It's dark.
Not the comfortable, fall-asleep-with-your-phone-on-your-face kind of dark. Not the lights-off-in-your-room kind of dark.
This is… total.
No light, no shape, no up, no down. Just pressure. Warm, heavy pressure all around me, like I'm wrapped in too many blankets and someone decided that oxygen is optional.
I try to move and I do move, but everything feels wrong—slow and muffled. My arms and legs are there, but they're tiny, clumsy, like someone replaced my body with a half-finished model kit and forgot the instructions.
…Did I get kidnapped and stuffed into a sensory deprivation tank?
Soft vibrations thrum through the space around me. A distant rhythm—thump-thump, thump-thump—steady and constant. It pulses through the walls of this… room.
It feels like I'm floating in warm gel, except the gel is hugging me from all sides and occasionally squishes me when I try to stretch.
Okay, I think, this is either the weirdest gamer chair ever invented, or I'm somewhere I really, really shouldn't be.
I open my mouth to yell, but nothing comes out. No sound. Just bubbles of sensation and the faint feeling of fluid moving where air should be.
Great.
"I swear to God," I try to say, even though there's no voice, just thoughts echoing against the dark, "if this is some kind of post-mortem punishment, I'm going to file a complaint."
The irony hits me a second later.
Post-mortem.
…Right.
I died.
The realization doesn't come like a cinematic flashback. It's more like a door quietly opening in my mind, spilling light into the dark.
The weird room fades into the background as my thoughts slip backward.
I used to be a normal guy.
Not "chosen hero normal," not "secretly the lost prince of some kingdom" normal. Just… normal.
I was a software developer. Mid-twenties. Worked at a decent company, the kind that paid you just enough to feel guilty about complaining but not enough to ever fully relax. I'd been there a few years, long enough to know where the good coffee machine was and how to dodge the worst meetings.
I was even up for a promotion.
My manager had mentioned it in one of those half-formal, half-friendly one-on-ones: "Keep this up for another quarter and we'll talk about moving you up." I'd pretended to be modest while already imagining the salary bump and the new title on my email signature.
Outside of work, I wasn't exactly a glamorous social butterfly.
I was a nerd.
Warhammer 40k? I was in deep. My shelves were full of half-painted minis, my weekends full of curse words about primer, and my browser history full of 200-comment threads arguing about balance changes.
Computer games? That was my real habitat.
Factorio: hundreds of hours sacrificed to the conveyor belt gods.
Europa Universalis… 5? 4? I'd played so many paradox grand strategy titles they blurred together into one giant map of suffering.
And then there was the latest obsession.
Battlefield 6.
Friday: I bought it. The plan for the weekend was simple—no parties, no dates, no fresh air. Just me, my PC, and digital warfare.
Saturday disappeared in a blur of explosions and respawns. By the time I looked away from the screen, my eyes were burning and my back felt like I'd been personally betrayed by my chair, but my K/D was beautiful.
Sunday? Repeat.
I only left my apartment to grab snacks and the occasional drink. Curtains mostly closed. Time tracked not by clocks but by match queues.
By 3 AM Monday morning, I went to bed feeling strangely proud of myself.
No, I hadn't touched any of my adult responsibilities. Yes, I had eaten garbage. But my stats? Chef's kiss.
I fell asleep thinking about skill trees and unlocks, not about death.
Maybe I should have.
The next thing I remember from that life is the alarm.
Shrill, insistent, way too bright. I blinked at my phone, squinting at the ridiculous time.
"I overslept," I groaned, heart sinking as I realized I'd completely murdered my carefully balanced schedule. No shower, no breakfast—just panic.
I scrambled out of bed with the grace of a stunned walrus, grabbed the nearest semi-clean clothes, yanked them on, and bolted for the door.
In the rush, I didn't bother with coffee. Didn't check my messages. Didn't even fully wake up.
I just ran for the stairs.
My foot missed the first step.
For one surreal heartbeat, I was weightless. The world tilted. The sharp edge of the step rushed up at me.
There was no time to react. No dramatic slow motion. No heroic twist.
Just a sickening crack as something vital inside my head gave way.
Then—
Silence.
No pain.
No body.
No anything.
Just… floating away from the scene, like my awareness had been unplugged from my skull and given spectator mode.
I saw my own body at the bottom of the staircase, twisted at an angle that made my stomach turn—even without actually having a stomach.
I should've been terrified.
Instead, all I could think was: Seriously? I died to the stairs?
Not a car accident. Not a heroic sacrifice. Not even a weird rare medical condition.
Just gravity.
As my consciousness drifted further, I became aware of voices.
Two of them.
They weren't physical sounds. More like radio chatter bleeding into my frequency. But they were clear.
"Stairs-kun, that is bad. Absolutely bad. You tripped the wrong human."
The first voice was authoritative, annoyed, and… was that a faint truck horn in the background?
Stairs-kun?
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…" the second voice babbled. "What do we do now, Truck-kun? This is going to be so much paperwork, ohhh f—"
"We have to report this," the first—Truck-kun, apparently—snapped. "You are definitely getting this deducted from your pay and vacation days."
If I'd still had eyebrows, they would've climbed into my hairline.
What.
I had read enough isekai manga to recognize the names.
Truck-kun—classic bringer of overpowered protagonists and fantasy worlds.
Stairs-kun—I hadn't actually heard of, but apparently stairs had a union now.
"It was an accident!" Stairs-kun wailed. "He was rushing, I slipped a bit of fate under his foot, I thought he was someone else—"
"Doesn't matter," Truck-kun shot back. "Wrong target. We'll have to escalate this upstairs. Literally. Cosmic HR is going to have a field day."
WTF, I thought faintly. WWWTTTFFFF?
No one answered me.
The voices faded as I was pulled further away, like drifting out of range.
The next thing I knew, I was floating in… nothing.
Not the suffocating warmth from before.
Real nothing.
No up, no down, no light, no sound, no body. Just my awareness, suspended in an endless, colorless void.
After the initial moment of silent, existential screaming, I tested my situation.
I tried moving. No response.
I tried speaking. No mouth.
I tried closing my eyes. Pretty sure I didn't have those either.
Time passed—maybe seconds, maybe centuries. It was impossible to tell.
Then something changed.
A presence appeared.
It wasn't a person, not exactly. It felt like someone had taken the concept of "bored civil servant," cranked it up to cosmic scale, and wrapped it in faint glowing authority.
A voice echoed around me, flat and uninterested.
"Soul number… ah." A pause, as if reading from a file. "11220039488788972381994. Cause of death: stair-related cranial trauma. Stair accident."
I would have winced if I'd had a face.
You don't have to say it like that, I thought. Have some respect for the newly deceased.
"…"
The presence did not, in fact, have respect.
"No notable karmic deviations," it continued in the same monotone. "Neither greatly virtuous nor particularly malicious. A statistically average human specimen. Hm."
Wow. Thanks.
"There is not much more to add," the voice went on. "If there are no objections, you will be placed into the standard reincarnation cycle."
Something in me snapped.
"Wait," I said—or thought very loudly, pushing my will outward. "Stop. Sorry, but I think there's been a mistake."
Silence.
Then, faintly, the impression of a paperwork stack being reluctantly set down.
"Elaborate," the presence said.
"Right after I died," I said, "I overheard two of your… employees? Agents? Whatever. Truck-kun and Stairs-kun. They were panicking because apparently I wasn't supposed to be the one who died. They said I was the wrong human."
A pause.
"Oh?"
There was a shift in the nothing, like someone raising an eyebrow big enough to arc over galaxies.
"Yes," I insisted. "They were clearly freaking out about it. Could you… I don't know… check?"
"One moment," the voice said. "We will conduct a verification."
The void hummed faintly. I had the distinct feeling of some ethereal interface being poked at by a very tired celestial employee.
"Ah," the presence said eventually. "The accident report has not yet reached our department. But you are correct. There appears to have been an error in target assignment."
Vindication tasted sweet, even in the afterlife.
"So you can send me back, right?" I said quickly. "Just rewind, slap my soul back into my body, pretend the stairs never happened?"
"No," the voice replied, sounding faintly offended at the very idea. "That is impossible. You must understand, even beings employed within the cosmic balance system make errors occasionally. But such events cannot simply be undone."
"Wow," I said flatly. "So even in death, I'm dealing with a mega-corp that refuses to fix its mistakes."
"That is not an accurate analogy," the presence said, in the exact tone people use right before proving your analogy is accurate. "We cannot reverse your death. However, we are authorized to provide compensation."
"…Compensation," I repeated slowly. "In the afterlife."
"Correct. Considering the remaining potential of your previous incarnation—approximately eighty more years for your species—we will convert that into karmic credit. Negative karmic factors will be omitted due to employee error. Furthermore, a three-hundred-percent bonus will be applied as formal apology on behalf of the organization."
This was the most corporate divine apology I had ever heard.
"Your original karmic balance was… five," the voice continued, not even trying to hide how unimpressed it was. "With adjustments and bonus, your final balance is approximately thirty thousand karmic points."
"Five?" I protested. "I only had five?"
"You were very average," it said, as if that explained everything.
Ouch.
I sighed—not with lungs, but with the full weary resignation of someone who had just learned they were statistically forgettable in the eyes of the universe.
"…Fine," I said. "So I have thirty thousand karma now. What can I do with it?"
"You may spend karmic points to select perks for your next life," the presence said. "Alternatively, you may spend them to spin the perk wheel for random boons."
Now we were talking.
I didn't fully trust cosmic gacha, but perks? That sounded like the beginnings of an isekai package.
"Okay," I said. "First thing: I want to keep my memories from my last life."
"Confirmed," the voice replied immediately. "Perk applied: Memory Retention. Cost: twenty thousand karmic points."
"Wait—hold up!" I yelped. "I thought you were going to tell me how much it cost first! Can I undo that?"
"No," it said. "Perk selections are final."
I stared at the void, offended.
"Of course they are," I muttered. "Fine. How much would perks like… I don't know… increased luck, intelligence, or health cost?"
"Luck specialization perks start at two hundred million karmic points," the presence said blandly. "Intelligence specialization: one hundred thousand. Health specialization: two hundred thousand."
I choked on pure disbelief.
"Two hundred million?" I echoed. "For luck?"
"Luck is a very premium stat," the voice said.
I wanted to argue, but honestly, it had a point.
"And I only had thirty thousand," I said, deflating. "Had."
"Correct. You now have ten thousand remaining," it confirmed.
"Right." I rubbed at a nonexistent face. "Okay. How much to spin this perk wheel thing?"
"Five thousand per spin."
"Nice, finally something I can afford," I muttered. "Alright then. Spin it twice."
"Confirmed," the presence said. "Initiating first rotation."
I didn't see a wheel, but I heard it.
A distant whrrr, like a cosmic lottery machine coughing into existence. Then a cheerful ding! that did not match the monotone voice at all.
"First perk acquired: Ōtsutsuki Chakra."
I froze.
Otsutsuki.
The word dropped into my awareness like a meteor. White-robed aliens, god-tree parasites, chakra ancestors, moon clans—Naruto lore exploded across my brain like a wiki page being force-opened.
"…That's from a very specific universe," I said slowly.
"Second rotation," the presence said, ignoring me.
Another whrrr, another ding!.
"Second perk acquired: 'You Are the MC.'"
I blinked.
"…What does that mean?"
"Your personal narrative weighting will be increased," the presence replied. "Causality will, within reasonable bounds, incline toward your continued survival and relevance. Attention from surrounding entities will be slightly biased in your favor. Anomalous behaviors are more likely to be dismissed or reframed positively."
So… plot armor. And main-character gravity.
That was… actually pretty broken.
"Okay," I said slowly. "This is good. This is very good. So with all that settled, what worlds can I choose from? I'd like to be reincarnated in a science fiction setting. Lots of tech. Maybe something with mechs or spaceships?"
"Apologies for the interruption," the presence said, though it didn't sound very apologetic. "World selection is no longer available to you."
I went still.
"Why not?"
"You have expended all of your karmic points," it said. "Without karmic leverage, you cannot influence your destination. You will be reincarnated in a random body, of a random species, at a random location.
"Good luck and have fun."
There was a beat of stunned silence.
"SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!" I screamed into the void.
The nothing didn't care.
It folded around me like a fist.
And then there was only darkness again.
Which brings me back to now.
The warm, suffocating dark.
The cramped, squishy walls.
The constant, rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump echoing above me.
I realize, with a sinking sense of resignation, exactly where I am.
"…I'm in a womb," I think flatly.
The pressure, the fluid, the heartbeat, the weird half-weightless feeling—it all fits. Somehow, in the cosmic gacha, I've landed at the very beginning.
"Incredible," I mutter to myself. "I got scammed into prenatal new game plus."
I try to cross my arms, but my limbs are so tiny and weak that all I manage is an awkward wriggle.
I can't see anything—not yet. No chakra, no outside world, just the red-black blur of existence inside a body that doesn't belong to me. Not fully. Not yet.
On the plus side, I'm alive.
On the minus side, I have absolutely no idea where I'll be born, or as what. Human? Demon? Alien jellyfish?
"Random body, random species, random location," I grumble internally. "All that karma, and I don't even get a genre pick. Fantastic customer service."
The womb does not respond.
Time passes in a slow, stretchy way that makes it impossible to tell if it's minutes or months. Sometimes the heartbeat speeds up. Sometimes I feel motion, as if the world is gently rocking. Occasionally, muffled sounds reach me—low tones, vibrations, as if someone is speaking far away through several layers of walls and water.
I can't understand the words yet.
But I remember.
I remember I have Ōtsutsuki Chakra.
I remember I'm the designated MC.
I remember Naruto.
If this really is that universe, then this darkness won't last forever.
For now, though, I am stuck.
"God-senpai, HR-sama, whoever is listening," I think sourly, "this compensation package sucks."
The world doesn't answer.
Instead, everything starts to change.
The pressure around me tightens.
At first, it's subtle—a slow, squeezing sensation from all directions. Then it builds, stronger and stronger, like the walls of my tiny world have decided I've overstayed my welcome.
I'm being pushed.
Literally.
Muscles I don't control tense and convulse around me. My environment contracts in crushing waves, shoving me downward. The comfortable floating becomes a frantic, claustrophobic shove through a tunnel that feels far too small.
For the first time since I woke up here, panic surges.
Not logical panic. Primal panic.
My new body reacts on its own, tiny heart racing, lungs trying to suck in something that isn't there yet. My arms and legs flail uselessly against the walls as the world funnels me in a single, inevitable direction.
"So this is birth," I realize, half-hysterical. "This is actually happening."
There's no dignity in it.
Just pressure and motion and the helpless certainty that there is no going back.
The tunnel squeezes, squeezes, squeezes—
And then, suddenly, everything changes.
The warmth breaks.
Cold air slams against my skin. My ears ring with a rush of noise—voices, shouts, something like cheering or crying. My chest burns as instinct forces my tiny lungs to drag in their first breath.
I inhale.
The world explodes into sensation.
It's so bright.
And my new life begins.
AN:
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