Strongest Among the Heavens

Just a month ago, at this time of day, Kazi would be eating and laughing heartily with his friends. Not today. Maybe not again for a long time. Sun-young was gone. She officially left the team yesterday. William was in a coma and Marta was not in a state to be dining or doing much of anything. He wasn’t totally alone, luckily. Sitting across from Kazi was his spectacled friend, David Tremblay. As always, the owner and waitress of the Nulgupjisin Grill House, Ming, brought out glasses of lemonade for them. Secret recipe, she said, winking. That left the two to talk amongst themselves. The smoke of barbeque chicken rose up from David’s side.

"Jack the Ripper...I still can’t believe he’s alive. I mean, how does it make sense?" David asked. "He reincarnated during the 1940s Heavenly Games and lived through...what? Eighty years? What the hell was he doing that whole time? Living a normal life? I sincerely doubt that. There’s no way he dropped his soul."

"Dropped his soul?" Kazi questioned.

"It’s what the locals call it. See, when you make it to the top twenty at the end of the Heavenly Games, you have the option of Total Reincarnation and something called Soul Drop." David flipped over the chicken cooking on his grill. "You can either choose to go back to your old body or totally reincarnate as someone new. This is just my gut instinct but I don’t think he reincarnated into a baby."

"Hm." Kazi sipped on his lemonade. "Agreed. I talked to Jack very briefly too so I think have a basic grasp on who he is and why he does what he does."

"Oh?"

"He seemed obsessed with finding people that were—are worthy. That’s how he does his killings: he does it based on his judgement and that judgement seems to be for the sake of a better world. I don’t think he would waste ten years being a child. I just don’t see him doing that. I think it’s likely that he brought with him a mythical item that granted immortality."

"Oh, I get it, like the Holy Grail." David stopped before putting a piece of chicken in his mouth. "Wait, if that’s the case, then...how did he die? Entry into the Heavenly Games is luck-based, right? If he died, there’s a chance he’d go to hell."

Kazi crossed his arms. "I know, it’s weird. His arrival makes little sense to me. If he died of simple old age, then the question is what mythical item did he choose for his victory? If he was immortal and died, then how did an immortal die? And if he did die, how did he guarantee entry?"