"So I died?"
[You did.] It said, voice reverberating physically upon the void. [Your heart gave out. Your medications had pushed your body too far.]
"Drats." He said. He looked entirely unbothered to have his death spelled out to him.
He glanced around. The void around him was dark and all-encompassing. Everywhere he looked he'd see black. His fingers would grasp nothing. His feet stood on nothing. Not a single waft of oxygen made it into his lungs. And yet there he stood, somehow able to move and still alive.
Before him was…something. He didn't know what it was. An orb of pure white, stretching and pulsing like some sort of organ. The light it shone onto him felt deathly cold.
[You are strange.] It says. Its tone is even. It is neither interested nor amused. [Most mortals would react to their death.]
He shrugged. "I've been waiting for my deathbed for a while now." He admitted. "I lived two years longer than what my doctors predicted. That's a win in my book."
The thing pulsed. It said nothing for a few minutes. It seemed to be pondering something. Or maybe it got bored. He didn't really know. He wasn't a telepath that could glean the thoughts of the eldritch thing that floated before him.
Then it spoke. [You are an anomaly.]
"Hm?"
[Your life has ended, but the Records state that you are not.] For the first time, its voice gains an inflection. A chill ran down his spine. [Dead, yet not. Your soul has left the mortal plain, and yet it says your mortal body remains.]
The thing pulsed once more. Another chill ran down his spine. "I'm pretty sure I'm dead." He said. Another chill crept up his back. "Pretty hard to forget all that pain, y'know?"
The thing pulsed, and pulsed, and pulsed. It almost seemed like it was laughing. [How paradoxical.]
The thing pulsed, and suddenly the void shattered. A million eyes were revealed to be hiding behind it, all staring at him, beady and filled with veins of red. He froze, paralyzed head to toe.
In the between the eyes he could spot what almost looked like vessels, carrying sickening red between one eye to another. They stared at him. They stared at him. They stared.
Then the world shattered. His ears imploded. Blood crept out of his ear canals. And he screamed in agony as a pike fell from the heavens and stabbed through his skull.
He blacked out soon after.
.....................
[The end awaits, Scorned One.]
.....................
{1} - Evans Smith: Our Teacher
He awoke with a gasp. He coughed, desperately holding his jaws together to keep the bile in his throat. Just-, what happened? The last thing he remembered seeing were those giant eyes staring at him, and the pain of having that pike stab into his brain, and then he-
And he-
He groaned. He couldn't remember anything after that. Trying to remember only made his head ring. He opened his eyes, somewhat afraid he'd see those giant eyes once more.
He froze.
[Name: Evans Smith]
[Age: 21]
[Level: 1 (50 Mentor Exp to Next Level)]
[Strength: 2]
[Endurance: 1]
[Agility: 3]
[Intelligence: 4]
[Skill: 2]
[Skills: -Mentoring Lv 1- ]
[Mentor Exp: 0]
Evans Smith? That wasn't his name! His name was-, his name was…
Panic rose in him. His name-, he couldn't remember his name! He knew his name wasn't Evans Smith, but whenever he tried to remember, he found nothing.
More than that, he couldn't remember anything about himself. His parents, his background, his circumstances—all emptied from his mind. All he knew was that he'd died and had somehow ended up in that void.
No, no. He could have his panic later. For now, where was he?
He stood up, and floundered as he saw the rows of student desks before him. He turned around and saw a blackboard that stretched from one end of the room to the other. Chalk lined the bottom of the board, ready to be used. A door was on one side of the room, and windows on the other.
And outside, a wasteland of red sand and pearlescent blue skies.
To say that he was shocked would be an understatement. He felt his heart literally stop from the shock, and for a moment he worried that he'd collapse from another heart attack. He didn't though, and he could only come to the realization that he'd somehow been transported into a classroom that stood on a void of red sand.
He took a breath to calm himself. It didn't really work, but it gave him enough time to notice that the floating panel he read earlier wasn't the only one.
[Welcome to Avant, Scorned One. This is a world that has perished. An apocalypse made by human hands desolated everything that existed. Now only you remain.]
[However, this world is not the only one teetering on the edge of nonexistence. World after world lies in the danger of destruction, and left to their own, they would no doubt be destroyed.]
[You, Scorned One, stand in opposition of this. You are able to teach those that would fail, and give them the chance at salvation.]
[Now, their fates lie in your hands. Good luck, Scorned One.]
He…had a lot of questions. A mountain of them. But the moment he read those last words, his vision was filled with an onslaught of panels, each seemingly just as important as the other and all vying for his attention.
He did his best to parse through them—dismissing those he found unimportant for the moment. One did catch his attention however.
[List of Potential Students]
He recalled what he just read. [Countless worlds teeter at the edge of destruction], it said. And considering that he needed [Mentor Exp] to Level Up, and this panel he just found-
Was he meant to act as a teacher of some sort?
It was an…interesting concept. He didn't remember himself being a teacher—not that he could remember much about his old life in the first place. He didn't overly mind though. If all he needed to do to help realities from collapsing was teach a bunch of students, he didn't mind all that much.
So he brought the panel closer, and jaw fell.
[List of Potential Students]
[Teach Akira Kurusu about Leadership | Difficulty: Hard]
[Tutor Louise de la Valliere about Magic | Difficulty: Very Hard]
[Teach Issei Hyoudou about Patience | Difficulty: Hard]
[Tutor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd | Difficulty: Extremely Hard]
[Teach Lumine of the importance of Companionship | Difficulty: Very Hard]
[Tutor Shiro Emiya about Fighting | Difficulty: Extremely Hard]
[...]
There were hundreds of choices—thousands even. Each asking him to teach a character from all sorts of media.
Suddenly he realized what it meant. [Countless worlds teeter at the edge of destruction], it said. It wasn't joking. If he read them right, each of those lessons taught those characters things they should've normally understood.
The stories he read about—they all reached their happy ending because the characters had been the right individuals at the right moment. But not every universe could be so lucky.
He felt determination rise in him. He understood now. He found the reason why he'd been brought here.
He might've died, and he might've faced some eldritch being that seemed to take pleasure in his circumstance, but that was fine.
He had a chance to work with the characters he'd so lovingly followed, to live out the stories he never could, to aid them reach their happy endings.
He read through the comprehensive list of 'students' he could teach. He needed an easy task—something to get his foot in. And after nearly an hour of scrolling through the list, he found it.
[Teach Izumi Midoriya of Hope | Difficulty: Medium]
This was the one he inevitably chose. He'd raised an eyebrow at the changed name, and the Medium difficulty gave him some pause, but he read what he needed to do, and a terrible premonition rose in his mind.
He'd seen the first episode of My Hero Academia. He'd read enough fanfiction to know just what could've happened if Izuku hadn't held on for just a little more.
His finger made contact with the panel, and it lit a brilliant white that filled the entire classroom.
And suddenly-
"W-Where am I!?"
The light faded, and before him stood a girl with striking green hair.