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"You can't just tell me you know the Raiden Shogun and not let me fight her!"
Aether gave a long-suffering sigh and continued walking, hands itching to unsheathe his sword. Directly behind him, Childe kept talking, hands moving every which way as if to emphasise the point. (Clearly he'd been spending too much time in Fontaine as of late.)
"If she'll let you duel her, why not me, too? It really won't take long! She's split islands in half, Aether! Islands!"
At long last, he stopped, turning on his heel and aiming his best glare up into the Harbinger's stupid smug face. "Then what makes you think you'll stand a chance?"
"Bravado, mostly," Childe said after a moment's thought. "Audacity?"
"She'd totally pulp you," Paimon piped up.
Childe's eyebrows flew upwards. Then he laughed heartily - throwing back his head and roaring with mirth in the way that only men without dignity can. "Pulp me? Then pulp me she may! In fact, all the better for it!"
This is getting ridiculous. Aether groaned and dragged a hand down his face. "You'd be changing your tune if she hit you with the Musou no Hitotachi."
"Your little ronin friend took it, didn't he?" asked Childe, unfazed. "I'm sure I'll be fine. He had two Visions - guess what I have?"
"Two Visions is different to a Vision and a Delusion," He shot back. "Anyway, I don't even think that Musou no Hitotachi was even her at full power. You should've seen her back when she was fi—"
He paused. Somehow he sensed he'd made a mistake.
"Fighting? Fighting who?!" Childe was in his face in less than a second. "Wait, don't tell me— was it a god? Another Archon?! Did she vaporise a mountain or something?!"
"Close," Aether answered tentatively. "And there weren't any mountains for her to vaporise, it was all.... ugh, it's hard to explain. Remember that whole puppet business?"
"Ohh," said Childe, nodding in a way that told Aether he had no worldly idea. "That thing."
"Basically she fought herself for five hundred years straight," Paimon said.
Childe's head snapped around.
"She what?"
"So that's why we're here," Aether said in defeat.
Ei, sitting on the other side of the table, simply raised a godly eyebrow. She cast her gaze briefly over Childe, who was sat beside him, practically vibrating with excitement.
"I appreciate the sentiment," She said, "But do you recall what happened last time a Harbinger had a duel here in Tenshukaku?"
"Oh, that won't be a problem!" Childe responded before Aether could, and he fought the charge to slam his face into his palm. "We can just duel in the Plane of yours!"
There was a long pause. Ei seemed bemused more than anything. "You are not offended that my puppet killed your coworker?"
"She knew the stakes and took the bet anyway," Childe shrugged. "That's the custom in Inazuma, isn't it? In a duel before the throne, the loser is executed. I'm sure Signora knew that before she started the fight - she just didn't think she'd lose."
"And you think you will win?"
"If I was being realistic, probably not." He flashed what was clearly his most charming grin. "But being me, I still think I stand a chance."
Ei blinked slowly. Paimon, bobbing by Aether's other shoulder, leaned in and whispered, "I think Childe's too much for her." Aether just grimaced a little in reply.
Technically, he'd never fought Ei and won on his own strength - the first time he'd been pulled into the Plane of Euthymia, Ei had completely whipped his ass (for lack of a better term), and when he did win, it'd been thanks to the people's wishes, and Yae Miko's plotting. And he hadn't actually had a hand in that five-hundred-year-long duel; only witnessed the beginning, then gotten back right at the tail-end. It blew his mind a little that the Ei sitting in front of him had spent so long locked in combat.
"So you wish for a duel before the throne?" asked Ei at last, looking incredulous.
"Oh no no no no, far from it!" Childe leaned forward on the table, almost knocking the tea he'd been provided out of courtesy over. "That would mean someone else fighting as your proxy, right? Not my style at all. I wanna fight you."
"If you're gonna make outrageous requests, maybe you should start calling her Your Excellency," Paimon commented, shaking her head.
Childe, completely shameless, immediately went with it. "Your Excellency— Almighty Narukami Ogosho— O Great Electro Archon! I'm begging you here!"
Ei seemed quite speechless for a while. She glanced at Aether.
He just grimaced and mouthed, "Please don't kill him when he loses."
The Plane of Euthymia seemed a lot warmer than the last time Aether had been here - the skies not quite blue, but that blushing mix of pink and turquoise that came at dawn. A faint breeze untucked his hair from behind his ear, and he shivered a little. Despite himself, he couldn't help but feel on-guard in this domain.
Ei stood battle-ready, wielding Engulfing Lightning more like it was a fine instrument than a weapon. Aether himself had already witnessed her poise in battle, but he was reminded now of stories of the Shogun's former blacksmith days... as a master of weaponry, had she ever fought with a claymore? He could just about imagine it...
Meanwhile, Childe was flexing his fingers, chipper as always. Polar Star had already materialised on his back; he clapped his hands, then patted down his shoulders, hips, knees and Vision (in that order), and grinned. "Ready, Your Excellency?"
"You have yet to give me your stipulations for battle," She said in reply.
"Oh, who cares about all that? Just don't hold back!" He bounced on the tips of his feet. "I won't, either! Vision, Delusion - no holds barred?"
Ei's eyes narrowed at this. "Have you considered, perhaps, that bringing an Electro Delusion to a battle with the Electro Archon might be considered an insult?"
Aether sucked in a breath through his teeth. Paimon made a similar wincing sound.
To his credit, Childe didn't falter in the slightest. "Nope!"
There was a long pause. Aether thought he saw Ei's fingers curl a little tighter around her polearm and silently prepared himself to have to scoop Childe's ashes up to take back to Snezhnaya. (That is, if he even left any - Signora hadn't when she got Hitotachi'd, but then again, there was definitely something weird going on with her biology.)
Eventually, though, Ei's expression lightened - one could almost spy a smile. "Good. It would not do for shame to interfere with your movements."
"Seems we have similar philosophies." Childe's grin took on a steelier quality, and at last he took Polar Star in his hands, crouching down in a battle stance. "Then shall we begin?"
Ei's posture didn't change. "We shall."
"Great. Then—"
BOOM.
"Ahh—!" The only thing stopping Paimon from being blown away was Aether seizing her by the ankle. "What was that?!"
As soon as the affirmative had been given, Ei had made her move. The dust her lightning bolt had kicked up rendered everything near-opaque - only after a good minute could Aether see what had happened.
Childe had been thrown directly backwards, and was sitting there with a shell-shocked expression, rather like a toddler who'd accidentally pulled a shelf down on top of themselves. After a moment, he hopped back to his feet. "What was that, huh?! That was flashy, sure, but I barely felt a thing!"
"I was testing you," Ei said smoothly. "A so-called warrior would run at the rumble of thunder, even if it cannot touch them."
"There's nothing so-called about me." Childe looked a little irritated now. "Test over, then? Can we fight for real now?"
An odd, enigmatic little smile pricked at Ei's mouth. "If that is what you wish."
And so it began, so quickly that Aether scarcely had time to keep track of it - Ei raised her arm, telegraphing an attack in a way that he knew was a small mercy, only for Childe to retaliate in the blink of an eye. Faster than he thought possible, he nocked an arrow and shot it - only for Ei to disperse the tumultous Hydro energy as it hurtled towards her with a snake-like strike of electricity.
She caught the arrow in one hand, and it began to crackle with her own power nearly immediately - more arrows came, flying with such velocity that the whistling created a choir-like harmony of the sorts one might hear in the Church of Favonius. These she did not bother touching; step in, step out, as if in an elegant waltz, Ei avoided each arrowhead's path, and struck them back the way they came with the tip of her blade.
For his part, Childe was making up for the lack of elegance with more than enough gusto. When at last he tired of clumsily plucking his bow's strings, he discarded the Polar Star entirely - a laughing smile on his face, he charged, hands moving, throwing the arrows with far more accuracy than he'd shot them.
Ei's brows lifted. She stepped forward, swung her polearm in a smooth arc, and send ribbon-like tendrils of lightning dancing through the air - the arrows jerked and dropped to the ground like birds felled in flight. In the same movement, she made her own throw; the arrow she had caught surged forth, riding a trail of violet electricity—
—and Childe only just caught it, water blades forming in his hands as he brandished them in an imitation of a shield, unable to find the time to step out of the arrow's path. Now he surged forward, striking with vicious pinpoint accuracy, and yet Ei dodged each one; they moved in perfect tandem, each a reflection of the other, striking and missing within a hair's breadth.
It was quite unlike anything Aether had seen before. He watched, open-mouthed, as that Hydro beast he'd grown familiar with formed at the tip of Childe's arrow, gathered into its gargantuan full form and descended - only for Ei to cleave it in two with a single, decisive arc of her naginata.
Soon enough, Childe abandoned the water blades - "Let's fight fire with fire!" he declared triumphantly, and Aether wondered how he had the confidence to make quips with Ei so close to swiping his head clean off. With a crackle, his Delusion unleashed, and with it came a costume change that gave Ei an ever-so-slight pause.
And with the pause came an opportunity - or so Childe seemed to think. Grinning, he bolted forward, a rumble backdropping the spitting, crackling storm developing at his fingertips.
Electro didn't dance so much as it writhed under his control. Ei's eyebrow lifted; it was all the movement Aether could catch before the attack fell.
The sight was difficult to describe. A thunderclap, loud enough that it seemed to echo even in this endless space; light, so bright in its greedy indigo flash that all was consumed. And yet...
As Aether blinked the blurriness from his eyes, he saw the familiar glint of Engulfing Lightning's blade. Ei had raised it straight up into the air - like a lightning rod, Aether realised, just before the entire storm converged and turned back on the Delusion-wielder that had cast it.
CRASH.
He landed in a mess of limbs and lightning, each limb slack - and for a second, Aether was genuinely worried that Ei had just pulled another Signora. Civil relations with Snezhnaya were about to get sticky. How was Inazuma supposed to explain what had happened
Then the dust cleared, and Childe's laughing - albeit charred - face made it clear that everything was fine. "This is the best day of my entire life!"
There was a shift. Paimon, now gripping onto Aether's hair for support (as many close calls as she'd had so far), whisper-screamed, "He's going Foul Legacy!"
Going foul was right. The wicked grin that spread on Childe's face was the stuff of nightmares.
Ei watched calmly as the process began. She didn't seem in the slightest intimidated by the gathering of shadows at Childe's feet; indeed, she walked forward with no less nonchalance than you'd approach a slightly interesting bush with.
Childe didn't seem to notice. One arm, two arms - Aether thought he heard a rumbling that might be his laughter as the armour formed around him.
He noted Ei was holding her polearm oddly - blade pointed downwards, tip brandished. A moment later, it became clear why.
She raised the weapon high. Then she whacked Childe clean in the head and immediately sent him to the ground.
The battle had ended in an instant. Sighing, she tossed her weapon aside, crouching down to inspect the prone Harbinger's body as it dissolved into golden light.
"Your transformation would be a lot more effective if it didn't take so long."
It didn't take long for Childe to wake up. After calling on Sayu (who didn't question the request, bless her heart) to heal his wounds, it seemed he'd be fine.
He found himself alone when he did - Aether having taken Paimon out to get some food, clearly thinking a bedside vigil unnecessary. Childe couldn't begrudge him. He hopped to his feet and began the process of stretching, groaning as his joints popped.
Hungry, said the voice in the back of his head that was usually drowned out by his lust for battle. Food. Now.
"Yeah, yeah," He said out loud, and wandered out of his room. Then he paused. "...oh, Your Excellency."
Ei was standing on the balcony. She glanced at him, then inclined her head.
"Good fight?" He asked a little hopefully. If he hadn't been a challenge, he could at least be amusing.
"It was intriguing," She said, which was neither a yes nor a no. "You are a strange human."
"Maybe we're all strange by Archon standards." He joined her by the fence, leaning forward and taking in the city below. It was a far cry from the white-blanketed towns of Snezhnaya, but the pink was pretty, he supposed. "Pretty embarrassing, though. Foul Legacy's supposed to be a lot cooler than that."
"Do you need to make such a production out of it?"
"Well, not really," He admitted. "But everything looked like such a breeze for you. Guess I wanted to be flashy."
"I've had much longer to hone my blade than you," Ei said, and it was almost a reassurance. "What kind of Archon would I be if I couldn't best a human in battle?"
"You could've hit me with something stronger, at least..." Was he pouting? It felt like it. "Like that Musou no Hitotachi I'm always hearing about."
Ei narrowed her eyes and gave him a severe look. "It would have killed you."
I could handle it, He didn't say, knowing it would sound incredibly arrogant. Instead, he laughed and glanced away.
Then his stomach grumbled. Ei tilted her head to the side at the sound, then seemed to realise something. She reached into the sleeve of her kimono.
"If you are hungry, you can have this."
Childe blinked at the bottle she was holding out. He took it slowly; a moment later, Ei had produced another one for herself, and was already removing its lid.
"This is?" He asked, tilting it from side to side. The liquid inside felt viscous.
"Dango Milk," She said with a smile. "It isn't a meal, but it can curb your peckishness until Aether returns."
It wasn't like he was a fussy eater, but he felt a little cautious nevertheless. Being offered a drink by someone you'd just fought was often a setup for poison.
Then again, it wasn't like Ei needed that sort of underhanded tactic to wipe him out. He chuckled to himself. This was completely different to the sort of dynamic he'd enjoyed with Zhongli. Archons were strange beings, weren't they?
He tried the Dango Milk. It was thick, borderline not a liquid anymore - and incredibly sweet. And, while it seemed to clog his entire mouth for a moment before he managed to get it down, it wasn't... unpleasant, altogether.
"I have konpeito, if you would prefer that," Ei said after a moment, and offered him a palmful of little star-like sweets. "Sugar is useful for replenishing energy after battle."
Childe blinked at her, then laughed. Who would've thought the Electro Archon was the type to carry candy around with her? He accepted the sweets - it seemed rude not to. Would they keep for long? He could save them for Teucer, maybe...
"We have to fight again some time," He said after a moment. "You've got to at least show me that Hitotachi move."
Ei took her time with her own bottle of Dango Milk before responding. "What would I strike with it? It's rather less impressive without a target."
"Hmm... Aether? Kidding, kidding," He added hastily as her eyes narrowed. "A doll, maybe? It doesn't have to be living."
"The Musou no Hitotachi is meant for execution. Perhaps I should look for volunteers in Narukami." Her eyes darted to him as he paused. "That was also a joke."
"Ah."
It wasn't like he was averse to unnecessary violence - he relished it, actually - but even he thought executing random people would be too far. Although, if they consented...
"...I'm not opposed to another battle," Ei said after a while. "If you would like to view the Musou no Hitotachi, then I'd like to witness this Foul Legacy of yours."
He grinned at her. "As long as you don't knock me out in the middle of transforming again."
"Then perhaps you should spare the theatrics next time."
"Haha, I'll give it a go!" He took another swig of his Dango Milk - it went down easier this time. He held the bottle out. "Strange kind of comradery, this."
Ei looked blankly at the bottle, then visibly realised what she was supposed to do, and clinked her own against it. They both drank.
"Right," She said after a while. "But I am not opposed to it."
Childe grinned again. "Neither am I."