A few thin clouds drifted across the pitch-black night sky, and the enormous moon cast a cold, pale light over the world.
A great ship floated between sea and sky like a wandering soul with no destination. Carried by wind and waves, it drifted freely across the endless ocean.
"A shattered mirror meets the clear moon, a lone boat upon a sea of clouds."
A white-haired youth sat at the edge of the ship, admiring the moon and feeling the breath of nature around him.
"Reciting poetry again?"
"Come see what I brought you."
A clear, bright female voice sounded from beside him.
Turning his head, he saw Beidou walking over to Kazuha with a bottle in hand.
"Is that... wine?" Kazuha's interest was immediately piqued.
"I heard you like this stuff. I picked some up back in Liyue."
"After all, you've helped us predict several storms. Ever since you came aboard, our voyages have gone much more smoothly."
Hearing that, a faint smile appeared on Kazuha's face. "If you hadn't gotten me out of Inazuma back then, I probably would've already become a walking corpse with no wish left to live."
"That was nothing." Beidou waved it off. "Come on, try this. It should be pretty good." As she spoke, she handed Kazuha a cup.
"I brought my own." Kazuha reached into his clothes and produced an elegant little cup.
"That's... not a wine cup, is it?" Beidou stared at it. No matter how she looked, it just didn't seem like something for alcohol.
"It's a teacup," Kazuha explained.
"You drink wine with a teacup?" Beidou honestly hadn't expected this seemingly normal kid to pull something that weird.
Drinking wine from a teacup was like eating noodles with a spoon. It just felt wrong.
It didn't match Kazuha's usual calm style at all.
So Beidou was thoroughly confused.
"Mhm. I'll use this."
"...Fine."
Seeing that Kazuha clearly wasn't going to change his mind, Beidou uncorked the bottle, filled her own cup to the brim, then poured some into Kazuha's teacup.
The two of them clinked cups, then downed the drink in one go, shouting in unison:
"Refreshing!"
"Drinking under the moon's pretty nice," Beidou said, glancing up at the bright moon hanging high above.
"This is how life should be," Kazuha replied. After draining the wine from his teacup, his gaze turned unusually deep.
After a few more rounds, when Beidou reached over to pour Kazuha another cup, he placed his hand over the teacup.
Beidou frowned and looked up. In response, Kazuha only shook his head.
"Seriously, Kazuha? You're done after just five cups!?" Beidou was a little stunned.
"No more."
"Don't you love drinking? Don't tell me that's all you can handle."
To put things in perspective, even if Kazuha filled that teacup five times, it still wouldn't equal one of Beidou's cups.
Stopping after that little really did surprise her.
"Good wine is wonderful," Kazuha said, looking down at the empty teacup as if remembering something. "But you still have to drink in moderation. If you drink too much..."
"And if you drink too much, what happens?" Beidou asked.
"If you drink too much, it's easy to cause trouble," he answered.
"What trouble could you possibly cause out here? You gonna get drunk and hurl yourself into the sea?" Beidou sighed helplessly.
"I don't know. But staying clear-headed is important. No matter where you are, or what the situation is."
"If you're not drinking, I'm finishing the rest. You're sure you're done?"
"I'm done. You can have it."
"Huh. So you don't love fine wine as much as I thought..." Beidou muttered, then tipped her head back and drank in big gulps.
Kazuha didn't respond to that last comment. He only looked quietly at the cup in his hand.
While Beidou kept drinking, Kazuha carefully rinsed the cup, wiped it clean, and put it away.
"That cup... it's important to you, isn't it?" Beidou asked curiously when she saw how careful he was with it.
After all, she had never seen Kazuha treat anything with that level of care. The way he handled that cup was almost like looking after a child—thorough and gentle.
"Mhm. It was given to me by someone from the past," Kazuha said as he returned and leaned against the ship's railing again.
"I remember... that other empty shell of a Vision you have..."
"Yes. It was his."
Beidou paused for a moment, then suddenly understood why Kazuha guarded something as simple as a cup so seriously.
She knew what it meant for a Vision to become an empty shell.
It was obvious that person had been important to Kazuha.
"Big Sis, if I remember right, you hold the Crux Clash every year, don't you?" Kazuha asked, watching the moonlight ripple across the sea's surface.
"Yeah. Why? You planning to enter?" Beidou hadn't expected him to change topics that quickly.
"I won't enter. But I want this to be the tournament prize." As he spoke, Kazuha took out that empty-shell Vision.
Beidou was stunned. The confusion she already had only doubled.
"This thing's important to you, isn't it? And you want to hand it out as a prize for the Crux Clash?" She couldn't wrap her head around his thinking.
"Mhm. Is that alright?" he asked.
"It's alright," Beidou said. "But I need to know why."
Kazuha fell silent for a moment, then finally spoke.
"This was the Vision of a friend. When the Vision Hunt Decree first began, he challenged the Raiden Shogun—the supreme ruler of Inazuma—to save me. He died there. I escaped Inazuma carrying his Vision."
"A Vision is a gift the gods grant to mortals. People accept that gift—yet now they're being forced to hand it over for no reason at all. And losing it may even cost them their lives."
"If each of the Seven Archons has their own standards for granting Visions to people... then does the Raiden Shogun's Vision Hunt Decree mean she's begun to doubt her original judgment?"
"I want to know what a Vision truly means to the gods. And what compels them to make decisions like this."
"A Vision can appear out of nowhere in the hands of anyone with a powerful wish. But when that person dies, the Vision doesn't disappear with them. Instead, it becomes an empty shell. Can it still be awakened again?"
Beidou listened, thought for a while, then slowly nodded. She seemed to understand… mostly.
"So, you want to offer this empty-shell Vision as the prize to see if anyone out there can awaken it again?" she asked, putting it into her own words.
"Yes."
"So we'll need to add a new rule to the Crux Clash," Beidou said. "Only people without a Vision can enter."
"This is a favor I'll owe you, Big Sis," Kazuha said quietly.
Reluctance flickered in his eyes as he removed the empty-shell Vision and handed it to Beidou.
"It's no trouble. There'll definitely be plenty of people who want something like this," Beidou said, taking the Vision with full seriousness. "I'll do it."