Is this the afterlife?

  Am I dreaming?

  How am I back in my younger body?

  Was that whole life a dream?

  What day is it?

  Hell, what year is it?

  What the hell is going on?

  There's so much going on in my head. Calm down. Breathe. Look around and get grounded.

  At first, all I saw was a young boy, barely a teenager. Short white hair, green eyes, no scars. I barely recognized myself. Now I remembered; this is what I looked like before everything went wrong.

  I pulled my gaze away from the mirror and looked around the room. The walls were hardly filled with anything, a couple of posters of video games, one of a band, and a banner with "Hard Work" painted on it. There was a large bookcase filled with academic works and a much smaller one with some manga and a figurine of an action hero in red armor on it. All in all, a pretty standard "gifted" child's room.

  I saw a uniform from Ayamake Junior High hanging up, and the sound of my alarm finally goes off. It was Wednesday, and I was about to be late for school. This was the day I discovered I had the abilities that I would grow to despise. In my previous life, I slept through my alarm this morning and had to sprint to school. The entire time I wished I could go back and wake up earlier. When I finally reached the locked gate, my wish became the only thing I was thinking of, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in my bed with the alarm going off.

  I thought it was a bad dream at the time, but everything that I had to avoid the first time was still there. It took a while to piece everything together, but I finally arrived at the conclusion that I could control the flow of time. I snapped out of reminiscing and rushed to get dressed then ran downstairs. My father worked abroad as a liaison of some sort to a big time corporation, my mother - a nurse - had an overnight shift at the hospital, and my older sister had gone to school early for student council work. I grabbed some toast and tried to gather my thoughts before heading out.

  I barely remembered the layout of the house: it had been so long since I had been here. Not to mention this smaller body wasn't really mine, so naturally I struggled to get my clothes on and fell down the stairs due to poor coordination. I moved around to get used to my old body before walking out and trying to remember where school was and how to get there. I might have ended up being late anyway since nothing seemed familiar.

  As I walked, however, memories slowly came back, and it got easier. People were out talking with each other and carrying on about their mornings. Other kids ran by me in the same uniform, but I had almost no memory of their faces. I had killed so many people in my previous life that all of the faces had blended together.

  "Kazu!"

  A voice called out from behind me. I turned to see a girl my age running toward me. It was Tachibana Chika, my friend since childhood. She was shorter than me even after she hit puberty. Her green eyes and short light brown hair added to her childish appearance. She caught up to me, out of breath.

  "I've been calling you forever, were you ignoring me?" She said between pants. While not unhealthy, she was never athletic.

  "Sorry, I was... thinking about the test coming up," I made something up on the spot. I wouldn't be careless about my powers and who knew about them this time, and no one would believe me if I said I was from almost twenty years in the future.

  "Uh huh," she responded, "well," she started switching to a perky voice and slightly arrogant demeanor, "as punishment for making a young lady push herself this early in the morning, you're going to walk me to school."

  I barely remembered how our relationship was since we went to different high schools and drifted apart. This was already uncharted territory for me since in my previous life, I was already almost to school by this point. The fear of being late again made me get everywhere early after I discovered that I had my abilities.

  I sighed with a smile and agreed. She leaned over next to me and looked at me sideways with a curious gaze as if I had said something out of character. Our eyes met, and I froze up thinking I was already caught. Before, I had only noticed the overall green color, but now I saw the different shades and hints of blue, like looking at a large leaf after rain. Her hair slid out from behind her ear, and she gave me a laughing smile.

  "You really do love to play along with my games, Kazu. Let's go, or we'll be late," she said as she continued walking. "Have you thought anymore about what high school you want to go to? Toriyama High School is still my goal. Doesn't your sister go there too? I'm sure she would be the happiest in the world if you went there too."

  More memories came back, my sister constantly ogling me and her broken heart when I didn't go to her high school - she had a brother complex, I'm sure - and how proud my parents were when I went to Makarov Academy. In my precious life, I went to an exclusive private high school that was a cover for Eclipse's training. I still learned and excelled in conventional academics, but my days were spent training to be an asset to the organization that would later hunt me down, and I hardly had any contact with home.

  The two worst things that could have happened to me were going there and being selected as an assassin: no familial attachments makes the job easier, or so they say. I never thought that they would go so far as to eliminate them.

  I won't make that mistake again.

  "I'm still weighing my options," I finally replied. "I don't think having an overbearing sister bombarding me every day would be good for my grades. Although, it would be good to keep our friend group around for three more years."

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Chika and I were two of five friends that had been together since at least the beginning of our third year at Ayamake Junior High: Fujimori Denki, Chiba Ino, and Kensei Rito were the other three members. The most recent addition was Rito, the shortest of our group with amber hair and brown eyes. He was an overall average student who had a knack for getting into unlucky but lucky situations.

  Now that I think about it, he was probably a meta like me, and that was his ability. He definitely got the most unique one if that was the case.

  "Aww, you want to stay with me forever? I'm touched, Kazu," she said teasing me.

  "You know, contrary to your belief, not everything is about you, and you're not actually the center of the universe," I counter.

  "Then what is if not my innocent charm?"

  "I can go into it since you clearly don't pay attention in class."

  "Please, no, Kazu, I just woke up and don't want go back to sleep yet." The lighthearted exchange lasted until we got to school, but I wouldn't have minded if we never reached it. For a brief while, all the horrors of my precious life seemed to retreat to the back of my mind.

  We arrived at the school early despite our talks. Mr Kabushi, the gym teacher stood guard at the gate ready to lock it after the first bell.

  "Ishigami, Tachibana, good to see you this morning!" Everything he said was intense, even if it was intended to be kind.

  "Good morning, Mr Kabushi," we replied almost in unison. Chika almost sang her greeting, and I tried my best to remember how I acted in junior high. We walked through the wave of other kids to the lockers to switch our shoes, and Denki met us just after.

  "Good morning, you two," he started energetically. Fujimori Denki had been my friend since we started junior high.

  He was taller than me, more muscular, and had blue eyes and spiked blonde hair like his favorite anime character. His personality made him everyone's first choice when they needed anything. He embodied reliability and passion.

  "Are you ready for the test today?" He asked.

  Wait, there was actually a test today? Why didn't I remember that?

  "Wait, there's actually a test today?!" Chika blurted out. "I thought Kazu was just embarrassed that he was thinking about me and made something up!" Well, she was half right.

  "Yes, the biology test, the one that got pushed back until today since Ms Tsuya got sick. And please stop teasing poor Kazuma, he was probably going over everything getting ready for it, unlike you who clearly forgot," Denki replied. He was completely wrong, but a valiant effort.

  "I'll have you know," Chika countered, "that Kazu said he wants to stay with me forever and decided to go to Toriyama High with me."

  "Wait, what?" Denki and I said in unison. Before anything else could be said, Mr Kabushi yelled at us to get to class, and I kept my perfect attendance record just like before.

  In class, I sat towards the front closest to the window. The weather outside made concentrating fairly easy, even when the weather turned sour. It became something like background noise or mood lighting. Late spring time was the best because it was either sunny or raining which were both ideal for my concentration. Today was no different.

  After first period, Chika and Denki came to my desk. Chika fell at the front of my desk.

  "Kazu, I'm begging you," she said in a mopey but somewhat cute voice, "please don't let me fail this test! I kept putting off studying to watch anime and lost track of time!"

  "He's not actually a god," Denki said as he stood there with his arms crossed. "Sure, he's probably in the top tier of athletes and academics in the school, but..." he collapsed by my desk as Chika had. "Please, almighty Kazuma, don't let me fail this test! I thought I studied enough but I've forgotten everything already!"

  They both took a break from their crocodile tears to look at me with innocent puppy eyes.

  I sighed. "Fine, pull up a chair. The 'almighty Kazuma' will do what he can."

  We studied until it was time to start the next class, and I felt fairly confident that both of them would pass. Unfortunately, I was going to go to the bathroom during break, so now I'd have to deal with that for the whole period.

  I finished long before anyone else in my class and had time to double check my answers before anyone else looked close to being done. I finally turned in the test after what seemed like an eternity and asked if I could use the restroom.

  For some reason, Ms Tsuya denied me and sent me back to my seat. With nothing left to occupy my mind, all I could think about was how badly I had to go. The first eternity waiting to turn my test in paled in comparison to this wait. I tried to think of something, anything, to focus on instead of my aching bladder.

  My first thought was to rewind myself and go during break instead of helping my friends, but I quickly pushed that aside. In my previous life, I might have since I quickly became arrogant when I found out I had my abilities, but I knew I had to be more careful with them this time around. I thought I could freeze time long enough to slip away, but the amount of concentration it would take would probably result in an accident. That would probably also happen if I tried to rewind. I could try to skip ahead to the next break, but I've never tried a forward skip. I imagine I would have an accident a lot sooner since it would take more concentration having never done it before, so that option was thrown out.

  I shifted my thoughts away from getting out and focused on how I got into the situation in the first place. Pushing aside the obvious happenings of the day, I focused deeper.

  How did I get back almost 16 years when I've only ever jumped a couple of hours once in my life?

  Every other time I tried to jump more than a couple of minutes, I got a splitting headache that lasted days.

  Was my will just not strong enough? The first time, I was desperate to keep my perfect attendance; the second time, I was desperate to keep my life.

  Maybe sheer desperation was what was needed to make longer jumps... maybe intense emotions were the key. The issue with that was that when I tried after Eclipse took my family, I was filled with sorrow and rage, but I failed to jump back and save them; suffered those consequences until the end. It made no sense how my own life apparently mattered more to me than my beloved family.

  I replayed the broken memories of my childhood: my parents and their love for my sister and me as well as each other, my sister and her often overwhelming love for me, holidays and vacations together, my father getting his job abroad but still making time to see us by any means possible, my sister being elected to the student council, my mother patching me up whenever I got hurt, my family's reactions to me being recruited to Makarov Academy, the news of their deaths. My breathing became heavy and shaken, tears filled my closed eyes. When I forced myself out of thought and opened my eyes, I looked around to see that everyone was frozen in place.

  A young girl turning in her test stood like a statue mid-step. Another stuck reaching for her eraser. A boy petrified as he tossed his marked pencil to find an answer. Another sat still as he pulled out a book to read. I looked around panicked because I hadn't thought of freezing, I had completely forgotten about my full bladder at this point. I focused hard to unfreeze everyone, but they still stood locked in time.

  This has never happened before. I've always been able to undo freezing. What is going on? How am I doing this?

  I racked my brain for any possible solution but found nothing. I had somehow permanently frozen time.