Rei woke choking on smoke.
His lungs burned. His arms felt too thin. Ash clung to his skin, and the room around him was wrong. The ceiling was low and cracked, blackened by fire. Light filtered through gaps in the charred wood, cutting through the haze in pale, dusty beams.
He coughed hard and sat up slowly. His vision swam.
Then he stopped, staring at his hands.
They were smaller than they should have been. Thinner. His fingers were burned along the edges, and the skin was marked by old scars.
These were not his hands.
His name came back quickly. Rei Kurogane. His past life came too. The streetlight. The headlights. Screeching brakes. Cold metal. Then nothing.
Now he was here, in a burned-out building that wasn't his home, in a body that wasn't his.
The door creaked open, and a boy poked his head in. He looked about twelve, with soot on his cheeks and sharp eyes that narrowed as soon as he saw Rei sitting up.
"You're alive?" he said flatly.
Rei nodded. His voice was still caught in his throat.
The boy frowned. "You were out cold. Marn said your soul probably slipped out when the beam hit you. Guess not."
He turned to go.
"Get up if you can. There's work."
The door shut.
Rei sat still for several breaths, trying to adjust to the unfamiliar weight of his limbs. This was real. He wasn't dreaming or drifting in some afterlife. He was alive again, in someone else's body, in a world that didn't belong to him.
He stood slowly and pushed his way outside.
The village beyond was a ruin. Collapsed huts, burned fences, crumbling walls. Children moved from place to place with buckets or armfuls of broken wood. Some worked. Some wandered. None smiled.
There were no adults to be seen.
The boy from earlier stood by a crooked well. He gave Rei a short look.
"You'll take your turn tomorrow," he said.
Rei managed to ask, "Turn at what?"
"Awakening."
The village was called Lennwick. Rei learned the name on the second day.
It sat near the edge of a forest, surrounded by uneven hills and mostly abandoned roads. There were no soldiers or Mages stationed anywhere near it. The village held only orphans, the elderly, and a few survivors who refused to leave.
A raider attack had hit a few weeks earlier. Most adults were dead or missing. Older teens tried to keep the place running, but it was a fragile effort.
No one questioned Rei. He looked the part of an orphan well enough. Burned, thin, quiet. People assumed he had always been here. No one asked who he was, and he didn't offer it.
He knew who he was. He just didn't know where this world expected him to fit.
He listened.
The children talked about Classes. Everyone awakened one sooner or later. The world decided your role without asking. Most hoped for useful paths such as Fighter, Mage, or Healer. A few dreamed of rare combat classes that earned Academy spots.
At night, Rei sat behind what remained of the village forge. The chimney was cracked. The hearth was cold. No coal or bellows were left, and no one had worked the forge in a long time.
He picked up sticks or bits of charcoal and drew in the dirt. He sketched tools he remembered using. Clamps. Pliers. Guides. Hinged frames. Things that did not belong in this time or place. His hands remembered more than his mind did.
He could not recall his old job clearly, but he remembered steel, heat, and rhythm.
Something stirred inside him whenever he imagined shaping metal.
The forge was abandoned. Yet he kept returning to it.
He did not know why.
Not yet.
The Seer arrived on the fifth day.
She rode a tired gray horse. Her cloak was patched and dusty. A bronze mask shaped like a hawk's beak hid her face. She carried no weapons, only a long wooden staff with a pale crystal set into the head.
She said little. She walked through the village, inspected the children, then gathered everyone at the old stone ring near the well.
"Five candidates," she said. "Step forward."
Rei learned then that the body he now occupied was fourteen, just old enough for the ritual.
He stood last in line.
One by one, the children stepped forward. The Seer touched her staff to their chests, and the crystal glowed softly. A strange voice, not her own, announced the results.
[Class: Mage]
[Class: Herbalist]
[Class: Healer]
Just the class. Nothing more. No one seemed surprised. A few clapped politely.
Then Rei stepped forward.
The Seer hesitated slightly as she looked at him. Then she pressed the staff to his chest.
Warmth spread through him.
A silent voice echoed.
[Class: Blacksmith]
The glow faded.
The villagers whispered.
"Blacksmith?"
"Those are all Guild-trained now."
"A child with one is worthless."
"No Academy will take him."
The Seer noted something in her book. She did not speak to him.
Rei stepped back with his heart pounding.
He knew his name. He knew who he had been. He knew he was not weak. Yet the world around him saw a Class that meant little, a path that promised nothing.
That night, he returned to the forge again. The ashes were cold, but something warm pulsed in his chest. Restless.
He sat in the dirt and ran his fingers over a twisted piece of scrap. Iron, bent and blackened.
A flicker passed through him.
[System Access Unlocked]
[Name: Rei Kurogane]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Blacksmith]
[Level: 1]
[EXP: 0/100]
[Strength: 1.2]
[Agility: 1.1]
[Constitution: 1.4]
[Intelligence: 2.9]
[Attribute Points: 0]
[Skills: Basic Forging, Material Sense]
[Class Skill: Crafting Slot {0/1}]
[Note: Allows creation of Living Forge-bound items. Bound items evolve and respond. Mundane items do not require a slot]
[Gift: Living Forge]
[Status: Soul Displacement Detected. Host body stabilized]
His breath caught.
He stared at the readout until it vanished.
Not magic. Not fire.
Possibility.
He sat alone as night settled over Lennwick.
Waiting for something to spark.