The doors to each holding cell were identical, but it wasn’t hard to guess which one Ryuji had run into. Spiderweb cracks blossomed out of one of the doorframes and the door itself was slightly ajar, with the handle crushed into an unrecognisable shape. I stood at the door for a few seconds, not really thinking, just waiting.

Nothing prompted me to go inside. Nothing would. The hallway was dead silent, and though I knew that Sera was standing just outside of the hallway, ready to give me a grin and an encouraging nod if I just turned my head to the side, I didn’t.

Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the handle, taking care not to cut my fingers on the jagged metal, and opened the door.

Ryuji didn’t acknowledge me as I stepped inside, not even when the door creaked on its hinges as I let it swing shut behind me. Ignoring the bench, he was sitting on the floor at the far corner of the room, hugging his knees to his chest. In the dim lighting of the single redstone lamp that was embedded in the walls of the cell, and with his hood drawn over his head, I couldn’t see his face at all.

He made no indication that he knew I was there, even when I walked forward and stood directly in front of him. I squatted down to bring myself closer to him.

“You’re not a killer, Ryuji,” I said. “Those Goblins weren’t real. They were creatures made purely from Aether. We call them demons here.”

[Lena]’s Quest: Begin the Main Story [COMPLETE]

By telling the [HERO] about the truth behind the [DEMON Goblins] that he slew, you’ve opened the path to further adventure as he delves to learn about the truth behind [DEMONs] and the [AETHER].

Rewards: 1 XP

I punched the panel, unable to hold back my annoyance. It made a dull sound on impact, like I was punching a stone wall, and my fingers ached, like I was punching a stone wall. Thankfully, I’d been too tired to punch the panel hard enough to do any real damage to myself, but I couldn’t help but wince in pain.

Ryuji didn’t react to the sound, which I was grateful for. Despite what the panels seemed to think, my job wasn’t done here. Just because I told Ryuji the truth didn’t automatically mean he would believe me, and anyone or anything that thought otherwise was either profoundly naive or utterly stupid.

I waited to see if the panels would respond to my thoughts. They didn’t. I hoped I’d hurt their feelings, if they even had any.

“Liar,” Ryuji said, his voice muffled. “You don’t really think that. You think I’m a monster.”

I frowned. “Ryuji, I…”

I stopped. I was too stressed, too exhausted, and too agitated to deal with this. I let out a low hiss of a sigh, letting my frustration out slowly.

“Yeah,” I said. “I am. I’m a liar. I’ve been lying to you for the entire fucking time I’ve been travelling with you. And you know what? I’m sick of it. I’m sick of having to dance around you because I’m too scared of being killed by you to do anything that could possibly upset you. I’m sick of pretending that everything’s fine while you’re having the time of your life, prancing around, talking about how your dream is to become a homeless wanderer that kills for a living.”

Ryuji looked up at me, a shocked expression on his face. Admittedly, it was a lot less slow then I‘d planned, but my frustration had burst out of me like a river through a dam. And I wasn’t going to try and stop it.

“Ever since the moment I met you, you’ve been acting like this world was tailor-made for you. You go around, doing whatever you please, because everyone’s too scared to stop you. And you don’t even notice! You don’t care enough to stop and think about the effects of your actions on other people. You just go around, showing off your absurd power and telling people in the same sentence that you’ll be the greatest wandering murderer in the world. You really think people won’t be afraid of you?

“You know why Medric decided he wanted to fight you? He wanted to fight you because he saw how afraid I was of you. We’ve been travelling together for more than a week, and a random stranger could pick up on how I felt better than you could. And then you killed him. You killed him and dangled his corpse in front of me, like you were a cat showing off the mouse you managed to catch and bite the head off of.”

I gasped when I stopped, surprised by how out of breath I was. The sound of my heavy breathing echoed around the small empty room.

“I didn’t mean to.” Ryuji’s small voice was barely audible. I had to strain to hear him. “I didn’t know.”

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He sounded so small.

“Yeah,” I said, once I caught my breath. “I know. But at the time I thought you did. Do you remember how I reacted?”

Ryuji sunk his head into his knees. “You screamed at me,” he said. “And then you told me to fix it. And then I did.”

I frowned. It wasn’t the exact conclusion I wanted him to come to, but it was close enough.

“I did scream,” I said. “Because I was scared. Whether you meant it or not, whether you fixed it later or not, you killed a man in front of me. I was terrified out of my mind, Ryuji. I pissed myself. I’m a fully grown woman and I pissed myself, Ryuji.”

I hadn’t meant to reveal that. I’d wanted to take that to my grave but it just spilled out.

“Sorry,” Ryuji said, a bit sheepishly.

“Don’t apologise for that. Just forget I said it,” I said, feeling a blush rise to my cheeks. “Please.”

Ryuji didn’t say anything.

I coughed into my fist, as if clearing my throat.

“Anyways,” I said. “The point I wanted to make is that when I saw you killing a person in front of me, I freaked out. I couldn’t control my emotions even though I desperately wanted to pretend that everything was fine. You see where I’m going with this?”

Ryuji looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, but he’d already wiped his tears away, leaving them dry. He locked eyes with me for a few seconds before shaking his head slightly.

I wanted to give him a smile, but I didn’t feel good enough to summon a genuine one. I was sick of the fake smiles I’d been forced to keep up for the past week, and I didn’t want to use a fake smile again, especially not in this situation. I sighed and turned to sit down against the wall. With Ryuji backed into the corner, I couldn’t quite sit beside him, but I didn’t care about that.

“You’re not a killer, Ryuji,” I said. “If you really had killed some Goblins back in Plainswood, I wouldn’t have been as calm about it as I was. I don’t know what you saw, but all I saw you do was slash through a bunch of demons and scatter their Aether to the wind. That’s the only reason why I didn’t run away screaming. I wouldn’t have traveled through the forest, alone with someone who I thought was a murderer. I would’ve just taken my chances and tried to run away from you.”

I turned to face Ryuji and met his eyes again.

“You believe me now?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Oh,” he said, looking away from me.

It was a quiet thing. With his gaze locked forward, staring at nothing, a slow and steady stream of tears flowed gently out of the corners of his eyes, crawling down his cheek and converging at his chin, steady drops falling to the floor. He made no indication that he noticed, not moving as the sound of manmade raindrops echoed through the cell.

And then he sniffled.

He sunk his head into his knees again, hiding his face, not from me, but from the world around him. Ryuji wasn’t a very attractive crier. As he struggled unsuccessfully to hold back his sobs, they caught on his throat, coming out in quiet croaks. It was a strange sound, almost amusing if it weren’t for how pitiable it was.

I watched for a few seconds before scooting closer to him. His body was too awkwardly placed, backed up too deep into the corner of the room, for me to be able to try and hug him, but I felt like a simple hand on his back would be enough.

The moment my hand touched his back, Ryuji’s shoulders started to heave. His croaking cries stopped, replaced with a low consistent moan instead, shuddering whenever he took in a shaky breath.

We stayed like that for a few minutes before Ryuji calmed down somewhat. With his face still hidden in his knees, he reached down and wiped at his nose with his sleeve. He sniffled a few more times before his breathing evened out.

“You okay?” I asked.

He took a deep breath before he answered. “Yeah,” he lied.

“You want to talk about it?” I asked, not knowing exactly what it was.

Ryuji’s heavy breathing stopped immediately. He looked up at me, his eyes completely swollen and his face covered in tears and snot. He opened his mouth, and then closed it.

“I want to see,” he said.

“Want to see what?” I asked.

“I want to know for sure that I didn’t kill anyone real,” he said. “I want to go back to your village.”

“You don’t believe me?” I asked. I wasn’t offended, and I hoped it didn’t come off that way.

“I… I want to,” Ryuji said, with a sniffle and a swipe of his shirt sleeve against his nose. “But I need to make sure.”

I nodded. “Okay,” I said, standing up. “We can go.”

Ryuji looked up at me. I extended a hand to him to help him up. He took it.

Knowing how sturdy he could be on his feet, I was surprised how light his body actually was. Unfortunately, I was also surprised by how slimy his hands were.

“Sorry,” he said, wincing when I wiped my hands against my pants, smearing them with snot.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Let’s go?”

Ryuji nodded, but when I pushed open the door to the cell and stepped outside, I noticed that he hadn’t moved from his spot.

“Something wrong?” I asked, holding the door open.

“I-” Ryuji said. “I’m a hypocrite.”

I waited for him to continue.

“I’ve been lying to you too,” he said, looking away sheepishly. “I’ve been hiding a pretty big secret from you this entire time.”

He looked up at me from the corner of his eye.

“My name isn’t really Ryuji. It’s Jamie. And… I’m not from this world.”

I waited to see if he was going to say anything else. When it was clear he was done, I nodded.

“Nice name,” I said. “I like it much better than your fake one.”

Ryuji, or rather, Jamie blinked a few times at me, clearly stunned.

“Umm,” he said. “I wasn’t joking. I really am from another world.”

“I knew you were an Otherworlder from the moment we met,” I said, jerking a thumb behind me. “Now let’s go. Might as well head out early while there’s still daylight. Maybe we can hire a cart to take us instead of having to walk again.”

“An Otherworlder?” Jamie asked.

“Sera will explain,” I said, more than happy to throw the responsibility at someone else for once.

I half expected another panel to pop again, to tell me that it would be my job once again to explain to Jamie what exactly an Otherworlder was, but nothing happened. I let out a small sigh of relief.

“You ready?” I asked Jamie.

Jamie looked at me. His eyes were still puffy, and he looked like he wanted to say something more, but after a few seconds of deliberation, he stepped forward. Once he walked through the door, I let it close and walked beside him, back through the dim hallway, towards the light coming from the open door to the station lobby.