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.

together, they had, of course, lost their fair share of games. However, not 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 on full

to look right through him. It

gaze, he didn't crane his neck or tilt his head to the side. In

that everything?"

soothing. It was the kind

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 of question they couldn't lie in answer of even if they

that's everything."

"I see."

fell into silence and the room followed suit. The eyes of all his teammates focused on him, worry marring their brows. However, none of them spoke a single word. They knew that at this moment, nothing would get through to Leonel as he stepped into his own

were

Dream Clone of himself stood. Before this Dream Clone sat a golden balance. On one side of the balance, there was a near perfect replica of Aina but it was possible to see right through it. On the other, there was a perfect replica of

veined mask, the talisman,

sending wave after wave of trembling sounds in every which direction. However, Leonel's Dream Clone hardly reacted, even as the

light. After each one

light. Within, an image of him first meeting Aina played. One could see her short

confession to Aina. One would have thought that her first reaction would have been that flustered runaway everyone had

it was etched onto his heart forever. It was only after that that she seemed to panic and run

mote of light forward. The balance shifted slightly, but it wasn't nearly enough to balance