He changed Tiwat

Chapter 163 Life is but a fleeting moment of passion; who can truly judge success or failure? [4k]

Upon hearing Sara's question, Takatsukasa Tokibei Tetsu's face showed a look of sudden realization.

As a trusted confidant of the head of the family and the captain of the Kujo family's personal guard, Takatsukasa Tokibei Tetsu had just as much contact with Sara as her two sworn brothers; in fact, it could be said that he had watched Sara grow up since she was a child.

—When Sara was a child, he used to call him "Tokibei-nii-san" (older brother Tokibei), and Sara's archery skills were initially taught by him personally at the dojo.

In some ways, as a martial artist, he might be more like Sara's "older brother" than both Masahito and Kamaji.

He was also the one who knew Salo's nature best.

Saro's loyalty to the Heavenly Order and his respect for Lord Kogyo were unparalleled in the entire household—it could be said that anyone could betray Lord Kogyo, but Saro would never do so.

Before today, Takatsukasa Tokibei had never imagined that one day he would stand on the opposite side of Sara, let alone that Sara would actually join the rebel army in attacking the Tenryo Magistrate... and Sara's reason for "rebellion" was contained in this one sentence.

Why was Sara, who was defeated and captured at Nashiina, suddenly released?

Why did she suddenly betray her allies and become an enemy of the Kujo family?

Why have Kongozaemon and the others not returned yet, and not even a single message has been sent back?

These questions were all answered in that instant.

—She knows about it!

After a moment of surprise, Takatsukasa Tokibei's response was... a flat denial.

"I have no idea what Lord Sara is talking about! Lord Sara, you must not believe the rumors of traitors!"

“Is that so?” Sara looked at him.

Takatsukasa Tokibei nodded vigorously: "I swear on my life, this is absolutely not true!"

Sara's gaze then turned to Kujo Takayuki, who squinted and remained silent.

From a young age, Sara was raised as a "model of a warrior," or rather, he was raised entirely according to the general's preferences.

This kind of "dirty work," this "dark side of the Kujo family," does not exist at all in Sara's world.

From a young age, she was surrounded by the Kujo family and the Tenryo Magistrate, both of whom were described as "loyal and devoted" and "diligent and conscientious." The Tenryo Magistrate was the protector of the Inazuma people and the agent who spread the power of thunder on behalf of the Thunder God. The Kujo family was blessed by the gods and were the most loyal retainers of the Great Lord...

Such a leader, such a family, would never do something like "massacring refugees."

Kujo Takayuki could easily imagine the shock Sara felt when she discovered this—for Sara, it must have been like the sky falling down.

For the first time, a shadow appeared over the once glorious and dignified Kujo family, the Tenryo Magistrate she had always seen.

However, for Kujo Takayuki, who sat in the position of Tenryō Magistrate, and Takatsukasa Tokibei, who had lived in the shadows for many years, this was not the first time such a thing had happened.

Years ago, when accidents at the tsutsuna furnace were frequent, before the arrival of the Fontaine technical team and before the construction of the "Miei Furnace Core," Kujo Takayuki had already dispatched Tokibei to personally execute a group of workers infected with "Taishin."

All they had to do was claim they were being sent overseas for medical treatment, and then the ship would sink halfway there—"shipwrecks" were nothing out of the ordinary for the Inatsume people who lived by the sea. The workers' families would just sigh a few times and then let it go.

From the Kujo family's perspective, publicly revealing the "Taishin" contamination would hinder their plans to increase "Tamasa" production, and the problems at the Fusana sand factory would also make the Kujo family appear to have neglected their management duties, damaging the reputation of the Tenryo magistrate.

Moreover, the manpower and resources required to treat those workers, and the possibility of secondary pollution from the "evil spirits," are all headaches.

It would be better to dump all this "pollution" into the ocean and let the vast ocean submerge everything.

Kujo Takayuki believed that he had simply made the most reasonable choice.

Faced with Sara's questioning, he felt neither wavering nor guilty—but these were things he could do, but not talk about, much less admit.

Sara turned to look at Takatsukasa Tokibei, and slowly asked, word by word, "Lord Takatsukasa, are you willing to swear on your life that this is absolutely not true?"

“Of course!” Takatsukasa Tokibei answered without hesitation, even using a more intimate form of address: “Sara, don’t you trust me?”

He could vaguely guess that Sara must have gotten some information from Gongozaemon, or that the rebels had told her something... But whatever Sara saw or heard, as long as he didn't admit it, that was fine.

Even if Sara brought Gongozaemon to him for a face-to-face confrontation, he would still deny it.

In any case, everything can be said to be slander by the rebels.

As long as he denies it, no one can do anything about it.

Furthermore, even if he and Sara weren't exactly like brothers, their bond over the years was undeniable. Even just for the sake of that familial affection, Sara wouldn't make things difficult for him, would she?

"it is good."

Saro slowly replied with a single word.

In the next instant, her four wings suddenly unfolded, and her jet-black raven feathers fluttered like drifting catkins.

Kujo Takayuki felt the wind rush past his ear, and then a splash of warm liquid splashed onto his cheek.

He raised his hand and wiped his cheek—it was blood.

Takatsukasa Tokibei clutched his neck, his eyes wide with disbelief.

His neck was slashed open by the raven feathers of the sara. Those seemingly soft feathers, when infused with supernatural power, were comparable to swords.

What he found even more unbelievable was that Sara... the girl he had watched grow up since childhood and whom he regarded as his "little sister" actually tried to kill him!

Takatsukasa Tokibei slowly fell to the ground, his eyes filled with questions until his death.

"Saro, are you crazy?!"

Faced with such a tragic situation, Kujo Takayuki finally couldn't help but roar in anger.

Sara calmly replied, "He just said he was willing to stake his life on it... and I saw his handwritten letter to Gongozaemon. Even now, he still wants to deceive me. Since he staked his life on it, I will accept his guarantee."

"And you... Lord Xiaoxing?"

She took out the official document from her bosom.

“I have seen the official document from the Magistrate’s Office. It bears your handwriting and your official seal. Why did you not mention the war with the rebels at all? Why did you conceal it from His Highness the Grand Master? I ask you to give me an explanation.”

“An explanation?” Kujo Takayuki gave Sara a deep look, then sighed and said, “There is no explanation. These documents were indeed written by me. What you mentioned are all trivial matters that do not need to be reported to the shogun. I was merely fulfilling my duty by selecting them.”

“A small matter…” Sara gritted her teeth. “Then, what is a big matter? You conspired with the Fools to deceive His Highness the Great, even at the cost of dragging Inazuma into war and displacing your people, in order to push forward the ‘Eye-hunting Edict’ and the ‘Lockdown Edict’?”

"Hmph. It seems you heard quite a lot while you were a 'prisoner'..."

Kujo Takayuki glanced again at Haru and the others behind Sara, especially the rebel general Goro.

"Yes, I did indeed cooperate with the Fools."

Ying and Goro were all surprised to hear this. Kujo Takayuki actually admitted it so readily?

Manyo glanced with some pity at Takatsukasa Tokibei, who lay collapsed at Kujo Takayuki's feet—Tokibei's eyes were still open, gazing blankly at his lord.

The secret he risked his life to protect was betrayed by his master within minutes... Although this man deserved to die, dying for such a master was truly a death without peace.

Sara's hand, which was holding the official document, slowly tightened: "So, you, the Kujo family, the Tenryo Magistrate... have all betrayed the Shogunate, betrayed the Shogun."

"Huh? You mean betrayal?" As if he had heard something funny, Kujo Takayuki suddenly laughed. "Sara, do you remember what the first lesson I taught you when I first adopted you was? — It was loyalty!"

He pointed at Goro and Hayato beside him: "Our Kujo family and the Tenryo magistrate have always been loyal to the Shogun and have never betrayed him. If anyone has betrayed the Shogun, isn't it the rebels on Umijima Island and the Iskisha magistrate Kamisato family who colluded with the rebels?"

Zaoyou puffed out her cheeks: "Pah! You big bad guy, you're full of lies!"

Goro couldn't help but retort: ​​"Our uprising on Haiji Island was to fight against the tyranny of the Heavenly Territory. You concealed the battle report in your official documents and colluded with the Fools to deceive the General into implementing wrong policies... If this is not betrayal, what is?"

Kujo Takayuki shook his head dismissively, then looked at the official document in Sara's hand: "You call this 'betrayal'? Can this really be considered betrayal?"

"There have always been so many people who covet the Kujo family's position, and countless families who want to bring us down. We can gain strong support from foreign powers and weaken the fighting strength of those enemies by using the 'Eye Hunt Order'... I think it's a worthwhile deal, but there's no need to inform you, Sara."

"Yes, I know the Winter Solstice envoy wants to use the 'Eye Hunt Order' to promote their evil eye, but those fools are just being used by me. What can they possibly accomplish?"

He suddenly raised his finger to the sky.

"In Inazuma's land, once the heavenly lightning strikes, they are nothing but trembling ants, and would never dare to act recklessly."

"after all--"

"We possess the unparalleled Thunder General, and that 'Unthinkable Blade'!"

Looking at the fanatical Kujo Takayuki, Sara couldn't help but recall what Han Fulai had said to her that day—"He admires 'The One-Sword Without Thought,' not 'General Raiden.'"

Unfortunately, what Han Fulai said was true.

Sara gritted her teeth and said bitterly, "But what about your loyalty...?"

"Ever since I was adopted by the Kujo family, you have been teaching me the principles of loyalty as a vassal. But now it seems that you only want me to be loyal to the Kujo family, fearing that I might betray you one day, right?"

"The loyalty and righteousness you speak of are nothing but a fig leaf to cover up your power and status, a tool to conceal your ugliness and selfishness!"

Kujo Takayuki shook his head again: "Selfish? No, this is just me making some plans for my family while being loyal to the Shogun."

“Not only me, but also the Hiiragi family, the Kamisato family, and the Takatsukasa family, the Ogura family, the Mikawa family, and all those families, big and small, who doesn’t think about their own family? If it weren’t for the sake of the family, why would Lord Tengu on Mount Kage have sent you to my Kujo family?”

"If you call this selfish, then who in this world is selfless?"

“Saro, wake up—how ​​could you think the General is completely unaware of these matters?”

Sara's eyes widened in an instant: "What...did you say?"

Kujo Takayuki calmly repeated, "I said, the Shogun knows everything. The 'Eye Hunting Order' and the 'National Isolation Order' were both the Shogun's will. The Shogun is also aware of the rebellion that broke out on Umijima Island and the ongoing war."

“She simply believed that these trivial matters would not shake Inazuma’s ‘eternity,’ so she entrusted them entirely to us, her subjects.”

"The thunderstorm surrounding the Inazuma coast was created by the General with divine power. Tell me, does she support the 'isolation order'?"

He then looked at Wanye: "In that 'imperial duel' you experienced, the general personally killed the loser. Do you think she knew that someone was defying the 'Eye Hunt Order'?"

Then his gaze shifted to Ying: "And this...foreign traveler. You were also present at the 'Eye Hunting Ritual.' Do you remember who issued the order to arrest this blond traveler?"

Kujo Sara shuddered.

"I will build you into a statue."

—These are the General's golden words.

Looking back, the wanted notices for others, such as Wan Ye and other rebels, were all issued by the Heavenly Commander, and the General might not have known about them. However, Ying's wanted notice was actually given by the General himself, and she heard it with her own ears.

Even if the general didn't know that others were rebelling against the "Eye Hunting Order," she knew about Ying's situation.

Furthermore, there is Thomas, the follower of the Society... Thomas's Eye of God, the "hundredth Eye of God," has not yet been embedded in the "Thousand-Handed Hundred-Eyed God Statue."

Kujo Takayuki concealed the battle report, but he couldn't possibly help his political rival, the magistrate of the company, to conceal it, could he? Thomas's arrest warrant is still hanging on the bulletin board in Inazuma Castle.

It is conceivable that Kujo Takayuki must have also petitioned the Kamisato family about resisting the "Eye-hunting Edict."

—Then why didn't the general intervene?

"A duel before the Emperor," Okudaira Takeshi defied the "Eye Hunting Order" with his life, and the Shogun witnessed it.

Thomas and Ying defied the "Eye Hunting Order" during the "Eye Hunting Ceremony," and the General witnessed it.

Does she really know nothing?

Or is it that... she knows everything, but she doesn't care?

Just like what Kujo Takayuki said—

In Inazuma's land, once the heavenly lightning strikes, they are nothing more than trembling ants.

"Everything you see is with the General's tacit approval. This is the proof that the General has given me."

Kujo Takayuki slowly raised the sword at his waist.

But he did not swing the sword; he simply placed the blade quietly in front of Sara.

“Saro, do you recognize this knife?”

This is a strangely shaped longsword, resembling a lightning bolt, with a deep purple blade pattern and the "Thunder and Lightning Three-Stroke Pattern" engraved on the guard, representing a general.

Sara recognized the knife.

"The General's personal waist ornament, the Kirigiri's Reflection..."

Chapter 164 All are loyal ministers, none are treacherous ministers [4k]

This was actually the first time Sara had ever seen the "Mist-Cutting Light" in person, but that didn't stop her from recognizing the sword at a glance—because it was so famous.

If Inatsume were to create a list of the "Top Ten Famous Swords," this "Mist-Cutting Light" would definitely be on the list, and could even compete with famous swords such as the Kamisato family's "Wave-Ran Tsukishiro Tsutsutsu" and Doin's sword "Uragen Manko Tenmoku" for the top three spots.

After all, it is a "divine sword," a "national treasure" worthy of hanging on the general's waist.

Thousands of years ago, Lord Narukami crossed the sea and brought various skills to the then-unenlightened people, including the sword-making technique that would later become famous throughout Teyvat.

Through thousands of years of weathering and hundreds of years of abundant harvests, the skilled swordsmiths of the mortal realm meticulously studied the forging blueprints bestowed by the Shogun, finally forging a treasured sword that even the spirit of Narukami himself admired. Narukami Taisha then established a sacred ritual with the Shogunate: to take the finest sword in the world and offer it to the shrine, naming it "Omikami-tō" (Godsword).

The "Divine Sword" is Lord Narukami's personal sword, a precious item worthy of being added to the armory of the gods. The craftsman who can forge the "Divine Sword" is regarded as a person with divine skills related to divine affairs and receives the highest honor.

Since then, the festival to offer the "divine sword" has become a once-in-a-century event for Inatsuma swordsmiths, a competition to showcase their skills.

Even if it takes a lifetime of effort, as long as one can forge a "Divine Blade," it will be enough to leave a name in history and benefit future generations.