Archive of Our Own ^beta

As Yashiro Commissioner, it is not Ayato’s job to control the state of Inazuma’s borders. That is the Kanjou Commission’s jurisdiction, and therefore the person responsible for overseeing it is Hiiragi Chisato. 

She has done an excellent job over the few years since she took up the mantle of Commissioner, dealing well with the influx of foreigners arriving after the repeal of the Sakoku Decree, and whilst Ayato always keeps an eye on the situation in case the concept of mutual restraint needs to be employed as it did during her and Kujou Kamaji’s first attempt at a wedding several years ago, he does not worry too much about there being a significantly disruptive foreign presence in Inazuma. 

Of course, nefarious individuals and groups often find ways to circumvent even the strictest of policies, and must be dealt with when they inevitably arise. But with Lady Hiiragi around, their presence—and therefore their disruption—is rather kept to a minimum.

So Ayato keeps a slightly less watchful eye on the comings and goings of Inazuman ports than he used to. The Shuumatsuban still keep an eye on it for him, but his reports from them are now limited to anything which might constitute a threat to the security and peace of Inazuma.

But, as with many things, there is an exception.

Ayato also asks his Shuumatsuban to report to him if the last remaining member of the Kaedehara Clan returns to the nation in which he was born.

It is a—slightly complicated matter for why Ayato does it. It is not because he seeks to restore the status and honour of the Kaedehara Clan—whilst he does not wish to see a family go unjustly punished for circumstances beyond their control, he has heard of the Tenryou Commission’s offer to restore their honour, and how Kazuha had declined it in favour of roaming the nations of Teyvat once more.

He can understand Kazuha’s decision. Ayato does not blame him for it, not at all. He sometimes wonders what he would do if he were in Kazuha’s place, as the last scion of a fallen and disgraced clan. He does not know if he would make the same choice.

It would depend, Ayato thinks, on whether he had any living family once his forebears had passed. Much of what he did during his first days, weeks, months as Yashiro Commissioner—all of his plans and counter-plans—all of that was to protect and defend the last blood relative he had left.

The Case of the Eccentric and the matter of the Raiden Gokaden affected both their clans—not in the same way, and not on quite the same charge—but it was from the same incident that both clans fell from grace.

In the current day, given the significance of honour and family and Inazuma, both of them have a duty to their forebears to rebuild the reputations their families once held.

But, aside from the fact that the Kaedehara Clan had a greater threat from the one called Kunikuzushi over their heads—now alleviated it seems after some failed machinations by the Sumeru Akademiya—and therefore had further to climb, there is one major factor in Kazuha and Ayato’s differing decisions.

Kazuha does not have a younger sister he needs to defend.

Ayato does not know what he would have done if Ayaka did not exist. Not only is she a large impetus for his continued efforts to secure continued peace and stability for the Kamisato Clan, she has always been an invaluable strength and secure presence when it comes to the public image of the clan. If Ayato had had to maintain and follow a schedule of public experiences in addition to his constant stream of work away from the public eye, he does not think he would have made it to where he is today.

If he had not had Ayaka, Ayato may have ended up as a wandering samurai as well.

Though perhaps not, in hindsight—perhaps the unstructured life that Kazuha leads would go against everything that Ayato was trained to do as a child, all the duties and graces instilled in him by his father. He does not know if he’d be able to give those up so easily, if he wouldn’t find another way to embroil himself with the politics of Inazuma. He sometimes does not like having to deal with the many fires needing to be doused that are part and parcel of public life, but he has been doing it for so long that he cannot imagine himself doing anything else. After all that he was brought up to be, there was only one real path.

Now, whether anyone would accept him and give him any authority after he would have hypothetically fallen from power is more of an uncertainty. On that count, Ayato does not know.

Perhaps it is not a hypothetical worth pondering on for too long. Ayato remains at both the head of the Kamisato Clan and the Yashiro Commission, as his family had always intended, and nothing will shake the roots he has long since planted in the soil, or topple the guardian cypress that he now represents.

And just as he stands guardian over the Yashiro Commission, and by extension the rest of Inazuma, he also stands guardian over the clans that sit as subordinate to his own.

Kazuha does not need physical protection, Ayato knows that as much. Now that there are no major threats to his safety and security of a political nature, and the grievances against the Isshin Art have been properly understood and somewhat privately forgiven by the Tenryou Commission, Kazuha is more than capable of defending himself. Ayato was not there, but he has heard the rumours that drifted across the city after it happened, and he knows for certain that Kazuha once blocked the strike of the Musou no Hitotachi as Her Excellency threatened to strike down the blond-haired Traveler in front of Tenshukaku.

No, it is not using his sword or shield by which Ayato must look out for Kaedehara Kazuha.

Instead, as he enjoys far more, his way of going about things is a little more subtle—and a little more self-serving.

The subtleness required starts right from the beginning of Ayato’s whole plan, because the first thing he has to do is make contact with Kazuha in the place. Ayato has something to ask him once they have gotten into contact, but doing so in the first place requires more effort than just sending a letter through the Inazuman postal service like most people would do if they wanted to reach someone. 

For one, Kazuha’s nature as a wandering samurai and his habit of just sleeping in any field on any rock that happens to be around when it’s time to go to bed means that there is never any fixed address that someone could use to reach him. For two, Ayato does not trust that any letter he sends even a little less than absolutely securely will not fall into the wrong hands.

Fortunately for Ayato’s peace of mind, he has the Shuumatsuban at his disposal.

So when Hisashi appears at his side seemingly out of nowhere—Ayato knows how they do it, but he dares not reveal the organisation’s secrets—and informs him a Liyue ship bearing the flag of The Crux has arrived at the Ritou port and that Kazuha was seen to disembark, Ayato asks him to return to the Kamisato Estate at a set hour so that he can receive a letter to Kaedehara Kazuha that Ayato has already written and tucked away in a corner of his study, just waiting for the right moment.

Hisashi does just that. Afterwards, all Ayato can do is wait for Kazuha to pen his response.

*

Kazuha returned home at the request of the Kagotsurube Isshin.

The blade accompanied him as he left Inazuma shortly after becoming its master, taking it to see the lands far across the sea. Together, they have seen the old stones and clear waters of Liyue and felt the winds of Mondstadt that whip and twist and almost confuse Kazuha’s intuitions so that he cannot tell what is happening around him as well as he can otherwise. He had wanted to see it, as a person graced by the wind, but he had learned that he could not remain in the Nation of Freedom for too long. 

They have also been to Sumeru, witnessed the technology that pervaded the society and the way knowledge was weaponized and used to control the people. It was not quite the same as the control the Shogunate exercised over Inazuma, given that the obedience stemmed from misguided belief rather than fear, but Kazuha had shivered when he saw it nonetheless. The subtle acts of rebellion in places like the Grand Bazaar reminded him of Watatsumi, where Kagotsurube Isshin had never been, and it was then that the blade had called out to him with a stronger will than it had in a while and requested that they return to their home nation.

It would have been rather far for the Alcor to sail all the way to Watatsumi Island just for Kazuha’s sake, when their main business in coming back to Inazuma on this occasion is to conduct trade on Narukami Island, so Kazuha does not request it of them.

Instead, he disembarks at Ritou just like everyone else, planning on slowly making his way across the islands. There is so much to experience on each of them, anyway—times have changed since Kazuha was last in Inazuma, with the Traveler visiting each of the islands and taking it upon themselves to solve the troubles that each was faced with. Kazuha has even heard talk of them descending to the ancient civilisation of Enkanomiya to listen to the last wishes of a people long gone, and whilst Kazuha does not want to go there himself he is grateful that the Traveler has had rippling effects beyond the seven nations of Teyvat.

Because of his plans, Kazuha was not planning on spending much time in Inazuma City. It would be remiss of him to avoid it entirely, given its place as the Kaedehara Clan’s ancestral home, but he finds that he no longer has any strong attachments to it or thinks of it as ‘home’. It is a place where many significant events in his life have occurred—from the Amenoma Smithy in the north of the city where Kagotsurube Isshin was reforged anew, to Tenshukaku in the south where his friend’s life was lost after that duel before the throne, and where Kazuha made sure that sacrifice was not in vain by blocking the Shogun’s strike to save another from almost certain death.

Perhaps it is because of these strong memories that he can never truly forget the city. Perhaps it is this that has him wantering the wide, open streets that still seem rather confining when compared to the open, boundless sky.

Perhaps later he will take up Shikanoin Heizou’s invitation to share a meal together. Kazuha was rather surprised when Heizou first extended the offer even though Kazuha was no longer a wanted man, but he has come to learn that he rather enjoys the young detective’s company, and Heizou seems to enjoy his in return.

Before he can decide what it is he wants to do first, he is approached by a figure from the right as he’s passing through a more isolated street. The figure is clearly trained in sneaking up on their targets undetected, because between that training and the confounding signals produced by the inherent business of Inazuma City, the changes in the air that allow Kazuha to notice the figure in the first place are incredibly slight.

But he does notice, and so he turns his head to the side to see who it is.

“Mr Kaedehara,” says the man who approaches him once Kazuha has turned. “I have a letter for you from the Yashiro Commissioner.”

Kazuha stands up a little straighter. His clan and the Kamisatos have an inexorably tied history, and Kazuha is well aware that Commissioner Kamisato feels a duty to the Kaedahara clan to this very day because of that shared history. 

And, well—Kazuha’s initial passage out of Inazuma, stowed below the decks on a smaller ship of the Crux as it headed home for Liyue, did not happen by sheer luck. He would not have made it to the port without the fishing boat that took him away from Tenshukaku, and the boatman’s tongue was not tight enough to stop the truth from slipping out. The Yashiro Commissioner had a hand in the matter, and it is a favour Kazuha has never repaid.

Perhaps Kamisato Ayato has decided the time to do so is now.

“Thank you,” says Kazuha as he takes the letter from the Yashiro Commission representative. “Is it a letter requiring an immediate response?”

The man nods. “It would be much appreciated.”

Kazuha is not in the habit of letting others dictate his schedules, unless doing so is in his own interest. There is only so long that the Crux will wait at any given port before they need to leave harbour and take to the seas once more, and if Kazuha is not at the docks in time they will leave without him. 

But in the case of Kamisato Ayato, Kazuha will make an exception. The Yashiro Commissioner is busy beyond belief, and Kazuha does owe him a debt. It is not his place on this occasion to be making the rules.

He uses the tip of his blade to tear open the seal on the envelope, before pulling the letter free.

As he would have expected, Commissioner Kamisato’s handwriting is neat and elegant— Kazuha hears that he has a fondness for calligraphy in his spare time—and allows him to read the message quickly and without having to decipher what the individual characters are first.

The message is succinct and to the point, which Kazuha appreciates.

Dear Mr Kaedehara,

Having heard of your recent return to Inazuma, I am writing today to request a favour of you. However, it is a matter I would prefer to discuss in private. It does not relate to state or political business.

Whilst I have an admittedly busy schedule, I invite you to meet me tomorrow afternoon at 15:00 Inazuma City Time, at the Kamisato Estate. If this is agreeable to you, please approach the estate from the main entrance; the servants will be expecting you. If this is not possible, please advise me of your availability during your current stay in Inazuma. If this is also not possible, I ask that you keep my request for a meeting in mind the next time you return to Narukami Island.

Please send your response, written or verbal, via the operative who delivered this letter to you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Kamisato Ayato.

Kazuha does not need to go to all the trouble of thinking forward to the future. He has no schedule for tomorrow, and so he will make sure that he transforms his tentative thoughts of meeting with Heizou into a solid meeting this afternoon.

*

Ayato rubs his left temple with the pads of his index and middle fingers once he returns to the Kamisato Estate after a long meeting where many things were said and not much progress was outwardly made. In that meeting, Ayato ensured that the Yashiro Commission and the overall security of Inazuma remained stable, of course, but he was not in any particular hurry to stop the old men from arguing about the tiniest of details.

Still, all those debates still tend to make his mind run around in unnecessary circles—he can tune out most of the noise, but part of it still pervades into his thoughts and leaves an aching there once it’s all over. He can’t soothe those achings in public of course, and he doesn’t have the time to rest until the day’s work is done, but in private at least he can take a moment to rub them away however temporarily.

At least his next engagement is one he’s rather looking forward to.

He had prepared for all eventualities when he quickly penned that letter to Kazuha yesterday. There are many occasions where he does not get things to go the exact way they need to in order to make his life easier, so any time Ayato makes a plan, he also makes at least two backup plans in case the most optimal one doesn’t go his way.

Fortunately for him, his backup plans were not needed on this occasion. Kazuha will be meeting him at the Kamisato Estate in around fifteen minutes, and it will be a more than welcome refreshment from the rest of his day.

He does not have much time in those fifteen minutes to do anything if not. If he were sensible, he should be reviewing some information that he needs to know in order to use and deploy it in his meetings tomorrow, but he does not particularly want to. He will likely be awake until a late hour tonight anyway; he can add another fifteen minutes of review for later.

But he also does not want to waste his time sitting around doing nothing, so he pulls back his long sleeve, grinds his ink stick against its stone, and uses the resulting ink to copy out a few lines from a poem about the maple leaves on Ritou. It seems strangely appropriate given the affinity of his next guest with the jagged red leaves that fall from the trees during the autumn.

He may be able to quote it during their meeting—Ayato has heard that Kazuha has a penchant for writing haiku. He dares not quote a poem back to the one who wrote it like he knows their intent better than they do, but it is no bad thing to make polite conversation based on the other person’s interests. In the event that the conversation deepens beyond Ayato’s knowledge, he can always spend a little while just listening before changing the topic to something more comfortable. He does not foresee himself having to do so, however—it is not a meeting he has to manage in order to keep a political upper hand, after all.

He has almost completed his poem when he is interrupted by someone clearing their throat at the door to the study. Ayato looks up to find one of the guards standing there with his head slightly bowed. 

“Good afternoon, sir,” the guard says. “Kaedehara Kazuha has arrived at the estate and is here to see you, sir.”

Ayato smiles and nods. “Yes, I was expecting him. Please send him in, and leave the door open.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard says as he bows again before turning to leave—Ayato may be Inazuman nobility, but he does not require that people face him at all times like some elders of the Kujou Clan once did in the past.

Whilst the guard is gone, Ayato shuffles together the papers on his desk into a haphazard pile—he’ll find everything again later—and sets everything to the sides of his desk to clear a space in the centre. It will only be polite to offer his guest tea in just a moment, once preferences have been determined, and it would be remiss of him to ask that his guests set their cups atop a pile of supplies and papers. For one, it’s rather disrespectful, and for two, it’s more than likely to end with his things getting wet. His notes he can remember and rewrite, but he does not want to have to redraft the petition he’ll be submitting in a few days after spending far longer than necessary thinking over the wording and the content of said petition in order to get it to pass into Inazuman law.

No sooner does Kazuha appear in the doorway, standing straight and upright. Despite everything, despite all the reasons he has had to hide himself for fear of retribution, he seems to retain a sense of confidence and security in who he is and what he believes. Ayato does not know if that has always been within him, but he is glad to see it nonetheless. It will carry the young samurai through many waves and storms to come.

“Commissioner Kamisato,” he says. “Thank you for your invitation today.”

Ayato smiles and nods once again. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me on such short notice, Mr Kaedehara,” he says, because scheduling conflicts constrain much of his life and it truly is a blessing that he was able to fit it in on this occasion. “Please, take a seat. Would you like some tea?”

Kazuha does just that, tucking the tails of his haori coat underneath him as he sits. “Tea would be appreciated, thank you. And I would prefer it if you would call me Kazuha. Mr Kaedehara reminds me far too much of my father and grandfather.”

“Very well.” Ayato hums, then calls for the servant that happens to be passing by at that moment—which happens to be Thoma. “Thoma, would you fetch some tea?” He looks back at Kazuha. “Do you have any preferences?”

Kazuha shakes his head. “I am not such an expert in these matters, and therefore I will drink whatever you recommend.”

Ayato does not particularly have favourites either—he eats and drinks whatever the servants put before him, given that the food or drink is well made and flavourful. “Whichever tea we have the most of then, Thoma,” he says, to which Thoma bows and turns away, headed towards the kitchen.

With that, Ayato turns his attention back to Kazuha. “Was your journey back to Inazuma a smooth sailing one?”

Kazuha nods. “Now that I am not a wanted criminal and the Kanjou Commission are no longer calling me a fugitive, entering through Ritou was only a matter of registering myself at the border point. And now that the Sakoku Decree has lifted, the stormy seas that once circled Inazuma are no longer raging as they were before.” The young samurai swallows. “It was certainly far easier than leaving Inazuma as a fugitive, that much is certain.”

Ayato smiles. “I am glad to hear it.” He thinks for a moment whether to mention his own hand in the matter, whether it would set an unnecessary balance of power between the two of them. What Ayato is about to ask of Kazuha is a request, not an order, and he is not sure whether any relative constraints produced by Kazuha feeling that his hands were forced would make the end result subpar.

But in the end, his usual manner of using whatever leverage he has to influence things into going his way holds strong, and he does. “I am also glad to hear that your initial journey out of Inazuma was successful. I—did not know if the storms would take you on the way, and I am sorry I could not find you a safer passage.”

Kazuha does not flinch or falter; he merely bows his head ever so slightly, not nearly enough to break the eye contact they made as he sat down. “I thought it might have been you. And I must thank you for that, because I have not done so before,” he says, pausing for a moment. “But in terms of safe passage—the Crux and her crew are the greatest I could have hoped for. By securing me a position on their boat, I had the greatest chance of making it out, I think. For the whips and scorns of the tempestuous seas cannot be controlled by any mortal man. Those with a small command over water should know that the most.”

Kazuha’s gaze shifts downwards, and Ayato follows it to where his own Vision beats like a current against the rope he has been secured to. He cannot help but laugh quietly to himself.

“Yes, perhaps we should,” he says. “It would take a far greater being than I to control the seas, or to quell the lightning storms that Her Excellency once called down upon our nation.”

At the mention of Her Excellency, Kazuha straightens up once more. They are of opposing stances when it comes to the Electro Archon, and Ayato has no desire to debate the matter with Kazuha. Both sides are understandable, given their relative histories and experiences. It is simply not worth it to try and change the other’s mind when neither presents a surmountable threat to the security of Inazuma. Besides, their allotted time is already so short, and to waste it would be a shame.

Ayato uses this opportunity and the relevant topic of discussion to press on. “In regards to your passage out of Inazuma, it was merely doing my duty to your forebears,” he begins, as light and open as he would be if he were merely brushing the thanks aside. “But,” he adds, his tone shifting into something more serious, something of business, “if you would be amenable, I would like to request something of you.”

“If it is within my power, I will do my best,” Kazuha replies.

Ayato clears his throat. “I have heard that you are the last remaining practitioner of the Isshin Art.”

Kazuha swallows noticeably. “I know some of the smithing techniques, yes, though I would not dream of thinking that I have reached the same level of mastery that my forebears once had with the forge.”

“But you are not inept at it, either,” says Ayato, his own eyes flicking downward to the blade Kazuha keeps at his side. “Was it not you who heard the call of a lost, vengeful Isshin blade and reforged it in order to fulfil its master’s final wish?”

“More out of necessity and philosophy than anything else,” Kazuha replies without hesitation. “The discord it was sowing amongst the people went against the peacetime that has tentatively been brokered in Inazuma today. And whilst Inazuma is now but one stop on an endless journey for me, a place to be returned to when the wind guides me back, it—I do not wish to see it in turmoil.” 

“A worthwhile philosophy indeed, and one that I support if perhaps for not quite the same reasons.” He pauses. “But in regards to the favour—though you would of course be compensated for your skill and your time—I would request that you forge me a blade.”

Kazuha is silent for a while, as if thinking it over in his head. Ayato is normally quite adept at reading people, at getting into their minds—there is a card game called poker often played in other nations that Thoma thinks he would be good at—but Kazuha might make a better one than he. It is as if a sea of fog surrounds all his thoughts and logical processes, so that Ayato cannot know what is happening until he reaches his conclusion.

He does, eventually, and his red eyes glow like the embers of a dying fire. “For what purpose, Lord Kamisato?”

It is a question Ayato was not expecting, and he has to take a moment to think about it.

Kazuha takes his momentary silence and fills it in a little, which Ayato respects because he has heard Kaedehara Kazuha rarely speaks unless spoken to. “The Isshin Art requires the same mind between maker and weapon. If we do not agree on your purpose for the sword, I will not be able to forge you a working blade.” He pauses. “What’s more, you may have heard of the reason the Akame School fell from the leadership of the Isshin Art.”

Ayato has indeed heard. “Their blades were tuned for killing, and in the efforts of trying to create the greatest lethality, the members of the school suffered and were driven towards what the authorities at the time would deem as ‘evil.’” He looks down towards the sword at Kazuha’s side once more. “It was an Akame who forged that blade, wasn’t it?”

Kazuha nods. “It was, though his wish for the sword was to restore the Kaedehara name, not the Akame. He may have changed his name in exile.” Kazuha lays his right hand over the scabbard of his sword, as if to protect and defend it. “It was not an inherent malice that drove Kagotsurube Isshin to do what he did before being reforged. It was merely a lack of knowledge about the nature of Tatarigami that led him astray.”

“I see,” says Ayato, and then, thinking about what Kazuha said before that, speaks again. “Am I to understand that any blade you forge me should not be forged with the express purpose of lethality?”

Kazuha nods. “My grandfather told me when I was very young that a Kaedehara blade was not forged for the purpose of harming people. It is something that has been ingrained in my philosophy ever since.”

“I understand. I will not ask you to forge me a blade for that purpose—the roiling waves of the Haran Geppaku Futsu are more than sufficient for those ends,” he says, glancing down at where his own blade lies sheathed on a long compartment of his desk, obscured from Kazuha’s view. “But as for the purpose—a shared purpose, it seems, an ideal common to you and I… you will have to give me a moment to think about it. I apologise for taking up more of your time than anticipated.”

“Not at all, Lord Kamisato,” says Kazuha. “The wind will still carry me away when I leave, so I may sit here a little longer and drink tea for a while.”

It is just when Kazuha mentions it that Thoma appears with said tea. “We seem to have a lot of jasmine tea lately, so I brewed some up!” he says as he sets down the teapot and two cups. “Anything else I can do for you whilst I’m here?”

Nothing particularly pressing appears to Ayato in that moment, and he knows how much work Thoma has without him adding to it, so he starts to shake his head before noticing that Kazuha is sitting a little straighter. “Was there something you needed, Kazuha?”

“Yes. I was wondering if you knew of any forges on the island other than the Amenoma Smithy,” he says, which makes Ayato look at him rather quizzically.

Kazuha notices this. “If I were to forge you a weapon, which will be decided in a moment, I would prefer it if you were present for at least a part of the forging in order for our shared purpose to be established through the process,” he says. “That is much harder if the forge is not on Narukami Island, since I would not expect you to travel far from your home when this would likely happen when you were not at work.”

Ayato hums. “I understand. I—I am available in the very early mornings, in that case.” When work is not too busy and he has time at home, it is the time he usually blocks out for practising his sword forms; it would be appropriate to use it to forge a new weapon, too. “I should be staying on Narukami Island for the next two weeks or so, if you would be willing to do it immediately.”

Kazuha nods. “If a blade is to be forged, it does not matter to me whether it is now or later. But—the fact remains that I require a forge, and I am sure that Hajime from the Amenoma Smithy would prefer it if I was not commandeering his forge when he has a backlog of work. Whilst I have travelled Inazuma to an extent, I am sure that Thoma knows Narukami Island and its utilities far better than I.”

Thoma hums to himself. “I’m not so sure that’s true, actually. I do know a lot about Narukami Island, sure, but I can’t say I ever paid attention to the forges. Most people just go to Amenoma if they want a weapon, me included!”

Ayato hums in return. “Perhaps if I ask Amenoma Tougo and Hajime incredibly politely, they will allow us to use it,” he says. He had been hoping for something more discreet and away from Inazuma City—whilst he is grateful that he does not have to make public appearances regularly and that Ayaka handles that side of the Commission, it does mean that there are questions and suspicions that happen whenever he appears in public. In the early morning, when people will not be around as much, however—if they have no better options, the Amenoma Smithy will have to do.

“Oh, wait!” Thoma cuts in. “Have you both been invited into that teapot that the Traveler has?”

Across the table, Kazuha nods, and Ayato does the same. He remembers the moment the Traveler had pulled him aside whilst they were waiting for Hiiragi Chisato to finish her meeting, asking if they could place a dispatch seal against his palm for a moment or two. He had been intrigued and asked them about it, and learned that it allowed him safe passage into a separate pocket of space that existed entirely inside a teapot they owned, that he could come and go from that space as often as he wished if he wanted to take a moment away from his numerous duties.

Time passes there, but not in quite the same way. Ayato could watch the sun rise and fall a hundred times in that space if he wished to, and yet when he entered once more into the plane of existence where Teyvat lies, he would find that no more than a moment or two had passed in Inazuma.

In short, it’s perfect. Away from prying eyes, apart from the few people that might also be visiting the teapot at the time Ayato wants to use it, and so removed from the time of Teyvat that Kazuha could spend as long as he needed forging the blade, if he chose to do so.

“But is there a forge there?” asks Kazuha. “I haven’t been in a while, but I don’t recall seeing one.”

“Ah, you know them—always changing their teapot all the time!” Thoma replies. “But yeah, they built a forge recently on one of the islands—and I heard from some of the Knights of Favonius from Mondstadt who were there that it’s a good forge, too! Might not be exactly as we have it set up in Inazuma, but it should still work the same.”

Kazuha smiles. “Thank you, Thoma. That’s very helpful information.”

Thoma beams, that sunshine smile of his that Ayato adores so much, before excusing himself and leaving the room.

Once Thoma is gone, Kazuha returns his attention to Ayato. “The place is settled, then. I merely need to hear your purpose.”

Despite the temporary distraction and all the time he had to come to an answer, Ayato finds himself no closer to one. “I will tell you by the time we part today,” he says, putting a time limit upon himself—he does not have all day, as he still has to leave again for another meeting after this, and he does not expect Kazuha to wait for him forever. “But I will need a few more moments.”

Kazuha nods and does not say more on the subject, instead reaching out for the cup in front of him, and drinking it dry as Ayato does the same. As he sets his cup down, his eyes fall upon the poem Ayato copied out earlier. “The red maple bows to those departing far across the sea. Weeping leaves fall upon the waters, a lament for those who will not return,” he quotes, two lines from the middle of the poem. “There was once a time that I thought that lament may have been for me.”

Ayato had not been thinking of Kazuha’s past departure when he chose to copy out this particular poem, but he does not say that. Sometimes, the things that drop themselves in your lap by chance are the most useful. “I hope that you no longer feel like you can never you can never return to this Inazuma,” he says. “The maples grow on Yashiori Island, too—if I recall, those have a more upright form.”

“Maples are known for their endless variation,” Kazuha replies. “It was because of this nature that my great-grandfather used them so widely in his bonsai, each one holding a different strength and beauty from any other. In that sense, they are rather like Inazuma’s people. Now that the Shogun has recognised the need for this variety in our nation—yes. It is one to which I can return.”

Ayato, not for the first time, is glad that he played his part in the events that pulled Her Excellency from her secluded concepts of eternity, to create this new, more auspicious age for Inazuma.

The answer comes to him all at once. “Harmony,” he says, and the word is sweeter in his mouth than anything he has said all day. When Kazuha looks up at him, his eyes slightly narrowed, Ayato continues. “The purpose. I do not know how best to represent it in a blade, and as the bladesmith, I will leave that up to your capable hands. But if the Haran Geppaku Futsu is a weapon of harm, then let this blade be a symbol of Inazuma’s new harmony.”

Kazuha nods once before staring Ayato straight in the eye. His gaze is clear, and yet Ayato remains rather unnerved by the fact that he cannot tell what the samurai is thinking.

“A harmonious Inazuma,” Kazuha says finally, the slightest hints of a smile on his lips. “That, I believe I can do.”

*

The Commissioner is free on most early mornings, but Kazuha asked for ten days before they met in the Serenitea Pot for the forging of the weapon. Forging a noteworthy blade requires both the skill of the bladesmith as well as the raw materials from which the blade is forged. Those do not come out of nowhere; they must be carefully mined and examined to ensure they will not cause any structural impurities when the blade is forged. Commissioner Kamisato does not intend for this blade to cause harm, but Kazuha is not so naive to the ways of the world to forge him a sword that will break the first time it meets resistance.

And if the purpose of this blade is a harmonious Inazuma, then it only seems fitting to gather iron ore from each island, so that the sword will be a true representation of this nation. Lord Kamisato may not be able to spend much time appreciating Inazuma’s scenery on account of his busy workload, but Kazuha hopes that by doing this, the blade can become his eyes and bear an experience that he likely will not have otherwise. 

He does not rush as he makes his way across the islands. There is no need to hurry, nowhere to run to or run from. He can access the Traveler’s teapot from wherever he finds himself when the morning comes for he and the Commissioner to meet, and so whilst it would be a good idea to make it back to Narukami Island by that time in order to get back on deck through Ritou, it is not a strict order. If he is further away, he will just have to move a little further as he makes his way back to the sea.

Kazuha does not see all that Inazuma has to offer, though he cannot deny that it has much. This is partly because of his limited time and overall goal—he does not live life on other’s schedules for the most part, but since he has already decided to do so he may as well hold up his end of the agreement—and this is what he tells old grandmothers and young children when they ask him to stay in their villages for just another night or two. He helps them where he can, but he knows he has no fixed abode and therefore no true place among them, so he bows politely at their offers before setting himself upon the road once more.

The other part, the one that everyone would know about if they thought about it for more than a few moments, the one that people have heard of and yet dismiss far more quickly than is deserved—that part is because he once roamed over these lands with his old friend. A wanderer’s life is meant to be freeing, if one goes about it in the right way, but without that joking presence by his side as it points out anything of interest, Kazuha finds the roads they once walked together to be the loneliest places in Teyvat.

Still, that friend of his would not want him to be sad. If he were still here, Kazuha knows exactly what he’d do—he’d sling his arm over Kazuha’s shoulders, lift his chin to the sky, and tell stories. He’d talk about all the things that are invisible to the eyes given their limited perception. A Vision does more to expand one’s world, but it is not everything—there are always more places in which to roam, and those places are not limited to this plane.

Kazuha is not sure what he believes in when it comes to life after death. He has always focused far more on merely staying alive. But when he thinks of his dear friend—he believes with a strange certainty that somewhere his friend is roaming across new pastures too.

Knowing that, Kazuha could not in good conscience remain still. Inazuma’s mud is thick after it rains, and it threatens to hold you if you stay there for too long, and when the sun comes up and bakes it dry you find yourself trapped. No, he cannot have that happen—he must keep moving.

Still, he passes through all of the major islands, revisits things he has seen a dozen times, and experiences new things that are available to him now that the Traveler has cleared their threats. The storms that plagued Seirai are no more, as is the fog that covered Tsurumi to the south. When he does end up visiting those islands, he finds them empty and devoid of people—though he is sure that people will start settling on them again now that the things that made them inhospitable have passed. It is in human nature to travel with the wind, Kazuha has learned, and whilst some are quicker to put down roots than others, the seeds they produce are still carried away and might find themselves in a completely different place from where they came from. Kazuha knows that that is certainly the case for his own life.

He finds the iron he needs on those islands, too—finds that the rock and earth from each place has been shaped somewhat by the environment it endured for so long. He carries the ore around with him in his travelling pack, but every so often when he stops to rest he takes chunks from two different places out of his bag and compares the innate differences between them. It will make it much harder to forge them all into a sword that holds strong and steady, turning these fractured and fragmented islands into something called a nation, but that is what Lord Kamisato has asked, and that is what Kazuha intends to do.

The most troublesome thing to reconcile, of course, is not the environmental effects that Inazuma’s geography has had upon its rock. The real trouble comes once he sweeps across the eastern islands and onto Kannazuka, that solemn place in the middle that lies between the Shogunate and Watatsumi. It belongs to neither, and it has been the place of a great many battles between the two sides over Inazuma’s long history—most of which resulted in little change at all, and left only the blood-red dendrobiums to keep watch over the quiet graves with single names as proof that somewhere, someone existed.

Kannazuka, the hill where no gods reside. It is a fitting name for it.

Kazuha feels uncomfortable as he passes through the area, this no man’s land—it is a physical representation of all that he did not want for his life, much of the reason why he rejected Kujou Kamaji’s offer to restore the Kaedehara Clan’s former honour. He knows that he should have done it, that if his father and grandfather were alive then he probably would have, and yet he also knows inside his heart that they would not blame him for the life he has now, seeing the world and allowing himself to be free from the confinements of Inazuma’s politics and all the effects that they have on the people. 

The people, and the land too. As Kazuha tries to harvest iron from Kannazuka, he finds it far harder to find—the deposits are fewer and further between, and those that he does find tend to break in smaller pieces once he dislodges them from the earth. He gathers them all up nonetheless, because they might still be useful when melted down, but they are certainly going to be far more troublesome to work with.

Yet it is an important thing to represent nonetheless. Kazuha knows that Lord Kamisato is familiar with the Watatsumi Army, and was instrumental in getting them close to Tenshukaku when the Traveler was duelling before the throne, so he must be familiar with them and what they stand for. And yet—it is one thing to know about something, and another to experience first-hand. Kazuha does not expect Lord Kamisato to throw himself back into past battles now that a peace has finally been brokered, but he does want the Commissioner to understand that the scars of the past still remain even in this new harmonious Inazuma, and that those scars cannot be ignored.

Kagotsurube Isshin can no longer speak, but Kazuha can still sense his sadness when he strikes against the damaged iron. Kazuha has no claymore with which to hew out the ore, so he uses his sword instead and resolves to resharpen the dulled edges of his blade later. It is not what the sword was made for, not at all, and yet Kazuha does it for as long as his blades will respond to his choices, because it has never been like him to do things the normal way.

Once he has stood on the grounds of Kannazuka and paid his respects to the people who once existed there, he moves on to Yashiori Island. They not stay long there—this part of Inazuma was once overrun by Tatarigami Energy, and—yes, even the mere thought of it is enough to set Kagotsurube Isshin on edge, this reminder of the thing that once made him what he was and yet also led him astray. Kazuha does not spend too long here either—if Kannazuka was unsettling, like an earthquake breaking up the ground beneath him, then Yashiori Island feels like a dozen history tomes have been placed onto his shoulders. He feels that most as he gets to see the stories of Orobashi laid bare before him, a god who could not stand or survive when it was his turn to stand against the Raiden Shogun.

This is another place that Kazuha and his friend once visited together. His friend had told him the stories of Orobashi even though they’d both heard it a dozen times before as a cautionary tale. At the end, his friend had come to the same conclusion, once again voiced something that was probably in his head for a long time: that even though the Shogun was capable of immense destruction and overwhelming power, there had always been moments where she too was presented with challenges to the way she operated.

“There will always be discord and people who stand against the Shogun,” his friend had said. “There are things that compel them to do so that override the fears they might have.”

It had been shortly afterwards that the fatal duel before the throne had occurred, leading Kazuha to flee with that fragile Vision Shell, and the point of connection between the two stories makes Kazuha grit his teeth, which is something he tries to avoid these days. It is the way of the world—that people seek power or their own ideals and eliminate all threats in the pursuit of getting it—and yet it still makes him strangely angry. It is one thing to try and remain the power that one has, but it is another thing to ignore and destroy the lives of people who did not ask for or deserve it without taking their situations into consideration.

Needless to say, he collects his ore, as much as he can without straying too close to the Tatarigami—the ore should not retain traces of it, but Kazuha will only know for certain once he has started working with it.

But he cannot escape his thoughts on resistance and the Shogun entirely, for the last places he has to see is the reason he came to Inazuma in the first place—it is time for Kazuha and his blade to return to Watatsumi Island and the people who live there.

The island is calmer than it was when he left it a few years ago—they are no longer mounting an active resistance against the Shogunate, after all—but the people there are still as much as they were back then. The Divine Priestess comes out briefly to greet him, welcoming him back to their island now that he is no longer a wanted fugitive and she can do so openly, before retreating back to her quarters to prepare for her next engagement.

General Gorou greets him with that bright smile of his and a promise for a full conversation once he gets back from a training exercise he’s about to run for some civilians—teaching them to defend themselves should they ever need to do so. When Gorou does return, they sit on the edge of a small cliff overlooking a river, and Gorou listens to Kazuha talk about Watatsumi’s unique scenery now that they both have the time to stop and enjoy it. When Kazuha tells Gorou that he’s looking for good quality ore deposits, Gorou points him in the direction of their local blacksmith, who in turn takes Kazuha out to a crop that barely anyone mines on account of the fact that it’s quite far down and noe many people want to climb back up. This is an issue Kazuha doesn’t have, since he can just summon the winds to get himself back up again. Doing so is worth it, too—the ore he gets from a little extra work seems on a surface impression to be the most suitable iron for forging. In fact, Kazuha collects a little extra so that he might use it to forge a symbolic weapon for the Resistance to thank them for sheltering him in the past. But for Lord Kamisato’s blade, this iron will have to be satisfied with being one component of a greater whole.

He is still on Watatsumi Island on the morning he is to meet the Commissioner. Whilst time does pass differently there in that teapot, and his temporary departure from the island should not be noticeable by the people around him, he nonetheless prevents any potential worry by telling Gorou where he is going and that he will return in due course. Gorou, having been invited to the Serenitea Pot himself, nods and promises to excuse Kazuha’s absence to anyone who might be looking for him.

The Commissioner had given him an exact time, but Kazuha always likes to arrive early so that he will not be caught off guard when the other person arrives. Besides, he will need that time to stoke the forge and to decide preliminarily how he is going to make these chunks of ore from different places, all with differing qualities, into one blade. There may be some work he needs to do with them first—he has not had the time to take a blacksmith’s tools to them and study them in detail.

Getting to the Serenitea Pot is always a strange experience—something akin to being physically unmade then remade anew. much like the reforging of a sword. But Kazuha makes it there in one piece, and when he does he finds himself standing next to the forge that is indeed now here. It is a good forge, too—rather built for Mondstadt weapons, if the design and weapon racks tell him anything, but a serviceable one nonetheless. Everything he needs is here, so Kazuha starts by stoking the fire whilst he lays out his ore upon a side table.

There are people here too, people he has seen in passing when they both happen to be in this space together. He is quite intrigued by this place that allows for such a connection between people who would otherwise live so far away, but he does not question it. In fact, it was a conversation with a Forest Watcher named Tighnari that led him to visit Sumeru in the first place. The people here right now are mostly Mondstadters, which means they’re more likely to start up a conversation than Inazumans, but they seem to notice that Kazuha is busy at the forge and therefore choose to keep their distance.

He draws up a sample plan based on the amount of ore he gathered from each place, as well as taking account of the various residual challenges that each one might pose. The ore from Yashiori Island does not have any Tatarigami traces left on it, which is a relief, but Kazuha still finds he prefers to wear gloves when handling it for any length of time—there is something about it that seems strange, a turning in his gut that he cannot explain but follows anyway.

He also cuts off a few pieces from each island’s ore and runs a few tests to see if they’ll react poorly with one another, or if some combinations are better than others—and he finds that some of them are. Time seems to shape itself around him, somehow—he knows how long this smelting process takes on average, and yet in the short time he has between when he entered the teapot and when the Commissioner is scheduled to arrive, he manages to get far more done than he would if he were not in this space.

The results of his experiments make sense. The iron from Yashiori Island is most stable and least unnerving when it is melded or surrounded by that from Watatsumi, and that it cannot come into contact with that of Narukami Island otherwise. Adding the no man’s land of Kannazuka between Watatsumi and Narukami also provides a more stable output. This distinction and difference represents the fracture lines that still divide Inazuma’s islands, which is likely not what the Commissioner wants to hear, when Kazuha thinks about it in hindsight. But it is the truth, and he will not betray his own principles by obscuring that. 

Still, it would be something of an error to not place the Narukami ore at the centre of the blade to represent the strong centrality of the island and the capital to Inazuma that the Commissioner probably wants to represent. He has heard that Lord Kamisato is sometimes referred to as a Pillar of Fortitude, and Kazuha does have to admit that he seems to be a stabilising and supporting force in this new age of Inazuma, even if he does not make public appearances very often.

Still, of the three Commission Heads, Kamisato Ayato is the only one who has not colluded with the Fatui and been subsequently caught for it. Whilst his methods are sometimes a little unpredictable, they never seem to be egregious enough that the ends do not justify the means. Kazuha does not ever see himself joining or working for the Yashiro Commission, but he does not have any worries or concerns about its smooth running for as long as Kamisato Ayato remains in charge.

Because of that, Kazuha is determined that the weapon he is about to forge represents its purpose and its intended wielder—that it is a solid blade, built to last.

By the time Lord Kamisato arrives, Kazuha is ready.

*

When Kamisato Ayato reaches the Serenitea Pot himself, he is feeling rather refreshed.

For once, he’d gotten a full night of sleep—ever so rare these days given all the petitions and paperwork that seem to build up every time he’s away. But he had known that his day would find itself somewhat extended—because of the time shift, no matter how long he spends in the teapot with Kazuha, watching the swordsmith forge his weapon, he’ll still have to return to the estate and carry on with a full day’s worth of duties afterwards.

It is because of this that he does not make use of the Traveler’s teapot very much, barring the times when he has been explicitly invited and it would be remiss of him not to go and stay with them awhile. It provides him with a moment to breathe, when he is here, to temporarily stray from the weights of his duty, but it can never last forever. He supposes that he shouldn’t think of it like that, to enjoy those moments whilst he has them because his work will never be truly over until the day he passes it over to some kind of successor—whether that’s a child of his or otherwise. No, he has a good long public life in him yet—and because of that, he cannot help but return to the various blocks and stays it brings into his path and every opportunity.

Still, once he reaches the space inside the teapot—he once tried to understand how it works and had given up after a while after ensuring it was not at risk of closing and trapping him inside indefinitely—he does take a deep breath in and out before heading towards the plumes of smoke rising from the forge on one of the other islands. He had not known where that forge would be, so he had instead chosen the landing point closest to the representation of a street in Inazuma City that Ayato enjoys so much—but apparently it was the wrong place to land, and now he must make his way back to his intended destination.

He passes a few of the other people that are resting here—mostly Mondstadters that Thoma could probably identify by name if he were here, but who Ayato does not know in detail and does not have the time to do so right now. Still, he can at least recognise the Acting Grand Master of Mondstadt’s Knights of Favonius, Jean Gunnhildr, and he takes the moment to bow to her in respect. There may come a time where they have to meet on an official capacity, and it would be errant of him to get off on the wrong foot before that happens.

Acting Grand Master Gunnhildr snaps to attention when she realises she’s being addressed, but she regains her composure within moments and returns the bow. “Let the wind lead,” she calls—a common turn of phrase and blessing in Mondstadt, Thoma says—and Ayato smiles because he is about to meet someone with control over the winds, after all. He does not particularly feel like getting blown away.

He reaches the correct island, where Kazuha is standing over the forge, crouching a little so he can blow air into the bellows to keep the flame stoked and hot. Still, he straightens up when Ayato draws close, because his instinct and perception does indeed seem to be as good as Ayato has heard it is. He turns and bows, and Ayato returns it on force of habit. 

“Lord Kamisato,” says Kazuha. “I trust you’ve been well since our last meeting?”

Ayato nods, because it has truthfully been rather all right—there have been no immediate fires to put out, thankfully, so much of his work has been focused on planning for the future. “And you? How have your travels across Inazuma been?”

Kazuha describes his journey, which seems much more scenic and relaxed than any trip away from Narukami Island that Ayato has had in a long time—the differing details of their lives truly do present themselves in every possible facet. Ayato is glad to hear that the people of Watatsumi are well—Her Excellency may not see eye to eye with their ideals and the way they operate, but Ayato is in no hurry to change their way of life. Opposing forces keep Inazuma in check. It would not do to have nothing by way of checks and balances when it comes to rulers and powers that be, or a rule runs the risk of becoming a dictatorship. 

“But enough of that,” Kazuha cuts himself off. “You came for a blade, as I recall, and I have been able to gather the necessary materials. If you would like to hear my plan for forging the blade before I begin, I would be willing to explain it.”

Ayato considers it, concludes that he’s likely to get about a quarter to a half of Kazuha’s explanation, and then decides to listen to it anyway. It is not knowledge he is likely to need in his line of work, but it is somewhat interesting. “I would like that, yes. I will likely ask questions as you are explaining it, however—there is a reason you are the one forging the blade, after all—and it would be better to ask them now than to disturb you whilst you’re in the middle of your craft.”

Kazuha crosses an arm across his chest. “That is fine with me. If you understand the blade, it is also more likely to accept you as its master,” he says, and Ayato is immediately glad that he decided to do so.

Kazuha launches right into it, detailing how he mined the ore from each region, and the properties that each one held. There will be no Jade Steel in the weapon he is to forge, Ayato learns, because that requires Crystal Marrow, and those precious stones are no longer being harvested for weapons on account of the truce between the Shogunate and Watatsumi.

“It is still a tender peace we have,” says Kazuha. “I will not do anything to upset that balance, sir.”

Ayato nods. He would not ask Kazuha to do so, in any case. The war that tore itself across the beaches of Yashiori Island left scars on the land that will take something of an eternity to heal in itself, and he has no intention to widen those fault lines. It would only cause more trouble for both himself and the people, after all.

Still, he cannot ignore the truth of it as Kazuha lays it out before him, the way the geographical distribution of the islands reflects itself in the ore. Ayato had been so focused on the people, because he has always been a man of the people, and it almost slipped his mind that there would be further reaching consequences of such strife on the land. In that respect, he finds he must himself defer to his companion. A wise man is only so because he knows when he does not know, after all.

After the ore is discussed, Kazuha shows him a diagram of the blade he intends to forge. He recognises the name of the blade style immediately from where it is written at the top of the diagram—it is an iaito, distinguished from a sword like Haran Geppaku Futsu by the shape of the blade—roughly the same width at the tip than at the guard—and the fact that it has no cutting edge. Its common use is as a training blade for the practice of iaido; and whilst Ayato is not a practitioner of that martial art, some of its principles are embedded into the Kamisato Art and are ones he has picked up over the years. Kamisato Art: Kyouka and its swift Shunsuiken strikes relies on a similar principle—of being mindful of one’s enemy before parrying and striking with lightning-fast reflexes and stunning accuracy. 

When he was learning, they did not trust him with a bladed sword immediately, but they wanted him to have something more than the wooden bokken and bamboo shinai he used for sparring matches with his teachers and with Thoma and Ayaka, to learn the weight of metal in his hand even if it wasn’t quite forged the same or as heavy as a bladed sword, and wasn’t suitable for sparring or sword to sword contact. Still, they had given him an iaito with which to practise, and he had used it until they’d deemed him worthy enough in the Kamisato Arts to receive a steel sword with a blade that could actually cut. He had used that sword until his parents passed, until the Haran Geppaku Futsu had come to him.

This blade that Kazuha is about to forge is nothing like his usual weapon—it has no cutting edge, and could not have one without serious work far beyond what Ayato is capable of. The point of it could still be used in a pinch, if absolutely necessary for defence, but there will be nothing like the quick slashes that Ayato has grown accustomed to in his swordsmanship training. But as Kazuha explains, it will not be an iaito in the strictest sense, because rather than a soft-metal alloy, Ayato’s blade will be made of folded steel, much like an edged sword would. It is not the traditional way of forging it; and it is not made from the iron sand that the most artisanal blades are, for those are mass produced by specific furnaces in Inazuma and Kazuha did not have the time to. 

“My ancestors would laugh at me if I called it a true iaito, in the way they are meant to be forged, because it is not. But the years pass us by, and like leaves that fall and grow once more, the old traditions change with the world around them,” says Kazuha. Ayato doesn’t quite know what to say back, and in these situations, he’s learned not to say anything at all.

Still, the folded steel of the blade means something in and of itself. It is not meant for a duel, is not meant for making the first strike. But if someone comes for him, it can still block and parry, and Ayato is not leaving himself completely undefended. It is as he often operates—it is not the public shows of force by which he acts, but in silent schemes and subtle acts of retaliation when what he holds dear is put into threat. For the most part, he intends to carry it when he feels completely sure of himself, when he is not striding head first into battle. It will be inane enough for those ends—a man with a non-bladed sword does not pose as much of a threat, after all. On first glance it might almost seem ceremonial, decorative, like the writing brush his mother gave him when he came of age. It is more of a symbol than a tool, something that could sit alone in a drawer, pristine and unused.

But Ayato will not let it go unused. If there is a lesson the last few years have taught him, it is that Inazuma’s pursuit of eternity will not be won by keeping something in stasis. The blade will be subject to the same elements that all things are. It will tarnish and it will need to be polished, and Ayato will give it the care and maintenance it needs.

He looks over the forging blueprint once more, then smiles to himself before turning that smile upon Kazuha. “An excellent suggestion,” he says. “It will be an honour to watch you work.”

And so Kazuha does.

The forging process takes both more and less time than Ayato had expected, strangely enough. Whilst he was aware that swordsmiths train for many years in order to get good at their craft, and that anything worth having requires time. A nation was not built in a day, especially if it is not being built by one man.

And yet, it was a blessing of sorts that they have this external space in which to exist. Time does not pass in the same way here, does not have the same eroding effect as the world they will soon return to does. Though night and day seem to cycle here much as they do in Teyvat, and the sun certainly sets and rises again several times in the time it takes Kazuha to forge to the blade.

“If we were in Inazuma, I would have stopped my work to sleep,” says Kazuha when the sun dips fully beneath the horizon. And yet, Ayato never finds himself growing tired, and neither does Kazuha. The samurai forges through all hours, and in the evening when he can no longer use the sunlight he manages to borrow a lantern from another friend of the Traveler’s, a maid from the Mondstadt Knights of Favonius named Noelle who Kazuha says he has not met before. Another passerby tells him that Noelle is just like that with everyone, and Ayato thinks to himself that if he did not already have someone like Thoma in the Kamisato Estate, he’d most certainly be looking for someone like Noelle.

But that is beside the point. The point is that Noelle’s lantern allows Kazuha to continue forging, stopping only occasionally when he is between steps to stretch himself out and to get food and water. They do not need to eat here, but it is refreshing and tasteful nonetheless. Kazuha makes things for himself in the kitchen inside the mansion—because the Traveler has apparently thought of everything—and he shares pieces with Ayato, who remembers his long-standing reputation of questionable cooking and that there’s no Thoma in sight to feed it to and does not cook anything himself. He also accepts a drink of water when it’s offered, because the forge and the flame run scorching by necessity and even the physics of this subliminal space are not enough to keep them from sweating and dehydrating if they do not drink enough water to replenish it.

It is not something he ever saw himself doing—sharing water with Kaedehara Kazuha, passing a canteen back and forth as necessary. It is the sort of thing one does with a comrade, a brother in arms, and whilst Kazuha has probably had many of those in his time, Ayato finds his life has been somewhat lacking in that regard.

It is not the sort of thing he expects to be doing particularly often with his current companion, but he has to admit that the sensation is pleasant.

Forging a sword has many more steps than Ayato was expecting. It is smelting the iron and adding the carbon to make it into steel. It is hammering the molten steel into the right shape, each strike ringing through Ayato’s ears like thunder. It is carving the handle out of a log of Yumemiru wood that Kazuha collected from somewhere or other, smoothing and sanding it down and making sure it is the right length to fit in Ayato’s hand. It is tying the ropes around that handle, complicated things that require deft fingers that Kazuha seems to have even though Ayato has never thought about his hands in such a manner before.

There are so many moving parts that must be bound together in the right way, expertly managed at every step of the way to ensure the correct product, to ensure that it becomes the enduring art it is supposed to be.

In that sense, Ayato realises, the sword truly resembles their nation.

Eventually, it is done, though not without significant exertion on Kazuha’s part. Ayato does not have words for the open, raw look on his face as he holds the sword up with both open palms. He does not bow, does not present it as if he were a servant; he merely stands his full height. Ayato is still taller than he is, but the message is clear. They are not equals in some respects. But in others, they are.

Ayato takes the blade by the hilt, as any swordsman would. The effect is immediate; the moment his fingers close around the wood and the rope, the energy that he was storing away just in case he ever got surrounded and needed to call on his Bloomwater Blades—that Energy immediately surges forth and into his sword.

“Step back, or you’ll get caught,” he tells Kazuha, as his arm can do nothing else but raise itself upwards into the correct motions for Kamisato Art: Suiyuu, pulling it through and until the art is complete.

When he comes back to himself—more than a little soaked from standing in a Hydro field of his own creation, he looks up to where Kazuha successively managed to escape the water. He is saying something, but Ayato cannot hear him amongst the rush of water all around him and the tinkling bells of the Bloomwater Blades as they fall. Sometime later, Ayato will realise that this means the blade cannot cut directly, but under the right circumstances it can still lead to a flood.

Kazuha speaks again once the field has dissipated. “I would say that the blade has indeed taken you as its wielder,” he says, without a hint of humour and irony. “That surge of power would not have happened otherwise.”

“Would it not, for you?” asks Ayato.

Kazuha reaches out his hand for the sword, and Ayato passes it over. As he does, he feels a weight being temporarily lifted from him, as if the mere act of carrying the blade is a burden set upon his shoulders even though it is not as heavy as the sword he usually wields.

Kazuha holds the sword in his hand for a moment, staring at it as if he is trying to discern its secrets, but then he shakes his head. “I have enough energy within me, but it is not providing the necessary conduit I would need.”

As if to prove his point, Kazuha tells Ayato to stand back and puts his hand on his own blade. He glances sideways as he draws his sword—just like Ayato does, just like Ayaka does, and even though Kazuha was never trained the same way they were, he still seems to have come to the same place by himself.

Ayato does not have much time to think about that, however, because Kazuha then swings his sword around in a circle and whips up a gale.

He has never seen Kazuha unleash his full potential before. He has the feeling that there is much more than he has not seen yet.

Ayato is not standing within the gale’s area, but he feels it against his face nonetheless. It is something of beauty, he thinks first—it would be worse if he were standing it, but outside it he can appreciate the way it swirls through the air, fast and unrestrained. Within the swirl, somehow, are conjured maple leaves in several colours—and none are the reds that are seen so often around the Ritou docks. There is orange, there is yellow, there is green—all of these colours that happen before the leaves are fully developed and therefore ready to fall. In this, Kazuha shows that he still has much to come and somehow that is mesmerising. 

The young samurai is a maple, drifting in the wind and landing wherever the elements take him. It is so different from Ayato himself, from the seasonal camellias that define his family to the evergreen cypresses his mother talked about with such fondness. But that is not a bad thing; it merely means they are different people, and variety in the people leads to a well-acclimatised Inazuma.

Ayato studies his new sword once more, smiles to himself, then places his hand into his coat to retrieve the coin pouch he stored there. “The Isshin Art truly has a worthy successor in you, Kaedehara Kazuha,” he says, holding it out. “Your payment, as promised.”

When Ayato exits the Serenitea Pot and steps back into the training courtyard at the Kamisato Estate, his new blade safely stored in the scabbard at his side, he is the same man—and yet he is a different one too.

*

It is only when Kazuha is back at sea on the Alcor’s familiar decks that he takes out and properly examines the coin pouch the Commissioner had given him.

He had not done it for the money, but he had not been so naive as to refuse it. Mora is a catalyst everywhere in Teyvat, and there will certainly be moments where having extra coins will be useful.

But his main reason for forging that blade was to repay the debt he owed Lord Kamisato. After that, he figured, they would be equal, and Kazuha would be free to go his own separate way without feeling beholden to the Yashiro Commissioner and his former actions. When Kazuha returns to Inazuma, he wishes it to be of his own accord, and he wants the bonds he forms there to be of his choice rather than being chosen for him.

He had said as much, just before he and Lord Kamisato had left the Serenitea Pot to return to their respective lives. He had been curious about why it was him that was chosen to forge this blade, when the Amenoma Smithy had been continuously operating for far longer and was likely more reliable.

Lord Kamisato’s face had grown still, as if it were an unperturbed lake, not even a ripple on the water’s surface. He had looked Kazuha in the eye and said, “Your clan’s former estate is not what it used to be, and I cannot restore that to you. Although from what I have heard, you asked for the last remnants to be sold and donated to an orphanage, and you seem to be suited to your life, so I do not think you want me to do that even if I could.”

He had paused long enough for Kazuha to nod, before continuing. “But I do wish to restore some of the smithing reputation that was lost through something beyond your years and beyond your control,” he says. “If you permit me, and if anyone asks, I will tell them the name of the one who forged this blade. I will tell them that the Isshin Art is alive, and that the mistakes of the past ought to be rectified now that we have the space to do so.”

Kazuha stared at him for a moment. “I do not wish to make a living out of making swords.”

“You do not have to,” said Ayato. “Your life is yours to do as you wish. But—there were many mistakes made in the past that still put their marks and scars on who we are today. Like this sword, I cannot wipe them clean or cover them up—I cannot pretend that they never existed. But I would be doing a disservice to them—and to you—if I did not try to fill in those cracks. And so, please allow me to fill them with gold.”

It is that old practice of kintsugi, that celebration of breakage and repair rather than aiming for perfection at the cost of integrity, that Kazuha thinks of he stands at the Alcor’s stern, with the wind tousling his hair as he looks back at the Inazuma he is leaving.

He retrieves a single coin from the pouch and holds it up to the sky, watching as the sun catches the metal, the golden surface shining in the light. He remembers the Commissioner’s words once more, and that he had nodded silently at the request, and he takes one last look at the coin and Inazuma before the latter disappears fully from view and the former is returned to the pouch from whence it came.

Yes, Kazuha thinks to himself. When I return to those islands once more, I hope to see the harmonious nation that Lord Kamisato aims to build.