The glass was cold as ice. But within that coldness lived a faint vibration. It wasn't the rumble of the train; it was the creaking of the world's skeleton as the very coordinates beyond the window were rewritten.
Koyoi couldn't pull his palm away. The vibration seemed to permeate his skin, travel his veins, and reach his very heart. Every time silver spray lashed against the glass, the silhouettes of towns, roads, and bridges that once existed flickered into view for a heartbeat before vanishing.
These were fragments of a world stripped from their rightful places by the shifting coordinates, drifting through the void as wreckage of information. Inside his drawstring pouch, the Rain God’s Drop pulsed erratically. It was a frantic thrumming, a sharp departure from its usual gentle rhythm. The god, too, was keenly sensing the anomaly in the coordinates.
Koyoi pressed one hand lightly against the opening of the pouch, stroking the fabric with his fingertips as if to soothe the deities within. But the pulse of the Drop didn't subside; if anything, it grew more intense. He could feel the faint, overlapping presence of the River God as well, the pouch filling with the shared anxiety of the two spirits. Above them, the pale lanterns in the carriage flickered unnaturally, casting dancing shadows across the seats.
Particles of information spilled like sand from cracks in the ceiling's wood grain. The Mist Train itself was becoming unstable, buffeted by the shifting coordinates. Outside, silver crystals swirled like a blizzard, circling a massive, gaping void at its center.
A place where coordinates had vanished.
A scar on the laws of nature where something had once surely existed, now replaced by nothing but the abyss.
Kuon kept the Catalog open, his prosthetic eye casting a blue glow as he searched deep within the pages. Scanning lines of azure light raced across the paper far faster than usual. As the rewriting of the coordinates progressed, the information inscribed in the Catalog morphed by the second.
Kuon was in a race against time. The blue light from his eye illuminated his cheekbones with a sharp edge, carving deep shadows into his gaunt face. His lips remained slightly parted, his breath shallow and unconscious as he poured every ounce of his focus into the decryption.
"...Look at this. The coordinates are being 'rewritten' right in front of us," Kuon muttered.
His voice was low and quiet, but beneath that stillness swirled suppressed rage and frustration. The blue light of his prosthetic eye flared even sharper. Koyoi could see the coordinate values displayed on the pages being overwritten in real-time. Each number represented an address, a name, a memory of something that once was.
"The Observers are using the 'Original Catalog' in the deepest part of the Sutra Library. They're trying to forcibly invalidate this stolen information."
Now, at the hands of the Observers, every single record was being erased, returned to a blank slate. Kuon tightened his grip on the page, pushing the output of his prosthetic eye to dangerous levels to salvage as many fading values as possible.
"...Rewritten? Then, does the place we're heading to even exist? Or is it just a... 'lie'?"
Koyoi’s voice trembled. His palm, still pressed against the window, had turned red from the cold and the vibration. In his eyes flickered a primal fear—the fear that their destination might simply cease to be. If the place they were risking their lives to reach vanished before they arrived, if this journey itself was meaningless... deep in the boy's chest, the flame of hope he had fought so hard to keep alive wavered.
But the moment the warmth of the pouch brushed against his hip, the Rain God's Drop pulsed with renewed strength, its light illuminating Koyoi’s anxiety from within. It couldn't be a lie. As long as this warmth was real, the destination had to be there too.
Asahi leaned her back against the wall, listening to their conversation in silence. There was no trace of panic or fear on her face, only the shadow of deep contemplation. Her right hand rested on the hilt of her greatsword, ready to draw at a moment's notice, but the enemy she faced now was not one she could see. Against the rewriting of coordinates—a threat no physical blade could sever—Asahi was quietly determining how she, as a warrior, must stand.
"...Don't rush the record. The true 'awakening' only comes at the exact moment this storm of information freezes solid," Asahi said, her words sharp and decisive.
Her voice held the unique composure of one who had survived countless battlefields. Her experience told her that those who panic in the heart of the storm lose. It is in the split second the storm stops that the sharpest strike can be delivered.
Emboldened by her words, Koyoi gently pulled his trembling palm away from the glass. Outside, the silver crystals continued to swirl, and the coordinates continued to be rewritten.
But within the three of them, nothing wavered anymore. They wouldn't just wait for the moment the storm froze; they would seize it with their own hands.