"Blessings, dedicated to the few readers I have left."
"I... I am not Raiden Makoto... I am Fu Li..."
Fu sat beneath the Sacred Sakura with a deeply furrowed brow, struggling to remind herself in her heart not to forget who she was. This was already the one-hundred-thousandth year. She did not know whether the soul from the real world possessed an extreme tenacity in the low-dimensional universe, or if her own soul had been assimilated into that of a God, but somehow she was still able to maintain a clear consciousness.
"Sister!"
"Hey! I'm right here~"
Within a gradually clearing field of vision, that familiar purple silhouette—familiar to the point of being engraved in her bones—once again pressed close to her with docile affection.
This call and response had repeated countless times, almost becoming a conditioned reflex of the body. Beneath this Sacred Sakura tree was the place where Fu had stayed the longest. Every corner of Inazuma, illuminated by this golden sunset, was deeply etched into her memory, impossible to shake off yet utterly devoid of flavor.
"Are you tired of this unchanging Eternity?"
"..."
Ei did not speak, merely shifting her gaze away. Her heart was indeed shaken, but she still stubbornly shook her head.
"No, wherever Sister is, that is everything."
...
By the two-millionth year, Fu began to worry about how much time had passed outside the dream. Perhaps this dream had lasted far too long, but Ei was fiercely stubborn, showing not the slightest sign of relenting.
"Sis..."
"Right here~"
Fu responded to Ei's call with her usual gentle voice. By now, nearly ten million years had passed. If this continued any longer, the plot of her previous life's main storyline would be completely overwritten by her present memories.
"Ei, look at this sky full of falling blossoms. Is it beautiful?"
" Seperti biasa. ...As beautiful as ever."
"If they could dance with the wind, wouldn't it be even more beautiful?"
"No, I think this is already good enough..."
...
In that eternal sunset, Fu sat on the mountaintop, toying with a firework that could never be lit. Ei simply stared blankly beside her. By this point, the two of them could hardly find any new topics to discuss; even the most obscure vocabulary had been spoken hundreds of millions of times before they realized it.
"You actually want to see it very badly, don't you?"
"It is merely a fleeting moment."
Ei squeezed these words out through gritted teeth. Her heart finally began to waver in inner conflict, yet she stubbornly refused to give in.
The next second, a firework shot into the sky, only to freeze in mid-air the exact moment before it could burst into brilliant sparks.
"Do you wish for the next moment to arrive?"
"No, I don't need it!"
Ei hurriedly averted her gaze, refusing to look directly at the dazzling brilliance in the sky. Fu covered her mouth with a soft laugh, waving her hand just like that scummy fox.
"Oh my, my friend, you can't see the fireworks, yet you stubbornly say you don't like them."
Vaguely, the figure of Yae Miko seemed to surface once more before Ei's eyes. That's right—her friend, those precious memories, were growing as faded as yellowed photographs alongside this infinitely stretched eternity.
This trick really worked. Tears began to well up in the corners of Ei's eyes. She missed her friend, yet she could not bear to part with the figure before her. Now was the best time; she needed to give her a hard push:
"When a whale falls, all things come to life. It is precisely the cycle of all things in this world that creates this beautiful world. No matter how wonderful something is, once imprisoned within eternity, it loses the luster it ought to possess.
Much like this pool of stagnant water, never to know new life again.
Sometimes death is not the end, but a rebirth. It is precisely the parting of life and death that makes reunion all the more precious. If there were no more partings of life and death in this world, then I ask you, would life still be precious and beautiful?"
As she spoke, Fu slowly pointed toward the firework in the sky, frozen in eternity and unable to bloom.
"Sometimes, the meaning of life is precisely this—it is the fleeting nature of these fireworks that makes this beauty so extraordinarily precious. If you imprison it, then it will forever remain a worthless speck of light. Do you understand?"
"..."
"Still haven't made up your mind? Then think about it carefully. We spend day after day like this, yet one day is no different from the next. Do you feel such a world is beautiful?"
"This... this kind of world... is not beautiful at all... but... I can't bear to let you go either..."
The very moment Ei squeezed these words out from between her teeth with almost all her strength, the sunset slowly sank below the horizon, and countless stars were imprinted across the sky in the blink of an eye. Fu stood at the edge of the cliff just like that, smiling sweetly at Ei.
Thud—thud—thud—
Brilliant fireworks soared into the air from the foot of the mountain, illuminating the earth in dazzling colors within their brief radiance. Time was finally flowing again.
"Haha, people must always look forward. There is no feast in this world that never ends."
This time, it was Fu who proactively embraced Ei, gently rubbing the other's soft hair.
"My dearest, foolish little sister~ You must protect Inazuma well. For them, for me, live... well... Farewell, my pillar of strength... my good sister..."
This dream, long beyond description, finally reached its end. Everything around them slowly transformed into specks of light, crumbling apart piece by piece.
Ei's body trembled slightly as she desperately tried to grasp the disappearing specks of light in her embrace.
"Thank you... Fu..."
...
"I'm sorry, Ei. I hope you can forgive me for deceiving your feelings."
Fu shook her dizzy, throbbing head and gently wiped the face of Ei, who was still weeping in her dream. Inquiring of Nahida, who was quietly waiting nearby, she learned that they had been asleep for half a month.
"Thank you for your hard work, Nahida. You are my hero."
Fu gently hugged the tiny Nahida, switching her own elemental attributes to the Dendro element. At a glance, it looked just like Greater Lord Rukkhadevata holding Lesser Lord Kusanali.
For the past half month, Nahida had been the one maintaining the dream. She needed to find an opportunity to make it up to her, though judging by her expression right now, Nahida rather enjoyed this Dendro elemental resonance.
At that moment, a pink, languid figure appeared once more. However, Yae Miko looked a complete mess this time, covered in dust and soot.
"Yo, you're finally awake."
"Did you go shovel coal?"
...
"Oh? To think that after I dutifully dealt with the Rifthounds for three days and nights without rest, this is the greeting I get when I return. It really breaks one's heart."
"Ah? Sorry, sorry."
"How is my friend doing?"
Fu suddenly made a hush gesture with her hand, signaling to speak elsewhere.
Just a moment ago, Ei had rolled over in her sleep, continuing to snooze in a daze.
"Ei is no longer obsessed with eternity now. When she wakes up, she might immediately repeal the Sakoku Decree, but as the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch."
As she spoke, Fu suddenly remembered something and placed Musou Isshin and Engulfing Lightning back by Ei's bedside.
"So what reward do you want?"
"I need a boat to Liyue."
"What? Is Inazuma not good enough? Or are the perks at Narukami Shrine not generous enough?"
Yae Miko instantly dropped her languid attitude. She was ten thousand percent unwilling to let a major combat powerhouse of Inazuma, whom she had gone through so much trouble to trick, just run away.
"I just want to go out and see the world, and by the way, let Nahida and Morax exchange methods of governing a nation."
"You actually tried to fool me—you don't dare face Ei, do you?"
"Aha, you managed to guess it after all. Strictly speaking, the one who accompanied Ei in the dream was her sister, not me. I can only be considered an actor, an impostor in her eyes. Once Ei wakes up and realizes all of this was just a dream, even if she stops pursuing eternity, she will still hold a grudge against me."
Fu scratched her head in embarrassment. After all, the memory of being stabbed three times by Ei ran too deep, and she didn't dare gamble on that possibility. It was far better to run away quickly. It wasn't that she couldn't fly, but she really couldn't bear to torture Nahida with her terrible flying skills.
"When the foolish... when Ei wakes up, please don't mention my existence. Just tell her that it was all nothing more than a nightmare."
"Sigh—fine. It's truly a pity she couldn't stay at my Narukami Shrine. I wish you a pleasant journey, then."
After making brief preparations, before setting off, Fu went to check on Baiyu—the newly renamed Scaramouche. Following the Mikage Furnace incident, Niwa should have been severely punished for mismanagement, but under the "Raiden Shogun's" personal pardon, he was still able to live in Inazuma as an ordinary person.
"Baiyu!"
"You are..."
Baiyu, who was learning blacksmithing alongside Niwa, looked somewhat bewildered at the white-haired, green-eyed person before him. It wasn't until Fu snapped her fingers and reverted to the Raiden Shogun's color scheme that he finally recognized her.
"Mother!"