The Second Chance of Two Souls

Prologue:

Low-security museum.


Noel Arc yawned stretching his arm along with school uniform those hands promptly fall back in their previous position with the right hand scratching his chest no doubt messing up the white undershirt inside the green shirt, his left hand fell over his black back pact that he carried like a purse for the sake of commodity.

All of this while the guide explained the history behind a very old mechashift weapon that looked like what would happen if a hunting rifle and a machete had a child.

It wasn't out of disrespect but rather out of exhaustion, the consequence of reading fanfics all day in his Scroll in his room up until 2:00 A.M.

A bad habit of his that one of several of the things that didn't die with his old self.

However, he couldn't care less about the story of the weapon, though it was interesting to learn how the ancient mechanisms functioned to make the rifle, transform into a machete. After all, you didn't have the opportunity to see how the previously, fictional implement for murder, and hunting really worked.

He moved the back of his left feet quickly up, and down covered in a plain black shoe along with his leg moving the wine-colored cloth that was part of the pants of the uniform seemingly out of nowhere, something he didn't pay attention to too much another of his quirks he didn't like to stand still too much.

Then Noel felt somebody poking his lower rib and annoyed his blue eyes quickly looked at the person responsible.

It was his sister Annabelle Arc looking back at him with an irritated expression while putting her arms in her waist slightly wrinkling a feminine version of the uniform Noel has with her blue backpack in her back.

His only answer was growling, and gestured at her as if saying "what"

"You didn't sleep early, again did you?" she asked with judgment in her teal eyes, clearly not happy about it. "Regardless of your good grades, Noel, you should really listen to mom and dad."

He raised his right hand with his index finger lifted, as if he was trying to find a way to retort that, but alas he couldn't, and he put his hand back down.

"Ok, you have a point," he responded giving her the victory, "but I really wanted to keep reading one of those fifty stories, and manga I was reading."

"And then what? Getting sleepy in class, or outright falling asleep?" His sister asked sardonically. "How many times have Crocea, mom, and dad told you not to do that?"

"Like one hundred times," he replied casually while scratching the top of his head getting rid of a sudden itch while messing up with his short blonde hair.

Annabelle sighed at her brother's response, how he could be this impertinent about getting admonished? "You know what? Just pay attention, and don't daydream. The professors are likely to ask you about this."

"I would have been better if instead of reincarnating, I have gone to heaven?... No wait, I do not want to jinx it!" Noel Thought while Grimacing at her sister accusation.

One of the disadvantages of reincarnation was that you needed to start all over again. Nothing in Buddhism or Hinduism said anything about remembering all of your past life.

Or being freaking thrown to an admittedly, very badly constructed Fantasy world.

The first time he started to remember all of this was when he was 5 years old, and hit his head against a wall because he was running around wearing one of his older sister's favorite T-shirts.

In the beginning, they were little snippets of memories after dreaming about it.

Those fragments were slowly over time making themselves clearer and clearer.

He didn't think too much about it until they came with painful headaches.

It had gotten so bad that they gave him medicine for the pain, until one day he woke up after a five days' headache-induced coma, fully remembering who he was, how he died, and the place he was reborn in.

Needless to say, his reaction made his family weirded out, and he was sent to the hospital.

You would too if your first son woke up and gave you a look like you had grown a very ugly mutant duck head.

The constant murmur of "this is not happening" didn't help, to quell his new family

concern.

Now that he thought about it, he almost slips up his secret that day.

10 years ago:

Noel Ac thanked god that the doctor asked his family to retire and give it some space, despite the absurdly big family protest.

The doctor probably assumed that his downed mood was because of shock, or something.

It gives him time to process what the actual fuck happened, and he didn't like it one bit.

He passed his trembling hand to his head, his eyes bulged and his breath grew haggard.

"This...no, no,no" he tried to hold back the tears, and the tsunami of emotions that were threatening to break through.

Five minutes passed trying to fight with himself and rationalize his situation.

Until it couldn't do it anymore.

All his life, friends, and family were gone all because of tripping and falling through a ladder opening his head like an egg.

This broke the dam, making him yell then cry bot in frustration, and sadness.

He cried until his head hurt.

After a good deal of time passed he stopped crying, and what was left was dull eyes while his mouth was stuck in a thin line.

He started to reflect on the situation he was stuck in.

And he concluded that he was screwed.

In spite of that, his expression changed quickly, from sadness, to fear, anger, and finally to a look of determination.

He knew his information was important, but at the same time, nothing guaranteed that his data was the correct one, or the correct world.

He was probably correct that he was wrong given the fact that somehow, Crocea Mors had a human form (Though his mother explained she was some type of guardian spirit tsukumogami or something).

In addition, who would believe him? in his honest opinion: No one.

And for all, he knew he was insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

He probably didn't have the right to interfere in the cluster fuck to come.

A cluster fuck he didn't want to be part of.

...

He didn't want to lose everything again. Perhaps he could help in some way.

after all, he had the feeling that he would get into trouble anyway.

The Present

Since that day, he lived his life like he used to live in his past.

Doing exercise, walking his shiba inu named Jake, and tolerating his seventh sister and brother shenanigans.

Though it took him some time to adapt, especially trying to get his motivation, to draw pictures again… Great now he made himself feel terrible.

"Noel are you ok?" Annabelle asked while putting an arm on his shoulder.

"I am fine," Noel responded quickly, Too quickly in fact. He really didn't want to bring that into the conversation.

He would rather enjoy the school excursion to the museum rather than souring his mood, by remembering his frustration.

Now that he was thinking about enjoying the trip, Noel ran his finger to his sister's back precisely in her spine breaking through the long blonde blanket that protected her defenseless back, just to annoy her.

Which had his intended result, as she threw an irked glare at Noel, who was smiling widely from ear to ear.

"Tch" she intoned before throwing a punch at his shoulder, which didn't even make a dent on his smile.

At the very least he could still enjoy pissing off his siblings, and other people, on purpose.

Some time passed, and they still walked the pristine white halls of the museum that have cream-colored support pillars that reached the ceiling, almost nearing the end of the trip, and the only thing left was the last exhibition in the section of classical weapons.

Something that amused Noel, knowing that his new family had one of these classics along with his knowledge of the show, with the only difference that the weapon transform into a humanoid, and vice versa.

Several of the weapons in the exhibition were non-mechashift, some were used by warlords in the times that Vale wasn't established as a kingdom, others were made solely for self-defense, some were used in the color wars, others in the conflict men and faunus, and there were a few that looked like weirdly advanced tech.

Probably something related to an undocumented cataclysm and a death old civ, that the teacher referred to went he was in history class.

they stopped in from of the exhibition of a plain-looking War-scythe, with a blue handle.

"Ahem... This was another weapon made in the times of the Color Wars," the guide said while clearing his throat. "Our historians believe this was used by…."

He didn't pay attention to what the guide was saying, or rather he noticed something unusual happen to the object.

First, the war-scythe glowed, he believed at first were lights inside the chamber just to give them a spectacle to admire.

But something didn't feel right about it, and he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

Out of curiosity, he got closer to examine it, bumping into other students, which he said sorry to, when he finally got near the object, staying of course within the limits put in place by the museum.

As if responding by his presence the weapon started to have pictures of flowers etched on the metal of the blade.

Instead of yelling out of fear, he felt tense, and he backed away, looking around to confirm he wasn't the only one seeing this.

But it looked like he was. Why was nobody else noticing this? Even the guide did not seem to pay attention to this bizarre phenomenon.

And then something even more ridiculous started happening, making Noel question his own sanity as he backed away, startled.

The scythe started rippling as if was made out of the liquid.

Out of the curling surface of the blade, an ethereal arm grew out of the instrument of warfare.

That also somehow had gone through the chamber the weapon was in.

Eventually, a grim-looking blue-haired girl, with silver eyes materialized out of it. Like one of those mad dreams, he sometimes had.

Her feet covered in blue boots hovered not even touching the floor.

Her dress consisted of a tattered sweater that reached down to her hip, which was waving with her as if the wind was blowing inside the building.

The worst part was that her appearance didn't make any sound at all. All the while the apparition glanced at him, with curiosity that didn't help to calm his nerves at all.

"Did…Did I finally go insane?" Noel thought, he shut and opened his eyes, then he bit his own hand thinking his tiredness was making him see things that weren't there.

Then a hand touched his shoulder, in fear he quickly moved away from the offending appendage that as it turned out, belonged to his sister.

"Noel, I hate to repeat this again, but are you sure you're ok?" Annabelle asked while staring at her brother with a mix of confusion and worry.

He was about to say something until he felt a chill go down his spine.

He quickly turned his head and there was nothing to see, he drew out a sigh of relief… But why did he still feel uneasy?

"Did something happen?" asked his sister. "You look like you saw a Grimm or something"

"I... I think my head was messing with me today" Noel replied and shook his head then turned back at his sister "Besides, with the security here I don't think a Grimm could get in."

"Honestly, you need to take a nap once we go back."

Noel raised his hand and put it behind his neck with a forced smile on his face.

The guide continued with his explanation, but during all of that Noel's gaze didn't leave the war-scythe.

He knew he shouldn't think much about what happened earlier, but then why did still make him feel unnerved?

When the guide finally ended his exposition, they were ready to go to the next exhibition.

All of them were walking, and that took him a few seconds to realize they were going away.

When he was about to follow his classmates, a thunderous sound, followed by violent a fiery shock wave, fragments of rubble, and glass flew alongside him.

The last thing he saw before darkness overtook him, was the war scythe going in his direction, and the shrill voice of her sister calling his name.

In hindsight, he shouldn't have jinxed his day by saying those words.