Clark, a seasoned officer with the New York Police Department, felt the familiar thrum of the city on a typical Thursday. The perpetual hum of traffic, the distant wail of a siren, and the general cacophony of urban life were the constant backdrop to his existence. His partner, a perpetually optimistic man named Johnson, was out sick, leaving Clark to patrol solo. While some officers dreaded working alone, Clark relished the quiet solitude it offered. It was during this solitary peace that the call came in: a 911 dispatch to an address in a quiet, upscale neighborhood. The tone was urgent, but the details were sparse, simply an open-line call with no one on the other end.
Clark navigated the cruiser through the streets, the GPS guiding him to a stately Victorian house with manicured lawns and a pristine white fence. The scene was oddly serene, almost too perfect. That's when he noticed the front door. It was ajar, a dark, gaping mouth in the otherwise immaculate facade. A flicker of unease shot through him. He pulled his vehicle over, his hand instinctively going for his Glock. The familiar weight of the pistol was a comfort. With the safety disengaged, he stepped out, the crisp autumn air doing little to quell the rising tension.
He moved with a practiced, silent grace up the flagstone path, his senses on high alert. He pushed the door open, the old wood groaning in protest. "NYPD!" he announced, his voice echoing in the silent house. "Is anyone here? We're responding to a 911 call!" There was no reply, only a profound, heavy silence. The air inside was still and cool, thick with a scent he immediately recognized: the metallic tang of blood.
Clark slowly, meticulously, cleared the ground floor, each room a potential ambush. He finally reached the living room, his heart sinking at the sight that awaited him. Two bodies lay slumped on a plush Persian rug, a man and a woman. Their eyes were wide, vacant stares fixed on a place beyond the ceiling. There was no sign of struggle, no frantic mess—just stillness and death.
A wave of professional calm washed over him. He holstered his Glock and moved to check for a pulse, a formality he knew was pointless. They were both gone. He pulled out his phone, his mind already running through the checklist: secure the scene, call for backup, notify forensics. "Yeah, this is Officer Clark," he said into the phone, his voice steady. "I'm at the address. We've got two fatalities, a male and a female. Looks like a homicide. We need an ambulance and a full forensic team, stat."
He was so engrossed in the call, so focused on the protocol, that he missed the almost imperceptible shift in the shadows behind him. A figure, silent as a ghost, emerged from the hallway. Clark felt a prickle of unease, a sixth sense honed by years on the force, but it was too late. He began to turn, a word of warning on his lips, when a blinding flash of pain erupted in his chest. A thunderous roar of a gunshot filled the room.
Clark's world imploded. He looked down, seeing the dark stain spreading across his uniform. His lungs seized, and he gasped for air that wouldn't come. The world tilted, the vibrant colors of the living room fading into a dull, gray blur. He crumpled to the floor, his vision tunneling. As consciousness ebbed, a single, bitter thought pierced the fog: Of all the stupid ways to go, to be taken out by some schmuck I didn't even see. He, a decorated officer, had made the cardinal mistake. He hadn't been careful. And just like that, the world went black.
The next thing Clark knew, he was being squeezed. It was an uncomfortable sensation, like being pulled through a tight, fleshy tube. A cacophony of sound assaulted his ears—a deep, rumbling groan followed by a blinding, flash-bang intensity. Then, a new sensation: cold. A frigid gust of wind and the sudden, pelting assault of a torrential downpour. He felt like he was flying, being held up in the middle of a literal hurricane.
"Hey! Cut it out! What the heck is going on?" he tried to yell, but the sound that came out was a high-pitched, pathetic squall. He thrashed his limbs, a desperate attempt to regain control, to figure out what bizarre drug trip or near-death hallucination this was.
That's when he saw her. A woman with hair the color of spun gold, her face a serene, almost otherworldly mask of beauty. But what truly stole his breath, or what little he had, were the two twitching, fox-like ears atop her head. He knew that face. He knew those ears. No. It couldn't be. He, a man of facts and reason, a cop who had seen the worst of humanity, was looking at a creature straight out of myth and legend.
The woman, Yasaka, the ruler of the Yokai world, smiled down at him, her expression a mix of awe and gentle amusement. "Look at you," she cooed, her voice as smooth as silk. "So tiny and cute. Oh, you're absolutely soaked. Let's get you into a towel so you can be all bundled up."
Clark tried to protest, to scream, to demand an explanation. But all that came out was a new sound, a sound he hadn't made since he was, well, a baby. He was crying. He was wailing, a sound of pure, unadulterated terror and confusion. He looked at his hands, and instead of the calloused, rugged hands of a man who'd served on the streets of New York, he saw two impossibly small, chubby things. He flailed his legs, and they were equally small and pudgy.
The realization hit him with the force of a wrecking ball. He had died. And now, he was a baby. A transmigrated baby. The sheer ridiculousness of it all was overwhelming. Transmigration. He'd read about it in those cheap, fantastical novels his former partner would talk about endlessly. He'd always scoffed at the idea. It was a preposterous concept, the ultimate escapist fantasy for people who couldn't face reality. And now, here he was, living it.
"Oh, no," he thought, the word echoing in the silent, horrified corridors of his mind. "Oh, no, no, no. I'm in High School DxD. That ridiculous, over-the-top, fan-service-ridden nonsense. I'm going to be surrounded by devils, angels, and perverts. I am absolutely, completely, and utterly screwed."
As Yasaka wrapped him in a soft towel, cooing about his "sweet little cry," Clark's tiny mind raced, trying to process the absolute, cosmic absurdity of his new life. He was a newborn, in a fantasy world, with a future that was undoubtedly going to be very, very weird. And for the first time, he realized that dying a gruesome death in a New York living room was probably going to be the most normal thing that ever happened to him.