1 A Voice in the Dark

In a complete pitch black environment, a small silhouette made of light, in the shape of a grown man, remains sitting in lotus position, seemingly floating.

He doesn't remember how he got here, his last memories were of him on his own house, a shitty place to be honest, well its not like anything in his life ever worked out, it felt like the world wanted to screw him over in everything he tried.

After years of trying, he gave up on improving and dedicated his life to surviving. And so, he went like that for nearly 30 years, until suddenly he woke up on this place.

'Where the hell is this place? I have been here for what it felt like months… years… and nothing happens, It feels like a dream but when we are dreaming the last thing we think is that we are… well.. dreaming.. its so odd..'

He waited and waited, his sanity slowly crumbling until he heard voices, not one, not two, but several, almost talking at the same time, the exact same words, in his 'head' it felt like it was the voice of the world communicating with him.

[We finally meet, welcome to the abyss of nothing my young anomaly]

Looking around and finding nothing but pure darkness he just gives up on trying to understand the situation

'Well at least I have the voices in my head to talk to now.. I wont be as lonely anymore..'

After a brief period of silence, a small chuckled echoed through the darkness

[Well, it seems I made you wait a bit young anomaly, why don't we have a chat? I can assure you that I am no voice in your head]

Shrugging and knowing that he is complete powerless and exhausted after who knows how long of waiting, all he wanted to do is get it over with, is he dead? Alive? Drugged? At this point after who knows how long he simply doesn't care anymore.

"Very well .. voice.. let's talk, how are you today? Do you hang around these parts very often?" he asked back with a chuckle, if he is dead at least he is going out with some dignity… even if it's just a shitty lame joke.

[Yes actually, I hang around here all the time, for a very, very long time. How about you? Do you often hang around here?]

He chuckles and answers "Well for the past .. God knows how long.. so yeah… I've been hanging around here for quite a bit"

[You are right, I know exactly how long you have been here. I would say 1233 days, I could say the exact hours, minutes and seconds, but considering the number of days would a few hours actually matter?]

He laughs out loud "HAHAHAHAHA So you are telling me that you are God?" He shakes his head "You sounds more like a ROB than THE God"

[Oh? Why do you think so?]

"THE God wouldn't have to ask that question, THE God would already know the answer.." if his face had anything other than light he would've been grinning at this point.

[Touché my young anomaly, touché.]

He shrugs and asks "What's up with that whole 'young anomaly' thing? Is that how you call dead people?"

[Why do you think you are dead?]

"Don't change the subject, after making me wait for 1233 days you could at least answer a question. And to answer you.. would we meet in a place like this if I was alive?"

[A fair point. Well to tell you the truth you are not dead, your soul was brought here but you are not dead. In fact, your soul is not even an actual soul, its more like an artificial soul created by an anomaly. The reason why you suffered your whole life was because of your artificial soul. You see, your world rejects you and because of it, its will is bent to go against you, the fact that you survived almost 30 years is actually quite impressive]

He was obviously quite shocked by the revelation, but it didn't take much for him to accept it as truth "That explains a lot, and raises even more questions…"

[Well, you are not the first and certainly not the last, its uncommon but not considered rare most humans like that die when they are still inside their mother's wombs, the percentage that survives usually dies on their early years, bellow 5 years old, but you my young anomaly survived 30 years, that's some impressive feat]

If he had an eyebrow, he would've raised it. "Is that so? So, what I am here for? A prize?"

Another chuckle echoes through the void

[Yes, actually is more like an opportunity. An artificial soul is quite unique in many ways, yes, it is deadly but it also presents you with a unique feature. You can travel to other world through transmigration, while natural souls can only be reincarnated there, the difference is on the details.]

"So you are going to isekai me?"

[You know, I really hate that word. Recently many souls coming from your universe have been asking me that when they meet me for their afterlife guidance it got really annoying]

"So, what happened to them?"

[What else? Reincarnation cycle, hell or heaven or purgatory, it all depends. I won't explain to you how the afterlife system works, to be honest you have no right to know how it works, you are just a mortal]

"Fair point. So, what now?"

[We would like to employ you for a job, by accepting this job we will tinker your soul so you won't have to deal with the whole 'world turning against you' ever again, among other perks]

"…"

After a brief silence a thunderous laugher echoes through the dark space

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT A GOD WANTS TO EMPLOY ME?! A MORTAL?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA" even his light body couldn't remain on the sitting position anymore he rolled through the void laughing like a maniac.

The voice waited in silence for several minutes until the laugh stopped and the man could regain his bearings.

"Wow, I would've probably died if I was back in my body after laughing this much"

[Considering how your world wanted to get rid of you I agree, you would've probably chocked on a fly that was 'conveniently' close to your mouth] the voice replies with a deadpan voice.

"So petty for an omnipotent being huh?" he shrugs "So, what's this job and why do you need me to do it?"

[Recently, due to an error in our system, many natural souls were given an opportunity to reincarnate with their memories in other worlds, some of them abused the error and caused many disasters, some even cause their world to be destroyed and others annihilated entire races for their selfish reasons, although there is plenty of lives on the multiverse it happens often enough to overload us with an ungodly number of souls to process. So, we came up with this idea of sending others to deal with them since we cannot directly affect any mortal plane, stupid rules and regulations.]

He nods in understanding but raises a question "But why would I do it then? I mean, I rather reincarnate like them and live my life on my own terms instead of having a job to deal with"

[Good question, first the error is being solved so after its done there won't be that issue anymore, memories will be wiped once one reincarnates. Second well there's a difference between reincarnating directly and accepting the job deal for a transmigration, if the soul was to reincarnate directly, they would get a few perks that would make it easy for them to live there, but the advantage would be more based on memories, yes one could take advantage from future knowledge but the reincarnation would be strictly bound by the world laws, by accepting the deal you would get many more advantages, believe me you won't be disappointed. And third, artificial souls have some little details about them, so you wouldn't be able to enjoy an afterlife retirement, listen you aren't the first to take this job, and there's a line of others just like you for me to deal with after we finish our talk]

"And what stops me from causing a calamity after the deal was done? I mean, you would be giving me way more firepower than a regular reincarnation, for all you know I could just be way worse than any of them"

[That is a risk that we are willing to take, what's worse that could happen? The world shattering itself? That would happen anyway even if we didn't give you anything and left the reincarnated soul be, as I told you this is a trial, if it works it works, if it doesn't work it won't make the final outcome any worse. Other than that, we have been observing you for a while, and not only you survived 30 years with your artificial soul, you kept your sanity for over 3 years here, all alone on the void, your will is strong.]

He shakes his head "As strong as my will may be, power changes people-"

The voice interrupts him

[And so does despair, but you never changed, you never gave up on living, yes you may have abandoned your dreams but you never abandoned your life! Of many options you could be considered one of the safest bets, if you can't do it and fall, we will have to depend on the others, but that's on us]

After a minute of consideration, he just sighs and nods, what else can he do? But then he remembers of a tiny detail.

"Wait you said I wasn't dead, I've been here for years… and now with the job.."

[I didn't lie to you, first of all little mortal I may not be THE God but I am A God! Stopping time on your little solar system for a few years is nothing to me. Second, you are alive, if you decide to reject our offer, we will simply send your soul back to your body after erasing your memory of this meeting, and you will back to survive as long as you can until you die, we are giving you a choice, but remember the details that I talked about? Well, artificial souls have no reincarnation, heaven or hell after death, they are erased, permanently! So, this is a chance for you, will you take it or not?]

Although his body was merely a human shaped light, the divine entity could've sworn that they saw a smirk on the man's face

"Alright then.. let's talk business.."

[I can offer you many things but I can't break the natural balance of the world you are going. Some rules can be bent to the limit, but we can't break any otherwise the consequences will make this whole effort pointless since breaking the natural laws instantly erases a world, so first you may pick which world is available for you, all of these on the list are the ones with a reincarnation mark on them, so pick one, these are the one available for the people from your planet.]

A window opened in front of him, almost like a large computer screen that he could operate with a though, on the screen many options were available, from Naruto to Supernatural, be comics, movies, animes, mangas, cartoons and series, it didn't lack options.

"God damn.. there's even Minecraft here, are you serious? .. who the hell would reincarnate in Rick and Morty?" he scrolled down "You gotta me kiddin me.. even fucking looney tunes?"

[What can I say? You humans are just that weird]

He kept browsing and then a doubt came to his mind "So my power is limited by the world, if I pick one piece, will i get one piece related powers?"

[Yes and No, as a transmigrator you have way more freedom than that, the powers will be slightly reshaped to fit the world laws, as i said, the laws can be bent but there's a limit to it, for example you could pick One Piece world and chose powers from Bleach world, the powers would be reshaped to fit One Piece but you would still retain some unique aspects of the original power from the Bleach world regardless. It's possible to bend the laws to a certain extent, but if you chose Looney Tunes and request for a Dragonball power, then … yeah.. I can't do much for you there]

".."

"But Daffy Duck is a wizard…"

[…]

He couldn't see anything but he could swear that he felt an intense deathly glare on his back for some reason.

[Pick..Your..World!]

'Damn, it seems that this ROB needs to relax a bit more, I wonder if they have a bar or tavern in the God realm.. so grumpy..'

He keeps scrolling until he finds one that interests him.

"Oh! The Avatar world!"

The voice replies

[Well that one depends, if it's the four nations then yes, the one with the blue people, it exploded a few years ago due to a reincarnator]

He could've sworn that he saw the voice shrugging beyond the veil of darkness.

".. right… "

The awkward silence remained for a few seconds until he spoke again

"Alright I pick the avatar world, it has a somewhat hard magic system, I mean its not like people can create extra bending other than the ones already known, and even if they can, they are all based on specific laws.. people can't just spawn a meteor out of thin air, the limitations are very reasonable too, although Sozin's comet and full moon are variables, they don't really break the system… from all interesting fantasy worlds this is one of the most balanced."

[You seems to have thought about it for quite some time, are you one of those weirdos that dream of being reincarnated or transmigrated to another world?]

"Hey! I take offense in that, if you were in my place, facing the world laws that are trying to destroy you, you would also try to find escapism in fantasy!"

[Fair enough]

"So, what about my powers? How do we do that now that we got the world selected?"

[That's very simple, I will give you one wish and 5 knowledge points, the wish is your basic power source, so pick it carefully, if you select a system as a wish all I will give you is a system strictly limited by the laws of Avatar, you will be powerful but not unstoppable by any means, picking a system alone is often a bad idea, I don't know why people like them so much, yes you can grow stronger faster but picking a smart wish can easily overshadow that advantage, theres no inventory space either, that would be a power on its own. Remmember your wish will be reshaped or 'nerfed' to fit the world, don't expect to retain 100% of your choice, in past cases we had people dying because of that, they requested Saitama's power and didn't listen to me, all they got was an eternal bald head.]

He just shrugs, he also didn't like systems, yes, they are good to help track of progress and details, but the system is usually a support thing, not main power, without a main power and only a system he believes that he could easily become a very strong bender, but only to the limits of bending, nothing above that, and probably not even an Avatar, just a regular bending master, and since he is going to live his life in another world, he don't want endless grind for petty stat points, he wants to make his new life worth living!

He kept in silence for a while, thinking of the possibilities.

'I need a strong base, some power that keeps me in line with the world laws so it doesn't diminish too much to the point of becoming useless.. Saiyan? Probably not possible it would be nerfed to the ground.. a devil fruit? Possibly a Logia would work but… no, not when there's waterbenders around, that by itself is a huge weakness, and I don't even know the limitations of the world laws, for all I know they can downgrade Goro Goro no Mi into a slightly more powerful lightning bending, and Mera Mera no Mi to regular fire bending.. wait.. the voice said one wish, not one power, if my wish has more than just a single power and all of them just fit..' he grins thinking of the possible loophole 'a powerful bender to the point of being a one-man army, deadly, badass, good looking, with a fighting style that can easily adapt to the Avatar world, and more importantly, someone that i would accept becoming, it makes no sense to start this journey just for the sake of power... i want to enjoy this life!'

He raises his head "I wish to become Uchiha Madara!"