Why not use Irminsul to erase "The Doctor"?
Although it was brought up during Paimon's casual chatter, this was actually a very serious question. Aside from Nahida's innate reluctance to do such a thing, was there truly no other reason?
Lumine was curious, and Victor Wang was curious as well. Before they could think it through, Nahida spoke up on her own:
"Even if 'The Doctor' were to be erased, aside from stripping him of the fate he was meant to have, the evil he committed in the past would remain unchanged, and in the future, there would still be other bad people committing other bad deeds—
Where there are people, there will be good and bad, insiders and outsiders. When the most conspicuous villain disappears, someone else will become the new villain. There are simply too many bad people in the world; it is clearly impossible to erase them all.
Moreover, Irminsul exists to objectively record everything in Teyvat. Unless circumstances force us to modify it, as Greater Lord Rukkhadevata once did, we should never shake Irminsul with subjective intent.
Doing so would be the greatest insult to everyone's memories and destinies, and it could even give rise to wars over control of Irminsul, or dictators who place their own will above the fate of others.
Not to mention that if too many existences were erased and the foundations of history became too hollow, Irminsul would fall into irreversible chaos due to that emptiness, endangering the entire world."
"Uh… i-is that so?" Paimon looked awkward. "Sorry, Nahida! I didn't think that far…"
"It's alright. These thoughts are simply the awareness a guardian of Irminsul should have. Under normal circumstances, you really don't need to consider such things."
"So amazing… Only someone with your personality, Nahida, could stand beside Irminsul without thinking of exploiting it. You're a truly qualified guardian!"
"Qualified…?" Nahida asked herself.
"Absolutely qualified! It's precisely because everyone knows you wouldn't casually alter Irminsul that they don't have to worry about suddenly being erased, or fight over control of it for their own safety!"
Paimon answered with complete certainty, but what Nahida was thinking was something else entirely—if someone were to endanger Irminsul, would she really have the ability to protect it?
Perhaps only her personality was qualified…
So, she absolutely had to possess power capable of at least resisting gods.
After chatting a bit more, Paimon looked toward Scaramouche: "I wonder if he's calmed down yet. Let's go check on him."
But as they drew a little closer, they could faintly hear Scaramouche still seething with resentment: "Dottore… you actually dared to do something like this… Niwa never fled out of fear of punishment. You killed him. It was you… you killed him!"
Paimon grew nervous. When they reached his side, she cautiously called out, "H-Hey, are you okay?"
"You're worried about me? If I didn't know there were some unpleasant memories involved, I might've almost thought I was qualified to be your good friend."
Lumine answered honestly, "We just don't want anything outside the plan to happen."
"The plan… of course. I will complete the task of this trip."
Scaramouche's tone was unfriendly, yet he still reached out toward Irminsul. This left Paimon incredulous—he had just learned such shocking truths, and yet he could still cooperate so obediently? She asked, "You're not investigating the things we want to know, are you?"
"That's why we're here in the first place, isn't it?" Scaramouche replied curtly. After a while, he withdrew his arm and conveyed the final result. "But unfortunately, there really is no record of Descenders within Irminsul."
In addition to testing Scaramouche, one of Nahida's main goals in planning this operation had been to help Lumine and Victor Wang as well. She sounded regretful. "It seems it truly isn't there. Irminsul really does not record Descenders."
Failing to find any information about her brother left Lumine somewhat disappointed. After a moment of silence, she said to Scaramouche, "It was expected, but still… thank you."
However, Scaramouche said, "Don't rush to thank me. I personally have some information I can share."
"?"
"The reason your blood relative can be recorded in Irminsul may be related to Khaenri'ah. It's said that when he first descended into this world, he appeared on Khaenri'ah's land… and it was 'the Sky' that responded to the summoning, allowing him to descend."
"'The Sky'… responded to the summoning?" Paimon repeated the hard-to-understand phrase.
"This was said personally by 'The Jester.' There's no mistake," Scaramouche looked at Lumine. "'The Jester' was once a court mage of Khaenri'ah and lived together with your brother."
"The original Fatui Harbinger, 'The Jester'…" Lumine digested the information.
"That's all I know. Believe it or not, it's up to you. All I can say is that I had no intention of deceiving you with this… Lesser Lord Kusanali, you heard it too, didn't you?"
"Yes. It is truly shocking information," Nahida's voice sounded.
"It didn't come from Irminsul. Can it be counted as my gain? How valuable is it?"
"Extremely valuable," Nahida replied.
"Then our agreement is fulfilled. Next… is private time."
Before the words even finished, Scaramouche erected a transparent hemispherical barrier, trapping Lumine, Paimon, and Victor Wang inside, severing their connection with Nahida.
The most worrying, unplanned situation had still occurred. Paimon exclaimed, "What did you do?!"
Scaramouche ignored Paimon and walked straight toward Lumine, saying urgently, "The secret I shared should be worthy of some return from you. Now, I hope you can answer my question."
Lumine thought for a moment and did not refuse. "What do you want to ask?"
"Give me your hand."
This left them baffled. Lumine and Paimon exchanged glances, seeing the same confusion in each other's eyes. Then Lumine looked at Victor Wang and saw him shaking his head.
Victor Wang shook his head again and spoke to Scaramouche in Lumine's place. "There's no need. I can guess what you want to do. Let me answer your doubts instead."
"You?" Scaramouche said irritably. "My power is nearly exhausted. Even using all my remaining godly power, I can only maintain this barrier for a short while. Don't waste time with irrelevant people."
Victor Wang ignored what Scaramouche said and continued on his own. "You want to erase your own existence, to alter history, so that the people who died in Tatarasuna—and even everyone connected to you—could live normal lives."
"!"
Scaramouche was startled, Paimon jumped in shock, and Lumine felt a sense of understanding. This kind of thought wasn't hard to guess, especially since Victor had already shown concern about this before.
Victor Wang continued speaking:
"But that won't work. A person cannot delete themselves. It's a paradox. Even with Irminsul, it's impossible.
And history that has already occurred cannot be changed. Even without you, the people of Tatarasuna would still suffer disaster, and those connected to you would still end up the same.
I've been hesitating… hesitating over whether I should stop you if you decided to erase yourself. But when I imagine that scene—
When I imagine the people who were implicated by you or killed by you, still having to bear the suffering you caused after you failed to delete yourself, yet easily forgetting all your crimes because their memories were altered, shifting them onto who-knows-what Irminsul-corrected substitute?"
After a pause, Victor Wang said with heartfelt fury, "That's far too easy! I will never allow that kind of future to happen!!"
He let out a sigh and calmed himself. "If you truly wish to repent, then honestly bear those sins. Let the world properly remember you first, and then think of ways to atone."
Scaramouche's expression turned extremely ugly. He didn't know how Victor Wang had so precisely grasped his thoughts, but he had heard what he wanted to know. Unable to believe it, he stared at Lumine as if clutching at a lifeline. "Tell me—can history that has already happened really not be changed?"
The Aranara did not disappear because of Greater Lord Rukkhadevata's disappearance. The forbidden knowledge corruption suffered by King Deshret did not spiral out of control because of her disappearance. The Varuna device still existed, and the crystal Greater Lord Rukkhadevata left in the Sanctuary of Surasthana was still there… all of this aligned perfectly with Nahida's explanation about modifying Irminsul.
Lumine answered with absolute certainty, "History that has already happened cannot be changed."
"How could this be… how could this be…?"
Scaramouche instantly lost all strength. His face turned ashen, his eyes dimmed, and the barrier isolating Nahida shattered into fragments in an instant.
In this extremely short span of time, he had first learned the truth of Tatarasuna that had caused him hundreds of years of misunderstanding. Though struck hard, he had still wracked his brain, linking together the traces of Irminsul's alterations he had sensed through his connection to it, giving himself hope of "erasing himself and restoring everyone's normal lives." Now that hope vanished in the blink of an eye.
Unsalvageable… powerless—what could be more despairing than this?
After the barrier shattered, Nahida's concerned voice rang out, but Scaramouche had already lost consciousness in a hazy blur.
===BREAK===
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