Chapter Text
“You wanted to talk to me, Acting Grand Master?”
Jean startled and nearly fell straight out of her chair. “Venti,” she said breathlessly, resting a hand on her chest.
“The one and only.” His voice was light still, but as he swooped around and landed gently on the floor in front of her, she noted that his expression was far more neutral. “A certain redheaded winemaker should be making his way in aaaany minute now.”
Not five seconds later, there was a sharp knock on Jean’s door. In came Diluc, electing to walk straight to Jean’s desk and forego pleasantries. “Have you already told him?”
Jean shook her head. “Not yet. Though I suppose…” She turned to face Venti, whose countenance remained impassive. “I presume you are aware of what happened earlier to—yesterday.”
There were years behind Venti’s eyes, but Jean wasn’t sure she could see much more. He was carefully guarded when he responded, “Yes, I do know of what the Abyss has done to Kaeya.”
It was a very general statement, and Jean realized he likely was playing it safe. There was only so much both she and Diluc knew or even could know, and she was under no illusion he would readily share everything with her. She hoped, however, that he would still share what was necessary if it came to it.
“His father foretold the reawakening of the Heavenly Principles,” Jean continued.
Venti’s eyes darkened subtly. “His father?”
“He wasn’t with the Abyss Order, but he was somehow connected, as far as we could tell.” Jean looked to Diluc for confirmation, to which he nodded. “Diluc… dealt with him.”
Thankfully, Venti didn’t press for any more details. He didn’t need to. “What is your plan then, Acting Grand Master? I’m rather impressed you have taken it upon yourself to help, but you should be more aware than most that you are out of your depth.”
From anyone else, it may have seemed like a jab at her capabilities, but from him, Jean could tell it was concern. And rightfully so—such matters as the heavens and fate were not normally dealt with by ordinary humans, who most often led lives that didn’t give them even half a glimpse of what everything truly meant. But Jean was different, and Diluc was too, and it was all because of Kaeya. Kaeya, who was no “ordinary human.”
“I’m not sure yet,” Jean admitted, “but we are working on it, and we’ve sent for the Traveler as well. Our general goal is to find Kaeya, and we’re hoping she might shed some light on exactly what we should do after that.” That big, looming question made Jean a bit sick to her stomach. She wasn’t certain just how fate worked, but it seemed the Heavenly Principles would absolutely reawaken. Kaeya’s father apparently hadn’t mentioned anything further, which meant that even if the future was set in stone, Jean did not know it.
She may as well march forward toward her death if that was what was destined of her.
“Traveler, huh?” Venti got a strange look in his eyes. “This might be just what we needed. Beyond that, you need not fret over the heavens—as an Archon, that is my duty, not yours. I will at least buy you the time you need to prevent anything from worsening.”
The Traveler arrived just around midday, a gentle grace about her as if she had just gotten a good night’s rest. Good—even if that had delayed her a bit, her being well-rested would prove an advantage.
That thought may have been a bit hypocritical coming from Diluc, but he was too tired to care.
She’d apparently been talking to Jean for a few minutes, likely catching up on the situation, when Diluc entered Jean’s office once more. He’d been in and out all day, mostly through the window so as not to incite suspicion from her fellow knights. Somehow, nobody had noticed him climbing in even once.
“Paimon still can’t believe Kaeya—what did Kaeya do, even? He died, and then he got possessed?”
Of course, Paimon was there too. Diluc’s head already hurt, but at least there was someone there whose demeanor wasn’t solemn and dull.
“That’s pretty much it,” Jean said tiredly. “I wish I could offer more, but we’re a bit lost for ideas right now. We need to somehow find him, though.”
“You said Kaeya’s father and the Abyss Order were both involved?” Traveler asked and shot Paimon a silent look, receiving a nod in return.
Jean hesitated for a moment, looking slightly uncomfortable. A second too late, she responded, “Yes, Kaeya’s father was trying to keep the eye away from the Abyss Order.” The eye itself was of the Abyss as well, but Diluc was yet unsure of what they had been planning to do with it. What they were probably doing with it now, if the eye had full control. Whatever it was, it was a drastic enough move to reawaken the Heavenly Principles.
And that was what was truly alarming. They really had no idea what kind of power they were up against. Still, they had no choice but to try.
“I have some ideas,” Traveler said after a moment of thought, “but I may need to bring in a certain knowledgeable friend.”
Diluc looked at Jean, then back at Traveler. “I trust any friend of yours to be honorable, but for the sake of this specific mission, would you mind telling us a bit more about them?”
Traveler nodded slowly, eyebrows furrowed. Paimon spoke, seemingly in her stead. “He’s like… tall and brooding, and he’s Khaenri’ahn just like Kaeya.”
“Another living Khaenri’ahn?” Diluc said, not fully surprised. Already, this man sounded familiar.
“Yep! And he knows all about the Abyss Order, since he was there when it was first created. So, if anyone’s going to be able to help us, it’s him.” Paimon bobbed in the air, hand on her chin. “Hmm, did Paimon forget anything important? Oh yeah, he has that mask on the right side of his face. Since you mentioned Kaeya’s eye, Paimon thought that might be relevant too.”
And it likely was, if this man was another Khaenri’ahn. There was yet so much for them to uncover, it seemed.
“Aside from this friend of ours, our best option is to systematically work through all the major Abyss Order strongholds we know of. You said he teleported?” Lumine asked.
“It did appear so,” Jean said.
“Then he could be anywhere.”
Diluc sighed. “The Abyss Order is always moving. We aren’t going to have much luck if we just look at their strongholds in general. We need to establish what exactly he would be looking for… or, whoever’s controlling him.”
Jean hummed in affirmation. “That’s true. Whatever he’s about to do is somehow connected to the Heavenly Principles’ reawakening. Likely, he’s making a major move against them, so we need to look at what places might have a strategic advantage against…”
It wasn’t like they thought of directly attacking Celestia all that often, or ever. Even if they wanted to fight, they would never have the means necessary to do so. The Abyss Order was far more powerful as a whole than they would ever be—Diluc had learned as much during his time away from Mond.
Traveler hesitated for a bit before interjecting, “The Abyss Order has been working on a new project recently.”
“Oh, right, the Loom of Fate!” Paimon said.
Well, that sounded ominous.
Paimon continued, “Paimon doesn’t remember all the details, but it’s basically a device the Abyss Order is using to weave Ley Lines. They can do a bunch of scary stuff with it, like create fake memories.” She shuddered, and Diluc wondered what exactly these two had gotten caught up in since the last time he’d seen them.
Fake memories were definitely alarming, because the nature of memories meant that any false ones should have been near indistinguishable from reality. That alone was a level of power capable of toppling Teyvat in the wrong hands. Diluc felt the hairs on his arms raise.
“How much do you know about the Abyss Order?” Traveler suddenly asked, her expression grim.
Diluc looked to Jean, and she motioned for him to speak. “I know a lot of their intentions and movements, but little of their internal structure. I know they have a… prince, a leader of sorts, and I know that Kaeya’s eye is connected as well. How, his father never told me.”
Traveler crossed her arms, looking out the window in deep thought for a few long moments while Jean and Diluc waited patiently for her to speak. Just like Venti, she clearly knew much more than she would tell them, but was willing to give up some of it for the sake of helping. “And do you know much about the Alberich family?”
Alberich . It was the name Kaeya had come into Mondstadt bearing, and he had held stubbornly onto it even during his adoption. Father hadn’t forced him to bear the Ragnvindr name because it clearly meant a lot to him; he could be of two families at once if need be.
There was Kaeya’s father, who had clearly been positioned against the Abyss Order in some way. The role as “bearer” of the eye seemed to be passed down between members of the family, if his words were any indicator.
Beyond that, Diluc knew nothing. He shook his head, as did Jean.
“The Alberich family was a large and successful noble family in Khaenri’ah, but there were few survivors of the Cataclysm. Among them were Chlothar and Anfortas Alberich, though I’m not sure of their relation to one another. Anfortas commanded a section of the military and eventually disappeared, and Chlothar eventually went on to found the Abyss Order.”
Diluc froze, and Jean flinched beside him.
“Kaeya’s father—”
“I can’t be sure, but I think he’s descended from Anfortas.”
Diluc breathed a sigh of relief. Kaeya being directly descended from the Abyss Order’s founder wasn’t something he was at all ready for. The events of the past few weeks were already enough.
Paimon said, “But what do we know about Kaeya’s eye, anyway? Paimon knows a lot of Khaenri’ahns have something weird going on with their eye, but she doesn’t think Dainsleif has the same thing going on as Kaeya. Kaeya’s eye was red, right?”
Diluc nodded. “It was definitely red. I’m not sure about Jean, but both of the times I saw it, it also gave me this strange feeling… as if I was being watched. Not perceived as a normal eye would, but something more unsettling. I’ve learned in recent years not to let feelings like that slide when they come on so suddenly, especially more than once.”
“I felt it too,” Jean added, thankfully not wondering aloud when Diluc had seen Kaeya’s eye the first time. Maybe she thought he was referring to his corpse.
Traveler hummed in thought. “I have some ideas, but I’ll go find Dainsleif first—it isn’t anything that would help yet.”
“I know where he is.”
Wow, that had been unexpectedly simple.
“And?” Diluc asked impatiently next to Jean, and she found herself internally thanking him for his brashness.
“Just hours ago, I noticed an unusual surge of energy in the underground section of the Chasm. I first thought it to be Abyss Order activity, and your observations all but confirm it.”
Dainsleif was walking quickly enough that Jean had to jog at times to keep up. She tried not to focus too much on how he looked, and those all-too-familiar symbols he adorned himself with; she’d seen him in passing before, but never with the full context that he and Kaeya were connected.
There wasn’t much she knew about him aside from that he was Khaenri’ahn and that the Traveler trusted him, and she suspected he wasn’t one to share much about himself unless absolutely necessary. After all, he was practically dragging them across the city after only hearing them out and uttering a total of two sentences.
Now that it was roughly midday, their group drew a lot of eyes as it cut straight from the Knights of Favonius Headquarters to the city center. Despite her status as the Acting Grand Master, Jean was probably the least interesting person here; between Dainsleif’s strikingly unusual mode of dress and the Traveler, it should have already been clear enough that something was afoot. Add in the head of Dawn Winery, and her presence was only really there as a final nail in the coffin.
Soon, they arrived at their apparent destination. Dainsleif came to a stop next to the strange device Traveler had activated years ago when she had first arrived in Mondstadt and looked between them each pointedly. “Travel will be quick, and after that it’ll be a short walk until we find him. We must make haste, or it will be too late by the time we do arrive.”
“Travel will be quick to the Chasm?” Jean echoed, more curious than surprised. With the specific people here, it was no wonder they had something more efficient than horseback; she just had to wonder how it worked. It was such a distant world from the one she was used to.
Dainsleif nodded. “The Traveler should be able to get us there in a matter of seconds. Now, if anyone has anything left to add—”
“What do you mean by ‘too late’?” Diluc asked, a hint of a growl under his breath, though it was carefully concealed from the public under a rigid and relatively professional posture.
“... There are many possibilities, none of which are worth dwelling on instead of acting. Let’s go.”
Kaeya had a decent idea of what was going on right now, but he only knew one thing for certain: he’d been tricked.
Well, not exactly. The Sinner had only shown him the truth, and if the truth was self-fulfilling… that was that. But Kaeya had certainly been misled, because he’d been entirely unaware of this specific part of the Sinner’s plan.
Of course it had more to gain from his death than simply being passed onto the next host. Of course it gained complete autonomy through turning his body into a walking puppet. Everything was so perfectly horrible.
Still being conscious, though… he couldn’t say he’d have ever expected that. He supposed his body couldn’t survive with no soul at all, so this prison was the next best option. If the Sinner trusted it so, then perhaps it was a hopeless affair to even attempt and escape.
That didn’t mean Kaeya wouldn’t try.
In this vast, endless mindscape, there was nothing left but to try. Kaeya would not give in to the false comfort tugging at the back of his mind like the offer of a warm hug, because it wasn’t real. Succumbing wasn’t in the cards, not until all hope was lost. And right now, Teyvat was still standing, which meant Kaeya was still needed.
The Chasm was immediately recognizable, even through the impenetrable pane of glass—not because of any specific landmark, but because he could feel it. He’d been here before, but never this deep underground. The feeling had never been quite so intense, so distinct. There was no mistaking it.
Nothing good could come of the Abyss Order setting up base in the underground Chasm of all places.
Kaeya watched intently; there was nowhere else to look with the endless, encroaching darkness surrounding him. It was as if he was meant to be looking, and though Kaeya was oh-so tired of doing just what he was meant to do, he only had it in him to comply.
Anticipation crawled through Kaeya’s arms and to his fingertips just as he witnessed his body begin to shudder forward. Somehow, he could feel what it was doing, albeit distantly; it was somewhat similar to the feeling of expecting a blow to the face that never came. Still feeling it, still recoiling, still wincing, all without actually experiencing it.
Resignation came to him almost as intensely, and it wasn’t his.
Failure?
Kaeya sucked in a breath through his teeth, pushing himself to his feet and backpedaling to put distance between him and the pane of glass that showed him the real world. But no matter how far back he walked, steps ever more frantic, the pane of glass embedded in the ground stayed right beneath his feet.
The feelings never went away. Failure. Resignation. Intent.
He had to restart, go back to when this all began as he had so many times before because this was his fate.
His fate?
No, Kaeya’s fate had been to die. There was nothing else after that. Death was final. This fate that he could see so clearly wasn’t his.
But it was in his body.
He tripped over thin air, stumbling backward onto the ground, eyes still glued on the outside world.
There were members of the Abyss Order about, some of them chatting amongst themselves in a familiar tongue. Kaeya watched his body utter commands to a few, though the words were muffled and incoherent. He strained to understand them; he could tell they were speaking a language he knew, or at least had once known, but it almost felt as if someone had stuffed cotton in his ears. Sounds were not halfway as clear as what he could see below him.
Kaeya shifted onto knees, leaning as close as he could to the glass without pressing his face up against it. It remained clear, barely visible as a barrier in the first place, yet undamaged despite his many attempts to destroy it.
Should he try again?
Intention burst forth in his mind yet again, and he knew he didn’t have much time before he’d be back where it had all begun. What that meant, he didn’t know, but he knew he didn’t want to find out. Not if it was what had led to this mess in the first place.
It was no use trying to break the glass; he’d only waste time and tire himself out. He needed something else. Something to connect him with whoever was at the helm.
The only sense that Kaeya could get with absolute clarity was sight, but he stood no chance of influencing what his body saw. He could hear, albeit only slightly, and he had the vaguest notion of sensation. All of those were tangible, but Kaeya was getting one clear stream of feeling from a place far less concrete— emotions.
He could still feel it all, slowly filtering in from around him. It had originally come on suddenly, just as suddenly as he’d found the glass, but now he couldn’t leave it behind. So, perhaps the solution was to embrace it. Lean in, let himself feel all those foreign feelings until they became his own. Until maybe he would gain some hold in his own body again.
It sounded far-fetched, but it was all he had.
A tidal wave of emotions bowled him over as soon as he ceased resisting, and he was left gasping. Alongside his own trepidation, a new surge of despondency swelled in his chest, pushing against and merging with Kaeya’s. Frustration bubbled up beneath the surface of his skin, and Kaeya flinched, resisting the urge to tear at his hair.
This was intense. Far more so than he suspected this creature’s emotions actually were.
Perhaps this was the price of holding the emotions of two within one mind.
Gritting his teeth, Kaeya focused his energy on expectation and intention. He would take a step backward. He would take a step backward. Kaeya was kneeling on the ground, but he had the full intention of taking a step backward.
Tumultuous emotions formed a tempest in his mind, and he pushed through it, shielding his face from the relentless winds and unending fall of raindrops. Focus. He needed to focus.
Just one step backward.
Haltingly and suddenly, the body jolted back. Kaeya heard a soft gasp of surprise beneath the roaring in his ears, and only then did he realize it was actually raining.
He was on the beach again. Lightning split the skies, illuminating what was all too suddenly sand beneath Kaeya’s fingers. The glass was just a sliver now, and he shoved clumps of wet sand to the side to clear it again, pressing close to see through it even with the rain pattering against its surface and blurring it.
Diluc.
Diluc, and a few other people that Kaeya couldn’t see. It didn’t matter, though, because Diluc was coming in fast, hand hurtling closer, until—
Boom.
Kaeya was thrown onto his back by a sudden lurch in the ground beneath him. The sand trembled and shook, and for a few long moments he only seemed to sink. But then it stopped, and Kaeya was left panting, rainwater streaming down his face and into his eyes and mouth.
As soon as he caught his breath, he flipped over and pushed himself onto his knees again.
He could only see sand.
Kaeya’s body spoke, but it wasn’t his voice that came out. This one was gravelly and weak. “This is new… perhaps we are finally breaking free.” His eyes wavered weakly, and Diluc winced at the wound he had inflicted on what had once been his brother’s temple.
Diluc didn’t get a chance to ask what he meant before the being fell unconscious.