The next morning arrived with cold mist clinging low over the training fields. Early fog made the usual track banners look like faded curtains, barely fluttering in the still air.
Whispers moved through Tracen Academy before the bell even rang.
"Did you hear what happened during pacing?"
"Jungle Pocket lost half a second."
"I thought it was wind. But the sensors said zero."
"Coach didn't say anything. So maybe it's nothing?"
"She just... ran like normal. That's what's weird."
"She?"
"You didn't see her?"
"No, who?"
"Kagura Seiran."
The name didn't come with drama or fame yet but it came with weight.
The kind of weight people didn't understand.
The kind that filled a room before the person entered it.
Kagura stood on the edge of the school courtyard, near the fountains, alone and absolutely still.
Same uniform.
Same boots.
Hair pulled back behind one ear.
She wasn't reading. She wasn't looking at her phone. She just stood like she had been placed there by something other than her own feet. Not rigid. Not tense.
Just present.
Wind brushed against the maple trees nearby but never reached her sleeve.
Like even air didn't want to intrude.
Agnes Tachyon, meanwhile, was wide awake despite only getting three hours of sleep.
She moved through the cafeteria line in silence, balancing a tray with a single apple, a pen wedged behind her ear, and a stack of printed frame data sticking out of her coat.
Behind her, Jungle Pocket was already mid-rant.
" and I swear, I didn't trip! It was like the track tilted! Like, you know, a treadmill miscalibrated on one side "
"You tripped," Dantsu Flame said flatly.
"Okay, yes but why then? We were even until that point!"
"I lost tempo too," Erimo Excel said gently, adjusting her hair tie.
Agnes didn't speak, but her head tilted, just slightly.
"Maybe we were crowding her," Excel added. "Kagura."
Flame narrowed her eyes. "She didn't crowd us."
"No," Excel said. "That's the weird part. It didn't feel like she moved. It felt like we moved wrong."
Jungle Pocket grimaced. "Well, I'm not running near her again unless someone puts cones around her."
Agnes finally turned.
"Your balance correction triggered on frame 11,241," she said. "Same as Flame and Excel. Three-frame turbulence. No wind. No step error. But your bodies all reacted like there was drag."
Jungle Pocket blinked. "...Was that English?"
"She's saying we all got messed up at the exact same time," Flame muttered.
Agnes took a bite from her apple.
"Except Kagura."
At drills, Coach Misaki stood before the assembled students, voice sharp as ever but with one eyebrow raised like she was daring someone to step out of line.
"Today is pairing drills. Your partners are randomized. Work with whoever you get."
A few quiet groans.
"Some of you need the challenge," Misaki added. "Some of you need the humility."
She held up the clipboard. "Kagura Seiran lane five. Partnered with Erimo Excel."
The reactions rippled.
Excel blinked.
Kagura didn't.
No surprise. No comment. Just a single nod.
They moved to their start line side by side.
The drill was simple: 800 meters side-by-side, no drafting, no passing. Just synchronized pace holding at 16 m/s.
For the first 200 meters, they moved well.
Kagura's rhythm was clean. Excel matched her easily at first, light on her feet.
Then the distance between them began to shift not because Kagura accelerated, but because Excel's pace broke.
Her breath hitched.
Her shoulder dipped slightly.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing a casual viewer would notice.
But it was enough.
Excel fell half a stride behind by the 400-meter mark.
By 600, a full stride.
Coach Misaki blew the whistle.
"Pause the drill!"
Excel slowed, stepping off the lane and placing her hands on her hips.
Kagura stopped exactly on cue, no visible effort in her breathing.
Misaki approached.
"What happened?"
"I… don't know," Excel admitted. "She wasn't going faster. But it felt like I was being pushed out."
"Did she bump you?"
"No."
"Did you change your stride?"
"No. I think…" Excel hesitated. "I think the space between us changed."
Misaki glanced at Kagura, who offered nothing. No excuse. No gloating.
Just quiet calm.
Later that day, Kagura passed by the outdoor lunch patio, where a few second-years whispered behind their bent lunch boxes.
"She doesn't blink much."
"I heard she was from an independent circuit."
"What's her title?"
"Something about wind?"
"No, storms. I think they called her The Storm That Breathes."
"That's so edgy."
"Fitting."
Kagura passed them without changing pace.
In the late afternoon, she returned to the practice track alone.
Not to run.
To walk.
She stepped slowly along the outer edge, watching the curve of the rail, measuring her stride against the faded lane markers.
The wind picked up, brushing through the trees beyond the fence.
She didn't react.
Inside the east tower, Agnes sat cross-legged on the floor of her lab, surrounded by loose printouts.
Red lines circled frame captures.
Handwritten notes spiraled into theories.
But none of it answered her real question.
"If she's not speeding up,
and others are slowing down,
what is the source of the ripple?"
She scrolled back to Kagura's bio.
Nothing special.
Trained alone. No known coach. No official races outside of regional qualifiers.
Yet here she was, running evenly with top-ranked athletes. Not pushing just holding a strange, perfect center.
Agnes flipped the paper over and began sketching.
Instead of a runner's arc, she drew circles.
Kagura at the center.
The others around her.
Not behind, not ahead orbiting.
"She isn't the storm," Agnes whispered. "She's the eye."
That night, Kagura stood beneath the dormitory flagpole, looking up at the cloth as it flapped against the pole. The stars were sharp, and the wind had returned in low, sweeping gusts.
She tilted her head slightly.
Closed her eyes.
Felt the wind brush past her then away.
Like it didn't want to touch her.
Her fingers flexed slightly, as if remembering the rhythm of the morning drill.
Then
Someone spoke from behind.
"You don't make noise when you walk."
It was Erimo Excel, wrapped in a windbreaker, arms crossed.
Kagura turned only slightly.
Excel stepped closer. "What are you?"
Kagura didn't answer.
"You're not just fast," Excel said. "You don't even move like us."
Still silence.
"I'm not scared of you," Excel added.
Kagura finally turned to face her.
"No reason to be," she said, voice calm. "I don't run to break others."
"Then why do they break when they're near you?"
Kagura looked past her, toward the horizon.
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe I'm not running toward something. Maybe I'm running with something."
A long silence passed between them.
Then Excel turned and walked away.