^you really need to re-read the lore. Okay mega plot spoilers follow... The humanoid Raiden walking around is the Shogun replicant Ei built to serve as her proxy (robustness and ease of repair and maintenance were apparently design priorities, it's meant to last for ~eTeRnItY~ after all) and sometimes ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL of when she decides to leave her little innerspace meditation retreat.
She transferred her own consciousness into that sword the Shogun keeps stored in its cleavagesome kinda internal pocket-dimension Hammerspace - what happened to her original physical body afterwards is not mentioned. Amusingly when she briefed the replicant of this step of the plan back in the day it apparently actually went to the effect of "are you quite sure about this, master?"
In short neither entity is exactly "alive" in any conventional biological sense. Funfact: did you know Raiden uniquely doesn't get that exhalation condensation puff in Dragonspine...?
last edited at Dec 11, 2021 8:47AM