“Finally, I finally can go back.” I say with a large smile on my face even as tears run down my eyes. It has been simply far too long since I got stuck in this place, I can’t handle this anymore. It was cool at the start, but this became torture soon enough and I really want to go back.

In front of me a portal shimmered into existence and the I could not possibly be any happier for it, a sign I could finally return to a much safer environment than this. ​​

“*SNIFF* *SNIFF* To think little Soma is leaving already.” Already? Tama-chan, I have been stuck in this place for the last 6 thousand years, it has been a long time for sure.

“Umu, they grow up so fast.” Not really, I took a long time to grow in power Nero-chan. I am still weaker than most of you guys, after all.

“Humph, that idiot should just stay here a while more. He is still too weak to go back anyway and he still has room to train more.” Leonidas, you may be an amazing guy but if I can never again go through one of your training regimens I would be glad for it.

“Grrrr, Grrr grrr.” Grr grr for you too, Herakles, grr grr for you too.

“His time has come, time for him to go back.” Thank fucking God it did, Old Man Hassan. Gods and Devils know I couldn’t take more of you and the other Hassans training me in their arts, you guys are insane to have mastered those things during only a normal human life span.

“Just to think my disciple is leaving like this, I won’t have anyone to try experiments with.” Experiments ON me, right Paracelsus? I can never forget the many hundreds of potions and alchemic things you made me consume to test their power and what they would do.

“… Take care.” Yeah, yeah, I will take care of myself, Kiritsugu-sensei. And don’t worry, I will get a shotgun and some explosives as an honor to you training me with those. And because sniping is definitely one of the best methods to deal with enemies, right beside exploding them to high heavens.

“Do not forget to be chivalrous, you were trained by us to be able to do better than to use underhanded tactics.” Yeah, yeah, I know all that Artoria. You and the other knights spent more time talking about ethics in combat than actually teaching me how to fight, I know how to be chivalrous.

“And don’t forget to use whatever method needed if it helps with you surviving.” Musashi said with a wide smile, earning a glare from the knights and Kojiro-sensei, thankfully I won’t be here to witness the drama.

With a smile, I see the other Heroic Spirits in this place, the place I spent the last 6000 years inside.

The throne of heroes.

You see, I was once a normal guy, nothing special about me until, one day, I got a visit from truck-san. It was a rather rude visit seeing as I was on the top of my college’s building and a truck literally flew down from the sky.

My theory, either a plane was carrying the thing or some ROB decided to get creative when it decided it wanted to reincarnate me.

Thankfully that death was quick and simple, I didn’t even feel pain or anything or how fast it was.

One second I was a normal college student and the next I was a baby being fed on the tit by my mother.

Using diapers was pure humiliation. But overall it was a nice enough life.

Well, not that this means all that much to me now since, when I was 11, I got a problem with a mugging gone wrong, I got stabbed in the back literally by a junkie trying to get some money from my pocket to buy his drugs. Well, I don’t know all the details, I was losing a lot of blood. Next thing I knew I was here.

The Throne of Heroes.

A weird place where all heroes who marked their names in legends across the multiverse end up at.

Needless to say, the place was a mess of egos too big to be dealt with normally and more crazy people than anyone could reasonably hope to understand. It was a joined place with too many people with too much ego in most cases and several of them were enemies from the start so fighting was almost inevitable all the time. The only reason as to why the entire place didn’t self-detonate or anyone actually died was because of how the place was structured making it so any damage made was ultimately temporary and truly killing the people in it impossible. At most, you can kill things made there, nothing more.

As a completely normal person who is most certainly not any hero or did anything to deserve being in this place, at first the beings there did not like me at all. I was just a random kid with no backstory, heroic act, or anything that would warrant me being able or allowed to be amongst all the greatest heroes of history.

Thankfully, after a while, some of them who had little to do decided they wanted to try their hands in teaching me. They figured that, even if I did not deserve yet to be amongst legendary heroes, I just have to become worthy of it.

And let me tell you, accepting was, by far, the absolute worst idea I ever had.

Six thousand years, six thousand years was how long I have spent in this place being ‘taught’ (read tortured) by all these heroes. And let me tell you, a hero is someone who goes beyond the norm and can do something amazing.

What does this mean? Well, that if all these amazing people are together with only themselves around it is natural their understanding of ‘common sense’ would get distorted, and their understandings of what reasonable training is gets even worse.

But now, now I can go back to my own body. Back to life and to a peaceful place with no mad teachers who would use me as test subjects for their experiments in magecraft, or help Hijikata and Leonidas figure out the ultimate soldier’s routine, or any nonsensical thing like that.

I was even once given the ‘honor’ of cleaning up the entirety of the treasury of Gilgamesh. Needless to say I spent 15 years just cleaning all those treasures, the guy hoarded way too many things.

I look to the side, there I can see Merlin with a cute little squirrel-like thingy on the top of his head.

“Well then, I will be watching so give me and us all here a show.” Merlin said grandly and I chuckle.

“Yeah, yeah, I will try my best you crazy bastard. I will miss you, Fou, if you ever want to visit please come, I will make some cookies or other sweats for you. Also, just as a final goodbye present that both of you deserve,” I turn back to the reunited group of heroes that were standing there to send me off. “Girls, Merlin has taken several photos of you all naked during baths and is keeping them all in his tower! He even has a giant poster of Scatatch all in the nude in there too!”

“WHAT?!” Several enraged superpowered women shouted and a half incubus mage started sweating bullets seeing this.

“And THAT is my present to you Merlin-sensei, consider this my thanks for making me help you host that Pendragon dinner party which included the entire family, asshole. And Fou, I hope you enjoy seeing Merlin getting beaten up, chiao.”

And with that, I jumped into the portal to the sounds of shouts, enraged swings of all sorts of weapons, and laughter of that crazy bitch Morgan Le Fay. She was probably glad if only because Merlin was suffering from the anger of so many women at once and his precious tower was likely to get blasted away or at least be ransacked.

Goodbye, crazy fucking nonsensical place of hell. Peace and quiet, here I come!

///—///

3° Person’s P.O.V.

BIP

BIP

Opening his eyes the teenager looks up at a white ceiling. It was unfamiliar to him and made him wonder for a moment what was going on until he remembered what was happening.

‘Success, now I can finally get started in my own life and… fuck this hurts.’

Yep, this person, whose spirit trained for several thousand years by the most powerful heroes in the Throne of Heroes itself, has now gone back to his body. A body that was atrophied, weak, with several tubes going in and out, and at a glance, one could tell was a Coma patient.

His entire body was in pain and breathing was regulated by tubes that were extremely uncomfortable as well.

He didn’t know if he should laugh or cry, he was finally free from those crazy heroes that taught him so much even if he suffered extensively for every lesson, and his freedom from his teachers manifested in him being imprisoned in bed.

It took about five hours until someone noticed he was awake and several more for him to get many, many examinations to check his body and state.

After his exams proved he was healthy enough he was moved to a normal room instead of the one he was using. Just the fact he no longer was all tubed up was enough to put a smile on the teenager’s face.

Looking out the window to the clear blue sky going on and on into the horizon, Soma smiled.

“Now my days of peace are about to begin.” He spoke with a content tone before he heard the sound of the door of his room being pushed open. Looking at it he could see a white-haired girl with a very feminine figure and blue-green eyes staring at him in shock and apprehension.

“You, you really woke up? Soma-nii.” She said, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes seeing him. It made sense, the two have grown up as close as siblings for so long before what happened and she was one of the few in the family who had never given up hope he would wake up.

Seeing her it was a while before Soma realized who was the one in front of him, it was hard to match this beautiful woman with the scrawny kid of the past who would always run about with snot in her nose while playing and refusing to wear any dresses as she did not want to be a ‘proper lady’ like her mother.

“Yes, it seems so, Mo-chan.” Soma said to his cousin, Momo Hanakai, who jumped up and gave him a tight hug, to which he hugged her back even if he could not put any strength into it. His muscles had atrophied completely during this time and he could not move properly at all, even moving his arms to hug his cousin back was tough for him, but they both needed this sort of reassurance that this was real. That he was back.

///—///

It took three weeks until he was fit enough to go back to his parent’s home. Well, more his own home for what is seems since his parents got divorced and while his custody was in his mother’s name she went to America while his father went to Europe. Soma still got plenty of cash from them sent over and he was living rather close to his cousin Momo and her family, something like a 10 minutes walk really.

“Well, well, well, how should I start this?” Soma said after his aunt dropped him off in his house. The groceries were already prepared and he was now left alone in the house.

Due to having spent so long in a coma he would be getting supplementary classes in the local school to help him be able to integrate with the others his age as quickly as possible.

Having already eaten a short while before, Soma was already full enough. His body has been filling up nicely for a while now, a thankful matter since how he looks like he had a small degree of something between his skin and bones.

“Well, if I have to start somewhere then this would be as good a place as any. It is the basics, after all.”

Nodding to himself Soma used the ingredients in his kitchen and some chalk he found in the house, preparing a simple but effective formalcraft magic circle around himself. Its purpose being simply to keep the outside mana from mixing with his own and allowing him to complete the ritual easier.

Sitting down in the center of the circle Soma closed his eyes and concentrated. The ability to wield magic is one that was absolutely essential for someone like Soma if he wanted to put to use what he had learned for so long.

It was the lifeline of a magus, the most essential part that served to define a person’s potential in many cases.

“Well, even if it is like that I still am just a truly average human though.” Soma said with a mirthless chuckle.

Soma knew perfectly well that he only had a total of 34 magic circuits, an average amount all things considered as people from Magi families with innate potential would all have at least 45 magic circuits and those that are called genius would all have at least 70 circuits. Even the quality of his circuits were all average, the amount being about the same as if you tried to compare him to other people.

He wasn’t too weak or unlucky, but he was also not blessed in terms of potential and talent. He was average throughout, simple as that.

Even still, even if he was naturally just average across the board, he would still try his best to become the strongest. He would do that no matter what because, because…

“If I don’t become worthy of the Throne of Heroes and can go back there, who knows if those lunatics won’t find some way to find me after death and beat me up for wasting their time.”

Yep, the finest of motivations to become strong, sheer terror.

Taking a deep breath he started the process of opening his magic circuits. It was a painful process, like if you were opening a vein in your body by shoving magma through it. The feeling of burn, of pain, was terrifying.

And yet, for Soma something to this degree really wasn’t anything much. Compared to some of the trainings he went through, the experiments he had to endure under the researchers there who wanted to test hypothesis on a ‘fresh’ subject, the many experiences he had to endure in that place, compared to all that this was nothing.

///—///

“Phew, finally over. It took longer than expected.” Soma said as he cleaned his forehead from the sweat covering it.

Opening the circuits was slightly tougher than he expected, but it took him only about one hour to complete it. Opening his hands, blue circuit-like patterns could be seen covering his hand and he smirked seeing this.

“Instantaneous reinforcement magic to the precise limit of what my body can achieve, it seems like I can do that already.” Soma said as he continued to test and see if he could still do it properly. Flooding every single cell of his body with mana and reinforcing all said cells together at once, this was one of the things he took the longest to be able to do instantaneously whenever he wanted, especially since he managed to do that for even the parts of the body that one normally wouldn’t dare try, like the eyes or organs.

After testing for a while more Soma nodded his head, satisfied with this first act.

“Now, before I go eat something, I guess I could take advantage of the momentum and try that.”

What he meant by ‘that’ was the results of one of the many experiments he had undergone while in the Throne of Heroes.

Namely, Soma concentrated his energy and began to use Alchemy in his own body, namely he used it first in his skin. Namely, this was an experiment made by a joined research of Irysviel Von Einzbern, Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern, and Paracelsus to see if it was possible to use alchemy in someone to improve on the human body itself.

No big changes to sensations or things like that, just the ‘materials’ it was composed of.

For instance, Soma was now turning his skin’s carbon into extremely elastic and malleable carbon fiber while still keeping its general durability. It was a feat that would be seen as impossible for any technology of the present day, a skin like this was not something anyone normally would have, and yet Soma was turning his skin into that. It was one of the great experiments he was forced to help by those mad scientists back in the Throne of Heroes, a tentative to find a way to make humans be stronger than before without losing what makes them human in the first place. Simple augmentations in their body, make their organism better than before.

A beneficial operation that demanded extreme knowledge of Alchemy that made even a production of a Philosophical Stone look cheap in comparison. Truly, a marvelous achievement.

Or, well…

“Fuck, shit, asshole, this hurts way too fucking much.” Soma complained as he continued the process. What he was doing was essentially removing and replanting his skin while letting all his pain censors work overtime as he could not risk simply not letting them work properly.

By the time he finished, his mana reserves he had only managed to change the skin of the palm of his hands, that is it.

Looking at the said palm of the hands he could only let out an unamused chuckle.

“To think this is the most I could manage, and that is because I am still only doing the skin. Just to think how long until I get to the veins, muscles, organs, bones, and nerves, it will take a very long time indeed.” He said trying to not sound defeated, and failing.

The skin was, unfortunately, the part of the body that was the easiest to do and that demanded the least amount of energy to do.

“Now, how about some pizza?” He spoke as he got up and went to the phone. He was not in the mood to make his own food today so he might as well ask for some food.

Today was a good day, and now it was time to eat and recover. His body was not yet fit to go train, but he could produce some potions just like those Medea-sensei taught him that can make one’s body recover nutrients faster. That woman knew a scary number of potions and other unique magics, after all, especially ones suitable to get revenge on others, and she was more than glad to teach Soma after he pulled a prank on Jason, namely giving him a potion that would make him go bald.

Chuckling a bit at the memories of the idiot’s girly screams upon seeing all his golden hair falling off, Soma went to get to call for a pizza.

///—///

“So, Momo-chan, did something good happen?” Tomoe Meguri, Sona’s only knight, asked her fellow Peerage member who stiffened upon hearing the sudden question.

“Huh? What? Why do you ask?” Momo asked in surprise, she was just reading through another petition of the females of the school to remove the Perverted Trio from the school. Not that this would happen to see as one of them had just joined Rias Gremory’s Peerage two weeks ago and all that.

“Because you had a skip on your step today and you have been smiling a lot more than usual. Did someone finally ask you out?” Tomoe asked, earning a glare from Momo.

“No, I was not asked in a date or anything like that.” Momo said, her eyes twitching at seeing Ruruko giving some money to a smug Tsubasa. Clearly, they had been betting on her love life, again.

“So? What is it?” Tsubasa asked, glad to have won the bet she did earlier. She wanted a new phone, after all, and any money helps.

“My cousin, Soma, was released from the hospital. I was thinking about visiting him later today to see how he is doing, and maybe eat some cake or something like that with him.” Momo said simply, it really was not that big a deal in her eyes. She was simply glad her cousin was back, the two grew up together and were as close as brother and sister, having him be in a coma really broke her heart, and seeing him back was just a great thing in her eyes. He was someone she cared for a lot growing up, truly siblings in all but blood.

She, however, noticed the weird glances and perverted giggling from the rest of the Peerage and only rolled her eyes at them. They were too childish sometimes, there was absolutely nothing going on between her and her cousin anyway so their actions were ridiculous anyway. She had no such feelings for him and she was quite sure it was the same the other way around. It was a pure friendship, simple as that.

Thankfully Sona put a stop to the perverted giggling and gossips soon enough and made them all go right back to work.

As they were all dispersed and allowed to go their way Momo put all her things in her bag and proceeded to go about her way, she still had to find a cake shop to get something for Soma. It was her own ‘welcome home’ gift, after all.

“Momo, wait a moment.” Sona said and Momo stopped in her tracks, turning back to her king.

“Yes?”

“Is this the cousin you had asked me to take a look a little while back?” Sona said simply enough.

During the years Momo did not simply forget Soma, they were practically siblings after all and such a thing was not something one can simply forget. As such Momo had asked Sona if she could send someone to take a look at him, a natural act seeing as the Sitri family owned several hospitals in both the human world and the Underworld.

Sona, without hesitation, made the request for her family, after all, it was a request within her powers from one of her Peerage members and, as such, something she would try to help with. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done at the time, but it still made Sona uncomfortable to have failed a request from one of her servants.

“Yes, Soma-kun was the one I asked for before.” Momo admitted it easily enough, it was not like this was a secret or anything.

“I see. Well, if it is not too much to ask I would like to be able to go and see him as well. It is just to see if he is truly healthy and question him in regards to how his schooling will go by and if he can become one of the school’s students. He is of the right age, after all.”

Momo really, really wanted to say no. It was supposed to be a moment where Momo could just go back to how things were before everything got complicated, a time before being a devil or any family drama. Just her and her cousin eating cake, drinking some soda, playing games, and talking.

Having her boss would really not help with that, but Momo knew Sona did not mean anything bad by this and, again, she was her boss. One didn’t say ‘no’ to their boss easily, especially when they have good intentions.

As such, with a slightly strained smile, Momo answered.

“Of course, you are welcome.”

“Good, we can go there then. Oh, and we can just pit stop at my house instead of a cake shop, I have made some cakes yesterday and I am quite proud of their taste.” Sona said making Momo’s skin pale considerably.

‘Kaichou, do you want little Soma to die? Your cooking is toxic, we have already told you that much and if we try to give it to someone whose stomach is weak they will probably die.’ Momo thought before shaking her head.

“N-No need, now that I think about it he has to follow a strict diet until he fully recovers and I don’t know if eating cake would be good for him.” Momo said hastily. ‘Sorry, Soma-nii but I can get you some cake for next time. Saving your life from dying takes precedence.’

Sona, meanwhile, looks down.

“Shame, I have tried my best in them but it seems like no one wants them. I even tried giving one of them to some homeless man I passed by on the way to school and he took just one bite before saying he prefers to starve and accusing me of trying to kill him.”

‘That sounds about right.’ Momo thought instantly, having experienced more than once Sona’s ‘culinary talents’ and the reaction of the homeless man was quite tame all things considered. Soma needing to go right back to the hospital from food poisoning was an entirely realistic possibility if he was to eat anything made by Sona, after all.

Seeing that she had managed to save her cousin from a most terrible death Momo went on with Sona with her, the two going to Soma’s house.

Unfortunately, after they got there and rang the bell several times no one answered. The two girls looked confused for a moment before deciding he was probably sleeping or something so they went back home without meeting him.

Well, not that he wasn’t home. He very much was, and he also very much was clutching tightly the several knives he had home and still in a fighting stance.

As he had only now unlocked his Magic Circuits his ability to sense magic signals had started and, as such, he was able to smell the disgustingly sweet smell of demonic energy approaching his house. As soon as he sensed it he armed himself with what he could and stood ready in case of a fight which thankfully didn’t happen.

When the smell went away he finally relaxed slightly. It was a sign that whatever had come over had left, but it was still a fact that something had come to this place that was clearly demonic in nature.

“That was scary. Since when do demonic entities just walk around in the world like that? Scary, very scary. The world here is scary. No, calm down and think. I have to think rationally and see how to deal with this sort of situation so that I can defend myself if whatever monster that came appears again. Okay, first things first, I need a way to defend myself. The best way should be to sanctify and bless some weapons to make them effective against demonic beings. I should be able to buy some kitchen knives in the store and visit the local church to try and bless it, I did learn how to bless things with Amakusa anyway so it should work well enough. After that I will ward this house the absolute best I can, nothing gets in without me knowing. And… oh shit, Momo! I need to make sure she is alright and secure before I go and find some way to kill whatever beast is out there walking around town.”

Soma spoke in rapid succession, his nerves still taught from the fact that demonic existences had just waltzed right to his front door despite the fact that he was still so very weak. However, he could only toughen it up, he was trained to be a hero, to save others and to slay the beast. And slay the beast is exactly what he intended to do.