Shadow Slave | School Days

Daily Question: Who wins Samara and Nephis vs Noctis

--

In a world with an assured ending, one in which your story began with birth and ended with death one could find such a conclusion oddly predictable. Almost pitiful in the way people meander through their daily lives, attempting to build relationships to ignore their inevitable yet supremely tepid conclusion.

There were men who realised such a boring conclusion was certain at the very end, wanting to exit the world in a blaze of glory before they were taken from the earth. And yet, what was the point of ingraining your memory into the minds of others who would be taken by death just like yourself?

Such thoughts frequented Luster's mind as he moved through his life on a daily basis. He was born with low stamina, hindering him from being capable of drawn-out fights like Lost from Light was capable of doing. Additionally, engaging in fights didn't serve to make his soul dance with elation whenever he exerted himself.

Despite all this, he couldn't help but smile wickedly as he saw the violence that was about to occur in the summit room. He didn't need to engage, as he was sitting far away, farther than even Orion's information. Sitting alone in an empty room as he watched through a strategically placed camera.

"Everything's coming together. And now, for the conclusion." Luster whispered, a smile riddled across his face. His sister couldn't know what he was doing, after all, he did it all for her sake. Her happiness was one of the few things that couldn't be found as mundane even regardless of her certain conclusion.

And so, he worked, he worked defying his own lazy nature, shifting and weaving new webs between people without them realising it. The battle which was about to take place was a perfect example of that, a web he had weaved so intricately that even the sovereigns were forced to kneel before it.

--

Noctis took three steps back, witnessing Sunny's body slowly rising to his feet with blackened eyes as he turned to Asterion. "We've been trapped, Mordret's above and I don't think he'll let us leave and Ki Song has locked us in here. I could destroy the entire building but for that we'd need to beat him."

At the last comment Asterion almost laughed, "Beat him? Does he look like the type of thing that can be beaten?" Before Noctis could offer a reply, Anvil was at his side, gripping his sword firmly in his hands as his eyes remained focused on Sunny. "He's unconscious, he's just like Mordret. An unconscious monster. If we don't work together, we'll die."

Without another word, Noctis stepped forward first, blade steady. A swordsman of his calibre had never known hesitation in his entire life, even when forced to kill Revel with his own hands, a duty that he never truly wanted nor cared for, he didn't waver in his steps.

And yet, when meeting Sunny's empty gaze, something primal surged within his soul. It wasn't the type of thing that could simply be restrained through excellent resolve and infinite amounts of training. Instead, it was the primal fear of prey being gazed upon by a predator far beyond their calibre.

Noctis moved, blade flashing in a perfect arc. Sevirax followed, his senses keen as his sword tore through the air towards Sunny's throat. Sunny tilted his head, and the world slowed. His knives moved in a blur. A whisper of metal against metal, and both swords were deflected with ease that bordered on mockery.

Before Noctis could recover, Sunny's knee drove into his ribs sending him staggering. Sevirax barely had enough time to react as Sunny's foot pressed against his blade, kicking it back with such force the blade nearly flew from his arm. 'He hits with more force than most planes!' Sevirax grunted with pain.

Solvane moved next, her movements refined to the peak as her body coiled like a spring. Countless punches and devastating kicks rained upon Sunny's form. And yet he didn't dodge, watching and analysing each move with the eerie focus of a predator. At the last moment, his hand flicked upward, the back of his palm caught her shin mid kick stopping her in her tracks.

She wasn't graced with the opportunity of witnessing him move as his fist crashed into her ribs. She gasped, trying desperately to return the lost pieces of oxygen Sunny had robbed from her. But Sunny was already moving, snatching her by the wrist, spinning her into Gilead who was surging forward with a brutal kick.

The two crashed into one another violently. Sunny didn't waste a single movement, already closing in on Anvil, Asterion and Tyris with a passive expression still on his face. There was no hatred, no emotions and only the calm cool inevitability of death.

"Well, I'd probably fare a lot better if I used these." Asterion commented, glancing at the vials in his hands with a smile. "But who wouldn't want to face off against Lost from Light?" Turning to Anvil, he noticed the expression of anger across the man's face as he finally had the opportunity to speak his real thoughts.

"You vile monster, you shouldn't have even been born! Look at you! Unable to control yourself! Asterion, I think you know what to do." Rage boiling in his body, the three swordsmen (and woman) surged forward. Unleashing a storm of steel, their blades weaving intricate, masterful patterns. Each strike at the pinnacle of swordsmanship.

Tyris was one step behind, she couldn't be expected to compete with the two monsters and yet here she was. All seemed to be going well, their continuous onslaught had caused Sunny to remain still, dodging all their attacks with minimal movement. Slipping through the gaps so minute they barely existed.

And then he moved forward. Asterion's claws slashed toward his throat—Sunny tilted his chin by an inch, the metal passing harmlessly beneath. Tyris's blade carved towards his ribs—he twisted, and the edge missed by a hair. Anvil gritted his teeth, frustration blooming in his soul as he swung harder, faster, his sword leaving it's shadow behind.

Sunny let go of his knives.

In a single instant, his hands clapped together catching the descending blade between his palms as he stared at Anvil with a neutral expression. With a twist of his hands, Sunny drove the pommel into his jaw as Anvil crumbled to the ground, his brain reverberating against his skull.

All his rage, all his fury.

All of it was gone.

He had been instantly overwhelmed.

How could one even show fury towards death itself?

Tyris and Asterion hesitated. Their instincts screamed at them—something was wrong. Sunny's knives sank to the ground, having never touched the ground as Sunny's hands snapped downward to catch them mid fall. With a single step, a single motion, a single usage of his strength.

He vanished from view.

Tyris barely had time to register it before she felt the hit of a knife slam into her temple. She was sure that if it was Sunny, it would have been the blade. But before she even had the opportunity to register the pain, Sunny was already behind Asterion. Asterion twisted, his claws raking through the air, but Sunny dipped under them.

Grabbing Asterion's arm, Sunny twisted it with such force that his claw bent then drove his knee into Asterion's spine. Once more, he refused to follow up and end the mans life. And oddly enough, it was because his entire soul was in a deep psychological clash with itself.

--

Eyes fluttering open, Sunny was greeted with the dark expanse of his subconscious quite cruelly. There wasn't much there, aside from a chair with a flat screen TV placed in front of it which he presumed likely located 'Sunny's' memories. Sighing to himself, Sunny looked around once more with a frown.

"So, this is what my subconscious looks like. How...drab." With another fatigued sigh, Sunny made his way closer to the chair, being greeted by a white-haired figure who sat with a small, dismissive smile on his face as he stared at the screen. A video of Nephis admonishing him, calling him broken played in the background as the figure turned slowly.

"What's good Sunless?" His clone asked, a small, joyless smile on his face as he locked eyes with himself. The two figures stared at each other once more, despite witnessing an identical clone of himself, Sunny didn't find his heart moved in the slightest as the two remained in silence for a few moments.

"Do you want something from me? This usually doesn't happen." Sunny responded, eliciting a small smile from his clone as he cocked his head to the side. "You can't keep rejecting we're the same person forever, and today is the day we stop that. Leaving it up to other people is ok. You don't need to suffer alone."

At this, Sunny's face contorted into a grimace as he stared at his clone. What did he know? What did he know about his life? "You know everything about me and yet you're still speaking like that! Answer me this if you're really me, what happened the last time we showed our back to someone? The last time we showed weakness!"

His clone didn't respond, simply staring at him with a sombre expression as the blackened background shifted into a different scene. Seishan screamed his position, holding him firmly in a hug, one of the first times he had let someone who wasn't Revel actually touch him. And yet she caused him so much pain.

"That happened. And it hurt. And we wanted to kill her." Was all the reply he got, his voice flat without displaying emotion as Sunny stared at the scene with a grimace. These weren't his memories, he wouldn't accept them, he was a different person! It was all just an illusion.

Lies are kind, and the truth is cruel. Sunny has faced too much of both.

"And you have the guts, to tell me... to show my back? Turn the other cheek? Let it all go? Trust other people?" His clone paused, moving to cut him off. "It doesn't have to be you alo—" Suddenly, Sunny grabbed himself by the shirt, pulling him closer as the sight of Seishan brought him to furious tears as his eyes remained locked on himself.

"If it wasn't me then who else could have done it!? Who else could have been tortured, and come this far? Would they have kept going? Would they have stayed by my side? Even Nephis! Would she have remained at my side, in a cage right there with me as I was forced to eat myself to stay alive!? No! They're all liars, they're all liars who's sweet words only help when hell is at my doorstep!"

Silence permeated between the two, Sunny staring at himself with a torn expression as a grimace fought its way onto his face. But before he knew it, he had been punched in the face by himself. He found that he was pinned to the ground, punches raining down upon himself as blood poured from his mind. Cracks formed in the darkness around him as his clone began to roar.

"Don't you dare look down on your friends like that! You're right, you're fucking scum, you've killed a lot of people, you've created more orphans than you can count and yet they still stayed by you! Nephis saw you through even the darkest of times, she was the only one who you even allowed to touch you after what Morgan did, so stop fucking lying to yourself!"

At this, Sunny shifted his weight, rolling over before gripping his hands on his clone's throat violently. More cracks began to form in the world around him as he stared down at himself with murderous intent. "I'm not looking down on them, it's because they're so strong, so kind and so caring that I'm doing this to myself! I don't deserve them! All I can do is act as a killing machine so they don't have to, and even then, I couldn't preserve Nephis' innocence because I'm weak and fucking pathetic!"

His grip on his clone's throat tightened as he attempted to crush it's throat. Instead of fighting back, the clone simply smiled at him before asking. "Do you remember what mother told us?" At this, Sunny's grip relaxed, allowing his clone to slip from his grasp, releasing a few coughs at his forced lack of oxygen or whatever he was using to breathe in his subconscious as he stared at him. "She said, for you to love others, you must first love yourself. And it looks like you're trying to do one without the other, tell me, do you plan on failing her?"

At the prospect of failing his mother, Sunny took a few steps back, the world around him began to shake as his clone smiled sadly. "Ah, it appears like we've run out of opponents to fight so we'll be returning to consciousness soon." Sunny moved to answer the prior question, yet no words escaped his lips. His clone simply closed the distance between them, wrapping his arm around his head in a deep hug as Sunny only managed to whisper.

"Who are you?"

The reply was simple, mocking yet kind.

"Someone you should love more. Yourself."

--

Gilead was the only one left standing, his golden hair matted with sweat. He had seen everything. He had watched as his comrades—masters in their own right—had been dismantled as though they were nothing more than dummies for Lost from Light's sadistic training.

But fear lingered around his soul, his resolve forming a perfect defence as he let out a battle cry and lunged. His massive frame moved with unearthly speed. He twisted mid-air, his kick carrying the weight of a Warhammer. Yet Sunny didn't move. Not until the last second.

Gilead's kick missed by an inch. That inch was all the gap Sunny required as he pivoted smoothly, his knife gliding against the air as it cut a deep line across Gilead's chest, sending blood spraying from it as the man fell unconscious in mere moments. His unconscious eyes strayed around the room, awaiting for the next opponent before pushing open the door.

Nephis, Jessica, Clara, Eubin and Ki Song weakly attempted to resist yet were quickly overpowered. As he saw their worried gazes, he fell to his knees, digging his fingers into his hair as he let loose a blood curdling scream. Nephis shot to his side, grabbing him by the shoulders only to find herself being flung as far away as possible by Sunny. Yet it wasn't intended to harm.

"Don't... touch... me..." He ordered weakly through pants.

Immense bloodlust covered the hallway outside the metal room, yet surprisingly it wasn't coming from Sunny's downed form as Mordret stared at the five women with a sword in hand. His glare focused on Nephis as he leaned on it with a furious expression.

"You're going to die Changing Star."