The fog in Yokohama only grew heavier, turning from a ghostly white to a bruised, metallic grey. It clung to the rusted hull of the Eternal Maru like a wet tongue. Ren Hanshin stood on the main deck, his left hand gripping the railing. The cold steel felt like ice against his palm, but the sensation was grounded. It reminded him he was still here.
He looked down at the harbor. The tide was coming in, but it wasn't the rhythmic surge of the ocean. It was a slow, oily crawl. The water was the color of a dead man's eyes, thick with salt and the slow rot that had begun to eat away at the world's edges.
"Ren-niisan, the core is getting louder," Haru whispered.
She stood beside him, her small frame wrapped in an oversized scavenger's coat. The sapphire marble in her chest was thumping with a rhythmic, low light. Every time it flared, the grey mist around them seemed to shrink back, as if the ocean's heart was terrified of the sapphire's purity.
