"The Vision Hunt Decree?"
Kunikuzushi frowned slightly and looked across the low desk at La Signora.
The Harbinger from Snezhnaya seemed forever elegant. She reclined in her wooden chair with her head tilted, one delicate hand supporting her finely sculpted face.
Amber evening light filtered through the leaves in the courtyard and settled softly upon her pale golden hair. Light and hair intertwined until one could scarcely tell them apart.
"The Vision Hunt Decree," she repeated calmly. "Snezhnaya is far from satisfied with our progress in Inazuma. The country is too peaceful."
"We need to sharpen its internal conflicts."
La Signora spoke with effortless grace. "The Vision Hunt Decree will serve nicely. Several of the Commissions are already under our control. It is time to revive it."
Kunikuzushi lowered his eyes.
He naturally knew what the so-called Vision Hunt Decree entailed.
Under the decree, Inazuma's Commissions would confiscate the Visions held by ordinary citizens.
The idea was not new. A century ago, with the Fatui pushing matters forward from behind the scenes, it had been introduced alongside the Sakoku Decree. Like the Sakoku Decree, the Vision Hunt Decree served that so-called "Eternity."
But it had never truly been enforced.
Both of them knew why.
The old man had still been alive.
While the Pillar General lived, none of the Commissions had dared overstep. Fatui influence in Inazuma had remained superficial. But the old man was dead now, and the dark currents he had suppressed for a century were beginning to move. The shadows beneath Inazuma were flowing once more.
La Signora had ample reason to despise the so-called Pillar General. In truth, most of the Harbingers had found that obstinate old man infuriating. Neither coercion nor persuasion had moved him.
But a mortal remained a mortal—a fragile life, fleeting as a grain of sand. Once that grain vanished, the great structure it had struggled to support would collapse as well.
What kind of pillar could a mortal ever be?
A pillar made of sand? Ridiculous.
Nothing but a weakling who had died of old age.
Now that the Sakoku Decree was being enforced, it was time for the next stage of their plan. The "deal" La Signora had proposed to Narukami at the Pillar General's Mansion half a month ago had concerned precisely this: reviving the Vision Hunt Decree.
"The old man is dead. Such is the frailty of mortals." La Signora's voice was soft. "This is the perfect time."
Narukami remained alone in Tenshukaku and no longer governed. Most authority in Inazuma had fallen into the hands of the Commissions. Everything was ready.
To take away their eyes...
Yet to La Signora's surprise, Kunikuzushi gently shook his head.
"No."
He looked at her with cold eyes and spoke slowly. "I disagree. The time has not yet come."
He disagreed.
La Signora narrowed her eyes.
The temperature seemed to plummet.
The afterglow had crumbled away. A few ragged clouds hung beneath the leaden sky, while the sinking sun dragged the last of the evening light into a grave among the mountains. In that Inazuman courtyard, the two Harbingers faced one another with icy hostility until the air itself seemed ready to freeze.
"Kunikuzushi."
La Signora's voice remained calm, but darkness lay beneath it. "You are growing presumptuous."
"I came here to inform you of the decision," she said softly, a cold and distant light shining within her violet eyes. "I did not come to seek your consent."
"Never forget: Snezhnaya gave you life, not Inazuma."
"I have never loved Inazuma. I despise this land from the depths of my being," Kunikuzushi replied with equal calm. "And I was only informing you of my refusal."
It was the truth.
Kunikuzushi had never loved Inazuma.
Whether the people of this country lost their Visions meant nothing to him.
"Then when," La Signora asked, staring coldly into his eyes, her voice seeming drawn from the bottom of an ice cavern, "will the time be right?"
Kunikuzushi fell silent. He lowered his eyes slightly, and only after a long while did he answer.
"At least, not now."
"Why?" Her dark violet gaze pressed against him. "Why?"
Why...
Why?
Kunikuzushi knew the answer. It was quite simple. He disliked the people of Inazuma and cared nothing for either decree—but this could not happen now.
The old man had not yet been dead for a full year.
To oppose the Sakoku Decree and the Vision Hunt Decree, the old man had broken with the god he worshiped, stood alone for a century, and finally died of old age within the Pillar General's Mansion.
Kunikuzushi had never understood that obsession. A puppet could not understand such things.
But he did not intend to insult it. At least, not yet.
The old man had cared greatly for his pride. To see the order he had defended for a century collapse within a year of his death—especially if Kunikuzushi personally helped bring about that collapse—would have been a profound insult.
The puppet had no concept of a mourning period. He merely felt, instinctively, that doing this before the old man had been dead a full year would be wrong.
Besides, the Sakoku Decree was already in force. Inazuma's strength would gradually wither. Compared with its consequences, the Vision Hunt Decree was insignificant. Delaying it for one year would make little difference to the final outcome.
He could not explain all of these reasons to La Signora. Instead, he merely shook his head with quiet finality.
"That is none of your concern."
La Signora's eyes grew colder still.
She was no fool. Something was clearly amiss.
Kunikuzushi's attitude and the restrained methods he had employed were both far too strange, completely unlike his usual conduct.
"For whose sake?" she asked, cutting directly to the heart of the matter. "Is it because of your 'mother'—the god within Tenshukaku—that you have shown such restraint?"
"Hah. Mother. How absurd." Kunikuzushi's voice was cold, laced with profound disgust. "I have never acknowledged her."
That expression could not have been feigned.
"Then it must be someone else..." Kunikuzushi's face was reflected in those violet eyes. "Kiyono Raimei?"
Rumors concerning Kunikuzushi's origins had long circulated among the Fatui. La Signora had never expected them to be true.
His expression did not change.
"Hah." A mocking smile appeared at the corner of La Signora's mouth. She studied him with open amusement. "How ridiculous. To think you still harbor such mortal emotions, Kunikuzushi. You are a disgrace to the Fatui."
"Rosalyne-Kruzchka Lohefalter." His voice dropped, his eyes darkening. "Take that back."
"How laughable," she said mockingly. "All for one insignificant mortal?"
A deathly chill descended upon the courtyard as killing intent filled the air. The sakura tree shuddered. Its branches groaned beneath the pressure, scattering petal after petal like a wordless lament.
"I have no interest in arguing with you."
La Signora rested her cheek upon one hand and smiled elegantly. "He is already dead. That you would become angry over a dead man is rather amusing."
"Have you forgotten your ideal? Did you not desire a heart?" she asked. "Will you halt your steps for a dead man?"
Kunikuzushi froze.
His ideal.
A heart.
The puppet wanted a heart. No matter the price, no matter what had to be sacrificed, abandoned, or trampled beneath his feet—he had to obtain one.
Kiyono Raimei was already dead. He had betrayed Kunikuzushi. He was a dead man now.
La Signora was right. That man was dead, and no one remained to stand in Kunikuzushi's way.
He watched her coldly for a long while, then finally withdrew his gaze and rose to his feet.
"I know no one named Kiyono Raimei," he said in a low voice.
He walked out of the courtyard, the last blood-red light of sunset stretching his narrow shadow behind him. "Do whatever you wish. I will no longer interfere."
And so the decision was made.
The process had been difficult, but the two Harbingers had finally reached something resembling agreement.
Only La Signora remained in the courtyard after Kunikuzushi disappeared from sight.
Faint amber light slipped through the gaps in the trees and fell across her.
A long while passed.
Do not halt your steps for a dead man...
Still supporting her cheek with one hand, she gave a self-mocking smile.
The words had been meant for Kunikuzushi, but even more so for herself.
He had only been a mortal. An insignificant, inconsequential mortal...
She wanted to forget. To reach the pure white world of her ideals, she had to cast aside the past. She had to abandon everything, including every tiresome mortal emotion.
That was what she told herself.
But she could not do it.
She had burned everything she possessed with her own hands, yet she still clung stubbornly to one pinch of ash, refusing to let it go.
La Signora found herself deeply contradictory.
The amber sunset enveloped her. Not a single unnecessary sound disturbed the empty courtyard. The silence was almost frightening.
She opened the wooden box again and removed the heart.
The warm heart gave off a faint glow and trembled gently in the cold night wind, brilliant and translucent as a gemstone. When La Signora touched its surface, warmth seeped through her fingertips and spread deep within her chest.
The heart was always so warm.
It was the only heart she had left.
Whenever she touched it, La Signora felt more at peace than at any other time.
"Kiyono... Fugin," she whispered. "How very ironic."
The sakura tree rustled as petals fell like rain.
They settled soundlessly upon the stone.
Then La Signora sensed something. She turned sharply, her pupils contracting and her heartbeat nearly stopping.
Kunikuzushi.
He had returned and now stood calmly at the entrance to the courtyard. No expression disturbed the puppet's face; it was as still as an untouched pool. Only his eyes, fixed upon the heart in La Signora's hand, showed the faintest ripple.
"What is that?" Kunikuzushi stared at the heart. "And just now... did you say Kiyono Fugin?"
Silence.
No one knew how much time passed.
"This is Kiyono Fugin's heart. A trophy."
La Signora's manner remained languid and elegant, her expression and emotions seemingly unchanged. Her voice was as composed as ever.
"I made it into a work of art. Is it not amusing to watch a frail mortal heart continue to beat?"
"Every mortal who defies me," she said coldly, "will meet the same end."
She remained perfectly calm.
This was Kiyono Fugin's heart.
Kunikuzushi could indeed sense Anemo within it. He had met Kiyono Fugin once, and the aura radiating from the heart matched that boy's. It truly was his heart.
La Signora had not lied.
She had merely spoken part of the truth while concealing Kiyono Fugin's final request. Sometimes truth could deceive more completely than any lie.
Truth was the most flawless lie of all.
"I see," Kunikuzushi said without expression.
Nothing in La Signora's explanation was demonstrably false.
But Kunikuzushi remembered something from several months earlier. At the tofu shop, he and Lady Guuji had discussed Kiyono Fugin—his origins, his existence, and the relationship between Kiyono Fugin and Kiyono Raimei.
The relationship had seemed intimate. Suspiciously so. Of course, their investigation had largely ceased after Kiyono Fugin's death.
Now, at the sight of this heart, those questions returned without warning.
Kunikuzushi felt as though he had brushed against something, but he could not identify it. He stood before the threshold of the truth and yet could not take a single step through.
He could neither name nor understand what he felt—the emotion that had flooded his empty chest when he saw the heart.
A puppet possessed no emotions. Naturally, he could not understand.
He only knew that he was in pain.
His chest hurt, though he had no heart there to feel pain.
What relationship had existed between Kiyono Fugin and Kiyono Raimei?
There had to be one.
He stared at the heart and began to think once more.
Perhaps he should return to that tofu shop and ask Lady Guuji to investigate further.
He would uncover the truth.
"Why did you come back?"
La Signora put away the heart, apparently eager to change the subject.
"I came back to inform you of something."
Kunikuzushi raised his eyes and tilted his head. La Signora's face was reflected within them as he spoke with taunting amusement.
"I still disagree with the Vision Hunt Decree."
"Even if that means defying me?" Her gaze turned frigid. "Defying an order from the Fatui?"
"Who the hell cares about you?"
Kunikuzushi's lips stretched into a bright smile. He laughed, almost maniacally. "Who cares about you? Who even are you?"
La Signora had forgotten one thing: the puppet was a madman to his very bones, afraid of no one and caring for no one.
A willful madman did only as he pleased and never concerned himself with consequences.
"I do not agree," Kunikuzushi said softly. "So get the hell out."
La Signora looked at him as though he were already dead.
Her fingers closed instinctively around the wooden box containing the heart.
No one would take it from her.
The sakura wine had been buried.
They placed it beneath the Sacred Sakura.
By the time Kiyo Seigan patted down the final handful of yellow earth, the sun was nearing dusk. The true evening sky merged with the false sunset formed by brilliant sakura, spreading in thick colors across the Sacred Sakura's vast canopy. Beyond that layered glow lay a pale blue sky where the first stars could faintly be seen.
According to his promise with Lumine, it was time to go home.
"Are you hungry?" Kiyo Seigan wiped the beads of sweat from his brow and looked at Hanachirusato. "Would you like something to eat? I'm a very good cook."
Hanachirusato shook her head. "I do not need to eat, and I do not grow hungry."
"Food is not only for satisfying hunger."
Kiyo Seigan spoke with complete seriousness. "I have always thought there is happiness in taking the time to savor a good meal. Three meals a day are precious because within their familiar rhythm, amid the steam and smoke rising from the kitchen, you can feel that you are alive—that you are living."
"Do you believe I am alive?" Hanachirusato froze.
"Obviously."
Kiyo Seigan did not even raise his head. "Of course you are."
Of course you are alive.
Hanachirusato's eyes shifted faintly behind her mask.
"In any case, we'll return to the tofu shop and eat first," Kiyo Seigan said. "Then we can find your friends. Miko should be the easiest. We'll take our time with the others."
"I see." She tilted her head and smiled.
She liked seeing Kiyo Seigan this way—brimming with confidence, as though there were nothing in the world he could not accomplish.
They talked as they descended the mountain, sunset falling across their shadows.
"Who will you try to find next?"
"Sasayuri." Kiyo Seigan considered it. "He and Kiyono Sara are both tengu. That connection should help us find him."
...
"Mm-hm. What about Ei?"
"Perhaps I'll try writing her a letter?" Kiyo Seigan looked troubled. "I have to try, don't I?"
"I see."