A superhuman I was decidedly not. What was I exactly? I was a... My name was…

No. That’s not right. It can’t be right… Why is it hard to remember things?

I looked down at myself and saw a very skinny, girly body intermittently wrapped with black electrical tape and wearing a torn black undershirt with an eroded picture of Pikachu on it.

This was decidedly not what I was wearing when I was driving to work this morning.

Why was I wearing electrical tape now? To resist ghosts, the answer was obvious.

Did I just get… isekai’d? Was I… in a magical world? I tried to think what my name was…

My name is Ash Sparks. I used a stolen beast core to awaken an ancient soul from an old skull and consumed it to gain power.

This is absolutely insane. Souls aren’t real… are they?

Clearly they are!

Focus. Observe. Understand. Adapt.

I looked up. A golden-eyed girl with distinctively fox-like features was sitting next to me inside my car, weeping softly.

She was wearing a black kimono-like outfit that was decorated in pretty, absurdly detailed, moving patterns of gold threads depicting flowers and men with swords who were fighting dragons.

“Hey. What’s going on?” I asked her. “Where am… ughhh...”

It was then that I realized that my Honda Accord was no longer in acceptable condition. It was, in fact, an utter, horrid wreck.

Questionable green and black mold was growing through the seats. The windshield, side doors, and mirrors were missing entirely. The roof was pitted with rusted holes, and a red cherry tree was growing right through the warped hood.

“Well, insurance isn’t going to cover this.” I blinked at the devastation of my vehicle.

Primordial tool of the Ancients.

Oh. I focused past the bush, looking into the distance. The city around me looked just as ruined and overgrown as my car.

Green mosses and large vines covered in colorful flowers stretched down. Numerous trees blossomed on the broken concrete, some hanging from buildings.

A skyscraper had toppled across the road long ago. Other rusted cars sat here and there, burned, overgrown wrecks, remnants of a bygone catastrophe.

Only a few skyscrapers were still standing, missing all of their windows. My favorite Starbucks at the corner of Third and Main looked like a tank had driven through it.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Where am I going to get my lattes now…?” I looked up and froze.

Above the city was an inexplicable… thing—a nightmarish monstrosity a thousand kilometers wide akin to something Hollywood producers would come up with to entertain moviegoers.

It hovered, no, stood above the devastated city, held up by hundreds of gargantuan yellow legs. I almost screamed, and then I remembered that this was not a horrific abomination, but simply Lord Boundless Chorus.

This was fine. This was normal. This was ordinary. Good ol’ Boundless-butt. Okay? Okay.

I blinked as two memories collided in my head, one in which I was a sixteen-year-old girl with dreams of wisdom and power and another in which I was on my way to work about to purchase a latte... until a yellow comet had come from the sky, and the world ignited, and I screamed as my eyes melted out of my face.

“Fuckin’ Deathstorm!” I swore.

The geisha looked at me. “Was it worth it?”

“No!” I shook my head as the two memories merged into a jumble of horrifying understanding. The distant future into which I had awakened was fucked. Absolutely, positively fucked.

The past had no knowledge of cultivation. None. Zero.

Deathstorm, damn it all!

“That’s an old human skull, not the bones of a mighty beast.” The fox-girl pointed at the skull sitting between my legs. “You are an idiot! This skull was clearly empty of divine power. Why in ninety-nine thousand hells did you waste my core on it?!”

“I, uhhh…” I opened my mouth then closed it again. I had no idea what to say. The Ash part of me was better with words.

“I’ll have you know these are my bones, thank you very much!” I grabbed my skull, looking directly at it. “Have some respect!”

I turned the skull to face her and clicked its jaw as if it was speaking. “What’s your name by the way, fox-lady?”

She rubbed her face tiredly, wiping tears out of her eyes. “Celes Rada.”

“I’m... Le... o... tt... bpff… Ash Sparks.” I offered my hand, my tongue failing to say my old name and also stumbling a little at the strange pronunciation of my new name.

Ash Sparks at the Deathstorm Convergence...

I shuddered as I thought about the longer version of my name and what it implied.

The kitsune geisha stared at my hand. Right. Twenty-first century hand gestures aren’t a thing anymore.

Cultivation is a thing though. Cultivators are a thing. Servitor spirits are a thing, aka bound-souls of creatures and men. I had consumed, bound a soul to myself. A soul of a very dead... Ancient.

My soul! I was dead? I was alive. Was this necromancy? Had I just necromanced myself back into being?

Having two memories in my head was somewhat befuddling.

My stomach growled. Eating souls didn’t fill me up one bit in terms of hunger—a rather disappointing development. I looked at the cherries hanging from the dashboard, reached out with my fingers to grab one, but then stopped.

The dew-covered fruit looked very tantalizing, but the Ash part of me knew that everything living in the Cursed City of the dead was contaminated with... something awful. The week-long stomach ache wasn’t worth it.

I drew my eyes away from the unnerving temptation of the cherries and looked at my kitsune companion. “Umm... Why are you crying?”

“That beast core you’ve just wasted... belonged to the High-Administrator, Enforcer of the Will of the Boundless Chorus, Han Axiom Sempiter.”

“You stole a beast core from the High-Administrator? How is this my problem?” the Ash part of me asked before I could stop myself.

“I was going to sell the orb in the market and buy my way out of Gold City,” Celes groaned. “When the Enforcer sends the hunters, who do you think they’re going to hack up first? Me or the one who smells of the orb’s power?”

I sniffed myself. I smelled like sweat and concrete dust.

I focused on seeing the foreign Qi in my aura. Brilliant sparks made up of a thousand colors appeared in my vision, dancing on my electrical tape.

The power of the beast core was still working its magic, pouring information and power from the skull into me. I shook my hands, trying to rid myself of the sparks, knowing fully well that they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I put my skull down on the windshield and gave it a gentle kiss on the forehead. It cracked, breaking apart into colorful sparks, spilling into ashes and dust, its power spent.

Goodbye, old me. Goodbye Starbucks, internet, comic books, office, bitcoins, interns, GLMs, and laboratory.

Everything I cherished was gone.

I sniffed, trying not to have a nervous breakdown.

I realized that I was having trouble remembering some specific names for some things, just like my old name. The beast core was certainly powerful, but it wasn’t perfect. Some of my knowledge had died with me, long ago.

I wasn’t even speaking or thinking in English. I was using a strange, warped language with clicks, far too many A’s, and missing tenses. How long has it been? How many centuries had passed between my last commute to the office and my life as Ash, the little thief?

“They’ll come for us both now,” the geisha exhaled, looking aghast.

“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked.

“High cultivators!” she replied, looking despondent.

“Listen,” I said, sighing, the adult part of me taking over the conversation. “I... I’m sorry.”

“You’re... sorry?” She blinked at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said with a nod. “I’m sorry that I took your beast core... Celes. I understand that you needed it yourself, but... Ash needed it more. I... I was tired of stealing things from down here, not knowing what they are for.”

“What’s done is done, I suppose,” she said, sighing.

“I was just a hungry thief up there.” I pointed at Boundless Chorus. “An orphan of the Deathstorm Convergence. My Master... taught me some really handy cultivation, told me to bring her things from the Cursed City, and then she... she betrayed me and abandoned me.”

“Was?” She squinted at me. “You... had a Master?”

“Yes.” I nodded, gritting my teeth. “I had a Master… once.”