The train raced on through the darkness. Outside the window, there was no scenery. Not even mist. It was a pure void where even light no longer existed.
Only the rhythmic clacking of wheels against the rails echoed through the car, a vibration that seeped through the wooden seat and into Koyoi’s spine. Opposite her, Kuon had the Catalog spread across his lap. The light emanating from its golden cover was visibly weaker than when they had first left the Sutra Repository. The edges of the pages were darkening unnaturally, and his fingertips trembled where they touched the paper.
Kuon’s prosthetic eye flickered as if straining to coax out a pale glow, picking up the invisible characters etched into the book line by line.
“...The records are fading,” Kuon murmured, his voice laced with desperation.
“Fading...? You mean, the Catalog of Truth?”
“Those ‘Observers’ have started rewriting it remotely from the source. At this rate, it’ll be returned to a blank slate in a few hours.”
Koyoi leaned forward, trying to peer at the pages, but Kuon’s hand silently blocked her path.
“Don’t look. Records in the middle of a rewrite are unstable. You’ll be swept away along with your own memories.”
“...Then… will you be okay, Kuon?”
“This eye of mine only reflects the records; it doesn’t actually ‘read’ them.”
Kuon narrowed his eye, staring at his own fingers as they traced the page. Wherever his touch landed, the characters crumbled like sand. The more he tried to scoop them up, the more they spilled through the gaps between his fingers. Asahi sat deep in the aisle seat, arms crossed and eyes closed.
He wasn’t sleeping. His ears were twitching, catching every sound in the carriage, constantly checking for the slightest anomaly.
“...We have no choice but to go back, do we? To that tomb,” Asahi said without opening his eyes.
“Yeah. We have to rewrite the source catalog directly. That’s the only way to ensure these records remain forever.”
Kuon’s voice was flat, but he was gripping the Catalog so hard his knuckles had turned white. Koyoi turned her gaze to the window. In the heart of the darkness, she saw something.
Faint motes of light were drifting past the glass. They looked like fireflies, or perhaps snow. Each individual grain held a microscopic character within it. Fragments of dismantled records were caught in the great torrent of Providence, wandering through the void.
The train sliced through this river of light at a right angle. Inside her drawstring pouch, the glass deity glowed faintly. Its reflection hit the windowpane, and for an instant, the drifting motes beyond the glass snapped into focus. Within each grain of light, she saw a name.
Names of people, gods, and lands. All of them names being erased—names that had never been read by anyone.
“...That light. It’s all names,” Koyoi whispered.
Asahi opened one eye. “Records are just names, in the end. If your name is wiped out, you cease to be anyone.”
The train surged with a slight increase in speed. The rattle of the wheels grew higher in pitch, and the vibration of the seats intensified. The density of the light motes outside increased until they became a deluge that seemed to envelop the entire train. Upstream against the river of names, the train raced on.
Beyond lay that pitch-black gate. Koyoi knew it in her heart. The deities within her pouch were trembling with a mixture of terror and resolve.
Koyoi pressed her forehead against the window. The coldness of the glass sank into her flushed cheek. The light of the names continued to flow. She couldn’t scoop them up, but she could bear witness to them.
The vibration of the train seeped into the core of her being like a fever or a lingering drowsiness. Koyoi did not resist it. She didn’t know how much time remained before they passed through the next gate. So, for now, she surrendered herself to the swaying of the racing train. The light of the names drifted slowly across the back of her closed eyelids.