Su was "technically" independent of organizations.
There were plenty of people who needed healing from the Honkai or disasters in general. The reconstruction efforts couldn't be everywhere, so a lot of people were living in the ruins of old cities in makeshift homes.
Healing and spreading medical knowledge was time consuming, but worth the efforts.
He still kept in contact with most of his old comrades.
The exception being...his old friend.
It was like rewinding to the time when he first disappeared. When he joined the MOTHs and they had lost contact.
When Kevin has first disappeared, he was admittedly worried. He wasn't sure what his old friend would choose to do. The Honkai were defeated, but it wasn't necessarily a permanent thing. Would he continue Project STIGMA?
Elysia, of course, didn't seem all that worried. "He's just going off on a little vacation~. It's been so long since he had a nice one after all~."
Even now, when his friend is joined with Elysia with St. Freya, Su has still not contacted him. What was it that stayed his hand, he wondered. Was it that he wasn't exactly the Su who was his best friend? Or was it because of his own failure to come up with effective ways to combat the Honkai infections and follow through with Project Stigma on his own? Or maybe even because Su couldn't see his best friend in the cold hearted warrior who had released him from the Elysian Realm?
Su didn't know for sure, and that just made him feel all the more guilty.
When Elysia had sent him the message of the gathering of Flamechasers, Su had been hesitant to accept, but ultimately, he was convinced.
Su had failed in understanding and supporting Kevin.
He would not do so again.
Sakura was quietly reading a book among cherry blossom Trees in a park.
The book she was reading? A light novel about a normal teenager sent to another world and becoming a hero in the process.
These light novels were quite useful in distracting her mind. She was in a new world, essentially, and her sister was gone.
It would be a lie to say she's accepted it. But she also sees the effect that her sister's death as caused to both Aponia and Kevin.
She wants to be spiteful. She wants to feel satisfaction.
But why is it, that all she feels is more sadness?
Ultimately, it was Elysia who helped her come to a decision.
At what point did Sakura fall in love with Kevin? She couldn't say for sure if it was that moment he stopped her blade or when she saw him freeze his divine key. She wouldn't say her love for him was like Mei's or Elysia's. It was more than respect, yet less than their love. Perhaps their feelings were the ones that were heavy, but perhaps her past as simply dulled her emotions to those outside of family too much.
Sakura was just tired. She was tired of killing and hurting and fighting.
She wanted to be with her family, yet the only family she had was a motley crew of personalities.
So maybe Elysia was right. Maybe they just had to lick each other's wounds to start healing.
Maybe she just needed a new family to devote herself to.
"Fufu~! He called me by my name again~." One would assume that being shut down at every turn would be discouraging, but not for Elysia. She was a girl who could get along with anyone after all~.
Kevin was indeed a different man than the one she knew, but in many ways he was still the same. He was still that caring young man who's heart bled for every death on his hands. He was their greatest warrior. Their leader. But ultimately, he was just a normal boy, and that was what lead him down this road. She had cursed him with her sacrifice. She had known what it would do to him, but she did so because out of everyone she knew, he was the best leader anyone could ask for.
She knew even without asking him. The reason the Kaslana house gained the ideal of destroying the Honkai and also protecting humanity as warriors. It was to prepare them mentally. To make sure they were settled on a path that Kevin couldn't bring himself to follow because it wasn't an effective defense.
She accepted his sins. How could she not? She was one of many who forced him into a role that was self destructive by nature. She may not approve, but that didn't mean she had any right to refute it entirely. She knew that he loved Mei more than he cared for humanity. She knew he never intended on being the Hero Leader they were forcing him to be.
Or maybe that was just her love for him speaking? It was easy to forgive someone you were close to after all. And for 50,000 years she had spent time with the Kevin whose heart hadn't been shattered. Unfortunately, for all her attempts in that large timeframe, she never quite succeeded in seducing Kevin's sim. But that just made her love him more for his devotion to someone who wasn't even there. He really was every girl's dream.
Some would call her odd for pining over an uninterested man, but it was that disinterest that fascinated her so much. It wasn't the reason she loved him, of course. But it was just another thing she loved about him.
Like his cravings for ramen. And how he used to peak at her chest and ass when she wasn't looking. But naturally, a beautiful girl like herself always knows when the boy she loves is looking at her.
She didn't quite think Kevin realized this, but despite having been a sim, she was more like the Elysia he knew than he thought. At the same time, he was right that she wasn't.
The ending of Honkai had done strange things. Su and Aponia had the closest insight to it all, but long story short, the sims 'souls' and the real them 'souls', had merged. Something about the samsara cycle not having them around despite them dying in the previous and how that changed things.
It went over her head by her own choice. Because really, it hardly mattered to her. She was the Elysia who forced Kevin to kill her. She also held memories of spending 50,000 years with him(and company). She was the one who Kevin wondered should have lived in his place, even if it meant separating from Mei even sooner.
Kevin wasn't the type to be pushed around into what he didn't want(ie, being with her). If he had joined St. Freya with her, it was because a part of him wanted to let himself be healed by her. Or was willing to let her try and heal him anyways.
She couldn't quite heal him with a threesome with his lover, but she could get close enough.
Kevin believed he simply lost the ability to feel happy. Or that he didn't have the right to be happy. That was what she gathered from their last conversation.
The best way to prove him wrong was to feel connected to her. And others. She thought that Kevin's Mei wouldn't mind. The woman had always been more open to their relationship than Kevin liked to pretend. Between her weaker body, dated lifespan, and simply being unable to touch Kevin, she had always been of the thought that Kevin should be with the other MANTIS soldiers even if it were just sexually, as they were more than capable of touching him for longer periods of time. It was because she loved Kevin that she didn't want him to cage himself.
And it was because Elysia loved her two friends that she would make sure that one could rest peacefully watching over him, and that the other could live peacefully.
The bigger problem was simple. Who did she have a threesome with?
It wasn't as light of a problem as it seemed. If she seduced Kevin alone, it would be easy for him to brush it off as her being her.
But if he realized the love he still had, even if Mei's presence wasn't physical?
That would be harder. Kevin liked to pretend, but he didn't choose to ignore.
So does she choose Eden? Her dear friend who was admired by Kevin and soothed him with her voice, winning him over the normal way. Or does she choose Aponia, who Kevin is wary of but understands is a huge softie, and can cheat by linking their minds mentally and have him understand their love faster?
Ah, decisions decisions. She would have to remind Kevin later on to thank her for putting so much thought into getting him laid.
Pick your votes, Eden or Aponia folks
Also, yes, Sakura reading LNs is a joke about Yae Miko