I stood in my apartment, my Zolda Advent Deck gripped tightly in my hand, waiting for the inevitable prompt. A moment later, the translucent blue screen flashed violently in front of me.
[Incoming Travel Request: Shou Tucker's Residence, Amestris]
[Accept? Y/N]
I tapped 'Y' without a single second of hesitation.
The transition was instantaneous. The familiar sensation of gravity inverting and reality shifting pulled at my gut, exactly like the mission deployment earlier today. When I opened my eyes, the dim, cramped walls of my Fuyuki apartment were gone.
I was standing on a stone pathway in the middle of a spacious, incredibly well-kept yard. The grass was vibrant green, bathed in the warm light of the afternoon sun, and a large, two-story brick house stood imposing but peaceful in front of me. It looked utterly idyllic. The perfect, quiet suburban home. It made my skin crawl knowing what was inside.
I pushed the dark thoughts aside and turned my head, instantly spotting my fellow multiversal traveler.
Lucy Heartfilia.
She looked exactly like her anime counterpart—long, bright blonde hair tied up with a ribbon, her signature blue and white sleeveless outfit, and the heavy ring of golden celestial keys jingling at her hip. It was honestly a little surreal seeing the 2D design translated so perfectly into living, breathing reality, but she was undeniably cute.
She was currently brushing off her skirt, looking around the yard with wide, excited brown eyes before her gaze finally landed on me. Both of us froze in surprise for a split second, taking each other in.
———
[Lucy Heartfilia POV]
The weird, floating screen hadn't been lying! One second I was standing on the noisy cobblestone streets of Magnolia, and the next, a flash of light had deposited me in a completely different world.
"Wow..." I breathed, taking in the grand brick house, the perfectly manicured lawn, and the beautiful flowerbeds. "Mr. Tucker must be a really successful wizard to have an estate like this!"
I turned around to see if our host was waiting for us, but my breath hitched in my throat the moment my eyes landed on the only other person standing in the yard.
It wasn't Mr. Tucker. It had to be the other chat member. Kenji.
My heart gave a sudden, violent flutter. I had met a lot of guys in my life—wealthy aristocratic suitors my father had tried to set me up with, handsome mages from various guilds—but the boy standing a few feet away from me was on an entirely different level.
He was tall, wearing a simple hoodie and dark pants that somehow looked perfectly tailored to his athletic frame. His pale, sandy-blonde hair caught the sunlight, framing a face with such sharp, refined, and regal features that he looked like a prince who had just stepped straight out of a fairy tale. But it was his eyes that completely froze me in place—a striking, intense shade of gold that looked both ancient and incredibly commanding.
He was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most handsome and refined man I had ever seen in my entire life.
He noticed me staring. The intense, serious look he had been wearing melted away into a soft, genuinely warm smile that made my cheeks instantly erupt into flames.
He took a few steps toward me, moving with a quiet, effortless grace, and reached out a hand.
"You must be Lucy," he said, his voice smooth and polite, carrying a natural elegance that made my stomach do absolute backflips. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I'm Kenji Sato."
I stared at his outstretched hand for a second, my brain completely short-circuiting under his golden gaze, before I frantically wiped my own slightly sweaty palm on my skirt and took his hand. His grip was firm, warm, and surprisingly calloused.
"H-Hi!" I stammered, internally cursing myself for sounding so squeaky and flustered. "I'm Lucy! Lucy Heartfilia! It's, um, it's really nice to meet you too, Kenji!"
We both turned at the sound of a heavy wooden door creaking open. Stepping out onto the porch was a mild-mannered man with wire-rimmed glasses and a seemingly gentle, welcoming smile.
"Ah, you must be my multiversal guests," Shou Tucker said, clasping his hands together. "Welcome, welcome! I am so thrilled the invitation worked."
I instantly beamed, stepping forward and offering a polite bow. "Thank you so much for having us, Mr. Tucker! Your home is absolutely beautiful."
I glanced over at Kenji. For a split second, a shockingly dark, intense look flashed across his golden eyes as he stared at our host. But he blinked, and it vanished so quickly I thought I might have imagined it. He delayed for just a second before pasting on a polite, charming smile.
"It's a pleasure," Kenji said, though his voice sounded just a tiny bit strained.
"Please, come inside! I was just preparing some tea," Tucker said, gesturing warmly toward the open door.
I eagerly trotted up the wooden steps, excited to see the inside of an otherworldly mage's laboratory. Mr. Tucker walked in behind me, and Kenji followed a few paces back.
As soon as I stepped into the main living room, my foot bumped against something wet on the floor. I looked down, and my blood ran completely cold.
"KYAAAAA!"
———
[MC first pov: Kenji Sato]
I stepped over the threshold, the heavy wooden door clicking shut behind me. I was just mentally calculating exactly how to get Lucy out of the room so I could snap Tucker's neck with my bare hands, when a sudden, ear-piercing scream shattered the quiet house.
It was Lucy.
I surged forward, clearing the hallway and bursting into the main living room.
I expected to see a chimera. I expected to see Tucker holding a knife.
Instead, I saw Lucy backed up against the wall, her hands over her mouth in sheer horror. And lying in the center of the room, pooling blood onto the expensive rug, was Shou Tucker.
He was dead. His chest had been slashed open with a clean, brutal, and highly efficient blade strike.
I stood there, completely frozen. My brain stuttered.
I wasn't horrified. I was pissed.
'Are you kidding me?!' I screamed internally, glaring down at the corpse. 'I couldn't even kill him with my bare hands?! Who stole my kill?!'
Then, the confusion hit. This made absolutely no sense. Edward and Alphonse Elric hadn't even arrived here yet in the timeline. The horrific chimera experiment hadn't happened. Scar wasn't supposed to show up and execute Tucker until after the Elric brothers discovered the truth. And Scar used alchemy to destroy brains and organs, not a sword.
Someone else was here. And they used a blade.
My eyes widened. Nina. I spun on my heel, entirely ignoring Tucker's corpse, and sprinted down the hallway toward the back of the house. I kicked the door to the study open, found it empty, and immediately bolted for the remaining rooms.
I found the little girl's bedroom just as the door was pushed ajar. A shadowy figure in a dark trench coat was standing over the small bed, a sleek, modern-looking blade raised high, ready to plunge down into the sleeping child.
"Get away from her!"
I didn't even bother transforming. I just ripped the Zolda Magnum—the massive, heavy green firearm attached to my deck—straight out of my inventory. I aimed and pulled the trigger.
VWOOOM-CRACK!
A concentrated blast of green energy slammed directly into the intruder's side. The sheer kinetic force lifted them off their feet and blasted them straight through the exterior wall of the bedroom. Brick and wood shattered outward into the backyard, leaving a massive, gaping hole in the side of the house.
Nina jolted awake, screaming in absolute terror at the explosion and the sudden rush of wind. A large, fluffy white dog—Alexander—began barking frantically from the corner of the room.
"Kenji!" Lucy yelled, sprinting into the room behind me. She already had a golden celestial key gripped tightly in her hand, her face pale but determined. "What's going on?! I can help!"
"No, stay here!" I ordered, keeping my eyes fixed on the dust clearing from the hole in the wall. I glanced back at her. "Watch the girl! A child needs someone she can depend on right now, especially with what just happened to that monst—to her father!"
Lucy hesitated, looking at the crying little girl, then nodded firmly. "I've got her. Be careful!"
I didn't wait. I leaped through the shattered wall, landing squarely in the grassy backyard. The dust from the brickwork was settling, revealing the figure slowly pushing themselves up off the ground.
I raised the Zolda Magnum, aiming it squarely at their chest.
The figure stood up, brushing masonry dust off their trench coat. They didn't look like a native of Amestris. They looked up, and my golden eyes locked onto the device strapped around their waist.
A silver buckle with a single slot on the right side. The Lost Driver.
The intruder's gaze shifted from my face down to the massive green gun in my hand, and then to the V-Buckle and Advent Deck strapped to my own waist.
They froze.
We stared at each other. The recognition was instant and mutual. Nobody in the Fullmetal Alchemist universe had Kamen Rider gear.
'Another reincarnator,' I realized, my grip tightening on the Magnum. I had assumed Subaru, Kobayashi, Saki, and I were the only ones. Apparently, the multiverse was a lot more crowded than I thought.
"Who the hell are you?" I demanded, keeping my weapon leveled.
The guy didn't answer. His hostility didn't lessen at all; if anything, he grew even more wary, his posture shifting into a highly trained combat stance. His hand hovered over a small, USB-like device attached to his belt.
I looked closer at the device, and a sudden, violent wave of sheer, unadulterated jealousy crashed over me.
It was a purple Gaia Memory with an ornate 'S' on it.
The Skull Memory.
This guy didn't just have a Lost Driver. He had the gear for Kamen Rider Skull—one of the most legendary, hardboiled, fan-favorite Riders in the entire franchise. He got the cool trench coat, the fedora aesthetic, and the awesome Magnum, while I got the clunky green bull armor.
'Oh, I am definitely going to beat the crap out of you now,' I thought, my eyes narrowing in pure spite.
The wind blew through the quiet Amestris backyard, kicking up a few loose leaves. We stood ten paces apart, locked in a tense, Western-style showdown. I had the Zolda Magnum resting at my hip, my finger itching on the trigger. He had the Skull Magnum drawn and resting at his side, his thumb curled over the hammer.
We both stared each other down, waiting for the other to draw.
The silence in the backyard stretched, pulling tight as a piano wire. Then, a single leaf drifted down between us.
We drew at the exact same time.
Bang! Vwoom! I threw myself to the left, hitting the dirt as the supersonic crack of his bullet sliced through the air right where my shoulder had been a millisecond prior. He combat-rolled to the right, moving with terrifying agility as my concentrated blast of green energy scorched a massive trench into the grass where he had just stood.
We scrambled for cover behind the debris of the shattered brick wall, instantly trading a rapid, unrelenting barrage of gunfire. Wood splintered and stone exploded around me as his Magnum barked. I popped out from behind a jagged chunk of drywall, returning fire with three heavy blasts that forced him to dive behind a stone birdbath.
He was fast, and his aim was incredibly sharp. I knew I had to get a definitive advantage.
We both broke cover at the same time, stepping out into the open and circling each other in the center of the yard, guns leveled at each other's chests.
Without a word, we both made our moves. He flipped the purple Skull Memory into the air, catching it cleanly, while I drew my Advent Deck.
"Henshin!" we shouted in absolute unison.
He slammed the Memory into the Lost Driver.
[SKULL!] A wave of purple energy washed over him, assembling the sleek, skeletal black-and-silver armor of Kamen Rider Skull, complete with the iconic torn scarf and the white fedora.
Simultaneously, I slapped the deck into my V-Buckle. Green light exploded outward, snapping the heavy, mechanical, bull-horned armor of Kamen Rider Zolda into place.
I stood there in my full armor, staring him down. He had the hardboiled aesthetic, sure. But I had a plan. It was time to completely aura farm on this lesser reincarnator.
I lowered my weapon slightly, tilting my horned head. I began adopting a calm, ominously knowing tone that resonated deeply through my suit's vocals.
"It's just as I suspected," I said.
I did the signature Obito arm drape—sweeping my hand slowly across my face in a dramatic, sweeping arc to simulate disappearing. Skull flinched, his posture tightening as he raised his gun, clearly expecting me to unleash some massive, reality-bending jutsu or a devastating cheat skill.
Instead, under the cover of the dramatic movement, I had grabbed a large, jagged shard of a broken mirror that had fallen from a vanity inside the destroyed bedroom. As I pulled it up, I willed my connection to it and stepped backward.
The reflective surface rippled like water, and I fell perfectly into the Mirror World, vanishing from the real world completely.
From the gray, reversed silence of the Mirror World, I watched him. Skull was standing in the real backyard, his gun raised, his fedora dipping as he looked around frantically. He was completely stunned. He probably thought I had Kamui or some ridiculously broken teleportation magic.
I didn't waste a single second. I rushed to the exact spot where he was standing on the other side. Through the dimensional barrier of the glass shard now lying in the gray grass, I could see his boots.
I reared back, thrust my armored arm forward, and forcefully punched straight through the mirror.
In the real world, my hand materialized out of thin air, grabbing Skull squarely by the collar of his trench coat. Before he could even shout, I ripped him backward, pulling him violently through the mirror and into my domain.
He crashed onto the colorless grass of the Mirror World, rolling hard before springing to his feet. He aimed his Magnum wildly at the muted, inverted landscape, his head darting around in utter confusion.
I stepped out from behind a reversed, gray tree, my massive green armor humming with power in its native environment.
"Now we won't have a bad time," I muttered to myself. I wouldn't accidentally blow up Lucy, Nina, or the rest of the neighborhood with stray crossfire. Here, I could go all out.
I summoned the Zolda Magnum back to my hands, locking my sights directly onto his silver skull helmet.
"This has to be the way."
———
The muted gray of the Mirror World lit up with flashes of green and purple. We kept our distance, strafing around the reversed, colorless trees and trading heavy, unrelenting fire.
He was an incredibly sharp shot, but the Zolda armor's targeting visor gave me the edge I needed. I anticipated his roll, tracked his trajectory, and squeezed the trigger.
The concentrated green blast clipped his shoulder. He grunted, stumbling backward and dropping to one knee as sparks erupted from his armor.
I kept the Magnum leveled at him, ready to finish this, but then he reached into his trench coat. Instead of a Gaia Memory or a secondary weapon, he pulled out... a card. I squinted through my visor. The brown, swirling backing was completely unmistakable.
I couldn't help it. A loud, genuine laugh echoed through my suit's synthesizers. "Are you serious? A Yu-Gi-Oh! card? What are you gonna do, summon Kuriboh on me?"
The guy finally made a sound—a sharp, amused scoff that filtered through his sleek helmet. With a flick of his wrist, he turned the card around.
The holographic image on the front glowed with an intense, blinding light. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
I instantly panicked. A massive, building-sized dragon of pure destruction was about to materialize in my face, and all I had was a big gun. I frantically looked down at the Zolda Magnum, my mind racing. If he could pull out trading cards, I had to match his firepower.
I reached into my system inventory and grabbed the dark, pulsing Summon Stone I'd received from the starter pack. Bahamut.
Across the gray grass, the reincarnator froze. Even through his helmet, I could tell he recognized the legendary Final Fantasy item in my hand. He knew exactly what was about to happen.
I didn't know if it would work without a proper Materia slot, but I was out of options. I jammed the Bahamut stone directly into the Advent Card slot of the Magnum.
The weapon hummed violently, the system seamlessly accepting the foreign item.
The gray sky above us tore open. On his side, a massive, brilliant white dragon with jagged wings and glowing blue eyes roared into existence, shaking the very fabric of the Mirror World. On my side, the dark clouds parted as Bahamut descended—a terrifying, colossal dragon of dark scales and apocalyptic power, its wings unfurling with a deafening screech.
Below his dragon, the stranger reached for his Lost Driver. With a sharp click, he removed the Skull Memory. The purple armor dissolved entirely.
He looked to be about twenty years old, with a face that was slightly above average—the kind of guy you'd easily pass by in an arcade or a convenience store back in my old world.
But it was his eyes that caught me completely off guard. There was no fear of the massive dragon looming over me. There was only a profound sense of relief, and a deep, burning longing.
The tension in the air shifted. It felt offset, almost entirely detached from the grim reality of the death game we were caught in. My mind instantly drew the parallel. This felt exactly like Yuta Okkotsu facing down Ryu Ishigori in the Culling Games from Jujutsu Kaisen. Two reincarnators, pushing their absolute limits in a pure, unadulterated clash of souls.
I couldn't help but smile. A loud laugh escaped my chest as I reached up, unlatching the heavy, bull-horned helmet of the Zolda suit and pulling it off. I let the cool, stagnant air of the Mirror World hit my face, looking him dead in the eye with a wild grin.
We didn't need to say a word. We both pointed forward.
Above us, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon opened its maw, charging a blinding sphere of White Lightning. Bahamut leaned back, its jaws unhinging as it charged a devastating Mega Flare.
The two blasts fired simultaneously, colliding in the dead center of the Mirror World.
The shockwave nearly blew me off my feet, but Bahamut was simply on another level of raw, catastrophic power. The dark energy of the Mega Flare slowly overwhelmed the white beam, swallowing the Blue-Eyes completely before crashing down onto the stranger's side of the field in a blinding explosion.
When the light finally faded, I stood up, dismissing my armor entirely.
The stranger was lying on the scorched, gray grass. His body was burning, dissolving into faintly glowing particles of data and light. But as he looked up at the sky, he was smiling.
He weakly raised his hand and flicked his wrist. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon card sailed through the air, landing softly at my feet.
"Sorry," he coughed, his voice raspy but surprisingly calm. "I really didn't want to do this mission... but the entity that brought me here tasked me with eliminating the entire Tucker family. I didn't have a choice."
I reached down and picked up the card, staring at the fading reincarnator. The anger and spite I had felt earlier completely vanished, leaving only a quiet understanding.
"It's not your fault," I said quietly, offering him a solemn nod as the last of his form began to scatter into the gray wind. "We're simply two people on different sides."
I stepped closer, the adrenaline fading into a desperate need for answers. "Wait," I urged, dropping to one knee beside his fading form. "Before you go—who sent you? What entity? Are there more of you?"
He let out a weak, breathy laugh, the glowing data particles accelerating their climb up his trench coat. "Nah... just me. Been flying solo for a long time." He patted the Lost Driver still strapped to his waist, the silver buckle slowly turning translucent. "I'd leave you the Skull gear as an apology... but I promised I'd pass it down to my little sister if I ever cashed out."
I frowned, watching his chest begin to dissolve. "You're dying right now. How are you going to give it to her?"
"I'm immortal," he said, a genuine, tired smile spreading across his face. "Or, at least, I have been. I've been fighting in these system missions for what feels like centuries. Do you have any idea how boring it gets? I've never run into another reincarnator in all that time. Honestly... I was so glad to finally have a real fight. You really brought it, man."
I sat back on my heels, the weight of his words sinking in. Centuries of system missions, entirely alone. It made my single day in Fuyuki look like a tutorial level.
"What about you?" he asked, his voice growing fainter as his neck and jaw began to scatter into light. "What kind of world did your system drop you into?"
"Type-Moon," I answered honestly. "Fuyuki City. I'm right in the middle of the Fourth Holy Grail War."
His eyes widened slightly before he let out a harsh, barking laugh that quickly dissolved into a cough. "Fate/Zero?! Man, and I thought my mission handler was a sadist.
Talk about a brutal starting zone." He grinned, pointing a fading, translucent finger at me to try and lighten the mood. "Hey. You've got dragons and Kamen Rider gear. Do me a massive favor, alright? When you get back... make sure you kill that bastard Zouken."
My eyes snapped wide open.
Between the chaos of saving Saki, summoning Okita, and fighting another reincarnator, I had entirely neglected to think about the absolute worst existence currently lurking beneath Fuyuki City. The worm mage. Sakura Matou's tormentor.
My expression hardened into pure resolve, and I gave him a firm, absolute nod. "I'll burn him to the ground. You have my word."
"Good," he whispered, closing his eyes as a look of total peace washed over his features. "Name's Park Jin-woo, by the way. Give 'em hell... Kenji."
With a final rush of wind, Park Jin-woo shattered into a million specks of glowing light, scattering across the gray expanse of the Mirror World until there was absolutely nothing left but the quiet, inverted silence.
I stood up slowly in the colorless grass, slipping the Blue-Eyes White Dragon card securely into my pocket.
"Thank you, Jin-woo," I murmured to the empty air.
"Ah kinds funny his name was the same as Sung Jin-woo except his last name" i said absentmindedlyto myself "...And he did look somewhat similar too minus the absolute aura Sung had"
I turned around, finding the jagged shard of glass I had pulled him through. Stepping up to the mirror, I willed my connection to the real world, letting the reflective surface ripple like water.
I stepped through the barrier, the muted gray instantly washing away as the vibrant green grass, the warm afternoon sun, and the shattered brick wall of the Tucker estate materialized around me.