Marcus Conner died the way he lived, overconfident and one step ahead, right until he wasn't.
The casino floor had been his hunting ground. He'd spent two months setting up this con, building trust and creating the perfect illusion. The mark was a mid-level yakuza accountant with access to offshore accounts and a gambling problem. Easy money.
Except the accountant had friends. Very loyal, very armed friends.
Marcus felt the blade enter his back before he heard the words. "You conned the wrong person."
His legs gave out and he hit the floor, blood pooling beneath him.
'Huh,'Marcus thought as his vision darkened. 'Guess the house always wins in the end.'
Then nothing.
---
Then something.
Marcus opened his eyes to void. He floated in nothing, which should have been terrifying except he couldn't feel anything.
"Well, well." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "Another player enters the game."
Light exploded into existence. When Marcus's vision cleared, he stood on an enormous poker table floating in space. Across from him sat a figure shuffling cards.
The dealer wore a sharp suit with the fabric shifting between existing and not existing, patterns appearing and disappearing like Schrödinger's tuxedo. Their face was obscured by a wide-brimmed hat, but Marcus caught glimpses of features that changed with each shuffle. Young, old, male, female, human, to definitely not human.
"Welcome, Marcus Conner. I am the God of Chance. You may call me Fortune, Luck, Fate, Destiny, I've gone by many names. Today, I'm your dealer."
Marcus's con artist instincts kicked in immediately. God or not, this was a game. Games could be played. "Cute setup. Very theatrical. What's the play?"
Fortune laughed, delighted. "Direct. I like that. Here's the game, Marcus: I offer second chances to those who've died. But nothing comes free. We gamble for it."
With a gesture, the space around them filled with screens. Each showed a person suffering in horrific ways, burned alive, drowned repeatedly, torn apart by monsters, experiencing every nightmare imaginable on infinite loop.
"These are the losers," Fortune explained "They bet for a second chance and lost. Now they're mine, eternal entertainment, suffering through the worst worlds I can find, dying in the most creative ways, forever. I find it quite amusing."
"And if I win?"
Fortune's smile widened. "If you win, you get exactly what you desire: a second chance at life, reincarnation into a world of wonder and adventure, and power beyond your wildest dreams. I'll even let you choose which world, within reason."
The screens changed. Now they showed fantastical worlds, magic, superheroes, cultivation, systems. Each more incredible than the last.
"The odds," Fortune continued, producing a pair of dice, "are ninety-five to five. In my favor, naturally. You roll these dice. Get double sixes, you win. Anything else, you lose."
Marcus watched the dice spin in Fortune's fingers. They looked normal enough, six-sided, white with black pips. But there was something off about them. The way they moved felt off.
"Can I examine the dice?"
"Of course! I'm a gracious host." Fortune tossed them over.
Marcus caught them, felt their weight. It was hard to tell but they were definitely weighted. These dice would almost never roll double sixes. The game was rigged from the start.
Fortune was infact cheating. Marcus felt a grin spread across his face. "So we're both cheating? I can respect that."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Come on. God of Chance? You're telling me you play fair? These dice are loaded. Weighted to avoid double sixes. The game's rigged." Marcus laughed. "Honestly, I'm not even mad. It's what I would do."
They was a brief moment of slience before Fortune started laughing. "Yahahaha, oh you magnificent bastard. You actually called me out. Do you know how many centuries it's been since someone had the balls to accuse me of cheating?"
"So you admit it?"
"Of course I'm cheating! I'm the God of Chance, I make the rules, I break the rules, I am the rules. Fair has nothing to do with it." Fortune leaned forward. "But here's the thing, Marcus. You called my bluff and that deserves something. So here's the new game: You can use the dice I gave you, or you can try to cheat better than a literal god. Your choice."
"What happens if I out-cheat you?"
"Then you truly win and get reality-bending luck, plus your choice of the world."
Marcus considered his options. Use the weighted dice and almost certainly lose, or try to out-con a cosmic entity. Really, when he thought about it, there was only one choice. He was a con artist. This was what he did.
"Deal. One condition though, I get to pick the type of game."
"Now you're thinking like a gambler. Name it."
"Three-card monte. You shuffle, I guess. I win, I get everything. You win, you get me."
"Three-card monte against a god. You are truly a fool of a man." Fortune snapped their fingers and three cards appeared on the table, one ace, two jokers. "I'll even use fair cards. The queen is marked, see? Find the lady, win your life."
Fortune's hands blurred. The cards danced across the table while phasing through each other. When Fortune stopped, three cards lay face-down.
"Make your choice, Marcus Conner."
"Before I choose, mind if I ask a question?"
"Stalling won't help you."
"Not stalling. I'm just curious, when you deal, do you use your left hand or right hand?"
"I'm ambidextrous."
"Right, but you favor your right hand for important moves. I noticed."
"Observant. So?"
"So, you just told me where the queen is." Marcus reached out, but not for any of the three cards on the table. Instead, he reached up and plucked a card from behind Fortune's ear. "You palmed it. The real queen never hit the table."
He flipped the card. Queen of Hearts.
Fortune stared with reality itself seemed to pause, buffering.
Then Fortune exploded into laughter again, this time so hard they nearly fell off their chair. "YOU GLORIOUS BASTARD! You caught the palm! You conned the God of Chance!" Fortune was wheezing now. "You actually, oh, this is beautiful. This is perfect. You know what? Fuck it. You win. You absolutely, completely, totally win."
The space erupted in light. Marcus felt power flooding into him with the dice, cards, and the entire game dissolved going into him.
"Now pick your world."
Marcus had been thinking about this since Fortune showed the screens. He'd seen one world in particular that caught his eye. A world he knew, or at least knew from television. A world of heroes and villains and ridiculous powers.
"My Hero Academia," Marcus said. "I want to go there."
"Ohhh, excellent choice. Superhero world, flashy powers, teenage drama, plus you already know the plot up to season five. Perfect setup." Fortune snapped their fingers. "Done. You'll be born naturally into that world, retain all your memories, and your quirk will be probability manipulation. The whole world will bend to make you lucky."
"Any catches?"
"Just one." Fortune's smile turned sharp. "I'll be watching. You conned me, so you have earned this power. But if you bore me? If you waste this gift on mediocrity? I'll make things interesting. So do me a favor."
Fortune leaned close, and Marcus saw galaxies dying in their eyes.
"Be entertaining."
Reality shattered like glass and Marcus fell through every possible outcome collapsing into one singular path.
His last thought before consciousness faded: I just conned a god into giving me godlike powers. Either I'm the luckiest bastard alive, or this is the setup to the universe's longest joke.
Either way, he was all in.
---
Awareness returned and Marcus's first coherent thought in his new existence was 'Oh. Oh no. I'm being born.'
His second thought: This is deeply uncomfortable and I would like it to stop.
His third thought: Wait, I can think. Babies can't think like this. The memories worked.
The process of being born was, objectively, horrifying. Marcus tried to mentally check out for most of it, and finally after what felt like hours of deeply unpleasant sensations, Marcus felt air on his face and bright lights with voices in, Japanese? His baby brain translated automatically, the reincarnation package apparently including language skills.
"Congratulations! It's a healthy boy!"
Someone was crying. His new mother, probably.
"Look at him, Hiroto, he's perfect!"
"He is," a male voice agreed. "What should we name him?"
Marcus felt himself being passed to someone with warm, gentle hands. His new mother. He forced his infant eyes open and caught a glimpse of her face she looked young and was pretty with black hair and a bright smile with tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Riku," she said softly. "Let's name him Riku.
'Riku,' Marcus no, Riku now, thought. 'Could be worse. At least it's not something stupid like Houleshet'
"Riku Ebisu," his father said, testing the name. "I like it. Welcome to the world, son."
Riku would have responded, but baby bodies apparently didn't come with much fine motor control. He managed a vague gurgling sound that his parents interpreted as adorable.
A doctor leaned over to check his vitals. As she did, her pen fell out of her pocket, bounced off the bed rail, ricocheted off a chair, and landed perfectly in Riku's tiny fist.
The doctor blinked. "Well, that was lucky."
His dad laughed. "Maybe he'll be a lucky child!"
'Dude,' Riku thought, gripping the pen with his tiny baby hand, 'you have no idea.'