Chapter Text
"In those turbulent times, the two defended their home and each other like sword and dagger.
But this was a story from long ago..."
—Prospect of the Brave, Brave Heart artifact set
March X797
A wall of computer screens rose from a note-filled desk currently accommodating but a single person behind it, showing the feed of twelve cameras displaying a scene as lively and interesting as always. They were showing Class 1-A’s hero training—just a standard, everyday sort of training mission. Or, it would be “standard” if Kaeya didn’t have the pleasure of being the sole one in charge for today.
On one screen, Xingqiu and Fischl could be seen ducking for cover after a chunk of the ceiling fell, solidifying their status as trapped inside that particular room. Fischl was obviously still distracted by her unique mourning process for her shattered bow. She held up the broken handgrip and cursed to the wind while Xingqiu frantically scanned the rubble, likely overthinking this entire situation.
Meanwhile, Chongyun, Bennett, and Collei were left to deal with the reconstructed Ruin Grader crashing its way through the open street. Bennett was making his panic very obvious and talking rapidly, making gestures at the machine as if trying to make a plan, and Collei started arguing with him about it. Kaeya was very curious as to what they were saying, but alas, a video feed was all he had. He’ll just have to observe and watch for now and ask questions later.
Klee and Razor were handling the chaos considerably better, blowing through the Ruin Sentinels blocking the hallway to try to get to the other side, until Klee finally figured out that blowing up a hole in the wall was an option. But, instead of escaping the building entirely, they ran for a stairway that led deeper down. They probably were trying to find Aether, Xiangling, and Guoba, who had fallen down a seemingly bottomless pit earlier.
Lumine had already managed to find them there, though—she was helping along Aether, who had sprained his ankle from the looks of it. (It would be a wonderful time to learn how to fly, now wouldn’t it?) However, Lumine had lost Xinyan and Ellin along the way, who stayed to hold off that Ruin Hunter while Lumine ran to make her descent into the tunnels. An understandable decision, although maybe not the best-founded. Lumine was the quickest out of them, yes, but her Windblade would have been the best move to make against the airborne Ruin Hunter (which was staying in its missile-launching state nearly perpetually for reasons). She should have at least let Ellin copy it first; everything Ellin had right now was best for melee. Xinyan’s specialty was AoE attacks, but she was obviously avoiding doing that since the buildings nearby were so close to crumbling. Good call, too, since they were indeed people inside of said buildings. Thus, she was left struggling with focusing on accuracy in exchange for strength. Her quirk, Soundwave, allowed her to amplify sounds that she made and transform them into a wave attack capable of physical damage, but between the treacherous landscape and the cacophony of noises that the Ruin Hunter must be making right now, that quirk was going to be nowhere near its best effectiveness.
Maybe, Kaeya should consider letting the Ruin Hunter lower itself closer to the ground again…?
His thought process was then promptly interrupted by the sound of the door behind him opening wide.
“Kaeya, what are you doing?” Diluc asked in a bored tone.
Kaeya swirled his chair around with flourish, watching his adopted brother regard him with complete lack of amusement as he stepped inside and crossed his arms as he was so fond of doing.
“Teaching the Class 1-A hero students, of course,” Kaeya replied with an easy smirk, giving a glance back on the monitors. “They’re doing quite well, don’t you think?”
“I thought you said it was going to be a team vs. team training mission today?” Diluc started with an accusing tone. “And weren’t we going to wait before training them with the Ruin Machines? Last I checked, we only used those in training with the third-years. Don’t tell you spontaneously decided to give the first-years…”
“Don’t worry, I already got Jean and Varka’s permission to use a few of the machines,” Kaeya assured.
“I don’t suppose you informed them that the Ruin Grader was going to be one of them?” Diluc gestured at the screen where the giant machine was currently being slowed by Chongyun’s ice field and thus left susceptible to a certain giant shadow snake’s strike to its eye, Collei’s quirk noticeably strengthened by Bennett’s. Excellent. This was just the kind of teamwork he was hoping for, and wonderful timing, too.
“I think they can handle it.” Kaeya’s self-satisfied smile strengthened.
Diluc rolled his eyes dramatically. “Fine. I just hope you’re prepared to fix whatever wreckage this mess causes.”
Kaeya shrugged. It’s not like they didn’t have to give the training grounds a complete makeover every other Tuesday anyways, for some reason or another. Usually it was because of the students. Today, however, Kaeya thought that he’ll let himself be the one to have a little fun, not that a move like this was uncharacteristic of him. The students had probably already figured out what was this was all about based on precedent alone, and if they didn’t, they should. A little skill he liked to call “seeing into the mind of your enemy.” It was true that robot fighting was nowhere in the schedule today—the premise was that they were going to do a little capture-the-flag-style team competition, with the entire class put onto the field at once with two teams of six competing against one another. Then, fifteen minutes into their match, the Ruin machines showed up and put everything to chaos. Now, the students’ focus had shifted entirely to stopping the machines and protecting each other, their team divides thrown out the window. For all they knew, an actual villain could be attacking the school right now, but again, he would like to think that at least some of them figured out this must be one of Kaeya’s little “twists,” especially given the lack of alarms or faculty support. Kaeya simply liked to teach this way—he didn’t go out of the norm all the time, as that too would ruin the surprise, but he did think it was a good idea to throw in a little unpredictability now and then, throwing the students into a situation they had no chance to prepare for. After all, was that not how real hero work was? You can never count on your expectations. A routine patrol or a fight with a “weak” villain could quickly turn into a matter of life and death.
There was a good chance they might be in need of some experience with these particular machines, anyways. They really were, in a sense, springing up around Teyvatia like weeds. Ever since that first incident, Ruin machines had appeared at various times and places to sow a little chaos in very large, public displays before the heroes swept in to take them down. They were employed by various villain groups with no association to each other, and sometimes, they would show up on their own with seemingly no one around to pull the strings. They just strode or flew their way into the city. One band of villains who were arrested and questioned after one such incident claimed that someone else sold them the machine and that they had no idea who it was that did the selling.
It was quite the coincidence, then, that some of Class 1-A (and Kaeya and Diluc, for that matter) were at the center of the very first “Ruin Guard” sighting. It was during that one week of work studies in their second semester, when Razor encountered the giant alongside his then-mentor Outrider Amber, and then Klee burst in to help. Long story short, the robot was taken down, and the media kept talking about it for two weeks at least. A picture drifting around social media of that thing standing in front of the “Glorious Ruin” clothes outlet store somehow led to it getting dubbed “Ruin Guard” in the hashtags. Then, as soon as the talk died down, another robot just like it showed up in Inazuma City. More robots came in the months that followed, all just as mysterious but often coming in different shapes and forms, yet still close enough to be dubbed into the “Ruin” family.
The Public Safety Commission has an excess of these in storage; so much, it was almost laughable. The metal making up the robot had yet to be identified, so no one was willing to let it sit in or get smelted by a junkyard. Thus, they, in the goodness of their hearts, gave some to the schools to use as teaching tools, so they could let the broken-down behemoths take up all their storage space. Not to say they weren’t nifty, though. Kaeya has been told that they were very sturdy and relatively easy to put back together after being blown apart in a fight—isolated-component design or something like that. The support class was having a lot of fun analyzing these, he was sure. And the best part was, the rebuilt machines could be made to be controllable by the teachers. The robot was still semi-autonomous, but Kaeya could sit here from his perch and direct them wherever he wished for them to go, and keep watch for safety reasons. He could shut down the machines in an instant if someone got seriously hurt or looked like they were about to be. Plus, he would direct their fire so that none of the buildings actually collapsed on top of the students.
With Diluc still in the background watching, Kaeya continued to observe. Xinyan just propelled Ellin to the top of the roof, Ellin using Sucrose’s Swirl under her feet to act as a buffer from Xinyan’s blast. A very interesting move. Meanwhile, the Ruin Grader trio finally found success: the giant snake formed from Collei’s Black Fire crushed its head after it fell from being pierced in the eye, and Chongyun’s Ice Field coalesced into a giant blade that fell on top of it, dealing the final blow and pinning it to the ground.
“Well, that’s the end of that little rampaging contraption,” Kaeya commented with a note of pride in his voice and a ‘I told you so’ glance back at Diluc.
Diluc grunted with a shake of his head. “I never said they weren’t capable,” he huffed. “I’m saying your methods are reckless. Also, why are so many students trapped in places? The twins and Xiangling look like they’re navigating a tunnel labyrinth. You rigged the field, didn’t you?”
“Of course.” Kaeya shrugged. “It’s part of the challenge. Keeps them on their toes and offers a few ‘surprise’ matchups. The group that just decapitated the Ruin Grader, for instance? Definitely planned.” It was something of a deliberate trick he did, initially putting Chongyun and Xingqiu on the same team and then finding a way to split them up. They did very well as a team, which was certainly a good thing (they reminded him a lot of himself and Diluc from back when they were students, actually…), but Chongyun tended to always defer to Xingqiu’s direction and planning. “I wanted to test their ability to make a strategy on their own,” Kaeya explained his thought process out loud. “They each would have had an expectation coming in, being on a certain team, having other teammates as the designated planners. But in a fight, you can’t always count on having certain people by your side, there to give direction.” Can’t count on having a friend or partner with you forever in general, really. “Chongyun and Bennett both aren’t that forthright in team situations, and Collei, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, has a bit of a habit of going off on her own, even when working with a team, although I’m sure you have no idea what that is like, at all,” he jabbed teasingly. “But, if they have a crisis on their hands, she can’t possibly leave them behind, and they have to work together.”
“That…sounds like you put a lot of thought into it,” Diluc conceded.
“I do my best.” Kaeya shrugged with a smile before turning back to watch the screens. It wasn’t like he thought he could fully address every student’s strengths and weaknesses in the span of single training session, but it was a start. He was sure that his fellow teachers would also find good ways to give them a challenge and push their limits when it was their turn to do the training, as they already have for all this year prior.
“However,” Diluc huffed, taking a tone of displeasure again, “I still don’t like the idea of using the Ruin machines at all. We shouldn’t trust them. How can we overlook the chance that whoever made them could find a way to take control again? Or, they could be spying devices. We should be focusing on finding a way to destroy them completely.”
“We’ve checked for bugs every way we know how,” Kaeya repeated with a tone of assurance, although he would acknowledge that Diluc had a fair point. He too was not that terribly keen on keeping them around, at first. “The Commission isn’t quite as useless as you think they are. If there was any tracking device, signal receptor, or sensory reader on it before, it isn’t there now. It would make sense, in a way. Those kinds of devices can be traced back to the source if discovered, and we know for certain that discovery is not what they’re looking to have.” Unless the tracker was imperceptible. If the people he thought were behind this were indeed involved…they might be both smart enough and foolhardy enough to do just that. Was it wishful thinking, then, to believe that this really wouldn’t be a problem? But it wasn’t as if anyone asked him whether or not the machines should come here in the first place…they had a home in U.A. regardless. Still, who knows? Maybe it will be one of the students who finds some way to destroy one of those things for good.
“Then why send a robot in the first place? There’s nothing ‘covert’ about that strategy at all. Do they really think that no one will discover them if they keep causing chaos like this?”
“Well, it’s worked for them so far, hasn’t it?” Kaeya spoke with a trace of bitterness in his tone, his eyes on the screens and his notes but his head, thanks to Diluc, drifting elsewhere.
“So you still believe this is the Abyss Order’s work?”
And there he said it. Kaeya wondered when he would bring them up; it would have been such a surprise if he had to do so himself. “Yes,” he started simply. They’ve already had this conversation before—multiple times, actually. Diluc was the only one who knew his suspicions, mainly because he was the only one who had a clue as to what the name “Abyss Order” even meant. Kaeya still had no proof, though. He only knew that people connected to the black-market supply chain that shipped out these robots were also very likely connected to the Abyss Order. Unfortunately, these details were connected to a number of things that Kaeya was not “supposed” to know, in more ways than one. He wasn’t supposed to have any knowledge of the Abyss Order’s existence, and he really shouldn’t have half as many underworld contacts as he did.
He and Diluc were still very similar, in this way. They both worked in the shadows. They both had information networks full of people they shouldn’t know. The only difference was that Diluc had fully detached himself from the spotlight by becoming an underground hero, a hero of the night, while Kaeya persisted to keep up a front as a hero of the day. The other difference was that Kaeya’s information network was definitely better than Diluc’s, for sure.
“They could be smarter than we think,” Kaeya continued. “Every battle between the heroes and these things is an information-filled test run for them, or so it would seem. Just in these past several months, they’ve improved. The Ruin Guard that attacked on that day during Razor and Klee’s work study back then was difficult, but it’s a joke compared to the Ruin Grader. And each type of model is steadily improving, too. Thus they get to make active progress while making a mockery of the Commission, which I’m sure they must love ever so well. Fighting a giant robot in the streets is a hero’s dream, is it not? I’m not saying every hero is so debased as to hope for destruction, but there’s nothing like a large, public, fantastic enemy to win yourself a great deal of fame. But when the same kind of robot keeps attacking? Now the heroes just look inept. Just watch, if this keeps going on, people are going to lose faith in the heroes soon enough. That’s why finding the source is so important…and yet, at the same time, I can’t say that I’m confident the problem will be solved with that knowledge.”
Kaeya paused for a moment to continue to watch the training session. He was going to have to call it quits in about ten minutes or so, to give them all enough time for a good debriefing before it was time for their school day to come to an end. It did look like they were doing decently well, though. The Ruin Hunter had just sputtered to the ground, finally knocked out of the sky by Ellin’s use of Razor’s quirk and left susceptible to Xinyan’s attacks at close range. On the other side of the grounds, Xingqiu and Fischl found a way out of that building with a lot of help from Oz, and they rejoined Chongyun, Bennett, and Collei and took off together to go find the others. Meanwhile, Razor and Klee as well as the twins and Xiangling were all hopelessly lost. Maybe those tunnels were a little too much like a labyrinth.
“Unfortunately, I believe there is a good chance that our little robot infestation is going to be here to stay for a while,” Kaeya continued. “In that case, I believe giving the kids experience with these things would be beneficial. They might need it.” It was funny, in a way. In the past, U.A. had indeed used various robots and other contraptions as training and testing tools—it was good for giving an enemy that a student didn’t have to hold back on—but their practicality was dubious. Yes, dealing with giant “monsters” of your golem, elemental, machine, or fantastical creature type was entirely possible and even likely in the world of quirks, but building a giant destroyable robot for that purpose was expensive. Not to mention that one time a parent filed a lawsuit after their kid got slightly seriously injured…but that was another story. The kid was fine, mostly.
“You say that like our plan is to just accept the Abyss Order’s doings as a certainty,” Diluc countered, sounding frustrated and annoyed by the notion. “If we allow this to go on by the time those kids are in their internships, that’s a failure on our part. The Abyss Order can’t stay hidden forever.”
“I know,” Kaeya agreed, although with perhaps not quite the same mindset. “They won’t stay hidden forever, because eventually, they will decide their ‘day of reckoning’ has come. Some way or another, they’ll start their war. I agree that I don’t want it to come to that, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t. We just have to be prepared. Remember, most people still don’t know they exist.”
“And why should we let that still be true?” Diluc argued. “Why shouldn’t we do something? Tell someone?”
“Diluc…” Kaeya breathed out a heavy sigh. “You know why. Besides, aren’t you the one always talking about how inefficient the Commission is? How easy do you think it would be to be forthright with them about a secret organization operating under their feet filled with the descendants of exiles from two hundred years ago that they definitely do not like telling the public about?”
“Then we handle it on our own! You know exactly where they’re located, so why not—?”
“Oh, sorry Diluc, have to put a pin in this,” Kaeya suavely interrupted. “It’s about time I stop the training and bring the kids back for debriefing. Can’t skip out on ‘what have we learned today’ discussion time, now can we?” This would be good timing. The class succeeded in quelling the large threats, just some of them were still very lost…oh, wait, Lumine got distracted by a pile of loose rocks. She probably thinks there’s something important in there. “We’ll talk about the Abyss Order later.”
Diluc looked like he still wanted to argue, but gratefully, he didn’t. “Fine,” he grunted. “I have things to do anyways.”
+++
“My noble Frostgnaw, hero of the otherworld, I have great regard for the wisdom of your years and of the exceptional feats you have performed in service to this realm, but alas, it is you who would be the one in err to believe that such acts of deception as this would not leave a black stain upon the relations between this realm and the Immernatreich. This sacred bow was a gift bestowed upon I, the Prinzessin der Verurteilung, for this solemn destiny that is engaging the forces of evil within the very heart of darkness; to crush this bow is to crush the very soul of the people of this realm and numerous others for whom the Prinzessin has vowed to protect. Noble Frostgnaw, by what means do you dare to answer? What purpose could there have been to pose as the forces of darkness?”
Kaeya listened to Fischl’s rant with great patience (which was admittedly difficult because he had a debriefing to do and, well, schedules), and at the end, he responded in kind with a solemn bow of his head and a hand over his heart. “My dearest Prinzessin, I must express my dearest condolences for the fate of your noble weapon. I do take responsibility for the appearance of the great metal beast that caused the bow in your possession to slip from your grasp, allowing very insufficient time for its retrieval before being crushed by the falling rocks. But may I remind you, dear Prinzessin, as your mentor, that no man or weapon alike is promised eternity on this mortal realm? If it was not my actions that caused it to break, could not the same be done by some great evil in the future? With the greatest respect for your fallen weapon, should not this simply be a sign that a new one must be forged?”
Fischl paused a moment, letting out a loud huff of lingering indignation. “Very well. I will acknowledge that, though you posed as a villain before us your students on this day, your efforts have good cause. The evil that looms in this world is infinitely more powerful than can be imagined in the mortal mind, and for this reason, I accept your offer of forging a new bow that is of a strength thrice greater than the one that came before it. This I must implore you to complete without delay!”
“As you wish, dearest Prinzessin.” Kaeya offered a short bow in apology, satisfied at the conversation’s outcome. He was sure the support class would have a wonderful time building her a better bow—for that matter, a lot of the class could probably use an upgrade on their costumes and support gear right about now, or at least by next semester. Upgrading was a constant thing in one’s school years, after all—the more you train, the more you realize what you need and want. You come to understand both your quirk and your style better than when you first began.
Kaeya took another glance at the time and then at the rest of the class. They looked exhausted. Some were covered in dirt and grime, Razor was shedding small rocks and dust every time he scratched his hair, and Bennett was missing a shoe for some reason. Aether was sitting down in a chair off to the side to avoid further aggravating his ankle—Kaeya gave him the option of going ahead and leaving to go see Barbara, but he wanted to stay for the debriefing.
Most of it so far was just Kaeya explaining what was going on and taking the opportunity to give them all a crash course on Ruin Machines. As expected, no one was really surprised by the great reveal that the derailment of their training session was entirely on purpose. They were still various degrees of annoyed, from Collei’s angry mumbling of expletives to Fischl’s great betrayal speech, although most were just exasperated. Kaeya couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction anyways. If he could keep them on their toes, then he would consider his job done right.
“So wait, you’re saying that the real Ruin Hunters won’t stay in the sky literally all of the time?” Xinyan questioned with an inkling of hope after Kaeya finished his explanation and critique of her group’s job being faced with the Ruin Hunter.
“If you’re having a bad day, sometimes.” Kaeya shrugged. “I believe the usual automation does not remain in that state for energy reasons, but I simply wasn’t caring about battery consumption for something I knew was going to get destroyed soon enough.” Well, he says “battery,” but in reality, the power core is a bit of a mystery to everyone still. Even to him.
“But what do you mean, ‘I should have stayed back’?” Lumine questioned with underlying frustration, mud-stained hands on her hips. “Out of the three of us, I would have been the one who could reach Aether and Xiangling the fastest, right? I mean, I guess I could have done long-ranged wind attacks on the Ruin Hunter, but…would it have even been that effective?”
“Yes, you were fast at finding them, but you were quick to get lost too, yes? The tunnels were continually changing, by the way. Either way, you didn’t know what you were getting into. Sending Ellin would have been the optimal choice, since her quirk makes her the most versatile. However, Lumine, in the event that you were the one to go down there, why not fly them out straight through the hole through which they fell?”
Lumine breathed out sharply. “I can’t. I can barely fly on my own, much less with someone to carry. Even if I just make an updraft, I could easily fall.”
“Hmm, that is unfortunate.” Kaeya shook his head. “And here I was hoping that sending Aether plummeting into the abyss would give him just the boost needed to learn how to fly out of it himself.”
“Ha ha…it didn’t,” Aether droned.
“Yeah, he could have fallen on top of Guoba!” Xiangling pointed out in protest.
“Then consider that motivation to train even further,” Kaeya followed. He moved on from there to talk to the other groups and give instructions about they did, explaining all the ways the people trapped inside the buildings could have escaped, commending Klee for once for blowing a hole in the wall in a controlled fashion, and talking about the Ruin Grader.
“Heh, yeah! At first, I thought it’d be best if I stayed behind as a distraction while Chongyun and Collei got help, but…we actually were able to take it down head-on!” Bennett recounted enthusiastically. “Not that I really did that much, but yeah!”
“Yeah, well, we weren’t using you as live bait,” Collei followed with an exasperated huff. “Fighting together was just the obvious answer. That tin can may have been tanky, but it wasn’t unbeatable, at least.”
“Yeah, you’re right!” Bennett laughed. “And now, I’m sure we can take one of those on again!”
Unfortunately, that wasn’t one of the stronger versions of the model, though. Kaeya knew that these machines, as long as the Abyss Order had money to throw around to make them, would continue to become sturdier and more advanced. All the while, they’ll leave the Commission confused as to simply what materials make up the thing, much less being able to trace it or recreate it. Unless someone happens to throw a wrench in their plans.
“There’ll be further training with these in the future,” Kaeya assured, making assumptions as to how future conversations on this matter might go. “So those of you that didn’t get to see much combat today will have the chance to later. We want all of you to be prepared for every situation. But as for your reflections on today,” Kaeya added with a slight smirk, “it just might be beneficial for you to learn how to keep your head together in that moment when everything goes to chaos.”
+++
A few hours later, Kaeya arrived at his apartment, home of that wonderful bed he had no intentions of sleeping in tonight. He changed out of his hero costume into casual wear and warmed up some leftovers to eat, focusing his attention on looking over his notes, and then on picking out his plumage for tonight. He needed something classy that wouldn’t draw too much attention to himself: his second favorite leather jacket would do just fine, along with a swap of his usual eyepatch for a wrapping that obscured a large portion of his face. It would be convenient if he wasn’t recognized tonight, but he wasn’t counting on it. Wearing a disguise at the risk of being discovered would put him in a worse place than simply coming as himself would. It wasn’t like he was the only pro hero or other law enforcement official who would be coming here tonight—the only difference was that he wasn’t here on the sole purpose of joining in on the fun.
There was always a chance that things could go wrong, but well…that was why he was only wearing his second favorite jacket.
Kaeya walked out the door at 10PM after a quick walk-through of his home on habit; not content to rely on his dual security systems alone, he checked the rooms upon entering and leaving his home to make certain nothing was amiss. Luckily for him, his personal life has been relatively at peace for six years now.
He left home with all the appearance of an average civilian looking for a good night downtown. Sadly, that was only partially true, for he did indeed make his way downtown, but upon arrival, he turned his sights to the world underneath it.
A few secret entrances, secret passwords, and badly lit tunnels and stairways later, the blaringly neon light of the sign reading “The Alley Flash” looming in front of him, with the sight of many people crowding the spacious room built around a certain round shielded ring.
A quirk-fighting ring, to be exact. Tonight, Kaeya was going to be one of its competitors.