Chapter 1: Lost Stellaron Hunter (Patreon)

"Hey, young man?"

An impatient voice rang out beside his ear.

"Are you buying or not? If not, quit blocking my stall."

Natsuki Subaru's eyes snapped open.

His vision sharpened out of a blur, and he found himself standing before a crude wooden stall piled high with unfamiliar red fruit that looked something like apples.

Behind the stall, a burly man with a jagged scar across his face stood with arms crossed, glaring at him impatiently.

Subaru didn't answer. He looked down and realized he was still holding a plastic bag in his right hand.

A cup of instant noodles. A bag of chips.

Things he'd bought at a convenience store back when he first left Earth.

He'd crossed into that other universe, become the Stellaron Hunter "Phantom," changed his whole outfit — and somehow this thing was still in his hand. How funny.

"Hey, you all right?"

The apple stall owner noticed his pallor and softened his tone slightly.

"I'm fine," Subaru answered flatly. "I think... I'm just a little seasick, that's all."

"Seasick?!"

The stall owner's jaw dropped. He wanted to grab the kid by the collar and ask, "Is there something wrong with your head?"

The Royal Capital of Lugnica sat deep inland — the only place you could even take a boat was the canal running through the city, and no one had ever heard of getting seasick on a calm, still canal.

Only a madman or a fool would say something like that.

The young man looked handsome enough, and that finely made black coat of his looked expensive — the stall owner guessed he was probably some kind of noble. His manners were polite enough too, no arrogant airs about him. So why did his head have to be broken?

The stall owner felt genuinely sorry for him, but waved him off with irritation all the same, shooing him away:

"Go on, go be dizzy somewhere else. Don't block my other customers."

Subaru wasn't in the mood to care what anyone thought of him. He obediently stepped back to clear the space in front of the stall, then lifted his head and calmly looked around.

The street was paved with stone. Pedestrians in cloth clothing passed by, and among the crowd he even spotted a girl with beast ears carrying a basket of flowers. A lizard-like beast hauled a cargo cart slowly along the roadside, and somewhere in the distance came the clatter of armor from patrolling guards.

This seemed to be a place at a fairly primitive stage of civilization — even its transportation still relied on animal power.

Nothing like any planet he'd ever seen in the starsea.

"Well. Another unfamiliar world..."

Subaru muttered to himself.

The words had barely left his mouth when a sudden, searing pain lanced through his skull. He grunted and grabbed the wooden frame of the apple stall for support as the street before him warped violently — sunlight and crowd alike swallowed whole by a boundless darkness.

He remembered a massive hand formed of pure darkness dragging him down into a bottomless void.

Crimson void chains coiled around his body, their terrible power piercing straight through to his soul, sending deep tremors through him.

And within that endless void, a malevolent presence spoke in a low voice.

"You have already proven your worth."

"Submit to me!"

From the inherited memories within him, Subaru found the presence's name.

The God of Darkness — Amon.

It coiled in the deepest reaches of the void, as though it had awakened before time itself. It had existed before the stars ever kindled to light, waiting in darkness before civilization had even learned to look up at the sky.

It regarded everything in the universe as nothing more than fleeting sparks — life, order, hope, love, sacrifice — all things destined to be snuffed out sooner or later. To it, destruction was as natural as breathing.

It was the shadow buried at the origin of all things, and the witness at the end of every world.

Nanook, the Aeon of Destruction, believed the birth of the universe itself was a mistake, that civilization was a cancer quietly metastasizing among the vast stars. But this presence sought something beyond mere destruction — total finality, a hollow universe in which even the concept of "nothingness" itself would cease to exist.

"I can grant you power that surpasses even Finality."

"And once I devour that young Destroyer of yours, Nanook, you may wield the flame it leaves behind in my stead."

"Not a chance!"

Subaru struggled against it, and a faint green light kindled from deep within his soul.

It was the inheritance he'd received in a ruined relic soon after arriving in the starsea — a crystal that glowed with a strange light.

The crystal held the memory and soul of a great warrior. Subaru had no idea where that warrior came from — he only knew that those memories had taught him how to walk in shadow, how to command power through will, and how to hold fast to his own will even in the dark.

Later, Kafka had found him.

Back then, he'd just finished a battle, standing amid the wreckage of countless Rift-born constructs, the faint green glow of his Bent Light War Blade still lingering in his hand.

The purple-haired woman had walked toward him with elegant steps, an umbrella held over her shoulder.

She hadn't pressed him about his past, hadn't minded the heavy stench of blood clinging to him.

She'd simply taken off her own black coat and draped it gently over his dust- and blood-streaked shoulders.

"Nice to meet you, kid. You can call me Kafka," she'd said with a smile. "And your name?"

Subaru had stayed silent for a long moment before answering.

"Natsuki Subaru."

"That's a nice name."

Kafka had straightened his collar and said softly:

"Would you like to become one of us?"

From then on, only Kafka knew his real name.

And that black coat had become something he wore ever since.

The void chains tightened further.

Subaru remembered trying to cry out Kafka's name, but no sound would come.

"Stubborn to the end!"

The malevolent presence seemed to have been provoked.

A roar tore up from deep within the chaos. Crimson flame ripped through the darkness, and a massive black dragon was dragged out from between shattered dimensions — its body covered in gruesome wounds, molten lava churning violently through its ravaged flesh.

"You wish to protect fragile order."

"But it was born to destroy order."

The darkness turned into claws, tearing into Subaru's soul.

Agony drowned him. He saw burning cities, shattered earth, countless people consumed by flame. As the black dragon slammed toward him, he fought back with everything he had, but all he could hear was the presence's final whisper.

"Let its flame flow into your blood!"

"Let its arrogance corrode your will!"

"In the end, you will destroy everything you cherish, with your own hands!"

After that, everything went blank.

"Hey, kid!"

The apple stall owner's shout dragged him back to reality once more.

Subaru gripped the wooden frame, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

What was that, just now?

A memory?

A hallucination?

He didn't know.

But deep within his soul, something heavy and searing seemed to have taken root.

For now, Subaru couldn't tell what it was.

"I'm fine. Just an old problem acting up again."

Subaru forced a faint smile, waved off the stall owner's offer to help him up, and straightened his back. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his pallid cheek.

"Honestly, if there's something wrong with you, don't go wandering around! What if you drop dead right here? How am I supposed to do business then?"

The owner grumbled a bit, but seeing that Subaru could speak normally again, let the matter drop.

"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to disturb your business."

Subaru reached up and pulled his hat brim lower, hiding the lingering exhaustion in his eyes. He took a deep breath, and for a moment the scent of that dashing, purple-haired beauty drifted through his mind, calling back the warmth her fingertips had left behind when she'd straightened his collar.

"Wait for me, Kafka."

Sunlight in this unfamiliar royal capital fell across his shoulders.

Subaru paused a moment, then repeated softly.

"I will find my way back to all of you."

____

Subaru after Honkai: Star Rail