Author's Note: Trust the process and read the full chapter. Don't drop it halfway, there's a huge plot twist waiting for you at the end.
Italics: Narrator
(??? POV)
People die when they are killed.
If you'd said that to me a couple of hours ago, I might've cringed. But now?
Now I think it's the biggest bullshit I've ever heard in my life!
The last thing I remembered was crossing an empty road... then, as if spawning out of nowhere, I got hit by the infamous devil of all reincarnators:
the Truck-kun.
Yeah…not exactly an original way to get isekai'd.
The sheer absurdity of this classic isekai trope actually happening to me should've made me cry…but, I did not. Instead, I laughed.
Haha..hahaha…hahahahaa.
I laughed and laughed, mentally of course, not physically. My vocal cords were in a non-cooperative state at the moment.
So let's do this again. I woke up in an unfamiliar house and then in an unfamiliar body. A quick look around, followed by a glance at myself, was enough to break the ice of my current situation.
I wasn't this short, on the contrary, back home I was way taller than the average person in London. Six feet one inches I think.
Apparently, I took over the body of this..eccentric guy named Mizuki, a 17-year-old high school student living in Kuoh City all by his lonesome.
Mizuki is what we call a guy with a few screws loose. Based on the memories I could access, he was very obsessed with alcohol while still being under the legal age.
It wasn't his love for some booze that surprised me, though. It was his condition.
He had a severe case of ALDH2 deficiency. Meaning? Even a sip of a Martini was like swallowing poison. And yet, looking at the shelf in the corner of the room, I wasn't surprised.
It was packed with premium alcoholic babies.
I did not even want to know how an underage guy like him could get funds and connections to get these bottles.
Scanning the shelf, my eyes landed on an accursed flavor I could never imagine a normal human being ever consuming.
"Smoked salmon and white truffle infused vodka? Ewww...that should be illegal! Who..is this guy?," I uttered, the words finally slipping out of my cleared throat.
I stared at the bizzare flavoured beverage with a straight face for a long time, and then a sudden wave of Mizuki's lingering memories washed over me. The realization hit me like the truck that had reincarnated me in this body.
The idiot bought them just to look at them.
He literally couldn't drink a single glass without getting sent to the ER. His obsession was so bad that he turned his own apartment into a museum of high-end beverages. Talk about a coping mechanism.
After heaving an exhausted sigh, I relocated to the living room.
I threw myself onto the sofa, stretching out my legs out all the way to the edge with my hands locked behind my head. I stared blankly at the ceiling, letting the weight of my new reality finally sink in.
I'm in a different world. And not just ANY world, the setting of an ecchi supernatural anime I binge-watched with my ex forever ago. I think I was in my sophomore year?
But seriously... why am I a DUDE? Ughhh.
Let's rewind, shall we? My name is Alyssa Ashford, and I am a girl. Shocker, right? Especially as an Sl in a dude's body who wasn't even in the anime.
Before my death, I was a twenty-seven-year-old pornographic actress. Yeah, you heard that right. I did porn for a living and I actually loved my job.
When I wasn't on set, my guilty pleasure was shutting my brain off to enjoy pure, unfiltered, wish-fulfillment anime.
It was the only thing that made me happy and forget about the social stigma that came with my job. Sometimes, escaping reality worked wonders in my most stressful moments.
But there is a massive difference between watching a fantasy on a screen and actually waking up inside one.
Life is a sick joke. Honestly, my current situation is proof in itself. I have no idea why I'm here, or why whoever reincarnated me chose Highschool DxD of all places.
I don't even want to think about fallen angels, dragons, or that a red-haired demoness with boobs the size of footballs runs this city with her entourage.
Back home, I made good money and life was great. Sure, a huge chunk of it went straight into clearing my parents' debt, and my boyfriend of four years ended up walking out on me because his jealousy and fragile ego couldn't handle my career choice. It was a tough pill to swallow at first, but I had made my choice and have no regrets.
I let out a long breath while rubbing my temples. My old life was gone. My parents, friends, and..everyone I cared about..they are all gone. I wasn't the type to be sentimental and cry about it about even at funerals but this still hurt.
I needed to snap out of this nostalgia and focus on my current problem.
Deciding that a splash of cold water on my face would help clear my head, I forced myself off the couch and headed for the bathroom.
-Scene change-
"Hmm... with a face like this, I guess convincing her won't be so difficult," I muttered, resting my chin on my hand as I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
I had to hand it to him, Mizuki won the genetic lottery, well minus the whole ALDH2 deficiency thing.
The guy staring back at me was fair-skinned with whitish-blond hair and sea-green eyes. There was not a single acne or facial scar in sight. Being half-French definitely explained why he had such foreign features.
I leaned over the sink, twisted the faucet, and splashed some cold water on my face.
I pulled back from the sink, letting the water droplets drip from my face. And then it suddenly clicked in my mind.
I had a plan.
If I managed to join Rias Gremory's peerage, I'd actually have a safety net. Living in Kuoh without any protection was just a recipe for disaster.
And then, when the Three Faction Summit pulls up, I could just ask Azazel to lend me his gender-morphing gun so I can turn myself back into a woman.
What? Did you expect me to stay a dude forever? No. Fucking. Way.
I'd much rather my body actually match my mental identity.
Even if I were to stay as a guy... I would essentially be gay now. Dating would be a nightmare if the other person's sexuality didn't align with mine. I might be sexually fluid, but not everyone is queer-friendly. That was just a harsh truth back in my old world, and I doubt this one is any different.
Speaking of sexuality… wait, are those earrings?!
I leaned a bit closer to the mirror, finally taking notice of the two dangling, feminine blue pendant earrings.
"Bloody hell… they look expensive."
"Oh, wow…" I muttered in surprise as I accessed Mizuki's memories to find out why he was wearing a FEMININE pair of earrings.
They were a gift from his mother, who is a hardcore fashion designer. She is really into playing dress-up with her son, and when she put her favorite pair on him, it made her day. And Mizuki, being the mama's boy he is, chose to keep wearing them despite being a straight guy, just because it makes his mom happy
How sweet.
And it is because of this decision that Mizuki has a weird reputation at Kuoh Academy. A lot of students in his class and school think he's gay, even though he isn't.
And he doesn't even try to clear up the misunderstanding because… he can't be bothered.
Well, good for him, but not for me.
"Sigh. Why did I have to wake up in this weirdo's body of all people?" I groaned.
Not only is he an alcohol freak, but he doesn't care about his social life at all. This would certainly make things a bit challenging for me.
"Fine then, I'll just take them off," I said, reaching up to unhook them. "No offense to his mom, but they look incredibly bland anyway. Just like alcohol, he really does not have any taste in jewelry, huh? What a loser."
My fingers brushed the cold metal and the blue gemstone.
Blue.
Huh?
Blue. Blue. Blue.
What is happening? Why am I suddenly thinking about the color of these damn earrings?
Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue.
St-Stop…!
But It did not stop there.
Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue.
"STOP!! MAKE IT STOP!! !" I yelled, stumbling back from the sink. I couldn't control my own thoughts.
The blue just kept repeating, and echoing in my mind until my head felt like it could literally split open.
And the anger. I felt so unbelievably furious. A bubbling, venomous rage was growing swiftly in my chest, but I didn't know the source of it! Why? Why was I so angry?
It was as if a part of me wanted to strangle myself—
Without a second of warning, my hands automatically shot up with my fingers wrapping around my own neck soon after. They gripped it tightly, and the crushing force just kept increasing.
I gasped and choked as my grip tightened with enough force to crush my windpipe. I tried really hard to pull my arms away, but they ignored my commands.
I was suffocating and my mind was blanking. I had no idea why my own hands were suddenly turning against me!
Am I being possessed? Will I die again?!
I don't…I don't wanna die.
Just like the chicken and the egg, there is an ongoing philosophical debate in the supernatural world.
Which comes first, the body or the soul?
Most argue it is the soul. Some argue that a growing embryo is technically a soulless vessel, yet it still qualifies as the genesis of a body. Historically, philosophers like Aristotle and theologians like Thomas Aquinas also argued that the soul doesn't enter the body at conception.
But they all ignore one fundamental fact.
The Soul IS the Body, and the Body IS the Soul.
Alyssa made the biggest mistake of her second life by trying to remove those earrings. She assumed the original owner was entirely gone, but the heart remembers. The body remembers the feelings, the love, and the deep-seated connection Miuzki has to those pair of jewelry. And that intense emotional trigger gave Mizuki's dormant soul a limited window to return.
I stared into the bathroom mirror, my vision was darkening around the edges as my own hands choked the life out of me.
Then, the flesh on my left cheek began to tear open.
A wide slit formed in my left cheek. Teeth materialized.. Then a second mouth ripped open right on my cheek, the skin peeling apart to reveal a set of teeth in grotesque manner.
I couldn't even scream. I could only stare at my reflection in absolute horror as the mouth on my cheek moved, spitting out a voice that wasn't mine.
"Get the fuck out of MY BODY, You WHORE!!"
Spoke none other than alcohol loving freak, Mizuki, the real main character.
To be continued.
(POV End)
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Author's Note:
This is my newest fanfic. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know your thoughts, I would appreciate your feedback!