Miguel came back to the dining table and pulled out the chair beside Hoshimi Miyabi to sit down.
“So what kind of trouble is the Mayor in this time?” Nicole leaned in with half a fresh spring roll still sticking out of her mouth.
The dish clearly agreed with her, because even with her words coming out mangled she kept right on chewing while she pumped her own boss for details.
“It’s just a commission.
I have to head over once breakfast is done.” Miguel left it at that, picking up a shrimp dumpling and dropping it into Miyabi’s bowl.
“Which means you’re all sorting out your own lunch today.” The table erupted.
“Nooo!” Belle threw herself back against her chair, both hands cupping her cheeks.
“No Big Bro Miguel’s cooking at lunch?
That’s worse than finishing a run and finding no cold soda!” Nekomata didn’t even bother swallowing the fish in her mouth.
Her fluffy tail drooped flat.
“Mrrow… Big Bro Miguel, if you’re gone, what are we supposed to eat?
Delivery fish is completely inedible these days!” Anby and the rest of the Silver Squad sisters set down their fish burgers one after another, the light in their eyes dimming.
“Without Boss’s cooking, today’s calorie intake has lost all meaning.” Nicole enjoyed every second of it.
“My, my.
Looks like you kids have all had your palates spoiled rotten.
But don’t worry — big sis is taking you out to eat at Lumina Square!” “You’re paying?” Miyabi tilted her head, a flicker of curiosity in her crimson eyes.
“Of course not!
It’s coming out of the Cunning Hares’ account, obviously!” Nicole thumped her chest, entirely unashamed.
Wise reached over and rapped his little sister on the top of her head, which earned him a long stream of indignant protest.
“The only reason you lot never have to cook is that Miguel spoils you.
I’ll take the kitchen at noon.
Nobody’s going to starve.” Wise rolled up his sleeves like a man ready to do battle.
“You?
Cook?” Belle pulled a face and demolished him without mercy.
“Last time, even the Bangboo wouldn’t touch your fried eggs.
I’d rather not get food poisoning.” “That’s going way too far, hey!?” The whole table dissolved into laughter.
Miguel watched the noisy pack of them, and a smile settled on his face without his noticing.
He lifted his bowl and finished the last of the red bean porridge, unhurried.
Outwardly he gave nothing away.
Inwardly he was turning over the name Lycaon had mentioned a moment ago.
Yixuan.
What business could the young Sect Master of Yunkui Summit have, coming all the way to New Eridu to see Mayflower?
He knew perfectly well.
In all likelihood, it was about her sister.
During the Fall of Old Eridu, Yixuan’s elder sister Yijiang had forced the Azure Empyrean Sword into motion to cover the evacuating civilians.
By every rule of the world, she should have been erased entirely.
It was the Power of Creation that had spilled out of him while he tore Hollow Zero open that preserved the last flicker of life in her.
What he hadn’t expected was for Yixuan to come knocking this early.
Far earlier than he had predicted.
Gold Rush Day had barely finished.
The threads of fate really had been pulled onto a new course by his interference.
Miguel wiped his mouth and stood.
“Miyabi, I’m heading out.” Miyabi nodded obediently, her big tail swaying twice behind her.
“Come home early.” … Top floor of the New Eridu Mayor’s private office building.
Lycaon lowered the black communicator reserved for the Mayor’s use from his ear.
He cut the connection with an elegant motion.
Then he pressed the hidden catch in the lower right drawer of the desk and stowed the device away with care.
The space behind the broad desk was empty.
Lycaon turned and stopped in front of the full-length mirror on the wall.
He raised his gloved hands, nudged his bow tie back to true, and smoothed a crease from the front of his waistcoat.
Only once his appearance was flawless did he stride for the office door.
The corridor outside was carpeted in thick wool, and his shoes made no sound at all on it.
He had barely cleared the doorway when a tall figure came toward him.
Rina carried a fine silver tray in both hands, a bone china tea service arranged on top of it.
Steam curled steadily from the spout of the pot.
The two of them halted in the middle of the hall.
“The Mayor seems to be in good spirits today,” Rina said softly, her voice gentle.
“He has finally received the guest he has been waiting for.” Lycaon took the tray from her without a wobble and inclined his head.
Rina answered with a graceful curtsy, then pivoted on the point of her toe and walked away with light, quick steps.
The two elders of Victoria Housekeeping always meshed like clockwork where work was concerned.
Carrying the tray, Lycaon made his unhurried way to the heavy rosewood double doors of the reception hall.
He freed one hand, crooked a knuckle, and knocked three times.
The faint conversation on the other side stopped at once.
Catching that small change, Lycaon pressed the handle and stepped inside.
The reception hall carried on the plain, uncluttered style of the Mayor’s office.
Enormous floor-to-ceiling windows pulled in every scrap of New Eridu’s morning sunlight.
Several broad-leafed potted plants stood along the glass, lending a little life to a space that would otherwise have felt austere.
Two people sat on the guest sofas in the center of the room.
Mayor Mayflower wore a well-cut dark grey suit today.
He was sunk into a single armchair with an empty teacup in his hand.
Across from him, on the long sofa, sat a woman.
Her long snow-white hair was gathered loosely at the back of her head with a wooden hairpin.
She wore a bright yellow Daoist robe.
A palm-sized talisman gourd hung at her waist.
Beside it dangled a jade pendant carved with a dark-bird motif.
At the sound of the door, both of them turned to look.
“Mayor.” Lycaon crossed to the low table and set the tray down.
He lifted the pot first and topped up Mayflower’s cup with hot tea.
Then he changed out the white-haired woman’s tea for a fresh serving.
That done, he stepped back half a pace and folded both hands in front of him.
“Mr.
Miguel has accepted the invitation.” “He will arrive within the hour.” Mayflower nodded to show he had heard.
The timing fell neatly inside what he had expected.
Three years of acquaintance had taught him exactly how much that “public-spirited citizen” of Sixth Street cared about a lavish breakfast.
Short of a crisis burning down the block, Miguel would never shortchange his own stomach.
Mayflower set his cup down, turned to the white-haired woman opposite him, and let a mild smile surface.
“That is the situation, Sect Master Yixuan.” “Mr.
Miguel will need a little more time to get here.” “In the meantime, do try the black tea.
It’s a special reserve of Victoria Housekeeping.” Yixuan picked up the cup in front of her and blew gently across the surface.
Her golden pupils looked strikingly deep through the drifting steam.
She took a small sip and returned the cup to its place.
“You’re far too polite, Mayor.” There was a steadiness to Yixuan’s voice that belonged to a grown woman, though her manner stayed easy and unforced.
“I was the one who barged in today, arriving without so much as an appointment.” “I nearly gave several of your Victoria Housekeeping staff the wrong impression.” “Yet you not only chose not to hold it against me, you set aside your valuable time to see me.” “I’m already deeply grateful.” Mayflower waved that away.
“When the Sect Master of Yunkui Summit honors us with a visit, I am glad to receive you appointment or not.” “Besides, we’re old acquaintances.
There’s no need to bury ourselves in formalities.” It was a watertight little speech.
But both of them understood the truth of it.
Today’s meeting was nothing so harmless as two old friends catching up.
Yixuan had rushed into central New Eridu at first light.
Without a word of warning she had planted herself at the foot of the municipal building and sent Mayflower a text.
For a grandmaster as casual — even flighty — as she normally was to move with that kind of urgency, there could only be one reason.
The matter she had asked Mayflower to look into half a month ago had turned up a lead.
Yixuan’s fingers, resting on her knee, worked absently at the fabric of her robe.
“Mayor, since Mr.
Miguel is still on his way, let’s speak plainly.” Yixuan looked him straight in the eye, her expression turning grave.
“In your message, you said you had found a way to save my sister.” “And that this method rests in the hands of the Mr.
Miguel who is about to arrive?” Mayflower didn’t answer right away.
He raised his cup and drank, letting the bitterness spread across his tongue.
The Fall of Old Eridu thirteen years ago had rewritten nearly everyone’s fate.
The twelfth Sect Master of Yunkui Summit was Yixuan’s own elder sister, Yijiang.
In that disaster, to cover the retreating civilians, she had forced Yunkui Summit’s greatest treasure, the Azure Empyrean Sword, into use.
The Azure Empyrean Sword is a Void Hunter-class weapon, spoken of in the same breath as the Ethereal-Slaying Blade: Tailless that the Void Hunter Hoshimi Miyabi carries.
And like Tailless, which has yet to accept a master, every single use of it exacts a terrible backlash.
Death is only the barest minimum of the price.
The price the Azure Empyrean Sword demands is that everything you are returns to nothing.
And yet, against all odds, a miracle happened.
That single stroke, the one that split the sky and Hollow Zero open, did not merely save the better half of Eridu.
It also kept Yijiang from ever completing that fatal swing.
But once a price has been collected, it can hardly be handed back on request.
By any normal reckoning she was still doomed to die.
Instead, the Power of Creation that had scattered loose while Miguel carried the survivors out of the Hollow preserved the last thread of her life.
Her memories and her soul, however, had been devoured whole by the Azure Empyrean Sword.
The woman who remained was nothing more than a body lying on a bed, day after day, with no one home behind her eyes.
Even so.
The fact that her sister still breathed gave Yixuan boundless hope.
For years she had searched for something, anything, that could wake her.
The heavens declined to cooperate.
Then, not long ago, Mayor Mayflower had called her himself.
And told her there might be someone who could wake her sister after all.
Which was how today came about.
“Sect Master Yixuan, I understand how you feel.” Mayflower set his cup down and leaned forward slightly, hands crossed over his knees.
“New Eridu’s medical technology is advanced, but your sister’s condition plainly falls outside the mundane world.” “For an ordinary man like me, solving it would be like climbing to heaven.” “But I can promise you this.” “If there is still one person in this world who can do it, that person is Mr.
Miguel and no one else.” Yixuan’s brows drew together faintly.
The name Miguel meant nothing to her.
She had never heard it in her life.
And yet, for reasons she couldn’t explain, something at the edge of her awareness insisted otherwise.
It felt oddly, warmly familiar.
Being blunt by nature, she didn’t dwell on it.
She simply assumed that worrying over her sister had left her strung too tight.
So she turned back to Mayor Mayflower and pressed him.
“I would appreciate it if you would speak clearly, Mayor.” Seeing how urgently the young Sect Master wanted an answer, Mayflower decided against drawing it out.
Miguel had warned him more than once to stop playing the riddler and leaving people to stew.
On that perpetually calculating face of his, something like genuine awe surfaced.
“Sect Master Yixuan, do you remember the Hollow Zero containment failure thirteen years ago?
The one that nearly swallowed all of Eridu?” Yixuan’s hand froze mid-motion.
The gourd knocked against her jade pendant with a bright little chime.
She lifted her head, golden pupils contracting to points.
An utterly impossible guess was taking shape in her mind.
That disaster, thirteen years ago.
The last instant as her sister Yijiang swung the Azure Empyrean Sword, and the light that came down out of the sky.
The light that tore Hollow Zero apart and shattered despair outright.
All this time she had assumed it was some natural phenomenon, or the world itself answering.
Could it be… that the miracle had been made by human hands?
By this Mr.
Miguel?
“You mean to say…” But before Yixuan could finish, someone knocked again on the heavy rosewood doors of the reception hall, from the outside.
[Author’s Note: Setting supplement: the “Lido War” takes place at the same point in the timeline as the 1.4 storyline, where Hoshimi Miyabi, Section 6 and the others openly engaged Bringer.
Where the original storyline offered only Bringer, transformed into a Sacrificial Fiend, as the opposition, the “Lido War” saw the appearance of three Authority-class Sacrificial Fiends, a tier far above the Calamity-class Ethereal “Nineveh.” And under the manipulation of the world’s negative will, every combat asset New Eridu had within the Janus District fought an unprecedented battle against an army of ten million Sacrificial Fiends led by the Bishop of the Cult of Exaltation.
It ended with Miguel stepping into Third-Tier Divinity and punching straight through the Origin-class Sacrificial Fiend that appeared at the very end.]