Hey, have you ever wished so much you could live another life?

Hey, do you want a semblance of control over your life?

Hey, how much do you want to live this time, anyway?

There are two main rules to this world. To live, and to die. Living to your fullest, and dying when the world requires you to. Sometimes the two rules overlap, and you're left with a short lifespan. Sometimes, you're just an unlucky soul that couldn't control the unseen forces in this world. The world can be cruel in a way.

Even so, such forces can be generous as well. Giving another chance to a young yet recently deceased soul, is an example.

"Hey! Winsor!"

Winford jerked up at the sudden shout. In the process, he hit his knee on the bottom of his desk, jostling the table and knocking over the paper cup of coffee he had. The dark liquid flowed out of the fallen cup, and almost drowned the file on his desk with it.

The bespectacled man cursed loudly as he quickly reached out for the box of tissues sitting on his desk, pulling the paper out from the file and furiously dabbing away the coffee from wherever he could.

A pinkette appeared in the doorway, grinning and waving her arms around madly.

"Wafer! The boss just lifted my restriction on the- Oh." The girl stopped flailing, and saw the usually composed male looking rather flustered.

"What happened?" She tentatively asked.

Winford's head whipped up and glared.

"Your goddamned loud voice startled me into spilling my coffee, that's what." He grouched out, then turned back to his desk and continued to fix the mess.

"Eeh? I thought you had a coffee mug?" The girl wandered over to Winford's desk, and spotted the paper cup there.

"You broke my last one, you dolt. I haven't had time to get a new one." The man wiped off the last visible bits of coffee on the desk, then sighed at the coffee stained file and its contents. He felt sorry for the human who was in it, as it meant that the unreadable pages had to replaced. And even though this place was weird and unexplainable as heck, they don't exactly keep copies of another person's details.

"I said I'm sorry for that Wefi, I'll get a new one for you!" The girl pulled on her low twintails and pouted.

"Do me a favour and don't, Pearl. And the name's Win-ford! Stop butchering my name!" He yelled at the girl.

"Alright, alright, don't get your knickers in a twist," Pearl sighed, then perked up again, "Anyways, didja hear the news? I'm-

"Going to replace the reincarnation section for this human's file." Winford growled and picked up the coffee stained file. The girl eep'd and stood up straight as he continued to rant.

"I already had written a nice and easy path for this unlucky human, but now the contents are unreadable and I have to replace them. And guess why I have to? Because you broke my coffee mug for the 5th time, giving me no chance to get a proper one. So, I had to get my coffee in a paper cup. And then you go and recklessly make noise and startled me, which spilled my perfectly good cup of coffee! Right now, I have to replace the stained pages. No thanks to you" He glared at Pearl, who looked sheepish.

"Sorrieeee..." The pinkette walked up to him and grabbed the file, "The stacks of paths written is on the 12th floor, right? I'll get right to it, Window."

She waltzed out of the office before Winford could register what she said.

"I SAID MY NAME IS WINFORD! GET IT RIGHT!"

Half an hour later, Winford found the file back on his desk. It looked fuller than before. He raised an eyebrow at this, and picked it up to check its contents. He hummed under his breath, slightly pleased that the eternal intern had at least gotten something right. He flipped to the next section - the path. As he skimmed through the text, his eyes widened in fear. Winford quickly grabbed the office phone on his desk, dialling a number as he flipped through the pages of the report again.

"Hello, I want to ask if #8203721083942 has their data processed yet?"

Garbled speech was heard from the phone.

"...WHAT?!"

More garbled speech.

"Am I able to retract the everything?... Only minor editions if necessary?"

Even more garbled speech.

"... Tch. Alright, I get it now. Thanks."

Winford hung the phone up, then sunk back into his chair, head in hand, and sighed really loudly.

"That goddamned intern. Now I have to fix this mess up," he groaned.

After a few minutes of moping, the man sat up. He picked up the file and read its contents again. Idly, he started to map out the whole process of how the data ended up as it is on a scrap piece of paper.

Unfortunately, the report was rather uptight with the details and left nothing to the imagination. It honestly sucked. Winford had hoped that there was some kind of loophole he could take advantage of in the chunk of text. Trust that darned intern to pick the strictest of all reports from the many they had. He momentarily played with the idea of getting her fired, but the whole company needed their eternal intern despite how ditsy she was, so the thought went out of the window.

"If only the poor thing knew what was going to happen to them," he muttered, as he skimmed the pages for the nth time. Then his brain caught up with his tongue, and a light bulb went off in his head.

Smirking, he picked up a pen and begun to write up a second report.

You'd think that being given birth to for the 2nd time is nasty and messy.

You're not wrong. I mean, childbirth is an amazing thing, sure. Having the chance to give life to another being, is surreal, but it's still downright nasty.

I didn't remember much of the process. Only that I was covered in blood and I just came out from somewhere really dark. Then all these huge people converged on me, wiping me down. They also tried to hush me because apparently, I was screaming my lungs out in fear. I was then wrapped up in a soft thing - a blanket - and was cradled in someone's arms. Looking up, a young nurse's cheery face greeted me. I tilted my head to the side, confused. Wasn't I supposed to be passed on to my father? I mean, normally expecting parents are excited to actually hold their own creation.

My question was answered as a shrill cry rang in the air. I tried to shift my body to look at what was happening, and the nurse kindly adjusted her grip on me. Another child had been popped out. They were currently being cleaned like I was from the blood and other body fluids. I barely caught a glimpse of the pink blanket being wrapped around them as a larger figure appeared in front of the nurse and I. It turned out to be a middle-aged man, and the nurse immediately handed me off to him. Cradled gently in his arms, I took the chance to look up at him. He looked extremely exhausted with sweat barely dripping off his brow, but he smiled at me, and whispered, "Hello."

I assumed that he was my father, so I smiled back and tried to reply, but I forgot that I was a baby and therefore have not developed any muscle memory for speech, so it became a "Weh". He chuckled. A baby blue greeted me as I looked down at my blanket. That was a surprise. Seems like I'm physically a male, right now.

I understood a normal baby is not able to think the thoughts I'm having right now. And honestly, I don't exactly know why or how I am able to be this articulate. All I remembered was that I was dying...? Oh! Did I reincarnate? But how? Life after death was just theories that people made up, but I didn't think it would be real. And even if people reincarnated, they don't usually keep their previous life's memories. Which I have right now.

I was interrupted from my little internal conflict by the man holding me. He started to move to the bed in the room, and sat down on the chair next to it. I strained my neck to look at the person lying on the bed - my mother. Obviously, she looked exhausted since she just did push out two babies, but her face brightened up as soon as she saw me. Her arms reached out towards me, and my father gingerly placed me onto them. She then brought me close to her chest, where I could feel heat radiating off her skin from the blood rushing through them. I leaned into her instinctively. The warmth of her body was starting to lull me to sleep. In the haze that was my sleepiness, I heard someone ask what our names were going to be.

"The boy's Lyn, and the girl's Lami. We've decided them quite a while back," my father's voice answered.

"Oh! So Trafalgar Lyn and Lami, huh?"

That was all I barely heard before my world turned into darkness.

My surname felt familiar, and that was not because it was the name of some kinda coastal place in the Spain of my last life. I couldn't exactly think much about it as I was still physically a baby. Which meant that I had close to no energy to do things other than eat sleep and poop. Every time I was awake I start to think about why I was here and all that, but then I would be interrupted by my growling stomach or my twin sister crying.

Then I was introduced to my older brother. A small boy, give or take two to three years, walked into the hospital ward with my father as I was being carried by a nurse. The nurse passed me to my mother, as my father helped the boy onto the chair next to the bed. Father then went around the bed to where our cots were, to pick Lami up.

"Is he my new brother, mom?" The boy asked, tilting his head to the side. Mother smiled.

"Yes, Law. Meet your siblings, Lyn," At this, Father brought over the pink bundle that was Lami to us.

"And Lami~" Father sang as he presented her to Law. I blinked up at him, taking in his looks. Short scruffy hair, typical of a boy his age, and golden irises. Somehow, he had a sort of perpetual 'dead fish' look which made him look very familiar.

As Father teased my brother about shrieking when Lami grabbed his finger, I furrowed my brow. There was something nagging at me, something very obvious. My brother's full name was Trafalgar Law. Law…

I jolted slightly at the realization of the name. I knew of a Trafalgar Law. In fact, he was a fictional character created in an extremely popular Japanese comic – One Piece. I knew this series from my previous life, having read it as a recommendation from one of the nurses taking care of me. Up till before I moved on, the series hasn't even ended. I loved it to bits, for the way that it did its worldbuilding, and the exploring the unknown factor it had. Back then, stories like that made me wish to be able to run outside freely. And the situation now is rather funny – Law was one of my favourite characters of the series. I can't actually believe that I'm related to him now. I mean, the way he'd become such a hardened character was devastating, but it gave him a lot of reasons for what he's doing right then in the story-

Wait. His backstory. Wasn't it a massacre…? Wasn't everyone and everything around him supposed to die? Was I going to die?

"You should play with Lyn too, Law! He looks grumpy because you aren't playing with him," Mother teased him, and brought me closer to him.

I took another look at his face, and tried to age up this new brother of mine in my head. Add a goatee and some piercings and –

Shit. It really is Law.

He stared at me, then tried to reach out to poke me with his finger. Keyword tried.

Because then I burst into tears.

The Trafaglars had weird kids, the neighbours decided.

Sure, they respected the parents of the household, since they were prestigious doctors in one of the best hospitals there was. But having two geniuses spawn offspring of themselves had the neighbours wondering if all genius offspring were as weird as they were.

The eldest wasn't the most social child out there, with his head buried in a new book each time they saw him. He rarely stepped out of the house, and even if he did it was to run errands or to the library. When interacted with, the child would speak so maturely that it was hard to remember he was still a child.

The youngest was like the total opposite of the eldest, with beaming smiles used as a greeting each time she went out. She was a very cheerful child, eager to speak to the neighbours about the latest endeavour she had. She was also very popular with the children in the neighbourhood, and doted on by them all.

The middle child was an enigma altogether. He felt like a mix of his older brother and twin sister, which gave him a rather… unique vibe of his own. See, even if the eldest seemed mature enough, he had lesser tact than most people. The sister's naivety was rather on point at times, thus no one seemed to find fault with her. Like his older brother, the middle child was more interested in books rather than interacting with people. If they talked to him, they could surely get vibes of maturity off the child, but he had that sense of charisma like his sister which made him likable as well.

Often times you could find the youngest dragging her twin around to play at different locations, or both the twins dragging their eldest out of the house to participate in a festival in town. Their parents only found this cute, and didn't really mind their behaviour as long as they did nothing wrong.

One of those times was this, when the twins were four and the eldest was seven.

It wasn't a carnival or festival, but Lami felt that Law was spending too much time studying lately. Law already had been admitted into an elementary school, and was studying more on top of the schoolwork he had. Lyn was no help at all either, reading a book which title was very hard to pronounce, by Lami's standards.

"Mou, you two are going to stay at home all day again?" She whined.

Lyn looked up from his book, "I went out with you yesterday though."

"That was only for a bit! It rained so we had to head back!" The girl protested. Chuckling was heard as their babysitter for the day looked on, amused.

It was hard for the Trafaglars to look after their children with their high-end jobs, so they usually either hired babysitters, or leave them with the Church's orphanage down the street. It was hard to find a good babysitter that both the parents and the children liked, but they managed to. Her name was Sarah, and she was studying to help out with the local Church as a nun.

"Your children will be good practice," She'd joked to the parents, "When it comes to dealing with the young ones there."

Lyn sighed, then marked the page in the book where he stopped. Placing down the book, he walked over to where Law sat fully engrossed with the text in the book.

"Brother, c'mon. Lami wants to go out to play or something," the younger boy poked his shoulder, jerking Law out of his stupor. He huffed, and protested, "I need to study, you two. Dad wants to give me a test tomorrow."

"It's not like we can't come back home after we go out, brother!" Lami pouted.

"You've been studying too much, won't a break do you some good?" Lyn added.

Law tried to avoid Lami's puppy eyes and looked at Sarah for help, but she just smiled at him. "I think a bit of fresh air will do us all good, since it's been raining a lot lately," she airily commented.

"Three against one. This isn't fair," Law conceded after a while, grumbling as he pushed himself away from the desk and hopped down from the chair. Lami cheered at this, bounding up to him and Lyn, and squeezed them all in a group hug. Sarah stood up as well, and begun to pack things up for their little outing to town.

Soon, they found themselves in the bustling streets of the city centre. Lami had grabbed both her brothers' hands and dragged them around to various stalls while Sarah followed them a little ways behind. It wasn't a festival period in the city of Flevance, but the streets were packed with people since there had been unfavourable weather the past few days. Today was an exception.

It wasn't like they familiarized themselves with the city shops, so Lyn wasn't too surprised when they had found themselves in front of a new hat stall. Lami was entranced by the pretty sunhat they had on a mannequin, and Lyn himself was curious if he could even find that one familiar looking hat. He peered around the stall wondering if he could spot the spotted hat. Funnily enough though, Law was the one who found it first. Lami found him eyeing the white fur hat on the top shelf, and asked innocently enough, "Do you want this one, brother?"

"A-ah, I think it just looks nice…" He scratched the back of his head. The shopkeeper, who was talking to Lami earlier, smiled and asked him if he wanted to try the hat on. Law looked like he wanted to refuse the offer, but the twins stared at him expectedly. It looked off-putting if you weren't used to them, but Law knew he had no way out of refusing, so he just nodded.

The shopkeeper brought down the fluffy hat down from the shelf, and handed it to him. Law hesitantly put on the hat, and found that it was only a bit loose for him. He adjusted the hat to be higher than his eyes, then awkwardly did a pose. "Tadah?"

Lyn just snickered at this, but Lami gushed, "It fits you!"

"It does," Sarah agreed, "Do you want it, Law? I can get it for you."

At this, the children got surprised.

"There isn't a need to," Law said, and took off the hat.

Sarah didn't insist, and let the boy return the hat. Lami then started dragging Lyn off to another direction where she saw something interesting. Law ducked his head as a thanks to the shopkeeper, then ran after the twins.

Sarah caught up with them soon enough, and they all continued with their little outing.

When Law's seven birthday came, his present from Mother and Father was the same hat. His wide-eyed reaction was somewhat hilarious, but I when I saw him put on the hat proudly, it confirmed all my worries. That my brother was the Tragfalar D. Water Law, and that there were only less than three years before the D-day would come upon us.

Being reincarnated was supposed to be a second chance, right? Hah, what a joke.

I sincerely wonder how I was going to survive.

A/N: Hi, thanks for giving my self-indulgent story a chance. Here's to hoping that I will actually work on it and not procrastinate uwu

-Riki