"Humans can never be trusted, and gods fill me with hatred. I cast everything aside. I reject and scorn all that exists in this mortal world."
.
"Never again will I permit the mundane world to lay claim to my chest. I cast away the base emotions of humanity."
.
"The hollow place within me shall remain a pure-white scroll, just as it was at the moment of my birth, until it is filled by the supreme and divine heart of a god."
.
Kunikuzushi had suffered three betrayals.
The first came from a god—his mother. Swayed by power, she discarded the useless puppet.
The second came from humans. His family and his friends, bound by fear, had looked upon him as something abhorrent.
The third came from one of his own, bound by the limits of a mortal lifespan, who broke the promise between them.
Everyone had used him.
Kiyono Raimei was no different from Beelzebul. Everything Kunikuzushi encountered now was another lie.
Kiyono Raimei had never known what he sought. He had never understood him.
Kunikuzushi knew that for a fact.
All he had ever wanted...
Was a heart.
Humans could never be trusted, and gods filled him with hatred.
The only purpose of his wandering through this world was to fill the void within him. Beyond that, every mortal emotion was irrelevant. He possessed no such thing as feelings.
That was how it should have been.
How it had to be.
And yet, when the puppet's fingertips touched that familiar, vigorous handwriting once more, tracing slowly over the yellowed paper, he hesitated.
[I buried a barrel of hundred-year-old beer under the big pine tree in the courtyard of the Pillar General's mansion. Remember to retrieve it.]
The old man had loved to drink.
Kunikuzushi knew that.
Every year in early spring, Kiyono Raimei brewed a full jar of plum wine or beer, buried it in the earth, and waited until winter to dig it up after it had matured.
When he drank, he was no different from any ordinary old man. He would find a clear winter day, set plum wine beside a little stove, and drink alone in the narrow strip of sunlight before the hall. Warm wine settled pleasantly in his stomach, and he breathed a plume of heat into the cold air.
"Have a drink with me."
He always asked Kunikuzushi to join him.
The puppet had no interest in alcohol. Each time, the old drunk forced a bowl upon him anyway. He watched Kunikuzushi swallow the wine, then broke into a broad, contented smile and stroked the puppet's hair with one rough hand.
"That's how a man should drink!"
The old man had always been like that—overbearing and unreasonable, never willing to hear another person's opinion, forever deciding everything on his own.
Utterly detestable.
Sometimes, however, the old man drank too much and became truly drunk.
Whenever that happened, he would suddenly gaze into the distance at the magnificent Sacred Sakura swaying beneath the sky. He would take another drink, then speak to Kunikuzushi without lifting his head.
"Have one more with me... There's no one left to drink with me."
"No one... They're all gone."
"Honestly..."
Kiyono Raimei had loved to drink.
Kunikuzushi still did not. He hated the smell of beer. After Kiyono Raimei's death, he had never shared a drink with anyone again.
No one had ever forced one upon him either.
Yet for all his hatred, he still remembered those days. He remembered the touch of that rough hand upon his hair, remembered the warm sunlight covering them both and slowly seeping into his body.
Kiyono Raimei was dead.
There was no one left to drink with Kunikuzushi.
"What an idiot." He stared at the note and cursed. "Thinking about alcohol even as he was dying... No wonder he died so young."
"He was," Miss Lumine agreed softly. Something moved faintly in her golden eyes. "That man was always too much. He drank constantly... He was forever making people worry."
"But perhaps he did not love the alcohol itself quite so much." Lumine's voice became earnest. "Perhaps what he treasured—what remained on his mind even before death—was the time he had spent drinking. Maybe those days were his most precious wealth."
"I once heard someone say in a Mondstadt tavern that memories are another kind of wine. The days spent drinking with friends are buried beneath the sakura. Left to mature through long years, they acquire the lingering taste of time. Whenever you take them out and drink alone, what you taste is the life you once lived."
"That is why he still cared about that jar even as he was dying," Lumine said softly. "His memories were his wine, and even in death, he did not want to forget."
"He shared that wine with you..." She paused. "Because you had become part of it. You were someone he treasured too."
Even in death, he did not want to forget.
Was that truly how it was?
...Infuriating.
Truly...
Infuriating.
Kunikuzushi stared blankly at that line for some time. At last, he released a breath and peeled back the next layer.
The note had been made from two sheets.
[By the shore of Starfell Lake in Mondstadt, a boy named [Kunikuzushi] is waiting for me. Show him the Pillar General's Order. He will understand. Don't let anyone know about this.]
Starfell Lake...
Of course Kunikuzushi remembered.
Kiyono Raimei's final order to him had been to go to the shore of Starfell Lake and meet a young man carrying the Pillar General's Order. He was to give that young man the intelligence he had gathered on the Fatui.
Once the task was complete, Kunikuzushi would have no further connection to Inazuma.
The young man who came to meet him had been Kiyono Fugin.
That was their first meeting.
Kiyono Fugin...?
This further proved that the note was genuine. The mission had been conducted in absolute secrecy. Only they had known of it.
Kunikuzushi continued reading.
When he reached the next line, his pupils widened.
[When my next self dies, remember to give the "heart" to this boy.]
When my next self dies...?
Kunikuzushi frowned, not yet noticing that his breathing had quickened.
My next self?
The heart...
A heart?
He remembered what Lumine had told him earlier.
That heart came from Kiyono Fugin. And it also came from Kiyono Raimei.
He entrusted that heart to La Signora and asked her to give it to you.
Kunikuzushi had called those words a lie.
The old man had never known what Kunikuzushi sought.
Kiyono Raimei had been stubborn and unreasonable, forever deciding things on his own.
He had always been that way.
That was how it should have been.
How it had to be.
Yet Kunikuzushi hesitated.
He frowned as a faint pain stirred within his hollow chest. He did not know where that stabbing ache came from.
Once more, he remembered the old man looking toward the Sacred Sakura as he drank alone. Those aging gray eyes had belonged to a warrior still as powerful as any young man, yet their loneliness had been unmistakably old.
[I have a feeling the Serpent's Heart will pass to my next self. It is, after all, the heart of a god.]
The great serpent...
Orobashi?
In the twilight of his life, the old man had taken a heart from the serpent's filth, only to pass it onward to the person he would become.
"The heart of a god," Kunikuzushi murmured.
He stared at those words.
From beginning to end, he had sought the heart of a god.
And from beginning to end, Kiyono Raimei had understood his wish.
[And in turn, I want my own heart to pass to him. There is something rather interesting about that.]
He had never stopped him, never voiced an opinion, never even mentioned it.
Like a taciturn father, awkward and incapable of putting his feelings into words, he had quietly torn out his own heart for the sake of his child's dream.
Clumsy beyond belief.
"You bastard of an old man." Kunikuzushi gripped the corner of the note and cursed. "...As if I want it."
"Who asked for it?" He stared at the words. "Stop deciding things on your own."
"That is what I hate most about you." He continued to curse, though his voice had begun to tremble. "You... You never listened to reason."
"Not even after death. Never... Never once."
[Kunikuzushi has helped Inazuma for centuries. This is the reward he deserves.]
"What I hate most..." He paused. "What I despise more than anything is this land."
At Tatarasuna, his friend had betrayed him amid a corrupt sacrifice. The villagers, afraid of him, had called him a monster and tried to offer him to an evil god.
From that betrayal onward, Kunikuzushi had hated this land.
That was also when he met the old man.
When a pure-white slash swept the open fields clean, the man named Kiyono Raimei smiled at him and said:
"From this day forward, your name is Kunikuzushi."
...
"In the language of Inazuma, it means cannon."
...
"From now on, you are the cannon of the Pillar General's army. Wind rises, clouds fly high; cannon fires—fuck 'em up!"
"Anyone who insults you, you blast their asses with a cannon! You will make the roar of a cannon. You will use your own voice to drown out all the noise, resounding through the heavens!"
"You will eventually become a true person."
Kunikuzushi had forgotten where his dream began.
But perhaps it had begun that very day, when the old man promised him that he would one day become a true person. Perhaps that was when the wish first began to grow within the puppet.
It was a dream awakened by Kiyono Raimei and a promise made by Kiyono Raimei.
Yet he had betrayed it.
"You did not keep it." Kunikuzushi clenched his teeth and cursed with bitter resentment. "You died!"
That was the way of human life.
Every child looked up to their father and dreamed of becoming as strong as he was. But when the child finally grew and fulfilled that dream, the father had already aged and departed.
Who, then, remained to rejoice in all the child had achieved?
The thunder had fallen silent. Even if Kunikuzushi reached a sky clear for ten thousand miles, no thunder remained to sound his triumph.
[Please tell him: Kiyono Raimei never broke his promise.]
Kunikuzushi lowered his head and remained silent for a very long time.
Only when the sun slowly sank and the sky began to darken did he speak.
"You died..."
The puppet's shoulders trembled faintly.
"Why? If you made a promise... why did you leave?"
"What meaning does any of this have now? Even if I ascend to godhood, what meaning would that hold?"
The note was not long. He had nearly reached its end.
The autumn afternoon was ending too.
The lonely colors of sunset lay in streaks across the leaden heavens. Rain threatened once more beneath the gathering gloom, and faint thunder rolled high in the clouds.
Kunikuzushi stood at the edge of twilight and suddenly felt the wind that came before a mountain storm.
[His thunder will forever beat within your chest.]
"His thunder will forever beat within your chest," Lumine repeated.
"You will inherit his thunder. His heart and his will shall continue through you."
Her golden eyes reflected Kunikuzushi's face.
"Kunikuzushi, that is where the meaning lies. Once one thunderclap dies, he hopes you will become the next. One follows another, and so the storm will never end."
"One day, your thunder will resound throughout the world."
"To Kiyono Raimei—to a mortal—this inheritance passed from one generation to the next is his eternity."
"A mortal's eternity."
Men may come and men may go, but the river runs on forever.
"A person truly dies only when they are completely forgotten."
Lumine looked at Kunikuzushi.
"Father and child can create eternity between them. The father has never left. He lives forever within the child's chest and is carried onward through him. That is where the meaning lies."
Kunikuzushi fell silent.
"I am using you," Lumine said. "I am using you, but I will not deceive you. I will tell you openly that I mean to use you."
"I want your help to achieve my purpose—to oppose the Fatui and save Kiyo Seigan. Even knowing that we are using you, will you still help us?"
Lumine had not lied.
But neither had she told him everything. She continued to conceal Kiyo Seigan's identity.
When dealing or negotiating with a Fatui Harbinger, one must always keep something in reserve. The most important secret could never be exposed.
That was the lesson La Signora had taught Lumine.
Lumine held Kunikuzushi's gaze and offered her final invitation.
"Inazuma is in danger. If the Delusion Factory is established, everything Kiyono Raimei worked for will be destroyed. Will you allow this storm to fall silent?"
For a very long time, Kunikuzushi said nothing.
The clouds sank lower. The last light of dusk faded across the fields, while thunder rolled endlessly above them.
At last, Kunikuzushi spoke.
"I am only taking back what belongs to me."
"What happens to Inazuma... is none of my concern."
With that, he turned away.
"Let's go."
Lightning descended, and for one instant the world flashed between darkness and light.
Nothing remained in Kunikuzushi's eyes but the purest killing intent.
It was so dark, so dense, that it seemed almost solid.
La Signora's former words slowly returned to his ears.
Turned into a work of art.
Watching a mortal's heart beat.
How very interesting.
La Signora.
La Signora.
La Signora, La Signora, La Signora...!
That heart was in La Signora's hands.
The old man had entrusted it to Kunikuzushi, yet La Signora had taken it for herself. Though they were fellow Harbingers, she had deceived him.
Deceived him.
Taken what belonged to him.
La Signora had killed Kiyono Fugin, which meant La Signora had killed Kiyono Raimei. She had killed the old man and stolen his heart.
La Signora!
She had killed and humiliated...
His father.
Watching a mortal's heart beat was interesting?
How dare you...
How dare you...
How dare you!
Outside Lumine's sight, Kunikuzushi's lips twisted into a smile. Yet no amusement touched his eyes. They remained pale and empty.
Interesting?
I will show you something truly interesting.
"Rosalyne-Kruzchka Lohefalter."
He walked out across the fields.
The thunder above the sea of clouds grew louder.
One pillar of lightning after another struck the earth and broke apart into writhing serpents. The sky flashed with every thunderclap.
For the first time in many years, a great rain fell over Inazuma. It would not cease until the final peal of thunder had faded.
Together, they would sweep across all Inazuma.
[From this day forward, you are no longer a puppet. You are a true person.]
That was the final line upon the note.