Fate’s Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

Sunny's eyes fluttered open. His body felt hot, and there was something brushing against his head. His eyes adjusted to the light, finding… nothing except for the sky.

He sat up, taking a look around as he did so. He was in a field of vibrant flowers, the veil of trees surrounding the beautiful field swaying dangerously. A small stream of water carved through field, clear water flowing as it spilled off the edge of the island, creating a waterfall.

Sunny winced as he felt various spots on his body ache. He looked over himself, finding pieces of cloth covering the spots where he had been injured. The Soul Serpent wrapped around his pale naked body, controlling his essence even while he was unconscious. Ignoring the pain, he stood up, stumbling on his mangled leg.

His body was riddled with holes, each of them varying in size. Sunny was lucky that he hadn't been pierced in the torso, or he might have lost a whole organ. A mad look gleamed in his eyes.

Those birds played with him like it was a game of darts. If he was being honest, he wanted to raze the entire jungle to the ground, burning their home to ashes.

Sunny wanted to remove every trace of their existence.

At the sound of footsteps, Sunny turned his head. Seele walked over to him with a makeshift sack in her hands. Her light purple eyes flickered across his body, checking to make sure that his wounds weren't exposed. Her gaze lingered around his abdomen, before quickly averting it back to his eyes.

"You should put something on."

Sunny realized that he was indeed naked. Honestly, it was preposterous that he had forgotten that fact in the span of a couple seconds. He tried to summon the Mantle of the Underworld, but it didn't appear. His face paled slightly.

"My armor… did it get destroyed?"

Seele blinked before pointing to a spot on the floor. Following her finger, he found multiple pieces of metal that was littered with holes. The Mantle of the Underworld seemed to be cut cleanly in some areas, almost like it was dissected open.

Seele coughed.

"…I didn't really know how to get it off, but I made sure not to break it permanently."

'By 'I', she's talking about her Flaw.'

Sunny nodded, mumbling a quick thanks to Seele before dismissing the armor to his soul sea. He summoned the Puppeteer's Shroud, the light set of armor covering him from the neck to the tips of his toes.

Seele sat on the ground, opening up her makeshift sack. Within it, the meat of slain Nightmare Creatures was displayed, becoming the duo's meal. She stared at the food for a second, her face reddening out of embarrassment.

"Uh… could you cook this?"

Sunny's eye twitched. Why would she ask a man who was at death's door to cook for her? Was she stupid?

Looking at her flushed face, Sunny realized that she probably didn't know how to cook. It was the same for him… before he suddenly gained the ability to make meals out of the most inedible of Nightmare Creatures. He still didn't know how he was able to do that…

Sunny sighed before sitting down next to Seele. Scooting over so that their shoulders almost touched, he spoke to her:

"I need some firewood. Once you get back, I'll show you how to cook these correctly."

"…Really?"

Sunny rolled his eyes.

"Did I stutter? I'll have you know that I'm the most honest man in the universe. Two universes, even."

Strangely enough, Seele just smiled at him. She stood up before running back to the jungle to look for firewood. Honestly, Sunny was glad that he didn't need to help her differentiate between wood suitable for starting a fire and normal wood.

Sunny didn't judge her for being inept at a basic life skill. He never had the need to cook himself, as he survived off of synthetic food that was able to be eaten right out the package. He suspected that Seele had a similar reason.

Looking down on the countless slabs of meat of different shapes and sizes, Sunny immediately separated the contaminated and non-contaminated Nightmare Creature rations. He summoned the Endless Spring, taking a swig of the bottle of water to quench his thirst.

Looking up at the sky, the sun didn't move too much from it's previous position. If Sunny were to guess, it must have been around an hour — maybe two since he had passed out. He didn't have any issues with bleeding, since [Blood Weave] kept all his blood coagulated to his body. However, he still had been dealt damage to his muscles, bones, and nerves.

Sunny wondered if he would need Saint to carry him back out of the jungle.

He watched as Seele hurried back with a bundle of wood in her arms. Her footsteps were… graceful. The flowers below her were barely disturbed from her movements. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn that they bloomed just a little bit more…

'…What am I doing?'

Sunny snapped out of his trance. Why was he thinking about such meaningless things?

…His head hurt. Had he been hit in his brain? How was he still alive?

"…Sunny?"

The boy in question paused as he stared at Seele. His eyebrows creased when he frowned. His long eyelashes pressed together when he squinted his eyes. He tried to rapidly blink. He tried closing one eye at a time, alternating between the two…

'Why are their two Seeles?'

Her figure overlapped with that of another. Sunny was able to differentiate between them due to some major differences, but they both still looked greatly like each other.

The first of which was Seele herself, her face having a confused expression etched on it. It was the other Seele that gave him pause, causing him to narrow his eyes at her appearance.

Both her hair and eyes were of a much lighter shade of blue, and her smile seemed much too timid.

Sunny wondered if he was actually hit in the head.

[No, you weren't.]

The second Seele suddenly vanished as if she was never there.

He paused for a second. A voice both internal and external spoke to him, using his own voice… but at the same time, it sounded a little deeper.

[Heh. I know, right? Anyways, you weren't supposed to see that. It was my fault, since I leaned in too much over on your side.]

…Sunny wasn't sure what was so funny, but he didn't bother asking.

This was the voice that had spoke to him when he had attempted to kill Sparkle. Countless thoughts rushed through Sunny's mind, slightly panicking at the sudden reappearance of the voice. Who was it? Why did it talk to him? Was it an enemy?

[…And you could ask me all that later. Don't you have to help your Seele out with a bit of cooking?]

Confused about the voices strange word choice, he complied. Sunny didn't want to arouse any suspicion from Seele, such as her asking if anything was wrong. He just wanted to go back to the real world, but not only was his connection not restored yet, but he was injured!

[A day in the life of Sunless Vol—nevermind. Anyways, I guess things aren't to different for us no matter how high or low on the tree we are.]

'Why is he talking about trees?'

Sunny shook his head, causing Seele's frown to deepen. He instead focused on the matter at hand, pointing at one of the piles of meat.

"There are multiple ways to tell when meat is unsafe to eat; especially for Nightmare Creatures. It's possible to eat even poisoned meat if you have the means to cook it, but that would take too much time to show you."

Although she seemed slightly confused from his behavior, Seele paid rapt attention to his instructions. He explained how to discern the difference between contaminated and un-contaminated meat.

Seele was a relatively quick learner. Actually, it seemed more like she had an innate talent for this. He showed her how to properly roast the meat, getting it to the point that it would be cooked but not burnt.

[I would have given that a ten out of ten, but I feel embarrassed that you're a better cook than me. Also, you should have made borscht. Six out of ten.]

'…What's borscht?'

[Something that you'll probably never get to eat if we consider this weird sci-fi you're in. I guess being able to leave Earth really changes how society evolved…]

Sunny had no idea what the voice was talking about. It sounded like him, but didn't act much like him.

[That's because I'm you, but not you.]

Sunny bit into some meat that he held by the bone. It tasted quite good considering the fact that this was Seele's first time. The girl herself practically inhaled her own meal.

As he chewed his food, he pondered the words of the voice. How could someone be something yet not?

'…That didn't explain a thing.'

[What do you get when you imagine a tree?']

Sunny blinked.

'…A tree?'

[Close, but not quite. Well, I won't explain it to you in depth yet. To put it simply, I'm Sunless, but I'm not you. Our lives were entirely different from the very start.]

Sunny narrowed his eyes.

'How does that even make sense? Just because we share the same name doesn't mean that we're the same person.'

Sunless was such an uncommon name that Sunny wouldn't have been surprised if he was the only one in the universe.

[You probably are. I'm simply not from your universe.]

Sunny suddenly stopped chewing.

'…What?'

[Our birthdays, first names, and family members are the same. But the way that our lives turned out are pretty different. Want to know more?]

Sunny's eyes lingered at the burning flame in front of him. It was held on top of some rocks, since Seele didn't want to burn the flowers for whatever reason.

'If you're not me, how do you know so much about me?'

[When the link was established, I was able to look through your memories… no, I lived through them myself. I actually know you better than you know yourself.]

'Well that's just reassuring. Wait… how did I just lie right now?'

[You know that tree I told you about? Well, your Flaw isn't powerful enough to break through that tree. It's like you're just talking to yourself. Also, if it makes you feel better, the only reason that you can't access my own memories is because I'm much stronger than you.]

Sunny was a little curious…

'How much stronger?'

[…If I had to guess, probably the equivalent of the Divine Rank for you. We don't have the Nightmare Spell, and I have no idea how strong a Divine would be, so I could be wrong.]

Sunny mentally groaned. He now had a self-proclaimed version of himself from another universe that was supposedly around the Divine Rank. Not only that, but they didn't have the Nightmare Spell!

…They didn't have the Nightmare Spell?

[Stuff just works a bit differently over here. Madmen trying to trick trees, crazy girls having crazy fights, and I'm always involved in some way!]

'…I don't have a clue about what you're saying. Could you actually explain in detail?'

The voice that claimed to be a Sunless sighed.

[Let's see… I was born during the eclipse, yadda yadda yadda, parents got killed by a force that wants to wipe out humanity, cool snake tattoo appeared on my body, I got superpowers, fast-forward to being put in an orphanage with other superpowered kids, and that's a whole novel volume worth of content crammed into a short summary.]

[I even have a last name… well, it was given to me by someone else, but it still counts!]

Sunny zoned out after the first five words.

[Oh right. Your sister Rain doesn't exist.]

Sunny's pupils dilated.

'…Do you mind repeating that for me?'