✦ Light & Clouds ✦
Light detonated.
My chest heaved, ribs rattling like they weren't ready for air yet.
I gasped — not asphalt, not headlights, not rain, not pain, not broken bones.
Instead? Clouds.
Glowing silver clouds cradled me — like the universe spun silk just to cushion a respawn.
When I pressed my palms into them, they were warm — not vapor, not mist, but alive. They hummed faintly, like a heartbeat.
Above stretched a golden sky pierced by crystal towers that scraped infinity.
Waterfalls climbed upward instead of falling, silver streams dissolving into constellations.
It looked like someone built a city out of starlight and said, Yeah, that's practical.
The words slipped out of my newborn mouth before my brain caught up:
"W–what the hell…? Didn't I die?"
The taste of rain still lingered.
Ray's voice echoed faintly in my skull.
But now… this?
✦ Queen of Heaven ✦
A shadow leaned over me.
Not just any shadow.
Her.
Silver hair poured like liquid starlight, blue eyes shimmering with tears more precious than gemstones.
She scooped me up, rocking me gently, hands glowing faintly as if light itself loved being held by her.
She looked at me like I was everything.
Like she had waited eternity for me.
Meanwhile, I was a confused newborn tasting rainwater and trauma.
Her lips brushed my forehead as her voice cracked:
"My son… my Haise Tenjin."
She brushed her thumb against my cheek, and the warmth that followed wasn't power — it was lullaby.
"Such small hands… yet they'll hold a sky one day."
She laughed softly, eyes wet but shining.
"Look at you… already glaring at the world like your father."
Yumi (soft laugh): "Just like him. Born dramatic."
"You already have opinions, don't you?
Just born and already judging Heaven."
Then, gentler — her voice trembling between awe and love:
"You'll be stubborn, won't you? My little storm."
Whatever it takes, you'll live.
Whatever it takes, I'll protect you.
And here's where I should've stayed cold, right?
Except something warm folded inside me.
This wasn't just a woman.
This was Yumi — the Queen of Heaven.
My mother.
And for the first time since Ray…
I felt wanted.
✦ The God King Appears ✦
The sky itself split open.
Light tore across Heaven like fragile paper.
Through it stepped a figure so massive the towers seemed like toy blocks at his feet.
A man cloaked in radiance.
Purple hair spilled like stormfire. His golden eyes burned — twin suns caught mid-rise.
His every breath shoved the world into rhythm.
His aura pressed against me — not heavy, not suffocating, just absolute.
Truth made flesh.
"In that moment, I felt it — a rhythm beneath the air, like the world itself breathing through him.
I didn't know it then, but it was the pulse every god was born from — the same that would one day awaken in me."
Even newborn, I got it.
That's… a god.
He smiled down. Not cruel. Not indulgent. Just certain — like mountains, oceans, laws.
"Not just a god. Your father. You are my son now — born of divine lineage.
The Son of the God King."
This man — Tenjin, the 11th God King — was my father.
Cool. So, uh… reincarnation package deal included a mountain-sized dad.
Honestly?
Part of me wanted to laugh.
The other part wanted to cry.
Both felt new — and real.
A faint smile touched the air — and light bent around it.
Tenjin lowered beside us, vast yet quiet. His golden eyes softened as if the universe itself exhaled.
For a moment, he wasn't the ruler of Heaven — just a father seeing his son for the first time.
He extended one colossal finger, hesitant, almost human.
"Even the stars dimmed when you cried," he murmured — half pride, half disbelief.
"My little sunbeam of chaos."
Tenjin: "I see strength in you already. A good omen."
Yumi: "He'll be stubborn. Like you."
Tenjin (smirks): "Then he will survive anything."
Then his tone deepened, sacred and steady:
"If anything dares to harm you, I will ripple the world itself."
Not fragile words.
Not hollow comforts.
These were vows — spoken by beings who could actually keep them.
Even as a newborn, those words wrapped me in armor.
For the first time in forever…
I wasn't drifting.
I was kept.
✦ Their Promises ✦
The world went quiet, as if Heaven itself leaned closer to listen.
Yumi cradled me like something sacred yet breakable.
Her voice trembled through the stillness — soft, but carrying a weight even gods would obey.
"Haise… may the light inside you never learn fear."
"If the stars ever fade, let your heart teach them how to shine again."
Her lips brushed my brow — and in that warmth—
Then came his hand — vast, sure, calm.
Tenjin's presence filled the air like thunder restrained by mercy.
His molten-gold eyes softened as he spoke:
"When the world tests you, don't ask it for kindness — demand it."
For a moment, their lights met in silence — silver and gold intertwining, forming a pulse that echoed through my veins.
Not power.
Not command.
Just… life refusing to die again.
I didn't understand their words — not fully.
Maybe this time… I was being born for myself.
✦ My Refusal — Acceptance ✦
But.
Inside, I laughed bitterly — a laugh that sounded more like breaking glass than relief.
"I didn't ask for this.
I wanted the void.
But the void refused me.
Light wouldn't let go."
The ache in my chest pulsed again, stubborn, alive — as if mocking me.
I tried to shut it out.
To sink back into the void.
But the void refused me.
Light clung — gentle, infuriating, divine — whispering that existence wasn't finished with me yet.
I clawed at the warmth, desperate to shake it off.
"What's the point? A new world, a new lie…"
Inner Me (snark): Great. Reincarnated and still depressed.
Inner Me (quiet): …But maybe this time I don't die first.
"…same pain wrapped in prettier skies?"
And then… something inside me shivered.
A pulse — small, steady — a second heartbeat, soft but unyielding.
It wasn't mercy.
It wasn't punishment.
It was the universe saying:
Breathe.
Ryvane — the living rhythm of creation — flowed through me like memory learning to heal.
Like a soul remembering what it meant to try.
Warmth didn't erase the pain.
It gave it purpose.
I stared up at the endless glow above me and, for the first time since dying, exhaled.
Maybe this wasn't salvation.
Maybe it was debt.
Maybe it was a dare.
Either way…
I was done running from it.
And here's the kicker:
I'd watched isekai anime back on Earth. Magic, powers, chosen heroes.
That stuff was fiction… until now.
Except this time, it wasn't a screen.
It was real.
Add my parents' vows.
Add my god-status cheat code.
Add actual magic?
Yeah.
"…Fine. This time, I'll make peace worth keeping."
And somewhere in that vow, the ember in my chest pulsed once —
not as command, not as mercy,
but as quiet agreement.
✦End of Chapter 1 — Rebirth on Clouds ✦