Anyway, I've been isekai'd—is that how you say it? Whatever. The point is: new world, new rules, same me. But before I get into the whole fantasy realm shenanigans (and trust me, we'll get there), let's rewind. You need context. You need me.
So let's start with the headline: I am a girl.
Awesome, right?
But wait—plot twist. I'm also a guy. Before you even try to point fingers and shout some tired T-slur like a predictable little internet ghoul, let's set the record straight. I'm not "transitioning," I'm not confused, and I'm not some identity experiment gone off the rails. I literally am both. Fully. Biologically. Totally. My chromosomes play jazz, not classical. I was born with a freakishly rare condition that gave me two sets of secondary sex characteristics. Not some mild blend either. I have fully developed reproductive organs on both ends of the gender pool. Dual-wielding. Sasuga Jesus–Sama, truly I am the apex form. The final Pokémon evolution. Humanity's accidental cheat code.
And when I say I'm not just "intersex," I mean that in the way biologists would pause their lectures to nervously adjust their glasses and say, "This… this shouldn't be possible." I'm the kind of anomaly that breaks classification charts. I don't just produce both gametes—I produce viable large and small gametes. In theory? I could clone myself. In practice? I did once. Petri dish experiment. Freaked out the entire university lab. One kid dropped his coffee and said, "Bro, you're Jesus with better hair."
I got put in the Guinness Book of World Records at five days old. No big deal. Just born legendary.
But before you think this is some feel-good miracle child story—slow your roll. My parents? Not exactly poster models for progressive thought. My mom, Aoi, was a quiet kind of devout. Her version of God was a soft-spoken gardener who listened to wind chimes and whispered prayers through cups of green tea. But my dad? The Owlman? Oh no. His version of God had blood on His hands and wrath in His heart. Fire, brimstone, judgment, and exactly zero chill.
The moment he realized what I was—what I am—he went full Book of Revelation. He thought I was a curse, a living punishment for his teenage sins. He started quoting obscure verses out loud like incantations. "The beast shall wear two faces and mock the order of creation," he'd whisper under his breath while sharpening his old hunting knife. Subtle, right?
He once tried to "cleanse" me by dousing me in holy water and locking me in the basement to "pray the blight away." I was six. It didn't work. (Obviously.) But I did start seeing the mold on the walls form shapes. Patterns. Little stars that blinked. Maybe it was a message. Maybe it was just mildew. Either way, it was the last straw for my mom.
She filed the papers, packed up our things in a single night, and left while Owlman was at a prayer circle. No note. Just silence and a slammed screen door that echoed like thunder. We moved to a city with fewer churches and more neon. Started over. She dyed her hair. I cut mine. We bought rice from corner shops and incense from places that smelled like old wood and crushed hibiscus.
That's how it all began. Just me, my mom, and this weirdly overqualified body.
But because I was just a genuinely weird kid—and I mean genuinely weird, like reciting random biology facts in the middle of snack time weird—and because I never quite fit in with either the boys or the girls, I got bullied. Not Korean drama level bullying, mind you. I didn't get dunked in a fish tank while someone monologued about my "filthy existence." I wasn't getting swirlied every other Thursday or getting a plunger shoved in my bum like that 13 Something's Why show but there was bullying.
Death by a thousand cuts. Words. Stares. Snickers at lunch. People muttering "freak" under their breath like I couldn't hear. Turns out you don't have to be kicked to feel bruised. Just enough yo mama jokes strategically lobbed at a ten-year-old's fragile brainstem could do the trick. Who knew? I did. Now.
And it wasn't even creative bullying. No one ever said, "Wow, you biological enigma, you absolute dual-wielding wonder, your very existence threatens the binary!" No. It was more like, "Why do you talk like that?" or "Why are you wearing those shoes?" or "Are you a boy or a girl?" followed by the kind of laugh that sounds like it's covering up something else. Something shallow. Something scared.
But time passed. People got older, lazier, busier. By the time I hit high school, the harassment slowed down. People stopped caring. Stopped noticing. The blur of adolescence saved me—everyone got acne, everyone got weird, and no one had the energy to come after me anymore. Everyone just wanted to survive puberty with dignity intact. Or at least, like, semi-intact.
Doctors, on the other hand? Oh, they cared. Every so often I'd get called into some bland white-tile room with that godawful paper on the tables that crinkles like the crushed bones of innocence. Doctors would try to not stare, then definitely stare, then call in another doctor to also not stare and also definitely stare. They took notes. They asked questions like, "And you're sure you're not in pain?" as if my existence must inherently hurt. I became an academic curiosity—a living footnote in a medical textbook no one was brave enough to publish.
But outside the microscope? My life wasn't that wild. I didn't have a friend group. I didn't join clubs. I floated through school like a ghost who sometimes got A's in biology and sometimes drew disturbing sketches of romantic organs in the margins of my English notebook. I ate lunch by myself under the red maple tree that looked like it was always halfway on fire. Quiet. Mostly fine. Except, well… romance.
Romance for me was hell.
See, at first I figured I was into men. The classic setup. Broad shoulders, low voices, maybe a little scar above the lip for aesthetic trauma points. I picked a guy—handsome, polite, didn't treat me like I was carved out of cosmic error. I even put on this gorgeous satin blue dress that made me look like a royal court disaster in the best way. We went to dinner—Italian, upscale but not pretentious. He held the door open, smiled with his eyes, told me my eyes reminded him of ocean storms. I told him my truth. What I was. What I am. He paused, said "I'll be right back," and headed to the bathroom.
He never came back.
So, I footed the bill. Fettuccine and heartbreak.
After that debacle I thought, "Okay, cool, let's pivot. Women. Let's try girls." I cleaned up nice—wore this tailored charcoal suit with a silk tie the color of forest shadow. Bought her flowers. Tulips. She loved tulips. We had chemistry, I thought. We laughed over coffee, swapped trauma like Pokémon cards. But once I told her what made me... me, the mood died faster than a candle in a rainstorm. She didn't yell. She didn't curse. Just a quiet "Oh," like I'd offered her a drink and told her it was laced with scorpions. The date ended with a handshake.
Then came the idea: maybe gay girls? But no. They were worse. One called me a "bio-terf's wet dream" to my face. I didn't even know what that meant, but it felt like getting shanked with vocabulary. The queer ones looked at me like I was a bug in the wrong museum display. Like, "Why are you in our section?"
And gay guys? Hilariously unhelpful. One told me I gave off too much "feminine energy." I asked what that meant. He said, "You just vibe like a moon priestess or something." Moon priestess. Whatever the hell that means.
Eventually I gave up on traditional routes and decided to try online dating. I figured, okay, the Internet loves weird people. I marketed myself honestly. No filters, no lies. I said I was unique, double-loaded genetically, equal parts Hermes and Aphrodite, the alpha and the omega of awkward biology.
My matches were... special.
One guy sent me a picture of his jar collection. His favorite one had a pony in it, and he said, and I quote, "want to watch me put something alive in it." Another sent me a poem about frogs. Not metaphorical frogs. Literal frogs. Ribbit and all. A third just sent me a mirror selfie where he was shirtless, wearing a unicorn horn and holding a leash. There was no dog.
At the ripe, ancient age of nineteen, I kinda gave up on romance.
Now as to my relationships—plural in theory, singular in practice—I only have one real friend. A guy named Atan. Me and that big lug grew up together in the same neighborhood that smelled like wet pavement and fried fish on Sundays. The kind of place where the apartment walls were thin enough to hear your neighbors' arguments and their makeup sex. We met in grade school, back when we were both small and full of delusions about how cool Beyblades were. Spoiler: they were extremely cool.
Atan's a giant now. Towering. Built like an industrial refrigerator that does CrossFit. He beat up my bullies a few times—not out of some white knight sense of justice, but more like, "You bothering Akira again?" followed by a single push that somehow sent a kid flying into a janitor's cart like a sack of moldy potatoes. The school gave him a warning and a soft ban from P.E. because they said he was "spooking the other children." And honestly? Fair.
He's tall. Strong. Conventionally attractive in that effortless "I forgot I had cheekbones" way. But he was still an outcast. Partially because he was an orphan, and people in our neighborhood treated orphans like they carried ghost energy. But mostly because of how tall and strong he was. And I don't mean in the "grandma smacks your butt and calls you a strapping young lad" kind of way. I mean the "what the actual hell is that creature lurking in the back of the hallway" kind of way. Slenderman core. Like his limbs were a little too long. Like God copy-pasted a basketball player template and then gave up halfway through rendering the emotional engine.
Not to mention, he's always been oddly musclebound. Like, disturbingly so. In middle school, his biceps had definition. At thirteen. That's not normal. One time I walked in on him casually curling a cinder block while watching Naruto, and I just stood there holding a juice box, rethinking the rules of anatomy.
I've questioned his humanity multiple times. Repeatedly. With evidence. He always says, "It's 'cause I'm actually LeBron's wayward child," with that dead-eyed delivery of someone who thinks they just dropped the funniest line of the century. I respond, without missing a beat, "You are abhorrently unfunny," and then we go right back to whatever nonsense we were doing before—usually yelling at each other about anime power scaling or why Vegeta deserves therapy.
Emotionally? He's dull. Like, sandpaper personality levels of dull. Flat affect. The guy reacts to emotional drama the way a toaster reacts to jazz music: not at all. I once cried during Your Name and he asked if I needed a paper towel "for the leak in my eyes." But the thing is, he's dependable. He shows up. He listens. Not well, but enough.
He's got two brain cells and both of them are fighting over anime and basketball. That's how we bonded. He'd lend me manga he stole from the library, and I'd make us microwave ramen while we shouted about which generation of the Lakers was best. Simple stuff. Real stuff.
Also, he thinks I'm a man. I never really bothered correcting him.
Because I am, in fact, a man.
Now one day, as I was trudging back from Calc II—yes, that accursed gremlin masquerading as a college course—I was crossing the campus quad of that overpriced mausoleum they dare call a university. The sun was a little too bright. The air reeked of anxiety sweat and energy drinks. I could hear a couple of econ majors arguing in the distance about crypto like it hadn't already tanked, and some sad trombone of a saxophone player was mangling "Careless Whisper" under a nearby tree. And then—there it was.
A coin.
Just chilling there. Gleaming. Silver. Sitting on the edge of the curb like it had been placed by fate itself. Now, I don't usually believe in signs. But after barely surviving a Calc II quiz that may or may not have been written by Satan's ghostwriter, I figured: hey, maybe my luck's finally turning. So I bent down to pick it up.
And in that exact moment—a truck. A whole-ass cargo truck.
Woooosh. It flew right over my head. Flew. Like, it wasn't rolling. It was airborne. It zipped by like the world's least elegant pegasus and slammed into the side of a building with the grace of a microwave full of fireworks. Concrete exploded. Glass rained down like confetti for a funeral. Alarms screamed. A flock of pigeons yeeted themselves into the sky. Meanwhile, I just stood there, still holding that damn coin, mouth open, brain buffering.
I muttered, "What the fuck," like it was a reasonable question with a reasonable answer. Then, like any sane person totally ignoring reality, I brushed myself off, tucked the coin in my pocket like it was some kind of lucky charm from a gacha game, and kept walking home. Because denial? Denial's powerful.
Didn't get far.
Another truck. Not flying this time—thank god—but the back doors burst open like a horror movie jump scare and suddenly—zoo time.
A goddamn flood of animals poured out. Chickens. Goats. A whole freaking alpaca. Some guy screamed as a python slithered around his leg. A kangaroo punched a guy off his Vespa. Absolute chaos. The street became a jungle obstacle course. Cars screeched, honked, flipped. Glass shattered. Tires squealed. I ducked behind a hotdog stand as a stampede of goats yeeted themselves across an intersection like divine punishment from whatever unhinged pantheon was writing my day.
Somehow—and I do mean somehow—I ended up clinging to the back of an elephant.
Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Physically.
The big bastard had emerged from the chaos like some kind of noble war beast from a forgotten kingdom, and with no hesitation whatsoever, I grabbed one of its ears and hauled myself up like I was auditioning for a live-action Jungle Book. It trumpeted, swung me around, and bolted through the intersection while I clung to its back screaming and laughing at the same time. My hair was all over the place. My bag flew off into oblivion. My legs flailed. But we made it out of the hot zone. We lived.
At that point I was officially convinced something was wrong. Like, cosmically wrong. I half expected a talking raccoon to hand me a glowing orb and call me "chosen one." But no orb. No raccoon. Just a sunburn and mild elephant-induced whiplash.
But I was close to the train station now. It sat perched on this concrete bridge that spanned over one of those arterial roads always packed with cars and despair. I figured, surely I was safe now. No more trucks. No more animals. No more spontaneous vehicular acrobatics. I was almost home.
That's when I saw the kid.
Standing on the tracks.
Tiny thing. Couldn't have been more than four-foot-ten, probably under a hundred pounds. Looked like they'd wandered out of a fairy tale or a fever dream. Everyone on the platform froze. No one moved. No one shouted. Just panicked murmurs and the metallic screech of a train approaching fast.
I didn't even think. Just leapt.
Vaulted over the railing. Landed hard on the gravel. Skidded. My knees screamed. The train horn blared behind me like Death clearing its throat. I grabbed the kid, hoisted them up like a sack of stubborn potatoes, and sprinted to the edge. The train was so close I could feel the heat of it on my back, and when I dove—when I launched us off the tracks—I knew I'd made it by milliseconds.
We hit the ground hard. I rolled. The kid landed light as a feather. I was panting, scraped, bloodied. The train howled past behind us. I looked up to check if the child was okay and tried to say something heroic.
But then—without warning, without hesitation—that tiny demon child turned around, eyes wide and utterly unbothered, grabbed me by the wrist, and hurled me off the bridge.
Like I was nothing.
No warning. No "thank you." Just yeet.
I didn't even scream. I was too busy processing the sheer strength in those little gremlin arms. One second I was a hero. The next, I was airborne. Falling. Hurtling toward the road below like a sack of regrettable life choices.
And then?
You guessed it.
Truck.
Bam.
Everything went white. Not like peaceful clouds and harps white. More like hospital ceiling panel white. I woke up bandaged like a cartoon mummy, half-conscious, hooked up to more tubes than I cared to count. Machines beeped. My lungs wheezed. I tasted metal. The room smelled like antiseptic and those sad little Jello cups no one ever finishes.
Atan was there. Sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair next to my bed, arms crossed, head slumped forward. Asleep. Probably had been for hours. Big oaf didn't even know how to look worried properly. Just sat there like a tired gargoyle in basketball shorts.
Then—
Boom.
Everything went silent.
And I was in an all-white space.
Which led me to my meeting with a god.
_______
"Right, so like... is it Judgment Day orrr…?" Akira asked, eyes narrowing at the luminous orb hovering a few feet in front of them in the void. There was no ground, no sky—just a white so endless it felt like it might loop around and swallow itself. The space had that eerie dreamlike quiet, like a soundproofed hospital room or the inside of a cloud that had taken a vow of silence. Akira's voice echoed, but not off any walls—just through the emptiness itself, like the world was listening.
The floating ball of light pulsed once, twice, then wobbled like someone shaking a snow globe with an attitude problem. "Ah, no, no, no, not Big Y. I'm a lesser god, okay?" it said, voice crackling like a mixtape recorded over a phone line. "I'm kinda just... fucking around in His territory. Think of me as like, I dunno, an intern who found the boss's keys and decided to joyride the metaphysical company car. Though I don't work for him, so I'm more like a thief, but ehh."
Akira blinked. The god—a god—spoke like a dude who failed improv but passed sarcasm with flying colors. "You're telling me," they said slowly, "that you hijacked Heaven's operating system... and used it to hit me with a truck?"
The ball of light bobbed sheepishly, colors flickering between guilty beige and smug orange. "Well, technically, your guardian angel was working overtime. Like, full-body dive-rolls, divine shielding, the whole nine yards. Honestly, that guy deserves a raise. I had to pull out all the stops to get around him. But once you got tagged by my trusty Truck-kun—BOOM. Case closed."
There was a definite note of pride in his voice. Like he was bragging about hacking into a school vending machine to get free chips.
"Wait—so you tried to off me? Dude. Seriously?" Akira's face contorted into that specific mixture of horror and secondhand embarrassment one usually reserves for family reunions and school talent shows gone wrong.
"Not like that!" the god sputtered, its light flaring momentarily like a disco ball having a nervous breakdown. "You didn't even die, okay? I couldn't risk it. I had to transfer your body directly—while it was still marked by the impact. Honestly, it was a seamless process. 10/10 spellwork. Totally above board."
Akira froze. "Wait—transfer my body?" They asked, voice rising to the kind of pitch that makes dogs flinch and the gods think twice.
The ball of light made a sound that could only be described as a metaphysical throat clear. "Ahem. Congratulations, you massive weeb, you've been successfully isekai'd to another world!" it declared, all dramatic sparkle and game show host energy. "Riches! Glory! Power! Maybe even a harem if that's your thing! All right at your fingertips!"
The words echoed with artificial grandeur, like an announcement on a broken PA system. Akira just stood there, letting the syllables fizzle in the void like soda left out in the sun.
They mulled it over. This was bullshit. Just when things were finally starting to go right. Sure, university was a soul-sucking capitalist brain grinder—shoutout to the University of Waterloo, no I'm not joking, yes it is actually that bad—but still, Akira had a future. An actual one. They were crawling toward adulthood. Toward something real. As much as they complained, they had plans. They had late-night ramen routines. A dog who waited for them at the door. A mom who made tea with too much sugar. Atan.
They didn't want this. Not now. Not like this.
Akira's jaw clenched. "Why the hell are you even reincarnating me?" they snapped, fists curling at their sides. "What's so special about me? Don't say it's because I have a 'pure heart' or some other shonen-ass nonsense. I know for a fact that's bullshit."
The god went silent. The light dimmed slightly, colors folding inward like embarrassed origami.
Then, softly, "You're right."
Akira blinked.
The god pulsed again, more steadily now. "Look. I reincarnated you because you're the being closest to perfection I managed to spy. I've been watching for decades. Centuries. Eons, even. Souls flicker. Hearts twist. People crack. But you—"
There was a pause. An uncomfortable, almost reverent beat.
Akira tilted their head. "What?"
"You see," the god began, voice shifting into a strange, deeper timbre like it was pulling ancient weight from somewhere beneath the sound, "there are other universes outside the one Big Y made. A lot of them. An infinite amount, actually. Multiverse theory? Yeah, it's real. But it's not just branching timelines or dumb butterfly effects. The entire multiverse originated from a singular entity—something simply referred to as The Lamb."
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The blank white space hummed faintly around them, like it too was listening.
"We call it that," the god continued, "because it... sacrificed itself. On purpose. It killed itself so all things could be born. Life. Law. Matter. Concept. All of it. The Lamb broke itself into infinite fragments, and those pieces became the foundation of everything."
Akira stared. The idea of something that could predate the concept of death—something that could choose to become the source code of existence—was, frankly, nauseating. Their stomach flipped. If they had a stomach here. The floating ball of light had gone quiet for a moment, almost like it was mourning.
"But before it died," the god said, glowing softer now, "it split itself in two. The primary aspects. The first dichotomy. Some call them Yin and Yang, others frame them as Chaos and Order, but the most widely understood form... is Masculine and Feminine."
"And because of your unique body, you're the closest living being to true divinity." The ball of light pulsed solemnly. "You're a walking equilibrium. You are the Lamb's symmetry, made flesh."
Of course it had to do with their condition. Of course it did.
Akira groaned, exasperated. "Can't you just like... isekai a tree then?" they asked, flailing their arms. "Aren't most plants hermaphrodites? Like, every tomato vine in the world is closer to godhood than I am, by that logic."
"Has to be a sapient lifeform, bro," the god replied casually, like that was the most obvious thing ever.
Akira narrowed their eyes. "Okay but like—you're a god, aren't you? You can create life. So, create your own hermaphrodite chosen one or whatever. Model it. Mold it out of clay. Make a Build-a-Bear prophet. Why the hell does it have to be me?"
The ball of light sighed, colors rippling in resignation. "Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Not even for us. You see, all sapient life has a soul. A soul is said to be a spark of the Lamb—its divine residue. The sacred echo."
It dimmed, voice quieter. "Gods can't create souls. We can shape matter, yes. Animate it. I can give a statue arms, a mind, a voice. But I can't give it a soul. That spark only comes from the Lamb's fragments, and we don't own those. We just borrow."
"So you can destroy souls?" Akira asked, suspicious.
The god bobbed. "Destroy them? Sure. Sort of. You can shatter a cup, but the water's still there. You can kill a body, but the soul doesn't go away. It... lingers. Dissolves. Or reforms, depending on karmic pressure. But creation? That's beyond us. It always was."
Akira frowned, arms crossed. "So let me get this straight. You can't make a person like me. Not from scratch."
"Correct," the god said, flickering a shade of serious blue. "We can create the flesh—but not the spark that makes it real. That spark—your spark—is one of the rarest alignments I've ever seen."
"Wait, so does that mean all sapient species have, like... male and female sex markers?" they asked. "Across the multiverse?"
"Not quite," the god answered. "There are sexless species. Fully asexual sapient life. But every soul—regardless of form—tends to lean somewhere along the original binary spectrum. Masculine or feminine. Yin or yang. And that alignment manifests not just biologically, but metaphysically."
"So, what? That's it? I'm just your unicorn soul baby? That's what makes me so special?"
"In a way," the god replied, glowing warm gold now. "You're the closest I've seen to balance. The only soul I've spied in well in a literal forever—don't ask, time gets weird—whose internal structure doesn't lean. You're not straddling the line. You are the line."
Akira's expression twisted with a mix of existential dread and full-bodied skepticism. "Cool. So I'm the universe's cosmic bisexual. Do I get a pin for that or what?"
The god chuckled. "You get more than a pin."
"Oh no."
"You'll have the easiest time becoming a god of any mortal I've seen in the last, mmm... ten Chaos Cycles. And that's saying something. Most people need faith, cultivation, metaphysical blood rituals—you'll just have to wake up to it."
Akira blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Also," the god added, like it was tossing sprinkles onto a nuclear warhead, "this new world you're going to? It's more metaphysically dense than your old one. It's built around a fundamental force called Mikor. Think mana, but on crack. Denser, wilder, more primal. Basically, the exact type of energy you spent years reading about on sketchy anime forums because you had no actual friends."
Akira didn't even hesitate. "Fuck you, dude."
"Anyways," the orb said, as if it hadn't just casually rewritten the theological foundation of Akira's reality, "because of your unique body and soul combo pack, you'll not only have access to more Mikor than most mortals ever dream of—you'll also be drawing in a purer form of it. Raw. Undiluted. Stuff that would poison most people's minds or make their bodies melt into spiritual pudding."
The space around them shimmered as the god spoke, tiny glimmers like dust motes suspended in nothing. It felt less like they were floating now and more like they were being held in place by something vast and gentle. The kind of presence that made your soul itch if you thought about it too hard.
"And," the orb continued, glowing with a smug self-satisfaction that felt like it belonged in a hoodie and Crocs, "you'll be a genius at magic. Absolute prodigy tier. First-day-breaks-the-rules kind of deal. Honestly, I expect fireworks the moment you breathe wrong."
Akira raised a hand, opening his mouth to respond—but the god wasn't done.
"Oh, and your soul?" the orb pulsed, dimming slightly, its voice almost reverent. "Not level-capped. At all."
"...Excuse me?" Akira blinked, confused.
"Yeah. That world you're going to—it has levels. Like, actual quantifiable numbers. Why? Because the god that used to run the place had a thing for spreadsheets. Couldn't sneeze without assigning it an XP value. Guy was obsessed. Everything had to be categorized, labeled, catalogued. Bastard's dead now." There was actual sadness in the orb's tone. "He was annoying, but he was thorough."
Akira stared. "So… I'm going into a world where reality has a stat screen?"
"Basically," the god said, voice brightening. "But where most people cap out around... I dunno, Level 70 if they're lucky? Your soul? It has no upper limit. You could climb past Level 1,000, rewrite your class tree, and start making new tiers of existence just for the hell of it."
Before Akira could even start to process the implications of that, the orb pressed on.
"Not only that," it said, "but your soul has a massive latent capacity for power. Like... obscene. In those isekais you like to rot your brain with—yeah, I saw your browsing history, don't @ me—they usually give the chosen hero a single boon. One cheat skill. That's because most souls can't bear more than that. Even something as simple as 'appraisal' starts degrading the soul if left unchecked. They crack under the pressure. Gods can't just keep stacking abilities on mortals like it's an MMO hotbar. Doesn't work like that."
"But your soul?" The orb pulsed, glowing gold now. "It's damn near perfect. Dense. Balanced. Resilient. It could hold a dozen boons. Maybe more. But I'm not going to do that."
Akira squinted, folding his arms. "...Thanks?" he said, voice flat with layers of suspicion. "So what's this about me becoming a god again? You said I'd have the easiest time. Does that mean all gods were mortal hermaphrodites at some point or something? And am I getting boons from you or not?"
The god gave what could only be described as a visible shrug—its glow dimming slightly in a pattern that suggested both exasperation and begrudging amusement. "Well, no. Most gods weren't mortals. They're just... more powerful beings. Born higher up the chain. Raw concept stuff. Some mortals have ascended, sure, but it's rare. And no, most of them weren't like you. You're not their archetype—you're the exception."
"So I'm just the speedrun route," Akira muttered.
"Exactly," the god said, pleased. "You'll have an easier time achieving apotheosis than anyone else on that planet. Easier, not easy. Still gotta work for it."
"And the boons?" he asked again, arms still crossed.
"Nope. Not giving you any."
"What?"
"Yeah," the god said, glowing brighter now, like it was waiting for applause. "No boons from me. None. Not one. And that is a kindness."
Akira tilted his head. "That's the exact opposite of kindness."
The orb pulsed like it was shaking its head. "See, if I give you a boon, I'm putting a constraint on your growth. It becomes a pillar you lean on. A crutch. Even the most flexible boons come with definitions. Boundaries. Limitations. Instead—"
The orb shifted, its shape bending slightly. Something invisible in the air seemed to hum, like pressure building in an old stereo amp.
"I'm going to give you something that lets you create your own boons. From scratch. Born from your soul. Shaped by your will. Originating from the self. No borrowed divinity. No handouts. You'll be your own myth engine."
Akira stared. Her mouth twitched. "So you do have a conscience after all?!"
The orb paused. Slowly. Deliberately.
Then, voice heavy with divine sarcasm:
"...Bold mortal."
Akira sneered, a low chuckle rolling from their throat like they couldn't decide whether to laugh or spit. "So why do you need to isekai me again?" they asked, tone bitter but laced with genuine curiosity now that the divine nonsense had somewhat settled into her bones. Their voice softened a bit as the thought formed mid-breath. "And... was it related to your friend's death?"
The orb dimmed. Not dramatically. Not like the whole void went dark in some melodramatic fashion. Just a slight shift. Like someone had turned the volume down on its light.
"So," the god began slowly, its voice finally carrying a gravity that hadn't been there earlier, "the gist of it is this: due to the primordial rules of the Lamb, we can't fuck with mortals."
Akira's face immediately contorted into outrage, brow furrowed, nostrils flaring like they were about to go feral on a metaphysical being.
The orb pulsed quickly, panicked. "When I say that, I mean we can't interfere with their souls, their fates. Not directly. Some mortals—especially those born in metaphysically dense worlds—carry destinies shaped by the Lamb's final breath. They're anchored. And once anchored, there's nothing even the strongest gods can do without breaking the old laws. We can't move them. Can't erase them. Can't rewrite them unless they choose it."
It shifted to a murky gray-blue color, almost apologetic. "We can't outright destroy mortal souls unless they're already inside our divine domain, under our laws. And even then, it's an annoying bureaucratic nightmare. Like celestial tax evasion paperwork."
Akira blinked. "Wait, what the hell kind of divine legal system—?"
The god didn't respond to that. Instead, it continued with the same tired rhythm, like it was dragging the weight of cosmic administration on its glowing shoulders.
"So," it said, voice taut, "there was this... annoying evil god. One of those dark-and-brooding cultivator types who think wearing a cloak makes you deep. He started building up some followers in my friend's domain. Cultivated them in secret. Called themselves The Hive."
"The Hive?" Akira echoed, rolling the word around like it tasted sour.
"Yeah. Parasites. Unity-obsessed freaks. They're not gods, but they're right up against that threshold. Near the absolute limit of what you can be without cracking apotheosis. Dangerous. Efficient. Obsessive. Using them, this prick weakened my friend's divine territory, destabilized his laws, and... well."
There was a long pause.
"Offed him."
The void seemed quieter after that. Not in a dramatic thunderclap way. Just still.
"Now his world's under siege. The Hive's spreading through it like a fungal infection that thinks it's holy. And me?" The god gave what felt like a helpless shrug. "I can't touch them. Not directly. I can't reach into the world and start nuking stuff like some divine hitman. And trying to move the Hive elsewhere? No other god wants that infestation in their territory. I can't fault them. They're like spiritual bedbugs."
Akira's expression had settled into a cold, tight-lipped look. The kind that usually preceded something reckless.
"My friend," the god added quietly, "before he faded... he asked me to save his people. He knew I couldn't act directly. But he knew what I could do."
"And that's where I come in," Akira said, voice flat.
"You are my solution."
Akira breathed through their nose, slow. Measured. "So... like. Do I get a choice in all this? Or is this just one of those divine conscription deals?"
The god pulsed. "I mean. No, not really. I won't stop you from doing nothing. You can choose not to help. Not to fight. But you'd be choosing to let an entire world of people get genocided by a conceptual hivemind."
It paused again.
"Do you really want that on your conscience?"
Akira didn't answer for a while. Her jaw clenched. His shoulders twitched.
"Fuck."
The orb nodded—well, the light pulsed in a way that felt like a nod—and tossed something across the empty space. It glinted as it spun, catching the nonexistent light in impossible ways, a gemstone that shimmered like oil on water and glass at sunrise. It hit her palm with a sensation like a heartbeat.
"Here," the god said. "Take this. Just hold it. It'll ignite your soul's capacity. Jumpstart your nature. You'll generate traits—unique to yourself. Not boons, not borrowed abilities. Just you. Refined."
Akira looked down at it, the gemstone's glow pulsing in rhythm with something deep inside their chest. "Thanks," she muttered. "I guess."
The god was quiet for a beat. Then it said suddenly, "Oh, by the way. What the fuck is that thing?"
"Huh?" Akira looked up, brow furrowed. "What thing?"
"Well," the orb said, voice tight with confusion, "I told you I transferred your body, right? I stopped time in your local area, pulled you through a portal, patched you up while time was frozen. You're fully healed and unconscious back on the other side. Your soul's here, talking to me. But your friend—"
Akira blinked. "Atan?"
"Yeah. That unit. He just got up. While time was frozen. Just stood up and followed you. Like gravity didn't apply to him. I opened a portal, and this dude casually walked through it."
The orb flickered in visible agitation. "I didn't even summon him. And now he's lying right next to your body. Your soul's still here. His isn't. But he's just... there."
Akira stared blankly, mind trying to keep up.
"Huh."
"Welp," the god said. "Good luck, bro."
_______________
When Akira opened their eyes, the first thing they saw wasn't a sky, or a ceiling, or even Atan's big dumb face hovering over them like a sleep-paralysis demon.
It was a status screen.
A full-on RPG-style, floating translucent HUD, pixelated just slightly around the edges like it couldn't decide if it wanted to be fantasy parchment or cyberpunk interface. It hovered in the air, slightly tilted, like it knew she was lying down. It smelled faintly of ozone and lavender, for some reason. And it was bright.
They squinted.
{
Name: Akira Owlman
Sex: Hermaphrodite
Age: 20
Level: 0
Unique Traits –
Prema:
To be loved by heaven and earth, and more importantly, people.
Born from your utter desperation for romance, this is an ability that warps the emotional fabric of others. It allows you to manipulate the hearts of men—and occasionally women, cult leaders, or low-ranking demigods.
Things may compulsively worship you. This is not a metaphor. Statues may appear. Towns may name festivals after your shoe size. Even beasts may kneel.
Can fool even the heavens with your sweet words, your false humility, your desperate little simpsona.
You needed a mystical ability to be considered attractive, you bum.
Cosmic Crossdresser:
If you currently present masculine traits, your physical might is enhanced while the sun is up.
If you present feminine traits, your magical power is enhanced while the moon is up.
By using Mikor, you may forcibly transform into a heightened, overtly masculine or feminine form—each granting overwhelming physical or magical amplification respectively.
At twilight, both powers harmonize. You become a being of perfect balance, achieving a strength multiplier of x100 of your current level. You may explode.
Minor passive regeneration under both celestial bodies.
You already know what anime this power is from. Don't lie.
Da'at:
Born from your middling, lukewarm desire to not be considered a dumbass.
It is an auxiliary metaphysical intelligence system that runs alongside the main status interface.
Abilities include:
- Rapid mental computation
- Parallel consciousnesses (yes, you can talk to yourself out loud now and it's not schizophrenia)
- Memory expansion
- Real-time data processing and instinctive pattern recognition
- Linguistic mimicry, spell analysis, and philosophical sarcasm
However, this entire system scales off your Intelligence stat.
Which is currently... let's say unremarkable.
So good luck, nerd.
__________
Stats –
Strength (STR): 14
You're stronger than the average peasant, maybe even stronger than Atan's left arm, but only if he's asleep. Good for lifting logs and punching racists.
Dexterity (DEX): 11
You won't trip over your own feet in a swordfight, but you're not parkouring off castle walls either. You can juggle two apples, max.
Endurance (END): 13
You can survive being hit by a truck once. Anything past that is pushing it. Good stamina for sarcastic monologues.
Vitality (VIT): 16
Your body heals faster than most. You probably have an iron liver. One time you drank expired milk and felt invigorated.
Intelligence (INT): 9
You tried to read Plato's Republic in high school and stopped after five pages. You understand sarcasm but not metaphysics. You're more clever than smart.
Wisdom (WIS): 8
You once dated a guy who said "sigma male grindset" unironically. This is your punishment.
Charisma (CHA): 25
You are hot. And confusing. People don't know whether to flirt with you, pray to you, or scream. Some will do all three.
Luck (LCK): 2
A literal truck hit you.
A child yeeted you off a bridge.
Your one friend might be an eldritch basketball experiment.
This checks out.
}
Akira blinked the status screen away with a thought—more like a reflex, honestly. The translucent display dissolved into a shimmer of light, like dust catching in the windless air, and for the first time since waking, he actually looked up.
There were five suns.
No, seriously. Five.
They hung in the sky like judgmental deities, each blazing with a distinct hue. One was the traditional golden yellow. Another was a pale blue, like ice that had learned how to burn. One flickered like a dying ember—deep red and slow. A fourth pulsed green, soft and sickly, and the last was white—so bright it didn't cast shadows so much as erase them.
The heavens were cluttered with celestial violence, yet the grass under his back was soft, warm, and smelled like mint and moss. The sky should've been chaos. It wasn't. It was strangely… harmonious. The kind of harmony that made you uncomfortable if you thought about it for too long.
They turned his head and saw him.
Atan.
Over seven feet of living confusion. Shirtless, of course. Ripped like a manga panel drawn by someone with issues. His skin was copper dark and glistened faintly under the blended light of five suns. His dreadlocks were pulled into a loose ponytail, hanging off the back of his head like a crown that didn't give a damn what royalty thought. He was chewing a piece of grass like he was auditioning for the role of "Silent Farmhand #3" in a fantasy drama.
He was sitting beside her. Legs crossed. Arms resting loosely on his knees. Just… staring.
Not blinking. Not confused.
Same dull weirdo as always.
Akira pushed herself up on one elbow and stared at him. The surrealness of the moment tightened like a belt around their ribcage, but he exhaled through it. She gave him a look that was one part declaration, one part how the hell did you even get here, and one part ancient cosmic exhaustion.
"Atan, bro," they said, voice low but firm. "We gotta save the world."
Atan didn't flinch. Didn't hesitate. Didn't blink.
He spat the grass out and nodded. "Bet."