Filth.
Mikoshi Chiyo had torn open the otherworldly beast with the body of a tiger and the tail of a serpent, then clawed her way out through its belly drenched in blood. Its crimson—so dark it was almost black—covered her face and stained her magnificent jūnihitoe scarlet.
Chiyo the Tiger-Bite.
She lowered her eyes. A dull crimson slowly bled into her pupils. Bare feet crossed the blood-soaked earth, carrying her between the gnarled, hideous corpses of monsters.
The Abyss had descended.
The war with Khaenri'ah. The invasion of the Archon Orobashi... and now, the coming of the Abyss.
Inazuma stood at the most perilous hour in its history, balanced upon the edge of ruin.
Leaden clouds waited ahead. A heavy dusk hung over Ritou. It should have been early spring, when the sakura bloomed at their fullest, yet Mikoshi Chiyo could no longer see the flowers. To her dazed and delirious eyes, the slender branches bore only severed heads.
The night wind pressed the trees low on either side. Their thin limbs rustled in the cold like ten thousand demons whispering at once.
The otherworldly beast's filth had not died with it. Instead, it was seeping slowly into Mikoshi Chiyo's very marrow.
Corrupting her, little by little.
Violence. Bloodlust.
Mikoshi Chiyo bit down on her lip until blood ran from its corner. Only pain could preserve what little clarity remained.
She kept walking, though she no longer knew in which direction. She wandered without purpose as her face slowly changed. Twisted, spectral markings spread across her cheeks. Her oni horns lengthened joint by joint, their pale red deepening to the crimson of blood.
She no longer resembled the proud and beautiful oni maiden she had once been.
She looked like a wandering demon.
She did not know how long she had walked before her steps finally halted.
Chiyo raised her eyes. After a pause, she looked at the figure standing before her and spoke softly.
"Kill me."
The man was Kiyono Raimei.
He wore plain white samurai robes. At his waist hung Orochigiri, the tachi patterned with serpents and flowers. The hair at his temples had begun to turn faintly white, and Mikoshi Chiyo's distorted face was reflected in his violet eyes.
At the sight of him, Chiyo smiled with something almost like relief.
A hundred years had passed. The boy who had once served at Narukami's side was now a great general in his own right. He had defeated Orobashi. To the people of Inazuma, Kiyono Raimei was the Great Pillar General in truth as well as name.
"...What happened to you?" he asked quietly.
Tainted blood dripped from Orochigiri's blade. Old stains still clung to it, not yet wiped away, and muddy crimson marked even the hems of his white robes. He looked worn from travel.
He too had only just left the battlefield.
When the Abyss began corrupting Inazuma, every commander had been dispatched across the nation to purge the filth. Mikoshi Chiyo had gone. Naturally, Kiyono Raimei had as well.
"Do you still remember our promise?" Chiyo asked.
"A proper duel."
Mikoshi Chiyo slowly straightened her back. Only then did Kiyono Raimei see her face clearly.
Twisted markings had been carved into one cheek. Pitch-black blood ran from the corner of her mouth. Nothing remained in her golden eyes but madness.
The final trace of clarity vanished.
She was no longer Mikoshi Chiyo. What remained in this world was merely a corrupted shell.
The oni's fangs closed around Orochigiri's scabbard. Teeth shrieked against metal, tearing out a streak of sparks that set the black rain ablaze. Kiyono Raimei gave ground, and the oni advanced with every step, driving herself against him until their faces were almost touching.
Kiyono could hear the low growl of a beast in her throat.
He did not draw. He merely turned Orochigiri as they passed one another and struck the back of her head with its hilt.
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Kiyono Raimei murmured, his head lowered.
But the oni did not fall unconscious.
Filth had consumed her sight. Slaughter was all she had left; tearing apart everything before her was her sole desire. Kiyono Raimei kept Orochigiri sheathed, but the oni drew her own blade.
Her bloodstained jūnihitoe streamed through the air. A cold arc of steel crushed everything in its path.
...
But Kiyono Raimei had to kill Mikoshi Chiyo.
It was his responsibility.
He could wait no longer.
Inazuma revered the beauty and pathos of a willing death. From that reverence came an old role: the kaishakunin, usually the person closest to the one about to die.
For the dying, the final stroke was release. Their suffering ended; their burden was absolved. But the kaishakunin who remained would forever bear the pain of killing a friend. That was the resolve the role demanded.
As Inazuma's Great Pillar General, he had to possess that resolve.
Mikoshi Chiyo had done nothing wrong. Even so, death would be a release for her.
The filth had consumed her completely, and Inazuma had no cure for such corruption. In that age, even the seed of the Sacred Sakura had yet to be planted.
Yet even the Sacred Sakura could not have saved Mikoshi Chiyo now.
Kiyono Raimei broke her sword. Fragments of steel scattered into the air like a sky full of white sakura, and lightning raced among the petals.
Then he drove his blade through Mikoshi Chiyo's chest.
The strike was swift and resolute.
Chiyo's body shuddered. Her eyes fell by instinct, and slowly, she grew still.
Blood ran from her chest.
Red as maple leaves.
For a moment, Kiyono Raimei saw something that was not there.
Chiyo had become Chiyo again: the proud and beautiful maiden who spoke of herself with such grand formality, who challenged him to a duel at every opportunity. The oni girl in her splendid jūnihitoe, standing upon a high platform amid the flying red maples and declaring that she would go on winning forever.
In those days, Inazuma had not yet been tainted by the Abyss. In those days, pure white sakura still drifted into the courtyard.
That single moment of distraction was enough.
Mikoshi Chiyo seized the blade of Orochigiri. Blood streamed down her pale palm. She swayed, fell against Kiyono Raimei's shoulder, and rested her cheek upon his chest.
Then she wrapped her arms around him.
One final embrace.
Kiyono Raimei's eyes trembled.
Mikoshi Chiyo had lost her sword, but she still had her teeth—the fangs of the Tiger-Bite, sharp enough to snap even Narukami's naginata.
Kiyono felt his chest torn open. Flesh was ripped away, chewed and swallowed. Agony pierced his soul. Tainted blood ran from those fangs into his flesh and bone, and a haze fell over his mind. In his ears, he thought he heard the murmur of demons.
So this... is the pain she endured.
Mikoshi Chiyo released him. His ruined body was reflected in her eyes, and her shoulders gave a faint tremor.
What had she done?
No...
Her lips parted, but no words emerged.
She stared at Kiyono Raimei and the enormous cavity her teeth had torn into his chest.
He was gravely wounded. Splintered bone tangled with mangled flesh, and even his faintly beating heart lay exposed.
She could feel her corrupted blood slowly seeping into it.
At the end, Chiyo wanted to say something, but she could no longer speak. She wanted to do something, but her failing body could no longer obey.
"I'm fine." Kiyono Raimei forced himself upright and gave her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. I'm still made of sterner stuff than that."
"You won again."
His gaze had begun to lose focus, but he was still smiling.
"My friend, this duel belongs to you. You won again. You truly did keep winning, all the way to the end. You will always be the opponent I respect above all others."
"So, Chiyo," Kiyono Raimei said earnestly, "you don't have to worry anymore."
"Rest now. Sleep well, and no one will ever disturb you again. You have fulfilled your duty. Leave Inazuma to me."
"You have never dishonored the glory of the oni." He looked into Mikoshi Chiyo's eyes. "I swear upon my name as the Great Pillar General: a thousand years from now, people will still tell of your beauty, your courage, and your grace. That is my promise."
Mikoshi Chiyo's shoulders shook. She bowed her head and bit hard into her lower lip until blood welled beneath her teeth.
"Farewell, my friend," Kiyono Raimei whispered.
His hand tightened around Orochigiri. From the ruin of his chest came a sudden roar like thunder. Serpents of lightning coursed along the sword, erupting in a radiance that engulfed the sky. He drew the blade and plunged it straight into the earth.
Thunder fell with it.
The earth shuddered. The sky turned white.
"Glory to the Shogun!"
"Rrgh..."
A wounded animal's whimper escaped her throat. She lowered her head, turned, and walked step by step into the deeper forest, her back covered in the silver frost of moonlight.
She was going to die.
These were her final moments.
The oni were a proud people, not unlike cats. When an old cat knew death was near, it would not allow anyone to watch. It would slip away to some unseen place and die in silence, beyond the eyes of its friends.
Even corrupted by filth, Chiyo still remembered that pride.
The pride of the oni. The pride of a samurai. The pride of Mikoshi Chiyo.
Kiyono Raimei slowly exhaled. For a long, long time, he watched the oni recede into the night. At last, he turned away and departed in the opposite direction.
Glory to the Shogun and her everlasting reign.
Only fallen sakura remained upon the pale earth.
At last, the oni collapsed in the white moonlight. She opened her eyes a fraction, and through the haze of fading consciousness, she seemed to see the figure of a young man.
Rumors had recently begun to spread of a monster haunting Chinju Forest.
Villagers often reported missing things to the Shogunate. One household would lose a chicken; another would find a duck gone. Officials came to investigate more than once, but it did not look like the work of a monster. A weasel—or some ordinary animal much like one—was probably stealing the poultry.
And so the matter came to nothing.
Chinju Forest was a desolate place, with few people living nearby.
By the time Lumine and Kiyo Seigan arrived, the sky had already begun to darken. They followed the stone steps upward. Weeds, ferns, moss, and mushrooms grew wild in every crack, while pine boughs cast shifting shadows across the path.
Lumine walked ahead with a spring in her step, occasionally breaking into a little skip as she wrote in her Teyvat Travel Guide. Its pages had yellowed from constant use and were covered from margin to margin in neat handwriting.
Keeping a journal was important to her.
She crossed out the words Chinju Forest. It meant that she and Kiyo Seigan had now been there together.
From Windrise outside Mondstadt, through Liyue, and now to Chinju Forest in Inazuma—without realizing it, she and Kiyo Seigan had already traveled across nearly half of Teyvat.
The forest canopy broke the outline of the setting sun. Specks of light spilled between the layered branches, bathing the trees in the orange glow of dusk.
Night was approaching.
Which meant it was time for dinner.
This was where the value of carrying Emergency Food and Emergency Seasoning truly became apparent.
"O great Saint Lia, your humble believer beseeches your blessing."
Kiyo Seigan began his prayer with great solemnity.
"Opening omitted, middle omitted, ending omitted—give us some salt."
"You're getting worse and worse!"
Lia, freshly awakened, nearly bristled with fury. It had been bad enough when the stinking sardine prayed solely to ask for salt. Now he could not even be bothered to invent a prayer, replacing the whole thing with opening omitted, middle omitted, ending omitted!
This time, no matter what he did, she would not indulge him again.
Absolutely not.
Kiyo Seigan waited for a while. When the Salt Ruler showed no sign of movement, he blinked several times and began to feel rather embarrassed.
Miss Lia watched his troubled expression with a beaming smile.
"Hmph." Lumine gave a quiet laugh behind him. "So she really is a useless god."
What...?
Lia froze.
"I brought some ages ago." Lumine planted one hand on her hip and proudly produced a bag of cooking salt from her little backpack, looking every bit like a victorious general returning from battle.
She had won. Lumine felt certain she had won again.
"I knew she was useless. And look at that—she can't even make salt anymore. There goes the one thing she was good for."
Lia's face went blank.
Through the Salt Ruler, she stared coldly at the crude bag in Lumine's hand. Her expression darkened at once.
Those grains were riddled with all manner of revolting impurities. Dirty, debased—an indecent little hussy of a salt!
"Oh... salt is salt." Kiyo Seigan smiled happily and reached for the bag.
Lia's icy voice came from the Salt Ruler.
"Put it down."
"Feeling threatened?" Lumine asked with a smile.
Silence.
"...Fine, fine." Lia sounded as though she had abandoned all resistance. "I'll give you salt. I'll give you all the salt you want. Just don't eat that filthy stray salt!"
Great Saint Lia could become strangely competitive over the most inexplicable things.
In any event, they had acquired their salt.
They lit a campfire and began roasting the trout Lumine had just caught in the lake.
Kiyo Seigan had grown remarkably skilled at cooking fish. He controlled the heat perfectly. Fat hissed over the fire, the skin gradually turned golden, and a delicate aroma spread through the forest.
As he watched the fish, Kiyo Seigan thought about their journey.
The Covenant had told him to go to Chinju Forest. They had already come deep into the woods, yet there had been no sign of anything unusual.
Who was waiting for him here?
He considered the question for a long time and found no answer.
Wait.
Kiyo Seigan suddenly sensed that something was wrong.
While his mind had wandered just now, hadn't one of the skewers of fish over the fire... disappeared?