He Who Feels Guilt [Honkai: Star Rail]

Narrator's Pov

"He's right"

Cocolia straightened herself holding tightly what remained of her left arm, she looked directly at Bronya who returned the gaze.

"I want to witness your choice" Cocolia wave a step forward. "I have already told you what I needed to, the Stellaron has shown you its promise, what could give to us! Choose, my daughter..."

The air seemed to get colder when she finished talking, on the distance, the trailblazers alongside their friends seemed anxious to know the girl's answer.

Bronya looked to the ground, trying to come up with the correct words for what she really wanted, her gaze went to the trailblazers, the ones that had apparently went through hell to reach the stellaron, then she looked towards Ryan at her side, who still held the sword in front of her, the one that probably knew the best about how she was feeling, and then she looked at Cocolia, the woman who had given everything to her since she was a child.

"...Madam Cocolia... I'm grateful for everything you have given to me, for everything you have taught me and shown me..." She made a small pause getting herself ready for what she had to said. "But I cannot stand with you this time..."

She gave a few steps forward, Ryan made the ethereal sword dissapear letting Bronya get closer to her mother but still having some distance between them.

"Letting this seed of ruin control our fate is wrong, our ancestors built this city, I have seen the world promised by the Stellaron, there's peace, happiness and beauty...but no world should be constructed over corpses, mother" she looked directly at Cocolia's eye with determination. "Even if this world is doomed to fall apart, humanity should be the one to pave their way to its final outcome"

"I see..." Cocolia spoke softly closing her eyes. "So that's your choice"

"We are guardians Mother!" Bronya rose her voice "Our duty is to preserve the world built by Humanity! We are neither Gods nor Arbiters...I cannot let you do this"

"I understand Bronya..." She opened her eyes looking coldly at her daughter. "A pity...such a pity that you will never see the new world in all its glory...you know? You were meant to be the mother of the new world...but now? You will become the foundations for it"

The woman opened her right hand, a glow formed on her palm as an Ice Lance appeared on her hand, said lance glowed lightly as she pointed it upwards, the ground started to shake making the group momentarily loose their balance, Cocolia slowly started to fly upwards while a huge shadow slowly rose up hiding behind the blizzard.

"The future of Belobog will now unfold in our hands!" Cocolia rose up her hand as the Enormous Robot showed itself behind her. "Rise, Engine of Creation!"

"It's huge!" March screamed out.

"That's what she-" Stelle got cut off by Seele.

"Not now!"

The Engine of Creation leaned slightly down towards the group, resting one hand on the side of the platform they were in while his other hand rose to the hair before falling directly towards them throwing a punch.

The group quickly moved out of the way letting the huge robot punch the ground making it shake a bit while also cracking the ground, as the Engine of Creation slowly pulled his hand up again, Ryan quickly ran towards the hand and jumped stabbing the robot's huge hand with one of his ethereal katanas using it as a handle so he would be lifted up with the help of the hand.

"Ryan!" Stelle called out looking at the white-haired boy.

"Fragmentum Monsters incoming!" Bronya screamed quickly joining the others.

Various monsters from the Fragmentum started to appear and come out of various places, as the group started to fight against the monsters, Ryan jumped from the hand of the Engine of Creation and used some magic circles as platform to help himself teach the opposite shoulder of the huge robot, where Cocolia stood, the blonde woman frowned at the boy still holding the Ice Lance in her right hand.

"Out of respect for Bronya, I'm saying this only once" Ryan spoke while he created another ethereal Katana in his right hand. "Yield now and stop this"

"Your empty words mean nothing" she pointed the lance towards Ryan.

Ryan closed his eyes for a few seconds before looking directly at the woman, he immediately ran towards Cocolia, she made a sweep to the air with the Ice Lance throwing a wave of ice towards Ryan, the white-haired boy quickly jumped upwards, but from that ice wave various spikes came out flying directly towards him, reacting quickly he created a magic circle blocking the ice spikes but he quickly turned around seeing Cocolia behind him ready to stab him with the Lance he had to block the attack with his ethereal Katana but the strength was too much and destroyed his weapon but fortunately didn't get to stab him as the attack pushed him down to the shoulder of the robot.

He quickly spun in the hair landing on his feet, he looked up and gave a few steps back avoiding Cocolia who stabbed the lance to the floor, she frowned and tightened her grip on the lance, various ice spikes grew around her forcing Ryan to jump back to dodge, she pointed her lance towards the white-haired boy and those same spikes separated from the metal flying towards Ryan.

The moon spirit growled a bit and started to run towards the woman, he created various ethereal swords around him throwing them towards the Ice spikes making these destroy mutually, Cocolia tightened her grip on the lance and ran towards Ryan throwing a stab with her weapon, the boy quickly dodged to the side and made an ethereal katana throwing a downwards cut to Cocolia who quickly moved her lance blocking the katana, Ryan frowned and made the katana disappear, his hands continued their way down and he made another katana on his hands this time throwing an upwards slash that made Cocolia lean backwards to dodge.

The woman jumped backwards and waved her lance twice throwing two waves of ice towards Ryan who made a magic circle under his feet and waved both hands throwing a wave of fire directly towards Cocolia, the fire quickly engulfed the ice waves melting it and going towards the woman that was thrown backwards by the wave of fire, as the fire died down Ryan again ran towards her making the woman wave the lance creating an Ice wall between them.

The boy growled lowly and created an ethereal katana this time in his left hand, he threw some quick slashed destroying the Ice wall...only to see Cocolia with a smile as she held the bright glowing Stellaron in her right hand.

On the platform, Stelle turned around hitting an Icespawn with her bat destroying it in a single hit, the group heard a small explosion and she looked up to the shoulder of the Engine of Creation, her expression with worry as she saw Ryan falling from the shoulder towards them apparently after being blown backwards by the explosion.

"Guys!" Stelle called out to her friends.

"On it!"

Seele responded quickly and jumped up teleporting quickly towards the airborne Ryan, she managed to catch him in her arms and then teleported back down taking the boy with her to the group.

"What the-"

Seele looked a bit confused and worried at Ryan, who seemed to now have some golden veins growing on him, said veins were around his neck apparently growing from his chest, and these were also growing on his arms getting close to his hands, the boy grunted a bit as he moved, and stood on his own stumbling slightly.

"Ryan-" Stelle approached.

"I took a direct attack from the Stellaron" he grunted a bit taking a hand to his chest. "...what the hell did that thing do to me?"

"You what?!" March asked as she shoot and arrow at a firespawn freezing it completely.

"It was Cocolia, She-"

Ryan quickly cut himself off lifting up his hand, creating a magic circle above all the group to cover them from a shower of ice shards that almost fell on them, after the attack finished and the magic circle dissapeared the group looked upwards, seeing Cocolia flying above them, her appearance now changed almost completely.

Her body now looked completely black accompanied by purple and blue colors as similar to an endless universe, ice had grown all over her legs, arms and chest, around her head, ice had grown in the shape of a crown, while her face now was non-existent and was replaced by her new skin, her long blonde hair cascaded down her back completely loose, and now, various copies of the Ice Lance she had created before surrounded her.

"Mother..." Bronya looked in disbelief at the new form of her mother who lifted up her hand.

"Engine, Break Them!"

The enormous robot slowly rose up his left arm ready to throw a punch towards the group, fortunately, a red beam fell from the sky, piercing the Engine of Creation's arms making it go off and fall down to the ground, Cocolia let out a growl as she looked up at the sky.

March's phone started to ring and the girl quickly answered the phone.

"Hello? Can you guys hear me? The reception is awful" the voice of Himeko came through the phone.

"Himeko?! Was that you?" Stelle asked a bit impressed.

"Yep~ anyways, how does that big guy work? Or better, how do you stop it?"

"Do you have any ideas Himeko?" March asked as she looked at her phone.

"A few...but I'll let you figure it out~ good luck!"

"Wait aren't you going to help us?!" Stelle asked a bit alarmed

"This is your trailblazing expedition, that laser was just an accident, my finger slipped~ anyways, good luck guys, Welt and I will be watching from up here" with those last words she hung up on the call.

"That... didn't seem helpful" Seele groaned a bit.

The Engine of Creation's arm started to slowly rose from the ground, Stelle looked directly towards Cocolia who slowly rose up to float besides the head of the robot, the trailblazer looked towards the apparently weakened Ryan and let out an angry growl and started to run climbing on top of the robot's left arm.

"I'm Bonking that bitch!"

"Bronya! Cover her! There're still monsters coming, Ryan can you recover?" Dan Heng ordered and then looked at the white-haired boy.

"I tried...but healing magic is just making it worse" he grunted as he stopped healing himself showing that the golden veins had just grown more.

"Ryan, your unusual energy seems disrupted and another unknown energy is infecting it" Svarog spoke as he shot a few missiles at some Fragmentum Monsters.

"Stellarons are able to disrupt the flow of Imaginary Energy, if it can do the same to your magic..." Dan Heng frowned a bit.

"Another attack like that could tear me apart" he let out a small growl as the veins grew slightly. "I'll try to not use magic"

As the group continued fighting against the Fragmentum monsters, Cocolia watched from the shoulder of the Engine of Creation, her gaze directed towards Bronya who silently returned the gaze before resuming on killing the Fragmentum Monsters, the woman grabbed one of the various lances that surrounded her and got ready to throw it directly towards the group.

The woman had to quickly turn around and use the lance in her hand to deflect the direct hit from a baseball bat, Stelle stumbled backwards as she was pushed back by Cocolia's lance, the woman looked directly at the girl in front of her and tightened the handle of the Lance, this wasn't the nonchalant and stupid girl that she thought she was.

This one was mad.

Stelle started to run towards the woman who simply waved her hand making various ice spikes fly towards the grey haired girl, Stelle grabbed her bat with both hands to directly hit the spikes, her strength being enough to destroy the ice spikes or defelct some of them.

The girl jumped towards the woman, her bat glowing brightly in a mix of gold and silver as she held it tightly with both hands, Cocolia rose up the lance she had on her hand blocking Stelle's weapon, the girl tried to break the lance with her bat putting more strength in her attack managing to slightly crack the Ice lance, Cocolia pushed the girl away throwing her backwards.

Cocolia grabbed a second lance with her regenerated arm and buried both of them against the shoulder of the Engine of Creation, from both lances came out a bunch of ice that formed two parallel walls around Stelle, the girl growled looking towards the transformed woman go created another copy of her lance and slid the top across the shoulder of the Robot making Ice start growing directly towards Stelle like a wave.

The girl grabbed her bat again with both hands, as it started to glow she gave a step forwards hitting the wave of ice, the strength was enough to completely stop the attack, her weapon also tore apart the ice thrown at her breaking apart the wave of ice, unfortunately between all the shards of ice thrown around by her attack, she didn't get to react properly when an Ice Lance went flying through all of them directly towards her.

Directly piercing her abdomen.

Her body was thrown backwards by the force behind the throw of the Lance, she felt all her strength leaving her entire body at once, her body went off from the shoulder of Engine of Creation, the Lance piercing her body through and through, she could only see the sky of Jarilo-VI as her body fell to the ground, and the moment she close her eyes.

The depths of the universe engulfed her.

★ ★ ★

A/N: Okay, this is today's chapter, at least I didn't take 2 months to update, I'm definitely having some trouble specifically about the end of the fight which has been slowing down my own writing of the fight, I'm solving it out slowly and making up a choice, since I have various ideas, but anyways.

Hope you all enjoyed the chapter