The quiet, warm picnic in the heart of eternity eventually came to an end. Ren, his stomach full of dango and his mind full of fantastic stories, knew it was time to go.
"I have to leave now," he said, carefully gathering his books. "But I'll come back again soon, okay? And I'll bring new novels. The Yae Publishing House releases a new volume of "Pretty Please, Kitsune Guuji" next week. I think you'll like it."
He gave her a final, cheerful wave, and with a quiet, mental request, Ei opened the portal. With a soft, gentle blink, Ren was gone, leaving the Plane of Euthymia to return to its perfect, profound silence.
But something was different.
Ei sat alone in the vast, twilight expanse, the lingering, sweet taste of dango still on her lips. She looked around at her inner world, at the endless, featureless plane and the eternal, purple sky. And she noticed, for the first time in five hundred years, a subtle, almost imperceptible, change.
The light. It seemed… brighter. The deep, melancholic twilight had lifted, just a fraction, into a softer, warmer shade of lavender. It was a change so small it was almost nonexistent, but in a realm defined by its absolute, unchanging nature, it was a seismic, world-altering event.
"Your will is wavering."
The voice, the familiar, emotionless, and divine tone of the Shogun, echoed through the plane. It was not a question. It was a statement of fact.
"The stillness of this realm has been disturbed," the puppet's voice continued, a silent, unseen presence. "Is this the first sign of erosion? A deviation from the path? It is a change. A principle that stands in direct opposition to Eternity."
Ei remained silent, her gaze distant. She looked at the single, perfect photograph Ren had given her, which now floated in the air before her, a captured, eternal moment of warmth and joy.
"You could have killed him," Ei replied, her voice a soft, contemplative whisper. "In the throne room, you held the power. You could have erased him, and the variable would have been eliminated. But you didn't. So, it seems I am not the only one."
"Deflection of the topic does not alter the principle," the Shogun's voice replied, its logic as cold and as sharp as a blade. "This one abides by the rules of Eternity. As long as an object does not pose a direct, immediate threat to the eternal state of Inazuma, this one will not act against it without reason. The boy, for all his gifted and anomalous tendencies, is a mortal. He is a fleeting variable, a temporary disturbance. He is not, in himself, a threat to Eternity."
A heavy, profound silence fell as the Shogun delivered her final, chilling conclusion. "But that is not the case for the one within. Should the heart of this realm, should your will, begin to waver… should you begin to change… that is a threat to Eternity. And this one, as the guardian of that Eternity, will have no choice but to step forward. To cleanse the threat. To eliminate the erosion at its source."
The ultimatum was absolute. If Ei, the true god, deviated from the path, the puppet she had created to be its perfect, unchanging guardian would turn against her.
"For an eternal Inazuma," the Shogun's voice finished, its divine, emotionless tone a final, unyielding decree. "Unchanging, forevermore."
The voice faded, leaving Ei alone once more in her silent, now subtly brighter, realm. She was alone with the ultimatum, with the photograph, and with the storm of thoughts and feelings that the small, strange boy had awakened within her.
She looked at the picture, at his radiant, joyful smile, and she tried to understand the profound, unshakable hesitation she felt, the absolute inability she had to even think of harming him.
Why?
Was it because in his simple, profound kindness, she saw a shade of her gentle, beloved sister, Makoto?
Was it because in his bright, innocent curiosity and his teasing, clever wit, she saw a ghost of her brilliant, foxy friend, Kitsune Saiguu?
Was it because in his small, unassuming form, she saw the same unyielding, defiant willpower that had burned so brightly in her fierce, loyal friend, Chiyo?
Or was it because in his simple, unhesitating declaration of friendship, she saw the unwavering loyalty of her dear, departed Sasayuri?
He was an echo of all the things she had loved, of all the things she had lost. He was a living, breathing paradox, a force of change that felt not like a threat, but like a warm, familiar, and deeply missed memory.
Ei closed her eyes, the single photograph floating before her in the lavender twilight. She had a new question to answer, a new flaw in her perfect, eternal equation to solve. The future of Inazuma, she now realized, did not just rest on the unchanging nature of her laws, but on her ability to understand the change that was now, after five hundred years of stillness, finally beginning to bloom in her own, lonely heart.