It was raining but that wasn’t anything particularly exciting for Ryker. He sat quietly among the many
other men, letting the rain pour down on them in miserable silence. They were all gathered in a long,
wet and filthy trench, sitting in small groups as far as you could see on that dark grey afternoon. The
air was foul-smelling but you got used to the stench, even when you couldn’t separate the smell of
blood from the gross mud that stuck to your clothes and skin. It wasn’t a pretty sight but when was it
ever? Ryker glanced around slowly but didn’t bother to analyse much of what he saw. It was the same
thing he had been seeing for months, after all. It was just another trench and he would see many
more as the war they were in continued for longer than any of them could predict it would.
The trench was terrible but it wasn’t as if he was in much better shape. He wore cheap slightly torn
thin brown clothes, already heavily damaged from months of fighting, and padded in places by the
uniforms of dead soldiers he was able to take without anyone else caring. He realized that he was
thinking of himself as a soldier but he supposed he was one, now. The tall, pale-skinned and dark
brown-haired man that called himself Ryker wasn’t sure if he had earned the privilege of being called
a soldier. Just until yesterday, he was nothing more than a supply mule, a job where he was made to
carry supplies for the soldiers from the back to the frontlines on constant roundabout trips. He was
only a soldier because of just how many men died in their last battle. Thinking back on it all, he wasn’t
sure how he got there. Of course, when he thought of ‘there’, he didn’t just mean that battlefield or
even that world. For him, his real life started many lives ago. When he was just some unlucky kid on
the streets of a city whose name he couldn’t even recall any longer.
Originally, the man that called himself Ryker was from a peaceful world. He could recall that it was a
place with many problems but it was still relatively peaceful compared to the many worlds he had
been through since. In his first life or his ‘real’ life has he called it after his first few reincarnations, he
went by the name of Shinobu Kenzan. Even recalling his first life in that dirty trench made him clench
his fists tightly. It was still the one of the few he hated the most. When he was merely five years old,
his parents abandoned him. They left him in a park telling him that his ‘aunt would come to pick him
up’ later that day but, of course, it was just a lie. He didn’t have an aunt and even after waiting for a
full 24 hours, mostly hiding beneath one of the playground sets, nobody came.
He remembered bitterly how he made the long walk back to his parents’ home but found it empty and
locked. They had ditched him and, even when he got older, he was never able to find out just where
they went. After that, his life got far more brutal. He got picked up by a local thug, someone who’s
name Ryker couldn’t recall. He was an evil bastard, though, he could still remember clearly. He used
street kids like him to beg adults for money and take almost everything they got for himself. He
listened to the thug because he really didn’t know how to survive on his own. Being able to eat was
worth the beatings and verbal abuse, he thought back then. Eventually, however, or rather, assuredly,
a bigger fish entered their pond of a town. A thug much bigger and smarter than your regular thug.
It only took that new monster of a man by the name of Mono to crush all the other criminal groups and
establish control. Shinobu even watched as the thug he had answered to for years get gunned down
by Mono like he was nothing. After that, Shinobu followed Mono’s gang as a bottom-tier lackey,
something he didn’t want to do but, again, it was all for survival’s sake. Besides, living in Mono’s gang
wasn’t all too bad, Ryker thought positively. Some of Mono’s senior members had their kind sides to
them, once you looked past their rough and stingy exteriors. It was them that taught him how to read
and write. He learned a lot from those senior members until he felt like they truly were his older
brothers and that he had found his own family. From there, he really did his best to be useful or to
prove himself enough in the gang to be a senior member like those that had helped him.
It was his desire to rise in the ranks of the gang that spelled his own doom, however. He kept joining
the gang on their jobs and he soon had to face the fact that they weren’t the good guys. Extortion,
armed robberies, harsh intimidation and many other crimes were committed with Shinobu’s hand in
them. At the time, he tried to ignore the morality of his actions as he simply wanted to earn the
approval of those that had taken care of him. It kept going like that until the day where he made a
mistake. He did successfully become a senior member like he had always wanted but one day they
ended up with a bad job, the worst he had ever been a part of. They were told to rob a store clean
that hadn’t been paying the gang money as they were supposed to. He agreed to it without question
but he still remembered how uneasy he felt that day.
Still, he couldn’t show his uncertainty to his men and did the job as asked without further questions.
The result, of course, was a disaster. The shop was supposed to be empty when they broke in, as the
shop owner was confirmed to be out of town and his son was at school. There shouldn’t have been
any complications and even the cops had been bribed off not to show up until after they were done.
They were half way through taking everything when it happened. There was a scream from the back
of the shop and when he rushed into the back to see what was going on, he could still remember the
angry scream of a cornered woman, holding a knife towards one of his men.
He pulled out the gun he had and ordered the woman to back off but she was hysterical and flinching
at everything they did. She must have been hiding in the back storage room of the shop out of fear,
he surmised later until one of his men accidentally uncovered her hiding place. Fearing that they were
after her life, she lunged at his subordinate, missing him greatly. He ordered her to back off but then it
happened. His subordinate had tried to swipe the knife out of her hand and, seeing this, she lunged
forward. Before he knew what he was doing, he pulled the trigger. His subordinate had come out with
a bad slash but the woman ended up on the floor, unmoving. He had saved one of his subordinates
but bloodied his hands for the first time in the process. The silence that followed was overwhelming
and he could still remember how sick he felt seeing her laying in that wet spreading pool of blood. He
couldn’t believe what he had done.
Needless to say, the job was a bust and the woman had supposedly died before she hit the floor
according to what the other gang members were able to dig up from the police. Not only that but
Shinobu discovered that the woman in question was none other than the shopkeeper’s wife. She had
been doing some menial task for her husband when they had arrived and it he couldn’t help but feel
that it was his own carelessness that got that woman killed. If he had only looked further into the
story. After he committed murder, he wasn’t sure what to do from there. He had never thought he
would go so far and do such a thing. He started to see the life he was living the way it really was. He
was a criminal. He had started on the street as scum and he had done no better for himself by joining
Mono’s gang.
Of course, the incident wouldn’t just go away. The relationship between the gang and the police
changed dramatically when someone was actually killed by their actions. In order to try to appease
both sides, Shinobu quit the gang and went on the run. The gang that he had given his loyalty to for
so long were quick to dump all the blame on him and he remembered learning that even the
subordinate he had saved was against him. He had to face the reality that any ‘brotherhood’ he had
with the other gang members was only a delusion he invented to feel as if they were his family. It was
a dark time for him but he managed to make his way to another city and there, he started his life as
nothing more than a beggar. Ryker covered his face as he stared down at the muddy ground beneath
his boots, wondering why he was recalling such a pathetic past. After becoming a beggar, he never
stopped being one. He didn’t know where to go or what to do. He only knew how to beg for food,
sleep in an unseen part of the city and repeat it all again the next day. He was running from
something and he was too ashamed to face it.
Eventually, something in his life did change. It was when he was begging near the edge of the local
park. He ended up seeing someone who he had only seen in photographs before. It was the son of
the shopkeeper. He had killed the mother of the man he could see and he knew, without a doubt, it
was him. Ever since the killing, he had done what he could before leaving to somehow make attempts
to undo what he did but it was, of course, all pointless. Seeing the son of the woman he had killed
was enough to shake him out of his own self-pity and he slowly grew more curious by the day to see
why that man was in this new city. He followed him quietly, tried to learn more about him and,
eventually, when he figured out enough, he had to ask himself what he was doing.
He knew that he couldn’t bring this man’s mother back but perhaps by learning about this man, seeing
where he could help, he would somehow begin to redeem himself. It was something he hadn’t truly
realized until then that he wanted nothing more than redemption. He wanted a chance to make things
right. He remembered a long time ago, when he first joined the gang how he was teased for his name
‘Shinobu’. It was a name used for men and women, which they used to tease him about being more of
a woman than a true man. It was only later when one of those same kind older senior members came
to him that they explained what his name really meant. Endurance. It was meant to be a symbol of being unbreakable and yet he was nothing more than a mere broken beggar when thinking back on those words.
Feeling renewed will and passion, he went out of his way to set things right. The man was in the new
city because he had gotten a job there as someone in a local office building. Seeing this, Shinobu
figured he’d try to learn of a way to help the man, even if he was nothing more than a beggar. Weeks
went by until Shinobu devised a way to help the man. There was a gang in the new city, just like
Mono’s gang. Being a beggar, he was able to figure out where the gang members were going to do
their jobs and where as well as when they patrolled certain areas. Normally, the beggars kept their
distance but Shinobu wasn’t as afraid as the others. He truly felt his life was forfeit and so took risks to
get information that nobody else would. It was truly insane but nothing could truly stop him, even
when he got beat by those same gang members.
Using the information he got, he waited until the first day he could be useful. It was a rainy day, like
the one that Ryker was going through, when Shinobu introduced himself to the shopkeeper’s son. He
remembered how concerned and wary the son had appeared when he started talking to him but he
didn’t let that distract him. He warned the son about gang members plotting something in an area he
was headed to. The son appeared sceptical but heeded his warning and left, probably after seeing
how desperate Shinobu looked to get him out of there. It was a good thing too as those same gang
members made it onto the local news for assaulting an elder woman. It was after that incident that the
shopkeeper’s son would meet with Shinobu more than once. They were never really friends but
associates. A friendly wave whenever they saw each other and perhaps even a warm greeting added
with information for one or the other.
It was by this time that Shinobu had learned that the son was called Akio. Akio never said thank you
but appeared to be grateful for the time that Shinobu had helped him. Shinobu never accepted
anything in thanks, of course, and continued to warn Akio whenever he was headed into riskier parts
of the city. How he always seemed to appear before Akio was about to do so was surely a surprise to
Akio himself but not an unwelcome one, it would appear. Still, even while doing his best to protect
Akio, Shinobu couldn’t help but feel that what he was doing was ridiculous. Was he really redeeming
himself? It was something he spent a long time contemplating before accepting that perhaps he was
doing all of this just for himself. If he truly wanted to redeem himself, he decided he’d have to head
back to his old home and turn himself in. Even if he saw Akio’s hatred-filled expression in court, it
would be better than pretending to be some kind strange beggar to him instead.
Fate is a cruel mistress, however. Only two days after Shinobu was preparing himself to head back to
where he was born and turn himself in after being away for nearly twelve years, Akio was attacked. It
happened all while Shinobu was observing Akio on his way back home. He didn’t normally follow him
but kind of waited in places he expected him to be going but this time was different. He was following
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Akio because he wanted to apologize to him before leaving. He wouldn’t tell him what he did exactly
but he wanted to honestly portray his feelings before turning himself in. It would probably be his last
chance, after all. He would never get that chance, unfortunately. It was late afternoon when he was
following Akio and he quickly rushed to him to help him after watching him get suddenly pulled into a
nearby alleyway.
There was nobody nearby that Shinobu could call to help and it wasn’t like he had a phone of his own.
He quickly rushed over to help Akio and what he discovered was a large man he had never seen
before holding a knife out at Akio. It was a mugging, something Shinobu had not personally seen for
over a decade. Without a thought for himself, he rushed in to protect Akio. He never felt he was quick
enough, however. The man ended up slashing Akio in the upcoming fight and Akio was bleeding on
the ground before Shinobu tackled the brute down. It all happened so quickly that even Ryker could
only remember most of it as a blur. The fight was a fierce one but he managed to scare the mugger
off and found that Akio was okay. It was only after Akio was thanking him and then looked horrified
that Shinobu realized his own wounds. He had been stabbed in the side and yet all his adrenaline had
caused him not to notice.
It was as Shinobu lay dying on the ground that he could remember Akio crying over his body, screaming for somebody to help his ‘friend’ both over the phone and out loud. Something about that last moment in his life made him feel both remarkably sad and yet happy. From a street brat that
nobody cared about, to a thug too blinded by his desire have a family and, finally, to becoming a
beggar with someone to cry over him as he died. He had lived a miserable life but he felt he had lived
his very last moment selflessly and it was enough for him to find peace. It was a shame, though, how
he was never able to really tell Aiko what he had done and get his forgiveness but perhaps by saving
her son’s life, the woman who had killed could forgive him in the afterlife. Moments later, he felt everything go dark as his first life came to an end.
After that, it stayed dark for what he felt was a very long time. He suspected it was because he was
on his way to the afterlife but that wasn’t the case. The place that Shinobu found himself next was a
pure white room. He couldn’t tell how large it was but felt as if it expanded infinitely in every direction.
Aside from the room itself, he realized that he had changed too. He was no longer the 49 year old
man that he had died as but, instead, could see he was back in the body of his 19 or 20 year old self.
Did he revert to his younger self after dying? After taking a moment to familiarize himself with his
surroundings, he watched as a big blue screen appeared before him.
[Time for Judgement]
- File Number: 101 439 599 560
- Accepted Name: Shinobu
- Cause Of Death: Stabbing
- Ability To Read, See And Hear: Confirmed
- Life Processing: Started
Shinobu wasn’t sure what to make of this strange screen nor of the strange information it was
showcasing. It knew his name and the way he died. What exactly was this screen doing and where
did it come from? He wasn’t sure what to expect from it as he watched yet more crop up on additional
screens. The other screens didn’t show words, however, but long series of numbers and sentences
flashing so quickly by that he couldn’t possibly read them. He could see that there was some kind of
bar below the first floating blue screen. It was gradually filling it up as he noticed even more screens
appearing, showing videos and flashbacks of his life. Was this thing…processing his entire life?
After a long pause, the bar filled up and all the screens save for the first one disappeared. The bar
disappeared as well and in its place, a small thin blue bar appeared in its stead.
[Life has been processed. Judgement is ready]
After the message appeared, both screens disappeared and he looked around in confusion, at the
time, calling out and wondering what exactly was going on. Slowly, however, a new screen appeared,
much larger than any of the others before it and bright gold in colour.
[Celestial Judge Present]
‘Hello, Deceased Soul.’
‘Since this is your first death, please read the following information to understand the following
proceedings.’
‘When a sentient life is extinguished, you are brought here, the place with no name. Here the Celestial
Judge will pass a judgement on how you lived your life and will reincarnate you in a new or the same
world based on how well or poorly you performed. This system was devised by the gods themselves
and you should not fear his judgement, should you have lived a virtuous life.’
‘After you are reborn, you shall forget everything of your first life and live anew with the hopes that you
shall learn from your new suffering to live as a better person or continue to live as a better person
than you already are. Please tell us if you understand everything we have told you so far.’
After this introduction had ended, Shinobu was presented with two buttons a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’. He
agreed that he understood what was going on, even if the entire scene felt very unreal to him. He
figured that if he really was reborn, perhaps some of the emotions or feelings of his past life would be
carried over instead of his memories. He assumed so since that would be the only reliable way to
ensure somebody was motivated to do better, rather than just judging people on random
circumstances which made them who they are. As Ryker was remembering this, he still wasn’t sure if
that was true yet or if the gods were simply crazy for making such a broken system.
Needless to say, he was then told that he would be receiving his judgement. He was told it was
measured on a scale of 1 to 1000. 1 was someone who was truly despicable. Someone so evil that
they have destroyed entire races or galaxies for deluded or horrifying reasons. To be rated anything
below a 20 was to ensure the judge would erase your very existence rather than reincarnate you. He
knew he wasn’t that bad, so he wasn’t too scared of being erased. The alternative to 1 was 1000,
which was someone acting as a true saint. Someone with more humility and kindness than any other
soul and whose forgiveness had no limit. He imagined they sounded fairly naïve until ignorance was
mentioned to deduct points as well. So a clever saint sounded more accurate than one with just
gullible good intentions.
He then remembered waiting for his judgment to be passed. It came in the form of another golden
screen, showing 1000 on it as it then started to count down rapidly. He watched as it went passed
900, then 800 and so forth. He started to get anxious as it passed 500. He knew that he had not lived
a good life but surely how it ended should have redeemed him to some extent? Thankfully, it slowed a
lot as it got into the 400 range and he watched as the number got slower and slower. It reached
around 455 before it was going down one number every two seconds. He imagined he’d probably be
reincarnated as normal person at this level but just as he was about to receive his judgment,
something didn’t feel right. The golden screen of his countdown changed from gold to a bright red as
the numbers disappeared and a big ‘ERROR’ appeared.
He could remember the fear in his heart when he saw that the judgement hadn’t worked?! The golden
screen above that represented the Celestial judge didn’t appear to change or be fazed as the red
screen below started to shake and go hazy before clearing up again repeatedly. Eventually, the
screen went back to golden and a number reappeared but it was…100?! He wasn’t seeing things, it
really had gone from somewhere in the 400 range straight down to 100. After that, he got another
message from the golden screen above his judgement number.
[Judgment Complete]
- Soul Performance: Very Poor
- Reincarnation: Yes
- Status: Lowly
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was he really deserving of this? Why did it show an error?
He had so many questions but they wouldn’t be answered. He was reincarnated shortly after that had
ended. Everything went dark and his new life started.
As Ryker stared over the edge of the trench he sat in, not too close to any of the other tired looking
men and women, clutching their weapons tiredly to their chests, he silently cursed at that broken
system. It was after his first life ended that things went from bad to worse. The first thing he
discovered was that what he was told was incorrect. He could, firstly, remember everything from his
first life and every life following that. The second thing was that something was wrong with his file. His
second life, he was born as a sailor in a world of fantasy. He was worked to the bone and died to
drowning when his ship was sunk in a battle. Another nobody that grew up as a normal boy and died
as an unacknowledged sailor just doing his job.
When he got back to the place with no name, he expected he would be judged more fairly, watching
the counter go somewhere in the 500 range but the same thing happened again. An error appeared
and he was reincarnated as someone who scored ‘Very Poorly’. Every time he died, the system gave him a 100, regardless of what he did. Still, he never gave up and each life, no matter what kind of servant or miserably unfortunate person he was born as, he did his best to try to live a good and
honest life, hoping this was all just some big test for him. Nothing changed for him, however. It just
kept happening. He lived a life as a butler, another as a miner, another as a farmhand and so forth.
Every life he lived, he was born in such circumstances that he would end up as a servant to
somebody or some group or face either death or poverty otherwise. Every life was terrible and, here
he was, living his 20 th life as a supply mule turned into a soldier.
The life Ryker was living, at that very moment, wasn’t much better than all the others. The world he
lived in was similar to that of his first world. It didn’t have magic like some of his previous lives or sci-fi
like technology. No, it was very much like his first world but larger and with a very different cultural
approach to human life. People in this world were practically expendable when poor and he was one
of them. His life this time was a typical one. He was born as the fourth kid of a family that couldn’t
afford to feed them all. When he was old enough, his parents signed him up to join the military so he
wouldn’t be a burden to his parents any longer.
He agreed without caring too much about their decision. It still hurt to be thrown away by his parents
but he had faced far crueller experiences in his past lives. In the army, he became a supply mule,
someone to simply carry things where his superior told him to do so. They were fighting in a cold
environment with terrible equipment, meaning more people died from frostbite and the cold than the
actual fighting. It didn’t help that the other nation was far stronger than his own. Thankfully, nobody
cared about who took what from the dead, otherwise he would have died from the cold himself. It was
only because of how he was able to wear several soldier uniforms at once that he was able to insulate
himself properly.
Unfortunately, he could no longer stay safe as a mule. They were losing the war badly and had lost
far too many men to the cold to hope to hold off the enemies. The fact that Ryker was huddled in the
trench, holding nothing more than a small pistol and poorly made short blade was evidence enough
that his country was desperate. Why did he have to do be there? Why did it feel like the universe itself
was tying him to this fate? The rain itself wasn’t helping either. Getting soaked to the bone in such
cold weather was no doubt going to kill most of the people around him. Who knows, perhaps he’d be
going to his 21 st life this was as well? He wasn’t sure but he didn’t care too much either.
He heard a loud whistle as he and many of the other soldiers got to their feet. They were about to
charge the enemy lines. Suicidal but it was either charge forward or attempt to escape past the
officers waiting to shoot you in the back. Ryker was simply hoping that the enemy had worse aim. It
was his first proper battle and after hearing the second loud whistle, he heard a loud roar, one coming
from his own mouth too as they climbed over the trench and ran into the cold and brutal land of death
that was waiting them. All of his lives had felt like dominoes to him. Each one weighed on him until his
next life fell over, only waiting to weigh on him when he was reborn again. Each time he tried his best
to succeed, it felt like everything he did failed either way. Why did he feel nothing but despair?
Ryker could feel his heart racing, his body mostly numbed from the cold as he charged forward with a
body that was mostly shutting down from the situation he was in. Despite how many times he died,
death was still a terrifying thing and as he looked forward, he could only hope he could live one more
day, even as the pitiful soldier he was. A moment later, he felt a brief pain as a bullet from an enemy
he could see pierced his forehead, killing him instantly. Ryker’s body would collapse to the ground like
many others under a storm of bullets but his soul was already on its way to be judged once again.
When Ryker ‘woke up’, he was in the same place with no name. He groaned as he stood up and
looked around. Once again, he was a younger version of the person he lived as once before. How
unfortunate. Despite how terrible his last world was, he had quite liked being Ryker. He had more
courage in his last life than in a few others before that. Perhaps Ryker could have even been
something great. With a defeated sigh, he stared blankly forward, waiting for the screen. A long pause
came and went as he noticed something odd. Where was the screen? Nothing was appearing and as
he looked around, he heard a soft cough from behind him.
Ryker turned to see that there was a man standing behind him. A tall man with short glowing blonde hair,
pale-skin and who appeared to be wearing white loose clothes and sandals. Ryker didn’t know what
to say as he stared at the man and he felt the man’s golden eyes staring back at him. The man then
gave him a warm smile and a short wave from where he stood.
“Greetings, Ryker.”