Not all deaths are epic.
Not all reincarnations start with a celestial voice or a wise old man delivering a divine mission.
Some just… happen.
Aoi Nakamura—before becoming someone else entirely—died with a glass of milk in his hand.
Literally.
He had gotten up to grab a quick bite before resuming his anime marathon. He tripped on the stairs, fell face-first onto the floor, and broke his neck.
Just like that. No glory. No witnesses.
It was a stupid death.
But what came next was even weirder.
He woke up in a different body. In an unfamiliar house. With an identity that wasn't his, in a world he knew a little too well thanks to his past life as a mid-level otaku: My Hero Academia.
At first, he thought it was a dream.
Then, a hallucination.
Then, maybe some kind of divine punishment.
But time passed. He began to adapt. He began to live.
Now, he was Aoi Nakamura, average teenager in Musutafu. He had grown used to his new name. Couldn't quite remember his old one. Or maybe he could and just didn't care anymore. Didn't matter. This was his name now. This was his life.
He had a family. A school routine he hated with quiet passion. Friends he hung out with sometimes. And a hyperactive Shiba Inu named Momo who chewed on his socks every morning.
He had a Quirk that was basically "lighter-fingers."
He didn't attend U.A.—still had a year to go before high school anyway.
And he had no real ambition to be a hero.
And he was okay with that.
Until today.
The morning started like any other. Momo woke him up by licking his face, then gnawed on one of his slippers like it was a national threat. Aoi shuffled to the kitchen, poured some cereal, and reached into the fridge for milk. It was right then, just as he was about to take the first bite, that it appeared.
A screen.
Floating in the air. Translucent. Sky blue. Like a video game notification hanging in front of his face.
[Support System Unlocked!
Hidden Mission: COMPLETED]
Reward: Stand Arrow (1)
"…Huh?"
The screen flickered, then vanished—and then he felt it.
Like something invisible tugged him toward his room.
Momo followed, claws clicking on the wooden floor.
There, resting on his desk, glowing with a soft but unnatural light, was the Arrow.
A real Arrow.
Not a replica. Not a dream.
A genuine Stand Arrow.
It had that strange, almost organic design, like metal carved out of something not from this world. A sharp metallic tip. Hand-etched patterns that seemed to shift if you stared too long. It didn't look manmade.
It smelled of ancient dust.
"What the hell…?"
The memories hit like a wave.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
The manga. The anime. The memes. The Reddit threads. The debates. The laughter. The tears. The yelling.
The bow and the arrow. DIO. Giorno. Crazy Diamond. The World. Polnareff almost dying again. And that arrow. The Arrow.
Aoi staggered back, hand to his forehead.
How had he forgotten about JoJo all this time?
How had he lived here without thinking of it?
"This makes no sense…" he muttered. "I mean, why now?"
There'd been no quest. No hint this would happen. But there it was.
The Arrow.
The temptation was ridiculous.
Part of him screamed no. That stabbing himself with it made zero sense.
But the other part…
The part that had already died once, that knew what the Arrow could offer—
"The chance of a painful death or a godlike power…" he muttered dryly. "Yeah. Obvious choice."
He stared at the Arrow one last time. Took a deep breath.
"Am I really about to stab myself with alien metal?" he said quietly, with a weak laugh. "Of course I am…"
He raised his left hand, trembling a little, and pointed the metal tip toward the center of his palm.
Hesitated.
Reality hit again—this was going to hurt.
There was no tutorial. No instruction manual.
"Well… at least it's not the chest. Let's go with something non-lethal."
And he did it.
The Arrow pierced his skin with a wet, meaty sound. A lightning bolt of pain shot up from his fingers to his shoulder.
It burned like he'd shoved his arm into fire.
His whole body shook.
His stomach twisted.
Bright dots danced in his vision as blood spilled from his palm.
And then the Arrow vanished.
Literally.
As if it dissolved into nothing.
The wound remained.
Bloody. Open. Real.
Aoi staggered, collapsed to his knees. The world blurred.
Momo barked in the distance, like watching him fall in slow motion.
"Am I… in a coma?" he thought. "Or is this what it feels like to awaken a Stand…?"
And he blacked out.
---
Waking up wasn't poetic. It was annoying.
Moonlight hit his face. His body ached like he'd fallen off a building and then got hit by a truck.
His mouth was dry. His throat felt like sandpaper.
"Momo…" he muttered. "Where's the switch for that light…?"
The dog was sitting beside the bed, tongue out. Aoi blinked, sat up slowly…
and then he saw it.
Someone else was in the room.
At first, he thought he was hallucinating.
A tall humanoid figure, skin black and smooth like obsidian.
He wore an Egyptian headdress—a Nemes, if Aoi remembered right—gold bracelets, and nothing on his torso.
He had the head of a jackal, glowing golden eyes, and was staring at him like one might assess a half-cooked steak.
"You're still breathing? Pathetic. I had hoped to awaken in the hands of a true warrior."
Aoi stared, wide-eyed.
He knew that look. That aura. That smug, divine sarcasm.
"…Anubis?" he croaked. "The Anubis? From the crazy barber arc and the cursed sword? The one who almost killed Polnareff!?"
"At least you recognize true greatness when you see it."
"Yes. I am Anubis, the invincible blade. And you… are what I'm stuck with now."
Aoi flopped back onto the bed, half shocked, half resigned.
"Please don't tell me I have to open a barbershop and wait for someone named Joestar to show up…"
Anubis exhaled—an imperial sort of snort.
"You don't even have the presence to be an antagonist. No power. No poise."
"But I've been trapped in worse places than this vulgar little room."
"By 'worse,' do you mean stuck up a cow's ass or buried at the bottom of the Nile?"
Anubis frowned, as if swallowing his pride with razor blades.
"…Temporary humiliations. Cruel twists of fate."
"And yet none of them broke me. I'm still here, aren't I?"
He turned his head like something had caught his attention.
Against the wall, perfectly balanced, stood the sword.
A shamshir. Curved. Deadly. Ancient.
A golden sheath. A gilded hilt. Embedded gems. A blade thirsting for action.
It was real.
It was his.
Aoi dropped back into the sheets, covering his face.
"This is insane…"
Anubis tilted his head, golden eyes glowing like burning coals.
"And it's just beginning."
"But don't worry. Once you adjust, we'll do things even your feverish otaku brain couldn't imagine."
"'Things' like going on emotional adventures and growing as a person… or like slicing enemies into pieces while laughing like maniacs?"
Anubis tilted his head slightly. A lupine grin crept under his glowing gaze.
"Why choose?"
It was then that Aoi lowered his hand and noticed the blood on the sheets.
"Shit!" he gasped, lifting his palm. "The wound's still there!"
Blood was still dripping. Not deep, but annoying—and risky if it stayed open.
He ran to his desk, grabbed some band-aids, then paused.
"…Nope. I need actual gauze for this."
He opened the family first-aid kit, rummaged through bottles, pulled out a sterile pad and started clumsily wrapping his hand.
Momo followed him in circles like a wannabe nurse.
Anubis watched from the corner, like he was still deciding whether Aoi was worth the trouble.
"Wonderful. Chosen by the Arrow… and you're patching yourself up like a civilian in a supermarket brawl."
"Leave me alone! I don't want to get infected with cosmic rust or whatever."
"You survived the Arrow's judgment. You should be grateful, not whining."
"You'd think that came with auto-heal or something—but no! I remember it did."
As he tied a sloppy knot around his palm, he sighed. Looked at Anubis.
"This is going to be insane."
Anubis bared his teeth in a smile—half delight, half challenge.
"Get ready, Nakamura.
Ordinary died with you."
"Now the real battle begins."