Tsunayoshi

one

❝ THE CYCLE OF DEATH AND REBIRTH ❞

...

The line was as long as ever, she thought. Standing there with hundreds and thousands of people in front of her.

It might be a shock to some people but there was a life after death, just more dead than most cultures would believe in and less black and white. In the afterlife, your soul is sent into either heaven or hell, depending on the choices you make in life.

You could be a renowned criminal but everything comes back down to your choice, how society classifies you does not matter.

Once you've been divided into one world or the other, you can work your way up to three different positions: Guardians, Military, and Reincarnation.

Guardians are the ones who choose to stay behind, in the afterlife, to look after their loved ones. They become guardian angels, essentially speaking, but without the angel part and more spirit than anything else. Of course, hell guardians aren't as nice but rather they haunt the living.

Then, it comes down to the Military. Working directly under the angels as a primary combatant, trained to fight against those in hell who picked the Military. The Military consists of those directly involved in the infamous war of Angels versus Demons.

Finally, reincarnation. Everyone can reincarnate, regardless of whether you're a hell dweller or a heaven resident. You could join the military and eventually quit to reincarnate, same that you could be a guardian before deciding to reincarnate.

Which was something she wouldn't have thought to choose centuries ago, and something she was choosing right now? Time changes people, she supposed, even when the afterlife is supposedly timeless with how non-linear time is when you're dead.

After centuries of fighting in the Military, she decided to stop. It was too tiring to see those who fought alongside with her fall, get up, and fall again. Again and again, until they have nothing in their soul left but to be submitted as fuel for the afterlife.

That's right, fuel.

If you die enough in the afterlife, and that was possible, your remaining soul would be sacrificed to fuel the afterlife.

With that in mind, she dropped the Military like hotcakes and send in her application to be reincarnated. Which leads to her standing behind a line that would lead to the reincarnation portal.

However, she wasn't so inclined to standing around, especially when it wasn't necessary. She stepped aside and sat down on the floor, watching as the lines of soul gossip and fiddle around.

"No, please, don't send me back!"

"Shit, this is the third time, the fuck is going on down there?"

She watched as a boy, small and young (barely even ten, her mind whispered) sobbed. He was hauled over the shoulders by one of the gatekeepers, dragging the boy trashing and kicking into the reincarnation portal. With a dump, he was pushed through without second thoughts leaving the area echoing with his screams.

That wasn't normal. She thought with various confusion, it was obvious that it wasn't normal but why was it still happening?

Souls don't just get reincarnated repetitively, over and over again, and this was the third time the boy did it and he remembered being reincarnated. Sure, your soul that died after the first reincarnation can get reincarnated again but that's not what happened with the boy.

A scream ripped out from somewhere, making the gatekeeper curse.

"Again?" They shouted out of frustration. "What are they doing? Can't they just stop."