Sensing the emotion warring within Watatsumi's Kokomi, Kujou Sara decided to be frank with her.
"This is no longer a matter that can be negotiated. While I understand you have your grievances, seeing as you have done nothing about it..."
She trailed off, searching for the right words.
"This has already affected the lives of many Inazumans who were formerly living on this island."
Ultimately, she could not phrase it in a way that would be easily digestible for the other party.
Still, Kujou Sara thinks this is trivial for Watatsumi's Kokomi.
Sangonomiya Kokomi's hands are already stained with the blood of soldiers who followed her commands, after all.
Such words are nothing to her.
"This matter will now be handled by the Shogunate. Watatsumi shall cooperate regardless of everything else."
Perhaps Kujou Sara--whose mind at this very moment was connected through Dantalion's, albeit solely for processing information--was still being influenced despite her successful naming.
Sangonomiya Kokomi's standing posture, her gaze lowered toward the ground where Kujou Sara stood, shoulders that seemed to have already lost their strength.
The Watatsumi leader couldn't even muster the strength to look the Tengu General in the eye.
With the sky still rumbling, darkened clouds overhead, and lightning strikes that seemingly targeted only what the General sought to find.
Is there anything she could do at this point?
What can she say to solve this?
Is there a way to--
Every possibility, every path the Watatsumi leader could think of always led to a certain ending that the Tengu General had already laid out.
Still, she continued listening to the Tengu General.
What else could she do?
It wasn't as though she intended to save those extremist cultists.
This was their rightful end the moment they endangered the lives of the innocent.
Kujou Sara looked at the seemingly pitiful appearance of Sangonomiya Kokomi. Thinking for a moment, she added:
"If we had met under different circumstances, you would have become a fine officer."
Dantalion and Atsuko continued watching everything from a distance.
Though Atsuko couldn't hear anything, what she could see should be enough to infer the situation, right?
Dantalion had no particular thoughts on Kujou Sara's actions.
Honestly, he couldn't care less how they concluded this.
He was only interested in the war because it had seemingly produced something he didn't yet have a firm grasp on.
Well, that's that, and it had already passed.
He turned his gaze to Atsuko beside him, observing her directly without hiding it. This lasted for a few seconds before he spoke.
"Atsuko," he called out to her. "From this point on, you will follow me until I see fit. Every need of your family and yours will be met with a guarantee from me."
As for his reason...
It doesn't matter.
Atsuko, suddenly hearing something that seemingly tied her life to another, looked over, putting her binoculars down.
Her mouth hung open for a moment before she consciously closed it, but an expression of disbelief remained on her face.
Regardless, she didn't ask for this!
What is he saying now?
What he's saying is something any other person her age would have agreed to right away. Who in their right mind would not want their parents to live in comfort, with nothing to worry about besides what they want to do next in their leisure?
But while that might be a good thing, the consequence is that she will have to go against everything she values most--to live life on her own terms, to follow--
Dantalion seemed to sense her hesitation. "It is my fault for not explaining it properly," he said, his tone softening.
"I am not asking you to obey me. I am asking you to travel the world--to live, to experience it however you wish, so that I may feel them through you."
He made it sound like he wanted nothing in return. That was the entire point.
After all, someone like him has no need for orders or demands to achieve his goals.
If he has to: 'I will force you into circumstances where you would desire what I desire for myself.'
Still, there is no need for Atsuko to know that. Dantalion is not a villain, either. Compromising Atsuko for no reason is just stupid.
He is just far more limited right now than the scale of his curiosity.
As Dantalion looked at Atsuko, he couldn't help but feel a little guilt. 'If only the others had the same desire as Atsuko to venture into the world...'
The only one he could see signs of such desire in was the Silent Liliane. Still, he did select most of them precisely because they were not the type to move around the world often.
Atsuko's stare subtly changed.
"Hmm. Let's have a walk. Let's ignore Kujou Sara's affairs for now."
Dantalion suggested, standing up and gesturing for Atsuko to do the same.
Atsuko did not object and followed him, walking a little behind him but still close enough to be considered beside each other.
Dantalion intended to walk every path in the village.
And as they walked, gaining some distance from their initial location, they walked in silence.
"..."
"..."
"..."
But before Atsuko could ask something along the lines of, 'Aren't you going to say something?'
She wasn't sure if he had done it on purpose, but after she had the intention to ask, he finally said something.
"I don't want to cloud your judgment by saying some corny lines to get you emotionally attached to the idea."
"..."
Atsuko slowed down her pace, intentionally falling behind Dantalion--no longer just a little behind him but creating clear distance, a contrast to before when they could still be considered walking beside each other.
Though Dantalion noticed this, he did not say anything.
Thinking, yeah, that's the natural reaction... especially when you had no choice but to stay, despite your intent and thoughts seemingly being broadcast to the other person.
'Sara's just abnormal as fuck...'
Silently comparing the reactions of the two to the same situation.
This created a distance of two meters between them.
"But if you want to, I think I can bear the shame and embarrassment for a bit."
She looked at the back of Dantalion's head as she heard this from him.
Initially, she was interested in what Dantalion meant earlier, but now...
I would've punched him in the back of his head and run if I were as strong as the General... Her thoughts did not carry the same fire as before.
After a minute of silence, with nothing but the sound of the desolate environment of the cursed Higi Village, he continued what he was saying earlier.
"It may not look like it, but I am restricted to where Kujou Sara is. I can't stray away from her as it is physically impossible for me."
He said this without looking back at Atsuko, just exploring the abandoned village.
Atsuko listened.
But Dantalion gave it a pause. After all, this walk was mainly because he wanted to personally see everything.
"...I want to experience this world."
Dantalion noticed a clothesline that still had old clothes hanging from it.
He walked over and took them down, folding them and going inside the house to place them.
Atsuko did not follow inside, waiting for him outside on the dirt path.
After that, they continued.
"Many desire wings to fly beyond where they stood." Dantalion picked up a farm tool that was left outside. [1]
It would rust if left alone.
"And as adults, whether it be financial freedom, time to call our own, the health to enjoy it, the power to speak without fear, or simply the space to feel without being crushed by whatever--" He turned the tool in his hand, watching how the light caught some of its remaining clean edge.
"--it all comes back to the same thing. We are not looking for money, or leisure, or even happiness. We are looking for a way to live without chains."
If Dantalion were to put it in a way that relates to his previous life, it would be this:
"Back then, to where I came from, if you have an overwhelming amount of money, every emergency, violation, and problem becomes trivial."
"Every issue in the world would be solved for you. Inflation would not affect you because the amount you have is too overwhelming to be affected. Your health will be resolved because you can finally afford a healthy and nutritious diet. Every single problem you have will be fixed with money."
"Even the things you thought money couldn't buy."
The anger he felt in the first few days after he woke up was real. He had been restraining it, keeping it to himself--but it is undeniable that if he hadn't woken up inside Kujou Sara, he would have rampaged and been slain by the Raiden Shogun.
They had practically removed him from the haven he himself had painstakingly built and placed him at the very bottom to start again.
Even now, he does not have a concrete idea of what he wants to do yet.
"But I guess even that still somewhat applies here, right?"
'I wonder if this is enough connection for her?' Dantalion asked himself, as he kept talking.
He chuckled for a moment and said, "I don't know if you guys are fortunate or the opposite."
This world does not demand the presence of others.
If one has the means, one can exist entirely 'truly' alone.
Be that as it may be, Atsuko asked for this.
"Wings to fly above those trivial things."
Dantalion cleaned the tool as he wrapped it in paper, proceeding to go inside the nearest house to where he found the tool, placing it inside.
"Everyone wants wings," He said as he returned, "but none of them can agree on where to land. And when someone tells them where to land, they call it wisdom, or love, or duty--when in truth, they've only given away their wings to whoever gave them that direction."
He looked onto the empty street.
"But who am I to say, really?" Dantalion added. "It's not like I have wings of my own."
"Though I can certainly say that Kujou Sara has multiple."
He continued after a step.
But this time, he didn't say it out loud for Atsuko to hear.
'But Kujou Sara is already using one pair of her wings, so it's not fair to have her as an example.'
To Dantalion, and especially to Ei, Kujou Sara is already living the life that she wants. Whether that life is something many would not consider as living doesn't matter--it was a life Kujou Sara herself had decided on.
However, as Dantalion had said, she has multiple.
To Atsuko, what Dantalion was trying to say was clear.
"..."
Atsuko's stare lingered on Dantalion for a long moment, the wind tugging at her hair.
"So you want me to... travel, see what I want to see... and tell you about it?"
Inside Kujou Sara, Dantalion's true body, his face felt like twitching, the corner of his eye subtly twitching as he smiles.[2]
"Not tell," Dantalion said, brushing dust from his hands. "Show me. However you wish. Speak it aloud, whisper it into the air, write it in the sand--I will hear it."
Atsuko let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. That didn't sound like a chain. It sounded almost... freeing.
No orders. No leash. Just someone waiting to listen.
She nodded once, hesitant, though the doubt in her eyes had softened.
"Then I will."
Dantalion's gaze lingered on her, unreadable--but there was the faintest curve of satisfaction on his lips.
"Perfect."
Seemingly putting on a gesture of being reminded of something, with a soft, small smile on his face, he said;
"Come close to me. I know that you were worried it'd leave a scar."
Hearing that, Atsuko knew what he was talking about right away.
It was, after all, something she had been thinking about quite often. She just couldn't get her mind off of it.
Atsuko looked at her bandaged forearm.
Even though she already knew that such a wound would definitely leave an ugly scar.
And she was lucky enough that she survived and only got a stab wound.
Making her parents stressed and worried is something she absolutely does not enjoy.
'No... it doesn't matter anymore now.' She wasn't even sure if her own attempts to convince herself used the right words and phrases for what she was actually feeling.
But it would seem that such worries aren't needed anymore.
She set her gaze back to Dantalion in front of her, who was extending his hand toward her.
All five fingers pointed toward where she stood, while his palm was angled.
Stepping forward, closing the distance that she had created previously.
As she reached her desired distance, she lifted her wounded arm and let it fall into Dantalion's extended hand, letting him catch it.
Later that evening.
"You didn't invite the 'you would have become a fine officer'?" Dantalion looked at Kujou Sara's face, an expression of surprise plastered on his own. "What are you doing? That's just wrong!"
Kujou Sara's hand covered her eyes as she leaned her head back, her face toward the dark, cloudy sky.
"That's just wrong!" He repeated. "This would've been the perfect time to comfort her privately!"
"What a missed opportunity!" Dantalion annoyingly pestered her more. "You could have gained a gay relationship, but you just had to ruin it by not being proactive enough."
"What a fucking disappointment--"
"Shut up." Kujou Sara interrupted his nonsense, rubbing her temple as she looked above.
She had not been able to find what she came for.
Though she had found the executors, she had no idea where the initiator was.
She knew that these moronic cultists did not have the guts to think of releasing the Tatarigami without the encouragement of a third party.
After all, though they believe something to their core, that doesn't mean the Shogun suddenly becomes ineffective to them.
If they do something reckless, like endangering others because of their antics, they are fully aware that they would be wiped out.
So while they are free to think, behave, and act the way they want, they are not immune to the consequences that would result from it.
Especially when the god they believe in had already been slain by the very god that governs them long before they were even conceived.
They have a clear distinction of what they can get away with and what would send them to their graves.
Thus, it is very unlikely for them to do something like this on their own.
"Tell me where it is." Kujou Sara spoke without looking at the illusory avatar he uses, opting to continue staring at the cloudy sky.
"Sangonomiya Kokomi's home--?"
"Stop messing around. Why did you let the initiator escape?" At this, she looked at Dantalion.
He was wearing some shade of magenta long-sleeved shirt along with a light pink tie and ivory pleated, high-waisted trousers held by cream-colored suspenders instead of a belt.
White gloves covered his hands.
Some would even question; what the fuck is he wearing?
Hearing what Kujou Sara had said, instead of answering her question properly, he just gave her a look that visually stated: Are you fucking for real?
After that, he averted his eyes to what he was cooking.
With a small smile on his face, he instead said:
"I will bring Atsuko with us to Liyue, where she will be left behind." He gave it a pause, but without giving anyone the intention to intervene in what he was saying, he continued, "During our stay in Liyue, she will be handling all the errands, from our meals to our accommodations and comfort."
"So this will probably be the last time you will be able to taste the cooking of a perfect being."
Serving himself what he had cooked, he urged Atsuko to do the same, then Dantalion continued speaking after sitting in his seat.
"You don't have to worry about your--may or may not be long--absence here in Inazuma. I will talk about what could be done with the Shogun."
Kujou Sara had the urge to retort by saying something along the lines of: What gives you the authority to negotiate with--
It was just a fleeting thought. She herself knew it was stupid to say that when he had not even prevented her from seeing that he was indeed qualified to bargain for what he wanted with her Excellency, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho, God of Thunder.
After saying that, Dantalion said nothing more.
Still, he had to remind her.
"Eat first. We will talk about that after."
-Chapter End-
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[1] : There it comes, the lines he promised to her a minute ago! It was promised to her 3000 years ago!
[2] : I am not great at writing yet to explain how he felt cringe without saying it outright. So I'll just say it here, he felt the cringe in that.