Happy Birthday!

"Happy birthday!" Makoto, Yae, Ei and Sara were around a little girl with purple hair and equally purple eyes, with happy smiles seeing the girl excitedly look at a big wrapped gift.

It was Elea's five-year birthday party, and in the Plane of Euthymia the adults chose to throw a little private party.

The real party would come later, as there were a lot of people in Inazuma who wanted to congratulate the literal child of a God, and also Kenshin's child.

"What is it?!" asked an excited Elea, looking at the big gift that reached her chest.

"Open it and see" Yae smiled, patting the head of the excited child, who didn't even notice it.

Elea nodded energetically, and quickly opened the gift under the tender gazes of the 4 women.

After fighting against the wrappings, she finally was able to see the box.

With an expectant look, she raised the lid, getting on her toes to be able to lift it.

"S-Surprise!" a nervous-looking child her age with ash-coloured hair and vibrant amber eyes said, standing up from the box.

Elea was indeed surprised before an expression someone cultured would call Excalibur face appeared, making the boy gulp.

"You didn't like your present?" asked Yae with a mischievous smile.

Elea looked at the nervous boy, before scowling at Yae, the main culprit of all the pranks she had been suffering for a while.

Waking her up telling her she was late when it was just her normal time, filling her dangos with 'non-delicious' things and the most heinous of them all, making her attend a ceremony she knew was only a fan-meeting reunion where she would get her cheeks pinched by everyone.

"I can see Ken every time I want, why would he be my present?" pouted Elea, looking at Sara, the serious woman who acted like the voice of reason in the little family she had.

"Haahhh" Sara sighed, used to Yae's mischievousness. "He is not the present, it is something he has."

"Oh!" Elea got excited again. "I trusted you Miss Tengu, you indeed didn't fail me."

Sara stood still for a brief second but smiled afterwards.

"Why did I come here for...." mused Ken.

"To give me my present of course" Elea added, but looking at something inside Ken, she added. "And to enjoy the present with me of course."

That made Ken smile, and the other 4 women looked at Elea with a wide range of emotions.

They knew that Elea's eyes weren't normal, they had known it since the day she came into this world, their light purple colour was unmistakable. It wasn't the exact same tonality, instead being a bit lighter, but they had little doubts about where it came from as her mother's was a lot darker and carried a feeling of sheer power absent in the girl's eyes.

After losing Kenshin to that madman, they took measures to avoid getting Elea kidnapped, and that implied that Ei started training again as she needed to grow as strong as possible to protect her daughter from the Fatuis, and maybe other factions like the Abyss Order.

With such a strong incentive, it was only normal for her to grow by leaps and bounds. But things relaxed a bit when they realized that Elea's eyes weren't as strong as Kenshin's.

She couldn't see souls, much less manipulate them, she only had a vague feeling of what they were feeling, and normally 'felt' a colour from the people.

Based on Kenshin's comments, they realized that Elea could 'sense' the colour of someone's soul, not that it did much for her anyway.

But this made Elea display a very high EQ, as she was pretty smart too and quickly learned what made people feel a certain way, and how to avoid it.

Yae, the most devious one, felt that Elea would make a pretty fine agitator or a manipulator, one Kenshin couldn't hope to compare to.

With a careful education and sincere talks, Elea understood her gift, and learned how to use it correctly, avoiding misusing it. Some worry remained, as Elea's eyes may evolve, but it was fine for now.

Ei razed every single hilichurl camp to the ground, so Elea had no chance of seeing one now. Yae was pretty sure that seeing one wouldn't make Elea's eyes mutate like Kenshin's had, but it was never too safe.

Ken took out 2 books from his back, and gave them to Elea, who eagerly opened it.

"'A Dragon's Tale', 'Introduction to Kenjustsu'" Elea read out aloud, making Ei wear a nervous expression, as she had written one of them.

"My dad wrote it" explained Ken, looking curiously at the book. "He never likes to talk too much about his past, but he said that just like he got a book from your father, you should also have one."

"Thank you!" Elea hugged Ken, who quickly blushed and patted her back awkwardly, but she quickly released him and hugged Ei, who hugged her back with a soft smile. "Thank you mom!"

"I'm glad you liked it" Ei whispered in her daughter's ear, hugging her daughter for maybe a second too long.

And Elea, being the brilliant child she was, noticed it.

Taking a step back she looked at 'something' inside Ei trying to see how was she feeling, but before she could see anything a pair of hands obstructed her view.

"Stop!" she pouted, trying to get the hands off her face, looking at the culprit and forgetting about Ei's actions.

"And here I thought you wanted my present" Yae smirked, relieved that Ei wasn't 'caught'.

Knowing how special Elea was, they were very careful not to feel excessively depressed near her, opting to swallow their pain and vent it in her absence.

Of course, completely hiding any negative emotion from Elea would sooner or later cause trouble so they decided to be natural about it, but the innocent child didn't need to see her mother sad on her own birthday.

Elea narrowed her eyes at Yae, wondering about the present but not trusting her one bit.

"You don't want it?" asked Yae with a fake hurt expression, taking out a big box that Elea attentively looked at. "And here I thought you liked my paintings...."

Elea gritted her teeth, not wanting to admit defeat.

She really liked them, but she didn't want to give in, as Yae now had a teasing smile, knowing what the young girl desired.

"Admit defeat" said Ei in a solemn voice. "Your enemy got a hold of your weakness."

"...okay" Elea sighed.

The weird interaction failed to raise any brows, as they were used to this.

Contrary to what anyone could expect, Elea was extremely similar to Ei. Not only physically, but also in her mentality.

"...ouch" Ei silently complained after Makoto slapped her head lightly.

'Don't call Yae her enemy' Makoto frowned inside the Plane of Euthymia, not wanting Elea to develop weird ideas.

"Now, if you want it, you need to tell me what you want" Yae smirked, knowing that now that Elea admitted defeat, she could stretch her demands a little.

"I'm not going to beg" Elea firmly said, crossing her arms to express her dissatisfaction.

"Your stubbornness reminds me of your father" Yae sighed, hiding her pang of sorrow from the smart child.

"No" but Elea shook her head in rejection. "From what you told me, he was a dumb kid who pissed on people and slapped them."

"..." Yae wanted to hide from the 3 pairs of eyes glaring at her. "You know, your father did that only as a baby."

"An annoying baby he must have been" Elea said, making Makoto, Ei and Sara glare even more fiercely at Yae for letting Elea know the worst moments of her father without a single explanation.

"I-"

"You told me how hateful he was" Elea said, making Yae open her eyes in alarm as lightning started converging in Ei's body, letting her know she was in trouble.

"I didn't-"

"Got it!" Elea shouted, lunging at the present still on Yae's hand. "Hahaha, you can't win against me."

Yae smiled, looking at Elea open her present with an eager smile.

How could she miss the mischievous look in her eyes?

And how could the other 3 not realize it too?

The only confused one was Ken, but even he was able to deduce that something weird had transpired here.

"Ohhh" Elea, despite herself, couldn't help but release a sound of pure admiration.

In the painting on her hands, she could see the entirety of Narukami from the top of the Tenshukaku, with bright colours on a sunny day.

Far away she could see a mountain with a bid pink tree on top of it, grassy plains around the mountain with streams of water leading up to the sea, and lastly, the whole town around the Tenshukaku was painted with extreme detail, every single shop had its signboard, and people she knew were walking in the streets with happy smiles.

"Is she Yoimiya?" Elea asked in wonder, seeing a person with blonde hair tied in a spiky ponytail in front of a shop. "And even Aunt Kayo is here! Look at this Ken!"

The 4 women looked at the 2 children looking at the painting with excited smiles, trying to identify everyone they saw.

Ei took Yae's hand, making the youkai look at her with a small smile.

Ei knew that even if the painting was a masterpiece, Yae didn't feel as happy as she seemed to be.

Yae found herself unable to write anymore.

All her inspiration was gone, and as writers normally say, 'a book is the author's inner world put into words'. All she could write were tragedies and dramatic tales even she didn't feel like reading.

So she took another hobby, painting.

Almost all of her paintings were the happy moments she shared with her friends, but an overwhelming majority of them were about Kenshin, even if she painted his eyes a common purple without the golden sparks that had mesmerized them. Her strength had a limit after all.

She felt pain after finishing a painting with Kenshin in it, but she couldn't stop, as drawing those made her feel like Kenshin hadn't disappeared.

Only after a monumental fight in which Makoto, Ei and Sara confronted her about her self-destructive behaviour was she able to stop the spiral she had been immersed in, but she still wasn't sure of what to do with the paintings.

Looking at them hurt her, but they were the last thing in this world that had Kenshin's face on them, so she was completely sure she wasn't going to be able to burn them.

In a moment of weakness, she was about to rip them off to shreds, when a tiny figure appeared in the corner of her eyes.

'Yae, why are you so sad?'

Hearing Elea ask that, Yae stopped in her tracks, not knowing what to do.

She felt her tears about to burst, when another sound reached her ears.

'Oh, these paintings are amazing!' is what Elea said, looking at the paintings that had a man she hadn't seen in her whole life. 'Who is he?'

Only after hearing the innocent girl's voice did Yae realize that Elea hadn't been able to see her father.

So swallowing up the tears she knew would escape her eyes later, she explained who he was in a tearful voice.

'Can I have one?' Elea asked with a pleading expression.

'You can have all of them' smiled Yae, now knowing what she was going to do with her paintings.

"Elea" Makoto's voice made Elea snap out of her enthusiasm and look at Yae with a scowl.

But seeing that Yae was feeling conflicted emotions between sad and happy, she chose to speak sincerely, forgetting any prank or teasing behaviour.

"Thank you" she said, locking her purple eyes with Yae's pink ones. "I like it a lot."

"That's enough for me" Yae replied, hugging her lightly, but with a mischievous expression she whispered in her ear. "Next time, you will have to beg for it."

"Never!" Elea quickly took a step back and frowned at Yae, who softly laughed.

"It's my turn I guess" Sara said, and took yet another book from her back. "I can't give you such a beautiful painting, or a book I wrote myself, but I hope you like it. It's the first and only book your father wrote about the Chivalrous Tengu series, even if it was never published."

"Is it like the Radiant Knight series?" asked excitedly Elea, taking the book.

"No" Sara responded, but before Elea could get sad about it, she added with a smile. "It's even better."

That made Elea look suspiciously at Sara.

She LOVED the Radiant Knight, how could there exist a better book?

"Wow" Ken, who was by her side looking at the book, let out a sound of astonishment. "Look at that picture."

"Your father learned to use his ability to draw pictures by this point" explained Sara, seeing with satisfaction Elea's agape mouth looking at the incredibly detailed picture inside the book, representing a girl looking up at a giant bird who was menacingly glaring down at the girl who sported a pair of black wings.

"Her wings look like yours" commented Elea, not taking her gaze away from the picture.

"They do" admitted Sara with a slight nod and a smile. "This book had more fights than The Radiant Knight, so I don't know if you will like it as much, but I hope you enjoy it."

Elea quickly skimmed through the book, trying to see if there were more pictures, until a hand stopped her.

"You will spoil the story if you see all the illustrations" said gently Makoto.

"Oh" now Elea realized the blasphemy she was about to commit. "Thank you Sara!"

Sara only smiled and nodded at Elea, telling her to continue enjoying her presents.

"Is Jean going to come?" asked eagerly Elea, giving all her new books and the painting to Makoto to safe-keep them.

"Yes" Makoto replied with a slight nod that made Elea smile. "She is very busy now, but she should be able to make some time. Frederica will probably come too."

"Ugh" Elea grimaced, as the woman who looked to be Jean's sister usually pinched her cheeks. "Can she not come?"

"She will bring dangos from Mondstadt" Makoto said with a raised eyebrow.

"I will sacrifice my cheeks for God's Blessing" Elea solemnly said. "They are the best ones."

"They aren't" Ei immediately rejected her daughter's affirmation. "They are too sweet."

"Clearly someone here lacks taste, and maybe sweetness too" Elea scoffed, making Ei look at her.

A battle of gazes ensued, where mother and daughter tried to show their determination and will to defend the better dangos through their gaze, making the rest, even Ken, sigh.

Which store had the better dangos was a sore point for both mother and daughter.

"Leave that for later, you don't want to spend your birthday here right?" asked Yae, making Elea nod. "There is a party for you in the Shrine, and a lot of people are invited."

"Hehe, more presents" Elea quietly said rubbing her hands, but she stopped sensing Makoto's look. "I know, I know. I need to be polite and respectful."

"As long as you know" Makoto nodded.

"My parents are going to come too" added Ken happily.

"Aunt Guizhong too?" asked an excited Elea, who liked the short woman a lot. "...your father too?" she added, a but unsure.

"Of course" Ken nodded, not seeing a problem.

Elea had an unsure expression, as Rex Lapis was a bit too serious, and she didn't know how to act with him.

He looked to be a very stern person, even if Ken said he wasn't, and even if her whole family said the same.

From what Elea knew, the serious tall man had been very close friends with her father and he always explained everything she asked for, but she felt that the man was usually unhappy when he was alone.

When Ken or Aunt Guizong were near him his happiness was infectious, but there was always a certain melancholy inside him.

"Will Shenhe come?" it was Sara who asked this time, with a certain worry in her voice.

Shenhe had been sending letters to everyone almost everyday, as the love-starved woman with a tragic past took to writing letters with passion, trying to give the same happiness she felt when she received Kenshin's letters.

But after Kenshin died, she took the news extremely badly, probably the worst out of everyone.

Ei was also broken, and she reverted to what she had been 500 years ago, but now she had her sister, but most of all, Elea.

But Shenhe had some troubles, with Alter-Shenhe being a walking mass of hate that for some reason fell in love with Kenshin, and his death made her lose control. She travelled through the whole Teyvat crushing anything Fatui related, and only a VERY strong convincing from basically everyone she knew made her stop her mad rampage.

No one had any lost love for the Fatui, but if she kept demolishing everyone, she would eventually come to face the strongest Fatuis, and in the worst case the madman who killed Kenshin with Forbidden Knowledge.

She had no problem with that, but upon hearing that she may cause trouble for Elea, she immediately stopped while shedding tears of sadness and pure frustration.

And then came the thing that made her disappear from the map.

She came to see Elea, Kenshin's child, but the baby started crying upon seeing her.

She was full of hate for the world for stealing Kenshin from her side, how would Elea react to such a strong hatred?

The moment Elea cried, Shenhe's expression turned blank, and left without saying a word under everyone's surprised gazes at Elea's reaction, as at that point they didn't know of Elea's ability.

And it was quite clear that Elea didn't like Shenhe at all.

Despite everyone telling her to come back, Shenhe had ignored everyone with a stoic face, and disappeared.

She only appeared in Liyue from time to time to check on Cloud Retainer and get some information about everyone, including Elea, from Guizhong.

"She probably won't" said an unsure Ken. "She hasn't appeared in Liyue for months."

Yae sighed, understanding where Shenhe was feeling, but being unable to do anything as they didn't even know where the broken woman was.

"Well, we can think about it later" Yae smiled seeing Elea's uncertain expression, as she was probably feeling everyone's pity and sadness. "There are a lot of people waiting for you out there."

"Hmm, okay" Elea nodded, looking up into Yae's eyes.

'If I had something to do' mused Elea, who didn't miss the brief look everyone sent her talking about Shenhe. 'I will help her.'

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Makoto tucked the sleeping Elea into the bed, kissing her forehead tenderly.

"She won't wake up early tomorrow" commented Yae, who stood beside Makoto with a small smile looking at the sleeping girl. "She has been playing around too much."

"That's a good thing, is it not?" asked Makoto, covering Elea's sleeping body with the bedsheets.

Yae and Makoto left the room, and walked towards another room, an empty one that had been kept tidy despite no one using it for 5 years.

In a typical Inazuman custom, an altar was made with simple materials, and a few sticks of incense gave the room a smell both Yae, Makoto, Ei and the other women within hated.

Today was Elea's fifth birthday.

Which meant that today was the fifth anniversary of Kenshin's death.

Just as the 2 women were about to enter to offer their prayers to Kenshin, another woman left the room with red eyes.

"Are you not going to stay for tonight?" asked Yae to the blonde woman with grey-green eyes.

"No" Jean replied, wiping the last traces of tears from her face. "I need to help Varka with the Knights, as they will leave in another expedition soon."

"Another one?" asked worriedly Yae, knowing that the increasing amount of lengthy expeditions didn't mean anything good. "Will Frederica go?"

"No" Jean shook her head, making Makoto sigh in relief. "She chose to stay behind with me."

"Good to see that she is starting to put you before work" commented Makoto with a nod of approval.

"I guess so" sighed Jean.

After a brief hug to each one, the Acting Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius left the Tenshukaku, and Inazuma soon after.

"She is going to break sooner or later" said a worried Makoto, knowing that Jean was burying her sadness in her job.

"Nothing we can do about it now" sighed Yae. "She is as stubborn as her mother."

Yae and Makoto entered the room, to see Sara sitting in seiza in front of the altar where a painting of Kenshin smiling, made by Yae, was seen.

Sara looked up at the 2 women, and readily stood up.

"I'm finished here" said Sara with a calm expression, but her trembling hands showed the depth of her pain.

"You can take some time off Sara" commented Makoto, looking at her subordinate and family member's golden eyes.

"I can't" Sara shook her head. "We don't know when is Snezhnaya coming for Elea, and if they end up coming we will need strong troops."

As the civil war ended, there was no need for an army anymore so to save money Makoto and Kenshin decided to disband it, as Ei was more than enough.

But everything changed after Kenshin died, and the army was formed again in order to protect Inazuma, but mainly Elea.

Everyone in positions of power knew the truth of Kenshin's death, and the reason that made the Harbinger attack him, so even if Elea didn't show a potential as high as Kenshin's nobody was assured that the Harbingers wouldn't come for her.

Kenshin, despite being annoying the majority of the time, was a loved figure in Inazuma.

Not only had he thrown the 'evil Fatuis' that 'fooled' the Archon out of Inazuma, but he had always helped the civilians for free without asking for anything in exchange. He wrote the Radiant Knight, knew everyone on the island and frequently made small talk with everyone. Coupled with the extremely prosperous time Inazuma was living in after he made the first reforms, Kenshin's fame rivalled that of the Shogun, but its nature was different.

People could empathize with Kenshin, as they had seen him grow, and they knew Kenshin was nothing more than a human who started from the same point as them, so they could relate to him.

While Ei was a God, something far beyond their comprehension and as such their love for her stemmed from adoration and admiration.

But his started to change after Makoto started coming out, and the charismatic former Archon won the hearts of the people again.

This was cemented when Elea was born, as humans now saw Makoto and Ei not only as the Gods they were, but as a loving mother who usually strolled through the town with happy smiles buying some cheap things and talking with the owners of the different stalls.

So now both Ei and Makoto felt included in Inazuma, not as the rulers and Gods but as a part of the society.

Even if this did little to help with the void inside them after Kenshin died, it made them feel that they were not alone with a reduced group of friends.

With all this, even if people had to sacrifice a bit of their money, the army was formed, as the civilians fell in debt with Kenshin and they grew to like the small girl a lot.

The army was reinstated with Sara leading it, as considering her experience in leading it during the Civil War against Watatsumi made her the best choice for it.

Joint exercises with the inhabitants of Watatsumi, now open to everyone, made the army grow stronger. Not to the point of being able to fight with the monsters from Mondstadt, but they could fight against the Milelith from Liyue even despite their much smaller number.

Of course, only if the Adeptus didn't butt in, but they weren't a part of the Milelith anyway.

"As you want" sighed Makoto moving aside to let Sara leave the room that was closed for the whole year except for the people in charge of cleaning it regularly.

They knew that if they came here every time they remembered Kenshin, it would only lead to living here with the subsequent problems, so they decided to only visit this room once a year.

It was a tragedy that Kenshin's death was the same day as Elea's birthday as they couldn't fully enjoy it, but in the same way, Elea didn't deserve her special day to be a sad one.

So it was a custom by now.

Enjoy Elea's birthday with her, and release all the pent-up sadness and sorrow at night after the child is asleep.

Sara bowed lightly, and left the room with agile steps.

Makoto and Yae sat in the same position Sara had been in, closing their eyes.

It was the only moment in the year they could 'talk' with Kenshin, and they had a lot to tell him.