Reincarnator Returns: Second Shot

Nieve stood frozen, a mixture of shock and awe on her countenance. The needle was perfectly placed. No mistakes, no fumbling around like she did.

Somehow, Eren performed even better than a seasoned doctor.

Perhaps the most surprising part was how he did it.

Eren flicked the needle. He didn’t gingerly insert it into the vein. He shot it a good few inches away from the skin like it was a dart. Even experienced doctors wouldn’t be so brash in placing a needle like that.

But somehow, his placement was perfect. This was not the kind of movement expected from a coma patient who just awoke after ten years. It almost seemed magical in how he did it so casually.

”You... you’re blessed with Psions,” she exclaimed.

He didn’t deny it.

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Nieve left the room, her glance lingering at Eren as she closed the door.

Eren felt sympathy for her. He was a medical student too, once upon a lifetime ago. He understood how it felt to be mired by expectations, especially when failure meant lifelong incompetence.

In the quest to find a cure for his crippling disease, he learned how to navigate the human body. Especially his own.

Acupuncture was essential there, so most of the supposed cures he found necessitated him pricking his own body with needles.

None of them worked, but that training ended up being useful in this case. To an amateur, the flying needle technique looked magical enough to be mistaken as Ræzoň.

Hopefully, that little trick was enough to convince the doctor that he wasn’t as fragile or clueless as they thought he was.

And about half an hour later, his stunt bore fruit. The door opened abruptly.

This time, it was Dr. Reid.

She was a woman in her early forties. Frizzy black hair, hardened brown bespectacled eyes, and multiple age lines around her face.

Dr. Reid was the complete opposite of Nieve. She was a true veteran. Her eyes reflected someone who’d been jaded by gruesome bodily injuries after years on the job.

She pulled a rolling chair beside him.

”It’s not the strangest thing for people to experience weird phenomena while they’re unconscious. Ever since the Cataclysm, nothing has been normal.

Humans wake up being able to phase through walls. Summon fire with a single snap. Or just like you, they find that they suddenly have talents they didn’t know they had.

This is all because of Psions. It seems that you are part of a small fraction of the population who’d been blessed with this magical mana. You can become an Awakener.”

Eren feigned surprise. He’d seen children, his peers, spontaneously awaken Ræzoň within themselves. Parents and families rejoiced at the emergence of a new cultivator. He never found out how that felt.

He couldn’t help but wonder what his life would have been if he’d been able to wield this power before. How easy his life would have been. How much more he could have experienced.

His ruminations persisted as Dr. Reid checked the medical machines around him. Heart rhythms were normal now. ”You’re looking healthy. I guess now’s as good a time as any.”

She made eye contact with him. Kept it steady. There was seriousness in her gaze, a bit of pity. And guilt.

”You’re not supposed to know this until after you’ve completed your rehab, but we need your help. We need everyone’s. Only awakeners like you can save us,” she said.

Awakeners. Is that what they call cultivators in this world? Eren guessed.

”What exactly am I trying to save us from?”

She gestured the remote towards the TV. It blipped on, giving the room a slight bluish tint.

”Earth. We want to save Earth from an apocalypse.” Her words served as a foreboding prelude to the show she was going to make him watch.

Had he returned to his original world just when its expiration date loomed by? Were the heavens cruel enough to give him Ræzoň and not give him the chance to use it?

Eren turned to the TV, heart beat rising.

Then, a cute, 2-dimensional dinosaur smiled at him.

”Heya kid! I bet you’re excited to cultivate your Psion and become one of the Awakened, right? But before you go off and become the superhero you’ve always dreamed of, you must first know how Psions came into this world.”

The crayon-colored Triceratops in a professor’s outfit waved at Eren. This was the most surprising thing he’d seen all day—and he’d been told the world was in an apocalypse.

It was such a stark contrast as to what Dr. Reid prefaced that he felt an actual headache from the backlash. Granted, it might have been the coma, but this certainly didn’t help.

”We’ve found that people take to bad news better if it’s packaged in a cute box,” his doctor justified.

This was cute?

”You don’t seem to find Mr. Saurus entertaining.”

”I’d rather have my bad news given straight up,” he replied, straining his voice.

Regardless of his grievances about the method of exposition, the dinosaur (Mr. Saurus) continued on with his happy retelling of the ongoing apocalypse.

”Ten years ago, Earth experienced a Cataclysm. Humans suddenly awakened supernatural abilities.”

The animation on the television changed. The new scene depicted a red, mystical glow randomly manifesting in the hearts of faceless humans.

”All over the world, people found themselves able to punch through concrete walls, jump up ten meters with a single leap, and become invulnerable to bullets.

Humans eventually learned the cause of this massive change. Psions. They were the invisible particles that spawned on Earth at the day of the Cataclysm. With it, people could break through their human limits and become literal superheroes.

But our celebrations didn’t last long...”

The scene shifted. Fiery smoke and dark clouds filled the Earthen skies.

Its grimdark appearance was only broken by a bright ball of blood red liquid in the air. A strange force twisted it, making it swirl and expand until it formed a flat, vertical oblong in the middle of a busy city street.

Men and women got out of their cars, looking up, just as a monstrous, clawed hand pierced through the blood gate.