Monster drops even better, formed from monster magic and a power source on their own. She had a lot of ideas.

For now, she sew. Runes for speed and power in her hands, the edge of her boots, along the seams of her clothing. Runes for healing and sympathy speckled on her undertunic. She let death burn in her mind, waiting for the inevitable moment it would be needed.

KORINA Lv.1
Strength …I.84 Endurance …H.102 Dexterity …I.95 Agility …I.62 Magic …H.157

---

Spoiler

look, if omori was right about something, it was smiths. craftsmen are awesome. stats are for 3 weeks of adventuring and are decent, but slowing down, also, as korina gets better at fighting, she starts gaining str and dex over endurance. trying to get to plot points without making them happen all at the same time.

 

[8]
“Oooohhh!” Hestia gasped as she took in Korina’s new armor. “Definitely from Hephaestus’ child, it looks so good!”

Korina agreed. It looked good. It also worked very, very well. She’d not realized how much she was handicapping herself by fighting with substandard equipment. Monsters that used to take two or three blows to kill with certainty now were defeated in one. Her efficiency rose through the roof. It was her turn to feel quite foolish. Investing in better equipment paid off, practically and monetarily.

Welf had done an impressive job indeed. It likely helped that he was excited to make a piece commissioned to him instead of just forging for the sake of selling anything. He’d put in all his effort and the way he’d been smiling, eyebags from working through the night, when he presented them to Korina that morning said more than anything.

Made of darkened metal and leather, because with Korina’s yellow tiger coloring light metal clashed horribly, they protected her hands, first knuckles, and all the way to her elbows. A leather glove and bracer as a base, thinner at the hand, where articulated metal plates covered the parts Korina used to strike. The wrist was flexible, and lacked armor attached directly to it. The rest of her forearms were well protected by a classic, solid construction. The part she liked the most were the ridged plates that protected the back of her hand, because the front edges were shaped to protrude outwards in hardened points slightly above her knuckles.

Those points weren’t very sharp, nor very long, only about a celch and a half. But they became deadly nonetheless, adding penetrative power to all of her punches.

Now she did not have to rely on her magic to kill for certain. She would go down to the fifth floor tomorrow. She would be able to use her magic more often, and to bring home more value. At this point, her solo winnings were matching or outpacing what she made as Welf’s supporter. But their party was also an investment. She learned and improved in many different ways when she could descend to the sixth or seventh, not to mention she could always trade magic stones for drops that she could not acquire on her own. Having a party at all was a benefit, in many different ways, and Welf was aware of that as well.

“It is a great piece. I’ll be having Welf do the rest of my armor, if this is the quality to be expected.” The boy had gained a client. Everybody benefited. “With the way things are going, we’ll be cleared of all outstanding debts by the end of the month and then our familia’s work can really start.”

“You haven’t been adding to the daily and weekly chore lists.” Said Hestia, hanging around her shoulders.

“Much too worried about money.” Korina scoffed, ears sideways. “This is why I hate debts. Can’t focus on improving myself when I have that sword hanging over my head.”

“Well, you said it: we’re clearing those debts before the month is out! How about we go out to celebrate that?” The goddess proposed, bouncing on the couch. Once more, and amplified by the knowledge that soon she’d be able to fix it, Korina mused that she had to get her goddess better clothes with more support. Any support.

“That would be lovely.” A wistful smile crossed her lips. “It would be great if we could make it something regular, like a monthly outing. To relax after paying our taxes…” She laughed.

Hestia tapped her chin, thoughtful. “... leave that to me. I’ll get somewhere for us to celebrate.”

“I can…” “Aah! Let your goddess do her job properly, you stuffy mortal!” Hestia reared back in consternation. “I have plans!” “Oh, so you can make plans if it’s about partying?”

Such a meanie! Well, Hestia was going to make her swallow her words!

***
The fifth floor. Korina set foot on it, alone, as her fourth week as an adventurer started. Strictly speaking, according to the Guild, she wasn’t quite at the level required to explore it. Her magic wasn’t at G rank yet, and it was her highest ability.

Several factors mitigated the risk. She’d been here several times before, with Welf. She knew the monsters and their basic attack patterns. Her equipment had been recently upgraded and could deal the damage required. Beyond all that, there was the fact that the Guild’s recommendations were both conservative, and could not measure other factors beyond abilities. Korina had battle magic, a force and survival multiplier, and a skill that strengthened her when not ascending.

It didn’t mean she could take risks, but she was confident she could face this floor.

She took a long corridor to the left, a circuitous route that followed passageways in an area that branched off but never went very far from the stairs. She knew, from Welf’s stories, that sometimes the dungeon seemed to compensate by spawning far more monsters than usual. And the fifth already had an increased spawn rate from the upper four floors. Korina had anticipated that and was prepared.

Rock cracked and four monsters were born. Twice as many as they ever did above. Korina didn’t wait. Initiative was key. She ran towards the one closest to her.

The principle of battle against multiple opponents was to not get surrounded. To rattle, if not outright neutralize, those isolated. To bait away single foes from the protection of the group. These things, she’d learned watching as a supporter.

“Ah, but it really is much harder on this floor.” She was already sweating. On her first day, she’d made good work out of the goblins that had jumped her on the first floor. It was a misleading floor, the first. The strength of the monsters there felt almost purposefully lacking. On the third and fourth, even the second, monsters became individual threats to those adventuring alone. On the fifth, although the monsters weren’t much stronger, the numbers changed the game. And the sixth below was a completely different game.

The Upper Floors were divided into three rough areas: first to fourth, the Rookie Floors; fifth to eighth, Mid Upper Floors; and ninth to twelfth, the Low Upper Floors. As the saying went: first for rookies, then to winnow out the chaff, and then to feed the low classes. So, she’d just entered the milling stone upon which the dungeon started crushing those that would love to plunder it.

Korina advanced carefully. Her ears were raised, capturing all sounds, and her tail unfurled behind her, balancing each step.

She heard it first. A noise that didn't seem to belong. A rasp of metal on metal, on stone, a clatter. Her footsteps slowed but she didn’t attempt stealth. She was not going to surprise any monster here, and she did not want to surprise any adventurer. The irregular noise came again, then disappeared as she collected the crystals from a pair of lizards that couldn’t surprise her. She looked into every path at crossroads even as she followed her route.

Until she found the source. At the end of a small corridor to the right, there was a room. Nothing different about it, except for the form crumpled on the ground. Korina froze. At this distance, and with the green coloring of the floor and walls, she couldn’t tell if there was blood or not. But she already knew.

She clenched and unclenched her fists. What should she do? Her chest hurt and she had to make an effort to keep herself steady. She could walk away, but it wouldn’t be correct. She would always look back at this moment and wonder…

She pulled out the twine chord she had under her armor and wrapped it around her fist. Steady steps took her forward until she could see the dead adventurer, laying over a dead kobold. The details were obscured by the way they had fallen, but the blood staining the floor and the smell didn’t lie. Tiger eyes scanned the room as she paused on its threshold. They jumped from shadow to rock and back.

“I see you.” She whispered very softly to herself.

Eight steps to the corpse. On the fourth, she almost skipped. On the fifth, she spoke harshly.

“Celeritas.” A red glow sprung forth, eyes tinged and little ethereal flames danced over her right arm. “Mark.”

The adventurer’s shadow unfolded and lept towards Korina, six daggers extended for her face. Red sparks met it as Korina ducked beneath it, moving like lightning compared to before, and into the War Shadow’s guard. A gauntlet’s points sunk into its body, force pushing it back, another’s followed without rest. Four blows hammered into it, a sound like a beast coming from her throat.

The monster scratched at her, flailing fingers as it bent its outstretched arms to reach the weretiger nearly hugging it. Blood flew as Korina stamped her foot for the final blow, the blades catching her shoulders and face, but she was already in motion. The monster’s face broke under fist, and it crumpled down, dripping blackish blood.

In the sudden silence, her ragged pants were loud. She gasped a breath in. The aura she’d clad herself in was still up, so fast the exchange had been.

Korina swallowed. She’d done it. She didn’t have any time to lose.

She kneeled and shoved the monster’s corpse off, trying to be gentle as she turned the dead adventurer so she could assess the damage. She could hear cracks and she didn’t know even those were the product of her mind or something real. She didn’t have time to think about that.

The man, an elf, was sort of intact. Its guts weren’t spilling out. No heavy armor. Celeritas sputtered and she recast it immediately. She fished her knife from her belt and cut the straps of his backpack. With a heave, she threw the corpse over her shoulder. He was lighter than expected. In the same movement, she’d gotten up and turned. She spotted movement ahead.

If she turned around, she’d get lost.

If she got lost, she was a dead woman walking.

Rune of speed burning across her skin, she ran. Half a dozen monsters awaited her in the intersection and surroundings. With a yelled command, white mixed with red and she plowed through the first one. Her cuts stung as they healed. The dead weighed on her body. Korina roared.

The rune engraved claws bound to twine splintered as the tigress called upon their power. Her shape blurred as she ran, spell and enchantment and boost propelling her, a burning furnace of power.

She only slowed down halfway up the stairs back to the fourth. Sweat dripped off her, mixing with liquids she didn’t want to name, and her legs trembled. She looked down the stairs, where they disappeared into darkness. The corpse pulled her down. Gravity called and the chip in her deadened heart felt like a sucking chest wound.

“No. Not today.” She turned her back at the laughing darkness and climbed with leaden feet.

***
Eina Tulle met her in the grand lobby of Babel. Drinking from a canteen, Korina gave her a half-hearted wave. She sat against a wall and the body laid, covered, not too far away.

She’d crossed a couple of adventurers on the third, who’d escorted her through the floor. Similarly, an elf on the second had taken her back up to the surface, where Ganesha members had taken the body from her and sent word. The other elf, the living one, had thanked her for bringing one of their own back to the sun, before she dove into the dungeon.

“Makes you think.” Korina told her advisor after retelling her the events. “Something’s wrong with people like us.”

“Some people might think that, yes.” The half-elf sighed. She was used to this, and her first thought when she’d arrived, had shamefully been that she was happy it wasn’t the adventurer she was responsible for. “You did a good thing.”

The weretigress chuffed. “Hm. Thought you were going to say I did a stupid, reckless thing.”

“That’s! I would not!” Eina admonished her. She was silent for a moment. “As an adventurer, maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do, to risk yourself for a corpse. It was a very dangerous situation. You should have… returned and informed Ganesha familia. But I’m sure many people will be glad you did.”

Korina sighed and closed her eyes. The half-elf went to talk to the guards, and returned many minutes after. Korina opened her eyes from where she’d let her exhausted body lull her into a half-sleep. Eina had a dismayed expression on her face. “What is it? Who was he?”

“Mylus Ergail from Modi familia.” She shook her head. “I’m… also an advisor of a member of that familia.”

“Ah. Well.” Korina scratched her head and straightened up. “Should I stay?”

“There’s no need. You’ve already given your testimony. The Guild can handle things from here.” Eina said. The adventurer wasn’t under suspicion. There were no animosities between familias registered, and she hadn’t taken the other’s possessions. “If anything comes up, you’ll get called in, but I doubt it. Go rest and get those cleaned up. But, I want to see you tomorrow before anything.”

Korina was older and independent, not the type to check in and update her every day, or even every couple of days. She’d have to verify exactly how she was progressing.

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” She wanted to see her goddess. Had felt that way ever since she found herself climbing stairs with congealed blood squelching every step, and the fine blonde hair of a kid who was dead brushing her throat. It was that or finding her way back down and crushing every thing that moved. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She was still breathing after all.

---

Spoiler

i don't have a good image of what the gauntlets look like, because i cannot find what i want online. everything has knobs at the knuckles... or 300% more spikes than necessary. please, cmon! just... pick a modern martial artist glove as a base and make it simple fantasy... but with spiked tiger claws like miniature wolverine

 

[9]
Her child appeared from the side, joining her behind the stall. The manager shot her a look but didn’t comment. Hestia’s heart somersaulted in her chest. A heavy tiredness pulled down Korina’s shoulders and tail. Her armor was stained.

She begged off a minute after serving the latest costumer and hurried to her. “Korina, what happened to you?”

Distant eyes refocused on her. “To me? Nothing?” Up close, there were dark flakes clinging to her hair, smudged near her throat, entrenched into the grooves of her gauntlets. Killing monsters had to be a dirty job, but the weretigress took care to thoroughly remove all traces of violence she could before returning home. Today, the scent of death lingered faintly over her.

“But–” Hestia’s hands immediately found the taller woman’s face and hovered over semi-healed slashes.

She shook her head. “I stumbled across a body down there. I brought him home, but that’s it for me today.” She brought a hand to rub at her eyes and nose. “Can I just… hang around for a while?”

Oh, thought Hestia. She stepped closer to hug her one and only child. “Of course. Sit down somewhere.” She knew the weretiger didn’t have any compuctions about sitting down on the floor when she was really tired, but she preferred having permission.

With a thankful tail wag, the adventurer found the wall directly behind the stall and lid down, sprawling next to the supply crates. The old lady manager raised a furious eyebrow at Hestia, but she silently begged her to stay her wrath. For a mortal, it was indeed an impressive wrath! Hestia had learned her lesson. Still, she asked in hushed tones for a reduced work day. Yes, she knew she wasn’t going to get paid, but it was an emergency. She’d compensate with a double shift tomorrow!

“Fine. I’ll make sure you work your worth tomorrow, or else.” The manager huffed but added more gently. “You take care of that surly partner of yours then. I’ve seen my share of foolish adventurers brought down low by their losses.” It was almost easy to forget that as an old mortal, she had seen far more of this world than Hestia, descended not quite three months before.

As she finished her turn, Hestia mulled on how to comfort Korina. She knew she wouldn’t be able to cheer her up. The demi-human didn’t quite work like that. But she could be distracted and, if everything else failed, getting her wrapped up in the comfiest blankets they had was sure to work. Those were the only times Hestia believe Korina when she said she was lazy. There was little else one could say about such a blanket-hedgehog.

By the time she was freed from her slavish work, Hestia had a barebones idea. She crouched down next to Korina, who was catnapping and had attracted a few looks. “Kora, wake up.” A golden eye peered up at her. She pulled her up. “Okay, you are going to go home and take a bath while I take care of a few things. You’ll feel better. Also, snack on this.” She handed her a bittersweet-flavored jagamarukun, her favorite flavor. “Wait for me, and then I’ll take you somewhere.”

The weretigress nodded. She set southwards, plodding towards their home with a parting wave and a grateful smile.

Hestia sighed. Well, now it was her turn.

***
Being clean felt like such a luxury sometimes. Korina hated the cold, but today submerging herself in the cold water of their tub was cleansing. Like diving in a pool. She scrubbed at her hair vigorously, cursing at the water that had gotten into her ears. She shook her head like a dog, splashing water everywhere. Fortunately, they’d warded off the area with a hanging curtain.

She settled against the sides of the old wooden tub. This had been used to wash clothes, once upon a time. Still was, to be honest. Her eyes were raised to the ceiling. She could almost count the bricks in the wall where the plaster was gone.

“That’s a bad idea. I might see a centipede.” An involuntary shudder made all of her fur stand up. Spiders, fine. Worms, ok. Centipedes? Earwigs!? Just absolutely not. Devil’s spawn!

“Uh. Killer Ants are known to eat adventurers alive. Ah.” She blinked. “This isn’t working.”

Korina inhaled deeply, dove under the water, and screamed her lungs away. Screamed all the horror and fear until she had no more breath to give them. She broke the water’s surface with a gasp and panted.

She did feel better.

Lingering on feelings and events was going to make her spiral. She tended to do so easily when she felt unfairness. It was just better for everyone if she distracted herself before she decided to start digging holes. Hestia must have sensed that, she mused as she stepped away from the bath.

She wrung out her tail and ears, and started toweling her hair. There was a brush, several in fact. Korina had carved them to practice her woodworking skills. None were pretty or particularly fine, but all worked well enough for her and Hestia. Many utensils in the house were the same. Forks, knives, spoons, handleless cups… a very rough chess set with a board made out of cloth scraps.

“Almost a month here. Really, it was about time.” She complained to herself. “I know the statistics.”

Korina brushed her best tunic flat. She updated the ledger. She brought out her gauntlets, as well as the rest of her armor, onto the little table and started cleaning them piece by piece. The thoughtless maintenance routine slowed her restless spirit. Her goddess had been right to send her home. Fur that she hadn’t realized was standing up settled down. Hestia returned home to see her carefully sharpening the broken edges of her sword.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Quite a bit. Thank you.”

The goddess smirked, bouncing on her heels. “Don’t thank me yet! Are you ready to go?”

Korina let Hestia lead the way. The goddess didn’t let her go, entangling her fingers and pulling her along with a pout when the taller mortal pulled back. So of course Korina had to pretend to fight her. Hestia was adorable.

“Here?” Korina blinked. This was… not what she expected.

“Yep!” Hestia crowed. “Miss waitress, we’re here for our reservation!”

The restaurant on the main street they’d opted not to go into last week was much less full at this time of the day. The Hostess of Fertility, a name that only worked in koine, was a spacious, warm establishment filled with tables and places to sit. Waitresses, a full female complement, wore long green dresses and aprons, and seemed to be setting up the majority of the seats for later at night. In the middle of the afternoon, the bar only had a few customers, most of them outside in the terrace. It seemed her goddess had really liked the air of this place, if she was insisting.

Hestia dragged her to the bar counter itself and pushed a menu into her hands. It had different plates than what she’d seen before, a bit less variety. The prices, she sighed to herself, were still quite high. Still, from the way her goddess was looking at her, it wouldn’t do to scrimp.

If Korina was honest, she also felt like stuffing herself on good food after the day she’d had.

Not to mention, aside from breakfast and one potato puff, she hadn’t eaten all day. The scents coming from the kitchen were mouth-watering. Carbs it was then. “I’ll have… a triple ham omelet with sausage and apple juice. Oh, and if it’s not too much, salad without lettuce?”

Hestia wanted a much smaller dish, if the way she’d goggled at her was any indication. It was her own fault for wanting to treat a famished adventurer. As their food was being readied, Hestia kept up a stream of conversation. She had anecdotes about her job, everybody she served, how they kept patting her head (a tempting target), idiotic gods… but she also told her about the familias she’d found about, or what rumours adventurers spouted. Korina would never be able to get that much information. She wasn’t very good at people.

“Here, your triple and your salad.” A normal and a gigantic plate were put in front of them. “Enjoy your meal.” The woman at the counter, the biggest and buffest dwarf Korina had ever had the pleasure of meeting, smiled with satisfaction at their faces.

A beer was dropped in front of her as their meal wound down. The bartender? Gave her a look. “Here, an ale for your troubles.”

“Sorry, I don’t drink.” Korina pushed it away with a small shake of her head. The dwarf woman smiled sardonically. Eyeing the very nice amounts of muscles in those arms, Korina decided not to utter her true feelings about the taste of fermented beverages. “Beer… It does not spark joy.”

The older woman laughed. “Doesn’t spark joy.” She said to herself. “Well said. What does then?”

“Good food. Fruit juice. Sweet desserts. Nice music.” Korina tapped her plate with an appreciative nod. “My compliments to the chef by the way.”

“Nah, that girl doesn’t need any more ego strokin’. What she needs is to keep working!” An eep was heard from the general area behind the owner, apparently.

Hestia snickered next to Korina, and she couldn’t help it. “Glass roofs, my goddess?” “Gah!”

The owner took their empty plates, the beer, and returned with a dessert menu. Since it was an indulgence either way, Korina and Hestia decided not to worry about the money and just asked for cake. As they waited, the owner of the establishment decided to talk to them. Korina’s intuition about her was correct, because she didn’t beat around the bush and just asked what had happened in the dungeon that had spooked her.

“Dead kid. Elf that couldn’t be older than me, relatively or otherwise.” Korina sighed. “Couldn’t leave him there.”

“Hm.” The dwarf narrowed her eyes. “First time meeting death in the dungeon?” Korina gave her a bitter smile but didn’t answer. “No shame ‘bout it. Don’t think that’s what’ll stop you from returning.”

Wasn’t that true. “If I let fear root, I’ll never advance. And that’s unacceptable.” She drummed her fingers on the countertop. “Hey, ever felt… like the dungeon was laughing at you?”

There was an almost distant look in the owner’s eyes. “Aye. That it did.”

“What did you do?”

The answering smile was a savage baring of teeth.

***
Life, death. Fear and laughter. Why did man bare its teeth when they were happy?

An assembly of torn burlap sacks, a burlap nesting doll, had been filled with dirt and detritus and hung from a branch. Fwap-fwap, Korina’s fists jabbed at it relentlessly.

It wasn’t that Korina wasn’t aware of the dangers of her profession. Much of the fear inherent to facing battles against monsters had been offset by her acquisition of magic. It was normal to be scared of rabid dogs as a normal person, knowing the damage their teeth could cause. But facing a rabid dog with a sword on hand… with the red power igniting her skin… it changed the perspective.

And Korina knew that she wasn’t invincible. She had taken too many hits and bled too much from monsters to think that. Pabulum healed her, but before that she was wounded. No, the weretigress had known the danger inherent to a kobold’s claws on her second day. Cocky, fighting unharmed on the second floor for the first time, she’d taken a solid hit to her side. The pain had chased her for the rest of the day, and the only reprieve had been bashing monsters to death. Fear, rage, and healing magic.

So could it really be said that today’s incident had been a wake up call? Or a scare?

She paused. It hadn’t felt personal until today. Monsters were monsters. Humanoid or not, they behaved like animals, beasts… no thought behind them, just the strategy inborn of instinct. Although she knew of the dungeon’s tactics, monster parties, ambushes and the like, she hadn’t experienced them before.

Empathy for the dead combined with a lack of rage left only fear and despair. Who could she blame for the dead? Which injustice could she point out?

Monsters were monsters. An adventurer was a person who had made their choice.
She could hardly blame the dungeon any more than she could blame a hurricane or an earthquake. It felt like a great, unreachable entity, a god, luck itself, wanted her harm.

How did one fight against that? Everything, it seemed, painted a premonition like a promise.

A kick sent the improvised punching bag swaying heavily. Korina grabbed it with both hands and leaned her forehead against the ropes. She did have a personal stake in this. There was a reason why she didn’t stay above ground and worked strictly as a craftsman.

“I won’t stop.” She hissed into the night’s air, tail lashing like a whip behind her. “You have something that’s mine. I will take it back.”

The answer was to become stronger than nature. To wade into a firestorm, to shatter cliffs, to split the ocean in twin, to blow a hurricane away. As great as legends.

“Celeritas!” Red burned, her exposed tattoos glowing like molten rock. “Pabulum!” White shone, solid and grasping. Korina flew into a flurry of blows against the inanimate target.

She was still brimming with nervous energy. She hadn’t spent a fraction of the magic she usually did. Even on normal days, she let her enchantments run to the edge of her mind capacity. Just when a headache threatened, she laid down for the night. Korina had to train her magic, her most powerful tool, whenever she had the chance. There was never enough time in the day to get things done. Never enough money, enough food, enough energy, enough power. Her list of tasks and desires grew in leaps and bounds. Ideas were crammed into pages of a notebook because she feared running out of paper.

And when she just thought she was going to stop living on the edge, the dungeon cut her down to size!

Wrapped knuckles sunk into compact dirt and broken stone with minimal resistance. The bag swayed slowly in her vision as she repositioned and kept hammering it. Spells refreshed nearly instantly after running their course, her sense of her own magic honed by experience. Her guard didn’t drop.

The final blow nearly tore the bag from the branch. Beneath the moonlight, the weretiger panted. She looked up. The moon was nearly full.

---

Spoiler

corrected several instances of the white spell being mislabeled as green. Pabulum/Rune of Sustenance is W not G.
slightly less slice of life, but not too heavy, i hope. a hard chapter because i was stuck on the hostess interactions for no good reason. aint a place that will appear much, since there's no reason to.