Shadow Slave | School Days

How many Nephis' at the start of the series could beat current Sunny?

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Dense foliage formed a thick canopy overhead, filtering the harsh summer sun into flickering patches of gold and green. The air is hot and heavy, filled with the scent of damp earth, pine and blooming wildflowers. Each breath from the group carries the weight of humidity, clinging to the skin like an imperceptible shroud.

Insects continued to drone in a never-ending hum, surrounding Eubin overhead as they obeyed her whims like loyal dogs. Birds call lazily from the treetops, their voices blending with the distant rustle of unseen creatures. The forest floor, soft with decaying leaves and twisting roots, muffles the groups steps.

Even in the deepest shade, heat continued to pursue the group like a loyal dog, trapped beneath the thick canopy. Leaves glisten with moisture, their edges curling under the relentless sun. Shadows curled long and deep, offering momentary relief yet still the forest pulses with the warmth of midday heat.

Turning backward, Sunny brandished his diamond plated knife, a gift from Orion with a look of mild annoyance on his face. Frankly, not only was the heat causing him significant stress, but the constant imposition of the sound of the groups steps upon his eardrums forced a grimace upon his face.

Frankly, he could cut his way through half of the forest in a singular motion, but not only would that be taking more lives than he needed to, but he would also be robbed of the scenery. And so, he was forced to endure. "Can you walk any faster, and Eubin get rid of those insects please!"

Sunny raising his voice was a rare occurrence, in fact, he only ever did so whenever he was mimicking a song he was listening to. But currently, he was robbed of his ability to even listen to his favourite artists! His mood was worsened further as Eubin looked at him innocently.

"Insects? Where could they be? You couldn't possibly be accusing me of manipulating them to my whims, would you?" Jessica stared at her with a deadpan expression as Sunny's grip on his knife tightened. They were almost out of the forest anyway, so he would have time to prepare building a cabin quickly before anything got in his way.

"I'm going to cut a part of the forest down. Everyone duck your head." Upon announcing his desire, Sunny didn't waste much time before tensing his muscles. In the next moment, his hand blurred from view, slicing through the air in a wide arc as a large thunderclap pushed back the women behind him.

As they opened their eyes, Sunny had levelled over thirty trees, revealing a small log cabin within the centre of it. Without saying another word, Sunny moved forward towards it, staring at it with an indifferent expression before placing a hand on the wood.

Frowning slightly, he clicked his tongue with an annoyed expression, swinging his hand and cutting the entire house into two pieces. "And pray tell, why did you cut the house into two?" Clara asked, her tone neutral as she stared at the pile of wood that used to make up her house.

"The wood was rotten idiot, that's what happens when houses get abandoned for a long time." Lily commented for the first time in a while. Questioning Sunny had become a foolish affair from the missions she had done with him, he didn't do much without reason unless it came to cooking and even then, it resulted in a positive.

Sunny turned backwards, staring at the crowd of women for a second before shaking his head. "That isn't the only reason, the house is unstable and too small. It wouldn't accommodate us all. I'm going to get fresh wood, Eubin could you clean this up?" Sunny asked, but it wasn't much of a request as he had already began walking away before she could oblige.

Everyone was slightly irritable, the heat only served to fuel their annoyance as their hair and clothes clung to their body incessantly. And this was especially true with Sunny. As he walked towards the trees he felled, he scanned for any suitable pieces of wood, his eyes narrowed in assessment as slow steps came from behind him.

Snapping his head backwards, he noticed Nephis standing behind him with her hands on her hips. Her eyebrow was raised, almost expecting something as Sunny moved to create another excuse to postpone their conversation but Nephis beat him to it.

"What is going on with you? And you aren't going to postpone, I'll help you with whatever you're doing while you speak." Her voice was gentle yet firm as she moved forward, analysing the pieces of wood in a similar fashion Sunny did before gripping one half of a felled tree in a single hand.

Her strength was slightly scary.

"It's just, my mind hurts. Everything is a jumbled mess. All that's clear is I want to kill everyone in Valor but that's it." Nephis stopped in her motions, dropping the tree as she stared at him with an unreadable expression. "I heard that you... were Sunny but weren't. Is that still true?"

Sunny paused for a moment, staring at her with a trembling lip before biting it firmly to calm himself. A headache shot through his head as his eyes widened, in the same moment, Sunny unsheathed his knife and plunged it into his palm, sending blood flying as Nephis rushed to his side.

"Stop, I'm fine. I'm calm. Focus on the red." Sunny mumbled to himself, pulling out the knife as his hand quickly healed. Taking a deep breathe, he turned his head to see Nephis, who was standing oddly close to him with a worried expression across her face as he sighed.

"I'm your Sunny, but I'm also not. I'm both? My mind is a fucking mess, whatever happened to me made me re live my entire life again." He groaned, wiping his hand of the blood in a single, sharp motion as he watched the hole in his arm heal. Nephis stared at him, unsure how to respond to such a situation before attempting to take his hand.

'At least that explains why he was screaming.' She thought with a terrified expression creeping onto her face. The moment their skin made contact, Sunny reeled backward, his wrist spinning as he found himself throwing Nephis backward. Landing gracefully, she closed in on him once more, grabbing his hand firmly and pulling him deep into the foliage before he could respond.

Sunny bit his lip till it drew blood, trying his best not to throw a punch that he was sure would kill Nephis as he suppressed his own survival instincts. Finally, she released him from her hold, staring at him blankly before an expression of utter agony wove its way onto her face.

"Why, why do you keep trying to shoulder everything by yourself? Who do you think you are?" She asked, frustration and agony in her tone as Sunny's face contorted into one of confusion. "I don't, it's just because you were all too wea-"

Nephis cut him off before he could finish his sentence, almost predicting his next words with perfect accuracy. Her gaze was piercing, never leaving his form for even a moment as she steeled her resolve and began to speak.

"Let me guess, we're all too weak? Sunny, let me not remind you that the entire reason you were captured is because you chose to face three hundred thousand and three people weaker than you. Alone! You can't keep hiding behind the fact that we're too weak and using it as a crutch to avoid the simple fact that you don't trust me, you don't trust them either! You don't value yourself enough to see yourself as someone of worth!"

At this, Sunny's face turned into a frown, bloodlust exuded from his body as he stared down Nephis with a furious glare, his grip on his knife tightening. A part of him screamed to kill Nephis immediately for speaking out of turn, and yet he smothered it within moments.

"When I was captured, where were you!? What were you doing!? Why didn't you look for me? Why didn't you save me from that hell!? That was your chance, the one thing you don't require strength to save me from and you weren't there! I was suffering, suffering alone, you probably saw what she did to me didn't you. I was forced to eat my own limbs like a sick fuck because you weren't there when I needed you to be!"

Panting, Sunny watched as Nephis averted her gaze for the slightest of moments. A malicious grin arriving on his face as he took the opportunity to release his lingering hatred from his soul.

"And there I was, sitting, starving, hoping for you to save me! But you weren't there! You were never there when it counted! Not at the ball, not when mom was in danger, NEVER! While I was sleeping, did you even bother to call my mom, to let the woman who trained you when you couldn't do shit know how you were doing? Maybe, just maybe if you spoke to her a little more, she'd still be ali—"

He couldn't do it; he couldn't bring himself to finish his sentence. He couldn't bring himself to weigh Revel's death across her shoulders. Nephis stared at him blankly, yet from the way her shoulders trembled, Sunny could tell her words hit home. She took a deep breathe, running her fingers across her face as she focused.

"I was there; I was looking for you constantly! You were the first person on my mind every day for a while! And when I saw you had been taken by Song, I couldn't stop myself! I rushed there immediately, hoping to save you even if it killed me! But then Eubin told me that you... you weren't the Sunny I fell in love with anymore!"

At her comment, Sunny only felt his rage growing. Her attempts to justify her actions only brought him further rage as he turned his head away from her. "And what, so you abandon me the moment when my mind goes too out of line? Did I become too 'broken' for you to parade around like a little fucking toy for your own needs, just like Morgan did!"

His voice became so loud as he finished his sentence that birds began fleeing. The sight of the apex predator of the island in such anger was not a common one, fleeing the scene was the only appropriate response. Upon hearing Sunny speak, Nephis took an involuntary step back. She wasn't just hurt, she was distraught.

She had been compared to the scum that Sunny hated the most.

Sunny's dull laughter rang out through the forest, filled with nothing but fury and grief as he placed a hand on his face. He was touching it to see if he was still Sunny, if he was still there and still human. Almost as if his humanity would slip through his fingers in the slightest of moments.

"I mean, be fucking honest with me for one second because I don't get it!" Upon hearing these words, Nephis' eyes snapped up to meet his own, paying eerie attention to the next words that he was about to utter as he slammed his hand against a tree, almost toppling it.

"What do you see!? What is it that you see in those silver fucking eyes of yours that is so special about me? What about me is so endearing that I have that makes you fucking care about me? I don't get it, I can't believe it, no, I refuse to believe it! There's nothing, nothing inside me that's special, nothing inside of me that's worth it, nothing inside me that's worth other people suffering for! Fuck, all I can do is punch and kick really well and even then, I can't protect the people who mean everything to me! I'm pathetic, aren't I? Tell me! Tell me how pathetic I am!"

Nephis remained silent, staring at him with her jaw slightly agape. She didn't truly know the extent of Sunny's self hatred, and from the looks of things his problems ran far deeper than she had initially thought. But to her chagrin, Sunny wasn't done there.

"I mean, you can't even respond! Look at me! How fucking arrogant of me, killing so many fucking people then preaching about how I want a normal life, how I deserve a normal life like the world owes me anything! Nobody owes me shit! I'm scum, the lowest of the low, an odious vampire who is only useful to suck the life and joy from the people around me until they eventually end up as body bags under Sunny's long fucking list!"

Tears dripped from his eyes, he moved to speak once more but Nephis finally cut him off, unwilling to allow him to continuously degrade himself and his identity further than he already had.

"If you feel this way, then let me help you! If you don't think you deserve a normal life, then let's live one together for my sake! Why can't you do that? Why does it need to be only you who endures the suffering, only you who is a sacrifice?"

Sunny's response, although laced with fury, was an entirely simple one. He took in a deep breathe, gripping his knife till he felt his fingers digging into his skin. Sheathing them to avoid damage, Sunny ran a hand across his face, trying and failing to calm himself as he finally exclaimed.

"Who else could have done it and come this far!? Would they have kept going? Would they have stayed with me in those cold fucking rooms when Morgan tortured me!? Would they have gotten cuts riddled across their body for my sake!? No, would you! Would you sit there and endure Morgan's torture for my sake for even a day!? You wouldn't! It has to be me; it needs to be me! It starts and ends with me! Me, me, me fucking ME!"

With that, Sunny disappeared from view, dashing deeper into the forest with speed that Nephis' eyes were unable to follow. Sitting on the stump of a tree, Nephis buried her head in her arms, breaking down into vicious sobs as she realised the simple truth.

Sunny was right, she wouldn't have endured torture for his sake.