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 disappointnt 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 all too well. I would be exactly the sa 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 ca, 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 sa conviction. I chose to ignore it, as I usually did, because I can never be bothered to waste ti thinking about things I know I can't find the answer to, but then ca the tamorphosis, and I gained a new understanding.
"The first ti I heard the words, I was entirely stumped. It felt as though soone had gripped my shoulders and was shaking violently, wanting 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 ti-related Ability Index, so the future should be just as blurry to 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 , 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.
"I don't know what to think of it. I don't know what would happen if I suddenly started ignoring that path forward and took a step off of it."
Leonel's 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 party.
He didn't even trust himself anymore. In his mind where there had once been two constants, there was just one, and that one was Aina.
Funny enough, Aina's worries weren't unwarranted.
Not long ago, Leonel had thought about what these urges ant, this tug he had always felt, what did it represent exactly. But then he rembered that he had not just one tug, but two of them. He wondered if he should stop associating himself with Aina as well.
Was his love for her real? Or was that sothing that had been programd into him? And his personality, was that casual indifference he always 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 him more aware of it than others.I think you should take a look at
However, in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
If he gave up on Aina as well, what good was living anymore. He couldn't trust his own likes and dislikes, he couldn't follow his dreams because it was all aningless, if he also didn't have Aina, why did he even have to bother anymore.
His previous confidence 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 people feel very real and very alive? What good was it for him to hold onto this as though it was truly so sort of saving grace.
Aina listened in silence, gripping Leonel's hand hard.
She didn't 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 impossible for anyone else to succeed in such a thing. Although he had laid out so much, Aina still hadn't made the final conclusion.
"… Doesn't the fact you can take a step off of it an sothing?" Aina said softly.
Leonel's pupils trembled as he looked down toward Aina.
"I am very afraid, Leonel. I have heard many things about those with exceptionally high Dream Force affinity, things that I don't want to believe. I'm very happy that you're saying so much, you rarely speak so much in a single breath, but it's also because of that that I'm so worried.
"I want you to rember that Dream Force is nothing but a vessel, a conduit, it's a projection of what a person could be, but it isn't a person. Just because you can use Dream Force, doesn't an you can create life, it only ans that you can grant the capacity for it."
Aina didn't understand what was going on, but her best deduction was that Leonel's Dream Force affinity had grown so deep that he was beginning to see past the layers of what it ant to be human, and as a result, he was questioning many things.
While she didn't understand fully, when it ca to comprehension, and especially comprehension of her own body, Aina was far beyond anyone else. As a result, how could she not fully understand the role that Dream Force played in her own body?
Of course, her deductions were entirely wrong, this wasn't what was causing Leonel's breakdown at all, but even so, hearing these words, Leonel felt like he had been hit by a speeding truck.
"Fuse with ," Aina said lightly. "We haven't done it in a while."
Aina reached out and Leonel subconsciously deployed his Dream World.
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