Dimensional Descent

Leonel sat within the Lab Setting of the Segmented Cube, his mind absent. His only company was Little Tolly, but seemingly having seen through its master's mood, the little guy was a lot less joyful.

It was quite an odd situation to be in. The war for Earth was likely coming to a close even as he sat here, the nightmare that had haunted Aina had been killed by his own hands, and a bounty that should have been hanging over his head was effectively neutered for the time being.

Yet, Leonel couldn't find it within himself to be happy in the slightest. In fact, he felt a nagging insecurity eating away at his heart, refusing to let go and filling his chest with a heavy darkness.

Uncertainty.

It was dangerous enough for a normal human to allow such an emotion to rule them. To fear the unknown and one's future path more than the idea of not taking a step at all was as good as allowing one's life to come to a grinding halt.

In a normal world, the worst that could happen would be living out a life of mediocrity. One would become a normal man, wallowing through life with a woe is me attitude that wouldn't fade even with age.

Such a person would be a perpetual victim for the rest of their lives, blaming their failures on the actions of others and never undergoing any sort of introspection about what personal decisions might have led to their current situation.

However, in a world like this, in a new world order where killing and death was just the product of another normal day, such apathy was the root of more than just failure.

Left alone with his own thoughts, Leonel spun his own counter arguments in his minds over and over again. At one point, his numerous thoughts split into two streams, attacking one another from opposite sides as though determined to completely destroy the other side.

The more Leonel thought, the more he realized just how flawed his previous thoughts were.

was restricted the same way the hidden families were restricted? Was

were in a completely separate space while his own father could appear

on a set of rules he wasn't even aware of to absolve his father of any guilt? It was laughable at best. At worst, he was a terrible kind of hypocrite, the kind of bastard that would

about

from giving it to someone else? If he had handed it over to Hutch, an

been struck down to the point he was in a coma?

was precisely because Hutch had been occupied that he became bold enough to travel into the depths of the

he had been less

Pisces, this girl he

he broke it down to the foundation of why it was he disliked her so much, wasn't it purely because he couldn't stand the fact she survived while those he called friend could only be

Pisces' worst

was being objective about it, the worst thing she had done was point Raynred toward Royal Blue Province. This action could have

ran away from Elorin, the Province just happened to be the closest piece of land. Regardless of whether he found out this information from Pisces, he would have found out eventually anyway. Just like

the most about what she did was the most benign action: she had tried to get

sure, it was rooted in a certain selfishness on her part. But, wasn't his

hand over his things, this much was true. But… If

had value. Tied to these treasures was also the fact his father had entrusted him with them, they could be considered to be the last bit of his parents that he had with

he took it one step further, these treasures represented his chance at reuniting with his family, it represented a path toward the strength he would need to save