Prologue

I never expected to die in my twenties. Hell, I was expecting to live until I was old and slowly lose myself to dementia like my grandparents did. There were so many things I wanted to do before dying, not that I'd ever get to do any of them now. As I laid cold on the pavement, I was sure no one was coming to my aid. The driver that hit me drove off as soon as I hit the ground. The street was empty when I crossed and had been dead silent since the driver left. If I could move anything besides my eyes I would have tried to call an ambulance on my phone, but my damn body refused to move an inch. At least the bastard won't get away with this, I'm just able to look and see the bent license plate sticking out of my stomach.

The pain hurt like hell, but I fought through and thought back on my life to distract myself from it. My name is Steve, I know right? It's way too generic, a lot of embarrassing years in my preteens were spent wishing my parents named me something cool like "Lucifer" or Mephisto. Don't judge, at least I didn't wrap my arm in bandages and go around telling everyone about the demon sealed under them. All of that "chuuni" stuff stayed 100% in my head, which helped a lot when i got over it and realized how embarrassing it was. I got of track though, back to my life story. Just like my name, I had a life that was pretty ordinary. I lived in my hometown in California my whole life until I went to college and moved upstate. It was hard to adjust, but I think I did well enough and was close to graduating before I caught a case of getting hit by a car. Right in front of my apartment too. I guess it is a pretty deserted straight road at night, someone must have wanted to try some high speed driving with no one around.

Eh, whatever they made their mistake and will hopefully get caught later when I'm found. Speaking of dying, you're supposed to talk about your regrets when you're dying right? My one regret that I kept coming back to was my huge lack of friends. I didn't know anyone at my school, mostly my fault as I kept to myself. The few people that I did know were damn overachievers and graduated early without me. Talk about bad luck, spending the last year of college with no one around while all your friends are too busy starting their careers. So I spent most of my time by myself, doubling down on my childhood hobby of video games to make up for the lack of people in my life. Gaming was a pretty early hobby for me, started off on my parents' Playstation with Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy 8. Those games inspired the kind of games I preferred to play for most of my life, action games and RPG's. When I discovered games that combined the two, you better believe that the games I played the most were those action RPG's like Dark Souls, Skyrim, and Diablo. My guilty pleasure, however, was a not so serious action RPG by the game of Kingdom Hearts. The story of Kingdom Hearts was, for me, B-tier fanfiction material. It had so many twists and plot elements that I am surprised they haven't razed the canon to the ground and rebooted it. The gameplay and characters were what kept me coming back to the games though. It played like a sillier Devil May Cry, all kinds of combos and abilities to string together that just felt good to pull off. It felt especially satisfying fighting the stronger bosses that show up near the end of the games, I loved that little RPG staple of having a boss forty times as strong as the villain just sitting in a cave somewhere. My favorite characters were the original characters and the Final Fantasy characters. The Disney characters were kind of entertaining to watch interact with the edgy antagonists, like Mickey Mouse and trying to hide his identity with a black leather cloak but having his ears clearly pronounced in the hood. I thought that they were the weakest part of the games though, as the series went on it felt like they put a ton more effort into the original characters of the series. I remember being a little miffed that Noctis, or any Final Fantasy character for that matter, didn't make it into Kingdom Hearts 3.

Eh, that's enough thinking about Kingdom Hearts, I should try thinking about something more important for my last thoughts. Why change to something else? I feel it. I'm fading the more time goes on. It's getting harder to hold a thought, like something is pressing down on all of my thoughts and smothering them. It's pretty obvious that this is it, so I guess soon everything will just sto-

***

Huh, I'm alive? When I could finally hold a train of thought I noticed that it was still as dark as the night I died, I tried to open my eyes but can't. It feels like they were welded shut, or that the muscles that did that just don't exist anymore. Weird. I thought I died, so where am I? Worst case scenario is that I'm dead, but I couldn't be because I can still think. Death doesn't work like that right? Maybe I'm still alive but in a coma. Could be in a hospital stuck on life support and never able to wake up, which would suck. I hated the thought of being paralyzed and stuck in my mind.

I try to move my arms and legs, panicking a little at the thought of not being able to. They respond to my efforts, that's relieving. It was just really hard to do, like something was holding me tight from all directions. Haa, at least I can rule out being in a coma. Hmm... Let me think a little... It's warm and I think I'm curled up as far as I can tell. Whatever is surrounding me is pretty much everywhere with no gaps and is pretty soft despite holding me firmly... Wait, am I in the womb?! I'm got reincarnated? But I was firmly on the "eh, whatever" team in regards to the afterlife! I don't think I even did anything that could be regarded as good karma or bad karma either.

Well, I guess it doesn't really matter, I've got a literal new lease on life now. Mmm all that panicking earlier made me a little tired, guess I'll take a nap now. Can't really do anything before I get born.

***

Good morning womb! Or whatever time it is, I don't really care. Time to plan out my life, to live with no regrets. I think the first thing I should do is address my biggest regret that I thought about right before I died. What? No, my biggest regret isn't Noctis not being in Kingdom Hearts 3, it was about having no friends! Seriously, the only way I could fix that the Noctis thing is if I went back in time. This life, I'm going to be like one of those isekai protagonists that surrounds himself with people that are his friends. Although, one thing I don't like about those protagonists is that their friends are almost all vaguely romantically interested in them. That's a no from me chief, I'm no playboy like those fictional Japanese guys. Just one girl for me, thank you very much! If I wanted to disappoint my parents that bad I could just go around wearing an eye-patch and introduce myself as the next lord of darkness. Yeah, maybe I should change that from a lot of friends to a couple true friends. Friends that will stick with me through anything. Much better.

Oh, I felt a little bit of a jolt there. Seems like I'm not moving anymore either, I didn't say anything earlier but I've been kind of rotating for a little while now. Since before I woke up at least. With my limited knowledge of childbirth from various health classes, its probably safe to say that I'm going to be born soon. New life here I come! Hope the world is ready for me!

I feel myself slowly moving up, or I guess down since my head is supposed to come out first right? Pretty weird, being born. Kinda wish I had slept through it. As I had a couple other dumb thoughts, the pressure slowly built up. I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me at first, but it's getting pretty painful now. Fuck this hurts! Hurry up and push me out mom!

"It's a boy!"

English! Fuck yeah, I won't have to learn a whole new language. Oh, and the pain is gone too. I try opening my eyes and have to close them right away, it's so bright out here. I try harder but can't really see much, everything is blurry. From what I can see, it looks like I'm in a hospital room. I'm being held by a big white blob, there are a couple of similar blobs off to the side, and one blob that I think is my mom because its laying down on a rectangle.

One of the other blobs in the room comes to cut my umbilical cord, I think its a nurse because the blob is similarly colored to the doctor. Huh, why are they just looking at me? Was I born with horns or something?

"Doctor, is he still not breathing?"

Oh.

I didn't realize because I didn't have to breath while I was in the womb, but I've been holding my breath this whole time. Well, that won't do. Come on lungs, lets get some air. Uh, lungs?

...

It looks like I'll need some help. The doctor seems to have got the idea and has me in position to spank me. Hey, isn't this sexual harassment doctor? I giggle a little about that in my head, before realizing that I'm also laughing out loud. Ha, take that doctor, I learned how to breath without your help.

"Everything seems to be fine now. He's a healthy baby boy, Your Majesty. Just to make sure there were no complications for either of you, our resident white mage will give you both a once over."

White... mage? Your Majesty? I can't catch up with what the doctor was saying. Am I royalty? One of blobs, I think the nurse from earlier, came closer. Is she the ma-

"Curaga!"

Green. All I can see is green for a minute as the light from the spell washed over both me and mom. The light was very comfortable and makes me feel a little sleepy actually.

Did I really get reborn into Final Fantasy? I'll think about it more when I wake up.