The second tier of the Hero's Journey. It includes the road of trials, meeting with the goddess, woman as a temptress, and atonement with father, apotheosis, and the ultimate boon.
Initiation
The Road of Trials constitutes a huge part of the hero's journey. In essence it is all the trials that the hero meets to achieve the hero status. In it the hero succeeds and fails, wins and loses, accomplishes and doubts. Because Yakuza is broken into four games, there is a lot of information to cover. In the first one, Kazuma finds out that Yumi is missing and that Nishiki has betrayed him. He finds Haruka and starts to look after her. Ultimately he reunites Haruka and Yumi but cannot save Yumi. Accepting the fact that he will never be whole again he just gives up on living. It is only with Date's guidance that he decides to look after Haruka and moves out of hte Yakuza lifestyle. In Yakuza 2, Tojo clan tries to draw him in once more but he desperately tries to stay out of it. He is thrown into the position of mediator and messenger when the fifth chairman gets shot. In attempts to stay free of the Yakuza world Kazuma finds Dojima Daigo and tries to make him the leader of the clan. He has to combat the Omi Alliance, in which he is more or less victorious but also has to combat the Yakuza Eater, Sayama Kaoru.
Battling with both the good and the bad, rather the opposite scales he sees he cannot please everyone. Though he befriends Sayama in the end. He tries to have Haruka become an idol but she refuses because she wants to be with him. In Yakuza 3, Kazuma's home is in danger and he once again gets drawn into the Tojo clan strife. His friend Nakahara is shot and so is Daigo. He has to go back and forth between Kamurocho and Okinawa to unravel the mystery of the construction plans. By Yakuza 4 we find out that the troubles that were caused by Nishiki were part of a grander plan by a man named Munakata, he is the chief of police. He has been pulling the stings behind every incident. Although Kazuma is unable to save several people (His father, the woman he loves, his best friend, his sidekick) he keeps moving forward. He is solid in the idea that he will at the very least protect Haruka and his other children.
The meeting with the Goddess represents the hero's desire for love and to be connected with someone . Usually someone that they cannot be with, in Kazuma's case this could be Yumi or Sayama. There is a moment in the Yakuza 2 in which he and Sayama have a few moments which can be seen as friendship or romantic. In this way, Kazuma wants to be connected with someone, but because she is a police officer she often throws that around at him. She is downright unbearable to him for most of the game. Sayama also represents woman as the temptress as she often reminds Kazuma that she can arrest him anytime she wants too. She tries to keep him off the Yakuza path, having little to no sympathy for him (in some case not even treating him like he is a person).
The Atonement with the father usually features a moment in which the hero faces the ultimate power. It represents where the hero started not where they are going, for Kazuma this is uncertain for a long time. Really he wants a family and he cannot have it because Fuma killed his birth parents. He was then put into a Yakuza Funded Orphanage. Fuma became a sort of stand in father, and in the remaining games Kazuma refers to him as "Pops". In Yakuza 2 Kazuma finds out that Fuma killed his parents and is the cause of the current strife going on. But he is thankful for hte life that Fuma did give him. Without it, he would not have the small family he does have and he appreciates it. In Yakuza 3 we meet Fuma's younger brother, Joji, and it comes as a great shock to Kazuma who mistakes him for Pops. He eventually reconiles with Joji and finds out that they are after Richardson. Basically, Fuma's involvement in his life has put him on the path he is on, regardless of how much Kazuma tries to stay out of it.
When the hero becomes the being and protector that we all want, it is referred to as the Apotheosis. Kazuma has several instances of this. In Yakuza he reunites with Yumi and starts to care for Haruka. In Yakuza 2 he succeeds in making Daigo the sixt chairmen; Yakuza 3 he saves his orphanage. And finally in Yakuza 4 he and his comrades stop Munakata and sort out a problem that had been festering since he was released from prison.
The ultimate boon achieves the hero's goal; for Kazuma this is tricky because he wants to live a quiet life. At the end of 4 he is still part of the Tojo clan, unable to fully get away from it. He has, however, sorted out the problems between clansmen and helped to restore honor to Tojo Clan. With that, he is able to live more calmly but knows that they will continue to rely on him.