Sunny stood before the mirror, staring at his reflection with the kind of disbelief normally reserved for miracles or catastrophes. March stood beside him, leaning forward with both palms pressed against the glass.
A long moment passed where neither spoke.
Then, March gasped.
"I'm… I'm hot."
Sunny tilted his head, studying his face as if someone else were inside it.
"…Huh."
March stepped back, twirling a strand of her pink hair.
"Seriously, look at me! It's like someone kidnapped me and turned me into some kind of… limited-edition action figure."
She struck a pose, fists on hips.
"Ascension is crazy…"
Sunny said nothing. Mostly because he was too busy silently agreeing with her.
His reflection did not look human anymore — at least not in the pedestrian, disappointing way humans usually looked. He had always been doll-like in a strange, uncanny way, but now…
Now he looked like someone had taken a starving alley rat, dissected and boiled him in the blood of an ancient goddess of beauty, sculpted the remains with surgical cruelty, then polished the result with moonlight.
Lean. Sharp. Every line precise. Every muscle distinct without bulk. His face was some impossible intersection of feminine and masculine, the kind that would make either direction jealous. Skin pale as porcelain. Hair black enough to swallow reflections. Eyes darker than the abyss — so dark that even he couldn't separate where pupil ended and iris began.
March glanced at him, then grimaced loudly.
"How did you get hotter than me!? That's so unfair! I mean, come on — give other people a chance!"
He shrugged, watching the play of his jawline as he moved.
"…Eh, maybe it's a roulette or something. Don't feel too bad about my sexiness."
March slapped his arm.
"You liar! I know you cheated… I just can't prove it yet."
Sunny sighed.
"I'm not a liar. I'm the most honest man in the world. Two worlds, even."
March kept ranting about the injustice of being 'only extremely cute' next to 'whatever dark romance nonsense Sunny had going on,' but Sunny wasn't listening anymore.
Because something felt wrong.
Not wrong in the danger sense. Wrong in the different sense.
There was a rhythm he hadn't heard in a long, long time.
A steady, quiet sound thumping beneath his ribs.
He placed a hand on his chest.
His heart was beating.
Properly.
In the Second Nightmare, he had been in the shadowspawn's body, which had two seperate hearts. Before that, however, his original heart in his real body had lost the ability to function, and the Stellaron within him had been regulating his blood flow.
Granted, the Stellaron did not help when he lost one of the shadowspawn's hearts, as he had still been dying despite having another. So, whatever had happened to his original body had happened in a way to make sure the Stellaron could keep him alive, but the mysterious fragments of Destruction were not naturally made to do that.
They were from the Path of the same name after all.
Ascension destroyed the old body and replaced it with something new, something forged out of soul and flesh intertwined. Even those whose bodies had been completely destroyed could return to the Waking World after Ascending.
Sunny was glad to not have his life be at the whims of a strange artifact. Better yet, if he ever found a way to get the dangerous bomb removed from his body, he wouldn't need to be concerned about dying immediately after due to heart failure.
…Was dying a long period of time after his heart stopped functioning still considered death by heart failure?
March was still rambling.
"—and I'm cute, right? I mean, I know I'm cute. I don't need you to tell me that. But I'm, like, extra cute now. Weaponized cute. I could probably traumatize someone with it. Sunny, look. Look at my cheeks. They bounce now."
Sunny blinked once.
"They bounced before."
"That's not the point!"
He didn't comment further. He didn't have to. March was already spiraling back into delighted self-obsession, turning left and right to admire the new shape of her hourglass figure, poking her softer stomach with a scandalized gasp.
"Why am I still chubby?!
Sunny glanced briefly at her reflection. He didn't even know it was possible to have excess fat as an Awakened, much less a Master.
…Well, he also didn't know that it was possible to be as short as he was as an Ascended male. So he won't judge. Not negatively, at least.
Stepping back for a bit while March was being infatuated with herself, Sunny eyed the rear, nodding in satisfaction. Then, he walked out of his bathroom.
March noticed him stepping away.
"Where are you going?"
"To see if the others made it out."
"Aww, you do care."
"You'll bitch at me if I don't."
"Bleh!"
She stuck out her tongue, sending herself one last look in the mirror.
"But seriously, Sunny, are you sure you're not, like, cheating somehow? You look like a tragic prince cursed by the heavens to be too pretty."
He sent her a somewhat concerned look.
"It's always the damn heavens… but no, I'm not cheating. Besides, I'm not that good-looking, am I?"
March sent him a knowing look.
"I'd totally be into you if you weren't a jerk."
Sunny blinked at her, caught off-guard for exactly half a second — which, for him, was basically falling down the stairs.
"Was that supposed to be an insult or a compliment? Actually, just forget it."
Sunny stepped out of his bathroom under March's confused gaze… before walking right back in.
"Where is everyone? The whole train is empty. Is this normal?"
March just blankly stared at him.
Sunny scowled.
"Was my room seriously your first destination after waking up? You couldn't check on… I don't know… your next door neighbors?"
March thought for a few moments, before shrugging with a carefree smile.
"Who cares? They're probably doing just fine."
Sunny opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, then pointed at her.
"You are… irresponsible. Like, cosmically irresponsible."
March beamed.
"Thanks!"
"That wasn't— Never mind. Forget it."
He mumbled under his breath:
"The stupid you and your stupid fat ass…"
He stepped out of the bathroom again, this time determined to ignore whatever idiotic chain of logic March was operating on. If everyone else was dead or being sold in a human trafficking ring, it wasn't technically his problem. A skill issue, as one would call it… where did he learn that phrase?
He walked past the window.
And stopped.
His eyes widened.
"…March."
"Hm?"
She popped her head out from behind him.
Sunny slowly lifted a hand and pointed at the world outside the glass.
Because floating there — dwarfing the Astral Express, dwarfing everything — was a ship the size of a small planet. Vast, ornate, impossible. Jade-green pathways snaked across its surface like veins of light. Ethereal structures jutted from its spine, swirling with drifting clouds of pale mist. It didn't look built.
Sunny stared at it, jaw set, expression caught somewhere between awe and irritation.
"…I'm pretty sure that wasn't there before."
March's mouth dropped open.
"Ohhhhhh no."
Sunny exhaled through his nose, steady and flat.
"Great. Perfect. Fantastic. We wake up hot and immediately get a world-ending space boat."
He dragged a hand back through his hair, eyes still fixed on the impossible vessel dominating the stars.
"…I knew today was going too well."