I. Pressure before the gesture
In Edenfall, more and more bodies began to manifest a common sensation before moving: a slight internal pressure , as if the body had to contain something unspoken… unlearned… not yet its own.
It wasn't pain. It wasn't impulse. It was as if, a second before the gesture, the body doubted its right to exist.
Riva called it Pre-Intentional Pressure (PIP) . Velos compared the sensation to "a breath that doesn't know whether it's an inhalation or an exhalation."
During training, many people would stop just before starting a technique, simply because they didn't know if what they were about to do was really theirs.
Juno wrote:
"Intention is no longer enough.
The body now needs certainty."
II. The Birth of the Unoriginated Leap
During a free practice session in Ring Eleven, a trainee named Kyen executed a vertical jump… without knowing why.
It wasn't meant to dodge.
It wasn't meant to attack. And it wasn't a mistake.
It was… instinct without purpose.
That jump triggered a chain reaction:
three other students replicated the move. Then five more. Until the entire ring was filled with bodies in brief suspension, as if they all shared the need to take off from the ground for no reason.
Lirea called it the Non-Originated Jump (SNO) :
"A gesture that comes not from memory,
nor from intention, but from the shared weight of being here."
III. Akihiko and the Friction of Inner Silence
While training with Naeya, Akihiko attempted a repeat of a shifting technique.
But right at the final turn, his body gave out.
Not because of fatigue.
Not because of technical uncertainty. But because of something deeper:
the absence of inner sound.
He wasn't listening to his body. He felt no feedback. It was as if his physical form… no longer needed to communicate anything to him.
Akihiko stopped and closed his eyes.
For minutes, he didn't move. And then, without thinking, he performed the technique again... but without thinking of it as his own.
Naeya watched silently and muttered:
"Your body didn't speak to you this time.
Because it already trusts you to move on its own."
Thus was born a new tactical principle: The Friction of Inner Silence.
IV. Sael and the Figure of the Gesture Without a Witness
In the Reverse Garden, Sael discovered that one of the old training marks had changed. It was no longer a footprint. It was an incomplete figure , half-carved into the ground.
It seemed like the beginning of a step… halted. A transition between being and moving…
interrupted without violence.
Sael tried to replicate the figure,
but his body stopped when he reached the exact point where the footprint disappeared.
He decided to make the gesture… without anyone seeing him. Alone. Without writing it down. Without recording it.
That day, something changed in him. He didn't know what. Only that he had done something that needed to happen without witnesses.
The figure was named: Gesture Without Witness.
V. Appearance of the Miragers of Opposite Movement
A new threat appeared among the peripheral records:
small groups of individuals who, upon witnessing a movement,
replicated its exact opposite.
If someone extended a hand, they retracted it. If they leaned to the right, they turned to the left.
They didn't attack. But they disrupted training. They destabilized the rhythms. And above all… they sowed uncertainty about the validity of the original gesture.
Riva called them the Miragers of Opposing Motion .
Velos, Sael and Akihiko decided to confront them not with technique,
but with something more radical: the disappearance of the reflection.
During a mock duel, they stopped responding. They didn't move. They just breathed.
And they let the Mirageurs lose their pattern.
Without a mirror,
there is no opposite. Without reaction, there is no reinforcement.
The Miragers began to disintegrate…
not physically. But in their own purpose.
VI. Lirea and the Memory of the Interrupted Gesture
Lirea worked on a new technique: remembering all the gestures he once couldn't finish.
Hugs not given. Exits avoided. Blows stopped before impact.
He created a sequence based solely on incomplete gestures. A choreography that didn't seek closure, but rather resonance.
When I performed it in front of the Wall of Delayed Contact,
it didn't respond as usual. It didn't return any echo. It only projected a silhouette... which repeated each gesture, but with no apparent intention.
And Lirea understood:
"Sometimes the body just wants to know…
that what is unfinished can still be shared."
VII. Epilogue – Where what was not… still plays
That night, Edenfall emitted no vibration. No ring resonated. No figure was registered.
But several bodies stopped in mid-movement. For no reason. Without agreement.
And as they looked at each other...
they realized that they had all stopped... at exactly the same moment.
Not because they knew what was next. But because for once…
the undone could also be affirmed.
END OF CHAPTER 183