Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

The floor was cold.

Sunny woke up face-down on it, one cheek pressed against metal, a half-dried puddle of drool barely holding it’s shape beside his open mouth.

He blinked once. Twice.

’Right. Narcolepsy.’

This strange Stellaron-induced curse — at least he believed it was — started to really get on his nerves.

His limbs ached. His back cracked like an old book being opened for the first time in years. His arm was stretched toward the door like he’d been trying to crawl out mid-dream.

’Dream’ referred to the experience of being thrown into an alternate realm of monsters and mayhem.

He lay there for another moment, eyes half open.

Then he stood up like it never happened.

He pushed the door open and emerged from what had once been a storage room, now technically his bedroom. Above the party car, the soft hum of the Astral Express carried beneath his bare feet. The air smelled like stale confetti and machine oil.

Sunny yawned so hard he nearly fell over again.

Below him, connected by a spiraling staircase, the party car sat in it’s early-morning stillness. The central bar was silent. Circular booths hugged the walls, and massive windows framed a world in slow recovery.

Just old snow, crusted and hardened, layered deep. Mountains were buried up to their jaws in ice. There was practically no plant life to speak of. The Eternal Freeze might’ve been shattered, but it’s bones were still here — a thousand years of snow didn’t disperse that easily.

In the distance, water trickled. Not rushing. Not flowing. Just... appearing, in slivers and cracks, as the topmost frost finally blinked under the weak light of a thawing sun.

Sunny looked at it all for exactly three seconds.

Then scoffed.

”Ugh. Melty.”

And with that, he shuffled into the kitchen.

***

The kitchen door hissed open as Sunny entered, and the moment his bare foot hit the tile, he changed.

He wasn’t groggy anymore. He was activated.

Pans flew into his hands. Oil danced in a skillet before the stove even fully lit. An egg spun between his fingers and cracked one-handed into the heat with a clean snap. He moved like a man halfway possessed, not by ghosts or instincts, but by breakfast.

Toast hit the grill. Some kind of sausage — maybe? hopefully? — landed with a satisfying sizzle. He grabbed a knife, chopped something green and mildly suspicious with his eyes still half-closed, then dumped it straight into the pan without looking.

Garlic powder. Pepper. One shake too many of both. The air started to smell sharp. Comforting. Reckless.

He slathered butter onto a pan like it owed him money and flung mushrooms on top. A sizzle erupted loud enough to make the ventilation system groan.

All around him, the Astral Express murmured: engines thrumming, walls creaking like old wood, the soft background song of a train that had seen too many stars.

Sunny didn’t speak. Didn’t hum. Didn’t breathe, really — just cooked.

He flipped toast with a flick. The eggs were now over-medium and proud of it. Something purple and very much sizzling joined the plate without ever being identified. The smells curled into the vents and spilled into the hallway like a challenge.

He climbed onto the counter like it was a throne, plate in one hand, fork in the other, and dug in like he hadn’t almost died on the floor an hour ago.

One bite. He closed his eyes.

”Oh. I’m disgustingly talented.”

Sunny chewed like a king.

Sunny was midway through shoveling another unreasonably stacked forkful into his mouth when the door to the kitchen hissed open.

He froze.

In stepped Himeko, red hair tied up in its usual effortless sweep, posture as elegant as ever despite the hour. She wore usual dress — more fancy than any navigator had the right to be — and had some kind of data pad tucked under her arm.

Sunny, still barefoot, still seated on the kitchen counter like a cat with emotional problems, stared at her with the wide-eyed, guilty expression of someone who had just been caught shoplifting reality itself.

Himeko blinked at the scene.

”...Good morning. You’re up early.”

Sunny’s brain caught fire.

”Ah — yes! Yes, ma’am, I... uh — morning! Morning!”

He blurted, nearly falling off the counter in his attempt to seem casual and respectful at the same time. The plate nearly slid from his lap. He caught it mid-air, balanced it, and set it gently beside him with the deliberate grace of someone disarming a bomb.

He jumped down from the counter.

And immediately stepped in a smear of butter he’d left on the floor.

His foot skidded. His body tilted. The world narrowed. But by sheer instinct — or killer reflexes — he caught himself with one hand on the fridge, posed like a man pretending to stretch.

Himeko tilted her head, amused but diplomatic.

”You don’t usually use the kitchen. At least not when anyone’s awake.”

How exactly did he tell her that he had very particular personality quirks?

Sunny cleared his throat.

”Ah, yes. I try to avoid... interference. I mean, traffic. I mean, I didn’t want to disturb your... orbit. Navigating. Duties.”

’What am I saying...?’

She blinked.

He grinned too hard.

”With the train. And the stars. You know.”

There was a beat of silence.

Outside, snow cracked on Jarilo-VI’s surface. The eternal frost shifted, slow and ancient.

Inside, Sunny was standing with a shirt that somehow twisted backwards during his sleep, one sock, and hair so messy that he started to wonder if Awakened could sleep-walk.

”Well, it smells wonderful in here.”

Himeko said, sipping her coffee without reacting to any of it.

’When did she make that?’

”Does it?”

Sunny blurted in bafflement, asking much too quickly. Then, he readjusted himself.

”Oh! Good. Yes. That would be the... food.”

Himeko smiled politely.

”I assumed.”

He stepped away from the fridge, discreetly using his foot to nudge a fallen mushroom under a cabinet. He wondered how that got there.

She walked past him to set her mug on the counter.

”I didn’t know you cooked. You always seem so reserved.”

Maybe it was a good thing that nobody knew he was an accomplished war criminal that could probably diffuse a bomb. Probably.

”Oh, no, no. I mean yes. I mean — yes, I cook. Very... unhumbly.”

If that was even a word.

He wasn’t blinking. He had absolutely no idea what to do with his hands. He folded them in front of him like he was about to be knighted. Then unfolded them. Then scratched the back of his neck like someone in a commercial for hair products.

Himeko gave him another gentle smile, then glanced down at the plate of food still steaming beside the stove.

”Is that toast infused with garlic oil and... is that fermented bean paste?”

Sunny blinked once.

”I... think so? I’m not too sure what I put in there...”

”It looks delicious.”

He stood straighter.

”Then yes. That’s exactly what it is.”

Sunny squinted at the data pad she held, just now recalling that she and Welt had been doing something in Jarilo-VI.

Himeko seemed to notice his gaze, explaining:

”Welt had an interest in the Engine of Creation... or anything involving giant mechs, for that matter. Actually, he was the one who stopped the explosion of it’s head from getting out of control, so make sure to thank him.”

The memory of the sudden malfunction of the Engine of Creation rose in his mind. Instead of a beam of energy striking down on him, the head had suddenly exploded. What was strange was that the explosion didn’t proceed outwards, but had been contained, sucked in like a black hole.

Sunny paled.

”That was him?”

Why the hell didn’t he come along?!