Tear Jerker / Honkai: Star Rail

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Mom... Mom... Mom...

Being one of the funniest game entries by Hoyoverse doesn't prevent this game from being as heart-breaking and saddening as the other entries when need be. And in typical Hoyoverse tradition, some scenes are guaranteed to leave you in tears as they ensue.

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Main Story

• Herta Space Station:
  • If you refuse Himeko's offer, the Trailblazer chooses to stay on the Herta Space Station instead of joining the Astral Express. After Herta loses interest in them and the Stellaron, the Trailblazer becomes a researcher at the station, and the Express visits a few more times before "disappearing for good". While this fake ending is Played for Laughs, featuring a credits sequence that expresses special thanks to the Antimatter Legion, the narration implies that the decision to stay in effect dooms the Astral Express and the Stellaron Hunters.
    Narrator: From the occasional visitors on the station, you hear stories about how the final end of the Express and the Stellaron Hunters shakes the universe to its very core. Sometimes you wonder whether their destiny would have changed, had you stepped on that train. But those stories are no longer for you.
  • The "When the Stars of Ingenuity Shine" Continuance Mission reveals that Ruan Mei abandons her projects if she's not satisfied with the results. When the Trailblazer meets the cat-like Gray Bean Paste, it's rather dejected and upset at being abandoned by Ruan Mei. Gray Bean Paste starts sobbing in the Trailblazer's voice about not being good enough for their creator and will start sadly singing a song about its abandonment to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" as the Trailblazer carries it to the safe lab.
    • And it's not just Gray Bean Paste who feels dejected, if the player roams around the lab where all the creations are housed and talks to them or overhears their conversations, all the poor little critters feel lonely and sad for being neglected, and abandoned by Ruan Mei.
  • Ruan Mei's side of the issue is also depressing. She recognizes the love and respect her creations have for her, but she's become so detached from other living things that she simply doesn't know how to emotionally connect with them. It's implied that the reason she leaves them on the space station is because she knows she can't give them the emotional care they need.
• Jarilo-VI:
  • When the Astral Express first arrives, everyone is completely shocked at the fact that the once vibrant and green planet has become a Glacial Apocalypse world in the aftermath of an Antimatter Legion invasion. The current Jarilo-VI is essentially After the End of said apocalypse where the world has been reduced to an icy husk where the remaining population can only live in a single city in the face of monsters produced by the encroaching fragmentums that are beginning to develop within said city. Despite essentially throwing everything that they have at the monsters, Belobog is steadily losing and it's only a matter of time before the human population is overwhelmed and wiped out completely. Jarilo-VI is a dying world that has all been ruined by the Stellaron in the present when the Trailblazers arrive. Many people know that tomorrow won't get better prior to the arrival of the Trailblazers, but they deeply believe that it will just to keep themselves going in a world that seems to get worse and worse with each day otherwise they would probably just give up. Had it not been for the Trailblazers being trapped on Jarilo-VI and forced to help out the citizens of the glacial world, they would have been eventually overrun despite their valiant efforts.
  • The end of the boss fight with Svarog. Clara, on the verge of crying, desperately willing to take Natasha's final shot meant for him, begs everyone to just simply spare him. After all, he's the only family that Clara has ever known.
    Clara: Please don't hurt Mr. Svarog!
  • Despite everything that she has done, Cocolia's backstory is completely and utterly tragic. Cocolia was once a young woman who sought to protect Belobog just like her predecessors, only for the Stellaron to corrupt everything that was good in her. One can only wonder how Cocolia would have been had she not been influenced by the Stellaron at a young age. Serval even says that while she knew Cocolia when they were still teenagers at the academy, she didn't know the Supreme Guardian and that the best friend that she once knew became an entirely different person.
  • When the Trailblazer is witnessing Cocolia's memories, one of the memories they can witness is the very day that Serval and Cocolia's friendship was destroyed. The two of them are arguing, with Serval pleading with Cocolia to allow her to research the Stellaron. Cocolia coldly brushes Serval off and then orders Serval to be escorted out with additional orders to destroy Serval's research and detain the others involved. All Serval can do is tiredly ask Cocolia a question. And despite what happened, Cocolia doesn't seem happy with how she destroyed their friendship.
    Serval:...Why Cocolia... Why have you grown so cold...
    Cocolia: Serval Landau... you were my most cherished friend.
  • Despite the fact that Cocolia betrayed everything they stood for and protected over the years, the Past Supreme Guardians don't hold the betrayal against Cocolia when you talk to their Will while trapped in the strange space after Cocolia threw a frozen lance at them which impaled them and knocked them off the colossal robot. Despite seven hundred years having passed, there was still no permanent solution in getting rid of the Fragmentum or destroying the Stellaron and things only continued to get worse as the denizens of Jarilo-VI continued to lose more and more. To them, between the continuing deteriorating state of their world and the voice of the Stellaron that literally haunts them, it was only a matter of time before someone succumbed to the sweet promises of the Stellaron.
    After being told that Cocolia betrayed the Preservation
    Guardians Will: Yes... But we have no right to judge. The Fragmentum has been expanding for the past seven hundred years. There is no faith nor wealth left for our successors... only despair.
    Guardians Will: To see the home we vowed to preserve wither away... That in itself is torture. Not to mention the haunting whisper of temptation...
    Guardians Will: The day will come when even the strongest of wills cannot help but give in to such influence. It is only a matter of time before the Amber Lord foresakes us.
  • Cocolia's death scene, where Bronya desperately tries to save her in vain, breaks down crying when she's unable to do so. To twist the knife further, Cocolia's last act is to flash a warm and sincere smile at her dear daughter, heavily implying that she died finally being free of the Stellaron's corruption.
  • The Motivational Lie Bronya and Seele come up with regarding Cocolia's death may have been for the greater good, but it is not without consequences, which is clearly shown in Serval's story quest. Because Serval never learns the truth behind what really happened to her former close friend, she furiously denounces Cocolia as a backstabbing bitch who completely ruined her life after becoming the Supreme Guardian and smashes the guitar that the two of them created together, breaking down in a fit of rage and despair. Even though the Stellaron corrupted Cocolia, it's not to say that she's faultless and still chose to leave Serval anyway.
  • When the Underworld and Overworld are reunited, you and your companions take the first tram to the surface. While the dialogue from the other passengers can count as both heartwarming and tearjerking due to the nature of the event, there is one particular moment at the tram station in the Overworld where an old man meets his daughter for the first time in years...and then meets his Underworld-born grandchild.
  • On your return visit in 1.4, Dan Heng tells March and the Trailblazer that due to the events that happened on the Luofu, he decides to stay aboard the Express to collect his thoughts. As a result, he was spending most of his time cooped up in his room and ignoring Bronya's messages. Dan Heng doesn't show it, but it's clear the emotional toll affected him greatly, and March sadly respects his wishes.
• Xianzhou Luofu:
  • A look into Jing Yuan's relationships, it's shown that basically most of his friends have left for their own reasons. The High-Cloud Quintet he used to be a part of broke, and he still misses them. Having to kill his marastruck former mentor without having bonded closely with her, Yinxing and Dan Feng's crimes of betrayal, and so on have left Jing Yuan in wistful nostalgia when Blade (formerly Yinxing) has just finished his and Kafka's end of the deal and Dan Heng makes it clear to him that the man he once knew and befriended pre-reincarnation is already gone and just wants to find and protect his friends. This is even more so painful in that despite Dan Feng dying, and the man he talks to now is a different person it's clear that Jing Yuan has difficulty coming to terms with it. He eventually acquiesces to move on from the former elder's actions but on the condition of helping Xianzhou. He's still the general, after all. This is on top of Jing Yuan admitting that he's an old man who has grown listless over the years and saddled with a long career he never wanted, but has to fulfill for the sake of its people. He's thankfully alive and well in 1.3, but the last we see him is falling unconscious from being targeted by Phantylia and speared.
  • The resolution of the story has you tell Yukong about what happened to Tingyun. The poor woman looks very heartbroken, and it becomes worse when you remember that Yukong has already suffered a major loss in the past, and Tingyun's apparent death only rubs salt in her wounds. You are later tasked with giving gifts to the people who knew Tingyun and were quite close with her, and you get more heartbreaking details from them at how Tingyun touched their lives, receiving items to be used in what is basically her funeral. As the starskiff containing the mementos flies away, Yukong looks to the sky with a devastated look on her face and vows to avenge Tingyun if she truly is dead.
  • In a sense, the whole thing with Dan Shu can be seen as heartbreaking. Sure, she led the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus and caused several people to become Mara-struck, but she very much led a difficult life; being blind and her condition as a long-life species makes artificial implants temporary and even painful when her blindness returns. While her actions are inexcusable, she simply wants to cure her blindness, only to be betrayed by Phantylia. And if you did her side-quest beforehand, it makes everything even harder.
  • And after defeating her, you can talk with Xiaoyu, a little girl with the same blindness as Dan Shu. You can choose to tell her what happened and you can tell she's barely holding herself together.
  • When Cirrus is defeated, the heliobus explodes in a shower of spectral flames, and it looks as though Tail has paid the ultimate price. Huohuo, who thinks Tail is gone, starts bawling at his sacrifice. Fortunately, Tail is Not Quite Dead and eventually returns to her side, though not until much later.
• Penacony:
  • Firefly is a sick girl who became a stowaway in Penacony to escape her illness, as she could move freely in the dream without having to worry about her real body. She was the nicest person that the Trailblazer met in Penacony, showing them around the city, warning them of dangers and trying her best to repay the kindness she was given. The two bonded enough for Firefly to show the Trailblazer her secret hideout, a beautiful overlook of the city at the edge of the dream, and here she poured her heart out^note In the English dub, Firefly sounds like she's one second away from breaking down in tears during her confession before the two took an extremely cute selfie together. Alas, they soon became trapped within the real dreamscape of Penacony, where "Death" lingers; despite Black Swan saving them the first time and assuring the Trailblazer that Firefly had made it out safely, the next time they entered it's revealed that not only was she there, she's also running. When the Trailblazer hurried up and reunites with her, "Death" appears so quickly that none among Black Swan, Acheron, or the Trailblazer can react to it grabbing and impaling Firefly. In her last moments, Firefly's last words were a simple "sorry" to the Trailblazer, tears ran down her cheeks before she dissolved into liquid the moment the Trailblazer caught her.
    • The Trailblazer was so distraught afterward that both Acheron and Black Swan had to calm them down, and the choices the player can make show just how sad, shocked, and frustrated the Trailblazer felt. To dig the knife even deeper, interacting with the shiny spot on the floor afterward will show you her phone and how Firefly was planning to send the selfie that she took with the Trailblazer to them before it, too, disappeared as an arranged version of If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking plays in the background, and it is heart-wrenching.
    • If even that wasn't enough, you can return to her secret base after completing the 2.0 story, where you can find both her sticker and a special interaction on the railing. Interacting with it will give you an internal narration of how the Trailblazer felt about the whole ordeal, giving you a Sad Gear, Angry Gear, and the achievement "Between the Sky and You" for revisiting the secret base alone. Completing the whole deal is how the instrumental version of If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking will always play in the secret base.
      (...) It's not an easy place to find. The person who introduced it to you truly values your friendship by sharing this view. You recall the times spent with that girl. Her gentle smile, her graceful steps, and the tears she shed in her last moments before she was murdered by that monster. At that moment, why did she apologize? What was she thinking? If you had reacted faster, would that silly girl not have died? A tinge of sourness wells from the depths of your heart, followed by flames of anger - intense enough to reduce the strongest metal to ashes. Facing the railings and skyscrapers, you clench your fists...
    • What makes it hit even harder is just how much Firefly clearly cares about the Trailblazer; as Black Swan said, she only ever seemed to worry about the Trailblazer instead of herself - even when faced with such a dangerous entity like "Death" - and if the player returned the gesture through their choices, it will make the moment hit even harder.
      Firefly's Sticker Description: In the sea of neon lights and hedonism, kindness is as rare a find as a firefly's light.
    • The end of 2.1 comes with the reveal that Firefly is none other than Sam, a Stellaron Hunter. Although "Sam" does tell Acheron that the Nameless is not her enemy, and Acheron realizes that "Sam" was not aiming to actually kill the Trailblazer but to simply separate them from Acheron, it brings into question... just how much of Firefly's friendship with the Trailblazer is real, and how much of it was just her playing along to Elio's script to draw them in? Worse still is that the special interaction in her secret base also changes after the events of this chapter.
      (...) It's not an easy place to find. The person who introduced it to you truly values your friendship by sharing this view. You think back to the times you spent with her. All those cherished memories... but the one you'll never forget was the complex whirl of emotions when she first revealed her true identity to you. ...Was her past identity all just a ruse? Were those tears when she got stabbed all just an act? Is that being... that thing which fought while covered in heated flames... who she really is? Doubt and confusion leave you discombobulated. After all, the line between what's real and what's false in this dreamscape is far more blurred than it seems... Gazing up at those tall towers before you, you lose yourself deep in contemplation.
  • After Sunday uses the Path of Harmony on Aventurine, the gambler starts having hallucinations taunting him about his past. It's revealed that when he was born, he was blessed with good fortune, but this did little to help as his family was one by one murdered by Katicans until only he survived. His hallucinated self also points out that he and his sister hid from the Katicans by pretending to be corpses lying in muddy water when their mother was killed, which ruined his father's last shirt- which Aventurine admits he still possesses, even as his hallucination mocks him that it's barely a rag he can't wear with his current status. After his family died, Aventurine was sold as a slave to a man who branded him "Number Thirty-Five" and utilized him and his luck as some kind of toy with no regard for whether he lived or died and ignored Aventurine's attempt to buy himself back. Eventually, Aventurine murdered him and made a deal with Jade for a new life, but was still left with intense self-loathing and Survivor's Guilt over his luck saving him while everyone he loved died. As he follows the hallucinations, the depressive text starts showing up in the step descriptions, with one just devolving into a variety of insults and calling him a loser over and over. Lastly, he has Empty Eyes as an adult, which was not the case when he was a child. All of this has left Aventurine as a Death Seeker who ends up manipulating Acheron into killing him by attacking the Astral Express crew.

Companion Quests

• Despite Serval's more lax attitude, especially compared to her more serious younger brother, her Companion Quest explores just how much Cocolia haunts her even from the grave. The quest starts off with her wanting to join the Astral Express to explore other worlds, but it soon becomes apparent that seeing other worlds isn't the only reason she wants to leave Belobog as she later admits that she isn't good when it comes to dealing with complicated relationships and that her first response is to often run away when confronted with them such as with Cocolia and her parents. When they confront Cocolia's memory in the Fragmentum, Serval completely breaks down when the Trailblazer reveals that the Fragmentum monster is calling out Serval and Gepard's names and the latter realizes that the particular monster they are facing must be one of the memories of past Supreme Guardians- in this case, it's Cocolia. Serval screams that Cocolia keeps haunting her even after death and that no matter what, she can never seem to forget her. Even though Serval desperately wants to move on, it seems that she can't because she has never gotten closure and never will now that her former best friend is dead. Even after defeating the monster, Serval's voice is quiet and you can hear both her emotional and mental exhaustion after the events even though she says she feels like a weight has been lifted. Her emotions eventually reach a breaking point when she visits the site of Cocolia's demise, where, instead of performing a song of parting, she smashes her prized guitar in bitter frustration. Due to the fact that Bronya and Seele have covered up the true events with a Motivational Lie so that their society wouldn't collapse in the face of the Awful Truth, Serval will never learn the truth behind how Cocolia was corrupted by the Stellaron, instead believing that Cocolia coldly betrayed her without justification.
• Natasha's companion quests involved plenty of moments, from her past with Vache to her reunion with her mother (and finding out about her father's death).
• The entire existence of Pascal, a robot from Clara's quests. Pascal was once a guardian for Rivet Town before the Fragmentum took hold, but was shut down due to a lack of power. Once he reactivated, he found that the entire town was empty due to evacuation, and he decided to repair Rivet Town so the people could come back. However, the monsters within the Fragmentum damaged him, forcing him to repair himself with parts corrupted by the Fragmentum, which quickly caused his fellow robots to identify him as a Fragmentum creature himself. By the time Clara's quests begin, he's in a cobbled-together shell stealing parts from the camps, barely able to function or speak. At first, it seems that Clara can repair him by switching out his shell, and she and the Trailblazer discover that Pascal has developed emotions like a human. However, Svarog analyzes Pascal and reveals that Pascal is still unstable, even in the proper shell for his core, and that there is too much-corrupted data to effectively fix. While Clara is adamant that she can and will fix him as often as needed and teach him not to hurt humans, Svarog insists that the best course of action is to format Pascal and integrate him into the same network as the other robots, which will lead to a Death of Personality for Pascal. The final choice falls on the Trailblazer to determine Pascal's fate: to keep him as he is even though it will force Clara to constantly repair and reteach him and not address the root of the matter, or to format him to neutralize any risks at the cost of erasing his emotions.
  • Choosing to format Pascal plays out akin to someone being taken off life support, as Pascal realizes what is happening to him and can only weakly thank Clara and the Trailblazer. The Trailblazer is silent throughout the entire scene, attempting to comfort Pascal, while Clara breaks down sobbing as Pascal is effectively killed. Thankfully, Svarog reveals that he kept a backup of Pascal's corrupted core module to give to Clara, believing that she will try to revive him as he once was.
• Bailu's Companion Quest has Banxia, a nurse who asks Bailu for help finding and healing her lover Liangmu. Early in the quest, Banxia starts showing symptoms of mara, and her condition rapidly deteriorates until she completely transforms into a mara-struck monster just before reuniting with Liangmu. She manages to retain her sanity long enough to see Liangmu one last time, but he fails to recognize her and runs away screaming. Unable to hold on any longer, Banxia fully succumbs to the mara, forcing the Trailblazer to put her out of her misery. After the quest, Bailu expresses regret at not knowing more about how to treat the mara-struck and being unable to do more for Banxia.
  • To make matters worse, choosing to tell Liangmu the truth about what happened to Banxia results in him revealing his true colors: he never actually loved Banxia, and was only using her in the hopes of obtaining an Elixir of Immortality for himself. Bailu still cures his illness - described as a "common disease" - to fulfill her promise to Banxia, but she makes it clear that she's not happy about it and is furious with Liangmu.
    Bailu: Let me heal you so I never have to lay eyes on you again!
• Yukong's quest 'For I Have Touched the Sky' is infamous for making people cry. It starts when her daughter Qingni rebels against her desk job and goes to fix an emergency in a starskiff but crashes and gets caught up with monsters, resulting in the Trailblazer, Welt, and Yukong coming to save her. Afterward, mother and daughter get into an argument about Yukong's refusal to even allow Qingni to train for what she wants to be, a fighter pilot like her mother. To better understand why Yukong is so adamant, Qingni recruits the Trailblazer and Welt to learn why, and they learn from Jing Yuan that Yukong gave up flying due to the aftershocks of the Third Denizens of Abundance War. Then, they sneak a peak at Yukong's diary and discover that she lost her best friend Caiyi in said war. Then, they find Caiyi's diary on Yukong's desk and discover that Caiyi is Qingni's actual biological mother, having been adopted by Yukong after both her parents were killed in combat. Along with this discovery is the revelation that Caiyi swore Yukong to never allow Qingni to become a fighter pilot. The next time Qingni meets Yukong, she reveals what she now knows, and the player is treated to a knife in the heart of a cutscene in which they witness Caiyi dying in Yukong's arms. After Yukong explains how she now feels that everything she's accomplished as a pilot has been meaningless since then, especially since Lan singlehandedly ended the war only after hundreds of thousands of soldiers had died, Qingni acknowledges the risks and states that nonetheless, she still wants to be a fighter pilot. Finally, Yukong gives her blessing and apologizes for overruling Qingni's decisions. Then, the two have this exchange:
  Qingni: Mom... I have one last request...
  Yukong: Tell me.
  Qingni: I want to... fly with you at least once...
  Yukong: Hehe, I... I'm afraid I can't. I won't be flying anymore.
  Qingni: But... why?
  Yukong: ...Because I've already touched the sky.
• Luka’s quest, Mo Cuishle, sees him push himself to complete three steps to what he calls his "training". After overexerting himself against Svarog and passing out for a day, he heads to Rivet Town to leave a mysterious box at the orphanage. Once the Trailblazer and Seele discover what it is, they realize the sad truth. Luka was exerting himself because a fan of his named Margie sent him her notebook describing the things that she wanted to do as a champion of Molthammerville. Unfortunately, Margie couldn’t beat her illness, which is why Luka was so dead set on doing what she had declared in her notebook. The quest closes off with Seele wishing Margie good night.
• Lynx's quest Farther Than The Snow Plains reveals the truth behind what happened to Pela's mother, Penya. Penya was pregnant with Pela when she came along during an expedition, but the conditions suddenly took a turn for the worse, and she was about to give birth. Miraculously, Pela was born healthy, but the conditions took a heavy toll on Penya, eventually killing her. Her last act was to keep a "treasure" for Pela to open when she grew older, but it was lost to the snow after an attack by the Fragmentum. Lynx manages to find it and give it to Pela, and the contents of the "treasure" are revealed to be numerous letters from Penya to her daughter. The normally reserved Pela completely breaks down crying after reading the contents of the letters.
  • At the end, Pela then messages the Trailblazer to thank them for coming with them on the camping trip. However, you can very much tell that she's emotionally exhausted after reading her mother's last messages.
• Jingliu's quest shows how the High Cloud Quintet fell apart long ago, and it is an utterly tragic tale. The Quintet's members included Dan Feng, Jingliu, Jing Yuan, Yingxing (who is now known as Blade), and a Foxian named Baiheng. During a battle with Shuhu, one of the Emanators of The Abundance, Baiheng sacrificed herself to allow the Xianzhou warriors to defeat Shuhu. Distraught at her death, Dan Feng and Yingxing tried to resurrect her, but this ended in disaster. Yingxing became mara-struck and cursed with immortality, while Dan Feng accidentally created a draconic abomination and was punished with his forced rebirth due to violating Luofu's laws. Jingliu would eventually succumb to being mara-struck later on, forcing Jing Yuan to cut down his former mentor. When you look at how close they were prior to Baiheng's death, seeing the fallout of the High Cloud Quintet is utterly sobering.
  • The cutscene of the fight between Jingliu and Blade is no better — if anything, it makes it worse. As Jingliu and Blade exchange blows, Jingliu narrates how she hoped the happier times would last longer and flashes back to said times and how everything went to hell. As they continue to battle, Jing Yuan can be seen raising his head while looking away, almost as if he's Trying Not to Cry. Dan Heng is silently standing under the shadow of the Imbibitor Lunae statue. And just as Jingliu strikes Blade down, we see an image of Baiheng smiling happily before Blade crashes to the ground. Ugh...
    Jingliu: I thought those joyful days would flow indefinitely before us — like a Xianzhou lifetime. Yet, dreams... will eventually fade — like clouds from the sky.
  • The scene immediately after paints Blade in a new, painful light, thinking about just what led to the man known as Yingxing becoming the cold and merciless Stellaron Hunter he is now. He laments that Baiheng is dead, while "abominations" (heavily implied to be talking about himself) can live on, before finally noting that in death, the pain he feels is gone. When he is forcefully revived thanks to his immortal body, he looks downright anguished that, once again, death eluded him.
    Blade: The miraculous thing is that in my brief moment of death...all the pain went away, like when we drank to drown our sorrows.

Open World Quests

• The sidequest "Silent Yet Shining" ends on a tragic note: Kluzer, the boxer you've brought the Fragmentum armor at his boss' request, is suffering from corrosion symptoms and loses in the Fight Club, but despite this is coerced by his boss to go out there and find another, bigger Fragmentum armor if he wants to be hired again. The Trailblazer arrives to save him from the monster - but he dies anyway from the corrosion, rendering all of it pointless. To twist the knife in, it's later revealed that Kluzer was the one sending the various gifts to the Underworld clinic earlier in the questline, and was trying to earn more money so he could keep doing it.
• The story of Cyrille, the Eighth Supreme Guardian, in the Vessel of Mediocrity quests. Cyrille and her older sister, Cyrilla, were orphans. Even though it was Cyrille who became the Eighth Supreme Guardian, it was her sister who the Architects originally set their eyes on becoming the next Supreme Guardian due to the fact that she was a prodigy. Cyrille on the other hand was ignored for her more prodigious older sister with the exception of the then Prime Minister Stefan Martinez who treated her with kindness while everyone else ignored her. But on the eve that Cyrilla was going to be acknowledged as the next Supreme Guardian, she completely vanished. People searched for her for days, but she had vanished without a trace. After they had given up on looking for her, the Prime Minster pushed to have Cyrille become the Eight Supreme Guardian in her place, claiming that she was as talented as her sister. After she became the next Supreme Guardian, it became evident that Cyrille was nowhere near as competent as her sister due to the lack of formal training and that the real power behind her was Prime Minister Stefan who then proceeded to install draconian laws and garner power for himself. Eventually, some of the Architects proceeded to plot against Cyrille and the Prime Minister and allied themselves with the then Captain of the Guard. They planned on luring them both to an isolated location to deal with them, but only Cyrille showed up. She was then knocked out, tossed into an armory box, and then murdered. To add salt to the wound, she was posthumously called Cyrille the Fool by the people who despised her despite the fact that she was essentially a victim of a power-hungry tyrant politician who manipulated her for his own gain. Cyrille's life was a complete tragedy as she lost her last family, was manipulated into becoming a political tool by a man who took advantage of her and was then hated by everyone around her because she trusted the wrong person. In the end, she was murdered by by the people unhappy with the Prime Minister's draconian laws and tyranny. All the Trailblazer can do is fight her regret in the Fragmentum to finally give her peace and free her from being trapped in the Fragmentum.
• The mini-quest in Rivet Town involves a blind girl, her older sisters, and a fiasco with a Warp Trotter. A girl left her home to find something to give her younger sister to eat but was killed. Her sister waited at home, and when you bring her her sister's bell, it's implied she died of grief. When giving her music box to her sister, her sister fades away as well, meaning they are stuck in the Fragmentum and it is only through your actions that either find peace.
  • Lampshaded by Pascal in Clara's companion quest. Pascal mentions that no survivors were found in the place via his diary...
• The quest "Envision a Rose Forthcoming" focuses on Cocona, a luxury clothing shop owner in Penacony. When the Trailblazer first meets her, Cocona appears to be unfocused and suffering from short-term memory loss, with Clockie warning that her emotions are being artificially suppressed. The Trailblazer then consults a dream doctor, who provides a special type of SoulGlad that suppresses a person's negative emotions and memories, meaning that they are very aware of Cocona's issues but only treat their symptoms without bothering to figure out the underlying cause. The Trailblazer then convinces Cocona to wean herself off of the "treatment", but this causes her negative memories to return and she becomes outright suicidal. The Trailblazer then enters Cocona's personal Dreamscape to get to the root of her emotional trauma and relive her memories. Cocona was initially a very promising student who had a talent for singing. However, her overbearing parents crushed her dreams to become a singer and forced her to work for the Reverie, even going so far as to hold on to her earnings until she got married to further cement their control over her. Then, after being assigned to a clothing shop, Cocona was continually bullied by her bosses and coworkers until she learned to completely suppress her feelings. Later, she had the chance to leave Penacony with her fiance, but after losing a massive sports bet and getting into debt with the Family, it's highly implied that he was killed, leaving Cocona alone once again. The Trailblazer then finds Cocona standing on the edge of a roof, ready to jump. At this point, the Trailblazer can choose to save Cocona or let her jump. If she is saved, the quest ends on a hopeful note with Cocona coming to terms with her trauma and deciding to move forward to become a singer. If she jumps, the Trailblazer later returns to reality only to find the doctors not very surprised at Cocona's situation and Cocona's shop under new ownership with the heavy implication that Cocona committed suicide. Even worse, the clerk who replaces her shows the exact same emotional emptiness she did, meaning that Penacony's cruel cycle of exploitation will continue. This is one of the few quests where it's possible to earn an outright Downer Ending.

Other

• Dan Heng and his backstory can seem like this, especially if you talk to Pom-Pom. One of the things that the conductor says about Dan Heng is that he mentions "being able to sleep on the rope". In the 1800s-early 1900s, people could pay a penny to sleep over a rope hung from one wall to another, sometimes without even a bench to sit on. It was generally used by the homeless, or by broke and drunk sailors. Coupled with the fact that he sleeps on a small mat on the floor of the Express' archives, with only a thin quilt and heat from the server unit for warmth, one has to wonder...
  • Knowing that he is Imbibitor Lunae's reincarnation gives greater context to Dan Heng's suffering. Dan Heng's character stories describe how he, who has no memories of his previous life as Dan Feng, was kept imprisoned since his hatching, relying only on information he read in books to educate himself about the outside world. The only time he was allowed out and got to see the Luofu for himself was the day he was permanently exiled, and he left with the knowledge that some of his fellow citizens hated him for a crime his current self didn't commit. Dan Heng then spent his days wandering the galaxy trying to distance himself from his past but remains fearful of the power within him, and to make things worse Blade persistently hunts him down, causing annihilation whenever he goes, and Dan Heng can never be rid of him permanently due to the latter's strong Healing Factor, to the point where Blade haunts his nightmares. He was stuck in survival mode until Himeko invited him onto the Express, where he could finally feel safe, relax, and get a good night's sleep.
• The animated short showcasing the backstory of Jing Yuan and his master, Jingliu. Once a proud warrior and protector of the Luofu, she nonetheless becomes Mara-Struck, forcing her student to take her down. Just before being hit by his strongest attack, you can see her give a brief smile.
• The story of Jing Yuan and his pet lion that passed away from waiting for him to return from a centuries-long campaign provides a sad context to his splash art prominently featuring a white lion next to him.
• The animated short "Ichor of Two Dragons" has Dan Heng confronting his memories and dreams of Dan Feng, with one of the memories being Jing Yuan's almost heartbroken voice reading out Dan Feng's sentencing. Dan Heng ultimately comes to the conclusion that his predecessor's sins do not change his future and that he will go on his own path as a member of the Astral Express.
• In the Scalegorge Waterscape, you can inspect the Vidyadhara eggs, which will let you learn the memories of the Vidyadharas inside during their past lives. While few of the Vidyadharas felt content with their lives before their reincarnation or otherwise didn't suffer much, the rest experienced tragedies in their lives before undergoing reincarnation, such as a Pearlkeeper who got slayed by a Mara-struck while defending the Scalegorge Waterscape after it had permanently killed some reincarnating Vidyadharas, a woman who felt a deep emptiness after suffering from betrayal and abject despair, or a guard of the Ambrosial Arbor who tried to call their comrades as they were being swept away by the waves generated from the Ambrosial Arbor's revival.
  • One particular path contains several reincarnating Vidyadharas who suffered the consequences of Dan Feng's betrayal before undergoing reincarnation. They included a Preceptor in the Xianzhou Fanghu who got exiled to the Luofu, left alone and shunned for the rest of their life after advising the Glaciator Marum to deal with those who participated in Dan Feng's betrayal harshly, a guard of Dan Feng who stayed loyal to him and went on a last stand with his comrades against the Cloud Knights and the Preceptors he used to trust and respect, and a composer who made a song to celebrate Dan Feng, which ultimately was never played in public due to his betrayal, leading to them trashing their flute and vowing never to write another song in their life. The most heartwrenching one however is that of a Vidyadhara who saw the rampaging abomination Dan Feng and Yingxing created while trying to resurrect Baiheng. They were able to inspect the abomination when it fell and saw that its features included whiskers, beastly furs, and mercury-like eyes, implied to be derived from Baiheng's Foxian features, while the abomination showed a hint of fear. Unfortunately, the Vidyadhara was unable to escape before Jingliu appeared to slay the abomination, which she did by launching an icy attack that spread to the surrounding area, catching the Vidyadhara with it. Worse, Jingliu faintly apologized to both the abomination who used to be her close comrade and the Vidyadhara who witnessed the incident before delivering the killing hit. The whole memory further contextualizes Jingliu's murderous animosity towards Yingxing (who's now known as Blade) that still persists even now.
• The Trailblazer is messaged by Aventurine and is shocked by his apparent survival following his demise at Acheron's blade. However, the next message clarifies that these are pre-written texts the gambler scheduled to be sent after his death, which state that he hopes to return from wherever he is to meet the Trailblazer again, but admits that might be not be possible. He signs off by sincerely thanking them for their work and wishing them the best, with the Trailblazer's reply attempts being met with error messages.