Day 1 -
"Your…..name…..is...Kou."
With hearing a garbled speech and only understanding the four words that I felt were addressed to me, I awoke with a sharp headache.
It seems that I have been reborn again for the second time. Wait. A second time. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a flash of two different lives was played back to back in my mind.
In my first life, I was a guy named Ezekiel "Zeke" Sol. I was a pretty average dude in most aspects of life except two things which was the ability to understand different things at a level that could be considered just below genius-level and my near obsessive curiosity with anything supernatural or fantasy.
The one skill I could have been considered a genius in was hunting. There was just something that felt right whenever I went out into the wilderness to hunt something. It was like I was blessed by the Greek Goddess Artemis or something.
Besides hunting, my other hobbies were reading different stories whether they were truth or fiction and exploring so-called paranormal areas. Then again growing up in the rural US there really isn't much else to do if you're not into sports.
My death could be considered quite karmic if you think about it. I died from a stray bullet of a hunter while exploring an area said to be the possible habitat of the cryptid known as Bigfoot. I died at the ripe old age of 20.
My second life had me born into a Japanese family living what I could describe as a parallel and futuristic world. My name in this life was Tomokui Kouki.
The reason I knew that this world was different from my last life was the fact that both interstellar travel and superpowers were a thing that was commonplace. My father actually worked for a mid-sized subsidiary of one the biggest weapons developers that is known to exist. The company is known as Avalon.
My father was a bit of a weapons enthusiast to the point that he gave my cousin a military grade nightstick as a birthday present. Granted, it was necessary for my cousin to have some form of protection, especially with how he was described to be before his ability was awakened. It was also that same nightstick that set motions in effect that led both of our deaths.
I actually distanced myself a bit from my cousin, who I considered an older brother of sorts, after our abilities were awoken. We both had abilities on the rarer side. My cousin Kanata gained the ability known as [Absorption], which allowed him to gain traits or abilities of anything he ate, and got a little power-hungry, if you know what I mean. He may have been a good person but he had a weird look in his eyes whenever he saw a strong or useful power.
The reason behind the distancing was that I developed two powers. The first one was known as [Adaptation] which gave the ability to, well, adapt to anything. Whether it was the inside of a volcano or the deep expanse of space, I could survive in it no problem. As long as my brain still functioned, I would heal and still live. My second and main power I used was called [Shaman]. It allowed me to call upon the souls of the dead for a variety of tasks.
The four of what could be considered sub-powers I used for [Shaman] were [Soul Summon: Ally], [Soul Summon: Teacher], [Soul Integration], and [Soul Imprint Trace]. [SS:A] and [SS:T] are essentially the same but act differently. [SS:A] summons the soul fitting the requirement I need for survival or combat while [SS:T] summons the souls of someone to pass on the knowledge or skill I require if I meet the demands of the soul. [SI] allows me to possess another living being or fresh corpse with a soul summoned through [SS:A] temporarily bringing them back to life somewhat under my control. [SIT] allows me to forcibly take skill from a soul in my vicinity.
After schooling, I did end up working at the same company as my cousin. While I don't know exactly what his job was, I was part of an investigation and cleanup crew. Many of the places I had to "clean" were aftermaths of battles between my cousin and known evil Espers.
Most of those areas were a bloodbath and not for the faint of heart. I even met a girl while on the job. Her name was Kirimine Aoi. We ran into each other so much that I thought it was either fate or she was stalking me.
A little after a year into our relationship Aoi started to seem distant to me. We even got into our first argument and she stormed out. I followed to apologize but I stopped when I found her and saw what she was doing.
I saw her waiting under a streetlamp a far bit away from me talking to a man but couldn't see who it was because he wasn't under the light. I felt something was amiss due to the fact that she wasn't acting like her usual cheerful self around almost everyone. She had a dark aura about her like the only thing she felt was intense hatred and bloodlust towards the man. She then took out a knife and stabbed the man in the abdomen.
When I saw the shine of electricity, I knew what she stabbed him with. It was the [Nenekaruri], a B-rank ceremonial knife with an additional thunder property created by SAKUMA Heavy Industries, Ltd. Ironically, it was one of the goods sold by my dad at his company. It was the gift I gave her for our first anniversary as a means to protect herself since she couldn't awaken an ability. I was able to convince my dad to sell it to me at a discount even though it was an expensive piece of equipment that is also used by the military.
I ran to her to stop her from killing the man but by the time I got to her, he was already dead. When I saw who it was, I broke down crying. It was my cousin. I turned to Aoi and asked her why she killed him, and what she told me nearly shattered my mental state completely.
The only reason she started seeing me was that Kanata was my cousin and that we looked similar enough. It turned out that she was an obsessive stalker over him after he saved her a few years back from some thugs with the same nightstick my dad gave him. It was the reason I saw her so many times while "cleaning up" after my cousin's fights. She was following him and not me. She killed him with the gift I gave her because she thought he was cheating on her with a coworker of his. He was probably taking her home after drinking too much.
She ran away without saying much else, leaving the [Nenekaruri] still in Kanata's body. I ran to his body and ripped it out of his corpse. I looked around for his soul to bring him back to life but the strangest thing happened. I saw his soul glitch out and disappear. I stood up and looked at Kanata's body and [Nenekaruri] in my hand. I knew what I had to do to make up to him. I turned back to where Aoi ran to and reached my empty hand towards her using a skill I swore to never use.
I closed my hand into a fist and she collapsed catatonic or possibly dead. I didn't care. The skill I used was the only offensive ability I naturally had, and it was called [Soul Break]. [Soul Break] allows me to sever the connection between the body and soul of the person I choose.
With tears still falling from my eyes, I pointed [Nenekaruri] at my own chest and forced it with all my strength into my own chest and into my own heart, destroying it. As my vision faded, I had hoped that in my next life, if I even deserved one, that would be a better brother and make a true difference in the world.
I open my eyes again in my third life trying to figure out where I am this time. I see a blurry figure standing near me. The only thing I could tell was that it was deformed in some way. I fell back asleep not realizing that I overtaxed my new body. I will try to figure out where I am tomorrow.