The air thickened as Yuuto walked through the archway of the ancient ruin. The world he had left behind seemed to drop away—sound muffled, and light faded until only the faint blue radiance of the glyphs illuminated his way.
Kaela stayed at the entrance, arms folded, her silver eyes regarding him like a hawk.
"You sure you can't come in with me?" Yuuto joked, panicked.
She shook her head. "The Trial has to be done alone. If you kill yourself, at least I'll have the sword."
"Wow. Reassuring."
But she smiled, a small one. Enough to make his chest knot up for reasons he did not wish to investigate just yet.
Yuuto entered completely, and the world snapped like a cut string.
He found himself standing in a huge room of fire and darkness.
The floor was black stone, fissured with searing lines of light. Pillars towered and curled into the air like petrified dragons. And distant across the room, hanging above a stone dais, was a flame. Not common fire—this was white-blue, freezing at the edge and burning in the core.
And under it. a shadow.
A voice spoke, deep and ageless:
"Prove thy flame is your own."
From the darkness, a form of Yuuto emerged.
But not this one.
His eyes were cold and hard gold. His grin was sinister. He wielded a dagger fashioned from black glass, and his footsteps clanged louder than they should have.
"I'm what you become," it told him. "If you flee. If you shatter. If you let this world shape you."
Yuuto retreated, heart thudding. "This is some sort of vision, isn't it?"
The shadow laughed. "I am your Trial."
Then it attacked.
Yuuto barely dodged the first strike. It sliced the air like it hated it. He stumbled back, picking up a shard of stone from the ground, wielding it like a dagger.
"You don't even know how to fight," the shadow sneered. "You're pathetic."
"I didn't ask to be dropped in Fantasy Hell!" Yuuto shouted.
But something within him moved. That odd tug once more—such as the sky and stars in his veins.
As the darkness made another attack, Yuuto shut his eyes and extended his hand.
The floor glyphs blazed.
And from inside, a burst of blue fire exploded.
When he opened his eyes, he wasn't gripping stone any longer.
A sword of clear fire lay in his grasp, formed like moonlight and memory.
The darkness faltered.
Yuuto smiled. "Guess I've got a bit of fight after all."
They clashed—blazing sword against void blade. Sparks flew. Shadows burned. And in the moment when steel met steel, Yuuto screamed—
"I won't be your puppet!"
With a final surge, he drove the sword through the shadow's chest. Light erupted, fire swallowing the chamber.
Yuuto fell to his knees, panting.
The voice echoed again.
"Flame acknowledged. Starlight awakened."
The sword disintegrated in his hands—but the warmth lingered in his veins.
Kaela was waiting when he emerged, squinting in the sun.
"You made it through," she said, once nodding. "Good."
"I kinda think I passed. Or didn't, I mean, blow up."
She examined him warily. "Something shifted inside you."
Yuuto gazed at his hands. "Uh. yeah… I think something stirred."
And far, far behind them, the ruin dissolved to ash—its purpose served.