At the end of the street in the Moonlit Gorge, there was a rift. The ground had simply split open. It was just wide enough for a single person to pass through.
Peering into the depths, the bottom was nowhere to be seen. Faint light leaked from the walls of the fissure. It wasn't the brilliance of a Name. It was something older—a duller, heavier glow.
"It’s no well," Asahi said, dropping to one knee at the edge of the rift. "It’s not shaped like one. But its function is the same: a repository for Names. Except, what’s down there is—"
Kuon scanned the interior of the rift with his prosthetic eye. An azure beam illuminated the rocky walls.
"It’s not a Name."
"If it’s not a Name, then what is it?"
"A promise."
Koyoi crouched at the edge of the chasm, his gaze fixed on the light emanating from the walls. The light didn't take the shape of characters or letters. It was round.
Each one glowed like a tiny sphere, and within those spheres, something was tightly packed.
"What do you mean, a promise?"
"It’s something the gods left behind before their Names were Frozen," Kuon explained, his voice low. "The original records in the Sutra Library mentioned it. The first god to have their Name Frozen left a single promise in exchange. That promise is what is kept here."
Kuon’s voice grew even quieter.
"The Freezing wasn't a punishment. It was a transaction. In exchange for surrendering their Names, their promises would be kept safe. Even if the Name is lost, the promise remains."
"A promise for what?"
Kuon shook his head.
"The contents can only be read by the one who made the promise."
Koyoi reached his hand into the rift. The moment his fingertips brushed the light on the wall, a wave of warmth surged through him. It was a sensation entirely different from the ice of the wells.
It was soft, warm, and deeply sad.
The pouch at his side pulsed. This time, it wasn't a shiver of fear.
It was a resonance.
The Promise inside the rift and the Drop within his pouch were recognizing one another.
"…I know this," Koyoi whispered.
Something flowed into him through his fingertips. It wasn't words.
It was something closer to raw emotion—the lingering fragments of the gods' memories from when they still possessed their Names.
I will return. I will take it back. So for now, I entrust this to you.
It was the warmth of a resolve that refused to break.
Koyoi pulled his hand back. His eyes were shimmering with tears.
"They... they intended to come home. They didn't throw their Names away. They entrusted them to this place. They meant to come back for them one day."
"And yet, no one ever came," Kuon said, his words trailing off into a heavy sigh. "The promises remained, and the Names stayed Frozen for thousands of years."
Asahi stood up.
He looked down into the rift and tightened his fist.
"Well, then we’re the ones who’ve come to get them. That’s good enough, isn’t it?"
Kuon didn't answer.
He opened his ledger and recorded the coordinates of the rift. The Repository of Promises.
They needed to remember this place—not just to thaw the Frozen Names, but to return the promises to those who made them.
Koyoi clutched the pouch to his chest. The pulsation of the Drop had grown calm. By touching the promise in the rift, he felt as if something within the Drop had slightly unraveled.
A breeze swept against the rock walls of the Moonlit Gorge. Inside the rift, the lights flickered and winked in the wind.
There was a scent of brine in the air. A smell like the sea was drifting from deep within the canyon.
Kuon closed his ledger and turned toward the source of the scent.
"…There is still something further ahead."
Koyoi wiped his eyes and retied the pouch to his waist. The warmth of the Drop felt slightly stronger than before. It was because he had touched the promise. The resolve of those who had left their Names behind now burned like a small ember within the Drop.
Asahi stepped across the rift and began to walk. Without looking back, he simply reached a hand out behind him.
Koyoi watched his hand for a moment, then hurried to catch up.