Chapter Text
We bid each other farewell beside the hill,
As day meets dusk, I close the wooden gate.
Next year, in spring, there will be green grass again,
But will my honoured friend return?
—Farewell by Wang Wei
I clap my hands / and with the echoes, the day begins to dawn– / the summer moon.
—Matsuo Bashō, translated by Makoto Ueda
Kazuha wakes up late. The sun is shining overhead, a gentle breeze blowing through the grass, bringing with it the smell of earth and fresh otogi sap.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” says his friend, his voice just over past his feet, closer to the campfire that still smells faintly of wood smoke and charred fish.
“Mmm,” Kazuha murmurs back. He stays put where he lies, his body wanting nothing more than to continue to bask in the warm sunlight.
“How holy a place... green leaves, young leaves, and through them, the sun’s radiance,” his friend muses, his voice moving closer. Kazuha opens his eyes just in time to catch the gentle expression on his friend’s face as he looks down at Kazuha and extends a hand out.
“Plovers chirp, as morning’s soft light shines, yet I am ever covered in cloud...” Kazuha replies, taking his friend’s offered hand up into a sitting position.
“I took the liberty of preparing breakfast. But you’ll have only yourself to blame if it’s too cold for your liking.”
He smiles at his friend’s teasing words. “Good food, made with kindness, will taste of the intention it was prepared with. Thank you.”
Breakfast turns out to be a bowl of miso soup, fragrant steamed rice, and lightly-fried fish. While Kazuha gladly eats, his friend picks up his cat and settles it into his lap. The o-nenju prayer beads on his friend's bracelet rustle lightly with the movement, the sound blending in with the buoyant zephyr blowing through the glade.
Surveying the scene, Kazuha thinks to himself, and then says out loud, “Under the tree’s branches, the soup, the rice, the fish and all are seasoned with petals.”
There is joy to be found all around in a pleasant summer day, in simple pleasures, in having a companion close at hand. What else can he do except breathe in and smile at the bounty of his treasures?
After his meal, they pack up their belongings and set off together. The journey they’ve shared is better measured by its quality than duration; less than a year total, yet it feels like Kazuha was always meant to be here, by his friend’s side as they see the world.
Sometimes they amuse themselves with prose composition challenges, volleying back and forth verses until one or another gets tired, loses inspiration, or even more likely, gets distracted. Or they may talk of the shadow puppet show they saw last night, or of the meteor shower that passed overhead... or at least until his friend’s cat starts to meow unhappily at them for chatting too long with each other instead of petting her. Warmth fills Kazuha upon recollection of their past time together. Despite the cat’s displeasure, he has no regrets. Long conversations beside blooming irises, truly are part of the joys of life on the road. And if there truly is nothing worth talking about, then they lapse into a comfortable silence, the kind that leaves room for thought like an old friend sliding into an empty seat at the dinner table.
Today is one of the latter kind of days: an auspicious one for contemplation, with partially cloudy skies and an open road before them. Fresh clean air, carrying the scent of hinoki cypress wood, fresh cut watermelon, and the promise of late summer, gently tugs at their clothing and tousles his friend’s golden hair. His friend absentmindedly strokes the back of his cat as they walk, a solemn expression on his face.
Kazuha waits patiently for his friend to gather his thoughts. And finally, he does:
“The Tenryou Commission took another Vision by force this morning. All on the order of the almighty shogun. Another life ruined for the vanity of a god.., There must be someone who can withstand it.”
Kazuha hums noncommittally.
“There will always be those who dare to brave the lightning’s glow,” his friend follows up.
“Do you think you’re one of those?” he asks. He means to inject levity into the conversation, to tease his friend for his unusual seriousness, but his friend seems to take his words into consideration.
“Maybe... Waiting around for someone else to solve things doesn’t seem right to me.”
“Even in a river frozen solid, under the ice, water still runs,” Kazuha counsels. “There is no need to force a direct confrontation. The shogunate army has not yet reached this place, and we can travel unhindered within the country.”
His friend tenses up even before Kazuha finishes speaking. It is unfortunate that they must disagree on this matter, then. The two of them are both so ordinarily so easy-going, preferring to make peace than to cause strife, and his friend, especially, has always seemed careful of being a burden. Now his friend stands stiffly before him, and they are standing on opposite sides of a riverbank.
Carefully, as though thinking through his words first, his friend asks, “So... I should sit back because my life is still good? How about those who don’t have a choice? I don’t see why I deserve to enjoy freedom when others are suffering. I need to go closer and see for myself.”
Kazuha has never been one to jump head-first into a fight. But he also won’t let himself get pushed along by the raging current. “Alright. I want to keep going... traveling, seeing more of Inazuma that my father never saw. Though material luxuries have not been a feature of my journey, it has yet been a rich and rewarding one, with the boundless earth and sky to call my abode, and all the wonders of nature as my partners in poetry.”
“Right, you don’t need to justify yourself, Kazuha. I understand.” His friend pauses, then relaxes his posture before continuing, “The months and days are the travelers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on ships or who grow old leading horses are forever journeying, and their homes are wherever their travels take them...”
Kazuha smiles, for he recognizes the passage his friend is referencing, and he responds with another line, “I have long been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming.”
“It is good to know who you are and what you value,” his friend says warmly. “As for me, in this world people so easily overlook the flowering chestnuts in their eaves. Travel the world, or else till a rice paddy back and forth... No matter which path in life you follow, as long as you strive to improve yourself, you will always find new wondrous insights.” He pauses then continues, “And well, the Vision Hunt Decree is important enough to warrant changing my future plans. So I suppose this is the end of us... For now, at least.”
“Indeed our paths seem to diverge here.”
A gentle silence follows, broken up only by a deer’s cry in the distance.
Then his friend pulls Kazuha into an embrace. “Here, we part with each other, and you’ll set out like a lonesome wisp of grass, floating across the miles farther and farther away. You’ve longed to travel like roaming clouds, but our friendship, unwilling to wane as the sun is to set, let it be here to stay...” He sighs. “It's been a good road, sharing with you. We will meet again, no matter how long of a journey.”
Kazuha finds himself equally as reluctant to part. “Then we do need not say farewell. We will meet again, no matter how far along the road. Let’s meet at Uyuu-tei in the capital in six week’s time. The leaves will have changed.”
“Yes,” his friend says, already looking into the distance. “Despite the harsh light of the heartless sun, an autumn wind still blows... Many things will have changed by then.”
Kazuha wants to say something, but clouds pass overhead, throwing them both into cool shadow, and the moment is gone. Now Kazuha feels a chill creep up his spine, but resignation, not weather, causes his ill-ease.
His friend is determined now, and there will be no stopping him. Kazuha dares not be an obstacle in his way. His friend seems to have faced enough disapproval for a lifetime. Let him not add to that score.
As his friend walks away, Kazuha feels at his back the loneliness of an autumn wind indeed.
Weeks later, Kazuha flies as fast as the winds he was named after, and still, he is too late.
“The Almighty Shogun is holding a duel before the throne. Unauthorized personnel are strictly forbidden from coming near,” the soldiers at the base had said. Further up the stairs, he hears: “The duel is already over. Hurry, seize the Vision!”
Someone else shouts, “General Kujou takes the vic—”
The rest, he is not there to hear, running up the stairs to the palace gates, past the Thousand-Eyed Goddess statue, overcoming the guards, and finally:
Dark clouds tinged with purple spiral overhead as he stumbles up the last steps. With his heart pounding and breathing heavy, he barely takes in the cold steel scent of ozone and an impending storm. He drags his tired eyes up to—
Lightning flashes, brief and blinding. The following thunderclap sends his ears ringing.
When his vision recovers, he sees his friend, who has fallen to the ground. The Raiden Shogun stands deathly still, her crackling sword still extended over the body.
Beads clatter everywhere from his friend’s broken o-nenju string. His friend’s Vision snaps off and flies through the air.
Guards are running up the stairs now.
Distantly, the first drops of rain start to fall.
He thinks of that cold, empty statue in the plaza below, its stone wings gleaming with stolen dreams and ruined ambitions. How strange to think that a gift once bestowed could be taken so ruthlessly, that the fate of so many cherished desires is to be a glittering trophy in a desolate vessel.
He thinks of his friend, shining in the summer sunlight, an easy smile, an open hand...
In front of him, his friend’s body is already disintegrating, just a red haori crumpled on the ground and a broken sword. Kazuha turns away, too weak to bear seeing his friend turn into nothing. His vision blurs and swims anyways.
And then he spots it— a flash of purple on his periphery. His friend’s Electro Vision starts its descent, tumbling down the stairs, closer to that statue, closer to the pikes and pounding footsteps of the incoming soldiers.
On instinct more than rational thought, he jumps down after it, pushing Anemo energy to send him forward.
Over the howling winds and the rumble of thunder, he hears shouts of surprise and alarm—
And he grabs it.
And then he holds on, ignoring how the Vision burns like a brand in his hand and how his head aches like a raw wound. Soldiers swarm him, boxing him in with the stench of wet woolen uniforms and acrid metal, as they reach out to take the Vision he holds so dearly. Their grasping hands and weapons cover his exit path, so he curls his rain-soaked shoulders around the last momento he has of his friend, and he runs.
He runs until he knows nothing.
His friend is gone, and he knows nothing.