Dimensional Descent

"Cap!"

The voices all called out in unison, drowning out even the volume they had been arguing at before. And yet, Leonel didn't seem to hear them. His gaze was expressionlessly locked onto the items on the table.

The Segmented Cube. The blue veined mask. The talisman. The necklace.

His eyes almost carelessly swept through them all, his expression giving nothing away. Still, it was as though he was standing in a parallel dimension, a space he shared with the items on the table. He couldn't see, hear or even smell anything else. The floor beneath his feet might as well have been nothing but an endless void he was freefalling through.

The room fell into silence when they noticed the direction of Leonel's gaze. They all suddenly felt that it was ridiculous that they had been debating this topic for so long, only for Leonel to see through it all due to a slight carelessness.

They could have never expected that Leonel would suddenly appear in this fashion. Even if they had wanted to hide the items, they never had a chance to.

"Cap?"

Joel stood from his position, approaching Leonel.

None of them had ever seen Leonel get emotional. Even when he felt rage, he would instead enter a state of coldness that made even them uncomfortable.

These group of brothers had been together for more than ten years, not including the time they had spent apart. They had grown together… From the time they were five years old, putting on their first football pads, to the time they were all 17 year old seniors.

when Leonel got like this. It was as though they were all forced

right through him. It was the most uncomfortable Joel

his gaze, he didn't crane his neck or tilt his head to the side. In fact, Joel felt as though a hole was

that everything?"

seem to carry much hurt. In fact, it was quite soothing. It was the

soothing nature masked a sort of coercion that demanded an answer… it was the kind of question anyone hearing it was compelled to answer, the kind of question they couldn't lie

that's everything."

"I see."

However, none of them spoke a single word. They knew that at this moment, nothing would get through to Leonel as he stepped into

were

On one side of the balance, there was a near perfect replica of Aina but it was possible to see right through it.

mask, the talisman, the necklace and the

falling heavily to one side. A booming noise reverberated through the white walls of the Dream World, sending wave after wave of trembling sounds in every which direction. However, Leonel's Dream Clone hardly reacted,

motes of light. After each one of these motes was

grasped at air, forming another mote of light. Within, an image of him first meeting Aina played.

this one you could find his first ever confession to Aina. One would have thought that her first reaction would

his heart forever. It was only after that that she seemed to

The balance shifted slightly, but it