He stood in the Neither Mist proper now, purple fog roiling with malevolent intelligence. But he wasn't alone. Figures emerged from the mist—everyone he'd failed, disappointed, or lost. But these weren't the mannequin versions from the perfect world. These had weight, presence, pain.
His parents stood before him, aged by disappointment. His mother's eyes, once bright with hope for her son, now dulled by years of excuses and failed promises. His father, shoulders bent from carrying the weight of dreams his son had abandoned.
"We gave you everything," his mother said, and her voice carried years of hurt. "Private tutors. University fees. Every opportunity we never had."
"And you threw it away," his father added. "For what? Laziness? Fear? We'll never understand."
Yui materialized beside them, beautiful and cold. But this was the real Yui—or at least, the real pain she'd caused. "Three years, Ren. Three years I waited for you to care about something. Anything. But you just... existed. Like a ghost haunting your own life."
"I know," Ren said quietly. "I failed all of you."
More figures emerged. Professor Tanaka, who'd fought to keep him in the program. "Such potential," he said sadly. "If only you'd applied yourself."
His high school friend Kenji, who'd tried to stay in touch. "You just stopped responding. Like we stopped mattering."
Every disappointment, every bridge burned, every opportunity wasted. They surrounded him, a chorus of his failures.
"This is what you're choosing," Other-Ren said, standing among them like a conductor. "This is your reality. Wouldn't the dream be better?"
"No."
The word came out stronger than expected. Ren faced the accusations, the disappointments, the truth of his failures. And for the first time in his life, he didn't deflect with humor or sink into self-pity.
"You're right. All of you. I failed. I gave up. I disappointed everyone who believed in me." He took a breath, meeting each gaze. "But that's not all I am."
The figures paused, waiting.
"I also survived when everyone else died. Not because I was better or chosen. Maybe just because I was in the right place at the right time. But I survived." He thought of the journey, of the people who'd become important. "And then I chose to help. Badly, stupidly, but I tried. I made friends with people who had every reason to hate me. I chose to risk my life for strangers who became family."
"Pretty words," his father's image said. "But words don't change the past."
"No. But actions shape the future." Ren stepped forward. "I can't undo my failures. Can't give you back the years of disappointment. But I can choose to be better going forward. To fail better. To keep trying."
His mother's image softened. "Is that enough?"
"I don't know. But it's what I have to offer."
One by one, the figures began to change. Not disappearing in anger, but... accepting. His mother smiled—not the perfect smile from the illusion, but the complicated smile of a parent who loves their imperfect child.
"Then try, my son. Try and fail and try again."
His father nodded. "Make your failures mean something."
Even Yui's expression shifted. "I didn't leave because you failed, Ren. I left because you stopped trying. Don't stop again."
They faded, but not like smoke. Like memories settling into their proper place—painful but accepted, part of him but not defining him.
"How touching," Other-Ren said, but his form was becoming unstable. "You choose pain over paradise. How very human."
"That's the point. I am human. Messy, flawed, trying anyway."
"Then face what that means."
The mist parted, and Ren felt it—a presence so vast it didn't have edges, so old it predated the concept of age. THE NEITHER LORD. Not the anthropomorphized horror from stories, but something fundamentally alien. A consciousness that existed in dimensions humans couldn't perceive, let alone understand.