Walking through the Herta Space Station, Twilight surveyed the familiar scenery, feeling a wave of emotion.
This time, it was finally coming to an end.
Come to think of it, the time she had survived in this universe was already several hundred times longer than the combined ages of all her predecessor incarnations and her original self. Although most of that time was spent AFK, it didn't stop her age from increasing.
And even disregarding the offline sleep time, combining the early self-sufficient rewinds and dream-idling time still amounted to over a hundred years.
Even so, Twilight felt no attachment to this world. Honestly, she just wanted to leave quickly...
After all, in this world, she was almost constantly trying to find ways to change the future outcome, and not only did she always fail, but a certain dear Aeon was always hovering over her head with a bow and arrow, just waiting for the appointed time to shoot.
Excluding the AFK auto-play, besides the idling time in the Dream of Unity [Ena] which barely counted as leisure, the rest of her days were the furthest state imaginable from a peaceful life. Therefore, expecting Twilight to feel any attachment to this world was truly asking too much of her.
But it didn't matter now, because she could finally die... Both from a lore perspective and for her personally, this was something worth celebrating.
For a Twilight who deeply loved everyone on the Express crew, if there was a possibility to continue living and traveling with everyone, she would naturally try. But if death was truly the only ending, then that was also a good thing.
After all, she had lived too long. Although through constant repetition, aeons had passed.
Hundreds of millions of years... Even for the universe, this wasn't a number easily erased, let alone for civilizations, for people.
Those ancient Aeons, excluding beings like Terminus who were difficult to measure by time, even venerable ones like the Amber Lord were far younger than her.
And younger ones like Nanook, the Aeon of Destruction, were merely fledgling brats of a few thousand years. Although Twilight's strength still couldn't match theirs, she had already lived longer than all of them.
Endless repeating cycles, unchangeable endings, being killed again and again... For any existence, this could practically be considered torture.
Therefore, anyone experiencing such things would eventually develop the same emotion, simply put—tired, annoyed, didn't want to live anymore. Thus, after trying and failing to eliminate her past self, Twilight felt no aversion towards heading towards death.
If there was any regret, perhaps just a slight one.
Twilight subconsciously glanced towards Herta's lab. Honestly, she had once considered asking Herta to create a puppet or something based on her original self, to leave behind for Caelus and the others. But after careful consideration, she abandoned the idea.
Firstly, after erasing her own existence, whether this puppet could even exist was questionable. Secondly, she worried that while creating this thing might provide a momentary burst of gold coins, it would lead to immense trouble later...
After all, substitute character tropes always end up burning the original character in the end. Twilight still wanted Caelus to not even dare see her later. If she created a puppet, when the Star Rail world eventually merged with Blue Star, some trouble would definitely arise. Just thinking about it gave her a stomachache.
Sighing softly, Twilight's figure vanished from the spot, reappearing the next moment beside Caelus, who had been sneakily following her. "Looking for me?"
"!?"
Effortlessly dodging the instantly swung baseball bat, Twilight appeared before Caelus with a bright smile. "Quick reaction, very good, very good~"
Unfortunately, this level of strength is still completely insufficient before me now. Dodging was merely to give the kid a sense of accomplishment... Sigh, later I still have to find a way to get killed by him. How can I make throwing the fight seem less obvious?
"Who exactly are you!"
Hearing Caelus's question, Twilight smiled helplessly.
Whether rewinding time or reincarnating, the unavoidable problem was repeatedly answering questions already answered countless times, watching friends' attitudes towards oneself gradually become unfamiliar and wary. And when directly rewinding from one point in time to a much earlier one like Twilight did, the situation became even more pronounced.
Just over ten minutes ago, she was cheerfully strolling with Caelus on Jarilo-VI, but now she was being warily treated as a mortal enemy with a baseball bat. The disparity was undeniably huge.
Twilight hated riddles and didn't want to be a riddle-maker herself, but the current situation left her no choice. This was the Herta Space Station, not some backwater like Jarilo-VI. As the starting point for the Astral Express—more accurately, for the protagonist Caelus—if she revealed her power and identity here and did too much, it would genuinely affect the worldline.
Then she'd have to start all over again...
"An elder once told me, a secret makes a woman woman. Don't you think?"
Though technically, Himeko would tell her this in the future.
Unfortunately, Caelus clearly had no patience for riddle-makers. His attitude remained sharp. While questioning why Twilight killed Twilight, the baseball bat in his hand was constantly ready to smash down hard on her head.
"Such a stern gaze, Caelus..." Looking at Caelus's fierce eyes, Twilight could do nothing but smile. "Now is not the time for you to know everything. As for why I killed Twilight, I can only tell you..."
After a moment's silence, regret flashed in Twilight's eyes. "Because she deserved to die."
There was no falsehood in these words. As long as Twilight appeared, she would inevitably embark on the journey with Caelus, eventually experiencing various events leading to the current situation. And in the end, it wouldn't just be her dying; the entire Express crew would be dragged down with her.
"Continuing like this, you will only be dragged into the abyss by her—so I will kill her. It's for everyone's good."
The hostility in Caelus's eyes intensified, but Twilight just wanted to say he was overthinking things. After all, the one she intended to kill now wasn't her past self, but her current self. It was just that the current him clearly couldn't understand this yet.
He just frowned tightly, raising his baseball bat towards Twilight. "As long as I have breath left, I won't possibly let you harm Twilight!"
"Caelus, I'm doing this for your own good..."
Twilight wanted to explain further, but seeing the determination in Caelus's eyes, she knew the current Caelus, though not yet completely hooked by that other self, wasn't far off. Thus, at least at this stage, she didn't need to say much more.
"Do you hate me?"
"Of course!"
"But I like you very much."
Caelus's expression froze.
Clearly, having been born not long ago, he had never encountered a situation where a beautiful older sister, supposedly an enemy, suddenly smiled and confessed to him.
But ultimately, the soul of a pure love warrior seemed to prevail over his wavering heart. He blushed crimson and retorted angrily at Twilight, "Enough! Stop trying to trick me! Don't think you can fool me just by acting seductive—I hate you intensely! I don't want to see your face ever again!"
Rest assured, you won't see it again later~
"Is that so? I'm sorry..."
Twilight's eyes lowered slightly. Then, just as Caelus felt a pang of guilt, wondering if he should apologize, she gently touched her hair, pushing out jade-like leaves that formed a mask covering her face. "It's okay. Next time we meet, I'll be sure to wear a mask properly."
Conveniently wearing a mask could also prevent Caelus from suddenly acting on his old pervert nature and being unwilling to deliver the killing blow.
"...You better go far away! We don't want to see you again!"
Kind words warm for three winters; harsh words injure for six months, Caelus~ Also, hope you remember this sentence and truly don't break your promise when you get to Blue Star!
As for Twilight? She was always obedient. Since Caelus said he didn't want to see her again, of course, she had to comply.
"Hehe, rest assured, Caelus... This is the last time."
The last time farming favorability. And after this, came the wool-shearing segment...
Flashing beside Caelus, Twilight gently pushed down the hand wanting to swing the baseball bat, lightly flicked Caelus's head to daze him, and then—Eat her kissing artifact!
My past self, remember this humiliation of being NTR'd well!
Unfortunately, her past self couldn't yield gold coins; otherwise, Twilight really wanted to not even spare herself...
Before heading to the final location, Twilight thoughtfully lured Welt, who was originally guarding the home base, away from the Astral Express, leaving ample performance space for Caelus and her past self when facing the Doomsday Beast.
But this was the last thing she could do. Other setbacks had to be overcome independently by her past self—though come to think of it, all the setbacks she truly suffered seemed to be personally caused by herself...
Stepping across into the room containing the cryo-pod, Twilight looked down at her own past face within the glass.
At this time, she was still sleeping happily, completely unaware of what her future self was bitterly struggling through...!
Sighing softly, Twilight silently took out a blade from her sleeve.
Waiting for someone else to kill you, yet having to prepare the weapon yourself... She must be the first, right? After all, Caelus's bladeless baseball bat couldn't pierce anyone to death...