The Unwelcome Fatui
At Gin's question, the Wanderer's expression turned grim, and he let out a cold snort. "Heh. Nothing much. I simply discovered that someone had deceived me. I despise him for it — naturally, I could no longer work alongside that man."
"Is it that Doctor you mentioned before?" Vermouth cut in despite the displeased look Gin shot her.
The Wanderer glanced at her and answered with a single word: "Yes."
"And here I thought someone with your temper would have charged straight in and killed him, rather than slinking off like a coward?" Ignoring the Wanderer's icy glare, she pressed on.
"Only because I didn't get the chance." The Wanderer's smile twisted strangely. "That man crossed one of the department heads in the organization, and was forced to carve himself to pieces. Tch. What a waste — I was robbed of the pleasure of doing it myself, piece by piece."
Standing behind Gin, Vodka swallowed hard at those words.
Were the people in that Teyvat organization they'd recently partnered with really that terrifying? Members of the same organization carving a man up on the spot, without even granting him a clean death — even he found that more frightening than his own organization's punishments.
"The man's dead, then. So why did you leave?" Gin kept his eyes locked on the Wanderer's face, unconvinced that the reasons given so far were sufficient. He was beginning to suspect the true purpose behind the boy's application.
The Wanderer's face filled with contempt. "Who told you he was dead?"
"What?! He's still alive after that?!" Vodka blurted.
The moment he saw his boss turn and fix him with a cold stare, he immediately stepped back and shut his mouth, making it clear he would not interject again.
Having delivered his warning, Gin returned his attention to the Wanderer and waited for a fuller explanation.
Vermouth, meanwhile, felt something flicker in her eyes at the Wanderer's words, and her expression darkened slightly as unpleasant recollections surfaced.
"He cloned his own body for the convenience of his experiments — who knows how many copies. But no matter how many there were before, only one remains now. Ha. What a pity." The Wanderer spoke of regret, but the smile on his face made it abundantly clear he felt none.
"Cloning... how astonishing. I had no idea your organization's technology had advanced that far." Vermouth slowed her voice, her lips curving — though there was not a trace of humor in her eyes.
*Human experimentation again, huh. So that so-called Teyvat organization was running similar projects all along.*
*It makes sense, though. Those old men have always had a taste for this sort of thing.*
*When Teyvat asked for the Silver Bullet research data, I already had my suspicions. There's no way they wanted those files just to develop skincare products.*
*The only question is what Teyvat's boss hopes to gain by having his submitters pursue cloning research.*
"Give it up, auntie. Forget about cloning technology — it doesn't work anymore." The Wanderer's trademark mocking tone cut through her thoughts.
"Why not?" Vermouth asked, puzzled.
"All the necessary materials have been used up, naturally." The Wanderer arched an eyebrow, clearly delighted that she would be denied what she wanted. "If cloning were still possible, do you really think Dottore would settle for a single body with no backups?"
"How can you be so certain Mr. Dottore has only one body now?" Vermouth sounded doubtful.
From everything the Wanderer had said, she could tell this Dottore was arrogant, brilliant, and cunning. How could a man like that allow himself to be reduced to such straits? Was it Dottore himself who had deceived everyone — or was the department head who forced him to destroy himself truly that formidable?
The Wanderer replied flatly: "Because he said so himself. I despise the man, but I know him well enough. With his pride, lying would be beneath him."
"Is that so." Vermouth offered neither agreement nor denial.
Having asked everything that interested her, she turned to Gin with a look that said she had nothing further.
Gin pulled out a cigarette, and Vodka hastily produced a lighter to light it for his boss.
He took a drag, exhaled, and raised his eyes. "So you betrayed your organization — and Teyvat's boss simply allowed you to walk out alive?"
Watching how readily Vodka read Gin's every mood, Cointreau felt a twinge of envy.
*Sigh. Vodka may be a big oaf, but he's genuinely obedient. Gin tells him to jump, he jumps — no talking back, no sarcasm, and he drives, too. Really not bad at all.*
Cointreau shifted his gaze to the Wanderer, whose every look seemed to say everyone in the room was trash, and thought of the old man — the Boss — telling him the boy would be following him for the near future. It was going to be a rough stretch.
*With the Wanderer trailing me and that attitude of his, I won't even know who's the boss before long. Comparison really is the thief of joy — I'm only now appreciating how good I had it with Vodka.*
"I wouldn't call it betrayal. I simply didn't want to keep working for Snezhnaya's Fatui. I didn't even get the chance to deal with Dottore myself — someone beat me to it." The Wanderer scoffed.
Then, affecting an air of mock surprise, he went on: "Does that count as betrayal in your organization? Don't tell me you don't allow members to leave? How pathetic — not even the courage to let your own people choose freely."
"If it isn't betrayal, and you merely wanted out of the Snezhnaya division, why not transfer to another one?" Gin paid no mind to the Wanderer's sarcasm. He saw nothing wrong with eliminating traitors — anyone who endangered the organization deserved death, plain and simple.
"Oh, that one I can answer." Cointreau cut in, figuring he could give the most impartial account. "I heard about it from Kaeya once. Snezhnaya's Fatui don't get along with the other departments."
He paused, then corrected himself. "Actually, to put it more precisely — they've managed to offend pretty much all of them. You know Snezhnaya handles Teyvat's military affairs, but they go around stirring up trouble in every other department, so none of the others can stand the Fatui."
"For instance, the head of the Sumeru department whittled their Doctor Dottore down to a single body. And the head of the Inazuma department cut down their Signora, Rosalyne, with one clean stroke of her blade. Oh, right — the Inazuma head is the Wanderer's mother, by the way." Cointreau tilted his chin toward the boy.
Vermouth listened with relish to these hopelessly tangled relationships within Teyvat, quietly marveling.
If the rest of the Fatui were anything like the Wanderer in temperament, then she found it entirely unsurprising that they'd been ostracized.
So this boy had quite the pedigree — no wonder Cointreau had brought him into the organization.
Still, an organization whose members sabotaged each other to this degree, and yet whose intelligence Teyvat had failed to penetrate... it seemed Teyvat's boss was not to be underestimated.