Death, Arthur Pendragon reflected in his final moments, was remarkably similar to life—chaotic, violent, and strangely disappointing.
The King of Knights stood amidst the ruins of Britain's final battlefield, Excalibur Proto still humming with residual holy energy in his trembling grip. Around him, the corpses of friend and foe alike decorated the scorched earth like grotesque monuments to his failures. Mordred—no, that twisted homunculus wearing his son's face—lay twenty paces away, bisected by a strike that had cost Arthur everything.
His vision swam. The mortal wound in his chest, dealt by Mordred's treacherous blade, pulsed with an icy coldness that was slowly replacing the warmth of his blood. Even now, with Avalon's scabbard lost years ago in some forgotten conflict, Arthur remained standing. Pride, perhaps. Or mere stubbornness. The King of Knights refused to fall, even when his body had already admitted defeat.
"Your Majesty."
Bedivere. Faithful, loyal Bedivere, the last of his knights. The man knelt beside him, tears streaming down his face, one hand pressed desperately against Arthur's wound as if mortal pressure could seal what magic and fate had torn asunder.
"The sword," Arthur wheezed, each word costing him precious seconds. "Return Excalibur... to the Lady... of the Lake."
"My King—"
"Go."
It wasn't a request. Even dying, Arthur Pendragon commanded with absolute authority. Bedivere's face crumpled, but he took the holy sword with reverent hands and stumbled toward the distant lake.
Alone now, Arthur allowed himself the luxury of collapse. His armored back hit the blood-soaked ground with a wet thud. Above him, storm clouds gathered—how fitting that even the heavens wept for Britain's fall. Lightning flickered in the distance, illuminating the battlefield in stark white flashes that made the dead seem to writhe.
Camelot has fallen, Arthur thought bitterly. The Round Table, shattered. My knights, dead or scattered. My people, left to the wolves. All because I... because the King failed to be human.
Merlin had warned him, in his cryptic way. 'A king who cannot understand human hearts will lead his kingdom to ruin.' Arthur had dismissed it as another of the mage's riddles. Now, dying alone on a field of his own making, the truth cut deeper than any blade.
He had been too perfect. Too righteous. Too much the ideal king and not enough the flawed man. His knights had looked to him for humanity and found only cold steel. They sought
understanding and received only judgment. Love, they craved, but he gave them duty.
The irony wasn't lost on him that Mordred—born of Morgan's twisted schemes, denied acknowledgment, hungry for a single word of paternal affection—had been the instrument of his downfall. The child Arthur had refused to see as anything more than an unfortunate complication. Another piece on the chessboard of kingship.
If I had just... spoken to him. Acknowledged him. Been a father instead of a king...
But wishes changed nothing. The past was written in blood and stone, immutable as the blade he'd pulled from that cursed rock so many years ago. The moment Arthur had drawn Caliburn, his humanity had begun its slow death. Every battle won, every judgment passed, every cold decision made for the 'greater good' had carved away another piece of the boy named Arthur until only the King remained.
His breathing grew shallow. The world's colors began to fade, bleeding into a grey monotone. Arthur's fingers, no longer possessing the strength to clutch at his wound, fell to his sides.
Is this what you wanted, Merlin? he thought, feeling the cold numbness spreading through his limbs. A king who stands alone at the end? A kingdom reduced to ashes in the name of ideals?
A sound cut through his fading consciousness—the distant splash of something striking water. Bedivere had done as commanded. Excalibur had returned to the lake. The holy sword that had defined Arthur's reign, that had carved Britain into existence through sheer force of will and magical might, was gone. Vanished like morning mist.
Arthur closed his eyes. At least that was done. At least the sword wouldn't fall into unworthy hands. Small comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
Thunder rumbled, closer now. The storm was breaking. How appropriate. Arthur had heard tales of heroes who died peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, their deeds celebrated and their legacy secure. He should have known better than to expect such mercy. Kings didn't get peaceful deaths. They got battlefields and regrets.
His heartbeat slowed. Each thump grew fainter, more distant, as if his heart was walking away from his body rather than simply stopping. The cold had spread to his core now, a blessed numbness that dulled the physical pain even as the emotional agony intensified.
If... if I could do it again, Arthur thought, the words forming slowly in his fragmenting mind, I would choose differently. Not the battles—those were necessary. But the hearts. I would learn to see them. To understand them. To be... human.
A desperate wish. A dying prayer. The last thought of a king who had learned his lesson too late.
Arthur Pendragon, Once and Future King of Britain, drew his final breath. The rain began to fall, washing blood from armor, from earth, from history itself. The King of Knights died as he had lived—alone, dutiful, and mourning the humanity he'd sacrificed for an ideal.
And in that moment between heartbeats, between the last exhale and eternal silence, something shifted. A power beyond mortal comprehension, beyond even the magic that had shaped Britain's destiny, took notice of the fallen king's final wish.
The world dissolved into light.
Arthur's consciousness returned slowly, reluctantly, like a blade being drawn from deep water. He became aware of warmth first—not the cold numbness of death, but genuine, living warmth. Then sound: a rhythmic thumping that he eventually recognized as a heartbeat. His heartbeat. The impossible, undeniable sound of life.
Am I... alive?
The thought came with difficulty, his mind feeling sluggish and strange, as if he were thinking through water. He tried to open his eyes and found the simple action exhausting. When his eyelids finally cooperated, he was greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling—white, sterile, lit by harsh artificial light that hurt his unaccustomed eyes.
Not Camelot, was his first coherent observation. Not Britain. Where...?
He attempted to move and discovered his body wouldn't respond properly. His limbs felt small, weak, utterly foreign. Panic—an emotion the King of Knights had long thought himself above—fluttered in his chest.
"Congratulations, Himura-san! It's a healthy baby boy!"
The voice spoke in a language Arthur didn't know, yet somehow understood. The words bypassed his ears entirely, translating directly into meaning within his mind. A woman's voice, bright and professional, tinged with the sort of exhausted joy that came from a job well done.
Baby? Boy? I'm...
Understanding crashed over him like a tidal wave. The small body. The unfamiliar ceiling. The strange language he comprehended without knowing. He had been reborn. Reincarnated. Given a second chance by whatever cosmic force had heard his dying wish.
Before Arthur could fully process this revelation, he was lifted. Gentle hands wrapped in blue medical gloves held him with practiced care, and he found himself looking up at a face he'd never seen before—a woman with kind eyes and dark hair pulled back in a professional bun, wearing what appeared to be some sort of healer's garment made of strange, uniform material.
"Let me clean him up," the healer—no, the nurse, his new memories supplied—said. "Then you can hold your son."
Arthur was too overwhelmed to protest as he was carried across the room. His infant body's
limitations prevented any meaningful resistance, reducing the once-mighty King of Knights to the helpless state of any newborn. The indignity of it might have bothered him if not for the sheer impossibility of the situation demanding his attention.
As the nurse cleaned and swaddled him with efficient motions, Arthur's mind raced. Reincarnation. A concept he'd encountered in Merlin's dusty tomes, usually in reference to Eastern philosophies the mage had studied during his wandering years. Arthur had never given it much credence—death was death, the end of the story, the closing of the book.
Yet here he was, undeniably alive again, wrapped in cloth softer than anything Britain had produced, in a room filled with devices that glowed with strange lights and hummed with unknown purpose.
"Here you go," the nurse cooed, and Arthur found himself transferred to another pair of hands. These were different—trembling slightly, softer, carrying the warmth of someone who had just endured great strain.
His new mother.
Arthur looked up at her face and felt something inside him twist. She was young, perhaps in her mid-twenties, with exhausted features and tear-stained cheeks. Her dark hair was plastered to her forehead with sweat, and her eyes—blue-green like a summer sea—were bright with the kind of overwhelming emotion that Arthur had never known how to process.
"Hello," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Hello, my little king. I'm your mother. I'm... I'm Himura Akari, and you're my precious boy."
The irony of her words wasn't lost on Arthur. 'My little king.' If only she knew. If only she understood that the infant in her arms had once commanded thousands, had held a kingdom's fate in his hands, had fought dragons and defeated armies.
But looking up at her face, at the pure, uncomplicated love shining in her eyes, Arthur felt something he hadn't experienced in decades. His mother—his first mother, the one he'd never known, the one who'd given birth to him as part of Merlin's grand plan—had never looked at him like this. She'd been a means to an end, a vessel for destiny. There had been no love, no warmth, no whispered greetings in a sterile room.
This is different, Arthur realized. This is... what I missed. What I never had.
"What should we call him?" a male voice asked. Arthur's limited field of vision shifted as someone else entered his sight—a man, taller than the woman, with the same dark hair and a face that radiated pride and nervous excitement.
His father. The concept felt alien. Arthur had never had a father, not truly. Uther Pendragon had died before acknowledging him. His childhood had been spent unaware of his royal blood, raised by a simple knight and his wife. And then Merlin had arrived, and everything had changed.
"Arthur," the woman—Akari, his mother—said without hesitation. "His name is Arthur."
The man blinked in surprise. Arthur's infant body went rigid with shock.
"Arthur?" the man repeated. "That's... an unusual name. Western."
"I know," Akari said, smiling down at her son. "But look at his eyes, Takeshi. They're so clear, so determined. He reminds me of those stories about the legendary king from Britain. King Arthur, who pulled the sword from the stone. It just... fits."
The man—Takeshi, his father—laughed softly and reached out to gently touch Arthur's tiny hand. Arthur's fingers reflexively gripped the much larger digit, and he saw his father's expression soften into something profound and protective.
"Arthur it is, then," Takeshi agreed. "Arthur Himura. Our little prince."
Fate has a twisted sense of humor, Arthur thought, staring up at his new parents. To give me my old name in this new life. To place me with people who name their child after a legendary king without knowing they hold the genuine article in their arms.
But as Akari held him close, her warmth seeping into his small body, Arthur made a decision. This life would be different. He had been given an impossible gift—a chance to live again, to grow again, to choose again. This time, he wouldn't make the same mistakes. This time, he would remember that being human wasn't a weakness to be overcome, but a strength to be embraced.
This time, Arthur Pendragon would learn what it meant to have a heart.
The first years of Arthur's second life passed in a blur of confusion and adaptation. Being reborn with his memories intact proved both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, he possessed the mind and experience of a legendary king, centuries of military strategy and political acumen trapped in an infant's body. On the other hand, he was forced to relearn everything from scratch—how to control limbs that responded sluggishly to his commands, how to communicate through wails and cries rather than royal decrees, how to endure the indignity of complete helplessness.
If his knights could see him now, Arthur thought more than once during those early days, they would laugh themselves to death. The mighty King of Knights, reduced to drooling and soiling himself.
But there were compensations. Chief among them was the love his parents showed him—genuine, unconditional, overwhelming. Akari doted on him with a fierce devotion that both touched and bewildered Arthur. She sang to him in a language he was slowly learning to speak (Japanese, his growing mind supplied, this country is Japan), told him stories, laughed at his tiny accomplishments with such joy that Arthur found himself wanting to achieve more just to see her smile.
Takeshi was different but no less devoted. A quiet man with steady hands and kind eyes, he
worked long hours at some job Arthur didn't yet understand, but always made time to hold his son, to talk to him about his day, to make silly faces that drew reluctant baby laughter from Arthur's throat.
This is what a family should be, Arthur realized one evening as Akari rocked him to sleep while Takeshi hummed a lullaby. This warmth. This safety. This love. No wonder I failed—I never understood what I was protecting because I never experienced it myself.
As months turned to years and Arthur's body developed, he began to notice other oddities about this new world. The devices that filled his home—glowing rectangles that displayed moving pictures (televisions, his parents called them), boxes that kept food cold, lights that needed no flame—spoke of a technological advancement far beyond anything Britain had achieved. Even more startling were the occasional glimpses of the impossible he caught through windows or on those television screens.
People with powers. Not magic in the way Merlin had wielded it, but something similar yet fundamentally different. A man breathing fire during a news broadcast. A woman lifting a car with ease during what appeared to be a rescue operation. A child making flowers bloom from their palms in some cheerful morning show.
This world has powers, Arthur concluded by his second birthday. But they call them something else. Quirks. And apparently, most people have them.
The revelation raised questions. If powers were common in this world, what did that mean for him? He possessed no quirk that he knew of—his old abilities had been rooted in Caliburn and Excalibur, in Avalon's protection, in magecraft granted by Merlin's teachings. Without those tools, without the dragon's core that had powered his supernatural attributes, what was Arthur Pendragon but a man with the memories of greatness?
The answer came on his fourth birthday.
It was a modest celebration. The Himura family lived comfortably but not extravagantly in a small apartment in Yokohama. Akari had baked a cake—chocolate, Arthur's favorite in this life—and Takeshi had taken the day off work, a rare treat. Arthur sat at their small kitchen table, wearing a ridiculous pointed hat that his mother insisted he keep on, while they sang to him in Japanese and English, knowing he had a strange affinity for his namesake's language.
"Make a wish, Arthur-kun!" Akari encouraged, her eyes bright with happiness.
Arthur looked at the four candles flickering on his cake and felt a sudden, strange tightness in his chest. Four years old. In his first life, at four years of age, he had still been ignorant of his destiny. Just a boy living with his adopted family, unaware that in a few years, everything would change.
But he wasn't that boy anymore. He was Arthur Pendragon, Once and Future King, given a second chance. So what should he wish for?
He closed his eyes—four-year-old muscles finally coordinated enough for the simple gesture—and thought: I wish to become strong enough to protect the people I love. Not for glory.
Not for duty. But for them. For this family who showed me what I was missing.
Arthur blew out the candles.
And something inside him awakened.
It started as a tingle in his core, similar to but distinctly different from the sensation of drawing on his dragon reactor in his previous life. This felt more primal, more fundamental, as if something that had always been part of him but dormant was finally stirring to life. The tingle became a warmth, spreading through his small body in waves that made his skin prickle and his breath catch.
"Arthur?" Takeshi's voice sounded distant, concerned. "Son, are you alright? You're glowing."
Glowing? Arthur looked down at his hands and gasped. A faint golden light emanated from his skin, soft and warm like dawn breaking over Camelot's towers. The light pulsed in time with his heartbeat, growing brighter with each passing second.
"His quirk!" Akari exclaimed, her hands flying to her mouth. "Takeshi, it's manifesting! Arthur's quirk is coming in!"
A quirk, Arthur realized with mounting excitement. This world's system has recognized my abilities and translated them into its own paradigm. But what exactly is my power now?
He focused inward, following the thread of warmth to its source. What he found made his breath catch in his four-year-old throat. It was his dragon core—or rather, something similar but fundamentally different. Not the borrowed power of a dragon's heart crystal, but something innate, something that belonged to him alone.
The power felt like concentrated determination, like willpower given form. It reminded him of the moment he'd drawn Caliburn from the stone, when his conviction had been strong enough to overcome an enchantment that had stumped Britain's greatest knights. That same quality of absolute resolve now thrummed through his veins, waiting to be directed, to be shaped, to be used.
And beneath that core feeling, Arthur sensed something else—a connection to his old abilities, his old skills, but filtered through this new power source. His swordsmanship. His enhanced physical capabilities. His instincts honed through countless battles. They were all still there, sleeping, waiting for his body to grow strong enough to bear them.
This is my quirk, Arthur understood. A power that embodies who I was and who I am. The strength of kingship, of determination, of my past life's skills, all compressed into something this world can comprehend.
The golden light faded as Arthur's concentration wavered, but he could still feel it there, thrumming beneath his skin like a second heartbeat. His parents rushed forward, checking him over with worried hands and anxious questions, but Arthur barely heard them. He was too busy contemplating the implications.
He had power again. Not the same power, not identical to what he'd wielded as the King of
Knights, but something uniquely his. The universe—or fate, or whatever force governed such things—had given him the tools he needed to fulfill his wish. To protect. To fight. To stand as a guardian rather than a distant king.
"We should take him to a quirk specialist," Takeshi was saying, his voice tight with a mixture of pride and concern. "Make sure everything is normal, get it properly registered."
"Of course," Akari agreed, but she was smiling down at Arthur with such pride that he felt his chest constrict. "But look at him, Takeshi. That golden light... it was beautiful. Our son is going to be something special."
If only you knew, Mother, Arthur thought, allowing himself to be swept up in their excitement. If only you knew that your son was already something special—a king reborn, a legend given flesh again. But perhaps that's for the best. This time, I don't want to be a king. This time, I want to be something better. Something more human.
Later that night, after the birthday excitement had faded and his parents had tucked him into bed, Arthur lay awake, staring at the ceiling of his small room. Around him, the familiar objects of childhood—stuffed animals, picture books, a small lamp shaped like a rabbit—created comfortable shadows in the darkness. But Arthur's mind was far from comfort, racing through possibilities and plans.
He had a power now. A quirk that connected him to his past while grounding him in this present. But power alone hadn't saved Camelot. Power wielded without wisdom, without empathy, without human connection had led to his kingdom's fall. He couldn't make those same mistakes again.
This world, from what Arthur had gleaned from television and his parents' conversations, had heroes. Professional protectors called 'Pro Heroes' who used their quirks to fight villains and save people. It was a formalized system, complete with rankings and regulations—not so different from the Round Table in concept, but wildly different in execution.
Could I become one? Arthur wondered. A hero in this new world? Not a king commanding from a throne, but someone who stands on the front lines, who faces danger directly, who protects with their own hands rather than through proxies?
The idea appealed to him more than it should. Arthur had spent his first life burdened by the weight of a crown, making decisions that sent others to fight and die while he carried the crushing responsibility of leadership. But here, now, with a second chance, he could choose differently. He could be the sword rather than the king who wielded it. He could protect people directly, personally, without the cold distance that duty demanded.
And maybe, just maybe, that would let him keep hold of the humanity he'd lost the first time around.
"I'll do it," Arthur whispered to the darkness, his four-year-old voice carrying the weight of centuries. "I'll become a hero. Not for glory or duty, but to protect. To save. To be what I should have been before—someone who stands not above humanity, but among it."
Outside his window, the lights of Yokohama twinkled in the darkness. Somewhere out there,
in this vast new world of quirks and heroes, his future awaited. Challenges he couldn't yet imagine. Battles he would need to fight. People he would need to save. And through it all, the chance to finally answer the question that had haunted his dying moments:
Could Arthur Pendragon learn to be human?
As sleep finally claimed him, drawing him down into dreams of golden light and distant swords, Arthur smiled. For the first time in two lifetimes, he felt something that had long eluded him.
Hope.
To be continued...