Time does odd things when you stop caring how it passes.
For Zevion, the years moved like slow reels of film — soft, grainy, and pleasantly forgettable.
Days slid by in predictable loops: school, ramen, naps, repeat.
Not bad.
Not dramatic.
Just the kind of quiet existence he'd always wanted.
He lived on the edge of a town that pretended to be busy — streets full of chatter, traffic, and neon signs — but underneath, everything hummed along at a lazy, unhurried rhythm.
His house matched the vibe perfectly: two floors, a peeling mailbox, a balcony with a sagging chair that threatened to collapse every time he sat on it.
It wasn't much, but it was his.
Left behind by parents who had vanished in a way that was both tragic enough to warrant paperwork and convenient enough that nobody came asking questions afterward.
The city handled the essentials.
He handled the rest — meaning, he didn't handle much at all.
He learned early that there was power in being quietly ordinary.
Nobody expected brilliance from you.
Teachers didn't chase you for leadership roles.
Neighbors waved, smiled, and moved on without dragging you into small talk about the weather.
A loner, people assumed.
Maybe shy.
Maybe just one of those "mysterious kids."
It worked.
He preferred it that way.
By the time he reached the age everyone else called "prime" — roughly a year later, when Ash and Ben started their journey — Zevion had already established three life goals.
They were practical.
Selfish.
And, in his opinion, perfectly balanced.
Goal One: Live comfortably.
Not rich.
Not famous.
Just enough money for warm food, good Wi-Fi, and a couch that remembered the shape of his back.
Goal Two: Avoid unnecessary effort.
If something could be solved by waiting, delegating, or doing absolutely nothing, then doing nothing was always the correct choice.
Goal Three: Acquire five girls who genuinely liked him and were stable enough to coexist.
He did not, under any circumstances, call it a harem in public.
He preferred the more dignified title: "domestic equilibrium."
Five, he reasoned, was the optimal number.
Any fewer and it felt lonely.
Any more and someone would have to start making spreadsheets — and he was not doing logistics for anyone, thank you very much.
He had even outlined their "roles," purely for mental entertainment.
One calm, responsible type — the organizer.
One cheerful chaos gremlin for balance.
One bookish introvert for rainy-day conversations.
One wild card who would probably drive him insane.
And one soft, patient soul who would let him sleep in on Sundays.
It wasn't ambition.
It was comedy therapy.
A harmless daydream for a man reborn into a world too colorful for its own good.
After all, if you get a second life, you're allowed to set comfortable dreams, right?
School, for him, was background noise.
A stage play he wandered through while waiting for the credits to roll.
There were the loud ones — the kind who slammed locker doors, trained in the hallways, and screamed about destiny before lunch.
Then there were the quiet observers, content to let the world spin.
Zevion was proudly among the latter.
He knew the famous names by association — the blond kid who couldn't go five minutes without shouting something about how great he is, and the white-haired "cool" emo one everyone whispered about after that big regional run.
Talked about opposites...
Their reputations filled hallways and fueled gossip.
Zevion?
He was wallpaper.
Visible, but never really seen.
And he liked it that way.
He'd once, in his first life, seen old clips of Beyblade G-Revolution during an insomnia binge — bright lights, dragons, and kids screaming "LET IT RIP!" like their souls depended on it.
It was fun in that nostalgic, ridiculous way — like eating candy you know is too sweet.
But this?
This new generation was alien.
No sacred beasts, no glowing auroras, no Kai Hiwatari brooding dramatically under snowfall.
These new Beyblades didn't summon spirits — they burst.
Literally.
Into three pieces.
And everyone called that "normal."
He'd tried to learn the rules once.
Ten minutes in, he gave up.
If the tops were breaking mid-battle and people were celebrating it, he didn't want to understand.
His life was small, peaceful, and oddly fulfilling.
He had a ramen shop he visited every Thursday — the owner nodded at him without words.
A secondhand furniture store where he sat on armchairs until he found one that "vibed right."
And a single potted plant on his balcony that refused to die, even under his chaotic watering schedule of surviving a week by being watered once on Wednesday.
He built a rhythm.
Every so often, he watched local tournaments on TV — kids yelling, crowds roaring, commentary that made every spin sound like destiny.
Zevion watched with the calm detachment of a man observing another species.
He'd sit cross-legged on the couch, open a bag of chips, and mutter,
"Man, they're really just spinning metal toys…"
It wasn't contempt.
After all, there was once a time he also wanted it.
It was genuine confusion at humanity's enthusiasm for chaos.
He understood passion — he just didn't want to participate in it.
The truth was, the moment he saw a Beyblade explode on-screen, he felt a faint phantom ache in his chest.
A reminder.
In his first life, that spinning thing was the last thing he saw before his life burst into pieces.
He didn't plan to tempt fate twice.
He had, once, tried using his reincarnated knowledge for profit.
For three days, he scribbled down notes — ideas about market timing, component balance, maybe even starting a small repair business.
But between modern Burst mechanics, different companies, and the glaring fact that this world's physics laughed at his understanding of reality, he gave up.
"Too much work," he muttered, closing the notebook.
"I'd rather starve slower."
And that was that.
Over time, people built an image of him:
Harmless.
Calm.
Slightly mysterious.
Teachers occasionally called on him, and classmates borrowed his notes.
He never caused trouble, never stood out, and that made him oddly likable.
But beneath that still surface, there was one embarrassingly sincere thought he'd never say aloud:
"Maybe… fate could at least send the girls first before the nonsense starts."
He didn't expect miracles — just convenience.
He wanted his ideal life to fall into place quietly, naturally, like a set of dominoes arranged by someone else.
A few coincidences, a few pleasant accidents.
No drama.
That was the dream.
And for a while, it seemed to work.
He drifted through days without conflict, without headlines.
He came home, microwaved leftovers, watched muted tournaments, and let the sound of the ceiling fan drown out the world.
He had achieved perfect mediocrity.
A life of gentle repetition.
Until, as fate loved to do, it decided to flick his Beyblade back into motion.
It started small — barely noticeable.
A conversation caught at the wrong moment.
A spark in the right direction.
The kind of thing that never looks important until it ruins everything.
And as the screen flickered and the commentator shouted another "Buuuuurst Finish!"
Zevion sighed, completely unaware that his quiet world was about to shatter.
He reached for another chip, glanced at the spinning tops on TV, and muttered with lazy finality:
"Let it rip? Yeah, let it rip somewhere else."
But the universe, as always, wasn't taking no for an answer.
...
It was just another random day.
Nothing special.
Nothing worth remembering.
The afternoon was warm, still, and mercifully quiet — that kind of lazy, golden stillness that made the air itself seem tired.
Beneath a crooked tree that had given up on growing straight a decade ago, Zevion lay sprawled in the shade, perfectly content to do absolutely nothing.
Its thin branches cast just enough shade to make him forget the rest of the world existed.
A breeze drifted by, carrying the scent of grass, cheap instant noodles from a neighbor's window, and the faint hum of someone's old air conditioner trying to survive the heat.
His phone rested on his chest, screen black.
He'd meant to watch something — maybe a rerun, maybe a random video about physics he wouldn't understand — but halfway through buffering, he decided that staring at the leaves above him was better content.
There was no plot twist, no drama, no cliffhanger.
Just the sound of the wind brushing against time.
It was one of those rare, perfect moments — the kind that felt infinite.
No sound.
No goals.
Just gravity doing its thing while he existed in blissful inactivity.
"Man…" he muttered, eyes half-lidded.
"If reincarnation came with paid vacation days, this would be it."
He smiled faintly.
It was weird — even after being reborn into some new world, he hadn't done anything special.
No grand destiny. No chosen hero tag. Just school, food, and naps.
Frankly, it was kind of great.
The ceiling fan of his universe (the fan in his living room, which he left ON for no reason) agreed.
Everything stayed still.
Until it didn't.
A faint whistling cut through the silence — sharp, metallic, like something slicing the air.
Zevion frowned.
"...Bird?"
No bird made that kind of noise.
The sound grew louder.
Heavier.
Closer.
It wasn't wings.
It was weight.
He cracked one eye open — sunlight blinked, and a glint of metal tore through the sky.
"What the—"
Something slammed into the dirt inches from his head with a thunk, throwing a spray of dust straight into his face.
Zevion sat up, coughing, waving his hand.
"Okay— okay, who's dropping meteorites in my nap zone?"
When the air cleared, he froze.
Right there, half-buried in the dirt, was a Beyblade.
Perfectly intact. Still spinning.
Not just spinning — alive.
The air shimmered around it, heat bending space, making it flinch away.
It wasn't bursting.
It wasn't slowing down.
It was thrumming — a steady pulse that felt eerily like a heartbeat.
Zevion blinked once.
Twice.
He stared.
It kept spinning.
"...You've gotta be kidding me."
No one answered.
The Bey wobbled, steadied itself, then released a faint ring of reddish-black light that circled it like a halo.
"Okay," Zevion muttered, rubbing his temple.
"Either I'm hallucinating from too much sun, or the universe just sent me an invoice for my plot armor."
The Bey stopped.
Dead silent.
Then — click.
A faint lock disengaged.
He leaned closer, curiosity outweighing common sense.
The emblem at its center glowed.
Once.
A small gust rippled outward, making the grass sway in a perfect circle.
And then, deep in the back of his mind, he heard it.
Not a voice.
Not exactly.
A hum — soft, vibrating, ancient.
Something that sounded less like sound and more like meaning.
It wasn't human.
It wasn't sane either.
But it was pleased.
Almost laughing.
Zevion sat back slowly, his expression flat.
He looked at the Bey, then at the sky, then back again.
"...This is exactly how horror movies start," he said calmly.
Silence.
No lightning strike.
No anime power-up sequence.
Just one confused reincarnator and a Beyblade that had just violated a few laws of aerodynamics.
After a long pause, he sighed.
"Fine. Whatever. I've watched Ben 10 — no way I'm ignoring something that literally fell from outer space."
He reached out — cautiously, because self-preservation still existed somewhere in him — and brushed his fingers against the Bey's metal rim.
The world tilted.
A flash of blue.
A surge of pressure.
Something vast and infinite crashed into his chest — not pain, but a connection.
It was as if his soul had been plugged into something bigger — ancient, limitless, and watching him back.
He gasped.
Suddenly, he wasn't in his backyard anymore.
He was falling through clouds, through light, through a storm of sound.
A fragmented voice whispered something ancient and unreadable.
And then a symbol burned itself into his thoughts:
∞
Infinity.
Apeiron Sof.
And then — silence.
He snapped back with a violent inhale.
The Bey lay still, warm against his palm.
"...Ugh," he groaned.
"Too much info. My brain's buffering in reality."
It honestly felt like someone had tried to upload an entire Wikipedia page into a human skull that didn't have the RAM for it, as he was too dumb for it.
He sat there, blinking at the Bey, half expecting it to explode or start singing.
No more glowing, no more whispers.
Just a Beyblade — ordinary, impossible, and somehow his.
Because his fingers wouldn't let go.
He tried — once, twice — but it clung to his palm like it had decided he was now property.
With a long exhale of defeat, he muttered,
"So… Apeiron Sof, huh?"
The name echoed in his head.
According to whatever cosmic nonsense had just force-fed him that knowledge, the Bey was connected to forgotten gods, infinity, creation, and destruction.
In short —
"Basically, the final-boss Beyblade — the kind that either ends the world or enslaves it for eternity."
He stared at it blankly.
"Yup. Totally normal. Just what every lazy guy needs — an apocalyptic toy."
Still… there was something oddly calm about it.
Unlike cursed relics in every anime ever, this one didn't feel malicious.
It felt… patient.
Obedient.
Like a beast sitting quietly, waiting for his command.
Zevion smirked faintly.
"...You know what? Screw it. I wanna try Beyblading."
He looked around — his backyard still smoking slightly where it landed.
"I mean, it did nearly kill me. The least it can do is make up for it."
He got up, brushed off the dirt, and went inside to grab his old, half-broken launcher from the shelf.
A relic from when he was 5 years old.
He slung a small bag over his shoulder, glancing toward the mountains in the distance.
"Alright, Apeiron Sof," he murmured, holding it up to the light.
"Let's see what you've got."
The Bey shimmered faintly in his hand, a quiet hum thrumming beneath his skin.
Bits of knowledge swirled in his mind — fragments of what it could do:
Self-repair and evolution.
Transformation modes.
Soul-link binding. (Meaning it would return to him no matter what — and only he could wield it.)
Endless adaptation.
And a few others, but those were the main ones.
Basically, a weapon made for someone who didn't believe in friendship, teamwork, or the power of love speeches.
Zevion's lips quirked into a smirk.
"Yeah," he said under his breath, eyes glinting faintly.
"This one's definitely mine."
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