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Time is an implacable force, but inside Kuoh's immense dimensional tree, it had acted as a miraculous balm.
A year and several months had passed since that impromptu birthday. The calendar now showed that both Kaiju and Sylvie were seventeen years old. And the changes hadn't been merely numerical; the girl's physical and emotional metamorphosis defied the limits of what any human doctor would have believed possible.
Unlike the grim and tragic original script from which she came, where malnutrition and trauma had condemned her to a permanently frail and withered body, the reality under Kaiju's care was quite different. Nourished with the finest nutrients in the multiverse, protected from stress, and passively bathed in the healing and life-giving energy of the Celestial Eyes, Sylvie flourished.
Her figure had left behind its childlike fragility. It had developed in a healthy and beautiful way, with soft, feminine curves, an upright posture, and pale, immaculate skin that no longer bore the mark of a whip. Her grayish hair, now long and silky, framed a face with delicate features and bright eyes that radiated absolute devotion.
And, as expected, the iron will of the "lone god" eventually crumbled.
Kaiju had tried to keep his composure. He had tried to play the role of the stoic and distant protector. But daily life together, Sylvie's overwhelming tenderness, her determination to make him happy, and the undeniable beauty he had become proved a lethal combination for a teenager who, beneath all his Ki and magic, was still just a seventeen-year-old boy.
One rainy night, under the warm lights of the laboratory and after one of their many shared dinners, the barrier broke. Sylvie no longer saw him as a master or a savior; she saw him as the man she loved. And Kaiju stopped seeing her as a responsibility. They crossed the line with overwhelming tenderness, melting their fears and past traumas into an embrace that united them body and soul. They were no longer the exiled god and the broken soul; they were two teenagers facing the multiverse together.
—A little more to the left... perfect. The Japanese government's holographic seal is a nuisance, but nothing matter alteration can't solve.
In the center of the laboratory, Kaiju sat at a steel desk. His eyes glowed an intense white, focused on a small stack of official documents. Before his gaze, the paper fibers, security inks, and plastics rearranged themselves at a molecular level.
In less than five minutes, Kaiju had fabricated passports, birth certificates, vaccination records, impeccable academic transcripts, and national identity cards. All legal, all perfect, and all absolutely fake.
"There. We officially exist in this country's national system. We are Kaiju and Sylvie Hano, independent orphans with a conveniently large foreign heritage, transferred for academic excellence," Kaiju announced, dropping an imaginary seal onto the table.
Beside her, Lala—the elegant Gardevoir—tilted her head, observing the documents with curiosity.
" Why submit to the bureaucracy of a human education system, Kaiju? You possess knowledge that surpasses its most brilliant professors. Sylvie has also learned advanced science and mathematics from the database records," Lala projected telepathically, gently stroking her teacher's shoulder.
Kaiju leaned back in the swivel chair and sighed, crossing his hands behind his head.
—It's not about learning algebra, Lala. Look at her.
Kaiju nodded toward the dining area. There, Sylvie was distractedly trying to teach Tank (the giant Aggron) how to hold a teacup without crushing it with his steel claws. The girl was laughing happily, a dazzling gleam in her eyes.
"Sylvie has healed. Her body is perfect and her mind is strong, but her whole world has shrunk to just us," Kaiju explained, lowering his voice. "She doesn't know any girls her own age. She doesn't know what it's like to go to the movies with friends, gossip about silly things, or complain about a strict teacher. She needs to socialize with other normal humans. She needs to experience the youth that was stolen from her."
Lala nodded slowly, understanding the point.
" And why specifically choose Kuoh Academy? There are dozens of schools in the prefecture," the psychic fairy asked.
A sly, almost comical smile spread across Kaiju's lips.
"Pure and simple strategy, my dear Lala. We investigated the records. Kuoh Academy was, until very recently, an all-girls school. They just became co-ed this year. Do you know what that means? That the ratio of female to male students is almost ten to one."
Kaiju stood up, adjusting his belt with an expression of tactical pride.
"It's the perfect environment for her! Sylvie will be surrounded by girls. It will be so much easier for her to fit in with female groups, make friends, and feel comfortable. Besides, with so few guys around, I save myself the headache of having to break the legs of some idiot who tries to take advantage of my girlfriend."
The following morning, the park's gigantic illusory tree witnessed a milestone in both their lives.
Standing before the large, full-length mirror in the laboratory, Sylvie gazed at herself with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. She wore the distinctive Kuoh Academy female uniform: a pristine white blouse, a black ribbon tied around her neck, a short black cape draped over her shoulders, and a fuchsia skirt. The outfit accentuated her now healthy and mature figure. Her graying hair was styled in two elegant side clips.
"You look beautiful!" exclaimed Kaiju, approaching from behind and wrapping his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder.
Kaiju was also wearing his uniform: a formal black jacket with white trim over a dark red shirt. Unlike the standard uniform, Kaiju wore his jacket unbuttoned, giving him a rebellious air. And adding even more intimidation points, he decided to leave his scar visible.
Sylvie blushed intensely, covering Kaiju's hands with her own.
"Do you really think so? I feel a little... exposed. The skirt is a bit short," she murmured, looking down.
"It's the standard design, don't worry. Besides, if anyone stares at you for too long, I'll gouge out their eyes and feed them to Tiburoncin," Kaiju joked in such a serious tone that Sylvie let out a crystalline laugh.
"Don't make a scene on the first day, please," Sylvie pleaded, turning to hug him around the neck and give him a tender kiss on the lips. "I want us to be normal today. Just you and me."
Kaiju gently returned the kiss, feeling the warmth of her presence reaffirm every decision he had made since arriving in this world.
—Deal. We'll be the most ordinary and boring transfer students in all of Japan.
After saying goodbye to Lala, Char and the rest of the team —who stayed standing guard in the pocket dimension, with their respective Poké Balls anchored to an invisible space belt at Kaiju's waist—, the seventeen-year-old couple crossed the portal into the real world.
The fresh morning air of Kuoh greeted them. They walked hand in hand through the quiet residential streets, mingling with the tide of students heading towards the imposing structure of the Academy.
Kaiju stared at the enormous building in the distance. Its Ki was reduced to zero, its divine energy completely sealed. They were invisible to supernatural radar.
"An ordinary, peaceful life full of friends for Sylvie," Kaiju thought, puffing out his chest with optimism. "Literally, nothing can ruin this plan."
...
Only a few days had passed since Kaiju and Sylvie crossed the threshold of Kuoh Academy, but the school routine had already settled in with astonishing speed. However, the "ordinary, peaceful, and boring life" that Kaiju had meticulously planned proved to be an unattainable utopia, at least in social terms.
For Sylvie, the plan worked perfectly. Better than perfectly, in fact.
The academy, having recently become an all-girls school, was dominated by an overwhelmingly female population. When Sylvie, with her fragile appearance, graying hair, extreme shyness, and immense, sparkling eyes, appeared before the class, the students' maternal and protective instincts were activated en masse.
Not a single break passed before she was surrounded. Sylvie had become incredibly popular. Girls invited her to lunch, shared their notes with her, and even styled her hair. At first, the little girl felt overwhelmed and constantly sought Kaiju's gaze for approval, but he always responded with a smile and a thumbs-up from across the room. Seeing her genuinely laugh while a group of classmates complimented her haircut was absolute confirmation that enrolling at Kuoh had been the best decision of her life.
But for Kaiju, things were far from rosy.
He, too, had become popular, but in a way that gave him constant headaches. His original plan was to be a "background character," the classic generic student who stares out the window and doesn't talk to anyone. The problem was that he was impossible to ignore: his body, sculpted under the crushing x10 gravity of King Kai's planet, filled the school uniform with enviable firmness. Add to that the scar over his eye and his quiet demeanor, and the girls in the class had immediately labeled him the "mysterious bad boy."
That bad-boy status attracted the wrong kind of attention. Specifically, the worst possible attention in all of Kuoh Academy.
At that moment, Kaiju was crouching behind some bushes near the sports club building. He was wearing the immaculate Kuoh uniform: a black jacket with white details and matching pants.
Beside him, panting like dogs in heat and pushing each other, were his "new best friends".
"Ohhhh...! Murayama really has amazing breasts!" whispered a bald boy named Matsuda loudly, pressing his face against a hole in the wooden wall of the Kendo club's changing room.
"Ahhh... Katase has wonderful legs!" drooled the other boy, Motohama, adjusting his glasses as he tried to gain a millimeter of vision.
And right in the middle of the two, fiercely fighting for the perfect angle, was the undisputed leader of the trio: Issei Hyoudou. A brown-haired boy with a perverted gaze who kept muttering promises about "becoming the Harem King."
Kaiju brought a hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose with profound existential disappointment.
"You three are pathetic," Kaiju whispered, sighing. "You're making so much noise you'll alert them. Your infiltration technique is worse than a Gible with a toothache. You have no breath control, your center of gravity is a mess, and you give off an aura of desperation that can be felt a mile away."
Issei glanced at him sideways, offended. "Talking like the guy who's not even looking! You're missing out on paradise, Kaiju! Those girls are works of art!"
"A true warrior doesn't need to humiliate himself by pressing his face against a wall full of splinters," Kaiju replied solemnly, crossing his arms.
However, despite his complaints and his tone of utter disappointment... Kaiju didn't turn around to leave.
Instead, he closed his good eye for a fraction of a second. He didn't use his Celestial Eyes to make the wall transparent (that would be overstepping the mark and ruin the "human effort"), but he did channel a minuscule, microscopic amount of physical Ki into his ears and spatial awareness.
He adjusted his stance a couple of centimeters to the left. From that specific angle, using the space the other three idiots left between their heads, Kaiju obtained a perfect, flawless, and absolutely clear line of sight into the locker room through a secondary slit that no one else had noticed.
She maintained her stoic expression, but a tiny, proud smile appeared at the corner of her lips.
"Spirit control and mastery of blind spots. Cleaning those toilets on Papaya Island was worth it. Master Roshi would be crying with pride right now," Kaiju thought.
Suddenly, his Ki sense picked up a sudden movement.
"Someone's coming!" Kaiju whispered suddenly, his smile vanishing as he straightened up. His sense of alertness warned him of an armed female presence rapidly approaching the storage room from the other side of the wall.
"What?!" Issei panicked, tripping over his own shoelaces. "Quick, strategic retreat!"
The three idiots ran out like cockroaches when the lights come on, shouting and shoving each other. Kaiju, with the lightness of a feather and without making the slightest noise, simply walked in the opposite direction, casually turning the corner of the building and putting his hands in his pockets, seconds before the girls from the Kendo club came out furiously with their bamboo swords, chasing after Issei and his friends.
As he listened to Issei's cries of pain in the distance, Kaiju let out a small laugh.
Within his pocket dimension, Lala, Charizard, and the rest of his alpha predators were resting. He possessed unimaginable power, a dark past, and a lingering pain from the absence of his AI. But walking the sun-drenched halls of Kuoh Academy, as just another high school pervert, brought him a strange and comforting peace.
At least for now, his biggest concern was not surviving, but avoiding getting hit on the head with a stick by Murayama.