Chapter 2 - Reborn

A bright blue sky. Birds singing all around. White fluffy clouds floating silently across the sky. A tall mountain stood high in the sky, covered in flora and fauna. At its peak, ice and snow covered its rocky face. Below at its base, a large forest spread out for as far as the eyes could see. Off in the distant skies, many floating islands hovered over the lands. Each covered in greenery and waterfalls that streamed down their sides.

A bright red column of light fell down from the sky on a small ledge on the mountainside face high up in the air. Amongst the lush grass and bushes curled up into a ball was a red lizard like creature. Its body was covered in red scales from head to toe. It had a long pointed tail and a pair of wings folded that were up on its back. On its scaly head were two black horns with a reddish hue protruding out a few centimeters.

A warm breeze blew by, ruffling the leaves of the nearby bushes. The red lizard's body twitched, and its eyes slowly began to open… "Hmmm? Didn't I die?" The red lizard spoke.

The red lizard looked around in confusion. "What's going on? I could have sworn I died in a back alley. Why am I in a grassy place? A park…. I am not… Holy hell!?"

The red lizard's eyes opened wide as it saw the floating islands off in the distance. It went to rub its eyes to make sure it was not dreaming when it realized something else was completely wrong!

"Red scales and claws… I can move it around freely. This means..." Holding its head feeling slightly dizzy, the red lizard lips slowly curled up into a sinister looking smile as it let out a laugh. "Maybe someone was listening to me after all! I do not know which god heard my last dying wish, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart! I, Nagano Kana, owe you a debt of gratitude."

This red lizard was none other than the young girl who died a tragic death in the winter snow of a back alley. She had been reborn and now had a second chance at life. "Luckily, I was not made into a bug. That would have sucked. Although, I would have preferred that than a dirty human."

Kana stood up and shook each of her limbs, her tail, and even her wings. "Hehe, not bad… Sadly although I can flap my wings, I can't fly. Not even a centimeter. But still, I am pretty red! And my little butt is pretty big..."

Kana stood up and began shaking her butt, making her tail sway back and forth while singing. "Shake it like it's hot! Mmm! Yeah! Shake it good! Haha!"

Finding herself amusing, Kana rolled around laughing until she finally calmed down. "Now that I think about it, wouldn't this be the time where I get some kind of system thing. You know like, I can say something like... 'status,' and a status menu appears in front of me? No?"

Kana went silent for a few seconds before letting out a sigh. "I guess not… well, at the very least, I will try to live this life much better than my last. Being a street rat in that city was no fun… One thing is for sure; I do not want anything to do with humans. They are nothing but selfish fuckers who will beat a young girl just for trying to eat a little food. At least my last meal was warm..."

Kana realized she was becoming gloomy, so she sat up on her hind legs and slapped her cheeks. "You can do this, Kana!"

The sting in her cheeks cleared her head as she took a good look around her. "Let's see, bush, bush, rock, bush, grass, rock…" Kana walked over to the ledge and looked down to see treetops that looked smaller than ants. "Ledge… Ledge… Led…. Why the fuck am I on a ledge! I can't even fly!"

Kana's voice echoed in the air. Her gloomy mood quickly returned. "Am I to starve to death right after being reborn? No! I can't let that happen. There must be a way down this mountain."

Kana quickly scanned the cliffside and saw many small protrusions coming out of the cliffside. She walked over to the rock wall where she was located and clawed at the rock. She watched as her claws easily sliced into the rock. This gave her hope. "Okay, let's try to climb up a bit and see if I can cling to the rock."

Digging into the rock face with her right claw, she reached up with her left and did the same while letting go with her right. She used her back feet to dig in for footholds, and after a little bit of trial and error, she finally got the hang of it. She climbed about two meters up before stopping. "Now to climb down."

She carefully moved sideways to have a clean face to work with before slowly lowering herself down digging her claws into the wall. At first, she was doing fine until she lost her footing and almost slipped down the wall. "Whoa! Shit!"

Sweat began to form on her scaly forehead. Luckily she was not scared of heights. Because the place she was currently climbing down gave her a great view of the long drop below. But she stabilized herself and continued her descent until she was back where she started. "Well, I know it will be tough, but at least I can climb down. I just need to be careful and make sure I always go for a place I can rest."

Kana looked over the edge and saw the first ledge she could reach was quite a ways down and started to become a little scared. "Well, If I fall, I will at least have a chance to survive. If I spread my wings, I may be able to at least glide down to a safe place." Kana let out a long sigh."Here goes my little lizard self! Wait, now that I think about it, what kind of creature am I? Flying lizard? Dragon maybe!? Haha, yeah, being a dragon would be great, but with how small I am, I am probably some kind of small, winged lizard."