The Resonator glowed faintly beneath the bed.
Souta sat on the edge, unmoving.
The whispers had died down.
The silence that followed was worse.
His phone buzzed again.
Unknown Number:
"Still standing? Good. Let's begin."
The window shattered not from glass, but from pressure.
Sound twisted the air.
Kuroda didn't appear in the room. He arrived inside Souta's mind.
Mindspace A Static Wasteland
Souta stood alone. The sky was gray, the ground was made of old television screens flashing with fragments of his memories—some real, some twisted beyond recognition.
Kuroda hovered above him, cloaked in shadow and static.
Kuroda:
"You're adapting. Impressive. Let's push further."
He extended a hand.
The Resonator's hum bled into the dream.
Souta screamed not from pain, but resistance.
He focused. Grounded himself. He remembered Toru's words:
"Anchor yourself. Let the Resonator feed, not you."
He opened his mind on purpose.
Let the noise flood in.
But instead of breaking…
He began to mirror it.
The screens under his feet started syncing. Flashing the same frequency.
Kuroda paused.
Kuroda: "Wait… what are you doing"
Souta: "You want echoes? Fine. Let's see how you like it."
The Resonator surged from the real world into the mindspace projecting light and code like chains made of sound.
It wrapped around Kuroda's form.
He flinched for the first time.
Kuroda: "You… learned how to fight me here…?"
Souta (smirking): "No. I'm still learning. But you? You're starting to fear."
A giant pulse of sound exploded from the Resonator.
Kuroda vanished dragged out of the mindscape like smoke pulled into a vacuum.
Back to Reality Souta's Room
The Resonator shut down. Souta collapsed to his knees, gasping.
The walls were cracked. His desk overturned. The air still buzzed faintly.
Toru burst in, breathless.
Toru: "The signal spiked—what happened?!"
Souta looked up, sweat dripping from his chin.
Souta: "I didn't just survive. I countered."
Toru stared at the cube.
Its surface now glowed with a new symbol:
A ring of eyes closed.
A Room of Mirrors
Kuroda paced in front of distorted reflections of himself.
Kuroda: "He's becoming a conduit… not just a target. That changes everything."
He stared at one cracked mirror.
Inside it Souta stared back.
"Tonight I stepped into the noise and didn't drown.
But this was just the first wave.
Whatever Kuroda wants… it's not just me.
It's the parts of the world that don't want to be heard."
To be continued…