Capítulo 95: NGJ Chapter 95: Atelophobia
Atelophobia: An intense fear of failure and not being good enough.
I was sitting at home contemplating what was going to happen and what I would do in response. The exorcists had long left and it was night but I just couldn't shake off the feeling so I did what I always did. Plan.
A week at most.
It would take a week at most for Kokabiel to make his appearance.
Kokabiel.
A being that is firmly in the Ultimate tier. A veteran of hundreds to thousands of years. A being incomparable to High Tier existences.
In contrast, I am at the very pinnacle of High-Class. With my domain expansion, there is literally no one below Ultimate-Class that can defeat me. Sure in a 1 v 1, they might but I am a necromancer, you won't get a 1 v 1 with a necromancer.
My army currently is incredibly strong. Numbers nearing a thousand with half of those being stronger than Middle-Class beings. To organize it better and grasp my current standing in the world let's categorize the tiers like this.
E - Mundane, baseline to peak human. That is where I was at when I first completed the Zombie Dungeon.
D - Low Class, this is the position of power where most Supernaturals sit at. These can range from the bottom of the barrel like the new devil Issei who was barely stronger than a human to the beginning of the series Koneko who could chuck like cars like they are nothing and snap trees in half with ease.
C - Middle Class, a middle-class existence isn't too uncommon, but they definitely aren't common. A low-end Middle Class would be Kiba while a high-end Middle Class would be Akeno. Most of Riser's peerage are good showings of Middle-Class raffle.
B - High Class, elites of their race. Those of this tier are exceptional, and this is also a tier that most humans cannot hope to reach without Sacred Gears. They are Devil Nobles in the underworld, 3 pairs of wings Angels and Fallen Angels in heaven and Grigori. Beings of this calibre can shear the tops of mountains and can cause devastation on a city-wide level in the high ends.
A - Ultimate Class, it could also be called the divine level. At this level, you have stepped onto the level of gods. Almost all Norse, Olympus, and Hindu gods are at this level including those of the Biblical pantheon.
Heh, it's funny. The "Great War" is seen as this massive event in the centre of all things when it's just a civil war in a single pantheon. If a faction like say the Devils won they would actually be weaker than the other pantheons. Since all 3 races make up the Biblical Pantheon which is considerably strong but not the uncontestable strongest since the Biblical God and the original Satan died.
Anyway, most gods are at this tier, and if you are this tier you are also as strong as most gods. Sure the weakest gods may be ranked High Tier but those are outliers. Beings of this tier can range from wiping out several cities of landmass to straight-up annihilating countries to even continents at the pinnacle.
And then there is the...
S - Special Class. Beings who are outliers, monsters of the highest calibre. These beings can destroy the entire world on their own, there are very, very few of these even across all pantheons in this universe.
So, where I am at right now is the pinnacle of B rank. I am also not afraid of any B rank threat either but... A high tier might as well be dust to an Ultimate Tier. The difference between the two is higher than the distance between a low tier and a high tier.
I am not strong enough to win against an Ultimate Class being.
No.
I am pretty sure I am not even strong enough to inconvenience Kokabiel.
But did I need to? I already know Azazel noticed Kokabiel's movements. That's the real reason why he is in Kuoh in the first place. If I wanted to I could have Azazel sic Vali on him. Even if I didn't.
Even if I...
I...
If we did fight with Rias' group and Sona's peerage by my side we could stall Kokabiel due to his arrogance long enough for...
For... Vali to steal the show and save us by beating Kokabiel.
My body instantly had a visceral reaction.
I couldn't help but grit my teeth. Frustration.
Frustration boiled within me. I have been training for how long now? 3 Months maybe 4? I have risked my life around every corner, challenged every obstacle, struggled through the toughest of opponents. I don't stop training, I push myself daily until I shit blood and piss tears.
Hah.
It was funny. Hilarious even.
How strong would Issei become in that span of time with that intense of training?
Stronger than me.
How strong would Ddraig be if I fed her even more twice criticals?
Stronger than me.
How strong would Rias be with that intense of training and dedication?
S t r o n g e r t h a n m e.
Hahaha.
Arent I just...
Making everything worse?
Failing.
What have I accomplished?
Nothing.
With his luck and obsession even if he half-assed it Issei could probably become stronger than me in that time frame. With dedication, Rias could probably surpass me. Maybe even Akeno could.
Despite all of my hard work. I am not even anyone special am I?
How many times have I almost died? 5? 6? In pursuit of what? Mediocrity? To barely keep pace?
How strong was Issei when he trained with some dragon for a bit and touched some breasts? Significantly stronger than me.
To fall behind?
Lacking.
Are you just not fucking doing enough!?
I push myself harder than anybody else. I have to push myself harder than anybody else. Because If I don't, I won't even be able to keep up. I work harder than anybody else.
Am I even managing to keep up?
So.
What the fuck are you lacking!?
'...'
♢—•♦•—♢—•♦•—♢—•♦•—♢
'What the fuck am I lacking!?'
*Thump!*
&%/&%+/*#£'s fist hit the dirty wall of his apartment, bruising his knuckles but he did not care. His head weakly slumped against the wall as tears slipped out of his closed eyes. In his other was a crumpled piece of paper.
A college rejection letter.
He had failed to get a scholarship, by just 5 points.
He tried his best, he hadn't slept for days and days and days. Yet it wasn't enough. He failed to get the scholarship, he couldn't go to college, he did not have the money to. This was his only chance. And it wasn't good enough.
It was never good enough.
'Don't worry honey, as long as you earnestly and honestly work hard you can accomplish anything.' I was starting to grow resentful of those words. At one time they brought me. Now I couldn't stop myself from starting to grow hateful of them.
'If it was then why haven't I accomplished anything!?' I bit my lips hard enough to draw blood, I tried as hard I could to hold back the tears but it was useless. I could only hang my head down in shame and sob quietly. Memories resurfacing.
'I only asked you to make yourself for once and you can't even do that you useless fuck!?' *Thwack!* His meaty palm struck my face hard, throwing me to the ground. My head rang, my world spun, my face stung painfully.
'Tch, look at this bastard, now he is crying. Fuckin' shameless. *Sigh* here, stop crying and make yourself useful for once and get me a beer.' The large fat man threw a few crumpled bills from his pocket at the figure quietly shedding tears on the ground who forced back the sobs and grabbed the bills before heading out quietly like a meek mouse.
'Maybe I really am useless...?'
I wiped the tears from my face, looking at my damp hand before clenching it tightly.
'So fucking pathetic.'
I hate this.
♢—•♦•—♢—•♦•—♢—•♦•—♢
My eyes fluttered open as I sluggishly raised a hand up to my face.
What the fuck was that? Who the fuck was that?
Was that even real? Where did that even come from?
Why was that so familiar?
...Is that...
Who I was?
I thought I had largely forgotten that? I don't remember much personal details from my previous life. I thought a large part of my personal memories had been eroded by the void.
Hah, now that I remember I don't even think Akira is even my real name.
But why did those fragments flash by me now?
As I was wondering that I heard a voice.
"Oh did you wake up Akira?" My eyes darted over to Rias who was leaning over me, or more precisely, I was in her lap. When? I didn't even notice? Even in my sleep, I can wake up at the slightest budge. I also noticed Koneko crouching next to the couch I was lying on Rias' lap on. Koneko had an intense expression on her blank face as she stared at me.
"Rias? When did you get here?"
"Oh, we just got here. We came here to spend some time with you and watch this Anime I brought that I thought we could watch together. Your maid let us in and we noticed you slumped over on the couch. Sorry for not asking but Akeno borrowed your kitchen to make some tea and snacks." She said while stroking my hair but I could also recognize a hint of worry in her tone.
As I turned my head to look away from her I accidentally locked eyes with Koneko. Who after a split second of consideration held the cookie in her hands out toward me.
"Eat."
"Why?"
Her eyebrows furrowed and before I could raise my eyebrow in question Koneko stuffed the cookie into my mouth. I raised my eyebrow at her as I chewed, chocolate chip. It tastes very good. Probably because I feel like I am starving. After chewing some more and swallowing Koneko looked more satisfied and I couldn't help but question.
"Why did you do that?"
"...You looked... ...hungry." I could tell from the minute hesitation that she was about to say something else but changed it for some reason. Then I noticed Akeno entering the room carrying a tray of snacks and my quality tea.
"Ara~ ara~ it seems like you have finally woken up Akira-kun. I was afraid that I would have to resort to more naughty methods to rouse you from your sleep." She said putting the tray down on the table in front of us giving me an eye-closed smile while cradling her cheek.
Koneko's eyes narrowed as she pointed her finger at Akeno accusingly.
"Pervert."
"Guilty as charged~" Akeno deflected the accusation swiftly before settling next to me on the couch as I pried myself off of Rias' lap. I turned my head to Rias.
"So, what anime did you say we are watching again?" Rias smiled and pulled out a DVD case from her between her breasts. I recognize that, don't I?
"I am glad you asked, I have been holding out on watching it before the entire season was released on DVD so we could watch it together. It's pretty new. It's called Sword Art Online."
Huh, right, we are actually in 2012, aren't we? I suppose Sao would still be kind of fun to watch with others.
"Sure plug it in." Rias nodded and walked over to the CD player when Koneko rose up from her squat and suddenly crawled onto my lap. After a few adjustments to make herself comfortable, she sat content on my lap while Akeno let out an ufufu~ on the side.
"Koneko, why did you decide to suddenly crawl onto my lap?" Not that I am complaining but I didn't understand why.
"...It's comfortable." She replied curtly while leaning against me and nuzzling against me, shortly after I heard a soft rumble rising from her against my chest, sending comfortable vibrations. Wait, is she actually purring?
I don't know but it feels nice.
Walking back Rias saw the sight of Koneko snuggling against me and smiled.
"It seems like she really likes you Akira." She handed me a portion of the blanket she brought and we set it up so all of us had a portion covering each other quite snuggly and comfortably as Rias pressed start.
This is nice.
A/N: Fun fact, cats actually purr to soothe their owners when they sense that they are distressed or stressed in an effort to comfort them.
Slowly the reasons for how Akira acts are being revealed, his initial reasons that were made worse by the void. Akira himself is slowly realizing he might just not be good enough the one thing he fears the most for "reasons". Leading to drastic reactions from him.
"Akira" is slowly being unravelled
Capítulo 96: NGJ Chapter 96: Doubt
I woke up to a sense of comfort. 3 Pairs of arms were wrapped around me. Looking around I saw Koneko with her arms wrapped around my chest, she was drooling on my shirt but I still felt it was very cute so gets a pass.
My left and right arms were taken by Rias and Akeno respectively. All of them were in their pyjamas after we spent all night binging Sword Art Online. Surprisingly they liked them but I guess it made sense, most people like it in the first watch where you don't realise the ridiculousness of it.
It was fun, genuinely watching anime with the girls. Hell, Shuri even made snacks for us due to Akeno's request.
This reminded me of something.
We...
We are still high schoolers, aren't we?
Like... isn't this what high schoolers do? Stay up past midnight watching movies with their friends while their parents make snacks for them.
It's so surreal. Despite how distorted the scenario was the core of the concept remained unchanged. I don't think I ever had a proper high school life?
From the small fragments of my past that slip into my mind every now and then my high school life was... pretty miserable? I don't have too many shards but in most of them, it is just studying in a dirty room under a lamp, no friends, no girlfriend, no "family".
It's weird, I had a preconception of my previous life that was formed by my subconsciousness just filling in the blanks. It feels like different images I have of myself are clashing against each other making it hard for me to understand it all.
This is hurting my head. So I locked those memories away for later. Right now I just wanted to pet Koneko but there was a problem.
My arms were enveloped by softness, not that I mind of course. But this is making it difficult to pet Koneko without disturbing the others. Oh, wait.
'Idle Transfiguration.'
Without much effort, I grew another arm from my shoulder and started petting Koneko as she leaned into my touch.
Idle Transfiguration is a weird ability to use. I can freely alter the shape of my soul, effortlessly growing extra arms, legs...
Wait I can make a double penis.
Hell, I could probably make tentacles too, I am sure Rias would appreciate that.
Anyways, there is a flaw with that, well not so much as a flaw but a limitation. For example, if I turned into a giant, I wouldn't just get the strength of one. Instead, my current strength would be distributed into that form so I would be a giant with the strength of a man. Of course, my punches would hurt more thanks to the higher/weight and stuff but the point still stands.
But I have found another very very potent application of idle transfiguration.
With it, I can redistribute my physical stats. Of course temporarily as I will have to shape back into the original shape of my soul eventually but it is still useful. In fact, I used it to develop several new extension techniques with my second body throughout the few days.
1 - Tekkai/Iron Body: By shifting most of my agility and strength onto my Endurance and changing my body to make it more fortified I can tank blows that are far above my usual pay grade. The problem with this is that I have the speed of a tortoise using it.
2 - Kami-e/Paper Form: By shifting most of my strength and some of my endurance to agility I can maximise my ability to dodge by using Idle Transfiguration to bend and shape my body in ways incomprehensible to the human mind.
3 - Seimei Kikan/Life Return: By shifting All of my strength and most of my agility to Vitality I can crank my regeneration to absurd levels without the RCT.
Unfortunately doing this with strength is not a good idea, since if you sacrifice endurance for it you are going to break your arms from the imbalance, if you sacrifice agility you will most likely miss. And sacrificing vitality is always a bad idea.
Aside from those 3 ripoffs, there are also some other cool things I can do with Idle Transfiguration that do not exactly fall into a strict technique. For example my new favorite way of fighting melee.
What do you expect when fighting someone in melee? Probably some punches and kicks right?
Well, what about a giant fuck-off tentacle blade arm?
With cursed enhancement, I am confident I can shear an entire city block with my blade tentacle whip swing.
I can also just transform my body into spikes in the case of a grapple.
They say your imagination is the only limit but it really is in this case. I haven't even touched on the application I can use it with against other people. For example, my third body ran experiments with live subjects by taking some "willing volunteers" from the local prison.
And wow there is a lot you can do with the human body.
Honestly, it's so fascinating .
I mean I managed to turn a full human being into an actual somewhat living and breathing dog!
...Sure it took like 29 volunteers to figure out the controls properly but they died for a good cause. And unsurprisingly experimentation like this made the skill proficiency shoot up to the sky. It was already at 19.
Theoretically.
With enough effort and knowledge, I could recreate the Angel and Devil races. Probably the exact same way god created them too. Hell, I could also take out some of the racial weaknesses but that has a flaw too.
Equivalent exchange. Like all of my abilities, a price must be paid. If I want to have more mass I have to use CE to maintain it. If I want to increase Agility I must sacrifice another stat.
I will need more experimentation.
However, I won't be using the Mahito tactic of making a stock of transfigured humans. That is too morbid, even for me.
While I revel in deserved violence and revenge I quite dislike being unnecessarily cruel. It's the same reason why I kill my victims shortly after. No need to let them suffer further.
...
Eventually, Riser and her party had to leave, leaving me in my mansion once again, not quite alone as the others still lived here but right now I felt quite unnerved.
I don't know what to do.
Of course, I am training full blast right now. I have 3 right now who share my CE output. 1 has 48% 2 has 48% and 3 has 4%. My body at the house was 3.
The other 2 were in what I like to call 'idle mode' they are fighting through the dungeon but I am not consciously doing it. They are more like robots right now, of course, this drops their combat effectiveness drastically but I have an army for a reason they just have to support the army.
So here I was wandering the mansion trying to look for things that would miraculously give me some revelations or something. I don't know why.
Well, that has become a repeating pattern, hasn't it? Me not knowing what the fuck I am doing.
"Akira-kun? What are you doing here?" I turned my head toward the noise to see the surprised Shuri sitting on a bench in the middle of my yard overlooking a pond, her voice was contained a twinge of sympathy and hearing that I couldn't even get angry.
I probably did look like an indecisive loser right now.
"Hey Shuri, I am just hanging around, thinking about stuff." Hearing me she turned to her normal tone of voice and patted the spot next to her.
"Well, want to share your thoughts then? Another person to talk to shouldn't hurt. Who knows, it might even help." I found no reason to rebuke so I idly made my way next to her and sat down and leaned back, watching the frankly beautiful scenery in my garden.
Asia really did some work here.
...Why did I never notice this before?
I felt a tugging motion, and not noticing any hostility I did not resist, and my head landed on Shuri's lap. Unlike Rias's it felt warmer and softer, it felt motherly. I looked up only to see the twin peaks almost entirely smothering my vision.
"What's on your mind Akira-kun."
Now that I think about it. Shuri may be the best person to ask about my problems. She is more experienced in doubts and regret than me most likely.
So I decided to do something I basically never did ever since coming here.
I left a crack on the door.
"Shuri, what do you do when you realize that a decision that you made before that you can't take back might not have been the correct one? That you may simply have been stupid and conceited. How would you deal with something like that?" I know I am being too stupid, I am letting them know too much, I can't let myself look anything less than invincible, I don't want them to look down on me.
Shuri's hand that was playing with my hair stopped for a moment before she resumed and talked with a kind smile on her face.
"You try your best to not regret it." What kind of half-assed answer is that?
"Explain." Despite the almost hostile impatience in my voice, she answered calmly.
"Akira-kun, as you know, I have experienced many things I would regret. And I have learned from them one thing. It's to not regret them, you may scorn your past self for being conceited and stupid, and you may curse them for damming you. So I have only one advice."
"Do your very best to make that choice one you won't regret. Live so that you can do your best to justify that choice. I may have regretted marrying Baraqiel once I realized what my family and his faction would do to Akeno and I. But instead of deciding to bury myself in regret and despair, I chose to try my best not to regret it."
"Even though that choice was almost certainly a regrettable one that dammed me, I made the best of it, because that choice also gave me my beautiful daughter and now you too, so I don't. If I had let that doubt and despair make the conclusion for me I wouldn't have her or you in my new life, I certainly would have regretted it. While it may sound ridiculous, the best advice I have is to never give up and try your best, because you will only truly regret it if you give up."
'...'
'Don't let your doubt draw the conclusion for you.'
'...You will regret it if you give it up now huh?'
"Akira-kun?" Shuri called out as I quietly rolled out from her lap pillow and started walking away.
"Thank you Shuri, you gave me a lot to think about." With my nigh omnidirectional vision I could see her sight with the corner of her lips curled up.
A/N: Akira is finally lowering his walls a bit and letting others take a peek into a bit of his heart, and how much this one conversation mattered to Akira will be revealed later. What did you think about this chapter? I would love to know.
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