Dimensional Descent

A hollow sound rang in Leonel's ears, almost as though an enormous explosion had gone off in his surroundings and now only an eerie sharpness of what remained of his hearing was left. Even with all the sensory perception and infallible memory in the world, in just those few seconds, it was as though his mind was blank. He couldn't see or hear anything, nor could he remember what kind of thoughts he was having.

Leonel never hid anything from Aina. There were secrets he probably should have kept from everyone around him that would have probably made it easier to protect their safety that he had still chosen to tell to her. And, there were secrets that weren't so important, but were far more personal, that he had still decided to tell her as well.

But, there were two things Leonel had never told Aina. Whether consciously or subconsciously, he never even began to express them. It was hard to tell if he had done it on purpose or if it was a sheer coincidence that he never got around to doing so. But… one was hard pressed to believe that two such important things just happened to be matters that Leonel didn't get around to telling someone he usually told everthing about…

The first was Leonel's true status as a Dark Prisoner. He never explained anything about his evaluation as a child, how this had estranged him from the Fawkes family when he might otherwise have grown up with a fine relationship with the royal family, or how Lionel had taken his place…

The second though… Was related to the specifics of that night after Aina was forcefully teleported to Terrain… And how that night… The words Aina had just spoken were the exact words James had said to him that day…

These were two memories that Leonel had long since buried deep within him, and with his control over his mind, he never thought about them. Unlike a normal individual who might stumble onto such thoughts from time to time and suddenly find themselves flashing back to that day, Leonel was completely different. It could be said that since those events happened… This was maybe only the first or second time he had thought of them.

In that moment, he couldn't seem to escape it. Without access to Tier 4 of his Ability Index, he couldn't control the facets and knobs of his mind as easily as he could before, resulting in a relentless flood that bombarded his thoughts and threatened to turn his brain to mush.

He could suddenly remember everything about that day. The devastation of the artillery shells that had fallen around them, the screams of women and children who were caught in the crossfire, and even the light reflected in James' eyes when he said those words, his father's gun still held to his temple.

~

"Are. You. Sure. That. You. Want. Me. To. Kill. Him."

Leonel could remember looking deeply at James, still very much wanting his deductions to be wrong. Maybe it was a coincidence that the man holding a gun to James' head was so tall. Maybe the resemblance they shared was overblown by him. Maybe he had overestimated the strength of James' A-grade Energy Shield Ability and underestimated the power of a bullet.

Maybe, just maybe, his best friend of over a decade wasn't trying to drag him toward his death. Just maybe… Just maybe he was wrong, for once.

However, his mind was too sharp. He could see that change in James' expression immediately, he could feel his best friend's heart skip a beat even under the influence of all the noise. At that moment, he knew… He knew that the friend he had come to know was gone.

"I'm disappointed… I really… took you as my closest friend."

Leonel had meant those words more than anything. James was his closest friend, his best friend, his brother. Their personalities were hardly anything alike, but they were inseparable. It was the kind of relationship that Leonel couldn't explain even if he tried.

If he was honest with himself, maybe James had just as much to do with his moral code than any of his father's teachings had. Being drilled again with the importance of Respect and Persistence was nice, but there were so many ways to interpret those two words. Who deserved respect? What kind of goals were worth being persistent in the face of? The answers to these questions was probably more important than the mantra themselves.

If Leonel's father had been his compass, James had been the magnetic pole that wrenched him northward. This wasn't because James was so morally superior. In fact, James was an asshole, not much unlike how Leonel's father had been in his youth.

He used women like rags, he didn't care enough to pay much attention in school, he put no effort into anything because his family was rich and famous, and he hadn't hesitated to attempt to betray the hopes of dreams of a team filled with his brothers for his own selfish goals.

There was nothing about James that screamed moral direction. But, that was ironically the very reason why he was so profoundly important to Leonel.

Despite his flaws, despite how seemingly worthless he was, despite how by every observable metric that decided human value according to society labeling him a net negative…

Leonel had always loved him. James had always been his brother. The first person he told about Aina, the only person who knew how much he hated playing quarterback, the only person who knew what was hidden behind his perpetual charismatic smile.

To most others, James was worthless scum. And yet to Leonel, he was invaluable in a way that was just impossible to explain. And if even someone like James could hold such supreme value to him… Then who was he to cast judgment upon the worth of anyone else?

But…

"Bullshit!" James suddenly roared. "You pretend to care about so many things, you pretend to be kind hearted, but all you really care about are things ending up exactly like you want them! You don't like killing only because you don't want to deal with the guilt! You don't like playing football only because you didn't get to choose it! You only want to do things your way and nothing else matters!"