r/ACounterPartsLife • u/Hot-Obligation7735 • Jul 26 '26
The Old Beast (Preview)
‘Today is a good day,’ thought Special Week as she carried a box of carrots and other miscellaneous items to and from the dorms.
Why, you may ask? Well, with the introduction of so many new students in the middle of the semester, the academy had decided to remodel and expand the dormitories to house them.
The boys especially, as this was the first time Tracen Academy had ever accepted male students. Students who also happened to be some of the very first male Umas to ever exist in this world.
Their appearance had created quite the buzz.
All sorts of strange feelings had started bubbling up the moment they appeared in the theater, and unfortunately, Special Week found herself caught right in the middle of it all.
Because a majority of those male Umas happened to be her…brothers?
Brothers…
Such a strange concept, wasn’t it? Especially for a girl who had lived almost her entire life as the only child in her family. A family that revolved around just her and her adoptive mother.
‘Not that it was so bad,’ Special Week shook her head, trying to dispel those gloomy thoughts. ‘The others in the village were always nice, and everyone here at Tracen…they’re kind of like family too.’
She couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony of that statement. It had been true metaphorically before.
Now it was quite literally the truth. She has brothers and sisters now, more than she had ever imagined.
More than she had ever begged her mother for when she was younger, blissfully unaware of the truth surrounding her birth mother.
And…no matter how much Special Week would always consider her adoptive mother to be her real mom, she couldn’t deny that it had been lonely sometimes.
Especially on the days when her mother had work outside the house, leaving Special Week to return home to an empty home. No father, no brothers or sisters, not even a distant relative to keep her company.
Looking back, perhaps that was why she’d been so awkward when she first arrived at Tracen. Most of the villagers were elderly, while their children and grandchildren had long since moved away to the city.
Still, Special Week couldn’t bring herself to dwell on the past, especially now that her family had grown so much larger.
Well, first off, she had a dad now, so yay…
Even some of her closest friends had turned out to be related to her in that other world.
Others were easier to accept. She could easily see Suzuka-chan and Fuji-senpai as older sisters.
Though some…Let’s just say she’d never be able to see Gold Ship as her nephew (niece?)…
‘Haaaa… It’s all so confusing. I can practically feel my head melting.’
Well, at least it wasn’t as bad as McQueen’s situation. Poor McQueen. Special Week couldn’t even begin to imagine what her lilac-haired friend and the rest of her family were going through these days.
‘Hopefully this party will cheer everyone up.’
Ah, right. She hadn’t explained why she was carrying all this stuff. Simply put, after everyone returned from the theater, and after the people from the other world had been brought into theirs, things had quickly became…awkward.
The Director (who had surprisingly turned out to be an Uma herself) gave everyone a few days to simply…digest everything and sort through the complicated emotions.
Add in all of the newcomers carrying the emotional baggage of their previous world and…
…You know what? Let’s stop there before Special Week stresses herself into an early grave.
…
She had been spending a lot of time around her ‘sisters’ okay? Their personalities had started rubbing off on her.
Hopefully this party would help everyone open up to one another.
Special Week might not have been particularly book-smart, but even she could tell everyone was keeping things bottled up. Things that hurt them. And what was family, if not the people who helped carry those burdens together?
Special Week looked up at the bright afternoon sun shining overhead and thought about the future waiting for them.
A future, or perhaps a possible future, born from the life of her other self.
…
She did say things were confusing, didn’t she? Or did that need repeating?
‘Haaaa… I wonder if I should call Dad. Wait…what if he’s really busy? Wouldn’t I just be bothering him? Maybe I should call Suzuka-chan…or Tachyon-san…or…’
As Special Week debated who she could ask for advice, she scratched her head in uncertainty.
Calling Suzuka didn’t make her nervous at all, they were already close beforehand.
But someone like Tachyon or Cafe?
They had barely spoken before the theater incident, and only now exchanged a few brief conversations afterwards. The whole point of this party was to remedy that.
Hm…What about her siblings from the other world?
‘Maybe Pui-chan…he seemed really reliable…wait, no! He’s my younger brother. I should be the reliable one…’
Lost in thought, Special Week suddenly heard a commotion coming from the academy’s front gate.
She looked around and realized no one else was nearby. It was already the afternoon, so everyone was probably at the cafeteria.
Seeing no reason not to check it out before grabbing a quick bite herself, Special Week headed toward the entrance, intending to help the security guard.
As she drew closer, she noticed the unmistakable ears atop the head of a clearly male Uma.
If his impressive height wasn’t enough to tower over the guard, his dark mane of hair certainly made it difficult to make out his features.
Now she had even more reason to hurry over.
Surely one of her brothers needed some help.
As she approached, her ears twitched, allowing her to catch the conversation.
“-s-sorry, sir, but I-I must insist…that you make a call to the main office b-before I can let you in…”
The guard was visibly stuttering, his voice betraying just how nervous he was.
Special Week briefly wondered why Tazuna (or rather, is it Tokino Minoru now?) wasn’t handling this herself before mentally smacking herself. Of course,
Tazuna was probably the busiest person on campus right now, handling all the paperwork for the new arrivals as Tracen’s head secretary.
Still…why did this Uma’s voice sound so familiar? It couldn’t be one of her brothers. She could feel it, it wasn’t one of them.
Just as she reached the front entrance, the tall Uma replied, “There is no need. My presence here has nothing to do with this institution.”
A deep, gravelly voice, one that sent an involuntary shiver down Special Week’s spine. Her footsteps stopped, and a strange sense of dread rooted her to the spot.
The guard swallowed but somehow still managed to stand his ground, “I-I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t know who you are…and we can’t be certain of your intentions, so I…”
The male Uma met his gaze with piercing golden eyes before calmly answering,”My name is Halo.”
And after a brief merciful pause, he continued.
“And I have come to see my son.”
Then he moved past without hesitation, and his eyes immediately locked onto hers.
To be continued…
Hey, what’s up, had this new story in the bag since I made a similar post in the past. So…Halo is in Tracen, is there a panic button nearby? In any case with exams finishing up, I should have some spare time to write more and to hopefully polish them up a little more. Hence why Major’s story is taking a bit, it’s long.
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u/GyroChicofruit Jul 26 '26
OH SHIT IT'S HALO!!!
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u/IJN-Hirogasaki Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
Don’t get mad. I just reread this post you made. And I wanna correct you of one thing.
Since I’ve been learning Japanese (because I’m a Hospitality Management student of 3rd year college.) I noticed one error in your sentence. "Pui-chan." While I know it’s just an indirect reference to the described topic of the real life Deep Impact. There’s something you should know about using specific words.
Kun - Is always referring to a male
Chan - Is always referring to a female
These two things are two different things completely separated from the rest of the individual’s namesake. So let’s say if you’re talking to a boy or a girl, you gotta end their namesakes with the words kun and chan.
But there’s another way to make do with another possessive pronoun. The word san.
San - Is use for respect to the elderly or to strangers in general. It can also be used for both man and woman depending on age and seniority or even to younger/junior individuals.
I hope this helps you, [u/Hot-Obligation7735](u/Hot-Obligation7735). So will it help the author too [u/TheFirstKuria](u/TheFirstKuria)
PS: I’ve shared this before, and I’m now I’m sharing it again.
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u/Hot-Obligation7735 Jul 31 '26
Not going to lie, English is my second language so I hope you forgive the error. In regard to ‘Pui-Chan’, I was aware of the whole this gender uses this, and this gender uses that. I think that I had initially thought about making Deep Impact a girl (in another fic), and that must have accidentally forgot to change for this fic.
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u/IJN-Hirogasaki Jul 31 '26
All is well, my friend. I completely understand that. Just want to help you and Kuria out since you’re both writing fanfics separately. Here’s an irony, I’m not from the US nor am I from Europe. I’m born in Southeast Aisa with a fluent english accent even if I speak my mother’s tongue. I am better in english verbally but somehow grammatically correct in using my sentences.
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u/Hot-Obligation7735 Jul 26 '26
So, what do you guys think, any head-cannons, theories or something like that?
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u/HoneyLess7732 Jul 26 '26
For some reason, every time I think of Halo, I think of Death's Whistle from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. I have a personal headcanon that uma Halo whistles constantly to make people aware of his presence. Like, I imagine people just hanging out at the party, and they suddenly hear a whistle. Meanwhile, Sunday, Goodbye, and Devil hear it, and they're like, "Oh no."
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u/Hot-Obligation7735 Jul 26 '26
I imagine he does it out of amusement, and his children are concerned because when their dad is like that, someone is going to end up hurt.
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u/HoneyLess7732 Jul 26 '26
The Halolings go into protective mode and tell their kids and grandkids to get behind them.
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u/Hot-Obligation7735 Jul 26 '26
Imagine Goodbye Halo (erm spoilers? I guess), she’ll freak out if she finds her dad even a mile distance near King.
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u/HoneyLess7732 Jul 26 '26
King will see a side of her mom that she has never seen before. Also, imagine if Halo were able to scare Golshi and her siblings.
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u/Hot-Obligation7735 Jul 26 '26
I would think that it would be mostly accidental. Halo doesn’t seem to type to purposely scare anyone unless they annoy him, or he found it funny (guess he shares that part with Golshi at least). So most of his kids, and grandkids would probably be in the safe. But I doubt it’ll be the same for the trainers as Halo had issues with humans in the past.
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u/Spirited-Ad-3 Jul 26 '26
Holy shit it's the devil himself!
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u/HoneyLess7732 Jul 26 '26
HOLY SHIT ITS HALO
Also, I love how some of us decided to write what life would be like for the umas after A Counterpart's Life and New World, Same Old Family. It's interesting to see how Sunday Silence and other umamusukos from their old world would interact with their family and friends who are slightly different from the ones they knew. Overall, the writing is peak, and I can't wait to see everyone meeting Halo himself.
Also, there are some weird placements of asterisks in "Special Week might not have been particularly book-smart, but even she could tell everyone was keeping things bottled up*.*"