The Staircase of Principles seemed to stretch infinitely, spiraling toward the heavens.
The height of each step was jarringly uneven—some were as tall as a knee, while others were no thicker than a single sheet of paper. This was no intentional design; rather, it was the result of countless cycles of the world’s laws collapsing and reconstructing, warping the staircase into something like the geological strata of time itself.
When Koyoi placed his foot on the first step, he felt more than just the coldness of the stone; he felt the resonating echoes of a thousand footprints sealed within. The memories of those who had climbed this path before—or those who had perished trying—lived on in the very fibers of the rock, preserved in their final moments.
The Droplet within his pouch brushed against those memories and trembled, sending a dull ache through Koyoi’s chest. Every time the light of the lanterns flickered, the shadows of the stairs shifted and crossed in complex patterns, making it impossible to tell where the solid stone ended and the illusory darkness began. The thought that one misstep would send him plummeting into the pitch-black abyss made his knees shake ever so slightly.
Kuon, meanwhile, remained focused on his Manifest.
The light emanating from his ocular prosthetic was sharper than usual. With every step they ascended, the artificial eye peeled back another layer of information. A pale blue light swept over the stone surfaces like a searching tongue, bringing hidden, invisible scripts to the surface.
The pages of the Manifest had already absorbed nearly as much data as they could hold; the leather cover was beginning to bulge as if under internal pressure. Kuon continued to flip through the pages without breaking his stride, though his fingertips betrayed a faint, persistent tremor.
With every flicker of the blue light, the shadows of pain etched into his face deepened, and the veins at his temples throbbed unnaturally. Yet, he uttered no word of complaint, merely staring ahead with a piercing gaze as he continued the climb.
"…Look. This is the speed of the Principles’ 'correction.'"
Kuon’s voice was low and controlled, but beneath the surface swirled a boiling rage.
He pointed ahead, where the space stretching above the staircase was turning white from the edges, like fabric touched by a drop of concentrated bleach. Colors were vanishing, outlines were blurring, and the records that should have existed there were being erased without a trace. The speed of this "bleaching" was clearly outstripping their climb; the danger that the truth would be wiped away before they could reach it grew more certain with every passing second.
Kuon ground his teeth against the reality before them and pushed the output of his artificial eye even higher. The blue light strove violently, and a thin ribbon of light leaked from his left eye like a single, glowing tear.
"…Bleaching? Then… does that mean the 'pain' we’re feeling right here, right now… will eventually just vanish into that whiteness too?"
Koyoi asked the question with his hands clasped tightly to his chest. It wasn't born of simple fear, but of a desperate resistance to the idea that all the warmth and sorrow they had encountered on this journey might return to nothingness. Within him, the voices of the gods he had saved returned to him in a vivid, revolving kaleidoscope of memory.
If that warmth, those tears, and those smiles were all to be bleached into a blank slate…
He gripped the drawstring of his pouch so hard his knuckles turned white. The Droplet pulsed violently in response to its master’s dread, its light leaking through the fabric to cast a faint glow upon the stone steps at his feet.
Asahi was the only one whose stride remained as steady as if he were walking upon level ground. His disciplined core, forged through years of swordsmanship, held his center of gravity with absolute precision, unbothered by the distortions of the Principles.
With every heavy step he took, minute cracks spread across the surface of the stone, radiating his sheer force of will as raw heat.
"…We move forward," Asahi said, readjusting the sword on his shoulder. "We reach the edge of the Nautical Chart's resonance, and we drag out the answer. Nothing else matters."
High above, where the bleaching neared, the white void continued its slow, silent expansion. With every footfall that struck the stone, blue characters flickered into existence, only to be swallowed by the light.
One final line of text, captured by Kuon’s eye at the very last moment, clung to the edge of a page. The letters were trembling—a final act of defiance before the erasure.