Sunny opened his eyes. Rugged and heavy breaths escaping his lungs. The amount of revelations his dream had given him was staggering, but no matter what it had taught him, he could not focus on them.
His eyes started tearing up as sobs filled with indescribable sorrow escaped him. The way the slave looked at him, the parental love in her gaze. It reminded him of his parents, the wound dealt to him by their deaths opened up again.
The spell seemed to have something to say, but almost like a compassionate human it waited for Sunny to complete his mourning. After his tears dried and his sobs died down, he heard voice of the spell whisper in his ears.
[You have received your aspect legacy — Shadow Dance]
'Wh— What?'
Sunny's expression shifted to absolutely shocked, he had almost forgotten about his recent sorrow. A Dreamer with their aspect legacy… something like that was unheard of — he was the first.
Sunny quickly pulled up his runes to make sure whatever he just heard was not a part of his imagination.
Aspect: [Shadow Slave].
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Abilities: [Shadow Control].
Aspect Legacy: [Shadow Dance].
They were right there —the runes of his aspect legacy shimmering brightly in front of him like a star. He focused on the description.
Shadow Dance Description: [Once an elegant dance, now a deadly battle art. This mysterious style was completed by Lost From Light, after witnessing a graceful slave dancing with her shadows. Who else could have taken something so beautiful and turned it into something so vile.]
the description was… interesting, but what grabbed most of his attention was not the description but what was written below.
Shadow Dance Mastery Level: [0/7]
First Relic: Unearned.
Second Relic: Unearned.
Third Relic: Unearned.
Fourth…
Seven! Seven relics. Aspect legacies all had 1 relic that usually were so precious and powerful that whole legacy clans would be built around them —and he had Seven! With this he could have single handedly revive the Shadow Clan and even rise it higher than ever before.
But first he would need a partner. A partner was of utmost importance when creating a Legacy Clan. You needed a strong heir after all.
'Nephis Maybe? She is very strong and determined. Having a really vigorous figure and a physique that is just divine, any heir she would give birth to would not be anything less that gorgeous and exceptio—'
'FOCUS! Pure Thoughts! Pure Thoughts!'
Well its not like he had any other choices, she was the only woman his age he knew and Besides he would not mind marrying he—
'SUNNY STOP! FOCUS! Pure Thoughts ONLY!' he reminded himself.
Sunny shook his head multiple times, failing to get rid of his stupor. Partially due to the amount of Relics he could receive and partially because they all had different ways to unlock them.
Usually Aspect Legacies had a set way of unlocking them, and after that the relic would be given to you. The relic could range from many things like memories, echoes and in very rare cases even innate abilities or attributes.
But he had seven of them, seven that each seemed to have a different way to unlock them. He suspected his aspect legacy was entirely different due to his aspect rank. It seemed that Divine Aspect holders would need to meet one criteria to unlock their Aspect Legacy, and then seven more to unlock their Legacy Relics.
He did not care though. So what if he had to put in seven times as much effort, he would get seven times the rewards so that was a fair trade off. And besides his Aspect Legacy seemed to be based on the Battle art of shadows, so he would be completing his Battle art with it as well. It was like killing two birds with one stone, but in this case the birds were extremely powerful relics and knowledge and the stone took ages to throw, but that was besides the point, his Aspect Legacy would be a much greater boon than others.
He would have to tell Nephis about this, the chances were she would get something similar to him.
'Wait if Nephis gets seven relics and I also get seven relics would that not mean that together we would have fourteen relics? It seems that the spell is telling me who to choose as a pa-'
Sunny cut himself, he did not want to follow that reasoning. He feared where he would end up at the end.
***
at the dead of night in the dark soundless hallway a young man with small stature and pitch black raven hair was moving. He made no sound, his footsteps completely silent and his breathing silenced, almost like the shadows themselves were mantling him.
Sunny moved from hallway to hallway masking his presence with practiced ease. His [Prince of Shadows] attribute made him practically invisible in the shadows, his presence completely unnoticed by most detection methods. Now he had made his way to his destination, standing before two large and imposing doors.
Swinging open the doors Sunny suddenly —or not so suddenly got flashed by a bright light. He of course knew this would happen, but there was nothing he could do about it.
"Hey Neph!"
"Hey Sunny."
Nephis was standing in the middle of the dojo, sweat glistening on her graceful body. Seeing her like this made Sunny remember his impure thoughts earlier that day. Flustered and blushing Sunny smiled, shacking his head ordering his brain to think correctly again.
Seeing Sunny flustered like this made tension in Nephis's shoulders dissipate, a smile adorning her face as well.
"Is there something wrong Sunny?"
"Ah! No. I was just thinking about something. Actually everything is better than ever."
Knowing what his next words would do to Nephis, Sunny spoke in a slow pace.
"I… I… Umm… I actually… Received my Aspect legacy"
A sudden silence descended on the spacious dojo, not a single one of them uttering a word until Nephis broke the silence.
"You are lying. …Wait. But You Can't lie. So…" Nephis pointing aggressively at yelled out
"WHAT!?"
Her expression quickly changed from someone who found their only sanctuary in a world that offered no rest, to that of someone who just killed a group of nightmare creatures and received Echoes from all of them.
"Sunny. How? You do realize that no one has ever gotten their Aspect Legacy as a Sleeper Right? And you have not even entered the Dream Realm yet. How is that even possible? What type of relic did you get?"
Sunny flinched as a sharp pain entered his mind.
"Alright! Alright! Can you stop asking so many questions at once?"
"The spell gave me a vision in a dream which unlocked it. Yes I do realize that no sleeper has gotten their Aspect Legacy. Apparently its possible. And no I did not get any Relic nor an attribute or a innate ability."
"Wait. So the spell gave you a vision? Just randomly? And what do you mean you did not get a Relic or an Attribute, then what did you get?"
"Neph!" He Yelled out "I just told you to stop asking so many questions!"
"Yes the spell gave me a vision. No it was not random, I got it after observing the my shadow. I did not get anything yet, I need to unlock my Relics first."
Nephis was about to open her mouth to throw yet another barrage of questions before Sunny stopped her.
"Let me explain! I ordered my shadow to observe the combat training class. You know Just before you got in the ring to demolish everyone, I started observing through your shadow. Remember what my father used to say about shadows having their own battle style? So I wanted to check if it was true. So lo and behold it was actually true. I could not even contain my excitement. I even got my own shadow to merge with yours during your fight with caster… just so I could get a better understanding of course."
"After that, during the night, is when I received the vision. I suspect me observing your shadows movements allowed me to unlock it."
"And as for the Legacy itself and the Relics, it seems like my understanding of the Shadow battle art or —Shadow Dance, unlocks Relics. It has seven stages and seven Relics to claim. I have not even mastered the first step, so I have not gotten the first relic, but I suspect your Aspect Legacy will be similar to mine… having seven relics and all"
Nephis, staggered, could not fathom amount of knowledge Sunny just dumped on him out of nowhere. Shadow Dance? Seven Relics? New Battle Art? Seeing this Sunny let out a chuckle. Seeing the stoic and cold Changing Star, shocked like this was a sight. Even for him this look of her was new. He had seen her in shock before, but that was also filled with fear. That look in her eyes when an Attempt on her life had failed was something he dreaded to see.
"Thats all?" she asked, shock still visible all over her face.
"Yeah that is about it"
Sunny did not feel bad about dropping such a bombshell on her. After all the look was priceless, she would not let him have laugh at her for long though. Nephis quickly regained her usual tone, stoic and indifferent as always —that is what everyone except Sunny saw though, many thought Changing Star could not feel anything, but Sunny knew that she felt emotions too —perhaps even more than everyone.
Knowing the true reason about why she could not express her emotions planted a seed of sorrow in his plant, but like a seed in bad soil, it died immediately. He could not afford to feel sorrow. He had to grow stronger, and he had the perfect thing to focus on.
"Hey so… since I need to master this —Shadow Dance, would you mind Sparring with me? I know sleep is important, but I need to get stronger, and this is the perfect path for my strength."
Nephis's Eyes gleamed of joy and excitement, she did not care about sleep. Sparring with an opponent close to her in strength would be an amazing opportunity. she had not sparred with Sunny for a long time, she wanted to see how he had grown —She would show him how she grew as well.
"Yes! …I mean Sure."
Seeing Nephis's mask breaking right in front of him Sunny gave a genuine smile. Nephis was still human, she could not always be strong and stoic, she needed to be week and expressive as well. Seeing Nephis like this brought both sorrow and happiness to him. On one hand he liked seeing her slip up, but on the other hand he wanted for her to know that she could take off that mask in front of him.
Sunny was not the only one changed by the other though. Seeing Sunny smile dropped her guard, and almost as if reading Sunny's mind, her heart opened up. Her emotions were much easier to gleam than before and for Sunny he could almost read her like an open book.
Sunny could practically tell everything she was feeling: sorrow, excitement, happiness, desire, anger, longing and fear. He could vaguely see why she was feeling these emotions, but he could not exactly pinpoint them.
'Why did she feel like this?' Sunny asked himself.
Was she sad that they could not have more moments like these together? Was she happy that she was having this rare moment now? Did she desire spending more time like this Or did she desire to kill the ghouls even now? Well one and the other were very closely connected actually, they could not spend time with each other like this as long as the ghouls lived, they had to die, otherwise how would he get more quality time with her?.
Anger was as self explanatory as it got. She was angry at the sovereigns, for what they took from her, for what they would take, for what they did to sunny. She was mad. Usually this emotion would be stronger in her, but now it seemed to be much weaker, almost like it was put in the back of her mind.
As for longing, Sunny could not tell what she truly longed for, on the surface he could tell the goal of killing the sovereigns, and he could see destroying the spell, but her emotion still had gaps in them, gaps that perhaps not Nephis understood. Nevertheless her longing was fierce, burning like a pillar of fire.
The most shocking of these emotions though was… Fear. He had not seen Nephis afraid for a long time, the last time he had seen her like this was actually ten whole years ago, back then they were still children. It seemed that Nephis kept this emotion behind the most locks and doors, thats why even now, while her guard was down, he could barley gleam any of it, but he could tell, she felt fear, and maybe even a lot of it. Was was she afraid of? Was she afraid that someone would come and snatch this moment from them? Was she afraid of the dream realm? Was she afraid of what would come after their visit to the dream realm? That much he could not see, but he could tell that the fearless Changing Star did indeed fear.
"Damnation!"
Sunny cursed under his breath. Why did they have to do this to them? Why did they have to leave scars on her? Why could they just not leave them alone? But Sunny knew what threat both of them faced, even though they were just children, their potential alone could ward off many predators looking for prey. I mean just look at them! They had both gotten Divine Aspects and True Names in their first nightmare, and now Sunny himself had an Aspect Legacy without even entering the Dream Realm. All of these feats were never done before, they were the first ever.
Nephis, noticing Sunny in his stupor, noticed that she had let her guard down too much. Correcting her "mistake" Sunny noticed fear completely gone from her expression, it seemed like she did not mean to open to him this much, and that it was just an accident. Maybe one day she would open up to him again, but he felt that would not happen anytime soon.
Stopping himself from over thinking about Nephis, Sunny, grabbed a training odachi, getting ready to spar.
***
Rest of their time in the Academy went by as usual, nothing interesting happening anymore. In the morning he would spend his time in teacher Julius's class, filling his gaps of knowledge. In the afternoon he would spy on the Sleepers during their combat training. And during the night he would spar with Nephis to progress his aspect legacy. Nothing special happened until that day finally came —the day of the winter solstice, and also his birthday.
Sitting on the cafeteria bench, Sunny and Nephis were both holding cups of coffee. This was a tradition they both shared on his birthday. Even though this time, they felt a insurmountable drowsiness, one that could not be beaten by coffee like this, they still did not break their tradition. Actually Sunny had saved credits in the outskirts just to drink real coffee on her birthdays, and apparently Nephis drank coffee on his birthdays while he was gone too.
Suddenly the blind girl who had never spoken to them during his time in the Academy turned to him and said.
"Happy Birthday!"
'What? How did she know about his birthday?'
"Uh thanks, but How did you know?"
the blind girl seemingly undisturbed by her question said.
"I saw it in a vision."
And with that the blind girl finished her meal, stood up and left.
'Was that all? What!?'
Nephis looked over to him, shock could clearly be seen in her heart, but she did not show it.
"What was that?"
"I don't know."
And with that they let the subject go. Sunny and Nephis were not people of a lot of words, that was all it took for them to communicate with each other, sometimes they did not even need words.
***
the sun was very close to setting, instructor Rock gather all sleepers in the foyer of the compound and led them outside.
Outside in the parks covered by snow, other Awakened were leading their own batch of Sleepers towards one spot —the medical center.
Entering the medical center, to Sunny's surprise, Rock had not led them immediately to the wing containing Sleeping Pods. Rather he led them to a more deserted floor.
Sunny saw many people sitting in wheelchairs with blank expressions, all life gone from their faces. They were hollow.
Now instructor Rock was speaking about how they could all end up like hollows if they died in the dream realm, but he did not care about Rocks speech.
Sunny looked over to Nephis to see her reaction. He knew that her mother was a hollow, he was one of the few people that knew actually. He knew exactly how he felt about her mother. Seeing Nephis like this he wanted to go up to her, and wrap his arms tightly around her slender body, but he knew that he could not.
***
Eventually every Sleeper had been lead to their individual Rooms and were preparing to enter the sleeping pods.
In one of the Rooms, a blind girl, Cassia, was trying to find her way to the Sleeping pod, tears running down her face, after all her life was guaranteed to end soon.
In the other room a proud legacy, Caster, his gaze fell on the floor and his lips moved constantly, repeating one phrase over and over again.
In another room, Nephis, the last daughter of the immortal flame was looking down at her feeble hands. tears forming on her face, dropping on her flawless hands. Suddenly the tears were gone from her eyes, replaced by a bright radiance, it looked like stars were dancing inside her beautiful iris's.
And finally somewhere else, the Prince of Shadows, Sunless, was looking at his own shadow.
"Well! I guess this is it! I hope you are ready! Because the gods know I am not."
Making his way into the sleeping pod, his journey in the academy had come to an end. It was fun seeing Julius and Nephis, it was exciting sparring with Nephis every night. Unlocking his aspect legacy was shocking, and seeing Nephis in the state she was that night was priceless as well, but tonight… tonight — that chapter of his life was ending.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
***
[Welcome to the Dream Realm, Lost From Light!]