Nether Trials – Ryoichi

Ryoichi stood at the edge of an endless abyss, the air heavy with the weight of uncertainty. He had entered the Nether Nexus with a purpose, but now, standing in the midst of an ethereal wasteland, he felt a deep sense of disorientation. The space around him pulsed with an unnatural stillness, and the horizon was shrouded in mist, as though the very fabric of reality was suspended.

The silence was oppressive. It gnawed at him, echoing the doubts that had lingered in his heart. This was his trial. His first.

Before him, a figure emerged from the mist. The form was indistinct at first, but then it solidified, taking the shape of someone Ryoichi knew all too well—his older brother, Haruto. The figure stood tall, as Ryoichi remembered, though there was something wrong in the way he was dressed: battle-worn armour that had not seen a fight in years. His once-bright eyes were dull, and his expression was one of cold detachment.

"Ryoichi," the figure called, voice low and gravelly. "Do you still believe in yourself?"

Ryoichi’s stomach twisted at the sight. Haruto had been a hero in his eyes, the one person who had always held the family together. But Ryoichi had lost him in a distant war, a war that Ryoichi had not been able to stop despite his best efforts.

"What is this?" Ryoichi demanded, his voice sharp, though his heart pounded. "Why are you here?"

Haruto's ghostly figure looked at him with a mixture of sadness and disappointment. "You are weak, Ryoichi," he said. "You always have been. You could not save me. You could not protect anyone."

Ryoichi felt a pang of guilt, an echo of the failure he had buried deep inside. The memory of his brother’s final moments haunted him, the vision of his death on the battlefield, alone, with Ryoichi just out of reach.

"You failed, Ryoichi," Haruto continued, his voice turning cold. "You could never be the hero I was. You have always fallen short."

The words cut deeper than any blade. They were words Ryoichi had never wanted to hear. He had always admired his brother, believed in his strength. But now, faced with this apparition, he questioned if he had ever truly measured up. Was he destined to live in his brother’s shadow forever?

"No," Ryoichi whispered, his fists tightening. "This is not real. You are not him."

The figure of Haruto tilted its head, eyes narrowing. "Is that so? How can you be sure? You are just as weak as I was, hiding behind the illusion of strength. Always too afraid to face your true self."

Ryoichi stepped back, confusion and self-doubt swirling inside him. The air felt thick, as though the very world was pressing down on him. Yet even as the illusion pressed harder, a flicker of clarity sparked within him.

He was not the person his brother had been. He was not meant to follow those footsteps. He was his own person, with his own path to follow, even if it meant facing the pain of failure.

"I am not you," Ryoichi said firmly, more to himself than to the illusion. "And I will not be defined by my past."

The figure of Haruto faded, his voice lingering in the air like an unspoken question. "Are you sure, Ryoichi?"

Ryoichi closed his eyes and let the silence wash over him. He had spent too long living in the shadow of the past, clinging to the idea that he had to be someone else, someone stronger. But he had learned. The path to becoming who he truly was lay in embracing the person he had become.

His resolve solidified. He opened his eyes and met the empty space where the vision of his brother had stood.

"I am who I am," he said with renewed determination. "And that is enough."

With those words, the trial began to dissolve. The mist parted, revealing a new path ahead, one that beckoned him forward.

Ryoichi's second trial took him to a place unlike anything he had encountered before: an endless stretch of barren land, the horizon indistinct and the air thick with a sense of oppression. The world around him felt suffocating, as though the very air weighed down on his chest, making each breath harder to take. The ground was cracked and dry, devoid of life, and the only sound was the eerie echo of his footsteps.

In the distance, a figure appeared, walking slowly toward him. As the figure drew closer, Ryoichi's heart skipped a beat. It was a younger version of himself, no older than when he had first set out to prove his worth. This version of Ryoichi wore the same tattered armour from his early days of training, the same uncertainty in his eyes.

But the strangest part was the way this Ryoichi looked at him—almost as if he were seeing someone he hated.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"You... you are me," Ryoichi muttered, his voice uncertain.

The younger version of himself stopped in front of him, staring with a cold intensity. "No," the younger Ryoichi said sharply. "I am what you could have been, had you stayed weak. You will never be able to escape that."

Ryoichi stepped back, confused. "What do you mean? I did become stronger. I am not the same person I was back then."

The younger Ryoichi laughed bitterly. "Really? You think you have grown? You still hesitate. You still cling to the past. You think that by pretending you have changed, you have actually changed? You are still that same boy who could not even protect his brother when he needed you most."

Ryoichi felt a rush of guilt, but he quickly pushed it away. His younger self was right in one way: he had never fully let go of the pain, the fear, the doubt. His brother’s death had scarred him, and though he had moved forward, the wound had never truly healed. It was a weakness that had followed him, like a shadow that refused to fade.

"I..." Ryoichi began, his voice shaking, but he did not know how to finish. He had to prove something. He had to show that he was no longer that boy.

The younger Ryoichi stepped forward, his eyes dark with accusation. "You cannot escape who you were. No matter how hard you try, you will always be bound by your failure. That is why you can never be stronger. That is why you will always be afraid."

The words cut deep, but Ryoichi steadied himself, forcing his breathing to slow. He was not that person anymore. He had grown. He had made mistakes, yes, but he was not defined by them. He could not be.

"I will not be you," Ryoichi said quietly, his voice full of resolve. "You are nothing more than a shadow of what I was. I have made my peace with the past. I am not that boy anymore."

The younger Ryoichi’s face twisted with fury. "You lie to yourself. You will always be weak."

But Ryoichi shook his head. "No. I have learned. I have changed. I am not afraid of what I was anymore, and I am not afraid of the future. I will keep moving forward. I will never stop."

The vision of his younger self lunged at him, but Ryoichi held his ground. In that moment, he understood. The trial was not about defeating a physical enemy; it was about conquering the fear that still held him back, the fear that he was not enough, that he would always be defined by the past.

With a final, determined breath, Ryoichi stepped forward. The shadow of his younger self shrank, dissolving into the air as if it had never been real. The oppressive weight lifted from the air, and the barren land faded, replaced by a glimmering path leading deeper into the Nether Nexus.

Ryoichi smiled, feeling lighter than he had in years. He had faced the ghosts of his past, and for the first time, he truly felt free.

Ryoichi’s third and final trial began in the heart of a vast, swirling storm. The winds howled around him, tearing at his clothes and whipping his hair into his face. He could barely see through the torrential rain, the air alive with thunder and flashes of lightning. The storm felt like a living, breathing entity: wild, untamed, and furious.

The moment he stepped forward, the storm parted, revealing a small clearing. At the centre of the clearing stood a figure shrouded in shadow. The figure was tall, cloaked in darkness, with glowing red eyes that seemed to pierce through the storm itself.

Ryoichi’s heart skipped. The figure was no stranger—it was a vision of his brother, Kaito, standing before him, as real and solid as if he were still alive.

"Kaito...?" Ryoichi called out, his voice filled with disbelief and longing.

The figure did not respond at first, but slowly, the shadow faded, revealing Kaito's face beneath. His expression was solemn and unreadable.

"I did not save you," Ryoichi whispered, his voice cracking. "I could not protect you when you needed me most."

Kaito’s eyes burned with a mixture of sadness and disappointment. "You failed me, Ryoichi," his brother’s voice echoed, low and haunting. "You abandoned me. And now, you will never be able to move forward because of it. You will always be burdened by your failure."

Ryoichi’s knees trembled. The weight of his guilt pressed against him like a boulder. His brother was right—he had not been there when it mattered. He had not been strong enough to save Kaito from the dangers that had taken his life.

"I..." Ryoichi began, but the words stuck in his throat. He had never been able to forgive himself for his brother’s death. He had spent every waking moment wondering if things would have been different if he had acted faster, been stronger.

"I could not protect you," Ryoichi choked out, his voice raw. "I could not do anything. I could not save you."

Kaito’s gaze grew colder. "No, you could not. And now, you are paying the price. You will never be able to forgive yourself, and you will never truly be free of this weight. We will never be free."

Ryoichi's eyes welled with tears, but he quickly wiped them away, forcing himself to breathe deeply. The storm raged louder, as if the world itself urged him to give in, to succumb to the overwhelming grief.

He wanted to give in. The guilt, the regret—it was all-consuming. He wanted to crawl into a corner, bury his head in his hands, and cry out the pain that had haunted him for so long.

But deep down, he knew he could not. Not anymore.

Ryoichi’s gaze hardened, and he took a slow, deliberate step forward. "I failed you," he said, his voice steady now, "but I cannot let that be the end of me. I cannot stay here, stuck in the past, blaming myself forever. I will carry the pain. I will carry the memory of you with me, but I will not be shackled by it."

Kaito’s figure flickered, like a fading light in the storm. "Then what will you do, Ryoichi?" he asked, his voice now soft, almost wistful.

"I will fight," Ryoichi said, his voice full of conviction. "I will keep moving forward. I will honour your memory by living, by becoming stronger, by doing what I could not do before. I will not forget you. But I will live for both of us. For my future."

The storm began to quiet, and Kaito’s figure shimmered, dissolving like mist in the rain. The clearing transformed, the storm fading into a tranquil landscape bathed in soft light.

Ryoichi stood alone now, the trial’s weight slowly lifting from his chest. He had faced his greatest fear—the unrelenting guilt over his brother’s death—and had finally come to terms with it. The trial had not been about erasing the past; it was about accepting it, learning from it, and choosing to move forward despite it.

Zethraxis and Aria were already waiting when he returned, the Nether Prism in front of them. But Syrofa was taking much longer in her trial. The same question was on all their minds, for she was still quite enigmatic to them.

What were her trials?