Sora wasn't a happy camper. In fact, he was quite angry when he woke up in the hospital.
The questioning from the cops didn't help at all; they were asking some very strange questions about anything "weird" happening.
Sora, of course, told them nothing. Why would he? To end up locked in an asylum? He had better things to do now that he was "Batman-ed." Unfortunately, his bank account wasn't nearly big enough to establish a base of operations in orbit.
The absurdity of this worlds anime logiccaught him off-guard again; there was absolutely no way any sane government would allow a ten-year-old to live on his own. Sometimes, the sheer retardation completely astounded Sora.
But he wouldn't complain—being left alone was exactly what he wanted right now. Since he was no more insane than he was before his parents' death, he was, for some reason, allowed to live by himself.
Distracted by the abrupt events of the past few days, his public mask slipped, and all his repressed tendencies resurfaced.
With no income, he turned to what he knew well from his past life: alcohol. Not for drinking himself—not for the next two or three years, at least. Instead, he built a very illegal distillery in the basement, deciding that this new life wouldn't be fun without some homemade spirits.
"As long as it ferments, we can make alcohol out of it." That saying from his past life held a special place in his heart, mostly because homemade spirits always tasted the best.
Sora himself wasn't entirely sure about his next move, but he knew for certain that he was done hiding his various personality disorders from the public. He would no longer just go along with the system. Consequences be damned; as long as he was having fun, the opinions of others didn't mean shit.
And if the police came to bust his illegal distillery? Well, there's no greater power than an alcoholic separated from his alcohol. They are in the same league as crackheads high off paint and gasoline fumes.
He focused on honing his skills, specifically figuring out more about his bubbles. After many weeks of training, he finally accessed the main ability of the bubbles: to extract, steal, and transport.
It caused numerous headaches and even more broken items around the house, but he was an Isekai protagonist; the question wasn't whether he would become overpowered, but how long it would take.
Once he confirmed that his power was indeed very similarto one of his favorite stands, he felt free to finally start enjoying life a little. He didn't get the punching ghost to go with the bubbles, though. Sad, but considering he wasn't in the world of Jojo, understandable.
His attempts at having fun started small, with a few harmless pranks during breaks: sticking toilet paper to the ceiling in both the toilets and classrooms.
When those didn't get much of a reaction, he coaxed the other boys into starting a "spitting league." The name was very straightforward, as it was a competition to see who could spit the highest on a wall.
That brought back memories and earned him some dirty looks from the teachers, but nothing more. This wasn't just about fun; it was also a test of how much he could get away with before teachers called his parents... oh.
The completely absurd anime logic of this situation made him laugh maniacally—he was essentially immune to consequences from a strictly traditional Japanese school.
He knew he had to step up his game and drag as many other kids into his "fun" as possible. But before conscripting others, he had to introduce these poor Japanese kids to the glory of cheese, quite literally.
Nobody would follow him into chaos if he didn't lead by example.
It took him a few weeks to set it all up. He had to order a specific kind of cheese from across the globe. He really missed being only a few hours' drive from Olomouc in his past life. With the smelly cheese acquired, it was time to "pickle" it and smuggle it to school.
After preparing a few glass jars filled with dark beer, freshly cut onions, and many pieces of the most succulent, smelly cheese, the payload was ready.
The walk to school the next day filled Sora with excitement; finally, he would be able to do something fun, and get a mean snack out of it. Unless the firefighters were called and discovered the cheese, of course.
hat was part of the plan, though. Not just pure chaos, but also a way to train his bubbles. Hiding an equivalent of a stink bomb inside the walls of his school would serve as perfect training for at least one part of his ability. That, of course, would be extracting bricks out of said walls to house the jars.
He managed to sneak the first jar into the wall right next to the lockers, setting it inside with love, care, and an infrared lamp pointing directly at it. The fermentation had begun, and in three weeks, the smell would be strong enough to make weak-willed individuals pass out.
He laughed maniacally, already imagining savoring the fermented cheese that, according to an old Czech joke, had a smell potent enough to bring the dead back to life.
Throughout the rest of the day, he managed to hide all five jars across the school building, cackling like a supervillain as he walked home, knowing full well that the smell would soon penetrate the brick walls and start torturing the students and teachers alike.
It took two weeks for the firefighters and police to be called for the first time and close the school.
Apparently, some uncultured swine had reported a horrible smell, one reminiscent of something that had died within the walls. Such heresy could not be tolerated.
However, after neither the police nor the firefighters found anything, the school resumed its operations just as the fermenting cheese was reaching perfection. The air fresheners were working overtime in the hallways near the walls with the jars.
Sora grinned like a madman as he opened one of the jars for lunch. The smell was so strong that even people outside could smell it, with his unfortunate classmates bearing the brunt of the culinary equivalent to a nuke directed at the sense of smell.
After another evacuation, Sora stood before his homeroom teacher, lazily chewing on the rest of the bread he had left over, not particularly concerned about the situation. He could only be accused of eating lunch.
"Do you have any idea what you just caused today, young man?" the teacher asked, caught between anger and resignation, her hair still disheveled from fleeing the "chemical attack."
Sora put on his most innocent expression.
"I just opened my lunch. It's not my fault people are too weak to appreciate good food," he replied, barely resisting the urge to open a second jar just to make a point.
"Well, that is the last time you are bringing something like that to school! What even is that horrendous thing?" The teacher clearly couldn't appreciate refined taste.
"It's a dish, and it tastes really good, actually," Sora dismissed her question, he really didn't want it to be banned by name.
Eventually, he was let go with just a warning. He toyed with the idea of leaving at least one open jar behind, but that would mean losing the chance to eat it.
Ultimately, he decided to leave the jars behind as a peace offering, provided the teachers would be able to find them, as he emptied all of them into a globe inside the geography classroom.
If discovered, the teachers would likely assume it was one of the other stashes they found before Sora could get to it.
With all this done, it was time to introduce a classic kid's game that he had played in his past life.
He would need to wait until more pinecones fell over the weekend to introduce it on Monday. The obsession with cleanliness was hindering his plans.
The game? A team deathmatch where kids throw pinecones at each other, often resulting in at least a few bloodied faces and crying kids heading home.
The rules are simple: you can get hit as much as you want, but as soon as you bleed, you're out. There was even a capture-the-flag variant of this game that was very popular back in the border area where he had grown up in his first life.
Convincing his classmates to join in was a challenge, but a few of the older kids showed interest, saving his plan.
While he couldn't rally the whole school behind him, a good number were still more than willing to settle their grudges by throwing water-soaked pinecones at each other.
It felt like he was living through his first childhood again. In many ways, kids were the same on the inside, no matter where they're from. You'd have to ask an American politician for confirmation on that one, though.
The park next to the school was a mess only a few short hours after the school day ended. Shallow trenches had been dug by overzealous twelve-year-old delinquents seeking better cover, and what began as a first-ever pinecone war quickly escalated into an actual child gang war.
Anime worlds make no sense. Where did these twelve-year-old punks even come from? At least they still played by the rules.
Apparently, it was better to get a little bloodied in a game than to face a beating from another punk wielding a 2x4. A revolutionary idea for the delinquent demographic, indeed.
How did they even survive being hit repeatedly with something like that?
Sora was having the time of his life. Or so he thought. No matter how much chaos he caused or how freely he acted, he still felt somewhat empty inside.
A part of him had been missing since the day his home was attacked, and his parents were killed by what he could only describe as child traffickers with special powers.
Was he just covering up his true feelings? Was he more affected by his family's death than he let on? No, he clearly just needed to have more fun, create more chaos and brew more trouble… and alcohol.
Real men don't get depressed; real men repress their feelings until they explode one day, turning domestic violence international.
With confused thoughts swirling in his mind, Sora left the park, feeling content with the chaos he had created that day.
A few months had passed since Sora started his small distillery, and his first batch of spirits was finally ready. The only problem was that there was too much for him to drink on his own. He was still only ten, after all.
The question wasn't really what to do with the alcohol, but who to sell it to.
Fortunately, he had sort of befriended the local delinquent kids, and the older members of their so-called gangs were more than happy to get their hands on some booze that wasn't the low-grade sake they frequently stole from their local convenience stores.
With at least some income achieved, Sora turned his attention to cooking. No, not the Walter White kind.
He simply missed Grandma's pierogi.
To his eternal dismay, Japan didn't seem to have any good Slavic cuisine, at least not in Kyoto. There were a few decent options in Tokyo, if 'Gooble' reviews were to be trusted.
Why some things remained the same while others had very distinctly bootleg names was completely beyond his comprehension.
He was pretty sure that in his previous life, finding Polish, Russian, or even Czech restaurants wouldn't have been a major issue; but this anime world seemed to treat countries as much more separate than his old world.
His mind was made up: he would make and sell as much booze as possible, sell the Kyoto house, and move closer to Tokyo. First, though, he'd have to figure out where he could afford to live and then transfer schools.
On a positive note, he would have a fresh batch of kids to corrupt into having fun. A silver lining indeed.
He still had time; high school was still years away, and he'd found loyal customers for his not-so-legal booze here.
A few months after Sora turned eleven, things changed for him. Some of the delinquent kids had blabbed to their parents about buying booze from him, and now he had a very stern-looking old man sitting on his couch, as if he owned the place.
"So... you're the brat that goes around selling booze, eh?" the old man asked bluntly, his voice cracking like fire as he spoke. It wasn't an accusation; he clearly already knew.
Sora sighed, unsure how to handle the situation.
"Would I admit it if I were? Who are you, anyway, old man?" he shot back.
"Just someone asked by a concerned parent to figure out what you're up to," the old man replied.
"But from what I've seen... you're no ordinary kid, are you?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"People say I'm clinically insane. I say a bit of chaos never hurt nobody," Sora shrugged, unsure of what to do next.
The old man let out a barking laugh.
"Truer words have never been spoken, young man," he cackled, his laughter sounding like rattling bones. "But the world is much bigger than you imagine…"
Suddenly, the old man vanished from Sora's view and reappeared right behind him in an instant.
"Now, a bit of chaos is fine by me, brat... and I actually like what you make," he said casually, as if he hadn't just teleported. The wicked grin on his face only made Sora more shocked.
The sound of the old man's movement reminded him of a tree falling right next to him.
Sora didn't jump; he just stood there, shocked, until his expression morphed into a deadpan stare.
"Ja som sa dosral…" he muttered reflexively, abandoning Japanese before realizing.
He shook his head, trying to clear the shock from his mind.
"You realize this isn't funny, right? You're lucky I'm wearing brown pants, old man," he said, torn between being impressed and absolutely livid.
"Good to see you acknowledge your betters, brat. Now I have a bit of a proposition for you…" the old man grinned.
"My associates and I will help you set up your booze operation legally. But in exchange…" He trailed off, letting the sentence hang in the air.
"I'm not going to a mysterious island with you. Not for all the ethanol in the world," Sora deadpanned, his voice almost robotic.
"Do I look Catholic to you, brat?" the old man chuckled.
"This doesn't require much from you. The catch is that you'll get a commission, but you won't directly own the place until you come of age. We can't have a kid own a massive distillery. That just doesn't look good," he shrugged.
"And just so you know… those bubbles of yours would be useless against me, so don't even try." He warned, narrowing his eyes at Sora who was preparing to defend himself in case it was necessary.
"What? I did my research before coming here," the old man added, setting a contract on the table.
"Have fun, brat. I'll be back in a week to settle this properly... No pressure, though," he said before vanishing, completely escaping Sora's senses.
Sora stood there for a few moments, trying to process what had just happened. Coming up empty, he made his way to the bathroom. The pants can't unshit themselves.
"So there are even more people with powers... I guess I need to be more careful," he muttered to himself.
He never expected a decrepit old man to effortlessly blindside him. If the old man had wanted to kill Sora, it would have been as easy as swatting a fly.