School Days | A Shadow Slave Fanfic

Nephis legs groaned and strained as she darted between the alleyways leading close to her house with supreme precision. Sunny had given her a mission, and she was going to stick to it to the bitter end. Pressing her back against the wall of a dark alley, she took a moment to catch her breath, steadily regaining lost stamina.

Slow steps lit up alarms in her senses as she spun her head around to see only a single man in front of her. Behind her, the man's empty car had barred the other exit point of the alleyway, meaning that there was no choice but direct confrontation. 'I can't keep running from this; I have to stand and fight!' She exclaimed to herself, preparing herself for the upcoming battle.

Her opponent was tall and slender, perfect for battle in small places like this one; their flowing brunette hair was raised by the wind slightly as they pierced through the darkness with their unique green eyes. Their voice was low and hollow, and from the looks of it, they were a woman. Narrowing her eyes, Nephis tensed as the woman continued to close in on her.

"I'm not here to fight you. I just want to talk about the kind of man you're choosing to risk your life for." Nephis narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "I have nothing to say to you, fiend." Shaking her head, the woman slowed to a stop before folding her arms across her chest with an unknown expression. "It's Seishan. Not fiend for starters."

Rolling her shoulders, she stared at Nephis with a pointed expression before shrugging. "And you can't stop me even if I do start speaking, can you? Little princess. So I'm going to speak, and whether you make the right choice and go back to your life before all this or you continue to follow Lost from Light to the depths of hell, it's up to you."

Nephis's mask of indifference held firm as she shifted backward to gain more distance; her eyes darted around her environment searching for an angle of escape but found that there was none. She was going to be forced to listen to whatever nonsense that the fiend, Seishan, had to say about Sunny.

"You know he isn't normal too, right? Morgan's already left her mark on him, and there's nothing you can do to change that. But what makes it worse is, why would someone like you want to be with a deranged, emotionless killer like him? Do you know how many people he's killed? Have you ever watched him kill someone!?"

Seishan's voice slowly grew louder as Nephis was forced to endure the onslaught. But she didn't need any special reason to protect Sunny; she just wanted to. Many of the things Seishan said didn't make sense; Sunny being emotionless was far from the Sunny she had come to know so far. And yet, when her mind travelled back to the scene of Sunny laying on the table with a puddle of blood formed around his head.

The look in his eyes…the emptiness. Those weren't eyes of a regular human.

Seishan's onslaught wasn't done there though; she was determined to drive in the point that Sunny was not someone worth defending. After all, why did he get to escape, the most ruthless killer of all of them, but not her? What made him so arrogant as to think he deserved a path forward? He could have killed himself to preserve his innocent life. But he didn't.

"You do know Lost from Light is a slave by nature? How couldn't you!? Morgan's already instilled the mindset of a slave inside him, so I wouldn't even be surprised that he has a hard time resisting her commands. And what do you think will happen when Morgan orders him to kill you? He's going to do it. He's like a machine!"

Nephis couldn't take any more of this; I'm a singular movement. She crossed the distance between the two of them. Bending low, she used her arms as leverage to shoot her foot towards Seishan's chest. However, Seishan raised her arm to block the blow, sliding backward slightly with an amused smile on her face. "So you have a little bit of weight in your blows. Lost from Light's taught you well."

Gritting her teeth, Nephis sent another kick soaring over Seishan's head as she leaned downward to dodge it. "His name's Sunny!" She roared, shifting her positioning midair to send her foot flying downward. This time, Seishan was forced to raise her arm to block the blow. Twisting her body, she kicked Nephis's feet out from beneath her before sending a punch that collided with Nephis's defences.

'Not as hard as Sunny's, not even close.' Nephis thought as she shifted her weight to disperse the impact. Continuing her onslaught, she continued to level a flurry of punches and kicks that were blocked and dodged. She knew this wasn't a fight she could win through strength and so chose strategy as her next plan of action. 'Think rationally; what's the only goal I can achieve without any doubts!' She screamed to herself as she continued to push Seishan back.

Her only advantage was that Seishan didn't intend to fight her and so was planning on allowing Nephis to tire herself out. However, Nephis had gone through some of the most gruelling stamina training a human had ever endured, so her stamina was still more than enough for her plan. "Sunny isn't an object; he's a human! He's a clumsy, cute, shy, and kind person!" Nephis roared as her fist slammed into Seishan's guard.

Suddenly, Seishan found that she was on the sidewalk of the road. Nephis hadn't intended to beat her in a fight, but rather push her backward enough to give her room to flee. And flee is exactly what Nephis did. Turning right and pushing off the ground with all her speed, she took off down the road without looking backward. Seishan didn't chase her; instead, she sighed with what appeared like pity painted across her eyes.

"You don't know what you're getting into. She'll never let him go."

Ducking low, Sunny dodged a knife that soared over his head as Rivalen grinned maliciously as he watched Sunny sweep his legs. As he fell, he spun his body, sending the tip of his knife barreling toward Sunny's eye. With only a fraction of a second to react, Sunny took a gamble.

Slamming his palms into both ends of the knife, Sunny managed to bend the blade, rendering it useless, as he flew forward and sent a knee flying at Rivalen's face. Despite his disadvantaged position, Rivalen still managed to muster up a block as he was sent flying backward before landing on the ground gracefully. Rivalen was a knife fighter by nature, the one who had instilled such skills into Sunny and left scars painted across Sunny's body for years on end.

Despite this, even without his most effective weapon, Rivalen remained a dangerous foe. Sunny knew that an extended encounter would not be suitable for him, yet there wasn't a way to reliably escape the knife-crazed wraith that stood before him. Another knife flew towards Sunny's stomach, tearing him from his thoughts as he swayed to the left to avoid the blow. 

Spinning on his heel, Sunny slammed an elbow into Rivalen's ear, sending blood flying from it. Yet Rivalen was still able to counterattack despite the pain that was searing through his body and send a knife through Sunny's thigh. Gritting his teeth, Sunny slammed his fist into Rivalen's throat, temporarily deforming it enough for him to run and gain distance. Looking downward, Sunny clicked his teeth as he darted off the roof, continuing forward with unmatched determination.

Running with a knife lodged in your thigh was not the most pleasant experience; however, pulling it out only meant that he would bleed out faster than he intended. He couldn't have that. So he continued to move faster, so fast that he couldn't see anything else except the building in front of him as he leapt from roof to roof. The knife shook in his thigh as Sunny didn't spare it a glance, continuing his sprint undeterred.

Meanwhile, thirty buildings back, Rivalen smiled at the trail of blood Sunny had left as he ran. "You can run, but you can't hide Lost from Light." Coughing slightly, he held his throat with a pained expression. "And to think he's still that strong even when he isn't in his prime. What kind of monster are you?"

Ripping off a piece of his shirt, Sunny tied it to his leg to reduce the blood loss as he continued his dire sprint. He could already see Nephis house from where he was; now it was only a matter of locating her. Nephis silver hair was unmistakable; he would never forget it as long as he lived. And yet, its absence only served to fuel his bubbling anxiety as he continued to dart toward her house. 'Did I…lead her to the enemy?' Sunny thought as he found a secluded alleyway and slid to the floor.

Reaching into his pocket with shaking hands, he pulled out a phone with shaking hands. He wasn't quite sure how to use one, yet he clumsily attempted to click on Nephis profile as his blood-stained hands marred the screen. "I'm near your house. Back alley, be safe and abandon me if needed." He watched with bated breath as he watched the message turn from delivered to read.

After about five minutes, silver hair made itself known in the alleyway. Sunny blitzed toward her and enveloped her in a hug; grabbing her by the arm, he punched open a window and gently dressed aside the broken shards of glass before picking Nephis up and placing her inside the building. Nephis looked at him with a puzzled expression as he grabbed the furniture and used it to barricade the windows, preventing any unwanted eyes from looking inward.

"Did you just break into someone's house?" Nephis asked with a raised eyebrow, and Sunny merely shrugged before wincing. "The house is abandoned, and with such a huge building like that next to it, the view gets blocked and becomes undesirable." As he finished his sentence, Nephis looked down on him with a suspicious expression.

Sunny had blood dripping from his head, arms, and thighs. His arms had gone slightly purple from bruising, and a slight cut sent blood cascading from his head in small amounts that looked no less horrid. But his thigh was worse; there was a knife lodged to the handle inside it and a piece of Sunny's shirt wrapped around his thigh tightly.

Before she could begin to worry, Sunny enveloped her in a hug. "I thought you died!" He cried into her shoulder, sliding downward as Nephis supported his body. For someone so strong, Sunny was supremely light, allowing him to be moved around and carried quite easily. Not that Nephis minded; in fact, she preferred it that way. Laying Sunny down on the couch, she searched for equipment that could help stem Sunny's bleeding as quickly as possible. 

Before she could, Sunny roughly grabbed the knife that was lodged in his thigh before pulling it out. He didn't even make a noise as he did so as he twisted his body and tore off another piece of clothing, tying it around his leg with an annoyed expression. Wiping the knife across the couch's clothing, he smiled slightly to himself. 'Of course he sterilised his knife. Bastard wants to kill people the "proper way." Well, I guess I should count myself as lucky, Sunny thought to himself.

Meanwhile, Nephis was staring at him with a dumbfounded expression. "Doesn't that hurt? How can you pull out a knife out of your leg so casually!?" She asked incredulously, wiping blood off Sunny's body with the exorbitant amount of tissues that the former house owner had left behind. Sunny shrugged slightly before offering her a weak smile. "I'm used to pain." 

Suddenly, he glanced down at her leg. It was slightly bruised from colliding with a man's skull at full force when she kicked him in the head. His expression turned from a smile to an ugly grimace as the mood in the room shifted. Nephis had never seen Sunny so furious in her entire life as he slowly raised himself from the couch.

It was as if she was looking at death itself.

"Neph, who hurt you?"