It started a long time ago, back at the beginning of my first life. I wasn't exactly born into the best family. My parents were drunkards who didn't give a shit about me. Sometimes they'd even hit me. I tried my best to avoid that.

And then one day, my mother got pregnant again. I still don't know why she didn't abort the baby, but it ended up in the creation of my little sister.

Kira.

And that day when I first saw her little face, I pledged that I would protect her. It was my duty as an older brother.

And so as she grew up, she knew her parents weren't good people. But they never laid a hand on her.

Why?

Because of me. I put the "spotlight" on myself.

I made myself the center of their attention. I was beat a lot for that. But whenever I was home, I would keep them from touching Kira. And while I was at school, Kira was at her own school. Our parents couldn't harm her there.

I did whatever to keep them off of Kira and keep their attention on me. Lie that I had bad grades, oppose them, yell, break something, anything that would shift their attention to me and away from my little sister.

As you would expect, gradually my hate for them grew. But school was my own escape. I had an amazing school life when I started high school.

I was the smartest one in our grade, I was incredibly popular, I had ton of friends, and I was even dating the most popular girl.

Life was great at school. That was...until that happened.

My girlfriend Kiera had called me to the back of the school. I had no clue why she had called me back there, but I went. I was a little worried she was going to break up with me.

It was much worse.

I was ambushed by a bunch of delinquents. Beaten to the ground with fists and pipes, leaving me bloodied, bruised, and...broken.

And the one behind it all was my own girlfriend Kiera. And when I weakly asked her "why"?, she gave me on reason.

"Because it's fun."

She didn't care about me. Never did. I was the prime target, the most popular boy in school. So she destroyed me completely.

Physically and mentally.

I had loved her, and then she betrayed me.

I went to the most popular kid to the bullied one which everyone avoided. Every single one of my friends had turned their back on me.

Only one person didn't; my sister.

Life went on like that for a while until something new happened. Our parents had abandoned us, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

I hated them. They didn't care for us, they abused us, and then they abandoned us.

I had been abandoned by my friends, my girlfriend, and my parents. They all abandoned me. And why? Because I had the spotlight, and that gave me the problems that brought my whole life down.

I quit school after that, finally having enough of the abuse there.

I then worked my ass off at multiple part time jobs, all for one person's sake. The one person who hadn't left me; Kira.

I swore I would never abandon her like how I was abandoned.

I was determined to give her the life that I wasn't able to have. A life full of fun and no worries. She would be able to go to a nice school, and then college.

And while I made sure she had the best experience she could, I worked and worked and worked. And on the few moments I didn't have work, I did one thing.

I watched Heaven's Hell.

I still don't know what attracted me so much to this anime, but I would watch it whenever I did have a break.

And as I was about to watch the final episode, I fell asleep. Upon waking up, I had discovered I was no longer in the world that I used to be in.

I had abandoned Kira.

...

Looking back on my life now, all I did was run. I ran way from all of my problems, just like my parents had run away from theirs.

Unlike the protagonists of anime, I never tried to beat these problems. I never fought back when those delinquents beat me.

I ran.

I'm not like Eric-er, Erica. In the anime, she overcame any problem that had come in her way.

But me? I ran, just like always.

Just like how I just ran from Erica.

Maybe that's a metaphor for how I'm not like her. I'm not some strong anime protagonist that can defeat anything that comes his way.

"You sure about that?" Loki asked.

"What?" I replied, confused.

"Who says you aren't strong?" Loki restated.

"I'm not strong. I've never been. My whole life I was a weak coward." I stated.

"But that was your last life." Loki grinned. "What about this one?"

"Huh?" I thought.

"Your last life you were weak. But look at what you've done in this life. You've saved multiple lives, and have reached Tier 4 at a record speed, even quicker than the protagonist themself." Loki stated.

"...Why are you helping me?" I asked.

"Because I want a good show." Loki grinned. "And if you keep hiding like a turtle then it's going to be super boring."

"Who cares about problems? You're no longer weak. You'll be able to overcome them. That's what makes a person grow." Loki explained.

Loki continued. "You want to survive? Then you need to overcome those problems, because trying to avoid them will only lead in you being weak. Just like your last life."

Before I could answer, a scream rang through my ears. My eyes jolted open, and I was back in the park.

"A rift is opening! Please evacuate!" A voice spoke from a speaker.

People ran as in the middle of the park a rift started to open in the air. It tore through as a single monster started to emerge.

A Scorpius.

A B Rank Monster the size of a bus. It started to crawl out of the rift, revealing it's flaming claws and stinger.

A Fire-type Scorpius.

In my right hand I summoned Loki, standing up from the bench. A man ran, tripping and falling onto the ground. He turned around in fear, scooting backwards as the Fire Scorpius walked towards him.

"You know you can't beat that, right?" Loki asked.

"I know." I nodded.

"And you know that holding off that Scorpius until help arrives will draw attention to yourself? A normal first year wouldn't be able to hold it off by themselves, especially with their element negated." Loki continued.

"I know." I grinned. "But I've drawn attention to myself a long time ago. I'm not hiding anymore. I WILL survive."

"Heh." Loki chuckled. "Go on."

I launched towards the Scorpius. It's flaming stinger flew down towards the man, but I ran in front and blocking the stinger with my own flaming axe.

"Run!" I yelled at the man.

"O-okay. Thank you!" He replied, stumbling to his feet and running away.

Hm. Helping people feels nice.

"Ken!" A familiar high-pitched voice entered my ears. One I previously thought belonged to a man...

A blade of water flew through the air, cutting straight through the stinger of the Scorpius. I jumped backwards as the stinger fell down to the ground.

Turning around, I saw Erica. As I looked at her, I see how I mistook her face for a "cute boy" instead of a girl.

"Are you okay?!" She cried out worriedly.

"I'm fine." I said. "Sorry for running away. Can you help me?"

"Of course!" She smiled. "Let's take it down!"

The Scorpius roared in anger. It tried to grab me with it's pincer, but I quickly evaded the attack. Eric used Excalibur to create a deep gash on the claw as it was open.

It then tried to grab Eric, but I finished Eric's job by completely cutting off the claw. The Scorpius roared, now missing a a claw and a tail.

And then a giant ice spike sprouted form the ground, stabbing straight through the Scorpius, instantly killing it.

"Good job boys. I think you two might have actually been able to defeat it by yourselves. Impressive." A voice said from behind us. We whirled around to see-

"Brandon Tsuki?!" Erica exclaimed.

The strongest adventurer in Japan then walked by. "Well, keep training. I look forward to see how you two improve." He grinned.

...

"Well...that just happened."