I. The room where no gesture returns
Inside the Reverse Garden, Sael identified a new anomaly: a small, circular chamber, sealed from the outside, that no one remembered having built. Upon entering, he discovered that any gesture made there—a bow, a flick of the wrist, a slight step—simply had no echo. It wasn't rejected. It was ignored by reality .
Upon exiting, he noticed his body was slightly disoriented, as if he didn't know if he'd finished moving. Riva defined the phenomenon as Partial Tactile Nullification (PTA) . He described it this way:
"It's not that the body fails. It's that the world, for a moment, decides not to recognize it."
Naeya suggested that the chamber be kept as an exploration laboratory. But Velos warned:
—Some gestures shouldn't be repeated if they've never been received. Because then... they start repeating themselves.
II. The Return of the Number Seven
Seven, one of the quietest of the Ironborn, returned after weeks of isolation. His movements were different. His gait was lighter. But each of his gestures caused small alterations in the environment: vibrations in the ground, shadows that contracted slightly, or fragments of sound without a source.
Akihiko watched him train.
—You're not hitting. You're… remembering with your body.
Seven didn't respond. He simply executed a sequence that mimicked the movements of the duel he'd witnessed between Four and Akihiko. Without copying. Just returning the memory to space.
What he was doing wasn't a fight. It was a physical commemoration.
III. The Inverted Echo – The Birth of the Delayed Response Reflex (DRR)
During an experimental session in Persistence Ring One, Juno performed a perfectly executed evasion sequence. However, a few seconds later… she felt the impact. Not in her body, but in her breathing. As if the movement she had avoided had decided to touch her… later.
This generated a new classification: Delayed Response Reflex (DRR) .
Velos began studying these physical delays in the body. He discovered that RRT wasn't random. It was emotional. The impact that wasn't felt in the body manifested later… when the body was ready to receive it.
Riva concluded:
"There are blows you can't dodge. They're just delayed until you learn to take them."
IV. Double Attack – Antivowels and Transients
That same night, two combined squads of Antivowels and Antivowel Transitions stormed Edenfall. They didn't attack infrastructure. They attacked Ring trainers .
The objective was clear: to destabilize the structure of collective body language.
Velos was one of the first to react, but this time he didn't use aggressive techniques. He used Suspended Counterstyle . Not to avoid the blow, but to return the incomplete gesture.
Every time an Antivocal tried to erase an intention, Velos repeated it without modification. With such precision, it forced the other to see themselves reflected in their own action. And that… destabilized their narrative.
Akihiko and Marek repelled the attack in Ring Seven with a joint choreography that fused the Cyclic Error with the Choreography of the Unsteady. It was a battle between what wants to assert itself… and what must adapt.
V. Sael and the Incomplete Letter
After the attack, Sael found a blank sheet of paper in his room. It was on the floor. No one had left it. But when he touched it, he felt a pulsing in his palm. It was an intentional message with no content.
He wrote only one sentence:
"What you didn't say… may have reached me anyway."
He placed the leaf in the center of the Reverse Garden. No one touched it again. But every night, new words appeared… not written by anyone's hand.
Thus was born the Incomplete Letter : an unintentional collective text, formed by the unexpressed gestures of everyone.
VI. Epilogue – When the blow does not need an audience
Silently, at the edge of one of the less-used rings, Akihiko trained alone. He didn't execute sequences. He didn't apply technique. He just... let his body do what it wanted.
Seven approached him. They both began to move. Not in combat. Not in a duel. Just… sharing space with movements that didn't need witnesses.
And between them, the air began to respond with a calm that didn't vibrate... but remembered.
END OF CHAPTER 177