"Sir Sunless! Sir Sunless! Are you awake!?"
a familiar voice had snapped Sunny out of his thoughts. he looked over to see the woman with pale skin calling out to him, and after finally getting a good look at her he yelled out in shock.
"Soul Reaper?" the Awakened sent to watch over him was none other than the Soul Reaper jet, a previous member of the Shadow clan and one of its most promising Awakened. That was because of her fearsome Awakened ability that allowed her to bypass all forms of defense and strike directly at the soul.
Sunny of course knew that an ability like that came with a heavy price, due to her flaw she had to always kill to stay alive. And for that reason she was dispatched to get rid of rampaging Awakened more than anyone else.
Her ability allowed her to get rid of targets without leaving a scratch on their bodies. By the time she was done with them all that was left was a hollow corpse. And soon the word got around of the "Soul Reaper". Criminals were not even sure if the soul reaper was a man or a woman, they weren't even sure if jet was a human or not. Many considered her to not even be real. But after the number of hollow corpses started increasing, it was hard to deny. The pure presence of jet had dropped the crime rate between awakened by as much as 132%.
And after the members of the Shadow Clan found out what they were calling jet, they started to use the nickname as well. It did not take long for jet to be highly respected in the Shadow Clan, she was powerful and her potential was staggering. And now it seemed that she had realized some of that hidden potential.
She had seemed different from the last time Sunny had seen her, this time she emitted a cold aura that seemed to make the temperature in the room drop a couple of degrees and she was wearing a 3 star insignia instead of a 2 star one. That meant that jet had successfully conquered the second nightmare and Ascended.
"Thats right sir, I have been sent to watch after you during your first nightmare". Of course, thats right, the policeman that had strapped him to this said that the nearest Awakened would arrive in a couple of hours but for an Ascended to be sent here was abnormal. Sunny already had some suspicions on how this came to be so he asked
"Soul reaper I have a question."
"Ask Ahead"
"Why would a Master be sent to watch over an Aspirant? This seems to be something below your pay grade".
She gave him a dark look
"There were a lot of gates opening in the sector, most of the local Awakened are either Held up by the clean-up, wounder or dead… its usually like these close to the winter solstice"
Sunny's suspicion had all but been confirmed, his Attribute [Fated] would put him in unlikely situations, both good and bad. He thought this to be one of those situations. What where the chances of multiple gates opening in this sector, so much so that the government had been forced to send a Master to watch over him and a previous Shadow Clan member at that. It was just too much of a coincidence. Fate really wanted him to reconnect with jet it seemed.
She started opening his restrains while adding
"Plus, there are not a lot of Awakened who, like me, work for the government. Its not a lucrative or glorious career at all… I would have never chosen to work for them if the Shadow clan did not disband, would you really sacrifice Wealth and fame only to be worked like a slave fueled by altruism and a sense of duty? I only do this because of my flaw you know"
Jet was asking a rhetorical question but since it was directed to him his flaw forced him to answer, and the first thing that came to his mind was.
"Of course not, do you take me for a fool?"
Sunny's jaw almost dropped when he said that, but he held himself back 'Damn it! Damn It! Damn it! Damnation! I did not mean to say that! Is that how my flaw works!? I have to answer every question!?'
Jet chuckled and said "of course not sir, I have known you to be quite exceptional… even as a child, I don't assume those four years in the outskirts have changed that."
***
Sunny was enjoying a hot shower, droplets of warm water sticking to his skin. After his short union with Soul reaper jet she had send him to clean himself. One could imagine sleeping for three days would not result in a clean Awakening. But for now he had felt like he was in heaven, ignoring the looming threat of his flaw and innate ability he focused on a certain part of his runes.
Shadow Core: [Dormant]
Shadow Fragments: [12/1000]
If he was not a scion of the Shadow Clan he would have been confused about the shadow cores and shadow fragments, but he had already heard of this before. His father had something just like him, a Shadow Core. The Shadow Fragments counter was completely different for him though. Instead of having an upper celling of 1000 fragments it just displayed how many fragments were absorbed. Sunny also knew that obtaining Shadow fragments was different from obtaining Soul Fragments, Soul Fragments could be obtained by absorbing soul shards or by killing fellow humans.
For shadow fragments the progression was not as easy though. Shadow fragments could only be obtained by killing enemies of the same rank or higher, but that also meant that Sunny did not need to absorb soul shards to grow stronger, thus he was outside the usual Awakened progression, that meant that he would not have any competition while getting stronger and could use the soul shards he gained to strengthen his allies.
If he was going to have allies that is, with his flaw it would be hard to start inviting people to fight on his side, he did not know who he could trust. 'Maybe Nephis… Can I trust Nephis with my flaw and innate ability?' Sunny sat there staring at the wall 'YOU IDIOT! Of course you can trust her!? if not her then who can you trust!?'
Sunny was torn between trusting Nephis and not, on one hand She was her first and best friend, they shared many moments together, he even knew her fathers battle art to some extent. They had even made a vow together. But on the other hand his flaw and innate ability made it hard to trust anyone, even Nephis, he did not know if he could trust even his sister with this, not like he had seen his sister for a long time, she probably did not even remember him. 'I am going to cross that bridge when I get there'
He tore himself from unpleasant thoughts and focused on something else. 'If I have a Shadow Core, do I also have the shadow sense?', his father possessed a shadow sense of sorts, he could see and hear from the shadows. Sunny was interested if he had this kind of ability as well.
Sunny focused on himself, some sort of instinct that was ingrained in him, this instinct was not there before. If it was granted by the spell or not he did not know. He focused on this instinct and sure enough, his sight had split, in one he was looking straight at the marbled wall of the shower, and from the other he saw… himself, from the bottom up. It was something his shadow was seeing.
Sunny jumped up in shock, being able to see from two perspectives at once was very alien to him. He saw a pale young man of about average height, he had raven-black hair dropping down to his ears, his skin was pure and flawless rid of most of its imperfections looking like that of a porcelain doll. His eyes were dark like onyx, staring into them felt like staring into an endless abyss. Of course that person was Sunny himself.
Sunny's gaze accidentally wandered in between his legs, at that moment he sent an immediate mental command to his shadow and looked away. Even though it was his body he still felt weird experiencing it in another point of view. Sunny stopped looking through his shadow and got out of the shower.
He looked down and asked, "So? Is that all you can do? The spell said that you are independent and an invaluable helper, Can you? Tell me what you do? Can you move on your own?" the shadow stood still for a second and then shook its head. Sunny's lips curled up, his expression was a mix of excitement and annoyance "What do you mean you can't move you bastard!? You just moved!" the shadow did not shook his head this time though, instead he put up its arm and pulled up the middle finger. Sunny's expression immediately changed to that of anger. "What did you bastard you wench! You- You- By the dead gods why did I have to get such a gloomy shadow".
'That can not be all that you can do though' Sunny's gaze moved to the towel he had just hang. He sent a mental command to his shadow assuming a combat stance, using the masterful and adaptive style created by broken sword, and adding all the styles he had copied from the Shadow clan members by using his fathers Shadow Style the shadow delivered a masterful kick to the towel. But all of that was for naught when the shadows feet just glided over the towel not even touching it. 'So no direct combat huh? I guess it has other uses, I will have to experiment with my shadow later.'.
He got dressed in a police issued tracksuit and went to get himself some food. After eating he quickly went to talk to jet. Sunny opened his mouth to speak but jet had beaten him to it "you seem to have finished sir, would you like to go to the academy immediately?" Sunny wondered what would have happened if he forced himself to not answer a question directed at him but realized that doing something like that was not ideal. If Sunny did not answer a question he was asked a sharp pain would start building up getting more painful the longer Sunny took to answer the question. "Yes I would like to go now."
Sunny and Jet had talked about what to do after the first nightmare and they had both decided that going to the Awakened academy was the best choice for him.
"And drop the sir, just call me Sunny or sleeper sunless". Sleeper sunless, that is how he would be referred to by other people from now on, until he survived his first visit to the dream realm that is, technically the correct term the spell used was Dreamer but humans had come up with their own terms for each rank"
jet started moving towards the door Sunny following just behind her and said "thats fine si- Sunless. If that is the case you can call me jet or Master jet".
Sunny and jet both got into the PTV parked outside the police station, jet was driving naturally. While driving Sunny told her. "It is probably better if we pretend to barely know each other to not raise suspicions. Right now I am not Sunless a deadly scion of a fallen Great Legacy Clan but Sunless the outskirts rat with nothing to his name". Jet responded with a quick nod understanding everything he was implying.
***
After driving for a few more minutes Sunny had reached the academy. He already knew how the academy looked like, his parents had spend some time in here after all, and they were happy to share their story. But being here in person was different from what he had expected the building was made from reinforced alloy seeming almost indestructible. The high wall was decorated with many large-caliber turrets to ward off any incoming nightmare creatures. Apparently nothing could get past the defense of the academy, and nothing had ever done so. the massive red gate at the front looked more like something leading to hell than a place to educate kids. It was a city within a city.
It was a legendary place, one of the most popular in the world in fact. A lot of webtoons and webnovels took place in here, some of them had even gotten animated adaptations. Adventure, rivalry, romance all started here.
Sunny had imagined himself in this position many times before but now that he was actually here he did not know how to describe the feeling. A lot of legendary heroes including Broken Sword, Smile of Heaven, Anvil of Valor, Ki Song and even his parents used to go here. Sunny's face soured at the mention of Anvil and Ki Song. It was hard for him to imagine them as teenagers like him and not as an insurmountable mountains that need to be overcome.
This late into the year there was only one person other than him entering the academy for the first time. 'It has to be that! It has to be that! There is no other explanation, its those damned [Fated] messing with me again is it not' in front of the academy stood a beautiful woman with silver hair, she was about 10 centimeters taller than him. She was wearing an old pair of headphones, listening to music. She was aloof and distant seemingly not being disturbed by the world. And her face, was familiar. How could he ever forget that face.