The moment they entered the Kyōzō, a heavy silence possessing a physical mass severed them from the world's light and sound.
Before them stretched a forest of monolithic bookshelves, standing as orderly, relentless monuments to the laws of the world. Each shelf rose like a pillar supporting the heavens, packed tight with hundreds of millions of excess records—histories and stories pruned from existence.
Through her soles, Koyoi felt the ground beneath the dust. It had mutated into something colder and harder than any land they had ever known. She drew in the frigid air, thick with the scent of ancient ink and the distinct, deathly musk of paper unopened for ten thousand years.
Her fingertips brushed a nearby shelf, feeling a chill no living thing should touch and the faint vibration of a whisper. The more she listened, the more the laments of the forgotten—and the gods who could not be saved—surged from the gaps between the books, rushing into her mind as soundless voices.
"Don't listen. The whispers here are a poison of records, meant to devour a living spirit from the inside out."
Kuon spoke with a voice like a taut bowstring, clutching his prosthetic left eye. The artificial orb flickered with a ghostly blue light, pulsing as it strained against the crushing weight of the records radiating from the shelves.
"It’s a trap. If you accept those voices as truth, your own existence will be bound and filed away as just another volume in these stacks."
His words pierced her chest sharper than a north wind. The terror of being rewritten into a lifeless book chilled her to the bone. Rejecting such a fate, she clutched the drawstring pouch at her waist tighter.
Asahi led the way, using his greatsword’s sheath to casually shove aside the massive wreckage of books blocking their path. Only his wall of fighting aura held the impure whispers at bay, anchoring them to reality. With every step, the thick dust billowed with a muffled foomph—the eerie sigh of the dead—swallowing their footprints.
Deeper in the forest, the faint twilight from the windows gave way to a sickly, cold radiance emitted by the books themselves. It was a light without warmth, illuminating the silhouettes of truths erased from the world. In the corner of her eye, Koyoi saw an ancient volume fly open. Thousands of names fluttered from its pages like a swarm of black butterflies, vanishing into the dark.
“...Look at us. ...Please... do not forget...”
The plea from the gods shook her very soul. Reflexively, Koyoi reached toward the book, but at the last second, Kuon’s fingers clamped around her wrist with crushing force.
"Fool! Do you want to die?!"
Kuon’s shout, thick with rage and terror, echoed through the silent forest. A searing heat from a logic overload surged from his fingertips into her wrist. Koyoi realized her sanity had been hauled back from the very edge of the abyss.
"I’m sorry," Koyoi gasped, her shoulders heaving as she fought to find her breath. Kuon didn't let go. He focused his prosthetic eye on the darkness ahead. "They’re coming. The Guardians of the Index."
A chilling ring of steel rose from the shadows—a cold, inorganic sound, like giant shears cutting through reality. From the mist emerged otherworldly sentinels draped in the tatters of ancient paper, wielding Scythes of Record. They had no faces; instead, a single ledger page was plastered where a head should be.
The guardians advanced with heavy, rhythmic steps, intent only on silencing the intruders. Inside her pouch, Koyoi felt the three gods shudder with unprecedented fear. She let the flame in her heart burn with all its light.
"So these are the measurers of this place? Fine," Asahi growled, drawing his greatsword. The silver blade gleamed with a malevolent light in the archives' cold glow. He stepped forward, planting his feet firmly on the grime-covered stone to meet the gatekeepers of death head-on. "Koyoi, Kuon! I’ll hold them. Run for the Shelf of Truth at the center!"
"Asahi! But—"
"Don't hesitate! If you have time to look at my back, use it to burn every record you see into your memory!"
To Koyoi, Asahi’s powerful back was the only living record she could trust in this abyss. She wiped her tears and, pulling Kuon along, threw herself into the gap created by the guardians' advance.
Behind them, Asahi’s blade clashed with the scythes. The impact shook the forest to its foundations. As steel ground against records, sparks flew, and countless dead letters spewed from the books like a blizzard, blinding them.
She ran until she heard nothing but her own footsteps. Kuon’s fingers never let go of her wrist. That pain alone tethered her to reality.
At the innermost reach of the stacks, where the light failed and the darkness pooled, a single thread of golden light remained.