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Diluc, he supposes, is turning nineteen tomorrow. Perhaps it shouldn’t feel as significant as it does, but it hits something awful in his chest. Perhaps events like this calls for a celebration. Fontaine certainly spares no expenses for festivities despite all its righteousness. Though, moving throughout the nation and sleeping within the thick of forests doesn’t quite allow him to enjoy them. So Diluc is almost nineteen, a ways away from any village, and watching the sun set. When the final drops of daylight fizzle out behind just blooming trees, he pulls his hood up. There’s work to be done tonight. Something such as him has no right to be dawdling.
He pushes forth, towards the Fatui hideout he’d learned of listening through the gaps of a tavern crowd. Two men who were clearly low in rank spilling their envy between sips of Fontainian red wine over a mission led by a Harbinger. Jealousy jealousy jealousy. Diluc’s heard the same mutterings when he was promoted to Captain. Men twice his age and twice his height leaving bruises on his body when they’d spar with a malice he wasn’t ready to deal with. The pride on his father’s face as Diluc strived to reflect him felt every bit worth the trouble he was given. He’d managed to win most of their respect in the end, at least.
Looking back on those days is not something he enjoys doing. Today, apparently, is special. How special indeed, he thinks, adjusting the delusion on his hand. It sparks against his skin, running electro throughout his arm. It’s excited. Diluc has found that the thing is alive. Much more than he could consider himself to be. Every step closer towards his goal, the delusion only grows stronger. They’re partners in that way. It offers him a power that lets him do this: taking down Fatuus until one remains standing. And he offers their blood in return. Yegor Alekseev if he has his information in order, working under Il Dottore, stationed in the outskirts of Fontaine’s capital city in order to gather more children for testing.
Something else courses through his veins, from the heart on his hands instead of whatever occupies his chest. A lust, perverted, for death. For justice. Fitting for a nation like this. Diluc can only imagine how many families have lost their children to this bastard. Alekseev’s face is hidden by a mask but the terror comes off him in waves. The delusion is surely upset that it can’t experience the twist of lips, the widening of eyes, the blood bursting across his skin as the chains will eventually cut his life short. But Diluc is distantly grateful. A ghost of what he once was, always clawing at its place behind a wall of his mind, is grateful to not see such a gruesome sight today.
Today of all days. A glint of a blade crosses his vision. Diluc allows it to run through his forearm, just deep enough for blood to leak. From it, he calls on the delusion once more to produce another chain to knock the knife out of Alekseev’s hand.
“What do you know about what Dottore’s plans.” The man is silent. The pounding at his brain’s confines by a boy he buried alive is loud.
Diluc tightens his chains around Alekseev’s throat. “I have no intention of sparing you. But if you cooperate, I will end you now instead of later. I have nowhere to be tonight.”
Silence. The crackle in his ears is just deafening. Forget it, today of all days is nothing special.
Diluc brings a fist down on the Fatui mask. It splits where he makes contact, subsequently knocked out of place. A man twice his age meets his eyes, gaze wide and mouth agape in terror. His forehead is oozing blood. There it is.
“I really don’t know much, I swear. I was just stationed here to-“ The voice is clear, almost piercing without that muzzle.
Diluc doesn’t allow him to finish the sentence, “you were stationed here to abduct children for Dottore, one of the drunkards you hired to help let me know as much. Now, if you want to be half as useful as him, tell me more.”
An anger crosses Alekseev’s face a the mention of being outed. It bleeds, however, back into the same fear as before. Good. “I- I don’t know much beyond that. They want to modify the kids with the delusions or something, I really don’t know. I really don’t know. I swear-“ Satisfactory. It’s even more information than he’s usually able to gather.
“I get it.” Diluc finally allows the delusion control. He can’t help but look away as a heavy thud lands at his feet, a limb boot knocking against his own. That’s enough for tonight. It has to be. He thinks he’ll throw up otherwise.
The delusion doesn’t seem to be satiated, though. Celestia above, why can’t that be enough? Diluc stumbles away from the camp of splayed out bodies. He follows a stream into a patch of wood, dense enough to stay overnight. Electro sparks against his skin in way that isn’t as friendly as it usually is. Demanding. This happens. This happens and it leaves jagged marks up his arms that accompany old ones left by frost.
Diluc all but collapses into a seated position. He tries to breathe as he takes a dagger from its sheath at his thigh. When the delusion is hungry and Diluc can’t feed it, it will take regardless. He drags the sharp tip across his now exposed forearms, unable to bring himself to care if it crosses paths with the one left by the Fatuus. Soon, the delusion is satisfied. It finally quiets down enough to just be a low buzz. Diluc heaves out a breath. He’ll rest later. He just needs to clean up so he won’t end up bleeding out while he sleeps. He’ll just. White clouds his mind just as shadows creep into his line of vision. It throws him of kilter but his body is tired. He’s tired but at least there isn’t something screaming in his ear anymore.
When his head hits the ground, he can’t tell. All Diluc can feel is a wash of cold coming over him. Dawn is near. He can see through blurry vision the sun is stretching back into this corner of the world. Diluc is nineteen today. A full year has passed since he’s killed all the good in him with his own hands. In the flashes of a man he’s disgraced in mirroring, a pained blue eye in the drops of spring rain, and the greeting of sunrise, Diluc breathes out.