---
The fire snapped quietly in the corner of the room, but its warmth didn't reach her. Anna lay still on the bench, eyes half-lidded, frost creeping higher along her braid, each breath shallower than the last.
A Naruto clone crouched beside her, both hands gently pressed to her back. He wasn't a healer — he knew that. But he pushed his chakra into her body anyway, trying to lend her warmth, to stall the freezing just a little longer.
"Stay with me," he whispered, sweat running down his temple. "They're coming."
Anna stirred, barely. Her lips parted, no sound. A tear slipped down her cheek, clear and cold. Somewhere in the haze, something deeper than the frost gripped her chest — not just fear… guilt.
She had trusted Hans.
She had fought her sister for him.
How could she have been so foolish?
She'd only known him for a day — but she'd believed in him, believed he could save her. And now she was dying in a room alone, because of that mistake. Because she had pushed away the only one who ever truly loved her — Elsa.
The clone's chakra flickered. He was running out of time.
He looked down at her, then closed his eyes.
"Hang on."
And with a quiet poof, he vanished.
---
Naruto gasped as the memory rushed into him. Standing in the cold stillness of Elsa's palace, he staggered, one hand braced against a pillar of ice.
The last moments of the clone came flooding in — Anna's skin pale, her lips nearly blue, that last flicker of thought in her eyes.
"She's not going to last much longer."
Elsa looked up from where she knelt beside a shattered railing, her fingers twisted into the icy floor.
"Anna?" she breathed.
Naruto turned to her, urgency in his eyes. "She needs you."
Elsa shook her head slowly. "I… I can't. I've only made things worse."
"You didn't mean to."
"That doesn't change it."
Naruto stepped forward. "She's freezing. Right now. Not because of your powers — but because of fear. Yours, hers… all of it. And if you don't face it now, she'll be gone."
Elsa's voice cracked. "But I can't control it."
"You don't need control," Naruto said, softer now. "You need to choose. Fear… or love."
Elsa's breath hitched. Then, slowly, she stood. Her hands were still trembling — but she moved forward anyway.
Far across the fjord, Kristoff leaned low over Sven's neck as the reindeer raced across the ice. The wind was brutal, snow slashing across his face. But none of it mattered.
He had left her.
He had turned back too late.
And now all he could think was one word: Please.
Beside him, a Naruto clone darted through the storm, his pace flagging but determined.
"She's in the castle!" the clone shouted. "If we don't make it in time—"
Kristoff gritted his teeth. "We will."
Anna wasn't just a girl he'd helped. She was more than that.
She had laughed at his awkwardness. She had believed in him.
And without ever meaning to… she'd taken/his heart.
Inside the room, the frost had begun to climb the walls.
Anna could no longer feel her hands. Her thoughts were slipping. But one clear image kept returning — Elsa, standing alone on that mountain, terrified of herself.
I blamed her. I left her. And now I understand.
The ice wasn't just on her skin. It was in her regrets.
The door creaked somewhere far off — or maybe that was her mind. She wasn't sure.
She wasn't afraid anymore.
She just hoped she'd get the chance to say she was sorry.
And maybe — to hold her sister's hand, just once more.
---