Chapter III

Anonymous: I'm glad you're loving this story so much! And yeah, Albedo saying 'yo' is one of my favorite parts in this fic so far. Glad we have a similar taste in humor.

I don't own Genshin Impact.

"D-Diluc?" Kaeya stammered softly as he stared at his empty arms, his shaking empty arms. His vision slowly became unfocused as his hearing became muffled.

What...what just happened? Diluc…

"Wha...ere...go?"

Diluc was right there...so where...where was he? Where did he go? Where was his brother?

"Ca...?"

What were those golden sparkles? He couldn't be...he just couldn't be…

"Cap...ya?

Not now...not after everything they've been through. Not when Kaeya just got his brother back!

" Captain Kaeya!" These words laced with fear followed by a sudden hand on his arm snapped Kaeya out of the strange state he was in. He blinked and looked down to his side, realizing that Bennett was holding onto him, a worried and concerned expression on his face.

"Bennett," Kaeya said softly, wondering why his breaths were heavy and why it felt like he had been underwater for a long time.

"Oh good, you're back," Bennett sighed with relief. "C'mon, let's...let's sit down for a second, okay? C'mon, maybe things will make sense once we do."

Kaeya let Bennett lead him back to the abandoned crate, feeling quite awful. His breathing was getting back to normal but...Bennett saw him in that state. He had forced a teenager to take charge of the situation and act like the reliable, calm, and unshakable adult instead. That was Kaeya's job.

But even worse than that...Diluc was gone. Just gone. Diluc just simply disappeared, just like Timaeus-

Kaeya suddenly stopped, his eye wide with realization as he unintentionally jerked Bennett to a stop too.

Diluc disappeared like Timaeus and the others.

He got kidnapped.

"Captain Kaeya?" Bennett asked worryingly as Kaeya covered his mouth, a half-manic laugh escaping his lips while a strange sense of relief flowed throughout his body.

So that was why he, Albedo, and the other knights couldn't find any leads to the kidnapped victims. Because there was no evidence. How could there be evidence when the kidnapped citizens simply vanished without a trace? As for the seemingly random selection of victims…

Kaeya turned his head up towards the tree, where the crow was now sitting on the bottom branch, looking at him expectedly with that shining item still in its beak.

Well, he could hardly expect a crow to be a respecter of persons.

"Captain Kaeya, are you glaring at the bird?" Bennett asked, sounding both perplexed and concerned.

As he kept his angry gaze on the crow, Kaeya came up with a plan. It probably wasn't the best plan, heck, it was definitely a stupid plan. And he was sure there would be people who would criticize him harshly for what he was about to do.

But as long as it gave him a chance to save his brother, Kaeya couldn't care less.

"Bennett, I need you to-

It was at that moment, that Bennett's bad luck showed its face.

How it happened, Kaeya wasn't sure. All he knew was that Bennett suddenly slipped and started to fall backwards, his grip on Kaeya's arm loosening until it was gone.

"Ah!" Bennett cried as he landed on the crate, causing the old box to instantly crack and break beneath him.

"Bennett!" Kaeya cried out as he reached out and grabbed the tips of the adventurer's fingers. As bad as a grip it was, he was able to pull Bennett forward and catch him. For a second, they just stood there and breathed.

Kaeya looked over just in time to see the splintered pieces of the crate sink into the earth.

The crate had been covering a hole.

Kaeya gently pulled Bennett to the side and carefully stepped his way to the hole. When he reached the edge, he peeped over it only to not be able to see the bottom. A second longer of searching proved useful however when he found a ladder on the other side of the hole.

This wasn't too far from Wolvendom...and it couldn't be a coincidence that Diluc got kidnapped right beside...this entrance.

As if to prove his suspicions, the crow flew past him and right into the hole, the shining item still in his beak.

Thanks to a closer look, Kaeya could see that the shining item was a coin.

Looks like he didn't have to resort to touching the coin to get to Diluc after all.

"Where do you think that leads to?" Bennett asked softly.

"I'm not sure" Kaeya admitted. "But I have a good idea who is down here. Bennett, your ankle is better, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Why-"

"I need you to go to Wolvendom. Albedo should still be there. If not, I need you to go get the closest knight, no, Captain, you can find. I am going to go on ahead and...investigate where this passageway leads," Kaeya told him.

"Okay, but what do I say? I...I don't think they will believe me when I say that Diluc just vanished right in front of our eyes," Bennett asked, sounding willing yet scared. Kaeya didn't blame him.

"If you find Albedo, tell him the whole truth. He's an alchemist whose Aunt is no other than Alice. I think he is used to this kind of thing more than we are," Kaeya assured him, his eye still looking down the dark, dark hole. "If it's one of the others...umm... just...say that Diluc is missing and I found where he and the other kidnapped victims might be. That should be enough to get them running."

Then Kaeya turned to Bennett with his most reassuring smile.

"You got this Bennett. We both got this." Bennett's anxious expression became more hopeful and confident.

"You're right! I won't let you down!" And with that, Bennett was off, racing off towards Wolvendom, where hopefully Albedo still was. Kaeya let himself look after his fading figure with a smile before looking back down the hole. His smile immediately disappeared.

"Don't worry, Diluc," Kaeya murmured. "I won't let you down either."

Then he leaped forward and grabbed the ladder. A second later, he was sliding down the ladder and into the deep, dark hole. As he slid further down, the daylight from up above grew dimmer and dimmer. Though as it did, a light made itself known beneath him, and the reddish glow suspiciously looked like a light from a fire.

Kaeya knew better than to hope that the fire belonged to Diluc though.

Finally, he reached the bottom of the ladder and softly landed on the packed dirt. Kaeya turned around and came face to face with a long tunnel, with a lighted torch flickering on a sconce just inside the entrance.

And standing right in the tunnel opening, was the black crow, the coin still in its beak. Then inexplicably, the crow dropped the coin and hopped twice backwards. Kaeya walked carefully towards the coin, ready to draw his sword if the crow decided to attack him.

When he got closer and the crow didn't make any further moves, Kaeya bent down on one knee.

The coin had the same golden color as Mora but instead of a triquetra symbol, it had a cursive A stamped on it.

A counterfeit coin? The kidnapper was also part of a counterfeiting scheme? That didn't explain the whole disappearing act though…

The crow cawed, bringing Kaeya back to the present. Then he stood back up.

"Diluc's somewhere down here, right? Which means I have no reason to touch the coin anymore," Kaeya explained. He suddenly drew his sword and pointed it at the bird. "So why don't you lead me to him, huh?"

To his surprise, the crow just cawed before hopping forward to pick up the counterfeit coin again. The crow then turned around and flew down the dark tunnel and out of sight.

"At least it's cooperative," Kaeya muttered to himself as he reached for the burning torch and took it off the sconce since it looked like it was the only one in the whole tunnel. He kept his sword in his other hand as he followed after the crow.

The minutes stretched on as he walked down the dark tunnel, his eye and ears alert though there was nothing but silence, silence that nearly threatened to deafen him. Kaeya tried to keep his heart calm and his mind clear but dark thoughts and fears were harder to wave away when he was alone.

Because...what was he going to find at the end of the tunnel? Would he really find Diluc there, along with the others?

What if...what if Kaeya was already too-

Kaeya shook his head violently. No, he wasn't going to go down that path, there was no use in thinking those kinds of thoughts. He was going to come to the end of this tunnel, get to the bottom of all of this, and rescue Diluc and the others. Everything was going to be fine, Kaeya could do this.

Though...even if Kaeya was somehow already too late...well.

The kidnapper would just have to learn why 'revenge is a dish best served cold' was such a popular phrase.

Kaeya finally saw a firelight ahead of him. The Calvary Captain exhaled as he gripped the torch tighter while he picked up the pace a bit, his cautious self-restraint the only reason why he wasn't running. More agonizing minutes passed but at long last, Kaeya found himself at the end of the tunnel.

He was standing in a large room that was lighted by several torches on the walls and a small brazier near the center of it. The room was full of a variety of items, like a vase stuffed with small lamp grass, a small stuffed bear, and a small clock. The items were organized in no particular order, just cramped together on three long tables or the floor. There was still plenty of room to walk around without fear of accidentally stepping on something though. Not that Kaeya was even the tiniest bit concerned about that.

No, he was too focused on the man with Inuzuman garb in the cage in the middle of the room, sitting on a chair with the crow on his shoulder, with a wide smile that seemed calm yet predatory.

He was the only person in the room.

"Why hello there. Do you want to play a game with me?"

Kaeya is finally about to get some answers. So what do you think? Sorry that this took so long, I had other projects that ended up taking priority. But hopefully, this chapter was worth the wait! Please leave a review on your way out and perhaps they will motivate me to post the next chapter faster! Until then, have a good day/night!