.
.
.
Chapter 1: Miracle
.
My death wasn't something that could be called all that special.
In fact, I could barely even remember what caused it.
Everything had blurred together- just something resembling a bright light, a loud noise… a heavy impact, leading to that sudden pain shooting through my body. Before I could even begin to understand what had happened, I had already started to fly through the air from the blow.
In those few seconds of flight I could feel myself suspended like a broken toy, hurled by some child in the depths of a tantrum.
Thinking about it after the fact, that one moment in particular felt as if it lasted an age, and even now I can remember it vividly, despite the fact that everything else in my memory was coated in fog. The sensation of flying, and the feeling of weightless that filled me even while the true terror of the situation still hadn't caught up with my distracted mind.
But that moment did not last forever.
Soon enough, I hit the ground again, smashing hard against the cold pavement and splitting like some rotten fruit, the light of my vision fading even while pain shot through my body- tearing and splitting apart.
After I hit the ground, I probably rolled for a short while, cutting against the ground, but to be honest, nothing was very clear. Once I felt my body break, the rest of my life started to blur together.
All of that sole moment had disappeared, replaced with something resembling a whirlwind- a distant, chaotic storm that I could only view through the broken lenses of my own eyes.
There were bright noises, flashes of clarity where I might have been able to barely move my blurry vision, but for the most part it was as if I was trapped in spinning rotation, falling down an endless drain, unable to escape or reach the surface.
Darkness and confusion had enveloped me, but I could still think, and I could still feel- though maybe not a traditional feeling like the pain of my skin, but rather the intensity of my emotions. I could feel everything in my mind with such a depth it nearly shocked me.
But the things I felt were not things a person would wish to understand- not with the clarity I had at that time. Instead, I could only feel the sadness, the regret, and the fear. Those negative things that filled me as I came to the undeniable realization that I was about to die.
All of the things that I still wanted to do, and all of the things I had come to love…
Everything was over
But even filled with those regrets- those sorrows- I'm sure that it truly wasn't anything special. The only thing I could honestly say about such a death was that it came slowly.
-After all, it wasn't something that instantly occurred to me. Although it was true I had been struck from out of the blue, likely by an out of control car, the suffering I went through was not minor, and it certainly didn't leave me soon after I lost my vision.
My death did not come quickly at all.
Instead, I spent a long time in that whirlpool of emotions and darkness, simply spiralling into the void while the life of my body slowly came to an end. Memories and flashes of the outside world occasionally came to me, but nothing truly important ever pierced the regret I felt in my final moments.
I couldn't say for just how long I was there in that darkness. Perhaps I had been taken to the hospital, in the ER where they were still attempting to save me. Maybe I was already in a coma, and this was a horrible dream. It was even possible that I was already dead, already succumbed to my injuries, and this terrible place was some kind of Limbo.
Maybe I was still laying on the pavement, feeling the pain of my broken body after the impact. Maybe not even a moment had passed, and this agony was the result of some fight-or-flight instinct still active in my mind.
I distantly hoped that was not the case.
Whatever had truly happened, it seemed like days continued to pass while I remained inside of that darkness.
Eventually, I realized something in those dream-like moments.
The darkness, and the violent motion of spiraling deeper and deeper into the void, had begun to fade.
It wasn't as if I was waking up. That was something I could clearly tell- even if my thoughts became more lucid and the pain started to relieve itself with mercy. No, I was certainly not waking up.
Whatever was happening to me- probably the process of my mind slowly dying- was not something I would ever wake up from.
And it was certainly a slow process, but eventually it was complete. The darkness, the feeling, the emotions were all gone.
All of my senses had vanished.
The blurred pain and distant spinning lights, the moving figures and the muted sounds- they had all disappeared.
A fear rose in me as I wondered if this was truly the afterlife- if, perhaps, this was death. This soundless, lightless, sensationless place… I guess I could call it the void.
But eventually that void, absent of anything in the world, began to brighten, like I had started to wake from some long slumber, even though my mind remained fresh and unchanged throughout.
My vision cleared while my soul continued it's slow descent into that void below.
And although my eyes never opened, I saw something there, while I was still deep inside the darkness.
It might have been a glimpse of what people call Heaven, but maybe it was something else entirely.
Either way, I did not stay for long.
That place was a vast field of white, like a colorless world overlaid above reality. Mist rose from a liquid, mirrored ground, and the sky above was filled with dull, shifting patterns.
In that vast field of nothing was a figure.
They stood silently, without any kind of movement, far in the distance. Although they were hard to make out with my blurry vision, I could tell they were male. But what surprised me was how that person was bound in glassy, almost transparent chains. Those chains bound him down tightly, and he seemed to have hunched over in discomfort from the weight.
Though that person did not say anything, nor move in the slightest, I knew they were watching me.
I knew that because I could see his eyes.
They were blank, glassy, and devoid of any emotion at all.
Those eyes scared me.
But before I even realized what had happened, everything in sight had already vanished.
In the span of a single moment, that strange place had disappeared, leaving me alone in the void once again.
While it could have certainly been some kind of illusion, or a fever-dream created by the mind of a man approaching death, I felt deep inside of my being that what I had seen was no dream.
I was too exhausted by that point to give any more thought.
Instead, all that was left for me was the darkness, and the slowly moving tides that pushed me deeper and deeper.
At that moment, as I felt my senses fading once again, I truly realized that I was going to die.
Continuing to sink into the murky shadows below, lost to the flowing currents of my dreams, my mind faded away.
.
.
.
But somehow, even as I was completely submerged in the darkness of that nebulous world, there was no final bit of sleep.
I did not die in that place, or at least, I did not die for good.
After falling into that deep slumber, cradled by the nebulous darkness and descending into the void, I must have stayed there for an incredible amount of time- if 'time' was even a proper concept in that strange place I had entered.
But either way, I was not there forever.
Instead, I woke up.
.
.
.
I didn't truly understand what had happened to me for what felt like weeks- not unlike the situation involving my death.
Waking up in a strange, unfamiliar place, after facing my fears and coming to accept the fact that I was about to die… It was traumatic for me, in a few different ways.
But eventually I came to understand what had happened.
I had died, hit by a car or a truck or some large speeding object. Succumbing to my wounds, I faded away.
But soon after that fact, I was reincarnated.
The first moment my consciousness had reawakened was to the screams of a woman, and the face of the man I would eventually come to know as a father.
He picked me up and held me, while surrounded by giant strangers, also looking down on my prone form, shivering in the cold air.
That image, the moment of my new birth, would stay with me for a very long time, still vivid in my thoughts. It was an important occasion, after all, but not something that truly changed who I was.
However, I did not understand what had happened to me right off the bat, even with those enormous people crying and laughing as they saw me. At first, I thought this must be some sort of dream, though I did not have any evidence or opinion as to why.
But eventually, the gravity of what had happened to me hit with a strange weight to it. After all, I could only go on denying the reality for so long and the constant sights of giant people surrounding me, the strange images of enormous walls and floors…
Confirming it was easy- just by looking at my strange, stubby little arms and fingers, my pudgy body and my heavy, oversized head. I was picked up and moved all over the place, overseen by that stern-looking young man and smiling woman- placed into a crib and shown off to various strange faces.
At that point in time, I had no idea how to even feel about the fact of my reincarnation. After all, it did not erase the fact that the entirety of my old life had disappeared. Even if I could get back into contact with my previous family, they would surely not believe any claims I made about being the reincarnation of their brother, their son. I would be seen as a madman.
There wasn't any reason for me to live again, to begin with. I had nothing I was ever truly passionate about, and there was no goal I had left to fulfill. What I had regretted about my death was not getting to spend time with the people I should have- and nothing about that regret would ever be solved, even with a second life.
So in those first few weeks, and indeed, in those first months of my new life, I was in a largely lethargic state. The worried faces of who I assumed were my new parents filled my vision multiple times, speaking in a strange language I could only describe as vaguely eastern-sounding. They brought in many people to see me- people I assumed were doctors or the like, but eventually, I was pulled out of that depression by something special.
After months of living in that state, I witnessed something that, although sounding somewhat cheesy, eventually became my reason for living.
At that time, I had come to believe I was in some kind of desperately rural place, far from the reaches of the world. After all, there was not a single piece of electricity I could see in the small community that seemed always covered in snow. Traditional eastern-styled buildings were the norm in that place, and people wore swords of all things clipped to their waists.
I did not pay it much mind in the state I was in, but one day, as I was carried by the women I eventually understood as my mother, I saw the thing that would change me.
It was a man.
He had many scars cut deep into the lines of his face, and a rather unpleasant expression. It was as if he was throwing out cockiness and aggression as he walked through the snow. Just by looking at that man one could tell he was egotistical, brash and full of himself.
And while all of those things were certainly true, I would eventually realize none of it was undeserved.
A decorated silver sword sat clipped on his waist, and he wore a fur coat. He had dull blue hair, which was strange, but many people in this place had unique hair and clothing, so I did not question it much.
At that point in time I still did not truly understand the language the people spoke, but I could recognize a few key words such as my name and the names of my parents. I hadn't bothered to speak yet, though- I didn't see the point in such things, if this life was going to just be a waste
But that lethargic worldview of mine, and the thoughts of neglect and sorrow that seemed to fill my mind… everything related to that disappeared from my world as soon as that man drew the sword on his waist.
He was facing my father in the dojo, and my mother was carrying me while watching the two of them- it didn't interest me in the slightest, similar to just about everything in this new life.
But when that man- the man I would eventually come to recognize as Gal Farrion, the Sword God, faced my father for the first time, the whole world seemed to be sucked towards his gaze.
His sword was freed from its sheath in a ring that emanated through the building, and in the next instant…
I saw something I could barely understand.
It was beautiful.
Something like a rainbow of all the colors in the world- or maybe a better description would be a shooting star. -No, the only way I could possibly explain that moment in time, that turning point in my life, was that I had witnessed a miracle.
That man, and my father as well, both moved faster than I could see. I heard two shockwaves, things I distantly recognized as sonic booms, and sudden bursts of wind buffeting me and my mother, who gasped at the sudden movement, moving to clutch me tighter as protection from the winds.
But although I couldn't see the two of those men, I could feel them.
The energy released from the clash radiated outwards like ripples in the fabric of reality, shining and sparkling in such beautiful images.
At that moment, I realized a few things.
I had surely been reborn not in my old world, but someplace new. Someplace more related to some story in fiction than any mundane reality.
But that was a minor thought in comparison to the true understanding that filled my mind.
Once I saw that clash, and once I saw the miracle come to life before me, I knew in my heart that was the reason I had been reborn.
The reason I was still alive was so I could experience that moment.
After that day, my world was filled with colors.
.
.
.
*Author's Note*
Mushoku Tensei is a pretty great story. However! There are far too few fics for it. I'm sure as the anime continues there will be more, but it's still pretty sad. So here's my contribution for your enjoyment. This is an OC/SI fic that will heavily feature spoilers that the anime has not reached as of season 2, so if you haven't read the novels then don't read this!
