The train pulled out of Nagoya before the sun had fully risen.
Kaito sat by the window in an almost-empty car, the dull hum of the rails smoothing into the background as city blocks gave way to distant fields. His bag sat across his lap, one strap clutched loosely in his hand. He hadn't slept.
Outside, the landscape changed slowly—grey urban structures replaced by green, sloping hills and terraced rice paddies. Fogs curled lazily between the trees. The world grew quieter by the minute.
It wasn't silence.
Just a kind of absence.
Like something old was watching the land hold its breath.
A faint headache pressed behind his eyes by the time the train reached Kiso Valley.
There was no welcome sign. No announcement. Just a quiet stop near a cracked platform, the name half-faded on the board:
木曽谷駅 – Kiso Valley Station
He stepped off.
No one else did.
The train doors closed behind him with a hiss. And then it was gone—just steel against fog, vanishing into the hills.
Kaito adjusted the strap of his bag and looked around.
No security. No sensors. No patrol drones.
Just the smell of damp earth and cedar.
The town was still alive, but barely.
Old wood buildings leaned against each other like tired shoulders. Shops had handwritten signs taped over older, cracked ones. A single vending machine near the post office blinked a dull red light: OUT OF ORDER.
Kaito kept walking.
He didn't draw attention.
Didn't want any.
A woman sweeping outside her inn glanced at him once but didn't speak. A dog barked somewhere distant, then went silent again.
The wind smelled faintly metallic.
By noon, he reached the edge of town—where the road narrowed and dipped into the woods.
The trail ahead wasn't marked.
It didn't need to be.
His system HUD pulsed faintly:
[ THREADSENSE ACTIVE ][ DUNGEON TRACE: 0.7 KM | EAST ][ CORE PULSE: ABSENT ]
It felt less like following directions and more like being drawn.
Every now and then, a shimmer of thread-like silver flickered at the edge of his sight. Between the trees. Beneath stones. Hanging in midair for only a heartbeat before vanishing again.
The deeper he went, the more the air shifted.
Not colder—just… thinner.
He stopped at a bend where the trail split around a ridge and pulled out his water bottle. The silence pressed closer than before.
He drank slowly.
Then froze.
Somewhere up ahead, past the next curve, a low sound echoed—like wind twisting through iron pipes.
Not natural.
Not mechanical.
Just wrong.
He put the cap back on without looking and kept walking.
At a small shrine built into the hillside, Kaito stopped again.
The structure was ancient. Half-rotted. The wood dark with moss and water damage. Paper charms hung from strings, many torn or faded. A stone fox sat beside the altar, its eye cracked.
The system didn't react.
But he did.
His hand moved on its own—fingers brushing the base of the statue like it might tell him something.
The stone felt warm.
Not sun-warmed.
Alive.
He pulled back, shoving his hand into his pocket.
The HUD flickered:
[ THREAD DENSITY SPIKE DETECTED ][ USER RESONANCE: UNSTABLE ]
By the time he reached the clearing, the sky had dimmed—not dusk, not storm, just… less.
Color faded at the edges. Leaves lost their texture. The world began to feel flattened, like a memory of itself.
He stepped out into the open and found it.
The rift.
A thin, vertical line tearing through space like a wound held shut by tension. It pulsed faintly—no sound, no wind, just that hollow pressure in the chest. The kind that made you forget how breathing worked.
No guards. No perimeter tape.
No sign anyone had been here.
The threads twisted faintly in the air around it—visible now, like delicate lines of silk drawn from the rift's edge, reaching in every direction.
Toward the ground.
Toward him.
He took one step forward.
Then stopped.
The knife was still in his bag. He hadn't taken it out once.
He didn't feel strong. Or ready. Or brave.
But when he looked at the rift, he didn't feel fear either.
Just a sense of familiarity.
Like this place already knew him.
Or made him.
He sat down at the base of a tree and waited.
Not for someone.
Not for something.
Just to see if he'd turn around.
He didn't.
The system whispered again.
[ USER IS HOLLOW. THREADMATCH CONFIRMED. ]
[ ENTRY PERMISSION: PENDING... ]
[ ...PERMISSION GRANTED. ]
Kaito closed his eyes.
And the wind blew the wrong way