The crimson butterfly danced through the night, tracing a graceful arc. Brilliant fire suddenly ignited between its wings, swelling and spreading in an instant until a sea of flames filled the sky.
Kiyo Seigan felt as though his shoulder had caught fire. Searing pain bored through his skin.
Fortunately, the flames had only just touched him when another tremendous force slammed into his body. He shot backward and crashed beyond the spreading inferno.
Smoke filled his vision. Dense, filthy plumes circled above Chinju Forest like the wings of ravens.
As they dispersed, the earth cracked beneath the heat, reduced to scorched soil.
Torachiyo stood barefoot upon the blackened ground. Flames curled around the trailing hem of her magnificent jūnihitoe. She bared the fangs of the Tiger-Bite, and a threatening growl rose from deep within her throat.
She had pushed Kiyo away at once and taken the inferno head-on.
She was injured.
And injury and pain could always awaken the wild.
Violent, frenzied emotions surged through her mind. Chaotic images flashed endlessly before her eyes. Once again she saw the wound torn by the Tiger-Bite. Once again she saw that pale face twisted in pain...
Slowly, she began to lose control.
The filth churned within her.
Now, in face and bearing alike, she was a beast in its purest form.
Torachiyo raised maddened eyes toward the source of the swarming fire butterflies.
The Harbinger known as La Signora stood above them. Flame patterns glowed along the edge of her half-open mask. From behind it, her eyes looked calmly and indifferently down upon the corrupted beast below, her lips curving into a cold sneer.
She could sense the tainted blood coursing through that beast.
The stench was truly nauseating.
Base. Wretched. Evil.
Filth.
Ever since Durin, La Signora had sworn to burn every trace of filth from the world. There was no place for such lowly calamities in the pure-white world Rostam had sought.
Of that, she remained utterly convinced.
The Fatui possessed the most extensive intelligence network in the world. It had endured for more than five centuries and sunk its roots deep, uncovering many secrets buried by history.
Mikoshi Chiyo—Torachiyo, she who bore the name of the Tiger-Bite—had not died a heroic general upon the battlefield against the darkness, as Inazuman histories claimed.
She was the filth itself.
That selfish mortal named Kiyono Raimei had wrapped himself in the grand title of Great Pillar General, then concealed this monster and buried the truth of history for his own private feelings.
La Signora despised hypocrites of that kind above all else. They reminded her of Mondstadt's idle aristocrats and useless knights.
When she learned that this monster might still remain in the world, her loathing for Kiyono Raimei deepened. For the sake of personal attachment, he had allowed filth to escape.
The very notion that filth should continue to exist was absurd.
What did it matter that the creature had harmed no one?
Filth must be burned away. Its ashes would become the soil from which the new world rose. That was the only value filth possessed.
Likewise, being captured and dissected to make some small contribution to Delusion research was the sole purpose left to Torachiyo.
Dark violet eyes looked down upon her amid the scorched earth.
La Signora's crimson gown trailed behind her. She lifted one pale hand, and the butterflies surrounding her danced outward. They swept across the field carrying a wildfire and converged upon Torachiyo in an instant.
Torachiyo lowered her stance and raised her crimson blade high.
Naked bloodlust and bestial savagery blazed from her golden eyes. Her figure vanished, charging directly into the sea of fire. The crimson blade tore through the intricate, beautiful swarm, splitting butterfly after butterfly in two.
Every fire butterfly she destroyed erupted in an explosion. Blast after blast blossomed across the night sky like an entire fireworks festival called forth from nothing.
It all happened in an instant.
Only a few heartbeats passed between La Signora's surprise attack and Torachiyo's counterstrike.
Torachiyo broke through the inferno with clenched teeth. Her once-beautiful jūnihitoe had been torn apart by repeated explosions, exposing scorched skin beneath. Flames covered her body as she raised the crimson blade overhead.
She had already reached La Signora.
The edge touched the Harbinger's neck.
"Ugly beast," La Signora whispered. "Why do you insist on living?"
A beast was still a beast—something La Signora despised even more than a mortal.
It might possess unrivaled strength. Its body might withstand the direct assault of her fire butterflies. Yet it remained a beast, incapable of reason or thought. Once it lost control, all it knew was how to bite and tear.
The crimson blade passed through La Signora's neck and continued through her body without meeting the slightest resistance.
It had cut apart nothing but a shadow made of flame.
The scattered fire butterflies gathered behind Torachiyo. A pale hand emerged from their midst and pressed against her back.
"Kiyono," La Signora said with faint mockery. "So this useless piece of filth is what Kiyono Raimei chose to protect?"
"What a disgusting old man."
"No." Torachiyo lowered her eyes. Fire butterflies struck her one after another, dissolving into streams of flame and leaving charred burns across her pale skin. She clenched her teeth. "Cannot... say that."
It was almost surprising. She had lost control so completely, yet the mention of that name restored a trace of clarity to her frenzied eyes. She had nearly forgotten how to speak, but still managed a whisper.
"You cannot."
"I almost forgot." La Signora's voice remained calm. "The Fatui's research into Kiyono Raimei found that his rapid decline during the final century of his life... appears to have begun with an old wound."
"Which wound might that have been?"
Torachiyo froze.
She saw those memories again—the words that the filth had worn away.
"I'm fine."
"Don't worry. I'm still made of sterner stuff than that."
A lie.
"You won again."
She had never won.
"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."
She could never win again.
Because the only person willing to lose to her was gone.
"Go join that old man."
La Signora hurled Torachiyo straight toward the ground.
She fell from the heavens.
Above her, dancing fire butterflies spread into towering clouds of flame. Below waited the pale, lifeless earth. She plummeted between fire and ground as wan clouds streamed past.
She could feel herself falling.
Body and heart alike, falling endlessly toward the abyss.
Like a maple leaf severed from its branch.
Layer after layer of illusion appeared before her.
She remembered that rainy night. Rain shattered into droplets around her as she lay alone and dying upon a cliff, too weak to do more than close her eyes. In the final instant before consciousness faded, she saw a figure and heard one last voice.
"You are not a monster."
"Not in the past, not now, and not in the future."
The person held out a hand.
She struggled to reach upward and grasped it.
The clamor and madness slowly receded.
"Nuo Exorcism," Kiyo Seigan said softly.
Their clasped hands formed a bridge. The overflowing filth traveled along her arm and poured into Kiyo's body.
In that brief moment of clarity, Mikoshi Chiyo stared blankly at the boy's face.
It was identical to the figure she remembered.
"I removed the filth spilling out of you," Kiyo explained. "You won't keep falling now."
"And thank you for saving me just now."
Mikoshi Chiyo's reflection rested in his deep blue eyes. His pale hair streamed upward in the wind of their descent, while faint black markings showed beneath his skin.
He seemed to be in terrible pain.
Yet he was smiling.
"It took a little while to get the Salty God to possess me," he said, speaking complete nonsense. "Leave the rest to me."
Kiyo Seigan was growing less respectful toward Lia by the day.
For any other believer, this would have been the sacred miracle of a god's blessing. In Kiyo's mouth, it became the cheap trick of a wandering medium inviting a spirit to possess him.
"You truly have no manners, Mr. Sardine."
The pure-white maiden gently caressed Kiyo's cheek. Her golden eyes overlapped with his.
"That Harbinger wasn't hunting my believer." Her voice was cold. "Why should I save some other woman?"
"And yet the great Saint Lia still acted."
"Don't forget what you agreed to." Lia gave a cold snort. "We settled this already. I'm only helping her a little."
Those were Havria's final words.
Pure-white grains of salt scattered through the air and wrapped around Kiyo's body, slowly sinking into his skin. The deep blue drained from his pupils, turning them a sacred, snow-white hue.
[Kiyo Seigan]
[Lv. 79]
The sea of fire butterflies descended from every direction.
Kiyo drew Kamigiri. The blade that had bathed in divine blood roared like thunder, its cold gleam reflecting his face.
"Dance!" He laughed in exhilaration. "Chiyo, didn't you say you wanted to dance? Then watch closely!"
Kamigiri carried a thunderous force vast enough to shake the sky. As he swung, a long, blinding bolt tore through the gaps in the clouds and flashed between the fire butterflies.
Lightning struck the sea of flame.
The collision ignited the entire sky.
That radiance was reflected in Torachiyo's eyes.
It was beautiful.
La Signora frowned.
She had assumed that mortal samurai... was merely another ordinary man.
From beginning to end, she had paid him no attention. Not even a glance.
Her only objective had been Torachiyo.
A mortal who tried to shelter filth was revolting. Worse, he was weak—nothing more than ash left behind by the old world.
She had heard of Inazuma's bushido, a creed much like the chivalry of Mondstadt, exalting the noble courage of sacrifice. Yet everything La Signora had witnessed in Inazuma convinced her that its samurai were no different from Mondstadt's knights.
Hypocritical and ugly.
What surprised her was that this repulsive mortal had received the favor of a god.
She could sense the authority within Kiyo Seigan—the unmistakable authority of a deity. La Signora recognized it because her own power likewise came from the Tsaritsa's blessing.
That made her hate him all the more.
A mortal who sheltered filth had received divine favor.
It was an insult.
It could only mean that the god who blessed this samurai was equally hideous.
The translucent heart beat. La Signora felt the Wolf Pup's heart tremble in resonance—and believed she understood what that heartbeat meant.
Then witness... the glory of the pure-white world.
The sky froze.
Layer after layer of cloud turned to ice. Though an inferno raged below, the heavens above were bitterly cold.
Kiyo shattered one fire butterfly after another and climbed against the sea of flame.
Within his empty chest, an answering resonance sounded. It echoed between his bones like thunder rolling through dense clouds, almost like the beating of a heart.
He could feel it.
This body had begun climbing once more.
Upon the Steps of Ascension, it took a true second step.
[Kiyo Seigan]
[Lv. 79]
This time, however, his level was not the only text to appear.
[Steps of Ascension: Second Step]
Kiyono Raimei's entire life had been engraved within Kamigiri.
The sword was transmitting his art—the Fudō Ittō that had once flashed across all Inazuma for 0.3 seconds.
Kiyo had been learning all along. His progress had simply been slow.
But today, the God of Salt's blessing had brought his body to the threshold of godhood. Dancing with Mikoshi Chiyo had also carried him into a state bordering upon enlightenment.
Layer after layer of ice cracked apart. Lightning shattered through it, and Kiyo appeared directly before La Signora.
They had never been so close.
He could see her pupils clearly.
Kamigiri swept horizontally toward her, wrapped in lightning—
Then stopped.
"Ice..." Kiyo heard Lia's voice. "So it's the Tsaritsa."
The Tsaritsa's blessing had descended once more.
Kiyo's attention faltered.
Through La Signora's translucent violet eyes, he saw ten thousand miles of frozen land. Upon a throne fashioned from ice and snow, the Tsaritsa raised her eyes and regarded him with calm indifference.
Peerlessly noble.
Peerlessly cold.
The gaze of a god.
"The Gnosis," the Tsaritsa said evenly. "He has it. Bring it back."
So that was why La Signora had been hunting him.
She wanted the Gnosis within his body.
The Tsaritsa was watching this place.
Kiyo could not withstand her gaze.
That ancient majesty seemed capable of freezing the entire world—the authority of the Cryo Archon, a power no one could resist.
And yet the great Salty God feared absolutely no one.
"Hey. So you're the one trying to steal Saint Lia's believer."
Lia stared calmly at the Archon of Snezhnaya and told her, just as calmly:
"Who the hell are you? Fuck off."