1 Chapter 1: Tian Leiji

Lightning struck down and thunder boomed through the expanse as far as anyone could see. The land was covered with burns and red blood, blooming like a wild batch of flowers. One could almost taste the ash in the air. A streak of silver charged around three people that were encircling it; the three were most hesitant to actually do anything, however.

Looking closer, the silver was a silver-haired woman—hair tied into a half ponytail with two thin braids, striking yellow eyes and a face and body that should have been given to a man. She was haggard, wounded grievously and seemed exhausted, but wouldn't stop attacking; mania and anger seen through a haze of confusion in her eyes. A broadsword held with both hands and the golden crown with a green gem standing proudly atop her head, lightning with a green-sheen surrounded and protected her.

One of the four, a handsome man with black hair—bangs swept to the right and usually tussled hair—and red-orange eyes held a long sword in hand, fire around him and a golden crown with a red gem as he desperately fought, clashing against the silver-haired woman constantly. He firmly ignored the tears flowing down his cheeks as he yet again managed to land a hit on her, tearing a gash into the woman's side. The blood bloomed like a new rose, utterly beautiful and…

The man sent a look at another one of the other two, donning a hooded—a crescent moon toy hanging from the hood, threaded through by a piece of purple string— sweater with circular patterns and chin-length purple hair and eyes, gender was unknown, though they looked quite feminine—a golden crown with a grey gem atop the person's head, crooked to the left side; the crown was. The purple-haired person's hands trembled as he prepared his bow, using an arrow with a grey aura slowly surrounding and being absorbed by it. The man, with the fire surrounding him disappearing, gave the sky a last good look before he recklessly charged forward and thrust his sword at the woman, completely expecting the other's reaction of stepping back, flinging his sword away and driving her own sword at him.

A head flew off. The silver-haired woman froze, a horrifying feeling of realization dawning and an utter silence that grew too quickly engulfed the area. The purple-haired one held his breath and let go of the arrow, the silver-haired woman swiveled around, seeing the arrow and the purple-haired person wanted to cry out "Dodge!"…and she didn't move.

The last person—a woman with long, dark blue hair tied into two low pigtails and green eyes, a purple crown with a gray gem fixed onto her head and her skirt fluttering in the aftermaths of a storm—was beside the purple-haired one in an instant, putting away her meteor hammer and embracing him.

"You did well," she hesitated, still hugging the other with a maternal love deep in her eyes, "Moon."

Moon burst out crying.

Opening her eyes to a black void wasn't what she was expecting. Not after she had gone on a rampage and clashed with them all. Not when Fire had been the last one she struck down before turning to see one of Moon's arrows and there was a flash of pain on her head before everything went black and—oh.

Oh.

Was this death then? That certainly did nothing to explain the heartbeat that she was hearing and wasn't from her. It also had no reason to beat faster every second and the odd feelings—safesafecomfortfamilyhome—that were most definitely not hers. They were odd, weird and strange but her body seemed to react and enjoy it. Speaking of her body, she was pretty sure it wasn't hers because no—she was not a baby, much less a fetus and she was pretty sure no one was just pulling one huge prank on her by sending her back in time temporarily because, no, no no, that thing—OK. Think, pretend it's not there.

Reincarnation, maybe? Why did she still remember everything, then? She didn't think that it was an actual thing and Death had never said a thing about it—though, now that she thought about it, it probably had something to do with Life, Death and Space's knowing looks and smug faces—OK, no. Stop. She really has to fix her erratic thinking sometime—she never really does do it anyways.

…seriously though. A baby can't support her brain capacity, let alone a fetus! But, ah. Thinking about all this is going to be wasting time, but she still had only a month before she gets born, judging from how far developed her…body is, but hey! More time trying to guess and observe from inside the womb how her mother condition was. What will she do with this second…chance?

Revenge was not one of those things, of course. Not when she deserved to be struck down after all that destruction—Destruction should be proud of how much of it she made. Creation would've been so mad—and not when that damned idiot of a sister of hers died of natural causes. Her old ranking in the world wasn't appealing after she's been through it—paperwork was made to torture her, but she felt that it would happen anyways. She had the blood of a ruler, enough said—and a simple life sounds extremely appealing. Ah, she could live to protect those who were hers. That'll be simple and amazingly easy, because…well.

She wasn't the Lightning Empress in her past life for no reason, after all.

No. she didn't fight her way to the top without learning anything.

The Lightning Empress of her generation was not to be messed with—seriously, in case of pranks, then several spars would curb her anger that was always tinted with fondness and exasperation—unless forced to, didn't manage to kill nearly all of the others—thirteen, she mused in the back of her head. Killed thirteen while fatally injuring six; she locked it away subconsciously—with nothing. Oh no.

Protecting those who were hers would be exceedingly easy.

All she needed to do—after she was born—was get her body up to par and unlock her element. Hopefully it will be the same because it was far too obvious that this wasn't her body that was just shrunk down into baby's because she was pretty sure that no, she was not a male in her previous life and ah—something in the back of her mind screamed and screamed but she ignored it, not wanting to think about it yet before she saw her appearance in a mirror and pretended not to be hyper aware of everything, so that…thing down there definitely wasn't hers the previous life.

The woman refused to acknowledge the choking feeling of realization and pain that that girl—her sweet (maybe not so sweet), precious little sister—was gone.

What felt like years passed by—it was only two weeks, really but she was never a patient one unless actually trying—and the amount of feelings she'd felt through her biological mother was…concerning—the bond thingy was something that the silver-haired one was most definitely going to study when she sees this world and how she came to the conclusion that this was not her world was that her mother had no signs of her body having awoken her element and that she had an odd energy that could be circulated at will—it was always accidental and quickly cut off when second mother—second mother was second mother. Mother was mother—realized that it was being sent to her though their bonds and ah—nononeverdon'tyoudARE—there it was again, along with the jostle and sudden cut off and she's been wondering is what she'd learned she could do helped—worryworrysafefamily—she sent the feelings down their… "bond".

No, she was not going to acknowledge the white liquid that shoots up from an opening. Not when her mother was always so distressed and angry and sad and all that whenever it happens. She suspects rape, but doesn't entertain the idea in her head because the moment her body was born—AKA the moment her baby body was strong enough—she'll use her elements to make sure nobody hurts her second mother because it was fairly obvious that her second mother didn't have any favorable living conditions. The silver-haired woman thought to herself that if her second mother wanted the world then she'll gladly take it over and give it to her because it was obvious that her second—her past life mother would always be her first and true mother who had raised a strong woman, second mother… she'll see later—mother only wanted the best for her.

What felt like decades passed by—another two weeks—and she was finally born and she never wanted to be born again because that experience was awful and disgusting. She suddenly felt a newfound respect for babies to have gone through this to see the world. Then again, babies didn't know anything. Why was she thinking about babies again?

In case people wanted a more detailed version of that paragraph; Lightning deadpanned when the weird liquid that supposedly protected her suddenly burst and flowed down and she realized that that liquid had been the thing that allowed her to breathe in the womb—what could she say? It's been a long time since she's been to any biology class—and suddenly realized that it was finally, finally time for her to get out of this horrible dark room that was her second mother's womb—no offense, second mother—and she suddenly felt her second mother panicking so much that she didn't even bother to cut the bond that sent their feelings down, too distracted with having to finally let her baby out into the world to do so.

She felt her second mother rush to her small hut that was in an isolated corner of the…place, manor thing—only realizing this later—and second mother seems to be prepared because after a long time. The current infant body popped out and it was really icky and she still felt that she couldn't breathe—and isn't that funny? The thing that has been helping her breathe for a month in the womb is suddenly the reason she can't breathe—but she helped her second mother—she was an Empress, so despite having Lightning as her element, she could do much, much more—as in compress it into macro-sized tiny bombs that temporarily stopped her second mother's nerves from sending any pain.

Right after the first ones went off, her second mother suddenly sat up and checked her in a panic and the silver-haired woman suddenly realizes that babies usually cry when they're first born and her second mother was panicked because she thought her baby had died or something happened because she didn't hear any cries. She contemplated on it before gurgling and moving her infantile body to show that she wasn't dead. She focused on dispersing the pain in her second mother's body and realized then that her current mother was on the verge of awakening her element. Lightning silently put it away to study when she finds enough things to consider. Her second mother didn't put any thought into it and quickly cleaned her baby son as best as she could with a towel and looked outside. It was night by now and a storm was brewing. The mother watched as an arc of lightning struck a tree and set it on fire. Looks like she knows what name she would give her son.

Being a baby wasn't a nice experience—the silver-haired woman could feel her respect for infants growing—and she needed several tons of tea and coffee to get rid of the horrid taste of the liquid called breast milk—no offense, second mother. That's not even saying about how her second mother would coo at her and ask that her first word was "mama"—her "first word" ended up being just that—and how everybody else seems to think it was good to leave a baby unattended for the whole day. It was a good thing she had enough foresight to drink the exact minimum of…ugh, breast milk…to survive the day—no, no she totally did not count it because of the total boredom there is whenever she was left alone and not seeing her second mother's "acquaintances".

One can nearly see the sarcasm dripping off of every word.

Her daily schedule included trying her best to stabilize this body and get it fit quickly because this body won't be able to handle how she controls her elements if she doesn't. She is currently stuck with using the most basic and crude way of using it and kept on cringing whenever she did—a lot—because she was already used to her way of controlling elements and ah, I went off track again, her daily schedule consisted of the above and feeding just enough for the entire day and being taken by her mother outside of the room to be able to quickly learn how to speak—even if they did use very vulgar words and terms at times—and grow up and also because she did not want her son to gain the habit of staying in a room for prolonged times—"Maybe unless for closed door cultivation…" she thought to herself.

Her second mother was beautiful. Even with how exhausted she looks, she was absolutely beautiful with long black hair, silver patched here and there that almost looked like highlights, reaching down to her hips contrasting with her skin that was a milky white and big pitch black eyes—it reminded the baby of a black hole, sucking in everything, even light—and a beautiful body that made her wish she had it in her past life. Maybe it was why she couldn't find anyone who wanted to be with her, even for the night? If the people she took note of were usually people who yelled at or hurt her second mother—oh, she was named Lu Yanhei—were always temporarily paralyzed at night with electricity somehow and would be late to their duties, that was between the silver-haired woman and her second mother—her second mother somehow knew it was her child but only gave a knowing, amused and grateful smile at her—but oh well.

"Ji'er, please drink up," ah, right. Her name in this world was Tian Leiji. She had the same basic features as the other world, that is silver hair and yellow eyes. She hesitantly latched on and did so. Tian Leiji ignored the fact that they were using the language that that girl's area of governance used, but if she asked herself and the world if this world was trying to kill her with all the similarities, that was between herself and this world appropriately.

Tian Leiji tried not to think about the fact that people called her a monster because of her weird hair and eye colors and the intelligence that an infant definitely should not have—she wondered briefly, if they knew how powerful she was in her last life, would they still dare to talk like this?—but Tian Leiji most definitely did not succeed in ignoring the fact that she was supposed to only be an accident between the "young master" and a maid. Ah, she just wanted a normal civilian life but this had to happen. Tian Leiji briefly entertained the thought that gold shines wherever it is, no matter how far buried it was so she would've gotten caught up in these things whether she wanted to or not—she then irresponsibly put all the blame to the ruler's blood that flows in her. End of story.

Just because she had a lot of responsibility on her shoulders in her past life didn't mean she enjoyed it. So she was most definitely going to enjoy not having any responsibility as a baby because it was actually fun to throw all the responsibility to someone innocent—she had a sadistic streak and if no one noticed then she was too good at hiding her intentions—Tian Leiji silently asked herself if she felt guilty then shrugged and nonchalantly left it aside. She can analyze better things right now.

As a baby, her mother would bring her outside everyday at dawn, to see the newly risen sun before she had to attend to her duties and at night when she came back, would bring her outside to watch the stars. Lu Yanhei would lowly tell her stories about a man with golden hair and silver eyes and a woman with silver hair and golden eyes. Of their stories and how much the two loved each other, how they conquered the lands and settled down after marriage, only loving each other.

It was these moments that Leiji loved the most.

Lu Yanhei would then look at her with an odd look in her eyes and smile sadly. Tian Leiji did not understand why, but wanted to help and comfort her.