The stars weren't falling. They were waiting.
Mei sat beneath them with her knees drawn close, staring into the endless celestial dark. A question surfaced despite every effort to suppress it: what if they were wrong? Joshua had never treated her like she was broken. Neither had the teacher. Even Blaze looked at her as though there were a person beneath the blood, scars, and weapons. But they didn't know everything—the missions, the bodies, the choices she had made. Eventually, they would learn, and then they would leave.
Her fingers tightened around her knees as the teacher's face returned to her. Not his death, but his eyes. She had been ten years old, standing over him with a knife, yet he hadn't looked afraid. He had looked sad. Why? The answer came before she could bury it again: because he had seen a child, a bruised, frightened child who had been given a weapon and told to kill or die.
Mei had spent years hating that girl, but if she found another child trapped in the same life, she knew exactly what she would do. She would save them. The realization twisted through her, forcing a question she'd spent years avoiding: if she would save someone else, why hadn't she been worth saving?
The answer didn't come. Instead, another memory surfaced—one far smaller, but somehow harder to dismiss. Rain had hammered against a rooftop while a starving stray huddled beneath a broken ledge. Mei had been carrying the last of her dinner, but she tore it in half and crouched beside the animal anyway. It hadn't cared about her past or demanded anything from her. It had simply eaten from her hand and stayed.
Her eyes burned as the memory faded. "I just wanted to be wanted."
Above her, the stars began to move. Gold and silver threads stretched across the darkness, connecting points of light into patterns she couldn't recognize. Somewhere within the celestial sea, the Celestial Heart pulsed in time with her breathing. Mei drew a slow breath and let it remain, and for the first time another possibility entered her mind: perhaps they wouldn't leave.
"Mei?"
She spun, her hand dropping instinctively toward the blade that wasn't there. Blaze stood at the edge of the clearing, breathing hard, while Joshua emerged from the trees behind him, his attention fixed on her. They had been looking for her.
"You've been gone too long," Blaze said.
"I'm fine."
The lie cracked before she finished saying it.
Joshua's eyes moved briefly to the tear on her cheek before returning to the sky. "The Celestial Heart is responding to you."
"It's residual energy."
"Mei." Blaze stepped closer. "You don't have to explain."
She looked at him. "I spent my whole life waiting for the end. I thought if I wasn't fighting, I wasn't useful."
Joshua's expression softened. "Then stop measuring your worth by what you can survive."
The words left her without an answer. Blaze held out his hand. "We're not going anywhere."
Mei stared at his palm. Trust was dangerous; she knew that better than anyone. But for once, no one was making the decision for her, so she reached out and took his hand.
The sky erupted into light as the celestial threads locked together, forming a vast constellation. Warmth flooded through her chest, and the pressure she had carried for years finally loosened. She didn't fight it. Blaze's grip tightened around her hand while Joshua laughed softly beside them, almost disbelieving.
Mei looked from one to the other, then up at the constellation. The past hadn't disappeared. The blood, the missions, and the frightened child with the knife were still part of her story, but they no longer had to determine what came next.
"I don't know who I'm supposed to be," she admitted.
Blaze smiled. "Then find out."
Mei looked toward the horizon, where dawn was beginning to burn through the celestial darkness. For two lifetimes, she'd survived whatever came next. This time, she wanted to see it, so she stepped forward with Blaze's hand still in hers and Joshua walking beside them.