1 Spicy awakening

Dix woke up with a scream, with every muscle of his contracting at once as he suddenly came to, his body pushing him into sitting position without any conscious input. This happened a few times already in his life, but he knew there is something unusual this time. First of all, he remembered killing himself, which he thought would help him not wake up anymore, so being awake again filled him with mild anger and disappointment. He was clutching his head in irritation, but wasn't distracted by these emotions for long. After he processed this first realization, the second came as he looked around and expected to see some sort of hospital environment. If he tried to kill himself, but didn't die, that must surely mean he somehow survived and is being kept somewhere professionals can treat him. While the whitish colors commonly attributed to hospitals were present, there was actually... nothing else.

The space around him had nothing more than a few shades of white, making him able to distinguish distances to some extent, even though it was completely empty. Even the 'surface' he was sitting on was white, just like everything else, giving it a sense of being suspended in the air with no way to know where is up and down. Fortunately Dix was still sitting, as he looked around the intense nothingness made him extremely nauseous and would've collapsed otherwise. Still, otherworldly fear gripped his heart as he could not orient himself whatsoever. After some time spent trying to adjust to his 'surroundings' he noted there was solid surface under him and functioning gravity, so soon he was able to stand up.

"What the... actual... fuuuuu...." Dix tried to say, but his voice was weak and he could not finish cursing. He suddenly remembered how he died and try to feel his throat with his right hand. Its surface was totally normal, so he didn't know why his ability to speak was inhibited in any way, at least he could not connect it to the way he died. To his delight he was able to speak again soon, which helped him to an extent, as his options in this 'world' were quite limited and he tried to help his own thinking process by talking out loud. Also, it helped him overcome his crippling fears to some extent. He started recounting the facts he knew and tried to cool his head so he can come up with some plan.

"Okay... hahh.. so I died... well killed myself. Maybe. Now I am here, in this endless white space, with nothing around. Damn, it will be shit to starve to death, definitely not the way I wanted to... want to die." He tried to think logically, but the situation and his previous circumstances didn't help. He had much to think of and the chaotic thoughts would not leave peace to him.

"Okay... okay, so this doesn't seem like a dream, 'coz I know the way I usually dream, and even though this is fucked up, its not up to standard... Okay, lets assume I died and I woke up in an infinite white space... Why does this sound like every reincarnation story beginning I read in my life? Huh, that would be pretty ironic right?" He let out some light laughter and started scratching the back of his neck while looking down at the 'floor'. As he was having a chuckle, to his horror another voice joined the fun.

"Ironic, huh? Yeah, we could say that" said the unknown voice with unmasked quirky enthusiasm.

The sudden voice startled Dix, and he snapped his head up so he can see who talked. He didn't even have to search, as a somewhat tall humanoid, seemingly male figure stood in front of him, around 20 meters away. As he was looking down he did not notice when he got there, but this much is to be expected, right? Dix immediately assumed something like a "fighting" stance, but it was more like him preparing to run away. The figure seeing this raised both of his empty hands above his head, probably trying to show his non-harmful intentions and called out again.

"Whoa, whoa, easy there. I'm not here to hurt you, I'm pretty sure you kinda know what's up, or why am I here." Dix flinched at the sudden movement, and while hearing the 'man' talk he somewhat eased up, still continued staring with cautious eyes and said:

"If I am right and this is THAT kind of situation, then you must also know how upset I am and how many questions you have to answer for me to go 'easy'."

"Well yeah, ask away..." said the man, as he lowered his arms and started slowly walking towards Dix, who only blinked once and the figure was gone from his sight.

"... and I answer." continued the man, but the voice this time came from behind Dix, which gave him another scare, even more so, as the volume indicated the guy was quite close to him. He rapidly turned around to see the other only two meters away from him. Once again, he almost got a heart attack and in his panic he took a quick step back and tried to protect himself with his arms stretched out in a defensive way towards the new position of the mysterious entity. He waited for his counterpart to attack him, he expected a world of hurt from whatever direction the 'enemy' chose to attack from with his crazy speed or blinking ability... But it never came. The man just stood there, with amusement and anticipation all over his face.

Dix decided to take it slowly and inspected the man from top to bottom. He looked to be in his early twenties, quite a bit younger than Dix, with onyx-black hair and eyes, he stood at around 190 cm in height. He had some stylish clothing, something Dix would imagine to be on rich and or cool kids from college. At this point he just realized he had clothing on himself too, as this was not the first, or even the second on his list of concerns. He looked way worse than the 'cool kid', as he had some sort of worse for wear hoodie and sweatpants, while the other one was wearing nice fur coat and white shirt underneath, blue ripped jeans and quality sneakers. Although this annoyed him a bit, what really got on his nerves was that giddy grin on the guy's face.

"Haha, you like what you see?" he said laughingly. He only got a frown and and abashed look back.

"What. What the fu- no, what are you talking about?" said Dix with visible distress and took another step back.

"Hahhah, don't worry, just trying to defuse the mood you built up here." came the answer with a shrug.

"The mood I built up? I just arrived, I was dead a minute ago, so listen here you little..." Dix didn't finish his sentence as he reevaluated his stance in this conversation. He had a notion that he made a mistake, but was still pissed. Anyway he tried a bit more respectful tone and finished with: "Please just tell me whats going on."

The kid tried to repress a frown and the ever present smile on his face shook, then crumbled.

"I'll ignore that as you are new around here boyo, but you shouldn't be cheeky with the one that is about to bring you back to the land of the living." came the retort with a domineering manner not commonly heard from kids. As if there is anything common at this situation... Well, at least its within expectations. He pocketed his hands in the fur coat let out a small sigh and drew a big breath.

"Yes, its what you think, and as I said, you died and I brought you here right after. I am here to offer you reincarnation, just as you would expect. Marvelous, isn't it? You are in the same situation as many others whom you read about in your mangas and light novels. Maybe you will be able to make the correct choices after so much 'education'." By the end of his speech, he managed to regain his cheerful aura and smile. For some reason this 'positivity' only gave Dix the chills.

"Okay... so I managed to die and you want to bring me back. Just to be clear, I got that right, right?" he said as he felt uncontrollable scorching anger welling up inside himself. The uncanny young man, although still smiling, with some mild confusion on his face nodded.

"WHY THE FUCK YOU THINK I KILLED MYSELF?! JUST TO BE BROUGHT BACK IN THE MOST IRONIC WAY POSSIBLE?! I WANTED TO DIE SO I DON'T HAVE TO LIVE ANYMORE, HOW IS THAT NOT OBVIOUS?!" The anger erupted into a volcano of rage as Dix did not want to take this hit lying down like the manga MCs he knew.

The scream came as no surprise to the youth in front of him, he just tilted a bit backwards, a bit comically, almost as if he was blown away by Dix's wrath. With the unnerving smile still on his face he walked closer to Dix and tried to pat his left shoulder. Dix, still angry, wanted to swat away the approaching hand, but only hit air, as the arm and with it the whole man was gone, only for the pat to come from his other side, now onto his right shoulder. By now Dix was too annoyed to be startled, just turned his head towards the new position of his self-nominated rescuer as that one began to answer.

"Whoah man, you have some real spice in you. 'Suppose I picked you for a reason. Don't worry, I know you actually don't want to be dead THAT much, to be honest, I just want your life dream to come true and reincarnate you into one of your favorite stories. Will you chill if I say you can become Naruto? I'll even slap a neat lil system next to the deal to help you out, so you should be extra thankful." Dix's rage seemed to dissipate somewhat, but was not gone entirely. Still fuming he tried his best to answer without stacking his sentence full of curses.

"Do I not have a choice? I just have to dance as you whistle or what? Who are you anyway, you supposed to be god?" Hearing the questions the kid focused on one of them in particular and still smiling he looked up at the 'ceiling', seemingly trying to show a contemplative look.

"God you say... huh... well not exactly, but almost..." he stopped mid sentence for a second to look at Dix again with an even bigger grin then before. " compared to you one could say that I'm a god, haha!" The contemptuous attitude of the... being, did not help much at easing Dix's temper. Before he could respond with a shower of curses the god continued talking.

"And no, you don't have much choice. I already brought you out of the natural reincarnation cycle, and I can't really put you back. But don't be mad, it will all be fine, you will like it, trust me!" At this point Dix could no longer keep himself shut.

"Trust you? Why the heck would I do that? Why would you give me this offer, as I'm totally sure you are not just some good hearted 'god' or something to just help out random... I don't even know what I am... souls? Souls.. to realize their dreams. So what the hell you actually want and why me?" By the end the god dropped his radiating smile and answered with a bit of shameful expression.

"Well, I'm... bored. This is a common occurrence in your mangas, and yeah I know, it's pretty selfish, but still, I wanted to see what difference you could make. I only did this, because I am 100% sure you would enjoy this too, if nothing else, at least you could wield power you always dreamt of having as a child." At this point the god kid frowned a bit and with some annoyance looked directly in Dix's eye. "Actually I don't know why I'm trying to comfort you, it will be good, and if you don't like it, you just gotta suck it up. I can give you 3 choices. DanMachi, Naruto or Bleach. Choose fast."

Dix was trying to bottle up all the rage coming from within while listening to the kid god, but that infamous last straw managed to break the back of the camel, which collapsed right onto Dix's unstable bottle of flaming rage.

"You know what? Fuck you, go and die of boredom at the cold edge of the universe for all I care, fucking send me back to where I came from!" The god's face turned stoic ever since he stopped talking, and even the outburst couldn't change that.

"Will you not choose? I will choose for you if you won't." At these words Dix's shouting stopped and the intense anger was mostly switched up by fear, resentment and helplessness.

"Fuuuuck... Goddammit, okay, okay, I choose Naruto, not much I can do I suppose..."

The god smiled once again and pulled his right hand out of his pocket. As he opened his palm something indescribable was in it. It was a small spherical mass of pure black, and as soon as it was released to clear view it started distorting the space around it. Dix realized what that is, as he was interested in most sciences, especially in physics and astronomy, even if just superficially, and could already feel the unbearable suction force coming from its direction. The entity, who now really looked more like a god then a college student, was holding a tiny Black Hole in its hand.

"Good choice, I wish you good luck. Try your best to entertain me~" he said as parting words, when the Black Hole, which seemingly only affected Dix, got even more unrestrained and its suction force grew thousands of times and pulled Dix in.

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