Keith walked through the white corridors, illuminated but some panels on the ceiling and the walls, towards the pace Ruan Mei was usually in.
The rest of the people had left for a mission that didn't require his involvement, so he chose to stay behind and help Ruan Mei a bit.
It was called infirmary, only because there were medical instruments in there, even if their original purpose was far more sinister, like vivisecting.
But Ruan Mei was a woman obsessed with knowing what an Aeon was, and after finding Keith, her obsession had spiralled out of control.
She had had a talk with Nous, the Aeon of Erudition, and she left the meeting with nothing but an idea firmly engraved in her mind.
She would never be able to understand what an Aeon was, because only them could shed light on their existence.
So Ruan Mei had turned into an expressionless woman, always chasing what she knew was an impossible goal, but working as hard as she could for it.
Until she met Keith, the name given to a mass of flesh housing an aberrant soul.
And now, Ruan Mei had a clear path ahead that would allow her to reach what she knew had been an unreachable land.
She only needed to stay by Keith's side and study him.
It was the only way she would understand what an Aeon was, so she wasn't going to allow such an opportunity to escape from her.
And Keith, knowing how deeply Ruan Mei's obsession was, was willing to help her.
He couldn't reveal some ancient truth to her, as he himself had no clue about anything else other than his own life and thoughts, but he could help her by being forthcoming about what he was experiencing.
"Ruan Mei, are you here?" asked Keith after closing the door to the 'infirmary' behind him.
SCREEEEE
But a screech that reminded Keith of an insect was the only reply he got.
tap tap tap
But a second later, a gorgeous woman appeared in front of him, with her pale blue eyes fixed on him.
"I came to help" said Keith raising his arms in surrender. "I will stay here the whole day, so please don't sedate me."
Even if Keith's body was quite...advanced, Ruan Mei was still somehow creating chemicals that could make him fall asleep in a few seconds.
"Good-"
SCREEEEEEE!
Ruan Mei turned around and entered a side room.
SCREEE-
The screech was interrupted by the sound of something penetrating into flesh, which made Keith grimace, and Ruan Mei came out of the room, as calm as she had been before entering that room but with a suspiciously big stain of blood in her coat.
"Good" she continued, ignoring the interruption. "I want your blood."
"I do too" replied Keith, his words failing to receive a response.
Ruan Mei ignored him, and pushed him towards a bed, surrounded by curtains on all sides.
"Stay still, I don't want to waste any drop of your blood" said Ruan Mei, bringing a comically large syringe that made Keith pale.
"So my well-being is only secondary?" asked Keith, but Ruan Mei ignored him, just as he expected. "I don't think there is that much blood in my body."
"Not now, but it will" was Ruan Mei's reply, which made Keith regret coming here. "Your body will produce more blood as I extract it."
"Good for you then, you can take all the blood you want" grumbled Keith, but opened his eyes in surprise. "No, wait!"
"Thank you for your offer" said Ruan Mei with a big grin.
"..." Sometimes, Keith regretted having a mouth at all.
2 hours later, an anaemic and extremely pale Keith was lying on his bed, without the strength to even blink.
On his side, 2 tanks were filled to the brim with blood, that Ruan Mei carefully studied in a microscope.
"How...did your...meeting...go?" muttered Keith from his bed.
"Useless" replied Ruan Mei. "They are a bunch of fools who don't realize how important my research is and refuse to give me the resources I need."
"Did you...tell them...what you are looking for?" asked Keith.
"Of course not" once again, Ruan Mei replied without looking away from Seth's blood. "You are my subject."
'At least she doesn't hide it' mused Keith.
"But a few of them are starting to get suspicious" continued Ruan Mei, and even if her eyes were set on the blood, she wasn't looking at it. "Those incompetent fools, thinking that they can make me reveal the only clue I have. Maybe I should make a call to the Anti-matter Legion..."
Keith forced his neck to move, and saw Ruan Mei with a dead look in her eyes.
"Please, don't" begged Keith. "Look, you have a lot of blood, be happy with that, okay?"
Ruan Mei looked at him, then at the tanks full of swirling red blood, and finally nodded.
"Anyway" said Keith. "Do you find something new?"
"Not at all" replied Ruan Mei without any disappointment. "But I expected it. I will probably need millennia to see the slightest of changes, I was prepared for it."
"Good for you then" said Keith with a deadpan look, knowing that for the next millennia, he would have Ruan Mei by his side. "Oh, Ruan Mei, I have great news for you."
"Good news?" asked Ruan Mei, looking away from the blood for the first time.
"Yes, the best ones you could have" nodded Keith, a satisfied expression on his face.
"Do you remember the reason why your soul is that strong?" asked Ruan Mei, teleporting in front of Keith with a crazed look in her eyes. "Have you recovered your memories? Do you know what you are?"
"Well...maybe not the best ones, but they should be pretty good" said Keith. "Do you remember those 'trips' I did to this other place?"
"Of course" nodded Ruan Mei. "How could I forget something about you?"
A sentence that would have been romantic in any other situation only served to make Keith gulp in fear.
"Well" said Keith. "Goodbye."
And Keith fainted.
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"Yae, I'm leaving now" said Elea, knocking in Yae's room.
"Come in" Yae's soft voice came from within the room, making Elea frown.
"I told you I'm leaving, why would I need to come in?" asked the small girl, but complied and entered.
You wouldn't leave without saying goodbye, would you?"
Yae was in the middle of it, sitting in front of a low tale while in the seiza position, but what shocked Elea was what she was doing.
Yae had a brush and a piece of white paper in front of her.
"Are you writing?!" asked Elea, quickly approaching the surprised youkai.
"I am" said Yae with a small frown. "But I'm afraid it's not what you would like to think it is."
Which made Elea realize she had messed up.
"It seems your mother has told you a few things" said Yae with a dangerous smile that made Elea sweat. "Mind sharing?"
"Mom told me you wrote a few books, and that you stopped at some point" confessed Elea, looking at Yae's purple eyes.
And she regretted saying it the same moment she felt a pang of sharp pain coming from Yae.
"It was Ei right?" asked Yae with a knowing glance. "You bribed her asking for some rewards after training."
Once again, Elea realized Yae was too smart.
"I will have some words with her later" Yae's 'smile' told Elea that she was about to get scolded by her mother later. "But I'm afraid this is just a letter to my friend from Liyue."
"Ganyu?" asked Elea with interest, which made Yae nod. "Ken wrote me about her, and about the rest of Adepti."
"And what do you think?" asked Yae curiously.
"That they are like old people, but are trying hard to live with humans" replied Elea with honesty.
"Sigh, you resemble him so much..." Yae's sigh made Elea realize that once again, she reminded someone else of his dead father.
She had been talked about this, by both Yae and her mother, so she knew she wasn't someone else's replacement, and even if she was often compared to her father, she was her own person and would live the life she wanted to.
It had been a bit hard at some point to always be compared with her father, but now it was something she was proud of.
After all, the comparisons had increased a lot from the moment she made her 'study' about the shrine, and as she was quite proud of it, she realized that being compared with her father meant she was on a good path.
"I am leaving now, I have training with my mother" Elea remembered the reason she came in the first place, and took Yae out of her nostalgia.
"Aren't you training a lot lately?" asked Yae with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes" nodded Elea with a firm expression carrying her determination.
She had someone to beat after all, and she was determined to win.
"Remember to do your homework" Yae smiled a bit seeing Elea's grimace, but opened her arms. "Come here."
And Elea, sensing what Yae was feeling, gave the older youkai a hug.
"Elea, you are growing up to be a smart woman" said Yae, hugging the smart child in her arms. "Keep working hard, even if it's a bit hard. We all want you to have all paths opened in the future so you can do what you want, but that means you need to work hard."
"I know" said Elea, feeling Yae's tenderness towards her.
"Well then, get going" said Yae, stepping back with a bright smile. "And please, tell your mother I will be having a talk with her soon."
"...okay" muttered Elea, who knew that she was going to get in trouble.
But knowing there was no other choice, and still believing that leaving all her problems to 'her future self' was utterly stupid, prepared herself to be scolded.
Elea left the room, and Yae's expression quickly changed to a solemn one.
"Follow her, and protect her" she ordered, and even if no reply came, she knew one of the Shuumatsuban members would be with Elea until she ordered otherwise.
Losing Kenshin had been a tragedy, and only Elea's presence was saving a few of them, including Ei.
If Elea was attacked, Ei would go on a rampage no one would be able to talk her out of.
Nor that they would want, after all, Yae was ready to follow Ei.
No matter who the enemy was, and no matter how dangerous, Elea wouldn't suffer any damage, at least not while they were still alive.
Elea kept walking towards her house, the Tenshukaku, unaware of the small ninja tailing her ready to protect the child from any danger.
After all, this small ninja liked sleeping, and she would only be able to for as long as there was a country to sleep in, and the Shogun would make sure nothing of Inazuma remained should any harm come to Elea.
"Hello" Elea smiled at a group of people waving at her, as they usually did, and kept walking towards the Tenshukaku with a bright smile.
"Ohh, if it isn't the Smol Princess."
But a deep voice interrupted her walk, and Elea found herself looking at a towering man.
And yet, fear was the last thing she felt, because this man was the most inoffensive one in the whole country.
"Itto" greeted Elea with a bright smile, seeing affable and somewhat childish oni.
"Muahahaha, it's me, the one and oni, Arataki Itto!" said the gigantic oni, striking a 'heroic' pose.
"Boss..." a small woman by his side, with green hair and a mouth mask, sighed in resignation.
"Ah, Shinobu-san" Elea quickly greeted, and looked through her backpack. "Your sister gave me this letter for you."
"Thanks" Kuki Shinoby took a step forward, and took the letter. "But why didn't she give it to me directly?"
"She told me that I would meet you on my way" replied Elea, already used to Miyako's 'super-miko sense.'
"I still don't know how she does it..." muttered Shinobu, wondering how could a person who hadn't left the Shrine for more than a week in more than 20 years develop such abilities.
"Forget about that" shouted Itto, who had more important things to talk about. "Smol Princess, we still need to decide the winner!"
"Hmph, you just refuse to admit defeat" said Elea crossing her arms with a frown of dissatisfaction. "I won against you 5-2, and you still think you can beat me?"
"But it's unfair!" complained the oni, gesticulating with his arms in a chaotic manner. "Your beetle is cheating!"
"Excuses from a loser" replied Elea coldly, not deigning herself to look at the complaining adult. "My beetle is perfectly fine."
'No, it's not' thought Shinobu, looking at the argument as a mere spectator. 'Your mother, the God of Inazuma, overcharged that beetle with so much energy that it has turned into something similar to an Electro Seelie. I don't think anyone in this island, human or not, can beat that war machine.'
In the end, Ei pampered Elea in everything but training. If her daughter wanted a strong beetle, she would give her the strongest beetle Teyvat had ever seen.
Or... the second one.
The Heaven Punisher Giga Beetle was a legend that had been etched in the world's memories.
"Your beetle is still cheating!" countered Itto, insisting in what he thought was a fact truer than beans were evil. "I still don't know how he fights, all I see is a flash of purple and my beetle was turned into cinders!"
"Your beetle is too weak then" replied Elea, but thought of something. "But I guess the only thing we are proving that way is that my beetle is stronger than yours...."
"...yes?" said a confused Itto, now knowing what else would they be able to prove with a beetle fight.
"Not enough!" shouted Elea, with eyes blazing with determination. "I want to be recognized as the best beetle trainer, not the one with the strongest beetle!"
Itto did a sharp intake of hair with wide-open eyes, covering his mouth with his hands in astonishment, seeing how a new door opened.
"We will pick 2 beetles that are similar in size and strength" declared Elea, to which Itto nodded enthusiastically. "After a week, we will fight with them. We will train them hard in that time, and the best trainer will be decided!"
"Yoosh, I'm getting pumped up!" shouted Itto excitedly, confidence growing within his brave heart, and excited about proving who the better beetle trainer was. "I will go get 2!"
And with that, the one and oni Artaki Itto left, looking for 2 beetles to prove his superior talent in beetle fights.
Shinobu looked at Elea with a blank expression, and sighed.
"You are just going to ask your mother to buff your beetle in that week" sighed the exasperated woman.
"Of course" nodded Elea, unashamedly admitting it. "We need to train our beetle, and mine will receive the best food possible. Like in all competitions, the one with more resources win."
"Aren't you a bit devious for a child?" wondered Shinobu with a facepalm "But then again, your father did the same."
"Did he?" asked Elea with a small frown.
She loved the Radiant Knight, and knew that being compared with her father was normally a good thing, but the idea that her father had been somewhat 'cheating' in the duel against her mother still remained.
"He brought the Heaven Punisher Giga Beetle to a fight" revealed Shinobu, making Elea open her eyes wide.
"It was his?!" asked the shocked child.
"Kujou-dono was also there, maybe you can ask her" said Shinobu, throwing Sara under the bus.
"I will" decided Elea, ready to delve into one of the 5 mysteries of Inazuma.
The first was how her father had managed to avoid turning into cinders in one of the countless times he had courted death with her mother.
"Here I am, with 2 twin beetles!" shouted Itto, who arrived with 2 admittedly identical beetles.
'I fear they won't be twins for long' thought Shinobu. 'One of them is going to turn into the new God of Beetles soon enough.'
"I will pick this then" said Elea, picking one at random. "In a week, we will fight here."
"Yoosh, I'm going to train mine to beat anything else in its path!" shouted an excited Itto. "And the training starts now!"
And the one left, with a beetle that carried his hopes, but one that would probably be incinerated in a week.
"Well, I should train mine too" said Elea, who bowed politely at Shinobu, and left with his own beetle.
And Shinobu found herself alone, having witnessed the most rigged match she had ever seen.
Except for that one when Kenshin challenged a merchant of Liyue to a bluffing game.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Elea continued her walk, greeting those she found, and speaking with those who talked to her.
'I love my country' she thought happily.
Everyone was nice, and even if she felt some negative emotions, she knew that the people were happy here.
Happy expressions and honeyed words could deceive, but not her ability.
People were genuinely happy, and she loved that a lot.
But her thoughts stopped when she saw something she hadn't seen.
"Paimon, why are you on my shoulder?"
"Paimon ate so much Paimon can't fly anymore?"
"We still need to find the blacksmith, why don't you do your job as a guide?"
"Paimon hasn't visited Inazuma in her whole life, how do you expect me to tell you where it is?"
"Weren't you the guide?"
A white 'baby' who Elea couldn't feel anything from was on the shoulder of a pretty girl with short blonde hair, who wore a white dress.
Elea looked at them with curiosity, and the white 'thing' happened to look in the same way.
"Hey, Lumine, let's ask" proposed Paimon, pointing at Elea, which made Lumine look in that direction.
"..." and Lumine felt shocked looking at those eyes, because despite not having the golden particles in them, they were the exact same eyes she had seen in another person's face.
"Do you need something?" asked Elea, approaching the 2 people and sensing Lumine's surprise looking at her.
And like a curious child, she wanted to know the reason why these 2 people she hadn't seen in her life seemed to know her, at least the blonde woman.
"Sorry, I mistook you for someone else" apologized Lumine with a small smile.
"Ah!" but Lumine instantly cursed. "Her eyes are like Kenshin's!"
Indeed, Paimon's mouth worked before her brain.
"You knew my father?" asked Elea curiously.
And that made Lumine realize this child was the God of Inazuma's daughter.
"Of course!" nodded Paimon excitedly. "We met Lothario in Mondstadt!"
Once again, Lumine felt like throwing Paimon into a pot.
Because as convoluted as it was, Lothario meant womanizer, and insulting this child's father in front of her seemed like the best way to either piss her off, or worse, piss her mother off.
And even if she knew things had calmed down the last years, stories about the merciless Electro Archon still remained.
"Lothario?" asked Elea with a frown, much to Lumine's despair, but the blonde woman still had one hope. After all, how could a child like the one front of her know what lothar- "Isn't that a convoluted way to say womanizer?"
Lumine sometimes thought the world was against her.
"I-it's a friendly nickname" Paimon seemed to have sensed that her future ended in a 'pool of hot water' inside a pot, because she felt nervous for the first time.
"So you were friends with him?" asked Elea, who despite not being able to sense anything from Paimon, the anxiety from Lumine was easily felt.
"I would like to think we were" replied Lumine, realizing that Elea wasn't going to pursue it, and that maybe she was aware of everything her father was into. "We only met for a short while, maybe a month, but he helped us a lot."
"Oh" muttered Elea, and cotniend after a brief pause. "Have you eaten?"
"No!" said Paimon with an excited expression. "We were about to die of hunger!"
Elea's expression told Lumine that the young child had probably heard them talk before, but only wanted an excuse to talk about her father.
"We can eat again" agreed Lumine with a smile, sensing a glare towards the floating Paimon, who despite complaining about having eaten too much, was still trying to eat more.
"Thank you" Elea clearly noticed Lumine's gesture, and decided to take them to a place where a merchant from Fontaine was selling the newest food that was still new to Inazuma.
A small stall in which ELea paid for 3 ice-creams and here she had to push her money towards the person selling them to accept her money.
"What are these?" asked Lumine curiously.
"They are called ice-creams, they come from Fontaine" explained Elea. "It's more like a dessert, so you don't have to eat something heavy again."
"Thank you" said Lumine with a small smile, and seeing Elea lick the ice-cream, she did the same. "Hmmm, it's sweet."
"And cold" said Paimon, who was hugging her own. "Thank you Lumine."
Lumine held Paimon's ice cream with her other hand, so the little floating being could comfortably eat it.
"Do you want to ask something?" asked Lumine, looking at Elea. "We didn't know much about your father, but he was a good person who helped us a lot."
"Hmmm" Elea hummed in thought while eating her ice cream. "How would you describe him? I keep hearing he was a good person, but also a bit... restless."
"Because he was" replied Paimon. "He never stopped in the same place, he made the best wine I ever tasted making Monstadt a ghost town after they all got drunk, and called Rosaria a Dizzy Suc-"
"He was quite mischievous" interrupted Lumine, knowing that some pranks were still too much for the young child to hear. "But he never did anything with ill will. And he wrote the Radiant Knight, we enjoyed them quite a lot."
"I do too" replied Elea with a sunny smile.
"We were there when he published 'The Radiant Knight and the Lonely Mountain'" boasted Paimon with a smug smile.
"You where?" asked a surprised Elea.
"Yes, it was made to help a woman who was having a bad time" revealed Lumine, having learned the whole story from Eula herself.
"Who is it?" inquired Elea, wondering if she had met who that tome was about. "I don't think it was Jean, right?"
And that was enough confirmation to Lumine, who now knew that Elea was aware of everything.
"No, she is called Eula" replied Paimon, once again showing her unfathomably deep knowledge. "She is a Knight of Favonius."
"You could talk with her, she is always ready to speak with the rest" suggested Lumine, knowing that even if the situation had gotten a bit better for the admittedly peculiar woman with a strange education, the blue-haired Knight fo Favonius wouldn't reject someone who wanted to talk with her.
"Yes, she sounded really mean at first, but with time she has improved a lot" nodded Paimon.
"I will do it then" mused Elea, thinking that by talking with that woman, she might understand how that volume came to be.
Just as she had done with the shrine, she was ready to apply the same process to everything she wanted to know.
"We also went to Liyue with him" continued Lumine. "We met the former Geo Archon, who turned out to be your father's acquaintance.
"You met Uncle Zhong Li?" asked Elea, telling Lumine that the young girl was also aware of the Lord of Geo's identity. "And Ken?"
"Oh, that child?" asked Paimon, fighting for her life against the brain freeze from eating a ball of ice cream bigger than her. "Of course, we saw him a few days ago."
"I guess it wasn't unexpected, your father was really good friends with both him and Guizhong" Lumine had learned a few things in these years she had been in Mondstand and Liyue, and even if a few things had been kept secret, she knew Ken's name came from Kenshin, because without him Guizhong wouldn't have been able to have her child.
Rex Lapis and Guizhong had obviously left out the fact that Kenshin had 'revived' Guizhong, as that was knowledge that couldn't be released to the public, not even to the famous Traveler.
"Elea?"
A soft voice reached the group of 2 and a half, who were calmly eating their ice creams on a bench.
"Hmm?" Elea looked towards the voice, only to see the pink-haired miko approaching them with a surprised expression.
But she also felt Lumine's fear and guilt, but Elea made sure she didn't reveal it on her expression.
"Weren't you going to train?" asked Yae, who then looked at the other 2 sitting with Elea.
And she instantly grimaced, her emotions too intense to be hidden.
"....hello" muttered Lumine in a subdued voice.
The last time they had seen each other, Lumine had run away from Dottore to tell Zhong Li about the Fatuis, and that had directly led to Kenshin's death.
The screams of pain and despair from the pink-haired youkai still sounded in Lumine's ears, and appeared in some of her nightmares.
Had she done the right thing abandoning Kenshin, and abandoning him?
Could she have done something differently?
Would this woman still have her loved one by her side?
Would this child still have her father?
In the end, only after a lengthy talk with Rex Lapis and Guizhing that she had been able to put some order in her life, and armoured herself with enough courage to visit Kenshin's homeland, the one the black-haired man loved.
But confronting Yae, all her guilt resurfaced, and Elea caught on that.
Yae's eyes glanced at Elea, only to see the child look at her with a hawk-like look, trying to discern what was happening, and the reason behind her expression.
So Yae, swallowing every memory that resurfaced seeing Lumine's face, and knowing that the blond woman had nothing to do with Kenshin's death, sighed.
"Welcome to Inazuma" said the pink-haired woman with a sincere smile. "I hope you enjoy your stay, and like the country we all worked hard to create."
"T-Thank you" muttered Lumine, sensing Yae's sincerity and lack of accusations.
"Yes, thank you" nodded Paimon, uncharacteristically serious.
If it was due to Yae's sincerity, or how the miko's words helped Lumine, it was unknown to anybody, maybe even to Paimon herself.
"And you, weren't you about to train?" asked Yae, looking at the frowning Elea. "Are you escaping the scolding you are about to receive?"
"I'm not a coward, I talked to Lumine and Paimon, and asked them a few things about my father" explained Elea while standing up.
"We will be here for a long while, unless we are kicked out" said Lumine, who knew that even if Yae had 'pardoned' them, the God of Inazuma might not be as comprehensive. "We can talk all you want, Kenshin was a good person who helped a lot of people, it is the least we can do."
"Yes, we will tell you everything we know!" said Paimon excitedly, who then frowned heavily. "Those damned Fatu-"
"PAIMON!" shouted Lumine, but it was too late.
Because Elea could sense far more than anyone else in this world.
Yae's anger and sadness, carefully hidden by a layer of calmness that tried to hide those strong feelings.
Lumine's previous guilt.
The word Fatui.
The knowledge that her father hadn't died of illness.
Lumine's alarm with Paimon's words.
No, it was already too late.
Yae's calm expression, Lumine's hand blocking Paimon's mouth, and the floating white being surprise and regret.
Nothing could stop Elea's mind from reaching a conclusion.
A conclusion that if true, was far too cruel for everyone.
And Elea fainted.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the same time Keith fainted, another being rose with alarm.
And it was Elio, Destiny's Slave, who saw the future once again when Keith 'left' this world.
A future he had hoped to avoid.
And yet, watching was everything Elio, the Slave of Fate, had been allowed to do.