--Beep! Beep!
The piercing alarm blared like a swarm of bees, making the already noisy corridor even more chaotic.
Yet the world in Himeko's eyes remained calm.
"All right, time to go out and get some air."
She struggled to straighten up, then stepped forward in the direction opposite the crowd.
Time seemed to quietly come to a halt at that moment.
"Though they're all a bunch of kids who never grew up, I really do like this place."
Himeko smiled and muttered to herself:
"There's still a long road ahead, isn't there? I wish you all... good luck."
People carrying weapons, people wrapped in bandages, people carrying the wounded, people moving parts--
People Himeko had met, people Himeko had never met--
People who remembered Himeko, people who did not--
One after another, they brushed past her.
"I really want... one more drink."
Elysia fell silent. Beside her, Griseo was completely immersed in the mournful atmosphere; even the ahoge atop her head drooped limply.
The comments had also become unusually quiet. Even the players who had once claimed to have guessed the ending no longer dared to speak.
Even an idiot could sense what this short film was hinting at.
"There's one final animation left at the end of the chapter. Judging by its length... it seems different from the short film just now."
Elysia forced a smile and said to Griseo:
"I'm guessing it's definitely a large-scale CG on par with Queen's Descent. It'll surely be amazing!"
"..."
Griseo did not respond. Her feelings were conflicted right now. On one hand, she could not bear to keep watching; on the other, she wanted to know Himeko's fate.
Elysia wanted to coax Griseo into continuing. Although the story was unfolding in a rather troubling direction, she still firmly believed that "someone" would arrange a beautiful ending for everyone.
"Let's begin."
Time could not remain frozen forever, just as Kiana could not stay forever on the campus where Himeko was by her side... she had to push open that door eventually.
So Elysia and Griseo, together with a million viewers and ten million players, opened the animation at the end of the chapter.
As the video began, amid a burst of alarms, the Judgment-Class Honkai Beast Benares charged toward the Hyperion.
Himeko, clad in Vermilion Knight: Eclipse Armor, quickly drove back the giant dragon with the power of the Plague Gem.
"Thief who stole my power, do you think you can escape?"
Just as Himeko was determined to bring Kiana home, the Herrscher of the Void was hunting Himeko in order to reclaim the Plague Gem.
The two, each rushing toward their own goal, quickly found one another. The moment they came into contact, the Herrscher of the Void immediately brought Himeko into the "Imaginary Space" under her control.
Within this void filled with nothing but crystals, the Queen could unleash her power to her heart's content without being disturbed by anyone else.
"Hmph, I've been waiting for you."
Skipping the trouble of closing in was exactly what Himeko, who had little time left, needed.
Holding a crimson greatsword, she cast all pain and death from her mind and assumed a fighting stance.
"Are you ready to welcome death?"
As she provoked her, the Queen reached out her hand, and Himeko's body was immediately dragged before her by a powerful force.
"Struggle as much as you can~~"
Accompanied by the Queen's cruel laughter, Himeko, who had just been pulled over, was viciously flung away again.
As she flew through the air, the Queen pulled out another enormous crystal cube and placed it behind Himeko, intending to snap her spine against it.
--Boom!
With a thunderous crash, Himeko's body slammed a massive dent into the hard crystal block.
In that instant, countless viewers watching the video felt phantom pain shoot through their backs, and some instinctively hunched their shoulders.
"Urgh!"
Before Himeko could free herself from the crater, the Queen's follow-up attack arrived.
Countless cubic crystals wrapped around Himeko, then began to compress and crush her... that alone was already a form of cruelty worthy of torture.
Yet that was not enough. The light wings behind the Queen transformed into streaming ribbons, then twisted into blades that sliced the cubic crystals encasing Himeko into four pieces.
Then the ribbons twisted into a sharp spear of light, piercing upward from beneath the cube before smashing down from the opposite direction, shattering the crystals that had imprisoned Himeko.
Damn it! Stop already!
That's too cruel, don't treat Sister Himeko like this!
The comments clearly could not accept the Queen's cruelty. Fortunately... when the Herrscher of the Void confidently turned around, the greatsword in Himeko's hand suddenly shot toward her...
It hurtled straight at the Queen with violent force, declaring at the same time that its owner still lived.
"Cough!"
She had assumed it was merely the other side's dying struggle, but when the Queen attempted to defend herself, she finally felt the terror of that power.
For the first time, shock made her lose her elegance. She could only bend over awkwardly to evade the strike, allowing the greatsword to plunge fiercely into a distant crystal.
"Hah... hah..."
Himeko staggered out from the crystal wreckage, gasping heavily.
"Is your attack over?"
Her body was utterly battered, practically being "dragged forward" by her own will.
Yet even so, Himeko still held her head high and declared:
"Then it's my turn now!"
"Hehe... hahahahaha!"
The Queen scoffed at Himeko's fighting spirit. After a burst of wild laughter, she spoke in the coldest voice possible:
"Die!"
In an instant, countless dimensional voids surrounded Himeko, and tens of millions of spears capable of piercing stars erupted forth.
At that moment, Himeko drew back her burning blade and began a dance of death at the heart of annihilation.
Swords and spears crossed, light and shadow overlapped.
Lightning burst from the spears, while haze coiled around destruction.
But the storm stirred by the flaming sword turned everything into ash.
The Last Lesson
--Kiana, when you wake up, you will see that everything has changed.
Crimson radiance lit up from Himeko's chest, pulsing through her entire body with her blood and dyeing her skin with blazing red patterns.
--You will discover that this world is no longer beautiful.
Her blood surged like boiling magma. The primal force of her life was completely converted, and power on the verge of bursting swelled and expanded through her body, filling every corner of it.
--Those ordinary days will never return.
Himeko's eyes resembled molten iron. Her flame-gold pupils burned pale, and the greatsword in her hand erupted with the brilliance of the sun.
--But don't give up... never give up.
"Don't get! Too full of yourself!"
The enraged Queen gathered highly concentrated spatial energy in her hand. With a trembling hum like a bowstring snapping, a dazzling stream of light tore through the sound barrier and shot toward Himeko.
Energy spilled in the arrow's wake, spreading crystallization.
The matter of the Imaginary Space was drawn toward that energy and continuously attached itself to it, eventually transforming the arrow into a giant pillar whose savage force sought to shatter everything in its path.
"Haah!"
Himeko's roar rang out alongside the thunderous crash of the giant pillar shattering, and the smoke that instantly spread completely blocked the Queen's vision.
Within the gray-white dust, only one thing could be seen... the scarlet of raging flames!
"Damn it!"
Facing Himeko's mountain-shattering charge, the Queen's disgust and impatience reached their peak.
Ribbons, light wings, spears, crystals—every means of attack available to her was brought forth, while Himeko's assault was like a burning nova, howling as it broke through the dark storm clouds.
"Don't think you can get close to me!"
The Queen gathered Honkai energy in her hands, then used spatial energy to expand it without end, spiraling it into spears before spreading it into a net, again and again, devouring everything within the Imaginary Space.
Dazzling flames clashed with darkness that devoured light, and at their point of intersection...
Before Himeko's eyes appeared those who had once been by her side at St. Freya.
Theresa, Mei, Fu Hua, Bronya, and...
Kiana, who had smiled as she promised Himeko that she would become the strongest Valkyrie.
"I can still... keep burning!"
In an instant, purple patterns rapidly spread across Himeko's body, and ever-burning fire burst forth from her back.
Wings of flame scattered rays of hope, illuminating all darkness.
At that moment, the music of "Nightglow" also reached its climax.
--Kiana, raise your head! Keep moving forward!
Himeko swung her greatsword, her soul and body burning fiercely within the flames.
--Go and turn this imperfect story into the one you desire!
In the end, amid a vast expanse of pale ashes, the burned-out Himeko collapsed helplessly, and the greatsword in her hand shattered into fragments.
At the end of her life, Murata Himeko said:
--Live on, Kiana.
--This is... The Last Lesson.
"What!?"
Only then did the trembling-eyed Queen realize that Himeko had injected the God-Slaying Spear into her own body.
At that moment, Kiana's consciousness awakened once more, and a resentful roar rose together with heart-wrenching sobs.
And Himeko... fell into darkness along with the gradually collapsing Imaginary Space, disappearing into the dust.
Only the background music nearing its end spoke on:
So stay alive, bravely. So please, live on bravely.
"You... you... how could you write the script like this?"
Elysia felt her nose sting. It seemed that if she relaxed even slightly, she would burst into tears.
But more than sorrow, what she felt now was confusion.
"You clearly saved everything... why did you insist on showing an ending like this?"
Elysia's earlier optimism had not been blind confidence. She seemed to possess some kind of inside information.
But now, she looked as though she had been betrayed, her face filled with the words: "It shouldn't have been like this."
Before you continue