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To begin with, my life was mundane.
I was born mundane, attended school in a mundane fashion, lived through a mundane pandemic, and then died a mundane death after being struck by a motorcycle while trying to avoid a two-story box truck careening toward a pedestrian overpass.
…Well, regardless. I had been growing up as the cherished only child of an ordinary family, completely ignorant of my reincarnation. Then, at the age of five, during a duel of sorts with a classmate I wasn't particularly close with, my past life's records were restored… By forcibly suppressing the memories of my death—something I'd rather not recall—I managed to regain my composure.
By some stroke of luck, the violet eyes—the Rinnegan—subsided. They returned to their original state once I focused on the thought of forcing them to 'retract.'
However, the first thought that surfaced after the memories had fully integrated into my consciousness was this: 'Who on earth am I?'
I could accept the name Karma… A name literally meaning 'Retribution.' My mother had chosen it with the intent of emphasizing the weight of reincarnation and the importance of not accumulating bad deeds.
But why, of all things, must my surname be Kirigaya?
Furthermore, why is my father's name Kazuto, and my mother's name Asuna… This isn't exactly a world of Full-Dive VR, is it?
The only saving grace was that VR technology didn't even exist in this world yet. I desperately wanted to believe my father was just… well… a man who happened to share the same name.
Both of them are adults, and it looks like it'll be a long time before anything like VR appears.
Having narrowly managed to dismiss the thoughts regarding my new parents, my next concern was: where exactly is this?
The name 'Karma Kirigaya' confirmed I was in Japan. I had heard the name 'Misaki City' before as a Japanese locale, so it was likely I was still on Earth. After all, the world map remained identical.
…Yet, major corporations were missing.
For one, the TYPE-MOON works by Mushroom-Sensei—whom I both truly loved and despised for the despair of gacha—were nowhere to be found. Even if I discounted those due to timing, companies like Samsung or LG… or even Japanese giants like Honda and Toyota, were non-existent.
Naturally, the 'Future Knowledge Cheat' plan I had formulated the moment I regained my memories had to be scrapped. How could one predict the future or invest when the very foundations—the corporations—didn't exist?
…Real estate? Knowing the history of the Japanese bubble, that's a quick way to lose one's head if timed poorly.
It's not as if anyone would listen to a five-year-old's advice on global conflicts… or something like investing based on the 9/11 attacks.
Ultimately, all talk of amassing wealth ended there.
My new parents had zero interest in real estate or stocks anyway. They were living comfortably enough by running a fairly large swordsmanship dojo.
The most pressing issue, however, was still…
"Just what are these eyes?"
The Rinnegan.
The pinnacle of the 'Visual Prowess' history in Naruto. In the early stages, it boasted the destructive power of a final boss—capable of leveling the Hidden Leaf Village in a single strike—though later on, it seemed as if every Tom, Dick, and Harry was swapping them in and out. Not that they were weak, of course.
"…Just how many different series have been mashed together here?"
The parents who raised me for five years with unconditional love were the protagonist duo of a famous light novel.
My eyes were the ultimate dojutsu from a certain bloodline-focused manga.
And the world itself was a parallel reality, diverging from the one I knew…
A week had passed since I recalled the records of my previous life. I remained steeped in localized anguish, attempting to organize the fragments of my memory.