Elea felt rage building inside her.
Just like it happened so many years ago, Elea felt an irrational fury threatening to take over her mind.
"We are close" said a serene voice tinged with sadness, belonging to a tall woman with black hair and green eyes, an Adeptus. "But this one guesses you already sense it."
"Ye-"
But the ground trembled, making Elea cut her sentence short.
"She has been raging like this for a while" explained Cloud Retainer with a sad sight.
Elea didn't reply, because all that was about to leave her mouth was a snarky comment she knew Cloud Retainer didn't deserve, but Shenhe was too angry.
So much so that even after being muffled by her ability, Shenhe's anger was so intense that it could even affect her this much.
"Can I talk to her?" asked Elea after deeply sighing to calm herself down.
Her question wasn't correctly worded, but Cloud Retainer understood her meaning.
Elea was here only to talk with her, as she knew Shenhe was having trouble coping with loss, which Elea only aggravated when she had recoiled after seeing the white-haired woman.
So her question tried to clarify if she could approach without a boulder falling on her head.
She knew Shenhe wouldn't hurt her, at least not consciously, but she was a small girl in an area where boulders the size of her house were flying around.
"This one will accompany you" said Cloud Retainer with a soft voice. "This one appreciates what you are willing to do for this one's student."
"I should have come sooner" was Elea's only reply, clutching the small package under her arm.
But the ground trembled again, and a huge rock flew their way under Elea's shocked gaze.
She already knew that there were amazing people out there, and her mother was way stronger than anyone else at least in her eyes, but seeing a rock the size of her roo fly her way made reality sink in.
A soft breeze caressed her hair, and the rock stopped when a green gust of air gently put it into the ground, making a dull noise.
"Shenhe!" shouted Cloud Retainer with anger in her voice. "This one didn't teach you to take reckless actions that would put your visitors in danger!"
"You taught me nothing" a frigid voice reached them and a black-haired woman with red eyes approached from the nearby forest. "You chained me down, content on ignoring my existence for my whole life."
"And yet, those actions are not tolerable" insisted Cloud Retainer, not flinching even after being subjected to Alter-Shenhe's smouldering gaze. "You have a visitor."
"I don't want to see anyone" said Alter-Shenhe, but the next words got stuck in her throat when she saw the small purple-haired child with bright purple eyes looking at her with a red package in her hands.
She knew who this girl was, she had always known.
She had even 'sneakily' visited Inazuma when she felt she needed to get out of her berserker state, without knowing that it was impossible to enter Inazuma without someone noticing.
And yet, she had never appeared near Elea.
Because the fear she saw in the child's eyes when she approached her in the past was a wound that she feared would reopen.
But that same child was now in front of her, showing only determination in her eyes and in the way her small fists were clenched around the tightly bound package.
So realizing who it was, Shenhe immediately turned around to leave.
She knew that she couldn't bear to face that rejection again.
"I!" but Elea, seeing that the woman she wished to help was about to leave, shouted. "I wanted to see you!"
Elea didn't know what to say or what to do to catch Shenhe's attention, so she said the first thing that came to mind.
Her mother had told her that the best way to allow unwilling people tot listen is to speak your heart, because sincerity is something everyone could recognize.
So facing the situation she didn't expect, she followed her calm mother's advice and spoke what she wanted to do.
She didn't even know how to proceed, but his time she had convinced her mother to allow her to leave Inazuma with a single purpose, help the woman whose rage made her vision turn red.
Nobody liked being angry, that was something Elea had very clear.
And if she felt such a strain just by being near Shenhe...how was the tall and imposing woman feeling? But Shenhe only kept walking with a spear in her hand, with a trembling clenched fist holding the weapon.
"I brought something from you!" shouted Elea, fearing that the woman was already too far. "It's from my father!"
And that... made Shenhe stop right in her tracks.
"To be more precise, it's not from my father" clarified Elea, fearing the woman going on a rampage when she learned that the present didn't come from her father. "But he would have wanted you to have it."
Elea could sense Shenhe's hesitation, now unsure of what she wanted to do now that she knew the present didn't come from her father.
But she saw something taking over that rage inside her for a moment, and the ends of her long hair turned white.
Shenhe turned around, still with red eyes, but clearly of a lighter tone, approaching a light red colour.
And Elea didn't miss her chance.
She quickly walked to the woman, who was still doubting whether to either stay or leave, and untied the red package she had been carrying from Inazuma.
A few packages of dangos, a few books of 'The Radiant Knight' she thought Shenhe might appreciate, and a folded scroll.
Elea cautiously put everything on the ground except the scroll, and extended her little hand to Shenhe, inviting her to take it.
The almost completely black-haired woman took it after a few moments of hesitation, and slowly opened it, while Cloud Retainer sighed, and turned around to leave.
There was no reason for her to be here after all, even if Shenhe had told her she had not cared, the tall woman was still her student.
And the tremble in her eyes told her everything she needed to know.
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Shenhe had a hard life.
Her mother died of illness.
Her father blamed her for her mother's death, and explicitly told her that she should have been the one to die.
She was offered to a demon as a living sacrifice, which the whole town acknowledged, even if her uncle had apologized years later.
A part of her had been sealed, as her teacher considered that teaching her calmly, and helping her face her anger later was the best path for her.
All in all, it was hard to find someone who had suffered as much as her.
But her life had been stable after her teacher found her, and she had started to live properly.
Until a boy had appeared.
A black-haired boy with purple eyes that shed a bit of colour in her dull life learning under a millennia-old Adeptus.
She had seen the black-haired boy when her teacher had been called by the former Geo Archon, and honestly, she had no particular impression of him.
He was loud-mouthed, strangely eloquent, exceedingly mischievous and with thoughts too alien for her to understand.
But he had come into contact with her sealed self, and had verbalized exactly what she had thought at that time.
That alone was enough for her to pay attention to him.
Years after, letters started to arrive, breaking the tedious routine Shenhe was too grateful to her teacher to complain against.
Letters that she sometimes struggled to understand, as words were only a part of the letter, but she grew to love those letters.
For better or worse, Cloud Retainer was not human, and was what Kenshin had called a tsundere on top of that so the Adeptus' emotional intelligence wasn't the best.
But Kenshin's letters felt strangely...human.
His words, even if they were confusing at times, carried emotions and feelings she craved for.
If only she could learn how to express those same emotions...
A wish that made her carefully store those letters, hoping to someday be able to reply to them.
And then, the miracle happened.
She still didn't know what romance was, or what being in a relationship meant, but she found herself in the best position to seek a somewhat deeper relationship with Kenshin, the one that gave her so much with his letters.
Later she would understand how important taking that chance had been, as Kenshin would form part of her life in a way she knew no one else would be able to.
She still remembered the moment her search for the ability to express her emotions had turned into something else, the exact same moment she had found the path for her to learn how to write.
When that search came to an end, she had been free to look at what laid around her, and the first thing she had seen was Kenshin's presence in her life, as well as her will to stay by his side from now on.
That had been the exact same moment Shenhe's exacerbated had turned into love.
And it was the same scene being reflected in the small parchment in front of her.
A tall girl with white hair was sitting beside a black-haired boy, showing their backs to the one who painted this, and looking at the sunset that illuminated the area behind the Narukami Shrine.
The sun shed its lasts lights of the day, giving the painting a warm touch, the sea beyond the small green plain and trees felt so real that Shenhe swore she could smell the salt in it.
The boy was with his head turned towards the girl, allowing the painter to see the bright smile in his face.
The girl was looking back at the boy with an expressionless face, but her slightly widened eyes showed her surprise at something, or maybe the girl had realized something so important that her emotionless mask had broken.
Shenhe only noticed a few days after, but the girl's white hair was turning black on its end, showing that someone sealed inside her had also been present at this moment.
Both the boy and the girl were holding a letter each, and Shenhe immediately recognized those.
The one the girl had, the one Kenshin had helped her write, rewriting what she had wanted to say to make it closer to what she expected a letter to be.
In the boy's hand, the 'bad letter', one Kenshin had written after asking her what she wanted to express while guiding her.
Her first letter.
And letters that she was still keeping in a box able to resist almost any attack, a box that hadn't been opened in more than 8 years.
The painting in the scroll, unbelievably accurate, reflected the moment Shenhe had understood how much Kenshin meant to her, and the moment that changed her life forever.
The moment an emotionless girl fell in love.
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ELea looked at Shenhe's frozen expression, but she was able to sense everything going on inside the woman who had been rampaging in Liyue for years.
Sadness, anxiousness, anger, doubts....and melancholy.
"Yae painted it" whispered Elea, but Shenhe was too aught by the painting to react. "She told me she saw you talk with my dad, so she tried to paint it as faithfully as possible."
But Elea then saw a single frozen tear fall from Shenhe's face, who didn't show any emotion as was usual with her.
And not knowing what to say, she followed her mother's advice again.
With honesty comes understanding.
And Elea did the only thing she felt like doing, something that would hopefully send her feelings across.
Shenhe sensed something touching her legs, and with a tyrannical effort, tore her gaze away from the painting and looked down.
The purple-haired child was hugging her waist, as that was the highest point she could reach.
A hug that had been the first Shenhe had received since the last time she had seen Kenshin, and one that fulfilled its purpose.
Elea's feelings had been transmitted, loud enough for even Shenhe to feel them.
And with those feelings, came a realization.
'Maybe...Kenshin has not completely left.'
Shenhe carefully, cautiously, and maybe even fearfully, lightly patted Elea's head, almost as if she was afraid of hurting the small child. But her hands touched the child's smooth hair, and she didn't feel any rejection or fear coming from the child.
No, it was the opposite, as the hug only got stronger, so Shenhe patted Elea again, with time with a certain purpose.
Elea stepped back only to see Shenhe jump away, but what she had felt from the tall woman made her stay where she was.
Shenhe hadn't left to stay alone after all.
No, just as Elea had shared something so important with her, maybe she could share something too.
And a certain sealed box that hadn't been opened in years filled with letters was the best way to do so.