The Wandering Zero's Journey

by NeoShadows

He was at death's door, his body tearing itself apart from the inside, and fighting a bewitching magician on Christmas. On the verge of death, now drowning in alien tides, Kamijou Touma would find himself lost in a new world of gods, visions, monsters, and adventurers. The path ahead had no goal but at least he wasn't the only out-of-worlder searching for his way back.

1. Falling Star

Salutations! It's your overworked, alcoholic, workaholic, coffeeholic- that's too much -holics- boy, NeoShadows!

And with a brand new story. One I've been hinting at for years.

A Wandering Zero's Journey.

When coming up to the title of the story, and what I was going for with the premise, my thoughts kept straying to The Fool's Journey. You know, the Tarot card system found in the occult. Compared to A Certain Maelstrom of Misfortune, and even all my other stories, I wanted this fic to be more of an adventure and to symbolize the kind of growth Touma will go through as he wanders Teyvat.

Wanders Teyvat...for what?

That will be one of the big questions for the fool to solve.

Oh, and to get this out of the way real quick: this story will have Aether, not Lumine. Why? I considered Lumine too when pondering what I wanted out of the story, and even thought she would be the one to share the stage, but I kept falling back onto Aether. Two Harem Lords sharing the same alien world- what could go wrong?

Oh, the misadventures to come.

There's much to be said but as always, we'll leave those thoughts for the end once you've had your fill.

Enjoy the newest entry and scroll away!

---

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to A Certain Magical Index or Genshin Impact. Both rights are reserved respectfully to Kazuma Kamachi and Hoyoverse.

---

Chapter 1: A Game Board Cleared At The Climax.

UNLUCKY_Fallen_Star.

[-]

Kamijou Touma floated.

Above his battered body painted in grizzly red and black, he saw a dark sky covered in clouds of black and teeming with sparks of violet purple. His mind was numb to the sudden change of scenery as his body seemed to float like thunderclouds. A terrible and raging tempest of twisting winds, hammering rain, crashing waves, and flashing lightning greeted the bloodied boy who floated above high in the darkened heavens where god's heavenly light bounced with resounding claps.

He began to fall. Gravity took hold of him and applied its ever-powerful law of physics to plummet him to the expansive churning waters at his back. With a hoarse gasp, the boy was gulped by frigid waves with a geyser-like splash.

Blood was washed away but the rain did little to relieve the searing pain he was experiencing as he tried to clear his foggy thoughts of the strange development. His sense of direction was lost and an overwhelming surge of pain disoriented him to the point he grew numb to the damage.

Dark abyss.

A world of deep blue where light flickered above.

He couldn't move a muscle, couldn't stretch even a finger out to the ceiling of the chilling aqua darkness swallowing him further and further into the deep. His vision blurred as all color vanished into the shade of abyssal azure where only flickers of purple branches of lightning could be seen above the twisting waves.

Where...Where was he?

What happened?

Where did everyone go?

Just what exactly had he been doing moments ago? Why couldn't he recollect a single thing from a moment ago?

'Merry Christmas~!'

Poisonous.

Cruel.

Vicious.

Alluring.

A sexy woman with pink shrimp-pressed hair wearing an odd leotard and skirt and a vicious yet pleased smile came to mind with a resounding clap of lightning close by.

Memories of a snowy day, of a city of science, of a place that rejected the supernatural where an ordinary boy like himself could be found anywhere. Memories of hysteria, buildings being cut to pieces, flames erupting to consume everything, glass shattering and falling, blood seeping onto the pure white snow, and the very earth splitting apart. It all came back with such speed to his groggy mind that he didn't have any way to properly process it all with any emotions. It almost felt as if everything he was recalling would spill over.

For some reason he raised a hand, reaching out for something he knew he couldn't reach.

A left hand.

Strange thick black vines tainted his arm, criss-crossing in overlapping patterns until they completely devoured the limb. An icy blue coloration, similar to a diamond, was found at the tips of his fingers that gave off a dazzling gleam as lightning continued to dance above the dark clouds. Red tainted the beautiful diamond sheen.

'...Ahh...that's right...'

Touma smiled a bitter smile as he continued slipping straight into the cold and dark ocean ready to devour him like bloodthirsty sharks.

Anna Sprengal.

St. Germain.

Christmas.

R.C. Occultics.

Misaka and a honey-blonde girl.

He had been fighting someone who had taken a different path than the Magic God turned Fairy, Othinus, and…

'I lost.'

Dark liquid rushed into his mouth slipping into the soft folds of his lungs with an eager vigor. He couldn't breathe. The fall to the waves had broken multiple bones with the force of mini detonations going off and caused more blood to escape his battered body. His mind grew foggy as his sight darkened to the ebbing black waters. Thoughts were scrambled and he couldn't do more than drown as he caught the faint flash of light above the surface of the waves he was sinking into like an anvil.

He was dying.

No, it was more like he had been dying.

This was the uneventful conclusion he had accepted before he had even stepped foot onto that battlefield with someone who had stood on a stage similar to the likes of Aleister Crowley and Coronzon. He had been prolonging that cruel end for as long as he could, brushing off the walls of broken glass hitting his body, the deadly magic slamming him back and forth, the explosions tearing him apart, and the flames searing his skin like cooked meat. He was already on his last legs when he thought he was about to land the finishing blow.

But…

'W-What happened? I thought...I thought we had finally crossed the finish line. Weren't we...weren't we about to knock her out and put an end to...'

Of all the agonizing wounds he suffered, he found one screaming above all others.

He could feel it. A four-inch long piece of glass or metal plunged into his soft flesh. Its tip tickled something incredibly soft, fleshy, and fragile inside him. A foreign item was lodged into his insides, causing a sickening sensation in his stomach.

It was a knife.

Sickle.

Death's reaping weapon and signal of the end.

The weapon represented his soul being stripped from his damaged body. All it would take was a measly little push and the fang would inflict the fatal blow that would end his life. How it hadn't already done so as Touma had fallen was an honest-to-good mystery.

Or perhaps, this was simply his right hand at work.

Imagine Breaker. A hand capable of negating supernatural forces. A crystallization of magicians' hopes and dreams to return to the original world. The reference point of the world, of the universe. An ability capable of restoring the harmony of this chaotic world.

The ultimate bad luck charm.

For all its achievements, all its glory, all its ability to dismantle even the system of god, it was nothing more than a right hand that denied its bearer fortune or happy endings. It was a bringer of misfortune. A plague that rots kindness.

Dying to a poison bursting his blood vessels at the seams, body wrecked by all manner of violence, stabbed with a weapon just an inch from sinking into a vital organ, and drowning in a cold ocean in some distant part of the world he couldn't recall how he found himself in?

Wasn't this just his misfortune prolonging his suffering to its greatest extent?

'...wi...h! S..it..ch! Sw..tch!'

As he felt his body go numb, his heartbeat struggling to give out its last beats, and his lungs completely submerged in water, Touma thought he heard a voice call out to him.

His left hand, overtaken by strange black and icy diamond colors, bent their fingers without his command.

In his final moments, a terrible and sullen thought came to mind.

That's right, he wasn't dying alone.

Honestly, how more pathetic could he get in dragging someone else to his grave alongside him?

[-]

"Not yet."

In a place that did not exist, an old and gruff voice spoke.

"Not yet! Esper, I refuse to accept this is how you meet your end!"

Life was manipulated, processed, and given a new form.

Inside the body of the drowning boy, more of his body was destroyed as two contradicting forces tore his blood vessels apart like beasts warring over territory. His life further slipped from his unresponsive hands.

But Kamijou Touma's left hand had a will of its own. Separate from the boy who was labeled an Esper, the left hand held the will of a being who was considered a Magician. Icy diamond fingers stretched far from the depths of the watery grave.

St. Germain was nothing more than a colony of bacteria given its own will. He was a liar. A charlatan. A faker who glorified his own deeds and achievements so that he may slip into the high echelons of social society with parlor tricks and slights of hand designed to amaze those gullible aristocrats of old. A being who could not be categorized as a simple Magician, a Saint, a Magic God, or a Secret Chief but held abnormal powers no one else could attain through the accepted and known channels of mysticism.

This version of St. Germain, as concentrated and purer than the rest, was no different. He was an invasive parasite who constantly refined an Esper's life force into magic without the boy's consent. He was no different than a fatal disease discovered during a spontaneous check-up. With every second he remained in the Esper's body, he ate away at his insides and damaged his organs. Not even Imagine Breaker could keep up with the rate of destruction and regeneration his magic was inflicting upon its host.

This was the inevitable end for Kamijou Touma after receiving the deadly kiss of a monstrous woman with toxic lips.

But...but!

In a place that did not exist, where no voice could be heard, St. Germain rejected the cold hard logic with all his being.

Kamijou Touma could no longer move or fight. He had been subjected to a great deal of catastrophic damage to his already wounded body. For all his unimaginable feats against godly opponents, he was no more a boy. He had long passed the threshold of pain to attempt to overturn this cruel fate.

So, St. Germain forced the switch. He forcefully snatched the baton the two had shared and took over the Esper's body without his consent. Even though the action further refined the boy's life force into magical energy that would kill him, the old magician had no other choice.

Desperation called for desperate action.

This was not how that compassionate boy who, at death's door, reached out to an unseen and broken down colony of bacteria and gave him a chance to achieve his dream, would die!

Ice diamond fingertips grasped the magical energy killing its bearer. Particles of flickering dust gathered into the palm of a bloody hand struggling to maintain its focus. Slowly at first, a steady nest of flickering light swam into its grasp before blinking.

Water sizzled and burned.

A beautiful white marble flashed into St. Germain's hand, burning an intense heat capable of evaporating a large chunk of the water they were submerged in. Not a drop of the crashing and churning waves could smash through the field of intense heat as the orb slowly diminished into a flickering grain no different than crystalized sugar.

No, not diminish.

It began to collapse within itself under unbearable pressure.

'I am the Star of this world! My brilliance shines bright until the end! Oh, Tetractys ever so pure! Let your perfect ten points collapse and burn! Void the symbols of Fire, Earth, Water, and Air! Grant me luminescence that burns luminescence!'

What was being performed was a feat only a being such as St. Germain could perform. A feat that would baffle those on the science side who would break down his actions and drag them down into the realm of logic.

Carbon Detonation.

The breakdown, the collapse, of a white dwarf star. Thermonuclear fusion seared the waves around the left hand to create a space of unimaginable heat only a star could ever produce. What the old magician produced in an esper's hand was the key ignition for the creation of a Type-1A Supernova capable of obliterating solar systems.

In theory.

Brilliant white light collapsed into a flickering grain of intense pressure yet the perfect speck of a star's dying breath creaked. If one were to inspect the light, one would find the tiniest of cracks marring its beauty. As if the glorious shard of light was being eaten from the inside.

'This...this will have to do.'

Grimly, St. Germain knew such a powerful spell would cause utter devastation to the world. He was thankful nonetheless as the orb began to blink sluggishly as more cracks appeared over his spell.

Yes, it was a violent spell capable of destroying this small world. It was a trick fit for his status as a being separate from Magic Gods and Secret Chiefs. But it was still purely a supernatural power.

Imagine Breaker continued to break down the magic he was refining with Kamijou Touma's life force. Every spell he performed was but a meager shard of its former glory. Knowing such a fact, he had been careful in the spells he had been performing to make up for that fact to better combat against Anna Sprengel.

The Carbon Detonation spell was no different. It had been robbed of its great killing potential and had been downgraded into nothing more than a massive explosion. This was but 1/100 of its power.

'I...I can not save you. Even with my many spells and mastery of carbon, there isn't a single trick that can drag you out of this situation. All I can do is support your broken body with seams of carbon to knit your snipped blood vessels and support your broken bones. All I can do is try and keep you alive as long as I can! But...but...BUT!'

Burning white mass fused atoms until the world below the waves could no longer withstand the searing heat.

St. Germain revealed a melancholic smile in the same manner Kamijou Touma had moments ago as he let go of the rumbling star bit.

The miracle he created out of the dwindling life force of the boy who listened to his hopes and dreams floated away like a loose air bubble trapped in the deep trenches of the ocean bed to seek the world above. It was the representation of a long-forgotten man who no longer had a body of his own but still held dreams and wishes of his own. Like a naive wish made by the young and hopeful youths of any world, it was an innocent star escaping the crushing sea so that it may be heard by the heavens above.

As that star composed of a wish broke the surface of the waves and streaked into the high stormy heavens, an old man thought he could speak one last sweet dream.

'No matter the world you find yourself, boy. I know. I know, no matter its nature, its people, its systems, or its gods, that it is not so cruel or hopeless to allow such a kind soul to perish. Let this strange new world hear my wish and grant me so: Save him. Save this bright and gentle child who adores all others above himself.'

A tiny speck of blinding white light pierced the dark heavens and soared higher.

Higher.

Higher still.

It sought a sky beyond the sky until it swore it could grasp the heavens themselves.

And...

That lovely wish erupted with a thunderous roar that not even the crashing thunder could silence.

[-]

Kaedehara Kazuha saw a brilliant and dazzling light erupting above the stormy night sky.

To his surprise, the light was powerful enough to clear a great deal of the black clouds as a great white flame seared the skies and the falling streaks of lightning promising to spear their sea-faring vessel into a watery grave. The harsh winds twisting the rough waves were silenced by the light's roar to the point he could have sworn the entire ocean had found itself in the eye of a great hurricane.

Aboard The Alcove of The Crux Fleet, at the very top of the crow's nest to better read the ever-changing and restless winds, the young ex-samurai of Inazuma found his eyes like many others aboard the ship drawn to what could only be described as a brilliant shining star above what had once been a terrible thunderstorm out in the middle of the sea. Where the waves had once been thrashing their ship about no matter how well they tried to navigate the large waves threatening to swallow them whole, an odd yet tranquil silence had put it to an end.

From the thunderous point of violence, an array of lovely colors spread as far as the body of the sea. Not even the darkness beyond Tevat's clouds could corrupt the brilliant spark's burning wings. Those flames stretched far and wide like an angel.

'The Raiden Shogun's storm was...stopped?'

The light...it reminded Kaedehara Kazuha of the lovely and joyous fireworks the Naganohara fireworks he'd seen scattering the night skies during festivals. One so warm and lovely, that not even the ravenous storm created by the Electro Archon who protected the islands of Inazuma could touch. It spread far and wide like wings, clearing away the storm clouds as its radiance seemed to demand all in the world to gaze upon it. Its flames(or was it pure light?) were an intense white with hints of various hues of red, purple, orange, and yellow. The ex-samurai couldn't help but compare such a burning bellow of light to a star erupting upon the mortal world.

The sheer size of it.

Kazuha shuddered. If such a thing had fallen onto the earth, it would surely swallow a good half of Narukami Island.

All who laid their eyes upon the starlight explosion were awed and found their breaths taken away. When faced with such a glorious sight, one full of such strange colors not seen in even a certain firework's master's work, not even the dreadful storm shoving their ship around could steer them away from admiring the lights above. Such a distraction would cost them their lives when in the middle of such a storm spurned by a deity's wrath.

But it seemed not even the sea-splitting lightning from Celestia could compete.

Lightning ceased. The heavy downpour died. The winds stopped howling. The darkness of the night seemed to burn away to reveal a pocket of the free and gentle heavens wrapped by sephiroth wings.

And in that tranquility, as the storm had been stilled, Kaedehara caught it.

A strange scent and the gentle sweep of wind drew his attention. Faint ribbons, thin yet potent, brushed by the eastern swordsman in the absence of the normal scent of overpowering rain.

As sudden as the burst of brilliant light came it vanished from the clear skies. It blinked slowly before it seemed to collapse. The lovely winged star crumbled from the sky and returned the heavens to its maker. Leaving a thick trail of smoke behind as a clue to where it had flapped its wings to rise with a thunderous roar.

He could sense it at the moment that wondrous light vanished. The raging tempest that had come upon them was returning. Those howling winds were fast approaching and the scent of rain was caught in the wind. Lightning would once again strike the seas with cruel fever as the pocket of the open heavens was slowly darkening.

But the strange scent, the brilliant starlight, the pull of the gentle wind upon his face.

Was it his attachment to the gentle wind? A gift from the Anemo Archon? A sign from a god?

Whatever it was, Kaedehara acted swiftly to the sudden calling he sensed in the wind.

"Captain!"

[-]

'I suppose...this is the end, Esper.'

Despite the weight of his words, St. Germain was happy.

He could feel it. His very presence, his disease, and his corruption spread further and further into the heavily damaged body of Kamijou Touma. The black licorice vines signaling his essence's spread were growing further along the boy's body like tattoos.

Carbon created minerals as clear as diamonds. And as black as graphite. It was all a matter of how refined the matter was and how the atoms were arranged. The poison coursing through the esper boy's blood vessels was changing the composition of the cells into pure graphite but found itself growing purer in his left hand for reasons even the carbon magician didn't understand. In time, the entire left half of the boys' body would turn into rigid and tough diamond graphite- black yet indestructible matter.

Even if by some miracle that the child was saved, it would be St. Germain who would surely kill him.

He wouldn't allow that.

To the boy who had been in such tremendous pain, could no longer see straight or clearly, spat blood, and struggled to take a step forward yet chose to speak honestly and kindly to the very poison killing him, he would not allow such a tragic ending to be.

As the cold and harsh waves of the sea rushed in to once again gulp Kamijou Touma into its depths like malicious hands eager to drown him, St. Germain once again abused his control of the esper's lifeforce for another trick.

Deep, deep, deep below the surface of those waves, something arose.

Slim diamond-composed columns touched Touma's back and carefully lifted him before the tides dragged him away. A decently sized bed of columns was created to keep their creator from sinking into the raging seas. Bearing in mind the nature of Imagine Breaker, it was created to leave only the right hand dangling so that it may not shatter its body. One would think a miniature island had surfaced from the murky depths of a trench hidden by the raging tides, lifting a landmass of bizarre ghostly icy crystals, pillars, and rocks.

That was all St. Germain could do before he killed the boy any further.

Even as he abused his caster's life force, and attempted to diminish the damage by fabricating extremely thin threads of carbon to sew ruptured blood vessels, support broken bones with an exoskeleton, and seam open wounds, it would be all for naught. Misfortune could only drag on that boy's suffering for so long before he perished.

So, he would have to purge the poison himself.

In other words, St. Germain would have to kill himself. The colony of bacteria of a broken-down magician found in all phases of every reality would have to commit suicide by focusing all of his being on meeting that right hand to cease the constant destruction of the esper's body.

There was nothing more he could do for the kind boy without further leading him to finally being embraced by death's longing embrace.

"Maybe...no, without a doubt, you will die. One day even a boy as unfortunate as you will meet his end. It may be in twenty years. Forty. Sixty. With your poor luck, it could be in two years; you may even die in a month. No matter the accolades you collect in your selfish desire to achieve an ending with the promise of smiles at its end, the people you protect, the gods whose favors you garner, or even the worlds you save; all of god's beloved children, even one as violent as you, will find peace in death. But…"

No one would hear the quivering words of a dead man but he felt compelled to say them.

Because even in a foreign world with a bizarre and alien set of magical and logical laws, there were those unseen and almighty beings who governed this reality who were surely listening to this parasite's final words.

"Not today. It won't be today! Your death doesn't have to have such a tragic and pitifully heart-wrenching finale!"

A human will roared in a place that did not exist.

"My Magic Name is Gaudium000: Be The Joy That Inspires Dreams!"

Countless single-celled microbes swam along Touma's bloodstream to search out the deadly right hand in an action no different than a person committing seppuku. The ceremonial blade drew closer to drawing his life from the mortal body of a child who had shown him a beautiful sight and heard his pleas.

Parting waves, drizzling chilly rain, faint voices calling out to one another, flashing branches of twisting purple lightning spearing the sea, an odd tug of wind amid the crushing and terrible howling winds.

Amid the approaching storm, St. Germain heard a unique sound.

Black licorice vines traveled along Touma's skin in search of the blade that would split open its intestines and slowly kill him.

But…

'Typical. I should have known that idiot would screw up again. He really is all talk. Just what the hell do they see in him?'

In a place that did not exist, neon pink and emerald green jaws, sharp and narrow like those found in crocodile maws, grinned wickedly.

'Let's not be too hasty there, St. Germain. How about we have a little chat before you sink that sharp blade into your guts with a smile on your face?'

Black licorice lines paused just inches from kissing the right hand's wrist.

And a conversation was had in a place that did not exist.

[-]

When Kamijou Touma awoke, he felt a terrible ring pounding in his thoughts.

He tasted rusty copper inside his mouth. His eyes burned like they had been replaced by searing hot coals. Joints and muscles simultaneously ached to the point he couldn't muster the strength to twitch even his fingers. A heavy pressure sat on his chest like someone had placed cement slabs onto him.

And his entire left arm was unresponsive.

Taking so much as a breath caused him to cough violently with a twisted grimace.

Pain.

Excruciating pain.

A strange smile made its way to his sweaty face.

'I'm...I'm alive.'

He was in so much pain that he couldn't make heads or tails of where he was as his blurry vision couldn't even make out proper shapes. He felt warm tears gather in the corner of his burning eyes. Breathing was difficult as he believed he was struck by some kind of high fever due to his condition.

But Kamijou Touma was alive. Well enough to register the signals of his nerves alerting him to the damage he had sustained.

That strange smile on his face wavered and quivered.

Those warm tears slipped.

Memories of those final moments in his clash with a toxic magician with roses arose. Of the final attack that had signaled the end of their battle.

'Oh, it seems you lost. How unfortunate.'

Anna Sprengel was not the one to speak such words coated with amusement. Even that powerful woman who had defeated two of Academy City's Level 5s without breaking a sweat had been taken by surprise. The memory was foggy but he could picture the now full-grown magician appearing just as puzzled as he was just as she stepped back to allow him to collapse after stabbing him.

A golden being, an alien to the world, had smiled excitedly as he came to take the stage.

'What's this? You can understand me still? It seems you've gained a better grasp of the truth since we last met at the top of the world's peak. Truly, you are a fascinating creature. Sadly, it seems your terrible luck has decided to snap at you at the crux of victory- really? A mere knife? No, no, no! How could I stand to allow such a pathetic finale from a meager sleight of hand? It would be a great shame if you were to simply perish at this late of the game when you have yet to shed that lovely shell you cling onto so desperately. We can't have that now, young Fool. Even that human would agree.'

'Aiwass? W-!"

Crushing pressure engulfed the world. Something almighty threatened to squeeze the very air into nothing with a disgusting guttural gasp. Like static, the very fabric of reality began to waver like unstable particle waves. It was as if the world itself, unshakable reality, was flickering.

And…

Touma grit his teeth, shutting his eyes tightly as tears rolled down his dirty face.

Nothing.

He couldn't remember.

He couldn't recall what that alien who resided at the bottommost depths of the world's phases had done. All he could tell was that the angel known as Aiwaiss had the most bizarre smile he had ever seen as he raised his hand and gestured to the bloodied Touma.

But one thing had been retained from that monster's final words.

'Sayonara, Kamijou Touma- let's play again.'

Reality had visibly crumbled apart no differently than as if the entire world had been made of sugar. And darkness had welcomed him to a long-forgotten nightmare once again.

Dread strangled his heart. The fear of the unknown ate away at his pain. He felt a sharp pain in his heavy chest as he came to his senses.

Kamijou Touma awoke in a wooden interior he would probably find within a seafaring vessel. The faint rocking and swish of outside coupled with a faint scent of the sea salt waves cemented his guess. He was alone, laid down in a small bed fit for only one individual in red bed sheets with a wooden bedside nightstand. Medical supplies were found resting on the mahogany piece with a cup of water. It was a simple and sparse cabin room meant for one, holding no more space than four.

He clenched his teeth with a shaky breath, the tears refusing to cease no matter how hard he struggled to control himself.

For all his idiotic actions, his failure to attend school, and his lack of knowledge of both magic and science, he wasn't so naive as to not understand what happened. After all, this wasn't the first time a godly adversary had obliterated the board game in one move.

Aiwass, The Angel Who Dwells In The Abyss, had destroyed the world.

Just as Magic God Othinus had previously done so months ago, that almighty alien prized by the human Aleister Crowley as the centerpiece of his plans, had snapped his fingers to break reality down from its very atoms. And tossed Kamijou Touma into a whole new world. After being subjected to such sinister torture for what felt like eons, he had grown accustomed to the atmosphere.

Was it the taste of the air? The fact he had awoken in a ship cabin? The lack of anyone familiar greeting him at his beside like every other instance? Or was it something far more deeper and intimate ingrained into his very soul?

What had given away to the realization he had survived to awaken in an entirely new world?

As tears blurred his red eyes, an odd color stuck out to him as he desperately tried to clean his face.

Licorice black and icy blue.

Out of all the hot sores on his battered body, he felt a dreadful numbness around his left arm.

No, maybe that was the wrong word for it.

It had been numb and cold.

Only now did he start to feel countless thin needles prickle his hand from the inside. It was as if it had been asleep for who knows how long and had begun to rouse itself from its deep slumber. He felt his warm blood begin to course its way through his left arm's veins, sending a buzzing tingle to start at his fingertips to stretch to his shoulder.

Unconsciously, he had ignored his left hand. Because he hadn't felt it, he didn't acknowledge it as he had been swallowed by the bitter loss of defeat. A small part of him had registered he couldn't feel his arm at all. For a moment, he had believed he had lost it.

Black vines and icy veins.

A foreign bacteria had been injected via the sweet yet sinister lips of an alluring devil interlocking with his own. Because of the virus coursing its way through his bloodstream, he had found his life force being forcibly channeled into mana against his will. It had been no different than if water was being transmuted into oil; unnatural and illogical.

Espers and Magic did not mix. Because of this taboo, his blood vessels had ruptured like metal pipes during the winter. He had been playing a game of Russian roulette with his body- each shot had ripped open a new wound on either his skin or his insides. At some point, the chamber would spin one final time and deliver the killing blow.

An odd and bizarre side effect had been discovered as his body further used magic. St. Germain's influence had painted the skin of his left hand with thick tendrils of licorice black that bleed an icy diamond. And as St. Germain had fought alongside him, he found his left hand producing more black vines, and the icy blue spread further with each spell the magician used. Had the infection magic grown so poignant that it had devoured his left arm?

His breath hitched as he found the once light tan skin corrupted by a sheen of obsidian and frosty diamond vines. He felt a dreadful lump form in his chest as the now black pinky finger, tipped with a cold crystalline blue, twitched. As the blood in said limb circulated to awaken its sense of touch, he grew a frightful sense of coldness despite the warm red cells swimming in his arm.

Was...was this the price?

Kamijou Touma was an esper. He was not a magician. Yet because of the St. Germain pill he had ingested via Anna Sprengel's lovely yet sinister lips, he had been capable of casting carbon-based spells ranging from diamond columns, strings, spears, shields, and magical explosions. Talent-less Touma had gained an MP bar but one that reflected damage with each spell, further chipping off his already low health from the very start of the boss battle. For this forbidden taboo, a great cost had to be paid for in not only blood.

What was once his left hand, now devoured by the effects of magic, shivered.

And clenched it as he stifled an audible sob.

A terrible cost had been paid. And he hadn't been able to fight back against the debt collector.

My arm.

Naturally, anyone who had woken up to such circumstances would be in tears and grieve over what had become of their limb.

"...St. Germain."

Indeed, a terrible and unfair price had been paid for Kamijou Touma to still be alive to lament such a loss. He did not cry about what had become of his left arm, a limb he couldn't even call his own. The tears returning to his eyes again were for the one life lost in his battle with the CEO of R.C Occultics. Someone kind had supported this weak high school boy who was on the verge of death, taken the reigns of his body so that he would not feel pain, fought in his stead, and held his heavily wounded body together. When he had been alone, terrified of the realization he was helpless to stop a deadly virus from taking his life, he had confined to the very microbes responsible for his blood vessels bursting and did the scientifically impossible.

He had befriended a colony of microbes that had once been a legendary magician.

There was a sense of quietness, an emptiness, in his being. Where someone kind once rested was now an empty seat. The very fact he was no longer coughing up blood spoke volumes of the silence.

…

No one answered back. Even as Touma rested his hefty shaking onyx left hand upon his chest to reach the carbon magician, there was no one to pick up the message.

"You...you goddamn bastard."

Teardrops fell onto his lap. Furious whispered lament was said to a kind magician who would no longer protect his own dream of a world where tears and despair were absent.

"What was I fighting for then? What were we fighting for then?! It wasn't simply about protecting the people inside the hospital, Misaka and the honey-blonde girl, or Index and Othinus! You...you were a part of those I wanted to save too. This wasn't the kind of ending I...I…"

Just what kind of ending was this? His world had disappeared, everyone he cared about had either been erased or lost in whatever bizarre move Aiwass had played, he was all alone in some new world, and the magician who had saved his life had sacrificed his own life to save this worthless child who could only cry while covered in bandages. Was this what remained of their brief time fighting side-by-side? A strange stiff new arm he was far too terrified to touch? It looked like it was made of the same black spearhead Unabara had attacked him with. The icy diamond streaks stretching from the bottom tip of his fingers to his wrist made the limb even stranger and abnormal.

He lacked the strength to even clean the tears on his face now. He was sure a hiccup or two escaped his quivering lips. No matter how hard he struggled, and struggled, and struggled!

"Goddammit," he whispered bitterly through a thick sob.

No matter how much he fought to not crumble to this terrifying familiarity, the boy who had suffered countless misfortunes couldn't stop himself from crying.

This was the human child who had fought against magicians, espers, Saints, criminals, angels, monsters, magic gods, and demons with his bare fist alone. A boy who had held onto his humanity so that he would continue struggling with a soft heart easily damaged by malice. One who refused to give in to the countless acts of violence threatening to blacken his heart and turn him into a tragic beast.

Yes, the tears and cries seen now were surely proof enough that even after all his misfortune, he was still merely a human being.

Cry as much as he did there was no denying that he was anywhere but Academy City in Japan. Because a terrifying Hidden End Game Boss had interrupted his fight with the Final Boss, the happy ending he had been striving for had been torn from his bloody fingers. And this was the end result of all his hard-fought efforts going back from the 24th of December.

Kamijou Touma had lost, everyone he treasured was far out of his reach, and the darkness engulfing his strange left hand was a reminder of his failure to reach that happy ending.

No friends.

No family.

No home.

Nothing familiar or kind.

Not even the target for his fists to pound and give him purpose to fight.

For all he knew, everything he had ever protected had been decimated to their barest molecule and been reshaped into alien figures.

This black world was colorful but still ever so despairing with crushing loneliness bearing down on his fragile young heart.

Once again, a quiet sort of destruction spread at the center of his broken core like termites feasting on dead wood. Like rotting vines of a diseased flower, its toxic rust blossomed and slowly bled out to consume the fragile bud vulnerable to malice.

There was no one to light his way back from this despair. To burn the destruction at its roots.

There was no one to understand his despair. To break down the destruction at its roots.

There was no one to save him from his lonely despair. To defeat the destruction at its roots.

There was no one to fight him to stop his despair. To reject the destruction at its roots.

After overcoming countless tragedies and waves of brutal malice, he felt this single defeat was enough.

Enough to crack his kneecaps, slam him onto his knees, and bow his head in surrender with ugly streams of tears seeping from his broken eyes. Just like in the very beginning of that Black World, in those short quiet, and dreadful seconds he had awoken as Magic God Othinus destroyed the world, he found himself hopeless and lost with nothing to reach or confront.

Kamijou Touma was left alone to wallow in his despair.

Just as that cruel quiet destruction in his breaking heart was ready to utterly collapse his core, he felt it.

A hum.

From a cold and hard left arm, he felt an ever-soft hum from deep within the bizarre remnants of a kind magician who had fought right at his side until the bitter end.

Blurry dark blue orbs drowning in grief stared at St. Germain's final act.

At the scrap of light which had paused the final push of quiet destruction.

In that moment of absolute weakness, strength surged forth from a soft and fragile heart before it collapsed to the spreading despair.

Kamijou Touma had lost.

But he was still alive, unlike the kind magician who had taken a seat in his heart and saved his life.

Wasn't he ever so fortunate to cry, bawl, scream, and shout in despair when the person responsible for that sobbing brat couldn't so much shed a tear in death?

It...It was just enough: just enough to pause the soft destruction ready to shatter his weak heart.

Quivering lips were peeled back in a tragic and furious snarl better fit for a wild animal ready to snap their own leg off to escape the jaws of a bear trap.

'Aren't I lucky? Aren't I the fucking luckiest person in the world?! Out of billions back home, I was the lucky bastard, the fortunate piece of the shit! Who was so blessed to escape whatever destruction that strange holy alien wrought with a mere smile on their face! All because someone kind and gentle shoved their golden ticket into my hands; they accepted misery just so some pathetic brat could sit around and break into ungrateful tears!'

Self-loathing replaced despair. A burning hatred sparked and fed by tossing himself into a blaze seared the quiet destruction.

Because he needed something other than grief, he chose to spit at his pathetic self, just so he could gain some kind of strength, even that born of self-hatred, to stave off the collapse of his self. Because all this weak child knew was how to fight even in grief. When all was taken from his broken hands, what else was he capable of doing other than growing furious and clenching his fist?

'I lost. Anna, Aiwass, whoever! I lost my fight with those two monsters after trying my hardest to protect everyone behind my back. No matter how much I cry, scream, or deny the outcome, the fact is that my best wasn't good enough this time. And I can't redo this battle on a continue I had saved up in my back pocket. Reality isn't that generous. As the only remaining loser, the only one who can take responsibility for the results I couldn't achieve, who else is there to blame than me? My left hand…what remains of it is a testament to that!'

With a shivering breath that had been all too greedy, Touma forced his battered body to sit up.

As the loser who had cost the lives and happiness of others, what right did he have to cry? When had his tears ever fixed or saved anyone?

It hurt, it hurt terribly and caused him to swallow more sobs, but the red-eyed boy gulped down the heavy despair and misery threatening to do what a certain one-eyed Magic God had sought for endless hells: break him.

Breathing labored but steady, eyes stinging and hot with remnants of tears, and face haggard with bags underneath his faded dark blue eyes, Touma found the pain dulling.

Dulling but still resting like a boulder sitting on his chest.

He lost.

So what now?

Whatever the end result of the climatic battle better found in cinema theaters was, the destruction of the world, the exile of the loser, the remodeling of every atom of the universe, or something even far bizarre better fit for the antics of a being who originated from an even stranger reality. The fact was that Kamijou Touma was alive and left to accept the outcome all by himself.

So, what would he do now in defeat?

Normally, this was the point in the conflict, in the fight, in the disaster, in the all-is-lost moment, where a surge of indestructible strength would flood his veins and boil his blood. Adrenaline would swim along every vein to give him the boost he needed to push on through. No matter the injuries, the trauma, or even the loss of a limb, even a high school boy with a measly fist could kick back up on his feet and keep fighting.

Replacing the usual optimism he was famously known for was a bitter scowl. A dull numbness pressed itself in his heart.

With a steady sigh, he decided to finally get a clear look at his surroundings.

He heard the roar of waves through the dark wooden wall of the room, thuds of heavy feet above those who commandeered the ship(?), muffled voices he couldn't make out, and felt the rocking of the ship with each wave striking the hull.

Automatically, he was reminded of the ship cabins he had entered during his time onboard The Queen of The Adriatic. It was a short experience but he certainly hadn't forgotten. Except everything wasn't made of magical ice. And he wasn't being chased by frozen knights. Plus there weren't any cute nuns in need of rescue. Oh, and there was a distinct lack of a maniacal zealous priest on a war path across the sea either.

The gentle lull of waves against the hull gave off a soothing sound when compared to the chorus of explosives and violence that he had been subjected to this past month. He heard the occasional caw of a seagull from outside the cabin. And he made out numerous thuds of footsteps above the ceiling from several floors above to the main deck. Murmurs could be heard, the words of the people who had found a drowning boy on the verge of death muffled as they went about their day.

If it wasn't obvious before, he was resting in a ship's cabin, on board a seafaring vessel full of strangers who had saved his life. He wasn't sure what to make of this setting.

Question: was Kamijou Touma the type of boy to be struck by seasickness?

The strangest of questions would pop up to the exhausted boy who could only muster the strength to sit up. Such as: had he been saved by pirates? If so, did that mean there were female pirates on board? Were they wearing skimpy red and white striped shirts with ripped shorts? Were they the sun-tanned kind of mischievous eye-patch-wearing girls who sought adventure and treasures?! What about the shy cabin-girl archetype who dreamed of becoming a fearsome and tough pirate as she mopped the deck? Or the female captain who loved beer, and greasy food, swore vulgarities as casually as a veteran, who was stern yet possessed a secret soft side to her cool exterior that was just as girly as any woman?! H-Had this bad luck taken an inkling of pity on this heavily damaged boy and granted him a ship full of sultry and flirty seafaring women who liked to play with ropes?!

…

...Clearly, no matter what may befall this misfortune boy, he was still just your typical idiot who only had sexy and cute woman in his thoughts no matter the situation.

The suddenly anxious high school boy pulled at the collar of his clothes and found himself arching a brow as he further inspected his body.

Gone was the blood-splattered baby blue hospital gown designed after pajamas. Like his body, it too had been battered and soaked in red after his date with the sexy yet poisonous Anna Sprengal. Whoever had reeled him in from the cold and vicious waves must have known better than to leave him in those ruined rags. Even if it had been for his own good he still grew embarrassed as he found himself all but naked below his sheets were it not for the many bandages and gauze over his skin.

No bandage was too tight. Each piece of gauze was properly placed on lesser wounds to prevent any further trauma or moisture from ruining the healing process. While he was stiff in certain places, he wasn't in too much pain as he caught the scent of a minty medicine applied to his injuries. The soreness he was inflicted with was more akin to the kind of pain one would feel after hitting the gym for the first time in months or even years.

His eyes still burned, his throat was scratchy and thick, and he felt numerous spots of heat on his battered body. But somehow, through all the trauma and damage he had been inflicted with as he had already been on death's door, he had survived. All without being treated by Heaven Canceler or some strange magic or ability.

Without a doubt he was thankful. He had nothing but gratitude for those who had no reason to sew together this broken boy. Because of the kindness of people he had never met, he was alive to cry over his losses. That alone was the one miracle he had to be thankful for. Any less would be disrespectful to his caretakers.

To his bitter distaste, he found the obsidian vines consuming his left hand crawling to touch his shoulder. Tendrils of the after-effect of casting spells remained on his body. Swallowing a thick anxious breath, he finally moved his shaking right hand to his stiff left arm.

Imagine Breaker absolutely destroyed supernatural phenomena. Be it fire in the image of the sun itself, blades capable of slicing through steel like butter, constructs modeled after great impenetrable walls, curses designed to harm their victims from the inside, or even death itself- the power in his right hand would shatter the illogical abilities to nothing. So long as whatever powers and abilities lacked a constant source of energy to feed off of, lacked a core functioning as a heart, or could regenerate to the pace of his negation, eventually, whatever he decided to touch or smash with his fist would crumble. Even the almighty weapon of a god of war that had been capable of tearing apart space and time with a swing- destroyed.

Fingers fabled to dismantle even the system of god hesitated, freezing perfectly still over the black skin on the back of his left hand. Finally, caution was thrown aside as he touched the effects of St. Germain's magic.

...Nothing.

The lack of an audible sound of destruction was far better than any diagnosis the likes of Heaven Canceler could provide.

A sense of melancholy struck him as he felt the new black skin of his arm.

Human flesh was soft and warm to the touch. It held a faint pulse of life to it. Beneath the surface were muscles, ligaments, bone, veins, fat, and blood. Even a boy like himself who currently lacked facial hair still found hair on his forearms.

The left hand lacked anything remotely human.

He felt a stone-like smoothness on his skin. As if it had been carved by an artisan from old Rome. It was cool to the touch. For all intents and purposes, it was the arm of a statue rather than that of a living breathing human. Somehow, despite its sense of hardness, he found himself slowly but surely able to move the stiff appendage around. With a creak, he wiggled his fingers.

With a groan, he rotated the wrist.

With a crack, he moved his entire arm and flexed his muscles.

It felt no different than if he had sat on his arm, cut off warm blood circulation, and tried to wake up the sleeping limb. Pins and needles pricked his arm, an odd comforting realization that told he still possessed the ability to touch and feel.

It wasn't anything different than a prosthetic from Academy City, was it?

Touma grit his teeth as he leaned over and clutched his new left hand to his chest.

This was all that remained of St. Germain's kindness though.

He was sad, hurt, anxious, fearful, furious, and grieving over the loss of his left hand. Or rather the limb of the original Kamijou Touma. He had already resigned himself to the fact he was just a husk who had been born in the body of a corpse. He had lived a lie to protect the smile of a white habit nun and had even overcome said lie. He had even fought what was a dreg of his original self, possessing all those destroyed memories, and cemented himself to walking ahead without the crutch of his original self.

But still…

A self-loathing smile crossed his face as he struggled to unclench his left hand.

Really, how pathetic was he? To grieve over a lousy arm that didn't even belong to him originally. He was alive. Bloodied, bruised, and broken, but he had survived his hellish battle with a magician whom even mini-Magic God Othinus had grown alarmed about. He was the lone survivor.

St. Germain's silence was deafening. The small sense of warmth he had grown accustomed to as the carbon magician's conscious had seated itself somewhere in his being was vacant.

And here he was crying about having survived with a strange new arm? Wasn't it nice to be free to do such a thing when the dead couldn't even lament their fate? How fortunate. What a blessing.

Stiff black fingers tipped with icy diamond shivered. Eventually, those stone-like digits felt a unique warmth known only as blood finally flowing along the thin tubes running around the muscle. A pulse was felt.

Strange as it was, the alien-like hand responded to the electrical signals pinging from Touma's brain to respond to the action they were being commanded to obey. A bedrock hard fist released its tight grip to breathe freely.

'This is...this is going to be difficult to adjust to. But I don't have the right to complain about it now.'

Touma flexed his left hand's fingers, testing their response as he inspected the obsidian skin. A small sense of stiffness remained but he could move it more freely now. Not perfectly and not smoothly but he could at least move it around. Just like a prosthetic, he would have to get used to the new limb and learn to perform those normal mundane tasks all over again.

It felt wrong. Strange. Cold and lacking anything human.

But this was what remained of St. Germain's kindness.

'That selfish old man saved my life. I don't know how he did it, but he dragged me out of the deep abyss as I was already giving up. He struggled, and struggled, and struggled! All so that this crying child could survive and continue moving forward even as he was defeated. And this arm is what remains of his generosity and kindness. So, why should I regard it with disgust or frustration?!'

St. Germain had shared a body with Kamijou Touma. Like himself, he found himself waking up in a stranger's body without any sense of self. He was a parasite, a leech feeding off of a dying high school boy's life force- a disease. But he had regained his sense of self, overcame his limits, and rediscovered his most beloved of desires as he had been regarded as a person instead of a cancerous lump to be removed.

Without understanding it himself or realizing it himself, St. Germain had rebuilt his personality and his sense of self from remnants of his original self just as Kamijou Touma had.

In that old magician's own way, he had protected Kamijou Touma until the bitter end. He had done his best to sew the ruptured blood vessels with his magic, support his broken bones with diamond casts, and even used his mastery over carbon to repair what had remained of his heavily damaged left arm. If it hadn't been for his doubled-edged efforts, the boy's life he had been damaging would have ended as a measly corpse devoured by the raging seas of another world.

Complaining about such an act of kindness would be no better than spitting upon St. Germain's very essence.

With a heavy sigh, Touma let his new left hand fall onto his lap.

And winced sharply, doubling over as said heavy hand landed on his crotch.

"Gah! W-What the hell?! Don't tell me that old man actually carbonized all the cells into actual diamond? How much does it weigh? It's like dropping a slab of concrete onto my lap. Wait...if I'm right, and St. Germain turned my entire left hand into an actual diamond or something similar, does that mean my left arm is worth a fortune?!"

Homeless and penniless Touma regarded said prosthetic warily as his right hand clutched his bruised pride.

W-Weren't diamonds weighed by carats? A-And hadn't he heard some pretty college girls gathered around a jewelry store in Seventh Mist gossip about how even one carat of diamond could range from over a hundred thousand yen?! H-how m-much did his left arm weigh?!

Nope, he couldn't think about it. He wouldn't think about it. Even as the dawning realization that he had found himself in a new world without his wallet or phone hit him, he wouldn't idle with thoughts of how much he could possibly sell his left arm for when he didn't even have one hundred lousy yen! Only complete bastards would sell a thoughtful gift from a friend for money!

That did bring up a very important question.

What was he going to do now? What was the next move?

After wallowing in further pain from his blow to his crotch, he sat up in contemplation of his predicament.

'From the looks of it, I'm in a new world...right? I saw Aiwass's destruction firsthand. I recognized the dreadful darkness expanding from his hand to crumble reality in the blink of an eye. Why he even interfered and decided to take the stage himself, I have no idea. But he's the reason why things turned out the way they did. Even if the memories are painful to think about, I've grown accustomed to this strange sense of my world being torn apart. I'm almost terrified to even play around with the idea that this was the work of Magic God Othinus continuing her tantrum."

A dreadful shiver was felt from his heart to the entirety of his body at even the inkling of those infinite hells continuing. It was only his faith in Othinus that had reassured him that she was a changed person and incapable of such an evil again.

'So, if this really is a new world, what do I do now? I don't have any money on me. I don't even have any clothes of my own. And from the feel of it, it doesn't even look like I'm on land. I'm a passenger on somebody's ship. What their intentions with me aren't known. I don't want to think twice about their kindness in dragging me out of the cold waters and patching my bloody body up, but I can't assume such naive thoughts as them doing it out of the goodness of their hearts either. Not everyone is so kind. I'm not that fortunate.'

He had to be suspicious of those faceless strangers he had yet to meet. As much as he hated it, he couldn't accept their kindness as simply as that. He wasn't in the position to. For all he knew, he could be on board a pirate vessel, a ship full of criminals, or even slave laborers who found a free source of back-breaking work to put to use.

Misfortune dictated he should expect the worst circumstances.

He had no clue as to what he would do from here on out, let alone if he was safe. Even if he was heavily wounded and too sore to even be sitting up, he had to prepare himself for whatever may come.

Focus.

Focus on something other than this misery. Lock onto something else than the dreadful truth he didn't want to speak out loud.

Touma's ears twitched at the sound of a creak, one heard from the wooden floor planks. Voices could be heard outside, ready to enter with unknown intentions.

"-hould still be unconscious for quite some time. The boy's wounds were numerous and strange. Not to mention the fatal amount of blood he's lost, shrapnel and material I dug out, and broken bones. He was submerged in the ocean for some time, enough for his skin to begin pruning from the looks of it, and suffered from hypothermia. By all accounts, he should be dead. How he had any pulse at all is an honest to-miracle delivered by an Archon."

"Still, the captain wishes for you to be escorted to his lodgings at all times. Even if the kid is a mess, she still doesn't know if he's any danger to anyone once he wakes up. The fact she doesn't have Kazuhara tagging along though must mean that she doesn't see him as anyone outright dangerous. I don't know if it's because of his Vision or his judge of character, but Kazuha must think the boy isn't a threat."

"I understand her concern, but I'm telling you there's nothing to worry about. He's gone three days without any movement other than his chest rising. You saw the state he was in. You helped to pull him up onboard and even mistook him for a corpse. Even if he somehow awoke, I doubt he would have any strength to even sit up rig-"

"Um...hello?"

"…"

"…"

"…"

The door creaked open, revealing a bespectacled woman and a strong-armed man. Both of them froze as they found Touma sitting up, face sweating anxiously and a strange new hand raised in a friendly greeting. The wooden box chuck full of odd-colored vials, herbs, medical tools, and bandages in the dumbly staring woman's arms fell from her hands. Out of something akin to reflexes, the strong-armed man caught the heavy box with one hand as he continued to stare at the awake boy who had been a mangled splatter of deep red.

Touma scratched the back of his head with his right hand, growing further anxious as the two crew members of the ship stared at him as if he was a-

"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! It's a zombie!"

"Eh? Wha-!"

A hefty roll of medical bandages was thrown at the high school boy with enough force to knock him back to his bed. He briefly lost consciousness as he groaned and his limbs twitched from the sudden and unexpected attack.

"What the hell, Yinxing?! Don't you think that's a little bit of an overreaction from the very patient you were treating?"

"What else do you expect, Juza?! You saw the state he was in! Even after all my work, he was no more than a breathing mannequin!" the glasses-wearing doctor yelled with a flailing hand gesturing to the groaning spiky boy, "Do you even know how much blood he lost? More than four pints! And it's not like we were able to provide him with a blood transfusion. I was basically sewing together a living doll that had been torn apart by wolves. By all rights, I expected him to remain immobile for weeks if he survived! His wounds were severe and fatal! But look at him! He's sitting up and groaning as if he had just fallen out of bed!"

The strong-arm man named Juza gazed at the bedridden boy with a sharp gaze, crossing his arms as the woman named Yinxing hid behind his large frame. He grew amused, finding the woman's behavior similar to a child who came upon a hilichurl.

"So? Just means he's made of stern stuff. Kinda like our captain!"

Doubtful Yingxing wasn't so sure about such a comparison as she slowly moved around the grinning second-in-command. A dust of red colored her face as she came to realize she may have overreacted by striking the injured boy with whatever her hand had grabbed. Thank the Archons she hadn't thrown a scalpel.

"There's being made of stern stuff like Captain Beidou and then there's surviving the deadly churning seas with numerous wounds soaking your clothing a deep red not even the sea waters can clean while being unresponsive for days. How he's even alive is dumbfounding."

"P-Please, don't talk about this poor Kamijou-san as if he's not in the room. I'm not exactly a fan of a cute woman staring at me like some cockroach who won't die no matter how many times he's squished.

Rubbing the sore spot on his forehead, Touma sat back up with a wince. He looked back to the two adults who were a part of whatever crew of unknown seafarers had come to his aid, quirking his brow at their clothing.

Juza, the tall broad shoulder man, was dressed in red and black colors that struck out to him. His open vest, tan skin with the occasional scar seen on his figure here and there, his muscled arms, his rough goatee and short dark brown hair, the sword strapped to his waist, and his rugged aura painted a certain figure in mind: pirate. One far different than the sexy figured magician who was love-struck by that asshole known as Kamisato.

Next to the seafaring man was the glasses-wearing woman who had thrown a random object at him for simply surviving; Yingxing. She seemed out of place when next to the burly Juza with her fair blue-sleeved robed dress found in the east. Was it called a qipao? Her hair was darker in shade than her shipmate's and her skin seemed fairer if not a little tan from working in the sun when she needed to.

A pirate and a surgeon; what an odd pair. The two appeared to be from two different worlds when they stood next to one another.

Touma's dark blue eyes centered on the wary doctor who had tended to him.

Without hesitation, he bowed his head respectfully, an action that surprised the woman and brought a broad grin to the pirate.

"I'm not sure where I am exactly or who you people are but thank you. If it weren't for your aid, I'd be dead. And trust me," he laughed bitterly with a hollowness in his dark blue orbs, "I'm not being modest. You saw the state I was in, so I don't blame you for staring at me like some freak. I'm used to it."

The strong-armed pirate chuckled, "What? A woman staring at you like a freak or nearly dying?"

"…"

Touma didn't say a word, his body stiff and frozen in a bow of gratitude.

For a moment, the two adults wondered if the insensitive Juza had struck a sensitive word as the boy refused to say a word.

Then…

"Um, excuse me? T-This is kinda of embarrassing to say but c-could either of you help? I, uh, c-can't seem to sit back up on my own power. My abdomen seems to have gone into spasms and the muscles around my lower chest are stiff like a piece of hardwood. I'm in incredible pain."

The surgeon on board, Yinxing, seemed almost relieved to hear that as she sighed.

"Good. For a moment, I almost feared that you would have walked out of bed in tip-top shape. The fact that you're in a great deal of pain and can't even properly move around without your worn-out muscles screaming at you is a good sign."

Skeptical Juza wasn't so sure.

"If the guy's smiling and stretching his muscles with gratitude after you've saved his life, you think he's some undead dreg. But if he starts complaining about aches and can't even sit up on his own power then he's alright. How does that make any sense?"

Yinxing rolled her eyes at the strong-armed man as she tentatively walked over to the bedside of the bandaged boy. Even though she was a member of the infamous Crux fleet, she was still nothing more than a doctor on board; not a swashbuckling pirate or woman of the seas. The boy they had pulled out of the sea was a stranger, an unknown individual with ideals and intentions that could be a danger to themselves. Even the kindest smile could hide the abyss.

Slowly and carefully, she leaned over to peek at the strange boy who couldn't seem to relax his lower abdomen muscles, stuck in a sitting bow at an odd angle.

She quickly found the bandaged-faced boy's expression in a tight and pained grimace, his face growing red from strain. He wasn't faking it to lure her in and attack, that's for sure. It seemed he was struggling to keep himself from revealing he was in any pain at all.

Which was ridiculous in her opinion. She treated his grievous wounds. After whatever he had endured resulting in him drowning in the cold seas during a terrible storm with blood spurting from every spot on his body, he should be nothing but pain right now. How he was coherent enough to be speaking, let alone thanking them at all, was baffling. In her professional opinion, said boy should have been catatonic from sheer agony invoked by his numerous injuries ranging from large gashes, burns, broken bones, burst blood vessels of all things, blunt trauma, and internal bleeding to name a few causes.

Disregarding his state of dress(mummy Kamijou found himself sweating at the close contact of an attractive eastern doctor character when he lacked even pants) Yinxing laid her hands on the boy's stiff abdomen and went about relaxing the taught muscles.

"Stop trying to force yourself into relaxing. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and let go. You've been unconscious for three days, so your muscles would normally be weak. The trauma you've endured has weakened the muscles of your entire body to boot. You're in no condition to be doing anything more than laying back in bed and resting. To do anymore will cause your body to lock up in pain like now."

With a hoarse grunt, Touma was eased back to bed. He wasn't sure what the elegantly dressed woman had done but her hands had eased his tight muscles loose so that he could move.

"I'm guessing then that you're the one who patched me up?" he said with a weak smile.

"Patched you up? No." Yinxing shook her head with a strange scowl on her face and her soft hands crossing over her modest chest, "A hole in a boat can be patched up. A cut on your hand can be covered up to heal on its own. A laceration or gash can be stitched, bones can be set, and even stab wounds can be sewn. What I did to you was nothing short of a miracle. Do you even understand how badly- no, fatally wounded you were?"

"Was it that bad?" Juza frowned quizzically as he scratched below his chin. As one of the few who had helped the drowning child onboard from the vicious water of the storm, he had seen some extent of the damage said boy had sustained. But he appeared fine, fatigued, and sore, but well enough to give his thanks.

"You weren't the one who had to perform over one hundred stitches to various open wounds, had to dig out three pounds of glass from his body, slice open his chest, and soak their hands in blood as she attached severed intricate blood vessels and organs, all while struggling to keep said bloody boy alive as his lungs were filled with blood and seawater. Not to mention broken bones, fractures, and blunt force trauma. Did I mention I performed said complex and delicate surgery on choppy waters? Without proper high-tech medical equipment?"

Juza opened his mouth and struggled to say anything back as he continued to stare at the casual-faced patient. His thoughts immediately tried to imagine everything the lovely surgeon had said. And gulped thickly at the unpleasant gory images.

"Do you understand why I overreacted? The moment he did wake up, he should have been in a state of shock, confusion, disorientation, and agony; not smiling brightly and bowing his head in thanks!"

Frustration could be heard in the surgeon's voice as she gestured to Touma like he was being accused of a crime. He scratched his head, unsure of what to say to the woman's overreaction to his state. This wasn't the first time he had come close to death or been beaten to the point he better resembled a bloody lump of twitching meat. He was pretty sure his boss rush of Denmark had ended with red pulp Kamijou facing off against Almighty Thor and Othinus and her Crossbow.

Was it so strange?

It was then that his eyes noticed a striking detail of the frustrated woman whose gripes painted her as complaining.

Yinxing's shoulders were shaking. Someone who had enough skill to mend a boy as fatally wounded as him, who understood how a normal person should react and feel after being subjected to such trauma, who had seen just how torn up he was both inside and outside and spent who knows how many hours attempting to keep him breathing was disturbed at his casual mannerisms.

That alone would have been enough to upset anyone.

But Touma understood the reason for the surgeon woman's trembling.

Wasn't it abnormal to see such a wounded person shrug it all off as if it were normal? In the eyes of a doctor, who intimately understood how the common human's nervous system functioned to trauma and blood loss, wasn't it concerning to see such a lack of pain? Didn't it mean there was a deeper problem? Like a mechanic seeing a car run normally despite lacking cylinders to create the sparks required to burn gas? Wouldn't such a sign cause fear to well up in a doctor's chest?

Only then did he notice the woman's left hand resting atop his bandaged chest. As if she was searching for the missing gear that would return his sense of pain.

He smiled softly, shutting his eyes with a sigh.

Really, when had he forgotten it was abnormal for anyone to act normally after being painted in so much red? The fault didn't lie with her but himself, he supposed.

"You're really kind, aren't you, Yinxing-san?"

"W-What?"

It hurt, it hurt incredibly. But Touma mustered the strength to sit up and gently remove Yinxing's hand from his bandaged chest. This time he would not hide just how much it hurt to do so. His face grimaced deeply, his body shivered, and his breath was labored. He didn't feel good and he would reveal so with the same soft smile on his face.

"I'm sorry for worrying you but...I'm fine. Not fine fine, but I'm as fine as I normally am after being put through the ringer. I guess when you've been beaten into a wet crimson pulp as much as I have, you grow to become kinda desensitized to this kind of pain. It isn't normal but trust me; I'm out of danger thanks to you. So, please don't fret about this lousy bastard. You saved my life. You didn't forget to connect anything."

For as long as he could remember, since the day he had awoken to take the place of Kamijou Touma, he had been accustomed to this kind of punishment. It no longer fazed him. In the heat of the moment, he was concerned about his own life. But it had always been incredibly easy to handle the aftermath of all the malice he had endured.

To the average person, it wasn't normal. It wasn't healthy. It spoke of a vital piece of a person's being being missing. As if an essential screw to Kamijou Touma had fallen off somewhere.

The likes of Heaven Canceler and those nurses who had treated him after every major battle had grown used to it.

To Yinxing, it must have frightened her more than she would believe. As if she had somehow messed up during her procedure and was at fault for his lack of registering pain like a normal person should.

The glasses-wearing surgeon continued to stare skeptically at him with concern. She searched his grimacing face, seeming to find some relief in how he was no longer hiding his pain.

"I told you: rest. Stop apologizing and lay back down. If you truly don't want me to worry about you then stop forcing yourself to be strong. I pulled out glass, metal, and other strange materials from your body, so I know you're not feeling in any shape to be giving out any thanks. It's too early for that."

Her dark brown eyes gained a familiar softness he had seen many times before at the hands of the nurses and doctors who had treated him back home. Though they were strangers, and this was their first conversation with one another, it was the very nature held in her eyes that influenced her actions in caring for the wounded and hurt.

Tense shoulders relaxed.

Without another word, Yinxing proceeded to inspect the various bandages and gauze dressing up Touma. From head to toe, she lifted the red blanket sheet off to carefully remove the used and blood-stained bandages, smiling in amusement as he insisted on covering his lower body's shame. She replaced the old white strips and patches with new ones, eyeing each injury with a keen eye. Eyes locked onto the blushing teen being undressed by a pretty surgeon, she gestured an open hand to the burly Juza for her medical equipment.

Strange cream smelling of fruit and herbs, burning liquid, and thin woven thread assaulted those many wounds on his person. He grit his teeth openly, breath hitched as he struggled to keep a scream from leaving his lips. All the time the kind surgeon eased his pain with soothing words and stroking his cheek.

He wasn't sure how long it had lasted but Yinxing eventually stopped with the final fresh bandage wrapping itself over his forehead. His black locks of hair fell back, obscuring his vision to his confusion.

Only then did he pay any attention to his head; specifically his hair. Gelled spikes were absent as his fingers ran over his scalp, feeling only the natural soft black tresses flowing down.

'Don't tell me the extra strength hair gel I've been using for months has finally worn off!? Without my trademark spikes, I'm no different than your common cringy NPC!'

In a rare event scarcely glimpsed in his previous world by those close to him, Kamijou Touma found himself without his signature spiky look. Once prominent spikes now fell away to their natural form, cascading down his scalp to fall over his ears, neck, forehead, and brow. Lost in his troubles, he hadn't noticed the faint black curtain over his eyes until he was sitting up again.

Touma eyed the black tress in his hand with annoyance.

"Great, just where the hell am I going to get hair gel now? And one of Academy City's quality? That stuff survived even the Arctic Ocean and Denmark." he muttered quietly to himself.

Yinxing stared at the odd plain-faced boy with skepticism as she began to put her medicines and tools away. Being a medical professional she found it wrong how her patient was able to talk casually and even complain about hair gel of all things. It was rather...inhuman.

Considering the boy's black arm stained with icy blue, maybe she wasn't far off.

"May I...see your left arm…"

Touma blinked as the surgeon trailed off with a puzzled frown mixed with embarrassment. As if she was waiting for him to finish her sentence.

Oh, right. How could he forget such an important detail?

"Guess we should introduce ourselves, huh? I'm Kamijou Touma, your typical unlucky idiot with a tendency to get into brawls and lament his misfortune."

"My name is Yinxing, the surgeon and medical expert of The Crux. If there are injured then I would be your gal to see if you don't want to die of infection, scurvy, or blood loss...why do I feel like we're going to be seeing a lot of each other?"

"And the name's Juza! Captian Beidou's right-hand man, second in charge of the Alcove's fleet. When you're on board our ship, you talk to me about what might be bothering you before you go wasting the captain's time. Don't act like a bastard or cause any trouble, and you and I will get along just fine!"

With a grunt of effort, Touma handed his aching left arm to the curious Yinxing for inspection. Sharp pin needles no longer assaulted the limb. Instead, he felt a cold yet burning sensation as if his arm had been left in the freezing cold and returned to his warm dorm room.

He had no idea of the new nature and makeup of his left arm. Was it even human? Was it still ordinary flesh and bone? If he pricked a needle into his finger tip would it still bleed red?

Only someone of Yinxing's profession could answer his questions.

"How strange."

Okay, this was going off to a bad start.

Yinxing's soft hands wandered over his left hand. From finger, knuckle, wrist, forearm, and shoulder where the stone black obsidian stopped with streaks of curling vines reaching for his collarbone, she touched the new skin of his limb with curiosity. He couldn't help but blush at the intention and lament how difficult it was to register a pretty woman's touch.

Did she have to lean so close to his shoulder? He understood it was in the name of science and junk, but come on! He wasn't even wearing his boxers! And why was she bringing it to her chest?! Did she not know not to tease the trouser dragon?! It was twitching!

Never mind the now shaggy-haired boy's hunched form, or his red face, the surgeon of the Crux inspected the strange arm and pinched the skin.

"The skin cells are incredibly dense. During the surgery, none of my medical scalpels could so much as scratch your arm. It was like trying to cut raw meat tendons with a dull knife. I could still feel the skin stretch but the cells refused to break. You can't say your arm is soft; it's tough. And the icy blue...roots? Veins? The luminescent roots stretching from below your fingertips to your shoulder are even harder. The color, the sheen, the hardness, it's almost as if it were diamond."

It was a joke but knowing what St. Germain specialized in, Touma was now all too sure that his left hand was worth a fortune. How did the old man even turn his limb into a diamond with magic? Imagine Breaker couldn't negate the effects of whatever spell the Count had utilized, so was it a by-product no longer falling under the effects of magic energy? Was it similar to Coronzon's Magik Flaming_Sword or how matter destroyed by magical phenomena couldn't be restored?

"Can you move it?"

Touma stretched his fingers in response. But even the professional doctor could see he was having difficulty with the small action.

"From the look on your face and the movement of your fingers, you're not accustomed to using your left hand. At least, not in its current state. I would have mistaken it for a prosthetic; maybe a piece of a Ruin machine. Yet despite the hardness and strange colors, its makeup is still normal? It's hard to describe it considering this is my first time coming across such an abnormal object."

'A pretty woman just called my arm an abnormal object…'

Touma's weeping went ignored.

At the very least his arm wasn't any weirder; which was saying something considering its new appearance. It was hard as stone yet still felt like flesh, it no longer resembled his natural skin pigment as it was corrupted by obsidian black and icy blue, but it was still an ordinary human arm. He still possessed five fingers, nothing disgusting or repulsive grew out of his arm, and he hadn't gained any extra features. When it came down to it, it was no different than an alternative skin found in video games to make plain characters stand out.

Yinxing let go of his arm, the action causing the heavy limb to fall faster like it was a weight. He grunted as he caught himself before the hard arm fell and dragged him out of bed. Cradling the new weight, he had to wonder if it added a few extra pounds to his person too.

The pretty-faced surgeon seemed to believe so.

"I think it would be better if we kept your left arm in a sling until you've grown accustomed to its weight. Since it's on your left, you'll probably begin to notice that your stance will be leaning to your left more. Every step you take will be the same with the extra pounds causing you trouble. I wouldn't be surprised to find you tripping frequently."

So, more misunderstandings then? Great.

"Beaten until you've resembled a drowned bloody corpse, wearing a hospital gown(?), in the middle of the Archon-forsaken seas during a terrible thunderstorm, and a left arm that appears to be made of some kind of tough stone or crystal? Just who are you, kid?"

Finally, the questions came.

And Touma stiffened up like a board to the second in command's inquiry. Gone was the stern yet easygoing expression on his face, replaced with a sharp gaze seeking out for any trouble that would pose any threat to his ship. As if he was more than willing to lug his heavily damaged body over his shoulder and toss him out to sea if given a reason to.

Concern was found on Yinxing's face as she stood between Juza and the bedridden boy she had spent hours mending.

"Juza, don't you think it's a little too early to be que-!"

"You saw his wounds. No one ordinary or weak could have survived such violence. Not to mention his mannerisms, his aura, his durability. Even for someone blessed with a Vision, it's not normal. I'm not saying I'm going to toss him overboard," he said flatly, much to the visible relief of Yinxing.

He stepped up to the bed, staring down the shaggy-haired boy littered with gauze, splints, and wrapped up in dozens of bandage rolls. Touma stared back, anxious yet calm as he laid down due to the lack of energy or strength to sit up again.

"Who are you? I don't know you, I don't know what you're capable of, and I can't say I trust you. Before I can make a proper judgment on what needs to be done with you to the captain, I need to at least get an idea of who you are."

It was natural to want to understand the intentions of someone you just met. Especially when they were now close. Anyone with a smile could be a threat. If you picked up a hiker who was bleeding from a stab wound, took him into your home and mended their wound, even gave them a place to rest as your family stood outside, wouldn't you have questions?

Why were you all alone with such a grievous wound?

Did you get into a fight?

Are you being attacked?

Are you being followed?

Was it your fault?

Was there anyone else who was hurt?

Are you innocent?

Someone unknown now resided in your once safe home. Who were they? What were their intentions? Were they dangerous? Would they pose a threat to your loved ones if left alone?

If the situation was reversed, if Touma had rescued someone strange who had been splattered in blood, and brought them back to his dorm where Index, Othinus, and Sphinx slept, without knowing if they would turn around and stab his precious people in the back when he wasn't around, wouldn't he be suspicious?

Even a kind-natured high school boy wouldn't be so saintly.

The difficulty came in...how could he explain himself to people who weren't of his world of what he had survived?

The ordinary world was split apart by two factions in the name of Science and Magic. He lived in a futuristic city ahead of the entire planet by thirty years. Humans could gain superpowers by undergoing experimental drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, studying, and implants. There existed a world of magic on the opposite end of the spectrum, where magicians could utilize the stories of myths, religion, and symbolic symbols of the past to use spells. He was an Esper, a boy who had failed to attain a supernatural ability but possessed a bizarre power to negate supernatural phenomena. He lived in a single school dorm room with a cute nun who memorized over a hundred thousand grimoires, a former Magic God of war who had been reduced to the size of a fairy doll and found himself dragged into misfortune after misfortune concerning the two warring factions hiding beneath the eyes of the normal world.

Kamijou Touma was your average, ordinary, boring high schooler. One who had fought the strongest espers of Academy City, the most fearsome and terrifying magicians, and fought against gods, saints, demons, and angels. And survived as the victor of each conflict where he stood bloodied and broken.

No one would believe such a fantastical tale. No matter the world he now found himself in, no one would take such truths as anything but the delusions of a deranged child lost in illusions.

Such an irony for one who held the moniker of Imagine Breaker.

He gulped nervously, his brain firing neurons at sonic speed to come up with a quick and reasonable way to explain himself without coming off as suspicious.

Slowly his lips parted and words fell out.

"I don't know how to answer your question, Juza-san."

It was the honest truth. Genuine and clear without a hint of deception or lies.

Who was he kidding in thinking he could come up with some clever lie? He was an idiot. He wasn't the type of person to expertly navigate his way through a conversation with an interrogator without a bead of sweat dripping off his face. Many had even told him he was blunt to a fault. He couldn't help but speak his mind and speak the truth.

He would never understand how the likes of Tsuchimikado could speak so smoothly with the intent of turning on those he interacted with a smile.

Lies would get you nowhere. Deception would bring further deception.

Touma's blunt answer took the stern-faced Juza back. The strong-armed man hadn't expected such a response. But for whatever reason, the second in command of the ship hadn't reacted with suspicion or doubt. Instead, he continued to stare at him, waiting for further explanation.

Touma had to wonder what kind of face he was making as he spoke to earn such a soft expression from the concerned Yinxing nearby.

"If I had to use one word to describe myself, it would have to be: Unlucky. Just a day ago, I was running around with my friends, enjoying the holidays, having fun, and enjoying what time I could savor. But like always, I ran into misfortune. Just like always, I found myself getting involved with more trouble just because I couldn't walk away and leave things be. And I fought. I-I really fought as hard as I could."

It hurt and caused his muscles to screech with a cry but Touma forced himself to sit up. The action brought Yinxing stepping closer to them out of concern, something that brought a soft smile to his lips.

He brought his hefty left hand up, staring at it with a sense of melancholy tinged with fondness that surely puzzled the two at his bedside.

"Someone fought at my side through every step of the way in my misfortune. I met a stranger who harmed me, who was killing me from the inside out, who had been forced to play a role they had never desired and lacked even a voice to cry out with. But because I reached out to them, they stood by me until the very end. And even though I wanted to save them too…"

The remains of St. Germain's kindness curled tightly into a trembling fist of regret. His breath hitched as he fought to control himself of the fresh wound on his damaged heart.

He didn't know why, but he found himself venting to two strangers. Really, how pathetic was he to be unloading his grievances and grief to people who hadn't even known his name a moment ago? But he couldn't stop his lips from moving and letting it out.

"I got into a terrible fight and lost. And because I lost, everything I fought to protect, the place I fought to keep, the people I desperately tried to defend with my all...they were all lost in the blink of an eye. I could go into further detail, I could bring up names that mean nothing to you, places you've never heard of, and events that would sound like make-believe only a child could come up with but this is the honest truth:"

Dark blue eyes looked back to the stern-faced Juza and the worried-faced Yinxing, orbs once known to possess an incredible strength not even an all-mighty could break with all the hells at their disposal.

Those once-determined eyes were lost. Stormy, sullen, melancholic, lonely, and hurt. Though he wore a smile, his eyes betrayed the true emotions he was feeling as he sat up with bandages and gauze covering up nearly every inch of his skin.

Who was he? Who was Kamijou Touma at this moment?

"I'm simply an idiot who couldn't even protect a single soul with his bare fists."

What more could be said of his character and true intentions than that?

[-]

The door closed behind them with an audible click.

After fixing up the loose bandages on the boy's person, forcing the boy to drink the very bitter and gritty medicine, and lecturing him to stay in bed, Yinxing walked out of the cabin room alongside Juza carrying her box of medical supplies. The dark mahogany wooden corridor greeted them as they stepped out and made their way back to the upper deck.

Both were silent. Both unsure of what to say after speaking with the boy known as Kamijou Touma.

"So, what do we tell the captain?"

Juza stopped just before they made their way up to the stairwell.

He could hear it in the surgeon's tone how concerned she was for the stranger they had saved. Naturally, she had grown a certain degree of attachment to the life she had struggled for hours to save. Even if the shaggy-haired boy were a violent element, she would have grown hesitant to cast him out on the orders of their beloved captain.

Everyone aboard the Crux by now knew of their resident patient. Hard not to when the very night they had come upon the boy's nigh lifeless corpse on the insistence of Kaedehara Kazuha, they had all bore witness to the most marvelous and brilliant firework over the skies of Teyvat. It was a night to remember by all accounts. Naturally, as no one on board had any inkling of the stone-armed boy's identity since he was dragged out of the terrible sea without any form of identification but the hospital gown he wore, rumors had spread about the newest curiosity they had salvaged. Even in the roar of the waves over the ocean, the poor-hearing second-in-command had caught the hushed conversations about the boy resting in one of their spare cabins like they were children.

Little Yue(who was still in trouble for stowing away when they last set sail) was naturally curious about the older boy and thought he was some adventurous sailor who had been lost at sea.

Suling had grown incredibly interested in the boy's left arm, his craftsman eye noting how irregular the limb was and its similarity to a mineral substance of all things.

Muhzen was similar to their chief smith/craftsman, her eyes practically beaming at how she noted the strange left arm appeared similar to the mechanical arms of Ruin machines and wondered if it was mechanical in some way like the Gardemek's in Fontaine.

Huixing believed he was a citizen of Inazuma who had braved the Shogun's thunderstorms on a small vessel to escape the Vision Hunt, only to be struck down and suffer fatal wounds by the harsh judgment of their Archon's fury.

Xu Luishi joked around the belief of the poor being similar to himself; having drunk far too many drinks(or in the lookout's case, eaten too many wine-fermented rice balls) and stumbled off his ship.

Mora-Grubber(Juza scratched his head quizzically, wondering what the rather Mora obsessed book keeper's original name had been before the nickname had stuck like adhesive slime) had no real thought to the heavily wounded boy but did wonder if he would compensate them for all the resources they had used in keeping him alive.

Furong had taken a long, scrutinizing look at the boy's numerous wounds and had come to the belief that the boy was a powerful and formidable warrior who had fought tooth and nail against the Shogun's army only to succumb to the many battles and fall of a cliff in one final standoff.

Far too many rumors were floated about to hold any legitimacy. After all, the boy known as Kamijou Touma lacked a single item on him to give a proper idea of who he was. Other than his hospital gown which was very similar to pajamas, the boy had only carried two items of relevance.

The remains of an odd device were found in the boy's pocket and even in the flesh of his thigh. For some reason, Muhzen had grown incredibly fascinated with the remains and had even begged a deeply confused Yinxing to save whatever pieces of the device for her to study...after the blood and flesh had been cleaned off, of course.

And a whistle.

An ordinary, cheap, silver-painted whistle that had somehow survived whatever violence the boy had endured. It was made of plastic, much to Mora-Grubber's disappointment. Nothing more than a trinket Little Yue would play with. To be honest, it wasn't any different than junk as it had suffered a few dents on its fragile material and he doubted if it could produce a whistle anymore. Being seen as less than trash since it was broken, it had been tossed aside.

After hearing of the boy's honest answer, and looking into the boy's troubled and lost eyes for himself…

"He's a strange one. I don't think I've ever met anyone who could have survived such injuries and wake up the next day with such a smile on their face. And his eyes...they remind me far too much of a grizzled old veteran of the sea who's seen the worst of the ocean's rage and lost countless shipmates but still finds the spirit to grin brightly. Ain't nothing normal about that Kamijou."

Even if the boy's claim of being normal and generic was said in earnest, Juza had to disagree.

Be that as it may, in Juza's own opinion from meeting and speaking with the mysterious boy, there wasn't anything to worry about concerning their new cargo.

"But he's alright in my book. I don't see any reason to treat him as a threat, let alone anyone suspicious. The kid's been through hard times, feels like shit, and has nowhere to go. That's what I'll tell our captain; whatever decision she comes to next will be entirely up to her judgment."

An audible sigh of relief was heard from Yinxing. Obviously, she had grown some kind of attachment to the wounded boy. Almost as if she had seen him as some kind of wounded dog she had stumbled upon. And with her love for animals, he wasn't surprised to see how she had come to care for the kid; her gentle heart couldn't ignore such a wounded boy.

Which explained the other little passenger she was caring for too.

"Meow!"

Yinxing's shoulders jumped. A small set of furry paws hurriedly ran past the startled woman from above deck, moving between her feet.

Juza turned his neck back, finding an ash-blonde-haired cat running around with fascination, inspecting every corner of the ship. As it was known to do since they had discovered it. Seriously, how had a cat, of all things, hidden aboard without anyone's notice? And how the hell had it hidden itself in one of their storage boxes? The damn thing could have died of a lack of oxygen.

Being a cute animal, he had thought their resident surgeon must have found it wounded, patched it up, and decided to keep it. But she had been just as surprised as well when one of the crew had opened up the box while checking their inventory. Poor thing had been curled up, frightened, and appeared..confused? He wasn't sure he'd ever come across such an express cat before.

The little feline had quickly gone about going about the ship upon being released from the box. The young furry lady didn't listen to anyone's commands except for Beidou. The cat appeared just as puzzled by her surroundings as them and spent most of her time staring out at the sea with a sense of longing the further and further Inazuma vanished from their sight. Stranger was how the cat would always return to the box she had been stuffed in, treating it as her home and even taking whatever food was given to her back to eat.

Another stray, just like the miserable boy. The nameless kitty must have realized it as well. One of the few spots she had grown to seek out was typically the door to the boy's cabin. A growing habit for her would be to sit outside, patiently waiting for a passing crew member to spot her and let her in for a nap on the slumbering stray's chest for some odd reason.

From what he heard from one of the crew, cats could pick up on emotional cues and even sense a human's mood. Maybe that was why the stray kitten found herself wandering to the boy. And why it had snatched the discarded and broken plastic whistle, and kept it for herself like some kind of treasure.

Someone strange had been salvaged from a terrible storm. A unique boy with a bizarre left arm whose eyes spoke of an untold deal of hardships he had endured but still possessed the ability to smile after the storms. There was still much to be told about the boy known as Kamijou Touma. Who was he? Where did he come from? What had he been through to bring him to the brink of death and drowning out on the seas?

Right now though, it was better to let the child rest and come to terms with whatever grief rested in his weary eyes. Maybe the stray kitten would help cheer him up now that he was awake. They could learn more of another once the captain had her turn in conversing with their new shipmate as well. He couldn't help but chuckle and grin at what their beloved captain would say to such a miserable boy.

The salty scent of the sea beckoned Juza up, a small smile on his usually stern face as Yinxing followed behind to join the rest of the crew.

Already he could tell it was going to be an interesting voyage.

[-]

Between The Lines-1

It fell from heaven.

In the aftermath of a star's dying light, it and many others descended from the reaches of an unknown and vast domain the people of Teyvat found their curious eyes wandering throughout the ages. From the unseen cracks marring the constellations above they slowly found themselves slipping into the mortal realm where gods had once thrived.

Brilliant and pure.

White yet gold, shining with the radiance of a halo adorn upon an angel.

Lacking weight as if it was made of air itself.

What fell to the world were the remains of an almighty being shrouded in mystery. A sense of the original being's essence could be found in each of its remnants if one were to hold it in one hand; a sense of whimsical chaos. When one held the ultra-light bit of light, one couldn't but feel as if the original form of its essence was smiling a bizarre and alien smile no human or even god could define.

Feathers.

Countless beautiful feathers danced in their descent to the new world as if to bless its inhabitants with a gift.

Only time would tell what those gifts would be; kind or tragic.

And Aiwass would continue to chuckle mirthfully to all those who came upon his blessings.

Awaiting patiently until the irregular and equally bizarre child he observed from an unseen domain gathered the courage to unravel the complete truth of the gift he carefully constructed.

[-]

Prologue: Ordinarius Stella Nubilum in Misericordia

[-]

---

You came from the stars, not even you know why.

Clouded in miserable colors, no clue as what went by.

Drowning in pain, lost to what the next step could be. You find yourself floating in on stranger tides, a piece of yourself gone and replaced by a kind gift, with not even the clothes on your back to tie yourself back to your home- what are you to do?

You have lost. You were defeated. Ordinarily, this would be Game Over.

So, what is keeping you from just giving up and letting it all go?

In your empty palm...what can you find to push forward, miserable child?

Sweet christ, I have been working on this stubborn dish for years. I think as far back as the first reveal of Inazuma. Back then I was playing this game non-stop during quarantine, being out of work and all, and it was honestly my first gacha game other than Fate/Grand Order which I had stopped playing after a month or so. I've dipped my toes in a lot of gacha games out of curiosity but Genshin Impact, along with Star Rail, are the first gachas I haven't abandoned out of boredom.

The characters, the world, the massive lore, the events. It's all just so much fun. If it weren't for having a 7-6 job, 5-6 days a week, I'd have already explored every corner of Teyvat and maxed out my favorite characters.

Of whom are all of Ara-Ara vibes. No matter how many characters come out, how better they are, or how weak my favorite gals are in the current meta(am I using that word right?), I will never abandon my Beidou and Ningguang. Or Ganyu. Or Shogun. Jesus, I need to build up my Shenhe. I really have to save up wishes for Yae Miko- I fucking need that vexing shrine maiden who just screams having eating the canary.

Fixations on hot older woman aside.

The Prologue chapter had the most changes out of all the chapters I have saved up in the old bank. Originally, I had Touma falling into Teyvat, get depressed, overcome his depression like that, and start trying to get his bearings in whatever new world he was dropped into. And I had that kind of mood going on through the next two chapters to come until the big 'reveal'.

On second reading, I couldn't help but feel like it was too similar to the starting point of A Certain Maelstrom of Misfortune. When writing the start of crossovers, I always have to be careful not have them tasting similar to another. Always got to think of how to make each one different on the first bite. Which is hard since a lot of them have the MC being ejected into a new world for one reason or another. And I realized what I wanted to change and have to rewrite in order to get a different taste.

The mood.

Touma's mood had to be different as he found himself in a strange new world. Different than in ACMM where he was exiled by World Rejector but by his own choice, knowing the consequences. With that story, I feel the misery and cold realization that he might not be able to find a way home, slowly builds up the longer he involves himself with Team 7 and the people of Nami no Kuni. The depression comes in small bursts, sharp spikes, and begins to threaten his composure at times. But throughout the fic, he's still his normal and ordinary self.

With TWZJ's start, I wanted it to hit harder. Much harder. Considering he had no idea to even the possibility of being dropped off into another, or even the dreadful possibility that he would have lost his world to the kind of destructive might One-Eyed Magic God Othinus had intimately ingrained into his soul, I wanted the realization to come up as a kind of emotional whiplash. I wanted him to feel more sorrow, more pain, more dread, more loss when he woke up and recalled those last moments. It had to be different, feel different, and nearly break him then and there.

Hardest part of this was probably writing up how he would swallow that grief. If only for a bit as he tried to get some kind of bearing on the situation.

Weirdly enough, it's only after reading GT9, and going back through a few more volumes, that I finally understand how Touma's has learned to cope with moments of heavy grief and sorrow that would normally cause a normal person to give out.

The damn miserable boy is just too busy to let the loss fully hit him.

Every time he encounters moments of loss, gore, tragedy, and suffering, it's always when he's already occupied with saving another person or fighting a greater threat. Sometimes its those moments that push him onto facing the origin of that misery, forcing him to push aside his own emotional state in order to resolve the new misfortune.

If he had nothing to distract him, to keep him occupied, I would think he would start to crack.

Of course, I couldn't have him despaired for the entire chapter and helped him swallow the grief for the time being.

I didn't want to immediately throw in major characters like Kazuha and Beidou. Not yet. I don't know why but I felt I wanted them to play their parts in the next chapters to come. Naturally, I feel onto other characters to stand under the spotlight with our miserable high schooler. Genshin Impacts writers actually do a pretty good job in NPC's and their stories, so I wanted to do the same too. And will most likely do the same with other characters other than Yinxing. I have so many fun arcs to come.

I've been purposely leaving aside the big elephants in the room, haven't I?

The remnants of St. Germain.

Ohohohohoh, am I going to have so much fucking fun with this certain left arm. Go ahead, just try and guess what. Trust me, the endgame for this left hand is beyond your comprehension.

I'll also say this here, as it was kinda hinted at in the original draft of TWZJ that many of my Patrons have read: Touma will not receive a Vision. This is all tied with the Endgame of St. Germain's left hand.

Random Question: What do you think I should call the left hand now? I have an idea but I would like to hear from others on ideas before cementing the name in the story.

When we get to the next chapter, we'll finally dive right into meeting our favorite sea captain!

For news on updates, you can look up my P a treon for sneak peeks, upcoming chapters, and early looks at drafts and new chapters. So long as I'm not consumed by playing Genshin Impact, or Star Rails(damn game also sucked me back in, god damn it!), I'll do my best to update this story whenever I can.

Remember to Read and Review! It's common courtesy.

NeoShadows fading in and out.

P a treon . com( slash) NeoShadows.