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Chapter 2
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The darkness surrounding Paul abruptly beings putting a pressure on his soul and he regains the feeling of being back in a body. However, the darkness begins fluctuating and squeezing down on him. Paul tries to cover himself with his arms to protect himself only to find his whole body is being squeezed and he can’t move anything. After what felt like an eternity the pressure around his head lessens and he opens his eyes only for them to be blinded by intense light.
*Spank*
“WAAAAAAAAH!!!!”
Frightened and shocked Paul enters the new world with a prompt slap to the behind. He opens his tear filled eyes trying to get a sense of what horrible situation he could possibly be in.
“##############################!”
Paul struggles to turn his head to get a view of the person speaking a strange language but is unable to clearly see anything around him. The blob holding him binds his limbs and passes him to another hazy blob. While being cradled he instinctively calms down and the talking between the figures gets quieter but still there are notes of excitement in their voices.
Now that he has relaxed he remembers the conversation in the void. His soul was pulled from his body shortly before his death, and transported into an unborn child. He knows he was brought here with his memories intact to fulfill some purpose, but at the time he didn’t care enough to ask what that purpose was. Reaching back further he is able to remember reading the breakup text from Lizzy and subsequently being hit by a truck. Pushing further he realizes that the rest of his memories seem to be present and accounted for.
‘It looks like my memories are mostly intact.’ Paul reassures himself and relaxes a bit more and tries to get a better look at the person holding him now that he has realized it is probably his mother or father.
While his vision was still blurry he could at least make out a female face whose smile reached her blue eyes and black hair, decorated with feathers, which extended past his narrow vision. The instant he realized this was his mother the warm smile on her face catalyzed an explosion of emotions he had never experienced in his past life. Warmth filled his heart and his eyes started to tear up.
‘I wonder… is this what love feels like?’ He questioned to himself.
Suppressing the desire to say ‘Mom?’ he made a baby-like coo’ing sound in an attempt to express this new emotion.
“Azazel.” The woman said to the rest of the room as she stared deep into his eyes and her smile got even bigger.
‘My name… I… I think I like it!’ A smile formed on baby Azazel’s face and as a wave of comfort mixed with exhaustion rolled over him he closed his eyes.
(Author’s note: Yuuuuuup, name switch… Even though personally I don’t like it when the MC’s name switches I think it just is something that has to be done here. Essentially he’s brought back to where he belongs and the name signifies that he will no longer be part of his old world.)
Shortly after Azazel fell asleep he found himself he found himself standing in a grass filled meadow. He looks around and notices he’s in his old body, wearing the clothes he wore on the day he died. Suddenly, he notices a presence behind him and he whips his head around and face to face with an odd looking man.
Appearing to be in his mid-twenties, the man stood at 6 feet even. Long black hair contrasted greatly with his completely white, glowing, eyes. Wearing a black robe decorated with what looked like kanji sewn along the hems bordered with a thick red stitch. Under each eye was a glowing red glyph that could be described as a box containing two horizontal lines. Under his mouth a similar glowing red box-like character, but this had no crossing lines.
Aside from the glowing characters and the clothes, Azazel found it difficult to commit his other features to memory. Whenever he tried to grasp the shape of his eyes or nose the details would quickly dissipate from his mind.
“So, I know you might still be pissed about the truck thing. I am sorry… sort of. I think you might have realized that you’re better off here though.” Spoke the ephemeral god.
“Yeah, I think I already feel better here. More at ease I guess you could say. Like whatever was missing in my past life isn’t missing here. I can’t really put my finger on what it is though.”
“Ah, I forgot to explain that earlier. It’s because of the mana that exists in this universe. Your soul was originally from here and since your soul has the ability to utilize mana it reacted strangely to being implanted in a body that could not as well as being in a universe that lacked any. I suppose you could say it would be like being in a universe that existed without light. A soul that had the imprint of vision being reborn into an existence without being able to see would become distressed.”
“I don’t understand though. Sight is something that’s one of the five senses. I don’t notice anything different here than I did previously.”
“Ah Azazel, come on, I know you’re smarter than this. It’s because you’re just in-tune with it that you haven’t noticed it. Mana is more subtle than your other sense because, figuratively speaking; your eyes are still closed to it. You already said you feel more at ease, that’s proof enough that your soul inherently recognizes its existence; you can still tell there is light even with your eyes shut right?”
“So how do I ‘open my eyes’ and ‘see’ this mana stuff you’re talking about? Could it be as simple as chanting some words and throwing a fireball?”
“Well, it is possible to just chant some words and throw a fireball but even then you still would not ‘see’ the mana, just the manifestation caused by invoking it to form a fireball. Believe it or not I actually interacted with your previous world a lot and pushed practices in place that would have effects here so that some concepts would be easier to grasp. For instance the spoken language for magic spells is based in Latin, and the characters for runes are based on Kanji. Too bad you put off those Japanese language classes you always considered taking.”
“Shit, I knew I should have taken Japanese. If this whole soul thing is accurate I wonder if it was instinctively pushing me towards it. That being said, one of the things I learned how to do from a young age that wasn’t exactly characteristic of children in the US was meditation. It helped with my stress and would calm me down when I was uncomfortable. I’m guessing it is the key to being able to actively sense mana?”
“There you go, that’s the Pa… Azazel I know! You probably have tons of questions about how to use mana and make runes and such, but unfortunately that type of thing falls under the god’s non-action agreement so I can’t really tell you anything. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself, but I’m sure you’ll enjoy that more than if I just gave away the answers. Well, we need to wrap things up here before someone notices we’re communicating. I need to keep you under the radar for now.”
“Okay, so that answers a lot of questions that I was about to ask. Sounds fun. You already explained why you sent me from this universe to the other and brought me back, but you never said what you want me to do exactly.”
“Hmm… to be blunt, I don’t want anything from you right now. You’re the first, and I don’t know how well things will work out. Just live your life, get stronger, and if you make it far enough then I’ll come back and give you some tasks that fit your abilities. I have a lot of confidence that you’ll be able to help me achieve my goals, but it’s pointless to stress you out over something that might not happen.”
“Okay… but what keeps me from just ignoring you and doing whatever I want?”
“Nothing exactly, I’ve done a couple things to make you unnoticeable by the other gods and have gave your parents a small blessing to help ward away lesser dangers. You can survive without both of those for a lifetime if you’re lucky, but this world isn’t cozy. Eventually you’ll come to realize that just like in your previous life its survival of the fittest. The world hasn’t advanced far enough to stop warring over territories. If you enjoy your life here and want to help me make the world more stable and safer then you’ll help me because we share a common goal.”
“Alright, thank you for not forcing me I guess. Though I’m not really happy that you took me away and killed me in the first place, at least it’s not as it could be.”
“I said I was sorry about that, but you have to crack an egg to make an omelet or whatever. My goals are far more important than a few lives, and even though I feel no joy from hurting others I’ll do whatever it takes to accomplish them.”
“Okay, I think I can understand where you’re coming from.”
“Alright little guy I need to go before they realize I’m missing.”
Azazel and the figure are still standing in the meadow, as a light wind ripples across the grass. Silence hangs in the air as he waits for the god to disappear from his dream.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“…” Azazel’s face gradually appearing more confused as the god is still standing there.
“Oh, that’s right! Video games. I put them there so people would have an idea of how the genetic code of the people in this world utilizes mana. Though you guys ended up taking it a lot further than is possible here. I can’t believe I almost forgot that. Okay I’m leaving this time…”
“…”
“Are you just going to stand there or are you going to be polite and say goodbye?”
“I don’t even know your name though?”
“...Yamato”
“Okay. See you later Yamato.”
*Poof* A smoke cloud billows out from Yamato and clears away in the breeze shortly after.
“I’m starting to think he’s just messing with me. I swear that looked like the Body Flicker Technique from Nar*censored*.”
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Over the next several weeks baby Azazel was carried around by his blurry mother, fed, and changed. He had read stories about people being reincarnated in the past and was hoping he’d be able to do more than just sleep, eat, and poop. However, reality is sometimes different than we expect. Left alone with his thoughts Azazel attempted to learn the language when his mother would speak to him, but his progress was slow and he could only understand a few words. Part of the problem was that his ears couldn’t hear properly yet and it was hard to distinguish lower pitches in words.
Finally after three weeks of attempting to sense mana, he made a breakthrough. After entering into a meditative trance Azazel cut off his sense of touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. Once he accomplished the separation he opened himself up to the world and finally he began to ‘see’ the traces of something in his mind. In his mind the space that was once just an empty void slowly began to fill in with tiny pulsating particles that moved like waves in the ocean.
Over the next two months, Azazel’s hearing and eyesight finally developed to the point where he could hear all of the words his mother spoke. While he would have liked to see more of the world than his crib and his mother’s chest, sadly he was still unable to move around and she rarely turned him so he could see much of the world. A few times he met with people with strange appearances old and young, men and women some with hair decorated with feathers, some especially hairy, and one even had all black eyes! However, none of them ever stayed for long and only a couple came back more than once.
There were two things that struck him as odd. One was that he never noticed something like a father. It was usually just him and his mother with the exception of guests occasionally. He began to wonder what the reason could possibly be. The second was the hint about gaming. He tried swiping his hands in different directions, pointing everywhere like he was pushing a button, and even tried saying hundreds of different menu names. Nothing seemed to work.
Today specifically, on Azazels 13,134th attempt a thought crossed his mind. ‘I really wish I could figure out what he meant by game stuff, maybe it takes a keyword for it to activate? Menus-
Activate Menu Visibility?
-would be pretty cool’
‘No fucking way.’
Menu Visibility set to Disabled
‘…’
‘Activate Menu’
Activate Menu Visibility?
‘Yes.’
Active Status, Passive Status, and Status Effect windows enabled
‘…WHY THE HELL ARE THE STATUS MENUS AUTOMATICALLY SET TO DISABLED!?’
*Ping* *Ping* *Ping* *Ping*
Status Menu
Title:
The Unlucky
Name:AzazelAge:3 MonthsLevel:1Race:Nivian (F)
Active Stats
Health:0.1/0.1Stamina:0.1/0.1Mana:4/4Adrenaline:0.1/0.1
Passive Stats
Strength:1 + (0)Agility:1 + (0)Intelligence:350 + (0)Luck:1 + (-5)
Status Effects
Effect:
You’ve got 99 problems.
Type:
Temporary
Cause:
Young age
You’re too young to express yourself; all your problems are unsolvable. All active stats have been divided by 99 permanently. Stat growth will return to normal after you turn 3.
Effect:
Soul Fragmentation.
Type:
Permanent
Cause:
Unorthodox Reincarnation
Your soul, having been ripped out of two universes has undergone several changes.
Effect 1: Your fragmented soul allowed you to be reborn as a female instead of male.
Effect 2: Hidden.
Effect 3: Hidden.
Effect 4: Hidden.
“WHAT THE FUCK! I’M A GIRL?!” Azazel though to him-...no...- thought to herself.
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Author's Note-
Yeah I know most people don't read these, but I hope you like the story so far. I decided to be lazy at work today and write out the second chapter. Chapter 3 will get in to more of his magical element, a bit of world history, and such. Please review and leave comments :D