Happy early Halloween, everyone! So this was over a month in the making. That's par for the course, but even so, maybe I shouldn't have started writing it a day before V3 came out... Nah, I regret nothing.

I hope you don't mind surrealism for the first part! You can probably tell that Dream Drop Distance inspired the overall idea a bit...

The feeling of his weight atop his bed springs, and the weight on his heart from the week prior, slowly lifted as Hajime fell into his dreams once more. His mind was again numb from any feeling of exhaustion or stress he had, and for a moment, he had only a fleeting idea of who he even was. This dreamlike oblivion was the perfect bastion for escaping the hardships of days past. It was, in a sense, bliss in its own way.

His amorphous mental state, however, soon made way to a crowd full of people in a busy street. He didn't question the sudden transition much. That was a normal-day occurrence, right? Just finding himself in the middle of something that looked suspiciously like Shibuya's famous crossing?

Next to him, he spotted his best friend, Chiaki Nanami, standing there wearing what looked like a high-end VR headset. It wasn't connected to any computer he could see, and the cables were just dangling on the ground and serving as nothing but a tripping hazard, but hey. It could've just been one of those newfangled, battery-powered ones that received their signals from the air or something. In any case, she was looking around the world so fast he was afraid she'd topple over from dizziness, though surely it was no problem for the Ultimate Gamer.

How she was able to see anything with that thing on was a mystery to him, but amazingly, she knew where he was and could follow him without any sort of verbal aid. It didn't take him long to realize why: Looking down at his right hand, he discovered they had tied one long strand of yarn to each other's pinky fingers (ah, another tripping hazard), probably to keep each other from getting separated and getting lost.

Don't worry — this was normal, too.

They walked down the crossing to the other side and stared intently at the screens, billboards, and signposts that towered over them. It was nothing but game advertisements as far as they could see, Chiaki's favorite form of entertainment that didn't involve a controller of some sort. With an enthusiasm expected more out of a small child than a teenage girl, she scrambled up to each one as they passed and practically pressed her face against the polished glass.

Her eyes were filled with excitement and wonder...well, as far as he could imagine with her eyes obscured by her headset. It was as though she were hypnotized or had swapped bodies with a puppy, because her vigor never wavered as she zipped from one display to another.

"Ooh, I want that one!" she finally said, pointing at what seemed to be the sixth thing to get her attention.

He didn't have much of an eye for tech, but he was pretty sure that it was exactly the same as what she had been wearing already. When he pointed this out to her, she pouted.

"You can never have too many headsets!"

Of course you can't. What was he thinking?

Before long, after she had gotten her fill of marveling at whatever identical technology she already had, they stumbled upon a weird sinkhole in the sidewalk. To be more precise, it was probably more like a bottomless pit — there was nothing but blackness in the depths below — but it looked dangerous, whatever it was.

He had been distracted for just a moment, glancing at an RC drone zipping past, before almost having a heart attack; she was jumping over the pit! She jumped pretty high, too, kind of like someone had turned on a moonjump cheat or something. While she did end up landing softly to the ground on the other side, the yarn tied to their fingers had already slipped off and fell into the depths.

She waved at him like it wasn't really a big deal. "Come on, Hajime! The water's great!" she beckoned impatiently.

What was he waiting for? Hesitating not a moment longer, he kicked the ground as hard as he could and leapt up and forward into the air toward the other side. He floated up, up up...and worryingly, he continued floating. It was like gravity had been switched off for him, and he had no control over his flight pattern — or that some sort of force not unlike an invisible stage wire was hooked to the back of his pants and was hoisting him aloft in midair.

After a few moments, the "wire" stopped reeling and halted him. That wasn't what stood out as strange to him, however; the real oddity was that while he was distracted by his involuntary ascension, Chiaki somehow found herself in a hard glass cage suspended in the air just like he had been.

In her case, it was like she was trapped in a 2-D sidescrolling game. It wasn't low-res like one immediately would come to think of, with blocky pixels, primitive color palettes, cute sprites, and counters that could only ever go to 255 before overflowing to 0. No, hers was just a cage with booby traps, obstacles, and mindless enemies popping up out of thin air.

Now this, he finally thought to himself, was not normal.

She hit the ground running before he himself could completely realize what was going on. She discarded her headset and took off jumping and collecting items, taking care to stay comfortably ahead of the spiky wall of doom following her from his left side. It was all nothing more than a routine procedure for her, honed after thousands of sessions.

No doubt that it was made trickier, though, due to the fact that the course itself was chaotic, with random enemies and traps spawning every two steps, it seemed. She dodged them all with expert timing and grace, but he could only wonder — and worry — if she could keep up that pace indefinitely.

Alas, Chiaki was only human, and before long, a long spike that had not been there before sprouted from the bottom of the glass cage and impaled her foot. Any and all momentum she had stopped then and there. Her screams of agony bellowed out and deafened his ears. A green bar appeared above her head, and what looked like 20% of its value blinked away into nothingness, replaced with a bright red.

No. This was not normal at all.

The spike wall slowly approached her as she struggled to break free from the spike's grasp. All she could do short of chopping off her leg was slide her foot, sluggishly and painfully, up along the spike. She was just tall enough to get it free, and when she did, she toppled to the ground. She got back up to her feet and started running again, as though she sustained no injury.

The trail of blood she left behind, floating in a puddle and staining the glass with a deep crimson, indicated otherwise.

The further she went, the more traps and obstacles were thrown her way in quicker succession. More spikes, darts, and metal bearings were tossed, shot, and thrown at her; and some still hit their mark. Each time, the life bar above her head dwindled further and further to the left until less than half of it was green.

It felt like an eternity before she reached what seemed to be the end, although it was only a couple minutes in reality. A series of blocks presented itself, stacked on top of one another in a sort of makeshift staircase. A tall flagpole, delicately flapping in the breeze, waited on the other side and ushered her forward. She still had plenty of life left, and the spike wall was a good distance away. She was so close.

She climbed up the first block. Then the second. Then the third. Soon enough, she reached the top and was one jump's length away from the pole. Her goal was right in front of her. She reached forward and crouched to build up power in her jump to deliver the coup de grâce to the deadly stage...

And before she could release the energy in her legs, another long spike flew at her. Overly committed to her posture, coupled with the lack of time she had to react to its sudden appearance, nullified any hope in dodging it. Blood splashed onto the glass, making it really difficult to clearly see what happened after. He could hear a pained thud as he heard her body fall to the ground in front of the flagpole. She lay there, battered and lifeless.

Or he would have believed, had the life bar over her head not showed just a small sliver of green remaining.

The next few seconds, he watched her crawl along the ground and try to reach for even just the bottom, if she could. If his knowledge of games was sound enough, he knew the game would end as soon as she touched it. The crawl was so full of agony that sorrow filled his eyes. No tears could come. He couldn't even make a sound, neither a cheer of encouragement nor a sob. It felt as though someone was choking him silent.

She gently slipped her fingers around the base of the pole at last, and like manna from heaven, the flag slid down the pole and plopped onto her head. She grabbed it, the game granting her relief of her pain, and danced to the right. Her celebration animation was playing, he guessed. She took a few moments to cheer and revel in her victory, fireworks exploding above her head as a catchy fanfare played.

This distracted her long enough to not notice the large block dropping on top of her. He called out in desperation. His vocal cords strained as he let out the loudest scream he could, with a sound that could have traveled through the vacuum of space. Even so, the force choking him silent, too, rendered his cry useless. She couldn't hear him...and then the block finished its fatal descent.

Another spray of blood splattered onto the glass in a fine red mist and streaked to the ground before finally settling to dry. He couldn't see her body at all, if there was even a body left to see, and the bar above her head had turned completely red before fading out of existence.

The last words he could see before his consciousness mercifully pulled him out of the gruesome vision: "GAME OVER".

Hajime awoke with a short gasp of breath. His ears, burning as hot as overpowering embarrassment in front of a huge crowd, thrummed softly in sync with his heart, which was beating like a muffled bass drum. His eyes were wide open, and in his panic, he thought for a moment that maybe he had gone blind. He fumbled wildly in the blackness until he grasped a small plastic box on his bedside and yanked it toward him.

On its front read large red digits staring square at him: 03:27

Relief washed over him. He wasn't blind. The sun just didn't have the chance to rise yet, that's all.

He rolled onto his back and tried to force his eyes closed, but with little success. It was like they were springloaded to stay open, even though they were burning from exhaustion. And that was saying nothing about how his heart would refuse to calm down. There was just no way he'd be able to fall asleep again at this rate, not anytime soon.

The last panicked breath rushed out of his lungs in a sigh of frustration. Just as he already had the hardest time getting to sleep in the first place, his body just couldn't be damned to give him the bedrest he would almost certainly need. What do people usually do when they have insomnia? He figured sleeping pills would have done the trick, but it's not like he had any on hand, and he was too tired to even get out of bed in the first place. Truly, he was cursed.

Convinced conventional methods would do no good, he decided to reflect on what he just saw.

As his heart slowed slightly, he realized more the pervasive mood that had filled his room. It was the sort of empty feeling he — and he assumed this was true of other people, too — typically felt after having experienced a horrifying reality he was ecstatic to learn he could actually wake up from. More still, he remembered that this was not the first time he'd felt this way.

In fact, this was the third night in a row he had this nightmare. At least, that's what he was convinced of, given the feeling of déjà vu that also sprouted in his chest the more he considered it. He couldn't remember the events vividly the prior two nights, but tonight, the details were all too real, and merely entertaining the thought of them being real made his heart ache.

It was a string of nightmarish nights that quite evenly matched the absolute hell that was the previous week. It would be disingenuous to say that his case was typical. Oh, if only that were so. He wished he could say that all he worried about was grades, love, and whatever else his peers fancied putting themselves into a tizzy over.

Unfortunately, two classmates being murdered in the same week kind of put that to the wayside. The stress from seeing them alive and well one day and dead the very next, and failing to get any sort of answers or closure besides, took a swift and severe toll on him. And now, presented with a vision of his best friend being killed — no, mutilated — he could barely contain his fear and dread.

He shook his head, brought his hands to his face, and gave his cheeks a couple light claps. Pull it together, he repeated to himself. She's fine. She'll be fine. She'll be there tomorrow, and we'll play games like we always do.

As he restated that mantra to himself in his head over and over again, his heart rate slowed to a level that resembled normal. His memories of the dream, although threatening to overwhelm him once more, were eventually pushed into the back of his mind, until all that remained was the butterflies in his stomach that kept him up.

His plans that day weren't anything special, really. That Sunday, like the past few, was just going to be another day of playing games with Chiaki, nothing more. By any measure, it was more or less routine at this point, so even the appointed time and location became second nature to him.

So why was he having such an issue falling asleep this time, like when they first met?

He turned to his side to salvage what little sleepiness he had left, and when that didn't work, he tossed over to the other side. Finally noticing the sweat that soaked into his clothes while he slept, he reluctantly sat up and sluggishly got out of bed to change.

The thoughts of the dream returned to him as quickly as he had shoved them away. He said to himself, was it an omen? Perhaps the recesses of his profoundly-paranoid mind were screaming out to him in the only forum they could ever possibly be heard? He felt somewhat ashamed of his sudden bout of superstitiousness, but the feelings of dread intimately tied with the dream's gruesome imagery held all the leverage over his thoughts at that moment.

Maybe I shouldn't go, he eventually told himself. Maybe it would just be best if I nipped it in the bud before anything happens. Those those thoughts did not play well with his stomach, however: The butterflies that had been joyfully fluttering prior revolted and stung his intestinal lining with the stab of pitchforks and the burn of torches.

It was simply out of the question. He was going to play games with her, and that was that. It would be difficult to hide his anxiety forever, though. She didn't look it, what with her omnipresent spacey facial expression and all, but she was deceptively aware of others' feelings — or his feelings, at the very least. She'd read him like a book. So what could he do?

His clothes changed, he walked back over to his bed and collapsed into it, not even bothering to cover himself with his sheets. As he dug his face further into his pillow — worn out and discolored with age — he began brainstorming ideas of how he could simply forget about the murders and the nightmares and start his day as normal, as though it were any other.

The insomnia wasn't as impenetrable as he once thought. He could only think of three such ideas before blackness swallowed his consciousness whole again, his mind slipping once more into another nightmare.

The rapid clicking of D-pads and shoulder buttons filled the space around them like chattering teeth, a sound one would not usually expect on such a hot summer afternoon. The air was saturated with humidity, and the sun peeked behind a cloud in the partially-overcast sky. The cicadas chirped happily in the trees nearby, while everyone else trudged along with a zombie-like gait and clutched their iced drinks and ice cream for dear life.

The only thing keeping Hajime from collapsing from the heat, exhaustion, and heat exhaustion was the cool spray of the park fountain behind them — and, of course, his determination to stay conscious to entertain the girl at his side soundly kicking his glutes.

His being outmatched was nothing new, but the great number of distractions only made the disparity greater: The beads of sweat that soaked his eyebrows and went into his eyes, the stickiness of his hands, the glare of the sun on his screen, et cetera, et cetera.

But maybe the biggest issue was that he could barely keep his eyes open for longer than a minute at a time. Four empty cans of coffee from the nearby vending machine sat on the ground next to his feet, but the caffeine had since run its course, and so instead of a mind full of alertness, all he had to show for it was anxiety and a full bladder. Ah, yes, add "the need to go to the bathroom" to the list of distractions.

The muffled 8-bit static imitating the sound of an explosion burst from his handheld's speakers as his final ship drifted into an enemy shot and the all-too-familiar (and now, to him, distressing) GAME OVER screen popped up and taunted him. The victor, Chiaki Nanami, stared at her own screen for a few seconds as if to process the fact she had won eight straight times.

A realization seemingly coming to her, she pouted without attempting to look her opponent in the eyes. "You're distracted again."

So much for hiding his anxiety from her the entire day. Sure enough, she had read him like an open book...although in his case, he was less an open book and more an article plastered all over the Internet. The shaky legs and lack of sheen in his eyes probably didn't help, either.

"It's that obvious, huh?" he responded with one of the half-smiles he had already grown moderately accustomed to giving, today made necessary by his relative lack of stamina.

She gave him a sideways glance, and through her bangs he could see two pink irises staring at him wide, filled with concern. The sight made his heart beat so loud in his chest he was afraid she could almost hear it. Quickly, he broke his gaze with hers and stared off into space in front of them, hoping that his face hadn't also given his embarrassment away.

"Yep," she answered plainly. "Your reaction time and APM are lower than usual. Are you okay?"

Hajime hesitated for a moment. On the one hand, he wanted to lay bare his fears that plagued him the previous three nights, but on the other, he worried she would feel afraid herself — or even repulsed — after witnessing him show a vulnerable side of himself. Moreover, the right words he wanted to use to give a decent answer just wouldn't come to him anyway, so all he could manage was a couple hiccups of sound.

"Do you still feel sad for not having an Ultimate talent?"

He did, although the thought had been secondary since he crawled out of bed that morning.

"If you do, then — "

"No, no, it's fine," he interrupted, quickly waving his free hand from side to side, taking care to not accidentally drop the delicate device in the other. "It's...something else."

He didn't know how much further Chiaki's eyes could soften, but soften further they did. It almost looked as though she was sad and could start crying at any moment. He had feared he ruined her day after all, but those fears were somewhat quelled when instead of letting out heaving sobs and shedding tears, she put her finger to her chin and looked up in thought. "Something else? Like what?"

There was no squirming out of this one. As much as he was pained at the dilemma of telling her or not, he also didn't like the idea of hiding something from her. He had his fair share of secrets to keep, sure, but hiding them from her especially felt like a sin. Besides, what harm could come from telling her here? It's not like this was exactly a secret.

He didn't want to immediately jump into it, though. Rushed discussions felt just too awkward, especially one-sided infodumps, which usually did little else but make him feel like he was under an investigator's spotlight. Maybe it was best if she took the lead and segued him into it. Who knows? Maybe he'd learn something new about her in the meantime.

"Chiaki, what are your dreams like?"

She looked a little surprised at the question, almost like she had been expecting something more pressing or emotionally delicate. One could even say she was confused, and how could he blame her? What would her dreams, of all things, have to do with why he was distracted? He hoped that she didn't think him weird for asking such an unorthodox question and would play along anyway.

Fortunately for him, she obliged without question. After a few seconds of blank eyes considering her next response, she hummed. "My dreams? Well...I think I had a dream last night? I don't really remember. I think it was a replay of my battle against Avalanche Abaasy before going to bed."

A typical response, Hajime thought while holding back a chuckle. Even in her dreams she was still playing games. Although a part of him did wish he knew what she was talking about sometimes, he nevertheless found the mental image amusing and strangely adorable for some reason.

"But I do remember the dream I had three nights ago."

His ears perked up. He was hopeful, of course, that maybe it had to do with something other than games for once, but he was more hopeful still that she hadn't also been plagued by a nightmare herself. Whatever it was, he was curious to learn more, and so he nudged his head forward in a motion for her to continue.

"Well…" she started slowly, the words coming in little drops one after another like a cool light rain, "it started with me lying in my bed. I wasn't able to move a muscle, like I was paralyzed. It was kind of scary, actually."

Hajime nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that does sound scary. Do you have any idea why you were in your bed and unable to move?"

Chiaki shook her head. "Nah. All I know is that countless days went by, and the entire time, I couldn't feed or clothe myself. If I had to guess, I'd say I was sick or something."

It must've been a very serious illness for her to be made an invalid. What sort of dream was this? Could it have been a memory she had repressed? Maybe she really had once been sick to the point of helplessness? He asked this aloud, which, to his relief, she responded in the negative.

"I've been sick before where I could barely walk because of body aches, but it was nothing like in my dream. I couldn't even lift my arms."

He was glad to hear she didn't have to endure something so debilitating, however curious the content of her dream remained to him. "So what did you do?"

"I couldn't do anything. I was powerless to move..." There was nothing in her voice that indicated that she was overcome with fear in recalling this. If anything, she was enjoying it, assuming the smile that appeared on her face was any indication. "But it was okay. You were there to take care of me."

Wait. Say what?

Chiaki immediately turned away, her face deep red from embarrassment. For the next few seconds, she did her best to steer the conversation away from any sort of line of questioning that would reveal far more than she felt comfortable admitting. Besides, his own embarrassment in the matter left him unable to express any desire to press further — luckily for her — and, instead, was strong enough to force him to look away in kind.

"You weren't alone, though," she added, still looking to the side. "Everyone in my class was also there. They took turns getting me food and taking care of...other things and fought alongside you against the monsters that would attack us every night."

Wait, was this just another game-related dream? At this point, he wondered why he even bothered expecting anything else. Of course, it wasn't that he found it annoying. Far from it. On the contrary, he found this subversion of expectations to be...funny and cute in its own way.

"So even though it was scary, it felt sort of comforting at the same time. I knew I could rely on my friends to help me back up on my feet if something happens to me or if I get really sick. It's...a nice thought to have."

Hajime, who was afraid that she had trouble making friends and been a loner all her life, wholeheartedly agreed. Much of the time, he wondered what her life would have been like had they never met. Would she still be all by herself? Would she have been lonely? Sad, even? It wasn't an especially savory thought...

Soon enough, said thought regressed into shame. Who was he, a mere Reserve Course student, to think he could properly fraternize with a bona fide Ultimate? Did he seriously think that someone so talentless as he would be able to take care of her if she needed him?

Finally, his shame reminded him once again about why he had asked Chiaki this question in the first place — his own dream.

His classic cynical look re-manifested, and all of a sudden, Hajime had grown very quiet. As Chiaki continued describing in detail what she remembered about her dream (by her account, she was bedridden in a cottage on a tropical island, quite far from civilization), he would only ever give the occasional acknowledgement here and there. Sometimes a grunt, other times an absentminded hum.

By the time she was done, she finally noticed he had been looking at the ground, staring blankly at a line of ants marching on the sidewalk. "Hey, hey," she beckoned, "are you really feeling okay, Hajime?"

Even with the time he had available to him to reflect and try to shrug off the events of the past week, he was unable to do either. All he could do was downplay as much as he could the thousand-yard stare that forced itself out to put her at ease.

It didn't work. "Please, don't be afraid to talk to me about it. Whatever you need to say, I'll listen."

That was as much of an invitation he could really hope for, he thought. His desire to get his troubles off his chest overpowered his better judgment, and so he took the next few minutes going into detail about his repeated nightmare. The sight of the fluid glass cage. The death gauntlet she ran through. The beaten and bloodied puddle that was once her...body.

His powerlessness to do anything about it.

As he explained, he tried to get an idea of what she was thinking, however difficult the prospect was when all he had to go off of was blank eyes, crossed arms, and more "hmm"s. Was she scared? Disturbed? Irritated, perhaps? Maybe she even thought he was creepy for having had such a vivid, pervasive dream about her?

After what seemed like an eternity passed, she finally spoke up. "How does it make you feel?" There was no hint of judgment in her voice. Hell, there really wasn't any sort of anomalous emotion in there at all, come to think of it. All it was, was the soft, gentle, kind voice that had compelled him to speak at all.

He felt heartbroken, yes. Sorrow. Brooding. Dispiritment. Instead of the aforementioned, oddly enough, another word rung:

"Empty."

Which was true. He was afraid the other emotions would sound far too forward, given his already-precarious relationship with his feelings for her. So he went with the next best thing.

"Empty…" she repeated to herself, turning the word around in her head thrice with her arms folded. "That sounds normal to me. If I saw you die in my dream, Hajime, I'd feel the same way…"

Her words elated him, if only slightly. She probably would've said the same thing about any of her friends, but even so, it felt nice. But it didn't resolve the problem that was still manifest.

"Chiaki," he said with apprehension, fearful the answer he would get would only confirm the worst, "do you think our dreams may be telling us something?"

Her eyebrows narrowed in disquiet. "Something like what?"

"Like…" He trailed off a moment to think. What would be the best way to word it that didn't make her worry more? "What if they're visions of the future?"

The incredulity of the situation hit him. If someone would have told him that he would one day start having a serious conversation about the occult with a gamer girl he had befriended at Hope's Peak Academy, Hajime would have mentally labeled them crazy and probably would have carefully and covertly tiptoed out of the room. And yet, here he was, having such a conversation. Maybe, with all that's happened, he was going crazy himself.

Still, if this was what it was like, he was nevertheless thankful that he wasn't alone.

"Visions?" she parroted. The longer the conversation went on, the more and more Hajime was afraid that it would just crash and burn awkwardly with her brain stuck in an infinite loop trying to formulate the right response. Each question he asked left him more and more pleasantly surprised, however, because his fears never happened. Each time, she would continue the conversation as though humoring him wasn't actually as painful as a root canal.

"Oh!" she finally exclaimed, like a lightbulb in her head had gone off. "You mean like Shulk?"

Um...sure. Whatever that was. "It's possible, don't you think?"

She looked up and took yet another moment to think. He himself had a while ago already jumped to the conclusion that the subject matter was kind of a bunch of baloney, so it was amazing to him that she even took the time to entertain his zany ideas.

Eventually, she shook her head. "I don't see how," she sighed. "I mean, you said I died in your dream, but I was alive in mine. Both of those couldn't end up being true."

A logical conclusion, surely. Neither she nor either of his classmates the previous week were just some boxed cats at the mercy of a Geiger counter, of course. Still, it didn't eliminate his fear of either one of them being prophetic, so they were still at square one, unless...

Chiaki weighed back in after a minute of silence. "...Maybe they could if they were different timelines."

Timelines? Did she mean…? Ah, wait, of course she did. More games. He couldn't say he knew much about whatever game she had in mind — or, hell, most games and references she brought up at the top of her head, for that matter. At least the concept itself wasn't foreign to him.

"Well," she continued, noting that he was waiting for her to expand, "there's this one game I like that split the timeline of its entire series in two, and so it is said that most of the games in the series take place in one of those two timelines. If our dreams are anything like that, then maybe there's a big event that will kind of 'split' our own timeline into two, as well."

It sounded to him like it was related to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. If he understood it correctly, such an "event" would essentially create another "world" whose existence or nonexistence depended on said event happening. So in this sense, her idea was actually sensible scientifically, albeit still farfetched from his point of view.

"It's only just a theory, though," she finally said after it looked like he was absorbed in the idea for much longer than he was comfortable considering. "It could be that neither of those will happen and that some third series of events will play out where I'm not sick or dead."

She was right, of course. When it came down to it, the only thing making him believe that she would die at all was his own paranoia. Could it be that underneath his no-nonsense and pragmatic exterior was someone who was just as superstitious as everyone else? Logically, then, he could just simply assume that any prophetic value his dream had was mere poppycock.

Yet the nagging feeling behind it just wouldn't cease.

He started shaking. Nerves welled up in his stomach, and he was almost sure he would vomit. The lack of sleep and near overdose on caffeine rendered him a jumbled mess, and his own paranoia only set him off the edge even further. Had he not been witness to the whiplash that was seeing someone alive one day and finding out they were dead the next, perhaps he wouldn't have felt quite as jarred.

Unfortunately for him, that happened twice, just the past week. What if Chiaki was next? Of all the people in the world, her death would be the one that hit him the hardest.

He didn't want to believe in the supernatural — but he simply refused to ignore what would otherwise be such an obvious warning.

"What do you think that event could be?" Hajime asked, his voice so shaky it sounded like he was freezing to death. He was desperate for ideas, desperate for any glimmer of hope to keep himself from going mad. Chiaki tensed up herself, sensing his distress. He couldn't blame her. She probably thought the moment awkward and didn't know what to do…

As tensed and nervous as she was, a sympathetic frown nevertheless formed on her face. If a bit oddly melded with the tension that had seeped into the air, it was soft and warm like the sunlight that was bathing them both. Maybe it was the heat and humidity, but some force he couldn't quite explain compelled her to do what most people, even friends, probably wouldn't do in her shoes.

She reached down and took his hand.

Hajime reacted to this sudden action, of course, by stiffening like a board. It certainly had a magical way of making him stop shaking, and boy, was he thankful! But the gesture still made him think: How was she not embarrassed to invade personal boundaries out of the blue like that? To some it would probably be thought a form of social ineptitude...yet it wasn't social grace that was calming him down.

She opened her mouth to speak, stopping for a moment as though hesitant to reveal a truth that could cut instead of mend. "It...would be something bad. Very bad. But, then again, I don't see how anyone would want someone like me dead."

That was a hopeful thought. His imagination did lack the capacity to divine someone as sweet as her having made any enemies.

"If someone out there would try to do that to me, I'm sure you and everyone else will be there to help me...I think."

Well, there wasn't even a question about that. He would be there to help her. He was sure of it. Were it a responsibility he would abdicate or otherwise fail to fulfill, he would bear that burden of guilt and shame for as long as he lived.

Lofty ambition, to be sure, but he still had one problem: For all the praises Chiaki heaped upon him — contrary to any sort of belief that he had that they were undeserved — she could almost have made him believe that he was psychic. Verily, though, he knew he wasn't. How would he be able, then, to come across this sort of information without actually resorting to what amounted to little more than divination?

Could he even do this without plain stalking her? That was creepy enough on its own, but a talentless Reserve Course student moonlighting as a guardian angel to an Ultimate? The powers that be at the top caste would rule it heretical. Plus, well, he learned the hard way that the Main Course building was strictly off limits to him — clearly too sacred a ground for his unclean feet to touch.

In the end, he came to the conclusion that his options were limited, due in no small part to his cursed talentlessness. He hated it. He hated having aspirations without the talent to see them through. Not only could he not become like the people he looked up to and become worthy of the school he admired, he also could not plausibly call himself a matter of pride to those he held dear, let alone ensure their safety.

But — he realized, clenching his fist — maybe even that could be remedied. He remembered four words that had filled his mind all throughout the past week, buzzing about his mind like an irksome fly: the Hope Cultivation Project.

Its deadline was fast approaching — tomorrow — and all throughout the week, he was unsure exactly what would transpire, or if it would even be worth it. Putting aside for a moment the questionable ethics that would allow such a project, would he really be able to consider himself the same person? Would Chiaki be proud of him when she inevitably found out what was going on? Would the project even work at all?

The thoughts and ideas he conjured up mulling over the prospect gave him pause, but his newfound resolve to meet his ambition convinced him fully. I've made up my mind. After school tomorrow, I'm going to sign up.

Chiaki nudged him slightly. "You're spacing out, Hajime."

Ah. So he was. "You're right," he laughed, likely failing to shake off any suspicion she may have had. "Sorry. Was just thinking about what you said."

"Did it help?"

To be honest...he really hated the idea of there being even a single timeline where she was dead. He didn't want to imagine the thought of there being a version of himself that would have to deal with the colossal void that would be left in her wake. The thought scared him and made him feel nauseated besides.

But on the other hand, if there was such a thing as a "split timeline," and that their dreams really were windows into those alternate futures, could there still yet be hope that she lives in one of those? Would he be the version of Hajime allowed to see it? As dangerous as her dream kind of sounded — not that he believed they would really need to fight monsters — the idea that a timeline where she would live and be happy and surrounded by loved ones sounded like one that was worth him fighting for.

What was that phrase she liked to say? "If you try hard enough, things will work out"? Perhaps she wasn't wrong.

"Yeah, I think so," Hajime said, determination filling his chest and stabilizing his voice and nerves finally. All that remained was the sleep-deprived yawns threatening to escape his lungs. "Thank you, Chiaki."

The affirmation brightened her face. He could've been imagining it, but he could almost swear he saw the faintest patch of pink flush on her cheeks. After the complete hell of the past week, it was a sight for sore, exhausted eyes.

"I'm glad," she responded, her face radiant. At last, she was free of any tension that had built in her shoulders, unencumbered and relaxed. She leaned back into the bench and took time to appreciate the buzz of cicadas and the laughing children despite the sweltering heat.

But then her face was overcome with surprise. Hajime had switched his console back on, and 8-bit square waves filled their ears again. Smirking, he looked over and motioned to her. "One more game?"

She did that little gasp of excitement that he found absolutely endearing and swiftly switched on her own console. Soon enough, the rhythmic melody of chiptunes, explosions, and lasers played out like a symphony, and the two were at it again.

He was significantly more focused this time around, and for once, he didn't really care one way or another about losing. For just a moment, his mind was very much at ease, and he could just live as a civilian of the present with his best friend, while the world let him. He enjoyed it so — so much so that one game turned into two. And then three. Then five. Eight. Thirteen.

Eventually, they both lost count, the dead giveaway being the azure tint of the sky slowly turning gold and orange. The exhaustion finally overwhelming him, he put his console down and decided that it was time to call it a day. Chiaki, still filled with enough fight and pep to last her a dozen more games, was saddened by the idea, but she agreed that it was probably a wise decision, given that they had school the next day.

They disposed of all the trash that had accumulated from their snacks and drinks, packed up their belongings, and walked out of the park side by side — slowly, savoring each step. He was saddened to see the last good day he had in a while set like the sun had been, but he already knew it couldn't last forever.

He thought back on the last few hours and wondered, how many more days like this will they have together when he accomplished his goal? When would the next day come? Even though he was unworthy...did she have a fun time, too?

He was left wanting for more hours to spend; for more happiness with her; and, frankly, for her to just be proud of him. All that desire filled him with painful melancholy, but instead of paralyzing him with a harrowing outlook like it normally would have, it only fueled him.

They strolled in the deepening twilight for a half hour before eventually reaching a fork in the road and saying their goodbyes to each other. After wishing Chiaki a good night, Hajime reluctantly turned around to start his trek back home, but then her voice behind him froze his feet to the ground.

"Hey, Hajime!" It was a somewhat of an odd sight, he noticed — she was fidgeting, and it wasn't accompanied with the rapid-fire clicking of buttons; her Game Girl Advance was still in her pocket. She was just standing there, slightly squirming, underneath the streetlight, like a maiden on a stage seeing the male lead make his exit. "Let's...do this again soon, okay?" she chirped, a chill passing through her wavering voice. Was she nervous? Why?

He didn't give himself the chance to ponder, as he was distracted by the mere fact that she wanted to hang out again soon. He couldn't resist the urge to smile back at her. "Yeah. Let's do this again soon." She joyfully beamed back at him.

And that was that. They said their last goodbyes for the day and went their separate ways.

As happy as he was to have spent the day with her, not to mention that she wanted to make plans again, deep down, he really had no idea what his life would be like starting tomorrow. Would the Hope Cultivation Project allow him the time to play games with her? Would they be able to even see each other at all?

He gave it little thought, however. His pessimistic mind, full of drive, had finally given him a moment of optimism as an act of providence, a respite. He was definitely going to play games with her again. He was definitely going to be worthy of playing games with her again.

And no one, not even the Reaper himself, would have the power to stop him.

What timeline will Hajime end up seeing, I wonder? That decision is up to you.

And before you ask, yes, dear reader, that is Ocarina of Time Chiaki was referring to! And yes, I know, there are actually three splits in the timeline, not two. However, that info wasn't revealed until Hyrule Historia's release in December 2011, and this part of the Despair Arc (likely) took place in 2010. It's kind of a shame, too, because the Downfall Timeline works even better as a comparison, I think.

Anywho, time to rest! Enjoy your Halloween! And for my fellow Midwestern people, have a good Youmacon next week, too!