Chapter Text
Dottore had walked both Ajax and Lumine to a peculiar building, one of brick and gears. Standing on the doorstep, Ajax had a very relaxed stance, while Lumine looked much more determined, with her fists in her jacket pockets. The door of this old building opened slowly with the cacophony of stone grinding against stone and the churn of gears working in an ungodly harmonious groan. The room smelled of fresh dirt and rain.
“She’ll be inside,” Dottore said flatly.
“You’re not coming?” Lumine asked, taking out her phone to turn on a light.
He exhaled. “It’s a labyrinth in here. We might get separated.”
Ajax took the first step in, pushing cobwebs or hanging roots aside. A pinprick stabbed the back of his neck. He slapped the spot, trying to squash the spider he thought might have gotten scared and bit him when he disturbed its home. “Ugh..”. He wiped down his neck with his palm.
Dottore led the way, and the pair followed him.
Once Dottore stepped inside, the heavy doors closed behind him, and the scent of oil lamps replaced the moistened, earthy smell.
Generously, the hallway was filled with kerosene lamps, lighting the way.
Following about a minute of walking, the path was divided into three separate ways.
Dottore, looked over to Ajax. “I’m sure you know which path would lead us to her.”
Ajax snapped his fingers, pointing at Dottore, “One soul perception coming up.” He closed his eyes and began honing in. Even as a child, he was pretty good at finding his siblings during their hide-and-seek games, an early spark of soul perception.
He felt a large soul with a halo crown braid. He knew it was under their feet, but the path was more difficult. At least two of the pathways could eventually lead down to her. It was a matter of which would reach her first.
He opened his eyes when he could pinpoint which way would be the fastest. He pointed the hallway to his right. “This way.”
Together the three of them started walking in that direction. Through winding corridors and steep stairs, they made their way to a cleared area that opened into a giant arena.
Ajax and Lumine took in just how vast the room was.
The gentle click of heels in the darkness approached them, revealing a woman with sandy blonde hair who watched them. Her grey-blue eyes looked delicate, and she looked like a doll.
“This is the students I told you about,” Dottore said.
She approached the pair, lifting Lumine’s arms and massaging her thumbs into her biceps. “Flex for me, darling,” she said.
“I-I’m sorry?” Lumine stammered.
“I’m examining a stunning weapon like yourself,” she answered.
Ajax coughed awkwardly.
She looked up at him, scowling at him. This woman's face twisted into disgust, which was disturbing with her doll-like features.
“Yeah, I get it, Lumine is hot, but she’s my comrade. Get your grubby hands off. She’s uncomfortable.” Ajax began to peel the woman off Lumine; however, she bit him. Hard.
She clung tighter to Lumine as Ajax yelped, yanking his hand away to recover.
“You expect me to let go of such a fine weapon like someone from Viator clan?” Her hands snaked around Lumine’s waist. “With your heels on, you are about 156 cm. From just my touch, I can tell you have excellent hips. My estimate is 76 cm--” the doll-like woman breathed into Lumine’s ear, her hands crawling up Lumine’s torso. “Your cup size--”
Before she could finish, Ajax ripped the two apart, launching his fist at her face. The perverted woman’s hand had caught it. “Not even a soul wave blast?”
“Sandrone,” Dottore finally spoke. “You can ogle Lumine when I leave, but we need to find the root cause of them failing their soul resonance.”
She rolled her eyes, “Fine, Nu--” she walked away from the group. “That’s not my name,” Dottore hissed under his breath.
Within a few steps, Sandrone turned around, “Lumine darling, follow me.”
Lumine, who had shuffled behind Ajax, looked up at him.
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” he promised.
While Sandrone stuck sticky pads to Lumine, Ajax watched them closely while applying his own.
“These special electro pads will stick to you even in weapon form,” she explained to Lumine.
Lumine tentatively pressed into each one. “Is that so?”
She smiled at her, “Go ahead and try it.”
Lumine turned into a brilliant blue bow. It had been a while since Ajax had laid his eyes on her in this form. She rested on his lap. He brought down his t-shirt and held her up. “You look like you have streamers on you.”
In the reflection of the bow’s glow, Lumine looked around. “Interesting....”
A monitor beeped, and Sandrone sat and began typing into it. “If you’re both ready, I'll send out the first wave of golems.”
“Ready?” Ajax asked Lumine—a nod from her and the two focused.
“Soul Resonance!”
Ten mechanical golems moved their limbs slowly as if to warm up.
A blue glow surrounded Ajax as Lumine, in her bow form, seemed to grow in size. The spiked crystalline ends protruding out, lengthed. The long blue plumage at the ends of the bow’s limbs sparkled and released a swirl of feathers.
Lumine looked astounding.
Sandrone watched the beeps until Lumine’s signal phased out. All of the signs of life disappeared. Sailing through the air, soul arrows pierced clean through the mechanical automation. Sandrone stood up and ran towards her golems, calling them off, but Ajax had already pulled back the bowstring and fired again.
“Stop the experimentation! I’ve lost Lumine’s signal!”
Ajax pointed the bow in Sandrone’s direction. The face she saw was no longer the same boy. His eyes had looked empty before but now sparkled with a disgusting amount of intensity. Invisible hands pulled his face into a gaping smile, lulling out drool.
Lumine was scared of Ajax finding out what she knew, so it took her a minute of tensing before she opened her eyes to complete darkness.
“Ajax?” She asked the inky space. Typically she could see the action taking place when she is a weapon, but in this instance, she could not see her own body. She always thought it was ridiculous when people said that something was so dark they could not even see their hands, but now she understood it.
Trying again, “Ajax?” Echoing closely to her, as if the blackness was closing in and spitting back her own words.
It was lonely in here.
No matter how much she tried to move, it felt like it was trying to swallow her harder.
“How’s the thread?” He was sitting on the ledge overlooking a wasteland when a voice of smoked honey asked. Under them, a medley of clay, ironwork, and billowing black smoke.
“It’s still connected. I should still be able to manipulate him.” he was playing with a silver string between his finger and thumb. “It took us a while to find him again.”
“Don’t be too hasty; last time, we did not know his family was friends with powerful people.”
“Yeah, yeah.” he pulled the string taught.
“Soon, our abomination against God will be home where he belongs. Our weapon.”
It had been a day and a half since Lumine returned to his arms. Ajax could not remember even pointing Lumine at Sandrone. Sandrone had managed to take him out, dodging his attacks gracefully.
Lumine detransformed once he lost his grip, but she was unconscious. Aether ripped a new one into Ajax, but a blank in his memory absorbed his thoughts. To keep himself grounded, he decided to do sparring. Zhongli was in the midst of helping him practice his combat.
He was determined to get stronger without Lumine. Being separated from her made him uneasy. He knew that a meister could still fight without a weapon and that it was much rarer for a weapon to fight on their own. With Lumine in such state, it made sense to him to train himself to fight without her--for her.
He had always appreciated weapons more than the other meisters. Weapons usually could not fight much on their own until they became Death Weapons. One day Lumine would eventually leave him behind. Though he would be happy for her when she ascended, he could not help how a twinge of jealousy that she would get that far and continue working and fighting. He could become a teacher or something boring like that. He would ideally like to be able to fight Lumine one on one someday.
With quick fists, Ajax was not letting himself have a breath to relax.
He panted, able to push down the thoughts he deemed too selfish to share with Lumine. Zhongli had his arms up to defend himself, but it was more like gently pushing away a fussy toddler to him than a real fight. He threw another fist, but Zhongli brushed off his advance. Left fist, right Ajax threw his hands recklessly, but Zhongli remained calm, not even breaking a sweat, pushing aside each strike. He was getting sloppy.
Though Zhongli looked like he was taking this seriously, Ajax knew he was only half-heartily fighting him. Zhongli threw up his arms to grapple him, but Ajax was forced to deflect and defend. Zhongli turned on his heel to bring a back kick to Ajax’s chest. He pushed Ajax back a few feet.
Ajax lost his wind, pausing to regain his breath, and wipe the sweat from his brow. Zhongli walked to him before he fully could recover, throwing a punch. Ajax side-stepped back to try to keep some distance. Zhongli seemed to be playing dirty, throwing punches and kicks before Ajax could fully process an opening.
He was forced just to block, block, and block. Zhongli’s movements only seemed to pick up the pace; however, he stopped so suddenly that it left Ajax suspicious.
Zhongli turned his back to him. “Let’s stop for to--” Ajax tried misusing his goodwill and attack, but Zhongli caught his fist.
“--Day--” Ajax threw his other fist. Zhongli caught it as well. “Guizhong is most likely about to start class soon.”
Ajax tried kicking him before realizing he was only hurting his shin. Forced to, he relaxed his body.
The pair left the battlefield, walking to Guizhong’s classroom.
“Hey Xiangsheng, Guizhong is a Death Weapon, right?” Ajax asked.
Zhongli glanced his way. “Yes, she is.”
The pair approached her classroom and opened it casually. The first thing Ajax noticed was how dark her room was. The only light came from the slated blinds from the window. Stepping inside, the light that filtered in was reflected against threads tacked against the wall in the center of the hanged silhouette.
His stomach sank with twisted anticipation.
Limbs twisted grotesquely, only held together with the wire strands.
Like a marionette that got tangled in its own strings.
It was beautiful.
“Zhong...li...?” her voice was weak. Her head was bound in place by the tight necklace of cords, for when she moved to look at her husband, it cut into her.
“G-Guizhong!” Zhongli shouted. His voice was scared. He took a shaky step before running to her. Something in his motion caused subtle vibrations pulling tighter on Guizhong. The meticulous fibers came undone before Zhongli could reach her, pulling intricate latticework taut.
Ajax blinked—warm blood splattered on his face.
The threads that once tangled Guizhong held no more than a blue soul whose aura shone brightly in the dark room. The dusting of her soul sprinkled and landed on threads now slackened with nothing to keep them taut.
His teacher now became a work of art. It left a sick grin on his face.
“Incident?” Dottore asked while he wrapped the stethoscope around his shoulders. He had finished taking Lumine’s vitals.
“Yeah, about six years ago, Ajax had scared a kid so bad, he nearly got expelled for it.” Aether lay his sister back down on the pillow.
“The same manner as your sister?” Dottore got his clipboard and began scratching down information.
“I think so...” Aether paused, brushing back Lumine’s bangs. “I was so angry I could hardly focus on what he was saying at the time.”
“Tell me more about the incident,”
“They had tried to resonate with one another, but the kid came out of it screaming and crying.” Aether watched his sister breathe. “There’s not much to say. Before Lumine and Ajax became friends in high school, Ajax was an outcast everywhere. I don’t think Ajax trusted Lumine at first.”
The sound of footsteps running and young people shouting drew their attention away from Lumine. A chorus of students clamored incoherently, but Aether could see Ajax amongst the crowd.
Director Hu Tao led him to what looked like their building with some others in tow, including Mr. Zhongli.
Aether knew that he had gone to spar with Mr. Zhongli but had not expected it to turn so bloody.
The three disappeared under some coverage, with a few strangers following them. Aether texted Ajax, but within a few minutes, Ajax walked in. He had smeared some blood on his forehead in an attempt to clean up.
“What the hell did you do?” Aether sharply spat, he always thought of him as trouble, but this was unfathomable.
“Guizhong’s dead.” Ajax slumped into the chair next to Aether, but Aether jumped away.
“Guizhong?”
Ajax looked at Aether tiredly, “Yeah, she just kinda...” he raised his fists and shook. Aether could hear how hard he clenched his fists. “Exploded.” His hands flopped down.
Aether watched as Dottore got up and went to a closet. Judging how nobody even came for Dottore to pronounce death, Aether assumed there was not much to pronounce.
“I’m going to be questioned about what I saw soon, but since I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, I asked to spend the time with Lumine until they’re ready for me.” Ajax folded his arms in a makeshift pillow and rested his head on it, using Lumine’s clinical bed to hold himself up. “Director Hu Tao allowed it.”
“Director Tao may have allowed it, but you can’t just drip blood all over my floor.” Dottore threw some clothes next to him, “Get dressed,” he said coldly.
Slowly, Ajax rose. To Aether, Ajax seemed robotic, not just in his tone but his movements. He shook it off; Ajax was probably stressed, traumatized, and in shock.
After Ajax dressed himself, Dottore gave him a plastic bag to put his soiled clothes into.
Following the interrogation with Jean Gunnhildr, Ajax sluggishly returned to Lumine’s side. Sitting in their chair, even as the sun began to set, Ajax brought Lumine’s hand to his head.
He only lifted his head when the sound of footsteps approached him.
Dottore, with his hands in his pockets, stopped at Lumine’s bed.
“I’m not accusing you of anything, but her lab work came back, and I think you need to see it.”
Dottore turned on his heel without seeing if Ajax would follow him. It would mean leaving Lumine behind the privacy curtain, so Ajax whispered to her. “I’ll be right back,”
“What does her lab work have to do with me?” Ajax asked in a low voice, in case Lumine could hear him.
Dottore sat in a chair and brought several images up on a monitor. “Do you see this?”
He could feel the glands under his chin strain. His mouth watered. “Looks like a normal vial of blood,”
After a long silence, Dottore finally explained, “The hue is wrong,”
“So... that means?”
Dottore pulled up another image. “At first, I didn’t think much of it until I noticed when you came in to see Lumine the first time, Guizhong’s blood had an off-color to it.”
Ajax glanced down before he remembered he changed his clothes. He did not pay attention to what color the blood was drying as, but Lumine’s blood was pink. The sound of the mouse clicking brought his attention back to the screen, expecting to see little cells under a microscope like something he had seen in high school biology. Still, instead, a picture of a vial of normal blood with separation between the layers was in front of him.
“Yeah, that’s what-- uh, blood diffusion? Where it’s the plasma and the actual blood, right?”
“Correct, but something looked off about it.” Dottore clicked the mouse twice, and the image zoomed in. Moving the mouse around, he pulled up more pictures. “Normally, there are three layers after centrifuge, but in Lumine’s blood, there are four layers.”
“Doc, could you just explain it instead of walking me through it like I’m a kid.”
Dottore frowned and spun his chair to face him. “There’s something wrong with her blood. Thread-like strings that look too neat to be biological connecting her cells to a host.”
“A host?” Ajax’s head spun slowly at first.
The pictures on the screen showed a central cell connected to many other cells. He had to guess more than seven but less than twelve.
‘Pink blood.
Threads.
What does Lumine have to do with Guizhong’s death?’
“Each one has nine threads.”
Ajax lightly rapped his knuckle against his forehead, trying to jog his memory. How many points of wire held Guizhong?
“I would like to take some of your blood,” Dottore said.
Ajax scrapped as far as it would go without thinking. “Take it.”
Dottore got up to collect some supplies.
Ajax glanced back to the privacy curtain Lumine was behind.
“Since the incident at Sandrone’s, I ordered anti-madness pills,” Dottore spoke.
“Anti-madness?” Ajax turned to look at the curtains as Dottore cleaned a spot along the inside of his elbow.
“Yes, if my hypothesis is correct, madness killed Guizhong.” As Dottore pierced his skin with the needle, Ajax flinched. “Relax your muscles.”
“Why madness?”
“The way your face looked. I had seen it before in my own brothers.”
“Your brothers?”
Dottore frowned. “My creator cloned himself into many versions. The way I see it is that they’re my brothers.”
Ajax pulled his attention away from Lumine’s quarters. “What happened?”
“The creator, Alpha, would test on clones of himself. It would bring madness to those around me. I eventually ran away as a kid, but sometimes you return to a path you vowed to stray from.”
“What was the point of torturing them?”
“To defy God,” he answered.
Ajax looked at his blood, which was a bit too vibrant compared to other blood. “Did your brothers bleed pink too?”
“No, madness caused by Alpha was due to classical torture. Yours looks more like a blood-born disease.”
“So whoever did this to us probably did it to Guizhong too?”
“That’s what I think.”
Ajax sat on his bed in the dark. His leg bounced anxiously. When he realized he would have looked odd if someone had looked in, he got up and went to his desk.
“After a week of taking these, I think you should try connecting to Lumine. I’ve already gotten approval from Director Hu Tao.” He recalled Dottore saying. He picked up the orange bottle before shaking it a bit.
It had been a few days since he had taken the medication, yet he felt no different, perhaps because nothing eventful had happened leading up to Guizhong’s funeral.
A knock on the door shook him from his thoughts.
Aether peeked in with Paimon. “Hey, I finally got Albedo ready, so we’ll be late if we don’t hurry.”
Ajax pocketed the medication. “I’m coming.”
Paimon spoke up. “Why are you standing in the dark?”
Ajax posed, “I’m lamenting over the trouble that’s occurred over the past days.”
Paimon looked at him funny, “You’re so weird.”
Ajax shrugged it off, “Yep!” a mask of playfulness. He walked out the door. It was certainly strange to see everyone wearing black. He stirred a sadness inside him while the drive there blurred.
It also rained that day.
Ajax had his first sip of coffee and a doughnut that day—a young boy who felt nothing for the deceased and instead questioned why people liked this black sludge. The sky looked utterly gray and hopeless. Sadder than he felt.
A hand placed itself on his shoulder, and he had expected it to be a young Pulcinella telling him to say goodbye, but instead, it was Miss Retainer.
“Everyone’s heading inside the house now,” she informed him. No longer a child, a young man looking at her.
“Right...” he quietly made his way inside while incense wafted around the room. No matter how much he tried blending into the smoke, it still felt like eyes were on him. Lumine would chide anyone giving him dirty looks when he was an awkward teen. Now the exact reason why they stared at him was that Lumine could not attend.
He stood next to Aether, hoping the eyes would get bored and stare elsewhere. The flowers, the widow, anything, but please stop staring at him.
Hu Tao led the ceremony as Zhongli looked onward.
When everything seemed to be over, Ajax, Albedo, and Aether made their way to give Zhongli a condolence gift. Ajax stood beside Albedo while Aether was behind them to give Lumine’s gift alongside his.
Albedo mumbled as they stood in a line, waiting to give their parting gifts. “You’re being watched,”
Ajax whispered back, “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Do you know her?”
Ajax stretched, trying to do a discreet look, but to him, all eyes were still on him. “Who?”
“The pink-haired woman.”
With a descriptor, Ajax spotted her. She was talking to Hu Tao, but once she noticed him, she gave him a small wave and a coy smile.
Waiting a few seconds after looking away, Ajax admitted he did not know her.
Albedo frowned and brought his knuckle to his lips. He thought for a few steps before he concluded an answer. “Perhaps she’s aiding--” Albedo lowered his voice further before continuing. “--in the investigation of Guizhong’s murder.”
“Perhaps..” Ajax prepared his envelope to hand to Zhongli. Ajax had yet to explain anything to Albedo about Dottore’s suspicions. “Don’t let your guard down,” he said before tapping Albedo’s shoulder with his knuckle.
He glanced back at the pink-haired woman again. She was staring at him. Smiling.