This was a sealed realm of eternal solitude.
At the farthest edge of sight, a crimson sunset bled across the broken torii of a ruined shrine. The desolate earth lay strewn with wreckage.
The god named Raiden Ei stood lightly atop the shrine. Her dark violet braid fell naturally down her back. She wore a purple kimono embroidered at the collar with gentian flowers, its detached sleeves hanging at either side and leaving her slender, pale hands bare.
One of those hands held a naginata in a reverse grip, lightning coursing along its blade.
Her eyes were lowered. Nothing stirred within them but emptiness.
The naginata had pierced the puppet who looked exactly like her.
But the puppet could not be killed. She would rise again, just as this vast and hollow world would never change.
Heavy banks of cloud crowded the leaden sky, bleaching the heavens gray. Yet though clouds had always hung above this heart, rain had never fallen here. No thunder could shatter those layered clouds, and a momentary flicker, with no thunder to awaken it, could never summon rain.
And so this place remained forever oppressive and dry.
Time held no meaning here. Only endless slaughter endured.
Whenever Ei raised her eyes to that overcast sky, it was the same as it had always been. Nothing ever changed. That changeless eternity reassured her. Through battle after battle, she found the tranquility of eternity.
It had always been so.
Eventually, she stopped looking out upon the world beyond. Decades passed. Centuries... Time lost all meaning.
Rumble.
Today should have been no different.
Rumble.
The faint sound of thunder reached her.
Perhaps it was only an illusion.
That phantom rumble was weak, barely there, tapping softly against the clouds. Yet it was there. When a few pale glimmers slipped through the gaps and scattered across the empty earth, something moved in Ei's vacant eyes.
Narukami looked outward once more.
Beyond the many layers of cloud, she finally glimpsed a fleeting flash of lightning over Inazuma.
Thunder had returned.
Ei's grip tightened unconsciously around her naginata. For once, shock surfaced in the depths of those eternally placid eyes.
—She knew it.
She could feel it too.
That was Kiyono's thunder.
That was the Fudō Ittō of Kiyono Raimei.
Weak and distant though it was, it truly shone upon the far horizon—above Chinju Forest.
Fudō Ittō. Only that lightning remained eternally unchanged.
As a warrior, Ei could be slow and awkward in many things, but her memory for the martial arts was incomparably keen.
But why?
That thunder had died long ago. Ei was certain of it.
All echoes of thunder must fade in the end. Why, then, did his thunder resound over Inazuma once more?
Raiden Ei did not know.
She was bewildered.
—She had to go and see.
For the first time in centuries of battle, she wanted to leave this place.
She could feel another presence entrenched over Narukami Island, colliding with that lightning.
An icy and overwhelming presence that bore the authority of Snezhnaya.
She had to get out.
The thunder was dying away.
Growing weaker with every moment.
Ei seemed to realize something.
Something only dimly understood...
Her need to see that thunder grew ever stronger. Yet then she discovered that she could no longer leave this eternal land.
She could not escape the pure land she herself had created. She could not return to her physical body.
She had lost control of it.
"Shogun." Ei's expression turned cold, her eyes reflecting the puppet before her. "What have you done?"
"I have done nothing." The Raiden Shogun regarded her calmly. She too dragged a naginata behind her, its blade striking sparks from the ground. "All of this is your own will."
"I am merely carrying out the purpose you gave me at the beginning."
"You said as much yourself, did you not, Ei? 'Until I defeat you, I will not come out again.'"
The Raiden Shogun's wooden sandals crossed the ruined shrine.
With the sound of machinery turning, illusory puppet arms unfolded in the space around her.
"Every change within you, every trace of erosion you have suffered, was caused by that fleeting lightning. Transience and eternity stand opposed. They must not be allowed to intersect again."
"Should they do so, the eternity Ei established will be destroyed."
"What I am doing now..." the Raiden Shogun said evenly, "is merely correcting an error. I will kill that 'error' myself."
"You said it yourself: that thunder was already dead." Lightning leapt along the Shogun's naginata. "Once the moment has been missed, there can be no reunion."
The thunder fell silent.
"Move." Ei's voice turned glacial.
"Ei." The Shogun's face remained without expression. "It is already too late."
"It became too late the moment you entered this place," she continued, without the slightest rise or fall in her voice. "The moment you made your choice, you had already missed him."
"Move..."
Ei clenched her naginata. Behind her, an eye woven from patterns of lightning slowly opened as a terrible, supreme power gathered around it.
"I was never the one standing in your way."
"From beginning to end..."
The Shogun's eyes reflected Ei's face.
"The only person who ever stood in your way was you—and you never once realized it."
"You said that if you met him again, the ending would be different. Yet when that reunion came, you still failed to look upon the mortal before you, just as you did a century ago."
Ei froze.
Her lips moved faintly.
"...What?"
"The truth I concealed from you is this—"
The Shogun looked calmly at Ei.
"When you purged the filth from Mt. Yougou, you passed that thunder without ever lowering your gaze to him."
"I am only a puppet, yet even I saw him."
That was the whole truth.
You never looked at him.
No...
Ei swayed slightly.
That is not true.
Her eyes fell.
The last reverberation of thunder was fading, slowly drowning beneath a frozen riverbed. Musou no Hitotachi tore through the air as Ei swept her blade toward the Shogun's neck—
"And so," the Shogun said softly, "whether a century ago or now, the ending will always be the same, Ei."
"You will only ever miss him."
Rumble.
As the final trace of lightning vanished from the sky, rain at last began to fall.
Nothing remained of the world but broken walls and shattered ruins.
She could no longer find a way out.
...
The rain grew heavier that night.
Kunikuzushi noticed that Kiyono's Tofu Shop looked very different from the last time he had seen it.
The old shop had once been austere and solemn. Its display windows and even its kotatsu had been kept immaculately clean, every detail reflecting a meticulous disposition.
But what he saw today...
He did not quite know how to describe it. It simply seemed somewhat more... lively.
Strangest of all was the charred-black thing inside the steamer.
"Dango Milk," the fox lady explained when she noticed his stare. "It didn't turn out very well. Someone was trying to expand the business."
When she mentioned that someone, her narrow eyes curved unconsciously into crescents.
"Someone?"
"Ah. A new hand I hired." The fox lady's ears twitched. "He's an idiot. Pay him no mind."
She had no intention of revealing Kiyo Seigan's existence. She had never lowered her guard around Kunikuzushi.
Without betraying anything, she asked, "So what exactly is this 'heart' of Kiyono Fugin?"
Yae Miko had long since concluded that Kiyono Fugin and Kiyono Raimei were the same man. Fugin's heart was therefore Raimei's heart as well.
What concerned her was why La Signora possessed Kiyono Raimei's heart.
"According to La Signora," Kunikuzushi said after a moment's thought, "it was a trophy she acquired in Mondstadt."
"'I turned it into a work of art...'" He recalled La Signora's words that day. "'Do you not find it fascinating? To watch a mortal's frail heart beat—how very interesting.' That was what she said."
The moment he finished, Kunikuzushi sensed that something was wrong with Miko.
Something repressed.
Or perhaps something terrifying.
A smile still rested upon her lips, yet no trace of amusement remained within it. Her eyes held no expression at all. They stared directly at him.
The dim candlelight cast a dark shadow across her face. Her lips parted, and her voice was as cold as something dredged from beneath a glacier.
"Say that again."
La Signora.
I turned it into a work of art.
La Signora.
To watch a mortal's frail heart beat.
La Signora.
How very interesting.
La Signora!
Yae Miko murmured that name under her breath. She paused, the same bloodless smile still touching her lips.
"Where is La Signora now?"
Even in this life...
Even in this life, La Signora was hunting Kiyo Seigan.
Yae Miko could not comprehend what depth of hatred, what venomous malice, could make La Signora refuse to spare that old bastard through life after life.
Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.
...There is nothing left to do but kill her.
"Now it is your turn to answer my question."
Kunikuzushi had not expected the mere mention of this matter to draw such naked emotion from the calculating Guuji Yae.
She had to know something.
"Kiyono Fugin." Kunikuzushi held her gaze, urgency entering his voice. "What exactly is his connection to Kiyono Raimei?"
What connection did they have...?
Miko had no intention of telling him the truth.
Kiyono Raimei had made many enemies. Even in life, he had been a thorn in the Fatui's side. If word of his return escaped, disaster would inevitably follow.
She did not trust Kunikuzushi.
But unless Miko revealed the truth, Kunikuzushi would not disclose La Signora's whereabouts. Their negotiation reached an immediate stalemate.
What broke that stalemate was a faint rumble of thunder.
At first, it was only a low growl. The clouds slowly parted, and pure-white lightning poured through a fissure in their depths, briefly illuminating the distant horizon. The white sakura of Konda Village cast swaying shadows. When the lightning vanished, those shadows dissolved into the stillness of night.
Rumble.
Shadows brightened and dimmed with every flash.
That lightning, at once familiar and strange, shone into the tofu shop and illuminated the faces of Kunikuzushi and Miko.
Rumble—
At the same moment, both of them realized something.
Their pupils widened.
They pushed open the lattice window. At the farthest edge of sight, high above distant Chinju Forest, lightning flared into existence and crossed the lonely night sky before slowly drowning in a sea of ice.
What was that?
—
Hah.
The rain was still falling that night.
Bleak, icy rain slanted through the desolate darkness. The forest soil smelled damp, and strands of rain beat against Kiyo's clothes, slowly soaking through to his skin.
Hah.
His breathing was weak and labored.
Kiyo Seigan felt his lungs convulse. With every breath, splinters of ice seemed to flow through his windpipe. His shoulders trembled faintly. A thin layer of silver frost clung to his pale hair, and his face was white as snow.
He no longer knew how far he had walked.
Perhaps he had already left Chinju Forest behind.
"Hey. You need to lose some weight."
He was carrying an oni girl named Torachiyo upon his back. Her cheek rested against his shoulder, her eyes closed as though she were asleep.
Her once-magnificent jūnihitoe now hung in tatters, stained with mud and dust.
A little tanuki darted out of the darkness. Alert and nimble, he scrambled onto Kiyo's shoulder in a flash.
"No Fatui ahead! We can rest."
Little Ioroi might be gluttonous and lazy—so much so that he had once resorted to posing as a stone statue for food—but reconnaissance was the one thing at which he truly excelled. He had, after all, once stolen a grilled fish from directly under the noses of two people, one god, and one Paimon...
It made sense. A tanuki who stole chickens from the village had to know how to scout for enemies.
At last, that talent had found a proper use.
They could rest for a moment.
"Salty God," Kiyo murmured to the Salt Ruler. "How are you holding up?"
The Salt Ruler gave no answer.
Not long ago, he had confronted La Signora directly.
But rather than a duel between the two of them, it had really been a contest between Lia and the Tsaritsa.
He and La Signora had merely served as their proxies.
The Tsaritsa had briefly turned her gaze upon this place and granted a portion of her authority.
Lia, meanwhile, had given Kiyo Seigan the full authority of the God of Salt, allowing him to reach the level of a god for a fleeting moment.
Havria had ultimately been only a god, while the Tsaritsa was a true member of The Seven. Even La Signora herself was far stronger than Kiyo Seigan.
Yet, unexpectedly, they had failed to keep him there.
When he grasped Kamigiri in the body of a god, he had sensed many things once more.
He had seen that lightning flash across Inazuma's sky, fleeting as the blink of an eye.
Within those three-tenths of a second, Kiyo followed the path of that lightning. His mind emptied of all thought, and Kamigiri guided him onward.
And so he did it.
He became the lightning and crossed the sky.
Now Kiyo was carrying Torachiyo away from Chinju Forest.
Fatui soldiers were everywhere. He moved through the dark woods with his presence suppressed, doing everything he could to evade detection and escape their search.
He had been separated from Lumine.
But she must have seen that cataclysmic disturbance. She would be on her way here.
Even Lumine would struggle to find him, however. To evade the Fatui, Kiyo had concealed his presence and erased his tracks.
Everyone was searching for him.
Kunikuzushi. Miko. Lumine. Even La Signora...
Kiyo Seigan could rely upon no one but himself.
But he was already exhausted. The price of that slash had torn his body apart. Bitter cold scoured his consciousness, and in the final instant before he collapsed, he dimly saw a figure before him.
"...Who are you?"
He murmured the question softly.