When a spear was held to his throat, adeptal and anemo energy swirling around the person who threatened him. His eyes opened as he halted in his stride. The dark mask of yaksha Xiao greeted him and he fought back a smirk.
"To what to do I owe the pleasure of being challenged to a fight this early in the day? Without even provoking anyone too!" He cautiously let a small smile grace his face, careful to not provoke the man into killing him instantly. He may love fighting, and he may be strong, but he knows when to recognise the opponent has the upper hand. The adeptus caught him off guard, lost in his thoughts.
"What. are. you?" The yakshas voice was harsh, and if he hadn't known better he would have said perhaps scared, but he could recognise it was simply confusion. Pure and utter confusion. Mm. Actually? That makes a whole lotta sense. Xiao always had better senses for energies than most people, even among adepti.
He took a moment to contemplate his existence, he was what would appear as a human, thats what this body was born as. But then he had hydro and electro elemental energy clinging to him from the use of his vision (Which was little more then useless glass now that he had access to his godly powers, even such a small amount as he had now rivalled vision users) and delusion, which was just a catalyst for him to call electro from at this point, the backlash basically non existent. Then, there was the abyssal taint, which he was slowly melding to accept his divine energy, well attempting to meld anyways, it hadn't been going well so far but it hasn't been long, give him a chance won't you. And the Divine energy, or light energy or celestial energy -whatever you want to call it- within him was small, but someone like Xiao would see it's traces. So yeah. Three energies which typically do not appear together and which also actively combat each other, existing in harmony, within what appears to be a mortal? A human?
Impossible.
Within an adeptal beast or maybe a self-ascended god of some sort maybe, maybe, it would be somewhat feasible. Even then it's practically inconceivable.
So yeah, it actually made more sense to Xiao approach him at some point than to just ignore him. To just ignore the living contradiction he was. He finished his moment of contemplation, painting an easy going grin on his face he tilted his head, dead eyes staring into teal.
"Me? I'm just a human." The yaksha growled soft in his throat anemo gathering around him. This is what Xiao does before he rides the winds.. He can do this immediately though? Whys he charg- Oh. Childe dropped away from Xiaos spear point and pushed himself to the side, turning and sprinting. he heard a soft curse from behind him before the anemo burst and Xiaos presence soared towards him, the jade spear cutting down where Childe would've been had he not known how Xiao fought from his days as Osial.
He's grown. Physically and mentally. The boy could teleport others now? That's interesting. Not something his Xiao was ever capable of. He's proud of the adeptus for continuing to grow and learn new ways to use his power. For now though, it was actually quite annoying, and despite his warm thoughts he really needed to figure out a way to lose Xiao. He obviously couldn't let himself get taken before Rex Lapis for investigation and judgement. Zhongli may not have noticed what he was, but if he were to actually look closer and investigate Childe, that would be another story.
He hummed softly as he dashed to the side to avoid another spear thrust with lethal intent. Childe tilted his head to stare at the sky. Pulling on his divine power, he called for the water of the sky. Clouds began pulling in and filling the previously mostly-clear sky. Sputters of rain came at first, then the rain grew heavy and he heard a mildly undignified yelp of surprise at the out-of-nowhere storm from his little yaksha. He smiled, turning, he saluted to the teal haired boy, who was trying to negate some of the rain around him with his anemo powers, glaring at Childe with new caution and so much frustration at the turn of events. With his salute done, Childe turned and pulled on the rain just a little harder, the water practically falling in sheets as he pushed the energy in his body to cling to drops of hydro, pulling himself into a state of elemental travel through the torrential rains. He rode them to their edge before plunging into a rivers depths and following it back to Liyue Harbour.
Once he was safely back in the city he pulled himself from the water, body forming from his elemental state as it left the river. If anyone had been watching they would have seen a man coming from the water, though his submerged body was not visible in any form. No one was watching though, so how odd he looked didn't matter. He dried himself and made his way to the bank. He'd managed to collect a few debts before Xiao had come across him. He reported his collections to his wonderful secretary and then promptly left to his apartment. He had been thinking over it in the background since he got here, but now he really needed to think about it in more detail. He could break the seal over his dead body with his divine power, that was simple enough. How to say that Chidle could break a divine seal however, was harder. Hmm, how troublesome.
The answer came to him in the most unexpectedly delightful way.
"Hoh? A sigil of permission, now, how did someone like you get his grubby little paws on one of these huh?" The man trembled and tried to mutter half-baked excuses, legs shaking with his evident fear at Childes presence. "Well, no matter, take enough belongings to equal his debt and count this as say, 5% the cost." Then, leaning to the mans ear he spoke lowly, "Be glad I decided not to simply take your life as the payment." His subordinates who he'd brought were already dutifully carrying out his orders. With a maniacal grin splitting his face, he made his way through two treasure hunter encampments on his way back to the bank.
Handing Ekaterina the sigil he tried -and failed- to restrain his bloodlust as he spoke,
"Send this to Il Dottores lab. Ask him to recreate it. I need 100." Then, he left. She would do so, and he would go have a very cold shower to try calm down before his Dinner with Zhongli. It was, mercifully, midday, and Childe was left with a few hour to calm himself. Sitting on his bed, cold shower having helped dampen his mood, he meditated. He wanted to sort through his memories. Take a minute, well- many minutes really, to appreciate his past and just remember.
*Authors note - I actively hate that I can't use strike through. Like what? It's so useful, especially for fiction.
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