In the white plaza of Hoshifuri Town, there lay a single stone tablet.

The moment Koyoi’s foot touched the ground beside the pedestal—where the manuscripts were displayed—the cobblestones shifted. Hidden beneath them was a thin stone slab.

Kuon illuminated it with the light of his artificial eye.

Characters were carved deep into the stone. They were the records of an Observer.

A manual for the culling.

“This is… the selection criteria,” Kuon said.

His voice was low, thick with suppressed rage.

The names were sorted into three classifications.

“Freezing” meant being sent to Hoshino. Their records would be preserved, entombed in ice.

“Outflow” meant being sent to Yoinami Beach. They would be turned to liquid and washed away.

“Erasure” was—

Kuon fell silent.

“What about Erasure?”

“Total annihilation. The records, the existence… everything is wiped clean. It can never be restored.”

Koyoi stared at the stone tablet.

Three classifications. Freezing. Outflow. Erasure.

“The Four who passed through the underground—which were they?”

Kuon opened his sea chart, cross-referencing the names of the Four against the symbols on the tablet.

“…Outflow. All four were sent to Yoinami Beach.”

A weight lifted from Koyoi’s chest.

If it was Outflow, they hadn’t vanished yet. They had only become liquid.

And if they were liquid, they could still be gathered up.

Asahi stood up. “Then let’s move. To Yoinami Beach.”

Koyoi looked back at the white plaza one last time.

Upon the manuscript trays, the names of the Three had descended. Faint golden characters breathed upon the paper—the Three who had successfully climbed here from the depths.

The vessels were working. The remaining Four were at Yoinami Beach.

The three of them returned to the station, where the Mist Train stood waiting.

Its wheels let out a cold, metallic screech against the white cobblestones. As they boarded, the names of the Three on the manuscripts behind them pulsed with a slightly brighter light.

Koyoi did not look back.

There was no time to decipher the meaning of that glow. The tracks had already left the plaza behind, beginning their descent toward the liquid sea.

The scenery flowing past the window should have been the same path they had traveled to get here, yet the left and right had swapped.

The road itself was being rewritten.