Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, then chuckled.

"No... that's crazy! It would never work."

Then, he stared at the wall some more.

...Would it?

'No way.'

The thought that had crept into his mind while he was thinking about the limitations of the Shadow Shell was so out there that it seemed utterly ridiculous. But the more he thought about it... the fewer reasons to discard it he saw.

'No, that's... that's a bit too strange, even for me.'

And yet, he could not find a logical reason for why it wouldn't be true.

Sunny hesitated for a while longer, then furtively looked around.

Then, he cleared his throat, stood up, and left the office.

If he wanted to test this bizarre theory, he needed to do it somewhere more private.

He left the Valor compound and made his way to the nearby dormitory, where most of the government staff still remaining within the siege capital lived. There, he entered his living quarters - which were a bit more spacious and had better amenities than that of both mundane and Awakened government workers - and locked the door behind him.

Being an Ascended had its perks.

watch - two outside the apartment, two within -

seem to be

The principle was simple.

was shapelessness and formlessness - it allowed him to shadow an enemy, copying the very essence

shadow simpler battle styles. He had achieved

of the fundamental principles that governed all battle techniques, allowing him to shadow much more sophisticated styles, and do it much faster. It also gave him a glimpse of an intuitive understanding of the more esoteric components of

which culminated during his first duel with

Sunny had started his journey toward mastery of it by expanding his horizons and starting to shadow not only humans, but also Nightmare Creatures. In the bloody arena of the Red Colosseum, he had submerged himself into their perverted, demented, rabid minds... which allowed him to intuitively feel what the abominations he

of the shadows and let go of their actual self - which, of course, posed the risk of losing it forever. Sunny had made that dangerous breakthrough after being trapped in

dissipating pieces of his true self back together by using his True Name. It served as an anchor for what made Sunny an individual, and through it, he was able to advance his mastery of Shadow Dance without losing

those beings he shadowed even further, allowed him to actually perceive the flow of essence through their bodies as opposed to just

The fourth step...

he had to invent all on his own, with no one guiding him... as such, he

battle techniques... and would be much, much harder to

in mastering Shadow Dance, he had achieved

Shadow Shell - a powerful tool he had created by bringing together various facets

In fact, its role was perhaps the most important - without deep comprehension of the desired form, Sunny would never be able to construct it from the shadows, and that

there was a limitation to

to make his mind supremely malleable, he still possessed a human body. No matter how much training he had

if... he added another ingredient to the

a combination of his Dormant Ability, Shadow Control, his

Shadow Dance - was

reason for the limitations Sunny had to deal

uh... let's just try

discover a direction that would eventually lead him to the