Snow drifts like pear blossoms through the wind;
White rime crowns the frozen walls of Snezhnaya.
Snow had always fallen this way in Snezhnaya.
Though summer had already arrived, the bone-piercing wind still howled with flecks of ice in its grasp. Layer upon layer of rime coated the damp, ancient castle walls. The withered husks of dead plants clung to the stone, slowly dissolving into the snow.
In the age before the Fatui came into being, the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya once possessed a sword.
That sword had served her faithfully.
Many called it a traitor, for it had forsaken its homeland and journeyed to a distant foreign land.
Its light had already dimmed and might fall from the sky at any moment. Yet to the people of Snezhnaya, this Twilight Sword from Khaenri'ah had stood beside them through their darkest years.
Many years later, after the former royal mage Pierro became The Jester, First of the Fatui Harbingers, he would remember the words his friend Dainsleif had spoken while resting that sword against his shoulder:
"My light is going out..."
"From now on, you will be the First. You must remain by her side."
"I'm going home."
His voice had been very low, as though it might scatter at any moment. Boundless snow buried the plain behind him. He wore pale furs, but no garment, however thick, could keep out the deathly cold and twilight that had seeped into his bones.
"Khaenri'ah... will not fall..." Head bowed, he murmured, "There must... be a way... After I leave... I entrust everything to you."
That was the last conversation Pierro ever had with his friend.
The sword Dainsleif left him remained to this day. At this very moment, it rested in the hands of the man codenamed The Jester.
The Jester gently polished its blade. After a long while, he placed the Twilight Sword beside the chessboard.
What he had never found the courage to tell that sword was this:
He had failed.
And Khaenri'ah had fallen.
He quieted his mind and studied the game before him. White jade pieces surrounded him like a field of stars. Across the board stood an elegant, dignified piece called the queen. Merely standing there, she possessed the cold majesty of snow and ice.
Yet no rook guarded the queen's side.
Its place had remained empty for five hundred years. The last glimmer of the knight who drove that war chariot had long since gone out, and the old world itself had become his coffin.
The Jester knew who it represented.
The first of the Fatui.
Upon the gods' chessboard, one piece had fallen—or rather, moved elsewhere.
It was the Gnosis that represented Geo.
And it had left Liyue Harbor.
Pierro lowered his eyes, faint astonishment showing on his face as he considered what this meant.
Moments ago, the Tsaritsa had issued a new command.
Morax, the god of Liyue, had relinquished his claim to the Gnosis. He had given it to someone—to a mortal. This was the intelligence the Tsaritsa had delivered, and it was enough to astonish even Pierro.
They had no way of knowing what had happened in Liyue, but there was no doubt that the nation had undergone some tremendous upheaval.
No matter who that mortal is, kill him. Then bring back his heart.
That was the Tsaritsa's new decree.
To raise the banner of rebellion against the beings upon Celestia, the Fatui had to offer their Tsaritsa the hearts of every god—by any means, at any cost, all for that exalted ideal.
They needed the Gnosis.
Where was that heart now?
Pierro studied its position on the board, eyes narrowing in thought.
The heart upon that square—the Geo Archon's Gnosis—was now in Inazuma.
"Send word to..."
The Jester paused, then instructed the subordinate behind him, "La Signora and Kunikuzushi. Tell them to watch for a mortal traveling from Liyue to Inazuma. He carries the Geo Archon's heart."
"Have them bring it back," Pierro said softly. "Whether it is Narukami's heart or the Geo Archon's, both are to be brought back and offered to Her Majesty the Tsaritsa."
"This is Her Majesty's will."
With his orders given, he turned his gaze away from the chessboard.
The Jester looked once more at the Twilight Sword. Cold night light lay faintly across its scabbard. Whenever his fingers passed over the blade, that austere glimmer seemed to prick him with a quiet pain.
If his friend could see what he had become, he would surely be disappointed.
Heartbroken, perhaps.
Dainsleif had been an upright knight.
But The Jester had led the Fatui toward a future Dainsleif would never have wished for—a path that was wrong.
Perhaps Pierro truly was wrong.
But he had never regretted it.
The world needed a Jester for others to mock and curse. It needed fools willing to commit evil and do what was wrong. If all things remained orderly, upright, and immaculate, who would still dare to rebel?
He had chosen to bear those sins.
Whatever the means.
He had already resolved himself.
After a long silence, he seemed to sense something. He lifted his eyes toward the throne of that supreme being.
The hissing wind and drifting rime obscured her solitary figure. The Tsaritsa stood at the highest point in Snezhnaya, and no one could tell where her gaze fell. Her back was lonely, beautiful, and proud above the snow and the high heavens.
No one stood beside her anymore.
"The light of the old world has gone out. I shall make kindling of its ruins and set a new sun ablaze. The corona of that new world shall burn beside your coffin... an undying candle."
For some reason, Pierro suddenly remembered the eulogy spoken at his friend's funeral.
...
"So..."
Lady Fox paused. She tilted her lovely head, and her fluffy ears twitched. "You need the Sacred Sakura to purify the filth in your body. Is that right, little one?"
"That's right." Kiyo Seigan nodded. "Also, why do you keep calling me 'little one'?"
Kiyo Seigan disliked that nickname.
He had always been deeply dissatisfied with the baffling nickname "Drowned Corpse." Yet after coming to Inazuma, the name had somehow reversed completely, with this newly met fox lady calling him "little one" at every turn.
Come to think of it, he had accumulated far too many nicknames.
"Then how does 'old bastard who won't die' sound?" Yae Miko asked with a sweet smile.
Old bastard who won't die... Wasn't that still Drowned Corpse all over again?
The young man gave a helpless sigh, his face surrendering all resistance. Resting his cheek against one hand, he looked out the window.
The rain over Konda Village had stopped.
Night, however, had fallen completely. Puddles left by the downpour reflected a sky washed clear, while fallen sakura floated upon them as though drifting through a starry firmament beneath the water. Brilliant starlight entered through the tofu shop's lattice window and fell gently across the young man.
Far beyond the limits of sight, at the highest point of Narukami Island, the branches of the Sacred Sakura wove themselves through the stars, its luxuriant blossoms spilling into the night.
"I heard the Sacred Sakura can cleanse filth."
As Kiyo Seigan spoke, he drew back his sleeve. Beneath skin so pale it was almost translucent lay deep scarlet markings. One twisted line after another climbed from his wrist and disappeared into his chest.
The contorted patterns bore a color almost sacrilegious.
"That's why I came to Inazuma."
The fox before him might not look particularly reliable, but perhaps she could help. Her shrine maiden attire was certainly genuine. Kiyo Seigan was not completely clueless: those red-and-white robes plainly belonged to the Grand Narukami Shrine.
And the Grand Narukami Shrine was responsible for the Sacred Sakura.
Yae Miko stared absently at the scarlet patterns. She reached out with one slender finger, touched them, and immediately drew her hand back.
"...How did this happen?" she asked softly.
"That's another story." Kiyo Seigan's tone remained carefree. "It's nothing serious."
"Nothing serious?"
For some reason, a trace of irritation ran beneath Lady Fox's otherwise even voice.
"Right..."
"Nothing serious?" Yae Miko repeated in the same tone.
Kiyo Seigan fell silent.
Yae Miko raised her eyes and stared directly into his face. Cold starlight settled in the depths of her violet gaze. Kiyo Seigan watched her slowly exhale.
"Your body... was once completely consumed by corruption?"
As Guuji of the Grand Narukami Shrine, she was intimately familiar with filth and defilement. Seeing how casually Kiyo Seigan spoke, she had assumed he had merely brushed against some lingering ill omen.
Only after seeing those sacrilegious markings did Yae Miko understand that Kiyo Seigan himself had once become the ill omen.
A profane consciousness had completely invaded and rewritten this body. Though that consciousness was now dead, it had already transformed his flesh into something inhuman.
Strictly speaking, Kiyo Seigan was right: the residual filth remaining in him now was nothing serious.
But Yae Miko could imagine the agony he must once have endured.
That infuriating habit of acting tough had not changed at all.
Oh, well. If it could be changed, he would not be himself.
Lady Fox sighed helplessly.
Kiyo Seigan, meanwhile, was still grinning. He raised a thumb in cheerful approval. "Now that's a professional shrine maiden. You really know your stuff—you saw right through me at a glance."
"So," he continued, "can you put in a word for me?"
Honestly...
Miko studied the young man across the counter. He truly had been cast from the same mold as that old bastard in his youth. Some things had never changed.
Kiyono Raimei must have been exactly like this before age caught up with him, back when he was still a boy.
She remembered those days. The fox was not yet Lady Guuji, and the boy was not yet the Pillar General. They had not carried so many duties then.
Their days had been spent chasing and fighting, catching fish by the river, climbing onto rooftops and prying up tiles. Summer stretched on beneath shifting leaves, while the sun dyed both sakura and memory a vivid red.
He had been older than Miko then, so he always pulled rank as the elder.
For some reason, seeing that old man as a boy once more stirred a mischievous impulse in Lady Fox.
Her narrow eyes curved lazily. "Call me Kitsune Onee-san, and I'll help you, little one~"
...These Inazuman girls really knew how to tease people.
He firmly shook his head.
"Oh, but someone is here without papers," Miko began, repeating her earlier trick. "My, my. An undocumented little one certainly wouldn't want the Kanjou Commission finding out, would he?"
"...Kitsune Onee-san," he muttered.
"My, I didn't hear you."
"Kitsune Onee-san...!" Kiyo Seigan shouted, his tone one of complete self-abandonment.
"Will you help me now?" He stared earnestly at Miko. "Kitsune Onee-san."
"Pfft."
Seeing his solemn expression, Yae Miko suddenly burst out laughing.
A smile remained at the corners of Lady Fox's lips. Starlight cast the swaying shadows of sakura across her pure white shrine maiden robes, flowers and stars shifting together as her face blossomed with laughter.
It seemed she had not laughed so freely in a very long time. The long collar of her kimono half concealed her lips, but her eyes curved into crescents.
She was simply too delighted.
The thought alone made her laugh: that old man, forever stern-faced, always dressed in gray-white samurai clothes as though he might commit seppuku at any moment, now solemnly calling this Guuji "Kitsune Onee-san."
Just imagining it was wonderful.
So wonderful... she almost wanted to cry.
She laughed until tears seemed to gather in her violet eyes. A clear sheen veiled them, bright sorrow reflecting Kiyo Seigan's back. Only after laughing for a long while did she slowly quiet down.
At last, she said:
"Kitsune Onee-san heard you."
Looking at Kiyo Seigan, she spoke with utter seriousness—more earnestly than he had ever heard her speak.
"And Kitsune Onee-san will help you."
Was it really that funny?
Kiyo Seigan watched Lady Fox laugh herself breathless and sulked in silence.
The firewood in the brazier was nearly spent, and the night gradually deepened. An occasional dog barked in the distance, only to be swallowed at once by the silence.
So the matter was settled.
But one problem remained.
"The Sacred Sakura may not be able to help you in its current state," Yae Miko said seriously.
"Why?" Kiyo Seigan stared at her in surprise.
"Because its roots have accumulated too much filth as well."
Yae Miko looked out the window at the Sacred Sakura whose branches wove across the sky. "It requires a rite called the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual. The ritual will purify both the Sacred Sakura and the filth still lingering throughout Inazuma."
"So Inazuma has a great deal of filth too?"
Liyue truly was not an exception.
"Much less than before... Truly, much less."
For some reason, although Lady Fox said there was much less, her voice was low. She withdrew her gaze from the Sacred Sakura and looked at Kiyo Seigan.
"Because of one stubborn Baka."
"Because of one peal of thunder."
She probably wasn't insulting me, Kiyo Seigan thought.
"In any case, the ritual must be completed first. We can purify the filth in your body along the way."
The somberness in her voice seemed to have been only an illusion. Lady Fox resumed her sly smile, resting her cheek against one hand. "As payment, you must make Kitsune Onee-san another bowl of Kitsune Udon."
...Fine.
At the mention of food, Kiyo Seigan suddenly jolted awake.
He realized a cruel fact.
Hadn't he been supposed to bring something back for Lumine to eat?
Miss Lumine couldn't still be waiting on an empty stomach... could she?
He was doomed.