Dimensional Descent

[Bonus chappy thanks to Mr. Ham <3 (2/6)

Leonel sat on a stone in silence, looking out into the ocean. Every part of Anastasia's world-well, almost all of it-was absolutely beautiful. But he wasn't able to enjoy the beauty of it at all in this moment.

It wasn't like he wanted to have conflict with Aina's father, it was just that he couldn't see eye to eye with the man. It only made it worse that it was almost impossible to win an argument against Leonel. By the time you thought of one rebuttal, he had had a thousand.

It was hard to see how that could be a problem with Leonel, but when an argument was so one-sided, and yet the other party still felt like they were in the right, it made it impossible to come to a true common ground.

The only way would be if Leonel purposely held back and allowed Aina's father some concessions, but he didn't want to do that. Maybe that was a hint of his selfishness coming up, maybe it was his unwillingness to lose, but he truly meant those words he said to Aina.

He was willing to lay down and take a loss to her, but not for anyone else.

Leonel knew there wasn't really anyone wrong in this situation.

He felt that he was still rightfully mad at Aina back then. She didn't like his reckless actions, but he always had 100% confidence in himself. The idea that his woman wouldn't have the same unfettered belief in him not only hurt his own ego, but something deeper than that.

It had taken him a long time to understand what really bothered him about that moment back then, but as he came to understand more about himself, the more clarity he had about that day.

He had always imagined his relationship with Aina to be some perfect fairy tale. Or maybe it was that he always had an ideal of her in his mind, an ideal that shattered that day he watched her kill someone for the first time.

His feelings for Aina came from a power beyond him, probably much like his self-confidence. In the beginning, he didn't even really know why he liked her, so he filled in the gaps with fantasies instead.

when she needed to, how smart she was at the same time. He felt that she was the kind of quiet, housewife sort of woman, one that would always be by his side to silently

she never came to his game. That was why he felt so lost when she didn't even look back at him when they almost lost their lives to

wasn't acting the way he fantasized about, and the cognitive dissonance ripped him

began to learn more

but she could also be reserved and exceedingly shy. She was a fierce

everyone else was, but that fantasy was stuck in

woman that could possibly gain his interest out of

not lean on him? How dare she try to be

in him. It wasn't coming

this time, rather than it ending in separation and cruel words on

trusted him back then as well. When the Shadow Tail appeared, the first

separate situations, and

She hadn't trusted him.

it was

in him was becoming just as

the fact he tried to fill in so much of her personality on his own as though

no obligation to him at all. He was a father, of course his allegiances would be

situation where two men refused to back down and the lives of tens of thousands