The vault looked like a forest after a slaughter.
Blood darkened the roots. The Samsara Deadwood Domain had already swallowed the Fatui elite—no corpses left, only torn masks and shattered Delusions glinting among the vines. What remained were a few shaking Gilded Brigade mercenaries and a clutch of academy elders on their knees.
From Nahida's vantage, though, all she saw was Idris—high above, sword in hand, blood on his coat—bearing down on men who were wailing for her by name.
"Little Lucky Grass King, save us!
"The Grand Sage—he's a demon!"
They crawled to her feet, hands clasped, voices breaking. The mercenaries edged closer too, as if the small god's shadow were a sanctuary.
Nahida's brows knit. Her kindness tugged one way; the scene tugged another. She lifted her gaze to Idris. He wiped Frostmourne clean without hurry and met her eyes with that infuriating calm.
"You arrived right on time," he said lightly. "I'm cleaning up traitors."
"Explain," she demanded, softer than a whisper and twice as sharp.
"I came to audit the undercroft and the Divine Machine." He nudged a scuffed Fatui mask with his boot. "These elders bought knives—mercenaries—and opened a door for Fatui carrying forbidden-knowledge canisters. They wanted me dead, and this place compromised. I obliged them, instead."
"Lies!" an elder shrieked, seizing the opening. He jabbed a trembling finger at the emptiness. "Look around—no Fatui corpses! Only us and hired guards. We brought protection because the Grand Sage threatened us over his new faction. He meant to purge us. We barely survived until Her Excellency arrived!"
They'd spotted the gap: the domain left no bodies. Nahida's eyes flicked between mask shards, clawed stone, and faces slick with terror. She hadn't witnessed the first blow. Doubt prickled.
"Is that true, Idris?" she asked.
"If you choose to think so, think so," he said, voice mild. "I've given you the facts I care to. Believe or don't; the sentence stands. They die."
The elders surged closer to Nahida, grasping at her robe hems. Idris's eyes chilled.
"Don't mistake Her Excellency for a seawall against me," he said, stepping forward. "If I choose a target, not even a god's silhouette will keep my blade from its work."
"Enough." Nahida floated a half-step between them—small, luminous, unyielding. "Both of you—enough."
She closed her eyes. Green light threaded from her fingers into the floor. Roots remember. Dew remembers. Padisarah remembers the morning wind; the Sanctuary's heartwood remembers everything. The vault's living ribs quivered, then projected impressions across the air like a pale-green mirage:
—Fatui insignias slipping through a service passage.
—Metal canisters etched with writhing sigils.
—Elders exchanging purse and key, a door-seal dimming.
—Idris walking in alone, the domain blooming, vines striking first at masked soldiers as the mercenaries hesitated and the elders fled backward.
The vision faded. The chamber's silence grew heavy.
Nahida opened her eyes. "Conspiracy with a foreign power. Trafficking in forbidden knowledge. Attempted assassination beneath the Sanctuary." Her voice didn't rise, but judgment weighed in every syllable. "All are capital crimes."
The elders' protests curdled into whimpers.
"Bind them," she ordered, power ringing out. Verdant sigils sketched around wrists and ankles; vines obeyed, cinching tight. "Disarm and detain the mercenaries. Those who threw down arms will stand trial; their handlers will face the highest penalty. The Fatui are dead—leave them; I'll purify the stain."
Idris watched her work, then lifted Frostmourne and let it point at the elders' throats. "Law is slow. Rot is fast."
"Justice is not murder dressed in efficiency," Nahida replied, eyes steady. "No one dies here tonight by your hand."
A long second stretched. Then Idris slid the sword a thumb's breadth back into its sheath—not surrender, merely delay.
"As Her Excellency wishes," he said. "They'll die after the law speaks."
Green luminescence rolled off Nahida's palms, washing the stone; the last smear of forbidden miasma frayed and vanished. Above them, faint bootfalls and shouted commands hinted that Cyno's cordon was closing.
One of the elders, desperate to the last, tried again. "Little Lucky Grass King—save us! He'll—"
"I will save Sumeru," Nahida said, gaze like a blade of new grass. "From Fatui poison. From forbidden knowledge. And from you."
The vines cinched tighter. Idris turned away to the sleeping face of the Divine Machine, already outlining at dawn: a proclamation of treason foiled, canister routes exposed, public trial announced. And if the law needed a sharper edge?
Well. He would be there—smiling, patient, and very, very prepared.
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