The Most Important Gear

Chapter 4

"i was suddenly cut off by some kind of power," nahida said, panic evident in her voice.

you and your robot looked at each other in worry: what's going on? however, the two of you remained silent to allow nahida to focus.

"...i didn't think he'd be capable of something like that with so little power left. did he keep some of his power hidden when he was defeated? or... did he achieve something beyond his abilities, and it took everything he had...?"

so he is up to something... scaramouche you asshat, your fists tightened. this is bad... what is he doing in there?

"we're running out of time. follow my lead and get out of irminsul as soon as possible," nahida spoke. all of a sudden, the traveler and paimon re-appeared. your robot made a very worried sound, making you pat its head to comfort it.

"nahida," you got her attention. "what's going on?"

"this is an emergency," nahida clarified for you. "i'll have to ask you four to stay here for now. everything's arranged, and nobody will disturb you."

"isn't there anything i can do," the traveler asked.

"i'm sorry, but this isn't something i need your help with. leave this one to me," nahida said firmly. then she vanished, probably going to try and stop whatever scaramouche was up to.

"an emergency? how bad is it? nahida will you be okay," paimon said, worrying now.

"don't worry, if my assessment is correct, though there might be some minor disturbances, it won't lead to a disaster. please rest and recover your strength here until i say it's safe."

"... her voice has gone," paimon said, scared.

"what happened in there," you asked the two of them. 

the traveler gave you a rundown of what happened, sharing their thoughts with you both.

"he wants to change the past? but... surely that's impossible," paimon said.

"your hesitation when you both spoke privately was 'yes' enough to him. it's not your fault, so don't blame yourself for this," you said. 

"thank you," the traveler said. "this is not going to end well though."

"it'll affect a lot of people," you agreed. "but, worrying right now won't solve anything. i'm confident that nahida will fix things. agh... i knew something was up when he got super sappy."

"it's not your fault either {name}," the traveler reassured you. "did you let nahida know in advance?"

"i informed her about possible ulterior motives, so she assured me that everything was under control. i guess not anymore though..."

"let's take our minds off things," the traveler suggested. "nahida will stop him."

"yeah... let's talk about something else," paimon said, trying to improve the mood. "ooh! maybe food!"

eventually, it got late, and night fell. however, something was off. your head began to ache, fragments of your memory began to disappear and re-appear, but their re-appearance was altered. the traveler and paimon were already asleep, and you began to panic. your robot rushed to your side, and you wanted to cry from how much your head hurt. it felt like you were being split open.

but then, you fainted due to the pain, collapsing on the floor. 

the next morning, the traveler and paimon woke up. after looking around, the traveler noticed something. or more specifically, a lack of something.

"paimon," the traveler asked their friend. "do you know where {name} disappeared to?"

"huh? uhh... traveler we haven't seen them in a few weeks... what do you mean? have we seen them recently?"

what? i could have sworn that she was in this room. did {robot name} move her? and what happened to nahida?

"well she was here while we were worrying over the balladeer walking around sumeru city."

"who's the balladeer? is that some type of food?"

the traveler had a look of shock on their face, perplexed and in horror of their realization. the balladeer erased himself out of irminsul, he truly did make changes.

"alright enough of that," the traveler said. "we need to go to inazuma, right now."

"h-huh? i mean alright... if you say so..."

while the traveler was in inazuma, they learned a multitude of things: the balladeer was no more, the kabukimono is also erased from history, and now their job is to find nahida and relay the information. they reached sumeru, deciding to speak with the dendro archon and see if she could possibly help.

"the balladeer? hmm... sounds like some sort of codename," nahida thought aloud, then noticed the traveler's perplexed face. "traveler?"

"hey what's wrong," paimon asked. "you look so upset."

"there are things that happened that only i can remember," traveler said.

after explaining everything, nahida starts to piece information together. "...that's quite a story. so this puppet known as the balladeer erased himself from irminsul hoping that he could change the past."

the three of them talked some more, until nahida pulled out a green orb. 

"nahida, what is that," paimon asked.

"a record from my personal collection. It was tucked away in a corner. you should take a look."

"surprisingly it's quite accurate," the traveler confirmed after looking. 

"irminsul can't change information that was well hidden in advance. i guess i must've written this story as a backup before the balladeer entered... i remember now. this is not just the balladeer's story... it is his very own memories. i made a backup so that it would be preserved, no matter what happened. this memory was extracted from him by the scholars. i buried it deep inside one of my own dreams, and then hid it inside an allegorical story so that it wouldn't be altered."

"i guess {name}'s suspicions were accurate," the traveler said. 

"{name}? she was here? huh... remind me again who she is?"