The Iudex's day off

Chapter 67 - I know

Neuvillette's POV

 I looked around, staring blankly at the surrounding waves.

 I had woken up at some point, but I was neither floating within Fontaine's waters nor inside my domain.

 Or perhaps I was.

 My domain was not a place I had been to often.

 It is far too lifeless.

 Too lonely.

 This place was so too, the only difference being that I wasn't floating in water, but rather standing in an invisible dome.

 And...

 This time, I was anything but alone.

 Every so often an illusion would pop up.

 The girls.

 Furina.

 But mostly...

 "Neuv! There you are!"

 The surroundings changed in an instant, and instead of being surrounded by water, I found myself back in Meropide.

 "I have been looking for you for ages! Where have you been?" 

 He was grinning from ear to ear, smiling so brightly, but...

 "You're not him."

 None of them are.

 I was still happy to see the first.

 The second.

 The third.

 The first hundred or so, but...

 I had grown numb to it at some point when we reached around 400.

 Each time, it would start all happy and nice, only to-

 "Oh, you know that I'm not?"

 This.

 Right, this...

 If I just tell him that I know it's over faster.

 Then I can have a little break before another shows up.

 "If you know then you must also know why it isn't me who's here. Why you're down here, all alone? You know, don't you, Neuvillette?"

 I know. I know. Of course I know.

 How could I not?

 "Since you know, don't you dare forget it. Don't you ever dare forget how you abandoned him without a word. How you left him behind. You even locked him up, didn't you? Preventing him from leaving the prison you didn't even want to send him to back then."

 Stop.

 Please stop.

 "You're a hypocrite, Neuvillette. Nothing but a weak, useless, and selfish bastard."

 And with that, he disappeared.

 Just like that, he was gone once more.

 Again and again.

 Over and over again!

 I know.

 I know it all.

 I've never denied any of it because it was all true.

 But please.

 Please, just a single day.

 Even just an hour.