"Just A Typical Reincarnation"
Melissa had always been the youngest. It was hard to imagine herself as anything else. For most of her life, she had looked up to her brothers, to Benson's broad back as he left for work to provide for the family, to Klein's smile as he tried to comfort her in the dead of the night whenever her nightmares haunted her. She had always feared losing what remained of her family, and she did not think she would be able to go on if that ever happened.
But she did go on when Klein died that fateful day in Tingen. Melissa never truly healed from it, not even after learning that her brother was still alive and had become The Fool, a being people now worshipped. It was strange. So, so strange. Then she learned that the brother she had been living with for months was never truly her brother at all. Instead, he was someone who had transmigrated into her dead brother's body.
She'd been shocked by the revelation, but at that point, she was just so tired of endlessly grieving someone who'd been long gone. And she could tell that Benson was too. So in the end, they were simply grateful to have been reunited with their brother in some form, even if all that remained was an echo of who he once was. "Zhou Mingrui," he called himself when they asked for his true identity.
After that, he distanced himself from them. Gods were never meant to coexist with mortals, he had said. Neither of them believed him, of course. Still, despite the fresh ache in her heart, she accepted it. There had always been the understanding that divinity kills. That was why she had never advanced beyond a certain Sequence. It was dangerous. It was madness. And her brother stood at the very pinnacle of it.
Melissa had always felt that the God who told them the truth was merely wearing a human face to make them feel at ease. The thought filled her with resentment. Yet, despite everything, she was relieved. At least, they had been given closure. After so much confusion and uncertainty, she finally had an answer.
Death was supposed to be the end. People were born, they lived, and then they died. That was how it worked. Melissa, however, should have known better. As she had come to learn, death was not an ending at all, it was merely a doorway to new opportunities.
She had always been the youngest. It was hard to imagine herself as anything else. Yet here she was, ten years old once againβcarefully cradling a newborn in her armsβbecause the moment she heard the name Benson Moretti, it was as though a dam had burst.
Memories came rushing back in a relentless flood, leaving no room for doubt. The adults in the room laughed at her sudden tears, dismissing them as the emotions of an overwhelmed child. But their reactions didn't matter. All Melissa felt was relief.
