Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

“...say that again,” John said quietly.

His entire body was trembling, telling him to move, to fight, to run, anything. Prota had never seen him look so alive. He didn’t want to believe what he’d just heard. His fatigue and pain must’ve been making him delusional. That was it.

“You heard me perfectly. I am here for your memories.”

“...who the fuck are you?”

“I am Diaboli, the demon king. And I told you. I want your memories. It seems you are somewhat dense. I expected someone of your calibre to have at least some intelligence.”

Diaboli smirked and licked her lips seductively. John felt disgusted.

“I’m dense? You’re just a demon king. Cliche ass character.”

They were senseless words, something that John had said as he racked his brain for a solution, but they carried far more weight than he could’ve ever imagined.

“A cliche, hm? Blame your foolish [Author] if you really dislike it.”

John drew in a sharp breath. His red eye was glowing brighter than ever before.

“Stop messing with me! Fuck off!” he yelled, unleashing a blast of energy that would have cleared a mountain.

The demon in front of him was perfectly fine when the dust subsided.

“Your memories. You are searching for them, are you not?”

“...stop spewing bullshit and get to the point.” John was running out of options. The pain in his leg was gone, but he was, for the first time, lost. He had no next move.

He was so used to being in control. Knowing something others didn’t, playing chess while everyone was playing checkers, but now… now, he was faced with something he truly had no control over.

“You are still in denial. I know everything, John Quarta. [Reader]. [Writer]. [Character]. [Plot]. Do those words not ring a bell? Is your amnesia that bad?”

“How the hell do you-”

“I found a small, red orb. No bigger than a marble, really. But as soon as I got a hold of it…”

The demon wiggled her fingers and giggled. “Infinite power. The power of gods. The old demon king was no match for me. However, I… I am beyond the gods, even. I want more, John Quarta. You are the originator of this power, no? The source.”

John grit his teeth. “Those are my memories, bitch. You shouldn’t be poking into them.”

“And yet, here we are,” Diaboli grinned. “As soon as I absorb the memory fragments you own, I will travel, and I will put them all together. I will become unstoppable. Omnipotent. Omniscient. A being beyond everything else.”

John clenched his fists. It wasn’t just his eye now. His entire body was beginning to glow, power coursing through every vein of his body.

His body was flooded with emotion. However, unlike earlier, though, he wasn’t feeling anger. There was only one emotion in him.

Panic. A shocking, electrifying panic, yelling at him to either fight or flee.

“Ah, and before I continue… that child. She’s mine,” Diaboli announced. Prota’s eyes widened as memories rushed through her head. The shadowy figure that had taken her sister.

Was it the being in front of her?

“Are you the one who attacked her village?”

“Of course!” The demon said it as if it were nothing. “She’s mine, after all. She will be useful.”

“And her sister?”

“...?” Diaboli frowned. “A sister? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t feign ignorance,” John growled.

“Really. Why would I lie? You’re going to die anyways. I really have no clue what you’re talking about. Is this something related to your memories that I don’t understand?”

John frowned. He didn’t want to believe it, but… it made sense. What reason did the demon have to lie?

It didn’t matter. There was now only one thought in his mind.

“Well. It matters not what answer I give, because the dead need no answers.”

Fight.

John blinked, and the demon was immediately behind him, a sword already on his neck. In the split second it would’ve taken for him to be decapitated, he teleported away, far, far away.

“I suppose it was foolish of me to believe this would be easy,” the demon sighed. “Very well. I will entertain your delusions of survival.”

They both disappeared, moving faster than the eye could see, then reappeared as fist clashed against sword. A shockwave of energy burst out, knocking everything around them down flat. Prota was barely hanging on to consciousness as she watched the fight.

Magic began pouring down from every direction as if a meteor storm had decided to invite itself to the battle. Massive craters were forming in the ground, lighting the fields on fire, turning the battlefield into hell itself. Neither opponent was fazed.

“Faster- faster- I need to be faster-”

It didn’t matter how powerful John was. One hit from the Demon King, and he’d be gone. With a powerful cry, he channelled as much power as possible into his fist and threw a punch, smashing the sword in Diaboli’s hand into dust. She looked down with a look of mild disgust.

“I thought you would be weaker than this. Should you not be lacking most of your memories?”

“What gives you that idea?”

“I see fragments of multiples worlds. It seems that what I obtained is but a mere fraction of a whole. Therefore, should you not be in the same position?”

John frowned. “What kind of stupid ass logic is that?”

The demon king shook her head. “No matter. I will find out just how powerful you were for myself when I extract your memories from you.”

Her body began to glow a dark purple, and the aura surrounding her intensified by a millionfold. It was enough to decimate the surrounding area into flat, barren ground.

As if to counter this, John’s body began to glow even more, and he stood as if facing a casual breeze. His scarf fluttered in the wind behind him as he stood, staring down at his opponent.

“...? Your [Deus Ex Machina] energy is weaker than I thought it would’ve been.”

“Oh, is that the name?” Diaboli said. “That sounds stupid.”

“It’s not even your ability.”

“The victors are the ones who write history.”

“Bold of you to assume you’re going to win.”

“Tch… I’ve been using it this whole time. [Determination] isn’t strong enough to handle the amount of stress on my brain right now… It’s now or nothing. It’s strange, though. It feels like some of her energy’s already been used up? No, no, don’t get distracted now.”

John tapped the side of his head, and the aura around him intensified.

“Power: x1000000000.”

The two were at it again in a flash, and the area around them exploded. The battle was so fierce that the surrounding area would have been completely obliterated, save for one thing.

“...? Did you set this barrier up?” John frowned. A high energy barrier surrounding them was stopping the energy from leaking out. He looked back and saw that while Prota was afraid, she was also relatively fine. It was almost as if the demon king wanted to protect the surroundings…

“You think you can look away during a fight?” Diaboli said, appearing behind John. He almost avoided the punch, but it threw him back anyways.

He was sent flying and crashed into the wall of the barrier, causing his ribs to break.

“Guh-!” John gasped, coughing up blood. “You fucking bitch-!” He momentarily collapsed as a searing pain seized his head, causing him to fall to the ground, writhing in agony. He threw up, bile mixed with blood, then coughed, getting back up.

“It’s running out… [Fourth Wall] isn’t holding up. Gotta finish this fast.”

He held his hands out in front of him, and a ball of pure concentrated energy formed in his hands. If one had to describe it, it would be as if someone had taken the sun and condensed it into a baseball. Suddenly, the sky was filled with these orbs as John clenched his fists, blood leaking from his ears and his eyes. They simultaneously shot toward his opponent, lighting up the night sky as if it was the middle of the day.

“Pathetic.” Diaboli opened her mouth, countering with a beam of her own.

“Who’s looking away now?”

While the Demon King was distracted, John flew forwards and slashed, aiming for the neck. It wasn’t the same blade that he’d used earlier. That blade wouldn’t have lasted a second in this fight. Now, he held two sleek blades, one red, one black, made of a metal no one had ever seen. He wielded them as if they were extensions of his arm, catching the light perfectly as they made their way to their target.

“Kh-!” Diaboli grunted and ducked just in time to avoid getting her head lopped off. In return, a lock of her hair was sliced away as her beam poured down upon the earth, creating a hole so deep that the end of it couldn’t be seen.

The two fell back, then re-engaged, delivering hundreds upon hundreds of blows. John flicked his hand up, and a geyser of flame shot up, countered by Diaboli’s own pillar of ice, which was then redirected to stab John. He smashed his fist into the ice and carried on, a wall of light forming behind him made of pure magic, ready to fire.

The demon king similarly prepared an attack of her own, summoning a massive ball of energy in front of her, then condensing it down to a single speck of light. The wind swirled around the magic that contained the energy to wipe out a planet.

“Finally. I will have your memories.”

“You’ll have my memories? That’s awfully bold. You’re not even operating at full power.”

“You are overconfidant. This is more than enough to kill you.”

“You talk a lot of bullshit.”

“Then let us talk no more.”

A massive explosion shook the earth, and the barrier was filled with a large amount of dust, obscuring everyone’s vision. Prota, watching from outside, gasped as the barrier went down. The dust slowly died down, and she could vaguely see one figure left standing.

“John?” she called out cautiously. She strained her eyes to see who was standing, but it was-

“I… didn’t think you would be able to take one of my horns off,” Diaboli gasped, injured, but she was standing. John, on the other hand, was in a terrible state.

He was lying on the ground like a rag doll, his limbs twisted and broken. A large hole pierced his chest, and a thin stream of blood trickled out of his mouth. His clothes were torn to bits, and his eyes were closed. However, his body twitched. He was alive.

“John!” Prota yelled, then immediately covered her mouth.

“Ah. The girl,” Diaboli said, turning to Prota. “You… are mine. Come along now.”

Despite the heavy injuries the demon king had apparently sustained, she floated over and picked Prota up by the neck. The small girl could do nothing but struggle as Diaboli tossed Prota over her shoulder like a bag of rice.

“Ah, and one more thing.”

She floated back over to John, a malicious light in her eyes.

“Your memories. Are you really unconscious? Come, come, you can’t be that weak. You put up a struggle, like a cockroach avoiding death, only to depart like this?”

There was no reaction.

“...could it be that you’re trying to trick me? If so, what if I…”

She made a knife and drew a line on Prota’s cheek, drawing blood.

“I’ll-”

Diaboli didn’t even get to finish her sentence as John’s eyes shot open, his red eye flaming once more. He shot up and grabbed Diaboli’s neck, a vicious look on his face.

“I’ll admit, you did a number on me. That’s all.”

His grip tightened around the demon’s neck as his hand began to glow.

“Detonate.”

A massive explosion engulfed the demon king’s head, and it weakened her enough for her to drop Prota to the ground.

“Ngh- ugh,” John gasped, then fell to the ground, completely spent. His eyes started glazing over as his vision started swimming out of focus, blood trickling out of his mouth.

“You- did you just use your life as a proxy for that spell?” Diaboli exclaimed. “You fool! Was it worth your life to-”

She stumbled and fell to the ground. She was alive, but she wouldn’t be able to take a resisting Prota with her.

“I’ll be back for her. And you. Don’t you forget it.”

With that, the demon king vanished.

“Ah… She’s gone,” John said, his voice barely audible. “To think… my memories, which I’d been looking for this entire time… were in a [Character’s] hands… Ironic, isn’t it? I told Prota that I wasn’t looking for the demon king, but here she was, holding the very thing I was looking for all this time…”

He closed his eyes. Death was here.

“J-John!”

No. He couldn’t close his eyes just yet. Goodbyes. They still had yet to be said.

“Prota,” he wheezed. The hole in his chest had been seared shut, preventing him from bleeding out, but it was simply a matter of time before he died.

“John,” Prota sobbed, collapsing onto John’s chest, gripping him tight.

“John… you’re ok, right? You won’t go, right?” Prota sobbed, her tears soaking his chest.

John closed his eyes and smiled. How long had it been since someone had cried for him like this?

“...Prota.”

The small girl looked up, her face completely soaked.

“Thank you.”

Her eyes shot wide open.

“N-no! John, please, don’t go…”

She’d rediscovered a world. She’d rediscovered trust, family, a home, a power she could use to protect, a power she could use to bring back her sister…

And just as soon as she’d received it, it’d been ripped away from her, torn from her hands, just like before. Just earlier this day, they’d shared a meal, he’d smiled, life had been so good…

Was she cursed to be eternally alone?

“Please! Don’t go!” she sobbed. “I’m scared, please! Stay with me!”

Everything was all her fault.

“I’m… I’m sorry…”

“Hey. What are you apologizing for?”

“...?”

“What… did you do wrong?”

“If… if I wasn’t so weak, John wouldn’t be…”

“Mm… I’m not even sure if that’s true,” John muttered. “Prota. You shouldn’t blame yourself for the faults of others. The only thing you can focus on…”

“Is you.”

The field around the two was completely barren. The earth was scorched, and there wasn’t a single sign of life around. Despite this, a calm breeze began to blow through the area, blowing through Prota’s hair and causing it to flutter around her face. The sky above was perfectly clear, and the moon shone down on them with a peaceful white light, the stars twinkling above.

“Prota.” John coughed, and his face twisted with pain. “I… It’s funny, isn’t it? I met you on the verge of death, helped you get better… and here we are, on my deathbed…”

He closed his eyes, visibly in pain.

“Prota. I really mean it. Thank you.”

Prota’s eyes had dried up, and she could do nothing but hold John’s now cold hand. He struggled to speak, and she had to lean in to hear his voice.

“I… forgot how to feel. I still don’t really remember. But… you stuck with me until the end. And I’m now remembering what it feels like to fight for someone.”

With a tremendous effort, he lifted his hand and poked Prota’s chest.

“So don’t blame yourself for anything. You are a child. You have so much potential ahead of you. Are you blaming yourself for me?”

She nodded, gripping John’s hand even tighter as if she could physically stop him from leaving.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself for anything except for something you did yourself. This was my choice. Not yours.”

For a second, John’s pulse stopped, and in that instant, Prota’s heart sank. Then, just as soon as it’d left, it was back.

“So thank you. For that year. For staying with me. For being my partner.”

“For being my sister.”

His hand squeezed just a bit, and he opened his eyes.

In them was a warm light that finally matched his smile. For the first time, John was genuinely happy. His left eye was glowing, but the light was slowly fading as if the power within him was keeping him alive for just a moment more. Prota thought he looked a lot better this way.

“I’ll always remember it.”

Finally, Prota snapped out of her trance. She shook her head furiously, tears once more flowing out of her eyes. She refused to believe it. She would save him.

She would protect him. She would protect everyone, so she’d never have to lose anyone again. It wasn’t worth it. She would value the life of others over her own, so she’d never lose anyone ever again. That promise was etched into her heart just then, and she held John in a furious hug.

“I’ll save you! I’ll save you, I’ll save you, I’ll protect you, so stay with me… please… Don’t leave me alone, again…”

John looked into her tear filled eyes. The light in his eyes visibly dimmed, and it seemed that it was almost completely gone.

“Remember, Prota. Death is just a goodbye. Nothing more, nothing less. So… Once more.”

“Thank you..”

The light in his eye went out, but not before he whispered his last message.

“You… were real.”

With that, John died.

“John. Wake up, John,” Prota muttered, occasionally poking his chin.

All the emotion had left her again. She once more spoke in her usual monotone voice, her face blank, sadness only shown in her eyes. She shook him, slapped his cheek, trying to wake him up.

He was just sleeping. He would wake up soon. He’d wake up, and he’d give her that smile with his empty eyes, and they’d have breakfast, and…

But no matter how much she waited, John would not get back up. No. This wasn’t happening. Not again. The nightmare couldn’t be starting over again. She’d just escaped it, she’d just…

Prota cried out, wailing as she once more lost her only companion. She held onto the corpse that was slowly growing colder and colder as if she would keep it warm with her own body. Tears streamed down her face, but no matter how much she cried, John’s body would not stir. After some time, when she had begun to come to terms with the fact that John was truly dead, she detached herself and sat nearby on a rock.

“...” Prota’s face returned to its neutral expression. That was right. This was how it had been all that time ago.

This was how to block out the pain. Dull yourself so that nothing would ever harm you again.

With that, she took her staff off her back and slowly trudged her way back to the city.

She was back to where she had started.