The Power of Revelation: The Truth Shall Set You Free

Chapter 30: The misery eats you alive

Breakfast was rather chaotic, with Hutao and Xingqiu attempting to use some Wolfhook's to make purple hair dye and prank Diluc, but had gotten it all over Keqing instead. The Yuheng of the Liyue Qixing was yelling at the duo as Ganyu held her back, attempting to get the dye out of her hair and dress with a wet towel.

Meanwhile, Qiqi sipping some coconut milk as Tartaglia softly braided her hair, having eaten a delicious breakfast cooked by Thoma.

"What do I have to do today..." Qiqi murmured, slowly putting down her coconut milk and started rummaging through her bag for her notebook.

"Ah, Qiqi..." Tartaglia gently stopped her, "Did you forget that we're kind of trapped in a weird place?"

"Oh..." The zombie looked around, as the Harbinger continued, "So you don't need to check what to do today, alright?"

"Okay." Qiqi nodded, picking up her coconut milk, and Tartaglia let out a small smile as he tenderly placed her hat back on her head and adjusting it. Zhongli settled down beside the Harbinger, a cup of freshly brewed tea in hand, as the Snezhnayan yawned.

"Had a good sleep?" Zhongli murmured, handing Tartaglia the tea, and the Harbinger grinned tiredly, "Yep. Really good sleep."

"You still seem tired though..."

"Well... yeah..." Tartaglia admitted, "Anyone would be, in my situation..."

"I see... that does make sense..." Zhongli nodded to himself, as Qiqi settled down next to Tartaglia, leaning against his side. The Snezhnayan took another sip of tea, sighing contently to himself as he leaned against the ex-Archon, watching the chaos of Kaeya and Yae harassing Diluc over not drinking alcohol, with Noelle, Kokomi and Barbara helping Ganyu and Keqing clean up the mess made by Hutao and Xingqiu as Ningguang scolded them.

Eventually, everyone else settled down, and resigning himself to his fate, Tartaglia quietly stood up, activating the crystal, before sitting back down.

It didn't take long for the Fatui to arrive to assess the situation. Ajax was still staring at his brother, stunned, as still as an ice statue, as the Fatui moved in, treating the injured and generally trying to figure out this clusterfuck of a situation.

Luckily, his brother had snapped out of it way faster than Ajax, and had told everything to the Fatui. Somehow, they had decided that even though the boy had inflicted some pretty severe injuries, he had merely been defending himself and his brother from other people who had weapons, and merely over-compensated in a dangerous situation for being unarmed.

The Fatui were even nice enough to help them carry their packages and escort them to their destination, and Ajax just trailed behind quietly, staring into nothing as he followed them blindly.

The following conversation that his brother had with the Fatui as he finished the delivery felt like static to his ears, buzzing incessantly inside his head and blocking out everything else.

He knew he had done what was right; his brother would not have been able to protect himself, so Ajax had to do the protecting for him. He also hadn't gotten into a fight; he had only gotten involved because some idiots decided to drag them into this mess.

But the shock on his brother's face would forever be seared into his mind, the terror and fear easily seen in his eyes as the older boy gaped at the violence demonstrated by the younger boy.

Jean lowered her head, and pulled Barbara in closer, before she glanced at Kaeya and Diluc. She knew that Kaeya and Diluc had their own information networks, and were involved in their fair share of... shady business, but everything they did was to protect Mondstadt.