Sunny had wished for him to survive, and as a genie, it would have been improper of Yoru to deny it.
That however, did not guarantee his survival.
The seaweed Sunny had used to bind his wound was nothing more than a crude temporary solution. It slowed the bleeding sure, but it also invited rot and infection.
Beneath the makeshift bandage, a deep pulsing agony rolled through him in waves, each one threatening to drown his consciousness. Turns out he had already been out of commission for an entire day, so falling asleep again would be terrible.
What kept him from collapsing was the Placate wish, dulling the pain to a tolerable level and allowing him some brief respite. Even then, the effort felt like trying to push back a terrible tide with his bare hands.
'Since coming to this world, i've been both impaled and maimed, yet I'm still breathing... '
There was something darkly amusing about that which almost caused Yoru to laugh. His luck was so awful it was impressive.
Maybe this was simply the price of being an Awakened. In some twisted way, Yoru had come to believe that this level of suffering was standard - mandatory, even. Though, admittedly, countless hours of consuming shonen garbage were probably to blame for that line of thinking.
Normally, he might have praised his resilience. Marvelled at his miraculous survival, but right now... that felt foolish.
The image of the carapace scavenger widening its jaws and taking his arm was burned into his mind. A phantom pain flashed from the stump of his arm and he could once again feel the sensation of being eaten alive, The memory looped mercilessly, as if his mind was determined to finish what the creature had started.
After a few agonizing moments, Placate smothered the rising panic, restoring a fragile calm to his frayed thoughts. But the wish could not restore his arm or the deep scar left on his being. Only time could heal such wounds.
Yoru groaned and exhaled shakily, in an attempt to distract himself he turned his thoughts elsewhere to a less physical sense of pain.
Nephis and Cassie.
There were countless reasons they might not be here, but without proof, all of his theories dissolved into useless noise.
Despite the lack of answers, two truths remained.
First, the two sleeper girls had been here. The distant flame he had seen days ago was proof enough. In other words, something had happened within the past two days which caused the girls to abandon the hill.
And the second truth was that they were defientley alive.
Nephis was at least.
Now with his mind in a clearer state, he realised that he could still hear Changing Star's wish, echoing within the confines of his mind - although it was much more faint than in the academy.
She was alive and somewhere out there but wherever that was... he did not know.
Cassie was probably with her as well, but Yoru had no proof of that so he simply hoped.
And that hope founded a chain reaction, similarly birthing another spark of hope in Yoru.
The hope that Nephis could heal him, using her purifying flames to restore his severed arm - assuming he lived long enough to reach her.
He had considered using mundane fire to cauterize the wound, but dismissed the idea quickly, suspecting that if he did so, the wound would technically be healed so there wouldn't be anything for Nephis to restore, thus losing his arm indefinitely.
And there was the pain as well.
Yoru had consumed enough media to know what cauterization entailed. It required extreme willpower and a tolerance for agony far beyond what he was willing to test.
'Yeah...I'm good.'
Although this meant that he would have to endure the throbbing pain of his arm for gods knew how long till he found Nephis. Or perhaps he'd succumb to the blood loss before then…
With another groan, Yoru tilted his head and glanced at Sunny who was staring at his new sword with barely concealed fascination.
The [Azure Blade] was a sharp light sword about a meter long, including the handle. The blade was straight and single-edged, ending in an angular tip. It was forged out of azure steel. The cross-guard was minimalistic and simple, offering almost no protection to the wielder's hands.
It was a beautiful sword that honestly didn't fit the hands of a miscreant like Sunny, but Yoru kept that thought to himself.
The sword wasn't the problem anyways. The problem was what to do next and how to convince Sunny to go along with it.
Originally, the cohort was to head east to avoid the congress of carapace scavengers feasting on the corpse of the shark… but it was Sunny who shared that knowledge with them. Without him, it wasn't guaranteed that the girls would go east at all.
'Then Cassie got her vision of the bright castle in the west…'
This was the cohort's incentive to brave the harrowing journey to the west, and face an abundance of creatures on their way there, as well as that particularly insidious bastard, Soul Devouring Tree.
Yoru shivered, dreading the idea that he'd someday willingly approach the thing.
But strangely, his tense apprehension towards the devilish tree affirmed his decision.
If Cassie was still with Nephis then it was plausible that the two were making their way towards the dark castle at this very moment… assuming Cassie's vision had not deviated.
'Actually, that's an interesting thought...'
It was peculiar how Yoru had never questioned the contents of Cassie's vision at all.
Events had obviously changed now.
It wasn't absurd to believe that Cassie's vision had changed to, by simply showing her something else or even misguiding her.
With each passing second, Yoru believed this theory more and more.
He wore a look of displeasure, annoyed at the fact he was left with more questions than he had initially begun with and myriad of other equally frustrating things.
With a lack of options, Yoru glanced at Sunny and decided to take a gamble.
"You're not going to like what I have to say... but I'm going to say it anyways."
Sunny kept his eyes glued to the alluring blade of his sword and replied in an upfront tone:
"I rarely like what you have to say regardless."
"...We should go west."
Sunny froze and held the sword still, he turned and gave Yoru an incredulous stare.
"Ha," Sunny scoffed softly. "But that I seriously don't like."
"Just let me explai-"
"Are you crazy?!"
Sunny cut him off with a sharp whisper.
"I'll blame the blood loss," he continued, lowering his voice even further. "Because otherwise, I'd have to assume you've completely lost your mind. In case you forgot, the west is crawling with nightmare creatures. A whole horde of them. They're still tearing apart the corpse of something even worse. So tell me - why would we dare to walk straight into that?"
Yoru remained silent for a moment and then said:
"It's because of my innate ability."
That was a complete lie.
Yoru was employing the same tactic he had used against Nephis. He pretended that [Cricket] held the answers for his strange behaviour, and with no way of proving otherwise, Sunny had no choice but to go along with it. Unless of course, he refused to believe that Yoru possessed such an ability.
But when Yoru had informed him of his innate ability the night they appeared on the shore, he didn't seem surprised oddly enough. In fact, it seemed as if he had already known.
That… still bothered him.
Sunny frowned and after a few moments he spoke.
"How did you not notice these wishes before?"
"Im not sure... maybe it has something to do with range."
Sunny gave him a concerned look and shook his head muttering something about "Incompetence."
"...Are you sure you're not hearing hundreds of nightmare creatures instead of people?"
Yoru shook his head.
"No, it's definitely human wishes I'm hearing."
Actually, Yoru wasn't entirely sure what would happen if a nightmare creature knew his True Name. Would he hear the remnants of its former humanity or the warped desires of its current form? Are nightmare creatures even sane enough to wish at all? Would their unbridled minds leak knowledge his dormant mind could not fathom, corrupting him on the spot?
The thought made his skin crawl but Yoru suppressed the unease and maintained his calm facade.
Sunny was quiet, seemingly in thought whilst Yoru silently prayed that his gamble would work. Gods knew that he needed a break from all the setbacks he had suffered thus far.
After a few more moments of deep thought Sunny opened his mouth to respond - then stopped.
His expression shifted.
"I sense two shadows," He said slowly.
That was strange. The False sun was still high in the sky so the scavengers shouldn't have been returning anytime soon.
"Maybe a couple of runts who had to come back with empty stomachs?" Yoru offered.
Sunny shook his head and wore a slightly stunned look.
"No... that's not it. These shadows belong to humans."
A/N: Im truly sorry about being so inconsistent with this. I never stated to have a schedule but even I know this is poor. I'll try and do better from now on.
Also I don't plan on dropping this fic anytime soon so please do not worry.