By Crux charts, even perfect weather means ten-odd days to Inazuma.
Beidou joked that with Su aboard, "perfect" was the default—any gale would become blue sky with a thought. Su didn't disagree; he simply didn't intend to meddle unless the sea really misbehaved. Let sailors sail.
In a tidy cabin, a soft-spoken girl—pink-to-blue hair, white stockings, sweetness weaponized—finished recounting her flight from Watatsumi. Sangonomiya Kokomi feared the worst: that Ei had crushed the resistance and would butcher the islanders in rage.
Su listened, then, calm as a still tide:
"Ei suppressing the rebellion? Expected. You fought the Shogunate; on both sides, Inazumans bled. She was never going to ignore it.
But a massacre? Unlikely."
Kokomi's lashes trembled. If not mercy, then at least… terms? Failing that, could Su reverse deaths with the Mirror—restore everyone by memory, face by face? She even said, quietly, that as Watatsumi's living-god priestess she could name nearly all of them.
The "ornamental fish" did have an appetite.
Su shook his head and ruffled her hair once. "Even if Ei had killed them—then they're dead. I don't unmake the ledger for anyone. And Ei isn't going to do that anyway."
He saw it hit: the shiver, the swallow, the private regret. She'd wanted to be a strategist behind the curtain and got hoisted into sunlight as a "living deity," forced to choose for thousands. Lockdown starved Watatsumi; rebellion was the least terrible option and maybe not even hers. Responsibility weighs more than armor.
"From what I know of Ei," he went on, "she's not slaughtering civilians. The love of her people sits deep. She understands why you rebelled. If she truly meant to kill Watatsumi, she'd have done it when she killed Orobashi."
Kokomi blinked. "…Lord Orobashi?"
Su's diary flared open.
Spoke with Kokomi. She fears a purge. She's overthinking it. Compared to Orobashi's eastern campaign, the rebellion was a pinprick. He butchered Inazumans and slew Ei's tengu general Sasayuri—yet when Ei cut Orobashi down she did not persecute the islanders. Watatsumi remained within Inazuma but self-governing, and their faith in the serpent was tolerated.
There's a reason. My read: Ei sensed something when she struck him. Or Makoto knew, and Ei learned after.
Start at the start: Orobashi's home was Liyue.
Liyue? Hearts across Teyvat skipped a beat.
Liyue's war was the fiercest—Salt, Sea, Vortex, Dust, Rock… and Serpent. Orobashi realized the field was stacked. Morax was a monster, backed by a monster of a dragon. So the serpent ran.
Kokomi flinched. "Please don't—call our deity a deserter…"
Call it retreat, then. He left Liyue, found Inazuma—and found a giant braid who fights like a thunderclap. He still couldn't win, so he fled further, into the Dark Sea.
There he gained power from the Coral Worm King. Confidence swelled. He returned… and blundered into Byakuyakoku (today's Enkanomiya).
Those were humans who fell underground in the Year of Burning Sun. Celestia denied their return Above. One Archon sent them the Dainichi Mikoshi to push back the dark; a civilization took root.
Orobashi arrived; they saw a god who would protect. He, a drifter, finally had people.
Then he read the wrong book—forbidden truths. Celestia issued a "die and make it look real" edict.
He bargained: I'll die. Let my people live—in the Seven's fold. Celestia agreed.
Orobashi burned Byakuyakoku's culture, taught Inazuman script, opened a path to the surface with the coral king's power, ferried everyone out, spent the rest to raise Watatsumi, and—claiming poverty—launched the eastward war.
My guess: Makoto was forewarned, or Ei felt the staged death in his stance. Either way, the stroke was mercy wrapped around necessity.
So no—Ei isn't culling islanders. Watatsumi exists because Celestia permitted it so long as it stays under the Seven's gaze.
Tenshukaku.
Yae Miko tilted her head. "Well? That sound about right?"
Ei's eyes thinned. The vixen always picked the worst times.
"This body was her sword," Ei said. "I didn't know Celestia's… paperwork."
"But you felt it when you cut him," Miko prodded. "That 'already dead' resignation."
Silence, the kind that admits everything.
Miko sighed; even the peanut gallery across Teyvat could follow the trail. Orobashi was a cosmic stray caught between policy and pity. If he hadn't touched the taboo, the selection of the Seven would still have squeezed him; in the end he'd have fought Ei anyway and lost more than his head.
Ei folded her arms. "Save your sighs for something useful. Su's on the Alcor. If anything goes wrong when he reaches Ritou, I'll drag you to him to explain it."
Miko stared. Being threatened with "I'll bring you to your boyfriend" is a new tier of shameless, Ei.
"Fine," she smiled thinly. And I'll be the one giving him ideas. About you.
Back on the Alcor, Su closed the diary and looked at Kokomi.
"That's the shape of it. Ei won't kill your people. And you, as a diary holder, she won't execute. You didn't need to jump."
Kokomi stared at the glowing page, then at him. "I thought the diary only… told us about you. Things we'd never see."
Su shook his head. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Just as the False Sky corrals fate, diary holders also have an end written in. Your final role is to become mine."
Kokomi's breath hitched. "Then… the General knows, and that's why she spared me? Because she is already—"
"—mine," Su finished, matter-of-fact. "So instead of spiraling, adjust. Accept it. I'll give you time."
Color flooded her cheeks; her voice went soft and too quick. "You mean… I have the right to be like the General—to become yours as well?"
Su: "?"
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