"Ugh..." A low groan escaped Ethan's lips as he regained consciousness.
Pain.
Pain was the first thing to greet him upon waking, a sharp pain that spread throughout his entire body—from his arms, chest, and abdomen, all the way down to his legs. It was as if something had torn through his muscles, punishing them each time he tried to move.
Opening his eyes, Ethan could only grimace and close them again as an intense light struck him. He blinked several times, forcing himself to slowly adapt to it.
Eventually, the blurry vision gave way to clarity, allowing him to see that the harsh, direct light came from a lamp suspended above him, illuminating him as though he were some kind of specimen under observation.
Annoyed by this, but unable to do anything about it, Ethan turned his gaze to the rest of the room. He wanted to know where he was; it was clearly not his bedroom.
The air was too cold, heavy with the strong smell of disinfectant. Focusing on the sensation beneath him, he noticed that the surface he was lying on was not a bed. It was hard, metallic, and uncomfortable, which only added to his growing dissatisfaction.
Uncertainty began to seep into his mind as he turned his head slowly, trying to assess his surroundings. However, what he saw left him stunned.
Medical instruments in nearby cabinets and tables, various sinks and faucets, metallic cubicle-shaped doors that were painfully obvious as freezers for storing bodies, and the pungent smell of antiseptics. All of it made it clear to anyone where he was.
Somehow, he had ended up in a morgue.
His eyes widened, and his heart began to race as panic took hold of his mind, which was already racing through thousands of scenarios per second.
'Have I been kidnapped?' was his first assumption upon finding himself in such a place. 'But what do they want from me?'
Ethan couldn't understand. He wasn't someone important, nor did he come from a wealthy family, so he couldn't fathom how they could profit from him.
'No, not entirely. They could still use… my organs!' Ethan realized in alarm.
The macabre thought of being kidnapped solely for the purpose of harvesting his organs made him sit up abruptly. The movement, as expected, caused his torso to scream in pain, but he ignored it, gritting his teeth hard.
He needed to confirm whether his body was still intact, and the fear of losing something so vital seemed to dull the pain he felt as he moved.
When he managed to sit up, he looked down, and what he saw left him in shock.
"Ahhh... What?" Surprised beyond belief, his voice involuntarily gave voice to his thoughts.
"This isn't my body. It can't be my body!" Ethan whispered incredulously. His skin tone, moles, birthmarks—everything was different. His height, his musculature, absolutely everything about him had changed. The panic in his mind grew.
Ethan's breathing became erratic; it felt as though the air was escaping his lungs. He was on the verge of a panic attack. However, something else caught his attention—his wounds.
As he had feared from the kind of pain he felt, they were all puncture wounds, made by a knife or anything sharp enough to pierce flesh.
Fortunately for him, although they looked terrible, they weren't bleeding. Ethan couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not, but at least seeing them didn't push his anxiety further.
"Okay, calm down. Calm down," he told himself, trying to control the whirlwind of emotions coursing through him. He needed to think clearly if he wanted to get out of this situation and understand what had happened to him. "I'm still alive. And it seems like my organs are still in place."
He wasn't cut wide open, offering a horrifying view of his insides, nor were there any signs of surgical sutures. The wounds on his chest and abdomen seemed like simple stab wounds, not surgical attempts to extract anything.
This realization brought him a glimmer of calm. And after several long minutes of deep breathing, his mind finally began to settle.
With unexpected clarity and his brain now fully focused on survival, Ethan knew it was time to act. He couldn't just sit there, waiting for his possible demise.
He knew the first thing he needed to do was treat the wounds on his body and then find a way to leave this place discreetly.
If he had indeed been kidnapped, alerting his potential captors would be a rather stupid way to die, he reasoned, a shiver involuntarily running down his spine as he thought about what might happen if they caught him.
With a plan forming in his mind, he spotted a first aid kit on the other side of the room and carefully got off the metallic table. His legs trembled, but he managed to stand. As he did, he noticed something on the floor: remnants of white clothing with black edges and a yellow cape.
The garments, as expected, were stained with what he could only deduce was his blood, subtly indicating they were his. "Is this what I was wearing?" Ethan wondered. He didn't really recall ever owning that kind of clothing.
'It doesn't matter. I can't waste time.' He shook his head, knowing this wasn't the time to question it. Taking slow but steady steps, Ethan continued advancing toward the first aid kit.
However, midway, something caught his attention in the corner of his vision—something on the freezers: his reflection. The surface, of course, was far from perfectly clean, but it still offered a vague image of his current appearance.
Intrigued, Ethan approached, momentarily changing his objective. He knew this might be a foolish decision, as treating his wounds was the priority, but his curiosity overwhelmed his willpower. Besides, something—perhaps his intuition—told him that seeing his reflection might help him understand why he was here.
What he saw, for the third consecutive time, left him astounded. The face staring back at him, as he could have predicted from the changes in his body, was not his own.
"Who am I supposed to be now?" Ethan wondered, confused by the unfamiliar face. The reflection showed someone beautiful, with blue eyes and white hair that fell to the top of his back.
It was the complete opposite of his previous appearance.
'Wait, long hair?' Ethan thought, surprised, as he carefully touched his now lengthy hair. Somehow, he had overlooked this detail before. Perhaps he had been too preoccupied with other things to notice. Whatever the case, he now touched it with amazement.
"What really happened to me? What did they do to me?" he whispered uncertainly, wondering how his potential captors could have achieved this.
This defied any understanding Ethan had of the world.
'Is current technology advanced enough but hidden? Is this some kind of secret government experiment?' he reflected, unable to settle on a concrete idea.
He turned his attention back to the freezer. Seeing his current appearance was disconcerting. He had spent years getting used to seeing his own face in the mirror; not seeing it now was simply… unreal and strange.
However, before he could examine his new appearance further, as if a key had been turned, a torrent of memories flooded his mind. Countless images and experiences arrived without warning, leaving him confused and disturbed.
Ethan saw them and experienced them almost as if they were his own. He could feel everything the protagonist of these memories had felt—every failure, every triumph, every emotion. He lived it all as though it were his own life.
The memories belonged to someone named Kastro, a man born in the Republic of Mimbo, in the great city of Tenrasa.
Since childhood, Kastro had been passionate about fighting and dreamed of one day becoming a great martial artist. With that goal in mind, he trained diligently and, after years of battling various martial artists, tried his luck at the world-famous Heaven's Arena.
A place known to all who called themselves fighters. Kastro, unwavering in his ambition, wanted to become a floor master, someone recognized and admired on a global scale.
Upon arriving at the arena and winning battle after battle, he reached the 200th floor—something he had considered a great achievement at the time. But it was there that everything began to go downhill. In his first fight, he encountered Hisoka, who, intrigued by his talent, baptized him in Nen before defeating him.
From that moment on, Kastro became obsessed with seeking revenge against Hisoka. So, he diligently trained in the basics of Nen and developed two powerful Hatsus.
Two years later, Kastro returned to Heaven's Arena, determined to defeat Hisoka. Confident, he confronted him directly upon reaching the 200th floor again. Unfortunately, he had no idea that this fight would be his end.
Ethan witnessed and experienced firsthand how Kastro's battle with Hisoka played out. He felt, in its entirety, his pain, despair, and sense of helplessness in the moments before his death.
In the end, the last thing he saw in Kastro's memories was the cold darkness of death.
"Kastro," Ethan said softly when the memories finally stopped flooding his mind.
Now, he understood everything. The pieces of the puzzle had finally come together into something coherent.
"I've… transmigrated into Hunter x Hunter," Ethan murmured in absolute fascination.
Transmigration.
It was a concept proposed in Buddhist religion, suggesting that the soul could pass from one body to another after death. It was a fascinating idea and, unsurprisingly, a common trope in web novels—stories he, as an avid reader, loved to consume.
Even so, having it happen to you, precisely as in the stories you read, seemed at best impossible. A completely unrealistic and absurd occurrence.
Not even in his wildest dreams would Ethan have believed this could happen. After all, weren't those stories just fiction?
Well… it seemed that now they were real.