Whiteness. Absolute, sterile, cutting in its flawlessness.
The soul — a pulsing, semi-transparent clot of energy — drifted smoothly down onto a surface resembling polished marble.
In the center of this gleaming void stood a massive white desk, and behind it sat a man. His appearance resonated with the surroundings: an impeccably tailored light suit, perfectly styled ash-grey hair, aristocratically fine features. He gave the impression of a higher being forced to serve out an endless, humiliating sentence. In his slender fingers he held a porcelain cup, savoring dark, thick coffee.
Finishing his sip, he set the cup down on the saucer. The sharp clink of porcelain echoed through the office, shattering the ringing silence. His gaze, devoid of even a drop of sympathy or interest, slowly focused on the spectral figure. In those eyes, there was only a heavy, centuries-old contempt for another's existence.
"Well?" His voice came out velvety, but every vowel oozed with undisguised sarcasm. "Did you spend your allotted time with due interest? Did you enjoy the gift of being to the fullest? Manage to leave a great, monumental legacy for your descendants? Or, perhaps, change the course of history?"
His words dripped with open mockery, aimed precisely at its target. Yet the soul ignored the verbal jab. The energy clot shifted smoothly to the side, carefully studying the texture of the desk and the motes of light floating in the air, before redirecting a direct, calm focus onto the official himself. Within the spectral form, a silent but perfectly clear informational impulse began to concentrate.
The man rolled his eyes in irritation and gave a disdainful twitch of his cheek. He read these primitive mental vibrations without the slightest effort.
"Yes and no," he replied, preempting the not-yet-voiced question. "And what difference does it make, really — whether this is reality or a dying hallucination of your fading consciousness? You are here. At this very point. The rest has already lost all meaning. Accept this fact and stop wasting my time on pointless philosophical agonizing."
He smoothly passed his palm over the surface of the desk. Right out of the solid marble emerged a slender, gleaming folder of documents. The man opened it with his fingertips, as if touching something filthy, ran a lazy glance over lines legible only to him, and shut the folder with a loud clap.
"Though exceedingly rarely, defective specimens like you do still manage to crawl to my threshold," he twisted his lips into the semblance of a smile, leaning back in his chair. "And, to my greatest regret, according to the immutable law of the universe, we are obliged to render you support. A tedious, utterly unjustifiable waste of valuable resources."
The soul held a pause. Within its essence, a new impulse began to form. A charge of dense, heavy energy containing a question that had run like a red thread through the entirety of this being's existence in its past incarnation. In moments of dismissal, in minutes of crushing loneliness, under the indifferent gazes of passersby, in seconds of absolute indifference toward its own fate. A ripple passed over the entire spectral surface, and the question at last took shape, bursting outward as a single vibration:
Why me?
Hearing this, the man sighed heavily. His gaze grew sharp, piercing to the very core of the energy clot.
"Because you have worn yourself out," he cut off, dryly and mercilessly. "And however absurd this may sound to your human ego, I am speaking precisely of the being floating before me now. I am speaking of your soul."
He interlaced his fingers, resting his hands on the desk, and his tone acquired the lecturing, monotonous notes of a being forced to chew over elementary truths.
"The great cycle of reincarnation is vast. Majestic. Staggering in its scope. Yet it is not infinite. Any eternal soul — even the most resilient, tempered in thousands of lives — is subject to banal corrosion. The transition from body to body, from one era to another, from tragedy to triumph — all of it wears down the original potential. Material fatigue sets in. Friction against the fabric of reality inevitably leaves its scars."
The soul entered a state of absolute concentration, absorbing every word. The vibrations ceased, solidifying into monolithic attention. This information was the key that explained absolutely everything.
"To put it simply," the man exhaled again, clearly obeying some internal oath obligating him to explain the rules of this place, "your reserve is drained to the very bottom. Your essence has faded. It is this spiritual corrosion that directly influenced your last life, completely bypassing the basic principles of karma and cause-and-effect. Your pathological apathy, your greyness, your absolute inability to feel vivid joy or searing anger — all of it is a consequence of your foundational core's depletion. You became an empty shell long before that truck hit you."
He raised his hand and, with an elegant gesture, pointed somewhere behind the soul — to where, beyond the confines of this white office, the gigantic wormhole raged.
"Most often, those like you simply lose themselves entirely. Dissolve. Surrender willingly under the weight of their own powerlessness and disappear completely into the void of the 'Purifier' you had the pleasure of observing outside. They undergo a process of total defragmentation, transforming into the primordial broth for molding new, fresh souls. This is the natural, proper order of things."
The man leaned forward, his eyes narrowing.
"As for those few — those exceptional singularities — who manage to find some vestige of stubbornness within themselves and crawl to this place... they receive the opportunity of choice. A final life. A sort of goodwill gesture from the universe."
From the desktop, right in front of the official, materialized a smooth sheet of dense parchment, shimmering with golden luminescence. It glided smoothly across the polished marble surface and stopped precisely before the hovering soul.
"The Contract of the Last Chance," the man pronounced in the tone of a weary tour guide. "The essence is extremely simple and concise. You receive a new physical vessel and are transferred to a new world. This is your final trial. If you can overcome your internal corrosion, find a purpose, reignite the extinguished spark — you may earn the right to further individual existence. If you return to your dreary, passive escapism, if you continue to drift with the current — you will face definitive, absolute erasure from the fabric of being at the end of the term. No right of appeal. No chance of pardon."
The soul focused on the document. The symbols engraved upon the parchment seemed unfamiliar, but the moment a stream of attention was directed at them, they began to rearrange themselves, taking on clear meaning directly within the mind. Strict formulations, harsh conditions, an absence of loopholes. And at the very bottom gaped an empty, invitingly shimmering field. A form for inputting the desire. The so-called "cheat."
"The universe mercifully compensates for your dilapidation," the official added, reaching again for his cup of cooling coffee. "You may choose any ability, any tool, any form of power you deem necessary for survival in the new conditions. Fill it out and get out. My time costs the universe far too much to squander it on watching your deliberations."
The soul hovered over the shimmering parchment. Its computational process launched at maximum capacity.
What to choose? Boundless magical potential? Pointless — magic demands a passion for knowledge and discipline, which this depleted essence simply did not have. Divine physical strength? Raw power without any... consequences. Absolute authority or incalculable wealth? Too much fuss, intrigue, and unnecessary movement. All of it required energy — energy she did not possess.
And at some point, she stopped short and thought. It wasn't abilities she lacked. It wasn't power. Throughout her entire past life, she had done precisely what she herself decided. And it was precisely her choice — or rather, her refusal to choose — that had led her to all of this. The problem was not the world. The problem was within herself. And she made her decision.
Memories, carefully preserved in the archives of her consciousness, supplied the needed image. The perfect archetype, embodying everything this depleted essence had been deprived of. Absolute, unshakable self-confidence. Crushing power, capable of destroying others' divine gifts with bare hands and tearing the very fabric of the supernatural. Audacity bordering on magnificent madness.
Her spectral hand reached for the form. She did not know how she would write, but the desire was so intense that a dark pigment, resembling ink, began to concentrate at her fingertips. She began to describe her wish. At first it was just words: "strength," "speed," "endurance." But then the description grew more and more detailed. "The ability to analyze and destroy supernatural phenomena," "a body that knows no fatigue," "reaction that outpaces thought." And at some point, it became clear that she was not describing an abstract ability. She was describing a character.
Sakamaki Izayoi.
Having finished formulating the request, the soul smoothly withdrew. The parchment flared with an even light and slid back across the desk, directly into the hands of the official.
The man lazily lowered his eyes to the filled-in lines. For a second his face remained impassive, but then his eyebrows rose slightly, and an openly mocking, malicious smirk played across his lips.
"Well, well..." he drawled, weighing the concept on his tongue as though tasting cheap wine.
He held a perfect dramatic pause. His eyes narrowed to icy slits.
"Very well. Live your life with dignity. But remember," he raised his weary eyes to her, not a drop of sympathy in them, "that trash forever remains trash."
A sharp, biting snap of his fingers spread through the marble office in deafening echoes.
The white space around them exploded in a blinding, all-consuming flash. Light struck from every direction, erasing the boundaries of the office, the figure of the official, and reality itself, swallowing the spectral figure without a trace. The transfer process had begun.
The man remained alone in the silence of his white office. He glanced at the sheet in his hand, smirked once more, then opened the drawer again. The gigantic filing system soared upward. He found the needed cell, and the sheet the soul had just held went to its place. The title of the section in which it now rested glowed for a moment, and the old, forgotten name of the main character was replaced by a new one.
Izayoi Jin.