In a standard college dorm room, it was very personalized. The walls were a show of the young man's passions, plastered with a great many posters of dragons, creating a mythical menagerie. Dominating the collection were images of Toothless, the sleek Night Fury, alongside the formidable figures of Ddraig and Albion from an anime powered by boobs.
Fierce creatures from video games and cinema also featured prominently, including the iconic Fire-type, Charizard, the legendary sky serpent, Rayquaza, the terrifying three-headed cosmic monster, King Ghidorah, and the undisputed king of the monsters, Godzilla. Completing the dragon collection were posters of the purple hero, Spyro, and the dark and powerful Acnologia.
Interspersed with the dragons were an equally impressive collection of anime posters, offering bright splashes of color and dynamic action. The room showcased key art from Naruto, the high-octane fantasy of High School DxD, the pirate adventures of One Piece, the explosive battles of Dragon Ball, the superheroics of My Hero Academia, the gritty future of Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and the guild camaraderie of Fairy Tail.
In the center of this decorated space, a young man is lying asleep on his bed. He possessed unremarkable, normal black hair that was slightly messy from sleep. He is not wearing anything but a pair of draws, his sleepwear, which showed his body. While his build was not lean or overtly fit, he was certainly not fat either, possessing an average, natural physique for his age.
[RING RING, RING RING, RING RING, RING RING.]
The shrill, insistent sound of an alarm went off, cutting through the silence of the early morning and immediately waking the young man. He squinted, clutching the pillow to his face. "Arrgg, come on, I really don't like that."He said with a groan of displeasure, his voice filled with lingering sleep.
With reluctance, he got out of bed and began his morning routine. The first order of business was to cleanse away the remnants of the night, so he went into the shower. As the warm water streamed down, he began to sing softly, the melody of A Little Death by The Neighborhood echoing in the small enclosure.
You can skip this; it is just some of the lyrics of A Little Death by The Neighborhood.
"♫Touch me, yeah."
"I want you to touch me there."
"Make me feel like I am breathing."
"Feel like I am human."
"Dancing through the night."
"A vodka and a Sprite."
"A glimpse of the silhouettes"
"A night that they never forget."
"Touch me, yeah."
"I want you to touch me there."
"Make me feel like I am breathing."
"Feel like I am human."
"Touch me, yeah."
"I want you to touch me there."
"Make me feel like I am breathing."
"Feel like I am human."
"She sought death on a queen-sized bed."
"And he had said, 'Darling, your looks can kill."
"So now you're dead."
"Touch me, yeah."
"I want you to touch me there."
"Make me feel like I am breathing."
"Feel like I am human."
"Touch me, yeah."
"I want you to touch me there."
"Make me feel like I am breathing."
"Feel like I am human, again.♫"
As he finished the verse, he took a deep breath, turned the faucet off, and grabbed his towel to dry off before getting dressed.
He put on a black shirt that featured a stylized, fiery red dragon on the front and a matching white dragon on the back, a clear show of his love of the anime High School DxD dragons.
He paired the shirt with some black pants that were accented with white designs on them. Finally, he accessorized his feet and completed his outfit, putting on some red, black, and white Air Jordan 1 lows.
The young man gathered his essentials and left his dorm for the cafeteria. The air in the hallways was quiet, indicating it was still relatively early.
Upon arriving, he looked over the large dining hall. Seeing only a few people in there, he headed straight for the breakfast line. He went up to the food place, where the attendant waited, and presented his meal card.
Putting his card in, paying for the hearty meal he planned to consume: 2 pancakes, 4 slices of bacon, 2 sausage patties, and some scrambled eggs.
With his tray loaded, he found an empty table, set his phone up, and sat down to eat. To occupy his mind while eating, he unlocked his phone and went on to YouTube, putting on a recap of the anime JJK after season 2.
He wanted to refresh his memory on the events of Jujutsu Kaisen because he really doesn't like reading or waiting for anime, so why not have someone else do the work and listen to their recap? Watching a detailed summary was the perfect way to do it.
He ate steadily, focused equally on his food and the summary playing on his screen. After he finished eating, the recap video reached the Shinjuku showdown. He watched, his eyes widening as the narrator continued to speak of the fight between Ryoma Sukuna and Satour Gojo.
He turned his phone off right after Satoru Gojo was cleaved in two, his entire body shaking as the scene he had watched sank in.
"NO, NO, YOU CAN'T BE FUCKING SERIOUS!" he burst out, slamming his phone face-up on the table with enough force to rattle the empty tray.
The loud sound was followed by a torrent of frustrated disbelief. "They can't do him like that! He's The strongest! He's... he's one of my favorite anime characters! This is BULL CRAP! He deserved better than to be cut in half because he let his guard down!"
His voice, filled with anguish and rage over the fictional event, echoed in the quiet space. He was having a full-blown outburst over his death. He immediately regretted the volume of his reaction, realizing he was not in his dorm room.
He glanced up, mortified. The attention of everyone in the cafeteria was now fixed on him. Several students paused mid-chew, looking over with puzzled, amused, or annoyed expressions.
His face flushed crimson. Without another thought, he shot up, grabbed his tray, and practically threw it onto the dish return conveyor. He snatched his phone and backpack, muttering a frantic, inaudible apology. He left in a hurry, his exit fueled by the combined embarrassment of his rage and the sudden spotlight.
A few minutes later, still breathing heavily from his hasty retreat, he went into his Business major class. He slid into a seat just as the professor, a woman with a no-nonsense demeanor, was beginning the day's lecture on entrepreneurship.
He sat, trying to compose himself and mentally shift gears from Jujutsu Kaisen to a studious mindset. He listened intently to his teacher talking about how to start a business, focusing on principles of business.
"Look, the first thing you have to understand is that the market doesn't care about your passion project," the teacher asserted, pacing in front of the whiteboard.
"You have to approach this strategically, think about the desire of the people to buy your product. Your business needs to be about something that someone would want, not what worked for someone else. A successful product is something people need or desperately desire to buy."
She paused, tapping a marker against her palm. "And second, you have to embrace risk. You simply must take some risks. Look at the track record of success. Most famous businessmen took risks, and those risks paid off massively."
She gestured toward the screen where images of business titans appeared. "People like Elon Musk, who invested everything in rockets and electric cars when everyone laughed at him. Jeff Bezos, who bet on the internet when it was still the Wild West. And Sara Blakely, who created a product that literally no one asked for, yet revolutionized an industry with Spanx. They took educated risks, and the payoff changed the world and filled their pockets."
The teacher then checked the time. "Alright, class, that's enough lecture for today. We have twenty minutes left. I want you to use this time, think, and write.
Collaborate if you wish. I've told you the way how. Now, tell me: What business would you think people would want and make them money? I want concrete ideas by the end of this class."
The young man pulled out his notebook, still feeling the residual flush of embarrassment from the cafeteria and the sting of Gojo's death. He needed to focus on the teacher's challenge: a business idea that people want and that could make money.
He wrote down a few initial thoughts, crossing them out almost immediately, too niche, too complicated, already done. He thought about the things that filled his life: dragons, anime, and the general comfort of being a student.
He tapped his pen against the paper, reflecting on the teacher's emphasis on desire. What do people really want? He looked down at the dragon on his shirt and then thought about the massive popularity of the posters covering his dorm walls.
Suddenly, an idea sparked in his mind. It was ambitious, perhaps ridiculously so, but it directly addressed a worldwide desire for convenience and access.
He quickly began drafting his vision: The Ultimate Entertainment Hub.
The core concept was a centralized digital platform: A website that allows others to watch and read all manga, anime, TV shows, and movies.
Internal Monologue: Why pay for five different streaming and reading sites? We centralize it. Convenience is what people want most.
He detailed the logistics: "The site's operation model is to remove the cost burden from the consumer. We take on the cost for sites like Crunchyroll, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Shonen Jump+ subscriptions. The user gets access to everything in one place."
The revenue model would be non-traditional, leveraging the sheer volume of users seeking free access. "All they need to do is spend some time on the site," he wrote, envisioning pop-up ads' revenue from highly targeted, non-intrusive advertisements or mandatory viewing time of sponsor content before access to other anime, TV shows, movies, and whatever else is granted.
He also outlined avenues for community support: "And there will be a PayPal or Patreon to support it." This would allow dedicated users to bypass the pop-up ads, not video ones, or receive premium features.
He then considered how to acquire the necessary content licenses and initial investment without crippling the startup. "It could have a group of people/partners who already have the subscription to the original sites," he hypothesized, noting that initially, they could leverage existing personal or pooled subscriptions to demonstrate proof of concept and user traffic before moving on to legitimate licensing deals.
He planned for future diversification. "But then it will start to sell merchandise of the shows", high-quality, officially licensed gear," and then the other partners can make up their own ideas, and then put a set amount into the melting pot of the site."
This would create a shared investment fund for expansion, where any founding partner could pitch an idea (like a new app feature or an exclusive product line) and use the communal revenue to fund it.
Finally, he stressed the need for protection and commitment: "And also have a contract for the site and other projects" to clearly define roles, ownership, profit-sharing, and future growth opportunities for everyone involved.
(A/N: Anyone who does this, can you push this to my book and not video ads, just pop-ups, ok, there is a difference, most of the real ads have that, so be different, just a thought, im not in college or may not go into businesses, so this is just food for thought.)
He added more details to the logistics section: a phased rollout plan, specific types of merchandise, and a clear chain of command for the founding partners, ensuring the ambitious idea was as concrete as possible.
He was just drafting the specifics of the initial contract for the site and other projects.
The bell rang a few minutes later, signaling the end of the Business class.
"Alright, that's time! Hand in your proposals next week, revised and polished!" the professor called out as the room erupted with the sound of shuffling chairs and closing textbooks.
He got up, tucking his detailed business proposal safely into his backpack, and joined the stream of students exiting the building. Going to his other standard class till lunchtime, he spent the next hours in geometry and history class, the concepts serving as a stark contrast to his earlier fantasy business venture.
When the next bell rang, he went to a small family-owned food business located a few blocks from campus. This wasn't the university cafeteria; this place had a nice homey atmosphere.
He walked up to the counter. "Hi, Maria. The usual today, please?" he asked with a familiar smile.
Maria, one of the owners, smiled back warmly. "Hey, Alex! Coming right up, sweetie. You need your fuel for the afternoon."
Saying hi, she told the cooks to get started on his meal, a custom-ordered wrap or sandwich, which was a seamless routine. He was getting his wallet out as they prepared the food, getting the needed amount of cash.
A few minutes later, Maria handed him a wrapped meal and his change. "Here you go, Alex. Enjoy."
As he got his meal, he sat down and ate his food in the restaurant, savoring the familiar taste.
To accompany his meal, he also went on to the waifu catalogue, a popular digital thought experiment platform where users design personalized fantasy worlds. This was a mental escape, a way to channel his intense liking of fiction into something for a fanfiction.
He began crafting an elaborate scenario: making an edited High School DxD build. In this fantasy, he designed himself as a Substitute as Vali Lucifer.
a powerful character known for wielding the White Dragon Emperor's power, but with a unique twist, using the power set and cool demeanor of Satoru Gojo as a base template. He made sure his character had dragon heritage.
Most importantly, he ensured his ascended character possessed a retinue of powerful and helpful female characters, selecting them based on strength, loyalty, and charm.
He was adamant, not wanting any male in the retinue. He spent the rest of his meal assigning his character a whole lot of other perks and talents, detailing everything from superhuman charisma to the ability to use other power systems.
He finally finished his food and logged out of the fantasy builder, feeling slightly recharged by the mental break. Then he left the restaurant, throwing on his backpack.
To make the walk back to the dorms more enjoyable, going back to the dorms with his headphones in, he pulled up his current playlist.
He queued up the solemn and reflective songs, listening to the song Changes x Sad, both by XXXTENTACION, the melodic beats providing a reflective rhythm to his steps.
He reached a large intersection. The traffic signal for pedestrians was lit up white, indicating it was safe. He checked both ways, confident that it was good for people to walk.
He stepped off the curb, eyes focused ahead, contemplating his Gojo-Vali fantasy.
But as he was crossing the street, a truck came rushing by, totally failing to slow down for the intersection. The driver was completely oblivious, with the driver not paying attention due to him being on his phone, distracted, trying to find a song to put on.
But looking up for a moment, seeing the red light that was green just a few moments ago, and realizing what was happening. He violently turned the wheel. He tried not to hit Alex, slamming on the brakes, the tires screeching in an attempt to stop the massive vehicle.
But it was too late.
The impact was brutal and instantaneous. The heavy truck collided with the young man.
Alex died from a car accident right there in the crosswalk; his life, his idea of founding a massive entertainment hub, his time of watching anime, and his chance for... well, life was suddenly extinguished.
When Alex first awoke, the very first thing he saw was Darkness. This profound darkness was then immediately followed by the magnificent emergence of the distant, glittering stars, each a pinprick against the darkness.
His vision moved, revealing not just the countless stars but other planets, their accompanying moons, and even an astounding array of other celestial bodies far beyond his understanding, such as the terrifying black holes, the violent supernovas, and countless other cosmic phenomena that happen throughout the universe.
If anyone, including Alex himself, were to wonder and be perplexed as to why he was not instantly sucked into the inescapable gravitational pull of a nearby black hole or why he was not destroyed and or vaporized by the cataclysmic energy released from the supernova, it was due to a single thing he did not possess a physical body; he was merely a transparent being, a consciousness floating in the vast emptiness of space.
When Alex, in a state of disbelief, looked around, taking in the serene beauty of the stars and nebulae, striving to lose himself in the cosmic spectacle just to take his mind far, far away from the disturbing thought that he was, in fact, dead.
The glorious, star-dusted panorama and all the other cosmic things that were there moments before suddenly vanished. In their place, he saw only an endless white space that did not blind him but was a bit uncomfortable since he was just in a dark place before,and a completely black feminine figure who was covered in shadow, sitting serenely at a simple brown table.
"Here, come have a seat," the dark figure stated, her voice sounding not just in his non-existent ears, but directly in his consciousness.
"We have an awful lot to talk about, oh, I should introduce myself. I am the Death for this entire omniverse, so I think you may have a few words and significant questions for me."
She finished her words with what seemed like a polite, knowing smile playing upon her dark features, as she pointed to the vacant chair positioned directly in front of her.
Alex simply looked intently at the modest table, then up at the woman calling herself DEATH, and finally down at the offered chair with a questioning eyebrow raise, but he simply sat down in front of her to face his fate.
The black feminine figure leaned back slightly in her chair. "So, let's get straight to the point of the matter," she began, her tone devoid of any flowery sentiments or comforting words.
"So you died, but I think you already know that, but someone wanted you to do a favor for them, and since you did pick me as your patron, I think it is the least I can do to let you have your fun till you can complete said request." She said not mincing any words, saying it like it is, and why he is here.
Alex, processing the information he was just given, just looked at her figure blankly for a few minutes, his mind trying to think of a reason. He finally broke the silence, his voice calm despite the circumstances.
"Okay, so for a second, let's just assume you are the actual DEATHand not some elaborate figment of my imagination or the final frantic burst of a dead brain. Given that premise, I want to know just five things." As he spoke, not trying to seem demanding, but it was what he does when put on the spot and had no way out, he put up all five of his transparent fingers, making a visual commitment to his questions.
"First," he fixed, his gaze unwavering at the black figure, "How are you, specifically, my patron?" He is trying to find a way of talking about their connection in the title, lowering one finger to count the first inquiry.
"Second," he continued, seeking definition for what was happening. "What exactly is a patron in this context?" He asked, lowering another finger.
"Third," Alex pressed on, his mind already formulating plausible theories, "Who, specifically, wants me to do a favor for them?" He said, lowering another finger, the identity of the powerful entity already stirring prominently in his mind.
"Fourth," his tone shifted slightly, conveying a sense of incredulity, "What exactly do you mean by 'have my fun'?" He questioned, lowering yet another finger.
"And lastly and most importantly," Alex concluded, leaning forward slightly, concentrating all his attention upon the black figure, "what, precisely, is that request of said person? What monumental task is worth taking a soul from death, or you, whatever you prefer?" He said, lowering the last finger as he fixed his gaze upon her with a raised eyebrow and a visible spark of interest in his eyes.
She responded promptly, "You chose me as your patron, as I said you picked me, not I you." She said, answering his first question.
"A patron is someone who gives a blessing or helps someone below them, to help themselves, or just to entertain themselves." She said, not making it seem like a good or bad thing.
"The one who wants the request done in me."
"By fun, I mean it's for you to live your life with you compains till I need you and you can complete my request."
"And lastly, as for what it is is not important to the current you, and that is who it is for the future you, and it mostly won't go against your future morals, and it won't hurt or harm anyone close to you, or who you care about, so you have nothing to worry about." She said, trying not to make him feel afraid, not because she truly cared but because she knew things had to take time.
"But umm, how did I get here? I understand that you are my patron, you have a request for the future me, but how does all of that get us, or more precisely me, here?" He asked, clarifying what exactly he wanted to know from Death.
She looked genuinely confused by the question. Her head tilted slightly, the shadows obscuring most of her face, but the motion itself conveyed surprise.
Then, a faint sound escaped her, a small giggle that seemed to echo out into the white space.
She settled back against her chair, a hint of genuine amusement in her voice as she began to explain. "Oh, is that it? I thought you were going to ask a stupid question like, 'Could I go back?', or a request for some form of change from their current situation. You truly never know how many people ask me that, even after we've gotten to this part of the proceedings, the point of no return, like I tell every mortal I meet the first time they are dead."
A gentle sigh followed. "But enough rambling, that's not what concerns you. You are here, standing before me in this in-between space, because you filled out a waifu catalog. More precisely, you just so happened to be one of the few who completed every necessary step, who fulfilled all the required parameters for whom I would send off into the universe(multiverse) to reach the quota that my brother gave me for his silly little game that has grown it to what you may know as the company."
"So if that is enough, I do have a few other things to do. Have a nice future life, Al... No, your name should be Vali Satoru Lucifer," She said as she waved her hand, and before Alex could react, he was whisked away into a swirling black portal that appeared out of nowhere.
End of chapter
[A/N: I was going to add in him being reincarnated/transmigrated into Vail, but it is too long for my liking, and I do have some Companions to kill, then transmigrate into different eras and shit, so leave a comment, support me on Patreon, and if you're reading from here, thank you for the support. Have a great and blessed day(just great if you're not religious), and check out my other account where I publish Og novels. It's called FictionDragon, and it has one novel posted: Rise of the Heir to the Abyss.]