NOVEL NEXT Chapter 9: Chapter 9 Everything As He Wished
"...Tell him to come see me himself."
From the throne came these slightly cold words.
Upon hearing this, Seino Sara, who had been lowering her head, trembled slightly. She gently bit her thin lips, her nails slightly digging into her flesh. She took a light breath, then regained her composure.
Then—for the first time since entering the hall, she raised her head, looking directly into the Raiden Shogun's eyes, meeting Ei's gaze.
Inazuma has many officials, and many people seek audience at Tenshukaku daily, but few dare to look the Raiden Shogun in the eye.
Just being gazed upon by those lonely purple eyes, mortals would feel a mountain-like majesty, with faint rumbling thunder in their ears.
One must not look directly at a god.
But Sara met Ei's questioning gaze head-on, fearless and without a trace of hesitation. In fact, she even showed a bit of recklessness and offense:
Her golden eyes were like a lake mixed with sunlight, without a ripple, calmly facing Ei's gaze:
"The General is ill at home and unable to come."
Refusal.
These were words of refusal.
Refusing the Raiden Shogun's summons.
Seino Sara's voice was soft, but it felt heavy in the silent hall. The howling cold wind shook the frost on the wooden windows, the accumulated snow fell with a swish. Besides this, Tenshukaku fell into a snow-like deathly silence.
"What else did he say?"
Ei asked expressionlessly.
The wind outside was so annoying, howling against the torii gates, making a noisy sound, causing even the Raiden Shogun to feel somewhat irritated.
For a hundred years, he had been hiding in his mansion as if dead. Just because of the Vision Hunt Decree and the Sakoku Decree, he repeatedly disobeyed orders.
Resigning from the position of general as a show of protest was one thing, but now he even resigned as her personal guard.
This position of personal guard, whether you resign or not, what difference does it make? You've been hiding in your mansion, neglecting your duties. How can you call yourself a personal guard?
Now you even specially send this girl to succeed the position. Are you insulting me, Raiden Ei?
Telling him to come say it himself, yet he feigns illness to decline.
The words you said that day, the promises you made, are they also untrustworthy?
She coldly looked down at the young woman below, her mind calm for a hundred years, now... "...What else did he give you?"
"There's a letter."
Seino Sara took out a wax-sealed letter from her inner lining.
A letter...
For a hundred years, he hadn't written a single letter.
Ei lightly waved her hand, and the letter automatically left Sara's hand, spinning like snow, and fell into her slender hand.
She opened it, but just seeing the first line, she frowned slightly.
Very official language.
Also very polite, very honest, very respectful.
Very distant.
This was a letter of resignation.
"I beseche thee to graunte me leve to laye doun my bones.
...Thogh I have served with diligence and warnes, trewely my bodye and mynde been now fully wery...
Now Inazuma bathethe in clere skyes and bright sonne. It is verily by the light of the Raiden Shogun that I may retyre in pees and cherisshe my remayning yeres. Thogh I have served with diligence and warnes, trewely my bodye and mynde been now fully wery. Thogh I wolde fayn yive myself hoolly, my dedes shewen more and more werynes. As the yeres waxen and siknesse folweth, I drede I may faille under the weighte of duetee... My dayes been nombred."
Seino Sara quietly watched Ei.
"Nathelees, the office of personall garde to the throne is of greet import. I have reysed a doghter, hir nature is vertuous and buxom..."
Rip.
Ei had only read half before tearing up the letter.
It was as if the snow had stopped.
The world became terrifyingly quiet.
"This old fool, he truly deserves to be beheaded," Ei said coldly. "Retiring? Asking to retire?"
"Using these excuses, is it just to humiliate me?"
Her purple eyes were still calm, but deep within that gaze, among the deep purple clouds, there was a faint flicker of not-so-calm thunder.
So it's like this after all... Ha.
You've guessed it all right.
Seino Sara listened to the Raiden Shogun's words and thought silently.
Raiden Shogun, it's exactly as you wished.
Only she knew that everything the General had written in this letter was true.
It wasn't some excuse, it wasn't some humiliation, it wasn't some pretext. Every word was sincere.
The head of the family was truly going to leave.
But precisely because it was true, the Raiden Shogun believed it was false, some kind of deceptive excuse.
Because after five hundred years together, the Raiden Shogun knew the General too well.
That man, no matter how severely injured, no matter what hardships he faced, would never willingly fall. He would never verbally admit defeat, like a stubborn calf, terrifyingly proud. He had been strong his whole life.
If he were truly old and dying, he would never actively write things like "willing but unable" or "My dayes been nombred" in a letter.
Writing like this, there was only one possibility: just like when he resigned as the great general last time, using old age as an excuse, deliberately resigning as a show of protest!
On the contrary, if he had written something like "old but still strong and terrifying", the Raiden Shogun would have instead doubted his physical condition.
But clearly, compared to Ei understanding the General, the General understood Ei better...
Sara silently watched the enraged Raiden Shogun in the courtyard, recalling her conversation with Seino Raimei that day:
"Sara, where do you think Inazuma's enemy is...?"
"It's the Tenryou Commission—embezzling, deceiving superiors and inferiors. I'll go take down the Kujou clan right now..."
"Ha, you still have that personality. But if one Kujou goes, there will be a second Kujou."
"You need to think more, think further ahead... You need to ponder. Listen, Inazuma's greatest enemy isn't the Tenryou Commission, it's not the Sakoku Decree or the Vision Hunt Decree, it's not on the island, but in the sky, by the Raiden Shogun's side."
"But the Raiden Shogun is very powerful."
"Heh, powerful? I see her as weak as a child. The Fatui are by her side, the Commission's people are by her side, and her words, her decisions, all concern Inazuma's survival. I'm still alive now, so the Fatui and the Commission don't dare say much, but when I die, there will be no one by her side, and they will dare!"
"..."
"You need to go to her side, you need to replace me in guarding her, you need to protect her from harm by those people, you need to—"
Sara still remembered how the Great General smiled as he said these words that day, in the snow, by the fireplace, in the clearing sunlight. His silver-gray eyes were vacant, as if his gaze wasn't in the present, but in the distant past, in the cherry blossom days of midsummer:
—"You need to replace me in staying forever by her side."
"This is the oath I, Seino Raimei, have sworn."
Sara still looked at the Raiden Shogun on the dais. Clearly, she was angry after a long time, or rather, furious at the General.
Angry at his feigning illness to retire, to make a fool of her, the Raiden Shogun.
But actually...
In this world, only Seino Sara understood the General, understood his heart.
He had prepared everything, he could have been freer, he could have lived more carefree and at ease.
But he would rather let the Raiden Shogun resent him than make her sad.
Willing to have an image in the Raiden Shogun's heart of deceiving his lord, arrogant and ostentatious, always flamboyant, rather than tell her:
"Hey, I'm really going to die of old age."
I'm an old man huddling by the fireplace, wrapped in thick winter clothes, shivering in the cold wind, about to die of old age.
The Raiden Shogun could let go of her psychological burden, cast him out of her mind, and return to the Plane of Euthymia at ease, continuing to pursue her eternity.
Looking at the woman on the high platform, seeing her scolding the General, seeing her not understanding anything.
Somehow, Seino Sara also felt a bit angry.
But more than that, she felt envious, or perhaps, jealous?
He had dedicated his entire life to her, from youthful joy to lonely death—yet she still didn't know.
"Raiden Shogun," Sara lowered her eyes and calmly said, "What is your reply?"
Ei paused.
After a while.
She said coldly, "Since he wants to leave, then I'll grant his wish. You come tomorrow."
After saying this, Ei turned around, her wooden sandals stepping on the cold hall floor.
Snowflakes fell behind her, and she didn't look back even once.
"Go back and tell him, don't regret it."
---
Ei left the great hall, leaving only Seino Sara alone in the empty Tenshukaku.
Snowflakes fell scattered in the early winter air as Seino Sara raised her head.
—As expected, she agreed out of spite.
General, everything is as you wished.