A memory.
Not from this life… from my previous one.
Fun fact: I had other friends besides Ken.
They all died before me.
Most were killed on a job… others?
By my own hands.
But this memory was one of the more… pleasant ones.
There was a party, celebrating a job completed without casualties… and a birthday.
Satoru, the celebrant and an "older brother," stood beside me on a balcony while the party raged behind us. Music thumped, drinks sloshed, people screamed in joy — everything you'd expect from mercenaries pretending they weren't all one bad decision away from dying.
Satoru was the kind of friend who was all fun and jokes… until he got drunk.
Then he became a philosopher with emotional damage.
We were probably the drunkest people there.
"Tensei… quit this mercenary business," he said suddenly, staring at the horizon.
At the time, the sentence kinda pissed me off, so I snapped back:
"Why? You jealous cuz I'm better than you?"
His reaction shocked me.
Instead of yelling, or slapping me with a beer bottle like usual, he just smiled.
"A lot of people in this business are empty inside. Me, Himiko, Goki… all of us. We're more empty than we let on. But maybe it's because you're the youngest."
He turned to me with a tired smile — the kind that hid more years of blood than I had lived.
"You still have a heart. Before you lose it… quit killing, Tensei."
He left back into the party.
"You still have a heart, huh?" I scoffed. "Yeah, right."
One job later, I found Satoru's mangled body. Pale, bloody, full of bullet holes, neck sliced and twisted beyond recognition.
"Tensei… quit this mercenary business."
Mercenaries don't expect long lives. We don't expect our friends to have them either, so we don't mourn.
But…
"You still have a heart."
I broke down crying that day.
And the day I killed Goki and Himiko — former comrades turned enemies. Ended up on opposite sides of a war.
Nobody backed down so… we fought.
They shot at me. They missed.
I shot back.
I didn't.
I drank that night with the army.
I still cried.
"You still have a heart."
My eyes opened.
Ceiling.
Staring contest.
Round seventy-four.
"I hate mornings. And now I hate magical mornings even more," I groaned into the pillow.
Today was the entrance exam.
I met Mawata halfway down the street. She waved like an excited puppy.
"So… ready for the exams?" she asked.
"When should you ever be ready for seventy-foot-tall, probably-murderous golems?"
She giggled.
I ignored the way my heart thumped dangerously.
"Well, I'm faster than any golem, so I'll be fine," she said, spinning on her heel.
"I'm more worried about you."
"Huh? Why?" I stopped walking so I wouldn't crash into her — again.
"You're taking the exam POWERLESS. Are you going to be okay?"
"Oh, yeah. I'm strong enough physically. Should be fine."
She hummed, then started walking again.
To avoid awkward silence — and because I hate my brain — I asked:
"So school's soon, huh?"
"Mm-hmm! A few months," she said cheerfully.
"You nervous?"
"…I've had worse experiences."
She raised a brow.
"Like?"
"I went to a school. Not attended… visited for five minutes"
"That doesn't sound bad."
"That school ended with three explosions, a hostage situation, and the cafeteria catching fire."
She stared at me.
"…how are you alive?"
"Draft luck."
She laughed on reflex, then stopped.
"Wait. You're serious?"
"…Yes."
She blinked at me like I was a walking lawsuit.
Then she poked my arm.
I poked her back.
She dodged.
I poked air.
She laughed.
I wanted to die.
Or maybe that was the crush.
We reached the entrance.
I stopped.
The place was enormous — courtyards the size of cities, floating platforms, exam towers reaching the clouds.
It definitely violated every safety regulation ever invented.
Mawata?
Her jaw dropped so far it nearly hit the pavement.
"HOLY—TEN—TEN—TEN—LOOK AT THAT—"
Before I could blink, she vanished.
Wind pressure slapped my face.
She zoomed across the front grounds like a sugared-up gremlin — up stairs, down stairs, through the doors, off balconies, around statues, through a fountain, and—
Pop.
She reappeared beside me, panting.
"Tensei. They have seven dessert counters. SEVEN. I counted.
There's a training arena bigger than my house.
I saw a kid FLYING. Like ACTUAL AIR.
And someone had a tail—"
I stared at her.
"Are you done?"
"No. I need five more hours."
She vanished again.
Then—
"TENSEI—THE CAFETERIA HAS—"
I reached out blindly and grabbed her collar mid-zoom.
She froze mid-air like a cat caught stealing chicken.
"No. Exam room. Now."
She kicked her legs while I dragged her like a disobedient hamster.
"TEN—LOOK—A ROBOT JANITOR—"
"Nope."
"Someone just phased through a wall—"
"Nope."
"Wait—IS THAT THE—"
"No."
The building was full of students glowing, floating, steaming, electrified, on fire, or generating sparkles for no reason.
Mawata whispered, "This place is insane…"
Honestly?
After reincarnation, superpowers, and breaking a billion-dollar machine at age four?
This was Tuesday.
We got seats next to each other for the written exam.
The exam itself? Boring.
Half the questions were normal.
The other half felt like apocalypse trivia.
("How many Class B golems does it take to flatten a small city?" — Why is this knowledge needed?)
And some were… just… no.
("What is the average body count for a sixteen year old?" Why?)
I finished first.
Mawata panicked over a question.
"Tensei… is number twelve C or B?"
I didn't even look.
"C."
It was B.
I regret everything.
After submitting, I bumped into a guy…
And accidentally snapped his wrist.
"FUCKING HELL BRO—"
"Sorry."
He popped the joint back into place using brute force alone.
"That was pretty good," he said, grinning.
He extended his hand — the broken one.
I shook it gently.
Still broken. No regeneration.
"Eiji Tomura. Nice to meet ya."
"Tensei Kurosaki."
He jogged away, waving.
"…Did I make a friend? Or break one?"
Mawata appeared behind me and whacked me in the back of the head at 20km/h.
Face-first into the ground.
And somehow, I didn't have a concussion.
"Asshole," I muttered while she smiled innocently.
We headed toward the golem fields.
Before we passed a screen showing the field.
A golem is being tested—lifting a boulder, slamming the ground, and one was… dancing the cha-cha slide?
Mawata's eyes sparkle.
My soul exits my body.
And for some reason, a voice in my head yelled "WE RIDE TO OUR DEATH, MEN"
I couldn't help but agree.
Noticing a silence settled between both of us, I decided to speak up.
"Think you passed?" I asked.
"Maybe!" she said with a grin.
"You definitely passed."
"And you?"
"I suffered."
She giggled.
My heart thumped.
Love is a disease.
A proctor's voice boomed:
"Written exam concluded. Practical evaluation begins in twenty minutes."
Mawata clapped her hands.
"Time to outrun giant murder robots!"
"Time to survive without powers," I muttered.
SCHWWWWWWWWOOOOOM.
She took off running.
Dragging me.
At a "reasonable" fraction of the speed of sound.
Pretty sure my soul left my body.
Pretty sure I tasted colors.
Pretty sure my stomach teleported to another dimension.
She stopped.
I dropped to my knees and nearly died.
She patted my back.
"Sorry! I keep forgetting you're not built like me."
She smiled.
I fell more in love.
And immediately regretted it.