CHARACTER PROFILE
Kuro Sora
Kuro, 14 years old, was born on the remote planet of Firel, a marginal zone within the Luxios Empire. Currently living away from his family in a small rented room, he's tall and lean, with black hair and a quiet demeanor that feels more distant than it truly is. He performs decently in school, isn't athletic, and doesn't belong to any standout groups. Everything began to shift when he started sensing strange phenomena—something he later called "signal deviations"—around the start of his 14th year.
Mike Aeran
Mike is the same age as Kuro and comes from a well-off family. His father is the chief engineer at the regional energy station. Mike is slightly taller than Kuro, quick-witted, and loves tinkering with machines. He often shows up at school carrying a backpack heavier with tools than textbooks. The kind of person who always asks, "Why is that?" when someone makes a statement. He doesn't trust anything that can't be measured—but he's always willing to test something, if it makes sense.
The two boys are classmates, with very different ways of seeing the world, yet they are drawn together into a journey that neither of them could have imagined.
Highland noons bore a light entirely their own—not searing, not soft. It lingered, suspended between the sparse cloudline and the cold stone below, like the entire world was holding its breath in slow suspension.
Mike once remarked that Kuro had a way of looking at the sky as if waiting for something to fall from it. Perhaps it was true. Kuro was, after all, a dreamer. But he wasn't waiting for anything in particular. What he truly longed for was to understand what existed inside the seams of all things presumed known.
Life in this region went on, quietly persistent.
There were energy outposts, merchant routes, schools—even interstellar news relays playing highlights from Luxios Central.
Luxios—the largest corporate power on the planet—was the engine behind nearly everything. From electric grids and traffic nodes to the school's archival networks, its name was an ever-present undercurrent, a foundation more than a face.
Decades ago, internecine wars had torn through the delicate ecosystem of Firel. Luxios hadn't conquered—it had been welcomed. The conglomerate had stepped in when all else collapsed, guiding the planet's renewal from ash and ruin. Through soil-regeneration technology, harmonic energy matrices, and atmospheric rebalancing systems, Firel began to recover. First came the moss—flecks of pale green and red etched against the soil—then the return of seasonal energy blooms. Once a scorched and wind-stripped wasteland, Firel now resembled something reborn. A biosphere held gently in the arms of engineered equilibrium.
Noctis, a modest city perched atop flat highland stone, lay encircled by mist forests and rugged cliffs. Its air was always cool—never warm, never biting. Just cool.
Each week, school bulletins aired long segments titled "Updates from Luxios": climate sensor upgrades, new cable tunnels under construction, reports on energy flux meeting planetary standards. No one questioned them. Luxios wasn't mythologized. It was simply... embedded. As if it had always been part of the floorboards.
Everything moved in a kind of suspended rhythm, like the sunlight over quiet fields. So much so that Kuro didn't even bother to wonder what he wanted to become. Some of his classmates had already chosen careers in electrical systems engineering—an expected, respectable path. Kuro's own father worked in the field. But Kuro had no interest in following.
It wasn't rebellion. It wasn't disdain.
He just didn't want to inherit someone else's shape.
He wanted freedom. Whatever that meant.
That quiet ache lived inside him, unspoken—until the distortions began.
That morning in Noctis was unusually calm. No strange energy patterns. No deviations. Nothing. And perhaps that very absence is what made it feel... wrong. In the middle of Geoscience—arguably the dullest subject in school—Kuro raised his hand, feigned a stomach ache, and was excused. No one questioned it. He was a good student, reliable and unremarkable.
He wandered past the basalt outcrop behind the academic wing, letting the wind wash over his face. And then—his heart stuttered. Not pain. Not vertigo. Just a misstep in rhythm. Like the air had faltered with him.
He told Mike.
Mike frowned and said nothing. As if he hadn't heard. Or couldn't process it.
The second time, it happened at the fence near the abandoned water plant. Kuro stood between two strips of grass—one darker than the other, their elevation differing by maybe a few centimeters. Yet he could feel a boundary, like an invisible wave. His palms buzzed—not unpleasantly, but subtly. Like a whisper of static meant only for him.
He told Mike.
"Drink more water," Mike offered.
The third time occurred at a Y-junction, where a narrow stream bisected a worn path leading to the old tech sector. Kuro closed his eyes.
Everything went silent.
Not through focus. It was as if the space itself wanted him to listen.
Then—click.
A tiny sound inside his head. Not imagined. Not metaphor.
Like a gear falling into place.
He said nothing that evening.
But the next morning, Mike showed up, placing a clunky, half-built bracelet on Kuro's desk.
"Not because I believe you," Mike said. "But if you're sensing something—I want to measure it."
They went to the old field.
Set up the device. Adjusted the filters. Waited.
Nothing.
But then—right as Kuro felt the internal click again—the voltage readings dipped. A deviation of 0.02. Tiny, but measurable.
Mike didn't say he believed.
But he revised the sensor. Added a microfield response filter.
From that moment, the arc of their days began to bend.
Red markers began to appear on the planetary map in the classroom.
Mike's Sensor v2 gained a new tab:
"Unclassified Sensory Interference."
That was the day everything shifted—especially for Mike.
In the days that followed, they kept returning. After class. Between breaks. Sometimes skipping lunch altogether. From the old field to the city's edge, then further—beyond the disused signal tower near the foothills. With each trip, Mike's equipment evolved: finer calibration, longer range.
Noctis remained tranquil. Thin rains meandered through its alleys. Wispy clouds grazed rooftops like silent watchers. The air never grew warm. Never truly froze. It just existed—variably consistent.
One Friday, they stayed out past dusk.
The sky had turned heavy, unmoving.
Kuro sat on a weathered boulder, his back to the defunct data center. Eyes closed.
"Anything?" Mike asked, eyes on the sensor's feed.
Kuro opened his slowly. "It's like something brushing against the edge of awareness. Like knowing you've forgotten something... but can't recall what."
The sensor pulsed once. Then returned to normal.
No conclusions. Not yet.
But they started keeping logs. Where. When. How long.
No pattern—not yet.
Just a question. One with gravity.
They weren't ready to believe.
But they were ready to follow.
And in the silence between pulses, a map began to unfold—a path inked in anomalies, in things that couldn't yet be named.
Two boys stood on the edge of it. Not seeking truth. Not glory.
Just listening.
Just wondering.
And somehow—that was enough to begin.