After several more days of relentless, loving, and slightly exasperating, care, Ren finally managed to convince Ganyu that he was, in fact, completely and totally healed. He proved it by effortlessly creating a flawless, intricate ice sculpture of her, a silent, beautiful testament to his recovered strength and fine control. Ganyu, faced with this crystalline evidence, finally, reluctantly, conceded.
His newfound freedom from the confines of his room led him, almost immediately, to seek out the one person he still had unfinished business with. He found her not in the throne room, but in a quiet, private garden within the Tenshaku, a place of serene, minimalist beauty.
Ei was there, in her true form, standing by a small, tranquil pond, watching the slow, graceful movements of the koi fish. She was not meditating; she was simply… being.
She turned as he approached, a small, gentle, and profoundly human, smile on her face. The cold, divine stillness of their first meeting was gone, replaced by a warm, welcoming, and slightly melancholic, peace.
"Ren," she said, her voice the soft, melodic sound he had heard in her plane. "I was hoping you would come."
They spoke for a long time, not as a god and a mortal, but as two friends. Ren asked her about the future of Inazuma, and she answered with a new, startling, and wonderful, honesty.
"The purge has already begun," she explained, her gaze turning hard and resolute. "The corruption within the Tenryou and Kanjou Commissions… it runs deep. But we are cutting it out. Kujou Sara is proving to be a ruthless and effective instrument of justice, and the Yashiro Commission, under Ayato's brilliant guidance, is providing the evidence and the political support we need. The proofs that the Traveler, Lumine, acquired… they were the key that unlocked it all."
"And the Balladeer?" Ren asked, the name still a cold, heavy weight.
Ei's expression turned grim. "He has escaped Inazuma," she said, a note of divine, cold fury in her voice. "It seems he has not even reported back to his Fatui masters. He has gone rogue. It is of no concern to me where he has gone. But," she added, her amethyst eyes flashing with the light of a thousand thunderstorms, "should he ever dare to set foot in my Inazuma again… I will deal with him myself. Permanently."
The threat was absolute, a final, unyielding promise of divine retribution.
She then turned to him, and the hard, furious light in her eyes softened into something else entirely. Something warm, and gentle, and full of a profound, almost overwhelming, gratitude.
"Thank you, Ren," she said, her voice a soft, sincere whisper. "You have done more for this nation, for me, than you will ever know. You helped me to protect my people. And you… you protected my Gnosis."
She looked at the small, intricate chess piece, which she now held in her hand, its violet light pulsing with a calm, steady rhythm. "It is, as a tool, of no use to me anymore. My own power is sufficient. But what it represents… its connection to Celestia, its very essence… in the hands of that hateful, unstable puppet, it was a threat of a magnitude I had not fully considered. You did not just stop a fight; you averted a potential cataclysm."
She then reached out, her hand gently, hesitantly, coming to rest on his head, her touch a strange, wonderful mixture of a god's power and a friend's affection.
"I can feel it, you know," she said, her voice a soft, wistful murmur as she looked into his glowing azure eyes. "A faint, beautiful echo. The gentle, warm light of my sister, Makoto. It seems to… cling to you. To resonate with you."
A sad, beautiful smile touched her lips, a smile that was full of five hundred years of love and loss. "She would have adored you," she whispered. "She, who loved humanity more than anything, who saw the beauty and the potential in every fleeting, mortal life… she would have seen you as the ultimate proof of her belief. A mortal with the compassion, the wisdom, and the will to change the very world for the better."
It was the highest, most beautiful, and most profoundly moving, praise he had ever received. He had not just earned the respect of a god; he had, in some small, miraculous way, earned the love of a ghost.