The next morning arrived far too quickly.

  The sun shone over Kuoh’s rooftops, and the campus buzzed with its usual noise—laughter, complaints about exams, trivial arguments about clubs and homework. Everything looked the same.

  But it wasn’t.

  Kaelan walked with his backpack slung over one shoulder, trying to ignore the uncomfortable pulse beneath his skin. The Resonance didn’t hurt. It didn’t burn. It didn’t push.

  It was simply attentive.

  Like an animal sensing a storm before the sky changes.

  The voices around him blended together—low, charged with curiosity more than fear.

  “Did you see the guy in the white suit yesterday?”

  “Yeah, the one who walked into the old building like he owned the place.”

  “They say he’s from an important family. Really important.”

  Kaelan clenched his jaw.

  They weren’t talking about demons.

  They weren’t talking about the Underworld.

  They were talking about power. About status. About things you could feel even when you didn’t understand them.

  Another voice, quieter:

  “Rias-senpai didn’t come today, right?”

  “No… and she left early yesterday.”

  “My cousin says the Gremory make weird deals with influential people. That they always come out ahead.”

  “Well,” someone else replied, “someone has to pay when those ‘special clubs’ do whatever they want, right?”

  A knot formed in Kaelan’s stomach.

  It wasn’t hatred.

  Not yet.

  It was something worse—accumulated discomfort.

  He kept walking without looking at the old building, even though every step urged him to.

  Then—

  “KAAAEELAAAN!”

  He almost jumped.

  Hiroshi and Tatsu came running, carrying clinically concerning levels of teenage energy.

  “Dude,” Hiroshi started, “you’ve got a face that—”

  “—says you lost a fight with your pillow,” Tatsu finished.

  Kaelan sighed.

  “I didn’t sleep.”

  “Nightmares, or an illegal anime marathon until four?” Hiroshi asked.

  Kaelan hesitated for half a second.

  “One of those.”

  The bell saved him. His friends shoved him as usual, said their goodbyes, and sprinted toward their classroom.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Kaelan took a deep breath.

  And froze.

  At the far end of the hallway stood Sona Sitri.

  She wasn’t hiding it.

  She wasn’t pretending to look elsewhere.

  She was watching him directly.

  There was no anger in her expression. No obvious concern, either. Just evaluation. A silent question hanging between them:

  Are you stable?

  Kaelan lowered his gaze for a moment.

  When he looked up again, Sona was already walking away. Beside her, Tsubaki moved in step, recording something on her magical tablet with surgical precision.

  Great.

  Another perfectly normal morning in Kuoh.

  Kaelan retreated to his favorite corner of campus: a bench behind the old gym where almost no one ever passed.

  He breathed. Finally, some silence.

  Until the silence died.

  “ARVERTH!!” Saji shouted, appearing like a blond gremlin with a bad attitude.

  Kaelan closed his eyes.

  “What is it now?”

  “The President wants you.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now,” Saji said, crossing his arms. “And when she said it, it sounded like: ‘If you’re two minutes late, I execute you for incompetence.’ So… hurry up.”

  Kaelan packed away his chopsticks.

  “Is it a mission?”

  “Probably,” Saji snorted. “Though with your Resonance, everything turns into a high-risk mission. Even breathing.”

  Kaelan gave him a please just kill me look.

  “Come on,” Saji sighed, “before the President decides to replace us with two potted plants with eyes.”

  The runes floated in the air.

  They weren’t broken.

  That was the unsettling part.

  They were functioning.

  Tsubaki stood before the node, tablet in hand, reviewing readings that didn’t line up with one another. Sona observed the barrier in silence, as if the problem wasn’t in what she saw—

  —but in what she didn’t.

  Kaelan and Saji arrived together.

  “Reporting in, President,” Saji said.

  “You’re late.”

  “Five minutes.”

  “Four would have been better.”

  Saji clenched his jaw.

  Tsubaki stepped in.

  “We don’t have a breach. Nor a stable entity.”

  Saji frowned.

  “Then what the hell do we have?”

  Tsubaki turned the tablet around.

  There was no clear demonic signature.

  No entity.

  There were layers.

  Overlapping waves—irregular, like concentric circles badly aligned.

  “Emotional accumulation,” she said. “Progressive.”

  Kaelan felt an immediate chill.

  “People?”

  “Humans,” Sona corrected. “Untrained. No conscious magical intent.”

  Saji blinked.

  “Humans touching the barrier?”

  “Not directly,” Sona replied. “They’re repeating patterns. Words. Gestures. Incomplete symbols.”

  Kaelan swallowed.

  “Like… a ritual?”

  The silence was answer enough.

  Sona spoke after a pause that lasted a second longer than usual.

  “Not a functional one,” she said. “Not yet. But a preparatory one.”

  Tsubaki expanded the projection.

  “This point isn’t the first. It’s the third.”

  Saji tensed.

  “How many are there?”

  “Four detected,” Tsubaki replied. “All in civilian zones. All near places where recent demonic bargains occurred.”

  Kaelan felt the weight of that.

  “Resentment?”

  “Frustration,” Sona corrected. “Misunderstood expectations. People who asked for ‘help’ without understanding the real cost.”

  The barrier pulsed.

  Not like an alarm.

  Like an echo.

  Kaelan took an involuntary step forward.

  The Resonance vibrated.

  Not hunger.

  Not fear.

  Familiarity.

  Saji noticed.

  “Hey… Arverth.”

  Kaelan stopped.

  “It’s not for you,” Sona said, without looking at him. “But your Resonance responds because this kind of energy doesn’t distinguish intent. Only accumulated pressure.”

  Tsubaki pointed to a specific spot.

  “This is where the residue you neutralized earlier appeared.”

  “The ‘Stray Fragment’?” Saji asked.

  “It wasn’t a creature,” Sona said. “It was what remains when something tries to form… and fails.”

  The air grew heavier.

  “So this is just the beginning,” Kaelan murmured.

  Sona nodded.

  “Yes.”

  “And if we don’t understand who’s repeating these patterns—and why—the next attempt won’t fail.”

  The barrier pulsed again.

  Once.

  Like a heart rehearsing.

  Sona closed her eyes for a moment.

  “This isn’t an invasion,” she said.

  “It’s a human error… with consequences they don’t yet understand.”

  A deep cold settled in Kaelan’s chest.

  For the first time, he understood something essential:

  The ritual wouldn’t be born from hatred.

  It would be born from disappointment.