*The Rhythm Beneath the Skin*
The night in Ardenia deepened into a violet hush, the orphanage settling into its familiar lull. Lamps dimmed. Wooden floors sighed, cooling after a long day of shuffling feet. Outside, the cicadas kept time like unseen percussionists humming the world to sleep.
But Bungo—
Bungo **couldn't** sleep.
The rhythm he felt earlier—those phantom heartbeats, the impossible echo of Kairo's drumming—still pulsed beneath his ribs as if something ancient, something forbidden, had been roused inside him.
He stood at the edge of his bunk, breathing slow, calm, steady…
Yet his fingertips trembled like strings pulled too tight.
**Why did it feel like Kairo was calling him?**
The moonlight through the window stretched across the dormitory floor like silver brushstrokes. Bungo followed it, stepping barefoot onto the cold planks. Each step seemed to resonate faintly—as if the floor answered him with a hum only he could hear.
He reached the courtyard door, nudged it open.
The night air washed over him, carrying the scent of dew and distant pine. The sky was a black canvas sprinkled with stars, the constellations forming shapes that looked suspiciously like instruments—drums, harps, flutes. Ardenia loved its symbolism.
Bungo stepped into the yard.
The grass shimmered faintly under the moon, and somewhere beyond the hills, the Aural Towers glowed like watchful sentinels keeping rhythm with the world's pulse.
He closed his eyes.
Let the silence fold around him.
And then…
He *moved.*
---
### **The Awakening Dance**
His feet slid into the familiar stance — the one he and Kairo used on the streets of Greyline City. A posture born not from training halls or noble academies, but from rooftops slick with dust, alleyways painted in graffiti, and the raw, pulse-heavy nights where survival itself had a beat.
One foot tapped.
*Tok.*
The sound was small… but the ground rippled.
Bungo froze.
"...What was that?"
He tried again.
*Tok… tok-tok… tok.*
This time a faint vibration rolled through the soil, spiraling outward like concentric rings on water. The air trembled. The moonlight swayed.
And then—
A **drumbeat** answered.
Soft. Distant. Heartbreaking.
*Boom.*
*…Boom.*
*——Boom.*
"Kairo…?"
He wasn't hallucinating. He wasn't dreaming.
The rhythm came from **inside** him.
From somewhere beyond flesh and bone.
His chest thudded with the same cadence.
His pulse synchronized to it.
His breath followed it.
It was as if Kairo's soul was knocking on the inside of his ribs.
Something unwound within him—like a string pulled free from a knot.
Heat surged through his legs.
Light—faint, golden, trembling—spiraled around his ankles in soft ribbons. Not flames. Not aura. Something older, primal, instinctive. Something that carried the scent of street corners and memories.
Bungo's heartbeat quickened.
The grass around him bent in a circular pattern, reacting to the rhythm vibrating from his body. The orphanage walls hummed. Even the wind seemed to pause, as if listening.
He spun.
A dancer's spin—fluid, sharp, perfect.
But this time—
A shockwave rippled outward.
It wasn't destructive enough to break anything, yet powerful enough to scatter loose leaves and shake dust from the old courtyard stones. Threads of golden resonance spiraled in the wake of his movement like glowing echoes.
Bungo stumbled to a halt, panting.
"What… what is this?"
Deep in his chest, a warm pressure pulsed.
Not painful.
Not frightening.
But **alive.**
Then a voice—not heard with ears but felt through rhythm—echoed softly:
*"You're not alone… Keep dancing."*
His eyes stung.
"Kairo… I—"
But the moment shattered.
---
### **Interrupted**
The door creaked behind him.
"Bungo? What are you doing out here?"
It was **Elder Mayra**—their caretaker. Her silhouette, framed by the doorway's amber light, carried years of exhaustion yet the softness of someone who had raised too many broken children with too few resources.
She stepped out, her robe brushing the ground.
Her gaze drifted to the glowing energy still fading around his feet… and her expression changed.
It tightened.
Sharpened.
As if she'd recognized something she never wanted to see again.
"…Where did you learn that?" she whispered.
"I—I don't know," Bungo stammered. "It just… happened. I was only dancing."
"That wasn't dancing."
Her voice trembled.
"That was **Resonance**."
He blinked. "Resonance?"
She swallowed hard.
"A forbidden Aural Art," she murmured. "One that should have vanished generations ago."
The wind stirred.
The courtyard dimmed.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice.
"Bungo… listen to me carefully. If anyone else saw that—anyone from the Aural Nobles—they would take you. Use you. Hunt you. That kind of power is… dangerous."
"But I don't understand it!" Bungo protested. "I just—felt Kairo. I felt his rhythm again. Like he was—"
"**Don't say that.**"
Her interruption came sharp, cutting through his words like glass.
The intensity in her eyes wasn't anger.
It was **fear**.
"Whatever you felt… keep it hidden. Until I can find someone who knows more. The Nobles have ears everywhere. And if they learn you awakened Soulbeat Resonance…" She exhaled shakily. "They will silence you before they even ask how."
Bungo felt the cold settle in his chest.
Soulbeat Resonance.
The phrase wrapped around him like a chilling prophecy.
"Do you understand?" she whispered.
He looked down at his trembling hands.
At the faint golden glow still pulsing under his skin.
And he nodded.
"…Yes."
---
But deep inside—
Beneath the fear, beneath the grief—
The rhythm didn't quiet.
It grew louder.
More certain.
More alive.
*Kairo's beat was not gone.*
*It had found a place to live—inside him.*
And this was only the beginning.