Shadow Slave AU: Fluid Fate

It didn't take long for Sunny to find himself back to the massive gates of the Academy. The car ride with Nephis was quiet, but Sunny didn't think introducing himself was the right idea at the moment. The miniature city was the same as always. From the moat which surrounded the high walls, to the turret nests that look like it was built to split the sky itself with bullets, he remembered it all vividly.

There was a person waiting in front of the gates. As if she was aloof from the world, Nephis was standing there, waiting for the gates to open.

Sunny walked up beside her, took a deep breath, and quietly waited for her to take in the view. She might've noticed him, but it was hard to say since his steps were rather silent. Regardless, once she had her share of ogling the gates of the academy, she began to silently walk in. Sunny was only a few paces behind her.

***

When Sunny and Nephis were taken to the building in the Academy that holds Sleepers, they ended up in the large hall where all of the sleepers had been waiting. There were about two hours before the induction ceremony, which only occurred once a week during the solstice period, so Sunny walked to a corner of it and held a stern expression while interacting minimally.

Exactly the opposite of the childish prank he had played on Nephis earlier, on the rare occasions that he had actually been talked to, he gave serious answers to their questions and nonsense chatter.

Just as before, no one really asked or bothered about him, and nobody asked him dangerous questions about his flaw or abilities. Unlike the last time he had been here though, he actually didn't go out of his way to make a reputation of being a fool.

This was not like the last time he was in the Academy. Embarrassing himself would be detrimental to him in the future, and that was because he planned to stick to Nephis early on in the Forgotten Shore. The both of them needed the extra safety of a reliable ally, and there likely would never be someone who could be a better fit to keep his secret weakness from killing him.

Sunny was still going to keep a low profile, but he was mostly going to avoid being seen as too weak in the future. He didn't think about things in the same way as before. If he bragged openly about what he had accomplished, he could still be targeted by the Great clans or other people, but before, he was known to the public as dead weight trash until he went to Antartica and tore through monsters like saw blades tear into wood.

Sunny was going to keep quiet to his class mates, but he would make it clear to the government that he was a serious fighter. It wouldn't take long. Sunny would grow much faster now. The Forgotten shore was a hell hole, but if there was one thing he wouldn't lack, it was Shadow Fragments and Soul Shards.

Since he now knew better than to treat Cassie and Nephis as forces of nature, there were going to be plenty of opportunities to strengthen them all together. Speaking of Cassie, he went and sat on the bench next to her. She didn't even notice him, but that was okay.

Eventually, the induction ceremony began. Awakened Rock tried to instill fear in the kids, and began to explain the differences between the dream realm and the waking world. Sunny listened to the lecture once again while thinking of supper and wishing he had the covetous coffer. That thing is getting hunted down again for sure when Sunny gets back from the forgotten shore.

Eventually Sunny made it to his assigned dorm. It was the same room he had been assigned to when he first became a Sleeper. He knew that he would be questioned again about his abilities later, and quickly realized that he should just share the basic functions of his shadow.

And that's exactly what he did. When the interview came, he refused psychological counseling and offered a rough explanation of his shadow to the government worker. Sunny didn't mention his augmentation ability, so his ability was marked under utility and he was sure that he would get a medium rank from it.

Just the fact that he could boost his direct strength, his memories, and scout his environment was already everything the government worker had wanted to know.

The next morning, Sunny washed up and went for breakfast. He actually could have sat at another table apart from the one at which Cassie sat this life around, but why would he? Cassie and her assigned social worker kept to themselves.

It was perfect for Sunny who had been deemed an upper middle rank in terms of survival chances based in his interview last night. Many people would ask questions about Sunny's ability and why it got him a high placement despite him being from the Outskirts.

Of course, nobody really knew he was from the Outskirts this time around, because he had avoided everyone and treated anyone who spoke to him with cold, ruthless logic dumped onto their heads. Of course, five or six kids, including Han Li Caster had come to talk to him, but he refused to speak until they asked him a question, and after that he gave roundabout answers in the conversation, coldly announcing a silent war between the two.

Sunny even spoke to them and told them bluntly that he just didn't want to talk to them. The Legacy kids didn't like that and started to bad mouth Sunny to his face, but Caster stopped them.

Caster asked why Sunny didn't want to speak, and after enduring his flaw for a bit, he told Caster that he didn't want to talk to anyone at all.

It was true, of course. He didn't even really want to Nephis or Cassie, because they would meet later, and getting close to them now would make him a suspicious character.

The last thing he needed was to change the future because he got asked revealing questions and then have to pay a price from the butterfly effect.

Caster did end up leading his haughty gang of legacies away after a few more moments of acting like Sunny was just some idiot who didn't understand the benefit of having a good clan behind his back.

It ended up saving Sunny and Cassie the trouble of talking to them... well, mostly Sunny. Just like the last time he spent his first day here, a strange commotion started when everyone realized that Nephis had a true name.

It distracted them from seeing the name of Sunny, at least. Suddenly, everyone was paying attention to the quiet girl who didn't want to talk to anyone.

Caster paid a lot of extra attention to what was happening. He had mixed feelings about her because of what he'd have to do in the future, but she couldn't exactly know what was going on, so it wouldn't hurt to warm up to her.

Back at Cassie's corner table, Sunny decided to be nice and speak up, even if his tone did turn more than a little dry.

"Seems like Nephis of the immortal flame clan got a true name in her first nightmare. It's quite shocking."

Naturally, Cassie jumped. She turned to face him, her eyes opening wide.

"Were you talking to me?"

"Yeah, I figured you'd want to know. It's just awful, that flaw you were stuck with."

Cassie was dumbstruck. If he knew about her flaw, then why wasn't he avoiding her like everybody else? Didn't this guy realize he was happily chatting with a corpse?

Sunny chuckled. He could practically see the confusion in her eyes, so he decided to cheer her up a bit. He had just the speech for it, too.

"You know, my nightmare was awful." He spoke quietly.

Cassie still didn't understand where he was going with this.

"I believe that the words of the Spell were something along the lines of 'you are a useless wretch with narry a skill worth a mention'. Could you believe it? I even had to deal with an Awakened Tyrant. My first nightmare and I found a way to kill an Awakened Tyrant. Could you believe it?"

As they talked quietly, Cassie grew more and more thunderstruck. She could see his attributes, but that seemed far fetched, even to her. Finally, she spoke up.

"Where are you going with this?"

Sunny nodded at her curt answer. It was good that she was being responsive. The light had returned to her eyes.

"I'm saying that the Spell gave a way to kill an Awakened Tyrant in the same Nightmare it gave me a useless aspect. There's a lot of things I can say about the Spell, but I can't say it isn't fair, in its own cruel way."

"This might sound rude, but the Spell takes with one hand and gives with the other. If you have a flaw this damning, it's very likely the aspect you got might just be the most powerful one I'll ever see."

This was true in its own right. Sunny had seen a lot of powerful aspects, but he had never seen another aspect that he was as afraid of as Cassie's.