The great, imposing throne room of the Tenshukaku was as silent and as cold as a tomb. Ren entered alone, his small footsteps echoing in the vast, empty space. His chair, the simple, unadorned seat that had become a symbol of his strange, paradoxical status, was already in its place, just to the left of the Shogun's throne.
He walked up the dais and sat, a small, solitary island of quiet calm in a sea of imperial grandeur. A few moments later, the Raiden Shogun materialized on her throne, as sudden and as silent as a thought. She gave him a single, long, unreadable glance, and then turned her gaze to the grand entrance, a silent, divine sentinel, waiting.
They did not have to wait long.
The great doors swung open, and a figure of breathtaking, icy beauty swept into the room. She was tall, regal, and her long, pale-blonde hair was styled in an elegant, aristocratic fashion. She wore a magnificent, flowing gown of white and black, and a black mask covered half of her face, but it could not hide the cold, arrogant, and deeply sorrowful light in her visible, pale-blue eye. A Cryo Delusion, a gift from her god, was prominently displayed on her person, radiating an aura of palpable, chilling power.
This was La Signora, the Fair Lady, the Eighth of the Fatui Harbingers.
She walked with a slow, deliberate, and theatrical grace, her every movement a calculated display of power and noble bearing. She stopped at the foot of the throne and performed a deep, flawless, and slightly mocking curtsy.
"Your Excellency, the Raiden Shogun, Almighty Narukami Ogosho," she began, her voice a melody of cold, cultured, and utterly insincere deference. "I, La Signora, Eighth of the Tsaritsa's Harbingers, bring you greetings from the eternally frozen lands of Snezhnaya. Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa, wishes to reaffirm our nations' continued, peaceful relations, as a sign of the profound respect she holds for you and for the eternal nation of Inazuma."
She was deferential, her words honeyed with respect, but her posture was one of an equal. She viewed the Shogun not as a superior, but as another powerful piece on the great, divine chessboard, perhaps on a slightly lower level than her own beloved Tsaritsa, but a significant player nonetheless.
Her gaze flickered for a fraction of a second to the small, silent boy sitting beside the throne. A flicker of something—mild curiosity? annoyance at the strange breach of protocol?—passed through her eye, but she dismissed him just as quickly. He was just a child, a strange, favored pet of the Shogun, perhaps. Her focus was not on him. Her mission was a divine one, a transaction with a god. The toys and trinkets of mortals were of no concern to her.
Ren watched her, his expression a mask of quiet, unreadable calm. He saw not just the arrogant, cruel Harbinger from the game. He saw the tragedy that lay beneath the ice. He saw the Crimson Witch of Flames, the woman from Mondstadt who had lost her love to a dragon's rampage, a woman whose all-consuming grief had transformed her into a being of pure, liquid fire. He saw the woman who had been betrayed, exiled, and had then willingly, desperately, offered her burning, broken heart to a new god, the Tsaritsa, who had granted her a new purpose, and a new power to temper her endless, burning rage.
He knew that the Cryo Delusion she wore was not just a weapon. It was a cage. It was the only thing that kept the inferno of her grief from consuming her entirely. It was a source of great power, but also of great, constant pain. But it was her power, a gift from her god, a symbol of her new identity. The idea that a mere mortal, a child, could create a "better" version… she would see it as a pathetic, laughable insult. In her eyes, the life-draining agony of a Delusion, a power bestowed by a god, was infinitely superior to any safe, sterile, and soulless "trinket" a mortal could ever hope to create.
He understood the rage, the grief, the fierce, unwavering loyalty that drove her. It did not excuse her actions, the pain and the chaos she had caused. But it allowed him to see her not as a simple villain, but as a profoundly, tragically, human figure, encased in a shell of divine, borrowed ice.
The Shogun, on her throne, remained as still and as silent as a statue. She simply looked down at the Harbinger, her impassive, amethyst gaze a silent, unreadable void. La Signora was making her opening move in a grand, diplomatic game, a game of flattery and veiled threats.
But the true game, the one that truly mattered, was the silent, internal, and world-altering debate that was currently raging in the heart of the silent god on the throne, a debate that had been started, and would likely be finished, by the small, quiet, and completely underestimated boy who was watching it all unfold from the sidelines.