I'm very glad about how the last chapter was received – especially your reaction, SilentRaz. This chapter will just confirm what all of you probably already think about who Yulia is. I'm changing a tiny detail about the last chapter where Aether doesn't have an ID because of course, he does because of the Adventurer's Guild and this is an AU, so whatever I say goes lol.

I've also realized that I'm somewhat behind, they should be back in Liyue right now, but oh well, better than being rushed.

[ 2 - 2 ]

She wore a loose blouse and a long skirt, with boots a few inches below her knee, a ponytail resting on her shoulder, hair braided at the sides. Upon seeing her in the moonlight from the window ceiling above, the young lady's hair took on a blueish hue. If it wasn't for the Yuheng's clothes, Aether wouldn't have seen it. Oh, but the blond did – more so because he was drunk, desperate to see her, brain hardly working. He hallucinated, hair mistaken for cerulean, and her hands – those soft hands – mistaken for hers.

He would never choose to, could never choose to, utter her name – the blond thought so before, despite it being on the tip of his tongue. By god, how he wanted to say it. Aether wanted to repeat it to his heart's content, but he would never, and his mouth could never utter more than a syllable, no more than the first letters. It wasn't a matter of being physically unable to, far from that. Aether knew that emotions never came first – not when he fought monsters daily, held a sword, had the ability to take death, experience it, witness it.

However, and there was a feeling at the very bottom where he knew it to be the truth, that he had already been controlled by his emotions – right from that day he lost, when he was powerless – and it happened again when Lumine was taken away from him. His emotions controlled his mind, and it was the sole reason as to why he could never utter her name. Yes, he wanted to say it, but he was afraid of the consequences, afraid that all of his progress – what little progress he had of moving on – would instantly vanish. He could say it, but he knew he shouldn't, and so he couldn't.

If he uttered her name, he would remember everything all over again, feel everything all over again.

But, you see, he was drunk. And when one is fully drunk, their mind mostly stops, and when your emotions were the mind itself, then most emotions would disappear, the strongest feelings lingering. Aether could see her as if she was back. But Aether couldn't fool himself to the point where he believed that she had somehow been resurrected. He had been made to believe she was dead, and Aether saw her – lying on the ground, red running from her lips, cradled in his shaking arms.

The girl he... cherished hadn't come back to life, that was a dream that could never come true, but she was a ghost – a ghost that would fade once more. And so, Aether decided to seize the opportunity, because she could never come back. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; even when he decided to be drunk again, she would never return. By all means, they had said their goodbyes, but Aether wasn't ready – and he believed she never was, too.

And what was that lingering feeling? Affection. Even if he was afraid of her, that one feeling would never be removed. In a way, it was a curse. If there was no way of removing it, then how would he move on? There was no way of moving on, not until something else overtook it. In most cases, he'd be scared – utterly scared, but the boy was numb, immune of fear in his current condition, so he fell hard, just like experiencing a first crush.

"Yulia," he breathed, blissfully unaware of all the memories flooding back. It should have engulfed him just as he said the second syllable of her name, Aether would have drowned – not that he wasn't at the bottom of an ocean where light couldn't reach already. The candle in between them had done a horrible job of separating the two, the flame shining just a bit hotter since the blond could feel his face heating up, and he could feel hers go slightly warm at the same time albeit not as much as his.

That was odd. She was a ghost; warmth didn't exist.

Because the traveller hadn't the ability to think clearly, he continued to cup Yulia's face, his fingers melting in the softness of her resplendent face as his thumb gently caressed her small cheeks. This was the last time he'd ever touch her, and he had thought the same when they sat underneath that grove of trees, laying on the cool grass sprinkled with flowers, sat atop the roof of the castle, on the city walls, in her room, in that favourite coffee shop of hers, during that spectacular dance they shared, when she fed him, whenever she whispered his name in his ear so lovingly with breathless gasps he thought his ear might melt, and... when they were collapsed on the ground, her beauty still without equal even when she was bleeding, wounded and thrashed.

Wait – that, too, was odd. You can't touch ghosts.

For a second Yulia's face, her hair – they had all changed. Her eyes turned amethyst, sharp, hair turned into a light version of purple. Suddenly, her face didn't feel so warm or feel so soft, his heart didn't beat so fast, nor cheeks so hot. She wasn't Yulia, no one could be Yulia. No one knew Yulia, not in this world, and it wasn't as if he was going to go back to that world. He had even been thinking of settling down there, and he had been ready to tell Lumine once the battle was over.

But without her, there wasn't any point. Most of his friends had also died from that world, the remaining either having committed suicide or a broken shell of themselves. Aether didn't have the ability to stop them, or 'cure' them, and especially not when he had thoughts of killing himself then and there, too. Yes, it was irresponsible, and yes, he still had his sister, but everything crumbled. Yulia had been holding him up, she was his foundation, his ground – and when that ground crumbled, everything he had so carefully built, carefully protected, it all went crashing down.

Upon finding out he held feelings for her, Aether felt scared of losing her. But she fought amazingly, and the kingdom relied on her, and if he hadn't come, then all that burden would have stayed with her, all of it would've killed her. It wasn't as if the girl could quit, and even if fighting alongside her pained him, hurt him so badly, there was no way of quitting. He did it for her, he fought for her safety. The blond never wanted to fight, but if he stopped, then Yulia would escape his grasp all the same. She was his sole motivation, and that sole motivation was now dead.

She was... everything, and now, nothing.

Aether's hand retreated, head hidden once more in his arms.

"You're... not Yulia," he muttered.

Paimon had returned, still somewhat anxious, sitting back in her seat. The Yuheng took another sip from her glass, pretending as if nothing happened; it would've been hard to explain why the traveller's hand was cupping her face. Aether continued muttering words both Paimon and Keqing couldn't hear – and after a few minutes passed, she asked for the bill seeing as Paimon had finished her food.

The waiter approached, taking care to avoid the blond who looked to be unconscious on the table as he gave the Yuheng a small plate with the requested receipt, walking away to the corner where they whispered to another worker. Without the young lady's disguise, it would have been quite an undesirable incident.

Keqing had no experience when it came to dealing with drunk people, she had never gone out drinking with anyone, not in a casual way, anyway. And so a difficult question to answer popped up: how to bring the traveller back to the hotel? Of course, she would likely need to carry his by slinging his arm over her shoulder, but did she need to do anything else? For example, could she just dump him on top of his bed and that would be it? That would be the best-case scenario.

Another event would be if the boy felt sick and vomited, or somehow made a ruckus on the way or any other weird actions such as what happened only a few minutes before when his hand kept touching her. Although it was indeed curious, the Yuheng had no right in prying or asking questions, so she paid no mind to whoever 'Yulia' was. The same went for when she asked Paimon for why she travelled with him, Keqing had no right to do that.

The young lady had chosen the table closest, just in case something like this happened, and so she quickly exited the restaurant with his arm slung over her shoulder, head slumping close to the crook of his neck. The rain was coming. His breath smelled of alcohol, and it was marginally difficult to support the boy all the way back to the suite.

However, her sword – weighing at 2 kilograms – felt like a small twig, what with how she carelessly threw it, twirled it, in the air, flipped whilst performing rapid strikes, moved faster than the naked eye could see when it was needed. Keqing began using a sword by the age of seven, and before even just a kilogram felt like torture when she attempted to carry it, much less swing it.

The traveller began to stir, so the Yuheng quickened her pace. She certainly didn't want him to witness what had presently been transpiring, there would be much more to deal with when he woke up. For example, the reception. She continued to walk, with Paimon following suit just behind her with the boy's coat and scarf; Keqing's hands were too occupied to carry anything more. It was in sight, the heavenly doors tempting her to be faster, and so she did, careful not to be too quick that the blond might regain consciousness.

Sumeru was one of the few cities that used roads, being one of the more advanced nations. Fontaine was, of course, another. Inazuma, like Liyue, had kept its old traditions alive, having a main speciality in which they operated in, with Liyue's being commerce. Since Sumeru grew many herbs in their farms, medicine came from them, hence how advanced the city was – not to mention the high-paying jobs the citizens had upon having learnt in Sumeru Academia. Of course, that meant farming here was extremely advanced, it wasn't a job looked down on as something simple.

They also had many astrologists from Sumeru, known for their ability to read the stars. A day would come when Sumeru would need to expand outside someday, but for now, they had been cutting down the forests outside of the cave and using its resources to continue developing the city, expanding upwards and to the sides.

There was a rumble, and a shrill scream followed. They were in the middle of the road and Keqing had crossed absentmindedly since there would hardly be any horses at night. As fate would have it, a carriage was soon approaching, and a huge rock had broken off from the top of the cave due to construction. Keqing had planned on running out of the way; they still had time before the carriage would hit – and it wasn't as if she would use her vision.

But before she could move more than a step, roots sprouted from the ground, breaking the cobblestone and forming a wall that forced the horse to stop. At the same time, the rock falling their way – yes, out of anywhere else it could have fallen to, it fell their way – cracked, crumbling into smaller pieces of rock which were flung aside in a way the Tianquan used her vision. On instinct, Keqing looked to her side. There was a hand stretched out – no, two hands stretched out; she could see them from the corner of her vision.

She didn't feel any weight on her shoulders whatsoever.

"Wha–"

Yup, I'm really far behind. This was supposed to be in the last chapter, or everything should have been a chapter before. Apologies for the short chapter, Evangelion won't let me stop watching.