Chapter Text
There's a lingering pain in the puppet's chest, humming in his bones. There's a wetness on his face, ever cold and damning as the tears fall. He knows this. Remembers this: The click of his creator's shoes on the pine floorboards. The soft robes on his skin. The smell of ozone.
She's leaving again. Again and again and again. Always.
A blur of purples and violets that have haunted his every moment. This moment. He reaches for her, new and naive. His chest aches for something, not the gnosis - not yet - it had felt so wrong beneath his skin, yet watching her go is worse. He never reaches far enough.
The electro archon leaves, and her form blurs from his tears. She's the electro gnosis now, just inches away. He can catch it! He can keep it! He has to.
Something is ripping through his skin - his back. One of the doctor's many tethers of Shouki no Kami, locking him in a prison of his design. Blood spills from the ports, leaking red ichor - not divine, but never human. He's so close.
But he does not reach his creator. He does not catch the gnosis. He falls and snaps his neck on the Academia's marble masonry.
He falls to his knees, white robes holding him closer than anyone ever will. The tears flow so freely, but he does not know what they mean. He does not know how to control them yet. All he knows is the pain of the power that his creator had handed him. All he knows is that one moment the creator had hope for him, and the next she was leaving.
Further and further and further -
And he's so cold. But he cannot feel it. He cannot be hungry or thirsty or sleeping or wanting. But he is. He wants. He wants it so badly and so completely he can't escape it. But he can't attain it either.
And she is gone.
Except there's a hand on his shoulder. It tingles and makes the small hairs on his arm stand on end. It's... warm. He looks up and the Academia's walls vanish as does the metallic corpse of Shouki no Kami. There is no gnosis. No broken neck. This is eons before any of that except... it isn't.
Because his mother never came back.
But she's here now. A hand on his shoulder and a strange look in her ever-stern gaze. He knows this place - these halls that witnessed his cursed birth (creation? Does he have a right to call it a birth?).
"I know you," she murmurs, studying him. The hand on his shoulder pulls away to rub his white fabric between two fingers as if that will give her clues into who wears it. "Why do I know you?"
All he can do is stare at her, eyes drying in disbelief as she kneels there, before him. She's staring at him, expectantly - she wants an answer.
It's almost too much. He bursts out laughing and the tears begin to flow again, damn it all. Damn it all. It startles her, somehow, and she pulls away as if he burns. Maybe he does - he's imagined killing her more times than he can say. Surely that hate seeps off of him and sends its own warning.
"Know me!?" He curls in on himself, head on his knees as he laughs and sobs. "Why the fuck would you know me?"
She doesn't. Never will, now. This is some pitiful dream or perhaps a punishment from the Dendro archon for his transgressions against Irminsul and the nation of Sumeru. It has to be. Here he is, fresh as a fawn donned in the purity and sanctity he was disowned from. He never wanted to be here again.
"I do..." Ei murmurs and it's a contemplative hum. Her composure feeds the growing hopelessness in the back of his throat, the rage bubbling up in his throat. "I know... this place."
He'll give it to whoever's fucking with him - the mimicry is good: Guttingly casual and poised just as he remembered, what little he remembered. He sits up slowly and tries to compose himself. It's all too much and yet never enough. Always too much mortal, but never enough god.
Ei is standing, surveying the room slowly and he wonders how his memory replicated the domain so perfectly. It's awful. She takes small steps, never straying too far from his pathetic position as she takes it all in. She must see something familiar in the walls - the cold air of his birth. His stomach twists as she glances back at him.
He's beginning to think whatever's climbing up his throat isn't rage.
He hates that he's enraptured with his damnation, locked onto the softness of her touch as she caresses the walls. The grace in her gait and calm in her eyes. She looks back at him with an expression he cannot read - will never be able to read. There's a frown, and her brows are knitted together, but those eyes are...
He throws up.
He's on his hands and knees, holding his stomach and wanting to wail through the pain in his empty chest. He does not wail. He knows better.
"Well someone's going to have to clean that up." Il Dottore. His usual apathy scathes from memory as the pine boards turn to Snezhnian stonework. He's trying not to cry. He will not cry -
Shapes and colors blur around him. Dottore's lab. Tataratsuna. A beach. A house. A room. The lab again. A table. The sea. Blood. A fire. A tree. The chamber in Shouki no Kami. Close and cold but safe -
He's holding onto a moth-eaten mattress, fingers clawing at its softness. He's still kneeling, sobbing into its side. There's a corpse there to greet him, another promise broken. Young and familiar and gone. There's a doll clenched in his other hand and he's trying to hide his wails in the sheets his last tie to humanity had died in.
Such a little smile and a happy laugh. A little hand in his - a fledgling trusting him as he spread his wings. The little bird never cared that the puppet had no heart to beat. Powerless before his mortality.
The little broken puppet screams and clenches the doll between his fingers, wishing, for a moment, that it could suffer. That something would suffer. That it all would suffer -
She's behind him... somehow. Lingering. He senses her - feels her. She's a storm on the horizon rumbling through the air and he hates that the sound used to soothe him. His chest burns with betrayal and pain because she was never there. Not for this. Not ever.
"You are... mine," she murmurs and it's realization that haunts her tone. Not possession or smug taunting. It's... regret. He despises it.
"I was never yours," he's standing, shaking the damned doll as he whirls around. "Your failure, maybe! Your curse! Never yours!"
Her eyes meet his and the electricity between them sears into his brain. She sees him at his worst - always at his worst, tears streaming down his face and weakness bleeding from him like the sins of humanity. For once in his life he wants her to look away!
He throws the doll at her form and it slams against the wall because she was never there. She was never there. Now there are two limp dolls on the floor, one who can't cry, and one who wasn't supposed to.
His chest hurts. It hurts so much. Not the usual ache or tingle - it screams. Him with it. It's all ablaze and he won't burn with it. He knows. He tried. The doll sits a few feet away and he almost wants to reach out for it again. Foolish puppet, always reaching for what he can't have.
There's a great Sakura tree burning, somewhere. The petals drift past him, sparking into embers as he reaches up and touches his chest.
There's a hole there. He feels sick again.
Kabukimono
A monster. An abomination. A hand in his chest, grabbing hold of something and pulling. A withered, pathetic faux heart laid bare on the ground for all to see. He reaches into the empty space in his chest, blood seeping past his fingers. But he touches no organic matter past the surface layer. Nothing natural. Nothing divine.
He grabs at the edge of that space and tries to catch his breath. He sits up and realizes the world has split in two. Tataratsuma is burning, but so is something else. A city. A nation...
His hand pulls at the edge of his chest cavity, and as he looks up he sees her again. Ei. She's kneeling, as he is, and there's someone in her arms. It's herself? No...
Sister. His mind supplies. Makoto. Ei is cradling the corpse of the old electro archon - she's crying.
Everything comes to a grating halt. The fires freeze as do the falling sakura petals. All the puppet can do is stare as his mother sobs and screams, pulling a corpse closer and begging. Begging. He can only watch, pulling mindlessly at the hole in his chest as if trying to rip himself apart. Maybe he is -
She looks up, eyes puffy and her face stained with tears. She's surveying a battlefield... and then she's looking at him. Surprise flutters across her face, then something... older. She knows him. Her gaze flicks from his eyes to his chest, and then back at him again.
They're both sitting in ashes, with empty chests to match.
Kunikuzushi
"I..." Ei begins. "I remember."
They stare at each other for a long time - an eternity, perhaps. She sees him, all of him, and it's all he's ever wanted but he hates it. He hates her. He wants to hate her, so, so badly. But she's staring at him and there is regret in her eyes he almost can't bear to watch.
So he doesn't. He reaches for the doll strewn before him, taking it softly from the ash and pulling it into his chest. It won't fit in the hole there, but he wishes it could. He closes his eyes and the flame's heat begins to melt away.
"You endured so much without me," Ei's voice echoes in his head.
As if she knew half of it. As if this isn't some elaborate punishment. As if any of this is real -
The pain feels real. Real enough. He screams and thrashes under restraints on instinct. The metallic table is cold on his bare skin and someone is carving into his back. Ichor trickles onto stone and the wretched smell of sterilized steel invades the senses. There's a hand on the back of his neck.
"I thought you wanted this?" the Doctor laughs in his usual tone. Saccharine sweet, but venomous in every sense.
Balladeer
The harbinger releases his neck, the warmth of those fingers lingering for too long as the harbinger gets back to business. It takes everything in the puppet to lay there, back exposed to whatever evils were required to reach his goal. It's a process, always is.
He should be used to pain.
He breathes, low and slow, trying not to squirm when dear Il Dottore finds something new to sculp. It's cold. He can't feel it. It hurts. He can take it. He's going to be a god someday. It's worth it.
The colors blur again and it all becomes too much. It's a different day, a different procedure and he's... weak.
Dottore knows better than to stop - never would. The prototype chamber for Shouki no Kami was never meant to be comfortable. The restraints didn't make it into the final product, they're there for testing purposes. Scaramouche puts their precious tensile strength to the test.
It's a... disembodied experience at first. He knows this chamber. Remembers this procedure, or at least others like it. He remembers screaming for it to stop until he was hoarse. It never did. He'd just been weak. Always too weak, but unlike his predecessor, Il Dottore was not in the habit of discarding puppets, at least, not until he'd fully utilized their potential.
It is suddenly not a disembodied experience.
His gut twists as an electrical charge shoots from line to bone. The connections he's plugged into are hardwired into him, designed for him! This is meant for him! But it's agony - fire that burns him inside out, tailored to his every move and thought. It passes so slowly, and when it stops he can't think. He dry heaves with all the disgust and helplessness pent within him, his screams echoing in his ears as he falls limp. The lines keep him upright in the chamber and those traitorous tears slip down his cheeks.
He gasps for air, a plea on his lips that he'll never say. He's sinned enough already with these useless feelings - he will not beg.
"Promising," Il Dottore hums, drifting past the scene and reaching for a new control panel. His attention's fixated on a notepad in his hands and not on the subject suspended before him. "What else do you have in store, Balladeer?"
All pride falls to the wayside as fear of pain invades all else. Such a human quality...
"No - No!" he tries to scream, desperate. So pathetically desperate. He tries to beg, and he knows it's useless. It's another futile attempt that shows his stupidity. Another lever's flipped. Another button's pressed. Another line digs deeper beneath his skin, flooding his brainstem with sensations and pain. Dottore probably says something - always did. Always will. He can never shut up, it seems. All the puppet can do is take it, grinding his teeth and blinking through the oldest betrayal he's ever suffered. More tears.
The doctor takes a break. To review calculations or something equally apathetic. The Wanderer hangs there. The line plugged into the back of his neck is the most uncomfortable, and he's too weak to hold up his head, so it sags with the rest of him as he tries to slow his breathing.
It all hurts. It will always hurt. He asked for this. He wants this.
So why is he crying!? Why is he dreaming of a house with an overgrown lawn and the smell of a blacksmith's forge? Why is happy to see her!?
She appears like a flash of lightning this time, fierce and vengeful. He never did see this side of her, the side that killed Signora or carved through her opponents. Will she do it again? Kill him before he can grow into something dangerous - do what she should've done instead of throwing him to the wolves.
He can hope.
Her hands are worse than the pain. Worse than the endless hours in the lab and the helplessness. The loss and the fire.
They're kind.
They pull his head up and cradle it, wiping his tears away with her thumbs. And he's so... so weak. He hardly sees the look in her eyes before he's sobbing again. It's quiet, muffled. He'd rather die than let anyone see him like this - the Doctor's taken everything from him but he'll keep the shreds of his pride. Or he'll try. This lab will take that from him too... eventually. But he can pretend, right?
He looks down and strains against the restraints again, knowing full well it's useless. He'll never be free. Never. Not from his origins, not from this, not from her -
She doesn't know what to do, that much is apparent. She watches him break down and hesitates. Such a fierce perfect god, and she doesn't know what to do in the wake of his pathetic nature. She keeps cradling his face and for a moment, he'll take it. Even if it's from her.
He can close his eyes and pretend he's anywhere else. He can pretend he's someone else. That the hands holding him never let go and that he deserved them. That he was loved and valued and useful and worth something -
"I am so sorry..."
It's Ei and her words cut worse than a knife. He wants to seethe against those words. Wants to scream, but he's too hoarse to manage anything other than a croak. He wants to wrap his hands around her neck and strangle her in an inferno. He wants to shatter her precious eternity and raize Inazuma to the ground. How dare she - NOW of all times.
He thrashes, ripping out of her hold and hissing as the touch begins to burn. The door to the Doctor's office opens at the sounds of his struggles.
"Eager to continue? Well, I appreciate your spirit," Il Dottore chuckles as he waltzes in. He doesn't see her.
And Scaramouche? He holds his head high on his own accord and gathers all the courage he can, voice trembling like the rest of him.
"Fuck. You."
Ei's expression twists into something hurt, and it doesn't feel like a victory.
The Doctor laughs, thinking the insult's for him. Maybe at one point, it was: "May they never call you complacent, Six."
The marionette stays suspended in the prison of his making, eyes burning as he stares her down. The archon stands there, something profoundly human in her gaze as she folds her hands together. The warmth from her hands begins to fade and he closes his eyes again. He never wants to see her again. He wishes she never let go...
A lever is pulled and it begins all over again. Over and over and over. The pain, the screams, the alignment of motors to senses. He doesn't see her anymore, but he swears there's a rumbling of thunder accompanying his every wail. He swears he can smell home. He wants to hate it. He can't.
He squeezes his eyes shut as the world spins and wonders when it'll all be over. Will it ever be over? Can something born with strings ever be free? Why couldn't Irminsul just work? Why couldn't it erase him?
Why couldn't he just die!?
He's falling again, gnosis out of reach - he's pushed it away this time. The warmth lingers on his face and he hates how he misses it. Hates how he clutches his chest and is almost comforted by the emptiness there. The air rockets past him as he plummets closer and closer to the ground. All he can wish for is that this time, it's too much damage to recover from.
It's not. His mother is an excellent craftsman.
The snap of bones is a familiar sound. Haunting, but familiar. He lays there, the floor is cold but painless. His breaths are light and strained, none of his limbs reacting to his beckoning. Shouki no Kami falls apart around him, and the helplessness is almost freeing.
Scaramouche
He is not crushed. Not this time. That's not right. None of this is right. She wasn't there. She was never there. She is now.
He's lying in her lap, donned in white. She's braiding his hair as if the world isn't falling apart around them. Maybe it isn't for her. Every time he blinks it's a different scene. He's Scaramouche. Then he's nameless. His neck is broken. Except it's not. He's reaching for the gnosis, Ei takes his hand instead.
Her hands are gentle... so gentle. It hurts how kind a war god's hands can be. His eyes are watering again, maybe they never stopped. He lays, head on her lap, the rest of him useless and battered. It's so calm...
He misses this. Except...
Something falls on his face, something wet... something divine. He looks up and finds his mother haloed by a sakura tree. She's crying. They're slow tears... pained tears. She seems startled by their appearance and begins to wipe them away.
It's so peaceful, wherever they are. It's so familiar... and yet...
"This didn't happen," the Wanderer rasps, turning his head and looking out over the city bathed in the setting sun's gold.
"...No," his mother murmurs. "It didn't."
She stops braiding his hair, but she does not let go. They sit there for a moment and it's so quiet...
Quiet enough he voices the one question that's always haunted him: "Why?"
Somehow, she knows what he means: "I do not think anything can excuse it... but I thought... I thought you would be happier away from my... designs."
He can't help it, he laughs and it's a hateful sound.
"Happier," he rues.
"I... did not think something like you would be suited for the life I was preparing to live."
He sits up at that, grinding his teeth as the hate returns. The moment he's away from her warmth, however, the emptiness takes root: "Something like me?"
His voice breaks, another sign of his frailty. Another sign that she was right to leave him. He never would've made it as hers...
Ei's hand lands on his shoulder like a sparrow, light and unsure: "Someone like... her."
That does make him turn. She's still crying, but even her tears fall gracefully, perfectly framing her face and taking their time as they trickle down. His spill over like a crashing tide and no matter how he tries to wipe them away all they do is stain him.
It's frustrating and he can't help the desperate whine as he can't stop crying. At least until his mother catches one of his hands. It's a weak hold, he could break out if he needed to, but as she reached forward and cups his face again he finds he doesn't want to. He melts and he hates it - how easily he falls apart.
"You're so much like Makoto," Ei breathes.
"Then why - why couldn't you just keep me?"
It's desperate - it's all he has.
"I'm sorry."
"Even if I was a disappointment. Even if you were going to be cruel. Even - even - why couldn't you just kill me then!?
"I was... unable to do so."
"Why!?"
She brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes and... and that isn't fair. The answer in her eyes isn't fucking fair!
"That doesn't - that - you can't just -"
She nods: "You are correct. It doesn't change anything. You have every right to hate me..." their eyes meet again and... he can't. He can't muster up that anger or disgust. He can't find anything in his chest other than pain.
So he gives in and leans forward into her arms, because if this is a dream he can at least indulge in this. He can play along. Gods know he's just a pathetic child playing pretend. He sobs into her shoulder and, slowly, she embraces him.
"I... want to," he hisses. "I... I just can't."
He used to dream that she was watching out for him. That every thunderstorm was a sign that somewhere, she remembered him - that she'd come back for him. He used to dream of finding her, after joining the Fatui, showing her how well her failed puppet had done despite her. He used to dream that one day she'd see him and...
"I am... so sorry," Ei's voice echoes through his mind again and the illusion shatters in his chest.
This is just another dream. Another useless hope from a broken child. He leaves the embrace and takes a long breath as he sits.
"No... you're not."
"I -"
"You aren't real," he manages, disgust and self-loathing flooding every sense. "I'm dreaming."
She kneels before him, so poised despite his disheveled self. Slowly, her hands trace his arms, his face, and then his hair, as if she's taking in every detail she can.
"I believe we both are," she explains softly. "But you will wake up... and so shall I. Both of us, very real."
He snorts out another broken laugh and shakes his head. "It was nice... I guess, Buer. Next time just give me nightmares. Though... This is brilliantly cruel, didn't think you had it in you..."
"You are with Buer, then?"
He ignores her because she isn't real - and never was. But... it was still... it was nice to pretend. He's going to wake up now, whether that Dendro Archon wants him to or not. He's had enough of this punishment. If that little god wants to make him hurt, she can do it just like everyone else does: upfront and remorseless. He stands.
The world begins to blur, but Ei does not. His Mother does not. She stands with him, studying him with a care his real mother could never possess.
"I will send for you."
"How kind," he sneers. "So that even this figment of you can let me down? No. For what it was worth... Mother... this fantasy was... nice."
She takes one of his hands with a fierceness that startles him: "I will find you. I cannot make this right, but you are owed that much."
He stares at her hands and smirks, eyes watering again: "If only..."
"Please... what's your name? So I can find you."
And that's the cruelest joke of all. He rips out of her grip and stumbles away: "Don't you remember!?"
She's fading away, eyes aching with a faux emotion.
He smiles because this is the only vengeance he'll ever get: fake victories and fabricated comforts. "You never gave me one, Beelzebul. Every name I was given ended as a curse. And now... I have none. I am... No one. Forgotten. Just like you wanted."
She never has a chance to respond. He finally stops crying.
━━ ◦: ✧⚡︎ ✧ :◦━━━━
He wakes up in a medical bay with the Dendro archon greeting him. She explains complications with Irminsul and fabricates all she needs to. She claims she had no control over his dreams. She lies, as all did before her. He takes it. It's all he seems to know how to do. Days stretch into weeks and it's not... entirely unpleasant.
Nahida, as she asks to be called, is not... Unfair. She's kind. Kinder than he expected and while he waits in his prison for her to leave, for her to give up on him, to abandon him to an empty room and the silence... She never does. She's still a liar, but he can stomach that.
Weeks turn into months and he's... learning. Slowly. It's all strange but promising. For the first time in a long time, he finds a sense of belonging, now he only has to hope it doesn't all get ripped away from him again.
He's... trying.
But he's not the only one, though she doesn't find him for a few months more. He feels her before he sees her. Senses a storm on the horizon and feels something rumble in his chest. He doesn't believe it. Refuses to believe it. But then Nahida summons him from his room. She sits him down. Explains the visitors just upstairs.
She tells him he doesn't have to see her if he doesn't want to.
He hardly hears the last part. He's running up the stairs in disbelief and fear. If this is a joke or a lie or a trick -
He throws the doors open, fresh air blasting from his vision as he makes an entrance. And it's not all a lie.
Her gaze is a bolt of lightning that strikes him down and nearly makes his knees tremble. Because there, in the grand visitor entrance, is Ei. She has a bodyguard and a collection of soldiers, but she stands alone in the center of the room and turns to him.
And she smiles.
"You," his voice trembles, and Ei's eyes soften.
"It seems... it was not just a dream," the electro archon murmurs, sorrow mingling with joy. He can't stomach it - he has to.
"You." It's all he can say.
"Hello... my son."