The end of the world shouldn't be this quiet.

Senti could never abide by silence, even when all she had for company was her own mind. There was just something inherently obscene about modest stillness. And here and now, it seemed so very wrong. So many had fought, bleed, broke and died across countless years, just to give humanity a chance against Honkai, this eternal force of destruction that seeks to tear down all that was beautiful and worthwhile in this ugly world. They did so much, sacrificed everything -

So much pain, so much loss.

If civilisation is fated to fall, and all things come to an end... then it at least give them a grand exit, something that those who come after could marvel in awe at, pay respect to - something. Anything. Not this. Never this.

Senti carefully controlled her breathing out of sheer habit - not that she needed to or can breathe on the Moon - and carefully husband the last of her power, her birthright, and gingerly let her mind roam out, probing, searching, sensing.

So quiet. Silence. Dead silence.

Moments ago this place seethed with life as it never did across the lonely aeons on this barren patch of sheer nothingness. Now only a few sparks remained, fluttering in the darkness. The fields of the Final Battle in their laughably misnamed War of Deliverance - in this empty expense of the Lunar Seas are not measured in metres but in wrecks of men and machine alike. It is a field of ancient Lunar dust and fresh ashes from distant Earth, of shattered hopes and stark despair. Clouds of burning smoke and melting flesh choked the non-existent atmosphere, plumes of dark fumes and fetid stink, blooming like flowers in the vacuum. Screams and whimpers of the dying and the dead, lost to the vacuum as the void choked out even this last sign of life trying to hold on in the face of inevitable death.

The Earth hangs over the horizon, a bright blue jewel marred by ugly red scars visible even from the Moon, testament that humanity had already lost before the battle even began. There was little enough left to save.

Anyone sane would flee this hell. And yet - thousands - tens of thousands - came when the call came. Even as the Lunar landscape could not bear the wrath of the Herrscher of the End and cracked and cratered from her divine rage - somehow, humanity endured.

Even now what's left of the First and Only were firing back at the Void Queen from the burning hulks of their lunar landers, and a little distant, forming an admirable overlapping field of fire were the assault guns mounted on the squat and misshapen Lunar Rovers of the Workers and Peasants' Red Army, a swarm of cosmonauts in bulky space suits loading shells by hand even as the deathly miasma of the Final Herrscher visibly slowed and killed them one by one. All to draw her attention away from the crashed Throne of Selene, brought down within minutes of when the battle was joined, her sailors, engineers, officers and anyone still able to move dying from radiation poisoning overloading the honkai energy reactors for one last shot.

It might as well be pinpricks for all the damage it was doing to that thing.

One by one the sparks of sentience winked out in silence. The assault gun battery roared one last time as the last living loader stumbled and felled, his dying body pushing the shell into the lock - and the machine ever so faithfully primed the charge and fired. And then fell silent one last time. Across the field of fire the First and Only was already buried alive, bodies and arms fused with their burning machines as the Final Herrscher crushed them with the very earth itself. Overhead, a formation of a trio of drones and a manned spacecraft had exhausted the last of their missiles and were now firing their last thrusters and accelerating towards the Void Queen, only to fly straight into a void portal and slammed into each other.

Dammit, let them be heard, one last time.

Senti found what she needed to find, and withdrew the slivers of her power she let leak out. She knew with a cold certainty that there was no victory to be had this day.

It was only ever a fool's hope that they stood a chance against that thing that now towered over the field of the dead and the dying like a pillar of malice. Men and machine rallied, but what care did a goddess have for the rage of insects? Her grip tightens on the haft of her spear. It felt cracked and weak, as if another blow with it and it would shatter. It shouldn't even have been possible for a prime arm forged with the full power of a Herrscher from pure Honkai energy, but what did the Void Queen care for what was or wasn't possible?

Oh, and I had thought the Old Timer a fool. I thought I could win in her place. I thought it would be easy.

Senti felt laughter bubbling up, unbidden. A fool's hope - she was the biggest fool of them all, and she had always been, and she let the glamour cloaking her form from the consciousness of any living being drop.

Fu Hua blinked at her through glazed eyes, and had the nerve to smile, tentative and fragile, fraying at the edges before Senti's eyes. "You're okay..."

Senti smiled back, only without any trace of warmth, and thrusted her spear out, cracked point barely an inch from Fu Hua's throat. At this distance and held fully extended, a spear is hardly a threat, especially against someone wearing Godsbane armour, but it was the thought that counted. "I didn't come for you."

Fu Hua had the nerve to look confused for a moment, then her eyes cleared. Even in armour that's falling to pieces before Senti's eyes, a broken arm an ugly gash on her face and every visible inch of her body palid with honkai corruption and necrotic flesh, she struck an overwhelming figure. Hua drew a steadying breath, and then, her voice calm with finality, "I am ready, Xiǎo Shí."

Why did she seem to suddenly tower over Senti? She's on one knee - and they're the same height anyway.

Dimly Senti heard someone scream, or cried, or pleaded at the Old Timer - she couldn't tell anymore, "Ready for what? Kiana is gone, Bronya is in five pieces, Mei is dead, Durandal got collapsed into her own pocket universe, KEVIN is dead, they're ALL DEAD! And that pile of scrap Selene won't do any better this time than 50,000 years ago! You do remember how it ended, right? Or has long overdue senility finally taken what's left of your mind?"

Oh, that was me.

Senti felt the chain around her heart tighten, and a small thought appeared, light as a feather, drifting in the sea of her sentience.

The Hyperion, Xiǎo Shí. Doctor Einstein will activate the Eye of the Deep and let the Hyperion cross into the Sea of Quanta. The last hope of humanity.

A pause.

The last of humanity.

Senti's thoughts centred at that, all her thoughts homing back to a single point of focus, rage burning hot as the Sun exploded within her. She wanted to wipe that sickening look of determination off her face. She wanted her to choke on her own nobility and duty. She wanted to break her. Senti thrusted the spear forward, hard enough to draw blood, "If you are so dead set on dying, I'll kill you myself!"

Fu Hua walked forwards, gently pushing the spear aside, and smiled. There's nothing left of her confusion or uncertainty, or even her disgusting nobility. There is only - serenity. This was not her Old Timer. This was not Fu Hua. This was not even the 12th Flame-Chaser or the Azure Empyrean. This was Hua, stripped to her essentials, a phoenix that will burn itself to ashes again, again, and again, until there is nothing left. The hero the world never deserved.

Why is she smiling?

Fu Hua was close enough now, she tentatively put a hand on Senti's cheek, her thumb brushing off a tear.

Huh? A tear?

"I have lived for 50,000 years. I bore witness to the end of my world. I saw all my friends die - and I have the misfortune to see it come to pass again. But none of that matters. I would walk the path again - that is my duty - even so..." Fu Hua drew a shuddering breath and closed her eyes, "Xiǎo Shí, there's nothing I want more than to keep our promise." The words came out, barely a whisper. "But..."

And she shoved.

The last thing Senti saw as she fell through the portal was dark translucent wings springing from the Old Timer's back, her form distorting and deforming as she flew towards her end. And oh that's so very wrong. Hua should be a phoenix, a fire bird, not some fell Honkai beast -

Who's screaming?

Senti's body hit something cold and hard, and she bounced like a ragdoll.

Someone should check on that.

Senti tried to push herself up - but all her strength had left her arms as she collapsed once more on the deck.

So that's the sound a heart makes when it breaks.

Author's Notes:

One of the arc words of the recently wrapped up Elysium Everlasting storyline was - Character determines destiny. That people will make the same choices, again, and again.

I am sure you all know where this is going for somebody like Fu Hua. She may have been freed from her duty - or mission as the original translation was, but let's not kid ourselves, this is Fu Hua, and just because she doesn't HAVE to shoulder a burden doesn't mean she won't pick it right back up. That's what she did when she literally lost all memories in Shenzhou Shattered Sword... and that's what she did right after Shattered Samsara. When it comes right down to it, the world of Honkai is as such that it never was a question of Fu Hua letting go of the shackles of fate and duty, it's a question of who was to take up that duty. If she doesn't, then somebody else will have to.

And our bird was never going to let that happen, especially not if that somebody is likely to be somebody she cares about deeply.

So - she is unlikely to have a happy ending in the rapidly approaching endgame.

The only way she could escape her duty is if somebody drags her away from it, kicking and screaming - or change the world so much that they could win without so much sacrifice.

Oh, hi, Senti, didn't see you there.

This chapter was written while listening to a Chinese cover of Ashes ( 4nIfZCYdy5E ).

There'll probably be a song for every chapter, I've already made a playlist.

I have the story plotted out, and if schedule permits I want to update twice a month. The length is tentatively 23 chapters, including prologue and epilogue, I guess we'll see if I can keep this up.