Chapter 33
They did not sleep.
Miss Aiko took the first watch, but no one truly relaxed while she sat near the entrance of the hollow tree. Okama took the second watch without being asked. Mai tried to rest during both, but every time she closed her eyes she saw the same red window floating in the darkness.
[[External observation initiated]]
The message had vanished, but the feeling remained.
Something had noticed them.
Something had noticed all of them.
By dawn, the horns had stopped.
The forest was silent again.
This time, the silence felt deliberate.
Miss Aiko crawled out of the tree first and studied the eastern horizon through the branches. The sky was pale grey, and low fog drifted between the trunks.
“We’re leaving,” she said.
Mai pushed herself upright. “Because of the horns?”
“Because of the horns, the crest resonance, and the fact that whoever sent the signal knows enough about the area to coordinate multiple positions.”
Okama stepped out after her. “How many people?”
“Unknown.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
Puss climbed out last, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Her ears remained angled toward the east.
“I can hear something,” she said.
Mai turned toward her. “What?”
“Not voices. Metal.”
They listened.
At first, Mai heard nothing.
Then it came.
A faint clinking sound echoed through the trees.
Metal against metal.
Slow footsteps.
More than one person.
Okama drew his sword.
Miss Aiko raised her staff.
Puss crouched low, claws extending from her fingers.
The sound stopped.
Mai’s heart began to pound.
A figure appeared between the trees.
Then another.
Then five more.
They wore dark travelling cloaks over light armour, with red cloth wrapped around their arms. Their faces were hidden behind simple wooden masks painted with narrow white lines.
The man from the road stood at their centre.
Mai recognized him immediately.
His sword hung at his side, but he had not drawn it yet. His eyes moved over the group and stopped at the glowing crests beneath their clothes.
He smiled again.
“There you are.”
Miss Aiko stepped forward. “You followed us.”
“I observed you,” he corrected. “Following suggests I had trouble finding you.”
Okama’s sword lifted slightly. “What do you want?”
The man looked amused. “You still ask that as if the answer will make you feel better.”
The masked figures spread out around them.
Not attacking.
Positioning.
Miss Aiko’s grip tightened around her staff. “State your business.”
“Our organization is collecting awakened individuals.”
“Collecting?” Mai repeated.
“Recruiting, if they cooperate. Capturing, if they don’t.”
Puss’s tail lashed behind her. “I vote for not cooperating.”
“That is unfortunate,” the man replied. “Your crest is particularly interesting.”
Puss’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what it does.”
“No,” he said. “But the system does.”
A shiver ran through Mai.
The man reached inside his cloak and pulled out a small metal disc. It was dark silver, covered in red lines that looked disturbingly similar to crest markings.
“Since the Red Dawn,” he continued, “we have been able to identify people with unusual growth potential. Some are worth protecting. Others are worth controlling.”
Okama stepped fully in front of Mai.
The man noticed.
His expression brightened.
“Ah,” he said. “You’re the protective one.”
Okama’s eyes hardened. “Take one more step and find out how protective.”
The man laughed softly.
“You misunderstand. I’m not here to fight you.”
“Then leave.”
“I’m here to offer you a choice.”
He raised the disc.
A red circle appeared in the air above it. Lines spread outward, forming a complex diagram that made Mai’s crest burn beneath her clothes.
[[Foreign system interface detected]]
The message appeared in her vision again.
This time, it did not disappear.
A second line followed.
[[Attempting connection]]
Mai staggered.
“Mai?” Okama caught her shoulder.
The instant he touched her, his crest flared.
The red diagram above the man’s disc cracked.
A pulse of force exploded outward.
The masked figures were thrown back. Several crashed into trees. The man himself slid several metres across the ground, boots carving lines through the dirt.
Mai fell against Okama.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
His hand was still around her arm.
His body was pressed close enough that she could feel the heat of him through their clothes.
“You all right?” he asked.
Mai looked up at him.
His face was tense, focused, and far too close.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Then she realized how close they were and immediately pulled away.
“I mean, yes. I’m fine.”
Okama blinked once, then turned back toward the attackers.
Mai wished the forest would swallow her.
Miss Aiko had seen everything.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Her expression was carefully neutral.
That was worse than teasing.
The man rose from the dirt.
The smile was gone.
“That was unexpected.”
Miss Aiko pointed her staff at him. “You tried to connect to our crests.”
“I tested the interface.”
“Without permission.”
“I needed to know whether the reports were accurate.”
Okama took a step forward. “And now you know.”
The man’s eyes shifted to the crack in the metal disc.
“Yes,” he said. “Now I know you are not ordinary awakened.”
Puss moved beside Mai, claws raised. “We already knew that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
He looked directly at her.
“Your crests are resonating with one another. That should not be possible.”
Miss Aiko’s expression changed.
“Why not?”
The man did not answer immediately.
Instead, he reached up and removed his wooden mask.
He was older than Mai had first thought, perhaps in his forties. A long scar crossed his left cheek, running from beneath one eye to the edge of his jaw. His crest was visible on his neck, partly hidden beneath his collar.
Unlike theirs, it was black.
Mai stared.
“A black crest,” Miss Aiko whispered.
The man smiled faintly. “You’ve heard of them.”
“Only in old records.”
“Most people have.”
“What does it do?” Okama asked.
“Nothing pleasant.”
The trees around them seemed to darken.
The man lifted his hand.
The black crest on his neck began to glow.
A wave of pressure rolled through the clearing.
Mai’s knees weakened.
Okama grunted and lowered his sword slightly. Puss’s claws dug into the soil. Even Miss Aiko staggered, though she remained standing.
The masked figures recovered and began moving again.
Mai’s crest flared.
This time, the pain was sharp.
She clutched her chest.
The red mark burned through her clothes, and a stream of light travelled from it toward Okama’s crest.
His crest answered.
A line of red energy formed between them.
Then another line extended toward Miss Aiko.
A third reached Puss.
The four crests connected.
The pressure vanished.
The man’s expression changed completely.
“No.”
The line of crimson light expanded into a circle around the group.
The ground beneath them lit up with the same geometric patterns Mai had seen during the pre-awakening event. Symbols turned in the air. The forest blurred at the edges.
Miss Aiko stared at the forming circle.
“Everyone, move!”
They tried.
The circle tightened.
Okama grabbed Mai’s wrist. Miss Aiko reached for Puss. The catgirl leapt toward them, claws scraping against the glowing boundary.
The man shouted something in a language Mai did not understand.
The black crest on his neck flared violently.
A dark spear of energy shot toward the circle.
Miss Aiko reacted first.
She slammed the base of her staff into the ground.
Ice erupted from the soil, forming a wall between the spear and the group. The impact shattered the barrier instantly, but it slowed the attack enough for Okama to raise his hand.
His Coded Hologram appeared.
A glowing wall formed in front of them.
Okama’s fingers moved rapidly through the air, writing a command across its surface.
[[Redirect: hostile force]]
The spear of darkness struck the hologram.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the code ignited.
The attack bent sideways and tore through the trees instead, splitting a massive trunk from top to bottom.
Okama stumbled, breathing hard.
“It worked,” Mai said.
“Barely.”
The man stared at him.
“You can code Skills?”
Okama did not answer.
The circle beneath them began to spin faster.
Puss reached the edge and slammed both hands against it.
“Let me in!”
Mai grabbed her arm and pulled.
For one terrible second, the barrier held her outside.
Then Mai’s crest surged.
A burst of red light snapped across the space between them, dragging Puss through the circle. She crashed into Mai, and all four of them fell together.
The world disappeared.
There was no ground.
No sky.
No forest.
Only red.
Mai felt herself falling through a vast space filled with glowing symbols. Shapes flashed past her: crests, keys, skill windows, unfamiliar names, and images of people she had never seen.
She heard voices.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.
Some screamed.
Some prayed.
Some laughed.
One voice whispered her name.
Mai.
She twisted in the darkness.
“Who are you?”
The voice did not answer.
Another image appeared.
A classroom.
Dusty windows.
Broken relics.
A history lesson.
Yuuno sitting near the back of the room, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on a cracked statue while Miss Aiko spoke passionately about an ancient war.
Mai reached for the image.
It shattered.
She saw Okama next.
Not the Okama standing beside her now, but another version of him. Red hair. A blue streak. A sword in his hand. Blood on his cheek.
Then Puss.
A girl with dark hair and cruel eyes.
A hand shoving Mai’s books from a desk.
A laugh.
Mai recoiled.
The image vanished before she could understand it.
Then came Miss Aiko.
A classroom full of empty seats.
A white light.
Her own voice shouting for everyone to stay calm.
And behind all of it, something enormous watching from the other side of the light.
Mai heard Okama calling her.
“Mai!”
His voice pulled her back.
She opened her eyes.
The forest had returned.
She was lying on the ground with Okama crouched beside her. Miss Aiko stood nearby, staff raised. Puss was on her knees, breathing hard.
The masked figures were gone.
So was the man.
Only the broken trees remained.
Mai struggled to sit up.
“What happened?”
Okama looked toward the road.
“They fled.”
“Why?”
Miss Aiko answered.
“Because the resonance rejected their connection.”
Mai touched her crest.
It was no longer red.
It had changed.
The ring remained, but a thin silver line now crossed through its centre.
A system window appeared.
[[Crest resonance complete]]
[[Foreign interference rejected]]
[[Temporary link established]]
[[Group designation: Unregistered Class]]
Mai stared at the words.
“Unregistered Class?”
Okama’s crest displayed the same message.
So did Miss Aiko’s.
Puss looked down at hers and scowled.
“Why does ours say ‘unregistered’?”
Miss Aiko’s gaze remained fixed on the direction the attackers had taken.
“Because the system doesn’t know what to do with us.”
“That sounds bad,” Puss said.
“It may be,” Miss Aiko replied. “Or it may be useful.”
Mai looked at the place where the man had vanished.
“Who was he?”
“A collector,” Okama said. “Someone who studies awakened people and takes the useful ones.”
Miss Aiko nodded slowly. “And he knew more about crests than we do.”
“Which means he’ll come back,” Okama said.
Mai felt a chill run through her.
“Then we need to get ahead of him.”
Miss Aiko lowered her staff.
“Yes.”
She looked at the four of them.
“We cannot keep travelling openly. We need information, supplies, and somewhere safe to train.”
“Where do we go?” Mai asked.
Miss Aiko glanced toward the east.
“The man’s device reacted when your crests resonated. If we understand why, we may be able to find records about the event.”
Okama frowned. “You think there’s a place with records?”
“There are always records somewhere.”
“That sounds like something you’d say.”
“I’m a historian.”
Puss stood slowly, brushing dirt from her clothes.
“I’m going to ask the important question.”
Mai looked at her. “What?”
“Are we still walking?”
Miss Aiko considered the road ahead.
“Yes.”
Puss sighed.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
They gathered their belongings and left the clearing behind.
The road no longer felt like a path toward safety.
It felt like a line drawn across a map that other people had started watching.
Mai walked beside Okama again.
This time, their shoulders brushed once.
Neither of them moved away.
She could still remember falling through the red space. The classroom. The white light. The strange voice whispering her name.
And she could still feel the warmth of Okama’s hand around her wrist when the world had begun to disappear.
She glanced at him.
He was staring ahead, expression serious.
“Okama?”
“Yes?”
“When you saw the memories in that place… did you see anything?”
He hesitated.
“A classroom,” he said.
Mai’s heart skipped.
“Me too.”
He turned toward her.
For once, he did not make a joke.
“What else?”
“Us,” Mai said quietly. “All of us. Before.”
Okama looked down at his hand.
“I saw you being bullied.”
Mai stopped walking.
He stopped too.
Puss and Miss Aiko continued several steps before realizing they were no longer behind them.
Mai’s voice came out smaller than she wanted.
“You saw that?”
“Only a second.”
She looked away. “I don’t remember everything.”
“I know.”
“Did you see who did it?”
Okama’s expression tightened.
“I saw enough.”
Mai felt a strange pressure in her chest.
Not fear.
Not this time.
Something warmer.
Something she did not know how to name.
“Okama…”
He looked at her.
For one quiet moment, neither of them moved.
Then Miss Aiko called from farther up the road.
“If you two are finished having a dramatic emotional pause, we have a destination to reach.”
Mai’s face turned bright red.
Okama looked toward the teacher.
“How does she keep doing that?”
“Doing what?” Miss Aiko asked.
“Nothing.”
Puss folded her arms. “She’s watching you.”
Miss Aiko continued walking. “I am a teacher. It is my job to observe students.”
Mai hurried after them.
Okama followed beside her.
The road stretched east beneath the pale morning sky.
Behind them, the collector and his masked group were gone.
Ahead, something waited beyond the forest.
A city, perhaps.
A library.
A group of surviving classmates.
Or another danger entirely.
Mai touched the silver line crossing her crest.
The world had marked them.
Someone had tried to claim them.
And now, for the first time, the four of them carried proof that they belonged to something the system itself did not understand.
They were not just survivors anymore.
They were an anomaly.
And somewhere far away, another anomaly was building a labyrinth with Yuuno’s name.