Personally, I hate it when authors put up lengthy notes before or after chapters and so try my best not to put up things of the sort myself. So, in case I have written something, please do read, it would on have some important things stated.
[[for spoilers to the story, check comment section]]
(__ 11 Aug'25 edit:: first 15 chapters were written a few years ago, I had taken a break before returning with better writing skills and don't have enough time to edit those 15 chapters from beginning so they are as they are for now__)
The Prologue offers insight to her past and family relations. [important note at end]
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You remember reading somewhere that there's always some or the other sign before miracles happen. For some people, this sign can be prolonged lows in life, for others, it can be unusual and random instances repeating over time.
For you, it was neither of the two.
The only thing going on in your life at you nearing twenty six years in a few months was a stalemate- you were doing your masters in college alongside attending therapy sessions.
It had taken your family years to convince you to see a therapist, you'd been in denial of your corroding mental health for the longest of times.
And though it's true that one must try to fix their minds on their own, there happen to be several cases where external aid is needed to overcome the boundaries and maladaptive behaviours one's mind sets up.
You subconsciously were aware of defense mechanisms and maladaptive behaviours prominent in you- they'd all been results of the way your childhood mind tried to shield you from everything you lived through.
Mother and father were never home- it was ever since you were three and capable enough to walk and talk on your own that they'd go abroad to work. Uncle was father's older brother and he and his family were abroad for work and education too.
Uncle has three sons- the oldest about a decade older than you and named Max and the other two a little less than a decade older to you and twins, called Bruce and Tony.
It was sometime around when you were twenty- it was Christmas and the whole of your family was over for the vacations. They were to leave after new year celebrations like every year.
The catch was that a twelve year old little boy was brought along with your parents. He looked exactly like them and knew everyone in your family other than you.
It was shocking for your uncle and his family to realize that you didn't know your own little brother. For twelve years, your parents didn't bother tell you that you had a younger sibling.
On interrogation by your uncle, your parents revealed that they never intended to have a girl and that you are not even close to how brilliant uncle's sons are. They said you drag their names to mud.
The reality you'd denied all your life slapped itself to your face that day.
Uncle and his side were beyond heartbroken on hearing all this- they'd always adored you. Max looked into everything and found out about the bullying at school and college you'd faced too.
Your brothers were laden with guilt when they realized their absence resulted to nothing but loneliness and murkiness in their lives. They realized you'd never once lived properly and now had developed several behavioural dysfunctions.
The years of having no one to trust or rely on had broken you.
They'd taken you in and kept you with them as their own. It was now that you received all the love and company you never had, though of course it can never suffice for the time lost.
It was your brothers who had convinced you to get therapy- they had tried for years to bring this up to you and only succeeded recently. You on seeing how happy they'd been when you accepted decided to listen to them more.
After all, they are all the family you have.
It happens when you're heading to therapy one day- the therapist's clinic is not very far away, so Mac usually drops you on his way to work.
Today however, neither of the both of you reach the destinations you're headed to- there's an accident.
A truck collides into a line of parked cars at full speed and the chaos causes one of these cars to be slammed against your own.
You're the one seated on the side where it hits. The last image you remember before everything blacks out is of Max stretching his hand to shield your head at the last second.
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A drastic hollowing swallows the whole of your body spreading an irking numbness throughout. It feels as if you're paralyzed- your brain remains active although sluggish while your body doesn't feel to be in your command anymore.
Thankfully though, life begins to creep into your muscles and bones little by little and on reflex, your fingers twitch. Your senses begin to faultily return although your brain can't handle the overload.
There's a sharp ache in your temples- you realize you've been hurt although the wound seems a little too small considering the whole scenario of the accident.
Pain from the wound causes your brain to turn on and finally the sight in front of your eyes begins to make more sense to you.
There's a calendar on the wall in front. As per the markings on it, you're waking up after three days- it was the twentieth of June when the accident happened, it was a Saturday. All your therapy sessions were on Saturday.
You pause for a moment- the calendar appears to be faulty.
Three days from Saturday is definitely not a Thursday. As you shift a little to get up and examine the calendar, someone hums lazily to your side.
Max is sleeping with his head resting on your hospital bed while he sits on a chair next to it- there's cast and bandages over the whole of his hands but no signs of casts or any extremely severe wounds.
It's weird. You're more than sure that both you head and his hand should have been broken to shards by the accident.
Something clicks in your mind- you stare at Max, eyebrows crinkling so hard it hurts your temples a bit but you don't care anymore. The detail you have noticed is absolutely absurd.
Three days ago during the accident, Max had a buzzcut. At the moment, he had hair not less than three inches long. And you're positive it's not a wig.
The door suddenly opens and your older twin brothers walk in alongside the doctor, both getting surprised the moment their eyes fall on you wide awake and seated.
Your expressions match theirs.
Tony had a mullet which looked disgusting on him and Bruce was growing his hair out a bit. The two men standing in front of you look nothing like that.
They looked at least a decade younger and this was now freaking you out. It's probably because your emotions are a little too evident on your face, but they pause and give you a moment.
"Are you feeling okay?" Bruce sounds concerned, "Does it hurt too much?"
You swallow dryly and let out an awkward shrug, hand going to push your hair away from the back of your neck but the moment it makes contact with the skin behind your neck, you freeze.
"My baby sister's awake." Tony lets out a dramatic coo now that he has the signal you're doing okay. He doesn't realize how much bigger of a surprise his words give you.
Tony had long lost the humour he had back in his twenties- he'd become a quiet middle aged man who only focused on work and family after his pregnant wife had died a few years back.
Nothing he said would have his characteristic playfulness ever since.
He suddenly comes and hugs you and the moment he does, every thought disappears form your mind- you feel small. A little too small to be a mid twenties lady being hugged by her above thirty years old brother.
"The doctor said you'll be okay." Bruce smiles fondly at you, "And Max too. He didn't get any permanent damage and he's not even very hurt. His hand would heal in no time."
Aunt and uncle enter a few minutes later and after all necessary formalities, uncle brings up something seriously, "Do you remember Max's next posting?"
"Not really." you admit. You'd been informed of it earlier once, it's either Austria or Australia but you'd rather save the effort of having to word your doubts.
"He's going to Japan." your uncle's words confuse you, "He'll be working there till two thousand ten. I was thinking we'd send you along with him for a change of scenery. Your schooling would finish in the same time Max would be working there. How about it?"
Your family is originally routed form Japan but uncle and father moved abroad for work and settled there before you were born. You've been to Japan a few times during the holidays when you were younger and the whole family would come over and visit for the vacation, but tha all was from times before your little brother was born.
You blink, "Two thousand ten?"
"Yeah." Max nods, "I have a five-year posting here in Japan. I'm leaving in a week from now, so there's not a lot of time to think over it. I'd agree with dad, just come along."
"Two thousand ten is after five years?" you snort at the thought but the others look serious and it makes a lump form in your throat for some reason, "What... " you pause.
Did they just say school?
You're supposed to be doing your masters at college, there's no reason for you to be studying at school. Why would they even suggest something like this?
An unsaid emotion makes bile rise to your throat, your heart has started picking up pace, a sudden dread engulfs your mind.
"What... " your voice comes out broken, "What's going on?" you bite your lip, "Why do I have to go to school- I.."
"I know." Bruce cups your cheeks, "But don't worry, we won't be going to school here, we'll be getting you to school in Japan, and no one would dare to lift a voice about you there."
It is now that the voice in your head screams to you and tells you to check the calendar one last time- when you do, you feel the world stop around you.
The year on the calendar is two thousand five. The calendar hanging there is twelve years old
Something clicks in your brain and you search your head for all the memories associated with your family from back then adn tough they're vague, you can tell the way your brothers look is exactly how you remember them from twelve years ago.
"Is this the memory flashback we get before we die?" you touch your face- it's utterly stupid to think you'd gone back in time, right?
Your family didn't even know of your pitiful condition back then.
Tony snorts in response to your words, "Nice one, though I doubt a hospital is what you'd get in your memory flashbacks. You've never been to one before, right?"
You freeze while Bruce tells him to not confuse you when you're already stunned from the accident. Max looks at you with a worried gaze so you quickly attempt to regain posture.
"If there's something you need," your aunt smiles warmly, "just call for us. We'll leave you to rest, okay. Max is going to be right here."
"And so are we." Tony grins, and aunt grabs him by the ear and takes him away saying he's the biggest disturbance to mankind. Bruce chuckles and follows them after having hugged you a goodbye.
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It's oddly refreshing to be back in Tokyo. the air has an unexplainable ease amidst the buzzing of the evening in the city.
It's been over a week since the day you woke up in the hospital to find yourself in a body which was a twelve year younger version of you. There are no words you have to express the shock you'd felt.
It took you several days to come to terms with it- you'd spend these days sleeplessly whilst twitching from anxiety the whole time. And because you've never known to calm this feeling, you'd ended up bottling it inside you.
And so even now that you're in a totally different place- your ancestral home was not in Tokyo -there's a ticking time bomb inside you which you are able to barely keep in.
You'd had enough going on to handle already and this just adds to it- it's just lucky that the few therapy sessions you've had before the accident back in your original timeline have you doing well in your mental health.
There's no apparent way to get back to that timeline and no one else knows of it's existent- this makes you feel lonely in a way you'd once wished to never feel again.
The weirdest thing is that this timeline doesn't fit in with the events in your actual life- back then you'd found out about your little brother when you were twenty but as per what this new "present" suggests, you'd already found out the previous year.
Uncle has only recently taken you in and so they all expect you to still be heartbroken by all that.
Going twelve years into the past is one thing- but having the events in your life redesigned to be squeezed into the age you currently are is beyond crazy. you have not a single idea on how it could have happened.
"You remember I'd studied here back when you were four?" Max turns to you after taking a right turn, "I've spent all my middle and high school here."
"Vaguely." you reply in a low voice, the compressed ball of emotions inside you wouldn't let you communicate much.
"There was this guy with two sons who let me stay over at his house once when he noticed me scared and lonely in the apartment dad had got me- I spent all the years living in his house ever since. I'll take you to meet him someday." he hums with a smile, mind lost in memories.
Bruce reminds him that the four of you need to reach the new house they've bought alive and that Max should focus on driving and not daydream.
Max tells him he'd crash the car if Bruce wouldn't shut up.
You look away. Partially, it's not bad being a kid again- there's much you get restricted from doing or feeling as an adult. You could live a little as a kid, no?
As for the confusion about everything going on, you can always just push it down inside your mind, it's not like you've ever break the walls you've built.
Right?
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"Is she gonna wake up anytime soon?" Tony is distraught, His little has been passed out on the only comfortable furniture placed in the house yet and he needs his own beauty sleep too, "Can we throw her away, she might just be dead."
Bruce just rolls his eyes while pushing the couches to their positions, "Stop being a princess and come help me, Tony." and tony doesn't argue- a tired Bruce isn't the best to handle.
Max is visiting the people whom he stayed with during his school days as well as during his last posting. He is expected to arrive by the evening if he doesn't decide to just stay overnight at their house.
This means the responsibility of the house is on Bruce and Tony and since Bruce is busy with getting all the furniture and luggage in from the carrier truck outside, Tony needs to take care of everything else.
He huffs, "This ugly world knows no peace for the pretty."
"You definitely wouldn't be able to relate to that." Bruce hums, "You're pretty ugly if you ask me."
"Bruce," Tony turns to him with a straight face, "other than the fact that I'm more charismatic and delicate featured that you, we have the same face. We're twins."
In the evening, Bruce lets you out for a walk. He asks you to go and explore whatever place you wish to and says it would refresh you though you heavily doubt that.
You don't deny, you'd prefer some silence for your head anyways- Tony and Bruce are chaotic when together. So, after walking for what seems like an hour, you come across a shrine.
It seems deserted so you decide to check it out the area all around- there's a thick cover of trees surrounding it's sides and back. Being the mannered kid you are, you go and pray inside the shrine.
The moment you turn to leave, you're met by a small black kitten. It sits with it's head tilted towards you, paw rubbing it's face and lets out a small meow.
You're not much of a pet person but the sight of this little cat makes your heart melt. It shifts a moment later and approaches you, stopping only at your feet.
Then, it places it's tiny paw on your foot.
You coo with your hands unintentionally making their way to your heart and then bend and pick it up.
The night is falling- dusk has engulfed the red of the sky. It's beautiful from the steps of the shrine you're seated on, especially when there's such an innocent and adorable little kitten resting peacefully in your arms.
A smile forms on your lips.
You don't remember the last time such serenity and joy warmed your heart.
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The amount of "screentime" to the reader's family decreases significantly after a few chapters when she's shown to have settled well in Japan.
important: Almost all TR characters have unhealthy or broken families and/or backstories– Mikey's parents and brother were dead at the beginning, Draken didn't have any parents, Mitsuya was burdened by family responsibilities, Izana was broken, Taiju was messed due to lack of parental regulation, Chifuyu's dad died and so he wasn't very interested in anyone until Baji gave him a male figure to follow in his life etc.
It explains how people who get into delinquency are mostly those who have rough and troubled lives, not only in the manga/anime but also in real life. For that very reason, I assume the "not so healthy of a life" backstory fits the reader for a fanfictions of an anime like this.
The reader gets somewhat of a tragic backstory in fanfiction, because even though she's not gonna be some battle goddess, she will still be related to the characters somehow. She will also know the basics of fighting for self defense (mostly only technique and posture).
Now, she's not going to be some fighting deity as I did state; being out of shape, she barely has an stamina or strength in the beginning of the fanfic although the knowledge of the training is intact.
And I WOULDN'T be making the story outrageous as in where the reader kicks someone and ooh, the person got K.O.ed, that's beyond just impractical.
The chapters will get longer after a couple of chapters when the story actually catches pace.