Hello, everyone, I hope all is good and well with you so far.
Right of the bat, I want to let you know that my previous story had to be deleted. There was an error with one of the chapters that couldn't be resolved no matter what I tried, and I considered the story a failure anyway, so rather than leave it abandoned with false hopes, I erased it completely. I voice my most sincere apologies for that, but it was unsalvageable.
However, inspiration struck me and I am now trying a new, different idea. I do hope this idea is to everyone's liking, and if it is not, please be vocal about it as I cannot work off of void assumptions. I am good, but not THAT good.
"Talking"
"Thinking"
"Monsters, Gods with Arcanum etc. talking"
Premise:
Ashra finds herself reincarnated in a world she is familiar with, as a genderbent version of a character who is the definition of a beast.
Ashrah Ali-Sabih was someone many people would consider to be 'ordinary'. An immigrated citizen who fled war to find a better life with a different culture, she moved to Japan where she became a victim of a rather sad, lengthy tale often summarized as a 'black company'. A company that works either on the border or past the borders of ethical and legal correctness that fosters a culture of overworking to such a degree that it is not a stereotyped exaggeration for people to actually die from exhaustion.
This day marked one that was, mostly, the same as always. Ashrah worked into the late night, having many documents to finish up and due dates to meet lest she face the rather terrifying, often times physically abusive wrath of her boss. She was hoping to finish up and return home, where she can enjoy some food and dabble into this newly high and rising phenomenon that was Anime. It gave her entertainment and a daydream-escape from this accursed life of hers. "There we go, the last document..." she mused to herself in her thoughts, but then, just as she got up, something happened that proved to be fatal. Due to sitting for such a long time, the blood vessels in her legs adapted to this new position which required less blood pressure and a lower pulse. By sitting up so suddenly, her heart rate shot up too quickly and she succumbed to heart failure. An incredibly rare and unlucky way to die, but however unlikely, the chances, as proven, were not zero.
As she lay on the floor, feeling the life escape from her body and mind, she could only muster one single thought in the really short amount of time she was still alive. "That's... so bullshit..."
"AND I AGREE WITH YOU, MORTAL!"
The booming, powerful voice suddenly shook Ashrah to her core. She got up before- "Huh? Didn't I die?"
"THAT YOU DID, LITTLE MORTAL!"
Ashrah turned to look towards the direction of the voice, where she saw a giant throne, easily 50 meters in height, and an equally gigantic male sitting ontop of it. The male figure was the definition of divine and perfect, with chiseled muscles everywhere one looked, garbed in rather revealing cloth that clearly had greek inspiration based on its muster and style. A large, grey-white beard adorned their face that seemed to fit flawlessly to their sculpted, well defined face with a jawline so sharp it could cut metal. The upper side of the head had short, spiky white hair that was curling downwards towards every direction.
"WELCOME TO THE AFTERLIFE! I AM SO EXCITED FOR ALL THIS!"
"The... afterlife? So I really am dead" Ashrah confirmed for herself, sighing out loudly in defeat. It demotivated her greatly, as she had hoped this was just a hallucination of sorts.
"HEY NOW! DON'T BE SO DOWN! THIS IS A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY!" The deity spoke before clapping their hands and procuring a gigantic wheel with several characters of various different cultural sources drawn on it. "YOU SEE, I AM A VERY NEW GOD AND YOU ARE MY FIRST EVER REINCARNATION!"
Ashrah was taken aback by this information and rubbed her temples before verifying with a question. "I'm sorry, did you say reincarnation?"
"OH ABSOLUTELY! EVERY NOW AND THEN, WE GODS THROW A MASSIVE LOTTERY TO SELECT SOULS THAT GET TO REINCARNATE! THE LOTTERY OFTEN ALSO INCLUDES THE PURPOSE OF THEIR REINCARNATION! FOR YOU, YOU WERE CHOSEN TO BE A SOURCE OF CHAOS AND UPSET OF THE ESTABLISHED ORDER!"
"Wow, way to make me feel confident about it" Ashrah quipped back, her face losing several years of youth from hearing all of that. But it did get her thinking. What if this is what has been the newest 'boom' in anime, this phenomenon called 'Isekai', or alternate world reincarnation scenario, a genre where protagonists go to a different world through different means (though mostly dying and being reborn or transmigrating a body, hence Reincarnation). If she was one such protagonist, then it meant she could finally have a life of purpose, a life where she isn't slaving away!
"NOW, USUALLY WE WOULD LEAVE EVERYTHING UP AS A SURPRISE AND JUST TOSS YOU WITH 0 STATS IN IT TO WATCH YOU GROW, BEAT MANY TRIBULATIONS AND DEVELOP AN INTERESTING STORY, BUT BEINGS MEANT TO SOW CHAOS ARE EXCEMPT FROM THIS RULE! FURTHERMORE, MY BOSSES THINK THAT SO MANY REINCARNATORS GO THROUGH STRUGGLE THE OLD FASHIONED WAY THAT THEY WANT TO TRY SOMETHING NEW. INSTEAD OF CHAOS BEING A SMALL TUMOR GROWING, WE WANT TO TAKE THE COMPLEX STRUCTURE OF A WORLD AND FIRE A BOMB INTO IT!"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"YOU HEARD ME CLEARLY AND CONCISELY, MORTAL! DARE NOT ASK ME TO REPEAT MYSELF!" The deity responded with a sudden, terrifying fury, before just as swiftly switching back to a jovial mood. "THIS WHEEL HERE FEATURES SEVERAL HUNDRED DIFFERENT CHARACTERS WHO WERE VERY POWERFUL IN THEIR TIME BUT DIED. YOU WILL RECEIVE ONE SUCH CHARACTER'S BODY AND BE THROWN INTO A WORLD YOU KNOW OF YOUR CHOICE, WHERE YOU GET TO, AS YOU MORTALS SAY, 'FUCK SHIT UP'."
Ashrah was surprised. This would mean that she gets to choose where she goes. Considering she wasn't so big into anime but merely found it recently as an escape, she was not too familiar with many worlds, so she had to default to the one she knows best. "Then... Send me to Danmachi?"
"WONDERFUL PICK! A WORLD THAT HAS BEEN SO MINUTELY CONSTRUCTED TO WORK LIKE AN MMO IS A PERFECT AND SAFE CHOICE FOR REINCARNATIONS! PLUS, IT IS A RARE PICK IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS SO MY BOSSES WILL SURELY LOVE IT! NOW, AS FOR YOUR BODY, SPIN THE WHEEL!"
Ashrah had nothing to add really, so she did as the massive deity commanded and stepped forward, walking for almost a whole minute (The deity created a real life fish lense phenomenon to extend her walk unnecessarily as a little prank) before she reached the wheel at last, grabbing its edges and spinning as hard as she could. Surprisingly, for how gigantic it was, it spun so lightly that even her stature caused it to rotate with such force it produced currents of wind.
After a lengthy while, the wheel finally came to a halt, and the selection it pointed on was one that Ashrah was not familiar with (Mainly because she hadn't gotten to that point in the anime yet)
"AH, KAIDO. FANTASTIC! YOU GET TO BE A POWERHOUSE WITH SO MUCH ENDURANCE THAT EVEN PLOT ARMOR ITSELF ONLY BARELY MANAGED TO WIN! MY BOSSES WILL SURELY BE AMAZED BY THIS!" The Deity announced before snapping its fingers. "OF COURSE, WE HAVE TO BEND THE BODY TO THE FEMALE GENDER TO FIT YOU, AND WE HAVE TO PROVIDE YOU WITH BASE KNOWLEDGE OF THE BODY'S POWERS AND FUNCTIONS! HOWEVER, WE DO HAVE TO TAKE AWAY THINGS THAT ARE TOO UNNATURAL OR WOULD NOT MAKE SENSE WITHIN THE ESTABLISHED WORLD, WHICH IN YOUR CASE IS DANMACHI!"
"I see- ARGH!" Ashrah was about to answer but suddenly a headache hit her like a truck, causing her to fall to her knees and grab her head. "My head! So much information!"
"OH RIGHT, THE INFLUX OF KNOWLEDGE IS PAINFUL AS IT MERGES TWO BRAINS TOGETHER. SORRY FOR THE LACK OF WARNING, TEEHEE!" The Deity answered with zero shame in its tone as it watched Ashrah struggle for several minutes of pure, agonizing pain.
In that time, not only did she receive all basic knowledge of Kaido's powers and memories and what he was like as a person, but her body also transformed into a female version of him. It was shaped to be more humane-looking, so she wasn't a giant of a human but just really tall for one at 6'4, with broad, muscular shoulders and a clearly defined sixpack. She had large, round and firm breasts which were covered with an X-shaped open cloth that had the strings attached to a small skull shaped button at the center where her cleavage came closed, the upper strings going around her neck while the bottom ones connected at the mid-section of her back. She also retained the large, fluffy coat over her shoulders which was firmly connected to her bra-strings, meaning that both were one item of clothing. Her nails were also toughened and grown to be sharp like claws that won't break right away. However, there was one firm change to the design of a genderbent Kaido, which was that the wristbands were gone.
Once the entire process was over, Ashrah breathed out heavily due to the residual pain in her head, but she felt good enough to get up again, glancing down at herself to observe the new attire. The first thing she thought was how shamelessly revealing the chest was! She could not possibly go out like that!
"NOW THAT THE PROCESS HAS BEEN COMPLETED, WE CAN SEND YOU OFF TO THE WORLD!" The Deity spoke before clapping its hands together, causing the landscape to change all of a sudden. "YOU WILL BE DROPPED OFF IN THE DESERTS OF TELSKURA, JUST SOUTH OFF OF THE CAPITAL CITY! MAKE WITH THIS WHAT YOU WANT!"
With another clap, the deity was gone and Ashrah, or from now on Kaida (Can't call her Kaido when she's a woman now, so female variant was made), felt the sand on her boots and realized she had been incarnated just like that, which was... "so anticlimactic..."
The first thing she did was sort through all the new information in her head to better process everything she has, and what was taken from Kaida's powerlist. First, the things she no longer has: Her Zoan powers were gone, preventing any transformations into a dragon or a beast-human hybrid form, meaning Kaida's base form was it. Secondly, her 3 Hakis were transformed into skills for the Falnas, meaning until she gains a Falna, she has no access to them. And lastly: Kaida's power was translated into the logic of the world, meaning that unlike everyone else, even though she will receive a Falna, she won't start at Level 1 with 0 in everything. For her, it will be as if she had a Falna since the day of her birth. However, the precise numbers are hidden to her mind, meaning she needs to receive a Falna first before she can find out what level she is.
"Well... here goes nothing I suppose..." Kaida said to herself as she began to walk towards the Capital city, which was visibly along the horizon of the desert. If she was close to a settlement, she would make use of it and go from there.