Henri
Henri couldn't help but check his daggers one more time.
He had gotten new ones after being ambushed, which helped ease his mind a little. The wounds from yesterday ached when he moved certain ways, but nothing he couldn't manage.
Even if he was unable to move, he'd still do the mission anyway. There was no way he couldn't after losing his team.
'Today's the day.'
He moved through the trees with the rest of the perimeter team, spreading out as they went, each operative peeling off toward their assigned section of the compound's boundary.
Henri was assigned to a spot near a cluster of rocks. It provided decent cover and a clear line of sight to anything or anyone approaching.
"You good?" A voice asked next to him.
He turned his head to see Danil, another agent, crouching down a few feet away.
Henri sighed, "Fine."
Even with the mask, he could feel Danil raising a brow, "You don't look fine."
"I'm fine, Danil," he responded with a little sharpness.
Danil got the hint and didn't push it further. "The commander wants the perimeter locked before the infiltration team moves in. If any slavers get—"
"I remember." Henri sighed, "You don't need to remind me of the plan, you know."
"Just making sure," Danil said, then he moved off toward his own position.
Henri pulled out the rough sketch they'd been given. It was one of the compound's layouts, what he remembered from before the ambush, cross-referenced with what little aerial information they'd managed.
He went over it again, even though he'd memorized it hours ago. Entry points. The main structure. What they theorized lay underground, about which they didn't actually know much.
'If the compound leader's smart, there's a way out we don't know about.'
He shook his head. They made sure to set up a perimeter further away from the compound too, just in case there was a way for them to escape further out.
A Fatui skirmisher passed the information down the line, making sure everything was in order with some updated info.
Henri watched it move past him toward the infiltration team's staging position, where Ren was. He caught a glimpse of him analyzing the sketch, looking it over with the same flat expression he had yesterday.
It was unnerving.
Henri went back to watching the compound.
'There's no way the compound doesn't know that we're coming,' he thought, anxiety building. 'Even with this many people, I don't know if it's enough. They have enough backing to get firearms, who knows what else they could be hiding?'
Everything sorted itself out, and before long, it was almost time to start.
Henri did a final headcount of the infiltration team before the signal.
Volkov and eight other operatives he recognized from the camp.
'Wasn't there supposed to be ten people?' Henri narrowed his eyes, '...Where's Ren?'
He scanned the staging area and the trees around it.
Ren was nowhere to be found.
His stomach dropped.
'There's no way… He wouldn't.'
Except Henri knew he would. He had watched Ren kill the slavers yesterday in such a brutal manner that it was obvious to anyone with a brain that Ren was itching to get his hands on them.
'Volkov needs to—'
"Perimeter ready!"
The signal went out before Henri could say anything.
Unknown to him or anyone else, a dark barrier had surrounded the compound, and the air in the forest just got a touch colder.
/ — /
'They still haven't come back.' Mira thought, looking down from the lookout tower.
She had the early shift, which she didn't mind most days. It was quiet, and gave her some alone time to think.
It was a dull job, and it left her awake some nights after finding out what she had been helping. But it paid well, and she couldn't be picky.
She yawned.
Below, a few of the others were loading crates into the building and into the tunnel entrance. They were moving more slowly than they should have been, given what happened yesterday.
After the Fatui of all people tried to sneak into the compound, they had been given the order to pack everything that mattered and relocate. But packing dozens of items and people took a lot longer than any of them expected.
It didn't help that some were panicking that they might clash with the full force of the Fatui.
Slower than they should be moving, given everything. The order had come down yesterday evening — pack what mattered, prepare to relocate — but "prepare" had turned into hours of arguing about what counted as important enough to take.
The team they sent after the explosion yesterday hadn't returned. No information or communication from them, so they were either dead or captured.
She rubbed her eyes and looked back out over the trees.
Everything looked the same and was really quiet. A part of her was anxious, but she was sure they could escape before another attack would come.
She yawned again, bringing her hand up toward her mouth—
And stopped.
She couldn't move her arm.
Slowly, she looked down and saw something pale and wet wrapped around her wrist. More of it, around her other arm. Her legs. It climbed higher onto her body, and her stomach dropped the moment her brain realized what it was looking at.
Tongues.
"Mmph!" She tried to scream, and one of them found her mouth before any sound came out.
She screamed into the tongue covering her mouth and struggled with all her might, but the tongue just squeezed tighter and tighter. To the point that breathing started to hurt.
Her eyes widened in fear when a figure seemingly emerged from the shadows like a demon. She turned her eyes towards the shining blade the figure held in their hands.
And in a blink, it was the last thing she saw.
/ — /
On the ground, a man named Tarkis heard a thud from the second lookout tower. He didn't think much of it at first. Things fell sometimes. Crates, equipment, whatever.
"Oi—everything good up there?" He called up toward the tower.
No answer.
"Mira?"
Still nothing.
"Don't tell me she fell asleep," He muttered irritably.
He squinted up at the tower's platform and felt a chill crawl down his spine when he saw liquid dripping down the wooden platform.
It was blood.
"Shit." He turned around to call the others, "We have a breach—!"
What he saw instead made the words die in his throat.
Blood. Everywhere. The three men he'd been talking to less than ten minutes ago were on the ground motionless, the grass beneath completely covered in blood.
One had a clean line across his throat. Another had a hole punched straight through his stomach, his intestines spewing out grotesquely.
Tarkis immediately grabbed the daggers at his belt and spun, swinging at whatever was behind him.
There had to be something behind him, there had to be—!
"Huh?"
His arms came off before he finished the motion.
He didn't even register the pain at first. His arms just weren't where they should be anymore.
He wanted to scream, but a hand suddenly clamped over his mouth, and the ground hit his back hard enough to knock the air out of him.
Unable to move or break free, especially now with the lack of arms. Tarkis looked up fearfully at the man above him.
The grip on his jaw was so tight he thought it might just shatter on its own.
For a single, suspended moment, the figure above him didn't move.
'He's going to take me hostage,' Tarkis thought, somewhere underneath the pain and the screaming that wasn't coming out anymore. 'He's going to need information. I can give him information. I can live!'
Geo shards formed between the figure's fingers.
'I can—'
They drove into his lungs.
Tarkis's last sound was a wet, gurgling sound as his own blood filled his lungs, and the world slowly went dark before he could finish the thought he'd been holding onto.
All the while, the figure above held a calm, frighteningly soft smile.
/ — /
Ren
Ren stood among the bodies and let himself have a moment to revel in the sensation.
His heart was beating fast. Not from fear. But from something closer to relief.
Exhilaration.
He looked at the man he had just killed by drowning him in his own blood, his body still twitching slightly. At the watch tower, where blood now flowed freely. At the others scattered across the clearing in the mangled condition he'd left them in.
Vindication.
Finally, something in his chest felt lighter.
Absolution.
With a satisfied sigh, he turned to face the compound's main building.
The walls were made from reinforced concrete but designed to look worn down, the kind of building designed not to draw attention.
He walked around the building, marking every door, every window, every gap large enough for a person to squeeze through.
With a simple thought, Geo slabs rose from the ground, sealing each exit in turn. By the time he came back around to the front, the building was as good as a closed box.
This was technically unnecessary. The Fatui would no doubt catch any slaver that escaped his grasp. But—
'I want them all to myself.'
He brought his hands together and muttered a chant. The shadows beneath him spread wide, bubbling, and Ganki rose out of them. Settling into place beside him with a low growl.
Ren always had a strong connection to his shikigami. Even now, he could feel that Ganki was also excited.
He didn't say anything to it. It already knew what he wanted.
Turning to the main entrance, it was a heavy wooden door, probably barricaded if the sounds from inside were any indication.
Ren put his hand up slowly and channeled Geo through it.
BOOM.
The door ceased to exist and turned the frame around it into rubble. Ren heard a distinct crunching sound, but paid it no mind.
As he stepped through what was left of the door, his eyes locked onto a room full of people.
Shouts went up immediately. Others reached for a weapon. While some just stared in shock and fear.
While Ren had a smile on his face.
He wasn't sure when his face had started doing that. It just happened unconsciously, but he didn't mind.
'I'll make sure to take my time.'
"Get the intruder!"
"Shoot him!"
"Don't let him—ACK!"
The first three who came at him directly had their throats opened before they finished closing the distance. Blood exploding from their necks onto the walls, and the other slavers looking.
Another man rushed at him with a spear.
But Ren simply moved his hand, and the man found a Geo spike embedded through his abdomen.
The man coughed blood onto the spike and stared at Ren with hatred, "You—ARGH." His words were cut short as Ren purposefully extended the spike inside his body. Making it claw through his body and chest, and watching the man's body become as stiff as a statue.
Ganki was already moving through the rest of the room. A head came off between its jaws. Another slaver was torn in half at the waist, the sound of it lost under the shouts and yells.
Ren grabbed the nearest one still standing, a man whom he had cornered in the kitchen, by the throat and lifted him slightly off the ground, making sure to grip him not too hard so he could still talk.
"Where's your leader?" he asked. His voice was calm. Almost friendly.
The man spat at him.
To his credit, that was all he did. He didn't beg, didn't try to negotiate, didn't offer anything. Just spat, and glared, and held onto whatever scrap of defiance he had left.
It was almost respectable.
CRUNCH.
He tore the front of the man's throat out with his hand and dropped the lifeless body to the ground.
'Worth a shot.'
He moved on.
The compound had more rooms than the layout he was given. Sleeping quarters and what looked like an office space with shelves of ledgers.
Ren moved through all of it, and he made sure that in each room, there was no one left breathing.
In a barracks, he saw at least 15 slavers jumping at him.
"Rabbit Escape."
Hundreds of rabbits flooded the tight space.
But he didn't go with his usual tactic of creating elemental reactions with them. Instead, he told them to eat.
The rabbits tore through the flesh of screaming humans, working under their skin and through flesh, while the people screamed and thrashed, trying to fight back until their bodies finally gave up.
One of the rabbits popped out of someone's mouth, and Ren gave it a thumbs up before continuing.
In a corridor, he found a cluster of slavers trying to barricade themselves into a storage room. He used Nue's extension this time. Electricity arced from his hand and traveled through every one of them simultaneously until the smell of burning flesh filled the corridor.
In the kitchen, a woman was hiding under a table. Ren found her easily enough. Near her, another slaver had been cornered by Ganki and was trying to crawl away.
Seeing another opportunity to interrogate someone, Ren sent a single rabbit extension into the crawling man's mouth before he could close it.
Then the rabbit detonated from the inside with a burst of Anemo.
His entire torso was blown apart, and pieces of flesh and bone flew across the entire room. Some even landed on the woman under the table.
Surprisingly, she didn't scream. She just sat mortified, and Ren crouched down, grabbed her by the hair, and yanked her towards him.
"Ow! Wait, please—!"
"Where's your leader's quarters?"
Her entire body was shaking like a leaf in the wind as he forced her to meet his gaze. She gave in easily, telling him desperately that it was near a room in the back, just before the records office.
"Does the records office have any info or documents about a mansion?"
She knew what he was talking about instantly, but hesitated to answer.
Tightening his grip on her scalp was all it took to make her answer.
"Y-YES! Yes, there is!" She sobbed, her hands grasping his own in a pathetic attempt to free herself. "It's in a safe in the corner of the room! Hidden behind some crates!"
Having gotten his answers, he dropped her.
"Thank you."
He left her there. Whether Ganki found her afterward wasn't something he turned around to check.
Though her shout of fear, followed by a sound of crunching, made the answer obvious.
The compound was getting quieter. Most of what was left of it was Ganki's now. Ren could hear it somewhere behind him, tearing through whatever remained of the compound's forces.
He found the leader's quarters soon enough, but there was no one in the room.
Moving on to the records office, there was another person inside. An older fellow who was frantically stuffing papers into a satchel.
The old man tried to run when he saw Ren. But he just kicked him to the side, sending him flying into a cabinet.
The man tried to get up, but Ren planted a foot on his head, holding him to the ground.
"Where's your leader?" Ren said, slowly adding force, "I know he's still here. Where is he?"
The man's hands shook. "There's—there's a tunnel, underground! You can enter it through a secret entrance just down the stairs!"
Ren took the satchel from him, looked through it briefly, and hummed in surprise at the files inside.
'Now isn't that convenient.'
He put all his force into his foot.
"WAIT—!"
CRUNCH.
Ren walked toward the stairs the man had described, satchel already put in his Shadow Storage, and went down.
/ — /
The reinforced door at the bottom of the stairs gave way easily enough.
Inside, a man was crouched at the far end of the room, both hands working at a metal latch set into the floor. He looked up the moment the door opened.
Ren crossed the room before the man could finish turning. The latch came free under Ren's hand, sealing the tunnel before it ever opened.
He turned to the panicked and distressed leader, who was surprisingly a Vision wielder.
"You bastard!"
The man lunged, a dagger already out, Pyro flaring along the blade.
Ren caught both his wrists.
CRACK.
"AAGH!"
The daggers hit the floor, and his hands were now shattered and useless.
Ren punched the man backward into the wall so hard that the stone cracked behind him. The man wasn't even able to slide to the ground before Ren gripped his collar and held him upright.
He thought about doing many things. Interrogation, maybe toy with the man a little. He couldn't kill him.
This person had the most information after all. As enraged as he was, killing this man now would be stupid.
But for some reason, something unexpected happened. Ren found himself frozen.
He just looked at him.
The man was old, yet looking at his hands, they were absurdly soft. The signs of almost never having to do anything himself.
Even now, with both hands ruined and his back against cracked stone, there was something in his face that hadn't fully caught up to what was happening. Like part of him still believed this was a misunderstanding that money would fix.
'This one has potential.'
The memory surfaced once more.
"This one has a lot of Cursed Energy. He'll sell for a nifty price."
A voice talking about him like he was a number on a ledger, somewhere a man very much like this one was deciding what he was worth.
Ren looked at the man in front of him now.
'And here we are.'
Same kind of person. Yet entirely different roles.
The man's eyes were starting to focus, the shock wearing off enough for fear to come through. He looked at his ruined hands, then at Ren, and something calculating flickered behind the fear.
"Whatever you're being paid," he said, slowly trying to raise his ruined hands, "I can match it. Triple it. I have accounts in Fontaine and Sumeru. How much? Just name a price!"
Ren just stayed silent.
"Or women, if that's—I have arrangements, the finest, anything you want!" He was talking faster now, words tripping over each other. "Information. I have information you can't get anywhere else, names, locations, anyone you want gone, I can—"
SQUELCH.
Ren's thumb pressed into the man's left eye socket.
The man's sentence ended in a screech that was nowhere dignified for a human.
He wasn't one, after all. What he was was a weakling.
Ren didn't do it fast. He let himself feel the resistance, then the give, and didn't stop until his thumb couldn't go any further. The man's scream filled the small underground room, bouncing off the stone, and Ren held him against the wall through all of it.
When he withdrew his hand, the sobbing man fell to the floor.
But even after everything Ren did, he knew this was nothing compared to the suffering this man had brought upon others.
Ren crouched down to his level.
"Money. Women." He tilted his head slightly. "You really thought any of that was going to work on me."
The man couldn't answer. He was barely breathing through the sobbing, his remaining eye wide and fixed on nothing.
Ren waited.
He wasn't in a rush. Down here, there was no audience, nothing to perform for, nothing left to prove. Just the two of them, and a question that needed an answer.
Ren was sure the man wouldn't die from injuries like these. Aside from being a Teyvatian, he was also a Vision wielder. He wouldn't break that easily.
"Now, I have some questions for you."
/ — /
Volkov moved with the rest of the infiltration team toward the compound's main entrance. He looked at his eight comrades with weapons ready.
He had no idea where Ren Roman went, but he wasn't about to ask. Honestly, he was just glad he didn't have to be in close proximity to that man after what he saw yesterday.
The perimeter had reported no movement, no escapes, nothing. Which should have been good news. Instead, it had made everyone's nerves worse on the approach.
A compound this size, this many people inside, and not one of them had tried to run.
'Either they're better prepared than we thought, or—'
He didn't finish the thought.
The front of the compound came into view through the trees.
The sight made every single one of them stop.
Bodies were lying outside the building. Blood splattered across the grass, tainting the beautiful green with a crimson red.
It was only now that Volkov realized how quiet it was. There wasn't even the sound of animals or the forest.
Almost like the forest itself was holding its breath.
"...Hold," The cicin mage to his side said quietly.
They made sure to cover each other's backs, scanning the area for whatever or whoever had done this.
Moving towards the main door, or what was left of it, a large hole in the wall. The moment they stepped through it, they could feel their stomachs churn in disgust.
Whatever discipline or desensitization they had built up as Fatuu's over the years wasn't enough for this.
"I-I'm gonna puke," One of his comrades said.
What was inside the compound could only be described as a massacre. Almost all the surfaces, from the floor to the ceiling, were covered in dripping blood.
Mounds of flesh that had been people were almost unrecognizable. Body pieces were scattered in ways that made it impossible to tell who they belonged to.
'Is that someone's arm hanging from the ceiling?!'
It took them all a moment to compose themselves, or even gather the courage to head deeper into the compound.
But they stopped once they heard a sound.
It was footsteps.
Quickly brandishing their weapons, they prepared to engage the person responsible for all this death.
Only to find Ren walking towards them, giving them a casual wave.
"Yo! You guys took a while."
'Archons, why?! Why is it him again?!'
Ren was even more terrifying than ever before. He was covered completely in blood. Head to toe, soaked through in fresh blood.
His expression was completely calm, mildly pleased even. Like he wasn't covered entirely in human gore.
Volkov's eyes shifted down to see a man being dragged by him. The person was still alive, if barely, with his hands broken and an eye gouged out.
He wanted to say something, but any word he tried to get out died in his throat.
"I got the leader and the mansion's location," Ren said.
That snapped everyone out of their stupor.
The courier brought out a satchel from the shadows and held it out with a smile.
"Not bad, right?"