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.

a single one of them could ever remember losing when Leonel got like this. It was as though they were all forced into a hyper tense state, their minds and bodies

latter seemed to look right through him. It was

the side.

everything?"

In fact, it was quite soothing. It was

so. It wasn't too deep nor was it too high. It had a mellow, carefreeness to it that drew those around him in. But at this moment, 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

that's everything." Joel

"I see."

word. They knew that at this moment, nothing would

were exactly

near perfect replica of Aina but it was possible

the blue veined mask, the talisman, the necklace

golden balance shifted, 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.

After each one of these motes was formed, they would gently float to the side of Leonel's

Within, an image of him first

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

etched onto his heart forever. It was only after

mote of light forward. The balance shifted slightly, but it