[ Next Viewing: Ashen Burrow will start in ... ]
[ 9:59 ]
Longing/Shadow Room
As the screen showed, in ten minutes, the next viewing and the last one of the theme of the day would start.
Across the room, several members of the audience conversed about the last viewing.
Some discussed the combat, complimenting Sunny's and Nephis' quick thinking, strategy, and overall combat ability. Others discussed how close the trio of Sleepers was getting with each other.
Some of them faced things more seriously, however.
"Cassia's vision is quite... Dark. It obviously hints at Nephis and Sunny fighting." Seishan observed.
"Indeed. But how could such a thing happen? Although there is distrust between them, I can't see Sunny going against her, nor can I see Nephis making a move against him." Hel said with a frown.
Closing her eyes and leaning back on her seat, Eunbin sighed and let out a simple smile.
"But that's because they need each other, as Sunny said, their relationship is built in necessity, not choice. For as long as Sunny's scouting ability proves more useful than his potential danger, Nephis will not move against him." She said confidently.
Seishan nodded at her sister's reasoning.
"And Sunny needs Nephis' strength, not only to become stronger himself but also to help him defeat the enemies he can't."
Saying that Seishan's eyes drifted to the blond seer. Her gaze narrowed as a certain suspicion crawled in her mind.
Nephis and Sunny won't move against each other, but what about someone else? Would that someone be able to bring those two to fight each other?
Seishan shook her head, the image of the pitiful blind girl standing beside Nephis. How could she? She wouldn't move against any of the people who were the sole reasons for her survival...
Right?
At the moment, said blind girl was talking with Nephis.
"Is something the matter, Neph?"
The Queen of Humanity did not answer right away. Her grey eyes drifted to the screen, checking the clock that was projected by it.
[ 7:35 ]
"I wanted to talk with you..."
Cassie remained looking at her best friend.
"About what?"
Nephis seemed hesitant to speak of the matter, momentarily gazing at the other people in the room, especially at Jet and young Nephis, who were sitting rather close to them.
After a while, she seemed to be determined to speak.
"About Sunny's Shadow Bound and the prophecy you had in the past." She finally said.
Cassie stiffened slightly.
Has Nephis figured it out as well?
That Sunny had been enslaved by her. That he had been forgotten because of her. That, despite him saving her, caring for her and comforting her, she still betrayed him, enslaved him, and used his desire for freedom to manipulate him?
Cassie was aware she was no saint. She knew that if Heaven and Hell existed, she would have a saved place for herself in the fiery pits. She normally thought of it as one thought of a minor inconvenience.
"Well, what can you do? It's my mistake."
She was not afraid of being confronted by her own sins. She was afraid of Nephis' reaction.
Reluctantly, she was afraid of what her reaction might mean for her plans.
But mostly, she was afraid of being forgiven. That since Sunny himself was not against her, then neither would Nephis.
It would be the best outcome. She would remain unpunished, and her best friends would remain by her side...
And that was dangerous.
If she was able to do something like that, what would she do next?
She was afraid of the possibility that given the chance of advancing her plans further by sacrificing those two... She would actually do it.
And like Sunny would say, Nephis might justify it with a simple "Because I want to."
"What about it?" She questioned, feigning a mask of relaxation and calm.
"There is a lot to talk about. We don't have enough time before the next viewing starts, so we will talk later, just wanted to tell you that."
Saying that, Nephis straightened and looked at the screen.
Cassie stood silent and looked at her hands.
Nightmare Room
"Woah, that was a long one. Truly a journey of many ups and downs." Noctis jokingly said.
Elyas, who was sitting beside him, looked at the sorcerer with a strange expression.
"Is that a joke referring to the fact that they have to constantly climb up and down high places to evade the dark sea?"
Noctis clapped happily.
"Correct! What a sharp mind."
While Noctis seemed as carefree as always, the others seemed a little more aprehensive.
For starters, the last viewing had left them with a bad feeling, specifically regarding Cassie's vision of the future. It was clear, especially considering Cassie's attempt to make Sunny make a promise, that the shadow and the angel in the vision referred to Sunny and Nephis, respectively.
And, well, the various ominous imagery that accompanied that particular scene as well.
"What do you think it means, Father?" Windflower asked.
Daeron stood silently, looking at the clock with measured calm.
[6:24]
"I don't think the vision she saw was one that prophesized Changing Star's death, although it seems that it spells out a conflict between them."
After all, both Nephis and Sunny were together in the Third Nightmare.
But what exactly were the consequences of such conflict?
They would have to wait and see.
Alter Room | Mundane Nephis POV
Nephis stared at the screen in silence.
Ever since she had come to this place, she had seen a lot.
She had seen one of the most important people in her life bleed, suffer, and be mentally tormented.
It was only Volume 1, and who knew how many there were.
How much would Sunny suffer?
The image of Sunny drowning in his own blood flashed across her mind. The words of her on-screen self, revealing the fall of her clan and the death of her parents.
She was tired.
In such a short time, she had been hit with several revelations of the other world.
She couldn't imagine living through it.
She could not properly imagine the pain of being burned alive when she had only experienced burning her hand in her childhood in her grandmother's fireplace.
"It's just pain."
On-Screen Nephis had said, and even if Nephis herself was someone that hardly showed expression, she wasn't so... indifferent to it, or rather to the thought of it.
And then, there was the uncertainty that came from the future.
The fact that she was not in Cassie's first vision. And that ominous second vision.
She felt Cassie shift her gaze to herself.
Nephis looked at her. Cassie was wearing a strange expression, if Nephis had to describe it, it would be secondhand regret.
"I'm... sorry for not telling you about all the visions, Neph."
Nephis shook her head. She had already noticed that her Cassie was vastly different from the ones from the other worlds. They were more jaded, with awfully well-controlled expressions and a certain fierceness in their eyes that matched or even surpassed hers and Sunny's.
Perhaps the Cassie on-screen would eventually lose this innocence?
"Don't worry. That is not you, after all. Besides, Sunny and I trust you with everything we have, and I'm sure..." She gestured vaguely at the screen. "They will reach that point too."
Cassie nodded, reassured by Nephis' words.
Nephis stared at the clock.
[5:13]
Mad Timeline Cassie POV
Cassie stared silently at the screen. She sighed silently, finally being able to free herself from the agonizing feeling of that needle of suffering stabbed into every single good memory.
Every laugh and moment of care was a reminder of her betrayal.
And a herald of what was to come.
She knew well that the Mad Prince sitting beside her was only born because of Sunny's failure in his travel to the estuary.
She would not blame it on him, of course.
Cassie was also aware that in his twisted mind, Mad Prince also wished to have Nephis for himself, not just because of his obsession, but out of a twisted belief that Cassie would sacrifice her if it was needed.
Song of the Fallen would like to believe that to be untrue. But considering how low she had pushed half of her world, who could bet she wouldn't do the same to the other half?
It was such a bad joke she almost wanted to laugh out loud.
She was so distrustful she couldn't trust herself.
Cassie did not like this place.
She knew that eventually, she would be shown the difference between her timeline and the one she was watching. Until then, she would have to watch old memories that she could already recall perfectly.
Old, happy, and hurtful memories.
She looked at the Mad Prince sitting beside her.
The Great Titan spends the pauses between viewings either doing one of three things.
Mocking her.
Looking at one of the Nephis with mad intensity.
And looking at the group of Sunnys gathered together.
This time, however, he was looking at...
Rain.
She was the only one in this world he still cared for in his own way, beside Nephis, of course.
Although he had turned his own sister into a defiled, his care for her was still the same.
Cassie remembered clearly the image of Ki Song's last corpse being tortured in a large contraption that was actually a Supreme memory the size of a small house.
Seishan and the Song sisters died trying to save their mother, who simply gave up on her own life after her freedom.
The cost of trying to subdue the blood relative of the Mad Shadow.
Cassie was aware that the Mad Prince's madness was different from the usual corrupted. After all, he was still Sunny.
The nature of a corrupted being and his own nature are fighting fiercely inside him, giving way only to his own obsessions to emerge.
The fact was that even he himself was unhappy with his own corruption. The part of him that was still him knew that no one that he had loved would accept him as he was now.
That conflicting opinion had led him to corrupt those close to him like Rain.
Hoping that if they were corrupt as well, they would accept him.
But none of those corrupted could keep their minds sane like he and Torment had.
When he realized he needed to weave a memory to keep their sanity just like how Sin of Solace had done for him...
Rain had already lost her mind.
That was probably the Mad Prince's one and only regret, and he could only feel it in the rare moments when his mind was somewhat peacefull.
Cassie sighed, a little glad that he was not focused on her. She looked at the clock absentmindedly.
[4:02]
Group of Sunnys | Mundane Sunny POV
Sunless was not the type to say that things were about to go from bad to worse. Although most of his friends, like Kai, Effie, Jet, and Mordret, said that he was a pessimist, he believed that he was actually quite optimistic.
'But maybe they were onto something.'
Hearing the worries of his on-screen self about the future, especially the things that Cassie had seen and decided to share and not to share, he couldn't help but think similarly.
He trusted Cassie. He trusted her enough to extend that trust to not just the one he knew but also the one on the screen and the ones sitting around this very room.
Still, whatever she saw was dreadful, dreadful enough for her to keep it hidden. A weird sense of anticipation surged deep in his chest.
He wanted to know what she had seen and what the on-screen version of him would face, but he was also afraid of what he would find.
Sunny disliked unknowns.
Maybe that was why Professor Julius had offered him a job in archeology.
So his mind constantly tried to cover the hole of knowledge the conversation had left, to no avail, the only way was for him to have visions like Cassie or have her reveal everything about her visions, but afraid of what that knowledge could cause, he did not press her.
And so, with each step into the future, he walked nearer and nearer to that hole, knowing that eventually he would fall on it.
Not only that, but the somber looks the other Sunnys had were hardly comforting.
Even that scarred and mad version of him, the Mad Prince, had kept quiet and decided to simply stare at a version of Rain in silence.
Sunless looked at the clock, slightly afraid of the next viewing, of the next theme, and of the next Volume.
[ 3:51 ]
What would he see there?
MOW/TWNIS Inspired Timeline | Rain POV
Rain was always curious about the Forgotten Shore.
At first it was a simple question. A curious question that surged from a child when an answer was not provided.
Teaching about the regions in the Dream Realm was something that people always went through in school. So, when she first saw a map of the charted regions of the Dream Realm.
Looking at the north of the Hollow Mountains, she asked herself a simple question.
"What is beyond it."
Many years later, almost a hundred Sleepers that had been sleeping, stuck in the Dream Realm for more than an year, woke up on a single day.
All of them came from beyond the Hollow Mountains, from a place called Forgotten Shore.
Rain had been fairly curious about it to search for what was known about it. She had heard of a dark sea filled with deadly creatures, a coral labyrinth, a dark city, a broken gateway, a golden ruler... and a crimson spire.
The information that had been discovered was mostly thanks to the various scouts and explorers of the Dreamer Army.
But there was a certain consensus among all of them.
"You know... If that guy from Changing Star's cohort was here, I bet we could archive more detailed information about the past of the Forgotten Shore."
"He lived in the Dark City alone for months and went with Lady Nephis herself in a long expedition."
"What was his name again?"
"Sunless or something."
That was when she first heard of her own brother, shamefully enough.
The next time she had heard of him was in that forgotten shore movie that the government's propaganda machine prepared for the masses.
As expected, Nephis was the main character. Stuck in between a tragic love triangle between a poor scout and an elegant Legacy heir, she led the Dreamer Army to victory, while those two sacrificed themselves for her.
Once the movie was released, both Sunny and Caster had been used for government propaganda, however soon they found it more effective to use Changing Star.
So, eventually Sunny and Caster were forgotten by the public.
Rain herself had forgotten.
Until the day she met Nephis.
She had been injured when a nightmare gate had opened. At the time, Rain felt that the injury was not that harsh until after some time, problems started to arise.
Her mother forced her to go to the hospital, where she met Nephis in one of her usual visits.
She was healed by her and, to her surprise:
"What is your name?"
"Rain."
"Rain, huh? Are you.... adopted?"
The way she had asked something like that so blatantly was... perplexing.
"I am, why?"
Nephis had stayed silent, seemingly pondering something.
"I think I know your biological brother."
It was then that she learned that Sunny was her brother, among other things.
She had heard a lot of things from those that had been his companions and friends.
"Doofus? Ah! I was a bit skeptical when princess said he was one of the most dangerous people in that place. But I can't really argue anymore. You know, the guy made a Fallen Devil act as his roommate, if you believe it. Haha!" Effie had said.
"Sunny? Ah. When I met him, I thought he was a nightmare creature. But I'm pretty sure he thought I was one too. He saved me, and I believe we became quite good friends." Kai had said.
"Him? Well, I didn't know him for long. But if I am right about him, he will be here sooner than we expect him. He just seemed hard to crack, if you know what I mean." Jet had said.
"Sunny was very sweet, even if he would like to act otherwise. I wouldn't say he was kind and selfless, but he cared more than he would like to admit. He... saved me... many, many times. I wish that I could repay him." Cassie had said.
Nephis did not speak much about her brother, except when the others were telling stories about him, she sometimes added details that only she knew.
However, besides revealing Sunny's relation with her, Nephis had said nothing more to her.
And in this place, she had finally seen it, had finally felt it.
Who her brother was.
And seeing the Forgotten Shore she had been once so curious about, Rain had a single thought.
'I wonder how you are doing out there, brother.'
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A/N: Another Chapter! We are so close to the Soul Devouring Tree. I'm hoping you are liking it, leave your feedback in the comments.
Check Out my other Fanfics:
Cursed Shadow (JJK/JJK Modulo x Shadow Slave) [1st Nightmare Arc]
Trailblazing Shadow (HSR x Shadow Slave) [Jarilo-VI Arc]