"My name," Riku said, his voice quiet, the name feeling strangely distant, a ghost from a life that was no longer his, "was Rio. I was… just a student. In a city. From a country called… Japan." He gave her the bare minimum – a name, a status, a location. No details of the endless hours spent consuming fiction, the relative comfort and ease of that world, the stark contrast to this one. Those details felt… irrelevant now. Believed by this strange, layered being, or not, they were the truth of a life that existed.
"Rio," Serabil repeated softly, testing the name on her tongue, the ancient resonance of Serabil meeting the ordinary syllables of Rio. "Rio… It suits you. Somehow." Her golden eyes searched his face, a question unspoken. "And… how should I address you now? Rio? Or… Riku?"
The question hung in the air. Rio. The boy who loved anime, who knew impossible things about this world. The boy whose life was comfortable, whose biggest problems were fictional. Or Riku. The leader, the survivor, the one burdened by responsibility, forged in loss and struggle.
Riku didn't hesitate. The choice had already been made, not by conscious decision, but by the brutal reality of his existence. When Rio's memories had first flooded his mind, in that agonizing collision of realities, there had been a brief period of duality. He had felt like both, a consciousness stretched thin. But this body… this life… was Riku's. The calloused hands, the weary muscles, the deep-seated instincts for survival, the weight of the village's lives – these were Riku.
And over the subsequent days, as he fought to survive, as he grappled with the System's demands, as he led his people through impossible challenges, Riku's personality, hardened by a lifetime of this brutal world, had asserted its dominance. It hadn't been a battle; it had been a quiet, inevitable conquering. Rio's personality, his urges, his likes, his dislikes, his desires, his fears, his hobbies – all that defined the boy from Earth – had faded, subsumed by the dominant, ingrained identity of Riku Dola.
Now, only the memories remained. A vast, chaotic database of fictional knowledge, of cultural context, of technological understanding. But the person who had gathered those memories was gone. He was only Riku now. The core self, shaped by this world, remained. The core self that prioritized survival, that felt the weight of responsibility, that was driven by a grim determination to protect his people. The core self that, despite the physical intimacy of Serabil's presence, felt no corresponding stirrings of desire. The urges of Rio were gone, leaving only the strategic mind of Riku assessing a powerful, unpredictable entity.
"Riku," he said, his voice firm, the name feeling right, absolute. "Call me Riku."
Serabil nodded, her golden eyes reflecting a newfound understanding. She looked at him, perched on his lap, not with predatory intent now, but with a complex blend of the ancient Serabil's curiosity and the teenage Anna's admiration, tinged with a dawning comprehension of the unique being before her. He wasn't just her hero from the movie; he was something more. A survivor who had absorbed another soul, a leader stripped down to his core identity, burdened by knowledge and a System, yet still standing, still fighting.
The silence that followed was different. Not heavy with tension, but filled with the weight of shared, impossible truth. They were Gamblers. Beings from another world, given power and tasks by a mysterious System, intertwined with the fabric of Disboard. And one was a seraph of immense power, and the other was a human leader, a survivor, now holding the knowledge of both.
The village was still moving, the Exodus mission clock still ticking. Levi was on his way to the old village. The System was watching. And Riku, with a terrifyingly powerful, unpredictably kind seraph named Anna/Serabil still sitting on his lap, had just accepted an impossible ally, and revealed a fundamental truth about himself and the game they were all playing. The weight of starlight, both literal and metaphorical, settled upon him. The next move in the game… it was unclear, but it would undoubtedly be significant.
"So Riku, what does your system tells you to do?" Serabil asked
"My System… gives me missions," Riku said, his voice regaining some of its steadiness, seizing the opportunity to steer the conversation, to gain crucial data while he still could. "And rewards. Like… like the Ring. And… and the others." He gestured vaguely back towards the path the villagers had taken, towards Levi flying towards the old village, towards Honami waiting with the main column. "The ones, the human girl and the tall, quiet knight." He needed to know how much she knew.
Anna/Serabil followed his gaze, a delighted recognition in her eyes. "Oh! Yes! Your summons!" Her enthusiasm for the narrative was back in full force. "They're part of your reward structure! Your 'Gacha'!" She clapped her hands together softly, a sound like distant crystals tinkling. "My System… it doesn't have a Gacha! Not yet, anyway! Maybe that comes later? Or maybe it's different for Flugels? My first quest was 'Kill the Ancient Dragon'! It was a direct, combat-focused objective! What was yours?"
Riku hesitated. Should he reveal his own comparatively mundane first quest? The System reducing the rank? The disturbing 'Highest Trust' mission? He decided to focus on the mechanics, the rules, the shared nature of their Systems, not the specific, potentially vulnerable details of his own journey.
"My first quests were… different," Riku evaded, steering the conversation back to the rules. "But the System… it gives rewards. And it gives penalties for failure."
Anna/Serabil nodded, her golden eyes sparkling with understanding. "Penalties! Yes! My System mentioned penalties! Severe ones! It makes the stakes so much higher!" The casual way she spoke of severe penalties, of danger and excitement, was a chilling reminder of the seraph's perspective, layered over Anna's enthusiasm for high stakes narratives.
"But about being 'Gamblers'!" she pressed, leaning closer, her voice dropping to a low, intense murmur that resonated with shared secrecy. The physical intimacy was still present, undeniable, but now it felt less like violation and more like the unsettling closeness of two unique specimens examining each other under a microscope. "What else makes us different, Riku? Why can't the Ring bind us? What else are we immune to? Are we… are we immortal? Are we… outside the rules of this world entirely?" Her questions tumbled out, raw with intellectual hunger, a hunger for understanding their shared, impossible nature.
Riku met her gaze, the vastness of her golden eyes reflecting his own confusion, his own desperate need for answers. He didn't know. He knew his severed hand healed, knew his System offered Gacha, knew about missions and penalties. But the why? The fundamental nature of a "Gambler"? The extent of their immunity? He was just as much in the dark as she was.
"I don't know," Riku admitted softly, his voice laced with frustration. "My System doesn't give me… manuals. It gives me tasks. And if I succeed, maybe a hint. I learned about the Ring failing on a gambler just now. When I tried it."
Anna/Serabil's eyes widened in delighted surprise. "You learned a new rule… by experimentation?, that's brilliant! Pushing the boundaries to understand the system!" Her admiration was palpable, shining in her gaze, momentarily eclipsing everything else. "What other experiments have you done? What other rules have you discovered?"
Riku hesitated, weighing the risks and rewards of sharing information. He was still vulnerable. She could still choose to do whatever she wanted, regardless of how much he revealed. But her desire for shared knowledge, her excitement at the concept of understanding the 'game' and its 'rules', seemed to be her primary motivation right now. It was his best chance to keep her engaged, to keep her from returning to her earlier, terrifying intent.
"My healing," Riku began, choosing a less sensitive piece of information, a fact she might have already inferred from his appearance after the self-mutilation mission. "The System… it ensures I heal from physical damage. Quickly. Even… even losing limbs." He spoke the last part with a slight tremor in his voice, the memory still raw.
Anna/Serabil's eyes sparkled with immediate, intense interest. "Healing? Even lost limbs? Instantly?" She leaned forward, her golden eyes examining him with a new level of scrutiny, analyzing his physical form with a clinical fascination that was unsettling given her continued position on his lap. "That aligns with the 'untouchable' hypothesis! If our bodies automatically repair, we're harder to remove from the game! It's a core mechanic for players!"
She was processing it all through the lens of game design, of narrative mechanics. It was both bizarre and strangely illuminating.
"What about other Gamblers?" Riku pressed, needing to steer the conversation back to the potential allies or threats. "Has your System shown you any others?"
"No, I thought you might know." Serabil said.
As she spoke, perched on his lap, a being of cosmic power excitedly detailing the plot points of his life as if they were chapters in a shonen manga, Riku felt a chilling realization settle over him. This was his reality now. A game. A narrative dictated by an unseen System, populated by beings who saw him as a character, a hero, a player to be observed, admired, and interacted with according to the rules of the plot.
His earlier fear, the violation, the desperation… it was all still there, a cold undercurrent beneath the bizarre conversation. But now, it was joined by a profound sense of unreality, of being both the protagonist and the unwilling puppet in a story written by an entity he didn't understand, for reasons he couldn't fathom. He was a "Gambler," set apart, immune to certain rules, but bound by others. His only path forward was to understand the game. To learn its rules. To find the other players. And somehow, somehow, win. Not just for himself, but for the two thousand lives who depended on him, unaware they were just pawns on a cosmic board.