Growing Feelings [A YANTAO FANFIC]

Chapter 8. The Hidden Ritual

The sports event were soon over. As Hu Tao and I settled down, one of the students from Mondstadt ambled over to us. I recognised him to be the leader of those group of six boys we meant earlier during the event. He had a very disappointed look on his face, as though we did something terribly wrong. But all we did was play our part for our school!

"You just did something terribly wrong, y'know?" he said as he stopped in front of us. 

"But what did we even do?" I asked in a tone to show that I was clearly annoyed. We stood there, staring at each other, both with a dismayed look as Hu Tao struggled to get the upper half of her body out of the costume. As she finally pulled herself out, the boy continued,"My name is Agnar. I got Pyro as my Vision."

"Well so did we..." I looked at him a little suspiciously as Hu Tao stepped up to join. 

"I'll explain everything to you, starting from what happened in Mondstadt."

We sat and listen as Agnar began to explain,"The Hidden Ritual. As a legal expertise, you must have read a lot of books, so you should have stumbled upon something like that, am I not wrong?"

I thought, trying to remember every single book I've ever read. Aside from books on laws, I remembered reading a book on one of my day offs, about all sorts of forbidden spells, curses, rituals...

"Yeah I think I've stumbled upon that before," I said slowly, waiting for my memories to clear and focus on that particular moment, Hu Tao looked at me with enthusiasm as I continued,"it's a ritual that is hidden, as the name itself says. You won't be able to see or feel the ritual; you won't be able to identify it in any sense, basically. But you do need a certain pattern to be performed-" I paused with a gasp, suddenly realising what Agnar meant when he mentioned trying to save us. 

"Did someone learn our moves we practiced for the mascot? Maybe he or she memorised it and used it to perform the Hidden Ritual. Maybe he or she was using us to perform it!" I finally realised. Hu Tao's eyes widened, looking impressed. Agnar nodded,"And we know who's behind it. It's just the same as who took over Mondstadt..."

"Wait... what do you mean took over?" Hu Tao cut in.

"As we speak, Mondstadt is in terrible danger. The ones behind this is not an individual, but a whole army... Abyss Mages have shown themselves again. The entire Abyss Order has. I don't know what their after, but all I know is that they've brought pain and suffering to the City of Mondstadt..." 

We stared in shock at the news we were hearing. There we were, just students; growing; learning; befriending, possibly finding love between each other; and laughing... while another land falls to its knees, its people suffering; dying; or worse, losing their loved ones.

"... when we learnt that there was a Hidden Ritual planted on the field itself, we planned to stop it. The only way was to steal your mascot costume, because we knew you guys wouldn't believe us either way."

"What? Did you say that the Abyss Order is back?!" we heard Aether yell as he dashed into the tent, looking shocked. Lumine ran in after him. At her tail was the rest of the class.

"Were you all listening to our conversation this whole time??!?" I stared at the sea of heads outside the tent.

"We're going back to Mondstadt! Show the Abyss Order what we're made of!" Venti yelled angrily. We've never seen him in such rage since Dvalin had gone on a rampage. 

"No! They've come in not only an army, but hundreds! Every one is a hundred times stronger than the army we've faced before!" Agnar protested. He was clearly worried about our health.

"They may have power, but we've got g-guts!" Chongyun yelled from the back of the tent, so loud that his voice cracked at the last word. Xingqiu patted him gently on the back as he settled down, coughing hoarsely - he sounded like my grandmother when she coughed...

"They've messed with Mondstadt once, never again! Outrider Amber and the Knights of Favonius will have order!"

"That's my line." third deep voice was heard. Hu Tao immediately sprang up,"Zhongli!"

"Mr. Zhongli?" I said in surprise,"But how - why did you come here?"

"I too learnt that there was a Hidden Ritual planted somewhere here in the field. Turns out I arrived late, but fortunately we had the students of Mondstadt to stop you."

We all looked down with all sorts of sounds coming out of our mouth, like"Eh...", or,"Mm-mm-", or," Not exactly..."

"What? What do mean 'not exactly'?" Zhongli asked, surprise by our reactions.

"We didn't know, you see... and, well..."

"Please tell me it isn't over..." he groaned.

"It isn't over." Hu Tao and I obeyed blankly. 

"Honestly..." Zhongli groaned again.

"It... it's over." we admitted.

"What now? What's the effect of the ritual?" Hu Tao squeaked as she squeezed my arm.

"I don't know, guess we'll just have to wait and see-"

"No! It could be something dangerous! We have to act now!"

"But Agnar, how do we predict what's going to happen? Even I don't know despite reading about the Hidden Ritual..."

"Yan Yan what are we going to do?" Hu Tao squeaked again as she tugged on my sleeve, squeezing my arm tighter. I could tell that despite having no connections to Mondstadt, Hu Tao was extremely worried and scared of the effect that would take place. I sighed softly and turned to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and resting my forehead on hers.

"I promise we'll fix this. We just have to head over and stop the Abyss Order, just like last time." I whispered reassuringly.

"But what if we can't and it reaches Liyue? Worse, what if it takes over the whole of Teyvat?"

"We will. I'll do whatever it takes to play my part, and you should too." 

I kissed her forehead gently and turned back to Agnar.

"We're going to Mondstadt." I said determinedly. The rest of the class cheered and kept yelling,"We're going to Mondstadt! We're stopping the Abyss Order, finally some action!"