Shadow Slave | School Days

Standing across from one another, Mordret looked at Noctis with a wide smile as he prepared himself for another round of their extended bout. It was always fun to fight, and fighting one as supremely skilled as Noctis allowed his soul to sing to it's fullest extent.

Leaping forward, Mordret's blade was in motion before thought could catch up—a single stroke, neither too fast nor too slow, but supremely inevitable like the rising of the sun. His blade cut toward Noctis, its arc flawless, measured, absolute.

Noctis met in kind. His sword whispered through the air, its edge meeting Mordret's in collision so precise no sound was made. Grinning hideously, Mordret pushed forward, intent on overwhelming Noctis with strength and yet the other man simply held firm with an impassive expression.

Mordret's stance shifted seamlessly. The tip of his sword flickered, seeking Noctis' throat. Noctis adjusted, his blade intercepting the attack before it could manifest. Their movements wove together in an intricate dance—each strike negated, each counter dissolving into nothingness.

A low sound emerged from Noctis' pocket as he leapt back, gaining distance between himself and Mordret as he pulled his phone from his pocket. "Yes?" A moment passed, his face contorting into a vicious grimace as his eyes remained fixed on Mordret.

"Yes, I see. Three hundred thousand have been killed. By Sunless alone? I see." Putting his phone back in his pocket, Noctis rolled his shoulders before sheathing his sword. "My mission is over, you may pass." Mordret stared at him with an impassive expression before a grin quickly grew on his face.

"You say that like you could stop me." Noctis only offered him a low, sad laugh as he locked eyes with Valor's white ghost. "I've been doing excellently at doing that so far, now go." Taking another glance at Noctis, Mordret's eyes flickered with the silent message that their fight was not over as he blitzed forward. A silent mutter escaping his lips.

"Killing three hundred thousand alone? Huh Sunless, I underestimated you."

--

Orion continued to watch Cassie's back and forth with Sevirax with barely restrained glee. Each moment, she was adapting, learning more about the intricacies of combat one could not teach through training as she deflected each blow.

Although she wasn't quite competing, needing Orion to save her on a multitude of occasions. She was performing at an impeccable level for someone who only two weeks prior had been utterly reliant on others to manoeuvre around.

A black blur slammed into the ground between them, blowing Sevirax and Cassie backward as Mordret spared the blind swordsman a passing glance as he turned to Cassie and Orion. "Vile fiend, blind woman. Sunless has killed three hundred thousand, and I assume he'll need help as soon as possible."

Turning his head backward, he saw Sevirax offering him a vile smile as he prepared himself for battle. In mere moments, Mordret was at his side, placing his hand on his shoulder gently as he stared down at him. "Sevirax of the north, your mission is finished here. You're blind, not deaf."

In the next moment, Mordret had blurred forward, ready to pass the news onto the next round of people as Orion and Cassie shared a glance. "You were acceptable, blonde girl." Orion commented mildly, he couldn't follow her due to his duties, but keeping an eye on Noctis and Sevirax was his own form of help.

Instead of replying, Cassie buried her sweaty face into his chest for a moment before snaking her hand around his head, pulling him downward and kissing him on the cheek before disappearing too. Orion could only touch where her lips had met his skin with a blank expression riddled across his face, and for the first time, he was stunned.

--

Solvane exploded forward, crossing the distance between her and her four opponents in a heartbeat. The air cracked as her foot drove into the ground, launching her toward Nephis like a missile.

Nephis barely had time to react before Solvane's knee rocketed toward her ribs. She twisted, absorbing the impact as best she could before she got sent skidding backward. The woman before her was astounding, incomprehensible.

Even when fighting against four people it didn't seem like the true extents of Solvane's power had even begun to reveal themselves. She was stalling for time, and they all knew it. Nephis gritted her teeth, she had been given several commands by Sunny in her life.

Many she didn't agree with, many she ignored.

But this was the first time he had forbidden her from losing to someone.

And yet, the woman before her presented an insurmountable wall that she saw no hope of surpassing.

'What kind of strength do you need to say you're stronger than them so boldly?' Nephis questioned, as she watched Effie lunge towards the woman. Her spear struck forward, fast and precise. Solvane's body twisted, dodging by the width of a breath. Her hand shot out, catching the shaft of the spear and yanking her off balance.

"You're a fucking peon, you're all peons! How do you even survive without help? I've seen children stronger than you!" Solvane roared. A gunshot rang in the background, Kai's gun firing off a round faster than the eye could see. Solvane turned, her head moving a fraction of an inch as the bullet screamed past her chin.

Her muscles tensed, moving to charge forward at the gunman before a shoulder roughly grabbed her and held her in place. Mordret's presence pressed itself upon the five as he stared at her with a furious expression. "I don't like it when the weak look down on others. Why're ants allowed to give opinions again?"

Not waiting for her to reply, Mordret turned to Nephis with a blank expression before his face turned into a wide smile at the sight of Effie. "This woman's known it for a while yet she's still fighting. Sunny's about to be captured, their mission is over. Now lets go." Without another word, he roughly threw Solvane to the side as the group bolted after him.

Soon enough, only Solvane was left in the clearing as she grasped at her shoulder with a deep blush on her face. "How rough." She muttered to herself, flicking through her phone as she tried to distract herself from her thoughts.

--

Sunny felt himself drifting through the air, moving across bumpy tiles as he was held firmly in the hands of what felt like a woman. He didn't know precisely when he had fallen unconscious, nor did he really know why he hadn't killed all of them while he was at it.

Despite this, Sunny's eyes cracked open to a familiar sight. Once more, he was in Morgan's room. His body refused to obey him, each and every muscle in his body entirely relaxed against his will as he forced his eyes shut in a silent prayer.

'If there's any time, I've wished for Mordret to arrive, this is now one of them.' He couldn't live through this hell again, he couldn't live through being put through torture once more at Morgan's hand as a hand slid over his face, grasping his eyelids and prying them open,

Attempting to force himself asleep would be wasting the miniscule amounts of energy he was cultivating, and so, he allowed Morgan to realise his lucidity as he took in the full sight of her smile. 'You disgust me.' He thought to himself, his face not having the strength to curl into a snarl and his body too tired to show his hatred.

"You know, initially I thought that sending out thirty thousand people would be enough. After all, when people's parents die, they typically get sent into an emotional frenzy. But not you though, you killed them all while listening to music right after your foster mother died."

Disgust bubbled in Sunny's soul, there was not a single word she said that had been wrong. He wanted to mourn; he yearned for the tears he could spill in honour of his mother to arrive. And yet, they never did. He could only express his grief through violence.

Broken.

Running her hand through his hair, Morgan's hand drifted over the gigantic chain that covered his neck as Sunny's eyes glided across the room. "Don't even think about it." She commented gently. "Each of these seven chains are connected to seven prisoners, all of them civilian. I think one of them is named... Jet? She said she knew you."

Sunny's stomach dropped; he had involved more people in the pathetic symphony he called his life. Jet had been from the outskirts, exactly like he once had been. And finally, she had gained comfort only for a piece of shit like himself to waltz into her life and ruin it.

"You understand what I mean, right? If these chains break, if my heart stops, they'll die immediately. No room for dramatic countdowns." The way she touched him sickened him to his core, her hands drifting across his skin in ways that made him want to throw up.

Pulling him forward, she allowed his head to rest on her lap as he looked up at her smiling form. "It took a long while to get you back, Lost from Light. But you're at home now. There's no need to fight it any longer." The two sat in silence for hours, occasionally Morgan scrolled through her phone, showing him what she was looking at.

Until an explosion occurred.

It was not too close to offer hope, yet not too distant to completely eliminate the possibility. Sunny wanted to smile; the glimmer of hope that flickered within his eyes did not go unmissed by Morgan as she placed a finger on his lips playfully.

"It looks like your friends have found our other hideout. It's a shame that we've already moved though. Why wouldn't we? You killed three hundred thousand, three hundred thousand living, breathing people! And you think yourself a hero, you think you can return to a normal life."

Suddenly, Morgan's mood changed as she grasped Sunny roughly by the hair, lifting him up as she dragged him towards a mirror, slamming his head into it as shards of glass bit into his skin. "You can't kill half a nation and expect yourself to be normal! You're not normal, you'll never get the life you're hoping for! Do you understand me!? Your only life is here, with me. Forever!"

Pulling his head backward, Morgan slammed it into the mirror once more for good measure as she dragged him back onto her bed, a piece of broken glass remaining in her hand as she threw him onto her bed. Like a honed surgeon, she cut lightly across his skin, a trail of blood flowing from his body that quickly healed.

Running her finger across it, she licked it with an expression of ecstasy across her face as she laughed maliciously to herself. "I'm not a vampire, I promise! You just taste amazing. Not to say that this is my fancy, but I'm sure there are cannibals alive who would kill to eat you."

Laughing at her own joke, Sunny could only remain unmoving as it settled into his very soul that he would not be escaping for a long time.

--

It only took Nephis a few moments to return to the surface, Eubin had even offered the group secret passages anonymously as they rose to the surface in a matter of moments. Glancing at her phone, Nephis' eyes widened as she looked at the news blaring within her device.

"Lone teen commits genocide as military forces attempt to restrain him."

Thousands, millions called for Sunny's death as Nephis stared at the garden of dead bodies impassively, only serving to give her an increase in speed as she pushed forward. Mordret himself was twice as eager, awaiting for his clash with his family with a smile on his face.

Soon enough, they reached the forest in which Sunny had done battle. Not a single human being was alive. The corpse of a helicopter spread flames around the forest without remorse, only to be quelled by the falling rain as Nephis waded through the bodies of the dead.

"They're gone. They've left with Sunny." Nephis commented, her voice low, almost rejecting the entire situation as she glanced around. Each body was maimed, she swore she saw a man with a large portion of his neck missing as Nephis noted the tell-tale signs of Sunny's rage.

Not a single footstep left by the murderous teen, not a single piece of clothing, nothing remained.

A syringe lay on the floor, Mordret moving towards it with a curious expression as he raised it and lightly jabbed it into his finger. Instantly, the mere droplets of the syringes contents caused his finger to relax as Mordret cut it off indifferently. A new one quickly rising to replace it.

"They've injected Sunny with supreme grade laxatives. In other words, whatever they're doing to Sunless, he can't move or resist." Mordret commented, hearing this, Nephis fell to her knees. A panicked expression appearing across her face as low mutters escaped her lips.

"Morgan, is Morgan there?"

"She wouldn't, not again, right?"

"Sunny, you're alone right now. Please try escape."

"I should have been there, I should have been faster, I should have defeated Solvane."

A slap in the face, courtesy from Cassie knocked her from her stupor as the short, blind girl knelt to her height and looked her in the eyes. "Pull yourself together Neph, there's still time. They had to have taken him somewhere, likely not very far, right?"

How wrong they were.