Ei stared blankly at the wooden box before her.
The mahogany box looked old and timeworn. Beneath its open lid were ten compartments, each holding a pure white sweet—soft, glutinous, and delicate, like flecks of snow scattered among ancient pines and cypresses, glowing with a faint, mellow light.
Dango Milk.
It was difficult to say whether it was milk or dango.
The sweets still looked fresh, as though they had only just been lifted from the steamer. In truth, the box had been kept for more than half a year.
Over two hundred days ago, on that little boat, a young man named Kiyono Fugin had handed it to her.
The Pillar General... anticipated that you might come. This is what he asked me to pass on to you.
Everything remained vivid, as though it had happened only yesterday.
Even the sweets were just as fresh.
For a god who pursued Eternity, preserving a box of sweets was not difficult. Yet a god could preserve a sweet and still fail to preserve the thunder that flashed across the sky for one fleeting instant.
She could seal all Inazuma and bar the entire sea with thunder, but she could never stop that little boat from sailing away.
What had that man thought in the final moments of his life?
They had never managed to meet again. If she could see him one more time, what would she say?
If they met again, perhaps she would not miss him this time.
But that was only an empty fantasy.
The thunder was dead.
Ei shook her head softly, dispersing those inexplicable thoughts and emotions. She closed the wooden lid and tucked the box inside the long fold of her kimono.
It was growing late.
Dusk slowly turned amber. The great pine in the courtyard of the Pillar General's Mansion swayed through the evening light. Beneath the setting sun, the grand but ancient estate seemed more withered still, every roof tile and every floor of its pavilions rustling in the night wind.
Ei wore a plain white kimono and wooden sandals. The dim shadows of the leaves played across the pure white fabric.
She cared little for the agreement that the foreign woman called La Signora had proposed, or for her supposed plan.
Ei could feel her heart slowly closing. Whatever happened outside—diplomacy, politics—seemed to have nothing to do with her anymore.
Her thoughts had turned elsewhere.
To the filth within the Sacred Sakura.
"Narukami..." A slightly startled voice came from behind her. "Your Excellency Narukami?"
Ei turned.
It was Kiyono Raimei's adopted daughter, a descendant of the tengu and the second person ever to serve as Narukami's personal guard: Kiyono Sara.
Ei's face was reflected in Sara's brilliant golden eyes. She bent slightly at the waist, her violet hair falling forward as she bowed.
"Greetings, Your Excellency," she said calmly.
A personal guard...
"Sara." After a long silence, Ei suddenly asked, "If you could meet him again—only if—if you met him today, what would you say?"
Sara froze for a moment. She was no fool and naturally knew whom Ei meant. Lowering her eyes, she shook her head faintly.
"I do not know."
"But if I could see His Excellency again..."
Sara paused. "I doubt I would say anything impressive. I am not skilled with words... Perhaps the first thing I would tell His Excellency the Pillar General would be to put on more clothes. It looks like rain today."
Rain was indeed approaching. Somber clouds had begun to stain the edges of the sunset. Farther away, sparse white lines could be seen weaving between the evening glow and the gathering darkness.
Kiyono Sara answered with complete seriousness. She approached everything seriously, and as she had said, words were not her strength.
"Then I would tell His Excellency to stop smoking... If I could see him once more—if such a chance truly existed—I would want to make up for what I failed to do."
"I see," Ei whispered.
It was a strange subject. Both of them understood without saying so that the person they spoke of was already dead. Their imagined reunion could never become real.
"And Your Excellency...?" Kiyono Sara asked tentatively. "What would you do?"
Raiden Ei did not know the answer.
She lowered her head slightly and looked at the lifeless cenotaph. Evening rain darkened the courtyard as it fell, while the branches of the pine trembled beneath its touch.
"Perhaps..." After a long while, Ei said softly, "I would not miss him again."
What the Shogun had told her was true. Once something was missed, it was missed. A hundred years made no difference; neither did three days. Believing something would remain unchanged forever did not make it so.
She had missed an entire century. She had also missed the final three days of Kiyono Raimei's life. The only thing she had not missed was his funeral. Yet when pure white lightning crossed the night and thunder became a funeral dirge, she understood that she and that lightning—that she and his life—had passed each other by.
"Tell me about the filth." Ei paused before abruptly changing the subject. "Is this year's Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual about to begin?"
"Yes," Kiyono Sara answered earnestly. "The soldiers have already begun clearing it away."
The soldiers...
Kiyono Raimei had died for soldiers like them in his final days. With one campaign, he had eradicated the corruption that had plagued Yashiori Island for four hundred years...
That foolish mortal.
"Kiyono Sara, have the soldiers seal off the depths of Mt. Yougou." After a long silence, Ei spoke softly. "I will deliver one strike."
There was still time before nightfall.
Musou no Hitotachi.
Every citizen of Inazuma understood what that strike meant. It was the supreme, limitless height of martial skill—the shield that had allowed Inazuma to survive until this day. Beneath the Shogun's blade-light, every ghost and monster would be reduced to ash.
At the highest point of Tenshukaku, heavy clouds gathered with heaven-filling thunder, as though they meant to crush the sky itself.
A pure white figure stood beneath that dark firmament. Raiden Ei slowly closed her eyes. Her naginata shifted lightly, and lightning spread along its blade, racing through the heavens. Everywhere it passed, the sea of clouds rolled apart and split in two.
The god's gaze became thunder and crossed the distance to sakura-covered Mt. Yougou.
Ei opened her eyes. Only calm indifference lay within them. Looking down from the boundless sky, all things beneath her seemed small.
Kiyono Sara acted with characteristic speed. Before darkness had fully fallen, she had already reached Mt. Yougou in person and sent Shogunate troops to evacuate the priests from the depths of the contaminated region.
Ei waited.
The naginata slowly left its sheath with a ringing note. The sound traveled across the vault of heaven, over distant Mt. Yougou and through the heavy clouds, returning as layer upon layer of low thunder.
She stood too high.
Even now, Ei had always stood too high. Her gaze rested above the clouds, every household light far below her. At the end of Eternity, fleeting lives could not enter her sight.
She noticed Kiyono Sara stop, apparently warning a young man who intended to enter the mountain. Her gaze did not linger. It had to encompass greater things.
She looked down upon everyone—the people of Mt. Yougou, every ordinary mortal—and watched their movements to make certain they had all left the contaminated ground.
It had been this way for a hundred years. It had been this way for three days. It had always been this way.
Why would her gaze ever settle upon one person?
Even for the briefest instant.
In truth, Ei had never changed.
She drew her blade.
"Hah."
An eye woven from threads of lightning slowly opened. A vast tide of radiance surged outward, then gathered entirely within that single strike.
Spanning the distance in an instant, Musou no Hitotachi descended from the sky.
The filth vanished little by little within its pure white light.
That thunder fell before the boy. It was a midsummer dusk, and the sakura were magnificent, their colors so vivid they seemed to burn. The lightning shone directly before him, close enough to touch, then disappeared in an instant.
He stood before that light.
Narukami Island was beautiful, especially when sunset spilled across its layered mountains and wine-red clouds mingled with fine rain.
"Hah..."
It was over.
But the lightning had not lingered. It had not seen him. It had never illuminated him.
In the summer of Narukami Island, amid dusk and the first falling sakura, they passed each other by.
She had to return to the Plane of Euthymia and continue that endless duel. She had no time to concern herself with the mortal world, nor with the isolated islands of Inazuma beneath the thunder's blockade. Whether their lights shone brightly or faded into darkness had nothing to do with her.
She sheathed her blade and withdrew her gaze. The flower-covered slopes of Mt. Yougou rapidly vanished from sight as she returned to Tenshukaku. The dark, deathly pavilion carried the stagnant smell of centuries, while ivy roots along the outer walls had burrowed deep into the cracks.
Ei lowered her eyes.
"You returned quickly."
The Shogun's voice sounded without warning.
"Ei, you have never changed," the Shogun said calmly. "You have always enjoyed doing meaningless things."
"...What do you mean?"
"You made a puppet for a dying man. Now you duel with me. Both are the same." The Shogun's tone remained calm. "You have always been running away."
"I am no longer who I was. I intend to leave this pavilion and abandon this so-called 'Eternity.'" Ei shook her head. "Otherwise, I would never have chosen to kill you. You are the very embodiment of my former obsession."
"Is that so?"
The Shogun continued, "If you have truly abandoned me, why can you not kill me? You have defeated me many times, yet each time I begin again. I have seen not the slightest trace of a 'future' within you. I cannot acknowledge you."
"You remain what you have always been. You have never changed—you are still running away. I am not the one keeping you inside this pavilion. You are the one unable to leave it."
"Making a puppet for a dying man was only a comfort you offered yourself. You were unwilling to witness his death, so you imprisoned yourself within this pavilion."
"The same is true now."
"Your duel with me is only another puppet you are making. It is merely another form of escape."
"That is why you will never leave this pavilion. Even a duel fought to 'escape Eternity' becomes an Eternity of its own."
"As a warrior, you find eternal peace within endless combat and slaughter. You are no different now from who you were five hundred years ago."
"If that were not true, you would have won long ago."
"The death of a mortal gave you the idea that you wanted to change. But you have not changed at all. You merely use his death as an excuse to remain at peace within the eternal plane."
"That is why you will never kill me. That is why I say you have always enjoyed doing meaningless things."
"You said that if you could meet him again, you would not miss him. But if you met again, you would still miss him—because you are still the same person you were before. You have not changed."
"Ei."
That was not true.
It was not true.
It was not.
The box remained within her kimono, its contents still fresh. The milk-white Dango Milk gave off a faint, sweet fragrance.
Ei pressed her lips together.
She had not yet noticed that her fingers were clutching the edge of her clothes.
"That is not true," she finally whispered. "It will not happen."
She placed deliberate weight upon the words will not.
"Besides..." Ei looked into the leaden sky. "That mortal is already dead."
—"Continue."
She drew her naginata, her voice cold and low. The melancholy evening rain wove itself through the darkened sky and fell upon her pure white kimono.
...
Kiyono's Tofu Shop.
A fine rain pattered outside the windows of the old shop.
The broth simmered from pork bones and gave off a delicate fragrance. Tofu sizzled in the pan as oil slowly seeped into its soft layers. A kotatsu stood beside an old, low table, warm firelight spreading around it.
Kiyono Sara knelt formally upon the tatami, her posture flawless and her back perfectly straight. Her hips rested upon her heels, and her pale hands lay folded over her knees.
She would not behave carelessly in this old shop.
To one side sat the irreverent Lady Guuji.
The fox lady lounged over the low desk and gave a lazy stretch. Her long eyes watched Sara with teasing malice and some private amusement whose meaning Kiyono Sara could not understand.
When Miko heard of the so-called "duel" between Sara and the young man, she had burst out laughing and readily agreed to every term of their wager. Ever since Sara sat down, Miko had continued watching her with that peculiar expression.
On the other side sat a golden-haired girl.
She was staring at Sara with wary displeasure, like a little golden tiger inspecting an intruder in its territory, muttering something about how Sara had better leave the moment she finished eating.
Strangest of all, however, was the boy in the kitchen.
Strange.
Extremely strange.
An uncanny sense of déjà vu—one Kiyono Sara refused to acknowledge.
The two figures seemed to overlap.
She knew it was only an illusion.
Yet the scent of the Kitsune Udon was so familiar, as though it had crossed an immense gulf of time to reach her.
"It's ready."
Kiyono Raimei set several bowls of udon on the wooden table. He wiped nonexistent sweat from his brow, then planted his hands on his hips with an air of heroic self-satisfaction.
Still uncertain, Sara picked up a piece of tofu with her chopsticks, placed it in her mouth, and chewed slowly.
After a long while, she tried another piece.
She paused, but no words came. She remained silent for a very long time.
She would not deny this flavor.
...It was exactly as she remembered.