Death was always a concept that was often pondered upon by people at some point in their lives. Personally, as someone who's experienced this first hand by means of getting body-checked by speeding truck, I could say that at first, Death is horribly underwhelming.
I don't know what kind of midlife crisis had managed to attract the likes of Truck-kun, but it sure wasn't mine.
I was just trying to find a Tanuki in the forest.
Considering that I woke up in a room marginally different than some sort of hospital, I had a feeling that things really weren't the same as I had known.
The feeling had really hit home when I first found out that I was way shorter than I had any right to be at 23. My saving grace was that I still very capable of walking and I haven't been reduced to baby speech.
I was still very much a kid when I looked in the mirror the first time. Still, it was marginally better than being a baby. Personally, I find that people who prefer that when they isekai are either edgelords or equally as edgy 13-Year olds.
It became pretty obvious it was an Isekai when I saw a different face looking at me. One with a stark difference to mine like night and day. Messy black hair and sharp silver eyes.
For context, I was reincarnated into the body of a child named Kusora. While I came to the world as a 12 year old kid, I did have parents to take care of me for a while.
I still remembered a lot of things from my past life. Not only anime like most OC's that end up in this predicament. Facts like my name, surname and the like, was just one of the things I remembered.
Although since I was never fighting for dominance in this body, there was never a need to remember it. And over the years I spent in this world, I gradually started to forget.
Like any spirited OC that has been isekaied into the modern world, my parents wound up dead when I hit 15. Although they were always strangers in my eyes, the way they left the world was pretty dark if I had anything to say.
Suicide in Aokigahara Forest. Even now, about 3 years later, I still think that I drove them to suicide which how much I didn't know as Kusora.
The fanfics with all the Si's who could blend perfectly into their families are full of fucking lies. It was hard, much harder than I originally thought.
There were always things I missed, habits and quirks that I didn't do. Things I had never said anymore. Basically, times were the 'stranger' in me showed itself.
But I digress. It was also during that same year that I made a few very important discoveries. One good depending on how you spin it, the other not as good, but equally as scary.
At that time, we were living in Osaka. But the high school I got accepted into required us to move to a smaller town.
That towns name was Kuoh.
Just the name itself carried an acute weight of how deep in shit I was in. Firstly, this is the world of High School DxD. Where every mythology under the sun existed. And as far as I could tell over the years, I never felt very magicky.
But the worry was still there at first. I had no way of knowing if I had a Sacred Gear or if there was something in my genes that made me dangerous. I only found out years later that I was being stupid.
However, the paranoia was there. At least until my first day of school in Kuoh Academy.
Here comes the second discovery I made.
I began years before canon. With how rusted my memory of my previous life was from lack of use, I was sure that canon started in 2014.
It was 2011 when I started. A whole 3 years left. If we do the math, I'm about 3 years older than Rias and Sona. And they were roughly 18. I hope.
If we add that to the 3 that would've given me 21 years to work with. But I had entered this world as a 12 year old. Which meant that realistically, I had 9 years to prepare.
It's not my fault that I wasted that much time. I spent many of those years not even knowing where I was.
Trust me, this hurt me a lot as well. Especially since I know I went to Kyoto to bury my parents. Could I have met the Youkai early? Yes. Could I have seen Yasaka's glorious tits? Yes.
Did I?
No.
And things like that are what made me the most bitter about finding this out.
Well I guess the missed opportunity to learn touki hurt as well.
~Kusora (Current Day)~
"Thank you, please come again!"
With one more customer leaving a satisfying chiming of the bell, I turned my attention to the brewing stands behind me. I could see the excess of empty shelves that once stored boxes upon boxes of coffee beans.
There were times where I didn't need stock taking to see I was running on empty. If the empty shelves weren't enough of a clue, then the milk that was almost reaching its expiration date would've certainly keyed in the next morning.
I wasn't bothered by it however. These types of things came with owning a coffee shop.
This shop of mine actually came from a small moment of genius I had after cremating my parents. As you would imagine, I didn't have any relatives that would take me in, but inheritance was enough for me to get on by.
I wasn't loaded by any means during that time. I'm still not even with this coffee shop. But I did have one thing to my advantage. The one OP ability every SI has even if you are born without powers like myself.
Knowledge of the future.
I died in 2022 and woke up as a 12 year old in 2011 in this world. While my biggest advantage is knowing how the world and the Supernatural world would work and revolve overtime, especially since this is DxD.
I have no intention of getting actively involved with the plot. The hell do you take me for? Getting out of bed to run the shop is enough effort for my morning. Especially if I got school.
While training everyday on your skills like martial arts and the like does sound impressive on paper, allow me to offer my share of reality.
The OC's who can find time to train, fight and fuck with multiple women on a daily basis obviously have never been to high school or uni.
While stuff like that could obviously be solved by some magic bullshit, that simply isn't an option for me.
And another point. I've never been in a fight once in my life. I don't know how these other SI are killing stuff like wolves just to train, but that ain't me. Just a casual run to the school gates has me wheezing.
But I digress. Knowing about the world in both the supernatural and the normal world's future is a big boon. Knowing future business prospects, investments, disasters like Covid, etc.
Theoretically, even if my coffee shop here isn't doing so well, I could make it boom like Starbucks overnight.