III - SWORD OF THE BRAVE // Doraemon Fanfic

12 - THE OVERRIDE

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"What just happened?" Nobita sounded both concerned and confused.

Doraemon shrugged, "What?"

"Something changed. I can feel it. Something inside me is different."

"He is right," Gian said standing in front with his back towards them.

"Gian...," remembering Gian doesn't have any memories from his real life in the dream, Nobita quickly added, "-tosu."

"Gian works now," the boy replied.

"Huh-? What do you mean?"

Gian turned to face them and said, "I remember now. For some reason, I can remember... Nobita."

Nobita's eyes glimmered in bliss. That was all that he wished for, his friends to be with him together, to remember who he was.

But in an instant, that happiness was snuffed out of him.

"Is this a good indication though?" Nobita asked precariously. He addressed to Gian, "I'm sure you can feel it too, right, Gian? That is the reason why you don't seem that happy with this turn of events."

"I do. It's like they are both real."

When he was shot with an interrogative look by Doraemon, Nobita explained further, "Our lives. This life and our real lives. That red button, you said was supposed to swap our realities. But it seems it did more than that....

It somehow made them both real. I remember both my lives as though I've lived it. It's like I'm both Nobita... and Nobitanian at the same time."

Gian acknowledged with a nod. "Maybe you don't feel it because you entered to this dream when this reality was already set in motion. Almost like you forcefully logged yourself in. But Nobita and I, we both do."

"Sounds like a stretch. Maybe we are just being paranoid." Doraemon remarked.

Although Doraemon believed that, Nobita felt like something was not right about it. Knowing nothing about something scared him to the core. Ignorance scared him.

He decided that they had to leave before it was too late.

"Doraemon, take us back." He demanded. "We can find Suneo and Kiyoshi some other way. It's only been a few hours. Something tells me we shouldn't mess with this. So, take us back right now."

The look in Nobita's eyes was so serious that he did not dare defy him. He nodded and closed his eyes, trying to log himself out, so he could shut off the machine and pull them all out.

.....

He opened his eyes and found himself still standing in the woods amongst Nobita and Gian staring blankly at him.

"What happened?"

Realisation dawned on him. "I can't... I can't go back."

"As in, you can't get out of here?"

Doraemon nodded.

"Wait, come to think of it, back at home, didn't you mention that if we pushed the red button, we wouldn't be able to go back unless we completed the story," Gian said.

"That's right, I did say that."

They started panicking when Gian casually pointed out, "Calm down. Since it's already done, why not just find our friends, finish the story and then go back just as we planned? What's the big deal?"

"IDIOT!" Nobita shouted out. "All this time, we were in a dream. But feel yourself right now, can you say that it's still a dream? It's almost like it's real. Which means, if we get injured or..." He hesitated to continue but releasing a deep breath, did anyway, "...die here, we might never be able to go back."