...Sunny was absolutely horrified. Somehow, his heart wasn't beating loud enough for Fu Xuan to notice. Somehow, there wasn't a single sign of tension or unease on his face. Somehow, the Master Diviner never noticed how nervous he was.
Or perhaps she did, but her own panic managed to overwhelm her enough to the point that how Sunny was feeling didn't matter. The closeness between them, the sharing of body heat and the feeling of the other's breath, was all designed to make her as uncomfortable as possible.
Threatening a Saint as a Master was practically suicide. They would kill you. Then, they'd show off the plethora of ways they can hide the fact that they killed you. It was a losing battle...
Unless you were Sunny. Knowing your enemy was half the battle, and he knew exactly how to push the Diviner's buttons.
When he blackmailed Aventurine into giving him enough material to potentially start an interastral war, Sunny had to use a small amount of guesswork as well as his thorough understanding of the glamorous Saint in order to put him into that delicate position. Sunny knew himself, so, by extension, he knew Aventurine.
It was odd, but he felt like the two of them weren't too different... but also couldn't be further apart.
Sunny had set up his advantageous position carefully, using meticulous wordplay and indirect bluffs to take advantage of the blonde's lie detection Memory, convincing him that Sunny could repeatedly detonate Soul Shards to create Saint-killing attacks. Naturally, he could not actually pull off something so extreme.
Secondly, he had to get the Transcendent into a position of comfort, while simultaneously pulling his attention away from Svarog. An easy feat, considering the gambler probably didn't even consider the automaton as an individual — not even Clara's presence meant much to him.
That was all it took for Sunny to get Aventurine to confess to not caring about what happened to the IPC soldiers, exposing the 'ends justify the means' mentality that many have. Not because it would reveal the IPC higher-ups lack of morality, but because that small voice recording of a random side comment would be all the excuse other great factions would need to publicly wage war and plunder the Interastral Peace Corporation.
It wasn't that Aventurine showed weakness from the beginning. Sunny just forced him to reveal his weaknesses.
Fu Xuan, on the other hand, was a completely separate matter. He didn't need her to expose anything, because throughout her sloppy schemes, she already did.
Multiple times, at that. And Sunny was going to point them all out.
"It all started when I first saw you. You were falling from the sky while Kafka was spraying bullets at you. With how many she was shooting, I'm guessing her guns either have an internal storage of ammo, or they create bullets on the spot. Either way, you deflected them pretty easily. With your bare hands, at that. That was your first mistake. Instead of pressing the offense and using that Memory of yours to lock her up, you decided to dodge."
Fu Xuan tried to smile.
"That's it? I could have simply seen a future where she pulled out a different attack to kill me."
Sunny jeeringly shook his head.
"Oh, but that Ability of yours has limits, doesn't it? You don't just see the future. You gain a premonition of danger, both to yourself and to others."
He leaned just a little bit closer as her brows rose in shock.
"Not once. Not a single time during that fight did I see a vision. Oh, and when it comes to pure skill in battle, you aren't even a match for me. Kafka was practically waiting for you to capture her, but you just dragged the fight out. I bet she was just as confused as I would have been."
His face twisted in thought.
"It isn't like I knew ever since that time. I just happened to reminisce. As for your motives, it must have been something about building rapport with the cute little Starkiller through shared combat and a little bit of harmless banter. Of course, this could all just be a great misunderstanding."
Sunny wiggled his eyebrows.
"But Jing Yuan just had to spill the beans!"
Fu Xuan's expression contorted into one of pure surprise and confusion. Her baffled, yet concealed gaze shifted to Saint, who was holding her servant hostage with a blade of pure Light to her neck, before turning back to Sunny.
"What?! How does that lazy oaf have anything to do with this?!"
Sunny's grinned widened.
"Because, the day before you and I fought Kafka, the General pulled up on me, which led to a discussion about monkeys and their differences with gorillas."
At her odd, nonexistent stare, he continued:
"He also happened to mention that he knew my backstory, and he had a Diviner to help him. Now, it could have been anyone in the Divination Commission, but... if I was the General of the entire Xianzhou Luofu, an Emanator of The Hunt who managed to step into Transcendence, would I really ask just any Diviner to do my dirty work? And that Diviner, who gave him his information, would naturally know just as much, if not more."
Sunny arrogantly tilted his head.
"In reality, you knew deeply of me before you even met me. Which means that your first encounter with me was all fabricated. Then, there was our second encounter."
Before Fu Xuan could speak, whether in retort or whatever else, Sunny planted his thumb against her lips, silencing her.
"Let's see, it was at the Divination Commission, and Kafka was going to be interrogated. Oh, and you looked at me. With both eyes opened. Then, you looked away as if you saw something scary. I'll explain why this is important later. What's really important is what happened yesterday, and what happened this morning."
He sighed.
"Honestly, giving away your most powerful Saint's Aspect and Flaw is definitely a taboo. Better yet, it's worse because you're a Diviner. I'll bet that you found out about those from behind his back, right? Clearly you Xianzhou Saints aren't close enough to share that kind of information with each other if you feel the need to plant spies. So much distrust in the air!"
A sardonic smile rose on his face.
"Maybe spying on each other can be excused as a precaution, but disclosing the strengths and weaknesses of one of your own Saints to an outsider? It probably wasn't even necessary, if you just waited for the Marshal to come down and handle the Heliobus outbreak herself. Oh, but you wanted to take the credit for yourself, didn't you? I guess treason is a pretty low price to pay."
He applied pressure on his thumb, which caused an uncomfortable force to press against her lips as she sneered, face flushed in embarrassment. Then, he moved it away.
"Well? Got anything to say? Because I'm about to get to the most humiliating part."
She grit her teeth.
"You've got no proof!"
Sunny rolled his eyes.
"My words are proof. You're the one that practically explained all of his powers to me. His Flaw, too. Even the enchantments of his Memories. Well, it doesn't matter. I'm not threatening your job. I'm threatening your servant, you softie."
As if to really hammer it in, Saint lightly shook the hostage, whose complexion was irreversibly pale. Sunny hummed in thought.
"Oh, now that I think about it... I'm not too sure if your danger premonition is passive or active. Well, if it was the former, than you probably knew that Jing Yuan wasn't really asleep. Or maybe it already accounted for me pushing you, which would cause it to not activate? I wouldn't put it past you to use my injured state as an excuse to bring me into your home, in which you have all the advantages. Then..."
Sunny couldn't help it. He snorted.
"S—Sorry about this, really. Honestly, I don't think your maid will ever look at you the same again, after this. It's just so stupid."
As Fu Xuan raised a brow, Sunny forced a cough to regain his bearings.
"So, as I'm sure you already know, I was stalking you."
"...What are you talking about?"
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. It was this morning, you see. I was watching you as you slept. Naked, at that."
Fu Xuan's face looked a little strange.
"Huh?"
"Then, after hours, you woke up and went to the baths. But you stopped at a mirror first."
Fu Xuan blanched, her maid seeming curious. Sunny closed his eyes, as if he was suddenly exasperated.
"Lady Fu Xuan. Please answer this. Do you really think walking in front of a mirror, checking yourself out in disappointment, and squeezing your own ass while talking to yourself is a normal thing that people do? You know, I can accept if it was something you did every once in a while. But considering the context, I can only assume that you either do that every day, or, you chose to show off your posterior specifically because you knew I was watching. That would mean you're a bad actress trying to seduce a young man not even a twenty-fifth of your age."
Sunny squinted his eyes.
"So? Which was it?"
The Master Diviner's jaw was clearly not working properly, as it was stuck wide. Fu Xuan's entire head seemed like it was about to explode from heat and embarrassment.
Saint herself had turned her head to look at Fu Xuan strangely — if the glimmering of gold and crimson behind her visor could be said to carry emotion in the first place. The hostage, on the other hand, seemed deeply mortified, forgetting the blade at her neck for a moment before suddenly speaking out—
"My Lady, you may be pintsized and lacking in a very critical area, but I am sure that your growth spurt will come in one day! So please don't give me second-hand embarrassment with your self-groping—"
Sunny cut her off.
"Shut up! You don't get to tell a woman what she's lacking! Flat chests have their own appeal... nay, I dare say that they are equal to Phantylia's house-sized melons!"
Fu Xuan, naturally, found herself joining in on the offense.
"Exactly! You miserable Luofu animals are all obsessed with size! Why, if this was the Yuque, I'd be the most popular bachelorette!"
Then, she stiffened, before shrieking:
"You were watching me?!"
Sunny nodded with a smile. Her voice went up an octave.
"Lecher! Pervert! Scumbag! Garbage! You should rot under my foot, you detestable enemy of all womankind!"
He tilted his head. He wasn't too sure about the rotting part, but the rest wasn't so... wait a second.
"Oh, so you didn't know. Well, that just proves my point."
She paused.
"What is it this time?!"
Sunny whistled a low tune.
"A little horsie once told me that you were able to detect the connection between him and myself, which eventually drove you a little crazy. But if one glance is all it takes, then why didn't you have that reaction during our second meeting? How did you not notice that I was stalking you?"
Sunny's Shadow Creatures were an extension of himself. His shadow helpers, on the other hand, were him in the truest sense. So, how could she possibly connect him to Nightmare but not trace the Creepy shadow back to him? Assuming she wasn't lying about not knowing, that is?
He revealed a derisive grin.
"It's an Ability you need to activate, isn't it? Right now, nothing would happen if you opened your eyes. Your vision isn't passive, so you really aren't in any danger of seeing what you don't want to see, whatever it is."
He blinked innocently.
"You weren't ready to keep up your act during our second encounter, so you pretended to have seen something you shouldn't... but the symptoms weren't consistent with what happened in the dream."
"Wait, wait! How do you even know what happened?!"
Sunny shrugged.
"I can talk to animals."
Fu Xuan had a dumbfounded expression on her face. Sunny continued.
"As for the reason for your act, it was probably to get me to believe that I held some sort of advantage over you. But when it comes to something as noticeable as whether or not your eyes are closed, it's important to keep that part of the act consistent even if you don't think I'm there."
And with that, Sunny figured out three of Fu Xuan's Aspect Abilities. One allows her to swap positions with others, another lets her see the connections of things — perhaps having an extended feature that lets her be clearly aware of her surroundings — and the last lets her witness premonitions of danger — whether sharing those visions was a separate Aspect Ability or an upgrade to the former was an unknown.
"Oh, but whether or not you knew I was watching you, you were definitely trying to seduce me. I mean, have you seen what you're wearing? Showing off just enough shoulder, just enough chest to hide the cleavage... it's maddening! And right after a hot bath?! While being just flirtatious enough for me to brush it off as you just being a good host?! It couldn't be more obvious unless you stripped right here and now!"
All embarrassment died as she clicked her tongue.
"Oh. You figured it out."
Sunny huffed.
"I did. And it's also obvious that you tried to do something when you drugged me. I happen to know these kinds of things."
His shadows, though unmoving and layered over each other lest he wanted to reveal their odd nature to others, were clearly signaling to him that something was wrong. What was wrong? He wasn't sure.
Sunny leaned forward just a bit, nose touching Fu Xuan's.
"Boop. And everything from start to finish was all apart of your plan to recruit me. I'll admit, your deal was very tempting, but not even my closest friends know everything about me. Asking me to disclose anything is just cause for suspicion."
Sparkle and Seele were the ones who knew the most... but not only did they both have outdated information, the latter had information deliberately concealed from her. He really felt like an idiot during that first volume...
Fu Xuan pressed her eyelids tightly for a moment, before allowing them to part. Her golden eyes shimmered deeply with some unrecognizable emotion as she revealed a small smile.
"I see. Dear me, my heart just wouldn't stop beating. Physical intimidation tactics, multiple hostages, and those observation skills... I didn't think you had the critical thinking to deduce all of that!"
She let out a genuine laugh, pressing her palm against Sunny's chest as she pushed him back.
"Honestly, Sunl—Sunny, I should thank you. This game of ours was perhaps the most fun I've had in a long while. Ever, even."
The hostage servant had a strange expression on her face as Saint let her down, the taciturn knight dismissing herself after a bow. The maid glanced between Sunny and Fu Xuan in confusion, the former shrugging as his grin fell off his face.
"Geez, Granny. Was your life really that boring?"
"Very. And don't call me that."
"R—Right."
Fu Xuan sighed wearily.
"But it is a little embarrassing to be outsmarted by a man who hasn't even lived to a hundred. Are you sure you aren't a mind reader? Or an Emanator of Erudition?"
His lips curled upwards.
"I wish."
The servant glanced between the two of them in utter confusion, but also relief.
"So... I wasn't in danger?"
"Oh, he would have slit your throat right there if I insisted there were spies, which would have only proved his point when my reaction afterwards exposed my bluff. He was actually keeping two more of my servants hostage as backup, though they aren't in this room."
She paled, with Sunny sending her glance.
"Now that I think about it, I've never asked your name."
"H—Hong Cha, Master Sunless?"
He smiled, before winking.
"The tea was good. Mind getting me a refill? No drugging this time, please."
With wide eyes and a small flush, Hong Cha sent him careful glimpses as she stepped around the table to grab his empty teacup and saucer, before leaving the room.
Sunny leaned against his fist, peering at Fu Xuan.
"I am a bit curious about two things, if you don't mind me asking."
"Go ahead."
"What did you do when I was knocked out by that drug?"
She sent him a meaningful simper.
"Perhaps I'd tell you one day."
He groaned, sending her a suspicious look, before continuing.
"And what would have happened if I accepted your offer right away?"
Fu Xuan sighed deeply, eyes lingering on him.
"I'd be thoroughly disappointed, but I wouldn't take back my word."
She paused for a moment.
"Except for the full-disclosure thing. I would have lied about practically everything. It's a ridiculous rule, anyways. That, and I would only be able to see you as a pawn for me to discard as I wish."
"Yikes."
She thoughtfully tapped her finger against the table.
"But it is a dilemma. I don't trust the IPC — who would? — so I'm not risking ordering a contract from the Bonajade Exchange. At the same time, we clearly aren't going to give each other a dagger. What to do...?"
Sunny closed his eyes.
It had all been a test. Fu Xuan had lied about seeing him as an equal — strength was great and all, but one of Sunny's biggest gains, four Supreme Soul Shards and the corpse of a Great Devil, came from political ingenuity and blackmail. Control was everything, and even if Sunny happened to be stronger than Fu Xuan as a Saint, he would have been easily outmaneuvered if his intelligence didn't match hers in the slightest.
She wanted an equal, but would accept him even as a pawn just for his value on the battlefield. But... the imbalance in their relationship gave her too much leverage, and Sunny did not like to give leverage unless he felt like he had to.
Everything he had done had been to prove that he was not one to look down upon. He might not have been able to kill her as he currently was, but between his foresight in revealing that he had both the means and the ruthlessness to threaten her retainers, deducing all of her plans by connecting her mistakes, and having proof of her treason to the Xianzhou Alliance in her reckless push to gain greater recognition, he had been able to effectively turn the tables on her.
It had been risky, but based on how she laughed when he refused to let the Cirrus incident be, he took her as a woman who liked a little audacity.
Or a lot.
When Hong Cha returned with his tea, Sunny immediately took the cup and poured it all into his mouth before setting it back down. Then, he stood up, looking down at Fu Xuan.
"About that contract... I think I can do something about that. Under my own terms, of course."
For some reason, the servant's mouth was gaping, refusing to move at all. The Master Diviner waved her hand dismissively.
"We'll discuss that whenever you return. And do return, Sunny."
Sunny flashed her a peace sign, before disappearing. Hong Cha stared quietly.
Fu Xuan didn't say anything for a moment, before sighing.
"Spit it out."
The maid seemed a little hesitant.
"My Lady, I must ask you this, for it may affect my employment at your esteemed estate."
At the Master Diviner's raised brow, she gulped.
"Are... are you getting married?"
Fu Xuan paused, before slowly turning to the jumpy servant. Hong Cha awkwardly laughed.
"I—It's just he had a good face and you seemed to like his company and he's also really short so you don't have to look up too much and there was the whole contract thing and—"
Fu Xuan blinked at a snail's pace.
"How'd you know?"
The woman froze midrant.
"...Seriously?"
Fu Xuan rolled her eyes.
'So gullible. But at the same time... not really?'
It was only as she shifted that she realized that she had bigger concerns.
"Mind giving me a moment?"
"Huh? Oh, uh... of course."
She seemed quite flustered, though, Fu Xuan supposed that being held at blade point by an Ascended Devil would do that.
As the door closed, the Master Diviner sat there for a very long moment. Seconds passed, then minutes. The only noise was the thumping of her heart and the rhythm of her breath.
Then, there was a snort. Then a chuckle. Then a full-blown maniacal laugh as she clutched her stomach.
Throughout it all, there was one thing Sunny had missed. He never grasped the implications of being gifted a Legacy Relic. Not surprising, considering he came out of poverty. Perhaps he'd realize it if — or perhaps, when he brushed shoulders with a Legacy. Maybe they'd explain it for him.
If only Fu Xuan could see his reaction. It would have been gold.
As her laughter died, she glanced down with reddened cheeks. She licked her lips, before lowering her hand between her legs...