Chapter 5: The Whole Armada Empire is in Flames! {Johan/Abellion's Flashback} (5)
"Well, it's time to tell my story I guess. Here we go, another scene will be shifted again, so be ready readers, because this will be kind of long, the same as the original's flashback."
"Also see you again, Goodbye."
Abellion waved his hand again. The world of the grand coliseum, the roar of the crowd, and the tragic fate of the original villain shimmered and dissolved. The narrative spotlight now turned fully to the man who would take his place—Johan Dietrich, the late mafia underboss.
---
The world didn't come back with a bang, but with a throbbing, relentless ache. Johan's last conscious memory was the muffled thwack of a silenced pistol and the sickening warmth spreading across his chest—a classic mafia execution. When he opened his eyes, the smell of cheap disinfectant, stale sweat, and old wood assaulted his senses. He wasn't in a hospital or a morgue; he was on a rough, scratchy cot in a cramped room with several other beds.
The throbbing pain came from the side of his head. Before he could even assess his surroundings or remember his decades of experience as a criminal strategist, a brute force sensation took over.
The scene shifted where Johan waked up somewhere in a room where he was getting punch by a big kid. The assailant was huge, a mountain of adolescent bulk, probably fifteen years old, towering over the small body Johan was now trapped in. The big kid was red-faced, angry, and spitting mad.
"Now, you will listen to me hah?! You really have the guts to not obey me, remember I am the strongest of this orphanage you fucking bastard." The punch connected, sending a jolt of shock and surprisingly intense pain through Johan's smaller skull.
For Johan, time fractured. His last life's training, the instinct honed by two decades of surviving gang wars and power struggles, took over instantly. He didn't think like a child; he thought like a cornered beast. The body might be weak, but the mind was a razor.
Before the big kid land another punch Johan stop his hand. It was a lightning-fast, precise grip, targeting the exact joint of the wrist. He used the big kid's own momentum against him, twisting the wrist in a sickening, subtle maneuver that bypassed brute strength entirely.
"OW OWW OWWWWWW," the big kid shrieked, instantly reducing from a bully to a whiny child. The big kid look on the small kid in shock because he's bending his hand which is impossible because he is just a weak kid. In the orphanage hierarchy, the original Abellion was meek, silent, and near the bottom. This sudden, precise counter-attack was impossible.
Johan didn't hesitate. He pulled the bully's arm down and around his neck, applying pressure with the cold, professional efficiency he'd used countless times in the back alleys of his past life. Then Johan choke the big kid and ask him. His voice was high-pitched and thin, but the malice in it was ancient and bone-deep.
"Where the fuck am I? Answer me you brat!!" Johan demanded, tightening the chokehold.
The big kid's eyes bulged with pure terror, realizing this was not the quiet boy he usually beat up. "I-in a orphanage sto-stop choking me you bastard, he-help help!!!!!"
Johan's hand didn't loosen. He had intended to scare the information out of the bully, but his former life's muscle memory was too dominant. He had a zero-tolerance policy for resistance and noise. He squeezed until the struggles faded. Johan didn't let go and he accidentally killed the big kid and look on his body.
Johan looked down at the lifeless body of the fifteen-year-old bully, his heart rate barely registering a change. He felt the dull, familiar flatness of a professional killer who had just completed a necessary task.
'Brat deserve that anyways,' he thought with a dry shrug. He was a survivor, and the bully was a threat that had to be neutralized. 'Where the fuck am i? I swear as far as I remember I was shot and supposed to be dead, blood?'
Johan touch his head bloodied, realizing the big kid's initial punch had opened a cut. Seems it was because of the big kid which he accidentally kill but Johan being a mafia underboss felt no remorse on doing it. Remorse was a luxury for saints, not survivors.
He needed to figure out his identity, and fast. He scanned the squalid room, his eyes sharp and calculating, quickly spotting the tool he needed.
Then he saw a broken shard of the mirror and look at it. He held the glass up to his face. What stared back was horrifyingly wrong.
"What?!"
He see himself not as a grown up but a kid, a young child that seems in mid 10's. He was a small, delicate-looking boy. But the features... they were striking, aristocratic, and terrifyingly familiar. And what's worse he felt familiar on the physical description of the child.
"Golden blond hair, purple eyes don't fucking tell me!" The description fit the character he'd spent countless hours reading about in his one guilty pleasure.
Johan hit a realization because the one he reincarnated is non other than the most fraudulent minor villain of the favorite novel he read.
"Did I become Abellion Lucius Von Nazaric?!"
Johan drop the shard of the mirror because of the shock and then laugh not a laugh of happiness but laugh of the absurdity. His body shook with bitter, rasping hilarity. All the power he had amassed, all the influence, the empire he had helped build in the criminal underworld, had been wiped away. He, the formidable underboss, was now a pathetic, doomed minor villain.
'Fucking hell of all I possessed, I fucking possessed the most fraudulent villain ever!' The irony was cosmic. He had mocked this character, written him off as weak, and now he was him.
The sound of the door latch clicking stopped his laughter instantly. His mafia instincts, always on high alert, screamed danger.
Then someone open the door and it was one of the caretaker bringing a baton to discipline those brats again. She was an older woman, hardened by years of dealing with unruly children. But when she open the door she expect the big kid bullying a kid but what she saw is the body of the dead big kid and look on the small child and realize it what happened here, she screamed.
"AAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!"
Johan looking at her realize she saw a dead body and then hurrily run infront of her and then try to choke her too. He couldn't afford to have a living witness. His entire future, his only chance at survival in this strange world, depended on this room remaining silent. But the caretaker was faster. The caretaker slap the baton to his face.
SLAP!
BAM!
The blow connected with a painful force that staggered the small body. Johan bloodied again then look on the terrified lady. The pain was a distraction, but the threat was still paramount. The caretaker, terrified and panicked, accidentally drop the heavy baton. This lapse gave Johan the split-second window he needed. He dove forward, his small hands wrapping around her throat with renewed, lethal intent. Then he choke her with intent on killing her, he couldn't afford having witnesses.
"He-help!" the caretaker tried to call for help but no one heard it, it seems. The rooms were isolated, and the noise from the other children was subdued, likely because of the big bully's presence.
"Just die already you damn hag!" Johan grunted, his small muscles straining, the bloodlust of his past life flooding his system.
Then the caretaker drop the baton and she realize her struggle is useless on the little devil infront of her and she said something before she died as a final struggle.
"You devil!"
Then she finally stop struggling and drop her hand, she finally died the declaration hit hard on Johan he killed two people on the same minute. He was not a savior; he was still a murderer, trapped in a child's body in a fantasy world.
The silence after the screams was heavy, thick, and demanding action.
Johan look at it and then said "I need to get out of here fast, before others see this!" He had no time to process the existential horror; he only had time to survive.
Johan drag the big kid's dead body first on the back of the double deck. The body was immense and cumbersome for the small frame of Abellion. He strained, breathing heavily, trying to move the dead weight quietly.
"HUFF, HUFF, HUFF."
'This fat bastard is heavy asf, I swear if he wake up I'm gonna kill him again!' The dark humor was a defense mechanism, a tool to keep the sheer reality of what he'd done at bay.
He finally managed to shove the bully's body under the bed frame. Then after putting the body he then put the second body, the caretaker, under the same bed, covering them both with a dusty old blanket.
'Finally I'm fucking done. I need to get out of here before someone find me here.'
Johan hurrily get out of the room and then he saw other caretakers approaching. His heart, for the first time, hammered wildly. They must have heard the screams.
"Did you hear that scream?" one of the caretakers, a lanky man, asked his colleague.
Another caretaker replied "Yeah it seems it came from that room." The caretaker point his finger on the direction and then he proceed to walk on the direction and tried to open the room.
He jiggled the handle. "Lock, hmm figures."
"If it's lock then the kids are pranking us again? You know how kids this days y'know?" the lanky man suggested, already bored.
"I agree," the second caretaker sighed. The orphanage staff was clearly overworked and cynical. They didn't have the energy for a manhunt based on a kid's prank. The caretaker look on the lock room and just decide to go back on the office.
"Y'know let's go back we're wasting time here."
"I agree man," the other caretaker replied.
Johan flattened himself against the wall in the shadows, waiting for them to fully disappear. After the two caretaker disappeared Johan unlock the room and sighed in relief. The adrenaline faded, leaving him trembling slightly.
He reach his pocket with his hands and get the keys that he stole on the dead lady. He had deftly snatched them during the struggle—a petty theft that had just saved his life.
"If I didn't have this they will discover it and I will be screwed."
Johan sighed and look on the keys. He saw his reflection on the polished brass.
"No matter which life I will always a killer huh?"
Johan being a mafia underboss or used to be since he reincarnated, killed so many people including innocents but it's necessary because he is a criminal not a saint. He had justified his kills in the past as protecting his crew, his territory, or his life. But here, in this small, weak body, the kills felt different—more desperate, less justifiable.
"Haah, I just hope I won't killed other people in this life. I have enough bloodshed on my hands and I still have regrets on killing others except those two who recently I killed ofc." The mafia boss felt a flicker of the human decency he had long suppressed. He didn't want the same fate. He wanted to live peacefully, far away from all the violence.
"Let's just go back to the orphanage." He needed to blend in, gather intelligence, and plan his escape.
Johan now Abellion walk through the orphanage and he saw the other kids and they were shocked that he is bloodied. They huddled together, wide-eyed, watching the small, terrifying boy walk past.
"What happen to you Abel?" a kid ask, his voice shaky, but Abellion ignored him and just continue go to the room. He couldn't talk to them. He was a monster, and he knew it. He only needed his old room.
---
Abellion finally arrived on his room as he remember when he read on the novel. It was a small, dusty space shared with other children, containing nothing but a simple calendar and a few worn toys.
"It's the same as the description of the novel."
Abellion look on the room, the design of the room is minimalistic and simple just like what it describe on the novel as far as he remember. The accuracy of the detail was chilling. This wasn't a dream; this was fate.
'Abellion, that damn brat, sighed I just hope I have time to escape the orphanage.' He needed to run before the plot began. 'Let's look on the calendar.'
Abellion look on the calendar and the start of him getting find by his parents and Yulen is tomorrow.
'Fuck! So I need to really escape tonight, fucking hell why my life is always in disaster.' His time frame was less than twelve hours. The moment the hero's family arrived, the plot would seize him, and his fate would be sealed on the track of the 'fraudulent minor villain.'
Abellion look on the mirror of his room, his head still bloodied then he use his upper shirt to wipe it and then put the bloodied shirt on the laundry basket. He needed to erase all evidence. The small body was frail, but the mind was ruthless and efficient.
'There, now I'm all good since those kids are really meek and shy they won't tell a thing about why my head is full of blood earlier.'
The silence of the orphanage was a gift, a condition cultivated by fear. 'I gotta admit I thank that fat brat because of him all the kids become meek and quiet including Abellion.'
The fat kid was the reason why Abellion was always quiet before even he when has found by his parents that it takes a year for him to open up to his parents. The original Abellion was not quiet because of tragedy; he was quiet because of trauma and constant fear.
Abellion sighed, his reflection a pale, determined face. 'I just hope I could escape tonight because if I stay here longer and was found by my own parents and that damn protagonist, I will have the same fate as the original.'
He looked again at the small, fragile face in the mirror. The original Abellion had been trapped by his weakness and his fate. He had been bullied, overshadowed, forced into a role he never wanted, and ultimately destroyed by his love and desperation. Johan, the mafia boss, understood victimhood when he saw it.
'I'm sorry on what happen to you Abellion, I'm truly sorry.' This was not a lie. Johan's empathy, buried deep under layers of criminal cynicism, surfaced for the lost soul he had usurped. He understood the boy's fear and desperation, perhaps better than anyone. He was sorry that Abellion's final rest had to come this way, violently, and without fanfare.
Johan now Abellion offer an apology as a last comfort of the original for his soul letting a final rest.
He closed his eyes, accepting the small body's memories, his own ruthless past, and the terrifying future he now faced. He was Abellion Lucius Von Nazaric, and he was absolutely.