The towering gates of Kiyosaki University cast long shadows across the marble pavement as Ai Hoshino stepped onto campus. Morning light shimmered off glass buildings and clean white walls, the school grounds buzzing with a quiet kind of elite energy. It was a prestigious institution—one only the richest or the most brilliant could attend. Ai belonged to the latter.
A scholarship student. The top of every exam. Always serious. Always composed.
She moved through the throng of students with her usual quiet poise, her worn but clean satchel slung over her shoulder. A couple of girls waved at her from the courtyard steps.
"Ai! Morning!"
She nodded and approached, her soft smile barely reaching her eyes.
"Morning. You guys are early."
Her friend grinned.
"We're just panicking early. The math presentation? It's gonna be brutal."
Ai blinked.
"Math presentation?"
A beat of silence passed between them.
"Wait—you didn't know?" one friend asked.
"No… I was studying for exams yesterday. Didn't check my phone."
The boy sitting in front of them—short hair, messy uniform, slouched like he had nothing left to give—chimed in from over his shoulder.
"That damn professor sent it in the group chat at night. Said it's due today, no excuses. Typical a-hole move."
Ai exhaled sharply, rubbing her temple.
"That's just…" she paused, catching her breath. "Unprofessional."
"So, what'll you do?" another friend asked.
She adjusted the strap of her bag.
"I'll manage. I'll skip next class and work in the back garden—there's less noise there."
"Oh, that place is beautiful!" a friend said. "All the flowers and vines and—ugh, you'll probably finish it in an hour, genius."
Ai didn't reply. She was already walking toward the edge of campus, toward the quiet grove behind the greenhouse.
The small patch of land was lined with leafy hedges and short, winding brick paths. Vines hung from metal arches, and benches peeked out between flowering bushes.
Few students came here unless they needed quiet. Ai laid her books down on the stone table beneath a sakura tree and cracked open her journal.
Time slipped away.
She scribbled equations, brows furrowed, lips pressed tight. Her pen danced furiously across the page, but something wasn't right. The numbers weren't aligning. She flipped back and forth between the textbook and her notes.
"No… no, that function cancels the whole denominator…"
The wind whispered through the trees. Her focus was absolute so much so that the ticking of her wristwatch seemed louder than the world.
Then....
A shadow shifted.
A hand, clean with a black watch, reached into view from behind her—pointing at her paper with a single finger. Ai didn't look up.
"Right there," a deep, quiet voice murmured. "You missed the inflection at x = 3. Everything diverges past that point."
The hand moved with calm precision, outlining the equation slowly—showing how one missed sign flipped her logic. Ai followed the finger like a student with a master, the voice so even, so certain, it held weight.
She scribbled down the correction.
She tested it.
It worked.
"…That makes sense," she whispered to herself, eyes wide with realization.
Then—silence.
She finally turned around, her voice soft:
"Hey, thank you—"
But there was no one there.
The path behind her was empty. No footprints. No rustle. No sign that anyone had ever been there at all.
Ai blinked rapidly, finally pushing away from the bench. She rose to her feet, her heart rate quietly ticking up. A strange weight pressed against her chest—cold and hollow.
Her eyes slowly scanned the garden.
"...What the hell?" she muttered.
A breath escaped her lips, more shaken than she meant it to be.
Then it hit her.
The back garden.
The rumors.
Students had whispered stories about this place. They called it the "Scholar's Graveyard."
Not because anyone had actually died here—but because students swore it was haunted. Doors creaked open by themselves, pages turned in the windless air, and those who stayed too long said they felt… watched.
Ai clenched her jaw, quickly sat back down on the bench, and yanked her glasses off. She pressed a hand against her forehead, the chill of her palm meeting a light sheen of sweat.
"Nope. Not happening. I'm not doing ghost stories today."
She let out a dry, awkward laugh—part nerves, part trying to keep her own logic in check.
"I mean… what kind of ghost helps with complex math equations, anyway?"
Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. She shook her head, pushing her glasses back on with trembling fingers.
"Must not have gotten enough sleep…"
Trying to refocus, she picked up her journal again, flipping back to the page she had been working on.
And then she froze.
Right below the last equation, in the same neat, elegant handwriting that had corrected her earlier—something new had been written:
"You're welcome."
Followed by a tiny hand-drawn smiley face:
:)
Her spine stiffened. The air around her suddenly felt colder, too still. She stared at the words for several seconds, the quiet chirp of a bird somewhere far away the only sound in the world.
She slowly closed the journal.
Folded her hands.
And whispered:
"No way..."
---
Ai Hoshino clutched her journal tightly as she made her way through the long, echoing corridor. Her shoes tapped rhythmically against the polished floor, but her mind was anything but steady.
The handwriting was real. Crisp. Sharp. Impossibly neat.
More than that, the solution had been right. All of it. The method—the steps—the shortcut so elegant it made her wonder how she hadn't seen it before.
She had finished the entire presentation in record time.
Faster than even she had expected.
Faster than any of her classmates could have expected.
She turned into the wide, sunlit hall, where students were still scattered in groups before the next class. Her friend, Hana, spotted her first and waved her over.
"Whoa, Ai! You're done already?"
Ai nodded, her expression neutral but her mind clearly occupied. She held her bag in one hand, journal tucked protectively under her arm like a fragile secret.
The other girl, Mina, rolled her eyes with a teasing grin.
"Of course she's done. She's the top student in this college, remember? You could probably hand her a rocket blueprint and she'd solve it with half a pencil."
"Actually…" Ai started, then hesitated.
Yuki tilted her head. "Hmm? What's wrong?"
There was a pause.
Ai looked away, her brows furrowing for a beat. Then she leaned in slightly, lowering her voice.
"Have you two ever heard… anything about the garden behind the building?"
Hana blinked. "The back garden? With all the plants and benches? Yeah, it's a peaceful spot."
Yuki laughed. "What, like rumors? That it's haunted or something? C'mon. Every campus has those."
"No, I mean…" Ai slowly pulled out her journal opened it to the marked page, and pointed at the final line.
In neat, elegant handwriting, just beneath the solved equation:
"You're welcome :)"
The two girls leaned in.
Hana blinked.
Yuki squinted.
Then Hana let out a small gasp.
"Wait… your handwriting got so clean! This doesn't even look like yours."
Ai shook her head.
"It's not mine," she said quietly. "I didn't write that. I was working back there when… someone helped me. Or, something. A hand just appeared. It corrected me. I didn't see who it was."
Hana blinked again, confused. "A… hand?"
Ai nodded. "Just a hand. It explained the entire equation in less than a minute. I didn't even turn around—I was too focused. When I did… no one was there."
For a beat, her friends said nothing.
Then Yuki slapped her hand over her mouth and burst out laughing.
"Ai!! You—you just got tutored by a ghost with a math degree!!"
"Shh!" Ai hissed, quickly looking around. "Keep it down!"
But Hana was already giggling too, stifling it behind her hand. "What kind of ghost writes with a smiley face?"
"One with manners, apparently," Mina smirked. "Did it bow and offer you tea, too?"
Ai groaned, slamming her journal shut with a bright red face. "Okay! I get it! It sounds stupid!"
Before she could say more, a small group of upperclassmen entered the classroom. One of them, a boy with dyed brown hair and headphones.
"Yo. What's going on over here?"
Hana grinned. "Ai talked to a ghost!"
Mina leaned in dramatically. "A math-loving ghost."
There was a beat.
Then the boys roared with laughter.
"No way!"
"Bro, what kind of supernatural being shows up just to solve equations? What's next? A physics poltergeist?"
"Did it draw graphs too? Or just smiley faces?"
Ai buried her face in her hand, cheeks flushed.
"I never said it was a ghost. I said it was strange."
"Yeah, yeah," one of the boys chuckled. "What's strange is how your imaginary ghost has better handwriting than me."
"She's probably been studying so hard she hallucinated," another offered with a wink.
Before Ai could deliver a proper retort, the door creaked open.
Their professor stepped in, dark coat swinging, glasses catching the light.
The teasing faded. Students scrambled to their seats. Laughter died down into the scratch of notebooks and the shuffle of papers.
Ai sat quietly, her journal now resting in her lap.
She stared at the final message again.
"You're welcome :)"
She rubbed her thumb over the corner of the page, but the ink didn't smudge.
A ghost?
No.
Too methodical. Too sharp. Too precise.
Someone was playing a game with her.
And Ai didn't like being on the side of the board that didn't know the rules.
---
A sweeping haze of darkness curled around the edges of perception as the world shifted.
The Catalysts—six of them now, excluding Zazm—stood within the timeless abyss of the Shadow Realm. Here, reality bent to their will. No sun. No stars. Just a glowing horizon of endless shadowlight. A perfect place for high-intensity combat training.
Suddenly, a glowing ball of what looked like crystallized plasma whizzed through the air and smacked against a summoned shield of pure force.
Like the usual Catalysts were train--, WAIT THEY ARE PLAYING DODGEBALL NOW?
Minos grinned, tossing the radiant ball back into the air, which hovered for a second before he spiked it straight toward Jahanox.
Jahanox caught it effortlessly, his arm pulsing faintly with kinetic feedback. "Too easy."
He pivoted and hurled the ball. Jennie leapt, her scarf fluttering behind her as she smacked the ball hard with both hands, redirecting its path.
On the other side, Miwa was too busy laughing at something Minos said and barely noticed the incoming shot.
"Wha—!"
She squeaked and instinctively used telekinesis, halting the ball an inch from her nose. The dodgeball spun lazily in the air, humming with frozen momentum.
From beside the floating net, Kiyomasa raised a whistle to his lips and blew with exaggerated drama. TWEEET!
"That's a foul!"
Jahanox crossed his arms. "No powers, Miwa. You know the rules."
Miwa grinned sheepishly. "Oops. Muscle memory."
"We start over," Minos announced, already prepping another serve.
Jennie skipped over to the sidelines and nudged Kiyomasa's shoulder playfully. "Still not joining?"
Kiyomasa leaned back, his legs crossed, giving her a relaxed smile. "It's fun watching you all. You've got skills."
But while his exterior was calm, internally, his mind was racing with a very different plan.
He glanced across the "court" at Minos and Miwa—currently mock-arguing over who used powers first—then turned to Jennie and Jahanox, who were mid-discussion about the game's ever-changing rules.
'This is perfect,' he thought. 'If I play this right… I'll be the best wingman in the multiverse.'
He focused and looked at both Minos and Jennie.
Let's make this happen. Minos and Miwa. Jennie and Jahanox. I promise I'll support your two ships from the shadows.
Jahanox tilted his head, sharp eyes narrowing. "Why are you smirking?"
Kiyomasa startled. "Huh? Uh—no reason!"
Minos grinned, clearly not buying it. "Did our little Kiyo fall in love?"
Kiyomasa's entire system froze. "W-What?! No! I mean—I didn't—I—"
Miwa clasped her hands together dramatically. "Kiyomasa~ has a cru~ush!"
"Stop it!" he squeaked, already turning red.
Jahanox rolled his eyes, though a rare amused smirk ghosted his face. "If he ever confesses, we'll be ancient fossils buried beneath a museum display."
Everyone laughed—except poor Kiyomasa, who now wished for the dodgeball to hit him in the face and end his suffering.
He took a deep breath and mentally repeated: 'Be like Zazm. Don't react. Stay chill. Be mysterious. Be like Zazm.'
Then, Jennie tilted her head slightly, her tone growing a bit more thoughtful. "It's been three days. I wonder what Zazm's up to."
Miwa crossed her arms with a sly grin. "What else? Probably out there traumatizing the Eighth."
Jennie chuckled, her smile turning awkward. "You know what? That… might be true."
Minos nodded sagely. "No one survives his 'recruitment' without mild emotional trauma."
Jahanox arched an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
In perfect synch, Jennie, Miwa, and Minos all turned to him and said flatly, "His methods are… unique."
Miwa gestured dramatically. "So unique they'd probably traumatize you."
They all laughed again—this time including Kiyomasa, who had finally recovered from his embarrassment.
Meanwhile, in another part of the world, a girl named Ai Hoshino had just met a polite "ghost" with excellent math skills…...
---
The sun had begun to lower, casting long, orange shadows through the towering glass windows of the elite campus.
Ai stepped out of the college gates, a tired sigh leaving her lips as her bag pulled at her shoulder. The day had been long—mentally draining in ways that not even a cup of strong tea could fix.
She reached for her phone and pressed it to her ear.
"Hey, Dad. I might be a little late today," she said softly, her voice half-lost to the hum of distant cars.
"Oh? Everything okay?" came her father's warm, slightly raspy tone from the other end.
"Yeah. I just need to pick up some books from the central library. I'll be home in an hour."
"All right. Don't skip dinner again. I'll wait for you."
"I won't. Thanks." She hung up, tucked the phone away, and began walking again.
By now, the strange hand from earlier today had faded into the recesses of her mind—filed away under sleep deprived hallucinations and weird but whatever.The laugh she gave herself earlier had sealed it shut.
But not for long.
The city library loomed tall, a relic of old-world design with arched windows and quiet halls echoing with turning pages.
Inside, it was cool and still, the air perfumed with ink and dust. Ai stepped in, nodded politely to the librarian, and made her way to the science and mathematics section.
It didn't take long to find most of what she needed. She moved swiftly, picking out familiar titles and flipping through them for edition numbers.
But there was one book she couldn't find. A particular volume on advanced algorithmic structures, critical for a theory she was cross-referencing.
She stepped back and frowned.
"Excuse me," she asked the librarian at the front desk, "do you have 'Algorithmic Spectrums: Volume Two'?"
The librarian adjusted her glasses and peered into the system.
"Yes, we do. It's in Aisle D on the 17th shelf. Might be a bit high up, dear."
Ai made her way to D and walked towards the shelf 17. The book wasn't anywhere near eye level. Her gaze trailed up—and up—and there it was. Almost touching the ceiling. A single black-and-white spine sticking out among the others.
She blinked. "Seriously?"
Looking around, she found a step stool nearby and dragged it over, placing it carefully next to the shelf. Before climbing up, she set her bag down just to the left of the base.
She stepped up once.
And stopped.
Her eyes fell to the top of her bag—and there it was. The book. Sitting neatly atop it, like it had always been there.
Ai froze.
Her hand trembled slightly as she picked it up, flipping through the pages to ensure it was the same copy. It was. Right down to the college's property stamp on the inner cover.
She turned slowly, eyes sweeping across the silent, empty rows of shelves.
Nobody.
Not a single soul in the aisle with her.
"…No way," she whispered.
Just as she turned the book around in her hands, a thin piece of paper slipped out from between the pages. It floated lazily down, brushing against her shoe before resting face-up on the floor.
Neat, elegant handwriting stared back at her.
"You're welcome!"
":)"
Ai's heart skipped a beat.
Her mouth opened slightly, words caught in her throat. Slowly, she crouched down and picked up the note like it might bite her.
"…No. Nope." Her voice was firm. "That's not okay."
Without another thought, she dropped the book back on the floor and slammed the paper on to a shelf.
She grabbed her bag and practically marched out of the library, only slowing down when she hit the evening street.
She didn't look back.
The air in the library was still, almost heavy, as if holding its breath in Ai's absence.
At the far end of the reading hall, seated at a modest wooden table by the window, a boy with jet-black hair slowly closed the book in his hands.
"Tale of Time."
The cover bore the faded image of a broken hourglass, sand frozen mid-spill. His black eyes, darker than midnight, were still fixed on the library entrance where Ai had just exited, nearly running.
He had been watching her not in the way others might, but with the precision of a chessmaster observing a piece about to move itself.
The boy rose to his feet. His motions were smooth, unhurried, not drawing even a flicker of attention from the few scattered students nearby. The shadows seemed to move with him, stretching oddly as if recognizing their owner.
He walked with a quiet grace to aisle D23.
The library's lights hummed above as he stepped into the exact spot Ai had stood moments ago.
The book lay there Algorithmic spectrums: Volume two abandoned, its spine resting against the floor like a discarded thought.
He crouched and gently picked it up, brushing the faint dust off the corners. Then, without fanfare, he slid it back into its place on the shelf, precisely aligned.
His gaze drifted downward. A slip of paper, creased ever so slightly, rested near the shelf base.
He picked it up and turned it over.
"You're welcome :)"
The smile on the paper hadn't faded, but his eyes narrowed as he read it. He held it between two fingers and let out a small breath not quite a sigh, more like mild amusement.
"I was nice enough to write you this," he said softly, flicking the corner of the note. "You didn't have to throw it away."
He stood silently for a moment, eyes trailing along the aisle as if seeing something far beyond the visible walls of the library. He pocketed the note.
"She's not as cold and calculative as I expected," he murmured, folding his arms. "Kind of a nice person overall."
The boy turned, heading toward the exit, his steps quiet and measured.
But just before he passed through the threshold of the main door, he paused. His fingers snapped—once, a crisp, echoing sound that broke the hush of the library like a stone tossed into still water.
"I'll start the game then."
A smirk curled across his lips—one that hadn't graced his face in a long while. It was old. Familiar. Dangerous. The smirk of someone who once bent time and space not as tools—but as playthings.
But this time, it lacked warmth. The spark that once danced in Zazm Mystic's eyes was absent.
His eyes were hollow.
---
The soft rustle of leaves overhead greeted Ai Hoshino as she stepped onto the college grounds, her steps slower than usual. Her gaze kept flicking toward the back area—the garden space where she sat yesterday, where it all began.
She told herself she just wanted fresh air, but the truth was prickling under her skin like static.
Clutching her books tighter, she moved past the cobbled path toward the same wooden bench under the flowering tree, surrounded by plants that swayed gently with the morning breeze. The sun filtered through the branches in golden lines, casting soft shadows. It was peaceful. Almost too peaceful.
Ai hesitated for a few seconds before finally sitting down.
She didn't open the journal right away. Her eyes kept darting around—behind the trees, along the pathways, across the benches. No one. The only sound was birds chirping and the occasional rustle of leaves.
After a moment, she opened her journal and pulled out her pen.
She didn't want to force it—whoever or whatever it was might not come back if they sensed she was waiting. So she pretended. She furrowed her brows, tapped her pen, looked deep in thought.
Then, like yesterday, she slowly began writing out a math problem on the page. Her hand trembled just slightly as she copied it. When she reached the part she had marked as "stuck," she froze, looking confused on purpose… and then waited.
Nothing happened at first.
Then, suddenly.
A hand appeared again.
It was just like yesterday—pale, writing with perfect neatness, confident and unhurried. The hand pointed at a specific part of her work and began writing a short string of numbers and arrows, clean and logical.
Ai didn't hesitate this time.
Her head snapped around immediately.
But—
Nothing.
The bench was empty. The space behind it? Still. Trees, leaves, distant chatter of students. Not a single person near her. She blinked hard, her breath catching, eyes darting everywhere in disbelief.
"I turned around fast… I should have seen someone…" she whispered.
Her breathing quickened. Her hands trembled.
She slammed the journal shut and grabbed her bag. Her legs moved before her thoughts did, almost on instinct, as she rushed away from the bench. Her steps were erratic, frantic. When she finally stopped under a shaded corridor, her chest was rising and falling fast.
She opened the journal again, almost afraid to look.
There it was.
Not a solution. Not a correction.
But a new message, carefully written in that same clean, elegant handwriting:
"Reality blinks when no one is looking can you catch those blinks?"
And just below the sentence—was a mark.
It wasn't a signature. It wasn't a doodle.
It was a symbol.
A strikingly intricate hourglass, delicately drawn with lines that curved and branched out like veins of light.
Around it were geometric shapes, arcane rings, and fractured loops that interlocked with mathematical perfection. There was something almost hypnotic about it something that felt alive.
Ai stared at it, eyes wide. Her breath hitched.
"I've… never seen anything like this before," she whispered.
But her gut said otherwise.
She didn't know what it was, but her instincts screamed that it meant something. Something serious.
The mark hummed with a strange gravity—as if whoever drew it didn't just design it, but crafted it with intention. Her fingers brushed the paper slowly, as if afraid it would react.
And for a second, she swore she felt a pulse under her fingertips.
She looked below the mark to find another text, not exactly a text but a small poem.
"where 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴,
𝘈 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘪𝘥, 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴.
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵 but not that way,
𝘈 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩, 𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵.
𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦,
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴 a new blink."
---
The night was quiet, but Ai's mind was anything but.
She sat cross-legged on her bed, the riddle scrawled in perfect calligraphy haunting the pages of her notebook like a whisper she couldn't unhear.
𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴,
𝘈 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘪𝘥, 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴.
pay attention to clues in bold,
and the answer will be yours.
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵,
𝘈 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩, 𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵.
𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦,
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘢 new blink.
She gently chewed on the end of her pen, brow furrowed. The words looped over and over in her head. At first, they'd seemed poetic—cryptic for cryptic's sake. But now, staring longer… they weren't just words. They were instructions. A layered clue.
Her fingers tapped against the fabric of her blanket in rhythm with her thoughts.
First verse—Where knowledge sleeps on towering shelves.
She sat up straighter.
"The library," she whispered. "That day... the hand helped me reach a book."
Ai stood and paced slowly across the room, recalling it clearly now—the time she went to pick up the stool in the library and when she came back the book she wanted rested on her bag.
"Algorithmic Spectrums: Volume Two," she murmured. "That was the book."
She stopped pacing, then narrowed her eyes.
"The riddle said, 'each helping trace.'"
"So that was the first trace."
She sat back down, flipping through her notes from that day. There was a scribbled line referencing the book—good. She'd written the title down. Her eyes flicked to the second part of the riddle.
Second verse—Then where equations held you fast...
That was when the hand first appeared. The bench.
She quickly opened the journal and started looking for something inside.
And then she found it a problem written in the same handwriting which she already solved in the flow.
The problem in her notebook hadn't been hers at all. It was way too simple.
It was left there by the hand. As if… it had wanted her to solve it.
She grabbed the notebook again and flipped through it. The question was find the "?" In the sequence. The sequence stared back at her:
2, 4, ?, 8, 10
Ai scoffed.
"That's... obvious."
"Even numbers. The missing value is 6."
Her mind drifted back to the book title:
Algorithmic Spectrums: Volume Two
"Does it have something to do with the title or the book itself."
She mouthed the title slowly again.
"Wait, clues in bold.....meaning title so it does have something to do with the title." She quickly wrote down the title of paper on a book and carefully started observing it.
"What is this about? I can't seem to find anything." she leaned back irritated since she couldn't find anything or any connection at all.
She looked at it once again, "It starts with A....what's A? A vowel."
She quickly got up to try something new again.
"How many vowels…?"
She mouthed the title slowly.
A, o, i, i, e, u
Six.
She froze. Her breath caught.
Six vowels. Six was the missing number.
A smirk appeared on her face.
Her eyes widened slightly. The hair on her arms rose.
"This is intentional. Too specific to be chance."
"It's 6...or"
She whispered, "Six vowels… the sixth letter in the alphabet is…"
She traced it with her finger.
A=1, B=2, C=3… F.
"F."
She glanced back at the last last line of riddle:
The connection marks a new blink.
"what does F or 6 can be used for?" she put a hand on her head trying to think of something.
She continued to mutter it under her breath, "wait is it Library? Aisle F, shelf 6 perhaps...."
Her smile widened as she nodded and decided to go to the library again tomorrow.
She knew this was too weird to be a prank but now she was curious about it.
__________________________