I feel a pressure pushing me out and feel an intense pain pushing me from all sides.

“WAAA” I cant help but scream out from the intense pressure putting down on me as I hear voices all around me talking in whats clearly Japanese. I know nothing about this language. My underdeveloped ears are also struggling with picking up specific sounds so everything’s just sort of a blurry mess of sounds and lights. I see a lot of interesting blurs as they move into focus, I see my mother smiling nicely at me holding me closely as her face is the first to fully come into focus.

Short dark green hair that can’t be natural, small freckles on her face and hazzle eyes looking down on me fondly as she takes labored breaths. I… I hope shes okay with me.

Several days pass

The last couple days have been a bit of a blur my body needs a lot of time to sleep and I can’t stay awake or fully aware for most of the day. I mostly just eat, expel and sleep. I try to make it a bit better for my mom by not being bothersome, but I don’t exactly have much choice in how often I make a mess much to my embarrassment -sigh- I just don’t want to be a bother.

I finally have a bit of awareness time to try out the system skill thing the voice told me about.

I mentally call out (system)

Name: Haruto Ikami

Age: 0 years 6 days

Carried over skills: Rebirth.

Health status 100/100

Afflictions: Chronic Ear infection, slight fever

Current skills

Disease resistance lvl 1 (inborn skill) (empty) (empty) (Empty) (Empty)

Interesting I mean disease resistance is helpful in letting me survive. I feel the pain in my ear but I can’t really do much about it. That’s likely what gave me the inborn skill thankfully it feels like it will help me deal with it faster. A bit of a shame it’s a skill that I can’t really level up without willingly getting myself sick.

I have to consider what kind of skills I want to try to use in the future. I just need to survive to the age of 18 that shouldn’t be that hard in a modern world like this one, but I need to be careful. People die to random accidents every day or starve due to not being able to afford food. I noticed mom is a little thin and our house… well more of a studio apartment doesn’t exactly speak of wealthy. Now that I recall japan has a bit of an overpopulation problem per square mile. I also notice a distinct lack of a father. So, mom is likely a single mother. -sigh- this is going to be rough.

I start going through the different available skills. They seem to be all various common skills in everyday life. Like cleaning, running, poison resistance. Things that people may naturally have a bit of skill for or have developed over time due to training against exposure to specific substances. This seems to take those and make them a bit more special. Theres nothing fantastical like fire magic or resistance at best theres temperature acclimation.

Deciding on two of my skills I lock them in. I’ll figure out what else I need as I get older and gain a better understanding of what I need to survive here. I WILL survive.

Name: Haruto Ikami

Age: 0 years 6 days

Carried over skills: Rebirth.

Health status 100/100

Afflictions: Chronic Ear infection, slight fever

Current skills

Disease resistance lvl 1 (inborn skill) Studying lvl 1 Metabolism lvl 1 (Empty) (Empty)

I decided on these two skills first because first I want to better understand things going on around me. I also think that if it improves my ability to study and understand things I’ll be able to better survive in situations I’ve studied before. I chose Metabolism because I need to be able to survive on low amounts of food if we are very poor. It will also help if we become homeless since I am already disease resistant and if I can survive on less food… It’s not ideal but I can better scavenge since I will require less. I’ll reserve one of my skills for some form of martial arts but the other I’ll leave open in case of emergency depending on the situation.

6 years pass

I’ve learned the local language. Once I got the study skill, It was much easier to progress things. We never became homeless, but we never really earned much money. Mom works as a waitress at a restaurant and has a night job sewing at a factory. I see her health declining and I try my hardest to cheer her up when she is here. For the most part I am looked after by our neighbors and some of the other kids in the apartment complex. Thankfully I am not a very needy kid, so I never really ask for anything other then books which my mom did the smart thing and just got a library card and on her days off work goes there to get new stories to read to me. She looks sad when she gets home sometimes and the only food, we have is Ramon and sometimes some vegetables she gets from the open market for cheap.

I’m glad I chose the Metabolism skill so I don’t need as many nutrients as usual, even then, mom encourages me to eat more. She keeps letting herself go hungry, sometimes she just keeps trying until I decline any more food. She leaves it out stubbornly waiting for me to cave in and eat it. But eventually her stomach grumbles before mine and relents and finally eats it herself. She loves me so much… its hard seeing her falling apart like this to try to let me live…

Thanks to this somewhat strict low food lifestyle my Metabolism skill has leveled up a lot. It took awhile to understand what exactly my skills did until I messed around with my status for a while.

[Skill Study lvl 50]

[Description: When attempting to learn a subject increase comprehension by lvl %

Lvl 25: When studying a subject view every detail lvl % faster

Lvl 50: when studying gain a slight understanding of if your impression of something is correct or not.]

[Skill: Metabolism lvl 35]

[Description: require lvl % less food to survive cap of 90%.

Lvl 25: require lvl % less nutrients to maintain a healthy diet.]

I didn’t even realize that the skill was only based on food for survival and didn’t think of nutrients until I got the advancement. I noticed immediately my complexion started to improve my skin started to get a bit less pasty. Today I start the first day of school! I’m going with some of the other kids in the block I’m really looking forward to it since I’ve been working hard to improve my study skill and I have the advantage of being an adult in a child’s body. I’ll be like a prodigy at this age and improve my families standing. Mom don’t you worry I’ll make you proud.

I take a look at myself in the mirror before getting ready. I am fairly average size for my age, dark green hair like my mom in a short cut which apparently is a thing in this world? I’ve noticed people with purple and pink hair so maybe this isnt the earth I knew of. I have trained myself a bit to run around as a kid playing outside as much as I can and mooching off our neighbors for food whenever I can, the little things I can do to lessen the strain on mom. Its easy being a kid and just follow other kids when they are getting food. It guilts their parents into getting me food too since they are watching over me too and I’m the only one that didn’t bring money for the food truck.

I noticed there aren’t really many differences between this world and the world I’m from other then the hair color and social media seems to be different too. Many of the same general trends and likes but different names or different shows existing. I used to watch and read a lot of stuff but I didn’t particularly care for it all so I don’t really know exactly whats different or the same.

I watch mom make my lunch which is some rice and veggies packed nicely. She’s only 26 but I noticed a few grey hairs starting already. I worry about her some days.

I’m snapped out of my thoughts when mom starts talking to me.

“Alright little Haru its time for you to go meet with the others. I’m so HAPPY you can start your first day of school. I’m sorry mommy can’t be with there with you but I have work. I’ll be sure to ask you all about it when I’m home though. So do your best to make some friends okay!” Mom leans down and smiles while giving me some kisses on the cheeks. It’s a bit embarrassing but it’s not like it’s in front of anyone and considering how hard she works for me it’s the least I can do to put up with a bit of embarrassment for her to be happy.

“Thanks mom. I… I’ll try to make some friends. I’ll be sure to make you proud!”

“Haha little Haru I’ll always be proud of you no matter what you do.” she pats my head and holds me close.

“Just grow up to be big and happy and live your life to the best of your ability. That’s all I’ll ask for and then I’ll be happy.” She holds me and I feel bad. I don’t know if I can really be happy... My soul is still fractured I don’t feel a passion for anything other then to survive and possibly feel the passion others around me do.

“Thanks mom. I… I love you.” I can also feel an attachment to her. My last family I wasn’t really close with my parents. I didn’t think much of it until they are gone. I felt a pain at never seeing them again but then it just sort of faded since I never really got to know them as anything other then just a parent figure. Seeing how much my mom puts into making sure I’m okay I feel a bit bad.

“Awww my little guy is all embarrassed. I love you too more then anything in the world!” She picks me up and spins me around in our small space. I feel her arms shaking a bit at my weight before she sets me down.

“Now you best be off! You don’t want to be late to catch up with the others.” My mom breaths a bit winded. She moves to the counter giving me my lunch box and hands me a notebook for notes. I think she doesn’t understand what age kids at school really start to learn.

“Bye mom!” I move to the neighbors’ place where I see the parents there with their son Takashi Komuro. We grew up together going to the same kindergarten. Him, Rei Miyamoto and Saya Takagi are the only people I really talked to there. Saya doesn’t seem to like me all that much but she is the rich kid, so I use my connection to the other two to get free stuff from hanging out with all of them.

It’s kind of cute watching them get older talking about pinky promises to get married. Rei and Takashi have a little romance going on promising to marry each other when they are older. I think its nice that they have that strong of a bond so early. I just sort of hang out around them to mooch food so I’m not really strongly attached to them but Rei’s dad works for the police and makes a lot of money so I’m friendly with them to be invited over with Takashi.

Takashi is slightly taller than me likely due to a better diet with short purplish hair and gold eyes. Its pretty cool looking with his spiky anime like hair.