Author Notes:
Heyyyy this one took a while... I got flashbanged by 3 projects and 2 quizzes. So yay uni...
Enjoy the chapter...
/ --- /
Ren
"Thank you," The agent said as Ren finished bandaging him up. He groaned as Ren tugged to ensure the bandages would hold and that there was no more bleeding.
'Thank goodness it wasn't as bad as I thought it was,' Ren thought. From the amount of blood alone, he thought the man was a goner. But the Fatui were tough as nails.
After the Chasm incident, he made sure to carry more medical supplies in his Shadow Storage. Sure, the added weight was uncomfortable, but it beat bleeding out to death.
"My name is Henri," The agent sat a little straighter to address his savior, "May I know the name of the man who saved my life?"
"Ren Roman," Ren responded. He extended a hand, and Henri took it, pulling the man up from his seated position.
Gathering himself for a moment, Henri took the chance to give Ren a thankful nod before his now unmasked face looked around the area in alert.
Ren immediately got the idea and also spread his senses wide. Unable to sense anything out of the ordinary.
"I'm guessing whatever, or whoever roughed you up is out looking for you?"
Henri nodded, "I was sent out here on a scouting mission in a small group. Let's just say that we were tasked with infiltration and information gathering. You could guess how well that went."
'Oh,' Ren winced. He considered asking about his teammates, but stopped himself. It seemed insensitive.
"Well, you don't have to worry about anyone sneaking up on us at least," Henri looked at him quizzically. Ren smirked at the expression, "I can sense the energy around us well, if something powerful were to approach, I would know."
He expected an impressed look from the Fatui agent, but what he got instead was a shake of his head.
"My team also had a person sensitive to elemental energy. But these… people, they had a technique that masked their energy so completely." Henri clenched his fists, "That's how they were able to ambush us."
'You've gotta be fucking kidding me,' Ren could feel a vein pop on his head, 'Does everyone have an energy concealing ability except me?!'
Henri seemed to finally identify a direction and motioned for him to follow, "Come, it's dangerous if you were to wander by yourself. I will bring you to my camp, and you can head off from there."
Ren was sure he didn't need any form of protection, but appreciated it anyway and followed. "You know, this is the second time I've helped out injured fatui." He chuckled a little, "Fate must really want me to help you guys out."
They moved past the swamp back to a drier area, but still deep within the forest.
"Is that so?" Henri finally responded, "What was the previous incident, if I may ask?"
"It was in the Chasm,"
Henri's head snapped towards Ren in surprise, "That was you?"
Ren had to hold back a chuckle from the bewildered look on Henri's face, "Yep. That was me."
"So you were the one Nikolay was talking about," He muttered.
Ren was about to say something else when he felt something odd. He went to a stop, and Henri went on guard immediately.
While it was true that the amount of ambient elemental energy muffled everything out, it made it much easier to notice when there was a lack of energy.
"Something's approaching," he pulled his sword from his shadow storage just as Henri manifested his twin daggers.
The enemies approaching seemed to notice that they were caught, from the fact that they stopped moving.
Suddenly, using his enhanced senses from his sword's curse, he sensed energy charge up from behind him.
'Extension technique: Orochi!'
BANG.
Ren created a geo wall just in time as a bullet was shot at him.
'Was that a gun?!' He felt the hair on his neck rise.
He could handle arrows and normal projectiles just fine. But bullets were faster and a lot trickier.
His dad had explicitly warned him that even though he was a sorcerer, he should never underestimate a firearm until he was at least grade 1.
The second after the bullet was shot, around 7 individuals jumped from the trees with bladed weapons in hand.
Now that they weren't concealing themselves anymore, Ren could sense that there were 4 other people hidden in the trees with ranged weapons. Guns, probably.
'But the fact that the one who shot me is taking so long to take another shot means they must not have an auto.'
Ren and Henri didn't exchange even a glance as they rushed to fight.
"Handle the close ranged!"
"Got it!" Henri shouted as his body seemed to vanish.
'He can conceal his presence too?!' Ren shook the thought away as he fell into the shadows.
This kind of battlefield is actually very beneficial for Ren. Because of the amount of vegetation, there were shadows practically everywhere that he could swim through.
He emerged from the shadow of the person who shot him.
"What the fu—!" The man's shout was cut short as Ren knocked him out with the handle of his sword.
'Thankfully, they're pretty weak,' Ren thought as he threw the man's unconscious body to the middle of the battlefield, using Orochi's extension to put him in a cage of Geo.
Ren felt the other gunmen charge up their weapons. 'Thank goodness the guns use elemental energy to function,'
With a familiar hand sign, he summoned Nue from the shadows. The bird wasted no time and flew straight towards the 3 remaining gunmen.
He heard them shout as they fired at Nue, but the shikigami was far sturdier than him and tanked the bullets with no issue.
A surge of electro later, the unconscious bodies of the gunmen were thrown to the middle of the battlefield as well, and also encased in a geo cage.
Ren looked at the gun under him that was left behind and put it in his shadow storage for safekeeping.
He was an American, after all. He couldn't help himself.
He spotted that Henri had knocked out 3 of the 7 fighters. 'These guys fight well, but nothing to worry about.'
Putting his sword back into his shadow storage, he jumped down from where he was and used Rabbit Escape's extension to burst himself forward using Anemo.
The fighters were surprised to see Ren appear suddenly and tried to slash at him, but Ren just stomped his foot on the ground and released geo pillars straight into their midsection.
The impact sent them flying back, and Nue caught them all in its talons.
Ren made a few more geo cages, and Nue threw the fighters inside. Ren closed the cage with a clenched fist.
He turned to look at Henri, who was panting and very surprised at Ren's combat prowess. "You are a much better fighter than I thought."
Ren shrugged, though he had a smile from the compliment. "Thanks. So what do we do with them?"
Their eyes turned to the 11 attackers, all sealed in geo cages.
/ — /
Henri
He wanted to kill them.
Every single one of them, with his own hands. He held that want inside since watching his teammates go one by one, how his team gave him a chance to escape as they met their doom.
He was able to hold it together, but seeing those same people now in front of him, powerless and weak. It was hard not to give in to temptation.
He took a deep breath to control his emotions. He needed to put his mission first.
Walking up close to the cages, he glared at the people inside. "Tell me where the mansion is,"
"Go to hell," one of them answered, earning a laugh from a few of the others.
He had interrogated people before, it was part of being in the Fatui. Finding out what he needed to do or say to make people break. Yet these ones still acted as if they held all the cards.
"You're in cages. There's nowhere for you to go, so why don't you make this easy for both of us—" He brought out a dagger close to the cage. "And tell me what I want to know."
His words had little effect.
"Big talk for someone who was bleeding out not long ago!" the same one said. "Let us out, and maybe we can discuss terms."
The others laughed.
'The fucking audacity,' Henri fumed internally, but he didn't let it show on his face. Showing anger would only give them satisfaction.
'Looks like I need to bring them back to camp,' He was about to tell Ren just that when the courier spoke first.
"What are they?"
The man was standing a few paces back, looking at the cages with an impassive look.
"What do you mean?"
"Like, what organization are they?" Ren clarified as he stared at the remaining guns on the floor. "Guns are already rare for the military, but it's practically impossible to get one as a civilian, let alone a thug. So these guys must be important, or a part of an underground network."
Henri was surprised. Ren was much more analytical than he expected.
He realized that he hadn't explained much of anything to Ren. He couldn't reveal too much, as it was a classified operation, but he could reveal a little more, as Ren did help him in this battle.
"They are slavers," he growled, completely missing how Ren's body seemed to freeze in place.
"We've been tracking a trafficking operation running through this border region. These are their field operatives. We located one of their compounds to find a clue where a large gathering was to take place in a mansion, somewhere in this area."
Henri clenched his fist as he glared at the smirking slavers, "They ambushed me and my team just as we were about to infiltrate their compound."
He banged on the cage again, "Last chance, tell me where—"
"Ask as many times as you want," one of the slavers said. "We're not telling you anything."
Henri internally sighed. He decided to just bring them to the camp quickly before he did something he couldn't take back. They were still useful, for now.
It was at this moment that he noticed Ren was absurdly quiet, and he felt a chill slowly creep up his spine.
His body told him to glance back, and he did. Ren was still standing in the same position. But something had changed.
Ren's eyes were fixed on the cages, yet they weren't focused at all. His pupils were dilating and undilating in intervals, yet his face showed nothing of his true emotions.
This sudden calm made Henri's stomach feel queasy as his body unconsciously took a step away from Ren.
Steeling his nerves, he finally spoke. "We're not getting anything here. We'll have to bring them back to my camp and—"
"Can I take over?" Ren cut him off. His eyes stared straight into his own, which made him feel exposed.
"The interrogation?"
"Yes."
Every instinct Henri had trained over years of fieldwork was telling him the correct professional answer was no. This man was not a Fatui, even if he had assisted in the past.
Ren had no stake in it and no accountability within the House of the Hearth's chain of command.
And yet… His body was unable to utter the words to reject him.
"...Go ahead."
Ren walked forward and crouched down in front of the nearest cage. The slaver inside met his eyes with a smirk.
"You're going to tell me what I need to know," Ren said. His voice was unnervingly even. "You have three chances. Answer quickly, and I'll let you live."
Then the man in the front cage looked Ren in the eye and spat at him.
"Fuck you! Who do you think you—What?!" The slaver's words were cut off as he shouted in surprise. More shouts followed as they grew frantically.
It took a few seconds for Henri to notice what was happening.
His eyes widened, 'He's shrinking the cages!'
Ren made it slow on purpose, the Geo compressing inward on all sides at once.
The previous laughter and cockiness were gone, and in their place was a flurry of shouts and curses as the cage shrank enough that they were all stuck in odd positions, unable to move their limbs.
"Stop this—!" One shouted
"Let me out!" The other, a woman, was hyperventilating as she struggled the most of them all.
Unfortunately, that seemed to take Ren's attention.
After all, it was easier to pry answers from someone claustrophobic.
He walked over to the woman, who started to hyperventilate harder as Ren crouched down in front of her.
"Second chance," Ren said, leaning into her face.
"You're insane! Let us out!"
Ren sighed, and the slavers shrieked as the cage shrank again.
"Wait—WAIT! I'LL TALK, I'LL TALK! I DON'T KNOW—"
SNAP.
Her pleas were cut off by her own scream of agony as her hand, which was stuck in an odd position, finally snapped from the pressure.
The other slavers fell silent from the display, unable to look away.
Henri was in the same position, his eyes focused as Ren continued to shrink the cage, further breaking the woman's already snapped arm.
The woman started to sob from the pain and hyperventilated from the smaller cage. It was hard to breathe now, as they all had to tuck their knees into their body just to fit.
Ren turned his gaze to the rest of the slavers, who cowered under his gaze.
"Last chance." He brought his palm out, and slowly started to close it, the cage getting smaller in turn.
They didn't last long.
"We don't—we don't know where it is!" One finally broke, their voice stripped of all the cockiness it had before.
The others said something similar, and Ren stepped back the moment he knew they were telling the truth.
The woman with the broken arm looked up at him with pleading eyes. "We were never told directly, only the leader knows. Please… let us out."
Henri let out a shaky breath, deciding it was time he intervened. "We have what we need. We can bring them to my camp to—"
CRUNCH.
His entire body went into fight or flight as a loud crunch reverberated through the forest, and the cages collapsed inward all at once.
Henri was able to step back just in time as blood and flesh exploded outward, covering the lush green with crimson red.
He had to turn away from the grotesque sight. As part of the House of the Hearth, he'd seen his fair share of blood. But nothing this brutal.
When he turned back, the Geo cages were digging into the ground, and all that was left were blood and scattered pieces of flesh.
Looking up at Ren, the man looked completely undisturbed, even as part of his face was covered in blood.
Henri's heart was hammering.
"Henri," Ren asked, and Henri had to stop himself from pulling out his daggers on instinct.
"Could you tell me everything about your mission?" His dead eyes stared at the fatui agent, "Please?"
/ — /
Henri couldn't speak.
He summoned his dagger and stepped back, staring at Ren with a look of fear.
Ren didn't even spare a glance at his weapon, and that was when Henri realised that Ren was leagues above him in strength and could kill him easily.
Slowly forcing himself to lower his weapon, he decided instead to think of a way to respond to his question.
There was no way he was going to tell Ren about his mission. But not telling him risked Ren killing him as well, and if that happened, he couldn't get information back to camp.
Before he had to figure it out, he heard footsteps. He spun around with daggers out, but stopped once he recognised the figure.
"How about we all calm down?"
A man stepped through the treeline, revealing another Fatui agent. But Henri was able to immediately know who it was based on their frame and body language.
'Volkov.'
He was the agent brought to their unit to assist them with this operation, and the one who found the compound in the first place.
The man wasn't anything special in combat, but his surveillance and sneaking abilities gained praise from even the Harbingers.
Another important detail was that Volkov's task before this was to spy on Ren Roman.
Volkov's eyes moved across the clearing. At the splatter of blood and flesh all over the ground. Then to Ren, who had turned to him with narrowed eyes.
Something moved briefly in Volkov's face.
Then it was gone as he turned his face back into a neutral one.
'He's hiding it well,' Henri thought. Volkov had knowledge of what Ren Roman was capable of.
Henri internally thanked him, because if Ren's attention was kept on him, then he would have probably passed out.
"You look familiar," Ren said. "Have we met before?"
Volkov tried his best not to look disturbed and shook his head, "I don't believe we have. You're probably thinking of another Schneznayan, we look quite similar after all."
Ren was silent for a moment, and both Henri and Volkov tried their best to keep their composure.
Volkov took the opportunity to control the conversation, "I've heard of your exploits in assisting us in the Chasm, so you are trustworthy enough."
He walked over to stand next to Henri, who looked at him with a confused expression. "We'll explain everything back at the camp." He looked straight at Ren, "We can't afford to waste time in a mission like this one."
Ren nodded slowly, but his expression still showed some suspicion.
Henri nudged Volkov on the side, hard. "What the hell are you doing?!" He whispered.
"Trust me on this," Volkov whispered back, slightly annoyed at his fellow agent. "If your commander gets mad, I'll take the fall, so just let me make the calls."
Volkov and Henri had a staredown for a few seconds before Henri relented.
When they turned to Ren, the courier looked a little calmer now. Staring at the two agents with little interest, surprisingly.
It was then that they realized, even if they rejected him, Ren would still follow them anyway.
"With that out of the way," Volkov started, "Let's head to the main camp. It should be over in this direction. If we're fast, it shouldn't take too long—"
"Wait," Ren cut him off, "Let's use another mode of transport."
He did something with his hands, and from the shadows beneath him, a large figure emerged.
Henri had his daggers out almost instantly, and Volkov froze up beside him.
'What the fuck is that?!'
The bird was at least twice Henri's height. Its feathers crackling faintly with electro, and looking at both of them with a blank stare.
"This is Nue. She'll bring us faster."
Henri stared at the bird. Then, he gave his fellow agent another uncertain stare before Volkov walked forward first, climbing on the bird after Ren.
It wasn't long until Henri boarded as well, and they went on, flying above the vast forest.
'What have I gotten myself into?'