Chapter Text
From the rooftops, Mondstadt looked sleepy and peaceful. Harmless, and not at all like the deathtrap it had proven itself to be for his people recently. Kaeya hummed to himself as he studied the near empty streets, taking careful note of the drunk stragglers that stumbled from one bar or the other towards what were — presumably — their homes.
Not far from him, down below in one of the alleys mostly hidden from view, the sound of retching could be heard, the wind blew the sour smell of vomit and wine his way. Ah, Mondstadt, the city of wine.
With a huff, Kaeya pulled his cloak tighter around himself to shield himself from the wind. It wasn't cold or particularly strong but knowing whose city he was standing in was enough to make him wary. He wished he could wear his mask, or better yet, keep up his shield, but that was impossible without drawing undue attention to his person. The heavy cloak and the deep hood were already suspicious enough.
One of the reasons he had decided to go out himself rather than send one of his more subtle subordinates to scout out the situation, was that he was far more inconspicuous. Without the mask and the shield, most people would simply glance at him before dismissing him as some kind of foreigner and go back to their business. He would look human to them but thanks to the damned Archons, most of his people no longer had that privilege.
Another retching sound and then the sound of someone moving inside one of the nearby houses, followed by the click of a bolt being unlocked. With a click of his tongue, Kaeya decided to change his location. His footsteps on the rooftop made no sound; his soft soled boots allowed him to step with all the grace of a cat.
As he walked, he cast out his senses, focusing on the hum of celestial energy that clung to all allogenes from the moment they received their visions. There should be a number of them in the city. His spies had been instructed to keep a special eye on them but given the recent death, well, it was better to be safe than sorry. Chances were that one of the allogenes had taken it upon themselves to hunt his people; those without the poisoned blessings of Celestia rarely had the strength to break through his kinds’ shields, after all.
Ahhh, it truly made Kaeya wish for his own shield all the more, but for now, the sword at his hip and his elemental magic would need to suffice.
Pyro, Electro, Anemo, Hydro, another Electro and— Pyro .
Now, wasn’t that interesting. What a strange Vision.
Unlike the others, it felt off. Not weaker or less focused, just… unconnected. Rejected, maybe? There was no proper word to describe the feeling.
It was the first time he had felt a Vision like that. Had somebody lost it? It wasn’t possible that the allogene was dead — Visions faded with the death of the chosen person, after all, so the only other option was that it had been separated from the person in question.
Kaeya turned to the direction he could feel that last Vision from and found himself looking in the direction of the headquarters of the famous Knights of Favonius, another obstacle to overcome. However, that was not important right now, the knights did not have the resources or manpower to be a danger to them.
But they could have something to do with the strange Vision.
Kaeya hesitated. He had come to Mondstadt for a reason, and following idle curiosity was not it. Still, Visions were something that his order could not disregard, and given the oddness of the Vision, it could be of interest to them.
With pursed lips, Kaeya considered.
Given the Vision's location, it was possible that it had simply been taken from an allogene when they had been arrested. However, weakened spy network or not, the arrest of a Vision user would certainly have reached his ears. It was exactly the sort of thing they were supposed to pay special attention to. Disillusioned Vision users could be very, very useful for their plans, after all.
What was more important was that this Vision stuck out from the rest. It didn’t feel like it was taken from the user by force, there was none of the elemental energy reaching out for their bearer. This one was placid, strong and fierce, waiting with a horrible sort of patience that would have set Kaeya’s teeth on the edge if it had come from a person.
Was it reason enough to check it out personally?
Maybe. Maybe not. But Kaeya was curious, and that had led him to make some of his best and some of his worst decisions. This time, at least, he had a very good reason, should anyone ask him to explain himself. His leaders had long since looked for a way to permanently cut the connection between an Allogene and their Vision. Few things would be sweeter than using Celestia’s own tools against them.
Decision made, Kaeya made his way towards the headquarters quickly but not without caution. It wouldn’t do if he were to make too much noise when walking across the rooftops; a loose tile shattering on the ground would bring far too many people out into the streets. Noises always were that much louder in the cover of the night.
And it was one such noise that saved his life. The slightest crunch of gravel was the only warning Kaeya got, giving him just enough time to dodge to the side as a claymore came down with remarkable speed.
Kaeya turned with the movement, planting his hand on the roof tiles and pushing up to extend the movement, instinctively aiming to create more distance between himself and his attacker. His attacker who clearly did not wish to let him back away.
How troublesome.
Kaeya let frost bloom at his fingertips even as he rolled with the momentum of his leap. Whoever his attacker was, however, they were practised, evading the rushing ice with sure steps, not even losing their balance a little bit. But even without that, it was enough. Distance had been the intention behind Kaeya’s maneuver, after all.
Coming out of his leap, Kaeya landed on his feet with the grace of a feline, and materialized his own sword with a thought. He was tempted to call forth his shield as well, but it would be unwise to let too many of his tricks show.
“What an unfriendly welcome,” Kaeya stated, keeping his voice low and pitching it just enough that only the attacker could hear him, “I did not think that Mondstadt was in the habit of killing its visitors in the dead of the night.”
A dismissive grunt followed his accusation, but there was no fluster or even hesitation in the attacker as the claymore was pointed in his direction. There was, however, a tightening of muscles. Kaeya studied him carefully. Tall, but slightly shorter than himself, wearing a dark cloak with a hood that hid the person’s hair and shadowed his face.
“Visitors do not sneak over the rooftops at night. Especially not towards the headquarters of the knights.” The man — presumably, at least. The attacker’s voice sounded masculine — somehow managed to portray both his disdain for Kaeya himself, as well as the Knights of Favonius.
The latter was much more interesting.
“No?” Kaeya asked, slightly lowering his blade but keeping his stance loose, ready for action. “Maybe they do, and you just keep cutting them down. I haven’t heard anything about a murderer wandering through Mondstadt’s streets at night.”
Actually, Kaeya had. Most people just wouldn’t consider the death of his people murder. His dark thoughts didn’t affect the smile he kept on his face. At his words, the man paused slightly, but then shook his head. Despite the movement, the steadiness of the claymore did not change.
“And what makes you think such rumors would be spread around instead of being suppressed by the knights?” The disdain was unmistakable.
Oho. Kaeya kept the satisfaction off his face. Division amongst one's enemies was always excellent news. “Certainly, death could not be hidden.”
“You would be surprised.”
Kaeya wanted to know what the man was talking about because whatever it was, it was personal. It was big. It was likely perfectly suitable to weaken Mondstadt from the inside. He only needed to—
“But since you seem so sure that you would know of such events, it means that you were listening for them.” There was no mistaking the dark satisfaction in the man’s voice. “So who are you and what is your purpose here?”
It was posed as a question but Kaeya was sure that the man had already made up his mind.
“Such accusations!” he exclaimed, shifting slightly to the left so he no longer had the house at his back but instead, the edge of the roof. This also increased the distance between him and his attacker, something that the other was quick to correct.
That was exactly what Kaeya wanted, as it brought them both out of the shadows of the buildings and into the soft light of the moon and the faint glow of the streetlamps. His own hood hid most of his face — and experience ensured that he knew how to move in a way that it stayed like that — but the man did not have the same advantage.
The hood the man wore was deep and hung low on his face, casting it in shadow. It was loose, however, and when he moved, it revealed more than the man probably realized. Kaeya committed the shape of his jaw, the curve of his lips and the regal line of his nose to memory.
The low light made it impossible to make out the eye color, and the mask the man wore — laughable, as it hid next to nothing of his features. Everyone who knew him would likely recognize him, unless he had some very distinguishing features that were currently hidden by the mask.
“Are you running away?” The claymore was hefted again, and even through the mask, Kaeya could see dark eyes — what was that color? — narrow. “If you think I will just let you get away like that, think again.”
Kaeya chuckled and gave a languid shrug, making sure to portray what he thought of the thread very clearly. “Who would blame me for running away from a man threatening me with bodily harm in the middle of the night?” Kaeya smiled, knowing full well that it would enrage the man even more. “I'm nothing but an innocent tourist, after all.”
Unsurprisingly, the man reacted just the way that Kaeya had intended: with anger. Anger that made him drop his guard just a bit, and caused him to let calculation fall to the wayside. The man stepped further into the light and from behind the hood, Kaeya spotted a flash of red. Eye narrowing, Kaeya made to goad the man further, but—
He had made a mistake.
He had underestimated the man’s sheer speed, which was far greater than what his build and the weapon he wielded would suggest. In the blink of an eye, the man was on him, claymore coming down on him with deadly intent.
Kaeya threw himself back gracelessly. Instinctively, he called upon Cryo energy and cocooned himself in it, fashioning it around him in the simile of a shield. It was something he had come up with many years ago.
It was weaker than his actual shield by far, but there was one upside: it did not look like an Abyss mage’s shield, nor did it share his kinds’ vulnerability to opposing elements, even though it was clearly a Cryo shield. It was also something that Kaeya had never intended to use.
In front of him, the man paused, claymore steady as he studied the shield carefully.
“A neat and dangerous trick for a spy. And not something a mere tourist,” the last part was spit almost mockingly, “would be able to do. With a skillset like this, you should have a reputation, and I would have heard of you.”
The confidence in that statement carried with it the absoluteness of a man who had made it his business to know of people with special skill sets — likely especially those in Mondstadt. The same could be said for Kaeya, only he preferred not to limit himself by location.
The fact that he had no idea who the man was…
“Ah,” Kaeya acknowledged, curling his lips into a joyless smile, “I didn’t hear about you either, Sir Knight.” The man bristled at the address. How delightful. “And now, I am ever so curious.”
The claymore was raised a bit more and the man’s stance shifted into one of readiness. Suddenly, Kaeya was quite certain that if he let this confrontation continue, the man would make an earnest attempt towards wearing down the durability of his shield with or without the help of elemental power.
Such determination would have been commendable in some other circumstances, but until he knew the identity of the claymore wielder, Kaeya could not let the situation escalate to such an extent. There were too many variables that he could not anticipate or plan for. Kaeya both hated and loved the risk.
The heavy blade came down again. His shield held against the blow but it wasn’t over.
The man followed up his first blow with another, and then another, swinging the Claymore with insane speed, and he didn’t seem to have any plans on stopping soon. It was his sheer tenacity that was chipping at his shield bit by bit.
Kaeya had already made one mistake, one miscalculation that had forced him to give away parts of his carefully concealed skillset, though it was clear that the man had not noticed the fact that it was unintentional.
Falling back to old tricks, Kaeya let frost spread across the ground below him to throw off his attacker before his shield gave way. To rain blows such as the ones directed at him his way with so much force and without bread between the blows, above all the man would need firm ground to stand on.
There were few things more treacherous than an icy ground, as the attacker was forced to realize. At the first falter in the pattern, Kaeya found himself smiling behind the collar of his cloak. Still, he didn’t dare retaliate from inside his shield. He was quite attached to his blade and if it were hit with the force of the claymore, it would surely shatter. Not that he needed to. His opponent was doing his work for him.
Another blow was made against his shield, but this time when the man shifted his weight to lead over into the next strike, he slipped, losing his balance, and quick as a viper, Kaeya struck.
He let his shield shatter and the remnants of it push outwards. Deadly icicles flew towards the man, piercing through his dark clothes, and pushing him backwards until he was pinned against the wall. Given the man’s experience in battle, it wouldn’t stop him for long. Not long enough, at least, for Kaeya to make his escape, so he didn’t try. Instead of taking advantage of the distance between them, Kaeya pushed forward into the man’s space.
In close combat, the claymore would be a hindrance to the man. Still, even as Kaeya rushed towards him, the man was already regaining his composure, and the claymore was halfway raised by the time Kaeya was upon him.
Kaeya had to stop it before it came through. He slammed into the other man’s arm to make him drop his weapon and held a Cryo dagger at his neck. An instinctive jerk went through his captive. Clearly, he wanted to get away, but the cold of Kaeya’s dagger was a reminder that resistance would lead him to a nasty end.
Behind his collar, Kaeya allowed himself a satisfied smile.
They were nose to nose, and at this distance, the swordsman’s mask was useless. Red hair, a surprisingly delicate face and wide eyes stared back at Kaeya from beneath the hood. The man’s mouth was slightly open in surprise, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the keen edge of Kaeya’s dagger.
“Now,” Kaeya murmured conversationally under his breath. With the short distance between them, there was no way the man could not hear him speak — not when Kaeya could feel the way the other man’s chest expanded every time he breathed, not when he could feel the hot breath fan across his face. “Why don’t you introduce yourself? It’s only polite.”
Instead of answering, the man bared his teeth, and maybe that was answer enough. Kaeya chuckled lowly and leaned in until their noses touched. The man’s nose was warm. “Now, now,” he placated, and he knew his voice was taunting. “This is me being polite, it would be so easy to remove your mask like this.” Leaning even closer, he tapped his nose against the edge of the other man’s mask.
Caught between Kaeya’s body and the wall, the man tensed. The threat had, without a doubt, hit home. But he still did not surrender. How amusing. Instead, the baring of teeth turned into a full on snarl, and if Kaeya had thought there had been menace in the man’s voice earlier, the snarl the man let out now was realms beyond that.
“Try and you won’t live through the night, Spy.”
Kaeya laughed, he couldn’t help himself. The sound rang out through the night, it was a laugh of genuine humor, but his captive clearly took it as a threat — a rather wise choice, really. Still.
“Sir Knight.” There was no missing the widening of the snarl or the way the man’s eyes flashed with displeasure at the address. Kaeya would remember that. “Don’t pretend that you ever intended to let me live.”
The first strike had been aiming to kill.
Tense silence stretched between them, then the man huffed, tension flowing out of him like water through a sieve. “True.” He tilted his chin imperiously and met Kaeya’s eyes squarely. There was a brief widening when he noticed Kaeya’s pupils, the one thing he could never disguise, but he carried on. “What do you want?”
“As I said,” Kaeya responded with a smile, “an introduction.”
He did not dare relax, even as the man smiled a joyless smile. “An enemy to all enemies of Mondstadt.”
“How broad.”
“Your enemy.”
Kaeya did not pause, simply inclining his head. “That’s an assumption to make.”
“I attacked you,” the claymore wielder responded, “while you were sneaking around the city, Spy.”
Kaeya hummed, and they held each other’s gaze for several seconds. “Who have you been hunting?” Kaeya eventually asked. He needed to know if this was the man who was compromising their operations because if he was, then playtime was over. The man’s identity wouldn’t matter no matter how curious Kaeya was.
Silence stretched for a moment longer, and when the answer came, it was as expected as it was unwelcome. “Enemies of Mondstadt.”
It was probably him. Though, how he had brought them down was still unsure. The man was relentless and powerful, but unlike Kaeya, his subordinates wouldn’t have bothered disguising their nature. They would have used their shields openly, and now matter how talented, Kaeya didn’t think the man was capable of eliminating them all without even one of them getting away to report back.
Claymores might be more suitable to wear down shields, but without elements, his people would have been able to get away, at least — or make so much of a ruckus that no one could have suppressed the talks that followed. Something more was going on.
Kaeya tightened his grip, and the man kicked out, aiming for Kaeya’s gut. But Kaeya had expected something like that, and he was prepared. Instead of burying painfully in his stomach and winding him, it connected against his crossed arms.
The force behind it would have broken the arm of a normal man. And damn, if it didn’t hurt more than Kaeya had anticipated. Still, no pain no gain, and Kaeya was intent on gaining exactly what he wanted from this.
Instead of bracing against the attack, he let it push him back, throwing himself into the momentum of the kick rather than against it. It pushed him up into the air, and over the edge of the roof. Kaeya twisted in the air so that he landed on his feet. There was the sound of a muffled curse on top of the building.
Kaeya didn’t wait around, instead rushing out of the street and throwing himself out of sight. Heavy footsteps sounded, coming closer to the edge of the building, but the vigilante had taken much too long and by the time he could glance down into the streets, Kaeya was already out of sight. There was another curse.
Hidden behind the vegetation that could give his position away far too easily, Kaeya watched as the man landed on the street as well. His posture was tense and the way he held his claymore made it clear that he was prepared for — and expected — an attack. Kaeya almost hated to disappoint him, but he had no interest in giving himself away.
It would be foolish to engage further without knowing who his opponent was and what he was capable of or what he was planning. Eventually, the man seemed to realize that as well.
Another wave of tension rippled through his body, and the muscled shoulders tightened as the grip on the claymore firmed. There was a moment of stillness and then the weapon vanished in a shower of understated sparks as its wielder dismissed it. The click of the man’s tongue sounded loud in the quiet of the night, as did his footsteps as he walked away.
Even after the man had disappeared from view, Kaeya remained where he was, choosing prudence over speed. The man — his attacker — had been powerful and well trained with his claymore, and he obviously knew Mondstadt and its streets well, but he also seemed to hold a dislike for the Knights of Favonius.
Was it envy? Had the man tried out and been refused? It seemed unlikely, given the skill he had shown in their short bout. Maybe he disliked that all high ranking officers held Visions? Kaeya, himself, had laughed about it when reading the reports.
For all the Mondstadt claimed to have thrown off the shackles of their old overlords, it was a woman of old nobility who had been named Acting Grand Master — chosen over far more seasoned and experienced knights, and all of their officers held visions as well.
Maybe that was what the man disliked about them? Kaeya had been unable to feel the presence of Celestia’s blessings on the man. Though, he evidently had spent time around them as the feeling lingered.
Maybe he was a former knight?
It would bear investigating and would serve as a good enough starting point. Kaeya was almost completely certain that the man had something to do with what happened to his informants, although the how of it was still unclear.
And Kaeya itched to find out.