Chapter Text
“I thought I recognized your presence. Now then, care to tell me your name? Or would you have me pry it out of you?”
There is a piece of Wanderer, carefully honed over decades of time spent in a lab under a knife, that has trained to snap to attention at the sound of that voice.
Wanderer snaps to attention.
He finds himself lying on a solid floor in a plane made of absolutely nothing. Everything around him is tinted with a serpentine green glow. There are no walls. No ceiling. The floor stretches on forever like the skyline of an ocean.
Wanderer scrambles to his feet, wracks his brain. The last thing he remembers is shutting down, giving Sandrone and the Traveler access—permission—to his core. How long has it been since then? He knew it’d feel quick, like no time had passed, but how long has it been really? For everyone else? He shut his eyes, and then—
And now—
Now—
“Show yourself,” says Wanderer, “Dottore.”
“I’d love to. After you tell me your name.”
Wanderer twists his head in the direction of his voice, but nothing is there.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been baffled by a specimen.” Dottore keeps running his mouth. This time his voice comes from behind Wanderer, but he doesn’t bother to look. “You’re one in a kind in many ways, aren’t you?”
Oh, joy, a mind-game. His favorite.
“One of a kind, huh,” says Wanderer, sliding one foot behind the other to give himself more stability. He isn’t as unsteady as he could be, considering the ‘core’ fiasco, which is great because he might just have to beat his way out of this. “Keep talking like that and I’ll think you’re trying to insult me.”
“Why would I do that?” says Dottore’s voice. “Most people would be too frightened to speak, much less to talk back. Where do you get your spite?”
“I’m a student of the Academiya,” says Wanderer. “That should tell you plenty.”
“The Sumeru Academiya!” Dottore sounds delighted, which makes Wanderer want to gag. “I spent my youth there, but something tells me you already knew that. You know an impressive amount of confidential information about the Fatui and Her Majesty’s Harbingers.”
“Part of my charm.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Your clothing… Tell me, do you happen to be from Inazuma? Sumeru doesn’t get many international scholars, especially from the nation of Eternity.”
“Like you said,” says Wanderer, still pivoting toward Dottore’s every word, “I’m one of a kind like that. Where are you and where am I?”
“You strike me as someone with a handsome intuition. Where do you think you are?”
“A pocket dimension.”
“Very good! I’m glad to hear the old sages in the Academiya are teaching you more than moral foundations in school. And your analysis would likely put you in… Let me think… The Vahumana Darshan?”
“Show yourself,” says Wanderer, “and maybe I’ll tell you.”
“I was in the Vahumana Darshan myself back in the day,” says Dottore. “I recognize the spirit of a scholar such as ourselves. You really ought to know better than to make demands like this. It’s hazardous for your health, and I’m actually beginning to like you.”
“Fuck off.”
“Oh, my dear, I’d love to, but first I need you to show a little cooperation.”
Wanderer braces himself for an attack, but it doesn’t come. All around him, he hears Dottore chuckle. It, too, is childishly sincere.
“I’ll ask you again,” says Dottore, “to tell me your name. I would really prefer not to use force if I don’t have to. Between the two of us, I’ve been given quite the run of it lately.”
Wanderer guffaws. “Let me guess, the people of Nod-Krai weren’t too jazzed to have you sticking your nose where it didn’t belong? What a surprise.”
“Now, now, you wouldn’t happen to be stalling for time, would you?”
Fuck.
“Time doesn’t work in this place the way you’re used to,” says Dottore. “I would be careful formulating a plan before you have all the facts. I’m disappointed that a fellow Vahumana student would fail to recognize such an obvious truth.”
“And I’m disappointed that a fellow Vahumana student doesn’t have the guts to show his goddamn face.”
This time, Dottore is silent.
“I would like to stay and chat with you a while longer,” says Dottore after a moment that lasts forever. “But it is as I said. I am short on time.”
A glowing, translucent hand breaks from the ground at Wanderer’s feet and snaps around his throat.
Wanderer can’t have prepared for it. He was prepared to be attacked, just not from—not from below. The hand vices around his skin, cuts off his air supply. What little breath he had in his lungs to begin with gets stuck on an inhale, then on an exhale. He tries to leap away, leap anywhere, but the hand is of the same material as the walls, the ceiling—this place. He can’t move. He tries and the fingers clench, and pressure pulls him down, and it’s hard enough to keep both feet firmly planted.
“As I suspected,” says the Doctor’s voice from in front of him. “You aren’thuman.”
Wanderer blinks, teeth gritted, and suddenly Dottore is nose to nose with him. The once-translucent hand has been replaced with Dottore’s, still around his throat. Wanderer scrambles at Dottore’s hand, clawing, but he doesn’t budge.
“What does it feel like?” says Dottore. He lifts, and Wanderer’s feet leave the ground. “You don’t need air to survive, but you’re fighting as though I’m somehow about to suffocate you.”
“Fuck you,” Wanderer snarls.
“Well, I’m certain you still need to breathe,” Dottore carries on idly, his fingers like iron against Wanderer’s skin, “as a form of self-regulation. Or does it keep your core from overheating? I’ve heard from your little friends that your core is quite… unique.”
“Get—the hell off of me.”
“Tell me your name.”
Wanderer rakes his fingernails down Dottore’s arms and Dottore doesn’t flinch.
“Fine,” says the Doctor. “We’ll do it your way. You’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you I never intended to do it like this. But you understand.”
Dottore slips into his mind.
If Wanderer had been able to breathe before, he wouldn’t be able to now.
Memories play for Dottore like a goddamn film. Shakkei Pavilion, the aimless years of aimless searching, the blacksmiths. Niwa. Niwa. Everything Wanderer has ever done, everything Wanderer has ever known, spread open for Dottore’s prying eyes. His first thought is that he didn’t know Dottore could do something like this. His second thought is one word: No.
No, no, no, no.
“Get away from me!”
Dottore drops him. Wanderer hits the not-quite-firm floor of Dottore’s pocket dimension and heaves for air. Shockwaves tunnel through him, but so does the anger.
“Well,” says Dottore. There's a smile and a spring in his voice. “I suddenly understand a lot of things. Scaramouche, Scaramouche. How could I have forgotten you?”
Wanderer pushes himself onto his hands and knees and snarls.
“None of that,” says Dottore. “This would have been easier if you had cooperated. Look at you. The Balladeer. So far have you fallen from grace. And to think, you’ve taken up the mantle of my old Darshan as well. That really is most disappointing.”
Wanderer takes a couple deep breaths. “I guess that’s what happens when you get yourself expelled for torturing people.”
“It is regrettable that the people of the Academiya could not see the merit in my work. Lucky for the both of us, I’ve gotten over it.”
“You’ve never gotten over a damn thing in your entire life.”
Dottore chuckles. “That is true.”
“Is that why you went and begged the Traveler to join you?”
“There’s no need to speak of the Traveler now. The two of us have a unique and budding relationship.”
“Let me guess,” says Wanderer. “You propositioned the Traveler in Nod-Krai, the Traveler didn’t wanna be all buddy-buddy with you, you threw a little fit about it, waa waa waa, got your ass kicked, et centra. That sounds about on-par for you and your track record.”
“All this time, and still, you think in simple binary terms like winning and losing. You haven’t changed at all.”
“And you have?” says Wanderer. “It sounds to me like you’re overcompensating for something. You never could take ‘no’ for an answer. Knowing the Traveler, I’ll bet you got the hardest ‘no’ you’ve ever had to swallow. Are you sad you couldn’t manipulate one more person into being your little pet? Or are you just upset you didn’t make whatever mangled corpse of a definition of ‘friend’ you’ve got squirming around in the back of your head?”
Dottore doesn’t smile.
“Or are you just butt hurt,” says Wanderer, “that you got your ass beat in Nod-Krai.”
“It is very bold of you to assume that your friends survived and I was defeated.”
“Do you think I’m stupid? You always come crawling back to me when your little plans don’t work out. That’s why you’re here. You’ve got me trapped in this place because you were defeated.”
“I was merely set back.”
“You lost,” says Wanderer. He spreads out his hands. “The Almighty Heretic of the False Moon had his ass handed to him by a couple of nobodies preaching about the power of ‘family’ and ‘home’. It’s just a shame I missed the show. Hundreds of years of hard work, pulled off by hundreds of copies, and they wiped the floor with it. I bet that made you feel nice and powerful, huh?” Wanderer smiles. “I’ll bet it made you feel big.”
Something stabs him from behind and bursts out from his stomach.
In ancient Inazuma, there was what was considered to be a form of highest punishment, reserved for traitors and insurrectionists: to be impaled on a spear, exposed and in the open, and left to Gravity’s bidding.
Dottore probably knows that.
“You talk too much,” says Dottore.
Wanderer chokes. Blood fills his throat. The attack came from behind, catching in his ribcage, lifting his feet off the ground. The pain is only overwhelming for an instant: Wanderer compartmentalizes it somewhere deep, deep in his consciousness and chokes around a sudden fit of laughter.
“Wh-What’s the matter, Dottore?” It’s hard to speak, but Wanderer speaks anyway, bloody gurgle be damned. “You don’t—don’t like people gettin’ inside your head? Doesn’t feel so good, does it?”
Dottore folds his hands behind his back with the sort of forced-calm Wanderer has learned to recognize after years under his knife. “You know,” says Dottore, “you could have avoided a lot of grief throughout your life if you learned to mind your manners.”
Wanderer laughs some more, because it’s the only thing he can think to do to loosen the pressure steadily swelling in his chest. “What, so I could be like you? Kissing ass, crossing my Ts, p-putting on my best—best goodie-two-shoes act? I don’t think so.”
“Pity,” says Dottore. “You were a fine experiment.”
“And you,” says Wanderer, “y-you didn’t get nearly as far as you expected, did you?”
“Perhaps not,” says Dottore, still without a smile. “But I at least have more ahead of me than you.”
The spear in Wanderer’s chest twists.
“Wh-What?”
Dottore is unmoved. “It’s started.”
Wanderer grabs at the spindle protruding from his stomach. He’s been thinking of it as an instrument of some kind, a weapon, but beneath the synthetic blood of his own body is a firm, organic material. Wood? No; a branch.
Nobody’s laughing, now, and the pressure climbs in Wanderer’s chest until the only place it has left to go is through the rest of him, up his throat and in his stomach. Everywhere.
“What the f-fuck, what did you do?”
“You’re smart,” says Dottore. “Take a guess.”
Irminsul. It’s the first thing that comes to mind.
But.
“Y-You don’t have any jurisdiction over Irmunsul.”
“That is also true,” says Dottore.
Wanderer can’t think.
“Since you appear to be struggling,” says Dottore, “I’ll give you a hint. If I were to destroy Irminsul, what do you think would become of this world?”
Chaos.
“Whatever sentiment just came to your mind,” says Dottore, “let’s assume it’s correct. In order to rebuild this world productively, Irminsul as we know it must be culled, but it also must be replaced. We’re all familiar with power vacuums, but a vacuum of memory? Of pure energy? Neither of us want that.”
“You want a second Irminsul.”
“Close, but I’ll give it to you,” says Dottore. “What I actually want is a new one.”
The branch convulses again, fissures bursting in the innermost segments of Wanderer’s veins, and this time it clicks.
“You know it’s just gonna be the same thing,” says Wanderer. “I’m—a piece of Irminsul, you bastard, not—not—”
“Oh, not to worry; I’m well aware of that,” says Dottore. “You’re probably right. I agree that it is the most likely scenario that nothing will change. But we can’t be sure of anything unless we see for ourselves, can we?”
Wanderer opens his mouth to say something, but the—the vine in his chest contorts, and something clips in his lungs, and he can’t speak or think or breathe.
Dottore lifts Wanderer’s Vision off his chest with a finger. “I find this to be the most peculiar thing about this ‘new you.’ Accepting a gift from the gods? Oh, don’t look at me like that. You and I both know I’ve had this little experiment planned since the day we met.”
The pistons in Wanderer’s brain begin to churn again. What’s left of his stomach drops and his mouth fills with acid. “You—No. No, f-fuck you.”
“Indeed,” says Dottore. “I knew from the moment I first laid eyes on precious little Kabukimono that he couldn’t help but fall head over heels for the humans around him. It’s not your fault, really. We’ll call it a design flaw. You were never fit to be anything more than a weak, sniveling emulator of human emotion. What a privilege it is for me to finally see you look as I imagine you must feel: helpless to the fate that others place upon you. Of all the puppets of Raiden Ei, she only discarded one.”
Dottore unclasps the Vision from his haori, golden feather and all.
“Don’t worry,” says the Doctor, leaning back. “You won’t even notice it’s gone.”
Panic fizzles in the back of Wanderer’s brain, the kind he hasn’t felt in years. “Give—Give it back.”
Dottore dangles the Vision in front of his face like a pendulum. “You can’t really think you’re deserving of this, can you? After everything you’ve done? The rest of the world may have forgotten what you’ve done, but surely you haven’t. I’ll bet it haunts you. Poor little insignificant Kabukimono, abandoned because he just couldn’t help but empathize with the people in his dreams.”
“G-Give it back.”
“I told Niwa you’d be glad to be rid of him,” says Dottore. “After all, you can’t have really seen him as family, could you? What was he, a mortal creature, to an immortal doll like you?”
“Liar.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? But no. My, you should have seen the look on his face as he lay dying at my feet. It’s actually quite similar to the face you’re making now. I wonder what he and others of Tatarasuna would think of you and everything you’ve done. Tell me, if you would—satiate a centuries-long curiosity of mine—how did it feel to have Niwa’s heart embedded in your chest, even for a moment? Did it feel nice? Did it finally satiate that bleeding chasm inside of you?”
Wanderer squeezes his eyes shut. He hears Dottore shift, take a step back.
“A word of advice,” says Dottore. “The next time you try to get inside someone else’s head, you’ll do well to remember who taught you how to do it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve important matters to attend to in Sumeru.”
It’s the word Sumeru that brings Wanderer back to the moment. He opens his eyes, rage pulling in the back of his throat, and—
He sees himself standing beside Dottore at his right hand.
Or, no. It isn’t him. Just someone who looks like him: the get-up, the blunt-edged hair, the makeup around the eyes. But he’s missing the Vision and the feather. Missing the kasa.
He meets eyes with his clone, and Wanderer immediately knows what happens next.
Dottore picks Wanderer’s own kasa off the floor and sets it atop the head of the clone. On his chest goes the Vision, golden feather and all.
“So that’s it,” says Wanderer. He has just enough strength left to speak, but nothing more. “You’re gonna reuse the same party trick from a hundred years ago.”
“That’s the idea,” says Dottore. “Although, I will say, I have altered it a bit since then. I have you at my beck and call, after all, and you aren’t nearly as fragile as those humans back at Tatarasuna. Haven’t you heard? The Tsaritsa only named you the Sixth because of your durability. It’s an underappreciated asset in our line of work; I’m giving you a compliment.”
Wanderer laughs, but it rattles something metallic and soupy in the back of his throat and snaps the last shred of composure inside of him. “Nice try,” he strains, “but I’m not—cherished like Niwa was. You miscalculated.”
“No,” says Dottore, “I don’t believe I have. Just because your own self-loathing keeps you from seeing the truth doesn’t make me equally blind to it. These people care for you. You care for them too. I’d say I gleaned that knowledge across arduous years of analyzing your behavior, but I can see it in your eyes. Besides,” Dottore flicks his wrist, snaps his fingers, and a doorway opens in the pocket dimension like the unzipping of a jacket, “a perfect clone of you would be so naturally distrusting of others that it would pick up on even the slightest inconsistency in behavior. If your friends suspect for even a moment that something has changed in ‘you’, ‘you’ will notice. You’ve been played, Balladeer. Or whatever name you prefer to be called these days; I could never keep track.”
A murky shadow spreads along the edge of Wanderer’s vision, swimming like tadpoles. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dottore pat the clone on the shoulder fondly.
“For now, try not to wiggle around too much if you can help it,” says Dottore. “Bleeding out alone is just a bit too pathetic, even for you. And before you try, yes: whatever awful thing you could conceptualize calling me, I’m certain it’s at least somewhat true. Just remember, it was I who saw worth in you when no one else would. For a while, I even believed it to be true. Oh well.” He smiles again, takes the clone by the hand, and waves. “Have fun.”
The split in the dimension seals shut behind Dottore and Wanderer’s clone.
Wanderer stays behind, pinned like a butterfly on a needle, and tries not to choke around the stitches in his chest.
“That should do it,” says Albedo, standing back from the table. “Now we wait.”
He’s already returned Wanderer’s haori and undershirt to him, which Durin is grateful for; they had to expose his chest to gain access to his core, but that—paired with his unnatural stillness and compliance—made him look so vulnerable Durin couldn’t stand to watch.
Durin’s tail knocks into the legs of the coffee table as it sweeps the floor to release anxious energy. He’s never been so jittery before in his life. “That’s it?” Durin asks. “Is waiting really all we can do?”
“For now,” says Albedo. His eyes are on Wanderer, and Durin thinks the worst thing about his brother is his poker face. Albedo never lets others know what he’s truly feeling. “I don’t have any timeline for this,” Albedo goes on. “Without Sandrone, it’s impossible to—”
Wanderer sits forward, eyes wide open. Durin jumps.
“Hat Guy—!”
Durin starts to move, but Albedo catches him by the arm and surges forward in his place. While Durin hangs back, confused, Albedo moves to stand right in Wanderer’s line of sight.
“Hat Guy,” says Albedo, “do you remember who I am?”
Every elation in Durin’s chest sloughs off of him. He was so excited to see Wanderer awake that he nearly forgot Sandrone’s warning. Removing a core from its host has never been done before. Amnesia, total reset, malfunctions—any amount of problems could come out of it.
Durin waits with bated breath. So does Albedo.
Then Wanderer reaches up to bat Albedo’s hand away. “Unfortunately,” he says.
Albedo’s smile is wrecked with relief. “Welcome back.”
Durin leaps past his brother with new courage and captures Wanderer in a fierce embrace. “You’re okay! I’m so happy you’re okay.”
“Alright, alright,” says Wanderer, pushing back against Durin’s shoulder. “Yeah, you got me, I’m okay.” He looks over Durin’s shoulder at the room. “Sandrone really ran off before I woke up, huh? She never changes.”
Durin goes rigid.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Durin tries, but doesn’t have a poker face like Albedo or like Wanderer. The instant his wings slump behind his back, Wanderer catches on. He looks at Durin, sees through Durin.
“Are you serious?” says Wanderer. “She—seriously?”
“She made her choice to save the Traveler,” says Albedo.
“You’re serious,” says Wanderer. He leans his elbows against his knees and puts his head in his hands. “That idiot.”
“Do you need a moment alone?” says Albedo.
Wanderer presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “What’s the point? Besides, she’d read us the riot act if we sat around moping.” He looks Durin over. “Are you alright?”
Durin nods. Wanderer smells… wrong, but he was without his core for a long time, so maybe it’ll just take some time before he’s fully himself again. “Are you alright?” says Durin, because he remembered something about how it’s always polite to flip a question around when possible. “You went through way more than I did.”
“I’m fine,” says Wanderer. He lets out a single dry laugh and slowly pulls himself to his feet. “Better now that the bastard is taken care of. Do we have a body?”
“I’m afraid not,” says Albedo. “I’m certain the conclusion we reached would be very similar to your own.”
“Right.” Wanderer trips a little, but steadies himself before Durin has the chance to try and catch him. “Guy’s still alive somewhere,” says Wanderer. “Probably tucked himself into another Segment, good and safe and far away. Go figure.”
“Miss Arlecchino is taking her body back to Fontaine,” says Albedo. “I myself will be returning to Mondstadt to alert the knights of what has transpired here. If what you say is true, and the Doctor really isn’t as gone as he may seem, we need to be prepared for the worst.”
“That, I’ll agree with. In that case, I should return to Sumeru and catch Lesser Lord Kusanali up. She’ll want an explanation.”
“I’ll go with you,” says Durin at once.
Wanderer crosses his arms. “You’ve been away from home long enough. It’s about time you get back to Mondstadt.”
“No, I want to go with you.”
“Why?”
Durin doesn’t actually have an arguable reason. “Because… you scared me,” says Durin. “When you gave your core to Sandrone, I was worried you might not wake up, or if you did wake up you wouldn’t remember me. Please, can I go with you to Sumeru? I promise I won’t get in the way of your… ‘negotiations’ with Lesser Lord Kusanali.”
“‘Negotiations’ isn’t the right word to use here,’” says Wanderer, but he seems to be thinking over Durin’s plea anyway. “It’ll be boring.”
“Maybe,” says Durin. “But I don’t care.”
Wanderer glances over at Albedo for something, but Albedo just smiles. “Sounds like he’s all yours,” says Albedo. “You should spend some time in the Academiya, Durin, and write about what you see. Use this as a part of your homework to expand your understanding of this world.”
“Hear that?” says Wanderer. “Boring.”
Durin is so elated, it takes all his self-control not to spin around in circles. “I promise I’ll learn a lot. Thank you.”
Wanderer rolls his eyes. “If we’re done here, let’s book a ship. The sooner we get out of this place, the better.”
Durin pushes aside the lingering concern and follows Wanderer out into the open, smoggy air of Nod-Krai.
Wanderer is no stranger to humiliation.
He’s no stranger to being caged, either. The spindle is overkill. He feels as if he’s somehow already died: his body doesn’t answer to him, and he can feel the accursed branch inside of him slowly siphon off his core. He is a vessel. Always has been. Unfit; that’s the idea. Discarded. And for what? The thoughts spin around him, but nothing catches.
What would it matter if he became a replacement Irminsul, anyway? What would it matter if it doesn’t work? If it does? Dottore has got a clone running around out there with his face. The idea meets him, but he feels nothing.
For what may be the first time in his life, Wanderer doesn’t think.
Dottore’s clone is running around out there.
Running around with—
The people of Nod-Krai and likely the people of Sumeru.
The Traveler. Nahida.
Durin.
Would they notice something was wrong?
Blood drips down his spine in all directions.
Would they notice a change? Surely they would. They’re smart enough. They don’t—
—need him.
Need him?
When was the last time anybody ‘needed’ him?
Ei?
No; Dottore.
Or Nahida.
He’s been of use to Nahida, hasn’t he.
Hasn’t he?
Maybe—
Durin.
Durin.
But how could they know something was wrong? Kabukimono is itself a vessel of memory and emotion and not much else. Just like Irminsul. If Dottore managed to scrounge up a copycat of Wanderer’s consciousness and implant it into a clone, why would that be different from what Wanderer is anyway? What else would there be to take? His personality?
It would be Dottore, though.
Dottore.
Dottore.
Running around with—
—Nahida and Durin.
Wanderer finds it in him to move.
The spindle inside of him embeds itself deeper. Blood bursts around the wound and drips down his arms as he grinds his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut. It hurts. Help, help isn’t—
Help isn’t coming. Is it?
Help never comes.
The endless void above him yawns. He begins to feel lightheaded. Bloodloss? Maybe just the angle he’s been suspended at.
How long would it take for anyone in Sumeru to notice he’s been switched out? Years?
Would they notice?
Dottore. Dottore. Dottore.
Dottore knows him. And he knows him even better now that he ransacked his mind and make and recentmost memories. Every good thing Wanderer has ever had has been ripped away from him the moment he got close enough to let himself believe it would stay. Because of Dottore.
Because—
What?
No.
No. Fuck that.
What is wrong with him?
Dottore got into his head. Again.
Motherfucker always gets into his head again-again-again.
Not this time.
Wanderer grabs ahold of the business end of the spindle protruding from his stomach, takes as deep of a breath as this body will allow, and heaves himself up and off of it. The fibers of the branch that had extended into him tear away, popping free like bubbles on the surface of the water. Some of the fibers have hitched themselves onto his veins. Others his nerves. His ribs.
The pain is equal parts immediate and infinite.
It isn’t as bad as being experimented on.
The spindle frees itself from his abdomen and Wanderer collapses bodily onto the floor beside it. Blood gushes from the wound, seeping between his fingers. He clamps both hands over his stomach, but there isn’t just one hole spurting blood. Two. Front and back.
Wanderer throws out his hand to try and slash through the floor of this dimension, but the wind doesn’t answer him. Right. Of course. Bastard took his Vision. His Vision. And he’s bleeding.
Thinking of Dottore makes him think of Niwa. The built-in association churns the nausea already stewing in his gut. He shut down. He should have told Dottore to—to keep Niwa’s name out of his filthy mouth. But he didn’t. Because Niwa—
Niwa—
Wanderer bangs his fist into the floor. “Dottore, you fucking coward! Get back here and fight me if you’re so—so goddamn inevitable!”
It is so, so quiet here. He can’t even hear the sound of the branch contorting behind him, although he’s sure it croaks something. He can barely hear the sound of his own heaving breaths, chest rising and falling like pistons of a machine.
“No,” he gasps. “Not like this. Not over something this—this stupid.”
He tries to push himself onto his feet, but his lower body doesn’t answer him. His knees won’t bend or straighten the way he needs them to. His arms tremble under his weight until they buckle under the strain of it, and he’s sent slamming back into the floor. The impact isn’t anything like what he felt in Shakkeki Pavilion, or when he fell from grace and the maw of Shouki no Kami, but still, it reverberates through him as fresh as any memory of falling alone.
He fell in Tatarasuna, too.
So did Niwa.
Wanderer’s hands are filled with his own blood, and so is the floor beneath him, and his clothes, even down to the straps of his sandals. He earned this. Didn’t he? He earned everything that’s ever come to him.
But Dottore is running around out there with Nahida and with Durin and neither of them will know until it’s too late.
Nahida and Durin and Niwa.
Not again. Not again.
Wanderer presses his forehead into the floor and screams, “Buer!”
Nahida jerks awake.
She’s only gotten used to wearing her hair down to sleep somewhat recently. There was an old belief left behind by the ancient parts of her memory that stated an Archon should always be prepared to protect her people: that meant no idle time, no true rest, no laying down of laurels. It was only after Kasacchi that she started attending more to herself in that regard. When she wakes up, her hair spills over her freely.
The very first thing she does when she sits up is tie it back.
The Sanctuary of Surasthana is quiet. There is not a hint of unrest in the world around her, nor in the earth below her, but she still feels a chill. It was a dream. She knows Kasacchi is safe—she met him and Durin at the docks not yet hours ago, if the position of the moon outside her window is any indicator—but the visions stick with her whenever she blinks, and the dread leaves her lightheaded.
She has never heard Kasacchi sound so upset.
Quietly, Nahida leaves her hammock between the pillars of the main Sanctuary and makes her way down the hall to his room. It’s likely that he’ll hate this, or feel she’s being overbearing, but she also wants to trust that he’ll understand. He’s changed a lot since the day they met: softened, let his guard down.
A candlelight flickers from the crack in his chamber door, as she suspected. She pokes her head around the gap and finds Kasacchi at his desk, still fully dressed in his going-out attire, Vision and all, leaned over a deluge of books, angrily scribbling on a set of parchment he’s laid out beside it. She’s so momentarily endeared by it, she nearly forgets the sound of his voice in her dream. That scream…
“Kasacchi?”
Kasacchi jumps so hard his knee hits the underside of the desk. “G—fuck!”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Kasacchi, still rubbing his knee with one hand, drops his head into the other with a groaning sigh. “Ugh, it’s fine, just. What do you want?”
It’s good to see him like this.
“I really am sorry to bother you,” says Nahida, “but I’ve had an awful dream, and I just had to check that you were alright.”
Kasacchi’s scowl softens around the edges. “You had… what? Like a nightmare?”
“I think so,” says Nahida. “I haven’t had one of those since the sages locked me away.”
Kasacchi huffs. “I didn’t think you could get them at all.” He sets down his quill. “What about?”
“It was about you,” says Nahida. “You were in danger. And you were hurt.”
Kasacchi looks down at his desk, the way he usually does when he’s contemplating something—or when his mind has gone to a dark place. She doesn’t see this expression often on him.
“Ordinarily, I would have just chalked it up to my own fears getting the better of me, after everything that happened in Nod-Krai,” says Nahida, “but it felt so real, I had to make sure you were alright. You’ll forgive me for being prudent after all that’s occurred.”
Kasacchi gets quiet for a minute. “What, do you think it was real?”
It certainly felt real. It felt realer than Kasacchi feels now, waiting for her to answer.
“I know the Doctor has enjoyed influencing our timelines in the past,” says Nahida. “My concern is that he’s… taking events that have happened, or would happen, and projecting them into the consciousness of Sumeru.”
“He hasn’t changed,” says Kasacchi. He leans his head against his hand.
“I’m sorry to ask you this,” says Nahida, “but, would you give me your hand? I know it’s uncomfortable for you when I sift through your mind, I just… want to make sure you’re okay, and check for any lingering traces of the Doctor’s influence.”
She’s expecting a no. Kasacchi trusting her at all is nothing short of a miracle after everything he’s been through.
Kasacchi has that dark-thoughts look on his face again. “Do you really think it’ll help?”
“Yes,” says Nahida, “but I will not force you if you say no.”
Kasacchi sighs, puts his head on the desk for a moment or two, and then offers her his hand. “If it’ll make you feel better, go for it.”
Relieved, Nahida steps forward. “It won’t take long.”
He shuts his eyes. “Whatever.”
Nahida shuts her eyes, too, and presses her fingertips gently into his palm. When she prods, he opens his memory to her freely.
Everything she sees, she expected. All the usual pieces are there, from his creation to his inception as Shouki no Kami. Durin in Simulanka, Durin in Mondstadt. Nod-Krai. She sees him get hurt.
“You didn’t tell me you were injured,” says Nahida without opening her eyes.
“If I say ‘you didn’t ask,’” says Kasacchi, “are you going to be disappointed?”
“Yes.”
She reaches the block of memory that involves Kasacchi no longer being connected with his core. That, she was informed of, more so by Durin. There is no memory in the space where Kasacchi went without his core. It is as expected, but fascinating nonetheless, if only because Sumeru has no data on sentient kagemusha puppets. She pushes past it.
The memory resumes with Kasacchi being reunited with his core in Nod-Krai. After that, everything is standard. Albedo bids farewell; the Traveler and Arlecchino go their own separate ways; the ship leaves Nod-Krai, bound for Sumeru with Durin and Kasacchi on board; Durin is with him. The perspective has changed somewhat—before, Wanderer’s memory was filled with Durin, primarily keeping an eye on him to ensure he didn’t get into trouble—but this side of Nod-Krai is more focused on the traveling: the ship, the sea, the sky. It’s odd for Kasacchi not to be protective of Durin, but it’s just as likely he was overwhelmed with all that happened. Between the Doctor, Columbina, Sandrone, giving up his core…
Nahida withdraws her hand, and Kasacchi blinks his eyes open to stare at her.
“Well?” says Kasacchi. “Feel better yet?”
Every moving-part in Kasacchi’s memory lined up with what she already knew or anticipated to see. He sits before her, waiting for an answer. But it nags. The voice in her dream, his voice, anguished. Is the Doctor just trying to scare her? Is this some kind of veiled threat?
“Buer,” says Kasacchi.
Nahida snaps out of it. “Yes. Sorry; I do feel better.” She smiles. “Thank you for humoring me, Kasacchi. I know it isn’t always easy.”
Kasacchi rolls his eyes and reaches for his quill again. “It’s whatever, like I said.”
“Still. Thank you. I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight.”
She turns away. She trusts Kasacchi, and she trusts his memory, but she swears she heard him calling for her and she can’t shake the feeling that she’s being duped.
“Buer, wait.”
Nahida stops by the door. When she looks over her shoulder at him, Kasacchi seems to be fumbling for words.
“Yes?” says Nahida.
He keeps fumbling a while longer before giving up and turning back to his books. “Nevermind. Forget it.”
“What were you going to say?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She smiles. He’s changed, sure, but not completely; relating to others is still difficult for him, and she knows he rarely goes without nightmares of his own.
“I promise I’ll come find you if I need reassurance,” says Nahida. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Kasacchi is already knee-deep in his studies again, or at least pretending to be. She turns away.
Something catches the corner of her eye.
She has to do a double take.
“I’m not going anywhere,” says Kasacchi without looking up. “You should get some rest if you can.”
His Vision…
“You’re right,” says Nahida steadily. “Thank you.”
She leaves with silent prudence, but she knows what she saw. She understands why the perspective was different in the second half of Kasacchi’s memories.
Kasacchi’s Vision flickered.
Something is wrong.