Dimensional Descent

 Respect and Persistence.

The fury in Leonel's eyes was still smoldering, but he loosened his grip on his spear a bit, allowing his agitated heart to calm.

He rolled a thumb over his engraved wedding ring, allowing the habit to calm him further.

He had to control what he could control. His own emotions were certainly one of them. He couldn't. allow himself to fly off the handle at the slightest hint of a provocation.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

This time, it was a combination of two factors: the weight of the events and the timing, along with the agitation to his Weapon Forces.

He could feel keenly that just triggering this battlefield alone wasn't enough to slip the hands of the Demoness. She had planned for so long, and she had already seen his Weapon Forces before. It was more than likely that she had some sort of contingency plan for this.

The same grace was the fact that the odds that this plan was as perfect as all her others were minimal. In which case, whether he could succeed in breaking free would be dependent on how he performed.

Due to this, he could feel the accumulated efforts of several lifetimes coming together, and the weight of it all made the frustrating targeting of this Battlefield's Regulator all the more infuriating. The second issue was his Weapon Forces.

He had already noticed while outside of this world that he had been slipping back into his old habits. The same arrogance, the same casual disregard for everything, the very same attitude that had caused him to be the only one standing in the end. It wasn't the attitude he should have if he actually expected to have loved ones by his side.

But in this world, it was amped up to the highest degree. That was because his Weapon Forces could feel the Idol Battlefield's targeting, and it was trying to assert its dominance in response.

In the end, this was only the natural progression of things. There was simply no way that anything else could have happened but his furious lashout.

Leonel took a breath and closed his eyes.

He had felt this sort of pressure on his shoulders before.

That day, in the Valiant Heart Zone, as his Generals died one by one around him, it was the first time he had felt this sort of weight.

Back then, he thought that he was ready for it. He had accepted the crown and thought that he would be a King, leading his people to the lives that they deserved.

It was the first time he had felt true loss, true helplessness...

It was the first time he had lost.

He could still remember King Alexandre's lofty strength. He had no ability to stand against that man and could only watch as the people he called friends collapsed one by one.

It was something that he had sworn never to experience again. And yet, had he lived up to his word? By now, he knew what happened.

When he saw that he could revive them, the conviction that he had borne then wavered and cracked. It was still there, so he hadn't noticed just how compromised it was. But as time went on, he began to slowly chip away at it.

He gave up on those people he had once called brothers, he abandoned his road to Kingship, he wasn't there when the family he had fought to become the Patriarch of needed him the most...

He had failed time and time again, following his own selfish whims and carelessly making promises that he couldn't even keep himself.

It was pathetic.

Worse than pathetic.

He had tried to take on a burden he wasn't nearly mature enough to take on. His arrogance and bravado, although he hadn't admitted it to himself back then, made him feel like he was the only one worthy to do such a thing.

Maybe he was right that he was the only one. But that you knew something wasn't as important as how you came to know it.

Why was he the only one? Could he describe that in so many words? Or did he just think that his talent made him superior to everyone else and thus it could only be him?

Ironically, for much of his life, that answer had been the latter.

He had wanted to become a King because he felt that all life was equal. And yet it was because he thought he was superior that he believed that he should be King.

It was almost embarrassing that the contradiction didn't come to mind until now.

He was a pathetic excuse for a King... a King who took on a burden just to set it down when he pleased because it wasn't making him happy anymore.

Now, he had lost his father... his mother... he almost lost his grandmother... how many more did he plan to lose before he got his act together? Or was it that he was content with watching the world burn around him so long as he could keep his ego intact?

Leonel stood in silence for a long while, experiencing that burden on his shoulders again for the first time in a long time.

He could feel his feet sinking into the ground, his knees bucking against the weight. His shoulders sank, and his breathing felt constricted.

One could practically see the mountain on his shoulders, tall and proud, unfettered and oppressive. It wanted him to collapse beneath it. Or pretend it didn't exist and shrug it off.

That was what he had done before. However, not acknowledging it was as good as failing once again.

Respect and Persistence.

Could you be brave if you never felt fear? Could you know happiness if you never knew sadness? Could you be a king if you didn't truly understand the burden?

They were simple questions, and ones that Leonel had ignored for maybe too long.

But more real than ever, he understood...

You couldn't Persist if you couldn't Respect the challenge you faced.