Inside the auditorium, the air seemed permeated with musical notes.
The orchestral harmony of Tsukinomori's Brass Band Club flowed as clear as a spring stream; the ethereal voices of the junior high choir were like the light refracted by stained-glass windows in a cathedral, clear and otherworldly. Below the stage, a sea of dark blue uniforms gently undulated, as the girls were immersed in a dream woven by art.
Sakiko straightened her back, her gaze following the shifting lights on the stage, a faint smile, captured by the melody, playing on her lips. Beside her, Mutsumi sat quietly, her pupils reflecting the flowing starlight, intently enjoying the performance.
On the other side, Togawa Fuuki's presence was like an incongruous crack. The beautifully performed musical pieces were, for him, merely a blurred background. He lowered his eyelids, the dim blue light of his phone screen illuminating his jaw.
Two documents were displayed side-by-side on the screen: one was the program list for today's music festival, and the other was information just sent back by an informant on an encrypted channel—detailed background information on every performing group, and even certain specific audience members, listed in the program.
This vast and secret intelligence network was one of his crucial trump cards. The "spiders" in the network had varied identities—financial company elites, city hall employees, convenience store clerks, even inconspicuous homeless people on the street... They didn't know each other, driven by "commands" implanted by White Snake, like precise yet unconscious parts, transmitting information only to him, the sole "terminal."
The cost of maintaining this network was that Fuuki had to periodically flit through city corners like a ghost, making close contact to maintain the strength of the Command.
Now, the evolution of White Snake brought greater power. Only one re-implantation of a command disc was needed for long-term control. But for him, currently mentally weak, he no longer had the energy to "weave" or "mend" this network.
The temporary "freezing" of his ability brought immense unease, and Kato's appearance at Tsukinomori was like a huge stone thrown into stagnant water, forcing him to fully utilize the intelligence network's value before it became ineffective.
His fingertip scrolled through a long list of programs, from classical quartets to the pop light music club. The list was detailed and clear, and there was no information related to the band [Wayward].
'Their target, as expected, isn't this glamorous music festival itself.'
Fuuki's brow furrowed even deeper. Just then, a special encrypted icon silently flickered at the top of his phone screen—an atomic symbol encircled by olive branches.
The name Dr. Pavlichenko caused a slight ripple in Fuuki's frozen gaze.
He was his father's old friend, a Russian astrophysicist.
After the "accidental" plane crash that befell the Pucci family, among the hypocritical or indifferent mourners, this tall, thin, middle-aged man with brown bear-like hair was one of the few who came with genuine sorrow. He even offered to adopt Fuuki, who was still "Enrico" at the time, and after the boy refused, this cross-age and cross-national connection unexpectedly continued, becoming one of the few warm beacons in Fuuki's network of relationships.
He opened the message; it was the doctor's formal reply to his previous request. The core content revolved around the keyword he had been seeking—Gravity.
In the fragmented memories inherited from his "other self," on the path to Heaven, "correct Gravity" was an indispensable key.
That "Father Pucci," whose spirit was merged with his dearest friend, could perceive its pulse, but Fuuki, after awakening White Snake, could only vaguely capture a faint, elusive trace of Gravity.
He knew that in the fog of the two worlds' differences, blindly pursuing the so-called "New Moon Time" or specific locations was akin to sticking to a fixed idea regardless of changes in circumstances.
In this world where vampires, Pillar Men, Hamon, and even Stand Arrows did not exist, he needed a more reliable path.
Dr. Pavlichenko's data coldly and clearly pointed to a fact: since the night two years ago, referred to in internal documents as Starfall, the Earth's gravitational field had been undergoing subtle yet continuous abnormal disturbances.
These disturbances had, on a macroscopic level, caused numerous satellite launch failures and difficulties in calibrating precision instruments. Governments worldwide tacitly suppressed the news, secretly conducting research.
The doctor's team combined Fuuki's vague requirements regarding specific times and locations (derived from Maehara Naoto's memories) for cross-data analysis.
The conclusion was shocking: the peak regions of the most significant gravity anomalies showed a high degree of spatial overlap with the epicenters of a series of inexplicable, high-energy, and highly anomalous events that occurred after the night of Starfall. And the epicenter of all anomalous data, the region where gravity distortion was most severe and most deeply affected by Starfall, was prominently marked—Tokyo.
Fuuki's gaze was fixed on the words "Tokyo." What the doctor saw was a series of cold "anomaly event points," but what instantly mapped in Fuuki's mind was the activity trajectory of those "special existences" that had quietly emerged in Tokyo and its surroundings after Starfall, pieced together from intelligence fragments.
They had not drifted here by chance; the city of Tokyo itself was the center of this unknown storm!
The information stream continued to scroll. An additional piece of content, specifically marked with an asterisk by the doctor, popped up. Its source was neither any research institution nor authoritative journal; the annotation surprisingly read—[Suho's School Anecdotes (Shared).]
Fuuki paused for a moment, then showed a look of understanding. This serious physicist was, in private, an absolute doting father.
Usually, the doctor would send such daily shares about his daughter separately. This time, it was mixed in with important research information... As Fuuki was thinking, his gaze was firmly locked onto a few words within it:
[Suho went to see another band perform yesterday. Those kids on stage were practically burning their lives! My daughter said that watching them, she felt a wonderful 'Gravity.']
[Of course, not in the physics sense, but... a feeling of the soul being attracted? Young people's descriptions are always so poetic.]
Gravity?
Fuuki's finger movements instantly froze. Not physical gravity... the attraction of the soul?
Wayward, that band composed entirely of Stand Users, creating chaos in the shadows.
In Maehara Naoto's memories, their live performances indeed carried an almost demonic fanaticism, capable of easily inciting emotions. Could that fanaticism, that special resonance generated among Stand Users... be somehow related to the "Gravity" perceived by the doctor's daughter?
This association was bold and ethereal, but it still loosened the blocked thoughts in Fuuki's mind. He subconsciously looked up, his gaze sweeping over the previous performing team bowing for their curtain call on stage. His brain worked at an unprecedented speed, trying to grasp this fleeting clue and connect the invisible line between "band," "Gravity," and "Stand Users."
However, the clue was too thin.
Could a poetic review from an ordinary junior high girl, and a scientist's retelling as a doting father, truly be linked to the Gravity he was pursuing? Could it be that he, due to Kato's appearance and the looming potential crisis, had become overly sensitive, to the point of grasping at straws and forcibly associating unrelated things?
Just as a chill of self-doubt arose in Fuuki's heart, making him feel that this connection might just be a hallucination produced under pressure—
"Wow...!" Togawa Sakiko beside him let out a suppressed cry of excitement.
Fuuki instinctively glanced sideways.
On the stage, spotlights poured down like a galaxy, enveloping the newly debuted girl band [Morfonica]. The lead singer's voice flowed out, clear as a spring; the violinist's bow danced elegantly on the strings, producing a magnificent melody like the trembling of butterfly wings. The guitarist plucked the strings, unleashing vibrant rhythms, while the bass and drum beats wove a pulse-like rhythm that supported the entire stage.
In the clash of strings and rock, the entire band seemed enveloped in a halo intertwined with fantasy and power. The unique elegance of the Tsukinomori girls and the sharpness of youth bloomed brilliantly at this moment.
Sakiko was completely captivated. She leaned slightly forward, her pale golden eyes reflecting the dazzling light of the stage, astonishingly bright. The calm and reserved demeanor she usually maintained was now completely gone, replaced only by pure longing and admiration. Her fingers unconsciously tightened around the program on her lap, as if her heart was tightly gripped by that light.
At this very instant, an incredibly clear attractive force emanated from Sakiko without warning!
It was no longer the vague, faint trace that required deliberate sensing. It was so real, so vibrant. Like a materialized stream, it permeated Fuuki's senses.
The source of this Gravity was none other than Togawa Sakiko beside him, immersed in the stage's radiance and completely unaware of her own change!
Fuuki stared blankly at Sakiko's profile beside him—her small body leaned slightly forward with the melody, her entire being seemingly ignited by that light, exuding a pure, attractive warmth like sunlight.
Time seemed to lose its meaning at this moment. When Fuuki came to his senses, Morfonica's performance on stage had ended sometime, and applause echoed like a tide throughout the auditorium.
Before him, Sakiko had already excitedly stood up, turning her head to say something to Wakaba Mutsumi, her cheeks flushed with excitement, radiating a nearly burning vitality that Fuuki had never seen before.
At this moment, she seemed to have absorbed all the brilliance from the stage into her body, enveloped in an invisible yet dazzling halo.
She suddenly turned and looked directly at Fuuki, with an undeniable determination and an unprecedented gleam in her eyes:
"Fuuki, let's form a band too, our band!"
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