The sky above the village wore the color of winter glass—clouded, still, uncertain. Though it was only mid-morning, a low hush seemed to have settled over the school grounds, broken only by the caws of distant crows and the faint rustle of wind through brittle branches.
Minakawa Souta stood beside the classroom window, his arms crossed and posture relaxed. He watched students drifting between classes, books clutched to chests, laughter shared in fleeting moments. A quiet, simple rhythm. But in the midst of that ordinary tide, three stood just slightly apart.
Yamada Koji. Kana Ishikawa. Takeshi Murata.
They still blended in, for now. Their footsteps were not louder, their expressions not alien. But something deeper had shifted. Souta could see it in the way they carried their silence.
They knew.
And that knowledge had weight.
The day passed without incident. Classes ended. The school bell chimed, its sound sharp against the still air.
Souta waited, not at his desk, but by the edge of the school rooftop, looking down at the shrinking shadows. His coat fluttered faintly in the wind.
One by one, they arrived.
Yamada came first, quiet as always, his shoes barely making a sound on the concrete. Kana arrived a minute later, notebook in hand, eyes scanning him like she had already prepared ten questions. Takeshi brought up the rear, hands in pockets, a slight frown on his face—not from annoyance, but from thought.
Souta didn't greet them right away. He let the wind speak first.
"How are you adjusting?" he asked finally, turning only halfway toward them.
Yamada shrugged. "It's like carrying a mirror I didn't know I had. Every time I think, it shows me how I'm thinking."
"I've been having weird dreams," Takeshi muttered. "Not nightmares. Just... vivid. Like puzzles I can't quite solve."
Kana nodded. "I'm noticing patterns. In people. Behavior, reactions, even hesitation. I don't know if it's from me or the system. Maybe both."
Souta watched their faces carefully. Not for signs of resistance, but for something subtler—how they held their questions.
"You're experiencing mental resonance," he said softly. "It's not dangerous. But it can be disorienting."
"So this is permanent?" Kana asked.
"No," Souta replied. "But it deepens with time. As your thoughts align with your intentions, the system responds. It enhances your capacity for focus and analysis, but it doesn't take over. It follows you. Not the other way around."
Takeshi squinted toward the forested ridge in the distance. "And you've been using it longer than we have."
Souta didn't answer directly.
Instead, he stepped away from the edge and reached into his coat. From a cloth pouch, he produced three objects—small, metallic badges, each shaped like a branching seedling.
He handed one to each of them.
"These aren't from the system," he said. "They're just symbols. To remind you that you carry something now. A potential few will ever understand."
Yamada held his gently, as if it might break.
Kana ran her thumb over the etched lines.
Takeshi blinked. "We're not starting a cult or anything, are we?"
Souta allowed a rare smile. "Not unless you bring robes."
That cracked the tension. For a moment, they laughed—just kids again.
But the moment passed.
Kana, sharp as ever, tilted her head. "There's more, isn't there? Something you're not saying."
Souta didn't look away. "Yes."
Later that night, Souta sat alone in the Growth Matrix Space.
The forest he'd cultivated now sprawled in quiet, dreamlike harmony. Leaves rustled in accelerated breeze, and faint points of light drifted between trunks like pollen suspended in time.
At the edge of the clearing stood a new addition—bare earth marked by concentric rings of stone.
A placeholder.
He hadn't planted the new seed yet.
Not until they were ready.
He opened the interface briefly, watching as each of his three followers pulsed with stable resonance. Yamada's was strong. Kana's steady. Takeshi's—surprisingly firm.
But that wasn't what troubled him.
He turned, walking to the far edge of the space, where the digital sky met a seam of unreadable void.
He hadn't told them about the second anomaly yet.
Not the strange readings from his devices. Not the shifts in weather patterns localized entirely around the village. Not the faint pulses that mirrored his system's signature—faint echoes that felt like... a twin.
Node One had been the fragment.
But something else was out there.
The next day dawned grey, with a strange stillness in the air.
At school, the trio kept their heads down. For now, they shared no more than glances, coded words. Not from fear—but from a common understanding. They would protect the secret.
But others were noticing.
In the hallway between periods, Souta overheard two second-years whispering.
"Koji was reading some science journal during lunch. Like, actual university stuff."
"And Kana kept asking me these weird questions about curiosity. It was kind of... intense."
In the lab, Takeshi had grown unusually quiet during class. One student muttered, "He used to throw chalk for fun. Now he's... dissecting motors?"
The change wasn't dramatic. But it was perceptible. And whispers, once seeded, tend to grow.
That same morning, at a small tea shop near the school, an elderly couple watched the sky.
"The birds flew in circles yesterday," the old woman murmured. "Not migrating—just... confused."
"I heard the electronics at the shrine's offering box shorted out," her husband said. "Same day the air smelled like burning ozone."
Across the village, dogs had begun barking in unison near sundown. Wireless radios cut out and returned with strange static. A local fisherman swore the lake's surface had glowed faintly blue just before dawn.
Something was stirring.
And the village, in its quiet way, was starting to notice.
That evening, Souta found himself standing at the base of the mountain trail again.
Same trail where it all began.
He hadn't returned here since activating the system.
He walked alone this time, no hiking bag, no map. Only the sigil faintly glowing under his palm, unseen but always felt.
The shrine at the top was as silent as ever. But the air felt... heavier.
He knelt by the cedar tree, brushing aside moss with a gentle hand.
And there it was.
A faint pulse beneath the earth. Different from before. Not light—but vibration.
Alive.
He pressed his palm flat against the roots. The system shimmered faintly in his mind, then glitched.
A new message flashed for less than a second.
Proximity Alert: Node Resonance Detected
Source: Node-02 (Dormant)
Then it vanished.
Souta's breath caught.
Node... Two?
Back at school, Yamada closed his notebook after finishing a late entry. His eyes drifted toward the ceiling. The system hadn't spoken, but he could feel something. Like a wire humming faintly in the background of his thoughts.
Kana scribbled on the back of a worksheet, writing not words but frameworks—how questions connect, how thought evolves.
Takeshi stared at a dismantled fan, his thoughts not on the machine, but on the moment behind the gym. On what it meant to carry something no one else could see.
They all felt it.
A shift coming.
That night, Souta opened the interface one final time before sleep.
The system responded slower than usual.
When the panel loaded, a new line glowed faintly at the bottom:
Node Proximity Threshold Approaching. Prepare for System Expansion.
He closed his eyes.
The roots were spreading. And soon, they would reach the next source.
But not yet.
Not before they were ready.
Not before they understood what it meant to know.