discrepancy | genshin impact | lumine & childe

abyss (encore)

 At 14, the very first thing Ajax does with his newly bestowed vision is start a fight.

In the future, he will not even remember what the fight was about, but for now the tussle in the schoolyard fans the flames of chaos that flicker deep within him. As he and a classmate—and soon several more classmates—wrestle through the snow, he pulls forth mischievous bursts of water, splashing their faces icy in the cold Snezhnayan air.

This becomes a regular occurrence. If it isn't the boys from his class, it is the teens in his neighborhood. And if it isn't the teens in his neighborhood, it is the unsuspecting merchants in the market, who chase him down for messing up something or stealing something else. Everywhere he goes, just as the glimmers of hydro swirl around him, so too does trouble follow. He does not, of course, derive satisfaction from seeing others in pain—far from it, in fact. He enjoys making children—his own siblings, especially—laugh with glee at the pure blue essence he can now command. He enjoys using this power for mundane tasks, even going so far as to scrub the dishes with water of his own summoning. But no matter how much he enjoys these uses of power, none can compare to the thrill of overpowering another person. Even this cannot compare to the feral life-or-death of the abyss, but he supposes that nothing ever will.

After mere months of fighting and delinquency, including many run-ins with what little authority exists in their little village, his father ruefully hands him over to the Fatui military conscription. He bids his family farewell with little fanfare—the village is not exactly unhappy to see him gone, after all—and is whisked away to the training grounds of Zapolyarny. Much to the dismay of both his parents and his recruit captain, handing a bloodthirsty boy a weapon does not inspire discipline as planned.

Instead, his troublemaking nature is met with punishment, to which he responds with more trouble. He cannot be blamed for beating the stuffing out of other recruits during training sessions, but that does not deter them from blaming him for other reasons. The wrong form with a weapon—even when it leads to victory—is bad. The refusal to end a fight even after the whistle has been blown is bad. The insubordination and backtalk is bad. But above all, the use of a vision is the worst.

He is only permitted to use the vision during a special training class—in which he is one of three students—for vision-holding recruits. This class, however, is little more than a reprimand, warning them that possessing a vision does not make them better than their fellow recruits, and a reminder that Snezhnayan technology is a superior weapon to their visions.

"Why can't we use our visions?" he asks one day, leaning over his desk to catch his classmate's attention. "They're just extra power—why don't they want us to be strong?"

His classmate, a young man many years his senior with an electro vision chained around his neck, scoffs. "Maybe you haven't heard because you're new," he explains. "They say the Tsaritsa doesn't want visions in her military. She doesn't want to let anyone with power like that get too close."

"But what are they gonna do?" Ajax asks. "If we use them, how will they stop us?"

His classmate fixes him with a stare, none of his usual exasperation and disinterest showing through. "They'll take it," he says solemnly. "Aneta used to sit at your desk, but they took hers last year when she tried to use it during a test. One of the Harbingers snatched it right off her hip. I hear they experiment with them."

Ajax frowns. "Did she get it back afterwards?"

A harsh laugh erupts, and Ajax blinks in surprise."There is no afterwards," his classmate says. "She went crazy begging for it back. Works as an assistant in the administration building now and hasn't spoken a word in months."