I Died and Was Reincarnated as a Goth Femboy

A vein throbbed on DragonSlayer's forehead. "So you're telling me that no matter what we do, it's already written somewhere? That we have no choice?"

"Yes!" Bombom said, his voice cracking with a sudden, overwhelming despair. "You can't change destiny! I learned that the hard way..." He turned his back on his party, his gaze falling on the small, hovering drone camera, on the thousands of unseen eyes that were watching his every move. "I tried to be the strongest man in the world," he said, his voice a low, bitter whisper. "And what did that get me? Nowhere. Now I'm just a weird, cute face, trapped in a body that isn't mine."

"At least you're a goth femboy," DragonSlayer said with a smirk and a shrug, his attempt at levity falling completely flat.

"Don't worry, Bombom," Gluteus said, his voice a deep, reassuring rumble as he placed a massive, steel-clad hand on Kenjiro's shoulder. "Even if you don't get back to your old self again... we are still here."

"W-we are going to be your friends until the end," Lyrielle added, her voice soft but her gaze surprisingly firm, though she was still blushing and looking away.

Their sincere, unwavering support was, for some reason, the final straw. He didn't want their pity. He didn't want their friendship. He wanted his life back. "THERE'S NO WAY!" he suddenly screamed, spinning around, his face a mask of pure, terrified rage. "I'M NOT GOING TO BE LIKE THIS FOREVER! WHAT IF I'M IMMORTAL?! I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE THIS FOREVER!" He began to run back and forth in the empty courtyard, screaming, a raw, primal sound of pure, unadulterated despair. "AAAAAAH!"

Lyrielle stared, her face a mask of shock. Gluteus just sighed, a long, weary sound. "And I thought he had grown as a person," DragonSlayer muttered to himself. "But..."

In a blink of an eye, the world flickered. The pristine, sunlit castle courtyard vanished, replaced for a single, breathtaking second by the dark, crumbling ruins of the future. And in that future, the massive, iron-banded gate that had been magically sealed was now just a gaping, empty archway.

Bombom gasped, his frantic screaming cutting off abruptly. "H-hey! The door is open! Let's go, before we go back in time!"

The party didn't need to be told twice. They sprinted through the ruined archway, and as they crossed the threshold, the world flickered again. They were back in the pristine, sunlit past, but now they were inside the castle. Behind them, the massive gate slammed shut, the purple runes flaring back to life, sealing them in.

"We did it!" Bombom jumped, a triumphant grin on his face. He looked at his drone. "Let's keep going! We have to find SynchroNoice!"

They found themselves at the bottom of a massive, winding staircase that seemed to climb up into the very heavens. It was a ladder to the sky, its end lost in the shadowy heights of the castle's central spire. They began to climb. And climb. And climb. After what felt like an hour, they seemed no closer to the top.

"THIS NEVER ENDS!" Bombom yelled in frustration. "IT LOOKS LIKE WE'RE TRAPPED!"

"I-I can sense something..." Lyrielle whispered, her eyes closed in concentration. She reached out a hand, a soft, green light emanating from her palm. She chanted, and a shimmering, magical eye, like the one from her vision in the library, materialized in the air before them. It looked up the endless staircase, and through its lens, they could see him: a figure, previously invisible, was hiding on the stairs above them, a smug look on his face as he channeled the illusion of the infinite staircase.

"Humpf," the figure said as the illusion shattered around them, revealing they were only a few flights up. "You guys discovered me. Time to fight." He smiled, a cold, cruel sound. He had long, flowing black hair, and a strange, swirling pattern in his left eye. In a blink of an eye, the world dissolved, and Bombom was no longer on the stairs. He was floating in a dark, empty void.

"Your mind was easy to enter," a voice echoed in the darkness. "Not very intelligent, huh?" The man appeared before him, his face inches from Bombom's. "Right now, I'm using your body to fight your friends. And there's nothing you can do about it. Hahahaha!"

Bombom swung a punch, but his fist passed right through the man's form as if he were smoke. "I'm just an illusion," the man taunted. "You cannot defeat me. And after I'm done with your friends, I'm going to turn you into one of our best warriors." He smirked. "Time to get some more knowledge out of you." He reached out, his fingers glowing with a dark energy, ready to delve deeper into Bombom's mind.

And then, a giant, impossibly muscular shadow erupted from Bombom's back. It grabbed the mind-invader, kicking and punching him with a savage, brutal intensity. The man screamed as the phantom blows connected, the pain all too real.

He awoke with a gasp, back on the stairs, the illusion of the mindscape shattered. Bombom awoke at the same time, his own mind snapping back into his body. He found himself in a deeply compromising position: he was in the middle of planting a soft, gentle kiss on DragonSlayer's cheek.

"W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING, BOMBOM?!" DragonSlayer shrieked, his face a mixture of shock, horror, and a deep, confusing blush.

The man with the strange eye pattern coughed, a trickle of blood running from his mouth. "W-what just happened?" he gasped, clutching his head. "I feel like I was just... brutally destroyed." He remembered the mindscape, the sudden appearance of the muscular shadow, its red eyes glowing with a furious light as it pummeled him, screaming, "BIRL! THE MONSTER IS GETTING OUT OF JAIL!"

He looked at Bombom, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and confusion. "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU?! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE A LILY, BUT YOU COULDN'T CHARM ANYONE IN YOUR PARTY!" He coughed again, more blood splattering on the stone steps. "W-what's that shadow thing?"

Bombom just smirked, a confident, dangerous glint in his red eyes. "That's a projection of the real me. And it looks like you lost. So, surrender yourself before things get uglier."

The man, seeing no other option, put his hands up. The party quickly tied him up. "Now that that's done," DragonSlayer laughed, "we can keep going."

"You're not supposed to be here..." the tied-up man whispered, his voice trembling.

"Of course not," Gluteus replied in his polite, formal manner. "Your leader is changing this place in time. We are here to stop it."

"T-that's not what I mean," the man stammered, his eyes wide with a terror that had nothing to do with his recent defeat. "I mean him. The goth Lily."

Bombom looked at him, confused. "Me? Why are you saying that?"

The man was frozen, his face pale, sweat pouring down his temples. "I-I-I cannot t-tell..."

Lyrielle placed a gentle hand on his forehead, her own eyes glowing with a soft, green light. "He's telling the truth," she whispered, a confused look on her own face. "He saw something in your mind that shocked him to his very core. But I cannot see what it is. I'm being blocked..."

Bombom thought for a moment, a cold, unsettling feeling creeping up his spine. "If he's not scared of my shadow... then what is it?"