Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail-Chapter 456: Table Tennis

The hospital corridor was quiet enough that March 7th could hear her own breathing.

That alone made her uneasy.

Hospitals were never truly quiet. Even the best medical wings carried the faint hum of machinery, the murmur of doctors, or the distant squeak of rolling carts. Yet the hallway outside this particular room seemed strangely insulated from the rest of the building, as if the chaos that had unfolded on the battlefield earlier had finally reached a place where it could collapse into stillness.

March stood in front of the door with her hand hovering uncertainly near the handle.

Inside that room was Sunny.

The same Sunny who had been wheeled into surgery barely an hour ago.

She shifted her weight slightly, fingers tightening and relaxing again as hesitation crept through her body for reasons she couldn’t quite explain. It wasn’t fear exactly.

Still... something about this moment made her strangely nervous.

Maybe it was the memory of Fu Xuan coming out of Scalegorge Waterscape with a stump for an arm. Or seeing Dan Heng walking with a hand covering his neck, which seemed about to fall off at any moment. Or the sight of Jing Yuan casually standing with two holes in his gut.

The entire battle must have been a blur of violence and impossible survival.

March exhaled slowly.

Sunny probably needed someone to check on him. Someone normal. Someone who wasn’t going to immediately start arguing about battle strategies or cosmic threats.

Someone as cute as her!

A faint sound came from the other side of the door.

March frowned.

She leaned closer.

There it was again.

Tok.

Tok.

Tok.

Her brow furrowed. That didn’t sound like medical equipment. It also didn’t sound like someone resting quietly after undergoing cranial surgery.

March’s eyes dropped slightly, and she froze.

Her fingers were moving.

Without realizing it, she had been combing them through her hair in slow absent-minded motions.

She blinked.

"...Huh."

March lowered her hand quickly as if she had just caught herself doing something embarrassing. She wasn’t even sure when she had started doing that. Maybe she had been standing here longer than she thought.

Her shoulders straightened.

Enough hesitation.

Sunny needed support.

That was reason enough.

With renewed determination, March grabbed the handle and pushed the door open, stepping forward cautiously as the room revealed itself.

Then she stopped.

Her brain took a few seconds to process what she was looking at. Because the scene inside the hospital room made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The room had been designed for a single patient.

There was one bed, one medical monitor, one set of equipment.

And somehow four extremely injured individuals were currently occupying it.

They were also playing table tennis.

The table itself was made entirely from shadows. Its edges wavered slightly like living darkness pressed into the shape of furniture. The paddles were the same, and the small ball streaking back and forth across the table left faint trails of black mist as it moved.

Every player was covered in bandages.

Sunny had several wrapped around his head, giving him the appearance of someone who had recently attempted to fight a staircase and lost.

Fu Xuan had thick wrappings covering her missing arm at the shoulder.

Dan Heng wore a loose hospital gown with heavy bandages wrapped around his neck and multiple patches peeking from beneath the fabric.

Jing Yuan looked only marginally better, though the layers of bandages beneath his clothing suggested that the general had been stitched together almost as extensively as the others.

The match itself was absurdly intense.

Their movements blurred with unnatural speed as the shadow-ball rocketed back and forth across the table. The players’ bodies shifted and twisted with the reflexes of veteran combatants, every strike carrying the precision of people who had spent years fighting for their lives.

Sunny lunged for a return.

The ball slipped past his paddle.

It shot behind him and struck the far wall with a soft tap.

For a moment, the room went silent.

Sunny slowly turned his head.

His eyes narrowed at Jing Yuan.

"That was definitely cheating."

Jing Yuan raised an eyebrow with perfectly composed innocence.

"I assure you it was not."

"You used tiger powers."

"I... don’t believe I can even do that in this context."

Sunny pointed accusingly across the table.

"I’ve decided on that spin being illegal."

Fu Xuan folded her remaining arm across her chest.

"He’s right. I sensed suspicious smugness during that strike."

Jing Yuan sighed faintly.

"Lady Fu, smugness is not technically a violation of the rules."

"You also used smugness during the incident with the IPC negotiations three years ago."

"That situation was entirely different."

"It was exactly the same."

The argument escalated immediately.

Both of them began referencing increasingly obscure past events in an attempt to one-up each other, with Fu Xuan citing calculations and predictions while Jing Yuan responded with calm reminders of how those predictions had occasionally been... optimistic.

Dan Heng stood silently for several seconds before releasing a long sigh.

His gaze drifted toward the doorway.

Toward March.

Their eyes met.

March stared back blankly.

Dan Heng’s expression shifted into something that could only be described as quiet resignation. He stepped away from the table, walked over to Sunny, and grabbed him by the collar without a word.

Sunny yelped as he was dragged across the room.

"Hey — what are you doing—"

Dan Heng deposited him directly in front of March.

Sunny blinked.

Then his face lit up immediately.

"Ah, March! Perfect timing."

He gestured enthusiastically toward the shadow-table behind him.

"Have you ever heard of this strange ritual people on the Luofu call tennis? Honestly, I’m shocked they’ve managed to keep this invention to themselves for so long."

March stared at him for a moment.

"...Yeah. It’s a pretty normal game."

Her gaze slowly drifted to the bandages wrapped around his head.

"Didn’t you have surgery... or something? That ended like an hour ago?"

Sunny scratched the back of his head casually.

"I guess. The doctors said they had to remove a small piece of bone that got chipped off and was rattling around my skull."

March blinked.

Sunny continued speaking as if this were perfectly ordinary.

"Didn’t even notice it until they pointed it out."

He shrugged.

"I also have a bunch of fractures across my skelly— I mean, skeleton. But it’s nothing serious."

Sunny grinned proudly.

"My bones are no joke."

Then he pointed at Dan Heng.

"This guy had it way worse. He got decapitated not once, but twice."

Sunny shook his head dramatically.

"He’s trying to steal my feats, March. Honestly, it’s embarrassing."

March stopped listening halfway through that sentence. Her mind quietly tuned him out while he continued speaking. Across from her, Dan Heng appeared to be doing the exact same thing.

They exchanged a brief look.

March tilted her head slightly.

"So... what was that super form earlier?"

Dan Heng considered the question for a moment.

"The simplest explanation is that it was a... glitch in the system."

March blinked. He continued:

"The Vidyadhara reincarnation cycle was tampered with. Because of that, I inherited fragments of my past self’s experiences... along with some of his power."

He rubbed the back of his neck slightly.

"Though I used roughly half of it during the battle. Once it’s out, it’s out."

Sunny was still talking in the background.

"...and another thing—"

Dan Heng elbowed him.

Sunny stopped mid-rant.

"Huh?"

Dan Heng nodded subtly toward Jing Yuan and Fu Xuan.

Sunny’s eyes widened in sudden realization.

"Oh."

He immediately grabbed one of March’s shoulders and leaned in with intense seriousness.

Dan Heng placed a hand on her other shoulder.

March blinked in confusion as both of them stared directly into her eyes. Had she always been so popular with guys?

Sunny spoke first.

"March."

His tone carried the weight of a strategic briefing.

"We’re going to milk them dry."

Dan Heng nodded solemnly.

"No matter what happens, do not settle for less. Always make them think they’re underpaying."

March tilted her head.

"...What?"

Across the room, Jing Yuan raised a hand.

"We can hear you."

Sunny waved dismissively.

"Don’t worry about it. You’ll understand later."

After a brief pause, Sunny suddenly looked around the room.

"...Wait."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"Where’s the old guy?"

March pointed down the hallway.

"Oh, he went back to the Express to check on Himeko and Pom-Pom."

Sunny’s jaw dropped.

"I could have brain damage for all he knows! And he’s more concerned about the damn rabbit?!"

Dan Heng frowned thoughtfully.

"But he said I was his favorite..."

March blinked.

"Huh. Me too."

Sunny turned toward them slowly.

His expression shifted into something deeply offended.

"You guys are favorites?"

Silence fell across the room.

Fu Xuan raised an eyebrow.

Jing Yuan quietly covered his mouth to hide what looked suspiciously like amusement.

Sunny stared at them both in disbelief.

"...Unbelievable."

He placed a hand over his chest.

"All this time... I thought I was the problematic one he secretly cared about!"

Dan Heng tilted his head slightly.

"You are problematic."

"That’s not the point."