The Spark [Xiao x Aether]

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The traveler found himself in a room difficult to describe. The only thing he could make sense of was his consciousness, other than that he felt like he was disappearing. He couldn't open his eyes or move at all.

It seemed like the teleportation spell worked. The only problem now was that he wasn't sure what to do. Nahida never told him anything about how to change the past, so he had to somehow figure it out on his own.

However, he wasn't able to gain control over his body, meaning he couldn't do anything or see in front of him due to his eyelids being shut.

Slowly, the blonde started feeling his body again. But before he could get used to it, he felt something as strong as a bullet go through the side of his stomach.

He fell to the ground, groaning in pain. It was then that he finally got a hold of himself, the wound was unbearable but he couldn't turn back now even if he wanted.

Aether's eyes opened and he saw many different colored wires on the ground. There was a shiny golden one attached to his arm going all around the place. Those were most likely his memories. As for the others, there was a high chance it was from the companions the traveler met on his journey.

The boy decided to not waste any time looking at them and to immediately try finding his sister's memories. He tried getting up to his feet once again but as soon as he did he was shot in his left leg. It hurt him a lot but he didn't give up. He tried to stand and started following the golden wire to his furthest memories. It wasn't easy to walk with two massive injuries but he managed.

As he made his way to the end of the wire, he kept getting shot. Every limb of his body was bleeding. It was a horrible sight, yet he still decided to ignore the pain. It seemed like the Irminsul really disliked him.

At the end of the blonde's memories, he noticed a white wire very close to his, which was most likely Lumine's.

He wasn't sure on how to get rid of it, but since the wounds were slowly starting to make him feel unconscious, he decided to just cut them with his sword.

The traveler pulled his sword out and took one long look at it before aggressively cutting the white wire and tossing it away. His breathing slowly started to speed up as he was cutting the last few strings. He had no regret. This felt like the right decision.

'Damn it...I-I didn't expect it to be this painful...there's still two last things I've got to do before leaving...' Thought the boy to himself as three more bullets shot his legs, the tree really wasn't giving up anytime soon.

He touched his wire for a split second and it all came rushing back to his head.

All the memories he had lost ever since he entered Teyvat came rushing back to him. Despite it being a good thing, it made the situation even worse. With all these sudden memories getting into his head, he started feeling like he was about to faint any second.

He never planned to get his lost memories back but since he was already here he decided to take them back. He deserved to know what happened before entering Teyvat

The blonde's breathing increased rapidly. His vision slowly started to get blurry but he still wasn't done.

Everything around him was spinning, he could see a white door at the end of a long hall calling out for him to leave. It was the exit lesser lord Kusanali mentioned.

Before he could escape. There was something he wanted to do for Xiao. It didn't take him too long to find a sparkling green-colored wire laying close to his. He wasn't going to look through the Yaksha's memories. There was something far more important. No matter how curious he got, he wasn't going to look into his lover's past.

He kneeled on the ground and cut out a huge portion of the Adeptuses wire. By that time the tree was getting pretty mad. Each shot started hurting way more than the other, he only had to endure it until he reached the white door.

As he was slowly heading towards it, he turned his head one last time to look at the Yaksha's cut wire.

"It is about time you rest, Xiao. Everything should be okay now...nothing will be bothering you anymore...You can live a free life...like you desired to..." he whispered softly with some of the last strength he had left.

The second those words left his mouth, a very painful bullet hit his head. It went right through, making him cough blood and fall to the ground.

He started crawling towards the exit as fast as he could. The boy couldn't take this pain anymore, he was seconds away from dying.

What made this even worse is that he had to be careful not to accidentally step on some wires from his companions. Everything in front of him was shaking it was almost impossible to reach the white door without tripping over wires. Yet he still managed to go through without damaging any.

As he finally reached the door, the shooting started getting way more brutal, it was constantly hitting him before he could reach the exit.

He reached his hand out in a hope of at least touching it before he died but he fell unconscious before he could confirm that he had physical contact with the white door.

His entire world felt silent but at least he did what he wanted. Even if he died it would be a death without any regret.

But did he die?

Or did he somehow manage to survive after all?

Aether wasn't sure. It all happened too fast.