Reborn in the White Room: Akash Chaturvedi's Ascent

Chapter 1: The Rebirth of Ambition

The moment my consciousness awoke, I was met with a sensation unlike any I had experienced before. Not the rush of blood as I feverishly calculated regression equations or the silent thrill of deciphering complex datasets in my postgraduate life. No, this was different. Alien.

I was reborn.

My name is—or rather was—Akash Chaturvedi. A promising student of statistics, halfway through my master’s degree at an ordinary Indian university. I still remember the monotony of my days: buried in numbers, experimenting with statistical models, endlessly curious about the human behavior hidden within the data. It was an existence I enjoyed, but something always felt incomplete. The world around me seemed limited, my role in it insignificant. Even as I drowned myself in books, psychology, and philosophy, I always sought something more—something that would allow me to transcend those invisible boundaries.

Then I died.

Or at least, I assume I died. The details are foggy. Was it an accident? A random act of fate? I recall no dramatic event, no earth-shattering tragedy. Just... darkness. And then, light.

I opened my eyes—or tried to. My body, no longer my own, was foreign, small, helpless. I was reborn as an infant. It took me a few days, perhaps longer, to understand what had happened. The pieces fell into place slowly, the memories of my previous life coalescing with the present.

This was no ordinary rebirth. I was born into the hands of none other than Atsuomi Ayanokoji—the architect behind the White Room. The very man I had read about in Classroom of the Elite. Kiyotaka Ayanokoji’s father.

A powerful shiver ran through my body, though I had no control over it. Atsuomi’s towering figure loomed over me, his expression unreadable but familiar to me from the pages of the novel. His ambition was palpable, radiating in the air like an aura of dominance. For a moment, I forgot I was an infant in this man’s hands—too stunned by the irony of my situation.

"I see potential in this one," he said softly, his voice a cold whisper, as if discussing the prospects of a new investment rather than his own child.

The White Room. My reincarnation into this world could only mean one thing: I was destined to become a part of it, just like Kiyotaka had. The irony was too sharp. A man like me—who had spent hours reading and analyzing every detail of Atsuomi’s meticulous, merciless plans—was now bound to them. The novels had painted a grim picture of his ideals, yet here I was, faced with the reality of being molded by him.

And yet... I did not fear it.

If anything, a strange excitement began to course through me. This was no mere reincarnation. I had been given an opportunity—one that transcended the mundane existence of my previous life. Atsuomi was not just a villain, a cruel taskmaster; he was an embodiment of human ambition, the very kind of ambition I had always admired. His plans for the White Room were ruthless, yes, but weren’t they also brilliant? He sought perfection, the absolute honing of human potential. He believed in surpassing limits, breaking boundaries that the weak accepted as fate.

Perhaps, in some strange way, we shared a similar goal.

As an infant, I could not speak, but my mind was active, constantly processing. I began comparing my situation to the stories of the Mahabharat, the great Indian epic I had grown up studying. In many ways, Atsuomi was like Dronacharya, the unyielding teacher who demanded absolute excellence from his pupils. In the Mahabharat, Dronacharya’s methods were often harsh, yet they produced warriors like Arjuna—heroes who would shape the course of history. But I wasn’t Arjuna. No, in this world, I was more akin to Karna, the one who had to prove himself against a world stacked against him. Karna, the tragic figure who longed to know his place, his limits, and to break free from the fate assigned to him.

My thoughts spiraled as I continued to make these comparisons. The White Room was a battlefield—no, a Kurukshetra, where the children trained to become perfect warriors, not of the sword, but of intellect and strategy. And here I was, reborn into the very heart of it. Could I surpass my limits? Could I thrive in this environment and become something even greater than what Atsuomi envisioned?

The thought thrilled me. For the first time, I didn’t feel like a passive observer of someone else’s story. I was a player now, caught in the web of Atsuomi’s grand design.

There was something beautiful in the cold, calculated ambition that Atsuomi embodied. His desire to create perfection mirrored my own desire for self-mastery in my previous life. In India, I had studied statistics to understand the world, to reduce the uncertainty in human behavior, and to find patterns where others saw only chaos. Now, reborn in this harsh world, I could study myself—find my own limits, push beyond them, and truly understand what it meant to be human.

Days passed. I grew accustomed to my infant body, though it frustrated me how little I could do. My brain, however, did not falter. Each day, I observed Atsuomi and his cold, methodical approach to everything around him. The man was a machine, his thoughts always several steps ahead, calculating outcomes like an expert strategist.

And then there was me, a silent witness to his machinations, eager to learn and surpass. I respected him—not as a father, but as a man who had achieved what so few others could even comprehend. Atsuomi Ayanokoji had the vision and the audacity to push humanity toward its very limits, to break down the barriers of mediocrity and craft a new kind of existence.

But Atsuomi wasn’t perfect, and I knew that. His downfall lay in his inability to see beyond his own ambitions. He was like a king in the Mahabharat, unable to see the suffering of those beneath him. His son, Kiyotaka, would one day rebel against him, and I knew why. Atsuomi’s obsession with perfection would never account for the subtleties of human emotion, the depth of individual thought. It was a weakness that would eventually be his undoing.

I, however, would be different.

I would play the game Atsuomi had laid before me, but I would not allow myself to be consumed by it. I would surpass his expectations, learn from his strategies, and then carve my own path. Like Karna, I would face my challenges head-on, not seeking approval or validation, but only to prove my worth—to become a perfect politician, the ultimate strategist who could navigate both the cold, calculating world of Atsuomi’s White Room and the unpredictable chaos of human society.

For now, I had to endure the helplessness of infancy, but my mind raced, analyzing everything around me, preparing for the days when I could walk, speak, and act. I was already laying the groundwork in my mind, comparing the other children, the environment, the psychological warfare that would inevitably unfold in the White Room. Every detail mattered, and I would use it all to my advantage.

This was the beginning of a new journey—a second life not bound by the limitations of my previous one. I was no longer just Akash Chaturvedi, the statistics student lost in the world of numbers. I was reborn as something more. A child of the White Room. A successor to Atsuomi’s ambition.

But I was not his tool.

I was my own force—one that would rewrite the rules of this world.