The Vigilant Yaksha

Chapter 10

"No way."

Aether felt his stomach sink to his feet.

"Please, Xiao?"

They'd gone back to the Wangshu Inn, Aether having the idea that maybe the last remaining Yaksha wouldn't mind helping Vena train and get stronger, more confident.

Xiao simply crossed his arms across his chest, slightly raising an eyebrow at the boy.

"You know I'm an Adeptus, and too much of my energy can harm mortals." The man spoke back sternly.

"If I can go uneffected by your adeptal energy, so can she. We're both from different worlds than Teyvat. She's stronger than she looks, just shaken up by everything that's happened to her..." Aether continued to push, knowing how badly she needed this.

"And why can't you train her? Why me?" Xiao turned to the side as he questioned, his gaze looking out at the peaceful plains around the Inn.

"Well, when we were talking about it and I first suggested you, she said no." Aether paused as he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, Xiao turning back to look at him again, now confused.

Usually Xiao's facial expressions didn't differ much, he was always relatively straight faced and mono-toned, but now Aether was surprised seeing a look of genuine confusion spread across Xiao's features.

She said no?

"And then I offered, and she said no." Aether quickly continued, realizing maybe that had actually offended the great Yaksha.

"Why?" Xiao simply questioned.

"She wants me to keep helping Zhongli in Liyue, and to keep searching for any leads on my sister. After saying no to me, she agreed to you the second time I asked, as long as you were okay with it of course."

Exhaling deeply, Xiao moved a hand to cover his face, pinching the skin of the bridge of his nose in frustration as he silently cursed himself.

I'm going to regret this.

Whether Xiao wanted to admit it or not, Aether had helped him out on more than one occasion and had been maybe the only person Xiao could ever call a friend, so he couldn't deny that he sort of owed him one.

He also wasn't going to deny his curiosity of that shy purple haired girl either.

Humans often bored or just straight irritated Xiao, besides Aether and Vena, and he couldn't quite figure out why.

"She's been through so much, I don't know how she still has the strength to get up every day and fight. I would have given up on living a long time ago, but she's so much stronger than she looks. I promise, nothing bad will happen." Aether tried to further convince his quiet friend, not knowing that he had already silently agreed, with slight reluctance of course.

"If my adeptal energy winds up being too much for her, and she gets hurt-"

"She won't." Aether accidentally cut the Adeptus off in his excitement, assuming Xiao was agreeing by the change in the tone of his voice.

Xiao simply exhaled again, closing his eyes for a few silent moments.

"Fine. But she needs to heal first."

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Vena nearly choked on the bite of food she'd had in her mouth once Aether had made it back to the kitchen with the news.