7.45 am, Monday morning. Gion district, Kyoto, Japan.
Jazz struggled to open his eyes fully, his head aching badly as he tried to sit up properly on a white silhouette bed.
"Eish, I didn't know returning would be this painful." He placed a hand on his forehead, releasing a sigh of pain from his lips.
The memory was vague, but he could remember clearly that he was sent back into the world of the living. He didn't just know how he would be returning because he wasn't told of that procedure before returning.
'This headache is unending?!' He groaned, a frown slowly forming on his face, with his eyebrows folded slightly.
With his five senses still returning, everything was feeling new and different to him. It had been a very long time since he had last been in a living human body.
That was a very long time, about three to four generations behind. Since then, he has been diligently working in the land below, but now he has returned to the land of the living to complete a certain task and gain its reward before time runs out for all.
'Did I hit my head or something?! I'm feeling dizzy and nauseous.' His hand was still placed on his forehead.
Slowly, he started feeling a soft material beneath his fingers. His senses had finally started returning to his body, starting with his sense of touch, then hearing, followed by sight.
Smell, then finally his sense of taste returned, and his mouth tasted like something that hadn't been brushed in a while.
'Oh damn, what the hell is all this, and where the hell I'm I?' He thought, still feeling the cloth on his forehead, trying to make out what it was.
He opened his eyes, his environment coming into full view. He noticed something was poked into his skin and was supplying something liquid from a bag hanging on a stand.
"What's all this?!" he asked himself, trying to recall any of these new equipment.
He tried getting down from the bed, but his arms felt flimsy and weak.
'Tsk!, What should I do now?' He thought hard.
Being in a new environment, or rather in an environment that had been technically upgraded since the last time he was there, wasn't as easy as he thought it would be.
'I don't even know where the hell I am, and what's with everything around me? Why all this equipment? What originally happened to the owner of this body?' He thought harder, ruminating between his thoughts.
Trying to find any memories linked to the original owner of the body he occupied but there seemed to be no memory of him at all, just old memories of Jazz's former life.
"What did they do to this body? Everybody is supposed to be left with memories for a reason. Damn this mission!," he cursed out loud.
His loud curse happened to attract the attention of a passing nurse, who in return glanced at his ward room and became agitated.
"He's alive!!" She screamed, startling Jazz for his subconscious thoughts.
"Doctor!!, come over here. The patient is finally alive!!" She screamed again before rushing into the room.
She stopped by the equipment beside Jazz and carefully checked each one for confirmation. Jazz, who had little to no idea, sat quietly, observing every procedure she took.
After checking every piece of equipment, she turned to Jazz, who still sat quietly.
"Do you feel dizzy? Or tired? Or maybe have body pains in any part of your body? Please indicate which part" She bombarded him with questions, even before he could answer any.
Jazz shook his head before noticing he had a slight headache and neck pain, probably from staying in bed for so long.
'I thought I'd stop having neck pains since this isn't my old body, but I guess certain things just seem to follow you,' he sighed within his head.
"On a second, I do have some pains. Specifically, my head and neck, and to clarify further, it's just a headache and neck pain, I'm sure of it." He explained properly, still with the mindset of four generations behind.
"I see, we'll have to conduct a scan then, just to be sure." She answered back, checking his infusion bag for any leaks.
'Back in my day, women weren't allowed to be doctors because they were believed to be incompetent, I wonder if I'll be alright.' His thoughts churned.
"Stay right here, sir. I'll go fetch the doctor and bring him here." She turned and said to him.
'I don't think I'll be going anywhere, can't feel my legs at the moment, and did she say doctor?, that means she's not the doctor?'
"Excuse me, but you're not the doctor? I thought you were a doctor, considering your questions and behaviour." He asked genuinely.
She chuckled at his question, although he thought she would get offended by the question since he was meant to be of the current century.
"I see your accident messed with your brain terribly. We'll definitely have to conduct that scan then. By the way, no, I'm not a doctor, I'm rather a nurse." she carefully explained, fixing his bed cover before heading out the door.
'She seemed pretty nice and polite, I may not terribly be in a dire situation.' He smiled at himself, raising his eyes.
He looked at the environment around him. It looked almost futuristic to him. He had never expected humanity to achieve this much advancement back in his generation.
He was the type to always look down on humanity and its growth. He preferred the way things were. Wasn't really a fan of growth.
His thoughts got sidetracked when he heard sobs coming from the corner of the room. It wasn't loud and that was probably the reason he didn't hear it the first time or probably because his senses were still coming back.
It slowly became clearer than when he first heard it but it wasn't the same as when he worked below, every sound felt real.
Now, it all felt like the phantom humans call ghosts, which to him, with his experience of the Nether, didn't feel fear, but most importantly, he couldn't tell where it was exactly coming from.
And without that information, he couldn't exactly help the phantom in any way.