Shadow Slave

Judging that he had seen everything he needed to, Sunny rose and left the cafe, then headed home. The happy shadow left the premises of the school, unnoticed, and soon wrapped itself around his body... but not before showing how proud and satisfied it was with its flawless performance.

'Yeah, yeah. You did well.'

On his way back, Sunny was thinking over what he had learned about Rain. His sister seemed to be smart and well-adjusted, and receiving the kind of training most kids in this world could only dream about.

But was it enough?

He did not know. No one could know, really.

After he had returned from the Forgotten Shore, several people told him that they would have never survived in that hell. But their words rang hollow to Sunny, because how would they know? Until a person was thrown into a situation like that, there was no way to tell what would remain of their resolve once everything else had been stripped away.

Brave people broke, while cowardly ones found strength that they had not even known was inside them. Kind people became cruel, while cruel people became lost. Only by looking at a mirror of a nightmare could one truly see their real face.

Before Sunny entered the Forgotten Shore, he had thought himself to be strong. But once there, he had to learn the hard way that his strength was brittle and illusory, that it could shatter under the smallest amount of pressure. To survive, he had to build within himself a new kind of strength, one that could not be broken by anything, or anyone.

That was how he had survived.

How was he supposed to know how Rain would measure against the horrors of the Spell? And how was he supposed to make her chances of surviving its trials better?

Consumed by these thoughts, Sunny returned home and tried to put his mind at ease.

This was not something that he could decide in a hurry, anyway. For now, he had many other things to do.

Activating the Dreamscape pod, Sunny climbed inside and closed his eyes.

'Time to relax a little…'

At least out there in the Dreamscape, things were simple. He just had to fight, learn, and win.

…Granted, his previous visit to the Colosseum had turned out to be a fiasco. But Sunny had high hopes for more elite arenas. He just had to gain enough victories to enter them — about seventy more to gain access to the lower-ranked professional dreams.

Not that hard...

interest in dueling with amateurs, and couldn't wait to meet better opponents who could teach him a variety of polished

better do

sand of the Colosseum, Sunny sighed behind the mask and willed the Soul Serpent to assume the

'Huh… that's weird.'

Awakened assembled around Sunny in a span of a minute, staring at him with disturbing

with

What is your real

young woman challenging him,

"Mongrel."

as if struck by a mysterious epiphany,

do you

frowned behind

"I practice no style."

but he interrupted her by stepping

dead body was already turning into a rain of

they so chatty today? I don't have a lot of time. If I

the crowd of Awakened, Sunny sighed dejectedly and

silence is gold.

looked at each other with weirdly enlightened expressions, then

better! At least they're

duel, things went much faster. Sunny had no plans of copying

him to really exert himself, though. They were all Awakened, after all… each and every one of them. Behind

do? He just had to get

point. Sunny was forced to command the Soul Serpent to return to his body to accelerate the accumulation of essence

he had dismissed his sword, the challengers assumed that he wasn't going to fight

Sunny gritted his

"Next!"