Chapter Text
Holy shit I wrote this in like June 2025 and left it in my drafts, this shit fucking sucks and I'm going to torture you by making you read it. If people glaze me enough I'll keep pumping out more goyslop for you people
An existence so reviled that even in the poorest parts of Japan, should one be discovered, they were to be put to death, ignored entirely by the Government.
An existence who cared little for the respect which came with death, defiling even the dead, consuming them for the sustenance to remain alive.
An existence rejected both by the rich and the poor, incapable of changing their very nature as they clung to life in the most disgusting manner possible.
Natsuki Subaru was one instance of such an existence.
He didn’t remember the names or faces of his parents in his childhood, rather, from his perspective, he had been born an orphan in the most decrepit parts of Aomori. Rather, what connected him to his family lineage was taste.
The taste of their blood, he remembered it as though it were yesterday.
There was nothing to eat, a simple, overwhelming hunger which drowned all else, the messages they gave him, the principles they had imbued into him, the ways they attempted to smile at him despite their hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes, attempting to make him forget the nature of their situation.
It wasn’t that he hated them, he didn’t remember enough about them to assign any strong feelings like hatred or love. Rather, they stood between him and the only goal which mattered at the moment, which was survival.
But a child, Subaru didn’t understand the concept of death all too well. It was something which remained always in mind yet out of sight, a label with no referent. But he understood motion.
To remain still meant you were food.
And for that precise reason, on the day his parents finally ceased all forms of movement entirely, Subaru could feel nothing but a strange sense of elation as he remembered one of the first thoughts his childish mind could conjure.
‘At least I didn’t have to kill them myself.’
A NEET.
No employment, education or training.
Subaru considered himself one and wore the title with a shameless sense of pride. After all, to be someone who can bear such titles meant he had survived long enough to earn the ridicule of others.
Frankly, the hatred of others served little use to his general survival, and they didn’t add much to the overall hatred amount which was directed towards himself. And as such, they were ignored.
Things which were not essential to his wellbeing were ignored.
And nobody hated Natsuki Subaru more than Natsuki Subaru himself.
Currently, Subaru was making his way towards the convenience store, with his slightly dishevelled appearance born from consistent hours of working out in order to keep himself alive and healthy and low hanging hair created by consistent failed attempts at emulating who he thought was his father, one could say he looked like an average, decently attractive teenager.
His house was pristine in terms of cleanliness, and it wasn’t as though he continued to live in poverty like he once had. But the knowledge that people had of him ended there, although people saw Natsuki Subaru, and had a concept of who he was within themselves, the true nature of the individual who stood before them was unknown.
And what was unknown was monstrous.
Picking up his favourite potato chips, Subaru stockpiled on the flood he would eat for the day, pulling out his wallet filled to the brim with all manner of coins and bank notes, he quickly drifted towards the counter as he locked eyes with the cashier, the mild eyebags under his eyes born from consistent bags of gaming.
“That will be 140 yen” the cashier said, making a conscious attempt to not make eye contact with the inky black pools which Subaru called his eyes. Subaru noticed yet didn’t make a comment as he gave the man a small, bright smile as he produced the money needed.
“Thank you for your hard work!” Subaru commented cheerfully, turning his back to the cashier as he slowly made his way outside. It was as though he had never come into the store in the first place, the eerie lack of footsteps only served to enhance the monstrous image that he had within his mind of the boy, yet the bright smile culled all doubts mercilessly.
And so, that marked the final engagement which Subaru had with another human being within that world.
Blinking his eyes to dispel his tiredness, the young man slowly took in the ambience of the street life as he prepared to cross the street, wiping his eyes slowly as he murmured to himself.
“This is the result of consistently playing Call of Duty until 1AM, no? I really need to cut down on that.”
Yet, as he slowly opened his eyes, rather than the darkness which marked nighttime in Japan, Subaru was met with the bright light of the sun. The rapid change forced him to raise a hand over his eyes allowing them to adjust as he turned his gaze to the sky.
The Sun hung in the air, far larger than what Subaru was used to, and as he turned his gaze towards the people who surrounded him, demihumans, humans, knights and earth dragons alike, Subaru could only utter one thing.
“Have I been summoned to another universe?”
And thus began Natsuki Subaru’s journey in another world.
--
Walking around had been an absolute chore, although he had taught himself to be proficient in most languages on Earth should the need ever arise, there was no way of preparing himself for a situation which launched him into a different universe.
The language was something he could not understand yet felt strangely familiar, the connection between himself and the symbols seemed deeper than the link which connected himself and his parents. And yet no matter how long he stared at it, no new understanding came.
Thankfully, he could understand the people around him, as was what had happened when he had been kicked out of a store for his inability to produce any form of this world’s currency.
“One would think I have something better to start myself off with, if the beautiful girl who’s summoned me isn’t going to show themselves or anything, wouldn’t it be better to at least prove your power by giving me some good starting gear?”
Mumbling complaints to himself as he turned a corner into a dark alleyway, Subaru was pulled from his thoughts forcefully as the voices of three men pulled him from his internal monologue.
“Look what we have here.” The first said, a small man with a bowl cut.
“Look at him, he looks lost doesn’t he, and his eyes are all funny too!” The second sneered at him, sticking his long tongue out of his mouth and revealing its slitted tip as a wide smile emerged on his features.
“He doesn’t even know what’s happening to him, does he?” The third asked, with a mixture of mockery and genuine confusion as Subaru regarded him, he was the largest of the three, and consequently the biggest threat.
“I don’t know what you want from me, but I’m not from around here so—” Subaru’s attempts to defuse the situation were killed as the first, and presumably the leader cut him off. “I don’t give a shit what you’re about to say pretty boy, just drop your goods and go.”
Subaru’s eyebrow twitched, the situation was ridiculous, first his money, which he had worked hard to earn proved useless, then he had to deal with being ridiculed by the masses for not understanding a different language, and now he was being robbed?
But that wasn’t what irritated Subaru.
They were aiming for his food, those who did not eat died. It was a simple natural law, and consequently, the weak who could not defend what they had earned were doomed to be outcompeted.
The tone of the situation had shifted from a simple robbery to one where his survival was being put in jeopardy. Meaning the situation had changed.
Laying his belongings on the ground, Subaru readied himself for combat, as the men, unaware of threat to their life that they had created continued to laugh and sneer at him for his cowardice and inability to stand up for himself.
In the next moment, a yellow blur appeared.
It was so fast that Subaru couldn’t track it with his eyes, and she had long left sound behind as she covered long distances with quick strides, her divine blessing granting her the capability to ignore the laws of physics at will as she stood before the four men.
“Ah, sorry to interrupt whatever was going on over here!” Despite her apology, the grinning expression on her face led Subaru to believe she turned to him. “Live strong bro!” In the next second, she disappeared.
The three thugs exchanged glances at one another in sheer shock at what had just occurred, however Subaru did not share their surprise as he closed the distance without hesitation.
Slamming a full power punch into the neck of the man in the middle, causing a wad of blood to emerge from his mouth as his larynx was nearly crushed, the other two could only look on in surprise as Subaru’s cold gaze landed on the shortest among them.
Spinning on his heel, Subaru slammed his foot into the chest of the small man, sending barrelling into a wall and leaving a sizable dent in it as Subaru lowered his head to avoid a punch from the third.
It was packed with enough force to easily knock Subaru unconscious, and his body was layered in a mixture of fat and muscle that made body blows nearly ineffective. And as such, he slammed his foot into the knee of the man, sending his knee flying backwards, far beyond the range it could move naturally as Subaru shattered his foot.
He didn’t even have the opportunity to cry out in pain as Subaru out sped the emerging sound, slamming his elbow into the man’s jaw and robbing him of his consciousness as the man fell on his back, unconscious.
Shaking his arm in pain, Subaru winced slightly as he gazed at the three unconscious men with indifference before he began. “Shit! My arm stings from my first instance of hand-to-hand combat in a new world, and to make it worse, I don’t even have any healing buffs or potions to use on myself after this! Isn’t this the point where the heroine comes and rewards me for my efforts!?”
Despite his comedic speech, the dark gaze had never left his eyes as he made his way towards the tallest thug, reaching down and pulling the two knives that he held in a holster he had at the back before unsheathing them and swinging them through the air.
“Yeah, these are sharp, the real thing too. Who knows if he would have stabbed me with this should I have given him the chance.” His eyes narrowed as he gripped the knife firmly. “It’s better to kill than to be killed though, no?”
As he contemplated ending the lives of the three men, a beautiful woman’s voice rang out behind him, and although she wasn’t the one who summoned him, she was the closest thing to an identical twin as one could get.
“Halt, villain!”
Turning his head slowly, Subaru didn’t notice how accurate the description truly was as his face was hidden slightly by the darkness, yet his darker eyes remained visible and locked on the silver haired beauty. His clothes were stained with blood, and he was holding two knives as though they were the most natural thing in the world.
“I don’t know what is going on here, but you better leave those three men alone or else I’ll be forced to intervene!”
Cocking his head to the side slightly, Subaru didn’t give the three men a glance as his eyes analysed the woman in front of him. She was undoubtably strong. Her posture, though inexperienced was one of somebody who was skilled in combat, and just from the way she carried herself Subaru knew this was a fight he could not win.
And yet—
“You don’t know what happened and you’re trying to make me the villain here, isn’t that a bit arrogant?” He asked with genuine curiosity, she didn’t seem like she intended to take his food from him, so he simply picked it up and walked towards her as though everything was natural.
His statement seemed to have caught her off guard as she fumbled over her words and flushed with embarrassment. It would have been cute if he hadn’t just beaten up three people and considered killing them.
“T—that may be true but…nothing gives you the right to hurt those three men that badly!” She protested, but Subaru didn’t relent as he sat near the wall, resting his back against it as he prepared to take out his food. If he didn’t eat it now, who knows who might steal it.
“We’re going to ignore the fact that you were about to shoot some magic spell thingy at me…which would be doing exactly what I did to them? Plus, if you were that concerned, why haven’t you healed them, surely that sort of magic should exist here, no?” Subaru shot back, ripping open the wrappings of his sandwich as he took a bite.
“You speak as though you do not know of magic…never mind! Stay where you are! I’ll be healing these people for a bit but only to ask them questions…and you…I’ll be interrogating you too! So don’t run off…please?”
Her meagre attempts to look intimidating did not move his heart, yet he felt compelled to remain there, if only to get something out of her in the long run. Plus, with her strength and apparent kindness, the need to worry about being robbed reduced dramatically.
And so, he would wait.
Subaru’s gazing at the shifting clouds was interrupted by the sight of a small grey ball flying into his view. It was a floating cat, a real floating cat with a bag wrapped across its waist and a cute looking appearance that emerged in his view as Subaru widened his eyes.
“Cute!” He almost squealed, killing any attempt at dialogue that the cat had intended to engage in as he pressed the creature to his cheek and rubbed his face up and down against it. Turning his head to the silver haired woman, who had just finished healing the three men, Subaru called out to her with a shameless smile on his face.
“Is he yours? He’s so cute! Can I keep him?” One statement and two questions were fired at Emilia as she gazed at Subaru was an exasperated expression, almost surprised at how quickly his demeanour had changed from only a few minutes ago as her face changed into a smile.
“I see you’re pretty~ enamoured by Puck huh?” The young woman said, her lips curled into a small, almost prideful smile as she watched Subaru fawn over the cat with a joyful expression.
“His name’s Puck? That’s such a cute name! Did you name him yourself or did someone else?” Subaru asked, squashing Puck’s attempt at an explanation with his overwhelming affection as the woman furrowed her brow in mild confusion.
“Puck is a Great Spirit, one of the Four Great Spirits actually, and he’s older than me. You must be severely~ uninformed Mr…”
She trailed off, realising she did not know his name as Subaru shot to his feet, having devoured all his food and raised his finger to the sky, a bold declaration of his own identity as he affirmed his existence once more.
“My name is Natsuki Subaru, and not only am I absolutely clueless, but I will be in your care from now on!”