With the blizzard's end, Coral Island, adrift in the tumultuous sea, finally found its peace. However, the Star River Stairway, once a bridge to the cosmos, now lay broken, shattered by the Herrscher of Stars, its fragments scattered across the ocean's surface.
The thousand-meter-tall stairway disintegrated into countless pieces, drifting down with ice crystals and shattered rock. Amidst the ruins, Anna and Chen Tianwu finally drew close to each other.
The combined might of two Herrschers could level cities, yet from the moment of her awakening, Anna hadn't intended to survive. Using the last vestiges of her will, she contained the destructive aftershocks of their battle, diverting them skyward, fulfilling her unfulfilled duty as a Valkyrie.
This transcendent act surpassed the Honkai Will's control, freeing both Chen Tianwu and Anna from its grasp, allowing their human consciousness to resurface.
Though the price of freedom was an agony few mortals could bear.
Yet, it proved Ren's theory correct. The Honkai Will wasn't omnipotent. With sufficient willpower and external force, a Herrscher could defy its control.
Just as Kiana had severed the threads of his own destiny, Chen Tianwu and Anna finally faced their own conclusions.
Their descent wasn't long. A thousand meters offered barely twenty seconds. But these fleeting moments stretched into an eternity, far surpassing the hurried farewell of two years prior.
Long enough for them to draw near, long enough to continue the conversation abruptly ended two years ago, long enough for them to look inward, to confront their true selves.
Two solitary snowflakes, adrift from their cloud, touched, then separated.
Once whole, shattered by the storm, battered and broken, on the brink of melting away, they met again. Jagged edges fitting perfectly, they embraced.
"Anna."
Chen Tianwu, consciousness restored, gently caressed the girl's cheek with his remaining arm, his forehead touching hers. The Honkai Will had shown him the "truth" of two years ago, a twisted narrative meant to catalyze the Herrscher of Stars' full awakening.
But the truth was, the moment Chen Tianwu struck Anna down, the question that had haunted him for two years was already answered.
Affection born from shared trauma wasn't love, but a desperate grasp for human connection. Chen Tianwu, mistaking it for romance, had trapped not only Anna but himself as well.
He hadn't been chasing Anna, but a warped reflection of his own salvation.
More poetically, Chen Tianwu, the person, had been trapped in the ruins of the Honkai eruption two years prior.
He thought he'd escaped, but the disaster had shattered him. Stripped bare, he'd clung to Anna's rescue as his sole reason for existing.
"I'm sorry."
A drowning man instinctively grasps at anything, dragging down even his savior. Ren had offered Chen Tianwu a choice, and only by destroying his hope had he finally confronted the darkness within.
Chen Tianwu had found his answer.
Resentment towards Anna for abandoning his sister, intertwined with a desperate yearning for her, had created this twisted obsession. His fixation wasn't just gratitude, but also a desire for revenge.
Fortunately, Ren had given him the chance to enact that revenge, to finally shed his burden and reveal his true feelings.
And Anna was no different. Escaping her duty as a Valkyrie had been an unforgivable sin. Now, confronting the Herrscher of Stars was her atonement.
She'd felt something for Chen Tianwu, but that affection, tainted by guilt, had become twisted and warped.
Facing his apology, she simply shook her head, gently embracing him – like a child lost in the ruins, like the people she couldn't save.
"You said… after the disaster, we'd go on a date…"
They gazed at the dim sunlight, the distant, unfrozen ocean shimmering.
"This… this counts, right?"
Though a date, they weren't lovers, but friends, bound by a shared tragedy.
Perhaps this was the ending most fitting for them both.
The boy in the ruins found himself, no longer trapped by Anna's rescue.
The girl who ran away stopped, finally fulfilling her oath.
They released their obsessions, freeing themselves. They bared their sins, embracing each other's flaws.
Chen Tianwu retrieved Anna's half of the pendant. The broken heart, once separated, was now whole. But this time, instead of keeping it, he gently placed it around Anna's neck.
Thank you for saving me, Anna.
Thank you for forgiving me, Chen Tianwu.
Two falling figures, embraced, closed their eyes, transforming into amber and ice-blue shooting stars.
…
"Is… is it over?" Kiana looked up at the streaks of light in the sky, the two colors intertwining, then exploding into countless sparks, scattering across Coral Island.
Unaware of their story, she still felt a pang of sadness. She instinctively looked around, searching for Ren.
She felt it, strongly, that he was near, incredibly near.
She took a step, wanting to find him. But as she moved, space itself rippled and distorted, as if twisted by an unseen force.
A flood of memories surged.
Clock tower, blizzard, city.
Accompanied by an unbearable pain, far exceeding anything she'd ever experienced. Blood trickled from her lips. She stumbled, collapsing against a ruined wall, gasping for breath.
Then, the pain abruptly vanished.
"Too close." Not far away, Ren instinctively reached out, wanting to help her. But the time crystals within him pulsed with a warning. If he approached, Kiana wouldn't be able to withstand the temporal distortion.
Ren had been carefully maintaining the maximum safe distance, balancing the crystals' interference with Kiana's proximity. If not for her sudden movement, they wouldn't have crossed that threshold. His quick reaction had averted disaster.
"Just a little more time," he whispered, his gaze fixed on the girl standing alone in the ruins, a complex mix of emotions swirling within him. He saw her disappointment.
"Okay."
As if carried by the wind, his voice reached her. Kiana looked in his direction, a soft reply escaping her lips.
Neither noticed that the extra star on Kiana's bracelet had vanished.