"Where did the missing people go?"
Yasen didn't answer. Instead, he roared inwardly toward the heavens: "Shigetsu! Remember! You were indeed born from the consciousness within a puppet body modeled after the Raiden Shogun! You truly do have the power to command that body—"
The Wentian Sword had already run him through. Victor Wang gave it a slight twist, making him nearly collapse from the pain.
"What are you doing?!"
"Hahahaha! You ask about the missing people? Aren't they right here?" Trembling, Yasen raised a hand and pointed to the puppets under Tenkyuu Shigetsu's control. "We captured twenty-one. Ten of them are right here! The rest are quietly waiting in Inazuma City. If you remember where, you can go collect their corpses."
"You—! Don't you dare joke with me! I might just cut you clean in half!"
"I'm not joking, I'm not! You should know—power always comes with a price!"
"You bastard!"
"Graaahhhh!!"
The killing intent in Victor Wang surged wildly, clouding his mind, flooding his sword hand.
"Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill…"
He heard the killing-intent persona whispering endlessly in his ears. By the time he came to, his sword had already carved a circle inside Yasen's body. The man's face twisted in agony, cold sweat pouring, his teeth nearly cracking.
"Tell me how to restore them!"
"Heheheh… Shigetsu! You can bring out the puppet's full potential—"
Victor kicked him away, checking quickly. Just unconscious—not dead. He still needed answers from Yasen about the South Wing, about Celestia, about the missing people.
"Tch! I should never have given you a chance to talk!"
Victor's primary consciousness seized the sword from his killing persona, steadied himself, then raised it for a final strike on Yasen.
Of course, he didn't actually stab. The killing persona—possessing nothing but slaughter instinct—was too stupid, and so it was sealed away once more.
His mind finally cleared from the haze. Looking around: Yae Miko was driving back the Raiden puppets in a counterattack, lightning against lightning in a dazzling clash. Kazuha had turned his blade against Isshin, who ignored Yasen's defeat and focused solely on reaching the Sacred Sakura. And behind ten puppets, Tenkyuu Shigetsu was whispering to herself.
"Born from a puppet body…?"
Shigetsu clutched her head in anguish.
"That's not me… I remember… That was…!"
The other puppets wavered with her emotions. Yae Miko pounced—snapping one with her fangs, smashing another with her claws. Their outer skins shredded, but the true bodies beneath bore no mark.
"Yasen, even now you're twisting my memories? If I recall correctly… I already died. I was killed by Scaramouche… But one thing you said wasn't a lie—I do have the power to control this puppet body!"
"I am Tenkyuu Shigetsu, current Puppetmaster of the South Wing! A once-in-five-centuries prodigy of mental arts in Teyvat!"
"Even if I am a creation of the Raiden Shogun, in my hands—I will be obedient no more!"
The Electro Vision in her hairpiece blazed. After a flare like a falling star, it shone at its fullest.
An unspeakable pressure stirred in the air. Lightning plasma burst around Shigetsu and her ten puppets, making approach impossible. Sensing danger, Yae Miko released her grip and retreated to the shrine barrier. Isshin and Kazuha paused their fight. Shrine maidens looked up anxiously at the sky.
The ten puppets rose, forming a circle. Each traced a glowing rune of violet lightning. From the center, a spear of pure thunder condensed into Shigetsu's raised hand.
"I shall deliver divine judgment."
The spear hurled down at the barrier. Both born of Electro, it melted into the shield on contact. Ripples spread outward, brighter at the impact point—but no breach.
Only Yae Miko's grave face betrayed its true power.
"You are still a step below a god."
"Ahahahaha!"
Shigetsu laughed wildly. From the storm clouds she drew down more thunder-spears, slamming them upon the barrier without pause. Ripples spread like a frantic melody. Yae Miko could no longer sit idle—her fur tips glowed violet as she leapt, blocking with claws and back.
Isshin watched calmly, waiting for the barrier to shatter.
Victor and Kazuha launched upward assaults, but wind blades and stone spears alike dissolved in the storm disk around the puppets.
In sheer strength, Shigetsu was the strongest of their foes. From the beginning, she had been meant as the weapon to suppress the Raiden's familiar.
Should I use Starfall?
But she wasn't bound. She could dodge it, and that would be wasted effort. How could he help Miko?
"What's happening?!"
At last, Kamisato Ayato and Beidou arrived, drawn by the chaos, dragging with them the Demonic Ring battered and missing an arm.
"You're just in time. We need a way to deal with that woman in the sky. If she keeps attacking—"
The Sacred Sakura would be doomed. The situation was clear: Yae Miko, though resistant to lightning, was scorched black, the stench of burnt fur and flesh thick in the air.
Ayato and Beidou's probing attacks vanished into nothing. Shigetsu never even glanced at them. Her eyes fixed on the barrier, though her Vision's glow dimmed, its luster fading by half.
"So… my existence persists because of this, does it?"
Abruptly, she lowered her hand. Fingering her Vision, she realized—unlike this body and face, this was truly hers.
Her fractured memories pieced together at last:
She had coveted the Raiden Shogun's failed puppets, traced them to the Shakkei Pavilion—supposed grave of discarded creations. By fate's cruelty, she crossed paths with Scaramouche that very day.
At that time, news of Morax's death shook Liyue, with Osial's attack following. Though doubtful of the Archon's fall, Puppetmaster and Yasen had gone to investigate. She alone had died, forgotten, in the Pavilion.
Until Yasen restored her with fragments preserved in her Vision, merging them with a Raiden puppet, weaving false rebirth from altered memories.
But the truth remained: she had died. And from the moment she recalled, her countdown had begun.
"Heh… Yasen, look at you, pitiful. Since you crave Celestia's annotations so dearly—I'll grant them to you."
The sky warped into a colossal figure, skin purple-black, heart thundering like drums. Lightning surged, its flesh split, violet blood raining down, thickening into a storm.
Not satisfied, the giant tore open its own heart, pouring molten lightning as a sea of thunder.
If her earlier strikes were short of the Raiden Shogun, now, fused with eleven puppets of the same type, she surpassed her.
"Brother, I think this woman wants to destroy the Sacred Sakura…"
"I never trusted the South Wing. Let them tear each other apart. Even if they fail to hold it—I have my ways."
Isshin and the Demonic Ring retreated to watch.
The North Wing and Yae Miko had no such luxury. Shigetsu's attack was a pure flood of energy, slow but unstoppable. The tree could not move. To protect it, they could only endure.
"So, this is why I hate these desperate battles the most. Fighting with your life to protect something… not my style at all…"
The Sacred Sakura—her last memory of five hundred years ago.
The Narukami Shrine, her entrusted treasure.
The shrine maidens, the fleeting friends, the amusing mortals.
Yae Miko roared, inelegant, her body swelling to shield the thunder sea with her back. For a time she held—but the weight and storm overwhelmed her. She crashed down, shrinking instantly.
With nothing left to block, the lightning sea struck the barrier. It wasn't long before Yae Miko screamed—the shield shattered.
"Witness it! The power that felled Haishan itself!"
Beidou roared. A colossal phantom beast erupted from her, circling the shrine, forming a barrier with its body, contesting the storm.
But Haishan was an ocean beast. Against a sea of thunder—it was doomed.
Beidou paled. Victor hastily raised a Geo shield—but it crumbled like paper. Ayato and Kazuha layered their own defenses.
With the respite, Beidou burst forth again and again, only to shatter.
Victor grimaced. He hadn't wanted this—to test himself at the cost of others' lives. His shields broke too easily.
The thunder sea fell slowly—slow enough to flee.
Flat on the ground, Yae Miko rasped: "If you can't stop it—run. It's just a tree…"
"Hold out a little longer! She's burning out up there!" Beidou snarled.
By nature, Geo was the sturdiest element, unyielding, unmatched by Dendro or Cryo constructs.
Even if Electro shields held best, surely his work could count for something!
But Beidou's shield broke again…
"Yaaahhh—!!"
Pouring every ounce of spirit, Victor raised a half-stone, half-gold mountain. Not pure enough, but sturdier than any shield. Still—the sea gnawed it away.
He swung the Ends of Beginning and End, resetting himself five seconds. Beidou and Miko were drained. Raising his left hand, he thought—
The Sacred Sakura, a seed Raiden Makoto had entrusted to Raiden Ei five hundred years forward. With it, Inazuma had survived calamity. If destroyed before it was ever planted—what then?
Even if nothing changed, he couldn't gamble.
He could have told the Shogun when he learned of the enemy's intent. But he hadn't. And now—the tree must live.
He thought of calling Alice, maybe—if these foes were truly from beyond the border, she might help him once for free.
Victor sighed.
But Kazuha cried out: "The thunder sea… it's fading!"
He looked up in shock. The condensed liquid lightning dispersed quietly into the world, too pure to explode.
Shigetsu had spent her last breath. Her Vision shattered like glass, scattering to dust. She and the eleven puppets plummeted from the sky.