I won neither the series nor the characters.
Uesugi Fuutarou woke up with a start.
He sat up groggily, taking in his surroundings. Immediately, he heard the sound of frogs croaking and running water. His eyes blearily took in the sight of the river next to him.
A river? The Charm!
Memories of slipping and falling into the ice-cold water came back to him. The image of a small charm gradually growing smaller as it floated away pierced into his mind.
On reflex, Fuutarou's hands went to the pocket where he always kept it to find it empty. His head turned to the nearby river, the clear water glistening in the sunlight.
Wait…sunlight?
It was then Fuutarou's brain had finally caught up to his body…his oddly warm and dry body.
"What?" Muttering to himself in confusion, Fuutarou looked down to see that he wasn't in the Santa outfit he had been forced to wear for his part time job. Instead, he was in his regular attire, white shirt and black pants. Although, they looked more roughed up than usual, not the clean pressed image he usually kept.
Slowly, he stood up taking into account how warm the sunlight felt on his body. Yet, wasn't it supposed to be Christmas? And yet it looked like it was late Summer with how, all around, the plants were still green.
"What's going on?"
Thankfully, it wasn't the first time such a thing had happened to him plus he wasn't the type to panic. Rather, he preferred thinking things through.
Had he been drugged again?
Wait, that's right! The sisters! There was no way they could have just left him there…probably. Maybe. Okay, there definitely was a chance but if there were people, he could get an explanation from it could only have been from them.
Then again, they were dumb.
Well, it wasn't like he had any choice on the matter. He could just go home but then again; they were the closest option at the moment. And if they did leave him out to dry, they had a lot of explaining to do.
"Right." Nodding to himself, Fuutarou turned his head to a nearby apartment. If he could recall, this was the place they had told him they were moving too. He tapped his pockets once more to find nothing, not even a wallet.
He cautiously walked up to the apartment's complex. It looked a little run down but, compared to his own place, it might have been a palace. He stopped by the front, realizing that he had no idea what room they lived in.
Maybe, he should just turn back home?
It was right when he was about to turn around and cut his losses here when a familiar voice called out to him.
"Ah, it's Uesugi-kun!"
'That voice!' Fuutarou turned to the source his eyes wide and mouth smiling.
"Itsu-!…ki?"
The exclamation in his voice died in his throat. Before him, stood the person he knew as Nakano Itsuki. Only…It felt like it wasn't. Fuutarou wasn't sure why but there was something off about her.
Stupid looking star clips? Check.
Messy hair? Check, even if it looked messier than normal.
Ahoge? As pointy as ever.
…maybe she just gained more weight? She wore a bright pink shirt with denim short overalls. It was more childish than her usual more mature choice of clothing but what did Fuutarou know about fashion?
"What's wrong, Uesugi-kun?" Itsuki looked up at him with questioning eyes. She tilted her head like a child would as she waited for him to answer her back.
"N-no, it's just…" Fuutarou didn't know how to describe the feeling. It was like deva ju but wasn't. This was definitely the Itsuki he knew in his memories but…she felt like she wasn't?"
"Are you feeling sick, Uesugi-kun? C'mon, let's go in the apartment!" With a child-like smile that reminded him of Yotsuba, Itsuki skipped ahead of him, swinging along a plastic bag she brought with her. "Ah! I bought some candy! We could eat it later if you're not feeling better!"
"…Sure." Fuutarou followed her, his mind a bit dazed from the sight. Well, he'd count his blessings, at least.
Wait a second, that's it! Fuutarou finally realized what had been throwing him off. For some reason, Itsuki was being nice to him! She was even happily smiling at him when she'd normally be frowning up a storm.
He felt cold sweat roll down his forehead. Did that mean she wanted something from him? Was this all just a ruse to butter him up before something terrible happened?
However, before he could skedaddle, Itsuki had stopped in front of one doors of the apartment complex. On the front, there was a clear plaque that read "Nakano". In hindsight, he should've checked that first but then again, he may have looked pretty suspicious doing so.
Fuutarou stood next to Itsuki who was, creepily enough, humming to herself. Just who was this person beside him? Also…
"Aren't you going to open it?"
"Ah! Oops!" Putting on a shocked expression, Itsuki bumped the side of her head with her fist. She turned to him, her eyes wide in obvious appreciation. "Good job, Uesugi-kun!"
"W-whatever." Fuutarou averted his gaze from the pure praise of the girl. "Just open it already."
The girl then knocked on the door which raised a question from Fuutarou.
"You don't have a key?"
The girl smiled happily as she shook her head. "Nope!"
Before Fuutarou could comment anymore, the door opened.
"Itsuki? You left your key again, didn't you? And…Fuutarou? What a pleasant surprise."
When the door opened, a girl who Fuutarou's mind identified as Nakano Miku.
Her long hair with bangs that barely covered her eyes was one clue. Her trademark blue headphones wrapped around her neck was another clue. Unfortunately, those were the only traits Fuutarou could identify of the middle quintuplet.
Although, to be fair, it wasn't like there was anything else he would've been able to catch on because-
"W-what are you wearing!?"
"Hm?" Miku raised a lazy eyebrow at his scream as she glanced down at her body. A sheer blue babydoll barely held up her bountiful chest. The fabric didn't even reach all the way to her belly button and had no way of covering the matching lacy panties below.
She turned back to him, unphased. "Nothing much."
"I-I can see that!" Fuutarou averted his eyes to the side, unable to catch the questioning pout of Itsuki nor the dangerous smirk that grew on Miku's face.
"Well, well." He involuntarily sucked in his teeth as a warm body pressed onto him. "Is Fuutarou feeling shy for once?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Fuutarou glared at the empty space above her head. He raised a hand to push her away but soon realized he'd be touching her bare shoulder to do so. Also, they were still outside the apartment and could be seen by anyone passing by. Even so, Miku didn't budge, cheekily grinning up at him until-
"Ecchi sketchy, no touchy!"
His savior came in the form of Itsuki who pushed Miku away, separating the both of them. Once she was off him, Fuutarou allowed himself to breath once more, even if he watched the two from the corner of his eye.
"Mou, Itsuki. You don't have to be such a killjoy."
"Itsuki doesn't want Miku doing anything weird to Uesugi-kun."
"There's nothing weird about it. It's perfectly normal for teenager to-"
"Waaahhh! No no no!"
Upon her cries, Itsuki started pushing her sister back into the apartment as Miku pouted. It took Fuutarou a minute of staring at the door blankly to realize he should probably follow along.
With more caution than he thought possible, he entered the apartment. Closing the door behind him, he left his shoes by the entrance and took a good look around. There wasn't much decoration, or to be more specific, space for decoration. The apartment was small, not close to his own place, but definitely a step down from their last one.
Even from the entrance, he could already the end of the other side. Itsuki and Miku were already both gathered around the kotatsu. Itsuki sat up straight, eyes gleaming excitedly at him as she patted the seat next to her with a candy in her mouth. Miku was, thankfully, dressed although, not by much, with how loose the robe she wore was. She too waved over to him.
Seeing as he had no choice, Fuutarou went over to them and too his seat next to Itsuki who then happily brought out a colorful looking notebook.
Fuutarou, unsure of how to proceed, decided to just ask. "So, this is a tutoring session?"
"Yep! Itsuki's ready to learn!"
More like he was ready to learn why she kept speaking in third person. He turned his eyes to the table in front of him to spot a dark looking notebook covered with skulls. Much like a lot of what was happening, he had never seen such a thing.
Curious, he opened it.
Eve of the Sabbath
Today, my dark prince had finally arrived. It seemed I had mistaken a mortal peasant for who turned out to be my destined mudere. He had revealed his true form, shedding the skin all commoners wore for the unholy truth that is the death's masquerade. For so long, I have waited and now he has come, summoned from the depths of darkness to carry me off into hell with him. We shall die together, dance together in when the barrier between the True Beyond and this wasteland of a planet reaches its peak.
"W-what do you think you're doing!"
Suddenly, A high pitch shriek nearly decimated his ear as the notebook was forcibly taken from out of his hands. Not that he could have stopped such a thing as Fuutarou covered his hand and squinted his eyes close in pain.
"Y-you…Miku! Why did this pervert have this?!"
Miku lazily shrugged as she took a deep drink of her tea. "Your fault for leaving it on the table, Nino."
"But I was sure I didn't…Forget everything you read, okay? The writings of my forbidden grimoire is not meant for mortal eyes unprotected by the powers of Dark Renioun!"
Nino? Holding a hand over the numb ear he was sure was possibly ruptured, he turned to the girl in question. Her recent haircut and butter-fly accessories definitely matched with what he knew of the girl but for some reason she looked really injured.
More specifically, her whole right arm was wrapped tightly in bandages accompanied with an eyepatch on her right eye.
And she was dressed in a lot of black.
"You!" And for a bandaged hand, it held his shirt with a surprisingly firm grip. He'd have thought it wasn't injured at all. Still, the glare in her single eye was definitely Nino's. "Just how much did you read?!"
"Up to the part with the True Beyond and-"
"Gyaah! Don't! Stop! Forget it!' The girl let go of his shirt and reached into her pocket. "If has it come to this, I'll have to use the forbidden elixir of dark abstraction in order to perform the ritual of Lethe onto your mortal soul."
…what?
"What?"
"She means to feed you drugs until you forget." Miku answered, taking another sip of her tea.
"N-Nino, wait! No fighting!" A worried Itsuki held up her arms in an X. "No rituals too. They scare Itsuki."
In the first place, Fuutarou doubted she could perform anything like that but Itsuki's fear looked real enough to please Nino. With a self-satisfied smile, she turned to me smirking with the notebook in her hands.
"H-hmph! You've been spared, mortal." She made her way to sit down next to Miku. She opened the notebook and went to scribbling whatever into it although occasionally sending small glares at me. Well, even if he had no idea why she was dressed or talking like that, Fuutarou guessed some things didn't change.
Speaking of which, he didn't even want to see how-
"Fuutarou-kun! You're here!" Fuutarou's wind supply was suddenly cut off by a surprisingly strong arm around his neck. He tried to gasp but the arm was too tightly wrapped. His wands went up to move it but ut was no good.
His eyes looked up to see the upside-down face of Ichika. Her hair hadn't changed but there was something sticking out the sides of her head he couldn't make out. Possibly due to lack of air.
"C'mon! You're going riding with me!"
"W-wait, Ichika! Uesugi-kun's going to join in studying!"
"Hah?" Thankfully, Ichika's exclamation finally had her let go of him even if that had him hit the ground with a thud. Even through the pain, he finally noticed what was off about Ichika. "There's no point in this guy studying. He might as well spend his time riding around town with me."
For whatever reason, she was wearing a white trench coat with a golden chain hanging on one side. It matched with her white pants and the wrappings around her chest.
If you were to ask him, he'd have thought she was acting as some sort of gang leader for a movie. Was that what this all was? A movie? If so, they really should have told him earlier.
"Ichika, you're always dragging Fuutarou around." Miku pointed out with a smirk. "Why don't you let us have a turn riding him?"
Ichika's face actually turned red. "Miku! Th-that's not what we do, kora! We-"
"Ooh, Itsuki wants to drive Ichika's cycle! Itsuki wants to play too!"
"There's no way you'll be able to tame Ichika's dark dragoon, Itsuki. Leave such fearsome beasts alone or you'll get hurt."
Ignoring the rabble going on, Fuutarou got to his feet. At this point, he was willing to take his chances with the river once more. Maybe, if he jumped back in, he'd awaken from whatever fresh hell he had arrived in.
There was no way these were the sisters he knew! He refused to believe it. Even if they were dumb, rude, difficult and annoying, they weren't this crazy.
"What's going on?"
The noise around him quieted down. Fuutarou could only assume the final sister had arrived as they all sounded the same anyways. Almost with a resignation in his soul, he turned tired eyes to find something that was undoubtedly different…
…yet he knew the person by the door side.
Long flowing hair topped with a wide brimmed hat.
This person was clearly…
"Rena?" Like a thirsty man to an oasis, Fuutarou practically leapt at the one thing that he knew, he actually could recognize. The single person that proved that he hadn't gone mad. She was the sole proof that his current memories of himself and the sisters were real.
Not really thinking due to desperation, he grabbed her by the shoulders and stared her straight in the eyes. He needed to confirm that the current him along with his memories were real.
"Are you really Rena? We met five years ago in Kyoto, didn't we? We promised..."
For a moment, he saw elated to see flames of wide recognition ignite in her blues eyes, glassily staring up at him. Her mouth slowly opened, a breath coming in, and her cheeks started to glow a light pink until-
"Guhaa-!"
Fuutarou bent over as the wind was blown out of him by a fist burying itself in his stomach. His arms wrapped around his torso as the girl he thought was the one person he knew took a step away from him. Her eyes bore down on him a dull cold, a frigid stare that didn't even bother too hide the distaste in her expression.
It was truly as if she had been looking at walking garbage.
"You claim to remember some promise and yet you can't even remember my own name? You're a special kind of idiot, aren't you, Uesugi-san?"
Just as she spat such harsh words out, the girl he had thought of as Rena took off her hat to reveal a familiar green ribbon underneath.
"Hmph!" Turning away from him, Fuutarou could only watch with eyes narrowed in pain as a girl who could only have been Yotsuba joined her sisters at the table. Placing her bag down by her side, she sat on the chair with folded arms.
"Ah! Yotsuba hit Uesugi-kun!"
"It was one hell of a punch too. Yotsuba, you really should join our gang already."
"Even Dark Reunion would quake if they were under Yotsuba's Nifelheim glare."
"She's the top in grades and sports. The only thing she won't top is a boyfriend. Not with that attitude at least."
Fuutarou shook his head. It was over. He had no idea what was happening anymore. Maybe if the gods were merciful, he'd wake up from this dream and yet all the pain in his stomach didn't make him think that was the case. He rubbed the aching spot Yotsuba had punched, to help nurse the pain only to find something else entirely.
Abs.
Rock hard abs.
Noticing a nearby mirror, he moved to it and lifted the front of his short. He ignored the various shrieks from behind him to see that what should have been the body of an underweight teenager now looked like one belonging to a martial artist. Especially, all those scars.
And not just that.
He stared.
Someone else stared back. A total stranger had replaced his reflection. No, this person still had his face but his hair was blonde and more unkept as ever. On his right ear, there was even an earring he never noticed.
His hand reached up to confirm the metal.
It may have been redundant to say at this point but Fuutarou seriously needed to know just what was going-
"Oh my. I heard someone calling out my name but I didn't expect it to be you."
For the sixth time, a voice interrupted Fuutarou's questions. However, for the first time, it was a voice he hadn't recognized before. Curious or perhaps just running on autopilot, he turned to see an exceptionally beautiful woman with long hair wearing a pencil suit.
While he knew he'd never forget such an exceptional beauty in his life, for whatever reason, Fuutarou couldn't help but find her looking…familiar.
The woman faced him, her face stern, yet there was an odd happiness in her dark eyes.
"While I'm happy you've once again joined us for tutoring, Uesugi Fuutarou-kun, I would like if you didn't do such indecent things in my home, especially since my daughters are here."
What…?
"Ah, kaa-chan's back!"
"You don't need to hug me every time, Itsuki."
…Daughters…?
"Okaa-sama, you can just ignore the pervert over there."
"Rather than him, Miku, please don't show off my underwear around guests."
…then that meant…
"Drink in the darkness, Mama! I hope you were able to procure the necessary ingredients for the potion I've been meaning to create."
"I did buy more milk, Nino. You can make those cookies after your lesson."
…this person was…
"Tch, too late to bail. Guess, I'll stay for some tutoring too, kaa-san."
"Even Ichika's here? What a good occasion."
…but that…
"Okaa-san, let's begin already."
"Hold on, Yotsuba."
Uesugi Fuutarou could only stare with wide eyes as Nakano Rena finally turned back to him.
"Well, are you going to just stand there or are you going to join us for your tutoring session?"
He swallowed.
'Raiha, Onii-chan has a feeling he's not in Tokai anymore…'
AN: Childsuki. Miklewd. Chuunino. Sukebanchika. Zetsuba.
Nakano Rena.
Uesugi Fuutarou, you can (not) turn back. I'm sure it's not too hard to guess what kind of AU did Fuutarou land in.
Also, this was just pure coincidence, but this looks to be the 50th QQ fic in the archive. (Ignoring how one fic got deleted, I believe). It's nice to see the archive have 50 fics when I could remember there weren't even five when Khamsa was out. So it's really nice to see such growth. I do hope it can continue even if we do the manga has started to reach it's last arcs. So just a thanks to all the writers out there and you readers too.