It's been six years since I was reborn or rather transmigrated, frankly I don't really understand the isekai terminologies but one minute I was shot to death at age sixteen, the next second I feel myself merging with something and I open my eyes as a baby.
I became Kurashiki Kuraudo which is ironic because my name in my last life was also Kuraudo. I was just a street rat in slums of Yokohama in my last life, I didn't have anything or anyone to take care of me yet I kept struggling to live a better life.
I didn't have any talents, I wasn't intelligent or anything, if there was anything I was proud of, it was the physical endurance I developed through doing manual labor which helped me when I got into fights in my neighborhood.
What brought some light to my dim life was the used smartphone a kind old man gave me to support myself, I got into light novels and manga because of it, looking for an escape but I never thought I would really wind up in one of them as the character who shared my name.
Rakudai Kishi no Eiyuutan was a light novel I enjoyed, I didn't like it as much as I did Arifureta but it was still interesting and was a bummer that it didn't finish.
I was happy to be alive again, I was even happier when I realized the world I was in and the fact I had incredible powers I didn't have in my previous life. It helped me cope with disappointment of my parents, with my mother who ran away six months after giving birth to me and my alcoholic of a father, it didn't even matter to me that I was similarly poor as I was in my previous life.
Although I was humble, there was a self-inflated ego I had due to the fact I had been considering this place as fictional and the reality of it hadn't kicked in. It was also due to fact I had confirmed I was Kurashiki Kuraudo and I had fused with his infant soul forming an entire new soul with magic power being greater than it was in the original light novel.
I thought it would be smooth sailing for me to get to the top of this world and easily become a desperado since I knew the plot and events of the future but cold harsh reality set in when a D-ranked blazer criminal easily defeated me when I just turned four and I was nearly killed.
There was no shonen moment where any chains of fate appeared on my body and I became a desperado, I had abject terror on my face, I didn't want to die like a waste on the side of the road like in my previous life.
I was saved by a regular human, not a blazer and that was a splash of water in my face, I didn't see him because I passed out but the police told me he was Kaito Ayatsuji, the Last Samurai. He is someone I have come to admire from the bottom of my heart.
I was ashamed of myself that I had spat in the memory of my previous life where I was hardworking and had determination to live a better life. I became a frog in well, thinking just because I got some modicum of power and I knew future events, I could take on anything, thinking that the world is easy because everything is fiction.
In short, I woke up when I was four and stopped considering this world as fiction and saw it for what it truly was, a dangerous yet beautiful world filled with both hope and despair.
Back then after I calmed myself down, I started to realize how stupid I was. Desperados are blazers that have literally gone against their fate and surpassed what their entire being was limited to, there are more blazers that know about desperados than there are blazers who are actually desperados.
If you think about it, what blazer wouldn't want to be a desperado but the amount of them known in the world can counted on two hands. Even world governments should want more powerful blazers but you don't see them trying to create desperados because becoming a desperado is not something any human or blazer can control or plan. It is a door blazers have to possess the absolute determination and demon like effort open and sometimes even that is not enough.
In short becoming a desperado is no different from a suicide attempt that you might not even gain anything from. After I realized this, it humbled me and gave me resolve to not rely on something as vague as becoming a desperado to live a better life in this world, all I can do is to rely on talent and extreme hard work to move forward.
As for my future knowledge, that is even more useless than the knowledge of brute soul because the novels focused on the main character and I'm not even one of the people close to him or around him, just one of his future opponents.
Seeing the future or having future knowledge is overrated because the future is ever changing, something small can change everything. My presence here should have changed some things I don't know about, plus knowing future without having power to act on it is meaningless. In the novel couldn't the Prime Minister see the future, but he didn't have enough power to change it according to his wishes and I'm pretty sure he isn't the only blazer who can see future.
All in all, after my first life and death experience when I was four years old, I calmed down and did a self-evaluation of myself and came to the conclusion I'm just a talented blazer with unreliable future knowledge but I'm still grateful for a second chance at life.
In the novel, Kurashiki Kuraudo was a C-rank blazer with a rating of D in magic power. Magic power is the fundamental of a blazer's existence, it determines whether a blazer will be strong or not. I came to understand it as I started training, although other factors are nearly as important but mana or magic power is undoubtedly the first.
From what I understand the amount of mana a blazer has is essentially determined at birth and from the soul of the blazer unless in the unlikely case one becomes a desperado. My soul that came here was fused with original Kuraudo's soul leading me to have greater magic power than I was supposed to have. I don't think it's on the level of A-rank but I think it's above my original D-rank that it was in the novel, I just don't know by how much since I wasn't even born in a hospital where they check this stuff. (AN/ he isn't born as a desperado, the new soul created from the rebirth fusion was assimilated by the world and is still under fate)
Another change is my magic control, since I started training my control is pretty decent, I think, because I have no decent education on it to really know. My device and ability didn't change too much but there are several things I believe to be an advantage.
My device is named Orochimaru, similar to what I saw in the light novel in form as a sparkling white bone-colored nodachi with blades that looks almost like a saw, but the difference is that instead of the initial one sword, when I awakened my device, it was two swords like in later volumes of the novel.
I can extend and shrink my sword at will with incredible speed, I don't really know how far it can extend as I have not yet seen the limit and don't want to be arrested but I can also control my swords like an extension of my body that makes it seem like they have a mind of their own. What wasn't in the light novel, that the original me didn't possess is that I have the ability to make the edge and blades on my twin swords vibrate similar to a buzzsaw thereby increasing their cutting and piercing power.
Marginal Counter hasn't changed, I don't know how fast I react compared to the original but I doubt it's different from the original. Still marginal counter is amazing, it's as if sometimes I see the world in slow motion.
I have incredible potential that's it, can I live a better life than last time? Sure. Even after my near-death experience, I can still live my life as a decent Mage-Knight and retire early then live in luxury but there's a hunger in the depths of my being, I don't want to be just a talented blazer or a decent a Mage-Knight.
I want to be like those two I saw on TV in a playback broadcast; Yaksha Princess and World Clock. I watched their fight in Seven Stars Sword Art Festival that happened before I was born and I felt small.
I felt small at the power they possessed but more than that I felt unwilling. I felt unwilling to just be an average mage-knight, I want to stand at that height of power, I want to declare myself as extraordinary too.
It's immature, selfish and even stupid pursuing that kind of danger after being given a second chance at life and the tools to make life easier but I don't care, being previously talentless in my last life and having decent talent in this life, I refuse to be mundane and I'm going as far as I can go. If I don't, I think I'll just feel empty.
"Kuraudo, it's time for the fight. Get ready kid!"
I got out of my thoughts by the call for me, I know that bastard Nijimura is up to something but if I fall here then it's better not to dream at all.
With a bloodthirsty grin on my face, I walk out ready to crush these people here as my stepping stones.