Alexander comes to on an office chair, gasping with panic and fear and hands coming up to clutch at his head expecting to feel a hole in the side of it.

Not finding one confused Alexander, he was very much sure that he had been shot in the head before he passed out in shock. Not in a windowless doorless waiting room, and that he should be very very very dead because people do not generally walk away from headshots.

He looks around the waiting room warily and very confused! Alexander hates being confused.

The waiting room isn't being very helpful, unfortunately.

Shortly, the door (which was definitely there before, really) opens, and a bored looking man reads off a clipboard, "Alexander Luthor?"

Alexander's pretty sure he had just thought this room had no entrance, even though right there's a door that has to have been here the whole time. The incongruity makes him feel uneasy. He's also fairly certain he'd been shot in the head, despite his currently uninjured state.

So his current distress is completely understandable.

"Hey, you! What's going on here? Where am I? Are you with the police? The Lenneti family? Where is this?" he demands, fists clenched.

"This is the afterlife, mister Alexander Luthor. My records indicate you died due to being shot in the head, yes?"

"The... afterlife? you must be messing with me". Alexander says deadpan to the man with the clipboard. But he can't help but raise his hand to where the bullet hole should be and feel intact skin.

"Or I at some point went insane, imagined being shot, and you are taking advantage of the mentally ill" And a very disapproving stare is sent to the man in the clipboard.

This couldn't be the afterlife, he didn't feel dead at all.

"I assure you. It's quite real." He recites a few facts from Alexander's life - things no one else could have known. Things that would have been hard to gather through spying alone.

"Still more likely I have gone insane, but I suppose I can play along just in case, or at least to change the delusion from being alone in a waiting room".

Was he insane? he didn't feel insane, He didn't feel particularly dead either. Maybe he had been put into a coma and this was his dream? the coma dream always seemed like an unlikely trope in television to him. In any case, better treat it like it was real and, if he was wrong no harm done.

"So what do you want with me?"

"We need to discuss your afterlife options."

"If the choice is between what religions afterlife I go to I would like to apply for the greek one, standing in a field doesn't sound so bad, maybe a hero will summon me for my wisdom" Snarking at the man with the clipboard.

If Alexander didn't quip about this he might just start taking it seriously, and that wouldn't actually help if he freaked out because he was taking this scenario seriously, he had heard a lot of talk of hell in his Catholic family.

"You don't have enough karma to leave the cycle of reincarnation for any afterlife, unfortunately, and you have throughout your lives maintained a positive enough balance to be in no danger of being removed by us."

"Cycle of reincarnation? I would not have guessed Buddha and Hinduism to have been correct, huh" if this was a mental fabrication it wasn't what he had expected his brain to come up with.

"So guess I'm off to be a dog for the next decade? not like it matters, if I don't keep my memories I would just be a new person, the current me would be effectively dead, I hope that dog me is happy". Again hiding behind the snark, because this was starting to seem unlikely to just be a figment of his mind.

"You don't have that poor of karma. But come, let's get you settled in my office to look over your options - one of which is keeping your memories, which your soul usually takes when your karmic balance is high enough. Right now, though, you'd need to take quite a few credits to get that..."

"I would rather not die, I will take any option that involves getting to keep being me". Following the man with the clipboard into his office. "Must not be many people with good enough karma, never saw any confirmed cases of people having memories of past lives".

"What is your name anyway? you know mine already".

"I'm Dan. And most people struggle to get that high, yes, or choose to save their credits more between lives - you can choose to regain all memories of all lives upon exiting the cycle."

The office looks rather normal. Large desk. Bookshelves full of files and leather tomes. Comfortable chairs. Dan gestures to one, and takes a seat himself.

"Well, Dan nice to meet you I suppose". Taking a seat in one of the chairs, it really was comfortable compared to the waiting room.

"Isn't the whole point of exiting the cycle ceasing to exist as an individual? to achieve a state where you sort of blank out and join the universe?". He was becoming rather convinced that this wasn't just his mind now, he would have expected it to follow a more traditional religious narrative if it was.

"Did the Buddha lie to me too? where can you find a reliable prophet these days, should i ask the pastafarians?". Letting himself freak out internally a little now he was semi-convinced this was real and hiding it behind more snark.

"Eternal bliss or nonexistence is a leaving option, but there's also options that preserve consciousness."

"Do you have more questions, or do you want to go over your options?"

"Preserving consciousness sounds good, and if the options let me keep the current me from being wiped then sure let's go over them, if I don't have enough karma for that then....guess it doesn't really matter what happens".

Slumping in his seat, he was pretty sure he didn't have enough karma as he didn't live a particularly good life. Criminal activity is generally looked down upon after all.

He starts to go through papers, hands them to Alexander - whose karmic balance is indeed too low for memories without taking a dramatic number of 'credits', which are effectively lifelong drawbacks - when the phone rings.

"Hold on, I have to take this."

He stands, turns his back, and answers the phone.

"Yes ma'am - really ma'am - of course ma'am - right away ma'am - "

He hangs up, and turns back to Alexander. "Well, you're being offered an opportunity - we're experiencing a critical shortage of souls in one particular world in one period. More births scheduled than people who want to live then. You wouldn't have a choice of time period... But this is a pretty big favor to us, and you'd have a large credit added to your account - equal to the cost of past life memories, in fact."

"I know a racketeering scam when I see one bud, but it's not like I can say no anyway, not if I want to keep being me". He shrugs. "You know what I want, and this is how to get it, so fine ill go to a new world, my old one wasn't that great anyway". Leans forward elbows on the desk. "What's this world like anyway?".

"The main region we're experiencing a shortage in has only recently started importing the technology you'd have been used to - two decades ago they had a culture and technology level much like feudal Japan - and the more wealthy have caught up to around the equivalent of the late 1960s, early 1970s of your world. The area is tightly controlled still by feudal warlords, and is prone to warfare, with a history of child soldiers among the warrior classes, though your childhood itself would be during a time of peace. There's a potential apocalypse that would hit when you would be about seventeen - you'd have the potential to avert or resolve it, which would be a tremendous karmic credit - and the world itself contains a form of magic, that's been mostly developed towards warfare but is one of the more flexible systems connected to our cycle."

"Magic? well damn sign me up, and a technology base enough to get 1970s tech seems pretty good to me, and if I get killed by this apocalypse its not like I'm still not out ahead by existing an extra decade, sounds like a win to me" Maybe cheering up a bit, this doesn't seem so bad, he wasn't even being that snarky when he said sign me up.

"So I could cast 1d6 + my intelligence fireballs? I always liked the wizard class, what are my options in this new world Dan?".

"You could breathe fireballs, if you trained."

He'll take out a different sheath of papers.

The choices are:

Benefits:

-memories of past life (100 points)
--perfect memories of past life (2 points)
-lifelong luck (50 points)
-shinobi start (10 points)
-noble start (25 points)
-good chakra control (2 points; incompatible with good chakra reserves)
--extreme chakra control (7 points; requires poor chakra reserves)
-good chakra reserves (2 points; incompatible with good chakra control)
--extreme chakra reserves (7 points; requires poor chakra control)
-good taijutsu skill (2 points)
--extreme taijutsu skill (5 points)
-eidetic memory (2 points)
-natural talent for inventing techniques (2 points)
-quick learner (2 points)
-lifelong companion (2 points)
-clan start, small (5 points)
--medium (5 points)
---bloodline (15 points)
----powerful bloodline (25 points)
--choice of clan or bloodline (10 points)

Credits:

-persecuted bloodline (-5 points)
-demon host, not useful (-5 points)
-demon host, useful (-1 point)
-poor chakra reserves (-2 points)
--extremely poor chakra reserves (-2 points)
-poor chakra control (-2 points)
--extremely poor chakra control (-2 points)
---cannot use chakra (--2 points)
-poor taijutsu skill (-2 points)
-extreme poverty (-3 points)
-born an orphan (-3 points)
--dead clan (-5 points) (requires a clan start)
-language disadvantage (-1 point)
-lack of memory of afterlife meeting (-1 point)
-fate entanglement (-2 points)
--fated enemies (-3 points)

Alexander currently, with the favor, has 125 points to spend.

"Uhhhhh... I am suddenly convinced I've gone insane again, this is Naruto, this is a fictional setting! chakra, taijutsu, shinobi, bloodlines".

Seriously what the hell afterlife, this is ISEKAI! how does this make sense at all? "This is all stuff from a comic book! you can't expect me to believe its a real place".

"Honestly, I think the boss upstairs gets bored sometimes. This happens a lot."

"what the boss upstairs recreates fictional worlds where child soldiers frequently die or are ordered to kill their family!? because they were bored, well if that's whats just a bit of fun for them I would hate to see what the boss does when they are feeling extra whimsical". Letting out a choked and nervous half laugh.

That was NOT acceptable, not at all, he didn't realise someone was in charge of all this and created horrible worlds BECAUSE THEY GOT BORED.