Vision slowly came as John blinked his eyes open. Things were foggy, but as he stretched and rolled his neck, things slowly came into view.

Prota was gone again.

He wasn’t overly concerned since they’d just made it back from a long, hard fought battle, but just to check, he pulled his system up and checked on her health bar. It was perfectly fine.

He got up slowly and dressed, thinking as he wrapped his scarf around his neck. Why did he have a health bar in the first place? And why was it possible to see the health bar of a partner? If the him of the past had been the one to make this system, then he must’ve also seen the possibility of a partner coming.

Or maybe he’d had a partner in the past.

He shook his head as he walked out the door. There was no point in thinking about such things. He’d thought more than he’d meant to yesterday, and it’d gotten him into a slump. Just because he had a hard time feeling didn’t mean he was depressed all the time. It just meant that he couldn’t feel. That was all.

He rubbed his eyes as he stepped out into the open air, momentarily blinded by the sun. The autumn wind blew through his hair, still unheated by the heat of the sun, waking him up as it combed over his face.

“Oh. Look who’s finally up,” Fate called out.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Prota and I were just having a little chat.”

John's eyes widened, but Prota seemed to be fine with it, so there was really no need for concern. However, seeing Prota brought up concerns once again. A happy ending. What was in store for Prota? His ending was pretty clear. He had one goal. He would meet that goal or die. But what about Prota?

He forced himself to stop thinking about it. Such thoughts wouldn’t get him anywhere. Indeed, they would probably only end up loading Chekov’s Gun. A gun that, according to the rules of the world, would eventually be fired once loaded.

“How’re you holding up?” Fate said kindly. However, his eyes held a determination that hadn’t been there before.

John was surprised. Had Fate always been this mature? It wasn’t that there was any obvious change, but it felt like something significant had occurred. Fate had realized something, and as a result, had grown.

Well, that made sense, didn’t it? It would be strange if nothing had changed at all. The [Author] was pretty terrible at making stories, but he wasn’t so bad that character development was non-existant.

“Uh… yeah, I’m fine,” John nodded.

“Hey. I don’t really want to bring it up, but those guys…”

“What, are you gonna scold me?”

“No,” Fate said, shaking his head. “I’m not so naive as to believe that everyone can be saved. I’d just… rather save those that I can. Those guys, there was no saving them, right?”

John was surprised. He’d been preparing a plethora of excuses, but Fate was willing to simply let it drop.

“Thanks,” John said. He was being honest. He didn’t know what had happened with Fate, but the less excuses he had to make, the easier things would become.

Secrets just made things harder for everyone. They existed for tension. Secrets were always followed by a flood of issues, which were good for the [Story], but not for him.

“What about you? Everything wrapped up on your end?”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you what happened on my end.”

Fate explained about fighting the chimera, how the strange man had said the thing had ten souls, how he’d dealt with it…

“And they used Final Stands… but they weren’t dead,” Fate shuddered. “I’ve never encountered such terrifying magic. If not for… well, I’m lucky I’m alive.”

“Haha… You know, I thought I was strong,” Fate said. “You know, being the hero and everything. But that chimera. Those people. They were strong. Stronger than me. There’s always bigger fish.”

“That’s part of life,” John shrugged as he sat down. “Right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll get over it, Fate. That’s part of being the hero. You don’t get to play god right from the start. Growth is part of the journey.”

Fate nodded, not noticing the bitterness in John’s voice.

Growth was part of the journey. So was trauma. He couldn’t escape it. It was inevitable, after all, and John would rather not think about it.

But ignorance wasn’t a solution.

“Well, let’s change the mood!” Fate said, clapping his hands.

Kit jumped up onto Fate’s head and watched with interest. It seemed that Fate’s head wasn’t the most comfortable location as she hopped over to Prota instead. The girl didn’t show it, but John could tell she was pleased with this situation.

“We learned a few things.”

John sat up. A serious conversation.

“First, a name. Doctor. I’m not sure who or what that is, but he seems to be the one in charge of… whatever they’re doing in those labs.”

“Source?”

“Danjo. That boy we rescued.”

“Oh, that guy?”

John rubbed his chin. Was this another main character?

As Fate began to explain his story and the marvellous inventions he’d made, John seemed to gain interest. Fate assumed it was about the artifacts Danjo had attempted to create, but that wasn’t the real reason John was interested.

John didn’t have a name for these characters yet. They weren’t the [Protagonist], but they weren’t exactly small enough to be [Side Characters] either. [Side Kick]? [Deuteratgonist] was technically the proper term, but that was too hard to use.

[Companions]. Would that be a suitable name?

What did that make him, then?

Regardless, this was yet another [Character] that would be indispensable to their end goal. Even if they would never play a role as large as the [Protagonist], they were sure to become very special in their own way.

Each [Character] had an [End] to the [Story]. And a [Companion] would surely have a special end.

So Danjo was someone John needed to take care of. That was all. Prota, too, was listening, but was interested for another reason.

In a way, Danjo was just like her, wasn’t he? An orphan that’d been taken in by a stranger, only for them to become a sort of family. She wasn’t sure of Danjo’s circumstances prior to his adoption, but he must’ve had his own hardships as well.

She put herself in his shoes. If John had been taken, experimented on… well, in the first place, that would probably never happen, but if he was thrown into that situation, then how would she react? She shuddered at the mere thought of it. No. She would never let that happen in the first place.

However, this Danjo boy had been thrown into that situation. She couldn’t help but understand.

“Come on. Let’s go meet him.”

~~~

Danjo stood awkwardly in front of John and Prota, as if he were a schoolboy called to the principal’s office.

Fate was surprised, but really, he should’ve seen this coming. In the first place, Danjo was shy. He’d only opened up because of his desperation to save his sister, but he had no idea why John and Prota were here.

To make things more awkward, Prota was just as equally shy, making the silence in the room twice as loud. John coughed awkwardly. It was as if two old friends were meeting up and had dragged their kids along.

“Uh… can I see your artifacts?” John said. He didn’t really feel like speaking up, but someone had to do something, right?

Danjo nodded stiffly, leading them to his workshop. Fortunately, once they were there, he seemed to loosen up a bit now that he was in his natural habitat.

“I’m not quite sure what I would use these for,” Danjo said hesitantly as he showed John his electric gloves. John’s eyes widened.

“Hey. That… if you make the glove a little thicker, and line the wires inside, then cover the top with some kind of metal…”

Danjo listened, wide eyed.

“And what’s the power source? How do you power this thing?”

“Ah, that’s… mana crystals…”

John looked carefully and found that there were indeed small crystals lined around the wrist of the glove, attached to the wires.

It was crude. Anyone on Earth could’ve made something like this, probably. It was essentially just exposed wires stuck onto an electric resistant glove. But for a boy with no concept of “science” to make something like this…

John was just as amazed as Fate had been.

“Hey. Take a look at this.”

John pulled his revolver out and put it down on the table. Danjo stared, wide eyed.

“What… what is this?” His eye began to sparkle.

“Think of it as a… projectile based artifact of sorts,” John said, lying through his teeth. He took some bullets out and began to explain.

“These pieces of metal have gunpowder attached to the base of the metal. I call these bullets. Inside the g- artifact is a mechanism that activates a spark, thus setting off the gunpowder. This lets it shoot the bullet out at high speeds.”

Danjo stared at the thing, nodding. He’d been practically hypnotized by the thing.

“It’s like… a hand held canon, sized down accordingly…”

He started muttering, picking the weapon up and holding it at different angles.

“Ah! But… this thing is meant to kill people… right?”

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“...yeah? That’s kinda the point.”

“I understand,” Danjo nodded slowly. “Still, if I could figure out the fine points of this…”

John watched with a mildly amused expression. The boy was just as shy as Prota, but in a completely different way. One was stoic and rarely showed emotion. The other was just a massive nerd.

Now that John thought about it, a certain number of character stereotypes had been met. Fate, the main character. Well, his personality could’ve been anything. Kit, the mischievous mentor. Albert, the tough guild master, Draco, the annoying noble…

It was all incredibly predictable and boring.

John shook his head. He had to stop thinking about these things.

“Um… anyways… thank you for letting me join you guys. I promise I won’t let you down!”

John nodded, then turned to Fate.

“Have you talked to Albert about this?”

Fate nodded. “I actually took Danjo to Albert. We told him all we know, which isn’t a lot. Only about Doctor and the cells, and the fact that there’s more than one location. Oh, and about the Final Stands and souls. He wasn’t too pleased about that one.”

John looked grim. “So we have to go in again?”

“Yeah, but if we want to take Danjo… well, we’ll have to take him to at least one other dungeon. To see if he can hold up.”

It felt weird to discuss this right in front of Danjo himself, but the dwarf didn’t react. He’d probably already talked about it.

“John. Take a rest. We just went through a lot,” Fate said, putting his hand on John’s shoulder. “We can always prepare another day.”

John nodded. Rest.

He looked down at Prota, who, as usual, had a completely stoic look on her face. Her eyes held a little hope in them, though. John thought he knew what she was thinking.

“Come on, Prota,” John said, nodding at Fate. “Let’s go have a little fun.”

~~~

“Here,” John said. Prota was confused. They were in the middle of the forest.

What were they going to do here?

“I don’t really remember much from Earth, but I remember a few things. Here and there,” John said.

The words seemed sad, but John’s tone showed that he’d just accepted it as another fact of life.

“One of the things I remember is cooking a certain something.”

Reaching into his pocket dimension, John withdrew a variety of bowls, some ground meat, some unknown vegetables and some kind of wrap.

“I don’t really know why this is what I remember, of all things. But I remember making it… I don’t remember, actually. But… I get a warm feeling when I think of them. They must’ve been good people to me. Anyway, they’re called dumplings. Come on. Wanna help?”

Using fire magic, Prota cleansed her hands, then followed John as he prepared the ingredients. Put the meat in a bowl. Knead. Salt, pepper, some strange oil, some unknown sauces, all mixed in.

While Prota was doing that, she watched as John pulled out a knife and a chopping board and began chopping up some vegetables. Some she recognized, some she didn’t. Onions and garlic were two of the vegetables she did know, but she couldn’t identify the others. Where had John gotten these from?

As soon as John was done, he threw the vegetables into the mix of meat and continued to knead alongside Prota. He reached in to his pocket dimension again and cracked a few eggs in as well. Things were getting messy, but that wasn’t important.

“I’m glad they had all the ingredients I remembered,” John mused as he continued to knead the meat. “Honestly, I’m not too sure if I’m doing this right, but I sure do hope I am.”

It was a pleasant day. The shade of the branches overhead blocked the hot sun, and a pleasant breeze blew through the forest. Prota could hear birds chirping in the trees, the grass rustling under her feet… it was peaceful.

Calm.

“You got a little something there,” John said, reaching over and wiping a piece of food off of Prota’s cheek.

It felt nice.

Neither of them were talking, but somehow, it felt fitting. The two were just enjoying each other’s company. There was no need for them to think about anything else; the demon king, the secret organisation, Fate, Danjo… it was nice to just sit and relax. To forget about everything else.

After a while, John announced that they were done and pulled out a large board. He poured a bit of water into a bowl and showed Prota how to wet the rims of the wraps, then put a bit of meat in the middle and wrap the whole thing up.

For someone who had never made something like this before, she found it fun. It was messy for sure, and she was having a rough time at the start, but she wouldn't have traded this moment for anything else.

Just being with John in a moment like this.

It was enough.

Soon, the wraps were done, and John pulled out yet another pot and filled the bottom with water, then put some kind of metal plate into the pot and put the dumplings inside.

“Prota, can you start a fire?” John asked after setting up a bunch of firewood.

Soon, they had a nice steaming pot going, and there was nothing to do but wait. Prota went over to John and sat beside him, leaning on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and listened to the wind, smelling the dumplings slowly steam.

“Did you grow?” John said after a while. “During the fight.”

Prota nodded.

“There was a short man. He was strong. Prota lost.”

“Mm… but not without doing something crazy, right?”

Prota nodded once.

“What’d you do this time? Some new kinda spell?”

Could she replicate it? Prota didn’t know. It’d been a spell she’d activated out of desperation and semi-consciousness, but she sort of remembered what she’d done. She closed her eyes and focused. The Blossom of Ice slowly began to form, but that was it. Just a normal Blossom.

She opened her eyes and frowned a little. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Remember. That feeling. Two opposites blending into one. An intense heat and an intense cold.

She closed her eyes again, and started once more.

“Crazy… I actually don’t know what that takes, but it looks impressive as hell…”

A Blossom of Ice with a burning blue flame inside. However, it wasn’t that the Blossom was hollow.

The flame was burning while frozen over. It was almost like a frozen flame.

In a way, wasn’t it like Prota? Someone with an extremely cold exterior but with a passionate flame burning on the inside. Prota watched as John stared at the spell with shining eyes. He really did look impressed. And he looked calm. Maybe not happy, but… it was close.

Was that what Fate had been talking about? She was happy when John was happy. Did John feel the same way too?

“Anything else?” John said after a while. “I mean, I’m not really expecting anything, but…”

Prota shook her head. She couldn’t think of anything significant that’d happened other than the creation of that spell.

Well, there was…

“Water, earth magic,” Prota said quietly. She watched as the steam from the pot gathered and swirled into a little ball above her finger, but that was pretty much the extent of what she could do. She could maybe shape it and throw it, but other than that, she wasn’t sure how much she could do.

She stared at the ground and lifted a small chunk of dirt, then put it back. Simple magic, although slightly more advanced than the bare minimum.

“From that guy you fought?” John said.

Prota nodded.

“Good job,” John said as he wrapped his arm around Prota. “Alright. That’s all. Let’s not think about those things anymore, ok?”

Prota nodded once, but she was happy.

Really happy.

When was the last time she’d felt so at peace? She wished things could be like this forever. Just her and John, sitting, cooking, smiling… well, John’s smile wasn’t real, and Prota wasn’t smiling, but still. Somehow, the chaos of everything made this moment all the more better. The effort, the pain of reaching this point made it all the more satisfying.

After a bit, John walked over to the pot and lifted the lid, revealing the finished product of their work. Prota’s mouth began to water as she watched John lift the dumplings out of the pot and onto a pan. Reaching into his pocket dimension one more time, he poured some oil onto the pan and began to fry the dumplings, causing a delicious aroma to rise. The beefy meat, the aromatic herbs and vegetables, the doughy wraps…

Prota’s stomach growled.

“Just wait. It’ll be done soon.”

True to John’s words, they were done within a few minutes, and he pulled out some plates and a bowl.

The dumplings had been fried so their skin was a light golden brown on the outside. They had a crispness that was somehow somewhat soft and chewy at the same time, pairing perfectly the the tender juicy meat inside.

“Here, dip them in this,” John said, pouring some kind of brown sauce into the bowl.

Prota obliged, dipping the dumplings in the sauce before putting one into her mouth.

Her eyes widened.

The vegetables and meat blended in a perfect harmony, a balance of salty, juicy, and savoury. The wrap was crispy and chewy, adding a perfect texture to the rough meat and vegetables. She could taste hints of what she’d watched John put in; the garlic and onions, on top of some other unknown things. The sauce, too, added a flavour that complimented the rest of the dish that she couldn’t quite describe.

“Like it?” John smiled as he watched Prota’s expression. She nodded multiple times. She was really enthusiastic about this one.

“Hm… surely the focus has shifted to Fate by now, right? Maybe Albert? Danjo? The enemy? I can just let loose, right? There’s no way the [Story] is talking about us making dumplings, right?”

Unlike Prota, he had no delusions of it lasting forever. He couldn’t enjoy this fully because he knew. It would someday be ripped away from him. That was how stories worked. Nothing lasts forever. This clearly wasn’t a slice of life.

He could feel momentarily at peace, but it was always nagging him. Knowing that it would someday be ripped away from him. He thought back to Zero’s parable. Curse? Blessing? What did any of that mean?

He just wanted something like this to last forever.

But that was impossible.

“Hey, Prota,” he said quietly as they finished up in silence. “Do you ever… feel the need to curse someone? For what’s happened?”

Prota looked up at him with a confused look. What was he going on about?

“Like… do you ever feel the need to blame someone for all the suffering you’ve been through?”

He constantly did that. He cursed the [Author] that put him in this situation. The [Author] that made him suffer and used him for some kind of [Plot].

Did Prota have something like that? Someone to curse?

“...no,” Prota said quietly. She’d never thought about it. She was thinking about it now, though, as she sipped a cup of juice.

Someone to curse? Sure, she’d been through some pretty bad suffering. But had she ever blamed anyone? In the end, the only person she’d ever blamed was herself. For being too weak, for being unlucky, for being a curse and a demon… she’d always blamed herself. She could blame the demon king, but in the end, she chose to blame herself.

She would never tell that to John, though.

“Hm… one more thing. If you could… go back. You could have the choice never to have those powers of yours in the first place, just to go and live a happy life. Would you do that?”

Prota thought one more time.

“No,” she said unexpectedly.

“...no?”

“If I didn’t have these powers… then I wouldn’t have met John,” Prota said simply.

With that, she leaned her head on his shoulder again. John felt his chest tighten. He was worried that Prota would feel the pounding of his heart, but it seemed that she hadn’t noticed anything.

It was peaceful. Quiet. Moments like these were to be cherished. Wasn’t it ok?

To just accept it. To sit in the quiet and be happy.

This feeling. Maybe… maybe it wasn’t a blessing, but maybe it wasn’t a curse.

It just was.

A small smile formed on John’s lips as he wrapped his arm around Prota.

[Determination activates!]