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I imagine that there was at least one point at which this could have happened. For example, what if Odoacer, instead of saying he was acting under the interests of the Constantinople court, actually declared himself as Roman Emperor and tried to establish the Roman system back to where it had been in say, 400 AD, by pushing out some barbarians (like himself?) and just acted as if nothing had changed in Rome, and he was just another general who was vying for power. No Kingdom of Italy, yet at least.

The ERE would see this as an insult, and would have a cassis belli to at least overthrow Odoacer and put in some puppet as “King of Italy”, perhaps annexing a couple of regions while they were at it.
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