Born as the son of a ronin, Izumo was a youngster lucky enough to look back on his childhood years with fondness. He grew up at the edge of a peaceful city, made friends, and spent time with his loving family. However, all of this wouldn't have happened without the boy's sacrifice. He had promised his father that he would gain the favor of the new daimyo and earn a new name for his family, and he was doing everything in his power to stick to his goals.
Shortly after his father lost his title as a samurai, his family was in a tough spot. It was thanks to Izumo putting in the work that they hadn't given up. He trained hard for his father's goals and to keep the family together.
Everything went smoothly until, one day during his teens, Izumo fell to his knees, holding his head in his palms as cold sweat ran all over his body. The reason was one nobody would understand, so when his father asked if he was feeling unwell, he just smiled, picked up his bokken, and continued training.
That evening, after laying the heavy futon, Izumo pondered what had happened.
"I guess I've died yet again…"
The young man, who by all mean should have died in a mercenary camp in Rema, was now in another country, wearing a different, yet similar face.
He had trouble falling asleep, so he lay there, eyes wide open, looking at the ceiling, for he had remembered once more. He was the one anomaly the world could not get rid of.
"Do you know what to do after you play with the rules of the world? No, do you know what to do when the rules of the world play with you?" the boy asked as if somebody was around to listen.
"You try your best not to go crazy," was the only answer he could come up with after another failure.
That's all he could say to himself. After all, that's all he understood of his current situation. He had lived life many times—so many that he could not remember where it all started. Yet even now, he did not understand why he could never live them freely.
Repeated deaths were all that awaited him. When a life was cut short, another one would start somewhere else. Time and space didn't matter; he would just be born as another human, completely unrelated to his past life. At a random moment, memories would start resurfacing, but never fully.
The only pattern he found was that no death ever happened before his memories awakened. The closest he had ever gotten to dying in ignorance was when he became a renowned assassin in the Kingdom of Kron. But even then, he awakened right before an unknown force took his life, just moments before the sword of the enemy would have.
He had a lot to think about, but his mind felt tired from all the new information.
His goal was once again clear. He wanted to somehow find out what was causing this cycle and stop it, but he long understood that such an investigation took time and required a starting point.
For now, it seems that becoming a samurai took priority.
*****
After a well-deserved rest, Izumo woke up and confirmed his memories. The moments of awakening were often unstable; hence, his personality was all over the place in his past life as Leo. He couldn't figure out what the triggers of awakening were, but an immensely shocking event sometimes served as the catalyst. Those were the times when the retention of memories was most unreliable.
The advantage of awakening in a peaceful environment, such as now, was that there would be no major shock to jumble his memories. As such, Izumo now had a good grasp on his situation.
The boy didn't waste any and got back to his daily tasks. He kept training and helping around the village, making sure that he was liked by everyone while waiting for his next chance to get favor with the daimyo—the ruler of a small city and province in the country of Tsukide, called Harubana. Conveniently, as the son of a respected advisor of the old daimyo, the boy had already caught the eye of the ruler.
Izumo's life could be considered peaceful by many. He was a young man at the age of 16, well trained in the art of the sword and bow, but lacking in the area of wind magic, which was the natural affinity of the people living here. Or at least that was true until yesterday.
What was I thinking when I said I could rise to the title of samurai with such weak magic? Ah, and how am I going to explain to everyone that I've suddenly become good at it?
As magic in this world was highly dependent on understanding the energy around you, knowledge from prior lives was a huge advantage that Izumo possessed. As a matter of fact, this was not the first time he had lived in Tsukide, so his ability with wind magic was already well polished.
On the other hand, the limit of his memories was the limit of his powers. As he would not be able to remember every past life, he always had a lot of dormant potential. Not even he could say he knew his true strength.
First thing in the morning, he went for a walk. Using his past experience, he was able to roughly guess where he was now.
"The place is good, but the time… It was naive of me to think that I could go looking for her."
The awakenings would not care for place or time, social level, or quality of life. So, while Tsukide was close to Rema, he was living in a period approximately 200 years before the events he had "just" been through. He knew having two lives so close to one another both in time and space was nearly impossible, but a slight hope that he could do something for the girl he had lost "just yesterday" was still lingering in his heart. After so many failed lives, the one spent with Giulia was a breath of fresh air that he was not ready to let go of.
Still, he had learned of a solution to get rid of this painful feeling. After getting to a place with no people around, he guided the wind as if to grab on to it and lifted himself into the air. One of his favorite pastimes was flying while admiring the diverse places he lived in. Traveling around the worlds was one of the few advantages of his curse that he admitted.
High above the sloped roofs of the wooden houses, Izumo flew from one side to the other of the city, admiring the design choices and the everyday life of the locals. The city was situated in a wide meadow between the mountains, having a river split it right down the middle. On every side of the river, he saw people taking their lunch naps before they would go back to work—a common practice all over Tsukide.
He spent some time speeding from one place to another and then took a good look at the mountains surrounding him from above the central market. All this while overlooking one small detail: free flight in Tsukide was forbidden by law.
It was not long until somebody reported him to the guards, and the next thing he knew, Izumo had gusts of wind thrown his way to destabilize him.
By the time he understood his mistake, acting just like the young man that he was, he panicked and tried to run away. Fortunately, his control of the wind currents was far superior to your average citizen of Harubana, so he got away quickly.
Waiting for the police to give up on searching for him, Izumo found himself a nice tree on a nearby mountain. After a couple of hours, he decided it was safe to return to the city. He got off the branch he was sitting on and called the wind to catch his falling body. But, as luck would have it, even the best mages sometimes make mistakes.
Izumo miscalculated and, without knowing how, sent himself flying towards the city. Seeing the fast-approaching ground, he asked himself if this was the way he would once again leave Tsukide. He was not looking forward to the immediate impact; his last death had been pretty painless, but this one was going to leave a lasting impression in his memory.
Besides that, who would want to become a local legend by smashing themselves into the hard ground? He had his honor to protect.
Luckily, at the last moment, he managed to conjure enough currents to cushion his fall, so the fatal incident transformed into one that would only be felt for the next two days.
Proud that he was able to save himself, Izumo stood up and looked around. Nobody seemed to have seen his both awesome and cringeworthy spectacle.
Or at least that's what he thought.
From a nearby home rushed out a group of curious teenagers around his age.
"Izumo?"
What do you know? They were his friends.