The Astral Express Departs! A Divine Court Member Hitches a Ride

The nasal voice from the announcement still echoed through the corridor.

Himeko suddenly came to her senses.

She set the empty white porcelain cup in her hand down on the desk with a clack.

The movement was stiff, and the porcelain struck the desktop with a harsh, dull thud.

Ignoring the coffee stain that had yet to dry, she strode to the door.

She pressed the metal switch, and the airtight door slid open to either side.

The overhead lights in the observation car were bright.

Himeko crossed the red velvet carpet, her heels making no sound against the soft pile.

She rounded the bar and immediately saw what was happening in the middle of the lounge.

The largest black leather sofa was where the Astral Express Crew usually held their discussions.

Now a little girl with white hair had claimed it all for himself.

Su Chen lay sprawled across it.

His oversized black high-collared uniform was crumpled, its hem bunched haphazardly around his waist.

He had long since kicked off his little leather shoes.

One lay beside the sofa, while the other had rolled beneath the coffee table.

The little girl's pale feet were bare.

He had propped them right up on the glass coffee table with its solid-wood trim.

His toes even swayed to some rhythm no one else could hear.

His heels tapped against the glass with a crisp tap-tap.

He was a shameless stowaway through and through.

Welt stood beside the bar.

He held a glass of water but had not taken a sip.

The veins on the back of his hand bulged like blue worms from how tightly he gripped the glass.

Welt pushed his black-framed glasses up his nose.

His gaze stayed fixed on a metal seam in the floor. He did not dare look up at the "Seventh Seat" on the sofa.

Dan Heng leaned against the wall beside the Data Bank door.

He held an electronic data pad, his fingers flying across the screen.

But a closer look would have shown that the document on the screen had not turned a page in ten minutes.

Every muscle in his body was taut.

Cloud-Piercer was not in his hand, but his stance let him spring forward at any moment.

March 7th hid behind another armchair.

Only half her pink head showed.

She clutched her camera tightly to her chest and deliberately kept her breathing slow.

Usually, when guests came aboard, she would already be asking questions and taking pictures with them.

Today, she said nothing, like a startled quail.

No one dared remind him about train etiquette.

That was the monster who had just swept away an antimatter fleet like trash.

He could erase an Antimatter Legion Commander with a flick of one finger.

Who would dare tell him what to do?

Did they have a death wish?

Ding-dong.

A chime sounded from the speaker above the car.

Then came the low-frequency roar of the train's engines running at full power.

The alloy floor beneath their feet trembled faintly.

"Spatial jump commencing."

Pom-Pom's voice came through the speaker.

Beyond the observation car's holographic windows, the once-still depths of space changed in an instant.

Some immense force tore at the dark backdrop of the universe.

Distant stars became streaks of dazzling white light.

Streams of light raced backward outside the windows.

They wove into a brilliant web.

A powerful pull gripped the entire car.

The tea in the red teapot on the coffee table sloshed violently, splashing a few hot drops onto the glass.

The chandelier overhead swayed with a faint creak.

Welt tightened his grip on his cane.

Dan Heng bent his knees slightly and shifted his weight.

The enormous inertia of the jump could not be completely canceled out by the physical engine.

But on that huge leather sofa—

The sight was strange enough to chill them to the bone.

Little Satoru Gojo was still eating candy.

The lollipop turned in his mouth, its white plastic stick bobbing up and down.

The feet he had propped on the coffee table went still.

The train was shaking.

The tea set on the coffee table was rattling.

The carpet's pile leaned to one side under the force of inertia.

Yet not even the corner of Little Satoru Gojo's uniform moved.

It was as though an invisible blade had carved the space around him out of the train.

Then locked it in place on its own.

The train's gravity, its acceleration, the engines' high-frequency vibrations—

All of it was forcibly smoothed away by an unseen wall a tenth of a millimeter from his body.

A drop of water on the coffee table rolled with the vibration.

It reached the space near his heel and stopped dead.

Water droplets gathered at that boundary, unable to cross the invisible line.

Even a speck of dust floating in the air struck that barrier and hung there, defying gravity.

Welt's eyelid twitched wildly.

The hand holding his glass jerked.

Half the lukewarm water splashed across the web of his thumb, and he recoiled as though a hot iron had burned him.

Welt's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, tasting blood in his mouth.

He closed his eyes.

He did not want to calculate any more spatial parameters that would fry his brain.

Dan Heng's data pad slipped from his hand.

It landed on the carpet with a soft thud.

He did not pick it up.

His back pressed hard against the metal wall, the cold of the panel seeping through his clothes.

A bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead and into his collar, making him shiver.

His Vidyo-Dhara blood screamed a warning.

Something that disregarded the constants of the universe was ten thousand times more dangerous than anything in the depths of the Fragmentum.

The streams of light outside the window gradually shortened.

They gathered once more into quiet stars.

The engines' roar subsided into a steady, low hum.

The train's jump was over.

The car grew steady again.

Su Chen spat out the lollipop stick.

The plastic stick traced an arc through the air and dropped neatly into the trash can.

He stretched, waving his short arms twice in the air.

His feet started tapping tap-tap on the glass coffee table again.

No one wanted to break the oppressive silence.

Standing beside the bar, Himeko felt a painful tightness in her chest.

Just then—

The cockpit door at the front of the car slid open with a swish.

Conductor Pom-Pom strode out on short legs.

Pom-Pom's red-and-white uniform was perfectly neat.

Both long ears stood straight up.

Pom-Pom clutched a little broom indignantly.

The conductor spotted the rule-breaker in the middle of the lounge at once.

Pom-Pom ignored Welt's frantic looks.

The conductor marched straight up to the leather sofa.

The broom struck the floor, its bristles splaying out.

Pom-Pom tipped back their head, pointed at Su Chen on the sofa, and shouted:

"Hey! You, the white-haired passenger without a ticket! No putting your feet on the coffee table aboard this train, pom!"