Goddess of Death?

BOOM!

The explosion lit up my face in bright blue light as another squad got wiped from the digital battlefield.

Battle Nexus – the same damn battle royale that had been paying my bills for the past two years. Muzzle flashes strobed across my monitor while some kid in voice chat screamed about getting third-partied.

Tick! Tick! Tick!

The keyboard responded under my fingertips with sharp, mechanical clicks. The sound was oddly satisfying.

The cramped room around me smelled like cheap instant noodles and sweat. Blackout curtains hadn't been opened in... whenever I'd last seen sunlight. I slouched deeper into my gaming chair, the blue LED strips behind my monitor casting everything in that artificial glow streamers were supposed to have.

"Alright," I spoke into the mic. "Let's push. They're down to one."

The final stretch played out fast—dodging grenades, exchanging fire, that familiar moment where everything slows down.

Rtrtrtrtrt!

The final enemy dropped, and the victory screen splashed across my display in gaudy gold letters.

"GG. 18th win in a row, you guys are amazing."

I rolled my neck, joints popping like bubble wrap. My eyes drifted from the screen for the first time in hours as I yawned.

'How long had I been at this?'

The digital clock read 2:47 AM.

'More than two days? Huh.'

Then a pop-up window flared on my second screen.

$400 Received

I blinked and sat up.

"Ah, Denny1123, thanks for the super chat."

Four hundred dollars. For sitting here playing games. The donation tracker caught my attention...

$4,890/$5,000

So close.

I rubbed my eyes and pushed the fatigue out of my head. "Come on chat, we're just $110 away from our goal." I queued another match.

The loading screen gave me a moment to address the camera. I could see my reflection in the black monitor bezel, tired eyes, messy hair.

"For anyone just tuning in, we're doing a charity stream for St. Catherine's Children's Home." I cleared my throat. "Kids without parents, stuck in shelters where no one cares if they eat or not. Hand-me-down everything, generic cereal if they're lucky."

I paused, picking my landing spot.

"Most people don't think about kids like that. Easy to forget they exist when you're not living it."

Images flashed through my head—cramped bedrooms, caseworkers with clipboards, industrial detergent smell. Yuki's small hand in mine as we got shuffled from one temporary family to another.

Parents died when we were little. Some families adopted us but abandoned us later.

Someone had to take care of her.

'Guess who got stuck with the job?'

She's in high school now. Loud, annoying, always asking for snacks, but she's my world.

"Anyway," I continued, dropping into the game, "figured I'd do something useful for once instead of just shooting online idiots for rent money."

I kept up the chatter with the stream, little nudges for donations, sarcastic jabs at teammates. But my eyelids were getting heavier with each passing second. The blue glow started to blur at the edges.

"Chat, just... just give me a sec," I mumbled, rubbing my eyes.

The exhaustion hit like a freight train, that bone-deep tiredness no amount of energy drinks could fix.

'Shit.'

But my body had other plans.

The clicking of my keyboard became distant, muffled. My head started to droop.

Then everything went black.

Not the slow fade of falling asleep, this was instant. Complete darkness swallowed me whole. I couldn't feel the chair beneath me, couldn't hear my PC fans, couldn't smell the stale air.

'What the hell?'

Panic shot through me like ice water. I tried to move, nothing. Tried to speak, my voice was gone. I was floating in this void, completely paralyzed.

'A-Am I dying?'

The darkness pressed in from all sides, suffocating. Time stretched and compressed. Seconds felt like hours.

And then, cutting through the black like a blade, came light.

Pure, brilliant white that somehow didn't hurt to look at. It started as a pinprick and grew, spreading until it filled my entire field of vision.

Descending through that light came a woman.

She moved with impossible grace, feet never quite touching the ground. Long silver hair flowed around her like liquid moonlight, skin glowing with inner radiance. Her eyes were the color of deep ocean water, holding unfathomable depths. She wore flowing robes that shifted between white and gold.

She was beautiful. No... beautiful didn't even begin to cover it. This was the kind of beauty that made you forget how to breathe, the kind that belonged in old paintings and religious texts.

My first thought: hallucination. Sleep paralysis or a caffeine ghost.

She looked down at me, and something inside me unraveled.

Then descended slowly, movements fluid like she was floating through water. When she stopped, hovering just a few feet away, her gaze settled on me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. Her expression was completely unreadable—neither cold nor warm, just... nothing.

"Kaito Kurokawa."

My breath hitched. Her voice was soft, honeyed, the kind that should have been comforting but instead sent chills down my spine.

'How does she know my name?'

She tilted her head, studying me with those impossible ocean eyes. "I am Thanaia. Goddess of Death."

The words hung in the air.

'Goddess of Death?'

"You are tethered," she said quietly. "You have threads that bind you to this world."

Panic clawed up my throat, but I still couldn't move. All I could do was stare.

"This can't be real," I muttered. "I'm just hallucinating. Too tired from streaming." I brought my hands up and slapped my cheeks hard. "Wake up, Kaito. Wake the fuck up."

Nothing changed.

Thanaia watched with what might have been amusement. She shook her head slowly, silver hair catching the light. "No. You're not sleeping, you're not dreaming. You're dead, Kaito."

The words hit like a physical blow.

"Now, you'll pass to the afterlife." She began circling me slowly. 

"The afterlife is not what you humans imagine. There is no judgment, no eternal punishment or reward. Most souls move on to rest, to become part of the greater cycle. But some..." She paused in front of me. "Some are offered a different path. A second chance. Another world. Another life."

My heart started pounding.

'Holy shit. Like those isekai anime. Die and get reincarnated in another world.'

Excitement built in my chest. 

'Magic? Swords and sorcery? Maybe I'll get some overpowered cheat ability. Dragons. Adventure. A chance to actually matter instead of being a deadbeat streamer grinding for rent.'

For a second, it felt like an impossible gift. New world, new me. My hands trembled with excitement.

But then a face flashed in my mind.

Yuki. Smiling over breakfast this morning, complaining about some test. Her hair in a messy ponytail, that crooked grin when she stole the last chip. The tuition notices folded on my kitchen counter. The way she always said goodnight before my late-night streams.

My smile died. The tremor in my hands turned into a fist.

"I'm sorry," I said, voice steadier than I felt. "But I can't."

Thanaia paused mid-step, those eyes narrowing. "What did you say?"

"I said I can't. I reject your proposal."

She blinked slowly, then chuckled. "You're dead, don't you get it?"

"Yeah, I know." I crossed my arms. "And I reject being dead."

Her lips twitched, the serene mask slipping. "You cannot simply reject being dead. That's not how any of this works. Death is absolute, final."

"Aren't you the Goddess of Death?" I raised an eyebrow. "If anyone could make an exception, wouldn't it be you? Or is the whole 'goddess' thing just for show?"

The temperature dropped. "You insolent little—" She caught herself. "Listen carefully, mortal. Your physical form has ceased to function. Your heart has stopped. There is no 'going back.'"

"Then fix it."

"Fix it?" Her voice pitched higher. "I don't fix death, I facilitate it!"

I shrugged. "Sounds like a skill issue to me."

That did it. The serene beauty vanished completely. "A skill issue? I have guided souls for millennia! Kings and peasants, heroes and villains! How dare you—"

"Look," I interrupted. "I'm not trying to insult your work ethic. But I've got a little sister who's going to wake up expecting breakfast and help with her calculus homework. So either figure out how to put me back in my body, or I'm going to sit here until you get so annoyed you do it anyway."

Silence. Thanaia stared at me like I'd grown a second head.

Then her eye twitched.

"You..." Power crackled around her. "You insufferable, stubborn, impossible little—"

"Is that a yes on the resurrection?"

"GET OUT!"

The scream tore through the void. Something slammed into my chest—pure divine fury given form. White light exploded, and Thanaia's furious face was the last thing I saw before everything went black.

The darkness swallowed me, but this time I was falling. That stomach-dropping terror of plummeting through nothing.

'Where am I?'

Fear wrapped around my chest and squeezed. Time warped, seconds felt like hours. The falling never stopped.

Then sensation crept back. My fingers flexed, toes wiggled. I felt like I was being pushed, swallowed by something.

"AAAAAHHHHHH!"

Thud!

My ass hit something hard. My palms slapped rough stone. The scream echoed off walls.

I cracked my eyes open, blinking. I was in a cave. Rough stone walls, slick with moisture. Stalactites hung like teeth. The air smelled of damp earth and something metallic.

Then I heard it. Choking, irregular sobs.

I turned around.

In a shallow hollow in the cave's center, a kid lay bound. Thick ropes bit into small wrists and ankles. His face was streaked with tears, eyes wide with terror above a gag. He couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen.

He was tied in the center of a circle carved into the floor. Intricate symbols that hurt to look at pulsed in torchlight. Candles placed at precise intervals.

But what made my breath hitch were the five cloaked figures standing around the perimeter.

Every single one was staring directly at me.

"Who are you?" one said.

Before I could process it, another spoke. "Could it be that our lord has sent us his chosen sacrifice?"

My heart clenched. The bound kid, the ritual circle, the cloaked figures looking at me like I was some divine gift.

'Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! Shouldn't have pissed off a goddess.'