Kaito extended his perception toward the distant system.
Even across unimaginable space, he felt the instability—raw, unstructured expansion feeding on stellar mass.
But here, he lacked something critical.
Silver Eyes.
The Counterweight was planetary—woven into Earth's laws.
Without her full presence, any division attempt risked incomplete balance.
"You want scalability?" Kaito said quietly. "Then understand this."
He projected the memory of the hunter's sacrifice.
The cost of equilibrium.
The Watcher processed the data in cascading layers of light.
Counterweight variable unavailable in external system.
"Then I improvise."
He stepped forward, compressing his internal rings outward, projecting a preliminary boundary lattice toward the dimming star.
Immediately, strain tore through him.
On Earth, the twin Boundary Stars lurched violently out of alignment.
Silver Eyes cried out as tectonic plates shifted slightly in response.
"Kaito—distance is destabilizing the anchor!"
The Watcher observed both events simultaneously.
For the first time, its tone altered.
Architect integrity declining. Recommend retreat.
Kaito gritted his teeth, holding the forming lattice together around the foreign Hunger.
If he withdrew, that system would fall.
If he continued—
Earth might fracture.
And across the cosmos, for the first time in their long observation—
The Watchers felt uncertainty.