Deep within the Gate of Records, rows of stelae stood in silent vigil.
More than a hundred stone pillars rose at regular intervals throughout the subterranean expanse. There was no ceiling. The tops of the pillars simply dissolved into the overhead gloom.
Characters were etched into one of them. A name. Beside the name, a horizontal line had been drawn.
A line through every single name.
"It is a ledger of the culling."
Kuon pressed his artificial eye against one of the pillars. A pale blue light illuminated the carved script.
"This cluster of monuments is the execution record of the culling. A name struck through signifies a god deleted from the Order. Every soul engraved here has been erased."
Koyoi looked out over the rows of pillars. A hundred were not nearly enough. They stretched far into the back, hundreds more standing until they vanished into the darkness.
"How many, in total?"
"Too many to count. But it exceeds a thousand."
Kuon’s voice grew brittle.
Koyoi stepped closer to one of the pillars. He couldn't read the name carved there; the script was ancient and weathered by time.
But the strike-through was vivid. A single, unwavering horizontal line.
And over that line, another set of marks had been drawn. A double line. A double line meant to cancel out the strike-through.
"It’s been crossed out."
Koyoi touched the double line with his finger. The carving was shallow—far newer than the original strike.
Kuon hurried to check the other pillars. Some had the double lines; others did not. It wasn't all of them. Only specific, chosen pillars bore the mark of the double line.
"Restoration," Kuon whispered. "An annulment of the culling. Someone tried to restore the names that were erased."
Kuon used his artificial eye to magnify the brushwork of the double lines.
"This handwriting—"
He stopped short.
"It is the same as the original manuscripts in the Sutra Library. The same as the seal on the Well of Hoshino."
"The First God," Asahi murmured.
"Yes. The First God came here and attempted to restore some of the culled names. Not all of them. They were being selective. Choosing by some criteria."
Koyoi looked down the rows of stone. The pillars with double lines weren't spaced evenly. They were clustered in some areas and entirely absent in others.
His drawstring bag pulsed. It pulled toward one pillar in particular, a strong, rhythmic throb. Koyoi approached it. This one had the double lines.
The name was written in ancient characters he couldn't decipher, but the Droplet inside his bag was vibrating violently. It felt warm.
It was a name he knew.
"Do you know this name?" Koyoi whispered to the bag.
A single glow emanated from the cloth.
"A friend?"
Another glow. Stronger this time.
Kuon deciphered the characters on the pillar with his artificial eye.
"This name... it was a god who protected living things. Their role was to watch over small beasts and insects. The reason for their culling: 'No observational necessity.'"
Erased, because they were not needed.
Koyoi’s fingertips stopped on the cold stone. His hand remained on the double line, unable to move. To erase something simply because it serves no purpose—that was the culling.
And the First God had tried to overturn that judgment.
"Could the First God not take it all back?" Asahi asked, looking at the endless rows.
The pillars without double lines were overwhelmingly more numerous.
"Did they run out of time? Or..."
Kuon lowered his gaze.
"If they had undone everything at once, the Observer would have noticed. So, they did it bit by bit. Starting with those who wouldn't be missed, over hundreds of years."
Koyoi pulled his hand away from the stone. The bag was still warm.
In the depths of the darkness, countless pillars still stood with only a single strike-through. Names that were never saved. Names the First God could not reach.
Koyoi clutched the neck of his bag, syncing his breathing to the pulse of the Droplet. Kuon did not open his ledger; he merely ran his thumb along the corner of a page. If he opened it now, the record would be fixed.
Asahi nodded, signaling with the subtle shift of his stance.
"We won't rush. We’ll stand at the edge of the breaking wave and choose the path with the fewest regrets."
Words brief, actions enduring.
With that resolve, the three of them took their next step forward.