Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

”Huh... this isn’t half bad.”

”Told you.”

Reading through The Superior Spider-Man, Sunny came to the conclusion that even a fake can surpass the original. Seele was looking over his shoulder, reading along.

Feeling her press against his bicep, Sunny scowled as he tried to push her away.

”Give me some space! You’re all sweaty and stuff...”

She didn’t budge, firmly gripping onto his shoulder as she grit her teeth.

”I can’t read it unless I’m this close! I didn’t finish the damn volume before you came barging in like you own the place...”

Sunny gawked at the audacity.

”You forced me to come in here! Also, didn’t you say something about ’Wildfire duties’? What does that have to do with Spider-Man? He works in New York City, not the Underworld!”

Before leaving the Dream Realm that night, Seele had told him that she had Wildfire business to take care of, and to not bother her. Turns out, she simply wanted to slack off with no disturbances.

”Uh...”

She slowly averted her gaze. Staring at her in disbelief, he sighed as he tossed the comic over.

”I’ll just read one of those novel instead.”

Standing up from his seat on the decrepit couch, Sunny walked over to the small bookshelf. After a few steps, he was suddenly halted by a flurry of crimson butterflies.

”W—wait, you don’t want to read those...”

Sunny blinked, watching as Seele’s purple eyes were replaced by red. Veliona spread her arms as if to protect the shelf, which looked quite ridiculous. There were some... extra movements when she held her arms out, which caused him to lock in as his eyes carefully followed the target. After less than a split second, his eyes were back towards Veliona’s eyes.

Stealth was key.

”Why shouldn’t I?”

She pursed her lips for a moment, before replying:

”They’re Natasha’s stuff. You wouldn’t be interested in her stuff, so don’t bother.”

Sunny’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the novels.

”Interesting.”

Turning around, Sunny sat back down on the couch. Veliona sighed in relief, which caused him to wonder if the books were all about murder.

They were definitely hers. Otherwise, why would she be so defensive about them?

And they must have been embarrassing.

She returned to the couch, the room becoming silent for a moment. When she finally decided to speak:

”Seele told me...”

She froze. He wasn’t sitting on the couch. Her head whirled around, finding Sunny standing before her bookshelf as he took a couple out with a curious expression.

He had used Shadow Step to discretely move in a short amount of time.

Feeling her gaze, Sunny sent her a mischievous grin.

”I’ll be borrowing these.”

With that, he Shadow Stepped once more, leaving behind nothing but a frazzled — and mortified Veliona.

She laughed dryly as she rose, summoning an amethyst scythe.

”I’m going to kill him.”

***

Back in his empty room, Sunny haphazardly placed the books down on the barren ground. He wanted to read them to find what Veliona was hiding, but he had more important things to do.

Actually, there was something else they were hiding — Seele in particular. Her actions were unusual; at least that was what Sunny guessed based on what he knew of her. A lot of the things she did made no logical sense, and caused him to believe that she had some sort of ulterior motive.

What kind? Sunny did not know.

In reality, he didn’t care much if it didn’t involve him. Unfortunately, it certainly seemed to involve him, which caused slight amounts of stress to manifest within him.

’Should I just ask? What if that will cause a problem?’

This was not something that he could decide in a hurry, anyway. For now, he had many other things to do.

Activating the Dreamscape pod, Sunny climbed inside and closed his eyes.

’Time to relax a little...’

At least out there in the Dreamscape, things were simple. He just had to fight, learn, and win.

...Granted, his previous visit to the Colosseum had turned out to be a fiasco. But Sunny had high hopes for more elite arenas. He just had to gain enough victories to enter them — about seventy more to gain access to the lower-ranked professional dreams.

Not that hard...

He had lost all interest in dueling with amateurs, and couldn’t wait to meet better opponents who could teach him a variety of polished styles.

’Ah, better do it quickly.’

Appearing on the sand of the Colosseum, Sunny sighed behind the mask and willed the Soul Serpent to assume the form of the somber odachi.

’Huh... that’s weird.’

For some reason, today, much more people wanted to challenge him. A literal crowd of Awakened assembled around Sunny in a span of a minute, staring at him with disturbing intensity. Also, the challengers seemed to be way more talkative...

’What’s up with these fools?’

”Hey, Mongrel! What is your real name?”

Sunny stared at the young woman challenging him, then answered with slight irritation:

”Mongrel.”

She smiled knowingly, as if struck by a mysterious epiphany, then asked:

”What style do you practice?”

Sunny frowned behind the mask.

”I practice no style.”

The girl opened her mouth to say something else, but he interrupted her by stepping forward and activating the challenge.

Two seconds later, the girl’s dead body was already turning into a rain of sparks.

’Why are they so chatty today? I don’t have a lot of time. If I want to enter a professional arena next time, I have to be fast...’

Looking at the crowd of Awakened, Sunny sighed dejectedly and growled:

”Words are worthless, silence is gold. Don’t waste my breath!”

The challengers looked at each other with weirdly enlightened expressions, then grew quiet.

’That’s better! At least they’re an understanding bunch.’

”Dude... he’s definitely the real Mongrel’s secret love child!”

Sunny gaped behind the mask, looking in the direction of the young man who said that.

Making direct eye contact with him, Sunny said in a mocking tone:

”Oh? It looks like we have a genius over here...”

Immediately challenging the fool, Sunny quickly dispatched him. He looked around at the rest of the crowd, a cruel grin splitting his face as they silenced themselves.

”Anyone else?”

Nobody replied, but some approached.

Now that people seemed to have lost their desire to chat uselessly before every damn duel, things went much faster. Sunny had no plans of copying the styles of these talented amateurs today, so he could be as efficient as possible.

It required him to really exert himself, though. They were all Awakened, after all... each and every one of them. Behind the black mask, Sunny was sweating an ocean and silently whispering curses.

But what could he do? He just had to get it done.

Because he took no breaks between the duels, his reserves of Shadow Essence grew dangerously low at some point. Sunny was forced to command the Soul Serpent to return to his body to accelerate the accumulation of Essence and slow down its expenditure.

Noticing that he had dismissed his sword, the challengers assumed that he wasn’t going to fight anymore and sighed with disappointment.

Glancing at them, Sunny gritted his teeth and hissed:

”Next!”

He was not that far from accomplishing his goal for today, and the Mantle of the Underworld was like a weapon itself. Especially if he manipulated its weight to make his blows carry the weight of a mountain... metaphorically speaking...

His aching muscles protested, but he endured the torment and continued.

’Just a few more...’

As the next challenger stepped forward, Sunny dashed toward him, deflected the glancing blow of a spiked mace with a vambrace, and struck the young man in the face with all the strength he could muster. The black onyx gauntlet grew terribly heavy as it flew through the air, connected solidly... and caused the young man’s skull to explode, more or less.

Sunny secretly panted and cursed.

’That... uh... I can’t keep this up much longer...’

Luckily, he only had a few more duels to win.

About an hour after he had entered the Colosseum, Sunny finally reached enough victories to qualify for a better arena. By then, he was so tired that he felt like throwing up.

’Goddammit... that was incredibly tough. All in day’s work, I guess...’

Throwing one last glance at the crowd of silent Awakened, Sunny shook his head.

’What a bunch of weirdos...’

With that, he gave the Dreamscape the command and left the illusion, both exhausted and satisfied with his progress.

...Left alone on the sand of the Colosseum, the challengers remained quiet for a few minutes.

After a while, one of them said:

”He shook his head.”

Another Awakened sighed heavily, then said in a solemn tone:

”Yes. We are not worthy enough...”