Everything felt off—unnatural, wrong in a way none of them could explain. Time hadn't just slowed; it had stopped, like the world itself had been paused mid-breath. The students around them looked as though they'd died mid-motion, frozen in place, even though Timeo knew they were still alive… just no longer in the same flow of time.
Then came the sound.
Bells.
Loud, metallic, and far too frequent. They rang in sharp succession, echoing across the air with no source and no rhythm. The chimes didn't belong in a classroom—they belonged to something else entirely.
This wasn't just a trick of the mind. They weren't dreaming.
They had stepped into a different realm altogether.
And yet—nothing seemed physically different. The layout of the room, the desks, the walls… all the same. But the color was gone, stripped completely from existence, leaving behind a stark, heavy monochrome that wrapped around them like fog.
No one understood what was happening.
But all signs pointed to one conclusion:
Souta had something to do with this.
Outside the classroom windows, the frozen stillness spread beyond the walls of the school.
At first, it was subtle—a strange ripple in the distance, like heat rising off pavement, but colder. Then came the vines.
They slithered into view like shadows given form, creeping along the edges of buildings, coiling across power lines, and crawling over the streets. Black as tar and unnaturally smooth, the vines spread with purpose, not random chaos. They weren't bound by nature's rules—they grew upward, sideways, even against gravity, wrapping around signs, trees, and rooftops like a slow, creeping infestation.
Wherever they touched, the world changed.
Color didn't return—but instead, what was once white or grey turned sickly shades of muted blue and pale crimson. Like the world was bleeding from beneath its skin. The vines pulsed slightly, as if alive—breathing, watching.
And then the sky shifted.
What had once been a still, monochrome canopy transformed into a glassy surface—smooth, unnatural, and reflective. But it didn't mirror the city below.
No.
It showed something else entirely.
Above them hung a distorted reflection of a different world—upside-down temples in ruin, floating islands suspended in still air, giant statues missing their faces, and distant shapes that moved like echoes across the clouds. The sun was gone, replaced by a dull, burning ring that hovered like an open eye.
It was no longer just a city under a sky. It was a fractured plane—a mirror realm built on the bones of reality.
And through it all, the vines continued to grow… wrapping tighter. Watching. Waiting.
Leo stared out the window, his jaw slack, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white. He stepped forward slowly, almost against his will, eyes scanning the unnatural vines creeping across the schoolyard and curling up over the fence like fingers stretching for prey.
"What the hell is this?" he muttered, voice hoarse. "This—this ain't some illusion. This is real, isn't it?"
He looked over his shoulder at Timeo, searching for something—answers, reassurance, anything.
"Yo, man, you seeing this too? That sky—those freakin' things up there—what the hell kind of nightmare are we in?!"
Marin, frozen in place near the center of the classroom, stared at the vines slithering across the glass. Her breathing was shallow. Her bag slipped off her shoulder and hit the floor with a dull thud she didn't even notice.
"This… this isn't right," she whispered. "It's like the world just peeled open. What are we even standing in? Where are we?!"
She took a step back, instinctively grabbing the edge of a desk for support. Her eyes darted toward Timeo and Leo, but there was no comfort to be found.
Especially not in Timeo.
He stood still, his arms loose at his sides, gaze fixed on the window—but his expression remained unreadable. No panic, no fear. Not even surprise. Just calm observation. He blinked once, slowly.
As if this wasn't unfamiliar to him at all.
As if, somewhere deep down, he expected it.
Timeo said nothing.
He remained where he stood, hands tucked calmly in his jacket pockets, his posture relaxed despite the surreal, distorted nightmare unfolding outside. The sky—no longer a sky—cast its alien reflection across the glass, and the sound of those unnatural bells still lingered faintly, like echoes bleeding through dimensions.
But Timeo didn't flinch.
He just watched.
Leo, tense and on edge, turned toward the front of the classroom, where Souta still stood—unshaken, untouched by fear. If anything, he looked... amused.
Souta slowly stepped forward, his polished shoes clicking against the tiled floor with an unsettling rhythm. He looked around the room at the frozen students, at the pulsing black vines clinging to the windows, and then at the three who remained standing—alive, alert, and aware.
"Impressive," he said with a measured smile. "You're still conscious."
He stopped in front of them, arms neatly folded behind his back.
"This place tends to be... overwhelming for those unfamiliar with it. Most minds shut down under the pressure of dissonance. They're not built to perceive the crossing of realms. But you three," his eyes settled first on Leo, then Marin, and finally locked onto Timeo, "you managed to endure the shift without collapsing. That's rare. Very rare."
Marin's lips parted as if to ask something, but the words never left her mouth.
Leo grit his teeth, stepping forward. "What the hell is this place?! Why aren't you frozen like the rest?!"
Souta turned his gaze briefly toward Leo, but didn't answer right away. He looked once more at Timeo, and a subtle smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"You're adapting faster than I thought, Yamamoto. Almost like something inside you already knew this place."
Timeo didn't respond. He didn't move. His hands remained tucked in his pockets, his stance steady, calm, cold.
But behind his silence… something was stirring.
Souta took a slow, deliberate step forward. The shadows in the room stretched unnaturally around him—subtle, yet impossible to ignore. And then, behind him, something began to flicker.
A faint silhouette.
Phantom-like. Translucent. It hovered just inches off the ground behind Souta's back—shimmering in and out of visibility like smoke caught in fractured light. Its form was vague yet deeply unnerving, draped in flickering strands of spectral energy. No mouth. Just hollow, burning eyes that seemed to pierce through fabric and thought alike.
Marin recoiled a step, her voice cracking in a breath. "W-What is that?"
Leo moved slightly in front of her, fists tight, shoulders squared. "Is that—another Eidolon?"
Souta didn't respond right away. He let the phantom drift silently behind him, its ethereal glow casting distorted reflections on the windows and polished floor.
"This," he finally said, tone calm but unmistakably weighty, "is only a fragment… a residue of the place you now stand within."
He turned, gesturing casually to the flickering specter behind him. "A trace. A whisper. A ghost of what most minds are not built to see."
The entity pulsed once, a dim ripple of energy distorting the edges of the classroom, casting everything in a cold, unnatural sheen.
"The shift you experienced," Souta continued, his voice now slipping into something almost clinical, "is the collapse of perceptual boundaries. Time, space, emotion—they bleed together here. This isn't an illusion. This is what rests beneath your reality."
He paused.
"This place is called Covet Hollow."
He let the words sink in.
"It is a realm built not of matter, but of cognition—a reflection of collective thought, subconscious desire, and repressed instinct. The world you know is layered atop it like a mask. But Covet Hollow responds to something deeper. It thrives in the spaces between what is shown and what is hidden—what people want, fear, or deny. Every object here, every structure, every phantom... is born from the inner desires of someone, somewhere."
Souta slowly turned his gaze back to the three students.
"Some see it by accident. Others are dragged here, forced to confront what they've buried. But a rare few…"
He stopped walking. The phantom behind him expanded slightly, its light quivering.
"…a rare few belong here."
His eyes fixed on Timeo, sharp and knowing.
"You, Yamamoto. You don't just see Covet Hollow… you resonate with it."
The room was silent.
"You would know that, wouldn't you?"
Timeo's hair hung loosely over his left eye, casting a soft shadow across his face—but his expression didn't shift, not even after everything Souta had said.
No fear.
No confusion.
No resistance.
He didn't react as if something horrifying had been revealed—he reacted as if it was something he already knew, somewhere deep beneath the surface. Or at least, something he had accepted without question.
Whatever Souta meant by resonance, Timeo didn't challenge it. He simply turned his head slightly, scanning the frozen, monochrome world beyond the windows with quiet eyes. The black vines. The glass sky. The flickering phantom. His hands remained in his pockets. His breath, steady.
But Leo was far less composed.
"You keep talkin' like this is all some kind of goddamn lecture!" he shouted, stepping toward Souta with raw frustration in his voice. "You bring us here—into this freakshow nightmare—like it's just another school day?! What the hell do you want, huh?! You tryin' to scare us? Control us? Use us?!"
The phantom behind Souta twitched slightly, a pulse of distortion stretching across the ceiling tiles.
Leo didn't stop.
"You think you're just gonna drop all this 'resonance' crap like it means something and walk away?! You're messing with things we don't understand, and you're standing there like it's all a game!"
"Leo—" Marin reached out, her voice strained and trembling. She stepped between him and Souta, hand lightly pressing against Leo's chest. "Calm down. Please. I-I don't like this either, but shouting at him won't change anything—"
He glanced at her, jaw tight, chest rising and falling hard.
Marin looked over her shoulder at Souta, still standing beneath the eerie glow of his flickering Eidolon.
"…We just need answers," she added, barely above a whisper. "Not more riddles."
But Souta only smiled. Calm. Patient.
Waiting.
Souta's faint smile lingered, his posture unwavering beneath the presence of the ghostly phantom behind him. He turned his gaze back to Timeo—still unmoved, still silent, his face partially hidden beneath the soft fall of black hair.
"You really are a strange one, Yamamoto," Souta said smoothly, voice laced with a polished edge. "So still… so composed. Like a sculpture with no soul behind the eyes. You stand there quietly while the world collapses around you, offering no insight, no resistance. A perfectly shaped vessel—empty, obedient, and painfully unaware of what's inside him."
The words weren't loud, but they echoed sharply through the monochrome space like a scalpel against stone.
"You have power, clearly. But what are you without intent? Without action? Just another ghost, floating between lives you don't understand."
Leo's head snapped toward Timeo like a whip, his eyes wide with disbelief.
"Are you just gonna stand there and let this prick talk to you like that?!" he barked, his voice raw with frustration. "He's basically callin' you dead inside—and you're what, fine with that?!"
Timeo didn't flinch. His fingers didn't twitch. He didn't even blink at the insult.
Leo took a half-step closer, throwing a hand out to gesture at the surreal nightmare around them.
"We're trapped in this freakshow realm, this Covet Hollow, and this bastard's got his little shadow freak floatin' behind him, and you're just—just watchin?! Say somethin', damn it!"
The air grew heavier again, but Timeo remained still.
The silence between them now wasn't empty—it was thick with tension.
And Souta just kept watching. Waiting for what Timeo would do. Or… wouldn't.
Souta's fingers curled around the edges of his faceless black mask. As he pressed it against his skin, the world around him seemed to hold its breath. The instant it locked in place, a deafening pulse of dark energy erupted outward, distorting the air in sharp waves. Shadows twisted unnaturally, spiraling around him in a surge of phantom pressure that made the ground quake beneath his feet.
From the storm of energy, a towering silhouette emerged.
The phantom took form in full: a majestic yet terrifying figure clad in navy-blue plating etched with gold, its body sculpted like a mechanical bird of prey. A sharp-beaked helmet crowned its head, with golden horn-like crests arcing back like a war crown. Its massive wings spread wide, each feather glinting with deadly precision. One arm ended in a gleaming blade, while the other remained eerily humanoid—equal parts elegance and destruction.
As the pressure mounted, Souta raised one hand toward the sky, fingers flaring with shadow.
"Take wing, Gorvane."
The words were low, resonant—an invocation forged from command and bond.
The phantom's wings snapped open with a thunderous metallic screech, its golden eyes igniting as it answered the call. Bound to Souta, it hovered behind him like a divine executioner awaiting its target.
As Gorvane's wings unfurled and the air split with its presence, the storm around Souta intensified—but far from him, in the stillness of the chaos, something stirred inside Timeo.
A voice—deep, quiet, and cold as death—slithered through his mind like a blade against bone.
"Will you just let yourself die and stand there... or are you finally going to call for me?"
To be continued...