(Yoiya’s Viewpoint)

  I woke up on the waters. The surface felt as it always did— cold and hollow, yet somehow vaguely soothing.

  But this place wasn’t soothing at all.

  ~I have to get up. I have to run.

  The memories I had gained were screaming at me. My body knew what it needed to do.

  I hoisted myself to my feet and turned, beginning to run.

  There was no time to take in the scenery.

  It was always the same anyways— the same black waters, the same black sky.

  I kept on running. I could hear their footsteps, I could feel the ripples flow through my feet from behind me.

  They were already close.

  I turned and jumped backwards, outstretching my hand as I formed a handgun from memory.

  Three shots to the head. The first point blank, the next two about eleven meters away.

  Three more bullets in the barrel of this model, but I can make more.

  “Stay away!”

  The phantoms kept closing in in droves, threatening to consume me in their swarm. Amongst them, I could see white specks popping their heads out.

  The white lights were just being dragged along and snuffed out by the dark ones’ immense numbers. Soon there’d be no more benevolent versions of me left.

  But there was no time to think about that.

  I frantically aimed the pistol at the next closest target, but they were all pretty close and I only had three more shots.

  ~Damn it all!

  “Go away!!!”

  I shot the next three bullets and then flicked my wrist, expanding the gun and changing it shape into a shotgun. In my other hand, I formed a blade of flames.

  I slung my sword around, slicing in a circle and cutting through the first wave. The flames expanded outwards, spreading to the others. Though, they seemed unfazed by the flames. However, it did appear to slow them down.

  I shot a few at a distance with the shotgun until it was out of ammo then dropped it. It immediately sank into the sea beneath me.

  ~They’ll surround me at this rate… I better keep moving.

  I turned to continue running.

  A sharp pain in my arm screamed out. I looked over, my arm had been cut clean off by one of the phantoms.

  I gritted my teeth, kicking the phantom away and stabbing them through their core.

  With my free hand, I reattached my arm and continued to flee.

  “Ice Step.” I muttered a short incantation.

  The soles of my feet frosted the waters beneath me, but the ice immediately began to crack.

  ~No good? I can’t apply magic to the water then…

  The water churned beneath me. Was it angry? Either way, it couldn’t be a good sign.

  ~Windfoot!

  I thought of the incantation immediately, conjuring winds around my feet to propel myself upwards and out of the shadows reach.

  As I reached for the sky, I noticed something.

  ~The moon… It’s completely gone now.

  I felt something cold grab my leg. Looking down, it was the water. It had formed a dark hand to reach out and grab me.

  ~Crap!

  Before I could even react, I was dragged back to the surface with full force. I sunk into the sea.

  Cold swallowed me whole.

  Not the cold of water.

  Not the cold of night.

  A deeper cold — the kind that seeped into bone and memory, the kind that whispered things I didn’t want to hear.

  I thrashed, kicking upward, but the Sea didn’t behave like water. It didn’t push back. It didn’t resist. It simply took.

  My limbs moved sluggishly, like I was sinking through tar. The surface above me rippled, distant and unreachable.

  Shapes moved in the darkness around me.

  Dozens.

  Hundreds.

  All of them me.

  All of them wrong.

  Their eyes glowed faintly — white for the ones still fighting, black for the ones already lost. The white ones flickered like dying embers, swallowed by the dark tide.

  I reached for one — a white phantom drifting just out of reach.

  “Help—”

  The word tore from my throat, bubbling into the void.

  The white phantom extended a hand.

  For a moment, I felt hope.

  Then a black one lunged from behind it, dragging it down into the depths. The white light vanished instantly, snuffed out like a candle.

  My chest tightened.

  ~They’re all dying.

  ~Every version of me that was still good… still sane… they’re being erased…

  I looked upwards.

  ~I can’t let the same happen to me!

  I held my sword upwards.

  ~Not alot of mana left but…!

  I channeled my mana into the blade.

  ~MANA BURST!!!

  The blade glew a faint iridescent light and exploded. Mana burst out in all directions, pushing both the water and the phantoms far from me. I used wind magic to propel myself back to the surface just before the Sea closed up again.

  I dropped to my knees as I found my footing again, dropping the bladeless handle. It, too, sunk into the those tar-colored waters.

  I coughed and coughed. Each cough more violent and hoarse than the last. Eventually, I found myself vomiting a large amount of mana material.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  I winced, rubbing my mouth clean.

  ~Have to… keep moving.

  Weakly, I raised myself up again and walked forward. The waters grabbed at my ankles, but each hand froze and shattered. The phantoms cut continuously at me and I would sling them away with weak mana waves.

  It was all I could do at the time.

  But I knew, my mana would run out at this rate.

  The mana field in the dream was strong, but it was rejecting me.

  ~Why? This is my dream, isn’t it?

  My only conclusion was that the countless other me’s were disrupting the concept of ownership in this dream. It was my dream, but it was also theirs.

  They’re all converging… on me— the original.

  Fighting, believing they were the one true Noki.

  It made me wonder—

  ~Am I even the real one? The original?

  There was no way I could deny the lives that the doppelgangers had lived. There was no way to deny that we were the same.

  ~What separates me from the rest of them? What right do I have to call myself the original?

  The questions stabbed at me with just as much, if not more pain than the phantoms. Pulled on me with even more weight than the Sea.

  “What then?”

  And then a voice broke through the noise.

  A familiar, soft voice.

  Not just one, but two.

  Both said the same words.

  “Yoiya… please… come back to us!”

  Something inside me snapped. Something clicked.

  ~I have people waiting for me. I have people I want to be with. I found something to care for.

  I turned around, facing the dark clones that awaited me. They all grinned, as if happy to see that I finally acknowledged them.

  “Rules are whoever dominates over the rest gets to be the one who stays, right? Very well then.”

  I raised my hand, straightening my palm as I prepared to chop through what was before me.

  “So be it then. I’ll just have to reclaim this world as my own then!”

  One leap.

  A single sweep of my hand.

  My fingers cutting through the air.

  I cut straight down, slicing through countless phantoms and straight into the waters of the Sea.

  In that short moment, I created an abyss in the sea, one that it couldn’t recover from. An opening, a weakpoint.

  Then—

  I fell.

  Straight down.

  Into the very abyss I created.

  In my descent, I watched thousands of phantoms and stars appeared to be hit by massive waves of mana. They all sunk into the sea, disappearing from sight.

  It was finally over, or so I hoped.

  So—

  I closed my eyes.

  …

  The falling stopped.

  Not gradually.

  Not gently.

  It simply stopped.

  The darkness shattered like glass and a subtle light seemed to seep in and surround me.

  I slowly opened my eyes.

  “Yoiya!”

  A familiar voice cried out to me. Her hazel eyes were blurred by tears, which seemed to fall onto my cheek. She pulled me up and hugged me tightly.

  “Rea…?”

  I muttered her name weakly, still in a daze.

  I looked around the room, scanning for abnormalities.

  Mashiro and Eliba were gone.

  Ake cried as she held one of my hands, muttering apologies over and over.

  Raneko simply stared at me with a stern face.

  Rea soon loosened her grip and grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “I… I thought… I was… going to lose you… I didn’t… know what to do…” Rea sobbed.

  “Lose… me…?”

  ~I guess it was pretty close there but I should have just been asleep to them, right?

  “What do you mean? Did… something happen?” I asked.

  “Huh…?” Rea asked, confused by my response.

  Ake simply stared at me with this heavy concern, her cheeks still wet with tears.

  Raneko’s face flinched for a moment and he approached me quickly. He leaned in close, just as Mashiro would and stared directly into my eyes, as if he were trying to read my soul.

  “Yoiya, you owe us an explana–”

  I recoiled backwards into the seat.

  ~Yoiya? Since when did Raneko start using that nickname?

  “Huehuehue! Heyo! We’re back! And with snacks! I’d say that’s ‘Mission Complete’!!!” Mashiro burst into the room holding up four bags of snacks and drinks. She looked around nervously, noting the situation. “Eh? What happened here? Looks like something heavy went down. Huehuehue…?”

  Eliba peeked out from behind her. She was holding twice the amount of bags as Mashiro. She, too, glanced across the four of us. Then she gave me a sharp glare.

  ~Huh!? Did I do something wrong? Crap, what the hell happened while I was sleeping!?

  Raneko pinched his nose and let out a sigh.

  He gave me a quick glance and muttered. “This isn’t over. We WILL discuss this later.”

  “Huh? Discuss what?” I asked, my voice soft and words genuine.

  “So…” Mashiro continued. “Should I set the chips down, or what…?”

  Eliba elbowed her sharply. “Read the room, idiot.”

  “Right, right. Reading the room. Uhh…” She looked around again. “The room is… very emotional. Very wet. Lots of tears. Ten out of ten drama points.”

  Rea hugged me again.

  Ake simply stared.

  Raneko also stared at me, but it appeared as if he were trying to solve a puzzle.

  “It can wait til later, I suppose. When you’re more stable.”

  ~Stable…?

  After that the next two and a half hours flew by. The karaoke outing came to a close and we all began to walk home together. It was already dark out by the time we left the venue.

  I looked out the horizon as we walked by a high vantage point with a small fence.

  The stars glimmered in the night sky, lighting it up in ways I could only hope for.

  Rea watched me quietly from beside me, clutching my hand and interlocking her fingers with mine as I looked out to the sky.

  I looked over at her, but she felt a bit distant now. I wondered why.

  It felt as if there was a hint of fear in her eyes as she stared at me, but it wasn’t that she was suddenly scared of me— that much I could tell.

  It was sort of a quiet concern… similar to how Ake or Mia would look at me.

  I bowed my head a bit, feeling as if I’ve done something to worry her.

  “Promise me…” Rea whispered.

  “Huh?” I perked my head up as Rea’s soft voice filled my ears.

  “Promise me… you won’t disappear.”

  I looked at her. Her eyes looked at me with an intensity I’ve never seen her have before.

  But—

  “I don’t know… If I can promise that… But I’ll try my best.”

  “I… see…” She bowed her head and let go of my hand. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and then continued on with Raneko, Eliba, and Mashiro without me.

  I raised my hand and stretched out my arm to her, trying to reach her but it was no use. I couldn’t say anything else.

  Another presence touched my shoulder. Looking behind me, I found Ake standing there, smiling at me like she always did.

  She took my hand and pulled me over to the fenceline, bringing the full view of the city horizon to my eyes.

  It was beautiful.

  The stars sparkled in the dark sky, like little lights of hope. Just like the lights I lost to the phantoms in my dream.

  Remembering seeing them get erased one by one, I leaned forward and used the fence as something to lean on.

  Ake stood there silently, staring up at the night sky with me.

  A shooting star shot by.

  Then another. And another.

  “It’s beautiful.” Ake murmured.

  I looked up at the sky as well. Watching as light streaked across the sky— the shooting stars both fleeting and ethereal.

  ~The meteor shower, huh…

  And then I spoke without thinking.

  “If there ever comes a time…” I looked out to the broadness of the starry night sky, its darkness reflected in my eyes. “...where your voice can no longer reach me… a point where the Void within has consumed me— If that time ever comes, I want to ask: what would you do? Would you put an end to my suffering for the sake of the world? Or would you try to save me?”

  In the corner of my eyes, I could see Ake looking over at me. Her face was of someone lost in thought, yet her eyes held that same concern she’s always held when looking at me.

  But her answer came almost immediately.

  She placed her hand on my shoulder, and looked me in the eyes. “I would save you, of course. No matter what it takes, I want you to be happy. That’s a promise.”

  ~A promise… huh. So that’s what it’s like…

  I let out a small sigh and gave her a weak smile.

  “I see.” I repeated Rea’s response to my answer.

  I spoke no more and simply continued to stare into the horizon. The light of the stars and the city reflected into my eyes.

  “I hope that day never comes then.”