The day after the festival dissolved, the skies wept.
Sayo and Ren left the mountain inn under a grey sky, the Book of Remnants now bearing three fragments, each pulsing with a soft glow. The cover, once dark and inert, was now warm in her hands, like it had a heartbeat.
The next destination was not a place written in words, but one shown in reflections.
---
In her dream, Sayo stood on a pier of glass. Beneath it, an ocean of stars. Above her, a ceiling of rippling water. She heard no words—only a breathless hush, as though the sea itself was holding something sacred.
When she woke, the bedsheets were damp.
She looked to Ren, who was already sitting up, staring at the rain beyond the window.
"I think we need to go to the coast," he said.
She nodded. "The book agrees."
---
They traveled south by train and foot, through seaside towns and rainy streets until they reached a tiny fishing village called Minami-no-ura. It wasn't even on the main line. The kind of place where old men smoked on docks, and boats still carried prayers carved into their hulls.
An old woman greeted them at the inn with a quiet smile. Her name was Taki.
"You're looking for the drowned shrine," she said before they even asked.
Sayo froze. "How do you know?"
Taki poured tea into clay cups. "Many have passed through this town carrying that book. Not all found what they sought. But you… your timing is different. The tide is lowest tonight."
---
That evening, Taki led them to the cliffs.
The sea below churned softly, like a sleeping beast. But near the base of the rocks, visible only at the lowest tide, a line of torii gates rose from the shallows.
Sayo felt the pulse of memory.
The shrine was beneath the sea.
"There's a cave," Taki said. "It leads down. You'll only have until moonrise. Then the tide returns."
Ren touched Sayo's arm. "We go together."
She nodded. "Together."
---
The cave smelled of salt and stone. They moved by the light of Ren's phone and the glow of the book, which seemed to guide them like a lantern.
After what felt like an eternity of descent, the walls opened into a submerged hall.
The water reached their knees. Ancient stone lanterns lined the path, worn by time and tide.
At the center, an altar. Upon it, a conch shell carved with kanji:
Listen.
Sayo lifted it to her ear.
And heard herself.
---
She was a priestess.
Long black hair. Pale robes. Her name was Midori.
She lived in a village by the sea. Every summer, she played the flute to call home the spirits of drowned sailors. The sea had taken her brother. It had taken her lover. But she sang for them still.
Ren had been a fisherman. His name then was Hiro. She'd watched him vanish beneath a storm the night before their wedding.
The shell held his final words:
"I will find you again, no matter how many lifetimes it takes."
Tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered standing at the altar alone.
The sea had never returned him.
Until now.
---
When she opened her eyes, Ren stood across from her, holding an identical shell.
"I heard you," he whispered. "I was the storm."
She took his hand.
"I forgive you."
The conch shells dissolved.
A silver fragment rose from the altar and embedded itself into the book.
The fourth piece.
---
The cave trembled. The tide was returning.
They ran.
Water surged behind them, racing through the tunnels like a river of memory.
They barely made it out—crawling into the moonlight, soaked and breathless.
Taki waited, a towel in each hand.
"You remembered," she said simply.
Sayo clutched the book to her chest.
Four fragments. Four lives. Four promises made and broken.
And still, four to go.
---
That night, she dreamed again.
But this time, she wasn't alone.
Izanagi stood on a shore of obsidian.
"You are closer to the thread," he said.
"What thread?" she asked.
"The one that binds the first life to the last."
Behind him, the cranes stirred.
"I remember Midori," she said. "I remember Hiro."
Izanagi's eyes glowed faintly. "Good. Because the next fragment does not lie in the past."
She blinked. "Then where?"
His voice softened.
"It lies in the life you almost lived."