Conqueror Reincarnated in Middle Class Family

The air between them was electric—glossed in iron, antiseptic, and breath.

Vijay remained frozen, still clenched on the broken mop handle. In the distance, the figure in the mask also did not budge. Only the soft sheen of overhead light reflected from the matte surface of their visor, their long coat but a hairsbreadth from not moving at all despite the tension wound tight as a spring between them.

Between them, the monster squirmed.

It wasn't down. Not yet.

Paws scraped against oily tile. The blue-white radiance in its eyes flickered wildly, and from its half-torn form, sinews strained in jerking convulsions. It was attempting to escape. Trying to live.

Then — with a violent rasping snarl — it lurched forward, pulling its injured form along the far corridor.

Thunk.

A slender dart hissed close past Vijay's ear and sank tidily into the beast's shoulder. Electric light exploded where it struck. The creature screamed once, contorted — then fell. Twitching. Twitching.

Still.

Vijay lowered his guard a little, but still held the weapon. He breathed heavily. Measured. Not panic — discipline.

The human strolled by the creature nonchalantly, stepping over one of its spined legs. A holster jingled as they knelt and inspected the fallen body. Quick hands. Effective. They flipped it over, eyes scanning the ripples in muscle, the rainbow-oil glint of contamination on the fur. The data tablet strapped to their arm beeped shortly, then fell silent.

"You managed," sounded a voice. Male. Muffled by the mask, yet peaceful. "That creature was half-way faralized already. Your bones should be compost."

Vijay didn't respond. He tightened his hold on the mop handle.

The figure rose to its feet, leaning a bit towards him. "Name."

"Why?" Vijay's voice was raw but firm.

"Because I have to document a survival record prior to the next squad coming," the man replied. A hesitation. "And because sixteen-year-olds don't normally dislocate altered joints with no weapon training."

Vijay stayed frozen. In silence.

The figure tilted his head. "You're not listed as Defender aspirant. No fight license. No dome sim history. No mentor tag. But you moved like a person who's done this… before."

Another hesitation. Then, with faint curiosity:

"Where did you learn to fight like that?"

Vijay said nothing. Not entirely because he wouldn't — but because he had no idea.

The man cocked his head, as if weighing something. Then he stepped forward one foot. "Look. I don't know what happened to you here. Don't care, really. But that thing—" he nodded towards the unconscious beast, "—wasn't meant to be out. And you weren't meant to make it."

Vijay's brow furrowed. "…What does that mean?"

The man didn't reply. He appeared to think about speaking further — but then something beeped in his wrist monitor. His stance changed. Anxious now.

He rummaged into his coat and flung something across the room. It stopped with a skid at Vijay's feet — a black coin-sized disc with a glowing red dot in the middle.

"Put that around your neck. Chokes off residual gas exposure for an hour."

Vijay glared down. He didn't shift to grab it.

The man half-chuckled through the mask. "Still don't trust me? Wise."

Then he turned, striding back into the far hallway. His voice continued without hesitation:

"Get into your suit and get out of this location. Now. Clean-up teams will arrive in five. And they don't ask questions."

He disappeared behind a swinging double door. No flourish of exit. No threat to depart with.

Simply gone.

Vijay remained there a split second longer, chest heaving and falling. Then — at last — let go of the handle. It clattered on the tile.

His gaze shifted to the disc.

Then to the beast.

And then to blood on his own knuckles.

He departed the clinic five minutes prior to the arrival of the first black-suited van.

Didn't stop. Didn't tarry. Simply moved, as one walks after glimpsing something the world forbids them from describing. He kept his gaze ahead, head down, hoodie covering his head. The disc the masked figure had provided him was now embedded beneath the skin at the base of his ear — warm, vibrating ever so slightly.

No alarm sounded as he drove through the checkpoint into the residential section. Nobody flagged him. Only the hum of city quiet, passed through purifiers and circumspection.

The house was quiet when he stepped in. A gentle click of the lock behind him, a groan of a hinge that was in need of oiling. Faint light from the hallway bulb glowed. In the kitchen, somewhere, the tap dripped.

He didn't head to the living room. Didn't even bother to see who else was there.

Directly into the bathroom.

Door closed. Shirt removed. Light on.

He braced his arms on the sink, gasping as if each molecule of air could be his last, and then turned to regard the mirror.

For an instant, he didn't know what regarded him.

A battered cheek, streaked with dried blood. A cut above the elbow. Red welts curling along the ribcage where he'd struck the cabinet. Dirt. Sweat. Memory.

He turned on the faucet and let the water run cold.

The antiseptic burn stung into his side as he cleaned. He clenched his teeth and did not glance away. There were rhythms under the pain. Muscle memory came online in ways that it never had before. Every scrape held information for him — a calculation that he could not recall making, an impact that he somehow knew how to roll.

The mop handle. The flip. The step within the beast's curve. The curl of his fingers not like a boy grasping a stick, but like a warrior feeling a weapon's weight through instinct.

He washed away the blood.

And gazed finally into his own eyes.

The fluorescent light overhead flickered once. Then stabilized.

He didn't blink.

"Who am I?" he whispered.

There was no reply. But his reflection didn't jump.

And then, under his breath — softer this time. Not confused. Not shocked.

Just sure.

"I've done this before."

The line echoed in the air, not like a revelation, but a statement.

He stepped away from the mirror.

In his room, he unwound a piece of bandage and sat on the bed. Outside, air purifiers whirred down the street. Far in the distance, someone exploded a firework — likely a birthday. The city didn't know a boy had battled a monster an hour before. Didn't care.

But his body did.

All his nerves vibrated, not with agony now, but with recognition.

Something had opened.

Something wasn't finished.

The air hummed with soft static from holoscreens mounted on walls, each flashing information: body statistics, heat maps, movement histories, timestamps. Each minute of the battle at the safecare center had been captured, crunched, decrypted.

The masked figure was motionless in the middle, coat thrown open, eyes fixed on one of the repeating screens.

Across from him, a grainy feed glowed to life — a voice-only link. The person on the other end spoke in slow, clinical tones.

"You engaged him directly?"

The masked figure nodded slightly.

"Yes. I had to intervene. Subject 9 was going to be neutralized. By him."

"And the boy?"

"Untrained. No known records in Defender databases. But in combat—He adapted. Quickly."

"How quickly?"

"He moved like someone who'd been through wars. Not simulations. Real ones."

A silence. Nothing but white noise on the other end. Then:

"So it wasn't a fluke."

"No, sir. His responses weren't instinctive. They were inherited."

"Interesting."

The masked man's eyes slitted.

"What are your orders?"

"Nothing. Not yet. We don't intervene."

A pause.

"We watch."

The screen flickered out.

The man spun back around to the footage — the boy, in mid-motion, covered in shards of glass and steel.

He breathed softly under his breath, so low only the darkness could hear:

"…What are you?" .