Two years later, in the year 991 of the Holy Era. Early spring.
In the slums of Beltrant, the capital of the Beltrum kingdom, there lived a small orphan boy. He was curled in the corner of a dark and shabby wooden shack, the air dry and chilly.
“Hah... hah...”
The boy panted for breath, his cheeks bright red. He groaned openly, tormented by his nightmares. The dirty rags he wore on his body were soaked through with sweat; at just a glance, it was clear that he had a fever. There were traces of multiple people living in the run-down shack, but none of them were present to nurse the sick boy. Who knew how long the boy had been alone like this? He was alone, left lying on the cold floor in a single layer of clothing. It wouldn’t have been surprising if he’d died like this. And yet—
At one point, a warm, gentle light began to shine and embrace the boy’s body. It was a different kind of heat from the fever that had been tormenting the boy... This heat was warm and comfortable enough to entrust oneself to. Color rapidly returned to the boy’s face, and his breathing evened out. For some reason, the fever that ailed the boy’s body was gone, and the light that covered his body disappeared with a subtle flash.
“Mmh...”
The boy blearily opened his eyes sometime later. Lying on his back, he blinked until his vision cleared and a dimly-lit wooden ceiling came into focus. His mind was still hazy, as though there was a fog preventing him from thinking clearly. The fever was gone, but not without consequence. He was still weak, and had yet to recover his strength and stamina. Overwhelmed with fatigue, the boy stared blankly at the ceiling. His mind managed to recover to a point where he could process his thoughts again; pushing his weary body up into a sitting position, he started to wonder about his situation.
“Ugh...”
A dull pain ached in his muscles, making the boy wince. It might have been a result of the cold he caught, or perhaps from sleeping on the hard floor. A glance around at his surroundings revealed a dismal room with some shabby furniture placed in the middle.
This is...
A room he was very familiar with, the boy thought... And yet, something inexplicably felt out of place. He knew he’d lived in this room for a while, now... but he was also seeing it for the first time. It shouldn’t have been possible, but it was almost as though there were two people’s consciousnesses within him...
Something just didn’t feel right... rather, something was muddled with his memories. As he looked around the room in a daze, a sour smell suddenly pierced his senses. The boy noticed the rags he was wearing were soaked with sweat. He furrowed his brow, mind now awakened. With a deep breath, he collapsed back on the floor; he felt like lying down for a little longer. He lifted a hand to place against his forehead — but in the next moment, he gasped loudly and stared intently at his hand.
It was definitely his hand... the small hand of a seven-year-old boy. But it was... weird. There was something strange about it...
Ignoring the headache pounding in his head, the boy kicked his hazy brain back into gear.
A child’s hand...? I... Wait, I?...
Rio — that was the boy’s name. He was an orphan living in the slums of Beltrum’s capital, sworn to take revenge on a certain man. That was why he had grasped at straws to survive up until this point. That should have been the entirety of Rio’s existence...
So why did he have another person’s worth of memories? The memories of a person living in another world, in an unfamiliar civilization, with technology that he didn’t recognize...
Broken images of various scenes flashed through his mind... They seemed all-too realistic to be written off as just the imagination of a seven-year-old boy. They showed the life of a completely different person. Someone named Amakawa Haruto. According to his memories, he was a twenty-year-old university student. No — even now, Rio was living that life, as if those memories had happened to him just moments ago. A strange unsettled feeling fell over Rio, causing him to shake his head violently.
What am I thinking? Amakawa Haruto...?
The set of dual memories left Rio feeling confused. He looked down at his hands, as if he were trying to escape reality. But it wasn’t the unblemished skin of a Japanese child who grew up well provided for in the age of plenty. These were the hands of someone that was underweight from malnutrition; the skin was dry and rough and covered in a thin layer of grime.
Of course... According to his memories as an orphan, he hadn’t had a bath in ages.
Seriously...?
It was so unhygienic. Rio grimaced. The tattered clothes he wore were stiff and made of hemp, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed them. Of course, he didn’t have any proper socks or shoes, either... But he should be grateful he had something to wear at all, he guessed. His hair was disheveled and pretty damaged, too. But he could tell it was black in color underneath all of the filth.
“...Phew.”
Rio breathed in and out, deeply, trying to calm himself and organize his memories. He placed a hand against his mouth in thought. He was Rio... and he was apparently the university student Amakawa Haruto as well, with seven years worth of memories from living in Beltrum’s capital and twenty years worth of memories from living in Japan. But no matter how much his memories were doubled, he wasn’t Amakawa Haruto. If he were Haruto, he wouldn’t be a little boy right now, much less in a place like this. And if his memories were correct, the young man named Amakawa Haruto wasn’t even alive.
“In my memories, I died on the bus... I think?”
He remembered being on a bus that hit something, and he remembered being in extreme pain, like his limbs were torn apart. He couldn’t remember what happened after that, but it was hard to imagine recovering from something like that.
“Where am I right now...? Is this a dream? The afterlife? Was I... reborn?”
He listed off every possibility he could think of, but there was something too raw about this reality to write off everything as a dream. It was hard to imagine that this was the afterlife, too. Although... this place, while definitely not heaven, was as close to hell as it could get.
Which meant he was most likely reborn, Rio suspected. Could such a fantastical story be real? Did this Amakawa Haruto even exist? Had these memories in his head actually happened? But no matter how much he wondered, no one would tell him the answer. There was no answer. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was Rio, not Haruto.
As time passed, the different memories and personality within him confused him less and less, and Haruto’s persona merged with Rio’s. Their two different memories and personalities showed on the surface, but blended together without conflict underneath. Haruto showed up more intensely because he’d had far more life experiences, but Rio was able to accept that part of him. That was why they were able to perceive each other’s memories as their own experience and still remain sane over the situation at hand. Even so... Rio thought it best not to think too deeply about how strange it felt.
But right now, he had a bigger problem...
Rrrgghhhh. The sound of an empty stomach echoed throughout the room, and Rio came to the depressing realization that he was starving. He sighed; the hunger he felt made him feel a bit lightheaded. There were a lot of things on his mind: whether these memories of another life were real, why was he reborn if so, and why did he only get those memories now?
But Rio knew full well how futile it was to ask those questions. Instead, he shifted his thoughts to trying to break out of his dire situation. Haruto’s memories and personality played a big role in how he was thinking so calmly right now. If it had been Rio and only Rio, he would have died a dog’s death as an orphan, with no prospects for his future.
That would’ve been the worst possible outcome... and it would have been unacceptable, for Rio had a goal to fulfill. He couldn’t afford to die here.
If I die now, that man...
He recalled his deep-seated hatred for the man and gritted his teeth.
Rio’s father died shortly after his birth, and his mother was killed when he was still small. He’d lived in these dumpster-like slums ever since.