2
Chapter 1 : Halting start.
After speedrunning my way through the five stages of grief through what was left of Sunday, I firmly settled on 'pissed off' as my state of mind in the aftermath.
My brain-meat had managed to catch up on the half-remembered memories of the previous evening, and I finally succeeded in putting two and two together. Still kinda mind-blown that I apparently drank with a wandering immortal witch and ended up cursed for it for some reason, but considering Circé's reputation and history, I was honestly counting my blessings here.
I thought she defaulted to turning men into pigs, no questions asked, but maybe she mellowed out sometimes during the last two millennia?
I still had gotten my ass stranded in the trashy boob-verse, which was admittedly a curse enough as far as I was concerned. Assuming I hadn't completely lost it the night before and what I remembered really happened anyway.
I was still fuming over the entire situation, mind you, but I acknowledged that it could have ended way worse for my sorry backside.
A mad scramble that has been just as bad as the previous one for my blood pressure shaded some more lights on my situation. A look through the various documents laying on my bedroom's desk informed me that I had been enrolled in Kuoh High School, 2nd year, as a French transfer student who somehow was fluent in Japanese, because why not?
My new given name? Marie-Charlotte Linlin.
Took me a hot second to catch on to the 'joke'. Made my left eyebrow twitch a bit madly, not gonna lie.
I was gonna have words with the woman the next time we ran into each other. Or maybe I'll just satisfy myself by bending her over to tan her hide a little, who knows?
Anyway, a quick and very frightening dip into a full bathtub - I may have or may have not gripped the rim with a two handed death grip the whole time - confirmed that the Curse of the Sea wasn't affecting me, which was kind of a relief. Sure, instinctive conceptual power over something as esoteric as the 'soul' would have made it more than worth it, but it would have been kind of a bummer not to be able to go for a swim anymore because of it. And that's before the possibility of getting absolutely no-sold by the first magic user remotely competent with water based magic crossing my path.
If I ever unlocked Multiversal travel in the very distant future - who knows in this setting? - I was going to stir firmly away from the One Piece universe ad eternum. Better not risk getting cursed a second time, once was enough for a lifetime!
So, yeah, powers. If my uncontrolled burst of Conqueror and ridiculous strength in the morning hadn't been a rather big hint, I at least got all the benefits of my current package. Gotta say it's fucking weird, suddenly being able to play with your own soul like putty. I hadn't tried with someone else's for Very Obvious Reasons, but I sort-of instinctively knew - both because of my knowledge of the lore and through Devil Fruit inherited instincts - that I could 'scare the soul out of someone' to designate them as a valid target. My body then could serve as either a temporary vessel to 'stock' those, or use them to 'buff' my parameters in a more permanent fashion. Like, makes my bones stronger, my flesh tougher, muscles stronger, nerves faster and the like. It would take some time for me to properly 'digest' those, though, and I could only take in so many souls before feeling 'bloated'.
Devil Fruits are fucking weird, man.
What was more interesting, outside of the very lethal application of my power, was the other ability of the Soul-Soul Fruit: making minions out of inanimate objects by stuffing them with souls, colloquially known as 'Homies'.
Yeah, it makes absolutely no sense, but I swear it fucking works. Or at least, I know it does, in spite of the fact that phylacteries aren't supposed to work that way, but One Piece logic I guess?
And I already had an inkling of what I was going to do with that gimmick in a world chock full of sentient soul-bound artifacts, Ma Ma Ma Ma…
***
I still wasn't in the best of moods come Monday morning, and my nose was slightly too deep into the map I found in my apartment as I power-walked through what I previously only knew as a fictional town in an anime, which made it so I only noticed how much I fucking towered over other people when I reached Kuoh High's gates for the first time and the whispers started to get too numerous to properly tune out.
After momentarily berating myself for not checking something as basic as my fucking height when I was supposed to have a half-giant constitution, a quick check at the Eyeball Mk.1 got me guesstimating my new height at something in the vicinity of one meter eighty/eighty-five centimeters or so - between five foot ten/six foot for the imperials out there. Needless to say, it was making me stand out, painfully, in a country where the women average one meter fifty height - five foot two, you philistines - especially when combined with my cumulative 'assets'.
Stealthiness, my new frame sure as hell wasn't prone to. And I was willing to bet that I hadn't reached my final height, knowing my luck so far.
Tucking my bubblegum hair behind my ear and feeling more than a little self-conscious, I made a show - entirely faked - of not giving a fuck about the various looks I was getting, and settled in to wait for the true torture to begin, internally seething about the concept of truancy officers and 'Shitori' Sona's hardline stance against slackers all the way.
Can you tell how positively enthusiastic I was about the prospect of going back to highschool?
Yeah, me neither.
***
"Woah, she's really big!" A googly-eyed and excited Rias whispers to her Queen, eyes locked on one of this school year's new face, the Kuoh High uniform the bubblegum haired girl is wearing the only confirmation the heiress needs to make her mind about if she really belongs amid the crowd, despite the fact that she easily has an entire head's worth of height over the other girls.
Akeno truly looks at the stranger under her King's prompting, before squinting a little, pausing to consider something extremely important.
Her eyes dip down to her own cleavage, calculating, before going back to the European fashion model in the making.
Her squinting intensifies, her purple orbs going back and forth rapidly a couple of times.
"Tsk." The raven haired Japanese scowls, before adding disgruntledly, "Yes, she really is 'big'."
And if she finds herself more than a little peeved that the newcomer has her soundly beaten, she keeps it solidly for herself, her King blessedly missing her point or the teasing afterward would have been insufferable.
***
"Well, tell us!" Issei manages to wrench his eyes from the new girl's tremendous badongas long enough to elbow his friend in the ribs.
Motohama, glasses askew and jaw hanging, finally comes back to the land of the living to give him the answer he has been waiting for all along.
"One…" The three size scouters audibly gulps, before hiking up his glasses back on his nose, adopting a serious air, "One hundred seventeen… Seventy… And one hundred three!"
A pregnant pause grows in the middle of the perverted trio as they all let that sink in.
"Are you saying…" Issei slowly words out while barely managing to stop himself from excitedly vibrating in place.
"That she beats the two Hime straight out of the water?! Yes, yes I am!" His glass wearing fellow pervert declares grandly and loudly.
"Who cares?!" His other, far less cultured friend finally blows up, pressing both Motohama and Issei's head down, a hot puff of air blowing out of his nostrils, "New chick is a fucking mountain! Look!"
He forcibly angles both of their heads in another direction, making them look toward another new girl.
White hair, golden eyes, a cat-shaped hairpin in her hair, an expression just as flat as her chest firmly carved onto her face, and probably not reaching their previous target's midriff on her tippy-toes.
"I want the deets on the cutie here, Moto', so spill out!" He hisses in their ears.
Issei and his glass wearing friend trade a long-suffering glance, before slowly shaking their head in concert after shrugging off Matsuda's hold.
… There was nothing to it. His bald friend really had no taste, no taste at all!
***
"And that would be the beginning of the year's transfer student, Marie-Charlotte Linlin." Sona 'Shitouri' tells her gathered peerage as they oversee the crowd gathered in front of Kuoh High's gates, discreetly pointing with a finger in the tall, pink haired girl's direction.
"Ano," Momo starts to say, prompting her King to look in her direction, "Are we really certain she belongs here? I mean…"
"Yes, we are." Sona tilts her head to the side, signaling that she understands what her Bishop hasn't said aloud.
Her height and figure certainly gives the foreign girl a more 'mature' air than most of their peers, she would be remiss to deny it.
"As a matter of fact, she'll be seventeen in…" The Sitri heiress hikes her glasses back up her nose mechanically while glancing at her clipboard, "A little over five months."
"Damn." Reya, Sona's second Bishop, softly whistles, her eyes locked on the foreigner's chest, "I'm going to have to ask her about her care routine at some point, I guess."
Heedless to Sona's scowl, it's as if a Divine revelation had been given to her whole peerage, only her Queen remaining unmoved as the three others start excitedly making plans to go talk to the bubblegum haired French girl.
"Tsubaki," Sona calls, making her Queen look back at her instantly, "Would you mind going over to offer her your help, in case she needs it for her first day?"
A moment of silence, only interrupted by a short and to the point 'Right away, kaichou', precedes a collective, dejected groan.
Sona gives a sharp eyed - and slightly vindictive - look to the three other girls constituting her peerage.
"Take this as a lesson to remain focused in all circumstances, girls. Now, for the first years-"
***
Despite my best attempt at affecting an aloof air in a bid to both get left in peace and settle the last of my nerves, I was definitely getting some attention.
Mostly curiosity and quiet wonder so far, if what I heard - 'who's this?', 'wow, she's tall!' and 'is she a foreigner?' were coming back the most often - was any indication.
Distressingly enough, the local members of the devilish populace were also paying me some attention. I had managed to get on bead on Gremory and Sitri both, the former easily identifiable by her shade of red hair that couldn't be anything but supernatural - though her Queen next to her was wearing a pinched expression for some reason - while the latter was 'holding court's in front of the civies while overseeing the crowd from what I could tell.
At some point, though, the Sitri's Queen - Tsubaki something if I remember right? - started to politely cut her way through the crowd to make a beeline in my direction.
Instantly, I start to tense, only to inwardly scowl when I realize what I am doing.
Maybe it wasn't the case two days ago, but I couldn't be any more different from past-me if I've ever tried. I am someone with the Conqueror's Haki, for fucks sake! Even discounting esoteric powers over the Soul and bullshit bloodline, I should remain unbowed in front of adversity, always.
I exhale deeply, more decisively than before, straightening my posture, and finally locking eyes with the glasses wearing, long haired Japanese teenage devil girl making her way toward me, who minutely perks up when she realizes that I noticed her approach.
It is the matter of a few seconds before she stands in front of me, giving me a perfunctory bow, her expression perfectly neutral.
Gotta appreciate Japanese formality when it helps you navigate weird ass situations, I guess.
"Greetings," She starts politely, her cadence even, "Are you Marie-Charlotte Linlin?"
I beam back a smile her way.
"Oui, c'est bien moi. À qui ai-je l'honneur?" I answer enthusiastically.
A beat passes.
I realize what I've done, and feel my cheeks turn red-hot instantly.
Right, being able to understand and speak Japanese fluently doesn't help if you're a fucking moron who default to their mother tongue!
"Dammit." I sigh to myself before smiling apologetically, "Sorry, I'm a bit nervous. I meant to say, 'Yes, I am. And who would you be?'"
Not that she really needs the translation, what with her devil-granted gift of tongues, but she still has to play the part.
She gives me an indulgent little quirk of her lips and I kind of want to crawl in the nearest hole-
No, you rock, you're awesome, and you're going to carry all of their collective asses for the next two years. Get a fucking grip 'M-C'!
"It's alright. I am Shinra Tsubaki," Right, that was her name, "A member of the Student Council. Our Kaichou asked me to render you help if you had any trouble today, considering you're a transfer student and won't be part of the orientation for the first year. Would you be interested?"
I mull over her word for a solid second, weighting the pros and cons.
On one hand, it grates me a little and I'll be under scrutiny while she gives me the tour. On the other hand, I'll get the tour and won't get lost in the buildings for the next couple of days like an absolute buffoon.
The choice is easy, really.
"Oui, I'd like that." I answer easily, "Merci beaucoup!"
A pause.
The glasses-wearing girl smiles back my way indulgently.
My blush returns with a vengeance.
… Please don't tell me that's going to be a thing?
[AN: For those wondering, Marie-Charlotte is an authentic French name. I even knew a girl called like that back in elementary school. It is a bit old school, but Circé entirely chose that just to fuck with her because its acronym is 'MC' and it calls back to the OG character.
Yes, she inherited THE laugh, it is part of the package.
And yes, she is a bit of a dolt, but at least it'll help her sell the 'Foreign girl persona' she has going on. ]
Chapter 2 : Good Girl Era.
There was a hidden silver-lining with being singled-out by the Sitri's Queen and going on a merry, fifteen minute tour of Kuoh High while the clock still ticked until the beginning of the year assembly.
For a short lapse of time, I didn't have to put up with the stares and whispers anymore, and Tsubaki, as a proud product of traditional Japanese society, was admittedly too polite to make me feel any more uncomfortable than I did.
The tour went alright, because there was no good reason for it to go tits-up really, and we made our way back to Kuoh High's auditorium just in time for the speech to begin.
I instantly zoned out with practiced ease, barely paying attention to what happened on the podium. I had heard enough 'we hope you do well and take your studies seriously'-speeches for a lifetime and wasn't in the mood for a fucking encore.
I only started paying attention to what was happening around me when I heard my name get called by one of the teachers holding a clipboard and reasoned that the woman was probably in the middle of listing her class.
I got up, muttered half a dozen 'pardons' and 'sorry's' as I made my way toward her and the other teens, and settled in to wait while curiously wondering if I was going to end up in the class of one of the members of the cast.
As the list went to a close, the answer looked to be a resounding 'no', and I mentally fist-pumped at not having to put up with Issei and his two dumbass friends' antics on a constant basis since I could see the trio of 'lightly shunned but not yet excluded' boys in one of the nearby - but not my - gaggle of teenagers.
Once again, I more-or-less zoned out what happened next while we were all orderly walking toward our homeroom, a bit too busy planning my future moves and being too caught in my head to listen to hushed whispers and awed looks thrown in my direction.
See, this entire situation I had found myself in entirely hinged on the fact that, if I behaved like the average DnD player out to give his DM a headache, then I could basically do whatever the fuck I wanted with Big Mom's powerset.
Sadly, reality is a little more complex than that. Would I be in the right, morally speaking, if I went ahead with my half-baked idea of putting the still unactivated, unclaimed Sacred Gears here in Kuoh for my own use?
My gut instinct was telling me 'yes', because the butterfly effect is a bitch and there's no guarantee that my presence hasn't already thrown the 'golden timeline' off the rails.
Still, I can't help but think that I'll be robbing some people of their potential, even if it'd be for good reasons, and, in a lesser manner, to preserve their innocence.
Honest question: does Issei, boobs obsessed moron that he is, truly deserve to go through half the bullshit he does in canon? Confronting all that pain and suffering head on to save the day not once, but multiple times?
And don't I, as an 'adult', have a responsibility to make it so those 'over their heads in so many ways' teenagers don't have to put their lives on the line because the other adults in their life apparently made the concerted decision to hold firmly the idiot ball multiple times and/or put them in danger for no good reasons?
Rias' arranged marriage with the off-brand KFC and Poopoobiel hissy fit aside, the truth is that there's no good argument beyond 'the plot said so' for the two local peerages to deal with all the issues canon threw their way afterward.
Orange rings into my mind, and I momentarily halt my woolgathering.
"-Have a new student from abroad this year, could you introduce yourself, Linlin-san?"
I straighten a little before giving the assembled class looking at me from their seats what I think is a dazzling smile.
"Avec plaisir." God. Fucking. Dammit! "Erh, I meant to say, 'with pleasure'. My name is Marie-Charlotte Linlin, though I suppose you'd say Linlin Marie-Charlotte in Japan." A pause, "I'm from Paris," More like my papers say so, because I'm sure as shit not, "And came to your country to perfect my mastery of your language." Another lie, another pause, "I really enjoy reading and writing when I have the time, and I'm a decent hand at sewing." Because every sailor worth a damn knows how to and that too was apparently part of the package.
I deliberately chose no to expand on the fact that my new hobbies may also include making use of overwhelming violence, yelling so hard it knocks out my enemies and playing with souls like putty to do as I please with them.
"Please take care of me." I finish my monologue with a perfunctory bow, before straightening back up.
A beat passes.
I catch the teacher beginning to open her mouth in the corner of my eyes.
The entire class explodes with questions, prompting the teacher's jaw to clamp shut and my smile to strain a little.
Though as I answer queries - 'how beautiful is Paris?', 'are you really from France?', 'did you visit the Eiffel Tower?', 'what about the Louvres Museum?' - and politely accept compliments sent my way - 'your Japanese is perfect', 'i just wanted to say that you're pretty', 'PLEASE GO OUT WITH ME!' - something truly sinks in.
They're all children.
And so are the members of the cast, supernatural status none withstanding.
And it may be wrong to steal their potential from them, but it is never wrong to protect children from the dangers of this world.
My resolve solidifies, and I start making my mind about how to deal with a certain Titty-Dragon Emperor's situation.
***
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAjZIUvWKKc
You want to know exactly how long my resolve stayed?
Just long enough for a certain moron to open his mouth during the pause following homeroom.
To be fair, I had more-or-less completely forgotten about Genshirou Saji's existence until he started spewing his particular brand of filth.
***
"That's it!" Saji yells, his chair scraping loudly against the floor as he jumps on his feet, "I can't take this anymore!"
All of his classmates, guys and girls, had been fawning over the transfer student for the past hour, and the blond simply couldn't believe they had forgotten their roots this much.
Ignoring the whispers and groaning following his proclamation - despite most of those being in the vein of 'not again', 'not this moron', 'I knew the class was too quiet for some reason' - Saji points a finger straight toward the gaggle of girls surrounding the foreigner's seat.
"The new girl has nothing on Shitori-Kaichou's beauty! You should be ashamed of yourself for failing to see it!" He declares grandly.
Once again bulldozing straight through the looks of disgust and disdain thrown his way, Saji closes his eyes, one hand on his chest, head angled up solemnly.
"But that's alright! I'll be the only one to taste the forbidden fruit, after all!" Nodding magnanimously, he adds with a beatific smile, "So I can only forgive you."
A beat passes.
Through his scrunched shut eyelids, Saji barely catches the bubblegum haired French girl mock-whispering to the closest individual of the female persuasion she can find.
"Euh, is he always this… Dramatic?" She asks through the corner of her mouth, her voice the same husky contre-alto that she used to charm his less cultured peers when she spoke in front of them earlier.
"Ano, Genshirou-kun is a little bit… Special." The brunette answers, a weird little smile on her face, and Saji preens a little at being recognized for what makes him unique!
"He's been going on and on about getting in the StuCo prez' pants for the better part of the last year." Another girl with dark hair answers flatly, her eyes not leaving her cellphone as she rapid-fire types something on it, "The guy still hasn't gotten the memo that he doesn't have a snowball chance in hell to succeed and keep making it awkward for everyone else."
"Now Yuki-chan, that's not very nice-" The first answers the second, but Saji is too outraged to listen to her words.
"Not a chance, you said?! Well, I'll show you all!" He slaps a hand against his chest, before clenching his fist in front of him, "This year, I'll get into the Student Council, and I'll seduce the object of my dream!"
"'Dream' being the keyword here." The dark haired girl adds with a drawl, her eyes still not leaving her phone.
"I have it all planned! I'll seduce her, we will sleep together, and once I get her pregnant-" A second chair scrapes loudly against the floor, but Saji's mind is too full of his fantasies to properly notice it, "-we will get married together! This way, I'll have Shitori-Kaichou's beauty all for myself, forever and ever!"
A self-satisfied smile solidly planted on his face, the blond opens his eyes once more-
-only to notice the foreign girl looming over him, with a very scary smile of her own carved on her face.
Saji blinks.
The very tall girl's hand darts forward.
Saji's ear gets trapped in a pinch.
"Ça n'est pas très correct tout ce que j'entends." The girl says while hiking up her hand a couple of centimeters upward, forcing the blond's body to try to follow the motion as much as he can, in spite of the sudden bout of pain.
Saji doesn't get exactly what she said in her weird language, but the sentiment is made pretty obvious by the situation. It doesn't take a genius to understand that she is less than pleased with his heartfelt declaration.
"Consent is important, you know? A woman's body is her temple, she's entitled to do what she wants with it, and certainly-"
The hand rises upward a bit more.
Saji wordlessly cries in pain, a hand darting out to slap the offending appendage away.
All he gets for his trouble is the very distinct impression of having backhanded the wall.
"-Doesn't-"
The hand rises once more.
Saji is on his toes, eyes scrunched shut in pain.
"-Have to follow the whims of a horny brat." The hand jostles a little, forcing the blond's head to follow the motion, "Do you understand?"
The unjustly harmed boy can only mumble in answer.
"I said, Do. You. Understand?" The hand jostles harder.
"YES!" Saji yells, the foreign girl blessedly stopping her torture.
"Yes what?" The demon faux-wonder.
"I said I understood! I won't talk about getting Shitouri-Kaichou pregnant again!"
A pause.
"Good boy."
The pinch on his ear recedes, Saji instantly landing heavily in his chair, clutching at his throbbing body part and feeling more than a little weakened.
He is too busy cringing about the pain in the aftermath to notice the thankful look given to his torturer by the girls in his classroom, or the hungry gaze directed the bubblegum haired girl's way by his fellow males.
***
I only put two and two together about his identity after he started spouting his cringy ass impregnation fetish on the Sitri heiress loudly to the world, which coincidentally made any misgivings I could have had about stealing Absorption Line from him fell by the wayside in less time that I could blink.
And I can blink extremely fast. Frankly, Sona should thank me for sparing her the headache.
But you want to know what really made me want to blow up a fuse? Because that would be what happened next, just as the girls of the class 2-C and I were making our way to the cafeteria for lunch!
***
Issei is running for his life, doing his best to follow after Motohama and Matsuda as the trio are making a dogged escape after upsetting the girls from his class.
As if it was their fault if they had PE on the first day! His friends and him hadn't had the opportunity to gaze onto glorious valleys of lush breasts in weeks! Of course they were going to seize this opportunity!
Looking over his shoulder, the brunette sees the girls behind him gaining ground, his lack of endurance - except in his right arm! - making him fall behind his two friends, and his heartbeat starts to race.
In fact, he is so caught up in the moment that he doesn't hear his friends' muffled expletives as a very loud yet meaty 'thump' echoes in front of him.
He turns his head back in the direction of his mad-dash, only for his eyebrows to shoot skyward, barely a second before he collides in a gaggle of limbs with his two friends.
His two friends, who are held aloft by their respective collars by the foreign Hime, her left eyebrow ticking in annoyance and with an entire gaggle of girls he doesn't know at her back.
Issei's eyes darts between his friends, the girls catching up on the members of the Perverted Trio and the Hime backed by even more girls - who probably also have a reason to get angry at them, if he has to be honest.
"Pas bouger." The bubblegum haired amazon clips.
Issei doesn't speak French, but the meaning is impossible not to catch on.
"Now, now, we're all going to wait here, and see what those girls want with you, yes?" The Hime asks politely.
The tone implies it isn't a question at all, and Issei feels honest-to-kami goosebumps running along his spine.
"""A-Aye, Hime-sama!""" Every member of the Perveted Trio yells as one, almost like they'd practiced it before.
The bubblegum haired Hime hums a little in the back of her throat, before dropping his two friends back on their feet.
"Good boys." She pats them all a couple of times on the head, the gesture utterly patronizing and humiliating, but hey, she got the height for it.
In the end, Issei does get his beating, feeling very woozy in the aftermath.
But for once, he wasn't the only one to get caught!
***
Having two out of the three local perverts run into me of all people on the very first day, after they already managed to piss off some part of the female population?!
Yeah, I was this close from killing a bitch. I had to satisfy myself by robbing my second Sacred Gear of the day, though.
They don't even know the luck they have that I'm still in my good girl era, I swear!