While everyone else was still testing the Yin-Yang Five Elements Scripture, Su Han turned to Yae Miko.
"How are those ninja units coming along?" he asked.
"About three thousand strong," she replied. "That's my limit for now. Their training is going very well.
"Compared to the martial arts from the group, chakra suits them better. It's like they were born to use it.
"A few of the more talented ones don't even need Blood Bodhi or Flood Dragon Blood pills to advance quickly.
"Right now, there are about a hundred who can use A‑rank techniques.
"As for S‑rank… only Yoimiya and Sayu."
Yae had been building this force quietly for a long time.
Most of the recruits were rōnin and wandering swordsmen. Many came from fallen families.
Yoimiya was one of them.
Who would have thought that the cheerful fireworks girl of Naganohara was already an S‑rank ninjutsu user, with truly formidable combat skills?
The intelligence Ei had been reading lately had all been gathered by these hidden operatives. Many of the "Treasure Hoarder" bands wandering Inazuma's islands were really ninja in disguise.
They didn't live in the city.
They were scattered through the Araumi region and around Yashiori Island, training every day.
Most of them were poor. Some had had their Visions taken.
Yae had given them a second tomorrow.
None of them dared refuse her orders.
Even so, she hadn't overreached. She knew better than to raise tens of thousands of soldiers overnight. Three thousand was the most she could hide. Any more, and the other powers in Inazuma would start asking questions.
Su Han nodded. "That's enough," he said. "Tonight I'll take Hanachirusato and finish the Grand Sacred Sakura Cleansing.
"Then I'll plant the Dragon Vein into this Sacred Sakura."
"I'll set up a barrier," Yae said. "Here, I can keep an eye on the relic and make sure no one steals it.
"I'll go make preparations."
"Mm."
They separated.
Su Han headed for Yae's personal quarters.
He had barely stepped inside when he heard Hanachirusato's voice.
"Hehe. You're done, Su Han? Hurry up and bring out the fried tofu. I can already smell it…"
"You can't even eat," he said helplessly.
What kind of foxes did Inazuma breed, to be this obsessed with fried tofu?
And she was only a soul right now.
Hanachirusato appeared in the room, her spirit form far more solid than before. The fox mask was gone. Gold eyes, clear and bright, curved into a smile.
"Even just smelling it is enough," she said. "You don't understand… I haven't had fried tofu in five hundred years."
"Here. Smell to your heart's content."
He handed over the plate that Kuki Shinobu had just brought up.
On his way up the mountain, Hanachirusato had confessed she wanted to at least smell fried tofu again, so the little shrine maiden had run all the way into the city to buy some. When Su Han woke, she had reheated it specially. The aroma filled the room.
"Mmm… the smell is just as good as ever," Hanachirusato sighed. "What a pity. As a spirit, I can't really enjoy offerings, or I'd eat ten plates by myself.
"By the way—I heard that child Miko say you possess the power to travel between worlds. That the Dragon Vein and the rest all came from elsewhere.
"Even the yaksha in the room next door, the one sheltered in a teapot.
"If that's true… can I really be brought back to life?"
After inhaling the scent to her satisfaction, she let her full fox nature surface again.
Her expression, though, still held doubt.
In Teyvat, resurrection was practically taboo. No one had ever pulled it off.
"Of course," Su Han said. "For example, my Tenseiga.
"In its original world, it could revive the dead. Each soul only once.
"But here, that doesn't work. The level gap is too big.
"What it did keep is its principle of equivalent exchange. If we reach a higher world later, reviving you completely will be possible."
At the words "revive completely," Hanachirusato launched herself at him.
Tears shimmered in her eyes even as she smiled. "That's wonderful," she said. "Truly wonderful.
"If I come back… how about I become your woman?
"I remember in Liyue there's a saying, isn't there? A life saved must be repaid with one's body."
"There is," Su Han admitted. "But that's something in stories.
"Don't take it too seriously. I don't like using that kind of thing to pressure people."
He did like her.
Her temperament and her face both fit him very well.
But he had no intention of chaining her with a debt.
As Hanachirusato, she had already suffered enough.
She rolled her eyes and muttered, "Don't think I don't know about you and that fox…
"I heard everything this morning. And that silver‑haired woman—she's still carrying your scent."
"If you really aren't willing," she added sweetly, "I can always just find some other man."
"You wouldn't dare."
The words snapped out before he could catch them.
This little vixen was getting bolder by the minute.
His reaction sent her into peals of laughter.
"You're still saying you don't like me?" she grinned. "You gave yourself away just now.
"All right, enough teasing. I don't look twice at ordinary men.
"It's a shame about Chiyo and Asase Hibiki, though. They'll never see any of this.
"Can someone without a soul be revived too?"
Her smile faded as she said it.
"What about them?"
"It's possible," Su Han said slowly. "But a lot harder.
"Not impossible, though."
Even without a soul, resurrection wasn't completely off the table.
It depended on which worlds the mission group reached.
In a place like the Dragon Ball world, a single wish could bring back entire planets.
The problem was that worlds like that were terrifying. Planets were destroyed like pebbles. Even if Morax himself went there, he'd likely end up on the receiving end of a beating.
Other worlds had their own methods.
For now, all he could say was that they would take it step by step.
They talked for a long time after that.
When the topic turned to technology, Su Han said, "There's nothing inherently wrong with tech.
"Take artificial humans. If you can build a body that carries a soul, you can replace your own when it wears out.
"And if someone falls ill, you can use technology to treat them.
"For an island nation like Inazuma, with so little arable land, tech could mean more food from less soil.
"You can even build sea trains.
"The problem with Khaenri'ah wasn't the tools. It was that their eyes never left war.
"Endless research for its own sake was a mistake. In the end, they drew in the Abyss.
"Greed was the original sin."
He worked with technology himself.
But he confined it to people's lives: wind turbines for power, canals in Liyue to bring water from Qingce's rivers into the dry interior, so more land could be sown.
As for war machines, he saw little point.
If people were strong enough, they could protect what mattered without them.
"You're not wrong," Hanachirusato said. "Look at Liyue's Serenitea Pot craft. If Ei and the others studied it properly, they could open pocket spaces to grow food too.
"Instead she stays shut in, clinging to 'eternity.' It's enough to drive anyone mad.
"In the old days, I'd have gone up and slapped her awake.
"You have no idea. Back then, Ei was always a little slow on the uptake.
"To get another bite of my sweets, she'd skip her sword practice and spend all day playing cards instead.
"She only won once in a thousand games. If I didn't deliberately lose, she'd never taste anything."
Su Han couldn't help laughing.
He hadn't expected Ei to have such a simple, almost cute side.
So stubborn, and yet so straightforward.
Their long talk also made something clear: Hanachirusato now trusted him completely. She no longer recoiled from technology. When she next met Ei, he suspected this fox soul would have plenty to say.
Yae might limit herself to teasing.
Hanachirusato would not.
She had given her life for Narukami Island. With that kind of merit behind her, even Ei had no standing to talk back.
To let her rest, Su Han didn't linger.
That night, he brought her down beneath Mt. Yougou.
The true Grand Sacred Sakura Cleansing was about to begin.
This time, they weren't alone.
Yae Miko and Shenhe came to help.
Both of them could eradicate corruption. Their strength would matter.
As soon as they entered the underground space, the filth sensed living souls and immediately birthed more warriors, sending them running toward the four of them.
Su Han had been ready for this.
The Dragon Vein came out at once, its clear light suppressing the corrupted samurai.
Shenhe dashed forward, Calamity Queller in hand. The spear's tip flickered, sending out countless shards of killing frost. In a breath, several dozen phantom warriors were gone.
Yae didn't stand back either.
She summoned fox spirits in waves, laughing as they tore into the enemy.
Within minutes, the three of them had carved their way through the horde and reached the source: great fleshy growths swollen with gathered filth.
"There," Hanachirusato said. "That's the last of it.
"Destroy those, and the corruption will vanish."
"Got it," Su Han said.
Tessaiga shifted into its kirin form in his grasp.
Shenhe called upon the power of the Nuwa Stone.
Yae drew every scrap of her strength together.
Their three attacks fell at once.
With a deafening crack, the meat‑tumors wrapped in roots burst apart. The concentrated filth inside burned away under the combined force.
Flowers pushed up through the ground all around them.
The dank, oppressive cavern filled with light, the darkness gone.
Su Han immediately turned to look at Hanachirusato.
Her form flickered again, but this time, the soul‑nourishing rest during the day seemed to have helped. She didn't come apart.
"Here," he said. "More soul power."
Tenseiga released everything it had devoured, feeding it back into her.
They had killed a lot of filth this time. The surge of energy made her almost dizzy with fullness.
After a long moment, she raised a hand. "Enough," she said. "My body can't absorb any more.
"I need to digest this.
"You all go on."
Her spirit darted back into the locust‑wood box.