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Chapter Text

The Balladeer knows that he needs to set things right, for Niwa and Nagamasa and Katsuragi and all those of the Raiden Gokaden and those in Tatarasuna and all those he ended while being fed Dottore's lies.

So he focuses everything on the gently-glowing tree before him, and confidently walks into the trunk of the giant tree, almost as if it were simply a mirage - but not before making sure there's no way he could do anything to the Traveler.

Inside, he closes his eyes and focuses all of his remaining power into the tree, and wills himself out of existence, feeling all senses slowly shut off and fade away, something similar to sleep.

Predictably, one cannot erase oneself from the world entirely. It is impossible to do so. But you can change the one responsible for your past deeds and erase all memories of you from everyone in the world. Including yourself.

The night before he wakes up, locals in Sumeru whisper about how strange the air feels. Those with keen observation notice the sudden increase of dendro all around, hiding certain things out of sight.

This is the last time his name is mentioned, in the hushed voices of lower-ranking Fatui, wondering where he is. 

...

Then, he wakes up the next day in a small town outside Sumeru City - or so those living there tell him..

Nothing is remembered from the night before, nor his entire life before that. Not even a name.

All he knows is that he simply woke one day in a land he has no recollection of.

Nobody around him seems to know who he is either. They are kind, though. They offer to teach him important stuff, and even buy him another outfit for him to wear. 

He finds himself preferring the dark blues and forest greens more than the sharp reds and purples of his old one.

Yet, he holds on tight to his hat. It’s a comforting weight on his head - it’s old and damaged terribly, the cloth stretched over the wide top fraying and tearing at places, and the red ribbon and veil like accessories attached to the brim in no better shape either - but it holds a strange special place in his heart, like an old friend he refuses to leave.

The locals notice this one day, and take his damaged hat for a bit, and return it later, fixed up and patched up with the same blues and greens as his new outfit.

But, even though they offer him help, and are kind to him, he still sees no way he could have lived here before.

It’s as if he never existed here to begin with.

Perhaps he didn’t.

Perhaps he came from another land, with a past that he may remember if he were to find that land , the locals whisper.

He decides to take their word, for so many of them tried every possible solution to help him remember. 

It’s quite strange. He remembers everything after the day he woke up like muddled tea - halfway clear, but still there - , yet everything before is a dead blank.

He decides to wander around one day, after seeing the way a little mechanical kitten lost by a visiting Fontainian child was adored greatly by other cats, even though to them, it showed up out of nowhere one day, with intentions they would never know. He forgets to tell them that he’s leaving.

Maybe his home was like that to him. Maybe they cared for him enough that it didn’t matter that he wasn’t from the same place as them.

But he would like to see them, if only to jog his memories.

The locals around him try to teach him everything they know about everything there is to know, but he slips away after their first long-winded lecture on how great Sumeru is.

…

He wanders around. Sumeru, the name of the place that the locals painstakingly taught him, is large and hard to navigate.

He ends up in the Grand Bazaar three times. 

The first time, a person selling imported dango milk from Inazuma offers him a taste. The sight of it seemed so strange to him - a little bottle with flower patterns decorating the edges and a thin cloth acting as the lid. It feels strangely familiar, the only reason why he agreed to such a thing.

Opening the little bottle has an immediate scent of sugar floating out.

The cloying sweetness nearly overwhelms him at the first sip. He hastily apologies and all but runs from the Grand Bazaar, ignoring the panicked yells from the seller behind him.

Blegh . He hopes his home had no one who enjoyed such saccharine sweets. 

The second time he stumbles into the Grand Bazaar, there’s a fruit seller, hawking his wares.
He finds himself strangely drawn to the lavender melons, their astringent taste making his tongue feel dry in a familiar feel that no Sumerian fruit can match.

His eyes wander to the other Inazuman local specialties, cheaper now - supposedly - due to the re-opening of Inazuma’s borders. He doesn’t know the validity of that statement due to his memory, but he feels that it must be true.

Somehow, without looking at the labels, he knows the names of each herb and plant and fruit labeled as from Inazuma . 

Naku weed feels especially familiar, his hand instinctively moving to hold it in the best way possible, to avoid crushing the lined purple leaves until he has to.

The seller nods his head at him.

“Naku weed? It’s an Inazuma traditional medicinal herb. You got a sick one at home?” The seller asks.

He shakes his head gently, and tries to understand why that statement made him feel strangely sad.

Maybe his home had a sickly one, one who coughed as often as they breathed. 

This thought fires through his head, and in its wake leaves an ocean of emotions. 

He hurries away from the bazaar. Perhaps this place is simply a catalyst to negative emotions.

The third time he finds himself in the Grand Bazaar, there’s a show going on.

The dancer onstage - passerby and excited audience members mention her name as Nilou - swirls herself in a powerful way, around and around.

She brings her hydro vision onstage, and it sparkles in the audience’s eyes. Her hair reminds him of a desert rose, its bright red swaying with the music, and her clothes seem like the oasis that shares the desert with the rose.

Each step looks charged and purposeful,  intended yet graceful - each hand movement twisting the air itself and adding emphasis to her dance.

Even the flowers placed behind her as background appear to start reaching towards her, as if whispering to each other about the energy and beauty of the dance before them.

She’s the one who helped overthrow the Akademiya. The crowd whispers to each other. The brave one who danced in front of the Akademiya, uncaring of any laws against public performances. The one who helped save Lesser Lord Kusanali.

The dancer twirls around and around, until the music fades into something resembling the sounds of a lyre

Then, she pulls out a lyre, a polearm, a sword onstage, and dances with it, as easily as flowing wind and strong stone and striking lightning.

She must’ve experimented with dances and styles from other nations. The audience murmurs. It looks beautiful.

He leans forward in a futile attempt to see more, the familiar forms appearing through every once in a while.

Then, an audience member behind him pushes too far forward, and he stumbles to the ground, where all he can see of the dancer is her headdress, moving around and bouncing above the heads.

He makes his way upright again, but has lost a large part of her dance.

He only manages to see the finale. Nilou takes handfuls of nilotpala lotus petals and scatters it over the audience. They float down gently, sparkling all the way.

He holds out a hand for it, and watches as it drifts into the palm of his hand, like a small floating star settling itself softly down. 

Later, the dance ends, and this time he feels like staying in the Grand Bazaar.

Nilou’s dance had done something to the atmosphere of the place, what before seemed like a dim place of merchants and practice dancers now seems like a place of dreams and art.

Nilou herself has descended from the stage, surrounded by a crowd of adoring fans.

He leans in too, to hear of where her familiar dance was from.

“... to incorporate dances from other nations.” She smiles sweetly to a fan, her light blue eyes sparkling with happiness. Then, the crowd surges and covers her from sight, but he can still hear her speaking. “... sword part was from an samurai who visited here showed me when I asked…”

He strains to hear more, but the dancer’s voice is soon lost to the ones speaking around her.

Inazuma sword dance… A samurai dance.

Perhaps his home had samurai who danced this dance to him before. Maybe even taught him to fight before.

Smiling softly to himself, he pockets the petal to remind himself of this dance.

…

He walks around Sumeru City again, trying to find a way into the Grand Bazaar again.

It seems as if each time he leaves, he has to lose himself in the large city in order to find the place.

He walks past a blacksmith one day, and the repetitive sound of clanging hammars against iron soothes him in a way that feels nostalgic. 

He has to stop and feel the familiar sound running through his body for a second. 

Then he turns right around and heads straight to the smith.

“Do you have an order to make?” The person asks.

“No,” he says. “I simply felt strangely homesick at the sound of you working.” 

And he leaves it at that.

The smith, who he later learns his name is Ahangar, tells him stories of other smiths. He tells the myths, the legends, and the facts about all others that Ahangar knows, simply because he asked him to, in an attempt to know more about that familiar sound that still washes over him - Ahangar continues to work even while storytelling.

In return, he shares what little stories he knows, and even attempts at forging.

Ahangar laughs a bit when he asks to try, but slowly that indulgent look changes to one of shock and pride.

His touches are visible on Ahangar’s billet, and Ahangar gently touches the final product with awe.

“You’re good at this, you know?”

He doesn’t know. But he tells Ahangar that he can sell the sword if Ahangar wants.

Ahangar taps his hands.

“I can’t sell anything you made without paying you properly.” Ahangar puts a few gold coins into a medium-sized leather pouch and ties the drawstring shut. “Here. You can have this mora for the work you did here today. Do you want to hear more stories?”

He nods.

But, even with Ahangar’s incredible and vast knowledge of everything forging from truths to legends, none of the stories bring anything to mind, and none of the stories have any emotion inherently attached to them, except for the stories of the Raiden Gokudan and the Mikage Furnace.

It’s a pity that Ahangar believes that the Mikage Furnace is a legend, and therefore knows next to nothing about it.

Still, he thanks the smith when he rises from the small wooden step-stool Ahangar placed for him with the intent to leave.

…

Somehow, he has crossed into the desert. Sand gets everywhere, and he can almost swear that it’s manifesting itself inside a pocket, a sleeve, a fold in his shirt, whenever he thinks he’s in the clear.

Each step more into the desert feels more and more unfamiliar. Even the heat, which as much as it doesn't affect him to the extent of others, feels oppresive, all around. 

He doesn’t stay long. 

…

By following a road heading somewhere - and losing his way many, many times - he emerges into a little village with houses seemingly growing from the trees like large flowers or fruit hanging from the branches.

He stares at the little floating houses, and almost slips off the worn wood bridge and down into the water.

“Hey you! Make sure you watch your step here! We have a whole sign saying ‘Don’t zone out while on the bridges’ on the billboard for a reason, you know!”

He looks up. Perched upon one of the higher hills overlooking the bridge stands a short man in forest ranger gear with green highlights in his hair and - most noticeably - two large ears sticking straight up.

Forest ranger gear? He remembers seeing much of that here. Has he found his way into the Gandharva Ville that the locals spent around twenty minutes talking about?

The man picks his way down to where he is, and within a few moments, the short man is standing in front of him.

The man brushes down a bit of the hair sticking up due to the high humidity of the place, and crosses his arms with a vaguely displeased look on his face.

“Have you not read any warning guides before coming to Gandharva Ville? Or are you just a foolhardy trainee?”

He has to back up a bit and explain to the man that he didn’t know that he was going here, and that he was simply wandering Sumeru until he could find his memories.

The man seems much more forgiving now that he has explained himself.

“So you’re a simple wanderer who almost fell off our bridge.” The man sighs deeply, putting his head in one hand while the other sits on his hip. “Introductions. I’m Tighnari, Chief Officer of the Forest Rangers. And you are?”

He doesn’t remember his name, so he stays silent.

“You aren’t telling me your name? Fine. I’ll call you the Wanderer then, because you are one.”

Wanderer. Did he just get named? Is his name now Wanderer? 

Well at least it’s a fine name, and simple enough for him.

Tighnari, after getting over his initial displeasure of the Wanderer not reading the billboard, is much more helpful. 

He gives the Wanderer directions to safe and well-known paths to Port Ormos, Liyue, and even a long one extending all the way to Mondstadt, all in the hopes of helping Wanderer find his memories.

Tighnari’s slight brusqueness helps keep his head clear, yet when introducing Wanderer to his trainee Collei, he has the strangest feeling as if he’s heard someone talking about her before.

When Collei proudly shows off her abilities and energy now, Tighnari explains to him that Collei used to have Eleazar, and since have been cured.

Wanderer does not mention how he suspected that she once did. He himself doesn’t know how he knew either. She simply acts only a little bit tired. He bites his lip to keep from telling her to rest. They are simply meaningless words from someone she doesn't know.

He almost asks her if Dottore’s trick worked, but he doesn’t - mainly because he doesn’t know who Dottore is, nor what the trick was.

Perhaps somewhere in his unknown past, he encountered one like her. Maybe that one is waiting for him too.

The forest rangers offer to watch over him as he heads east, towards Liyue, but he waves all of them off.

After all, they must be busy with the withering, because even though the root cause has been cured, the symptoms have not.

So he walks alone, towards those tall gold mountains he can see in the distance.

…

The change from Sumeru to Liyue is subtle, yet obvious at the same time.

One moment it’s the lush green of rainforest and trees and dendro upon dendro, and in the next moment, rock formations so tall, they appear to puncture the highest clouds in their never-ending endeavor to reach the sky, shining gold against the backdrop of blue.

Around him, even the trees appear to have geo infused into them, their leaves slightly golden and their trunks gnarled and strong, everlasting and unyielding, growing upward despite their trunk’s natural pull towards the ground.

He climbs and climbs the mountains, and doesn’t wonder how his arms never seem to shake with exhaustion or how his breathing never gets heavy with exertion.

Once at the top, there’s a little child picking flowers. 

She has purple tinged hair and a sleepy expression on her face, that is, the parts of her face uncovered by the strange slips of paper. Beside her is a worn wicker basket, only a quarter of the way full of Liyuean plants and herbs he could never hope to name.

When she notices him watching her, she slowly pulls out a small notebook, and reads it aloud to herself. It must be a simple reminder of what to do, but she positions herself away from him, as if hiding what is written on the little book from him.

Wanderer doesn’t tell her that in reading it aloud to herself, she’s essentially reading it aloud to him also.

“On days when Dr. Baizhu needs herbs, Qiqi is to gather violetgrass and qingxin until the basket is full.”

The little girl nods to herself.

“Qiqi, pick violetgrass and qingxin for Dr. Baizhu.” Then she nods, and acts like he isn’t there.

He decides to help her, if not at least watch over her and keep her safe. 

Picking flowers together results in Qiqi explaining the flowers and helping him when his mind muddles the different types and when he forgets where he is for a moment and almost calls out for a little fledgling. He still doesn’t know why he nearly said that, but he supposes it must’ve been related to the herb gathering.

He eventually helps Qiqi carry the basket all the way to Dr. Baizhu’s pharmacy. On the way, he feels the slightest feeling of being watched, but it isn’t threatening, and seems almost protective, in a way.

…

Liyue harbor, as it is introduced to him by Qiqi, is a large place, full of warm reds and greens and golds. Qiqi seems to almost dislike the warmth, ducking from shadow to shadow, and almost rushing through a stone bridge of sorts connecting the building ahead and the rest of Liyue Harbor through a small pool of water and fishes and lotuses, just barely beginning to bloom.

Then, she starts dashing up the many, many stairs leading into a large Liyuean building with gentle green sloped roofs and a young man with dark fluffy tufts of hair in all directions behind the counter of what must be the pharmacy smiling at Qiqi with a bemused smile.

The young man waves at him as Qiqi busies herself with putting each herb away in its rightful spot.

“Er, hello mister! Have you come to see Dr. Baizhu? Or are you simply wanting to purchase some herbs?” 

Wanderer starts to shake his head, before remembering that he’s standing in front of a place that might have a cure to his missing memories.

“...Yes.” He eventually says. “I would like to see Dr. Baizhu.”

At this time, Qiqi seems to have finished her organization, putting her little step-stool away as she waits for Gui to finish.

“Would you like to make an appointment with the Doctor?” The person asks.

The Wanderer agrees.

The person across the counter nods, reaching over to make an appointment for the Wanderer. It’s during this time that the Wanderer finally notices the slight glint of a metal name tag on the herbalist’s clothing.

It simply reads ‘Gui’, but he’s smart enough to figure that the man across from him is named Gui.

Gui slides a large, flat, open book with separate timeslots marked out in near, orderly lines. Some of these times already have a name written inside, some are blocked out, and some are empty, awaiting a name to be added.

He lifts the quill offered to him, and scrawls the name Forest Ranger Tighnari gave to him into the next available time-slot, at half-past four the next day, and hands the book back to Gui.

Gui nods to himself. Wanderer gets the feeling that he wants to ask about his name, but Gui is kind enough to refrain from doing so.

Qiqi takes this moment to reach under the counter and produces a little slip of paper, its shape not unlike that of the one on her forehead, to the Wanderer.

He turns it over, and on it in simple bold block numbers is the time for his appointment.

It’s obviously meant to remind him should he forget the time.

He thanks the two, and pockets the paper while reaching for his mora-bag to pay. Gui hurriedly assures him that he doesn’t need to pay until after his appointment, so he slowly retracts his hand.

His hand brushes the still-soft feel of the nilotpala petal when moving the mora back into a pocket. 

It makes him smile.

…

With nowhere to go and nothing to do, he wanders the streets of Liyue while the sun slowly sets.

There’s a smell of cooking peppers drifting through the air. It’s intensely strong, and the Wanderer wrinkles his nose a bit from the sharpness.

“Oh sorry! I didn’t realize that foreigners were so sensitive to jueyun chilies!”

Who said that?

“Sorry! Sorry, sorry sorry!” A girl with dark blue hair and large brown eyes apologizes profusely to him for her cooking. Behind her, halfway hidden by her legs, is a small tan bear that burps fire every so often. The bear catches his interest for a few minutes, before he decides that the strange pyro power coming off the bear must be due to the fire it’s burping.

He’s dragged inside a small restaurant, where an older man behind the ordering counter waves at him while hefting out bags of rice to a customer.

Xiangling, as the girl introduces herself as, is an incredible cook - if one can get over the initial disgust at some of her more exotic ingredients.

Wanderer didn’t think he’d ever willingly try electrofly wings crushed into a powder and sprinkled as garnish on a dessert with its base as slime condensate.

It’s quite good, each flavor meshes well with one another, and the texture is just right - crunchy on the outside, and slightly oozing out the center of a fried sphere of something.

Guoba - as Xiangling introduces him to Wanderer as - walks around the area, entertaining the other patrons and occasionally helping Xiangling cook.

After finishing, he thanks her and offers to pay, pulling out his mora, to which Xiangling refuses, stating that the meal was an apology for irritating his nose earlier.

Liyueans either have very strange customs, or this one is extremely nice and eager to cook.

He thinks that his home didn’t have many Liyueans around - they are too different to invoke any sense of familiarity.

…

He meanders his way down the bridge leading to the north-western part of Liyue Harbor. Flocks of pigeons scatter with his arrival, and cover his sight with a blanket of snowy white and stone gray feathers. The starry sky above shines down on a Liyue at night.

There are many antique stores in Liyue. Perhaps the people here are extremely interested in history.

He crosses by one store, Xigu Antiques is the name, and his eye catches on an extremely strong-feeling stone, carved into a small dragon.

Such a tiny artifact, but it excludes such a strong sense of geo, that it must have been a creation of Morax’s. 

How does he know that? How does he sense the geo emanating from the rock, and how does his mind jump to Morax?
The woman running the store must have noticed his pause when looking at the stone. She points to the rock and yells out the price. A ludicrous amount for such a small piece yet Wanderer knows that if he had that much, he would’ve definitely immediately forked it over.

Then, a tall man with gold and brown highlights all over steps in front of him, his long brown hair swaying in the wind and with his movement, his figure accentuated by the glow of the lanterns lighting the stores.

Wanderer instinctively knows that this one has enough geo power to be the one who made the artifact he saw earlier.

The man turns to the one next to him, another tall one, but this one with red hair like a fox, and a fox face to match.

The two converse for a bit with each other, and then with the woman selling the artifact, but Wanderer does not catch any of that.

Instead he’s focused on the sight of unruly ginger hair, and dull blue eyes and the strange spike of irritation at the sight.

This slacker. Going off duty to buy trinkets? A mistake to have him promoted to eleventh.

Eleventh? Where’d that thought come from? What was eleventh?

In front of him, the ginger sighs exasperated at the brunette, and rummages around his pockets in search of something, before quickly pulling out a fat pouch of mora and placing it on the counter of Xigu Antiques. The woman nods at the ginger and takes out a couple faded newspapers and gently wraps the small statue up before placing it in a brown paper bag and handing it to the ginger, who immediately gives it to the one with intense geo energy.

Wanderer feels something irritated in him slowly die down as the gift-receiver smiles with genuine joy and the gift-giver sighs again and pokes the first person, most likely chastising him for his expensive tastes.

They eventually make their way off towards another shop, and the Wanderer finally feels something inside him settle, and the irrational anger subside.

Perhaps it would be best to avoid people with ginger hair from now on. There’s nothing extremely off-putting about that one, except for the garishly bright color of his hair.

…

The next day, he feels through his pocket searching for the niloupata petal to see it again, when the little paper reminder for his appointment with Dr. Baizhu crinkles slightly under his touch. 

Lucky him. He’s reminded of this information only - he looks at a nearby clock - roughly ten minutes before the agreed upon time.

He hurries, and runs up the steps and nearly trips on the last of the strangely numerous steps. 

Above, at the top of the stairs, is Gui and a tall green haired man with spectacles connected to a thin chain that wraps around his neck, covered by what looks like a snakeskin scarf. 

The green haired man must be Dr. Baizhu. Upon closer inspection, the doctor has a dendro vision and twirls small plant leaves through his fingers, his vision keeping those small life forms alive. The doctor gives off a weak energy, like the man puts too much energy into what he does. Wanderer does not know what to make of that.

“Hello. Gui tells me that you have made an appointment with me for this time,yes?”

Wanderer nods, brushing off the little specks of dust that found its way onto the folds of his clothing.

“Wonderful.” Baizhu takes a brush and draws a quick thin line through his appointment time. “Gui, if anyone comes asking for me, tell them it must wait unless it’s an emergency, alright?”

Gui nods.

Baizhu smiles, and motions for Wanderer to follow.

He follows the doctor to a more private area, entering into a back door. He suddenly realizes that Baizhu’s snakeskin scarf is an actual snake, whose red eyes stare straight into his own indigo ones. The snake flicks its tongue out at Wanderer, as if tasting the air. He decides to not mention the snake to Baizhu.

Inside is a warm room, with a desk full of papers, brushes, small herb packets and a small flowering plant along with a simple bed pushed to the side. Behind the desk is a large cabinet that seems to take up half of two walls, and beside the bed are a few room dividers patterned with the image of a large ship, not too dissimilar to some of the large merchant ships on the harbor, sailing in front of a mountainous region.

The entire room has dim and dark wood creating a calming atmosphere.

Baizhu pushes a few of the pages together into a small stack and pulls out a clean page and dips his brush in some ink.

“So, can you tell me anything that ails you?”
Wanderer thinks for a moment.

“It’s my memory. I woke up somewhere with no memory of anything before that, and nobody around was able to help me because they didn’t remember me either. I’ve been simply wandering around and following anything familiar that I could find.”

Baizhu jots all of that down, and puts the end of the brush to his lips. The snake uncoils itself from Baizhu’s neck a bit and leans over as if to read his writing better.

“Hmm…” He seems to think of something. “How is your memory since then? Have you been having flashbacks of previous hidden memories? Did you feel like your head was injured in any way from before you woke up?”

Wanderer pauses. Flashbacks, huh. Would the strange out-of-context thoughts count as flashbacks? Or would that simply be a strange form of hallucinations?

“My memory feels a little muddled since I woke up not too long ago, it’s a little hard to remember certain things and events, like names for example, but for the most part, it’s quite intact, I would say. Except for the earlier parts of my life.”

Baizhu hmms and writes it down, going back to dip his brush in the ink a couple of times. He makes a go on motion. His snake’s eyes follow the brush movement.

Wanderer decides to mention the strange thoughts.

“I have these thoughts that pop up when I see or hear of something, sort of like past-me has heard or felt those thoughts on those subjects before, but they come without warning and I find myself thinking something that seems extremely out of context with the situation.”

Baizhu nods, and makes another note, but this time he pulls out another sheet of paper and writes some down there. Wanderer tries to take a peek at it, but the handwriting is brutal on his eyes in the dim lighting. It simply looks like Baizhu took his pen and scratched lines all over. He gives up on reading when he thinks he reads the word ‘sailingboatship’.

After Baizhu has written it all down, Wanderer tries to remember if he felt any pain in his head like it was hit or damaged.

“No, I don’t think my head was hurt before I woke up.”

Baizhu writes some more, and Wanderer can make out the faintest wrinkle between his eyebrows, as if his situation was suddenly much more worrying and complicated.

He waits a bit, and Baizhu finally finishes and reads out his theory.

“So you have alright memory following what was not physical damage to your brain. You’ve been having strange thoughts these days. Is there any chance you think those thoughts might be either intrusive thoughts or obsessive thoughts?”

Wanderer shakes his head.

“They haven’t been around for long, and usually are like offhand comments on something, like past-me has heard a comment, and thinks of what some person said before. I don’t think about those specific things at all until they pop up and then leave.”

Baizhu carefully flips his second sheet of paper over. It appears as if that potential diagnosis is not it. He gently taps his brush end on the paper, and adjusts his glasses.

“The only thing I’m fully confident in right now is your generalized amnesia following some event that must have erased everything completely, be it physical or mental stress.” He leans back a bit, sagging on his chair as if the strangeness of his situation is hitting him. Wanderer starts to think that this genius doctor may not have the cure.

“Amnesia does not have a specific treatment for it, mainly the best way for it is to treat any underlying disorders or causes, but since I can tell that there were no physical or mental stressors large enough to cause this much of an effect, I would most likely need to have a physical check-up, if you are alright with that.” Baizhu continues.

Wanderer nods.

Baizhu instructs him to lie on the bed and stay still, as he puts the white snake near Wanderer’s pillow.

It’s then that the snake talks.

“Hello, I can sssenssse a large amount of electro energy running through your body. I would like to warn you that Dr. Baizhu-”

Wanderer does not scream and flail around at the talking snake, although he would very much like to.

He remembers that this is Baizhu’s snake at the last second, and pushes the snake away from him gently.

The snake hisses at him. 

Baizhu lifts up the snake and tries to calm down Wanderer.

“Now, now Wanderer. This is Changsheng. I thought it was not a good time to introduce you to her while you were having memory problems, but I do apologize if you were afraid of snakes.”

Wanderer does not think he is. But this one talking was more shocking than scary.

“The snake can talk?!”

Changsheng flicks her tongue out at him again.

“Of course I can! I am the one who helped teach him his many medicinal skills! Even the adepti were amazed by my abilities.”

“Of course the snake can talk.” Wanderer mutters to himself.

Baizhu slowly sets Changsheng down next to him again.

“Now, while I do find your reaction to Changsheng quite amusing, she did bring up a good point.” He brings his vision forth and places it near Wanderer. “Your body has a strong affinity for electro, and even has electro energy flowing through you. My way of treating patients uses dendro energy, as shown by my vision.”

Wanderer can slightly tell what he means. Dendro and electro. Mixing the two produces intense dendro energy that is quite hard to control. He’s seen it happen on the side of Sumeru roads where a floating dendro fungus got too close to the electro crystals growing and sparking on the side of the rock. The poor fungus’ dendro had reacted with the electro and produced dendro energy that sparked everywhere. 

He trusts Baizhu though. Baizhu has a trusting aura, and he is known to be the greatest doctor in Liyue - even if his closed-eye smile is generally quite creepy. He tells Baizhu this all, with the exception of how creepy he finds Dr. Baizhu. That part he leaves to himself.

Baizhu smiles that strange half-smile, closing his eyes fully.

“I am pleased to have your trust. I do my utmost to prevent my dendro energy from getting out of control on what should be a simple test.” 

Changsheng instructs him to relax completely, and Baizhu lifts his hands, dendro sparking and small leaves forming only to fall off and dissolve away from the source, and gently checks him over.

The dendro is at extremely small quantities, and whenever Wanderer feels as if the dendro would create an aggravate and quicken reaction, Baizhu lifts his hands away and waits for the electro to calm down.

It’s a slow process, but Wanderer doesn’t complain. Not when he can finally reach some form of closure.

But Baizhu’s face gets that pinched look more and more throughout the procedure, and Changsheng even has to hiss slowly at Baizhu to get him to smooth out his face.

Wanderer thinks that Baizhu has no answers for him.

Finally, Baizhu lifts his hands up, and helps Wanderer sit straight.

“I feel as if you should know that you have the strongest electro I’ve ever felt running in your system. I use the word system here, because I can tell that your body is nothing like that of a regular mortal’s.” Wanderer doesn’t know what to feel. “But, on the plus side, you have no known disease or disorder that could have caused this. However, on the negative side, you have no known disease or disorder that could have caused this.”

Wanderer sighs. Perhaps he would simply follow his sense of familiarity while wandering like he had been before.

Baizhu reaches for a note.

“Normally, I would tell patients with amnesia to eat foods rich in nutrients, especially thiamin, such as rice, lentils, and fish. I tell you to eat the same on the potential grounds that it helps.”

Wanderer nods. He doesn’t tell Baizhu that he thinks that it may not work.

Baizhu helps Wanderer stand up, and slides Changsheng back onto his shoulders and they make their way back to the front of Bubu Pharmacy.

Gui is talking to a customer at the front, so Baizhu himself goes and picks out a few herbs for Wanderer to take in the hopes that it helps.

After paying a small sum of mora - Wanderer thinks that he’s getting a discount because there was no cure - he makes his way down the many steps.

…

It’s there in Liyue Harbor that he stumbles into a group of merchants(?) packing their goods to put on a large ship to be sold elsewhere.

Quite literally. He walks right into a tall woman with an eyepatch over an eye and a large hairpin in her hair.

Wanderer hurries to apologize when he is jarred out of his thinking by bumping into her, but she plays it off nicely, simply laughing and swiping at his head in a gesture of good-will.

“You better watch where you’re going. Don’t want to fall into the water now, do you?” She laughs a bit, her sharp yet kind eyes sparkling. “It’s fine, it’s fine shorty. You just got distracted under that big hat, didya?”

Wanderer simply tilts his head down a bit, and pulls the rim of his large hat down a bit to shield his eyes from view. 

The woman chuckles to herself and turns back to the others in her group. Wanderer takes that as his cue to leave.

“Alright everyone!” She calls to them just as the last of the boxes are sealed up and placed on board. “We leave for Inazuma in one hour!”

Inazuma. The mere mention of that place spikes some sense of urgency, although he does not know what it is.

Inazuma. Would he be able to find anything there?

He starts to turn to the woman, who cackles at the sight of a large hat zipping back to her.

“What do you want?” She asks goodnaturedly. “Do you need a way to Inazuma?”

He nods. How did she know that? (He doesn’t know that his entire demeanor screams of one who has lived in Inazuma, from his Sumerian-colored clothing designed based off something Inazuman to his stance to the large wide-brimmed hat atop his head, adorned with strips of cloth and little charms tinkling from the side.)

It’s as if this woman can read his mind. 

“Of course I know this stuff! After the Sakoku and Vision Hunt Decree was abolished, just about everyone wants to go to Inazuma, and not all of them have a boat waiting for them.”

It’s an acceptable reasoning. However, he has just one question. 

What is the Sakoku Decree? (Perhaps he would know the answer to this question had he stayed and listened to the Sumeru locals try to teach him basic history.) 

The Vision Hunt Decree is self-explanatory, so he simply asks about the Sakoku one.

The woman looks shocked at how he wouldn’t know such a thing.

“You’ve never heard of the Sakoku Decree?!” Passerby and her crew alike start to turn to them. Wanderer hastily waves them off. “Anyone with anything to do with Inazuma knows of when the Electro Archon closed Inazuma’s borders off!”

Ah. That answers his question. Wanderer remembers that the woman agreed to bring him to Inazuma, and people usually repay acts such as this one with mora, and he slowly puts the rest of the mora given to him by Ahangar into the woman’s hand while she’s waving them around trying to explain the two recent abolished decrees.

She pauses when she feels the weight of the mora, and rolls her eyes at him.

“Don’t try to change the subject by paying me mora.”

He frowns. That hadn’t been his intention. He says as much.

The woman seems to have lost her thoughts from him breaking her out of her spiel, so she counts out some mora and hands the rest back to him.

“There. You can come with us to Inazuma on the Alcor.”

He nods. She shakes her head a bit at him, and then a crewmember with red highlights in an otherwise pale hair and a vaguely distracted look on his face taps her shoulder.

“Beidou, the crew has put everything ready to go. Do you want to introduce the guest to the rest of us?” The guy smiles faintly.

Beidou, as the woman is called (Wanderer repeats the name to himself. Beidou. Beidou. It would be unbecoming of him to forget it.) reaches out and ruffles the newcomer’s hair.

“Sure sure. Hey now Kazuha, have you ever met a -” she pauses and looks expectantly at Wanderer. 

The other one, Kazuha, sighs, but not exasperatedly or tiredly, like he simply wanted to sigh and did so.

“Beidou, did you talk to someone for an hour without getting their name?”

Beidou looks a little sheepish. She smiles awkwardly at Wanderer, her one eye as if pleading him to say his name out loud.

He decides to take pity on her.

“Wanderer. My name is Wanderer.”

Beidou leans her elbow on Kazuha’s head. It must be slightly uncomfortable and awkward. Their height difference is too small for her elbow to rest naturally on Kazuha’s head, but Kazuha bends his knees down slightly and slouches forward a bit for it to work.

“Wanderer huh? Well welcome aboard! This here is Kazuha, he’s our natural storm and heavy weather detector.” She leans in a bit. “His connection with anemo is so strong, he says he can ‘talk’ to the wind.”

Kazuha pouts a bit at that, and straightens up so that Beidou is no longer resting comfortably on his head.

Wanderer thinks Beidou’s one-handed quotation marks around the word ‘talk’ seem to make the meaning of the word slightly off. It looks like she’s making bunny ears on nothing.

Beidou continues.

“I’m Beidou, my crew, The Crux, are the greatest sailors you’ll ever find. You said you wanted to go to Inazuma? Well we’ll be able to get you there real quick and if you like adventure, you can stay and have a few of’em.” She then spends the next ten minutes introducing everyone on board, with quite detailed descriptions of both their looks and personality.

Kazuha eventually starts reminding Beidou that they need to leave soon, and she continues talking while walking up the plank.

Wanderer thinks that this little crew is very intriguing.

…

The first night on the Alcor, Wanderer is stopped near the turrets by a child who jumps around and claims that his fleet will one day grow to something big.

Ah, right. Beidou mentioned a child on board, what was his name again? Little Yu? Little Ye?

The man inspecting the large weapon not dissimilar to a crossbow sets down his tools, and motions for the child to come over.

The child, predictably, does not listen. Wanderer thinks that the kid was too interested in a new person on board.

“Little Yue! Come help me hold this wire still while I change the cables in this ballista!” The man calls. Beidou talked about an Ironworker earlier, could this be Suling the Ironworker on board?

The child then stops talking to Wanderer and runs over with a “Coming!” yelled out at the Ironworker.

He gingerly steps over the many ropes scattered on the deck as he picks his way over to the raised platform near the wheel for the ship.

It’s the closest he can get to the resident storm-detector on board, after all.

Kazuha is - predictably - perched precariously on top of one of the teal slanted roofs shading the back of the boat from the sun. 

Beidou stands by the wheel, carefully keeping an ear and eye on Kazuha. Wanderer gently climbs up to meet Kazuha. 

Baizhu’s words about his body stick in his mind, and he realizes that never once while climbing or running has he gotten tired.

Kazuha leans over the ledge and extends a bandaged hand with a red maple glove down to help him up. Wanderer takes his hand and doesn’t mention how he didn’t need it.

“So, what are you going to Inazuma for, friend?”

Wanderer hesitates at the title of Kazuha’s friend. Somehow, it feels strange, like a newer version of a favored glove that used to fit.

“I suppose I wanted to see if there was anything there that could help me with my memory problems.” He looks towards the south-east, where Inazuma lies. “I don’t remember anything from more than a few days ago, so I follow familiarity.”

Kazuha nods, and pulls out a little leaf. He brushes along the veins as if dusting it off and puts it to his mouth and plays a single note, its sound trilling gently in the air before fading off slowly.

“Then we are quite the opposite.” He carefully places the leaf on his lap. “I follow the unfamiliar. I consider all regions of Teyvat my home now.”

Wanderer nods at that. 

Kazuha brings the small green leaf back to his lips, and plays a soft melody, filling the air with calm notes as the stars above twinkle gently and the lights below glow steadily.

Wanderer watches as Little Yue runs around the deck, asking everyone he meets to join his little fleet, and he watches as each person agrees to join once he is older.

Eventually, a sailor, Wanderer thinks her name is Furong, calls for them to get down from the roof to eat.

Kazuha slips his leaf back from where it was and jumps off the roof, cushioning his landing with a burst of anemo.

Wanderer simply climbs down, avoiding any unnecessary theatrics.

Furong waits with her hands on her hips while he climbs down, and walks off when she sees that he made it down safely.

Kazuha leads him to the dining area, where Beidou hands them a plate of fish with a couple chopsticks for them to eat.

“Eat up, both of you!” She laughs again. Wanderer thinks that she likes to laugh. “Wanderer, you’re in for a treat! Sea Drake made this fish, and he’s the best cook on board!”

A person behind her, Sea Drake it must be, blushes violently. He appears to be a burly man with a red cap and an eyepatch over his left eye, but right now, when Beidou shamelessly praises his cooking skills, he seems to resemble a bright red tomato.

“Please, Captain Beidou, I only boiled the fish…”

Beidou laughs and pulls him towards her.

“Only boiled the fish with what must be the finest water on board! Just accept the compliment, and let the new guy have a taste!”

Wanderer looks around. It’s a small room with benches, but almost everyone is here enjoying the fish that Sea Drake made.

He carefully pulls some meat off his fish with his chopsticks (the action is easy as if he’d done this a hundred times before, but he doesn’t realize that it requires practice to use chopsticks, practice that former-him must have done.) and places it in his mouth. 

It’s quite nice, the flavor is strong in a good way, nice and salty with the presence of ginger noticeable. The meat is tender and he has to push the meat together and move the fish quickly if he wants it to stay together on its way to his mouth.

“It’s very good, Sea Drake.”

Beidou nods in agreement.

“You hear that? Wanderer thinks it’s great!”

Sea Drake slowly nods and wiggles his way back away from Beidou.

Kazuha has been slowly making his way through his entire fish during the exchange, and is currently scrawling on his arm with a strange device that looks like a brush, but it doesn’t need any ink.

Beidou taps Kazuha on his head, and Kazuha’s head shoots up like he’d been shocked.

“Hey, Kazuha. When you’re done with that one, gimme a read.”

Kazuha nods, and Wanderer slowly eats the rest of his fish, savoring every bite.

When the crew starts finishing their meal, they head out to do their work and get ready for the night.

…

Wanderer is led to a room with a small bed and white sheets with a drawer next to it to be his sleeping arrangements for the days until they reach Inazuma.

Yinxing, the one who showed him to his room, gives him a few pillows and a blanket as well and then wishes him good night after leaving with an excuse to look at Mora-Grubber’s sprained wrist.

Apparently, Mora-Grubber fell from a ladder when trying to put some books back. Wanderer only knows that Yinxing thinks that Mora-Grubber needs a safer way to get high up.

He lays down on his bed and tries to sleep. It’s quite strange to Wanderer that the gentle rocking of the boat only brings him to a state of half-asleep rather than fully put him to sleep.

Outside, he hears Beidou yelling at Little Yue to go to bed and Little Yue’s response, punctuated with cackling laughs.

…

The next morning, Wanderer is woken by the sound of excited yelling and a strong rocking of the boat.

His door bursts open and Little Yue enters.

“Wake up! Captain Beidou caught a sea monster!” He yells out, and then leaves immediately after, leaving Wanderer’s door slowly swinging to and fro.

Wanderer slowly sits up and makes his way above deck, where sure enough, Beidou is wrangling a large blue serpentine creature, its long tail thrashing about while Beidou has its head in her grip, trying to keep it still long enough for Suling to pierce it with one of his harpoons.

Suling attempts to hit the creature and grunts when his shot misses.

“Overgrown unagi. Beidou, can you try and hold on to its tail?”

Beidou shifts the head to under her elbow and it tries to snap at her the bits of her qipao hanging off her back. She then takes her other hand and in one swift motion, snatches the tail of the creature, allowing Suling to step closer.

This time, Suling’s shot hits the large serpent, stunning it.

Wanderer can now see the creature clearly. It’s quite beautiful, long silvery blue scaled body adorned with large almost translucent veined fins along its side and a couple on the head almost looking like ears, and its face is framed with thin purple lines trailing down its body. 

The creature snaps slowly, and Wanderer can see the inside of its mouth, lines of color circling around its mouth in a dizzying effect intended to nauseate the prey until it snaps down on whatever it chose to do so with razor-sharp teeth about the length of Wanderer’s pinky. 

Beidou holds the serpent in place until its tremors die down, and its body lies dead.

Little Yue is the first to run up to the sea creature with awe in his eyes.

“Wow, Captain Beidou! How’d you catch it?”

Beidou raps on the head of the serpent.

“This one thought taking a bite out of the Alcor’s oar was a good idea. When Suling here tried to scare it off, it latched into his spear and made its way onboard. Then, it made the second stupid decision of attacking me, making it easy for me to catch it.”

She looks smug and proud of herself.

Little Yue almost has stars in his eyes.

“Wow! Say, can we eat it?”

Beidou huffs a small laugh again.

“Nah, kiddo. You don’t really want to be eating sea monsters. Save the fish for the dinner table. This sea monster will turn into water when it dies, and you don’t want to be eating saltwater now, do you?”

Wanderer looks back at the monster. It’s not dead then, if it is still here.

Then, as if hearing his thoughts, the snake-like creature tilts its head up slightly to look in his direction, before melting into a puddle of water and evaporating far quicker than a normal puddle.

The sight of the serpent melting seems to put a slight damper on Little Yue’s mood, but Beidou quickly raises it by pushing him in Suling’s direction with the instructions to ask him about the snake.

Kazuha, who Wanderer hadn’t even noticed perched atop a pile of crates, gently goes to stand next to him.

“Captain Beidou sure is good at dealing with sea creatures.”

Wanderer nods.

Kazuha continues.

“Though some may say that killing such a creature is a waste, it ultimately died because it picked a fight it could not win.”

Wanderer nods again.

Kazuha hums slightly, before asking what Wanderer thinks will be served for lunch.

Wanderer can only guess that it will be unagi.

…

 Eventually, his trip on the Alcor comes to an end as they reach Ritou near late afternoon.

He sticks around and helps them unload their goods, but after that, he leaves.

The crew all had a good opinion of each other.

Wanderer hopes that those in his past enjoyed each other’s presence as much.

He wouldn’t mind if they were like those aboard the Alcor.

Chapter Text

Ritou is a little harbor town, full of people and buildings and walkways and vendors.

Thankfully, Beidou’s crew educated him on all things Inazuma, and actually touched on important subjects, such as the Sakoku decree and the Tri-Commisions.

They tell him that up until recently, if he wanted to visit Inazuma, he had to get permission by the Kanjou Commision. But, following the abolishing of the decree, he can wander in Inazuma as he pleases, seeing as the travel permits required to do so are now much easier to obtain.

He only has to ask the person standing outside the International Trade Association for one, and they give him one.
So he walks past the officers guarding the only way to the rest of Narukami Island and they simply wish him a good time in Inazuma.

…

He makes his way around. Wanderer thinks that at some point, he had a map, detailed in its description of Narukami Island. It’s long gone by now, and Wanderer doesn’t feel the need to search for it. The stars are out right now, and they look almost different, as if only slightly clouded by the strong electro feel in the air.

Shortly after leaving Ritou, he finds a small village with tall statues of foxes glowing with a soft electro purple. These statues are littered all over the path to the village.

The people living there don’t seem to worry about the small kitsune statues that look unfeelingly forward.

Although, that may be attributed to the fact that they don’t feel the slight discomfort and a sense of unease at the sight, almost as if the foxes are letting out a small chuckle at his expense. He can almost see the pink fur accompanying that mischievous laugh.

Wait, pink fur? He has never seen pink fur before (or so he thinks.)

…

The small village, he finds out later, is called Konda Village. It shares a name with the Village Head, as the girl he’d asked, Futaba, tells him right outside the entrance to the village.

She initially approached him to ask for scary stories and legends, but has since deflated when hearing that Wanderer didn’t have much to tell her. She still persists in asking him to share the ones he does know, but he is not too sure a girl who is interested in the mythical and scary and legendary will want to hear about forging legends.

The old woman who sighs heavily upon seeing Futaba’s excitement at a new person, the one who introduces herself as Saimon Eri, gently manages to corral Futaba away from Wanderer with the promise of more exciting stories later after dinner.

She points out another man standing at the doorway of a nearby house as the Village Head and tells Wanderer to go to him if he needs anything from Konda Village after hurrying after Futaba, who has already seen another person to ask for stories.

“Futaba, don’t run so fast! Be careful of the irrigation water! Your stories won’t leave within the next two seconds!”

Wanderer watches them go for a moment, before turning around and heading up the small wooden steps leading to the slightly raised platform in front of the house.

The Village Head, Konda Densuke, watches him as he arrives.

Wanderer doesn’t know what the proper greeting is, so he simply waves and says hello.

Konda smiles in a soft way.

“Hello there to you too. What business do you have in Konda Village?” Konda Densuke asks.

Wanderer dips his head down slightly.

“I recently lost all of my memories and woke up in an unfamiliar place, and am now following whatever feels most familiar, and it led me to Inazuma. Perhaps if you were to tell me some things about Konda Village it could help bring something to the surface?”

The Village Head laughs in a slightly wheezy way.

“Konda Village was given by the Raiden Shogun to my ancestors to keep watch over a long time ago. Ever since, us in the Konda family have acted as Village Head.” Konda motions to a nearby crate with a couple lavender melons, like the ones he saw in the Grand Bazaar all the way back in Sumeru, lie and asks him to take a seat.

Wanderer sits - a little stiffly due to the height of the crates - and listens to the Village Head talk.

“Back then, about a few years ago, before the Shogun passed the Sakoku decree, Konda Village was famous for its lavender melons. Merchants and traders from both other islands and foreign nations would come to buy our lavender melons.”

He sighs a little sadly.

“Unfortunately, after the decree, all trade was essentially banned. With no use for the lavender melons, our fields were wasted for these past years.”

Wanderer looks around at Konda Village. It seems to be doing pretty well for a village with nothing to trade, albeit a little on the small side. There are even a few merchants still around, carting large boxes and trading for the remaining lavender melons.

“Thankfully, after the Sakoku decree was abolished, trade once again resumed.”

Wanderer nods.

Konda looks at Wanderer a bit more closely.

“Say, you lost all your memories?”

“Yes.”

“You remind me a bit of our Tejima, back when his vision was confiscated by the Vision Hunt Decree.”

Wanderer tilts his head in a silent question for Konda to continue.

“Tejima used to be such a lovesick fool for this woman, back before he got his vision from managing to protect our lavender melon trees from a couple pyro hilichurls. He was so passionate about his sword skills and his wish to be a samurai and to be with her, then the Vision Hunt Decree started.”

Konda sighs a little sadly at the memory.

“After he got his vision confiscated, he had terrible memory and kept forgetting things left and right. We would ask him about his mysterious woman and he’d say ‘What woman?’ or we’d ask him if he wanted to practice his samurai skills with the rest of us he’d just get this blank look on his face.”

Wanderer can start to see what Konda is talking about.

“You know, after a while, when it started to get quite bad, Tejima would ask to leave because he saw no point in staying here, and he would try to leave.” Konda refocuses on Wanderer. “You say you lost all your memory before our meeting, and are wandering around Teyvat right now? Then you are what Tejima wished to be back when he lost his vision.”

Konda reaches for the lavender melons beside Wanderer.

“Perhaps those you’ve left back where you first remember wish dearly for your return - even if they only knew you for that short short time you were with them.”

Wanderer knows that he left the small village outside of Sumeru City without telling anyone, but he didn’t think that their time together was long enough to have an emotional attachment.

Konda picks out the freshest lavender melon and hands it to Wanderer with a quiet eat. Wanderer takes a small bite from the top.

“I know from your face that nothing stood out to you and that nothing was familiar to that head of yours.” He sighs. “Just make sure you keep yourself safe, alright?”

Wanderer nods again.

Konda smiles to himself.

“Good. Now, go find Imatani Saburou and ask him about this firework-maker Yoimiya. Perhaps Yoimiya can help you.”

Wanderer slowly slides off the crate, still holding the lavender melon with a small bite taken out of it. A bit of purple juice spills onto his hands, but he quickly wipes it away.

Konda tells him to talk to the man standing in a yard filled with vines and plants. That’s Imatani Saburou, his figure casting a shadow from the soft glow of the lights inside, tending to the plants in his yard. He’s an old man, hunched slightly forward with a thin pair of glasses with thick frames constantly sliding down his nose, leading him to push it back up every few seconds.

Wanderer gently steps off the wooden platform, avoiding the slight indents of the wood made from many feet stepping there.

He crosses over the dirt and brick road to stand in the path right next to Imatani Saburou’s plants, and stands there until he notices him.

“Ah hello there! Are you a traveler? Would you like to come in and join me for some tea?”

Wanderer politely declines.

“No thank you. Mr. Konda told me to talk to you about, er- someone called Yoimiya?”

Imatani brightens noticeably, and even makes a slight attempt to stiffen his back.

“Yoimiya? Did Konda tell you to ask me about her to brighten my day?” Imatani shakes his head a bit. “Yoimiya owns Naganohara Fireworks, and they make absolutely beautiful light displays at every festival. She’s based in Inazuma City, so she can’t come to visit often, but when she does, all of the children love her. Even my son Keisuke and his friend Sakujirou used to look forward to whenever she decided to come around.”

Wanderer thinks about fireworks. Simple flashes of light high up in the sky that lasted only for a second before disappearing and fading away. Quite ironic that Inazuma, the nation of eternity, has such a strong business of transient fireworks.

“Yoimiya often brings teas over from Inazuma City over with her.” Imatani reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small bag of crushed leaves, presumably the tea that Yoimiya brings with her. “Here, here. Take it. It helps soothe and calm someone down. She brought over lots when Tejima and Mahiru would get in their daily spats about leaving Konda Village.”
Wanderer is reminded about Tejima.

“Imatani…” Imatani stops talking for a second and looks at Wanderer, slightly quizzically. “I decided to start traveling as a way to find my lost memories.” Imatani’s face has taken on a worried look, so Wanderer barrels on. “I think I can handle myself, but please tell me more about Yoimiya so that when I eventually go to Inazuma City, I know who wouldn’t mind helping.”

Imatani pauses, and then reaches in his pocket for another bag of tea. The scent coming off it seems quite strong, and there are notes of something similar to the herbs Dr. Baizhu gave him. Wanderer knows that the tea will probably be met with the same fate as those herbs - stored in a pocket until he remembered that it was there.

“Here. Take this as well. It helps me well on the few days when my memory isn’t quite as sharp as it used to be.” Wanderer tries to refuse, but Imatani is persistent. Wanderer has no choice but to accept. Only then does Imatani relax enough to tell him about the firework-maker.

“Yoimiya is a blonde woman with an extremely outgoing personality and a pyro vision to match. You’d probably be able to recognize her in a crowd.” Imatani thinks about more to tell Wanderer, who waits patiently for him to continue. “She often mentions about how she plays with the children and takes care of them when their parents are busy to me, so she’d most likely be near the outskirts of the city. If you really can’t find her, it would be best to go to Naganohara Fireworks itself and wait around until she returned from wherever.”

Wanderer nods and then quietly asks Imatani to write it down for him.

Imatani does so without questions.

Wanderer thanks him, and then pockets the little slip of paper that Imatani found and wrote on. He doesn’t mind that those words are written on the back of an old list of items needed. It goes in the pocket where his appointment-with-Dr.-Baizhu reminder goes and where his niloupata petal sits.

…

Wanderer thinks he got lost on the way to Inazuma City at some point.

Although, he has no memory or idea of how the route should look, so maybe the perpetually dim atmosphere and extremely charged ground leading to almost glowing plants is just a part of the road to Inazuma City.

Most likely not.

Wanderer had gotten here by stumbling upon a beautiful set of red gates adorned with various lanterns and tanuki statues that reminded him of Guoba.

So, he followed the halfway buried stone path into the dark forest.

Along the way, he finds many torches placed in odd spots, one even has a leg halfway sinking down into the ground.

Wanderer pauses for a minute.

That sound, almost like little bells chiming, rings throughout the forest. It seems to come from Wanderer’s right…

He turns around and sees only the faint glow of the tanuki’s music before it jumps down into the earth and disappears.

Was it just a trick of his eyes?

Wanderer shrugs to himself and continues down the path, carefully stepping over the many plants growing on the path and making a path for himself when the stones below him are swallowed by the earth.

Before him is a small stream, its waters strangely cloudy with electro and the plants growing around it glowing stronger than the ones away from the water. There’s even a few sakura blooms floating serenely in place.

Ahead, on the opposite side of the stream, stands another one of the red gates, given a haunting look from the eeriness of the surrounding elements.

Wanderer’s motive to cross gets even stronger when he hears that tune again, the gentle chiming of the bell sounding from ahead.

He suddenly realizes how empty the forest feels. The only animals he’d seen are the few onikabuto beetles attracted to the electro energy and the distant sound of potential monsters.

Wanderer looks back at the small stream.

It’s just a small puddle of water. Why are you hesitating to cross?

Because it’s the only obstacle that can serve as an excuse for not seeing one of her friends.

What? Wanderer shakes his head a bit to dispel the thought.

He takes a few steps back, and almost trips on another oddly placed torch. Wanderer could swear that it wasn’t there when he looked just a couple seconds ago.

Something in him tells him to not touch the water.

“Three…” Wanderer starts counting aloud to psyche himself up a bit. He bends his knees and tilts slightly forward with one foot back. “...Two…” He shifts his weight back and forth. “...One!”

He takes off with a running start and jumps over the water, clearing it completely.

He lands hard on the ground, only remembering to bend his knees to soften the landing after his legs have touched the floor.

Wanderer still makes the motion though.

Then, he looks back at the water and laughs a bit aloud to himself over how worked up he was over a small body of water.

For Archon’s sake, it wasn’t even a meter across!

He hears that soft melody again, and starts forward at a faster pace than before.

It isn’t long until he finds another of those torches. This time smack dab in the middle of the trail, almost as if it wanted to be noticed.

Of course, that can’t possibly happen, torches can’t move on their own and they certainly can’t feel the need to be noticed.

This time, Wanderer reaches to move the torch out of the way for others, but the moment his fingers touch the metal cone situated on top of the three sticks tied together, the entire contraption poofs with a small cloud of smoke, and one of the tanuki Wanderer’s heard about from Beidiou stands with its arms outstretched up where it stood and an incredibly relieved and exasperated expression upon its small face.

Wanderer gets the feeling that all the earlier torches he saw were this tanuki.

He bends down to get closer to the tanuki, and the little thing goes forward and nuzzles his finger when he goes to pet the tanuki.

“I’m sorry, little tanuki.” He apologizes. “I didn’t know you were the torches lining the road. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

The tanuki squeaks, and then wriggles out of his hold and starts running off down the path, every so often turning around to look at Wanderer as if saying Come on! Hurry up!

Wanderer has no choice but to follow, and rushes after it.

The tanuki is extremely fast, and it isn’t long before it takes him to wherever it wanted him to go.

In front of a large stone statue of a tanuki leaning back as if enjoying the feeling of a warm ray of sun with a grand smile on its face. There are many lanterns and candles around the statue, and even a couple steps leading up to the stone platform the statue rests on. There’s even a couple statues of smaller tanuki dancing around.

The tanuki squeaks at the larger statue. Wanderer thinks that the tanuki got confused, before a sudden voice began ringing out from the statue.

“Hmmph! Shousei! You should wake a Bake-Danuki up softer! I may be a stone statue now, but that doesn’t mean you can wake me as you please!” The tanuki immediately squeaks rapidly. Wanderer needs no translation to know that ‘Shousei’ was squeaking apologies. “Whatever Shousei, it’s all fine now. You wanted to tell me something?”

The tanuki turns to Wanderer for a quick second before squeaking even more. Wanderer needs no translation for this either. It’s quite obvious Shousei is talking about him.

“Shousei, I already know about the tanuki. I have eyes, you know!”

Tanuki? What tanuki?

The statue then repeatedly calls for the tanuki to talk afterwards, and it isn’t until Wanderer meets Shousei’s waiting eyes, does he realize that he is the tanuki.

“Er, hello? Mr. Bake-Danuki?”

Wanderer gets the sense of relief and exasperation he got from Shousei earlier.

“Finally! Now, just because I am a stone statue, that doesn’t mean that you can ignore me! I used to be a hotshot, you know! The great Ioroi, Protector of the Grove, no doubt! I am still here in Chinju Forest protecting it!”

Wanderer nods. Chinju Forest? Wasn’t that quite far off the road to Inazuma City? But he doesn’t ask that question, because Ioroi continues speaking.

“Hmmph! Now, I’ll let this one slide because you were nice to Shousei and played with him.” There’s a pause, almost like Ioroi is expecting something.

Wanderer mutters out his thanks.

“You’re welcome!” Wanderer doesn’t think that Ioroi is too happy with him.

The tanuki squeaks a bit more.

“Shousei, you say that this tanuki didn’t notice you? Is that why he’s so spacy?”

The tanuki squeaks out an affirmative.

“I guess that can be forgiven. Hey tanuki!”

Wanderer jumps a little at the sudden address. He has the slight feeling that he is being studied right now.

“You kinda remind me of Makoto.” That’s quite sudden. Wanderer doesn’t even know who this ‘Makoto’ is.

“Makoto?” he asks.

Wanderer thinks he can almost see Ioroi nodding to himself.

“Yeah, Makoto. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the general airs? She was the one who liked impermanence more than Ei.”

Wanderer shivers at the strange feeling of hate at the second name. Ei?

Ioroi carries on.

“Makoto and Ei. Heh. Your presence is reminding me that Kitsune Saiguu still hasn’t remembered me yet. She herself asked to play hide-and-seek with me, but she still doesn’t remember that she’s supposed to be the one seeking.”

Wanderer thinks that there’s something else going on here, but it could just be that-

“Maybe she got it mixed up and thinks that you’re the seeker?” He suggests.

The tanuki has left already, possibly to trick more travelers into playing with it.

“Yeah! That makes sense. That would explain why she didn’t come out when I turned some lavender melons into potatoes or when I broke some of her statues. She must’ve known that I was trying to get her to come out. If only that person hadn’t turned all of us into stone, she might’ve remembered that she was the one supposed to be finding me!”

Wanderer can only nod.

“Whatever! I’m still a stone statue, so she gets to wait the five-hundred years I waited before I can go find her! At least some of the other tanuki’s have been able to revert back to their original forms.”

Suddenly, Ioroi’s voice has gotten older somehow, slightly sadder.

Ioroi lets out a breath.

“Hey, tanuki. Those other tanuki want to return to their true form and play like we used to. I've already got one other to play with them, but they're not around as often as I like. Can you play with the tanuki that aren't stone anymore for me?”

Wanderer nods.

“I’ll try to notice them when they want to play with me.”

“Good. Now, make sure you leave quietly! I want to continue my nap!”

Wanderer whispers a quiet Goodbye to Ioroi and tiptoes off the platform.

Shousei, who must’ve been hiding pretty close, pops out of the ground and starts a light-hearted chase through Chinju Forest.

…

After Shousei had gotten tired and went to sleep, Wanderer started the surprisingly difficult search for the trail of red gates.
Along the way, he spotted some monsters and carefully hid himself behind the large rock formations and made his way past them.

Thankfully, the red gates were slightly visible behind them, so he rushed towards the path.

He follows the way back to where he came from, and every so often is stopped by a small tanuki clamoring for his attention and jumping around to play with him.

…

Looping back to Konda Village proved to be helpful in getting him on the right path.

Konda and all the villagers who knew of his plans were initially confused at the sight of him, but that confusion soon melted away to laughter as he recounted his tale of getting lost.

Imatani, once he stopped laughing and apologized profusely for laughing at Wanderer’s misery, had rummaged through his son’s old trunk from when Keisuke wanted to travel Teyvat (he never did, and some of the items he packed never made it out of the trunk.) and managed to unearth a small travel-map of Narukami Island.

Wanderer had initially assumed that this was Imatani’s way of showing him the right directions, but that was proven wrong when Imatani shoved it in his direction.

“Mr. Imatani! This is your son’s, right? I can’t possibly take it.”

“Nonsense! Keisuke knows Narukami like the back of his hand, whereas you got lost on the way to Inazuma City! Inazuma City! The road to Inazuma City is a straight line! You need it!”

It had taken Saimon Eri and Konda Densuke to convince him that he could take the map.

It had proved useful, on the times when he remembered that he had it and would reach into a pocket for it.

He’d managed to avoid going on the wrong route by remembering about the map and checking where he was.

Thankfully, he managed to reach Inazuma City without any further incidents - well, not considering the brief moment a few nobushi were on the path and Wanderer had to hide and sneak around them, a feat that proved useless, as the one nearest to him stood up and entered a battle stance.

Wanderer had abandoned all hope of hiding, and then took off running, tearing down the rest of the way to Inazuma City.

Finally, he manages to lose them, or they get tired of him eventually, and he comes to a slow stop when he no longer hears their rapid footsteps behind him.

Wanderer looks up and directly meets the eyes of a young woman with slightly wavy hair and sharp eyes pointedly staring at him.

He awkwardly brushes off the bits of dust and dirt on his clothes and adjusts his hat while straightening up a bit.

Then, he continues dashing past the woman and hiding himself behind a small shrine, hoping that it covers him completely from her view.

Maybe it doesn’t work too well, but the woman leaves with a huff and roll of her eyes, so all’s good.

Wanderer turns towards the shrine, and amusedly thinks of how it so perfectly lines up with the Grand Narukami Shrine in the background, although he doesn’t dwell on the thought for long, as a sudden spike of anger mixed with something else flashes through him.

He shakes his head and resolves to avoid the shrine.

…

It seems that Yoimiya was expecting him, although how such a thing could happen he has no idea. Maybe she simply has extraordinarily sharp senses.

That, or those at Konda Village sent a message to her. It’s most definetly the latter, what with the way she immediately asks him about his ‘situation’.

“Miss Naganohara -” Wanderer starts.

“Please, call me Yoimiya! I am helping you with something quite personal, after all.” She smiles at him. The large round ornament hanging off her hairpiece jingles gently.

“How much did they tell you about me?” He asks dryly.

“Mr. Imatani sent me a letter, but it was supposed to come sometime after you arrived, not before.” She asks indirectly.

Wanderer shrugs. “I got lost.”

“Well then, we have no time to waste!” She begins pushing him into Inazuma City from right next to the large tree where they were standing, talking. “You want to be able to remember as fast as possible, right? Well, I’ll ask you random locations and you can tell me if they have any significant meaning to you!”

“Huh?” He asks before being nearly shoved into someone.

…

After getting to her house safely the firework maker pulls out a map of Inazuma from her drawer, along with multiple pins stuck in locations along Inazuma City.

“Don’t mind the pins, they’re just optimal places to place fireworks during festivals and events.” She bats Wanderer’s curious hand away from the closest pin, and then stands straight, hands on her hips as she begins naming locations.

“Narukami?”

“Maybe?”

“Kannazuka?”

“Maybe?”

“Yashiori?”

“Maybe?”

“Watatsumi?”

“Maybe?”

“Seirai?”

“Maybe-”

“You can’t say ‘maybe’ to everything, yaknow.”

Wanderer crosses his arms and mentally thinks about all the islands of Inazuma. All of them cause feelings of anger, sadness, and a bit of joy.

“Well, I think naming islands is a bit too broad to see if any invoke some kind of response.”

Yoimiya ahhs and then nods in understanding.

“Well Wanderer, if you’re well acquainted enough with all the islands to have each one of them cause even a bit of an emotional response, then you’re probably an adventurer!”

An adventurer? Isn’t that similar to what he was doing right now? But Wanderer does admit that Yoimiya’s idea holds weight. Only someone well traveled would have an emotional connection to all the islands of Inazuma. Otherwise, the islands would simply be a ‘place’ that he knows about.

Only thing is - imagining himself with the title ‘Adventurer’ and answering to Katheryne daily doesn’t seem like something familiar.

Wanderer belatedly realizes that Yoimiya has been silent this entire time, waiting for his thoughts to settle. He nods to acknowledge her theory.

Once Yoimiya knows that Wanderer’s listening, she continues.

“Then we just need to name domains! There’s no way an obviously well-traveled adventurer like you hasn’t gone in one of them at least! And, after we find that one domain that impresses itself to you, we just need to ask if anyone’s conquered that domain yet!”

“Er-” Wanderer interrupts. “I don’t think that will work, Yoimiya.”

“Oh?” She asks. “Well then do you think continuing your previous way will work?”

He nods, mostly because straight up guessing until he hits the mark will probably take much more time than wandering around until he hits the mark. At least this way, it’s more entertaining.

Yoimiya ahhs as if she can read his mind, and then goes back to her drawer and continues flipping through it until she has pulled out whatever it was that she wanted.

That being a small stack of photographs, tied together with a thin rope.

Wanderer can’t help but make a small noise of confusion. Realistically, he knows that she probably has a common reason to have photos of iconic locations in Inazuma, but he can’t think of one for the life of him.

“Now that foreigners are allowed in Inazuma, many of them give me pictures of their travels as thanks when I make them fireworks. Unfortunately, they didn’t consider the fact that I am from Inazuma, and could technically go see these sights whenever I want.” She unties the knot and spreads out the pictures. “But I’m also quite busy with the recent increase of foreigners wanting to buy fireworks, so there is some merit to having pictures of my hometown.”

But Wanderer didn’t hear the last bit of her spiel. All his attention is caught by an image of a large round metal structure of some sort. The sight of it causes a slight hollow feeling to rise in his chest, but he is unsure of the cause. After all, it is just a round metal structure.

Yoimiya notices where his attention is.

“Oh, that’s the Mikage Furnace. Folks outside of Inazuma usually think that it’s not as impressive as it actually is, so when I told these two customers about it, they went to Kannazuka Island to see for themselves if it really was that big, and here they wrote on the back that it was as big as I said it was.”

The Mikage Furnace, huh. Wanderer recalls what Ahangar thought of it. He supposes that one day he will have to go back to Sumeru to rectify Ahangar's assumption on it's legitimacy.

“Yoimiya?” Wanderer starts.

“Hmm?”

“I think I need to pay a visit to Kannazuka Island.”

Yoimiya pauses.

“Oh. I think I know why they sent you to me. It’s because I’m good at getting people places.” Yoimiya smiles at him. “Don’t worry about getting someone to get you to Kannazuka. I can cover that. You just wait a bit and then you’ll be off!” She walks off while mumbling to herself. Wanderer kindly ignores her quiet comment about how it is perfectly legal and even encouraged to go visit the other island, what do they need her for anyways?

Wanderer is then told to wait for a few hours while Yoimiya goes about getting the preparations ready.

He sits in silence outside her firework shop/home and mentally catalogs all the recent events involving Kannazuka.

That, and looking through the A Recent History of the Different Islands of Inazuma. He found the rather small book in one of the large crates near the door and have since been flipping through it.

Surprisingly, it’s quite interesting, and although Wanderer does think one thousand years is not quite recent history, it is, however, filled with interesting facts and tidbits about the different clans of Inazuma and the Tri-Commissions' rise to fame.

He’s reached about halfway through the book when Yoimiya returns.

“Oh! Hey Wanderer, how’d you find that book?” She asks.

Wanderer motions to the boxes and flips another page. He’s currently reading about a large event called the "Cataclysm”, and the book details events in an almost story-telling way - effectively drawing him in to flip the page and continue reading.

“Well, although the title says ‘Recent History’, the contents are anything but that.” Yoimiya looks over Wanderer’s shoulder to see what he’s reading.

“Hmm.” She says. “The Cataclysm.” Yoimiya points to a note describing the large wolf-like creatures attacking various towns. “Some of the kids who live nearby have been getting each other scared of these guys.”

Wanderer nods in half-hearted response.

“Well, I know something that’ll catch your attention.” Yoimiya starts, and then taps his shoulder to get a bit more attention. “Your ride is here!” She smiles brightly, and this does catch his mind.

“I’ll be going to Kannazuka soon?” He asks.

“Yep! Hey, since you’re so into reading that book, you can keep it” she offers.

“What?” Wanderer asks.

“Yeah, you can keep that book. I mean, it’s not like I’ll do anything with that book.” She shrugs. “The words are a little too small to be any comfortable for me to read, but if you think it’s fine, then you can keep reading as much as you want!”

Wanderer hesitantly agrees and slides the rather small book into his pocket. It gives his clothing a strange lumpy effect, but he ignores it in favor of following Yoimiya down to the shore to stand in front of some strange sort of statue that looks almost like a ship’s wheel.

“Ok Wanderer.” She points to the statue, goes up to it, and then closes her eyes as a boat rises up from somewhere under the water to rest on top of the gentle waves.

“This here, is a Waverider.” Wanderer moves towards it in awe and gently touches the sides, surprised at the dryness of the vessel. “Waveriders are something people with visions can summon at these monuments.”

“How does it work?” Wanderer mumbles while feeling the strange squishiness around the boat.

“Well, you’ll have to ask the Traveler and Paimon about the specifics. They’re probably the only ones who experimented enough with the mechanics of the Waverider to know all about it.” She puts her hands on her hips and assumes a prideful stance. “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Plenty cool. Wanderer thinks. He nods to get the point across.

“I know right? Well, this here can take you to Kannazuka, as long as you know your directions and don’t end up accidentally sailing right back to Sumeru.”

Wanderer listens to her explain the controls, and waits as she helps him in the Waverider, and sits there as she tries to recall something about the Waverider that she’s forgetting.

“Don’t worry Yoimiya. I’m sure whatever you forgot isn’t too important.” He reassures her

“Well, Okay then. Off you go.” She steps back a bit and watches as Wanderer starts going towards the next island over. Once he’s left her line of sight she starts her way home.

Wanderer himself is busy playing with the controls a bit. All the buttons are labeled with images of all things, but they are helpful.

...

He eventually reaches the shore sometime after the sun reached the highest point in the sky.

To be honest, Wanderer isn’t too sure which shore he ended up on, but based on the maps, the closest point would’ve been the Kujou encampment, so the nearest landmark (hopefully) would be easily visible.

Wanderer feels around the edges inside the boat for a flap for him to exit the vehicle. Now how to get out of the Waverider…

Wanderer presses the forward button (determined from trial and error).

The Waverider has reached sand, so nothing happens.

Wanderer presses the accelerate button (also determined from trial and error).

Nothing happens.

Wanderer taps the button with the slightly curved arrow.

A small blast shoots out of the Waverider, making him jump. He hadn’t wanted to accidentally hit something.

Wanderer decides to avoid the button that looks like a larger version of the button he just pressed. He can assume it does something similar.

Last, is the button that looks somewhat like a figure jumping.

He presses his hand on the button once, and nothing happens. Nothing happened earlier on the ride to Kannazuka, so he assumes the button broke. The Traveler person might know enough to fix the Waverider, but currently, it’s just Wanderer and this broken button here.

Sighing, Wanderer leans forward over the buttons and thinks. His elbow is pressing into the broken jump button but he ignores it in favor of randomly pressing other buttons.

Then, Wanderer finds himself in the air above the Waverider. Gravity sets in the moment he realizes this fact, and then he starts falling down onto the Waverider, screaming for all of the second it took to land.

Wanderer then finds the reasoning for the soft and bouncy surface.

He performs a precarious balancing act of standing atop a soft and curved surface in order to prevent his book from getting wet.

Thankfully, he managed to get the Waverider partially onshore, so Wanderer simply slides down the front of the boat to get to dry land.

Above, there is a tall fence above the rocks nearby, so he follows the fence around to find an entrance for what he can reason is the Kujou Encampment.

...

The soldiers there give him a small map of Kannazuka, and Wanderer carefully folds it up alongside his other map of Narukami Island.

They also give him implicit instruction to avoid the large furnace in the center - the Mikage Furnace. The one Ahangar didn’t believe existed.

How surprising that the one furnace that reminds him of something is also coincidently situated here, on the island most emotionally connected to him.

Wanderer has to go see this furnace now.

Chapter Text

Wanderer leaves the Kujou encampment to go to the beach that connects this blob of land with the large part of the island.

On the way, he encountered:

Roughly twenty (20) gently-glowing blue mushrooms

Three (3) fluffy creatures otherwise known as ‘Abyss Mages’ (Wanderer sorta wants to pet their fluff and wear their coats. It must be the warmest thing in existence.)

About five (5) nobushi who eyed him warily as if warning him against going closer. (Wanderer gets the memo and quickly makes himself scarce.)

Seven (7)? Naku weeds, all growing in clusters of two to three. Wanderer doesn’t hesitate in grabbing them.

And one (1) ball of pure electro energy that sparked when he got near before zipping off somewhere else he couldn’t follow.

But he makes it in the end. He has managed to climb the strangely flat rock formations.

Wanderer supposes there’s some merit to Yoimiya’s book when it started talking about how the Raiden Shogun (he shivers with irrational anger at the thought) sliced the islands.

Wanderer carefully walks through the half-circle of raised land to the hollow in the middle that makes up the legendary furnace, watching his step to avoid what must be a long fall down.

Not that he’s too worried about falling. He’s supposedly not human, so a fall like that shouldn’t hurt much. It’s just the thought of finding a smooth path back up seems quite annoying. If there’s one thing about Inazuma Wanderer has learned, it's that the landforms often have rocks that jut out and make climbing up a pain.

He meanders around and stops often to look at various lavender melons growing in threes on scattered trees.

It’s only when Wanderer’s foot slips a little off the edge next to a precariously growing lavender tree that he sees the man.

A blond man with a strange hat (Wanderer has no right to talk about strange hats, what with how many stares he got in Inazuma City) and a dull red suit looks up at him.

The man looks up at him with worry in his eyes as he calls out to Wanderer.

“Hey! You know that you’re dangerously close to the Furnace right now right?”

Wanderer blinks at him, and then smiles when he realizes that his destination is close.

“Yes!” He calls down. “Do you need anything?”

“What don’t I need!” The man calls up. Wanderer is starting to feel a little silly, having a conversation with this man at the bottom of the rather short cliff he’s on right now. The strange hat shaped like an upside-down bowl is pressed against the man’s head as he cranes his neck even more to look at Wanderer.

“You need something?” Wanderer yells down.

“Get yourself safe first! I won’t be having a conversation with someone who looks about two seconds away from going splat on the floor right in front of me!”

Wanderer considers his options. On one hand, he could go down and have a nice conversation with the guy, hopefully get some directions to the Mikage Furnace, after all, this person is the first person he’s seen since he left those Kujou soldiers.

On the other hand, however, he’d have to climb back up after that talk. And he doesn’t want to climb again.

The guy seems to get impatient, and Wanderer decides he’ll tackle climbing back up when he gets to that part.

“Can you back up?” Wanderer calls down. The blondie gives him a quizzical look but still does as he is asked.

“Thank you!” Wanderer says, and then jumps down.

The guy screams and then rushes forward to catch Wanderer.

Thankfully, Wanderer’s only about ten meters from the ground, so he doesn’t crush the guy too much when he falls on top of him.

“Ohmyarchonsareyouokay?!” The person asks.

Wanderer frowns at him.

“I thought I told you to step back, not rush forward and get squashed.”

The other guy looks incredulous.

“Falling ten meters can lead to serious injuries.” Wanderer sheepishly looks away at that.

“Sorry. Forgot to tell you about me.” He mutters.

The other person sighs.

“Well, can you tell me your name and why you thought falling like that was perfectly fine to do?”

Wanderer is starting to feel like he’s being scolded.

“Er- My name is Wanderer, and Dr. Baizhu in Liyue told me that my body wasn't that of a normal mortal’s, so…”

The blond sighs. “So you thought jumping off a cliff to save time was a good idea.”

Wanderer nods.

“Well,” He looks over Wanderer, checking for injuries. “You seem fine.” He sighs. “I’m Xavier, an inventor from Fontaine.”

Wanderer thinks for a second. Fontaine… Where had he heard that before?

Oh right. “Like the place where the mechanical cat was from?” Wanderer asks.

Xavier gives him a confused look, before realization dawns on him.

“Oh right, those experimental clockwork toys that were all the rage a few months back.” Xavier shakes his head. “Anyways, you shouldn’t be here, non-mortal body or not.”

“Why’s that?” Wanderer asks. “And don’t hold back on the information.”

Xavier hesitates, as if debating to himself whether or not to tell Wanderer. Wanderer stands there patiently for Xavier to decide.

He seems to have made up his mind around the time Wanderer has gotten around to eating one of his lavender melons.

“Well, back during the Vision Hunt decree, there were a bunch of rebels trying to fight the Shogun about the decree. They called in a bunch of us from Fontaine to produce Jade Steel using the Tatarigami. Well, one day, the furnace went critical, and I had to create some sort of way to keep the Tatarigami from getting everywhere and so I created this giant containment bubble around the furnace, and then later on, the Traveler came by and helped lessen the amount of Tatarigami in the area so that it’s safer to be in, but safer as in not likely to die within ten minutes of getting in. It’s still very electro-charged today and I’m here to monitor the situation and notify the authorities if there’s any Fatui that’s trying to get in and grab any Tatarigami.”

Wanderer nods. He definitely caught all of that. Definitely.

He’s still going to go in though. He’s traveled too far to give up now.

“Thanks for the warning.” Wanderer says, and then begins on the path that would lead him to the furnace. Hopefully.

“What? Wait!” Xavier yells when he realizes what Wanderer is doing. “I literally just told you about the dangers of the furnace! Get back here!”

Wanderer smiles back at Xavier and tells him about his non-mortal aspects, verified by Doctor Baizhu.

Xavier looks absolutely torn and hesitant. Wanderer kinda feels bad for him.

“Still, make sure to use the electrogranum as protection from the electro!” Xavier yells as a reminder.

“Thank you!” Wanderer yells back.

…

He carefully follows the wooden bridges traveling up in spirals to meet with wooden houses balanced precariously on the edge.

There’s a few that look newer, but the majority of the houses with disconnected bridges look absolutely ancient.

Wanderer gently runs a hand down the splintering wood of one of the ancient looking houses. One of the larger ones - that is.

The electro had posed no problem while on his journey up, and other than a mild buzzing of his surroundings, Wanderer can almost forget about the electro clouding the area.

He steps inside the building.

There’s a small short table with multiple tall wooden structures that most closely resembles a bookcase holding various vases and other items of decoration.

There’s also a stain on the floor, only uncovered after Wanderer accidentally kicks up the carpet.

Now that Wanderer thinks about it, there’s these stains everywhere in the older houses.

He supposes that must’ve been the result of the one who tried to end the Raiden Gokaden. Wanderer gently covers the stain with the ancient carpet again and watches as the two-hundred year old piece falls apart.

Wanderer gently pulls out the book that Yoimiya gave him. It matches.

However, he feels as if something is not right. Something in him tells him that the event happened earlier. Something within him is rebelling at the thought that their destruction was only two-hundred years ago, instead of five-hundred.

After all, he would definitely know when he took misplaced revenge on-

Wanderer’s head suddenly spikes with pain as images flash through his rapidly.

He runs out of the room, sure that it was the surrounding that was causing this. He knocks over centuries-old vases and ancient bags in his haste, and only a little part of him mourns the destruction of so much ancient history.

He takes deep heaving breaths that a part of him knows he doesn’t need to try and calm the absolute fire running through his head and places a palm on a rusting anvil in a vain attempt to steady himself.

Then, a memory flashes through his head again, bringing with it more pain and overload of his mind.

He sees himself here, in this very spot. Laughing along with a brunette with a distinct red streak through his har as the other teaches him the correct way to forge blades.

Behind them both is the ringing of the others hard at work.

He’s here, at the heart of the Raiden Gokaden. The air is filled with a slight metallic smell, and the brunette gently corrects the Kabukimono’s stance before bringing his own hammer down with a sharp ring.

Kabukimono does what he does best in regards to the humans, and copies their motions.

His own practice sword lets out the exact same ring as Niwa’s, and Niwa rewards Kabukimono with a smile when Niwa sees his billet.

Kabukimono sets his hammer down next to the billet, and shifts the golden feather to a more secure place, less likely to get damaged.

Niwa opens his mouth to say something, when the memory blurs again, fading away back to the dark dilapidated anvil in front of him.

Wanderer tries to think about the memory he just witnessed. He needs it to continue. Wanderer’s entire being wishes he could’ve known what Niwas was about to say. If only he was in the same headspace as earlier for just a bit longer.

He looks up from where he is sitting (when did he start sitting down?) and tries to visualize the scene again, overlaying it on top of the already similar environment. After all, although the environment might have changed over so many years, he can’t mistake Niwa’s favorite anvil.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work. He tries again and again until his eyes fall on the anvil.

Too bad it’s rusted past repair now.

Wanderer closes his eyes in acceptance.

The scenery is just too different. And Niwa must’ve died for his favorite anvil to fall into such disrepair. After all, he used
this one because no one else wanted to participate in its upkeep. An already old anvil about to fall apart any day would just hinder work on blades requested by Inazuma’s military.

He reaches over and scrapes a little of the rust off the anvil, and places it in a fold of clothing closest to his heart.

Wanderer steps to the edge and looks out over the area.

Names do not pop into his head like he would’ve liked, but he supposes that also means that pain does not flash through along with the names.

In any case, Xavier must have put some sort of barrier around the furnace itself, a barrier that the traveler must not have gotten the time to remove yet, so it takes that part of his plan away.

Wanderer sighs. It seems this particular root of his has already withered away.

Time to move on now.

…

Wanderer heads south from the furnace and all of its inaccessible history.

He follows the thin line of beaches and water that pooled into the bay under the furnace.

Wanderer feels as if he is truly living up to his name now. Before, he was traveling to train his mind into revealing his past. Now, he’s simply walking for the sake of walking.

Wanderer gently touches the small rust-corroded bits of metal he has. An item to remember for the future.

He tilts his head upward at the tall rocks above, and spots a small glimpse of something tanner than the slightly-purple vegetation around.

Is there someone here? Wanderer wonders. After all, if Xavier was correct, then most people wouldn’t be safe here.

The tan hat bobs up and down as the person - presumably - bends down to pick something up.

Wanderer can’t help his curiosity, and carefully scales the cliff up to the other.

“Hey there.” He greets. “What are you doing here?”

“Ah! You scared me!” The- kid? Wanderer thinks as he looks down on a short boy around three-quarters of his height yells.

“Ah, sorry sorry.” Wanderer apologizes. “I was just passing by, and wanted to see the first person I’ve seen in a while.”

“Uh huh.” The kid crosses his arms and moves himself defensively in front of a bucket. Wanderer tilts his head to get a better look at the container that has a strange electro fog around it.

“You do realize that those rocks in your bucket there are giving off potentially harmful levels of electro, right?” He asks to make sure.

The kid frowns and turns his head away.

“I don’t care. I’m going to collect them.”

Wanderer looks at the kid again. Strangely enough, he almost seems to remind him of a more awake Qiqi. But the two probably couldn’t be more different.

Whatever the case, that makes leaving the kid to wander around an island currently known for its dangerous Tatarigami extremely difficult.

So Wanderer stays by the kid as he goes about searching for something. And if that means traveling north towards the electrified water then Wanderer decides it’s worth it, especially when he reaches out and grabs the back of the kid’s clothing right before he slipped and fell into said water.

“Thanks.” The kid grumbles. Wanderer hums out a quiet “you’re welcome” and continues acting as if he is simply a part of the surroundings.

Pretty soon the kid’s basket is almost full of those charged rocks.

“Wanderer.” Wanderer says, after an embarrassingly long time after meeting the kid to remember that he needs to introduce himself to the other. He would attribute it to the close distance to the furnace, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that the grass was green where he met the kid, and not the purple where it is right now.

“What?” The kid says half-heartedly, too focused on climbing up to reach the wayward crystal marrow a little ways up.

“My name. Wanderer.” Wanderer says. “What’s yours?”

The kid looks back at him, and then presses his hat further down on his head as a particularly strong gust of wind threatens to blow it off.

“Chouji. Zushi Chouji.” The kid - Chouji - says. Wanderer nods his head as thanks.

“Hmm. Say Chouji.” Wanderer starts, aiming for a conversational tone. “Where do you live?”

Chouji grabs the purple rock and begins climbing down.

“Yashiori Island, Higi Village.” Chouji grunts out as he lets go from the rock and drops about a couple feet from the floor, landing in a crouch.

“Yashiori Island? What are you doing on Kannazuka?” Wanderer wonders. He assumes it's for these strong rocks that Chouji insists on getting.

“Crystal marrow.” Chouji says as he places that rock into the basket along with the others. “I heard they grow mostly around areas with high electro or Tatarigami, but only on these two islands. So when Yashiori Island runs out I go to Kannazuka to grab those.”

Wanderer was right.

“Hey,” Chouji starts to say after a brief lull of silence. “I heard there’s another strong source of electro on this island.”

“Oh?” Wanderer asks.

“Yeah. It’s a domain, and from what I’ve heard, domains give off elemental energy.” Chouji says. Wanderer somehow does not believe that bit of information. He says as much.

“Well, domains also give lots of mora to willing adventurers, so I’mma go for the mora at least.” Chouji shrugs.

Wanderer does not think this is a good idea.

“Don’t tell me not to go.” Chouji glares for a second at Wanderer before his attention is grabbed by another crystal marrow, this one a little ways higher up than the usual ones. “Make sure nobody gets my crystal marrow while I get this one.” Chouji instructs Wanderer as he begins to climb.

Wanderer tilts his head up to keep watch on Chouji.

“Careful.” Wanderer warns softly as Chouji’s foot slips for a second before he finds another foothold. Wanderer holds out a hand and catches the few pebbles that slipped from Chouji’s misplaced foot.

Wanderer can’t see Chouji's face, but he can guess that he’s rolling his eyes at Wanderer. Wanderer supposes he can forgive this one, seeing as this kid is simply determined to get these crystal marrow, and probably has been doing this for a while at least.

“Got it!” Chouji yells out after a while, holding the rock high above his head. At this point Chouji’s figure is much smaller than it usually is, and Wanderer can feel a slight spike of anxiety for Chouji.

Wanderer stares as he doesn’t make any moves to go down.

“Alright!” Wanderer yells up. “Come down now!”

“Y-yes.” Chouji nods jerkily. Wanderer notices that Chouji’s hands, steady on the way up, have suddenly grown shaky, almost fearful.

“Don’t be scared!” Wanderer reminds him. “If you want I can climb up and grab you!”

“I’m not scared! And don’t come up here! You can’t climb with only three limbs! It’s just… it’s a little taller than what I’m used to.” Chouji says in a quiet voice, so quiet Wanderer has to strain his ears to hear.

“Don’t worry! I’ll catch you if you fall!” Wanderer reassures him. Evidently it was the wrong thing to say because immediately after, Chouji’s hand misses the handhold and he lets out a little shriek.

“Don’t speak it into existence!” Chouji yells nervously. “I don’t like falling in general!”

Wanderer has now put his full focus on Chouji’s descent, ignoring the basket of rocks. He holds out his hands in preparation if Chouji was to fall.

Above, Chouji’s right foot slips and he does some sort of vertical-running technique to keep himself in place while gripping on tightly to the handholds he has.

More pebbles rain down, bouncing softly off Wanderer’s wide-brimmed hat.

Chouji seems to have gotten hold of something, and is now too terrified to continue down.

“Come on Chouji! It’s only a few more meters!” Wanderer yells up encouragingly. (it really is much more than that, but he doesn’t want to scare the kid.)

“No it’s not! I’m going to slip and fall and die and then I’ll never be able to get the mora and find my mom and all my crystal marrow’s going to waste because no one knows I have them right now.

Wanderer ignores most of the sentence and focuses on the most pressing matters. Namely, Chouji’s current state of fear.

“You’re not going to slip and you’re not going to die.” Wanderer says soothingly. (He ignores the sharp spike in his head like he’s said those words before in favor of getting this boy on the ground safely).

Chouji screams in frustration and bravely takes another step downwards, the rest of his body following suit.

“That’s it.” Wanderer says. “Now keep going.”

A strong gust of wind blows Chouji’s hat off, and Chouji almost instinctively lets go of his right hand to catch the hat before it goes too far.

Chouji realizes his mistake suddenly, when the rock under his left hand, unused to bearing this much weight, crumbles under his fingers.

Wanderer jumps forward when he sees Chouji begin to fall.

He must tap into something distinctly un-human, because time slows down for everything, and he can see Chouji’s body falling down onto the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, he can hear the sound of Chouji’s screams all the way down until death, that body lying there on a bed of crystal marrow-

No, it’s not crystal marrow, it’s flower petals, how could Kunikuzushi forget the sight of the little fledgling lying there-

His third betrayal. His fledgling left him. The stupid story about a toy soldier was always fake-

Humans were all the same, the same treachery and betrayals-

Wanderer’s arms close around Chouji’s body protectively right before he hits the ground.

He lets out a little oomph as the kid slams into his arms.

Chouji keeps screaming for a second or two after Wanderer catches him and Chouji’s mind catches up to the past few seconds.

Chouji takes a few deep breaths to shake off the fear, and Wanderer looks up and notes the height wasn’t that great after all. Chouji definitely would’ve survived this fall had he been on his own. Oh well, at least Chouji was uninjured.

Was he?

Wanderer starts checking for any wounds from the way down, and only stops when Chouji’s hands bat him away.

“Ah. Thanks Wanderer.” Chouji says slightly shyly. “Although, you lied.”

“Hmm?” Wanderer questions.

“You said I wouldn’t slip and die.” Chouji crosses his arms.

“Well, then it was a half-lie.” Wanderer reasons. “You didn’t die.”

Chouji nods sharply. Wanderer can guess that Chouji’s still reeling from falling.

“Anyways.” Wanderer starts. “Mora?”

Chouji frowns at Wanderer.

“It’s rude to pry into other people’s business.”

Wanderer sets Chouji down on the ground and takes a few steps back.

“Hey, I was just checking if you still wanted to go to the domain.”

Chouji turns a suspicious eye on Wanderer.

“You were so against it earlier, what’s got you so excited for it now?” Chouji begins to grin mischievously. “Don’t tell me, my near-death-experience made you feel guilty? You want to explore with me so that I don’t get hurt?”

Wanderer shrugs. “No to the first. Yes to the second.”

Chouji shrugs. “Fair enough.”

…

Chouji, by some virtue of curiosity, has discovered the pebbles that Wanderer collected.

Wanderer feels that he would be seen as strange by the other if he straight up told Chouji that he kept his near-death rocks.

So he leaves Chouji guessing. Honestly, it isn’t even that hard to figure out. These rocks give off the same electro like everything else in the areas close to the Mikage Furnace. And there weren’t many small pebbles casually lying around, probably due to them disintegrating over time because of the electro.

Chouji, however, keeps claiming that these rocks originated from Chinju forest.

…

They make it to the domain eventually.

The last leg of the journey involved a few slight jumps down from taller rocks to get to the same level as the domain, so Wanderer always makes sure to jump first, and then catch Chouji if he slips.

The map was a little unspecific about the exact location of the domain - Chouji and Wanderer spend roughly twenty minutes searching the area above the domain before realizing that it might be under them.

Thankfully, they don’t need to search for that long again, because someone has conveniently blasted a hole out of the side of a mountain that leaves the domain open for easy access. The blue stone doors of this domain are strangely familiar to Wanderer, but he chalks it up to the image of a domain shown in Yoimiya’s book.

“Ready?” Wanderer asks Chouji.

Chouji nods, and then grips his basket of crystal marrow tighter.

Wanderer thinks that they should’ve brought supplies - namely food and water - but Chouji is stubborn enough to refuse any detours, and Wanderer has a few lavender melons still with him that Chouji could eat if he needs to.

The domain doors light up with some strange energy, opening slowly at first, then slamming wide open.

Wanderer raises a hand to block the wind that blows out of the domain, and sees Chouji doing the same.

Chouji nods at Wanderer, and they both take a step forward into the domain.

Once inside, Wanderer’s breath is a little taken away by the sheer amount of familiarity (and splitting headache) in this place. He raises a hand and brushes aside a few overgrown vines and cobwebs, and behind - right where he thought it would be - is a small, old, chest.

Chouji whoops with joy at the luck of finding a treasure chest this fast, and then runs over to open it.

Wanderer tilts his head over a little bit, keeping his guard up in this domain while Chouji picks through the items and stuffing most of the mora and items that would sell for high numbers into his basket alongside the crystal marrow.

Beyond that closed door, Wanderer thinks, or underneath us, is a couple nobushi.

The thought jumps out of mind, unbidden, and Wanderer, although he does not know how he knows, is one hundred-percent sure that there are enemies nearby.

“Wanderer!” Chouji says, a little loud. “Lets keep going! There’s sure to be more treasures inside!”

Wanderer stops to consider his fighting capabilities. Then he considers Chouji’s.

“Can you hold your own against nobushi?” He asks Chouji to make sure his hypothesis is correct.

Chouji frowns.

“If I get lucky, maybe.” He takes a few steps to the door to see if there is a way to peek inside. “Why? Are there any of them nearby?”

Wanderer nods.

“Oh.” Chouji says, a little dejected.

Wanderer mimes a few punches at an invisible enemy.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough either.” Wanderer admits. “How are we going to get all the treasure chests without direct combat?”

Chouji thinks for a second. “Could we sneak past them?”

Wanderer shrugs.

“Might as well give it a try. But make sure you know the way to the exit so if we need to, we can leave this domain quickly.”

Chouji agrees, and then steps back as Wanderer begins to open the door, flicking the latches this way and that as he unlocks the door.

“Woah.” Chouji looks up at Wanderer. “How’d you learn how to pick locks like that? It was like you already knew the way!”

Wanderer shrugs. Chouji continues. “Are you an Adventurer? But why do you think you can’t beat a few nobushi?”

Wanderer just shakes his head and motions for Chouji to be quiet as he pushes the door open slowly, so as to not alert the other inhabitants inside.

He sees the flash of a nobushi’s sword as the owner turns the corner behind a room divider. Quietly, he motions for Chouji to come out with him, and they quickly rush to the wall, behind another room divider.

Wanderer can now properly marvel at the intricate designs on these room dividers.

It shows a tall purple mountain with many many sakura petals floating around from the top towards the bottom.

He gently lifts a finger and touches the edge of the room divider, and it starts to crumble where he touched it, a sign of this domain’s antiquity.

Chouji peeks out from a small hole in thin paper-like material and spies on the nobushi passing by.

“Um” he whispers. “How are we going to see if there’s any chests here?”

Wanderer gives him a look that says be quiet and shifts over to a closed door that’s almost melting into the wall around it with how long it’s been unopened.

Chouji looks on in appreciation. At least, that’s what Wanderer thinks he’s doing. Chouji might well have been judging his choice of room to explore.

Wanderer just feels a strange feeling here, like how he did when looking at the Mikage Furnace.

Although he can’t get his hopes up yet. The Mikage Furnace was a complete disappointment.

Chouji reaches over and tries the doorknob.

It’s jammed completely.

Wanderer then reaches over to a little hollow in the dusty floor they are standing on, and produces an old, rusty knife.

Chouji makes grabby hands for it, so Wanderer lifts the rusty blade out of reach, where Chouji will not get infected by whatever gunk is on the knife.

He carefully scrapes a bit of the rust off the knife onto the doorframe, and then recognizes the metal.

It’s the same one the Raiden Gokaden worked with, down to the faint sense of Tatarigami imbued within to enhance strength and sharpness.

That just means that he knows just how to remove rust in the best manner, not that he remembers learning how to do so.

Whatever the case, the now-restored knife makes entering the room much easier, and Chouji even gives Wanderer a bit of praise for his expertise with the knife, although Wanderer privately thinks that the kid just wants to get his hands on something to sell.

Inside the room, is…

A bedroom.

That’s it. A simple bedroom is what’s behind the jammed door, undisturbed for centuries.

There’s a (his) bed there. Along with a desk with what appears to be writing practice done by an inexperienced hand.

Strangely enough, there’s only one word written on these pages, over and over.

Chouji starts searching for any hidden trinkets in the room immediately, leaving Wanderer to mull over his thoughts.

“Hey Wanderer, do you think this’ll fetch a lot of mora?” The boy asks, standing up from where he was previously crouched behind the dusty purple bed.

In his hands is-

A golden feather. A symbol of his connection to her.

Suddenly, like before, Wanderer’s head spikes with pain again.

He sees not Chouji, not the strange papers repeating one word over and over and over and over and over-

And not the woman he first saw when his eyes opened for the first time in his entire existence. That beautiful woman, with hair like flowing electro, collected into a thick braid at the back of her head and striking pale violet eyes, just a shade off from his own.

She’s gone. Left him here alone. He’s abandoned, left to live out the rest of his life in this confining domain, wondering each day when she’ll return, just because he shed tears in his sleep.

Especially because he shed tears in his sleep. After all, no puppet is supposed to have this much human emotion.

At least the pink fox isn’t here. If she was, the puppet has no doubts she will either laugh at him in that mocking voice, or try to use this right here to convince her to kill him.

The puppet gently places himself down onto his chair, and begins to practice writing. He writes his favorite word only, the word that makes up her name, and pretty soon, he has drawers full of pages covered in his favorite word.

The puppet pushes this current finished paper away. Writing her name has done nothing for him. She betrayed him.

He reaches over to shuffle the rest of the pages into a neat stack. Honestly, when had he let the organization get this bad? It’s almost like some ruffians came through and messed everything up.

The puppet flicks the dust off the top-most pages, and places his newest paper on top.

There’s a strange amount of dust on these pages.

Ah, that’s right. His name isn’t ‘the puppet’ anymore. He’s Wanderer, a name given to him by Tighnari of the Forest Rangers.

And he’s here right now, exploring a domain that obviously had ties to his past like how the Mikage Furnace did, if the memories shown to him are this strong.

He fully comes back to himself, and wonders what triggered this one.

Oh. It was the golden feather. Looking at it now, Wanderer sees little to no use and or functionality in it. It must’ve been important to him in the past, but it’s the future now, and he kinda doesn’t want to keep something that supposedly was a betrayal. (the word tastes strange on the tongue, like a strange lingering saccharine sweetness stuck in between his teeth.)

Chouji - thankfully - hadn’t noticed Wanderer’s trip down memory lane. The kid’s still busy turning Wanderer’s old room inside out.

Wanderer himself crouches down and flattens himself flush against the floor to peek under the bed. He sticks an arm under, and fishes around for a small box. If memory serves, this box held all the purple gems in the entire domain.

He’s a little unsure why past-him thought it was a good idea to put all the purple gems together, but he supposes past-him was both missing her and feeling a little mad at her, hence, the purple gem box.

Memory does serve him well, and he pulls out the box, and hands it to Chouji to pick at and pry open.

The kid will make better use of the gems than Wanderer anyways. It’s not like he did anything with them for however many years they were stuck under his bed.

“Hey, can you give me the knife?” Chouji asks sweetly, his hands slightly lifting the box to suggest that he will only use the knife on the box.

Wanderer slides the knife over to the kid. Probably best to let the kid have the knife as well. He has enough souvenirs of his second betrayal. (again, that word feels strange.)

He’s drawn out of his head when Chouji begins to ooh and aah at the box of precious gems, amethyst lumps carved in intricate shapes, electro crystals that spark when you get too close, and the odd purple sapphire shaped like a tomoe.

Wanderer smiles at the kid who’s now dutifully pocketing everything he can carry and placing the rest under layers of crystal marrow.

Then, he is instantly alert. A small crunch is heard from beyond that door, and Wanderer knows that some nobushi’s found their previous hiding place, and correctly deduced that there are other people along with them.

“Chouji” He hisses out. “Get over here. The nobushi know we’re here. We gotta go now.”

Chouji, for the most part, looks like his want for mora has been satisfied enough today, and agrees quickly.

Wanderer gently pushes the door open again, and this time, instead of simply seeing the tail end of a nobushi, he comes face to face with a nobushi who was about to open the door and enter.

They stare at each other for a few seconds, both minds trying to catch up.

Wanderer breaks out of his shock quicker than the other, and elbows the nobushi in the face and knees the other in the stomach to get him down temporarily, and then grabs both Chouji and his crystal marrow bucket and runs for it.

The nobushi - predictably - recovers fast, and chases them down fast. But Wanderer’s not human like the nobushi, and can’t get tired like the nobushi, not even while carrying both a kid and a basket of rocks.

He makes it out of the domain before the other nobushi catches up with him.

Wanderer sets Chouji down again (he seems to be doing that a lot) and pats over Chouji and checks for injuries, again.

“Are you okay?” He asks “The nobushi didn’t try to grab you or anything?”

“Nope.” Chouji says.

“Good.” Wanderer relaxes. The entire day had been quite harrowing, so seeing Chouji unharmed is a relief.

Chouji nods.

“I think I have enough potential mora in this basket to get a ride to Snezhnaya now.” Chouji pats the topmost crystal marrow like how Niwa would pat his finished creations.

Wanderer suddenly has to swallow down a bit of anger and sadness.

“Do you want me to come see you off when you set for Snezhnaya?” Wanderer offers. Suddenly, he can’t bear the thought of leaving this kid alone.

Chouji thinks about it for a second, and then shakes his head. “Nah. I gotta have no ties to Inazuma when I leave, youknow?Otherwise I won’t be able to focus on finding my mom.”

Wanderer can get the sentiment.

“Well then, I guess this is goodbye little kid.” Wanderer says, and then puts a few lavender melons onto Chouji’s already full basket. “For the road.” He smiles.

“By then.” Chouji says, and then starts off on the road back to Yashiori Island.

…

Now it’s just Wanderer here by himself again.

He sits on the shore at the south of Kannazuka Island.

Wanderer raises his eyes to that purple island in the distance, over a large body of water. It’s calling him, in a way. But will it lead to the third betrayal he got a quick glimpse of when Chouji was falling?

Wanderer supposes he simply has to travel back to the Kujou encampment to grab the waverider to make this journey.

He checks his map. It looks like Seirai Island is the strange purple one.

With luck, he’ll find (hopefully positive, but given the recent string of information, most likely negative) information on the ‘third betrayal’.

Chapter Text

Wanderer gently points the nose of the Waverider to the purple island out the south, and then wedges a wad of cloth onto the ‘forward’ button to keep the Waverider going forward without any input from Wanderer.

He leans forward and - careful to avoid any of the buttons - rests his head on the board.

The past day (had it only been a single day? It felt like much more than that.) had been way too overwhelming for his brain.

Wanderer hasn’t even gotten to fully process the apparent destruction of his Tatarasuna (or, at least, as ‘his’ as it could get with about two memories.) before Chouji came crashing in for an eventful few hours.

It wasn’t Chouji’s fault that Wanderer just so happened to be reminded of some apparently painful memory, Wanderer reasons. It was just bad luck and instinctive motions leading to that golden feather in the purple room.

Oh well. At least Chouji can go on his own journey now.

Wanderer lifts his head up, realigns the Waverider to the direct middle of the island to rid any chance of overshooting, tilts his head back and zones out. 

His eyelids relax halfway till the ceiling inside the Waverider becomes a blurry warm tan screen, waving in and out as the electro behind his eyes shimmer and spark.

Then, the great tan screen slides over to one side. It now makes up a part of Kabukimono’s favorite sliding door in Niwa’s home as he lazily pushes it back and forth. Kabukimono eventually stops it when it is closed and stares at the subtle yet intricate designs.

Actually, why did he have a favorite sliding door? The Kabukimono wonders. After all, all it does is serve its purpose.

Niwa’s voice drifted over from the other side of the door, along with the voices of Nagamasa and Katsuragi as they returned from their daily work together. 

Ah that’s right. His favorite sliding door was the only barrier between him and the people dear to him at the end of every day.

Kabukimono looks out at the three of them as they come back from whatever it was they did during the day. 

Today, he’s started work on another billet. Hopefully, one day he’ll be able to create those beautiful masterpieces like Niwa does. 

One day, Kabukimono thinks. 

But now, he’s content to sit and hear them approach.
After all, it’s only the end of one day.

…

Wanderer eases the Waverider to a stop near the shore of a great purple land. 

It reminds him of Tatarasuna, in a way. 

Must be the electro infused into the air.

Wanderer looks up and sees the great dark swirling storm clouds, and knows that the air up there must be a thousand times stronger than down here.

Not that he wants to see how it feels up there. Wanderer’s not too sure how he would even get up there. One of those Mondstadt wind gliders and an extremely tall height, maybe?

Wanderer shakes these thoughts out of his head. 

He’s on a mission.

But, the mission’s appeal is growing dimmer by the second. After all, he knows what happened to this one. The little one.

Still, Wanderer thinks. It's best to remember.

Even if all it might bring is the same loss as it did earlier.

He bends down to pluck a small plant from the ground, it’s pointed tip causing his ankle to itch annoyingly.

It’s a small, purple Naku weed. 

Just like the one that the merchant in the Grand Bazaar offered to him.

Just like the ones he plucked almost on instinct while walking to Tatarasuna.

Wanderer pulls out one of the dried plants from his pocket, and compares the two.

The ones growing here seem stronger, like everything else on this island.

Everything, except for the people.

It’s not like this island is the only one with a sparse population. 

It’s just this island, though, that has such a strong presence of electro. Electro that boosts all the dendro in the region, but not the humans.

Not with the way Koseki Village has been telling him.

Wanderer stumbled upon the small cluster of old wooden houses and cracked stone walls a short walk from where he stopped the waverider. 

And although there’s no people living here, by now, Wanderer has felt enough of the Tatarigami to know exactly what’s staying here.

It seems like everyone left, due to a situation happening a whole island away. 

Wanderer wonders how something this large of a magnitude could happen.

He sighs, and then begins making his way forwards, at a random direction.

Perhaps it’s best to live up to his name now, and truly wander.

…

The small house looks like a tiny garden, from a distance.

After all, most gardens have a small wooden fence surrounding a few plants to keep out the animals that want to take a bite.

That’s what he observed from Gandharva Ville.

Except the gardens didn’t have this high of a wall. Actually, Wanderer’s not too sure if there was a wall around the plants at all. It doesn’t really seem to be something that the Forest Rangers would bother with.

Also this garden had only two sweet berry bushes growing inside. 

Wanderer does note the rectangular shape connected to this one.

Suddenly, it looks a lot like a house. A house that was destroyed, somehow.

He goes forwards and steps inside the room.

Another vision. This time he’s half expecting it, so it doesn’t catch him unawares.

It’s of the fledgling one he saw earlier, with Chouji.

This time, the vague forms slot neatly inside the confines of the house. This time, the pain’s dulled to a throb behind his eyes, but this time, the sight is clearer.

His fledgling.

And the little toy puppet in the cold hands.

There’s nothing here for Wanderer. Hasn’t been for a while.

He should’ve known. The glimpses Wanderer saw with Chouji should’ve been enough of a warning on its own. The state of Tatarasuna should've told him what his familiarity led to.

Wanderer gently reaches over to the sweet berries, six of them, fully ripe, almost as if they were waiting for him to take.

The first one he picks off the branch, he eats. The yellow fruit tastes mockingly good, the cloying sweetness usually found in these berries nowhere to be seen.

The second, third and fourth ones, Wanderer places roughly where his fledgling laid.

The fifth and sixth - Wanderer keeps. 

They go with the scrap of rust metal near his heart. Safe, as he decides to make his way back. Back to where it started. Back to Sumeru.

…

The Waverider is still there.

Wanderer thought for sure some other vision holder must’ve needed it and summoned it sometime during his Inazuma journey.

But then again, maybe a new Waverider gets summoned every time a vision holder needs it.

Wanderer places a hand on his chest, and feels the bumps of his little momentos. After, he climbs into the Waverider and turns it somewhat towards the direction of Sumeru.

He thought for sure he wouldn’t ever see those he befriended near Sumeru City again.

Looks like they’ll meet again soon.

…

Wanderer ignores the bustling port he comes across.

Although he knows that it’s probably best to stop and rest here for a while, Wanderer also knows that he does not need it.

And he’s starting to realize that he has a bit of a one track mind, so he continues up the river, even getting out of the Waverider at random moments to lug the boat over the shallow water until the water was deep enough to float.

Wanderer’s fought a few spinocrocodiles along the way as well, using the Waverider’s cannon-like function.

All that ends up with Wanderer arriving back to Sumeru City.

It hasn’t been so long since he left that everyone moved around, right? He thinks, when there’s no familiar faces.

Wanderer walks around the outskirts of the city for a while.

Everyone he’s left here probably left by now.

Everyone he’s left to find has already left.

Somehow, Wanderer can’t seem to stop focusing on the sights he saw in Inazuma. At least, he can’t stop thinking about it long enough to notice the rain starting to fall, all the way until a bolt of lightning threatens to strike near him.

Wanderer holds a hand out, and watches the water gather. His body, a creation with pure electro running through, seems to have no reaction whatsoever to the hydro.

“Hey you! Do you need somewhere to dry off?!” A voice yells.

Wanderer looks up, and sees the face of the man who brought Inazuman goods to the Grand Bazaar to sell. In the downpour, it’s hard to tell, but it looks to be the same man, in front of some crates, who’s now gesturing wildly at Wanderer under a stretch of wood keeping him dry.

He doesn’t have any of them now, Wanderer notices. And then he realizes what the man is asking of him.

“Um-”

“Just come over here before you catch a cold!”

Wanderer nods, and then goes over. 

The merchant holds out a towel for Wanderer to pat himself dry, except Wanderer holds it near his chest, trying to secretly dry off the pieces most dear to him.

“Hey, you’re that Inazuman who didn’t buy anything from Inazuma a few weeks ago, is that right?” The man asks.

Wanderer raises an eyebrow at him.

“Well- you’re pretty obviously Inazuman, and most Inazumans in Sumeru try to buy anything from Inazuma that they can, you know? It’s not like I was angry or anything that you didn’t buy anything and just left.” The merchant sputters a bit. Honestly, Wanderer doesn’t know why that reaction came out. He was just silently questioning how this person’s memory was that good.

“Well,” Wanderer starts, “do you have anything from Inazuma I could possibly buy?” Hopefully, he can pay a bit more to this person in exchange for offering him shelter from the rain.

“Haha, you’re a little late for that.” The merchant laughs, and then rightens a crate that Wanderer didn’t realize needed rightening. “Sorry, but all the Inazuma specialties sold out pretty quick.”

“Well, would you like some mora?” Wanderer asks, a little slowly.

“What? Is this for helping you just now?” At Wanderer’s now, the merchant laughs and then tells him that there’s no need for it.

That didn’t seem right. Wanderer needed a chance to properly thank the man for helping him.

So he decides to help the man in return.

By helping the merchant move his crates down to the Grand Bazaar to set up shop.

Every time Wanderer copies the man’s movements and lifts the crates to bring down, he gets a bit of a strange look. But eventually, he must out-stubborn the merchant, because Wanderer’s help is now accepted.

…

It’s been a few days since that day in the rain.

Wanderer’s still here helping the man sell his wares. 

But at that moment, there’s a floating white fairy talking to a golden-haired traveler.

“Huh. The Balladeer… Is that a food too? Huh, weird name.”