The ground was booming. Storm clouds churned above, lightning flickering like divine wrath across the blackened sky.
Explosions ruptured the air--sharp, sudden, and merciless--punctuated by bursts of laughter, the kind only madmen or dying men could make. Screams tore through the ranks, followed by the frantic howls of those who had broken and run.
And amid it all, the Vision wielders.
They moved like death unchained--each step another life claimed.
One Shogunate soldier, cloak torn and face bloodied, raised his hand and unleashed a torrent of flame. His voice cracked as he shouted an apology to the enemy he was about to burn alive.
Beams of light manifesting in the midst of everything, soldiers and rebels instantly going for the glowing ones.
Cannons obliterating every single thing it makes contact with.
This is hell.
And Atsuko--Atsuko saw it all.
She saw a man lose his legs and crawl toward his own intestines. She saw a Vision wielder kill three men with one breath of lightning. She saw a child--not older than fifteen--stab a man twice his size just to die a moment later.
She couldn't hold back her tears.
She would probably die here today.
Booming explosions continued to mutilate allies and enemies alike--no mercy, no meaning, just death on repeat.
Then--blinding light.
A ball of energy screamed toward her, ready to atomize everything she was.
But before it hit--
Someone grabbed her from behind and yanked her out of its path.
"FUCKING MOVE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" The voice roared, hoarse and wild.
Then a fist slammed into her face.
A brutal, instinctive blow--not meant to hurt her, but to wake her up.
To remind her that she was still alive.
She docked and picked up a spear from a dead rebel.
Atsuko screamed, charging at an unsuspecting soldier of the resistance--
It screamed.
The man screamed, but Atsuko continued charging forward--
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Then, she heard another scream.
Not hers.
A wave of sound--deep, rising, relentless.
She turned, heart pounding.
Hundreds of soldiers--Shogunate and Watatsumi alike--were fleeing.
Behind them, the sky broke.
Lightning twisted like angry veins through the black clouds, flashing faster, louder, more furious.
She turned her head for the briefest second.
She didn't see it.
The man she had charged--he wasn't dead. Not yet.
One trembling hand reached for a dagger.
Rust-covered. Dirty. Drenched in blood that wasn't his.
He stabbed upward.
The blade sank deep into her forearm, metal grinding against bone.
Pain exploded through her.
Atsuko screamed again, but this one was different.
It was pain. It was fear.
Atsuko choked out, the words lost in the chaos. "I should've been in Liyue right now!"
They already reclaimed the Encampment and the Mikage Furnace. They had already completed the objective. What more are they even here for?!
The ships.
Their own vessels, lifted from the sea, torn into the sky by magic--thrown like weapons.
They crashed across the battlefield, splintering into shockwaves and flame.
And then, Everyone saw it.
The rebels who had retreated? They were coming back.
But not alone.
Far above them, a figure flew.
An archer, surrounded by spiraling lightning.
Two pairs of wings. Divine. Unnatural. Terrifying.
Every arrow she released--exploded.
The ground shattered with every impact.
Below her, her soldiers advanced. Methodical. Silent. They weren't pursuing. They were purging.
Then--
The archer dipped.
Seemingly bored with her bow.
She descended like a meteor, landing amidst the fleeing rebels.
And when Kujou Sara touched the ground.
BOOM.
A shockwave burst from the impact.
Dust. Wind. Cracks split the ground.
Men--friend and foe--were thrown into the air like leaves.
The battlefield stopped breathing.
The Tengu General had arrived.
---
Kokomi didn't expect it to be this bad.
No, this insane.
The battlefield was collapsing faster than she could think. Her orders, her strategies, her diagrams--they meant nothing now. Everything was falling apart.
"We're losing too fast…"
She stood on the high ridge, overlooking the war-torn valley below, and her hands trembled behind her back. The sleeves of her uniform were soaked through with blood--not hers, but she had long stopped checking whose.
"This isn't just a battle anymore…"
It was slaughter.
Her men were dying. By the dozens. Every second.
Explosions thundered across the field, each louder than the last, ripping through carefully constructed formations like they were made of paper. Vision wielders darted through the chaos like ghosts of vengeance, leaving behind trails of flame, ice, and thunder.
It doesn't matter whether her men are continuously being healed, and the enemies don't
And then came her.
Kujou Sara.
No longer flying.
She had descended.
No, dropped.
A meteor of divine fury.
The moment she landed, the shockwave blasted through the battlefield--BOOM--and everything stopped.
Dust. Wind. Cracks. Screams.
Both Watatsumi and Shogunate forces were thrown like insects. Entire squads erased just by her presence.
The battlefield froze.
Not from order. Not from command.
But from fear.
Kokomi's eyes widened as she saw men--hers--retreating. No… not retreating.
Running.
Running from the Tengu General. Running from death itself.
"This… this is beyond tactics…!"
Her mind raced.
Traps. Reinforcements. Bomb lines. Sniper nests. Everything they had prepared--every new invention, every desperate trick and adaptation forged--
Useless.
All of it, useless.
"I thought we had caught up… I thought we had adapted...!"
Kokomi swallowed.
She had two options.
Continue fighting…
…and lose everything.
Or surrender.
And live with the shame.
Her legs trembled as she took a step back from the ridge.
"Pull back," she whispered.
No one heard her.
So she screamed.
"PULL BACK! FALL BACK NOW!"
If she didn't act now--
If she didn't stop this--
There would be no one left to protect.
And worse…
She would lose the war--not because she was outsmarted, but because she underestimated what the Shogunate had become.
Not soldiers.
Not people.
Not even enemies.
But monsters.
And at the center of it all…
The lightning-winged monster in the shape of a woman.
Kujou Sara.
"No. No one is leaving this battlefield."
Kujou Sara's declaration sends shivers down the Watatsumi Forces.
And the moment they left her lips, silence swallowed the screams.
For a second--just one--everything paused.
And then,
BOOM.
Lightning cracked the sky as her presence surged. The storm responded. The winds howled. Watatsumi soldiers--already breaking--shattered.
Some dropped their weapons. Others fell to their knees. A few ran. None got far.
Then she moved.
No flash. No thunderstep. No dramatic chant. Just movement--fast enough that the world couldn't keep up.
One second, she was standing on broken ground.
The next--
She was behind Kokomi.
A breath away.
Hand outstretched.
Eyes glowing.
Her fingers almost grazed the Resistance Leader's throat when--BOOM--
"Fuc--Dantalion--!" Words left the Tengu's mouth as a radiant barrier erupted around Kokomi.
It expanded surrounding the whole battlefield, and as every remaining alive force of Watatsumi glowed--
The barrier shimmered once… then cracked like glass.
Kujou Sara stood at its center, her outstretched hand still frozen mid-strike.
And just like that, Kokomi was gone.
The entire Watatsumi force--vanished in pulses of light, evacuated in the final seconds.
Mass Teleportation.
Kokomi had given up her intent to win here.
She had now planned only to survive.
Sara's fist clenched.
The lightning crackled across her skin again, feathers of radiant electricity trailing from her shoulders like burning wings. She stared at the dissipating mist of the barrier--
"…Hmph."
There was no triumph in her voice. No satisfaction.
Only disappointment.
She turned.
Behind her, the remnants of the Shogunate stood in eerie formation--hundreds of soldiers, silent, wounded, but victorious.
Around them, the battlefield lay in ruin. Vision users staggered forward like exhausted gods, their bodies steaming from overuse, their eyes vacant.
Cannons still smoked. Craters still burned.
---
Atsuko, still bleeding from her arm, looked around in disbelief. Her breath caught in her throat.
Was it over?
Then--
A roar.
One voice. Raw. Wordless.
Not victory. Not joy.
Just release.
Then another. And another.
The roar became a wave. A storm of sound.
Shogunate soldiers howled into the blood-stained sky, screaming until their lungs burned. Some laughed. Some wept. Others simply screamed for the sake of screaming--because it was over.
Because they were alive.
Because they had won.
The sound rolled over the ruins, over the corpses, over the shattered armor and still-smoking cannons.
It reached the cliffs.
It reached the mountains.
It reached the distant villages--
And the people in those quiet homes, far from the bloodshed, paused.
Because they heard it too.
A scream that didn't need words to be understood.
The war was over.
---
A different kind of battle had begun.
Fort Fujitou, a previously Shogunate Fort--now occupied by Watatsumi soldiers.
Takahashi, a Sangonomiya samurai, was supposed to be on watch.
He stood with practiced posture, hands on the hilt of his blade, eyes scanning the silent coast. Most of the garrison had moved to the front lines in Kanazuka. Only a skeleton crew remained--just enough to call it defended.
The air was quiet. Too quiet.
Then--soft footsteps. A whisper of movement behind him.
Before he could turn--
A cloth slammed against his mouth and nose.
The scent hit him instantly--
Sweet, chemical, cloying.
'We're under attack--!' His thoughts screamed.
But no sound came.
His limbs thrashed, kicking back, reaching for his weapon--
Too late.
Darkness kissed the edges of his vision.
By the time Takahashi awoke, his mouth was gagged, his arms bound tightly behind him, body lashed to a pillar deep in the shadowed corners of the fort. Someone had hidden him well. He could barely move, let alone scream.
Dust drifted in the shafts of sunlight cutting through broken stone. Outside, the world seemed still.
Then--
BOOM.
The earth groaned. The ground beneath him vibrated.
Takahashi's eyes flew open in panic.
Another explosion.
Then another--closer.
The dull echo of violence crept in like thunder through the halls.
His body jerked against the restraints, muscles straining, veins bulging. He fought harder, like a man drowning on dry land.
He could hear it now--shouting. Footsteps. Screams.
The fort was no longer quiet.
It was being taken.
And Takahashi--helpless, gagged, bound--could do nothing but struggle as the invaders came.
'Those Shogunate scums--!'
---
"Arrest all the resistance forces." Kujou Sara commanded them, after letting them celebrate for a few seconds.
One of the conscripted escapees hesitantly asked her,
"General... T-there is no one alive on the enemy side that remained here..."
"No, some of them are alive. Remain vigilant and arrest them." Sara uttered. It was clear she wouldn't explain this further to him.
Thus, a soldier started searching among the corpses with his weapon in hand.
Others, just like him, trained under Kujou Sara's discipline, knew better than to question her.
It would be explained anyway later on.
Finishing this task is more important than answers; after all, it would be fatal if some of these guys indeed stood up and stabbed one of them on the back.
Kujou Sara was thinking.
Sangonomiya Kokomi could still fight at that time.
If anything, if Kokomi so wanted, she could use her vision to make it move at high speed and punch a hole through the enemies, or fill the opponents mouth and nose with water using her vision.
Instead, she chooses to just heal her forces, offer support, and provide some distraction.
Is she that weak?
No, she shouldn't be.
And that mass teleportation...
Kujou Sara flew in the skies again, once at a far enough distance that no one would be able to hear her voice.
Sara directed her gaze at Yashiori Island for a moment but brought back her eyes to the carefully moving soldiers right after.
While doing so, she spoke,
"What were you thinking when you gave that to her?"
The eye below her own opened, and a mouth appeared just below it.
"That felt like a movie."
"..." Kujou Sara sighed upon hearing the reply to her question.
"Heeyy~, don't be like that--"
"Lives were lost," She cut in sharply. "Sacrificed. And you couldn't even give those lives a proper conclusion."
"Mhmm."
Kujou Sara's jaw couldn't help but clenched.
"..."
"Haha, I will help you with honoring their death, don't worry."
Right... Too many lives lost to let them pass in silence.
---
Sangonomiya Kokomi, upon teleporting--
Arrived at Fort Fujitou.
A fort they had claimed from the Shogunate.
And froze.
The watchtowers had collapsed, reduced to blackened timber and twisted supports.
The supply storage… gone.
The air reeked of scorched grain and ash.
Smoke curled through the ruins, soft and mocking.
The food rations--vanished. No trace left.
Yet not a single corpse in sight.
Her pulse quickened.
Without a word, Kokomi raised a hand. Her Vision ignited in a burst of pale blue.
Water erupted from her palm, fanning out in clean arcs. The streams hissed as they met ember and flame, cutting through smoke with the surgical precision of a commander who could not afford error. She moved like a tide channeled through stone--deliberate, efficient, relentless.
Still, she did not speak.
Not yet.
Her mind churned.
No corpses. No signs of retreat. No clash. No panic.
It wasn't a battle.
She turned, voice calm but sharpened by command.
"All units--search the ruins. Thoroughly. Our soldiers were restrained, not executed. Look for signs--bindings, shelters untouched by fire, hidden compartments. I want every soul accounted for. Move."
---
"Next would be sending a ship to pick up the squad after they have dealt with the Tatarigami?" Dantalion asked lazily. Well, technically, he'd be the one to absorb it. But details, details.
"Wasn't that just a rumor?" Kujou Sara shot back, brow furrowed.
'Dealing with the Tatarigami isn't even part of their objective,' She thought.
"Yeah, yeah--Takayuki insists it is." Dantalion waved a hand. "Of course he would. Man's got a hand in it."
At the mention of her adoptive father, Sara's expression soured.
Dantalion always took potshots at him, any chance he got.
"You should hasten picking them up," He said, already bored. The war was over, on both sides, so it's whatever now. "How long has it been? They might've already caught a case of Snake STDs."
But considering how Dantalion worded it, it seems that those guys would encounter it regardless of whether it's part of their mission or not.
"Man, after this, let's sleep while it rains outside."
Kujou Sara's eyes narrowed. "Are you implying we sleep in a single bed?"
"If anything--You pass out every day while I am still inside of you--"
"No, I give up."
"Hahaha! Junior, your bones are still soft and your Dao Heart untampered--yet you dare to challenge me? How truly naive!"
***
"Are those Kanjou Soldiers?"
A man asked. It was one of Kujou Sara's selected troops that had attacked Fort Fujitou.
However, that's not the point here.
How did he know that the man they are observing right now is a Kanjou Commission soldier?
"This... What are they doing here?" One of the man's companions added.
To them, it was easy to identify, after all, they see fellow soldiers every single day.
With the way their clothes move and behave, to them, it was obvious they are wearing minimal armor inside, similar to their own.
"Do you think they were sent here to look for deserters?" One of them quipped in.
"From Kujou Masahito's expedition?"
"Yeah... I heard many died and went missing during that mission."
They are looking at a small team of soldiers, consisting of only 3 soldiers.
"Huh?"
"The fuck are they doing?"
The trio had started gathering the villagers.
"This is suspicious."
"Brilliant deduction, detective. No shit."
Pak!
A hand smacked a shoulder--firm but not serious.
Then one of them broke into a sprint toward the soldiers.
"Oi! Get back!" One of them hissed. Urgent. Sharp.
But too late.
"That dumbass--"
And like a string snapping, the rest followed.
They ran.
Straight toward the three soldiers who were gathering the villagers.
Kurosawa Kyounosuke--the first to break into a sprint--shouted as he closed the distance:
"Oi! What are you doing to the villagers?"
His voice rang sharp and clear, cutting through the uneasy quiet.
The three soldiers turned.
Kurosawa skidded to a halt a few paces away, hand hovering near his weapon.
The others caught up behind him, tense and unsure.
"Identify yourselves--" One barked but was interrupted.
"TWO OF OUR MEMBERS DID NOT RETURN!" One of the trio impulsively retorted--they lack the discipline expected of soldiers for such infiltration.
One of the trio coughed. Blood was smeared on his hand as he spit the rest on the ground.
To Kurosawa Kyounosuke and others, the trio looks... sick?
The villagers, herded into a line, looked confused. Frightened. One woman clutched her child tighter.
"Elaborate." One of them asked, clearly trying to pry further information.
"THEY KILLED GONGOZAEMON AND YAMADA!" His eyes...
"Can you stop screaming? We can hear you just fine." One of the soldiers complained.
"Have you been taking Sumerian shrooms? The fuck is wrong with your eyes--what's up with him, why does he keep coughing blood?"
Kurosawa Kyounosuke frowned and looked at the villagers, scanning their faces--fear, confusion, and with some obvious sign of sickness among others.
Is there a disease?
Is that why the trio is coughing blood and constantly wiping their bleeding noses?
He glanced at the villagers again while the others questioned the trio.
Some of them asked the villagers what's going on.
Tired, fevered stares.
Wheezing.
A boy with trembling hands. A woman wiping her lips with a shaking cloth, red bloomed in the fabric.
A chill settled in his gut.
Is this a disease?
A contagion?
He glanced at the trio--bleeding noses, sunken cheeks, erratic behavior. The broken discipline suddenly made sense.
"Distance yourself from those three and the villagers! Cover your face with something!" Kurosawa Kyounosuke warned, though he had warned them, he had nothing to cover himself with.
"Cough Cough... The village head...!--Where is your village head--!" One of the trio questioned the villagers, regardless of the presence of another Shogunate group.
A villager answered in a rush. He didn't know, but mentioned the village head might've gone to the shrine to pray for the curse to be lifted.
"Curse?" one soldier asked, cloth over his face.
"Is that why everyone here looks like strung-out addicts--"
Thud!
He received an elbow to the ribs.
The trio of soldiers huddled briefly, whispering to each other. Then, seemingly reaching a conclusion, they turned; they decided to leave this village.
But--
"Hey, you are not leaving until you elaborate on what's going on--"
---
"So, what are we gonna do with them now?"
The question came with a shrug, casual, almost bored.
"You are making me question why you were even selected with us."
Before them, the three captured soldiers sat in the dirt, bound wrist-to-ankle in coarse rope.
"Sorry for not being a high-ranking enforcer?"
"This is something you should've known even as an ordinary soldier! Were you not listening during your training?"
"I should?"
"YES! YOU--"
"Me?"
He closed his eyes, exhaled slowly through his nose.
And muttered. "The general will snap your tibia in half."
"..."
"Inaba!"
A voice called out.
One of their squad mates approached with news -- the villagers confirmed another soldier had been here before the trio arrived.
Their initial suspicions were right all along.
And that there was indeed a spreading disease, or as the villagers call it, some kind of curse.
Just as Kurosawa mentioned.
"Has Ogura been able to identify it?"
Ogura, full name Ogura Yuu, is in charge of being a Medic and, additionally, communications.
"Based on the retelling of the villagers, there is no pattern on who would be afflicted, healthy, frail, old, and young, and even if you are covered from head to toe without leaving your house, it doesn't matter."
"However, the symptoms are all the same. Nightmares, bleeding, fevers, and migraines, as well as hallucinations."
"Ogura is checking the villagers' source of water."
---
-Chapter END-
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