The first thing that broke through the deep, silent darkness of Ren's unconsciousness was a sound. A deep, deafening, and world-shaking BOOM that rattled the very foundations of the building he was in, making the windows shake and the wooden frame groan.
He jolted awake, his eyes flying open, his heart pounding a frantic, panicked rhythm. He was in his room at the Grand Narukami Shrine, the familiar, elegant ceiling above him.
And sitting in a chair beside his bed, her face a mask of pale, exhausted, and utterly relieved worry, was Ganyu.
"Ren!" she breathed, her voice a soft, tearful whisper. The moment his eyes met hers, she was there, her arms wrapping around him in a hug that was both infinitely gentle and fiercely, desperately, tight. "You're awake. You're finally awake."
He clung to her, the phantom pains of his battle with Scaramouche still echoing in his limbs. "Big sister… what was that noise?"
BOOM!
Another, even closer, explosion rocked the shrine. This time, a delicate, porcelain vase on a nearby table rattled, teetered, and fell to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces.
Ren pushed himself up, his body still weak and aching, and looked at Ganyu, his eyes wide with a dawning, terrible understanding. "What is happening?"
Ganyu held him tighter for a moment, as if to shield him from the very sound, before letting out a long, weary sigh. "You have been unconscious for two days, Ren," she began, her voice a low, tired murmur. "Miko and I… we have been healing you."
She explained what had happened in the two days he had been lost to the world. Lumine had returned, her mission to expose the Tenryou Commission's corruption a resounding success. She had come to the shrine, her face full of a grim, triumphant resolve, ready to report her victory.
And then, she had seen him.
She had seen him lying in bed, pale and still, medicine applied to the several faint, dark bruises on his skin a testament to the brutal, one-sided battle he had endured.
"Lumine… she was furious," Ganyu whispered, a note of awe in her voice. "I have never seen her like that. All of her usual, quiet calm was gone. It was replaced by a cold, silent, and absolutely terrifying, rage."
Armed with her proof, and now fueled by a righteous, personal fury, Lumine had not requested an audience with the Shogun. She had marched directly to the Tenshukaku and demanded one.
There, in the throne room, she had confronted not just the Shogun, but La Signora, who was also present. A duel had been issued, a duel before the throne. Lumine had fought the Eighth of the Fatui Harbingers, and she had won.
"And then," Ganyu's voice dropped even lower, "the Shogun… she executed the loser. As is the law for a duel before the throne. Signora… she is gone."
But Lumine's victory had not been the end of it. She had then turned her fury, the fury of a friend who had seen her own protector be harmed, on the god of the nation herself.
"She criticized her," Ganyu recounted, her own eyes wide with a lingering disbelief. "She stood before the Raiden Shogun and she criticized her for her inaction, for her blindness. She told her that because of her detached, eternal stillness, the Fatui had been allowed to run rampant, to start a war, to hurt innocent people. And then… she told her that you were injured. That the Balladeer had almost killed you, right here, on her sacred mountain."
The moment the Shogun had heard of Ren's injuries, a profound, terrifying, and world-altering change had occurred.
"The Shogun's puppet," Ganyu said, her voice a whisper of pure, unadulterated awe, "she came here. Directly. She demanded that Miko tell her everything. And when Miko told her of your encounter with the Balladeer… the Shogun… she became very, very, angry."
And for the past ten hours, the entire nation of Inazuma had been witness to the result of that anger.
Ren got up from the bed, his legs still a little shaky, and walked to the large, open window. Ganyu followed, her hand a steady, comforting presence on his shoulder. He looked out at the sky above Inazuma City.
It was a terrifying, beautiful, and apocalyptic sight. The sky was a roiling, chaotic sea of black and violent purple, a permanent, raging thunderstorm that was centered directly over the city. And within that storm, two figures, two blurs of pure, divine, purple light, were engaged in a battle of such immense, world-shattering power that it defied all comprehension.
One was the Balladeer, wreathed in the dark, chaotic power of the Gnosis he had stolen. The other was the Raiden Shogun, a being of pure, perfect, and utterly, royally, enraged, law.
They would clash, and the sky would split with a sound like tearing reality. They would part, and bolts of divine, purple lightning, each one as thick as the trunk of a great tree, would rain down upon the city's protective shields.
BOOM!
Another, massive blast of energy erupted as the two purple blurs met again, the shockwave a physical, gut-punching force, even from miles away.
The Raiden Shogun, the guardian of an unchanging Eternity, had finally, personally, and very, very violently, decided to deal with the "mortal trifle" who had dared to harm the one, single, "insignificant sparkle" that had, against all logic, become the most important thing in her entire, eternal world.