The birds chirped as they twisted and tumbled in the air. Spears of light pierced through the leaves of the forest trees. The grass was damp and heavy with dew, and it seeped through the fabric of the boy's shirt, making him uncomfortable. His eyes were shut, and they twitched from time to time as he frowned at whatever he was seeing in his dreams. Suddenly, an animal cried from deep within the forest, and the birds all rushed into the air with a mass beating of wings and fluttering. The boy's eyes slowly opened.

Kurro woke up to bright light and the smell of berries and earthy moss. Looking ahead, he could make out the outline of leaves, green leaves, and swaying branches. Where was he? The last thing he could remember was the taste of blood in his mouth as a sword ran through his chest. He could not taste it now; was he dead? What about the ambush? He quickly sat up and felt his chest, expecting to feel a hole where he was stabbed. There was no hole, however, let alone bloodstains. He could feel something was amiss, however. He looked down at his chest and noticed his arms were smaller and thinner, and he wore a shirt and casual pants, not the elegant white robes he grew accustomed to wearing.

He stood up, surprised at the energy that his body had. His back did not hurt at all despite him sleeping on the hard earth. He felt... young! The realization suddenly hit him. This was not his body. What kind of dream was this? He looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was in a forest clearing; the area was littered with shrubs and flowers and bushes laden with berries. If this was the afterlife, then it wasn't half bad. He jumped up and down and stretched, getting used to his new body. He estimated that he was shorter than his old self by about half a head, maybe a full head if he found an adult to compare himself to. That was if there were other humans at all. Something on his sleeve suddenly caught his eye as he was stretching. It was a small symbol of a great tree with a star in the middle. He could sense that the insignia was very familiar to him. And suddenly, the memory all came back to him in a rush.

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He clutched his head and shut his eyes tightly as scene after scene, memories that were not his, hammered into his mind, making him feel as if his head was swelling and tearing apart. This was not his body; it belonged to someone else. His name was Kai, and he was the son of a librarian. He did not know his mother, but his father mentioned something about serving the empire. There was an empire in this world, one that spanned half a continent. He lived in the empire, in a village far from the great cities, near a great forest that few have explored. The forest he was in right now. He had come to the forest to... prove something? Why was there a sense of embarrassment around this blurred memory? His final memory was him eating a berry and suddenly feeling tired. So he lay down to sleep, and Kurro woke up in his body.

The pain eased up as Kurro organized the memories into a more coherent manner, and he realized that for some reason, he had taken the body of a dead boy in a different world after he died in his world in that ambush. He looked up once more. Everything had a reason; there was an order to everything. But for him to be reborn in such a manner left a bad taste in his mouth. What was the reason for this? He did not know. However, a second chance was a second chance, and he was incredibly curious about this new world and what manner of great secrets he could pry from it. He had seen a woman, flying in the air, her hair swaying in the wind from one of the boy's memories. The dream of flight... he had to see it once more.

But first, he needed to figure out how to get out of the forest. He searched his new memories once more and decided on a direction that felt most familiar to him and started jogging. It had been a long time since Kurro had run; he only used to walk around with his hands behind his back, a habit he picked up from his late master. As Kurro ran, a black hawk above him followed, keeping a close eye on him. Its eyes were unusually green, and it had the spark of intelligence within.