Chapter Text
I bet you’re expecting a happy story. Something with laughter, smiles, maybe a little heartbreak, but wrapped up neatly in the end. Maybe you expect me to tell you who I am, where I grew up, what kind of person I was.
Well, I won’t.
I won’t even tell you my name, because it doesn’t matter. Names belong to people who get remembered, and I don’t think I’ll be one of them. What matters is this: I’m sixteen years old, and I’ve been sick my whole life.
Hospitals, needles, surgeries — that’s all I’ve ever known. My earliest memories are of white walls and antiseptic, not playgrounds or school dances. Cancer has been the shadow that’s followed me everywhere, the monster I thought I’d beaten more than once, only for it to crawl back stronger. A month later. A year later. Always worse than before.
This time, the doctors didn’t bother dressing it up with false hope. This time, they told me straight: “You won’t survive this round.”
And so, here I am.
Hospice care. A hospital room that feels too quiet, too final. Machines hum around me, their beeps and buzzes dull in my ears. My family is here — Mom holding my hand like if she lets go I’ll slip away faster, Dad sitting stiff in the corner with red-rimmed eyes, trying to be strong. My little sister’s curled up in a chair, clutching a blanket like it can shield her from what’s happening.
I want to tell them it’s okay. That I’m not scared. But I can barely breathe, and even whispering takes too much strength.
The pain is worse than anything I’ve felt before. My whole body aches, every nerve burning, every breath a battle. I’ve been weak before, but never like this. Never this hollow, this fragile.
I know what that means.
Today is my day.
The darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision, and no matter how I try, I can’t hold it back this time. My chest rises, falls, struggles. My eyelids are heavy, heavier than they’ve ever been.
I let go.
I don’t fight anymore.
The darkness wraps around me, quiet and endless, swallowing the pain, the fear, the sound of my family’s sobs. My last thought is simple, aching in its honesty.
I never really lived.
And then, nothing.
At first there’s nothing.
No sound. No weight. No pain.
Then… warmth.
When I open my eyes, the darkness is gone. In its place stretches an endless expanse of shimmering white and soft gold, like sunlight filtering through clouds but brighter, purer. The ground beneath me isn’t solid exactly — it feels like standing on mist, cool and velvety, yet it holds my weight as if it were marble. Streams of light drift lazily through the air, curling like ribbons of silk, each one humming with a faint, gentle tone.
For the first time in my life, I feel no pain. My chest doesn’t ache. My hands don’t tremble. My lungs fill easily with a breath so clean it feels like I’m inhaling light itself. The air here smells like rain after a storm, fresh and sweet. A peace deeper than sleep sinks into me, loosening a tension I didn’t even know I’d been holding all my life.
Then I see him.
A figure stands a few steps away, bathed in radiance so bright I can’t make out any details — no face, no shape beyond a tall outline wrapped in living light. Yet I’m not afraid. If anything, his presence feels like a warm blanket, like a parent’s hand on a child’s back.
“Welcome,” the figure says, his voice a low, soothing current. It isn’t just sound — it thrums through me like music, every word sinking into my bones.
“You have suffered much,” he continues gently. “Sixteen years of pain, and not enough of life. Few souls are asked to endure what you did.”
I swallow hard. “Where… where am I?”
“This is a place between,” the being answers. “A rest, a threshold. Here, your pain cannot reach you.”
He takes a step closer, his light softening just enough to feel like a sunrise. “Because of the life you were denied, I am offering you a choice. You may move on into the afterlife, where peace and reunion await… or, if you wish, you may be reborn.”
My heart jumps. “Reborn?”
“Yes.” There’s a smile in his voice. “A new universe. A new name. A life not cut short, but full and healthy. A chance to live, truly live, as you always longed to.”
I don’t even have to think. The answer is already there, bright and hot in my chest. “I… I want that. I want to live. Please.”
“Then it is decided,” the god says softly, proud. “You will be reborn in a world chosen for you. A world of bonds and dreams. A place where you will not just survive, but thrive.”
He raises a hand — or maybe just a column of light. When it touches my forehead, a shock of warmth floods through me like lightning and sunlight combined. It’s not painful; it’s powerful, exhilarating, like the first real breath after drowning.
My vision blurs. The light swells until it fills everything.
I close my eyes.
And then—
Darkness again, but not the cold void from before. This is warm, soft, muffled. The rhythm of a heartbeat surrounds me, steady and deep. The world feels small but safe, like being wrapped in layers of velvet water.
It takes me a moment to realize what’s happening.
I can’t move much, only shift slightly. My hands are tiny. My body is curled tight. The air — or whatever passes for air here — is thick and warm.
Oh my god. I’m… in a womb.
I’m in my new mother’s belly.
And I’m aware.
For the first time since waking up in that ethereal place, panic and awe crash into me all at once. I can think. I can feel. My tiny heart races — or at least I think it does — as the realization settles. I’m alive. I’m a baby, but I’m alive.
No pain. No weakness. Just life, raw and new, waiting to begin.
A laugh bubbles up inside my mind — the soundless kind that’s just joy. I’d asked for a chance to live, and here it was, beginning before my first breath.
I don’t know who I’ll be born to. I don’t know what this world will hold. But for the first time, I’m not scared. I’m… excited.
This time, I will live
Time flows differently here. Not by hours or days, just by moments, stretching and folding around me. The world is soft and warm, pressing gently on every side, rocking me with every beat of my mother’s heart. I can feel the rise and fall of her chest, the rhythmic pulse of life surrounding me, and for the first time, I understand what it means to be alive.
Sometimes, I press my tiny limbs against the walls around me. At first, the movement is almost meaningless—just a little shift in the warm, liquid space—but gradually, the resistance becomes something I can feel and control. Every push sends ripples across the space, a faint echo of my own existence.
I hear voices outside—muffled but growing clearer with each passing day. My father calls to my mother, calling her by name, “Hana…” and she answers softly. Their words are warm, full of life, of love. Sometimes they talk about things I can barely understand. And then I hear it—“chakra,” the word coming up again and again. Their tone is calm, patient, almost proud.
I press against the walls again, and a new sensation bursts through me—energy, flowing and surging in ways I’ve never felt before. Warm, alive, powerful. Every nerve hums with it. I realize, with awe, that this… this is what they’ve been talking about. This is chakra. It’s mine, coursing through me, and I can feel it responding, subtly, to the shifts and pushes of my tiny body.
I twist, I curl, I stretch, and each motion makes the flow of power stronger, more thrilling. It’s like riding a wave, like standing in the center of a storm that bends to my will. The sensation fills me with exhilaration, and I realize something extraordinary: I am more alive than I’ve ever been.
Then come the days when the pressure around me begins to change. The walls of my world tighten slowly, evenly at first, then with more urgency. I feel the liquid around me shift and rush as if it knows what is coming. The squeeze grows stronger, folding me in every direction, thrilling and terrifying all at once.
The world narrows. My body pushes, twists, responds to instinct I don’t even know I have yet. The liquid rushes past, and the squeezing intensifies until every part of me is aware of the outside world calling.
And then—suddenly—bright, blinding light. The rush of fluid, the tightening, the motion—it all hits at once. I am propelled forward, through a narrow tunnel of warmth and sound, sensations I have never imagined, and then… I am laid gently on her chest.
The cold air brushes against me, startling at first, but I am enveloped immediately by warmth, by heartbeat, by life. My mother’s voice trembles with awe and joy, and my father’s laughter carries strength and pride.
“It’s a boy!” the doctor announces.
My parents speak again, softly, trying out names, feeling, tasting the right one in their voices, in the air. And finally, they settle.
“Raiden,” my father says firmly.
“Yes,” my mother agrees, smiling through tears.
Raiden. My new life. My second chance.
I close my eyes, absorbing it all—the warmth, the sounds, the power flowing through me—and I know, with a certainty deeper than any I’ve ever felt, that this time… I will live.