Shadow Slave

”Dr. Saint...”

Sunny had to repeat her name twice before she turned and regarded him with a distant, aloof gaze. He hesitated for a few seconds, then sat down next to her.

”I guess I have some good news and some bad news for you.”

Saint simply watched him without saying anything. He could not read anything from her expression, either — so, despite the fact that she looked quite like a human at the moment, he suddenly felt like he was talking to his familiar Shadow.

That comforted him a little.

”The good news is that I found out who is trying to kill us. The bad news is that arresting him, let alone prosecuting him, will pose a problem. Half of the city is in his pocket, after all. And we don’t have time to do it by the book, either.”

She raised her eyebrows slightly, prompting Sunny to smile.

”You’re right... I do not have the authority to arrest anyone anymore, anyway. But you know what my counterpart, the Devil Detective, would say. We have to try regardless. That person has committed too many crimes to walk free — the victims of the Nihilist and all the other people he hurt or ruined demand justice. Me personally, though? I do not care about justice too much.”

He inhaled deeply.

“However, I have my own reasons to want to deal with the mastermind behind all these deaths. Doing so will be my ticket home — and yours, too. Among other things. So, I want to ask a favor from you. That guy will not go down without a fight. Please, help me bring him down... I need you.”

Sunny chuckled.

”Like always. It strikes me that I would not be alive if not for your silent presence over all these years — in fact, I would have died ten times over. Hell, you even taught me how to properly wield a sword... and as a sign of gratitude, I dragged you on a series of increasingly macabre adventures through the depths of increasingly dreadful hells. Sorry, Saint... you got a very troublesome, very needy liege.”

He remained silent for a while, looking down, then added:

”In any case, I doubt that we will have a conversation like this after escaping the Palace of Imagination. So, using this chance, I just wanted to say... thank you, Saint. For everything. Even if I somehow managed to find a way to survive without you... it would not have been half as fun.”

She studied him for a long while without saying anything, then looked away.

After a long stretch of silence, Saint let out a quiet sigh and asked:

“So, in that supposedly real world... did you mention that I serve you? I am a servant?”

Sunny coughed.

“Well... no? Not exactly. I am the Lord of Shadows, and you are one of my Shadows — the very first Shadow I created, actually. It is the nature of a shadow to be cast by someone, and in your case, I guess you are cast by me. You are not a servant, though. More of... a champion, a companion, and the general of my legion.”

He looked at the beautiful windows of the church and smiled.

”We met on the streets of the Dark City, where you killed a couple of abominations of a higher Rank and Class than you, all alone. Then, we traveled across the deadly reaches of the Forgotten Shore together, besieged the Crimson Spire, explored the Chained Isles and endured the Crushing side by side, survived the madness of the Kingdom of Hope, fought a losing war in Antarctica and defended Falcon Scott until the bitter end, ventured into the harrowing darkness of the Tomb of Ariel and sailed the Great River of Time, crossed the Hollow Mountains and reached the end of the world, fought a bloody war against the Sovereigns on the corpse of a dead god...”

Sunny chuckled.

”Goodness gracious. Now that I list all these things aloud, it sounds like quite an intense decade.”

Saint shifted slightly, then raised her hand. A torrent of inky darkness escaped from beneath her skin, swirling around her wrist before forming into a black blade for a moment.

“I don’t recall.”

Sunny sighed.

He still did not know why Saint seemed to be incapable of remembering who she was. It was funny, but despite being the Lord of Shadows, he did not know a lot about the nature of his Shadows. He did not really know how they thought, how they felt, what motivated them... what their goals and desires were, or if they even had any. 𐍂₳ℕÒ𝔟Ёȿ

He had only ever caught small glimpses of how they existed while augmenting them. Sunny knew, for example, that Saint vaguely remembered her original self... however, those memories were distant and obscure, like a half-forgotten dream.

Perhaps that was a mercy.

After all, what would become of Saint if she could remember her previous life? That life contained thousands of years of Corruption, after all. Remembering it would not only be a torment, but could very well drive her insane, or worse still — infect her with the Seeds of Nightmare all over again.

Maybe that was why she could not remember herself here, in Mirage City.

Or maybe it was because Saint was quite like Mordret... a semblance of a person, but not really a complete being. Even her name was not really a name, but simply what her people had been called. Nameless and cast by a fateless master, how could she remember her true self?

Eurys had once told Sunny that his Shadows could be completed, somehow... but if there was a way, Sunny had not found it yet.

He rubbed his face.

“Still, even if you don’t remember...”

”I’ll do it.”

He froze, then looked at Saint with wide eyes.

”Excuse me?”

She turned to him with the usual impassive expression.

”I’ll help you bring down the mastermind, whoever he is. You can count on me. Like always.”

Sunny studied her for a bit.

“Just like that?”

Before he knew it, a relieved sigh escaped from his lips.

”Good. That’s good. This is great news, actually. Thank you!”

He paused for a few moment, and then asked:

“But may I ask why?”

Saint remained silent for a long while, contemplating. It seemed like she was carefully choosing the right words.

But in the end, she simply smiled.

”I don’t know. I must have gone mad.”

Sunny stared at her, dumbstruck.

Seeing Saint smile... was truly a breathtaking sight.