He and Rita Rossweisse stared at each other without another word. He kept his wary eyes on her as if she were a Honkai beast that had suddenly arrived to ambush him or an assassin lying in wait, but she did none of those things, and he loathed himself for seeing her in such ways.

Why are you here, Rita? No, the better question is why I am here.

Subconsciously or not, he had avoided her. Their paths seldom crossed. Even when they were in each other's proximity, neither acknowledged the other's presence, much less spoke. But it was a charade for them both. At Theresa's coronation ceremony in Kolosten, Rita had watched him as much as she watched Theresa. He in turn was acutely aware of her among the hundreds of other audience members. One way or another, their paths were always fated to cross again. It was only appropriate for it to be here.

Rita moved with none of the grace and elegance she once had. She stepped out of the darkness and closer to him. She was dishevelled. Her hair a mess. She looked nothing like the flawless maid he used to know. She turned to the roses growing beside her and gently stroked them with her gloved fingers. "Since you're here, you must remember the meaning of this garden and the flowers growing in it."

Johann felt his head nod and heard his voice answer. "I do. I could never forget. These flowers, these roses, are yours. You visited them before each mission you set out on. You cared for them because they reminded you of how gentle, delicate, and beautiful the world could be before you stepped into a far less beautiful one. They were always something beautiful for you to return to. The rose you left for me to find in my quarters aboard the Hyperion was grown here. Am I correct, Rita?"

She let her silence answer for her. She continued to touch the flowers with trembling fingers. They were a bright assortment of any colour he could name, and the forms they took were as beautiful as they were myriad. Red roses, white lilies, violet irises, pink chrysanthemums, blue hyacinths, purple lilacs, red lycoris, and so many more. By either a stroke of fortune or an act of divine mercy, the garden had been spared the devastation that ravaged the rest of the island during the Herrscher of Sentience's rampage.

Despite himself, he continued to speak. His memories, not only of the garden but also of its meaning, refused to release him from their grasp. "I followed in your footsteps. I also started growing flowers here in this garden and for the same reasons as you. One day, I gave you a bouquet of roses I had grown. You were injured during a mission, and I rescued you before flying you to the hospital here. Do you remember what happened after that?"

Rita remembered. She always would. "We found something new with each other that day," she said without turning to him.

Johann took a step closer. He sighed. "I don't know why I did it. Why I fell in love with the woman who killed my first love in that life. Her name was Lilika Kaslana. Before you came into my life, she made me happy. I believed the lie you and Otto told about her, that she was only using me. But now I know the truth."

Rita tightened her grip on the rose she held.

"Lilika was innocent," Johann said, his voice calm but with an edge to it sharp enough to stab into her heart. "She was innocent, and you murdered her. She was hardly the only innocent you ever killed. The three hundred at the beach are dead along with however many others you harmed before that day. Rita, if you have anything to say for yourself, please, say it now."

Rita crushed the rose in her grip. Bright red petals fell to the floor like the blood of the innocents she had spilled as she released them and turned to face him. Her heart was on the verge of breaking again, but she forced herself through the pain and answered. "I tried to save her." She saw and heard again the agony of the silver-haired woman pleading for Rita to end her suffering. "I did all I could…but it wasn't enough. She left me no choice but to give her what she wanted, and she wanted to die."

Johann was still. "And the three hundred at the beach?"

Rita forced the words out as the phone call replayed itself in her mind over and over again without fail. She had long memorized every last word of his accursed voice, so polite and yet so callous, ordering her as he had ordered her countless times before, requesting her to butcher three hundred innocents in a manner no different from how he would ask her to eliminate the same number of Honkai beasts. "The Overseer threatened your life. He was going to kill you, slowly and painfully, if I did not do exactly as he ordered. I was given a choice to make that day. You, the man I loved, or three hundred others."

"...Why? Why did you choose me? How was my life worth more than the lives of three hundred? Rita…"

She never answered. She stood and allowed him to judge her as he saw fit. She asked for no forgiveness, only understanding. Whether he accepted her words or not was his decision alone.

Rita's eyes, calm, resigned, and forlorn, were all he could see, and they pained him. Johann looked away to the roses beside him again. He reached over to one and gently ran his fingers over it. "Rita. I want you to know that I understand. I understand why you did the things you did. You did all that you could. Otto is to blame, not you. He treated us all like pawns on a board. Even the threat he made to my life was a hollow one because he knew I would revive in another cloned body. It was no great price for him to pay." Then his voice hardened. "But none of this excuses your actions at St. Freya."

This was inevitable. Rita always knew it would come to this. If she had not forgiven herself for the crimes she committed there, she did not expect Johann of all people to. Johann, the one who loved the ones Rita had hurt.

"What you did to Bronya and Fu Hua…" He shook his head. "That was your decision, not Otto's. I don't know if I can ever look at you the same way I used to. I loved you because I believed you deserved to be happy in spite of the things you did. But…"

"I know," she said. "What I did to Bronya was beyond forgiveness. I only wished to speak to you like this one last time before we parted ways for good. I also wish to thank you for asking Theresa to expose Otto's lies and reveal his true self to the world. His lies are finally at an end. Now, I have nothing left to live for except my duties to Theresa's Schicksal."

Despite everything, Rita's words pained him. He looked away. "I know. I'm glad we did. I'm glad your need for vengeance is finally settled…and so is mine. Goodbye, Rita." He turned to walk out of the garden surrounded by the roses they had once cared for together. His eyes would not leave them, nor could his memories stray from his failures to grow them for her until the day he finally succeeded and saw the results of his effort in full bloom. He stopped. "Rita, just know that I want you to be happy. I hope you can find it again like I have."

Rita watched him leave.

Thank you. I don't know if I ever will again, but someone like me deserves none. But you do. Have you?

—-

As he returned to his and Theresa's room, his emotions were in even more turmoil than when he first left it. He would have no sleep tonight, not that he thought it prudent for him to. Sleep was nothing more than a temporary escape from the burdens of life. It was fleeing from them, not confronting them. His body automatically made its way through the winding halls of the building until he finally opened the door to their room and stepped inside. Theresa was still peacefully at rest. He envied her blissful ignorance. He watched her serene face and felt even more lost.

Little captain, Sirin said to him, what do you truly want from your life?

You already know. I want to continue loving Theresa and helping her fight the Honkai and World Serpent. I want to make her happy.

Yes, you do. But even though you can hide the truth from yourself, you cannot hide it from me.

What can't I hide from you?

Sirin said no more that night. He stood still for a very long time. He saw the items of importance kept safe in their room. There was the ink painting of himself and all the others standing on the bridge of the Hyperion, their faces determined and strong. There was the red scarf in a neat pile on his desk. Next to it was a book on aerospace engineering and something else that caught his eye. He walked over and picked up the red rose preserved in a translucent sphere.

How many times have I looked at this rose and remembered what you meant to me, Rita?

Sirin was in the back of his mind, always watching, always wanting the best for him. He returned the rose to the desk, climbed into bed beside Theresa, and somehow managed to find sleep.

—-

Theresa enjoyed the breakfast of sweetened, stuffed chicken wings stuffed with mashed potatoes he made the next morning. She said that their sweetness and crispiness were both in perfect balance. He even prepared several bottles of bitter melon juice, her favourite choice of drink. There were no leftovers on her plate, which made the nearly untouched food on his all the more damning.

"Johann…"

He looked up, only just realizing he was supposed to be eating. His body required no food nor sustenance that his former organic bodies needed, but he still ate food because he enjoyed it and because it kept him human. Eating with others he cared for was one of the oldest aspects of human nature, and he was not about to abandon it.

"Why haven't you touched your food?" Theresa asked, her voice soft and concerned.

He prodded a wing with his fork. "I'm not that hungry. Not that I actually need to eat anything anymore."

"I've seen you enjoy your meals plenty of times since you came back. You never said you weren't hungry then," Theresa said, eyeing all the food he left uneaten. It was the same meal she once made for him at St. Freya. She had learned the recipe from Mei. She wondered why he chose to make the same meal today. "Does this have anything to do with the reason you got out of bed last night?"

"You knew?" Was I not careful enough? "I'm sorry if I woke you…"

Theresa shook her head. "I was still awake when you left."

"Oh. I couldn't sleep, either. So I went for a walk."

"Did you find what you needed to find?"

Johann did not immediately answer, causing Theresa to worry even more for him. When he spoke again, his words were slow and deliberately selected. "I couldn't sleep because there are so many things I can't stop worrying about. I don't know what I can do."

"There's always something we can do."

"I know. The problem is finding it." He sighed. "I saw Rita."

Theresa was alert. That name was no ordinary name to them. Theresa was well aware of the history between them, and a part of her feared their unhealed wounds that still festered. She spoke her next words carefully, acutely aware of the rose he always kept safe on his desk behind them. "I hope you came to an understanding with her."

"We did." Johann stood up, changing the subject as he cleared the table and placed his leftovers in the refrigerator, hoping his appetite would return to him later. When he sat back at the table, it was his turn to ask questions. "Theresa, why weren't you able to sleep last night, either? I thought things were going well. Better than they were, at least."

Theresa sighed. "They are. You can trust me when I say that. I'm a lot happier because of you and everyone else on this island. It feels like home. Almost like St. Freya, in fact. You know that I designed the rooms at St. Freya based on the ones here. But this doesn't mean our problems have gone away. Being Overseer isn't easy, as you know…"

"I know." His ten-year tenure as Overseer of Schicksal in Kallen's world was taxing even for him.

"I want Schicksal to be proactive, not reactive," Theresa continued. "I want to be ready before our enemies come. But I don't know how. World Serpent is…powerful. And so is the next Herrscher. Otto had the authority of Binding, meaning we shouldn't need to worry about that anymore, but according to the cycle of the Previous Era, the next will be Corruption, and given what you've told me about it, it won't be easy to stop. I'm not sure how anyone could prepare for it."

"Harden our computer systems. Be on the lookout for any abnormal levels of Honkai radiation within the population. Do not repeat the same mistakes our ancestors did." Johann thought of the unfortunate, innocent girl who became the Destroyer of Humanity. He mourned her fate even now.

Theresa stood from the table. "We'll do our best like we always have. With you at my side, I know we will. And we're never alone. Kiana, Mei, Bronya, Seele, Fu Hua, Welt, everyone is with us." She smiled.

Johann ran his hand through her silver hair and smiled back, hiding the extent of his unease from her. He felt something when she spoke those names, something he found difficult to name but also something that was not unwelcome.