1 1 - RE:START

'Dark... it's so dark...' Thought the boy. He reached out his hand trying to feel his surroundings but couldn't feel anything, not even the ground, it felt like he was floating in an endless void. No matter where he looked at there was only darkness.

He blinked and frowned, there was something wrong, something felt... disconnected as if this wasn't supposed to be like that, so where was the problem? He thought, again and again, reaching out for anything he could find on his memories.

But there was nothing, just those blank spots, or so he thought. After searching for so much, he finally found something, it was the memory of a boy, who desperately spoke to a girl, his eyes were red and he seemed frustrated, he couldn't hear anything he was saying, but at some point, another boy appeared wearing a red shirt, he approached the girl from behind and hugged her, both of them looked at the boy with a vicious smile.

She said something and once again he couldn't hear, but he felt something really bad at this time as if a knife was tearing apart his heart, he looked at the vision and saw how the boy's face sunk, he was completely shocked, and in a state of disbelief as if his world had crumbled apart.

The boy wearing a red shirt kissed the girl's cheek and walked towards the first boy and before he could react, he threw a punch at his face sending him to the ground, and just like a few moments ago, a hurtful feeling surged out of nowhere on his cheeks, as if someone had just punched his face.

The vision ended at this point and was followed by another one, where the very same boy who was punched, now with a swollen face, walked down the street. His face was down the whole time, but the moment he stopped to look at the moon, his tearful face appeared, at that moment a voice resounded on his mind as if someone was talking to him.

'This isn't fair, why is it always like that, am I merely a tool? Was I cursed? Did I do something wrong in a previous life and I'm now being punished for it? I can't understand... whatever, I can not stand this anymore, the pain is unbearable...'

The boy on the vision touched his face as if trying to hide his tears, he would have stayed there the whole night had no one appeared, but the honk of a truck made him look behind. He remained on the sidewalk looking at the truck that was approaching at high speed.

'So be it, I've made my decision, there is nothing left here for me, father, mother, forgive me, your son failed you and won't see you in heaven... If you're there listening and taking care of me, know that I loved you more than anything, you were the only ones that really loved me... Goodbye.'

The moment the truck was about to get past him, the boy jumped in front of it and then... nothing. The vision ended there, but for some reason, he started crying after seeing that, an intense feeling of regret took over his body.

He still couldn't remember anything but this painful feeling didn't leave his body, at some point, it was so unbearable, that his very soul started shattering like broken glass, he could feel his consciousness fading, he somehow knew that his end was near, but then, at that endless void, he felt something unexpected, somehow he just bumped at a weird-looking stone, he couldn't see it because of the darkness, but he could still feel it with his hands.

He caressed the stone for some reason, and after that, some sort of screen appeared in front of him.

[New host found. Starting booting procedures... Analyzing the host. Warning, critical damage to the soul detected, no healing methods available. Searching for new options...]

He stared at the screen completely dumbfounded, just what was this?

[Host Karma has been detected, the host can exchange it for a new chance. Does the host wish to proceed with the reincarnation cycle? Chances of all memories being erased are extremely high, however, survival is 100% guaranteed.]

[Yes/No]

He looked at the screen and stood motionless, for some reason, he wanted to choose no, but another part of him seemed to be screaming... Telling him to choose yes. He looked at the screen for some time, and then extended his hand, he was about to choose no, when just a few centimeters away from it, he subconsciously pulled his hand to the left, choosing the yes button.

[Initiating process, the host consciousness will enter a state of deep slumber.]

Just as those words appeared on the screen, he fell on a deep sleep.

...

Laplum city was a beautiful place, the towering skyscrapers coupled with the green trees that you could see anywhere in the city, gave it a peaceful atmosphere, and despite its size of a few hundreds of kilometers, the place was relatively calm, it seemed as if the whole place had just enough people to make it function properly.

There wasn't a single place that was crowded and lacking space, no matter if it was the train stations or the markets. But if you truly wanted to find a place filled with people, all you had to do was search for a school and look around its surroundings, waves of students would come from every corner.

One of those students was a boy 170 centimeters tall, his face was merely average and would never attract anyone's attention, he had short black hair and brown eyes and was currently using the Cherry Tree's Academy uniform.

He, like the other many kids with spiritual energy, was obliged to attend one of the three spiritual masters academies of the city, luckily for him, the one he was studying at was merely a few minutes away from his home, that way he could save the transportation money.

As he walked towards the gate someone approached him from behind and punched him in the arm.

"Ah!?" He turned to see who it was and was surprised after noticing who it was.

"Yo! How have you been, Victor? When was the last time we met again? 5 Years ago?" The boy with beige hair and blue eyes pondered over his question.

"That can't be... You are... Jaden!?" Victor looked at him with his eyes wide. "I thought your parents decided to live in another country!?"

Jaden smiled and replied, "Hm, that was indeed the case, but my grandpa came back to Luplum kingdom, so I decided to follow him, but who would have thought that we would be able to meet each other so easily."

Victor could only nod at his words, that was truly a rare occurrence. Anyway, things would be easier now that one of his childhood friends would also study at the same place, making new friends was usually a tiresome process, you'd have to be crazy to think otherwise.

As they walked down the street, Jaden put a single arm around his shoulder and whispered, so that the other nearby students walking in the same street, didn't hear them.

"Say, Victor... Do you know what happened to Kelly? Does she still live here?"

"Eh?" Victor looked at Jaden with a surprised face. "Don't tell me you still have a crush on her after so many years!"

Seeing how Victor was almost shouting Jaden panicked and used a little bit more strength suffocating Victor.

"Oi!" He whispered. "Do you want to tell them my ID as well? Turn down the volume when where talking about such things!"

"Ah! Right." Victor nodded.

"Sigh... To answer your question, yes, I still have a crush on her, so is she still here?"

"Uh... I don't know after you left she transferred to a girls-only academy, I never heard of her again after that."

"Ah... I hope she is still here, this time I am confident that I can ask her out on a date!"

Victor didn't truly believe his friend. Seeing the doubt and disbelief on his friend's face, Jaden continued.

"C'mon men, you gotta cheer me up! This time I believe I can do it! We are already 15, there is no way I'm going to cowardly run away from her like before."

Victor could sigh at his friend's words. "Then, you better pray that she doesn't have a boyfriend already, 5 years is a lot of time."

"Mm. I know." He patted Victor's shoulder and kept walking.

Soon enough, they passed through the gates of their school and went towards the big blackboard on the left next to the entrance, every student had to do it in order to discover their classroom. He and Jaden had to search for a few minutes, but at least they were gladly surprised that they would be studying in the same class, things would be like a few years ago when they were still at the elementary school.

"Eh?!" Jaden gasped as he looked at the list with the names of the student assigned to class 1 - D, their class.

"What is it?" Victor asked curiously.

"Hey, look at the name of the person with the highest score in our class."

Victor nodded and looked at the list again, after searching for a few seconds he also gasped, 'How could it be! No way the demon queen will be studying with us! This is really bad...' Right above him, with a difference of merely 2 points, there was a name that seemed to cast a dark shadow on their minds.

Soon the other students from class 1 - D started noticing the same thing and started gossiping about the situation, every boy was scared shitless of this situation, the demon queen was the daughter of the most powerful man of the united kingdom, there were many rumors about her, but the most common one was that she was a villainous woman with a cold heart that didn't mind stepping at her classmates to become stronger.

Some even say that she liked to torture boys.

And sure enough, it didn't take long for things to become scary, before they could prepare themselves, an ominous feeling struck their hearts as darkness covered their surroundings, they slowly turned to look at their backs and gulped at the scene, there was a girl looking at them with cold black eyes, her long dark blue hair swayed with the wind as an evil black aura leaked from her body.

Not even her pink and white school uniform coupled with the skirt that allowed them to look at part of her beautiful legs could change the oppressing atmosphere, Elliblex Mephisto, the descendent of the most powerful man of the united kingdoms, a royal demon that came from the underworld realm...

For whatever reason, only the boys seemed to notice that aggressive aura filled with evil intents, the girls didn't seem to notice or simply didn't cared as some of them even approached her and started talking about something usual, or whatever girls liked to talk about. Victor at least wasn't in the mood to even think about this matter.

"Ah..." Jaden at his side sighed. "Danmit, 3 fucking years studying with the demoness, we are so fucked up."

"Shhh!" He covered Jaden's mouth and turned to look at the girl, fortunately, she didn't seem to have noticed it. "You're gonna get us in trouble if you keep spouting those nonsenses, c'mon, let's go the classroom, the more we stay here, the higher the chances of something bad happening."

Victor took the lead and left the entrance, Jaden could only sigh and agree with his words, it was like that saying: "better safe than sorry."

The academy was quite big, there was a sports building, a building just for clubs, various arenas, a garden filled with flowers, and the main building where they had classes. They just had to climb a set of stairs to get to the classroom, the teacher was not there yet, but at least there were already some people inside.

They sat down next to the windows and couldn't believe their luck, somehow their classroom was right in front of the running field were they had some physical exercises, that could only mean one thing. They looked at each other and made V sign with their hands, the sign of victory!

"Hehe, at least, the heavens have blessed us with the beautiful sight of girls exercising!" Jaden was already drooling over the visions he could already imagine.

Like any other 15-year-old boy, his interest in the girls was a little exaggerated, but they could not help themselves in that respect, just imagining the girls wearing a white shirt with the classic pink shorts from this school, totally covered in sweat, slowly panting made their hearts beat faster and a feeling of warmth overtake them.