Chapter Text
The ruins beneath Mondstadt were places nobody spoke about, broken temples swallowed by ivy. Abandoned laboratories left from forgotten experiments and hidden within them were children. Their small voices echoed through stone corridors no sunlight reached. Rusted cages lined the walls like decorations nobody wanted to remember. The air always smelled of damp earth, blood, and old fear.
Children stolen from every nation, some cried in languages nobody else understood. Others spent years searching every new face for parents who would never come. At night, whispers traveled through the darkness. "Where are you from?" a child would ask. "I don't know anymore," another would answer.
Children sold like livestock as the wealthy buyers walked through the ruins with lanterns and appraising eyes. They pointed at children as if choosing horses from a stable. "That one looks strong." "This one has unusual eyes." The children learned very quickly that being noticed was often worse than being ignored.
Children whose names were replaced with numbers. The guards claimed names made people difficult to control. Numbers were easier. Numbers could be forgotten. A guard once kicked a crying boy and barked, "You're Twenty-Seven, not whatever your mother called you." The boy never spoke his name again.
One of them was Illuga. His number had long since replaced his identity within the ruins. The guards rarely called him anything else. Yet every night he silently repeated his real name beneath his breath. If he forgot it, he feared he would disappear completely.
He was seven years old when men from Mondstadt's black market dragged him from Nod-Krai. He still remembered screaming until his throat hurt. His tiny hands had clawed at the snow as strangers carried him away. "Mom! Dad!" he cried. One of the men laughed. "Keep yelling, brat. Nobody can hear you now."
He remembered his parents. His mother's warm hands fixing his scarf before winter storms. His father's laughter carried through their small home. Sometimes he would close his eyes and force himself to remember every detail. "Don't forget them," he whispered to himself. "Don't ever forget."
Their faces became blurrier every year. Memory slowly eroded them like waves wearing down stone. Sometimes he struggled to remember the shape of his mother's smile. Sometimes his father's eyes vanished from his thoughts entirely. "What did you look like?" he asked the darkness one night.
Their voices faded. He could no longer hear them clearly in his dreams. They became distant echoes carried away by time. Occasionally he woke in panic, afraid he had forgotten them forever. "Say something," he begged, memories that could not answer.
But he remembered enough. Enough to know they loved him. Enough to know he had once belonged somewhere. Enough to know there was a world beyond chains and cages. That small memory became his greatest treasure.
Enough to know he wanted to go home. Even if he could not remember the road. Even if years had passed. He imagined snow-covered fields waiting for him. "One day," he promised himself. "I'll find my way back."
Enough to know he refused to die. The ruins wanted to break him. The guards wanted obedience. The buyers wanted ownership. Illuga gave them none. "Still alive?" a guard mocked one morning. Illuga glared back. "Unfortunately for you."
Every day was labor. Children hauled crates larger than themselves. They cleaned laboratories stained by forgotten experiments. They carried stone until their hands bled. "Move faster!" guards shouted. "We're trying!" exhausted children cried back.
Every day was punishment as each failure meant beatings. Complaints meant beatings. Existing at the wrong moment often meant beatings. The guards did not need reasons. They only needed targets.
Every day children were dragged away and never returned. The sound of chains rattling through hallways became familiar. Children stopped asking where their friends had gone. Nobody wanted the answer. "Have you seen Eighty-One?" someone would ask. Silence always followed.
Some were sold to nobles. Expensive carriages arrived at strange hours. Rich buyers smiled pleasantly while discussing prices. "She'll make a fine servant." "That boy looks obedient enough." The children stood frozen while being inspected.
Some vanished into laboratories. White-coated researchers arrived carrying notebooks and strange equipment. The selected children never came back. Rumors spread through the ruins like wildfire. Nobody knew what happened behind those locked doors.
Some simply disappeared. No buyers. No researchers. No explanations. One day they existed. The next day they were gone. The uncertainty frightened everyone more than the truth ever could.
Illuga survived because he was stubborn. Stubborn enough to keep fighting when common sense suggested surrender. Stubborn enough to endure things nobody should endure. A guard once sighed and muttered, "Why won't this kid just stay down?"
Too stubborn, He argued when silence was safer. He resisted when obedience was easier. He glared when fear would have been wiser. Every punishment only seemed to harden him further.
Even after beatings, even bruises covered his arms and back. Some days standing hurt. Yet he still found the strength to glare at his captors. "Still looking at me like that?" a guard sneered. "Still breathing, aren't I?" Illuga answered.
Even after starvation, hunger became a constant companion. His stomach hurt so often that eventually he stopped noticing. He shared scraps with younger children whenever possible. "You need this more," one child whispered. "Then split it with me," Illuga replied.
Even after broken bones. Injuries healed, crooked and painful. Some left scars that never faded. Others left aches that returned during storms. Yet every healed wound became proof that he had survived another day.
When the chance finally came, he ran, not because he thought he would succeed. Because dying while running felt better than dying in chains. Chaos erupted during a shipment transfer. A distracted guard left a gate unlatched. Illuga saw it and moved instantly.
"HEY! THE BRAT IS RUNNING!"
Boots thundered behind him.
"Stop right there!" shouted a guard.
"Catch him!" another yelled.
A nearby Fatui agent cursed. "You idiots lost a child?"
"He slipped through!"
"Then stop standing around and chase him!"
Illuga didn't look back. His lungs burned. His feet bled. The night swallowed him as he sprinted into the forest. The escape left him bleeding and half-conscious. Branches tore at his skin. Sharp rocks cut his feet. Every breath felt like knives inside his chest. Still, he kept moving.
Hunters chased him through forests and abandoned roads. Lantern lights flickered in the distance. Dogs barked somewhere behind him. Voices echoed through the trees.
"There!"
"I saw him!"
"Spread out!"
"Don't let him reach the mountains!"
His legs nearly gave out. Muscles screamed with exhaustion. Each step felt heavier than the last. Several times he stumbled and nearly collapsed.
His vision blurred. Trees melted together into dark shapes. Moonlight fractured into golden streaks. The world spun around him. He tasted blood. Yet he kept moving. One step became another. Another became ten more. His body wanted rest. His will refused.
Because he refused to stop, every step was rebellion as long as he was still alive. Because nobody else would save him. No one was coming. No heroes were searching. No miracle waited ahead. If he wanted freedom, he had to seize it himself.
Because survival was the only thing left. His home was gone. His childhood was gone. Nearly everything had been taken from him. Survival was the one thing nobody had managed to steal.
And somewhere beneath the moonlight, a Geo Vision appeared in his trembling hand. Golden light burst through the darkness. The forest froze in stunned silence. Even Illuga stared.
"W-What is this?" he whispered.
The crystal glowed brighter. Far behind him, a hunter shouted, "Did you see that light?!"
"A Vision?!"
"Impossible!"
A golden crystal. Warm despite the cold night. Heavy despite its small size. Ancient power hummed beneath its surface. It rested in his palm like it had always belonged there. The light did not flicker. It did not shake. It remained constant despite his trembling hands. Like a mountain refusing to bow before a storm. The Geo energy gathered around him. Stone rose from the earth in response. Jagged pillars erupted behind him, blocking the path of his pursuers.
"What in the Archons' name?!" a guard screamed.
"The kid has a Vision!"
"Move those rocks!"
"You move them!"
Like the resolve in his heart. The world had spent years trying to break him. Chains failed. Fear failed. Pain failed. Hunger failed.
Illuga tightened his grip around the Geo Vision. "I'll survive," he said hoarsely. The golden crystal shone brighter. "I'll go home." For the first time in years, the road ahead belonged to him.
Illuga reached Springvale three days later. He staggered into the village at dusk, mud on his boots and moonlight in his hair. A farmer looked up from his cart and said, “That boy looks half-dead,” while Illuga muttered, “Still standing.”
His stomach had been protesting so long it felt like another heartbeat. When he spotted a basket of apples, he whispered, “I only need one,” and then grabbed three.
His own limbs felt like wet cloth dragged through stone. He leaned against a fence and heard a woman say, “Boy, you look ready to fall over,” so he grunted, “....”
He watched every hand like it might turn into a trap. When a child tried to offer him water, he flinched and said, “I…,” and the child blinked and replied, “Nobody asked you to be.”
The catfolk villagers chased him away after catching him stealing apples. “Thief!” one shouted, and another waved a broom like it was a spear. Illuga backed off with a scowl and hissed, “Then stop leaving them where I can reach them.”
So he stole more apples. He treated it like a lesson the village kept failing to teach. “You again?” a shopkeeper barked, and Illuga answered, “You left the door open.”
He learned which windows were loose and which guards were sleepy. “How does he keep doing that?” one villager muttered, and another said, “Because he is faster than shame.”
And occasionally he stole some chickens. He was not proud of it, only that he needed it. When someone cried, “He took Beryl the hen!” he shot back, “She ran first.”
He became surprisingly good at running. His feet knew how to find the soft parts of the road and the narrow places between danger. “Stop him!” a man yelled, and Illuga called over his shoulder, “Catch me first.”
Along the roads he met other orphans. They looked at him the way stranded animals look at rain. One boy asked, “Do you have food?” and Illuga said, “Less than you want, more than nothing.”
Children who are even hungrier than him, their ribs showed through torn cloth, and their eyes had that old, practiced emptiness. A girl held out a shaking hand and whispered, “Please,” so he dropped half his bread into it without a word.
Illuga always split whatever food he had. He did it as naturally as breathing, as if keeping it all would have felt wrong. “Why are you giving me yours?” one boy asked, and Illuga replied, “Because I am not eating alone.”
Even when he barely had enough. He would tear the crust in half and make sure someone smaller got the better piece. “You need that more,” a child said, and Illuga shrugged, “Not by much.”
Nobody understood why. The others stared at him as if generosity were a strange species they had never seen before. “You are stupid,” one orphan said, and Illuga answered, “Probably.”
Illuga himself didn’t understand. He only knew that empty hands looked too much like the cages he had escaped. “Why do you do it?” a girl asked, and he frowned and said, “Because it feels wrong not to.”
Maybe because he knew what hunger felt like. He knew the way it sharpened the mind and hollowed the chest. “Eat,” he told a trembling child, “before your hands start shaking too.”
Maybe because he remembered being alone. That kind of loneliness left a mark deeper than bruises. He looked at the others and said, almost to himself, “No one should have to do this by themselves.”
A year later, fate introduced him to two people. By then, Illuga was tougher, a bit short, and significantly better at stealing food without getting caught. Standing in front of him were two strangers who would end up changing his life. “Kid,” one of them said, “you look like you've been fighting the entire world.”
The Guild Master Cyrus. The old adventurer carried himself with the confidence of someone who had survived too many disasters to count. He looked Illuga over once and immediately spotted the stubbornness. “You've got the eyes of an adventurer,” Cyrus remarked, and Illuga replied, “I've got the eyes of someone trying not to starve.”
And Bennett. A blond ash boy who somehow looked cheerful despite being covered in scratches, dirt, and leaves. He waved enthusiastically at Illuga. “Hi! I'm Bennett!” he announced, while Illuga narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
The most unlucky boy in Mondstadt. At least, that was what everyone called him. “People keep saying that,” Bennett said with a grin, “but I think they're exaggerating.” A branch immediately fell out of a tree and bonked him on the head.
Bennett accidentally tripped into a river. One moment he was walking normally, and the next he vanished with a splash. “BENNETT!” Cyrus shouted. Bennett surfaced downstream and gave a thumbs-up. “I'm okay!”
Got struck by lightning. The sky had been perfectly clear five seconds earlier. A sudden bolt cracked down and hit Bennett directly. Smoke rose from his hair as he blinked and said, “That happens more often than you'd think.”
Lost a shoe. The river had apparently claimed it as tribute. Bennett searched the bank for several minutes before giving up. “Well,” he sighed, “guess the river needed it more than me.”
And somehow started a small fire. Nobody knew exactly how. Bennett tripped over a lantern, which rolled into a pile of dry leaves. “Oops,” Bennett said as flames appeared. “Oops?” Illuga repeated in disbelief.
All within ten minutes. It was honestly impressive in a deeply concerning way. Even Cyrus looked tired. “This isn't even his worst day,” the Guild Master muttered.
Illuga stared silently. He watched Bennett climb out of the river, smelling faintly of smoke, missing a shoe, and somehow still smiling. The silence stretched longer and longer.
"...how are you alive?" Illuga finally asked. He sounded genuinely confused. A nearby adventurer nodded and added, “I've been wondering that for years.”
Bennett proudly answered. He put his hands on his hips like a hero posing for a painting. “Good question!” he declared.
“That's not an answer,” Illuga replied.
“I know!” Bennett said cheerfully.
Cyrus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Unfortunately, this conversation perfectly summarizes Bennett as a person.”
“Thanks, Mr. Cyrus!”
“That wasn't a compliment.”
“I'll take it anyway!” Bennett said, somehow stepping into a puddle and slipping the exact moment he finished speaking.
“...” Illuga remained silent looking at both the strangers.
“Want to go on an adventure?” Bennet asked eyes sparkling like stars, For reasons Illuga would never fully understand, that was the beginning of a friendship.