Chapter Text
ARC 0 - The Exordium
Chapter 1: Wanderering rumours
The wind carried rumours before it carried anything else.
In Teyvat, rumours were not just spoken. They traveled through markets before merchants arrived, through forests before hunters returned, through mountain passes before travelers ever crossed them. They moved like something alive, threading themselves through conversations, half-truths, and uneasy silences.
Though different in form and belief, all travelers, adventurers and wanderers all cough on a glimpse of some mysterious disappearances of people here and there.
Wanderer heard whispers in the Akademiya library and even the people he conveniently helped in some random part of his patrols around the region border.
“Be careful of the trees! Some did not return.” They said,
Wanderer thought it ridiculous. They live in a forest, even the main city is under a majestic tree. Yet it might be an intriguing story to tell Buer at their next meetup.
Besides that, the forest outside Sumeru City is not behaving like it should.
It grew in layers that did not align with each other. One path might lead to tall, sunlit trees with golden leaves. The next step could shift the same path into dense shadowed greenery where light seemed to hesitate before entering.
The forest watcher deem this inconsistent change as a seasonal phenomenon. Since the fungus also seems stirred and unsettling during this time of the year, they decided to increase the guard and leave less opening as well as deep forest roads.
At its edge, the air was still warm, yet carried an odd pressure—like the atmosphere itself was holding its breath.
Beneath Sumeru’s fractured skies, Wanderer hovered above the edge of a caravan route that had nearly faded into overgrown wilderness.
Wanderer did not like missions that seem too vague to even start.
Still, he had come, following Nahida's hope to study the place.
Because the request had been phrased in a way that irritated him:
“Investigate the missing incident without destroying the nature of the area.”
As if he was the one prone to destruction… at least not anymore.
He exhaled slowly, drifting downward until his feet touched a branch that should not have been strong enough to support anything. It bent slightly under his weight but did not break. “This is what passes for urgent concern?” he muttered.
The forest did not answer.
It only shifted.
Somewhere deeper inside, wind moved through the trees—but not in a consistent direction. It circled, reversed, and hesitated, like something trying to recall how airflow was supposed to function.
Wanderer narrowed his eyes.
Annoying.
Not dangerous.
Just… wrong in a way that refused to explain itself.
He floated forward slowly, letting Anemo currents carry him deeper into the forest canopy.
Nothing attacked him.
Nothing revealed itself.
Even the birds were absent, as if the place had decided it preferred not being witnessed.
After an hour of searching, there was still nothing concrete to report. No monsters. No visible corruption. No obvious cause.
Only that same unsettling feeling.
Eventually, eventually he grew tired of it, actually tired, he felt hazy and his joint seemed to crack once a while. As this thought appears, he finally chooses to stop and investigate it some other way, some other days, maybe…
The wind around him trembled faintly at the statement, as if offended.
He turned away.
Whatever this was, it was not worth the irritation.
And so he left.
Within the Akademiya, the researchers are still busy with their work. In fact many have not stepped foot outside for days.
Wanderer drags his heavy body back to the dorm room as he avoids everyone who comes his way. When the doors behind him lightly crack into its look, he flop down to his bed and release a small groan. Unable to detect any anomalies of his physical wellbeing, he assumes it is the mood or just some hard feeling resurface before falling into a short slumber.
Everything was playing out as it should, but the small detail people missed is still recorded since Nahida had taken notice in a certain puppet “normal” day.
In the center of the Sanctuary of Surasthana, Nahida listened not to reports, but to resonance.
The forest did not speak in words. It spoke in imbalance. Something there did not belong to normal elemental order. Not corruption in the traditional sense, not abyssal contamination either. It was more subtle.
Like nightmare and sweet dreams intertwined. Like forgetting some people surname after some time. Like memory being edited mid-thought.
“Something is disrupting the air flow or maybe elemental flow itself.” she said softly to herself, gaze lowered as green light flickered gently around her. “Not destruction… revision.”
The forest was not merely dangerous.
It was uncertain of what it was supposed to be.
And uncertainty, in Teyvat, was often more dangerous than ruin.
After a long moment of thought, she reached out—not with authority, but with intention.
A message was sent.
Not to the Akademiya.
Not to the guards.
But to someone who moved between instability and understanding with unusual ease.
Far from Sumeru’s unstable greenery, Liyue Harbor stood as it always had: orderly, grounded, shaped by centuries of trade and stone.
Yet even here, rumours had found purchase.
People spoke in quieter tones now, especially in taverns and tea houses where sound lingered longer than it should.
Disappearing workers returning without memory.
Fishermen vanishing at sea only to reappear on docks days later, confused and uninjured.
Children wandering into mountains and coming back… different, though no one could explain how.
The Millelith called it superstition.
The merchants called it an inconvenience.
The elders called it unsettling.
But the wind carried it differently.
And Kaedehara Kazuha listened to the wind more than most.
Kaedehara Kazuha stood near a stone bridge overlooking the harbor, watching ships sway gently beneath the orange glow of evening light.
The water below was calm, but not entirely stable. Reflections shifted slightly out of sync with the ships above them, as if the surface and reality were not fully agreed on what was present.
A nearby merchant spoke to a group of travelers.
“Three men went missing near the forest route north of Qingce,” the man said. “Came back five days later. Said they had only been walking for an hour.”
“And the girl from Stone Gate?” another voice asked.
“Same story. No memory of anything.”
Kazuha tilted his head slightly.
That was unusual.
Not unheard of but unusual enough for the wind to repeat it twice.
He approached the group calmly, footsteps soft against stone.
“Forgive my interruption,” he said gently. “I could not help overhearing.”
The merchant looked at him briefly, then sighed. “Another traveler. You all ask the same thing.”
“And what question is that?” Kazuha asked.
“Whether it is dangerous.”
Kazuha paused.
The wind brushed past him, carrying the same strange inconsistency he had noticed earlier—like a path that did not connect properly to itself.
“I would prefer to ask what they experienced,” he said instead.
The merchant shrugged. “They say nothing. Because they remember nothing.”
That, Kazuha thought, was more concerning than any tale of monsters.
Returning to the ship, Kazuha's mind wanders to the matter as he lingers around the deck watching everyone move up and down with an oversized crate in hand, sweat dripping from their chin. He spaces out entirely until he spots a familiar silhouette with the eye patch and her red flowing dress.
Beidou stood before him looking into those aimless eyes. She took the initiative to speak: “So how is your errands around town, anything interesting?”
It's like his soul just got full back into his body, “It's okay I got everything we need, how about the delivery?” Kazuha returns her question.
“As always, the kids love the new toys. We might need to import some more along with more Nilotpala lotus and Violetgrass for the Bubu pharmacy. I heard the rainy season is coming in Sumeru.” Beidou start to ramble about the matter.
Kazuha smiled slightly, still patiently listening before he thought of something and asked: “ I heard that there are people missing both on land and in the sea. Have you ever seen or experienced it first handed?”
Beidou slightly raised an eyebrow looking back at her crew, hesitantly sighing as she spoke: “You heard about the incident?”
“Yes I heard they are more frequent, most don’t consider it an urban legend anymore.” He answered, frowning a bit after the claim.
Beidou looked back at him confirming his thought: “I have to admit we once encountered something similar. It was a mystery we don’t have anyway to investigate.” She stopped and sat down next to Kazuha.
“It was a normal day as we were drifting with the waves. We had just finished a delivery for Nodkrai and were on our way back to Liyue. That night the watch tower reported mist surrounding us blocking all our sight. We have to send a small group to scout beyond the mist. And you can guess what happened next, the connection was lost and they went missing for one full week.
It was fortunate that we still have our supply in stock for emergencies as we waited. After a week they came back all part intact except they insisted that they went for merely an hour. The mist quickly dispersed soon after and we went on with the journey. However, that incident still caused confusion within the crew until now.”
She glanced at his stiff posture, keeping quiet cause there is no further need to add anything to the matter. They sat quietly until one of the crew members loudly called out for their captain.
Beidou slips down from the bow and walks away one hand waving at Kazuha before she leaves.
Kazuha is still flowing in his own thoughts. Most of the time he keeps himself open minded and carefree so Beidou probably wouldn’t randomly bring this up. So when he actually heard of it unease built up inside of him.
Kazuha breathes in deeply, savours the salty sense in his lungs and closes his eyes. Slowly the harmonised sound of the waves and winds soother him to sleep.
Later that evening, he met them.
Three individuals seated inside a modest inn near the harbor. They looked well, physically unharmed, but their eyes carried a distant emptiness—not confusion, not trauma, but absence.
Like pages removed from a book without tearing the cover.
“You entered the forest,” Kazuha said calmly. “Do you remember why?”
One of them blinked slowly. “We… entered the forest?”
Another frowned. “Did we?”
The third shook their head. “I don’t think so.”
Silence settled between them.
Not uncomfortable.
Incomplete.
Kazuha studied them quietly.
Their breathing was steady. Their emotions were intact. Their memories, however, did not align with their own existence.
The wind in the room shifted slightly.
It was the same inconsistency he had felt earlier.
Something had interfered not with life—but with continuity.
“You returned safely,” he said softly after a moment.
The first villager nodded. “Yes. I suppose we did.”
But even they did not sound convinced.
Kazuha rose.
“Thank you,” he said gently.
As he turned to leave, the wind outside pressed against the windows in a way that felt almost… deliberate.
As if guiding him somewhere.
(The Forest Outside Liyue)
He reached the forest at twilight. His red attire radiant with the reddish hue of the place gently dancing with the opposite blows that seems almost intentional.
It was not the same forest the villagers described exactly. No forest ever was. Trees shifted in perception depending on who observed them, and this one felt especially reluctant to be consistent.
The air grew quieter the deeper he walked.
Not silent.
Carefully reduced.
As though the sound itself was being edited.
Kazuha stopped near a narrow path where the wind suddenly changed direction without transition.
He closed his eyes.
Elemental sight stirred softly.
And there—
a fracture.
Not visible to the ordinary eye. Not even properly physical.
A thin distortion in space, like a tear in the fabric of perception itself. It pulsed faintly, not aggressively, but hungrily—like something trying to stabilize itself by consuming energy around it.
“…So that is the cause,” he murmured.
The wind around the fracture tightened.
It responded to his presence.
Not resisting.
Not welcoming.
Recognizing.
Kazuha stepped away, backing off from the gateway of potential danger.…
…
Why is he not further from the rift? Kazuha felt cold from the realization, he couldn’t go back, why? It is not actively sucking him in but he can’t stand here forever.
His eyes got sharp with focus and somewhat acceptance of fate, Kazuha slowly stepped forward, his grip tightening around his sword ready to strike.
The moment his foot crossed the boundary of the distortion, the forest vanished.
Not exploded.
Not dissolved.
Simply stopped agreeing with reality.
The last thing he felt was the wind breaking apart into countless overlapping directions.
Then even that disappeared.
And then it swallowed him whole.