Dimensional Descent

Truthfully, all of these thoughts were simply running in the back of Leonel's mind.

After two subsequent breakthroughs of the mind, Leonel's ability to split his attention had bloomed from just over a 1 010 000 to a number approaching 5 000 000. Such a thing could only be said to be both a blessing and a curse.

When he was battling, bathing in blood, bone and limbs, his mind was quite blank. All he cared about was calculating his next attack and making those before him suffer as much as possible. Rage colored his thoughts and took hold of his heart. There was only it and everything else was a sheet of white.

But, when he saw her gaze, it felt like years of buried thoughts and feelings had all resurfaced at once. Something within him snapped and whatever had been leashed within him was released, ravaging his body like a wild beast.

He could still see that gaze now. In fact, he could piece everything that made it up. No matter how much he tried to distract himself with just how much was going on in his body now, no matter how much he tried to focus on something else, to put his mind to something else, nothing worked.

He could feel her gaze almost as though he was still looking into it.

A hint of recognition, an odd curiosity, and then nothing.

Her gaze didn't have any sadness, no remorse, no happiness, no glee. It was as though she was looking at the face of an acquaintance she had known long ago, a classmate that she remembered the look of and was mildly curious about just what they might be doing here.

Leonel wished he didn't have the ability to analyze everything so thoroughly, he wished that he could believe that it was nonsense and that he had seen wrong, that his memory was fallible and maybe his brain was playing a trick on him, forcing him to see the worst.

that none of this true. As many minds as he had turned toward focusing on his body, he still had too many more left over.

skin, the slant of her lips, the wrinkle of her nose. He

moment, he had gained a hundreds of

to even, her heart too steady. Her hands didn't clench, her gaze didn't

had he warned her not to bite those soft, pink lips of hers? And

Leonel was certain that something was wrong and he would have traveled through the Gates of Hell

of the characteristics of Aina he

in his heart. It was a depth of emptiness

but this was the last thing he had expected. Even indifference wasn't as bad as this. Maybe if she had been indifferent, then he could have concluded

of lava beneath him. The searing heat was practically like cool waters to his skin. It glided off of him and even his wounds without a sound as his swim pair of wings retracted in a flutter of

Rune marks appeared upon Leonel's back

earlier. There was nothing

'.'

began

that didn't recognize this phenomenon. Though it was extraordinarily rare amongst Fifth Dimensional existences, to the point where only two could do it—Elody and Myghell—the same couldn't be said for the Sixth Dimensional members of

suddenly dawned on them all that Leonel was a master of several Branches, something that made them all numb