Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

"What? What do you mean, he's not entering the tournament?"

Draco stared at the list of students who'd registered to participate in the Magecraft tournament. John Quarta was not a name listed. Prota Char was there, but her brother was not.

He didn't want to rush straight into attacking John. If there was anything else he could do first, he'd rather do that. Of course, John wouldn't have cared about losing to Draco in some card game, but the noble didn't know that. He was so confident he'd win against John that he would do anything to get him in the tournament.

"Make him sign up!"

The student who'd been in charge of collecting and registering the names cowered before him.

"I- I can't make someone sign up! I just enter the names!"

"This useless idiot," Draco growled, throwing the papers to the floor.

He stomped out of the room as the poor student scrambled to pick up his papers. He took out his ensigna, proof of his bloodline, and stared at it deeply.

"Father. I was told we were meant to stand above everybody else. So why does this fool continue to get in my way?"

~~~

"Welcome, everyone, to the annual Magecraft tournament! Our first rounds will begin shortly, so please, take a seat and enjoy!"

John looked around, impressed by just how much work the school had put into this event. It wasn't just some tournament for a small game. The stadium was being used, its stage converted into a place for the Magecraft players to perform their best. Magic circles had been drawn all over the place to project images of the cards and announce players' actions to the watching audience.

Of course, not everyone would be playing on this stage. A week before, groups of players had been made to separate the wheat from the chaff, and only the top thirty-two players had made it to this stage.

But what a stage it was.

A little taste of what was to come had been shown. Currently, there were two players playing cards, not to win, but simply to show what a treat the audience was in for. Attack cards summoned giant swords that swung directly at the enemy. Spells were sized up and fired as if they were real spells cast by experienced mages. Statistics were displayed over players' heads, changing in real time as damage was dealt and blocked.

"This much effort into a stupid card game, huh…" John muttered as he took his seat.

The stage wasn't all there was to the event. Students could gamble on winners or purchase better seats with tokens. Snacks and stalls were all around the stadium, promoting other clubs or offering various Magecraft cards. Some of the blacksmithing and engineering students were selling their crafts for tokens, and a decent number of them actually sold.

This place had turned into a whole festival. John shook his head. This whole Magecraft thing could be a [Story] on its own. Forget the Demon King, the hero, or any of that craft.

This was where the good stuff was.

"Do you think Prota's gonna win?" Celeste said as she took her seat next to Destiny.

All of Prota's friends had come to support her. Lilith and Ryan were nowhere to be found as they, too, were contestants, but Destiny, Danjo and all the others were excited to see how their friend would fare.

"I mean, I gave her some pretty good advice," John muttered. "But then again, there's a good amount of luck in these games. She can potentially lose to something stupid in the first couple of rounds."

"Hey, Danjo, you don't wanna go bet?" Briar grinned, already holding a dozen tokens in her hand.

"But- what? Who would I be betting on?"

"Gut instinct. Come on, dwarf boy," she said, dragging him to the betting stands.

"How about you, Des? Think you can make any tokens off this?" Celeste said, poking his cheek.

Destiny just shook his head. "I'm just here to watch. I don't know anything about this game."

Arthur and Ambrose were getting along well, chatting about the game. Apparently, they'd both tried it out, and while they weren't dedicated to getting better, they were more knowledgeable than Destiny or Danjo.

"So?" Destiny said, turning to John.

John frowned. "What? What do you want from me?"

"Aren't you gonna go bet?"

John crossed his arms, leaning back. "No."

"Wh- but you love gambling!" Destiny exclaimed. "Why not now?"

"I'm not betting on kids playing some card game. Professionals have standards, you know. I'm not putting a parlay on children," John said with an air of superiority.

"You're weird," Celeste said, but she was smiling.

Destiny just frowned. "Don't encourage him, Cel."

The princess nodded, but she flashed a smile at John, who smiled back. He had at least one ally in the royal Elvish court. He turned back to the stage as he thought about what was to happen this week.

To John's displeasure, classes were still being held. The tournament was to be held in the evenings, causing it to last a week in length. John had been warned that in the days to come, the audience would grow smaller and smaller until the final match, but that made sense. After all, there was no point in watching a game you knew nothing about.

"John," Destiny said quietly, inching closer to his friend. "Hey."

"Hm? What's up?"

Destiny looked around. Celeste was still interested in whatever showcase was going on in the arena, Aurora and Arthur were still chatting away, and Briar and Danjo were nowhere to be found.

Good.

"Do you think anything's gonna happen?"

John's good mood vanished in a single question. Great. He had to think about this now.

This was the issue with school arcs, at least from his point of view. Too much time was spent doing nothing. Unlike his time in the Town of Beginnings, it was nearly impossible to tell what was a [Plot Point] and what wasn't. An attack could interrupt a class at any point and turn it into an event, and he'd have no way of predicting it.

Of course, moments like exams and the situation with Briar were exceptions. John was always prepared for something to happen then. But a card game tournament? Really? The only thing he could think of was that the cards would start doing real damage to the players, and he had no way of preventing that.

He'd been hoping this entire section of the year would be skipped over in the story. At the very least, maybe a side story or a slice of life kind of break. The problem was that he had no way of knowing if that was true.

That was the other issue. He was living the [Story], not reading it, and that meant that he had to live each day out, part of the [Plot] or not. While readers had the advantage of seeing a "many months later" timeskip, he had no such luxury.

So now that Destiny had brought up his concerns, John was forced to start thinking about it.

"Chekov's gun," he muttered, cursing under his breath.

"What was that?" Destiny frowned.

John shook his head. "Nothing. Um… something happening, huh?"

Destiny nodded.

"I don't know."

"But that's not a no," Destiny said slowly.

"It's not a no, that's true. I just… I don't see anything happening here. It's a fucking card game. What's the worst that could happen? Cultists attack? That's happened, what, four times already?"

Destiny shook his head. "That's even more reason to believe they might attack, right? Crowded place. Lots of students. If they've attacked a multitude of times before, wouldn't it make sense that they attack again?"

"Only if the [Author's] a fucking dumbass," John muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it, ok? It's actually more likely that cultists will have nothing to do with today, if anything."

"But that doesn't make any logical-"

"Have any of my predictions been based in logic?" John hissed. "Just accept it, ok? If someone attacks, maybe Lupin. Leora. If they're actually cultists, that is."

Destiny nodded, now sober, as he turned his attention back to the field. The first match had already begun. Danjo and Briar had returned with snacks and were handing them out to their friends.

"What, they might not be?" Destiny said, surprised.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

John just groaned. "I don't know. I don't know anything, actually. Things have gotten way too messy for me to be confident in my decisions. Just… I don't know."

"So… keep an eye out?" Destiny said quietly.

"Yeah. If you want."

~~~

"How're you feeling, Prota?" Lilith said, bouncing back and forth.

Her brother was sitting on a chair, going over his cards and muttering to himself. He reminded Prota a little of John in that sense. John, however, only did this when he was really stressed out. Then again, this wasn't the most peaceful of situations. She had to admit, she, too, was feeling a little anxious at the thought of playing Magecraft in front of such a large audience.

It was for this reason that she found Lilith's behaviour fascinating. How was her friend so cheerful?

"Not good, huh?" Lilith smiled. She stopped bouncing around to face her friend. "Just take a few deep breaths. It's all for fun, right?"

Prota nodded, closing her eyes. Realistically, this shouldn't be scaring her. She'd faced far worse situations before. This was nothing. There were no stakes. No consequences. Her desire to win wasn't all that strong, either. She just wanted to try and play some challenging games.

"You'll do fine, Prota," Lilith said. "Just trust in your skill."

Prota nodded. Talking with her friend helped calm her nerves. She pulled out her deck, checked the cards, then put them back in their case and slipped the thing into her pocket.

"Looking at the bracket, we won't be facing each other until… Well, it looks like Lilith and I will be playing each other in the quarterfinals," Ryan said, looking at the bracket. "The winner of that… well, if you make it that far, Prota, you'll face one of us in the semifinals."

"Aw, man," Lilith said dejectedly. "I wanted to have a really cool final match! It'd be like an epic battle, just like out of a story, you know?"

Ryan laughed. "Come on, sis, you know stories are just fiction. Things like rivals or friends or whatever facing off in the grand finals don't always happen, you know?"

They began to argue, but something Ryan had said stunned Prota.

You know stories are just fiction.

That was what she thought. That was what everyone thought.

Everyone but John.

And now, she was starting to slowly shift over to John's mindset. That meant that she'd realized something.

She would, in fact, face either Ryan or Lilith in the semifinals. This was a [Story]. Their little rivalry in Magecraft would result in a match between them. This was interesting information, but it didn't really matter.

No, what mattered was the realization that something was going to happen in the final match of the tournament. She wasn't sure what it was, but she knew it was going to be a lot more complicated than an intense match. If the [Plot] had been moving toward that, she would've played against Lilith or Ryan in the finals instead of the semifinals.

No. Something else was brewing. She just didn't know what.

"Alright, we're off!" Lilith said, shuffling her deck. "See you later, Prota!"

They walked out of the waiting room, leaving Prota to herself. She closed her eyes, but she couldn't shake this feeling of uneasiness. What was it? The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the tournament wasn't the source of her anxiety.

She was scared of large crowds, but that wasn't the issue. She'd performed in front of others before. As long as she didn't need to personally interact with anyone or make contact with someone, she was fine.

Losing didn't matter, either. Performance wasn't something she cared about; the only person she ever wanted to please was John, and it didn't seem this was something he particularly cared about.

So what was it?

As she thought about it, she realized what it was. She'd come to the conclusion that something bad was going to happen. She didn't know what said bad thing was.

And that made her scared.

She understood why John had always been so nervous when he wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Why he'd been so confused as to why Elfin had been the spy, why Draco was acting up in the Town of Beginnings, and all those other things. She didn't quite understand how he'd come to his conclusions, but each time, he'd been anxious because he didn't understand the situation himself.

It wasn't a matter of not knowing at all, though. It was the fact that he understood some of it, but that little knowledge that he had was enough to let him know that it wasn't enough.

How strange. The more she understood about the world, the less she seemed to understand it.

She shook her head, trying to snap out of her downward spiral. This wasn't the time to be burdened by these thoughts. Like John had said, the thinking should be left to him.

She could trust that he knew what he was doing. She just needed to focus on protecting him.

~~~

John watched with interest as Lilith and Ryan had their respective matches. Both of them had interesting playstyles. Ryan's deck centred around high amounts of aggression, seemingly with the intent of hoping the opponent had no way of killing him in a few turns. Ironically enough, the boy's deck was countered the most by his own playstyle.

Lilith's playstyle, on the other hand, seemed to just be a balanced average of everything. There seemed to be even parts defence, offence and trickery, adjusting depending on the circumstances of the match she was in.

"How are they?" Destiny said, also watching.

John had been feeding him tidbits of information about the matches, and to his surprise, Destiny had been interested. Well, the boy wasn't too bad at chess, either. Strategy-based games might be something Destiny was into.

"They're doing well," John said, shrugging. "They'll probably win."

"Really?"

"Yeah," John nodded. "I don't really like their decks, but they know how to play them properly, I'll give them that. Better to play a bad deck you know how to play than a good deck you don't know how to play."

"Better to- what?"

"Don't worry about it," John said, waving him off. "You'll see when Prota plays."

"...what kind of deck does she have?" Destiny said worriedly.

"Right now? Just a standard spell-based deck, if you know what that is. Tomorrow?" John flashed a devious grin. "Who knows?"

"John, what the hell did you make her play?"

"Make her?" John said innocently. "Oh, great heavens, I would never force my sister to play a deck! She picked it up voluntarily."

"Don't-" Destiny started, then gagged. "Don't say great heavens again. Don't speak like that again. It doesn't suit you."

"Rats," John muttered. "I was hoping to turn into a British gentleman."

"A what? John, what in the world are you saying?"

John ignored Destiny. He just continued watching the matches, but his focus wasn't on the twins.

It was on Draco Wynton.

When was he going to get his resolution with that bastard? It'd been over two years since they'd met. John had been so close to killing him several times over, and yet the noble child was still alive. Even in Scholaris, where abuse of power was supposed to be banned, he remained a consistent thorn in their side.

Why? Why was the [Author] keeping this bastard around? Was it for the sole purpose of annoying him? There was no way that was the case. The [Author] wouldn't keep an annoying piece of shit around for the sole purpose of pissing John off.

Well… it was possible. John had no clue what went through the [Author's] mind.

John watched as Draco's opponent played her cards, but the girl was obviously throwing her match. To her credit, she was doing a good job of hiding it. It looked like she was losing naturally. But to John, she was doing more than playing suboptimally. Someone in a tournament shouldn't be making the mistakes she was making.

He shook his head as Draco won, a stupid smirk plastered all over his face. With a sigh, he got up and went to collect his winnings.

"Huh? Where are you going?" Celeste said as John got out of his seat.

"Cashing out," John said simply.

Destiny's eyes went wide. "I thought you said you weren't betting!"

"I'm not, though," John shrugged as he started going up the stairs. "I'm making a profit."

"That's not- what if you lost?" Destiny protested.

"That would've been impossible. Trust me."

John wasn't a fan of what Draco was doing, but he might as well profit off it while he could, right?

~~~

The first set of rounds passed, with Prota and the Rose twins moving up to the quarter-finals. These matches would be played out one at a time, with the magic broadcasting system to be used in all its glory.

Prota wasn't worried about the matches, though. Something else was on her mind.

"John," she said quietly as they got ready for bed.

"Hm?" John grunted, not bothering to look. "What's up?"

"[Readers]," Prota said. "How… how does it work?"

John froze, then slowly turned to look at his sister. Why was she asking him this?

"What do you mean?" he said carefully.

"Well…"

She explained the whole situation. How she'd predicted the Rose twins would make it to the quarterfinals, how she thought something might happen during the final match, and how she wasn't sure what that something would be.

Somehow, she managed to get her explanation out in fewer than four sentences. Her manner of speech was still quite brief, although it was far better than it'd been two years ago. Still, John had to do a little work to figure out what she was saying.

When he understood the full message, though, he didn't like what he'd heard.

"Prota," he said quietly. "What did I tell you about getting involved in this [Reader] nonsense? There's no point in doing it."

"But-"

"It's not good for you," John said in a firm tone. "It's not good for anyone."

"But John does it," Prota protested. "And John is-"

She stopped as she realized what she was about to say. John wasn't healthy. His mind wasn't ok. That was the whole point of his existence, wasn't it? Somehow, though, she'd never really connected the dots. She knew he thought differently. She knew he wasn't healthy.

But this was the first time she'd associated the two facts.

"John, you're a fucking dumbass," Zero sighed as he popped out.

"What?" John protested. "What did I do this time?"

"Are you stupid?"

"You're the one that just called me a dumbass," John pointed out.

Prota felt a little relieved to see Zero. He was likely going to tell John what she'd just been thinking.

"John, you've been explaining your thought process to her for a while now," Zero sighed. "She was bound to pick up your thought process eventually."

"But-"

"No. No buts. Nobody but you has ever explained how your predictions work, so if that's all she knows, she'd be bound to adhere to your logic, right?"

Prota nodded, but then she realized something. Zero had said, "that's all she knows." That would imply there were other ways of predicting things, right? Not just through [Reading]?

"Um."

Her voice pierced through her brothers' argument, and they both stopped yelling.

"What… how do you predict without, um… [Reading]?" Prota said quietly.

John and Zero looked at each other.

"Well, there's just basic intuition, I guess," John muttered, frowning. "But that's not something you can really explain…"

"What he's saying," Zero nodded. "John's ability isn't to [Read] the [Story] or anything like that. He's using common intuition. He's collecting bits of information and making predictions based on that. It's just that how he predicts things is based on another line of logic. One rooted in the knowledge that this world is a [Story]. Even if he didn't know the truth of this world, he'd still be quite a decent strategist."

"Well, I mean, yeah," John shrugged. "I guess. But it's a lot easier to look for [Story] based hints. The logic line is a lot easier to follow."

"Logic line?" Prota said, tilting her head to the side.

"Put it this way," John said, leaning forward. "You see a bunch of footprints in the snow. That must mean someone was walking there, right?"

Prota nodded.

"That's a logic line. This isn't an official term, just something I like to use," John clarified. "So, in a story, a logic line might look something like: the hero is struggling. The hero has been learning fire magic. This must mean the hero is going to learn a fire spell."

Prota nodded. That made sense.

"Now, connecting being around fire and a fire spell isn't necessarily illogical. It would make sense to anybody, even someone in reality. No, the only jump I made was connecting that the hero would grow stronger because they're in a tough situation. And that is what's in a story. Do you get it?"

Prota nodded. She did understand this time. John was using his knowledge of the fundamentals of this world to make jumps others wouldn't see. It was like crossing a chasm, but by using footholds only you could make out.

"I… I guess, it's not too harmful to think like this," John sighed. "The problem is more that I've internalized this fact. As long as you're not doing it too much…"

Zero nodded, seemingly satisfied that his physical body now understood.

"Just don't do it too often, ok? I've already taken the hit on this. There's no need for you to do it, too. And, for your information, the troublesome event during the finals is probably going to be Draco."

Prota flinched. Right, that'd been the whole point of this. She'd wanted to ask John what would happen. Now that she knew, though, she didn't feel any better. She didn't want to deal with the noble again.

"Well, what can we do about it, right? If you see him, though, beat him for me, alright?" John grinned.

Prota nodded, but her feeling of uneasiness didn't fade. She wanted to intentionally lose, just to avoid meeting Draco, but… well, she'd see what happened tomorrow.

~~~

The next day, Prota easily won her match in the quarterfinals. She watched as Lilith and Ryan duked it out, and while it was close, Lilith was crowned the victor.

And now, it was her turn to battle the Rose sister.

"Alright, Prota," Lilith grinned as they stepped onto the stage. "Remember, it's just for fun, right? So don't stress out too much."

Prota nodded, but her feeling of uneasiness didn't go away. She'd realized something.

To lose to Lilith meant that her friend would have to play against Draco. And that was something she wouldn't allow.

So, for Lilith's sake, Prota would have to win.

"That being said, I won't lose," Lilith said, the holograms flickering to life above their heads as the match began. "So you'd better try your best!"