Leaving Starfall Town behind, the Mist Train hurtled toward the unexplored wasteland of Twilight Wave Beach, tracing an unstable trajectory unlike any journey before. The scenery streaking past the windows no longer held fixed colors; it flickered as a chaotic mosaic of data where past and future bled together.
Even the rhythmic clacking of the rails had lost its pattern, replaced by an occasional, unsettling thrum—like the heavy thump-thump of a living heart—stoking the passengers' unease. Koyoi pressed his forehead against the window frame. Through its cold vibrations, he felt the sheer, terrifying vastness of the "void of reason" that awaited them.
Kuon sat nearby, deciphering the pages of his ledger.
His prosthetic eye pulsed with a pale blue light. The edges of the paper began to singe as if exposed to intense heat, the characters inscribed there losing their meaning minute by minute. He spoke of this phenomenon in a mechanical, emotionless voice. Meanwhile, Asahi rested his right hand on the hilt of his sword. He stared into the stagnant haze of data—where air currents lagged a beat behind physical laws—with the sharp, predatory gaze of a beast hunting its prey.
Within the pouch at his waist, Koyoi felt the three gods huddle together in fear, seeking the warmth of each other’s presence.
"Look," Kuon's voice rasped, echoing eerily through the carriage. "Beyond this point lies a drift of 'Abandoned Time' that even the Observers couldn't touch. They treated this realm as an 'error,' striking it from the maps to maintain the world’s consistency."
"An error?" Koyoi gasped. "You mean no records of anyone remain here? Were the gods... just erased as if they never existed?"
Asahi kept his hand on his sword, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. With every jolt of the train, grains of data-sand kicked up from the floorboards. In their wake, they vividly—yet somehow hollowly—revived the phantom chimes of the silver bells that had once protected the Night of Suzutomo.
"If there are no records, then we'll carve them ourselves," Asahi said, flashing a defiant grin. "If there's no path, we'll cut one with this blade. Right, Koyoi?"
But before his smile could fade, the light outside shifted. It wasn't that the world had turned dark; the light remained, but outlines were dissolving. The horizon, the edge of the mist, the tracks ahead—everything sank into a uniform brightness until they were indistinguishable.
Koyoi pulled his face away from the window. His palms were freezing; the spot that had touched the glass felt unnaturally cold.
"Kuon. The outside is—"
"Yeah. It's the sea."
Kuon closed his ledger. The blue light from his prosthetic eye intensified, bathing the interior in a ghostly pallor.
"The sea lies ahead. But not just any sea. It is the Sea that Dissolves Names. Every name the Observers discarded as an error eventually washes up here."
Outside, a silver light expanded into infinity. It was a sea without a horizon. There were waves, yet no sound. The surface reflected light, yet mirrored nothing.
Asahi moved closer to the window, narrowing his eyes. "The color of the waves... it's different over there. It's gold."
"Those are names," Kuon replied, turning his gaze toward the water. "Names that haven't fully dissolved yet are still floating on the surface. But not all of them. The sea chooses. It decides which names to keep afloat and which to sink. It is sifting through them."
Koyoi clutched his pouch. The Drops were pulsing violently—not with fear, but with an urgent, desperate beat, as if pleading for something.
"The sea is... choosing?"
"It means this place isn't neutral. This sea has a will. It sifts through the names discarded by the Observers and keeps what it likes. This sea... it has its own tastes." A rare hint of awe tinged Kuon's voice.
The train began to slow. The tracks ran just inches above the water's surface. When the wheels kicked up spray, characters appeared in the mist for a split second before melting away.
Koyoi pulled out his manuscript. The seven pages tilted toward the sea, pulled by an invisible force. Names were calling out to names.
"Don't let the manuscript get too close," Kuon warned sharply. "The sea chooses from our side, too. If it takes a liking to a name, it will pull it in. If the name of the Fourth Heaven is still in those waters... it might take the whole manuscript with it."
Asahi stepped away from the window and stood in front of Koyoi, his grip tightening on his sword. "Then we won't let the sea choose. We'll go and pick them out ourselves. If the Fourth is among those floating names, we'll find them first."
"...And then what? Are you going to thrust your hand into that ocean?"
"You bet I am," Asahi replied without looking back.
The train slowed even further. Outside, a single golden streak raced alongside them on the water's surface. The sea was trying to show them something—or perhaps testing them.
Koyoi held the manuscript to his chest, feeling the warmth of the pouch. The pulse of the Drops, the golden fragments remaining in the manuscript, and the river of names flowing outside—the three rhythms were slowly beginning to synchronize.
Before the sea can choose, we will reach them.
Holding onto that single conviction, Koyoi reached for the handle of the train car door.