I woke up with a headache and a faint sense of betrayal. I couldn't even tell you why, really. Maybe because I'd been reincarnated as Ira', but even that didn't feel like it explained everything.
You ever get so used to thinking you're secretly overpowered that you start walking like you're wearing cheat codes? That was me yesterday. I figured any second now I'd trip, scream, and accidentally nuke a mountain. Classic dumbass protagonist energy.
But nothing came.
No magic spikes. No glowing eyes. No "You have awakened the Celestial Bloodline" pop-up. Just me, Ira' Lionheart, flunking out of Mana Measurement 101 with the rest of the discount Hogwarts rejects.
"You're below average," the instructor said, squinting at the results like the crystal owed him an apology. "Odd, considering your lineage."
I laughed. Out loud. Right in his face.
"Yeah," I muttered. "Hilarious."
I spent the rest of the day buried in the library, tearing through dusty old history books and outdated spell theories, hunting for any mention of the hidden power Ira' was supposed to have. In the novel, it was always some vague, ominous thing: "His soul, forged in divine flame, slept until the right moment."
Spoiler: there is no divine flame now.
Nothing about it in any record. Not in the bloodline charts, not in the family history, not even in the forbidden section where all the good dirt usually hides. The author must've retconned it. Cut the power. Changed the lore. Probably got an editorial note saying "make him more grounded." Yeah. Grounded like a dead bird.
So here I am. Trapped in a power fantasy world. With no power.
I am so completely, utterly, cosmically fucked.
Later that evening, I saw him. Sitting under the courtyard willow tree like a damn oil painting come to life. Crown Prince Riven of the Lethral Kingdom. My best friend in this world. Blonde. Sharp-eyed. Already five love letters deep before breakfast. In the novel, he was supposed to be my rival. But in this version? He's kind. Loyal. Wears his dumb friendship ring like it's the most important thing he owns.
He waved at me. I waved back.
And then I remembered something.
In the original novel, if Riven had been the protagonist, he would've stolen the Phoenix Heart. Hidden deep beneath the Lionheart estate—an ancient relic, one use, infinite regeneration. It was meant for the Ice Princess. Meant to save her from her cursed bloodline in one tragic miracle moment during Volume Nine.
Guess what?
I'm not Ira'. Not really. I'm Rick. A bitter bastard with a broken story and no plot armor.
And I don't give a shit about the Ice Princess.
That night, I stood at the edge of the estate's old chapel, staring down at the sealed stairs beneath it. Nobody ever went down there. They thought it was a tomb. Honestly, it kind of is.
But it's also where the Phoenix Heart sleeps. One touch and it binds to your body. Burned alive? You regenerate. Poisoned? Purged. Stabbed in the heart? It heals before the blade pulls out. Practically immortal.
In the book, it was too powerful for a side character. Even the author knew that.
Too bad I'm not a side character.
Too bad I've decided the story doesn't get to win.
I broke into the crypt sometime past midnight. No guards. No alarms. Just shadows and the distant sound of my own dumb heartbeat questioning every step I took.
The Phoenix Heart floated above a dais of old stone, pulsing red-gold like something halfway between sacred and radioactive. It looked smaller than I expected. But I remembered what it did. How it changed people.
So I did what no character should ever do. I reached out and took it.
The pain hit instantly. Fire, from the inside out. Every cell in my body screaming as the relic burned its way into me. It didn't just fuse—it rewrote me. Like my bones were being replaced by something older. Immortal.
Then darkness.
When I woke up, the sun was rising, the air stank of smoke, and my bed looked like it had survived a small explosion. I dragged myself to the mirror, ready to see the same sparkly anime prince face I'd been stuck with since waking up in this joke of a world.
What I saw stopped me.
Black hair. Charred at the tips, messy but thicker, longer—maybe shoulder length if I let it fall right. My face was sharper, older somehow, and a faint beard and mustache framed it like a glitch in the model.
For a second, I just stared.
Then I grinned.
"Rick Sancheese is back," I whispered.
It was dramatic. It was stupid. It was also short-lived, because the next second the royal guards burst in, swords drawn, one of them shouting, "We smelled burning—what happened?!"
I didn't even blink. Just pointed at the scorched bed and said, "Puberty, I guess."
They didn't get the joke.
Turns out the black hair and beard weren't some cool magical rebrand—I was just covered in ash. Mostly. The hair growth, though? That was real. Probably side effects from the Phoenix Heart rebooting my entire nervous system.
Later that day, I showed up to the academy, same as usual. Nobody noticed anything. Nobody ever does. That's the curse of living in a world that runs on tropes—you can change everything, and people will still play their roles.
Except me.
I didn't go back to the Lionheart estate after classes. I knew what was coming. The demon attack. The deaths. The arc where Ira' awakens too late and too conveniently. This time, I wasn't going to wait for the plot to drag me along.
I ran.
No plans. No map. Just me, some coin, and a bag of bread I stole from the cafeteria. I camped outside the city for a while, hiding under trees and trying to figure out what I was doing. I told myself it was to stay ahead of the narrative, to dodge fate.
But the truth?
I was lonely. In every world, I guess that follows me.
Then I met her. Red hair. Sharp eyes. The fire mage girl who, in the original story, fell for Ira' after a dramatic save during a school duel. Only this time, I wasn't playing that part. I was just... there. Broken, bitter, and a little less full of shit than usual.
She fell anyway.
We had the whole cliché—danger, tension, awkward conversations in tents. Sex. Kids. Eleven other wives over the years, too, if we're skipping ahead.
But that's not the part that mattered.
What mattered was my younger brother.
He wasn't supposed to be in the story. Barely a footnote in the original. But in this version, he existed—and he mattered. Sweet kid. Smiled at me like I was something worth admiring. Followed me around. Trusted me.
In my last life, I didn't have a sibling. Didn't have anyone who looked at me like that.
And my mom? The one in this world? She was kind. Actually kind. Not the performative "mother of the chosen one" kind. She listened. She laughed. She made sure I ate breakfast. My real mom back on Earth? She'd weaponize affection. Used love like a leash. Every time I wanted something for myself, she'd tighten it.
This one didn't.
So I started wanting to protect something. For real this time.
Not the world. Not the destiny. Not the dumb prophecy carved into stained glass above the chapel.
Just the kid who called me brother.
And the woman who called me son.
And maybe, if I'm lucky, the me who finally stopped waiting for the plot to save him—and decided to fight for something instead.