The drawer closed that night, and Kenji couldn't fall asleep. Gaius's words kept circling in his head. The tense atmosphere of the council chamber. His own back reflected in the Yoken. Lina's quiet, certain voice saying "I don't understand, but I think it's wrong." They passed through his mind again and again in sequence. But no matter how much he thought about it, nothing new emerged. Just circles. Near dawn, when the window began turning gray, his consciousness finally dropped—or so he thought, but his eyes were already open. Completely awake. He didn't feel like he'd slept at all. Yet his mind was oddly clear. That peculiar floating sensation that comes from incomplete sleep. (Well, whatever.) Kenji got up. He changed clothes and stepped into the corridor. It was still too early for the smell of tree-sea mushroom stew to leak from the Sumikamaritei—the fortress's communal dining hall. The savory aroma of black bread baking wasn't there yet either. The stone corridor of the fortress was quiet, thin morning light cutting narrowly across the floor. Kenji headed toward the north side of the fortress. Recently, he'd developed a habit of walking along the outer walls. He couldn't remember exactly when it started. Before he knew it, his body was drawn there whenever his thoughts wouldn't settle. He was aware that he was trying to process things by walking. Whether he was actually processing anything was unclear. When he reached the outer wall on the north side, the silent tree-sea came into view. Giant trees exceeding thirty meters in height grew densely packed—their bases submerged in morning mist. The fog flowed from the direction of the tree-sea. White, quiet fog. Only the trunks of the giant trees rose black above the mist, as if pillars had been driven into a sea of fog. "...Still huge, huh," Kenji muttered to himself. A soliloquy that escaped his lips. Not directed at anyone. He just wanted to confirm that the landscape before him was truly that massive. He sat down on the edge of the outer wall. The cold sensation of stone transmitted through his pants. The fortress's stone was coldest in the morning. The sun warmed it during the day, it cooled again at night, and that chill reached its peak in the morning. Kenji touched it lightly with his fingertip, then began gazing at the mist of the tree-sea. The Yoken said nothing. It was a quiet morning. A bird was singing somewhere in the mist—from deep within the tree-sea, in a voice he'd never heard before. A type of sound that couldn't be heard inside the fortress. Kenji listened to it absently, deliberately trying not to think about anything. When you try not to think, last night's events naturally surface. That's how it works. Gaius had said "stand on the side that masters the erosion." Lina had said "I think it's wrong." The Yoken had shown two equivalent images. (Which one is right?) No answer came. Without one, Kenji continued watching the mist. Then the Yoken activated. There was almost no warning. Rather than "activation," it felt more like "eyes meeting"—an image slid into the edge of his vision. Usually the Yoken cut in sharply during combat, but this morning's version was as quiet as the morning mist itself. The image was the same as last night. A foggy place—neither the fortress nor the tree-sea, a space he couldn't identify—with a single back in view. He knew it was himself. The build, the way the fabric creased, the slope of the shoulders—all of it was him. After forty years of standing in front of mirrors, he had some sense of what his own back looked like. But this time, it lasted a bit longer. The back in the image was moving its gaze left and right—he could tell only by the subtle movement of the shoulder blades. As if searching for something. Not a frantic looking around, but slower, deliberate movements, checking. Left, then right. Kenji didn't try to dismiss it. That was unusual. Normally the Yoken activated on its own in response to signs of combat and disappeared on its own, so he'd rarely actually "watched" it properly. But this morning there was no one around, no threat, just the image flowing quietly. Kenji consciously tried to concentrate on "watching." The back turned left. Turned right. Turned left again. (Is this the past? The future? Is it even really me?) A fundamental question emerged for the first time. Come to think of it, he'd never really considered it. He'd processed what the Yoken showed as "probably something like this" and moved on to the next action. For forty years—or more precisely, even before the transfer—he'd processed everything as "probably something like this." Work, relationships, even himself. The back in the image was still looking around. Kenji leaned forward slightly, trying to see where that back was looking— The image vanished. Dissolving into the mist like that. "..." Kenji remained sitting on the stone wall, motionless for a while. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling. But there was a sense of missing. Like reaching out thinking something was within grasp, only to find it wasn't. That distance. The mist of the tree-sea seemed to shift slightly. Kenji put his hand in his pants pocket. The notebook was there. A small one, made from parchment he'd found in the fortress's supply storage. He couldn't remember exactly when he'd started carrying it—he'd just realized one day that he had it. With the vague reasoning that there might be something to write. He opened the notebook and reread what he'd written last night. "Unknown space" "Own back" "Searching left and right gaze" Three lines. That was all. Even with this morning's image, it only added "slightly longer" and "shoulder blade movement," minimal additional information. Or rather—Kenji's hand stopped here—he realized something while trying to write down information: he had absolutely no memory of "where it was looking." The direction the back was facing. The back turned left, turned right, turned left again. He remembered that. But what was at the end of that gaze. Which direction it was facing. He "hadn't seen" that. He realized it after the image disappeared. Realized it after it was gone. Kenji slowly wrote in the notebook's margin. "Which direction it's facing" He drew a line underneath. Below that, he couldn't write anything. The pen tip rested on the blank space, unmoving. The inability to write made it all the clearer. (Why haven't I been looking at anything straight-on?) Quietly, certainly, it struck him. Not self-deprecation. Not accusatory. Just a simple discovery—that's what it was. He'd heard Gaius's words and thought "I don't know which is right." He'd heard Lina's words and thought "there's no basis but there's conviction." He'd seen the Yoken's image and thought "what is this?" He'd seen his own back and—hadn't looked at where it was facing. It was all like that. He'd processed everything as "probably something like this." He'd grasped only the "atmosphere" of things, not their outlines. For forty years. He'd lived forty years that way, and it all converged at this point. It might not be a bad thing. He'd lived forty years because of it. But now, when he tried to grasp the outline—he couldn't. Kenji looked up from the notebook. The mist of the tree-sea had cleared a little. The base of the giant tree that had been submerged in fog until moments ago was now barely visible. The root section of the trunk exceeding thirty meters was slowly emerging from the mist. The green moss became distinct in the pale morning light. Kenji stared at that base for a while. It had always been there—just hidden by the mist. Thinking this obvious thing, Kenji stood up. He closed the notebook. "Which direction it's facing" remained unwritten. But the fact that "he hadn't looked at where it was facing" could be written. That was something to add to the drawer. As he walked back toward the fortress, his footsteps echoed on the stone pavement. From far away—from the direction of the Sumikamaritei—came the sound of pots clanging together. Hana had started her morning preparations. It was already that time. The stew's aroma drifted thinly on the wind. His stomach growled. "...The stomach's honest," Kenji muttered. Another soliloquy escaped. No one was there. No one was listening. Kenji felt a bit embarrassed as he stepped into the fortress. Back in his room, he sat at his desk first. He opened the drawer. The papers were there. All of them. He hadn't torn them. Hadn't burned them. The paper with Gaius's words, the paper from the council chamber day, the papers recording the Yoken's images. The story about Lina's profile. The story about stopping pursuing Celia's back at the third step. All of it was there. Kenji held the notebook and looked at today's page. The question "Which direction it's facing" and the blank space below it. And the single line "I hadn't looked at where it was facing." Today, for the first time, he tore a page from the notebook. There was some hesitation in the act of tearing. Until last night, "don't tear, don't burn" had been Kenji's rule. But what he'd written today wasn't something to "keep without understanding"—it was "the form of something understood." That was different, Kenji thought. With a rip, the paper remained in his hand. He placed it in the drawer. Next to the unburned papers, he put today's torn page for the first time. The unburned papers stayed as they were, and the torn paper went in beside them. The landscape inside the drawer looked slightly different. "Put only what I've understood in changed form." A new rule was born this morning. Before closing the drawer, he looked inside one more time. Papers overlapped. Things he didn't understand and things he did, in the same drawer. Not organized. But all of it was there. That felt right. He closed the drawer. The bustle of the Sumikamaritei leaked from the corridor. The fortress's morning had begun. Lina might burst in soon. The supply officer might be saying something to a young soldier in the corridor. Misha might be quietly preparing prayers somewhere. Celia might be facing documents at the top of the dawn tower. Kenji placed the notebook on his desk. The next time the Yoken showed an image—he'd try to really look at where it was facing. He felt slightly more prepared than this morning. What he'd see, he didn't know. Even if he saw it, what it meant was unclear. But "trying to look" was something he'd properly started doing for the first time today. That was enough for now. The smell of baking black bread drifted from the Sumikamaritei.