The days at the Grand Narukami Shrine passed in a strange, tense calm. Lumine was now undertaking increasingly dangerous missions for both Ayaka and Miko, her face a mask of grim, heroic determination.
One morning, she arrived with a new, urgent purpose. "Ayaka has a lead," she explained to Ren and Ganyu in a hushed, conspiratorial whisper. "Solid proof of the Tenryou Commission's collusion with the Fatui. But it's locked away in their headquarters. I have to infiltrate the grounds and retrieve it."
Ren knew, with a sudden, jolt of clarity, that this was it. This was the final act. Once that proof was in Lumine's hands, she would have the one thing she needed to challenge the Shogun, to force a confrontation, to show Ei the truth of what her nation had become.
A strange, quiet part of him felt a sense of relief. Perhaps my involvement isn't necessary anymore, he thought. Perhaps Lumine, the true hero of this story, can solve this on her own.
He watched his friend depart, a silent, hopeful prayer in his heart. The rest of the day was quiet, almost unnaturally so. Ganyu was helping one of the shrine maidens with an ancient, complex ritual text, and Miko was, for once, nowhere to be seen. Ren, feeling a need for some fresh air, wandered out onto the large, eastern balcony of the main shrine building, a beautiful, secluded spot that offered a breathtaking, panoramic view of the sea.
The peace was shattered in an instant.
"Well, well. Enjoying the pleasant view, I see."
The voice, dripping with a familiar, venomous scorn, came from above. Ren looked up, and his blood ran cold.
Floating in the air, a few feet off the edge of the balcony, was Scaramouche. The air around him crackled with a dark, terrifying power, and his indigo eyes burned with a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. And in his outstretched hand, pulsing with a brilliant, divine, and impossibly powerful violet light, was the Electro Gnosis.
"I thought I would pay you a little visit," the Balladeer sneered, his smile a cruel, twisted thing. "And bring you a gift."
He looked at the Gnosis, a look of ecstatic, triumphant madness on his beautiful, doll-like face. "Do you know what this is, little mortal? This is my birthright. The heart of a god. The power that she, my creator, cast aside. And now… it is mine."
With a final, triumphant laugh, he did not just hold the Gnosis; he absorbed it. He pressed the divine, glowing chess piece to his chest, and it sank into his body with a flash of blinding, violent, violet light.
Scaramouche screamed, a sound that was not of pain, but of pure, unholy ecstasy. His body was wreathed in a storm of black and purple lightning, his power skyrocketing to a level that was no longer just that of a Harbinger, but of something far, far greater. He was a god, reborn in a storm of his own, stolen power.
"And now, for your gift," he hissed, his voice now a distorted, echoing sound of pure, divine malice as his burning, hate-filled eyes fixed on Ren. "The gift of oblivion. A little revenge for your earlier… impertinence."
While La Signora was, at that very moment, likely having a meeting with the Shogun within the Tenshukaku, the Balladeer was here. His mission was not of diplomacy or of state. It was personal. It was pure, simple, and utterly terrifying, revenge.
He raised his hand, and a sphere of pure, chaotic, divine lightning, a miniature, collapsing sun of pure, destructive power, formed in his palm.
Ren reacted on pure, terrified instinct. He threw his hands up, and a multi-layered, dome-like shield of the purest, densest Cryo he could summon erupted around him.
Scaramouche laughed, a cruel, mocking sound, and unleashed the blast.
The lightning sphere hit the Cryo shield, and the world dissolved into a blinding, deafening cataclysm of white light and screaming, tearing sound. Ren's shield, the same shield that had stood against the divine fury of Osial, held for a several seconds against the force of the close range attack.
And then, it shattered.
The force of the blast threw Ren backwards, lifting him off his feet and sending him hurtling through the air like a broken doll. He crashed through the delicate, paper-and-wood shoji screens of the shrine's main hall, his small body a testament to the overwhelming, impossible power of a vengeful, newborn god.