The manuscripts were damp. It wasn't rain. The air inside the car was bone-dry.
Yet, the edges of the seven pages resting on Koyoi’s lap were slowly soaking through with moisture. The ink began to blur.
It looked as though the words themselves were weeping.
"It’s sweat."
Kuon turned his prosthetic eye toward the pages. A pale blue light swept across the paper, scanning every line like a tongue.
"The names are sweating. This entire region is thick with dissolved names drifting through the air. The names written here are reacting to their presence."
Koyoi lifted the manuscripts. The moisture had seeped all the way through to the back of the paper. When he touched it, it felt lukewarm—a dull, tepid heat, nearly matching the temperature of living flesh.
He glanced out the window. A sea of liquefied records rushed beneath the train. Amidst the shimmering silver current, occasional streaks of gold flickered like veins.
"That gold...?"
"Names," Kuon replied. "The remnants of names that have been unmade."
Kuon flipped open his ledger to the nautical charts.
Lines were shifting across the page.
Of the seven divine pillars who had been waiting in Hoshifuri-cho, three had successfully reached their destination within the manuscripts. But the paths of the other four had snapped, veering off-course and draining into this sea of fluid.
"So the four... were cast away here?"
Kuon pressed his finger against the terminus of the lines. Coordinates materialized:
Yoinami-hama.
"The Observer intercepted the names during their underground transit and dumped them in this wasteland. To be dissolved and discarded."
Asahi glared out the window.
"Dissolved? You mean they’re being erased?"
"Not immediately. In this place of exile, names turn to liquid, but they retain their essence for a time. Eventually, though, they will dilute... until nothing is left."
Koyoi pulled the manuscripts close to his chest. The damp paper brushed against his cheek.
It wasn't cold.
It felt warm.
The names were weeping, searching for their kin. Outside the window, a ribbon of gold surged toward the manuscripts for a fleeting second. It fell short. Swallowed by the current, it sank back into the depths.
Still clutching the pages, Koyoi pressed his forehead against the glass. The silver torrent rushed past, endless and indifferent.
From somewhere deep within the flow, he thought he heard the tide. Not the sound of water, but a chorus of voices crying out names, overlapping until they formed a low, rhythmic swell.
They were calling.
The sunken names were still calling out. Inside his drawstring pouch, the droplets trembled, and the moisture in the manuscripts grew heavier.
Far beneath that calling tide, four points of gold still flickered with a stubborn light.