Hu Tao's words had not only broken through the Shogun's composure. Even Ei flushed red and lowered her head in embarrassment.
That summary had hit squarely on target.
Looking back carefully at everything Ei had done after Makoto's departure.
Empty talk ruining the nation? Absolutely.
Spending every day proclaiming the pursuit of Eternity, while the people lived lives that looked more like ghosts than humans.
The original intention had been to make Inazuma last forever. A fine starting point.
But all it had amounted to was paper strategy. In the end Inazuma's people had been left miserable.
Ningguang gave a firm, agreeing nod.
"Empty talk ruins nations, hard work builds them. Keqing would love that saying. It has always been Liyue's guiding principle."
Hu Tao nodded along.
"One of you is Lady Makoto's shadow warrior, and the other was created specifically to manage Inazuma."
"What you should have been pursuing was not some intangible Eternity, but making your people's lives better."
"You two completely missed the point."
"If there are no people left, what use is Eternity? If you ask me, you only had time for thoughts like that because you had too much to eat and not enough to do."
"With all this free time, wouldn't it be better to sit down and plan Inazuma's future? All this fighting back and forth, doesn't it get boring?"
"If you really don't know what to do, you could grant me a plot of land. Let me set up a Wangsheng Funeral Parlor branch in Inazuma."
"Now that's productive! Rather than wrestling with Eternity, bring in Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. When your people eventually pass on, we'll have events going."
"Buy one coffin, get one gravestone free. Special soul-sending services available. Interested?"
Hu Tao looked at the Shogun and Ei with bright expectation. The two of them treated her pitch as something they had not heard.
After a moment's silence, the Shogun said, with a slightly unfocused look:
"So we have been locked in a struggle over the concept of Eternity, and it was nothing but losing sight of the important for the trivial..."
"Obviously!"
Ryen rolled his eyes.
"Which nation's administrators spend their days philosophizing out of boredom? With all that time spent not doing real work, they deserve to have their people pointing at their backs and cursing them."
"Look at Jean. Look at Ningguang. Look at Makoto and the others. Every single one of them is run off their feet every day, handling work, laying out plans."
"They are so busy, when would they have time to contemplate Eternity? That time alone could cover how many things they could have arranged."
"You are lucky Inazuma still had some capable people getting things done. Otherwise, with the two of you philosophizing every day, Inazuma would have collapsed long ago."
"You were simply too idle. Find something to do. Makoto still has plenty of things that need handling."
"If you genuinely don't know where to start, let Makoto assign you something. I guarantee you will be so busy you will forget Eternity entirely."
The Shogun and Ei looked at each other. Something quietly guilty passed between them.
They had not seen it before, but thinking it through carefully now, it was plainly true.
The reason they still had leisure to be arguing about Eternity at all was entirely because Makoto and Ayato had been handling everything.
Otherwise:
Stabilizing Inazuma's commerce. Calming public sentiment. Clearing monsters throughout the nation. Coordinating trade negotiations with other countries.
Take any one of those tasks and it would have kept both of them completely occupied.
Ei had seen Makoto in full working mode before, and the Shogun had witnessed it through Ei's perspective as well.
They simply had not thought much of it at the time.
Makoto shook her head and stepped forward, taking both the Shogun and Ei by the hand.
"What Ryen said was blunt, but it is accurate."
"Ei, Shogun, you have both been too idle. Inazuma is rebuilding from the ground up. We are even having to cooperate with the Abyss Order to deal with monsters."
"Our shortage of capable hands is severe."
"Even if you are my shadow warrior, Ei, you are still my sister. And because you are my sister, you must carry Inazuma's responsibilities."
"You did not understand before, and I did not want to push you. But you cannot continue like this. The same goes for you, Shogun."
"Rather than spending free time contemplating an intangible Eternity, do something meaningful. Make the people's lives better."
"To grant the people the dream of a Eternity across a thousand generations: the weight does not lie in Eternity, but in making them live better, in letting Inazuma's civilization carry forward."
"It lies in doing, not in thinking."
"Your so-called Eternity, as far as the people are concerned, matters less than what they will eat for three meals today."
"They only want their lives to improve, for their days to continue. Your Eternity is too hollow, too remote."
Ei lowered her head with quiet shame.
"I am sorry, Makoto. I neglected how hard you have been working."
"As your shadow warrior, it is my duty not only to protect your safety, but to take responsibility for Inazuma's safety as well."
The Shogun could not say words like that. She stood with her head down and said nothing.
Now they understood. Their life-and-death debate over Eternity had looked, from where Makoto and the others stood, like nothing more than two children sulking over something small.
Not a moment of real work being done. Dreaming day after day.
For ordinary people, that would be one thing.
But one of them was a shadow warrior, and the other had been born to govern Inazuma.
What they had been doing was genuinely beneath them.
"Makoto. What do you need us to do?"
Ei steadied herself and looked at Makoto with a clear, serious expression. She could not keep being a sister who stood apart from everything.
She had to start sharing some of the burden.
Makoto smiled warmly.
"Things in Inazuma are mostly in order now. The focus needs to shift to Ryen's world."
"If you want to start learning governance, come back to that world with me and I will teach you gradually. Same for you, Shogun."
Makoto reached up and gave the Shogun's head a gentle ruffle.
To everyone's surprise, the Shogun did not resist. Something about it even felt warm to her.
"Whatever the reason you were made, you need to understand the reason you are living."
"You live for yourself. You live to govern Inazuma well and make the people's lives happier. That is the true lifelong Eternity you should be pursuing."
"I will teach you governance too, step by step. Ei is not particularly suited to administrative work, so I will need you to help carry some of that going forward."
The Shogun looked at Makoto for a long moment, then gave a clear nod.
"I understand."
Ryen and Ningguang exchanged a look. He smiled.
"Everything has worked out well enough. Let's go back and rest. Tomorrow we head home."
"I wonder how the Lantern Rite preparations are going. Venti alone was already a handful. Now Lumine and Aether are together in the same place."
"I am somewhat worried about those two children making a disaster of everything."
At Ryen's description, Ganyu and the others covered their smiles.
It was accurate, honestly.
When they were not in each other's presence, Lumine and Aether were both exceptionally capable.
Lumine as a traveler had a gift for handling situations.
Aether as the Abyss Order's prince was quite skilled at managing people.
The prerequisite being: the two of them were not together.
The moment they met, neither was a traveler or a prince anymore.
Pure troublemaking children, blood enemies in sibling form.
Each desperately wishing the other could be embarrassed in front of the entire world.
At the rate those two stirred things up, if no one was watching, they might well start an actual war in the MC World.
Ryen had heard from Hu Tao and Zhongli that the two of them, meeting in Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, had stayed in the same room for less than ten minutes before the building nearly got dismantled.
Ryen had no desire to return home and find his carefully built manor villa in ruins.
"Wait a moment. There is one last thing."
Makoto smiled and looked at Ei.
"Ei. Bring out Musou no Hitotachi."
Ei looked puzzled, but tilted her head back. Surging thunder gathered at her chest.
The ornate hilt appeared.
Ryen's eyes lit up instantly.
Before, Ei had been about to fight the Shogun, and he had not wanted to ruin the atmosphere.
Now, there was no such concern.
"Wait!"
Just as Ei was about to place her hand on the hilt, Ryen stepped forward quickly and blocked her.
He looked at her with an expression of genuine earnestness.
"Let me fulfil a dream."
"???"
Ei had not processed what was happening before Ryen reached out, took hold of the hilt, and with eyes full of excitement, gave a great shout:
"Come forth! Milk-Scented Blade!"
"!!!"
Ei stared at Ryen in disbelief as he pulled Musou no Hitotachi free in a single motion. When she understood what had just happened, her face went scarlet.
She instinctively pressed both hands over her chest, and glared at Ryen with an expression caught between indignation and embarrassment.
Ryen gave the blade a casual swing, looking deeply satisfied.
"The Milk-Scented Blade's reputation is well-earned. This one's life has been worth living."
Ningguang and the others pressed their hands to their foreheads with unified sighs.
They had known Ryen's thought process defied conventional expectations and that he would inevitably do something outrageous.
They had not anticipated he would be quite this direct.
Drawing a blade from Ei's chest?
The mortification was immense.
Ryen seemed entirely unbothered, but Ei was so mortified she was nearly covering her head and crouching on the ground.
Ryen looked at the lightning wreathing Musou no Hitotachi and made a small sound of disappointment.
"As I suspected. The essence of the Milk-Scented Blade lies in the moment of drawing. Once it is out, the magic is gone."
Ei looked at him with a complicated expression. After a moment she said quietly:
"Could you please not use that nickname?"
"Of course!"
Ryen smiled cheerfully at her.
"Could you let me draw it one more time?"
"Absolutely not!"
Ryen curled his lip.
"So stingy. It is not as though I touched anything."
He returned Musou no Hitotachi with reluctance, privately calculating when exactly he was going to make Ei his.
When that happened...
He could draw it however he liked, whenever he liked.
He could find creative ways to draw it every single time.
Ei shot him a fierce look, snatched Musou no Hitotachi back, and held it out toward Makoto.
Makoto, still recovering from Ryen's boldness, exhaled with mild exasperation and said softly:
"Don't give it to me. This is something you need to do yourself, Ei."
She gently touched the blade. A brilliant seed appeared quietly.
"These things were originally supposed to be told to you by the fragment of my consciousness I left within Musou no Hitotachi. But..."
Makoto smiled with a warmth that felt different from her usual composure.
"Having me say them in person is not so bad either."
"When I set out for Khaenri'ah, I knew my end was near. So I left something within Musou no Hitotachi for you: the means to save Inazuma. The seed of the Sacred Sakura."
Ei went still.
"The seed of the Sacred Sakura?"
Makoto gave a small nod.
"Yes. I had been puzzled before, wondering why the seed was still within Musou no Hitotachi when the Sacred Sakura had already come into existence."
"It was only when Istaroth appeared that I understood. The closed loop of time ends here."
Ei said, half to herself:
"So it was Istaroth's power that allowed me, in the present day five hundred years later, to plant this seed and save Inazuma from five hundred years ago?"
"That is what she meant: the only way to save Inazuma?"
"But why would Istaroth help us?"
Makoto shook her head gently.
"It doesn't matter. Istaroth is a being beyond what we can meaningfully inquire into."
"Ei, remember what I told you before. If you encounter doubts you cannot resolve, hold them within you."
"Live in the present. Do what is most meaningful right now."
"Let time answer the other questions."
Ei blinked, took a breath, let the doubts go, and gave a quiet nod.
"What do I do?"
Makoto took Ei's hand and guided it toward the seed, and in a voice of unprecedented tenderness said:
"Tell it the Eternity in your heart."