The great doors of Tenshukaku shut behind him with a sound like thunder wrapped in velvet—low, final, echoing inside his bones.
Ji Bai stood at the top of the steps and took a breath.
The air was cool, tasting faintly of ink, wind, and something older—something like the silence that follows judgment. His lungs expanded as if relearning how to breathe.
He had walked out alive.
That, in itself, was no small thing.
The pressure was gone—but not forgotten. The weight of Raiden Shogun's gaze still clung to his skin like an afterimage of lightning burned into the sky.
Ji Bai began to descend.
At the base of the stone steps, Thoma stood waiting, hands calmly clasped behind his back, as still and rooted as a temple bell.
When Ji Bai approached, Thoma gave him a quiet nod.
"You walked out," he said. "That's something."
"She didn't strike me down," Ji Bai replied hoarsely.
"Did she speak?"
"Yes."
"Did she decide?"
Ji Bai looked toward the distant lanterns of the palace, some still flickering, others extinguished. "Not clearly. But she saw my painting—and chose to let me walk away. That's a kind of decision."
They walked together through the dim streets of Inazuma. The night was too quiet. No patrols passed. The paper lanterns barely stirred. The whole city felt paused, like a brush held above paper but not yet touching.
It was a city waiting for the next stroke.
As they neared the edge of the district, a slender figure stood beneath a barren cherry tree—branches stripped of bloom, silhouetted in silver moonlight.
Kamisato Ayaka.
She didn't move. Didn't speak.
But as Ji Bai came closer, her eyes met his, and they asked every question she didn't voice.
Thoma said softly, "She saw the painting. And he's still breathing."
Ayaka tilted her head slightly. "So she spared you."
"I didn't flatter her," Ji Bai said.
"I never expected you to."
They stood there a while—three shadows under a silent sky, wind slipping between rooftops like a ghost. The whole city slept, unaware that its god had judged a man not with execution, but with watchful silence.
"She doesn't trust me," Ji Bai said. "But at least... she doesn't fear me yet."
Ayaka turned her gaze toward the distant sea. "Inazuma does not fear what it understands. It fears what it refuses to understand."
Ji Bai's hand tightened around his brush. "Then I'll keep painting until they see. Even if it costs me."
High above, the lights of Tenshukaku flickered once—then went out.
No words. But a message all the same.
The Shogun had turned her gaze away.
But not her thoughts.
The night wind rustled Ji Bai's sleeve. He looked back toward the palace one last time.
The storm had not passed.
It had only paused.
And next time, it might not wait for permission to speak.