1 Endo Akihito - Waking Up I

"Hi there!" = Speech

'Why do I even bother' = Thought

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Life.

For Endo Akihito, life was something precious that should be lived freely, reigned in only by the limits of imagination. He was, in more ways than one, a dreamer -and to some, an idealist-. Yet Akihito didn't have an ounce of care for the words of others about his way of thinking.

He didn't remember quite clearly when it was that he began stargazing at night, but it was probably around the time he realized freedom was limited by society. As he walked through an empty alleyway in the dead of night, Akihito stopped to look at his reflection on a clear puddle of water, illuminated by a single lamp hanging from the balcony of a house.

'I must admit I've had it easier than most.' He thought, directing his gaze at the sky.

The reason for Akihito's thought was simple. Compared to many people in the world, he had had an easy life up to the current date. His parents were loving, his little sister was respectful and well-behaved, and he never lacked anything. From food to clothing, he always had everything he needed. As if that wasn't enough, he had yet another advantage. The one that people would always call cheating.

Akihito was a handsome guy. He wasn't 1,85 meters tall, but an average 1,78. Neither did he have a body sculpted by gods, but he had a smooth, tanned skin, compact muscles and little to no fat. His nose wasn't crooked nor too sharp, but rather rounded and relatively small. His jaw was squared and his eyes were on the bigger side, but they were angular and tilted upwards on the outside, which made them look like they belonged in his face. As if that wasn't enough, they were of a vibrant, amber color.

He was, in the eyes of his peers, an unfair existence. How could common Japanese folk compete with a guy that looked like a latino model -probably one of the favourite type of men in oriental Asia- who had natural, mahogany red hair.

"Yet with all of that in my favor... even though my life is and should be so easy..." He said as he watched Capricorn, his Zodiac sign, up in the starry sky.

Akihito was ambitious. He had high dreams and he had tried hard to find ways in which they could be achieved, but each and every way he tried, society found a way to shoot him down from the clouds. At some point he gave up and began living his life like everyone else. Just for the sake of living.

Expectations, results, disappointment. Those words that he tried to avoid at all costs, had hit him so hard that he began living like others wanted him to live. And thus he began working day and night to avoid those words again. But that wasn't the life he wanted. Akihito wanted a life that excited him, a life where dreams could live eternally instead of being abandoned.

He didn't ask for a lawless society, as some people thought, neither was he an idealist. He knew that Utopia, the perfect place, wasn't possible and would never exist. He just asked for a world in which necessity and happiness were balanced. Yet he could only wish, since it was impossible.

He loved stargazing because stars were eternal. Even if a star died, it could keep shining brightly for millenia, stating with its bright light that it was there. That it lived and it would continue to live even after death. Society was, as a whole, the star reaper. Akihito really thought that, had society been more lax with its need for "prim and proper" slaves, life would've been better.

But he didn't have a bad life, neither was he sad. If anything, he was bummed. He was just being an angsty teenager trying to escape from the fact that, in spite of all the advantages he had, his life was just like everyone else's. At least that was what he thought when he finally spotted Gemini.

Maybe that was him, trying to deny everything he had thought of before to escape from the sad reality. Or perhaps those were the wings that had been forcefully removed from his back, patting his head like one would a child, trying to console him for not being able to fly anymore. Metaphors sounded so sweet whenever he was having a moment.

"Would you look at that... shy Pluto showed up." Akihito said as he thought of the people that murdered their own dreams.

In a sense, he was like them. He blamed society for everything, but it had been himself who chose to give up, and he just didn't want to admit it. It was so much easier to just blame society for one's own suffering.

"Oh well, anyways, I will be turning eighteen tomorrow." Endo Akihito said, now walking through an empty street. "Then I can pick a university with a good volleyball team."

Volleyball was the only thing he had left amongst his childhood dreams. Besides that, everything had been robbed from him.

"HELP!!" He heard a sudden scream from a woman, followed by a few gunshots.

Akihito, without any hint of doubt, rushed into the hazard zone. There were some yakuza-looking dudes shooting at each other, while a little girl stood, petrified, in the middle of the street. Her mother was trying to reach her, but couldn't because of the bullets.

Akihito, relying on nothing but adrenaline, ran straight through the bullet storm and reached the girl. He could feel a deep pain in different parts of his body -surely, he wouldn't be able to avoid all bullets- but he didn't allow that to stop him. Running away with the girl in his arms, he left the girl with her mother before suddenly fainting.

'At least I did something worth dying for...' Those were the last words he could think of before his consciousness drifted away, his soul slowly leaving his body, until it completely dispersed... only to appear on a different place.

*

I a random town of the Miyagi Prefecture, in Japan, Endo Akihito opened his eyes again. Disorientated by the fact that he thought himself dead, he was unable to recognize the roof above him. Thousands of questions plagued his mind, ranging from the how to the where. After looking around for a bit he was sure he wasn't in a hospital bed, but that would make no sense. After all, nobody would send a person who just took a bullet -more like a few- straight home.

"Wait, the wounds!" Akihito panicked upon the realization that he was wounded, only to be even more confused a second later. "The... wounds... they aren't there."

But how was that possible? He had more than just a few grazes, he had taken at least two bullets to the torso, how come there was no sign whatsoever of a wound having even existed? That was when he finally noticed the letter by the bedside table. Checking the remitter he found out it was from a certain Grant O. Debenham, adressed to no one but himself.

'Grant... O. Debenham...' He pondered for a while if he had ever heard of said name, but not only was it weird in Japan. In fact, even if he went to check on England, he would be hard pressed to find someone with that name in the entire world. "Well, no point in getting stuck on the details, I'll just read the letter."

—Dear Endo Akihito, I left this letter to you so it would serve as a guide. As you probably remember, you died while rescuing a little girl from a shootout. Now you are probably wondering how come I said you died when you are alive and breathing... well, I had a little hand in that. Before you continue reading, I want you to focus on my name -the capitals are quite weird, right?-...—

"Now that he mentions it..." Akihito said as he read the capitals of the name. "Grant... G... O... D... G.O.D? God?!"

Wondering what kind of bad joke this was, Akihito went back to the letter.

—... and now you are probably thinking that this is just some bad dream or an extremely ill mannered joke. Unfortunately -for you, that is- this would not be such case. You have indeed died. But I decided to give a second chance of sorts, if you could even call it a second chance. You see, I could see three things in you that were useful to me. You were dissatisfied with the world you lived in, you have a good set of morals and you have a good head on your shoulders. You wouldn't abandon someone to their death, but you also wouldn't try to save absolutely everyone and you are open-minded to new experiences...—

"Ok, whoever wrote this know too much about me... maybe it was my older brother... nah, he wouldn't do this, it's to elaborate" Akihito began reflecting on who could've made such a joke, but as he found nobody who would bother doing it, he continued reading the letter.

—... Now, I know this is all hard to believe, but you have no option but doing so. There is a phone on the first drawer of the bedside table. I want you to grab it and search for something, anything, from your old world. You will see that everything is different...—

Akihito went to check the bedside table and indeed, there was a phone on the first drawer. Checking how to unlock it, he realized it was already set-up to recognize his fingerprint, something very weird considering he had never even touched that phone. The first thing he did was searching for the university he wanted to attend, only to realize that it didn't exist. He checked for his favourite band, his high school, even for his favourite game. Non of it existed. Losing his calm a bit, he hurriedly grabbed the letter.

—Now, you are not one to doubt solid evidence, so I won't try to convince you further. Reality is, Endo Akihito, that you died and I -God- chose to give you a second chance of sorts. I say of sorts because this new life of yours will not be easy later on. I needed you in this world to have some control over it. You see... a huge catastrophe is about to accur, and it will affect the entire world. For some reason, all the agents I had in that world disappeared, so I needed a new agent. This agent I'm talking about is you. Before you ask, no, I don't need you to spread the word of God all over the world. I just need you to survive and keep certain pieces alive. How you go about it is your own issue. I have left you a few gifts so you can enjoy your life for a bit before the catastrophe strikes, you should find them on the second drawer. I have also given you a tool that will aid you in your mission, it should be booting up soon. Survive, Endo Akihito. Survive, my child.—

Akihito dropped the letter to the floor, not knowing how to take everything he had just read. The rational, logical Akihito was panicking and in disbelief, while the dissatisfied, adrenaline-seaking Akihito was thriving in excitement. He, himself, still wanted to believe it was all a bad joke, but the evidence was too much to be ignored. He had taken two bullets that magically left no wounds, he woke up in a room he didn't know with a weird letter from God by his side and he could find absolutely nothing related to his old world.

"Holy shit... I really am in another world!"

Many thoughts passed by Akihito's mind in that exact moment. Some were vague, some were deep, and some were simply vane. He thought of his parents and his older brother and how they would feel about him dying, and he also thought of his friends and his volleyball team. But among all of those thoughts and sad emotions, a light shone with the radiance of a star. It was the excitement he had been yearning for his entire life. It was the expectations he had for this new shot at life.

And Akihito was sure of one thing. He would make the most of it.

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So, what are your opinions on this re-written first chapter? I personally really liked it! Please drop a comment!