The last thing Haru Tanaka remembered before dying was his girlfriend saying he was boring.
Not metaphorically. Literally. She'd used the exact word: *boring*.
"You're so boring," Mika had said, standing in their shared apartment with Kenji—his colleague from the tech company—standing awkwardly beside her. Kenji wasn't even looking guilty. He was just... there. Like he belonged there. Like he'd been there many times before. Like Haru's existence was merely an inconvenient scheduled event that Kenji kept interrupting.
Haru's internal response had been: *This is inefficient.*
Not "this is heartbreaking." Not "this is devastating." Not "this is the worst moment of my life."
This is inefficient.
Because that was the problem with his life, he'd realized in that moment. It wasn't tragic. It wasn't dramatic. It was just... poorly structured. His girlfriend was cheating on him with his colleague. They were both too self-absorbed to even pretend to be subtle about it. His apartment was small and overpriced. His job was repetitive and meaningless. He spent eight hours a day explaining to people how to use software they should have already understood.
Everything about his existence was a system that needed debugging, and he was far too tired to bother.
So when he'd walked out of the apartment, phone in hand, not really paying attention to street signs or traffic lights, it hadn't felt like suicide. It had felt like efficiency.
The truck hit him on a Tuesday afternoon. At 3:47 PM, to be precise. He would have noted the exact inefficiency of the timing—peak traffic hour, probably delayed the delivery truck's entire schedule—if he'd had time to think about it.
He didn't.
One moment he was walking. The next moment he was very suddenly not walking.
Then there was white.
Very efficient white. The kind of white that suggested absolutely nothing, which meant it was either extremely well-designed or the product of someone's complete apathy toward aesthetics.
Haru appreciated that.
Part Two: The Void Negotiation
"Oh, finally!" a voice squealed. "You're awake! I've been waiting *forever*."
Haru opened his eyes—or would have, if he'd had eyes at the moment. The void didn't require opening eyes. Understanding happened automatically, which was, he had to admit, more efficient than the typical sensory experience.
He was in absolute nothingness. Not darkness—darkness implied light's absence, which required light to exist somewhere. This was more like the concept of darkness without any actual manifestation. It was white and black and everything in between and none of those things simultaneously.
It was confusing and efficient in equal measure.
"Who are you?" he asked, discovering he had a voice without having a mouth. "And where is here?"
"OH! Questions! I love questions!" The presence that had spoken became somehow more present. A figure coalesced from the void—a woman who looked approximately twenty-five years old with eyes that contained too many colors and a smile that suggested genuine, unhinged joy. "I'm Lady Ætheria! Cosmic goddess of mischief and bad decision-making! Well, technically I make *good* decisions, but they create disasters, so people get confused about the distinction."
Haru processed this information with the same emotional investment one might give to a software update notification.
"I'm dead," he stated.
"Super dead!" Ætheria confirmed cheerfully. "Truck. Very satisfying impact, by the way. I watched it happen. The sound design was *excellent*. But anyway! You're here now, and I have a proposal!"
*This is happening,* Haru thought. *I'm having an conversation with a cosmic being after being hit by a truck. This is real or I'm hallucinating. Either way, it's inefficient.*
"I don't want reincarnation," he said preemptively.
"You haven't even heard my offer!"
"I don't care what the offer is. I'm done. Life was inefficient. Death seems more efficient. I'd like to accept non-existence."
Ætheria's smile somehow grew wider. "Oh, I LIKE you! You're so *boring*. In the best way! Like, cosmically boring. Transcendently apathetic. Do you know how rare that is? Most people hit by trucks at least have the decency to be dramatic about it."
"Being dramatic would be inefficient," Haru replied. "It wouldn't change the fact that I'm dead."
"See, THIS is why I'm giving you the deal!" Ætheria clapped her hands together, and the void suddenly felt full of presence. There was another being there now—an older-looking man with stress lines and holding a clipboard made of cosmic importance. "This is Valthor. He handles causality paperwork. Valthor, look at this one. LOOK AT HIM."
"I'm looking," Valthor said, his voice suggesting he'd been doing bureaucratic work for approximately seven thousand years and had zero patience for enthusiasm. "He's dead. We have several billion of those."
"But he's dead and *apathetic* about it!"
"Still several billion," Valthor sighed. "What do you want, Ætheria? I have ledgers to maintain."
"I want to make him a deal," Ætheria said, bouncing slightly in a way that suggested gravity was merely a suggestion to her. "He gets reincarnation into a fantasy world. He gets Tier V causality manipulation—reality-editing powers, basically. But here's the catch: he has to agree to live a *quiet life*. No prophecies, no destiny, no heroes' journeys. Just peace."
Haru blinked. "That's... actually acceptable."
"I KNOW, RIGHT?! And then—" Ætheria paused for dramatic effect, "—I'm going to give him a glitch."
"No," Haru said immediately.
"You don't even know what—"
"No. Whatever glitch you're planning, the answer is no. I agreed to peace. A glitch contradicts that premise."
"But that's what makes it PERFECT!" Ætheria was vibrating with cosmic excitement. "See, his power activates when he's annoyed. Or bored. Or too comfortable. So his entire quest for peace becomes this beautiful comedy where he keeps breaking reality by trying to *maintain* peace!"
Haru stared at this cosmic being. "You're describing a scenario that guarantees my suffering."
"Yes! Isn't it wonderful?"
"That's literally the opposite of what I want."
"I know! Isn't that hilarious?" Ætheria turned to Valthor. "He's going to be SO entertaining. This is the best idea I've had in seventeen thousand years."
Valthor looked at Haru with something approaching sympathy. "Just let her do it. She'll do it anyway. I have the paperwork already prepared. She's been planning this since before you were born."
Haru considered the situation. He was dead. Non-existence wasn't an option—apparently cosmic bureaucracy had prevented that. Reincarnation seemed inevitable. The glitch was going to happen regardless of his consent.
*This is inefficient,* he thought. *But at least I'll have an accurate understanding of the situation.*
"Fine," he said. "But I want contractual guarantee of adequate ramen in whatever world I'm reincarnated into."
"DONE!" Ætheria screamed. "Valthor, write that down!"
"Already written," Valthor confirmed, marking something on his cosmic clipboard. "Along with seventeen hundred other condition amendments he'll probably add before we're finished. You always say 'fine' and then spend six hours negotiating details."
"Last time I was going to be a cat," Haru said. "I wanted clarification on what 'being a cat' actually entailed. That's reasonable."
"You insisted on being a cat because cats don't have responsibility."
"Exactly. It was a sound decision."
Ætheria was laughing so hard that nearby nebulas were rearranging themselves. "Oh, he's going to fit RIGHT in. Okay, final parameters. You're getting reincarnated, you're getting god-tier powers, you're getting a quiet life *except* for the glitch, and you're getting ramen. Any other conditions?"
Haru considered carefully. "I want to be able to opt out of heroism. Completely. No prophecies that override that. No destiny that requires engagement. If someone calls me a hero, I want the contractual right to walk away."
"You can walk away whenever you want," Ætheria said. "You just can't actually *escape* the consequences of your power. That's the glitch! You'll try to avoid destiny and accidentally become legend anyway!"
"That's not a contractual right."
"No," Ætheria agreed, "but it IS hilarious."
Haru realized, in that moment, that he was negotiating with a cosmic being who could rewrite his entire existence and had no respect for his preferences. Efficiency suggested accepting the inevitable.
"Fine," he said again. "When does this happen?"
Part Three: The Glitch Demonstration
"Right now!" Ætheria snapped her fingers.
The void began to compress. Not painfully—just efficiently. Everything was collapsing toward a single point. The point was Haru, or rather, the version of Haru that would be reincarnated. Memories were being stripped away. Details of his old life becoming increasingly irrelevant. He was forgetting the taste of the ramen he'd eaten that morning. He was forgetting his mother's face. He was forgetting—
"Don't worry," Ætheria's voice echoed as everything compressed further, "you'll be a baby. Babies don't remember anything anyway. This is more efficient this way."
The last thing Haru experienced before becoming a newborn was the sensation of Ætheria placing something into the very core of his being. It felt like a timer. Or a ticking bomb. Or a mistake.
*Feedback Loop Glitch,* he somehow understood. *Activated on annoyance. Triggered on boredom. Manifesting on excess comfort.*
*This is going to be inefficient,* he thought, and the thought was the last coherent one he had before becoming seventeen years of memories and emotions he hadn't lived yet.
In the cosmic void, as Haru ceased to exist and a new version began, Ætheria turned to Valthor with absolute delight.
"Did you see? Did you see how *annoyed* he got at the glitch concept? I could feel it happening. The power was already trying to activate in the void. It's going to be PERFECT."
"That ledger entry is going to need seventeen different footnotes," Valthor muttered, making notes. "And apparently his power doesn't just affect reality. It affects the Fundamental Ledger. I'm seeing impossible readings already."
"Because he's a god trying to maintain apathy!" Ætheria was practically singing. "He's going to spend his entire life fighting destiny and accidentally becoming legend! This is the best entertainment I've had in—"
"Seventeen thousand years," Valthor finished. "You've mentioned."
"And do you know why it's so good?" Ætheria's smile was cosmic. "Because he *knows* it's happening, and he's still going to try anyway. He's going to fail spectacularly, and the whole time, he's going to be absolutely furious about it."
"That sounds like suffering," Valthor observed.
"That sounds like *excellent entertainment*," Ætheria corrected. "There's a difference."
In the space between universes, as probability itself was being rewritten to accommodate a god-tier being with an emotional trigger and a strict no-heroism policy, something both cosmic and ridiculous was set in motion.
A teenage boy in a fantasy world would soon wake up in a village, adopted by a nice family, with absolutely no idea he was an accident waiting to happen.
And Lady Ætheria was going to watch every glorious second of his reluctant heroism.
From somewhere in the new reality, a goddess with chaos in her eyes and zero respect for boundaries smiled.
*Let the entertaining chaos begin.*
Epilogue: In Another Void
While Haru was being reincarnated, another being was making notes.
Sylvara, the Chaos Enthusiast—a cosmic entity whose only job was "make things more interesting"—observed the proceedings with something approaching respect.
"She actually did it," Sylvara murmured, making additions to Ætheria's already complicated plan. "She gave someone godlike power and then made that power worse. That's brilliant."
From somewhere even more cosmic, Valthor sighed deeply. His ledger was already beginning to smoke.
"This is going to be seventeen volumes of paperwork minimum," he muttered. "I'm requesting a raise. I'm also requesting a transfer. I'm also requesting that nobody ever let Ætheria have this much creative control ever again."
Nobody was listening. Nobody ever listened to Valthor.
He returned to his paperwork, already preparing the impossible equations that would track a god-tier being whose power was calibrated to activate on emotional discomfort.
This was, he thought with absolute certainty, going to be a disaster.
It was also going to be, he grudgingly admitted, the most entertaining disaster in seven thousand years.