Souls in Teyvat

"Did something happen to my father because of that ability?" asked Elea with trembling eyes.

"That's not-"

"Tell me" said Elea with a steely gaze. "I thought he died because he was ill, but if he could truly bring you back, I don't think any illness could have taken him away."

"..." Makoto glared at Ei, who had the decency to look ashamed at being unable to control her own emotions.

But relieving the worst moment of her life, coupled with the fact that talking about Kenshin hurt her a lot, she had been unable to control herself.

"Later" said Ei, trying to postpone such a talk. "Yae also needs to be here, she knows more than us."

And following Kenshin's favourite strategy, she dumped the talk to her friend.

Even if they would need to be together to have that talk, as retelling it was too damaging for a single person.

Elea sensed Ei's dismay and nervousness, and swallowing down the words that were about to leave her mouth, she nodded.

She was still in the middle of hearing about her mother's 'resurrection', she couldn't deal with 2 big revelations on the same day.

"Your father brought me back" continued Makoto, who decided to have a very stern talk with her sister. "And things in Inazuma improved a lot. But here was a problem, I didn't have a body."

"You...were a soul?" asked Elea, making both Ei and Makoto look at her with frowns. "I-I mean, if you don't have a body, you can only be a soul, I learned about souls with Yae."

"I see" said Ei, who could now understand Elea's deduction.

What she didn't know was that Elea had said that only because she had already heard the sentence 'I didn't have a body' from someone else, a man who had given her a few recipes of dangos she would need to find an excuse about.

"Yes, I was a soul" said Makoto, who decided to confirm Elea's answer with Yae. Her daughter had replied far too quickly, and looked far too guilty to have thought about Yae's teachings. "And due to certain rules, the world we live in has, I couldn't appear with a new body."

"Rules?" asked Elea.

"Yes, rules, and that is all you will be getting" replied Makoto with a firm voice.

But Elea added it to the list of things she wanted to ask Keith in their next talk.

"What did you do then?" asked Elea, but suddenly understood it. "You share a body."

"Aren't you a little too smart today?" asked Makoto with a suspicious stare.

"I already suspected something like this, is what made me ask Sara in the first place" argued Elea, who didn't realize her defensive attitude made Makoto even more suspicious.

But the original Archon of Inazuma decided to shelve it for later, they were still in the middle of an explanation.

"Yes, we share the same body" replied Makoto, looking at Ei by her side. "We were quite close when we grew up, and we are twins, so we had no trouble with it."

"And I'm glad she is alive, I have no complaints if that means sharing my body" added Ei, receiving a smile from her sister.

"So that's the reason you were that different" whispered Elea. "You were different people to start with."

"What do you think about it?" asked Makoto, knowing that Elea would be able to feel their nervousness anyway.

"Why didn't you tell me about it before?" asked Elea, a bit sad.

"We didn't want you to have any strange doubts" replied Makoto. "Our circumstances are quite special, and we didn't know how would you react."

Elea then recognized the truth of those words.

Hadn't she been on the verge of a panic attack when Keith told her his thoughts?

So thinking back on it, she could understand the reason behind her mother's decision.

Which raised another question.

"How do I call you now?" asked Elea, feeling a bit awkward.

"As you always did" replied Ei with a soft voice. "I always liked hearing you call me mom."

"Call us how you feel more comfortable" replied Makoto. "We have no problem with it, and the only people who are in the know will realize who you are talking about."

"I will keep calling you mom then" Elea sighed in relief.

"Hmm" Ei nodded in satisfaction, looking at her daughter with a fond smile.

"Something more you want to ask?" asked an equally smiling Makoto, but that added something that made Elea sigh in disappointment. "About this topic. There are things we won't tell you now."

"Hmmm" Elea hummed in thought, before a pretty good question appeared in her mind. "Where do children come from?"

"...ask Yae about that" said Makoto, throwing under the bus the pink-haired girl, who felt the hairs on her tail to stand on end even from Liyue.

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"So this is Inazuma"

"It looks better than what we heard in Liyue."

"I wonder where can we have a nice meal...."

"Paimon, all you think about is food."

"Hey! Paimon also thinks of Mora."

"That you will use to buy food."

"What else can we do with Mora?"

A blonde person, accompanied by a floating white being, had arrived at Inazuma.

And EVERYONE in the whole Teyvat knew that Paimon couldn't keep a secret.

Because she didn't shut up.

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"Aaaaaand I'm back!" shouted Keith, jumping from the bed he was in. "And I'm out!"

"Where do you think you are going?" a frigid voice next to him made Keith desist in any attempt to escape.

He had the guts to escape from Kafka, but all his courage disappeared the moment he faced this woman.

Because there was someone scarier than the Spirit Whisperer, aka Kafka, was Ruan Mei.

The mad biologist who could manipulate the alive corpses of an Emanator, and take any actions needed in her path towards unravelling the secrets behind the Aeons.

"H-Hello" muttered weakly the scared man, who found himself looking at a pair of dead blue eyes in the middle of a charming face.

"Where did you go" Ruan Mei didn't ask, she demanded.

"Can I have some water?" asked Keith, who knew that the only thing Ruan Mei would listen to when she was in this state was about his safety or bodily needs. "Pretty please?"

And as he expected, Ruan Mei complied, coming back a few seconds later with a glass of water Keith put on the table next to him.

He only wanted to make Ruan Mei go away for a while, he wasn't thirsty at all.

"Where did you go?" repeated Ruan Mei, but Keith had been able to calm down a bit.

"A strange place" started Keith, who thought that maybe Ruan Mei could help him understand what happened. "A dried-up tree was in the middle of it. Dried-up grass, cloudy sky, strange dried-up fruits in the tree..."

Ruan Mei didn't say anything, but if the look in her eyes was anything to go by, she would remember Keith's words even better than himself.

"And also there was a child there" said Keith, making Ruan Mei's interest sky-rocket. "She said she came from a world called Teyvat, but that name doesn't appear anywhere."

"Continue" demanded Ruan Mei, who knew that the Genius Society would be put to use once again, but with care so no one would ever discover this 'Teyvat' world before her.

"You know how I can sense hostility or deceit right?" asked Keith, receiving Ruan Mei's curt nod. "Well, that child could do the same. But from what I heard, her ability seemed a bit different than mine, she seemed to be able to sense emotions."

"Continue" repeated Ruan Mei, taking mental notes about everything she was hearing.

"What else do you want me to say?" asked Keith with a confused expression. "Ah, I know. That girl seems to be able to sense emotions like I do, I think it has something to do with the fact that we were both there."

"..." Ruan Mei's expression turned into a frown, as she hadn't been able to get everything she wanted.

"I can try to take something from that place" offered Keith, knowing how important this was for Ruan Mei. "I don't know if I can bring things in, but I can try to take things out."

"Then do so" demanded Ruan Mei once again, turning around to leave.

"Can I leave now?" asked a relieved Keith, standing up.

"Of course not" but the reply that came back was not the one he expected. "You will stay here until you faint again so I can collect enough data."

"But that could take weeks" complained Keith.

"Then it's a good thing you will need weeks to recover" and Kafka entered the infirmary. "Is future Keith here now? Can I start?"

"...please mercy" muttered Keith, realizing that his time was up, and he needed to pay the gargantuan loan he had asked for.

"Hehehe" Stelle had a silly grin on her face neither Keith nor Kafka knew what it meant, but everyone ignored her.

A clear mistake, because Stelle was the name of a being who moved to seek amusement, not matter where it came from.

"Hey, Kafka" Stelle interrupted the purple-haired woman who was about to speak again. "Why don't you tell him the reason he is being punished?"

And Kafka then remembered what happened earlier.

"Hmmm?" Stelle hummed in thought, knowing that even the normally mature woman had no answer to give her, because even Kafka herself didn't know where her anger with Keith came from. "Aren't you angry he forced you to use your ability? Hmm?"

And Kafka now realized that something was wrong here.

And clearly, Keith realized the same.

The winds of change were blowing, and like the vane Stelle was, she was now switching sides.

So Keith knew his role, he had to make the wind keep blowing so Stelle would remain by his side, which meant that he needed to give the grey-haired girl the amusement he desired.

"Indeed, Kafka, aren't you angry about that?" asked Keith with a righteous voice that Kafka's icy glare couldn't silence. Keith knew he was already dead, what was there to fear? "I already apologized, I stood next to your bed for a whole week, only going to the restroom once a day thanks to my new high-spec body, and if you look under your bed, which I'm sure you have been too angry to sleep in since you woke up, you will find a new stylish purple coat, the ones you like the most."

"Look, he even bought you a present, why are you so angry?" asked Stelle, digging even further. "It was an accident, and honestly Blade was more at fault than him."

And Kafka's icy look was now directed towards Stelle, who only innocently smiled.

"And" Stelle continued, and something in her silly grin made Kafka realize that something very bad was about to happen. "Weren't you worried to d-"

"Ooops, now I don't want to miss this" Keith, seeing that Kafka was about to open her mouth, instantly put his hand over it. "Continue, Saintly Trashness, I'm very curious about what you were about to say."

"HMMMM" Kafka struggled, but Keith had taken her off guard and he was too strong for her.

No matter how many elbow blows she dealt to Keith's body, he simply shrugged them off, thanking Ruan Mei once again for such a fantastical body.

"But...what are you willing to pay for it?" asked Stelle, hiding a blush that threatened to spill into her face hearing the title that compared her with a treasure.

"You really move for nothing but your amusement" said Keith with a sigh. "Hey, stop squirming little squirt."

That made Kafka's struggle even harder.

"OUCH" Keith, even with his unfair body, screamed in pain when a sharp heel dug into his feet. "A week! I will go on treasure hunting with you for a week!"

"Deal!" shouted an excited Stelle. "When you fainted, she-"

"HMMMMMMMM"

"Keep going, or I fear my feet won't stay in the form they have" begged Keith, who needed to avoid Kafka's heels at all costs.

"She was-"

"HMMMM"

"Kafka, you already lost" said Keith with a frown, blocking Kafka's mouth with one hand. "Admit defeat, and curse the person who gave you victory anyway. She is the one you trusted in, and as you know, betrayal always comes from a person you consider an ally. So now shut up and let me get what I paid for. Stelle, if you don't give me blackmail material now, I'm calling the deal off."

"She stood by the side of your bed the entire time you were unconscious" Stelle promptly revealed the truth, not wanting to lose her week-long outing.

"Ohh, is that right?" asked Keith, looking at the suddenly quiet Kafka. "So all your anger is just a show. Ha! And here I was afraid of you."

Keith took off the hand covering Kafka's mouth, who glared at Stelle.

"Then, I'm off" said Keith. "I need to look for some more recipes for dangos. And Kafka, don't be such a tsundere, it doesn't fit your character. Ciao!"

With that, Keith left the infirmary, leaving a smiling Stelle and a livid but unmoving Kafka.

"You can't complain, right?" asked Stelle with a smirk.

"..." to which Kafka only stood silent.

"I didn't tell him the worst parts right?" insisted Stelle, revealing what Kafka had been so adamant in keeping a secret.

"That's none of your business" said Kafka, ashamed at having fallen asleep in that position.

She knew that the moment Keith knew about it, his teasing would know no end.

"Then why do I have a week-long plan with him to look for treasures?" inquired Stelle. "But, are you alright with that?"

Kafka's icy expression didn't change, but Stelle continued.

"After all, even now you are unaware of what made you so angry" said Stelle with a sage nod.

Because what Keith had thought was a bluff, had been genuine anger.

"You are very smart Kafka" said Stelle with a sigh. "You are too smart to fool yourself, which is why you are not looking at things objectively. When did you get angry?"

"When-"

"When you saw the position Keith was in, and how he froze in place" interrupted Stelle, making Kafka's eyes widen. "There are cameras in the training room Kafka. The moment you were unable to explain Keith's fault in all this, I went to look at the recordings. I saw your eyes widen with horror when you realized the position Keith was in, the desperation in your voice when you shouted for him to move, and the relief you felt when you knew he was still alive, disregarding your own state. You are smart Kafka, you will think of what all those mean by yourself."

After saying her piece, Stelle left, leaving a confused Kafka.

But she was a smart woman, she would understand herself pretty soon.