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If you were to look up at Tenshukaku in the late afternoon, as sakura blossoms drifted lazily through the air amid a rosy-orange sunset, you might catch a glimpse of a fair-faced young man leaning against the railing of the upper levels, gazing out across Inazuma City with a lonely, wistful expression on his face.
Those who have seen this youth might call him “the caged bird of Tenshukaku,” but he did in fact have a proper name. It was Raiden Kunimitsu.
He couldn’t recall exactly who had given him this name. Perhaps it had been his mother, before she entered her long seclusion. It definitely wasn’t the Shogun who had taken charge in her place. As long as Kunimitsu stayed within the confines of Tenshukaku and did not venture outside, the shogun could hardly care less what he did, and certainly wouldn’t have wasted time in coming up with a name for him.
Perhaps it was that kitsune woman, the one who used to come by often in the past, but who was only rarely seen at Tenshukaku these days. Though, he doubted she was the one to give him a name— she didn’t seem to be particularly fond of him, anyway.
Regardless of who had given him his name, he at least knew he had it.
He had a purpose, as well— at least, he thought he did at one point. He’d failed, he believed, been deemed “unsuitable.” That was why he was sent away. Why he spent a hundred years slumbering in that pavilion that knew no passage of time. The memories turned to a haze of mist, and by the time the swordsmiths found him, he had very little recollection of why he was created, and little problem at all playing “human.” Of course, when the Shogun had sent her people to collect him not long after, he gradually regained the memories of those early days.
He wasn’t told much. Just shut up inside Tenshukaku and forbidden from leaving. Though in appearance, the Shogun was identical to his mother, and in personality, at least as much as he could recall, she was also fairly similar, he could tell that she was a puppet like he was. Of course, he tried to ask about what had happened, how things had come to be this way. All the Shogun told him was that their creator had retreated into seclusion to maintain “eternity.” She didn’t care to explain any further than that.
Kunimitsu wasn’t sure why he was left intact, especially if he was just going to be kept confined in the pavilion and not permitted to go anywhere or do anything. He asked about it, eventually, one day when the Shogun wasn’t particularly busy. She told him that he was a “defective prototype,” and that any purpose he may have once been designed for had long been rendered void. His mother had granted him freedom, but the Shogun had learned that his freedom threatened “eternity,” so she’d ordered his retrieval— but their creator’s will that he not be destroyed remained in force, leaving them in the present stalemate.
It was a lonely existence. Visitors to Tenshukaku weren’t all that common— and visitors that paid him any mind were even less so. He never saw Niwa Hisahide, Escher, and the others again, only learning through eavesdropping on a samurai bringing a report from Tatarasuna that the swordsmiths had all either disappeared or perished during a crisis there, turning on one another in a senseless slaughter that no one remained to explain.
Kunimitsu cried that night, but there was no one to listen to him, no one to care.
Friendship became something utterly unknown. His only companions were the stories in the books he read, the one thing he would request on a regular basis, tearing through every volume in the library at record speed. Sometimes, he would take a training katana to the upper levels of the pavilion and practice the sword dance he had learned back then. He thought about becoming something… someone more than just some kind of cursed relic set on a shelf in a vault, deemed untouchable because of some vague and unknown threat.
He discovered that even puppets could dream.
And that their dreams, like those of humans, could go unfulfilled.
As for Kunimitsu, who had once been called Kabukimono, he dreamed of being “human.” Of having a family, of having a true life to call his own— but all those things were out of his reach.
He could only go on with his endless, lonely existence.
And then, one day after long years had passed, a group of people from the far north arrived. A diplomatic delegation, they claimed, hoping to promote friendship between the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya and the Raiden Shogun. This alone was not enough to sway the Shogun, but when the leader of this delegation offered a solution to the environmental phenomena that plagued the islands, she decided to listen to his proposal.
The Fatui came to and from Tenshukaku on a regular basis. Kunimitsu watched them with fascination from the upper levels as they crossed the courtyard. If visitors were uncommon, it was even more unusual that foreigners would come here, and as someone relentlessly curious about the world beyond, Kunimitsu couldn’t help but creep quietly through the corridors, ear pressed against the wall to try to listen in on those meetings. There were many ways to stabilize the disasters caused by the remnants of Orobashi’s fall, the turquoise-haired man who seemed to be the leader explained, and he and his colleagues had spent a great deal of time and effort researching the phenomena. So long as he were granted access to research, and permitted to operate as needed, then surely the Tatarigami could be quelled and the outlying islands would become inhabitable again.
The shogun was interested— the first time that Kunimitsu had actually seen her interested.
Kunimitsu was also interested, despite his present circumstances having little to do with the other islands. After all, he’d once been at Tatarasuna, and the disasters there had claimed the lives of the people he had called friends. He’d witnessed the beginnings of that tragedy, the way Niwa’s brow had furrowed after inspecting the Mikage Furnace one day shortly before the shogun’s people had come to take Kunimitsu away, the hushed discussions he’d had with Escher that the puppet could only somewhat overhear and understood even less.
Perhaps, maybe, he could be of use to this foreigner, who for some reason felt strangely familiar to him.
Luckily, he had never been directly forbidden from speaking with the Shogun’s guests— but that didn’t mean it was necessarily going to be easy to find a way to meet with them.
In the end, though, Kunimitsu didn’t need to worry about that.
The visitor would find him.
It was an ordinary day, while he sat in the library with a scroll unfurled in front of him, reading. He did a lot of reading these days, though he didn’t really pay attention to it anymore. He’d already read every book and scroll a dozen times over by now. It was just to pass the endless, lonely hours.
He heard the footsteps approaching the library’s door, but didn’t pay them any mind— after all, he was usually ignored, so there was no reason to think this time would be any different. Then, the footsteps stopped just behind him. He felt a prickle on the back of his neck as he straightened up.
“Well… what do we have here?” a pleasant, foreign voice cut through the silence of the library.
Kunimitsu turned around, standing up to see the tall man with the mask and turquoise hair, the one the Fatui called “Lord Harbinger,” and “the Doctor.”
“Ah… I…” he began, caught a bit off-guard. The man’s footsteps had sounded familiar. “I’m just… reading,” he finally decided on.
“I can see that,” the harbinger replied. He tilted his head, a slight smile upon his lips which Kunimitsu couldn’t quite tell whether it was friendly or menacing. “Now, you’re a rather interesting specimen, aren’t you?”
Kunimitsu didn’t know how to answer that.
“You do indeed resemble the Shogun, quite closely,” he went on, reaching out and lifting Kunimitsu’s chin with a single finger. “You wouldn’t happen to be one of her creations, would you?”
“I…” Kunimitsu began again, feeling a bit flustered. How had he guessed? After just seeing him up close for a few seconds…
“Ah— in truth, I’m a researcher at heart,” the Doctor explained, “so I’m somewhat familiar with things like you.”
“Like… me…” Kunimitsu was still finding it difficult to speak to this man. His gaze drifted toward the ground. “Is there… something I can help you with?”
The Doctor seemed curious, glancing toward the scroll that Kunimitsu had spread out on the low table. “You’re looking for something to do with your time, aren’t you?” he mused. “The Raiden Shogun has granted me access to this library and agreed to collaborate with my organization. You seem to be a well-read young man. Do you happen to know if there are any records here about the energy phenomena on Kannazuka and Yashiori Island?”
Kunimitsu, eager to actually be able to help with something, nodded his head, and hurriedly found the few reports that existed from back during the incident and the years that followed, bundling them up in his arms and carrying them back to the Doctor.
Over the days that followed, the harbinger returned over and over, and Kunimitsu took to waiting there for him. After all, it had been years since he’d really had much attention, and though the man could be a bit intimidating, he was also perfectly amiable— the best company that Kunimitsu had had since he was taken away from his companions in Tatarasuna. Even more so, if he could help resolve those issues…
Eventually, he became rather used to the Doctor’s visits, and began to open up to him, freely chatting about a good many things— indeed, he fell under the impression that they really had struck up some kind of friendship.
“I’ve recently set up a laboratory on Yashiori Island to study the phenomena there in more detail,” the Doctor said one day. “Would you like to come with me and have a look, Kunimitsu?”
Upon hearing that offer, Kunimitsu straightened up, eagerness lighting up his face…
And then, just as quickly as that eagerness arrived, it vanished, snuffed out like a candle flame.
“I would, but… I’m not permitted to leave Tenshukaku,” he explained, sadly.
“Is that so?” the Doctor mused. “Well, what if I tell you that I’ve already gotten permission to bring you along to assist me with my research?”
“You… have?” Kunimitsu’s eyes widened.
The Doctor nodded. “Indeed.”
Then, for the first time in years, Tenshukaku’s caged bird finally stepped outside of its walls. He was taken by boat to the neighboring island, and brought to a facility constructed within the boundaries of an old domain, not all that different from the Shakkei Pavilion he had once been sealed inside. From the moment he set foot on the shore, Kunimitsu could feel an ominous aura in the crackling lightning above, striking several times too close to comfort.
“I wonder,” the Doctor mused, seemingly uncaring as the raindrops around them electrified, crackling as they fell, “Do you have any command over the elements?”
Kunimitsu looked down at his hands, then shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Hmm… how curious,” the Doctor tilted his head. “One such as yourself, a creation of the Raiden Shogun, should be capable of harnessing the power of Electro.”
“It’s because… I was never granted that power,” Kunimitsu replied, feeling ashamed. “I was… defective.”
“I see,” the Doctor stated. Then, he placed a hand behind Kunimitsu’s shoulders, guiding him through the gates into the facility. “Fortunately, I am of the belief that any defect can be corrected,” he said. “Perhaps, through our work together, you’ll be able to reach a potential that you hadn’t before thought possible.”
Kunimitsu looked up at him, brows raised as he felt a small jolt of curiosity and excitement within him. “Do you truly think so?” he asked.
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. “We can’t know until we get started, now can we?”
He guided Kunimitsu deeper into the facility. All the while, despite the excitement of finally being freed from his cage, Kunimitsu couldn’t help but feel like there was something wrong here. A strange mist clung to the entire facility, and as he stepped through it, it almost sounded like he could hear dark whispers, speaking in tongues even he couldn’t comprehend. His skin prickled with it, his mind recoiled from it, and no matter how he tried to ignore the feelings, he couldn’t chase away that persistent unsettledness.
The Doctor assured him that it was nothing to be worried about— that researching such ominous phenomena as the remains of dead gods was bound to bring about unsettling feelings. Kunimitsu tried to feel reassured, pushing aside his mind’s warnings as he followed the harbinger into the depths of the facility.
The research laboratory itself was sealed away from the rest of the complex, and once inside, the ominous feelings weren’t quite so prevalent, and Kunimitsu was able to relax. The Doctor began, then, to explain his experiments— and that Kunimitsu’s puppet body was key.
“It isn’t so much that you were never granted power,” the Doctor told him, “but that your power was denied to you. I suspect that it lies within you still, sealed away beyond your reach— if that power can be reclaimed, then perhaps you may yet be able to contend with this contamination and overpower it, bringing peace and prosperity back to these unfortunate islands.”
To the puppet who had long been deemed a useless, defective prototype, hearing that he may indeed be able to bring truth to the meaning of his name, to be something of value to his nation instead of something to be hidden away, that was more than enough to make him agree to the harbinger’s proposal. In the days that followed, he willingly submitted himself to experiments and procedures, each more painful and distressing than the last as his body was cut open and examined, as fragments of crystal marrow were spliced into his bones of white wood for the Doctor to study his body’s reaction, before they were inevitably extracted again before he could be consumed by the dead god’s will.
It was a torturous experience.
And yet, Kunimitsu learned to endure it.
He would rather be useful, he decided, than forever caged and left in some forgotten corner to gather dust.
Then, one day, he learned that it was all a lie.
The facility’s purpose was not to purge the lands of corruption, but instead to harness that corruption for the benefit of the Fatui. It was not meant to help Inazuma and its people, but instead to serve as a base from which to stoke the tensions between Narukami and Watatsumi’s people, to plunge the land into civil war. After waking up early from one of the Doctor’s experiments, he’d gotten up to wander around the facility for a while, and stumbled upon a vast manufacturing operation, where the crystal marrow was forged into sinister crystals containing elemental power— Delusions, the mockery of Visions.
It was here that Kunimitsu realized that, all along, he’d been nothing more than a pawn in whatever the Fatui’s grand designs had been.
He fled the factory immediately, still dressed in nothing more than a thin robe as he ran down to the shoreline in the middle of the night and commandeered a small rowboat. The night was stormy, and the little boat was tossed by giant waves, even capsizing just as he came in sight of Narukami Island. It was a good thing that he didn’t need to breathe, otherwise he would have drowned— but eventually, he made it to shore, stole some dry clothes, and ran as swiftly as he could up the stone stairs to Tenshukaku.
The guards stopped him at the gate, not letting him pass through even as he desperately told them he had to see the Shogun as quickly as possible— until, eventually, the Shogun herself appeared, her cold gaze leveled upon the smaller puppet as he struggled in the grasp of the Doushin who had caught hold of his arms when he tried to push his way through.
“You,” the Shogun said, unamused. “Where have you been?”
Kunimitsu’s eyes widened. Had she really not known where he was? But the Doctor had said…
Never mind that— there were more important matters.
“Almighty Shogun, please listen to me!” he cried out. “Those emissaries from Snezhnaya, the Fatui Harbinger named Il Dottore, they’re not here to help at all! They’re trying to destabilize the nation, to drive our people to civil war, to harness the Tatarigami for their own means—”
“Enough,” the Shogun cut him off. “There is no need for you to concern yourself with matters of the nation.”
He was half-led, half-dragged back inside Tenshukaku, nearly in a panic the whole time. This time, instead of allowing him to roam freely, he was placed in his room with a shackle around his wrist, binding him in place. The Shogun dismissed the guards, then turned to face him.
“You will stay here, or you will be placed in dormancy,” she said, coldly.
“Wait!” Kunimitsu cried. “Please— I need to speak to my mother. She needs to know about this.”
The Shogun narrowed her eyes, brow furrowed. “I will not allow you to hide the transgession of your escape by fabricating conspiracies,” she said, firmly. “Furthermore, you have no mother— only a creator, one who has since designated you purposeless and redundant. There is no need to contact her on your behalf, and no need for you to question my ability to uphold eternity.”
Kunimitsu felt his throat tightening, his body trembling. “But, I’m not lying! I’m not fabricating anything! Just… send someone out to Yashiori Island, see for yourself what they’re doing!”
“I’ve already told you, there’s no need,” the Shogun shook her head. “If a problem arises that requires me to take action, then I will raise my sword when needed. At the moment, the only threat to eternity that I see is you.”
Hearing this, Kunimitsu froze, feeling a chill rush through him from the inside out. He didn’t say anything more.
The Shogun gave him one last, imperious glance. “Kunimitsu. You are not to ever leave this pavilion again.”
And with that, she left, shutting the door tightly behind her.
Kunimitsu huddled on the ground, his arms wrapping tightly around his knees. First, he was afraid. Afraid for the future of Inazuma, afraid for his own future… but then, as time went on, his fear slowly began to turn to dejection, and dejection to anger. He had been ignored for centuries, shut up inside Tenshukaku without so much as a single companion, just because for some reason, he was deemed a “threat.” Then, when he tried to warn the Shogun about a real threat, he was simply pushed aside and locked back up, his words falling on deaf ears as the Shogun refused to even consider his warning.
He was tired, tired of being ignored, tired of being shoved aside, tired of being discounted as a threat that needed to be contained, but at the same time a failure incapable of accomplishing anything.
In the Doctor’s laboratory over these past weeks, he’d learned to endure pain like it was nothing.
So he hardly even flinched when he grabbed hold of his own hand and crushed it, letting him slip free from the shackle on his wrist. He broke through the window without hesitation and climbed to the rooftop, running as fast as he could along the ridge of the roof and throwing himself from its peak, arms outstretched as he plummeted toward the ocean below.
He tried to bend into a dive in midair, but still hit the water hard enough that he could feel half of his internal mechanisms breaking at once, his consciousness flickering and fading.
He was fished out of the water by a small Fatui research vessel mere moments later. The Doctor set him back to rights just enough for him to regain consciousness.
“I was wondering where you’d run off to, little bird,” the harbinger murmured. “I suppose I should have expected that you would return to your cage. But it seems you just couldn’t forsake your freedom once you had a taste.”
Kunimitsu raised his head, his vision still blurry. “You… what do you want with me?”
“Quite simple, really— a long-term collaboration,” the Doctor replied.
“But… why would I… work with you? When you’re…”
“Because,” the Doctor told him, “the work that I am pursuing is far greater than Inazuma, greater than any endeavor in the history of humanity. And you, little puppet, could play a key role.”
“Why me?” Kunimitsu asked. “And why would I… help someone like you, even if that is true?”
“You asked for this, didn’t you?” the Doctor shrugged. “You wished for something more than that pitiful life, trapped in your cage. Well, now you have that chance. You can become far greater than some discarded prototype. You can become a god in your own right.”
He chuckled slightly, rising to his feet, as Kunimitsu lifted his freshly-repaired hand and slowly moved the fingers.
“It’s your decision, of course, little puppet. Will you cling to the hope that those who have thrown you away will someday have a change of heart? Or will you come with me, and help to shape the future?” the Doctor asked slowly walking toward the boat’s cabin. “You may have some time to think it over, if you’d like.”
Kunimitsu pressed his lips together, then set his brow and pushed himself up from the deck, standing upright.
“There’s no need,” he said. “I already know my answer.”
The Doctor paused, turning back with a slight tilt of his head. Then, a smile slowly spread across his thin lips.
“You’ve made the right choice. Welcome, new comrade.”