𝕍𝕚𝕔𝕚𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕦𝕕𝕖 ○ 𝕂𝕒𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕒𝕥𝕠 𝔸𝕪𝕒𝕥𝕠

II. Ceaselessly into Ordained Future

The last grains of sand have fallen through the neck of the hourglass; this inertia of yours has called for drastic action... on both sides.

━━━

Kamisato Ayato is a name you seldom hear; not after the Raiden Shogun had called forth the Sakoku Decree over a year ago. So, as you pour over file cabinets filled to the brim with classified information in Lady Ningguang's Jade Chamber five hundred metres in the sky in the dead of night, it comes to you as quite the surprise to study a few dangerously indeterminate names from overseas.

Names within the Inazuma Tri-Commission or even of the Raiden Shogun herself rarely surface in Liyuen secret operative files. Keeping tabs on other nations is no surprise to you – indeed, you and Yelan have assisted in privy confidential collections from the moment you had joined the division. The Qixing, the face of Liyue, have to maintain diplomacy and unity between nations, and statesmanship is occasionally punctuated with less savoury deeds behind the scene. The more one knows, be it about a person or a whole organisation, the more opportunities it opens up for leverage. A rather useful commodity to have at any leader's disposal, you're quite sure – so you do as Lady Ningguang bids, with no compunction, and no mind of your own.

Loyalty can be bought, after all, with sufficient bargaining chips. You just have to ensure that you're the one tipping the scales in your own favour. Ad-hoc or not, if it benefits you more than it does any other, you will do everything laid out on the table.

But now you flick through files long forsaken, buried at the very bottom and back of cabinets with no new information. You are very aware that all you read now from Inazuma is outdated by over a year – and a lot may happen in that period, especially given how fragile Inazuma seems to be. A closed off, fortressed nation, but fragile, rich, even, with opportunity – veins and seams full of it. Lady Ningguang could mine those hidden gems that have been left to metamorphose for years with a pull of a string and a smuggled agent or two on a goods ship. She certainly has the resources and reach to execute such a task with a mere flick of her finger and a stroke of ink on paper. She is too powerful to ever get caught. You place your full trust in Ningguang, and you can only hope that she reciprocates the notion. You dole out the stuff sparingly, sanctimoniously, as if your mere attention were worth any of your suitors' weight in gold.

Not exactly "as if", actually. One doesn't come across somebody as abstruse as you every day. Your presence is worth more than the finest gold.

LIYUE MINISTRY OF CIVIL AFFAIRS: CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

NAME: KAMISATO AYATO

CONSTELLATION: CYPRESSUS CUSTOS

STATUS: ALIVE

SEX: MALE

SPECIES: HUMAN

AGE: XX

DATE OF BIRTH: 03-26-XXXX

ALLOGENE / E̶L̶E̶M̶E̶N̶T̶-̶A̶L̶I̶G̶N̶E̶D̶: HYDRO VISION

BIRTHPLACE: INAZUMA CITY, INAZUMA

AFFILIATION(S): YASHIRO COMMISSION; KAMISATO CLAN; SHUUMATSUBAN

OCCUPATION(S): YASHIRO COMMISSIONER; HEAD OF KAMISATO CLAN; LEADER OF SHUUMATSUBAN

"Impressive."

And impressive it is indeed. Your eyes skim the block-capital letters on faintly creased papers, absorbing what little information the Qixing have on the famed Yashiro Commissioner. The single picture of Kamisato Ayato stares at you – and upon closer glance, you acknowledge that the man is relatively young for such a role of authority, and possesses a degree of feminine fairness with his shoulder-length blue hair and beauty mark. Given that Inazuma is so detached from the other nations, the data gathered and presented before you is considerably remarkable – even without the Sakoku Decree in place. The records even mention briefly the Shuumatsuban, an organisation so clandestine that most government sectors in Inazuma wouldn't have heard of.