It was blinding. Harsh, burning light scorched into his eyes. Piercing through the thundering and pounding rain. Everything had stopped. The world was shrouded in darkness; yet dazed by the pure, bright light of those cold, uncaring, mechanical eyes. They glared at him. Unblinking. Unfeeling. Everything was silent. Still. Deafening. Frantic. A frail, broken child remained entangled, inching through the air. The miniscule seconds counted down without warning. No hesitation. Mercilessly. A dance of death. Spinning through the rain. All senses heightened. Numbed. Out of control. The boy stared down the oncoming train. Helpless. In the way. Always.

Always in the way.

Meaningless. Lost. Forever searching.

Another number.

This was it. This was where everything would suddenly end for him. His reality. No. His life. His time attending high school. The future of playing at the beach. Dreams of fireworks at a hot, blazing, summer festival. Finding true love. It all seemed to fade. He could picture it all. The lost, drifting, simple wishes of those beautiful, cliche, cruel stories. Those countless pages he had always read about in thrown away, trashed, and torn books. A normal, average high school life. Being the protagonist.  The average high school boy. Surrounded by friends, reliable teachers, fun classes. It ended just like how it all started. A hopeless, unfulfilled pipe dream. Unreachable.

So unreachable.

A hand outstretched; nothing gained.

Dreams that had killed him.

A horrible, ear-piercing scream filled the air. Multiple onlookers staring on. A crowd growing, yet frozen. Time finally ticked onto the next second. Yoshiro Nakamura's life had come to an end. Well. In a sense, nobody was wrong for thinking that. It had indeed ended in this world. But soon, it would start again. In a new world. A world where every little detail - no matter how small - was truly meaningful. A world where Nakamura-kun would finally become more. Something other than that thin, looming shadow. Hiding in the claustrophobic prison that was those countless alleyways. That concrete, suffocating maze. A world that the boy had spent his last, brief moments of life hoping to reach. To be a part of. Praying for the day those old, ragged stories behind that abandoned bookstore could become reality. Even just a single book. A page. A word. Nakamura-kun begged that he would at least be given the chance. Just one more chance at the game of life. To live inside a story that finally included him. A version of him that mattered. Even if it was all just a fantasy. A dream. A dazed hallucination within the after life.

Once. Just. Once. He prayed.

To experience it once.

An average life.

The world was silent once more. Or to perhaps, describe it more accurately, the new world the boy had just recently entered; was seemingly without sound. An endless void. His body felt cramped and miniscule. Barely able to move. Finally, he began to try and lift his heavy eyelids. Nakamura-Kun had never felt this way before. Even within his past life. Never before could he recall having felt... Felt. Felt? His eyes suddenly batted open with more attention. Alarm. His slightly blurred vision adjusted to his new, unfamiliar surroundings. What? Was that whole, tragic incident with that train just a dream? But he could still remember it so clearly. Did he not just meet his untimely, quick, and cruelly fated demise? It didn’t hurt. It should hurt. No, he shouldn’t feel anything. Nothing.The questions seemed to scatter across his mind as he tried to struggle free. A strange, foreign, constricting cloth bundled around himself. It squeezed against his body. However, when he began to cry out in confusion, Nakamura-kun began to hear a very loud ringing. A deafening, horrible sound. A baby crying so loud, so clearly, he wanted to cover his ears. But he couldn’t.

The boy cried. Nakamura-kun found himself with tears streaming down his face. He heard that uncontrollable sobbing. He tried to squirm free and yell. He couldn't stop. He didn't understand where that baby's cry was coming from. Why he kept crying as well. He couldn't. Until he finally saw it. Through the obscured ocean of tears as he slowly began to settle down. His gaze locked onto a high-hanging decoration on the wall. Specifically, the reflection in it. There, on that towering wall covered in an elaborate yet slightly faded wallpaper, hung a proud shield. He remembered seeing the large, round design in one of those thrown away books. Where a struggling sorcerer used its powers to travel through time in order to save their friend. Another that held amazing magic, but held a terrible curse. A buckler. However, what was more interesting, and quite alarming to him, was the reflection. The buckler’s reflection held across it's vibrant, sky blue centre. A baby boy. Staring right back at him with tears still half-drenched across his face. Nakamura-kun had come to the sudden realisation that the baby's reflection was, in fact, his own.

Could it be that he really had died, after all?

In that case, where was this? Heaven? Hell? He didn't exactly see the telltale signs of fluffy white clouds, or the classic hellfire of either locations around him. He couldn't see any angels or demons. However, there was one thing he could still see quite clearly. That buckler. It seemed quite recently made, or the very least, kept in pristine condition. It didn't feel like it was just a prop. Surely not a fake or part of a costume. It was quite likely a real shield some sort of fighter or knight in one of those books would wield. They’d use it whilst defending against a big dragon of some sort. An unstoppable enemy. Upon an even closer look at this quite splendid ornament, the outer ring of the buckler was an unpainted steel, with the inner more outwardly curved ring being painted that vibrant sky blue. Within the blue paint lay an intricate design of some sort. Nakamura-kun wasn't quite sure what it was trying to depict - or what it represented - but it seemed to consist of some sort of white flower with three petals. It was surrounded by six small white stars placed in a rather unusual arrangement. It certainly didn't look like the kind of overly ornate shields he'd seen before, or the plain, unpatterned ones; but then those shields were also in black and white. From books. He’d never seen the real thing.

Recalling those days more and more made his heart ache. His stomach tightened and grumbled at the thought of starving. His body trembled from the thought of being left alone again like this. Forgotten. Ignored. Left to struggle on his own. Just as the tears were about to well up in his eyes again, he heard a loud door creaking. The boy’s attention soon being quickly drawn to a towering figure entering the room. His eyes slowly widened in surprise, and awe, at the person who seemed to be staring right back at him. Smiling. It wasn't a pitiful smile. They weren't making fun of him. They were just simply happy. Happy to see him. Him? Really? Nakamura-kun couldn't believe it. Yet, as if to further cast away his doubts and fears, the figure gently reached down towards him in his crib and lifted him out. Holding him gently against their chest as his chin gently rested on the top of their shoulder. He felt a warm, soft hand rubbing his back as he was comforted. He hadn't even realised that he was crying again. Why? He wasn't sad. He no longer felt scared. This was something he'd been yearning for so long. No. It couldn’t be. He’d never known this feeling before. Was it because, if it was actually possible now, in this strange new place - in this foreign and unusual body - that he was feeling... Happy as well? Yes. He was overjoyed. Relieved. As if all his fears had been washed away by the loving embrace of this stranger. The boy couldn't stop crying as he clung to their clothes for a long, long time. It was a moment of warmth and acceptance he never wanted to end.

After being returned to his crib, and carefully wrapped up in the snow white blankets. He stopped crying.He watched the figure sit beside him as he was slowly rocked back and forth. Upon a closer look at them, they seemed to be an older woman, draped in similarly coloured clothing that veiled over their face and stopped just short of their feet. A strange, unrecognisable necklace that shimmered in the faint candle light was worn around her neck. Wait. No. He did recognise it. He’d seen that pattern somewhere before, just recently. It was that flower with the three petals again. The silvery beads seemed to be carefully and intricately carved into stars. Six of them all strung along the front of her thin chain. Nakamura-kun wasn't sure if it was because he still barely remembered his previous mother, or if this was some kind of natural instinct he was experiencing in this new world, but he had this deep gut feeling that this woman watching over him - caring for him - was not the one who had given birth to him.

As his eyelids began to slowly close. A wave of fatigue washing over him all of a sudden from the gentle rocking of his new, soft bed. The young infant began to hear her speak. He couldn't understand a word of it. It definitely wasn't Japanese. On top of that, unlike in some of those books, he wasn't magically able to suddenly understand foreign languages. It wasn’t translated for him in some other, unusual way either. However, despite that, he could tell it was most likely some kind of story being told to him. Her tone. Her words were gentle, kind, and her beautiful eyes. Nakamura-kun couldn’t help but be captivated by them. He wasn't able to stay awake to listen to the whole story. No matter how much he wanted to, he was unable to keep a fixated gaze upon the woman. This kind lady that had taken it upon herself to take care of him for all this time. Probably longer than he’d even been aware of it. This all meant something dearly important to him. He knew this. For in this supposed new life, in this hopeful second chance, that was okay. It was okay to close his eyes and rest for just this one moment. Nothing would vanish. Nobody was going to disappear. He wasn’t going to be left cold and alone ever again. Everything was going to be okay.

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Growing up, the young child began to experience more and more changes. He noticed even the smallest of details about this new, growing body. He'd never known white hair to be natural. He was aware of albinos in his previous world having very pale hair. However, never to this extent. Sure enough, however, it was as pure as snow. Not even the slightest hint of blonde. It felt unreal. Nakamura-Kun may have become concerned that he was colourblind, if not for the world around himself seeming to look rather normal. Full of colour and life. It was also quite western and old-fashioned. It almost felt medieval, just like the style from those books. But then, what else could be so abnormal about him? Was he really that unusual compared to before? Well, for one thing, he'd noticed his ears. Whilst still small like his previous body had, were very pointed towards the tips. Not to mention is wide, blood-red eyes. He looked more and more like he was actually a character from one of those books in his previous life. Was Nakamura-kun even human anymore? The boy wasn't completely sure.

However, what he did know, was the fact that he really had been born into a world where technology was not as advanced as his own. In fact, he soon realised this world probably didn't even have factories or advanced agriculture. Not even steel. Since coming to this new world he’d studied as hard as he could, desperately trying to learn everything. Everything he’d learned about it was mostly through his almost inhuman dedication to his new studies. No. It probably was an inhuman dedication. Even before that, however, picking up an entirely new, alien way of speaking was actually a lot easier for him to understand than he'd been expecting. He felt as if it had been even easier to comprehend and learn than Japanese, his old world’s first and only language. Perhaps it was simply from always hearing it from the kindly woman who cared for him each day. How often she’d visit him. The boy would see her every single day for hours on end. How he hung on every word with such keen interest and desire to keep her company. He wanted her to keep visiting. To see her more. He never wanted to feel that terrifying sensation from his previous life ever again. That soul-crushing, devastating emotion.

Isolation.

However, there had always been something so unusual about his time spent with her. This word he couldn’t understand yet. She would mention it often, everyday, and it hurt him to see that it worried her when he couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. That look of genuine, heartfelt, and honest concern. It took days, perhaps weeks, or so it felt to him. But it had taken quite a few years, in fact. She'd say this strange word. Nakamura-kun had only recently begun to understand it was somebody's name. A stranger's name, repeated over and over. His interest in figuring out who this mystery person was only grew each day. He couldn't help it. He just couldn't contain the insatiable thirst for knowledge within himself. He wanted to learn who she was so obsessed with. Who was this caring, adoring woman also speaking about so often? Why did it make his chest feel like it twisted in pain? He wanted to know. To understand. His curiosity had just simply driven him to where he just simply had to know;

"Who is Fannar?"

The question seemed so obvious when he finally said it out loud. It had begun to feel like the simplest of queries that anyone should know the answer to. Especially for his age at the time of asking it. The cruel shame and realisation of how easy this had been to answer this entire time had left his face bright red. It was him. Five years old and he'd only just realised that Fannar was, in fact, himself. It seemed to take the woman caring for him at great surprise as well at the time. Although, looking back on it now, he felt it was more due to the fact he spoke a perfect sentence in Crassieldan - the native tongue the woman raising him spoke - more than anything else. Despite only being taught the very basic words so far. She hadn’t realised his handle on speaking had advanced so far. Nor had she truly understood that this was the reason why he hadn’t ever understood, nor answered to, his own name before that very day. This revelation also started the coming months where his studies would become a much stronger focus in his life; and he would learn to read and write. The whole ordeal took them both by immense surprise. This was only the beginning.

Even now it had never felt quite real. This whole world. This new life inside this one room with this one kindly lady. This unfamiliar and foreign body. But, more importantly, it took an even longer time beyond that to finally get to grips with the very nature of the fact that Nakamura-Kun was no longer. That human boy from the other world. The person he used to be. He was dead. Gone. But he was also alive right now. He was living as a young, elven boy named Fannar. Fannar Roarsky. The supposed third son of Lord Cathal Roarsky, the feudal lord of a fiefdom named Siltriclove. Allied to the King of Crassield; the kingdom of which their land resided within. No longer was he the starving, abandoned, Japanese child in the streets. No. He was, in fact, a sheltered, Crassieldan, noble son. Horn into the fiefdom of Siltriclove. Nobility. Him. Nagamura-Kun. No. Fannar. He, Fannar, was nobility. This revelation and sudden rising of class baffled him to no end. Was this truly all real? Was this world his new reality? Could he truly believe this wasn’t all just an elaborate, cruel dream he’d soon wake up from?

He had to come to terms with it, though. This world would not wait for him. Fannar was now considered to be five years old, or when translated into the Crassieldan tongue, 'Ve Piygeld'. He was no longer a teenager. He was no longer even human. It fascinated him how differently the people in this world spoke from the Japanese he'd originally learned; how differently they pronounced their words. Even the order was so unique and exciting to learn. 'Ve' seemed to mean the number five, and 'Piygeld' combining 'years old' together as a singular word. Even his two names felt so unusual and unique to him. However, part of this still troubled him deep down. It felt like he didn't’ deserve this knowledge. That he hadn’t tried hard enough to better understand this gift that has been given to him. Why? He couldn’t ever truly deserve this treatment, this knowledge, right? He was an outsider. He’d taken this boy’s life and taken over it. Surely. He wasn't having to learn this out of a need to survive. He wasn't having to force himself to pick all this new information up. No. He was enjoying it. He was doing it because he loved it. He wanted to know more. He wanted to learn everything. But, most importantly of all, it was all because Seakur Thrayah was his teacher. He was being taught. It was almost like he was at a school and a home at the same time. A real school. A house that he could actually call a home. He wasn’t homeless, he wasn’t uneducated. It didn’t feel right. He couldn’t deserve this all. There were likely so many others like him in his previous world that suffered more than him. Why him? The guilt filled him each day and only drove him to learn more, study harder, to find a way to make the blessings he received not feel completely wasted.

Seakur Thrayah was the kindly lady who had now dedicated quite a large part of her life helping raise him; and she also seemed to work as a sort of religious figure of sorts within the manor. This choice to devote her life to worship was where her title 'Seakur' came from; showing she was a successfully converted and devout follower of their Goddess Thrundarusa. Although, his knowledge of the Goddess and Thrayah's duties hadn't yet reached further from that. His studies pushed more towards his own bloodline. His heritage. His new father and his new family history. The history of the fiefdom, and the people that lived under his father's rule; and the thing that fascinated him the most about those studies was actually their family shield. The symbol that resembled their bloodline - or, more specifically - Fannar was captivated by the charge on the shield. That white outline of a flower with three petals, decorated with those unusually placed stars. They called it a sigil - or pronounced 'cijil' in their tongue - and it wasn't actually meant to depict a flower or the stars at all. It was actually an ancient language that told entire stories, poems, and even the shortest of messages that could hold immense power within them. Even just one word. He learned each day, during his spare time when Thrayah was not in the room with him, he wanted to figure out how he could try and write in this ancient language. It was almost like an art within itself. Each word was its own amazing painting and design.

He'd draw a circle and write numbers across the outside of it in a very specific order; almost like a clock with all the numbers seemingly scrambled at random. Then, he'd choose what he wanted to write. When Fannar had decided on a message, he'd write the full message down in a third language - identical to Latin from his old world - and he would then remove the vowels from the message. Apparently, this was the phonetic pronunciation of the written language used to create the sigil. Then, with the letters he had left, he would assign each one to a number using the Sigil's Table - a guide to tell him which number represented each letter - and he would begin to draw lines that flowed and curled from one end of the circle to the other. Finally, for the finishing touches, he would place small stars where the missing vowels were supposed to be. Then, and only then, would the sigil be completed. So, rather than being that flower surrounded by stars, his family's shield actually meant 'Afuridg Leyef' - or 'Average Life' in the phonetic tongue of the ancient Sigil Language.

It seemed like such an unusual message to be used for a bloodline of nobility, and yet, it spoke deeply to him. Like nothing else had ever been able to before. Not in this world. Not since those tossed away pages scattered across those cold, isolating alleyways of Japan. It felt like destiny. As if his dream, his prayers from before he drew his last human breath, had been heard. Each time he saw his family shield from the very first day he learned of its true meaning, it was hard not for him to weep; yet feel incredible comfort and warmth.

If this was truly an average, normal life, it was more than he felt he could ever truly deserve.