Kaeya breaks Khaenri'ah's curse and prevents it from happening again.
The house vibrated violently with a crash just half past midnight, startling Jean up from bed. Swiftly sweeping up her vision up from the bedside table, Jean stumbled to her feet and leapt for the door leading to the hallway.
Just had her fingertips grazed the handle, it opened by another force, only to reveal her lover on the other side, skin more ashen than she's ever seen. Jean was quite startled by his return. Kaeya was supposed to be in Dragonspine, and he was not due back home for another week.
"Kaeya," she breathed. "What're you-" Before Jean could finish her question, Kaeya's mouth crushed onto hers.
This particular kiss was nothing like the usual ones Jean has become accustomed to. Instead of being soft, sweet and electrifying, the movement was aggressive and violent. Kaeya filled this kiss to the brim with despair, panic and desperation.
Before Jean had time to react to his sudden attack of a kiss, Kaeya broke away from her just as abruptly as it came, and Kaeya released her completely, his single eye shining in resignation.
Everything with Kaeya's sudden appearance caught Jean off guard, and it frightened her.
"What's wrong?" Jean asked her lover, hand cupping his cheeks in worry.
Kaeya's voice was hoarse when he spoke. "They're coming."
It took a little bit to register what he meant. But when Jean finally understood her eyes widened in horror, and she reached for his eye patch, practically ripping it off. Only to find that his beautiful golden eye, the eye that marked his bound blood to Khaenri'ah, was stark black.
"No," she whispered, all her energy sapped out of her instantly. Kaeya's pained expression confirmed her suspicions, and Jean felt her knees give out underneath her. He caught her in his arms and kissed her once more.
"I love you," Kaeya said after breaking off their kiss. "You know what to do, and goodbye."
He was gone in an instant, and Jean despaired.
As Grandmaster of the Knights of Favonius, she had been preparing Mondstadt for this moment from the very moment her right hand man first informed her of his relationship with the Abyss.
As a Gunnhildr, she knows exactly what she must do to save her city.
As Jean, her heart was shattering, knowing what was going to come.
When the knights were gathered into a formation at city gates, ready to face the battle ahead of them, Amber was the first to notice Kaeya's absence. "Where's Kaeya?" She asked, and a single tear rolled down Jean's face.
"Elsewhere," she replied.
The Spark Knight, their newly appointed fourteen year old Calvary Captain frowned and tilted her head, deep concern sketched over her youthful face. "Will he be alright?"
Jean could not tell them the truth, nor could she tell a white lie. "I don't know if anyone will be alright after this," she said instead. Then, she turned away from her officers and faced the entire Ordo. "Many of you here today will not be here tomorrow."
"Many of your families will be destroyed today with your absence. That is the unfortunate brutality of war. But we will win, and we will succeed and your sacrifices will never be in vain. For although the Abyss Order is powerful, the Knights of Favonius will defeat them! Every one of us has a duty to this country, to this land and to its people. And for Mondstadt we will fight! And we will not fall!"
"For Mondstadt, as always!"
The speech was not eloquent, as Jean was not good with words. Unlike Kaeya, Kaeya would know what to say.
He was not here.
And Jean's speech did not need great power to resonate well.
The Ordo did not need a leader at this moment. They needed someone who was just as willing to charge headfirst into danger with the rest of them.
And Jean was that person.
Kaeya too, although no one knew that.
The battle began alright. The Ordo was well trained, and even the trainees had plenty of experience battling against the most basic Abyss monsters. With the Dawn Winery's help, the first wave of monsters were warded off relatively quickly.
When Diluc demanded Kaeya's location Jean did not break. She did not know how she did not.
When Kaeya finally appeared in the battle, walking on the side of the Abyss, Diluc leaned his head back and let resigned tears stream down his face. When Amber yelled and Eula gasped in betrayal and Klee shook her head no, Jean wanted to run to him, and tell him to stop and they could go back to how everything was before.
She did not.
Kaeya was not wearing his eyepatch, and his right eye, shimmering in a twisted combination of molten gold and obsidian black was radiating Abyssal energy so powerful it was visible. In mere seconds, he had moved through time and space to stand in front of Jean.
"Grandmaster," he greeted, voice as smooth and velvety as ever. Amber protested, Diluc shut his eyes in great pain and Klee looked like her entire world had turned upside down. "Apologies everyone, but I need Barbatos."
And before Jean could respond, before Jean could run to him, before anyone could lift a sword, arrow, whatever…not a single soul remained within the city of Mondstadt.
Kaeya had transported them outside the city, and the fighting by the bridge had halted before it truly began.
Jean heard Diluc scream in fury, Jean saw Diluc's hair light up, Jean watched as Eula, Amber and Noelle had to tackle him to the ground to prevent him from entering the city walls. And she felt her knees go weak and she clung onto Klee like a lifesource.
"What's happened?" The young girl asked, eyes blinking in horror and panic. "And where's Albedo?"
As if on cue, a great, terrible, bone-chilling roar erupted from outside the city walls. And Venti's limp body was tossed into the city walls by a cruel figure that was undoubtedly Albedo. Horrid, monstrous, but Klee's older brother all the same. The little girl curled into Jean's neck, and she could feel the hot tears against her skin. She didn't dare to cry herself.
She knew what was to come next.
"GET AWAY FROM THE CITY!" Jean screamed to the knights. "EVERYONE TO THE THOUSAND WINDS TEMPLE! THIS IS A COMMAND!"
Klee was handed to Noelle, and the captains, her captains, started taking their knights, injured and well, to the location of her saying.
Diluc, only Diluc refused to move. "I am not a knight," he said to her, glancing at the retreating forms of her colleagues. "I don't have to listen to you."
And Jean knew that the truth of what was happening had to be said.
So she told him. Told him Kaeya's plan, told him his intentions, told him what will happen to Teyvat, to Khaenri'ah, to Mondstadt after.
"And Kaeya?" Diluc asked, frozen in molten horror. "What will happen to Kaeya?"
The tears rushed forward, and Jean did not try to stop them. "I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know."
Diluc's devastation hurt more than her thoughts for the future.
Yet, for Mondstadt, for Teyvat, for Khaenri'ah, the two of them were destined for the earth-shattering pain they were experiencing. And they accepted it wholeheartedly, for they would both embrace all the torture and despair in the world if it just meant they could get another minute with the man that dug holes into their hearts.
Diluc could lose a brother, and Jean could lose a lover.
And whatever void Kaeya would leave behind would never be filled again.
They clutched at each other as they followed their peers to the safety location, and they walked, treacherously slowly towards the place Kaeya had spent weeks meticulously calculating, before finally determining it to be the closest location of safety.
"I'll try to direct the outburst towards Cider Lake and Stormterror's Lair to avoid Springvale," he told her who knows how long ago. "But I don't know how much control I will have over the power."
Then, Jean was alert, ready, prepared for the outburst that had to become of Mondstadt.
The night before, when he barged in with a kiss and a hasty goodbye, Jean remembered to evacuate the town along with the rest of the city.
Now, stepping towards safety, all she could feel was numbness. Her eyesight blurred with tears, and the only two things she could focus on was the shattering of her heart and placing one step in front of the other.
She had forgotten that Diluc was next to her until an earth-shattering roar enveloped them at sunset.
They were painfully slow in their trek to safety, unable to leave behind the only man who could not escape. For if he escapes, then a dead nation cannot live again. For if he escapes, then their nation would be dead, too, in another 500 years.
So when dust enveloped them just past Windrise and Diluc pushed her to the ground, Jean did not cry.
She smiled, and suddenly she understood Kaeya better than she ever had, in her entire life.
And she realized that she was never so different from him after all.
It was so much easier to grin through responsibility, because, at the end of the day, if they were to cry through their burdens, then they would fail their people.
And maybe, just maybe if Kaeya really did die, it would be another form of peace, for both of them.
Still, when the dust settled and the sky cleared and the vision at her hip no longer glowed with the power of the wind, Jean ran.
Ran to a destroyed Mondstadt, ran across the bridge that was still intact enough to run across and watched her city crumple to the ground.
Kaeya did excellent as always, successfully containing the damage to protect as much life as possible. Mondstadt City, well, it was completely flattened. Rubble littering the grounds at every visible inch. The city walls crumpled into Cider Lake, and from the distance Jean could see that the Stormbearer Mountains were no longer mountains, and Stormterror's Lair was all but gone.
Yet, Mondstadt City was completely evacuated the night before, and not a step past Vennessa's Tree was damaged in his efforts.
They found him by where Barbatos' Statue used to stand, like he said he would be. The surrounding area was completely flat, without a single piece of rubble or wood in sight, circling his body protectively.
Diluc, at the sight of his brother, leapt forwards in two steps to wrap him in his arms. And gosh Jean hoped he was still alive. The puddle of blood pooling out from underneath him frightened her.
He stirred, just barely at Diluc's touch, and Jean reached for his hand. Gloved, like they always were these days, hiding burn scars so hideous they were painful to look at. Within his right hand he clutched what appeared to be a bundle of seven little glass chess pieces. The archons' gnosis, Jean knew they were. And upon closer inspection, little black swirls danced underneath the surfaces.
Abyssal energy… his abyssal energy.
"Kaeya?" Jean called his name, holding his hand to her chest. And his eyes, miraculously, fluttered open.
And he laughed, as best as he could with blood trickling out of his mouth and nose. "Jean, Diluc." He had said.
"We love you Kaeya, so very much," she told him.
"You did wonderfully," Diluc said, voice shaking so much his words were almost incomprehensible.
"We're all, so very proud of you."
He laughed again, absurdly, considering the circumstances.
But Jean smiled too.
Even when he closed his eyes.
Even when his hand went limp in hers.
Even when Diluc screamed in despair.
Jean smiled too.
Don't worry, Kaeya didn't die! Well, he definitely almost did, but you'll find out what happened in a later chapter.
I've said this before, I'm going to say it again. I don't think Kaeya is going to take sides. So if he's not betraying the Abyss, and not betraying Mondstadt, how will he help both of his nations? You tell me your theories!
Many things were not explicitly mentioned in this chapter (intentionally).
But here are some things you should know after Kaeya's actions in this chapter.
1. Visions no longer exist.
2. The gods, although not dead are now as powerless as any normal person.
3. Khaenri'ah's curse has been broken, so all surviving Abyssal creatures are now human once again.
4. Mondstadt and Khaenri'ah needs rebuilding
5. Kaeya, no matter how much he recovers, will never be perfectly healthy again. I think that's a consequence we can assume from the level of destruction in Mondstadt. And yes…I didn't kill him because I didn't want to. If the events in here happened in canon, Kaeya's DEAD.
6. Albedo's fine.
7. Venti is fine.
8. Klee is traumatized for life.
9. Every one of our fave characters from Mond are immensely confused and concerned.
10. The Fatui disassemble soon after this. And all Delusions have been destroyed in the outburst as well.
And yes, the gnosis thing at the end was intentional. What use do you think they came to?
Ok that's the end of my rant…byeeee!
