All around Teyvat, people were ready to depart for Inazuma, where an unprecedented festival was going to happen.
The reason? A new Shogun, something that had not been heard in the entirety of the history of the world.
The Shogun was not only an immovable figure in the people from Inazuma's minds, but every person in the world knew about her.
And now that same Shogun had been dethroned.
"Are you ready Lisa?" Jean asked with excitement. It was the first time she was going to see Kenshin in years, and while a bit apprehensive, she was still happy.
"Of course" nodded Lisa, looking at her watch. "Amber should be here with her friend".
"Jean!" Mio shouted happily seeing her 'daughter-in-law', and hugged her, making Jean have a weird expression, a mix of happiness and awkwardness.
She had been hugged by Mio more times in these last months than her mother in her whole life.
Which wasn't much.
"How are you Mio?" asked Jean returning the hug. Kenshin's parents were very affectionate, something about 'a hug means a slap', but Jean wasn't able to understand it.
"Perfectly fine now that I will see my son again" nodded Mio, excited to see her son finally see his wife after years of separation. The fact that the last time Kenshin had seen Jean was when he was 12 didn't pass through her mind. In fact, she chose to ignore it, Jean was too good for her stupid son.
"Are we ready now?" asked a smiling Yahiko, who was carrying a single bag. "Bennet is waiting for us in Liyue, he had a Commission there".
"We are waiting for-, oh there they come" said Lisa, looking at Amber approaching with her friend.
"Sorry for being late!" said Amber with a smile, while her friend Eula didn't speak, just nodded in greeting to everyone else.
"Then let's go" said Jean picking her own bag. "The ship sails in 3 hours and we need to be ready".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Shenhe, are you sure you want to come?" asked an anxious Cloud Retainer.
"Hmm" Shenhe nodded, taking her precious box with her. She knew that her shyness made her unable to write back to Kenshin, so she was going to show him the letters she had been keeping, to show him that she appreciated them.
"Are you really sure?" Cloud Retainer asked with a dismayed expression. She knew that Shenhe's 'infatuation', to put it mildly, was the product of a huge misunderstanding and she didn't want to see her disciple cry. Even if she wasn't sure she could.
"Hmm" Shenhe nodded again. Why wouldn't she want to see Kenshin?
"*Sigh*" Cloud Retainer didn't ask and started flying to the Harbour, while Shenhe ran.
Shenhe was now 17, and her figure wasn't something she could carry any more.
Shenhe was, in a word, big.
She was as tall as Kenshin, who was considered tall, and her chest was, well, big.
Sorry, not big, BIG.
Seeing Cloud Retainer fly, she sprinted to the Harbour. She will arrive in 3 minutes.
"Hey hey, what a pretty lady" she was stopped by a group of Treasure Hoarders while she was taking the impulse to jump over the next mountain range.
Shenhe frowned, not liking being stopped when she was in a hurry to see Kenshin again.
"Move" she said in a colder voice than usual.
"Why should I? Let's have som-"
There was no gore-ish scene, no blood, no screams.
The man just disintegrated under Shenhe slap, who jumped out of the valley, heading towards the ship that would take her to the promised land.
Leaving behind the rest of the group wondering about where their leader was.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Can't you fly to Inazuma?" asked Morax with his impassible face, but if Kenshin was here, he would be able to detect a hint of irritation in his soul.
"Of course I can" replied Barbatos with an innocent smile. "But it's better to go with friends right?"
"I guess so" Morax replied, his face unchanging. "Looks like everyone is here".
There was a big group here.
Kayo, Ayaka, Kuki, a disgruntled Yanfei, Ganyu, Xiao, Shenhe, Cloud Retainer, and finally Ghizhong.
Of course, this was only the group that would go in one ship, almost everybody that ran from Inazuma was going to go back, at least for now.
A lot of people liked Liyue, so decided to stay.
"Thank you for accommodating us" Ayaka bowed gracefully. She had been learning under Ningguang, who planned to use this as leverage against Kenshin in the future.
Kayo and Ayaka were excited about returning. Liyue had been wonderful, but Inazuma was their home. And after a few months, they were homesick.
"I don't want to go" complained Yanfei, but Kuki dragged her.
"Sempai, Kenshin is still an asshole, but he matured over the years. And he will need all help he can get, it's your chance to sell your services for as much Mora as you want to" argued Kuki.
"I don't want money, just getting involved with him is enough to leave me with a loss" muttered Yanfei.
"Sempai, you won a lot of money when you helped the JRK" said Kuki with a pointed look.
"More than enough reason not to go" countered Yanfei. "I have more money than I will need in 10 years".
"Excuse us" a voice distracted them from their banter. A girl approached them, accompanied by another woman "our ship sank because of a sea monster, how that happened is still a mystery. I wonder if you would be amenable to let us board yours".
"Hmm, of course" said Guizhong, looking curiously at the new arrivals. She knew one of them, and Kenshin was on good terms with her, somewhat.
"Geh!" said Barbatos, making one of the 2 girls look at him with disdain.
"Aren't you that drunk bard tha-"
"Signora" the woman with red 'X' shaped pupils stopped her. "If you want to swim to Inazuma, be my guest, but I'm boarding this ship".
And that they did. The ship was very big, so it wasn't cramped even with all the people on board.
But, they weren't free to move either. They were now sitting together, and an awkward silence permeated the room.
"Ehem, may I ask why are 2 Harbingers going to Inazuma for a festival?" asked Guizhong, trying to break the ice.
"I was invited" replied Arlecchino. "And seeing the lack of relatively sane individuals in Snezhnaya, I chose to take the least insane one with me".
"What you aren't saying is that you are going with the intention to seduce a certain someone" Signore said looking at her nails. She wasn't going to take without giving.
"O-Oh" said a stunned Guizhong. "Please tell me you are not talking about Kenshin".
"Why do you say that?" asked an unfazed Arlecchino.
"Well" Guizhong looked a bit uncomfortably at Shenhe, who looked interested in the conversation. "Let's say that his romantic life is already messy and.....cramped".
"Why should I care?" asked Arlecchino in her blank voice, not letting anyone sense her feelings. Or lack of them, she really didn't care.
She wasn't going to be able to lead a comfortable life by her chosen one's side, her mission and position were not going to allow it.
She didn't know what she felt for Kenshin yet, but she had lived through too much to care about some stupid jealousy. If she wanted to be with Kenshin and he thought the same, they would, no matter who else was involved.
Of course, only if the rest weren't her enemies.
"You want to seduce Kenshin?" asked Shenhe in a calm voice, making Guizhong and Clour Retainer sweat. They had no idea of how strong Arlecchino was, but they knew that the ship wasn't going to resist a single punch from Shenhe.
"And if I say yes?" asked Arlecchino, not being able to deduce Shenhe's intention. It was the first time she saw someone with a better poker face than hers.
"Let's team up" said Shenhe, making Guizhong and Cloud Retainer deadpan. "Master said that I should work on my teamwork, that I need to talk more with other people".
"So it's your fault" Guizhong looked at Cloud Retainer with a stink eye.
"How did you take that from this?!" Cloud Retainer, in her human form, shouted in indignation. "Shenhe, the affairs between a man and a woman are private. You pledge your life to a man, and he will do the same to you. It's not someone else can get involved in".
"Who said that?" it was Signora who talked with a smirk. She was bored, and her soul was asking for some flames. "I can already see that this girl is not normal, and my colleague is even nuttier. And do you need to talk about how much of a nutcase that boy is? Did you really expect that his life would be anything close to being remotely normal?"
Cloud Retainer could only stop at that, but she frowned at the bad manners this woman was having.
"And why do you care about this?" she asked to Signora, who laughed.
"Of course, my 'dear friend', the one who invited me of HER own will, is being pushed out of her way to find love with the only person who could even accept a sociopath like her. How can I not care?" she said while directing a mocking smile towards Arlecchino, whose face didn't change.
"I don't think I would be able to be in that type of relationship" said Cloud Retainer with a frown.
"Nobody asked you" replied Arlecchino. "Besides, there are some women in Inazuma just like your student, and even from Mondstadt. Your disciple needs to give up".
"No" replied Shenhe calmly.
"There you have it" said Arlecchino in her impassible voice. "Your disciple only has one option, and we both know what it is".
"Why do you think she can't win?" asked Cloud Retainer with a frown.
"Why do you think she can?" countered Arlecchino calmly, looking at Shenhe's blank expression.
"...." Cloud Retainer could only wince. With Shenhe's....ehmmm, 'social troubles', it was indeed hard.
"I don't mind" said Shenhe, not having understood anything. "Are you helping or not?".
"Of course she is" Signora replied in amusement. "She needs to get that boy crazy for him, we need his literary talents after all".
"You like his books?" asked curiously Guizhong. She didn't know that Kenshin books had spread even to the cold Snezhnaya.
"Of course, I got his first one" said Signora with a mocking smile, thinking about that stupid Barbatos who didn't even realize the book she copied.
"Have you seen his latest one?" asked Guizhong, curious if Ei's and Yae's 'mouthy adventure' had spread that far too.
"The 'Radiant Knight' was it?" wondered Signora. She had been holed up in Snezhnaya for a while and didn't have the time to investigate more.
"That was his first one" replied Guizhong.
"No, it wasn't" Signora laughed to an inside joke.
'Fuck', is what Guizhong, Morax and Barbatos thought.
Signora thought she was the only one here who knew about Kenshin's 'Book of Souls', but she was unknowingly sharing a ship with 2 Archons and a God, who knew absolutely everything.
Guizhong was the one who wrote that book. It could indeed be considered Kenshin's first book in a way.
And Morax and Barbatos paled. They had already received a letter from Kenshin talking about it, but it was another thing to hear the culprit of stealing the book.
"Don't change the topic" said Shenhe with a rare frown, and looked at Arlecchino. "Are you helping, or do I need to look for other allies?"
"Shenhe!" Cloud Retainer couldn't believe her disciple, but remembering how tenderly Shenhe had been taking care of the box with Kenshin's letters, she sighed.
"Why should I team up with you?" asked Arlecchino.
"Because I'm strong" Shenhe said the obvious. You want to have strong teammates right?
"This is a fight that will not be fought with fists" said Arlecchino, looking curiously at Shenhe. She didn't know what this girl's deal was, but she could sense the strength brimming from her body.
"Are you sure?" Shenhe asked a scary thing with a straight face.
Arlecchino had to actually stop to think upon hearing that.
"Yes" she finally said. "There is a scary woman in this too, I don't know if we can beat her quickly enough". Yae was strong, and the Raiden Shogun was also near. If they couldn't instantly eliminate her, they would be reduced to ash.
And Kenshin will not be in the mood to look for a partner(s) if Yae dies.
"I don't know anything but fighting" confessed Shenhe with her blank face. "I only know how to use my spear".
"I think you will manage" replied Arlecchino, looking at the big pair of weapons she had. "I will team up with you, we need all the help we can get".
Arlecchino did only know that getting Kenshin on board wasn't going to be easy, and a few other women wouldn't approve. She only wanted to leave a door open for her in case she wanted something in the future.
"Hmm" Shenhe nodded happily, not aware of what she was getting into.
'Nooooooooooooooooo!' Alter Shenhe wanted to die, but she was feeling happy and excited against her will.
Meanwhile, the rest of the people looked at them with deadpan faces, seeing how a harem plan was forming behind the most important person involved.
But, will Shenhe and Arlecchino's plan succeed?
Or is Kenshin's love for the 'no-harem' tag strong enough to foil it?
Stay tuned to find out.