The room was suffocatingly dark, the only illumination bleeding from the trio of monitors that formed a curved wall in front of me. The constant hum of high-performance cooling fans filled the silence, a white noise that I had learned to tune out years ago.
On the center screen, a beautiful young woman with cascading lavender hair and eyes that seemed to hold the secrets of the universe leaned forward. Her expression was a perfect mix of shyness and gratitude.
"You're all so sweet to me," she said, her voice like melting honey. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
In the chat log, messages scrolled by in a blur of colors—donations, subscriptions, and emojis.
**[GigaChad44 donated $500.00]:** *"This is what real content looks like. Tired of all these fake e-girls. You're different, Hana."*
**[SimpKing99]:** *"She's so interactive. Best streamer on the platform."*
I stared at the screen, my reflection faintly visible in the dark corners of the monitor. I wasn't Hana. I wasn't a girl. I wasn't even using a camera.
I was a twenty-four-year-old man sitting in a pile of dirty laundry, wearing a hoodie that smelled like yesterday's pizza.
"Thank you, GigaChad!" the avatar chirped, blowing a kiss to the camera.
I typed a command into the secondary UI: *`/emote_blow_kiss`*.
The software was proprietary—or at least, the version I had Frankensteined together was. I had spent two years training a machine-learning model on thousands of hours of idol footage, voice samples, and interaction logs. I had created the ultimate parasocial illusion. Hana was perfect because she wasn't real; she never had bad skin days, she never aged, and she never had to take a break.
I was a ghost, a phantom operating a digital puppet, and the world paid me handsomely for the lie.
I tabbed out to check my crypto wallet. The numbers were staggering. I had enough liquid assets to buy a house in the countryside, a car I didn't know how to drive, and a wardrobe of clothes I would never wear. Yet, I hadn't left this apartment in six months. The outside world was loud, messy, and demanding, but here in the dark, I was a god.
"I'm going to do a few more rounds of ranked," Hana said, her voice dipping into a cute, determined growl. "Let's crush them!"
I took a sip of lukewarm energy drink. My eyes burned. It was 3:00 AM, and I should have been asleep hours ago, but the adrenaline of the scam—the high of watching the donation ticker rise—was addictive. It was the only validation I had left.
My desk was a disaster zone, a chaotic landscape of empty cans, crumpled tissues, and tangled wires. I reached blindly to my left, my hand searching for the expensive imported water bottle I kept there. I was dehydrated, and my head was starting to throb from the caffeine crash.
My fingers brushed the cold metal.
I didn't look away from the game lobby. I was watching the chat, moderating arguments with one eye while calculating my taxes with the other. I lifted the bottle, not realizing that the sleeve of my hoodie had caught on a cable snaking across the desk. It was an old ethernet cord I hadn't bothered to tuck away, running to a power strip that sat precariously on the carpeted floor.
The strip was ancient. I had bought it used three years ago, and the plastic casing near the plug was cracked, exposing the copper prongs inside. It was a death trap I had walked past a thousand times and ignored.
I tugged the bottle.
The cable snagged. The resistance was slight, barely noticeable.
*Clunk.*
The water bottle tipped. It didn't spill on the desk; instead, the trajectory was perfect in its tragedy. The bottle nose-dived off the edge of the desk, landing directly onto the exposed prongs of the power strip just as I took a swig.
Water splashed. A cold shower of liquid hit the live electricity.
Contrary to the movies, there was no explosion or massive fireball. There was just a sound—a sharp, violent *crack* like a whip being snapped inside my skull.
Blue light arced, a spiderweb of electricity dancing across the floor.
The sensation hit me a fraction of a second later. It wasn't pain, not immediately. It was a vibration, a humming, violent resonance that locked every muscle in my body. I couldn't scream; my jaw was clenched so tight I thought my teeth would shatter. My heart stuttered, fibrillating wildly in my chest.
I watched the monitors. Hana was frozen mid-blink, her smile stuck in an endless loop. Then, the screens flickered. The image distorted, green and purple lines tearing through the avatar's face.
*Is this it?* The thought was a distant scream in a tunnel. *I'm going to die here?*
The irony was suffocating. I had millions. I had fame. And I was going to die alone in a dark room, electrocuted by a water bottle, surrounded by trash.
The smell of ozone and burning plastic filled my nose. My vision whited out, and the pain vanished, replaced by a cold, rushing numbness. The last thing I felt was my body convulsing, sliding out of the expensive gaming chair before the floor rushed up to meet me.
And then, nothing.
***
Silence.
It wasn't the silence of a quiet room. It was an absolute void, a lack of vibration, of air, of temperature.
I blinked, or at least, I felt the sensation of blinking. I wasn't in my chair. I wasn't on the floor. I was standing.
I looked around, panic spiking in my chest. There was nothing to see, just an endless, stark white expanse stretching out in every direction—up, down, left, right. It was like being inside a blank canvas.
"Okay," I whispered. My voice didn't echo; it just existed, flat and dead. "Dreaming. I passed out. Sleep deprivation."
I looked down at my hands. They were solid. I touched my face; I felt skin. I was wearing the same hoodie, but it was clean. The stains were gone.
"Is this the lobby?" I muttered, falling back on gamer terminology because reality was too terrifying to contemplate. "Am I in a queue?"
"This isn't a queue."
The voice didn't come from behind me; it came from everywhere. It was a dry, bored baritone that vibrated through my bones.
I spun around. A figure stood there, though he hadn't been there a second ago. He looked ordinary—a man in a grey suit holding a clipboard. He looked like a mid-level manager at an insurance firm, tired and counting the seconds until his lunch break.
"Let's expedite this," the entity said, flipping a page on his clipboard. He didn't even look at me, choosing instead to check his watch. "You died. Cardiac arrest induced by high-voltage electrocution. Accident. Tragic, stupid, but effective."
My mouth opened, but nothing came out.
"You are currently in the Processing Void," he continued, his tone clinical. "I am a Divine Administrator. Due to the high volume of deaths in your sector, we are streamlining the reincarnation process. You get three wishes. Standard Isekai protocol. Use them wisely. My patience is limited, and my lunch break is in four minutes. Go."
Three wishes.
The words hit me like a physical blow. It was every power fantasy I had ever indulged in during those late-night gaming sessions—the ultimate cheat code.
But the way the God looked at me, with that bored, bureaucratic disdain, made it clear this wasn't a game. This was paperwork, and I was a file to be stamped.
"Think fast," the God warned, clicking his pen. "If you don't decide in thirty seconds, I assign you a random seed in a random universe. You might end up as ant. It saves time."
Panic surged. I couldn't think. I was still reeling from the shock of death, the memory of the electricity freezing my heart.
"I want to be strong!" I blurted out, my voice cracking. "I never want to be weak again. I never want to die like that, helpless in a chair!"
"Specificity matters," the God said, tapping his pen. "Define 'strong.'"
"Yoriichi Tsugikuni!" The name came from my obsession, the demon slayer I had watch. "The template! From *Demon Slayer*. The physical peak. The reflexes. The swordsmanship. The stamina. Everything."
The God scribbled. "Granted. You possess the vessel of the Sun Breathing master. Two wishes remaining. Tick tock."
My heart hammered against my ribs—or at least, the memory of my heart. I needed a destination, a world where i can matter.
"My Hero Academia," I said quickly. "I want to go there. The world of heroes and villains."
"Location set. MHA Universe, Earth-749. One wish left. Do not waste my time."
I froze. I had the body and the world, but in *My Hero Academia*, physical strength was only half the equation. All Might was strong, but All For One had tricks. Shigaraki had decay. I needed more than just a sword; I needed utility. I needed a way to control the chaos.
My mind raced through anime databases. Naruto.
"Fūinjutsu," I said, the words tumbling over each other. "Sealing techniques. I want the full knowledge base."
I paused, a sudden realization hitting me. *Naruto* runs on chakra, but MHA runs on Quirks. If I arrived there and couldn't mold chakra, I would be defenseless.
"Wait!" I added, desperation creeping into my voice. "Connect it to my biology! Make it my Quirk! If I have a Quirk factor, make the Sealing Arts run on that energy. Make it a natural part of my genetics."
The God stopped writing. He looked up for the first time, his eyes flat and assessing.
"A swordsman's body with a sealer's knowledge, powered by a meta-ability," he summarized. "A chaotic variable. High disruption potential."
He snapped the clipboard shut. The sound was like a gunshot in the silence.
"Parameters accepted. Reincarnation initiated. Goodbye."
"Wait, I have questions! What about a GUI? A system—"
"Done."
The void didn't fade; it collapsed. The white expanse shattered like glass, falling away into an endless, rushing wind. I felt the sensation of falling—a gut-wrenching drop that pulled me away from the sterile office and dragged me screaming into a new, chaotic reality.