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You walk alone. Your bootheels clack on the dry stone as you lift a hand, fingers splayed. Black feathers fly like knives and eviscerate the phantom shades clawing their way towards you.
You smirk as they fall, and your hand returns to your side, resting calmly on the handle of your tri-scabbard. Weak, useless attempts to bring you down.
You should have expected it, after all. Once a Harbinger betrays the gestalt Will, they lose their seat on the council of devastation. They are nothing more than another thing to hunt down and kill.
You’d think that the Will of the Honkai would learn to adapt after humanity rose in defiance again, after they took up their arms and swore by emotion and love, rather than cold reason and logic.
A shade creeps up behind you, and you barely turn your head as a summoned sword cuts it cleanly in two. Good. It is still sending its forces at you. Let them know what it is like to face the wrath of a vengeful Herrscher.
You stop walking. Plant your tri-scabbard in the ground and draw forth your spear. Spear stands for strength, and you have plenty to spare.
Time seems to slow as your feet scrape against the stone, moving into the familiar defensive offense stance. Your hands slide along the cold metal shaft of your spear and you let a grin crack your grim visage.
A couple leaves fall, and they have not moved an inch when the single note of an erhu resurfaces in your mind. A peaceful tune for war, and your smile grows wider. The shades close in, and you lunge.
You move like the wind, and dance and leap around your enemies as the erhu’s tune quickens, intensifies. You work harder, spear spinning in a blur of speed and lashing out cleanly, not a single movement wasted, yet with all the flourish you can muster.
Abruptly, the tune ends, and you are left standing there, the last enemy impaled upon your spear, breathing hard, the leaves whirling around you.
Not bad, you tell yourself, and sheathe your spear. The condition of the old timer’s mindscape had been utterly disgraceful, as you returned scarcely a week after you were defeated.
You were defeated. A Herrscher, destined to lose, beaten by Kiana and the old timer. No matter how hard you try, fate works against you, pushing your sword just a little to the side, pulling your spear-thrust back just a little, flicking the blades of your chainwhip just a little awry…
You sigh and lounge on a stone bench. It was carved by you, as is this entire place, carven into being and given form by a flick of your wrist.
Really, the old timer should thank you. Instead, she’s with her friends – you know all too well, looking out through her eyes – and frankly, seems to be having a great time.
A gust of anger blows through you suddenly, and you surprise yourself as you rise abruptly and shatter the bench in one blow. Stone fragments fly everywhere, and you wince as one ricochets off your arm.
But should you be surprised, really? After all, you’re just another enemy, who just so happened to have the good fortune of inheriting her body, her memories, even her identity…before it all came crashing down again.
Memories, unwanted memories, surface in your head as you snap your fingers, repairing the bench instantly. Your wide sweep of your arm as you rebuilt Fog Mount Temple, with her watching, a serene smile on her lips.
What had happened, then? You first retrieved the old timer from Kevin, utterly trouncing him in single combat, then revived her and went for a walk in the clouds. A trip down memory lane.
As you walked with her, you wondered if this whole thing about serving the will of the Honkai made sense. You saw her soft smile and felt her gentle hand on your shoulder, and you caught her when she stumbled, reluctant to let go.
For once in your short life, you felt needed. You weren’t just a simple tool, a mere cog in the machine, but rather a real person, your own person, someone to eke out their own existence.
Did she feel the same way? You remember her smile as you wreaked havoc on the Honkai beasts swarming her old home, carving great valleys with your sword, raising new peaks, and reducing entire mountains to dust.
She certainly seemed to enjoy watching you.
You remember gazing intently into her eyes, those clear waters, transparent yet enigmatic, familiar yet unknown. A relic from the past, brought back into the world, and now gently holding your hands in hers’.
You thought that she understood you. You thought that she needed you, needed you to guide her in her reawakening, needed you as a friend, a partner, and perhaps…
Old timer, what am I to you? You asked her one day as she watched your work.
You are…you are anything and everything that I want you to be.
A friend.
A partner.
A mentee.
And…if fate permits…
You scoff and rise again as a fresh wave of shades close in. You turn your back on them and let your chains and summoned swords do the dirty work. Their screams are nothing but dissonance, and you flinch as they melt away.
Just like how those happy delusions melted away when you realized the truth. You were a Herrscher, a sacred Harbinger of Sentience, destined to bring forth death and devastation to humanity.
She turned on you, gazing at you with those suddenly-cold eyes of hers’.
I need you, old timer. Wasn’t that what you said? You looked up at her and wrapped your arms round her waist, pleading with her. Please, old timer. Stay with me. Stay with me. You believe me, don’t you?
All she did was set her hands on your shoulders – hands that once clasped yours’ softly, strong tender fingers that brushed against your cheek and your neck, gentle hands that you could kneel to kiss – and push you away.
Suddenly her hands felt like claws, twisted claws, and she seemed now distant, faraway, a cold gleam in her eyes. You sigh as you recall her grim face, once happy but now emotional, as if she’d slipped back into the role of the Celestial.
She fought you by Kiana’s side, of course, and you couldn’t win. You lost, and you returned the body to her. Your body, not hers’.
You give another sigh and sink back down on the bench. Your heart is sore, your chest hurts. The power of Sentience is gone, and what little flares feebly; it is barely enough to keep your powers running.
I need you, she said.
You are your own person, she said.
Please help me, you said.
But did you help her? You did what she did: take hold of her shoulders and push her away, screaming curses, tears running down your cheeks, shouting that you desired to see her fail, as you failed.
Was that pain? Regret? Sorrow? You recall what you saw just before she pulled you close. Old memories of cradling her tight and touching her arm resurface.
And—
Just like that, as glass shatters. She thrust her hand into your chest, ripped your power from your heart. Turned away, left without a word.
Perhaps, in another world, she’d have stayed her hand. Talked to you instead, convinced you to fight alongside her, to sever the strings of the Legion Puppets. Perhaps you’d not be here, instead out in the real world, a shade alongside the old timer, her friends wary but haltingly welcoming.
Perhaps, in another world, she’d have come back to apologise. She’d have knelt at your feet, clasped your knees, begged for forgiveness. Pleaded for you to see her not as an enemy but as a friend. Her tears staining your skin.
Perhaps, the story of Fu Hua and the Herrscher of Sentience would not have been so sad. Perhaps you could have worked out something, negotiated something. Perhaps, you could have even become her trusted partner.
But this world is full of whispers of “perhaps” and “if only”. It was never meant to be, and so here you stand, fists curled, nails digging into your palms. Blood-drops drip and stain the glasslike surface of the mindscape.
A vision of her comes into view. You know it is but an illusion, yet you step forward to catch her as she stumbles. She is scarred, blood stains her clothes, and her strength is faint.
Please help me, she whispers, and she clings to you.
Oh, old timer. Perhaps in another world, things could have been different. Perhaps we could have worked things out.
But fate was never on our side.
You lift her chin and press one last kiss to her forehead, tender and longing, and then you release her. You let your fingers slip, slip, slip from her shoulders, brush against her arm and return to your side.
The illusion fades, and you are alone, holding the chain in your hand. It is so, so heavy, and you sink to your knees.
I’m sorry, old timer. You whisper, and even as the words come out, tears follow, and cold drops dance down your cheeks and splash on your thighs. The chain is cold, as cold as ice.
I’m sorry. But this is the only way.
For a moment, time stands still as the power of Sentience flares, and then the links of the chain are falling, tumbling, shattering on the ground. Your power returns to you and you rise, gripping your sword.
Perhaps, in another world, you could have loved her. But now, you can do little but to hate, to scoff, to despise, to push her away. She is fading in your mind already.
I’m sorry, you whisper. Darkness takes you, and you are wandering alone once again, the light of her mindscape fading in the distance. Already the corroding whispers are gnawing at your mind, and you clutch one hand to your head.
You nearly cry out, help me. Help me, old timer. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten mad.
But ah, what is life but a fool’s story, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing? You were a fool to have let things end up this way. And now, you shall pay the consequences for your actions.
In another world, things could have worked out perfectly.
But this is not the other world. This is reality, and with what remains of your strength, you whisper a prayer to whatever damned gods that may listen.
Please, in the next world, let us be together. Please, let things be alright. Please, help me learn to love, so that I may love her.
Please…
In another world, let us be together.