Disclaimer; I have no affiliation with the original creators and this work is not intended to be a replacement for or infringe on their work. It is purely a creative endeavour inspired by the original work.
~~~
I have no idea how it happened, and I don't really feel like questioning it in fear of what I might find, but it seems like I became reborn as a fantasy character that was the talk of the internet around the time of my death. Funny thing is that I am now Death, straight up. Specifically, Lobo, the Death Wolf of the Dreamwork's universe. The one that is a grim reaper with the physical form of a humanoid wolf.
Let's take this back a few minutes, I had just woke up in my new body, and jumped up from the ground with a panicked leap, one I did without even realising that I was doing, and way too late to be jumping out of the way of danger when said danger had already crush my previous body.
Yep, Truck-sama had run me down. I, thankfully didn't have to wait years for rebirth in a pure black or white space without a physical form. That type of loneliness would make anyone crazy no matter what all the reincarnation novels I had read in my past life told me.
But still the sudden change from seeing a truck speeding towards you while you walked along the sidewalk to then a completely different scene was mentally shocking but I strangely found myself calm and thinking rational about everything. I don't know if that's just because I realised the situation I was in quickly and that it was a big fan of reborn novel and so thought about this a lot or because of the new brain and body my soul had been shoved into.
Lobo seemed like a really calculating person after all, and I was now technically him. Well, after getting over my sudden death and coming to terms with becoming Death, pun intended, I just need to plan what I do from here.
Probably the best thing to do is find out exactly what I can do now that I am a grim reaper, death it's self. I get the feeling that they only scratched the surface of his abilities in the movies, especially when he was meant to be the being that governed life and death in this world.
I'm about to pull out my weapons from beneath my cloak when I feel a subtle pressure on my mind, it would be hard to explain since it seems to be coming from a sixth scene I now had, but if I had to, it would be like if I got a notification and my smart watch vibrated to tell me.
Following that instinct, and reacting instinctively I felt by body collapse into shadows and I was able to race through the dark, through what I'll call the shadow realm to where my feeling was telling me to go.
Leaving through a shadow, which appears to be gate ways to the shadow realm, I found myself in a small cottage where an old man was laying in bed, his breathing slowing every moment. He was close to death, a natural one, one I felt wasn't a bad way to pass. I felt it was the way it was meant to be and when a life apposed that I get the feeling that I would be very annoyed. Which is probably how Lobo felt in the film, since Puss had escaped Death too many times, going against order and claiming that he also laughed in my face each time, thinking he could escape from me.
I should stop thinking about it as I'm actually beginning to get annoyed. Instead I focused on the old man once again. He finally let out his last breath and with it a small ball of light, with smoke trails, rose up from his chest. By instinct or muscle memory I grabbed the ball of light, that I'm going to assume is the old man's soul, and when I held it up to my eye I felt like I was looking through a looking glass, seeing parts of the old mans life. It seems he was a carpenter, a skilled one at that, when I looked closer I felt myself get sucked into the memory, so I was now not just seeing it from the outside but from his own point of view.
At the same time I was also still standing in the old mans house, I was experiencing two perspectives at the same time, both felt real, but only in the real world could I control my actions. Which made sense since I was just living out a memory.
In the real world I pulled the away soul away from my eye and with it that part of my mind returned to my own body, and from that experience I had the feeling that this man had good 'karma', if that's what my feeling was judging him as and trying to tell me.
"What do I do now? I wish there was a manual for this grim reaper business. Hah~" I let out a sigh, instinct and muscle memory was only getting me so far. And I really didn't feel like being responsible for the cycle of life and death.
I spent a couple minutes like that, just standing there, looking down at the soul in my hand and thinking what I could do to get help. When I suddenly got an idea, I was now a wolf, and how do wolves call for help?
Walking outside and staring out at the stars I took a deep breath before letting out a loud and powerful howl that spend far across the lands, with it my very presence stilled the world around me, like it was watching and waiting to see what I would do like a scare animal.
Seconds later, out of a trees shadow, a dark figure stepped out, "Brother! Are you alright? I heard your call." It was another wolf like himself, with brown fur and red eyes just like mine, across his back was a spear. And he was wearing a cloak just like his as well, another death.
"Brother, I think something happened to me, I'm having trouble remembering certain things." I said to the brown wolf man across from me who was now staring at me slack jawed while I just held a soul in my hand.
...
Once I convinced the brown wolf, who I found out was my younger brother, one of them at least, that I had lost some memories he took me to a house within the shadow realm. Well, not a house, an old castle on a floating rock really, it looked like someone plucked it from the real world and dragged it into the shadow realm.
Pablo, was another death, just like Lobo, like me I mean. And he had taken us to the House of Death, our family home, where he showed me to the family library where there was only one book that stood out, set on a pedestal in the centre, "What's this then?" I asked while juggling the soul in my hand up and down, making my brothers eyes go wide in shock.
"Bro! Don't do that!" He yelled before grabbing the soul from my hand and holding it gently to his chest right before he gulped into down.
I was not expecting that, but then again wolves did hunt and eat their prey so it made sense.
"You shouldn't play with your food! If Maria saw you doing that she'd pluck your tail clean." Pablo said before turning back to the book, "This is the family grimoire, it has all the skills and knowledge necessary to act as a Death. Our ancestor, the original Death, wrote it once he retired, I think he went to a world that was his favourite went he went traveling when he was only a few thousand years old." Pablo explained while scratching his chin in thought.
"Anyway, refresh yourself with this. Whatever happened to you to lose some memories it likely temporary anyway. I'll see you around bro." Pablo waved goodbye before walking away in a hurry.
...
After reading through the Death family grimoire, I had learnt I now have quite the line up of abilities. Besides the 'basic' supernatural levels of strength, endurance, durability, speed, agility, and reflexes I am also able to become invisible, and make and control fire. Along with the shadow travel I discovered on my own before, which extends to shadow manipulation as well as per the pages in front of me.
Besides the fact that I can't ever truly be killed as Death, I can't be trapped or escaped from either, speaking to the very fundamentals of my existence as Death. And as Death I hunt those about to die and let their soul pass on to the next realm, eating the souls apparently does that and also empowers me at the same time. Something to do with the spirit and souls form being separated in my stomach, so the spirit passes on and the souls shell gets left behind for me to consume.
As a part of this my instincts and senses are on another level, I can literally smell fear, and tell when someone is about to die amongst other things that help me hunt.
Now all I have to do is practise it all, hopefully my muscle memory guides me through it.
...
It's been 2 months and all I can say is that the human mind is truly great at adapting to anything. Though the new 'little brother' was definitely something to get used to. But in those 2 months I have finally gotten used to this new body and its abilities, and I just need to more experience with them in different situations, like combat and tracking, but I finally feel like I am ready for the only thing I could think about since Pablo told me about our ancestor.
The fact I can travel to other worlds, the dream of every fanfic reader, one I share as well. And so following the description in the family guide I entered the shadow realm and started picturing other worlds, which then showed me a view from a shadow in that world. Trying this again and again with multiple different world I was successfully able to do it each time.
Even to see multiple versions of the same universe, I seem to have an easier time at this as I already know of different worlds from my last life, where as my siblings just have to guess so I seems like its not an ability they use often.
So for my first world I decided to got to one most would think of when they think of reincarnation fanfics. Looking through the shadow I was able to see a dark street, in an urban neighbourhood with the street lights flickering over head down on to the cobblestone path.
"Let's do this." I said before entering the doorway to another world.
~~~
Anyone guess where Lobo went?