Okay, this chapter's long but I didn't want to split it up because I don't think taking just parts of it tell the same story as pushing it out all at once. So I apologize, but I do think it's for the best.

And thanks for everyone who's read this far. :) We're going to resolve Ninten's journey through the Nowhere Islands today... more or less, anyway.

There are still more chapters to come, though. Stay tuned! :D

Review Response: YoKaiShoubiao: Hopefully this chapter will answer your questions... although it might raise quite a few more. ;) And I hope that the ending is up to your standards. I'm still a while away from finishing this story, but my goal is get it done by the end of October.

YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO HELP LUCAS SAVE THE WORLD.

YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP THE MASKED MAN DESTROY IT.

The words echoed in Ninten's mind. Even when the words faded away and became a whisper in the back of his skull, Ninten couldn't focus on anything else.

This was it.

He had tried and failed to beat the Nowhere Island V-game.

Because he had never been prepared for this possibility.

"The truth that you wanted me to see in Saturn Valley," Ninten said, "The truth that Claus said I couldn't stop. It wasn't the Mr. Saturns dying. It was the pigmasks surviving, even after the Masked Man pulled the final needle."

YES.

"And you showed me how the world almost ended in the tunnels beneath Seoul because you wanted me to end the world in the same way."

YES.

"You agreed with Kumatora and Hinawa that the world should go up in flames. You agreed with Namiko and Kim that humanity should be destroyed."

KUMATORA SAW THE TRUTH, BUT SHE WAS HELD BACK BY HER PITY.

"Compassion is never a weakness."

KIM AND NAMIKO ALSO HAD THE RIGHT IDEA. BUT THEY DIDN'T GO FAR ENOUGH. HUMANS ARE NOT THE ONLY BLIGHT ON THIS EARTH.

HUMANS ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO FORM SOCIEITES.

HUMANS ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES WHO SUFFER.

THE GEARS OF EVOLUTION HAVE BEEN CRANKING FOR BILLIONS OF YEARS. AND THEY ARE NOT JUST TURNING.

THEY ARE ACCELERATING.

IF HUMANS WERE TO DIE, ANOTHER SPECIES WOULD EVENTUALLY TAKE OUR PLACE.

AND THE CYCLE OF SUFFERING WOULD CONTINUE.

"And Hinawa?" Ninten said, rasing an eyebrow.

AS FOR HER…

The white words faded away. A woman floated in the black background, her red dress fluttering as she floated down and landing on the invisible ground. She looked over at Ninten and flashed a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"Well," Hinawa said. "She's the one who's been running the game this whole time."

Ninten's heart skipped a beat. He started on numbly as Hinawa vanished and then appeared right in front of Ninten. She proceeded to chuckle while walking circles around Ninten.

"Lucas ran into the same problems when he played this game," she said. "He just couldn't let go. I knew that you never had a chance of saving the Masked Man and ending the cycle of suffering. I knew that you never had a chance of breaking the cycle of suffering. But I had to give you a fair shot."

"Please," Ninten said. "I need to win. Claus said that he knows where Lucas is, and-"

"He should have never made that deal with you." Hinawa cut off Ninten's reply with a curt hand motion. "He knew that you were never going to win. He gave you false hope to keep going. That's what everyone does. They tell you that everything's going to turn out okay, and that there's a reason we should keep living. But this world deserves to end."

"Lucas is your son. Please, tell me where he is."

"There's still so much you don't understand," Hinawa said. "About me, and about Lucas. There's so much that you never will understand. I don't blame you for that. But I also require you to stay out of the fucking way. Leave the Nowhere Islands once and for all. You are not welcome here."

"Please." Ninten fell to his knees to beg. "I saw everything you wanted me to. I made friends and sacrificed my life over and over again to save the world. All so that I could find Lucas and bring him back home safe. That's… all I ever wanted…"

"No. You wanted to feel accomplished, superior." Hinawa sneered. "And even if your intentions were pure, I wouldn't be able to help. You didn't save the Masked Man, and you didn't end the cycle of suffering. You lost, Ninten. Now be a good loser and get out before I do something that I'll regret."

"Wrong on all counts," came another voice.

Ninten looked over at the side to see Claus standing in the emptiness, his black jacket and orange pants just as visible as Hinawa's or Lucas' clothes on the black background. Claus held his helmet in his hands, and walked forward up to Hinawa and Ninten. Claus kept his face downcast, but he rolled his eyes around towards Ninten and shared a secretive smile.

"Well, what an entrance," Hinawa said flatly. "You know that I'll take full disciplinary measures against you for stepping out of line, Claus."

"You can't." Claus looked up at Hinawa and grinned. "Because Ninten won."

Wait, he had?

Hinawa frowned. "What are you talking about? He didn't save the Masked Man. He didn't stop the cycle of suffering."

"He saved me," Claus said.

Ninten blinked.

"You?" Hinawa laughed. "Claus, you are not the Masked Man."

Claus put his helmet on and stuck his tongue out.

"Well now I am."

"You know that doesn't count. The Masked Man was empty, battered down by the pigmasks-"

"Oh, and you don't think I was?" Claus crossed his arms. "You don't think I resigned to my fate just like the Masked Man in the game after watching the Nowhere Islands end in tragedy again and again?"

Hinawa fumbled for words. "It's not the same."

"How is it not?"

"It just isn't. Besides, I make the rules, and I say that Ninten doesn't win."

"But you don't get to decide who I am," Claus said. "And you don't get to decide what being saved means. I am the Masked Man, and Ninten saved me. In doing so, he broke the cycle of suffering. That's not something you can argue with."

Really? Because Ninten could put up quite a few arguments himself against Claus' logic. Claus smiled at Ninten a second time, quelling some of his doubts. With Lucas' life potentially on the line, Claus wouldn't fail Ninten now.

"So let's say that you are the Masked Man, which I do not agree with," Hinawa said. "How exactly did Ninten 'save' you? You weren't in any danger before he arrived."

"He showed me that it's possible to care, even when the world is determined to beat us down," Claus said. "He showed me that it's possible to help others in a time of need instead of pointing fingers. After Lucas stopped playing and before Ninten arrived, I lost all hope that this game would be anything other than a purgatory where my life's failures flash before my eyes."

Hinawa laughed. "Is it not?"

"No, it is. But maybe that's okay. I can't take back my mistakes, and I can't fix them, but I can remember that there's more to life than all of my failures. The wingbeat of a butterfly, the veins of a maple leaf… life is delicate, but there's a certain beauty to it that I'll never be able to take away. When Ninten looked into death's face and managed to laugh after saving a Mr. Saturn from the genocide, he helped me see that. So even after all the pain I caused… I know that life does go on."

Hinawa snorted. "Life goes on to suffer. I'll grant you that being 'saved' means different things for different people, but I think you're bluffing just because you like Ninten."

"I was supposed to be his judge, his enemy, and Ninten managed to get through and touch my heart. I like him because he saved me, mother."

"Claus, you're being silly." Hinawa sighed. "Your life before Ninten was perfectly-"

"Perfectly not all right," Claus said. "It's not up to you to decide whether or not being stuck with a constant reminder of my most painful moments is okay."

Ninten almost hugged Claus right then and there. He didn't know which painful moments Claus was referring to, but Ninten didn't always have to understand in order to care.

Hinawa pursed her lips. "Fine. You have that right. But even if Ninten saved you, and even if you are the Masked Man, he didn't break the cycle of suffering. The people in Lucas' new world will continue to feel pain."

"And again, you are wrong," Claus said. "He ended our cycle of suffering."

Hinawa frowned. "Explain."

Claus took a deep breath and pressed his hands together. The world started to rumble around Ninten once more. A blurry background came into the emptiness and slowly entered into focus. A breeze blew past Ninten, ruffling Claus' hair. The sound of a waterfall played in the background. Different bits and pieces of the scene entered play. The blue sky came into focus first, and then the trees in the distance. More and more trees sprouted up on the land below, and before long the top of a waterfall came into focus right in front of Ninten and Hinawa. Grass appeared under Ninten's feet, and the land past Ninten sprouted up with more trees and rocks.

After a couple of minutes, the scene of a river and waterfall in the middle of a forest looked just as realistic and organic as any other environment in the Nowhere Islands. A sparrow chirped in the distance. The invisible floors and empty space where Hinawa and Claus bickered were relegated to a distant memory.

And at the edge of the waterfall, staring out at the trees below was a blond-haried boy with the same cowlick as Claus. He turned around, and his deep blue eyes shone with an ancient wisdom as he walked along the side of the river towards Ninten and Hinawa. His feet seemed to glide over the rocks as he walked forward, hardly ever touching the ground.

"Lucas," Ninten said, taking a step forward. "Is it really you?"

"Thank you for helping me save the world, Ninten," Lucas said. "Look at what we created together."

Lucas gestured towards the air around him and closed his eyes. More sparrows sang the song in the distance, and the gurgling of the river matched with the sounds of crashing waterfall below were enough to relax Ninten's posture. Lucas took a deep breath, and it was only then that Ninten noticed the crispness of the new air.

"But I must be dreaming," Lucas said, frowning. "Mother? Claus? Did the Dark Dragon bring you back to life?"

Hinawa's body shook with rage. "Claus, do you know what you just did?"

"Mother." Lucas' eyes widened. "Please. If this is about me, I don't mind. I'm glad that Ninten has a chance to meet you for real, mother. Well, maybe not for real, since I still think I'm imagining all of this…"

Lucas smiled and walked up to Hinawa, his wide eyes drinking in all of her features.

"I also wanted to say thank you for everything you've done," Lucas said. "Sometimes, I would think about giving up and then I would remember all of the days we spent playing with Dragos and swimming in lakes. I would remember the stories you would tell us about each constellation, and how the night sky was always such a friendly place for me. I would remember all of the omelets you made us, smiling as Claus and I scarfed down each one. I realized that I had to keep fighting for the little things. I was fighting for droplets of clear rain and blades of grass swaying in the breeze. I couldn't let the pigmasks take that away from us."

"I…" Hinawa took a step back. "Lucas, what are you saying?"

"And I'm sorry," Lucas said, "If you ever felt that I fell short. You gave me a good life, and all I ever wanted was to preserve that experience for everyone else. I know that Duster and Boney paid the ultimate price, but I know that they're in a better place now. Just…" Lucas grinned. "Just like you and Claus."

Ninten looked back and forth between Hinawa and Lucas. Hinawa's face paled, and she took another step away from her son. Ninten frowned. She should have known that Lucas would create a world rife with natural beauty this after awakening the Dark Dragon. She should have known that he would be happy with where he turned out.

"See, mother?" Claus said, stepping forward. "Yes, people will always suffer, but Ninten broke the cycle that makes them feel alone and powerless again and again. He replaced the cycle of suffering with a cycle of joy. There will always be sad times, but now everyone has enough happiness to balance out the sorrow."

Lucas nodded along. "It's pessimistic to say that people will always suffer. It's technically true, but I prefer to look at the world from a different perspective. Our suffering only makes our joy that much sweeter. And now, nobody will have to live out their lives in the same monotonous routines over and over. We can't have smiles without tears. I think it took me a little too long to see that."

"For what it's worth," Ninten said. "I think that's a great way to look at the world. Not everyone gets a fair shot at life, but I think anyone can appreciate the small joys and I think we all can get something out of the life we've been given. And this new start makes me hopeful."

Lucas looked over at a sparrow chirping in a nearby tree. He laughed and whistled the same tune back to the bird.

"I'm hopeful as well, of course," Lucas said. "I mean, we did it. We won. Now we just have to live out the rest of our lives in the way we want. Doesn't that sound nice? I've always wanted to learn more about Dragos. The creatures are smart enough that I always wondered if we could find a way to communicate with them and figure out how they really think. Now I have my whole life to figure out."

"You…" Hinawa cleared her throat. "Do you really mean that, Lucas?"

"Yeah, of course." Lucas frowned. "Is there something wrong with befriending Dragos?"

Hinawa looked back at Ninten, her eyes conflicted.

"I guess," she said, "That I can't say no when both of my sons are so fucking cheery. I…" Hinawa bit her lip, waving a hand. "I just put a file tracking the location where Lucas accessed his psyspace. You can upload it to the psyweb and then access it yourself anytime. That's what you wanted, right?"

Ninten blinked.

"Wait," he said. "Does that mean I won?"

Hinawa forced a smile. "I suppose it does. I still don't approve of your choices, but Claus seems to think that you did really stop the suffering of the Nowhere Islands, and he's providing quite the piece of evidence right here. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt."

Ninten nodded along, but his heart pounded in his chest as he studied Hinawa's conflicted expression.

Something was wrong here. Hinawa shouldn't have been convinced by an in-game version of Lucas that the suffering would stop forever. Ninten tried to think of what such a contradiction could mean, but his mind came up blank.

"I think we need to go now, Lucas," Hinawa said. Looking at Ninten, "All of us."

"All right, then." Lucas smiled at Ninten. "We only saw each other a few times, but that doesn't make you any less of my friend in my eyes. I hope you know that. And…"

"And?" Ninten said.

"And I'm sure we'll meet again." He turned towards Claus. "Just like what you told me, right?"

"Uh, yeah." Claus grinned and nodded. "Of course."

"I wish you could stay for longer, Claus." Lucas sighed. "I wish you could all stay for longer. But you'll always be near in my heart. I know that sounds corny, but I'm already hanging onto my precious memories of the time I spent with each of you. So goodbye, I guess."

"Goodbye," Ninten said.

Ninten did his best to hide his uncertainty with one last smile.

"Time to go," Hinawa said. "I hope we all got what we wanted out of this exchange."

She waved her hand once more, and Ninten felt his consciousness floating out of his body.

Ninten looked at a sprite of a map in front of him in the sunflower fields of Lucas' Magicant. The simplified model of a red dotted line and an X on a piece of worn paper made Ninten suspect that the sprite was some sort of default setting rather than Lucas' other hand-crafted creations.

Ninten shrugged and put his hand on the sprite, transferring his consciousness into the file.

The data file gave him access to a 3-D map that showed him both his position and the position of Lucas' other psyspace portal as blinking red dots on a blue background. The map also gave Ninten a view of various landmarks between the two points. The buildings of the university took up relatively little space between Ninten and Lucas, so Lucas had probably taken the bus somewhere far off campus. Ninten zoomed in on Lucas' position and saw the words "Sullivan Park" floating above Lucas' general area.

The name sounded familiar. He might have gone there with Ana before.

Ninten removed his consciousness from the file and sent in the PSI order to upload the file to the psyweb, locking the online website with a mindscan. Ninten grinned and looked around at the silver wisps in the deep, purple sky as the sunflowers swayed by his knees.

He didn't really know where Lucas was, but for the first time he had a lead. Hopefully going to the place where Lucas accessed his psyspace just two days ago would give Ninten some clues about where he would gone since.

"Thanks for the help, Claus," Ninten said out loud.

Then he closed his eyes and transferred his mind out of Lucas' Magicant for what might be the last time.

"Ann." Ninten shook Ana's body on the carpet. "I found-"

Ana cut Ninten off with a yawn. She blinked and looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. Ana closed her eyes again.

"Ann…"

"I'm just checking the time," Ana said.

"I promise that this is worth waking up at three in the morning for."

Ana yawned again and opened her eyes, stretching her arms up to the ceiling.

"What happened in the game?" Ana said.

"I did it," Ninten said. "Claus showed me where Lucas created another portal to the psyspace, and I can access the exact location on the psyweb anytime I want. He apparently went to Sullivan Park."

"To take a nature walk?" Ana laughed. "Looking at the posters on his wall, I should have guessed as much."

"Although…" Ninten paused. "I don't want to kill the party, but something did feel wrong about how I won."

Ninten gave Ana a quick recap of what happened, focusing mostly on Hinawa's initial denial of his victory and how Claus convinced her otherwise.

"So do you think Hinawa gave you the wrong location?" Ana said, frowning.

"I'm not sure. But the place we have is a better lead anything else I've been able to find. It also seems weird that Hinawa wouldn't want me to find her son."

"She's probably just programmed that way. V-games need to have conflict, after all." Ana cocked her head. "Although with the Nowhere Islands V-game, anything's possible. I do see why you're a little nervous, since there's still so much we don't know. Why did Lucas disappear in the first place? Why did he transfer that massive data file to his psyspace? Who made the Nowhere Islands V-game, and what was their goal? In some ways, it feels like we're still at square one."

"But at least now we know which direction we go to hit square two," Ninten said.

"Exactly." Ana beamed. "Do you want to head over to Sullivan Park now?"

"Wait," Ninten said. "Like, now as in after sunrise? Or now as in now?"

"If Lucas is out there, he could be hurt," Ana said. "He might be unconscious. This could be important to get squared away quickly."

"And you feel safe going out to Sullivan Park in the middle of the night?"

Ana shrugged. "If we're together, people probably won't bother us. And if bad comes to worse…" Ana cracked her knuckles. "I can protect both of us."

Ninten smiled. Both of them were psychics, so they should theoretically be able to shove any assailants away with force pulses. The thought calmed his heart rate somewhat.

"You don't have a car, right?" Ana said.

"I don't, yeah." Ninten yawned. "Never liked driving all that much."

"I guess we'll go over to my apartment and take mine, then. I can drink some cold coffee while I'm there so I don't fall asleep at the wheel."

"And so that you don't fall asleep for the rest of the night," Ninten said.

"Hey, I can sacrifice a night's sleep to help Lucas. Besides, I wouldn't mind sleeping during the day and skipping chemistry tomorrow. Talk about a worthless class."

Yeah, a worthless class that Ana was doing all the homework for and getting nearly perfect scores on all the test. If most of the people in the 500-person lecture hall had known her, they would be furious with how easily she could rub two numbers together to create the right answer.

"Do you always just have a stockpile of cold coffee in your apartment?" Ninten said.

"A girl's got to be prepared." Ana grinned. "Now come on. Lucas could be in danger while you grill me on these details."

Ana did in fact have multiple bottles of coffee in her fridge, along with some bottled tea. Apparently, she made all of it from scratch and poured it into empty Starbucks bottles to try and trick her body into thinking the coffee was high-quality.

Ninten found his solution of not drinking coffee to be far easier.

After Ninten and Ana got on the road in Ana's little Honda Fit and the streetlights whizzed by in the darkness, Nintne realized that they really didn't have a way back into Lucas' room. If they wanted to access his psyspace again, they would have to do so from the portal Lucas made in Sullivan Park. And that was assuming Hinawa and Claus weren't lying to him about Lucas installing his own portal in the middle of nowhere.

Ninten must had nodded off during the car ride, because he jolted awake as Ana parked the car next to the side of the road. She hopped out of the driver's seat, and Ninten looked for oncoming headlights before darting out of the passenger seat and walking over to the side of the road.

Now that his eyes had been attuned to the darkness, Ninten could see a small visitor's center for the park down the road. Of course, all of the lights were turned off at three in the morning, but Ninten did recognize the design of the building.

Ana bent down and picked up a nearby stick. She muttered an incantation, and the tip of the stick lit up like a flashlight. Ninten squinted through the light as he looked down at the trails branching off from the road and visitor's center.

"Mind giving me access to the map with Lucas' location?" Ana said.

Ninten nodded and channeled his consciousness into the psyweb. He still had the map open from earlier, and he sent a mental order to allow access to Ana's mindscan ID as well as his own.

"Done." Ninten opened his eyes and looked down into the forested paths. "Do you really think Lucas is down there?"

Ana shrugged, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them and looking down the leftmost path.

"Looks like he went that way," Ana said. "I zoomed in on the map and the portal's pretty close to one of the trails, but far enough away that nobody would see him from the path."

Ninten gulped and nodded. What if Lucas wasn't there? What if he hadn't left behind any clues and Ninten only stumbled upon a lone portal to the same Magicant he had been visiting for the past day? What if the portal wasn't real and Hinawa had led him to a false location?

Deep breaths, Ninten. No use in worrying about it now. Ana seemed to notice his nervousness, for she smiled and scooted closer.

"It's okay, Ninten," she said. "Nobody's going to hurt us out here. Not with my fancy wand. Expelliarmus!"

Ana pointed her glowing stick into the darkness and grinned. She looked back at Ninten and then started walking down the path. With a sigh, Ninten followed behind, making sure to stay within a pace or two of Ana. He didn't really think that anyone would harm him out here in the night, but it never hurt to be too careful.

The dirt path took Ana and Ninten down a set of slopes. When Ninten commented to Ana about the steepness of the slope, she only laughed.

"I guess that's what happens when we live between two mountain ranges," she said.

Point taken, but it didn't take Ninten long for his mind to focus on other oddities of the path. Some of the trees looked a little too straight, and others looked a little to twisted. Ninten reminded himself again and again that he was probably just projecting his own uncertainty on his surroundings, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Once again, he went back to the conversation with Hinawa, Claus, and Lucas at the waterfall. What had it been that had forced Hinawa to accept Ninten's victory? It seemed like she had taken the in-game Lucas' words over Ninten's or Claus', but trusting someone contained within a single playthrough over Claus simply didn't make any sense.

What was Ninten missing?

He didn't find answers to the question as Ana led him further and further along the path, and still didn't have any solid guesses by the time that she halted in front of a stream and looked into the trees. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Ninten had just won and now he would find Lucas.

Somehow, he didn't think so.

"Well, Lucas' portal is right here in these trees," Ana said. "You ready?"

Now that the footsteps had stopped, Ninten heard the quiet sound of gurgling water from the stream in front of him. And further in the distance, he heard the sound of water cascading and crashing.

"It will probably just be a portal," Ana said, to herself more than Ninten. "He's probably moved away from this spot in the two days since he made the portal. But there's always a chance."

"Ana, do you hear a waterfall?"

Ana paused, cocking her head. "Yeah, it does sound like one. Sometimes they sound a lot bigger than they actually are, though. Don't worry, we're not going to stumble over the edge of a waterfall in the darkness."

Ninten bit his lip. He wasn't worried about falling off a cliff, but the noise put him on edge for reasons he couldn't quite explain.

"Are you ready?" Ana repeated.

"Y-Yeah, I guess. Might as well get it over with."

The words couldn't explain the rising panic in Ninten's chest. Lucas' life could depend on what they found here.

He didn't have time to formulate any more thoughts before Ana walked off between the trees. Ninten followed, staying close to Ana as he looked around at the trees visible in the light of Ana's glowing stick. Because the light was coming from the odd angle from Ana's glowing stick, many of the trees cast eerie shadows. Ninten shivered and forced himself to take a deep breath.

"Wait." Ana halted.

She pointed her glowing stick down at the ground, illuminating a chunk of wood in the ground. She picked up the piece of wood and examined it. After a moment, she gasped and showed the wood piece to Ninten.

Rather than part of a stick or log, the piece of wood had been carved from a block into a 3-D model of a stream leading into a waterfall that cascaded down a rocky wall into a pool below.

"Well, would you look at that," Ana said. "If there were any doubts before that you were a psychic…"

Ana paused, cocking her head. She pointed her glowing stick to the side, illuminating the gently flowing stream a few paces away. The waterfall sounds were louder than on the path.

"I guess this stream could lead into a waterfall." Ana shook her head. "And I wonder who left this carving lying around."

Ninten opened his mouth to suggest a name, but no words would come out.

Because if Lucas did leave this carving here, what did it mean that he hadn't come and picked it back up?

"Oh well." Ana shrugged. "We're almost there."

After a few more steps, Ninten saw a small cliff wall not far past the line of trees. The stream widened into a waterfall basin, and water flew over the edge of the cliff and crashed down into the basin below, placing a location on the waterfall noises Ninten and Ana had heard earlier.

"This is actually starting to freak me out," Ana said. leading Ninten around the waterfall basin. "The portal was right over he-"

Ana's mouth hung open as she froze mid-word. She held her glowing stick in place, pointing it to a spot between a pair of trees next to the waterfall basin. Ninten looked over, his heart pounding in his chest.

Between the trees lay the limp body of a blond-haired boy.

Ana ran over to the body, and Ninten had to sprint to keep up. Ana skidded to a halt in front of the body before leaning down, and Ninten nearly crashed into her. The body was lying on its front, but when Ana rolled him over it was definitely Lucas' face. He looked several years older than in the V-game, but other than that his appearance looked familiar. His closed eyes made it look like he was sleeping, but who would fall asleep with their face flat on the ground?

Ana took a pulse, and her shoulders slumped a moment later.

"Dead," she said.

There it was, then. Ana had proposed the possibility earlier, and Ninten had feared that the worst had happened until Claus had given him hope. Even after knowing that Lucas had transferred a file into his psyspace after his disappearance, it shouldn't have surprised Ninten that Lucas' death would at least be a possibility.

But Ninten had been blinded by optimism. Blinded by hope. Kumatora was right. For some people, life didn't fix itself in the end. Claus was right. Some people didn't get second chances.

Even Hinawa was right. The only way to end Ninten's suffering would be to end everything.

"Lucas…" Ninten said.

He looked at Lucas' closed eyes and peaceful expression. The image brought back memories of passing Lucas in the halls and seeing him in physics. Even as Lucas managed to take beautiful notes about rotational forces and torque, Ninten remembered seeing him draw elaborate sketches of sunflowers and sparrows in the margins. And after a while, Ninten was staring at Lucas' page as Lucas managed to go back and forth between writing equations and sketching sunflowers seamlessly. And then Lucas looked up at Ninten and shared a secretive smile, his eyes twinkling with serene wisdom.

And now he would never smile at Ninten the same way again.

"Why did it take me so long to remember?" Ninten said. "Lucas, I'm sorry. I should have saved-"

A sob broke off Ninten's sentence. He buried his face in his hands until his palms became wet with tears. A hand on his shoulder caused him to flinch, and he looked up to see Ana staring into his eyes with a concerned expression.

"We lost him," Ninten said. "Everything I learned about him. Who he knows, who he is. It's all gone. And there was still so much I didn't know. There's still so much that I'll never know."

"Ninten…"

"This has to be a dream. This whole day is just some sort of twisted nightmare. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I'll wake up tomorrow and everything will be fine."

"Ninten." Ana's eyes started to water.

"It's going to be okay."

Without warning, Ana opened her arms and leaned towards Ninten. He let Ana wrap her hands around him, feeling her heartbeat as Ana's chest pressed against his. Ninten started sobbing again and hugged Ana back, clinging to her like she was his only rock in a river full of rapids.

"You're not going to wake up," Ana said, her voice steady. "No part of this is okay. But I'm here. I'm not going to leave."

"You knew him," Ninten said. "You should be the one who's crushed. Why is it always you comforting me, Ann?"

"Sometimes, sorrow is the most important emotion we can feel," Ana said, "And I think you have enough sorrow for both of us."

Ninten squeezed his eyes shut but continued sobbing.

"We're friends," Ana said, "And we can work through this together. This is horrible, this is traumatizing, and this is not okay. But we'll help each other through it all. We'll do it for Lucas. He always saw the beauty in life, and I think he wouldn't want us to lose sight of the little joys of nature."

Ninten's own words to the Masked Man at the final needle echoed in his mind.

"Claus. We'll find a way. We'll work through this together. We're friends, right?"

He must have stolen those comforting phrases from Ana. He really was nothing without her.

"Ninten?" Ana said.

Her voice brought him back to the present. But moments later, he drifted back to the past. For just a moment, he was back in the emptiness after Lucas awakened the Dark Dragon with Claus and Hinawa. Claus opened his mouth and spoke.

"Little joys of nature," Ninten said, "Like the wingbeat of a butterfly or the veins of a maple leaf."

Ana laughed. "You sound like a poet, Ninten."

"No thanks to my own imagination."

Ninten finally stopped hugging Ana, and she released him from her embrace. Ninten closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the last of his despair float away as he exhaled. Ninten opened his eyes and forced a weak smile. Crying always did make him feel better, but oh boy did it also make him feel exhausted. And considering that his eyelids felt heavy and he had been yawning up a storm before finally breaking down into tears…

Wait.

Something still wasn't right.

Ninten's heart started to race. He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. Sure enough, he felt the familiar warmth of Lucas' psyspace portal radiating from the area right above his body. Ninten opened his eyes and looked up at the cliff face above.

"Ann," Ninten said. "Do think Lucas fell from up there?"

Ana frowned, feeling over Lucas' chest and legs.

"I think so," she said. "He definitely has some broken ribs, and one of his legs looks shattered. But it's hard to tell when it's dark and I'm exhausted at four in the morning."

"But the portal Lucas made to his Magicant is here," Ninten said, "Not at the top of the cliff."

Ana put her hands on her hips, looking up at the top of the cliff and then back at Lucas' body.

"Huh," she said. "That's strange, but it really does look like he fell from up there. We can call the police and get Lucas' body over to a forensic pathologist for an autopsy. They'll be able to tell when and how he died better than I can. We probably don't want to spend too much time speculating without any hard facts."

"Do you think it's possible that he fell and didn't die instantly? He could have made a psyspace portal if he lived the initial fall."

"I mean," Ana paused. "I guess he could have. But if he had the awareness and energy to make a psyspace portal, he could have easily just called the ambulance using the psyweb."

Ninten frowned. He hadn't thought about that.

"Maybe Lucas couldn't access the psyweb for whatever reason," Ninten said. "It's possible to get locked out of your own psyweb account, right?"

"If your mind changes its thinking pattern drastically, yeah." Ana looked back at Lucas' body. "I know that people who have panic attacks can't pass the mindscan to access their psyweb account since their minds are functioning differently. It can make getting help difficult for those people. I suppose a severe concussion might do the same thing."

"So it's possible."

"Yeah, but if you're going to tell me that Lucas, someone with so little PSI strength that he can't pass the PSI test, managed to create a psyspace portal that looks like it was made by a professional with decades of experience, I'm going to call bullshit. And if you say he does all of that while he had a concussion, I'm going to think you're a little crazy."

Oh. Right. Ninten took another look at Lucas' closed eyes and peaceful expression. There were still so many pieces that didn't fit together. But Ninten could feel them floating in the air, just waiting for him to line them up.

"Okay, so maybe Lucas visits this place often and someone installed a portal here for him. Then he goes up to the top of the cliff, falls, gets a concussion so he can't get past his mindscans-"

"Then he wouldn't be able to pass the mindscan and get into his psyspace either," Ana said.

Okay, fair enough. Ninten rubbed his temples and focused his mind. What else could have happened?

"There… is one way to test if your wild theory about Lucas creating a new psyspace during a concussion is true. And I can't believe I'm suggesting this."

"What is it?"

"Just give me a sec."

Ana sat down next to Lucas' body and closed her eyes. A couple minutes passed as she mouthed words to herself and furrowed her brow with her eyes still closed.

"Ann?" Ninten said.

Ana started to shake.

"Ana. Speak to me." Ninten ran over and put a hand over her shoulder. "What's going on?"

"Can't…" the word came out of Ana's mouth as a whisper.

"What?"

"I can't fucking believe it."

Ana's eyes jolted open, and she looked up at Ninten in disbelief.

"The mindscan," Ana said. "It's not the fucking same. It's like the one we saw back in Lucas' room, but the thought pattern I needed to imitate was more random, delirious. Almost exactly the same, but ever so slightly different."

"Which means?"

"That the mindscan thought that Lucas, during in his concussion, was someone else," Ana said. "So Lucas did make the portal during the concussion, and locked it behind a slightly different mindscan."

"So he couldn't have accessed the psyweb after all," Ninten said.

"Not without making a new IP." Ana frowned. "Which still probably would have been easier, but maybe he didn't know how. It's technically illegal, after all."

"And so following that logic, Lucas was still able to access his regular psyspace even though the mindscan thought he was a different person?"

Ana nodded. "The psyspaces themselves are a little smarter than human-engineered mindscans. I could never build a portal to Lucas' psyspace by pretending to be him. By the same notion, Lucas' psyspace would recognize him even during a panic attack or a concussion."

If true PSI really did come from the mind, then maybe the world of PSI could recognize minds perfectly. So Lucas had almost certainly fallen, and then made a new psyspace portal during a concussion.

"And he did it all to drop off a single file." Ana looked down at Lucas' body. "He could have at least tried to make a new psyweb IP and call the ambulance. What data file could possibly be more important than his own life?"

"Just because we die doesn't mean we have to stop existing." Namiko's words came to Ninten's mind, unbidden.

Maybe there was something to Lucas that meant more than his life. Maybe he wanted to preserve a symbol of himself even through death.

Or…

Ninten gasped. It couldn't be.

"Ninten?" Ana looked over. "Are you all right?"

"Just a V-game," Ninten said out loud. "It's not real. It was just in a V-game."

"Ninten." Ana's eyes widened. "Do you need to go back to campus now?"

"No, I'm not…" Ninten gulped. "I'm not getting flashbacks or anything."

He took a look at Lucas' still body as the waterfall crashed behind him. Every single piece of evidence about Lucas' death pointed to a single event, but it just couldn't be true.

Because if it were…

Then Ninten had just stumbled on something larger than the Nowhere Islands V-game. Larger than Lucas' death. It would be a discovery almost as large as PSI itself.

So he had to be wrong.

"I…" Ninten took a deep breath. "Can we go into Lucas' Magicant again, Ann? I want to check something."

"I just disabled the mindscan, so yeah." Ana frowned. "But are you sure that you're up for this?"

Ninten nodded. "I just need to make sure that nothing crazy is going on here."

"I mean, I'd consider that hope crushed," Ana said.

Ninten looked on numbly as Ana flashed a sad smile. She didn't understand. If Ninten were right, he might be opening Pandora's Box. By all accounts, he should call the police and leave the investigations to them.

But he had to know. The Nowhere Islands V-game still had so many unanswered questions, and one way or another Ninten would discover the truth behind a pressing mystery right now.

"Man," Ana said, her eyes widening. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Please," Ninten said, his voice shaking. "Come in with me. I don't want to go in alone."

"If you're this scared, then maybe you shouldn't-"

"I need to. Please."

Ana sighed. "All right. But let me know if you feel uncomfortable or if you want to go back to your apartment. All right?"

Ninten bit his lip and nodded. He closed his eyes before he could tear up again and reached out with his mind towards the warmth of the portal in front of him. He channeled his mind into Lucas' Magicant before he had a chance to talk himself out of this crazy plan."

Back in the sunflower fields one more time. The pastel red sky with wisps of orange and purple looked normal enough that Ninten didn't have to stop and stare this time. Instead, he stared at the waterfall sprite right in front of him. Ninten walked up to the 3-D floating waterfall and stuck his hand under the running water, feeling the cool liquid run over his fingers as he created a break in the waterfall.

Ana appeared next to him moments later, looking at the waterfall sprite with a confused expression.

"I can't crack the file right now," Ana said.

"Please," Ninten said to the waterfall. "Please let me in."

"Uh… Ninten?"

Ninten turned back to Ana, unable to explain himself. How could he explain his actions when he refused to believe his own suspicions of what was inside?

"What do you think you're going to find in that file?" Ana said.

Ninten grimaced. If he said the words out loud, he would have to acknowledge them as a possibility. If they stayed inside his head until he was hopefully proven wrong, then maybe they would be less real.

So instead, Ninten changed the subject.

"Are you sure that the file's protected by a mindscan?" Ninten said.

"What else would be guarding it?" Ana said with a frown. "I gave the security features a few probes, and they're a lot tougher than password protections."

Ninten studied Ana's sweatpants for a moment, and his stomach lurched when he saw an object bulging out from her pockets.

"Hmm?" Ana looked down at her pocket and reached inside. "What the fuck…?"

She pulled out the wooden waterfall carving that she had picked up earlier, staring at the model in disbelief.

"I'm starting to think that this is all just a dream," Ana said.

"In the Nowhere Islands, I was allowed to take a specific item into someone else's psyspace with me," Ninten said.

"Wait, you went into someone's psyspace inside the game?"

"Uh, yeah. It's supposed to be realistic and all that. But I've seen this happen before."

Ana frowned. "In a V-game."

She closed an eye and held up the wooden waterfall model to the larger 3-D waterfall sprite, rotating the model in all angles and eventually grunting.

"Yeah, it does look the same," she said. "I still have no fucking idea why this wooden carving is in here with me. In case you can't guess, I did not tell it to come along with my clothes."

"It makes me wonder," Ninten said, "If instead of a mindscan, some files are locked and need a key."

Ana over at the waterfall sprite and back at the waterfall model. When Ninten studied the two, he saw that even the placement of rocks in the stream above and the slanted angle of the cliff face was identical between the sprite and the carving.

"You have to be fucking kidding me," she said. Turning back to Ninten, "So you think that we just need to hold this carving and we'll be granted access?"

Ninten shrugged. "It's worth a shot. There's got to be a reason why the sprite is an exact replica of the model, right?"

"And do you want to be the one to go in?"

"You can do it, if you want."

"I'll do it if you're scared. But as much as I hate to admit it, you've done most of the work figuring out where Lucas went. And you seem to have some idea of what you're going to find."

Ninten gulped. It was less of an idea and more of a batshit crazy thought that crossed his mind, but he needed to see for himself that he was wrong.

"I'll… do it," Ninten said.

"Great." Ana offered the wooden model to him. "If you do go into the file and explore around, I'll log onto the psyweb and call the cops. The body's been dead for days, but I think they'll want to get a hold of the evidence as soon as they can. I probably should have called the cops before now, really, but my mind doesn't work well at four in the morning."

Ninten took the model, feeling the smooth finish over the carving. He took a deep breath and looked between the model and the waterfall sprite.

He was wrong, plain and simple. There was just no way…

"Ninten?"

"Oh." Ninten blinked, looking back at Ana. "Yeah, please do that. I want to make sure that we get some facts about what happened."

Ana sighed. "I also probably shouldn't have messed with Lucas' body, so hopefully they don't charge me with manipulating the crime scene or whatever. Yell at me in here or in real life if you need anything."

Ana sat down in the sunflower fields and closed her eyes. Her body froze in place, indicating that she had transferred her consciousness over to the psyweb.

Ninten looked back at the waterfall sprite. Holding the 3-D waterfall model in his hands, Ninten reached out and closed his eyes. He felt the smooth water running down his fingers, and he heard the trickle of the water falling into the sunflower fields below.

His heart pounding in his chest, Ninten transferred his consciousness into the waterfall sprite.

…

…

…

ACCESS GRANTED.

Ninten stood by the top of a waterfall, next to a river. The sun shone down above in the spotless blue sky, and Ninten heard a sparrow chirping in the background. He looked at the river, and then around at all the trees.

This was the exact same place where Claus had taken him and Hinawa to see Lucas.

And standing at the cliff's edge staring at the trees in the distance was the same blond-haired boy. A gust of wind passed by, ruffling the boy's hair and sending his shirt and shorts flapping while the boy himself remained motionless.

Ninten hold his breath. After a single, excruciating moment, the boy sighed and turned towards Ninten. And at that moment, the last of Ninten's doubts faded away. Because the deep blue eyes and soft features of the boy who was looking at him now could only belong to one person.

And that person was supposed to be dead.

"I guess the cat's out of the bag," Lucas said, closing his eyes and chuckling. "Welcome to my real Magicant, Ninten. Please, do make yourself at home."