A few days after Goh leaves, Chloe reaches out to Mallow with a quick recap of how things stand these days
Tropes in this chapter include:
- Call-Back:
- When Chloe is about to text Amelia, she sees her farewell text back from her time in the Canals of Fondue Car.
- Chloe is seen happily glomping Dragonite as she promised that she would give the Dragon a hug of her own when she came back.
- One of the stories being told in the Cyan Desert Car is Chloe facing down Destruction/Simon.
- Talia and Professor Cerise's reactions to learning that Chloe died on the Train are the same as Trip and Serena's.
- Commonality Connection: Why Chloe reaches out to Mallow since they both shared interactions with Tuba on the Train. Chloe also confesses that she wants to connect with a fellow passenger with as little 'baggage' as possible.
- Cool Old Lady: Tomie is in fine form in both the flashback and taking care of Mew.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Mallow attempts to do this at Oranguru's bar after learning of Tuba's death.
- Establishing Character Moment: How do we know Chloe is different than when she first entered the Train? She eagerly wants to hug Ash's Dragonite.
- Framing Device: The prologue is framed with an email Chloe sends to Mallow.
- Get It Over With: Tomie points out that the entire Fujihachi family had expressed this regarding Goh's train trip.
- Groupie Brigade: Lexi has shifted to his kyorinrin form to minimize this compromising his travel.
- Ironic Echo: In a very roundabout way, Chloe unintentionally does this to herself. When Ikuo passes her Goh's phone she finds the text she sent him when during her Kick the Dog moment when she broke off their friendship while she was on the Train. The shock of actually seeing it again after her character development and how much she hurt Goh, in turn, is so great she opts to just use the call function instead.
- Mama Bear: This side of Delia comes out for Chloe this time, defending her in the middle of the argument with the Fujihachis to tell them she didn't (at least intentionally) do Goh any wrong this time.
- Old Shame: In-universe. Chloe sees the text she sent to Goh when she broke off their friendship while she was still on the Train, and serves as a realization to her on just how hurtful those words must've been.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: One way to read Ikuo making Chloe use Goh's phone to contact Amelia. When Chloe opens a text message, the first thing she sees is her last goodbye message to Goh.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Upon learning that her daughter died on the Train and was resurrected, Talia states "Explain. Everything. LATER." to Chloe as they leave the Fujihachi resident.
- Shout-Out:
- The unofficial rules of the children's storytelling night in the Cyan Desert Car is "no stories wholly true, no stories wholly false, and no repeats."
- When Chloe hugs Ash's Dragonite, she asks if hugs from him always feel this warm.
- Stepford Smiler: Chloe almost slips into this due to stress and not getting any updates on Goh's situation.
- Stopping the Blame Game: Delia tries to do this once more, but it comes off as insincere to Kurune at the moment since Delia has actual skin in this particular game. Tomie has to step in.
- Water Is Air: The Kelp City Car, which confuses Hop.
