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“Ei,” Lumine says, expression more serious than Ei has ever seen. “You need to come to Sumeru with me.”
“To… Sumeru?” Ei asks, blinking in confusion. “Why Sumeru of all places?”
She’s not opposed to the trip, but it’s a little abrupt. Maybe Miko would like a vacation? They never did have a honeymoon, so she’s sure her wife would be happy for the chance to take one now… even if Lumine was there for part of it.
“Your first puppet almost became a god, and would have if I hadn’t helped stop him,” Lumine says. “And now he’s in a coma, a prisoner of the Dendro Archon.”
Ei freezes, turning those words over in her head.
Her first puppet… the one she had failed so badly…
After learning from Lumine of what he had been up to in Inazuma, she had told the girl that the debt she owes him is enough that she will simply leave him be. After everything, after he was put through so many difficulties because of her foolish choices, she can’t imagine he would want her forcing her way into his life and trying to be some kind of… of parent now.
But.
Ei rises to her feet and gives Lumine a firm nod.
“Take me to him,” she says.
If nothing else, she can repair whatever damage he’s suffered and allow him to continue on as he pleases. If it’s necessary, she’ll strike a deal with Buer to ensure he’s given his freedom despite the trouble it sounds like he caused in Sumeru.
Whatever concessions the second Dendro Archon may demand from her…
They can’t possibly add up to the debt she owes. Ei will pay them without hesitation.
“Nahida,” Lumine says. “This is Ei, the Raiden Shogun.”
Nahida looks up… and up. She swallows.
The Raiden Shogun is… tall, and intimidating. Nahida can feel the power crackling beneath the older god’s skin, the wild and untamed might of lightning, and it’s a far more frightening thing than the Mechanical God had been. Against the Mechanical God she had seen a path to victory, but against the God of Thunder…
She’s not sure that even a Samsara would open the way to her win should it come to a true fight.
It’s not like with Morax, who’s like a kindly grandfather and has been giving her all kinds of very useful etiquette lessons ever since Lumine introduced him to her — she’s not going to be making the mistake of coming off as a crude and socially incompetent little girl again, not with his guidance. For all of his age and power and wisdom, though, he feels within her reach… if only barely.
The Raiden Shogun’s presence feels like a force of nature rather than a person, and Nahida can only wonder if perhaps the God of Thunder is a very different kind of god than Morax or herself, who were born of elemental power but are not themselves elemental beings. She knows, however, that true elemental beings can sometimes step over the line and become known as gods, and if the Narukami is such an existence… well, it would explain a lot.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Buer,” the Raiden Shogun says, bowing. “I only briefly met your predecessor on a few occasions, but I’m so very sorry for your loss. She seemed like a kind woman.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency,” Nahida murmurs.
“Please, just call me Ei,” the Raiden Shogun says. “We’re all equals here.”
“…Ei, then,” Nahida accepts. “I assume you’re here for the Balladeer?”
“If that’s what he’s calling himself, then yes,” Ei agrees. “I’ve heard he’s in a coma, and I would like to repair him. I… would also like him to be set free.”
Nahida freezes, eyes darting to Lumine. The traveler girl looks completely unsurprised by Ei’s words, and gives a nod.
“…Setting him free unconditionally, even in his greatly weakened state, would be… unwise,” Nahida says haltingly. “I’m not certain I can agree to that.”
“Is there anything I could offer you in trade?” Ei asks.
The older god looks entirely serious, and Nahida pauses to think.
The Electro Archon’s mind contains many ancient secrets that she’s unlikely to be able to find in Irminsul. She’s looked before, and the minds of the gods of the distant past seem to be disconnected from the tree.
“…You said you met my predecessor a few times,” Nahida says quietly. “Could you tell me about her?”
“Of course I will,” Ei agrees immediately. “But that should be something I do for its own sake, not as a deal like this. Choose something else.”
“But you… remember, then,” Nahida presses desperately. “The time before…?”
“Lumine told me what happened,” Ei says softly. “And yes, I remember, just as I remember the world before the Sacred Sakura came into being.”
Nahida swallows and nods.
It’s not fair.
It’s not fair that as the Dendro Archon, she’s the embodiment of that accursed tree and entirely vulnerable to changes to its records while other gods like Morax and Ei can remain untouched.
It’s not fair that if Lumine hadn’t chosen to tell her the truth about her tears, she never would have known that Rukkhadevata had existed, would have gone on with an unfairly inflated sense of self-importance and forgotten that in every way that actually matters she’s nothing but a child.
But fair or not, it’s the way of the world. All Nahida can do is try her best to stay afloat in the face of the uncaring truth.
“Truthfully, I had just finished repairing him myself the other day, because I had a job for him,” Nahida admits quietly. “I stole the Fatui Harbinger known as Dottore’s expertise with how to work with his body. He’s currently awake and held securely in my care. I’ll summon him.”
She closes her eyes and reaches out with her mind to prod that of the former Harbinger. She receives frustrated acknowledgment, and opens her eyes once more.
“He’s on his way,” she says.
Ei acknowledges her words with a nod, and it’s only moments before the Balladeer storms into the room. He freezes when he sees the God of Thunder, and his eyes snap to Nahida.
“What is she doing here?” the puppet asks, doing his best to mask his fear.
“She wanted to speak with you,” his jailer says.
“What could she have to say to me?” the puppet scoffs. “She made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. What, does she want to be my mommy now?”
He injects as much derision into the words as he can, but there’s still something about the way that his creator shakes her head that makes his chest ache.
“No, I’m not asking to be your mother,” his creator says softly. “I cast the right to do that away five hundred years ago, and had intended to let you live your life as you pleased… you grew into yourself without me, and it isn’t my place to interfere with your choices. But…”
The puppet watches as his creator visibly struggles with her words. He’s not sure what he feels right now.
Is it disgust or longing? Hatred or sorrow? The emotions are confused and messy, a chaotic soup he can’t even begin to separate.
“But…” his creator repeats. “If… this… is where your life has led you… A prisoner to a god, hated and looked down on for your choices… I can’t just tell myself ‘it was his choice’ and do nothing. The events that brought you here were your choice, but it was my own choice that started everything, and—”
“Shut up,” the puppet croaks. “Don’t talk like you’re responsible for anything in my life. You gave it to me, and nothing more. The only one who has set my destiny is me.”
His creator nods, her eyes sad.
It pisses him off.
What right does she have to look like that? Like she cares?
“I’m going for a walk,” he announces abruptly, then spins and strides out of the room.
Nobody stops him. Not his jailer, not his creator, not the nuisance.
His path is his alone to walk, wherever it takes him.
The nuisance isn’t subtle about following him.
She does nothing to hide her footsteps, and her off-key humming is just barely loud enough to prevent him from ignoring it, despite his best efforts.
It’s when he steps out onto a balcony and gazes down at the city and she has the nerve to hop up and sit on the railing, putting herself in the corner of his vision, that he finally snaps.
“What do you want?” the puppet demands. “Why did you bring her here?”
The nuisance gives him a blank stare and shrugs, her humming unceasing.
“I don’t want a mother,” he hisses. “I certainly don’t want her as my mother!”
The nuisance has the temerity to smile and pat him on the head, and it’s all he can do not to shove her off the railing. It would probably see him locked up again like he had been until today, and he doesn’t want to deal with being caged again.
“I would be very surprised if you did,” the nuisance says, the first words she’s spoken to him today. “I wouldn’t either.”
There’s something about the pain in her voice that makes him pause, forces him to reel in the caustic response he had intended to fire.
“…There was a time that I did, though,” she whispers, bowing her head. “Was it like that for you, too?”
The puppet opens and closes his mouth, feeling like a ventriloquist’s dummy whose master is nowhere to be found. Words refuse to come, until…
“Of course I did!” he bursts out. “I spent my early years desperate for family! The people of Tatarasuna were far kinder than I deserved, but they weren’t—”
He cuts himself off with a choked gasp.
“They weren’t family,” the nuisance says softly. “Not like she should have been.”
The puppet can only nod.
“It’s okay to cry,” the nuisance tells him. “Nobody’s here but you.”
He opens his mouth to disagree, to point out that she’s here staring at him—
But she slides off the railing and falls, far down to the city below.
The puppet can only stare in incredulity, then double over in hysteric laughter until tears at last begin to fall from his eyes.
They don’t stop for a long time to come.
When at last his tears come to an end, the puppet is surprised by how clear-headed he feels. He still doesn’t know how to feel, still isn’t sure what to think of his creator…
But he can face her. He can stand in front of her, head unbowed, and face whatever it is that she has planned for him.
It’s not like he has a choice anyway. His jailer certainly has some method of tracking him, and in his current state he can’t do anything against any one of the three, let alone all of them together.
And… even at his strongest…
In hindsight, without the rush of power that had made him feel invincible, he’s very certain that even piloting the god-mech he wouldn’t have had the strength to face his creator in battle. Not the woman who had carved the Musoujin Gorge without a Gnosis, the woman whose power casually created storms far greater and more far-ranging than he had managed to summon.
That kind of awe-inspiring might is not part of his destiny, and no amount of cursing his helplessness will change that. All he can do is make peace with his weakness.
He strides back to the main chamber and finds all three waiting for him. His jailer gives him her irritating little smile, his creator gives him a look of regret, and the nuisance gives him a little finger wiggle and a big smile.
She has the stupidest face he’s ever seen, he thinks, but he hates her the least of the three.
“’sup,” the nuisance greets. “Had a nice walk? Hope you got less lost than me, I went out for a pee break after you left and I got so turned around I only found my way back like five minutes ago.”
The looks that his jailer and his creator give the nuisance suggest that they’re well aware of what bullshit that is, so he decides that as far as he’s concerned it’s the truth.
“They need to put maps on the walls,” he grumbles. “Hell if I even know where the toilets are. How’d you find one?”
“I didn’t,” the nuisance admits with a shrug, face oddly proud. “I used a potted plant. Plenty of those around.”
The disgusted look on his jailer’s face has the puppet letting out a sharp bark of laughter, despite the way his creator is nodding along as if the nuisance’s words made perfect sense.
“It’s like they want the jungle inside, too,” he agrees. “Ridiculous.”
It’s… strange. He had expected this to be one on three, a last stand against an overwhelming force…
But he doesn’t feel alone right now at all. In fact, it’s almost like the nuisance is on his side, for all that she’s currently crawling her way up his creator’s back to perch on her shoulders.
She is, at the very least, definitely as obnoxious to them as she is to him… and right now that’s good enough.
“Buer and I were discussing it while you were gone,” his creator says softly. “And I’ve prevailed upon her to make the decision of what to do next yours.”
The anger that had begun to rise up at the idea of them talking about him behind his back is quashed by the unexpected conclusion.
“I had intended to ask you to assist me in searching through Irminsul’s records for data on Lumine’s brother,” his jailer says. “In exchange for some limited privileges. You would have been granted temporary freedom within the bounds of the city as well as protection from your former companions.”
“That possibility remains open to you, if you want it,” his creator murmurs. “But you also have the option to return to Inazuma with me, where your actions will be unrestricted so long as you harm no innocents.”
The puppet grits his teeth, anger rising in him. Who are they to give him these non-choices? His jailer would gift him a fancier, larger cage in exchange for labor, while his creator feels the need to place such an insulting condition on what would otherwise be a far more attractive offer, as if she doesn’t believe he would leave unharmed those who do nothing to him.
“There’s also option number three,” the nuisance announces cheerfully from her place atop his creator’s shoulders. “Come with me.”
The puppet stares at her incredulously.
“With you?” he asks derisively. “What, so you can be my babysitter?”
It is, somehow, the option with the least freedom of the three, and he can’t imagine why it’s even been offered.
“Pfft, nah,” the nuisance scoffs. “I just thought it’d be fun to have someone so grumpy along on my journey for a little while. I’m going to Fontaine next, you know? I’ve gotten the feeling they’re pretty snobby over there and seeing their faces when they’ve gotta deal with both of us at once sounds like a great time to me!”
The puppet finds himself laughing helplessly again at how earnest her tone is. He doesn’t know why, but he believes her. He believes that she hadn’t thought further than how annoying he is and a desire to shove that in the faces of more people.
And, put like that… it’s more than a little appealing. There are worse things he could do with his time than join the nuisance in getting on the nerves of the entire world… and both of the other ‘offers’ definitely qualify as worse things.
“Yeah, all right,” he agrees. “Sounds like fun. I’m in.”
The nuisance throws her arms out and lets out a loud whoop, which ends in a thud and a muffled “ow” when the motion causes her to fall backwards off of his creator’s shoulders.
His jailer looks disappointed, and he takes some pleasure in that. His creator, on the other hand, looks…
“You knew,” he accuses her. “You knew what I would choose.”
“Of course,” his creator half-whispers, that same understanding look on her face. “It’s the same thing I would have chosen in your place. The only option that gives you true freedom.”
The puppet’s hands ball into fists, nails digging into his palms. If she knew that, then why—
Unless her goal was to push him towards that choice. Unless she had sabotaged her own offer, which without that needless condition would have been the most appealing of the three, because she thought the nuisance’s offer was the one he should choose.
Gazing at her, he can’t tell if she’s capable of that kind of planning. She has a remarkably clueless face even now, but she can’t possibly be stupid, for all that he’s aware of more than a few reckless actions on her part.
And that pisses him off. If the choice he made was chosen for him, his creator wording her offer in such a way that it made her own sound worse and served to inflame his rage with his jailer’s beyond what it otherwise would have been…
He forcibly clears his mind.
It doesn’t matter. He’s still the one who chose. But…
“Am I really so weak that you don’t want me even now?” he asks, the question not one he had wanted to ask but one that spills from his lips nonetheless.
“What?” his creator asks, blinking in what seems like genuine incomprehension. “Weak?”
“Don’t play dumb,” the puppet snarls. “You abandoned me, you and your pet. I was too weak, so you cast me aside like trash! And even now, even after you came here and put on all of those stupid faces as if you cared, I’m still too weak. You just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be coming back to Inazuma, didn’t you?”
His creator is shaking her head, eyes wide and expression horrified.
“No!” she denies sharply. “That’s not… No! I… It’s true that when you shed tears in your sleep before I activated you I thought that your heart was too fragile for the duty I had intended for you, but… that’s precisely why I tried to set you free…”
The puppet watches in confusion as his creator staggers forward and kneels before him. She bows her head, but not before he sees tears slipping down her cheeks.
“I understand that what I did can never be undone,” she whispers. “I truly had only the best of intentions. I placed you in a safe location and gave you a feather token that would signify to anyone who saw it that you were of noble birth and should be treated accordingly… My intent was for you to live a life free from the burden of being my creation, one where you could be free and happy… but that’s not what happened.”
The puppet searches for words, but can find none. He doesn’t even know what this… confession, for lack of a better word… is making him feel.
“I owe you so much for my failure,” his creator continues. “Anything I can do to support you, I will… If you want to come back to Inazuma, I’ll make sure you’re able to live whatever life you choose. I just thought… that you would be happier away from a land so full of reminders of my existence.”
“…Who cares about those,” he mutters, tilting his hat down so that it hides his expression. “What if I just wanted a quiet place to call home?”
He doesn’t know what kind of face he’s making, but he knows that he doesn’t want anyone else to see it.
“Then you can have it,” his creator promises fiercely. “I will give it to you.”
“And if I wanted to trample you beneath my feet?” he asks gruffly.
“…This is just a puppet body,” his creator says hesitantly, a statement that raises all kinds of questions that he’s really not sure he wants the answers to. “But I can allow you into my Plane of Euthymia and allow you to vent your pain on my soul, if that will suffice.”
“…You’re not afraid I would kill you?” he asks incredulously.
“I’m…” his creator begins, then sighs. “I’m not that easy to kill. But… even so… No, I suppose I’m not.”
“Why not?” the puppet challenges, raising his hat so he can see her expression.
“…I don’t know,” his creator admits. “But…”
A helpless-looking smile breaks out over her face as she gazes up at him.
“Maybe I just want to have faith in the soft heart that I had hoped and failed to protect, despite everything it’s been through,” she says. “If I’m wrong, if that kindness really has been so thoroughly destroyed, and you do possess a means to kill me… is it any less than I’ve earned?”
The puppet works his mouth as he stares down at her, trying to find words.
“…Don’t you value your damn life?” he finally asks. “Why are you willing to bet it on something as stupid as my ‘kindness?’”
She doesn’t answer, but the look in her eyes tells him enough:
His creator places even less value on her life than he does on his own.
“Damn it,” he scoffs, turning away so he doesn’t have to keep seeing that face, doesn’t need to feel an aching sympathy for the creator who, whatever her reasoning, had cast him aside.
She’s right, damn her. For some reason, he doesn’t want her dead.
“And stop talking like I have a heart,” he adds. “We both know I don’t.”
“…What?” his creator asks, confusion obvious in her voice. “I suppose you don’t have a literal heart in the sense that a flesh-and-blood creature would… but your core is as much a heart as that of any god who takes on physical form. Why would you think otherwise…?”
“But… the Gnosis,” the puppet protests weakly. “It was…”
“Oh,” his creator sighs. “Oh. I see. Yes, you were designed to contain the Gnosis… but surely you know my feelings about that thing by now, right? Do you truly believe I had intended for it to play an important role for you, rather than simply be a ‘heart of god’ stored in you for safekeeping?”
The puppet feels the world spinning around him.
He hates to admit it, but it’s true. Buer wasn’t the first god he knows of to reject power.
His own creator did it first.
She had never wanted the Gnosis, and in a sense his very existence is evidence proving it. She had never wanted the Gnosis, she loathes Celestia and the Heavenly Principles, and…
And if those things are true…
Then why would the Gnosis have been intended as his true ‘heart?’
He feels a throbbing in his chest, and he clutches at it.
The first one who had told him of his lack of a heart had been Niwa, but the one who had looked inside of him and proven it, the one who told him what his actual purpose had been—
“Dottore told me,” he says weakly. “He said I had no heart within me, but a place to hold one… and what that heart was…”
“Dottore is a bag of assholes,” the nuisance chips in cheerfully. “If he’s talking, he’s spewing a big ol’ load of—”
“Yes, thank you, Lumine,” his jailer interrupts, voice mildly exasperated. “…Crudely though she put it, she’s right. Would you… like to see his memories from 500 years ago?”
“…Why would those be relevant to me?” the puppet asks, turning to regard his jailer in confusion.
“Because 500 years ago… the name he went by was ‘Escher,’” his jailer says softly.
The puppet chokes.
“You’re lying to me,” he accuses, the words half-whisper, half-shout. “Show me the memories.”
His jailer gives him a nod, eyes filled with pity that makes him want to throttle her.
“Let the past be known,” his jailer whispers, and—
History unfolds in front of his eyes, a history he’d known, but this time from myriad perspectives. Katsuragi’s, Mikoshi’s, Niwa’s, and—
“Dottore,” the puppet whispers, voice shaking. “Dottore!”
He’s never felt such rage, or such self-disgust. All of the things he’s done, all of the ways he’d betrayed his friends’ belief in him… all at the behest of the one who had ruined everything.
What purpose is there in continuing to exist like this? As a monster who’s destroyed everything he should have loved?
No. There’s one purpose.
Revenge. Dottore still lives, and that’s a sin that must be corrected, even at the cost of his life.
…Even at the cost of his pride.
“Almighty Shogun,” the puppet whispers as the world returns around them. He falls to his knees and clasps his hands in supplication. “I have a plea.”
His creator gazes down at him with wide eyes.
“What is it?” she asks quietly.
“Please, destroy Dottore,” the puppet begs. “I’m not strong enough, and unworthy of being avenged, but the things he’s done… the harm he did to your nation… the abuse he inflicted on your innocent people who were far more worthy than I could ever be… Please, oh Almighty Shogun, draw your blade and strike him down!”
His creator opens her mouth, but the nuisance chooses this moment to interrupt.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” the nuisance says, waving her arms wildly as she runs between them. “Time out! Ei, I know you’re about to agree, but as much as I’d love to see you give that prick what he deserves, it would come off as unprompted. You got away with killing Signora, but if you killed Dottore too, it’d start a war with Snezhnaya… Can Inazuma afford that right now? Do you want to stain your sword with so much unnecessary blood?”
His creator staggers, a shattered look on her face.
“But… The debt I owe…” she whispers.
“I’ll fulfill it,” the nuisance declares, thumping herself on the chest. “And I’ll do it with him.”
She turns to gaze down at the kneeling puppet. The wild and confident look on her face takes his breath away, makes him wonder if she even knows the meaning of the word ‘fear.’
“We’ll kill him together,” the nuisance says, a statement of fact rather than a promise. She stretches her hand down to the puppet and smiles powerfully. “Neither of us is strong enough right now, but we can get strong enough that together he won’t stand a chance. Do you really want to let someone else take your revenge for you?”
No. No he doesn’t, but he’d thought the idea of getting revenge himself impossible. He knows Dottore’s strength better than perhaps anyone else in the Fatui, knows the mad doctor has far surpassed the level of a human. It’s not to nearly the level that Dottore would need to reach to be able to withstand the true depths of his creator’s strength, but the puppet had thought it too far for him to stand a chance.
But gazing past the nuisance’s outstretched hand at her idiotic, confident expression…
He can’t help the wild grin on his own face as he takes her hand and allows her to pull him to his feet.
“All right,” he says. “We’ll do it your way.”
“Be careful,” his jailer warns. “I sensed it when I spoke with him. He—”
“Has multiple selves,” the puppet interrupts. “His Segments. I know. We’ll need to kill every last one of them to get rid of him.”
He’s rather looking forward to the hunt now, actually.
His jailer nods.
“…I’m afraid he’ll come back,” she says quietly. “I was able to bluff him into leaving, but…”
She holds out her hand and a pair of chess pieces manifest on her palm.
“He’ll still want these,” she finishes. “He didn’t want to risk the Heavenly Principles interfering if I destroyed them and so I was able to drive him off. He’s clever and dangerous, though — even with the risk involved, I don’t think he would have actually left if he wasn’t already in the mood to play with his food. The idea of tricking the ‘God of Wisdom’ no doubt appeals to him greatly…”
His jailer sighs and shakes her head.
“He’s just been waiting and making me squirm with the knowledge that he’s still lurking, waiting to steal them from me,” she continues softly. “The odds he’ll manage to force me to give them up in the near future are very high. I know my limits all too well, and unfortunately for me… so does he.”
The sheer disgust on his creator’s face as she stares at the Gnoses does more than anything to convince the puppet that she truly hadn’t ever desired that power.
“I don’t want it,” his creator says, acid dripping from her tone. “But I suppose it would be better if I were to take it back and put it somewhere safe rather than leave you as a priority target with two. I can think of a few locations that the Fatui would have difficulty infiltrating but where I won’t need to see the damned thing.”
“…All right,” his jailer agrees, handing the Electro Gnosis to the older god. “I… don’t really want to keep the Dendro Gnosis either, but I don’t see that I have much choice…”
“Give it to me,” the nuisance suggests brightly.
As much as it frustrates him to have the same response as his creator and jailer, the puppet can’t help staring incredulously at the nuisance.
“Lumine,” his jailer says carefully. “You’re going after the Fatui.”
“Exactly,” the nuisance agrees. “So they’d never think I had a Gnosis! Nobody sane would let a mortal who can’t even use a Gnosis take it with her into battle against the ones looking for it.”
“…I hate to admit it, but there’s a bit of sense there,” his jailer mumbles. “But are you sure you can stop them from finding it?”
“Oh definitely,” the nuisance assures her. “I’ll just put it in my teapot.”
The looks of realization on the faces of both of the gods do nothing to help the puppet with his own confusion.
“Teapot?” he asks. “What?”
“Oh, a really cool Adeptus over in Liyue gave me a magic teapot,” the nuisance explains, beaming. “It’s got a whole little world inside!”
“It’s a junkyard,” his creator says flatly. “Once it’s inside there, not even Lumine is going to be able to find it again. I pity the Fatui if they were to gain access and attempt to sift through everything she’s shoved in there.”
The puppet can only blink as the nuisance laughs sheepishly and rubs the back of her head. The existence of such a teapot had not been in any of the Fatui’s intelligence reports. It does seem likely that anything stored in there would evade their sight… and doubly so if it really is as much of a mess as his creator claims.
“…The Fatui don’t know about it,” he confirms. “Not unless they hid it from me.”
“All right, then,” his jailer says, nodding slowly. “Lumine, I’m sorry to put such a dangerous burden on your shoulders, but you’re probably my only hope.”
“It’s fine!” the nuisance dismisses cheerfully as she accepts the Dendro Gnosis. “I do, like, twenty things a day that are at least this dangerous.”
Somehow, the puppet doesn’t doubt it.
“Anyway!” the nuisance announces, spinning around to stare at him. “You need a new name if I’m gonna be traveling with you! I can’t just keep thinking of you as ‘doll boy.’”
“…You know what?” the puppet huffs, rolling his eyes. “I don’t even care. You give me a name, if it matters to you so much.”
The nuisance squeaks in surprise and leaps back to cling to his creator’s side with wide, terrified eyes.
“Um, uh, er… STINKY!” she yells.
The incredulous stares from everyone in the room result in a blush quickly spreading across the nuisance’s face.
“STINKY was my brother’s hamster,” she mumbles… or, well. Mostly mumbles. The first word is still half-shouted. “I’m bad at names… What about Mr. Flufflebutt? He was my rabbit… he had a really bad temper.”
The puppet lets out a disgusted scoff.
“Stop trying to name me after your dead pets,” he growls. “I’m not a pet, and I’m not history.”
The nuisance detaches herself from his creator immediately and nods, expression strangely serious.
“That’s exactly right,” she says. “So why are you asking me, who only knows your past, what your future is going to look like? That path is yours to walk, little doll. Don’t ask me, tell me — what name will illuminate the darkness ahead of you?”
The puppet grits his teeth at her description of him, but holds his tongue. Her intent is to get a rise out of him, he knows that much, and he refuses to play her game.
“You’ve seen far more worlds than me,” he admits. “Your knowledge of names must surpass mine.”
“True,” the nuisance agrees mildly. “I know a lotta names… but I don’t know who you wanna be.”
The puppet bites his lip so hard that he draws blood, his eyes darting to his creator against his will.
“I want… to overcome my past,” he admits slowly. “To make up for my sins. To… be better, and to help others, the way I was once helped.”
The nuisance nods slowly, her own eyes drifting to his creator as well.
“I once walked in a world,” she says softly, “where faith was placed in the teachings of a man who had reached an enlightened state. He claimed that the world itself was an illusion, an eternal wheel of suffering, and only by escaping that illusion could one be free and know true peace. To continue to live is to continue to suffer.”
“…A belief not unfamiliar to me,” his creator admits, bowing her head.
“His teachings claimed that he was neither the first nor last who would serve in his role as teacher, because he alone couldn’t save everyone,” the nuisance continues. “And in the language of a land much like Inazuma, the name of the one who would one day succeed him is ‘Miroku.’ Like the great teacher before him, he would live many lives as he toiled towards reaching enlightenment until the day came that he too could teach.”
“Miroku,” the puppet says, rolling the name on his tongue. “Hm.”
“You’re nothing at all like the Miroku of the stories,” the nuisance adds helpfully. “You’re way grumpier and more violent. But… a name one chooses to take is, I think, an aspiration and a self-definition.”
An aspiration…
The puppet doubts he can ever live up to the name, if it holds the significance that the nuisance claims. However…
Toiling through many lives in an illusionary world of endless suffering, all to eventually see through to the truth… the successor to one who had done the same, but whose efforts had failed to provide the desired salvation for all…
“I like it,” Miroku says, his first honest smile in countless years breaking out over his face. “Thanks.”
The nuisance grins back at him, and he thinks…
Maybe that stupid expression is growing on him. Just a little.
“All right then,” the nuisance says brightly, skipping over and slinging her arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get going! We’ve got adventures to see and doctors to kill! First stop: yet another part of this stupid desert!”
Miroku laughs, shaking his head as he allows her to drag him forward.
He doesn’t know what the future holds, and he’s not sure how much help a near-powerless doll can be on a mission like the nuisance’s…
But he thinks he wants to find out.