-Play ROI (VIDEO CLUB) Instrumental Slowed-
Normal POV
Nanami tiredly rubbed at his eyes while suppressing a yawn.
He hadn't slept at all, nor had he left his workshop/room since he had entered it.
It took up a good chunk of time to search through his family book records desperately searching for anything related to magic cores and making phone calls to certain individuals.
By the time it hit 7:30am Nanami had finally made a compiled hands-on training regimen for Ita- no he shook his head, for Yuji.
If the boy despite the headaches he had been giving him was to remain his ward, he may as well resort to using his first name.
But back to the matter at hand, the subject of mana cores was surprisingly in-depth.
Which don't get him wrong he's read a small decent chunk of books from his family library, but he never knew that the Kento family lineage could be traced all the way back to the Heian Era.
The first to seven family heads of the family all surprisingly had magic cores.
A blessing from the Japanese God Hachiman passed down to the first family head to the seventh. That is until that blessing was taken away when Hachiman vanished from this world with no given explanations.
The Kento family weren't people who pursued the Root like the typical magus but were warriors and mercenaries that focused on martial arts and combat oriented techniques.
Unfortunately, a lot of those techniques had degraded due to no longer possessing mana cores or being in the time of greater mystery. This left them with no other choice but to reinvent most of the techniques with modern day magic circuits.
Nanami of course had no qualms giving these family secrets away to Yuji, in all honestly if he ever did get married and have a child he wouldn't want them ever involved in the moonlit word.
That world was neither kind nor fair.
Good people died almost every day because of the selfish evil of certain magi, misinformation, or sometimes because of easy dumb mistakes that got them killed easily.
Distractedly Nanami's mind flashes to a particular memory.
An extremely pale faced young brown-haired teenager sluggishly running at him, his mouth open revealing sharp pointy vampiric teeth, and finally the sound of his own screaming "YUUU!!"
Blood is sprayed.
His cleaver had struck true and the head of Yu Haibara fell to the ground.
Nanami firmly shook his head burying the memory away deep into the back corner of his mind.
Thinking about that day did nothing but make him feel like shit every time.
No, he had long decided that the family library would either be hidden away forgotten or simply burned to ash.
No way in hell would he ever donate it to the Clocktower, knowing them they'd probably just use the knowledge within to fuel new twisted research and experiments for their pursuit of the Root.
The ping of his phone snaps him out of his thoughts.
He should probably take a look at that it's most likely the info he requested about Yuji's parents and family lineage.
Sigh...he's just so tired right now though.
It probably wouldn't hurt if he finally lets himself sleep now.
He already made sure to call off time from work today so work wouldn't be a problem for him either.
With a stretch his back let out a consecutive synch of satisfying cracks.
Standing up from the desk seat Nanami walked out of his room and headed towards the kitchen only to pause once he glanced over at the living room.
Yuji had somehow managed to occupy the entire couch despite being seven years old and not particularly large, one arm was hanging off the edge, and his cheek pressed into the cushion at an angle that would definitely leave a crease mark.
The television was also still playing some sort of cartoon at a lower volume.
"This kid I told him not to stay up late," Nanami murmured but wasn't really mad about it.
He turned and went on over to the linen closet in the hallway.
Snatching the spare blanket from the second shelf Nanami carried it back to the living room. Where he proceeded to shake it out with a quiet snap and draped it over Yuji's sleeping form.
Thankfully the kid didn't stir awake.
He then reached over and clicked the television off, hopefully having it on for so long wouldn't increase the electric bill.
Going into the kitchen he took a clean white towel from the drawer, folded it twice, and set it beside the sink.
Flicking the sink on Nanami patiently waited until the water became decently hot enough to run it over the towel.
Once it became well-soaked, he wrung it out until most of the water was drained, folded the towel again into a long rectangle, and draped it over his shoulder while he turned off the kitchen light.
He double checked the front door to confirm it was locked and did the same thing with the back one.
Everything was in its place.
Nanami walked down the hallway to his room and pushed the door open.
The room was dim, the workshop or rather the desk end of it still had the scattered evidence of a sleepless night.
There were still books out from the family shelves, his notebook open to pages of heavy handwriting, and his phone sitting dark beside a cold cup of coffee he'd made at some point and forgotten entirely.
He'd would clean it all up when he woke up from sleep.
Moving over to the edge of his bed he removed his glasses, gently setting them on the nightstand with a soft click.
Nanami then reached up and took the towel off from his shoulder, unfolded it, and pressed it across his eyes.
He exhaled a breath.
The tension across his shoulders which had been there so long he'd stopped registering it as tension and started registering it as just the shape of his shoulders released by a fraction.
Then another fraction.
The towel was cooling slightly at the edges but otherwise still warm.
Nanami allowed himself to lay back against the pillow.
The towel still laid across his eyes, and he allowed his senses to take in the silence of his home, the small hooting sounds that usually seemed to come in the early morning, and the distant sounds of cars driving away from their homes.
He was fast asleep before the towel finished cooling.
-end of chapter eight-
So, in this universe a mistake was made by the guys at the Clocktower assigning Nanami and Yu a mission they weren't ready for...but instead of dying like he does in JJK poor Yu got infected by a dead apostle turning into a ghoul and Nanami was unfortunately forced to kill him.
Akutami-sensei would probably praise me for the level of trauma I've inflicted so far.
But anyway leave a comment if you can those boost my motivation and maybe donate some stones to get this fic noticed.