As Ryu ran, his breaths even and his footsteps carefully measured to match the other boys, a strange ripple brushed against his senses. It wasn't sound, nor sight, nor touch—it was deeper, woven into the invisible tapestry he alone could feel.
The chaos of the world, usually swirling faint and harmless like background noise, suddenly shifted. It was subtle at first, like a breeze moving against the usual current. But then, steadily, it grew sharper—directional, almost focused.
Ryu's brows furrowed.
'This… what is going on?'
It reminded him of the first day the [Book of Everything] manifested, when an unnatural stillness had spread across reality itself—calmness replacing disorder. But this time, it was the opposite. Not calming. Not balancing. The turbulence was escalating.
His alarm bells rang inside his mind. His stride faltered, slowing just enough to break rhythm with the others. He squinted, scanning the track, the field, the edge of the school grounds. Every instinct screamed at him: "something is pushing the chaos outward, expanding it."
The shouts of his classmates faded into background static. Even Naoka's encouraging clap of hands felt far away. His attention tunneled, seeking the source.
As his gaze swept across the scene, the shifting chaos sharpened in his perception, narrowing to a single point. His eyes locked onto a small figure—a little girl darting after a red ball as it rolled onto the road.
'Damn it—!'
On the highway, a car was cutting down the lane at frightening speed, its engine growling louder with every passing second.
The lines of probability overlapped in his mind like threads weaving toward disaster—the girl, the ball, the car, the chaos converging into a single deadly point.
Ryu kicked off the ground, this time with no restraint. The world blurred around him as he veered away from the track, the thundering rhythm of his sprint unlike any a child should have.
Behind him, voices rose in confusion.
"Ryu! Where are you going? The track is not that way—!" Naoka's voice cut through the air, sharp with alarm.
But then she saw it—the girl, her small arms stretched toward the rolling ball, oblivious to everything else. Naoka's breath caught in her throat, her heart hammering as realization struck. Her voice cracked, nearly a scream, but she forced it down into a controlled shout, "Stop! Don't go any further!"
The girl didn't stop. Her small frame kept running, eyes fixed only on the bouncing red ball.
Naoka's instincts surged, and without hesitation she threw herself forward, sprinting with all she had toward the gate. Her whistle clattered uselessly against her chest, forgotten.
The students, frozen for a heartbeat in confusion, soon followed her gaze. Their eyes widened in shock as they too saw the unfolding scene.
"The ball—she's—!" one boy cried.
The circle broke apart, little feet pounding on the ground as they chased after their teacher, panic blooming among them.
But Ryu was already ahead, his small frame cutting across the field like an arrow loosed from a bow. His mind whirred as fast as his legs, calculating distances, angles, the approaching doom. The car was only seconds away, and the girl—just a few steps from the road.
As his radius of equilibrium spread outward, the oncoming vehicle entered its reach. In an instant, Ryu willed it into stillness, trying to force all the chaos of pistons and combustion into silence. Calm down. No—stop—
But the moment his perception locked inside the car, he was forced to break his ability away from the car.
There wasn't just the driver. Two passengers sat in the back. No—one passenger. A woman, clutching her swollen belly, face pale and twisted in agony. Her cries shook the air inside the cabin as the baby pressed toward life too early, or too violently. The driver's panic bled into the chaos, his hands white-knuckled on the wheel.
The realization hit Ryu like a blow. If he stopped the car abruptly, if he destabilized the engine in one reckless surge, the woman could suffer even worse. The child she carried could suffer too.
'Damn it. I can't just slam it to zero. I need to… bleed it out. Gradually.'
His breathing sharpened as he pushed his will outward, not to crush the chaos, but to soothe it. His power brushed against the churning combustion of the engine, the violent rhythm of steel and fire. Slowly, carefully, he pressed his thought into it: 'calm down… calm down… calm down.'
The roaring engine faltered, its pulse easing, power slipping away. The car's velocity began to dip, but it was still fast—far too fast. From a hundred kilometers an hour, it bled down to ninety, then eighty, but the road still screamed beneath its tires.
Ahead, the little girl had already reached the middle of the road, her tiny hands reaching for the red ball on the asphalt, her carefree laughter ringing out.
Ryu's chest tightened. 'Not fast enough. Come on—!'
He poured more focus into the engine, dragging it further down toward stability, but kept his legs pumping at full sprint.
He had to reach her first. His small legs pushed harder, muscles straining as he drove himself to the very edge. Instinctively, his ability flowed outward again—calming the resistance of air that whipped at him, soothing the friction biting at his stride.
The world's drag lightened, giving him one more burst of impossible speed.
Naoka's heart leapt into her throat. She had never seen Ryu move like this. For an instant her mind froze, but the sight of the little girl standing in the middle of the highway snapped her back. The ball now clutched happily in the girl's hands, and only a blur of steel and headlights closing in.
"No!!" Naoka's scream tore through the field.
Ryu's body shot past the gate. In the final second, he wrapped his arms around the girl, her tiny gasp muffled against his chest. He didn't think—he just jumped.
The car roared beneath them. His feet slammed onto the hood, momentum carrying his back into the windshield.
The impact should have shattered glass, bones, and everything in between—but his equilibrium field softened it all. Gravity itself seemed to bend, the chaos of force calmed and dispersed. The glass did not break. His body did not bruise. The girl clung tightly, unharmed.
The vehicle moved on, rolling several more meters before slowing to a shaky halt. Inside, the driver's hands trembled, eyes wide in shock.
His mind had fractured between the sudden miracle outside and the groans of his wife inside the car, whose labor pains made him forget even the brake pedal until the car was nearly at rest.
The world grew quiet again, save for the slow rain, and the pounding of Naoka's footsteps as she sprinted toward them.
***
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