By dawn, the ashfall ceased. The group reached the edge of a canyon carved so deep it seemed to swallow light itself. Across its span, faint threads stretched like bridges, trembling in unseen wind.
Ahri stood at the precipice, her lantern dim in the rising sun. She could feel it: the silence had followed them here. Not absence of sound, but presence without eyes. Watching, waiting.
Jin's voice was low, raw. "This is where the Loom first closed its eyes. Where it chose not to see. Every unbound pact, every severed knot—it left them here." His shadow flickered, as though the canyon itself tugged at it.
Aya hugged herself. "If even the Loom refused to look, then why should we?"
Mino's jaw tightened. "Because not looking doesn't save you. It only delays the cut."
Ahri stepped closer to the canyon's edge, holding her lantern outward. The threads spanning the chasm shimmered faintly, each one vibrating with memories too old to name. She could almost hear them—laughter swallowed by screams, vows turned into betrayals, whispers that ended in silence.
Her breath caught. "These threads… they're all failures."
The silence surged in her skull, pressing a single, dreadful truth: Not failures. Attempts.
The difference stung. She realized then that the Loom had not stopped weaving out of mercy or cruelty. It had stopped because every pattern failed to last. Every order unraveled into ash.
Her knees weakened. The canyon below looked endless, a grave for forgotten weaves. "If all patterns unravel, then what is the point?" she whispered.
The silence did not answer with comfort. Instead, it asked again: Will you tie the knot, or will you unbind it?
Jin gripped her shoulder, hard enough to hurt. His voice trembled—not with fear, but with grief. "Ahri. If you answer now, you will decide more than your fate. You'll decide whether this world remembers itself—or lets itself die."
The threads across the canyon shivered violently, as though straining for her response. The silence leaned closer, filling her lungs, her blood, her very thoughts.
And Ahri, lantern trembling in her hands, knew the time to remain undecided was ending.