Hu Tao x Reader - A Morbid Curiosity

Chapter 32: Hu Tao

Hu Tao: "Hmph! If none of you plan to do anything to help them, then I guess I'll have to do this on my own!"

And then I jumped from the Jade Chamber and down towards the sea, but the Jade Chamber was so high up that I was left able to scan my surroundings for such a long time before I finally made impact with the water. Not that I could see much, with the dust still in the air from that massive attack that sealed away a literal God...

*SPLASH!*

I know that you're probably scared, that you're out here in this giant and boundless body of water, all alone... I'll find you sweetie, I promise. I'll find you... Just hold on a little longer, for me.

I'm bringing you home, with me, and I won't ever let you go again!

*Y/N'S POV*

The last thing I heard... it was Osial screaming out in anger and agony, as my blade that was infused with the power of the Tianquan and the Adepti cut through them. As the link that connected us was severed by my hand... and by those that believed in me.

But now... I'm all alone again, just like when I first woke up in the wilds of Liyue, before Qiqi found me...

Qiqi... your fate... it was my fault. My past self tore you away from a normal life with a loving family, and now you live a life where you are preyed upon for your immortality by the one that offers you a roof, whilst your existence requires you to keep moving or else your limbs begin to lock up...

I am so sorry.

But perhaps... perhaps this painful death that I am to receive now is to be some sort of penance? Not that any amount of punishment could ever correct all the blood I spilt back during the Archon Wars.

Death by drowning... a horrible way to go. But there is little I can do about it, what with my muscles all but useless after all that strain of maintaining that Hydro-infused weapon of mine for so long. Plus the whole being possessed and running down my old master without warming up definitely didn't help!

Haha! I guess... I guess if I'm to die now,  I will at least get to go out in a good mood! I'm now free from my millennia-long enslavement and I also sealed Osial once again, keeping my friends safe from his evil for a good many years... This will be a satisfactory death, I cannot complain I suppose.

Eira: "You're not going to die."

e-Eira?! But I thought that you—

Eira: "Well you're not going to die. So calm down."

Oh... this isn't really Eira, it's just a memory of mine... a memory of her, of what she said to me back then upon that damned mountain... when we first met and she pulled me out of that avalanche– saving my life even though everything that the Fatui had shoved inside her head had told her to not to.

She couldn't really be here, in these unfathomably deep depths of the Liyue Ocean with me. Because she's gone... she's gone because of my failures. I failed to keep her safe, I wasn't strong enough to beat the monster that threatened us... not even after Eira had sacrificed herself to give me another chance.

I failed her... but at the very least her death wasn't entirely in vain... it was because I failed her so badly that I was determined to grow stronger and to not let that happen again, why I so willingly accepted Ningguang's proposal of training to become her bodyguard... and it was one of the main reasons that I was able to act as I did in my final moments of bravery as I stood against my master up until the very end...