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“I fail to see any merit in your proposal,” Naoya’s captor murmurs, running a hand along the thick metal band pinning Naoya’s right wrist to some sort of operating table. “You give me little that could be relevant to my research, save the possibility of secrets lurking beneath your skin. Tell me, outlander: what knowledge could possibly motivate me to keep you alive?”
Naoya sneers, but his captor remains stone-faced — or so he assumes, from what little he can see behind his half-mask. His cursed energy seethes beneath his skin, but he can’t force the man into a frame and make his escape. Even if he wasn’t shackled by his wrists and ankles and neck, he quite literally could not use his technique on this man.
Because, for reasons that Naoya can’t fathom, he’s not in Japan. He’s not even on Earth, unless his captor is pulling his leg when he talks about elemental powers and gods that walk among humans.
He’s in a dingy operating room with a madman hellbent on dissecting the unconscious body he had purportedly came across on a morning walk, and no amount of explaining can bridge the gap between Earth and Teyvat and whatever else existed between them.
“I have unique powers that you could never fathom —”
“That I have tested for as you slumbered, but are incapable of manifesting. Try again.”
“I’ve never lost a fight or a debate —”
“And yet, you cannot break free from your restraints or form a coherent argument despite your spirited blithering. Try again.”
Naoya grits his teeth, then glares directly at his captor and snarls, “I’m the head of my clan! One of the strongest men alive! The Zen’in will hunt their enemies to the ends of the earth and I am one of the very best Zen’in — if you kill me, you will never know another moment’s peace in your miserable existence.”
His captor’s fingers still on the table, but it isn’t until rich chuckles spill from his lips that Naoya finds himself bristling. “Are you looking down on me? Once I’m free of these restraints —”
“You will bring me more subjects from your world for me to experiment on? Sacrifice others so that you can cling onto life for one more day?”
Naoya bares his teeth at his captor, but glares angrily off to the side and scoffs, “I’m not working for you. We’re working together as equals, got it?”
His captor’s laughter is politely mocking, so condescending that it makes Naoya’s teeth hurt, but he runs gloved hands along Naoya’s wrist restraints and murmurs over the click of disengaging locks, “For the sake of your fragile ego, I will provisionally acquiesce to your… trivial demand. May our partnership bear ripe fruit, Zen’in Naoya.”
Naoya snorts, but sits up when his neck is freed and sticks his hand out. “Of course, whatever you say…”
“Zandik,” his captor — temporary research partner now, Naoya supposes — says. “Now, why don’t you recount the exact circumstances that led to your arrival in Teyvat?”
Zandik, once Naoya gets past the arrogance oozing out of every one of his pores and his hyperfixation on transcending mortal boundaries, is a surprisingly decent conversation partner. While he never gives Naoya his full attention — a slight that makes Naoya consider the merits of killing Zandik for the better part of a week, until he realises that his temporary partner may be the only person capable of returning Naoya to Tokyo — there’s no denying the sheer breadth of his knowledge.
Naoya is far more eloquent and good-looking, but he can recognise talent when he sees it. Zandik is a mad genius, there’s no denying it — but when he’s engrossed in his research, papers and medical tools scattered in tightly-controlled chaos around him and elegant fingers dancing across a freshly-dissected corpse, it’s difficult for Naoya to tear his eyes away from him.
Like now, several days after his inexplicable arrival in Teyvat and several hours after Naoya had stumbled across a special-grade cursed spirit. Zandik’s latest subject isn’t dead — far from it, if its occasional gurgles and half-slurred expletives are anything to go by — but Naoya finds his gaze straying to the soft fall of Zandik’s hair and the pale flush on his cheeks, barely visible around his hideous half-mask.
“You’re staring.”
Naoya twitches and refocuses on the moment — and Zandik’s face, hovering mere millimetres in front of his own. He almost falls onto his ass, but gloved hands seize his shoulders and pin him in place.
“I am sure I have mentioned how much I despise prying eyes,” Zandik says without any inflection. There is nothing to suggest irritation or displeasure, but Naoya feels a chill caress his spine all the same. “Now, was there a reason for your unwelcome scrutiny, or may I return to studying the creature you so kindly brought me?”
“I…” Naoya licks his lips, swallows, and manages to reply in a normal-sounding voice, “I came because you said you’d discovered something of, and I quote, ‘paramount importance’ about this cursed spirit. Believe me, I wouldn’t have endangered my wellbeing by staring at you.”
If Zandik picks up on the irritated undertone in Naoya’s comment, he doesn’t show it. If anything, he rarely picks up on anything Naoya tries to imply — yet another sign that he’s more madman than genius — so Naoya is hardly surprised when Zandik lets go of his shoulders and murmurs, “Ah. Did you know that your cursed spirit is capable of shapeshifting?”
“That’s not my cursed spirit,” Naoya immediately snaps, before he blinks and adds in a less combative tone, “and what do you mean, it shapeshifts?”
“I thought you were an expert on cursed spirits. Don’t tell me that my initial findings have already outstripped your rich knowledge.”
Naoya bristles and opens his mouth, but Zandik has already turned away to caress the cursed spirit’s cheek — or what Naoya thinks is its cheek. It’s hard to tell when it keeps squirming beneath Zandik’s fingers, flesh rippling in a futile attempt to shift its way out of its restraints.
“I believe there is an artifact within the Desert of Hadramaveth that has, for some reason, produced sympathetic resonances with your world and drawn in souls of exceptional strength.” Naoya preens at that, lips lifting in a smirk as he stands a little straighter and smooths his hair back, but Zandik doesn’t spare him a glance as he mercilessly adds, “However, while you were unable to retain any native cursed energy, this being retains enough to continue living — albeit in a significantly weaker and less malleable form. Nonetheless, I was able to extract valuable data about cursed energy and the limitations of the human form.”
Zandik leaves off touching the cursed spirit to look at Naoya and say, with the same enthusiasm he shows towards puerile concerns like sleep and sustenance, “I will send you back to your world in a day. Arrange your affairs accordingly.”
Naoya raises his brows and blurts out, “Really? You’re sending me back after you found a more suitable test subject?”
“I was under the impression you wanted to return, but if you insist on remaining as a future test subject…”
“One hour. Give me one hour to prepare and I’ll be ready,” Naoya snaps over Zandik’s soft laughter, then turns on his heels and storms out of the room.
Everything had gone without a hitch at first. Zandik had instructed him to wear the clothes he’d been wearing when he’d found himself in Teyvat, rather than the roomy robes and silk scarves that Zandik had loaned him, and ran through the words he’d have to chant if he wanted to return in one piece. Naoya had spent an additional hour pouring over the strange inflections and then starved himself for a day to ensure that no Teyvat cuisine lingered in his digestive tract — but he’d stood on the stone slab that Zandik had claimed to find him on and recited everything in a clear, smooth tone.
As the world had flared white around him, Naoya had heard Zandik shout, “Remember to send me more test subjects if you survive!”
“If I survive?” Naoya tries to shout back, but molten heat had seized his throat in a choke hold. He screams noiselessly in the brilliant void, acutely aware of the cursed energy bubbling in his veins and threatening to burst through his skin — only for the world to snap back into focus.
There is no unending sea of sand, no cloudless sky marred by a floating city. There are only bloodstained tatami and two cooling corpses, one that looks like the twins’ useless mother and another that looks suspiciously like…
“Me?” Naoya asks in high-pitched disbelief, except the voice doesn’t sound like his. His body doesn’t feel like his, not when his actual body is lying in a dried pool of blood and isn’t showing any signs of life.
Naoya tries to look down at himself, twisting what feels like a multi-jointed neck to do so, and gapes at the armoured segments that extend beneath him. He brings up hands that look like his but are attached to one of the inhuman bulges, flips them palms-down then palms-up and back again for good measure, and winces when a smooth voice in his mind interrupts his increasingly panicked movements.
“Do you like your improved form?” Zandik asks. Naoya snarls and whips around to see if the madman had somehow followed him back to Earth, but the voice smoothly continues — like it’s nothing more than a recording implanted into his head. “Consider this a reward for procuring such a valuable test subject. I have taken the liberty of modifying your body so that it could retain more cursed energy — now, you may finally be strong in truth and not merely in spirit.”
Naoya’s hands are balled into fists by the time Zandik stops speaking in his mind, but it only takes a moment for him to lash out with his hands and tail — a tail, like some sort of inferior animal! — and destroy the room around him.
As splinters explode outwards and rain upon the desecrated clan grounds, Naoya throws his head back and screams in a voice that only he can understand, “You had better hope I never see you again, you miserable lying worm, because I’m going to tear you apart with my bare hands if I ever set foot into Teyvat again!”