This is a reincarnation AU! Everyone who is a human (Lisa, Amber, Mona, Klee, Aether, Lumine, Kaeya, etc) have already passed away during the current timeline of the game. People who are Archons (Venti, Zhongli, MC and the Tsaritsa) never died (idk if when they're Gnosis is gone if they aren't Archons anymore and just normal gods now but for the sake of this story let's jsut say when they lose their Gnosis they're normal gods now and no longer Archons). Hope you all enjoy!
The God of Energio looked down upon the streets of Liyue. At least, that's what it was called, so long ago. Today, it's now the streets of China (Liyue seems to be heavily influenced by Chinese culture so we'll go with China), a nation where Rex Lapis, Mora, and Archons don't exist anymore. Now, those stories have been lost to the ages.
"Time has changed, hasn't it?" Rex Lapis, also known as Zhongli, asked while standing next to the girl at the top of a building, one not too high and one not too low. "The stories of the God of Salt, Osial, Rex Lapis, and everything else that has happened, are now gone like the pillsars that once stood here."
"Is it a bad change?" (Y/n) asked, looking down at the people. She saw a familiar head of blonde hair and yellow eyes, walking hand in hand with a boy with orange hair and blue eyes, both enjoying some ice cream. "Or is it a good change? The pressure and standards that we had to live by, are no longer there. We can live the way we want now."
"But we were already doing that," Zhongli said, looking down at a familiar head of blonde and gold eyes, but this one was male. This one was talking to a girl with brown hair and a bandana that looked like red bunny ears. "But now it feels like we have been forgotten. Why do we still wander this world when no one knows who we are?"
"I do not know," (Y/n) smiled as she saw two sisters, one being taken care of by the other, both have white/blonde hair. "Maybe it is to help pass our stories on? Or because we are unable to pass on, and we can now only watch what has happened to all the people that we knew, and now see them in such a different light."
"A light that does not seem to be far different than the ones before," Zhongli watched as a girl with her hair in two buns was eating some hot peppers by themselves, not caring about the spice. "Everyone may be the same as when they were alive, but they are not the same people. Our friends from back then, have all passed away. These people we see before us, are just look alike without the memories of us."
"Barbatos is asleep," (Y/n) said, remembering how sad Venti was when everyone from Monstadt had passed away. "Do you think he is still grieving the loss of his people?"
"That could be so," Zhongli shrugged his shoulders a little. "But he will face reality someday. Your nation never believed that you existed, so you were never close with your people. As for me, the time of the Adepti and Rex Lapis had ended long ago, but my people are still in my meteorites, but I was never as close to them as Barbatos was to his people."
"He used to drink with Kaeya all the time," (Y/n) watched as two adults, one with blue hair and one with red hair were both bickering about some kind of vase. "He used to play in Angel's share whenever he could. He used to talk to Lisa about her contraptions, all now in a museum. He used to sit in the hands of the statue that was built in his honor. He was very close with his people."
"He grieves," Zhongli let out a small sigh. "But one day, he will awaken, and we can have a talk with him to help him cope."
"If he ever wakes up," (Y/n) sighed, remembering when Venti was asleep, and waking up to save his people. "Grieving takes time, and all of us cope in a different way."
Zhongli remained silent, just watching out at the dependents of his people, a lot of them not even knowing that he was watching over them. (Y/n) just kept looking down, a little happy to be seeing the reincarnations of people that (Y/n) was close to, while Zhongli was a little happy to be seeing the twins.
"Do you wanna go get something to eat?" (Y/n) asked, looking over to her long time friend.
"Yeah..." Zhongli said, leading the way off of the roof with the Energio Archon not far behind.