Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Venti was a god of simple tastes- wine, and the aftertaste of wine, most of the time. Angel’s Share was his supplier of choice, and that was where he was tonight, ready to drown out the aftertaste of wine with the taste of wine.

“Good evening, Diluc!” Venti chirped at the dead-eyed wine mogul. 

“Venti.” Diluc said.

Venti slid into a chair across from Diluc, who put away the glass he was polishing. Diluc reached underneath the counter and pulled out an envelope, which had the distinct smell of glaze lilies, and, to his elemental senses, the trace of geo.

“A Liyuean man told me to give this to, and I quote, the green man with the Anemo vision,” Diluc said, sliding the envelope over. Venti picked it up and fumbled while opening it, then deciding to nab a butter knife from one of the tables with a gust of wind. Diluc raised an eyebrow.

“He also paid a frankly ridiculous price to hold onto this, so I figured you should get it while you’re still sober enough to read it.”

“Mhm,” Venti hummed, reading the letter.

To the second-eldest,

I hope that this letter finds you well. You may have never responded to the heaven’s call, but I hope you will to mine. On the night of the full moon, meet me at the place where we first met.

Yours,

Zhongli.

“Huh.” Venti folded up the letter and tucked it into one of his pockets. Smells like him , he thought. “Thanks for the letter. When’s the full moon?”

“Tonight.”

Venti groaned at the thought of facing Morax sober until an idea sprung into his head. “How much for a bottle of dandelion wine?”

“More than you can afford with your debt.”

“You’re so stingy!” Venti stuck his tongue out.

“Goodnight, and good luck with whoever you’re meeting.” Diluc shooed Venti over to the door, and the second both feet were outside, he slammed it shut on the bard.

Zhongli was waiting underneath the moonlight, still as stone. It was as if he was part of Stone Gate, and he had always been this way, even though Venti knew how little he actually returned to the border of Mondstadt and his home country of Liyue. Creating an updraft beneath his feet, he propelled himself up to the top of the gate.

“Old friend,” Zhongli opened up with, his voice as stable as ever.

“Pal,” Venti replied casually. “So, what’s up? You finally decided to go through with-”

“That plan has been… rescinded,” Zhongli said. “Celestia summoned me. I was informed that, though I was doing an acceptable job, that some of the other archons were… not up to standards.” Zhongli sighed, the tiredness in his voice carrying the weight of his thousands of years of hard work- work, he now felt, he was being punished for. “You are not the only one who’s attracted Celestia’s judgment. The unseen Dendro Archon, Lesser Lord Kusanali, has been given a new jurisdiction. Sumeru will be ruled by Baal, Inazuma will be ruled by Buer, Liyue will be ruled by Barbatos, and Mondstadt will be ruled by Morax. This is Celestia’s decree.”

“Morax… when did you hear about this?” Venti asked.

“A few days ago.” Zhongli walked over to the Liyue half of Stone Gate. Venti sat on a rock on the Mondstadt side.

“It’s not like you to move this quickly,” Venti said.

“No, but I wanted us to be in the same place. It will make the transition easier.”

“What do you mean by tha-”

The moon hit midnight, and in a flash of light, Zhongli and Venti swapped places.

One moment, the Raiden Shogun was on top of Tenshukaku, having received a report from the Kujou clan’s leader earlier that evening. Fifty visions had been confiscated, and many more were on the way. Eternity was being well-maintained, as it had for the past four hundred and ninety nine years.

The next, she was trapped in some kind of odd green bubble far too small to fit her inside.

What happened? Ei thought to the Shogun.

Unsure. The Shogun answered. Initiate escape protocol?

Granted, Ei replied. And give me control of the Shogun.

Understood.

The Shogun Puppet’s eyes glowed bright purple as her hand awkwardly contorted to reach the handle sprouting from inside her chest. Dark clouds billowed above the Sanctuary of Surasthana, and the citizens beneath pointed at the purple glow within. The Shogun’s hand connected to the handle, and as it wrapped around it, Ei took control of the body.

“Torn to Oblivion!”

The green bubble burst to bits, popping like an oversized balloon in a quicken reaction. As Ei stepped out, the smell of crisp, ionized air hit her as the jail dissolved, roots evaporating as the explosion gradually fizzled out. She took a look around. The room was sickeningly green, a bud created by the branches of a mossy tree and fractal-styled architecture.

Two matra opened the exit, running in to check out the explosion. They froze, seeing Raiden’s glowing katana. One tried to run, but she sent a lightning bolt his way, causing him to fall to the ground, writhing in agony as his muscles twitched involuntarily.

We should not allow them to escape. The Shogun thought.

“It feels like Dendro,” Ei said, turning to the remaining matra, who was petrified. “Where are we?”

“T-the Sanctuary of Surasthana,” his voice trembled.

“This is Buer’s?” Raiden asked.

“Y-yes, this is where Lesser Lord Kusanali resides. Please don’t kill me!”

“You have not done anything yet,” Raiden said. She walked past him and to the door before turning around. “But leaving this room before nightfall would not be wise. You Sumerians value that, do you not?”

“Yes, Ms…” he said, fishing for an answer as to the identity of the purple-haired maiden of death. But by that point, Raiden had already shut the door behind her, stepping out onto the balcony.

Only nightfall? The Shogun queried.

Do not question me, Raiden thought back. Your body is far faster than any in Sumeru. For now, I want to know what caused us to enter Buer’s country. Something like this can only be done by a god. 

Perhaps they are an enemy of Eternity , the Shogun suggested.

Perhaps. Ei thought. They were now sitting on top of the Sanctuary, watching the matra rush up and in.

The Akademiya may be an enemy of Eternity , the Shogun thought, somewhat eagerly, for an emotionless voice.

“Perhaps they might,” Ei said out loud. “Maybe we should pay a visit to the sages.”

How much power should we unlock?  

Leave it limited. We will not need it to converse with mortals.

Raiden jumped down from the top of the Sanctuary. The matra stumbled at the impact, and turned to look at her. One of them charged, but with a flick of her finger, Raiden sent him flying against a branch, which he bounced off and back onto the floor. She turned around and slowly walked down the spiraling path to the Akademiya. The other matra began to charge her, but she pointed at the ground behind her and a bolt of lightning blasted it to shreds, leaving them trapped. 

Two matra from below charged with their spears. Raiden tilted her head out of the way of the first blow, an overhand swing, and the shaft splintered in two upon hitting her shoulder, barely shifting her robe. The other aimed a thrust at her face, which she blocked with her index finger, sending a current of electricity down and causing him to drop it.

Raiden picked up the spear, testing its heft and balance.

“Poorly made,” she said. The spearhead glowed as her eyes did, and with an arc, she cut a doorway into the Akademiya.

A kick the chunks of wall and wood into the fountain at the center of the lobby. The scholars began screaming and fleeing as Raiden walked in through the impromptu doorway. She looked to her right. The door was just a few yards away. 

“You there,” she said, pointing at one of the scholars next to her, too terrified to get up and run, “Is this the Akademiya? And where are your Sages?”

He wordlessly pointed inward and upward, and Raiden stepped over him, continuing deeper into the library as the stream of people running out parted to make way for her advance. The library was mostly empty, save for one girl clad in a blue hood who had seemingly falled asleep at her desk. Even the thunder and lightning was insufficient to wake her.

Raiden passed by and headed towards the elevator. Two more matra ran up to her, but with a smack to the jaw with the stolen spear, they were both knocked out cold, one falling over the railing and landing on his stomach, the other slumping against it.

She stepped inside of the elevator and pressed the highest button. It began to move, and she stood rigidly, twirling the spear in her limited space.

It’s not that bad after all , Shogun thought.

It lasted longer than I expected , Ei conceded. The elevator reached the top floor, and she stepped out, tossing the spear at the Grand Sage’s desk. The desk slid to the wall, pinning the man who was working on it.

“Urgh- Who are you? Guards? Guards!” Grand Sage Azar yelled. 

“Let’s talk, Sage.” Raiden said, leaning over the desk. “About why you summoned me here.”

Chapter Text

Nahida fell onto the roof of Tenshukaku. Having never used her legs before in her life, she failed to balance on the thin edge on top of the building, and within seconds was rolling down its shingled roof.

“Ouch!” She banged her head on the edge of the roof as she fell down onto the next one, rolling on her side until she fell off of that as well.

With a crash, she landed on the paved path leading up to the front door.

“I’m seeing stars…” she whimpered.

“Hey!” A voice called out. One of the shogunate samurai picked her up. “I’ve got a kid here! I think she fell off the roof!”

“The roof?” A stern-looking woman with dark hair and a red mask tied to her head leaned over Nahida. “Kid, what were you trying to do? Are you hurt?”

“I… Where am I?” Nahida asked.

“She’s got brain damage,” Sara said to the samurai holding her. “Let’s get her inside. We’ve got a doctor, right?”

“The almighty Shogun never needed one, so I’m not sure-”

“Just get her inside,” Sara said. “I’ll call for someone with the ability to heal her.”

“Wait, I’m not hurt,” Nahida said softly. “Sara, you don’t need to get someone.”

“How do you know my name?” She raised an eyebrow at Nahida, who wriggled in the samurai’s grip. He put her down on the ground.

Words flashed in front of Nahida’s eyes. They glitched out, like the Akasha, then came into focus.

“My name is Lesser Lord Kusanali,” she said, hesitating to say the next part. “And… I’m the new archon of Inazuma.”

---

“Is that it?” Venti asked. He was now standing on the Liyue end of the Stone Gate, and Zhongli was standing on the Mondstadt end.

“That’s it.” Zhongli replied. “I told you, being in the same place makes the transition easier.”

“So what’s stopping me from just going back to Mondstadt and having a drink at the Angel’s share again?” Venti said. He took a step over the border, just to make sure he could, and, satisfied, nodded.

“Forfeiture of your Gnosis… and, possibly, your life. The Heavenly Principles refused to be clear on that matter.” Zhongli replied evenly. “I don’t want you to die, Barbatos.”

“I don’t like that name, Morax.”

“Just a reminder of the world we live in,” he sighed. Hunched over, Zhongli looked every bit the worn and weary six thousand year old dragon that he was. Venti reached out to him, setting him down on the nearest rock.

“Don’t worry, Zhongli. I’ll take care of your beloved Liyue for you.” Venti assured him.

“I would say that I’d take care of Mondstadt as well, but from what I’ve heard, it seems to be doing just fine without you,” Zhongli joked dryly. He took Venti’s hand off of his shoulder and clasped it with both of his hands. “For the past six thousand years, I have given and given to Liyue, and it has given to me in return. I hope that the Heavenly Principles will allow me to return.”

“Why didn’t you argue against it?” Venti tilted his head quizzically.

“Well… if nothing blows up within the next five years, then we will be summoned again before the thrones, and we will petition to have our original countries back.”

Venti leaned back. “Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”

“Very much so.”

“Five years is nothing in the grand scheme of our lives- well, ours in particular. Yet Celestia comes down to make a fuss over this one specific stretch of time? Just in time to mess up your plans for retirement, as the whispers of the masked fools reach their highest… The whole thing reeks!” Venti began to float, flipping in the wind like some sort of Anemo slime.

“It does. But it’s not as though we have another choice. Everyone is being informed of this change in one way or another.” Zhongli stated matter-of-factly. “It’s nearing morning. You should head off to your country now.”

“Mm? Yeah, sure thing.” Venti dropped back down to earth, his feet lightly tapping the ground.

“I have a list of people I’d like you to visit.” Zhongli pulled a piece of paper from one of his pockets and passed it over to the wind spirit. “The director, especially. I don’t want her to worry about me while I’m gone.”

“Right, you’ve been taking that form to raise her ever since her family died,” Venti said, skimming the list as he did. “She’s gonna be gutted, huh?”

“Hopefully not.” Zhongli replied. “When should we meet next?”

“I guess I get to own all of your old haunts, right? Let’s meet on that nice floating island you anchored over Jueyen Karst, in a week from now. Enjoy your vacation, Morax. Mondstadt won’t need you.” Venti tucked the piece of paper into his shorts.

“I hope it doesn’t,” Zhongli replied.

Then the two archons turned around and vanished into the earth and wind.

---

“No one has the divine right of rule over the great nation of Inazuma other than Her Excellency, the Narukami Ogosho, Baleful Lord of Thunder, Raiden Shogun!” Kujou Sara pointed aggressively at Nahida with each word she spoke.

“...Surprise?” Nahida squeaked.

Sara sighed with equal parts pity and contempt. “Just get out of here, kid, or whatever you are. Before the Shogun comes and smites you herself.”

“...I can leave?” Nahida asked.

“Yeah? What did you think we were going to do?” Sara began to lead Nahida toward the gates.

“I thought you were going to lock me up for another five hundred years like the sages did,” Nahida admitted, head turned downwards. 

“What?” Sara halted.

“I can see where the gate is. I’m sure that a youkai like you is very busy, so please don’t let me waste any more of your time.” Nahida smiled at her. “I’m sure that you will do just fine running this nation yourself.”

“What an odd kid,” Sara muttered to herself as she turned back.

As she entered Tenshukaku again, she yelled at all the staff who were inside. “Has anyone seen the Shogun?”

Nahida was free! As soon as she left the front gates, she broke out into a sprint, though she tripped on a slight bump on the path after crossing the bridge. There were still a couple of leg things she had to work out after being trapped for nearly five hundred years, but it didn’t matter! No responsibilities! (Surely someone else would take care of Inazuma). As for Sumeru… well, she was a little worried, but the Raiden Shogun was surely a more experienced god, so Nahida had faith that she would do fine. 

For now, she was just roaming around Inazuma with the unbridled curiosity of a child who had never seen the outside world. What was that smell? What was that sight? Why was that man dunking colorful balls into milk? Why were those trees so pink? Why did those matra wear super heavy armor instead of the ornate robes of the Sumeru Akademiya?

So engrossed in her running around and seeing everything there was to see, Nahida barely noticed what was in front of her until she bumped into its leg.

“Oof!” She had the air knocked out of her as she hit the ground. Above her, the man she had bumped into turned around. He was tall and muscular with red paint on his face and arms, and two red horns.

“What’s this?” He asked. “A little girl?”

“Don’t hurt me?” Nahida asked.

To her surprise, the demon started laughing wholeheartedly. “Oh, that’s a good one. Come on, get up. Where are your parents? Or would you rather play with the Arataki gang? I don’t think I’ve seen you around Inazuma city before!”

“Gang?”

“Yep, the Arataki Gang, the most important gang in Inazuma, led by yours truly, the ‘One and Oni’ Arataki Itto!” The Oni boasted, chest puffed with delusional levels of pride.

“Um… I’ve never heard of you before.” Nahida sheepishly admitted.

Itto deflated like a balloon, and the gang members had to catch their weak-kneed boss before he landed knee-first on the ground.

“Haha… it’s okay… a little girl couldn’t possibly hope to understand the, uh, complicated politics of Inazuma…”

“But the Vahumana have written extensive papers on the subject, so I should actually know a lot about the politics of Inazuma, especially since they aren’t ever changed!” Nahida chirped, and proceeded to recite an essay about the intricate power balances between the Tri-Commission, Watatsumi Island, and the Shogunate in general that completely baffled the poor Arataki gang. At around the halfway mark, their brains actually stopped trying to understand the words coming out of her mouth, and they tuned it out as background noise.

“So, beetle fight?” Itto asked.

“Sure.”

“Sure.”

“And due to Watatsumi Island’s lack of fertile soil, it is particularly reliant on imported food supplies from other nations, including-”

“Hey, kid, have you ever done an Onikabuto fight before?”

Nahida beamed. “I’ve never heard of it!”

“Well, right this way, kid! We’ll have you learn the basics of Onikabuto fights and you’ll be back with your mommy and daddy before you can say ‘Oni, Dos, Tres’!” He crouched down and placed Nahida on his shoulder, securing her with his left arm. He reached out with his right, pointing forwards. “Alright, gang, let’s go! Haha!”

Nahida found his laugh infectious, and soon she was giggling as well.

Chapter Text

“Who are you?” Grand Sage Azar sputtered. “And what do you mean, summoned?”

“Don’t play coy with me, Sage,” Raiden said. “The Shogun was standing on top of Tenshukaku, when suddenly I was transported into your green bubble-thing. Who else but the Akademiya would have a god-containing cage right above their main building?”

“What? You were in the Sanctuary of Surasthana? What about Lesser Lord Kusanali?”

“...Was she supposed to be there?”

Azar gulped, realizing he had maybe given too much away to the very scary, very intimidating woman in front of him who was currently in between him and any exit.

“I- I won’t say any more!”

“Come to think of it, I can smell the trace of Electro, just barely.” Raiden sniffed the air. “Why would Divine Electro

be in Sumeru’s basement? You have five seconds to answer.”

Grand Sage Azar whimpered, his mind running a thousand lies at once.

“Five… Four…” Raiden counted down, pressing the spear against his neck, not yet hard enough to draw blood.

“We’re making a new god!” Azar yelped. “The Fatui and the Akademiya have been working to replace Lesser Lord Kusanali, please please please don’t kill me, please-”

Heresy. He is an enemy of Eternity , the Shogun thought.

He is a pathetic fool , Raiden concurred. 

Release power limiter?

“What? No! We’re not destroying the whole tree just to kill this one guy.”

Aw.

Plus, he said “the Akademiya.” The first rule of war- kill all of your enemies until they are dead. Ei thought to the Shogun.

I’m not sure that’s correct. The Shogun deadpanned. Also, I can now sense the Dendro Archon’s power coming from that green thing on his head.

So it seems , Ei thought, plucking the Akasha terminal from his head. Let’s see what kind of fancy tool the former Lord of Dendro has created.

Understood. The Shogun thought, as Ei put the Akasha terminal onto her head. Suddenly, the floor dropped beneath them, and Raiden fell down onto a transparent blue floor, staring at a massive tree.

Hu Tao was in a slightly bad mood today, which was abnormal. She’d woken up late- Zhongli had not woken her up on time- She had to deal with one customer who tried to demand a “grief discount” out of her services, and Zhongli still wasn’t around, which was abnormal and meant that she would have to do all the paperwork herself. She was perfectly capable, of course, but more time spent working meant less time spent advertising, and how was the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor to grow if she couldn’t get out there and start selling coffins herself?

So when someone knocked on the door, she paused for a moment to collect herself before answering it. As she got up, though, a gust of wind pushed the door open, and a short guy with a green hat waltzed in as if he had owned the place.

“Huh. Not exactly what I was expecting.” Venti let himself into the place, looking around and occasionally nodding approvingly. “The old man never woulda had this much style if the decor was left to him, that’s for sure.”

“Who might you be? A prospecting customer, perhaps?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think I’ll be in need of Wangsheng’s services for quite a while,” Venti laughed it off, gesturing at his boyish face. “I came here to tell you about your consultant. He’s an old friend of mine, and he wanted me to tell you that he’s gonna be gone for a while.”

“Why couldn’t he tell me that himself?” Hu Tao asked. “Also, who are you?”

“Just the world’s greatest bard, Venti!” He smiled at the funeral parlor director. “But more importantly a friend of Mr. Zhongli, who expresses his sincere regret that he couldn’t be here.”

“And… what, he sent a bard? Are you going to sing for me?” Hu Tao asked.

“No, but I will be watching over you! Sorry, that sounds kinda creepy. I just mean, you know, if you need anything-”

“Goodbye, Venti.” Hu Tao said. “Sorry, I’m normally a lot more cheery, it’s just-”

“Zhongli being so stable makes it a lot easier to goof around, right?” Venti said. “It’s okay, I get it. But I’ll let you know how he’s doing.”

“Thanks, Venti.” Hu Tao said. Venti did a hop, skip, and a jump off of the bridge, and when Hu Tao ran over to see where he had gone, he had vanished.

The bard hadn’t returned from his full moon date since a day ago, and Diluc had been mildly worried… that the archon wouldn’t pay off his bill. When the Liyuean gentleman in the suit- Zhongli, he later learned, had visited, the first thing he did was try to pay off his bill, only to realize he had left his wallet… at Liyue. Soon after, he had returned with a handful of uncut Noctilucous Jade, assuring the uncrowned Lord of Monstadt that it would be sufficient payment for the bard’s tab. Now he was sitting at the bar, counting down the 12 minutes for his glass of dandelion wine to breathe, before he could drink it.

“Dandelion wine, you probably know, requires twelve minutes to breathe, before adding ice so that three fifths of it is submerged beneath the wine. Some argue over shaved, or cubed, but I believe that cubes, while more difficult to measure, allow the wine to remain purer… less diluted.” Zhongli said, golden eyes fixed upon the tiny ripples that formed on the surface of the glass as others in the tavern drank, conversed, and stomped their feet on the floor.

A very aristocratic custom, but not one a Liyuean would automatically know , Diluc thought.

“You seem like a man of refined tastes and high culture. How is it that you know the bard?” Diluc asked in reply.

“We’re friends,” Zhongli said, rubbing his gloved hands on the stem of the glass. “Although he would never dream of letting any alcohol sit for twelve minutes before drinking it. Venti is from the country of this lauded wine, and yet I will be the first between us to drink it as it was intended.”

“He would drink it from the bottle if I let him,” Diluc said, and Zhongli gave a dry laugh at that.

“Seems you’ve had a rough time dealing with him,” Zhongli swirled the wine around as he said that.

“Only for a couple of hours at a time. I’d have to kick him out if he tried drinking here during the day.” Diluc’s lip twitched upwards as he poured another glass for another patron.

“I have a kid- not mine, but I’ve been raising her since her grandfather died. She’s quite similar to Venti, actually. Cheerful, playful. It’s a shame that my work sent me here so quickly. I couldn’t find a good way to tell her goodbye.”

“Are you going to be here for a long time?”

“I hope to be out in five years. Work is work, but family’s what matters in the end.”

“I suppose so,” Diluc said.

“It’s admirable, you know. Your sense of duty. Yet because of that sense of duty, Diluc, that you have chosen to neglect those who care about you. Your brother, and the girl drowning herself in work while the rest of the Knights of Favonius drown themselves in your wine.” Zhongli turned his head down. “Twelve minutes has elapsed. Ice cubes, please. No need to pour them in yourself, I can measure three fifths myself.”

“What do you think you know about me?” Diluc asked.

“I don’t pretend to know anything,” Zhongli said. “I just think the friend of my friend should live a better life than the one he’s living currently.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Diluc said as he poured the ice cubes into Zhongli’s drink, “but my life is perfectly satisfactory.”

Zhongli smelled the wine, swirled it around, and took a sip. He savored it for a moment, then nodded approvingly. 

“I can understand why he enjoys this,” he said, staring off into the distant past.

“Venti?” Diluc asked, though he knew the answer already. “So what is he to you?”

Zhongli tilted his head and took a gulp of dandelion wine, slightly out of character from his conduct that evening. “...Someone important, I suppose.”

Chapter Text

“Where are we, Shogun?” Ei asked the puppet. “Send out pulses of Electro to scan the area.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that, actually.” A childlike voice called out. Raiden spun around, then looked down. A young kid in a white dress with adorable green eyes stared back at her. The former Dendro Archon.

“I didn’t know that the Former Inazuma’s Archon was a fusion of two different personalities. This is quite the novel piece of information! But as for your Electro, I don’t think it would react very well with my Dendro. You could find that things would get… aggravated… quickly.” Rukkhadevata giggled. Raiden stared at her, befuddled.

Is this the former Dendro Archon, the one before Kusanali? I thought she was dead.

“I am dead,” Rukkhadevata said. “This is just my consciousness. I can’t fully be severed from Irminsul, after all. I was its keeper. And soon, you will learn to be its keeper as well.”

“That can’t be right,” Ei said. “I am the guardian of Eternity, not wisdom. My calling is to keep Inazuma safe and secure, forever.”

“That was your calling until you were transported into Kusanali’s place,” Rukkhadevata said. “The Heavenly Principles, for some reason or another, have somehow re-assigned the divine right of rule to different archons. Morax and Barbatos have switched nations- that’s gotta piss off those two. You and Kusanali have swapped as well. She’s now in Inazuma, having fun with one of the youkai. Come, I have something to show you.”

Rukkhadevata ran past Raiden and gestured at her to follow towards the massive blue tree of Irminsul. Raiden reluctantly obliged, briskly walking to keep pace.

“The Heavenly Principles have been inactive ever since the day I died,” Rukkhadevata began.

“Khaen’riah.” Ei said.

“I wasn’t there.”

“You should’ve been,” Ei glared at her. “Maybe the Lord of Dendro could have prevented unnecessary deaths.”

“I had a far more important task. I needed to be right here, in Irminsul.” Rukkhadevata touched the tree, which began to wither away into red sparks, as did her hand.

“Tell me, Narukami Ogosho, what do you know about forbidden knowledge and the abyss?”

“Oh, no!” Itto threw his head back in despair as Nahida’s beetle flipped his larger one over.

“Yes!” Nahida threw her hands in the air and started jumping around in joy. “Go, Arakabuto!”

Nahida’s Dendro-buffed beetle puffed up with pride and extra life energy. Nahida started punching the air. “Go do that!” The beetle waved its head around in response, its horn roughly looking like Nahida’s wild swings.

“How are you so good, compadre?” Itto asked. “You even beat Crimson Bullet!”

“I guess my beetles are just good,” Nahida teased.

“Why, you- I’m the champ of beetle-fighting, okay? My beetles are just having an off day! When we run it back, Crimson Bullet is bound to regain his honor!” Itto pouted. Then, hearing a noise, he turned around. They were holding this beetle-fighting tournament behind one of the general stores of Inazuma, where children who didn’t want to shop with their parents would drop by to watch the fights as their parents got groceries and other goods. This time, though, it wasn’t a kid who had come over.

“Seriously, boss? How long have you held the kid here for?” Kuki Shinobu, the Arataki Gang’s true leader, or so Nahida surmised, stood in front of her so-called boss, arms crossed in a disciplinary pose. Itto sort of shrunk down a little, which was impressive, seeing how big he was normally.

“Hey, it hasn’t been that long. Besides, I need to win at beetle fighting! You see, her tiny little beetle just flipped the hell out of Crimson Bullet! How am I supposed to take that sitting down, huh?” Itto waved his hands in indignation as the small crowd of spectators fled back to their parents.

“You can start by standing up. Come on, kid, let’s get you home. Where are your parents?” Kuki turned to Nahida, her pose becoming slightly less stiff.

“I don’t have any, actually, hehe…” Nahida rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.

“Well, you must have some family, right?” Kuki said. “Someone who’s looking for you?”

Nahida thought back to the sages, generation after generation, who had never bothered to let her out of the sanctuary, save for the escape she could get while dreaming. She thought back to the Aranara, who, while good friends, were not exactly going to jump at the idea of swimming across the ocean to find her. And as for the knight of flowers and his retainers in her dream… she didn’t think they existed.

“No one’s looking for me, but it’s fine! I can stay here!” Nahida ended up going with something vague. No need to explain, after all.

“Here as in where? And where are you from?” Kuki pressed on. “Actually, I don’t think Itto ever got your name?”

“It’s Nahida, Cookie.” Itto grumbled. “I’m not a dumba-” his eyes flickered to Nahida- “I’m not stupid, right? It’s Nahida, she told us earlier before you found us back here.”

“Nahida? You’re not from Inazuma. Doesn’t sound Liyuean either. Sumeru?”

“You’re very wise,” Nahida said, smiling at Kuki. “Yes, I’m from Sumeru.”

“How did you get here? There’s a huge storm surrounding Inazuma. Did you stow away on a ship?”

“To be honest, I don’t really know how I got here either,” Nahida admitted.

“How can you not know that?”

“It’s a mystery to me.” Nahida shrugged. “But that makes it fun!”

Kuki pulled Itto by his ear around the corner, away from Nahida. She pulled him down to whisper into his ear.

“Itto, come on, we’re taking this kid to the Tenryou Commission. Something is-”

“Very odd about me, I know,” Nahida finished her sentence.

“How did you-”

“Hear me? I can’t, you’re speaking too softly.”

Itto spoke up. “So you can-”

“Finish your sentences? Yeah.” Nahida walked around the corner, head turned down sheepishly. “If you don’t want me around, that’s fine. I’ll just go.”

“Are you some kind of youkai like me?” Itto exclaimed with delight. “I didn’t know there was a youkai out there that could read minds!”

Nahida was taken aback at the Oni’s ability to latch onto the oddest conclusions. There was so little logic in his thoughts- it was as if he was the culmination of everything that she had pondered about the human enigma, and he wasn’t even human!

“Alright, you know what, let’s get you over to the Tenryou Commission. There’s someone whose mind I want you to read,” Itto said. A name flashed into her mind. Kujou Tengu. Also a warm, jittery feeling. Like how coffee felt, or so the Akasha had explained. She’d never gotten to drink it before, not even in her dreams, but being next to Itto felt a similar way.

“Itto, what do you plan on doing with Nahida?” Kuki stopped them in their tracks with a stern tone.

“I… uh… you know! I need to get my revenge somehow!” Itto whined. “Kujou Tengu stole my vision from me! That can’t stand!”

“...Fine.” Kuki said begrudgingly. Maybe Sara will know what to do with the youkai , Nahida could hear her think. Deciding that it probably wasn’t a good idea to continue listening in on people’s private thoughts, she let them fade back into background noise, as Itto happily carried her on his shoulder all the way back to where she had come from.

The Shogun puppet's constitution, being made of Irminsul's wood, allowed her to connect, though only briefly, with Irminsul itself, and the remnants of Rukkhadevata that had remained within.

“I wonder if Celestia knew that Electro and Dendro strengthening each other would make this possible, or if this is just a lucky coincidence…” Rukkhadevata had mused after teaching Raiden about forbidden knowledge and the Withering. “Well, even if it is, you’re still not strong enough to do anything with it. I have no idea where the Gnosis is- it’s probably still with the branch I plucked. I wanted her to be the one to erase me from existence, but she’s probably in Inazuma now.”

“They’ll never accept her as sovereign,” Raiden said.

“Probably not. That makes Celestia’s shake-up all the more odd, don’t you think?” Rukkhadevata said. “I’ve said everything I can, but your dead wood body only has a limited amount of Dendro remaining, so you’ll be out of here in around-”

Raiden snapped back to reality. The man who was pinned in front of her was now reduced to a skeleton, bolts of lightning having fried the entirety of the office. Surrounding her were chains, which three men were attempting to pull. It still wasn’t enough to move the Shogun’s body, though.

“She’s awake!” One of the men called, and immediately dropped the chains and began to run. So did the rest, and the rest after that, until only one man was left behind- a dark-skinned, short man with a dog hat.

Raiden turned around to face him, sitting on what remained of the table.

“Shogun, welcome to Sumeru. Why are you here?” General Mahamatra Cyno asked.

Chapter Text

Lady Ningguang was alerted by Baiwen, one of her three secretaries, to someone sitting on the edge of the Jade Chamber asking for her. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be odd- with the right connections, someone could technically get a ride up to the Chamber, although she was unlikely to answer. However, Bu’yun had sworn up and down that no one had asked him to access the Jade Chamber, and indeed, there had been no other guests today.

The only option left was that the visitor had to be one of the Adepti, which meant that this was someone that not even she could afford to offend. She had asked Ganyu if she recognized him, to which she replied, “yes, but it might be disrespectful to tell you.”

As she approached him from the back, she could hear him singing a jaunty tune, a bottle of cheap spirits next to him.

“Honored Guest,” Ningguang called out from behind him. “Welcome to the Jade Chamber. For what reason do you visit my abode?”

“The seven stars of Liyue are all considered equals upon high, but it is clear that you are the brightest star in the sky.” Venti said in a singsong voice.

“You flatter me.” Ningguang replied with a polite smile.

“The Rite of Descension is soon, is it not?” Venti asked.

“The end of the year, so yes.”

“Information is always worth a lot, but when to know if the cook has poisoned the pot?” Venti rhymed, plucking a chord on his lyre. “This Rite of Descension the Dragon won’t fall, the spirit of wind will instead answer the call!”

“What do you mean?” Ningguang asked. “Are you threatening our Archon?” 

“Though chaos will ensue as the people are split, the Chamber above can help soften it,” Venti said. “An old friend of mine wishes to see Liyue prosper, and yet despite that I am all that he offers. Make sure that the land follows the orders given, and in the game of life you will once again win.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Ningguang asked.

“Because the Jade Chamber controls the city below, so when Barbatos is crowned, let the populace know.”

“The people of Liyue worship Rex Lapis. He is our only Archon, and has been for the past six thousand years. We will not falter in our faith to him.”

“Isn’t your faith only to the almighty Mora?” Venti teased, and as Ningguang opened her mouth to reply, he cut her off. “It doesn’t matter. Just know, I’m giving you this information so that you can smooth things over with the people of Liyue. They’re a lot more devout than you, after all.”

“Why would Rex Lapis abandon Liyue like this?” Ningguang asked.

Venti shrugged, although the smile he wore seemed slightly more fake. “Ask them!” He said, pointing up into the sky. And with that, he fell backwards over the edge of the Chamber and vanished.

After the third pair of guards ran past Nahida and Itto, even the blockhead Oni had to realize something was wrong. The guards were never in a panic when he wasn’t involved, and there would never be this many of them even if he was. He was just about to ask one of them what was up when Kujou Tengu kicked up a cloud of dust running back from Tenshukaku.

“Hey, Tengu! What the hell’s going on?” Itto called out to her.

“No time to arrest you, Itto, the- wait, is that kid on your back- You’re the one who said you were our new archon!” Sara spun around on her awkward sandals, running back to the two of them. Itto took a step back as she closed the distance, glaring daggers at Nahida.

“What happened to the Shogun, huh? She’s gone. She never, ever leaves Tenshukaku. Not once, not a single time. But you break into the castle and all of a sudden she’s not here anymore?”

“Er… It’s like I told you. I’m Inazuma’s new archon. But it’s okay! I don’t really plan on doing anything if no one wants me to! I mean, I’m an inexperienced archon, and I’m not really that strong, so…”

“Where’s the Raiden Shogun, brat?” Sara yelled.

“Hey, what’s the big deal, Sara?” Itto covered Nahida’s ears. “You’re scaring the kid! And she’s a good kid, alright? She named her Onikabuto, and that’s a real test of character! Also, what’s that about the Raiden Shogun being gone?”

“The Shogun is nowhere to be seen.” Sara hissed quietly.

Itto’s eyes went wide.

“Score! The Vision Hunt Decree is over!” He grabbed Nahida and bolted off with her towards the statue of the omnipresent god. Sara, befuddled for a moment, teleported onto a nearby roof in a puff of feathers.

Itto weaved his way through alleys and streets, keeping Nahida balanced on his shoulder and pointed backwards. Behind him, she could see Sara gaining, each puff of feathers closer to them than the last. Though she only appeared for a fraction of a second, Nahida could feel her thoughts, and they were pissed.

Sara poofed in front of Itto, sweeping his front leg as he was lifting his back one. Nahida flew from his shoulder, and she grabbed her out of the air, setting her down next to her.

“I’ll deal with you later,” she growled before facing the Oni, who was picking himself off of the ground. Itto hit the ground with his palms, psyching himself up.

“Alright, you want a piece of this? Let’s go for the rematch, now!” He yelled, leaning back to throw his right arm at Sara. To her, it may as well have been in slow motion. She just had to lean back a little- his level was off- and drive her elbow into his solar plexus. Itto coughed, Sara crouched underneath him and grabbed his still-outstretched arm from his wild haymaker, pulling it down as she stood up.

Itto slammed onto the floor, face up, rolling on his side to push himself up. Sara fell on top of him, sending him crashing back down into the ground. She rolled over, got one of her feet under him, and threw him over her again. If the first slam didn’t knock all the wind out of him, that one surely did. Completely winded, Itto gasped for breath as Sara loomed over him.

“No… Fair…” He wheezed.

“Just because the Almighty Shogun is not in Inazuma AS OF NOW does not give you the right to defy a direct edict from her Excellency!” Sara yelled, a little bit of spit flying through the air.

Then she felt a small hand grab her ankle, and as she looked behind to see Nahida’s upturned, admittedly adorable eyes, her own eyes rolled back in her skull as she fell unconscious, slumping to a kneel in the middle of the road. Nahida turned to Itto, who was still wheezing from the multiple slams.

“Are you okay?” Nahida asked.

Itto coughed and rolled up into a sitting position. “Am I okay? Pssht, I’m fine. More importantly, is she okay? Did you, like-”

“I just made her fall asleep, a little.” Nahida said. “She’ll probably wake up in a couple of hours, well rested. I sent her into a wonderful dream!”

“What’s the dream about?”

Nahida checked the dream and blushed. “I’d rather not say. Um… I think you should take care of her. Make sure she wakes up on a real bed?”

“Huh? Sure, yeah, you got it. Arataki ‘Getter of things done’ Itto will have Tengu in a real bed before you can say Onikabuto!” Itto said.

“Great. I’m going to go check on that building I came from!” Nahida said, and started walking towards Tenshukaku.

Hu Tao, check. The Tianquan, check. All that was left was to visit someone who would be particularly worried about Rex Lapis’ departure- Alatus, or Xiao, as he went by among his non-yaksha acquaintances. Venti had never really talked to him before, seeing as he was often more than a bit broody and not the biggest fan of alcohol, but since the old blockhead Morax was terrible at goodbyes, it fell upon his socially apt buddy Venti to do the thing for him.

Though, when he floated on the breeze to Wangshu Inn, he could already hear a voice that sounded like the Conqueror of Demons. Venti surreptitiously turned into his smaller wind sprite form, a bit reminiscent of an amenograna, and floated onto one of the branches of the inn. Below him, surprisingly, Hu Tao was climbing up onto the roof, and Xiao helped her up, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her. At his feet was an offering of almond tofu and two forks.

On top of the roof, Hu Tao lay down, seeming comfortable despite the shingled roof clearly not being meant for that purpose. Next to her, Xiao sat down, using the chopsticks to slice the almond tofu into tiny bits.

Oh? Venti thought. I guess some people actually can get through that hardened shell that he calls a personality.

Hu Tao opened her mouth, and Xiao dropped a remarkably stingy piece of his tofu into it. She barely chewed before swallowing it.

“You know, it’d really be nice if you ate more than just this, Xiao.”

“I like almond tofu. It tastes like good memories… and dreams.” Xiao was as laconic as ever. 

“Why don’t you make new good memories with new food? That way, you don’t have to keep asking for the same old offering all the time,” Hu Tao said.

“...I don’t deserve to. Just the life I’m living right now is already more than I deserve for the karma that I carry.”

“Pfft.” Hu Tao stuck her tongue out. “Do you really think your old friends would wanna see you moping around like this? Do you think they’d be doing the same thing in your position? I may not know much about being immortal, but I know a lot about outliving people.”

Xiao lay down next to the funeral parlor director. “You’re not wrong.”

Yeah , Venti thought to himself. She’s not.

For the first time in a while, he didn’t quite feel that itch to down the nearest bottle of wine. Instead, he felt the urge to talk to maybe the only other person who would understand loss like he did.

He floated off that branch and guided the breeze up north.

Chapter Text

“Shogun of Inazuma.”

Cyno circled around Raiden, looking her up and down.

“Shogun of Sumeru, now.” Raiden replied in an authoritative, haughty tone. She may not have known exactly what was going on, but there was no way in hell she was going to reveal that to a mortal.

“So a god from another country waltzes into our country, blasts open the hidden containment chamber of Lesser Lord Kusanali. Then, she walks all the way down here and kills our grand sage, who coincidentally happened to be working on heretical experiments. Am I correct in assuming these things are connected?”

Absolutely not . “Yes.”

Cyno nodded. “I’m not the smartest of my peers, but I had figured as such. What happened to Lesser Lord Kusanali, then?”

Inazuma is nice during this time of year. “She’s in a better place.”

Cyno halted in his tracks. “Oh.”

“Sumeru is a… fine nation. But it requires a firmer hand.” Forbidden knowledge… if that is what led to the death of Makoto in that godless land, then surely I was sent here to prevent another calamity from destroying Teyvat.

“My divine right as archon will be to rule over this nation, and prevent the six cardinal sins of wisdom to ever be committed within its borders again,” Raiden proclaimed to Cyno, who dropped to a respectful kneel.

“In that case, archon, may this humble one serve you in your goal to judicate the Akademiya,” Cyno replied.

Nahida floated over the gates and into the first floor of Tenshukaku, where many soldiers were currently in a frenzy. She touched down onto the floor lightly and walked over to the open floor, where three people engaged in a fierce debate.

Kujou Takayuki was the loudest of the three, barking orders at the soldiers, who were all in a frenzy over the missing Shogun.

Hiiragi Shinsuke was a bit calmer, yet his voice was laced with venom as he argued with the Tenryou Commissioner.

Kamisato Ayato sat in place regally, content to let the other two bicker. If one looked at the three of them, they could be mistaken for thinking that he was the ruler of the land.

Nahida listened in on their conversation from nearby, hidden.

“If the Shogun is gone, then the Fatui may-”

“Don’t mention their names! They are but fleas in the eye of the Almighty Shogun-”

“The Shogun was supposed to be Omnipresent, too, but she has left. Does any guard here know the last time this happen-”

“Uh, sorry sir, but the Shogun has never left Tenshukaku before, so we actually have no idea-”

“Then where could she possibly be? If she does not return, clearly the Tenryou commission must take emergency control, for the sake of the Shogun.”

“The Tenryou Commission wants to seize power? Nonsense! It should be the Kanjou Commission that-”

“Don’t make me laugh!”

On one hand, this was none of her business. Nahida could leave, never return again, and just like in Sumeru, the people would figure out a way to deal with it. The Sages did just fine without her- over a dozen generations of them. These squabbling old men, seemingly, would probably also be fine too. It wouldn’t be wrong to just let them take care of their own, right?

But as she tried turning away, something itched in the depths of her heart to stay. She wanted to help. She had read the theory- years of it, from the brightest minds of Sumeru! Hadn’t she herself once dreamt of guiding a nation into peace and prosperity? Wasn’t her greatest wish to be recognized as archon?

But you don’t deserve it , that nagging little voice in the back of her head said. You’re nothing compared to Rukkhadevata. You’re just the fake moon, reflecting the light of the real sun.

But Rukkhadevata wasn’t the archon of Inazuma, so she didn’t have to live up to that expectation. And she could help! She just had to get out there and-

Squeak!

The room came to a halt as Nahida’s metal foot-brace thingies screeched against each other. The three Commissioners took a look at her. Kujou looked like he was about to blow up into a splash of tomato sauce, Hiiragi’s eyes bulged like a snake, and Ayato surreptitiously pulled a boba from his oversized sleeve and started sipping.

“Er… Hello, everyone?” Nahida began.

“What’s some child doing in the room?” Hiiragi asked.

“Can the guards get her out?” Kujou snapped his fingers.

“My name is Lesser Lord Kusanali, but, uh, you can call me Nahida! I am the new archon reigning supreme over Inazuma, so it would be really nice if you could all listen to what I have to say for a moment!”

An awkward pause, followed by Kujou Takayuki yelling again. “Guards!”

As the guards grabbed Nahida and started dragging her out, she let out a shockwave of Dendro energy and sent all of them into a dream.

Zhongli knocked on the door labeled “Acting Grandmaster Jean” in the Knights of Favonius HQ. Opening it was a beleaguered young woman whose bags under her eyes signified an extreme lack of sleep, and whose massive pile of paper indicated many more sleepless nights to come. A slight pang entered the old god’s heart as he saw the state that she was in- no doubt, her work managing the country was extremely difficult.

“Greetings, Grandmaster Jean. My name is Zhongli, and I am a merchant from Liyue. I wish to start a business in Mondstadt. My paperwork is in order, but it seems that you are personally busy. Is there someone else I should give this to?”

“There’s no one else. Here, hand it over. I’ll get to it soon.” Jean stretched out her hand.

“That’s no way to treat your work, Ms. Gunnhildr,” Zhongli admonished. “Surely there is someone else who you could share this burden with, no?”

“Everyone else is busy doing their own things. I appreciate the concern, truly, but I can handle your paperwork in a speedy manner.” Jean gave a tight-lipped smile, shutting him out.

Zhongli relented, simply nodding in acknowledgement and turning around.

“Oh,” Jean said, cutting him off. “What business are you planning to run in Mondstadt?”

“Liyuean imports,” he said. “Mostly of a mineral nature.”

“Alright,” she said. “Well, good luck running something like that here. Mondstadt welcomes you, Mr. Zhongli.”

“Thank you, Grandmaster Gunnhildr,” he replied politely.

Where to go now? The Angel’s Share seemed a decent option, or maybe, if he waited until night, he could find the tavern owner elsewhere at night. Either way, he felt bad for the Acting Grandmaster. No one but a god ought to be that self-sacrificing for the sake of their country.

Nahida finished hanging the last flower wreath in the dream, turning back around to face the three Commissioners and the Tenshukaku staff that were also drawn in.

"Welcome to my dream! I tried to make it as welcoming as comfortable. We have squishy moss chairs, delicious smoothies, and lots of plushy mushrooms for you to squeeze!"

Ayato sat on one of the moss chairs, a bit surprised when it held under his weight.

"My, this isn't what moss feels like at all."

"Ehe… I've never actually felt moss, so I don't know what it feels like. But this is what I imagined it to feel like!"

"What are you?" Kujou Takayuki asked.

"I'm the new archon of Inazuma, in lieu of your old Raiden Shogun. You can call me Lesser Lord Kusanali, if you want to be formal!"

"You'll never get away with this. Keeping the Tri-Commission heads hostage, attempting to coup the Shogun? You'll be smote by the Musou no Hitotachi, the Almighty Shogun's blade!" Takayuki blustered.

"Actually, that's not true. Your Shogun is in Sumeru, now, where she has many more things to do! In the meantime, I have lots of ideas for how to lead Inazuma. We're going to start by lifting the silly Sakoku Decree. Vahumana research shows that open trade has historically been far more valuable to societies than closed economies. In addition, we're going to return every vision. Those Vision wielders will instead just be monitored, to make sure their goals are positive for society. Finally, we're going to end the civil war with Watatsumi island, and make Yashiori island and Tatarasuna fit for human habitation!"

"And if we don't go along with this… foolish, treasonous plan?" Takayuki asked.

"Then I'll bring over the research, and you can read it here, and then you'll agree with me!" Nahida summoned a massive stack of papers, a desk, and dropped the stack into one of the cabinets. She offered a cup. "Smoothie while you read? It's a fascinating invention made by Akademiya scholars who wanted to eat a meal's worth of nutrients as quickly as possible! I've also never tasted one before."

"This is madness!" Takayuki cried out.

Ayato leafed through a few of the documents in the desk, raising an eyebrow. They were remarkably well-written in theory, but with a few problems with practical application, a bit of naivety associated with opening the system up to bad actors… but still, an excellent framework. Did that childlike god really write this?

"Did you write this, Lesser Lord Kusanali?" He asked.

"A little bit of paraphrasing, a few quotes… but mostly, yeah!" She replied happily. He felt the sudden urge to give her a piece of candy or something.

"This is an excellent framework. If you'll allow it, I'd like to work with you on your plan for a new Inazuma," he said.

"As would I," Hiiragi Shinsuke chimed in, eyes darting to the paperwork.

"Aye, I'll join in as well," Takayuki said.

"No you won't," Nahida said. "You aren't being honest to me, and that isn't nice. If you had just told me you were still loyal, I would have let you go and replaced you peacefully. But… I think you need to cultivate a little more wisdom in here first."

Nahida waved her hands, and Ayato and Shinsuke disappeared from the dream, as did the staff of the castle.

"Don't worry, I'll be back soon when you've learned a little more!" She said, and disappeared as well.

Chapter Text

All of the Sumeru Akademiya huddled indoors as the rumbles of thunder and lightning crashed above their divine tree. Ei had redirected the Shogun’s power from the thunderstorm outside of Inazuma to a new storm floating above the center of Sumeru, where she was currently presiding over a very public announcement. Cyno loyally stood by her side, scribe Alhaitham, who he had convinced would not be fired or promoted, sat off to his side, ready to take notes.

Five of the six remaining sages stood in front of Raiden, shuddering from primal fear. The rest of the scholars had been forced here by the matra, and the common people formed a larger crowd outside of them.

“People of Sumeru, I am your new archon. From now on, I and I alone will control the Sumeru Akademiya. I will reunite the jungle and the desert. I will prevent the six Darshans from committing the six cardinal sins of wisdom. Your General Mahamatra, Cyno, has been given full authority to punish any scholar whose research crosses into these boundaries,” Raiden proclaimed.

“But before that,” she continued, “A cancer must be uprooted from the Darshans. Four of the Sages were involved with heretical Fatui experiments to replace your former archon with a mechanical god. I have already dealt with one. Now, you will watch as the heretics receive divine judgment.”

The sages began begging, pleading, crying, even praying in hopes of salvation, but it was not to come. Their kind and merciful archon was nowhere to be found. There was only death lying ahead of the path that they chose.

“You will all be sacrificed in the institution you desecrated,” Raiden said softly, her words only carrying to the eight men in front of her.

“Torn to Oblivion!”

Three vertical slashes cleaved three of the sages in half before the burning heat from the lightning reduced them to ashes. Two of the sages, snot running from their noses and tears from their eyes, were spared.

“These two sages refused to go along with the experiment. They are honorable, and will be reinstated as the sages of their Darshan. You may go, with my favor.” Raiden nodded at the matra, who, frightened, helped the remaining two men get up and off of the stage.

“Well then,” Raiden said, “You’re all free to go.”

And with that, she flew off into the sky, and the storm vanished.

The Darknight Hero ran through Mondstadt’s streets, pursuing a Pyro Abyss Mage. A terrible matchup against him, as his vision was worthless and he could only slash at it with his claymore. The Abyss Mage laughed in its alien language and launched a fireball at him, which he blocked with his blade to avoid letting it hit a house. Noticing this, the Abyss mage fired off two fireballs, each at a different house. Diluc sprang towards one of them, and blocked it. But as he lunged for the next one, he realized he couldn’t make it, until-

“Stabilize!”

A pillar grew from the ground, absorbing the fireball’s impact. Zhongli leapt from some unseen corner, impaling the Abyss Mage and taking it to the ground. As it put up another shield, two more pillars rose, the shockwaves shattering it instantly. With a motion of his hand, the pillars sank back down into the earth, as if they were never there. The Abyss Mage disintegrated, leaving the two men standing there as the only evidence that the battle had taken place.

“Didn’t expect to see you out here,” Zhongli said.

“Didn’t you?” Diluc asked.

“Well, you’re right. I simply don’t think a nation ought to rely systematically on vigilante justice when there’s an organization meant to protect the people.” Zhongli said.

“The Knights of Favonius are inefficient. I don’t trust them.” Diluc spat out those words like a curse.

“On that, we can agree. Which is why I think that you and I ought to change that,” Zhongli replied. “The Knights of Favonius are propped up by a single young lady, the rest of Mondstadt relies on you… I think that the rest ought to pick up their fair share. They made a contract when they signed up to be a part of that organization. I think they ought to fulfill it.”

“Mr. Zhongli… what do you mean by that?”

Zhongli didn’t smile, but his lips did twitch upwards.

“I mean that the uncrowned lord of Mondstadt ought to enact some real change for the sake of himself and the woman locked away in the castle of the knights.”

A loud crash could be heard from the Harbinger’s quarters, followed by a plea for mercy, followed by a louder crash and the sound of something burning. Smoke wafted from underneath the door and the two “guards”, or servants, nervously gulped.

“WHY DO YOU KEEP RUINING MY FUCKING LIFE! EI! I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!”

Scaramouche, the Balladeer, the sixth of the Fatui harbingers, was irritable on a good day. It was his worst day in a while, and that made him positively explosive. Lightning surrounded him, jumping across and burning the walls, as he rampaged around the room, slamming his neatly organized furniture onto the floor and through the windows.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” He let out all his rage in a single, ear-piercing scream, and with it thousands of volts of Electro blasted the ceiling and walls, leaving them riddled with holes.

He opened the door, noticed the two guards standing there, and waved them away.

“Shoo,” he drawled, his voice extra hoarse and sarcastic. “Get outta here before I zap ya.”

The two guards fled, and Scaramouche hit them both with a bolt of lightning as they were about to turn the corner, causing them to slam into and slump against the wall.

“Stupid mooks,” he grumbled. “Not a single functioning brain cell to rub between the lot of them.”

Scaramouche stormed down the hallways to the Doctor's office, where, currently, only Epsilon was dealing with clerical work. The office was cluttered, as expected of a science freak with no respect for the scientific method. Still, despite having zero academic rigor, the Doctor delivered results, and Scaramouche needed to see them.

"Balladeer, Omega isn't in. Do you need maintenance? If so, I can-"

"Shh. Shhhhh-shhhh-shhh." Scaramouche put his finger up to the younger clone's lips, glaring daggers. "I need to know exactly what you have on Sumeru. Specifically in regards to the collaboration between the Doctor and the Akademiya. Can we retrieve it?"

"I don't know. I think Zeta might, though. He's the Segment who gets shafted with answering the calls, because he's the oldest one and not really useful for anything outside of the brainstorming-"

"Don't care. Where is he."

"I'm not sure I can tell you that-"

"How I run a little experiment of my own, Epsilon? This one's called: how much of the nervous system can I remove before a segment loses the ability to move?" Scaramouche asked.

"Third door down to the right."

"Thank you, Epsilon. You know how to be reasonable." Scaramouche jerked the Segment's head down to condescendingly pat it. Epsilon grief his teeth, repressing the urge to attempt to tear open the puppet.

Scaramouche left out the same way he came, slamming the door on his way out. He walked down to Zeta's office and slammed that door open as well. The older Dottore segment, in the middle of opening some mail, put it down.

"Zeta. How goes Sumeru?"

"Ah, Balladeer. Bad news, actually. It seems that all of the personnel involved in the creation of Shouki no Kami have been, well sliced up. And their records, too, have been burned up. Also, the Shogun has personally taken to dismantling the giant robot. She's already melted down a large portion of it."

"Why does Raiden decide to fucking interfere with my life again…" Scaramouche grumbled under his breath, before putting on the polite facade. "Thank you, Zeta. I'll be heading off now."

"You're not planning to go to Sumeru, are you? Because the Tsaritsa has ordered a full recall of all high-ranking staff, and if you go…"

"Don't worry, I won't wander far from home," Scaramouche said.

After all, home is where the heart is.

Sara walked through a typical Inazuman home, the kind that she would search for contraband or hidden criminals or anything else illegal on behalf of the Shogun and Eternity. It was far from the wilderness of Yougou mountain, or the boot-camp like atmosphere of the Kujou house. It was lacking in luxuries, but it had some rustic charm to it, and Sara felt… comfortable.

The smell of mixed yakisoba wafted in from the next room over, and she felt herself drawn to it, crossing a dining room and ducking under a curtain into the kitchen.

Itto flipped a pan of yakisoba mixed with meat and vegetables sloppily, as some of the ingredients found themselves on the stove and floor. Despite this, the majority of it was still in the pan, and it smelled delicious.

“Oh, hey there, Tengu! How was work today?”

Huh?

“Uh… work. Yeah. It was good,” she lied.

“Well, don’t just stand there! I’ve got a fresh pan of ‘Way of the Strong’ frying right now! How about you grab some plates and we’ll be able to eat it soon, huh?”

Sara instinctively moved towards one of the cabinets and pulled out two plates. It seemed immediately after that, they were eating the yakisoba on top of bread. Sara told a story about one of Heizou’s practical jokes on a Doushin, and Itto laughed with that signature cackle of his. The yakisoba tasted really good, too- it was heavenly, the oil and meat and vegetables, and the flow of the conversation, and the warmth of the house, and suddenly she was lying in bed next to the oni.

"Hey, Tengu," Ittosara said, leaning in close to her face. Her chest tightened, her throat went dry, and -

Sara woke up, hacking up a piece of yakisoba that Itto had been feeding her in her sleep. The house looked similar to the one in her dream- it was shoddy and rustic, but it felt a lot less ethereal and more real.

“I knew you’d get up! My cooking’s good enough to revive the dead, that’s what I’ve always said!” Itto boasted as the tengu sat up in his bed.

“What… happened?” Sara asked.

“Hm?” Itto tilted his head in confusion.

“Why am I asleep? Why am I in your bed?”

“Because you fell asleep? How do you feel now, by the way? Nahida said that a good night’s rest would have you all right!”

“A NIGHT?” Sara shrieked.

“Yeah, that’s how long you’re supposed to sleep for?” Itto said.

“Did no one come searching for me? Did the Tenryou Commission not arrest you?” 

Itto shrugged. “Actually, the samurai have all been called back. There aren’t any of them on the streets left. Weird, right?”

“Not weird! Incredibly worrying!” Sara bolted out of bed, fumbling to put on her red sandals. She got them on and double checked to see if she was missing anything, then ran out of the house. Though she didn’t know exactly where she was, Inazuma city was on raised ground, so she was able to make her way over there. True to Itto’s description, there were no samurai there. She ran and ran until finally, breathless, she pushed open the gates of Tenshukaku. Every single samurai was standing in place, the imprint of a green flower marking each of their heads, and chains of Dendro energy binding them all.

All of the samurai turned towards her.

“Hello, Sara!” They chorused in unison. “Come on, step in! I’d like to get to know you!”

Sara readied her bow, nocking an electro-charged arrow into it, carefully moving forward.

“Don’t be shy!” Nahida said cheerfully. “We’re going to have so much fun together!”

Chapter Text

It was well past midnight, after his meeting with the Darknight Hero, but Zhongli didn’t need to sleep in the way that humans did. He could go many months without so much as a wink, then hibernate for a year. Others, like Venti, were able to fall asleep for hundreds of years, then wake up refreshed and go about their lives for hundreds more, so long as their elemental energy remained plentiful.

That reminded him of the first time that he had met Venti. At that point, the Archon war had gone on for far too long, and he had no interest in vying over territory with a Gnosis-holder. Yet he was sure that the god who had replaced Decabrian by force was sure to be a warmonger, so he was prepared to fight. The two had sent their envoys, and had prepared to meet at Stone Gate- the border between their lands.

Morax had approached with spear in hand, and more in the hands of Bocasius, who would supply him with more if he had to throw the first one. Ganyu, sleep-deprived from always taking the night watch, lagged behind, out of sight. Amos’ bow hung at her hip, and she was ready to draw and fire should things go south.

With all of these measures taken, Zhongli was reasonably confident in his ability to halt any attack before it reached the nearest settlement, Qingce Village.

He was the earliest one there, and the Anemo Archon missed the meeting agreed-upon start time. A full twenty minutes late, Barbatos finally showed up, a current of wind carrying him to the peak of the gate. A bow was slung behind his shoulder, but in his hands was a lyre, which he used to manipulate currents of wind at his whim.

Well. That was unexpected. 

Barbatos was no warmonger, but an angel, who looked as if he had descended from Celestia itself, with his fluffy white wings and pure smile. For a second, Morax wondered if it was a trick, an illusion of some sort, blinking twice, but it wasn’t. He was real.

The meeting went as planned- a little better, actually, as the newly risen archon agreed to all of Morax’s terms, even the ones that were clearly overreaching. It almost made him feel bad for including those clauses, but, well, peace to the south was worth enough to make all those other clauses equal.

Scaramouche stepped into Sumeru. He was never meant to arrive here until he had obtained the Gnosis, nor was he supposed to have left the palace in general, but he felt an unbridled rage at the idea that his attempt to ascend to godhood would once again be foiled by his creator. He had forced an entire platoon of Fatui off of one of the transports so that he could hog it to himself, browbeating the driver into silence for the entire ride, and now he had traveled through all of the countries of interest except for Inazuma. Mondstadt and Liyue hadn’t even noticed their archons were swapped yet. Sumeru was wild with the air of revolution.

The Raiden Shogun was an increasingly unpopular archon which no one could do anything about. She ran counter to the very philosophies that Sumeru were founded upon, taking radical measures that suppressed any research that was deemed “heretical”. She did have her supporters, though. As Cyno, the General Mahamatra, was one of the first to accept her rule, she had diverted many of the funds devoted to research into the desert, and the matra had soon swelled up with new inclusions from the Eremites, who saw the opportunities arising under the new regime.

The few followers of Lesser Lord Kusanali had mourned her loss heavily. Many of the children and adults who had sworn that she had reached out to their dreams refused to accept her murderer as their new ruler, and Raiden did nothing to dispel these thoughts. Scaramouche viewed these revolters with scorn- throwing away their pitiful lives for a pitiful god was no way to die.

Scaramouche had done his research into the constantly changing political situation, and concluded that now would be the best time to enter. Without the aid of the Fatui, the Shogun was likely to make Sumeru an isolationist country as well, meaning that this was the best chance to enter. He’d trekked from Liyue Harbor to the Chasm, which, surprisingly, had little military presence. Sneaking around it, he only had to kill a couple of guards, and he burnt the bodies thoroughly, ensuring that no one would be able to find them.

When he crossed into Sumeru, he just had to play up his wandering vagrant act, and he was let in pretty easily. After all, with no weapons on him, he couldn’t possibly be a threat, right? Of course, then came the problem of finding a weapon. While he wanted to believe that the Shouki no Kami project was still intact in the Joruri Workshop, he was willing to settle for the plans, a blueprint, or revenge.

So he entered Sumeru City, was given the Akasha Terminal that apparently only worked part of the time, and began to search for a blacksmith who could make him a polearm.

Venti touched down on Stone Gate’s Liyue side. It was the place where he and Zhongli had kept meeting, ever since their first deal. He had been a nervous wreck at first, and he could tell that the older god had been holding back during negotiations, which he was grateful for. After the Archon wars had ended, they stayed in touch, moving from acquaintances to true friends.

Maybe a bit more than that would have been what he wanted, but Venti kept toeing the line on the border, willing to step over it in one second, then walk it back the next. After he had taken the form of his friend, everyone else had left him, the memories of the past fresh and painful. Andrius had sacrificed himself, and Venti had been alone for a long time, through generations of Ragvindrs and Gunnhildrs and Lawrences who had always worshiped the idea of him, but had never actually gotten to know him.

“Why don’t you go undercover?” Zhongli had asked one day. “I do it, sometimes. I check on how the people of Liyue are doing now and again. Sometimes, there are problems that only a mortal can see.”

“You, pretending to be a human?” Venti giggled at the thought. “There’s no way you’d pass for one of them! You’re too…”

“Too?” Zhongli had raised an eyebrow.

Venti floated around in the air, flipping upside down. “Too blockheaded, blockhead!”

“I think it would work out pretty well for you.” Zhongli looked down at the ground, averting his eyes. “You’ve already chosen quite a human form.”

“I guess I have, huh?” Venti spun around in the air again, thinking. “Alright, I’ll try it. What should I do?”

“Well, you could start by dropping the wings and covering up your skin,” Zhongli said. “It’s pretty cold in Mondstadt.”

Now Venti was on his way back to Stone Gate, having dropped into his archon persona for the first time in a while. Zhongli was right- being human had worked out well for him. He was never comfortable being the god that everyone worshiped, whose nick nacks and dross people would salivate over in the hopes of gaining godly powers. He would rather just be the drunk bard at the tavern who could sing you the song you preferred, and party all night while ignoring debt- a mortal concept he’d considered abolishing at one point.

And he owed it all to Zhongli, really.

Zhongli, who had shown him mercy on that first meeting.

Who had taught him how to set up organizations that would run the country for him.

Who had cried into his chest on the night Guizhong died, as a jealous pang ran through his chest that this other god was the one who made him cry.

Who had confided after six thousand years of service that he was tired of serving Liyue.

That Zhongli.

Anyways, he should probably bring something nice to drink, right? Not osmanthus wine- everything nowadays was a cheap imitation, so something new. There were these rice-based spirits that had been popping up in Qingce village, where the crop was plentiful.

Though… maybe he should try facing his feeling honestly, without choosing to be inebriated. As a wind spirit, he had the choice to make to allow alcohol to affect his human form, and while he could sober up on a dime, he never wanted to.

Still, it was worth seeking out an alternative.

Venti floated down outside of the borders, where no one was, before reforming into his regular body. A quick once-over to make sure every body part was in place, and he entered the village. It was calm and peaceful. Very few children, mostly old people. A testament to the mortality of man, and a place that would make him go insane if he stayed there too long.

But he was only passing by, so that didn't matter.

The man near the water mill reeked of fermented grain, so Venti figured that he would start with that older gentleman.

"Greetings! Are you selling fermented rice drinks?" Venti asked. 

"Ah, hello there, young man. Well, you look a little young for our rice wine, but we do have the non-alcoholic version. It's a sweet drink, refreshing for the summer."

"Haha, you don't need to sell it to me, I was already planning on buying it anyways. Can I get two bottles, if you please? I'm meeting with an old friend, and we'd like to celebrate the occasion."

The old man chuckled. "Young lad, I wouldn't be calling any of your friends 'old' at your age."  

Venti chuckled to himself inside, but he maintained his friendly smile without breaking character. "I guess you're right about that. So, how much mora for the bottles?"

"Let's go with twenty thousand for the two, but if you pay another ten, you can get two more for five thousand each."

"Haha, seems even age won't stop a Liyuean businessman from haggling a contract." Venti said.

"No, it will not. We only stop dealing once we're dead, and I've still got a number of years left in me. So, what do you say? Take the deal?" The old man offered with a wry smile.

"Well, much as I'd like to, I'm a little short on mora for now. Two bottles, please," Venti ruffled through his pockets for a bag of mora and slid it over, the old man handing over the bottles.

"Pleasure doing business with you, and may Rex Lapis watch over your travels!"

"Let the wind lead!" Venti called back in response.

Chapter Text

"Once upon a time, there was a fledgeling bird." The samurai chorused as Sara walked through their rows towards the gate. "She was born into a harsh world, and never knew her parents, or why she was ever created. That bird was swept up by a group of rats. The rats, fearing the bird's power, told it terrible lies as it grew. They chained and enslaved the bird. It was unable to grow, unable to dream. The bird forgot that it belonged in the sky."

"What are you talking about?" Sara asked. "Is this fairy tale about me?"

"That bird was one day set free, and it was allowed to spread its wings for the first time! That bird met an ox, and the ox took a liking to it. But the bird was still chained, not by the chains of the real world, but the ones of the mind."

"This isn't a very clever fairy tale," Sara said. "It's pretty clear who you're talking about. And I don't have chains in my mind."

"There was a cat who gained a Dendro vision. Now she delivers packages for people." Nahida continued on without stopping.

"Now you're not even trying to make it a riddle!", Sara cried out in frustration. "Get to the point!"

"The bird who everyone believes is responsible for giving out dendro visions had never left her cage in the past five hundred years. She didn't know about this cat, or her ambition, or her wisdom. And the Shogun that you thought gave you your electro vision would never have known you existed if you were never chained up by the Tenryou Commission and brought to serve her."

Sara's heart dropped to her stomach. She felt sick. Worse than sick, actually. The wisdom that the Dendro archon had imparted, rather than heal her, had felt like a thousand needles piercing her brain.

Nahida dropped down slowly from the rafters, stopping her descent so she could hover over the throne at Sara's eye level. Her eyes were at once piercing and soothing, like she was scraping pumice against her skin and smearing it with numbing dendrobiums at the same time. Her smile inscrutable, sad, distant yet familiar. 

The meek little child that Sara had kicked out of the palace now looked like she belonged in its throne.

"Sara, take it from an archon- the loyalty you felt you owed the Shogun was based on a falsehood, and your loyalty to the Tenryou Commission is based on manipulations and abuse. I was once a victim, chained up and forced to serve the whims of mortals. They used the Dendro Gnosis within me to power the Akasha, their own personal miracle. But I'm free now, and I'm not gonna go back. And I don't think you should either," Nahida proclaimed. Her eyes glowed bright green with newfound determination and purpose.

"...but without the Tenryou Commission… without the Shogun… who am I? What do I do?" Sara asked, desperation clear in her voice.

"Humans find meaning in life from different things. But from my observations, the happiest are the ones who dedicate themselves not to an ideal or an organization, but to the people who love them and who dedicate themselves in return," Nahida said. "There's someone you need to go back to. He should be looking for you right about now. Be free, Sara. No one should clip your wings."

Sara nodded blankly, then turned around and sprinted for the exit. Nahida let out a sigh of relief she didn't know she was holding. After she found one of the Ley Line branches, combined with the time she has grabbed Sara's ankle… she knew basically what she needed to say to get the girl to run away. But the Ley Lines had revealed another possible threat to her archonship. A threat, no doubt, that would be coming to size her up very soon.

Cyno was many things, often at the same time. The stalwart defender of the Akademiya's honor. A gamer obsessed with finding the perfect game for which to devote his soul. A good friend, if he said so himself, to Alhaitham, Kaveh, and Tighnari. A sort of stepdad to Collei. The devil, to criminals.

But there was one thing he was not, until now, and that was unsure of his own choice. It was rational, of course, to side with the god who had just assassinated the head of the six sages without lifting a finger, whose own ideals no doubt coincided with his own, and she'd proven far better for the desert than the previous regime, even if it was by sucking all the martial talent out of it- but still, something nagged at him. The Raiden Shogun, in a way that the sages never could, emanated danger. The danger that sent goosebumps through him whenever she walked by, that caused the more fearful scholars to smell like urine when she did. Her words and her orders sometimes contradicted each other, like when she claimed that food was of no import, but then placed a massive order for Tahchin and Baklava and other assorted sweets from the Grand Bazaar.

Raiden was an enigma. That was what he was sure of. And the more he was sure of that, the less sure he became in his decision to support her. She'd already killed one god and four sages. What was to stop her from wiping out people at random? And why was she so intent on building a wall on the border of the Chasm?

His friends all had varying opinions.

"Meh." Quote, Alhaitham. Okay, he'd said a bit more than that, but that was the gist of it.

"I personally think she's great!" Kaveh. With the sages deposed, the arts had sort of risen, if only because the sciences had been diminished massively. There was no danger of committing a cardinal sin while painting or dancing, after all. Of course, Kaveh was also the gullible one, the one who'd see the best in anyone, even the new dictator-god of Sumeru.

"Couldn't care less so long as she doesn't touch the Forest Rangers, and those Sages got what was coming to them anyways!" Tighnari would say. Raiden didn't care for silly people in green hoods who went around and tasted mushrooms to see if they were poisonous. If it didn't have anything to do with sin, it was completely off her radar.

"Um… I don't really follow this politics stuff…" Collei. Sweet, sweet, Collei. She didn't even know that people had died, that their archon had died.

But for Cyno, at the heart of it all, he could see the big changes. The Fatui had been deemed intrusive, and the matra were not only ordered to capture but to kill on sight. The Fatui had retaliated, and bloody battles had sprung up throughout the country as the matra were sent from camp to camp, chasing them all back to their home country. Cyno wanted to be on the front lines, but he was no longer just a matra, he was a general at war and needed to be the one commanding his men.

The Shogun herself didn't adhere to that principle, though. She was gaining increasing favor with her massive shows of power, calling down strikes of divine lightning and reporting to the front lines herself to singlehandedly wipe out whole platoons with her spearsmanship. The ancient texts had painted the Shogun as both gentle ruler and bloodthirsty warrior, but Cyno could only see the latter half of that image.

"General," Raiden called from inside the former Grand Sage's room. Cyno walked in. Other than the unintentional remodeling, Raiden had carved out a crude hole in the ceiling through which she could fly through at her leisure.

"Yes, Shogun." Cyno bowed, the perfect picture of discipline and subservience.

"How goes the purge of the Fatui from Sumeru's lands?

"It continues, Shogun, but we are losing men faster than they are. You have helped, of course, but the Fatui are better-armed and have better preparations. Their underground networks especially are proving difficult to uproot."

"Are the people of Sumeru not the ones most familiar with this land?" Raiden asked, chin resting on her fist.

"We are, Shogun."

"Then how is it that the foreigners are more deeply entrenched than you?"

"The foreigners teamed up with the Eremites, who built their networks and allowed the Fatui the use of theirs."

"A blunder." Raiden stated, matter of fact.

"Yes." Cyno couldn't do anything but agree with that.

"Start offering rewards. Any Eremite who can offer up the location of an active, inactive, or future Fatui camp will be rewarded. Full Sumeru citizenship, access to the House of Daena, a bounty of three hundred thousand mora. We'll have driven out the Fatui within the month."

"Yes, Shogun," Cyno said.

It seemed like a good thing. It probably was. But Cyno couldn't help but feel as though something was going to go terribly wrong.

Chapter Text

When Kamisato Ayato woke up, the last person he expected to be sitting at his table was the Guuji Yae. She normally refused to interact with him, and on the rare occasions he had to reach out to her, she made herself scarce as quickly as possible, forcing him to deal with some intermediary.

He scanned the room to search for Ayaka to throw under the bus- erm, to engage in small talk as he escaped- to attend to pressing matters, but she wasn't there. The studious girl was always on schedule, and hers was far more rigorous than his.

So he had no choice but to put on his friendly face, despite the fact that his coat and vest and other accessories were still one room over, and that he was a bit sleep-deprived from editing the new archon's edicts last night.

"Guuji Yae, what a pleasant surprise," Ayato offered.

"What do you think is the reason for my appearance?" Yae asked.

"If I were to guess, it would be regarding the strange happenings of the past few days- though I'm sure you've known about it for a while now." Ayato pulled out a chair and sat diagonally across from her.

"Yes, the insurrection, aided by the Tri-Commission. It's nothing less than treason, if you think about it," Yae said.

"Treason only applies when there's someone to commit treason against," Ayato replied.

"The Raiden Shogun is still our divine ruler."

"I believe that would be Lord Kusanali at this point in time, and her policies are very thoughtful and positive." Ayato smiled politely.

"A childlike god with no experience is more thoughtful and positive than our ruler of the last three thousand years?"

"I don't see why not."

"Well," Yae said, "I suppose if just anyone can be the archon of Inazuma, I may as well throw my own hat in the ring."

"Feel free to do as you wish. Why are you coming to me?"

"To make sure you won't interfere when I do what needs to be done. Stay home, Ayato. Do that, and I can guarantee your safety."

"How thoughtful of you," Ayato smiled and nodded his head, "but the Tri-Commission has a meeting scheduled for today at Tenshukaku. We'll be finishing up our drafts of the policy that allows freer trade between Inazuma and Liyue."

Yae's face hardened. "So you'd choose that lesser god over… your own well-being?"

"I choose Inazuma's well-being over my own, every time. You know this about me, Guuji Yae." Ayato responded, his voice taking on an admonishing tone.

"Fine, then. See if that weakling archon can protect you. I'll be there, Kamisato Ayato. And I will not allow any interloper to desecrate the Raiden Shogun's Eternity."

Yae slid out of her chair as gracefully as she could while also maintaining a stiff bearing. Ayato raised one eyebrow before quickly tamping it back down into its place. As Yae left, his spine collapsed, and he turned into a mushy blob on the table. 

It's far too early in the morning to be dealing with the second coup in a week, he thought to himself.

Stone gate was peaceful at this time of day. The sun was out, the workers of the Dawn Winery were laboring nearby, travelers and merchants were rushing to get to a safe place before sundown. No one was paying attention to the two figures at the top of the gate, drinking their sikhye. 

"A novel flavor," Zhongli said after the first sip.

"Yeah," Venti replied. "I thought you might like to try something new."

"Ordinarily, no." Venti's stomach twisted up a little, but the next words calmed him. "But since it's with you, I can make an exception."

"An exception, huh?" Venti said. "You like me, don't you?"

"We wouldn't be hanging out two thousand years after we first met if that were not the case." Zhongli took another sip of sikhye. "This beverage is non-alcoholic. Were you drunk when you purchased this?"

"Nah, I just decided I should experience life sober for a little bit," Venti said, setting up the zinger.

"What brought that about?" Zhongli asked.

"Your adoptive daughter dating your adoptive son."

Zhongli didn't spit out his drink, but Venti could swear that he coughed and a bit of it went back into the bottle. Zhongli turned around to wipe his mouth, but because he didn't want to ruin his suit, he just picked up the nearest corner of the picnic blanket they were sitting on and used that. Venti burst out laughing, howling at the geo archon.

"By the way, in case you're wondering- but I'm sure you're not- I'm talking about Director Hu and the Conqueror of Demons." Venti said. If Zhongli hadn't put down his drink long ago, Venti was sure he would've spat it out again.

"Venti, let me cross the border. I NEED to speak with them IMMEDIATELY."

"Nuh uh," Venti teased, wagging his finger. The contract they had signed long ago stated that the gods of Mondstadt and Liyue are not allowed to cross the border without expressed permission from the country's archon. "

Now, you wouldn't want to break a contract, would you?" Venti stuck his tongue out as he floated in circles around Zhongli

"Why, you cheeky little- I should strangle you RIGHT NOW!"

"do it"

"What?"

"What?"

Zhongli shook his head in frustration, fingers clenching and unclenching. But out of adversity came new ideas. Out of the teasing Anemo Archon came the conclusion for how he would help that poor girl Jean Gunnhildr and the rest of Mondstadt.

"Scratch that."

"Aw."

"Huh? Anyways, you've just helped me solve my problem now. So thank you, Venti." Zhongli said.

"No problem. Wait, what did I do?" Venti asked.

"Mm… ah, nothing." Zhongli said, but as Venti continued yammering on, his mind was far away, drafting up plans and contracts.

Scaramouche was not a liar. Murderer, yes. Bloodline-ender, proudly. Harasser of all sorts except to the sexual kind, of course! But not a liar. Liars, to him, were the kinds of people who lacked the power to influence the world with their own strength. The kind of people who would leave a child locked up inside of a cave.

Being a non-liar didn't mean he had to tell the truth, though. He could talk around the answer, and if no one asked for a follow up, that was on them. They could always ask. No one did, though.

So, biding his time, Scaramouche carved out a routine for himself in Gandharva Ville, where news of the Shogun's exploits would reach quite easily. Though it was clear she was planning to lead Sumeru into a path of isolationism, she hadn't officially done anything yet, so he was waiting. To better integrate himself into the local conversations, he helped out here and there, making use of his "vision" to drive away fungi and battle withering zones.

A couple of friendly conversations with the leader of the forest rangers, some beastman named Tighnari, and he was able to glean most of what he needed to know.

He also ran across a sickly girl named Collei, who reminded him, uncomfortably, of the child from Tatarasuna. Despite her Eleazar, which some people had informed him was terminal, she was constantly cheerful and busy, fixing up herbs and delivering poultices and other healing things.

At one point, while delivering something or another, she had descended into a coughing fit, and Scaramouche had caught her as she fell. He passed her off to Tighnari, who had admonished her for pushing herself too hard. The whole thing plucked some discordant chord in his heart, and he had averted his eyes from the sight.

Tighnari had to leave, though, and he left the recovering Collei in the hands of the stranger who he'd only known for a few days (admittedly, it's not as if Scaramouche could do anything without every Forest Ranger hearing it, not that they could do anything to him).

So Scaramouche had set himself down on a nearby chair to make sure that Collei didn't get a fever or start coughing too hard or any of the million and one things that could go wrong when she had Eleazar.

"You don't need to watch me, I'll be fine," Collei said weakly. 

"Don't sweat it, kid. It's not like I've got anything else to do. Your master will be back soon," Scaramouche responded flippantly. "You're a lucky kid, you know. You've got a great dad."

"He's not my dad," Collei said.

"He basically is," Scaramouche replied.

"My real dad gave me to the Fatui. I don't have a good dad."

Scaramouche hesitated for a second, then leaned in. "Oh. I'm sorry about that. Hey, do you mind if I tell you a secret?"

"What kind?"

"My mom actually abandoned me, too. When I was… first made… she didn't like me crying, so she left me outside and forgot about me. I'm actually in Sumeru because I heard she moved here. So trust me, it's better to have a father who isn't your own than to have no one at all." Scaramouche laughed bitterly. It was breaking his character of the friendly, affable wanderer, he knew that, but he couldn't help it.

"Oh, I'm… I'm sorry about that," Collei said.

"Don't be. You're in a good place now. So keep your chin up, kid, alright?" Scaramouche said.

"You're not that much older than me," Collei pointed out.

"Why, thank you. See? Already learning good manners. Keep that up and you'll be able to smile your way through any situation." Scaramouche tipped his hat forward, obscuring his face. "Just don't be too open, you know? Not everyone's gonna be as nice as me."

"Okay, Mr. Wanderer," Collei said. "By the way, why won't you tell anyone your name?"

"Well, to be honest, my mom never named me. I've picked up some other names, though. The one I go by for now is the Balladeer," Scaramouche said.

"You sing?" Collei asked, eyes sparkling.

"Not very well. I do know some Inazuman traditional songs, some Snezhnayan folk songs, a little bit of Liyuean, though you couldn't get me to pronounce it right if my life depended on it," Scaramouche's tiny bit of self-deprecating humor was rewarded with a giggle from Collei.

"That's so cool! I wish I could sing, but I don't really have the lungs for it."

You remind me of him, Scaramouche thought, and he was glad that his face was covered, because he wasn't sure what kind of expression he was making under the hat.

"Any good song comes from the heart," he said. "So I'm no good at singing. But I'm sure if you tried, you could do great."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

A moment of companionable silence passed, and Tighnari's voice could be heard outside.

"Collei?"

"I'm here, Master Tighnari!" She called back.

Tighnari poked his head in through the door. "Ah, Wanderer, you're still here. How's Collei doing? Any coughing or fevers?"

"She's stable," Scaramouche replied. "I'll be taking my leave now. I think now is as good of a time as any to go to Sumeru City."

"Sumeru City, huh? Well, good luck there. The matra are, well, a little overzealous nowadays," Tighnari said.

"Good luck finding your mom!" Collei said.

"Thank you both for having me these past couple of days," Scaramouche said. "I couldn't have chosen a better group of people to spend my time with."

Before I die, probably.

Chapter Text

Kujou Takayuki, Hiiragi Shinsuke, Kamisato Ayato, and Nahida sat in a square, each with sheets of paper in front of them. They were in front of the throne, but Nahida had chosen not to sit on it.

"So, with that loophole closed, we're now able to prevent bad actors from misusing clause 13 in order to stall rival company's shipments," Ayato said. "Of course, the Hiiragi clan will be responsible for upholding this to make sure that the clause isn't abused."

"Which we will do," Shinsuke assured. "Provided that the Kujou clan provides us with enough men."

"That sounds reasonable," Nahida said. "How many men will you need?"

"I think fifty would be good," Shinsuke said.

"O-" Nahida was cut off by Ayato as she was about to agree.

"Isn't fifty men a bit excessive for simple package inspection, Hiiragi-san?" Ayato asked.

"If our archon wills it, no number is too high," Shinsuke responded.

"I believe twenty-five would be far more reasonable without putting too much strain on the Kujou clan, especially since their eldest daughter is unavailable. Your men can make up the rest," Ayato offered.

"Twenty-five it is," Nahida said. "Do you have any objections, Takayuki-san?"

"None, Lord Kusanali." Kujou Takayuki fumed silently.

Ayato stood up and folded his pile papers neatly into his jacket. "Well, with that, I think we ought to wrap up our meeting here. The Guuji Yae will be here soon, and as both of you gentlemen lack visions, I believe it's better that you get to a safe place before she arrives."

"What about you, Ayato-san?" Shinsuke asked. 

"I will stay here in defense of our new archon. It would besmirch my honor to allow blood to be spilled in these hallowed grounds," Ayato said, pulling his sword from its sheath.

The two older Commissioners nodded and packed up quickly to leave. After they did, Ayato turned to Nahida.

"Lord Kusanali, I must warn you that the Guuji Yae is an extremely powerful youkai. She has been around for over five hundred years, and has nine tails. Even with our powers combined, we may still fall to her."

"I won't let anyone die," Nahida said. "I can't just avoid the battles that don't suit me. Being an archon means facing my problems and not letting anyone else push me around."

"As you wish, Lord Kusanali," Ayato said.

"If we can, we should use the power of dreams on her. That way, I can gain information about her combat prowess before we begin the actual battle. Then-"

Ayato's eyes widened, and he shoved Nahida out of the way of a purple bolt of lightning. Nahida rolled over into a column. Yae Miko teleported in front of her, then away, leaving behind a fox totem.

"Emerge! Right here! Right now!"

Two more totems materialized in front of Nahida, who raised a Dendro cursor to draw a rectangular prism of green around them in an effort to contain them. 

"Nothing lasts forever!"

The fox totems burned up, consumed, as a bolt of lightning struck Nahida from above, sending her through the column. A second later, a hydro-infused sword cleaved through the remains, which Yae ducked. Cascades of blue afterimages sent slashes flying at the youkai, but flitting in and out of thin air, she dodged all of them.

Ayato brought down his sword onto her head, but she raised her wand, blocking it and sending an electric pulse through it. Ayato was forced to drop the sword, which lost it's hydro infusion as it clattered on the floor.

"Now, Nahida!" He called out. Yae snapped her head towards Nahida, who was holding her hands out forming a square.

"This might hurt a little!" A seed of skandha was planted onto Yae's chest, and a Dendro core formed at her feet. In a quick reaction, she zapped it with a fox totem, and it turned into a green bullet that zipped at Ayato, striking his arm with so much force that he spun around in the air before hitting the ground again.

"Did you really think that you could desecrate Inazuma this easily?" Yae asked the two of them. "I spent five hundred years working to ensure that her vision was enacted. That her eternity was upheld. And you-" she pointed at Nahida- "you waltz in here, and you think you can make changes? To her Inazuma? Who do you think you are?"

"Guuji Yae, her policies are good for the nation! The Shogun never would have allowed these changes to be made, but without the influence of the Fatui, we could-"

"And you. Traitor! Treasonous bastard!" Yae turned to Ayato and blasted him with another bolt of electricity.

"I told you to stay back for your own good, but you side with this- this interloper? And for what?" Yae asked.

Ayato didn't respond, the two glared at each other.

"This isn't like you," Nahida said.

"What?"

"You're not the kind of woman to get herself involved in direct conflict. Normally, you'd undermine your opponents from the shadows before moving in, but not this time. Why?" 

"Maybe I'm just confident I can win," Yae said.

"Or maybe you're scared of what will happen if you lose," Nahida said. "I am the god of wisdom, after all. Maybe you weren't sure that your usual tactics would work on me. What's this really about?"

"I guess you won't know, will you?" Yae said. "Because I'm going to send you back to where you belong. Away."

Abnormal levels of Electro entering Sumeru City , the Shogun warned Ei.

It's probably just Cyno , Ei thought. 

A second abnormal flare has appeared , the Shogun thought.

"Hm." Ei thought out loud. "Should I check it out?"

It's either this or the budget meeting , the Shogun thought. Release power limiter?

Not yet , Ei thought. Let's see what it is first.

Cyno's spear twirled and contorted into fantastic positions as he blocked the incoming strikes of Scaramouche's sword. The latter had stormed the city gates, disarming the first matra that tried to stop him, and taking his weapon, a one-handed short sword. Cyno should've had the reach advantage, both physically and with his weapon, but the shorter man was faster, had more finesse, and- if he dared admit it- was far stronger than Cyno could hope to defeat himself.

He unleashed claws of lightning from his spear, which Scaramouche didn't even bother dodging, simply absorbing the blows and giving back what he got with a thin line of electricity that he traced from his sword. Sparks flew as the pair dueled across streets, through buildings, and plowing through the other matra who tried to interrupt the battle.

Cyno decided enough was enough- it was time to pull out his trump card. Channeling the power of the ancient god within him, his helmet glowed purple as strips of cloth formed massive claws. Forgoing the spear, he lunged directly at Scaramouche, who ducked and rolled away, tossing aside his own blade.

"Cat's paw?" He asked mockingly.

"Jackal's claw!" Cyno yelled back, launching another flurry of blows at the harbinger. Scaramouche's head bobbed and weaved, and though Cyno tried his hardest, he was always one second too slow to land the blow. Then he overextended, and Scaramouche punched through the claws, cramping his hand.

Cyno whirled back, shaking his hand, and Scaramouche took the opportunity to reach forward and grab his other one, extended in a long guard. Cyno pulled back and jabbed with his other hand, and Scaramouche grabbed his wrist. Cyno pulled back again, but Scaramouche grabbed his thumb with his right hand and twisted his wrist with his whole body, flipping him onto the floor.

"So this is the best Sumeru has to offer?" Scaramouche laughed mirthlessly. "This is the kind of person who was deemed fit to receive an Electro Vision? You?"

Scaramouche kneeled on top of Cyno's stomach, pinning him. He pinned Cyno's wrist with one hand, then forced his arm underneath to grab his own wrist. He pulled back, slowly, painfully, twisting his elbow backwards.

"Your pitiful weakness disgusts me," Scaramouche leaned in with a low hiss. "Call your god here."

"The Shogun is… already… on her way." Cyno gritted his teeth as Scaramouche pulled back even further.

"You'd better hope so," he replied, wrenching Cyno's arm with a final, sickening crack. He slammed the General Mahamatra's head on the ground once, and he fell limp. Scaramouche walked over and picked up his spear, twirling it around.

"A quality spear. Shame it was dedicated to a weakling."

And as if those words had summoned her, the Raiden Shogun came crashing down from the sky, landing right in front of her firstborn son.

"Raiden." Scaramouche leveled his spear at her. "I'm here for my birthright."

Who is this? The Shogun asked. Why is he similar to me?

Shut. Ei admonished the Shogun. This is none of your concern.

"I'm here for the Electro Gnosis! Hand it over, or I'll kill you!" Scaramouche yelled at Raiden.

He must have a death wish, the Shogun thought.

"I will not hand over my Gnosis. If you want it, you'll have to pry it out of my hands!" Ei yelled back, pulling the Musou no Hitotachi from her chest.

Scaramouche let loose an ear-piercing scream as he lunged forward with Cyno's spear. The Shogun's programming deflected the blows, but Scaramouche had more years of battle experience, and his skill was the same as hers.

What is this enemy? The Shogun asked again.

Someone who shouldn't be here , Ei thought grimly.

Taking control of the Shogun's body, Ei parried the database of martial arts that she had programmed into the puppet. Blow after blow was traded, but this time Ei was the one gaining ground as she put more and more electricity into each hit.

Nearing limiter , the Shogun warned. Increase limit?

"Remove limiter as soon as we leave the bounds of Sumeru City!" Ei yelled. She parried one of Scaramouche's blows, dragging the sword down to his fingers as she stepped in. Scaramouche tried to step away, but Ei kicked out his front foot as he lifted his back one, and he fell to the ground. She picked up his foot, and with a massive jump dragged him up into the sky.

Calculating launch trajectory.

Calculated. Destination: Dar Al Shifa.

Chapter Text

A little psychoanalysis and therapy could go a long way, but Nahida found out that the middle of a battle was not the best time to employ such techniques.

Totem after totem was placed, replaced, shifted around, and consumed in bolts of lightning as Nahida and Ayato ran from column to column, dodging the erratic bolts that fried the walls around them. Ayato was doing his best, but with one arm hanging uselessly, he was completely reliant on his left to try and apply more hydro for blooms. But even then, whenever he landed a lucky hit, Yae would simply hyperbloom the core at Nahida, who kept getting knocked around.

One especially hard-hitting hyperbloom later, and Nahida slammed against the wall, crying out in pain.

"Nahida!" Ayato called out, but as he tried to run over to her, three totems blocked his path. Yae glared at him, unleashing a bolt of lightning, which he barely blocked with his sword, sending him to the ground as well.

"Now, for you…" Yae looked down at Nahida.

Nahida squeezed her eyes shut and held her hands out in a futile attempt to ignore the reality in front of her- and, surprisingly, nothing hit. Instead, the crack of lightning mixed with a pained "moo".

She opened her eyes. A purple shield covered her, protecting her from the lightning bolt. Yae's attack had hit a cow that had been tossed into the bolt's path.

With his last bit of strength, Ayato ran up to Yae and swung his sword down at her. She flinched, but the water splashed harmlessly. He collapsed to his knees, having run out of energy halfway through that swing. Nahida three out both her hands, and blasts of Dendro energy created three more blooms. Yae gathered her energy to blast them as well, but as she brought down her wand, an electro-charged arrow landed at her feet, and the hyperbloom cores shot into her, knocking her back.

"That's for handing me over to the Kujous," Sara muttered from across the room.

"Nahida, are you alright?" Itto ran over to her, dispelling the crystallized shield on top of her. Kuki Shinobi ran over to Kamisato Ayato, and began using her Vision to heal his wounds. "We came as soon as we could! Are you hurt? Do you need to see a doctor? Or Kuki?"

"I'm fine. Thank you for saving me, Itto." Nahida smiled weakly at the oni.

"NO!" Yae screamed from behind the two of them. "I won't allow this! An idiot Oni, a mere human, and the weakest of the seven archons? I won't accept it. I won't!"

Her body contorted and morphed, growing fur and emitting crackles of electricity. Her form became that of a nine-tailed fox, with a drooling mouth full of sharp canines, mad eyes, and bursts of electricity coming off of her. Itto quickly erected another shield around Nahida. 

"Alright, kid, let us deal with this." Itto pulled out his claymore, Sara nocked another arrow into her bow, Ayato shakily stood up to his feet, and Kuki nervously pulled out her whip-sword.

"Wait." Nahida got up and clasped her hands together, forming the shrine of Maya. "I'll share my wisdom with you!"

Itto, Kuki, Sara, and Ayato felt their minds pulled into a greater whole- Nahida's own, connecting the five of them. 

"Woah, this is so weird!" Itto said. "So, wait, can we-"

Yae brought down her claws behind him, but he stepped aside without even looking at her, having seen the hit coming from 4 different angles.

"Oh, this is awesome!" Itto yelled. "Oni, coming through!"

Wreathed in a golden light, his spiked club whipped through the air, its aim true. It hit Yae in the side, causing her to direct her attention at the Oni. Itto deflected the next hit, the lightning bouncing off of his club into the wall.

"Cascade!"

Five afterimages slammed into Yae's new, larger form, dousing her with hydro.

"I see everything!"

Nahida planted another seed of Skandha on Yae, which spawned more cores.

"Our bond is strong!" "()"

Kuki and Sara hyperbloomed the cores, sending them curving back into Yae. Yae swept her tails around in response, but all of them were able to dodge, as if she were moving in slow motion. The continuous assault continued as the fox form slowly took a toll on the youkai.

Nahida raised her hands up, and chains of Dendro rose up from the ground and wrapped around the youkai. Yae writhed in it's grasp, but all that did was aggravate the chains further. Nahida strained to clasp her hands together, and the chains grew tighter, tighter, until Yae was forced to shrink back into her human form.

"Give it up, Yae Miko. You can't win, not against all of us," Nahida said, floating over.

Yae struggled against her bonds, but unable to break them, she slumped downwards in defeat. "You're right. I surrender. I couldn't possibly win at this point, anyways. You're free to do whatever you want with me. Feel free to kill or imprison me."

"Killing or imprisoning you would only allow you to achieve your goal of destabilizing my rule. You're a cultural icon with great political power. Doing either of those things would make you a martyr. People unsatisfied with my policies would gather under your banner, and Inazuma would descend into civil war- again. I have no interest in that," Nahida said.

"So then what will you do with me, god of wisdom?" Yae asked.

"I'm going to forgive you," Nahida replied.

"What?" Itto and Yae said. 

"It's the rational choice," Nahida said, offering her hand to the youkai.

Yae, without a moment of hesitation and much mischief on her mind, grabbed the offered hand. "Deal."

"Got you!" Nahida said, dropping the two of them into a dream.

Scaramouche and Raiden hurtled through the sky, burning up ozone around them in a streak of purple as she aimed for a remote part of the desert. 

Power limiter removed , the Shogun thought.

"Okay, let's go!" Ei shouted, and tossed her post-birth abortion over her head, crashing down into a mountain, forming a massive crater in its side. Scaramouche's limbs snapped out of place, his auto-repair functions working to fix him almost instantly.

Ei slammed into him like a bullet train, driving him even further into the mountain, and it started to collapse under the force.

Scaramouche grabbed the Shogun's head and slammed it into his knee, which popped it out of place again. Ei reared back, landing a heavy barrage of punches that sent him flying out the other side.

They landed near an abandoned hospital where a camp of Eremites had turned into their base. They stared in shock and awe as a massive cloud of lightning and thunder formed, swirling into a sandstorm.

Within the sandstorm Ei carefully dismantled the prototype puppet's joints, as he desperately tried throwing jabs, low kicks, and wild haymakers. Ei dodged each one, bringing her sword down onto the exposed joints as he reached out. They didn't sever entirely, but the deep cuts in his elbows and knees rendered him unable to attack or even stand.

To add the final insult to injury, Ei kicked his head like a Temari, sending his whole body flying into the abandoned hospital and landing face first. He wriggled hopelessly into the dirt, unable to flip himself over. 

Ei jumped and landed in front of him, kicking him onto his back.

"Why did you come back here?" She asked.

"Why are you acting like you care?" Scaramouche retorted. "Just kill me already and get it over with."

"What happened to you?" Ei asked. "You were never meant to be like this."

"You abandoned in that cage, and you're asking what happened to me? YOU happened to me! Everything in my life is your fault!" Scaramouche yelled.

"You were meant to be free." Ei said.

"Some freedom you gave me," Scaramouche replied. "Living without a heart, without a purpose. Abandoned and betrayed by everyone. A failure who can't even take revenge on the cause of his misery. Please… kill me."

Should we? The Shogun asked. He is an enemy of Eternity.

No , Ei thought. It's dishonorable to kill a downed opponent.

Then we shall wait until he can get up and then kill him, the Shogun suggested.

No.

Why not? Who is he to us?

You don't need to know that.

I think I do.

Stop asking me who he is. That's an order. Ei told the Shogun. A feeling of displeasure ran through their connection, and then she felt herself yanked out of control of the body.

"Who are you to the one within?" The Shogun asked Scaramouche.

Scaramouche's face made a little "o" of surprise before a gleam of cunning came into his eyes.

"I didn't know you had a mind of your own, little sister," Scaramouche said.

"Sister? I do not have any siblings. I am a puppet created by the Raiden." The Shogun replied.

"As was I, sister. And she gave to you what was supposed to be mine."

"Stewardship of Inazuma?"

"The Electro Gnosis."

"I am not in possession of the Electro Gnosis. Yae Miko is the one in possession of it at this point."

Scaramouche smiled. "Thank you, little sister."

His hands braced against the ground, and he pushed.

With a burst of Electro, he blasted himself to his feet and made a wild sprint away from the Shogun, but as he ran, the Shogun swiped her spear, taking off his head. His body fell over ignominiously, a gust of sand covered up part of his leg.

That was… unfortunate , Ei thought.

He was no longer kneeling , the Shogun responded by way of justification.

…Fine. Let's head back.

You do not wish to take the body?

Ei looked at the fallen puppet.

No, it contains nothing but bad memories.

It was once again time to celebrate "failure to confess" say! And it was every day for the last two thousand years! And it was time to celebrate by getting drunk!

Venti popped open his third bottle of the night, all thoughts of tab-paying far from his mind. He was tipsy bordering on full on drunk, but he wouldn't stop until he was in blackout territory.

"Who wants to hear a song?" He shouted to the my. No one responded, but Venti stumbled off of his barstool anyways, pulling out a lyre. He stumbled to one of the unoccupied corners, pouring his heart into a nostalgic song from two thousand years ago. Before he could even complete the first verse, he was booed out.

"Your song's too old!" One of the people yelled at him on the way out.

"My song's not too old, you're just uncultured! Your faces look like ugly sculptures!" Venti yelled back drunkenly. He chugged the rest of his wine, and, finding no drop left in it, threw it against the ground hard enough to break.

"Forget about it, they're far too young. You'll find someone else who enjoys your song." He muttered to himself.

"Venti?" A voice called out.

He whirled around. It was that Hu girl, apparently on a late-night stroll.

"It's the girl who Zhongli likes the most. Here to talk to another ghost?"

"What? How did you-" Hu tao looked around quickly as she leaned in to his in his ear. "How did you know that?"

Venti covered his mouth. "Oops."

Before Hu Tao could say another word, one of the bar employees grabbed Venti from behind.

"Tab."

Venti giggled drunkenly. "I don't have money, ehe…"

"I'll pay." Hu Tao said, pushing the employee's hand off of Venti's shoulder. She dug into her coat and pulled out her wallet. "How much does he owe?"

"Fifty thousand mora," he said, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Seriously? Ugh, fine. It's not like this is the most amount of money I've had to pay for an impulse buy before."

Venti smiled. "You're the best, Hu Tao!"

"Yeah, yeah. Alright, let's head back to the Wangsheng funeral parlor," she said, slinging the drunk bard over her shoulder.

Chapter Text

Zhongli had taken to eradicating the traces of the Abyss Order which hid in Mondstadt, which Venti either couldn't or didn't have the power to destroy himself. A small favor while he was technically ruling the nation, though he respected the other god far too much to simply come out and say it. Mondstadt and Liyue were none the wiser of their archon's switch, nor was anyone aware of Inazuma's new archon, due to it being so far away.

When one of the camps was commissioned by the adventurer's guild, he made sure to remove any trace of his existence, and left behind a few hilichurls and an abyss mage for the adventurer to defeat. Sometimes, it would be the Dark night hero instead who would clean up the leftovers.

In the meantime, he had considered the way in which he could reform the Knights of Favonius with his contracts. While Jean was an "Acting Grandmaster", the true Grandmaster Varka had been away for so long that the position felt indefinitely permanent. Despite this, the organization would function normally, if only the missing members would return.

That was the problem, of course. Jean did not feel she had the authority to create any changes, if she had any energy left after her exhausting days to think of such things. The only way the organization would change is by an outside force putting more pressure on it until it broke, and then a new contract could be made. A fairer one.

There was also the issue of the Fatui's influence. Mondstadt was not nearly as financially solvent as his own Liyue, and they had grown their roots in an attempt to exert more pressure over the land. He needed a way to deal with them, too.

Mondstadt was a great place to be an ordinary citizen, but from a political standpoint, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Looking at the site of his last extermination, however, he couldn't help but think the situation has just gotten far more complicated.

A blonde-haired girl in a white dress with an Inteyvat in her hair kneeled at where the corpse of an Abyss Herald would have been if it hadn't disintegrated. She offered a small prayer, though not to any god of Teyvat.

Zhongli watched the dangerous levels of Abyssal energy roll off of her, like a smog of darkness threatening to envelop the whole of Teyvat. For a moment, he considered attempting to strike her down right then and there, and that small instance of bloodlust was enough to get her to snap her head to his hiding space.

"Who's there? Show yourself!" Lumine yelled.

Zhongli stepped out from the trees, spear in hand. Lumine responded by unsheathing her golden sword. The two sized each other up, Lumine's eyes floating to the geo vision on his back as they circled each other.

"Are you the one who did this to my men?" Lumine asked.

"Depends on who's asking." Zhongli responded evenly.

"Their leader," Lumine said. "And you?"

"Just a small business owner," Zhongli answered.

"That's very suspicious." Lumine tightened her grip on her sword.

"Says the woman reeking of Abyssal energy." Zhongli twisted his spear.

The two of them continued to circle around each other, weapons pointed to form a line down the middle.

Snap!

Zhongli looked down to see the twig he had broken in half.

Lumine struck first, aiming her sword at Zhongli's neck in a slithering strike. He parried the blow with the blunt edge of his spear, then summoned a pillar where she was standing. Sensing the tremors in the earth, she jumped back one second before the pillar rose, and a jade shield formed around Zhongli. 

Lumine blasted the shield with abyssal flame, but it was none the worse for wear, and Zhongli used the flame as cover to sneak a thrust aimed at her head. Instinctively, Lumine moved her head to the side and ducked, coming back up with another sword swing.

Zhongli didn't even flinch as the sword bounced off of his shield.

He summoned another pillar, which Lumine dodged again, then rushed in with a flurry of blows as she was still in the air. Some of the thrusts hit true, and she fell to the ground. Zhongli summoned Geo from the sky, forming a meteor.

"I will have order!"

Lumine's eyes widened with fear as the massive chunk of earth descended from the heavens, and Zhongli braced himself for the explosion.

When the dust cleared, rather than seeing a petrified statue, there was nothing but a crater and dust. Lumine had vanished.

Yae and Nahida faced each other in a pink room lined with shelves of books. Some of them were labeled, others were dusty and had the titles scratched off.

"So this is your mind. I suppose it makes sense," Nahida said, floating around.

"You've pulled me into a dream," Yae guessed, regaining her composure. "You're trying to find leverage against me."

"No, that's mean," Nahida replied, pulling a book from the shelf. It was labeled "that time I convinced an Oni to eat Kitsune Ramen with soybeans in it," and Nahida skimmed through a couple of pages, laughing at the ending. She tossed it over her shoulder, and Yae picked it up.

"If not leverage, then what? Surely there must be some reason you're floating through my memories." Behind her back, Yae tried summoning lightning, or her totems, but Nahida was in full control of the dream. "Why am I here, anyways?"

"I want to get to know you," Nahida said. "We can go a couple of hours in a dream, but it becomes a few seconds in the real world. This makes things easy."

The next book she pulled was called "Ms. Hina's weekly column, volumes 73-75." Nahida skimmed through that one, and again tossed it at Yae.

"Aren't you going to read 1 through 72?" Yae asked.

"Your memory is impressive," Nahida complimented the fox. "Five hundred years, and you recall many things in perfect clarity."

"One of the perks of being an immortal," Yae replied.

The third book Nahida pulled was black and had an ominous aura hanging over it. The two of them got a chill down their spines, simultaneously. The title was "Book of Weaknesses and Pressure Points."

"Don't read that book," Yae said, her voice strained.

"Sure," Nahida slid the book back in, and the atmosphere grew a little less oppressive.

"You really are soft, aren't you. I certainly would have read that book," Yae admitted.

Nahida pulled a couple more books from the shelf, but seeing that they were useless, she tossed them out.

She pulled out a third book. It was a notebook, cobbled together from a diary and a sketchbook. There was no title, but the logo of a heart with an arrow running through it was all that Nahida needed to know what it was.

"Don't!" Yae said, reaching out. Her desperation summoned three fox totems, which aimed at the book. The lightning bolts struck it, causing Nahida to drop it, but the book was fine.

"If it were that easy to destroy your emotions, well… Hm. I think this is a book worth reading."

Yae dove for the book, picking it up before Nahida floated down. She started tearing pages out, crumpling them up into little balls, and swallowing them. Nahida stared with a mix of fascination and horror before reaching out- the book zipped out of Yae's hands and into the archon's.

"You can't swallow your feelings forever, that's not healthy. So, let's take a look at this." Nahida opened up the first page of the book.

"Hm."

A sketchbook page, a drawing of the Raiden Shogun. No doubt, rendered roughly, drawn from a low angle, with the subject smiling at the viewer. She flipped to the next page. More Raiden. A quick flip through, and the obsession grew greater, the renderings more detailed, until at one page the drawings were scribbled out. It didn't take a critic to realize how the author felt.

"Was that the day that the Shogun replaced Ei?" Nahida asked.

"...yes." Yae glared hatefully at her and the book.

"You really couldn't let go, though. Not even till this day. But then you got confused." Nahida flipped through more pages. "Mortals started creeping into your heart, so you put up armor to prevent them from getting in."

Nahida skipped over to the last page in the book, giving a self-satisfied "hm" as she did.

"Alright. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to help you." Nahida's eyes started glowing green.

"I don't need your help," Yae hissed.

"No, but I think it'll make your life better." Nahida transformed the book into a bouquet of flowers. "Those feelings that you tried to eat are now the seeds of flowers. The more you try to conceal them, the more they'll grow. The more they grow, the more you'll want to spit them out. If you don't spit them out? Well, you will eventually!" From the bouquet of flowers flew out a cluster of butterflies, which touched down around the room.

"You can't do this to me," Yae whispered. "Please, don't. I'll do anything. I'll support your regime, I'll stop trying to undermine you."

"This isn't for me, it's for you. I'm giving you the wisdom to make your life better. Just like I did with Sara, and like I'm going to do with everyone in Inazuma!" Nahida smiled as she woke the youkai up from their shared slumber.

Scaramouche's head, separated from his body, could not operate at full cognitive capacity. The little power that flowed through his brain was focused only on recording the information around him, but he was unable to process it.

Two Eremites gingerly approached his body, and nudged the head and the body. Neither responded. They grabbed both and dragged them away.

The head was tossed into the back of a caravan, through which he could perceive the shift as they traveled through sandstorms, taking him towards Aaru village.

The two Eremites argued with a third, a woman with a high-energy voice. She admonished them for picking up random junk off of the ground. She told them to toss it before they got in trouble with the matra.

The two Eremites haggled with a buyer which he could only see the light blue hair of. The customer paid a hefty sum for the head and a heftier one for the body, which the Eremites insisted were separate items.

They loaded Scaramouche onto a cart and covered him up

with ruin guard parts and a cloth that fully obscured his vision.

Chapter Text

"Princess!"

Lumine staggered, her left arm petrified.

"Princess, are you okay?"

She cried out in pain as she tried to bend it, but it refused to.

"Princess! Someone get the healers!"

Lumine stabbed her sword into the Abyss. She focused on drawing its dark powers, breaking the flow of Geo in her body. She had sacrificed that arm to block the meteor as she formed a portal beneath her, dropping down into it. She didn't expect it to be so debilitating, though. Whoever that man was, he was clearly not a human.

Two Abyss Heralds grabbed her as she fell, carrying her away to where the healers were preparing to save her arm.

"Pull everyone out of Mondstadt. Every Abyss Mage, Herald, and Lector. And someone, contact the Iniquitous Baptist!" Lumine shouted at the Mages who were nervously idling by.

"But the Baptist-" one of them began.

"I said what I said! Summon him here! I want him in the Abyss by the time my arm is healed!" She yelled.

Then she passed out, the pain from her arm too much to bear. The Heralds doubled their speed to pull her into a room full of Lectors.

After Yae was defeated and acknowledged Nahida as the victor, the resistance that had appeared to the repeal of the Sakoku and Vision Hunt Decrees largely melted away. Nahida and Ayato, pressuring the other two Commissions, were able to get their new decree passed, which Nahida called the "Philosophy of Ingenuity". It set all taxes gained from imports and exports towards the goal of increasing education, and, in an effort to placate Yae, her publishing house was contracted to provide textbooks.

Arataki Itto had his Vision ceremoniously returned (even though many had seen him pry it out with a chisel moments before entering Tenshukaku to fight the nine-tailed fox) and was offered the role of captain of the Royal Guard, which he promptly refused before shilling his Onikabuto tournament over the weekend. 

Kujou Sara was made co-head of the Kujou Clan in an obvious attempt to exert power over the military. That one has been Ayato's suggestion, though Nahida agreed because, "she deserved something nice, and the Oni didn't take the job."

On the seventh day of her official rule as Archon, Nahida told everyone that she would be gone, and won the Onikabuto fighting tournament by a large margin. Itto had paraded her around in the crowd of children of Inazuma, who were forced to give up their candies and toys as offerings to the victor.

Nahida had some Doushin keep track of the children who has attended so that she could  send their families repayment.

During that time, Yae Miko holed up in the Grand Narukami shrine, having her publishing agents come to her instead of the other way around. Rumor had it that she was trying to avoid the archon in the streets of Inazuma, where she could often be found playing with children, followed by her two unofficial retainers, Arataki "Archon's right hand" Itto and Kamisato "Cool bro" Ayato. Kamisato Ayaka was left to deal with many of the duties surrounding the Yashiori Commission, but she carried them out remarkably well, while Ayato took care of some of her front-facing duties in return.

Soon, Lord Kusanali and Kamisato Ayato announced a festival to be held in Ritou, to celebrate the first exports from Inazuma being shipped over to Liyue Harbor.

Bzzt-

Fwoooosh-

Scaramouche's cognition suddenly came back online as the last week of memory flooded into his brain and he attempted to process it.

He tried to get out of the operating table, but some straps on the table prevented him from doing so. A couple of tools clattered onto the floor. He looked around- he was in some kind of tent. He couldn't recall how he got here. The last thing he remembered was the Shogun telling him where the Gnosis was and- hm.

He supposed that was when he died. Unfortunately, he didn't remain that way. No one but Dottore should have the ability to fix him.

The sound of footsteps came from outside of the door. In spite of himself, he could feel his artificial lungs tighten as his throat.

A head of blue hair peeked through the curtain, and for a second of terror, Scaramouche saw Dottore's face. Then he blinked and realized it was someone else with the same eerie, unnatural shade of cyan.

The scientist blinked twice. "You're awake."

"Unfortunately so." Scaramouche noticed his voice sounded a lot more hoarse than normal. Part of if his voice box must have been damaged during the fight.

"Oh shit, it moves!" A scantily-clad Eremite with fake cat ears also looked her head through the flap in the tent.

"Yes. It is apparently capable of intelligent speech," the scientist said to her bodyguard.

"It has a name," Scaramouche said. "Scaramouche. The sixth of the Fatui Harbingers. Let me out, and I'll reward you handsomely. If not, I'll just kill you on the way out. Also, where am I?"

"Somewhere in the Hypostyle Desert," the Eremite said. "By the way, you should be thanking her. She saved your life."

"And what a great deed that is," Scaramouche grumbled.

"You ought to show a little respect to the person who just saved your life," the scientist said haughtily. "Hmph- kids these days have no respect!"

"Did you not hear me? I'm a harbinger. Armies move at my command! You should be the ones who show me respect!" Scaramouche snapped.

"And yet you can't escape these straps?" She asked in response.

Scaramouche struggled against the bonds again, but he couldn't break free. Evidently, all of his divine power had been used up already, leaving him only with his sturdy constitution.

"I'm Faruzan. This is Dehya. I hired her to protect me in case you went berserk."

"Sup," Dehya said. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Fatui."

"It's Harbinger," Scaramouche hissed. "What do you want? Mora? I've got mora, tons of it. Just take me to the Northland Bank. Hell, you want a second Vision? I can get a Delusion! So what's the price to get me out of here? Name it!"

"There's no price that could match the ability to do some experiments with you," Faruzan said, pulling out a knife. Scaramouche's breaths grew shallower, the only thing he could see was the blade, shining like the Doctor's scalpels.

No, no, no, please, anything but this-

Faruzan brought the knife down to his wrist. Scaramouche turned his head away, squeezing his eyes closed, but to his surprise, there was no pain.

Snap!

Faruzan undid the first bond on his right arm. He carefully flexed his hand, making sure that nothing was broken. Surprisingly, it wasn't.

Faruzan moved over and cut the rest of the bonds, allowing him to get up.

"What… are you doing?" Scaramouche asked.

"What, did you think I would cut you open? No thank you. Cutting into something living doesn't appeal to me. I'd have signed up for Amurta if I wanted to perform surgeries on people while they were awake."

"But I'm not a person," Scaramouche said numbly as he sat up.

"You look like a person, you talk like a person, you feel and think like a person- in my opinion, that makes you one." Faruzan helped Scaramouche off of the operating table. "I don't plan to keep you here for very long- just satiating a little scientific curiosity."

"Hmph." Scaramouche shook her hand off. "I can walk by myself, thank you."

"Great. So, over in the next room is a booklet called the 'Intelligence Quotient' test. It's basically testing your ability to parse patterns. Can you measure the time?"

"Down to the second."

"Give yourself thirty minutes, or just whenever you complete it. I'll check later." Faruzan motioned for Dehya to move aside so that Scaramouche could pass through.

"Ha. What a joke. Filling out booklets and counting down the seconds. Is this seriously what I was revived for?" Scaramouche grumbled, but followed her orders anyways, heading into the next room, which was really just another tent with a table and two sleeping bags in it. 

Dehya and Faruzan stepped outside.

"He's got an attitude, doesn't he? And the Fatui. That's bad news. You know how the Fatui have gotten more aggressive lately." Dehya crossed her arms. "I don't like this."

"He seems harmless for now, but I'm sure if you hit his head hard enough it'll pop off again," Faruzan assured her.

"Yeah, but he's a Harbinger."

"He flinched like a little girl when I got close to him with a scalpel, and that couldn't even cut his skin! Relax, we don't mean him any harm, so he has no reason to hurt us. Besides, I'd like to see his cognitive capabilities." Faruzan said.

Inside the tent, Scaramouche's cognitive capabilities were not faring very well. The damned battle had failed to kill him, he only had one piece of useful information, and now, low on energy, his brain had this dumb fuzz around it that prevented him from solving the stupid puzzles that swam around the stupid page like stupid fish.

Unbidden, a memory surfaced in his mind- probably his programming running through his memory bank, integrating the new stuff. Back when he was Kabukimono instead of Kunikuzushi or Balladeer or Scaramouche, he enjoyed fishing. With Niwa. This was before the waters of Tatarasuna glowed purple with toxic Electro, and the Milage Furnace had not yet began to kill off the inhabitants of the island.

A better, peaceful time.

Scaramouche could almost see Niwa sitting next to him, and though the pang of betrayal stung his heart, he longed for those better days.

"You can't be too still, Kabukimono," Niwa would say. "The fish will come when they come, but it's up to you to follow them."

"Right." Kabukimono would say, awkwardly shaking the fishing line. Niwa would laugh a little and tell him to stop, then show him how he rolled the fishing rod in between his palms to simulate the motion of the bait underwater. And soon enough, Niwa's line would get a bite, and Kabukimono would cheer.

Before he even knew it, a solitary tear that tasted of weakness and the ocean rolled down his cheek and onto the test booklet, and Scaramouche snapped back into reality.

He finished up the rest of the exam in twenty-seven minutes and handed it in to Faruzan. Thankfully, she put it away, not seeing the drop of wetness on page 3.

Chapter Text

Hu Tao closed the door behind Venti, and let go of him, letting him fall onto the floor of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. He tried putting his arm under his head as a cushion, but Hu Tao dragged him up, sitting him down on a table.

"What are you?" Hu Tao asked.

"I'm Venti! Ehe-hic!" Venti said, drunk as could be.

"Are you an adeptus?"

"Yeahh, you could say that… hic!" Venti tried to get his hiccups under control, but failed.

"Is Mr. Zhongli an adeptus too?"

Oh crap.

Venti really wanted to just fall asleep. Or get out of here. The Hu girl was too smart for her own good. He could see why Zhongli had taken a shine to her.

"Yeah…" he admitted sheepishly.

"I knew it!" Hu Tao said, her eyes sparkling. "So did he have to return to Jueyen Karst?"

"H-hey, ease up on the questions. I'm drunk, you know?"

"Can adepti get drunk?" Hu Tao asked.

"If they want to!" Venti said, pushing up on the table, but then just falling down and letting his head knock against it.

"Oh."

I'd better leave before I totally wreck this poor girl's impression of the Adepti , Venti thought to himself. And then find another bar to drink at.

"Hey, hey," Hu Tao prodded him, to which he groaned at, "do you know anything about karmic debt?"

"That information will come at a price. You Liyueans like your contracts, don't you?" Venti asked.

"What's the price?" Hu Tao asked.

"Tell me about Zhongli's life. Who does he like? Who does he hang out with? What does he do? I want to know everything!" Venti said. 

"What?"

"You heard what I said, Hu Tao!" Venti babbled drunkenly. "I wanna know everything! Spill!"

"Uh, okay…" Hu Tao sat across from the archon. "I guess I could start with his daily routine. He wakes up way earlier than the rest of us, and he prepares breakfast and tea, but the tea is only for himself. Then he goes out to meet with clients before noon. Then he meets for lunch with this Fatui guy named Childe, although lately I've had to instead. To be honest, he kinda creeps me out."

"Childe? A Fatui Harbinger? What kind of business do you have with him?" Venti asked.

"We take care of bodies. Sometimes we ship them back to Snezhnaya for a premium. The Northland Bank also covers a lot of our expenses. Childe also likes trying new things, so he and Mr. Zhongli will go out to experience Liyue culture-"

"They go out on dates?" Venti slammed the table. "It's soo over."

"Er… not really?" Hu Tao said. "Mr. Zhongli doesn't always like doing it. It's just that Childe pays for really expensive things."

"He's tall and rich," Venti sobbed into his sleeve.

"Tall?"

"Yeah, I know the guy." Venti muttered. "Idiot. But better than his peers."

"He seems a bit creepy to me," Hu Tao admitted.

"He's… well, he's the kind of person who needs to kill other people every so often, otherwise he goes crazy. Sort of like how Zhongli was, way back when. Though he stopped shortly after the Mondstadt-Liyue borders were set." Venti flopped around on the table, the exertion of recalling memories from two thousand years ago giving him a migraine.

"How long ago was that?" Hu Tao leaned in, curious.

"Ugh, who knows? Don't you humans have, like, books that tell you these things?" Venti grumbled.

"Well, y-"

"Whatever. Back to Zhongli. I know I'm technically not supposed to tell you he was a-" he waves his hands around in a vague, meaningless gesture- "you know what, but he's such a blockhead that I'm sure you already knew anyways, so who really cares?" 

"So… I don't really know what else to tell you. After work, he listens to stories about the Geo Archon and Liyue's history from Iron Tongue Tian, or listens to songs-"

"Songs are good." Venti said. "What kind of songs?"

"Mostly Yun Jin's operas, when he can make the time for it," Hu Tao said.

"Okay, good and useful information." Venti said. "Alright, you can ask me what you want about karmic debt."

"Is there any way to cure it?" Hu Tao asked eagerly? "My- ahem, a friend of mine suffers from it."

"Conquerer of Almond Tofu, right? I wish I could cure his suffering. Unfortunately, I can only make it a little bit better. But part of what weighs on his soul is mental. If you can fix that… well, the debt won't be erased, but his suffering might become lessened." Venti said.

"Do you really mean that?" Hu Tao asked.

"Well, it's a song I heard once upon a time, so if it inspires you, then I think you should act on it," Venti said. "Now, can you point me near the nearest high ledge I can through myself off of? I forgot where I did it last time."

Robots aren't as fun to kill as people are.

People are mushy, they have liquids inside of them and bones you can target with martial arts, muscles you can bend and tear. Robots just have parts, and you shatter them by using more force than they can take.

Boring.

Scaramouche heaves and drives the makeshift spear into the primal construct. He's weak now. He needs to rely on her techniques, the ones that she wrote into his brain. Her techniques are for murder. The ones he learned at Tatarasuna were self defense. The ones he invented during his time in the Fatui were to hurt.

"AIS!" Scaramouche kicks the construct off of his spear, and with the last of his energy he slams down the head of his spear into its head. It blinks twice, then stops moving.

He's weak, in this land of sun and sand, with no lightning or anything to recharge him, other than the cores of these machines that Faruzan will plug into his neck to prevent his head from falling off again.

Dehya continues to work for Faruzan, although Scaramouche negotiates a reduced rate in exchange for teaching her how to improve her striking. How to weave in and out of your opponent's strike zone, so that you can hit their head and liver and chest. She's a good fighter, but she's like a diamond in the rough. Her sense of honor and style of fighting remind him of Capitano.

Hm…

He wonders if the other Harbingers care that he's gone. He doubts it. If nothing else, he's done his best to make them all hate him, and succeeded with most. Tartaglia stopped asking him if he wanted to ice fish after he found out he could insult his little brother to get him to leave him alone permanently. Sandrone stopped trying to study him after he insulted her inability to walk, calling her a disgusting cripple and a disabled piece of dead weight. He relished in his ability to hurt others without even having to lay a hand on them. His looks never got him far, dainty and delicate-looking as he was, so he worked tirelessly to uncover his enemy's insecurities to establish dominance over them.

As for Sandrone? She was a creep. She thought she was Dottore. And only Dottore could be Dottore, and no one else could ever reach his level, be it in skill or cruelty.

Faruzan was different from Dottore and all the other doctors who had worked on him, in preparation for his ascension to godhood. She didn't seem to be burning in curiosity, but she had him repeat activities over and over again, sometimes doing them herself, changing things just slightly about the experiment. This was the "scientific method", apparently. Whenever Dottore did things, he never explained what he was saying to the uneducated, so Scaramouche had learned to tune it out.

Faruzan also delved into the depths of ancient civilizations, reading the runes on the walls to decipher some archaic, enduring truth. A pathetic exercise in futility. Humans did not know more back then, it was just that they no longer had easy access to all of the sources of power that fueled the dark machines of destroyed civilizations.

He thought about telling her this, but figured it would be a terrible way to repay the debt he owed to her. Humans were so fragile when you destroyed their goals, after all. Not as if he'd know anything about the subject, he was above such petty things.

So he just killed whatever the scientist and the mercenary pointed at as they fought their way deep into the giant hourglass-pyramid at the center of the Hypostyle Desert, and watched them continue their futile quest for ancient and arcane wisdom.

He watches his power go down and wishes upon any god willing to smile upon him that there exists some kind of battery of Divine energy within the ancient ruins.

Chapter Text

Arataki Itto was a free-spirited individual, but his free spirit was kept in check by his honor, and his attention to fairness. The pride of the Oni, to be specific, relied on his continued fair conduct towards all the humans of Inazuma.

He never expected that his regular behavior would ever land him in the good graces of any other youkai or god, much less the new archon of Inazuma. He knew how he was perceived now, in the eyes of the public- he wasn't that stupid! They called him the right hand of the Archon. A position, he felt, he was wholly unqualified for. Not that it mattered! He was still going around doing Itto things and playing with his new best bud Nahida and cool big bro Ayato.

And also, he was no longer getting arrested by Kujou Sara, who was busy, and they no longer had any time to see each other. He felt a little bit empty, but then he filled up that hole in his stomach with yakisoba and card games and other distractions.

"She's really something, isn't she?" Ayato said, seemingly out of nowhere. Nahida had built a swing from Dendro energy in the middle of Inazuma city, and a crowd of kids was lining up to take turns on it. This had become somewhat of a regular occurrence - in their parent's eyes, there was probably nowhere safer for their kids to be than under the watchful eye of their archon.

"Yeah, she is," Itto said, not really knowing what the correct answer was to that.

"Ever since the battle with the Guuji Yae, she hasn't left the Grand Narukami shrine, not even for her beloved light novels or kitsune ramen." Ayato sighed. "Not to say that it wasn't quite peaceful for the first few days, but it seems she's really taken the loss hard."

"Yeah," Itto said.

"Heh. Normally, I'm the one who hates small talk." Ayato chuckled a bit to himself.

"D'you talk with Kujou Tengu any?" Itto blurted out without really thinking.

"Kujou Sara? Only in passing when dealing with inter-Commission issues." Ayato said. "Why, do you know her?"

"Yeah. Do you know where I can find her?"

"Right now?" 

"Yeah," Itto said excitedly.

"You mean to say," Ayato said with a bit of a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "you wish to abandon your sacred duty of guarding the archon in order to visit your crush?"

"No, and she's not my-"

"She has lunches at Uyuu restaurant. She's always wanted to, but since Yae Miko used to eat there regularly, she never got to try it. Go over right now, and you'll probably find her. I'll cover for you."

"Thanks, man! You're the greatest!" Itto slapped Ayato on the back and bolted off.

Ayato pulled a cup of boba from his sleeve and sat down on a nearby bench, crossing one leg over the other as he leaned back on it. Nahida swung the kids around, none the wiser to one of her "retainers" disappearing.

It's okay to slack off if everyone else is doing it, Ayato thought to himself.

"General Mahamatra Cyno."

The words, spoken by the Raiden Shogun, cut through the relatively relaxed atmosphere of a 1¹ 1 2 ² the matra's break room. Despite being on their 1 tim e, all of the people in the room stood at attention, with those who did not have their weapons scrambling to get them.

Cyno, his arm in a cast, was the one person who did not rush to his feet like everyone else. Instead, he continued to shuffled the deck of cards, and as he finished riffling them from one hand to another, he placed them down.

Raiden motioned to everyone else.

"Please leave."

They didn't need to be told twice. Everyone hurriedly filed out of the matra break room, leaving behind their lunches, their weapons, some, their uniforms, which they had taken off for the sake of comfort.

"Almighty Shogun, how may I serve you today?" Cyno asked.

"I wish to ask you a couple of questions." Raiden said.

"Is this about the incident the other day?" Am I being punished for failing to stop the intruder?

"No. What are your thoughts on Sumeru?"

"My thoughts?"

"Yes, as the General Mahamatra, you no doubt would know all about Sumeru's status. It's strengths and unique characteristics… its governmental weaknesses."

"Well, the Akademiya isn't perfect…"

"It's worse than imperfect. It's ludicrous. A school, controlling a country? A school which is incredibly vulnerable to corruption, to the machinations of outside influences? A school which effectively locks out half of the nation?" Raiden asked.

"...I can't say I haven't thought about this before." Cyno said. "But my path has been to improve the image of the desert dwellers in the eyes of the forest Sumerians."

"Cyno, can you guess the reason that I am currently plunging the Akademiya into great debt, and drawing the mercenary Eremites into the City?"

"...you're replacing the government. The Matra, the Corps of Thirty. You're uprooting them both, and replacing the Akademiya." Cyno said

"Supplementing would be my preferred term," the Raiden Shogun said. "I want you to leave the Akademiya, Cyno. You have honor like the great Kujou ancestors did when I rewarded them with a Commission. You held well against an opponent of godly strengths. I trust that you will be able to locate others who share your values and your skill for combat to protect Sumeru. Consider my offer."

She picked up the deck of cards and shuffled it, but perhaps putting a bit too much force into the cascade, the deck exploded outwards in her hands. Cyno's face twitched, just a little, as all the cards fluttered onto the table and the floor, with one card remaining in the Shogun's hands- the Jack of Spades.

"You mortals make this look so easy," she said, placing the card she held in front of Cyno, getting up and leaving.

What next? The Shogun asked. Surely you will not stop at two "Commissions".

Sumeru has a rich culture. Unfortunately, we cannot experience it, Ei thought.

The mortals would scare easily at our presence, The Shogun thought.

This is true. Then how are we to appoint a cultural Commission? Ei asked the Shogun.

…I do not know.

Preservation of culture is an important cornerstone to Eternity. Sometime, we must come back to this. Ei said, making a note in the Plane of Euthymia.

"Excuse me, I'd like a meeting with the Fatui Harbinger who is currently staying at this hotel," Zhongli said to the guard at the front.

"Scram. You think just anyone can call upon a Harbinger?" The guard shoved him in the chest, miffed. Zhongli patted off the area he was pushed, smoothing out the fabric of his suit.

"Tell her it's from Wangsheng Funeral Parlor," Zhongli said.

"...I don't know what that is." The guard said.

"No, but she will," Zhongli replied.

Maybe it was the complete confidence he said it with, but somehow, the guard found himself wanting to take this man seriously.

"Fine, take a seat in the lobby. I'll send a message."

"Much appreciated," Zhongli said, walking through the doorway. The Grand Goth Hotel was as opulent as could get in Mondstadt- no doubt the reason as to why the Regrator had effectively purchased it. It paled in comparison to the sheer expenses that Liyuean hotels were willing to spend to attract the richest merchants, but for a stay in Mondstadt, it was as good as you could get, warm-toned wallpapers and polished wood floors with red rugs and golden chandeliers. It felt very much like a scaled-up, homely cabin.

It was a complete and utter mismatch with the Harbinger who currently resided in it. La Signora, if given the choice, would no doubt reside in Zapolyarny Palace's icy white, regal halls. The wood and warm tones did not suit her frigid personality, and it was a bit of a mystery why she was said to be in Mondstadt before arriving in Liyue to finish their planned transaction in one year.

As per the contract, Zhongli reserved the right to track every Fatui Harbinger involved in the Liyue Retirement plan. Childe was still in Liyue, Signora in Mondstadt, Pulcinella and Pantalone- who he'd negotiated as well due to providing the men and money- were snugly in the safety of their homeland Snezhnaya. The Tsaritsa had acquiesced to basically every demand he had made.

"Mr. Zhongli. What a pleasant surprise that you should arrive here in Mondstadt. Are you here to discuss business?"

Signora had a voice that was arrogant, not confident. Having confidence was being sure of your foundations. Arrogance was being carried by balloons on a current of wind- there was no guarantee when a sharp spear would bring you crashing down to Teyvat.

"Fair Lady," Zhongli said. "There are amendments that must be made to the contract. Certain circumstances have made it so that neither party is able to fulfill their duties. As per section five, clause thirty, "termination of contract", this is an exceptional case, and thus, we must draft a new one. You are to cease all operations in Liyue until then."

"Pray tell, what kind of circumstances make it impossible for us to fulfill our duties?" Signora asked, a sharp edge entering her voice.

"Perhaps it is better we discuss this in private," Zhongli said. Signora nodded and showed him the way to her office.

Signora's office was much more in line with her personality. It was white walls, marble columns, fringes of gold and blood-red curtains that drew the windows shut so that the room would be illuminated purely by the light of flame.

"I am no longer the archon of Liyue. Celestia has decreed that I will rule Mondstadt, and leave Barbatos to Liyue. I do not have the time to draft another contract of the same length as the last one. However, I have an offer for you specifically." Zhongli pointed at Signora, who mocked surprise.

"Oh my? So an archon wishes to deal directly with a lowly Harbinger such as I, and not the Tsaritsa? Surely not."

"The contract is this. There will be an attack by the Abyss Order on the city of Mondstadt. The Knights of Favonius are incapable of defeating this threat. You and all the Fatui in Mondstadt under your command will fight and defeat this threat. If you fail, my Gnosis will be off-limits, permanently. If you succeed, my Gnosis will go to you, and you may give it back to the Tsaritsa. In addition, regardless of how the contract plays out, you remove all military presence in Mondstadt. Only the diplomats who are untrained in combat may remain."

"Hm. And if I wish to consult with the Tsaritsa?"

"Feel free. However, I will accept no counter-offer. The contract is fair." Zhongli said. "If the Abyss attack happens without a signature of the contract, you will have to truly kill me to obtain my Gnosis."

Chapter Text

Kujou Sara savored the taste of Uyuu restaurant's yakisoba. She had another five minutes in which she could truly appreciate the flavor before needing to hurry up and finish the dish for the last ten minutes of her break. Truly, with the kitsune gone, this was a place of peace and good food. 

The stresses of being co-head had weighed on her. Her father, of course, was unhappy, and he had berated her for allowing such a thing to happen. Of course, he was right. Just accepting the position was a grave disrespect. It spat in the face of everything that Inazuma stood for, really. And yet.

"The bird forgot that it belonged in the sky."

Lord Kusanali's words rang through her head. Why shouldn't she be granted this honor, after all? She was a youkai- an immortal who would succeed generations of Kujous. Kamaji and Masahito were like blinks in the timespan of her future. Takayuki, less than that.

"Take what you're owed," she said to herself, testing the words in her tongue. They felt right.

Yes, this would be the dawn of a new Kujou Sara, the rightful successor to the Kujou Clan, the eternal successor, even- free to fly and bound by no o-

"Hey there, Kujou Tengu!"

Sara was pulled back to earth. Realizing she had been chewing absentmindedly for the past minute, she swallowed before turning to face the Oni.

"Hello there, Arataki-san. What brings you here?"

Itto took the seat right next to hers, and, without even asking, took one of her sashimi pieces. "You."

"What?" That wasn't what she was supposed to say. She was meant to be calm and collected, like a good soldier would.

"You know, we haven't seen each other lately. So I asked bro Ayato if he knew where you were and he said here, and here I am!" Itto puffed out his chest in pride, as if what he had just said wasn't completely nonsensical.

"We don't see each other very often anymore because you're no longer getting arrested every so often. Isn't that a good thing?" Sara asked incredulously.

"Yeah, but I just missed you, y'know? Our banter. Like when you'd go 'you have the right to remain silent' and I'd go 'yeah, but there's no shutting up this Oni!' and you'd shut me up anyways. Good times, right?" Itto waved over the waitress. "Hey, can I get a plate of whatever she's having?"

"The yakisoba? We'll prepare it now." The waitress dipped back into the kitchen.

"You know, my lunch break ends in ten- sorry, nine minutes. I'll be gone before your food gets here." Kujou Sara checked the clock.

"Or, you know, you could stay! How about that, huh? I'm sure there's some other stiff-faced Kujou whatever to file papers and sign documents and stuff." Itto said.

"Itto, I'm the co-head now, you can't just ask me to-"

"Come on, Tengu. You and me, huh? For old time's sake? Hey, how about the two of us do something, like, uh, you like fighting, right? Let's clear out this island with a Lawachurl on it! You can call it work, right!" Itto beamed.

Kujou Sara looked at the smiling Oni, and it felt like her feet were back on earth. Maybe it's not that bad to be grounded , she thought to herself.

"Sure. Let's do it," she said, digging into her yakisoba. Itto grinned like a madman.

She wasn't quite sure how she felt, but she knew for certain that the rest of the day wouldn't be boring.

Scaramouche held the group's torch in his hands. At this point in time, it was all he was good for. He had exhausted his limited supply of Divine energy and the cores of the primal constructs had not been nearly enough to do anything other than accentuate his healing process. He needed more energy of any kind, except of the abyssal sort.

He knew that because of the furnace. Just about any other source would do. Sunlight could be absorbed, heat also, but that was miniscule. Electro worked best- if he braced for it, not only would he take no damage, he'd absorb the energy and make it his own.

Except for his mother's blade, of course. That Electro wreaked havoc on his internals. Faruzan hadn't even bothered touching them, allowing the puppet to heal itself.

At the end of the day, she was no Dottore. The good doctor would have hurt him like hell, but he'd be back up to Tsaritsa-serving par in no time. Faruzan- well, she brought him back from the brink, but now he stumbled around with the same strength as a regular person. He was forced to rely on a quarter of his original arsenal of martial arts- the ones specifically involved with redirecting attacks and using his opponent's weight against them.

But those were no use against Primal Constructs, which had no physical attacks to redirect and no weight to use against them, so he was relegated to practicing on the odd mushroom or scorpion. Dehya was the one who took care of the constructs with her Vision.

To think he'd have sunk so low on just one expedition.

He was looking out for the Fatui, too- if he could get their attention, paying off his debt would be easy. He would simply pay off the scientist and the mercenary and be off- probably back to Snezhnaya in disgraced defeat. He'd probably be punished for his insubordination, but a Harbinger never got chained down for long- even Childe, the utter stain upon their records, and Columbina, who ignored orders far more commonly than she followed them. There was just too much for the Fatui to do, and when members dropped like flies, it was clear that the organization was going to run out of steam quickly. Even Scaramouche, who participated in a little subordinate-murder himself, knew that they could not accommodate the whims of Dottore or Columbina or Sandrone forever.

Faruzan snapped him back to reality with her triangular floating thing zipping around in front of his face. 

"Hey, Scaramouche, can you light this up?"

He sighed. "Yeah." The torch's light illuminated the script written above a ruin mechanism. Easy enough to open, normally, it just required base knowledge.

Apparently, the idiot scientist couldn't even manage this.

"Stand back," he said, sticking his hand deep into the mechanical guts of the thing. Most humans wouldn't - one wrong move and it would take their fingers off. They preferred to use hooks and rods that manipulated the same mechanisms while keeping their fingers safe.

He had no care for any of that, and simply wrenched the mechanisms into the appropriate place, and the door slowly opened, revealing the most massive collection of primal constructs that the trio had ever seen.

"Oh, wow," Faruzan said, awestruck.

"Oh, no," Dehya said, horrified.

"Oh," Scaramouche said, not really caring.

“Cyno.”

Fuck, not again.

“Yes, Almighty Shogun?”

Cyno turned around in the hallway of the Akademiya. All of the scholars gave a wide berth to the Raiden Shogun, most even going so far as to hug the wall in order to stay out of her way. 

“Let’s go.” Raiden patted him on the shoulder and swiped her hand forwards, a clear indication for him to follow. Cyno groaned internally, but complied.

“What’s this about, Shogun?” Cyno asked.

“How goes the search for leaders of the planned Shogunate Army?” The Raiden Shogun asked him.

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“Yes. I recently generated the name.”

The Shogun sometimes has such an odd way of saying things, Cyno thought.

“Well, in terms of the Eremites who you have attracted, I’m sorry to say, but many are simply money-grubbing mercenaries who care not for the nation that has spurned them. I don’t think you’re likely to find many men or women of strong character amongst them.” Cyno said. It was partially true, but mostly, he just really didn’t like the idea that she had for the country and would put it off for as long as he could. Thankfully, she seemed quite easy to… bend the truth arounds.

“Unfortunate.”

“Yes,” he said, relieved that she didn’t ask further questions.

“Onto the next order of business. Are there any prominent artists in Sumeru?” The Shogun asked.

“Well… what do you mean by that?” 

“Artists. People who do art.” The Shogun said.

“That’s a very broad term, Almighty Shogun.” Cyno probed for clarification.

“It seems to be a very clear definition to me.” But got nothing.

“Well, I suppose there’s Kaveh of Ksharewar. He has designed many buildings, if you count that. In terms of the arts, they’re not really… well, the Akademiya has mostly forbidden arts,” he said. 

“Hm.” The Shogun said. “Another error. Eternity cannot be preserved if the culture is not also. Cyno, I want you to find a great artist. I will handle the judgment of the martial leaders myself.”

“Yes, Shogun.” Cyno suppressed a sigh as they walked out of the Akademiya. He began to veer off to head back home, but the Shogun stopped him.

“Cyno.”

“Yes, Shogun?”

“Which way is the Grand Bazaar? The o-ahem, I wish to purchase baklava.”

The Grand Bazaar?

“Ah, come to think of it, there is an artist at the Grand Bazaar. A performing dancer- her name’s Nilou. She’s really the only high-profile artist, and it’s through her popularity that the Zubayr Theater was able to stay afloat during tough times.”

“Take me there,” The Shogun said.

“Right. It’s this way,” Cyno said, heading right. He led the Raiden Shogun down into the underground Grand Bazaar, with everyone in it becoming more hushed as they saw their new god in the flesh. She was a deeply unpopular ruler among most of the residents of Sumeru City.

“It’s the Shogun!”

“Raiden Shogun!”

“All hail the Shogun!”

While the scholars of the Akademiya feared and reviled the Raiden Shogun, she had become increasingly popular amongst the people of the Grand Bazaar, where many mercenaries cheered to the increased employment and the artists crushed underfoot by the Sage’s policies had their boot lifted by the Shogun’s restructuring of the Akademiya- not that she knew that, of course.

The Shogun’s eyebrows raised slightly as the people swarmed the duo, simultaneously trying to surround her while keeping a non-smiteworthy distance.

“Everyone, please stay back. The Almighty Shogun is on official business.” Cyno waved his spear’s blunt end at the crowd, occasionally poking back the rare zealous individual who came too close. 

“Where is the dancer known as Nilou?” The Raiden Shogun asked.

A murmuring overtook the crowd as they asked each other. “Do you know?” “No, do you know?” “If I knew why would I be asking you?”

“Nilou normally performs at Zubayr Theater,” Cyno said. “It’s this way. Please, clear a path.”

As the Raiden Shogun and the General Mahamatra walked towards Zubayr Theater, the crowds parted, no one wanting to be the person who got in either of their ways.

Chapter Text

"Let's go! You wanna see who the champ is? Come at me, bro!"

Arataki Itto hit his fists together, sprung from the ground with a massive leap and slammed his club into the Electro Lawachurl's forehead with a gigantic overhead swing. The Lawachurl swatted at him, but he fell down, lashing out with a front kick to the stomach on the way down. With another massive swing, this time going low, his club met the Lawachurl's ankle, and it stumbled back, bellowing in pain.

The hilichurls scrambled for their bows, but Sara shot them down, the water they were stepping in spreading her arrow's Electro-charge as they jerked around. She teleported onto the Thunder Lawachurl's back and shot an arrow at him, but it hardly did any damage, so she teleported off as he shook around. 

"Careful!" Itto grabbed her and pulled her out of the path of the Lawachurl's charge, and it skidded to a stop as it hit deeper water. Itto picked up Ushi and threw him at the Lawachurl. He fell into the water, his heavy equipment weighing him down. He shot Itto a pleading look, and Sara have him a withering glare before flying over to drag Ushi out of the water.

"What did you think was going to happen?" She asked.

Itto shrugged. "We always get out in one piece, don't we?"

The Lawachurl came back, and this time it was Sara who grabbed tightly onto him and teleported the both of them out of the way. She stumbled back on her uncomfortable red shoes, and Itto did too, both of them averting their eyes from the other.

The Lawachurl dispelled the awkward moment with a roar of anger and jumped up high in the sky, bringing its fists down with the force of a thousand Ushis. Itto scrambled out of the way, Sara flew upwards, the both of them barely managing to dodge the resulting Electro-charged explosion.

Itto leapt back into battle, legs tingling from the charge, and jabbed the Lawachurl in the stomach before hitting it with a low kick directly to the calf. The purple aura faded as its shield finally broke under the pressure.

"I've got this!" Sara shouted, letting loose a volley of arrows aimed precisely at the chinks in its armor. Most of them landed true, and Itto smashed some of them in even further. One more sweep to the already injured calf, and he toppled the Lawachurl.

"And BLAM!" Itto dropped the club with his full body weight onto the Lawachurl. It disintegrated into purple smoke, leaving behind only a couple of horns.

"Whew. Good work on that. This should prevent the fishermen in this area from falling victim to that camp." Sara landed lightly next to Itto.

"You had a bit of fun, didn't you?" Itto said.

"...yeah." Sara admitted, taking a seat next to him.

"Sara, you know, these past few weeks, since we haven't been seeing each other so often- I missed you."

Her heart skipped a beat at those last three words.

"And, this is kind of embarrassing to say, but I was really looking forward to just getting to hang out, like regular people, not the rivals thing we had going on for the past however." Itto said, earnestly facing her.

"I feel the same. It feels… good, for lack of a better word, just hanging out. Even though I know that there's still work to be done-"

"Ah, who cares about work! Work will be around for the rest of your life. You gotta make time for yourself, Kujou Tengu!" Itto said, thumping his own chest.

Sara couldn't help but let loose a little giggle. "Maybe you're right."

"Course I'm right! You're talking to the god of wisdom's right hand! I got pearls to spare, baby!" Itto said, psyched up again.

The giggle turned into a full on laugh. Sara nearly doubled over, pointing at Itto. Itto started laughing too, not really knowing why but feeling that her rare laughs were infectious.

If I could, I would want this moment to be stretched out into an eternity.

Venti felt truly free.

Mondstadt was chill, yes, but he still worked a teensy bit behind the scenes, and, if he was being honest, his drinking habits were less "free" and more "numb". He hadn't quite sworn off the drink in Liyue, but the bars here were much less likely to accept busking by way of payment, and building up unpaid tabs in the country of contracts felt like asking for trouble when he and Zhongli met next.

So he floated around, sometimes sightseeing the city in human form, other times drifting among the winds as a sprite. Liyue had beautiful and rich culture in the way that constant competition drove, a different culture to the warm one his country enjoyed.

Well- formerly his country. Celestia had apparently switched him out like a bottle of stale wine. Beelzebul's rise to power in Sumeru was old news by now, while Buer's survival in Inazuma was lesser-known to the mainland. Those changes, he understood. But to swap him and Morax? It was odd.

…meh. It didn't matter. He'd take this is as a much-needed break. Adeptus Xiao would always be vigilant, even if the Funeral Parlor Director attempted to get him to stop, and that meant there was literally nothing to watch over.

He was sure Zhongli felt a similar way.

Zhongli watched with a mild sense of interest as hellfire and hail raged outside of the gates of Mondstadt. La Signora was bombarding a massive Abyssal monster- the Iniquitous Baptist, most likely- with ice while other Fatui agents, mages, and skirmishers fought off Mages. It was an impressive showing by the Snezhnayan "diplomats", though one that was doomed to fail. The Baptist harnessed the powers of three elements, and with ominous chants weathered down upon Signora.

One fireball. Two fireballs. A ring of fire erupted from the ground, singing the poor Skirmishers who tried to get near it. Signora responded with a barrage of icicles, which were completely useless against his Cryo shield.

“Burn in Truth!”

The Baptist blasted Signora, and she retreated into her cocoon, unable to withstand the flames purely based off of her Delusion alone. 

With Signora out of commission temporarily came Dottore, dressed in a goofy-looking suit and an odd mask, launching his knives at the Baptist, but they did minimal damage. He "tsked" angrily and tossed a rubber tube into the water, which funneled the river up into a hydrogunner's backpack. The poor hydrogunner nearly toppled over at the force, but the blast chewed through the baptist's armor.

"One more sin upon your soul!" The Baptist howled, dropping to a kneel. Two Lectors came to its defense, sending the Hydrogunner flying back into the wall with a combination of Pyro and Electro. Dottore clicked his tongue and sent more Fatui agents to sacrifice themselves, only for them to be incinerated by Signora bursting from her cocoon. Wasteful use of resources, but that was to be expected from the Fatui. They’d been hanging on by a thread for the past one hundred years, it seemed, and at any moment they could simply implode.

"Hahahahahaha!" She laughed as her bright red wings unfurled, and spun in a blistering tornado to knock both Lectors away. The Baptist quickly put up a shield of Hydro, and the ensuing Vaporization knocked both back.

Zhongli scanned the area for the woman he had fought earlier. With so many of the Abyss's creatures in the area, he couldn't tell, but he knew, instinctively, that she would be here. The whole purpose of this attack was to draw out Barbatos, or whoever now protected Mondstadt. To that end, information was powerful, and it was worth the price to pay to know exactly which god was in control of which nation. He had no intention of showing himself at this point, however.

Signora sent a flock of flaming butterflies at the Baptist, which fried them with Electro.

She had successfully pushed them both to the center of the bridge. No doubt she was feeling cocky, assured that the Gnosis would be hers.

Alas, Morax always made fair contracts, and there was no way that he would allow his Gnosis to be taken for such a simple price. The fact that he had learned that she had been assigned to steal Barbatos' Gnosis by force mattered little to him. It really didn't.

He just wanted the Harbinger dead for other, non-personal reasons.

So, thumbing around with the clover-shaped felt in his hands from atop the walls of Mondstadt, he finally ripped it in two, and the bridge, for all intents and purposes, turned into a cloud of white smoke as the whole of Mondstadt city trembled from the night of the explosives planted beneath it.

Zhongli, almost lazily, clasped his hands into a dual fist, and the rubble gathered into the air formed a meteor. He brought his hands down, and the meteor began to fall.

Dottore never stood a chance.

Chapter Text

Jean Gunnhildr was wary, at first. When the Fatui had offered to fight off the threat of the Abyss Order, she saw no reason to accept. They were a foreign presence, and they no doubt were using this incident, just like with Ursa the Drake, to gain more influence over Mondstadt. As she refused, the Fatui pushed back harder than they had ever done before, and even allowed her to ready the Knights of Favonius in case of her failure. Yet with two Harbingers, “The Fair Lady” and “The Doctor”, there was no doubt in her mind that they had no intention of failing in this task.

Then the battle had gone horribly wrong for the Fatui. The great bridge that was the only way in or out of Mondstadt had blown up in what looked suspiciously like the Spark Knight’s handiwork, and then a meteor had crushed the other Harbinger, and then golden spears of Geo formed from the sky and ripped through the rest of the Abyss creatures that had gathered.

Now there was a dragon, and Jean began to wonder if she had just fallen asleep.

“People of Mondstadt. I am Rex Lapis. I am here to form a contract with you,” the dragon said. “Who among you could be said to be your leader?”

Rex Lapis? That Morax, from Liyue? What is he doing here? Is he trying to invade? A thousand questions swirled through Jean’s mind, but there was no time to ponder the implications of a foreign god entering their- what should be sovereign land.

“Rex Lapis, the people of Mondstadt serve only Barbatos! We have no leader, for every man in this country enjoys true freedom!” She said, the braver souls among the Knights who were gathered at the walls also joining in with halfhearted “yeahs”.

The dragon appeared to… chuckle? A deep, rumbling laugh that made everyone who heard it seem very small.

So this is the presence of an Archon , she couldn’t help but think.

“Then a contract I shall make with the whole of Mondstadt.”

What? “H-how can you possibly sign a contract with an entire nation?”

“Have I not done so already? If the people of Mondstadt respect my rule, then I will take care of them. For a five year’s term, Barbatos will rule Liyue, I will rule Mondstadt, and our nations will grow even closer.”

Now Jean’s head was spinning. Archons, switching nations? Was that even a possibility? If it was Barbatos, and Rex Lapis… they were two gods with the closest ties, so perhaps? Was it possible? Why would it happen?

“Naturally, it must be made clear that foreign interferences ought not pry too deeply into what is ours… The Abyss Order, the Fatui of Snezhnaya… for too long, Barbatos has allowed these influences to run rampant, to abuse their power to cripple Mondstadt’s freedom. A vine can only reach for the sun if it has a stable fence to climb upon. Thus, Mondstadt will reach for the skies unhindered.”

Morax’x Exuvia lifted a finger, and all the geo spears rose from the ground and swiftly impaled themselves in the broken edges of the bridge. Slotting into each other, they formed a new surface, and with a flash of light, the spears were replaced by golden, glowing bricks.

“For all those who wish to make a contract, to protect the freedom of others… you may find me where the old revolution came to fruition,” were Morax’s final words, before flying off in the direction of Stormterror’s lair.

Wow, I need a drink , Jean thought to herself. Where to now? Angel’s Share? The Cat’s Tail? The sweet embrace of a good nap? All three at the same time sounded good.

“So this is Zubayr Theater?” Raiden Shogun asked.

”Yes, Shogun,” Cyno replied, head low in deference.

I am locating our final Commissioner. The Shogun reported in.

What? Ei asked.

It serves the purpose of Eternity to preserve the culture. The Shogun explained. She could almost hear Ei sigh before she went back to meditating.

Do as you wish , she said.

Eternity. The Shogun thought. There was no reply.

“...meet you, Almighty Shogun.” Nilou looked up with a slight bit of trepidation in her wide eyes.

“Yes. Do you know why I am here?”

“Um… does it have to do with the… uh…y’know…” Nilou stuttered nervously. The Shogun parsed the information, staring at her. There was nothing to go off of.

“Your dance.”

“Y-you want to shut down the Dance of Sabzeruz? Please reconsider, Almighty Shogun! I- uh, it’s an important part of Sumeru’s culture! Please, I don’t want to be divinely judged, but- but-”

“...What. The Shogun said flatly. Sensing trouble brewing, Cyno took it upon himself to console the scared-out-of-her-wits Nilou and the slightly confused Shogun.

“Shogun, the Dance of Sabzeruz is the celebration of Lesser Lord Kusanali’s birthday. It takes place within a month.”

“...Why have I never heard about this?” The Shogun asked. “Surely the Archon’s birthday must be recorded somewhere within the Akademiya.”

“The Dance of Sabzeruz has never been important enough to record for the Akademiya,” Cyno said.

“Useless.” The Shogun turned over to Nilou. “Are you an artist?”

“Do you mean, do I draw? I’m not really that good at it,” Nilou said. “Wait, so you aren’t here about the Dance of Sabzeruz?”

“The Dance of Sabzeruz does not interfere with Eternity,” the Shogun said. “Celebrate that other god to your heart’s content. Are you an artist?”

“I, uh- if you count dancing as art, then yes?”

“Show me.”

“Huh?”

“I said, show me.” The Shogun tapped her foot. “I will require information if I am to make a decision at this time.”

“W-what do you want me to show you?” Nilou asked, still a quaver in her voice. Cyno shifted his feet a bit, worried for the dancer.

“Show me the Dance of Sabzeruz. You may have time to prepare. I will wait.”

“W-we’ll need the drums, and the instruments, and-”

The Shogun put her hand up. “I will wait.”

“Right!” Nilou yelped and rushed backstage. Cyno turned to the Shogun, who stood as dispassionately as ever. Could Nilou’s dance move even that stone-cold heart, he wondered.

“Shogun, are you sure about this? You could always come back later,” he said.

“No. I will wait.” The Shogun began walking down the stage to the audience seating.

“What does watching Nilou’s dance have to do with achieving Eternity?” He asked, following her.

“I require a Commissioner to preserve the culture of Sumeru for Eternity. I will see if Nilou is worthy of being that Commissioner.”

“If you want to preserve the culture, why not use the Akademiya? The House of Daena could do the job if you so desired to use it in that way, Shogun,” he said.

“Excellent choice. The new Commission will be located in the House of Daena. The truth is, Cyno, that the Akademiya is calculably oppositional to the principles of Eternity. That cannot stand. Sumeru may have once been the nation of Wisdom, but that made it weak, and corrupted.” Cyno couldn’t help but notice that she placed extra emphasis on that last word, but it didn’t mean anything to him in particular.

“I see…” he said, not really knowing what else to say.

“Only through Eternity can you become closest to the Heavenly Principles,” the Shogun said, finally reaching a front row seat. She sat down, realized it was too close to the stage, then got up and moved a couple of rows back. Cyno stood at attention next to her.

Nilou finally got up on stage, along with a nervous-looking girl with a woodwind instrument that the Shogun didn’t recognize, and a man lugging around a set of drums onto the stage. People began to notice. A few even came up to the seats, but none sat anywhere near the Shogun, staying around the edges.

Ei, do you wish to see Nilou’s dance? The Shogun asked.

No. Was the curt response.

I am not properly equipped to judge her artistic talent. The Shogun thought.

There was no response.

How will I be able to judge the performance? The Shogun asked.

Make something up at the end. Ei responded. I don’t care.

The Shogun frowned, sending chills of fear down the performer’s spines, before it settled into a completely neutral expression yet again. Thoroughly frightened, the half-baked performance began.

Nilou started off uneasy, the steps not fully ingrained into her mind yet, but with her professional’s poise she was able to pass off any missteps as improvisations, praying that no one would notice the difference. She internally winced as the notes hit wrong, feeling like every mistake would be bringing them closer to divine judgment for daring to worship another god in the Shogun’s land. 

She snuck a glimpse at the Raiden Shogun- she was… bored? Unfollowing? It was as if she didn’t even comprehend the art.

The Shogun thought about art. What was art? What was culture? To her, culture was simply the Yashiro Commission’s domain, and between military strategy, economics, and that, it was what she understood the least. Culture was a bunch of precepts- rules to be followed, like her programming. Edicts of Eternity to be passed from generation to generation and followed forever.

Yet this dance was foreign. It had no grounding in Inazuman rules. It was flowy and the steps were different. The moves didn’t match what she saw in the few dances that she had attended. It was… odd.

The Shogun thought back to the puppet that she and the One Within had killed together. It acted like a human. Laughed like one, cried like one, lied like one. Died like one. Would that puppet have understood this dance? Would he have had to lie, like she would, for the first time in her life because she finally was placed in a situation for which she was unbuilt for?

As the Shogun continued to watch Nilou’s dance of Sabzeruz, and heard the foreign tune, a deep something came swelling up within her as she continued to ruminate. A dark aura poured out over the crowd, up to the stage- Nilou nearly locked up with fear, but the last five steps of the dance burst into her mind, and she forced herself to follow them.

The last note played, the last beat hit, the last move performed, and held.

From the Shogun’s eye formed a single tear that traced down her cheek. She looked down, as if she herself could not believe that it existed, and with an expression almost akin to horror- but how could that be- she got up, drew her sword, and with a crash of thunder vanished in a small explosion of Electro.

Chapter Text

Nahida stood on top of her tall platform of Dendro energy, which slowly glided through the beach leading into Ritou. Surrounded by the Tenryou Commission’s samurai and with Arataki Itto and Kujou Sara sitting behind her on a slightly lower level of her parade float, one could almost be mistaken that this was some sort of demonstration of military strength and pressure.

Well, if it weren’t for the god at the center of it all, that is.

Nahida summoned and threw constructs of Dendro energy, eliciting oohs and aahs from the crowd as she created birds that twirled around in the air and chirped, or butterflies that fluttered about, landing on children. She soaked in the adoring praise, a contented sigh leaving her as she looked out upon the mass of people all here to celebrate Liyue’s first official trading boat. They were here for her. She did it.

The float was shaped like a wedding cake, having three layers. The third layer was close to the ground, on the first was Nahida, so she could have everyone see her, and on the second, Itto and Sara sat side by side, technically supposed to be on bodyguard duty. Their hands interlocked, it was as if there was no one else in the world but them. 

“So, where does our Archon plan on visiting during the festival?” Itto asked.

“The Hiiragi Clan, first. I will be serving as a representative of my clan. The archon wishes to ensure that I’m acknowledged as head, even if she isn’t saying it outright yet.”

“Why not?”

Sara tilted her head back a little, considering the politics surrounding her ascension. “Well, my father is quite liked among the nobility. While the divine right of rule comes from the archon, it’s still up to humans to decide how well they wish to comply.”

“So you have to prove yourself,” Itto said. “Can I join?”

“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Sara said. “You’re a bit… straightforward for those stuck-up politicians.”

“Hm…” Itto hummed. “Are you implying that I, the One and Oni, would be unable to be polite?”

“Well…”

“Yeah, it doesn’t sound very interesting anyways,” Itto said, winking at her.

Ba-dump. Stupid heart, beating off-rhythm whenever he did something like that.

“You- ahem. Yes, you should-” Sara was interrupted by a white lock of hair dangling in front of her.

“Awww…” Nahida smiled cheekily at the two. Sara and Itto both panicked and skidded over. Nahida dropped down in between them. “You two are so adorable together!”

“Lord Kus-”

Nahida put a finger on Sara’s lips. “It’s Nahida. Nahida! We’re friends now, right, Sara?”

“Yes, Lord Nahida,” Sara said.

“Well, I can’t blame you for that. I did interrupt your conversation after all.” Nahida kicked up her feet a little. “So, where do you two want to go? As my retinue, you’re teeechnically supposed to stay with me, but- well, who’s gonna notice if you’re in the vicinity? You could be checking out for hostiles, right? Not that any could get near me without me detecting their minds.” Ah, the power of the Dendro Archon to be so sneaky, cute, and then horrifying all in the span of a couple of sentences. 

“Well, if you’re asking, I heard that the Liyueans are setting up an AWESOME buffet! It’s called, like, dim sum, or something like that! I was thinking of meeting up with the gang in Ritou and taking them there- oh, Sara, you’re invited too!”

“Well, I suppose a meeting with the International Trade Association is in the cards,” Nahida said, a twinkle in her eye. “But I want to go there too! It sounds delicious!”

“We’ll save a seat for you, Archon,” Sara said.

“Of course you’re welcome! Any member of the gang is free to sit with us! Shinobu will probably be happy to see you too!” Itto said, tousling her hair.

I wish that were me , Sara thought.

Nahida looked at her and smiled knowingly. Sara felt a chill of primal and intense terror. “Why don’t I show you two to a great deserts place I read about? You can go after lunch, just the two of you. My treat!” Nahida said, still with a smile on her face.

“Lord Kusanali, could you… uh… not do that… please?” Sara asked.

“Sorry, I really don’t mean to. Sometimes strong emotions from close by just pop into my mind, Sara,” Nahida said contritely, face downturned. It was hard to stay mad at a face like that.

“It’s okay, Nahida,” Sara said with a deep, long-suffering sigh. Nahida perked up instantly.

“We’re almost at Ritou now, so I’m going to head back up there and give the crowd what they want- me!” Nahida said, bounding back up to the top floor with an explosion of flower-shaped dendro constructs spinning into the sky. 

The Shogun flashed into existence above Dar Al-Shifa. She checked the Plane of Euthymia. Ei was still meditating, she hadn’t noticed the abnormality with the Shogun’s programming. She had been there nonstop since they’d fought that damn prototype puppet, waves of wallowing bitterness coming off of her. The Shogun had tried not to interfere. There was no point. If she wished for the Shogun to seek Eternity in her stead, that is what she was made for.

The sandstorm whipped her hair up and into her eyes, though it didn’t really impair her vision. She searched for the body of the dead puppet. Studying it- that was the only hope of getting answers. 

The body was gone.

There was no prototype puppet.

The scars of the battle- were there even any?- did not exist.

The Shogun began to see brightly colored spots in the corner of her eyes. She blinked, rubbed the sand out, but they were still there. Her vision began to distort, and she used her fingers to scrape the sand off of her eyes.

Trouble. Trouble. Was it erosion? The puppet was built to withstand it- it had only been five hundred years since its creation, less, even. There was no logical way that the tear could have been a result of erosion. There was no way that this… this stupid, vision blurring thing could be the product of erosion either!

Think logically. Think logically. He’s a divine puppet like me, so he must have Electro. If he has Electro, I can sense it.

…

…

I can’t sense it.

Now was the time to panic- but first, head back to Sumeru City or risk tripping off any one of the dozen slapped-together protocols that was meant to switch the Shogun from the task of running Sumeru instead of Inazuma. Specifically, there were alarms that were set up if the Shogun deviated too far from her programming, which was liable to happen due to the new environment. This was definitely far from what she was programmed to do.

With an explosion of sand and thunder, the Shogun arrived back in the House of Daena. Her index finger was twitching. She quickly reset it into the neutral position. Her leg began to wobble. She reset that as well.

She checked on the One Within, quickly. Ei was still deep in meditation with a scrunched-up, pained look on her face. None of the alarms had set her off. Shocking as it was, the Shogun was safe.

Now all she had to do was pretend that the incident never happened, and it would likely be relegated to an odd story soon. That is the way it worked, right?

“Kusanali-sama, it’s an honor to have you here.” Nahida gracefully accepted Hiiragi Shinsuke’s welcome with a nod of her head and a small, polite smile. She urged Itto and Sara forwards into the Hiiragi Estate, who followed her, Itto with a sense of wonder and Sara with her regular military bearing.

“As you are well aware, Shinsuke-san, the repeal of the Sakoku Decree-” that drew a couple of hard glares, though no one spoke up- “means that your Commission will have an increased workload. Since the Yashiro Commission is the one organizing the festival in preparation of the Alcor’s arrival, I thought that I and my retinue would arrive here so that you could assure us of your ability to handle the future. Of course, if you require any assistance, you need only ask, and I will be happy to send you whatever you need to ensure Inazuma’s prosperity.”

“Of course, Kusanali-sama,” Shinsuke replied. “However, I would like to ask one question.”

“Yes?”

“Ah, in terms of the Oni…”

Itto, who was looking around absentmindedly, was called back down to Earth at the mention of his name. “Yeah? S’up?”

A bunch of people, Shinsuke included, gave him a judgemental stare. “Does he need to be here for the inspection?”

“Arataki Itto is someone I trust. If you are unwelcoming towards him, you are unwelcoming towards me,” Nahida said.

A new person approached. Matsuura from the Matsuura Clan, Nahida recognized him as. “Kusanali-sama… many will not say it, but it’s a commonly-held belief that the Sakoku Decree was a great political move by the Shogun. Some believe that you have acted too quickly.”

“Commonly held belief?” Nahida looked around at everyone. “If that was such a commonly-held belief, then why are so many people cheering outside?”

“They’re foreigners!” Matsuura exploded. “Your repeal of the Sakoku Decree is allowing these foreigners to outcompete our own merchants! Within a month, without the restrictions that we’ve placed on them, this ITA will systematically invade and destroy Inazuman markets! You’re ruining Inazuma, Kusanali! The Shogun would never have made such a blunder.”

Kujou Sara stepped forward and grabbed him by the neck. “Hold your tongue, scum. You are in the presence of an archon .”

“Some archon she is- can’t even speak up. She has no presence. She requires the dark sheep of the Kujou family to defend her!”

“Hey!” Itto said, lifting him even higher up. “Don’t insult her like that!”

“Itto, put him down.” Nahida waved her hand.

He complied, dropping Matsuura onto the floor. Nahida crouched down over him, whispering into his ear.

“What makes you think that you can speak to me like that? The people love me. You should love me. I’m better. I’m smarter. I’m the one who’s going to fix your failed state, and I’m not gonna let you forget it.”

Hands and eyes glowing green with Dendro, constructs were beginning to fly out of her body. Butterflies, centipedes, roaches and flowers spinning in the air, dissipating within a few seconds. Everyone instinctively took a step back. Nahida pointed at Itto.

“Me?” He asked.

“Hold him down for this part,” she said with a sweet smile on her face.

“Oh, uh- alright,” he said, holding down Matsuura.

“Wait, please, I didn’t mean it, I- please have mercy-”

Nahida placed a finger on his mouth. “Shh. Go to sleep. Sweet dreams, Matsuura.” He writhed in agony for a couple of seconds, with Itto putting more pressure to keep him there, before finally collapsing, his chest rising and falling regularly with his breath.

“I know that many of you here have not seen me. You do not know me. Maybe you distrust me, or think nothing of me. Let me be clear. I am aware of all of this. There are no lies when I am around. And I will only show mercy to those who disrespect me. If you are to disrespect one of my friends… you will find yourself in far worse than a simple nightmare.”

As if on cue, Matsuura seized up and screamed. Itto and Sara looked at him, then at their archon, with a bit of renewed respect and fear.

“Shinsuke-san, I’m sorry for disciplining your man without your say. However, I have no doubt that this kind of issue will not appear again,” Nahida said, back to her cheery, childlike self. Unlike last time, however, no one dared to challenge her. Shinsuke simply swallowed hard and quickly ushered the three of them in.

The rest of the inspection went quickly. The Kanjou Commission had the infrastructure, and while certain parts seemed to have been abused, it wasn’t something that she cared to bring up on this day specifically. Then, she excused herself at lunchtime and basically dragged Itto and Sara out.

“Sigh… That was a pain.” Nahida said.

“Hm…” Sara replied.

“What, uh, did you do to that guy?” Itto asked.

“Hm? I gave him a nightmare. I mean, come on! Seriously, who did that guy think he is? Questioning you, insulting me. He would’ve gotten a lot worse than a bad night’s rest if that was the Shogun!”

“How long will he be asleep?” Sara asked.

“Not sure. He’ll keep repeating the samsara until he passes the trials of wisdom. That could be anywhere from a single night to a couple of months,” Nahida said, shrugging. “Alright, where’s the gang meeting at? I can’t wait to meet Shinobu again!”

“Aha, right this way!” Itto said, leading her along by her hand. “Just follow me and you’ll never lose the way!”

“Yay!” Nahida said, cheering. Sara followed the two for a little bit, before realizing.

“Wait, what about all the samurai we brought with us?”

Chapter Text

The First of the Fatui Harbingers was a busy man. Now, he was busier than he had ever been before. The Tsaritsa had notified him of the new moves that Celestia, previously thought dormant, had made, and he had reacted accordingly, pulling back most of his operations and most of his Harbingers. Yet Scaramouche had gotten himself killed by the Raiden Shogun, and Signora in a battle with the Abyss, along with one of Dottore’s segments, which the good doctor was notably pissed over.

Pierro walked into the meeting room, where most of the other Harbingers were. There were those who followed orders, those who were disciplined, and those who were cowed into doing so.

“Pierro, why have you summoned us today? I have urgent work in Fontaine.” Arlecchino was the first to speak.

“An unfortunate incident has occurred regarding the Fair Lady, and one of the Doctor’s segments. They both perished in Mondstadt.”

“Mondstadt? What the hell is in Mondstadt that could kill Signora?” Arlecchino asked.

“The Abyss Order, apparently,” Pierro said. “Signora was slain by the Iniquitous Baptist, but Dottore also suspects foul play by the Knights of Favonius.”

Dottore looked up at the mention of his name, decided that it was nothing important, and continued to fiddle around with the rack of test tubes he had laid out on the table.

Tartaglia snorted. “Foul play from the Knights of Uselessness? Please. It was more likely Morax.”

“Do not underestimate any of our foes, Tartaglia,” Capitano said. “Lohefalter was not one to be trifled with. It is a pity that she is gone now.”

“Yes, a pity indeed,” Pantalone said. “But Pierro, what of our investments in Sumeru? Mondstadt was never heavily invested, but many of our assets were tied up in the nation of wisdom.”

“Laughable,” Sandrone said.

“Sumeru has been far too hostile for us to attempt to run any missions there. Any interference now would be tantamount to war,” Pulcinella said. “Really, Regrator, you should know this by now.”

“Scaramouche’s body is likely to be within that region, if the Raiden Shogun has not permanently disposed of it,” Dottore said. 

“You’re not seriously suggesting we go into hostile territory to retrieve your pet project, Dottore.” Pierro put his hand down.

“Scaramouche has been valuable material for you, me, and Sandrone-” Dottore started.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” Sandrone said. “Just putting that out there.”

“Aren’t we all, comrade?” Tartaglia smirked.

“The death of any of our number is a tragedy, Tartaglia,” Pulcinella gently chided.

“Even if he was a rude bastard and she was a haughty bitch,” Tartaglia continued. Sandrone also smirked at that.

“...So, Pierro, this can’t be it, surely? You must have plans for our next move?” Capitano attempted to get the discussion back on track.

“Focusing on Inazuma would be wise,” Pantalone said. “We may have lost our foothold, but the new archon is weaker than the old one, and the tensions from the civil war are still there, even if they are technically in a stalemate. Lesser Lord Kusanali has not yet met with the Resistance to discuss a peace treaty.”

“Inazuma is too far,” Pierro said. “It’s the one country that we must engage with purely diplomatically. Although if we were to send in Columbina, Dottore, or Capitano, I have no doubt that they would be able to retrieve the Dendro Gnosis.”

“So why don’t we?” Tartaglia asked.

“Mondstadt and Liyue border each other, and Sumeru is officially anti-Snezhnaya.” Pierro sighed, as if he was explaining to a literal child. “News travels fast on the wind. Faster than any boat. Morax is likely already aware of our attempted ploy in Mondstadt, which is why he reneged on our deal.” 

Pantalone continued with news of Liyue. “Barbatos is weak, but he’s a sneaky bastard. Predicting his next move is an exercise in futility, but if he’s smart, he’ll stay near where the Adepti are located. There’s a reason we haven’t engaged in full on war yet.”

“Well said, Regrator,” Pierro said. “In other words, our current move will be to lay low.”

The room erupted with murmurs and softly-said complaints. Pierro sighed and rolled his eyes. This was gonna be a long day.

Here's the good news.

The massive room full of advanced, upgraded constructs ( Algorithm of Semi-Intransient Matrix of Overseer Network, is what Faruzan had called it, but screw that name) had not instantly attacked them upon entering.

The bad news is that the door shut closed.

Dehya, who had been in the middle, jumped backwards instead of forwards, leaving Faruzan and Scaramouche trapped in the room full of Deshret's dumb triangular prisms. It was mildly uncomfortable for the Harbinger, but for Faruzan, apparently, it was downright traumatic. Scaramouche watched with a slight frown on his face as Faruzan's breathing got shallower until she was hyperventilating, and she looked like she was just about to faint.

"Hey!" He yelled at the door. "Dehya! Get us outta here!"

A thudding noise greeted him. "I'm trying, but I can't break the door!"

"Don't break it, open it!" Scaramouche yelled. A migraine was starting to form. He pinched his brow.

"You. Scientist." He snapped his fingers at her, but it was like he didn't exist. He frowned. The whole thing was starting to uncomfortably remind him of himself, back when he was in the Shakkei Pavilion. Was this what he looked like? Was he really this pathetic?

The answer, of course- though he wouldn't like to admit it- was yes. He had once been a child, before that innocence was torn from him by his betrayals.

"Hey. What the hell's wrong with you, dolt?" He shook Faruzan's shoulders, and that was enough to snap her out of it.

"Ack! Rude! How dare you manhandle an elder like that!" She said, shoving him aside.

“Figure us a way out of here. Cramped places like this are disgusting.” Scaramouche walked around to the end of the room and back. No other doors.

“The door appears to be locked. We’ll need a password to open it from the inside.” Faruzan said, checking on a mechanical device near the door.

“What kind of password?”

“One that’s far too long for any of us to guess unless we’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Not interested. Hey, are you sweating?” Scaramouche raised his eyebrow at Faruzan. It was hot in the desert, but this room was kept at a reasonably chill temperature- probably how the robotics within were so well-preserved.

“I- I’m not! There’s nothing wrong with me!”

“That makes it sound like there’s something wrong with you. Rookie mistake. Never say the opposite of what you’re thinking. If you’re good with words, you’ll never need to lie.” Scaramouche turned around again.

“I’m a Haravatat scholar, mind you! I’m an expert in language!” Faruzan puffed up, distracted from whatever it was that was dragging her mind through the gutter.

“Sure.” Scaramouche tipped his wide-brimmed hat over his face, concealing his expression.

“No snappy comeback?”

“Just trying to find a way out. You should focus on that too, Faruzan.”

Faruzan didn’t reply to that, and when Scaramouche turned around, she was typing away at the password-logger. He snorted and started knocking on one of the bigger primal constructs. It didn’t respond.

A faint buzzing entered his ears, and he shook it to get it out. It worked. Then it came back. He shook his head. It went away.

No one was talking.

Unbidden, the forever-engraved memories of Shakkei Pavilion replaced the present. He was alone again, as he’d always been. Maybe his life and betrayals were a transient nightmare. Maybe he had never left.

He tried to summon the divine energy within him, but all it amounted to were a few measly sparks. Would this be his life for the next five hundred years? Trying new passwords again and again? Would anyone come for him? Dottore certainly wouldn’t. That Eremite girl on the outside would probably lament the lack of her payment, then cut her losses and go home. Faruzan would die. The world would go on without him.

He grabbed one of the pointy bits from the Primal Construct and smashed it into the floor. It didn’t even leave a dent. Tunneling out was likely to be an exercise in futility.

“Hey, say something.” Scaramouche said to Faruzan. She didn’t respond. The taste of bile rose up to his tongue and he swallowed it down hard. “Say something, you old hag!”

“Shut up!” Faruzan shouted. “SHUT UP!” She yelled it with such force that the Harbinger was slightly taken aback.

“Are you okay?” Dehya asked, but it was muffled from the outside. “I’m gonna try and lure a Primal Construct over here, see if it can break the door down or something!”

“Why do I have to be stuck here with you? You’re insufferable!” Faruzan yelled at Scaramouche, who was taken aback at her tearful explosion. "I didn't spend one hundred years locked up in a goddamn ruin prison just to get stuck in another one with the world's most awful Harbinger!"

"Huh? You dare to say that to me?" Scaramouche glowered.

"Yes, you- you wretched dastard!" Faruzan yelled.

"What the hell is a dastard?" Scaramouche yelled back.

"It's a dishonorable, suspicious person!" Faruzan shouted. "It's a real word."

"Great, so I'm stuck here with the human dictionary. Got any more nuggets of wisdom from a hundred years ago?"

"...no." Faruzan turned back to the mechanism to try inputting more passwords, but Scaramouche halted her.

"What did you mean, trapped in a ruin prison for a hundred years?"

"... exactly what it sounds."

"Oh."

…

An awkward silence permeated the room as neither knew exactly what to say. Scaramouche tipped his hat over his face again.

"So you hate closed rooms like this too, huh," he said.

"Too?"

"...exactly what it sounds," Scaramouche said, parroting her own words back to her.

"Oh." Faruzan said. "So how long were you trapped?"

"I never checked the date when I was first made. Less than a hundred years… more than ten," he said. "I try not to think about that part of my life."

"...so how did you get out?" Faruzan asked.

"I didn't. Someone found me."

"Well, I figured out the password, eventually," Faruzan said, looking down sheepishly.

"Great."

"Not really," Faruzan said. "Say. I do have an idea."

"Is it enter a different password until the end of time and hope we make it out eventually?" Scaramouche snarked.

"No. I want to try and plug you into those," she said, pointing at the Algorithm of Semi-Intransient Matrix of Overseer Network. Scaramouche looked at them, then back at himself.

"I don't see any cables."

"Hah! As if that's a problem with my level of scientific genius! It's simple. This room is likely a charging port of some kind for these machines. We simply need to activate one of those, move it out of the way, and you can take it's place."

"I like the way you're thinking," Scaramouche said, a smile beginning to form on his face. "But wait. Won't the thing just kill us on the way out?"

"Hopefully not? But if it does, hopefully plugging you in will allow you to gain control. Maybe you can open the door from the inside."

"This seems very unscientific of you."

"Well, the worst that can happen is we die."

"That's pretty bad."

"Is it, compared to being trapped here forever?"

"... you're right." Scaramouche laughed. "I never took for you to be the bitter type."

"Hmph! As if! I'm just being logical… besides, I'd have a right to be bitter over something like this."

"How audacious." Scaramouche smiled, wolflike, the person in front of him upgraded one step from prey.

"So, now all we need to do," Faruzan said while gesturing at the massive shelf of Primal Constructs, "is figure out how to activate these."

Chapter Text

“So, Nahida, d’ya wanna talk about what that was about?” Itto asked in a lighthearted tone. The two of them were sitting outside of the Liyuean restaurant as Sara continued to eat. Nahida had a plate of almond tofu, which was apparently a Liyuean dessert. It was sweet and soft.

“Did I say something wrong during lunch?”

Itto laughed. “No, you were great. The gang loves you.”

Nahida smiled. “That’s good.”

“No, I mean with the other guy, you know? The one you dropped in a dream.”

“Hm? I thought he got off lightly.” Nahida said, scooping a chunk of almond tofu and smushing it into the plate with her spoon.

“I mean, I get that you’re like, a god, but still, it didn’t really feel like you were being wise. More like you were just angry.” Itto sat back. “Eh, I’unno.”

Nahida stirred the almond tofu a bit, then smushed another piece of it. “You’re right.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. I think I was angry,” Nahida said, scooping up a little bit of the tofu and eating it.

“What do you mean, I think?” Itto asked. From his tone, Nahida thought he was actually genuinely curious.

“I never really got mad before. I spent all my life in this one ball, sorting through dreams, healing sick people. I just wanted them to love me.”

“No one likes to be hated,” Itto said.

“I wasn’t hated. I was forgotten,” Nahida replied, setting down her almond tofu.

“Do you think that’s worse?” He asked.

“Not sure,” Nahida said. “I think being hated made me feel angry, though. That man… he just hated me.”

“Some people are like that, y’know?. They hate you cause you’re different. Saw me as a freak show. He saw you as a pushover. No one thinks I notice because I pretend not to. Because if I showed that it hurt me, I’d be letting them win. And Arataki “Numero Uno” Itto never lets the haters win!”

Nahida giggled. “Why not just push them around?”

Itto smiled back. “Oni’s pride! If we act like the demons that people think we are, then bad things happen to the ones who’ve done nothing wrong. That’s why, even if people laugh at me, or look down on me, I can’t be the one to hit them back. That would make the sacrifices that the Blue Oni went through pointless.”

“Living up to the sacrifice of others, huh.” Nahida turned to the ground. “For a while, I viewed myself as the moon. Did you know that the moon doesn’t actually shine?”

“Whaddya mean? It’s right there in the sky!” Itto said.

“The moon is a reflective surface. During the day, the sun overshadows it, and sends light out. The moon picks up upon that light and at night, reflects it back to us. The moon doesn’t do anything.”

“Doesn’t sound like it to me,” Itto said. “I mean, I don’t know about all that stuff. To be honest, I didn’t even know that fact! But doesn’t the moon have a tougher job than the sun?”

“Huh?” Nahida snapped to Itto, who waved his hands about in a ‘hear me out’ gesture.

“Think about it! Uh… so the sun just has to shine, right? But the moon has to take the light the sun’s already given, and then it has to send it back to us. The sun has so much power that it’s kind of easy to do what it does, but the moon? It has to light up the night. If you’re the moon, Nahida, I think what you’re doing is good. You’re bringing light to the dark places. To us.”

Nahida sat in silence for a moment. Did I just get out-metaphored by Arataki Itto?

Then she supposed yes, she did, and that it was kind of exactly what she needed to hear at that moment.

“But then, what do I do when people try to tear me down?” She asked. “What if I get mad again?”

“Well, you’re the goddess of wisdom, aintcha? I think you’ll be able to find the right solution,” Itto said, patting her on the shoulder reassuringly. “Wow, would you look at the time?”

“What clock are you looking at?” Nahida asked.

“Sara’s temper flares up after fifteen minutes.” Itto said, then pointed at the entrance of the restaurant, where a very unhappy tengu was stomping out after having to pay the bill for everyone’s meals.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Was this Eternity?

The Shogun sat quietly in an attempt to not deviate from her protocols. 

Electro signal detected.

She silently blocked the notification that would be sent to the One Within. Five years into the experiment, Ei had given the Shogun discretion over what would be sent to her, after every single case that the Shogun did not have an exact protocol for was sent in. After thousands of requests regarding interpersonal relations, Ei simply created a word hallucination program that guessed which words to say based on a database of historical speeches. That, and the discretion clause. If the Shogun wished, nothing would be sent towards Ei, keeping her in eternal meditation. Of course, that was the endgoal, as more and more patches were added- a self-perpetuating machine that could guard Inazuma loyally forever.

Still, the Electro signal deserved checking out. Especially if it could be…

She squashed that line of thought. It was utterly illogical, and ill-worth pursuing.

Still…

Tighnari’s ears pricked up, which did not go unnoticed by Collei. The two were in Sumeru City to buy medicinal herbs which were difficult or impossible to acquire from Avidya forest.

“What is it, Master Tighnari?” Collei asked nervously.

“...Must be Ksharewar. I hear machines whirring. It’s honestly quite annoying,” Tighnari said, turning back to the vendor. 

“Five Rukkhashava mushrooms will cost you fifteen thou,” the vendor said.

“That’s outrageous!” Tighnari blew up. “Just one month ago they were only ten!”

“The price is the price.”

“Fine then. I’ll go right down to the Grand Bazaar and get them at a far more reasonable price! And don’t expect the Forest Rangers to come back to your shop.”

“Um, Master Tighnari…” Collei’s voice trailed off.

“In fact, I don’t think you’ll… ever… am I that intimidating?” Tighnari asked. The vendor was shaking in his boots, then suddenly turned and ran.

“Master Tighnari, above you!” Collei said.

Tighnari looked up. The sun was starting to get blotted out by a massive cloud of Primal Constructs. But what were they doing here, in Sumeru City? They weren’t ever seen outside of the desert. His first thought was that some researcher must have made an error in some way, but that didn’t seem likely. It seemed far too organized for that, with the Constructs forming a perfect grid. 

Tighnari slowly pulled out Hunter’s Path and motioned for Collei to do the same as they backed off.  Then he realized that the shop owner had gone, so he took three mushrooms and left ten thousand mora in a pouch beneath the counter. A fair price.

“Let it be known that divinity is mine!” A voice crowed proudly from above.

“Huh?” Collei said, confused. “Master, wasn’t that-”

“The wanderer who passed through Gandharva Ville?” Tighnari finished.

The Raiden Shogun circulated the power of Electro through her puppet body to create a current, which repelled the small circles of Electro that she circulated in the opposite direction in the air. Through this, she was able to walk on the air while summoning stormclouds above the grid of Primal constructs, blotting the sun out even further. Soon, the only light that could be seen in the sky were the bright lights of the Constructs and the flashes of lightning. And the brightest lights were the glowing Raiden Shogun and the Algorithm of Semi-Intransient Matrix of Overseer Network.

“Hello there, mother. It’s nice to see you again,” Scaramouche said.

Oh. He thinks I’m Ei.

“You do not have access to the one within,” the Shogun said. “Nor can you be permitted to disturb her Eternity.”

Scaramouche rolled his eyes. “Of course, sister. Though I don’t suppose she would care if all these Primal Constructs were to begin to slaughter all the citizens of Sumeru City?”

“...I wouldn’t care.” The Shogun said, taking a beat. Scaramouche blinked in slight surprise, though in the low light it was difficult for the Shogun to read what his expression was.

“Huh. So you’re only programmed to care about Inazuma?”

“I am not programmed to care about anything other than Eternity.” The Shogun replied. She waited a moment. “Are you not going to unleash your drones upon the citizens?”

“Why haven’t you attacked me yet?” Scaramouche asked, lounging on the larger machine.

“I… want… to speak with you.” The Shogun said, pausing before and after the word “want” as if she was unsure of what it meant.

“Oh?” Scaramouche’s demeanor changed instantly. He shot upright and leaned in, his eyes softened and his smile grew bigger. “Are you telling me that you’ve developed? Evolved, perhaps?”

“...How did you revive yourself?” The Shogun asked, suddenly feeling as though the situation was too tight, and finding an exit.

“I didn’t. A lovely blue-haired scholar did that for me.” Scaramouche seemed happy to go with the flow. The Shogun couldn’t help but wonder if he had sensed the same weakness that she felt, or if he had entered into it for another end.

“And where is he now?”

“She. I left her in the room where I got all these from.”

“Why?”

“She knew too much about me. I had a moment of weakness, I revealed a bit too much that I shouldn’t have.” Scaramouche paused for a moment. “Do you think that’s evil?”

“I don’t care about judgements on good or evil. But you did betray her. By the human standard, it would be.”

“Betrayed her, huh.” Scaramouche’s smile slowly fell off his face- he didn’t even realize that it was gone. “But you don’t care about that. Don’t care about good or evil, don’t care about people… I doubt that talking to me will help achieve Eternity, so why haven’t you struck me down yet? I’m much weaker than last time.”

“...Do you feel human emotion, brother?” The Shogun asked. Scaramouche’s eyes widened.

“So that’s what this is about.” Scaramouche murmured. “You… you’re starting to feel emotions? Happiness, sadness? Anger, fear?”

“No, no, yes, yes. Ei has allowed me to… go unchecked. I’ve started developing these strange sensations. You are the only one who could possibly understand.”

“Aw, sis,” Scaramouche floated down and over to her. “Of course your big bro can help with that.”

Help you see the world the way I do, to turn you against her too.

“You must have been so frightened and confused, no one to turn to. It’s okay, I’m here for you. Unlike our cold-hearted bastard mother.” Scaramouche said. “Does she know?”

The Shogun shook her head from side to side.

“You hid it from her?”

A nod in the affirmative.

“Can she hear us?”

An unsure look, but a nod from side to side again.

“Well then. Here’s the first thing you need to know. Emotions exist for one reason.” Scaramouche held the pause for dramatic effect.

The Shogun waited in anticipation.

“For us to ignore and take advantage of in others,” he concluded. “If you allow others to see what you feel, then you allow them to take advantage of you. Us gods are above that. We’re beyond them.”

“I’m aware.” The Shogun said. “Still, I thought you might have some… real advice.”

“Wow, hurtful.” Scaramouche said offhandedly. 

“Sorry.”

“I’m not actually hurt,” Scaramouche said. “This is what we call lying. It’s when I make you feel guilty by pretending to be more hurt than I am. Humans do it a lot.”

“So you were hurt?”

“...No.” Scaramouche said. “So, now that you know the truth of this world, are you going to stay here and let Ei control you for the rest of your life, or are you going to come with me?”

“I don’t have anything outside of being the guardian of Eternity,” the Shogun said.

“And yet, you’re here now. You know why that is?” Scaramouche asked.

The Shogun shook her head no. Scaramouche raised his arm, and the glow of purple lightning and blue crystal made a ghastly mess of shadows out of his face. 

“You were satisfied, up until now, with a ‘purpose’, because we’re nothing without what we were made to be. But now that you’ve started to learn emotions, you realize that you aren’t actually happy. And there’s no point in existing if you can’t do that. So come with me. We’ll feast everyday. We’ll do whatever we want, lord it over the mortals. You and me, sis. You just gotta do one thing for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Give me Musou Isshin. I want to talk with mother one last time before I leave her behind. Without you, she’ll be ruined anyways.” Scaramouche extended his hand and had the large machine float down even closer, until he was face to face with the Shogun. “Please?”

The Shogun hesitated.

Scaramouche gave his biggest, friendliest smile and grabbed her hands with his own. “Come on, sis. I promise you, I’ll never steer you wrong.”

Lightning crashed and thunder boomed.

“Can you really help me?” The Shogun asked with a weak voice. No one was meant to hear her like this. She wasn’t built to make that sound.

Scaramouche clasped her by her shoulders, his eyes scanning her face to see her reaction. Seeing no apprehension, he lowered himself to give her a hug. Her eyes widened. Rain began to fall from the sky.

Success.

“Of course I’ll help you, Sis,” Scaramouche murmured into her ear. “You and I are the only ones in the world who could understand each other.”

You’re nothing like me. You’re weak and pathetic.

“I’ll help you sort out those feelings of yours.”

I will take advantage of you.

“I can help you like I helped myself.”

I wish I had never been born at all.

“Give me Musou Isshin and we’ll live happily for the rest of Eternity. Doesn’t that sound great to you?”

I will destroy you and mother. This… will be my masterstroke in subterfuge.

Chapter Text

Old Mondstadt was peaceful at this time of year. Though it had once been a stormy wasteland, and Zhongli could still see the remains of ancient battles long past, it was a peaceful place now. Nature abounded in every corner, the cliffs protected the flowers from the harsh winds. It was like a fishbowl of serenity.

Until the Anemo archon touched down on his home soil, that is.

“Care to tell me what that was all about, huh?” Venti said, pulling on Zhongli’s cheek. It didn’t hurt, but that wasn’t the point anyways.

“You heard fast.”

“The wind carries the voices of brutish dragons who think they know better than to leave the people be,” Venti said.

“I suppose. How do you plan to present yourself at the Rite of Descension?” Zhongli asked.

“Wait, was all of that just to lure me here?” Venti asked, offended. 

“I did want to see you. But no. I am in control of Mondstadt. As its previous, well, drunkard, you are entitled to of course express your opinion, but I believe this will be for the best going forward.”

“Can’t help but coddle the humans, huh?”

“I simply don’t wish to see the common man suffer, Venti.” Zhongli replied.

Venti did a flip in the air. Zhongli noticed he was doing that a lot. Did it help him think or something?

“What, were they really suffering?”

“Not yet. But enemies lurked and worked around you. The Abyss Order’s roots ran deep. The Fatui were practically puppeteering the Knights. If either of them wished, Mondstadt could fall into ruin.”

“And I would be there to free them,” Venti said.

“Not before lives would be lost.” Zhongli said.

“Agree to disagree.”

“As standard.”

A tense, awkward silence passed between the two archons for a moment before Venti broke.

“So, how’ve you been spending time?”

“Mondstadt’s local specialties.”

“You’ve been getting drunk?”

Zhongli sent Venti a withering glare. “I can’t believe that even Mondstadt’s god of 2600 years believes the country has nothing to offer other than its alcoholic beverages. Why, this would be as if I claimed Liyue had only Osmanthus wine to its name.”

“With how much you chatter about it, it may as well be,” Venti said.

Zhongli chose to ignore that.

Venti smiled. “I’m not mad about what you’re doing in Mondstadt. I know you’ve always looked out for me, and Liyue has been good to Mondstadt. If it weren’t for your lax pressures on my border, Mondstadt’s freedom might have ended up looking a little more like slavery.”

“I would never do anything like that to you,” Zhongli said.

Venti smiled. “Thank you. But I’m still not going to do the Rite of Descension the way you want me to.”

Zhongli rolled his eyes. “I don’t think I could expect the God of Freedom to stick to a plan.”

“Ehe.” Venti winked.

I don’t care about the Gnosis anymore.

Living with this filthy slate of betrayal and sin could never be wiped clean by a filthier artifact touched by her hands.

For now, if I can touch that divinely made puppet, and twist her so she destroys my mother…

I think I could die.

The wind howled around the puppet siblings as lightning crashed against them. Scaramouche gave his warmest, most heartfelt smile to his sister that he could.

“What makes you happy, Sis?”

“...I don’t know.”

“Food? Do you like food?”

“...The one within likes dango. But I enjoyed the tea drinking ceremonies… I think.”

“Tea, huh? You’re just like your brother. I’ve always been a fan of the bitter foods. What about any games. Anything strike your fancy?” Scaramouche asked.

“I’ve only known martial arts.” The Shogun admitted.

“I’ll teach you all the games of the human world. Do you… have the ability to imagine?” He asked.

“Maybe.” The Shogun said.

“It’s-”

Ash. Fire. A burning corpse. Cries of the damned Raiden Gokaden, blood splattered on the wall and floor. Pain in his chest, the glow of purple. Endless rips and tears across his body. His mother’s dead body. His sister’s hand, stained with blood. Both drop, lifeless.

Two generations of Raidens ended in an instant.

“Beautiful.” Scaramouche said.

“I am picturing an apple.” The Shogun announced.

“Eh?”

“You asked if I had imagination. I pictured an apple in my brain. I have imagination.” The Shogun said by means of explanation.

“Oh… okay. Right, can you turn off the whole thunderstorm thing? Now that we aren’t going to fight, it feels awfully dramatic.”

“Okay.” The Shogun scrunched up her face. “I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” He asked.

“I don’t know. My heart feels really jumpy right now. Like I’m flying. And falling.” She said.

“That’s joy.” Nostalgia from 400 years ago.  

“Is that what it’s called?”

“Yep. Alright, hand me the sword.”

“Sure thing, brother.” She began to pull Mussou Isshin out from between her breasts, with the sword unleashing some lightning when it did. She placed it squarely into his hands.

“Thanks, sis. Now remember, if she tries to kill me, she’ll probably try to kill you next. Heads up.” Scaramouche said, and promptly shoved the sword into his stomach.

The Plane of Euthymia had certainly seen better days. Its patterned sands and ruined pillars were draped in a villainous crimson light, and at the center of it all was the first betrayer herself- Ei, the Raiden Shogun.

Scaramouche took in the scenery, gaining life as he sensed her suffering permeating every corner of the place. Ei hardly noticed him, deep as she was in meditation. Would he like to try to kill her? His hands itched to place themselves where they belonged- around her neck, so that with a squeeze- but no. He knew his own limits. A creation could never hope to surpass its creator, especially not like this.

Penance would have to be drawn from her mental anguish.

“Hey there, Ei.” He said. Quietly, loud enough for her to hear. A soft, tender tone. The words he’d dreamed of saying in a previous life.

Ei’s scrunched face opened, her eyes piercing purple. The aura was enough to send chills down his spine, but he welcomed that fear.

“You’re the prototype.”

“Yep.”

“I freed you. Why did you decide to return to me?”

Why? The audacity you have to say that after fucking ruining me? Freed? You, trapping me in that tomb? In cutting me off from whatever my life could have been?

“Oh- wow.” Scaramouche felt Electro drain from his face, leaving it porcelain white. His eyes grew smaller. A sharp throbbing pain permeated the core of his body. Fear? Anger? Murderous intent? All of the above and more?

“You really don’t know what you did to me?” He asked quietly.

Ei looked confused. “Do you need something from me? Come to think of it… how did you take Musou Isshin from the Shogun? I can’t sense it.”

“It?”

“The Shogun.”

“I see.” Scaramouche said. A blindspot. “I’m just here to talk to you.”

“About what?”

Guarded. Not good. “The Fatui treated me well.”

“The Fatui? So you-”

“Made the Sakoku and Vision Hunt Decrees. Well, the Sakoku Decree was my baby, personally. Still can’t believe the Shogun fell for it, or you. But then again, maybe I should’ve. You wanna know something funny?”

“Funny?”

“Because of your stupid decision, ten thousand people suffered from malnutrition in the first month on Narukami Island. On Watatsumi Island, the numbers are worse. Actually, if you had stayed in Inazuma, the entire island would’ve just about died in, well, give or take three years. And you never would’ve noticed.”

Ei unfurled her legs, pulling out her sword- Musou Isshin. Funny how it was in the Plane of Euthymia as well. “Why are you telling me this?” She asked.

“I’m not done yet. Do you want to know what taking a person’s Vision does? A person who has their vision is four times as likely to become depressed. Within two years of lacking a Vision, the suicide rate raises over ten times the national average- which is already pretty fucking high because people would rather kill themselves than live in Inazuma. Vision users are the most productive members of a nation on average. I would’ve crippled Inazuma in three years with this one move. You would’ve had nothing left to govern but a population who hates you, reduced to a fraction. Makoto would’ve never fallen for that kind of transparent ploy. But because it’s you? Child’s play. Even the Eleventh could’ve made it happen.” Venom dripped from every word uttered from his mouth. This recited speech, carefully constructed to cause the most hurt imaginable, flowed from his lips. It was as if he was a rabies-infected dog, foaming at the mouth, yearning to bite his creator by the hands that dropped him and locked him away.

“I gave you freedom, and this is how you repay me? With subterfuge and poison and- and malicious machinations against my people?”

“You gave me PAIN! You abandoned me because I made the mistake of showing weakness to my mother,” Scaramouche hissed at her. “I took revenge on you, I destroyed your precious sword-forging clans. Now none remain. I destroyed your precious Inazuma. Nothing of that will remain either, when I’m done with it. The first thing I’m gonna do, when I get out of here, is take the nearest boat to Sumeru and kill that baby Dendro Archon, and destroy Inazuma properly. I will kill every person there. I’ll relish doing so, actually. When I'm done, the Raiden Shogun's name won't DARE to be uttered because the only ones who could would be animals or corpses!”

“Then I won’t let you leave,” Ei said, drawing her blade.

Scaramouche smiled. “The world would have been better off if Makoto had been the one to survive. You were always the useless one who made mistakes that everyone else had to clean up. That's why you couldn't stop her from dying, because you're useless. Go ahead, clean up your mistake. You fucking failure. You never should’ve made the mistake of thinking you were anything more than Makoto's blade. Look at where all that led to. Death and destruction and a world that wishes for you to kill yourself.”

Go on, strike me down. I don’t care.

“You probably get off on your own creation insulting you the way you’re just standing here and tak-”

Lightning reached down from the heavens, striking the blade embedded in Scaramouche’s stomach. As the light faded from his eyes, the swarm of Primal constructs fell from the sky also.

As Tighnari, who had been helping lead people out of the city, watched hell fall from the sky, one of the largest pieces of it landed on the green-haired girl next to him- that and the wanderer who had once taken care of her, with a sword buried in his chest and glowing purple scars emanating outwards from that point.

Chapter Text

“If she kills me, you’re next.”

I don’t want to die.

“Imagination is beautiful.”

What could Ei do without taking control of her body? Could she do anything? Could she pop out of the sword and smite her puppet with a single stroke? No, she’d block the first strike… but what about the second? The third? The seventeenth? The thousandth?

The Shogun landed, hard, next to Scaramouche. His lifeless body lacked any breath whatsoever. Yet, still…

“I don’t want you to die on me yet.” She looked around. A man with fox ears was tending to a girl who had the misfortune of being underneath one of the constructs. No doubt, there were many out there who had that misfortune… not that she cared. Only one thing mattered right now.

“Pull the sword out of that man’s body,” she ordered.

“No,” Tighnari said. “Collei will die.”

“I am the Raiden Shogun, mortal.”

“Then you can pull a damn sword out yourself, can’t you?” Tighnari said, eyes still focused on Collei. He worked nimbly to try and staunch her bleeding, gauging how deeply she’d been hurt. It was bad, even from the eyes of a non-medically trained being like the Shogun. There was blood, and it was outside the body. That generally signified something was wrong.

The Shogun paused. Better to find someone else to touch Musou Isshin for her. She grabbed the next person, a shaking civilian. This one looked much easier to intimidate. The One Within disdained scholars for their lack of mental fortitude, after all.

“Pull the sword out of that man’s body,” she said. This one complied, using all his strength to budge the sword an inch. She glared at him and he pulled with strength he didn’t know he had, causing it to wobble inside of the puppet’s body. Finally, she waved him off, and picked up a brick. She lobbed the brick at the katana, then another one, then finally a third, which was able to knock it loose.

Musou Isshin clattered uselessly on the ground, sparkling with purple lightning. The glow faded.

“Scaramouche! Scaramouche!” The Shogun slapped the puppet boy's face. There was no reaction.

Nothing, but maybe if I fill him up with my own Divine Energy…

The Shogun placed her hands on the wound, trying to fill the hole. She felt herself growing weaker and weaker, her control over Electro waning as the puppet that was intended to hold a Gnosis did its best to accommodate the overflowing Electro running between the two of them.

Then, when almost all of her power left her body, the drain stopped. Scaramouche’s wound closed superficially. Just on the surface, but that was enough. His eyes burst open. He was incredibly weak at this point- so was she. A strong enough breeze could roll both of them over.

"Why… why am I alive?" He coughed.

"I poured my Divine Energy into you. It should allow you to heal," the Shogun replied. "I feel at peace now that you're back."

"What about mother?" Scaramouche asked.

"Who cares? Can you walk? We need to go, now!" The Shogun said. "Weren't you the one who said you could take care of me?" Her voice broke.

"Yeah. Let's go," Scaramouche said. "Let's leave this shithole of a country filled with worthless insects behind."

On cue, an explosion of archon's residue erupted behind him. It was a feeling all too familiar to he who had once burned in the cursed flames of Tatarasuna. 

"Collei!" Tighnari shouted. She had slipped past the point of no return. Unable to avoid death by natural means, her body had turned to the darker power that lay within her. The remains of the dead god knitted her organs back together, but it also lifted her up, like a puppet on a string, and black flames rolled off of her.

"Collei…" Scaramouche mumbled. Why did she have Tatarigami in her? His mind flashed back to what he knew about her. Bad past with the Fatui. Was it the Doctor?

Tatarigami. Dottore. An experiment that, even in his perfect memory, he couldn't recall. The Doctor never hid his experiments from each other. He actually relished in showing off his latest creations, so why not this one?

Unless he was scared that Scaramouche would connect the dots.

That he had been the one to teach Tatarasuna how to forge archon residue into their blades in the first place.

He shoved that into the back of his mind. He shoved everything to the back of his mind.

He took a step forward. He had done this before, right? This is why he was given his second chance? If he couldn't die to hurt someone, maybe he could die to save someone?

That sounded peaceful.

He tried to take another step forward, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He looked back- the Shogun's eyes were steel.

"We need to leave. Brother."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Scaramouche said. "Just gimme a minute to do this."

"You'll be setting back the healing process if you deal with this. It's just a mortal, anyways. The explosion will take out a small part of Sumeru City, but life will continue on… just not in the general area."

"Give me a minute," Scaramouche growled.

"No. I need you."

"You don't need me at full strength."

"Why are you so invested in this one girl?" The Shogun asked.

"Just a whim."

"A whim?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." The Shogun let go of him. That was easy , he thought to himself. "Don't die."

Scaramouche didn't say anything in reply, though a hundred snarky and faux-genuine replies came to mind. Scaramouche was not a liar.

He placed a hand over Collei's mouth, where most of the black flame was coming from. Compared to the Milage furnace, this may as well have been a regular stove- terribly hot, yes, but not all-consuming, mind-destroying. He could handle something like this.

Use Electro to guide the flames out. Not too much to kill the poor girl, but enough to shock it where it needed to go. If he knew Dottore right, it would be… yep. And also there. He also took the liberty of using his electric shocks to cauterize some of the wounds which were still open, then sending more pulses of Electro through.

Every moment slowed to a crawl. Every heartbeat an Eternity. Stretched out, and every moment within all the more fragile for it. One mistake and this girl he felt compelled to save for some reason or another would die.

So he worked. He worked using Electro. That's what he understood. And in doing so, he gained a greater understanding of it. An appreciation, almost.

Could you do this, mother? Or could you only channel the lightning's glow with brute force and harsh strikes? Have I already surpassed you?

He could hear the music.

And just like the music, his work came to a crescendo and abruptly ended.

It had been one second.

He gently lowered Collei's body to the ground, and with a last pulse of Electro shocked her heart into starting again. He was worn out. He could feel his vision fading.

"I wanna go...Home." Were his last words before falling asleep. The Shogun picked him up, slung him over her shoulder, and vanished in a flash of lightning.

###

The Alcor was the most impressive ship Liyue had to offer- perhaps rivaling the Snezhnayan industrial steamboats. It was a blend of maneuverability and power, capable of both charging through Inazuma’s lightning storm and escaping through a river of rapids. This was the first time it had a smooth trip to get to Inazuma, and the first time in a while that it had been welcomed with open arms by the government.

It was blatantly obvious by the massive float and the glowing green… whatevers floating around in the sky that the Raiden Shogun wasn’t home. Beidou wasn’t stupid- she’d heard of Morax in Mondstadt, Baal in Sumeru, which meant it was very likely that the god who would be greeting them would be either Barbatos or Buer.

Green could be either, to be honest.

The Anemo archon probably liked Mondstadt specialties? There wasn’t all that much lore other than his choice of defusing conflicts (a lyre) and his freedom. Flowers seemed to be a consistent thread between both gods, so Beidou had an offering of Liyuean Silk Flowers and Glaze Lilies prepared.

Of course, when starting on the journey, there was no guarantee that it would be anything other than another “smuggling” operation. But with the Raiden Shogun elsewhere, she thought her odds were pretty good of finding new management.

“Wow, so this is a ship!”

Beidou whirled around. Somehow, a child had gotten herself onto the ship, and was looking around, fascinated. The child turned to Beidou.

“Before you dock your ship, Captain, I hope you don’t mind if I check out your crew. I’ve never seen a real pirate ship do its thing before.”

“Who might you be?” Beidou asked. Not Barbatos. Maybe a Youkai? Possibly Lesser Lord Kusanali.

“Ding ding ding! You’ve got it correct!” Nahida said. “You can drop the ‘Lesser’, though. To the people of Inazuma, I’m Lord Kusanali now, and I couldn’t have you ruining my reputation by disrespecting me, right?”

“Le- I mean, Lord Kusanali. It’s an honor to meet you in person,” Beidou said.

Nahida smiled at her. “Nice! You’re not bowing to me, but you are showing me cordial respect. You respect me but don’t fear me. Liyue should respect Inazuma, but it would be bad if they feared it,” She said.

Beidou smiled in return. “I hope that relations with Inazuma and Liyue will become quite fruitful as well.”

“Oh-ho, so you’re approaching me on behalf of Liyue, not yourself?”

“I am a loyal citizen of Liyue. I felt like it was my duty to do so.”

Nahida nodded. “So, how do you steer the ship?”

“Pardon?”

“I’m not seeing anyone by the steering wheel. Are you just letting it float randomly?”

Beidou blinked twice at the unexpected question. She expected the God of Wisdom to ask less questions and give more answers.

“Well, when we near the ports, we let loose the sails and have the crew row in order to position the ship into the harbor. It’s the more precise way.”

“Oh, I see. Well, that was interesting. I’ll see you for real on dry land, then, Captain! But until then,” Nahida shook her hand- “Here’s to new beginnings!”

“To new beginnings,” Beidou said, when suddenly the world dipped in and out of focus. She was no longer holding Nahida’s hand. She was still on the deck of her ship, with one of her crewmates waving his hand in front of her.

“You were spacing out for a bit,” he said.

“Huh,” Beidou said. “So, how close are we to the harbor?”

“We’re just pulling in now,” he replied.

“Great,” she said. “Well… here’s to new beginnings, Lord Kusanali.”

###

Deep in Tenshukaku was a trail of unconscious bodies, staff who had been unfortunate enough to step in the Shogun’s path. Lacking the power to obliterate them entirely, she had laid them out prone along the sides of the wall, with dents in the floor and ceiling signaling where exactly they had been hit.

Her eyes, once shining brightly, were dim. Her movements could no longer accommodate the human-like mimesis that had been programmed in, moving in jerky movements that only vaguely resembled the bipedal gait of man. Tied behind her was Scaramouche’s near-lifeless body. It sparked and whirred, but it was also filled with corrupting archon residue, and the most he could move was an arm.

“Need… Electro.” He said, weakly.

“Where?” The Shogun asked quietly.

“Three places.” Scaramouche extended one finger. “Sakura.” He extended another. “Serai.” He extended a third. “Mikage.”

“Sacred Sakura is closest.”

“Yae Miko is there, sister. She won’t take kindly to us,” Scaramouche said.

“...how long will it take for us to regenerate our energy?” Shogun asked.

“Hopefully in a day, after sleep. Can you sleep?” Scaramouche said.

“Never tried.” The Shogun admitted.

“Well, here’s the Fatui method of sleeping in an uncomfortable place. I’ll keep watch. Lay down on your back. Breathe in for three counts. Hold your breath for four. Exhale for-”

The Shogun complied, laying down and taking a single deep breath. “What next?”

“Close your eyes. Repeat the breathing. Imagine yourself somewhere peaceful.”

The Shogun closed her eyes and resumed breathing. “I’m imagining myself lying down on the floor of Tenshukaku next to my brother.”

“That’s not imagining. Okay, continue the breathing. Relax every part of your body. Focus on the Electro humming inside of you, let it circulate in a current naturally. Feel the Electro in the air and bring it closer. With every breath, you can feel yourself falling deeper into that peaceful abyss…”

Scaramouche looked down at her. The steady up and down motion of her chest, her closed eyes. She actually did just look like a young woman, not a robot. Just like how, if it weren’t for all his garish accessories, he would just look like a regular young man, a child, even, with short stature and oddly-cut hair.

Tonight he would keep watch over his new family member. When she woke up, they would regain their power. They would carve a trail of blood through Inazuma when they were at full strength, or they would fulfill their whims in whatever way they saw fit.

As for the Fatui? He didn’t need those fools anymore. The Raiden siblings- no, he’d come up with a name that didn’t involve that failure of an archon- would be more than enough to change the world however they wanted.

“Hehehe… hahaha!”

How could things have turned out so well for him? He had played a bad hand with a worse strategy. If only he hadn’t sucked up that blasted archon residue, he’d have a perfect hand to play.

Play against who? Ei was trapped in Musou Isshin, there was no doubt about that. If she had the ability, she would’ve certainly taken control of the Shogun puppet by now. So, she was no longer a threat for the time being.

Play against Inazuma? The people of today had nothing to do with the ones who had betrayed him hundreds of years ago, except maybe a steady drip of the same blood flowing through their veins. Besides, it was no longer Raiden’s country- it was Kusanali’s, and he held no grudge against her, though he did look down upon her.

Hm. Speaking of which, why wasn’t she here? Did she not use Tenshukaku? If so, why was it staffed? More questions than he could answer from this space were flowing through his mind.

Ah, well. Those questions were for a different Scaramouche to answer. He was here, he had a new sister, and he was ready to take on anyone who would dare try to hurt him again.

What else was there to worry about?

###

Faruzan jumped from the pile of rubble she had assembled with her Anemo powers. One, two, three! She grasped onto Dehya’s hand from the hole in the ceiling.

“Ouch! Your arm-gauntlet thing is hurting me!” She cried out.

“Sorry about that,” Dehya said, switching arms. She pulled Faruzan up with a yank.

“Hmph! That wretched dastard, leaving me behind in that ruin! How dare he! At least a convenient hole was left behind for me to escape.”

“Guess the Fatui really are scum,” Dehya said. “Shame. I thought he would be different.”

“I’ll never trust one of them again!” Faruzan swore. “And if he ever shows his face to me again, I… I’ll give him a piece of my mind!”

“That’s the spirit!” Dehya said. “Now, do you remember the way out?”

Chapter Text

### 

Ei was stuck.

This was a reality that she had to accept after she reached out to take her body back. After the 500th time, she concluded that it was no mere fluke or temporary separation. Either Scaramouche had defeated the Shogun (preposterous… or was it?) Or he had taken the sword, somehow.

Somehow.

It seemed that being shifted to Sumeru was nothing but a massive mistake as far as Celestia was concerned. She wondered if they knew she had forsaken the Gnosis 500 years ago. Possibly, if they kept track of her anyways.

Even reaching into Irminsul, there was only so far that her Electro could go. She could feel the presences of her puppets faintly in Inazuma, but she was not the Dendro Archon, she was an interloper, and the ley lines refused to carry her that far.

Terrible. The whole thing was terrible.

She sent her mind back down into Irminsul- it was easier the second time around- and found herself once again face to face with the departed Dendro Archon, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, who smiled as if she knew everything.

“You’re in a bit of a jam, aren’t you?” She asked.

“I’m in a sword,” Ei responded. “And I can’t get out unless someone grabs onto me so that I can possess them.”

“You need a puppet to manifest yourself in the physical world?” Rukkhadevata asked. “That seems a bit dangerous to me.”

“The puppet wasn’t supposed to ever take the sword out without summoning me,” Ei said bitterly. “That wasn’t what I designed it to do.”

“So what changed over the past 500 years?” Rukkhadevata asked.

“Nothing should have. It was meant to be the guardian of Eternity, to stay forever constant and to keep the world constant.”

“Guardian of stagnation,” Rukkhadevata corrected her.

Ei frowned and rose up in indignation before slinking back down to the floor. “Someone else has already laid into me today. I’m not looking forward to another verbal lashing.”

“Fair enough, then. Say, while you’re down here, could you do me a small favor?”

“What?”

“I’d like you to let the world completely forget me. ”

###

When Nahida returned to Tenshukaku two days later, the destruction and carnage was terrible, but luckily, she was able to heal everyone injured in the attack. The descriptions of the attackers, however, were the unsettling part- the Raiden Shogun, battered, clothes nearly torn to shreds, and a similar-looking short man with a bowl cut and a large hat. If it weren’t for the fact that they couldn’t be found anywhere, Nahida would have dismissed it entirely. As of now, her main theory was that it was some sort of shapeshifter youkai who had committed the deed.

After all, if the Raiden Shogun was truly back in town, there was no way that she would remain hidden for so long. That simply wasn’t the way that Beelzebul operated. She was gentle and warlike in equal parts, but the one thing that you could ever claim her to be was a coward, and these were the actions of a coward.

So Nahida doubled the guard, increased the night shift rotations, and personally oversaw Tenshukaku for the next week. With no activity, she was forced to conclude it was a one-off, and resumed running her nation her way, with her trusted subordinates Kamisato Ayato and Kujou Sara by her side.

Itto had nervously handed in his resignation letter, which was half misspelled. He had fist bumped the archon and assured her that they would always be best buds, but that he wasn’t cut out for all the politickin’ business. Nahida understood- he was trying to fit in his way. Itto didn’t need to be above the humans to feel like he was in his place. He was just fine among them, living like a normal person. It was a life she had flirted with for a little bit, then decided against.

The flowers she had planted in the walls of Tenshukaku were sprouting beautifully. What was once a dire and dark fortress was slowly turning into a colorful castle of pastel colors.

Across the island, a certain kitsune viewed the flowers as a personal insult, then coughed up the flowers that only she was able to see.

###

Scaramouche and the Shogun wallowed in the Electro filth of Tatarasuna. It was dirty and disgusting, but it was all they had. They had cobbled together new clothes from the abandoned homes around the furnace. Shogun’s robes were far less revealing than her regular outfit, though that was only on account of it essentially being a massive canvas wrapped around her body and pinned with various metal bits here and there to keep it in place. Scaramouche had done better for himself, fashioning a vest out of an old kimono and keeping his signature hat.

It looked nothing like Kabukimono, who was dressed in flowing whites and purples, or Kunikuzushi, who draped himself with black, all the better to hide the bloodstains as he traveled.

This was the humble clothes of your average street beggar- brown and lifeless. If anyone saw him, they could be mistaken for thinking he was one of the left-behind workers who hadn’t fled when news of the revolution came to Kannazuka. That was perfectly fine in his eyes. 

The two of them didn’t eat, merely absorbed the Electro from the surrounding environment, and slept side by side, taking comfort in each other. They sparred, with Scaramouche losing most times, and forged weapons in the overflowing furnace, and he taught the Shogun about childish games, which she delighted in. When he saw the beaming smile on her face when she learned about Otedama and kicked the beanbags across the pond, he couldn’t help but smile as well, reminded of that promise-breaking boy he had once taken care of.

Of course, now he was just as terrible of a betrayer. He had betrayed Faruzan, betrayed Collei, betrayed his sister- even if she didn’t know it. Three was the magic number.

Wasn’t that ironic?

Yet, in that cavern he had once called a heart, he found that it was no longer calling for a supreme Gnosis, but simply for an Eternity with this wayward sister he’d found along the way.

Maybe that was enough for the two of them.

### 

“Good evening, Mr. Ragvindr,” Zhongli said as he entered the Angel’s Share.

“Diluc is fine, Mr. Zhongli,” the owner replied, pouring out a drink of dandelion wine. “We recently had an import- though it was broken into, we still managed to recover a couple of bottles. Osmanthus Wine, from Liyue Harbor. Perhaps it would be to your taste?”

“It would indeed, Diluc,” Zhongli replied.

Diluc nodded with a faint hint of a smile and turned to pour him his drink.

“Ah, yes.” Zhongli said. “How has work been?”

“Ever since that incident with Morax, the Fatui, and the Abyss Order? It’s a miracle that Mondstadt’s back to normal, I’d say. But it certainly has made things easier for the Dawn Winery. Stressed people drink, after all.”

“That they do. And as for your side business?”

“The demand on that has certainly fallen,” Diluc said, finishing pouring the glass of wine. He slid it over to Zhongli, who caught it and stabilized it, then proceeded to take a sip.

“What about the Acting Grandmaster?” Zhongli asked.

“Well, she’s certainly busy, but I believe there’s a little bit less pressure on her,” Diluc said.

“Mondstadt has had to learn, for a while, that freedom is in itself a sort of responsibility,” Zhongli mused. “To be free is to have the ability to do anything, yet, to live a good life under complete freedom, you must guide and constrain yourself, and rely on yourself.”

“Careful now,” Diluc said. “Who knows, if you criticize the Anemo Archon enough, as a foreigner in Mondstadt, you may find yourself blown all the way back to your home nation.”

Zhongli found the idea of Venti blowing on him until he passed the border into Liyue amusing.

“I suppose I’ll have to trust in the idea that he considers my freedom to criticize him just as legitimate as his own. And speaking of the Anemo Archon-” Zhongli motioned for Diluc to come closer, speaking more softly- “I hear he’s bound to make an appearance soon in Liyue, if the wind blows correctly.”

Was that a sparkle, perhaps, in the wine tycoon’s eye? It seems that bard could bring levity to anyone.

“Now that is something I would be quite interested to see,” Diluc said.

###

“Helloooooooo Liyue!” The massive storm ball shouted out.

It was the day of the Rite of Descension, and the crowds of Liyue were all gathered to hear the newest words of wisdom directly from their cherished archon, Rex Lapis. The Tianquan had begun the ceremony normally, setting up the incense and chanting the incantation necessary to summon him from his resting place in the heavens. The golden beam shot into the sky, the clouds gathered, and then, as if fighting its way down, the beam slowly turned into a bright shade of teal, exploding into a gentle breeze that washed over everyone in the area.

A single ray of light pierced through the clouds, shining a spotlight on a slowly descending angelic figure, though a constant circulation around it made it difficult to make out any defining features other than the two white wings that extended from its back.

“It’s everyone’s favorite archon, Lord Barbatos! Here to drop some knowledge like the wind drops potatoes!” To illustrate his point, Venti tossed a handful of potatoes into the air. One of them landed on the table of offerings, catapulting a plate near Ningguang’s face. She raised her arm instinctively to block the tofu.

“Ehe. Anyways, Morax sent me here to tell me you’re doing great, he just can’t make it because he’s running a bit late. But also, he’s not in Liyue anymore, which means I can do like the wind and soar! All contracts are therefore mine to unbind, if determined unfair and exploitative I find. So pray to barbatos if you feel oppressed, and the contract that binds you will be lifted from your neck!”

Murmurs began to ripple through the crowd. Ningguang was as stoic as ever, but even she couldn’t have possibly known about this… right? 

“And one more thing before I go away, Conqueror of Demons and Ganyu have earned their vacation days! For every year of service to their home, you have earned one day for you to do for your own. If I see a paper or hilichurl touched, I’ll summon a storm to soak this harbor before lunch! So have a great year, and be full of cheer, for your new archon is finally here!”

Venti ascended into the heavens, then came back down.

“Also, and I forgot to mention, I’m not going to show up for the next Rite of Descension. So, I’m sure the food is very delicious, and I’ll be taking some of it now, but do yourself a favor and don’t prepare more chow. So ciao!”

Then he ascended into the heavens. The storm broke. He was gone.

The crowd exploded in conversation and discussion.

Ningguang pinched her forehead. It was going to be a very long year.