"Aster, Song, Vale. The Spell. Pick one of them to stop pursuing revenge against, and I will be convinced of just how much you care about your promises."
Nephis did not answer immediately.
She leaned back and stared at him, letting his words circle in her mind.
Giving up... revenge? To pick either the Spell or the Ghouls and just let them be?
Nephis met his gaze. His eyes remained placid, offering no clue to his intentions.
The Spell or the Ghouls...
She tapped a finger against the shadow table in thought. The mass of shadow almost recoiled at the brief contact.
Could she do such a thing?
Their death had been the only thing driving her forward for so long that she didn't even remember a time before that overwhelming hate had consumed her. And now, she was being asked to give it up.
Asked to forget about the murder of her father, about the destruction of her clan, about the years spent fearing every single shadow, carefully testing her food for poison, and a thousand other affronts they had inflicted upon her.
Or forget what the Spell had done, the billions that had died under its vile influence. The countless lives it had destroyed callously. The countless more that were dying even now due to its influence. Forget about the death of her mother and grandfather. Forget about the Flaw it had cursed her with, about the blazing hell she went through every time she so much as invoked a spark.
Could she do such a thing?
"May I ask you a question?" she asked softly, her eyes never leaving his.
Sunny tilted his head, his stare still as undecipherable. He studied her slowly: the way her hands were ever so faintly shaking, the barely perceptible downward turn of her lips, she was sure no one but him could notice.
Whatever he found in her body language must have convinced him, for he nodded a few seconds after she posed her question.
"You may."
"How much do you hate me?"
Despite the turmoil she was in, her voice came out calm, not allowing a single speck of what was truly going on inside her mind to bleed through.
He noticed anyway. He always did. It was one of the things she liked the most about him, as inconvenient as it was at this very moment.
Sunny smiled faintly. "I should have said no."
Nephis returned the smile, shrugging as if saying You should have.
"What a loaded question that is," he said lightly, the same faint smile tugging at his lips. "The answer is: more than you can think of and less than I should."
She did not allow herself to think about what that meant.
"Do you mind explaining?"
"I do mind," he answered calmly. "But I will."
He gestured toward the far wall, and the shadows stirred once more, enacting another play for an audience of two.
The scenario came to life quickly, depicting a crumbling spire under a sunless sky. The spire started growing, as if an imaginary camera was zooming in. They went through the walls of the gargantuan structure, and a new scene was born.
In it, a lone man could be seen staring listlessly at a circle of runes. The building was crumbling around him, massive chunks breaking apart and raining down all around him. The man stood still, not reacting in any way to what was happening.
Finally, after an unknown amount of time, the man stirred and took action, running away from the circle. Nephis did not miss the fact that he stared one last time at it -his fists clenching painfully tight- before he did.
A mad dash followed, the man descending at breakneck speed down the many floors. It was a close thing. Her breath hitched at every near miss, at every short but painful stumble, and despite knowing he had come out alive, she couldn't help feeling tense.
In the end, the man escaped at the last possible moment and kept running, the spire still crumbling behind him. Just a few steps after he left it, he convulsed and fell to the ground, writhing in agony.
"Does it hurt you to build a new core?"
She nodded. "As much as my Flaw."
He stared at her, and she could almost swear there was pity in his eyes.
"Same here," he shook his head. "I completed my Monster core after killing Caster. The soul conduit stopped it from forming, and as usual with my terrible luck, the process resumed right as I left the Spire."
Around the writhing man, debris fell, coming dangerously close to ending his life. She could see him struggling to get up and move, to distance himself from the deadly hazard. He tried and failed.
"I tried. By the dead gods, I tried," Sunny said, his voice cracking halfway through. "But I couldn't move. The pain was too much, the wounds I had accrued too many and too severe." His eyes drilled into hers, carrying a smouldering fury. "Can you guess how I survived?"
Nephis stared silently at the writhing man, still trying to get up even now despite the horrible pain she knew he was going through.
"'Survive. Until you come back to me. You must survive," she recited the words she had uttered so long ago.
He nodded, smiling without humour. "Indeed."
The man rose to his feet, the pain it caused him obvious. His limbs convulsed painfully, his shadowed face a rictus of agony. A step, followed by another, and finally, he started running. The agony he seemed to be in only grew deeper, every step worse than the last. When his legs failed him, he crawled on his knees; when those failed too, he dragged himself forward with broken arms; and when those failed, he crawled like a worm.
"Not even ten minutes, and I already needed you and that command of yours to save me," he muttered bitterly, staring silently at the crawling shadow.
A short yet agonising minute after it started, his pain seemed to evaporate, and at the same time, he finally left the danger zone.
"It was the first time your command saved me, but it wasn't the last." The scene changed, quickly flashing through many scenarios. Deadly battles, natural disasters, and above it all, a desperation that bled even through the shadows. "It was always there, in the back of my mind, whispering to me, telling me to survive and come back to you."
"You hated it," she stated calmly, though her chest hurt.
"Oh, I did. More than you can imagine." The scenes kept flashing, an endless parade of agony and misery. "Yet at some point, I started cherishing it. The whisper sounds just like you." He dragged a hand through his hair. "I was alone for a long time, and the only other voice I could hear besides mine was yours."
The shadows dissolved, and they returned to staring at each other.
"Your voice and your runes, those were the only things I had to remind myself that there was something out there beyond the endless rain and grief." Sunny exhaled, and the blade, still poised at her throat, disappeared. "I hate the Shadow Bond with all of my heart, and yet it was the only thing that kept me going."
"How does it feel?"
The blade returned to her throat, pressing so tightly she was sure the skin would break at any moment. It only lasted half a second before disappearing again, but the chill in her veins did not go away.
"Like that," he answered coldly. "A blade constantly pressed against my throat, ready to cut at any time. Ready to take away everything I hold dear with terrifying ease."
She did not flinch at the coldness in his voice, nor did she shy away from those accusing eyes.
"I won't use it against you again." Nephis steeled her voice, infusing it with every speck of certainty she held. "Never."
The geode remained dark.
He laughed in answer, the sound so raw it gave her goosebumps.
"Tell me one thing, Neph." He smiled bitterly. "What would you do if you were in my position? If you were the slave instead of the Master?"
"I—"
A shadow tendril rose to cover her mouth. It wasn't forceful, but neither was it gentle.
"Don't answer just yet. I'm not done." He took a deep breath. "You are a slave. A prisoner inside your own body, the moment your master decides that it's more convenient to order than to ask."
She blinked, and he was gone.
Nephis felt a presence behind her, but before she could turn, two arms snaked around her, pulling her into a close embrace. She could feel Sunny's breath on her ear, and just barely she could see his face out of the corner of her eye.
Despite the closeness of the gesture, Nephis could not avoid feeling like she was teetering on a cliff's edge. Like the wrong word would send her tumbling to her death.
"You cannot resist, cannot negotiate. The moment an order is given, you will obey, whether you like it or not." His voice dropped to a whisper, calm and almost conversational. "Imagine it, Neph."
The shadows in the room deepened, crawling slowly along the walls like living things. His arms were not tight around her, but they didn't need to be. Their pressure was enough to make the point.
"You wake up one morning," Sunny continued quietly, "and suddenly your will doesn't belong to you anymore. You can think whatever you want. You can hate me, curse me, plan my downfall. But if I open my mouth and give an order…" His fingers tapped lightly against her arm. "You move."
Nephis did not struggle. She stood there in silence, listening.
"You fight. You kneel. You betray people you care about. Maybe you even walk away from them when they need you most." His tone stayed light. "And the best part is that none of it matters. Because your opinion is irrelevant. Because someone else holds absolute power over you."
Nephis closed her eyes for a brief moment, understanding at last just how much the bond burdened him.
"I won't use it against you," she reiterated.
She could feel his gaze drifting toward the lie detector. The geode stayed dark, not giving a single hint that there had been any lie.
Sunny chuckled quietly behind her. "Honest as always."
He loosened his arms and stepped away. The shadows carried him across the room like a receding tide, depositing him back in his chair. He leaned back lazily, as if nothing had happened.
Nephis turned to face him again.
Sunny watched her with a strange look in his eyes. There was anger there, yes, but also something colder. Something that had been sharpened over a very long time.
"You asked me how much I hate you," he said.
"I did."
"Well, a big part of the answer is this." He gestured vaguely between them. "Every time I remember that my freedom depends entirely on your goodwill, I feel the urge to kill something."
Sunny started tapping on the table again.
"You could tell me where to go. Who to fight. Who to protect. Who to abandon."
Tap.
"You could tell me to stay with you forever."
Tap.
"And I would."
Nephis felt something tighten in her chest.
Sunny tilted his head, watching her carefully. "That terrifies me," he admitted mildly.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Sunny sighed, and the shadows all around the room stilled, not daring to make a single move.
"I will say it again. What would you do if our positions were reversed? Let's say I didn't ask politely as you do. Let's say I just decided things were inconvenient." His voice remained mild. "So I give you a simple order. Nephis, give up on your revenge."
The words hung in the air, heavy and foreboding.
"You can't resist," Sunny continued quietly. "No arguments. No stubborn speeches. No blazing determination. Your will simply… bends." His eyes did not leave her. "You abandon everything you've lived for because I said so."
Silence filled the room.
Sunny waited patiently for her answer, not making any attempt at hurrying her.
Nephis lowered her eyes for a moment, thinking. It didn't take long for her to reach a conclusion.
When she looked back up, her expression was calm despite how much what she was about to say hurt.
"If that were the case," she said evenly, "I would kill you before you could ever utter such an order."
The geode remained dark.
Sunny blinked, complete silence engulfing the room after her answer.
Shortly after, he erupted into laughter, bright and unguarded, like someone who had finally received confirmation of something they had known all along. He laughed so hard he had to lean forward, one hand covering his face.
"I expected it, and you still surprised me."
After a moment, he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and leaned back again.
"Well then, it's a good thing our positions aren't reversed, isn't it?" he said, smiling sardonically.
"Our current positions won't exist for long, either," she replied calmly. "We will break the Shadow Bond, you and I. It doesn't matter how tough it is. We will find a way and break it."
Sunny stared at the rock, but there was no reaction.
"Is my dear master not content with her slave? Am I too weak, perhaps?" He smiled mockingly. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't find any higher-tier seed."
She met his scorn with unshakable calm.
"I am a very greedy woman, Sunny," she admitted easily, not a hitch to be found in her voice. "I won't settle for your submission. I won't settle for a corpse wearing your face. If you follow me, it's because you want to, not because I ordered you to."
He tilted his head, smiling sharply. "What makes you so sure I will?"
She smiled just as sharply. "Because you are still here."
He recoiled as if she had slapped him.
"You said you cannot leave because of what I hold over you." She scoffed. "Like that could stop you if you really wanted to leave."
Nephis stared at him without flinching away from the storm of emotions behind his eyes, finding the masterfully concealed fear beneath them. "You stayed because you want to. You stayed because a part of you wants to stay here. With me."
He rolled his eyes, his face the vivid image of annoyance, but she spotted easily the way his hands shook.
"Arrogant much?"
Nephis smirked faintly. "Yes, yes, I am."
She climbed to her feet, the chair scraping silently against the floor.
When she started walking toward him, Sunny flinched, something almost akin to fear flashing through his eyes, but he did not make any effort to distance himself.
And why would he? He was a Saint and she a mere Master. If someone was in danger here, it wasn't him.
She stopped right beside him and took a seat, pushing her chair so close their shoulders were touching. Sunny flinched at the contact.
"I'm arrogant enough to be certain of what you are thinking right now."
"And what is it?"
"That if I make the slightest move, you will attack."
He snorted. "You are right."
"Also, that I'm not honest about helping you." She did not flinch when the shadows stirred. "That I'm leading you on. Voicing things in a way that will be the truth while concealing the fact that I never intend to let you go free."
It only took a glance at his face to know that she was spot on.
"That I will whisper sweet things in your ear, give you everything you want, promise anything so that you will chain yourself to me."
Nephis shook her head and, despite her earlier words, leaned forward, closing the distance between them even more.
"I know you, Sunny," she whispered softly. "You will never stop fighting for your freedom. Our bond will never be anything but a sword of Damocles to you. A cruel reminder of the power I hold over you. And you know what?"
"No."
"I hate it too." White flames danced inside her eyes, the pain bringing her perfect clarity. "I hate what it allowed me to do. What it still allows me to do if I don't watch my every word. I hate that look in your eyes whenever I am around. Always on guard, ready to react if I make the slightest sign of issuing an order."
Sunny swallowed a lump in his throat. "Words are easy to say."
"I agree." She smiled widely. "Guess I will have to prove it with my actions."
Sunny tried to stare away from her, but it was fruitless. They were so close it was impossible to look anywhere without seeing each other.
"Before, you asked me to give up on my revenge on the Ghouls or the Spell. My answer is no."
The shadows stirred once more, writhing angrily at her words.
It was the time to offer comforting words, to try and calm him down.
She did neither.
"I refuse to pick. I will have my revenge on the Ghouls and the Spell both."
His expression grew thunderous. "You won't change your mind?"
"No." The single word echoed with supreme finality, as immediate as it was definitive.
"Good."
The fury in his expression disappeared as if it had never been there the moment the lone word was uttered.
She tilted her head, amused despite herself. "You would have killed me if I agreed."
"I would, yes."
"'Pick one of them to stop pursuing revenge against, and I will be convinced of just how much you care about your promises.' If this were one of Rain's dramas, it would be the moment a chapter ends."
Sunny laughed, the innocuous comment bringing out a genuine smile.
"I wasn't sure at first," she admitted. "I have hurt you deeply enough to validate such a demand. But I only had to think twice about what you said to realise the trap."
He shook his head. "I might have made it too easy to spot."
"You did. I just promised to make things right and then to take revenge on them all." She shook her head. "My word has no value if I renege on my promises right after I make them."
"How could I trust someone's sincerity if all it takes is for them to give up on the thing they have dedicated their life to after I simply ask them to do it?"
"You still don't trust me," she pointed out.
"And I don't think I ever will," he admitted easily.
The words stung, but she accepted them. It was his right.
"You were right," he paused, steadying his breath. "About what you said earlier. If I really wanted to, I could have left."
She nodded.
"Had I not gone through what I did in my Third Nightmare, I would have left," he admitted without shame or remorse. "Run away so fast you wouldn't even see me. I would hide from you, not daring to come within earshot, lest you use the bond."
Nephis studied his face, noticing the uncertainty behind the calm he tried to convey. "And now?"
He chuckled. "I still want to run away."
This time, he was the one to lean closer.
"I want to live, that's the conclusion I reached inside the nightmare." His eyes never left hers. "Running away is not living. Neither is hiding away from you."
"What is?"
He smiled, bright, unguarded, and painfully sincere. "I'm not sure yet. Just like I'm not sure about what to do about you. In my message, I said I wouldn't know until I met you. And you know what? I still don't."
Nephis did not comment. He wasn't done yet, and she did not want to interrupt.
"Do you know what I felt when I first saw you?" She shook her head silently. "I was happy." He leaned closer. "Happy to see you. Then I was furious at you and myself for feeling like that. A thousand things more went through my mind before that invisible idiot attacked me."
His smile widened. "And that's the problem. Even now, I still don't know what to do. One part of me wants to kill you, to end the risk you pose forever and damn the consequences."
She did not look away from his eyes. "And the other part?"
"The other part still loves you."
He stood up, missing the way she had started to lean forward to close what little distance remained between them.
Sunny paced around the room, his steps calm and unhurried. When he stopped, his back was turned toward her.
"This is a war that has been going on inside me for so long, even I grew tired of it." He exhaled slowly, his shoulders shaking with barely constrained emotion. "And so I have an offer for you."
She stood up too, willing away the heat on her cheeks. "Which is?"
He didn't turn yet. "Neither distance nor time is the answer. Almost two years apart, and I was nowhere closer to finding it than I am now."
In unison, the shadows grew still, staring at the two of them as if awaiting with bated breath the next words.
"Hence my offer. I will never stop looking for a way to break the bond. I may never forgive nor forget what you did. But I'm willing to stay here, with you. At least long enough to decide what I really feel."
Sunny turned around, and she finally realised why he had turned away. His eyes were wet, full of unshed tears.
"You say your promise is sincere? Then prove it to me."
Nephis did not answer immediately.
For a long moment, she simply stood there, watching him.
Sunny's offer lingered between them, fragile and heavy at the same time.
I will never stop looking for a way to break the bond… but I'm willing to stay here, with you. At least long enough to decide what I really feel. Those were his words.
It would have been easier if he had trusted her.
If he had believed her words without hesitation, accepted her promises, and decided that whatever had happened in the past no longer mattered. If he had looked at her the way he once did, with that quiet certainty that they would face the world together, no matter what it threw at them.
But he didn't, and Nephis understood why.
Sunny was not giving her a chance because he trusted her.
He was giving her a chance because he could not trust himself.
The realisation settled in her mind with painful clarity.
He had said it himself. One part of him wanted to end the danger she represented once and for all, to remove the threat hanging over his life before it could claim even more of himself. The other part still loved her, stubbornly and irrationally, refusing to die no matter how many reasons it had been given to do so.
Those two halves had been fighting inside him for almost two years. Two years of anger. Two years of doubt. Two years of memories he could neither discard nor accept.
And now he was tired of that war.
So he had chosen the only path left to him: delay the decision.
Stay close, long enough to see which side would win.
Not because he believed in her, but because he feared making the wrong choice.
If he left now, the part of him that still loved her might regret it for the rest of his life. If he stayed and that love withered away, then at least the answer would be clear. It was not trust, but desperation.
Nephis felt a quiet ache spread through her chest as she watched him.
Sunny stood a few steps away, trying to appear calm and composed, but she could see the tension in his posture, the faint tremor in his shoulders that betrayed how much it had cost him to say those words aloud.
Offering her this chance had not been easy for him.
It had required him to lower his guard, to expose the fragile uncertainty he hated more than anything else.
And yet he had done it, despite everything she had done to him.
The thought made her throat tighten.
Because Nephis knew, with brutal clarity, what the correct answer should be.
Sunny had suffered because of her. He had been enslaved because of her.
He had endured loneliness, pain, and fear because of her weakness at the worst possible moment.
Even now, every second he spent in her presence forced him to face the chain she had wrapped around his soul.
Every second was another wound ripped open.
The right thing to do -the truly right thing- would be to refuse his offer.
To tell him that he should leave.
To free him from the burden of her existence before she could hurt him again.
If she truly cared about him, she should give him the chance to find a life untouched by the damage she had caused.
A life where he did not have to constantly watch her lips, wondering whether the next word would be an order he could not refuse.
A life where he could trust the person standing beside him without hesitation.
Nephis closed her eyes briefly, letting the pain of that realisation settle in.
He deserved that. Deserved someone who had not taken his freedom from him.
Someone who had not forced him to crawl through agony simply because a command echoed in his mind.
Someone who had not shattered his trust so thoroughly that even now he could not decide whether to love or hate her.
Someone worthy of him.
The conclusion was simple.
She should let him go.
The moment the thought formed clearly in her mind, something inside her recoiled violently.
Nephis inhaled slowly, steadying her breath as another realisation followed close behind.
Let him go. The words sounded reasonable, even noble. Heroic and selfless.
Nephis was neither of those things.
In fact, she might very well be the most selfish and greedy woman in the world, two worlds, even.
When she truly imagined what they meant, the idea felt like a knife sliding into her chest.
Letting him go meant never seeing him again.
It meant watching him walk away and knowing that he would never come back.
It meant accepting that someone else might one day stand where she stood now.
Someone else might hear that crooked laugh of his, the one that always sounded half-amused and half-exasperated with the world.
Someone else might be the person he trusted when everything else fell apart.
The thought was even more unbearable than her Flaw.
Nephis had faced countless enemies without hesitation. She had stepped into battlefields where death was almost certain.
Yet the simple image of Sunny standing beside another woman, smiling at her the way he had smiled at Eirene, was unbearable.
It was selfish. Painfully, undeniably selfish.
She knew it.
She should be thinking about what was best for him.
She should be strong enough to put his happiness above her own.
But when she imagined a future where Sunny was gone -where she would never again hear him mutter sarcastic remarks or challenge one of her plans with that infuriating blend of logic and stubbornness- the emptiness of that world felt intolerable.
For years, revenge had been the fire that guided her forward, but that wasn't the only thing that drove her anymore.
She had friends now, as well as an adorable little sister and followers who would jump into hell if she so much as asked.
It should have been enough, more than she had ever expected, in fact.
And yet her greed truly knew no bounds, for it still wasn't enough for her.
Nephis wouldn't be satisfied if Sunny weren't part of her world, too.
He was the only person who had never been content to stand behind her like a follower, the only one stubborn enough to stand at her side and argue with her when he thought she was wrong.
The only one who reminded her that she was still human.
The thought of losing that forever made something deep inside her rebel.
Nephis opened her eyes again.
Sunny was still standing there, watching her carefully, as if trying to read the answer in her expression before she spoke it aloud.
For someone who had survived so many horrors, he suddenly looked uncertain. Almost vulnerable.
And in that moment, Nephis understood something with perfect clarity.
She could pretend to be noble. She could pretend to make the selfless choice. She wouldn't.
Nephis stepped forward. One step. Then another.
Sunny did not move. He only watched her approach, confusion slowly creeping into his expression.
Nephis stopped directly in front of him and studied his face, committing every detail to memory. The tired eyes, the stubborn line of his jaw, the faint tension that never fully left his shoulders.
This was the man she had hurt.
The man she had nearly lost.
The man who was still here despite everything.
Her heart beat steadily in her chest as the last fragments of doubt disappeared.
"I love you."
Before he could answer, Nephis leaned forward and kissed him.
The kiss did not last long. It did not have to. That simple, brief contact was all she needed to transmit how she felt.
Sunny looked as if he had been struck by lightning.
His eyes were wide, the usual sharpness inside them replaced by stunned confusion. A faint flush had spread across his cheeks, creeping all the way to the tips of his ears. His lips parted slightly, as though he meant to say something, but no sound came out.
Nephis became aware that her own face felt suspiciously warm.
She straightened a little, drawing in a slow breath. The room had fallen completely silent. Even the shadows seemed to be holding their breath.
For a fleeting instant, she wondered if she had gone too far.
Sunny blinked once, then twice. His mouth opened again.
"I—"
The word died immediately.
Nephis felt a small, traitorous smile tug at the corner of her lips. He looked so completely lost.
Sunny, the man who always had a sarcastic remark ready, who could twist words like blades and hide behind them whenever he pleased, now stood there staring at her as though language itself had abandoned him.
He tried again. "I… that—"
The attempt failed just as miserably as the first.
"You don't need to answer now." Sunny blinked, his gaze finally focusing back on her. "You said you wanted time to decide what you really feel," she continued calmly. "Take as much as you need."
Her voice softened slightly.
"I'll have my answer if you choose to stay."
For a moment, they simply looked at each other.
Then Nephis stepped back, creating a little distance between them. The warmth still lingering in her chest made it difficult to keep her expression as composed as she would have liked, but she managed.
She turned and walked toward the door, painfully aware of his gaze on her back.
The moment the door closed behind her, she summoned a silencing memory of her own and screamed.