The house burned with a steady, hungry persistence that felt almost deliberate, as though the flames themselves possessed a will, a quiet understanding of what they had been invited to consume. They crawled along the wooden beams with an unsettling patience, devouring structure and memory alike, reducing something once lived-in, once warm, into a collapsing skeleton of charred remains. The air carried the thick, suffocating scent of smoke and gasoline, the latter still lingering faintly from the bottles scattered carelessly across the ground, their purpose fulfilled and now rendered meaningless. Heat radiated outward in slow, oppressive waves, distorting the air, bending the world into something hazy and unreal.
Sunny stood before it all, unmoving.
At thirteen years old, his frame was slight, almost unimpressive, yet there was something about the way he carried himself that felt fundamentally wrong, something that refused to align with the expectations one might place upon a child his age. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, as though he were observing nothing more than an ordinary spectacle, his pale face illuminated by the flickering glow of firelight. Between his fingers rested a cigarette, the thin trail of smoke rising lazily upward, merging with the thicker clouds that drifted from the burning house behind him.
His gaze remained fixed on the flames.
There was no fear in it.
No hesitation.
No regret.
Only a quiet, empty stillness that mirrored the lifeless calm of a stagnant pond, its surface undisturbed by wind or motion, concealing depths that refused to reflect anything back.
The sound of crying broke through the crackling of the fire, uneven and raw, filled with a desperation that clawed at the edges of the night. It did not disturb him. It did not provoke even the slightest flicker of reaction. It simply existed, another element in the scene, no more significant than the shifting flames or the collapsing timber.
Sunny lifted the cigarette to his lips and inhaled, the motion slow and deliberate, as though he were savoring something that required careful attention. The smoke filled his lungs, harsh and invasive, yet his expression did not change. When he exhaled, the breath left him in a thin stream, dissipating into the already polluted air.
Then, after a moment of silence, he spoke.
"You know, this is the second time I've ever smoked."
His voice was calm, almost conversational, lacking any of the tension or strain one might expect given the circumstances.
"The first time, my lungs burned so much that I decided to never do it again. Still, it had a sweet aftertaste."
He tilted his head slightly, as though considering the memory, his eyes shifting just enough to acknowledge the presence beside him without fully turning.
"It's... too bland, now. Maybe I should have went for coffee."
The crying child struggled to breathe through her sobs, her small body trembling as she forced herself to turn away from the burning house, as though the mere act of looking at it might shatter whatever fragile composure she had left. Her gaze found him.
And stopped.
There was something deeply unsettling about the sight of him standing there, so close, so detached, so completely removed from the devastation that surrounded them. Her voice, when it came, was broken, fragile, yet beneath the overwhelming sorrow there was something else, something that refused to take shape into anger or hatred, as though those emotions required a foundation that had already been stripped away.
"Why...?"
The word trembled as it left her lips, barely holding together.
"Why...?! Why...?!"
Sunny looked at her then, properly this time, his attention settling on her as though she had finally become interesting enough to warrant it. His gaze lingered, taking in the details with a quiet, almost clinical curiosity. Her hair was pitch black, matching his own, her eyes the same deep shade that seemed to swallow light rather than reflect it. Her skin, though pale, carried a vibrancy that his lacked, a warmth that felt almost foreign in comparison.
He scratched the back of his head.
Then, after a few seconds of apparent thought, he smiled.
And shrugged.
"I forgot."
The words were delivered with such casual indifference that they seemed to erase the question itself, reducing it to something insignificant, something not worth the effort of a real answer.
He stepped forward.
She recoiled immediately, her instincts screaming at her to flee, her hands scrambling against the ground as she tried to push herself away, her movements clumsy, desperate, fueled by a fear that had no clear shape but felt absolute in its certainty.
It did not matter.
Sunny reached down and grabbed her by the hair, his grip firm and unyielding as he pulled her upward, forcing her to meet his gaze. There was no hesitation in the motion, no flicker of doubt, as though this was simply the natural progression of events.
The cigarette still burned between his fingers.
He did not pause.
The moment stretched, suspended in a fragile stillness that lasted just long enough to be understood, just long enough for the inevitability of what was about to happen to settle into place.
Then he pressed the burning end into her eye.
The reaction was immediate.
Her scream tore through the night, raw and unrestrained, a sound that carried with it a depth of pain that defied comprehension. Her body convulsed, her hands clawing at him, at anything, as though she could tear herself free from the agony through sheer force of will.
Sunny did not react.
He did not flinch.
He simply watched.
And then, with the same steady motion, he did it again.
When he finally pulled the cigarette away, he regarded the result with a faint, thoughtful expression, as though evaluating a piece of work that had yet to meet his expectations.
"We should do something about that hair of yours, too."
His tone remained light, almost cheerful.
"Don't you agree, my cute little sister? Would you like your mother's hair? Or your father's?"
Her nails dug into his arms, drawing thin lines of blood, her movements frantic, uncoordinated, driven by pain and terror rather than intent. She reached for his face, her fingers trembling, desperate to strike, to push him away, to do anything that might change what was happening.
He responded without hesitation.
He threw her to the ground.
The impact knocked the air from her lungs, her body curling instinctively as she gasped for breath. Before she could recover, his foot connected with her stomach, the force of the kick sending a shock through her entire body, reinforcing the helplessness of her situation with brutal clarity.
Sunny sighed.
He shook his head, his expression shifting into something that resembled disappointment, though it lacked any real emotional weight.
"Misbehaving already? But we just got reunited."
He reached down again, grabbing her without care, dragging her across the ground as though her resistance held no meaning. The forest behind the house loomed ahead, its darkness swallowing the light of the fire, offering a different kind of concealment, one that felt deeper, more absolute.
As they moved, the cries from the burning house continued, growing fainter with distance, yet never fully disappearing.
Sunny spoke again, his voice carrying a strange, unsettling warmth.
"Don't worry, Rainy. You'll be with me forever and ever..."
The words lingered in the air, heavy with implication, their meaning stretching far beyond the moment in which they were spoken.
For a brief moment, he glanced back at the house, at the scattered bottles of gasoline, at the flames that continued their relentless work. He considered them, weighing the possibilities, the consequences, the potential complications that might arise.
Then he dismissed the thought.
The Center of the City had a curfew. The spacing between houses ensured that the fire would remain contained. No one would come until morning.
There was no urgency.
No risk.
Only time.
Perhaps, in its own way, the Center lived through a different kind of suffering, one that hid behind structure and order rather than chaos and neglect. The Outskirts burned openly, their struggles visible, undeniable, while the Center maintained its illusion, its carefully constructed facade that masked whatever darkness lay beneath.
Sunny smiled.
It was a small thing, subtle, almost unnoticeable, yet it carried with it a certainty that felt absolute.
He knew what he must do.
The world was imperfect.
People were fragile.
Everything ended.
That was unacceptable.
If separation was inevitable, then the solution was simple.
Remove the inevitability.
Immortality.
Not the kind that merely delayed the end, not the kind that relied on chance or circumstance, but something absolute, something that could not be undone, something that would ensure that this moment, this connection, this twisted reunion, would never be broken.
His grip tightened.
The forest swallowed them whole.
***
Aspect: [Hollow Shadow].
Aspect Description: [You are a miraculous shadow left behind by a dead god. As a divine shadow, you possess plenty of strange and eerie powers. There is none fit to be your master, not even yourself. You mourn the emptiness, and have vowed to search for yourself in an absurd world.]
Innate Ability: [Unfulfilled].
Ability Description: [Your hollow soul has latched onto a single goal. As long as this goal is relentlessly pursued without compromise, you cannot die.]
***
The pristine hallways stretched endlessly ahead, their polished surfaces reflecting sterile light in a way that felt almost artificial, as though the place itself rejected imperfection with quiet, unyielding authority. Every panel, every seam, every seamless junction between wall and floor spoke of meticulous design, of a mind that valued order to a degree that bordered on obsession. That order, however, had been disrupted in a manner that was both violent and grotesque, a contradiction painted in vivid, unmistakable detail across the immaculate floor.
A trail of blood.
It began somewhere far behind and continued forward in uneven streaks, dragged rather than spilled, its dark crimson sheen stark against the pale surface beneath it. The source of that trail was unmistakable, its origin revealed in the limp form being pulled without ceremony through the corridor, its limbs leaving faint smears wherever they brushed against the ground. The body had once belonged to a man, a mundane scientist by all appearances, though whatever identity he had possessed in life had long since been rendered irrelevant. His face was twisted into something unrecognizable, his expression frozen in a silent echo of terror that had outlasted his consciousness, his eyes half-lidded and dull.
Sunny dragged him along as though the weight meant nothing.
Time had not been kind to the boy who once stood before a burning house, nor had it been cruel in any conventional sense. It had simply reshaped him, refined something that had already existed into a sharper, more deliberate form. Now in his late teens, his frame had lengthened, his presence carrying a quiet gravity that felt far heavier than his physical weight would suggest. He wore an all-black kimono, the fabric draped loosely over his body, the slight opening at his chest revealing pale skin that seemed untouched by warmth. The garment moved with him in a way that felt almost fluid, its darkness blending seamlessly with the faint shadows that clung to him, as though they recognized him as something akin to their own.
In his hand, he held an odachi.
It was a weapon that should have felt excessive, impractical even, its length rivaling his own height, yet there was nothing unwieldy about the way he carried it. The blade itself appeared to be forged from something unnatural, a black serpentine steel that seemed to ripple subtly beneath the surface, as though it were alive in some distant, incomprehensible way. It did not reflect light so much as consume it, its presence imposing without needing to assert itself.
Sunny whistled.
The tune was light, almost cheerful, a stark contrast to the scene he carved through the corridor, his footsteps measured and unhurried as he advanced deeper into the facility. There was no urgency in his movements, no sense of caution or anticipation, as though he walked through a place that belonged to him rather than one he had intruded upon.
Eventually, the corridor opened.
The space widened into a vast dome, its ceiling arching high above, supported by structures that seemed both delicate and impossibly strong. At its center lay a circular platform, connected to the outer edges by a narrow walkway that extended forward like an invitation. The lighting here was softer, diffused in a way that cast long, subtle shadows across the floor, giving the space an almost dreamlike quality.
Sunny stepped onto the walkway without pause, the sound of the dragged corpse echoing faintly behind him before fading as he reached the platform.
There, he stopped.
A woman stood before him.
She was alone, her posture composed, her presence defined by a stillness that felt deliberate rather than passive. Her eyes were a striking turquoise, their clarity unmarred by emotion, reflecting Sunny's form with a detached precision that mirrored his own gaze. A single streak of the same color ran through her hair, woven elegantly into the rest, held in place by an ornate pin that glimmered faintly under the soft lighting. Her qipao, also turquoise, clung to her figure with tailored perfection, the slit along her thigh revealing pale skin that seemed almost sculpted in its smoothness.
Behind her loomed something far more unsettling.
An egg.
It was massive, its surface smooth yet subtly shifting, as though something within pressed against its boundaries with quiet insistence. Its presence distorted the air around it in ways that were difficult to define, its existence carrying a weight that extended beyond mere physical form.
Sunny's whistling stopped.
"You know, I used to really like this song. A pawn shop back home had a radio, and they were always playing it on loop. Nightingale was the band that made it, a few millennia back."
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze drifting for a moment as though revisiting something distant.
"Nowadays... it sounds uninspired."
The woman regarded him for a moment before responding, her voice calm, measured, carrying no trace of discomfort despite the blood, the corpse, the weapon, and the man before her.
"Is that so? Well, since we are speaking on music, I happen to play the ruan. What about you?"
Sunny's smile widened, something feverish creeping into his expression, an energy that felt misplaced within the otherwise composed atmosphere.
"Ah! Actually, I've been teaching my sister how to play the piano. She's such a doll!"
His tone brightened, his words carrying a strange warmth that clashed violently with the underlying implication.
"Unfortunately, it took her more than a single try to perform a song, so I had to show her what happens to girls who don't listen to their older brother."
He twirled, the corpse swinging outward with the motion, its limp form tracing an arc through the air before settling again, as though it were nothing more than an accessory to his movement.
Then, as though the thought had only just occurred to him, he continued.
"The ruan, huh? Is that supposed to be a play with your name, Miss Ruan Mei?"
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze never leaving him, her composure unshaken.
"Something like that. You... are not here for Herta?"
Sunny shook his head slowly, his eyes darkening, depthless in a way that felt almost tangible.
"No, no, I am. Before that, however, I wanted to pay you a visit. It's not everyday that someone is researching the Propagation..."
His gaze shifted past her, settling on the egg, curiosity flickering across his features.
"Speaking of, what is that egg behind you? A friend for me to play with?"
Ruan Mei shook her head, her expression unchanged.
"I don't plan on giving out my research, though I don't know where you heard about it. As for this little one..."
She paused, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
"Unfortunately, you are going to die soon."
The egg cracked.
It did not shatter in a dramatic explosion, nor did it break with violent force. Instead, a thin line appeared along its surface, spreading slowly, deliberately, as though the creature within was taking its time. The crack widened, segments peeling back, revealing something vast and unnatural.
"An Awakened human cannot win against a Great Devil."
Her voice remained steady.
"Goodbye."
She produced a tube, small and unassuming, flicking the cork free with practiced ease. The effect was immediate, her body collapsing inward, flesh and bone unraveling into an amalgamation that was drawn into the container with impossible efficiency. The tube filled, the contents shifting grotesquely within, sealing itself as though nothing had occurred.
Sunny tilted his head.
Was that her plan?
The question barely formed before reality shifted.
Two massive mandibles descended.
They crushed him instantly.
There was no struggle, no resistance, no moment of defiance. His body was reduced to pulp, obliterated with such overwhelming force that there was nothing left to recognize. The odachi vanished into shadow at the last possible instant, dismissed as though it were an extension of his will rather than a physical object.
Silence followed.
The Great Devil stood, its form massive, azure, its presence oppressive in a way that warped the very air around it. It did not remain for long. Its existence, temporary by nature, began to collapse in on itself, its structure unraveling as though it had never truly belonged in this world.
Within a minute, it was gone.
The tube opened.
Ruan Mei reformed.
Flesh, bone, blood, all reconstructing with precise efficiency, her form returning to its original state as though the previous events had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience. She glanced at her wrist, her expression thoughtful.
"Still unable to sustain an Emanator of Propagation, it seems..."
Her voice trailed off.
Something was wrong.
Her gaze shifted downward.
The blade protruding from her abdomen gleamed with a dark, serpentine sheen, its presence impossible, its implication immediate. Blood spilled from her lips as she coughed, her body trembling slightly as she turned her head.
"How... are you still alive?"
Sunny stood behind her.
His form was intact.
His expression was unchanged.
"I'm effectively immortal."
He twisted the blade.
Then he pushed.
The separation was clean.
[You have slain an Ascended human, Ruan Mei.]
[Your shadow consumes more.]
No True Name. Perhaps the Spell deemed her as nothing special.
[You have received an Echo.]
Her upper half slid from her lower, the division precise, almost surgical, her organs spilling outward in a grotesque display that contrasted sharply with the elegance she had maintained moments before. She did not scream. She did not resist. She simply died, her existence ending with the same quiet composure she had carried throughout the encounter.
Sunny crouched.
He removed her head, cutting it cleanly.
He placed it into his shadow, where it sank without resistance, swallowed by the darkness that seemed to accept it without question.
His attention shifted.
A worm.
It was small, its body patterned with stars that shimmered faintly, its presence subtle yet impossible to ignore. Sunny smiled, his tone turning mocking.
"Despite consisting of countless worms, you can't be everywhere at once, right, Madam Herta?"
The sound of heels echoed.
The worm moved, climbing up the heel before merging with the leg attached to it.
A woman stood where it had been.
Her dress was elaborate, its design centered around keys and doors, her hat casting a shadow over one amethyst eye, leaving the other exposed, glowing with a restrained fury. Her hair flowed down in ashen strands, her gaze sharp, calculating.
Before Sunny stood a deity of Position and Seals, a goddess, though a minor one.
"So, you were the one who brought me to Kakamond's attention, brat."
She sighed, her tone carrying a hint of irritation.
"Ah... and I was so close to getting the Door's Uniqueness, too."
Sunny smiled.
Herta's gaze snapped back to him.
"Before I die, give that brain back."
Sunny wagged his finger.
"I still nee—"
"Divine Kingdom: Door That Opens Back."
The world broke.
Reality fractured into layers upon layers, each one overlapping, intertwining, creating an endless loop of existence that stretched beyond comprehension. Sunny was dragged through them, his mind unraveling as he witnessed things that defied understanding.
Aeons.
The remains of Gods.
Creatures he couldn't even begin to classify.
He was pulled into the Spirit World, where souls were born and returned, where identity itself dissolved into something more fundamental. He was thrown into the Astral World, where beings of unimaginable scale existed beyond the constraints of physical reality, their presence overwhelming, incomprehensible.
Then it ended. When Sunny regained sight, he looked at his attacker with blurry vision.
A scalpel pierced Herta's skull.
She collapsed.
Blood poured from his body, from every possible opening, his form trembling under the strain of something that should have destroyed him entirely. His mind was fractured, pieces missing, others distorted beyond recognition.
It was fortunate she wasn't trying to actually make him braindead. She still needed her friend's skull, after all.
Well, she didn't need it anymore.
A voice spoke.
"Foolish. It matters not whether you are unkillable. There are Fates far worse than death."
Sunny laughed.
"That's what you think, Lady Kakamond. I don't particularly agree with that."
The voice recoiled.
Disgust lingered in its tone.
"Take that sister of yours away. I'll leave her the coordinates for Zandar's little simulation."
The words faded.
Silence returned.
And Sunny, still smiling, refused to fall.
***
Within the city of Okhema, life moved with a quiet, measured rhythm that gave the illusion of order even when nothing beneath it was truly stable. Streets carved from pale stone reflected a soft, diffused light that never seemed to originate from any single source, as though the sky itself had been conditioned into obedience. People walked with purpose here, or at least with the appearance of it, their expressions carefully maintained in a way that suggested restraint was not merely social etiquette but something closer to survival instinct.
Yet even among such controlled normality, there were things that did not belong.
Castorice was one of them.
She moved through the city without urgency, though not without awareness. Every step she took carried a deliberate spacing from those around her, a subtle but constant recalibration of distance that ensured no accidental contact could occur. It was not fear in the conventional sense that guided her, nor was it disgust or disdain. It was simply understanding — an understanding that her existence, as it was configured, did not allow for casual interaction with the fragile structures of ordinary life.
Her dress, white and bandage-like, clung to her form in a way that suggested both restraint and exposure at once, as though it was designed to conceal only what could not safely be seen while leaving everything else to chance. It ended mid-thigh, paired with stockings patterned with delicate butterflies that seemed almost ironic given the weight she carried. Above her forearms, shadows clung in a controlled manifestation of her Transcendent nature, forming something like gloves but not quite obeying the concept of fabric. They pulsed faintly with a muted violet hue, as though they were extensions of something deeper than her body.
If one looked carefully — if one understood the language of absence — they would notice something profoundly wrong.
Her shadow lacked forearms.
It was not a visual trick.
The black crown upon her head gave her an almost ceremonial appearance, its floral decorations artificial rather than living. Real flowers would not survive proximity to her, and she had long since accepted that certain aesthetics had to be simulated rather than grown. Her lilac eyes drifted over the passing crowd without settling, as though she was observing a world she could never fully enter rather than one she belonged to.
Her thoughts, however, were not idle.
They moved with quiet precision, like a blade turning in slow rotation beneath water.
The Lord of Shadows.
Even the title felt mismatched when she considered it.
A man who ruled over shadows, yet possessed none. Not the literal kind, at least.
It was not ignorance on her part that made this observation unsettling. Shadows were not merely absence of light to her — they were extensions of the soul and body, what made them one and the same. To have no shadow was to exist incorrectly, or perhaps to exist outside of definition altogether.
And yet, he had been real.
The masked man in fearsome armor had not been a rumor or myth. He had been present in a way that defied simplicity, residing within a ruined temple dedicated to the Hand of Shadow on an isolated island between Styxia and Aidonia. His existence had been so hidden that it bordered on conceptual irrelevance, and yet reality had insisted on him anyway.
She remembered the first time she had heard of him. Lost fishermen returned to Okhema speaking in fractured tones of guidance they could not explain, claiming a presence had led them safely through waters that should have consumed them. At first, it had been dismissed as delirium, as hallucination born from exhaustion and fear.
Then the pattern repeated.
And patterns, when repeated enough, became truth.
When she and Lord Mydei had gone to meet him, it had not been a diplomatic encounter. It had been a test, though what was being tested was never explicitly stated. Strength, intent, worth — none of these words quite captured the atmosphere of that meeting. It had felt more like stepping into an equation already solved, where their presence was merely a variable inserted for confirmation rather than change.
And what they had seen…
Castorice's fingers subtly tightened near her collarbone, brushing against the exposed rib above her skin. The sensation grounded her.
His retainers had not been retainers in any traditional sense.
A black wolf composed of a white mist and silence.
A serpent so long it seemed incapable of understanding boundaries, its body swallowing light rather than reflecting it.
A woman of onyx skin who sat in stillness and played a ruan made of shadow, as though music itself could be extracted from absence.
If the Lord of Shadows had no shadow, she could at least say he had Shadows.
Castorice exhaled softly as she walked, the sound almost lost in the ambient noise of the city. The Flamechase needed allies — this was not a matter of opinion, but arithmetic. Lady Tribbie, Lady Aglaea, Lord Mydei, that damnable Lady Cipher, herself… the alignment was incomplete, unstable. Their leader struggled to pick up where the Imperator's disastrous campaign had left off. Lady Tribbie was slowly fading into nonexistence. The crown prince of Castrum Kremnos had only just been recruited, and hasn't yet implemented himself into... normal society, she supposed was the word for it.
As for Lady Cipher, Castorice simply wanted to bash her knuckles against the infuriating woman's face.
When it came to herself, she had no Shadows of her own.
Not because she lacked ability, but because none of the creatures she had encountered or slain had resonated with her. Shadows were not chosen lightly. They were not trophies.
And she had not yet found anything that reflected correctly.
Her gaze drifted downward briefly.
Taste.
The thought surfaced unexpectedly.
What did it mean to choose something as a companion? As a Shadow? It required resonance, compatibility, something beyond power. Yet everything she had encountered either bent too easily or resisted too violently. Nothing aligned.
Her steps slowed for a fraction of a moment.
Then resumed.
A scent interrupted her thoughts.
Subtle at first, almost imperceptible, threading through the air like a memory she did not recognize but instinctively distrusted. It carried an odd sweetness, something reminiscent of baked sugar or fruit softened by heat, yet layered beneath it was something else entirely — something colder, sharper, like metal left too long in winter air.
Castorice stopped.
Her head tilted slightly.
She had not intended to stop.
And yet her body had already decided.
Her shadow shifted faintly beneath her, reacting before she did.
The source was nearby.
She turned.
A small establishment stood at the edge of the street, its exterior unassuming enough to be dismissed at a glance. Yet something about it resisted dismissal. The sign above the entrance read in the Okheman language:
'Sunny and Rain's Brilliant Emporium: Cafe and Memory Boutique.'
Castorice blinked once.
'What's a Memory?'
She approached.
The closer she came, the more her shadow reacted, urging her to leave. That was unusual, though it has only happened once before now, when meeting the Lord of Shadows. Although her shadow was the sensitive type, tending to display Castorice's annoyance or anger in her stead, it never attempted to help her on its own. She had to control it herself if she needed anything
Her hand rose slowly. It paused at the door. For a brief moment, she considered turning away. Then she touched the handle. The door did not resist.
It opened easily.
Inside, the atmosphere shifted immediately.
There was something wrong with this place.
Castorice stepped in.
The interior was warm, softly lit, arranged in a way that suggested intentional comfort rather than structural design. Tables were arranged with casual symmetry, and the scent of food — sweet, warm, unfamiliar — coiled through the air in a way that should have been reassuring.
Instead, it made her shadow feel quieter.
A voice reached her before she fully registered her surroundings.
"Can I help you, Miss…?"
Castorice turned slightly.
The speaker stood behind a counter.
A blindfolded woman.
Her expression carried a perfect smile that did not match the burn marks faintly visible beneath the cloth covering her eyes. Her hair was dark, nearly brown, but the roots revealed a deeper black beneath, as though something had overwritten its natural state. She wore an apron over unfamiliar clothing, and beneath the sleeves of her outfit faint markings were visible — serpentine patterns coiled like living ink.
Castorice's vision revealed what lay under the surface. A single radiant orb hovered within the woman.
A Transcendent, like herself and the Chrysos Heirs... excluding Lady Tribbie, who was much more than that.
The woman tilted her head slightly, still smiling.
Castorice's lips parted slightly before her mind caught up.
"You can see?"
She froze immediately after speaking, as though realizing the impropriety of the question too late.
"I-I mean… my apologies, I was just taken off guard."
The woman laughed without cruelness nor kindness.
"I can't really see. But my brother helped me out. I sense a lot more now."
Her hand scratched absentmindedly at her wrist, where a faint serpentine marking coiled beneath the skin.
Castorice nodded once, slowly, as if that resolved something.
It did not.
The woman stepped forward suddenly and grabbed Castorice's hand.
Castorice's dreadful Curse of Death flared instantly.
Pain appeared on the woman's face as Castorice instinctively willed the shadows covering her hands to deepen, slight as it was. Even with mitigation, even with control, contact carried consequences.
This woman would die if she did not release her.
The woman winced.
But did not let go.
Instead, she pulled Castorice toward a booth.
"I'm Rain, by the way. I was born during a storm, and my mother had a poetic soul, you see."
Castorice carefully extracted her hand as if removing a blade from flesh, her fears welling up within her.
Her expression remained controlled, though a faint tension lingered beneath it.
"You may address me as Castorice. Of Aidonia."
Rain nodded as though that meant something to her.
Castorice observed the room again.
The patrons were… she supposed diverse would be the word for it. Some seemed to have come for the sole purpose of dining, which wasn't too unexpected. The desserts arrayed certainly fascinated Castorice, having never seen anything like them. Others, on the other hand, had much more... lecherous intentions, if the way they glanced at Rain or herself was any indication. Another portion stared at the door behind the counter, as if waiting for something. Mainly women, she noticed.
And Rain…
Rain did not react to any of it.
Or perhaps she chose not to.
Castorice's thoughts began to organize themselves again, attempting to figure out why this place felt so wrong.
Then Rain leaned slightly forward.
"Are you here for my brother, too?"
Castorice blinked.
"Huh?"
Rain sighed dramatically.
"There were at least five women asking to court him this morning. Just this morning! Sometimes I wonder if he's into men. They're definitely into him."
Castorice tilted her head slightly, confusion overtaking caution for a moment.
"I… am not—"
The front door of the café suddenly flung open.
***
Sunny stepped in wearing a smile that belonged perfectly to the role he intended to play.
It was warm without being overbearing, friendly without demanding attention, the kind of expression a humble shopkeeper might cultivate over years of routine interaction. His posture followed suit — relaxed, unthreatening, his movements unhurried as he closed the door behind him with practiced ease. To any casual observer, there was nothing remarkable about him. He blended seamlessly into the curated atmosphere of comfort and familiarity, another piece of the café's carefully maintained illusion.
But his eyes did not match the rest of him.
They moved with quiet precision, sweeping the room in a fraction of a second, cataloging everything that mattered while discarding what did not. There was no hesitation in the process, no wasted motion. It was instinct refined into habit.
They found Rain first.
They always did.
For the briefest moment, something beneath the surface of his expression shifted — not enough to disrupt the illusion, not enough for anyone watching to notice, but enough to exist. It was not relief, nor concern, nor anything so simple as affection. It was confirmation. She was alive. Unharmed. Functioning as expected. That was all that mattered.
Then his gaze moved past her.
It settled on the lilac-haired woman seated at the booth.
And sharpened.
The smile remained exactly as it was, unchanging, but the intent behind it altered in an instant. His eyes narrowed just enough to betray recognition.
Castorice.
Of all people.
For a fraction of a second, Sunny considered the implications. Rain had managed to engage with a Chrysos Heir, which in itself was not entirely unexpected — her disposition made such interactions inevitable over time — but this one? This was the worst possible outcome. Not because of political consequences or immediate hostility, but because of what Castorice was.
A being attuned to shadows.
A walking contradiction that destroyed what she touched.
Someone whose very existence posed a passive threat to both him and Rain.
And more importantly—
Someone who might see too much.
'Ah… she definitely saw something.'
He didn't need explicit confirmation. The tension in her posture, the subtle instability in her breathing, the way her composure was being forcibly maintained rather than naturally sustained — it all pointed to the same conclusion. She had perceived something she wasn't meant to. Not everything, not yet, but enough to disturb her equilibrium.
That was fine.
As long as she didn't learn about his Flaw, nothing irreversible had occurred. Suspicion could be managed. Curiosity could be redirected. Trust, once disrupted, could be rebuilt — slower, perhaps, but not impossible.
Sunny stepped forward, maintaining the same easy rhythm, as though nothing in the room held any particular significance beyond routine business.
Across the table, Castorice suddenly raised a hand to her mouth.
The motion was abrupt, uncharacteristic. Her composure fractured — not completely, but enough to reveal something beneath it. Her lilac eyes widened slightly, not in fear, but in a kind of profound dissonance, as though reality had presented her with a contradiction she could not immediately resolve.
She said something to Rain — too quiet for anyone else to hear.
Then she stood.
The movement lacked her earlier precision. It was controlled, but barely so, as if she were forcing her body to obey commands that had suddenly become difficult to process. She turned toward the exit, her steps quickening just enough to suggest urgency without devolving into panic.
When she passed Sunny, her shoulder brushed against him.
For the briefest moment, contact was made.
Sunny blinked.
No immediate feedback.
No creeping sensation of decay, no subtle unraveling of existence at the edges of his being. If anything, the contact registered as ordinary — so ordinary it almost felt wrong in its own way.
Castorice murmured an apology as she moved past him, her voice low, strained, and then she was gone, the door yielding once more as she exited into the street beyond.
Silence lingered for half a second longer than it should have.
Then the café resumed.
Sunny watched the door for a moment, his expression unchanged, before his attention shifted back to Rain. Whatever thoughts had surfaced during that brief interaction were filed away instantly, categorized and stored for later examination. There was no need to dwell on them now.
He approached her with the same lightness as before, the perfect shopkeeper persona settling back into place as though it had never been disrupted. He playfully scolded Rain:
"Rain, you weren't bullying that girl, right?"
Rain flinched.
It was subtle, but it was there — the kind of reaction that came not from fear alone, but from ingrained habit, from a history of responses shaped through repetition. She shook her head quickly, her hands tightening slightly where they rested.
She replied, her voice steady but just a touch too quick.
"Nothing like that, big brother. She just… seemed uncomfortable the whole time."
Sunny studied her for a moment.
Not deeply, not in a way that would suggest scrutiny, but enough to determine that she was not performing for the sake of the customers. This was genuine, as much as anything about Rain could be considered such. Her confusion was real. Her uncertainty was not an act.
He nodded once.
"Mm. I see."
He filed that away as well.
Perhaps it wasn't Castorice sensing him directly. Not entirely, at least. The Mimic might have played a role. That trip to the Chained Isles had yielded something… interesting in the short time he was there, thanks to Polka Kakamond's assistance.
Time passed.
The café continued its quiet operations, patrons coming and going, the soft murmur of conversation filling the space in a way that maintained the illusion of normalcy. Eventually, as the flow of customers dwindled and the day began to settle into its quieter hours, Sunny moved to the front of the shop and flipped the sign with a soft, practiced motion.
Closed.
The last of the patrons filtered out, leaving the café in a silence that felt fundamentally different from the one before. It was no longer the absence of noise within a public space, but the quiet of something private, something contained.
Sunny turned back toward Rain.
"Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Rain hesitated.
It was brief, but noticeable. Her hands tightened slightly, her posture shifting as though bracing for something she could not avoid. When she spoke, her voice was softer than before.
"Sorry for failing you…"
Sunny paused.
For a moment, there was no immediate response. He simply regarded her, his expression unreadable beneath the remnants of his earlier smile. Then he nodded, as though accepting something that had already been decided.
He had stopped beating her years ago.
Not out of mercy, not out of growth, but out of practicality. Pain, when overused, lost its effectiveness. If he continued down that path, she would eventually resist, and resistance was not something he could afford.
He needed her bent, not broken.
"Show me your eyes."
Rain froze.
The words settled into the space between them with quiet finality. She hesitated, her fingers twitching slightly as they hovered near the edge of her blindfold. For a moment, it seemed as though she might refuse — not out of defiance, but out of instinct, out of a deeply ingrained aversion that had never quite been overwritten.
Then she complied.
Slowly, carefully, she lifted the blindfold.
What lay beneath was not something meant to be seen.
Her eyes were a ruined landscape of scar tissue and healing flesh, the damage both fresh and old layered together in a way that spoke of repetition rather than singular violence. The burns had not fully healed, but they had improved — her Transcendent nature ensuring that the damage never remained permanent, only temporary.
Even so, the shape of her irises had begun to reform.
Black.
Sunny observed them with quiet disdain.
"The last time was a week ago. They're recovering faster."
Rain said nothing.
She did not need to.
"I'll have to burn them again. Sit still."
She nodded.
Despite everything — despite the history, the repetition, the pain that she knew was coming — she did not resist. Her body tensed, her breathing shallow, but she remained where she was, unmoving.
Sunny struck a match.
The flame flickered to life, small and fragile, yet carrying with it an inevitability that felt far heavier than its size suggested. He brought it closer, his movements steady, unhurried, as though performing a task that required precision rather than hesitation.
Then he pressed it against her eye.
The reaction was immediate.
Her body trembled, her breath hitching as the pain surged through her, sharp and all-consuming. Her fingers curled inward, nails digging into her palms as she fought to contain the instinct to pull away, to scream, to do anything other than endure.
She did not move.
Not even when he did it again.
When it was over, Sunny pulled the match away, extinguishing it with a casual flick of his wrist. He regarded her for a moment, then reached out and ruffled her hair, his touch almost gentle in contrast to what had just occurred.
"Good job."
His tone was light.
"You know, I don't like this any more than you do."
It was not a lie.
Not entirely.
He cleaned the wound with practiced efficiency, wrapping the blindfold back around her eyes, covering the damage once more as though sealing it away.
Rain swallowed.
"Brother… are you going to kill the Chrysos Heirs?"
Sunny tilted his head slightly.
"What does the world tell you?"
Rain paused.
Then, quietly, she answered.
"It's... likely."
Sunny smiled.
There was no warmth in it this time. No illusion of kindness.
"Then it is likely."