(Yoiya’s Viewpoint)

  I let out a big yawn, stretching my arms to the ceiling of the vehicle as I shook my head.

  “Sorry I had to wake you up so early, lil bro. But I had morning shift today and I didn’t want to leave you home alone.” Mia said, as she looked at me through the mirror at the front seat.

  “It’s okay.” I murmured. “I told you I wanted to come, anyways.”

  ~I did say I wanted to thank the other girls for the chocolate they sent over last week on Valentine’s. Mia made me some chocolate, too. There was so much that I haven’t slept since eating it all… Is this the power of sugar?

  I stared at the open window, looking to the sky.

  ~I wonder how everyone else is doing…

  An image of Rea’s sad smile from the karaoke night appeared in my head.

  ~Rea… I hope you’re okay…

  Then an image of Ake’s smile came to mind.

  I shook my head.

  ~Why’d I think of Ake just now? Ake is sure to be fine… But she’s always been kinda worried about me, I guess…

  I looked over to Mia. Ake was alot like Mia in many ways.

  ~I wonder if Mia was part of the student council when she was in school.

  I looked to the sky again.

  The towering buildings passed by us, their shapes scraping against the golden horizon as the sun began to rise.

  Every now and then we’d pass by some small storefronts where the sky was more visible.

  There were also parks, shorter buildings, and scenic attractions.

  I rubbed my weary eyes then looked up at the sun.

  It seemed to glitch for a moment. It’s position wavered, as if I was looking at an illusion.

  I blinked a few times, rubbing my eyes again.

  When I took another look, the sun had significantly moved higher up and a black circle had begun to overlap it.

  I quickly pulled out my phone to look at its internal clock. But the numbers were rapidly changing, like time was being warped.

  In a panic, I sat up and leaned over to look at the car’s smart monitor.

  “Huh? Yoiya, is something the matter?” Mia glanced at me, blinking rapidly as she tried to maintain her control over the vehicle.

  “S-sorry. Just ch-checking the clock!” I spurted out.

  “Oh… Okay.” Mia calmed down a little but she continued to glance at me as I stared at the little screen on the dash.

  [8:26]

  The clock was static, unmoved.

  It definitely seemed to be the accurate time, judging by where the sun was before my eyes started messing with me.

  I looked out to the window again. The black circle had nearly overlapped the sun completely.

  “Mia.” I said, almost in a whisper.

  “Yea?” She responded.

  “Was there supposed to be an eclipse today?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t believe so. Usually my weather app will tell me something like that.” She glanced out the window. “Why do you ask?” She said, shooting me a glance of concern afterwards.

  “N-no reason…” I slumped back into my seat. “I think… I’ll take a little nap til we get to the cafe.”

  “Oh… Alright. I’ll wake ya when we get to the parking garage then.” Mia said.

  “Right…” I let out a small breath and closed my eyes.

  I only meant to rest my eyes.

  I never meant to actually sleep.

  I only wished to erase the sights I was seeing.

  The way Mia looked at me suggested that only I could see the eclipse.

  There was no way, right?

  I only had bad feelings about it. I just wanted to forget it.

  But I couldn’t.

  And when I opened my eyes again.

  I was falling and before me— a familiar sight: walls of dark water on either side of me.

  …

  The waters churned and bubbled like it was boiling. The sound was loud, like somebody gurgling.

  I slowly opened my eyes wide, focusing on the bubbles.

  They began to pop, loudly like gunshots. Water gushed out of them like a natural waterfall. But from my experiences so far, I knew— this water was anything BUT natural.

  I forged two blades of light within my hands and steadied my falling body.

  Black liquid shot out of the bubbling areas, stretching out to grab my like human hands.

  ~Just as I thought.

  I parried them, slicing them at their wrists and burning through them, turning them into steam.

  More shot out like the beating of a machine gun as it melted through its ammo supply.

  So far, I was managing to hold them off. But the number of hands seemed to increase exponentially.

  I swung harder, in larger arcs, unleashing energy waves to slice them before they could get too close. But they kept on coming. In groups of tens, twenties, thirties, fifties, hundreds— it was simply endless.

  I performed three massive swings to cut them all at once, but as if it were waiting for it, a thousand more shot out immediately after my third swing. They all grabbed on to me, pulling on me, wrapping me in a bubble of dark water.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  I coughed.

  And I screamed.

  But no sound came out.

  Gritting my teeth, I let out an inaudible yell, releasing mana from my entire body.

  Water turned to steam, black turned to white.

  Just as I began to fall once more, one last hand pierced my chest.

  ~Ack!

  That was my only thought as my vision blurred to darkness.

  …

  My eyes snapped open and bright light immediately filled them, nearly blinding me. When the initial flash subsided, I found myself standing in the city again, but it felt slightly different.

  The pattern of stores, the sizes of the buildings, the occasional greenery in distant blocks— everything felt off. It didn’t quite match my memory, yet it did.

  “Where am I?” I couldn’t help but ask as I turned my head to survey the area.

  A horn blared in my ears.

  “GET OUT OF THE ROAD, YOU IDIOT.” Somebody screamed.

  More horns followed, piling and stacking into a single loud repeating sound.

  I turned to the side, seeing the car rush towards me. Even though they had yelled, it appeared as if the driver had no intention of stopping. I shifted my body to jump out of the way.

  But suddenly the car exploded before it ever reached me and it parts were sent flying in all directions.

  I jumped to the side and rolled, dodging the debris as I made my way to the sidewalk.

  “That was a close one. You almost died there and that would have seriously sucked.”

  A soft, ethereal voice— quite like my own— echoed in my ears. From my kneeled position, I looked up and saw a boy holding his hand out to me. He looked just like me; with white hair and a short stature. But there was something off about him: his eyes. His irises were crimson, his pupils small golden diamonds, the edges of his schleras were black.

  I didn’t reach my hand out to grab his. I didn’t even consider taking his offer for help. It felt like a facade.

  All I could think of at the time I looked at him was one word: Danger.

  I quickly stood straight up and backed away.

  “Guess you do have good instincts after all. At least that’ll make things interesting.” The boy spoke with this strange enthusiasm, yet despite his attempts to smile, his face kept returning to a frown.

  “Who are you? What’s with those eyes?” I asked the two questions in a pair. The first was partially rhetorical, as I already had an idea of who he was. The second, however, was genuine.

  The boy’s frown solidified— or rather he stopped trying to smile.

  “Oh? Do you really not know? I’m sure you’ve had them, too, right? The dreams. The visions. The battles. Though, I suppose the memories you ended up dominating over and inheriting could be potentially different to mine. Not that that matters in the end, though.” The boy stuffed his hands in his pockets and began to approach me.

  “Huh?” I could only mutter a single sound in response. Even though I already sorta knew what was happening, it was still happening way too fast for me to keep up with.

  The boy leaned in close, staring directly into my eyes.

  “Is it not obvious? I’m you, of course.” He muttered in a raspy voice, almost annoyed. He quickly turned away from me and walked a few steps forward in the opposite direction. “As for the eyes…”

  He turned to look at me once more.

  “I read a saying in this world that would do great for explaining it.”

  He raised one finger and pointed at his eyes from the side.

  “The eyes of a god will shine like pearls and glimmer like the golden gates of heaven whilst the eyes of a demon will boil like crimson blood and burn with the flames of inevitability.”

  The moment he spoke those words, something in his eyes changed.

  The golden diamonds seemed to warp into a sort of flame shape and turn black.

  Dense mana seeped out of him in waves, each stronger than the last. His aura reminded me of the predatory nature of the Sea, causing me to instinctively step back.

  The very moment I took that step, I felt something around me break.

  The buildings toppled and crumbled, the passerby and traffic disintegrated, the sky turned red, and the sun blacked out leaving only a flaming halo in the sky— an eclipse.

  “The tutorial is over. Time for the real game to begin. Ready for round one?” The look-alike boy, the other me spoke with focused eyes that pierced me like daggers.

  Suddenly, that piercing feeling felt more real. I took a look down to find needles piercing points in my body.

  I coughed out luminescent mana material and nearly dropped back to my knees.

  I expelled mana to immediately eject the foreign objects from my vessel.

  Gritting my teeth I looked up at the boy. His frown changed slightly as he looked down at me with disappointment.

  ~He’s fast… When did he…?

  I coughed again, vomiting more liquid mana.

  He approached me, kneeling down and grabbing me by the chin.

  “For a fellow survivor of our powers, you’re a lot weaker than I expected… Should I just end you here?” He asked, looking into my eyes.

  I gritted my teeth and narrowed my brows. Just as my body closed its wounds, I made a single swift, painful movement to slash at him with a blade I created from the cement beneath me.

  He blocked the blade with a sword of swirling wind. Green mana emitted from it.

  ~Mana emission? Hang on…

  I closed my eyes for a moment. Feeling the mana around me.

  ~This is clearly Earth… but the mana field is alot denser than my Earth. The leylines seem thick, too? Did he…?

  The scenery melted around us as I pushed forward to knock him away.

  He landed gracefully on the asphalt about thirty meters away.

  “You.” I pointed my blade at him as it slowly put itself back together. “Did you forcibly thicken the leylines with your own mana here?”

  The other me grinned for a moment. “Why, yes. I did.”

  I narrowed my eyes, preparing my sword for another strike.

  ~But how? I could barely access my own mana on my Earth… Where could he have gotten so much energy?

  I charged, clashing blades with him again.

  “More importantly.” The boy frowned at me again. His disappointment seemed deeper than before. “Why are you holding back?”

  “Huh–” The boy kicked me in the stomach before I could even finish my response, sending me flying through a car and into a display window. Rubble collapsed around me.

  I slowly crawled out of the rubble, my wounds healing as the debris fell off of my skin. The other me was waiting, however. He picked me up by the collar and lifted me out of the rubble and slightly off the ground. He stared at me with a blank expression.

  “Taking another look at you, you look awfully human.” His face changed to show anger. “How pathetic. Absolutely disgusting!”

  He tossed me to the side, and fired a volley of flames at me.

  I sliced through each fireball before doing a barrel roll against the pavement. I slowly pushed myself up, coughing out more mana material.

  The other me approached me quickly, but he didn’t run. His face was red with rage as he stomped towards me.

  “I was just gonna let off a bunch of steam when I noticed your mana signature, but your appearance and expressions seriously pisses me off. I absolutely despise humans.” He grumbled.

  With one strong step forward, he crushed his foot into the ground causing a bunch of sharp pillars to jut out of the ground. This chain reaction reached me quickly and I rolled out of the way in the nick of time.

  This time, I managed to stand up properly.

  I focused on circulating mana in my body so my wounds would heal faster. I stared at him as I winced in pain.

  ~He… hates humans…? Why…?

  The doppelganger pointed his blade aggressively at my face.

  “Let me guess. You got too used to pretending to be human that you ended up instinctively suppressing your mana access to avoid standing out, is that it?”

  My eyes went wide for a moment.

  ~It can’t be…

  “Guess Ener’s teachings really stuck for you. You must have had a good life…” The boy in front of me closed his eyes. But his face was still red and his mana emission seemed to dance dramatically with similar colors. It even appeared as if his entire body was letting off steam.

  “But I didn’t get to even try that! But even if I had… Humans…. Humans!!!”

  He clutched his fist. His own mana essence leaked from his knuckles as they cracked, but then immediately sank back into his hand. The boy gave a glare more menacing than any look he gave before.

  “Humans are… Absolutely… Worthless.”

  Those were the words he spoke as tears of sadness dripped from his eyes— each one immediately burning up into flames of anger.

  He raised his sword, the wind around it blasting out violently in all directions.

  “And I shall purge their stain from existence.”

  The boy’s eyes glowed with intensity as destruction spread endlessly around us.