The taste of blood filled Akira Yamamoto's mouth as the truck's grille crushed through his ribcage like a metallic predator devouring its prey. The sickeningly wet crunch of bones splintering echoed in his ears, drowning out the screams of horrified pedestrians. His vision blurred crimson as arterial spray painted the asphalt in abstract patterns of his final moments.

So this is how it ends, he thought, watching his own blood pool beneath the twisted wreckage of what used to be his body. The irony wasn't lost on him—thirty years of meaningless existence as a corporate slave, only to die because some drunk bastard couldn't stay in his lane.

The pain was excruciating at first, white-hot agony that made every nerve scream in unison. But as his life force ebbed away like water through a shattered dam, a strange numbness crept over him. His consciousness began fragmenting, memories of his pathetic life flashing before his dying eyes.

Empty apartment. Microwave dinners. Seventy-hour work weeks. No friends. No family. No love. No purpose.

What a fucking waste.

Darkness consumed him, and Akira Yamamoto ceased to exist.

The first sensation that returned was not sight, but the metallic tang of magic in the air—thick, oppressive, and utterly alien. Then came the screaming.

Not his own screaming, but the agonized wails of a woman in the throes of childbirth, her voice raw and desperate as she pushed new life into a world that seemed to hunger for violence. The sound cut through the fog of his consciousness like a blade through silk.

What the hell?

Light pierced his vision—not the sterile fluorescence of a hospital, but the warm, flickering glow of enchanted crystals mounted on stone walls. His body felt wrong, impossibly small and weak, as if he'd been compressed into something far too fragile to contain his adult mind.

"Push, my lady! The child crowns!" The voice belonged to an elderly woman whose hands were stained with birthing blood and other fluids he didn't want to identify.

Child? What child?

The realization hit him like a second truck. He was the child. Somehow, impossibly, he was being born. Again.

The world around him pulsed with contractions, squeezing him through a passage slick with blood and amniotic fluid. The sensation was nightmarish—being crushed and expelled simultaneously, as if the universe itself was rejecting his very existence.

Then he was free, gasping his first breath of air that tasted of iron and magic. Rough hands grabbed him, and he found himself staring up at faces that belonged in a medieval fantasy rather than modern Japan.

"A son!" the midwife announced, though her voice carried an undertone of disappointment. "The Duke has another son."

Another son. The words rang with significance he couldn't yet grasp, but something deep in his reborn mind whispered warnings.

The woman who had birthed him—his new mother—lay pale and exhausted on blood-soaked sheets. Her beauty was ethereal despite her current state, with silver hair that seemed to capture moonlight and eyes like chips of winter sky. But those eyes held no warmth as they looked upon him, only cold calculation.

"Damien," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "His name is Damien Ashford."

Damien Ashford. The name triggered a cascade of memories that weren't his own, flooding his consciousness with images of a world he recognized but had never lived in. A world from a web novel he'd read during countless sleepless nights—The Crown of Shadows and Light.

His blood ran cold as the pieces fell into place. He wasn't just reborn into any world. He was reborn as Damien Ashford, the second son of Duke Aldric Ashford. The villain. The pathetic, arrogant fool who would eventually be cut down by the protagonist in the most brutal fashion imaginable.

In the original story, Damien was everything wrong with nobility condensed into human form. Weak, spiteful, and utterly without redeeming qualities. He would grow up to torture commoners for sport, attempt to force himself on countless women, and ultimately meet his end when the hero Alex Brightblade slowly carved him apart piece by piece, keeping him alive just long enough to understand the magnitude of his sins.

The memory of that scene from the novel made his infant body tremble. The author had described Damien's death in excruciating detail—how Alex had started with the fingers, breaking each bone individually before moving to larger appendages. How Damien had begged and screamed and soiled himself as his body was systematically dismantled. How the crowd had cheered when his head finally rolled.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

"My lord," a gruff voice interrupted his spiraling panic. A massive man in dark leather armor knelt beside the bed, his scarred face twisted into what might have been concern. "The Duke awaits news of the birth."

Duke Aldric Ashford. His new father. A man whose very presence could freeze blood in veins, whose magical power was rivaled by few in the kingdom. In the novel, he'd been described as a force of nature wrapped in human flesh—beautiful, terrible, and absolutely ruthless.

"Tell my husband he has his spare," Duchess Ashford said with bitter exhaustion. "Perhaps this one will live long enough to be useful."

Spare. Even as an infant, he could feel the weight of that word. He wasn't the heir—that honor belonged to his older brother Marcus, the perfect golden child who could do no wrong. Damien was insurance, a backup in case something happened to the primary investment.

The servant bowed and left, his heavy footsteps echoing through corridors that Damien somehow knew were lined with the preserved heads of his father's enemies. The Ashford family didn't just defeat their foes—they made examples of them.

As the midwife cleaned him with rough efficiency, Damien's infant mind raced with the implications of his situation. He had been given a second chance at life, but in the worst possible circumstances. He was born into a family of monsters, destined to become the most hated villain in the story, and fated to die horribly unless he could somehow change everything.

But how could a baby—even one with adult memories—hope to alter the course of fate itself?

The answer came to him as he was wrapped in silk that probably cost more than his previous life's entire salary. Knowledge. He had read the novel, knew what was coming, understood the major plot points and character motivations. More importantly, he knew Damien's weaknesses and failures.

In the original story, Damien's downfall wasn't just his cruelty—it was his fundamental incompetence. He was weak because he never trained seriously. He was hated because he never learned empathy. He was defeated because he never understood his enemies.

But this Damien would be different. This Damien had thirty years of life experience, even if it was largely comprised of corporate drudgery. This Damien knew what was coming and could prepare for it.

As if summoned by his thoughts, the chamber door swung open with enough force to crack against the stone wall. The temperature in the room plummeted as Duke Aldric Ashford entered, his presence like a walking blizzard of controlled violence.

He was exactly as the novel had described—tall and imposing, with silver hair that matched his wife's and eyes like arctic storms. His face was carved from marble, beautiful in the way that glaciers were beautiful: stunning and utterly without mercy. Power radiated from him in waves that made the air itself seem to tremble.

"Show me," he commanded, his voice carrying the authority of someone accustomed to absolute obedience.

The midwife hurried forward, presenting Damien like an offering to some dark god. Those terrible eyes studied him with clinical detachment, as if he were a piece of livestock being evaluated for breeding potential.

"Weak," the Duke pronounced after a moment that felt like eternity. "But alive. That's more than we managed with the last three."

The last three? The casual mention of dead siblings sent ice through Damien's veins. The novel had never mentioned other children dying in infancy, but then again, why would it? Dead babies weren't relevant to the plot.

"Will he live, my lord?" the midwife asked nervously.

Duke Ashford's gaze never left Damien's face as he spoke. "Perhaps. If he's strong enough to deserve the Ashford name. If not..." He shrugged eloquently, the gesture somehow more threatening than any direct threat could have been.

In that moment, staring up at the man who was now his father, Damien understood the true nature of his situation. This wasn't just about avoiding his eventual death at the protagonist's hands. This was about surviving long enough to even reach that point. The Ashford family didn't tolerate weakness, and weak children had a tendency to suffer unfortunate accidents.

I have to become strong, he realized with crystal clarity. Not just physically, but mentally, magically, politically. I have to become everything the original Damien wasn't, or I won't live to see my fifth birthday, let alone my eventual execution.

Duke Ashford turned to leave, apparently satisfied with his cursory inspection. But at the doorway, he paused and looked back over his shoulder. For just a moment, his expression shifted—not to warmth, but to something that might have been expectation.

"Train him well," he told the midwife. "The world grows darker each day, and the Ashford bloodline will need every sword it can claim."

Then he was gone, leaving behind only the lingering chill of his presence and the unspoken promise of violence that hung in the air like incense.

As exhaustion finally claimed his newborn body, Damien's last conscious thought was a vow that burned in his infant heart like molten steel: I will not die as I'm supposed to. I will rewrite this story in blood if I have to. And when Alex Brightblade comes for me, he'll find that this villain bites back.

The room fell silent except for the gentle crackling of the enchanted crystals and the distant sound of steel on steel as guards practiced their deadly arts in the courtyard below. In the cradle of monsters, a monster was being born—but this one would be different from all who came before.

This one remembered dying once already, and had no intention of doing it again.