Changsheng Lends a Hand
Conan had never imagined that the internal relationships of the mysterious organization he'd been piecing together in his head could be so tangled — and yet, in all his ordinary encounters with those people, he'd never once sensed anything this complicated between them.
Still, Akai Shuichi's words had confirmed one of his suspicions: Kaeya and the others really did have an organization of their own — Teyvat.
It hadn't been easy. After meeting so many people connected to them, Conan had finally learned the name of that organization.
He shared what he knew about Teyvat with Akai as well.
This was the first Akai had heard that Teyvat had something to do with gods and "Visions," and like Conan before him, his first instinct was to assume it was tied to some kind of religious faith.
Speaking of Visions — Akai found himself replaying the scene from back then in his mind.
It was true. At the hotel, Kaeya, Tartaglia, and the others had each been carrying a peculiar glass-like bead.
At the time, Akai hadn't paid it much attention, writing them off as ordinary accessories. Now he understood that those beads were very likely badges of identity — the marks by which they recognized one another.
Fortunately, it hadn't been that long, and Akai could still recall the designs of the two Visions clearly.
Kaeya's was nothing out of the ordinary; Conan had met the man in person, so he was bound to know what his Vision looked like already.
So Akai took out the notepad and pen he carried, sketched a quick drawing of the Vision belonging to that young man — Tartaglia — and handed it down to Conan with a nod.
Conan took it and studied the sketch carefully. Sure enough, this was a Vision frame he was seeing for the very first time.
Which meant that even within Teyvat itself, these people held a special position — and they had codenames, too. Conan concluded that the Harbingers of Teyvat's Zapolyarny division were the ones who warranted the closest watch.
"So — in all your contact with that girl, you've truly never noticed anything off about her?" Akai pressed Conan for confirmation once more.
Conan frowned, thinking hard, running back through everything that had happened since he'd met Xiayu. Then he shook his head. "Aside from being a little quick on her feet, a little sharp with her senses, and having a lot of good friends — Xiayu really doesn't have anything special about her at all."
Akai's mouth twitched.
A little quick on her feet, a little sharp with her senses, a lot of good friends?
By that description, she could hardly be called ordinary anymore.
But he understood what Conan meant: it meant that in all their time together, the boy had never caught the girl doing anything strange — and that, at the very least, made it unlikely she was directly entangled with the organization.
Thinking back on the cleverness Conan had displayed over these past few days, Akai decided to trust his judgment.
"Also — about Kir, there's something I've been considering..." With the Teyvat intelligence squared away, the conversation circled back to the Black Organization.
Regarding the operation the organization was about to carry out, Conan laid out a plan of his own.
"Oh~" When Conan finished, Akai arched an eyebrow slightly and glanced sideways at the boy, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.
Deep into the night.
An FBI agent stood beside Kir's hospital bed, facing her, eyes fixed unblinkingly on her — ready to stop her the instant she woke, whether he expected it or not.
But it really was late. His spirit was still willing; his body's reactions were another matter. He wasn't especially sleepy, exactly — he just yawned now and then.
What he didn't notice was that each time he yawned, the hospital room's window shifted open a tiny fraction, the faint sound of its movement swallowed up by the noise of his own yawns.
Then, from outside the window, something long and white came crawling in at a leisurely pace.
It slipped through the window into the room, descended to the floor, made for the corner, and from that corner began creeping slowly toward the FBI agent.
It drew up close to his ankle, gave it a light bite, then immediately scuttled away and hid in the corner.
The agent felt a faint sting at his ankle and glanced down, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
He pulled up his trouser leg to find two tiny red dots on his ankle, decided a small insect must have bitten him, and thought nothing more of it.
He let his trouser leg fall, straightened back up, and resumed his watch over Kir.
Only — for some reason, he suddenly felt far drowsier than before. Still, he could bear it.
A moment later, the FBI agent was fast asleep on his feet.
Then the window swung open, and a figure drifted inside, landing without so much as a whisper of sound.
On the hospital bed, Kir — who had been feigning sleep all this while — sensed that something was wrong.
The room had grown too quiet. The sound of yawning beside her had stopped at some point without her noticing, and just before that, there had been the faint creak of a window opening.
Kir guessed an unwelcome visitor had arrived. Someone from the organization?
She reasoned that they couldn't know she was already awake, so she resolved to stay where she was — to meet whatever came with stillness and patience.
Then she heard it: a soft footstep, suddenly present inside the room, moving toward where the FBI agent stood.
Kir's face showed nothing, but her heart lurched at the sound. She had never heard anyone climb through the window — the footsteps had simply begun inside the room, as if out of nowhere!
The Wanderer, oblivious to how the woman on the bed was silently questioning whether she'd seen a ghost or whether her own senses were failing, walked straight up to the FBI agent and waved a hand in front of his face. Only after confirming the man was truly asleep did he relax.
"Changsheng — I didn't know you had a trick like that up your sleeve?" The Wanderer walked to the corner and crouched down, regarding the white snake coiled on the floor, idly flicking her tongue out of boredom.
"That's right~" a young, clear voice piped up out of nowhere. "Well? Regret underestimating me now, don't you?"
On the bed, Kir heard yet another voice appear from thin air, and her panic deepened — this time, she truly hadn't caught even a whisper of footsteps.
As for Changsheng, the memory of what had happened in Baizhu's office still stung: how this rude creature had materialized without so much as a knock and demanded sleeping drugs from Baizhu outright, and when Baizhu had recommended her services, the look on his face had all but said, "This little pet?" She was still annoyed about it.
Please. However you looked at it, she was an adeptus at heart. Making one ordinary human drift off without a trace? Effortless.
Changsheng raised her head and flicked her tongue, waiting for the hateful creature to admit his mistake.
"Hey — wait! What do you think you're doing?!" she cried, voice edged with alarm.
The Wanderer had no intention of trading words with her. With the deed done, he ignored her protests entirely, scooped up her coiled body, and stuffed her straight into his pocket.
When she squirmed, itching to crawl back out, he murmured a low warning. "Stay hidden. No one can see you right now."
Only then did Changsheng settle down.
He had a point. A beautiful white snake like her was a rare sight — if anyone spotted her, then later learned she belonged to Baizhu, they were bound to conclude his identity was anything but simple.
Still, she was sore about it. From inside the pocket she glared up at the Wanderer's back, seized by the urge to sink her fangs into him as a lesson.
Then again, on reflection — this Wanderer wasn't human to begin with. She could bite him a hundred times and it probably wouldn't accomplish a thing. So she drooped into a bored sprawl, flicked her tongue, and settled in to listen to the conversation between the Wanderer and Kir through the fabric of the pocket.