Rovel offered no reply. Instead, he raised Jizo Mitama, its obsidian blade a stark void in the sterile white of the data world. With a heavy heart, he drove it forward, plunging it directly into Kallen's chest.
The blade t no physical resistance, phasing through her form as if she were made of light and mory. A torrent of erald-green data, like a digital virus, imdiately began to swarm and corrupt her form, eating away at the edges of her existence.
This was the end Kallen had longed for—a true, final death.
"Thank you..." A single, crystalline tear traced a path from the corner of her eye. She reached up, her hand gently closing over Rovel's where he held the blade, her expression overflowing with a deep tenderness. It was a look of gratitude, of heartache, of a dozen complex emotions tangled into one final, serene gaze.
"Even though I am only a virtual persona," Kallen whispered, her voice soft as a sigh, "you still treated with such gentleness..."
"?!" Both Bronya and Kiana stared at Kallen, their disbelief plain to see. When had she figured it out?
As if sensing their unspoken question, Kallen offered a faint, weary smile and began to explain.
"Since which day was it? I can no longer recall. I began to notice that everyone around was repeating a pre-determined script. Their words, their actions... all the sa."
"At the end of that script, I would always be killed by that monstrous beast. And when I woke up, I would find myself right back at the beginning of the previous day."
"After a number of cycles I can no longer count, I finally understood. I was just an actor in a performance I could never leave."
"I tried everything," she continued, her voice laced with the exhaustion of a thousand lifetis, "but I could not escape this show... not until you all appeared."
Kallen let out a long, shuddering sigh, the last of her tension seeming to bleed out of her.
"I only helped you to fulfill Yae Sakura's wish," Rovel explained, his tone asured.
"No, that's not it..." Kallen shook her head, her smile unwavering as she looked at him. "I can feel it. There is no conflict in your heart. You are a gentle and good child..."
"Perhaps that is why Sakura chose you, isn't it? To be the vessel for her power."
"I am just a Rembrance of Kallen Kaslana, a re echo, but even I can feel her deep, lingering concern for Yae Sakura."
"But after seeing you," she added, her voice growing softer, "I suspect the real Kallen would also feel relieved."
Kallen tilted her head back, the light of awareness gradually fading from her eyes, yet her smile never faltered.
"Then... there is a second thing I would like to ask of you."
With a final surge of effort, she forced her disintegrating body to lean forward, her lips brushing against his ear as she whispered her last request.
"Please, in Kallen Kaslana's stead... take good care of Yae Sakura."
"...I will." Rovel nodded, his voice firm as he gave his solemn promise.
"Thank you... Little Fox..." Kallen's voice was now impossibly faint, a ghost of a sound.
Rovel felt the strength in the hand gripping his own gradually weaken, the fingers going limp until her arm dropped completely to her side. The green data virus sward, spreading until it completely enveloped her in a cocoon of shimring code.
"[Rovel, this Data Space is collapsing. Fifteen seconds remaining,]" Bronya delivered a final, urgent warning.
"Let's go." Rovel stood, casting one last look at the place where Kallen had been, before turning his back on that world of digital ghosts and leaving with Kiana and Bronya.
In this nightmare of endless, repeating cycles, Kallen Kaslana would no longer exist.
"Rovel? Rovel!"
The mont his consciousness snapped back to his physical body, the world tilted violently. The accumulated strain, the borrowed power, the sheer psychic exhaustion—it all crashed down on him at once. He couldn't hold on. His vision swam, and before he could even register the familiar ceiling of the infirmary, he plunged into total darkness.
"A tutoring session! How in the hell does a tutoring session do this?" Hiko's voice was sharp with a mixture of frustration and disbelief.
In the span of just a few hours, the Honkai Energy erosion corrupting Rovel's body had climbed to a staggering seventeen percent.
And that was after ergency treatnt.
Otherwise, given the critical condition he'd been in when they pulled him out, his erosion levels might have soared directly past the thirty percent threshold—a point of no return for many. Erosion of the body by Honkai Energy was an almost irreversible process; Hiko knew this grim fact better than anyone.
At her side, Bronya and Kiana lowered their heads, a shared silence of guilt hanging between them.
"Hiko, don't say that." A voice, weak but steady, cut through the tension. Rovel pushed himself up from the hospital bed, his movents slow and deliberate. "I chose to stay there. I chose to change that world."
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, eting Hiko's stern gaze.
"The girl who gave this Stigma has a deep, complicated history with Kallen Kaslana. If I had abandoned her other self, even a data copy... the Stigma in my body might have rejected for it."
It was a plausible explanation, one rooted in the strange, symbiotic nature of his power.
"Mr. Ruobai..." A soft weight suddenly crashed against him. i's arms wrapped tightly around his neck, her body trembling as she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, her embrace a desperate expression of all her pent-up longing and worry.
"...Sigh." Hiko's brow twitched, but seeing the scene, her anger deflated into exasperation. "You're the patient, so I won't lecture you. But next ti you run into sothing like this, you find a teacher first! Understood?"
With that, Hiko turned and left the room, leaving them to their reunion.
"I'm fine, i. Just... too tired," Rovel murmured, gently patting her back in a soothing rhythm.
Kiana looked like she wanted to stay and watch the tender scene unfold, a curious glint in her eyes, but Bronya decisively grabbed her by the collar and pulled her from the room. The little couple was having an intimate mont; it was rude to stare.
"I'm sorry, i. I made you worry."
i didn't answer with words. She simply buried her head deeper into his chest and cried, her long-suppressed sobs finally breaking free. She clung to him, not stopping until the thin fabric of his patient gown was soaked through with her tears.
"Don't... don't do such risky things again," she pleaded, her voice muffled against his chest. "If Mr. Ruobai really loses the power of the Stigma, I... I will protect you. I just want Mr. Ruobai to be safe..."
"...Yeah." Rovel hesitated for a fraction of a second, the weight of his own path heavy on his mind, but he still nodded, holding her close. "I promise."
After they shared a few more monts of quiet warmth, i reluctantly pulled away, insisting he get so proper rest.
Once he was alone, Rovel summoned Jizo Mitama. He gently brushed his hand over the cold, dark steel of the blade. A familiar black mist imdiately perated the air around it, pulsing with a malevolent intent to erode him once more.
But this ti, sothing was different. The black mist swirled against his skin but was held at bay by an invisible barrier, unable to penetrate his body at all.
The true, terrifying power of Jizo Mitama was its ability to erode, a power that Higokumaru, the spirit within, held in check. To unleash it, one had to beco its conduit—a living vessel for the Power of Erosion, just as he had done to grant Kallen her release.
Looking at his current physical state, at the deep-seated exhaustion that went far beyond simple fatigue, Rovel understood the price. He had, at most, four more chances to use that power.
Perhaps even fewer.
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