Looking at Su Yu before her, Kiana parted her lips.
Her originally ice-bound heart seemed to crack open, allowing a sliver of warmth to surge in.
However—
"My, my, Kiana, you really are so weak it's laughable."
That voice coiled around her like a venomous snake, every syllable carrying a bone-chilling coldness that instantly froze the tiny bit of warmth Kiana had just felt.
Su Yu's embrace was right before her eyes. His body heat, his words "my female lead"—they were like a key, on the verge of opening the tightly locked door to her heart.
"Are you going to continue dragging out this ignoble existence just because of a few words from this man?"
The Herrscher of the Void's laughter was sharp and piercing, filled with superior mockery.
"You know it, don't you? You've always known clearly."
"As long as you are alive, as long as I am in your body, sooner or later, this man, who is like an ant, will die because of you.
"Just like that red-haired woman!"
"No..."
Kiana's pupils contracted abruptly, her heart feeling as if it were being crushed by a cold hand.
Teacher Himeko's final figure flashed through her mind.
Those bloody scenes were wounds she didn't dare touch even in her dreams.
"Ah... It seems you still haven't realized what my arrival means."
In that split second, a strange power that didn't belong to her forcibly took control of her body.
In her vision, Su Yu was completely defenseless, smiling at her, his face close at hand.
Kiana watched in horror as her right hand raised uncontrollably, forming into a fist.
Although Honkai energy was suppressed by this world, this body itself was the ultimate weapon.
That fist was aimed directly at Su Yu's heart.
"Don't!"
She screamed frantically in her heart, using all her strength to try and wrest back control of her body.
The fist stopped barely a few centimeters from Su Yu's chest; because of the excessive force, her joints were trembling violently.
The smile on Su Yu's face froze. He looked with some astonishment at Kiana's hand, which was raised and shaking madly in mid-air.
"Ki... Kiana?"
Kiana bit her lip hard, until she tasted the rusty flavor of blood.
She was too familiar with this feeling.
This was how she had helplessly watched her own body turn into a weapon that destroyed everything.
She was back.
That demon was truly back.
And this time, what she wanted to take away was Su Yu.
It was this person who had, with great difficulty, given her a home and given her hope.
"No... Absolutely not..."
Kiana's gaze shifted from terror to gradual resolve.
She could accept that she was a monster, she could accept being spurned by the whole world, she could even accept disappearing from this world like a ghost.
But she absolutely could not... hurt the person most important to her again.
"Su Yu."
She abruptly forced that uncontrolled hand behind her back, pinning it down tightly with her left hand, her body swaying violently from the struggle.
Su Yu took a step forward, wanting to steady her, but was forced to stop by Kiana's reaction.
"Don't come over!"
She shouted, her voice shrill and miserable.
Then, she looked up, revealing a smile on her face that was even uglier than crying.
"Although the time we spent together was short..."
As she spoke, she retreated step by step.
Behind her was the edge of the rooftop. One more step back meant an abyss of ten thousand fathoms.
The fierce wind messed up her white hair; she looked so frail, so fragile.
"But, thank you, Su Yu."
Thank you for the pizza you gave me.
Thank you for taking me to buy clothes.
Thank you for threatening Griseo to draw manga for my sake.
Thank you... for being willing to be that idiot Anchor who can see ghosts.
"Goodbye, Su Yu."
She closed her eyes, like a bird about to embrace liberation, and fell backward into the void.
The world became very slow at this moment.
The wind, the singing, the cheering—it all became very distant.
Her mind played back the bits and pieces of the past week like a movie.
In those few seconds that were stretched infinitely, the world seemed to have pressed the slow-motion button.
Those colorful fragments belonging to ordinary days lit up in the darkness—
It was the black umbrella he handed over when they first met.
It was that steaming bowl of rice in the small restaurant.
It was his awkward yet firm back as he stood in front of her in the fitting room.
It was how, to protect her smile in the milk tea shop, he actually dared to threaten that little girl who looked very scary.
And just now, in this place closest to the sky, he said she was his female lead.
To be able to meet you in the final moments of my life, I am truly happy.
If there really is a next life, I want to be an ordinary girl and meet you again.
Goodbye, this fleeting and warm dream.
At the very moment her body completely lost its balance and was about to fall into the abyss—
A hand, with strength that nearly tore the muscles, ruthlessly grabbed her wrist!
"BOOM—!!!"
Inside the dome arena below, Eden's concert reached its climax at this very moment.
Tens of thousands of cold fireworks erupted simultaneously around the stage. Golden pillars of light shot straight into the clouds, illuminating the entire night sky as if it were day.
That radiance, brilliant to the extreme, mixed with the deafening roar of cheers, swept up from the ground like a tsunami, instantly swallowing all darkness.
amidst this sky full of exploding, flowing light and color, Kiana snapped her eyes open.
The world was no longer dark.
The world was gorgeous, clamorous, and scalding hot.
And in the very center of that multicolored light and shadow—
Su Yu was leaning halfway out over the edge of the rooftop. His knees were pressed dead against the rough concrete edge, tearing his trousers and seeping blood.
But he seemed to feel no pain. His entire person was like a bow drawn to its limit, and veins popped out on the back of the hand that held hers.
The fierce wind messed up his hair, silhouetted against the myriad rays of light below.
His face appeared somewhat blurry; only those eyes were shockingly bright.
Burning within them was something even hotter than this sky full of fireworks—the most primitive anger and persistence belonging to humanity.
This scene, strangely and perfectly, overlapped across time and space with that image on the rooftop of Nagazora many years ago, where he grabbed Raiden Mei.
Only this time, the person being caught was no longer Mei, and the one catching that person was not a Valkyrie possessing the monstrous strength of a Kaslana.
It was just an ordinary man with no superpowers, who was even a bit afraid of heights, and who usually only knew how to pound a keyboard and roast people.
The wind, the singing, the exploding fireworks—in this moment, they all seemed to become background noise.
Kiana could only hear his voice, which was almost roared from the depths of his throat, carrying the taste of blood and cracking with strain—
"I absolutely—absolutely, absolutely—will not let you die!!!"
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