Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Warning: Be careful, some recent chapter information is included in this chapter, up to chapter 2978.

Thirty years.

He had known it, technically, from the moment he had first seen her and suspected who she was.

She had be alone for thirty years of perfect beauty and total silence, singing into air that couldn't answer her prayers, of waking up and falling asleep in a world that had kept her alive with one hand and withheld everything worth living for with the other.

While waiting for a person who will never come.

I'm sorry. For the masks.

I forgot how to talk to someone properly.

That was what she had offered him.

That was the full accounting she had given. A quiet apology and a whispered admission, delivered with the restraint of someone who had decided, somewhere along the way, that her pain was not the kind that deserved to take up space.

Sunny felt something move through him. It wasn't pity.

It wasn't sorrow, exactly, sorrow was something you felt for things that were over, and this was not over, this was standing directly in front of him in a translucent form that still smiled at him.

It was something closer to fury.

A cold, precise, and inwardly directed fury settled over him, not at her, but at the very architecture of the situation. He felt a searing resentment toward the Spell, which possessed a long and documented history of cruelty disguised as providence.

He felt it toward the thirty years, which were not a mere abstraction but something specific, heavy, and real, decades that had been stolen from a person who was currently apologizing for the crime of having survived them.

His anger burned for the people who had caused the absence of Broken Sword from her world. He had been the anchor she believed in, the name she had most likely carried his name like a prayer through every night of that endless wait, the only one she had truly expected to see when the door finally opened.

And finally, he felt a quiet, complicated fury at himself. It gnawed at him because he was the one standing here, and Broken Sword was not. It was not a choice he had made, yet it was the reality he occupied.

He was the one Fate had sent, the wrong man for a soul who had been waiting for her other half.

I think I was expecting someone else.

Instead, she had gotten him.

Him.

The heir of the God of Death.

The one whose domain was ending life.

The irony had a particular taste.

He was, by the most uncharitable interpretation of his own nature, the precise thing she had been afraid of when she entered this place. The one who came at the end of things. The one who closed the account when it was finished.

And she had smiled at him. Immediately. Without hesitation. With the complete, undefended brightness of someone who had waited thirty years for a human presence and had found him and decided, in the span of a single moment, that he would do.

Fine, something in him said, with the specific quality of a decision being made.

Then it will be me.

He didn't know everything about why she was here or how she had lasted this long, what mechanics of the Fifth Nightmare had accommodated her soul for three decades, what it meant for the trials ahead. He would learn all of that in time. What he knew, with a certainty that did not require information to support it, was the other thing.

The simple thing. The only thing that mattered in this particular moment.

He was going to get her out.

Not as a consolation. Not as a cruel irony dressed up as rescue. Not because he was the heir of the God of Death and there was something poetic about a reaper refusing to collect a soul. Not for any reason that required explaining or justifying or that came with conditions attached.

Because she had waited.

Because she had endured years of perfect, unbearable silence and had come out of the other side of it still capable of this still capable of warmth and humor and the extraordinary attunement to the people around her that he had spent their entire conversation quietly cataloguing and quietly admiring. She had survived something that should have, by any reasonable metric, broken anyone in ways that could not be put back together. And it hadn't.

She was still entirely, completely, recognizably herself.

And if the Spell or Fate itself thought it was funny to send him, the heir of Shadow God, the one who was supposed to give the final goodbye to those who had reached their designated end, then let them laugh.

Let them mock.

He would prove them wrong.

He exhaled, slow and controlled, the breath of someone making space for what they were about to say.

Then he looked at her at the brightness gone quiet, at the hands finally still, at the woman who had spent the entirety of their conversation giving him room and asking nothing and absorbing the shape of his presence like something she was afraid might disappear if she held it too tightly.

And he said, with the flat, absolute certainty of a man stating a fact that has already been decided and requires no further discussion.

"Stop apologizing." She blinked.

"I mean it." His voice was even. Not unkind, it was not unkind at all but there was nothing soft about it either, nothing that left room for negotiation. "You have nothing to apologize for. Not the way you spoke. Not the masks. Not any of it."

She opened her mouth.

"That is not an apology that should exist," he said, cutting her off before she could speak. "And I don't want to hear you apologize ever again, because I will keep refusing to accept it."

He let a silence follow, not long, but deliberate. It was the kind of silence that gave words the room to land with their full weight, anchoring them in the air between them.

He continued, his gaze steady on hers.

"You waited. You endured. You are still, in ways that I find genuinely difficult to account for, entirely yourself." A pause. "That is not something you should apologize for. That is something you have earned."

He held her gaze for one more moment, and then something in the set of his expression changed, not softening exactly, but settling, becoming the expression of a man who has finished deciding something and has moved on to the part where he acts on it.

"So, I will never blame you," he said simply.

And I swear, I will save you.

She blinked at him, eyes widening slightly in surprise. "Really? You don't hate me?"

"I don't," he replied without hesitation.

"Really, really?"

Sunny looked at her with the patient expression of a man who had made a conscious choice to be kind about something and was not going to be moved from it by repetition despite usually not liking it.

"Yes. I don't hate you." His voice was steady, quiet. "And I don't blame you for speaking to me the way you did." A pause, heavy with unspoken understanding. "I know what solitude can do to someone. Better than most, perhaps. But not as well as you." His gaze darkened, just for a moment. "Not nearly as well as you were forced to endure."

She tilted her head, a curious sparkle returning.

"Did something like that happen in this long live of yours?"

Sunny paused.

"...Yes," he said, after a moment. "Something like that."

He did not elaborate. And she, with the instinct of someone who had spent years in her own company and learned the difference between a silence that wanted company and a silence that needed to be left alone did not push.

"Well then, we really are birds of a feather! Not that I didn't know that already," she beamed, the smile returning to her face, bright, warm, and utterly stripped of its previous pretense.

She let out a breath she didn't physically need to breathe, her shoulders dropping.

"But... good. I was actually scared for a second there, you know?" She let out a long breath, her translucent shoulders dropping in relief. "It's just... it's so fun to tease you, and I've missed having someone sharp enough to tease me back. You're just so incredibly refreshing, Sunless! Honestly, I feel so light right now. It's been so long since I've had a kindred spirit to talk to... I've decided, I really, really like you!"

To his own surprise, he realized the feeling was mutual. Dealing with her was a challenge, certainly, but she was exceptional, a sharp, vibrant presence that met his own wit step for step. Unlike Effie, whose teasing could be a blunt instrument, Smile's brand of provocation was an art form, a delicate dance of intellect that he found himself genuinely enjoying.

She looked at him, her eyes shining with a warmth that felt more real than her ghostly form.

"I feel like I could just keep talking with you about absolutely anything, and we'd never run out of things to laugh about. So... I really, really didn't want you to hate me. Not after finding someone like you. I'd be so sad if I ruined this just because my mouth runs faster than my brain."

Her voice dropped slightly, her energy settling into something much softer. It was more honest than she had probably intended to be, exposing the raw, lingering fear of a woman who had spent decades talking only to trees and flowers.

"I know you said you don't like repeating yourself," she murmured, a teasing lilt creeping back into her tone to mask the vulnerability. She leaned in slightly, looking at him through her translucent eyelashes. "But... are you sure? You don't hate me? Not even a tiny bit?"

Her grin was playful, lingering on the edge of hope, as if she already knew the answer but desperately needed to hear him say it again, anyway.

Sunny looked at her. He looked at this soul who had just apologized for missing her husband, and who was now asking for reassurance like someone fragile who had just made a bad joke.

"I am absolutely certain," Sunny said, his voice dry but anchored by a heavy weight of sincerity.

"I don't hate you," he continued, a faint trace of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I find you profoundly, overwhelmingly exhausting. But hate? No. You're going to have to try a lot harder than that, Smile. And you can take that as an absolute fact. Because, after all, I am the most honest person in the world."

He let the silence stretch for a heartbeat.

"Two worlds, actually."

That earned another laugh from her, smaller this time, but no less genuine. Her ethereal shoulders shook gently as she pressed her delicate, translucent fingers to her lips to muffle the sound.

"There it is again," she murmured, watching him with a quiet, warm fascination that made Sunny feel entirely too perceived.

"If you're calmer now, or simply unsure of where to begin," he said, his tone steady and devoid of any malice, "I can take over for a while. I will explain a great deal of things, and you are free to ask questions, still one at a time though."

A short pause followed. The corner of his mouth twitched, betraying the faintest hint of a smirk.

"Because since you seem so determined to consider me to be some kind of ancient, primordial horror," he added, the glint in his dark eyes sharpening into something deliberate and knowing, "I've decided that I can play the part! You can consider that my role is to be a thousand-year-old, terrifying book of forbidden knowledge that just so happens to speak."

His tone was light, but there was a distinct edge to it, the subtle, rumbling promise of a storm.

She stared at him, blinking owlishly for half a second.

Then, a bright, melodic peal of laughter shattered the quiet of the lake. She threw both hands up in the air in mock surrender, her eyes dancing with renewed delight.

"Okay, okay! So you definitely don't hate me... but you definitely hold a grudge!"

"It's too late for you," Sunny said, his voice flat and calm, though his eyes looked had her with a suspicious lack of menace. "You've already made the list. The list of people I need to get revenge on."

For a moment, Smile simply looked at him.

The echoes of her laughter didn't fade so much as they transformed. The frantic, brittle energy of her solitude dissolved, replaced by something much warmer and more profound. It was the look of a woman who had spent an eternity staring into the void, only to find, against every law of probability, something that felt like home. Or at the very least, something that felt like a friend.

"Thank you," she said gently.

Just those two words. They were soft, yet they carried the weight of thirty years of silence. There was no teasing in her voice now, only a quiet, crystalline gratitude that felt more piercing than any insult she could have thrown.

Sunny immediately looked away.

He fixed his gaze on the horizon, staring at the strange, sourceless light of this sanctuary as if the exact gradient of the sky required his undivided, professional attention. He was the picture of stoic indifference.

But Smile noticed.

She saw the microscopic tension at the corner of his jaw, the way his fingers gave a single, involuntary twitch before he forced them into stillness. Most of all, she saw the almost imperceptible softening at the edges of his face, the look of a man who was losing a battle against his own empathy.

A small, knowing smile settled on her lips. She watched him in a comfortable silence, realizing that for all his bravado, he wasn't nearly as untouched as he wanted to appear.

"Well," he said after a long moment, his voice finally returning to a semblance of its usual dry cadence. "There's no easy way to explain this. But I'll start by saying that the world has changed a great deal in the time you've been here."

Something moved across her face. The brightness didn't leave it, it felt too essential to her to simply leave but it redistributed, the way sunlight redistributes when a cloud passes through it. It was still her, still entirely her. Just quieter.

"I suppose it would have," she said softly.

"First, can I ask you something?"

"You can ask me anything."

There was no hesitation in her voice. It was immediate, total, and terrifyingly characteristic of someone who had long ago run out of secrets to keep.

"How long have you been here?" Sunny asked, his voice low. "More accurately... I have an idea of the span, but I want to know how it felt for you."

The pause that followed was unlike her others. It wasn't the compressed energy of a woman restraining a joke, but a genuine, hollow stillness, the kind that comes from reaching inward for an answer only to find the edges of it have blurred into nothingness.

"I stopped counting," she said, her gaze drifting toward the lake. "For a while, I tried. I made marks, I found ways to anchor myself to the passage of days. But counting only made the weight of it heavier." She looked at her own hand, watching the way the ethereal light filtered through her translucent palm. "Decades, Sunless. A lifetime of them."

Sunny looked at her, and for a moment, he truly saw her.

She had endured more than a quarter-century in the heart of a Fifth Nightmare, tucked away in a place far too close to a Death Zone so lethal it made his [Shadow Sense] coil like a beast sensing a predator. Thirty years of absolute, shimmering solitude in a place that was beautiful, serene... and fundamentally not designed for a lost soul to inhabit.

He chose to push the thought aside, burying it before it could take root. Some realizations were too heavy to carry, and he wasn't ready to let the weight of her thirty-year tragedy dampen the flickering light in her eyes.

He didn't want to be "sad" for her, not yet.

To pity her would be to acknowledge the sheer cruelty of what she had endured, and right now, he much preferred the version of her that was laughing.

Instead, he tucked the thought away, filing it under the things that shape a man's understanding in silence, never to be whispered aloud.

"Oh, wait!" Her eyes ignited with a sudden, frantic brilliance, as if she'd just remembered the single most crucial detail in the universe. "I just remembered something important before we start! Well... at least it's important to me. Who's the biggest name in music right now?"

Sunny blinked, a strange sense of déjà vu washing over him.

Didn't this exact same thing happen when he first met Kai? Was Smile doomed to be smitten by his best friend's effortless charm too, the moment she will met him and heard his song? First Nephis, now her... was it some kind of cursed family trait? Would his own future children suffer the same fate? Or was that dazzling, beautiful jerk simply a universal magnet for every woman Sunny ever knew?

Most likely.

"Ah... I don't know," he said, his voice flat.

She stared at him.

It was the kind of look one might give a person who had just calmly confessed to never having noticed that the sky was blue.

"You don't follow music," she whispered. Her voice was a perfect, crystalline blend of horror and disbelief.

"I don't follow music."

"Sunless..."

"I know," he sighed. "I've been told. Repeatedly."

The expression she made then was a remarkable masterpiece of genuine dismay. It was the specific despair of someone who had waited decades to discuss the things that truly mattered to her, only to find the one person in the entire Fifth Nightmare who was categorically, fundamentally useless in that department.

She looked physically pained, as if his lack of taste was a literal wound.

"You came through a Category Five Gate and you don't... I mean, I understand priorities, but—" She stopped, visibly regrouping, her hands trembling slightly with the effort of self-control. "Okay. Okay. I'm not going to hold that against you. You're still the first person I've talked to in an eternity, and that has to count for something."

"Thank you for your generosity," Sunny said, his sincerity as dry as a desert.

"You're welcome!" she chirped, matching his sincerity with a sharp, vibrant nod. Then, she leaned in, her gaze turning desperate, the look of a person conceding a point they truly didn't want to lose. "But please... at least tell me you know someone who does. Surely you have friends? People? At least tell me you aren't living alone in that temple of yours, or in a cave, hiding from the light of day and reading novels and eating junk food... right?"

Sunny opened his mouth to mention Revel, then promptly reconsidered. Explaining the habits of a woman pushing forty, who had been perfectly content to languish in her mother's basement until he, in his infinite generosity, offered her a job, felt like bad manners.

Still, a stray thought crossed his mind, and Sunny realized with a start that he was indeed a benevolent man. He was practically a philanthropist, handing out employment to the wayward right and left.

Of course, a skeptic might point out that he was also the one profiting the most from this "charity," but Sunny quickly filed that thought away.

Details were for people who didn't have souls to save.

"No I don't, but I can talk about my best friend," Sunny began instead. His voice softened, taking on a particular, rare texture it reserved for the people he cared about or occasionally drove him up a wall. "He was an idol. His stage name was Night, and he performed with someone named Gale. Together, they were Night & Gale."

He paused, a faint, wistful shadow passing over his eyes.

"The Spell, with its usual flair for the dramatic, which as you've noticed by now, decided to crown him with the True Name, Nightingale."

The words seemed to flow out of him now, as if speaking about Kai was a kind of release he hadn't known he needed.

"He gave up his career to focus on saving humanity," Sunny continued, his tone laced with a warmth he couldn't quite hide, even beneath a layer of familiar exasperation. "The man is kind to a fault. He's always ready to help as many people as possible, he's loved by everyone, and the bastard somehow manages to grow more insufferably beautiful with every advancement. I find it morally offensive."

A faint, genuine smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

"He's a Saint now," Sunny continued, his voice steadying. "And a stupidly strong one, at that. He was already pushing toward Supremacy when I last saw him, honestly, he might have already crossed that threshold by the time we walk out of here. And I should note... if his power were in anyone else's hands, the world would be a much darker place. But Kai? He's too good to even dream of abusing it. It's almost suspicious, frankly. No one should be that decent."

He kept going, the details flowing as if it were vital that Smile should understood exactly who his friend was not just as a name, but as a person.

"He dominated the music charts for years. I know for a fact he's still one of the most recognizable names in the industry. Even now, long after he stepped away from the spotlight to become a hero of humanity, his fame remains a force of nature. Oh, and he was with me during the Second Nightmare. He was the one who, for some god-forsaken reason, decided that jumping into a dragon's mouth was a sound tactical decision."

His tone carried a mix of lingering disbelief and fierce admiration. "So, he's a Dragon Slayer, actually. Pretty cool, right?"

The effect on Smile was immediate, but controlled, her usual brightness sharpening into something more focused, more intent.

"Night, heh?" Smile's voice lifted, dancing with intrigue as if the mere mention of the name had sparked a thousand new questions in her mind "And he's your best friend mmh?"

A slow, knowing smirk tugged at her lips as she studied his face. "You know, you call him a bastard one second, and then your voice goes all soft and fuzzy the next. It's almost adorable."

She tilted her head, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "And Nightingale? Really? The Spell is so lazy!"

"I can't deny that, Kai and I go a long way back, so of course he's my best friend. If you're not close enough with a friend to give them a few 'choice' descriptions, then what's the point?" Sunny said, a spark of genuine amusement in his dark eyes. "Honestly, I think if someone ever wrote a story about my friend and me, it would be a bestseller. Probably one of most popular novel in history."

"Oh, I bet it would be!" she chirped, her eyes dancing. "I mean, even back then, people were obsessed. They used to write manwha and novels about every little development in our world. Your life sounds like the ultimate sequel."

"Sound about right!" A faint, sharp smirk played on his lips. "Actually, I'll tell you a whole lot of our stories later on. I have plenty to say, and the more I talk, the more... creative ideas I get for how to describe everything."

She leaned back, her expression softening into something warm and sincere. "It seems like I really missed everything," she said.

"I'll explain as much as you want to know," Sunny said, his voice steadying, becoming a solid anchor in her drifting grief. But then, his expression shifted. The smirk didn't vanish so much as it was swallowed by a passing shadow. "But yeah," he continued, his voice dropping into a softer, more somber register. "You missed a lot."

Sunny held her gaze, steady and unflinching. The silence that followed was no longer empty; it was heavy, thick with the suffocating weight of all the things he had yet to say.

"And some of those things—" he added, his eyes darkening with the reflected shadows of three decades of betrayal, conflict, war, and staggering loss, "— happened that you might have preferred to miss entirely."

She looked at him, and in the sheer quality of her attention, Sunny found something that surprised him, the profound, weathered understanding of someone who had spent thirty years alone with her own thoughts.

She had clearly spent decades projecting the trajectory of a falling world, and she was prepared for the impact.

"I know," she said softly. "I know the world didn't pause for me." She took a breath, her ethereal form flickering like a candle in a draft. "I've had a long time to contemplate the 'after.' To imagine the kind of fractures that may have happened in my absence."

"Some of it will be hard to hear," Sunny warned, his voice like grinding stone.

"I know," she whispered again, her resolve crystalline. "I know it will be."

Sunny leaned forward, choosing each word with the surgical precision of a man who understood exactly how much weight a single sentence could carry.

"Someone could argue," he began, "that a great deal of what went wrong, could be traced back, in a straight line, to the exact moment you disappeared."

"Oh," she said.

Just that.

Small and soft and entirely without performance.

Then silence followed. And with it was a terrifying, absolute lack of motion that stood in stark contrast to the restless, vibrant energy she had displayed until now. She held the weight of his words the way a condemned woman holds a final sentence, with the grim, quiet dignity of someone who had been preparing for this revelation for half a lifetime.

In the silence after it, Sunny took stock of what he was doing and why, and felt the weight of it settle in him with a clarity he recognized.

"I don't know everything," Sunny said, his voice regaining its measured, academic cadence. "But I know a great deal. More than most, probably. I've studied the history, lived through a significant portion of it, and gathered accounts that others have forgotten. I've even written records of it that—" he paused briefly, a flash of rare, genuine pride crossing his face "—that many people find useful. I daresay those books have become quite the subject of discussion over the last decade. Perhaps even the century."

Something shifted in Smile's expression.

The heavy stillness evaporated, replaced by a look of sudden, mischievous realization.

"You write, too?" she asked, leaning in with a sly grin. "So, let me get this straight. You are a talking book, and your favorite hobby is... creating more books? Is this how you reproduce, Sunless? By printing?"

Sunny blinked, his mind momentarily stalled by the sheer absurdity of the image. He let out a dry, defeated sigh.

"Alright. I deserved that one. I really did," he muttered. "And yes, I write. As for my favorite hobby? That would be my girlfriend. And for the record, no, I do not reproduce by printing."

"Hey, free ammunition is always welcome! If you have more, keep it coming! I'm happy to shoot you with it," she laughed, leveling a finger at him like a pistol and mimicking the recoil of a shot.

"You've spent the last hour trying to convince me you're not some kind of eldritch horror, only to admit you're actually just a very knowledgeable, very grumpy library who knows a lot of horror stories. But still... that's impressive. To think the first person I meet after all this time is someone who know so much... I really am lucky."

"Well, obviously," Sunny retorted, his dry wit returning. "You could have met a gluttonous woman whose only interests are eating and making embarrassing, inappropriate jokes on a daily basis. But no the universe was kind. You met a man of letters. A scholar."

"A scholar," she repeated, her voice carrying that specific, nostalgic respect of someone who had always held teachers in high regard. Or, at least, held them in high regard in her own peculiar, mischievous way.

"I was a professor, actually. Among other things."

"Oh! A professor!" she exclaimed, her approval practically radiant. "Who's only thou- twenty-eight years!"

"I was even younger. Arround twenty at the time," Sunny corrected her, a faint smirk playing on his lips. "It was a complicated year. And don't think I didn't notice you almost saying 'thousand' again."

She laughed, short, bright, involuntary, then looked at him with that same intense, focused attention he was beginning to recognize as her natural state when something truly interested her.

"I don't see at all what you mean! Someone as young as you could never have any trouble hearing, right?" Then her tone shifted slightly. "But please, Professor, tell me from the beginning. All of it." She held his gaze. "I won't interrupt."

A beat.

"No. That's a lie. I definitely will. But I'll try to limit myself to only the most critically important interruptions."

Sunny looked at her.

In the cold and the wrong light of the Fifth Nightmare, with the Death Zone pressing against the edges of his [Shadow Sense] and the barrier behind him sheltering three people who would have many questions of their own when they woke up, he looked at the soul of Smile of Heaven, who had been alone for decades and thought, with the particular clarity that sometimes arrived in the middle of complicated things, about everything he was going to have to tell her.

And about the extraordinary, unearned, completely accidental position he found himself in: the only person she had seen in thirty years.

The first voice she had heard.

He intended to be worthy of that.

He also intended, he acknowledged with dry honesty, to enjoy it considerably.

"Well," Sunny said, the word carrying the quiet satisfaction of a man finally settling into a chair he had chosen with meticulous care. He looked at her, a ghostly smirk playing on his lips. "I've always had a soft spot for people with an interest in history, and you clearly have a surplus of time and an even greater hoard of curiosity. So, ask away. But!"

"There are conditions," he began, his voice taking on the sharp edge of a seasoned instructor. "First, you may ask questions freely, but only regarding what I have already disclosed." He raised a second finger. "Second, one question at a time." A third finger joined the others. "Third, no fishing for secrets." A fourth finger snapped up. "Fourth, no jumping ahead."

Finally, he held up his thumb, completing the fan of five fingers. "And fifth, stick to the curriculum I have created for you!"

"Buuuuh so many rules!" she groaned, throwing her hands up in theatrical despair. "You're like a walking textbook that bites your fingers if you skip a page! A living dictionary where every entry just says 'Access Denied'!"

Sunny let a beat pass, his expression becoming unreadable, his dark eyes momentarily reflecting the weight of the truths he was guarding.

"I have a plan, Smile. I'd appreciate it if you'd trust me on this one."

"You're a total killjoy sometimes, you know that?" she huffed, crossing her translucent arms. But the bite was missing from her words. The irrepressible spark in her eyes betrayed her, she wasn't actually annoyed.

Beneath her playful exterior, she had felt the gravity in his tone and understood the unspoken warning hidden within his request.

"Well, I am a rather strict teacher, after all," he replied dryly.

"Oh, you don't have to tell me that! You mentioned having a student, right? Singular. Not plural." She leaned in, her grin turning wickedly sharp, her translucent features alight with mischief. "I bet it's not that you don't want more students, it's that you can't get anyone else to stay! Who would volunteer for this kind of academic torture?"

"Oi," Sunny barked, but she was already on a roll.

"And I totally understand them! I bet in every lesson, you can't stop yourself from dropping some completely impossible fact in the most absurd, cryptic way possible just to watch their brains melt! You're an intellectual sadist!"

"Once again, I have to remind you that I suspect you would have done the exact same thing," Sunny shot back, his voice flat with the absolute certainty of a man who had finally met his match in stubbornness. "Though obviously in a much poorer and more 'undignified' way than me. I am, after all, a far greater talent than you."

"Slander! You have no proof! I take back every nice thing I said about you! We're not alike at all!" She pointed a translucent finger at him with a flair for the dramatic that would have made a stage actor weep. "I'm calling my lawyer! I'm being oppressed by a Supreme! Help! Police!"

"Too bad for you," Sunny countered, a smug, dark glint in his eyes as he leaned back. "You have no witnesses, and in our would, I hold absolute jurisdiction. You could even say that my word is law!"

"Scary! Dictator! Tyrant!" she cried, her laughter bubbling beneath the fake outrage like water under thin ice. "I'm lodging a formal complaint! I'll even organizing a protest! I'm going on a hunger strike!"

She paused, looking down at her ethereal, light-infused form, then looked back at him with a pout. "Wait, no! I'm already doing that! I've been on a hunger strike for decades! Booo! Go to jail already! Lock him up and throw away the key!"

Sunny let out a dry, amused snort. "Surprisingly enough, if you actually managed to drag me before a tribunal, I don't think I'd escape unscathed. My 'healthy' lifestyle involves a great deal of... questionable activities... that the authorities would certainly frown upon."

"But here's the best part," he added, looking like a cat that had successfully stolen all the cream.

"Since my girlfriend is a massive big shot in the human administration, I have zero reason to fear the so-called 'justice of the world.' If anyone even tried to put me in shackles, I bet she'd personally threaten them into early retirement or worse. She's basically my private get-out-of-jail-free card for all my mischief and crimes. Benefits of the rank, you see! It's a wonderful thing, being literally above the law."

"Uwa! Abuse of power! Corruption!" Smile's eyes widened, her translucent hands clapping together in mock horror. "But I see how it is now! You're the bad influence, aren't you? The dark, brooding horror dragging a poor, innocent soul into a life of crime!"

She leaned in, her eyes sparkling with a mix of pity and mischief.

"I bet she's an absolute pure, sweet soul, someone just like me! And you're just there, whispering terrible things in her ear and corrupting her with your eldritch nonsense. I can practically see it! You're the bad boy, and she's the saint who thinks she can fix you!"

Sunny nearly choked. To call Nephis a "sweet soul" was beyond ridiculous, it was a full blown hallucination. If Smile only knew that his "saint" was as beautiful as she was terrifying: a socially stunted, pyromaniac, who stared down world-ending calamities with the same bored indifference one might show a minor rain shower.

Which, to be fair, was exactly how he loved her.

Her overwhelming power and her complete disregard for social norms were just part of the charm, a package he had long ago accepted he couldn't live without.

She wasn't a saint to be fixed, she was a storm to be reckoned with, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

But that was beside the point.

"Yes... something like that," he managed to mutter, his voice trembling with the effort of suppressing a laugh. "She's definitely... luminous."

In fact, most people didn't worry about her 'fixing' them, they worried about her fixing the situation by setting it on fire or worse like nuking it.

One could just ask Saint Thane for more information on that particular brand of therapy.

"I knew it!" Smile chirped, looking immensely proud of her deduction. "But I'm one to talk, honestly. My husband had that same 'dark and dangerous' vibe, though, sorry, not sorry, he is much more charming about it! Oh, I truly hope you're going to tell me more about her. She sounds like a delight! It seems we have the same taste in men, too. I bet we'd be best friends, bonding over our shared hobby of complaining about our difficult, moody, yet undeniably charming men."

"I will, in due time," Sunny promised. His expression softened for a fleeting second at the thought of Nephis and the terrifying prospect of her and Smile forming a union against him.

"And thanks for not pressing the issue. A lot of stuff happened between us. It'll be much more rewarding for you to hear it in the proper order. It's a long story. One you're going to love. Even if your casting of the roles is... a bit unconventional."

Sunny waved a dismissive hand, his smirk returning.

"And anyway to go back on topic, it's not like they could actually put a Supreme behind bars. That would be beyond pathetic. Or worse, can you imagine being a Supreme and getting yourself nailed to a tree? For thousands of years? Ha! Couldn't be me. I have standards."

"So much spite!" Smile giggled, catching the venom in his voice. "Whoever this individual is, it seems you don't like him very much."

"Obviously. That bastard insulted my girlfriend. Multiple times," Sunny said, his voice hardening with a pettiness that was truly majestic. "There is no universe where I let that slide. Actually, once I'm out of here, I'm going to find him and finish him. Last time I was in a rush, so I just left him a little 'gift' I created to keep him company. I don't think he's dead yet because of it but he's most likely lost what little remained of his mind."

"Hahaha! You are so incredibly spiteful!" Smile laughed, clutching her sides. "Killing a senile citizen who's even older than you? How terrible! Where is your respect for your elders, Professor Sunless?"

"You bet I'm spiteful. Was that not already clear?" Sunny narrowed his eyes, his eyes lengthening in what might generously be described as mock threat. "And what was that about me being old again? Are you genuinely trying to give me a reason to add a new chapter to the curriculum? The Consequences of Insolence, perhaps. I could make it the longest chapter."

"No, sir! Sorry, sir!" she chirped, giving him a crisp, mock-military salute. "Lead the way, Professor Sunless! I'm all ears!"

He then cleared his throat, shifting back into his 'gracious host' persona with the practiced ease of a professional actor.

"Anyway," Sunny grumbled, his thoughts momentarily darkened by the ghost of a comfortable seat. "Should we find somewhere else to talk, or do you have a spot in mind? I'd have loved to just enjoy the lake breeze and just staying here while providing you with a truly magnificent chair. An excellent Memory, superbly crafted, incredibly comfortable. Which I sto— borrowed it on an indefinite loan from Noctis, my very dear friend of mine."

He paused.

"He didn't complain, mostly because he wasn't asked and he never had the chance to file a police report but that's irrelevant. But recently a damn bird stole it from me. And it gave me it's spawn to look after in exchange. All in all, it's an absolutely garbage trade. I want my chair back, along with everything else that feathered bastard took from me."

"Well, it's not like I have a house to invite you into," Smile sighed, though her eyes danced with mischief. "I tried to build one, multiple times but it never sticks. This place is obsessed with order! It resets everything to its original shape."

She leaned in, a teasing smirk mirroring his own dry delivery from earlier. "And don't think I didn't notice you catching yourself on the word 'stole.' Honestly, Teacher, the world is just in balance. It's karma. You took a chair, and then a bird took it back." She tilted her head. "Besides, you got a pet out of it. Why are you complaining? Baby birds are adorable! He will look at you as his father!"

Sunny bit his tongue, forcibly suppressing the urge to explain the cosmic horror of the Vile Thieving Bird and his own... Son.

He chose to maintain a dignified, brooding silence.

Besides, his [Shadow Sense] confirmed her words. This sanctuary was pristine, devoid of any permanent mark of civilization, almost unnervingly so. If some unseen force was truly "correcting" the world back to its primal state, like she said, he wasn't eager to see if that process included his own constructs.

Yet, despite the thoroughness of his shadows, Sunny couldn't feel "it".

There was no malevolent pressure, no lingering intent, and certainly no heartbeat. This place felt empty, not haunted but he wasn't fool enough to take that for a good sign. The moment he had laid eyes on this region, a single word had surfaced in his mind, unbidden and absolute: Sacred.

It wasn't a choice; the word had simply manifested within him, as if the air itself had whispered its status. He could theorize all day about what that meant, but the fact remained that he could find no presence. Either the master of this place was hiding behind a veil his shadows couldn't pierce, or they were long dead.

Or, perhaps, it was something else entirely, a presence so vast or so alien that he would be far better off never discovering it at all.

But before he could ask for clarification, Smile moved with a sudden, graceful flair.

"Actually, I'll show you something interesting! Well, perhaps not for someone as 'mighty' as you, but I don't think you've ever seen anything like it. Oh, and I'll be honest..." She stopped, pinning him with a gaze of absolute, terrifying seriousness. "If you dare criticize it, I will cry. I will cry very loudly, and you will not be able to stop me. I'll have you know my tears are a Divine-grade weapon."

Sunny blinked, taken aback by the sudden shift in stakes. "That... sounds genuinely terrifying."

"It is," she said with a solemn, tragic nod. "I'm an incredibly ugly crier, Teacher. You've been warned."

Smile glided away from the edge of the lake, approaching the gnarled roots of a gigantic tree. It was immense even by the standards of this primordial sanctuary. Sunny had already noted that the closer the flora grew to the water, the more confidently it defied the laws of nature. This specimen was nearly a hundred meters tall, its crown lost somewhere in the shimmering haze above.

The moment her translucent hand brushed the bark, the world held its breath.

A brilliant, ethereal glow raced like liquid silver through the roots and up the top of the trunk, cutting through the natural palette of the Garden. While the sanctuary was already alive with its own vibrant, surreal colors, this light was different, it was a piercing, radiant ivory that made the surrounding flora look dull by comparison.

For a few long seconds, the giant tree stood as a blinding beacon.

Then, as Sunny watched, the brilliance began to recede. It pulled back from the heights of the canopy, concentrating itself at the base where Smile was touching, pooling there like a physical substance gathering a sharp, singular intent.

Time itself seemed to warp, forcing the wood into a destiny it had never been meant to follow.

From the living earth, root emerged and formed a magnificent wooden desk. It was a masterpiece of organic craft, polished to a stunning luster. Behind it, a throne like chair woven from living vines and supple leaves blossomed into existence.

But the transformation wasn't over.

A few meters away a large, imposing wooden black board rose from the soil like a tombstone. And finally, in front of the board, a second desk and a chair appeared.

They were... pathetic.

Small, undecorated, and poorly made, it looked like it had been cobbled together from the tree's leftovers. Compared to the majestic workstation Smile had created most likely for herself, this was less of a desk and more of a punishment for a disobedient child.

And the chair seemed ready to break.

Sunny stared at the layout.

It was a classroom, for one teacher and one student.

And she had set up a modest, almost "lame" station for him. An utilitarian board and a simple desk and miserable chair that screamed "underpaid teacher."

But for herself, she had pulled out all the stops, looking every bit as the "star pupil" who intended to be the center of attention.

Smile reached into the air, and a slender wooden pointer fell into her hand, arriving from above with the casual authority of an object that had been waiting for exactly this moment. She gave it a sharp, professional swish through the air.

And then, with a final, mischievous flick of her wrist, one last object sprouted from the ground right in front of Sunny's miserable little desk.

A small, sturdy wooden step stool.

Sunny stared at it, his eye twitching.

As a memory he hadn't touched in years surfaced unbidden. He remembered Teacher Julius back at the Academy, his favorite eccentric scholar, the man who had taught him Wilderness Survival with a frantic, infectious energy and so many others things.

Julius had always been a brilliant man, but when he was consumed by his own genius, he would fill every square inch of a blackboard with obsessive diagrams and world-changing conclusions. Eventually, he'd run out of room and be forced to clamber onto a step stool just to scribble his final thoughts at the very top, his chalk screeching against the board in a feverish blur.

It had been a mark of passion then. A tribute to a mind too big for a single frame.

But as Sunny looked at the sturdy little stool Smile had provided, he didn't feel like a brilliant scholar. He felt like he was being set up for a comedy routine. It sat there, innocent and mocking, perfectly positioned to potentially help someone who was "too short" to reach their board.

Smile turned to him, her expression one of faux-seriousness.

"Well, Professor? Pretty good, right! I hope the facilities are to your liking. I tried to make your desk look... authentic." she said, gesturing toward the desk. "The class is waiting. Your second student is ready. Don't be late for your own lecture!" Smile beamed, leaning casually against her majestic desk.

Sunny gave her a long, measured look.

Then he looked at the stool.

A pause.

Then back at her.

"Yes. But that wasn't what I was going to ask about."

"Oh! It's my Aspect ability, obviously!" she chirped, ignoring his actual concern with the breezy confidence of someone who had decided the question wasn't relevant. "You see, I haven't exactly been idle while I was here. Let me explain what I can do."

It wasn't what he had been asking about, but Sunny found himself intrigued regardless. Still, the habit of a lifetime made him pause.

"Don't feel obligated to explain everything. Everyone knows that revealing too much of one's Aspect can be detrimental. Information is life, my dear pupil."

"Pfff please! We're friends!" She dismissed him with a wave of her translucent hand, as if this was the most unnecessary caution she had ever heard. "Besides, I'm going to figure out everything about your Aspect over the course of your lessons anyway. Since you've already prepared a thousand ways to surprise me, I can tell. You're not the type to miss an opportunity to show off, Teacher. So keep saying uselessly noble things like that and I'll rat you out to your girlfriend. Be—"

"I apologize," Sunny said instantly.

"—cause I bet tha— wait, that worked? Just like that?" Smile blinked, her jaw dropping slightly.

"I love my girlfriend very much," Sunny replied with terrifyingly flat sincerity. "In fact, I am very obedient. I do everything she asks. Please don't rat me out."

"What an excellent boyfriend you are!" Smile laughed, her mischievous spark returning twofold as she leaned over her magnificent desk. "I'll absolutely need to have a talk with her now! And think about it, Teacher, the kinder you are to me, the more glowing my report about you will be! I'll tell her how you helped a poor stranger out of the pure, unadulterated kindness of your heart. How you were so considered, so mindful, such a perfect gentleman!"

She leaned back, tapping a translucent finger against her chin with a wicked glint in her eyes.

"And in exchange? Oh, I bet she can give me a lot of very... interesting stories about you. The kind of stories you'll probably 'forget' to include in our lessons. I wonder what someone like her has to say about the 'Great Professor Supreme Sunless' when he's not being so clinical?"

Sunny felt a cold sweat prickle at the back of his neck. The mental image of Smile and Nephis having a "girl talk" session about him was more terrifying than any Nightmare Creature he had ever faced.

"I may be a bit forgetful," Sunny deadpanned, his expression a mask of feigned injury. "After all, you said it yourself, I'm quite old. And please, stop blackmailing me. Aren't you ashamed of attacking your elder? I can complain to her too, you know. Two can play at that game."

Smile just widened her grin, looking like she had already won a prize he hadn't even realized was on the table.

"Stop using your age as an excuse only when it's convenient for you! And girls stand together you can't win against us!" She rapped her wooden pointer against the palm of her hand with a sharp thwack. "Anyway. My Aspect is centered on the Soul. My Dormant ability allows me to wander freely, enabling me to explore the world as a bright, pure icon of a saintly spirit. One who would never commit a crime or spy on people, I'll have you know."

"You're still lying through your teeth," Sunny muttered, resting his chin on a hand as he sat. "But by all means, continue. I'll do us both a favor and pretend I'm convinced."

"Additionally," she continued, her eyes glowing with the same silver light as the tree, "I possess the capability to occupy and animate objects. And I may just animate your own chair and make you fall if you keep interrupting me!"

She pointed the glowing wooden stick directly at his face. Sunny looked at the stick, then at the pathetic little chair, and realized the power dynamic had completely shifted. She wasn't just talking about her power, she was demonstrating it in real-time.

Their role were reversed.

"Understood," Sunny murmured, realizing with a start that he had somehow become the student before the first lesson had even begun. "Please... continue the demonstration, Great Professor Smile of Heaven."

Sunny leaned into the words, drawing out each syllable of her True Name with a deliberate, almost mocking reverence that bordered on insolence.

Smile's eyes narrowed into a sharp, dangerous flicker of annoyance. She clearly didn't appreciate the full weight of her name being tossed around so flippantly, let alone used as a punchline. For a fleeting second, the air in the sanctuary grew heavy, but she didn't take the bait. She simply let the silence hang for a heartbeat before pressing on, her professionalism acting as a shield.

"Sure! Well, everything has a soul. I imagine you already know that, so I'll keep this part brief."

Smile's voice shifted into a rhythmic, almost melodic quality the register of someone who had given this explanation before, if only to herself.

"To put it simply: be it the living or the inanimate, everything in the world possesses a soul. Every rock, every river, every splinter of wood. The soul is not awareness as we experience it, it is the inner-self and something like inclination."

She gestured toward the wooden pointer she was holding.

"Moreover my Aspect allows me to perceive those inclinations directly. When I hold an object, I can feel the shape of its soul, not as words, but as something more instinctive. Like knowing someone's mood without them telling you." Her expression became thoughtful, almost distant.

"A young tree that has been growing toward the light for fifty years has very strong feelings about that light. A stone that has been worn smooth by a river for centuries has become deeply attached to the idea of water. These are not simple things, they are convictions, held for longer than most humans live."

She paused and met his eyes.

"And I interact with them as exactly that. As people, essentially. With preferences, and stubbornness, and things they want and things they refuse."

She gestured toward the wooden pointer she was holding. "As you can see, I'm interacting with an object. When I still had my physical body, I could obviously hold things without burning through essence. But now, since I'm nothing but a soul, I have to extend a part of my own essence toward the object to both control it and maintain my appearance. It's quite exhausting, honestly, because I'm stubborn and I insist on keeping my intangible form as detailed as possible."

She held the pointer out, and the air around it shimmered faintly. Sunny watched with professional attention as something extraordinary occurred, a faint luminescence gathered around the wood, and for just a moment, the pointer seemed to become more, more present, more deliberate, as though it were leaning slightly toward her hand by choice.

"Right now, I'm not just holding this object," she explained. "I'm in communication with it. You can think of it as a very short, very simple conversation, constant, mostly wordless, but real. The wood understands that it is being used and has agreed to it. That agreement matters. Objects that are being used with their consent are significantly easier to work with, and they retain the memory of having been well-treated."

Then her form began to dissolve.

"But look."

Slowly, the shimmering form of Smile began to vanish. Her streak of silver light glided toward the wooden stick, the pointer clattered onto the desk the moment she disappeared into it.

Then, the wood began to groan and shift.

It extended, condensed, and reformed with fluid, unnatural grace.

After a few seconds, it wasn't a pointer anymore. In its place stood a tiny wooden doll, barely twenty centimeters tall, complete with a small carved ponytail and an expression that was somehow, against all physical logic, conveying cheerful smugness.

The doll raised a miniature hand and waved cheerfully at Sunny.

Still in this new, carved form, she continued her explanation.

"Right now," the doll continued conversationally, swinging her tiny legs as she took a stroll across the desk. "My consumption of essence has dropped considerably. My human form is quite detailed, I insist on that, by the way. I could use a vague, misty approximation of a shape, which would cost almost nothing, but then I'd just look like a generic ghost. So, no thank you. I have standards."

She paused, pointing at him with her miniature hand.

"And imagine if I actually encountered someone! The risk of being attacked as a spooky apparition is significantly higher than the risk of being attacked as a clearly recognizable, clearly personable, clearly charming soul. Look at you, it worked! You weren't terrified, you were simply on guard! I'm a genius!"

The little doll shifted on the desk, looking remarkably comfortable in her wooden skin.

"Anyways when I'm inhabiting an object like this? The cost is genuinely minimal. It functions like a shared occupancy. The soul of the object I'm inhabiting extends its own reserves to support both of us because my presence makes things easier for it as well. Everything it does becomes less effortful. It perceives the world with greater ease, feels lighter, more capable. We are, in essence, roommates who are both paying reduced rent."

The doll crossed her tiny arms, her wooden face somehow conveying a sense of understanding.

"Still, it's not exactly comfortable for the object, having someone else living in you. So I try not to abuse it or impose myself too much. I feel like if I chose that route, I'd become a 'bad girl,' which I'm definitely not! And I do try not to abuse this. Having someone else living in your body uninvited is uncomfortable, and I prefer to maintain good relationships with my neighbors. A soul I have treated well will accommodate me more readily the next time. A soul I have treated poorly will resist me, and they have very long memories. But..." she gestured with a tiny arm to the desks and the blackboard around them, "that doesn't quite explain how I created all of this, right?"

"It's all thanks to [Hallowed Animation]," the doll explained, her wooden voice echoing with a touch of pride. "That's the ability I gained after becoming an Awakened. It allows me to temporarily animate an object by partitioning a small piece of my own soul and forming a direct connection with it. Through that connection, I can influence it, I can reveal the shape that was already dormant within its soul, and help it become that shape."

She tilted her tiny wooden head, her ponytail swaying. She then picked up the pointer which had reformed itself in miniature beside her and tapped the desk surface.

"The key word is dormant. I cannot make something become what it fundamentally isn't. A mundane rock cannot become a jewel, no matter how much I want it to. I've tested this extensively." A small, slightly haunted pause. "After all a rock doesn't want to be a jewel, and more importantly, it cannot imagine becoming one. The imagination of the object is one important limit. After all you can't become something you cannot envision yourself as."

Sunny stared at the ground for a short instant, his mind wandering back to one specific memory. He wondered, with a strange flicker of amusement, if he should present her with his [Extraordinary Rock].

After all, that little guy was definitely not a normal rock. He wasn't sure if it truly possessed a personality, but considering it had somehow survived the clutches of the Vile Thieving Bird twice and had stubbornly followed him since the earliest days of the Forgotten Shore, it certainly seemed to possess a will of its own.

It had aspirations that clearly went far beyond simply sitting still in the dirt.

If imagination was the only limit to becoming something greater, then that pebble was already halfway to godhood. He suppressed a smirk, deciding that introducing his pet rock another day.

She set the pointer down.

A faint luminescence gathered above the wood, translucent, irregular, shaped like a tall and slightly stooped figure that wavered with the slow patience of something very old. It was not alive in any way Sunny would have recognized a moment ago, but it was undeniably present.

It regarded him, if that was the right word with the calm incuriosity of a thing that had been standing in the same place for a very long time.

"That is the soul of the stick," the doll said quietly. "What you're seeing is my [Hallowed Animation] making it perceptible. I can't hold this for long the soul of an object is not accustomed to being perceived, and it makes them uncomfortable, like being stared at in a room you thought was empty."

She tilted her carved head.

"This is how I see them, always. All of them. The desk, the board, the roots, the tree above us, the stones in the lake. All of them present, all of them patient, all of them with their own particular shapes and concerns."

The light faded slowly, and the soul retreated back into its wood.

The doll gestured with a stiff, jointed arm.

"Anyways to get back to the example of the rock. As much as I might want it to become a jewel, the object itself resists me. Sure, I can use a bit of force to make things accommodate my expectations, I can manipulate and reform a soul to an extent but generally? It doesn't work. The rock turning into a jewel is just an example, but plenty of things can't be adjusted."

She paused, a smile crossing her face.

"Oh! And I did succeed, by the way. I actually can turn a common pebble into a stunning gemstone. But it never hold. Either the rock's essence is so overwhelmed that it crumbled into fine dust, or it simply snapped back to its original, boring shape the moment I stop pushing Essence into it. Since I'm essentially messing with the fundamental order of the world and moreover this place corrects my 'mistake' very fast."

She sighed, looking around the sanctuary.

"In a way, the weaker the object and the smaller the change, the easier it is for me to manipulate. But if I were to try and warp something's core nature into something it's not, or try to control a massive, old egoist of a tree, for instance? It would resist me with everything it has. It knows what it is, and it refuses to be anything else."

The doll looked up at the towering canopy above them.

"For example the tree this classroom was built from is somewhere in between. He's old, and selfish, and deeply resistant to having his shape dictated by anyone. He and I have had quite a few disagreements over the years." A small pause. "One time, he genuinely pissed me off. I was attempting something reasonable I merely wanted to study his roots and he simply refused, repeatedly, with the specific stubbornness of someone who has lived so long they have become their own ideology. So I exercised my rights as the foremost shaper of this territory, and I changed him."

"I turned this ancient, towering, ridiculously proud patriarch of the forest into a bright pink-leafed tree. Not a soft, elegant pink, a loud, garish, almost fluorescent bubblegum pink. I twisted his branches into absurd, crooked shapes like bent wire, and redirected all his leaves to the most ridiculous places: a massive ridiculous tuft right on top like a bad wig, others dangling pathetically between his roots, and a big shameful cluster right in the middle of his trunk like some grotesque fig leaf."

She folded her tiny wooden hands, clearly pleased with herself.

"He looked like a cartoon tree that had lost a bet. For three whole days, all the neighboring souls mocked him mercilessly. The wind carried their whispers and laughter: 'Look at the pink dandy!' 'Even the weeping willows have more dignity!' He stood there trembling with fury, completely helpless. He's been significantly more cooperative ever since."

Sunny stared at her.

He was quiet for a moment.

"That is both alarming and impressive," Sunny said finally.

"I prefer the term 'creative diplomacy,'!" the doll replied pleasantly. "Anyway, as I was saying, this place specifically dislikes unnatural concept. The moment I create something that doesn't belong, a house, a wall, anything that speaks of human architecture, this place begins 'correcting' it. The souls of what I've shaped start to feel pressure from the broader environment, a kind of communal insistence that they remember what they originally were. Eventually, they give in. The correction is inevitable, the only question is how long it takes."

She paused, looking up at the towering canopy.

"It's not that I'm powerless, I can fight it, and I've succeeded before. My ability is temporary by nature, but I've learned to find backdoors... little ways to cheat the system. I won't bore you with all my failed experiments, but just to give you an idea, one time, I transformed this entire forest into an immense amusement park. Roller coasters, a ferris wheel, pirate ships, water rides... the whole works! I didn't try to outmuscle the laws of this place, I simply overwhelmed them. I flooded the environment with so much conflicting information and so many complex souls that this place couldn't process the rejection fast enough. For a few glorious hours, it was so confused by the sheer absurdity of it all that it just... gave up and let me have my fun."

She sighed, a tiny wooden sound of genuine disappointment. "But then this thing got serious and then wiped it all away after a few measly hours. It took me two days to build, and only six hours for that jerk to undo it all! I didn't even get to enjoy it properly! So now, I only manifest one thing at a time when I'm feeling particularly bored. I can play for as long as I want, and that thing knows better than to 'correct' it before I've had my fun now, "it's" particularly aware of my pettiness! Even "it" knows it's easier to just let me have my way."

Sunny stared at the talking doll, his mind momentarily blank as he processed the sheer absurdity and the terrifying implications of what he was hearing.

She's doing what?

To who?

And as a Master?

She tapped the desk again.

"For this, however, I found a compromise. Since I gave the tree a massive surge of concentrated essence, he can accelerate it's growth in ways that would have taken months naturally. In exchange, I channeled that growth into forming this classroom rather than simply expanding its root system. The sanctuary cannot easily undo growth that has already occurred, it can reset forms, but it cannot un- grow a living thing. So the wood I used is genuinely the tree's wood, it is natural, and the classroom stands on the right side of that invisible line."

She spread her tiny arms.

"The step stool, by the way, was entirely the tree's idea. I had nothing to do with that."

This was an obvious lie.

"And for example, I did say I didn't have a house to invite you to, right?" The wooden doll sighed, crossing its tiny arms. "Well, when I warp a tree into a cottage, or a mountain into a villa or even create one from scratch, as long as I keep pouring my soul into it, I win. But the moment I stop, it's only a matter of time..."

She sighed again.

"Depending on the scale, or whether this place is distracted by other experiments I'm running elsewhere, it only takes hours or days before it's gone. This classroom, for instance? It'll disappear soon. Well, 'soon' might be an overstatement, a few days, I suppose. It's insignificant, really, but since it's so close to the lake, the ruler of this place is going to scrub it away even faster."

She looked back at him.

"Of course, I'm currently using my Awakened Ability to hold it all together, but once we're done, I'll let go, and 'it' will start correcting. And I'll have you know, it's quite tedious to maintain it consciously. The longer I resist, the harder this place tries to snap reality back to its original state. Whatever lives here simply hates anything it deems 'unnatural'... or human."

The little doll shook her head, her ponytail swinging.

"But since it's still connected to his roots, when this place will eventually 'reset' my work, the energy he gained isn't lost. He gets to keep it and use it wherever he needs it most afterward. It's a win-win for both the tree and us."

The doll hopped down from the desk, pacing back and forth with its wooden stick like a disgruntled architect.

"By the way, this body I'm using right now? This staff is an accumulation of all its dead branches. I condensed every scrap of wood into a single rod. I do hope you're as strong as you look, because it's quite heavy! It's weightless for me, of course—I simply asked it to be light, and it agreed—but I suspect for you, it might carry the weight of an entire grove."

She paused, turning her wooden head to look up at the towering, silent sentinel of the tree. A mischievous tilt accompanied her gaze.

"Still, all in all, I basically provided a free cleaning service for all its rot as a bonus. You're welcome, old man!"

A beat.

"And I've tried different approach! I searched for dying trees or souls that actually really wanted to become something else. I'd give them a proposition, show them what they could be... and they were interested. They wished it from the bottom of their soul. Like a tree dreaming of becoming a house because it knew it was dying soon. Out of the kindness of its heart and because I gave it more sunlight and water in its final year, it wanted to help me. It decided to let me change him or them. Both of us were perfectly fine with the arrangement."

She threw her wooden hands up in the air.

"But then... nooooo. This place forces everything back to its original shape in a matter of hours anyway. It pisses me off! I've lost so many manors and beautiful structures because of it. So many souls wanted to help me—like a cluster of stones dreaming of becoming a magnificent statue together, or droplets of water that wanted to stay put to help the flowers grow, begging me to build a dam for them... but this place? It just hates anything 'unnatural'!"

She waved her pointer at the horizon toward the lake with a dramatic flourish of indignation.

"If I grow a new tree or give it power to reach the sky, creating a field of flowers... this place and whatever living conscience of this place is fine with it. But the moment I make a house or anything human like? 'OH, THE ABOMINATION! HOW DARE SHE DO SOMETHING SO VULGAR!' Not that the place complains to me directly, of course. We play this game of push-and-pull every single day! And in the end he just silently resets my work. But it's exhausting!"

The little doll turned to Sunny, her wooden face somehow conveying a sense of annoyance.

"And I'll have you know, this place is only beautiful because I was the one who created most of it! It's like I'm the only one doing any real work around here! Sure, it helped me play 'house' and keep my sanity... I guess... but honestly? This lake and whatever it represents might be the source of life and law in this place, but it sucks at its job!"

The doll waved its wooden stick dismissively.

"It only knows how to keep Nightmare Creatures away, and even that seems more like a passive ability than something he's actually working on. When I first arrived, there was nothing. Just a big, lame-ass green plain with a puddle in the center. Booooooring!"

She gestured to the lush landscape, the rivers, and the distant peaks.

"I created the rivers. I designed the mountain chains, the plains, the forests, the flowers... everything you see is my design. Sure, sometimes the place 'helps.' I'll complain loudly about wanting a different variety of tree, and suddenly it creates one for me. Or I'll mention that a mountain is way too heavy for me to lift, and the ground suddenly goes, 'Oh, right, perhaps I should help.' Like, dude! You live here! Of course you should help! I'm basically forcing its hand, even if it doesn't have hands."

Hah?

"But still, after everything I'm doing, apparently I still can't have a house. I was even kind enough to only ask for one!"

The wooden doll shook its tiny head in frustration. Then, with a long, dramatic sigh that sounded strangely organic for a body made of sticks, she collapsed forward. She laid flat on the desk, her wooden limbs splayed out and her face pressed against the surface.

"But no," she muffled into the wood, looking for all the world like a pouting child. "Apparently, I'm doomed to be homeless."

She rolled onto her back with a heavy sigh, lying flat against the desk while she continued to pout at the empty air.

"Anyway, another problem arises as you can imagine it's the consumption of my essence. Whenever I try to influence the world, or simply keep existing, I consume more and more of it."

She gestured vaguely at the air with her tiny wooden hand.

"Back when I was still in the waking world and I had my body, things were simpler. I could raise a wall just by touching the ground, or pull droplets from the air when we were thirsty. Creating traps, crushing enemies with stone hands, molding projectiles... those things are easy. They don't ask much of me. But these larger- scale influences? The cost is just so damn demanding. And this place... it's so heavy. It's nothing like our world. Here, the essence doesn't just flow, it resists. It feels like I'm trying to move through thick, freezing mud. It's as if whatever lived here, or whatever still exists in the roots of this land, is actively pushing back against my will. Every inch of this paradise cost me years of constant, agonizing effort to carve out. But then again," she added with a defiant tilt of her chin, "I've always been a stubborn girl. If the world wants to resist me, fine! I'll just push harder!"

The doll leaned back and looked at the sky, its wooden features momentarily contemplative.

"But I suppose I can understand it. If I suddenly asked a multitude of souls to become something they aren't, something they don't believe they can be, or simply something they aren't ready for, of course they'd fight back. I'm forcing their hand, and the stronger they are, the harder they resist. I'd do the same in their place. Still, after everything I've been through here, I know exactly how to bend a place like this to my will. It's all about compromise, a bit of negotiation here and there. Usually, they're either terrible at bargaining, or I'm just way too damn good at it."

She let out a short, hollow laugh.

"It used to be pricey and exhausting... but I grew stronger because of it. I bet you can relate to that, can't you?"

Then, the wooden doll looked Sunny straight in the eye, its voice turning smug.

Sunny nodded slowly, a wry, fleeting shadow of a smile touching his lips.

"I can," he said, his voice quiet but heavy with the weight of his own journey. "In my experience, the things that try the hardest to break you are usually the ones that end up paying for your next step forward. So yes... I understand the price perfectly."

"HEXactly! And then, I have my Ascended Ability! A veritable cheat code, I bet you will be jealous! It's called [Unbound]. My soul is no longer a closed circuit, it is free to draw from both my own reserves and the very essence permeating the world around me. It allows me to siphon enough energy from the environment itself to bypass almost any limitation."

She paused, tapping her tiny wooden fingers on the desk.

"It's as if I suddenly have an infinite well of essence at my disposal. But more importantly? It gives me so much more weight at the negotiation table. Of course, I had to train like a madwoman to master it, but now? Negotiating with the world has become as natural as breathing. It's effortless, an integral part of who I am. That's why maintaining a good reputation is everything. If the environment knows you, respects you... it stops resisting. To me, this entire vicinity isn't just terrain, it's one massive, overflowing soul that I've befriended, and I can tap into it whenever I please."

Sunny felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the cool lake breeze. He stared at the small wooden doll, his mind frantically connecting the dots.

Isn't this the definition of....

"Yes, I know exactly what you're thinking, it's a battery. And yes, it is," the doll said, its wooden voice sounding remarkably proud. "Normally, back when I was a Sleeper or an Awakened, I could only leave my body for a few dozen minutes, maybe one or two hour at most, and I had to stay within the immediate periphery of my physical self. The further I wandered, the more it cost me and I was limited. But the moment I became a Master? That cost suddenly became incredibly, wonderfully cheap."

The wooden doll hopped onto the edge of the desk, gesturing toward the horizon.

"[Unbound] is pretty self-explanatory, after all! I could finally leave my body for long journeys, exploring for hours on end. It wasn't always a merry journey, but it was far less harrowing than before. And that's because now the world itself seems to obey me."

With that final remark, the little doll shimmered and dissolved. The silver light flowed out of the wood, which reformed instantly back into the glowing long pointer as it clattered onto the desk.

Smile flickered back into her intangible soul form, but she didn't remain standing.

Instead, she drifted toward her magnificent chair, lounging into it with the effortless grace of a queen concluding a particularly amusing audience. She looked perfectly at home in that regal seat, "chilling" as if the throne had been shaped specifically for her spirit.

"So, anyway, to resume..."

She leaned back, her translucent features stretching into a self-satisfied grin.

Let me resume too...

Sunny thought, his heart hammering against his ribs in a way it hadn't done in years.

"I'm probably one of the strongest Master you've ever seen," she continued, her wooden head tilting with a hint of vanity. "Because the world itself is my battery. This world recognizes me as... well, no, to be honest it simply loves me! Sorry to say it, Teacher, but it seems I'm the favorite child! Not that I want to fight you, of course, but fighting me would be like fighting someone with an unlimited tap into the world's own supply. I doubt any other Master could pull that off!"

Transcendence, Sunny noted mentally.

She wasn't just using essence, she had harmonized her soul with the environment to a degree that most Saints could only dream of. It was a terrifyingly elegant loop, she wasn't just existing within the world she had become an extension of its internal logic. To defeat her here would be like trying to drain the ocean with a cup while the tide was coming in.

"I live here, and I'm essentially the ruler of this place," she chirped, lounging even deeper into her magnificent chair. "So, while I know I could not put up a fight against someone like you, you have to consider one thing: everyone here loves me. The forest, the rivers, the flowers, the very ground you walk on, they are my follower. I'm the one who fostered them, accelerated their growth, and made them feel cherished. Fighting me isn't just fighting a Master, it's fighting a part of this world at once."

Rulership, Sunny's mind added grimly.

She hasn't just been surviving here. She has been governing. She has established a territory, a hierarchy, a network of allegiances built over thirty years of careful, consistent relationship. She had established a hierarchy. She wasn't just a guest in the sanctuary; she was governing it. She had cultivated a population of 'subjects' that answered to her wi— Will, turning a passive zone into a living, breathing extension of her own authority.

She huffed, a playful yet slightly bitter pout forming on her ghostly features.

"Or, if you want to be mean about it, you could say I'm just a glorified landscaper working for a 'black company,' deluding herself into thinking she's in charge. But if you say that, I'll cry, and you'll definitely regret it! After all I do everything here while the supposed CEO is a worthless guy who couldn't care less and barely lifts a finger, that bastard! Ugh, damn it! I'm getting influenced by you and your habit of calling everyone a bastard! Curse you, Teacher!"

A little pause.

Sunny winced, a sudden wave of anxiety washing over him. If Nephis ever found out he was teaching her own mother his own colorful language, he was definitely going to get a lecture by her.

"Anyways since I've been here long enough to understand how to animate soul, change their forms, and reform the world... well, being an expert at manipulating souls is even more of a second nature to me now. Sure, I was good before, but now? I've trained for decades, every single day, without a moment's rest. Because even when I wanted to relax, I had to create my own bed or my own sources of amusement. And even when I get reprimanded by the 'laws' of this place, I know how to hold my ground. I know how to fight back, push back, and make the world accommodate me!"

Authority, Sunny realized, his fist tightening at his side.

She wasn't just using an Aspect anymore, she was imposing her personal Law onto the world. She had spent so much time refining her Will against this place resistance that she had learned how to overwrite reality with her own.

"Like I said, I grew this strong because I've been fighting this place every day for decades. It doesn't want things to change, and every time I'm on the threshold of winning, it pushes back! But I don't want to be evicted, so I kindly stop. Out of the kindness of my heart, I stop applying force and let it have its little victory. Though, I swear... if you hadn't shown up, I might have just evicted the 'owner' myself in a few years. I bet everyone here would love it, anyway. You could even say they're begging me to lead a coup!"

Defiance... Sunny concluded, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck.

That was the final step.

The Will to challenge something greater than oneself and succeed. In her own way, she wasn't just surviving, she was laying siege to a Territorial Domain... or at least the lingering echoes of a dead one and one of the Sacred Rank at that.

She was threatening to overwrite its very foundations and make it her own.

It might not have been enough to truly qualify as an act of Supreme Defiance considering they were within the confines of a Nightmare but the mere fact that she was winning a tug-of-war against the laws of this world as a mere Master was sheer madness.

Sunny stared at her.

"I understand how souls work in ways that took me decades and an infinite number of failures to accumulate. I know how to ask, when to push, when to apologize and wait. I know how to find the backdoor in every refusal."

Smile folded her translucent arms, looking down at him from her magnificent throne of roots with a bright, innocent smile.

"So, all in all," she said pleasantly, "I'm quite good, aren't I?"

That is a fucking understatement.