Look Me in the Eyes (and tell me that it's me) [Zhongchili]

Chapter 19 - Answers

Ajax waits.

Ajax waits, but Zhongli—Rex Lapis—doesn't show.

He stalks the streets, his thoughts layered with violent static.

Zhongli knew this entire time.

Zhongli tricked him.

His Vision sits on his waistband. The Vision Zhongli gave him. The Vision that started all of this.

He turns the corner. Down the street are a group of men hovering outside a shop window, one of them holding a large, heavy object as he paces up and down, surveying his target.

Thieves.

Ajax knows the owner of this shop, a sweet lady called Anya. She's owned the store since his family moved here, selling newspapers, and bread, and the little candies he and his siblings used to beg Mother for pocket money to buy. She doesn't need a bunch of ruffians destroying her property.

"Hey! What're you doing?" he calls out to them, hand already on his knife.

They're easy to rile up, and even easier to put down. Their movements are slow, and he's improved, his strikes stronger and faster, his stamina an infinite well. It's glorious; he could fight for forty days and forty nights should he need to. He is herculean. He is a god.

The men lie at his feet, clutching their injuries, and Ajax claims his spoils, pocketing a bound wad of cash. Time for this to go to a better cause than funding crime.

"I heard rumour that there has been a mysterious person bestowing their justice upon would-be ill doers in this area. Although the Fatui claimed credit for these actions, I suspected it might be you, Tartaglia."

Speaking of gods...

"I'm not fucking Tartaglia, Rex Lapis. You've got quite some gall, showing up here."

"I..." Zhongli stands beneath the lone working street lamp, haloed in a beam of light, the deceiver god that he is. "My apologies. Your last message was signed as Tartaglia. As such I wrongly assumed this to be the term of address that you now preferred."

"You have no right to use that name. Not after what you've done."

Zhongli has the audacity to look surprised. "I believe there has been a misunderstanding. Come, Ajax, might we speak in a more hospitable location? It is ill advised to cause a scene where it may pique the interest of certain involved parties."

Cause a scene? Oh he'll cause a scene alright.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" Ajax strides towards Zhongli, his knife in hand. "Isn't this what you wanted when you gave me this thing? Tell me you didn't want Tartaglia back. Tell me you didn't want this." He gestures with the knife towards the men on the floor. "You knew exactly what you were doing, so embrace it. This is what you've created, Rex Lapis. Aren't you proud of yourself?

"This was not the intended outcome," Zhongli says.

Really? Not the intended outcome? How dare he. How dare Zhongli expect anything else when he's foisted this upon him. It's Zhongli who gave him this Vision. It's Zhongli who wanted to bring Tartaglia back. It's Zhongli who still refuses to tell him why that is.

Well, if Zhongli wants Tartaglia back, it's Tartaglia he'll have.

And Tartaglia still has some unfinished business with Rex Lapis.

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you. In that case, we should get down to it. I promise you won't be disappointed." Ajax points his knife towards Zhongli. "It's time to finish what you started."