Judging by what Yae Miko had just said, and the fact that the Shogun had not disputed it, there was clearly more to the story. The true history likely differed in some unknown ways from the accounts recorded by great families such as the Kujou and Kamisato.
But thinking about it carefully now, that made sense. The Shogun had enjoyed enduring martial fortune and stood unrivaled under heaven. She had once slain the demon god Orobashi, whose coiled body rivaled an island in size, with a single slash. How could such a powerful deity have her sword bitten in two by a mere rampaging Oni, and even let that Oni escape?
Thinking about it rationally now, this had clearly only happened because the Shogun had gone softhearted at the time.
In other words, the three figures on the screen had actually all been the Shogun's loyal familiars and close friends. Even Chiyo, recorded as a sinner who had suddenly attacked the Shogun and brought shame upon the Mikoshi name, had more to her story.
Was this video called a nightmare precisely because the three of them had passed away one after another, dealing three successive blows to the Shogun's heart?
Kujou Sara was not the only one to consider that possibility. After all, if even someone as rigid-minded as her could think of it, strategists like Kamisato Ayato and Sangonomiya Kokomi could only have thought of more.
Even Sangonomiya Kokomi, far away on Watatsumi Island, was staring at the screen with unparalleled seriousness.
She had a feeling that this video could offer her some reasons behind the Raiden Shogun's enactment and enforcement of harmful policies such as the Sakoku Decree and Vision Hunt Decree over the years, as well as reveal what exactly her so-called eternity meant.
Although her earlier statements in the discussion area had sounded very bold, talking about bonds, dreams, and the like, as though those things alone could defeat the big boss.
Kokomi knew perfectly well, however, that even when Watatsumi Island had still had Orobashi, it had been unable to defeat the Shogunate. Now, without any god-level fighting power, the Resistance, merely a gathering of losers, was already doing quite well to barely hold its own against a Shogunate Army with its own ulterior interests.
With the Raiden Shogun holding the rear, the Shogunate had occupied an unbeatable position from the very start of this war. Even if Watatsumi Island defeated the Shogunate forces before it and truly marched on Inazuma City, it would still lose in the end.
When Lord Orobashi had been defeated before, Watatsumi Island had already been very fortunate that the Raiden Shogun had spared it.
Kokomi did not believe such good fortune would come a second time.
So she had to find another way out, to give Watatsumi Island new hope.
As everyone had expected, the flower viewing on the screen, now down to just three people, was not yet the main point.
The screen lingered for a while on Raiden Ei, Torachiyo, and Kitsune Saiguu enjoying the flowers, seemingly no different from before, before another flurry of snowy specks flashed past.
A figure was shrouded entirely in ominous darkness, recognizable only by her petite build as Torachiyo, who had previously lain on the Raiden Shogun's lap and been so intimate with her. Now, her face hideously twisted, filled with malice and utterly crazed, she launched an all-out attack on her deity.
The stark contrast between the two scenes made quite a few people instinctively swallow.
[No thought]
[Raiden Ei: I never blamed Chiyo, because I knew that her mind had already been utterly corrupted by the dark calamity at the time.]
[Yae Miko: Ei...]
When the scene appeared again, only a solemn-faced Raiden Ei and Kitsune Saiguu, still forcing a smile, remained on the purple cloth patterned with cherry blossoms.
The fallen blossoms, sake, and sushi, those accompaniments that should have been enjoyed during flower viewing, had all vanished as well.
Even the lovely, mild weather from just moments ago seemed to have darkened a little.
[Yae Miko: Last was Lady Kitsune Saiguu. She was the last to leave, swallowed by the calamity while protecting Inazuma during the dark calamity five hundred years ago.]
The image flashed. The Raiden Shogun stood in a dense forest, naginata in hand, surrounded by all manner of youkai, with the dark calamity farther beyond.
[Eternity]
When the scene appeared again, this time, only the Raiden Shogun remained, sitting all alone beneath the cherry tree.
By this point in the video, practically every viewer knew why it was titled the Raiden Shogun's Nightmare.
The video was structured around light and darkness, one warm and happy, the other pitch-black and painful. The extreme, vivid contrast between them left even onlookers like themselves aching inside, their hearts heavy, let alone the Raiden Shogun, who had experienced it all herself.
Had she always lived in suffering, it would not have been quite so devastating. The crux was that eyes that had seen the light found darkness even harder to bear.
"No, something still isn't right."
Far away at Sangonomiya on Watatsumi Island, Sangonomiya Kokomi, the Divine Priestess of Sangonomiya, who had already established the beginnings of the Resistance and pushed back as far as Yashiori Island, sat upright in the shrine, touching her chin with one hand as she pondered the video on the screen.
If an ordinary person had suffered such blows, losing three close friends with whom they had shared such happy times one after another over the long years, they might indeed develop the weak wish to stop time right there.
But for one of the Seven who had won the brutal Archon War to develop an idea of "eternity" that would leave her people motionless like insects trapped in amber over something like this seemed a little off.
If the Electro Archon truly had such a weak personality, what were all the demon gods, youkai, and mortals on both sides who had died in the Archon War throughout the Inazuma region supposed to think?
Especially since their own patron deity, Lord Orobashi, had also fallen at the hands of this deity, Kokomi absolutely refused to believe that the Electro Archon was a deity who would grow so despondent over something like this that she conceived the idea of "eternity."
Especially through the enforcement of the Sakoku Decree and Vision Hunt Decree, everyone knew the Raiden Shogun was a cold, ruthless deity. A deity who gave that impression should not have been so weak, either.
"There must have been some greater shock, the decisive blow that made the Raiden Shogun become what she is today. This video isn't over yet. There's definitely more to come."
Sure enough, as Kokomi was thinking this, the Raiden Shogun, kneeling alone beneath the cherry tree on the screen and looking utterly desolate, seemed to recall the beauty of the past as well.
She sighed, placed her hands one over the other on her thighs, and lowered her head slightly, no longer looking at the blooming cherry blossoms. Her whole figure resembled an exquisitely crafted doll.
At that moment, as though the heavens were matching the scene, rain began to fall drop by drop, gradually becoming a torrential downpour that drenched the Raiden Shogun, who looked so forlorn.