[WARNING: Mentions of r#pe]

Ayame opened her eyes.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

She was in a large hall surrounded by a lot of people. The air reeked of sweat.

She can smell the sweat of the people around her. She can smell the leather of the chairs. The noise in the hall was deafening. It was like a stadium of people talking all at once.

Her sensations were accurate.

This is not a dream.

***

"Wait for a second, this place... isn't this... the high school campus?"

At the same time, Ayame noticed that she looked younger. "I wonder if I have reincarnated into the body of my younger self," she thought.

And sure enough, she looked up and saw the white pillars and the halls of her former high school.

"Hahahaha... this is great, what a great opportunity." She said while laughing out loud. She realized it and shut herself up immediately.

Thankfully, no one seems to have heard her due to the loudness of people's voices.

The girl on the stage was talking.

It was a new student's speech.

"I'm so anxious while I stand in front of you all." Her heart hammered in her chest.

She stood on a small stage in a lecture hall next to a receptionist who handed her a microphone.

White walls reflected the soft ceiling lights, and the audience's faces were shades of black and gray.

A quick count revealed that there were about three hundred people in the crowd.

"But I'm so happy to have a chance to be here," she said as her eyes lit up.

"I've always wanted to learn and experience the art of cultivation with people the same age as me."

"Now, I've finally realized my dream!" The girl shyly said while smiling.

***

Ayame knew something was wrong and tried to find the cause of the unease that had come over her, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

As she walked to her house, she finally realized what was wrong.

Ayame did not remember anyone who looked like that new student girl ever attending the same school as her.

The new student in her class was a bright, polite, and very attractive girl with long, straight black hair.

She would've known if there were someone that pretty on their campus, as the boys would flock to her side just like they did with her.

"And her speech, what did she mean by cultivation?" Ayame asked herself while walking.

She's almost at her house when a fierce gust of wind blasts through the street, sending debris from the street to soar up into the sky and pushing her off her feet onto the ground.

The wind skitters across the road, creating a howling sound that drowns out all other noise as it passes through. The wind blows down trees and across a street light; the light flashes on and off as the wind churns it around. A ceramic pot flies by and barely misses her head.

"...huh?!"

When Ayame tried to get back up, she saw what was in the sky.

A man with long white hair was sitting on a flying sword and was surrounded by a haze of glittering swords.

A second man with green hair was flying, accompanied by pieces of paper—long, thin bits of yellow parchment—fluttering like butterflies above him.

"Shit... This is not my world... Am I in a parallel world...?"

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Ayame had finally realized what was wrong.

This was not the world she was from. The two men fought in the sky with their strange supernatural abilities.

The man who was accompanied by the swords was losing the battle.

Each of his attacks was intercepted by the man with the talisman.

"Surrender, Lin Feng! The cultivator bureau will be here any moment now. There will be no escape for you. Return to your prison, you criminal!" The man with the talisman shouted.

More and more, his defenses fell short, and soon he was the one getting pushed back.

Lin Feng raised his hands, palms facing the heavens. With a mighty roar, thick clouds churned and filled the sky. The clouds spewed forth a pillar of fire, a great conflagration that couldn't be quenched by any means. The pillar of fire was like an erupting volcano, but within was a man surrounded by talismans and spells.

The air was scorching, and the smell of burning flesh was all that could be smelled.

The talisman-wielding man died instantly while Lin Feng fell to the ground.

His swords disappeared like a mirage after he landed on the pavement. He was severely burnt and bleeding profusely. His clothes burned off, and his skin blistered and cracked open.

He slowly got back up, clutching himself tightly as blood dripped from every wound.

Ayame watched the fight with great interest until she turned around quickly, and a shadow passed over her head. An old woman stood above Ayame, staring straight ahead without saying anything. The old woman took Lin Feng before disappearing into nothingness.

There wasn't much time left before the so-called cultivator bureau arrived, so Ayame ran home as fast as possible.

She didn't want to get involved.

When she entered her room, she noticed that everything seemed familiar.

Ayame jumped on her bed and slept. She quickly dozed off due to a mix of confusion and tiredness.

While sleeping, she had a nightmare.

It was one of her traumatic memories and the turning point of her life.

She was r#ped by three men in a club.

She returned days later, bringing gasoline with her, and setting the club on fire.

Calls were made to the fire department, but it was too late. The blazing inferno trapped everyone inside. There was only one point of entry into the building. The fire spread quickly.

Men ran through the building as it blazed, shielding themselves from the flames, tearing at their clothes and hair as their bodies melted from their bones.

The men who had r#ped her died from burns and smoke inhalation. She slipped outside the club unnoticed.

Their wailing screams echoed throughout the night.

Ayame woke up covered in a cold sweat.

Ayame remembered how she went insane during that period. Her father tried everything to absolve her crimes, including hiring the best lawyers and manipulating the strings behind the seen.

Luckily, she was later absolved of the crime, fled to the Philippines, and changed her identity. No one knew of her crimes except the higher-ups of the government. It was also there that she joined armed rebel groups.

The summer heat had faded into autumn, and the warmth of the sun was still just a memory in the mornings.

Ayame stood up and prepared for school. Today was the first day of the school year.

Her classroom should be on the 5th floor since that floor was reserved for senior high school students.

She checked the nearest classroom, and there were two papers beside its door. It was the list of students for the morning and afternoon classes.

After checking the third classroom, she found it. Her name was in the morning classes.

She also combed through the names in the afternoon classes. She was looking for someone.

"Nanashi..." she said as she moved her finger down the list of names. She stopped and looked more closely, but there was no one named Nanashi in the afternoon classes.

"Yuuto..." She searched again, this time with his first name, but she still did not find anyone with that name.

It was her childhood crush and her second boyfriend. Their relationship lasted less than a week, but her feelings for him were genuine.

She felt a pang of sadness. She looked off into the distance, into her own realm of thought. "So," she said slowly. "Yuuto... doesn't exist in this world."

She entered the classroom, and the class had the usual first-day-of-school routine.

The instructor told them to follow him to the gymnasium during their last class period.

An instructor stood in front of the class and smiled through his beard. "You're probably very excited to learn about cultivation, so let's not waste time with useless introductions," he said with a hearty laugh.

"First thing we'll do is meditation. Sit on the ground, shut off all of your senses, and feel the qi around you. Make sure you don't move. Stay relaxed and focus on your breathing. When you arrive at your houses, I recommend you practice meditation every day so you won't have difficulty catching up on the next class." He continued.

They followed his instructions and meditated.

Ayame closed her eyes and focused.

For thirty minutes, she couldn't feel anything.

An hour passed, and she still couldn't sense qi around her.

The class ended, but she wasn't able to sense qi. It wasn't just her. Half of the class had failed.

"Haha. Well, it's your first time. Don't worry if you fail today. You can still try again tomorrow. That ends our session today. Oh, and I recommend trying it at meditate at home. Goodbye, everyone." The instructor concluded the class session before leaving the gymnasium.

"That was a waste of time." Ayame sighed as she sat back down.

"Hey, you." Someone called out to Ayame.