The sky had been transformed.
The first thing the three of them saw as they crawled out from the depths of the Repository was a sky streaked with veins of gold. The scorched traces of names—of the light that had ascended—were seared into the night.
They weren't stars.
They were finer than stars, more ephemeral than stars. But they were undeniably there.
The three stood in the ruins of an old marketplace. Tents leaned at precarious angles, pillars were snapped, and paper lay scattered across the flagstones. This place had once been a site of trade and commerce.
Now, it was empty.
Only the wind remained, tugging at the hem of a torn canopy. A single scrap of paper tumbled across the stones and came to rest at Koyoi’s feet. He picked it up. Characters were written there.
It was a name.
He didn’t recognize the name, but the color of the ink was the same as the ones he had seen inside the Repository.
"Did they fall?"
Kuon looked up at the sky. The azure light of his prosthetic eye traced the golden streaks lingering in the air.
"Not all of them reached the sky," he said. "The names that ran out of strength along the way... they rained down around here."
Looking around, Koyoi realized it wasn’t just paper. Fragments of characters were scattered everywhere—atop the canopies, amidst the wreckage of stalls, nestled in the hollows of the ground. Having lost their golden luster, they were fading into mere stains of ink.
Koyoi knelt. He touched one of the characters fallen on the earth.
It was cold.
He felt a faint weight against his fingertips. It was the remnant of a name.
Names that had slept for thousands of years within the ink of the Repository had finally found their way out, only to fall short of the sky.
The drawstring pouch at his side let out a sound. A low, long vibration.
"Do you know them?" Koyoi whispered to the pouch.
There was no verbal answer, but the rhythm of its pulsing changed. It was a pulse of grief. It didn’t know them individually, but it was mourning the companions who had shared the same dark space for so long.
"Let’s collect them," Asahi said, stripping a piece of fabric from a tent and spreading it out on the ground. "It’s better than leaving them here. If we write them down and take them with us, maybe we can let them fly again at the next Well."
Kuon opened his ledger. A golden line stretched from the book toward one of the fallen characters. The ledger was reading the names.
"Fourteen," Kuon announced. "Fourteen souls fell here."
Koyoi gathered the fragments of characters with both hands. His fingertips grew black with ink. Individually, each piece was light, but as he gathered them, they grew heavy.
Names have weight. The weight of those who once existed.
He lined up the fourteen fragments on the tent cloth. To keep the wind from taking them, he placed stones on the four corners—the same way they had handled the manuscripts in the Repository.
"I hope all of you reach the sky next time," Koyoi murmured.
He folded the cloth with care. He felt as though the warmth from the pouch was seeping through the fabric to the names within. Above them, the golden veins in the sky grew a fraction brighter. Perhaps morning was near.
Or perhaps the names that had reached the sky were looking back down at them.
The three left the marketplace. The scent of the tide was beginning to mingle with the wind. Though the mist was thin, the footing was treacherous; only the faint outlines of old charms remained in the cracks between the flagstones.
Koyoi pressed his hand over the mouth of the pouch, aligning the pulse of the "Drop" inside with his own breathing. The sea breeze brushed against his cheeks, and behind them, a single piece of paper from the tents took flight.
He didn't look back.
The cloth cradling the fourteen names felt faintly warm next to the pouch.
Trusting in that warmth alone, the three stepped forward into the mist.