The silver fluid dripped steadily from the creature, staining the pale grass and the thick, overgrown roots of the nearby trees. The creature knelt in the dirt, its copied spatial domain flickering and failing as the heavy wounds took their toll.
It stared at Sunny with its deadpan green eyes, processing the overwhelming failure of its current situation. The creature shimmered. The white wings and the plain clothes dissolved into a cascading waterfall of liquid silver. The slender frame shifted, and reshaped in the span of a single second.
The dark armor of the puppeteer's shroud wrapped around its body once again, and the sharp, pale features of Sunny emerged from the melting silver. The iron spear flattened and sharpened, returning to the wicked, curved form of the Midnight Shard.
The thing had returned to its original borrowed shape. It was Sunny once more.
The beast did not wait to regain its balance. It exploded from its kneeling position, launching itself forward with a terrifying burst of speed. It dove straight into the dark shadow cast by a massive tree trunk, dissolving into the darkness with flawless execution.
Sunny did not hesitate. He plunged into his own shadow, entering the cold, muffled dimension where light held no sway.
The battle that followed was a dizzying, violent dance between two perfect mirrors. They tore through the dense forest, flashing in and out of the physical world. Black steel clashed against black steel, sending showers of bright sparks illuminating the shadowy undergrowth. The beast emerged from the canopy above, dropping down with a vicious overhead strike. Sunny twisted away, using Shadow Step to materialize behind the creature, his tachi sweeping toward its neck. The Reflection parried blindly, its own shadows wrapping around its arms to augment its physical strength.
Sunny realized very quickly that the Reflection had adapted. It was no longer fighting like a textbook replica. It was merging its physical strikes with shadow step, turning its own body into a shifting hazard of solid steel and intangible darkness.
The beast swung its blade, aiming a horizontal slash at Sunny's ribs. Sunny moved to block the strike, bracing his feet against the damp soil. But the Reflection's blade suddenly lost its physical form, turning into a wisp of dark smoke that passed harmlessly through the Midnight Shard. A fraction of a second later, the blade solidified directly inside Sunny's guard, biting deep into the side of his armor.
A sudden, blinding agony exploded in Sunny's chest. He let out a ragged gasp, stumbling backward as the chilling pain radiated through his very core. It felt as though a shard of pure ice had been driven into his soul sea, freezing his essence and scrambling his focus. Soul damage was an entirely different breed of agony. It bypassed physical endurance and directly attacked the soul, leaving him dizzy and gasping for air.
The Reflection did not give him a moment to recover. It pressed the assault, its dark eyes devoid of any human empathy. It slashed and thrust in a relentless flurry.
Sunny gritted his teeth, his vision swimming with dark spots. He pushed the blinding pain to the back of his mind, allowing the lunging beast, who was aiming a thrust directly at his throat to come closer, sunny did not dodge. He stepped entirely into the strike, tilting his head just enough so the black blade grazed his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood. He closed the distance completely, crashing his shoulder into the beast's chest.
The creature staggered under the sudden impact. It tried to dissolve into the shadows to escape the close quarters, but Sunny was faster. He grabbed the front of the creature's armor with his free hand, pulling it violently toward him. Their faces were mere inches apart. The beast's dark eyes widened in sudden surprise as it struggled to bring its sword up for a counterattack.
Sunny stared into his own face, his eyes burning with a dark, ruthless intensity. He leaned in, his lips brushing against the cold metal of the beast's armor. He made absolutely sure that his voice was nothing more than a ghost of a breath, completely hidden from Cielle, who was still standing far away in the clearing.
"Lost from Light, stop," Sunny whispered.
The effect was instantaneous.
The beast froze completely. In a sudden silence, all of its movement was gone, its dark face forming beads of sweat. The blade of its copied Midnight Shard halted mere inches from Sunny's ribs, locked in place by an invisible, unbreakable command. The creature's eyes remained wide, frozen in an expression of static shock.
The Shadow Bond had taken effect.
Sunny felt a sickening wave of disgust wash over him. Seeing his own face locked in perfect, helpless obedience was a grotesque reminder of his own slavery. It was a vile, deeply personal violation, but he did not let the revulsion slow his hand.
He took a half step back, adjusting his grip on the Midnight Shard. His expression turned completely unreadable, a mask of resolve. He swung the heavy tachi in a clean, devastating arc.
The black blade sheared through the creature's neck with virtually no resistance. Its head tumbled to the forest floor, rolling to a stop against his foot. The headless body remained standing for a fraction of a second before the armor dissolved. The creature burst into a blinding shower of silver light, illuminating the dark canopy above before fading into nothingness.
A familiar, dispassionate voice echoed in the silence of his mind.
[You have slain an Ascended Reflection...]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[You have received a Memory.]
Sunny let out a long, ragged exhale, leaning his weight against his sword as the adrenaline slowly began to recede. The soul damage throbbed in his chest, a dull, freezing ache that made his limbs feel incredibly heavy. He closed his eyes for a moment, simply breathing the damp air of the forest, before turning his attention back to the clearing.
Cielle was standing exactly where she had landed. The strange, doll like paralysis that had gripped her when she unsummoned her wings was slowly fading. She blinked several times, her green eyes returning to focus as she surveyed the quiet forest. She looked at the spot where the beast had been standing and now only a piece of mirror remained, then looked at Sunny, her mind visibly struggling to process the sudden, anticlimactic end to the brutal fight.
She took a cautious step forward, the dry leaves crunching beneath her boots.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice flat but carrying a trace of confusion. "It had the advantage. Then it simply stopped moving."
Sunny looked at her. He wiped a streak of blood from his cheek with the back of his fist, his mind racing to construct a plausible narrative.
He thought about the harrowing months they had survived together. The quiet evenings in his house, the shared silences, and the way she had stood by him during this time…. Shamefully he thought of the sex to.. He knew that she was fiercely loyal in her own detached, unusual way. They relied on each other. They protected each other.
But as he stared into her clear green eyes, the iron grip of his paranoia tightened around his heart.
He shook his head internally. 'Not this. Never this.'
He could trust her to watch his back in a fight, and he could trust her to keep his secrets But he could never trust anyone with the absolute, fatal vulnerability of his True Name. It was not a matter of affection or camaraderie. It was a law of his survival. Handing someone the key to his absolute servitude was a line he would never cross, no matter how much his chest ached with the guilt of the lie.
"It overextended," Sunny said, his voice perfectly level, the Flaw completely silent because he carefully constructed the sentence around a technical truth. "It tried to merge into the shadows, I stopped it, and that made it flinch. I took its head off before it could recover."
It was a vague, highly technical explanation that sounded entirely plausible for a creature mimicking a complex Aspect.
Cielle stared at him with unblinking eyes. Her silent gaze pierced through the casual dismissal in his tone. She had spent enough time watching him carefully to know when he was offering a half truth. She knew he was hiding the actual reason behind his victory.
She did not push him. She never did. But Sunny felt the distance between them widen just a fraction, a tiny, invisible fracture forming in the foundation of their absolute trust. She accepted the lie, yet he did not want that. In a twisted way, Sunny might have hoped, hoped that she would question him, push him, just enough… enough that he could share this burden with her. He was truly a lonely wretch.
Sunny decided to shift the focus immediately, burying his discomfort.
"What happened to you," Sunny asked, taking a step toward her. "When you unsummoned your Echo. You completely froze. If the beast hadn't chased you, it would have killed you right then and there"
Cielle flinched slightly at the accusation. She turned her head away, breaking eye contact, and looked into the dark canopy of the giant trees. A moment later, the air around her shoulders shimmered, and the massive, pristine white wings erupted from her back once again. The soft rustle of the feathers was the only sound in the quiet clearing.
A voice echoed in her memory, it was a kind voice, a ridiculous voice, a voice dripping with venom.
"Sweet child, death and murder are just social constructs."
Cielle closed her eyes, forcing the memory back into the dark vault where it belonged. The wings on her back twitched, a burden she could never truly put down. She took a slow, steadying breath and turned back to face Sunny, her expression returning to its usual flat self.
Her eyes dropped from his face to the damp soil of the forest floor. The tension in her shoulders visibly vanished the moment the wings returned, as if a vital piece of her had been restored.
She said absolutely nothing.
Sunny stood in the quiet forest, watching the white feathers settle. He did not ask any further questions. He was at least able to pick that up. Cielle was not really a person of emotions, in fact sunny had rarely seen her emotion aside from their bed time activities and even then, this felt rather strange.
Cielle and emotions were not really a usual match, not that she had no emotions, its just that.. Just like nephis, but a little differently, she did not really understand them well. Sunny knew how much of a social disaster she could be and she was no different privately.
He had enough of his own trauma to know when a subject was strictly off limits.
"Right," Sunny muttered quietly, dismissing the Midnight Shard. "Let's just figure out our next move."
Cielle turned her head slightly, peering at him over the curve of her white wing.
"The forest is quiet," she observed, her voice returning to its usual flat cadence.
Sunny nodded, sending his shadows out to sweep the perimeter. She was entirely correct. The dense woods were eerily silent, devoid of the usual chittering and howling that plagued the Dream Realm.
"The Ascended Reflection," Sunny reasoned, wincing slightly as the soul damage pulsed in his chest. " Its presence probably warded off any other strong Nightmare Creatures on this island. They avoided the area because they didn't want to become its prey."
"Ascended reflections?"
Sunny sighed "Its a whole things, hey atleast i got this cool… mirror?" He picked up the remains of the mirror beast. It looked quite normal to be dropped from a nightmare creature, in fact it simply looked like a plain old mirror.
"Then this island is the safest place to remain," Cielle concluded. "Until we are ready to move toward the installation."
"Yeah. We should set up a camp here," Sunny agreed, feeling the crushing weight of his exhaustion finally settling into his bones. "I need to meditate to mend my soul, and we both need rest. Find a clearing. I will take the first watch."
Cielle gave a single nod of agreement. She turned and began walking deeper into the woods, her white wings brushing against the hanging moss. Sunny watched her go, a complicated knot of affection, guilt, and lingering paranoia tightening in his chest. He turned his gaze toward the sky, focusing on the distant, rattling chains that held the island aloft, deliberately avoiding any further thoughts about the lie he had just told. (Half truth)
A few dozen yards away, hidden beneath the shadow of a massive, twisted oak, Cielle stopped walking. She stood perfectly still, her green eyes fixed on the dark bark of the tree. She replayed the end of the fight in her head. She had seen Sunny close the distance. But more importantly, her enhanced senses had caught the tiniest, almost imperceptible shift in the air right before the beast had frozen in place. She had not heard the exact syllables clearly, but she had caught the distinct, harsh cadence of a whispered name.
Cielle tilted her head, her face an unreadable mask in the dim light of the forest. She tested the phantom sounds on her tongue, speaking so quietly that not even the wind could carry the words away.
"Lost from light?...." she whispered to herself.