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“Welcome to Watatsumi Island, General Kujou, I trust that your journey wasn’t troublesome.” The divine priestess, Sangonomiya Kokomi greets with a shallow bow of her head, a serene smile perfectly poised on her lips as Sara climbs the grand staircase towards the shrine itself.
“It wasn’t, thank you,” she returns cordially. She takes the moment to admire her surroundings: the several cascading waterfalls and tranquil mists, bright pastel corals and of course, the grand Sangonomiya Shrine itself. “You have a beautiful home.”
Kokomi giggles behind her gloved hand. “It is different from the great mountains of Narukami, no? I hope that you don’t feel too far out of your element, General.”
An average onlooker would bat an eye at the remark, as friendly and bright as Kokomi’s inflection made it sound. But at the mention of the lack of mountains and the scarcity of trees—something that she’s made a point of ignoring since docking on the island—Sara feels her skin prickle and her wings strain against her flesh, already seeking and yearning for both.
There’s a knowing glint that passes over the priestess’s irises, but it’s gone just as fast as Sara perceived it. Refusing to be put off balance so quickly, she inhales and pushes the sensations out of her mind. “Shall we begin the peace talks?” she pointedly changes the subject.
“Of course. Right this way.”
Flanked by their respective guards, they both enter the shrine proper and are promptly left alone inside of a spacious private room where Sara immediately takes note of the tea set laid out in anticipation of their arrival.
“As your hostess, I devised that holding a tea ceremony would be appropriate,” Kokomi explains and approaches a stone basin out on the balcony of the room to wash her hands and rinse her mouth.
Sara may not have been born a noblewoman, but she’s learned enough to know the basics of what a tea ceremony entails. Starting with— “But neither of us are dressed for the occasion.”
As the priestess dries herself of the purifying water, she chuckles dismissively. “I don’t see how clothing would impede on our enjoyment of the ceremony itself. Let’s consider this a much needed exception considering all that has happened.”
What does she mean by that? Sara certainly couldn’t determine. Sidestepping Kokomi’s strategies on the battlefield is something she is used to. The flow of combat she experiences against the Sangonomiya forces is not unlike a river, a ribbon of water cutting through earth she can readily adapt and learn the turns and bends no matter how unexpected. In the end, she understands them to be inevitable.
However, the woman’s way of speaking, the ins and outs she employs of genuinity and undercut intent, Sara doesn’t know where to begin formulating a counterattack. No longer is this a battle beside a river, but rather a harrowing trek in a vast ocean.
I hope that you don’t feel too far out of your element.
Her wings strain once more. She wills them to be still.
“Are you simply going to stand there the whole time, General Kujou?” Kokomi muses. Already she had set the water to boil over a charcoal stove, and had begun to meticulously clean and arrange the utensils that she will be using for the ceremony.
“No. My apologies,” Sara says stiffly before mirroring the priestess’s earlier action of washing her hands and mouth. From here, the memory of her lessons relays, she is supposed to comment on some wall scroll or some other decor in a show of etiquette. But the room is sparse with only a few plants and a small altar off in the corner of the room where a bowl of food sat and a couple of sticks of incense burned.
In any case, Kokomi didn’t appear to be awaiting such comments, and so Sara opts for silence then. She sends an apology to her late adoptive mother for her rudeness before going to sit opposite from Kokomi. She watches as the woman expertly goes through the motions of the ceremony: taking out a folded handkerchief from her robes to wipe the serving bowl, carefully standing the bamboo whisk off to the side, and using that same kerchief to remove the lid of the heated kettle. The sound of scraping cast iron fills the room followed closely by the delicate slosh of water as a ladle scoops it from within the kettle. Then Kokomi pours the water into the cleaned bowl. Steam feathers up from it in soft wisps.
Perhaps if not for the unspoken tension in the air, and the pretense of their meeting, Sara would believe this to be relaxing, and that in some capacity she and Sangonomiya were good acquaintances. What would that world look like? she wonders.
“Now that we’re no longer enemies, I have many questions to ask you, General,” finally comes the break in the tranquility amidst Kokomi carefully measuring a spoonful of matcha powder.
She is going out of order, Sara observes. The water should’ve been for moisturizing the whisk, then matcha should’ve been first in the bowl followed by water— She forces her attention back to the conversation at hand. “Of course,” Sara nods. “We have a number of talking points regarding negotiations and—”
Kokomi’s giggle interrupts her. A flick of her wrist and the powder begins to froth in the hot water. “That isn’t what I was referring to. Rest assured that negotiations will happen, General Kujou, all in good time. For now let us speak without our respective pretexts.”
“Alright,” Sara says slowly, tinged with uncertainty as to what else the priestess would want to talk about. However, she is a guest—a role that she has accepted to perform for the sake of showcasing the Commission’s goodwill and openness for compromise with the people of Watatsumi. On paper, the sentiment is sound, however in practice, she feels as though she has allowed herself to walk into the maw of a waiting beast.
If the priestess wishes to merely make casual conversation, then Sara is in no position to refuse, only in the position to wait and watch for whether or not the maw will close around her.
“What I wish to ask you is if you’d be willing to provide insight regarding combat,” Kokomi begins, the bamboo whisk now in hand. “We’ve shared many battles together, albeit indirectly on my part. But you, on the contrary, have been present in the front lines for a majority, if not all of them. At least, according to my scouts.”
“My title as General does not absolve me from becoming involved in the thick of combat. My place is fighting beside my troops just as it does giving orders to them.”
Kokomi hums, not quite in admiration but rather an affirmation of what she already knew. She whisks the powder until it is fully dissolved. Satisfied, the priestess sets the whisk aside and takes the bowl in her hands, turning it about as per the ceremonial custom and sets it down on the mat in front of Sara.
In turn, Sara inhales, prostrating herself to bow in gratitude. For a fleeting moment, a mere flash of her paranoid imagination, she imagines the priestess bringing a blade down on her neck.
She banishes the notion, her fingers flexing with that invisible effort and her lungs spasming from the gasp that she suppresses.
Slowly, she rises to take the bowl into her own hands: one underneath to cradle it in her palm, with the other holding it by its side. Like Kokomi had, she turns the bowl about, though only by a few degrees, and takes a sip of the drink. The blend hits her tongue with a subtle sweetness that counteracts the bitter earthiness. Not too rich, she internally remarks. Soft on her taste buds, and a smooth transition into a pleasant and savory aftertaste. The balance between earth and water is struck perfectly.
“And your seldom employment of cunning strategies?” Kokomi continues. “What is the philosophy to be had there?”
Sara turns the bowl again until the spot she had drank from is facing away from Kokomi and sets it back down on the mat. Her hands fold themselves over her lap as she answers, “I trust in the strength of my troops and the will of the Shogun to see us to victory. There’s no profound school of thought, Sangonomiya.”
“I see.” She takes the bowl back and begins to mix another serving, this time a weaker blend for casual consumption for the both of them to enjoy. “Then that confirms it.”
“Confirms what?” Sara inquires, her head tilting curiously in spite of her need for neutrality.
“That I had assessed you correctly all along.”
“And what assessment would that be?”
Kokomi smiles and Sara meets it with an impassive stare despite the wariness that slams into the forefront of her senses. “That your strength—your unwavering faith in your troops, in your Shogun, or what have you—is and always will be your ultimate weakness.”
Sara says nothing, tries to give Kokomi nothing. But as the priestess continues to speak, it’s made utterly clear that any chance of that has long since been taken from her. “It’s almost insulting to think that I have in my arsenal dozens upon dozens of tomes with page counts in the hundreds filled with directives detailing what course of action to take should a certain scenario take place. My generals and captains are to know each of them and react accordingly. Countless hours of sleep lost to this, all to ensure that we stay one step ahead or maintain equal footing with the Tenryou Commission. And yet here you are, claiming that sheer will and faith in your Archon’s Eternity is what saw you all through to the end.”
“You are blaming me for pushing you to resort to such drastic means?”
“Perhaps I did when the war was first beginning,” Kokomi admits. She pauses long enough to place two fresh bowls of tea in front of both of them. “But no, strategizing is what I’ve studied a better part of my life to do. If the hands of fate hadn’t dealt me the cards of becoming the divine priestess like the rest of my family, I would’ve been content to be an advisor. Still, I find a certain degree of satisfaction knowing what I know.”
Sara doesn’t take the bowl. Not yet. The priestess’s tone maintains its serenity, making it sound as though she were merely discussing a minor inconvenience in this year’s harvest yields, and it doesn’t fail to unnerve her.
“Do you truly believe that the reason you still draw breath is because of the strength of your troops or the will of your Archon, General Kujou?”
“I do,” Sara says without hesitation, though an uncomfortable tug on her gut protests, and the slight ache in her side flares up despite having healed days ago, as if in reminder. A reminder of that day at the Tenshukaku.
“Incredible,” Kokomi breathes in genuine disbelief. “You truly have no idea.”
“I do not care for this roundabout talk, Sangonomiya,” Sara grounds, on the precipice of a growl. “Make your point or not at all.”
Of course, Kokomi obliges the former with a grin that exposes a canine that glints like a shining pearl. “You have no idea how many times you were so close to dying.”
Then she takes a drink.
The air stills. The charcoal stove crackles indifferently. Where the room was once a comfortable temperature with the welcome ocean breeze billowing in from the open balcony, it now prickled like icicles on Sara’s skin.
“…What?”
A hum. The priestess swallows her mouthful, and sets her bowl down. “I can count exactly twenty-five different occasions in which you would have perished in battle. Twenty-three of which hung by my command.”
Twenty- five ? No. “I don’t believe you.”
“I wouldn’t believe myself either if I hadn’t made a point to keep track.”
Sara narrows her eyes. “Let’s say that I do. What are the other two times?”
“One was a stray arrow. Your tengu reflexes serve you well,” she praises, but Sara doesn’t acknowledge it.
“And the other?”
Kokomi’s smile returns, wider this time and bemused. “You know the answer to that, General. Granted, it didn’t occur on the battlefield like the others, but I count it all the same.”
Didn’t occur— Wait. She couldn’t possibly...
“How do you know about that?” Sara demands.
The priestess shrugs. “It’s a long distance between Watatsumi and Narukami, General, and you know better than anyone that information is power, no?”
“You’ve planted a spy. ”
“Correction, a member of your ranks was already considering desertion until we settled that he would be better suited remaining where he was.”
“Who?”
“Don’t bother searching, General Kujou, he made it very clear that the condition to his espionage is that he would be able to disappear following the end of the war and I obliged him.”
“I see.”
“Such a stern look,” she remarks. “Would it be reassuring to know that the arrangement wasn’t perfect? One of my main directives for him was to maintain a low profile and not endanger himself by taking more than he could chew. The trade for safety over intel resulted in broken or incomplete reports. However, that being said, your rampage through the Shogunate estate was perhaps the most detailed retelling I have ever received.”
She leans closer, inspecting and studying Sara’s face. Meanwhile, Sara keeps perfectly still like stone—she will not break.
“I feel so cheated. In all my deliberations and planning, I’ve never thought to anticipate you fighting carnally like that.” Kokomi sighs. “Though, I suppose now I never will.”
“Your informant might have an affinity for embellishment,” Sara deadpans.
Kokomi hums non-committedly as her gaze flickers over to the tengu mask hanging off Sara’s head. “I’ve read stories of the yaksha in Liyue, how they would don masks when they engage in combat. Is that what you did that day? Did you hide your humanity behind that mask as you tore through the estate and its guards to enact your vengeance against the Harbinger?”
“What occurred that day wasn’t a bloodbath that you’re painting it as,” Sara continues to insist.
“No, of course not,” Kokomi concedes. “You still left them alive. Unconscious, but alive. You maintained humanity, but a question still stands. What had set you off, General?”
The diplomats of Snezhnaya promised a very generous reward indeed. I simply saw no reason to inform you. I am but safeguarding the eternity of the Kujou Clan, the voice of Kujou Takayuki rises up in response. She speaks over it, “I wasn’t ‘set off.’ I learned of the Fatui plot behind the Decree and sought to intervene, nothing more.”
“Nothing more,” she mocks, easily seeing through the half truth. “You single handedly defeated a legion of Shogunate soldiers then proceeded to challenge one of the Fatui Harbingers, and at half energy no doubt.”
“I did what I must. However, I’m not above admitting that my judgement was clouded that day.”
“Mm. And for it you had yet another brush with death. Life must smile fondly upon you, Kujou Sara, to have escaped Death as much as you have.”
Without even meaning to, Sara looks down at her Vision. The priestess has no way of knowing that she obtained the power to command Electro by way of a near death experience, she couldn’t know that story. But her point still stands. Sara has slipped through Death’s grasp more times than she can even fathom.
Sara glares at the woman. “Do you have a habit of prodding at your guests this way, Sangonomiya?”
Kokomi moves closer, a smooth and almost lazy act to match her voice dropping in octave. “Only the ones that have fascinated me.”
What can she possibly say in response? As taxing as confronting Kokomi on the battlefield is, at least it’s familiar—at least she has years of combat experience to draw from.
Sara’s instinct to revert back to a frame of reference conjures the voice of Yae Miko. The fox envoy’s smooth, dulcet tones that weave hidden intents with harsh truths wrapped in cool confidence. Cunning, yes, but in the end Yae Miko doesn’t lie. Brutal and coy as she is with the sword of truth, there is at least a sort of relief that comes with knowing what kind of outcome a strike like that will bring. Perhaps Sara knows this better than anyone else, and the taste of sakura saké rises to her tongue amidst the lingering matcha. It brought her a small semblance of comfort.
Meanwhile, Kokomi’s cunning is nothing but hidden intents, her verbal tapestry one of bright innocuous smiles befitting of a divine priestess, and the ruthlessness of a general who wields truth like a siren to lure with a song that sang, sickening and sweet, the harshest reality of them all: I know what can break you.
She should leave. She should thank the priestess for the tea, propose a rescheduling of the peace talks, and leave. But... her pride refuses to allow Sangonomiya the last word, and her curiosity to understand the inner machinations of this tactician’s mind keeps her seated.
“And what about me do you find fascinating?” she asks as flatly as she’s able.
“Your faith.”
“The one you call my weakness?”
“The very same. I find it entertaining to see your show of brute force in open warfare, shouting orders on the fly and your troops all scrambling to fall into line. But it’s effective, a true showcase of adaptability that I cannot deny the amount of trouble it’s caused for my plans.”
“You say that as if you hadn’t just claimed to have spared me on twenty-three separate occasions,” Sara mentions dryly.
Kokomi claps her hands together. “Oh so you are going to talk about that. I was beginning to worry that you’ve forgotten to be gracious for your life.”
“Gracious? I still don’t believe that number,” she protests. “Nor do I believe that you would choose to ignore a chance at removing me from the war equation entirely simply because you find me ‘entertaining’, ” she spits out the word like the insult that it is.
“Oh but it’s true, General. It would have been as easy as pointing my finger,” Kokomi raises a hand, her index finger stretched outward to press against Sara’s chest, right where her heart rests, “and having one of Gorou’s arrow strike you down. You’re free to believe what you want, of course. What you believe won’t erase the fact that you miraculously survived every battle against my forces, or how I felt towards you.”
Sara feels Kokomi languidly drag her finger away and trace upwards to flick a nail against the underside of her chin. The touch sends a sharp prickle of electricity through her, whether by her own nerves or a reaction made by her Vision, it isn’t discernable. She jerks her head out of the way of the unwanted contact and the offending hand falls back onto the priestess’s lap.
She should say something, anything, but words simply refuse to come to her aid.
“Such devotion,” Kokomi presses on, unfazed by the rejection, “wasted on the Raiden Shogun.”
Finally, an emotion that isn’t wariness or growing irritation. Sara bristles with conviction as she’s quick to quip, “Bold words for someone whose people worship a dead god.”
It might’ve been a trick of Sara’s eyes, but she thinks she sees tension in the priestess’s shoulders. She takes what little satisfaction she can from it.
“There is a difference between worship and honoring, General Kujou. While we mourn the loss of our protector deity, we honor the good Orobashi had done for us. The actions we take are to both carry on in his memory and also to exercise free will granted to us when he pulled our ancestors from the Dark Sea. Can you say the same for your Shogun?”
“I’ve chosen to serve the Shogun and her will to achieve Eternity. It is my duty as a Kujou and as a tengu warrior; that is enough for me.”
“You carried out the Vision Hunt Decree because it was her will, and now you’re here with the intent of formulating a treaty with me and my people because she changed her mind just as easily as she had made it up. You devote yourself so blindly to the same Archon who simply watches you bleed for her, whether that be on the beaches of Kannazuka,” Kokomi’s smile twists into a haughty smirk, looking for all the world like she’s about to deliver a critical blow, “or the tatami of her own throne room.”
Rage and indignance and pride—all irrational yet also righteous in their own ways—surge to the surface but there is nowhere for them to go. Her fingers twitch for her bow or for the fan at her hip, and her wings are all but begging to be released. Already she can feel some of the downy feathers beginning to prickle over her shoulder blades. Not a moment later, her side erupts with the same ache from earlier and this time she fails to keep herself from going to press a hand over the freshly healed wound. In her mind’s eye, she can see the icicle that Signora shot straight into her abdomen. Sara had been too slow to react and dodge out of the way and the blow was more than enough to distract her from the final strike the Harbinger made to send her careening across the throne room in an unconscious heap. All the while, the Raiden Shogun did and said nothing.
Such wholehearted devotion, rendered meaningless by circumstance. Those were the words Yae Miko had spoken to her once. It feels like a lifetime ago with how much and how quickly things were set into motion after that.
She screws her eyes tight to banish the memories, to remind herself that her injuries are healed now and she is on the path to making amends and reparations to the damage she helped inflict on the people of Inazuma. It will take time but she is patient, and she owes the people that much and more.
She inhales steadily, and meets Kokomi’s awaiting gaze once more. She will not break.
“I’ve often wondered, in moments of weakness—those twenty-three instances when I could’ve witnessed your light be snuffed for good—what it would’ve been like to be the subject of your devotion. How wondrous and glorious it’d be having someone like you at my side,” the priestess utters, as if more to herself than to Sara. She takes another sip of her drink. “Alas, as the proverb goes: a fish may come to love a bird, but where is it that they shall live?”
If Sara’s thoughts weren’t already on the verge of spiraling further and further out of her control, that word— that word—sent them crashing down altogether.
She had allowed this conversation to last as long as it had because she thought that she would be able to make sense of the mind of her former opponent. Now it seemed like an odyssey she was gravely ill-prepared for. She should’ve left when she had the chance.
“Love?”
“I’m sure there is a better word, but that’s what I’ve been labelling it as,” Kokomi says with a light shrug that showcased indifference, but in the uncanny depths of her blue eyes whispers wistfulness, nearly imperceptible. “But no matter. I won’t regret the fact I’ve allowed your heart to continue beating, even if it isn’t for me.”
Sara wants to know more, wants to understand this sudden turn in this conversation. Was this... a confession? Her rapidly beating heart seems to think so, and there is a piqued interest and that familiar, yawning chasm of yearning. But it isn’t for the priestess. How could it possibly?
In the end, all she can think about is what exactly is she supposed to do with knowing this?
“Drink your tea before it gets cold,” Kokomi abruptly reminds her.
Sara blinks, refocusing her attention to the untouched bowl. Her mind is still in a haze but not quite clouded enough to restrain her imagination from running rampant. Though, the possibility of poison is really the first and only scenario her mind conjures.
She watches the priestess finish off the contents of her own bowl, eyes closed in bliss as she swallows.
It is safe to drink. It has been the whole time.
When she musters the nerve to take a sip, she finds that not only is the tea already cold, the matcha is completely watered down. Unbalanced.
She tastes nothing. And yet she drinks anyway.
Mercifully, it seems as though the priestess had finally run out of words to say. However, before Sara could take solace in the newfound quiet, a rumble of thunder perks her ears up to attention. Her head snaps towards the open balcony to find dark, rolling storm clouds in the not too far off distance. Sara knows that storm, everyone does. It doesn’t appear to be heading towards Watatsumi, but rather—
“Trouble with the Shogun?” Kokomi surmises with a bemused raise of her brow.
Sara sets her bowl aside and bows her head. Regardless of what the woman has said to her today, etiquette comes first. “I’m afraid I have unexpected business to attend to in Narukami Island. Our peace talks will have to come at a later date.”
The beaming smile that greeted her upon her arrival to the island returns. “Very well then. I wish you a safe return home, General Kujou. This has been a productive conversation, wouldn’t you say?”
Sara only nods in response before swiftly turning to leave.
Her wings are finally freed once she boards the ship that brought her to Watatsumi and they relish in the gust of wind that fills the ship’s sails. It brings her some relief, easing the tension that she’s held in her shoulders since setting foot on land.
A productive conversation? Yes, she’s certainly learned new things. However ‘productive’ isn’t what she would call that conversation. Information is power. The information she carries now, the echoes of the priestess’s concessions and... confession hangs off her consciousness like deadweight. She has no idea what to do with it.
No, she wouldn’t call that conversation ‘productive’ in the slightest.