Mushoku Tensei: A different path

{Third POV}

In a dark gray room, with fog as high as to the ankles.

The room itself seemed endless and the further away you tried to look the higher the foggy ground seemed.

There stood a young, white haired, heterochromia boy in the center of the fog covered room.

His clothes were all tattered and dirtied with his own crimson red blood. The robe he wore was missing its left sleeve and had large holes in the chest and back.

But the robe wasn't the only thing that was missing pieces. The boy's body was also missing some of its parts.

He was missing his left arm, and his chest and back were having gaping holes filled with red liquid.

The liquid wasn't flowing out, it was staying in place, as if trying to fill up the hole.

The boy, also known as Rudeus Greyrat, was having an emotionless face.

Rudeus keep the expression on his face as he tried to grab his left none existing hand.

After that, he touched his chest, only to grab inside the red liquid touching nothing within it.

When he pulled out his right hand from the red liquid, his hand was not covered in anything at all, nor were there any stain on it.

But he knew what happened to him. He knew that Orsted, Dragon God and number two of the Seven Great World Powers, killed him.

"....ha....haha.....hahahaha...."

Any person would try to push reality away by denying their own death, but Rudeus just didn't care anymore.

He heard from Hitogami that he actually died back at Millishion from using [Bright Sky Wave].

He didn't believe him at first, but now, with his third death, he knew that he wasn't lying.

The realization hit him early, and all he could do was laugh. That's right. Laugh.

Rudeus considered his previous life as nothing more than trash, just like his personality.

And with recent events in this life, he reconsidered his life's value even lower.

He wished to go back in time and stop whatever god put him in this world and this stolen body.

Thoughts of what the original Rudeus Greyrat could have achieved if he hadn't intervened in his birth pictured into his head.

The child would have made Zenith and Paul much happier. They would have experienced the struggle of raising a child much sooner than with Norn and Aisha.

Maybe he wouldn't have the talent as the current Rudeus, but he surely would have become friends with Sylphiette and perhaps married her after a while.

But none of these thoughts mattered, as the said child never saw the light of the world.

And now, the current Rudeus could do nothing but laugh at the pitiful attempt he made at living his life to the fullest.

It was over, and it was only a matter of time until he went to hell to redeem for his sins of the past and present life.

"Giving up already? It's just like your last ending. No meaning in life, even if you try."

Rudeus stopped his laughing and looked up at the person talking to him.

Kagami, his reflective past self.

At his sight, Rudeus only furrowed his brows and looked away.

"...you are correct. There was no meaning to what I did. In fact, I made everything worse for everyone."

Losing the power in his body, he laid down on the floor with his back.

There wasn't any shift from the fog when he fell, as if the fog itself was a projection.

"I gave Paul nothing but disappointment because of how much I showed of my intelligence early on. And once I failed at something important, he scolded me and I felt my heart shatter.

Zenith showered me with all the love any loving mother would, but I ignored it too much and regret it every second now that I thought about it more deeply. She doesn't deserve anything like that. No one like her does.

Lilia felt so indebted to me after saving her that she made her own daughter train to become my personal maid. And Aisha hated me for this while I wasn't aware of it.

Norn will forever hate me for beating up her father, and she has all the right to do so. I know I would be mad if some random unknown person beats up my parent in front of me.

Eris got used as a sex toy by her parent without her knowing it. Phillip might have planned to put me in charge of becoming the head of the household, only to get his own son's back. That wouldn't have happened if I didn't have such massive magical power so early on.

And it's because of these 'powers' that I made it too easy for Roxy that she ended up treating Pax as someone below me.

And now, I can do nothing but die in misery and feeling nothing but deep regret."

Throughout his speech, Kagami stayed silent as he watched Rudeus cower in his own regret.

"You're pathetic. You were closer to what you longed to achieve than ever before, but give up because of one fatal mistake."

Inside Rudeus, a bubbling sensation of rage came over him.

"What the hell do you mean?! All I achieved was nothing but meaningless. All my power, skills, experiences. They are worthless from the start. I wish that I simply went back in time instead of reincarnating into another world. Maybe then I-"

"You couldn't!"

Kagami stopped Rudeus in his speech. Once Rudeus looked at Kagami, he saw that he was crying.

The tears were just streaming down his face as he clenched his fists tightly.

It looked horrendous, but Rudeus knew this look too well to feel disgusted. So, he simply looked surprised with his mouth gaping.

"You couldn't have done anything. Not after all the horrible things that happened to us over there."

At the end of his sentence, the room shifted and changed to a different place.

But it wasn't just any place. Rudeus knew this place very well.

It was the school canteen of his previous life.

He stood up and saw students waiting in line. It was then that he saw the younger version of his previous self, also waiting in line.

Memories of this moment came back as the start of his miseries came into scene.

His younger past self tried to warn the bullies that cut in line and was taken somewhere else soon after.

The scene shifted again, and what he saw was the one day that was marked as his life's trauma.

There, at the school ground, he saw him stripped from his clothes, beaten up and tied to a pole for everyone to see his grottoes body.

The other students didn't even try to help him. They just laughed at him and were taking pictures of his body being revealed to everyone.

Rudeus trembled from remembering this part of his previous life.

He remembered the humility of getting his body exposed for everyone to see, the helplessness from no one trying to give him a hand.

"No. Don't. Don't show me this. Not this."

Trembling in despair, he begged Kagami to cease this nightmare.

But the scene shifted yet again. This time it was his room in his old house.

There, his younger past self was sitting on the floor and hugging his knees to his chest while trembling.

Rudeus remembered what was going on. It was one of the many recurring panic attacks he had in his shut in life.

They frequently reoccurred whenever he remembered the day it all began.

And judging from the looks of it, it was one of the early ones.

He refused to let any person inside so that they wouldn't see his pathetic self in this state. The scaring humility at the school didn't let him muster the strength to do so.

In the head of Rudeus, the pictures of his parent and siblings rose.

He remembered how they said and tried all kinds of things, just to help him get out of his room.

But nothing helped, and he even got violent with them when his patience ran low.

The scene shifted again. This time, he saw his past self in his 34-year-old body, spanking his monkey to some questionable porn on his computer.

It was the day on which he skipped his parent's funeral after they died.

Soon after, his siblings barged into his room and destroyed his things and beaten him up.

Every hit may it be his old stuff or his old self, Rudeus mentally felt it all. It wasn't anything physical, but the pain just felt strongly linked to all.

His past self was now thrown out of the house in the cold rain.

Rudeus followed his past self through the rainy streets as he remembered the regret he felt on that day.

It was a moment where the weight of his life's choices on him like never in his previous life before.

No one was there for him, and he had no more chances to better his life anymore.

Then the life-changing scene came.

Three high school kids were having a quarrel in the middle of the streets as his past self went by.

It was then that Rudeus recognized the girl out of the three again.

"It's..... the girl. The one with Orsted."

But there wasn't any more time to think about this as the truck came into his sight.

His past self was running towards the three student, trying to warn them from the incoming truck.

He only saved one of the two boys as the other one was hugging the girl, attempting to protect her with his body and life.

But once Rudeus's past self was hit by the truck, his vision got bright.

The scene changed to the day of his reincarnation towards he saw Zeniths warm smile upon receiving him in her arms.

Paul was holding him then in his arms as he kissed his newborn son in the face.

Rudeus remembered this day well, as it was the start of his second chance.

Once again the scene changed. But this time into something Rudeus doesn't remember. Rather, it was something he imagined and wished to happen not too long ago.

He saw Paul, Zenith, Lilia, Phillip, Hilda, Sauros, Ghislaine, Norn, Aisha, Roxy, Silphy, Eris, Ruijerd and the form of his current self, missing no body parts.

They were all enjoying each other's company, as they were having a party.

Deep inside himself he felt a warm feeling. But it only lasted a second as he knew that all of this is nothing but an illusion.

It was just wishful dreaming of his previous attitude in this world.

None of this ever happened or will happen. He knew that very well.

Everything in the room started to slowly crack and shattered into dust, falling towards the ground.

Rudeus found himself back to the beginning room. The one with the foggy floor.

In front of him was his Kagami, kneeling and still crying.

"Do you understand now? You had no power to ask for any help back then. It was thanks to those mistakes that you made better choices to help you what you wanted."

Kagami looked up at Rudeus, his eyes still watering and dampening his glasses.

"You let your powers that you didn't have in that previous life be called as nothing useful, yet you could achieve so much with them. Did that traumatic day teach you nothing? Who cares if you turn into a monster. It's what you are, so stand up for that."

Once he was done, Kagami proceeded to sob and cry his heart out.

Rudeus was just silent. It wasn't like he agreed with him. He simply couldn't find the proper excuse for any of this.

After a minute of Kagami crying, he stood up.

He slowly came towards Rudeus and swiftly put both of his fat hands around Rudeus's neck, choking him with all his might.

As Rudeus was gasping for air, and Kagami put his face right before Rudeus's, staring coldly into his eyes.

"If you don't want to use your powers, then just vanish from existence already, you piece of trash."

Within Kagami's eyes, Rudeus could see nothing but darkness and no spark of light glowing in them.

With his right hand, he aimed at Kagami's abdomen and launched a [Stone Canon] at him, forcing Kagami to loosen his grip and fall on his back.

After coughing profusely for a few seconds he took a deep breath and looked at the remains of Kagami slowly disintegrating.

"Fuck you! As if I let the personification of my past life's regret kill me!"

Rudeus was pissed off. Furious even. He was starting to get fed up with Kagami.

"So what if I had a shitty life back then?! It's those memories that I have to be grateful for. In no way possible was all of my work from my reincarnation until here, the sole result of my trauma! It's because I don't want to experience the same thing again!"

Rudeus slowly went over to the side of the upper half of Kagami's body, bending over it to look him dead in the eyes.

Kagami was already looking lifeless. Not just mentally, but also physically.

However, Rudeus didn't care about that. Nor did he feel any form of regret over killing him.

"I have to thank you." A cold smile formed on Rudeus's face.

"Without you here, I wouldn't have been reminded for what reason I'm doing all of this."

Straightening up again, he aimed the palm of his hand at Kagami.

"Now perish you leeching NEET."

At the end of his sentence, a purple flame rose from before Kagami, burning him into nothing but dust particles.

Looking up, Rudeus let out a long and exhausted sigh, as the struggle of enduring his life's manifestation of his past finally ended.

But then he inhaled deeply and screamed the burning rage in his heart out.

A sudden black and white aura came out of his chest, extending and shaping into two separate beings.

The silhouettes of a black three-horned demon and a white in scales covered dragon started to form, screaming in unison with Rudeus.

At the ends of his scream, both the demon and dragon spun around Rudeus, as their auras mixed, forming a gray shell around him.

That shell soon started forming veins that glowed in all sorts of colors. It pulsated with strong heartbeats.

Each heartbeat becoming stronger and quicker as the shell changed in shape.

The shell cracked open with a gray fire covering Rudeus ascending from within it.

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