Back in my previous life, there was something that always bothered me about Meili. I couldn't figure out the significance of her name.

  Every other character in Unordinary had some sort of wordplay or clever meaning behind their name. For example, Rei was named after the Japanese god of lightning, while Ventus' name was the Latin word for wind. Seraphina was named after high-ranking angels, most likely in reference to her high ability level and social status. Hell, even 'John Doe' held a special meaning, considering what John represented in the Early chapters of Unordinary.

  Meanwhile, Meili's name was the Chinese word for beautiful. It had nothing to do with her ability and was only tangentially related to her character. She was pretty, sure, but nothing special compared to Leilah or Cecile. Perhaps because she was merely a side character, the author of Unordinary didn't put as much effort (comparatively) into designing her. It made a lot of sense – she only played a significant role for about five chapters and faded straight into the background for the rest of the story.

  Then, right as I had that thought, the pitter-patter of raindrops on my soaking wet uniform shocked the world into clarity.

  My crimson claws pierced half a foot deep into my opponent's flesh. And while he gasped and bled over my red-stained hands, I had a sudden epiphany about the meaning of my name. 'Meili' was a pun on Melee, a reference to my close-range combat ability.

  "Pfft."

  And, after a small fit of situationally inappropriate laughter, I smoothly removed my claws from my victim's chest cavity.

  *Splurch*

  I smirked, deactivating my ability as I stared down at his unconscious form.

  "I wonder if he got the joke."

  ***Beautiful***

  Meili's Journal

  Entry #1:

  Dear future self,

  Today is my tenth birthday, and I've been in this world for three months. (Kind of an oxymoronic sentence if you really think about it). I write this because there's a lot of common knowledge and expected behavior in this world that an otherworlder like me has no clue about, and as I get older, I won't be able to use my age as an excuse for my cluelessness.

  Trying to learn a new set of cultural norms and expected behaviors has been challenging because many of them contradict what existed in my previous life. To compensate for my unfortunate mental blocks, I will use this journal to note down all the subconscious, "obvious" things that "everybody knows."

  And you (yes, I'm talking to you, future self) will review this journal every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to bed.

  1. "What's your ability?" is the second most common conversation starter, behind only "What's your name?" on the podium, competing for the silver medal with "Where are you from?"

  Discussion about abilities and levels is perfectly acceptable, even expected, really. It's to the point that avoiding the subject will make you a weirdo. If anyone brings it up at school, DO NOT SHY AWAY. There's a high chance they'll think you're an easy target.

  Additionally, being evasive or vague about your level is considered impolite in specific contexts. As I write this, the doctor last measured my level at 2.5. If I introduce myself and say, "I'm a mid-tier," most people would get offended by the vagueness.

  2. They're only fifth graders, but you still have to pay attention to your classmates' ability levels.

  Knowledge of where "people stand" will be essential, even if it makes your otherworlder sensibilities feel gross or icky. 2.0 is the minimum benchmark set for children of elite-tier parents entering middle school, while anyone within the 2.5-3.0 range has a decent chance of becoming a high-tier. The fastest periods of ability growth are generally the mid to late teen years.

  A ten-year-old with an ability level of 2.0 is projected to reach:

  2.4 by the time they enter high school,

  3.1 by the time they reach college,

  and 3.5 as a fully-matured adult.

  The projected progress of a 2.5 ten-year-old is, on average:

  3.0 - entering high school

  4.2 - entering university

  4.7 - fully grown adult

  For 3.0, there's a lot more variance, but the averages look like this:

  3.6 - entering high school

  5.2 - reaching college

  5.8 - full maturity

  If you meet a middle-schooler who is already an elite-tier, do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES make an enemy out of them. That kid will likely grow up to be a god-tier, a member of the 0.001%.

  .

  .

  .

  I stared into the mirror, poking at my face and fixing my hair into place, studying the changes in my reflection as I moved. My morning routine was to wake up, brush my teeth, wash my face, and fix my hair - just like everybody else. Or almost, but not quite. It differed in a singular, important step: I read a couple of old journal entries every day before eating breakfast.

  I never told a soul about the journal, even my parents, and made sure to hide it behind the bookshelf in my bedroom after using it.

  Why the secrecy, you ask? It all started four and a half years ago, when the universe suffered a microscopic paper cut. There was no apocalypse, no plague, no mass chaos. The paper cut was merely my displacement of a nine-year-old girl. It went something like this:

  One minute, she was there. The next minute, she was gone.

  Poof,

  Nada,

  Nothing,

  Gone.

  All of these words could explain it just as well as any other. And so I'd lived in Meili's stead for four and a half years.

  Her body remained, evidenced by the red-headed young woman who always stared back at me in the mirror. Her memories hadn't vanished: I could still recall critical events in her life, like the morning she awakened her ability or the day of her eighth birthday party.

  But all that was secondary. Meili had vanished, and I was the one doing all the recalling, remembering, and staring into the mirror, not her.

  I hated to think about what might have happened to her, but sometimes the thoughts would pop up against my will when I saw myself. Maybe staring at the girl you made disappear did that to you - whether it was your fault or not.

  Did I feel bad about it? Of course! But the feeling was a little muted, the type of guilt where you weren't entirely sure if a bad thing was your responsibility or not... mainly because I was just a regular person in my previous life. I wasn't Shiva, I didn't have control of my next reincarnation; I hadn't even thought reincarnation was real. Even if I had, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to live my next life in the body of a character as minor and uninteresting as Meili.

  And then there was the one true question: if it hadn't been my soul, my consciousness, to take her place, couldn't it have been someone else's?

  Maybe she would have been dead all the same.

  "Meili? Are you still using the bathroom?" My mother shouted from downstairs. "The drive to Wellston is only half an hour; you can do whatever you need to do once we get there!"

  My face flushed a kind of pink in embarrassment, sort of matching the shade of my hair in the mirror. "Sorry, Mom! I'm coming down!" I quickly said, scrambling to fix my messy clothes and appearance before rushing out of the bathroom.

  Right.

  I calmed myself down, my mind automatically grabbing on to the stage directions that had kept everything on track. We were a normal, regular, loving family. Everything was fine. I was fine.

  To my mother and father, I was Meili. To my middle school classmates and teachers, I was Meili. From everyone else's perspective, she was still alive - because I had never once let my guard down, never stopped performing until I was her and she was me.

  And they were all better off for it, I liked to think.

  As far as anyone else was concerned, Meili underwent a sudden maturation at the beginning of puberty. She became more responsible and intelligent, got better grades, and stopped getting into unnecessary fights at school.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I made sure to be a better student, better friend, better daughter than she was. Better than she would have been, had she lived. I even worked and trained my ability every day to maintain my family's status in this world's backward social hierarchy.

  Because I didn't want to be a murderer.

  Instead of taking her away, hadn't I added a better person to the world, added a better person to these people's lives?

  All of these questions and issues weren't new, of course. I'd had similar thoughts many times before, a fact that dulled them into an undercurrent as I reached the garage.

  My dad, Haoyu, was loading the last of my luggage into the trunk of our minivan. He was about average height and well-built, with a thinning head of straight black hair that he wore with pride at age 47. Meanwhile, my mom, Alice, had already claimed her rightful place in the front passenger seat. She busied herself by adjusting the angle of her chair. Her long, cartoon-red hair pressed tightly against the seat's leather as she reclined.

  I found her hair impossibly stunning - a bit self-servingly, since mine was similar. But it was also the normal type of impossible, had I been in my original world. I couldn't help but take a longer-than-normal glance; one of my many otherworlder tendencies was the way people's hair colors sometimes caught me off guard.

  "Oh, are you ready to leave, Princess?" My dad asked, motioning me over with his hand. "If you can handle saying goodbye to our beautiful bathroom, I think it's time we set off."

  I nodded, suppressing a laugh as I wrapped him in a hug. "You know I stopped wanting you to call me that like, four and a half years ago, right?" I asked. "But yeah, I think it's time we get going. Mom's in such a hurry that it feels like she's allergic to the house or something."

  "I'm only eager to see the Wellston campus," she protested. "It's been almost three decades since your father and I were students there. Just a glance at the website and Principal Vaughn's changed enough to give me a heart attack."

  My dad chuckled, sliding into the driver's seat and starting the engine. "Mmm-Hmm. Well, I never expected a skinny guy like him to grow a full beard, that's for sure."

  Mom slapped him on the leg.

  "I don't know, Dad," I said. "That two-week-old stubble isn't doing you any favors here…"

  "Hey!"

  I smiled, rolling down my window to feel the cool summer breeze as we pulled out of the driveway. We were moving early (the school year wouldn't actually start for another week), but the Wellston High School administration suggested that students move into the dorms well in advance.

  "If nothing else, Vaughn's a better administrator than I could ever be," my father admitted once we stopped at a red light. "Wellston had quite the reputation back when I was a student, but it's even more prestigious now. I mean, Agwin was near-equal to us back in the day, and the gap is larger now than ever before."

  "Vaughn's certainly done a good job, but we shouldn't act like that's all it is." My mom rubbed him on the shoulder, interrupting. "If I recall correctly, the previous two principals were barely even high tiers. Was it a 5.0 for a semester, then a 5.1?"

  She sighed regretfully. "I thought they did quite well, but it's only natural that they struggled to attract high-level talent to the school. The two weren't much stronger than us!"

  "It certainly doesn't hurt that the man's nearly an 8.0," my father said in agreement. "No high-tier likes to listen to those weaker than them, but I bet it's never been much of a problem for him!"

  My mother nodded. "Speaking of, you wouldn't believe what happened at the clinic the other day, Haoyu. Our newest physician, the one I mentioned yesterday, started ordering me around!"

  "The new one? Isn't she straight out of med school?"

  "Exactly. But she's a 5.2, so you know how it goes..."

  I groaned mentally at their conversation, immediately attempting to tune it out. The hierarchy's harshness had a particular way of forcing me out of any good mood I managed, so I didn't want to deal with it.

  In this world, even high-tiers, people in the top two percentiles of strength, were considered 'too weak' to hold certain positions of authority.

  My parents were among the privileged, with their ability levels of 4.6 and 4.7. But even they frequently complained about the injustice in their lives. I counted eight or nine distinct stories of a high-tier colleague receiving a promotion in lieu of my father at his marketing firm, and my mother's clinic would never trust her to perform surgeries on VIP clients. The 'elite ceiling' always held them back.

  Yes, there was even a name for it - 'elite ceiling' - for the invisible barrier that held back all those elite-tiers who could never seem to land a top job over a high-tier coworker. My mother and father probably counted. Elite-tiers comprised most employees at their respective workplaces, but high-tiers dominated the middle and upper management layers (a fact they frequently drilled into my head).

  As they finished talking, I made a dumb joke and asked some trivial questions about the school's campus in an attempt to lighten the mood. It worked, for the most part. But there was also a stiffness in my parents' shoulders, a certain tension in their faces, that signaled that something was wrong.

  .

  .

  .

  Socks here, Underwear here, towels there. Did we forget the double-sided tape? How am I going to stick this poster on the wall?

  Unpacking and decorating a dorm room was a boring business, having gone through it multiple times as a college student in my previous life. My mom and dad certainly weren't interested enough to stick around; instead, they had left for a nostalgia trip around campus.

  Left to sort supplies and move around decorations all by my lonesome, it was dull enough that my mind wandered to far more esoteric and random (but interesting) things, like Wellston's boarding system.

  For example, when it came to getting an elusive single room in the Wellston dormitories, the only thing that really mattered was your place in the hierarchy. That wasn't what they said on their website, of course.

  We use a holistic review process to grant select students the opportunity for a single room. Personal and academic excellence are our main factors of consideration… Blah blah blah.

  According to literally anyone in the universe, the real meaning of personal excellence was an open secret. And of course, if a student's 'personal excellence' was excellent enough, the administration would ignore any weaknesses in the academic department.

  All of this ultimately meant that only higher-tier students ever got the privilege to have a room for themselves, with maybe a genius, 150 IQ low-tier thrown into the mix as a charity case once every few years.

  The only slight exception to this rule might have been me. I had discovered that my 'personal excellence' was surprisingly high when the Wellston Housing staff mailed me the key to a single room.

  At 3.0, My ability level was good for a freshman but not unique compared to the student population at Wellston High. Fortunately, I made up for what I lacked in the ability department with legacy and connections – my parents weren't only alumni but former classmates of Vaughn, the current principal.

  ...And an adult mind in the body of a 14-year-old did wonders for one's test scores.

  So when I finally finished moving into my spacious, single-person dorm room, it felt like I had brought a piece of my old universe with me. I was possibly the only student who had gotten their privileges mostly from good old-fashioned nepotism instead of ability discrimination.

  It's kind of refreshing, I thought. Then I flinched and jumped slightly. A blunt, muted noise echoed through the room, loud enough to reach my ears through thick brick walls.

  "Where did you two come fro… Hey! Stop! Do you have any idea–" The muffled sound of a shouting boy soon followed, though I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I paused, my body as still as the man on my poster, entirely focused on figuring out where the commotion was happening. Was there a fight in the hallway? Maybe something was happening on the floor below?

  No, that's wrong. The noises are coming from-

  I quickly rushed to the window.

  I activated my ability, monstrous crimson claws growing from my hands along with a boost to my hearing and vision. I slammed my windowpane open, then peered down to find a group of Three students in Wellston uniforms cornering a purple-haired boy to the wall of my building.

  The lone boy was clearly injured and exhausted, breathing hard, with numerous cuts and bruises littering his upper body. From my angle above him, I couldn't tell how badly his legs were injured, but the way he moved was stilted, almost like he was limping.

  The group surrounding him was also pretty banged up, especially the green-haired guy who stood at the front, but none of them were in as bad a shape as the lone boy.

  "Not so strong now, are you, hmm? Skinny little bitch." The guy was grinning like an animal, palms glowing with neon green energy. "You always lo-ooved to beat my ass back when we were in middle school, but you don't seem so tough now."

  "I beat you up a lot because you kept starting shit with me, idiot!" Purple boy shouted back. "What was I supposed to do? Lose to you on purpose? And don't try to take the high road now. Your two stooges ambushed me as soon as you started losing!"

  "Shut your mouth!"

  The green-haired guy unleashed an energy laser straight into the lone teen's stomach, sending him cratering into the brick wall of my dorm building with a thud. The back of his head collided harshly with the wall, and he crumpled into a limp heap on the ground as he coughed up blood.

  "A-are you sure about this, Kralik?" Another student, a brown-haired boy with glasses, questioned. "Isn't this guy a 3.0? You're only a 2.7, plus he's a freshman, a grade below us!"

  "Yeah… I'm not sure this is such a good idea," added the other one, a tall blonde girl. "Doesn't that mean he's only gonna get stronger than you? What will you do if he challenges you to a solo rank battle?"

  The boy, newly dubbed Kralik, laughed in response. "Come on, haven't you heard? The new king, Rei, has a soft spot for us weaklings. He made it against the rules to challenge people weaker than you by more than 0.2. Plus, even if Ventus here complains about a gangfight, it'll be his word against ours!"

  "I guess…"

  "That makes sense."

  The two replied in unison.

  "Ugh... Rei - Rei graduates next year, doesn't he?" Ventus managed in response, having pulled his body partway against the wall. "You'll be dead, then. I can wait a year for a new set of rules."

  Watching from my windowsill, I nearly palmed my forehead in disbelief. The purple guy was Ventus? Was I supposed to believe he would eventually become one of the strongest students in the school? Here he was, letting a group of mediocre mid-tiers beat him up. Not only that, but to provoke the group right as things were winding down?

  Then I had the thought: was this how Meili and Ventus became friends in the original unOrdinary universe? I considered it momentarily, stomach dropping when I realized that it would have been totally in character for Meili to intervene in the fight.

  "Oooh! Scary," Kralik mocked him back, turning to his group. "Guys, what do you say we make it so that Ventus won't be able to back up his words?"

  The blonde girl giggled. "Sure, that sounds good. And we can even call it preemptive self-defense."

  I grimaced, totally indecisive, as thoughts piled up and crashed into each other. Sure, Ventus ended up perfectly fine in the original series, but that might have only been because Meili helped him. I didn't want to get involved in a 3v1, but if I didn't do anything, there was a chance that my first major change to canon would be missing legs.

  "Ooh… Great Idea. And dude!" Kralik turned to the boy with the glasses."Didn't he keep dodging and deflecting all your energy missiles? I think you gotta get at least one good hit on him,"

  He seemed to ponder it momentarily, hesitating, before nodding in agreement. "Y-you're right! You know what? I was getting sick and tired of the smug look on his face as he dodged my missiles. I – I think he deserves a broken kneecap for that."

  Kralik high-fived him with a grin. "That's my man! Hey Ventus! You hear that? My friend will take out your left knee, and I'll blast a hole through your right. How does that sound?"

  Ventus snarled, trying and failing to rise off the ground.

  "You guys are going to regret this, you understand? My family is full of elite and high-tiers. It's in my blood to be better than - Ugh!"

  The blonde girl sped forward using her ability, downing Ventus with a knee to the chest.

  "Stop being so annoying," she spat on his unconscious body. "We wouldn't have taken you down if you were all that."

  Crap.

  She kicked him around, and then they all started taking turns. I couldn't stop myself from wincing at the savagery occurring right below my windowsill. Fights were regular occurrences in this world, doubly so at schools, but I hadn't expected to be met with such a brutal one right as I moved in.

  The girl's ability was primarily a speed enhancement type, so she couldn't do too much damage, but at 2.7 Kralik's laser could surely gore through bone. The situation was definitely getting out of hand, and I really, really didn't want to get involved in the fight.

  So there was only one other thing I could try.

  I eyeballed the distance to Ventus' prone body, cringing at the likelihood my plan would fail. I'm on the second floor, so maybe twenty feet above the ground, and he's like twelve feet away from being a straight shot. So the square root of 20 squared plus - holy crap they might actually kill him.

  At the sight of Kralik charging up another energy beam, I hurriedly thrust my right arm out the window, stretching the aura in my hand as best I could. It was a move I'd frequently practiced in middle school, motivated by my desire to improve beyond the original Meili. But I had never gotten it to work well.

  This time, it worked.

  Instantly, my claws lengthened and narrowed, each individual 'finger' morphing from handlike proportions to dimensions closer to a 20-foot needle. I hooked my claw under Ventus' collar, hoped it could support his weight, and retracted – just barely in time to pull him out of the line of fire.

  My claws were thankfully sturdy enough to pull Ventus into my room safely, a thin scarlet line streaking through the air like a grappling hook. The last thing I saw before shutting the window and closing my blinds was the bewildered look of shock Kralik wore on his face.

  Serves him right, I thought.