Cities of cloud pressed down from the darkened sky. The quiet desolation of autumn shattered beneath lightning that filled Inazuma City. Never before had the city felt so oppressive.
Something immense was gathering within the clouds. It passed through that sea with cold indifference, looking down upon all beneath heaven.
No thought.
No reflection.
Eternity.
This was the Musou no Hitotachi.
Her Excellency, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho, promised the people of Inazuma an unchanging Eternity to last throughout the ages.
After purging all sentiment with merciless lightning, the solitude of her mind became a pure land.
Over the long years, the road to Eternity had been dark and distant, but Her Excellency the Shogun had never wavered.
For true unchanging Eternity was found only in the stillness that manifested itself when all noise was stripped away.
Every current of wind within Tenshukaku stopped.
Kunikuzushi's eyes widened and his pupils contracted. The descending blade-light was reflected in those jewel-clear depths. He wanted to evade it, but he knew there was nowhere left to retreat.
So he would not retreat.
The heart had never beaten so violently.
Five hundred years ago, that old man—though perhaps he had not yet been old—had also faced the Musou no Hitotachi before the throne.
It had been midsummer. Cicadas rasped among the tall green trees, and the young samurai Kiyono Raimei stood in the brilliant prime of his life.
Kiyono Raimei had not evaded the strike.
Kunikuzushi would not evade it either.
Fudoshin.
He clenched his teeth. The pressure of lightning cut blood from his cheek, stirring broken strands of violet hair. Hot, fervent blood was born within the heart and spread through the puppet's body. As it passed through cold mechanical vessels, he experienced something new.
Life.
Kunikuzushi stood close to death, yet he had never felt more vividly alive, more undeniably present within this world.
At the edge of death, he learned what it meant to live.
That was why he still smiled—a joyous, unrestrained smile.
Exactly like Kiyono Raimei's.
His heart beat furiously, yet his mind was perfectly calm.
He would face that thunder of Musou. He would face the centuries through which he had wandered and the mother who had abandoned him. Within that pure-white lightning, he would welcome his new birth.
Scattered blades of wind gathered again, joined by serpents of lightning. Wind became the edge and thunder the hilt. A naginata formed from pure elemental power appeared within his hands.
He would remain unmoved.
Kunikuzushi's mind became clear and empty. All else vanished from his eyes, leaving only that single strike.
"Fudoshin—" White vapor spilled between his clenched teeth. "One Slash."
The unmoving slash.
The single slash left behind by Kiyono Raimei after five hundred years as the Pillar General.
Narukami had promised all beneath heaven an eternal paradise. Hers was therefore Musou—beyond thought and dream.
Kiyono Raimei had been only mortal. He could promise no dream so grand. All he could do was protect them: for one spring, for one year, for five hundred years.
Five hundred years as the Pillar General.
And so he had to remain Fudoshin—unmoving.
That was the meaning of his slash.
But Beelzebul had never cared about Fudoshin. She pursued Musou and Eternity.
Her dream was magnificent, but gods always stood among the clouds. As she pursued the pure land she had promised, she ignored the smaller dream and failed to see that, until her nation could become that paradise, it had always been protected by the one who remained unmoving.
When Fudoshin died, her nation began to collapse.
Yet she still locked herself within her pavilion and refused to look upon the mortal world even once.
Kunikuzushi had to win.
He had to earn acknowledgment.
Not only for himself.
For that old man.
He had to win and prove the old man's path!
He had brought the old man's heart before the throne.
Musou and Fudoshin collided head-on.
Layer upon layer of lightning shattered. Fragments of radiance filled the night until it shone like day. The sky above Inazuma seemed to collapse as clouds, rain, and thunder crashed down at the same instant.
For one moment, the world made no sound.
Kunikuzushi's consciousness rapidly dispersed. The lightning evaporated all the blood within his body, and the heart slowly ceased to beat. His breathing weakened. Nothing remained in his vision except deathly white light.
His grip began to fail.
He was losing.
Consciousness could be placed within an object.
Yae Miko had once entrusted her consciousness to an ornament, using an art taught to her by Kiyono Raimei.
Before his death, Kiyono Raimei had left something within this heart as well. It was meant for Kunikuzushi—or perhaps for Her Excellency Narukami.
It was a wish.
His wish.
Their wishes.
All of them remained within this heart.
The tradition of the Pillar Army demanded that when one soldier died, the next remember their name and continue onward. Kiyono Raimei, the final Pillar General, had therefore carried the names of the entire army.
Within his heart, he had carried all their wishes.
And so he had remembered the wishes of all beneath heaven.
"Your father didn't bring shame upon you."
"Your Excellency Pillar General... Am I already dead? Your Excellency, are the civilians safe?"
"I want to go back to Konda Village... and eat Kiyono Tofu one last time."
"I am Mishima Saimin, second-class naval soldier beneath the great Pillar General."
"Captain of Herring I, Mishima Teppei. My dream is to become a soldier of the Pillar Army!"
...
Those voices flickered within Kunikuzushi's heart. They resounded throughout Tenshukaku and beside every person's ear.
They reached the Plane of Euthymia.
They reached Raiden Ei.
Her eternally lonely eyes trembled. Something within them seemed to struggle toward freedom.
Every wish gathered within the slash of Fudoshin.
Kunikuzushi's silent heart began to beat again. The scattered edge and severed serpents of lightning re-formed into a blade.
He stopped retreating.
Step after step, he advanced, driving back the blade of Musou.
Eternity.
Eternity.
Strip away the noise.
The noise had to be stripped away.
She could not leave.
Raiden Ei lowered her eyes and tightened her grip upon the naginata, refusing to look at the immense thunder now filling the Plane of Euthymia.
But the wishes had shaken the realm. Cracks spread through it, and it began to break apart.
Those voices, those brief and transient wishes, were no more than a single instant beside Eternity.
So she told herself.
Then her eyes stopped.
She heard that voice.
Familiar and strange, unheard for far too long.
The countless wishes flashed past. Peal after peal of thunder faded until only two remained.
One came from long ago—from a boy. It was the beginning of all his wishes.
"If I withstand your strike, you will agree to my request."
"Then let me stand guard by Ei's side forever."
This was Kiyono Raimei's wish.
The wish made by that boy beneath the high trees and singing cicadas of summer.
It was the first wish of his life, small and insignificant.
...
The other came from the recent past—from an old man. It was the end of all his wishes.
"Kill all the filth, and they will eventually be reborn. You ask me what the meaning is—"
"The meaning is that, long after, when the snow melts, when Ei walks out of the Plane of Euthymia..."
"She can see a clean and flawless spring. Days without filth must be beautiful."
"The young soldiers who cleared away the filth can return home, with no more sacrifices this winter. Wives can reunite with husbands, children can see their fathers, and the people of Inazuma can welcome a happy New Year together."
"That is my final gift to her: the last two hundred and twenty-one days of Kiyono Raimei."
"That is the meaning of those days."
This was the old man's wish.
Kiyono Raimei's last wish.
The two wishes stretched from beginning to end across five full centuries, never moving and never changing.
To protect her alone, he had protected all of Inazuma.
He had been the pillar of a nation and the personal guard of one person. Unmoving at Inazuma's borders, unmoving upon the steps before her throne, his heart had never changed.
Ei heard Kiyono Raimei's voice—the boy and the old man. She heard his dreams—the dreams of youth and age.
Her mind emptied until nothing remained.
Those voices were thunder. Two bolts struck the Plane of Euthymia and split hairline cracks through her cold and lonely heart.
Ei felt the realm collapsing.
Not merely breaking.
Collapsing.
The ancient, desolate world of Eternity rapidly receded. Thunder shattered the clouds, and lightning poured across the earth.
Within that pure-white light, Raiden Ei saw an old man.
The last fragment of consciousness Kiyono Raimei had placed within the heart before his death.
After one hundred years, they finally met again.
He truly had grown old.
He wore a snow-white kimono and a white headcloth edged with plum and bamboo. Hair as silver as snow framed his face, and a tachi hung at his waist.
From within his kimono, he took tobacco and rolling paper. He made himself a cigarette, struck a match, and inhaled. A thin mist left his lips.
When the smoke dispersed, the old man raised his eyes toward Ei.
He said nothing.
Raiden Ei's shoulders trembled. Her eyes shifted, and her lips parted slightly, but in the end no words came. She only stared at Kiyono Raimei, his face reflected within her violet eyes.
She watched him for a very long time.
When we meet again, what will I do?
Ei had once asked Kiyono Sara that question. Yet now that the reunion had truly arrived, she no longer knew what to say.
She looked at the haze covering Kiyono Raimei's gray-white eyes and at his snow-silver hair.
Only after a long while did she whisper, "So... this is what you look like now."
She had so much to say, yet in the end only one nearly sorrowful sigh remained.
"You truly have grown old."
Ei closed her eyes. A bleak and helpless smile touched her lips.
"Time passed... so quickly."
"But Your Excellency has not changed."
Kiyono Raimei watched the smoke thin into nothing and the ember slowly consume his cigarette. He coughed and smiled as well.
"Time truly passed quickly... You have not changed, but I can no longer remain beside you."
"Just like this cigarette. It has not yet burned to the end, and already I must leave."
The realm was collapsing.
The cigarette in Kiyono Raimei's hand was almost spent. His consciousness within the heart had always been brief, a mere echo lasting no longer than lightning's 0.3 seconds.
But even the echo of thunder could leave a path across the heart.
"Kiyono Raimei."
Ei lowered her head, hiding her eyes. She bit her lip, and her voice fell almost too low to hear.
"I have missed you."
Kiyono Raimei, I have missed you.
"I have missed you too. Throughout this last century, I missed you and wanted to see you. I wanted you to leave Tenshukaku."
Kiyono Raimei spoke softly.
"But now I must go. Even if I return, I will no longer be Kiyono Raimei."
The cigarette reached its end, and the consciousness within the heart began to disperse. Kiyono Raimei coughed softly again and waved to Ei as he turned to leave.
"Ei, I have to go."
"Please leave this pavilion. Look upon Inazuma. Look upon its people. Look at the gift I left for you—the clean and flawless spring."
"I wrote this in a letter. Now I want to say it to you myself."
"Ei, if I can't see you again..."
"My dear Raiden Ei, good morning, good afternoon, and good night."
The final echo vanished, like thunder withdrawing beyond the horizon and leaving endless silence behind.
But thunder was also the herald of spring. When the final peal of winter died, spring would enter the valley.
At last, Ei walked out of the endless pure land. She stepped beyond the heart that had imprisoned her and began walking toward spring.
Outside, the Raiden Shogun lost control of the body. Yet the puppet did not resist. Instead, a faint smile appeared upon the face that had always remained expressionless. With a helpless little smile, the Shogun closed her eyes.
Ei returned to the outside world.
When she opened her eyes, the first person she saw was Kunikuzushi.
The puppet she had abandoned.
Cracks spread across Kunikuzushi's skin, yet he was smiling. She had finally agreed to come out.
Clenching his teeth, he stared at his mother—the mother who had abandoned them.
"Beelzebul—"
His voice was soft.
"I have..."
"No." Kunikuzushi corrected himself. He looked proudly at Ei. "We have!"
The slash of Fudoshin overwhelmed the Musou no Hitotachi. Pure-white blade-light filled the heavens.
The puppet's expression became utterly solemn as he announced to the world, "We—the old man and I—we..."
"We have ascended!" he cried with laughter. "We won."
Raiden Ei looked at him.
"You won," she said softly.
She lowered her weapon. The eternally lonely thunder dispersed, and Kiyono's thunder rolled across Tenshukaku. It leapt between the clouds, and every person upon the streets of Inazuma heard its roar.
Rumble—
Rumble.
Kunikuzushi lowered his blade as well. The moment his strength left him, his body could no longer endure. He swayed, consciousness rapidly fading as exhaustion surged over him like a tide.
He fell backward with a smile still upon his lips.
"Hey. Someone invited you."
"Beneath the Sacred Sakura... Everyone will be there," he murmured, already barely conscious. "To drink."
"No one drinks with him..."
"He is... very lonely."
Raiden Ei watched the unconscious puppet for a long time. Then her gaze moved to the wooden box upon the steps.
Strangely, despite the violence of their battle, the box remained undamaged, as though both of them had deliberately avoided it.
Ei picked it up and opened it. A faint, sweet fragrance rose from within. The milk-white dango resembled snow beneath the first winter sun.
She tasted one.
Sweetness spread across her tongue and down her throat.
It was identical to the rain she had tasted that day, except that it carried none of the rain's bitterness.
"Kiyono Raimei," Ei whispered. "Good morning, good afternoon, and good night."
But some things had to be said face-to-face.
"If we meet again, I will offer you the same blessing."
A gathering beneath the Sacred Sakura...?
She truly should return to the mortal world. She should look upon this age, upon all beneath heaven, and upon spring. She should try to learn how to meet someone anew.
The thunder had passed, but thunder would always come again. Even if they met as strangers, she would try to know him—and this time, she would not miss him.
But Raiden Ei had overlooked one fact.
It was not spring.
Spring had already passed.
It was autumn.
When she opened the doors of Tenshukaku, bleak and desolate autumn light spread beneath an overcast sky. Red maple leaves covered the long steps, and endless rain shrouded Inazuma City.
There was no clear spring day.
And by the time she reached the Pillar General's mansion, the boy was already gone.