I've been playing around with this idea in my head for quite a while, probably half a year and I've finally think… "think" *cough cough*, that I may be able to put this story into motion. For those who cannot bear a self-insert, this is no regular self-insert, for I am no regular person(in this story)! The first chapter is to set-up my character.

A Cliche Etude

For as long as I can remember, video games have always been my passion, no. To actually say it in that way would be a mistake. That introspection would be rather short-sighted on my behalf, for as long as I can say, challenges have always been my passion. It was just that video games provided them endlessly. Perfect reactions, impeccable decisions, undeniable strategy, god-like control, each of these were mutually exclusive things in a video game. No one game could ever hope to contain all four of these at once. There is no better example than the harsh reality that we are provided with. Different games stand at the fore-front of their respective field with depths that were unfathomable to most but there were a select few that dived even into that. I was one of those, "Waste of Life" as one would so eloquently label us. No, I do not refer myself to as such. No, I do not care to be called as such either.

However, just as any other child I had attended school and passed with barely above average marks. It was not for my lack of trying, no, it was for the lack of care. This world had a billion lives and a million students who had probably aced that test but what difference was there between me and them? They still looked forward to their hopeless futures and I sought after more games, more challenge and more entertainment. Was I wrong to do so? I do not know. Such an answer, only a god could tell me. But it was not that my high school life continued on like a regular anime character would care to live if he were a person who played video games, that is, a person who had no real life outside video games.

I was born with a physically-able body and an instinctual capability to learn born of uncountable time spent trying to master each game. Perhaps, I give video games too much credit to my capability but such natural ability clearly extends far past what normal people are capable of and I see this too often.

'How do you do it!?' They ask me, it's always a matter of time but they always do and I reply with, 'It's easy!' an answer which could only be arrogance.

But to me, the honesty of my situation was my simplicity in life, video games had been straight forward with no real hidden implications in wordings, such were the games I played, games that tasked us with various challenges or pit us against opponents. It was the only reason why I had never formed a true lasting bond between myself and another individual; too unconsciously had I pushed them away for being unable to keep up. But was I at fault at this regard as well? Tell me god, am I to be blamed here as well?

It was simple, really. A talented boy who utilized all the time on his hand with an unquenchable thirst to show off was isolated for the very reason that he did what others struggled to do, it was also how I appeared here, in this bustling street that I could only call a world akin to my fantasy video games. A medieval setting that so casually used some sort of magic crystals to produce energy for input, they still used horse drawn carriages, and to top it off were various races in apparel that couldn't be mistaken for anything but battle gear. I stood still for a while before slowly placing myself on a wall below some shade on the side of the street.

'…' My thoughts refused to formulate. I just accept the various things I see, they traded in a currency known as Valis, the majority of the population wore gear and some were very obviously formed a group together, a party in other words. It was even more obvious when you saw the varying degree of classes that were in one such group or the other, obviously made with the most pre-requisites of dungeoneering basics. But how exactly was it that I should confirm this? It was as I pondered this that I also stumbled upon another fact, I understood everything they were saying. From the amazingly dazzling Elfs that conversed amongst themselves to the Male Cat and the Dwarven trader. The humans were a forgone conclusion in my head but it was obviously distinctly different to English.

As the crowd slowly dwindles and the sun rises higher up, that I realize an undeniable feeling. I was thirsty. My throat suddenly yearned for that delightful substance called Cola and it was then that everything came back. My eyesight grew tunneled, hunching over, I propped myself up on my knees with both hands as they weakened. The urge to bawl, to spill my guts was overwhelming but I held on as my eyes grew moist. My body felt like jelly, making my way to where I know not, I find the scenery changes, the urge is gone and I'm no longer sapped. My eyes look at the weight in my left hand to find a large bottle of Cola as I stand rather dumbstruck outside a convenience store.

The sun had long set when I had left to get Cola, it was just around ten still, not too late that everybody would have reached home and not yet early enough for everybody to have turned in for the night. Outside the convenience store with the two liter bottle of Cola, I pop open the cap for a drink. I let the feeling of it reinvigorate me, confusion momentarily disperses and I relish in the drink a bit longer. It's then that I see something out of the corner of my eye.

Across the street, a bit further back, a girl busy with her phone, too busy, as she slowly trailed off the footpath and started walking across the road. At this point, I was already rather stupefied be it her lack of awareness or her lack of care but as she slowly made her way onto the street, I could more clearly make out her face due to the mobile's display. Slightly puffy, it looked like she had been crying but even then her face was quite cute, let alone her above average body, she had quite easily already ranked a seven in the score charts without the personality factor. It was only as I began to cross that I saw her face illuminate by the growing light. I gulped, knowing and unknowing as the ground moved below me, my eyes darted and saw what they had expected to see, a speeding car was making a swerving path towards her. The Driver was obviously far too intoxicated to be driving, just as the car, the world started moving slower. A phenomenon I've often crossed paths with as adrenaline pumped through my body. It was obvious at this point, I would take her place if I continued and there was no gap for anything other than an exchange.

To the me, who had been so playfully spending his life, so casually engaging in challenges that were now so pointless, I saw this as a sort of chance at redemption, a way to show my life wasn't just a waste setting records, that in my life I had saved someone and made a difference. My hand reached out and she too had realized the sad state of the predicament she was in as she looked up, away from her phone at the car, and then towards me and finally my hand as it drove into her.

It was then. Then that I saw everything, my life flash in a way that had been described like so many others who had seen it and lived to tell the tale, but the end hadn't come. The world had stopped and I thought of Limbo as a plausible answer to my perpetual stop in time, as if Chronos' Sphere had enveloped me.

'You've just given your life away for another person, do you regret it?' A voice spoke, it made no sound and spoke directly into my head and accompanying it was a silhouette slightly beside and behind the girl. The voice that carried itself through no medium, for some reason was distinctively feminine.

'Probably.' Realizing she was waiting for an answer, I said so.

'If you knew of the future ahead of you, would you reconsider your actions?' It asked me suddenly. As the silhouette came around the girl to face me, I saw but a shadow. And without my response, images flooded my subconsciousness, I saw banners and I saw a familiar alias, it could belong to no other cause I had made sure, I had taken that ID, none other than me could have had it, a name which was mine and mine alone. It flew proudly as the title 'Grand Champion' embraced it. Another scene abruptly started playing; another name that I could match to a future I had planned with a distance friend was imprinted on the side of a helmet as the person lay on a bed. These were things I had already planned to realize, how they would be realized would've been quite a detailed orchestra to see but, all things considered, it didn't matter. I would achieve them. That would be my life. The End. Is the feeling that had suddenly taken over. Was there nothing else? Even though the accomplishments were nothing small, no, they were certainly the biggest you could achieve in different fields but, it felt a matter of course that I achieve them. Like destiny had preordained it and it was then that all of a sudden I felt something click.

'Most definitely.' I say, the vision had shown me the extent of my effect on this world. A grand effect and a worthwhile life to lead. A life that could be seen as none other than a jackpot.

'Your decision's been made?' She asks as she cups my cheek.

'Though I say that...'

'You still feel unfulfilled.' She smiles knowingly.

'It seems that I've been chosen.' I say rather unsure of the words I spout. Rather, I felt that what had been my destiny was no longer that, everything had changed and now all my decisions were mine to make, and it scared me.

Her smile widens further and a feeling of understanding persuasively invades me, an untold explanation, a new world, a new challenge, an uncertain fate, danger and adventure. The words themselves are bewitching, it was very much the end goal of my life here. To be reborn a young man in a world of swords and magic, mystery and adventure, complexity and simplicity, all sorts of weird, dangerous and random situations meshing together with elements outside the control of god, a virtual reality that would encompass me. Her unsaid truth gave me this.

I feel the the voice of my mind, uncertainly stuttering as excitement seem to edge on it, confirm the decision.

In an instant, everything starts, excruciating pain erupts through the entirety of my lower body before vanishing along with all sense. A biting cold starts to embrace me and… the inexplicable feeling akin to torture as I feel the slow escape of my body's residual heat, the silent agony followed by a cry for help, and then... gentle liberation, everything ends as a whisper makes its way.

'Welcome to my family!'

And with it came the serene sensation of endless flotation, pulled in all directions and yet nowhere, a paradoxical state of dream-like proportions, indescribably and yet, peaceful. It was then that I could suddenly no longer breathe, suffocation seemed imminent and with a sense of myself regained, I open my eyes to see what exactly this pressuring softness was. Only to find my current predicament was far more complex that I could have ever hoped to have imagined, with even my dreams paling in comparison.