“Let’s do this,” I said, drawing a cat-sword.

“Got it.” responded Iris, making her own sword appear.

Leah began shooting at us and the two of us ran at her. We swung our swords at her, but she dodged and jumped insanely high.

“What.” was all I had to say.

Miles ran at us from behind and I spun around a few times. My sword didn’t get him but I managed to kick him and somehow that sent him flying.

“This is insane.” said Matthias, pulling out some boomerangs, “But I can make things crazier.”

He threw them and they caught and fire and almost hit Leah and Miles. After that, I saw Mikaela running around with her scythe, Isaac pulling bombs out of his bucket, James throwing papers of different shapes and sizes, and Catherine was directing a bunch of random people toward the enemies. These people had all kinds of weapons.

“That’s cheating!” Leah commented, aiming to shoot Catherine.

Before she could fire, she was hit by a steel pipe that a cat was holding because I had just created a cat army.

“If the villains get to be O.P.,” I said, “then we should too.”

“I don’t give a damn if we’re being fair or not!” exclaimed Miles, twirling around and throwing scissors out as he did it, “what matters is if you all die or not!”

Most of us dodged the scissors, but a pair got Isaac in the throat, causing him to fall over and die.

“Is that all you got!?” I exclaimed.

“Watch this.” requested James.

Suddenly we saw that he had folded scissors out of paper and they were floating in the air. A few seconds later, they turned into real scissors.

“Take this!” exclaimed James, while pointing at Miles.

Then, the scissors headed full force toward him. The scissors got him by the clothes and soon, he was pinned to a wall.

“Impressive.” commented Miles, “But watch THIS!”

After that, a bolt of lightning shot out of his finger and reached James in less than a few seconds. He fell over.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, “I think.”

“Fools.” responded Miles.

“H-huh?” I responded.

“Do you really think I can truly be defeated, said Miles, “I have the book you know…?”

“We’re not done.” I said.

“Oh, really?” responded Miles, snapping his fingers which caused the scissors to disappear.

“You should give up now.” suggested Leah.

“We won’t.” responded Mikaela.

“You’re not going to win this.” said Matthias.

We went back to fighting each other. This time, I was fighting Leah, who decided to use a glowing green sword this round. During this time, I saw the others fighting out of the corners of my eyes.

Mikaela was using her scythe, Matthias continued with the boomerangs, Iris was using two swords, and Catherine was staring at Iris, which I assumed meant the two of them were working together, like she did with Lucas back in Mihr'hai.

“You’re pathetic.” said Leah, kicking me.

“You’ve been a bitch as long as I’ve known you.” I said, swinging my sword.

It appeared as if I had cut her head off.

“Just kidding.” she said, returning to normal appearance.

“H-how!?” I said.

“It’s just an illusion.” answered Leah, “Miles taught me how to do it!”

After that, she kicked me and I flew across the room. Several attempts later, I was on that same side of the room. I was on my hands and knees, looking around the room. My friends were on the ground too. Matthias, however, was the only one dead. He had been crushed by a huge rock, which I assumed was a creation of Miles’ magic.

I felt hopeless. I continued looking around and saw that no one else was fighting. That was when I got up, holding my cat-sword and dropped it on the ground. Then, I turned around and began to walk away.

“Where are you going?” asked Catherine.

“I’m going home.” I responded.

“Why?” asked Mikaela.

“Because,” I said, “it was foolish to think that we could do this.”

I sniffed, looking at the ground.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?” asked Iris.

“No, I’m incapable of crying.” I responded, walking off, “The world has broken me to a point where I can’t even do it. Save yourselves… don’t worry about me.”

“You’re really done?” asked Catherine.

“We’ll fail no matter what,” I said, “what’s the point? I’ve always been told I’m not good anything- that I never do anything right- my efforts don’t fucking matter… EVER.”

“Ron, stop.” said Mikaela.

“I DID stop ‘everything’.” I said, “Stop… stop worrying about me.”

“No.” said Iris.

“Whatever.” I said.

“Stop doubting.” she said, “You won’t be able to do anything if you keep doubting yourself. I know that others have made you this way, but you need to not worry about what they’ve said or done. They’re probably wrong about you. If that’s how you truly feel, they must never have seen what I’ve seen.”

“You’ve saved more than one world,” said Mikaela, “and I’ve been watching each time.”

“If you can save more than one world,” said Iris, “obviously, you aren’t nothing. You really are important.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “I wish I never existed or that I was never dragged into all kinds of messes, but I really have no control over that, I guess.”

“You’re the one that led us all up to this point,” said Catherine, “you seemed to know what you were doing.”

“And you’ve been pretty smart,” said Mikaela, “if only you’d put that kind of effort into your schoolwork.”

“God, what a pussy.” said a familiar voice.

I turned around to see Cerise.

“W-when did you get here!?” I exclaimed.

“Heh.” she said, “I've spent all this time chasing after this bastard that you've been fighting.”

“How did you even get here?” asked Iris.

“A ninja never reveals her secrets.” said Cerise, confidently.

“She was just hiding this whole time.” said Mikaela.

“Hey, it's not nice reveal secrets!” yelled Cerise.

“I'm not supposed to be nice.” replied Mikaela.

“Honestly, it took a while, but I managed to get to this secret world around when you guys did.” said Cerise.

“Why didn't you say anything earlier?” I asked.

“I wanted to surprise the enemy.” she said.

“I will never understand you.” I said.

“So, are you still going to go home, Ron?” asked Catherine.

“I… guess I can stay a bit,” I said, “Wait… am I the only GUY left!?”

“It took you this long to notice?” responded Iris.

“Are you finished yet?” asked Miles.

I was startled seeing him right in my face.

“Get ready.” said Cerise.

“Yes,” I said, suddenly holding a large cat-themed knife in front of his neck.

“Ha!” he said when he noticed and he covered himself with his cape and vanished.

“Damn!” I exclaimed.

The next thing I knew, Miles was on the other side of the room writing in a book. After that, bullets started shooting all over the place from every direction.

“What do we do?” asked Iris.

“We’ve got to get the book.” I suggested.

“You won’t be doing that.” responded Leah, who walked right in front of us.

“I think we can.” I said.

“Right.” responded Iris.

“Remember,” I said, “our powers aren’t as simple as making something appear or anything like that. We’ve got to master them and then we can do even more with them!”

“Got it.” she said.

Suddenly, a set of knives appeared in the air and caught onto Leah’s clothes as they charged into her, which resulted in her getting pinned to the wall. The next thing I knew, Miles was charging at us.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s do something completely insane.”

A few seconds later, there was an army of people, cats, floating knives and swords and ran at Miles with her scythe. At the same time, Cerise ran towards the villain, preparing knives to throw at him. I created a cat-themed gun and shot both of Miles’ hands causing him to drop the book which Catherine ended up grabbing, then she threw it at me. I grabbed it, tearing one of the pages out and the bullets stopped. I flipped to a certain section and wrote down Miles’ name. Not long after that, we saw his head rolling on the ground.

“We shouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.” I said.

“Ron, we’re not done.” said Mikaela.

“Oh… right.” I said, trying to write another name down.

Then, we saw Leah had freed herself and was running at us and after a struggle that felt about twenty minutes long, Cerise ended up taking Leah’s life with one of her knives.

 

***

We all found ourselves in Dovacath afterwards where we met with Simon, Isaac, Stuart, James, and Matthias and we told them what had happened.

“I’m glad it’s over.” I said.

“Yes,” said Matthias, “we shouldn’t have to worry about anything for a while.”

“I can’t believe I died.” said Catherine.

“Hey!” exclaimed Isaac, “I died three freakin’ times!”

“You’ll get used to it.” I joked.

“That was a terrible joke.” commented Iris.

“And I can't believe Ron almost started crying.” teased Cerise.

“You can shut up.” I said.

“So, what now?” asked James.

“We choose our own paths, I guess.” I responded, “We may be done here, but there are likely going to be plenty of adventures in the future. We can choose to find them or retire.”

“Or watching them because we feel like it!” suggested Mikaela.

“I second that.” responded Cerise, laughing.

“P-please don’t look at ME when you say that.” I replied.

I was finally able close the book on my connected adventures, for real this time. I was pulled into these quests somewhat inadvertently. In the end, I just went with them, making and losing friends along the way, including the ones I considered to be my best friends.

Honestly if it weren’t for Iris and the others, I would have completely given up. I truly am grateful to have had friends like them. Along these adventurers, I’ve met some interesting people and sometimes those kinds of people have run into me outside my adventures.

Things have changed over time and I’ve learned a lot. And I know I’m not done. As the days go buy, I'll keep on learning and growing. It doesn't matter how hard the past has been. What matters now are the actions we make in the present. We must not hesitate, but allow ourselves to continue to grow and change. We'll take everything we've learned and eventually teach these to future generations.

I’ve got the future to think about and I’m still not one hundred percent certain on where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing. Whatever path I take is going to have huge affect on my life. No matter how difficult the path may be… if any seek to stop me on my path, I will not hesitate to cut them down.

I don’t know what I’m more concerned about: not knowing what I’m doing or the people I may or may not continue seeing. Things change over time. It’s just a part of life. Both good things and bad things will happen to us. Who we’ll continue to see or won’t continue to see, only the future knows. Only the future knows who will stay a part of our lives and who won’t. All we can do is just live our lives no matter what we go through, besides living through hell over and over just might help make you stronger.