The night after they bound the Book of Remnants, the dreams returned—but now they no longer drifted like scattered pieces of forgotten lives. Instead, the visions came as a coherent story, one flowing into the next. Sayo saw herself standing at a temple altar, dressed in robes of fire, surrounded by paper cranes that hovered midair like they were waiting for her permission to land.
Ren was there, just beyond the veil of smoke. He reached for her but couldn't quite cross the threshold. The air shimmered, reality folded.
And in the center of it all: the gate made of paper and light.
When she awoke, the name "Yurejima" lingered on her lips.
It wasn't a name she recognized.
---
Ren had the same dream.
He found Sayo outside the shrine they'd slept near, already folding a fresh crane.
"Yurejima," he said.
Sayo nodded. "It's not on any modern maps."
"It's not on any maps," he said. "I checked."
They packed their things. The Book of Remnants pulsed with warmth in Sayo's satchel. Its pages were whispering now—new words appearing whenever they passed a place they'd once visited in another life. The book was remembering along with them.
---
It took a week to gather clues. They met with shrine keepers, elderly storytellers, even a linguist from the university. All pointed to the same legend:
Yurejima—the Island of Spirits.
An island said to have sunk beneath the sea three centuries ago after a forbidden ritual tore the veil between life and death. According to the myth, the island reappears only once every hundred years during a rare celestial event known as the "Night of the Broken Moon."
That night was approaching.
Two weeks away.
And the gate of cranes—the one from their dreams—was said to mark its return.
---
They traveled to Japan's northeast coast, near Aomori, where the sea met cliffs etched by time. A woman at a local ryokan agreed to host them. She said her grandmother had once spoken of the paper gate, that it had appeared when she was a girl.
"She said it smelled of rain and ink," the woman whispered. "And those who passed through never came back."
Sayo and Ren didn't speak much that night. They sat by the ocean, listening to waves erase and rewrite the shore.
"We've crossed between worlds before," Sayo said.
"But not with stakes like this," Ren replied.
They held hands until dawn.
---
The day of the Broken Moon arrived.
The villagers gathered in silence, watching the sky. It looked as if a celestial crack had split the full moon into two shimmering crescents, barely touching.
And then, just past midnight, it appeared.
The Paper Gate.
It unfolded from the air above the sea, as if some divine hand had folded it from light and memory. It hovered there, silent and waiting, its surface covered in symbols that shimmered like silver flames.
Sayo stepped forward. The Book of Remnants grew hot in her bag.
Ren turned to the villagers. "If we don't come back—tell our story. Don't let it vanish."
The old woman nodded. "May your souls find what they're seeking."
---
Passing through the gate was like being dropped into a still lake of glass. Time folded. Their lungs emptied, filled with wind from another world.
They landed softly on Yurejima.
But it wasn't an island lost to time—it was a mirror of a thousand lives. The village was there, but not ruined. Whole. The sky was painted with golden cranes. People moved through the streets unaware they were echoes. Sayo saw herself as Hotaru, her past life, sitting by a river. Ren—Akihiko—was watching her from the opposite bank.
"They don't see us," Sayo said.
"No. We're observers here."
But then the cranes turned.
One by one, they focused on Sayo.
And the paper beneath their feet began to burn.
---
The dream-world collapsed.
They awoke in a field of ash.
Still on Yurejima—but now, it was the ruined version. Blackened trees. Shattered homes. A shrine in pieces. The echoes had been wiped away.
A figure stood among the ruins.
Not Izanagi. Not Izanami.
A child.
Dressed in a kimono patterned with cranes.
"You've passed the first test," the child said. "Now you must gather the lost pieces."
"Who are you?" Sayo asked.
"I am the last keeper of Yurejima," the child replied. "I hold the memory of this place. And unless you collect all nine fragments of the ritual, the gate will close. Forever."
Ren stepped forward. "Where do we find them?"
"They were scattered the day the ritual failed. Some lie buried in flame. Others in water. One waits in a dream you've never dreamed."
Sayo nodded. "We'll find them."
The child smiled sadly. "One more thing. The longer you stay, the more you forget who you were."
The Book of Remnants suddenly felt heavier.
They had time.
But not much.
And thus began their search through the nine trials of Yurejima.