‘I just want to go back– to my real home.’
Anubis' voice was calm and soft, vulnerable even. He was showing a rare moment of vulnerability that Sol didn't believe a being like Anubis was able to show.
“Sol, did you meet any other Reincarnator in your life, other than me, of course?”
Sol reminisced back to the moments he shared with Kali – the Witch of Destruction, one of the four witches of the cardinal directions, and the daughter of Ambrosia…
She was the very first Reincarnator he was able to meet with in this life…
“I did. Only one though. Then again you can also add Drei into the mix as well, even though we all know how that ended. So I guess that makes it two. I can't recall meeting anyone else sadly.”
Anubis nodded to his words, even chuckling at the part about Drei before continuing his monologue, “In my case, I have met quite a number of them and observed the others from the shadows. It was too many to count and I couldn't keep track after a time so I won't even try to mention a number…”
Since Anubis was originally born in the Mortal Realm, through his reincarnation into this universe, even though he became a Demigod, he could easily enter the realm. The restrictions of divinity didn't apply to him. As such he could see the changes and the state of the singularities, different people he suspected to be Reincarnators, brought to this world.
Sadly though, few of them lived long enough or managed to go past the power level of a Duke.
“After observing all of them, I came to a startling realization. Do you know what it is?”
“What?”
Anubis smiled at his question, answering his query with another question instead, “Sol when did you die?”
Sol’s eyes narrowed sharply as he thought back about a particular detail of his past life, “2019.”
“How about that Reincarnator you knew?”
“2017.”
Anubis smiled, seemingly everything being under his calculations, “Drei also died in 2017. He may have erased most of his memories, but he did keep the ones that linked him to his home world.”
Then he pointed at himself, “As for me, I died in 2016. Merely a year before Drei and 3 years before you, yet the time we are loitering around this world for differs so much, centuries even millennia! Didn't you wonder why this is so?”
His eyes narrowed, “For others who reincarnated, basically all of them died in the same time zone, between 2015 to 2019 not a year before or a year after. Those four years only, nothing else. It doesn’t matter when they came here into this world, but their time of deaths never deviated from that zone. Don’t you find it weird?”
Anubis looked up at the starry sky again, simply growling with impatience, “It’s normal that the time and space between two different universes would work differently. But how come the difference is so great? Everything in this omniverse is ruled by a general constant. There's a pattern everywhere, and nothing deviates from the fixed difference. ”
Anubis shrugged, “You may not understand the feeling, you're different from me after all, but when I first came to this world, my only goal was to go back to my homeworld.”
Anubis sneered condescendingly, reminiscing the memories after he just reincarnated to this heinous world, “My life was the personification of hell and relentless suffering. I had no love for this world and I crawled from the darkest deepest pit of the world to stand where I stand now. It was no wonder then, right? That I simply wanted to go back home. But then, years turned into decades, and decades into centuries. So I gave up. After all, all those I loved should be already dead by now.”
But it was a bit different now.
“Now I am happy with my life. I am powerful. I am almost untouchable. I have a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter as well as my fair share of women whom I love and care about. Despite the rough start, my current life is quite perfect. But you see… There is one imperfection I cannot get rid of.”
He was curious.
“How does the Earth I came from, look like now?”
He was very curious.
“Are my loved ones back home dead?”
He wanted to find out the truth behind that matter.
“Why were we chosen to be reincarnated among so many people on Earth? What made us different?”
Was it just luck? Anubis was not anyone particularly special in his past life, he was the visage of ordinary. So then, why choose him? What about the others? There were definitely more competent people than him.
“And finally, the most important thing I want to know…”
Sol perked his ears at that statement, curious about what a man like Anubis was the most intrigued about learning from his lifelong search…
“Can I slap the goddesses once I become a god?”
Anubis was itching to know all those things.
Sol choked a little at the unexpected turn this serious discussion took. He was almost disappointed by this sudden turn but then shrugged it off.
“What? Why the surprised look? Don’t tell me you don’t want to punch them in the face at least once, right?”
Sol was speechless, but he could not retort to that statement.
Sol was thankful. His life compared to Anubis was clearly heaven. So, did he hate the goddesses?
It was hard to say so. No matter what the reasons, it was thanks to them that he had his current life.
But did he love and respect them?
Not at all. Like Anubis said, he did want to slap them at least once to calm himself down due to all their shenanigans.
“Getting back on track, I have been exploring this universe for years. There are simply too many similarities to take note of and I was going crazy. But, I will find a way to leave this world and go back home. Even if it’s just for a moment. What about you?”
Sol mused and answered, “I… Honestly, I am not interested.”
Sol stood up, his voice was quite cold and filled with clear disinterest in this matter.
“I love this world and I have no interest in my old one.”
Both Anubis and Sol's gazes clashed.
This was the first disagreement between them.
The silence stretched for a while, an uncomfortable silence filled with tension.
“I see. What a shame.”
Anubis stood up and was about to leave when,
“But…”
He stopped at his remarks and then turned back to Sol.
“I am quite interested in finding how Reincarnation works and how to stop it.”
“Hahaha, how hypocritical of you.”
Sol shrugged, showing no shame on his face. “I never said I was an honorable man.”
This may be quite hypocritical of him, but Sol really did not wish to have a reincarnator as a child.
The simple thought of perhaps having some middle-aged man or woman in the body of a baby and sucking on the breasts of one of his women or taking a bath with them made his skin crawl with disgust and dismay.
Sol recognized that this was incredibly hypocritical. But life itself was filled with hypocrisy.
“Furthermore, imagine if it’s Isis who gives birth to a Reincarnator.”
The smile slipped from Anubis’ face as his complexion darkened at that thought.
“Indeed. That is quite the unpleasant image.”
He shivered violently with unbridled disgust, not willing to think more about it.
Sol smiled, this wasn’t just a case of mental age. A reincarnator simply did not see the world and their relationships the same.
In the same way, Sol did not really see Blaze and Mars as his parents, the chances that a Reincarnator recognized him as family were quite low.
What if the soul was a horrible criminal in his or her last life? A murderer? A rapist?
There were so many possibilities that it wasn’t funny.
Until now at least it was clear that the goddesses choose people with relatively good morale. But he did not wish to leave the future of his children in their hands.
“Then…” Anubis stretched his hand toward Sol, “Let's shake our hands on it, partner?”
Sol gave a wild smile as he shook hands with Anubis.
“To a happy cooperation.”
“....And may we slap the goddesses one day.”
Anubis added with an impish smile. He could give up on many things, but that alone was something he would never give up on.
That slap would without a doubt be the greatest slap he would give in his life and he was sure that it would feel greater than anything he could imagine.
AN: This is the second and last promised bonus chapter. Man wasn't easy writing three chapters in 24 hours. But I Think I did pretty well. Hope you liked this discussion with Anubis. Writing his story later after I finish SHK will be quite interesting. Now the reset is in like 4 hours, I seriously need to rest a little my hands and my brain. The chapters will be a little late (2 or 3 hours later so don't worry.)
Once again thanks to Killer-Raze for the dragon and thanks to all those supporting me one way or another.
