Steel and Mana

Chapter 1 – Death and Rebirth

My name is Leon, and currently, I am in a very long line, waiting for reincarnation… And no, I am not joking. Right now, I am floating along hundreds of others, forming a straight line on a rainbow road in the middle of the grand nothingness. I tried looking left, right, up, and down, but there was nothing but the infinite cosmos and the rainbow road under my feet. Or… well, under me, as my feet are mangled horridly, facing the wrong way… both of them. I can see the bones sticking out, but I feel no pain, and they aren't bleeding. Maybe because my head is also not where it should be? Still, it is being held by my only remaining arm, which listens to my thoughts… It's just I am at eye level with my innards hanging out of my stomach. 

"Dude… what the hell happened to you?" I hear the man behind me ask. Turning my head around, I met the eyes of a middle-aged guy with half of his face missing and his brain hanging out like some kind of jelly, constantly trembling as he moved his mouth.

"I was run over by an FMTV."

"What the hell is that?" He recoiled, almost letting the brain slip out from his skull. 

"A military truck from the past century. The damned driver was an amateur! When we were getting it out of storage, the idiot floored it, and it ran me over and blew me into pieces like some kind of pinata!"

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"Damn… but from the past century? Do you mean from the 1900s? Some kind of WWI-era shit?"

"Eh?" I chuckled, "From the 2000s!"

"That isn't past century! It's 2004! Dude, you got rocked in the head by that truck harder than it looks!"

"What 2004? It's 2144! I think you have some brain damage, mixing up the numbers of the calendar!"

"Fuck you; you mangled cheese tart!" He shouted, holding one hand against his brain, ensuring it stayed there. 

"And what happened to you?" I chortled, "Looked into the barrel of a gun?" 

"It wasn't discharging!" 

"Bwahahaha! Fucking idiot!" I burst out laughing, making some of the others turn towards us, joining in on the fun too.

"Fuck you!" He blew out from his nose, hitting me, and my already badly bent remaining arm slipped, and I dropped my head.

I saw it falling to the deep nothingness, seeing the road grow smaller and smaller, hearing the guy say it wasn't his fault… Idiot. Not that it matters. I died, and probably these are my last hallucinations before passing. My mind's manifestation was probably displaying the idiot who rode through me with that monster of a truck in this way… just when I was starting to get my life into order! Typical me moment! I got myself a degree in Robotics of Past and Present, and finally, I could afford a gene enhancement from the money I made from being hired by the military. Bye-bye, memorizing all the books, trying to learn them! I could simply use my brain like a search engine, recalling everything I have ever read… and they say you can't pay to win in real life! I was even courting a cute girl; everything was too good to be true… haaah…

"Error. Contamination on the Cosmic Reincarnation System." A voice said, coming from every direction. Great… now my severed head has become nothing more but contamination! You know what? Fuck you too! "Beginning cleaning process."

Even if I wanted, I couldn't scream as an otherworldly force washed me over and made my head disappear, leaving me with only my brain there, continuing to fall downwards. I don't know how I remained conscious, but I still saw, heard, and smelled everything.

"Error. Contamination is passing through the Realm's border. Abandoning process, initiating emergency reincarnation. Spatial coordinates found. Commencing transfer."

Huh? I wanted to ask something, but with a poof, everything was gone and turned extremely dark. Was my brain finally destroyed, too? Or… no… I was still here. W-wait… I hear something. Sloshing? Muffled voices?

"...!" I managed to open my eyes, and I saw tiny hands before me… floating in some fluid in the dark… while I also saw an umbilical cord attached to my body. Shiiiiit… Am I an embryo?! Wait… the fact I can open my eyes and look at the shape of my body… My… baby body? What the hell? Am I being reborn? Did my brain get dropped into an unborn child? Was it empty? Or did I squash the previous occupant? Damn it! I need answers!

Maybe it was my trashing that made it happen, but I suddenly found myself getting pushed out… getting born. I wanted to curse, but I couldn't… I was simply hoping that if all this was real, I was not too early…