A distant alarm bell rang, its clear tone cutting through their conversation. The sound resonated in Arashi's chest, stirring a memory he didn't know he had, of other bells, greater and more terrible, announcing a different kind of fall. All three turned toward the sound.
"That's the northern bell," Kira said, rising to her feet. Her hand instinctively went to the small knife she kept at her belt, a baker's tool, not a weapon, but she gripped it like the latter. "But the Hollow One was at the eastern wall."
Elder Takuma's expression darkened. "That was just the harbinger," he said, moving swiftly to a cabinet on the far wall. The floorboards creaked under his steps, an ordinary sound made ominous by circumstance. He withdrew a simple wooden box, opening it to reveal a dagger with strange markings etched along its blade. Arashi could hear a faint ringing emanating from the weapon, like distant chimes in a stiff breeze. "The true threat was always going to come from multiple directions."
He handed the dagger to Arashi. "This contains a sliver of Resonant material. It's not much, but it should respond to you if..."
The handle felt warm against Arashi's palm, and the markings along the blade seemed to shift subtly as he touched it, as if recognizing him. The sensation reminded him of the one time he'd held Kira's cat, the immediate sense of connection, of recognition between living things.
Another bell joined the first, this one from the western edge of the village. The overlapping tones created a dissonance that hurt Arashi's increasingly sensitive ears.
"They're surrounding us," Arashi realized, gripping the dagger. It felt warm against his palm, almost alive. A drop of sweat traced its way down his temple despite the evening chill.
Takuma nodded grimly. "Kira, you need to get to your family. The baker's shop has a cellar, yes? Get everyone there and barricade the door." He turned to Arashi. "You and I need to get to the Echo Chamber. If there's any chance of awakening your Resonance in a controlled manner, that's where it will happen."
Kira hesitated, her eyes meeting Arashi's. In that look was a lifetime of shared moments, climbing trees in the village orchard, skating on the frozen pond in winter, whispering secrets under the festival lanterns. The possibility that this might be the last such moment hung unspoken between them.
"But I've never shown any sign of, " Arashi began.
"The headaches, the visions, seeing auras, those are all precursors," the Elder cut him off. His voice took on the familiar teaching cadence that Arashi had heard throughout his childhood, but now with an urgency that transformed the didactic into the desperate. "Your Divine Fragment is unusually potent. That's why I've kept you away from formal testing all these years. If Lumina or Umbra learned of you..." He shook his head. "We don't have time for this now. We need to move."
A third bell began to ring, this one from the southern quarter. The three tones together created a soundscape of dread that seemed to vibrate in Arashi's very bones. His heart sank. Meirōmura was completely surrounded.
They left the archive together, stepping into chaos. The unnatural crimson light had intensified, casting everything in a bloody glow. Villagers ran in all directions, some toward designated safe houses, others to defensive positions. Arashi saw young Taro, the blacksmith's apprentice who had always mocked his inability to sense Resonance, now white-faced with terror as he carried water buckets toward the eastern wall. Nearby, old Sachi, who sold vegetables in the market and always slipped Arashi an extra radish "for growing bones," was huddled with her grandchildren beneath the stone arch of the well.
Above it all, a low moaning sound filled the air, the collective voice of dozens, perhaps hundreds of Hollow Ones. The sound raised the hair on the back of Arashi's neck; it contained harmonics that human throats couldn't produce, overtones that seemed to bypass the ear entirely and vibrate directly in the mind.
"Go," Elder Takuma told Kira, pressing something into her hand, a small charm inscribed with Resonant symbols. "This might help conceal you from their senses."
Kira clutched the charm, then surprised both men by quickly embracing Arashi. Her arms around him were strong from years of kneading dough and carrying flour sacks. She smelled of cinnamon and sweat and the lingering scent of woodsmoke from the bakery ovens. "Don't do anything stupid," she whispered fiercely before turning and sprinting toward the central market where her family's bakery stood.
Arashi watched her go, suddenly aware that his feelings for Kira had always been complicated by the sense that he didn't quite belong in Meirōmura. Now he understood why, he had never been fully human. Would she see him differently now? Would everyone?
"This way," Takuma said, leading Arashi not toward the Echo Chamber as he'd expected, but down a narrow alley between buildings. "We'll circle around to avoid the main streets. Hollow Ones are drawn to larger groups of people."
The alley smelled of refuse and the herbs that old Wei grew in pots along his windowsill. Arashi had walked these paths a thousand times, played hide-and-seek in these very shadows as a child, but now they felt alien, threatening. Every corner might hide something inhuman.
As they moved through the village, the sounds of battle erupted in multiple locations. Screams mingled with the inhuman cries of Hollow Ones and the distinctive harmonic tones of Resonance being used in combat, a complex chord structure that vibrated in the air like physical waves, rising and falling with the tide of battle. A group of villagers ran past them, led by Mei, her hands glowing with the green light of healing Resonance. Her normally immaculate healer's apron was splattered with blood, and her round face, usually so peaceful, was set in grim determination.
"Get the children to the archive cellar!" she shouted to someone behind her, not even noticing Arashi and the Elder as she passed. The children following her moved with the quiet terror of the very young who sense danger without fully understanding it.
They continued on, the alley opening into a small courtyard. The local shrine to the Silent God stood in its center, the stone figure now seeming to grimace in the crimson light rather than bestow its usual benevolent neutrality. Ahead, Arashi could see the Echo Chamber, its stone walls now pulsing faintly with silver light in response to the Resonance being used throughout the village. That was when he saw it, a Hollow One, different from the harbinger but no less terrifying.