Tatsumi was a young man who dreamed of making a difference in the world. A kindhearted person who wishes for people to live in happiness.
Once, he set out along with his two childhood friends to make a name for himself to earn money for his village. Today, he is but a changed person from the months of occurrences as an assassin.
He joined Night Raid, a covert group of assassins who rebel against the corrupt Empire. After accepting their invitation, he gradually accepts his new life and learns to make new friends. In accompany to combat against their rebellion against the empire, he was given a Teigu from a dying friend.
Teigu are rare, mysterious, and extremely powerful relics created by the instructions of the First Emperor in order to protect his empire. The flesh, blood, and bones of the fearsome creatures known as Danger Beasts have been utilized for their creation with the use of lost Magic. Some have the appearance of weapons while others appear as living beings.
Incursio is one such Teigu, a sword that equips him with indestructible silver armor upon release. With it, Tatsumi killed the deceitful Aria, a Three Beast Nyau, and many following others.
He had many friends and allies in Night Raid, but one of them was especially dear to him: Akame, a beautiful and skilled swordswoman who shared his ideals and his goals. He had promised to survive the war and see a new dawn together.
But fate had other plans for them. In the final battle against the current Emperor, who controlled a colossus Teigu called Shikoutazer, Tatsumi faced his greatest challenge. He had to protect the innocent people who were caught in the crossfire, while also fighting against the Emperor's overwhelming power.
Although he managed to greatly damage Shikoutazer, he paid a great cost. He was severely injured by the Emperor's attacks, and his body began to break down. He knew he had little time left, but he refused to give up. He used his remaining strength to push Shikoutazer away from the civilians, just narrowly saving them from being crushed.
But he could not save himself. He was trapped under the weight of the colossal Teigu, which crushed both his body and his Teigu. All he could feel was his life slipping away.
Akame heard his voice and rushed to his side. She saw him lying under the rubble, barely alive. It was too late, and she understood. She held him in her arms and cried. He knew she was not proud, inside she thanked him for everything he had done, and for being with her.
Tatsumi smiled. He can't say anything but apologize for breaking his promise. He was happy to have met her and the others and to have fought for a good cause. He still had regrets, but he was glad to die as a hero.
He closed his eyes and breathed his last. His warmth fades away, and his heart stops beating.
Everything went black. Then came death.
Or at least, that's how it should be.
He expected to see a bright light or a tunnel that leads to the afterlife, maybe even be guided by an angel to the next life.
Instead, he found himself floating in a vast emptiness, surrounded by nothing but silence. Is this the afterlife? Was there anything else beyond this?
He tried to move, but there was no direction. He tried to think, but there was no logic.
He was just a mere consciousness, drifting in the void of nothingness.
He did not know how long he stayed there, or if time even existed in this place. It could have been hours, days, weeks, and even years and centuries. There was no meaning of Time in the Void.
He felt no emotions, no sensation, nothing. He was at monotone peace.
Just then, a cold and sinister presence beside him. Or behind him, or before him. Space is as complex in the Void as time. Something was around him. No, not something. It was a familiar presence he felt every time he used Incursio. A being of evolution. A beast that attempted to take over his body and mind when he forced his Teigu to evolve for the first time.
Incursio was not like any other Teigu, it was created from the flesh of the Super-Class Danger Beast, Tyrant, the highest predator that stood apex of the food chain. The Tyrant was a dragon that was capable of adapting to anything, possessing an incomparable life force that it escaped death a magnitude amount of times, including being alive inside of the Teigu.
It went to the void too the moment its host died.
The Tyrant stirs, moving as if knows how to escape death another time again. It moves, into somewhere in the vast void. It desired to survive, to avoid stagnation in the emptiness. When it pulls itself back out of this place, it should be resurrected again. In the body of a human who used its scales as his armor.
No one would know that it won't be Resurrection, but Reincarnation.
Tyrant had comprehended the cycle of life and death numerous times through experiences. It experiences the familiar process of rebirth. And only, it, the Tyrant, that passes, violates, and undergoes the natural law that governs all living beings.
When it does, it leaves its physical body and returns to the source of the origin of all life, the essence of every creation. But it is also a gateway to other worlds that are different from its own. Each world has its own laws, histories, and rules.
Unknowingly, its movement had brought another soul, Tatsumi.
Tatsumi felt a tug.
It was faint at first, sudden. But it grew stronger and stronger until he could not resist it. He was being pulled by the invisible force known as Tyrant, towards an unknown somewhere. If only Tatsumi could feel apprehension. What was waiting for him?
He and Tyrant accelerated, faster and faster, until he saw a flash of light.
He jolted, and then a warmth. He felt a squeeze like being compressed. He heard a sound, a breath, and a voice. Voices, to be precise.
He finally opened his eyes and saw a face.
It was a woman, smiling at the same time. She held him in his arms and beamed lovingly. A pretty woman with silky dark hair, and wearing short-sleeved silky clothes.
She said something to the man beside her, but he didn't understand it. Not when his head is still trying to comprehend the strange situation.
He felt another thing, something bizarre in the surroundings. He can see an odd sight of glittering particles floating around in the air. The moment one came in contact with him, he felt a very small amount of power form inside.
Did he just absorb an energy of some kind?
He blinked in nothing but confusion.
The man in front of him, a bald old man with a thin mustache, laughed out loud, "Claire always wanted a little brother!"
"Who is Claire?"
"She'll be overjoyed!"
The woman held him closer to her, looking at him curiously, "But, something's not right. He's not crying at all."
Tatsumi continued to stare as the man leaned closer while he and his wife looked over at him. His mind is still in haze, but he's got his bearing closer now. He glances at his body, and they're small. Small, like a child, a newborn baby.
He blinked again. He's wrapped in a blue blanket beside the woman's breast. He glimpses over, and the internal instinct to feed arises. Tatsumi felt something again inside him, and it wasn't the floating energy that came in contact with his skin.
His eyes widened when he heard a distant growl in the back of his mind. A familiar growl, actually.
"Tyrant!"
As if reacting to his words, the mentioned Danger Beast growled again, and he felt an intuitive answer from its emotion. His baby body reacted.
Tyrant trashed from within, knocking Tatsumi's consciousness negligibly, but he held it back. Pain flowed through both beings and they felt it deep in their souls. The Tyrant was hungry, starving for something. It seeks to provide nutrition for the body, his body to be exact.
While wondering why such Danger Beast was inside him, Tatsumi couldn't control his body as he instinctively looked over at the woman who was presumed to be his mother now, and his hands reached and grasped at the woman's chest cloth.
The woman looks downward at him in surprise, "Oh?"
Tatsumi can't stop the loud wail of a baby's cry that escapes his mouth as his mind is filled with discomfort from trying to hold the beast inside.
His father was oblivious to the inner conflict of his child, "What a hearty cry!"
His mother responded, oblivious as well, "I must have been imagining things."
"Stop trashing, you damn monster!"
GRROAARR!
"Shut it!"
GRROAAARRR!
"Wait–How can I understand you!?"
GRROAARRRR!
While fighting the dragon inside of his body and mind, a girl around two years old came around the corner accompanied by two maids. By her facial resemblance to his parents, she could be his older sister.
She looks over at his appearance, gleaming brightly as siblings would at their recent sibling's birth. She smiled widely and her cheeks flushed.
The Tyrant reacted again, and Tatsumi felt a surge of insight. All around him, from his sister to the maids, and his parents, everyone's bodies glowed with golden outlines filled with abundant energy.
The same energy that floated in the air and surroundings. While it looks like those energies can be released at any moment, everyone's body is naturally keeping it back.
GRROAARR!
"What do you mean 'we're not done'!? DOWN! YOU!"
GRROAAR—!
Then they stop... they blinked.
Tatsumi's eyes widened again, there was a sudden pressure inside of him, somewhere at the end of his intestines. The urge to empty his bladder came out of nowhere. A discomfort in the rectum.
"See! Look what you did! I'm about to defecate!"
GRROAARR!
A decade passed.
Tatsumi had realized a long time ago that he was no longer in his world but in a whole new one. Reincarnation is a concept he didn't think over too often. It's something a logical person would laugh over and find ridiculous.
But then again, the life he lived, both in his previous and current, was also ridiculous.
A sword that will cover the user with armor after being released, a pair of giant scissors that can cut through any material and emit a blinding light, a belt that transforms its user into a lion beast, a military gun that is charged by emotions? Yeah, like he could think better.
Even in his previous life, while rebirth was almost believable due to the existence of Teigu, reincarnation contradicts the laws of nature and physics.
Was he influenced by Karma, the unseen law of cause and effect?
He was reborn as the sole son of the noble Kagenou family, an aristocratic lineage that lived in the countryside. His father, a baron, had been birth into this household and met his mother, bearing his older sister named Claire Kagenou. For generations, the Kagenou had developed Dark Knights, which are knights that have their physical abilities enhanced by magic.
That's right, Magic.
Magical Power, he'll learn.
In this new world, there exists Magical Power. Supernatural substances native to the surroundings and lifeforms, that is essential to generating spells. The presence or absence of this can be determined by a person with talent, but it is common to have and develop with effort.
Magical Power manifests itself physically depending on the skill of the user, giving off colors and other visual depictions.
Magical Power has the nature to dissipate uncontrollably as soon as it leaves one's body, that is why it requires an enormous amount of Magical Power and the capability to control it to even send out a spell.
Being an heir along with his sister, he is highly expected to be treated with respect and trained in their talents.
As of now, he and his older sister are in their daily training, where they are placed in front of a pair of boulders, one larger than the other in a similar ko gasumi sword stance. He held his steel sword beside his head, slightly higher, and thrust at the smaller boulder.
Multiple cracks happened, and it shattered like glass, earning claps from his instructors. He looks over at his older sister with a similar stance in front of the larger boulder.
Slashes ensured and it too shattered like glass. Everyone clapped at her talent, even Tatsumi.
There was no magic enhancing her body. It was nothing but pure physical skill. Tatsumi could easily replicate those after his muscles had developed as he was once familiar with them. But with magic being augmented, he might go beyond.
Magic is truly incredible. Utilizing it, one can efficiently make movements far beyond human limits, such as breaking a boulder with bare fists, running faster than the air, and leaping across a lake.
Still, even with magic, Tatsumi has to admit that it will only make a small change in the corrupted Empire. Mages will be hailed the strongest alright, but everyone back in his old world would merely find unethical and wicked means to kill them. Assassination is one such example.
He learned a lot in this world. Studying books in the house's library had been beneficial for him. Although most of the Kingdoms in the archipelago City-State Alliance are at peace, political conflicts inside each are unstable and would go to war any time soon. The Oriana and Midgar Kingdoms are nearing risks as well.
Even in another world, nobles are stirring with evil and corruption.
To be ready, Tatsumi decided and pour his early days into training in secrecy. In the broad daylight, he holds back, acting as a brother and an average noble son.
Through research, he is able to learn how this world fights with magic, and it is also a chance to review his own fighting style. As the fighting methods that he had learned in his previous life were more on brutal killing, he had to improve and alter them to be polished and rational.
All his preconceptions about different worlds and magic and all that had made his mind spin in confusion for quite a while, but in time, he managed to get over it and learn more.
Concentrating. Focusing his will. By losing any unnecessary motion, he lasts twice as long.
80 push-ups, 300 sword swings, and a 2 km run a day. Breaking a tree with fists. Reading for three to four hours. And six and seven hours of sleep. During the daytime, he has studies related to being a noble, as well as various other tasks that he needs to carry out.
That's why, his personal training ends up having to be held up at night when everyone else has gone to sleep. This included decreasing his sleeping period but silently meditating, and with recovery magic, he was able to develop a unique sleeping style that is short but effective.
He trained his physical strength to supplement his combat skills.
That's how his daily training at home goes. He didn't have exact free time.
For today, he has a bit of a particular menu during the 2 km run in the forest.
As of late, he encountered a few thugs who are making trouble. They have taken to occupying a nearby abandoned village. At first glance, they turned out to be a bandit gang of average size.
Sometimes, he killed scattered brigands whenever he came across them. Despite sparing some of them, he learned not to after a quick backstab. He first thought this world was not as quite as evil as his old one.
The large cities in this world have judges to put people on trial after they killed someone. That is not the case for the rural areas of this world where criminals can generally be killed without a trial. Only so those in this area aren't too fussed about this kind of thing.
Now that he thinks about it, maybe he can use this opportunity to commemorate a new weapon that he has recently been trying out. The slime bodysuit.
The slime bodysuit which he would be explaining now.
This world has magic. This world's people fight by using that magic to strengthen both themselves and their weapons. In contrast to this, there is always some extent of loss when they use magic. For example, a normal iron sword would only have 10% efficiency; one pour in 100 points of magic, but the effect is only a boost of 10 points. Which means that 90% of the magic is lost in the process. Even for mithril, a metal lauded for its high conductivity, a sword capable of 50% efficiency would already be considered to be a high-grade item. So in summary, there is always a huge amount of loss.
Then came the slimes. Magical beings native and very weak in this world. Slimes are actual to their appearances, sentient slime creatures. They change form and move around using only magic in nature. When he studied them, he realized that their magical conductivity is a mind-blowing 99%. Also, as they are in liquid form, they can freely change form.
So he hunted slimes around, crushed their cores, and experimented on the leftover slime jelly. The number of slime cores that he has crushed is in the thousands. It was to the degree that the local area began suffering from a slime deficiency, compelling him to go on expeditions further afield.
The slime jelly was quite easy to process. After strengthening and compounding it, he was eventually able to make a full-body suit out of it. Unlike armor, it does not make any sound, is comfortable, and breathable, provides support to any movements one can make, and with guaranteed defensive capabilities.
At the moment, Tatsumi is wearing a completely black bodysuit made from slime jelly mixed with black pigments from burning organic materials like wood and crushed into carbonized charcoal power. There are no unnecessary adornments, the suit fits his body perfectly, and his vision and breathing are unobstructed.
What he looks like is pretty much the same as what he wears in his old life; a high-collar jacket over a tan sweater vest, a pair of black pants, gloves, and combat boots. All of this beneath his dark slime jacket coat with a hood.
So with that, Tatsumi arrived at the abandoned village. Despite the late hour, they've had torches lit up the place. They've just successfully assaulted a merchant caravan, so now they're having a good feast.
He frowned. While he doesn't underestimate them, bandits generally have low planning aptitudes, so they have a strong tendency to immediately use up whatever things they get their hands on. It's only right after an assault that they have things worth anything.
So with no hesitation, Tatsumi crashes into the feast without stealth, earning looks immediately.
He stood up, facing the dumbfounded faces in the middle of the camp.
"The fuck is with this little squirt?"
His eyebrows twitch, since he's ten years old, the 'little squirt' comment is not entirely disproportionate.
He didn't say anything as he kicked away the one who called him a squirt, that's when the other bandits finally took up their weapons.
"Oi, if you look down on us too much don't think we'll go easy on you just 'cus you're a—!"
A slimy blade shot out and cut off his head first. An exceptional weapon that he can take out only when needed. Stretching is one of its several convenient functions.
In a horizontal arc, Tatsumi shapes his slime into a sword and takes out all the nearby bandits, not even letting one take out his gun. The elasticity of mochi paired with the sharpness of a steel sword. It's the first time he uses it in real combat so he had been slightly apprehensive about this, but turns out it performs quite well.
Blood splatter in a familiar way. A few seconds pass by of cutting every which way indiscriminately, the surroundings have become quiet now.
"Hm?" Tatsumi let out, there's one missing.
A small shockwave occurred near him. He leaned his head back as he felt an obvious killing intent from behind him, a bandit sword missing him by inches.
The steel sword of the bandit came rushing in, only to be blocked by his slime blade in a spark. He turned to look over, eyes glowing.
His foe grunted, and in an instant, stepped back and delivered a quick jab. Once again, blocked by the slime blade, creating a flurry of sparks. The bandit exerted pressure on their lock. Despite the mere swings, Tatsumi recognizes the rational and direct instantaneous acceleration, pressing forward by half steps, and the variety of other methods to press towards the opponent.
"Surprise? I might not look like much, but I have completely mastered Royal Capital Bushin Style—"
He didn't finish whatever yapping he was sprouting as the slime sword was embedded in him.
Kicking away his dead body, Tatsumi searches the camp. He noticed several corpses of merchants and several carts of loot.
Silently giving his condolences to the bodies, he busts the craters open and finds a large quality of spoils. There's an excessive amount, more than thousands around a million to be precise. Tatsumi could buy an entire land with this.
"Leone would go on a fit if she saw this."
He gathered all of them from the other crates into a single large crate. With slight difficulty due to his younger body, he could lift the whole thing well.
Just then, his ears twitched, hearing something a beastkin could only hear. He turned around and saw a covered cage. It's quite big and sturdy.
"...?" He moves towards it.
"Don't tell me. Are they keeping a slave here?"
Expecting one, he removes the tarp covering the cage. Then flinch back at the smell.
"What... what is this?"
Inside of the cage seems to be a blue-eyed, moving, rotten lump of flesh. He can barely make out the humanoid shape, but can't discern the gender, age, or anything else. The lump of meat twitched, almost reacting to him.
Tatsumi widened as he read about this; Demon Possession. Victims of this are originally born as normal people, but one day, their body suddenly begins to rot away gradually. They would be led to the afflicting suffering of physical degeneration and leave nothing but rotting flesh like the one before him. Eventually, they rot and rot until they die.
This originated back to the historic Three Heroes, comprising of the Elf Olivier, the Human Freya, and the Therianthrope Lili; all three heroines that battled against the Demon King Diablos. Once survivors of the Diablos' Cult's experiments, they trained and armed themselves, and years later, successfully slayed him.
However, Diablos cast a curse on the Three so that their descendants would be afflicted with Demon Possession, hence why they're suffering painful lives and turned into masses of rotten flesh. This caused them to be abandoned by their families and cast out by society.
Stories said that those possessed would be infected with the spirit or magic of a Demon, which would then infect their surroundings, and turn them into demons.
For this reason, the Church proactively buys them and executes them in the name of purification, which is just mercilessly killing patients, and the Church gains ignorance acclamation from the public for "protecting" the common people from the "demons."
One thing Tatsumi noticed about this tale is that all the victims of the possession are females. Could it be because their ancestors, the Three Heroes, are women themselves?
Not to mention, if there are Demon Possessed people, it would also mean that the Cult of Diablos is still active. If what he read about them is all true, his hands clenched thinking about their ramification and influence on this world.
But enough thinking about them, he still had to deal with the one in front of him.
Despite the flesh's current status, it is still a living being. That means it still has consciousness on its own.
What should he do with it?
If he sells this to the Church, it'll covey a price higher than the combined worth of everything that he even looted today. This is a no.
If he leaves it, it dies on its own.
If he kills it, he puts the victim to rest.
Tatsumi scratches his head, "Haah... huh?"
He can feel an enormous amount of magic inside it that seems to be deviating from its waves. Magic Deviation, is it the reason why it became like this?
Some time ago, Tatsumi suffered from magic deviation. At that time, if the dragon inside didn't stabilize his body and he hadn't successfully brought his magic back under control, would he have also become like this?
Magic has a definite effect on the physical body. Through magic deviation, is it possible he can train his body to become further accustomed to magic, such that it can become easier for him to control magical power? Well, despite training his magic ever since as a baby, the amount he has still pales in comparison.
Purposely causing magic deviation is too dangerous, however. But then again, if he can perform experiments...
"...sorry about this."