Chapter 1: Prologue
{A/N: Welcome, Comrades!}
Hikaru, an average-looking man who probably wasn't winning any beauty contests, stood in a small, worn-down Buddha temple, praying.
He wasn't exactly rolling in cash, so he was wearing the kind of clothes poor farmers in Japan would wear — the sort of stuff that screamed "I can't afford Western clothes but hey, I'm rocking this anyway."
His brown eyes and messy black hair didn't exactly scream "mysterious," either, but hey, he wasn't aiming for that.
The temple wasn't much to look at either. There was a wooden Buddha statue, painted in gold. Well, not real gold. That would've been a little too fancy for a temple like this.
No, it was just some paint that probably had a 50% chance of rubbing off with the next rainy season. The Buddha was surrounded by a few eggs — offerings, or whatever, just chillin' on the stone altar.
Guess someone was feeling generous with their omelets.
Hikaru clasped his hands together, getting into his prayer position, which was honestly more for show than sincerity.
"Oh Lord Buddha," he yelled, his voice bouncing off the temple walls like he was trying to make sure the whole neighborhood heard him.
"I messed up last night, alright? I filled her muffins, and now I'm praying you'll make sure she doesn't get knocked up... Oh, merciful Buddha, save me from a nightmare of diapers!"
With the kind of energy you'd expect from a guy trying to do damage control, Hikaru slammed his forehead to the floor with a thud that echoed through the empty space.
He was half hoping Buddha would take pity on him and maybe send a lightning bolt or two to fix his mess.
The truth? Well, bro was in a panic. He'd had a little too much fun the night before and now he was terrified of what might come next.
If his wife got pregnant, he'd be looking at 17 kids to take care of. Seventeen. That's like a full soccer team, plus a couple of subs.
And let's be real, Hikaru was not equipped for that level of responsibility. His most impressive skill was stealing eggs from Buddha temples for a living. Not exactly dad material.
'Great,' Hikaru thought to himself, 'I'm out here stealing eggs to survive, and now I'm supposed to raise a whole gaggle of kids? Not happening. I can barely feed myself.'
As he stood up, eyeing the altar with all the reverence of a guy who'd just seen an "Egg Sale" sign at the market, he grabbed a handful of eggs. No shame.
They were offerings, right? He wasn't taking the eggs; he was just, you know, borrowing them for a bit.
His pants, which had pockets that could hold about a dozen eggs each (why did they make them so big?), were quickly stuffed with the goods.
Then, he noticed something odd. One egg stood out among the rest, bigger than the others by at least twice the size.
It looked like a normal white egg at first glance, though. Nothing too suspicious. It was just an egg. Sure, a huge one. But hey, sometimes nature got weird, right?
"Huh. This egg's got a little extra going on," Hikaru mumbled to himself. But he wasn't about to think too hard about it.
He had more pressing issues—like how to make it through the next week without getting caught in a fatherhood trap.
With his pockets now bulging, Hikaru gave a half-hearted bow to the Buddha statue.
"Alright, Buddha, I'm out. I'll be back next week for your offerings again. You're welcome."
And with that, he huffed his way out, probably not realizing he was about to carry home a very special egg.
"Honey, I'm home!" Hikaru announced, stepping into his shabby little house in a rundown village that was practically choking on its own mediocrity. The entire place was surrounded by farms, like a crust of desperation enclosing a sad little pie.
"Welcome home, honey," came the cheerful reply from his wife, Aiko. She was busy making lunch in their so-called bedroom.
Why the bedroom? Because they were so dirt poor, the idea of having a separate kitchen was as laughable as Hikaru owning a pair of shoes without holes.
Every single meal was cooked right next to where they slept, ate, and probably dodged roof leaks during the rainy season.
Now, let's talk about Aiko. She had long black hair that looked like it hadn't met a hairdresser in years, but it still had a natural flow to it.
Her brown eyes were sharp yet soft, her pale skin gave her an almost delicate charm, and her figure?
Well, not to exaggerate, but she could give some of those village girls a run for their money. In short, she was an average milf. (Oh, come on, don't pretend you weren't thinking it.)
Hikaru stepped out of his dusty old sandals at the entrance, sighing as he left the world of calloused feet behind.
Their house was so tiny that the "walk" to their bedroom was only 14 measly steps from the door.
Still, those 14 steps felt like a journey when you were coming home to a place that barely held itself together.
When he peeked into the room, there was Aiko, whisking eggs like her life depended on it. The concoction in the bowl was a strange mix—eggs with sugar, water, and rice vinegar.
And oh yeah, these weren't your regular store-bought eggs. Nope, they were borrowed (a.k.a. stolen) from a nearby Buddha temple. Nothing says devout like robbing a deity's kitchen.
"Honey, did you get what I asked for?" Aiko asked sweetly, her tone laced with just a hint of "don't-you-dare-tell-me-you-forgot." Her smile could've been on the cover of Threats Weekly.
Hikaru, feeling the pressure, quickly fished out the "borrowed" eggs from his pocket like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. He handed them over with a nervous chuckle, trying not to meet her gaze too directly.
"By the way, honey," Hikaru began, glancing around, "where are all the little greml—uh, I mean, kids?"
Usually, around this time, their obnoxiously noisy children would be wreaking havoc in the house. Today, however, there was a suspicious lack of chaos.
Aiko took the eggs, placed them aside like they were her hard-earned treasures, and replied, "Oh, the neighbors needed help on their farms and offered to pay them a bit. So, all the kids went off to earn some money for themselves."
"Oh, that's grea—" Hikaru barely got a word out before Aiko interrupted him, her voice switching to full command mode.
"You should go too. Earn some money while you're at it," she said, her brown eyes gleaming with a look that screamed profit over everything. Hikaru could swear he saw dollar signs flash in her pupils for a second.
And just like that, his brief moment of relief was crushed under the weight of Aiko's ironclad "no freeloaders allowed" policy.
Hikaru, ever the picture of a husband who valued his peace more than his pride, left without a word, trudging out of the house like a man accepting his fate.
Meanwhile, Aiko got back to business. She cracked open the eggs Hikaru had brought, whisking them into the mixture she was already working on.
Efficiency was her middle name—or maybe it was desperation. Either way, she was breaking three eggs at once like a pro chef in a cooking show, trying to save time.
Her hand paused briefly when she came across one particularly large egg in the batch. Hikaru's handiwork, no doubt.
This man always finds the weirdest stuff, she thought with a hint of exasperation, but she shrugged it off. The egg was big, sure, but it didn't seem particularly strange.
Without overthinking, she cracked it open and mixed its contents into the bowl.
For the most part, the liquid inside looked like regular egg whites and yolk. But if Aiko had taken a closer look, she might've noticed something... unsettling.
It was moving.
Tiny, almost imperceptible ripples ran through the liquid, but Aiko, in her rush to finish cooking, didn't catch it. Oblivious to the anomaly, she finished preparing lunch like usual.
A little taste test followed, because no self-respecting cook sends out food without trying it first. She scooped up a small spoonful of the mixture and brought it to her lips.
"Ugh, what the heck?" she muttered, gagging slightly.
For a brief second, something felt stuck in her throat, thick and unpleasant. But just as quickly, the sensation was gone.
She swallowed hard, frowning in confusion. "Did I make this too thick?" she wondered, eyeing the bowl suspiciously.
Unbeknownst to her, the mysterious liquid from the large egg had just entered her body.
And it wasn't behaving like normal food should.
While her stomach acids got to work, doing their best to break it down, the liquid ignored their efforts entirely, moving through her system like it had a destination in mind.
When it reached her womb, the strange substance began to change. Its form twisted and shifted until it started resembling something distinctly human-like.
It connected itself to Aiko's body, attaching much like an unborn baby would in the womb.
Only this "baby" wasn't ordinary.
Its developing form bore snake-like eyes, sharp and glinting with an eerie intelligence. Scales patterned its small body, shimmering faintly before fading into smooth skin. Whatever this thing was, it was no child. And it was just beginning.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone