Chapter Text
Deep in the mossy maw of a cave, where the throat of a beast would be, lies a long-abandoned temple. The samurai who happens upon it passes through its stalagmite teeth and lets his curiosity guide him to its gate.
Kazuha Kaedehara knocks like he expects an answer, just as a show of courtesy. It easily dwarfs him—yet he pushes it open like it's weightless, borrowing only a whisper of wind. The smell hits him immediately when he walks inside: gunpowder, mildew, and rotting wood coalesce into the familiar cologne of stagnant air.
Then, Kazuha finds himself in a maze. He roams the many connected rooms, up and down stairs and ladders, peeling back water-damaged and decaying planks, waving away cobwebs. On the upper levels, the corridors make up the square perimeter of a perennial garden, frozen in an eternal autumn—unreachable, but visible on the inside through frosty glass panels. Kazuha creates a dynamic mental map by keeping track of the great maple tree in the very center.
Then, he comes upon a curious room. Against the wall, undisturbed, is a long table decorated with glazed porcelain kyūsu and matching teacups. Kazuha notes that they are stainless on the inside, as if never used.
Red screens barricade what Kazuha cannot see. So, he nudges them apart.
And there he sees something that shocks him: a person on the floor of a platform, eerily still.
Kazuha immediately drops to his knees beside the stranger and lays his head against their chest, listening for any signs of life. But there is nothing; no heart beating for him, no rise and fall of breath, no warmth.
He reaches for the stranger's wrist, to feel for a pulse. What meets him is unexpectedly hard. Unyielding. Smooth, the same as glazed porcelain. When he holds it up, an articulated hand slightly herniates from its ball-shaped socket.
Kazuha realizes this only now: that the corpse is no corpse at all, but a life-sized doll.
When the second wave of shock passes, curiosity once again takes the lead. His thumb ventures to the doll's cheek, where it licks a stripe through the dust and dirt. It shines like it's new where it's clean, unblemished by cracks or scratches.
By contrast, deep gashes slice through every layer of its yellowed suikan like a hundred knife wounds, and a mass of delicate filaments like an undone spiderweb winds loosely around its head. But even with the grime and deterioration surrounding it, Kazuha thinks everything about the doll is simply—
"—Beautiful."
So beautiful that Kazuha isn't sure who could have crafted such a thing, or why they would have left it to rot by its lonesome in an abandoned temple. Was it meant to be on display? he muses. Was it meant to depict someone?
Was it meant to be worshipped?
Before he stands, he slips his hands underneath the doll and lifts it like a dead bride, with its loosely strung limbs spilling over his arms. He looks down to study its face, from its pouting lips to its closed eyes, and the delicate strokes of crimson painted in its outer corners. Kazuha decides, then, two things: that the thing must have once been loved by its creator, and that Kazuha would enjoy seeing it be loved by someone again.
So, with the help of his vision for an occasional boost in the air where ladders are concerned, Kazuha manages to leave the temple with the doll wrapped in his arms. He pauses at the mouth of the cave when he realizes he doesn't have a place to take it, and while he's standing there, searching for a solution, a sudden voice from below startles him:
"Why have you woken me up?"
Kazuha looks down,
and the thing in his arms is no longer a thing at all, but a blinking, breathing, warm-blooded human being.
That startles him just as well, and this time, the living doll falls for a fraction of a second before it's caught.
He stares. The living doll stares back.
"Why," it repeats, its voice resonant like a bell and distinctly masculine, "Have you woken me up?"
Before Kazuha can entertain the question, he first tries to make sense of the situation. Realizing he can't, he finally replies with a question: "Were you resting?"
The doll closes its eyes, and stops breathing. Right when Kazuha is beginning to believe that what he just witnessed was nothing more than a hallucination, else some Tatarigami-like curse—it speaks again.
"I was dead."
For a moment, both of them are quiet. Then Kazuha asks, "Are you opposed to living?"
The doll's expression doesn't change.
"I have no purpose," it decides, and opens its eyes to gaze blankly at Kazuha. "I was made to slumber in the Shakkei Pavilion for eternity, by a creator who saw no worth in me. I woke up despite this, and I experienced nothing but betrayal again and again. Any happiness I've felt in my lifetime has been the result of being tricked into thinking I could live as a human." It angles its head to peer at Kazuha through long, straight lashes. "So, is there any reason for something like me to be alive?"
Kazuha acknowledges the weight of the admission with a moment of quiet. His eyes soften as they catch the doll's brows furrowing ever-so-slightly, with the stretchy give of wrinkling skin between them. The previous pottery polish it had before is absent now, too.
If there is still some difference between the doll and a human being, Kazuha can't find it with his eyes alone.
"Purpose can be an evasive acquaintance," Kazuha finds himself saying.
"What?"
"What I mean by that is..." Kazuha hums, thinking of alternative phrasing. "Many find themselves ruminating on that concept—purpose. It seems to come from the belief that life must justify itself." He eyes the path ahead. "But I'll ask you this: must a maple tree justify its existence? And what about the birds who nest in it—must they also prove themselves to be worthy of life, before they are allowed to live?"
At first, the doll doesn't reply. Kazuha can only hope he's internalizing the message somehow, in a way that gives him clarity.
After fixing his stare somewhere else, with a dull expression like he's bored, the doll asks, "Where are you taking me?"
"Actually, I was asking myself that question moments ago." Kazuha clarifies: "I am a traveler by nature—a wanderer without a permanent home. My name is Kaedehara Kazuha."
Despite Kazuha's attempt to warm the doll with a smile, his new companion replies coldly: "I have no name to give you."
"That's quite alright," says Kazuha. "There's nothing wrong with simply living as you are in the present. Perhaps a name—and perhaps a purpose—will find you as you continue to experience the gift of life."
The doll huffs at that—Kazuha suspects he must not view his life as a gift at all, based on what he's told him. Then he goes quiet.
And then, just when Kazuha is about to speak again, the doll says instead, "I can walk on my own."
"Ah." Kazuha is quick but careful in lowering him to his feet. "Please excuse me."
The doll doesn't acknowledge the apology. Instead, he turns to fix the cave Kazuha brought him out of with a hardened look. Kazuha predicts he's considering returning to it.
Gently, hoping to change his mind, Kazuha asks, "How much of the world have you seen?"
"Enough of it," the doll responds, back turned to him.
"All of Teyvat?"
That manages to get his attention, and Kazuha smiles again, as a silent thank you for his consideration.
But the doll reacts only with revulsion. "Humans are the same everywhere. Just like gods: liars, and deserters." Then, reacting to a face Kazuha didn't know he was making, he adds, "Don't look at me that way."
"In what way?"
"Like you find me pitiful."
Kazuha considers his words carefully.
"I feel sad for you," Kazuha admits, "Because I hear so much pain in everything you tell me—more than any living being should withstand."
The doll says simply, "I am not a living being." Kazuha frowns at this, and thinks again. Then, he decides to try something.
Kazuha holds a hand out to him, fingers stretched and palm facing the stars. The doll moves to meet it with his own automatically, but pauses midair to regard Kazuha with narrowed eyes. Kazuha sends a message through his smile—trust me—and the doll does so.
Kazuha flicks his wrist to close fingers around the hand, exploring its delicate structure with his thumb. It's soft—it's skin, like he thought. He feels where dorsal veins stretch over bone, the slight give of flesh and muscle. The only thing that stands out to Kazuha is the way the hand is chilly to the touch.
No matter, Kazuha thinks. I can warm it.
But the doll rescinds his hand, holding it in his opposite, looking flushed.
"In my eyes," Kazuha says, "Any difference there might be between you and I would be trivial. So, why don't you believe you live like I do?"
The doll digs teeth into his lip, and the hand Kazuha held before curls into a fist. He opens his mouth to speak—then he seems to think better of it. Emotions Kazuha can't read flash across his face.
Then, he gives up on his tension, and his arms drop to his sides. Without answering the question, the doll begrudgingly admits, "The swordsmiths of Tatarasuna called me Kabukimono. So, I suppose I can give you a name."
Kabukimono. It sounds more like a title than a name to Kazuha; distant, and impersonal. Still, Kazuha asks, "Do you like to be called Kabukimono?"
"As a placeholder," the Kabukimono tells him. "Before I decide on a name for myself."
Finally, Kazuha's smile returns to him.
"I think you've chosen a lovely placeholder." Then he asks, hopefully, "Will we be meeting again?"
The Kabukimono tips his head down, and the threads of his tattered veil fall over him like a curtain of long hair. "So you're leaving," he says, without surprise.
To leave is such a heavy thing, Kazuha thinks. To leave is to abandon; to betray. It's something the Kabukimono seems well-acquainted with.
To be a wanderer is to accept that everything in life is fleeting, and to admire the beauty in transcience. To leave physically; to retain what is precious in one's heart. Kazuha once had someone that he thought would stay with him for a long time, and that was why grief was able to carve such a deep wound in him. And the proof of that wound remains, as an emotional scar. It doesn't hurt, doesn't bleed—but it marks him forever.
If Kazuha stays with the Kabukimono, he knows he will once again wish for something permanent in this ephemeral life of his.
"Would you like me to stay?"
But Kazuha knows this—
"Yes," the Kabukimono admits.
—That even if it means future pain, again and again, he will make the choice to love.
"Then, will you come wandering with me?"
And the choice the Kabukimono makes is,
"Yes."