"...Keep watch for a mortal traveling from Liyue to Inazuma. He carries the Geo Archon's heart."
"...Bring that heart back."
The night was still young.
It was an elegant Inazuman-style pavilion. Faint starlight lay across the torii gate, while pines and cypresses stood in the courtyard, their fine branches cutting the night's rare clear sky into scattered fragments.
La Signora sat alone in the middle of the courtyard, her head tilted back as she gazed absently at the stars. The swaying silhouettes of the trees played across the hem of her exquisite dress.
She could not sleep.
Ever since arriving in Inazuma and meeting that detestable puppet, she had slept poorly. Her mind had never truly relaxed. It was as though the moment she closed her eyes, something precious would be stolen from her.
Something that belonged to her.
Stolen by a thief.
The wind beyond the courtyard was particularly tiresome tonight, making sleep impossible. She had therefore come outside to look at the stars and pass the time.
It was then that she received a new order—one sent directly from Snezhnaya, bearing the will of Her Majesty the Tsaritsa.
"A mortal from Liyue...?"
La Signora frowned slightly as she considered the intelligence.
The Geo Archon's Gnosis had actually left Liyue Harbor...
Interesting.
She needed to devote all her attention to her work. Only by keeping herself occupied could she find a brief measure of peace. It was all for the pure white world she sought... or so she had to tell herself.
She had already chosen this road. She would never stop again.
The immediate priority was finding this person.
That should not be difficult.
Under the Sakoku Decree, every traveler arriving in Inazuma from abroad had to register with the Kanjou Commission and obtain a travel permit. Their records would then be sent to the Yashiro Commission for filing.
All she needed to do was examine the Liyue travelers registered over the past few days.
So she thought.
The night was still young. She might as well visit the Yashiro Commission and inspect its records.
The matter concerned a Gnosis. It was too important to delay.
The Yashiro Commission administered Inazuma's civil and cultural affairs.
The Kamisato Clan had long presided over it, and Kamisato Ayaka—known among the people as the Shirasagi Himegimi—was directly responsible for its work.
Though night had fallen, Ayaka was still attending to official business.
"That newly arrived diplomat... has come to the Commission Headquarters?" Kamisato Ayaka frowned faintly. "She wants to examine the household registers of foreign arrivals? What is she planning?"
It was both presumptuous and insulting.
Ayaka disliked Snezhnayan diplomats, and she had even less affection for the Fatui.
The Fatui were infamous both at home and abroad, using their military strength to practice diplomacy like common thugs. Now Inazuma had been weakened by the Sakoku Decree, Her Excellency Narukami had vanished from public view, and the Fatui had arrived to stir up further trouble...
The other two Commissions, meanwhile, obeyed Snezhnaya almost without question.
At the thought, she sighed softly.
If that lord were still here... perhaps Inazuma would not have been forced into such a passive position.
The way to deal with thugs was to be an even greater thug—stronger and more overbearing than they were. Old Man Kiyono had been a thoroughgoing rogue. Diplomacy meant little to that old samurai; steel was the finest diplomacy, and at the first disagreement he would threaten to sink the other rogues into the sea.
But the thunder had departed. From now on, the people of Inazuma would have to walk Inazuma's road themselves.
Ayaka still remembered that morning after the heavy snow had cleared, and the way the old man had spoken to her for the last time. Dressed in a thick kimono, coughing quietly, he had sat beside the brazier with pure white snow covering the window lattice behind him.
Calmly, he had said, "I'm going to die."
An era had slowly passed away, dying as silently as the snow melting between the window frames.
Only the people of Inazuma could walk the road ahead.
Ayaka rose from the tatami. Her white-socked feet crossed the wooden floor as she slowly tied up her pale hair with a red cord. She wore a snow-white dress, with no other color anywhere upon her. For the half year since Kiyono's death, she had dressed only in white.
She was not a child of the Kiyono household and had no obligation to wear mourning for the Pillar General. Yet to Ayaka, that venerable old man had been like a close elder—both family and teacher.
La Signora was waiting in one of the Yashiro Commission's guest rooms. A crimson mask covered part of her face, and her clothes were elegant and regal. She was currently leafing through a register containing every foreign arrival recorded over the past several days.
Her manner was arrogant, as though she were the host and not the guest.
"Have you found what you were looking for?" the Shirasagi Himegimi asked calmly.
"...That is none of your concern." Without even looking at the girl, La Signora set down the register.
She had found nothing.
Not a single traveler from Liyue had been registered in recent days.
"It seems you haven't found the person you want." Kamisato Ayaka was perceptive enough to see that at once.
Neither humble nor overbearing, she continued, "How unfortunate. Inazuma is a large country. If this person concealed his movements and entered illegally, I imagine the Fatui's present forces in Inazuma would have great difficulty locating him."
"The Yashiro Commission possesses the most extensive intelligence network in all Inazuma. We should find the person you seek very soon."
So this Inazuman bureaucrat knew how to be accommodating after all.
The Kanjou and Tenryou Commissions granted Snezhnaya almost anything it requested, greedy and corrupt as they were. La Signora had thought the Yashiro Commission might be different. Now it appeared the offered benefit had simply never been high enough. They were all the same kind of vermin.
Such were mortals: weak and foolish, yet cursed with the filthiest appetites. In La Signora's eyes, they were impurities that ought to be burned away together with the old world.
For now, however, she could make use of them.
"What are your terms?" La Signora asked with a mocking sneer. "Do you want the Fatui's support...?"
Before she could finish, Kamisato Ayaka slowly shook her head.
"You misunderstand. The Yashiro Commission has no need of your 'support.'"
"Then what are you asking for? Money?" La Signora had no time to waste.
"What I mean is..."
Ayaka paused. Her clear eyes reflected La Signora's face. Every word and gesture from the Shirasagi Himegimi remained perfectly courteous, yet beneath that elegant etiquette lay a gentle but unyielding strength.
"What I mean is: have you considered that you may be far too arrogant?"
"Why do you assume we would help you?"
She spoke slowly.
"From the moment you set foot upon this land, from the moment you entered the Yashiro Commission, from the moment you began opening our records as you pleased—forgive my candor, but beneath that magnificent gown, you carry the arrogance of a barbarian. Just like your barbarous and discourteous nation."
...
Cold.
A murderous chill began to coil through the room. For the first time, La Signora looked directly at the young woman before her.
She was slight and seemingly frail, dressed in pure white like a small flower.
A blizzard swept outward. Bitter wind tore through the confined room as La Signora's overwhelming presence spread with it, bearing down upon every spine while cold seeped deep into the bone.
Yet the white flower stood straight against the wind.
"The Yashiro Commission will find the person you seek."
Ayaka smiled softly amid the gale and gave a mischievous wink. "But we will not tell you where he is. On the contrary, we will hide him somewhere you can never find."
"What do you hope to accomplish by doing this?" La Signora's voice had turned utterly frigid.
"Nothing at all."
Ayaka was smiling, but her tone remained calm. "Perhaps causing trouble is the point. Consider it repayment for your arrogance. The thought of you failing your assignment is quite delightful."
It seemed an old rogue could indeed teach a young rogue. The Shirasagi Himegimi was elegant and unfailingly courteous, but in the marrow of her bones, she remained a traditional samurai.
"...You are provoking the Fatui." La Signora stared at her. "You know what the consequences will be."
"You are the one provoking us." Ayaka's voice was quiet, but it carried a deep, immovable force. "You are provoking the Yashiro Commission. You are provoking all of Inazuma."
She met La Signora's gaze without wavering. Within the frail body of this gentle and elegant young lady, beneath the pale blue of her eyes, a radiance like rolling thunder seemed to stir.
"Inazuma has endured this humiliation for far too long."
"You advanced the Sakoku Decree. You bribed the Commissions and sowed discord... Since the Pillar General's death, you have committed one arrogant offense after another."
Ayaka regarded La Signora calmly. "You have insulted us, and I will tolerate that insult no longer."
"Because this is the Inazuma he entrusted to us... the Inazuma he left to the next generation."
Kamisato Ayaka bit her lower lip, the light in her eyes swelling brighter. She stood against La Signora's terrifying pressure without yielding in the slightest.
"'I leave the rest to you.' That is what he once told me."
"He also said, 'Whatever your enemy wants to do, stop them.' So whatever you attempt from this day forward, the Yashiro Commission will always stand in your way."
"The Pillar General?" La Signora gave a cold, contemptuous laugh. "That useless old geezer who died of old age?"
"He's dead. He won't be holding your nation up any longer."
Kamisato Ayaka fell silent.
She merely stared into La Signora's eyes, calm and still. No other emotion showed in her gaze, yet thunder erupted within that silence.
"You may leave now," Kamisato Ayaka said softly.
"See our guest out."
Two hours later.
The night had deepened.
Kiyo Seigan knew nothing whatsoever about the confrontation at the Yashiro Commission.
He did not even know that both the Fatui and the Yashiro Commission were now looking for him...
In La Signora's and Kamisato Ayaka's eyes, he had deliberately hidden his trail and entered Inazuma illegally.
The truth was that the Kanjou Commission had tried to fleece him, he could not afford a travel permit, and without one he could not register at all.
Miss Lumine was still worrying about that travel permit right now.
How was he supposed to know any of this?
La Signora had hoped to exploit the corruption of Inazuma's Commissions to uncover Kiyo Seigan's identity. Yet it was precisely that corruption which had concealed him perfectly...
It was practically a joke straight out of hell.
As far as Kiyo Seigan was concerned, the most urgent problem was how to deal with the ravenous Miss Lumine standing before him, looking ready to devour someone alive...
From the moment he brought her into Kiyono's Tofu Shop, he knew his own fate had begun its slow descent into hell.
Lumine's smile was calm. Her smiles had always been calm.
So calm that... it was frightening.
"Who is she?" Lumine stared expressionlessly at the fox lady kneeling before Kiyo Seigan.
The fox lady lounged against the low desk, her two ears drooping as she gave a lazy yawn, her bare, snow-white feet tucked beneath her.
"She's..." Kiyo Seigan began, scrambling for an explanation. "She... Inazuma buddy, yes. She's..."
He had meant to explain that she was a shrine maiden, the owner of the tofu shop, and a very good Inazuman pretty girl who could cleanse the filth from his body...
But Yae Miko tilted her head, narrowed her long eyes at Lumine, and cut him off with a smug declaration:
"I'm his Kitsune Onee-san."
Then she added, "If you don't believe me, ask him."
...
Lumine's expressionless gaze shifted from the fox lady to Kiyo Seigan.
"Since when did you have an older sister?"
...
Kiyo Seigan felt thoroughly betrayed by his Inazuma buddy. Inazuman devils were Inazuman devils after all—sly, treacherous, rotten to the core. Their pretty girls were no better!
"Did you get the travel permit sorted out?" he asked, changing the subject with painful stiffness.
"No." Lumine sat down beside him. Her face remained calm, but her slender white fingers had already pinched the tender flesh at his waist. She cast him a sidelong glance that said plainly, You're dead when we get back.
"I don't have any money." She admitted her poverty with perfect composure.
Pain shot through Kiyo Seigan's waist. He wanted to defend himself, but he was in the wrong. He had eaten his fill while Miss Lumine was still hungry.
So he stood. "I'll get you something to eat."
He fled the desk and made straight for the kitchen, leaving Lumine and the fox lady alone beside the brazier.
The room immediately fell silent.
The night was deep, and a bleak wind stirred outside.
"So you're Lumine?" the fox lady asked lazily, her cheek resting in one hand.
"Where'd this vixen come from?" Lumine replied tersely.
"Where'd this Blondie come from?" the fox lady replied just as tersely.
Blondie, Blondie, Blondie!
Lumine's smile ceased to be friendly.
Why did everyone she met have something to say about her hair?
She slowly exhaled and reminded herself to stay calm. Their position was already precarious; they could not afford to make any more enemies.
"...Kiyo Seigan said you could help us. With the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual?"
"This Guuji is very powerful, you know." Miko lifted her chin proudly. "I am the Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine! Unlike a certain Blondie who can't even afford a travel permit."
"When will the ritual begin?" Lumine asked, striving not to lose her temper.
"Within the next few days," the fox lady replied.
She was about to say more when her ears twitched. She seemed to have heard something.
A loud, confused noise.
Someone was knocking at the door.
It was a samurai on patrol.
"Lady Guuji, we've received a report that an unidentified stowaway from Liyue has appeared in Konda Village. Have you seen him?"