Finding The Real You - Kaebedo

Chapter XXVI - Day Three.

"Why did you want to talk to me? I expected you to throw that thing in my face or something." Kaeya let out a chuckle, but he was still curious.

It remained silent.

"Oh come on, you're here now, why so shy?"

Silence.

Kaeya didn't try to probe any further, but the question of 'Why wouldn't it speak?' still lingered in his mind.

"Do you at least have a name, something that I can call you? 'Primordial Human Test Subject' is a mouthful and I'd doubt you'd like it very much."

It sighed at this, probably unable to think of a name for itself.

"We should just wait for Albedo, I'm sure he might have something."

It emphasised the "he", signalling that it, or he, wanted to be referred to in the same way. Kaeya never addressed him verbally unlike that, well in front of him he didn't, so it confused him.

"Alright then, well, is there anything else we can do now then?"

More silence. Kaeya was already getting sick of it, usually any conversation with him flowed.

"Could you at least tell me your motives?"

He leaned his head against the stone wall, seemingly bored.

"Don't you already know?"

Kaeya thought back, he probably knew but he couldn't be bothered to remember, his memories were jumbled and all he could remember is that he should've been dead by now.

"Just make them a little clearer for me, please?"

He slightly shifted, but made no move to speak. It almost seemed like he was trying but couldn't get the words out.

But after a moment, the words started spilling out.

"All I wanted was to be Master's prized possession, to live in the glory of being the first human made by human hand."

He seemed to cower away, inching ever so slightly further away from Kaeya, as if he was scared of him.

"But instead I was discarded, seen as a failure right from the start, she never even bothered to remove me from Durin's stomach."

He paused for a second, before continuing once again.

"I made the other "imposter Albedo" to kill you all, with the plan to kill it and take Albedo's place to finally feel what it's like to be loved."

His face started to contort into one of disgust before uttering his next sentence.

"The only thing that discouraged me was your uh, relationship with him. From the start I was planning what I'd do in his place, but I didn't know how to deal with you. I wanted to kill as little people as necessary, so in my original plan I never wanted to kill you. But the thought of continuing my "brother"'s relationship with you made me sick, so I decided against keeping you alive."

He seemed to cycle through emotions once he paused again, the main emotion being anger and resentment.

"But you ended up hurting him, so I decided to torture you before I killed you. It's weird how I hold so much resentment towards him, yet I'm willing to torture anyone for him."

That was a lot for Kaeya to process, but his thoughts stuck to one specific part of that. He had hurt Albedo? He didn't think their argument was that serious, but now that he thought about it, he remembered the resentment that flashed in Albedo's own eyes before he left.

"I.. see.."

Kaeya eventually pushed that away in their moment of silence and decided to focus on the other things.

He was jealous of the attention Albedo got? It made sense but what didn't make sense to Kaeya was the lengths he would go to replace Albedo.

- - - - - - - - - -

Diluc felt like he was walking in endless circles around Dragonspine. Why was he even searching for them in the first place? He was sure they could handle themselves just fine, and would Kaeya really want to see him?

Someone yelled out something that Diluc didn't hear properly, so he ran over to see what had happened.

"Uh, Diluc sir?"

The way they addressed him made him feel weird, the last person to call him sir was Jean, and it was nothing he wanted to remember about.

"Yes?"

He was already annoyed, but he needed to hear this. What if it was news about Kaeya and Albedo?

"We found an opening to what looks to be a cave inside the mountain, you should come see."

Diluc immediately ran in the direction the guard came from, seeing the gaping hole in the mountain. How could everyone miss this? Did no one think that they could be in there?

Diluc called out for a few people to come with him, while telling the rest to continue looking outside.

Surprisingly, snow still covered the ground in a thick sheet of white, proving it's depth with each crunch that came with a footstep.

They seemed to be on a web-like structure, looking down would have any acrophobiac quaking in their boots. They looked to be at the top of the cavern, although the mountain stretched further up outside. They slowly made their way down, every few minutes or so, a yell sounded from one of the poor knights who slipped on the ice.

They made their way to the bottom, it was large but open. It looked endless but it still felt like there was nowhere else to look after a glance.

There were still quite a few knights trickling in from the entries, even after they were ordered to stop numerous times.

Diluc walked up to the source, spotting something silver in the corner of his eye but ignoring it for now.

He ordered them all to continue searching outside of the cave with a stern voice that definitely got the point across.

He soon found himself edging towards the grey thing he saw, he knew it was probably a rock but anything could be a clue.

He stood in front of a door, one that he never expected to find. There were muffled mumbles coming from inside the door, but nothing else could be heard.

He walked towards the door, almost tripping on three cuboid shaped rocks. He wrapped his hand around the lever and pushed it down, nothing happening.

Almost nothing happened. The hushed whispers completely stopped and were replaced with scurrying. Who or what was scurrying around? Diluc really couldn't be bothered to care.

He eyed the rocks he almost tripped over, they looked like they'd fit in the slots below the lever almost perfectly.

He picked them up, finding them surprisingly light, and put each into a slot.

He pulled the lever, nothing happened.

He shuffled them around.

He pulled the lever, nothing happened.

He shuffled them around.

He pulled the lever, the lever went down and the rocks started grinding.

:)

Hello! Sorry for the late chapter, I know it was meant to be uploaded 21 hours ago but I ended up sleeping and my alarm didn't go off so I woke up without much time to finish writing. But I'm here now, and I doubt anyone reading has enough time to just wait for updates so I thought it'd be fine. Anyway, I hope you all have a nice tomorrow.

Word count - 1133