Adventure Beyond The Firmament [Heiscara]

Chapter 11

The sun had risen long before the ingenious detective woke up from his slumber. Opening his eyes, he was hit with the bright rays of sunlight seeping through the window, quite the irritating way to wake up. He got up from the bed groggily, still half-asleep and very tired, and made his way to the bathroom. Taking a look at his reflection in the mirror granted him all the evidence he needed to know he was in a terrible state. He hadn't been getting proper amounts of rest or food, not to mention how his guilt and consciousness were eating away at him, and it showed.

Heizou desperately wanted this to end, he genuinely hated that world and wished to return to his home, his routine. While he always considered adventures fun, this was starting to get too much for him. But the green-eyed man had to push away his thoughts and get to work. He had someone else's money on him and would have to give it to Beidou; he was already very, very late.

Picking the bag full of money up, he left the building and tried to figure out which way he was supposed to go. The city was so massive, in comparison, the towns of Teyvat looked like nothing but neighborhoods. How the citizens could find their way back to their homes was beyond the detective. Ideally, he would like to know where he was going, but this time he wasn't allowed that privilege. He would have to rely on his luck to get to his destination. If only he remembered the address, he could ask some pedestrian for directions...

The burgundy-haired man walked and walked, as if he hadn't done enough of that already, keeping an eye out for anything that could help him figure out where the base was, while keeping his mind occupied by thinking about what could be going on in Teyvat. When would his acquaintances notice his absence? Would they worry and try to find him? Would anyone be happy to know the detective was nowhere to be found? The criminals he's caught certainly wouldn't be disheartened.

Heizou, then, wondered if he would ignore and not touch the device had he known what it does. His first thought was that he'd leave it be and go on with his day, he had had a case to solve, after all. But was that case, as well as the others, more important to him than Scaramouche? "Of course." The burgundy-haired man wanted to tell himself, yet deep down he knew that wasn't the exactly true.

Thankfully, he wouldn't have to answer that question, at least not yet, because something caught his eye, pulling the detective out of the abyss that was his mind.

It wasn't a familiar building that he saw or a street's name that he remembered seeing before, it was someone he saw, quite recently, too. Now, the burgundy-haired man only needed to remember where he had seen that blond man...

Wasn't it right outside of the Crux's base? Heizou didn't know the man's name, but he was certain he had seen him there. When he left the base with Delta after making that deal with Beidou, that blond man was there and stood at the end of the street, watching Heizou and his companion.

This time, however, the blond man didn't seem to be watching him. In fact, he looked like he hadn't even noticed the detective. "Could he be heading towards the base?" Heizou thought. Probably not. But did he have any other way of finding the base? Certainly not.

So, having no other alternative, the detective began following the blond man, praying to the Gods above that he would lead him to his destination. Due to his profession, Heizou had a bit of experience when it came to following others, even though his reasons used to be far more noble and selfless than of now. Of course, he made sure to avoid being seen by the other man as he basically stalked him through the city.

Eventually, luckily for the green-eyed man, his surroundings became familiar, he was walking down a road he had walked on before, for sure. Suddenly, the blond took a turn to the left, away from the base, but where he went no longer mattered to Heizou. He finally could find his way towards Scaramouche. Therefore, only a few minutes earlier, he was standing right in front of the entrance of the base, very satisfied with himself for accomplishing this, and knocked on the door.