1st Pov
As I regained my vision, the realization truly struck me of what had happened. Now in a different body, the weight of it all hit me. After giving up, I'm back. I gave up my life yet have a second shot.
Why? I didn't want this. I had been content with the end and just wanted some peace of mind. But no, that god ignored what I wanted and threw me into this hell known as life once again.
Not knowing what to do, I sat there for hours thinking. Then a wave of massive headaches hit me, and with it years worth of memories.
The first set of memories to hit me was that of an infant. She was born to a wolf-eared mother and a Racoon-eared father. I couldn't understand much of the specifics of their feelings, but they clearly loved each other despite what looked to be mixed feelings for the child.
After the first set of memories came another. This set of memories included more information on the child. Her name was Kumiko. She was born to the leader of the wolf tribe and the son of the leader of the Racoon tribe.
This inter-tribe birth caused the girl to be mistreated by all of those around her. Whether she was in the Wolf tribe or the Racoon tribe she was always alone. In her eyes, even her parents weren't there for her. The only thing Kumiko was given had been basic lessons, similar to the ones I would find In the schools of my old world.
Once the second wave of memories finished the third and final phase of memories struck, but with these memories came strong emotions. Feelings of fear, loneliness, and anger all overwhelmed me as the memories appeared in my head.
Kumiko had been abandoned. After months of being ignored, her parents needed to meet her for something. At first, she had been ecstatic, believing to finally get to enjoy her parent's company, but after following them to the elder's hall she began to worry.
What had followed at the hall could best be described as a chaotic mess. The elders of both tribes were there arguing over something, but after the three of them entered, the hall went quiet.
Once the silence had descended one voice spoke out and began speaking. He announced that since all parties were present they could finally begin. What followed was a vote, they called the vote "the final verdict of the crossbreed."
The ruling of the vote shocked Kumiko to the core. As a result of a 10-5 vote against her, she had been exiled. All because of her race being "impure." Immediately after the vote, she was ushered out of the hall, and after being given a small bag of essentials by her father was sent out of the city, alone.
As the memory headache died down I had a realization and jumped out of the bed I was laying in to run to the nearest mirror. When I got there I saw my reflection and instantly understood why I was given that story.
In the mirror stood an 8-year-old girl with brown hair so light it was approaching blonde with the exception of a pair of dark brown tipped dog-like ears. She was wearing a long-sleeve white shirt with a shorter brown shirt over the top of it as well as some jean shorts that came halfway down to her thighs. She also had a half-a-foot floppy tail that was brown with a dark brown tip.
Honestly staring at the mirror and seeing someone who wasn't me repeating my actions was odd, to say the least. Seeing myself was quite frankly overwhelming, so I decided that the best thing to do was to take a short break and relax in bed. I closed my eyes and slowly drifted away to sleep.
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I woke up after about two hours of sleep and strengthened my resolve. After being told I had to live again I was determined to end it, but after seeing this little girl struggle. I knew I couldn't give up her life like that. I have taken her body and her memories, I can't just abandon her hope because of my selfishness. At the very least I can give living a second try.
*brrrr* *brrrr* *brrrr*
After my choice was made, the noise of a phone call rang in my head, and a screen like a thing appeared in front of me with an icon of a phone. I reached out and tapped the icon only for god's voice to begin playing in my head.
"Hello, off-brand raph-. I mean hello Kumiko..." The god chuckled at his error. " Now that you have decided to enjoy this life I have left you with a simple instructional audio on how this world's magic system works. Sadly I'm limited on time so all your questions will have to wait till about never when I can answer them. In the meantime have fun with the basics."
Once the call ended I was left staring blankly at what looked to be a series of audio messages on the interface.
"That mother fu-" I was fuming. After throwing me into a new world, and ignoring me. He shows up again just to spit out exposition and then immediately ignore me afterwards.
After taking a moment to calm down I decided to play the two hours' worth of audio. However, After finishing I was just more angry at the damn god. He spent over half of the audio bragging about his powers only to at the end say I could never get close to achieving them. This was followed by about five minutes of actual useful information.
In the end, the system was explained in the terms of a tree. Every person was given a base power of something. Be it a basic element like fire or a more specific element like metal. These base powers were then split into different branches of what their specific magic could do.
For instance, a fire user might have a branch on fire manipulation, as well as fire starting. Meanwhile, a metal user could have a branch on forging or simply moving metal. This basic concept was applied to any type of magic used in this new world.
After learning the basics I decided to test my magic through the use of the system. I proceeded to open my skill tree, but to my surprise my tree was unique. I had five branches which is an unusually high number. As I read through them I realized why mine was so big. I wasn't limited to one magic, I had two.
I had the choice to learn river magic or time magic. Looking through the trees I learned about all the specific choices I had for my first tree. For river magic, I have the choice of water creation or flow manipulation. Sadly, there was no way I was choosing a river ability as my first choice, so moving on I looked at the three time options.
The first option was the ability to affect one's self, while interesting it overall seemed like it would require a lot of work to get to the point of usability. The second choice was the ability to affect other things, sadly this was limited to objects not people at the start, so I would also need to work to use this one well.
Lastly was the ability to see times. This ability in its most basic form was the ability to when sending magic through my hand directly into something or someone I could see uncontrolled glimpses of their past. While not perfect of the three starting time abilities this one appeals to me the most. I can not only learn more about the world and its people but also can use it for finding information on someone's past actions for my benefit.
My decision was made, so I pressed onto the branch that was seeing times and accepted it as my first new magic ability in this life.