"The God of Nature" Loved This World, but an Angel's Love Would Forever Be Given to You Alone

At first, it was only a single cool, clear note, rippling through the air in a nearly invisible circle; then came the second, the third, lightly linking together as though the melody had found its own breath and begun to flow.

It was no tune known to the mortal world.

Beneath Touma Kazusa's fingertips, the piano keys became a gentle breeze. Her eyes were shut tight as she forgot technique, forgot structure, and even forgot the act of "playing" itself.

She had merely become a medium, clumsily yet incomparably movingly translating the fresh, abundant "sounds" of this world that had flooded into her mind in that instant through the only language she had mastered.

And she did not notice that, as the piano music flowed, subtle changes were taking place in this ordinary piano room.

By the windowsill, the drooping aerial roots of the slightly wilted pothos seemed to curl upward with the music, as if greedily absorbing the rain and dew contained within it.

The slanting afternoon sunlight passed through the glass window, illuminating every speck of dust in the air.

Even the invisible moisture in the air seemed to become especially soft and pleasant beneath the vibrations of the piano. Every breath was filled with the fresh scent of a forest after rain, though there had been no rainwater outside the window.

All these "responses" were exceedingly subtle, almost illusory.

The wind remained wind, the light remained light, and the plants remained still. There was no obvious sign of supernatural power.

Yet this was precisely the most basic manifestation of the Heavenly Sound Dao. It did not forcefully command all things through human power, but harmonized the heart with nature's rhythms, playing notes capable of producing subtle "resonance" with all things and thus naturally drawing forth an echo