(CONTINUED FROM CHAPTER 7)
The afternoon bell rang, the corridor buzzing with chatter and slamming lockers. Students dashed past, laughter bouncing off the walls of Mounagiri Gakuen.
Kodo was finally beginning to settle into his usual corner seat. He glanced sideways at Tamara, who sat bathed in the glow of sunlight. He thanked the gods for such a gentle soul, someone who had turned this harsh academy into a kind of quiet paradise.
Pale green threads shimmered gently from him. Grateful, they drifted towards Tamara's golden strands, soft and unsure, expressing thanks without words. Tamara noticed. She allowed the threads to graze hers. A quiet moment of resonance passed between them.
But something shifted. The air around the Gakuen turned strange, not cold, but strange like a thread humming out of tune.
Then a tall, pale boy entered the classroom of 11A. He moved like smoke — silent, slow, deliberate. His eyes were silvery ash-grey with such an unsettling intensity. Around him, the threads didn't flow, they tensed and pulsed with vigour.
The moment he stepped inside class 11A, Tamara froze, and her golden threads trembled violently. The pen in her hand clattered to the floor.
Kodo looked up, just in time to see her expression go still. She, who had faced panic before, now trembled. Her hand gripped her seat so tightly her knuckles turned white.
It was like that other incident, the day she froze during the stroll and never spoke about it again. The boy gave a faint, unnerving smile and scanned the room with a detached calm.
"Sorry, I'm late, sir. Transfer — classified arrangement," he said, his voice laced with venom.
Even the teacher faltered and shook at his intensity.
"Y-Yes… Introduce yourself to the class…"
The boy introduced himself, and the whole class sat as if they had seen a ghost.
He had silvery white ash eyes, dressed in a black coat, and on top of that, with his stern expression, could give the shivers.
The teacher, clearly intimidated, motioned him to sit wherever he liked.
As the boy walked to the back, students at the bench edges shifted away from him like roads clearing for a minister's convoy. The threads behind him slithered unnaturally, like broken film, flickering with distortion. Kodo's skin crawled.
Tamara suddenly stood. Not to speak. Not to attack. But as if to run. Kodo reached out instinctively, sending his shaky white threads to caress her golden ones.
Tamara whispered, barely audible, "Kodo… that boy's a Noolzai. He's one of them."
Kodo, startled but curiously asked, "One of what?"
She looked at him, not with mischief or fire, but with raw primal fear. Then slowly sat back down. Her voice trembling, "Saradzkuri trains threadhealers to protect, to restore. But the Noolzai? They twist minds. Snap memory from the soul. He shouldn't be here."
"Something dangerous is approaching, Kodo."
The boy turned. His silvery stern gaze landed on Tamara. He grinned at her.
One second. That was all it took.
Tamara gasped, her eyes wide, as if a ghost had taken human form. Her threads burst into a deep purplish pulse. She, who had radiated golden threads as vibrant as the sun, now emanated blue purplish threads that pulsed like a storm.
Kodo was shocked, but he steadied himself as he looked at her in this state.
"He was there… at the Fall of House…" she whispered, shaking. "I was twelve…"Her voice cracked on the last word.
Kodo's hands clenched with concern but determination. A faint shimmer of gold threads pulsed from him, barely controlled, and grazed Tamara.
She inhaled sharply, then stilled, her shoulders relaxed. She let out a sigh of relief. She turned, surprised. Her golden threads flickered faintly back to life.
He doesn't even know what he just did… she thought.
The new boy noticed Kodo's power. His eyes narrowed in amazement.
*That is just a hallucination; it was a fluke.*
Still, he composed himself, adjusted his black coat, shifted in his seat a little, and steadied himself.
He looked at Tamara. His grin widened. "So you do remember me, bridge-girl," he said, voice coldly playful. The threads around him flickered, like they were breathing for the first time.
He then turned his attention to Kodo. His crimson black threads faltered slightly.
Something in Kodo unsettled even his crimson black threads, which he had great pride in. A phenomenon he couldn't yet explain, but had a vague hypothesis.
He rambled with coldness, "They stitched your memory, huh? You don't remember your father, do you?" "Or the KAZAN trials that carved your threadmark, your KYORU harmonic?" "What Circle did they even brand you with? Threadless? VARKH?"
Kodo flinched. "W-What… are you talking about…?"
The boy tilted his head at Kodo.
"Your threads are stitched at the heart, aren't they?" You don't remember your mother's screams. But your threads do."
"You're not just a student here, Kodokuna. You're a mistake they tried to erase."
Then, without another word, the boy turned. As if he'd seen enough. As if the whole class didn't matter. The air behind him thickened.
Far away, in the shadowed halls of Noolzai, A cloaked figure stood before an ancient mirror, threads swirling in its glass."He's inside the academy," the voice rasped. "The forbidden thread lives, and he doesn't even know it yet. Let the KAZAN filters burn. Let Mounagiri fall with its stitched illusions."
The mirror darkened and pulsed.
And the thread they tried to burn...began to unravel.