I. The echo that does not travel
For one morning without warning or ritual, Edenfall's training stopped without warning.
Not by command. Not by threat.
It was the collective body that decided… not to move.
Velos was the first to notice.
He entered Ring Five and found it completely silent—not physically, but gesturally.
There was no movement.
No waiting either. Just… a dense, shared stillness.
Riva noted:
"The body didn't stop out of fear.
It stopped to listen…to what it hasn't yet dared to say to itself."
This is how the concept of Intrasomatic Echo was born :
a resonance that does not leave the body, but travels... from organ to organ,
from muscle to muscle,
until it finds rest.
II. Sael and the Inverted Pulse Sequence
While the outside world fell silent,
Sael began recording internal pulses using a body sensor sensitive to micromovements.
He discovered a pattern: Every time someone avoided moving,
their pulse shifted in opposite directions.
The body wasn't on pause. It was redistributing energy.
Not outward… but inward.
Sael created a practice called the Inverted Pulse Sequence. The training consisted of not moving...
but rather feeling how every gesture that doesn't happen... becomes an internal impulse.
III. The Blind Witness
At one edge of the Reverse Garden,
Naeya proposed an unusual practice:
One person had to stand in the center.
The others had to surround them… but without seeing them. And without that person making a single gesture.
For hours, nothing happened.
But slowly, one by one, the bodies around them began to feel gestures that hadn't been executed.
No vision. No sound. Just… contactless resonance.
At the end, one of the participants said:
"I didn't see her move.
But her body spoke to me…and I don't know how I understood it."
This experience was called: The Blind Witness.
IV. Infiltration of the Dual Voids
An advanced dissident group appeared in the northern sector of Edenfall. They identified themselves as the Dual Voids .
Each one was accompanied by his counterpart:
one who did not speak. Another who did not move.
Together, they intervened in symbolic spaces.
They didn't attack. They simply inhabited… so that others couldn't inhabit them.
Riva attempted to confront them using displacement techniques.
He failed.
It was Lirea who proposed another strategy:
"If their gesture is to inhibit…
ours must be to insinuate."
Thus was born the Choreography of the Almost : A sequence of movements so subtle that they were never completed,
but which deactivated the presence of the Dual Voids …
by ceasing to offer them a place they could deny.
V. Akihiko and the Voice That Doesn't Use a Mouth
During a deep meditation in the Corridor of Intimate Presence,
Akihiko felt that his breathing was not just his own.
Every inhalation brought a memory. Every exhalation… a decision I hadn't made consciously.
And suddenly,
he felt his body emit a voice. Not a vibration. Not a word.
A voice without a mouth . A sound sensation that wasn't physical.
Velos was present.
He didn't hear anything. But his body… responded as if it did.
Thus, the concept of Intrasomatic Voice of Contact was created . Where the gesture is not heard. But it feels as if someone has spoken...
from inside the other's body.
VI. Epilogue – Where silence no longer seeks an end
That night, Edenfall didn't practice. He didn't write. He didn't record.
And yet…
the city trembled. Not from fear. But from memory seeking space.
Akihiko sat under the nameless tree.
And as he closed his eyes, he listened to all the times he hadn't dared to speak.
And for the first time,
the silence refused to end.
END OF CHAPTER 186