rigged from the start

The flooded stretch of beach had mostly drained, leaving scattered pools and soaked sand as the only reminders of Cloud Retainer’s earlier excess. What remained of Team Jean and Team Ningguang had found each other again among the wreckage, both groups too focused on the immediate fight to realize the rest of the field had already collapsed. Only three teams still had dry seals. They were two of them.

Exhaustion sat heavy on both leaders.

Ningguang’s geo constructs rose slower now, thinner, the golden light flickering each time she forced another barrier into place. Jean’s Anemo redirection came in short, labored bursts that left her breathing hard between every deflection. Neither woman had anything left for elegance; survival and the next ranking slot were all that remained.

Beidou made the decision for them.

She broke from cover at a full sprint, heavy pool noodle already drawn back, aiming straight for Jean. Ningguang supported the charge the only way she still could — jade constructs reshaped into crude, open buckets that scooped residual floodwater and hurled it forward in wide, heavy sheets. The airborne water forced Jean’s remaining teammates to scatter or block, opening the lane Beidou needed.

The captain closed the last meters and swung.

Mona saw the opening and lobbed a water balloon in a clean, high arc meant to catch Beidou dead center while the other woman was committed to the clash. Beidou’s noodle moved almost casually. The balloon met the foam mid-swing and reversed direction with perfect timing. Mona had half a second to register the returning projectile before it burst squarely against her own seal. The paper darkened at once. She stared down at it in open disbelief, already eliminated by her own throw.

Yanfei tried to exploit the same moment of chaos, angling for a clear shot at Jean that would not also risk soaking Beidou. She never finished the motion. A thick, high-pressure stream slammed into her from the unprotected flank, hard enough to spin her halfway around. The seal above her breasts soaked through in a single continuous blast.

Amber stepped out from the low rocks she had used for cover, oversized soaker still braced against her hip, the hidden flank finally cashed in.

Ningguang’s eyes flashed the moment Amber’s soaker claimed Yanfei.

Eight jade buckets formed in rapid succession, scooped the nearest standing water, and launched in a converging barrage that left the young scout no clean escape. Amber tried to cut sideways; the heavy sheets of water still found her. The seal above her breasts darkened under the concentrated deluge, and the last support on Jean’s side went down hard.

Across the same stretch of sand Jean met Beidou’s charge with pure economy of motion.

The captain’s heavy, overhead noodle style carried power but left wider arcs. Jean’s lighter weapon moved in short, precise fencing lines — redirect, bind, slip past — until one elegant, almost gentle touch landed squarely on the water-sensitive paper. Beidou felt the cold bloom of moisture a second too late and lowered her weapon with a rough, acknowledging grunt.

Only the two leaders remained.

Jean was running on fumes. Every earlier Anemo deflection and the long attrition of the match sat heavy in her limbs, yet she still broke into a sprint. Close quarters was the only remaining path that favored her. Ningguang saw the decision and moved in the opposite direction, forcing her exhausted geo constructs to scrape the last usable water from the residual pools and reshape it into fresh buckets. One instinctive step backward carried her heel directly onto a small hydro fish.

The creature gave under her weight with a wet, unexpected slip.

Ningguang’s balance broke completely. The half-formed buckets scattered. For one critical heartbeat the Tianquan of Liyue was simply a woman stumbling on wet sand.

Jean did not waste it.

She closed the final meters in three hard strides and delivered a single, precise jab — no flourish, no excess force — straight to the center of the golden seal above Ningguang’s breasts. The paper soaked through on contact.

Jean stood over the defeated Tianquan, lungs dragging in hard, uneven pulls of air. Every muscle trembled with the accumulated cost of the match. She watched, still half-processing the victory, as the little hydro fish that had tripped Ningguang lifted from the sand of its own accord and darted upward to her right.

Slow, deliberate clapping echoed across the wet beach.

Four figures approached through the residual mist and scattered pools. Kokomi walked at the center; the moment the fish reached her hand it simply ceased to exist, the summoned construct dismissed without ceremony. Yae Miko came beside her, fan closed for once, offering Jean a long, measured look of open approval that felt more like a verdict than praise.

“Well fought,”
the kitsune said, voice warm and almost fond.
“Truly. You handled the attrition and the final exchange with real elegance.”

Jean needed several seconds to assemble the picture.

Ayaka stood a step to the side, an empty animal cage dangling lightly from one hand. Mizuki remained slightly behind them, expression unreadable, posture completely at ease. The four women of the Inazuman team looked as if they had simply been waiting for the correct scene to arrive.

Yae Miko raised a small water pistol with unhurried grace and leveled it at the center of Jean’s chest.

Jean was too emptied to dodge, too emptied even to lift her own weapon. She only watched.

The kitsune’s smile widened by a fraction.

“You did well,” she said softly. “Especially considering that the game was rigged from the start”

The pistol made a single, polite sound.

The four women from Inazuma stood in the open sand without a single drop of water on them.

Their seals were pristine. Their breathing was steady. None of them had engaged in anything that could reasonably be called a fight. While the rest of the island exhausted itself in running battles, artificial tsunamis, and personal grudges, Team 5 had spent the greater part of two hours at the main resort bar, seated among ordinary guests with cold cocktails and an unobstructed view of the chaos.

Kokomi’s strategic mind and Yae Miko’s layered foresight had reached the same conclusion early: in a free-for-all of this scale, the most efficient path to first place was simply not to play on the same board as everyone else. Large-scale attacks like Cloud Retainer’s water column were best avoided by staying inside the civilian footprint of the resort, where such force could not be applied without drawing the wrong kind of attention. Alice had been accounted for in advance; the true variable that concerned them was Zibai’s raw, uncompromising power. Everything else could be managed with minimal expenditure.

So they managed it.

A summoned hydro fish at the exact moment Ningguang stepped backward. A quiet, precise assassination of Citlali once the shaman had fled into the crowd. A handful of other, smaller adjustments that never required the Inazuman team to expose their own seals. They could have done far more. Kokomi had at one point floated the idea of quietly paying a rotating wave of ordinary resort guests to act as proxy shooters — a continuous, low-level zombie-tide of water guns that would have worn the other teams down through sheer attrition. It would have stayed within Yanfei’s written rules. Yae had considered the suggestion, then dismissed it with a mild flick of her fan. Unnecessary theatre. The quieter path already guaranteed the result.

By the time Jean’s seal darkened under the final, polite shot, the ranking had been settled without the victors ever needing to raise their heart rates.

Yae Miko closed her fan with a soft click and surveyed the soaked, exhausted remnants of the field with open satisfaction. First place was theirs. The Passion Claimer would be available to them before anyone else on the island, and they had not even needed to get wet to arrange it.