[Rifthound]
[Lv. 20]
Kiyo Seigan had not expected to find these things in Inazuma too.
He slowly exhaled. Clear elemental energy gathered around him as his pale blue eyes took in the scene ahead.
It was early summer, and fine shafts of sunlight poured through gaps between the Sacred Sakura's branches.
Shadows of sakura blossoms drifted across the mountain paths of Mt. Yougou. In the dark places beyond the sunlight, doglike monsters of the Abyss prowled one after another, drool spilling from their jaws. Cold light gleamed upon bone-white teeth as they stared hungrily at the boy.
Before the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual could proceed safely, these monsters of the Abyss had to be removed.
Thanks to a certain old man, Inazuma had suffered no harm from filth the previous year. But filth was still filth: it could never be eradicated completely or forever. With summer's arrival, the dark resentment dormant beneath the earth had begun to breed once more.
There was far less of it now, at least. The filth born of Orobashi's bloodline was gone.
Filth readily drew the Abyss's gaze, and the Rifthounds before him were its messengers.
According to Inazuman tradition, this was the season to climb the mountain and purge the filth. The priests and shrine maidens of the Grand Narukami Shrine had already begun setting out one group after another.
Kiyo Seigan was quite willing to help.
For one thing, he needed the Sacred Sakura to purify him. For another, these monsters would make useful practice.
He was not particularly strong at present. After his former heart shattered, his level had been reset completely.
Nearly half a month had passed since his arrival on Narukami Island, and he had more or less grown accustomed to life here: work half a day at the tofu shop, spend the afternoon killing monsters on Mt. Yougou, then return home for dinner at dusk.
He meant to keep climbing the Steps of Ascension, and these monsters would become his stepping-stones.
As the shifting shadows of the flowers flickered around him, Kiyo Seigan lowered his stance. His pale hair scattered through the air, and with a rush of wind, he vanished from the spot.
He was fast—so fast that layers of afterimages trailed behind him. Forest wind stirred light and shadow, and his body moved with them. In an instant, he appeared before the leading Rifthound. Kamigiri descended in a brilliant arc.
Before the hideous beast could utter even a whimper, its head flew into the air and black blood burst from its neck.
One.
[Kiyo Seigan]
[Level: 10]
He was in excellent condition. He still remembered Bosacius's swordsmanship.
The monsters were several times his level, yet he could kill them with ease.
Kamigiri rested naturally in his hand as well.
Death did not frighten the Rifthounds. On the contrary, the sight of blood drove them into a greater frenzy. Crimson flooded their eyes as they surged toward Kiyo Seigan one after another.
He lowered his body. Spikes of Geo erupted from the ground, piercing the monsters' bellies and spilling blood-soaked entrails.
Half the mountain sky shone upon Kamigiri. Kiyo Seigan stepped forward, then forward again. His blade rose and fell as thunder and wind intertwined around it. He passed through the tide of monsters as leisurely as though strolling through a garden.
[Rifthound slain: Lv. 23]
[Rifthound slain...]
[Level: 12]
[You are gradually comprehending Bosacius's swordsmanship]
With every step, another head flew. By the time he completed his advance, every monster along his path had been reduced to bloody fragments.
The angle at which a weapon entered flesh, how to borrow momentum, how to summon elemental power, how to distribute force... With every hunt and every kill, he reached some new understanding. Like a sponge, he was absorbing Bosacius's legacy and slowly turning this gift from one of the divine world's greatest warriors into his own strength.
This body had no ceiling to restrain it. His progress was swift—faster than imagination.
When he severed the final Rifthound's head, dusk had not yet arrived.
There was still time.
He might as well venture deeper into Mt. Yougou. The nearer he drew to the summit and the Sacred Sakura's roots, the stronger the monsters would become.
He had spent nearly half a month at the foot of the mountain. The creatures here could no longer help him improve.
Then it was decided.
He followed the mountain path upward. It was quiet beneath the white sakura reflecting the blue sky overhead, their branches rustling softly in the wind. Wild roses and mountain sakura grew along both sides of the trail.
[Rifthound slain: Lv. 41]
...
[Current Level: 13]
For a moment, an illusion overtook him—a vague, disorienting sense that he had once hunted Rifthounds in just this fashion, somewhere in Inazuma...
He shook his head lightly and drove away the strange déjà vu.
He continued farther up the mountain as the sky gradually darkened. It seemed rain was coming.
Huff... huff.
He was growing tired, his breathing slowly becoming labored.
The great sun hung over forests awash in color. Summer's sunset was brilliant and still, hazy and golden beneath a veil of fine evening rain that wove itself through the dusk of Mt. Yougou.
Kiyo Seigan kept his head lowered as he climbed the steps, one after another.
—"Young man. Stop."
The voice was cool and sharp.
The first things to enter his sight were a pair of neatly aligned Inazuman wooden sandals. Pure white tabi lay between their straps, dampened by the mountain's evening dew and clinging to smooth, pale ankles, faint blue veins visible beneath the skin.
"Do not go any farther."
Kiyo Seigan raised his eyes.
She was a striking, valiant woman.
She wore the traditional attire of an Inazuman warrior, the long panels of her kimono falling neatly at her sides and leaving her thighs bare. Her back was perfectly straight, and a slender naginata rested across it. Her brilliant golden eyes were clear and cold, without the slightest trace of superfluous emotion.
She studied Kiyo Seigan, particularly the monster blood staining his clothes. Her gaze lingered briefly on Kamigiri before she finally spoke.
"You have worked hard. You are a fine samurai. And... have we met before?"
Kiyo Seigan shook his head.
He did not know this woman general.
It was strange. Was "Have we met before?" the latest line used by kidnappers? Why did all the pretty girls in Inazuma like talking this way?
Kiyono Sara was surprised.
The boy before her was so young, no more than sixteen or seventeen, yet he had slaughtered so many Rifthounds. The stench of blood clinging to him was almost thick enough to congeal.
Inazuma needed samurai like him.
Ordinarily, she should at least have heard the name of a warrior this skilled. And in truth, she did feel that she had seen him somewhere before. But she could not remember when. Whenever she deliberately searched her memory, she became equally convinced that they had never met.
"Go back. Do not disturb Her Excellency," she finally told Kiyo Seigan, abandoning the effort to remember. "If you do not wish to die, go no farther."
"Why?" Kiyo Seigan asked curiously.
"No comment," Kiyono Sara replied.
In truth, no explanation was necessary.
Kiyo Seigan could feel an ancient presence ahead, profound and vast as thunder rolling across all directions. Before he could react, the mountain wind reversed, lifting layer upon layer of the forest like waves upon the sea.
Amid the birth and death of thunder, a single stroke of light carved itself deep into his vision.
A god was gazing upon the land.
The Salt Ruler trembled softly. Lia was instantly on guard, like a cat whose fur had suddenly stood on end.
The afterimage of that thunderous blade remained etched across the mountain forest and faded only slowly. Countless monsters and masses of filth vanished within the radiance of Musou, erased from heaven and earth.
Anyone who stepped into that blade-light would unquestionably die...
Between that strike and Lia's reaction, the identity of the being ahead was not difficult to infer. It could only be Inazuma's god, Her Excellency the Almighty Narukami Ogosho.
The thunder arrived swiftly, carrying boundless authority, and departed just as swiftly. With a final roar, its light dispersed. The god's gaze withdrew without pausing for even an instant.
The Salt Ruler ceased trembling. Lady Narukami had left.
Her gaze had never rested upon him.
To Her Excellency Narukami, the only matter worthy of attention had been the filth deep within Mt. Yougou. A weak mortal who happened to appear at its outskirts merited no notice, not even a second glance. She had many other matters awaiting her. She needed to return to Tenshukaku and continue that endless "duel."
On his fourteenth day in Inazuma, Kiyo Seigan passed by that flash of lightning without ever meeting it.
Only after the oppressive presence vanished did he breathe out softly.
"Was that the Shogun?" he asked Kiyono Sara tentatively.
Kiyono Sara gave a noncommittal nod.
Kiyo Seigan was surprised—extremely surprised. He had thought Narukami remained within Tenshukaku all day. He had not expected her to come personally to Mt. Yougou.
"Then you are...?"
"Her personal guard," Kiyono Sara answered curtly. "I am the Shogun's personal guard. My name is Sara. Kiyono is my family name."
Kiyono Sara.
Her face remained expressionless and her tone calm, yet her powerful identification with the name "Kiyono" was unmistakable. She unconsciously placed greater weight upon the syllables.
Kiyono...
Kiyo Seigan thought of the tofu shop. It too was called Kiyono's Tofu Shop.
"What is your name, young man? What do you do?"
The fox lady had warned him not to reveal that he came from Liyue.
"Ah..." Kiyo Seigan offered one part truth and one part lie. "I'm a villager from Konda, at the foot of the mountain. My name is Kiyomizu Seigan."
Kiyomizu Seigan was the false identity Miss Fox had prepared for him.
"Which Commission trained you as a samurai?"
"I don't belong to any Commission..." Kiyo Seigan scratched his head and ventured, "For now, I'm helping at Kiyono's Tofu Shop. I work as the cook and make things like Kitsune Udon. Have you heard of Kiyono's Tofu Shop...?"
Kiyono Sara visibly froze.
"Kiyono's Tofu Shop...?"
"Mm." Kiyo Seigan nodded. "I'm the cook there—"
He stopped before finishing.
Pale blue-white lightning flowed along the naginata now poised over his shoulder. Its blade hovered close enough to his skin that the wandering elemental energy stung his neck.
Fast.
The warrior named Kiyono Sara had laid her naginata across his shoulder. A mournful, cold wind lifted her violet hair, and her deep-gold eyes gleamed beneath the night sky with distant, chilling light—the majesty and killing intent of a tengu.
"What are you doing?"
Kiyo Seigan did not panic. He merely met Kiyono Sara's gaze and asked the question with equal calm.
Kiyono Sara stared at him. After a long while, she lowered the naginata.
"...My apologies. I was discourteous."
"Care to explain?" Kiyo Seigan rested a hand on Kamigiri and watched her.
"There is nothing to explain."
Kiyono Sara regarded him coldly. "Do not work as that shop's cook."
Kiyono's Tofu Shop possessed a special, almost sacred meaning to every person in Inazuma.
And to Kiyono Raimei's adopted daughter—to this tengu—it meant even more.
She believed in the pure white world of His Excellency the Pillar General.
That old shop was the only thing Kiyono had left behind.
It was a symbol.
Kiyono Sara did not object when Yae Miko reopened the shop. Lady Guuji had grown up beside the Pillar General. Yae Miko had the right to reopen it, the right to enter its kitchen and take up its ladle, and the right to carry its old flavors forward beneath the Kiyono name.
No one else did.
I'm the cook there.
It was that careless sentence which had truly enraged Kiyono Sara.
If the boy merely swept floors or served customers, that would be one thing. But he had called himself the cook.
A boy of sixteen or seventeen had no such right.
He had no right to take up that ladle, no right to replace His Excellency the Pillar General, and no right to bear the memories of centuries. To do so was a profanation of the Pillar General.
The boy could cook, of course. He could prepare traditional dishes such as Kitsune Udon. But he could not do so in the Pillar General's name, nor under the name of "Kiyono Tofu."
Kiyono Sara would rather the shop remain closed forever than allow that faith—that flavor preserved in her memory—to be changed.
She still remembered its taste. When she was young, still only a little tengu, and the Pillar General had first carried her home from the forest, the first meal she ate was the fish tofu he prepared.
It had been her final meal from him as well.
On that clear morning after the heavy snow, His Excellency the Pillar General had told her that he would soon die. He had said he would entrust Inazuma's future to her. Coughing violently, he had prepared one final bowl of tofu.
To this warrior, taciturn nearly to the point of obstinacy, some things mattered as much as life itself.
She did not know what Lady Guuji was thinking, but she did not agree. Kiyono's Tofu Shop did not belong to the Guuji alone.
...
Uh.
Kiyo Seigan was utterly bewildered.
He had imagined every possible reason for Kiyono Sara's sudden attack.
Perhaps his cover as a Liyue spy had been blown, and this Inazuman colonel meant to haul him off to face justice. Or perhaps the colonel, furious that her attempt to abduct him had failed, had decided to use force...
But he had never imagined: Do not work as that shop's cook!
...What the hell?
"Why?" he finally burst out. "...Why?"
"Leave that shop." Kiyono Sara pressed her lips together and spoke coldly. "I will not say it twice. Next time, I will not stay my hand."
"But why..." Kiyo Seigan ventured. "Do you think my cooking is bad?"
"No one can reproduce His Excellency the Pillar General's tofu." Kiyono Sara sounded proud, though her expression remained distant, as if stating a self-evident truth.
Kiyo Seigan thought his own cooking was fairly good.
Besides, this woman was Her Excellency Narukami's personal guard—a genuine member of Inazuma's highest ranks. If she chose to act, perhaps she truly could have him expelled.
Kiyono's Tofu Shop was his present shelter. He could not leave it yet.
And he did not want to leave.
After half a month in Inazuma, he had discovered that he was gradually growing accustomed to that little shop.
"How about..." He looked up at the darkening sky. Dusk had nearly arrived, and it was time to go home. "How about tasting my cooking for yourself?"
Kiyono Sara regarded him coldly, faint lightning glimmering along her naginata. "I will not repeat myself. Are you insulting me?"
"I won't repeat myself either. And you are the one insulting me."
Kiyo Seigan stared back. He had been born stubborn and had never known how to yield.
Nor was he mild-tempered enough to swallow the insult while someone threatened him with a blade.
"Yae Miko says my food is delicious. So do many of the shop's longtime customers. Yet you say I have no right to cook there. You are insulting not only me, but Miko and every customer who has tasted my food. In other words, you are insulting this 'Pillar General' of yours as well, Kiyono Sara."
Kiyo Seigan continued calmly:
"Taste it for yourself. If I fail, I will leave Konda Village. If it is good, you will apologize to me."
Kiyono Sara gave a cold huff. "You..."
"If you are an honorable samurai, then accept my challenge."
Kiyono Sara fell silent.