Forbidden Knowledge

(LAST CHANCE, TURN BACK IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SOME DRAMA)

A few days passed, and everyone let the parents live alone for a while with their child, letting them enjoy their time together.

After those days, the rest of the Adeptus came to see the child, offered their help and got to see their friends' baby.

"Then I will go to Mondstadt to get Jean" Kenshin said with a smile. "She will probably want to see the baby and offer her congratulations to Guizhong."

"Just..come back quickly" Yae was strangely affectionate these days, not the sexual kind of affectionate, but she was extremely cuddly.

"I know" Kenshin nodded, and with a soft kiss, he left the Harbor.

He had everything he needed inside his Plane, so he could travel without needing to carry heavy bags or be afraid of getting robbed.

Not that anyone could rob him, his Plane was his best weapon, and one not anyone could escape from.

Even if Kenshin had lost against Morax, Rex Lapis now, he was still extremely strong.

'But that makes another question arise' mused Kenshin. 'There is no way Ei could have been that 'weak'. She is hiding something from me, and after the baby is born, I'm going to make sure I get to know about it.'

But for now, he needed to arrive at Mondstadt to tell Jean and Barbatos, who Kenshin was sure would teleport to Liyue to say congratulations to his old friend.

"Kenshin" Lumine saw Kenshin walking down the street with a smile and approached.

"What does the Intrepid Traveller want?" Kenshin asked but didn't stop walking forcing Lumine to walk beside him. "And your Paimonness of course."

"E-hem" Paimon proudly said, nodding in approval at the respect she was being talked with.

"Can you give these letters to my brother?" asked Lumine with a hopeful look in her amber eyes.

"Lumine, I already told you that I haven't seen your brother since that day" Kenshin wryly said, but took the letter and stored it in his Plane, with all the other Lumine had given him.

"But you will probably see him before I do" Lumine sadly said, but she looked up when she sensed Kenshin rubbing her head.

"You already decided to focus on your travel, think about that" Kenshin said looking at the still far-away Wangshu Inn.

"Stop!" Paimon hugged Kenshin's arm in an effort to move it away from Lumine's head. "I won't let you have Lumine too!"

"Paimon..." Lumine sighed in exasperation.

"Okay okay" Kenshin voluntarily took off his arm, looking with an amused smile at the emergency food. "What a feisty Paimonness."

"I need to protect Lum-"

"Anyway, what are you going to do now?" asked Kenshin, interrupting what he knew was going to be a stupid sentence.

"I will stay in Liyue for a while" Lumine said, hugging Paimon close to avoid letting the angry flying baby start annoying Kenshin with her 'punches'. "After that I will travel through Inazuma for a while, I heard that it's a good place now."

"It is" said proudly Kenshin. "It's still not as developed as Liyue, but we are getting there. Did you decide to take it slowly?"

"Yes" admitted Lumine. "After talking with you I realized that there is no hurry in moving forward, I will experience all this world has to offer before arriving at the point my brother is in."

"I think it's a good plan" Kenshin nodded. "Maybe you will be in time to see my-"

"What's wrong?" asked Lumine, sensing Kenshin's face turn white.

"Come out" Kenshin's frigid voice made Lumine shiver. "I can see that disgusting black thing you call soul."

"Indeed, a very special specimen" a sickeningly sweet voice reached Lumine's ears, and looked to the source of it.

A man with black pants covered by a white shirt slowly approached them with a mask covering his eyes and leaving only the lower part of his face exposed, and Lumine felt this man was even more dangerous than Childe.

"I don't know how you hid your soul from me" Kenshin said, putting Lumine behind him as he felt that this man was too strong for Lumine now. Maybe after she 'awakened' the rest of her soul she would have a chance, but right now she was outclassed. "But we have a Contract."

"Indeed" the man replied with a smirk. "A Contract forced upon me, if I may say. But the Contract never specified that I couldn't target you, only your family is safe."

Kenshin frowned, sensing that this man would have come here regardless of what the Contract said.

"Who are you?" asked Lumine coming out of Kenshin's back and wearing a frown.

"Il Dottore" the man introduced himself, making Kenshin pale when he learned that this man was the same one Arlecchino had warned him about. "The second of the Harbingers."

"I knew Fatuis are always up to no good!" Paimon said with her high-pitched voice.

"What do you want?" Lumine asked further, while Kenshin was thinking ways to avoid the fight against this opponent he couldn't kill.

"Him" Dottore pointed at Kenshin. "My dream is to make a human able to fight with Gods, and I already know he can. He is the finest specimen this world has ever seen, and I am going to study him."

"You sound so sure of that" commented Kenshin. "What impedes me from running away or eliminating you?"

"You won't run away" Dottore's confident voice made Kenshin alarmed. "You still value your family after all."

"Th-"

"I don't care about the Contract" interrupted Dottore. "The only reason I'm a Harbinger is because it's the shortest path to achieve my goals. If Morax comes to Snezhnaya to destroy everything, I couldn't care less if the total balance was in my favour."

"What did you do?" asked Kenshin darkly, realizing that he had no choice but to do what this monster said.

"I planted a little 'present' in Inazuma" Dottore smirked. "One that will disappear when you kill me."

"How can we trust you?" asked Lumine with an outraged expression.

"He is not lying" said a pale Kenshin. "He doesn't care about Inazuma or even dying, all he wants is to get data from me. If I don't comply, he will detonate the 'present', and if he takes me away Morax and Ei will realize where I am and will raze Snezhnaya to the ground."

"Indeed" Dottore smiled, a smile no one liked. "Even though is regrettable, I'm still not ready to face the might of 2 original Archons and Snezhnaya, who will force me to keep you safe. I would have liked to take you away and experiment calmly, but taking data on-site is my only option."

"Kenshin, can you beat him?" asked Lumine with a nervous expression.

"No" Kenshin replied looking at Dottore's soul. "I don't know how or why, but he fragmented his soul. What we see here is only a small fragment, even if I kill him, the rest are out of my reach."

"You are truly the best specimen, to be even able to see that" Dottore smirked, and took a step forward. "The only thing you can do is face me, as everything else will mean the destruction of Inazuma. Just when you are going to be a father..."

"How do you know that?" asked a pale Kenshin. "I always look around to see if anyone is spying on us, even if you hid your soul from me, I would still have detected you when you were in hearing range."

"This world is too big" Dottore smirked again. "There are almost infinite ways of peeping on someone."1

"Lumine, go to Liyue and tell Morax" Kenshin pushed Lumine, who looked agape at Kenshin. "You can't fight him, and he is intent on fighting me. The only thing we can do is to ask for the strongest person around for help."

"But what about the Contract? If Morax learns about this, won't the other people in Snezhnaya punish him?" asked Lumine, with Paimon behind her.

"He is a madman, he cares more about sacrificing this piece of soul to get information than about the punishment" Kenshin said, seeing Dottore's unchanging smirk. "Now go."

"O-Okay" Lumine said, and started running towards Liyue with all the speed she could muster.

Dottore ignored her, and looked towards the solemn Kenshin.

"You have no other choice" Dottore said. "I blocked the area around, you can't call for the Conqueror of Demons."

"You made a mistake" Kenshin frowned when he realized that his last card was sealed, and the space started breaking around him when his soul manifested in the world. "You are probably sending information to the other fragments of your soul due to that connection between fragments, but you forgot that I am the best at manipulating souls."

"That's not your problem to worry about, is it?" asked Dottore, looking with undisguised greed at the crumbling space.

And they both disappeared from this world.

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"Haaa....haaaa...haaa" Lumine forced her already tired legs to move forward, knowing that she had a very important mission.

She finally arrived at the Harbor, and desperately navigated through the crowded streets to reach the Wangsheng Funeral Parlour, where she hoped Zhongli would be.

"Haaa...haaaa....hey!" but she, by some miracle, saw Zhongli walking through the streets with a short woman and a baby. The implications of the baby were missed by her, her mind focused on the graveness of the situation.

"Hmm?" Rex Lapis looked in curiosity at the face of the brave girl who so selflessly lent her help to the Harbor.

"You...you.....Kenshin..." Lumine hated herself for not being able to say what she needed to say, but her lungs were on fire.

"Something wrong with Kenshin?" asked a pink-haired woman with a worried look. 

"He....he.....Fatui...." Lumine said the most important word that made the pink-haired woman pale and Zhongli wear a solemn expression.

"Where is he" the dragon asked, and anger started bubbling under the solemn exterior.

"Near...Wanghshu...."

Before she had even ended, Zhongli had already disappeared from her vision, the woman also leaving in a purple blur of electricity.

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"Marvellous!!" Dottore shouted, his now uncovered eyes shining with the madness that was usually kept under wraps. "What a wonderful world! This is the key to humanity reaching the domain reserved to Gods!"

BOOOOOOM

A huge spear penetrated the place where the madly laughing man had been a mere second ago.

"Shut up" Kenshin frowned, knowing that he couldn't let this man escape. Judging by what Alrecchino told him, this man was probably the most dangerous existence in Teyvat.

He wasn't as strong as others, but he was smart and cruel like none. The moment he took a step out of this place, he would rely on all the information to the other fragments and he still didn't know how, just like he didn't know how was this man able to hide from his sight.

But he had no other choice but to bring him to his Plane, or that 'present' would probably kill his family residing in Inazuma.2

But now that he was here, and knowing that the moment this fragment disappeared so would the 'present', Kenshin decided to eliminate this man.

He had been forced to introduce this piece of a foul soul inside his Plane, and his ignorance and lack of preparation had been the cause of being caught off-guard, but there was no other option now.

Even if Morax arrived, he would need to give this madman what he wanted or Ei, Makoto, Sara, his still unborn child and everyone else in Inazuma would suffer the consequences of his ingenuity.

"I see now! To think such a thing could happen!" Dottore didn't even hear Kenshin's words, and resumed his mad laugh after looking at the tree, having understood something even Kenshin had no clue of. "To think the false sky hid something like this!"

"Shut up and fight" Kenshin repeated and an explosion sent Dottore flying away with a bloodied face.

"Hahahaha" but Dottore didn't mind.

He was someone who made copies of him based on different moments of his life. The fragments usually quarrelled with each other through the unique connection they had, and this was the most extreme one, one that would gladly sacrifice his life for knowledge.

And after learning what the giant tree implied, this fragment couldn't help but feel exhilarated.

He had already gotten the biggest piece of information he could get, and this was anything else than a fake body he injected a fragment in, so 'dying' now held no meaning for him.

Only getting more data did.

"Hahahaha" Dottore mad laugh continued, but Kenshin felt something that horrified even him, who had seen the Being, happen inside his Plane.

A cloud of dark smoke was escaping from Dottore's wounds.

"AAAHHHHHH!" Kenshin screamed in pain, feeling his Plane get corroded or even devoured by this black mist.

He tried to stop everything to eliminate it. Focusing the energy of the Plane, destroying the affected area to avoid letting it spread, trying 'dousing' it with water he created, trying to blow it away with wind, trying to burn it with fire....but nothing worked.

The black mist seemed to swallow everything, and it didn't only propagate through the ground. 

Air, grass, stone, space...everything was being corroded by this toxic 'something' that was gradually eating away all of Kenshin's soul.

"Hahaha, this of Forbidden Knowledge" Dottore said between laughs, not minding that his own body was consumed. The purpose of this vessel had already been fulfilled after all, and now the best way to know the core of Kenshin's power was by erasing the outer layer using the Forbidden Knowledge, to let him peer at what gave him his ability.

"AAAAHHH!" Kenshin felt how her own soul was gradually disappearing, and the process was the worst pain he had ever felt.

Worse than the first time he looked at a hilichurl, worse than losing his arm against Ei and worse than Morax's meteor damaging his soul.

It wasn't physical pain, or even mental one. It was way worse, as the most important part of his body was getting devoured alive.

The huge tree shone with a purple light, its golden and purple leaves glowing with the absorption of more energy from an unknown place, trying to eliminate this Forbidden Knowledge that was destroying the Plane.

"Ooohhhh" Dottore, uncaring of the pain his vessel was experiencing, saw the purple glow, and a look of pure devotion appeared in his eyes. "I wonder-....."

Those were Dottore's last words before the vessel disappeared completely, releasing another wave of pure darkness.

"AAAH!" Kenshin screamed again when even more mist started eating away at his soul.

With the little reasoning he had left, he realized that even if he left the Plane, the black mist would only appear on his body, effectively killing him.

So his only option to stay alive was to extinguish them while it was still in the Plane, as he wouldn't be able to extinguish the ones on his body without accessing the huge amount of energy he had here.

But....

"AAAHHHH! DAMMITTT!" Kenshin screamed in anger and pain when the black mist receded, but only a bit.

He realized that he would be able to extinguish them, but it would be extremely close, the tree would probably be left with only a few leaves.

"...." and Kenshin realized something.

Today, he would die.

He could feel how foul this mist was, and as Dottore had shown, there were other forces at play in this world.

Looking at the orbs of light that represented the souls of all those close to him, he immediately knew.

He couldn't let the mist touch them, he didn't know what would the consequences of such a tragedy be but looking at the now firm and strong-looking soul that represented his still unborn child, he couldn't allow it to let anything happen.

So the moment he decided what to do, he shed some tears.

For the future, he wouldn't be able to live, for all the happiness he wouldn't be able to experience, for all the pain his loved ones would be in, for the child he wouldn't be able to meet, for the same child that would grow up without knowing his father...

For all that, he allowed himself a few seconds, but sensing the mist dangerously approaching the tree, his expression grew firm.

And he left his Plane behind taking the mist with him, knowing that it would spell his death.

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"Where is he!?" asked a panicked Yae, who had already been in this situation before. She could only pray the result this time would be the same.

"Inside his Plane" Morax stood on top of a small hill near the Wangshu Inn, ready to help when Kenshin appeared.

"I am not sensing anything" commented Xiao with a concentrated expression. "I still don't know how was I blocked."

Xiao had a special awareness granted to him by his Vision plus his nature as a Yaksha.

'Scream my name, and I will come'

This is what Xiao told the few select and privileged people who had won his trust.

And everyone knew Kenshin wasn't stupid enough to forget about this, so the only possibility was that Xiao's ability was blocked somehow.

"Please please please...." Yae muttered, panic on her face.

Since she had learnt about Kenshin's 'feelings of wrongness' after their magical night, she had been feeling uneasy.

This world was too big, but Yae didn't believe in occurrences.

Luck or probability couldn't explain Kenshin's existence. His appearance had saved Inazuma, and he had been born in the exact precise moment where he was needed, and with the only ability that would allow him to fight Ei in such a short time.

So when Kenshin had his dreams, he instantly knew something was going to happen.

That was the reason why she had been so cuddly these days, after the former Geo Archon had a son with the woman who should have been dead for 2 thousand years, coupled with the final stages of Ei's pregnancy and Kenshin's dreams, she felt that 'something' was going to change.

When she heard that blonde-haired girl say that Kenshin was in trouble, she felt her worst dreams come true, and she could only pray now.

"There!" Xiao looked to a place where he felt a disturbance appear.

"Kenshin!" Yae screamed in happiness, seeing Kenshin's pale but seemingly unharmed face appear.

Kenshin looked at Yae with a sad and apologetic look that made Yae understand something.

And just after their eyes shared a look, Kenshin's body erupted in dark flames that surged from his chest.

"KENSHIN!" Yae shouted in panic and tried to approach, but firm arms held her back. "LET ME GO!!"

Rex Lapis only looked with a grim look at his friend, and the man that made the miracle that was his son appear, knowing the destination this whole thing had.

"That is Forbidden Knowledge" said a horrified Xiao, who recognized this black mist.

He, just like Rex Lapix, had fought during the Cataclysm 500 years ago, and he recognized this.

Kaenri'ah was a nation without God, and they used the Art of Khemia that 'stole' little fragments of souls from the Being to make their life easier.

But they lacked the ability to enter that space as Kenshin did, they did it forcefully creating a small corridor that was at some point infected by Forbidden Knowledge, which made the little fragments of souls from the Being mutate into monsters that appeared everywhere in the world, killing 5 of the original Archons, including Makoto.

And now this same baleful aura was devouring Kenshin.

"KENHSIN!!" Yae screamed, knowing what Kenshin's apologetic look meant. "YOU PROMISED ME!!"

"Sorry" was all Kenshin could say, swallowing back his pain to voice the thoughts that needed to be said. "I love you all."

"NO!! PLEASE!! LET ME GO!!" Yae tried to blast Rex Lapis away, but the dragon wouldn't let her up to her death. 

The corrosive aura of the Forbidden Knowledge was something even Kenshin couldn't dissipate.

It was the same aura that created the hilichurls to begin with.

"Please" Kenshin felt something in his body being eroded, and he knew he didn't have more time. "Take care of my child."

"KENSHIN!!"

Kenshin lost the ability to understand Yae's cries, and his eyes closed against his will.

And his body fell limp to the floor.

"KENSHIIIIIIIIIN!!!"