The Choice That Never Changed

"They gave them new lives, granted them skeletons and flesh, and let them struggle, suffer, and make choices within your 'script'...

"They were shaped by you, yet they also possessed lives of their own.

"And now, this independent 'existence' is the 'reality' they have returned to you."

At that, 'Minamoto Takuya's' lips curled into a meaningful smile. His eyes gleamed with an unusual light as they locked tightly onto Minamoto Takuya himself.

"So," his voice carried a hint of amusement, yet it struck like a heavy hammer.

"What do you intend to do? Follow the example of that Child of Prophecy, Naruto Uzumaki, and put on a tearful reconciliation? Embrace these existences you personally 'created' and 'abandoned' with love and understanding?"

Minamoto Takuya abruptly turned his head, his sharp gaze stabbing into the self who had asked the question like icy awls. Then he let out a short, mocking snort.

"Since you and I are connected, don't you already know my choice, my path?"

His voice was cold and hard, without a trace of hesitation.

As his words fell, his gaze returned to the figures struggling in the mist, gradually solidifying.

These were "works" whose tragic lives he had personally determined and molded into shape.

Deep within Minamoto Takuya's eyes lay a frozen wasteland, without a ripple of emotion or the slightest shadow of guilt.

Yes. They had been born from his will, and their suffering had been forged by his own hand.

Yet for the final path he had chosen, the path that could not be questioned, he had long since crushed the emotion known as guilt into nothing.

At this moment, whether they were phantoms of the past or another "self," anything blocking his path was merely thorny brush waiting to be cut down.

There was only resolve