This is a genre heavily used in Naruto fanfictions, and I feel it has a great deal of potential in the Dynasty Warriors/Three Kingdoms universe.
First chapter is smaller than the how long they will usually be. Expect more chapters very soon, writing these is very fun.
When Liu Bei wakes up after his death in the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the first Emperor of Shu is given a new chance to fix his errors and start anew. Will Liu Bei succeed in his quest? Will his failures catch up to him in this new life? (Semi-canon pairings, some exceptions).
Just two more notes:
1: I will be using Style Names, which are how many characters are identified at times in the historical Three Kingdoms sources. Style names replace given names when used (ex: Guan Yu - Guan Yunchang; Zhang Fei - Zhang Yide)Many style names are going to be used, and I intend to ensure I know the majority of prominent characters', because who knows when I need to use them?
2: I will be using my minor fluency of the Mandarin language along with my knowledge of the Three Kingdoms period to augment the story, because I feel the story is at its richest when all of the finer details are present as well. Each chapter will have one character that feels appropriate for the mood, and one random fact, because why not?
生 - To be born
Random Fact: The second character in Liu Bei's, Zhang Fei's, and Cao Cao's style names is the same. The character itself means "Morality".
In a small cabin, a man stirred, yawning as he rolled off of the mat he was sleeping on, and jumping when he felt the cold floor beneath him. Frowning, he looked around, taking note of a kind of… Nervous energy in his body.
He looked at his clothes, his hands, and his feet. Didn't he have nice slippers on recently?
Why was he wearing old sandals that looked like they should be falling apart if he so much as breathed on them? Looking at his hands, he noticed that they weren't worn out from age, and he didn't feel the horrifying, crushing weight of sickness and failure he had felt before.
The man blinked and his eyes widened. He distinctly remembered dying, remembered looking around at grief-stricken faces...
Frowning, the man looked around again, noting the cabin's bare surroundings. Hearing a snore from behind him, the startled man looked to see a slightly familiar face.
For a minute or two, the man who remembered his own death looked at the face before putting the pieces together. Wasn't this man an old client of his from his mat-weaving days?
Frowning, Liu Bei observed his former client, again looking at his hands, the worn sandals, and frowned. Was this the afterlife?
Liu Bei closed his eyes, and eventually smiled. If this was the afterlife, he wouldn't have to worry about missing things. Everyone who had died, who he had failed, he could make up the debts to, being brought to join them in death.
Tao Qian and Liu Biao who had made him heirs of Xu and Jing province. One of which he had accepted and failed at protecting, the other whom he had dishonored by ignoring his final wishes but carved up his former realm in senseless war with Cao Wei and the men of the Southlands anyhow...
Sun Jian, the old tiger who would no doubt be disappointed that a man he had fought beside in numerous wars would fight against his descendants. Liu Bei's face soured, the war with Wu was made all the more convoluted by the fact that he was married to Sun Shangxiang, a woman roughly thirty years younger than him…
Pang Tong, who had given his life for the capture of Yi Province. The glory of Shu resting in Chengdu only existed through his sacrifice…
Guan Yu, Guan Ping, Zhou Cang, and all of their subordinates who died at Fan Castle…
Zhang Fei, who had been killed in a drunken stupor by his own subordinates…
Liu Bei closed his eyes and shook his head, wiping away any traces of tears at the deaths of his sworn brothers. He had wept day and night for each of them, and had killed dozens of Wu soldiers to avenge them. 'Plus,' Liu Bei thought, 'Now he could see them every day without fail.'
If this afterlife was even remotely based off of the real world, the former Shu Emperor could find his brothers and sit down in a peach garden with them, and stay together for all eternity.
He could wait for Zhao Zilong to join them, wait for the old tiger Huang Zhong, talk with Xu Shu and never worry about Cao Cao stealing him off, and maybe learn some tactics from Zhuge Liang.
Liu Bei closed his eyes and smiled, truly happy. His brothers – though dead – would be reunited with him.
Hearing a groan from behind him, Liu Bei looked at his former client.
"Have a good rest, Xuande?" He saw the man yawn and stretch his arms before taking note of Liu Bei staring incredulously at him.
"Uhh..." The man blinked and looked at Liu Bei.
"Don't you remember what you said you were going to do?" Liu Bei thought long and hard before shaking his head.
"Oh come now, just yesterday you were rambling about recruiting volunteers to go fight the Yellow Turbans in the name of the Han. Did you drink yourself to death and forget?" Liu Bei's mind essentially shut itself down upon hearing that.
Was this not the afterlife?
Liu Bei quickly put all of the facts together and calmly sorted through them. He woke up in a cabin decently early, with a spurt of energy he hadn't felt since his younger days. His body (from what he had seen) didn't wear the signs of age or sickness he had felt before his death. The Yellow Turbans were apparently rebelling out of nowhere, and he was supposed to be getting volunteer troops?
Using quick mathematics, Liu Bei figured that during that point in his life, he was twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, placing him around the time he met his sworn brothers and made an oath that shook the world.
Given the evidence of how his body was behaving, Liu Bei would place his age in his early twenties, which perfectly fit the Yellow Turban Rebellion's rough timeline...
Liu Bei remembered how he had wept and raged after his brothers died, and again after his military campaign against Wu had self-destructed. Liu Xuande remembered. He remembered how he had screamed for the heavens to deliver justice, acting like a wild beast and demanding the knowledge of how this was fair for dishonorable dogs like Sun Quan and Cao Cao (and later his heir, Cao Pi) to flourish while men of benevolence and honor were shoved into the ground.
Was this the justice of the heavens?
Was he getting a second change, armed with the knowledge of how he had failed the first time? Zhuge Liang had told him of a way to conquer the land in twenty years upon their first meeting, and now Liu Bei knew that his life had at least forty left in it.
As a man who always paid his debts, Liu Bei promised to the heavens he wouldn't squander his chance and set off to recruit troops.
Not before thanking his former client for the hospitality and apologizing for his strange behavior though. This was a former client, after all...
Style Names:
Xuande (玄德） - Liu Bei
Translation: Mysterious Morality
Zilong （子龙）- Zhao Yun
Translation: Sub-Dragon (Remember how Zhao Yun always says "Fear the Dragon's Roar!" When he uses his rage attack in DW8, and remember how his weapon is called a Dragon Spear? Comes from his style name :3)
Read, Enjoy, Give me feedback if there's stuff you want me to know.
~KingsOfSarutobi