Morning came without sunrise.
A gray pall lay over the sea, neither storm nor calm, as if the sky itself was unsure whether to mourn or move on. The Kuroshio Maru drifted on gentle swells, the deck still scarred where the water had climbed unnaturally in the night.
Riku was gone.
Aiko sat where he had last stood, knees drawn to her chest, fingers clenched around the charm he had pressed into her hand before stepping forward. The cord was frayed. The sigil—an old fisherman's knot meant to guide lost souls—felt warm, impossibly warm, against her skin.
Kenji broke the silence first. His voice was rough, scraped raw by salt and sleeplessness. "The current's changed."
Aiko looked up. "What?"
He pointed toward the water. "No pull. No drag. The charts finally make sense."
She laughed once—a sharp, broken sound. "That's what it cost, then."
Neither of them said Riku's name.
Below deck, the wards had gone quiet. The blue flames had faded to ordinary yellow, sutras curling into ash as if their work was done. For the first time since the Black Tide began, the ship felt like a ship again—not a coffin drifting toward prophecy.
Aiko stood slowly. Her legs trembled, but she forced herself to move. "We can't just sail away," she said. "Not without knowing."
Kenji met her eyes. He nodded once. "We owe him that much."
They followed the lingering warmth of the charm to the stern. There, trailing behind the ship, the water shimmered—subtle, almost invisible. A seam in the sea, like a scar that hadn't fully healed.
Aiko knelt and dipped her fingers into it.
The ocean answered.
Not with visions this time, but with feeling: a vast exhaustion, a deep settling, like a mountain finally allowed to rest. And threaded through it—something else.
A presence.
Not gone, a whisper pressed into her mind. Changed.
Her breath caught. "Kenji," she said softly. "He's not—he's not dead."
The sea bulged once, gently, and something broke the surface.
A hand.
Not human—not entirely. Skin pale as moon-washed stone, veins glowing faintly blue beneath it. The water lifted, shaping a form that rose slowly, carefully, as if afraid of frightening them.
Riku emerged from the sea.
Or what had been Riku.
His hair drifted as if underwater though he stood on the surface itself. His eyes reflected the horizon, deep and shifting, carrying the slow patience of tides. The mark on his palm was gone—replaced by a faint spiral that pulsed with quiet light.
Aiko staggered forward. "Riku?"
He looked at her, and recognition softened the vastness in his gaze. "I remember my name," he said. His voice carried an echo now, like sound heard through waves. "That matters."
Kenji exhaled shakily, a sound halfway between laughter and a sob. "You idiot," he muttered. "You scared us to death."
Riku almost smiled.
"The debt is paid," he said. "The Umibōzu is whole again. It sleeps—but not as it did before." He looked out across the water. "The sea won't take blindly anymore. Not offerings. Not lives. It will answer only when it's called with respect."
Aiko reached out, then hesitated. "Can you come back with us?"
Riku's gaze lingered on the ship, the wood, the ropes, the small human things. "For a while," he said. "The tide hasn't decided everything yet."
The water beneath him rippled, lifting him gently toward the deck. When his feet touched the wood, the ship creaked—not in protest, but in greeting.
Far off, the clouds began to part. A thin blade of sunlight cut through the gray and struck the sea, turning it briefly to gold.
Kenji set the helm toward shore.
Behind them, the ocean rolled on—quiet, vast, and changed.
And somewhere deep below, something ancient watched the surface with new eyes, no longer abandoned.