Of course, the sight before him was shocking enough to make Sunny's entire world seem to tilt for a moment.
But if he froze now-
No.
He refused to even entertain that possibility.
Sunny moved almost instantly.
Enhanced by the shadow he habitually kept near in case of moments like this, his body exploded forward in a blur of motion. In the span of a heartbeat, he crossed the distance separating him from Yoru and slammed into the boy just as the Bloody Requiem began to descend.
Breathing heavily, Sunny then summoned the Midnight Shard and quickly glanced down at Cassie.
The blind girl had already woken up from the commotion. She sat frozen beneath her cloak, her pale face filled with confusion and fear.
"Sunny… what's happening?"
Her voice trembled slightly.
Sunny swallowed and tightened his grip on the tachi.
"...I don't know."
That wasn't entirely true.
He did know that Yoru had very nearly driven a spear through Cassie's heart.
But he was reluctant to say those words aloud.
Several meters away, Yoru slowly rose to his feet.
The sight of him was deeply unsettling.
One hand gripped the Bloody Requiem tightly while the other clutched at his own head, as though trying to physically contain the agony tearing through his mind. His body trembled violently, and his expression looked utterly fractured, caught somewhere between fury, pain and desperation.
"We need to leave," Yoru growled through gritted teeth. "You won't listen to me… this tree… this damned tree…"
Then suddenly, he turned toward the Soul Tree itself.
With a furious shout, Yoru drove the spear into its pale bark.
A violent screech of metal echoed through the clearing.
Yoru yelled and slashed at the bark of the tree in a whirlwind of fury.
With Each strike of his spear he screamed:
"I'll kill it!"
"I'll kill it!"
"Die, you wretched plant!"
Sunny watched the scene unfold in stunned disbelief.
The sheer madness in Yoru's voice sent a chill down his spine.
His gaze sharpened as he studied Yoru more carefully.
Then he noticed it.
Wrapped around Yoru's right arm was a familiar sun-bleached glove.
Sunny's expression darkened instantly.
That cursed Memory.
The glove granted frightening power at a terrible price, draining the vitality of those it wounded while filling its wielder with violent bloodlust. Yoru himself had openly admitted how dangerous it was and swore to avoid using it unless absolutely necessary.
'So that's why he's acting like this…'
Yet even then, something still felt terribly wrong.
Why would Yoru willingly put that pernicious glove on in the first place?
'Damn it! This doesn't make sense!'
Then, Sunny felt a slight tug on his arm.
"Sunny, what is wrong with Yoru? Why is he screaming like that?"
The blind girl sat behind him, clutching his arm with visible unease.
Sunny turned slightly to face Cassie. He tried his best to keep the distress clear of his voice but suspected that he failed.
"He's wearing that glove. And before you ask, I don't know why."
He deliberately avoided mentioning what Yoru had almost done moments earlier.
Cassie already sounded terrified enough.
The blind girl frowned deeply, seemingly lost in thought.
Meanwhile, Yoru had ceased hacking away at the tree by now and pointed the tip of his spear at Sunny.
"We need to leave."
Then suddenly, he clutched his head with his free hand and staggered slightly.
"But I should stay!"
Sunny's expression darkened.
At this point, he wasn't entirely convinced the boy was sane anymore. The contradiction in his words was deeply unsettling. It was as though two separate wills were fighting for control over the same body.
And from the look of things, neither side was winning.
That reminded Sunny of something Yoru had said earlier. Something about being... Enhanced? No… Enchanted?
Like many of his thoughts these days, the word slipped frustratingly through Sunny's grasp before dissolving completely from his mind. A moment later, he could barely even remember what he had been trying to think about in the first place.
And during that brief lapse-
Yoru burst forwards.
Sunny reacted instantly.
He pushed Cassie away and raised the Midnight Shard against the Bloody Requiem. The two weapons collided in an explosion of sparks as the spear descended towards his neck with frightening force. The impact sent a painful jolt through Sunny's arms.
Yoru was physically weaker than Nephis.
Weaker than Sunny too, most likely.
But the spear itself was terrifyingly lethal, and in his current state, Yoru attacked without the slightest hesitation or restraint.
Sunny slid backward across the ground and barely avoided the next thrust aimed at his chest.
The black spear pierced through the earth where he had stood an instant earlier.
'Fast!'
Yoru ripped the spear free and swept it horizontally.
Sunny ducked beneath the attack and slashed upward with the Midnight Shard, aiming directly for the cursed glove wrapped around Yoru's arm.
But the star-eyed boy abruptly twisted his body and blocked the strike with the shaft of the spear before driving his knee toward Sunny's stomach.
Sunny cursed and leapt backward just in time.
The now maddened genie pursued him relentlessly.
The Bloody Requiem darted through the air like a black bullet, forcing Sunny steadily backward through the clearing.
Sparks erupted each time sword and spear collided while pale ash scattered beneath their feet.
As Sunny blocked and weaved between the increasingly savage attacks, his thoughts raced desperately in search of a way to restrain Yoru without killing him.
After only a handful of exchanges, Sunny was sure he could overwhelm the genie and beat him into submission. But there were two things stopping him from doing exactly that.
First, the relentlessness in which Yoru fought was astounding. Each slash of his spear was ferocious and the boy seemingly had no qualms about inflicting a fatal wound. In other words, unlike Sunny, Yoru was actively trying to kill him.
The second issue stopping Sunny was a bit more esoteric.
Although he couldn't feel it directly, Sunny had no doubt that Yoru's attribute [Tyranny] was in effect. At times Sunny found himself stumbling when he shouldn't and his slashes much slower than he intended. It was an uncomfortable and uncanny experience, almost as if he wasn't in control of his body.
But in reality, it was just the world favouring Yoru over himself.
And the brat fought unreasonably well for someone who couldn't see in the dark!
'Damnation…'
Sunny grit his teeth as Yoru landed yet another slash on his arm, this time leaving a deep scratch on his vambrace. If the puppeteers shroud wasn't a memory of the sixth tier...
He was certain he may have just lost an arm.
'That attribute just isn't fair!'
Sunny barely deflected another thrust aimed at his throat, the force behind the strike numbing his fingers.
Ash scattered violently beneath their feet as the two continued exchanging blows beneath the onyx radiance of the Soul Tree.
Sunny's expression grew uglier by the second.
He couldn't keep defending forever and at this rate, one mistake was all it would take for his head to cleaved off. At least he knew the cause of all this which meant...
The glove had to go.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done since Yoru wore an ascended armour of the first tier.
Even enhanced by his shadow, Sunny wasn't certain the Midnight Shard could pierce through such durable protection.
He could sever the arm off from the elbow, but even then, Yoru wouldn't be free from its curse. Memories were bound to the soul after all. Unless Yoru dismissed the Marauder's Love himself, removing the limb wouldn't free him from its influence.
Sunny grit his teeth.
Maybe he could knock him unconscious?
People did that all the time in dramas…
But that thought vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.
The reason why that wouldn't work was because those people actually knew what they were doing.
Sunny had only learned how to use a sword two months ago. He barely knew how to fight properly as it was, much less subdue someone without accidentally killing them!
At a loss of options, a terrible thought flashed through Sunny's mind.
'Will I have to kill him?'
Surprisingly, Sunny found himself more rattled by the thought than he liked to admit. Yoru had been there since his first day in this accursed land. He was irritating, infuriatingly shady and much too full of himself. But despite all of that, somewhere along the way, he had also become a genuine friend.
So no. Killing Yoru wasn't a choice either.
So what on earth could he do?
The Bloody Requiem descended upon him again.
Their weapons engaged in another clash and Sunny was steadily winning, pushing back against Yoru... until his foot slipped on a particularly uneven part of the surface that is.
'Shit!'
Sunny barely managed to raise the Midnight Shard in time before the black spear crashed down onto the blade with enough force to drive him to one knee.
Pain once again exploded through his arms.
Things were looking terrible, but an abrupt smile appeared on Sunny's face when he sensed a certain shadow.
Then suddenly, a streak of white flame illuminated the darkness.
Nephis moved like a blur of motion. Her silver sword collided against the Bloody Requiem with enough force to violently knock the spear away from Sunny. Yoru staggered backward, boots carving deep furrows into the ash before he finally regained his balance several meters away.
For a brief moment, the clearing fell silent.
Nephis glanced once at Sunny.
"Cassie told me what happened."
Sunny exhaled shakily and used the Midnight Shard to pull himself back to his feet.
"Great. Can you subdue him?"
White flames flickered quietly in Nephis' grey eyes.
Then she looked toward Yoru.
"Yes."
Without another word, Nephis dashed forwards with her silver longsword trailing behind her.
The moment she entered striking distance, her blade lashed outward in a smooth horizontal arc aimed directly at Yoru's neck.
Yoru reacted instantly, raising the Bloody Requiem just in time. The spearhead intercepted the sword and redirected its path downwards, the edge screeching against black steel before crashing into the ash-covered ground.
The two remained locked together for less than a second.
Nephis moved first.
Releasing one hand from her sword, she drove a kick toward Yoru's core with ruthless precision.
Or rather, she tried to.
She had aimed for his core but instead struck his leg
Nephis frowned faintly at the mistake, but the blow still achieved its purpose.
Yoru staggered backward, his balance broken, and failed to recover his guard in time. Nephis stepped forward immediately and slammed the hilt of her sword toward his temple, intending to knock him unconscious in a single strike.
But as Yoru reeled backward, he suddenly seemed to lose his footing entirely.
The pommel whistled past his face by a hair's breadth as he collapsed onto the ground.
Then, in one fluid motion, Yoru rolled backward across the ash and sprang back onto his feet several meters away, the Bloody Requiem already raised defensively between them.
Yoru gripped his spear in both hands and pointed it outwards in preparation to take Changing Star head on.
Despite the agony twisting his features every few seconds, there was still a frightening sharpness in his eyes.
"You once said the essence of combat was murder, Nephis. but id argue it's something entirely different. For someone as great as me that is."
Nephis did not bother responding.
She stepped forward and slashed toward his shoulder with brutal efficiency, clearly intending to end the fight before Yoru spiraled any further out of control.
Yoru intercepted the strike cleanly. Steel screamed against steel as the crimson spearhead caught the silver blade and guided it away from his body with practiced precision.
"The essence of combat is tyranny."
This time Yoru attacked first.
The Bloody Requiem shot toward Nephis' face like a black streak of lightning.
Nephis knocked the thrust aside effortlessly and immediately shifted her footing to counterattack, forcing Yoru's upper body wide open in the process.
Under normal circumstances, that opening would've been fatal.
But instead of resisting the deflection, Yoru flowed with it.
His body spun far faster than Nephis' parry should have allowed, as though the momentum itself had been distorted in his favor. The black spear whirled around him in a blur of motion, forcing Nephis to halt her advance for a fraction of a second as its blade carved unpredictable arcs through the air.
Then, suddenly, Yoru reversed his grip and thrust the spear backwards without even looking.
Nephis' eyes widened slightly and she looked down.
What she saw was the Bloody Requiem, piercing through the right side of her abdomen.
Yoru grinned at the sight of blood spilling from Nephis' wound.
"I think," he said through ragged breaths, "I finally achieved that thing you call clarity."
Nephis lowered her eyes slightly, looking at the black spear protruding from the right side of her abdomen.
Despite the gruesome wound, her expression remained eerily calm.
Even now, after being impaled, there was hardly the slightest distortion on her beautiful face. Only the faintest tightening around her eyes betrayed that she even felt pain at all.
But something in her grey eyes had changed. Some strange emotion flickered within them, faint enough to miss if one did not know her.
A thin trail of blood escaped the corner of Nephis' lips as she slowly raised her gaze toward him.
"Who are you?"
The countless white stars drifting in Yoru's eyes shimmered faintly beneath the darkness of the clearing. One of his hands still trembled from the unbearable migraines wracking his mind, but despite that pain, he smiled.
"That's a tough question. I'd like to say I'm a divine miracle who grants wishes. But now's not the time for such an introduction. So…I'm what you decide I should be. An ally, a friend or a foe.
Though I suppose i'll kill you either way."
Nephis stared at him silently.
Then she sighed.
"I see."
At those words, brilliant white radiance suddenly bloomed around the wound in her abdomen.
White flames crawled across her body before flowing into the hilt of her sword, surging along the length of the silver blade until the weapon itself ignited with blinding white incandescent light.
Sunny who had watched the entire spectacle, quickly realised what was about to happen and ran forwards.
"Nephis, wait!"
But it was too late. She had made her decision long before he started moving.
Nephis swung her sword. It moved impossibly fast.
The incandescent blade carved through the air with flawless precision, leaving behind a streak of white radiance so bright it briefly overwhelmed the darkness surrounding them.
Sharp metallic ringing echoed through the clearing.
For a brief moment, Sunny's mind failed to comprehend what he had just seen.
Then Yoru's head separated cleanly from his body.
Sunny watched in stunned horror as it soared upward into the air, black locks of hair drifting weightlessly while crimson droplets scattered behind him like fragments of shattered stars.
The head spun once… then twice… then a third time before finally falling back toward the ground.
Sunny froze.
The Azure Blade slipped from his numb fingers and fell soundlessly into the ash beside him while a dull ringing slowly consumed his hearing. His knees suddenly gave out beneath him as the reality of what had just happened crashed into his mind all at once.
His jaw hung open soundlessly.
Behind him, hurried footsteps stumbled through the ash.
Cassie reached him blindly before collapsing against his kneeling form, her trembling hands desperately clutching at his sleeve.
"Sunny?"
Her voice shook violently.
"Sunny… what happened? Is Yoru alright? Sunny, please answer me…"
The blind girl pleaded with him to answer her, but no matter how much she begged, Sunny remained silent.
Even if he wanted to, he couldn't speak.
Not a single word would come out.
"Sunny, what did Nephis do? What did she do-!?'"
Then, Cassie fell to her knees beside him and began to cry.
She cried and wailed into the open air as her voice was carried by the wind. Sunny pulled her close, holding her tightly so as to deafen her sobs.
Though she could not see it…
Cassie already knew what had transpired.
Nephis had killed Yoru.
***
The wind drifted gently across the Ashen Barrow.
Like most days, the ancient mound remained quiet and still. On one side stretched the endless sea of ash, while on the other lay the vast crater whose depths none of them had ever managed to glimpse fully. Aside from the occasional bird-like horrors arriving from the west, there were no Nightmare Creatures to contend with atop the giant tree.
Whenever those abominations circled overhead, Sunny, Cassie, and Nephis hid beneath the onyx branches and waited for them to pass.
And when they were not hiding from death, they spent their days eating the strange fruits of the great tree and doing very little else.
At least, that was how things used to be.
Now, the barrow felt different.
With Yoru gone, the strange sense of peace that had once settled over the isolated hill had vanished alongside him. Their days no longer resembled a brief escape from the horrors of the Forgotten Shore.
Instead, the entire Ashen Barrow felt like a grave.
Sunny had never attended a funeral before, but he imagined this was probably what one felt like.
Yoru's absence lingered everywhere.
Over the past several days, Sunny had begun spending less and less time around Cassie and Nephis.
Even before Yoru's death, Nephis had slowly started distancing herself from the two of them. But now, strangely enough, it was Sunny who had begun drifting away.
He didn't hate her.
At least, he didn't think he did.
Sunny had seen people betray and kill each other countless times in the outskirts. Compared to those things, Nephis' actions were almost understandable. If someone learned his True Name, he would probably stab them in the back without hesitation too.
To an extent, he understood why she had done it.
But, that understanding simply failed to make him feel any better.
Something inside him felt hollow now.
So instead of confronting that feeling, Sunny chose to avoid it altogether.
At that moment, he sat alone near the eastern edge of the barrow beside a small mound of ash and earth.
The crude grave looked pitiful.
Sunny stared silently at the endless sea of ash for a long while before finally glancing toward the mound.
"I once did something similar like this for my parents but I'm no expert, so I'll make this quick."
For a moment, only the wind answered him.
Then Sunny sighed.
"You were a self-righteous prick that I couldn't stand. When we first met, you told me to call you a bunch of names that were well above your station."
The memory made him snort softly.
"I honestly thought you were some spoiled Legacy brat pretending to be mysterious. Actually… I'm still not entirely convinced you weren't. But after a while, I figured out you had a few decent qualities. Or at least enough that I could tolerate you."
His gaze lingered on the mound.
"Anyways, a while ago you told me to climb a giant tree in the dream realm."
He sighed wistfully and slowly turned his head toward the colossal onyx tree towering over the Ashen Barrow.
"And seeing how this is the biggest damn tree I've ever seen… I guess I'll climb it for you."
He stood up and placed one of the crimson fruits besides the grave.
Then, after hesitating for a moment, Sunny summoned the Midnight Shard and crouched beside the mound.
The black tachi carved slowly through the ash as he engraved several uneven words into the earth. When he finished, Sunny stared at them for a while before giving a small nod, oddly satisfied with his work.
Then he turned away and began walking toward the great tree.
After several steps, he quietly muttered:
"Goodbye… friend."
The crude engraving beside the grave read:
"Here lies Wish Upon a Star.
He was both a cheapskate and the world's greatest sleeper.
But most importantly-
He was a Divine Miracle."
***
When Yoru opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a world without light.
Towering dunes of black sand stretched endlessly into the distance, rising and falling like frozen waves beneath a sky that did not truly exist.
Far above those endless dunes, suspended within the vast darkness overhead, immense clouds of shimmering radiance drifted silently through the void.
The strange clouds seemed to be made entirely of countless sparks of light.
More sparks rose endlessly from below, ascending through the darkness before joining the luminous masses overhead, causing them to grow larger with each passing moment.
The sight was impossibly beautiful.
Yoru stared at the strange realm in silence for several moments before slowly realizing something was wrong.
He was walking.
His body moved steadily across the black dunes beneath the radiant sky, yet he could not feel himself controlling it.
And stranger still…
The realization failed to frighten him as much as it should have.
A profound serenity wrapped itself around his thoughts like a warm tide, dulling his panic before it could fully surface.
What the hell is going on?
It took several more moments for understanding to finally dawn on him.
If he had truly possessed control over his body, Yoru was fairly certain he would have stumbled in shock by now.
Instead, he continued walking soundlessly through the endless black dunes while staring at the radiant clouds above.
A cold shiver slowly crawled down his spine as he understood exactly where he was.
Fuck…
(End of Volume 2: Hideous Star )
A/N: As an apology for the massive break, here's the rest of volume 2.
But seriously, sorry for taking so long. It was mainly due to the fact that that I had my assignments to complete and plus I also felt a bit burnt out, which sucks because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the story to but to actually write it and get here took some effort.
Anyways let me know what you guys think of that ending. It was super fun to write.
And this isn't guaranteed but I may be changing how Yoru grants wishes just a little bit to get stronger because despite creating the ability, I'm only seeing how slow his strength will grow now. So not for sure, but you may have to expect some changes.