"I never expected nobles of your standing to pull something like this during the Sakoku Decree—basically smuggling yourselves out of the country."
A young man dressed in simple samurai attire walked over at an unhurried pace.
A teal Anemo Vision hung behind his shoulder. Amid his pale, ink-tinted hair was a striking streak of orange-red, and his entire presence carried the free and natural air of a passing breeze.
Kamisato Satoru glanced at the newcomer and immediately knew who he was.
This was none other than the man famously dubbed "Kazuha the Emperor" by players—Kaedehara Kazuha.
The two of them had crossed paths a few times before at various gatherings among the nobility.
"Oh, if it isn’t little Kazuha. Long time no see. You’ve gotten even more handsome. Want some Tricolor Dango to fill your stomach?"
Satoru waved at him with a grin, showing none of the airs one might expect from the Kamisato Clan’s eldest young master.
"Thank you for the offer, but I don’t have much of an appetite right now."
Kaedehara Kazuha politely shook his head, a gentle smile resting on his lips.
Still exactly as he remembered.
No matter when he ran into this young master, his mouth was always stuffed with some kind of cloyingly sweet snack.
Ayaka displayed her excellent upbringing and said with graceful composure, "Mr. Kazuha, my brother and I are merely traveling in a private capacity. Please just think of us as ordinary travelers passing through."
"To think I’d have the rare fortune of seeing the famed Shirasagi Himegimi with my own eyes aboard this very ship."
A hearty yet pleasantly husky female voice rang out.
A mature woman in a dark red, high-slit qipao approached with steady strides.
Her features were dazzlingly beautiful, her brows carried a bold and heroic sharpness, and her figure was so striking that even other women might feel envious.
"P-Please don’t tease me with that title. Just call me Ayaka."
A lovely flush instantly spread across Ayaka’s snow-white skin, and she looked noticeably ill at ease.
"Oh wow, our Ayaka still gets embarrassed this easily. Your face is as red as a ripe apple."
Satoru pulled a ridiculous face beside her and deliberately raised his voice to fan the flames.
"Brother Satoru! Please say less!"
Ayaka stamped her foot in embarrassed irritation, her tone full of exasperated affection.
"Captain Beidou, your reputation is thunderous across these waters. Meeting you in person today, I can see it’s completely deserved!"
Satoru turned toward the woman before him and calmly sized up the uncrowned lord of the seas.
Beidou was doing the same to him, scrutinizing him with open curiosity as she joked, "So even the Kamisato Clan’s eldest young master, the one who supposedly pays no attention to worldly affairs, has heard of a rough woman like me?"
"Of course. Captain of The Crux, the great sea-dragon slayer who personally felled a giant beast out on the ocean—who hasn’t heard stories like that?"
"And in Inazuma’s waters, surrounded by thunderstorms, I doubt there’s a second captain who can sail in and out as casually as if they were strolling through their own backyard."
"Hahahaha! You’ve got a sweet mouth, kid. You really know how to talk!"
Beidou laughed heartily and gave Satoru’s somewhat slender shoulder a firm pat, clearly pleased by the flattery.
"But tell me, Young Master Satoru. Wearing a pitch-black blindfold in broad daylight like that... can you really see where you’re walking?"
Beidou’s natural curiosity was thoroughly piqued by the face hidden beneath his blindfold.
Truthfully, Ayaka was curious too.
Ever since she could remember, her own brother had never once taken the thing off.
"This thing?"
A particularly punchable grin suddenly appeared on Satoru’s face.
He raised an eyebrow and said, "I’m worried that the moment I take it off, all you girls with weak self-control will be overwhelmed by my devastating good looks. I can’t afford to take responsibility for that."
Ayaka could not help covering her face with one hand.
She had almost developed immunity to her brother’s habit of slipping into full-blown self-praise at any time and place.
"Oh? After hearing you brag like that, now I’m even more curious!"
A sharp gleam flashed through Beidou’s eyes, and a sly smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
Her pale yet powerful hand instantly blurred.
Fast as lightning streaking across the night sky, it shot straight toward the blindfold covering Satoru’s face.
What happened next was enough to make anyone’s pupils contract.
Satoru’s body seemed to evaporate from where he stood.
In the next instant, he had appeared on Ayaka’s other side.
He dramatically patted his chest, his face wearing an exaggerated expression of lingering shock.
"Good grief! Captain Beidou, that hand speed is terrifying! Who suddenly ambushes a handsome man like that?!"
"Well, damn. You’ve been hiding your skills, haven’t you?"
Beidou’s eyes lit up frighteningly bright.
In that instant just now, she had completely failed to see how the man had moved.
"Keep it low-key. We’re civilized people here."
Satoru put on an exceedingly modest expression and continued spouting nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
"I never managed to get myself a Vision, so normally all I can do is practice these little running-away tricks to keep myself alive."