Hu Tao x Reader - A Morbid Curiosity

Chapter 46: Days Together

<A/N: Parts of this chapter came about thanks to the feedback received from my end of year feedback form I posted in 2022, thank you for the submissions to those who had provided it! >

... Where am I?

I had found myself in a strange and unfamiliar place, somewhere that seemed familiar but was still a little off. It looked very much like the caverns of The Chasm, and yet there were some distinct differences. It seemed far more... open, with some very distinct looking plants and rock formations... and yet I couldn't place it at all.

How did I even end up in here? 

I continued to walk throughout these caverns, hoping for some familiar sight that might spark my memory as to where I am and how I got here. Am I alone? Is Hu Tao not here with me? Qiqi? Xiao maybe? 

...Anybody?

There wasn't even any fauna around, and yet these caverns look as if they were large enough to support some rather large life forms. But wait... over there, at the end of this cavern I'm wandering, is that... light? The outside world? But I haven't been walking upwards at all, so that would mean I was always at ground level then? Perhaps I was not underground at all, but rather I was within the tunnels of a mountain? But even still... how did I get here?

???: "The Evil, the Thief, the Slaver. He no longer holds control of you."

As if out of nowhere, a voice had spoken out, an oddly familiar voice... no, that's not it. Rather, it was a familiar message. Those words... they were the very same words that the ocean had seemed to speak to me back then, when I had severed my enslavement with Osial, simultaneously sealing him away whilst also leading me to fall that treacherous drop down into the ocean water... I remember the ocean calling for my presence, I remember the ocean trying to steal me away...

And I remember Hu Tao diving deep down into the dark and stormy sea so as to save me and bring me home.

???: "The Evil, the Thief, the Slaver. He no longer holds control of you."

But now, this voice I hear does not have the echoes that the voice back then had. Instead, this voice sounded as if it did not come from an ethereal being, but rather just another person. Having now been presented with a clue as to where I am, I turn away from the light that was shining out towards me, and I turn towards the voice that spoke out to me...

I half expected to discover that there was nobody behind me at all, for this to be just another voice without a body... but that wasn't the case, not entirely at least.

For as I turned around, I saw the woman standing nearby, her eyes locked onto mine; and on her face, a look of... disbelief? This woman seemed to wear some sort of religious garb, which alongside her hair, seemed to be very similar in style to that of the Shrine Maidens I met atop Inazuma's Grand Narukami Shrine. And yet... whilst I can't put my finger on it exactly, there definitely seems to be something wrong with her.

She looked as if she wasn't entirely all there, seeing as how I could see the terrain behind through her body, the edges of her clothes seemed to wobble as well with otherworldly movements. Is this perhaps an illuminated being? An Adeptus I am not familiar with? A Yaksha perhaps? Or is she something else entirely...?

???: "It has been far, far too long."

Y/N: "Uhmm... I'm sorry, but, do I... do I know you?"