《Reincarnated, I will become the Strongest!》


 Chapter 1 | Id been shot

    My childhood was a perfect one. My parents made sure I learned to dance with famous professionals. Rumba, Bachatam even Ballet and capoeira.


    Music I was forced into. My elder brother Harry had made a show of it, touring the world, selling out world class stadiums in his free time. So as was common in my family, I had to match him.


    Everything was made a competition between me and him, one that I would almost always lose. No matter how hard I tried I came second- and a good second at that. I¡¯d often end up having to break a world record, or do something ¡®amazing¡¯ just to not embarrass myself. But between me and my brother, second meant I was last.


    Harry passed exams ready for college for all his academic foci by twelve, and that was with a gap year that he forced my parents to let him have so that he could ¡°find himself¡±. I was eleven at the time, and I was only starting my SATs which harry had aced at 9.


    It was annoying but I got used to it. I always felt less loved, harry was appreciated more than me. Dad was a competitive man who prized manliness above all else. Having a son like Harry who dominated in everything was all he ever wanted. It wasn¡¯t so much that I disappointed him but that harry set Father¡¯s expectations too high and I could never reach them, always sitting just below, always failing him.


    Mother loved us both, I think, or at least she would try too. But often harry would need more attention: she¡¯d have to go to more of his performances; or take him to meet other promising youth. I¡¯d have my fair share of occasions to, but they¡¯d clash with harry as he had too many and all of his were ''special'' as mother would put it. I often had to go with the butler or nannies.


    However, in the house I felt the least love from Harry himself. Harry rarely wasted words, if he had no reason to talk to you, he wouldn¡¯t occupy himself with pleasantries. What does first place have to say to second? Nothing. I¡¯d say we grew apart with age, but we were never close in the first place.


    The day things turned I was fifteen in my sophomore year at Harvard. I had recently started a research project in neurotechnology. It was going to revolutionise learning, it would advance the world two decades over night and most of all it would be enough to impress my parents and beat Harry on something that mattered. The amount of good I would do for the world, even harry wouldn¡¯t be able to match me. And I loved it. I loved the idea I was helping people, for the first-time life had some sort of purpose.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    I had spent day and night for all my time in college, slaving in the library doing independent study for the research and it would all pay off soon.


    But then on that day, as I slaved with my beakers and microscopes like I would every Tuesday one of our butlers came to my lab. It was Mother and Father, they had died. A gang had broken into the house the rare night they were both in together and killed them cold. The police report said they didn¡¯t steal anything, leaving our home video security to watch them escape.


    I was devastated. Although my relationship with my parents was an odd one, I loved them dearly. They always made me try my best. I¡¯d seen them smile deeply for harry many times and wanted to earn one of those deep smiles for myself.


    Although I tried to contact him Harry wasn¡¯t interested in talking through the past. At the funeral he didn¡¯t cry, and I wept enough tears for us both, once again a show of how much weaker I was than him.


    They had split their millions between me and Harry in equal measures. Following Harry ended up turning millions into billions through investments and start-ups. He was the richest teenager in the world by seventeen.


    I struggled to adapt much more. I turned to videogames to avoid confronting my emotions. I playedgames more and more, making it almost impossible for me to continue with my research, and then my studies. I decided I needed a drastic change to fix myself so turned to drugs.


    I made few friends too through my dealer, Edward. At this point I couldn¡¯t keep with college at all. I was kicked out of Harvard younger than most enter at sixteen.


    I hung out with the Edward after college. We¡¯d tour the world, rarely sober or level. We experienced many things, from Burning Man to doing hits with young royalty, the life was wild and expensive.


    I had no idea how rich Edward was, but he always seemed to have enough money. We would always travel with an envoy of models and take them to our own separate quarters for ¡®good times¡¯, and the models were always tens.


    Then I found out why. One day I overheard him talking about how much to sell the next batch for. He started describing them. Tall, all Brazilian but with good English. It took me a second to realise he was describing the same models we had round the night before.


    It tormented me, I felt empty and evil and a failure. Harry now owned one of the biggest companies in the world, one of his early start ups investments and was set to hit double digit billions by eighteen and I was helping with human trafficking? The drugs made the emotions worse too. I felt all my failures crush down on me at once.


    I needed repentance, and the only way to do that was to remove the main reason for all the evil I was seeing. Edward.


    I staged an assassination for him, one night while he was sleeping, I went to his quarters. I found him with two true blondes, all laying in bed fast asleep, and I couldn¡¯t help but be sickened by the sight. Tears started to streak down my cheek as I lunged for his heart. I¡¯d brought one of the kitchen knives and new exactly where to strike from when me and harry done an anatomy sculpture contest.


    Before I could serve the lethal strike, something stopped me, piercing through my skull. I heard a crack and then all there was was darkness.


    I¡¯d been shot.

 Chapter 2 | I learned to walk

    I opened my eyes and everything was blurry. The rooms brightness seemed solar, forcing me to squint to see. And¡­ I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry so much, that damned light was annoying me. What was wrong with me?


    With some concentration, the shape of two people in front of me became clearer. They were giant, their noses seemingly enough to crush me. I was scared. I cried.


    I started wailing loud and loose. Like all should know I was scared of these two giant humans and someone should definitely come to save me or else¡­ I would cry some more. I tried to move in hopes of escaping the giant people. It annoyed me the instinct to run didn¡¯t come before my urge screaming. My body didn¡¯t budge.


    I tried to move again, using way more into it this time and my limbs started to flail, making minor motions up and down and left and right, I couldn¡¯t control them with much of any precision at all. But I managed to move them enough to see my arms flail. They were like two rattles shaking.


    My crying and movement seemed to alert the giants, one of them approaching me. My vision had begun to clear too, and I started to realise the giant approaching as a woman.


    She had a big smile filled with adoration and almost pride directed right at me. What had I done? I was growing increasingly confused. And scared. And angry. And¡­ I cried even louder.


    ¡°xxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxxxxx xxxx¡±


    I heard odd noises come from her lips. I could feel a grammar to the sounds, some order to it, but it wasn¡¯t English. I had learnt four languages in my past, and something I had gotten really good at was capturing the essence of a language early. I struggled here, but after a few more random sounds I managed to figure out she had named me., although it may have been something else relating to her culture. I guessed my name to be Alo.


    The women picked me up, placing me laying on her shoulder. Like a spell I was calmed. My emotions weren¡¯t even mine anymore. I felt comfortable. Too comfortable.


    I¡¯d somehow gotten fatter than I remembered myself. I had never been fat in my entire life, only eating the best food my parents¡¯ millions could buy. But here it was, warm, comforting and protecting me.


    I tried to grab the women¡¯s clothes in case I fell, but my fingers weren¡¯t capable. I looked to them noticing how simple they were: they had few creases and were a lively pink. My crying slowly simpered, till I grew tired and felled asleep.


    The days following weren¡¯t much different to that. I would often grow tired of thinking. I got many headaches and learnt less because of it. It took me two months to see clearly.


    I spent most of my time reflecting over what I knew happened before. Before I felt my skull pierced. Before my parents died. And then before I begun to fear my brother¡¯s success. This happened over and over, with rare interruptions being awake in a confusing new world.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    In that time, I learnt I was not with giants, but rather I was a child of two months. My parents were beautiful, my mother was as beautiful as any of the celebrities I had met before, except she had a natural grace about her. My father had the fill of a leader, too muscular to be common but too quick to be merely a guard. But he missed one arm, something I recognised as a great source of pain for him the more I watched him.


    We were poor. Horrendously poor. It wasn¡¯t just that they did not have fridges and TVs and electricity, things I thought custom in all households until now. But they lacked space and garments. We seemed to live in a small room like hut, or hut like room. We all shared the same squarish space with little to adorn the place. This meant my mind had to wander a lot to entertain itself.


    But I reflected on what I knew of before less and less. My memories had become distorted with emotion. I was angry at Harry for his stoicism at our parent¡¯s funeral. I was frustrated I had always been a failure in our household. I was ashamed I gave up on helping the world with my research for something as little as grief. My emotions were conflicted. Harry mastered himself and continued to succeed. I was weak. I lost again. The games, drugs, and Edwardo were just consequences of a life wasted. Squandered by me.


    I made sure to train my muscles deliberately as much as I could every day for however long I managed to stay awake. It all started as somewhere between habit and fear. I needed to be learning something or else I may fall in that dangerous spiral that cost me my life again, but being able to do more meant I could spend more time with my new Mother and Father. I didn¡¯t want them to see me and be impressed, I just enjoyed them seeing me for once.


    I started crawling at three months, which from the worrying gasps from my parents, was a bit young. It was liberating to move with the earth at my fingertips, but also worryingly unhygienic. It took me a week after to start walking. I moved tentatively at first but when my parents caught on, I started running towards them and away, with a stupid free laugh all the time.


    The more they cared for me and played with me, the happier seeing them made me. It felt like a betrayal of my actual parents, but I couldn¡¯t help it. But I noticed the more they cared for me, the less I would miss my actual parents, and the more I would cry, ashamed of myself for giving them such little respect.


    I wasn¡¯t taken outside much, and I couldn¡¯t understand much of the world until I learnt the language my parents spoke. It took me two more months to get it. Up until then I had slowly understood more and more sentences and words until I knew most of what they said.


    I still couldn¡¯t speak. I knew I needed to train my voice muscles but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to spout nonsense sounds in front of my parents. I would talk to them once I mastered their speech, I¡¯d affirm to myself. But they wouldn¡¯t let me, if I tugged at them to play, they¡¯d always engage me with pointless one-sided conversations, it took me until month three to realise half the time what they said didn¡¯t even make sense to them, just some pointless baby talks to obscure my learning.


    My first sound was me shouting ¡°Stop.¡± But it ended up more as a ¡°Gah.¡± This didn¡¯t happen until I was 8 months aged. They seemed relieved their child wasn¡¯t mute even though I had already begun to run.


    My muscles were good enough to speak full words after around twelve months. I convinced father to take me with him training, my first real excursion. I remember placing clear arguments and firm reasoning, but from his laugh afterwards, I don¡¯t know how much of that he understood.


    ¡°Like father like son.¡± Mother said. I just wanted to spend more time with him.

 Chapter 3 |I struck again and again

    Father would often disappear for long bouts of time. This is why I was so excited to join him for his training. It may have helped me figure out what exactly he done, and more generally what happened in this world outside the hut me and mother shared.


    Father took several cautionary measures when we left our home. I heard the bustle of people and saw several huts and shelters to our north, where I imagined the people of their village lived, we skirted our household and went south. He carried me, not letting me walk at all, even when I cried. Lastly, and most worryingly, he muffled my screams, something he never allowed mother to even do to me.


    So far, I found out the village was on a mountain forest. We hiked down to a nestle with high trees and the crashing flow of water nearby. As soon as we arrived Father smiled to himself, he was either proud of finding the area or fondly familiar with.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t it lovely, son.¡±


    "yaes." I babbled, my voice muscles still not trained enough to speak their language clearly.


    When I talked I wouldn¡¯t talk in full sentences yet. I tried that once with mother and she had looked more worried than proud. I¡¯d use as few words as needed to convey what I wanted, whether a one year old should be able to say those words didn¡¯t seem to matter to mother and father.


    Father was, in the nicest way possible, a show off. Even though I was barely one he still saw it fit to showcase his flashier moves. He performed a series of tehm. Although flamboyant, his skill was undeniable, he would weave his sword, making it whip and curl and move and dance like it had no body, trying to convince you it could be anywhere at any time.


    Father knew me as restless, he came prepared for that though. He made me a small, light wooden sword for me to play with as he trained.


    ¡°It¡¯s probably a bit too heavy for you, Alo.¡± Father laughed. Father took to laughter easy, often warming the house with it.


    He begun to resume a stance, readying to train some more.


    I reached for the wooden sword curious. That was something new for me. Ever since I entered this world, I had become aggressively curious.


    I had gained a lot of odd behaviours since becoming a child again. My theory was they were innate to children. The most noteworthy were my proclivity to extreme emotional reactions: I would yell if I was annoyed, I would cry if I was somewhat sad, I would sleep as soon as I was tired.


    But even more amazing was my proclivity to interest. Everything was interesting. Things only got boring when I explored them to their end.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    I had always thought babies were just bored when they demanded to play with everything they could touch, they hadn¡¯t developed skills and hobbies, all they could do was suck toys and complain about it. But that wasn¡¯t it at all. Their brains were in such a state they could improve their thinking. I had this constant need to get new information and compare it with everything I had ever known before. For a baby this would be trivial- them knowing so little. But my mind wasn¡¯t so young.


    I¡¯d realise I would get new perspectives on things as simple as rain; the machinic clamour of it on skin. The way the ground softly rumbled with my steps was musical, the shuffling of air in breath jarring. I would find myself meditating over everything, falling through slots of thinking until I reached quasi-truths. These quasi-truths always seemed to involve motion too.


    I wasn¡¯t a philosopher, I felt more like an artist trying to see the right word, or feel the right notes. These descents of thinking would make me feel I knew, in the truest sense of the word, whatever I pondered better.


    The sword felt fine in my hand. I had never held a weapon before. Father had made the handle too wide for my palm and the wood had been smoothed so much the sword ransomed slipping out of my fingers.


    I started playing in my mind fathers moves. I realised my child mind found it hard to hold so many things at once. The sequence of his steps was too complex to remember all at once. I decided to focus on the move that stuck out to me the most. It was not the most powerful, I had little interest in that.


    Power was a competition, and I knew too much of that from trying to match Harry. Before I never got to appreciate the flowers, I¡¯d almost perfectly bouquet my roses, but I was too busy looking at how perfectly arranged Harry¡¯s were to enjoy them. Comparison is the thief of joy they say,I experienced so many things before but never really enjoyed any of. I would live this life better, I would make sure to enjoy it fully and for now that meant fully appreciating what it meant to have parents that loved you.


    I lifted my sword high above my head and done the twirling forward jab of father''s. The movement felt familiar, borrowing some of the grace of ballet and rigour of capoeira. But there was something extra to it. It felt almost like there was another dimension to the move. Like the ignorance you felt as a beginner, but much more corporeal.


    I was staring down at the sword deep in thought and father had been watching me intently. I looked to him but he kept a peculiar gaze on me.


    Countless thoughts must have passed through his mind and I would have liked to have known any one of them.


    ¡°Do it again son.¡±


    I felt no desire to, but father seemed serious, and although I saw no point in it, I listened. And I done it again, and again, and again.


    Father made me repeat the movement, over and over. My arms grew tired and my palms swelled red. Every time I looked back to him, he looked to him, It was like he was waiting for a dragon egg to crack or a powerful sword to set. I was worried but it still felt like bonding. Father¡¯s attention on me made the pain in my legs less.


    I kept going, the more I done it, the less corporeal my ignorance felt. I felt like I was beginning to know the move. Like I was filling a hole with experience. I noticed after fifty hits there was more like an art to it. I became curious for the movement.


    I saw father rush to me before I realised what happened. My muscles caved at the 52<sup>nd</sup> attempt. I collapsed.

 Chapter 4 | Heffaya

    ¡°How is he?¡± I heard father ask.


    I felt soft hands stroke my forehead. ¡°Exhausted, he¡¯s been unconscious the whole day,¡± it was mother.


    ¡°You should take him to Heffaya, he might know a way to help him recover quicker.¡± Father urged rather anxiously.


    Mother was silent for a moment. ¡°Yezial, I told you I won¡¯t go back there until they apologise for what they done to you.¡± Mother¡¯s voice was not kind like I¡¯d come to know, there was an illness to it, like she was sickened by her words, or sickened by whoever ¡®they¡¯ were.


    There was a long stilt of silence before anyone talked. ¡°What happened to him?¡±


    ¡°I overworked him.¡± Father said. He sighed, ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°he is¡­amazing I don¡¯t understand how he is so capable so young.¡± mother¡¯s smile came through her voice. ¡°But he¡¯s still just a boy.¡±


    ¡°you don¡¯t understand what I saw in him, his focus¡­ he only stopped because his body forced him to Rebea, he has something. He swung a sword better than I¡¯ve ever seen any of those Tindem boys after a dex of goes. Do you understand how odd that is for a man? He¡¯s just one, Rebea!¡±


    They shared a few empty moments.


    ¡±Do you think there¡¯s a demon inside him?¡±


    ¡°No, no there isn¡¯t!¡± Father said firm. ¡°Our boy is gifted by the god¡¯s themselves. He¡¯s gonna protect the village in my place! That traitor Heavar and his father have no right to lead this village. If anything happened to the village, all of the families would be at risk shielded by his sword. They couldn¡¯t even win the shroud by the cut of their own wood.¡±


    ¡°Calm down Yezial, the shroud took your arm, don¡¯t offer your son up so easily.¡± Mother caressed me slow, soothing me.


    ¡­


    It was a month before mother took me to see the village shaman known as heffaya. In that time father begun training me daily. My own weight felt odd on me when moving. It was a different song to sing for a child to try the moves. My head offered much resistance to my movements and my centre of mass slowed me greatly.


    The biggest issue was my body was ever changing. I couldn¡¯t get used to it fast enough. The wind would talk to me, sometimes shouting loudly and sometimes in quiet poems but it always felt like the wind was saying something to me. My body and the fighting were different.


    I performed thousands of repetitions of my father¡¯s favourite movements over and over. Each time getting more of a feel for the moves. I didn¡¯t get much stronger, babies seemed to be resistant to gaining such muscle, but I the moves become faster. Not by great amounts, but enough for me to know it. But then my body changed and I would feel a bit more foreign to myself again, my attacks becoming all the slower for it.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Worst yet I¡¯d started feeling less attached to the world and more so at the same time. I was growing less curious in the profoundly concrete essence things like the earth, and more so about people and food and language. It was more normal. It was boring. Where I used to want to see the world, now it was like all I wanted was to talk about it. I¡¯d babbled to mother and father in quasi-speech for longer and longer durations were I used to just be happy to play with them.


    ¡±


    The journey to Heffaya¡¯s was an enlightening one. I saw many things for the first time. Me and mother walked north, to and through the village. Mother attracted odd looks from women and men of her years. I watched the people carefully. Peoples expressions was my new obsession.


    The people of the village were an expressive kind, wearing many emotions on their faces. They lived among huts and trees. The huts much like mother and fathers but bigger, all of them enough to fit several rooms like ours.


    ¡°He¡¯s odd.¡± Heffaya said to mother, prodding my bare ribs. We were in his hut near the center of the village. The ceiling was high and the room smelled of berries.


    Heffaya made me more curious than any other villager I had seen on my way here. I imagined my eyes big and wide staring up at him from the bench I was sat on.


    ¡°I¡¯ve never seen this much tough meat on a child so young, boy looks like he was raised by wolves.¡± Heffaya said, side eying mother.


    The look angered me, but mother just became pensive. Her and farther argued over me training with him more and more lately, every time after their clash she was close to tears. It was more than just she didn¡¯t want me to get hurt, she would much rather she told me a story or I danced for her.I did not want to learn to fight either, but I didn¡¯t mind going. I enjoyed being in the outdoors with father, each time, I¡¯d sense more of the world and be enamoured by something else in nature although my knowing, much like my curiosity, was diminishing.


    ¡°When are you going to come back Rebea?¡± Heffaya said looking worryingly at mother.


    ¡°When Yezial is rightfully back under the shroud.¡±


    Heffaya sighed deep. ¡±Yezial was wronged, yes, but this is here and now. What for your son? Will you allow him to grow foreign and malignant? The village is a family, there is no room for outsiders.¡± He said the last few words cold. I started crying less and less as I understand my new body more, but the tension was so much I almost did it again.


    No one spoke for a while. ¡°I thought Yezial was above growing too attached to power, he should be honoured to remain a protector of the village.¡± Heffaya looked away from my mother. ¡°Maybe he should never have ruled.¡±


    This was too much for mother, she jittered angry, ¡°Yezial wants nothing more than the village to be safe! He trains every day knowing full well Heaver and his father are too weak to rule.¡± Mother said, spitting Heaver¡¯s name.


    I was not moved to the village after that. When we returned to the hut mother and father talked long about Heffaya¡¯s words.


    Father had grown angry at Heffaya¡¯s words, and didn¡¯t like his suggestion. Father wanted to train me fully, he worried for my safety amongst Heaver and didn¡¯t see any of the village men worthy of instructing his son.


    Months past after that, and nothing much happened. I could see often when me and father returned from training mother eyed me heavy, making very little effort to mask the worry on her face. She brought up how I needed to talk to the other boys, and integrate into the village, and learn more than just the sword every day. It took three years before father was convinced. That may have been a mistake.