Dimensional Descent

2044 Third Party

Aina wanted to give Leonel an answer that could satisfy him, an answer that would sweep away all of his worries and lift the veil of darkness from him. She wanted nothing more than to put a smile on his face, but the question was simply far too difficult.

But what Leonel said after hearing her answer swept away all of her hesitation and disappointment in herself, replacing it with shock and a beating heart that refused to calm.

"… I don't know if it's an illusion, but I feel that I know the answer for me all too well. I would be exactly the same person, just as lazy, just as unmotivated, entirely unable to take the world seriously. No matter how many variables changed, no matter the sequence of events, no matter what twists and turns came, there would only be two constants…

"My personality and my love of you… But now I'm confused.

"I always believed that this feeling was like a guiding lamp everyone had, but as I grew up, I realized that not everyone had that same conviction. I chose to ignore it, as I usually did, because I can never be bothered to waste time thinking about things I know I can't find the answer to, but then came the Metamorphosis, and I gained a new understanding.

"The first time I heard the words, I was entirely stumped. It felt as though someone had gripped my shoulders and was shaking me violently, wanting me to wake up… The future can affect the past, they said.

"But if that was the case, why was I the only one that felt it? I don't have a time-related Ability Index, so the future should be just as blurry to me as it is to everyone else, but that nagging feeling remained.

"And now… I don't know anymore if that nagging feeling is even real, that light that had always been guiding me, that path I had always followed because I felt that I was at least being my true self, feels like a façade, a fabrication that was never real to begin with.

"I don't know what to think of it. I don't know what would happen if I suddenly started ignoring that path forward and took a step off of it."

Leonel's face was placid as he spoke. Despite the weight of his words, it didn't seem to carry to his expression in the slightest. It was as though he had entirely dissociated, observing himself, or what he had thought to be himself, through a lens as a third party.

He didn't even trust himself anymore. In his mind where there had once been two constants, there was just one, and that one was Aina.

Funny enough, Aina's worries weren't unwarranted.

Not long ago, Leonel had thought about what these urges meant, this tug he had always felt, what did it represent exactly. But then he remembered that he had not just one tug, but two of them. He wondered if he should stop associating himself with Aina as well.

Was his love for her real? Or was that something that had been programmed into him? And his personality, was that casual indifference he always felt in so many things truly himself? Or was it just useful for this simulation if he were to act in this way? Maybe he just happened to have an Ability Index that also made him more aware of it than others.

However, in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

If he gave up on Aina as well, what good was living anymore. He couldn't trust his own likes and dislikes, he couldn't follow his dreams because it was all meaningless, if he also didn't have Aina, why did he even have to bother anymore.

His previous confidence in being able to enter the "real" world and rub elbows with them had vanished in a puff of smoke. Hadn't he been able to enter Zones just as easily as well? Didn't those people feel very real and very alive? What good was it for him to hold onto this as though it was truly some sort of saving grace.

Aina listened in silence, gripping Leonel's hand hard.

She didn't understand, she couldn't understand. The leaps in logic Leonel had taken to gain his current understanding of the world were only things an existence with millions of minds like himself could do, it was simply impossible for anyone else to succeed in such a thing. Although he had laid out so much, Aina still hadn't made the final conclusion.

"… Doesn't the fact you can take a step off of it mean something?" Aina said softly.

Leonel's pupils trembled as he looked down toward Aina.

"I am very afraid, Leonel. I have heard many things about those with exceptionally high Dream Force affinity, things that I don't want to believe. I'm very happy that you're saying so much, you rarely speak so much in a single breath, but it's also because of that that I'm so worried.

"I want you to remember that Dream Force is nothing but a vessel, a conduit, it's a projection of what a person could be, but it isn't a person. Just because you can use Dream Force, doesn't mean you can create life, it only means that you can grant the capacity for it."

Aina didn't understand what was going on, but her best deduction was that Leonel's Dream Force affinity had grown so deep that he was beginning to see past the layers of what it meant to be human, and as a result, he was questioning many things.

While she didn't understand fully, when it came to comprehension, and especially comprehension of her own body, Aina was far beyond anyone else. As a result, how could she not fully understand the role that Dream Force played in her own body?

Of course, her deductions were entirely wrong, this wasn't what was causing Leonel's breakdown at all, but even so, hearing these words, Leonel felt like he had been hit by a speeding truck.

"Fuse with me," Aina said lightly. "We haven't done it in a while."

Aina reached out and Leonel subconsciously deployed his Dream World.