Better Luck Next Time. Saiyuki. Challenge: Reincarnation. 100 words.
No spoilers or anything else requiring a warning.
Once a young monk undertook a course of austerities: fasting, flagellation, the usual. When the plague swept the land, he was too weakened to fight.
Once an officer who led from the front stumbled bleeding off the field. By the time his lieutenant found him, it was too late for anything but farewells.
Once a little youkai was killed by his brother.
And a boy in a cave watched the constellations shift in the sky.
And the Merciful Goddess cursed the stupidity of mankind in terms remarkably like those of a long-lost subordinate, then shuffled the tiles, and tried again.
Once a young monk undertook a course of austerities: fasting, flagellation, the usual. When the plague swept the land, he was too weakened to fight.
Once an officer who led from the front stumbled bleeding off the field. By the time his lieutenant found him, it was too late for anything but farewells.
Once a little youkai was killed by his brother.
And a boy in a cave watched the constellations shift in the sky.
And the Merciful Goddess cursed the stupidity of mankind in terms remarkably like those of a long-lost subordinate, then shuffled the tiles, and tried again.