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.