One Kick Girl — Chapter 36: "The Silent Field Expands"
Silence shouldn't have weight.
And yet, when Raon stood at the edge of Metrosonic's industrial district — watching entire blocks vanish into greyscale nothing — she felt it pressing against her chest.
Sound had meaning. Motion. Vibration.
Now, everything was paused.
Even wind refused to blow.
Shion's voice crackled through the comm-link, static-ridden.
> "Raon, don't go further. The Silent Field consumes vibration. If you step in, you'll lose—"
The signal cut off.
Raon stared at the voided street ahead.
Her reflection blinked in the faint shimmer where color ended.
> "Yeah, yeah. Always the 'don't go' speech."
She sighed, rolled her shoulders — and stepped through.
---
1. Inside the Silent Field
The world beyond was dead air.
Colors drained into monochrome. Her own heartbeat muted.
Even her footsteps made no sound — just ripples through a liquid-like distortion.
Raon frowned. "Echo? You there?"
> [NO SIGNAL DETECTED.]
"Cool. I'm talking to myself again. Just another Tuesday."
Her Pulseband blinked faintly — then displayed alien code.
A symbol appeared: a waveform shaped like an infinity loop.
The air around her warped.
From the distortion stepped something shaped like her.
But wrong.
Her hair shimmered like glass, her movements jittered like a broken recording.
> "You kicked too hard," said the figure, voice delayed. "Now the world's playing in reverse."
Raon raised an eyebrow. "Oh, great. Evil me again. Do I at least get a cool name this time?"
> "I am Silence Raon. Your resonance zero-point. The absence of all kicks."
Raon sighed. "Figures."
---
2. The Bureau Loses Sound
Back at HQ, chaos had no sound — which made it worse.
Kimchi waved his arms frantically, mouthing silent orders.
Monitors showed visual chaos but not even alarms could cry out.
Shion typed on her tablet, the only device still emitting faint frequencies.
> "She's inside the epicenter. Her vitals are merging with the Silent Field. If she can't generate counter-resonance, she'll—"
The tablet blinked [CONNECTION LOST]
Shion clenched her jaw. "Of course she would go silent literally."
---
3. Raon vs. Silence Raon
The two figures stood mirrored in stillness.
No wind. No hum. Not even breath.
Just the soft distortion of the world trembling around their presence.
Silence Raon raised a leg — identical form, identical motion — but when her kick struck, it absorbed Raon's attack.
No sound. Just vacuum.
Raon winced, feeling her strength vanish into the void.
> "You can't fight me," mouthed her copy. "Every impact feeds me. Every vibration you make dies here."
Raon smirked faintly.
> "Then I'll just kick nothing."
She closed her eyes — focused on the absence of movement.
A slow breath.
A still pivot.
And then — nothing.
But the nothing rippled.
From absolute quiet, a faint pulse began — heartbeat rhythm, small but alive.
The Silent Field quivered, unable to sustain its stillness.
Raon whispered, though no sound came:
> "Even silence has a beat."
---
4. Resonance Return
Outside the field, Shion's monitors blinked back online.
Audio spikes returned in irregular bursts.
> "She's syncing her internal rhythm into the void… She's teaching silence how to vibrate!"
Kimchi blinked, mouthing: Is that even legal?
---
5. The Final Kick
Inside, Silence Raon screamed — a soundless vibration that cracked the void around them.
Raon moved.
No bravado. No overcharge.
Just one clean, minimal kick — not to destroy, but to restore.
The shockwave spread as a shimmer of color returning to the world.
Sound rushed back — birds, wind, sirens, even people yelling mid-sneeze.
The Silent Field collapsed in on itself, fragmenting into glittering dust.
Raon stood panting, the city once again alive.
> "Huh," she said, hearing her own voice again. "Guess silence isn't my genre."
Echo's voice returned, faint but warm:
> "You… restored balance. You didn't destroy — you harmonized."
Raon grinned. "Cool. I'm basically a DJ now."
---
6. Epilogue: Static in the Clouds
That night, Shion examined the recovered data from the Silent Field.
Hidden within the readings — a final signature.
A frequency Raon didn't generate.
A voice whispering behind the static.
> "The universe hums… but someone else is listening."
Shion frowned.
"Echo… you hearing that?"
> "Yes," Echo whispered. "That isn't from this world. Something tuned in."
Far above the skyline, in orbit — a satellite blinked awake.
Its signal pulsed faintly in rhythm with Raon's heartbeat.