Chapter 17
Eric van Genus' Audio Journal #17: Tenth, Eleventh & Twelfth Reincarnation
In my tenth life, I was reborn in the My Hero Academia universe. But something went wrong. The body I was going to inhabit and my soul were separate entities while I inhabit in my new body. The body of Oyama Tetsui, whose quark is Duplitouch. His quark allowed him to duplicate any quark of any quark-user he comes into contact with and keeps it, with the exception of One For All. At first, he started out as a quiet boy that never talks to anyone while being raised in the junkyard with his adopted grandfather while being shy around others. In that universe, he replaced Minoru Mineta as a student of class 1-A while he got sent into 1-B. For a while, he and I never made contact until the attack at the Unforseen Simulation Joint where he tapped into my powers and screamed out his first words, "You will all die screaming." He transformed into some sort of black dragon/hydra creature and started devouring all the bad guys until Izuku snapped him out of it. Oyama was frighten by his new abilities and tries not to fight in the U.A. Sports Festival because he fear of losing control. That is until the fighting starts and tries to keep things under control. Yet when he face off against Katsuki Bakugo, he was losing his nerve. But Katsuki yells at him and gives a similar advice that Midoria gave to Shoto during their match. That is when he and I finally made contact. I told him that since I am part of him, he can use my powers without fear. With that, he managed to unleash his full potential and won the tournament as our souls fused together and he started to talk. Then we fought against All For One and finished him off once and for all. Later, he became a pro hero and ranked fourth with his own agency.
In my eleventh life, I was reborn in the Borderlands universe and somehow, and I don't know how, I gained Siren abilities. Despite that, I was born on the planet Midgard III. It was a nice little tundra planet with semi-warm short summers along with mild long winters. But some of the inhabitants have a 'survival-of-the-fittest' mentality with a Viking culture that view the use of technology to make life easier rather than weaponry as weak. Sirens were considered the strongest 'priests, sages and mages' on that world so I was treated with some respect. Yet I found an old Dahl ship at the age of thirteen and rebuilt the thing after three months. I use the ship to find any Vaults across the stars and gained some new tech, powers and a ridiculous sum of money. Now this took place three years after Borderlands 3, so I went around and take many shattered corporations and turn them into a new conglomerate. Broken companies such as Dahl, Tediore, Hyperion and Maliwan were absorbed that became an entirely new corporate entity known as, Siren's Reach Inc. I tossed aside all the old corporate policies and created new ones that focuses on customers, employees and people first rather than profits. Siren's Reach Inc. was an honest, reasonable and very efficient corporation that had spread across the stars using ancient Eridian technology to terraform planets, created massive structures that rival the Eridian civilization, and became more of a force for good when I reached twenty-six. I was pretty good at what I did even though I haven't came across the characters from the original games. I was too cozy with what I was doing.
As for my twelfth life, I was reborn once again yet in the Dragon Ball universe. Actually, Dragon Ball Online to be precise as a Namekian. Sorry, no human/Saiyan hybrid there which means no Super Saiyan. It took place centuries ahead of the anime I knew and...yeah, things are a bit...different. More like a temporal mess. I never played the game and I ended-up getting confused on everything that was going on. I mean, who the fuck name their army the Red Pants Army. Red Ribbon, I can tolerate, but Red Pants? What the fuck? But I did learn all the ki techniques that I can along with power-up abilities. Things were...strange in that reincarnation.
End of recording.
Enlighten Valley, Eric's Apartment, Morning, Minutes After No Brakes...
Eric is in his kitchen while wearing blue cotton pajamas as he makes pancakes while also humming Morning Mood by Edvard Greig before flipping one in the air. He takes a break from humming to take a deep inhale to smell his chocolate pancakes with blueberries and bananas right before exhaling. He enjoys his breakfast while checking the newspaper for anything that seem interesting other than the giant hole that appeared in Vale caused by Fenris and Maya's forces.
"Oh, looks like Aerial's gonna win the election far sooner than expected. Looks like things are moving forward ahead of schedule. All we need is the Staff and Lamp and things should go as plan."
Eric gets dressed in his suit while still humming as he stylizes himself in front of the mirror to make sure everything is perfect. He exits out of the apartment complex and goes into his car while still humming the same tune as he drives off to the main building where the council is.
Eric enters the meeting room as he says, "Good morning, everyone!"
Inside the meeting room, only three members of the council are there and these are new characters. The last of the council that are yet to be introduced. First off, there is Shira Yuki. A woman with grayish hair with black areas while it looks like the top head of a northern white-faced owl and is indeed an owl Faunus. Her eyes are a little larger than normal people's that are the color yellow and have a fair complexion. She wears a gray business suit with some ruffles on the color and sleeves, black skirt and is surprisingly barefoot for some odd reason. She is wearing a white watch that has a picture of a silhouette of an owl taking flight. The man in the sleek, white Chinese martial arts outfit with golden buttons, fair skin with sleek white hair that looks similar to Elvis Presley's. His symbol is a hand that has a four pointed star that act as silver cufflings on his sleeves. This is Chamo Mile. The last guy is Dale Bree. He is muscular built with a white shirt under a green vest with three buckles on it instead of buttons with spiky blonde hair, a tan complexion, and black slacks along with black, fingerless, leather gloves. Dale has a dark green jacket with a embroidering of a demonic skull in light green thread with Celtic swirls on the forehead.
"Oh, hey guys. You three are the only ones?"
"Yep." Dale smiles as he speaks in a deep, manly voice. "The others are busy doing something." He looks at Chamo and smiles, "Right, honey?"
Chamo gives a light chuckle, "You got that right." as he says in a similar manner to Bruce Lee.
And yes, both of them are gay so you girls get to enjoy your yaoi or bl or whatever you call it. Hell, if you ladies like to make fan art on that, go ahead.
Shira says, "The cult that we established to find those who still believe in the supernatural have flocked to us like sheep." she speaks in an emotionless tone of voice, "The 'Cult of Isekai' you called it has gain many supporters. Some of them wish to petition it to be an official religion."
Eric sits on his chair and raise his feet on the table as he smirks, "I knew it would lore out those that still believe in old primitive ways and mindsets. Just like in one of my other reincarnations."
Shira just stares at Eric, "Well, since you are proof of that."
Dale speaks with an haughty tone, "I'll bet! But hey, since reincarnation is real, maybe I might reincarnate as a woman that will be queen of the barbarians and get all the men I want."
Chamo just breaks out laughing.
"We may as well make it official then." Eric says as he looks up at the ceiling, "I don't want to make the same mistake the Emperor of Mankind did."
"Who's that?" Chamo has one of his eyebrows prompt up.
Eric tells the story, "Some immortal being in golden armor with a flaming sword and halo try to unite all of humanity after a massive collapse of an interstellar empire. Yet he wished to abolish all religions in order to have mankind evolve and reach higher heights. He created something called, the 'Imperial Truth' which states there are no such things as gods. It was true in a sense, but let's not forget that there are beings that were created such as the Chaos beings. They were created by all the souls from a war causing an imbalance in the dimension known as the, Realm of Souls, that created them. Beings that represent what wars are. Disease, hatred, insanity, all that even though there were some good sides to them. Things such as courage, change, and solidarity. Same with that other one that was made by the extreme emotions and depravity that lead to the disaster to that alien empire. Back on topic on that Emperor, he tried to abolish all religions and yet one of his sons from a religious planet saw his father as a god. When he made a book about the Emperor being a god, the Emperor was furious. Then a whole civil war happened and the Emperor was gravely wounded by a powerful weapon and was put into a life-supporting throne at his palace. While in that state, the book his son wrote became the holy text of the empire the Emperor built and a state religion was founded followed by a lot of terrible things. And I mean A LOT. The last priest hundreds of years on the home planet did warn him that people might worship him and see him as a god and he was right."
"So you wish to avoid that mistake?" Shira asks.
Eric smiles and point at Shira, "Got that right, girl."
Dale scratches his head, "So...you created a philosophical cult to lure out those that want to believe in something and want to keep their spirituality and faith. I'm not sure that is cleaver or I'm just having a hard time figuring it out."
Chamo chuckles at Dale, "Don't over think it, hon. Basically we're just stopping something from becoming a major problem."
"Ah, that makes sense. I think I got it now."
Shira says, "Affirmative. And I counted that one fifth of the population is still clinging to spirituality."
"That doesn't sound like much." Dale did the numbers in his head. "Yet we should take care of this before we may suffer some revolutionary crusade on our hands and all our plans will stop dead."
Eric starts to look serious with his arms cross, "Indeed. Since it is a philosophical religion, there will be no gods. Furthermore, it will give the downtrodden and the weak a reason to live than being in a life full of misery." He looks at Shira, "Did you make sure that killing and starting wars ensures that people won't be reincarnated as a major rule?"
"Yes. Same with making sure that priests will remain humble and never let their greed and ego get the better of them. Along with never interfering with another person's life, never declare war on other religions so this new church will be pacifistic as well as ensuring all species are treated equally with no exceptions. I even wrote 33,409,188 pages that go into great detail to make sure that religion will not interfere with military, political and economic affairs. All the pages are single-spaced and on both sides of the paper."
Eric's forehead is completely blue while having white circles for eyes. He is shocked that Shira wrote that many pages for a new religion. "That many?! Shit, Shira! I know you are thorough, but that is overboard."
"Well I have to be cautious. We don't want our philosophical religion go to war and cause more problems and start inquisitions. I take care of every single detail to make sure that the Church of Isekai doesn't fall within the same trappings as all other religions." Shira has a hint of pride in her voice, "Best to be thorough and cautious and leave things to chance. All possibilities of it going wrong is approximately 0.00000001 percent." She cracks a smile, "Yes. Those are the best odds."
Dale laughs, "Never thought I get to see you smile!"
Shira looks away, "I never smile."
"Are you sure?" Dale leans in closer to Shira.
Shira just uppercuts Dale's chin and sends him flying across the room.
Chamo Mile gets up, "Hold on, darling, I'm coming!" before running to help Dale up, "Are you okay?"
"Don't worry, honey." Dale turns to sit up and rubs his chin, "Just a minor ache."
Chamo leans in, "Let me see."
While Chamo and Dale look at each other tenderly, Shira has her sketchbook and sketch both Dale and Chamo with some blood coming out of her right nostril.
Eric gets up from his seat and heads out the door, "Well...I'll see myself out. You three do...whatever it is that you need to do." He exits the room and close the door right before turning around with his head down and giving a disappointed sigh. Eric walks away, "I have the weirdest friends in this universe ever, I swear to the Void."
But before he goes further, he sees some undead bird with cybernetics that may have been a creation of Mary von Frankincense's experiments. It appears to be a blue songbird with mechanical wings and a robotic blue eye and a mechanical right leg. The more it flaps its wings, the more it makes a cybernetic cry.
"Oh fuck that!" Eric snaps his fingers and the cyborg bird disappears. He walks away as he continues to talk to himself, "And almost as nasty as the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40k with bewinged baby fetuses."
Some time passed and word about a new philosophical religion coming into the fold.
"Hey?" one of the male citizens speak, "Did you hear? Apparently there is a new philosophy that is accepted as a religion. The reason being is because they threaten to tell the whole world about Enlighten Valley and its secrets."
"Seriously?" one of the female citizens is surprised to hear that. "I thought religion is considered bad here in this valley. But how did they blackmail the council?"
Fliers about the Church of Isekai are seen throughout the valley and has been approved by the Council. Many Wesen, Faunus, humans and even vampires are welcome to this new ideology and would like to learn more about how to keep their memories while they are reincarnated to another world. Yet from a mountain mine, Açaí is working there as a miner and is looking over the valley and looking at the flier in his left hand.
"Tch." Açaí went, "Reincarnation and the idea of keeping your memories through high IQ's and perfected memories is ridiculous. Once I find out how to end these stupid ideas of yours, Leader, I will seize control and establish my own kingdom." He smirks, "No, an empire."
Someone throws a dirt clog at his head before shouting, "HEY! GET BACK TO WORK!"
Açaí gets scared and turns to face the foreman, "YES, SIR!"
Over at the Minuit District, a cathedral is being constructed with wondrous stain glass windows with the large circular window having three different birds going through a circle. The first bird at the bottom right is a white dove that represents life. The bottom left has a black raven with its skull exposed that represents death. The last bird at the top is the flaming phoenix that represents rebirth. At the center is a swirling black and grey vortex that represents the Void where all the souls go and await for reincarnation. The building itself looks like the Notre Dame from Earth yet the top of the towers have two stain glass windows each. The first one on the right tower shows a beautiful red rose at the center in a flowery background that represents spring. The one below has a sunflower in what appears to be a beach background that represents summer. The top window of the next tower shows a red maple with a mountainous background that are covered in all the shades of reds, browns, golds, oranges and yellows which represents autumn. The last has a decorative snowflake with a snowy background which represents winter. After only a few days, the cathedral was constructed. Many people that refuse to give up their spirituality flock to this new cathedral. Inside, Shira Yuki is the high priestess of the cathedral yet in her usual clothes. Many people sit in ques and wait for the first sermon. Even Açaí pays a visit.
Shira Yuki speaks at the altar, "Greetings all." She speaks in a more lovingly maiden tone of speech rather than her emotionless automaton tone as if she had changed personalities. "I am Shira Yuki, and it is a pleasure to meet you in the loving arms of this new religion. Yet unlike the religions from the past, this one doesn't want you to change who you are. You are free to be yourselves rather than being all formal and stuffy. As in, free to be you. If you live your lives by being yourselves, able to live happy, able to excel in all studies and perfecting your memories, you may be able to reincarnate with all your memories intact and help the inhabitants in the new world reach their full potential with the knowledge and experiences you've collected form this life. Yet there are those that will be summoned to be a hero, a champion of this new world. These Chosen Ones will also pave the way to get the inhabitants out of their barbaric practices and have them see the light of the future. And unlike the other religions, you don't need to pray to the Void. Just be yourselves and live life to the fullest."
Everyone in the cathedral are loving it. Everyone except for Açaí.
'This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.' Açaí is being a sourpuss. He gets up and secretly leaves as Shira continues her sermon.
"If you don't be yourself, or commit acts of evil; you will be trapped in the Void as what is left of your soul suffers from insanity while trap there."
He exits the door and walks away, 'Living your life as yourself before reincarnation is the dumbest thing ever. Religion is meant to keep the masses in line and keep them on leashes. The only true god is the one who rules over their people because the ruler decides if the person lives or dies. And just like a god, takes whatever he wants, make the rules and laws that everyone must follow or be executed, and enslave those that refuse to follow. Hope one day I will get rid of the ridiculous ideas of the Council's and the Council themselves and take charge.'
Unbeknownst to Açaí, he is being watched by one of the pigeons on a tree with a cybernetic eye.
In the council room, Mary von Frankincense is mentally connected to her pigeon as she stands next to Leader who is sitting.
"It seems that Açaí doesn't approve of this new religion." Mary speaks.
Leader takes a sip of his hot cocoa from a fancy tea cup through a straw through his mask before speaking, "That's no surprise. But we should keep a closer eye on that man. I don't know what he has in store, but Açaí is a wild card that needs to be dealt with when he shows his true colors." He looks over at Mary, "And sorry about destroying your bird three days ago."
"Meh, it was a failed prototype."
"And how is your special super soldier project coming along?"
"Project Vengeful Phantom?" she smirks, "Don't worry. You did provide the perfect subject for it."
Leader raise his cup, "Want some hot cocoa to celebrate your upcoming success?"
"I prefer tea, but I would love some."
AN: Hey everyone! Another successful chapter has been uploaded. Hope you guys are doing alright. Now for Q&A.
netapel: Not really, but he is getting suspicious. Even though Eric can read minds, Açaí has his mind wiped a few times to hide his true intentions. As for the size of Enlighten Valley; about a third or so the size of Vale. As in the city.
Until then, stay healthy and safe until someone finally made a cure for a very efficient vaccine. Oh, and remember when I was trying to ask about the game I was looking for yet can't remember the title. It is Caligo. Finally found it. In more in the good news department, I got a job interview with America First via online. Later guys!
