The Vigilant Yaksha

Chapter 54

I need to see if Kokomi would let me have one of the delusions. Maybe if I tinker with it and find out how they work, I can try and reverse it.

"KAZUHA! VENA!"

Vena's head popped up from the desk she'd been working on, having been hard at work mixing medicines and herbs to help ease the pain and discomfort of those effected by the rapid aging from the overuse of delusions. All she could think to do without more information about them was to try and ease their current symptoms and try to at least make their last days bearable.

Kokomi's pink head of hair poked through the opening in the tent, her eyes lighting up once they rested on Vena's tired form.

"What's wrong?" Vena had instantly been taken aback by the girl's expression, quickly putting down her items and removing her gloves as she stood to her feet.

"Look, Aether ran off. Teppei is in bad shape and we had a few hints about maybe a Fatui facility nearby that is probably mass producing the delusions they've been giving us and he refused to not go check it out-" She rambled in a hurry, clearly worried about Aether as Vena came over to grasp her shoulders, pulling her gently into a hug.

"It's okay~" She cooed, trying to calm down the obviously frazzled and overworked leader as she made up her mind silently.

"And I can't find Kazuha, so I had to come find you and I'm so sorry to disrupt your work-"

"My lady-" Vena interrupted sweetly, trying to gently assert herself into the conversation and stop her worried rambling.

"I can go find Aether. I sent Kazuha to look for a few common herbs for me that Aether said grew around here. Until Kazuha comes back, I can't really continue making the medicine, so I can take a quick break and go check on Aether. Where was that facility supposedly located?" Vena played this off almost too well.

It wasn't a lie either way, she was stuck just musing ideas around in her mind until Kazuha made it back with the other few herbs she'd needed, so she'd mostly just been cleaning tools and trying to decode Fatui technology with just her mind and no actual item to examine. Kokomi wouldn't expect a thing either, Vena doubting Aether had told them much about her personal details or how annoyingly protective he got over her most of the time, so she wouldn't have any red flags with telling her the location and letting her go after Aether.

Kazuha wasn't here to blow her cover either.

Oh how quickly her rationality was thrown to the wind whenever her friend was possibly in danger.

——————————————————————-

"Wait- aren't you the girl-"

That harbinger is just so obsessed, isn't he? Even talking to his lower rank lackies about her, at least to a point that they recognize her either by her appearance or abilities it seemed.

A few Fatui had ambushed her from behind once she'd entered the secret facility looking for Aether, but the way forward had been cleared so far, leaving her to assume that he was probably blowing off steam, and at a quick rate, no doubt.

Sometimes bad people have to die.

She couldn't deny it was still hard to take life, so she mostly tried her best to just knock them unconscious, but whenever she couldn't or they refused to give up, she sucked it up and did what she knew she had to do.

This world is different, and now that you're apart of it, you have to change too. But there's no way in hell I'll let these people take my light away, or Aether's.