Honkai Star Rail: My Path Changes Every Day! — Chapter 203

Chapter 203: What Do You Mean One of the Possibilities is Little Rozaliya and Little Liliya?

[Path: Finality → Trailblaze]

Rekka hopped onto the high wall, his small paws landing silently. A moment later, another black cat appeared right beside him.

The mysterious feline and Rekka locked eyes. They shared the exact same sleek black fur, the exact same size, and the exact same piercing golden eyes. Two identical pairs of feline pupils reflected each other in the dim light. Slowly, they raised their front paws and bumped them together in a silent greeting.

As soon as contact was made, the other black cat leaped down behind the wall and vanished into the shadows. Rekka froze in place for a second, feeling a subtle, deep shift deep within his core. He tilted his furry head, then gracefully jumped down from the wall, looking for all the world like an ordinary stray.

It felt as though he had just granted himself administrative permissions. The enigmatic Path of Finality actually required a bizarre form of authorization and authentication before its power could be tapped into. Even now, while he could access it, he could only draw upon a tiny fraction of its true potential. He was currently a very special existence.

Turning his head one last time, Rekka let out a sharp meow at Huaiyan, then darted behind the wall, melting into the darkness. Time to run away.

The black cat strolled out from the dim shadows of the Astral Express corridor, his posture entirely composed and his long tail held high in the air with aristocratic pride. He padded into the Parlor Car, leaped effortlessly onto the plush sofa, and found a perfectly comfortable spot right next to Stelle’s thigh. Tucking his four paws neatly beneath his body, the feline curled into a perfectly round, soft ball of black fur.

“Where did this cat come from?” Stelle looked down at the sudden arrival, blinking in mild surprise before reaching out to grab his tail.

Rekka completely ignored her, simply shifting his weight and tucking his tail securely out of reach. But Stelle was relentless, poking and prodding at him with the determination of a seasoned keyboard warrior harassing a noble feline.

“…Where did this cat come from?” Himeko walked into the Parlor Car and noticed Stelle messing with the black cat.

“I don’t know, it probably sneaked aboard on its own,” Stelle replied, leaning back against the sofa cushions while her golden eyes tracked the furry black figure. “It is pretty cocky, though.”

It really was not a matter of being cocky.

“You are pulling its tail, Stelle,” Himeko pointed out with a gentle, amused sigh.

“Can’t I pull it?”

“It is already showing an incredibly good temper by not scratching your face off.”

Stelle withdrew her hand, looking slightly resentful at the missed opportunity to squish the cat. “Speaking of which, I haven’t seen Rekka all day…”

A sudden, heavy silence fell over the Parlor Car as the two women slowly processed that thought.

“Rekka?!” they exclaimed in unison.

Rekka lazily rolled over on the cushions, exposing his fluffy belly. ‘You guys are way too slow to catch on, meow.’

Stelle’s finger hung suspended in mid-air for two agonizing seconds. Then, moving at a glacial, cautious speed, she gently lowered her hand until it rested on the black cat’s back.

“Is it really you, Rekka?”

The black cat merely narrowed his golden eyes, his long tail thumping twice against the soft sofa cushion in confirmation.

“Then can I pet you?” Stelle asked, a dangerous gleam entering her eyes. “I will take that as a yes.”

Before her hands could close around him, Rekka leaped down from the sofa, his four paws landing completely silently on the ornate carpet. He darted away immediately, absolutely refusing to let Stelle pet him. After all, she had just been yanking on his tail like it was a rubber band. What a menace.

It was time to go check on Rozaliya and Liliya.

The twins’ room was located in the middle section of the Express. The heavy metal door was left slightly ajar, leaving just enough of a narrow crack for a small animal to slip through. Rekka nudged the door open with his furry head and squeezed his way inside.

The room was surprisingly quiet. Rozaliya was sprawled out on her stomach across the large bed, deeply engrossed in a colorful manga book, her legs kicking back and forth in the air with idle energy. Liliya sat quietly at the desk nearby, her long tail hanging off the edge of the chair and twitching slightly every few seconds.

The sudden movement at the door caught the sisters’ attention. A small, furry black figure was crouching at the foot of the bed, two bright golden eyes staring straight at them with an unblinking gaze.

“…It is the Captain,” Liliya stated, making the judgment with her usual deadpan expression.

“How do you know?” Rozaliya asked, peering over the top of her manga.

“The look in his eyes. It is unmistakable.”

Rekka jumped gracefully from the foot of the bed onto the wooden nightstand, and then bounded from the nightstand straight onto Liliya’s desk, landing with perfect balance right next to her open notebook.

“Captain, you turned into a cat today?” Rozaliya gasped, tossing her manga aside.

“It really is him,” Liliya confirmed, nodding slowly.

The two sisters exchanged a mischievous glance.

“The Captain is so soft! And so warm!” Rozaliya cheered, suddenly lunging forward. She scooped the black cat up into her arms and buried her face directly into his fluffy belly, rubbing her cheeks against his fur with vigorous enthusiasm.

Rekka went completely stiff. ‘Can these two kids calm down for just one second?’

Rozaliya placed him gently down on the center of the bed, and immediately, she and Liliya flanked him, sandwiching the helpless cat between them. Four eager hands began petting him relentlessly from head to toe, massaging the base of his ears and smoothing down the fur all the way to the very tip of his tail.

“Hehe, a cute little kitty like the Captain was practically born to be devoured by us!” Rozaliya giggled menacingly.

Rekka sighed internally, letting his body go limp on the mattress. ‘Whatever. I will just let them have their way for now.’

While he was trapped in this petting zoo, he decided to test his new powers. First, let us look at the [Past].

Rekka closed his golden eyes, tapping into the mysterious energy of Finality. The possibility of the [Past] revealed itself in his mind’s eye…

Wait, what did it mean by the Astral Express suddenly having an extra little Rozaliya and a little Liliya running around?

Rekka jolted in shock, his fur puffing up.

At that exact moment, Liliya and Rozaliya’s hands, which had been happily scratching his ears and chin, froze completely.

“Liliya?” Rozaliya whispered, her voice trembling slightly.

“Rozaliya, I think I just saw something in my head,” Liliya replied, her usual deadpan tone cracking.

Thanks to their connection with him, both of them had seen the vision clearly. A tiny little Rozaliya and a tiny little Liliya. Although the children looked exactly like miniature, adorable versions of themselves, the older twins had seen themselves standing right behind the toddlers in the vision, holding their little hands…

“Captain, we have become mothers,” Liliya stated, her eyes widening in deep realization.

Rekka hurriedly shook his furry head back and forth, panicking. He scrambled over to the data terminal resting on the bedside table and began typing clumsily with his soft paws.

‘That is just a possibility! It is not something that will definitely happen!’ he typed out, displaying the text on the screen.

“A possibility like that isn’t too bad either,” Rozaliya giggled, a faint blush dusting her cheeks.

“Yeah, what is the Captain so nervous about?” Liliya added, a rare, teasing smirk forming on her lips.

Rekka immediately flopped over on the bed, pretending to be dead, while the two sisters reached out simultaneously, aggressively ruffling the fur on his head from both sides.

After finally escaping from the twins’ room, Rekka trotted down the corridor, feeling that he should probably go find Himeko. The elegant and gentle navigator surely would not have such chaotic possibilities attached to her…

Out of sheer curiosity, he peeked into the [Past] again. Seeing the vivid possibility of Himeko holding a child with his exact hair color, Rekka almost fainted right there on the carpet.

‘There is a Himeko route too?!’ he screamed internally.

But as the shock faded, he was finally starting to get the gist of how this power worked. The Himeko route could not run parallel to the March 7th route. It functioned exactly like a branching romance route in a classic Galgame—if you committed to playing one specific heroine’s path, you were locked out from choosing the others. And as for those two chaotic kids, Rozaliya and Liliya, any choice that involved flat-out rejecting them seemed to lead straight into a devastatingly bad ending.

‘What am I supposed to do with all this, meow?’ he thought, his ears flattening against his skull in distress.

“Passenger Rekka, have you turned into an entity of Finality today?” a familiar, squeaky voice called out.

Rekka spun around. ‘How did the Conductor recognize me so easily?’

“Have you run into a difficult problem?” Pom-Pom asked, tilting their large, floppy ears.

Rekka’s long tail drooped sadly against the floor. He had indeed run into a massive, headache-inducing problem.

Pom-Pom waddled over, reaching out a small, gloved hand to pat the black cat’s head with surprising gentleness. “Passenger Rekka is the person Pom-Pom has seen who knows best how to ‘live in the now,’ Pom.”

The black cat froze, completely stunned by the deep words.

“You change your Path every single day, and every day you turn into a completely different appearance. Sometimes you are a terrifyingly big bug, sometimes you are an Abundance Traveler with wooden branches growing out of your skin, and sometimes you are just a cute little kitty. In short, Passenger, you are someone who will never be trapped by the weight of those future possibilities, Pom.”

‘Thank you, Conductor,’ Rekka thought, a wave of warmth washing over his furry chest.

“You are very welcome. This is exactly what Pom-Pom should do as the Conductor of the Astral Express,” Pom-Pom said proudly, continuing to stroke the cat’s soft head.

In times of deep confusion and existential dread, the fluffy Conductor was always the most reliable pillar of support on the entire train.

“Now, Passenger, go take a nice, long nap. You will feel much better when you wake up.”

Pom-Pom gently picked the cat up and carried Rekka all the way back to his private room.

“Be good now, Pom.” Pom-Pom carefully laid him on the mattress and tucked the blankets around him, treating the all-powerful entity like a sleepy child.

The next morning arrived with the soft hum of the Express’s engines.

“Good morning, Captain,” a pair of voices chimed in unison.

Seeing Rekka step out into the corridor, fully restored to his normal human form, Rozaliya and Liliya were pleasantly surprised. However, there was an unusual, bashful tint to their cheeks that had not been there before.

“Good morning,” Rekka replied, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. He could not shake the feeling that the way the twin sisters were looking at him today was a bit… intense.

“Captain,” they said together, stepping forward in perfect synchronization.

Before he could react, the two girls latched onto him, hugging his arms tightly from both sides and pressing themselves against him.

“Captain, we stayed up late and discussed something very important last night,” Rozaliya murmured, looking up at him with sparkling eyes.

“Discussed what?” Rekka asked, a sudden sense of impending doom creeping up his spine.

Liliya tightened her grip on his left arm, her expression entirely serious. “It is about that specific possibility the Captain saw with us yesterday.”