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Chapter 15: Robotic Breakdown

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The Raiden Shogun was the eminence all over Inazuma, but the current situation was proving to be particularly troublesome for her to handle.

She knew, through her creator, that she had a duty, but also directives. The main goal Raiden Ei gave her was to maintain perpetuity in eternity. And what was occurring just now was... well, meddlesome.

War with Watatsumi had long been overdue, but nothing had prepared them to this circumstance. Men sent to supposedly claim back their land and the gnosis had been slaughtered like pigs under the scorching sun of Tatarasuna. And the generals had all been unable to wedge the stalemate into a more favorable development for them to exploit.

Watatsumi wasn't the one in the offensive as they had gained all they needed at the moment, sealing off their 'new' borders and preventing any successful endeavor in pushing them back. They may have claimed land, but those were initially claimed from an early peace offer that Raiden had easily refused.

They wanted Tatarasuna, and that wasn't something she could budge over. Tatarasuna was a vital aspect of their border, for them to lose it, after the humiliating events that led to the abandonment of most of the island... That wouldn't do. Not within her prerogatives, duties, or expectations.

And there lied the issue.

If the Raiden Shogun had been Ei, this would have been enough to warrant a personal expedition and teach Watatsumi one final lesson. But that if was not a feasibility. The Raiden Shogun was many things, but her body hardly represented the peak combat capacity to face what Watatsumi was keeping on the side.

Sampo Koski, his power plus the Electro Gnosis - it made him a dangerous factor. In a fair fight, she would lose immediately. Raiden Shogun's offensive means were extremely limited, and any all-out fight would only result in her ugly demise...

Which then could spiral order in Narukami out of hand. Without a clear successor, and her being the only entity keeping Ei bound to the real world, her creator had added a very powerful order: she wasn't to take part to any dangerous clashes involving Sampo Koski...

And there's the kicker - the people right under her were furious.

In a rather surprising turn of event, the ever-loyal Kujou Clan had advanced some opposition to raising the levy to two times the current size considering the lack of 'needed changes' in the doctrine of battle, likewise the Kamisato Clan had outright refused allowing excessive borrowing to supply the war machine. The Kanjou Commission under the Hiiragi Clan confirmed that everything coming from Liyue had been put under the pressure of Tariffs... and it wasn't much since Liyue outright stopped trading with them, lessening the income from trade and speeding up the decline Ritou Village had gone through for a few decades now.

The worst part was perhaps Yae Miko. Her constant badgering with letters telling her to stop being so 'obtuse' was just growing unnerving to her. Even worse, Raiden Shogun found herself unsure of what to do with all those odds stacked against her complex and paradoxical programming: she couldn't peace out despite this being the best option, she couldn't personally change the tides because that could compromise her and her creator's survival, and she couldn't yank more out of her country without encouraging a rebellion.

The taxes had already gone well beyond the average limits, and this was... too much. Despite her inhumanity, Raiden Shogun had indeed a very human limit and it had been crossed by now.

It was one moment, one blink, and then the Puppet frowned very humanly. She looked at her hands, she frowned at her hands some more, and then appeared confused.

"Why am I back in this body?"

Ei's very vocal question was met with loud mental sobbing from the proper owner of the body. The perfect automat, the perfect puppet - broken under the pressure despite having been blessed to be the most divine construct.

Caught off-guard by this turn of events, Ei was soon reading the papers sitting in front of her. Some had been neatly folded in towers, others had been scattered, others had some notes on them which ranged from firm thoughts to outright random words that tried to summarize intense mental processes.

She read and read and... Ei was soon headbutting her own short table. Groaning as she felt the mother of all headaches hit her again, reminding her of the talk she had with Miko but...

Not seeing how this could have escalated like this!

Trying to capture the inner zen she usually owned, Ei waddled into the muddy waters of the last two months. And she felt a flinch or two surfacing as she saw some insane policies approved such as taxes being raised to 50%, tariffs outright killing trade with all countries in Mainland Teyvat, and then...

Then she noticed the disloyalty shown by the Tri-Commission.

This entire circus of a war had just messed up the entire state of things. And the worst part was that not even her duty towards honor could match the bloodshed made over Tatarasuna. This was the sort of chore that made her miss her old companions the most. Ei wasn't the average war leader. She was fine in facing divine threats, but mortals felt like a step too much and... the risks outweighed the possible rewards.

She ogled at the war map too long, and then her gaze went back to the reports of one Kujou Sara. Despite her failures, the girl had indeed upheld her duty to try and 'lessen the losses' even though the Raiden Shogun had tried to outpace such circumstance.

All because Ei had to admit that... well, the programming was too generic in its own directives. It wasn't flexible, it was rusty, it was rudimentary. Thinking for centuries made her aware that she had rushed so much in the organization of such a complex device that she hardly thought it possible for it to break like that.

...

And the one thing that was left to do was to arrange a peace with honor. And lower all the excessive fiscal messes made by the Raiden Shogun. As much as it pained her to admit, Miko had been somewhat right and it was best for her to spend at least a month fixing what issues her puppet's politics had caused.

Starting with the Fatui's relations and...

Ending with her reclaiming the Gnosis through the way of diplomacy.

AN

Ei: Gib Gnosis!

Sampo: 'Gey! *Chucks Gnosis to Ei*

Ei: Ayo, what the fugg?!