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.

none of this true. As many minds as he had turned toward focusing on his body, he

her gaze, he could measure out the beat of her heart, the perspiration of her skin, the slant of her lips, the wrinkle of her nose. He could see the shift in her body, the angle of her arms,

had

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

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

as she was biting them, Leonel was certain that something was wrong and he would have traveled through the Gates

the characteristics of Aina he had

his gaze was now in his heart. It was a depth of emptiness he had never felt before, a level of nihilism he had never

was the last thing he had expected. Even indifference wasn't as bad

practically like cool waters to his skin. It glided off of him and even his wounds without a sound as his

white-gold Rune marks appeared upon Leonel's

Seith was especially indecisive. He was the only one that had felt that aura from earlier. There was nothing that had changed between then and now. He didn't believe that this hidden individual would

'.'

white gold began

Fifth Dimensional existences, to the point where only two could do it—Elody and Myghell—the

all that Leonel was a master of several