The quiet, sun-dappled path on the slopes of Mt. Yougou was suddenly plunged into a cold, oppressive twilight. The source was the pure, unrestrained rage emanating from the Sixth of the Fatui Harbingers. The air itself seemed to warp and twist around Scaramouche, the crackle of Electro energy no longer a subtle hiss, but a loud, angry snarl. His indigo eyes burned with a murderous light, the carefully constructed mask of condescending scorn completely shattered, revealing the raw, violent fury of a scorned god-ling beneath.
The Fatui skirmishers, soldiers hardened by countless battles and disciplined into a state of near-fearlessness, were visibly, profoundly, unnerved. They took an involuntary, collective step back, their hands tightening on their weapons not in aggression, but in a primal, instinctual fear.
They had served the Balladeer for a long time. They had seen him unleash his terrifying power on armies. They had seen him turn men to ash with a flick of his wrist. They had seen his cruel, capricious temper. But they had never, in all their years of service, seen anyone speak to him like that.
To them, the Balladeer was a force of nature, an entity of absolute, unquestionable power. Mortals did not mock him. They did not pity him. They cowered before him, or they died.
And this child… this small, fragile, pretty little boy… had just, with a few, quiet, almost gentle words, peeled back the Harbinger's thin veneer of composure and poked the raw, screaming nerve of his deepest insecurities. He had treated the great and terrible Lord Balladeer not as a god, but as a petulant, predictable child. The sheer, audacious, and suicidal bravery of it was so far beyond their comprehension that it left them completely, utterly, terrified, not for the boy, but of the cataclysmic explosion of wrath that was sure to follow.
Scaramouche's hand rose, his fingers crackling with a dark, violent, and very lethal-looking purple lightning. His lips peeled back in a silent, furious snarl. The air grew thick, heavy, the calm before a devastating, world-ending storm.
And then, a new light entered the scene.
It was not the angry purple of Electro. It was a brilliant, gentle, and overwhelmingly powerful pink. The small, silk omamori charm tucked away in Ren's tunic, the "good luck" charm from Yae Miko, suddenly flared to life, a beacon of sacred, shrine-maiden power.
A column of pure, shimmering, sakura-pink light erupted around Ren, enveloping him in a warm, protective, and completely impenetrable cocoon.
The last thing Ren heard was a final, thwarted, and utterly inhuman snarl of pure, impotent rage from the Harbinger.
And then, the world dissolved into a gentle, swirling storm of pink petals and the faint, sweet scent of sakura blossoms.
The transition was instantaneous, a gentle, disorienting blink.
He was no longer on the dark, threatened path. He was standing on the clean, white gravel at the foot of the great, ancient, and beautifully glowing Sacred Sakura tree at the very peak of the Grand Narukami Shrine. The air was calm, peaceful, and filled with the gentle, sacred hum of the shrine's power.
A moment later, a figure materialized beside him in a swirl of her own, foxy, pink lightning. It was Yae Miko. Her usual playful, teasing smile was completely gone, replaced by a mask of sharp, profound, and undisguised alarm. Her violet eyes were wide, her hands clenched at her sides.
"It activated," she breathed, her voice a low, urgent whisper as she immediately began to scan Ren for any sign of injury, her eyes darting over him with a frantic, worried energy. "The beacon in the omamori. I designed it to trigger automatically in the presence of an overwhelming, hostile concentration of Electro energy directed at you."
She looked at him, her mind, a mind that had seen centuries of conflict and intrigue, clearly having jumped to the one, most logical, and most terrifying conclusion. "She attacked you," she said, her voice a mixture of disbelief and a rising, cold fury. "After all of that, after your conversations… the Shogun actually tried to strike you down."
The fox's lifeline had worked perfectly. It had snatched him from the jaws of a god's fury, just as she had designed it to. But now, she was left with the terrifying, world-altering aftermath: the belief that her oldest, dearest, and most stubborn friend had finally, irrevocably, crossed a line, and had tried to murder the one, small, miraculous hope that had just entered their lives.