Dimensional Descent

2044 Third Party

Aina wanted to give Leonel an answer that could satisfy him, an answer that would sweep away all of his worries and lift the veil of darkness from him. She wanted nothing more than to put a smile on his face, but the question was simply far too difficult.

But what Leonel said after hearing her answer swept away all of her hesitation and disappointment in herself, replacing it with shock and a beating heart that refused to calm.

"… I don't know if it's an illusion, but I feel that I know the answer for me all too well. I would be exactly the same person, just as lazy, just as unmotivated, entirely unable to take the world seriously. No matter how many variables changed, no matter the sequence of events, no matter what twists and turns came, there would only be two constants…

"My personality and my love of you… But now I'm confused.

"I always believed that this feeling was like a guiding lamp everyone had, but as I grew up, I realized that not everyone had that same conviction. I chose to ignore it, as I usually did, because I can never be bothered to waste time thinking about things I know I can't find the answer to, but then came the Metamorphosis, and I gained a new understanding.

"The first time I heard the words, I was entirely stumped. It felt as though someone had gripped my shoulders and was shaking me violently, wanting me to wake up… The future can affect the past, they said.

"But if that was the case, why was I the only one that felt it? I don't have a time-related Ability Index, so the future should be just as blurry to me as it is to everyone else, but that nagging feeling remained.

"And now… I don't know anymore if that nagging feeling is even real, that light that had always been guiding me, that path I had always followed because I felt that I was at least being my true self, feels like a façade, a fabrication that was never real to begin with.

it. I don't know what would happen if I suddenly started ignoring that path

face was placid as he spoke. Despite the weight of his words, it didn't seem to carry to his expression in the slightest. It was as though he had entirely dissociated, observing himself, or what he had thought to be himself, through a lens as a third

mind where there had once been two constants,

enough, Aina's worries

it represent exactly. But then he remembered that he had not just one tug, but two of

felt in so many things truly himself? Or was it just useful for this simulation if he were to act in this way? Maybe he just happened to have an Ability Index that also made

the end, he couldn't

up on Aina as well, what good was living anymore. He couldn't trust his own likes and dislikes, he couldn't follow

in being able to enter the "real" world and rub elbows with them had vanished in a puff of smoke. Hadn't he been able to enter Zones just as easily as well? Didn't those

listened in silence, gripping Leonel's

understand, she couldn't understand. The leaps in logic Leonel had taken to gain his current understanding of the world were only things an existence with millions of minds like himself could do, it was simply

you can take a step off of it mean something?"

trembled as he