Verisimilitude (GI Various x Reader)

Chapter Twenty-Five

        The Alcor rocked back and forth along the waves as we sailed to Inazuma. I stood outside, watching as the ship broke through the waves beneath us with a heavy heart. Lumine wasn't by my side. I couldn't help but feel so awful for her. To finally have found her brother, only for him to leave just like that? I clenched my fists against the wood of the boat. Footsteps approached from nearby. A quick glance over told me it was Kazuha.

"I couldn't help but notice how tense the air is around you. Would you care for a chat?" He asks as he walks up to me. I gave the Inazuman male a small smile.

"I'm not in the mood to really talk right now. Would it be okay if you stayed here with me for the time being?" I asked softly and he nodded without saying a word. We stood there in each other's presence for quite some time. We were close enough that I could feel his warmth radiate out towards me, clashing against the winds of the ocean breeze. The salt lingered in the air. Storm clouds could be seen off in the distance.

Somewhere past that storm, is the land of Inazuma.

Kazuha gazes at the storm with a heavy expression. Silence reigned for quite some time before Kazuha broke the quiet atmosphere.

"I have a tale I'd like to share, if that's okay with you?" He asks. I glance over, meeting his scarlet eyes with my own as he stared back at me. I raised a curious brow.

"A tale? Is it one from your homeland?" I ask him. He nods.

"Then please, I wouldn't mind hearing a story from Inazuma." He smiles softly.

"I had a feeling you might say something like that. Very well then..." He stares out at those storm clouds in the distance once more.

"This tale is one my grandfather used to tell me and his father him. It takes place during the time of the peak of the Raiden Gokaden. The Mikage Furnace had just been constructed and the blades forged during that period were second to none. Yet, strange happenings had begun to take place around the forge. Workers were growing sick with disease and before the people of Tatarasuna had known it, the situation at the Mikage Furnace had grown out of hand." He pauses before continuing.

"However, before the furnace had begun to malfunction, there was a visitor to the forge from Mondstadt. A woman whose identity has been lost to time. From what can be recalled, she helped out around the forge and grew close to the men working there at the time. It was sometime after her departure that the Mikage Furnace had begun to worsen. What happened next was inevitably, the downfall of the Raiden Gokaden. Eventually, only two of the five great schools of the Raiden Gokaden would survive a terrible massacre. The Isshin Art, and the Amenoma Art. Only the Amenoma Art is continued to this day. The Isshin Art was the bladesmithing practice of the Kaedehara Clan, and it became lost after my great-grandfather's time as he never passed on the teachings to his son, my grandfather." Kazuha's story, while interesting as it was to learn about a part of the backstory of Inazuma's Raiden Gokaden, there was a portion that he'd skimmed over that'd caught my attention.

"You said that there was a woman from Mondstadt there during that time?" I asked. Kazuha nods, his scarlet eyes softening slightly.

"Yes. From what wasn't lost to time, she was a Knight of Favonius. I'm not quite sure what a Knight of Favonius would have been doing at an Inazuman forge back then. After her departure, the story goes that the mechanic from Fontaine began to work even harder on the Mikage Furnace. It is quite curious, wouldn't you say?" He asks and I nod. I couldn't help the unsettling feeling that it's possible that I might be the woman in Kazuha's story. It's yet another confirmation of my apparent future involvements in the past. According to what Venti had said, I can grow to control that power.