The first thing that hit me wasn't the unfamiliar scent of cherry blossoms drifting through an open window, or the way sunlight streamed across polished wooden floors in geometric patterns I'd never seen before. No, it was the complete and utter wrongness of everything.
I blinked, my vision swimming as consciousness crawled back into my skull like a reluctant cat. Where the hell was I? This definitely wasn't my dorm room with its perpetual stench of instant ramen and unwashed laundry. The walls were too clean, too bright, and there were actual windows here—multiple ones—letting in what appeared to be natural light. When was the last time I'd seen natural light that wasn't filtered through grimy glass and cigarette smoke from the apartment next door?
My body felt strange as I pushed myself upright, like I was wearing clothes that didn't quite fit. I was sitting at a desk—a real wooden desk, not the folding table I'd been using as a computer station for the past three years. Around me, rows of similar desks filled what was unmistakably a classroom. A Japanese classroom, if the characters scrawled across the blackboard were any indication.
"What the actual—" I started, then stopped. My voice sounded different. Higher. Younger.
Full of youth.
The memories hit me like a freight train loaded with energy drinks and regret.
I remembered the marathon. Seventy-two hours straight of High School DxD, fueled by nothing but caffeine pills, energy drinks, and the kind of determination that only comes from having absolutely nothing else to do with your life. I'd been in the middle of season four, Issei was doing his usual perverted protagonist thing, and I'd been reaching for my eighth Red Bull of the day when my heart had decided it had finally had enough of my lifestyle choices.
The chest pain had been sudden and brutal. I'd barely had time to think "well, this is embarrassing" before everything went black.
And now I was... here. Wherever here was.
I looked down at my hands—smaller, paler, definitely not the hands of a twenty-two-year-old college dropout who'd spent the last four years perfecting the art of social isolation. These were the hands of someone younger, cleaner, someone who probably didn't survive on a diet of convenience store food and crushing existential dread.
"Okay," I muttered to myself "either I'm having the most vivid near-death experience in human history, or—"
A soft chime echoed in my ears, and suddenly there was a glowing blue screen hovering in front of my face. Translucent, ethereal, and displaying text in a font that looked suspiciously like something from a video game interface.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]
[WELCOME TO THE HIGH SCHOOL DXD UNIVERSE]
[PREVIOUS LIFE TERMINATION CAUSE: CAFFEINE OVERDOSE]
[REINCARNATION PROCESS: SUCCESSFUL]
I stared at the screen. Then I stared some more. Then I did what any rational person would do when confronted with floating text that confirmed their death and subsequent reincarnation into an anime world.
I started laughing.
Not the good kind of laughing, either. This was the kind of hysterical, borderline manic laughter that probably would have gotten me committed if anyone else had been around to hear it. The kind that said "my brain has officially given up trying to process reality."
"Of course" I wheezed between giggles "of course this is how it happens. I die watching anime about devils and boobs, and I get reincarnated into the world of devils and boobs. The universe has a sense of humor after all"
The screen flickered, and new text appeared:
[GACHA SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[BOUND TO USER: AKIRA YAMAMOTO]
[SYSTEM FUNCTION: COMPLETE ASSIGNED TASKS TO EARN GACHA TICKETS]
[TICKET RANKS: 1-10 (HIGHER RANK = GREATER REWARDS)]
[FIRST TASK WILL BE ASSIGNED SHORTLY]
I wiped tears from my eyes—when had I started crying? The laughter was subsiding, replaced by that peculiar numbness that comes after your brain finally accepts that reality has taken a hard left turn into the impossible.
"A gacha system" I said aloud, my voice echoing in the empty classroom. "Because apparently dying from caffeine poisoning wasn't pathetic enough. Now I get to be pathetic with a gambling addiction mechanic"
The screen pulsed gently, as if responding to my commentary, but no new text appeared. I reached out tentatively, half-expecting my hand to pass through the projection, but my fingers met nothing but air. Of course. It was probably visible only to me, which meant I was either having a psychotic break or I'd actually been reincarnated into a world where floating game interfaces were apparently a thing.
Given my track record with rational decision-making, I was leaning toward the latter.
I stood up slowly, testing my new body's balance. Everything felt lighter, more responsive. Like I'd been given a factory reset and someone had bothered to install the premium package this time. The chronic back pain from years of terrible posture was gone. The perpetual headache from too much screen time and too little sleep had vanished. Even my vision seemed clearer, though that might have been because I was no longer staring at a monitor from six inches away for eighteen hours a day.
Through the window, I could see a courtyard with students in uniforms walking around, chatting, being normal. Being alive in ways I'd forgotten were possible.
High School DxD. I was actually in High School DxD.
Which meant somewhere in this building, there was a perverted protagonist who was going to accidentally grope his way into a harem of supernatural beings. There were devils who looked like models, fallen angels with serious attitude problems, and enough magical politics to make Game of Thrones look like a children's book.
And apparently, I was going to be part of it.
I looked at the screen, then at the classroom around me, then back at the screen. In my previous life, I'd been the kind of person who ordered pizza online to avoid talking to another human being. I'd dropped out of college because the thought of actually attending classes gave me panic attacks. I'd spent more time with fictional characters than real people because fictional characters couldn't judge me for my life choices.
And now I was being offered a chance to actually do something. To be something.
"Well" I said to the empty room, "I'm already dead. How much worse can it get?"
I reached toward the screen, toward whatever insane adventure awaited me in this world of devils and angels and teenage hormones.
"Let's see what fresh hell I've gotten myself into"