442 A.R. – Night (Past Timeline)
Rei lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind refusing to settle despite the exhaustion weighing down his limbs.
Twenty-four hours. I have twenty-four hours of relative peace left.
But peace was a relative term when your mind kept circling back to all the things you'd failed to do the first time around.
His classmates.
The thought surfaced unbidden, carrying with it a wave of regret so sharp it felt physical.
In my previous life, I barely spoke to them. Barely existed in their awareness. I was the ghost at the back of every classroom, the name teachers had to check twice on attendance sheets, the person who graduated without anyone noticing.
I was so afraid. So convinced I'd be rejected, mocked, exposed as inadequate. So I never tried. Never reached out. Never took the risk.
And they all moved on without me.
He remembered fragments, half-formed memories of people who'd been right there, close enough to touch, but might as well have been on different planets for all the connection they'd made.
Some of them had awakened powerful abilities. Some had joined the Order. Some had made fortunes. Some had died in the chaos that followed.
And Rei had known none of them. Had no allies. No network. No connections to leverage when everything fell apart.
I died alone because I'd chosen to live alone.
The realization burned.
But beneath the regret was something else, calculation.
This time is different. This time I know their names, their potential, their futures. This time I have three weeks of forced social competency under my belt. This time...
This time I can actually do something about it.
But there was a problem. A significant one.
Rei hadn't awakened in his previous life. And he wasn't going to awaken this time either—he was certain of it. Whatever had brought him back through time, it wasn't an awakened power. It was something else. Something that wouldn't manifest during any ceremony.
Which meant tomorrow, when his classmates stood in that ceremonial hall waiting for the moment of transformation, Rei would feel nothing. Again.
And being powerless in a world that increasingly revolved around power was a death sentence.
Unless...
The thought crystallized slowly, dangerously.
Unless I fake it.
Rei sat up, his mind racing through possibilities.
The Awakening Ceremony wasn't a precise science. Powers manifested differently, some people had dramatic moments, others experienced subtle shifts. Some transformations were visible, others purely internal. The Order's detection methods were sophisticated but not infallible, especially for unusual or rare abilities.
If I could convince people I'd awakened with something subtle, something that didn't have obvious external signs, I could blend in. Could avoid the stigma of being powerless. Could maintain credibility in a world that valued power above everything else.
But what kind of power could he fake convincingly?
Not physical enhancement, too easy to test.
Not elemental manipulation, impossible to replicate without actual ability.
Not obvious mental powers like telekinesis, again, too testable.
Something analytical. Something that looks like enhanced intuition or pattern recognition. Something that explains why I'm suddenly good at merchant work, why I make accurate predictions, why I seem to know things I shouldn't.
It was perfect. And completely fraudulent.
But necessary. Because powerless people get ignored, exploited, forgotten. And I can't afford any of those.
The plan formed rapidly:
During the ceremony, when power washed through the hall and people began manifesting abilities, Rei would fake a subtle reaction. Nothing dramatic, just a moment of disorientation, a flash of "insight," enough to suggest something had changed.
Afterward, he'd claim he'd awakened with enhanced pattern recognition, the ability to analyze information and see connections others missed. It would explain his sudden competence, his accurate "guesses," his strategic thinking.
And it would be completely impossible to disprove without invasive testing that the Order rarely bothered with for "minor" abilities.
FABRICATED ABILITY: ENHANCED PATTERN ANALYSIS
Presentation: Subtle cognitive shift during ceremony. Claim mild disorientation followed by clarity.
Description: Ability to process large amounts of information rapidly and identify patterns, connections, and probabilities that others miss.
Limitations (to maintain believability):
Not precognition, explicitly deny ability to see future Requires data input, can't analyze what I don't observe Mentally taxing, claim headaches/fatigue from overuse Fallible, deliberately make occasional "wrong" predictions to avoid suspicion
It was risky. If anyone with actual analytical powers tested him, the deception might crumble. If the Order decided his "ability" was valuable enough to warrant deep examination, he'd be exposed.
But it was better than being openly powerless.
Small lies to hide bigger truths. Just like everything else I've been doing.
Rei closed the notebook and tried to sleep, but his mind kept circling back to his classmates, the people he'd failed to connect with the first time, the opportunities he'd let slip away.
Tomorrow, the vacation. The day after, the ceremony. And then...
Then I stop being the invisible boy at the back of the room.