𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐠𝐲𝐫𝐚𝐥 ✦ 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐤𝐚𝐢 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐑𝐚𝐢𝐥

𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝖲𝖾𝗏𝖾𝗇𝗍𝖾𝖾𝗇

Dan Heng and y/n didn't quite start off very close when she first boarded the Astral Express. Nobody did when first meeting someone, of course, but she was just...

There was this look in her eye.

She didn't sleep, eat, or do much of anything.

She was sort of somewhere else for some time.

With time, they began to get along and become close comrades who could trust one another. Not enough to dump their entire pasts on one another, y/n couldn't for obvious reasons, but just enough to know that one had the other's back.

Y/n happened to trust him enough to tell him things she couldn't tell anyone else. Things she didn't want to burden the happy go lucky March 7th, things she didn't want Himeko and Welt to worry about.

"If... if the Xianzhou Luofu ends up being my home, what will it be like?" y/n wondered aloud.

Dan Heng wasn't quite sure how to answer, and even if he knew, he doubted it'd be an answer that would ease y/n's worries.

The woman didn't wait for a reply, only letting out a heavy sigh, "Guess we'll see if we go there, eh?" she turned her head to give Dan Heng a smile, "Just in case this is my stop, you wouldn't mind being full time Archivist and Train Guard, right?"

She promised to fill him in on everything she learned over text, but Dan Heng hadn't received a single message from her since her and the others had departed.

He was already pretty concerned after reviewing the hologram thing and seeing a very dangerous dude, and y/n's lack of a response wasn't helping ease his nerves.

At first, Dan Heng figured she'd forgotten, so he tried messaging her to see if she was alright.

The message didn't go through.

He tried March, Caelus, and Welt, but none of his messages got through to them. Strange. And awfully concerning.

In the end, he ended up following them.

Well, following the trail they left behind.

It wasn't difficult to tell which way they went, y/n always left some kind of path when she was going somewhere. Footprints, food, blood, and this time... headless mara-struck. Lots of them.

Of course, this could've been someone else's doing, but y/n had Mimi with her. Mimi's missing ear sometimes dropped stuffing, and there it was right on the ground.

So... yes. Y/n had been there.

Dan Heng didn't know whether he should be worried or absolutely devastated. Well. At least she was doing her job.

"What the hell?!" someone shouting from up ahead, drawing Dan Heng's attention, "What happened here?!

Oh yeah, Dan Heng currently had two others he was navigating Cloudford with. A Cloud Knight who had just transferred from the Yaoqing, Sushang, and a strange merchant carrying a casket, Luocha.

Dan Heng wandered over to join the two and found that the path before him was very clear, just that a bunch of shipping containers had been flung further down the path.

His eyes immediately found one containers with a large dent in it that seemed to have nearly caused the entire side to cave in.

From the way the containers had been flung, plenty of people were able to walk through, but there were more containers that had fallen down in the path. Almost as though someone had deliberately knocked them down there.

'Definitely y/n's doing.' he concluded.

"Y/n!!! Why would you do that, now we're trapped!!!" March shrieked as she stared at the wrecked elevator before them, the only thing that separated them from their pursuers and their only way out.