Keqing paused, but had her fists ready. She was frustrated, but she wanted to try to get to Raiden's head through using harsh words, "If you're not going to take this seriously, why don't you just forfeit!"
Her attempts were futile, but she didn't dare mention what she already knew about him or his mother, "Are you just going to sit there and accept defeat!? What happened to that passion! What happened to all that rage! What happened..."
Keqing slid one leg back and got ready with her fist.
"...TO YOUR DESIRE TO DEFEAT ME!"
With one swift motion, Keqing's fist connected and knocked Raiden to the ground. The collision his head made with it seemed to bring him back to his senses, but when he finally stood up to look around, he paused.
He wasn't in the arena anymore...
He was in a familiar space, but he couldn't quite pinpoint it.
He slowly turned around, taking in all of his surroundings; everything looked vague, but there was still a feeling of familiarity as if he had been here before.
All of a sudden, Raiden forgot everything. He forgot about the fight and he forgot about his mother walking away.
There was now only one thing on his mind...
"Where am I..."
After a short moment, Raiden finally took small steps around the mysterious area. He noticed something on the floor in the distance and slowly made his way to inspect it.
What looked to be shards from a shattered vase spread across the floor. Once Raiden bent down to have a look, things started becoming clearer again, and that's when he heard it.
-OST STARTS PLAYING-
The sound of a slap made him turn around immediately, and everything around him was suddenly clear. He was in his home back in Inazuma, and his mother stood right in front of him, facing a humanoid figure crouched on the ground.
"Mom?"
Raiden tried to call out to his mother, but she didn't respond. In fact, she didn't even notice him there. After giving up, he decided to shift his focus on the figure on the floor.
It was barely noticeable, but it took the shape of a young child and was almost fully transparent. Raiden stared at it for a while, confused as to what was going on.
Another brief moment passed by, and Ei raised her hand. Raiden noticed this and immediately ran in, trying to intervene, "STOP!"
He dove towards the figure on the floor and tried to grab it before Ei's hand could land, but instead of that happening. Raiden just dove into the floor and rolled right through before lifting his head up after hearing another slap.
'What?'
Raiden slowly approached the scene again and gently tried putting a finger on both his mom and the figure. As expected, all that seemed to happen was his body simply phased through them.
A moment of shock passed by and Raiden started to get an idea of what was happening, "This is no normal space... What's happening? You can't hear me can you?"
Again, no response from either his mother or the figure on the ground. He was unsure of what to do in this peculiar situation and turned back to the shattered vase on the floor.
Raiden reached out with his arm and tried using his anemo to pick up one of the shards. However, there was no luck. It was clear that he was unable to interact with anything in this space.
