Chapter Text
A branch from the sacred sakura crackled underneath the hanging Claymore.
Inspecting the ropes holding the wooden weapon aloft, the Electro Archon twirled an oil-paper umbrella in pale mauve and vivid purple tones. A tall gift box stood to the right, its ribbon an eye-watering shade of lilac.
The Archon sat down on an elaborately constructed pulpit, solely crafted for her auspicious visit. The novices erected a sunshade and planted silk banners to her left and right.
Ei put the umbrella down and the exorcists palmed their fists and bowed, before quietly excusing themselves. The Archon sported a modern blazer and pencil skirt, a string of pink pearls graced her neck.
“Greetings, Archon of Eternity,” Chongyun bowed, he wondered why he bothered to change his robes for the occasion, but the new coat of varnish did make the Claymore gleam handsomely. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He knew why she was here.
Teyvat and Khaenri'ah finally clashed in war.
Lantern right without Xingqui and Lumine did not feel the same.
Chongyun stood at the railing, one of the many visitors crowding the harbor during this time of the year. The waters glowed, reflecting a thousand lanterns rising to the sky. He bit into a frosty blue cotton candy and waved it teasingly.
“Do you want some, Auntie?”
She growled, in a foul mood because he stopped her from butchering an unsuspecting pack of treasure hoarders sniffing around a ruin.
“I would, if I could actually touch it.” Shenhe frowned. “It's not good to consume too much sugar, nephew,” she reminded. “It will stunt your growth.”
“I've been an adult for some years but okay,” Chongyun shrugged. “Speaking of stunted growth...”
He searched the rooftops. A boom went off and he sucked in a breath, keeping calm. The sky burst into a brilliant shower of fireworks, its light briefly illuminated a stone statue and he tentatively smiled at the Conqueror of Demons observing Lantern Right with a disgusted scowl.
Typical. Only the traveler could coax a semblance of a smile out of him.
The crowd shifted. Growing warm, Chongyun strolled along the promenade, avoiding stalls selling spicy food. He bought a couple of popsicles and continued at his own pace, loosening his exorcist habit to reveal a figure-hugging, sleeveless tunic underneath.
A colorfully painted dragon float paraded through the streets. He paused at Xinyan's concert, waved at her and hurried away, coming to a stumbling stop when the glint of golden hair danced at the edges of his vision.
Lumine, with a wide smile on her face, tugging someone along. The male...
Aether. Her brother.
Oh dear. His chest grew tight. Hot. Tears blurred his view of the twins.
He turned away. Demons do not stop for a night like this, full of festivity and wonder. The air shimmered and when Chongyun looked up:
Xiao was gone.
“I brought you a gift.” Ei withdrew a short sword from her chest and without looking, sliced the box and ribbon, to ribbons. “I created it myself and refined it to its utmost degree. This puppet is my most flawless work yet.”
A boy with powder blue hair and cat-pupil eyes searched the surroundings.
Chongyun stared at the puppet version of himself. The red ropes around him tightened indignantly.
“I appreciate your sentiment, Lady Ei, but I'm not a child anymore. Also,” he touched the back of his neck, “my hair is longer and I wear talisman earrings.”
The puppet wore the same anxious expression he did at that age. Could it speak? How was it so... so lifelike?
Did it have an awareness?
“Most demons do not have an awareness.” Xiao returned to Wangshu Inn. He bent over a stone sculpture, chipping a uniform piece of rock. The Conqueror of Demons carefully wedged it between two small pillars of granite.
“Is this your hobby, crafting rock gardens?” Chongyun politely enquired. A sudden gust of wind blew his hair back and rattled the rosary around his neck.
“There's nothing timid about you, having the courage to ask about my hobbies.” Xiao snarled, mask forming on his face. “So, fight me. How long do you think your body will last against my blows?”
Back pedaling, Chongyun held his hands up, he ducked a lethal swipe. “Curb your fury!” He sidestepped a vicious slash. “Conqueror of Demons, I respect you greatly, I simply want to prove that I can help with your demon subjugation, perhaps I can ease...”
The jade spear sliced his cheek. Chongyun turned, to avoid getting his ear cut off. His Claymore materialized and the broad blade met divinely crafted spear.
Threads of tainted energy escaped from Xiao. His golden eyes shimmered with battle lust, pride and resentment. How dare a mere mortal hope to achieve what I have been doing for centuries?
Despite all this, the entropy and chaos, Chongyun registered a red thread on the adeptus' little finger. Astonished, he received a blow across his torso and staggered back, crashing into a rock terrarium and breaking the Inn's wooden railings.
The red thread was thin, insubstantial really, but there. With whom did it connect to?
“Your mind is wandering, exorcist,” Xiao warned before kicking Chongyun off the third floor. “Lament!” he snarled, “and go back to chasing spirits or whatever it is you humans do.”
Air rushed around him. Chongyun stared at the full moon, it luminance strangely calming in the face of death. The guests at the inn rushed outside, to bear witness to adepti and human fighting each other. He closed his eyes, summoned the red ropes and they cushioned his fall.
“Let me-”
“No Auntie.” Chongyun rotated his shoulder and renewed his grip on the claymore. “Let me do this, either he will beat me into unconsciousness or I may earn his respect.”
Xiao carelessly entered the ring of frost and flicked away the encroaching ice with a dismissive wave of his spear. Chongyun timed his attacks and parried, staving off the relentless flurry of wind and spears. The cold did not slow the Conqueror of Demons down.
Chongyun allowed himself to lose control. Handling the claymore became easier, he swiftly evaded a downward thrust and when the jade spear froze on the ground, he attacked, blade bashing into Xiao, sending the adeptus flying several meters away.
The Conqueror of Demons returned, teeth bared in a growl. A piece of his mask shattered to expose crimson painting his forehead.
They danced.
The tip of the claymore shattered, the shrapnel embedding itself in Chongyun's shoulders and Xiao's thigh. Using the half weapon, Chongyun pressed forward, reaching for the soft areas of the neck and stomach, stabbing for the abdomen and groin, trying to grasp the nimble adeptus' ankle so he could stop Xiao's blustery motion.
Fingers barely missing Xiao's arm, Chongyun braced another devastating attack. A choked sound escaped when the claymore shattered entirely, leaving him with a useless, bejeweled hilt. He hurled the hilt at Xiao who paused for a split second to toss it aside.
The red ropes coiled around the adeptus, snagging him to the ground. Chongyun let his positive energy bleed and Xiao stopped struggling, he hung limp for a full moment before the emerald and black winds ripped him free from the cocoon.
He thudded to the ground, briefly disorientated. The mask crumbled further.
A euphoric lightness permeated his body.
“Ngh! I cannot let that human sway me from my work,” he decided. “You are really difficult to comprehend.” Xiao buried his thoughts at the back of his aching cranium and teleported forward, jade spear poised to pierce.
It struck a transparent claymore of ice. Xiao tried to retrieve his weapon but it would not budge.
An icy, deathly cold descended in the area. Chongyun's vision glowed like a beacon, his positive energy flattened the Conqueror of Demons to his hands and knees. Xiao tried to get up, but his karmic debt leaked like blood from an artery and it weakened and confused him. Lightheaded, he clawed the ground, furious at his memories drowning him like a tidal wave. Xiao gasped and grunted and cursed colorfully under his breath.
Chongyun raised his arm, two fingers held aloft. The golden cuff on his wrist glowed. “How long do you think your body will last against my blows, adeptus Xiao?” he asked, his tone arrogant, confident. He radiated a toxic positivity. Giant, ice claymores formed from the humidity in the air. “Spirit swords, attack!”
The adeptus tried to move, to flutter on the currents of wind. The sheer cold bit his exposed skin, he shivered.
“Defeated by a human? How...”
“Absurd?” Chongyun finished, a victorious grin lifting the corner of his mouth. “I'm not alone. There is strength in numbers.”
Xiao closed his eyes, chained to the ground as the swords descended.
And stopped.
“It's only then did I realize that Mr. Zhongli was Rex Lapis.” The Claymore continued to observe the puppet, who sat next to the Archon of Eternity, legs folded beneath him. “He put up a shield and my spirit swords broke like matchsticks against it. Oh,” Chongyun recalled with vivid clarity, “the string on adeptus' Xiao's finger connected with Mr. Zhongli's. I thought Xiao only tolerated him because Mr. Zhongli 'buried' Rex Lapis but I should've noticed how all the adepti treat him with such high regard.”
“The Geo Archon is no more,” Ei solemnly stated. “Without an Archon, erosion sets in quicker. Make a decision, here and now.”
The Claymore pondered while the sun peaked and began its downward journey. “I... the body you have prepared for me is not suitable,” he cautiously ventured. “My main priority is to cleanse the land of evil spirits.”
Not to join sides in a fruitless war.
The Raiden Shogun considered the hanging claymore. She could not take it forcefully, the barrier could repel her strongest slashes.
Instead, her sword hand lashed out, the blade catching the puppet by its neck. The boy's head rolled to the ground, its body caught up a few seconds later and crashed against the pulpit, staining it with what appeared to be blood.
“I prepared another gift for you,” Ei calmly added and wiped her sword with a silk handkerchief. “This one has flaws, but I trust it would not be a problem?”
An adult puppet stepped under the sunshade, hands clasped together beneath bell shaped sleeves. His hair reached the back of his neck and a talisman hung on his earlobe.
A scar cut his cheek.
“The abyss is teeming with evil spirits and countless demons,” he said. “I can see them.” He looked straight at Chongyun, his round pupils narrowing like a kamera lens.
The Electro Archon got up and dusted her skirt. “Well?” she demanded. “Now you have a wonderful opportunity to serve the people of Liyue, don't you, prime exorcist?”
“I died short of my thirty-sixth birthday.”
The two sides faced off against each other at the cusp of the abyss, where Teyvat cracked in a long, continuous chasm glowing with a preternatural blue light.
No matter how much he pleaded, the adepti refused to join.
They refused, like that day, centuries, eons ago when his family decided to kill him.
“After the age of thirty-five, the positivity wanes and stabilizes,” the head priest lectured. Chongyun shared a meal of cold noodles and iced tea with the old man whose face was dotted with liver spots and large freckles. “Since you left no legacy,” he stated like it was Chongyun's choice, “we decided to preserve you.”
“Preserve is a strong term, esteemed elder.” Chongyun finished his food and put the bowl down, chopsticks neatly laid on a napkin. “You did nothing while Shenhe died from her yin poisoning and now you regret it, because the opposing forces of energy, when put together, is very potent. You are afraid I will go down the same route.”
A livid blush rose in the elder's neck, he clenched his fists. “Chongyun, you are our most successful exorcist in our long family history-”
“At the cost of living a normal life, yes,” he mildly interrupted.
“We want you to become a symbol for the clan. An enduring light for the younger generations who will aspire to be like you. A warning against the demons and evil blight of our land.”
He meditated on the proposition. No one wanted to die. The adepti, the Archons with their long and varied lifespans, denied death no matter how much they claimed to embrace it.
“Auntie, what should I do?” With the death of his parents a few years prior, Chongyun's sole source of parental comfort and guidance came from a woman scorned and denied.
She materialized in mist and ice, hugged him like he was the only precious thing in the world. “Whatever you decide to do, I am content to simply watch over you.”
How did Auntie Shenhe feel? Were her hands warm and clammy like Mother's? How did she comb her hair, what food did she like?
Did she hate her father for selling her to a demon?
“That is such a lonely existence don't you think, Auntie?”
The family gathered in the courtyard, all prepared for the ritual to transfer his consciousness in a giant, peachwood claymore he specifically requested as a vessel. He lay on a table draped with a black cloth and marked with ancient symbols. Spools of paper charms sealed the courtyard from the outer world and the Leylines converged in assisting the process.
Hu Tao's flower shaped irises popped up, uncomfortably close to his own. “You will experience a disorientation and perhaps glimpse the boundary to the next life,” she cheerfully warned. “Do say hello to a certain waiting someone will you?”
He caught a glimpse of Xingqui at the border. The serenity of the lush greenery and bubbling waterfalls brought on an acute, inexplicable discomfort. His friend sat on a bench, forever young in death, reading a book.
The book gently closed. “My dearest Chongyun,” Xingqui smiled and all of a sudden, Chongyun wanted to die.
Everything dissolved before he could reach Xingqui. Chongyun gasped for air, groped blindly in the pure whiteness. He threw his hands up and sat down, sobbing like a child.
A gentle tug led him forward and he took halting steps towards nothing. The rope on his ankle pulled him along, a lighthouse guiding a lost ship back to harbor.
“I watched my body being burned at the funeral pyre,” Chongyun related. “Do you know how it feels?”
“No. There is a spare copy of me in Inazuma. Maybe I should burn it and perhaps I can relate to your experiences.”
What is wrong with you?
“The Archon said I had flaws,” the puppet replied. He dodged a bolt of flame with inhumane reflexes. “Once the war is over, I want to join a band.”
Dear Archons, Chongyun sighed, I did not sign up for this.
“Heart be pure, evil be erased. Mind be purged...” Chongyun recited slowly,
“World be saved,” Shenhe finished.
Chongyun requested to be moved back to the Claymore. The puppet complained loudly, “Putting all the responsibility of exorcism on me, how irresponsible.” He beamed in delight.
Between his introduction and the devastating war with the abyss, the puppet was less machine and more human.
More human than Chongyun ever hoped to be.