Chapter Text
"where are you off to, Chongyun?"
the young exorcist turns around to meet his mother's scrutiny, willing his claymore away as he bore under the strong gaze of the sun. on an early day like this, the warmth of the sun was easily contradicted by the cool air, so the beads of sweat that formed under the light bangs of his hair weren't so disruptive. he tilts his head, opening his mouth to answer; "out for some training, mother."
the mother hums with obvious surmise and solicitude, as it could end up being unhealthy if one were to train excessively early in the morning. though she supposed having some faith in her son would not hurt, considering he was someone who'd lived all his years well, even with a condition like his that limited the tasks and things he could do. and, truth be told, she did trust him to some extent. it would also be unfair to him if she were to limit his decisions at this period of his life, the teenagehood where he's meant to spend time having fun and pursuing whatever he felt like.
so with a sure nod, she gives him one last, longing hug, before she sends him off, messing up his hair a little.
"be careful," she says, although she's certain he knows to be cautious without being told.
"i will," he responds, because he's always cautious during training, and would never push himself to the point of danger.
during days where he's out training early, he's always by himself. the silence is calming, fresh and pure, the breeze carried by the wind allows him to train until he's sweating buckets worth of them. and, like this, he ensured that his yang energy is always at bay, the cold winds of the early morning helps him with it. with his greatsword manifested behind him, he readies himself, sees a group of hilichurls that he could test his abilities on; and then he feels a chilling presence.
his gut churns in his stomach, his heart begins to race rapidly into his ribcage; a harsh thrumming of thump thump thump, it sounds. although he'd lack experience encountering evil spirits, as an exorcist, he's still able to identify the ominous aura that surrounds a nearby place. it's dark, heavy, made him feel uneasy. while he had always longed to encounter evil spirits, he'd hoped to do it when his yang energy had been kept under wraps, not while there's the high probable chance that they'll act up just over small sources of heat. if a demon was able to stay within his field of energy, much less make its presence known and bold, Chongyun feels that the dread in his gut was a warranted sentiment.
warily, the exorcist goes towards the area he felt the aura originated from. to the normal naked eye, all around him would be but an immense fog, but he can see much more than that with his trained eyes. there are flames of blue, decorating the dusty and eerie atmosphere. the sight of them does not help in making him calm down. a part of his brain is screaming, begging , for him to return home. there was a bad intuition pooling in his gut, telling him to go back before he would learn to regret it. but there's also a part of his brain that's excited , despite the fear that crawled on his skin. this might be his first time actually exorcising something, instead of just sitting around until the spirit left.
he takes a sharp breath, willing to calm his racing heart, and cool his nervous mind. any more than this, his yang energy was sure to act up, and he wouldn't like that during an opportunity like this. maybe, just maybe, if he could successfully exorcise something, his parents wouldn't have to see so much disappointment in him anymore. maybe then, he'd finally be worth for an exorcist.
and then he's in front of an abandoned house. it's dark, cold, probably packed with bugs and spider webs. with an exhale, he sets one foot inside the house.
it's almost anticlimactic how nothing happens. the presence of an evil spirit is still as heavy as ever, but it showed no signs of appearing. Chongyun doesn't know whether to be relieved or upset. perhaps that had been a test, maybe even a prank set up by Xingqiu, but-
"wh-" his voice cuts off when he feels something pierce through him. it's not physical, by any means, but it felt like he'd been impaled through the chest. he gasps, stuttering backwards until his back came to a halt in front of the wooden wall. it's not long until he slips on his foot, landing on his front, chest rising and falling at an unstable, alarming rate. at this point, he knows the spirit is too much for him to handle, too powerful, and he wishes he'd listened to his gut feeling. tears prick at the corner of his eyes, icy blue blurring at the sight of the floor made out of wooden planks.
it gets hard to breathe, and everything feels hot, and he can't help it when his hands start frantically clawing at the hood of his uniform. he gasps again, but this time it feels as though no air had gotten sucked in alongside it. it gets hot, it's humid , so much so that he couldn't even find it in himself to be scared that his yang energy might implode. a part of him wanted it to ; maybe that would scare the spirit away.
his throat is getting drier and drier by the second, and, deep inside his head, he's already begun praying to the archons to spare him some mercy, to give him a second chance. spirits had always been generally known to be harmful to the victim's state of mind, and occasionally even physical wellbeing, but rarely were there ever any cases that resulted in death. but, right now, he thinks he might add to the small number of cases.
For a moment, he could feel his entire world freeze, and yet his body erupted. there's no sound, just the eerie solitude, only accompanied by Chongyun's quiet gasps and whimpers of pain, ringing aloud in his own ears. it's like fire swimming through his veins, he could feel his yang energy seeping through him in noxious amounts. but, unlike how it normally was when his yang energy went overboard, he didn't pass out or go unconscious. the pain he felt was still evident, like it'd been bonded to his veins, to his body. he tries to scream, to let out a little bit of his painful frustrations, but no sound escapes past this lips.
he's aware of the blood pooling in his mouth, his eyes are growing heavier and heavier. to some degree, he felt as though his body had been set on fire. he's heard that such was how it felt for people during a possession, but it confused him; when people get possessed, their consciousness drifts and their lives now lay at the mercy of the spirit until they are cleansed. if it were true that he had been possessed by the spirit, or at least had it attempted, then his body was sure to not be faring well. his pure yang energy would be enough to work as some sort of barrier to protect his consciousness from most spirits, but this one was special and it's horrifying to know it's due to his pure energy that he's in so much pain.
archons, he hated his condition. it'd always been an inconvenience for everything in his life; with exorcism, with his social life, with his friends. how could anyone have been so unlucky to be born as an exorcist with such a nuisance of a condition? was it too late now to hate it more than he already had? he hadn't even learned to keep it all under control, yet, here he was, about to die solely because of it. how ironic was that? how pathetic was that?
at some point, without noticing, his body had given up on fighting back against the evil spirit, but his yang energy was still pulsing through his every vein, burning him like the harsh, neverending flames of a fire. his limbs shook under him, weak, before they finally let him collapse onto the wooden floor, his blood decorated the rough texture of the planks. his eyes were too heavy for him to keep them open, and he can't bring himself to try getting up. it's pointless.
he should've listened to his intuition.
he didn't get to do the things he wanted to. didn't get to say the things he wanted to say.
he takes one last breath, seizing, then collapsing fully, under the previously bright lights of the sun, now dark and gloomy, covered by foggy clouds.
when Chongyun first opens his eyes, his head is thumping uncomfortably, aching with a migraine.
it's cold. everything is so cold . against his fingertips, against his face, against his skin. when his eyes flutter open, the clear dark sky is the first thing his blue eyes see.
and then a masked person appears. the mask itself was a dead giveaway of what they were; an adeptus.
he yelps, accidentally hitting himself on a roof of some sort, and yelps an 'ow!' out of instinct, but he blinks in confusion when he felt no pain whatsoever. he shrugs it off. perhaps the cold was numbing out the pain.
the masked figure scoffs to their side, arms crossed, as if to say; figure everything out yourself.
so Chongyun tries to. he remembers waking up early in the morning, cleaning up his previous wounds and renewing the bandages around his wrists, greeting his parents a good morning and conversing with them during breakfast. and then he remembers testing out whether his wrist would work fine when he holds his greatsword, twisting it around to test his grounds. then he sets off to go training, early in the morning, sensing a strong spirit and-...
and it tried to possess him. oh god, something had almost successfully possessed him , despite his state and condition. he remembers a headache, the burn of a spirit trying to claim his body, then blood, his body getting weaker and-
he gasps to himself. he’d died, hadn’t he?
so was this what the afterlife was like? he’d followed under the beliefs of Rex Lapis, so none of this made any sense. shouldn’t he have been reincarnated? or perhaps had he committed so many sins that he’d ended up at the lower end of the map? because none of this looked like Celestia. and there was clearly an alive adeptus in front of him, so what gives?
Chongyun blinks at the adeptus, clears his throat and finds his voice. it’s meek, and quiet, but he’s able to muster out his question. “w-where am i?"
dusted in snow, with splatters of dried, red blood seeping through the white silk of his clothes, Chongyun finds himself growing even more confused as the adeptus in front of him stares silently, assessing him in full solitude.
the adeptus manifests his mask away, still staring right at Chongyun with blank yet firm eyes.
"you are at the adeptus realm. my realm."
Chongyun’s eyes widened a significant amount when he observed the adeptus’ face. dark hair, sharp eyes that could pierce through thin and thick, arms toned and decorated with tattoos… this was adeptus Xiao, the conqueror of demons.
he gasped. “o-oh, a-adeptus Xiao, i apologize f-for barging into your place! i- i’m- i’m actually not even sure how i ended up here-” he paused, blinking. no, he shouldn’t try to make it sound like an excuse. just beg for forgiveness. “i-. . . apologize, truly. i wouldn’t want to take more of your t-time, and-”
“silence.”
Chongyun’s mouth snaps closed, as he continues to stare wide-eyed at Xiao. the adeptus rolls his own eyes, walking towards Chongyun with silent steps, arms still crossed, but no longer in an irritated manner.
“you. . .” he stares at Chongyun, as if reading everything about him, and the exorcist had never felt more exposed in his life. “only adepti may enter this realm.”
Chongyun grimaces, trying his hardest to recall how he ended up there. so he hadn't died, then what happened? "i. . . i am trully sorry for trespassing into your r-realm, adeptus Xiao, t- none of this was p-planned, i promise you-"
"no," the adeptus cuts off, allowing Chongyun one sharp intake of air. "as in, only adepti can access this realm."
Chongyun doesn't know what that sentence implies, but there's that feeling of dread, regret and fear pooling in his stomach again, mixing together as if a substance in a couldron. his mind isn't coherent enough to try and form sentences, nor was it conscious enough to take in the adeptus' words.
but he had questions.
many of them he thinks he doesn't want the answer to.
". . .Chongyun, if im correct?"
cautiously, the exorcist nods his head.
the adeptus refuses to look at him.
"it's been many dreadful years without any late adepti."
his brain practically explodes.
at first, he'd been confused, and in disbelief. he was a stuttering mess, trying to deny that he was not an adeptus; because there was no way he could be one! from what he knows, adepti become adepti through Rex Lapis. they die, ascend to Celestia, and are reborn as an adeptus to protect Morax, standing loyal to the archon. not that Chongyun had ever opposed Rex Lapis, but he's pretty sure the archon died during the rite of parting, right? he hadn't been there for it, but the devastation and depression that lingered through the streets of Liyue was more than enough to convince him that it had happened.
besides, he had no recollection of forming any contracts with Morax; if he truly had died and ascended to Celestia, why would he even return to become an adeptus? he was but a useless and common exorcist.
after his moment of confusion, he starts refusing all the claims; "there's no way!" he'd said. "i have nothing special about my life or me. i-. . . there is no way any of this is real!"
Xiao stood in silence while he tried to desperately decline the claims.
"the gods in Celestia probably m-made a mistake! please, i assure you there is nothing of me that could ever flourish a new adeptus!"
the Adeptus in front of him remains unexpressive, looking rather bored, which annoyed Chongyun to an incredulous extent. how? how could he be so nonchalant about this entire matter? would this not worry him? disturb him?
"it's-" "you can refuse to believe what i said, i won't be bothered. you may try to rest assured, you may try to linger on your past life, but this fate is not one you can escape. return home, turn back to the life you'd lost. you'll find yourself to be lost."
which was, considerably, a rude wake-up call, but Chongyun's too distraught and worried to care. he searches for words to refute, but finds his mouth to be dry, like he'd been duct-taped on the mouth.
whatever happens next, it's all a blurry memory in his head.
now, he's back at Liyue, standing in front of the gates. it's nighttime, only streetlights illuminate his cold body, and it's only them that help him navigate through the dark. he's scared. he doesn't know anything, doesn't know what to believe, what to do. it's almost embarrassing how quick Xiao's statement became true; he really did feel lost.
in front of his house, stood Xingqiu and Xiangling, both teens talking to his parents with expressions that he could only describe as concern and fear. when their eyes meet his, their shoulders sagged in relief, but it doesn't take long for them to tense back up.
"Chongyun. . ." Xiangling gasped, walking towards the exorcist with furrowed eyes, red-rimmed as if she had been close to crying. "where have you been? is that blood? oh, Archons, what happened?"
Chongyun opens his mouth to say something, but can't seem to find any words. had what happened really happened? if he really had died, then was it true that he'd become an adeptus? was he an adeptus?
the thoughts were piling up on him, pressuring. all this stress would usually cause his yang energy to flare up, but it doesn't, and it doesn't help his suspicions clear up at all.
so, instead of telling the truth to say that 'hey, i died and i think i became an adeptus!' or to tell a lie about something he doesn't even know jack shit about, he pulls his friends into a hug. a tight one. a secure one.
both seemed to be taken aback by the sudden intimacy, but neither of them pull back. Xiangling is leaning her head towards his shoulder, while Xingqiu sympathetically pats his back. there's a lot of curious tension dancing in the air, mocking him, but Chongyun can't bring himself to care. tears are pooling by his eyes, out of the piling stress, out of the frustration of not knowing anything, and the pain that he'd endured that day he'd gotten possessed. he tries to calm himself down, pull back the tears, but Xingqiu starts kneading at his locks so softly, that he could do nothing other than rock into their embrace, silent tears falling down his face.
"there, there, a-Yun."
he doesn't stop crying until the dead of the night. despite how tired they were, his friends stood with him the entire time.