Shadow Bond (A Shadow Slave Fanfiction)

The Sacred Tree

The next morning they start retracing the path that Sunny took the other day to get back to the statue and encounter a lone carapace scavenger. Nephis distracts the scavenger while Sunny goes for the back of it's head. With the combined enhancement of Sunny's shadow and Wyatt's ability, Sunny is able to easily push the azure blade through the thin spot on the back of the scavengers skull, ending the fight in less than a minute.
They carve the soul shard out of the scavenger and Nephis asks how they plan to split the shards up. Wyatt motions Sunny to trade the soul shards for swordsmanship lessons. Sunny agrees with little resistance however Nephis refuses to teach Sunny in exchange for the soul shards he will receive on their journey to the Bright Castle. Wyatt realizes that this is due to his outburst the day before, and that Nephis doesn't trust him yet. While thinking of how to get her to trust him he come to a conclusion that brings a pit into his stomach.
'She'd probably trust us if she knew our worst vulnerability.'
He comes to realize that this may be the only way to guarantee that Nephis doesn't kill him in his sleep. Coming up with various justifications to himself like how useful it would be to possibly use Nephis's powers as well, along with the fact that he doesn't remember her ever abusing the power, he decides to come up with a plan to discreetly tell her.
Although this didn't directly interfere with his plans, he knew it would be troublesome if Sunny found out that these two know his true name. Fortunately for him, he remembers that Cassie is supposed to find out about his true name from him killing Harper. He knows this would probably end up just like in the webnovel where Cassie tells Nephis, and Sunny doesn't realize until the very end. He goes through his memories of the book to see if there were any real drawbacks to having Nephis know Sunny's true name and he realizes that it would be the best option for everyone involved.
'Heh, "best". How pathetic, when did I become someone who takes the easy way out?'
Seeing no better choice he decides to let this happen, no matter how horrible it makes him feel.

For the next few days, they travel through the maze together. Nephis and Sunny split the work of taking down the carapace scavengers, with Nephis acting as the bait and Sunny getting the killing blow. Wyatt pushes them to travel faster through the maze causing them to meet more lone scavengers than in the novel. At one point Sunny catches a glimpse of a carapace centurion through his shadow which Wyatt makes sure to avoid. They are able to keep relatively safe with Wyatt boosting Sunny's abilities. These advantages allow them to take out 10 scavengers in four days, giving Sunny an extra 20 shadow fragments along with 10 more soul shards that had to be split evenly with Nephis. While Nephis shared half of hers with Cassie, Wyatt kept the soul shards he earned in makeshift pockets on his armor, leaving him lugging around 6 soul shards as he couldn't absorb them yet.
'Is it really worth it to give so many of your soul shards to a blind girl, and CAN YOU PLEASE ACCEPT OUR DEAL!!! I'm tired of carrying these damn things! Pleeeaaase!!'
Throughout the journey, Nephis becomes slightly better at talking to people, with her practicing nearly every day by getting into conversations with everyone else. She also practices other facets of human interaction such as emotion, such as facial expressions, with her smiles often looking forced and akward.

One night while they are resting Cassie wakes up screaming, when Wyatt comes over to calm her she seems scared of him for a moment before regaining her composure. Nephis is awoken by the noises that Cassie made and asks her whats wrong. Cassie sqeaks out that she had a vision before going quiet. Wyatt immediately knows that this is the vision that allowed her to see the ending of the battle of the spire and comes to the conclusion that she probably had the vision of Sunny killing Harper already considering how scared she was when she saw him, this gives Wyatt the confidence that Nephis would accept the deal now that she knows Sunny's True Name. Wyatt also knows that he can't exactly reveal he knows about that yet so he decides to practice his acting skills when talking to Nephis.
"Hey Neph, what do you think she saw that got her so worked up, must've been quite something eh?"
"Yes, it probably was."
Wyatt sarcastically gasps while seemingly holding back a laugh.
"She's speaking in sentences now, what lovely developments, I wonder how long until her fake smiles look nearly as radiant as her real ones."
"Shut up"
"Alright. I'll go talk to her."
Wyatt walks up to Cassie.
"Hey Cass, what did you see, you can tell me and I'll help you figure it out. I bet I know a bit about it."
'(Why are you acting so nice now?)'
'[What do you mean?]'
'(You started acting mean when Nephis refused you. Why are you suddenly switching from rude and distant to compassionate?)'
'[Because I get the feeling that she won't refuse the next time I ask her.]'
'(And why do you feel that way?)'
'[Just 'cause, I suppose.]'
Cassie starts to feel reassured and talks about it with Wyatt.
"Oh Gods, it was terrible. I saw a horrifying war leaving blood everywhere, no matter where I looked. There was a huge spire and at its base, an army one hundred strong fighting a horde of abominations, every second someone dying. In the center of it all, I saw a woman with a bronze spear holding back dozens of monsters and in the sky a lone archer firing from above. And then, in the end, I saw a broken angel getting consumed by shadows. When I saw it happen, it felt like I lost something that meant more to me than the world itself. At last, I saw a sun illuminating the entire shore and everything caught in its light dying an agonizing death."
'(Well, what do you make of this.)'
'[I'm gonna be completely honest here. I wouldn't worry about it at all.]'
'(What! Have you not been paying attention.)'
'[I have and I stand by my words, now let me talk to her.]'
Wyatt begins talking to Cassie.
"Alright, here's the breakdown of your dream, and don't forget, I can't reveal fate, so I can't tell you too much, got it."
"I understand."
"Okay here goes. On the topic of the fight with the moster horde, there isn't much I can say so I'll place you in a scenario that's already happened and you'll have to interpret the story yourself. Imagine you're an East Berliner stuck behind the Berlin Wall while trying to enter West Berlin, but a sudden change means your government doesn't have the political power necessary to keep the wall up, causing its fall. What would you do?"
"I'd leave of course."
"So was there anything in your vision that could've caused this change, perhaps something not being in the way anymore or... someone, not being in the way anymore."
"Now that you mention it, I saw a set of golden armor lying limp on a throne. I think maybe the tyrant king you talked about might have died."
Cassie seems much more excited when Wyatt starts helping her solve her visions, enough so that she starts smiling.
"Alright, we've solved why people are fighting the horde you mentioned. So we just need to figure out who those two ugly bastards you mentioned were."
"You sound somewhat insecure about this, those two seemed pretty attractive when I saw them."
Wyatt is confused about this.
"Wait, you can see your visions? Like, with your eyes?"
This line of questioning makes Cassie confused.
"Not with my eyes but I can see them. My flaw makes me blind it doesn't mean I can't see in dreams."
"Oh, that makes sense, sorry about that. Anyway, there is someone in the Bright Castle that fights with a spear, it's a woman named Effie, she's mean but she's strong so I guess she's alright. The one in the sky is a surprise for later, the good kind of surprise though. I'm not gonna tell you until you meet him yourself."
Cassie now has even more questions.
"Do you know them? Are they friends of yours!"
"Hehe, they will be." Wyatt says with an evil smile on his face.
"Thats great, I can wait to meet them." Cassie's face then turns somber.
"But what about the vision of the angel getting eaten by a shadow."
Nephis starts to pay close attention to Wyatt's answer.
"First of all I'm offended. I'm sure we all know who the shadow and angel are."
Wyatt looks towards Nephis.
"But why do you assume that the shadow is winning. I'll bet all the soul shards I'm carrying on me that I couldn't beat her in a fight. And do you know why."
"Because she is a legacy?"
"Forget about her being a legacy, forget about any skills, memories, or backing. In a fight there is one reason that I would lose no matter how many times I try."
Wyatt leans into Cassie's ear and whispers his answer.
"Because she has a Divine Aspect that's focused on fighting."
Nephis, despite being a few feet away, goes wide-eyed after hearing this. Cassie begins laughing thinking that this is a joke until she realizes that he was being completely serious.
"What's yours." Nephis demands.
"Alas, it's only supreme, for both me and Sunny actually, which would be amazing if I wasn't getting 'overshadowed', pardon the pun, by both of you."
Wyatt then turns back to Cassie.
"I'm willing to bet that you didn't check in on the shadow, but if you did I'm sure you'd find it was just as broken and battered as your dear angel. Not that I blame you of course. I'm sure you're vision terrified you, and terrified people don't make for the best judges of a situation. But overall, despite what you saw, and based off of what I know you saw, there isn't much to be worried about, except for that sun thing you mentioned. Although it's possible I might have missed something, the daemons in the details and all that. Say do you want to hear the story about that sun thing."
Cassie just nods.
"So a few hundred, or few thousand years ago, it doesn't matter much, there was a civilization which I think lived around the area where the Bright Castle is. One day a darkness fell upon the land so these people started becoming desperate. They got some Awakened heroes to help out and these heroes built this spire, that contained their new building project. And I just want to make it clear that I've forgotten alot of the details, so please forgive me, but anyway, these people tried to create a sun. They got a person to become their new sun, but this new person-sun was hungry and needed a ton of energy, so it ate the heroes, which sated it for a while, then a few more people, then a few more, and then even more. This continued until nobody was left and nowadays the sun is just waiting for more energy. Curiously enough I think the sun also kept this dark sea away permanently. The sea around here is actually a great titan, did you know that?"
No answer comes as Cassie and Nephis are still pondering the story and its implications, along with his final claim about the sea.
"But hey, thats old news, and not something I know all too well about. But while we're on the topic of evil suns that can cause agonizing deaths, have you ever heard of SCP-001?"
"No, why?"
"I just thought that it would make for a good distraction, you seem curious about the 2000's too. So we can talk about whatever you want until day break."
After a few hours Cassie's nervousness is almost entirely gone, and she feels that she's gotten to know Wyatt even better.
"So you're telling me that the worst part of the pandemic, was the lack of toilet paper at the beginning?" Cassie says barely holding back her laugh.
"It would've made more sense if you lived through it." Wyatt responds indignantly.
"Really?" Cassie asks.
"No." Wyatt can already imagine the response from Cassie.
"Pfft, hahahaha"
'Yup, there it is.'
"Well anyway, the sun's up so let's get moving."