The fine drizzle was still falling when I found a small abandoned park to take shelter in.
A wooden shed next to a rusty slide offered me a roof and some privacy. I sat on the ground, my back against the wall, and finally I could breathe calmly.
Too many things in one night. Too many.
But what intrigued me most now, as fatigue began to weigh on my eyelids, were my hands.
I lifted them again, bringing them closer to the faint light filtering through the shed's cracks. The same hands. The same fingers. The same small scars on my knuckles from when I fell off my bike at twelve years old.
But they weren't the same.
They were more... sharp? Defined? I couldn't find the right word. It was as if they had been the same hands my whole life, but now I was seeing them in high definition for the first time.
"This isn't my body," I murmured, and the certainty of those words hit me hard.
No, it wasn't my body. It was someone else's body. Someone who looked like me, who had my same hands and my same face, but who wasn't me.
Or maybe...
Maybe now he was.
I ran a hand over my face, feeling the texture of my skin. My nose, my cheekbones, my jaw. All the same. All different.
"Same skin," I whispered, letting my hand drop. "Different souls."
That was it. Exactly that. My soul, my consciousness, my memories, had occupied the body of another "me" in this universe. A me who had lived a different life, who had had different experiences, and who now...
What had become of him?
The question froze my blood.
How had I gotten here? How had I taken over this body? And why couldn't I remember my own death?
I closed my eyes tightly, pressing my palms against them. Focus. Remember. You have to remember.
Nothing.
Just darkness. Just emptiness. Just the certainty that I had died, but without images, without sensations, without anything telling me how or why.
"It's like there's a blackout," I muttered in frustration. "Like my previous life ended at one point and then... nothing. And suddenly, I wake up here."
I opened my eyes, looking at the rotten wooden ceiling.
Well, if I can't remember my death, at least I should be able to remember this body's life. After all, it's my body now. His memories should be here, somewhere.
I closed my eyes again, but this time I didn't try to force anything. I just relaxed, letting my mind wander, search, find.
And then, the memories came.
Not like an avalanche, but like a gentle drip. Scattered images, sensations, data. An address. A name. A life.
Asher Cranel.
That was me now. Asher Cranel, seventeen years old. Only child of parents who constantly traveled for work. Father an executive, mother a designer. A solitary childhood, changing schools every two years, never time to make real friends. He learned to entertain himself, to depend on himself, to expect nothing from anyone.
That's why he was so quiet. That's why he smiled little. That's why...
Wait.
That's why?
I opened my eyes with a start. That thought wasn't mine. It was his. From the original Asher.
"Fuck," I whispered, running a hand through my hair. "This is... this is weird."
But it was also useful. Because among those fragmented memories, among those borrowed sensations, there was an address. A house. A place this body wanted to return to.
I stood up, feeling how my muscles responded with a familiarity that wasn't mine but was beginning to be. I left the shed and let the body guide me.
I walked through streets I didn't know but my feet recognized. I turned corners my mind didn't remember but my instinct knew. And after twenty minutes, I stopped in front of a two-story house, modest but well-kept, with a small front garden and a light on in the second-floor window.
My house.
Before I could process it, the door opened.
"Asher!" —a woman in her forties, brown hair tied in a messy ponytail and tired but bright eyes, ran out toward me—. "Asher, for God's sake! Where the hell were you? I've been calling you for hours, your phone's off, I didn't know what to think, I was about to call the police..."
She wrapped me in such a tight hug that for a moment I forgot to breathe.
My mother.
Not my mother. Asher's mother. But now, also my mother.
"I'm sorry," I managed to articulate, my voice sounding strange. "The phone ran out of battery and... I had a problem."
She pulled back enough to look at me, and her eyes widened with horror.
"A problem? What problem? You're a mess! Why are you so dirty? And that?" —her fingers gently touched my cheek, where a small cut from the fight with the demon had begun to heal—. "Did you hit yourself? Did you fall? What happened?"
I smiled, a nervous smile I hoped was convincing.
"I got into a fight. Some bullies were waiting for me on the way."
Her expression shifted from horror to worry, and from there to something that looked like pride mixed with resignation.
"Bullies? And you alone against them? Asher, what were you thinking?"
"I won," I said, shrugging.
Lie. I had run like a coward. But the original Asher, according to his memories, was quiet but not submissive. Defending himself from bullies was something that fit his personality.
My mother sighed deeply, running a hand over her forehead.
"My God, this kid is going to scare me to death one of these days. Well, go upstairs and take a shower now. You stink. You smell like... a sewer?"
"It was near one," I admitted, and it was true.
"Well, you know. Shower. Now. And don't forget to scrub those wounds well with soap and water. We'll look at them properly afterwards."
I nodded, taking a step toward the door, but she stopped me with a question.
"By the way, do you have your suitcases ready?"
I froze.
"The... suitcases?"
Her expression went from tired to slightly irritated in less than a second.
"Asher Cranel. Don't tell me you forgot."
"I..."
"Tomorrow we're moving. Your father got transferred again, and this time it's international, so everything has to be ready by eight in the morning. I told you three days ago. I SHOUTED IT at you three days ago while you were locked in your room with those huge headphones you bought."
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
The memories. Of course, those memories were there, but I hadn't explored them all. Too busy surviving, too busy processing the demon thing, too...
"I'm sorry," I said, and this time the apology was genuine. "I had forgotten. With the bullies thing and all..."
She sighed again, but this time softer.
"It's okay. It's okay. Go shower, I'll finish preparing your things. But when you come down, I want you to tell me properly about the fight, understood?"
I nodded and finally entered the house.
The interior was warm, welcoming. Family photos on the walls, a comfortable couch in the living room, a turned-off TV. Everything normal. Everything terribly normal for someone who hours earlier had killed a demon.
As I climbed the stairs toward the bathroom, a question arose in my mind, one I hadn't asked myself before.
"Mom," I said, stopping midway up the stairs. "Where are we moving to?"
She poked her head out from the kitchen, with an expression that mixed impatience and amusement.
"Seriously? You don't remember that either?"
"Head hit," I lied, touching my temple. "The bullies."
She rolled her eyes, but answered:
"Japan. Your father was transferred to the Japan branch. And before you ask, the city is called Kuoh. Kuoh. Will you remember it now or do you need to write it down?"
The world stopped.
I felt my heart lurch in my chest, blood freeze in my veins, air disappear from my lungs.
"Kuoh?" I repeated, my voice barely a whisper.
"Yes, Kuoh. Why, do you know it?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't.
I just nodded weakly and continued climbing the stairs with mechanical, automatic steps, while my mind exploded in a thousand directions.
Kuoh.
Damn Kuoh city.
The city where all or, well, most of the plot happens. Where the sisters of two demon kings who adore their little sisters lived.
I entered the bathroom, closed the door, and leaned against it, breathing raggedly.
No. It can't be. It's a coincidence. It has to be a coincidence. Kuoh must be a real city in Japan, not just the setting of an anime. Yes. Surely it's a coincidence.
But deep down, very deep down, I knew it wasn't, and that somehow or other I would end up involved in these events.
The demons. The monster that had attacked me. My power. It all fit.
I hadn't just reincarnated in another world.
I had reincarnated in DxD.
The bathroom filled with steam as hot water fell, but I felt nothing. I just stood there, under the shower, letting the water hit my skin while I processed the information.
Demons, angels, and fallen angels. Wars, factions. And at the center of it all, a city called Kuoh.
When I left the bathroom, clean but trembling, I entered the original owner of this body's room. It was a normal room: bed, desk, bookshelf with books, posters of bands I didn't recognize. But what caught my attention was the mirror.
I approached it.
The face that returned my gaze was mine. The same one I had seen for seventeen years in my previous life. But now I looked at it with different eyes. With the knowledge of what it meant to be here.
"I'm in DxD," I said out loud, testing the words.
They sounded unreal. They sounded absurd, too absurd to believe.
But they were true.
"I'm in DxD. Shit."