The next descent led them through a hollowed basin of glassy shale and twisting vines that shimmered with refracted light—not from the sky, but from deep within the ground itself. Toji walked ahead, Mnemo-Eye pulsing gently in rhythm with his steps. Beside him, Kaela kept close, her tower-Echo flickering faintly with each movement. The six members of Class C followed in wary silence.
They'd named the new area the Hollow Grotto.
But it wasn't hollow.
It was full—buzzing, humming, thick with layered presence.
"You feel that?" Niko asked, whispering. "Something's tugging. Like…" He paused. "Like it wants something from me."
"It does," Toji replied. "This layer of the Veins doesn't mirror memory anymore. It mimics desire. Things you want—or think you do—are used to trap your senses."
"Which means what, exactly?" Roth grunted.
Kaela answered. "That if you see something beautiful or comforting—don't trust it."
Toji's eye shifted left. "Especially if it talks like someone you miss."
No one replied.
But the message was understood.
They pressed forward.
The cave began to distort again—walls bending slightly inward, textures softening into a mist-like gleam. At one turn, the path forked—not physically, but perceptually. Some students saw an opening to the left. Others saw it to the right.
Roth blinked. "I'm seeing trees to the right."
"Stone staircase," said Niko, squinting left.
Toji closed his eyes.
The Mnemo-Eye pulsed once.
"Everyone anchor to your Echo," he said. "Then say what you see."
One by one, each member summoned their tethered Echo, stabilizing their thoughts. The world shimmered, distorted—but eventually resolved into a single unified tunnel, straight ahead.
Kaela exhaled. "Well. That's new."
"No," Toji said. "That's intentional. This is a tuning zone. It reads conflicting wants and divides reality accordingly."
"You're saying this place lets us see what we want?"
"No," he said flatly. "It lets us believe what we want. Until we forget what's real."
They walked on.
⸻
An hour deeper into the zone, the group entered what looked like a garden.
Long, twisting paths of white gravel stretched between arches of bioluminescent ivy. Stone benches appeared between hollow trees, their branches tangled into spirals. And all around them, whispers began to echo—not loud, but distinct.
Kaela froze.
"Toji…"
He nodded.
"I know. Don't listen."
But the voices… they weren't frightening. They were nostalgic. Familiar.
"Toji," said a voice behind him.
It wasn't possible.
He turned.
There she stood.
Lilac robes. Dark, regal hair. Eyes that knew things he hadn't even said aloud.
Mother.
He froze.
"Come home," she said gently. "You don't belong in a place that wants to shape you into a weapon."
The Mnemo-Eye buzzed violently at his shoulder.
"That's not her," Kaela said firmly, stepping between him and the vision.
Toji blinked.
She was right.
It wasn't his mother.
It was the echo of his longing—for answers. For the pieces he never got to hold.
The Eye snapped forward and dispersed the illusion in a burst of crystalline light.
Kaela's Echo pulsed around her, anchoring them both.
"I wasn't going to go to her," Toji muttered.
"I know," Kaela said. "But that doesn't mean you didn't want to."
He looked at her. "Why didn't anything show for you?"
She hesitated. Then, quietly: "Because I'm still trying to figure out what I want."
He didn't respond.
But he understood.
⸻
Two students—Elric and Shira—fell behind.
They weren't lost physically.
But mentally, they wandered into echo illusions of future fame, warm accolades, lives they never had. Roth and Niko hauled them back, dragging them by the wrists until they blinked through the fog.
"They were happy in there," Niko whispered. "Smiling. Like it was real."
"It was real," Kaela said. "But only to the part of them that wanted it more than anything else."
Toji turned to the wall beside them and carved a mark with his sword.
"We make these paths real," he said. "Not the other way around."
⸻
As night fell within the Veins—though the concept of day no longer held meaning—the group sheltered in a crescent-shaped alcove where the world stabilized again.
Kaela pulled her cloak tighter, sitting beside Toji as the others rested.
"You were right about this place," she said.
"Too right," he muttered.
The Mnemo-Eye hovered again, quieter now—less erratic, more contemplative.
Kaela turned to him.
"You've been helping everyone."
"They'd slow us down otherwise."
"That's not why."
He looked at her.
She didn't flinch.
"You've changed," she said. "Not just your tether. You. You don't walk ahead of us anymore. You walk with us."
Toji said nothing.
Kaela reached into her satchel and pulled out a memory-thread—a silver thread of Echo energy extracted from an earlier encounter.
"I collected this earlier," she said. "It's partial, but it's from that vision—your mother. Or the mimic."
Toji's brow furrowed.
"I thought you said that wasn't real."
"It wasn't. But maybe what she said… mattered."
Kaela extended the thread.
Toji touched it.
In a flash, the phrase returned—not in a voice, but as a message etched in tethered light:
"You don't belong to them. Not until you decide who you are."
Toji breathed out slowly.
Kaela touched his hand.
"Maybe you don't need to decide all at once."
He turned to her.
For the first time since entering the Veins Beyond—
He allowed himself to nod.
——
The descent into the lower quadrant of the Veins Beyond began with silence—not the kind brought by awe, but the kind carved by absence. No echoes, no illusions. Just void.
Even the Mnemo-Eye dimmed.
Toji's boots touched a spiraled stairwell of obsidian glass. It led downward into a vast chamber bathed in a sickly reflection—not of light, but of perception. The surface rippled like liquid despite the stone, and every breath felt like it might reshape the floor beneath their feet.
The group stood at the threshold of the chamber.
Only six came.
Toji. Kaela. Roth. Niko. The two new Echo-bound students—Fenn, a quiet boy with hummingbird-like Echo reflexes, and Ysra, a tall girl whose Echo manifested as a pair of reflective twin masks.
"This place doesn't like names," Ysra whispered. "I can feel it. My Echo keeps shifting."
Kaela stepped closer to Toji. "This must be the chamber Varn warned us about. The one that scrambles identity."
"Not just names," Toji said. "But intent. Belief."
The Mnemo-Eye spun slowly behind him.
It pulsed three times.
Then, on its own, it projected a sigil into the space ahead—a swirling eye with runes cascading outward in branches. The moment the sigil formed, the walls of the chamber began to shift. Dozens—no, hundreds—of mirrored doors revealed themselves, stretching across the curved space like scales on a dragon's hide.
Each door bore a name.
Not a real name.
A title. A feeling. A lie dressed in truth.
Kaela pointed. "Look—'He Who Betrayed.' 'The Gentle Killer.' 'Child of Forgotten Realms.'"
Toji's door stood out.
It read simply: "The One Who Chose Silence."
He felt its pull.
Roth touched his own door. "'Unseen Second.'"
Niko gave a dry laugh at his: "'The Apologetic Hero.' That's not even accurate."
"It's not meant to be," Ysra said. "It's what the Echo believes your tethered self might become. Or fears it might be."
Kaela's door glowed faintly.
She didn't say the title.
Toji noticed—but didn't press her.
Varn's voice echoed suddenly through the chamber. It wasn't live. It was recorded, embedded into the walls like a tethered instruction.
"Each of you may enter only the door whose name you feel drawn to. Behind it lies a trial: not of combat, but of confirmation. You will face a version of yourself conjured by the Veins. You must either refute it—or become it."
Static. Silence.
Then:
"If you exit with your Echo unchanged, the Veins will consume your form and eject you voided."
Niko muttered, "Well. That's cheerful."
Toji moved to his door.
It opened soundlessly.
He turned to Kaela. "If we don't meet outside in two hours—pull the thread. Get everyone out."
Kaela frowned. "We're doing this together."
He shook his head. "You always say that."
Then stepped through.
⸻
Inside, Toji stood in a chamber of ash-white marble, bathed in inverted starlight. The air smelled like old parchment and frozen breath.
He faced himself.
But not quite.
The figure before him wore the same black-gray cloak. Carried the same sword. The Mnemo-Eye floated behind him, gleaming a touch brighter.
But his face…
Was calm.
Too calm.
"Hello, Toji," the Echo-Construct said.
He responded with silence.
"I'm not your tether. I'm what your tether fears," it continued. "The path where you never speak. Never ask for help. Never care."
Toji said nothing.
The false-Toji stepped closer.
"You hide it well. But you're afraid of losing your pain."
Now he flinched.
"Because if the pain goes away," the echo whispered, "what's left of your identity?"
The Mnemo-Eye began to glow—erratically.
"To defeat me," the construct said, drawing a blade that shimmered with thousands of fading memories, "you must strike first."
Toji didn't.
Instead, he said, softly, "No."
Then, without summoning his sword, he stepped forward.
The construct slashed once—a blur.
Toji moved through it.
The strike passed cleanly behind him, cutting only illusion.
He stood face to face with himself.
Then embraced the construct.
"I know who I am."
The chamber shattered like glass.
⸻
Outside the trial door, Toji emerged gasping, Mnemo-Eye stabilizing once again, now etched with a new ring of runes—signifying mastery of tether over identity.
He waited.
Minutes passed.
Then Kaela emerged—pale, breathing hard, but smiling.
"I didn't fight it," she said. "I just told her what I wanted."
"And?"
"I want to stay," she said. "With this class. With you."
Toji blinked.
Then said, "Good."
⸻
They regrouped. All six passed.
The chamber began to crumble, Veins shifting again—revealing a grand staircase made of bone-white light leading downward toward a new layer.
Kaela looked down.
"Still want to go deeper?"
Toji looked at her.
"I do now."
And together, they stepped into the next descent.