by hadesknowsall
At sixteen, Soma Akihiro remembers a life that should have ended nearly two thousand years ago. He was once Cao Cao: warlord, poet, strategist, reformer, tyrant, and one of the most feared men of the Three Kingdoms era. In his first life, he nearly brought order to a collapsing age, only to die before seeing his ambition fulfilled. History remembered him as brilliant, ruthless, and necessary, but never as the man who won. Now he has been reborn in Akitsushima, a modern island nation of elite academies, political dynasties, corporate empires, media wars, and hidden power struggles. There are no armies to command, no emperor to control, and no battlefield to cross. In this age, power belongs to those who master reputation, information, institutions, and influence. His first battlefield is Shinkaryū Academy, the prestigious school that trains Akitsushima’s future leaders. To ordinary students, it is a place of exams, rankings, rivalries, and ambition. To Akihiro, it is something far more familiar: a court, a war camp, and a proving ground disguised as a classroom. As his memories return, Akihiro discovers the truth of what happened after his death, how history judged him, and how the world twisted his name into legend, warning, and villainy. Furious at the ending he was denied, he resolves to survive the academy, master the rules of the modern age, and one day seize the highest seat in the nation: the office of Prime Minister. But little does he know, he is not the only one who has returned. If history remembers him as a villain, can he truly change his fate? Or will the modern world learn why Cao Cao was feared in the first place?
