"Where... am I?" Yuto's voice wavered, a fragile thread swallowed by the emptiness.
All around him stretched a pale, endless void—neither sky nor earth, only a blank canvas without depth or shadow. The silence pressed against him like a weight, so heavy it felt as though the world itself had forgotten sound. His body was suspended, yet not falling; standing, yet without ground beneath his feet.
Yesterday—if yesterday even existed anymore—he had been nothing more than a high school boy. Ink-stained notebooks, the chatter of classmates, the warmth of late afternoon sunlight... those fragments seemed distant now, dissolving like mist in the hollow light.
He searched his memory, desperate, but nothing answered. Only the whiteness. Only the silence.
Then the stillness broke.
A voice unfurled within the void, deep and resonant, as though the air itself had chosen to speak. It carried no warmth, no cruelty—only the cold inevitability of truth.
"Do you wonder," it asked, "how you died?"
The words coiled through Yuto's chest, leaving a chill that rooted into his bones.
"Do you think," the voice pressed, softer now, almost intimate, "that it was unfair?"
His breath caught. Died? The thought scattered like shattered glass through his mind. A thousand denials rose to his lips, but none found the strength to leave him.
A shimmer rippled through the blankness, and a hollow light bloomed before Yuto. From its glow stepped a figure—tall, graceful, almost too flawless to belong to any human world. His hair fell in long strands of pale blue and white, catching the void's glow like threads spun from frost and moonlight. His presence was calm, yet carried an overwhelming gravity that bent the silence around him.
The man moved closer, each step soundless, as if the void itself parted to make way. When he stopped beside Yuto, his gaze was steady—neither cruel nor kind, but heavy with knowledge.
"Yes," the figure said, his voice resonating with quiet certainty. "I can answer how it happened."
Yuto froze, unable to speak, as the man's words poured over him like an ancient truth.
"You are a hardworking soul," the man continued. "I know the weight you carried. I know the brilliance of your mind—a sharpness beyond others. Yet fate placed you in chains, born into struggle not of your making."
His tone softened, almost tender.
"And still, you used that mind. That relentless will. You cut away the shackles of poverty and lifted your family into a life they could never have dreamed of—healthy, stable, ordinary. A life like any other."
The words pierced Yuto with equal parts pride and sorrow, reminding him of everything he had lived for—and everything he had left behind.
"Yet fate is cruel," the god murmured, his steps echoing though no ground existed. He began to circle Yuto slowly, like a teacher assessing a student, or a judge walking around the condemned. His long hair shimmered with every shift of the void's hollow light.
"You believed that if you worked hard enough—if you never faltered, never rested—you could raise your family beyond poverty. You wanted to repay the love they gave you, the sacrifices they bled for you. That is why you never stopped learning, why you sharpened your mind until it outshone all others."
His voice carried a strange mix of admiration and sorrow.
"I have seen it myself. Your grades unmatched, your answers reaching questions even your elders struggled to grasp. A brilliance so rare it was as though the world had been unfair merely by placing it in a boy like you. And yet..."
The god's words slowed, heavy as stone sinking into water.
"Even with all of that effort—even with all of that devotion—death came for you before your dream could be realized. Instead of lifting your family from their suffering, you were torn away from them."
Yuto's throat tightened. His fists curled helplessly at his sides. "But... I don't even know how I died," he whispered. His voice cracked with confusion, fear, and a fragile defiance. "I was always careful. Always. I never—"
The god raised a hand, silencing him. His pale eyes glimmered with something between pity and inevitability.
"You think you were careful," he said, his tone cutting through Yuto's protest, "but you mistook endurance for immortality."
The void pulsed faintly, as though echoing his words.
"You drowned yourself in books, starved yourself of rest, ignored the hollow ache in your body as though sheer will could replace food or sleep. Five jobs, endless nights, a mind that refused to stop calculating, planning, learning... until the vessel that carried it all—the fragile body of a boy—could endure no more."
He stepped closer, his voice low, steady, merciless.
"You did not fall to accident, nor to fate's sudden cruelty. You collapsed beneath the weight you chose to bear. Your heart, weary and overworked, simply broke. In the quiet of your striving, death claimed you—not as punishment, but as the only end your path allowed."
Yuto's breath caught. The words struck him harder than any blade could have. His chest felt hollow, as though the god's voice had carved out the truth he never wanted to face.
Yuto's lips quivered, his voice breaking as the truth pressed against him like a crushing tide.
"I... I was only trying to repay them," he whispered, the words trembling as they left him. His head sank, his gaze fixed on the endless white beneath his feet that wasn't really there. Tears slid down his cheeks, falling into the void only to vanish before they could land.
"Isn't that what a son should do?" His voice cracked, caught between pride and despair. "To make his family proud... to give them rest, so they no longer have to work themselves into exhaustion...?"
His shoulders shook, his fists trembling at his sides. "No son—no daughter—wants to watch their parents struggle, to see them break under burdens they don't deserve."
The words hung in the silence, fragile but unyielding, as if he was clinging to them as the last proof that his life had meant something.
The god's hand, cool yet strangely gentle, came to rest upon Yuto's bowed head.
"Do not sink into despair, my child," he said softly, his voice carrying both command and comfort. "That is why I have called your soul here. I can grant you a second chance at life. But understand this—" his tone deepened, echoing through the void, "—it will not be in the world you left behind."
Yuto's head lifted, his tear-stained eyes searching the god's face. "Then... where?" he asked, his voice trembling between fear and fragile hope.
A faint smile touched the man's lips, though it held the weight of eternity. "You shall live as Yuto still, but in the world I govern—the world I have watched and shaped since the dawn of its first breath. Do not fear... it is a place where impossibilities are made real."
Yuto parted his lips to speak, but the god silenced him with a raised hand, his eyes narrowing with solemn knowing.
"Family?" he said, finishing the thought Yuto could not. "Are you worried for them?"
The hand lifted from Yuto's head, and the god turned away, walking across the endless white as though it bent beneath his steps.
"I cannot rewrite their fate, nor return you to their side," he said, his voice distant, yet carrying a quiet mercy. "But I will grant them my blessing—a life of health, of peace. And in secret, I shall pour fortune into their path, weaving luck so strong that you need never fear for them again."
Yuto's tears still clung to his lashes, but a fragile smile broke across his face. "I... couldn't ask for anything better," he whispered, his voice steady now, though soft with relief.
The god regarded him for a long moment, then allowed a faint, satisfied smile to curl at the edges of his lips.
"Good," he said, his tone lighter now, though still heavy with divine presence. "I hope, this time, you will embrace the life given to you. Enjoy it to the fullest—walk freely, explore the wonders you once denied yourself. Taste joy without chains, seek what your heart desires, and live as you never could before."
He raised a finger, and the void stirred. Symbols shimmered into being around him—blades of silver, books that bled light from their pages, jewels burning with inner fire, wings folded in radiant shadow. They circled the god like constellations torn from the heavens, each pulsing with a different promise.
"And now," he said, his voice deepening with ceremony, "I shall bestow upon you a blessing.
The god's eyes slid shut, and for a heartbeat the void was still. Then a radiance swelled from his form—white and weightless, flowing outward like smoke unfurling across an endless sky. When his eyes opened again, they burned an ethereal blue, and within them blazed a star-shaped sigil of eight points, ancient and unshakable.
His gaze pierced through Yuto, yet carried no malice—only certainty.
"Yes," the god murmured, as though he had peered into countless futures and chosen a single thread. "I suppose this path suits you best."
"Path?" Yuto asked, confusion flickering in his voice. "What path?"
The god did not answer with words. Instead, he lifted his hand and rested it once more upon Yuto's head. Instantly, a warmth surged through him, flooding his veins, his bones, his very soul. Green light bloomed from within his body, soft yet searing, wrapping him in a cocoon of brilliance.
Yuto gasped—the glow pulsed with life itself, like the breath of spring woven into his being.
The radiance dimmed, fading back into the endless white as the god slowly withdrew his hand. His presence, once towering and overwhelming, now softened like a tide receding from the shore.
"It is done," he said, his voice calm and final, carrying the weight of eternity. "Goodbye, Yuto. Farewell."
Yuto's throat tightened, but he forced the words out, fragile and uncertain. "Will... will we meet again?"
For the first time, the god's expression warmed, a quiet smile touching his lips. His star-like eyes softened, though they still glimmered with infinity.
"Of course," he said gently. "We can meet again. But when—or where—that I cannot tell you."
The void trembled, the light shifting as though the very world was about to change. Yuto felt himself being pulled, weightless, toward a destiny unseen.
The god's gaze lingered on Yuto as the boy's body began to sink, weightless, into the glowing depths below. The void peeled open like a curtain, revealing a world waiting to be born anew beneath him.
As Yuto drifted downward, the god's voice followed, soft at first, then vast and resonant—words not only for Yuto, but for anyone who might listen.
"Is life not cruel?" he asked, his voice rippling through the emptiness.
"Is hardship not the forge in which we are broken... or made whole?"
The light swelled, pulling Yuto further from sight.
"Does fate not strike without mercy, stealing dreams before they can bloom?" The words echoed like a lament, yet carried no bitterness.
And then, gentler, as though the void itself leaned in to hear:
"But if tragedy is certain... is it not also true that unseen paths may rise from its ashes? That possibilities, once hidden, wait for those who dare to walk them?"
The god's voice dimmed, like the last note of a hymn.
With that, Yuto vanished into the light, carried toward the world that awaited him.
Yuto's eyes fluttered open. For a moment, the blinding white of the void still lingered in his vision—then it dissolved, replaced by a vast, endless sky.
The heavens stretched above him, painted in shades of brilliant blue, streaked with the soft brush of morning clouds. The air was alive with the gentle hum of insects, the distant trill of unseen birds.
Beneath him, the cool grass swayed in the breeze, soft and fragrant, carrying the earthy scent of life itself. He realized he was leaning against the trunk of a great tree, its bark rough against his back, its leaves catching the sunlight and scattering it into golden fragments across the field.
The warmth of the sun kissed his skin—real, solid, gentle. A far cry from the cold emptiness he had just left.
For the first time in what felt like forever, Yuto drew in a full breath. The air was fresh, sweet, almost intoxicating.
He was alive.