A talk about souls

After a very, very long session, we finally concluded our business.

Varka left midway, so only Yanfei, Jean, Guizhong, and I were in the room.

We were drained, except for Yanfei who looked happy about our business. She wanted to be paid with a small portion of the JRK, but there is no way I would allow that.

I paid her 10M Mora which Varka allowed me to take as a loan. It was a lot of money, but an insignificant amount compared with what I would have needed to pay in shares.

"Happy to do business, now I will take my leave. See you around!. Of course not you Kenshin, you can't see" she mocked me before running.

"Wait! I called you here to prank you, if you are gone I can't do that!" I shouted. Why was she here if not to provide me with the amusement I craved so much?".

But she had already left. I will take my revenge. Vengeance will be mine!

..... At this time I miss Guizhong inside me.

That sounded weird.

"I need to buy some things, I will leave you alone for a while" said Guizhong honestly, but I could sense her amusement.

She turned into dust, leaving me shocked and jealous. The best power of all, running away, was held by that disappointing Goddess.

"What are you going to do?" asked Jean. "Who was she anyway?. I saw her by your side these past days".

"She is the reason I came here. She was a soul I sealed in a jade slip 7 years ago, and I wanted to make a body so she could see her friends" I confessed the truth. It didn't matter now, nobody was going to attack me for the slip.

"Is that why you lost your sight?" she asked in a sad voice.

"It was a lot more complicated than that. This world is too big, and there are too many secrets. I lost my sight because I looked at one of them" I admitted. Now I feel like I understand the Boss' feelings a little.

Some things are better left alone.

"Do you regret it?. Losing your sight in exchange for a friend?" she asked. She looked curious about this.

"What are you on about?. Of course, I don't. While I'm sad about not being able to see anybody's face, she is able to live again. There is no way I could regret it" I answered honestly.

I saw her soul move a little, and I was shocked when I saw a small purple tinge turn her soul from pure golden into one with a few purple spots around it.

"I admire your sacrifice a lot" confessed Jean with a serious voice. The most serious one I heard her use. "I think that someone who can make such a big sacrifice without any regrets for a friend is something everyone should learn from".

"Hmmm" I didn't answer. I was too busy studying the changes in her soul.

"W-why are you looking at me like that? Aren't you blind?" she was nervous.

"As you can probably deduce by now, my eyes are special, I can see souls" I confessed.

"I knew you were looking at something else since I met you, but I didn't expect that" she said. In Mondstadt there were a lot of weird things around, so maybe that was why she didn't seem to be so surprised.

"Anyway, your soul changed just now, and I'm intrigued by that" I readily admitted.

"I don't know how I feel about you being able to see my soul" she said in a conflicted voice.

"No need to be ashamed, yours is a beautiful soul after all. It's majestic and golden, akin to an eagle or a lion" I simply described what I saw.

"O-Oh, thank you I guess" she is blushing, and I don't know why. I only described what I saw. "What do souls normally look like?".

"It depends a lot on the person. Greedy people look a bit stretched, people easily angered have little thorns covering their souls and selfless people are more rounded. Brave people have vivid colors, like red or golden, as is your case. Shy people take more soft tones, not that colorful. An example would be your sister, her soul is light blue and more or less rounded, that tells me that she is a shy person, but a selfless one" I explained.

"I am glad to hear that" Jean said, happy that her sister was a good person. Of course, she knew it even before meeting Kenshin, but hearing a confirmation from him reassured her.

"Of course, it is a bit more complicated. I don't know that much by seeing, most of the information comes from how I 'feel' about them" I admitted.

"Have you seen any interesting souls near?" she asked, curious about my answer.

"The most interesting one is the soul of the Fatui lady, Signora I believe" I said, remembering the fiery flames trapped by the unforgiving ice.

"How was it?" Jean asked with wariness in her voice.

"I understand how you feel, and you shouldn't be wary about the fatui, but I won't tell you that" I rejected her question. "Souls are very private, I won't be spewing those things. I told you about your sister because you are family, but just like you wouldn't want anybody to know about your soul, I won't reveal anything about hers".

Jean looked abashed at hearing that but also admired Kenshin's integrity about it.

"That's a good thing. I would regret having to kill you for saying things you shouldn't even know" a cold voice interrupted us.

"Hello, Miss Fatui. I can see your soul is as bright as ever" I said, looking at Signora who came from a nearby alley.

"And I see that losing your sight hasn't made you any more smart" said Signora with a cold smirk.

Jean stood in front of me, but I put a hand on what I thought was her shoulder. I could see her soul that was somewhere on her chest area, so with some estimations, I could generally guess where her shoulder was.

"Jean, stop. If she wanted she could kill us both" I admitted. While a stronger soul wasn't the same as being strong in a fight, her soul was too fierce to be unrelated to her combat abilities.

"I was wrong, you are indeed smarter now" she smiled a bit. "I am curious about my soul too, can you tell me more about it?" she didn't seem to care about Jean's presence, so I answered her.

"As I told Jean before, souls are normally 'solid', to somehow describe it. But there are special souls, souls strong enough to change their own state. An example would be Rex Lapis. His soul isn't just 'solid', it is pure stone, extremely malleable and lively, always changing shape, but generally has the form of a dragon. Believe me, lady, even with that hideous thing you have on your waist, you stand no chance" I told her. She had a Vision-like thing, but instead of 'emitting' a 'signal', it was swallowing it, sending it to places unknown.

"You are once again seeing things you should be" she warned me, so I backed off.

"Okay, no need to get angry, just an advice. Anyway, Adeptus also have different souls, but they are not that strong. Their souls are mostly liquid. It gives them a high malleability, but also are more susceptible to weird things being mixed with them. If someone invented a 'soul poison', they would fall like flies. Of course, with my help there is no way someone dies because their soul is 'ill', so no funny ideas lady" I warned Signora.

I knew the fatui were planning something big, and they were not good people so the chance of them trying to do something weird in Liyue was still there.

"You can never know" she smirked. "Continue".

"As I said, different beings have different souls but generally are similar. All human souls look similar, all Adeptus souls look similar. Except for the gods. They are extremely different. Just like Rex Lapis is a 'malleable stone', Barbatos' soul is 'Wind'. There is no way to describe it more accurately".

"Have you seen Barbatos?!" asked a shocked Jean.

"Of course, and even talked with him before arriving at Mondstadt" I said with a smirk. "He was even present when I lost my sight".

"That was not even a week ago" said Signora with an excited expression, making Jean wary.

"Why didn't he help you?" asked Jean, feeling conflicted. I was her friend, and Barbatos was her god, whom she believed a lot in, she may feel somewhat betrayed.

"He was there to stop me, he even warned me several times, but I still went with it. I can only be grateful to him" I explained with a slight smile. He was a drunkard and a joke of a God, but he was still a gentle soul. I won't tell Jean about how Barbatos is everywhere, he seems to prefer being thought of as an absent god.

"I see" Jean looked pacified now. Her god didn't allow me to suffer my accident without moving, he tried to help.

"We are leaving the original topic. You were going to tell me about my soul" Signora seemed to be in a hurry, but she was still curious about her soul. From what I know, I'm the only one with the ability to see them and describe them so clearly.

"Yours is a lot like a god's but lacks the intensity of one. Your soul is pure fire, twisting in sadness and anger, but is trapped by that ice jail I told you about. And the flame is weakening at a fast pace, whatever it is you have in your waist, it's sucking your soul to another place" I warned her.

She looked extremely angry now. She didn't seem to like how I described her soul as 'fire twisting in anger and sorrow'.

"Now, lady, even if you don't want to see my face, it's time for you to pay. I answered quite clearly now, so you must answer equally as clearly, that was our previous deal" I said with a serious face.

She looked scary now, but I was in the middle of the city. She could freeze us like that Wopperflower is now, but I trusted that she was intelligent enough.

"What do you want?" she asked in an eerily calm voice, surprising me.

I expected her to use her usual arrogant way of speaking, but she seemed to have changed into another person altogether. She was that hurt by my description.

"What is that?" I asked without explaining what I was referring to. It was obvious at this point.

"A Delusion" was all she said before turning around to leave.

I was quite dissatisfied with her answer. I told her a lot of invaluable things and only got a word in response.

"Kid" she spoke once again. "You should never leave Inazuma again, or my co-workers might take some drastic measures. A few of them would love to dissect you. You are free to use my name if you ever decide to visit Snezhnaya".

"Don't worry about that" I said, as we felt a soft breeze in our faces. "I have a God on my side".

Without reacting to that, she left, leaving a worried Jean behind.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Guizhong is with me after all, she is a God. The most useless one, but still" I revealed to Jean.

"I trust you know what you are doing" she nodded to herself.

"Still, hmmmm" I looked again at the purple spots in her soul.

"Stop, I will be angry if you keep staring at my chest like that" she warned me.

"Oh, sorry, I was too focused on your soul" I need to be careful about that.

"I know, that's why I only warned you" she replied with a smile. "How does your soul look like?".

"I don't know" now that I think of it, I haven't been able to look at my soul. My soul isn't reflected in a mirror, so I can't see it. "I will think about it later, now please help me reach my hotel, Guizhong is waiting for me at the door".

"The hotel is 300 meters away! You can see that far?" she asked in an incredulous voice.

"And more, but more tests will need to be conducted after a while. Now, my Radiant Knight, aid the powerless prince to reach his bed" I said dramatically.

She blushed and looked at the floor, but still grabbed my arm and pulled me. Looks like this wasn't enough to make her escape. Oh!.

"My dear Knight, whose blonde hair shines as the morning sun, dazzling everyone with its brilliance, whose blue-grey eyes pierce through every hidden truth allowing her to vanquish her enemies, whose golden soul shining with determination and courage makes her rise from the unnamed masses" I started. I was going to continue flattering her when he realized that Jean was about to escape.

"You wouldn't leave a blind man alone in the middle of the night right?" I said with malice in my voice. She was going to listen to every single one of my words.

She didn't answer, but I could sense her soul trembling in shame.

"So, my dear Knight, whos-hey, what's wrong?" I saw how her soul suddenly went still. She wasn't dead or something like that, her soul was still shining brightly, but it was like it was 'sleeping'.

"Guizhong, what's wrong?" I asked Guizhong, whose soul had been with us the whole time. It looks like she can turn into dust.

"She fainted" revealed an astonished Guizhong.

"Why do I still feel her hand grabbing me then?" I asked curiously.

"She fainted standing up" Guizhong revealed. "She has an amazing willpower".

"Sure, now help her, I will reach the hotel from here, I can see the receptionist coming".

"Are you going to leave her?" asked a surprised Guizhong.

"Do you think I can help her now?" I asked bitterly. I needed her help to come here, what does she want me to do?

"No, I meant if you are not going to prank her now" Guizhong clarified.

"It's not fun if she isn't reacting, now leave, someone is going to come and I don't want to be seen in this situation."