Chapter Text
“The Vision Hunt Decree finally got abolished!”
Strangled cries of joy and surprised whispers were quick to erupt among the passersby, alerting the worker men who were just sitting next to her just seconds ago.A lady in a shrine maiden outfit, possibly a miko, wrapped herself in another layer of teal haori.Her hair swayed lightly as her gaze seeks the source of the ruckus shrouding the street.
“The visions will be escorted back to each holders soon!” the announcer chants with a sob.” The Vision Hunt Decree is abolished , I repeat!”
“W-Wha-this isn’t some kind of joke , right?!” To your right, Hajime who happened to be enjoying his lunch break murmured in disbelief, wide eyes shifting to the miko for a confirmation.
Probably because the miko—you , intervened in the tenshukaku ambush a few days ago.
“To answer your curiousity , Hajime , I don’t think such thing is a joke,” sipping your green tea, you eyed some civilians who clung to the announcer with stream wet faces through the restaurant’s glass doors, eyes lighting up and whispers of gratefulness leaving their pursed thin lips.
The image itself is actually quite crazy to you.
The current electro archon , in which you recognized by the name “Ei” , dispersing the decree she had approved Tenryou Commision to handle and by any means, also demolishing her perfectly sculpted idea of eternity.
You side eyed the spilt colors reflected among the wings of the Statue of the Omnipresent God, twinkling just as brightly like the hollow night Traveller left the Tenshukaku.
“L-Lady [Name]! The visions!” the yelp the resistance soldiers had yipped out had you turning quickly to the statue in pure amusement , ambition showering the scene like the bold gust of wind from the north valley.
Battle soars flare up among the soldier up upon the gate of the Tenshukaku , and finding your lips twitching upwards you burn the image of the so adored Traveller who seemingly had witnessed Ei’s Musou no Hitotachi ,ushering aside the dizzy effect to align their electro infused sword straight head first into your electro archon’s inner realm Plane of Euthymia.
Sighing among confused resistance soldier who seek justice , you could only shake your head and inform their general who happened to be right in front of the gate of Tenshukaku.
“Yae-sama , you better be there right now…”
“Oh…? Didn’t I tell you to keep yourself seated behind the fortune telling stall, [Name]? How rebellious,” a smug voice had you shuddering a breath.” I don’t remember teaching you how to leave your duties in the dust.”
Uh oh.
“Say,” your kitsune lady mentor’s heels clacked together as she sat herself next to you, taking your portion of peanut mochi with a gentle motion of her fingers.”What do you think about the outcome?”
“uh..succesful? I’m glad the traveller could make it to her inner realm for the second time.And glad that you both can convince her at all, of course.” You made a point for your mentor not to steal another set of mochi by seizing them and gobbling them right away.
Slightly puffing her cheeks at the response , Yae stifled an amused chuckle.
“Well I wouldn’t say it’s an easy job ,” she turned to Erika to order her usual , casting a smile afterwards.”But you know Ei.Making her understand mortal’s perpectives gave her another stubborn idea to indulge in , to understand.Making her understand such notion was harder than convincing her to deepen it more,”
“Rather than hearing the bits before the disperse of the decree , I’d rather watch out the way things will unfold after all these..changes,” you sighed out, tucking your hair behind your ears.”These operations for the last two weeks truly exhaust me..”
“Oh, exhausted enough to run down the shrine and waddle around in Hanamizaka? Sure, sure…”
Ah , right. You’re on thin ice right now.
“In my defense, Gendou Ringo returned from her vacation sooner than she intended it to last.You know how strongly she dedicate herself to such job,” sipping the last drop of your green tea, you spared a quick glance at the shopping district street.”Somehow indeed…with that perceptible reluctant rude attitude for a miko..”
The crowd’s long gone, but your nape shudders upon the strangely thrilling tension crawling beneath your skin.As if such news were a cold water to a pan, an incredibly inept injuction electro archon would have never even think about.By the way some people behave, it is pretty obvious how they doubt the change of nerve wrecking situation.
Yae huffed an all knowing chuckle as Erika arrived with her order, cheeks all puffed as she slurped down her katsukushi in pure delight.If she was in her kitsune form, her tail would have swished left and right, and as much as you wanted to see such phenomenon happen again, an electro charged scratched eye with blind possibility were never in your plate.
Totally not from your experience.
“I need to finish a certain draft before dusk….excuse me,”
Not bothering to turn around, Yae murmured between her munches—” Anyway, [Name], I expect you to be around the usual place tonight,”
The click of your low heels halted at her words.
Is this another mission..?
“…I’ll be there, Yae-sama.”
“Hmm? Not returning to the shrine directly now?” And now she turned her head with those chipmunk cheeks, pretty much making you fail to take her words seriously.” Is there some kinds of affair that I wasn’t certainly aware of?”
You almost dropped the mochi set you paid for takeaway.
“My, my, [Name] has become such a mischievous matured lady…how could I not—
“Yae-sama, I am only in lining myself in a small hotpot party…nothing else,”
“And you didn’t bother to invite me? I don’t mind meeting the man my dear student decided to court you know,” Yae’s teasing gained attentions from local customers who seemed to be interested in miko chit chats, and you’ve decided to leave this one hell of a mentor of yours right away before she manages to strip down your composed demeanor right down the core.
“Goodbye..!” You dashed out of the restaurant right in time as Yae’s gleeful ( yet still elegant- somehow-) laugh rang through the Uyuu in the broad daylight.
“Kanpai!”
Gulping down the sake ayaka somehow got her hands on, you relished the bittersweet liquid coating your tongue.Such a delicacy you could rarely enjoy, having been a shrine maiden since you were a kid.
“Hmm…where’d you actually bought this, Shirasaki Himegimi?” you sniffed the all too familiar fruity alcohol, recalling the first time Yae bought one home and fed you a small glass of it.A small smile tugged on her humble lips so easily you wondered just how elegant the Kamisato’s oldest daughter is.
“There is no such need for the formality, Lady Miko [Name].As the host of this simple hotpot dinner, I should have been the one ought to serve you my hospitality and my honour,” Ayaka’s remark got the others stiffening on their seats.
Thoma, whose hands were gripping on the metal clamp nearly split his cheese filled dimsum in half.Sayu’s hair straightened like a flabbergasted cat fur upon the reminder of your tight bond with the other maiden fellas, such as the strict lady Kano Nana.Yoimiya who were just hearing this information now nearly spitting out her fish shaped dango.
It is as if you could read the screams over their faces, written like all day displayed decree statute pages.
How could we forgot..Lady [Name] is a honoured apprentice and shrine maiden of Guuji Yae of the Grand Narukami Shrine!
“W-Wha..[Name]-san is a miko??! A shrine maiden?” Yoimiya’s confusion and disbelief just made you wanna laugh.It was when she widened her eyes with a glint of twinkling adoration that you huffed a small laugh.”Don’t tell me…I’ve been hanging around you all this time, and I had just discovered THAT YOU’RE THAT RUMOURED student of GUUJI YAE SAMA??!”
You flashed a bemused smile.
It’s actually not hard to point out where you came from.Accent based, habits, pale-ish skin, numbness to cold, the way you seemed to shrink in the lovely heat on spring and a love for fishes which ran down your veins…
You’re a lovely lad bornt in everwinter country of Snezhnaya.
And it just happened that by the time Yae took you as an apprentice when a certain illegal merchant tried to sold you out in Ritou---the news had reached even the most secluded pair of ears in the entire Inazuma’s 5 main inhabited islands.
“Guuji Yae-sama suddenly took an apprentice!”
“What’s the occasion?”
“I didn’t recall any new shrine chief for the last decades…nor even for this 500 years..what could this mean?”
“Maybe the child’s taken for the publishing house sake? Future Yae Publishing House appointed owner?”
“Are you sure she took the child as an apprentice? ”
Yae intertwined your hands together as you both strut down the front of Uyuu Restaurant.You were clad in a thick Snezhnayan robe, frazzled look on your face as you reveled upon the all too new atmosphere of Inazuman town square.The whispers, the all too new languages, made you wanna shrink to the corner and dash out of the foreign milieu.
Yet the lady who so nimbly executed your hideous kidnappers just moments ago only tightened her hold on your wrist—all too gently and caring for just a stranger that it made your mind wonders.
“Don’t back out on me now, would you, little one..?”
You chuckled, feeling silly funny at your own response that time.Seems like the fact that Yae could speak snezhnayan back then struck you so bad it triggered your fight or flight instinct, immediately squealing and writhing away from her grip.
“Now now, I’m not here as an envoy from the Grand Shrine,” you stirred your drink, working through your near tipsy train of thoughts.”I’m here now as a normal civilian who’s celebrating the end of the Vision Hunt Decree,”
Yoimiya flashed an all too cheeky grin and seized a plate raw meat, fists punching the air enthusiastically.
“Then..!” Thoma pales when yoimiya dropped an entire meat bun into the hotpot, colors draining form his face wih a small disgruntled whimper—“ LET THE HOTPOT GAME BEGIN!!!”
Low muffled voices of yoimiya spouting out her daily dose of crack jokes based on the things customers had done in her workshop riled you to simmer down your vigilance as you stepped out to the openly chilling balcony.You smoothed out the back side of your kimono, due to your decision not to wear your shrine maiden outfit to a simple dinner party.Blinking up blearily, you fought aside you’re the tipsy haze in your mind and set your bottle aside.
Huh..it’s night already.I gotta go meet Yae-sama up on the shrine soon…
A satisfied grunt left your mouth as you stretched.The tassel tied to your vision rings a ding at the motion, prolly alerting a certain hotpot game participant who just suffered a stomach ache from the horrid combinations of food materials.
Lucky you, your sharp smelling helped you through the abyss hole of hotpot.
The thought of it alone brought an shudder to your nape.
“La-Lady [Name]..? Aren’t you cold out here?”
Breaking out of trance, you met the mondstadt-bornt housekeeper’s concern filled gaze.The horrible sight of his pale face back then when he accidentally ate one of the ‘things you fished out of the hotpot looking like a mysterious horrid failed product ( which was actually an unripe lavender melon-WHO BROUGHT THAT?!)’ nearly dissipated entirely.
Ahh, typical Thoma, so caring.
“Not really,” you resumed your little sight-seeing, eyes darting to the busy and bright Amakane island.
“A petty chill like this wouldn't be enough to stop me from enjoying the sparse view komore teahouse exclusively offers.”
Children’s long distanced shout upon the bridge over Hanamizaka’s clear water river took your brilliantly chipper musing soon shifting to the clandestine land of Chinju forest, right where you first met the small sleepy Sayu.The same goes to the parting beach joining Ritou, and the main Narukami Island, the exact spot wherein Kano Nana appointed you to confront an unfanthomable phenomenon of weird shaping fireworks sprouting out so unaccordingly.
Then it turns out the social butterfly teenager experimented her new creation—a rose vine firework she called it---right on the middle of the beach under no adult supervision whatsoever.
Thoma kept himself silent as he trotted to your side, arms draping on the balcony railing as he followed where your gaze belong.
“Ahh, the Kamisato Estate? Could it mean the Lady [Name] wishes to pay a casual casual visit to the Estate?” his bright viridescent eyes glistened dimly under the starry night, you took a mental note to give him a similar coloured gift later for all the good deeds he had helped you.
“None of that, although i wouldn’t mind arranging a visit to the Estate,” Thoma’s short frown made you quick to change your sentence sort of denial, despite the actual daze you were in before.”Yet truthfully, I was reminded of our first meeting right in front of the gate,”
At that he splutters, nearly doubling over the railing and if you hadn’t known better—you would have thought his stomach ache acted up again.
“O-Oh…you were…reminded of the day we met?” his fisted hands seem to ground him back to the reality, restraining him from letting the way butterfly flutters in his stomach take over his sense of detecting any implications—flirting or excluded.
Probably it’s just my upset stomach..
“Yeah, I could never forget that,” you pretended not to notice the way he choked on air.” I came to discuss the Kamisato fund report upon the Shuumatsuban corporation as a sub in miko to replace Guuji-sama, and you thought I was there as her accompanying underlings and brought me to the garden for the purpose of admiring your diligent work like a botanist , thinking I had too much time on my hands as I wait for the nonexistent Guuji-sama in the estate when I was the one who’s presence has been demanded for the last 15 mi---”
“Lady [Name]..!! I beg you , please drop the topic…” his muffled groan was audible enough for an embarassed ramble behind a pair of gloved hands, his figure shrinking down shyly like he just frown a second head.”I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time…”
“Ooh, I’m pretty sure you were thinking clearly when you grumbled about how inneficiently long Narukami Shrine’s deputy take to discuss things right to my face—”
“Lady [Name]!”
Laughing your heart out, you shuffled back inside with a dismissal wave.
“Goodnight, Thoma,” you flashed a faint smile, an indirect goodbye.”Enjoy the rest of the night,”
“Heeh? Lady [Name]?? Leaving already..?” Yoimiya seemed to be as fresh and energetic as a morning lad, downright questioning as you picked up your belongings and strut for the door.
Thoma joined with the same puppy eyes, made you tad guilty for leaving early.
“Sorry, I had promised a meeting with Guuji-sama up the Mt.Yougou at the shrine tonight,” you sighed out , it’s not like you had any other choices.”I’ll be ready for any other nights of hotpot dinner…if you exclude the game,”
“Bye bye lady [Name]!!”
You exhaled an amused chuckle, finding the close bond the youngsters formed endearing.Such truth friendship only got you rolling your eye when your were a teenager.Yae kept you at the shrine under her tight supervision, partially because you lack the ability to speak fluent inazuman, and mainly because Snezhnayans are closely related to Fatuis.Inazumans could barely bat an eye at a snezhnayan child, but the other inazuman kids might not.But nor did you actually do.
You never harboured a big curiosity upon the inazuman residents children.The only thing propelling you to escape the shrine multiple times were the words about the omnipresent god statue sitting proud amongst the roofs of the shogun’s Tenshukaku and three loyal commissions.
Visions? Decree?
The little you always managed to spare some time jumping out of the fortune teller stall, properly behaving like you just took a patrolling shift, or swept the yard of the Narukami Grand Tree just to get yourself on a certain radius close enough to the Shrine visitors to renew your current knowledge about anything that happens in the city.
It’s not even a surprise at some point to the shrine maidens—when they saw their pink haired kitsune chief priest lift you up by the collar of your outfir and dragged you back in your post.If she’s generous enough, she’ll let you hog up Inagi Hotomi’s shift for half an hour at most to converse lightly with the visitors or prayers at the gate.
All the knowledge and wisdom you gained that time was considerably enough to the point you knew exactly what was the circular glossy orb that lit the pitch dark engulfing you in the south secluded cave on Watasumi island.
And you count yourself lucky as you strolled out of the cave, the orb in your calloused harsh grip, bare foot dragging yourself over the thick layers of ice coating the lifeless Kairagis and rogues only to finally step in bay shore near the Bourou village.
Oh how badly you wanted to know whether the wide eyed stare Yae gave you upon the reddish tinted glaze of frozen bodies was of surprise…or of diassaproval.
Exhaling a hot puff out of your mouth, you stared silently up the shrine.
There, sat on the steady steps towards the porch of the tree, stood your kitsune mentor Guuji Miko Yae , and her humbly serving underlings of shrine maidens.
The tension built up nearly made you toppled up even more as the Traveller and Paimon appeared amongst the crowd of shrine maidens, both concerned yet also doubtful.
Yet it’s not the sudden amout of people residing at the yard that threw you off your shoulder,
It’s the fatui female cryo elemented uniform Yae held as she motioned you closer.