Huff… Huff…
Fern stood among the ruins of what had once been a fortress, her staff planted firmly in the scorched earth. Around her, the remnants of the final war lay scattered; broken weapons, shattered barriers, and the faint residue of magic that would never be cast again.
She was tired. So unbearably tired.
Her breathing was labored, each inhale a reminder that even mages had limits. Blood seeped through her robes from wounds she'd stopped counting hours ago. The enemy was defeated. The world was saved. Again.
How many times now? she wondered distantly. How many wars? How many funerals?
Frieren had been gone for decades. Stark, even longer. Fern had outlived them all; her master's curse of longevity passed down through sheer magical prowess. She'd become what Frieren once was: the last mage standing.
"At least... it's over," she whispered to the empty sky.
Her knees buckled. The staff slipped from her fingers.
Fern hit the ground, and for the first time in many years, she allowed herself to close her eyes without setting barrier, or planning the next spell.
Frieren-sama... I can rest now, right?
Darkness embraced her like an old friend.
. . . .
Then came the light.
Fern's consciousness lurched violently, dragged through something that felt like being unmade and remade simultaneously. Colors she'd never seen screamed past her awareness. Sounds that weren't sounds reverberated through her very essence.
What—?
She tried to speak, but she had no mouth. Tried to cast a spell, but her mana scattered like smoke in a hurricane. Panic, true panic, something she hadn't felt since she was a child, clawed at her mind.
Am I dead? Is this the afterlife? Where—
WAAAAAHHH!
The sound tore from her throat before she could stop it. High-pitched, shrill, utterly beyond her control. Her lungs burned with unfamiliar intensity, forcing air through vocal cords she didn't recognize.
"It's a girl! Congratulations!"
The words were in Japanese. Fern understood them perfectly, yet she'd never learned Japanese in her life. Bright lights assaulted her eyes. Large shapes moved around her, and with growing horror, Fern realized they weren't large.
She was the tiny one.
Strong hands lifted her. Fern's vision was blurry, but she could make out a face; brown skin, warm eyes, and tears streaming down smiling cheeks.
"Hello, little one," the woman whispered. "Welcome to the world."
No, Fern's mind screamed. No, this isn't… I was dying, and ready to die. What is this?
But her body betrayed her, wracked with exhaustion from simply existing. Her eyelids, impossibly heavy, began to close.
Before darkness claimed her again, one thought crystallized with absolute clarity:
I've been reborn.
***
The first year was torture.
Fern had faced demons, survived magical catastrophes, endured the grief of outliving everyone she loved. None of it compared to the humiliation of being an infant with a fully conscious, adult mind.
She couldn't walk. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even control her own bladder, for crying out loud. Every day was an exercise in patience she didn't know she possessed.
Her new parents—Kenji and Yuki Hayashi—were kind people. Kenji worked in "quirk counseling," whatever that meant. Yuki was a nurse. They doted on their daughter with an affection that made Fern's heart ache with memories of Heiter, of the simple kindness she'd been shown as an orphaned child in another life.
But the world itself was weird.
Through the window of her nursery, Fern could see a city of towering buildings, flying vehicles, and people with abilities that defied her understanding of magic. A man walked by with flames dancing on his head. A woman casually floated groceries behind her without any visible spell circles.
Quirks, she heard her parents call them. Superpowers. Genetic mutations. Eighty percent of the population had them.
This wasn't her world. This was something else entirely.
And yet—
Fern flexed her tiny fingers, feeling something beneath her skin. Like embers waiting to ignite. Her mana was still there, compressed, but there. Smaller than it had been, certainly. A lake where once there'd been an ocean.
But it was hers.
Can I still...?
She focused, drawing on decades of trained instinct. The mobile hanging above her crib—a ridiculous thing with smiling suns and moons—began to sway. Not from wind. From her will.
The plastic moon rotated slowly, then faster, spinning on its string.
Yes. Relief flooded through her. I can still use magic.
The mobile exploded in a shower of plastic shards.
Fern stared at the ceiling, her face carefully neutral even as her parents rushed in, panicking over their daughter's first "quirk manifestation."
I'm going to need to recalibrate everything, she thought grimly.
***
By age three, Fern could walk, talk, and had mastered the art of appearing normal.
The key, she discovered, was moderation. Too much progress and she'd be labeled a genius, subjected to endless tests and scrutiny. Too little and her parents would worry. She walked the razor's edge of "bright but not abnormal."
She learned to read within months, devouring books about this world's history. The advent of quirks two hundred years ago. The collapse of society. The rise of heroes and villains. It read like a poorly written novel, except it was real.
No demons, she noted. But plenty of monsters wearing human faces.
Her magic remained her secret. Late at night, when her parents slept, Fern would practice in her room. Basic spells. Levitation. Barriers. Sensing mana; except there was no mana here, not in the traditional sense. The energy of this world felt different.
Quirks, she realized, were almost like biological spells. Permanent, and specialized magic coded into a person's DNA. Fascinating and deeply limiting compared to true magic.
She wondered if she was the only one. The only person with real magic in a world of quirks.
The thought was profoundly lonely.
***
The incident happened when Fern was four.
She was at a park with her mother when she saw it: a child, maybe six years old, being cornered by older kids. They were using their quirks; small flames, sharp nails, nothing deadly but enough to terrify.
Fern watched from the swings, her face impassive.
Not my problem, she told herself. This world has heroes. Professional ones. Someone will intervene.
But no one did. Adults walked by, assuming it was just kids playing. The victim was crying now, curled up on the ground.
Fern's hands tightened on the swing's chains.
I'm not a hero, just trying to survive. I've fought enough wars, protected enough people, yeah, I earned my rest.
The biggest bully raised his hand, flames flickering to life.
Fern was off the swing before she consciously decided to move.
She walked calmly toward the group, her small frame radiating something that made the bullies pause. Later, adults would say it was impressive for a four-year-old to have such presence. They had no idea they were looking at a woman who'd stared down demon kings.
"Stop," Fern said quietly.
"Huh? What's a baby gonna—"
The bully's flames guttered out. It was just... stopped. He stared at his hand in confusion, trying and failing to reignite his quirk.
Fern had placed a suppression barrier around him. Simple magic. Child's play, really. But in a world where quirks were biological, where no one had ever heard of magical interference...
It looked impossible.
"Leave," Fern said, her voice flat and cold. "Now."
They ran.
The victim looked up at her with wide, tearful eyes. "Thank you! Your quirk is so cool! What's it called?"
Fern stared at the child, then at her own hands.
What have I done?
"Fern!" Her mother rushed over, pulling her into a hug. "That was very brave, sweetie! But don't scare Mama like that. What if they'd hurt you?"
Over her mother's shoulder, Fern saw other parents staring. Whispering. Recording on their phones.
They saw. They all saw.
That night, a letter arrived from the Quirk Registry Office.
Fern's quirk had been officially documented: "Energy Manipulation - Type: Suppression."
As Fern lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, she felt the weight of a terrible realization settle over her.
She couldn't stay hidden. In a world obsessed with heroes and quirks, she was an anomaly. And anomalies always drew attention.
I fought one last war for peace, she thought bitterly. And now I'm going to have to fight again, aren't I?
Outside her window, the city glittered with lights. Somewhere, heroes patrolled. Villains schemed. A whole world turned, ignorant of the ancient mage reborn among them.
Fern closed her eyes.
Frieren-sama... what would you do?
No answer came. It never did.
She was alone in this new life.
Just like she'd been alone at the end of the old one.