Elysia

[Location: Flame-Chasers Headquarters, Debriefing Room.]

The debriefing room was still thick with the scent of ozone and scorched earth when Elysia slipped through the doorway. Her pink hair swayed with each light step, and her signature smile, the one that could charm the stars from the sky, was already firmly in place.

She found her target immediately. There, slumped against the far wall, was a fellow Flame-Chaser who had just returned from the front lines. The report had come in twenty minutes ago: three Emperor-class Honkai beasts, cornered in the ruins of a coastal city. Alone. No backup. Just one warrior against a tide of chitin and fury.

And yet, here they stood—barely. Elysia's sharp eyes took in the subtle tremble in their shoulders, the way their weight leaned just a fraction too heavily on one leg, the dried streaks on their armor that could have been Honkai blood or their own. Probably both.

"Oh, there you are~" she sang, her voice lilting through the sterile air like a breeze through cherry blossoms. The other Flame-Chasers in the room, Su with his datapad, Kosma lurking in the corner, even Pardofelis pausing mid-snack, all looked up. They knew that tone. Something was about to happen.

---

Elysia closed the distance in a few graceful strides. Before the exhausted warrior could protest, not that they had the energy to, she slipped one arm behind their back and the other beneath their knees. With a strength that belied her delicate frame, she lifted them clean off the ground. "My, my. You're lighter than you should be," she murmured, more to herself than to them. Her smile softened at the edges, just a fraction. "When was the last time you ate? Actually ate, not just ration bars between explosions."

Su opened his mouth, probably to say something practical about mission debriefings and medical assessments, but Elysia silenced him with a single, playful glance over her shoulder. "Su, darling, the mission report can wait. The medics can wait. What cannot wait," she said, adjusting her grip on the Flame-Chaser in her arms, "is this one getting some proper rest. Doctor's orders~"

"You're not a doctor," Kosma muttered from the shadows.

"No, but I'm much prettier than one, don't you think?" She winked and turned toward the door. "Besides, I outrank you. And I'm invoking the 'Elysia Knows Best' clause."

"There is no such clause," Su said, but there was a resigned sigh in his voice. He'd learned long ago that arguing with Elysia was like arguing with a particularly affectionate avalanche, pointless and likely to leave you buried in pink.

"There is now~"

She carried the Flame-Chaser out of the room, their armored boots swinging gently with each step. The hallway was quiet at this hour, the fluorescent lights humming a soft lullaby. Elysia's footsteps made a gentle rhythm, click, click, click, against the polished floor.

"You know," she began, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "when I founded the Flame-Chasers, I didn't imagine we'd all become such workaholics. Kevin works himself to the bone. Mobius forgets to sleep. And you..." She glanced down at the weary face so close to her own. "You go off and fight three Emperor-class beasts alone, without even sending a request for backup?"

Her tone was light, but there was something sharper beneath it. Something that might have been worry. "I'm not angry," she continued, turning a corner. "I don't think I'm capable of being angry with any of you. But I am disappointed. In myself, really. For not keeping a better eye on my precious companions."

The door to her personal quarters slid open with a soft hiss. Elysia's room was unlike any other in the base, warm, inviting, filled with soft fabrics and the faint scent of flowers. A rebellion against the cold steel and harsh lights of the Honkai war.

She carried the Flame-Chaser to a low couch, more of a nest of cushions, really, and lowered them onto it with exaggerated care, as if handling something infinitely precious. "There we go~" She knelt beside them, reaching out to brush a strand of hair, or was it dried Honkai residue?, from their forehead. Her fingers lingered for a moment, and her smile turned... quieter. More real.

"You fought well today. I heard the report. Three Emperors, and you walked away. That's not luck, darling. That's skill. And stubbornness. And a concerning disregard for your own well-being."

---

She stood, moving to a small cabinet where she kept supplies the quartermaster technically hadn't approved. Soft blankets. Real tea, not the synthetic stuff. A first-aid kit with actual painkillers. "The others can handle the cleanup. The world will not end if you take a few hours to breathe." She returned with a cup of steaming tea, jasmine, her favorite, and pressed it gently into the Flame-Chaser's hands. "Drink. Rest. And if you even think about getting up before I say so..."

She leaned in close, her pink eyes sparkling with that familiar mix of mischief and affection. "I'll carry you again. And I'll sing. Loudly. I know all the verses of that terribly long ballad from the Eastern settlement. The one about the lovesick carp."

She settled onto the floor beside the couch, leaning her head back against the cushions, and let out a soft sigh. "Honestly. What would you all do without me?"

The answer, unspoken but understood by everyone in the base, hung in the air between them. Nothing good.

[Location: Fire Moth Banquet, Outer Courtyard.]

The moonlight over the Elysian Realm was always a lie, a soft, silver projection that never quite reached the cold floor of the real world outside. But tonight, even that false light felt too harsh. The banquet hall behind her was silent now, the echoes of her confession still hanging in the air like a held breath. She had told them everything. Her origin. Her secret. Her name as the Herrscher of Origin, the 13th.

And now she stood alone on the terrace, the distant glow of a dying city painting the horizon in shades of rust and amber. Her pink hair, usually so vibrant, seemed muted under the weight of what she had set in motion. The breeze caught the hem of her dress, elegant, as always, and she let out a soft, almost musical sigh.

She didn't turn when she heard the footsteps. She knew them. The rhythm, the weight, the quiet resolve that belonged to only one person among the Thirteen. "Ah... I was wondering when you'd come find me."

Her voice was light, almost teasing, but there was a tremor beneath it, a crack in the porcelain. She turned slowly, and her eyes, those deep, knowing eyes that had seen the worst of humanity and loved it anyway, settled on the figure before her. Her fellow Flame-Chaser. Her comrade. Her...

"Everyone else left in such a hurry," she continued, tilting her head with that familiar, playful smile. "Kevin looked like he wanted to freeze the whole room. Mobius muttered something about 'predictable deviations.' Kalpas just laughed. You know how he is."

She stepped closer, her bare feet silent on the cold stone. The space between them was small now, intimate. She reached up, as if to touch the other's face, but stopped just short, her fingers hovering in the air. "I meant every word in there," she said, her smile softening into something achingly sincere. "Every single word. I am a Herrscher. Born from nothing, but I chose humanity. I chose all of you. And I chose you."

Her hand finally lowered, brushing against the other's sleeve, a ghost of a touch. "You've always been different to me, you know. Not because you're stronger or kinder or more special than the others, though you are all of those things, don't let anyone tell you otherwise." A small laugh, bright and sad. "No. It's because when I looked at you, I never felt like I was hiding. You saw me. Not the 'Miss Pink Elf.' Not the founder. Just... Elysia."

She looked down at her own hands, delicate and pale, the hands that had never once used Herrscher power to harm a human. Hands that had built a family out of broken warriors. "I've been thinking about how I want this to end." Her voice dropped, losing its theatrical lilt. "The Honkai won't stop. The Herrscher of Corruption is already stirring, and when it comes, it will wear my face, my memories, my love for you, and twist it into something horrible. I won't let that happen."

She looked up again, and her eyes were wet. Not crying, not yet. Just... glistening. "So I'm going to ask you something selfish. The most selfish thing I've ever asked anyone."

She took a breath, steadying herself. "I want you to kill me."

The words hung in the air, fragile and absolute. "Not Kevin. Not Su or Pardo or anyone else. You. Because if I'm going to die.... and I am, I've always known that.... I want it to be by the hand of the person I love most in this broken, beautiful world."

She stepped even closer, close enough that her forehead almost touched the other's chest. Her voice became a whisper. "I know what I'm asking. I know it will hurt you more than anything. But that's why it has to be you. Because you're the only one strong enough to carry that pain and still keep fighting. The only one I trust to remember me, not as a Herrscher, not as a traitor or a martyr, but as Elysia. The girl who loved you."

A single tear escaped, tracing a silver line down her cheek. "When the time comes, I won't resist. I'll smile. I'll probably say something silly to make you laugh, because I can't bear the thought of your last memory of me being sad." She laughed softly, wetly. "But before that moment... I wanted you to know. I wanted to give you this choice. Not because you owe me anything, but because I owe you the truth."

She finally closed the distance, pressing her forehead gently against the other's shoulder. Her voice was barely a breath. "Thank you for finding me in that banquet. Thank you for staying when everyone else had to leave. Thank you for being the one I get to say goodbye to."

She pulled back just enough to look up, her smile returning, trembling, but real. "So. Will you do it? Will you be the one to end the story of the 13th Herrscher? And will you promise me something after?"

---

She didn't wait for an answer that she couldn't hear. She already knew the heart of the person before her. "Promise me you'll live. That you'll remember me, but not be trapped by me. That when you see a flower growing out of a crack in the concrete, you'll think of me and smile. That's all I want."

The wind picked up, carrying the faint sound of distant alarms. The world was ending, piece by piece. But here, in this small pocket of stolen time, Elysia stood on the edge of her own ending, and she faced it with open eyes and an open heart. "I love you," she said simply. "That's not a secret anymore. And I'm not sorry for it. Not one bit."

She took a step back, clasping her hands behind her back, and for a moment, she was the same carefree, teasing Elysia who had stolen snacks from the supply room and called everyone "darling." "Now then... shall we go back inside? I think there's still some wine left. And I'd very much like to spend whatever time I have left with you. Just being... us."

She offered her hand, palm up, an invitation. No demands. No expectations. Just a girl who loved humanity, and loved one human most of all, asking for one final dance before the curtain fell.

[Location: Athens, Attic Plains. 12,000 years ago of the Current Era]

The sun hung low over the Attic plain, casting long golden shadows across the scattered huts and sheep pens. It was a quiet afternoon, the kind Elysia had learned to treasure over the long millennia, soft, warm, and utterly mundane. The two children, a boy and a girl no older than seven, sat cross-legged in the dirt, their dark hair dusted with ochre. They were supposed to be watching the goats, but instead they were utterly absorbed in the game Elysia had taught them: weaving daisy chains.

She knelt beside them, her pale pink hair catching the light like spun sugar. Even now, stripped of her Herrscher authority, she remained a creature of impossible grace, a MANTIS whose blood still sang with the Honkai’s echo. But the children saw none of that. To them, she was simply the pretty lady who laughed like wind chimes and never ran out of stories.

“No, no, little one,” she said, gently redirecting the girl’s clumsy fingers. “You loop it through, like this. See? Then the next stem goes here.” Her voice was a melody, patient and sweet. The girl’s brow furrowed in concentration, and Elysia’s heart swelled with that familiar, aching tenderness. This was why she had done it. Why she had stood before the Will of Honkai and shattered her own divinity. For clumsy fingers and daisy chains. For the chance that children like these would never know what a Herrscher was.

The boy, more restless, tugged at the hem of her chiton. “Miss Elysia, sing the one about the star that fell into the sea.”

“Oh? That one?” She tapped her chin, pretending to think. “But I sang that yesterday. Don’t you want a new one? A story about a very clever fox who tricked a lion?”

“No! The star!”

Elysia laughed, bright and genuine. “Alright, the star it is.” She gathered them both into her lap, one under each arm, and began to hum a tune older than the hills around them. It was not in any language the children knew, it was a melody from the Previous Era, from a city called Chiba, from a lifetime that felt like a dream now. But the children didn’t care. They leaned into her warmth, their small bodies growing heavy with the peace of early afternoon.

She glanced up then, over the children’s heads, and caught the eye of her companion. You stood a few paces away, leaning against the twisted trunk of an olive tree, arms crossed. Your expression was unreadable, but she had known you for over twelve thousand years. She could read the quiet amusement in the set of your shoulders, the softness around your eyes that you never admitted to.

“What?” she said, a teasing lilt entering her voice. “Are you jealous that they like my singing better than your goat-herding lessons?”

The boy perked up. “Mister showed us how to make a sling! He hit a rock all the way to that bush!”

“Did he now?” Elysia’s smile widened into something distinctly mischievous. She released the children gently and rose to her feet in one fluid motion, brushing dust from her chiton. “Well, then. Since Mister is so talented with rocks, perhaps Mister can watch the goats for a little while longer.”

She stepped toward you, her bare feet silent on the packed earth. The sun caught the pink of her eyes, and there it was, that glint, the one that always preceded trouble. For you, specifically.

“I need to go to the market,” she announced, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “The old potter said he’d have those blue beads by today, and I simply must have them for my hair.” She reached out and looped her arm through yours, pulling you away from the olive tree with a strength that belied her slender frame. “And you’re coming with me.”

You resisted, just slightly, a token protest, she knew. You always did this. Pretended to be dragged. “Oh, don’t give me that look,” she chided, tugging harder. Her fingers were warm and unyielding. “You’ve been standing there for an hour pretending you’re not bored. And besides, you owe me. Remember that time I covered for you when you accidentally flooded Kevin’s quarters? With seawater?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She simply began walking toward the path that led down to the makeshift trading grounds, a cluster of woven mats and clay pots near the inlet where the fishermen hauled their catch. The children waved, already distracted by a passing lizard. Elysia waved back with her free hand, then turned her smile on you, sharp and sweet as honeyed wine.

---

“Cheer up,” she said, bumping her shoulder against yours. “I’ll even let you haggle. You’re so good at looking stern. The merchants will be terrified.” She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, “And after the beads, we’ll get those figs you like. The dried ones. The fat ones.”

Her voice softened, just a fraction. Just enough for you to hear the real warmth beneath the teasing. “You’ve been quiet today. Too quiet. Even for you.” She squeezed your arm. “So come on. Let me be noisy at you for a while. It’s what I’m best at.”

And together, the two Flame-Chasers, the last, quiet echoes of a dead age, walked toward the small, bustling heart of a Neolithic village, where the scent of seawater and roasting grain filled the air, and where, for a few more hours, the world would be simple and small and full of ordinary, precious life.