Ryuji stood in the middle of the field, his muscles tense, ready to engage the enemy. To his left was Hamada, a real brute of a guy. Coming up on his right at a fast, wicked angle was Hiroki, a demon of sheer speed. There was no time to think, Ryuji had to act decisively or it was all over.
He made his move. With a couple of quick steps, he reached his goal and kicked with all his might. He watched with anxious eyes as his team’s last hope sped towards the goal. It was all in vain, everything was in ruins. He was the last hope and he blew it. The opposing team’s goalie knocked the ball away just before it could go in the side of the goal and the score was set.
As the buzzer went off Noguchi Ryuji and his exhausted teammates all let out groans of disappointment. It was a close game and Ryuji had the final kick of the game. His despair was crushing him but several of his teammates told him not to worry about it.
Kei, the team captain even came up to him and told him that he did his best and that he was proud of him for that. Several of the team were shocked by that. Anybody that had been around Kei for any length of time knew that he didn’t give out compliments often. Because of that, Ryuji started to feel a little better.
It was the last qualifying game to decide which class would represent the school. For Ryuji, there were two more years to try but for the captain, it was over. Captain Kei was a senior this year. That was the reason that Ryuji felt so bad for not getting the shot in the goal. But if the captain could look past it then certainly, he had no right to be down on himself.
After the match, Ryuji and the team cleaned up in the locker room and everyone started home. There were four of them who lived near the center of town and Ryuji was one of those four. As they were walking, they were discussing the other team. Nobody on their team liked the other class team. It wasn’t because of class pride or anything like that. They couldn’t stand the general attitude of the other team.
The other team’s players were all jerks who looked down on everyone else. That was why his team wanted so badly to beat them and put them in their place. The four of them were laughing about the fact that they got so close to doing just that.
Truth be told they had gotten lucky to get so close. None of their team was as athletic as the other class’s team was except the captain and Wataru. It was, in truth, a good thing they lost because they could have been bad at representing the school and that might have made the entire school hate them. But they could still be upset that they lost, they had earned that much!
Akira was making a ridiculous face to imitate what one of the players on the other team looked like when Ryuji made that kick. They were all laughing as Akira, the incorrigible joker, walked backward flailing his hands in a mocking gesture. In fact, they were all laughing so much that nobody noticed that they were at the intersection in the road.
Akira noticed a moment too late as he started to fall backward. He could see his life flashing before his eyes. No, actually, that was the headlights of the car that was about to hit him. Just when he thought his life was over he saw his friend Ryuji pushing him out of the way.
It all happened so quickly that he wasn’t sure what was going on as he lay there with his head bleeding from where it hit the sidewalk curb. Somebody was helping him sit up, it was a paramedic. The guy was asking him questions and shining a light in his eyes but that didn’t matter. The only thing he could see was the sealed bag the other paramedics were loading into an ambulance on a stretcher and one of his female classmates wailing and trying to climb into the ambulance with them.
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Ryuji awoke from a hazy dream feeling and looked around. He automatically knew something was wrong. This was like no place he could ever remember being in his entire life. The place where he was sitting was like an office from one of the businesses downtown. There were piles of papers on the desk and there were reams of paper sitting beside the desk. Buried amid that mess was what almost looked like a computer but there were things distinctly wrong with it.
As Ryuji looked closer at the not-quite computer a few more details of the room stood out. Aside from the normal file cabinets that you might expect to find in this setting, there was a bookshelf. But what really caught Ryuji’s eye was a crisscross latticework cabinet almost like a wine rack but sitting in the square holes were scrolls and rolled-up maps.
Then Ryuji spotted something even stranger. Sitting on top of a small side table was an odd assortment of crystals, one of which was a perfect sphere sitting on a custom-made stand. Off to the side of the table sat an open book with what looked like the spells from some anime. A couple of circles with a star inside them and writing all through it. There was more writing on the page but either it was in a foreign language or it was at a really bad angle that made it look that way.
Ryuji was just about to get up and see which one of those was the case when the door of the office opened. Turning to see who was entering Ryuji got a huge shock. The man who entered the office was the strangest thing in the office. The guy had vibrant blue skin and red eyes but what struck Ryuji as the strangest was the single golden horn growing from his forehead. Another very odd part about his appearance was the weird combination of dress slacks, office shoes, and a bare hairy chest. This guy was without a doubt a youma.
The youma walked over to sit behind the desk glancing over at Ryuji a couple of times. As he sat in his seat he spoke. “Yeah, I know. You’ve never seen a Youma before. Well, don’t let it bother you too much, you won’t be seeing me for long. You have a choice to make about how you want to spend your next life.”
Ryuji hearing this was only mildly shocked, he remembered being hit by a car after all and very few people survive that. He was quick on the rebound though. “So I get another shot because I saved Akira’s life huh?”
The youma for his part looked a tad surprised. “I think you have the wrong idea. Heroic deeds don’t matter in the least. Normally you go to whatever afterlife you have earned by the standards set by the gods of your world. Now that I think about it, there isn’t a good reason that you should have ended up here since I’m not one of the gods from your world, but the fact remains that you did so now you have a choice to make. Option one, I reincarnate you with an epic weapon that can’t be taken from you and all the skills to use it. Option two, I reincarnate you with an epic spell-book that can’t be stolen and all the magic you need to use it. Option three, I reincarnate you with a limitless coin pouch that can’t be taken from you and better than average charisma to make use of it.”
Ryuji noticed that the youma seemed bored like this was just one of the thousands of tasks that he had to deal with and looking at his desk that was probably the truth. “Any way you choose, you get to start as an adult with your memory intact. So, what will it be, decide quickly because I have a lot to do?”
Ryuji thought about it logically for a second. In his last life he had been in Japan, a country that no longer fought anybody, not since they lost to those cheating Americans like forever ago. Ryuji wasn’t unable to fight but he didn’t have any skill at it. Then there was the magic, Japan didn’t have magic as far as he knew. If it did exist it wasn’t public knowledge so he would be at a disadvantage there. He was also poor in his last life, his family was always scrounging money just to get by. But of the three options, he figured…
The youma seemed to be losing patience. “Hey kid, I told you to be quick. I need to do a bunch of stuff so make up your mind already. What is your choice?”
Since he was out of time Ryuji went with his instincts. “I’ll take the money pouch. I…”