Fanfic / Death Became Him

Death Became Him is a Genshin Impact fanfic written by Merianon.

Tartaglia dies a broken man at the age of twenty-six years shortly after the last of his family is murdered. Ajax suddenly wakes up in the past when he was fourteen years old, shortly before he fell into the Abyss.

Burdened by his past life and with knowledge of the upcoming future, Ajax flees his homeland and ends up in the cold and snowy mountains of Dragonspine. He lives alone in isolation, living his life day by day and haunted by his personal failures and tragedies.

Until one day he literally falls on top of the Dragon of the East while exploring the ruins of old Mondstadt, striking up an odd friendship with the Abyss infected dragon.

Though the story doesn't focus on the pairing, Death Became Him is a Zhongli/Ajax story. While it focuses on Ajax taking on more of a role throughout the plot of Genshin Impact alongside the Traveler's story, it also explores Ajax and Zhongli growing closer to each other without the barrier of Ajax being a member of the Fatui and affiliated with Snezhnaya.

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Death Became Him contains examples of:

• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Ajax in the second timeline does not fall into the Abyss and is not corrupted and tainted by its power. Nor does he join the Fatui after his family is killed off one by one as a result of his friendship with Zhongli, causing the Tsaritsa to doubt his loyalty towards her and her cause. Turns out that it was not the Tsaritsa who had Ajax’s family killed at all though, but she is guilty of allowing the true culprits to kill them within Snezhnaya’s borders as a means of removing the distractions in her Vanguard’s life.
  • Lumine is the Traveler in the second time line instead of her twin brother Aether. In the first time line, Lumine was the Abyss Princess and it had been under her orders that the Abyss Order murdered Tartaglia’s family.
  • The Abyss Order under Aether's rule. While they are still working behind the scenes, they don't seem to be as antagonistic or conniving as they were under Lumine's rule.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Aether. He becomes noticeably to colder to his twin sister and he threatens to kill Yelan if she tries anything, noticing that she was spying on him and Ajax as they spoke.
• Adaptational Villainy: Aether becomes the Abyss Prince in the second time line, tackling his sister out of the way just before the Unknown God captured her. Though him being a villain is questionable due to the fact that he isn’t going to the extremes that his sister did when she had been the ruler of the Abyss.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Ajax noted that Aether had confronted him when he had given into his despair, begging the Harbinger to let the Traveler help him.
• All for Nothing: Ajax falls for a trap laid by the Second Harbinger and is essentially at his mercy for weeks. Had Dottore not been so obsessed with experimenting on Ajax, he could have easily taken the Gnosis that the Fatui desperately wanted to get their hands on and had them shipped over to Snezhnaya. Instead, he continues observing Ajax which results in some sort of defense mechanism triggering that results in the death of one of the Dottore clones. When two more clones are sent to retrieve the data, they are respectively killed by a pissed off Kunikuzushi who knows the truth of what happened to his friend and Aether who is not too happy that Dottore had experimented on Ajax.
• Aloof Big Brother: Aether becomes this to Lumine much to her devastation. Ajax calls him out on this.
• Badass in Distress: Ajax is subdued and kidnapped by Dottore who according to the author had prepared to capture and experiment on the young god well in advance.
• Been There, Shaped History: Aether was the Varuna who not only helped out the Aranara previously in the past, but who had also been the one to overthrow the Sages who had originally declared the second Dendro Archon unfit to rule Sumeru and freed Nahida from her original fate. Lumine and Ajax are shocked by the revelation and as such are determined to look more into the Varuna to try and find hints and clues as to what he is up to.
• Big Brother Instinct: Ajax has this in spades, which is part of the reason why he went insane at the end of his first life. Teucer's death had been the first break in his sanity and the deaths of his younger siblings Tonia and Anton had been the final nail that broke him. This is likely the reason why he angrily rebukes Aether for how he is treating his own sister despite the fact that it had been her Abyss Princess incarnation who had ruined his life in the first time line.
  • Ajax holds this towards all younger children who remind him of his siblings, such as Choji who he had met in the turmoil lands of Inazuma.
• Big Brother Worship:
  • Tonia has this for Ajax as she left Snezhnaya for the sake of finding her old brother who went missing years ago.
  • Lumine towards her older twin brother, Aether, and is absolutely devastated when he treats her coldly, bitter over her actions in the first timeline because in his opinion she got too involved in another world's affairs. Ajax angrily calls him out on his hypocrisy, being an older sibling himself who stays away from his family in fear that being associated with him will get them killed again. Especially noteable that Ajax is defending the same person who ordered the deaths of his family even if Traveler!Lumine is different than Abyss Princess!Lumine.
• Bystander Syndrome: The Tsaritsa takes it to the worst extreme as she did absolutely nothing to protect his surviving siblings when it became obvious that the 11th Harbinger's family was being targeted.
• Connected All Along: Al Haitham is descended from one of Al-Ahmar's, the Scarlet King, clones making him an indirect descendant of the Desert ruler.
• Conflicting Loyalty: This is what Ajax believes why his family was murdered in the first time line. His friendship with the Geo Archon had caused the Tsaritsa to doubt his loyalties to her and the Fatui’s cause and as punishment, his family started to die one by one. In truth, it wasn’t the Tsaritsa who had Ajax’s family killed. She did, however, do nothing to protect them from the true culprits making it a case of Murder by Inaction since she had known that the Abyss Order was within Snezhnaya’s borders and had done nothing about it.
• Cool Uncle: Makoto towards Kunikuzushi. So much so that he wishes that she was his mother instead of Ei.
• Crash-Into Hello: In Ajax’s case it’s more along the lines of falling, but this is how meets Dvalin prior to the start of the Traveler’s journey.
• Death of a Child:
  • Teucer was the first one to be killed, lured out to the same spot where Ajax had been found after he escaped from the Abyss by the Abyss Herald who proceeded to break his neck in one clean stroke.
  • His younger siblings Tonia and Anton were the last ones to die, having survived the fire that had killed their parents and older siblings but dying when their cart crashed because several Abyss Order members had distracted the horses pulling their carriage.
• Death Seeker: After Childe loses his entire family he no longer fears death. His only regret, however, is the fact that his death causes his murderer a great deal of pain.
  Narration: In fact, he welcomes his death with open arms.
• Deity of Human Origin: Ajax. He becomes a god in the current timeline with incredible control over Hydro, though he doesn't realize it at first until Venti outright tells him.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Childe hit this after the last of his family was murdered. He comes a figurative and literal monster before he is killed.
  • It is hinted that Childe's death at his hands drove Zhongli to this. Guizhong hypothesizes that the Zhongli of the first time line likely started to erode after being forced to kill Childe.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • How Ajax feels about what had happened to his family and why his loyalty towards the Tsaritsa went up in flames. He believes that because he had growing feelings for the former Geo Archon, a foreign god, the Tsaritsa had his family killed one by one as punishment for his perceived betrayal despite his loyalty for her back then. It wasn't the Tsaritsa who killed them, but she did nothing to try and protect the survivors of his family from the true culprit.
  • How Aether feels about Nahida's original fate as in canon. One of the things he changed after traveling back in time was overthrowing the original Sages who had imprisoned her in the Sanctuary of Surasthana and ensuring that she would never be locked up again.
• Downer Beginning: The story starts off with Childe being killed at the hands of Zhongli before he travels back in time to his fourteen year old self.
• Downer Ending: The end of the first timeline. Childe dies, Zhongli starts undergoing erosion after being forced to kill Childe, and Aether realizes that in the ongoing battle between multiple parties and the Heavenly Principles that no one wins and chooses to go back in time, five hundred years in the past to when the Unknown God attacks and switches places with Lumine, becoming the Abyss Prince in her place.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Childe, Tartaglia the eleventh harbinger, had been one of the most loyal of the Tsaritsa's soldiers in the previous timeline. But after the deaths of his family who he suspected was executed by his God because of his friendship with Zhongli, that loyalty has vanished and he no longer holds any love for his goddess. In the second timeline, he becomes one of the greatest thorns in the Fatui's side. Befriending Zhongli and preventing him from making a deal with the Fatui so that they don't get the Gnosis this time to getting the Electro Gnosis from the former sixth Harbinger, to holding three of the Gnosis that the Fatui desperately want in his body. When in the first timeline their plans seem to go off without a hitch, Ajax's presence in the second timeline has ruined a good portion of their plans already.
  • It was the Abyss Order under the Abyss Princess' orders who had murdered Tartaglia's family one by one. In the second timeline, they are the ones protecting his family from the interest of the Fatui and ensuring their safety from parties who would do them harm.
• The Dreaded:
  • Ajax sees Dottore as this considering that he knows that the Second Harbinger had been the one who successfully retrieved the Electro and Dendro Gnosis in the first timeline. His fears are well-founded in Chapter 56 when Dottore successfully ambushes him.
  • Whatever took possession of Ajax after he's found in Dottore's labs. Everyone who laid eyes on him found themselves paralyzed in fear and in Kunikuzushi's segment, he notes that Makoto was utterly terrified as he could sense that her consciousness was trying to make itself as possible.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • While Ajax had grudgingly allowed Dottore to experiment on him when he was still a part of the Harbingers, he was not comfortable with the idea of him experimenting on others, especially children who were around Teucer's age like Chouji.
  • Though Aether still loves his sister, her actions as the Abyss Princess in the previous timeline have left him noticeably colder towards her, something that Ajax calls him out on.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Aether who became the Abyss Prince in the current story and is manipulating events behind the scenes like his sister but is going about it in a much different manner.
  • Dainsleif who chooses to be a member of the Abyss Order after Aether tells him all of the events of the first timeline and is a high ranked member who the other Abyss members also follow.
• Family Man: Ajax in the previous timeline. His love for his family was brutally exploited by the Abyss Order under the Abyss Princess’ command.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Ajax being able to use his hydro abilities despite the fact that he lacks a Vision- in fact, his abilities ended up being stronger.
    • Ajax being able to survive on Dragonspine all by himself. He may be used to Snezhnaya's cold winters, but Dragonspine is kept perpetually cold by the Nail that Celestia had dropped on the former civilization a long long time ago.
  • Lumine being the Traveler in the second timeline when it was Aether in the first one is a huge red sign that things are going to be different from the first time.
• Friend to All Children: Ajax. Often comes with the territory of being a loving big brother. As a result, he gets along with the youngest Archon, Nahida.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Realizing that Choji is immune to the Tatarigami energy, Ajax takes him back to Watatsumi Island and places him in the care of Priestess Kokomi not only because he is uncomfortable with a kid just roaming around in volatile territory by himself, but also because he fears the Fatui showing interest in him once they realize his immunity to the Tatarigami energy which could in turn end up with him being in the hands of Dottore who would have no qualms with experimenting on him despite Choji being a literal child.
  • Dainsleif notes Aether's wisdom in having Ajax's mortal family being protected by the Abyss Order. He describes the carnage that a human turned monster Ajax had wrought when his family died and has no desire what so ever in seeing what kind of damage a god turned monster would bring should the same thing ever happen in the new timeline.
• God Was My Co-Pilot: Ajax is surprised when he realizes that Paimon of all beings is actually a God. The little fairy who always accompanied Aether turned out to be a God this entire time.
• Happily Married: Once again, Ajax and Zhongli.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Ajax after the events of the previous timeline
  • Lumine who in the second timeline is the Traveler and not the Abyss Princess who had a hand in the death of Childe's family
  • Scaramouche/Kunikuzushi who makes his turn a lot earlier than in canon. Rather than running to Dottore, he makes a complete break from the Fatui in general.
• The Hermit: Ajax ends up this for a few years, living in the cold and harsh conditions Dragonspine by himself until his fateful meeting with Dvalin.
• Hero of Another Story: Even though Lumine is the Traveler, Ajax is the character who the story follows and the two of them aren't always together. But that doesn't mean Lumine is not active in the background and going on her own adventures that gain her more fame.
• The Hero Dies: Ajax is killed in the prologue in the first time line after the deaths of his family completely pushed him over the edge, the corrupting influence of the Abyss taking over and leading him to massacre an entire village until he is confronted by Aether and Zhongli
• Hypocrite: Ajax accuses Aether of being this when they meet again in the Chasm. When Ajax confronts him about how coldly he treats Lumine, Aether retorts that by taking up the mantle of Abyss Princess she had gotten too involved in Teyvat's affairs by declaring war against the Heavenly Principles and the Seven Nations. Ajax points out that with Aether switching places with his sister and taking up the role of the Abyss Prince in place of her Abyss Princess, he has no room to talk considering he is now neck deep into the mess that is Teyvat.
• I Have Many Names: As he travels through Teyvat, Ajax starts gaining several titles — he's the Foreigner in Mondstadt, the Phoenix and the Young Lord in Liyue, General Ryuujin in Inazuma, Nara Deva in Sumeru.
• In Spite of a Nail: Aether lampshades this to Ajax when they reunite for the first time in the second timeline. He criticizes that for all the things that happened differently in the second timeline, the core of what had happened in the previous timeline never truly changed and that Ajax isn't doing enough to change the course of destiny. Dvalin was still purified even if he didn't rampage in the second timeline, Zhongli still stepped down with humanity stepping up to rule over Liyue, The Resistance and the Electro Archon still clashed and the former sixth harbinger defected... it wasn't until the heroes get to Sumeru that things are much different as Nahida was released from her imprisonment much earlier compared to canon as a result of Aether directly overthrowing the ruling Sages at the time and freeing Nahida from a fate that she didn't deserve.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Ajax holds this view about why his family all died in the previous timeline. Because of his friendship with Zhongli, the Geo Archon, he believes that the Tsaritsa ordered the deaths of his family in retaliation to his conflicting loyalties.
  • Lumine blames herself for the deaths of Ajax’s family and for essentially ruining his life in the first time line despite the fact that she is the Traveler in the current story and not the Abyss Princess.
• I Will Find You: When they realized their fourteen-year-old son had vanished in thin air, Ajax's parents launched a search for him and are still holding out hope after seven years without any success. Tonia ultimately goes to visit Liyue for the Lantern Rite, and manages to be reunited with her older brother for the event.
• Jerkass Gods: The Tsaritsa. While she was not the one who had ordered the deaths of Ajax's family, she hadn't tried to prevent them or protect them either, hoping to get rid of the distractions in her Twelfth Harbinger's life but also keeping her hands clean of their deaths as well.
• Kill the Ones You Love: What Zhongli was forced to do to Tartaglia in the first time line after he lost everything. It’s strongly hinted that killing Ajax is what pushes the former Geo Archon into erosion.
• Laughing Mad: Ajax once he realizes that he had traveled back in time after he had run away from home but before he had fallen in the Abyss.
  Narration: Throwing his head back, he (Ajax) started laughing — an ugly, demented sound that bordered on insanity.
• Love Makes You Crazy: Al-Ahmar admits that this was what happened after the Goddess of Flowers had passed away. As in canon, he became obsessed with bringing her back to life and in doing so, turned to Forbidden Knowledge to accomplish his goal. He realizes his mistake once the aftermath is unleashed on his people and they start suffering as a result of his arrogance and his hubris.
• Mental Time Travel:
  • Ajax remembers his time as a Harbinger and the tragedy that eventually came afterwards as a result.
  • Aether who mentally time traveled back five hundred years ago to when he and his sister were attacked by the Unknown God and took her place as the Abyss Ruler. It had also been him who had shoved Childe's body into the Abyss and who had given him the means to travel back into the past before he had fallen into the Abyss.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Because Ajax suspects that the Tsarita had a role in the deaths of his family in the first time line, he no longer holds any loyalty towards the Archon of his nation. Instead he chooses to flee from his homeland, putting as much distance between him and his old home as possible. Turns out that Tsaritsa was not responsible for the deaths of his family. However, she also did nothing to prevent the loss of his family or to protect them and according to Aether who had confronted her she had done this in hopes that Tartaglia wouldn't be distracted by his loved ones and will focus on his mission. It backfires spectacularly.
• Morality Chain: For Childe, it was his family. After they were all killed, his humanity died with him and be became a monster both figuratively and literally with Aether and Zhongli having to confront and stop him. Lampshaded by Aether in a conversation with Dainsleif.
  Aether: He was a weapon who felt too strongly. Tartaglia loved his family. Even if not all of them loved him equally in return, they were his ties to his humanity, and when the last of them were gone… Well, you've heard the story.
  Dainsleif could only remember Aether recounting that story exactly once, and it had been a gruesome one.
• Murder by Inaction: The Tsaritsa can be seen as this in the previous time line. Aether tells Ajax during one of their confrontations that while the Tsaritsa had not ordered the deaths of his family, she was aware of the machinations of the true culprit and had allowed them to go unhindered for the sake of removing the distractions in Ajax's life but keeping her hands clean of the actual crime.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Lumine has this reaction when Aether reveals that it had been Lumine as the Abyss Princess in the first time line who had ordered the deaths of Ajax's family and essentially destroyed his life.
• Official Couple: Ajax and Zhongli, of course. With the support of everyone in Liyue.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: According Venti, the elemental resonance will give an Archon coloured streaks in their hair alongside Elemental Eye Colors. As Ajax receives more and more Gnosis, he gains several multi-coloured streaks, and Kunikuzushi actually develops purple streaks showcasing he's a better fit for Electro Archon than Raiden Ei.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Played for Laughs — when Makoto is possessing Kunikuzushi, she immediately gains an ankle-length mane of hair. Kunikuzushi is pissed off because he needs to constantly cut it.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The Fatui are turning into this in the second timeline. Considering that one of their former Harbingers traveled back in time as well as the first Traveler Aether with full knowledge of their plots, their plans start unraveling.
• Rage Breaking Point: Ajax hits his when Zhiqiong had slipped away from the rest of the exploration group one to many times and kept putting her and the rest of the team's lives at risk for her own selfish gain.
• The Runaway: Ajax runs away from home at the age of fourteen.
• Sanity Slippage: Childe started undergoing this when his family started dying one after the other. His sanity started slipping when his mother told him that Teucer's body had been found, his neck was snapped clean. But be completely snaps after Tonia and Anton are murdered, becoming a Tragic Monster who Zhongli is forced to kill.
• Screw Destiny:
  • Ajax says a variation of this after he realizes that he had traveled back in time just before he had fallen in the Abyss. He has absolutely no desire to repeat what had happened in his life the first time and he chooses to flee as far away from Snezhnaya as he can, ending up in the snowy mountains of Dragonspine as far away from civilization as he can.
  • When Aether realizes in the first timeline that he's part of what is essentially a losing war as a result of the broken system that rules over Teyvat, he decides that he has no desire whatsoever to play along any more and jumps into the Abyss to travel back in time to when it all began to change things.
    • This actually seems like Aether's modus operantus in the second timeline: defying fate. He went back in time specifically because by the time he woke up as the Traveler, it was too late and everyone was playing a losing game.
  • In the original timeline, Nahida was trapped and imprisoned by the Sages for five hundred years. When Aether travels back in time, Aether decides that Nahida did not deserve her original fate and overthrows the original sages who had her locked up for the 'crime' of not being as wise as the previous Goddess, Rhukkhadevata.
• Self-Imposed Exile: What Ajax decides to do after traveling back in time. He ends up in Dragonspine, perfectly fine with being alone because he thinks his loved ones are better off without him.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: After Tartaglia's life just collapses in the previous timeline, Ajax comes out of the events sadder and disillusioned with everything. When he finds himself fourteen again just before he fell into the Abyss, rather than playing out the events of his first life Ajax runs as far away as he can from Snezhnaya and isolates himself in the coldest parts of Dragonspine with the intent of staying as far away from civilization and people as he can.
• Shipper on Deck: Guizhong is very supportive of Zhongli and Ajax growing closer. She has even gone as far to threaten to declaw Zhongli if he messes up.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Childe and Zhongli. They play it up when they are in Port Ormos buying contraband knowledge capsules from Dori.
• Spanner in the Works: Ajax and Aether. Because the two of them are time travelers who had already played out the events of Genshin Impact, they already know the events that will come to pass. Neither of them have any desire whatsoever to let things play out as they did in the previous timeline and therefore are constantly interfering or unraveling the plans of the Fatui who have all but declared war against the Heavenly Principles.
• Spirit Advisor:
  • Guizhong, or her remnants, become this for Ajax.
  • Makoto becomes this for Kunikuzushi.
• That Man Is Dead: Ajax’s former identities Tartaglia and Childe when he was still one of the Fatui Harbingers. After the deaths of his family who he strongly suspected had been killed on the Tsaritsa’s orders, he wants nothing to do with the Goddess he had once been loyal to.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Aether. Whatever he saw near the end of the journey that caused him to realize that Teyvat's system was completely broken and that everyone was fighting a losing war made him colder and bitter. It doesn't help that just like his sister before him, he was awake for five hundred years ruling over the Abyss Order in her place, though compared to how Lumine had ruled he had every intention of subverting her Well-Intentioned Extremist tendencies that had kicked off the plot in the first place.
• Tragic Monster: What Tartaglia became in the first time line. Driven completely mad over the grief of the deaths of his family, he gave into the corruption of the Abyss and had already massacred an entire village before Aether had confronted him. In the end, though, Zhongli was forced to end his life.
• Too Dumb to Live: Zhiqiong. Ajax's eye twitches when she runs off again and the members of the Fatui Ninth Company accompanying him in the Chasm are not impressed about what they have heard about her so far. All of the Fatui survivors agree that if the Adventurer had pulled this stunt within the Fatui organization, she would have likely been killed for her constant insubordination.
• Villain Decay: In canon, the Fatui was one of the greatest threats throughout Teyvat due to the fact that they kept getting involved in the affairs and politics of the other six nations and undermining them all the while taking the Gnosis of each Archon. In the second timeline, the Fatui fail their original objectives due to the fact that two Time Travelers, a former Harbinger and the first Traveler who had opposed them at every turn, know their schemes and therefore can counter them.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Venti mentions that he sees the Tsaritsa declaring war against the Heavenly Principles as this.
  • According to Word of God, Abyss Princess Lumine had absolutely no qualms with destroying anything and anyone in her goals to topple the throne of the Heavenly Principles.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 19: Aether shows himself to Ajax and his twin sister and reveals that he is also a mental time traveler who is ruling the Abyss Order, taking over his sister's former role.
  • Chapter 53: It turns out that what they originally thought was the Ruin's security system was actually the ghost of Al-Ahmar, King Deshret who is commonly known as the Scarlet King.
  • Chapter 56: Ajax is successfully lured into a trap by Dottore and subdued while Gui's current body is crushed by the Second Harbinger himself. Ajax goes missing for several weeks, his connection with Zhongli muted with not even Azdaha and Nahida knowing where he is.
  • Chapter 57: Zhongli finally finds Ajax in some abandoned ruins in the Desert, only for his eyes to snap open glowing white with Celestia's symbol embedded in his pupils before Zhongli is immediately sent flying into a wall.
• Wham Line:
  • Chapter 19- Prince of the Abyss
  Aether: Tartaglia...
  Ajax: How-?
  Aether: Who do you think pushed you into the Abyss in order to get you here? It certainly hadn't been Zhongli. He was… distracted after what happened.
  • Chapter 20- Lumine: Worlds Apart
  (You had them killed, Lumine.)
  • Chapter 53- Merianon
  Dantalion: Perhaps we should be more upfront with our identities, yes? Allow me to reintroduce myself: I am Al-Ahmar — Dantalion, King Deshret, God of the Divine Ideal of Arcane Wisdom.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Ajax gives Aether a piece of his mind in regards to how he is raking his sister over the coals in regards to her previous incarnation's actions- especially notable considering that it was the Abyss Princess who had ordered the deaths of his family and ruined his life.