Sunny walked through the streets of the Dark City, unnoticed by the thousands of residents, as he slowly made his way to the cathedral. Upon reaching its entrance he took a moment to look over the constructs standing vigil, a pair of shadow asuras stood blocking the door, and he allowed himself to smile inwardly at his accomplishment.
'It's a shame that it took me so long, they would have been useful in Bastion.'
He thought ruefully, his heart aching at the losses humanity suffered in that apocalyptic battle. Almost without realizing, he had summoned his runes and his eyes lingered on the empty space where Nephis's runes had once been.
'All that effort to regain my fate, to make my own choice, to choose her, to lose it all after a few mere months.'
Those few months had been the best of his life, despite the ever present danger, he had been remembered and loved and forgiven and–.
Sunny shook his head, no use dwelling on what happened years ago, he had a plan to fix everything and it's almost complete. He shadow stepped into the cathedral the weavers he had taught busy finalizing the auxiliary components of his grand sorcery, the demonic masks he personally enchanted allowing them to see the weave and their gloves allowing them to touch it. He nodded with satisfaction with their progress as he shadow stepped once more and entered the underground chamber, he traced his fingers across the bedrock as he walked to the hidden cell, memories of a distant past filling his mind.
He lingered at the doorway of the cell looking at the six shining soul shards placed around the center circle before taking an unneeded steadying breath and entered the small room, standing in the middle of the carved circle he sat down cross-legged and place a hand on his chest, then without hesitation he thrust his hand into the very core of his being and grasped his titan core. Gritting his teeth, Sunny tore it out of him in a single swift motion, the pain was intense, but he's had far worse so he ignored it and started weaving, implanting the core with knowledge and memories, knowledge of weaving and of battle and essence control, memories of the past and of Nephis, not the entire breadth of his knowledge but enough to give a significant advantage.
Placing the core down gently in front of him he then reached into his shadow once more and withdrew a seventh shining shard, the divine soul shard he recently took from the ruins of the ivory tower, and he placed it just outside the circle with the other six divine soul shards, then, Sunny closed his eyes and waited.
Hours later, the cathedral bells tolled and Sunny could feel the prayers and supplications the remainder of Humanity gave him as he opened his eyes and donned Weavers Mask.
"It's time." He said, speaking aloud for the first time in weeks.
Channelling his essence into the weave surrounding the carved circle, he felt reality shift and twist and break, and he slipped outside of time and space.
Now without the aid of his sorcery, he sacrificed all to keep the passage it had created open until he reached his destination, first his legion, then Slayer, then his terror core, then Mimic, Fiend, Nightmare and Serpent, along with their cores then finally on the last push, Saint was sacrificed and reality snapped back into place.
And Sunny was gone.
Sunny exhaled and extended his shadow sense, a crooked smile graced his lips as he chuckled.
"I did it…" He whispered as his shadow sense revealed to him the Dark City as it was in the past, to five years before the nightmare sent his younger self here,
He focused on the Bright Castle and the sleepers within.
'Should I help them?' He thought before shaking his head.'No, things need to progress as they did before, at least until my past self finds this room.'
Taking off weavers mask and placing it on the ground next to his titan core, Sunny stood up and exited the cell, the meagre protections unable to prevent a Sacred being like himself from leaving as he wished.
Entering the large chamber, he manifested two permanent transcendent shadows, a longsword and an odachi and leaned them on the sides of the cell door. Smiling to himself, he pulled on his tether, and frowned as he had to struggle to force his way to the waking world.
Meanwhile, every being on the forgotten shore felt a sudden chill and froze in place, from the mightiest Corrupted to the lowest sleeper, even the dark sea stilled slightly and remained in the depths beneath as a shadow eclipsed the sun darkening the once bright sky. Just as quick as it appeared, however, the eclipse vanished along with the oppressive aura it emanated.
In NQSC in the Waking World people looked at the sky with worry and fear, darkness had fallen in the middle of the day as a massive shadow blotted out the sun. Emergency alerts sounded, urging civilians to seek shelter as Awakened gathered to prepare for the worst.
Standing atop a skyscraper, a friendly looking man smiled at the sudden eclipse with a curious yet unnatural expression.
"Well, well, Isn't this an auspicious sign? Have you finally decided to reveal yourself, oh child of Shadow?"
"Yes."
Unexpectedly, the man received a reply, a bloodied fist suddenly piercing through his chest with a supreme soul core in its grasp.
"That's… mine…"
Was all he could say as the fist clenched, shattering the shining core like a bead of glass.
Wrenching his arm from the man, Sunny flicked his hand to get rid of the blood and tossed a soul coin towards the corpse that was once Asterion.
"You deserved far worse, you damned ghoul bastard."
Sunny spat with vitriol as he turned and stepped into the shadows.
Standing atop a road sign unnoticed, Sunny watched as a convoy of vehicles rushed towards a shelter. With his shadow sense he could see the child in the middle PTV hugging an older woman, grief filled his heart as he remembered Neph's last moments, and he swore to ensure her safety this time.
Meanwhile, a cohort of awakened led by an ascended knight of Valor were waiting in ambush, hoping to take advantage of the chaos to eliminate the remnants of Immortal Flame. Before they could act, however, the surrounding shadows stirred and tore into them so quickly that not a single sound left their lips, the shadows leaving behind nothing but chunks of meat where the cohort once was.
Turning to his last shadow, Sunny smiled slightly, despite the loss of the others Gloomy only radiated determination.
"You know what to do, old friend." Sunny said softly. "Goodbye."
The shadow only nodded once in reply before detaching from Sunny rapidly glided towards Nephis's shadow.
"Ah, how lonely." Sunny said wistfully as he looked at his arm. It was slowly turning transparent, reality would only allow one Sunless to exist and while he could force his existence on the world it would cause his past self to fade instead of him, and he would not let that happen. Besides, when was the last time he had felt like more than a shadow of the person who once was Sunless?
'I'm tired.' Sunny thought, shaking his head.
"Time to go home."
Sunny shadow stepped for the last time.
In an abandoned building in the outskirts of NQSC, a malnourished child with black hair clutched his stomach in his restless sleep. Standing over him like a harbinger of death, Sunny looked over his past self with indiscernible eyes before he scoffed.
"Damnation was I always this ugly? Be glad, you little bastard, your life will only get better from now on, though, it'll get a lot worse too. I'm sure you'll do fine, however."
Sunny said as he tousled the boy's hair, circulating his sacred essence into his previous body.
"This should help with the hunger, and the weakness… and the height too, come to think of it, lucky brat…"
Removing his hand, Sunny rose, his body far less opaque than when he started.
"I left a gift for you, a few actually, make the most of them and don't make the same mistakes I did."
Sunny said, his voice fading along with his body as the last God of humanity disappeared from existence.
Waking up with a start, Sunny looked around the empty room to find what woke him, finding nothing he finally noticed her didn't feel hungry anymore, in fact he felt… full?
'That can't be good.' The boy thought to himself before shrugging and lying back down.
'At least I'll be able to get a decent night's sleep' He thought as he drifted back to sleep.
A/N: Hi all, this is my first fic, so any feedback would be much appreciated, I can't be certain how long I'll be able to keep it going, but I'll try to finish this fic or at least not a cliffhanger.