Shadow Slave

Both Sunny and Effie stared at him in surprise. After a while, the former huntress asked:

"Challenge the Nightmare with us? Don't you have a great position in Bastion, safe behind its walls? Have Sunny infected you with his madness?"

Kai frowned, then looked away. After a while, he said:

"Yes, I do. But… do you guys remember Aiko? She had a gambling den in the Bright Castle. Well, anyway, Aiko has a real talent for managing various things, so the agency hired her as my manager. One evening, we ended up talking about the Dark City."

A sad smile appeared on his face.

"Both of you only lived in the outer settlement, which had its own share of challenges, of course. Much more dire than what we who paid tribute faced in the Castle. But… but life wasn't that bright there, too."

He remained silent for a bit, then continued:

"Aiko had it way worse than I, though. Especially after one of the Pathfinders made a point of making her life a living hell… Andel, whose head Lady Nephis eventually took off his shoulders. We all knew it, but no one really helped."

A heavy sigh escaped from Kai's lips.

"Because what could anyone of us really do against one of the Pathfinders? But there was a lot of these compromises, of little lies we told ourselves as we closed our eyes to every dark, dirty thing that went on around us."

He looked at Effie, and said:

"People were starving in the outer settlement while we had our bellies full? Well, it wasn't our fault, because the Castle couldn't feed everyone. Surely, if there was more food, we would have shared. The Guards decided to harass someone? Well, that wasn't our fault either, because Tessai was too powerful, and we were too weak to resist him. And so on, endlessly. Everyone went as far as they needed to keep thinking of themself as one of the good guys."

Kai grew silent, then said quietly:

all weak. When I spoke to Aiko, I finally realized that in this world, being weak is a sin, too. At least for us, the Awakened. So… yes, I want to challenge the Second Nightmare, despite being safe and sound behind the walls of the Bastion. Because

looked at

someone who can fly? Or are you going to simply jump into that weird

Sunny coughed.

Kai had a point…

put it

***

unexpected and poignant confession, they spent some time simply relaxing, laughing, enjoying their food, and chatting about this and that. Kai shared his experience of winning twelve consecutive weeks of the Avatar Singer and having to lose on purpose in the end, and the furor his face reveal and the subsequent announcement

complained about having to hire a second publicist because of a strange scandal he had gotten somehow involved in on the network, causing

of beer she had drunk, as well as what types of Nightmare Creatures she had hunted… and fried, and ate. She also joked about all the propaganda events the government wanted her to participate in, and

feel. He almost got sentimental thinking about his beautiful armored doors that Effie had smashed through, and

to his schedule. Before they parted, though, he hesitated, then took out two colorful pieces of synthetic paper from his pocket

saying anything, he handed the

stared at it with a confused

of two people standing back to back with swords in their hands, both of them extremely beautiful, in a professional

bordered on being gaunter than Sunny had been in his outskirts days. She had a doll's face with big, glistening eyes and

also wearing a very strange and impractical armor, a

the hell

at the top of the

of Light and

below it, in

in the darkest of nights. Passion

the piece of paper

my friend… what did you just hand