Shadow Slave

'Slow down there, lady…'

Sunny tried to take a step back, but ended it staggering and almost falling down. Somehow, he managed to keep his balance, crouching as his talons dug into the ground. His four arms rose, sharp claws aimed at Solvane.

All that talk of glory and death made him very, very tense.

'Solvane… wait. Solvane?'

A low growl escaped from Sunny's mouth as he realized who was standing in front of him. So this beautiful, graceful woman… she was the ghastly living corpse he had destroyed in the cargo hold of the crashed ship? Or rather… would be?

He had traveled into the past of the Chained Isles, after all, or at least an illusory reenactment of it. It made sense that Solvane had not succumbed to her harrowing fate.

...Yet.

Sunny shivered, remembering the silent pleading and boundless torment in the empty eyes of the Wormvine's host. How could those terrible eyes be the same as the radiant ones looking at him right now?

Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by pity, compassion, and sorrow.

And fear.

Because if he was right and this was really the same Solvane, then this dazzling stranger who had just promised to gift him a glorious death… was a Saint.

And a Saint promising to kill him was not something Sunny had ever wanted to hear.

He peered beneath the surface of Solvane's lovely figure, and saw a single sphere of light burning brightly in her chest, so radiant as to appear almost blinding. Her soul core… the soul core of a Transcendent.

His vertical pupils narrowed, a single thought ringing in his mind:

'Run!'

more powerful than his own, inhumanly so, but without knowing how to properly control it, outrunning a Saint was out of the question. If it had ever been. So,

when a beautiful silhouette suddenly appeared near, a graceful hand falling from above to grasp one of his arms into an iron

hold of a Saint was as inevitable and

the shadows anymore, and summoning any Memory would have taken too long to be of

All except for one.

hand and awkwardly shot upward, leaving a thin

a single crimson drop

this fate, then? A sacrifice of blood was made, on the altar of War. Little

she smiled

next moment, her other hand moved forward, and before Sunny could even

with pain,

***

Shadows… shadows…

surrounded

close to him, and some were far. Some were small, and some were large. Some moved, and

one of

vast and lightless soul. Silent and tranquil, free of all

For now…

'Ugh… my head hurts…'

senses. The first thing he felt was pain, and then, the steady beating of his hearts. Hearts? Yes… apparently, he had two now. As well as four

and unfamiliar, too large, too cumbersome, and too strange. Something hard and cold was pressed against it, making him feel a dull pain in his limbs. His head ached, too, as if he had been struck on it hard enough to shatter

been. Had

beauty, Solvane, hit him. She killed

if I am

of outrage, Sunny tried to chase the pain away. But it remained. Why wouldn't it disappear? It wasn't supposed to torment him

Unless… he wasn't dead.