2 Living

In his perception, it was mere moments after Yuri hit the floor before he woke up in this confusing cluster of multicolored stars and warped cosmic bodies collapsing and colliding into an untold number of shapes. But in those few moments he had understood why he was stupid for choosing suicide. He felt nothing. He wasn't unconscious, he was gone. Extinct, returned to the void, unable to hold a grudge as ghosts do or weigh his sins against his virtues and be judged as the religious supposed. But was this the afterlife?

He didn't have time to wonder. The kaleidoscopic host of celestial wonder surrounding him gathered at a pace too fast to be believable. Not even comets could travel this many light years this intricately. Soon it became obvious it was forming a shape. A shape in his image, but unimaginably larger.

A woman with hair that glistened of literal stars, eyes whose pupils held galaxies, hands that looked graceful and delicate despite being almost a light year in size, and all the other feminine features of a perfect Greek sculpture was formed at a distance that allowed him to see it all and feel so small in the universe. The gathering of this part of the universe left nothing visible except the two of them and the infinite darkness of space. As soon as all of this ended, she spoke.

"Greetings, Child of Man. Welcome to the Record"

Her voice was not imposing as her size would imply, but as small as he was accustomed to, as if a normal human woman with a silky, kind, and confident voice was speaking to him like she was right in front of him. It felt like it took him a while to respond, but he finally gathered the courage.

"Greetings. May I ask who you are and where I am?"

He spoke in an unhurried manner. He was sure he was dead, what would worrying about it do? But he also felt that he wasn't as scared or nervous as he would normally be.

"I am Akasha, and this is my realm. A place I call the Record, where all my achievements and the collections of myself and my followers are gathered. I have brought you here for that very task."

Yuri gathered his wits and came up with a few theories. He wasn't dead yet, but this...uh...god wanted him to be her follower and perform tasks for him. But...

"Why me? I'm a worthless..." Huh...It almost felt unnatural for him to call himself worthless now. He was also thinking much more clearly and quickly. Like a veil had been lifted. "...mortal with no achievements or special abilities to speak of. What can I offer you or this realm?"

After a slight pause, she replied. "Why do you perceive yourself as having no inherent worth? Could it perhaps be the mental illness you were born with that death had freed you from, or could it be that you felt you had not given enough to your society" She of course knew the answer was both, but she allowed him to respond.

"I am a dispassionate and heartless creature. A man who pursued nothing but his own mediocre survival and fled from reality with literature and fiction"

"You were a man bound by circumstance: an opportunistic and greedy society, and the brain you were given which held no love for its master. Your talents were worth nothing in a world that couldn't use them, but I know exactly what you are capable of. I've been waiting for you to die, Mr. Nightingale, so that your talent can be used properly"

'Waiting for me to die? I can't be that special. How many humans like me suffered the same way I did yet still rose to the challenge of supporting a family or pursuing their goals'

"Your talent is Akashic Assimilation, and you never knew because you were born in a world that had no access to mana or the record. You pursued the fictional and fantastical because it was calling you. You can develop countless skills of your own because you were born to devour and recreate. If you were born on an awakened planet with a fully functioning mind you would be conquering galaxies"

'Akashic Assimilation? Like the Akashic Records those fiction authors repeat as often as the word quantum? Wait I guess she said we were in her Record'

"Yes"

'Shit, of course she can read my mind'

"Akashic Assimilation is an innate connection to the Akashic Records, the entity that I was named after. Your world lied in an informational nexus that allowed records of countless neighboring worlds to be seen by a multitude of people. Hundreds of worlds have been documented on yours as fictional thanks to this fact. You are one of the only mortals to ever be born with Akashic Assimilation, so if your world awakened to mana the information stream would've overloaded your mind and killed you anyway"

"You mean to say that the worlds we believe to be fictional were real and very close by?!" He asked loudly, ignoring the part about mana and whatnot.

"Not all fictional stories, and many times humans twisted the details to make a good story. These worlds are in close proximity to each other according to my standards, but they are in entirely different dimensions to you."

Yuri was at a loss, but if everything Akasha was saying is to be believed then she is about to give his once worthless life a whole new meaning, and he was now more than ready since he cast aside the brain that killed him.

"What is this task you speak of, Lady Akasha?" How many times has he read or watched the same archetype of isekai stories only to get a little bit of joy out of the hope he could one day do the same? This goddess might send him to worlds he has only read about, of course he was going to be respectful. Well, he should've started to properly address her from the beginning...

"You may call me Akasha, my champion" She replied, causing a little bit of a flutter to arise in what he thought was his heart. "Your task is simple. Explore and discover the worlds you have once known as fiction, and capture their methods of mana use and power systems to record. Then, use the Akashic Record to create a magic that produces the same effect or ability that system allows. Once you have done that, the Akashic Record will gain access to the world will through its will and we can monitor its fate and interactions with the rest of the universe, or even the Omniverse."

"So I'm infiltrating and connecting these worlds to the Record through their unique laws?"

"You catch on quick, Champion"

"But what if a world doesn't use mana?"

"Mana is the source, all other mystical energies are either named incorrectly or converted by an ambitious or unique world will. But mana will always be universal, and anything a world can do, you can do better."

'Mana is the source, I am the sourcerer... I mean sorcerer. Alright'

"I have said enough, you must learn the rest on your own. I will give you a piece of me, it will help you on your journey and keep you constantly connected to the Record. Now go, my Champion. Your first journey awaits. You will start with a world you will find extremely familiar"

"Huh?" Was all he could say before he vanished from the scene and started hurtling and twisting in the rapidly changing scenery of the vibrant cosmos...