After leaving Mondstadt, Ji An ran at full speed, occasionally glancing back at Rosalyne closing the distance behind him.
Even going all out with a head start, the gap between them kept shrinking.
She runs fast. And she can glide on ice. Is that not a bit unfair?
Rosalyne, you told me you couldn't fight!
A light sweat broke across his back.
His legs were starting to burn too.
We've been moving long enough. This spot will do.
Ji An reached a large tree and stopped.
He put his hands behind his back and waited for the person behind him to catch up.
Before long, a gust of wind came from behind him, carrying fine ice shards that stung his back and made him flinch.
Rustle, rustle.
Footsteps on grass, slow and uncertain, advancing a few steps and then stopping.
A long silence.
Then the woman's voice behind him, slightly unsteady: "Rostam... is that you?"
Ji An said nothing.
He stood with his hands behind his back, facing away from Rosalyne, projecting the demeanor of a man with all the answers.
Outwardly, steady as a stone.
Inwardly, his mind was running at full speed, trying to figure out what to do.
This was not something he had prepared for.
He had never imagined he would come face to face with Rosalyne like this.
Back in the cathedral, just before he walked out the door, he had sensed that icy power outside and held back. He had observed through a gap, ready to call for help if things turned dangerous.
And then he had seen that golden-haired woman approaching with that unhurried, swaying gait, and completely lost his composure.
That was Rosalyne.
His memory from the simulation was still fresh. The face was unmistakable, even if the figure was somewhat different from what he remembered.
He had quickly checked with the system and confirmed that the exclusive bond A Maiden's Longing had indeed been triggered.
But what was going on? Five hundred years ago she had been an ordinary girl from Mondstadt. How had she survived until now, and how had she ended up as a leader of the Fatui?
While he was still turning this over, the Fatui outside had already seized Lumine and Paimon. Rosalyne, wielding her control over ice, had beaten Venti badly and torn something called a Gnosis from his body.
Ji An couldn't stay put any longer. He knew he had to do something, and he was the only one who had any chance of stopping Rosalyne.
He slipped out through the cathedral's side door, used Arcane Transmutation to change into his mask and battle robe, and climbed up to the roof.
And that was how that scene had played out.
---
Seeing Ji An stay silent, Rosalyne's expression became pained and began to fracture with doubt. She shook her head.
"No. You can't be him."
"Rostam died long ago. The poisonous blood dissolved what remained of him. I lost him forever."
"Then who are you? Why are you impersonating him?"
Her emotions were spiraling. Power leaked from her without her noticing, and frost began to spread across the ground around her.
Ji An turned around. His eyes behind the mask found hers, and he said quietly:
"Rosalyne. It's been a long time."
At the same moment, he subtly activated Favonius Bladework: Young Wolf's Momentum, letting the melancholic yet blade-sharp temperament of the swordsmanship surface through his bearing.
Rosalyne went still. She stared at him, and the last of her doubt dissolved.
"Rostam... it really is you." Her voice was barely above a breath. "Am I dreaming?"
Ji An gave a small nod: "It's me."
"But how could you..."
Rosalyne's lips trembled. She reached out toward him.
Then her hand stopped just short of touching him.
She was afraid. Afraid that if she tested it, if she pushed too hard, everything would break apart and leave her with nothing. Even if it was an illusion, she wanted it to last a little longer.
Ji An looked at her face. The pitiful, helpless expression on it. Images from the simulation moved through his mind, the memory of a stubborn, tearful girl overlapping with the composed, alluring woman standing in front of him now.
He sighed quietly, raised his hand, and touched her cheek.
The moment she felt the warmth from his palm, her blue eyes flooded.
She seized his hand with both of hers as if she might never let go.
"I always thought... I thought..."
"Why would you..."
Tears ran continuously down her fair cheeks and fell to the grass.
At first she held herself together. Then she couldn't anymore.
She broke down entirely.
In the sound of her crying was something that had been compressed for a very, very long time. Grief and grievance that had nowhere else to go.
She had so much she had wanted to say to this person.
In those first long years wandering the wilderness as the Crimson Witch of Flames, after losing her last friend, she had carried centuries of solitude entirely alone.
The ache of longing. The constant agony of the fire burning through her from within.
She had borne all of it without a sound. Only in the dead of night, alone, had she ever let herself cry out at the moon.
Later, when the witch's end drew near, she had met Pierro, received the blessing of the Cryo Archon, and become the Fatui Harbinger named Signora.
The Delusion's influence had made her heart as cold and rigid as the ice she wielded.
For the future Her Majesty the Tsaritsa had promised, she had remade herself into a tool. She became ruthless. Merciless to her enemies, and no less merciless to herself.
She had stopped showing weakness long before any of that.
She had learned as a young girl that crying was the most useless thing a person could do. It only drew harsh words and mockery. But that wasn't the real reason she had stopped.
The real reason was simpler and worse. Rosalyne had come to understand that there was no one left in this world who cared about her.
She had believed that for five hundred years.
Until today, when he appeared in front of her.
---
No one could have said how much time passed.
Rosalyne's crying gradually eased, and her emotions began to settle.
But she would not release Ji An's hand.
She stayed against him, her cheek resting lightly against his palm, rubbing softly like a cat seeking warmth, as if the contact itself brought her peace.
She was comfortable. For Ji An, it was something else entirely.
With her pressed against him, certain things had a way of making themselves difficult to ignore. And the position of her left leg in particular was becoming a problem.
He cleared his throat deliberately. As Rosalyne looked up, he took the opportunity to gently pull his hand back.
Her brow instinctively drew together. Years of being an Executive had given her a presence that made that expression carry a faint dangerous edge.
A moment later she caught herself, remembered who she was with, and let it soften.
"Rostam, why are you wearing a mask? Can you take it off? I want to see your face."
She looked up at him with an expression full of warmth and reached toward the mask.
"No."
Ji An stepped back before she could touch it.
Was she serious? If she found out who he actually was, every relationship he had built in Mondstadt would collapse overnight. He was on good terms with Grand Master Jean. He was now apparently intimately entangled with the leader of the Fatui. There was a word for people in that position, and it wasn't a flattering one.
Rosalyne's expression became plaintive: "Why won't you let me..."
Ji An had a sudden idea: "Rosalyne. Do you really think I survived until now without paying a price?"
"A price? Rostam, what do you mean? What happened to you?"
The color left her face instantly. Her expression shifted to open anxiety.
His words had touched exactly the doubt that had been sitting at the back of Rosalyne's mind, the one she had not let herself examine too closely.
Because Rostam's reappearance defied all reason.
She knew clearly that he had died. The poisonous blood had left nothing behind.
And even if by some miracle he had survived that day, he had been a mortal man. He could not have lived five hundred years.
And yet here he was. Alive and warm, touching her cheek with his hand, letting her lean against him.
There were suspicious details, if she chose to look at them. The mask. The build, not quite the same. The hair color, different from what she remembered.
But five hundred years changed people. That was normal enough. She herself was proof of that.
"It is a long story."
Ji An let out a slow, heavy sigh and looked up at the sky with the bearing of someone carrying a weight too great to describe.
"Then make it short. I want to hear it." Rosalyne watched him with worry written plainly on her face.
Ji An said nothing for a moment, still organizing his thoughts, still working on finding something plausible to say.
Rosalyne seemed to remember something. A shadow crossed her face, and she asked abruptly:
"Rostam. Did Celestia do something to you?"
Ji An blinked. Then he composed his expression immediately and nodded with gravity: "You've guessed it. Then I won't hide it from you."
He sighed: "Because of that curse, I cannot remove the mask and let you see me. Not yet."
He was simply following the thread she had handed him and letting Celestia take the blame.
He had not anticipated what came next.
Rosalyne's expression changed entirely. Her eyes filled with a fierce, burning hatred, and she said:
"I knew it. Everything Her Majesty the Tsaritsa has shown me through the Delusion is real. The shortsighted gods. The unjust divine principles."
"Rostam, don't worry. For our future, I will follow Her Majesty the Tsaritsa and burn this rotting old world to the ground."
Ji An stared at her.
She gritted her teeth: "Starting with Mondstadt and the Anemo Archon Barbatos."
Ji An continued staring.
He had not entirely followed the first part of what she said, but the second part had come through perfectly clearly.
What?
How had this conversation traveled from a tearful reunion to a declaration about destroying the world?
He frowned: "No."
Rosalyne blinked: "Oh... right. Rostam, you have deep feelings for Mondstadt. In that case, we can choose somewhere else first..."
Ji An nearly choked.
This girl. What was going on in her head? Did she genuinely think nations and their gods were items on a menu to be selected at will?
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