Someone's trial

Chapter 8

Naoya and the knights follow Sir Valiansteel to the restaurant’s exit, but when the doors open, they are surprised to find not the city outside, but a vast, torch-lit chamber resembling a dungeon. As soon as they enter, the doors close behind them and the chatter from the restaurant vanishes. All they could hear was the sound of their breaths and their nervous heartbeats.

“Well then, let’s get straight into business,” Sir Valiansteel says as the torches shine brighter, illuminating the large hall. “First, introductions. 47th Prime Sentinel of the Aetheryn Order, Langston Valiansteel,” the man says as he turns around and holds his hand out to Naoya.

“I’m Shiranui Naoya; Shiranui is the family name… uhhh, I’m 16 years old, second-year high school student before I… woke up here,” he replies, shaking the man’s rough and firm hand.

“Yeah, I read your story. You saved an old lady from a moving vehicle in your world before dying. And you told everything within the Matrix, so no made-up stories either… Quite an honorable way to go, boy,” the man smiles, and Naoya feels quite proud for impressing him.

“You also condensed enough flames to replicate the sun’s intensity and defeat a vampyr together with Cipher Unit and your fairy friend,” he continues, looking at the pink creature beside Naoya.

“A noble character and an impressive talent, I reckon the Order would accept you right now if you applied…” he says, turning around and walking away from the group.

“... but that’s not good enough for me.” Sir Valiansteel says, and Naoya’s excitement slowly turns into dread as the man faces him, holding the infamous dark shotgun in his hand.

“Just like the stories you’ve heard about me, they’re just stories. It ain’t gonna tell you anything about the person. I’d much prefer seeing it myself. And that’s what we’re gonna be doing.”

The hall was silent, but Naoya’s mind was the complete opposite. Hundreds of thoughts raced through his head, but he didn’t know which one to focus on. Suddenly, the ground below him moves forward, bringing him towards Sir Valiansteel. He stops himself from falling over but is too late to notice the knight directly in front of him, who grabs him by the head and slams him down. All he could do was conjure several pillows on the floor to protect himself from the impact, but the man’s force still caused great pain.

The hand lets go, and Naoya takes a while before he gets up and opens his eyes. As his vision refocuses, he sees the silhouette of Sir Valiansteel several steps away, as well as another person. It didn’t take long before he recognized the uniform she was wearing, along with her scared expression.

She looked exactly the same as when he last saw her, crying over his dying body. And now, she was tied to a chair, looking straight at him with fearful eyes.

“Yui…? YUI! Are you okay? What are you doing to her?!” Naoya screams as he tries to get up, but the floor under him is surprisingly sticky, as if he’s an insect stuck in a web.

“Naoya, please help me! What’s happening?!” Yui screams, and a piece of rug appears around her mouth, silencing her.

“This’ll be a simple test, boy,” Sir Valiansteel says as a giant metal furnace appears at the back wall of the room, behind him and Yui. He places his gun over his shoulder and fires a shot at it, causing the furnace to roar into life. Several chains shoot out of the furnace and wrap around the legs of Yui’s chair.

“Your friend will slowly get dragged into that there fire after 5 minutes. All you have to do is destroy the furnace to save her. That’s it,” the man calmly explains as he throws his weapon away and it vanishes. “Your time starts now.”

Yui’s chair starts being pulled, and the floor loses its stickiness. Naoya immediately runs towards Yui, intending to untie her from the chair, but a magical force sends him flying away.

“That girl don’t look like no furnace to me, boy. I said wreck that furnace if you want to save her,” the knight says.

Naoya, now angry and determined, stands up and runs toward the furnace, summoning a massive hammer in his hands. He raises it above his head to gather enough force, but the hammer, and consequently Naoya himself, suddenly gets pulled up by an unseen force. It brings him face-to-face with Sir Valiansteel, who was hovering above him.

“There’s three things you need if you wanna use magic, boy. First, creativity.”

His hammer disappears, causing Naoya to fall, but not onto the floor; into a deep, circular hole that appeared under him. He reaches the bottom and lands in a pool of water.

“Magic is anything you want it to be, so don’t waste your abilities on making regular things or shooting boring beams of light. Look around you, boy, and if you can’t find anything, look into your brain. I’m sure you’ll find a way up,” the knight explains, watching him from the top.

Naoya looks around, half-submerged in cold water. He tried finding small rocks on the wall to grab on to and climb, but the walls were as smooth as marble. He creates two metal spikes, intending to use them as pitons, but they simply shatter on impact. Finally, he tries to climb up by pushing his arms and legs against the wall, but its smoothness and his wetness don’t allow friction to do its job. He falls back into the water and desperately looks up to see the knight watching him with a smile.

Look around you, boy, and if you don’t find anything, look into yourself.

Naoya looks around him again, and this time he finds his way out.

…

It has been a while since the boy disappeared into the hole, and the three knights, as well as the fairy, nervously watch Sir Valiansteel’s test.

“Good thing I didn’t get tested by him when I applied for the Order,” Lance says as he patiently watches the hole for any signs of Naoya. “I wouldn’t have passed.”

“Apparently, he does this to students he finds interesting. Which is probably why some talented students from the Academy purposefully tank their grades so they don’t draw his attention. Which, of course, didn’t really work,” Greta explains, concerned by their leader’s methods.

“I was one. Summoned one day. Scary test. But learned lots. To control power. Stop hurting others,” Astrea says as she watches the test, her teammates silently watching her.

Suddenly, a sound echoes from the well, and Sir Valiansteel steps away as a torrent of water surges out of the hole, several feet into the air. Naoya escapes along with it, and while in the air, he gathers the water around him and shoots it towards the fire. The knights cheered, but were all confused the next moment when the water freed around the fire instead of extinguishing it. The ice forms a dome around the furnace, but it didn’t stop the chains nor the chair from moving closer.

Naoya looks at the ice, disappointed. He then hears the knight below him.

“Second thing you need… willpower,” the man says as he grabs Naoya’s leg and throws him back to the ground. Naoya cushions his fall with several pillows, but he still feels the impact all over his body. Sir Valiansteel lands, and in front of him, their lunch table from earlier slowly rises from the ground, complete with their utensils and food. The knight stomps his foot on the ground, sending everything up into the air and kicking the table towards Naoya as it falls back down.

He stops it with both hands and the pillows he was sitting on, but before he could recover, he hears something crash into the table in front of him, then another, and another. Plates, utensils and pots fly towards him, the large table serving as his only protection from the barrage, and it gets worse. The impact from the objects was now even stronger, pushing Naoya back with each hit and slowly destroying the table. As its last wooden piece falls off, Naoya is now holding out a transparent barrier in front of him, each hit pushing him back even more and threatening to break his shield.

“You can’t hide behind that flimsy barrier forever, boy,” the knight says, calmly standing as the items from their lunch table endlessly materialize around him and shoot towards Naoya.

He looks over at Yui, who was now halfway towards the furnace. He racks his brain for any idea to get out of the situation, and with every push of the objects hitting him, he finally gets one.

Naoya turns around, keeping the barrier behind him and summoning a ball of wind in front of him. He takes a deep breath to focus and jumps, the barrage objects propelling him towards a wall. Before he crashes into it, he stops his movement with a ball of wind. The opposing forces keep him there until finally, the compressed air reaches its limit and launches Naoya away from the wall, the barrage of objects, and directly into the furnace.

Still carrying the ball of wind, he brings it forward, slowing himself down and absorbing the ice dome, creating a blizzard right in front of him. He sees Yui a few steps away, still being pulled and looking at him with tearful eyes.

“The third thing you need, and the most important one…” Sir Valiansteel says, suddenly standing beside Naoya, “… is belief. Believe in the magic, believe in your skills, and most importantly, believe in yourself,” he says with a rugged old smile.

Naoya nods at him, and with a new, determined look, he gathers all his strength and starts pushing the blizzard into the fire. An invisible force tries to keep the cold blizzard and the roaring flame away, but Naoya fights back. Slowly but surely, he pushes the blizzard into the furnace, and as his hands reach inside it, he looks at Yui beside him, already pulled so close to the furnace. The rag around her mouth falls off, and the ropes tying her to the chair loosen. She stands up, embraces Naoya, and with a sweet smile, speaks to him.

“Thanks for saving me!”

Naoya smiles back, tears running down his cheek, and without warning, the furnace beside them explodes, sending smoke, ice and ash flying everywhere.