Chapter 29: Afraid?

~Next up: Highschool DxD: Dragon's Ascent~

Pain, so, so much pain.

I could only grit my teeth and keep moving. Rapid Recovery was collaborating with Defensive Form and Battle Continuation to keep the worst of my wounds at bay by prioritizing stopping the internal bleeding and fixing up the ruptured organs.

Yet the feeling of being fixed up made the wounds flare up hard. I had to use what remained of my pants to bind up my, not severed, torn-off arm. It felt like I was embroiled in magma, god, I almost wish I were fucking dead.

Where the fuck is it?

I was gradually hobbling toward where I initially fought the Nomu and I tore off whatever remained of my mangled arm. But when my tibia and femur were broken into several dozen fragments it was quite hard.

Not to mention I had to haul this giant anchor around.

...Would probably be easier if I didn't drag the anchor around with me. But I wasn't leaving it behind lest it get snatched up by mist man.

As I was climbing up rubble or, at least trying to, I saw a large figure approach me, making me enter a slight PTSD episode before the figure was revealed.

"Hakari! You are alive!? Stay there, let me get you." Shoji looked at me with a shocked expression so vivid I could make it out even from behind his mask. Did we even talk before? I think we did at lunch.

He quickly pushed rubble out of the way with his super strength and reached me and picked me up with his tentacle arms.

"Hey, why are you so surprised that I'm alive? Also, sorry for troubling you but please pick up the anchor too it's very important." Shoji nodded and picked up the Anchor rather easily, of course when you have leverage and lifting strength like that it shouldn't be so hard.

"I... well, I saw you fighting that monster and the sheer destruction it caused, I was able to hear it all go silent and see how badly you were injured with my limbs. I was hoping for the best but... well, I understood the more likely outcome. Also, why does holding does anchor make me feel way stronger? Where did you get it." Yeesh, a bit grimm aren't you?

"Geez, have some faith in a friend will you? But I get it, the anchor is a part of my abilities, it doubles the strength of its wielder. Also, think you could find my arm? Or at least what remains of it? If you could that would be great, since I need that back to use my recovery quirk." Shoji was silenced probably by the fact that I was talking about my dismemberment so casually but he nodded and turned some of his other arms into eyes and noses and started sniffing around.

"You really are a different breed Hakari-kun." Thank you for the compliment. "Still, I'm glad you are oka- doing fi-, alr-, well I'm glad you aren't dead at least." I snorted, promptly regretting it instantly as my spine really disagreed and broken parts of my spine stabbed into my back.

After a minute of searching Shoji found my arm and promptly looked away from it with an audible gagging sound of him suppressing his urge to puke.

"U-umm, Hakari-kun, I think I found your arm, I can't really tell because it doesn't look like one anymore." I tapped his back twice to let him know I wanted to get down, being released I fell onto my feet and stumbled, struggling to maintain my balance. I slowly stumbled toward the torn-off arm before picking it up.

Yeah, you know how you squeeze a tub of toothpaste and it becomes all shrivelled? Yeah, my arm looked like that except for shards of bone sticking out and all digits twisted in the wrong direction.

Gritting my teeth I aligned what looked most like the part where the arm was severed with my little stub for a few minutes while Shoji kept watch and then when Rapid Recovery finally reconnected the two piece-

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Hakari-kun! You alri- are you alive?" I didn't even hear him as I bit down on my tourniquet so hard my gums bled, the nerves reconnected and now all other sensations were overwhelmed by searing white hot pain from my brutalized arm.

I writhed the ground and dug my fingers in. Holy shit all of the pain I was suppressing was coming back. Tears gathered in the corner of my eyes, death genuinely seemed preferable now.

All for One. When I get my hands on you, you will beg to end up in hell because the torment I inflict on you will be worse than anything any infernal being could even dream about conjuring.

Good news, I somehow wasn't dead, well, I was standing in the doorway there but Battle Continuation juuust edged me away from the exit.

I slumped against the wall with Shoji keeping watch over me we heard distant booms of All Might taking care of villains around the house. Too tired to even move at this point with most of my actions paralysed by pain I simply waited and bit down.

Soon enough All Might appeared before us, he still looked mighty pissed but still tried to give us a smile but that quickly faded the moment his eyes landed on the sight of me biting down a gag while cradling a brutalized arm.

"Young Hakari... I-" I spit out my gag to interrupt whatever he was about to say and pointed at him with my good arm.

"You will take me to the hospital with your superspeed is what you were going to say right sensei!? Because I am not standing a good chance here with a collapsed lung, my ribcage broken, torn intestines... -fuck it, just know the only unbroken bone in my body is the cranium. Besides, we have something we need to talk about ones and alls." All Might flinched hard at that.

"Young Hakari, I don't think your condition is stable enough for me to carry you, you should wait for-" I cut him off again, perhaps a bit harshly but he should blame himself for his tardiness.

"-Defensive Form will protect me from any further injuries and Expert Wind Resistance makes me nigh immune to any form of wind-based effect of me that wouldn't tear the city off the map. So just please just get me to a hospital or give me enough painkillers to get an Elephant high because I am starting to regret not getting pasted by the Nomu!" All Might nodded grimly and picked me up in a princess carry while nodding to Shoji.

"Thank you young Shoji for helping young Hakari, unfortunately, I can't stick around I have to carry young Hakari to the nearest hospital, please inform the teachers and the other heroes for me." Saying that and seeing Shoji nod All Might took off with a mighty leap so fast the world around us seemed to blur as he rushed out of the USJ.

"How are you holding up young Hakari, I am truly sorry I couldn't be there faster. But what did you mean by what you said." I closed my eyes to take the pain off my mind.

"Worse than you'd think, if I didn't have a proper stack of proper quirks I would drop dead at any second, I don't have any energy left to maintain my quirks yet I still have to, if I let up for a second and pass out I will just pass on instead. As for your old nemesis, I will explain when Principal is also around so I don't need to repeat myself." I said between hard breaths. Battle Continuation worked only as long as I held on, and if I stopped holding on it would lose its effectiveness instantly. I was fighting for my life and I don't think I have it in me to fight for much longer.

Hearing my words All Might sped up, we should be at a hospital in a minute. In the meantime, USJ Should be counted as finished right?

I pulled up the USJ quest notification and got a pleasant surprise. Actually not a surprise, it better fucking give me a good reward for my pain and anguish.

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[Quest: USJ Incident]

Description: Shit has hit the fan the hammer of karma has come slamming down. Try your best to survive the USJ incident, good luck, you will certainly need it.

Objective: Avoid dying or getting abducted until All Villains have either retreated or been restrained.

Optional Objective: Avoid the death of Aizawa Shota or any 1-A Student.

Quest Complete!

Rewards:

Objective Complete! Avoid dying or getting abducted until All Villains have either retreated or been restrained.

Reward: Gold Gacha Ticket, [Power Bestowal] unlocked

Optional Objective Complete! Avoid the death of Aizawa Shota or any 1-A Student.

Reward: Advantage Silver Gacha Ticket

Unprecedented Achievement! Kill the USJ Nomu by yourself

Reward: Advantage Diamond Ability Gacha Ticket

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No time to refill on Toganium, I'm just gonna roll these now and hope at least one of these gives me something that will increase my survival chances.

Going by chronological order. Gold Gacha, you go first. Please just give me something good!

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Rolling...

A Rare Ability!

[Rare - Zoan Axolotl]

|Rarity: Elite| |Class: Changer|

Allows the user to turn into an Axolotl or an Axolotl Hybrid at will. Giving them all of the strengths and weaknesses an Axolotl possesses.

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That's... really good! I kinda expected to get cursed with how things were going lately. A general transformation power sounds very useful. Axolotls have good regeneration but I don't have the stamina to spare for a Zoan Transformation at the moment so no thank you.

Alright, time for Silver, give me something good, please!

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Rolling...

[Rare Power - Sunlight Spear]

|Rarity: Rare| |Class: Emitter|

Allows you to create spears of concentrated sunlight at will, the spears behave like lightning and are effective against metaphysical entities and incredibly effective against Dark Beings.

or

[Common Item - Stimpack]

|Rarity: Common|

A potent medical tool from a post-apocalypse world. A stim pack is a syringe pack filled with modified stem cells and healing agents that boost the human body's natural regenerative properties into overdrive. WARNING: Usage of the stimpack without enough nutrients or minerals in the body can cause more harm than good.

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"Argh!"

"Young Hakari! Are you okay!? We are almost there!" All Might asked with concern lacing his voice as I held my chest. This hurt me physically.

"No, I have to choose between two things, and while one is objectively superior I have to choose the worse one because of my circumstance." All Might gave me an awkward look at that. Lost for words.

"Uh, yeah, just, hang on, we are here."

All Might landed us in front of a hospital as numerous hospital residents like doctors and nurses rushed out in front of him with shocked expressions and some people even took photos. I tapped his bicep to get his attention just as he was about to talk to one of the staff.

"Forget any normal procedure, get the staff to gather as much food as they possibly can for me as fast as they can, any normal procedure will just kill me, I got a new ability that can let me survive. But I need you to trust me here All Might. And as strong as many painkillers as they can get me, at least enough to overdose a white whale." I looked into his eyes with a resolute expression and All Might nodded to me with a grim one.

He commanded the staff to carry me to an unused private room while they supplied me with some strong ass painkillers that finally numbed my pain enough for me to gain some semblance of control over my body.

Then the staff rolled in carts of hospital foods that I jumped on, I felt ravenous. Using Cellular Overdrive for that long and stacking depleted all of my energy and calories, I felt like I hadn't eaten in ten days, and considering how many resources I depleted in my body that was probably closer to 20 days physically.

The staff and All Might watched in morbid curiosity and awe as I shovelled down food like Luffy. Barely chewing if any. Even if I felt like I was going to puke I still ate as much as my body let me. I didn't even taste what I ate, fucking damn I miss Toga's cooking already.

Then, when I ate until the point where my stomach bloated I pulled out the Stimpack from the storage and slammed it down on my thigh to the shock of everyone there. The concoction was rapidly injected into my body and I felt the effects instantly.

"Young Hakari what are you doing!?"

"Chill out, it's a medicinal item I got from my quirk. Also, could you guys give us some privacy? Let a guy regenerate in peace please." After a look from All Might they all left as he locked the door behind them.

"Young Hakari, do you know?" He asked and I smiled, I still felt like shit but the Stimpack was quickly healing my body, even if it was quite draining, I was still munching on something while talking.

"Yep, I know about One for All and All for One, you don't have to maintain your form I know about your injury. But I'd rather discuss how the hell I know these things with Nezu in the room so that I don't have to repeat myself, you can just deflate and relax in the meantime while I try to regenerate and not die." All Might nodded and burst into smoke, revealing the form of Yagi Toshinori wearing the oversized costume on his body.

"Got it, I don't want to interrupt or bother you Hakari-kun, I can see how much you have suffered, rest well, I need to call Nezu sensei. Rest well." I nodded to him and leaned back as I took a look at my last two rewards.

First was something that really piqued my interest.

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[Power Bestowal]

|Not an ability, basic system function|

There are only so many things that you can or are willing to do yourself.

Allows you to "bestow" your abilities to others. Only works on abilities. You need to make contact with someone in order to bestow your ability to them. Once taken back, the ability can't be used for 48 hours, you need at least 1 minute of skin-to-skin contact to take an ability back.

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Well, that certainly sounds useful, there are quirks I use too sparsely so I guess I can give them to someone who would actually make use of them that I trust.

Those thoughts are for later, with how things are going I need every card in my hand in case life decides to throw me more curveballs.

Speaking of cards. I looked at the Diamond Advantage Ability Gacha Ticket with a pleading expression.

Please just give me something. I have long given up praying to RNGesus and Lady Luck since they are apparently plotting my downfall with the curveballs thrown at me.

Roll it.

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Rolling...

[Elite - Metal Manipulation]

|Rarity: Elite| |Class: Kinesis|

Allows the user to user to telekinetically control and manipulate the form of any metal they are touching.

or

[Epic - Scary Monsters]

|Rarity: Epic| |Class: Changer, Trump, Master, Enhancer, Thinker, Brute|

"The power of prehistoric times"

Allows the user to turn any living being into a dinosaur including themselves with a single touch, the user can decide which dinosaur the target transforms into. The user can command all transformed dinosaurs they have created.

The transformation will last until the user turns the ability off or are grievously wounded. Transformed Dinosaurs do not consume stamina but creating them does, the larger the mass difference between the target and the transformed state the larger the stamina cost. Transformed Dinosaurs can further spread the virus by wounding other living beings.

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I did not even have to think twice. An epic ability, A JoJo's stand ability. An Epic, fucking, ability, I actually got an epic again. Fuck, I would be so hard right now if I could feel my lower body.

You know, maybe getting brutalized that bad was worth it...?

A/N: You can always count on Hakari to hit a jackpot, an Epic is supposed to be a rare-ish drop from a Diamond Gacha but Hakari not only pulls through but also gets one of my favourite stands of all time, time for Dinosaurs baby! Also, he really lucked out with that Stimpack there, he was originally gonna have a longer recovery arc but the Stimpack roll shortened my original plans.

I feel like he deserves it though considering the shit he just went through, there is a reason why I wrote the first half so brutally, what Hakari did wasn't just consequence-free, he truly abused his body until it broke and he is paying the bloody price, the only reason why he is still alive is because his bet paid off. Though I am glad he rolled something like Scary Monsters because that has so much potential for him to play around with, frustratingly until now Hakari just rolled straightforward one-note abilities.

Also, Hakari has finally decided to lock in and made the call to talk with Nezua and All Might, the world(fate) basically declared war on him and Hakari is gonna make it regret that.

Now, the USJ arc is basically over, what did you guys think about it and Hakari's new rolls?

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