I always thought the world would end with sirens, not with coffee and a missed bus.
But that's how my last day on Earth began.
Just me, sipping sludge out of a chipped thermos while waiting for a bus that was always fashionably late.
I had a part-time gig at a hardware store, paid just enough to keep the lights on and the rent almost late.
"Yo! You spacing out again?" That'd be Eli, the aforementioned personal space violator. He slapped my shoulder like we were in a football huddle and not just trying to survive retail hell together. "Manager's gonna eat you alive if you clock in late again."
"Let her try. Maybe I'll finally get that sweet release of unemployment," I muttered.
Eli snorted. "You joke, but you'd be bored in like two days."
He wasn't wrong. I had…nothing else. No big dreams. No girlfriend. No special skills.
"You should've gone to school for engineering or something," Eli said as we crossed the parking lot. "You're like, weirdly good at building stuff. Remember that drone you made outta broken fans and PlayStation parts?"
"I remember the part where it caught fire."
"Details."
He grinned and walked off toward the loading dock, leaving me standing there with my half-dead phone and the creeping realization that I wasn't really living. Just existing.
And then it happened.
No warning. No lights. No music. No grand cosmic announcement.
Just…nothing.
One moment I was stepping through the door to the store, the next I was—
Falling?
No.
Floating.
Like I'd been scooped right out of reality and dropped into someone's weird lucid dream. Everything around me was dark, but not empty.
There was a hum, deep in my bones. A pressure, like a thousand thoughts trying to shove their way into my skull.
My breath caught.
"Hello?" I said, because apparently that's what you do when space itself eats you. "Is this—am I dead? Because I didn't even get a cool death scene. No lightning strike, no monster attack, no piano falling from the sky—"
Nothing answered.
And then—
Light.
Soft, warm light. Like sunlight bleeding through a curtain.
But it wasn't Earth's light. It felt... too clean.
Then the light swallowed me whole.
My eyes opened slowly, and everything was different.
The ceiling was high, decorated with gold leaf and delicate carvings. The sheets beneath me were silk. The air smelled like citrus and expensive perfume.
I tried to sit up. Everything hurt. But it was the good kind of pain—the kind that reminded you you're alive. Or... alive again?
"Master Tatsuya. You're awake."
The voice was soft and respectful. A maid—early twenties, uniform crisp, posture perfect—stood at my bedside. Her expression flickered with something between concern and quiet relief.
I blinked at her. "I'm sorry. What?"
"You've been unconscious for three days following your accident," she said gently. "There was concern… but the doctors say you'll make a full recovery."
"I—wait. Tatsuya?"
She hesitated. "Mishima Tatsuya, sir. Heir to Mishima Corporation. You're in the Mishima estate."
Mishima Corporation.
That name rang absolutely zero bells in my mind. Not from my world, anyway.
I sat there, trying not to panic. The maid bowed politely and stepped aside as an older man entered. Silver hair, immaculate suit, the kind of calm face that screamed lawyer, but also possibly a hitman.
"You're awake, young master," he said. "I am Hayama, your family's steward. Please, take your time. I notified the master."
Oh god.
Reincarnated. Definitely reincarnated.
I stared at them—Hayama, the maid, the absurdly expensive ceiling—and then back at my own hands.
They weren't mine.
Slimmer. Pale, but not sickly. Fingernails too clean. No burn scars, no calluses from handling junk electronics. These were the hands of someone who had never had to unjam a register during a Black Friday sale or spend four hours assembling shelves because the instructions were written in broken English and ancient malice.
This wasn't my body.
And yet… it felt like mine.
My head throbbed, like my brain was arguing with itself. I laid back down, pressing the heel of my palm into my forehead. "I need a minute," I murmured.
"Of course," Hayama replied smoothly. "Should I call for the doctor?"
"No. I just…" I waved him off weakly. "I need to... think."
They left me alone. Or maybe I stopped noticing when they left. The silence in the room was loud enough.
Then it started.
Memories. Not mine.
They came in flashes, like flipping through a photo album too fast.
Tatsuya Mishima.
Heir to Mishima Corporation. Only son. Polished. Reserved. A name that carried weight, not because of who he was, but because of the empire behind it.
And now that name belonged to me.
I could feel the boundary between us—the old me and this new identity—softening, blurring. I still remembered Eli's voice, the burnt-coffee mornings, my cluttered apartment and its junkpile inventions.
But those memories felt like they belonged to someone else now. A dream I'd woken from, still fresh but fading.
Tatsuya's memories were clearer. Sharper. More... vivid. Like I'd lived them. Like I was him.
Or maybe that's what I was supposed to believe.
"Okay," I whispered to myself, hands gripping the silken sheets. "Okay. Don't panic. You're not crazy. You've just been... reincarnated. Into a rich kid. With a personal maid. And a hitman-looking butler. You're fine. Everything's fine. Totally normal Tuesday."
I needed to know more.
About this world.
Where was I? Japan, sure—but what year? What kind of world was this? Tatsuya's memories didn't hold much about the outside world. They were full of polished business deals, school exams, and diplomatic etiquette—not news or internet culture.
So either this was just a very, very upscale version of my last life... or something weirder was going on, and I hadn't hit the "weird" part yet.
First, figure out how to walk in someone else's skin without tripping over the silver spoon lodged in his throat.