The first thing Toru felt was pain.
Not the sharp kind, but a burning weight that spread through his body as if his very flesh was refusing to exist. His chest heaved for breath, every inhale a battle, every exhale a surrender.
He forced his eyes open.
Above him was not the familiar ceiling of a modern apartment, nor the fluorescent lights of a gym he once worked at. Instead, intricate wooden carvings stretched across the beams, and a thin curtain swayed softly as the wind carried the bitter scent of herbs into the room.
He blinked. Where was he?
"Prince Toru!"
The cry jolted him. A young girl rushed to his side, her golden hair tumbling as tears streamed down her cheeks. She clutched his hand as if it were the only thing tethering him to life.
"You're awake… thank the heavens, you're awake! I thought… I thought we had lost you."
Prince?
The word slammed into his mind, awkward and alien. He tried to speak, but his voice was little more than a rasp. "Who… are you?"
"I am Liora," the girl replied quickly, her voice trembling. "Your personal attendant. You've been unconscious for three days… the healer said if you did not wake tonight, the gods would take you away."
Three days? His head spun, not just from weakness but from something stranger. And then it came—fragments of memory, colliding and intertwining.
He saw himself shouting instructions in a gym: "Straighten your back! Breathe, push, don't slack off if you want results!" He smelled the rubber mats, the sweat of clients pushing past their limits. The rhythm of discipline, the iron taste of perseverance.
Then—another life.
A frail boy, coughing in the cold nights of a stone castle. A young prince, mocked by soldiers who whispered he would never hold a sword. The only heir to a crumbling kingdom, seen as little more than a shadow waiting to fade.
The two lives pressed against each other until he felt dizzy. And one detail tied them together.
"My… name," he whispered, voice weak but sharp with realization. "Toru. My name is Toru here… too?"
The irony of it broke into a hollow laugh. "In my old world, I helped others grow strong. And now, I've ended up in the weakest body I've ever seen."
Liora tilted her head, confused, but relief softened her face as she wiped her tears with her sleeve.
---
The door creaked open. A tall man with neatly combed black hair and a stern face entered, carrying a stack of documents. His steps echoed like the march of duty.
"Your Highness," he said with crisp formality. "It is fortunate beyond words that you are awake."
Toru recognized him immediately—not from his own memory, but from the faint recollections of the prince whose body he now inhabited. Elandor, the royal secretary. Loyal, intelligent, but rigid as stone.
"Your body is fragile by nature," Elandor continued, his voice even, though his eyes flickered with worry. "The illness nearly claimed you. Some whisper it was no illness at all, but poison. Regardless, there is urgent news. The neighboring kingdom of Veyrand grows restless. Their envoys demand our borderlands. If Dravoryen cannot demonstrate strength, they may take by force."
Toru's lip twitched. Great. Even in another world, I can't escape politics.
"Elandor," he said hoarsely but firmly, "I just clawed my way back from death. Do I look ready to discuss border disputes?"
The secretary's eyes narrowed slightly. The prince's usual replies were soft, passive, almost pitiful. But this… this voice had an edge to it.
"I will recover," Toru added, his gaze steady. "And when I do, things will change."
Elandor bowed, though a shadow of doubt lingered in his expression.
---
Once they left, silence settled. Toru tried to rise, his legs trembling like saplings in a storm. He made it barely five steps before his knees nearly buckled. He collapsed onto a chair by the window, panting as if he had run miles.
A dry chuckle escaped him.
"In my old life, I could do a hundred push-ups without breaking a sweat. Now I can't even walk across the room without feeling like I've fought a marathon."
He leaned against the window frame. Outside stretched the lands of Dravoryen. Not the bustling cities of his old world, but small villages with tired fields. The castle walls were cracked, the soldiers scarce, and the people endured more than they thrived.
This was no kingdom of glory. This was a dying ember in a storm.
So this is my inheritance?
A frail body. A fading crown. A kingdom one step away from being devoured.
But then, another voice stirred within him—the part of him that had once stood in a gym full of struggling men and women, telling them they could change. The soldier who had trained under the weight of duty.
If he could turn weakness into strength for others, why not for himself?
Ideas began to flicker. Primitive weights made of sandbags. Ropes twisted from hemp. Wooden bars for makeshift pull-ups. Nothing like modern equipment, but enough to begin. Enough to build the foundation he needed.
And not only for himself. If he could create tools for training, why not tools for farming? For crafting? For trade? The thought of innovation sparked like fire catching dry wood.
---
That night, the moonlight spilled across the chamber. Toru stood before a tall mirror, gripping the edge of the frame for balance.
What he saw was almost laughable. Pale skin stretched thin over brittle bones. Sunken cheeks, a shadow of royalty. He looked more like a patient in hospice than a prince of blood.
Yet his eyes… his eyes were no longer the same.
They were sharp, burning with a fire that refused to die. They were the eyes of someone who had shouted at clients to get back up, who had endured drills in the military, who knew that discipline could carve strength from weakness.
"This kingdom may be small. My body may be weak. But I will not surrender."
He clenched his fists, trembling though they were.
"I will rebuild myself. And I will rebuild Dravoryen. Let them laugh for now… I'll make them eat their words."
The vow hung in the room like steel. For the first time in years—perhaps for the first time ever—Prince Toru Dravoryen was no longer a dying boy.
He was a man reborn.
And though no one heard it that night, history would remember this moment as the spark of Dravoryen's rise.