#cap 1402

Once again, Kishiar's extraordinary planning skills and keen perception are on display here. This man not only knew in advance what Yuder and Nathan planned to do during the duel, but he also used the duel and all the commotion generated by the event as bait for both Katchian and the Southern merchants, who would not be able to resist the idea of acting on this day when all eyes would be focused on the capital. Kishiar used both incidents to balance the consequences generated by each, using the attempted assassination of the prince to contain the fury of the Diarca House and the noble faction, and using the destruction of Inella's tomb to divert attention from what happened to Katchian. Not to mention how all this meticulous planning allowed the espionage group to infiltrate the Shining Palace and subsequently find the Southerners' base, returning with numerous pieces of evidence of Katchian's crimes and his alliance with the Southerners. And he did all this without telling anyone or letting on that he knew in advance about all the incidents that were going to occur.

Kishiar is incredible. Absurdly incredible. This man's mind works in unimaginable ways. May Kuyu continue to bless us with his meticulous and unbelievable plans.

But besides Kishiar's incredible planning skills, we also had a very good interaction between Yuder and Nathan, who, believe it or not, are already planning their next duel. They haven't even fully recovered yet and they're already imagining when they'll be able to fight again. Yuder was surprised and pleased to see that Nathan's resistance was greater than he imagined, because that meant that next time he could hit harder. And Nathan was literally able to read Yuder's thoughts about beating him up and responding accordingly, smiling and stating that he was looking forward to it. I'll make my decision here. They are best friends.

And Kishiar? Besides observing the exchange with pleasure, clearly satisfied to see the closeness between the two, he also presented them with the gifts he had prepared in the most Kishiar la Orr style possible (I know he practiced that beforehand when he was alone in the office. And I definitely don't want to have to enter a gift-giving competition against Kishiar, because he doesn't know how to play fair and will raise the bar absurdly high.), gifting Nathan and Yuder with new swords, since the ones they possessed broke in the duel. This would have been normal, if it weren't for the fact that Kishiar gave Nathan the First Emperor's sword, probably an imperial relic, and gave Yuder his old sword, equally of the highest quality. And considering that Kishiar already had both swords prepared the day after the duel, I believe he intended to give them to Yuder and Nathan regardless of what happened in the duel.