Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

Sunny did not even give himself time to pretend to consider the question.

Aventurine had asked it lightly, with that same polished smile and deceptively casual tone, but everyone in the room understood that this was the center of the conversation. Debt, Great Devils, broken walls, Corrupted Saints — all of that was scenery. This was the actual stage.

What did Sunny want?

He leaned back slightly on the broken section of stone he had claimed as a seat, resting one arm against his knee as though they were discussing something as harmless as the weather rather than the economic stability of a planet and the potential blackmail of one of the IPC’s highest-ranking officials.

"You can call me that, I guess, though I do not prefer it."

His expression remained easy, almost lazy.

"As for what I am aiming for, it is simple, really..."

He smiled.

"It is peace."

Silence followed with such immediate sincerity that it almost deserved respect.

Topaz stared at him.

Clara blinked.

Even Numby stopped shifting around and looked up with what Sunny could only describe as disbelief.

Svarog, who must have seen plenty of political nonsense over the centuries, turned his crimson gaze toward Sunny with visible suspicion.

It was impressive, really. Most people could not make an ancient war machine look judgmental with a single sentence.

Aventurine, to his credit, maintained his smile, although it acquired the faint stiffness of a man who had just been informed that the Devil’s political alignment was ’peaceful.’

He tilted his head very slightly.

"Is that... so?"

Sunny nodded with the grave seriousness of a priest delivering sacred doctrine.

"It is."

Then his expression sharpened just enough to become dangerous.

"And that is exactly why you should hand over the corpse of that dragon I killed, including the four Supreme Soul Shards inside it. Otherwise, there will be no peace."

This time, the silence was different.

Before, it had been disbelief.

Now, it was genuine confusion.

Topaz frowned.

Clara looked like she was trying very hard to determine whether she should intervene or simply accept that this was now her life.

Even Aventurine seemed, for the first time since Sunny had entered the room, honestly perplexed.

That was satisfying.

Because Aventurine knew he was telling the truth.

That was the beauty of it.

He could not dismiss it as bluffing, because the lie-detection Memory would not allow that comfort. He had to sit there and process the fact that Sunny was somehow both completely sincere and deeply unreasonable.

It was one of Sunny’s favorite combinations.

Aventurine folded his hands together.

There was a careful pause before he spoke, like someone testing the floorboards before deciding whether they would collapse.

"I feel that there may be several steps missing between your desire for peace and your request for the corpse of a Great Devil."

Sunny smiled wider.

That was his cue.

"Oh, just imagine what I would do in an outrage."

He spoke conversationally, as though discussing dinner plans.

"Do you think you would be able to protect Topaz from me and my pets? Do you think you would be able to protect yourself?"

His gaze shifted lazily toward the shattered wall, toward the refugee settlement beyond it.

"What if I caused another explosion?"

Then he looked back.

"Just so you know, all I had to do to make that pillar of light was detonate a Soul Shard."

He raised a hand, holding up two fingers as though clarifying a minor detail.

"And I have thousands of them."

Clara’s eyes narrowed immediately.

Unlike the IPC representatives, she actually knew enough to understand exactly where that statement became suspicious.

She had helped construct the Engine of Creation. She knew how that scale of detonation worked. She knew that the blast Sunny was referring to had required the self-destruction protocol of a massive war machine and the Supreme Soul Shard serving as its core fuel source.

Sunny did not, in fact, possess several spare Engines of Creation hidden in his pocket like particularly aggressive loose change.

He was bluffing.

Or rather, he was doing something far more useful than bluffing.

He was telling a truth shaped carefully enough to be mistaken for inevitability.

Could he reproduce that exact explosion casually? No.

Could he create catastrophic destruction if sufficiently motivated and left unsupervised for a long period of time with enough Soul Shards? Absolutely. Weaving was a very useful thing.

And more importantly, Aventurine and Topaz did not know where the exact line between exaggeration and practical possibility existed.

That uncertainty was the point.

Clara met his eyes from across the room and very subtly made a cutting motion across her throat.

’Stop talking! Stop trying to instigate them!’

Sunny ignored her with the ease of long practice.

Because while he was not particularly interested in killing Topaz, as that lacked benefits both logically and personally, he was very confident he could if things turned violent, even under Aventurine’s protection.

It would be troublesome, expensive, and deeply inconvenient, but possible.

And that possibility was all he needed. She was a Stoneheart, mundane as she was.

Across from him, Aventurine’s smile sharpened.

It did not become hostile, exactly. It simply lost the softness of polite fiction.

"Should I take that as a threat?"

Sunny nearly laughed.

There it was.

Perfect.

That was the bait.

And the gambler had stepped directly into it.

At this exact moment, Aventurine believed he held the moral high ground. More importantly, he likely believed he was creating evidence of it.

People like him did not enter negotiations like this without safeguards. There was almost certainly a hidden recording device somewhere on his person, or perhaps on Topaz, capturing every word for later review. With the right phrasing, with the right implication, they could turn this conversation into leverage.

Threats from a dangerous independent Awakened.

An excuse.

And excuses were one of the most valuable currencies in the Universe.

With enough justification, the IPC could make demands despite already planning to let Belobog go free. They could ask for Memories. They could demand access to Clara’s automatons. They could pressure for military cooperation, information, technology, concessions disguised as responsibility. They could turn the planet into a colony.

All because they had a clean narrative.

We were generous. He was dangerous.

Sunny could practically hear the legal departments reproducing in excitement.

Which was why this was so fun.

He leaned forward slightly, grinning.

"No, nothing of the sort."

His voice was warm, almost friendly.

"Just a possible outcome."

Then he sighed, like someone disappointed by unfortunate necessity.

"It is too bad, though. I wanted to return the bodies of your soldiers, but I cannot possibly give back what belongs to you if you do not return what belongs to me."

Topaz’s expression shifted.

That landed.

Because beneath all the negotiation, all the manipulation, there were still dozens of Awakened soldiers trapped in the Dream Realm involved.

IPC soldiers. Awakened. Employees, yes, but also people who will either die in the Dream Realm, or return as Ascended

Whether they lost a future corpse or a potential Master, both could be considered losses.

Aventurine, however, only chuckled.

"It is a small sacrifice."

He tilted his head slightly.

"All for the Amber Lord, you know?"

Sunny clapped his hands together in immediate delight.

"It is, is it not?"

His grin widened into something actively sleazy.

"So I wonder what the Amber Lord would think if this recording gets leaked across the Universe."

The room stopped breathing.

Topaz turned so sharply toward Aventurine that the movement itself was an accusation.

Clara covered part of her face with one hand.

Numby somehow looked disappointed in everyone.

Aventurine sat perfectly still.

There was a long pause, and for the first time since this conversation began, his smile felt like something being held in place rather than something natural.

Eventually, very carefully, he said:

"...I beg your pardon?"

Sunny looked delighted.

It was the expression of a man who had just watched someone walk willingly into a bear trap and was now debating whether applause would be rude.

"Svarog, replay the last couple of seconds."

There was a brief mechanical hum.

Then Svarog’s chest folded inward with the smooth inevitability of expensive engineering, revealing a built-in screen.

Sunny blinked.

That was new.

Last time he checked, Svarog mostly handled recordings through audio storage. Apparently Clara had decided that what he really needed was the ability to produce visual evidence like an extremely intimidating courtroom exhibit.

Honestly, it suited him. In a weird robot upgrade kind of way.

The screen flickered to life.

And there, with all the dignity of a man being professionally betrayed by his own voice, played Aventurine’s earlier statement about how sacrificing a few Awakened soldiers was an acceptable price if it meant keeping the Great Devil’s corpse under IPC control.

The room listened.

Topaz palmed her face.

Numby, sitting in her lap, somehow managed to mimic the gesture so perfectly that Sunny briefly considered whether it was a human in disguise.

Aventurine stared at the screen for a long moment.

Then, to his immense credit, he smiled.

"...AI really is something else, isn’t it?"

Sunny nodded solemnly.

"It is."

Then he folded his hands together and smiled like a tax audit given human form.

"So, it turns out I happen to know a certain Master Diviner from the Xianzhou Luofu."

Aventurine froze.

He froze in the subtle way only very dangerous people did, where absolutely nothing changed and yet the entire atmosphere somehow became sharper.

Sunny continued cheerfully.

"I thought maybe I could send the clip to her and let her determine whether it is fake or not."

He tilted his head.

"Ah, and I read somewhere that when Yingxing became the infamous Stellaron Hunter, Blade, the IPC requested access to the Xianzhou Zhuming’s Artisanship Commission’s Memory Vault."

His tone remained light, but every word was placed with surgical care.

"After all, Blade was once Huaiyan’s heir, and the IPC claimed it would be better for his inheritance to be held for safekeeping, to protect it from a war criminal."

He smiled.

"I am sure the Alliance is still holding at least a little bit of a grudge over that."

That part had been an unexpectedly useful rabbit hole.

When Jingliu had mentioned that Sunny’s swordsmanship resembled someone named Yingxing, he had naturally performed the only reasonable follow-up action. He asked himself:

’What the hell is a Yingxing?’

The answer had been Blade, interestingly enough. Which was not especially helpful at first, but digging deeper had revealed the older scandal. Apparently, becoming an infamous intergalactic criminal had not done wonders for property management.

Somewhere in the mess, the IPC had inserted itself with the elegance of a pickpocket calling itself a law enforcer.

Centuries had passed, certainly, but Saints lived long enough for grudges to fester endlessly.

That kind of thing did not disappear.

It fermented.

Sunny continued.

"Herta might be interested in proving the legitimacy of the recording. Actually, probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask."

He pretended to think.

"Oh, and I have heard that a certain wanted criminal from Punklorde is very well-versed in these kinds of things, so maybe I could collaborate with her."

His smile sharpened.

"I am fairly certain she would find it hilarious."

At this point, he was not especially concerned about revealing that he could contact a Stellaron Hunter.

Compared to the recording, that barely qualified as interesting.

Because leaking that video would not simply embarrass Aventurine or Topaz.

It would wound the IPC.

And not because of morality.

Morality was decorative.

The real issue was a singular concept:

Excuses.

That was the fundamental difference between outlaws and major powers.

Criminals like the Stellaron Hunters could simply arrive, kill important people, steal the Stellaron, rob a few vaults for variety, and leave. Their justification was strength.

Survival of the fittest. If they could take it, they kept it.

Major forces worked differently.

They required righteousness, or at least the appearance of it.

They needed an excuse, and using those excuses, they can do as they wish without escalating things into a major conflict.

The IPC had not taken interest in Blade’s inheritance because they wanted to keep those precious Memories and Echoes away from the hands of a dangerous Transcendent war criminal. They had taken interest because it had value, and ’safekeeping’ sounded better than theft.

That was how empires functioned.

Now, the same principle threatened them.

With that recording, every force the IPC had ever inconvenienced, manipulated, cheated, annexed, or politely robbed would suddenly have a reason to act.

The Xianzhou Alliance. Legacy Clans. Independent factions. Corporations. Governments. Saints with old grudges and too much free time.

Everyone would gather for the same reason sharks gathered around blood.

Not justice.

Opportunity.

They would use Aventurine’s statement as justification to demand compensation, territory, Memories, Echoes, resources, contracts, concessions, political surrender disguised as diplomacy.

And if the IPC refused?

Then they had the ’excuse’ for war.

The IPC was the largest and most powerful force in the Waking World.

But even giants bled when enough knives agreed to cooperate.

Sunny sat there, smiling pleasantly, while internally he was having what could only be described as a religious experience.

A mere Master.

A glorified rat with anger issues.

And somehow, through pure spite and good timing, he currently had the economic stability of interstellar civilization balanced on his lap.

He was magnificent.

’I... am so unbelievably incredible!’

Across from him, Aventurine smiled.

Not the polite smile.

Not the amused one.

This one was cleaner. Sharper.

"Not bad."

Then he tilted his head.

"But what if I told you that the corpse of the Great Devil is the reason Belobog’s debt is being forgiven?"

Sunny shrugged immediately.

"One Great Nightmare Creature is enough, is it not?"

His voice was casual.

"It was obvious that the dragon was fighting something else, and honestly, it couldn’t have been you."

He looked Aventurine up and down.

"You aren’t the power type. And even if you were, I would still find it difficult to believe you defeated a Great Devil alone."

His tone remained almost thoughtful.

"So just keep the corpse of the other Great One. There is no doubt Svarog saw it through surveillance, which means there is even more evidence."

He let that sit.

Aventurine did not react.

That was fine.

Sunny continued anyway.

Because pressure was an art form.

"So?"

He leaned forward slightly.

"What will it be, Aventurine of Stratagems?"

And there it was, the board laid bare.

Two choices.

The gambler could let go of greed, accept the loss, and walk away with dignity mostly intact.

Or he could keep reaching.

He could cling to profit hard enough to make the IPC itself vulnerable, turning one dragon corpse into the excuse half the Universe needed to start taking bites out of the largest corporate empire in existence. If that didn’t work, well...

Then they’d know who started the greatest war in human history.

One option required restraint.

The other required arrogance.

Sunny already knew which one people usually chose.

That was the thing about greed.

It was rarely quiet.

And now, for the first time since Sunny had entered the room, the future of this negotiation depended entirely on whether Aventurine could stop being exactly who he was.