The sea spat Kai onto Teyvat like unwanted bones.
Salt crusted their lips. Thunder growled—not in the sky, but in their bones. They pushed up on trembling arms, sand gritting beneath raw palms. Waves clawed at their boots like hungry ghosts, and with each retreating wave, Kai felt something fundamental shift. The air tasted different here. Thicker. Alive with currents that had nothing to do with wind.
Where…? Lumine, where are you?
Lightning split the bruised horizon, and Kai's vision flickered—not from exhaustion, but from something deeper. A wrongness that pulsed behind their eyes like a migraine made of starlight.
B̷͖̈́É̴̫E̸̱̊P̷̘̎.
The sound wasn't heard so much as *felt*—a discordant note that made Teyvat's natural harmony recoil. Behind their eyes, cold light erupted—blue, geometric, viciously bright. But now the text that scrolled felt less like falling stars and more like wounds torn in reality itself:
[ DIMENSIONAL BREACH DETECTED ]
[ USER "KAIOS" SYNCHRONIZED WITH LOCAL LEYLINE NETWORK... 12% ]
[ WARNING: FOREIGN CONSCIOUSNESS DISRUPTING ELEMENTAL FLOW ]
[ PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: LOCATE TWIN RESONANCE SIGNATURE ]
Kai's breath hitched. Lumine. They could still feel the phantom pressure of her fingers slipping from theirs, still hear her scream as the Unknown God's cubes had torn through space itself. The memory wasn't just painful—it was wrong. In this world of seven elements and ancient laws, their shared power felt like a discordant instrument in a perfect orchestra.
But Lumine was here. Had to be. The alternative was...
"Hey! Weird glowy beach-crasher!"
A tiny figure shot from the seafoam—floating, silver-haired, radiating the particular indignation of someone whose peaceful afternoon had been thoroughly ruined. Paimon. Her eyes darted between Kai's face and their hands, which were flickering with an unsettling prismatic light that definitely wasn't any of the seven elements she knew.
"Paimon was having a perfectly good nap, and then WHAM! Mysterious person falls from nowhere and scares away all the fish!"
Despite everything, Kai almost smiled. Some things were universal—like tiny, floating guides with serious attitude problems. "Sorry," they managed, voice hoarse with seawater and something deeper.
"I didn't exactly plan the landing. I'm looking for someone—my sister. Blonde hair, about yay high, probably also fell from the sky looking confused?"
"Sister?"
Paimon's expression softened slightly, though suspicion still crinkled her nose.
"Paimon hasn't seen any other sky-fallers, but—LOOK OUT!"
A HydroSlime surged from the surf—translucent, wobbling, but radiating a primal hostility that made Kai's skin crawl. In their old world, it would have been just another low-level mob. Here, they could feel its elemental core pulsing with genuine life, genuine anger at their presence.
Instinct screamed. Kai's hand shot out—not to cast a spell, but to understand. To pull at the threads of this world's power and make them listen.
[ ANALYZING LOCAL ELEMENTAL MATRIX... ]
[ HYDRO RESONANCE: PURE, UNCONTAMINATED ]
[ ATTEMPTING FORCED HARMONIZATION... ]
The air around Kai's palm began to sing—a low, thrumming note that made Paimon's eyes go wide with recognition and fear. This wasn't how elemental manipulation was supposed to work. Vision-bearers channeled through their crystallized ambitions, their resolved wills. This felt like someone grabbing the world's source code and rewriting it on the fly.
Moisture tore from the slime, the sand, the very air—streaming into Kai's palm in defiance of natural law. But as the elements obeyed, something else responded. Deep beneath their feet, leylines screamed.
WHOOSH!
A miniature tornado erupted from Kai's grip—not the gentle breeze of Anemo, but a vortex of pure elemental chaos. Hydro and Anemo swirled together in patterns that shouldn't exist, ripping the slime apart and leaving only wisps of confused elemental energy that dissipated like smoke.
[ ELEMENTAL FUSION ACHIEVED ]
[ TEYVAT STABILITY INDEX: -3% ]
[ CAUTION: LEYLINE DISTURBANCE DETECTED BY REGIONAL AUTHORITIES ]
Kai staggered, the backlash hitting them like a physical blow. Their hands shook—not from exertion, but from the nauseating realization that they'd just done something fundamentally wrong to this world.
"Whoa!" Paimon yelped, zipping backward. Her usual bluster was gone, replaced by something like awe and terror.
"That wasn't... how did you... Paimon's never seen anyone mix elements like that! Are you some kind of super-vision bearer? A god? Please don't be evil!"
Before Kai could answer, a voice whispered on the wind—ancient, sad, and achingly familiar:
"Oh, little star... you burn so brightly, but at what cost? Even the wind weeps to carry your song..."
Venti. Even without seeing him, Kai recognized the Anemo Archon's voice. But there was no playfulness in it now, only a deep, resonant sorrow.
Then—fire.
Not warmth. Not light.
Judgment.
A scream like tearing metal ripped the sky. A phoenix forged of pure, incandescent Pyro plummeted from the storm-dark cliffs—but this wasn't just elemental power. This was wrath given form, the fury of someone who'd spent years hunting monsters and had learned to recognize them by scent alone.
Heat hit Kai like a physical blow, but underneath the temperature was something worse—the crushing weight of absolute moral certainty. The phoenix landed with a ground-shaking THOOM, and when the ash cleared, a man stood in its place.
DilucRagnvindr.
The Darknight Hero. Master of Dawn Winery. Protector of Mondstadt.
Hunter of Abyssal corruption.
His greatsword, Wolf's Gravestone, pointed unerringly at Kai's throat. But it wasn't the weapon that made Kai's breath catch—it was Diluc's eyes. Crimson as wine, but empty of everything except cold, professional assessment. This wasn't anger. This was extermination.
"Abyss operative," he stated, voice flat as grave dirt.
"I can smell the void on you. The way you twist elemental law—it's exactly like them."
Paimon squeaked, but didn't flee. Credit to her, she positioned herself between Kai and the blade, tiny fists clenched.
"Wait! Paimon doesn't think they're evil! Weird, definitely weird, but not void-monster weird!"
Diluc's gaze never left Kai's face.
"The corruption isn't always obvious. Sometimes it wears friendly faces. Sometimes it even believes its own lies."
The Pyro in his blade flared, and Kai could feel their skin beginning to blister.
"Your power signature is all wrong. You bend reality instead of working with it. That's not human. That's not even archon."
The system blazed across Kai's vision, letters now pulsing with genuine alarm:
[ THREAT ANALYSIS: DILUC RAGNVINDR ]
[ COMBAT RATING: EXTREME DANGER ]
[ PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: ZERO TOLERANCE FOR ABYSSAL CORRUPTION ]
[ CURRENT SUSPICION LEVEL: 94% CONFIRMED HOSTILE ]
[ RECOMMENDED ACTIONS: ]
[ A) SUBMIT TO INTERROGATION (12% SURVIVAL RATE) ]
[ B) ATTEMPT DIPLOMACY (8% SUCCESS RATE) ]
[ C) STRATEGIC RETREAT (BLOCKED: OCEAN BEHIND USER) ]
[ D) COMBAT ENGAGEMENT (2% SURVIVAL RATE) ]
But as Kai stared into Diluc's burning eyes, they realized something the system couldn't calculate. This man had seen too much darkness, lost too much to the Abyss. Logic wouldn't reach him. Power would only confirm his suspicions.
Only truth had a chance.
"You're right,"
Kai said quietly, making no move to defend themselves.
"I'm not from here. I'm not human, not the way you understand it. But I'm not Abyss either. I'm just... lost. And scared. And looking for my sister."
For just a moment, something flickered in Diluc's eyes. Not mercy—he was too far gone for that. But maybe, just maybe, a flicker of recognition. Of someone else who'd lost everything to forces beyond their control.
The choice wasn't on any screen.
It was in the space between heartbeats, between truth and lies.
Between the person Kai had been, and whoever they'd have to become to survive in this world that was already starting to crack under the weight of their presence.