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Kujou Sara’s life was upturned.
Don’t get her wrong-- she is ultimately grateful to the Traveler for clearing up the evil that maladied her Shogun. Only, it didn’t erase her sins.
The Raiden Shogun herself ordered Sara to take a week off to recuperate and reorganize the Tenryou Commission’s trajectory. Sara spent the first two days working her ass off. Then she spent them in her room by herself.
Her wings stretch and flap over her back as she lays face-down in a pillow. Tomorrow, she will have to go back to work. But for today, Kujou Sara floats within an undefined haze of regret and winnowing self-worth.
Everyone knows she was wrong. She slaughtered soldiers and chased vision-bearers and vilified herself for a false god, only because she did not know of anything other than servitude.
Would she sin again if ordered to by her superiors? Would she again blindly follow the ones who saved her, even if she knew in her soul that something was wrong?
Kujou Sara can not come up with an answer.
She turns to look at the statuettes of her Raiden Shogun meticulously arranged on a dedicated dresser. The many cold, unfeeling eyes of her Archon stare back at her, accusatory, pitying. Does the Almighty even think about her sometimes? As someone other than her hands, her fists?
Sara thinks about the week’s worth of dust that has probably gathered on her little Shoguns’ heads. Then she goes to bathe herself.
-
The only other thing that occupies her mind other than her Archon is her archery. Archon, archery, archery to enact the will of the Archon.
Swip!
She blasts another straw dummy to pieces with an electro-infused arrow. The other members of what was left of the Tenryou Commission give her a wide berth.
She had to comb through her coworkers, interrogating them for signs of defiance, relieving those deemed unworthy of her trust. For her to do this to the people that called themselves her family…
Swip!
-
Today, Sara hikes through Chinju Forest. Her official task for the day was to order supplies to be sent to the villages she raided. She signed them all off as quickly as she could. Now, she was trying to escape her guilt.
She takes in the woodsy air and lets her eyes relax under the dim foliage. She can hear the ever-resilient gurgling of the creek a few paces to her left. She can hear the flapping of blackbirds in the aralia branches above. She looks up and sees them shoot across the patches of blue-green sky in the canopy. Almost instinctively, she unfurls her wings and lets them flap listlessly behind her as she makes her way through the forest to get to Narukami Peak. Sometimes she thinks about going back to her people and leaving everything behind.
To Kujou Sara, her Vision is not just a tool or a sign from the gods-- it is her purpose, a physical manifestation of her duty. Somehow, her inability to protect her home was the catalyst to capture the gods’ attention. Her wings had failed her, her combat wasn’t good enough, yet the god of electro chose to keep her in this world. This, she saw as a sign and the ultimate debt.
How should she feel now that she found out her recent years had been spent working directly against the will of her people and her Shogun?
She looks up to the peak of Mount Narukami, the shining pink of the sacred sakura a beacon in the overcast sky.
Halfway up the treacherous steps to the shrine, a few blackbirds land in front of her. ‘
A pang strikes through her heart, sending chills to the tips of her fingers and feathers. She wonders if she can still talk to them… She reaches out a hand and they quickly scatter, wings slicing through the static-charged skies.
Sara looks out at the whole of Inazuma. She looks down.
She feels like she is falling again, those fateful moments when she lost her wings and was losing hope. She admits to herself. She is lost, and she is tired.
Too tired to continue her journey, in fact.
She thinks about falling again. Would the gods take pity on her again? Would her Archon even notice?
Kujou Sara, the unmoving general, a one-woman army, the pride and joy of the Shogun’s militia, basing her entire life on a blind admiration, an unrequited love, a devotion that failed her. Pathetic.
She has no one at home. Though the Tenryou Commission is her de-facto family, even they keep a distance from her difficult personality. Her way of life does not account for things like friends. She only has her Archon, and she managed to fail her.
Sara gave herself one purpose, and that purpose crumbled underneath her feet. This time, she doesn’t think she has the strength to keep on fighting. She doesn’t trust her wings. She doesn’t trust herself.
Kujou Sara doesn’t even cry, not until she steps off the side of Narukami Peak and her wings instinctively open to carry her away.
Part of her wanted them to fail her one last time.