Witchbound: My Power Grows With Every Trial

Ren steadied his breathing as he crossed the chamber. The two monumental doors stood right ahead, becoming more imposing with each step he took toward them.

The door to the left was darker in tone, built from heavy wood reinforced with iron around the edges. Every line carved into it was perfectly measured, with no pattern out of place. The geometric design reminded him of the kind of logic puzzles he used to play as a kid with Haruki. Simple on the surface, but demanding patience and focus to uncover what truly lay beneath.

The door to the right was entirely different. It was patterned in places with patches of gold, and the carvings that ran along its surface had no straight lines at all. They bent like smoke or fire, curling into shapes that suggested movement. Each time his eyes gazed in a different direction, those swirling patterns would change as well, never once keeping the same shape.

That was peculiar indeed, he thought.

Ren drew in a breath and turned toward Kagami, intending to ask her opinion. She should have been at his side, prepared to cut into his hesitation with sharp words as always. Only this time, she was not there anymore. It seemed as though she had vanished into thin air, and now he was alone.

As he realized it, Ren felt something pressing sharply against his chest.

He turned toward the doors. The two keepers stood in silence while their masks betrayed no reaction at all.

"This trial is yours alone," said the keeper to the left. "Your witch cannot pass through with you."

Ren frowned at those words. The idea of moving forward without Kagami made him uneasy. But then, as thoughts crammed into his mind all at once, he realized how dependent he had been on her since the day of the Pact. She had been the voice of reason, the one keeping him steady when everything else pushed to break him.

Maybe it was time to step up.

The keeper to the right slightly tilted his mask as if he could sense the hesitation spiking through him.

"You must face the choice as yourself. One path will be yours, and yours alone."

Ren clenched his hands into fists and forced himself to stand straighter.

He decided to inspect the doors and find clues about them on his own. He might not understand what the symbols meant as Kagami would, but there had to be something he could use. He just needed to keep focus and find it. Just like a puzzle. Just like Haruki once taught him.

He approached the left door first. The geometric carvings caught what little light filled the chamber, making it look somewhat alive. When his hand touched the wood, a cold wave passed through his entire body in a flash, and the environment around him dissolved in a matter of seconds.

Then, a new scene built itself around him.

Ren found himself standing in a vast hall lined with screens showing frozen versions of himself, like a gallery of portraits. All depicting him. In some of them, he was younger, while in others, he looked older.

For a few moments, he didn't know what to make of it, but then he forced himself to move, snapping out of the hesitation. He stepped toward the first set of images.

One held the boy he had been, clutching a puzzle he once solved faster than anyone else. Haruki had been so proud of him over that.

Another showed him cutting down one of the Kagemonos during Shiori's trial.

Further down the row, he saw himself more mature in age, wielding Pact magic and commanding respect from others around him. This was, of course, completely unfamiliar to him, so Ren lingered in front of it a long while.

"Is this... showing the actual future?" Ren mumbled to himself.

But Kagami wasn't there to answer, so he needed to make do with what his instincts told him.

The longer he walked, the more of these images appeared, each one depicting him in moments of success or victory.

For a moment, pride stirred in him, as circumstances rarely let him see himself in such a way. He had always been the one pushed toward pragmatism and reason to survive the harsh realities of life. Taking the time to acknowledge his own successes wasn't part of that equation.

Yet all of that faded as quickly as it had appeared when he realized that in all of these successes and all of these victories, he was standing alone. Every triumph was his alone.

The victories were real, at least the ones he did recognize, yet they felt somehow devoid. Purposeless even. No real meaning to them except for his own gratification, which, by human law, would never reach a moment of culmination.

There was nobody in any of these images to share the victories with. Or even to fight for. Haruki was gone, and what was left of his family had rejected him out front a long time ago. He was dead to them.

Not even Kagami seemed to be depicted in any of these images.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that uncomfortable feeling building up inside his chest, until it finally reached its limit, and Ren tore his hand back from the door. The hall shattered in an instant, breaking into shards that dissolved around him.

Ren staggered back into the tatami chamber, breathing hard. Some of the images he saw still lingered heavy in his mind.

The two keepers stood in the exact same place they had been before. The one to the left, keeping the door he had just touched, inclined its head ever so slightly, as if acknowledging he had seen what he needed.

Ren wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. His fingers still trembled.

His gaze turned to the second door.

The pale blue and gold of its engravings glowed in the chamber's light. He felt reluctant to touch it as the memory from the first vision still affected him. But then again, he knew there was no way around this.

Ren raised his hand and pressed his palm against the wooden surface of the second door. And as quickly as it had happened in the first instance, the tatami under his feet dissolved again into thick smoke.