The mornings had blurred into each other—fog, silence, the slow simmer of insect stock. Days passed in dim repetition as Soma Kushō isolated himself in the cavern chambers beneath the Kushō compound. He ate little, spoke even less. He was chasing something small. Too small for the rest of the clan to see.
He sat now at the edge of his private cavern, bare-chested, steam rising from his shoulders as the cool mountain air kissed away the last of his sweat. His chakra flared gently through his tenketsu, slow, steady.
Except for one spot.
Just beneath his ribcage—off-center, left of his navel—there was resistance. Chakra curled there like a knot, refusing to smooth out. Not stagnant. Not blocked. Listening.
He pressed two fingers against the spot. The spiral, once just a red blemish, had deepened to a bruised purple, its shape subtly defined beneath the skin. Not damaged. Not infected.
Alive.
He shifted his chakra again—deliberate this time. The knot pulsed, not in defiance, but… in reply. As if something inside had recognized the call and echoed it, like sonar off cavern walls.
> "Rooted in me," he whispered. "But not mine."
---
Test #42 was the culmination of over a month's worth of insect fusion trials. Five species this time, each prepared separately: a locust, a termite queen fragment, two hornets, and a stingerless wasp. Each soaked in brine, chakra-cooked and sealed in a crucible reinforced with layering threads.
He consumed it at midday.
Minutes passed. Then the pain hit.
His abdomen twisted inward like cloth rung dry. He fell to hands and knees, breath caught in his throat. Chakra surged—twisted—pushed into the spiral.
Shapes clawed the edge of his mind. Not thoughts. Not even memories. Just flashes: heat, wings, carapace, gnashing mandibles, an aching desire to molt.
Not hunger.
Anticipation.
Darkness crept up from the base of his spine and dragged him under.
---
He awoke with a shudder, hours later. The crucible was cold. The ache in his stomach had settled into something steady, like a second heartbeat below the ribcage.
He stood, unsteady, and checked the mark. The spiral glowed faintly with residual chakra.
When he pressed his palm to it, something inside clicked—not physically, but in his chakra. A sensation pulsed behind his ears. Rhythmic. Insectile.
> "It's responding," he muttered. "But to what?"
---
He logged it, hand trembling slightly from aftershocks:
> Test #42
Five-insect composite, brine-layered. Sustained chakra resonance.
Spiral site responded. Lost consciousness for approx. 90 minutes.
Symptoms: localized inner heat, subtle auditory feedback, rhythmic pulse.
Designation: Hive Core (tentative)
---
Later that evening, Kawa found him. Soma's cousin—wide-eyed, plainspoken, strong chakra. A favorite of the elders.
"You missed hunting duty again," Kawa said through the crack in Soma's door.
"Lost track of time," Soma replied. "Research."
Kawa sniffed the air. "Smells like you've been cooking beetles again."
Soma shrugged. "Some of the best predators are small."
"You're getting weird, you know that? You're not like the human-eaters. But you're not like the rest of us either."
Soma smiled. "That's the point."
---
That night, he refined his method further: a river beetle, a sand-burrow wasp, and a leech with faint chakra-draining properties. Each processed separately. Then fed to the Hive Core in sequence.
As he sat to meditate, chakra flowed steadily—but thickened near the spiral. He focused it, attempting to guide it as before.
But this time… something moved first.
There was a pull—like a sneeze, but deep in his stomach. Chakra surged through his network before he could form a seal.
> A sharp twitch through the diaphragm. His palm glowed unbidden.
A wet snap echoed in the stone chamber.
Something tumbled from his chakra-heavy palm.
It landed hard. Twitched.
Malformed. Incomplete. Chitinous limbs bent at odd angles. Six legs, uneven. A curved stinger without venom. One twitch. Another.
Then it swelled—grotesquely—and burst in a puff of sizzling green mist.
The stone beneath hissed. Acid etched curling lines where the mist landed, like the trail of a centipede.
Soma stared, slack-jawed.
> "It made something…"
---
He didn't sleep that night.
He sat at his desk, logged the event in full detail, hands smudged with ash and ink.
Then he placed his hand on the spiral and closed his eyes.
It pulsed once. Not hungrily.
Not randomly.
> "The Core is learning," he wrote.
"And now… it's starting to act."
> "It's not alive. Not yet. But it wants to become something."
Beneath his ribs, the Hive Core answered with a faint, aligning thrum.