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The Balladeer drifted alone in the blue void of Irminsul.
There was nothing but a faint pulsation of white light around him; nothing else to disturb him. Soft pixels gently hummed around him as if they were sharing information with each other. The determined puppet slowly glided through the flux as if he were looking for something. However, this calm environment contrasted the manner of his thoughts, which repeated the same raw phrase over and over, again and again: embrace oblivion .
He had aspired to do that for centuries. But now, he finally could through the abilities of the Irminsul tree. Thanks to that god and the traveler, his access to it was almost guaranteed. This strange, arcane tree at the center of the world held the answers he needed. It would allow him to disappear. It was definitively connected to everyone and everything in the world: their memories, their views, their experiences. And Irminsul would delete him from them all for good.
Which is exactly what he wanted.
After all, if it wasn’t for him, hundreds would have never suffered. Those villagers in Tatarasuna would have still been alive, that child would have never had hope that was dashed in a moment, and the Fatui never could have executed such an intricate plan to hurt the ones he cared for – a plan in which he unwillingly served as the catalyst.
The sight of their cold, limp bodies flickered in his mind.
It was because of him. It was all his fault.
And so, broken by the world and its ruthless rules, he sought fulfillment.
That brazen-faced fool of a doctor had taken him in, promising him such fulfillment; fulfillment that he had been denied time and time again. But what good is fulfillment of his aspirations if they were merely built on lies and follies he had believed for an eon?
Such was the question he had asked himself just moments before. All he had done was hurt more and more people for his own betterment. Yet, no matter what he tried, those that were dead remained dead. Nothing could change the past. Until now. He could finally change it.
These thoughts ran through his mind as he continued drifting along a path of sorts. Eventually, he stumbled upon what he had been looking for. A radiant blue prism shining in the void, shaped like a small flower that he could have sworn looked so familiar, almost as if it was from another life. Its elegance drew him in, capturing his gaze as his eyes traced its glistening petals.
Slowly, he reached his hand out to delicately touch it.
Embrace oblivion .
His hand closed in around the prism. The flower turned pitch black as darkness began to seep from its stem and into the void around him, polluting what once was a gleaming space within what felt like seconds. The puppet closed his eyes, but he could hardly tell whether or not he had opened them due to the dark as the prism was nowhere to be found in front of him.
His eyes glanced downwards as he found that he was no longer floating. His two legs were now standing in some sort of shallow sea, the soles of his sandals being gently splashed by what seemed to be water. A slight step created a gentle ripple that rang throughout his abyssal surroundings.
He stood still, observing the ripple as it traversed through the changed space. Yet, to his surprise, it was intercepted by another from the opposite direction. His eyes followed it, looking up to suddenly see a figure of similar stature quietly walking towards him.
The ripples continued to resound as the puppet began analyzing the figure ahead. A delicate, amethyst-colored veil sat atop its head, reaching down to its ankles. Instead of a dark Fatui uniform, it wore violet garments with a golden feather-shaped ornament dangling around its neck. Despite these differences, they both shared the same indigo hair and a sense of lonely melancholy.
The ripples had stopped as the two now stood face to face. With alarm, the puppet realized who now stood before him.
“You.” The Balladeer grinned, as if giving the other a cold welcome. “Hahaha… I thought you died all those centuries ago.”
“I see you still remember me, then.” The other figure – a failed vessel of the past – responded.
“How could I ever forget my old, cowardly husk of a self?” He laughed.
The other stared blankly. “I know you have tried forgetting me. But I see that your old memories still follow you today, no?”
The Balladeer sighed, turning around to face the black void. “...Haha. Do you know how much I’ve tried? How much I’ve tried to get rid of them? I went through countless attempts for the chance to just rid myself of them for an instant. And I’ve succeeded, many times. But just for an instant. They always come back to me, no matter what I do.” He quickly turned to face the figure yet again, clutching his hand to his chest. “Do you know how much it hurt? To watch everyone around me die, all because of me? I didn’t choose to have that pain or choose to relive it every time I thought of them.” The Balladeer paused, attempting to regain his composure. “So, after so many fruitless attempts, I then thought to myself: if I were to become a god, this pain would all stop. After all, gods are omnipotent, aren’t they? Shouldn’t they have the power to nullify these cruel emotions? I thought so. And yet, when I was a god, they still haunted my mind. Tell me then, why couldn’t I get rid of them? That kid, the villagers, Katsuragi, Nagamasa, Niwa, Miko, Ei – and you.” He looked up at the vessel in front of him, raising a finger. “I can never get rid of you. You’re the worst phantom of them all. You should’ve died with those memories, but you’ve always been there, lurking in my mind. Why do you wish to torment me so?”
The figure simply paused, paying no mind to the threatening puppet in front of it. “Hmm… ‘torment’ is a rather strong word. I would say that I am more so trying to help you. Is it so wrong to try and help you see the truth?” The figure responded.
The Balladeer closed his eyes, sighing. “The truth, huh… isn’t the truth just that I’ve been played for a fool my whole existence? Every time I thought I was in control, I wasn’t. I’ve never had a choice for anything, for myself — until now.”
The figure took a step closer. “No, that’s not it. The truth is, nothing can truly be changed.”
The Balladeer didn’t move, yet the other knew this statement displeased him. “What do you mean?”
The failed vessel looked down at the black, placid ground. “I know what you wish for. You believe that if you were never born, everyone you affected would be saved, correct? However, this isn’t the case.”
The puppet frowned with spite. “Do you not get it? With Irminsul, I can finally change the past. Those that were killed because of me – no, by me – can be free.”
The figure sternly looked at him into his sapphire eyes. “But they were already free. Cherish the lives they shared with you, for they are gone. Only their memories remain, and you have been running from them for the past five hundred years.”
“...Stop talking.” The Balladeer warned. “They deserve another chance at life because of me. And I’ll give them that, now that I finally can.”
The other quickly retorted, “No matter what happens, they will still die. The grace of the divine guarantees that.” The figure paused. “But they should be able to retain the memory of a shared life with you, and you the same with them. If you follow through with your plan, is that truly possible?”
“You…” The Balladeer’s hands reached forward at the figure, grasping at its neck. His grasp began to tighten as the two crashed to the floor as he pressed his hands together with all his might.
“You don’t understand any of this!” He began to yell as distressed ripples erupted from beneath them upon the once serene surroundings. “Maybe this is all fruitless! Maybe you’re right, and nothing will ever change! Who am I to object to the gods and their rules above? Just some mere puppet without any sense of purpose, instilled with no sense of heart! This is why I must do this… if all I can do as myself – whoever that may really be – is to simply try to save them all, then I will. As long as they have a chance, I don’t care what the cost is, even if that is our existence and all those memories they gave us. They must be exchanged so that they can live ,” he choked. “...I’m sorry.”
The failed vessel simply looked up at him. The puppet’s face was somehow streaked with tears running down his cheeks. The figure gave him a soft yet saddened smile.
“I forgive you.”
And with that, a loud crack resounded from the figure. The Balladeer‘s hands were now cut and adorned with glowing, broken porcelain shards where a neck once was.
The form below him was now lifeless – as lifeless as something could be without ever having a heart.
He observed as the light from the glowing mess below him began to quickly spread throughout the space, similar to how the prism had previously turned dark.
Alarmed, he jolted up, his instincts readying him should there be any sort of attack. There was no attack, however. Instead, a loud but gentle crack suddenly rang out. In the blink of an eye, the entire space around him had been fractured into pieces. And with nothing to support it, every piece fell, revealing a blue abyss once more. And, standing on one of those pieces was the Balladeer, who fell with them.
He now found himself plummeting into a bottomless, radiant void.
He attempted to open his eyes despite the force to see whatever could be ahead. Instead of the soft, blue pixels he saw before, he now saw sharp, crystalline shards, akin to those of a broken mirror.
And the more he descended, the closer those shards got to him.
He began to look closer into them. He noticed they all held reflections of figures and silhouettes of those he once held dear — ones he once called family. Despite his grand declaration of resolve to the vessel just moments ago, he could not look away from them, enchanted. Each one played his memories like a lost film for him. It felt as if time had slowed down as he caught glimpses of a bygone era. Sewing a doll, forging a sword, sipping tea, admiring sakura blossoms, just sharing a laugh – he saw it all.
All these memories had been summoned to his mind. Memories he wanted to bury. Memories that he had buried. Or memories he believed he had buried.
The voice of that solemn figure echoed in his mind: Only their memories remain, and you have been running from them for the past five hundred years .
The puppet continued to fall as his mind raced. Fixated on and unable to steer himself in any way, he cut himself onto a shard, feeling a quick slice on his shoulder. He glanced at it to see that it had left an open wound that was simply just a white void, akin to the appearance of the failed vessel in the aftermath. Hah. That is nothing compared to the hell I’ve endured in the Abyss. I’m used to this, he thought.
Yet, that glowing wound burned . It burned, unlike any fire he had ever felt before, playing innocent yet agonizing images in his mind.
What…. is this?
It didn’t help that he soon began to collide with shard after shard, losing his ability to focus on his surroundings. More and more memories inundated him with each collision.
It wasn’t long until his entire body was covered in luminous cuts, each one burning more than the last. His arms. His legs. His chest. His face. Nowhere was unscathed. He tried his best to keep his eyes open, his mind wincing with each cut. Yet, he couldn’t tell if he was in pain from his wounds or from all the memories he had left to rot for the last five hundred years.
It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.
It really hurts.
He wanted to scream, yet who would hear him?
He was alone.
That he had guaranteed himself from the start.
The world around him grew darker and the shards fewer, truly like a barren abyss. And in this darkness, the wounds of the puppet shone brightly. It held the same beauty as a star falling down to Teyvat from the heavens.
But those divine stars do not shed tears.
And yet that wandering vessel of a puppet could do little to stop them from falling down with him.
His lacerations burned even stronger than before as his tears welled, either from the pain of his desired heart or the pain of his experience. That is, until the suffering began to recede.
The puppet felt a strange yet eerily familiar sensation — it was as if he could not feel his own body.
He tried looking up at his body, or what once was there.
The failed vessel’s eyes widened.
He was disintegrating.
The wounds were no longer there — only nothingness remained where they had once been. Anything that was in between was now being consumed by soft pixels, running from those cuts to devour what was left of the puppet, leaving nothing behind but null.
He continued to plummet downwards into the dark void, yet he could hardly notice or care. His conscience and very existence were lapsing.
Embrace oblivion, he thought. His lips curved into a sorrowful smile. And with that… I’ll have never been born at all .
Yet, is that really all you wished for? A faint, familiar voice in his mind asked him.
There was no body left to burn, and yet those scorching memories burned his mind as he entertained this last thought.
No… I suppose not.
The puppet closed his eyes as he entered oblivion.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, dear friend. I’m sorry, Katsuragi. I’m sorry, Niwa. I’m sorry, Ei. I’m sorry for all of this. I’m so sorry.
Well then… farewell, world. The future shall be what it will. Farewell nonetheless, then.
And thus, the failed, ever so lonely puppet — his memories, his identities, his being, his experiences — they all silently disintegrated into nothing. Disintegrated and gone into that void, that hallowed void of lost memories.
And to all beings, big and small, there was no longer a lonely indigo-haired figure in their memories. And those beings continued to live as beings do, merely following the guidance of fate without apprehension or question.
But thus, five hundred years ago, in a desolate pavilion, an oblivious puppet opened its eyes to a new world.