Summary: A trip to the city, and lots of headaches for Aether.
This wasn't good, Aether concluded as he followed the procession down the steps of Tenshukaku. When Yae had waved the hatamoto away, he'd felt a brief glimmer of hope that she would dismiss the situation and allow the local authorities to deal with it. That hope died when she suggested they take a tour of the city. To show their foreign guests the sights and sounds of Inazuma, she'd said. Surely, not to have the opportunity to investigate the suspicious reports herself!
"I'm sure that you all have heard tell of our fair city," Miko said with a smile that wasn't entirely innocent as the party stopped before the Statue of the Omnipresent God. "Is there anywhere in particular that catches your fancy?"
"I'll admit interest in the Tenryou Commission's training grounds," Jean spoke up. "I'd like to take note of the differences in training methods between knights and samurai. Perhaps I could find a way to improve our own standards of training."
"I'm sure our dear Sara would be delighted to show you," the Archon glanced at the tengu warrior.
"Of course," the archer nodded. "I myself am interested in the techniques of Mondstadt's Knights of Favonius. Aether has told me of your prowess in battle during the Stormterror incident, Acting Grandmaster. A lady warrior, whose skill with a blade in the land of song and freedom is matched only by the Spindrift Knight. Your reputation precedes you, Lion of the South."
"He exaggerates my abilities, I'm sure!" Jean waved away the praise with an embarrassed smile. "But if you would allow it, it would be my honor to train with you, General Kujou."
"Hmm..." Ningguang hummed pensively. "Beidou mentioned a place called 'Naganohara' when she explained where she acquired the fireworks for the last Lantern Rite. I've been meaning to pay a visit myself now that the abolishment of the Sakoku Decree has made direct trade possible. I'd like to make arrangements for next year's Rite while we are here."
"Oh, I believe you know the new owner of Naganohara, don't you, Ayaka dear?" Miko asked the white-haired swordswoman.
"Indeed I do," Ayaka smiled. "Yoimiya was simply giddy with excitement when she learned she was making fireworks for Liyue's famous Lantern Rite. I'm sure she would be more than happy to make them again."
"Lady Ningguang," Ganyu piped in, handing several slips of paper over to the Tianquan. "Captain Beidou told me to give this to you when you visited Naganohara."
"Oh!" Paimon exclaimed, recognizing the parchments. "Those are recipe guides! If you hand those to Yoimiya, she'll be able to make you the exact same fireworks she made for the Lantern Rite down to the last detail!"
"Well, if we're taking a tour of the city, I'd personally like to visit the marketplace," Keqing admitted. "I saw some lovely kimonos for sale on the way here and I've been dying to try some on."
"Oh, you and me both, sweetie," Lisa giggled.
"So do I!" Barbara added eagerly.
"We can stop by Ogura Textiles & Kimonos on the way to Naganohara," Chisato offered. "On behalf of the Kanjou Commision, I would like to gift you all with custom fitted Inazuman kimonos. You as well, Tabibito-sama."
"By the way!" Ayaka interjected and Aether could hear the pout in her voice despite hiding her mouth behind her fan. "Tabibito-san, when I offered to buy you a custom kimono, you refused! And yet here you are, wearing Inazuman clothes." She dabbed her eyes of her crocodile tears. "Do you dislike me that much?"
"Ah," Aether glanced down at his clothes. Indeed, he was currently wearing a black haori with flowing, golden, spider lily patterns. With it came a dark-gray nagagi and a pair of light-gray hakama pants as well as a pair of Inazuman sandals. He'd even tied his hair into a more traditional Inazuman ponytail. The outfit had been given to him by Miko to better represent him as an honored member of her court and given the importance of the occasion, he couldn't find it in himself to say no. It also helped that she had given it to him in front of her entire royal guard; the soldiers staring him down, daring him to refuse the gracious gift.
"Indeed, we hardly recognized you when we stepped into Tenshukaku," Jean said with the rest of the party nodding in agreement.
"Haha... About that..." he said sheepishly. "I've done some thinking since then and I'd like to retract my prior statement. If the offer is still on the table, then I would be delighted to receive a kimono from you, Ayaka."
"And I would be delighted to purchase it for you!" The sly swordswoman smiled, folding her fan with a triumphant flick.
"Hey!" Keqing broke in bitingly, sending a glare towards the white-haired Inazuman. "You refused my offer of Liyuan clothing too. You better own up next time you're in Liyue Harbor, cause you're getting a hanfu whether you like it or not."
"Oh, while we're on the subject I'd love to get you in a cute little lederhosen," Lisa said coyly. "Ever since I saw you running around with that bard Venti, I've been wanting to see you try one on. You'd look absolutely adorable."
"Now, now," Miko said with a smile, seeming to enjoy watching Aether sweat. "Let's give the boy some breathing room. You can all have your fun playing dress up with him in due time. Let's get started on the tour. We can head to the Tenryou Commission Headquarters, stop by Ogura Textiles & Kimonos, break for lunch at either Shimura's or Uyuu Restaurant and then head to Naganohara."
All the while as she spoke, Aether grimaced. The Tenryou Commission headquarters was where the envoys' gifts had been stored. And if there was still any Dandelion Wine leftover, Venti was sure to be lurking about trying to sneak in. The marketplace was the most likely place to find Zhongli if he wasn't going around defacing statues. And any restaurant serving desserts was the most likely place to find Ei gorging herself on sweets.
This... This was not gonna be fun.
"Get over here. NOW." Aether hissed, grabbing a certain viridian-garbed bard by the scruff of his neck.
"Ack!" Venti cried out as he was roughly dragged behind a wall.
"Just what do you think you're doing here?" Paimon growled, glancing behind them at Sara demonstrating Inazuman kyudo techniques to the foreign delegation. They'd barely managed to slip away from them after they'd spotted Venti's bright green cloak sneaking over the wall of the Tenryou Headquarters.
"T-Traveler, Paimon, fancy seeing you here," Venti smiled. "As one would have it, a little whisper on the wind told me stories of valiant heroes of Mondstadt come to test their mettle against the legendary samurai of Inazuma! So, as a bard, naturally I came to witness it in action..."
"Oh, really?" Aether deadpanned. "And it has nothing to do with the Dandelion Wine being stored here?"
"Dandelion Wine?" the bard gasped. "Why, I have no idea what you—" Aether reached forward and untied the bag at the bard's waist, allowing an empty bottle of wine to fall out and shatter on the ground.
"..."
"..."
"H-How did that get there...?"
"Venti, the hatamoto already reported that you stole some of the wine," Aether rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Stole is such an... ugly word," Venti whined. "I prefer the term... appropriate! These Inazumans could hardly enjoy it the way a true connoisseur like myself could!"
"You Tone-Deaf Bard!" Paimon growled. "You're just here to get sloshed! What do you think is gonna happen if you get caught? Jean might know who you are, but Lisa and Barbara don't! They won't vouch for you if the Tenryou Commission arrests you!"
"I truly marvel at your one track mind," the blond traveler sighed. "Anyway, we—"
"Honorary Knight?"
Aether didn't hesitate to grab Venti and violently throw him over the wall with a burst of Anemo energy. He ignored Venti's indignant scream as the bard went tumbling over the cliff and into the ocean below. Instead, he turned to face the direction of the voice. Jean's eyes were narrowed as she rounded the corner.
"Who were you speaking to just now?" she asked with a look of suspicion.
"Ahaha... No one!" Paimon was a terrible liar and everyone knew it. Jean's gaze drifted to the bottle of Dandelion Wine at their feet.
"...Is that so?" She asked, her voice deadpan.
"You know how it is," Aether said, rubbing the back of his head. "I look young, so no one will serve me alcohol. Gotta take my chances when I can."
"I didn't take you for the type to do... this," the woman said, gesturing to the empty bottle. "Downing an entire bottle on your own? Sounds less like you and a little more like a certain mutual acquaintance of ours..."
"...Oh, Paimon thinks she can hear Yae Miko calling for us!" The sprite said, her eyes wide with panic. "As her attendants, we gotta... uh... attend to her! Let's go, Traveler!"
Jean watched the duo's panicked flight with narrowed eyes before glancing once again at the wall, where she could still sense traces of Anemo energy flickering about.
"With me," Aether grunted. "Now."
"Ack!" Zhongli grunted as he was roughly grabbed by the scruff of his neck.
"Defacing religious monuments, buying on credit you have no hope of paying back, fleeing from the creditors, fleeing from the police..." The Geo God cringed with each point Paimon brought up. "Venti and Ei have their faults, but neither is quite as troublesome as yours, Zhongli."
"Apologies for any inconvenience I may have brought upon you," Zhongli began, readjusting his suit jacket. "I know not what overcomes me whenever I see one of these monuments. It is though I'm suddenly possessed by a being of chaos. For that, I do sincerely apologize. Perhaps erosion is effecting me more than I know..."
"I'm sensing a 'but' here," Aether said, looking back at the girls gathered around Ogura Mio's boutique. When he'd snuck away, Ayaka, Keqing and Lisa had been in the middle of discussing which outfits to force him into as Barbara tried on some kimonos that caught her fancy.
"Here, I will show you," the Archon insisted, bringing a stone talisman from his pocket. "Look here upon the exquisite craftsmanship on this amethyst netsuke. Amethyst is a mineral that can be found only here in Inazuma. I rarely have the chance to admire its unique qualities, but my existence as Geo Archon lends me inherent knowledge of earth-borne materials. This particular netsuke was carved from ancient amethyst unearthed during the Archon War, when Beelzebul slew the great serpent Orobashi and carved Musoujin Gorge in a single stroke of her sword. It predates even the formation of Teyvat's seven nations as we know them and the memories it holds transcends multiple millennia."
"Wow..." Paimon gasped, looking at the talisman in awe. Aether likewise was impressed but...
"How much did that thing cost?"
"Five million mora," Zhongli said proudly.
""WHAT?!""
"F-F-Five million?!" Paimon sputtered.
"Return that thing!" Aether hissed. "NOW!"
"I cannot," Zhongli shook his head. "The storekeeper explicitly said that all sales are final."
Aether and Paimon slowly sunk to the floor, their faces ashen white. Zhongli gazed at them curiously.
"Ha...ha...ha..." Paimon giggled hysterically. "We're gonna starve. We're gonna die."
"Where is Childe when you need him...?" Aether whispered.
"If that is all, I do believe I will resume my shopping trip then," Zhongli nodded. The duo simultaneously felt a vein pop in their foreheads.
"Like hell!" Aether roared, his eyes glowing with Geo energy as an enormous stone fist erupted from the pavement and slammed itself right into a surprised Zhongli's jaw in a devastating uppercut. While it did little to no actual damage, the former Geo God nonetheless cried out indignantly as he was sent flying into the river running through Inazuma City and swept away into the bay.
"Traveler? Paimon?" A curious voice called out. Aether, still breathing heavily from both anger and exertion, turned to face the speaker.
"The girls are wondering where you two snuck off to," Ningguang raised an eyebrow at the Geo construct rising from the pavement. "Is there... a problem...?"
"Ha...ha...ha..." Paimon was still practically catatonic. "H-Hey, Ningguang... You have any work that needs to be done? We could... really use the mora..."
"Mora?" The Tianquan asked, amusement in her voice. "Why, if it is mora you seek, you're asking the right person. The question is, how much? And what do you offer in exchange?"
"About five million," Aether chuckled humorlessly, his eyes dead to the world.
"Five million mora," Ningguang hummed. "A paltry sum to me. But certainly not to the average person. How did you find yourself in this situation, I wonder? You hardly strike me as the type to spend so frivolously..."
"I've been asking myself that same question every day recently," Aether sighed.
"I see," the woman chuckled. "Well, given how fond I am of you, I'm sure we can come to... an arrangement." She glanced once more at the Geo construct, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "Yes, we can indeed."
"Ei..." Aether moaned as he plopped himself down at the counter at Uyuu Restaurant, utterly exhausted. "Please tell me you haven't been doing anything crazy..."
"Well, other than enjoying some sweets," the woman said, still wearing the mujina yokai cloak he'd given her. "I can hardly say I've done anything that warrants being called 'crazy'..."
Aether glanced at the veritable mountain of sweets currently on her plate. "Some... right," he muttered, shaking his head. "And I take it all the explosions happening in kitchens across the city have nothing to do with you?"
Ei had the decency to blush. "That... was a mistake," she admitted. "Barbatos goaded me into it. I shouldn't have allowed him to get under my skin. It will not happen again."
"Tone-Deaf Bard," Paimon grumbled, helping herself to one of Ei's tri-color dango. "Why and how did he manage to do that?"
"He said that it has become customary to craft a personal dish for one's host when staying in their home," she explained. "He showed me something he called, 'A Buoyant Breeze', supposedly his own take on a Mondstadt dish called Barbatos Ratatouille. He said he'd gifted it to you when he first began living in your home. Even Morax admitted that he'd made you his own slow-cooked variation of Bamboo Shoot Soup."
Ei nervously tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, clearly still embarrassed. "So, I tried making you an egg dish that Sara left at a local Narukami shrine once as an offering," she coughed. "It supposedly only consists of egg and sugar, so I thought I couldn't possibly mess up..."
Aether simply sighed before patting her shoulder with a smile. "I appreciate the thought, Ei," he said sincerely. "But... let's just leave the cooking to me, okay?"
"Agreed," the woman said with a matching smile, gently placing her hand on his. Off to the side, Paimon rolled her eyes at what had by now become routine as she continued munching on sweets.
"Tabibito?" A voice called out, causing all three of them to freeze.
"M-Miko!" Aether swiftly withdrew his hand. Ei lowered her head and faced away, drawing the cloak tighter around her frame.
The pink-haired Guuji lifted an eyebrow at the couple before her. "Ara," she purred, a mischievous glint in her eye. "What's this? And here I was concerned when you kept sneaking away all day. You had so many beautiful girls fawning over you, begging for your attention but you simply wouldn't pay them any mind!" She faked a disappointed sigh. "But here you are, having a secret rendezvous with a mysterious woman. Is this who you've been sneaking away to all day? If you had a lover, all you had to do was say so~"
"I-It's not like that!" Aether cried out, his face beginning to heat up. Beside him, Ei coughed, her cheeks likewise covered in a barely perceptible dusting of red.
"Oho?" Like a shark sensing blood, Miko pounced. "Perhaps you intend to play the field? Even with me? You dog~" She closed her eyes, crossed her arms and tilted her head, like she was in deep thought. "Oh, but I suppose it is you, the great hero of Inazuma... I guess I wouldn't mind~"
"M-Miko! That's enough!" Aether coughed. Just as he spoke those words, Ei leaped out of her seat and brushed past the kitsune before rushing out the door. "H-Hey! Wait!"
"We gotta catch up before she does something stupid!" Paimon cried, abandoning the pile of sweets in favor of floating after the humiliated Archon. "Let's go, Aether!" Miko didn't bother to stop them as they dashed past her, even as the storekeeper yelled about paying their bill.
"Those damn brats!" Okazaki Rikuto, the store owner, grumbled as he watched the fleeing trio. "Just because they're big shot heroes doesn't mean they can skip out on the bill! I outta call the doushin over to take care of them..."
"Please, allow me to cover their bill," Yae said reassuringly.
"Heika!" the man yelped. "Please, that isn't necessary—"
"I insist," Miko said, glancing down at the mountain of sweets the trio had left behind. Paimon hadn't even managed to make a dent in it, and Miko knew how big of an eater the fairy was.
"After all, as her familiar, I suppose it's my duty to clean up her messes."
Closing Notes: 2.1 is here! And the story was definitely a doozy! Ei is absolutely adorable and must be protected at all costs. We thought she was a heartless tyrant but she just ended up being a boomer hikineet.
So, in accordance to some of the information presented in 2.1, I made some edits to previous chapters. Beware of spoilers if you haven't finished 2.1 story!
In Chapter 1, I made distinctions between the Raiden Shogun and Ei. Signora will still be alive, despite being killed off in canon. I don't know if she'll be making an appearance in this story, but as a general rule characters are more useful to me alive than dead.
Chapter 2 remains mostly the same. But again, I made distinctions between Ei and the Shogun. Also added a line with Ei being a boomer hikineet.
Chapter 3, I changed Ei's recollection of the "Lightning Emperor" to be reminiscing about her sister. RIP Makoto. You were Ei's other half. The "M" to her "ei". I'm sure you were the one that inherited all of Mei's cooking ability. Truly, a tragedy.
Chapter 4 is almost completely unchanged. But in the universe this story takes place in, Yae never explained Ei's existence to Aether. Ei willingly allowed him into her Plane of Euthymia when he defended her from Signora as a reward and acknowledgement of his strength and will.
Starting from this chapter, Ei will be the dominant personality, but the Shogun will still be making appearances. Ah, the glories of having 2 characters in 1.
Hope all you Ei wanters will be Ei havers! I know I am! Even if you missed your 50/50, there's still lots of time left on her banner with plenty of upcoming events! Don't give up!