(CONTINUED FROM CHAPTER 4)
It was another fine day at the Mounagiri Gakuen.
The classes continued as usual, and then the lunch bell rang.
Students stormed out of the classes to queue up in the cafeteria for lunch.
Meanwhile, Tamara took her specially-made lunch and headed for the rooftop for the pleasant weather.
She went up the stairs to the rooftop and saw Kodokuna sitting on the rooftop, this time, alone again with his sketchbook and his own thoughts, sketching something.
Tamara approached him gently, and Kodokuna immediately sensed her presence with those golden, radiant threads of hers.
He quickly closed his sketchbook in a hurry, stumbled, got up on both his feet, and steadied himself.
Tamara then saw white wobbly threads pouring out of Kodokuna and wondered mysteries that sketchbook that Kodokuna clenched - holds for him to be so nervous.
Then she gently spread her golden, radiant threads, and that vanquished the white wobbly threads.
Kodokuna calmed himself down in her presence.
He wondered about her mystery, too
such an art
such power that she possesses.
Tamara then sat in front of Kodokuna on a thread-woven silver chair on the rooftops.Kodokuna also sat on one of those thread-woven silver chairs adjacent to her.
He was curious to gain wisdom about her powers and asked hesitantly—
"How did you... Do that? The teacher, Maya... the threads, the fear...It's almost as if you gave them enlightenment. Are you using magic spells? Maybe fancy relics to harness and channel that power. Am I right?"
Tamara heard that and gave out a small laugh, but composed herself quickly and said—"It's not magic or relics. Rather, it's memory dimension presence and training."
She scanned the area nearby, looking cautiously around, and signalled Kodo to come even closer.Kodo hesitated but moved closer.
Tamara's voice dropped lower than the wind just above silence—"I was trained from a young age...by the Saradzkuri."
Kodo repeated slightly louder—
"The Saradz—?"
But Tamara unleashed her golden threads swiftly and shut Kodo's mouth before the name finished breathing out. The threads felt soft, gentle, but carried weight. A warning.
Kodo mumbled behind them—"Is that another school?"
Tamara slowly withdrew her threads; her eyes were still watching every ripple in the rooftop light.
Then a whisper—"It's not just a school. It's a hidden order passed down through the noble lineages those who can sense threads feel the emotions and heal them before they break people from the core."
She looked to the sky briefly, then back at him." I wasn't supposed to speak the name outside the thread walls even whispering it feels like lighting a fuse."
Kodokuna listened and thought She was making up a story.
He chuckled nervously, almost out of habit.
But Tamara looked at him with an intent
so still so exact
He stopped. He felt something inside pulling tight. A few purple threads shivered out of him.
Tamara noticed. of course, she did.
Kodo asked—"Really? If this is true, then why tell me? I'm just some random student. Why say dangerous classified ancestral-thread stuff to someone like me?"
Tamara studied him
But her face gave away nothing. What she saw was beneath.
" You have golden threads. Not visible, not loud, but real. Deeply embedded,buried,dormant,but pulsing.
I sensed them that day when I sat beside you. But it was clearer the day Haro Sir came when you recoiled from the black strand. your white threads shook. But something else tried to rise."
Kodokuna, still confused, said—"But I thought I was broken. All I ever see are the threads. I never changed anything. I just watched.
"Tamara—"Maybe you were never meant to change them. not yet. Maybe you were meant to see."
A breeze swept between them. Tamara's threads shimmered in it.
Kodo opened his sketchbook slowly and paused. A page. A mark. He didn't remember drawing it.
Five strands breaking around a circle.
Tamara's eyes widened, her voice thinned into shock—
"That...That is a Weaver's Mark, Kodo."
Kodo stared.
his pulse dropped into silence.
"...What does it mean?"
Tamara—"It's a mark given, not made.
someone who doesn't just see threads but can...reshape them bend outcomes rewrite fate."
she hesitated—"But it comes at a cost."
Kodokuna stared at the symbol again.
His hand trembled slightly.
A flicker—not a memory but a moment years ago, when he had drawn a circle without knowing why.on a wall. behind his old house.
"Am I one of them?" he asked quietly but with something beneath the question.
Tamara—"I don't know. But if you are...The threads around you will test you."
Far beneath the Mounagiri Gakuen in a sealed room
No student had ever entered
No map had ever marked
No thread dared linger—a whisper broke the stillness. Thin, sharp like static caught in breath.
"He has begun to see."
In the dim corner of that room, a shadow unfolded from itself.
On the floor, drawn in ash—a circle, broken by five strands.