As he walked right through him, a frigid, foreign sense of rage hung on the stranger's heels. He was completely oblivious and attuned to life. Breathing and ignoring the sun's pleasant warmth in favor of reading, taking up space, and belonging to an unseen world. A world unseen to him anyway, because his eyes were so close to his book that he surely couldn't see anything else.

The two of them appeared to be in a back alley of some kind, and while the living passed beneath the flickering shade and orange shrubbery, arched rooftops and open windows, the dead had to keep up. The bard ran after him irritated and begrudgingly impressed. Somehow the stranger's pace never faltered despite the uneven pavement. His eyes would linger on each page before slowly searching the next; he deliberately paused as he came to a fork in the road and frowned.

The bard joined him and used the moment to think. He distantly realized this could be any other time or any other place. It could have been both. In his own town and his own time this boy could be, or he could have been, any other unfortunate bystander. A guiltless pedestrian caught in a crossfire of undeserved rage. He even looked a bit confused, standing there with his eyebrows knit together. It sparked an odd sense of kinship, but in this moment it didn't matter.

An average bystander didn't fit in a dead bard's memory nor did they fit on a traveler's tongue. They didn't stand with an arrogant aristocratic stance, they didn't wear frilly stainless sleeves, and they certainly didn't wear flashy blue gems that oddly pulsed in the shade. The longer he observed, the more he became certain the stranger was behind this all.

If he wasn't then he was a ghost untethered, a lost kite carried on winds of death. He refused this fate because the kite would come crashing down one way or another.

He shouted desperate words and phrases. A flurry of questions, accusations, and even pleas, until he finally reached forward. He took him by the shoulders, and when his hands predictably phased through he screamed,

"ANSWER ME!"

The stranger startled and snapped his book shut. A sword materialized in his hand as he frantically sought a threat. The bard turned to look behind him, but nothing was there.

"Xingqiu!" Dust flew into the air as someone leapt from a third-story window. They tumbled to the ground below, landing in an open field beside the alley. They immediately sprung into a fighting stance, although their target wasn't clear. Could they see something he couldn't?

The window-jumper conjured talismans. His chants became shouts, and a beam of ice shot across the field singeing his sleeve like a laser. He could see him, and of course he was an exorcist. Just his luck.

"Stay back!" Catching up with the swordsman the exorcist protectively held his arm out, and the bard realized he was wrong about the kite. Very, very wrong.

It had to stay in the sky and finish whatever short flight it had been lifted for. He just needed to see the bigger picture, to gain a better perspective. He just needed to raise higher. In light of that, he turned and sprinted as fast as his legs allowed.

The air behind him vaporized in a summer's heat, though his feet skidded as if on ice. Every time he should have stumbled he phased through the ground, and he was so light that the gentle wind shoved him off balance. He fell and the two caught up.

"WAIT!" Instinctively he guarded his face. A tailwind kicked loose stones from the ground, rocks collided with a lance of ice, and his cheeks were peppered with scorching acidic cuts. He trembled, anticipating another blast or a second agonizing death.

Instead, a pleasant warmth diffused from each icy cut. Like a salve rubbed into a wound, he felt an initial sting at each point of contact followed by relief. Except the relief spread through his whole body, like a song on a rainy day.

He slowly peeled his eyes open to find the pair gaping at him. While they were wide-eyed he took this narrow chance for escape. He would see these two some other time, or he'd find a different breeze to lift his kite. He wasn't going to sit on the ground waiting for them to try that – whatever that was – again. He stood and quickly whirled around.

On his right, a brick wall bordered an open field. It rose well above his shoulders, but his left was a dead end. Faced with no other choice, he leapt as high as he could. Out of practice, he missed; his hands barely brushed the top of the wall. The wind hurled him the rest of the way feet first as if he were standing in someone's palms. He landed gracefully, the grass beneath him illuminated a ghastly blue, and his eyes widened as he narrowly escaped the grasp of the swordsman.

Only for him to collide nose-first with another wall of plate mail. Immediately he was spun over his shoulder and grabbed by the wrists, facing the exorcist and his friend. They all stared at each other, the two of them out of breath while the person behind held with an iron grip.

The swordsman squinted at him with his reading expression, as if he couldn't see the distance of a few blades. Maybe he was nearsighted?

He startled as he remembered his friend. Completely determined, his eyes glowed with a pale sheen and absent pupils.

"Wait! I can explain!"

"Don't listen to her Xingqiu, demons will only lie."

"But I don't think she's-"

"I'm not a demon! At least, I don't think I am?"

The exorcist resumed his chanting in a language he didn't understand. It sounded distantly familiar though he couldn't say why.

"Give her a chance to prove it at least!" the other argued. His captor tightened their grip.

"She isn't struggling. If that's any indication."

"Right! I'll be good! I-I can prove it, so just tell me what to do!"

They all turned to the exorcist, and he hesitated at last. The color bled back into his eyes, and radiating heat like a furnace, he scowled as he stepped closer.

"You're completely infested with karma and you expect me to believe you?" The bard looked to the swordsman as he followed, pleading,

"I-I don't know what you're talking about."

"Chongyun-" The two whispered to each other so long his wrists began to ache. He wanted to turn his head and truly look around, but he feared their suspicion so he stood there obediently watching.

The exorcist wore a gem just like his friend, except his was a different shade of blue. Was it a fashion statement? If the intention was to match his hair, then the dark blue tassel hanging from it didn't make sense. The tassel, he realized, matched the swordsman.

"-Absolutely not."

"But then you won't have to worry about your constitution, and I can figure out why she sounds so familiar!" Familiar. He sounds familiar!

"I've studied this my whole life. Can't you just trust me on this?"

"I do trust you, which is precisely why I'm standing here the way I am," he dismissed his sword and sighed, still behind the other as if he were a shield.

The bard had to prove himself, and for once his memory emerged from its fog, his final words returning to his tongue with timeliness. As if time hadn't passed, and they were still standing there together on the battlefield.

„Wir werden unsere Freiheit zurückholen. Unsere Leben anfangen. Mutige Frauen und Männer, lasset uns kämpfen." Surprisingly, the one holding him back finished the phrase.

„Für Mondstadt."

„Für Mondstadt," he concluded.

They all looked surprised, but not in a way that portrayed understanding. The swordsman nodded to the exorcist and he stepped closer, standing so close their noses nearly touched.

"Heart be pure, evil be erased. Mind be purged, world be saved."

"Uh, what?"

He poked his forehead, and the bard squinted. His sight adjusted, accommodating for nothing because the sun still sat in the same place. Except they had been standing here forever, so it probably moved further west.

"Venti?"

"What about it?"

There was an awkward silence.

"You know Venti just means wind, right?" The exorcist turned back to the swordsman, incredulous,

"Venti named himself wind?"

"I think," his wrists were suddenly released, "we have a lot to discuss."