Beneath an overcast sky, thunder murmured in the distance.
Ei heard that low rumble again, rolling above the heavy banks of cloud.
But this time, it was much closer. Lightning poured through the breaks in the leaden sky, setting the entire Plane of Euthymia flickering with its radiance.
So close.
As though it were right outside the door.
Yet she could not get out.
Ei did not know what she was waiting for. Just as the Shogun had said, lightning vanished the instant it crossed the sky, never to return. All it left behind was an echo. She listened to that faint reverberation beyond the clouds, unable to understand why her heart stirred at the sound.
Within Eternity, she had given up long ago.
The wind gradually grew restless. Bleak autumn gusts swept through the pavilion, and fallen leaves whispered hoarsely across the stillness of the Plane. Ei stood alone upon that boundless land, swinging her blade again and again at the fleeting phantoms before her.
—
The raging sea of fire slowly died away.
First, the dancing Crimson Lotus Moths began to fall. The flames trailing behind them guttered out, baring pale, translucent wings. But once their fire was spent, nothing remained except ash. The moths were no different: the instant they touched the ground, their bodies collapsed into dust.
Once the fuel within the heart went cold, the flames could never rise again.
La Signora could no longer summon her power.
She awoke from her frenzy. She was no longer the Witch of Flames.
She was only Rosalyne.
She would rather have remained mad than face reality. She would rather have continued down that illusory path until the fire consumed her completely.
Weakness and exhaustion surged over her body like a tide, threatening to drown her. Yet what truly engulfed La Signora was not physical fatigue, but the vast, barren emptiness within her heart.
"Ah... Ah..." she breathed.
The air reeked of smoke. Ash rose upon the wind, staining all of Tenshukaku a murky gray. Only one thing still shone brightly: the heart before her, so close that she could almost reach it.
It remained beautiful, as clear as a brilliant jewel. Its gentle, tender glow suffused the haze, gilding every drifting mote of ash.
As she felt that warmth, La Signora remembered that day in Mondstadt. The thousand winds had scattered, and the gloom before her had receded with them. Sunlight spilled from the open sky, and the sea glittered beneath a blue so clear it seemed freshly washed. That heart had sheltered her then, shining with the same warmth it did now.
But today, its light no longer fell upon her.
"Why..." La Signora lowered her eyes, her pale lips moving soundlessly. Only after a long while did she seem to return to herself. "Why?"
Why?
Why...
Why?
Why was it no longer her?
Why, why, why? That pure-white dream, the end of the hourglass, the promise they had once made—had all of it been nothing but an illusion?
But it had been their dream.
It had been the path they shared.
La Signora did not understand. All she could feel was an overwhelming void.
She stared at Lumine, at the girl sheltered by the young wolf's heart. Even now, Lumine held the boy close and guarded him with her own body. Moth-fire had scorched her clothes, and ash dulled her beautiful golden hair.
She was badly wounded, battered and too weak even to stand. Yet her golden eyes remained fixed upon La Signora with the ferocity of a cornered beast. She shielded Kiyo behind her and refused to yield.
Why are you protecting her?
Rostam.
She does not love you.
She loves another boy.
Not you.
Then La Signora suddenly realized something. Details she had deliberately ignored began surfacing one after another. Her pupils widened as her gaze fell upon the sword lying on the floor.
She had seen that blade before.
Its name was Kamigiri, and Kiyono Fugin had wielded it.
The boy called Kiyo Seigan used the very same sword.
Was it merely a coincidence?
But Venti had said that Rostam was truly dead—that he could never return. The Anemo Archon of Mondstadt had told her so himself.
La Signora looked away from Lumine and toward Kiyo. Her gaze trembled.
His wounds were terrible. The heat had burned away nearly half the blood in his body. Skin that had once been fair was now withered and grayish yellow, like bark rotting from a dead tree. His eyelids quivered. Even unconscious, he seemed to feel the pain. His teeth clenched as sweat beaded upon his skin, and a low, tortured sound escaped from deep within his throat.
She had done this.
I loathe you.
Everything about you.
Of everyone in this world... you are the one I loathe most.
"You are not Rostam." La Signora stared at Kiyo and murmured, "You cannot be."
"Of course he isn't," Lumine said softly.
"He is my Kiyo Seigan."
There was a trace of pride in her voice.
Lumine raised her eyes and stared directly at La Signora.
"Your Rostam died by your hand long ago."
"No. He cannot be... He cannot. Rostam would understand me. Rostam would support me..." La Signora's eyes shifted again. "Rostam was a pure and honorable knight. He valued honor. He would never resort to such methods. Yes..."
By "such methods," Rosalyne meant what Kiyo had done to protect Lumine: wearing down her opponent before the duel had even begun.
As though she had finally found proof, she continued, "He would never use such tactics to violate the fairness of a duel. He was always upright. He would never trample upon his own dignity this way."
"Nor would he..." La Signora paused. Remembering what she had seen in Chinju Forest, she turned from Kiyo toward the unconscious Torachiyo and said with disgust, "Protect something corrupted."
That was why she had never suspected Kiyo's identity.
Rostam had been a pure and righteous knight. He would never consort with corruption and filth, nor would he violate the sanctity of a duel. He could never be so contemptible. Rostam was not supposed to be that kind of man.
"Rostam is dead," Lumine said without a trace of emotion. "The Rostam you speak of exists only in your imagination. He is nothing but your wishful fantasy."
"You expected Rostam to be that man. But perhaps you never loved Rostam at all. What you loved—what obsessed you—was the dead Rostam, and every image you imposed upon him. You have only ever loved him after his death."
Lumine lowered her eyes. Her slender fingers gently stroked Kiyo's pale hair, and a faint smile touched her lips. To La Signora, it was unbearably piercing, like needles driven one after another into the tenderest part of her heart.
"He is a proud man. In every life, pride—or perhaps honor—has mattered more to him than his own life. It is the thing he treasures most."
Lumine's voice turned solemn.
"But for someone he loves, he will cast aside the thing he treasures most."
La Signora swayed. She shook her head with difficulty. "Rostam... was not like that. He never..."
"He never did it for you." Lumine paused, then gave a cold laugh. "That only means he never loved you."
"That is not true," La Signora repeated. "It is not true. He was no such contemptible mortal... Honor meant everything to him..."
"Or perhaps—"
La Signora's face was reflected in Lumine's golden eyes. Within them was nothing but naked malice.
"To kill you, to stop you, to reject your path and that so-called dream of yours, he was willing to throw away the honor he valued above all else."
"Rosalyne."
"That is how deeply he loathes you."
"You convinced yourself it was a dream the two of you shared. But the truth is, you were always alone upon that twisted, filthy road."
The needles sank into her heart, yet drew no blood. Nothing remained within La Signora but ash.
She took another step back. The heart was right before her, clear enough to touch, yet she could no longer see it. She could no longer understand it.
Step after step, she retreated.
She looked at Kiyo once more. Every burn upon his body had been carved there by her own hand.
"Rosalyne."
Lumine spoke one final time.
"Everyone recognized him. Yae Miko, Hanachirusato—all of them. Everyone recognized him except you. All his old friends will meet him again."
"Everyone but you."
La Signora retreated again, overcome by a suffocating helplessness. At last, she walked out of Tenshukaku, her eyes still fixed upon Kiyo and the wounds covering his body.
The dark clouds that had gathered throughout the day finally broke. Rain struck the steps of Tenshukaku, sparse at first, then rapidly thickening until the world vanished behind a white curtain of water. The heavy scent of earth rose as the rain beat down the dust, while the maple leaves only burned brighter beneath the evening storm.
La Signora withdrew her gaze. She looked no longer at those wounds. Rain poured over her as she descended the steps, her eyes hollow and lightless, until her figure disappeared into the mist.
The Raiden Shogun did not stop her.
The Duel Before the Throne had ended in a draw.
Lumine could no longer raise her sword, and La Signora could no longer kindle her flames. With neither able to defeat the other, there was no victor and no defeated challenger. La Signora was therefore free to leave.
But another duel awaited her tomorrow.
Her duel with Kunikuzushi.
The final one.
The Raiden Shogun watched La Signora depart. Though the woman still walked, she seemed to be nothing more than an empty shell. The Shogun gave a slight shake of her head.
—
Rain fell over the Pillar General's mansion, leaving it cold and deserted.
Dense pine branches stitched slanting lines across the sky, whispering in the evening downpour. Autumn desolation had settled early upon the ancient courtyard. La Signora did not know why she had returned here.
The cenotaph still stood beneath the pines, exposed to the bleak rain. Water churned the deep-green moss covering its stone.
La Signora had thought of many things along the way. Gradually, she had begun to understand.
Kamigiri's first owner had been the man named Kiyono Raimei.
She looked at the gravestone and lightly touched it with her slender fingers, drawing them back the instant they made contact.
"He loved Inazuma," a voice said behind her.
La Signora turned. An old man sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a plain white kimono. The Great Tengu raised his dim eyes toward her.
"He loved the people of this land more than anything," he continued with a nostalgic smile. "Especially the common folk. He even used to run a tofu shop. And when he died, he died for ordinary mortals."
"Is that so...?" La Signora faltered.
Yet the pure-white world she pursued had no place for mortals.
Come to think of it, the young wolf had died protecting the people of Mondstadt. La Signora had believed those weak mortals responsible for his death, and so her pure-white new world would have no place for weakness or corruption.
That was the dream she had twisted beyond recognition, then convinced herself they had shared.
From beginning to end, Rostam had never changed.
"Let me tell you a secret." The Great Tengu paused. "In his final battle, that man fought alongside the departed souls of the Pillar Army—the very beings you would call corruption."
Alongside corruption...?
Ha.
Alongside corruption.
La Signora smiled, but it was a bleak and broken smile, as desolate as the ancient courtyard beneath the autumn rain.
"It all fits."
She repeated softly, "...It all fits."
Kiyono Raimei and Kiyo Seigan had always been the same. Neither had ever changed.
"That tofu shop you mentioned..." La Signora paused. "Where is it?"
By the time she reached Konda Village, dusk had faded completely. She followed a street carpeted in red maple leaves and finally found the little shop at the end of an alley.
Kiyono's Tofu Shop.
At last, she had come here.
Everything had returned to where it began.
When Kiyono Fugin died, she had met a peddler in Mondstadt. Something he said that day had remained with Rosalyne ever since.
"Letters give shape to memories, and food gives flavor to memories. Encountering a flavor is akin to encountering a person."
Kiyono Raimei—Rostam—had once left behind a flavor here that belonged to him alone.
If she could encounter it, if she could taste it, might she finally understand him?
She wanted to understand Rostam.
Rosalyne walked through the village, feeling the fine rain upon her skin and breathing in the air of Konda Village. She took in every cluster of late-blooming sakura at the street corners, every bright scale upon the carp streamers, every red lantern and festive door charm.
This was a land Rostam had known. A land he had loved. A land for which he had given his life.
And it was a land the Fatui—a land she herself—had trampled and ravaged.
For the first time, she wanted to understand it all.
But then—
She saw from afar that the red lantern before the tofu shop had been taken down.
Gradually, La Signora understood.
The shop had closed for the day.
No. It had shut down entirely.
She stood before the wooden doors and knocked, but no one answered.
A passing villager saw her there and kindly explained, "The tofu shop is closed for now. The proprietress left Narukami Island, so she shut the place down. It won't be opening again anytime soon."
"Why?"
"Because of that Harbinger, of course."
The old villager spoke as though the answer were obvious, growing indignant at the mere mention of the Fatui.
"A high-and-mighty Harbinger went after the young fellow who worked here. Lady Guuji was so furious that she went charging straight to Inazuma City... Without its proprietress, the tofu shop naturally had to close."
"It won't open again for a long time."
...Ha.
Ha.
"I see," La Signora murmured, her face utterly blank.
Ha.
So it was her again.
"You should head home. It's raining," the old man said, giving her one last glance before walking away. "You can always come another time."
Another time would not be too late.
But there would be no other time.
All his old friends would meet him again.
Everyone but her.
La Signora's face remained expressionless. She appeared almost calm. But when the old man's silhouette finally disappeared into the rain, she was once more alone in that vast, white world.
She knocked upon the wooden door, but nothing on the other side would ever answer her.
A letter she would never see. A door she would never open. A memory she would never taste. A heart she would forever drift toward and never touch.
They would never meet again.
Rosalyne sank onto the steps with her back against the door. Resting her cheek against the cold, solid wood, she breathed in the scent of its age and decay. Then she took out the Hydro Timepiece.
Cracks spread across its broken glass like a spiderweb.
The sand inside had run out long ago.
It had left long ago, never to return, just like the wind. The wind had died in the place closest to spring, while the sand had scattered across five hundred years.
Neither wind nor sand could ever return.
Only regret remained.
Only tears.
They slipped from her face and struck the bottom of the timepiece, their shattered gleam mingling with the broken glass.
The timepiece had stood still for five hundred years. Its sand had scattered before completing that long journey.
Only her tears reached, in a single instant, the end the sand had failed to find in centuries.