Chapter Text
Night had settled over Inazuma like a blade sheathed in violet mist — sharp, cold, and waiting.
Aether moved through the shadows beneath the sloping eaves of Ritou’s back alleys, hood pulled low, steps silent on rain-slick planks. The harbour lights of the checkpoint still glimmered in the distance, but he dared not look back; every lantern behind him felt like an eye of the Shogunate.
Above his shoulder, Paimon hovered close; her usual brightness dimmed. “Are you sure this is safe?” she whispered, voice thin as the drifting fog. Aether didn’t answer at first. Safe wasn’t possible anymore — only less dangerous.
Ever since the Vision Hunt Decree’s agents had branded him a fugitive, the entire island had turned into a cage. Patrols crossed the streets every hour. The Tenryou Commission kept lists, sketches, and descriptions. And the Raiden Shogun’s thunder still lingered in the minds of those who had seen what she could do.
Aether wasn’t afraid of being caught by the Shogunate soldiers. He was afraid of what he’d have to do if he was. He paused beneath a wash-line strung between two narrow houses, letting the hanging clothes break up his silhouette. Down the road, two guards marched past, their spears tapping on the cobblestones, voices steady and casually bored. Normal people. Just working their shifts. Thinking of families, of dinner, of the last ferry to Ritou.
Aether’s fingers curled instinctively toward his sword — then relaxed. He could defeat them. He knew it. But to raise a blade against them would mean crossing a line he didn’t want to cross. They weren’t villains. They weren’t monsters. Just human beings caught in the storm of someone else’s decree.
He heard Paimon exhale shakily. “You could take them… but… you won’t, right?”
“Not unless I have no choice,” Aether murmured.
He stepped out when the patrol faded around the bend, leading Paimon deeper into the side streets — places where the lamps didn’t reach and the walls seemed to lean together, swallowing outsiders whole.
Every choice had to be calculated now.
Every breath measured.
Every footstep softer than the rain.
Aether wasn’t used to hiding. The world had never felt small before. He had crossed nations, climbed mountains, dared storms and gods alike. But Inazuma — Inazuma under the Shogun’s unblinking gaze — was different. Here, one wrong turn could bring the Tenryou Commission on him. One spark of lightning could bring her.
He stopped at the edge of a narrow canal where the water reflected wan strips of moonlight. The air smelled of salt and burning incense from a distant shrine. In the hush that followed, he could hear his own breathing — steady but heavy, weighted with decisions he didn’t want to make.
Paimon looked at him, eyes softer than he’d seen all day. “You’re protecting Paimon, aren’t you…?”
“For both of us,” he replied. “I won’t let us hurt anyone. And I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
For now, the fugitive walked on. Unseen. Unheard.