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Kiana almost didn’t realize that the fighting had stopped.
The ice around her had begun to melt as the area began to warm again without the Herrscher of Ice’s influence, the sound of dripping water all around her became the only thing she could hear.
She stood at the center of it all, taking deep breaths.
Breathing hurt.
It was a new sensation, it had been months since she had last been able to feel anything. Her entire body had been numb for so long that she forgot what it felt like to be able to feel. She weakly clenched her hand into a fist, just to see what it felt like.
She let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “So, this is it?” She asked to no one in particular.
The Herrscher of Ice was defeated, and the other Herrscher that had been born and absorbed by them as well. That strange fusion would probably be given a weird name, but it didn’t matter to her.
She reached out her hand towards the body, calling on power from the void core for what she felt would be the final time. The body was pierced multiple times by lances, and a few moments later, two herrscher cores floated from the wounds and into her hands.
Her knees buckled underneath her, and she barely caught herself on a piece of debris to be able to lower herself to the ground easier.
Six months, that was her limit it seemed. It had been six months since Sirin had woken inside of her, two months since she had prevented Mei from becoming the Herrscher of Thunder again, knowing that it would doom herself to a premature end.
Two months since she had last seen Fu Hua.
Somehow, the last one felt the worst.
She didn’t know what her relationship with the class monitor even was by the end. Friends? Teacher and student? Something more?
They had never tried to put it into words, too much had been going on for them to even try. She was dying, Fu Hua didn’t have a body. It was doomed from the start if they had ever tried.
The fact that she was able to hold onto the fenghuang down feather that contained her was barely a comfort. The feather now possessing so little power that Fu Hua couldn’t project an illusion of herself to her… That was assuming she was even still in there.
She held the feather close to her chest and closed her eyes. If this really was the end, she didn’t want to be alone.
“Kiana.”
Her eyes snapped open. The voice was… familiar. Not exactly as she remembered, but that could be because of the quiet ringing in her ears, or her state of mind, or she could have just forgotten how she sounded because of everything that had happened.
Fu Hua stood a short distance away, untouched by any of the destruction around them. Calm, not even a hair out of place.
Kiana stared, then she laughed, then she winced from the pain laughing caused her before laughing through it anyways.
She was tired.
“Yeah… This really is it. I’m hallucinating.” She finally said when her laughter calmed down.
Fu Hua frowned, her expression becoming confused as she took the few steps forward to kneel down next to Kiana.
“Hallucinating?” Fu Hua echoed back to her, one of her hands gently pulling the feather from her hands. She was too weak to hold onto it anyways. “Kiana, what are you talking about?”
It hurt. Her tone of voice reminded her so much of back when they were at St. Freya and she was being tutored by her. It was the tone of voice she had whenever Kiana would misunderstand something, or ask a dumb question. She missed when things were simple.
“... You’re dead.” She said plainly, letting her head fall as she stared at her now empty hands. “Or close to it. I don’t really understand how fenghuang down works… I’ll join you soon, I guess.”
“I did die. But I revived.” Fu Hua said it simply, as if it was obvious. “I killed Otto for what he did, and I came to take the memories in the feather I left you. I need to know what happened after I died.”
Kiana glanced upwards as Fu Hua held the feather in her hand, and Kiana sensed something that she shouldn’t have. She held her breath as she felt a herrscher core in her friend’s body.
That wasn’t possible.
Fu Hua wasn’t a herrscher.
The realization came sharp and clear despite the haze in her mind. This was wrong in a way she couldn’t ignore.
She frowned.
And the thought slipped away as if she never had it in the first place.
“... Yeah,” she muttered under her breath, her tone almost amused. “Definitely hallucination.”
She watched as Fu Hua closed her eyes, holding the feather in two hands, and allowed it to seemingly disintegrate.
“So… You’re dying.” Fu Hua stated after a few moments of silence, concern shining in her eyes. It seemed the hallucination was now remembering the past six months at her side.
Kiana groaned, pushing herself to her feet. There was a better place to die, she was sure. Even if this place had a hallucination of someone she loved.
She managed two steps before she lost her footing, and Fu Hua caught her.
Kiana didn’t bother trying to shift into a more comfortable position this time, allowing her weight to rest against whatever her mind was believing was Fu Hua’s arms. Her breathing was shallow and uneven, each inhale faltering halfway as her lungs seemed to just stop working at times.
“Guess… I’m not walking anywhere.” She offered a faint smile, like she always tried to do. She imagined it probably looked faker than normal now.
Fu Hua didn’t respond immediately, her grip on Kiana adjusted slightly, holding her as if she was fragile. She probably was.
“You shouldn’t be moving.” She finally said, her voice quieter than it had been previously.
Kiana tried to laugh, but she winced too much this time to let out more than a single bark of laughter. “Yeah, you’ve always been like this.” She smiled at the nostalgia of the situation, a genuine smile this time.
Her eyes fluttered for a moment, though she forced them to stay open even as the world was growing hazy at the edges of her vision. She didn’t want the hallucination to disappear if she looked away for too long.
“... Hey, Class Monitor.” Kiana said, her voice both softer and weaker now. “If you’re really here… I got lucky, didn’t I?”
Fu Hua’s brows knitted, “You’re dying Kiana… There is nothing lucky about this.” Concern and annoyance were mixed into one in her voice. It wasn’t really like the Fu Hua she remembered, but there were probably more sides to her than she got to know.
She was kinda cute like this. Though she was always cute. She wished she could have admitted that sooner.
“I just… didn’t think I’d get to see you again.” She whispered, or tried to. She was becoming more afraid each time that she spoke that her voice would finally fail her and she would leave what she wanted to say unsaid.
Fu Hua held her gaze, holding her in her arms. A few emotions Kiana couldn’t quite place flashed across her face. Her grip on Kiana tightened for a moment, far too tight, before easing as soon as she realized what she was doing. She opened her mouth once to say something before pausing, closing it, and then opening it again a moment later.
“You held onto that feather the entire time, even when I was dormant…” She finally said instead, as if it was something worth praise.
Kiana’s lips twitched slightly, “I… was hoping you would wake up again at some point.” She admitted.
Fu Hua was silent again, though her gaze never left Kiana.
“Hey…” Kiana spoke before it could properly settle over them. Fu Hua’s gaze immediately flicked up to her face. “Can you tell me something?”
“What is it?”
“... Did I do okay?”
Her voice was more fragile than she meant it to be, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
“I mean…” She continued when Fu Hua didn’t answer immediately, “I didn’t save everyone, and I couldn’t fix everything. I messed up a lot…” It was unfair, she wanted to say. How her life and all of her dreams had been taken away from her against her will.
“But I tried… I tried my best.”
Fu Hua’s expression shifted, contorting into something Kiana didn’t recognize. Something wet hit her cheek, but her vision was becoming so bad that she couldn’t tell if it was ice melting onto her or something else.
“... You did.” Fu Hua finally answered, her voice steady. Far steadier than Kiana expected it to be.
They fell into silence, the only sound around them was the quiet drip of melting ice.
“... It doesn’t hurt as much anymore.” Kiana murmured after a while, her voice sounding distant even to her. “That’s probably not good… right?”
Fu Hua didn’t answer immediately, which answered Kiana’s question for her.
She gave a faint smile anyways. “Figures.”
She kept her eyes closed, her vision was a blurry mess at this point anyways. She just focused on the mental image she kept of Fu Hua.
“If you’re really here… Please stay with me, until the end.”
“I will. I'm not leaving your side again.”
Kiana let out a shaky breath, there was just one last thing to say. She had to say it before it was too late.
“... Class monitor?”
“Yes, Kiana?”
“... I think I…”
Her words failed. She wasn’t uncertain now, she knew her feelings were true. But she was losing strength quicker than she realized. She opened her mouth again, trying to say them. Her eyes opened wide to see nothing, scared over leaving this unsaid.
“You don't have to say it. I know.”
Fu Hua’s voice cut through her panic and Kiana stilled. The rising and falling of her chest slowed, and then stopped completely.
Fu Hua didn’t move, she didn’t cry. Her 50,000 years of memories were filled with loss and she had cried all the tears she ever could before this moment, even if she wished she had just a few more to shed for Kiana. She shifted the girl in her arms, adjusted her hold and hugged her close, ignoring the warmth slowly fading from her or how her arms and head hung limp.
Her hug tightened, just slightly. As if that could make everything wrong in this moment go away.
“... I love you.”