Chapter 28: The Soldier Named Ina
The smell of gunpowder was the first thing that hit him.
Ren—no, the man who would become Ren—kicked open the door of a small, war-torn house. He was in his early twenties, his face smeared with dirt and dried blood. He wore a tattered, olive-drab army uniform with a name tag pinned to his chest: MR. INA.
"Mom! Dad!" Ina screamed, his voice cracking with desperation.
He burst into the living room, but the sight that met him turned his blood to ice. His parents and his three brothers lay in a heap on the floor, their lifeblood staining the wooden boards. Ina's rifle clattered to the floor as he collapsed to his knees, clutching his mother's cold hand and letting out a harrowing cry of agony.
"Oh? This is a first," a voice chuckled from the shadows of the kitchen.
A Chinese soldier stepped out, lazily clapping his hands together. He looked at Ina's crying form with pure amusement. "I've seen many soldiers, but never one who cries so much over a few dead peasants."
Ina didn't say a word. The grief in his heart instantly curdled into a black, poisonous rage. In one fluid, professional motion, he reached for his sidearm.
BANG.
A single bullet caught the enemy soldier between the eyes. He slumped to the ground, dead before he could even stop laughing. But the revenge tasted like ash. Ina looked back at his family, the trauma of the war and this final loss shattering his mind.
"I'm coming, Mom... Dad..."
Ina pressed the barrel of the revolver against his forehead. He didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger.
The Law of the Two Worlds
In reality, the boy known as Ren was never originally from the World of Magic (VTFT). He was a fragment of our world, a soul named Ina who had been forged in the fires of World War II.
In this universe, the reincarnation cycle works through a cruel, natural selection of spirits. When a baby is born in the Magic World and reaches the age of 3 or 4, they are at their most vulnerable. If a powerful soul from the "Real World" dies at that exact moment, that soul can cross the barrier and enter the child's body.
If the dead person's soul is stronger than the newborn's soul, the baby's spirit simply fades away, and the visitor takes over. Ren was one of those visitors.
He was not alone. Approximately 5% to 9% of the population in the Magic World are "Transplants" from the Real World. Most of them live their lives without ever knowing their true origins. The memories usually remain locked away, only beginning to leak into the conscious mind between the ages of 10 and 20.
For Ren, the Level 8 Magic Crow potion hadn't just changed his body—it had shattered the lock on his past life.
The trauma he had tried to escape by dying in his world had followed him here. And now, the soul of Ina the Soldier and Ren the Student were fighting for control of a single, poisoned heart.