A/N: For those that don't use discord, the wait was becasue I got a job and have been working from 10am-8pm every day but weekends. It's my first job so I was honestly very tired from all the work. It was much harder than I exspected lol. I don't want to drop this, but the chapters are deff going to be scarcer until I get used to the work and toll it takes. I will try to atleast put up one cahpter per week, or more. It depends on the shit that happends at work. I hope you enjoy the chapter I wrote while on my breaks and in free time.[][]
~*~
His gaze landed on the cohort and the rest of the onlookers with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry about that, I was collecting antiques!"
Everyone gave him a mix of exasperated faces with the exception of the cohort. They looked at him with deadpan expressions', their faces screamed 'are you serious right now'.
He patted himself on the back for that one. He looked down at his shadow.
"You get it right?"
His shadows split into seven and gave him a mixed bag of reactions. Happy gave him an energetic thumbs up while lazy just threw him a lazy nod.
The rest basically ignored him.
"Wow, tough crowd."
He looked back at the cohort to see their faces shifting from deadpans to worry. It was clear they were thinking about how lonely he was, how long he had spent on the Forgotten Shore with nobody to talk to besides his shadow.
But they were also confused by the fact he had seven shadows. Nephis already knew how gaining a new core worked, it gave you an extra augmentation.
For her it was another flame, for him it would be another shadow. But that was one thing she hadn't told the others. Well, Cassie was not surprised either because she could not see.
Sunny turned back to the corpse and re-summoned Soul Serpent. It took the shape of an odious black knife. It was small but deadly.
He bent down and used it to effortlessly retrieve four soul shards from the mimic's chest. He gave them a quick toss, in which they were caught out of the air by a chirppy little chest with a big, toothy grin.
Only after the soul shards were secured in the little guy did Sunny get off the creature's body. He simply slipped into the night before appearing in front of them standing only a few feet away.
"Ready to continue?"
The cohort gave him many different looks.
Nephis was giving him that 'I'm going to destroy you' look, Cassie was not looking at anything, Kai seemed like he wanted to ask something while Effie just stared at him.
"Hey Doofus, you sure you're okay?"
He tilted his head.
"In what way?"
He could have just said yeah, but he wanted to know exactly what she meant, even if it lead him to being asked a direct question.
'Actually, I think I should tell them about my aspect and flaw. They knew in the future, right about this time too. Lines up pretty well.'
She gave him a scan from head to toe.
"I don't mean physically, I meant are you okay mentally? You spent a long time stuck in the Forgotten Shore alone. Then you spent an unknown amount of time in a second nightmare, only gods know what you have been through and seen."
She finished in a soft comforting tone that spoke volumes of just how worried she was.
He winced slightly.
Even before he got those memories of the future, his emotions had been hard to navigate and utterly treacherous. Now they were like beasts vying for dominance.
The feelings from the past were clashing with those of the future. His personality was also being swapped from current to future quite often. Currently, he was swaying between becoming the future Sunny, or staying as the Sunny that had just got through a second nightmare.
It was quite taxing and not a very simple situation. Yea, he could let his inhibitions go and just let the future take hold. But then he would lose the feelings the current him had made.
This resulted in him trying to assimilate both into one. Which had proven more difficult than he thought.
"Definitely not! But what can you do?"
He decided to throw a jab or two at Kai.
"I killed a dozens Great Creatures, a few hundred Corrupted, and thousands of Fallen. I talked to a Divine Skeleton, and another Supreme one, I had a casual convo with Hope, The Deamon of Desire."
He tapped his chin a few times.
"Oh, I even sailed across a river of time where I spent millions of years correcting my mistakes time and time again, then making more and more. It was an utterly futile point in my life to be honest. But then I got my ass handed to me by a Seer with bad intentions who led me to a Cursed Terror. Yea, that was not fun."
He glanced at Kai to see his reaction, but to his surprise, everyone looked mortified.
He understood Nephis, she knew his flaw. But Cassie, and Effie should not have been taking it so seriously.
But, how could he not double down. These reactions were priceless.
Little did he know he should have stopped while he was ahead.
"After that wretch tricked me into getting molested by a big ass bird, I lost my fate to the Vile thing over the grave of Oblivion. Well, turns out, when you lose your fate, everyone and everything forgets you exist and cannot seem to remember you, even if you out right tell them. Even my own damn sister forgot about me! The spell too, that bastard calls me treacherous, but the second my fate was gone, so was it!"
He sighed
"After that, I wondered around for about four years after that until I finally became a Supreme the normal way without the bastard and killed all my enemies. Well... sort of. I still hate that damn bird, and its alive!"
Seeing their faces looking at him in utter horror, he could not help it. Yes, it was getting a little long for a joke, but it was too damn funny to watch.
"But, after I became a Supreme ruling over death and shadows. My girlfriend, who I helped become a Supreme in the first place, left me for a master. He aligned more with her all encompassing goal, so, she left me like a rock on the path. Very sad stuff, really."
He was finally done with his long winded boasting session, and when he met the cohorts gaze, he suddenly realized something.
'Wait, should I not have talked about having a girlfriend in front of Nephis?'
Yes, he had not even thought about the whole other part of the story.
Effie's face was contorted into a pained grimace while Kai stood there, jaw slack. Cassie was stiff as a board, shoulders trembling. Nephis... She looked pissed. Like, royally pissed.
An absolutely terrifying grin crept up on her face as she spoke in a shaky, flat tone.
"Sunny, why don't we go back to the tent and have a chat?"
It was not an invitation, it was an order. Just worded to not be.
"Ah, haha. Yeaaa Nephis, let's go."
He was not finding this funny anymore.
She took a step forward and grabbed him by the shoulder. Her grip was strong enough to grind stone into dust, but to him, it was just strong enough to not let him slip away.
She started to drag him towards the tent at a quick pace.
He just started to pray to the dead gods.
~
**((BTW, this is still a fanfic, so yes, I'm going to do whatever I want with it. That includes use the meme character. If he is a meme... gotta say, Brent scored if he's not))[[I also have not read anything past him going into Ariel's game board. I have been stacking and am not caught up. That is mainly why I'm just going with small stuff and possibly random stuff.]]]**
She threw him into a chair and grabbed another, placing it directly in front of him.
She sat in the chair with an aggressive plop and crossed her legs. Soon, everyone else was sitting in a very rough semi-circle around him.
They all had morose expressions on their faces while just sitting there silently.
"Uhhh, what?"
Effie opened her mouth to speak, but was shut down by Nephis's voice sounding over hers.
"Who is this girlfriend you speak of..."
He flinched.
His flaw was already gnawing at him, but he spoke before answering.
"Come on, I was just joking with you guys. I wanted to see how you'd react. Haha."
Nephis leaned in a little.
"They know, I told them. Now, answer."
He froze.
'Damnit.'
His flaw was reaching the critical stage, but he pushed onwards.
"They know huh... I was going to tell them today anyways..."
Nephis did not like the fact that he was not answering her, so she asked him once more.
"I asked you who that girlfriend was..."
He grimaced at the pain, for some reason, it doubled the second she asked a second time.
His flaw was pushing it out of his mouth this instant.
"Damnit! It was you alright!"
He was forced to shout it due to his flaw, not because he was angry.
However, this answer was not what anyone was expecting.
Nephis's face went from mad and accusing to slightly pink and confused.
Cassie instantly froze for an unknown reason.
Effie gave him a 'what' look while shooting kai a glance. The guy just sat there with his jaw open again.
He looked back and forth between Sunny and Nephis. His face literally said 'what, when, how, huh'.
Sunny knew his life was about to get ten times harder.
He contemplated putting on Weaver's Mask in a hurry and running away, but what would that do for him? He kind of needed to be here in order to teach them the essence refining technique.
He just closed his eyes and sighed.
'This is going to be a long night.'
Nephis's voice made him open his eyes.
"W-what do you mean? How..."
She seemed to not be able to find the right words for her question, but he still had to answer, even if it was a super broad question like 'what do you mean'.
"I mean that after I lost my fate, I could not inform anyone of my existence, if I did, they would immediately forget. So, I wondered around for a while before one of my persona's met you. You did not know who I was, so after you achieved what you wanted, you left me. I stood in the way of your dreams and goals, so you left."
He was no longer having a good time at their expense. He was remembering what his future-self felt that day. The day he lost almost everything again.
Yes, he still had the cohort, yes he still had Rain. But none of it was the same. His anchor had been uprooted, and he was in the wind again.
For some reason, memories from what happened after that were hazy at best, and entirely unreachable at worst. It was like something was blocking him from remembering...
Nephis flinched at his answer, a feeling of sorrow rising in her heart.
'Wait, when did this happen? Did his nightmare take place in the present time? But we were never a thing...'
By this point, Nephis had already known exactly how she felt about Sunny. He might not have realized she knew, but she had been away from him for over a year, and the pain in her heart every time she saw his runes had led her to the answer.
She was in love with him.
His words had struck her like a hammer. She had, at some point, been together with him, and then left him!
She was honestly mad at whatever version of herself had done this. Nightmare or not, memories or not, how could she not tell that Sunny was the one for her!
'What an oblivious bi-'
Cassie's voice was soft, but in the silence, it was like a blade.
"The seer... was that me..."
He winced again.
"...Yea..."
Her shoulders slumped as she heard his words.
'So, I betrayed him again...'
She wanted to cry. How could she be so pathetic? How could she do that to him again?
As Nephis and Cassie sat around in self doubt and pity, Effie asked an actually important question.
"When did this happen?"
She was not nearly as shaken as the other three, but she was just as curious.
Sunny was silent for a few moments, before he spoke an answer that shocked them.
"The future."