Chapter 7: High School
Issei returned home feeling extremely satisfied, and not even his brother's jabs could ruin his mood.
The next morning, he met his girlfriend, which plunged Matsuda and Motohama into a deep depression.
When Issei saw his brother, he couldn't help but brag to him.
While Issei was talking, Alduin scowled as he looked at the girl. There was something unfamiliar about her, and he didn't like it.
"Issei" Alduin interrupted his brother's verbal flow.
"What?"
"Did you rape her, and now she's taking you to the police station to confess?"
"What? Of course not! She confessed to me yesterday!" Issei choked.
If he had been drinking something at that moment, he would have had the quintessential anime reaction.
"Strange" Alduin looked up at the sky.
"I don't see a huge meteor flying towards Earth. The ground isn't shaking, and everything around is calm... It seems that the Almighty has taken pity on you. Well, see you later, brother."
"Laas Yah Nir" Alduin barely whispered the words of the Aura Whisper shout before leaving.
Issei's aura immediately took on a reddish hue, corresponding to a mortal's aura, with a slight golden tinge, indicating the presence of a part of a dragon soul in him.
The aura of the surrounding human children also turned red.
Amano Yuma's aura on the other hand was different. Issei's girlfriend aura was violet.
This color was characteristic of undead, and of people poisoned by undead influence, such as necromancers. Cultists of Namira, Vermine, and Peryite also had such an aura.
The news that the main pervert of Kuoh Academy had acquired a girl, and a rather attractive one at that, spread throughout the school.
But of course, Matsuda and Motohama were the ones who cried the most.
Issei didn't even try to peep on the girls from the kendo club that day, declaring to the whole class that he had grown out of simple peeping.
He was able to turn the school into a local branch of Sheogorath's kingdom with just one sentence.
On the same evening, Amano Yuma invited Issei to a date on Sunday.
A joyful Issei ran home in a hurry, unaware that this event did not go unnoticed.
Toujou Koneko, a first-year student and the school's undisputed mascot, saw everything in the smallest detail.
But she was not the only one who saw this scene. On the other side of the road by the bridge, Alduin stood, scowling as he watched Amano Yuma.
Upon seeing his brother, Issei ran up to him in a hurry.
"Yo, my little brother, rejoice! I have a date on Sunday!"
"Woohoo!" Alduin said with no enthusiasm, delivering a slap to Issay's face.
"Hey!"
"That's for calling me "little". And make sure you don't drag her into a dark alley and rape her, or you might end up in a room with barred windows."
"And maybe even lose your virginity there. Just not the one you've been dreaming of" sneered Alduin, watching his brother turn pale.
"You just want to ruin everything" grumbled Issei. "You should have told me how you hooked up with Muruyama and Katase."
"It's simple, my foolish Niisan. They went to the same middle school as me. And the captain of the kendo club pissed me off."
"You don't have to continue" sighed Issei. "You broke his shinai over his head, and got suspended from practice for a week."
"Those were the good times" Tatsumi dreamily sighed.
"Then I had to explain to the kendo club, but since their captain was acting weird towards me, I had to talk to Muruyama. And then one thing led to another..."
"You know, I would act weird too if you broke my protective helmet with one hit of a bamboo stick" Issei said, thoughtfully looking into the distance.
"Seems like he really got on my nerves back then. Can't remember why though, but it's a fact."
On Sunday, Alduin had his own plans, for which he had traveled to a remote location in Japan on Friday.
His body had strengthened enough for him to attempt a complete transformation into a dragon and regain his usual form.
In addition, Alduin wanted to better understand the fluctuations of the magical background of Nirn, for which he needed to find a secluded place. Plus, he hadn't spoken his native language in a long time.
After all, Shouts were not a full conversation, during which the energy of Words did not burst outward.
Upon arrival, he first ventured deep into the forest. After walking for a while and deciding that he had gone far enough, Alduin sat down to meditate and listened to the beating of the Heart of the World.
An hour later, he could hear it, but the beats of the Heart were rare and weak, which reinforced Alduin's unpleasant suspicions about what had happened to the world.
In the last five years, he had not been able to feel the presence of any of the Aedra, which was nonsense in itself. And to confirm his suspicions about the current state of Nirn, Alduin needed to visit divine and daedric realms.
To do this, he needed to regain the ability to travel between realms and fly in the void between them, which was initially only available to the four Dovah.
Paarthurnax later lost this privilege for betrayal, no longer being a black dragon.
Of the remaining trio, only he and Odahviing were left by the time of Alduin's first imprisonment. Tii'Zaalosa, Odahviing's brother, was killed by another traitor, Miraak, who was the first Dragonborn long before Paarthurnax's fall.
Deciding to deal with this issue later, Alduin stopped meditating and used a life-detection spell, combining it with the Aura Whisper, to make sure there was not a single intelligent soul or subservient unintelligent one within a 3-mile radius.
Looking around, he used a couple of area-of-effect fire spells to clear the clearing of any plant or non-plant debris.
Area-of-effect destruction spells had never been a problem for him in his youth, but there was never a need for targeted spells since his jaws, wings, and tail fulfilled that role.
After his imprisonment in the body of an ordinary mortal, he had to hone his mastery of targeted spells and, most importantly, learn to limit the flow of mana he infused into the spell.
His huge magical reserve and habit of inflicting maximum destruction had their minor downsides.
After reviewing the results, Alduin began to consider the Words that could help him regain his former form.
No matter how long he had mocked Paarthurnax for his meditation on the essence of Words, the rational seed in his traitorous brother's idea was valid.
However, he had mocked him not for that, but for the one-sided approach to understanding the Words of the dragon language.
In Dovah, control over Words was ingrained at the level of instincts, and they might not understand how the same Words could be both a Shout and a Conversation.
Paarthurnax made an analogy with the use of Aetherius energies and was partly right. Using magic meant passing Aetherius magical energy, or mana as mortals called it, through one's body, giving it the desired form and meaning.
Every living creature had a certain reserve of mana, which could be as tiny or as enormous as possible, but it existed in everyone.
The more it was used, the more it grew over time.
And the constant use of magical reserves meant that magical energy was passing through the body, altering and adapting it to use larger volumes of mana.
Therefore, the strongest mortals were mages specializing in the schools of destruction and sorcery.
The spells of these schools were very costly for mortals, and their constant use allowed for rapid development of magical reserves.
Paarthurnax's bearded brethren faced a similar situation.
The power of Words was great, and only Dovah possessed sufficient power and knowledge to tame it, without turning their Voice into a Shout, Thu'um.
Paarthurnax found a way out by describing it with the phrase "when power is invested in a Word, a Shout is born."
Mortals listened, but in their instincts, it was ingrained to put power into every action of theirs, so they could not progress in Voice study beyond learning to use Thu'um, without understanding what they were playing with.
Paarthurnax partially solved this problem by teaching mortals to meditate on Words, forcing them to comprehend their meaning and the paths of power in the Word.
They did succeeded, but mortal life was fast and short, and not many succeeded in learning not to turn more than three or four Words into Shouts.
Everyone else had to whisper Words, as even when spoken by a mortal, they had great power and were dangerous for the speaker.
This was the mistake Paarthurnax made in understanding the nature of Words.
At the dawn of Alduin's existence, he faced a similar problem, but he solved it by giving his high priests artifacts in the form of masks, which, besides a special enchantment, had one more function - they tied the priest to one of the lower Dovah chosen by Alduin.
This allowed the power of Words spoken by the priest to be harnessed without revealing all the secrets of the dragon language. But this was achieved by having a dragon speak through the mask instead of the priest, which was sealed in special monuments called Walls of Words.
This led to the fact that the mind of the priest and the dragon merged, and the dragon controlled the body of the priest through the mask.
All high priests of the Dragon Cult were, in essence, puppets of Dovah.
But the Dovahkiin stood apart from the others.
This mortal had a small piece of a dragon's soul within them, and according to legends, the blood of dragons ran through their veins, which could be true since true dragonborn were descendants of Akatosh and a mortal woman.
However, Dovahkiin was mostly mortal, and only the dragon's soul within them proved their connection to dragons.
Alduin had confirmed this during their battles with the previous Dovahkiin.
Dovah's blood was almost black, while Dovahkiin's was crimson like any other mortal's.
So, there could be no blood relation between Dovahkiin and Dovah.
Blood was also the main argument that proved the elves' lie about their descent from Et'Ada - the blood of Et'Ada glows regardless of how weak the Et'Ada is.
Elven blood was as crimson as that of the Nords.
"Dovahkiin. The fragment of Dovah's soul allowed her not only to absorb the souls of my brethren, but also served almost the same function as my priests' masks - it restrained the power of the Voice, but only partially.
You could learn Words faster and use them as Shouts, but your control over your dragon's power was almost nonexistent and depended entirely on the number of my brethren's souls you consumed.
Although, if this creature devoured a whole flock of Dovah, it could learn the Speech. But who would allow her to snack on several hundred individuals" thought Alduin, remembering a certain armored thorn in his side.
"Strun Bah Qo!" Alduin shouted, calling forth a powerful storm in the sky to çonceal his actions.
Even though he did not feel the presence of the Aedra, he decided to be safe.
The sky, obeying the Shout, quickly filled with heavy leaden clouds, and it wasn't long before a strong downpour began. The first lightning bolts flashed in the sky, and the first peals of thunder were heard. But Alduin had no time to admire the fury of the elements. He regulated his breathing to begin speaking the Words that would return his dragon body to him.
"Dii sil los dii vahzen (My soul is my truth)" Alduin shouted, and the sky responded with a clap of thunder.
"Kren gro do joor kopraan (Break the bonds of mortal flesh)" Alduin shouted again, feeling an unstoppable fire kindling inside him.
"Genun dii vahzen wah lein (Reveal my truth to the world)" Alduin roared with his own voice.
A voice that struck fear in the heart of anyone who heard it.
The sky answered Alduin with a flash, and the most potent peal of thunder rolled through the surrounding forest.
Moments later, it was followed by a terrifying roar. Alduin's body writhed in spasms, but they didn't cause him pain.
His body changed, taking on familiar features.
His hands transformed into massive black wings, and his skin gave way to scales with sharp spikes like razors.
In the place of an ordinary sixteen-year-old boy, there stood a black dragon, unlike any dragon known to the world.
"Zu'u Alduin. Zu'u los daal! (I am Alduin! I have returned!)" the dragon roared and soared into the sky.
"Miiraad Bormah Hofkiin (Doors to Home)" Alduin growled and vanished in a silver radiance.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone