The sky was the first thing he saw.
A vast ocean of blue with scattered, weightless clouds. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming. The scent of saltwater and distant pine drifted into his tiny nostrils, stirring faint confusion.
> "Didn't I die?"
His thoughts were sharp. Too sharp. More than any newborn should have. His muscles were weak, his hands small and trembling—but his mind… his mind felt like a sharpened blade.
Memories came flooding back in raw, unfiltered clarity: his death in a research lab, the experiment that pushed his brain beyond its natural limits, and the silence that followed.
But this wasn't Heaven.
Nor was it Hell.
It was a new world entirely.
He was reborn in the body of an infant, swaddled in warm cloth, gently cradled by a woman with brown hair and tired, kind eyes.
> "Aww… he stopped crying."
Her voice was unfamiliar. The dialect was different, but his brain—now functioning at full capacity—parsed the language with ease. He filed away her features, voice, and tone for future reference.
The woman rocked him gently, humming something soft and maternal. Around them stood a small wooden house with simple décor. Through a window, he could see waves lapping the distant shoreline.
A village.
Secluded.
Calm.
Whale Island.
That name came to him three months later, when he was already crawling faster than any child should.
He listened, constantly. Every sound, every movement. The woman who held him? Her name was Mito. Her voice gave away exhaustion, but she loved him all the same. She had found him near the edge of the woods—alone and inexplicably healthy. No other child was reported missing. No mother claimed him.
So she took him in.
She named him Kairo.
Kairo Dazai.
The villagers assumed he was a miracle. A gift from the forest. He didn't correct them.
He never would.
---
By the age of two, Kairo was already reading. At first, he pretended not to understand letters, watching silently as Mito read children's books aloud. But his brain retained everything. Every page. Every symbol. Every inflection.
He spoke only when spoken to. Mito assumed he was shy. In truth, Kairo simply had little to say.
There was peace in silence.
He grew fast—slightly faster than average, but never alarmingly so. He knew how to limit his displays of intellect. He adjusted his grip strength. He mimicked human behavior down to minute details. He practiced facial expressions in the mirror at night, making sure no one saw how calm and emotionless his true self was.
> "Emotion is a tool, not a truth."
He remembered that lesson from his past life.
He remembered everything.
---
At age four, he wandered to the edge of the island and sat atop the cliffs. From there, he could see the ocean, stretching endlessly. Below, seagulls dove and wheeled. Clouds cast slow-moving shadows across the waves.
He watched the wind—literally. His brain mapped the way the currents moved by measuring leaf tremors, moisture, pressure. He could predict when the next gust would come before it even arrived.
It wasn't magic.
Just logic at 100%.
> "Kairo! There you are!"
Mito's voice broke the wind's rhythm. She stood behind him with hands on her hips, the corner of her mouth twitching.
> "You know you're not supposed to go up here without me. You'll fall one day!"
He turned and offered a small nod. Not a word. She sighed, ruffling his hair before guiding him back toward the house.
"Come on, Gon's coming over today. Be nice, okay?"
Gon.
A boy just barely old enough to walk but already bursting with energy. Mito's nephew. He visited often.
Kairo… didn't dislike him.
The boy was pure.
Bright.
Stupid, but pure.
> "He'll be important."
Kairo knew this. His memories of the world—the anime world—confirmed it. He had landed in the universe of Hunter x Hunter. Somehow, his death in one world led to reincarnation in this one. Whale Island. Gon Freecss. The Zoldycks. The Phantom Troupe. Nen.
All of it was real now.
And so were the dangers.
---
That night, as crickets chirped and waves whispered against the shore, Kairo stared at the ceiling of his room.
His bed was simple. His room even more so. But it was enough.
He flexed his fingers, feeling the limits of this new body. It would take years before he could unlock its full potential. But he wasn't impatient. That, too, was a lesson from his old life.
> "Rush the experiment, kill the result."
This time, he would build his strength patiently. Intelligently. Silently.
No one would know what he truly was.
Not Mito.
Not Gon.
Not even the girls he would come to love.
---
"Nen," he whispered, the word foreign but electric in his mouth.
A spark flared in his chest.
Just for a second.
A faint flicker of aura.
His lips curled slightly.
> "So it begins."