Tear Jerker / Descensus Averno

Considering the premise of this fic, it is natural that there are going to be a lot of tears.

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Descensus Averno

• Lumine learning that the twin brother she had been separated from for so many years while she had been forcefully sealed away is the Chāoyuè Xīngchén, the tyrant who rules the continent of Teyvat with an iron fist.
• Lumine constantly having the fact that her brother is a ruthless tyrant thrown into her face. Many members of the Shogun Insurgency give her grief over the fact. Especially Veer, who makes it clear that he hates her brother and her for the sole fact that she is related to Aether. While the distrust and hate is understandable, it does not make the fact that Lumine is The Scapegoat for so many people's hatred and distrust any less hurtful.
• Zhongli, the oldest and the most powerful of the Archons, having to make a Contract with Aether to prevent Liyue from being completely overtaken by the latter's forces. The strongest Archon forced to bargain for his people's livelihoods and safety. This gets him labeled a traitor because he sided with Aether despite the fact it was for his people own safety and well-being.
• Lumine having her first breakdown when Xiao angrily confronts them when they try to infiltrate Liyue. She screams at her traveling companions as well as Xiao that she has done nothing but try to help them escape from her brother's reign and yet all they can do is constantly bring up her relation to Aether as a reason to hinder her attempts or not trust her. Note that it hasn't been that long since she learned that her brother is the Big Bad and she is still reeling from the shock.
• Lumine making Mavey cry in Chapter 8 after Xinqiu discovers that they are part of the Insurgency
• The destruction of Mondstadt. Venti is absolutely shattered by the destruction of the city he has watched over the millenia and the loss of his citizens. This is on top of the fact that he had been unable to save the Knights of Favonius from being executed before the fall of the city.
• The aftermath of Chongyun's betrayal. While he got off lucky because the Constillion Commander he had informed about Lumine's plan, Ajax, had proceeded to do a Heel–Face Turn he still has to deal with the fact that Lumine is angry at him and that Xingqiu can barely look at him.
• Veer has made his animosity towards Lumine no secret and has antagonized and made snide comments at her at every turn. But with the reveal that he lost his entire family to Aether, it's hard not to feel sympathy towards him.
  • In the same meeting the death of his family is revealed to Lumine, Mavey, the person he is in a relationship with slaps him across the face and calls Veer out on him constantly antagonizing Lumine and projecting his own negative emotions on her. Veer is completely stunned by Mavey's actions towards him and can only ask why he is taking Lumine's side. Mavey angrily tells him off with tears in his eyes that it's not about taking sides before storming out of the meeting with a stunned Veer following after him.
• Lumine's second breakdown when she goes with Ajax to Snezhnaya. The stress of everything gets to her again and she breaks down in front of Ajax's family.
• Lumine's past. She and her brother were considered the Chosen Ones in their homeworld due to their abilities to absorb other people's essence. However, there was supposed to be only one Chosen One and therefore Lumine is seen as some sort of usurper even though she absolutely had no control over the fact that she was born. Her own people try to amend that by placing her in a device that was meant to drain her powers that would have ended up killing her had Aether not broken her out. Is it any wonder that Siphoning is such a strong form of trauma for her?
• A flashback in a later chapter that what went down after Veer and Mavey stormed out of the meeting. Mavey tells Veer point blank that others often ask Mavey how he can even stand Veer due to how abrasive he is to essentially everyone BUT Mavey. He then reveals that if Veer keeps being as confrontational and abrasive as he is, he's not sure if he can keep defending his boyfriend. This strains their relationship, which unfortunately leads to Veer taking out his hurt on Sucrose when the group interrogates her.
• What Sucrose goes through in the interrogation even though it is not shown on screen. Not only is she placed in a highly stressful situation for someone as socially anxious as she is, which is being interrogated by three different people in front of an audience, one of those interrogators then proceeds to blame her for the events of the destruction of Mondstadt, claiming that if she had never gotten caught by the Constillion Guard then Albedo would not have rampaged which then resulted in parts of the city being destroyed and many citizens dying. So not only does she have to deal with the trauma of what she went through during her captivity, a member of her own side is accusing her for being the reason why a city is destroyed and why many people are dead. Talk about victim blaming.
• Lumine getting slapped during her search for Venti. When she enters the bar he is inside of, she unfortunately encounters a woman who is hostile towards her for the loss of her husband who slaps her. Once again, Lumine has done nothing to earn this.
  • Subverted in that further chapters reveal that the woman, Vivian, had seen Lumine kill her husband right in front of her. Her husband was a Constillion Guard and therefore an enemy combatant, but Vivian's reaction is a somber reminder that the Constillion Guard are people with loved ones as well.
• Lumine's reaction to Sucrose revealing what Aether plans on doing. From threatening and coercing Sucrose into building a Siphoner to who he plans on siphoning: the Archons.
• Venti's breakdown after he wakes up from his drunken stupor. He feels that he has no right to be referred to as Barbatos any more due to failures that have led up to this moment. From his failure to protect his knights when they screamed for him to Mondstadt being destroyed.
  “I HAVE no words of guidance!” Venti screamed at Zhongli, his eyes wild, voice muffled with angry tears. “You might. You had something to bargain Aether with. You stood for Liyue. What did I do?” Venti ran fingers through his hair, fisting handfuls of it, looking quite demented. “I abandoned my people. When they staked the Knights of Favonius, I ran, hearing them scream with my name on their lips! Amber! Noelle!” Venti doubled over, his hands now gripping the table so hard it made an ominous noise. “Klee. I couldn’t look them in the eye when I condemned them to death.”
  • The reveal that Amber, Noelle, and Klee were executed. Klee's death is even more tragic because she was only a child.
• Kristina, the leader of the Civilian Forces in the Insurgency, has proven to be one of the only few people to not give Lumine grief over the fact that she and Aether are twins and therefore subjecting her to the typical bias she faces due to her relation and resemblance to him. However she hasn't had an easy time due to her views and the fact that she is unafraid to criticize the methods of the Insurgency. Prior to Lumine's awakening, she had already been stripped of her position as a Committee member and demoted to leading the Civilian Troops. And if Lumine had not intervened, she would have been kicked out entirely.
  “I never signed a contract that took away my basic goddamn human rights,” Kris cut in, rubbing her throbbing temples. “When you agree to compromise- Archons, when you agree to work together- it makes you equals. It’s like-just because I agreed to work under you doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to treat me in whatever way you’d like, and it doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to call it as I see it.”
• The invasion of Liyue in Chapters 29 to 30. It is one bumpy roller coaster.
  • Chongyun's death. He manages to make his way to where Lumine is, make peace with her in regards to his earlier betrayal and then proceeds to die in his best friend's Xingqiu's arms as he confesses his love to him.
  • Lumine finally losing her patience with Eula and the rest of the Insurgency, her outburst causing them to refer to her as the Luminiscience as she looks very reminiscent of her brother in that moment.
  • Venti dies in Lumine's arms taking a fatal blow meant for her. To make it even worse, she is forced to Siphon his essence so that his death isn't in vain, causing her a lot of mental and physical anguish due to just how traumatic Siphoning is for her on a psychological level and that absorbing someone's essence all at once can overwhelm someone.
  • Lumine once again tears into Aether for all the pain he has caused Teyvat, but this time for her it hits her on a more personal level due to the deaths of Chongyun and Venti during the invasion.
• Zhongli's messy appearance when he opens the door for Ajax and Lumine the day after the Liyue Invasion. Zhongli is normally impeccable when it comes to presentation, but the lack of it seems to indicate that the events of the night before seem to be taking its toll. From Liyue being invaded and possibly a large number of casualties of his people, to Venti's death, he definitely did not have an easy night.
• Scaramouche. He may have killed Venti but from the conversation with him, his time with Aether was nothing but cruel. In canon, he may have been a cruel individual himself and a Bad Boss, but he in all likelihood did not deserve what was done to him.
• Xingqiu's being found with his wrists slit at the end of Chapter 33. Chongyun's death during the Liyue recruitment ball devastated him. Even worse, he was still angry at Chongyun for betraying their plans to Ajax earlier. When the Insurgency finds him, he is already on the verge of death from blood loss and he left a note in Liyuen that said, "I love you, too." in response to his friend's dying words.
  • Kris falls to her knees at seeing Xingqiu,horrified at the fact that he tried to kill himself. She was the last person who saw him and though she felt that something was off, she didn't think much of it. It hits her when she sees him that she should have listened to that instinct.
• Lumine being captured and how everyone who was witness to her being whisked away was completely powerless to do anything about it.
• Zhongli reminisces about how he is completely powerless to do anything in a world that has drastically changed within a year. From being forced to bargain with Aether for a degree of freedom for his people, to Venti dying and Liyue being invaded and finally Lumine being kidnapped... the Great Geo Archon feels powerless in protecting everyone and everything.
• Lumine having to deal with Apollo, someone who she had thought was her friend and then brutally betrayed her by having her siphoned to 'return' Aether's powers and pretty much leaving her to die. Even worse? Apollo is completely dismissive of the pain he caused her, much to Lumine's devastation.
• Mondstadt. Just Mondstadt. Aether did more than just destabilize the nation by having the knights executed, he completely shattered and destroyed the will and spirits of the people leaving them a shadow of their former selves. The Knights were mostly made up of ordinary civilians and they were someone's father, mother, son, daughter, children. The deaths of these hundreds of knights just shattered the nation of Mondstadt. And if this wasn't bad enough, Venti, Barbatos the God of Freedom, was killed during the Liyue Invasion. The Nation of Mondstadt and the God that once ruled the nation... gone. In all likelihood, Mondstadt will never likely be the same even once Aether is overthrown. It's history, the city itself, and its people... all gone. This is made worse considering just how welcoming and warming the city was towards Aether after he first woke up.
  • Basically every worst fear for all the main playable characters in Mondstadt have come to pass. Mondstadt's history of over two thousand years has been destroyed, replaced by architect that Aether decided on himself. The Knights of Favonius, for a lack of a better term, has been completely destroyed due to most of its members being violently executed in public and the survivors being fugitives who have joined a resistance group. The people's spirits completely shattered by the loss of the knights and having to witness the executions of their loved ones as they screamed and prayed for their lives. And the final blow? Venti is DEAD. The God of Freedom, who had allied himself amongst the common people during Decarabian's reign and overtoppled the God of Storms is dead for good this time. Mondstadt, the City of Freedom, is truly dead and gone in all sense of the word. For the survivors, the city that they vowed to protect... is no longer there to protect. They have completely failed and were helpless in the face of losing everything to Aether's tyranny.
• Kaeya being on the verge of death after going on an unauthorized rescue mission to save Lumine from the people that kidnapped her.
• Eula breaksdown completely after Xiao drops off a critically injured Kaeya at the Insurgency. She despairs that all she is doing is leading the people under her command to their deaths. This is just the icing on the cake of problems that keep piling on and on.
• Jean breaking the news to Diluc that Kaeya's life hangs in the balance. Both their reactions are heartbreaking. ** This moment proves that despite everything that went down between them, Diluc still deeply cares about Kaeya as he tries to rush to his brother's side, terrified that he will die and Diluc won't be there in his last moments.
  • Jean herself is crying as she holds back Diluc, begging him to not go to his side as he is being treated for his wounds at that moment. The former Acting Grand Master is horribly traumatized herself, having been forced to abandon the other knights and now there's a chance that she could lose one of few surviving friends and allies.
• Kendrick and Vivian's story in Chapter 40. Kendrick and Vivian were just ordinary civilians in Mondstadt whose main financial support was his toymaker father and her husband. But after the above events of the Knights being executed, no one, not even the children, would buy the toys and Kendrick's father was forced to sign up with the Constillion Guard just to provide for his family. The former toymaker dies during the Fall of Mondstadt, killed by Lumine herself in the chaos of battle. Lumine will never be held responsible for his death due to the fact that Kendrick's father was an enemy soldier during the battle as well as the fact that Lumine is vital in overthrowing her brother. Not to mention that Kendrick and his mother have been ostracized due to his father signing up to work for the very man who is oppressing the continent. Is it any wonder Vivian has become extremely bitter to the point she has vandalized the Insurgency meeting room with other people?
• Lumine realizing that after everything Aether has done to Teyvat, he is not the same person that she knew. And that things between them are different and will never be the same.
• Lumine's breakdown in the aftermath. During the entire journey back to Liyue, she's completely and utterly unresponsive to anything and has to be guided back.
• We finally get to see Razor at the beginning of the next part and he has been reduced to a feral and terrified young man in the face of Aether killing his father and the healthy wolves and what Aether had forced him to do in his short stint as a Constillion Guard.
  • When Razor and his pack are introduced, the wolves are described as elderly or skittish and young, the implication that not only did Aether slaughter Andrius, who also killed the healthy adults leaving the older wolves and very young ones alive.
• Ariel dismissing Sucrose's trauma in the emergency meeting of Chapter 45. Sucrose, after having had enough of the Committee, starts screaming at them that they are no better than the very man they claim to be against, saying that they are no different than him and that they had traumatized her during that Meeting they tried to interrogate her in. Despite Sucrose's strength of character throughout the previous chapters, she was still horribly traumatized by her imprisonment. That trauma is compounded even more by the people, the very people who were claiming to protect her and the rest of Teyvat, subjecting her to a very public interrogation by three different people after she escaped. And when she admits this in a scenario that is similar to her previous interrogation, her trauma gets brushed off with the excuse that they are in the middle of a war and she is merely an unfortunate casualty. By her own side.
  “No, Mavey! No more buts! It has to be said!” Sucrose jerked up, nearly sending the chair flying as she stabbed an accusatory finger at him. To all of them. “I’m tired of not being heard! So it’s your turn to listen to me. All the depravity that Aether has going on, you’re all so quick to condemn, but then you turn around and do the exact same FUCKING thing to your own people! The people you promised to protect!”
  She didn’t even care if she was shouting; she was aware that the air int he room was picking up due to her anger, but she didn’t even care.
  “You try to try to get information from me? You end up traumatizing me!" She sliced the air with her palm, her glasses knocked askew; nothing was coming in the way between them and her amber-eyed anger. “You want to help nations starve off Aether? You can’t even protect them! Lumine has offered her services, but rather than giving her the safety, space, and freedom she deserves, you oppress her as much as Aether oppressed us! And you call that justice?”
  “Girl, hold your tongue,” Ariel ordered, rising her braided red hair swishing like flames at her eyes, her amber eyes lit with a similar determination to Sucrose’s. “I understand you’re angry, but you don’t understand. This is war. This is what it is. It’s cruel and dirty. There are going to be mistakes made and lives lost.”

Hell Hath No Fury

• In the side story of Hell Hath No Fury, we finally get to see the horrifying events that happened during Aether's takeover of Teyvat. And it is as heartbreaking and horrifying as described.
• The first chapter takes place from two POVS. Venti turns himself into his original sprite form, choosing to remain behind while those who escaped from the original attack flee while most of the attention is focused on the executions. Venti can only watch as the Knights of Favonius are beheaded one by one.
• The second takes place from Razor's pov and he is the one that is responsible for holding down the Knights as they are executed.
• Let's not forget the reactions of the unfortunate victims who were unable to get away in time. Amber, the first Knight to be executed, is terrified and cries, admitting to Razor that she doesn't want to die yet as she still needed to look for her grandfather. She still faces her death with dignity, her last words being 'For Mondstadt'.
• Noelle despairs that no one will remember her or any of the other knights after the executions are over with. The only thing they will remember is the horror of the day as many good people are pointlessly killed. She is beheaded mid rant as she screams at everyone who she is.
• Klee's is the most tear jerking as she is still a child. Both Razor and the executioner clearly do not want to execute her, but have no choice in the matter. The executioner positions her body to hide the sight of Noelle and Amber's headless bodies and tells her to look up, with Razor also encouraging Klee to look up at the sky. While Klee is distracted, the executioner beheads her all the while sobbing.
• Mary the Executioner. To Venti's horror, he can tell that she is a native to Mondstadt. It is obvious throughout the chapter that she does not want to kill her own people, but is likely threatened into it. At the end, after all is said and done she hangs herself.
• In Sucrose's chapter, we get to see the aftermath of the executions. The Knight's bodies had been tossed out into the fields of Mondstadt, scattered and left to rot. Sucrose can only look on in morbid fascination as she scans the fields, and finally breaksdown crying when she sees Klee's half eaten face that had been picked clean by scavengers.
• When Sucrose asks what happens to the others, they finally break. Jean breaks down sobbing, Lisa is also in tears as she comforts her, and the rest of the group is no better.
• Albedo's breakdown. He is unable to confront the reality of Klee's death and starts mumbling alchemic formulas to himself, getting louder as he tries to block out Sucrose's attempts to call out to him.
• The second chapter focuses on Veer and the day his entire family is executed before his eyes. His mother cries, his father is in shock, but his sister's death stands out the most and is graphically described. He can only watch as tears from fear and terror stream down her face, but she smiles for him and mouths for Veer not to forget her. Then her head rolls on the floor of the stage, her eyes growing dim as they die. Weeks afterwards, he can only sleep on his parents' bed clutching the blankets and crying. He maybe a complete asshole to Lumine, but it's hard not to see why he is.

[[/folder]]