Chapter Text
The air was crisp, sharp with something cold. The approach of the cooler months of winter was nigh, the air blowing in a steady flow of frigid weather.
People would be bundled up, wrapped in blankets and stowing themselves near the fire inside their homes. Maybe they'd curl up with loved ones, share the warmth of one another's bodies as they fell asleep to the tune of each others' breaths.
Not Xiao.
An Adeptus didn't rest, let alone a Yaksha.
Battling with all kinds of foe, ones that hide inside both his head and the tall blades of golden grass, he's fighting a constant war.
Past the common grounds he lands on — Wangshuu Inn — the land of Guili Plains is disturbed.
A group of Hilichurls set up camp, something common, something expected. The beasts were not rare, their territory stretching far across Teyvat, breaching lands that even no man had managed to travel.
Yet this camp in peculiar, they stand out amongst the rest. They are different. Not in a good way.
An aura of green flickers to life around multiple of the beasts, some holding clubs, some wielding cross bows, but each and every one of them holding an aura of deadly teal and black.
The stink of grime is in the air, and Xiao could sense their presence from miles away.
With eyes that never wavered, golden and sharp, he observes the camp, watching the corrupted beings act in silence.
They're tainted by his own doing.
The lingering karma that surrounds him spares nothing, and when remnants are left in the soil of his previous battlegrounds, the next creature to stumble across the remnants are doomed.
He can see the festering remains, see them swirl around the limbs of the hilichurls and curl. He can hear the whispers too
The voices are different for each individual, but the relentless intensity and venomous words whispered are always there.
When a hilichurl begins to writhe in pain, the black around it flaring, Xiao knows he's watched for too long, so he doesn't wait longer.
The camp doesn't see it coming, none of its inhabitants do. One moment a fellow hilichurl is about to double over, the next thing a polearm plummets from the sky, defeating anything within the radius of its destruction.
Xiao doesn't spare a single one of them. The blade of his spear, encrusted with jade and moving like that of an extended arm, it swiftly slices through each and every single tainted being in the camp.
They scream for a moment, strangled gurgles coming from behind their masks, then it stops.
They disappear into flickering wisps, and the remnants of their own karma crawl onto the ground like serpents, making their way to the nearest standing being.
Xiao.
He watches the gods anger crawl; watches it writhe across the ground like coiling lies and false premonitions.
He simply waited for the parasites to reach him, ready to absorb the tainted energy he had exuded, to collect the debt he has yet to repay.
Though it didn't reach him fully. None of it did.
It started swirling, started sinking into the ground and forge itself with the dirt.
Xiao's brow creases, his grip on his polearm tightening.
The karma swirls faster, it doesn't stop — it builds, and it builds, quicker than what Xiao had expected it to.
Finally it creeps to his feet. He expects it to absorb into him, but it doesn't. It doesn't sink into his skin like it did the dirt, instead it tears the soil open.
It reveals a gaping hole that stretches beyond what Xiao's own eye can see, and all he does is widen his eyes as his footing slips, his teleportation unable to fight against the current of the newfound portal that sucked him in.
Time seems to still for a moment inside of the portal. Space — empty and void — swirls around Xiao.
It curls, caresses his skin like winter, but kinder than what the cold of the season would have.
Xiao looks around, lips parting slightly as he floats in place, then white flashes, like lightning. It blinds, it pounces, then it spits him out like it had never sucked him up in the first place.
He tosses through the air, wind whipping around him as the sky vomited his body — his polearm still clutched tightly in his hold, then he flashed green, feet planting firmly on something solid below.
His eyes connect with smooth stone, then they raise. The sight before him is something unfamiliar, something... strange.
Towering structures of brick and glass shine back at him, the reflections and glows of far too many neon lights blinking heavily at him.
Xiao looks around, his head tossing in all directions.
Just... where was he?
He catches sight of a sign. It's glowing, just like the rest, but on it sets the sight of a person. It's moving — like a film from Fontaine.
A man too muscular to be real smiles brightly on it, hair combed upwards in yellow and neon blue and red dressing him. A text Xiao can't read sits on the screen.
In his thousands of years, Xiao has never encountered anything like this.
The sights, the smells, the sounds, the language.
It's so foreign, nothing like anything he's ever seen in Teyvat. Then again, he hasn't left Liyue for quite some time... perhaps this is simply how far the other nations have progressed.
Xiao's body manifests in teal again, then he flickers into nothing.
He attempts to whisk himself back to Liyue, to meet the sight of the golden fields again, but he only ends up on another building.
Xiao stills, then he tries again.
Another building.
He tries again, and again, and again. Flashes of teal follow him with every move, but each time, he only ends up on another building.
Why—why can't he go back? His powers aren't sealed, he can clearly use them, but for some reason unknown to himself, he's unable to return to Liyue.
It troubles him.
Xiao tugs himself deep into though, already assessing his area, trying to recognise any landmarks. The buildings don't stick out to him, more so it's the signs that do — then he looks lower to what seems to be hundreds of people flicking the street.
He freezes.
He blinks.
He blinks again.
Is he... seeing that correctly? Surely. His eyes have never once's failed him, so why was he now seeing walk-in intimate objects. Plants, cats, spray bottles.
Was this an illusion produced the karma? Was he perhaps trapped in some kind of mini realm that produced these sights?
Those were humans... right? They smelt like humans, from what he could tell anyway, but something off lingered about them all. Xiao kept staring, watching the many people flock together like a hive.
They seem to flow like water, none batting an eye at the strange sights around them. Was this... normal?
Xiao continues to watch them all with intrigue, like a cat perched upon a pedestal, he crouches. He spots someone with strange rocks around their arms. He spots another with multiple hands... then he spots someone who looks to be a frog.
All of these people appear so... diverse.
Sirens blare.
Xiao stands up immediately, the loud noise and blaring lights in the corner of his vision alerting him. That didn't sound quite so normal.
His gaze darts to the side where someone bursts out of a building. People around them scream, and behind the crash of glass the building bursts into an uproar of flames.
An assault—? What is this person doing?
Xiao can see the way people scramble to get away from the culprit, a laugh entering his ears.
They're running, darting through people and weaving like they mean it. People part out of their way like a moveable sea, staring in shock at the uproar that is caused, screams still coming from the original place of origin.
The culprit continues to dart, bags of what seems to be something heavy slung over their shoulders, then they're stopped.
Colliding into the harsh and blunt edge of a polearm, Xiao appears before them abruptly, eyes narrowed at the human who stumbles back.
They're human, he's sure of it.
He can hear the way people gasp around him, the crowd watching onwards with surprise at the sudden appearance of Xiao. They whisper, and their words do not go unnoticed.
'あれは新たなヒーローか…？'
'彼はどこからともなく現れた！'
'彼はとてもかっこいいですね...'
A language he doesn’t recognise. He’ll deal with that later.
Now Xiao can assess the one who started the commotion. In their bags seems to remain the glint of precious jewels.
A human after material possessions such as gems. He'd seen it plenty of times before — yet never one that looked this... absurd.
The thief scrambles back up, taking a step back. Xiao's eyes follow them.
"あんたはいったい誰だ！？" They cry, one hand reaching for some kind of mechanism on their belt.
Xiao tilts his head. Maybe the action is mocking, maybe it's out of pure curiosity, nobody watching can decipher between the two, Xiao's expression stoic.
"お前は英雄か？私を止められると思うか！？"
Xiao can already recognise the increasing sings of impending aggression, the way their muscles seem to tense, the way their shoulders square, the way their hand reaches for what appears to by a tiny model rifle.
They don't get the chance to act, their rambles and declarations of a fight cutting off as Xiao flickers behind them, his hand quickly pinching the joining of their muscles and letting them fall to the floor.
They're down before anyone can react; nobody speaks.
The perpetrator stopped — just like that.
Murmurs begin to build, then cheers and cries of what seem to be happiness are yelled.
Xiao is startled when he finds people shoving rectangular boxes in his face, each and every person smiling brightly as they begin to bombard him with questions.
"君が新しいヒーローか！？名前はなんだ！？"
"すごくかっこよかった！あなたの個性は何ですか？"
"すごく早かったですね！秘訣は何ですか？"
Xiao didn't know how to react. The sudden onslaught of attention shot in his way was sudden. He was used to quiet, a silence after defeating his opponents, not a sudden barrage of flashes and questions shot in his direction.
Nobody gets their questions answered, all of them are ignored as Xiao disappears in a flash of teal, overwhelmed by the increased rowdiness.
Everyone pauses, staring at the spot the new 'hero' had once stood.
He's gone. Just like that. He never said a word, just took down the culprit and left — leaving police sirens to blare louder as they grew closer, fire flickering in the distance.
...
"彼は熱かった！"