Maple had been normal once. It was a nice, quaint little existence of a simple girl with her simple friends, and her simple life. Back then, she went by a different name and had a different outlook on life. Then her best friend introduced her to an incredible online world and her simple existence became something a bit more incredible and very, very exciting.

That was when Kaede truly became Maple, leader of Maple Tree guild, Flying Fortress, and affectionately nicknamed Last Boss. Of course, these titles were purely for a fictional world, for a fictional character, with fictional powers, and that should have never had any sort of bearing on reality in any way, shape, or form.

Naturally, as these things are wont to do around Maple, this immutable fact did not actually perform its role in the universe at large and stop Maple from breaking cosmic truth.

When Maple died of a freak accident at age eighteen, on her way to her university's opening ceremony, her soul was picked up by a wandering shinigami to be taken to heaven. Unfortunately, this shinigami happened to be drunk and tripped somewhere in between the physical realm of earth and the spiritual realm of the heavens. In his stupor, his grip on Maple's soul slipped just a tad. Her own wiggling (Maple was NOT happy to be dying, there was a guild meeting next week she wanted to go to) did the rest in assuring that Maple's soul was dropped from the hands of the Shinigami and caught by the astral winds of the between space. Unfortunately for Maple, the winds of the between were not the winds that could take her home and she was soon swept off into the infinite void, whipped about from one end of the existence of all things to the other. Eventually, the winds tired of her and placed her gently within a random world, unknowingly subjecting the world to Maple's... unique brand of madness.


Being reborn was... interesting. New parents, new family, new friends, new life... and no VR games. Maple had spent much of her time a young child crying over the distinct lack of appropriately advanced video games for her to play. For a while, her new parents, Mr and Mrs Ishigumo, probably thought something was wrong with her considering how often they took her to child therapists.

Luckily, (for her parents) Maple just decided that she would have to bring VR games to this life. It would be too cruel to allow this world (and herself) a life without the incredible experience of a VR game.

Of course, it didn't take long after her discovery and goal-making for Maple to find another, mind blowing discovery regarding this new world. She was still a flying fortress. Okay, maybe not a flying fortress, but she was still a fortress. Somehow, someway, due to some strange fluke of universal laws and physics, Maple had retained her defense stats... or something similar at least.

Nothing could hurt her. At first, when she fell while learning to walk or bumped into things and felt no pain, Maple merely assumed that since she was an adult in a child's body that her own pain tolerance was making up for the normal pain felt by a young child. A little odd, but not necessarily impossible.

And then she survived having a ceiling fan fall on her with nary a scratch and still no pain at age ten. Her parents of course called it a lucky break and had her checked out at the hospital anyway. But Maple knew better. That ceiling fan had hit her head on (what a pun! Her friends would have been proud) and bounced right back off. That was no lucky break, especially considering what she could remember of her last life.

Of course, with her discovery of her iron defense (seriously, she couldn't even cut herself with the kitchen knives, she had checked), several things about her new life suddenly made sooooo much sense.

For example, Maple still sucked at anything speed related or worse, to do with using her hands. She couldn't ride a bike to save her life and she always sank to the bottom of the pool no matter how much she kicked and tried to swim. The one time Mrs. Ishigumo offered to let Maple help in the kitchen, Mr. Ishigumo ended up in the hospital for food poisoning. Maple was summarily banned from the kitchen to the amusement of her older sisters.

And boy, was that a surprise. When Maple was Kaede and not Suzuha, she had been an only child. Yet, Suzuha was the youngest of six girls and one older brother.

It was... jarring to say the least.

Whereas before Kaede had always had her parents' attention, her pick in clothes and new things, and a good deal of spending money, Suzuha lived a life directly opposite to that.

Suzuha was the youngest child of an overpopulated, lower class family living in the slums. She almost never had her parents' undivided attention, all of her clothes were either thrift store clothes or hand me downs, and she had yet to hold any money for herself at age ten. Sometimes, there wasn't even enough food on the table to get seconds. It was different and left Maple slightly estranged from her family when compared to her other siblings' tight knit bonds.

She was sure it baffled her parents and she felt slightly guilty for all the times they had had to apply for government healthcare and put her in front of doctors when she was younger. It must have been so stressful to get a child so different when they had already been halfway through raising seven.

And indeed, they were certainly, finally half-way through raising the kids. Kenichi, the eldest brother had moved out before Suzuha was born. Currently, he lived a few blocks away with his wife and their own two kids (and wasn't that crazy, being an aunt at age ten), while working a job as the shift manager at a factory. Truthfully, Suzuha just knew that Kenichi could have easily found a better place in a better district with the money he made from his job, but he stayed in the slums to stay with his family. Suzuha found it incredibly touching.

Suzha's next eldest sibling was Yumi. Yumi had also moved out shortly before Suzuha was born but ended up moving back in when Suzuha was three and her boyfriend ran off with all her money, leaving her pregnant and destitute. Yumi had eventually moved back out a few years later, but had left little Cooru behind for her parents to raise until she had a stable job. So, Suzuha wasn't quite the youngest anymore.

Next was Yuni who had moved out shortly before Yumi had had to move back in. Yuni had gotten a scholarship to a prestigious school based on merit and had graduated with a masters in computer science when Suzuha was seven. Currently, Yuni lived in the heart of Tokyo to be near her job but always made it to Sunday lunches after church.

Then there was Kana. Kana moved out shortly after she graduated highschool when Suzuha was five. Unfortunately, Kana had felt underappreciated being the middle child and chose to leave the city to put distance in between her and her family. The last Suzuha had heard, Kana was married to a rich businessman out in Hiroshima.

After Kana came Yukina. Yukina was a senior in highschool. While not as smart as Yuni, Yukina had already been accepted to a small college an hour away and would be attending there once she finished high school.

Shizume and Shizune came next. The twins were an identical pair of storms, blowing their way into anything that suited their purpose. Currently, two were enrolled as freshmen, but both were taking advanced courses to ease their boredom in their respective fields. Shizume was specializing in biology while Shizune was working through Chemistry problem after chemistry problem. Suzuha was sure they would both be receiving invitations to as many esteemed universities their mailbox could fit when they were ready to go to college.

And then, finally, there was Suzuha, the youngest of them all. Apparently she had been a... surprise to her parents. Suzuha... wasn't really sure what to think about that. Perhaps sympathy for Mrs. Ishigami for going in to have her tubes tied only to find out she was already pregnant with her eighth child?

Either way, Maple was glad it had happened and that Suzuha had been born. After all, where else would she have lived if not here? Would she have perhaps fallen into some other, strange, unfamiliar world when the astral winds dropped her soul?

All in all, she enjoyed her life here. It was nice... simple.

Just like her old one used to be.


And so, Suzuha continued onward. She grew and learned and grew some more. Suzuha studied hard at school, with a particular passion towards neuro-science and computer science. She aced all of her classes (thank you, previous life knowledge) and even was considered a prodigy in a few advanced topics. Yet, despite all of her usual cheer and her own determination... her life felt empty.

Working hard was good and well, but what about people to share it with. Maple wasn't close to her family and so far she had found no close friends. Most of the girls in Suzuha's age group seemed young or immature compared to Maple's own circle of friends in her old life. Everytime Maple grew close to someone else, she would think back to her old friends from Maple Tree Guild or think of her best friend, Lily.

And Maple... couldn't stand it. Those had been her very best friends. They had fought together and played together. Maple didn't want to leave them behind! She didn't want to replace them with new people. And Maple knew, she knew, that isolating herself wasn't what her friends would have wanted for her, and that thinking she was "replacing" them was silly, but Maple still just couldn't bring herself to become close to others. It was painful. Both the loneliness and the absence of her old friends.

It was perhaps that loneliness and disconnect that led to her complete disregard for the world around her. Well... not completely disconnected. She knew of the dangers of ghouls and knew, generally, what was going on in the world, but as far as the more day to day life went... Maple typically buried herself within her goal of creating a VR game and left the rest of the world to do its thing. Unfortunately... that gave her some repercussions...


Hey, ya'll. Just a one shot (probably) that has two endings which will be posted next. One involves the CCG, the other involves Anteiku. Depending on whether you like season 1 or season (3?) re you'll probably like one more than the other.

Enjoy and please review.