Two-Faced Obsession

Rin gritted his teeth.

"...So that's it."

One looked up at him.

"She meant nothing to you. You never met her yourself after all..."

It was the first time he'd spoken in a while, but his voice carried a quiet conviction behind it. One's lips curved downward, and his brows furrowed into a slight frown.

"Lena was... family.", he said.

"How could you say that after everything?"

"You let her die too."

The two fell into silence.

One looked down again and continued his story.

***

"Shots were fired today at the mall. One young woman was fatally wounded..."

The reporter spoke over images of an area in the mall, closed off from the public by police tape. Lena's corpse was carried away from the scene.

"Authorities say she was pronounced dead on the scene. And that the culprit is still at large..."

Rin's mother sat in the living room, watching, completely static and without even the slightest reaction. One's gaze was fixed on the screen as well.

He went back in time to look into it.

One watched as his past self and Lena sat opposite a man pointing a gun at them beneath the table.

*BANG*
A single bullet was fired and Lena was down. One looked at the scene horrified. He didn't want to see what would happen next.

He went back in time to fix this.

One watched as Lena was put in the same position again, but this time by Eva. 

*BANG*
Lena fell to the floor the same as last time. One looked on, disturbed. Though the shock on his face had dissipated slightly. 

He went back in time again.

"Every time I hit a roadblock, I'd go back."

*BANG*
Lena fell to the ground yet again. 

"And every time, it was the same."

One stared down multiple screens in front of him, each one containing a wildly different scenario from the rest. Despite this though, they all ended the same way. 

One looked over Lena's corpse. He wondered how many times he'd seen this by now.

***

"It was obvious that Lena's death was a sort of constant across all of my resets. So, I grew a... protective instinct for her."

One wore a wistful expression as he spoke. Realizing this, he quickly changed his tone.

"I thought preventing this would be the key to my salvation. Experimenting became necessary so I started letting things play out for as long as I could get away with."

***

Reset after reset. 

Failure after failure. 

Progress was slow. Every time he'd finally managed to successfully change the outcome of one scenario, another complication would arise right after to seal Lena's fate again.

His other selves started to blend together. He couldn't recognize them as anything more than a couple of silhouettes. One could feel himself growing colder and colder as the details of their faces were slowly lost on him completely.

Without even realizing it, he'd become completely desensitized to all the bloodshed. And his face loosened, leaving on its surface nothing but a blank expression.

***

"I knew I'd be able to save her eventually. That if I stuck it out and helped my past self for just a bit longer, the nightmare would finally end."

One looked directly at Rin. He smiled.

"But would you go through all of this for someone else?"

Rin stared back defiantly at him.

"Someone else? We're the same person. Why wouldn't I help myself?"

"...Your premise is flawed."

It was a simple sentence, yet it shook Rin to his core. His voice trembled in anger as he responded.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"For example, you and I... are not the same."

Rin didn't say anything back this time. Without even allowing himself to blink, he stared at his other self, waiting for him to speak again.

"Whatever happens to you has nothing to do with me."

*Crack*
The memories around them cracked, the table flipped, and Rin was now lunging at his other self. He clasped his hands around his neck in a fit of hysteria. 

There was no resistance from One as the two of them fell to the floor.

"That's why you did all this!? I'm not the same as you so I don't deserve better than you, is that it? Is that why Lena had to die? Is that why you ruined my life!?"

*Crack*
Rin's arms couldn't stop shaking. He closed his eyes, now welling in tears, in order to make what he was about to do easier on himself.

"...I didn't say that to be cruel. I was just stating a fact.", One said.

"How can you even think like that?"

"...You? Not I?"

*CRACK* 
The memories cracked once, then twice, then again and again, until eventually the whole scene burst and the two returned to the featureless void. Rin's grip loosened. 

In the end, he couldn't bring himself to go any further.

"Even if you wanted to kill me, you couldn't. This world prevents all kinds of physical harm to whoever's in it."

Silence.

One looked at Rin solemnly, then pushed himself onto his feet.

"Follow me.", he said.

He walked off and with no other recourse, Rin eventually followed. His only company wasn't in the mood for talking, so One started thinking back on his memories again as they walked.

***

*Splash*
It was raining heavily. One's past self was shoved onto his knees and against the muddy ground. Eva and two of her lackeys were right in front of him. Gravestones surrounded them all. 

It was the first time One let a scenario play out after Lena's death. He didn't know whether it was out of morbid curiosity or because he just wanted a break from the constant resets, but at the end of the day, it didn't matter. He'd soon regret it all the same. 

*BANG BANG*
Two gunshots rang out. The Rin in the past fell face first into the dirt, blood flowing endlessly from his forehead. 

It took a while for One to realize what he just saw, his face slowly contorting into disbelief.

"Let's go.", Eva said.

Her lackeys had finished digging up the stasis bomb and handed it over to her before they all left. 

All One could do was stare at his own dead body, the sound of the rain drowning out every other noise in the world as a terrifying realization washed over him.

***

"I've stored them here as a reminder.", One said.

Rin came to a halt as soon as he saw what One wanted to show him. His face pale as a ghost, he covered his mouth to stop himself from screaming.

In front of him, stretching as far as could possibly be imagined, was a sea of crosses. And nailed to each one was a different body, but one that looked identical to all the rest. They were all Rin.

"...W-Why are you showing me this?"

"It's proof."

One walked over to Rin, who was now on his knees, and lowered himself to meet his eye level. 

"Each one of them died right in front of me. And when it happened for the first time, it forced me to come to terms with the fact... that there was nothing I could do."

Rin was breathing heavily as he listened to One's speech.

"Because I remained in here even after dying in the past. I didn't disappear or fade from existence. Nothing happened to me... That's when I realized nothing that happened to my past selves would affect me at all."

He paused briefly.

"So why bother helping another version of me when whether he's successful or not, I'm doomed to rot in here regardless?"

One gripped Rin's shoulder as he finished speaking.

"The same is true for you now. You along with the rest of them."

Rin turned in the direction he was pointing, his face clouded with fear. Some sort of noise came from the distance. It was only an echo so Rin couldn't tell what it was at first.

It started as a tap, then two, but soon it evolved into something much greater. Echoes began reverberating all throughout the giant void as Rin waited helplessly for the source's arrival.