[Back at the Palais Mermonia.]
[Entering the room.]
[Furina, fuming, kicks her shoes off with a sharp flick of her ankles.]
"This is too much!"
[She sits heavily on the bed, the mattress groaning under her weight.]
[Her eyes drift involuntarily toward the window.]
[On the horizon, a luxury suite glows with warm, inviting light. That is Kael's residence.]
"Thirty-two thousand, four hundred days without a single word."
"And the first time he opens his mouth, it's to restrict my movement."
[Furina stands up in a sudden rage, dropping to her knees to pull a handmade pillow from beneath the bed.]
[She lands three heavy, muffled punches into the fabric.]
"The, the, the... "
[After the third blow landed.]
[She still looks unsatisfied, her chest heaving with indignation.]
"Trial!"
"Don't let me catch you slipping. When that day comes, I'll drag you to the Opera Epiclese and have Neuvillette judge you personally."
"What's the sentence for overstepping a god?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry, my dear Pope, but the crime you've committed... it carries the Death Penalty."
"Executed repeatedly."
[After her monologue, the room falls silent.]
[She calms down, sticking her tongue out at her own reflection.] "Pah, pah, pah... "
"The Death Penalty is a bit much. Too scary."
"Considering your centuries of service to Fontaine, I suppose I can be lenient."
"I'll sentence you to be Lady Furina's personal masseur instead."
From the Death Penalty to a personal masseur?
The gap between those two sentences was wide enough to swallow the sea.
The residents of Teyvat were stunned, unable to keep up with her erratic logic.
Lisa: "What's wrong with Furina? She's all over the place."
Yae Miko: "She's angry, obviously. An Archon restricted by her own Pope... that's a bitter pill to swallow."
Kaeya: "The real question is... why does the Hydro Archon have a handmade pillow shaped like Kael?"
Thoma: "That's easy. It proves she's been annoyed with him for a long, long time."
Kujou Sara: "Makes sense. She probably vents on that pillow every single night."
Tartaglia: "What's the point? Punching a pillow is useless. She should regain her power. I want to see how strong the Hydro Archon really is. Last time in Fontaine, I was sentenced for no reason. I wanted to see her power then, but she refused to fight."
Neuvillette: "... "
'Regain what power? She has none to regain
The Puppet and the Pope
Arlecchino leaned forward, her eyes narrowing into cold, predatory slits. "If that is the case, the implications are far more severe than we anticipated. This has evolved beyond merely controlling the Hydro Archon. This is about replacing her."
"Wait, what?"
Arataki Itto barked, his voice booming through the room like a physical weight. "Are you telling me you can just... manufacture a god if you have a Gnosis?"
Dottore let out a low, dry chuckle that sounded like parchment rubbing together. "Heh. You would do well not to underestimate our methods."
"Dottore!" Wanderer spat the name like a curse, his knuckles whitening.
The doctor ignored him, his gaze fixed on some distant, unseen horizon. "Though, I imagine a Reincarnator possesses a certain... resilience. He wouldn't end up like those other, more disappointing, defective products."
"You!"
Lisa tapped her chin, a playful yet sharp glint dancing in her eyes. "What a tragic little drama. The Hydro Archon falls for her Pope, only for him to wait until she's weak to rip the Gnosis from her chest."
She paused, letting the silence hang.
"The man ascends to godhood. The woman is discarded, left to rot in the shadows of her own palace."
Furina's face paled to the color of bleached bone. Her hands trembled, clutching the fabric of her skirts until her fingers ached. "It... it wouldn't really be that tragic, would it?"
"Look at you, shaking like a leaf," Paimon huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Kael doesn't even use a Vision, let alone a Gnosis. If he wanted to become a god, he wouldn't need to steal anything from you."
Furina blinked, the suffocating panic in her chest subsiding just a fraction. "That's true. He can manipulate Elemental Power without any help at all."
'A Gnosis?'
'Is that what they think I'm after?'
'I have no use for a borrowed heart.'
What is that?
Furina's mind was a total blank. She had never heard of such a thing, not in all her centuries of performance.
'I don't have anything like that,' she thought, her pulse quickening. 'You could strip me bare, hollow me out, and you still wouldn't find it.'
She stole a glance at Kael.
'Did the me from that life really... love him?'
The thought sent a strange shiver through her. As a Reincarnator, Kael was a variable... a piece of the puzzle that didn't belong to this world.
'Maybe, in that life, I wasn't quite so alone.'
In this life, Furina had never mentioned sacrificing her power to the Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale. She had never even brought up the subject of her own strength.
If her past self had used that specific lie to deceive Kael, there was a reason for it.
A secret.
Something buried deep within the Cycle, hidden even from her own eyes.