Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

The morning was fresh and clear as Prota and John walked into the clearing. There was a bit of a nip to the autumn air, quickly shaking Prota out of whatever drowsiness resided in her. She still couldn’t tell exactly why they were there.

“Prota,” John called out. “Take this.”

Prota flinched as she felt bloodlust coming from behind her. Where was it coming from? She turned to John, who gave her a small purple pill. There was nothing unordinary about it.

“That’s poison,” John explained. “I kill myself with it. It’s a little complicated, but it works well, so I don’t complain. Keep it in your mouth. If you bite down hard enough, it’ll release a poison that should kill you instantly.”

Prota was getting worried. Why was he giving her this? She grew even more concerned as she realized the bloodlust was coming from John.

“So, uh, it seems that I can only reset if both of us are dead. Which kinda sucks.”

John’s bloodlust began to roar as he pulled his gun out. There was a click as he pulled down on the hammer. Unlike his aura, his attitude was very calm.

“This isn’t training, Prota. This is combat. This ends when you can kill me. Once you kill me, you can kill yourself. Or you could not, I guess. Whichever you prefer. That’s what the pill is for, after all.”

His left eye began to glow. If Prota had to suffer, he’d also put in a little work. His head ached a little, but it was pretty bearable. Besides, he’d be hurting in a lot of other ways soon enough. [Determination] wasn’t here to kill the pain this time.

“Power: x100”

Prota’s eyes widened. Her body reacted to the danger before her mind did, and when she looked again, there was a bullet embedded in a wall of ice she’d thrown up. There was also the still hot muzzle of a gun pointed at her head.

“Too slow,” John said quietly. “Try again.”

Prota felt the metal of the revolver press against her head, and everything went dark.

~~~

“Hey,” John said as Prota sat up.

He popped a chocolate into his mouth and tossed one over to Prota.

“You doing ok?”

Prota didn’t know how she was doing. She could still feel the cold barrel touching her skin. It’d all happened so quickly that she’d barely had the time to process it.

She looked at John and saw him stiffen up.

“Hey. I probably should’ve asked before, but… are you ok with this?”

“Mm,” Prota nodded.

“We can stop.”

She cocked her head to the side. This John was so different from the one she’d just fought. How did his mood switch so quickly? No, forget that, where had all that bloodlust even come from? Where had it gone? She shook her head. This wasn’t the time to be thinking about this.

“Mm,” Prota nodded again. This much was nothing.

~~~

The fight proceeded in the exact same manner as before. John raised his arm, and Prota watched as his hand clenched, his finger squeezing the trigger. This time, instead of a wall, she made an icicle to block the bullet, but it wasn’t enough. The lead just smashed through the ice and pierced through her head.

[Reset]

She’d learn from her mistake this time. She made an ice wall, but it was much smaller this time. It was enough to block the bullet while giving her enough time to react to the second attack. She was proud of herself for having gotten past the first step, but there was no time to celebrate. A gust of wind let her know something had changed. John had moved.

Did she dodge? Attack? Block-

Her vision went dark once more.

[Reset]

On the third attempt, she didn’t hesitate and rolled to the side, dodging another gunshot. As she rolled, she raised her hands and fired off a fireball, but it was weak.

“You’re going to die!” John yelled. “Don’t hold back!”

It was the same issue she’d had in the cave. She couldn’t attack John. She didn’t have the will to do it. The idea of “protect” was so firmly integrated into her that she couldn’t go against it. There was no way she could just-

[Just do it]

Prota flinched as she saw the message appear in her system again. What? Why was the system talking to her?

No. This wasn’t the time to think.

Her reluctance to hit John disappeared as a burst of adrenaline coursed through her body. She didn’t know where the energy came from. She wasn’t going to question it. Unfortunately, it was just a bit too late. She could do nothing but watch as a sword appeared in John’s hands, rapidly filling her vision.

[Reset]

Attempt four. Five. Six, seven, over and over, they fought to the death, and each time Prota would die, wake up in the reset room, and push forward. Twenty deaths passed. Thirty, then forty, and they just kept coming. Over and over, she’d wake up in the stupid black room.

Each time, she’d get a little closer, but it wasn’t because she was getting better. It was because she’d simply fix what she did wrong last time. She wasn’t getting better. She was just learning how to fight John specifically.

What was she missing? What was she supposed to do?

She didn’t know.

~~~

“What is this feeling?”

Somewhere in the demon kingdom, Diaboli was experiencing a strange feeling. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it almost felt like she’d lived this day before. More specifically, the past hour. It wasn’t clear, but she had a sense of deja vu that wouldn’t go away.

That was ridiculous. How could anyone do something like that? The gods were the only ones who could wield such power, and they were restrained from doing such a thing.

Despite this, she couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

~~~

“John.”

“I know.”

John was looking at Prota, who was lying down in the [Reset Room] with blank eyes. As usual, her face remained blank, but the light in her eyes was slowly fading. It was still there, but the longer this went on, the dimmer they would get. John didn’t know how long it would take until they were entirely blank. He shook his head. This had to stop at some point. But he couldn’t stop it. Not yet.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you pushing it so hard right now?”

John glared at Zero and scoffed. “I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid. At some point, [Resets] are going to get removed from the set of abilities I can use. Every major [Plot Point] is a potential disaster.”

“...”

“Zero, it’s not called [Plot Armor] for nothing. Given how involved we are with Fate and the [Plot], it was going to disappear at some point.”

“...sure.”

“Yeah, you’re really helpful right now. Come on, the [Author] might be terrible at their role, but they can’t possibly be that braindead. There’s no penalty for my [Resets]. It has to be removed at some point. There’re no stakes. No risk. For a [Character] who has the ability to lose as an [Anomaly], I’m sure as hell not losing with [Reset]. Right?”

There was no response. That was enough of an answer for John. He got up with a grunt and walked over to Prota.

“How’re you doing?”

Prota just stared back at him with blank eyes.

“Wanna stop?”

“...”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” John sighed.

Over the course of seventy or so deaths, Prota had been stabbed, decapitated, sliced, cut and shot. Her pain tolerance was pretty high, so it wasn’t the pain that was breaking her.

It was the shock of dying that was taking a toll on her. Living beings weren’t meant to die more than once. It was what made them living beings. The fact that Prota was still going was incredible in itself. The fact that she’d been through this repeated death process and was relatively fine was a miracle in itself.

She was nearing her limits, though. Was it time to give up?

“This is good enough, Prota. You can stop. You’ve already improved an incredible amount.”

[Keep going, idiot.]

The system again. Who was sending these messages? It wasn’t something that was coming through the message system; the words were appearing directly in her vision.

“...Prota?”

Those words. As soon as they’d appeared, a new burst of energy had shot through her body. She had to keep going. This wasn’t enough. If she stopped without gaining anything, then what was the point? Why was she training so much if she was just going to stop now?

She had to keep going. She wouldn’t break here.

“Keep going,” Prota said. There was no hesitation in her voice.

“Are you-”

“Go,” Prota said forcefully.

John nodded. “...you’re almost there, Prota. Just a little more.”

The room glowed white.

~~~

“If it isn’t the masked marvel,” Draco Wynton called out.

Fate stiffened as he heard the noble’s cocky voice ring across the adventurer guild’s floors. He hadn’t liked Draco since they’d first met. They were the same age, but that didn’t stop the cocky brat from looking down on absolutely everyone he’d met. Their relationship hadn’t exactly improved, either.

“Oh? Playing the silent game today, are we?”

“Piss off before I bash your nose in,” Fate said quietly.

“Ooh, how scary. What can a commoner like you even do?” Draco laughed. “Filth like you aren’t even capable of touching a noble like me. That’s why you’re the peasant, and I’m the lord. You should be quiet and squirm around like the insect you-”

Draco stopped as Fate raised his fist, but the cocky look on his face didn’t vanish.

“I would advise you stop there, young man.”

Draco’s knight had grabbed Fate’s wrist before anything could happen. No matter how strong Fate was, Draco’s attendants were strong. He wouldn’t be travelling with weaklings.

“...I apologize,” Fate said, lowering his arm. The guard let go of Fata with no issue.

“That’s right,” Draco taunted. “Know your place.”

Fate got up and stared to leave, but stopped to turn back.

“Hey. By the way. You wouldn’t have happened to hire mercenaries to, I don’t know, capture us alive, right?”

Draco flinched. It was well hidden, but Fate noticed it.

“I- I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“That’s good to know,” Fate said in a quiet voice. “It would be a shame if you did.”

As soon as he was gone, Draco clenched his fists.

“Those mongrels… I swear I’ll make you pay.”

~~~

The seventy seventh fight. Seventy six deaths. Seventy six resets.

“Good!” he yelled as Prota leapt back to make distance. She pointed her fingers at John, and three fire arrows shot out in rapid succession.

The fights had allowed Prota’s skills to grow immensely. If Kit’s lessons could be seen as theory, then John’s fights were the implementations of said theory. It was one thing to learn how to do something; it was another to use it in battle.

Everything Kit had taught Prota: how to picture mana, how to gather it and control to flow, how to visualize magic itself, it was all coming together. The spells she’d cast over and over were flowing through her body as naturally as she might breathe. She didn’t need to focus on her spells. She didn’t need to visualize them. It was a matter of understanding that she needed fireballs, and they were there.

“Haah!” Prota yelled as she summoned a volley of icicles. John raised his blade and charged, metal smashing into ice, fragmenting the spells into hundreds of shards. With a cry, his arms tensed, then thrust forwards with incredible force.

Prota didn’t block. Instead, she summoned a gust of wind at her feet, then threw down a small fireball, creating a weak but large explosion, kicking up dust and effecitvely creating a smoke screen. She couldn’t see John’s core, but Zero was inside of John, allowing her to see his position.

“Blossom of Ice,” Prota whispered, and frost began to gather around her. The flower was being built slowly, but it much faster than before. She could hear John’s footsteps getting close.

“More. Just a bit more,” Prota thought to herself, gathering the frost.

The dust began to settle.

John didn’t say anything, but he was close. Her spell wavered just a bit. Still, she was confident that she’d get it done in time.

In a flash, Prota’s eyes opened, two different hues of blue shining as her flower was complete. There was a slight moment of hesitation before she attacked, but it was small enough that it didn’t matter.

“Blossom.”

She saw John’s face of surprise as he came through the dust, and satisfaction rose in her heart. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy.

“...” she stared at the blade that had gone through her stomach. John had attacked first.

It wasn’t enough.

Still.

She just needed a bit more.

~~~

Fate stood in Albert’s office, looking at the map.

“We’re not just going in without a reason, right?”

“Clever boy.”

“So what’s the cover story, sir?”

“Artifacts. You’re going in as a request for us to look for artifacts. It’s well known that the guild is always in need of more of them, and it’s not like it’s against the rules for us to make a little profit too, right? So we’re just gonna say that you fellas were privately contracted by us.”

Tools and items imbued with mana were known as “magic tools” or “magic weapons,” and were common enough if you could afford them.

Artifacts, on the other hand, were items from long ago, items that sat in the mana rich dungeons for years and years, soaking up energy until they became godlike tools. They were rare, but if you raided enough dungeons, you would probably eventually find one.

“Then why send Prota and John?”

“I’ve already prepared statements. After their success with the mansion quest, we’ve decided to enlist their help in bolstering the guild’s position by going artifact hunting.”

“Should I let them know?”

“Yes.”

Movement. Things were beginning to flow.

~~~

A hundred deaths. Despite everything, there was still a flame burning in her heart. Death after death, she had but one thought in mind.

She was getting stronger.

Her blocks and attacks were quick and decisive, and even though there were mistakes, they were quickly fixed. Her spells were focused on efficiency and accuracy, wasting as few moves as possible. There was still a fraction of a second of hesitation before her attacks, but that wasn’t what she was working on. Prota had been thinking of each attack before casting it. She had to look at an attack, think about what she would do, then execute the action.

It was too slow.

But now, her body was adapting. Adapting to attack without thinking, to see an attack and let her body dodge before she even realized it’d happened. She didn’t know how long they’d been fighting for. Minutes? Hours? Days? How much time had all these deaths totalled up to?

She didn’t know. It was getting harder to think. But she couldn’t give up now. Even if her brain stopped thinking, her body could not stop moving. She felt the wind rush by her as John’s blade barely missed. She’d dodged that?

There was another gust of wind, followed by the crack of a gunshot. What? Prota’s mind slowly swam back into focus as she saw a pillar of ice block another bullet.

She… did that?

She saw John move, and before she knew it, a volley of icicles had formed. They rained down on John, who managed to block most of them, but at this power level, it wasn’t enough. He winced as a spell pierced his leg, significantly slowing down his movement.

At that moment, dozens of thoughts flooded into Prota’s mind, information swarming all over the place. John’s leg was injured. He was going to move slower. A fire arrow appeared in front of Prota, firing right towards John’s head.

Unfortunately, a gun was faster than Prota’s magic. Her body fell down as John put a bullet through her skull. It was a fast enough death that she didn’t see John tilt his head just in time to dodge the arrow, but it’d been close. Too close.

“Fuck,” John gasped as he watched Prota’s body fall down. “I might really die at this rate.”

~~~

They were back in the reset room again. Prota was lying on the ground like a sack of potatoes.

“John,” she said in a flat voice. “How is John so strong?”

“I’m not,” John said. “Mm… it’s just an experience difference.”

Experience?

“...what?”

John sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “Well, think of it this way. Prota. If we were both to just attack each other without thinking, you would win.”

Prota nodded.

“But fights aren’t just about raw power. Think of it like this.”

John took out two bottles of water, one smaller than the other, as well as two cups. She didn’t know where he’d gotten them from, but there was probably no point in asking. She’d seen him do the strangest things in this room, and this wasn’t even close.

“This is you right now.” He pointed to the larger bottle. “This is me,” he continued, pointing to the smaller bottle.

“This is the amount of power I’m using,” he said, pouring out the whole bottle into a cup. “And this is how much you’re using.”

He poured out less than a quarter of the larger bottle into the other cup. John’s cup had been filled to the brim. The example wasn’t very good, but it’d made its point.

“I’m fighting the best I can.”

“That’s not true,” Zero said. “Seriously. Aren’t you ever going to train?”

“...ok, I’m fighting the best I can without training. My point, Prota, is that I’m making the most of what I have. You, on the other hand, are not. Sure, I’m stronger right now. But in terms of potential?”

John let the cups speak for themselves. Prota closed her eyes. She was strong? No.

Well, not yet.

~~~

102. 103. The deaths kept racking up, but each time, she was getting just a bit closer. Every time, she’d survive for one more move- no, it wasn’t survival.

She was one step closer to winning.

Dodge. Attack. Block, parry, feint, repeat. The movements were becoming automatic. She was no longer thinking about individual spells. It was time to think about magic as a whole. Ice was a good magic to slow movements, while fire had a destructive power behind it. To freeze and preserve. To burn and raze. A combination that ultimately resulted in complete destruction. She was learning how to chain the two while maintaining her speed with shadow and wind magic.

Her body was practically moving for her. Her mind could focus on other things, which would, in turn, allow her body to move even better. It was monstrous growth. It was unrealistic growth.

But she was growing.

106. 107. 108. 109.

She kept getting closer and closer. The past five deaths had actually always resulted in a tie, just with her dying first.

So. Close.

“You’re doing really well, Prota,” John said in a concerned voice. The 109th death. He took a peek at her condition, and he didn’t really like what he saw.

Prota was in a trance of sorts. A state between consciousness and a coma, where the body began to move on its own. It was what John had been aiming for, but at the same time, it wasn’t a healthy state to be in either.

“Wanna know something?” Zero said quietly as Prota was once again lying flat on the ground.

“...?”

“You were just like this. Kinda like a zombie.”

“Really?”

“Back when… well, you know. You didn’t have a choice back then. So your mind did what it could to protect itself. And look at where you are now.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“I thought you didn’t care for [Characters].”

“Just because they’re not real doesn’t mean I’m a big fan of trauma. Zero, I care about efficiency, not suffering.”

“But still, you don’t usually care this much. Or am I wrong?”

“...”

John was about to reply when Prota sat up.

“Again.”

Her hair was all messy, covering her face, but the determination in her voice was unmistakable. She wasn’t broken. Not yet.

“...too much isn’t healthy, Prota,” John said.

“I’m ok.”

“Are you? Are you really?””

Prota nodded. “One more.”

John sighed in resignation. He slapped his cheeks to wake himself up and walked over to the reset button. It wasn’t exactly easy for him either, but if Prota was gonna keep going, then he couldn’t get left behind.

~~~

Prota took a deep breath. This was it. The end was in sight. Her skills had been refined, her mind sharpened. This didn’t apply anywhere else.

It was a skill meant purely for combat.

John, as always, fired a singular bullet, but instead of blocking it, Prota shot out a fireball that melted the metal to slag. It kept going, forcing John to dodge and fire another bullet.

After a while, Prota was beginning to see a few patterns in John’s combat. No matter how flexible his style was, there were bound to be repetitions in his attacks. He was limited to certain movements. Shoot, slash and hit. All three attacks could be dealt with in one way or another.

John had always been right. Prota was stronger than him. She just needed to take advantage of that.

Her body was moving like a well oiled machine, sometimes dodging attacks by a thread. A hundred and ten deaths. Dozens of hours of nothing but fighting later, there was no longer a delay between her thought and her action. There was no need to think about every little move. For each action, there was a pre-programmed reaction that her body could do without her needing to command it.

If John raised his arm to fire, she could dodge or block. She would only ever need to move so many steps, block with only so much ice. There were counterattacks, feints, combinations, barrages, and there was no longer a need to decide which one to use.

She was fighting with instinct. Of course, she was still thinking. She was still analyzing, looking at the battle, deciding what her next course of action was, but there was no longer a need for her to make a decision before making a move.

With a final cry, she formed her Blossom of Ice in one hand while holding a fireball in the other. She cast fireball after fireball to stall John’s approach while her other spell continued to form in her hand.

John kept pushing forwards, a cold dead look in his eyes, but Prota only flinched a little.

It was no longer enough to make her stop.

“Haah!” she cried out, bringing her arm up. The split second of hesitation in her attacks didn’t matter.

The flower exploded directly into John’s face, blowing his head off.

A quiet wind blew through the trees as Prota fell to her legs, panting. John’s body fell to the floor with a quiet thud.

“I… I did it…”

She fumbled around the pockets of her cloak and found the purple pill John had given her. How long ago had it been? Technically less than an hour. But at the same time, a lot more than that, too.

Her hands shook as she looked at the pill. It was ironic. Her reward for surviving was death.

She’d won. There was no celebration. There was no accomplishment, literally. She’d die and come back, and it’d be as if nothing had ever happened.

But she was stronger. Surely. How strange, for her reward to simply be death. But somehow, this death felt better than any life she’d lived.

With a sigh of satisfaction, she closed her eyes and swallowed the pill.