I slowly opened my eyes. Sunlight bearing down on my face, waking me up from my impromptu journey. With a groan I held my head as vague memories of what my new body did before I took over floated around my head. Shifting through the memories, most of them pertaining to street smarts and other miscellaneous information that assisted in keeping me alive and if just bearly fed.
I got up, taking stock of my current situation. I apparently scavenged food from the bakery shop just down the block and after some searching was rewarded with soggy bread that soaked in some water. Before that was some old sausages from a meat shop a couple of blocks away the day before yesterday. So with my current maturity and intelligence, I could hopefully improve my situation so as not to eat that again.
(short time skip)
I tried. Like actually tried. But most of my plans went down the drain when I came across an issue that has persistently accompanied me through my previous life and this one as well. Interactions, social interactions. I thought that I could do some street performances to earn money, but I don't have any skills in the regard. I thought of begging for some money, but that required talking to random strangers, so no luck there. I thought of entering a library to get some papers and a pencil to draw for money. But the moment I walked up the the doors I was waved off and told to go away, probably doesn't help that my entire person is covered in filth and an aura of stench waved off me. So, with what I could plan on the first day being flushed down the drain I was back to the drawing board.
'grumble'
Well I guess the drawing board could wait, food comes first. I suppose it's time to put the memories I inherited to use. Navigating myself through the surrounding alleyways, making pace to a nearby convenience store. Every
Friday they would do an inventory inspection and toss all of the expired goods that they can't sell anymore. But of course there are issues going ahead for mission success, they would lock the dumpster after they have completed inventory and prepared for night time operations. So the window to scavenge for supplies is around 5 to 8 minutes.
With quiet steps I hugged the wall in the shadows, the sun beginning to set, casting a long shadow in the alleyway. Clanging and small chatter greeted my ears as I moved closer and closer to the corner of the wall where the last of the shadows met open ground. I have done this many times before, but for the first time I'm using my new mental maturity to assess and plan ahead to get as much as possible within the least amount of time. Course it's probably going to go wrong, but hey, this special begger can't be a chooser and look at that, looks like they went inside. Mission is a go!
It went smooth, you can almost say buttery smooth, (sigh) they had tossed a butter container in the dumpter and kindly left the lid off, special gift left for me. I went up to the dumpster, grabbed a convenient empty trash bag, and I went to town grabbing anything that looked unopened or unused and filled the bag as quickly as possible. But I had to show restraint and leave with the bag before it grew to heavy for my neglected body.
Making my way through the various alley ways with my goods was going to take awhile, lucky me i dont have any appointments that I'm running late to...
It took time but I made it back, to well nothing much really, just an abandoned garbage dumpster that has been sitting behind an old abandoned building located on the outskirts of Kyoto. My immature self had refurbished it with cardboard, scrap cloth and plastic bags he scavenged on his trash runs. Since I typically stayed to myself and since most homeless in Kyoto stayed under bridges and from looking at the expiration dates on the items I gathered saying 1994, I would take a gander that internet cafes are just becoming a thing here in Japan. Before coming here my immature self had the basics of the Japanese spoken and written language down and whilst my mature self had learned the very basics through an online class I took on a whim, I could get by with day to day activities without much (if any) difficulties.
So there I sat, In my dumpster munching on what seemed to be a rice ball thing with something stuffed inside of it. With myself pretty much situated, a source of questionable food and a makeshift water catcher. I think it's time to get to work on one of the perks that I came here with, magic.
Well I say magic, but the actual definition of it is Magecraft. From what I can remember about the Fate franchise is that, a long time ago magic and true ether kinda disappeared. I think the last thing holding the decline of true magic and the like was Vortigern. You know, the dragon that was related to Artoria. Well Merlin had a 'prophecy' that the red dragon will kill the white dragon and yadda yadda yadda. Long story short Artoria killed Vortigern, without many supernaturally inclined creatures sticking around the world, true ether and magic began to decline until the eventual disappearance all together, and when I say disappearance, I mean the disappearance of everything supernatural. But here is the kicker. This is a world with Highschool DXD and Fate combined. So I have no clue of their parallels and how they combine. But before a Mage can do anything, they first have to unlock and create a mental trigger in order to use the energy our bodies produces.
Just one teensy little problem with that, I don't know how... You see, sure I got invested in Fate and... FGO. But I never really paid a real amount of attention to how I can accomplish this feat myself. I'm guessing I need to somehow sense this energy that my body produces and create a self hypnosis based mental trigger in order to somehow turn my circuits on and off. Wait, circuits. My body already has the circuits, I just need to provide the power. But I can't really remember what it was. I think it was like connecting your life source or something like that, but the DXD verse has senjutsu and touki, so how are each of them differentiated. 'sigh' This is going to take some work. Who knows, I might unlock my sacred gear in the process, I am desiring something to happen, so it just might awaken.
(2 week timeskip)
All right... So I failed badly. I tried meditation, shocking myself and other cliche things in an attempt to awaken my circuits. I thought that since my previous body had a lack of circuits I could have a sense of them. Nope, nada, ain't happening. All I succeeded in doing was getting a better sense of how my body was doing. It's bad, this weakness and the sensitivity it has to things like the cold was unnoticeable until I tried to sense the hidden circuits in my body, bringing my minds attention to how fucked my body is. All I can think on next is to get a third parties help in pulling a cultivator on me. You know, by like guiding some of their magic into my circuits and activating them. But that's obviously not going to happen, so I need to think of a better solution.
For these past 2 weeks I haven't been just eating and scavenging food and supplies from dumpsters around my area. I've branched out what to include in my search. I'm gathering things like pens, scrap paper, cloth, cardboard, water bottles and other miscellaneous items I could get my grubby hands on. I've also kept an eye out for anything that stood out to me, anything 'supernatural or out of the ordinary'. I may have left that void behind, but it didn't leave me behind. My perception to the supernaturally inclined sky rocketed from my time drifting around. Things like the normal old grandma sitting on the park bench, turned into a long dog faced Yokai, an Inu I think is what she's called.
One of the things I remember about DXD is that Kyoto is the prevalent place with things like Yokai and other beings of simular nature. If I remember right a nine-tailed fox lady is the ruler of Kyoto and she has stayed in this position of power with her connection with the Leylines converging under the city. I would probably try to attempt to connect or extract some energy from the Lines, but the chances of me being discovered and the odds that the Leylines don't have the correct or humanly kind energy running through them are high, making this a little to risky to attempt, probably thoughts for the future.
I'm running low on options, the only other things that comes to mind is to use another system of energy until I can get my circuits unlocked. After all, having some form of protection against whatever enemy I make, would make a whole world of difference. So I should stay my current path for now, taking care of my malnutrition and getting some mucles on my bones is a good first step.