Deus.Ex.Machina Chapter 1

I always thought the world would end with sirens, not with coffee and a missed bus.

But that's how my last day on Earth began.

Just , hunched in a jacket that had seen better years, sipping sludge out of a chipped thermos while waiting for a bus that was, as always, fashionably late. I had a part-ti gig at a hardware store, paid just enough to keep the lights on and the rent almost late. Nothing glamorous. Just shelves, screwdrivers, and that one coworker who never learned what personal space was.

"Yo! You spacing out again?" That'd be Eli, the aforentioned personal space violator. He slapped my shoulder like we were in a football huddle and not just trying to survive retail hell together. "Manager's gonna eat you alive if you clock in late again."

"Let her try. Maybe I'll finally get that sweet release of unemploynt," I muttered, downing the last of the lukewarm liquid misery I dared to call coffee.

Eli snorted. "You joke, but you'd be bored in like two days."

He wasn't wrong. I had…nothing else. No big dreams. No girlfriend. No special skills. Just an overactive imagination, a notebook full of half-finished inventions, and a bedroom that doubled as a fire hazard thanks to the sheer number of DIY projects stacked in every corner.

"You should've gone to school for engineering or sothing," Eli said as we crossed the parking lot. "You're like, weirdly good at building stuff. Rember that drone you made outta broken fans and PlayStation parts?"

"I rember the part where it caught fire."

"Details."

He grinned and walked off toward the loading dock, leaving standing there with my half-dead phone and the creeping realization that I wasn't really living. Just existing.

And then it happened.

No warning. No lights. No music. No grand cosmic announcent.

Just…nothing.

One mont I was stepping through the door to the store, the next I was—

Falling?

No.

Floating.

Like I'd been scooped right out of reality and dropped into soone's weird lucid dream. Everything around was dark, but not empty. There was a hum, deep in my bones. A pressure, like a thousand thoughts trying to shove their way into my skull.

My breath caught.

"Hello?" I said, because apparently that's what you do when space itself eats you. "Is this—am I dead? Because I didn't even get a cool death scene. No lightning strike, no monster attack, no piano falling from the sky—"

Nothing answered.

And then—

Light.

Soft, warm light. Like sunlight bleeding through a curtain.

But it wasn't Earth's light. It felt... too clean.

Then the light swallowed whole.

My eyes opened slowly, and everything was different.

The ceiling was high, decorated with gold leaf and delicate carvings. The sheets beneath were silk. The air slled like citrus and expensive perfu.

I tried to sit up. Everything hurt. But it was the good kind of pain—the kind that reminded you you're alive. Or... alive again?

"Master Leon. You're awake."

The voice was soft and respectful, like soone trained to speak to royalty. A maid—early twenties, uniform crisp, posture perfect—stood at my bedside. Her expression flickered with sothing between concern and quiet relief.

I blinked at her. "I'm sorry. What?"

"You've been unconscious for three days following your accident," she said gently. "There was concern… but the doctors say you'll make a full recovery."

"I—wait. Leon?"

She hesitated. "Leon Mishima, sir. Heir to Mishima Corporation. You're in the Mishima estate. The doctor said, that you might have so minor mory loss."

Mishima Corporation.

That na rang absolutely zero bells in my mind. Not from my world, anyway.

I sat there, trying not to panic. The maid bowed politely and stepped aside as an older man entered. Silver hair, immaculate suit, the kind of calm face that scread lawyer, but also possibly a hitman.

"Welco back, young master," he said. "I am Hayama, your family's steward. Please, take your ti. There's much to discuss when you're ready."

Oh god.

Reincarnated. Definitely reincarnated.

I stared at them—Hayama, the maid, the absurdly expensive ceiling—and then back at my own hands.

They weren't mine.

Slimr. Pale, but not sickly. Fingernails too clean. No burn scars, no calluses from handling junk electronics. These were the hands of soone who had never had to unjam a register during a Black Friday sale or spend four hours assembling shelves because the instructions were written in broken English and ancient malice.

This wasn't my body.

And yet… it felt like mine.

My head throbbed, like my brain was arguing with itself. I laid back down, pressing the heel of my palm into my forehead. "I need a minute," I murmured.

"Of course," Hayama replied smoothly. "Should I call for your physician?"

"No. I just…" I waved him off weakly. "I need to... think."

They left alone. Or maybe I stopped noticing when they left. The silence in the room was loud enough.

Then it started.

mories. Not mine.

They ca in flashes, like flipping through a photo album too fast. Laughter in a pristine courtyard. Expensive shoes clicking on marble floors. Language lessons. Corporate boardrooms. Formal events I'd never been invited to—standing tall in tailored suits I'd never owned, shaking hands with n who wore smiles like masks.

Leon Mishima.

Heir to Mishima Corporation. Only son. Polished. Reserved. A na that carried weight, not because of who he was, but because of the empire behind it.

And now that na belonged to .

I could feel the boundary between us—the old and this new identity—softening, blurring. I still rembered Eli's voice, the burnt-coffee mornings, my cluttered apartnt and its junkpile inventions. But those mories felt like they belonged to soone else now. A dream I'd woken from, still fresh but fading.

Leon's mories were clearer. Sharper. More... vivid. Like I'd lived them. Like I was him.

Or maybe that's what I was supposed to believe.

"Okay," I whispered to myself, hands gripping the silken sheets. "Okay. Don't panic. You're not crazy. You've just been... reincarnated. Into a rich kid. With a personal maid. And a hitman-looking butler. You're fine. Everything's fine. Totally normal Tuesday."

I needed to know more.

About this world.

Leon's mories didn't hold much about the outside world. They were full of polished business deals, school exams, and diplomatic etiquette—not news or internet culture.

So either this was just a very, very upscale version of my last life... or sothing weirder was going on, and I hadn't hit the "weird" part yet.

One step at a ti.

First, figure out how to walk in soone else's skin without tripping over the silver spoon lodged in his throat.

Then?

Well. If the universe had dumped here for a reason... I was gonna find it.

Even if I had to claw through marble floors to get to it.