I watched in stunned silence as two guards moved to grab both of Signora's arms. She gasped with rage and tried to fight them off, but it was no use. The Raiden Shogun reached for Signora's Cryo Vision and removed it from her without a flicker of emotion.

"A temporary measure," she said before turning to me.

Her eyes seemed as if they held an endless amount of intelligence, and their purple irises were as vibrant as Electro. Though she had no Electro Vision explicitly on display, I didn't doubt that was her power. The tension in the air practically crackled with it.

"Lumine, I commend you for your diligence in maintaining a safe space on this campus. I must assert that, in the future, you conduct such matters within the boundaries of the Sakoku Order."

My mouth dried up, so I simply nodded. That seemed to be enough for her as the next person she addressed was Kaeya.

"Mr. Alberich, you will need to come with me, considering the circumstances. A report must be filed, and we haven't a moment to lose."

"More paperwork." Kaeya assumed his usual nonchalance. "If you insist. Lumine, good work today. It took longer than intended for us to arrive, and I hope Signora didn't go too far. You're uninjured?"

My brain fizzled out as I tried to understand what Kaeya was talking about. He made it seem as though I was in on this plan to catch Signora red-handed. Knowing him, he probably made up a quick story to cover for me breaking curfew and sneaking around. I had questions—like how they knew where to find us and why Childe was in on it—but asking them now would only reveal that I was not, in fact, an accomplice in the plan. For now, in the presence of the CATF, I could play along.

"I'm fine," I swallowed. "Just a bit of a scratch."

His gaze lingered on me, and I wasn't sure if I convinced him. "Don't hesitate to stop by the infirmary if you need to."

"Kaeya Alberich," the Raiden Shogun turned away to walk down the path I used to get here. "Any day now."

He followed her. "Alright, alright. Let's make this quick, shall we? I've got midterms tomorrow."

The Raiden Shogun made no comment on that. Instead, she gave one final order to the guards. "Deliver the guilty party to our holding center. She is to remain there until judgment has passed. As for the remaining two students, escort them to the dormitory. Their efforts are appreciated, but it is time to reinforce curfew."

"You can't do this to me!" Signora shouted as the guards dragged her away. "I am a Snezhnayn exchange student. Unhand me or you will be hearing from my sponsor."

Her angry complaints faded away as the guards made quick work of clearing her from the premises. Two guards stepped up to where Childe and I remained standing, and one of them cleared her throat.

"Come with us, please."

We didn't have much of a choice, and I was eager to get back anyways. The adrenaline of facing Signora coupled with the shock of the events that followed was beginning to wear away. Exhaustion pulled at my body, but there was also a bundle of anxiety that remained. Childe walked beside me as the guards led us to the dorms, and I itched with the sense that he was staring at me. He probably had his own questions and was also waiting for the guards to disappear before saying anything.

The walk back was painfully slow and quiet, but then they finally dropped us off by the front doors.

"We will wait out here," one guard said. "This is our post for the night."

They were probably ordered to keep watch to make sure no other students were sneaking out. I thanked them for the escort and passed through the entrance. Childe followed quickly behind, and the door shut with a weight of finality to it—as if signaling the end of one dilemma and the beginning of another. I might as well be the one to start.

"Thanks for jumping in back there." I looked at him. "If you hadn't shown up when you did, then I might have been, well, you know."

"She didn't hurt you anywhere else, did she?" Childe scanned me once more, and it was the first time he'd been so direct with me in weeks. His previously hesitant demeanor all but disappeared with his concern.

"No, Just a prick."

His brows creased. "You aren't frostbitten anywhere?"

"It was cold," I admitted. "But not that cold. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Childe pressed his lips together as if holding back on saying more. Our dynamic has been tense, but I could understand some of his worries. Still, I didn't expect much else besides this—polite concern.

"What were you thinking?" He surprised me with a reprimanding tone. "Meeting Signora alone in such a secluded place? You're smarter than that."

"I didn't know I would be meeting her. I got an anonymous letter. Well, it wasn't entirely anonymous. I thought it might have been from Kaeya."

"So you just went out there to meet him without knowing any details?"

"I had my reasons," I mumbled before coming to my senses. Why did Childe act so familiar—why did he suddenly care? "How did you manage to find me, anyway? You didn't follow me after I left the dorm, and none of the guards saw me pass through campus."

Childe's tired eyes clung to mine, and he sighed. "When I asked where you were going, you just said 'out' with no detail. Obviously, you're your own person and I don't have any right to pry, so I didn't. For the past few weeks, I've been—I'm trying to let go, Lumine. But then, I saw Xiangling."

"Xiangling?"

A quiet chuckle escaped him. "Yeah, Xiangling. After you left, I went to go up the stairs, and I saw her. A whole kitchen's worth of produce was tumbling down the steps, and she was a panicked mess. Of course, I offered to help pick them all up."

I suppressed a smile.

"She wouldn't stop thanking me. Xiangling was going on and on about a…marvelous multi-colored super pancake? Something to help with midterms, I think. Anyways, I couldn't help but ask about you."

He cleared his throat.

"I just wanted to know if she had any idea of where you might be going. Xiangling stalled at first, but I guess she was so grateful about the food thing that she told me you were seeing Kaeya."

Childe said Kaeya's name with a hint of disdain, but it was less than usual.

"Lumine, I said I was trying, but I…I don't know. I guess I wanted to check for myself. To see if you really—ah—anyways, I thought he might still be in his room about to leave. I wanted to confront him."

I made a point to listen quietly and not jump in about Childe getting into my business. This was the first time in a long time that I've been able to hear him talk—really talk. It was odd, his uncertainty. The Childe I used to know was confident and ran his mouth as he pleased, but now it seemed like he was faltering. Then again, the Childe I used to know thought only of himself, but that also changed. Signora's comments from earlier nagged at me, but I waited for Childe to finish before I mentioned it.

"Kaeya was in his room and didn't at all look like he was about to leave. When I brought up your meeting with him and he claimed to have no knowledge of it, I believed him. Normally, I wouldn't have, but Kaeya was too tense—too alert. He wanted me to explain, but I only knew what Xiangling told me. We both realized then that you were set up by Signora." Childe paused to unclench his fists.

"After that, I wanted to look for you immediately. I was already heading out the door, but Kaeya said to wait. I swear I would have knocked him out for trying to stop me. He insisted that there was an opportunity. I couldn't believe it. Your life was in danger, yet he saw an opportunity. Listening to others isn't my forte, you know that, but I thought to give it a shot. As much of a thorn that guy can be, I knew he also cared. He wanted to see you safe as much as I did. I don't know all the details or how he was able to pull the strings that he did, but the task force got involved—Kaeya convinced them of a plan."

I pieced it together. "Kaeya must have told them that I lured Signora out on purpose. I supposedly played the part of a vulnerable student so that she would let her guard down. Assuming that she would air out all her wrongdoings unknowingly within earshot of a faculty member, we would have our proof. Yes, this was something that Kaeya and I briefly talked about. We never actually got around to planning it, though."

Childe let out a deep sigh. "Even a hypothetical plan like that would have been risky with Signora. Knowing her, she would have caught on and not even shown. I knew we had to be quick. Signora bores quickly, and we didn't have time to spare searching every corner of campus. You saw for yourself. If I was just one moment too late, you would have been…" his voice crumbled. "She really would have killed you."

Signora was crazy, confirmed.

"So, how did you know where to look?"

I waited for him to explain. At first, it didn't seem like he was going to say anything at all. Childe cast a pained look to the floor before clearing his throat and looking directly at me for the second time tonight.

"Do you remember what you said to me on the day of the monster attack?"

I nodded. How could I forget?

"Never." He shook his head. "Never have I ever had someone confront me like that. Never have I ever had someone stand up to—stand against what I've been so passionately set on my whole life. And you know what? If it were anyone else, I probably wouldn't have cared. Because it was you…before you, I had nothing to lose. There was only power to gain—that was the meaning of my life. I was selfish, yes, but I was also afraid."

"You don't strike me as the type who would be afraid of anything."

He let out a humorless laugh. "I know, and that's what I've been trying to convince everyone, including myself."

"Then," I peered up at him. "What are you afraid of?"

"When a was a kid," he shuddered. "I went exploring in the woods outside of my hometown a lot. My mother always warned me not to stray too far. Now that I think about it, I was a lot like that Timmie kid we saved a while back. Except, Timmie was lucky he only ran into a hilichurl camp."

"What could be worse than that? For a kid that age, I can't imagine anything more terrifying."

A surprise Hydro slime was enough to scare me witless back then.

"I fell into the Abyss."

A soft gasp escaped my lips.

Childe grimaced. "I fell in, and for what felt like forever, there was no way out. What I saw down there—it was a nightmare, Lumine. The monsters in that pit were nothing like the hilichurls we saw here. I've since blocked that part of my life out, so my memories of it are hazy. When I finally came to the surface by chance, my family claimed I was only missing for a day. That felt impossible, but my guess is that time passes differently down there."

As he retold the story of his childhood trauma, I couldn't help but reach out a comforting hand over his. "You made it out, though. It's over now."

"That's the thing. It never really ended. What felt like a nightmare then became actual nightmares for me. For weeks, I couldn't sleep as the Abyss monsters haunted my dreams. My parents were worried sick up until I found the strength to regain control of my mind. I was tired of feeling weak. One day, I decided that in order to overcome the nightmares, in order to no longer be afraid, I had to become stronger than what I feared."

"Oh," I whispered. "Did it work?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes. Most times. The nightmares aren't as frequent as they used to be, and I've since learned how to cope with them. I've been able to find the most peace when I achieve tangible power. After receiving my Hydro Vision, the nightmares were reduced by half, and they go away even more with a Delusion. All that mattered to me was eradicating them completely. That is, until you."

"Well, you didn't have to be so condescending towards everyone else," I reminded him softly. "I never would have guessed that this was what motivated you. I thought you were just a jerk."

"I was," Childe chuckled. "I really was, and you helped me see that. You also helped me with something else."

"Which was?"

"The nightmares were never completely gone. At least, not until I met you. Since the beginning of the school year, I've barely experienced any. At first, I thought it was because I progressed so well, but I'm beginning to think it's because of you."

I furrowed my brows "What do you mean? I didn't know about your nightmares until just now. How could I have been the one to stop them from happening?"

"That, I'm not sure." Childe rubbed the back of his neck. "All I know is that when you pushed me away—I deserved that—they came back. Once I stopped spending time with you, the nightmares started to show up more frequently, and they were worse. Just like when I was a kid, I couldn't get a wink of sleep. My life felt like a living hell, and the worst part wasn't even the nightmares. It was being apart from you."

I didn't know what to say to that. For starters, I was still trying to understand the whole me-influencing-nightmares deal. Of course, it's possible for anyone and anything to affect how a dream plays out, but I'd never heard of such nightmare suppression before. The only thing that came close was Almond Tofu. Was I the Almond Tofu in Childe's life? What Almond Tofu and I had in common, I had no idea. Perhaps Xiao would know something about it.

Then, there was the last thing Childe said.

"I said I wanted nothing to do with you," I recalled. "But if I had known—"

"No," he interrupted. "There's no excuse for my actions. It's just as you said, I was no better than Signora. Since then, I've tried to fix it."

"You made Cici and Cicin stop tormenting students, and you tried getting Signora to stop being the worst person in all of Teyvat."

He nodded.

"Why didn't you tell me then?"

"I should have done this long ago. Standing up to Signora isn't something that I should be praised for. Honestly, correcting the behaviors of Cici and Cicin was doing the bare minimum. I don't expect forgiveness, Lumine."

This was the most sincere I'd ever seen Childe. Everything made sense now. His incessant desire to outdo everyone wasn't born from egocentric roots. When Childe looked like a dead ghost for the first week after our disagreement, it was because the nightmares were getting to him. He did improve after going back to being my partner, which supports his theory of me as a nightmare banisher. I certainly didn't expect Childe to oppose Signora after ignoring her for so long. He'd been going through all of this, trying to do the best he could, and I'd passed him off as broody.

"I know you probably can't stand being in my presence. I'm just glad this whole thing with Signora is finally over, and you have one less power-drunk idiot to worry about." He adjusted his stance. "It's a big day tomorrow. You should probably get some rest."

"Wait," I called out before he could leave. "This is a lot to take in. I don't want you to mistake my silence for dismissing everything you just said, and you never answered my question."

"Huh?" he blinked.

"I asked how you knew where to look. There are tons of places to search on campus."

"Oh, right," his eyes widened. "Being able to spend time with you before—before we fell apart was like a breath of fresh air. You make me feel light—like how I used to be before I fell into the Abyss."

I tilted my head in confusion. "Like a kid?"

"Not quite. Let's just say you've reminded me what kind of person I could be. Someone admirable and looked up to by others. Someone who enjoys the little things. With you, I'm able to smile freely and live without being so afraid." Childe broke eye contact. "As for how I was able to find you based on that—I had a gut feeling."

"A gut feeling?"

He smiled. "Yeah. I sensed you would be in that area. We had no leads, and I trusted the feeling I had when thinking about you."

"That's quite the gamble," I sighed. "Though, your gut ended up being right. Thanks, again."

"You don't have to thank me."

"I want to. You deserve it, Childe."

His expression stuttered from remorse to hope. "Do you really mean that?"

"Am I actually grateful that you were able to stop Signora before she offed me?" I snorted. "Of course, I am."

"Not that. You called me Childe."

Huh, I guess I did. After everything that's been uncovered just now, I found it hard to maintain the same composure around him as I had for the past two weeks. Childe showed me that there was so much more to him, and I wish he'd opened up sooner. If I had known about the nightmares, we could have been eating Almond Tofu together this whole time. If I had known how much Childe struggled and what it meant for him to be able to spend time with me—to be normal—then maybe we would have seen eye-to-eye.

I knew now, though.

"Well, yeah. That's your name."

"Actually," he broke into a grin. "It isn't."

I simply stared at him with equal parts of confusion and expectation.

He laughed. "I did tell you I was a man of many names."

"So I seem to recall." I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Who are you, really?"

"If you're asking about my birth name, to my family, I'm Ajax."

"Ajax," I repeated. It certainly had a different feel than 'Childe,' but both names suited him in their own way.

His face brightened. "That's me. Though, if I'm being honest, I haven't been Ajax since I fell into the Abyss. The boy I was before—he was pure and fearless."

"Everyone changes." I nudged him. "Nobody is the same kid they used to be, not entirely, but I think a little bit remains. Ajax is still in there, I know it."

"Thank you, Lumine."

I quirked my brow. "What are you thanking me for?"

"For believing in me."

It was now that I realized I never stopped. The reason why it hurt so much to leave him when I did was because, even then, I still believed in him. I'd watched Childe become aware, seen him try to fit in. Though I didn't know of his internal pains at the time, I had a feeling that Childe was overcoming something greater than what he let on. And now, he's proven that he could be just as honorable as I'd hoped.

My heart swelled with emotion. It was good to have him back.