She never did.
Not when the answer wouldn't help.
Yuna raised her wrist.
A device identical to Leon's flared to life, blue lines pulsing brighter—alive in a way that felt uncomfortably familiar.
"You really don't get it, do you?" she said. "We're in the dimensional axis."
I snorted despite myself.
"…That's a joke."
She grabbed my wrist.
Her grip was firm—not violent, not rushed.
Absolute.
"We're not in one world."
The words landed wrong.
Not emotionally—physically.
My muscles tightened before my thoughts could catch up. My pulse spiked, sharp and sudden, like my body had recognized danger my mind hadn't processed yet.
"What?" I asked.
She didn't explain.
She activated the X-Coder.
A new option flared across the panel.
> [ FALL LOOP — TEST ]
Something in my chest dropped before my feet did.
She pressed it.
The ground vanished.
"AAAAAAAA—!"
We fell.
No wind.
No resistance.
Just nothing.
A starless void swallowed everything—depth stretching infinitely downward, direction losing meaning as gravity seized my body with cruel enthusiasm. My stomach dropped violently, organs lagging behind like they'd been abandoned.
The same darkness.
The same endless absence.
Like outer space without stars—
or hell without fire.
Then—
Snap.
We were back.
Standing.
Then falling again.
Again.
Again.
Endless.
My vision smeared. My throat burned raw from screaming. My thoughts fractured, stretched thin between terror and disbelief.
My soul—if that word still meant anything—felt like it was being shaken loose from my body, rattled like something poorly anchored.
"STOP—!" I screamed. "PLEASE—my soul is going to vanish!"
Yuna laughed.
Actually laughed.
Not nervous.
Not strained.
A real laugh—sharp, delighted, cruel in the way only someone completely in control could be.
"Ohhh—yeah."
Finally, she deactivated it.
Reality locked back into place.
My hands wouldn't stop trembling.
Not violently—subtly, like fine vibrations running through my bones. Even when I clenched my fists, the shaking persisted, deeper than muscle. As if my body was still deciding whether gravity applied to me… or if that was now negotiable too.
Hard.
But my body didn't accept it.
For a heartbeat — maybe longer — I stood there frozen, feet on solid ground, mind screaming that it wasn't over. My muscles stayed coiled, braced for another fall that didn't come. Gravity felt… optional. Like it was waiting to see if I'd accept it again.
The ground beneath me felt wrong.
Not unstable — indifferent.
As if the concept of "down" was a courtesy, not a rule.
My vision stuttered. The world arrived in layers instead of all at once — pavement first, then color, then depth. Streetlights duplicated for a fraction of a second before snapping back into place. I blinked hard, but the delay followed me, like my senses were lagging behind reality itself.
This wasn't fear.
It was misalignment.
I had felt this before.
Not during the fall — but after my first displacement. That same half-beat delay. That sense that my body and the world were no longer keeping time together.
"You feel it, don't you?" Yuna said.
I looked at her sharply.
She wasn't watching the street.
She was watching me.
"Feel what?" I asked.
"The axis doesn't like it when things don't belong to one side," she said casually. "Most people snap back clean. Memory blur. Nausea. Panic."
She tilted her head.
"You don't."
My throat tightened.
"What happens instead?"
She smiled — not cruel, not kind.
Informed.
"You linger," she said. "Your body keeps asking where it is. Your senses argue with each other. Reality has to… negotiate."
That word hit harder than it should have.
Negotiate.
Like the world didn't fully own me anymore.
"That's bad," I said.
Yuna shrugged. "Depends who you ask."
I tried to steady my breathing. My heartbeat refused to settle into a normal rhythm — too fast, then too slow, then skipping entirely like it was waiting for a cue that never came.
"If I stay here too long," I asked quietly, "does this get worse?"
Yuna didn't answer right away.
She never did when the answer was dangerous.
"…That depends," she said at last, "on whether the axis decides you're an anomaly…"
Her eyes flicked briefly to mine.
"…or a necessity."
I collapsed to my knees immediately, retching, hands slamming against the ground as nausea tore through me in violent waves. My heart hammered erratically, lungs refusing to sync, breath coming in broken, shallow pulls.
"…Okay," I gasped. "I believe you."
She smirked.
"Our base sits at the Axis of Dimensions," she said. "The central point."
She tapped the device again.
"Without this," she added, "no one enters."
Another tap.
"No one leaves."
The world folded.
Not violently.
Not gently.
Precisely.
We reappeared on a quiet street.
The sun hung low but bright, casting long shadows across the street.
Normal.
Painfully normal.
Streetlights—still lit despite the sun. Pavement. A flickering lamp overhead, buzzing faintly against the daylight.
Reality pretending it hadn't just lied to me.
But the street didn't feel right.
I knew it was real. My brain catalogued the details—the cracked pavement, the chipped paint on a nearby wall, the faint smell of oil and rain—but my body lagged behind the confirmation.
Like it was arriving late to its own location.
My balance wavered.
Just slightly.
I reached out and pressed my palm to the nearest wall.
Solid.
Cold.
Textured.
Real.
But when I pulled my hand back, the sensation lingered longer than it should have—like my nerves were still catching up, recalibrating, asking permission to exist here again.
I swallowed hard.
"Do you ever get used to that?" I asked quietly.
Yuna shrugged. "Most people stop thinking about it."
"…And the ones who don't?"
She glanced at me.
"They don't stay normal."
That settled somewhere it wouldn't leave.
Uncomfortably deep.
"See?" she said. "Like I told you. Outside."
My hands were still shaking.
"This teleport…" I muttered. "It feels similar."
She looked at me sideways.
"Because your power resonates with the axis."
My breath caught.
"…My eyes," I whispered. "They changed."
She didn't answer.
And somehow—
That silence scared me more than any explanation ever could.
The sunlight shifted across the pavement.
For a heartbeat, my shadow lagged behind me—arriving late, correcting itself with quiet obedience.
I stared at it longer than necessary.
Reality noticed.
Then pretended nothing had happened.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 27 — ENTRY & EXIT ✦