Chapter Text
Neuvillette allowed himself only a moment to stare in horror as the gargantuan creature broke through the floor of the Opera Epiclese, leaving behind a jagged abyssal rift through which, he knew, resided the primordial seas.
He felt them calling to him, the waters where he was reborn.
He shook away the emotions clinging to him as easily as a leaf shedding water. It was a dragon’s fundamental difference to humans, after all – pathos simply did not impact them, glancing off of their hard scales and fortified minds.
Should not, at least. Neuvillette’s many years appealing himself to humans and they to him in return had made his mind more human, in a way. Though he failed to express human emotions he still felt them, and he had never felt more human than in this moment when everything was falling apart.
He could not allow himself to freeze any longer. Calling to his hydro power, he teleported to the wooden stage of the Epiclese. Losing the vantage point made the beast appear even more formidable than before, its armoured horn and abyssal, primordial energy coagulating into a primal fear that shot through Neuvillette’s spine.
He did not cease to act, however. With a swing of his hand he summoned pure, concentrated bubbles of hydro around the Narwhal, bursting them at once. Its attention was drawn to him, as intended, but it moved vastly quicker than he was expecting.
It was all he could do to summon a shield to counter the glistening horn that threatened to pierce through him.
The shield held for one second. Two. Then Neuvillette’s draconic eyes widened as he saw fractures begin to appear in his solid hydro defense, increasing in number and size until the whole thing shattered.
The force sent the Narwhal back, thankfully, but it also sent Neuvillette sliding backwards against the polished wooden boards of the stage. He caught himself on one knee, catching his breath and staring up at the beast.
He was already winded, but the monstrous creature seemed as powerful as ever. Dread seeped its way into Neuvillette’s heart. He was not powerful enough to defeat this creature, nor, he expected, was the Traveller. If he possessed his true authority, perhaps he would stand a chance – but as of now he felt like sickly, wounded prey to this colossus.
To his horror, the narwhal turned its attention away from him and towards the citizens of Fontaine fleeing the opera house. Neuvillette was helpless to watch as his people, full of fear and confusion after the recent trial, were to be devoured by such an abyssal monster–
Then a newcomer burst from the rift once more. From the shock of red hair he recognised it as Tartaglia, the eleventh Harbinger, in his Foul Legacy form. This must have been the one he was attempting to summon when Neuvillette had quelled him. Those days, though mere months ago, felt so far away.
Tartaglia threw himself at the beast without delay, harnessing his Electro delusion to send purple lightning coursing along his blades. They slid into the creature’s flank, enraging the Narwhal further and causing an ear-splitting roar to echo throughout the Opera house. Neuvillette took its moment of distraction to his advantage, summoning a high-pressure ray of hydro and only hoping that it hit its mark.
It did. The water cut through the creature, turning its roar into a high-pitched howl of pain. Together with the wounds that Tartaglia had already inflicted, their efforts were clearly daunting the beast. After a moment of anticipation, it used its gargantuan tail to propel itself around and back into the abyssal rift.
Neuvillette stared after the creature, and the Harbinger floating above it. Tartaglia lifted his hand for a brief moment, as though to sign something to the Traveller – and then he fell backwards into the rift after the creature he’d been fighting.
The monster was gone, at least, for the time being. Neuvillette took a deep, slow breath of air through his lungs, coming to terms with what he had just witnessed. His power thrummed against the surface of his skin, excited after being used in such quantities, but with it came the sense of loss that he always experienced when wielding hydro – the knowledge, deep in his bones, that there used to be more. He felt like what had once, in a distant memory, been a roaring river, but now all of its waters had been rerouted elsewhere and left it nothing but a parched bed and a tiny trickling stream.
The Traveller and Paimon approached, staring at the empty space where the monster had been and the rift it had left behind. Behind them was the group of individuals who’d helped orchestrate their initial sacrilegious plan: Clorinde, Navia, Wriotheseley, and the three young members of the House of the Hearth. Neuvillette felt a moment of regret seeing their young faces with such fear. Had the circumstances been different, he would not have allowed them close to this whole plot, but their involvement in the Fatui had sealed their fates in Celestia’s eyes long ago.
“That was way too close! How did that thing just burst into the opera house?!” Paimon gasped. She turned to the Traveller. “Wait– was that the huge whale you saw in your dream?”
The Traveller pursed their lips and nodded solemnly. “That’s right. And I’d wager that it’s also the one that Childe saw when he was young.”
Neuvillette’s gaze fell away from the rift, and he turned back towards the group, heaviness in his heart. “So, we have met it at last… I understand very well why it has chosen to make an appearance here.”
Every member of the group watched him carefully, so much trust in their eyes. He could only hope that it was not misplaced. “That ‘whale’ does not belong to Teyvat,” he continued somberly, remembering the foreign power the creature had radiated. “It is a monster that has traversed the stars, weeping all the while. It has been greedily consuming the energy from the planet’s Primordial Sea, using it to grow. That is the main cause for the rising sea levels…” he brought a hand to his chin, his mind connecting the last pieces of the puzzle that had haunted his nation for hundreds of years. “And once it has finished consuming all of the energy contained within the Sea, its next step will be…”
To consume the people of Fontaine. Neuvillette’s eyes shuttered for a moment, horrible visions playing behind them.
Clorinde spoke then, pragmatic as always despite the truths she’d been witness to in the last few hours. “You said that when the Hydro Archon first created Fontanians out of Oceanids, she filled their blood vessels with Primordial Seawater.”
Neuvillette met her eyes, seeing the realisation there. It was only after years of working with the court’s duelist that he could recognise fear, too. He nodded. “Precisely. That whale finds the ‘blood’ of Fontanians nigh impossible to resist.”
He turned back to the rift, guilt lying heavily across his shoulders. “Therefore, when it left the Primordial Sea, it decided to make its next stop a packed Opera House full of food – food in the form of Fontanians.”
“We just barely managed to push it back, right?” Navia burst out, contrasting Clorinde in all her nervous mannerisms, her voice wavering. “In that case… won’t it come back to target the people again once it’s managed to recover its strength?”
“And it was only due to Tartaglia that it was countered at all…” Wriothesley agreed.
Neuvillette sighed. “That is correct. Indeed, we should thank that Harbinger for buying us some time. Without him, the whale would have likely come onto land far sooner.” He recalled the deep grooves in Tartaglia’s armour, and the exhausted movement of his limbs. “From the way he looked, he must have been fighting the creature for quite a long time.”
“That battle maniac… We’ve always known that he had a special connection with that whale, but we didn’t expect it to help us out like this,” Paimon said, nervously eyeing the Traveller, whose golden eyes were deep in thought. “Anyways, now that we know the whale is the actual cause of the disaster recorded in the prophecy, all we need to do to stop the prophecy would be to beat it up, right?”
Neuvillette sighed. There was something sad in Paimon’s naive, hopeful nature – he could see in the Traveller’s eyes that they knew it would not be so simple either. “It is too late.” Neuvillette said simply, feeling the dread of his own words.
The Traveller glanced at him sharply. “What do you mean?”
“It had already absorbed too much of the Primordial Sea’s energy before we could notice it,” he said, thinking now of the familiar energy surrounding the beast, corrupted into something dangerous. “At this point, it has become practically integrated into the Sea itself.” He tried to keep the disgust out of his voice, but felt it seeping into his tone. “Even if the entirety of Teyvat were destroyed, it could still survive, and swim off towards some other world.”
“That’s not something I will accept!” cried Navia, startling Neuvillette out of his resigned contemplation. Truly, she was a citizen of the nation of Justice, he thought, observing the determined set of her brow – with this expression her resemblance to her father was uncanny. “We’ve already done everything we can, and we even found the true culprit. We’ve come so far. You can’t just tell me that the last hurdle is some impossible foe,” her eyes searched his with desperation, “that’s just not fair!”
“Indeed,” Lyney chimed in, his siblings behind him, “that’s not how a performance should end.”
Clorinde nodded, once. “I’ll fight it to the end. No matter what.”
Wriothesley placed a hand on her shoulder. His expression was grim but as determined as the rest of them. “We all will.”
The Traveller, however, did not join in with everyone’s declarations. Neuvillette watched them closely as Paimon murmured something. They seemed distracted, deep in thought, and not for the last time Neuvillette wondered if they had something up their sleeve that would save Fontaine the way they’d miraculously become the hero of four other nations.
Before he could voice his query, however, a pulse of power shot through his body. He stumbled, his gaze shooting up to the Oratrice, where the huge gears within had begun to turn on their own.
They spun faster and faster, the occupants of the Opera Epiclese staring in wonder as the Indemnitium within began to glow brightly.
Neuvillette’s jaw set. He had no idea what was happening, but he would not let harm come to his companions. He summoned a vast and strong shield of hydro around them all, tethering them within a protective circle.
“What’s happening with the Oratrice?” Navia gasped. Clorinde came to stand by her shoulder, pulling out her sword as if she could protect them from this unknown threat.
“I believe…” Neuvillette stared at the sheer power radiating from the mechanism, knowing in his heart that only one thing could require this much Indemnitium. “It is preparing to carry out the death sentence.”
Horrified, his companions turned to stare at Furina. She was still atop her seat, seemingly unaware of what was happening around her. So different to her usual confident stature, she appeared like a broken doll, tears dripping from her deep blue eyes.
“Furina!” the Traveller called. They broke through Neuvillette’s hydro shield, and he did not stop them, knowing the exercise to be futile. As they leapt to grab her, however, the humming of the Oratrice reached its peak, and a jolt ran through Neuvillette’s body. His vision went dark, and he felt a tug in his gut.
He gasped as pain ran through him, whatever power the Oratrice was using attempting to shatter his shield around the others. He held it firm, and soon the power gave way, instead dragging the shield and his companions along with him.
The power dissipated, and the world around him was suddenly silent.
His eyes shot open.