Kaito gasped.
He shot up from the futon, hands clutching his chest, breath ragged and wild. His fingers pressed against his ribs, searching—feeling for the blade that had pierced through his body from behind.
Nothing.
No sword. No warmth of blood. No wound.
Just the rise and fall of his chest under a thin, rough cotton shirt, soaked in sweat and heaving under the weight of a memory that didn't belong in this room.
He stayed like that, unmoving, eyes fixed on the trembling fingers that had failed him once before.
> Am I… alive?
The thought came not with joy, but confusion. Wariness. His throat was dry. His skin was cold.
A damp breeze moved through the room.
He finally looked around.
The ceiling was old wood—splintered, sagging slightly in the middle, a crack running across one beam from age and moisture. The corners of the room were dark, dimly lit by the weak morning light sneaking through stained windows. The air smelled of rot and rain. That same scent he'd grown up with… and left behind a long time ago.
His mouth opened slowly.
"This place…"
The walls hadn't changed. A paper calendar hung to the side, turned to the wrong month. The old table. The sink with a leaking faucet. His worn-out satchel hanging from a rusty hook near the door.
It was his house.
The small wooden house in rural Japan. The one his parents had left to him after their accident. The house he'd lived in with his little brother, tending to the small farm they had clung to for survival. Where he'd buried his grief under routine and silence.
He stood on shaky legs, walking slowly across the room, pressing his hand against the damp wall as if it might vanish.
It didn't.
He touched the doorframe. The same chip where he'd banged his shoulder too hard when rushing out one morning.
He moved to the window.
Outside, the fields lay washed in grey. The soil was soaked and muddy, the stalks bent slightly under the weight of rain. The tool shed was still missing a panel. The scarecrow he built with his brother stood crooked in the middle of the rows, its straw-stuffed arms sagging like it had given up long ago.
Rain slid down the glass in thin trails.
His breath fogged the window.
Kaito stepped back.
> Is it… just a dream? Or was all that a dream..?
But dreams didn't leave behind the memory of pain that real.
Dreams didn't twist your chest with a rage you didn't know you still had.
Dreams didn't end with betrayal that felt so real.
He remembered the sword. The moment it broke through his ribs. The warm rush of blood. The muffled sound of his name being called out as everything darkened.
And before that—years of struggle. Fighting. Losing. Rising again.
Tower floors. Dungeons. System announcements. Corpses.
His brother's face.
No, this wasn't a dream. He hadn't just awakened from a nightmare. He had died.
And now…
He was here again.
> I've come back.
Why?,
The question didn't have an answer. But the rain did not stop. It continued to fall, soft and steady, tapping against the roof like a heartbeat.
Kaito stepped to the door and opened it.
The wooden panel creaked the way it always had, sticking slightly at the edge.
The cold hit him first. Then the water. Gentle drops falling on his skin, sliding down his face, his neck, soaking his thin shirt.
He stepped outside barefoot, onto the old stone porch. His feet touched moss-covered stone.
The rain didn't sting. It didn't chill. It simply… fell.
He took a few more steps into the yard.
Each drop felt real. Solid. More real than anything he'd felt at the end.
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.
There was no announcement. No glowing panel or voice in the sky.
Just rain.
And him.
His breath was shallow.
The second chance was real.
And with that realization came the flood.
Memories. Names. Faces. All at once.
The fire. The screams. The tower floor cracking beneath them. The system. The betrayal.
He clenched his fists.
The rain couldn't wash it away. None of it. Not the rage. Not the guilt. Not the hollow feeling of failure carved into his bones.
> All of it happened. I remember every moment. Every loss. Every time I let something go because I thought I had more time. Because I believed people who smiled with knives behind their backs.
> I let my brother die.
His hands trembled.
He didn't even know what day it was yet. How far back he had been sent. How much time he had before the world started unraveling again. But it didn't matter.
He wouldn't waste a second of it.
> This time… I'll be ready.
Suddenly His head snapped up.
A voice. High-pitched. Familiar.
Small feet running through wet soil. A blur of motion near the side of the house.
A boy's voice, breathless.
"Oni-chan! What are you doing? You'll catch a cold!"
The sound hit Kaito harder than the rain.
He turned slowly.
And there he was.
A boy—barely ten, soaked to the bone, standing barefoot in the mud, holding a too-big umbrella above his head.
His little brother.
The one who had died.
The one he hadn't protected.
Kaito stared, unblinking.
The boy's face was younger than he remembered. Rounder. Softer. There was no trace of fear or pain on it. Only concern.
He stepped forward.
"Oni-chan?"
Kaito's throat tightened.
He opened his mouth but couldn't speak.
The boy frowned slightly, tilting his head. "Did something happen? You're weird today. Are you hurt?"
Kaito took one step.
Then another.
The umbrella slipped from the boy's hand.
Kaito dropped to his knees in the mud and pulled him into a hug.
Tight. Wordless. Shaking.
His arms wrapped around his little brother like he'd never let go again.
The boy yelped softly, startled, but didn't pull away.
The rain continued to fall.
Kaito didn't speak.
He cried.
Silently. Without gasps or sobs. Just tears sliding down into his brother's shoulder, carried away by the rain.
---