Linkon City, 2094 - Sixty Years Later
The world had changed.
Linkon City in 2094 was almost unrecognizable from the city Nana had died protecting in 2034.
Humanity had flourished in ways that would have seemed like science fiction just decades ago.
The Wanderer threat, while not eliminated, was contained. Scientists had developed stabilizer anchors—massive technological pylons that created barriers around populated areas, killing Wanderers before they could fully materialize.
The creatures still lurked in uninhabited zones, but civilian casualties had dropped to near zeroThe city itself had evolved. Maglev trains shot through the air at impossible speeds. Holographic displays replaced old-fashioned screens.
And above it all, visible from any point in Linkon, floated the Skyheaven District—a literal floating city, held aloft by gravity manipulation technology, where the wealthy and influential made their homes among the clouds.
But perhaps the most mysterious change was astronomical.
Twenty-five years ago, the brightest star in the night sky—a star that had appeared suddenly sixty years prior and had burned with unprecedented brilliance ever since—had vanished.
Simply disappeared without warning, without explanation. Astronomers had scrambled to understand. Theories ranged from supernova to cosmic phenomena to elaborate hoaxes.
But none could explain how a star that massive could simply cease to exist.The truth was far more impossible than any scientific theory.
The star hadn't died.
It had been reborn.
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Xavier - Age 25
Xavier sat in his cramped apartment, surrounded by open books, holographic displays, and scattered research notes.
His laptop screen cast blue light across his face, illuminating features that looked carved from marble—sharp cheekbones, a straight nose, and those eyes.
Those impossible eyes that held entire galaxies in their depths.
Pale blue, almost silver, with a quality that made people uncomfortable when they looked too long.
Like staring into the cosmos itself. Like looking at something not quite human.
His silver hair—rare enough to draw attention everywhere he went—fell across his forehead as he leaned closer to the screen, his fingers trembling slightly as he pulled up another archive photo.
There.
Hunter Angelina Wang. Age 23. Killed in action, October 2034. Sixty years ago.
The photo showed a young woman with warm eyes and a bright smile, wearing hunter tactical gear, her hand raised in a cheerful wave at whoever was taking the picture. She looked happy. Alive. Beautiful.
She looked exactly like Xavier's Starlight.
Because she was his Starlight. Was and always would be, across every lifetime, every rebirth, every version of existence.
Xavier's hand moved unconsciously to his palm, where a crown-shaped birthmark glowed faintly—silver light pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
The mark that had shocked the entire world when he was born. The mark that identified him as something other, something impossible, something that shouldn't exist.
The mark that proved he was the Crown Star of Philos, reborn as human.
Twenty-five years ago, Xavier had traded his immortality to the cosmos. Had begged the universe with everything he was—every particle of his being, every memory across lifetimes, every ounce of love he'd carried—for one more chance.
Please, he'd pleaded from the vast emptiness of space where he'd existed as pure consciousness.
Please let me be human again. Let me find her. I don't care if it's only for one lifetime. I don't care if I can never return to the stars. Just give me this. One more chance to love her. To hold her. To finally, FINALLY have a lifetime together where neither of us has to die alone.
The universe, moved by devotion that had spanned centuries or perhaps simply tired of their tragedy, had answered.
Xavier had been reborn on Earth. Not as a returning soul with blank memory like normal reincarnation.
But as himself—Crown Star Xavier, with every memory intact, every lifetime remembered, every moment of love and loss carved into his very essence.
The cost had been his immortality. His connection to Philos. His ability to return to the stars.
When this human life ended, he would die permanently.
No more fading into stardust. No more existing as cosmic consciousness. Just death, final and complete.
But it was worth it. Worth giving up eternity for the chance to see her again.
Except Xavier had been searching for twenty-five years and hadn't found her.
He'd looked everywhere. Scoured databases. Hacked into government records (a skill he'd picked up in this technologically advanced era). Searched for any girl born around the same time as him who might be Nana reborn.
Nothing. No sign. No trace.
And the terrible, growing fear: what if she hadn't been reborn? What if breaking the curse meant she couldn't return? What if Xavier had condemned them both—him to a mortal lifetime of searching, her to permanent death?.
No, Xavier thought fiercely, pushing the fear away.
She has to be here. I felt her soul. Watched it drift toward Philos after she died. She was conscious, aware, searching for me. She wouldn't just disappear. She's here somewhere.
I just have to find her.
His eyes returned to the screen, to information he'd found about Nana's final year alive. And there—buried in historical archives—a discovery that had made his heart stop.
A book. Published one week before her death. Title: "Philos: When the Crown Star Landed on Earth."
"She wrote our story," Xavier whispered, his voice cracking with emotion.
"She wrote it down. Published it. Made it permanent."
According to records, the book had been popular in its time—a beautiful, tragic love story that readers had devoured. It had stayed in print for decades before finally going out of publication around 2070.But some copies still existed.
Xavier had tracked down several libraries that claimed to have original editions in their archives. Rare, precious, limited.
Tomorrow, he would visit every single library in Linkon. Would search every archive. Would find that book if it took the rest of his mortal life.
Because reading Nana's words—understanding how she'd remembered their story, what she'd chosen to preserve—would be like hearing her voice again after sixty years of silence.
Xavier looked down at his palm, where the crown mark pulsed gently.
"I'm still searching, Starlight,"
he whispered to the empty apartment.
"I'll never stop searching. Wherever you are—whether you're reborn or waiting in the cosmos or somehow lost between worlds—I'll find you. I promise."
The mark glowed brighter, warm against his skin.Almost like an answer.
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Skyheaven District.
Five hundred meters above Linkon's streets, in the floating paradise of Skyheaven, Nana stood on her balcony and looked down at the city below.
She'd been reborn twenty years ago into a wealthy family—the Wangs, coincidentally, the same surname she'd carried in multiple lifetimes. Her parents were tech moguls, her life one of privilege and comfort in the literal sky.
But none of it mattered.
Because Nana had been reborn with every memory intact.
She remembered Philos. Remembered Luna. Remembered the Valley Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty and dying in 2034 to save a little girl.
Remembered Xavier fading into stardust. Remembered becoming a star herself, her consciousness drifting through the cosmos, searching desperately for the bond that connected them.
She remembered finding him—or rather, finding where he'd been. The space where his consciousness had existed, now empty.
The realization that he'd somehow left, had traded his cosmic existence for something else.
And then, darkness. The pull of rebirth. Being drawn back to Earth, back to physical form, back to life.
She'd woken up as a baby with the mind of a twenty-three-year-old who'd lived five lifetimes. It had been disorienting, terrifying, wonderful.
Because being reborn meant Xavier might have been reborn too.
Nana had spent her childhood acting age-appropriate while secretly researching, searching, gathering information.
Her parents thought she was a prodigy—reading at two, using computers at three, showing genius-level intelligence from the moment she could communicate.
They didn't know she was actually a centuries-old soul desperately trying to find her lost love.
And five years ago, she'd found the first clue.
A historical record from 2069—a news article about a medical anomaly.
A baby boy born with a crown-shaped birthmark that glowed with bioluminescent properties. Silver hair, pale blue eyes that seemed to contain stars. The child had been extensively studied, his DNA analyzed, his unique physiology documented.
The scientists had concluded he was likely a mutation—a beautiful, harmless genetic anomaly. They'd declared him perfectly healthy despite his unusual features and released him to his parents.
The article included a photo. The child at five years old, looking uncomfortable in formal clothes, his expression carefully neutral, his eyes holding a depth that no five-year-old should possess.
Nana had recognized him instantly.
Xavier.
Her prince. Her knight. Her king. Her star. Reborn. Human. Alive.
She'd cried for hours, clutching the holographic display, tracing the image of his young face with trembling fingers. He'd come back. He'd found a way to return to Earth.
They were both alive, both reborn in the same era.
They had a chance.
But finding him was proving impossible. The article had been published twenty years ago.
The boy would be twenty-five now—assuming time worked the way Nana thought it did. He could be anywhere.
The original article had protected his identity, no names given, no location specified beyond "somewhere in the Linkon region."
Nana had been searching ever since. Hacking databases (her wealthy parents' resources made that easier). Scouring social media. Looking for any young man with silver hair and crown-shaped birthmark who might be Xavier.
The problem was Linkon had grown massive.
Millions of people.
The Skyheaven District alone housed hundreds of thousands. And if Xavier was living in the lower city, in one of the crowded residential districts where cameras were sparse and records incomplete, he could be hiding in plain sight.
"Where are you?"
Nana whispered to the city below.
"Xavier, I know you're here. I can feel it. We're in the same world, the same time. So close. Why can't I find you?"
Her hand moved unconsciously to her palm—where the star-shaped mark used to be. It was gone now, erased when Xavier had broken the curse.
But sometimes, when she was emotional or thinking about him intensely, she swore she could feel phantom warmth there. Like the mark's echo, like their connection persisting even without physical proof.
"I'm searching," Nana continued, her voice carried away by the wind.
"Every day. Every resource I have. I'll find you, Xavier. I promise. You spent centuries searching for me. I can spend a few years searching for you."
Behind her, her tablet chimed. Another search alert. Nana had set up thousands of them—algorithms that scoured the internet for any mention of silver-haired young men, crown birthmarks, unusual eyes, anything that might lead her to Xavier.
She rushed back inside, grabbed the tablet. The alert showed a university enrollment record—public information from Linkon University's student portal.
New enrollment. Graduate program in Ancient History and Mythology. Student ID photo included.
Nana's heart stopped.
The photo showed a young man, maybe mid-twenties, with silver hair and pale blue eyes. The image was small, grainy, taken from a bad angle by what was clearly a rushed ID photo system.
But Nana would recognize that face across any lifetime, any distance, any quality of photograph.
Xavier.
Her hands shook so badly she almost dropped the tablet.
"Oh my god. Oh my god. Xavier. I found you. I finally found you."
According to the record, he'd enrolled in the Fall 2094 semester. Which meant he was currently attending classes at Linkon University.
Which meant he was in the lower city, not Skyheaven. Which meant—
Nana was already moving, grabbing her coat, her access card, her emergency supplies. Linkon University was huge, but it was searchable.
She could find him. Could walk every building, check every classroom, scan every face until she found those eyes.
"I'm coming," Nana said to the empty apartment, tears already streaming down her face.
"Xavier, I'm coming. Hold on just a little longer. I'm finally coming."
She paused at the door, looked back at her apartment. On her desk sat a copy of "Philos: When the Crown Star Landed on Earth"—one of only fifty original editions still in existence, purchased at enormous cost from a rare book collector.
The story she'd written in another lifetime. The testament to their love that had survived sixty years, had remained in print for decades, had become a classic of romantic tragedy.
Nana grabbed the book, held it against her chest like a talisman.
"Thank you,"
she whispered to her past self.
"Thank you for writing this. For preserving our story. For making sure that even if we never found each other again, someone would know that we existed. That our love was real."
Then she was out the door, running for the transit station that would take her down to the lower city, to Linkon University, to Xavier.
After sixty years of being apart—thirty as souls in the cosmos, thirty as separated reborn humans searching blindly—they were about to find each other again.And this time, with both of them human, both remembering, both given a chance by a universe that had finally shown them mercy—
This time, their story might finally have a happy ending.
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To be continued __