Chapter Text
Standing in front of the towering red gates, Sunny was surprised to find a second sleeper. She had a detached look on her face, seeming to be apart from the world, almost lonely, but confident. Her short silver hair was split by a pair of headphones, seemingly the only item she had with her. Her grey eyes were on Sunny, but she seemed to have no interest in starting a conversation.
Sunny was excited today, not only had he achieved the impossible with his Divine rank aspect, he had, as Master Jet had told him, gained the greatest advantage an outskirts rat could hope for: an entire year at the academy where he could recover from his malnourishment, learn proper combat techniques, and most importantly, learn of the dangers of the dream realm in the highly recommended Wilderness Survival class.
That being said, Sunny called out to his fellow sleeper before he could help himself.
“Hey!”
With what to Sunny’s ear sounded to be indifference, she responded:
“Hello. What is your purpose in speaking with me?
Having cleared his head after the brief moment, Sunny was looking to end their conversation before his treacherous tongue could slip. Fortunately, his answer was much more pleasant than when he had first gained his flaw.
“You know, just trying to make connections. No one can survive alone in the dream realm, or so I've heard, so I was hoping we could be allies.”
“There is an entire year to make allies.”
“Its good to get off to a strong start. I'm Sunless, but you can call me Sunny.”
“Understood. Nephis.”
After their brief conversation, silence remained as the gate descended and they made their way to the sleeper compound where they met a staff member.
“Ah! Quite early, are we? You’re all the better for it. We’ll get you properly oriented at the induction ceremony- it’ll be a bit more than a week, on the first. Classes start after that. Until then, well, you'll get access to the training facilities and your dorms. Ah, and the cafeteria is always open. It's free, kid.”
The last comment was directed at Sunny, and while it was said in a joking manner, Sunny was grateful for the reassurance. The two sleepers split into the male and female dorms from there, both unloading their nigh-nonexistent belongings and changing into the academy provided clothing. Sunny went on to the cafeteria, where he learned that food could taste infinitely better than he had ever imagined, and thought that getting infected by the nightmare spell was more than worth it if he could eat like this for a year. While eating, he mulled over his runes. Upon returning to his bedroom, he immediately summoned the Puppeteer’s Shroud. After finishing with the armour, he prodded his shadow for a bit, before finally finding out his ability to send it away and scout through it. After practicing to get more comfortable with it for the rest of the day, he finally fell asleep, relishing having his own room and a proper bed for the first time in his life.
After visiting the nigh-empty cafeteria in the morning, Sunny decided to make his way to the training arena. Master Jet had advised him that his first priorities should be wilderness survival studies and increasing his physical fitness, but he had plenty of time for both of those and was more excited to pick up a weapon. Before entering the arena he had already found the silver haired woman, Nephis, practicing her swordsmanship. Slipping quietly inside and sticking to the shadows, he had almost made it to the practice weapons before the woman noticed him.
Nephis didn’t speak, but definitely kept an eye on him while practicing, almost like she thought sunny would take a swing at her at any moment. Sunny noticed this but just thought the woman was paranoid, figuring it was due to her first nightmare. Sunny soon realised that he had no idea what to do with his sword besides swinging it wildly, so he decided to try to mimic Nephis’ movements. She looked skilled enough, and copying someone else’s movements felt natural somehow. After noticing- which was almost immediately- Nephis turned to face him.
“Were you intending to learn the sword by copying me?”
“Yes.” Sunny replied, embarrassed.
“Did you think I would let you do that?” Her head tilted. It seemed she was genuinely curious.
“Yes?” Sunny suddenly became worried he had broken some weird rule that the webtoons had failed to mention.
“Swing your sword”
Sunny swung his sword in his best, but still very poor, imitation of what he had briefly seen Nephis doing. The sword was an odachi, though Sunny would not have known that if not for the labels on the weapon rack. He had chosen it because it looked the coolest out of the selection.
“Come here.”
Sunny obeyed silently, hoping that he might be able to gain something from the encounter, and feeling relatively safe while still being inside the academy. What happened when he got close though, was unexpected. Nephis poked him twice, once in the arm and the other in the ribs. She then abruptly picked him up by the back of the neck with one hand, before setting him down gently.
“Alright. I will teach you.”
***
Today was only her fifth day here, but Nephis found herself looking forward to her year at the academy. The main reason was clear: her disciple. While she was never one for social interaction, she still recognized that allies were important, both in the dream realm and the waking world. Thus, she was excited to find someone who she judged to be trustworthy- or, at least more trustworthy than anyone else in the academy could ever be.
Nephis had a few reasons to trust the boy. The first was the timing of their first meeting. It had been mere hours since any sleeper would have been called to the dream realm for the winter solstice, meaning he had started his first nightmare days before the winter solstice. The great clans wouldn’t be able to pull this off if they were trying to make an assassin for her- too many lives would be wasted sending sleepers who hadn’t been able to practice their aspect abilities into the winter solstice. Another part of this was that nobody knew that Nephis was going to experience her first nightmare when she did. She had been meticulous about hiding the symptoms, waiting for the last possible moment to turn herself over to the police, so even if the Great clans had learned about it at that moment, they wouldn't have been able to mobilize the required numbers to produce a sleeper so early.
The most damning piece of evidence was the boy’s weakness. He was incredibly frail, his lifelong malnourishment visible at a glance, his weight so far below healthy she could pick him up like a kitten, and to top it all off she was more than a head taller than him. If they ever came to blows she would crush him several times over due to the sheer difference in strength, even if you disregarded skill. And if you considered skill, it became even more one-sided. Nephis had already confirmed that he was not faking his incompetence, as a sleeper would need to be more capable than her at her own battle style to be able to make the authentic mistakes that he did. And that would be impossible, especially for someone who also had to train as an assassin, and maintain a state of starvation for their entire life.
Combining these two, it was clear to her that it was impossible for the boy to be an assassin, which was why she decided to make him an ally. Of course, the boy could be bribed or threatened, but what would be the point? If the Great clans wanted to kill her in the waking world, they would do better getting an awakened from the academy, or at least a stronger sleeper to do the job, and the chance of them meeting in the dream realm was miniscule at best. Not to mention it would be impossible for the boy to grow strong enough to beat her anytime soon.
Nephis enjoyed having a disciple. She had thought she would spend the whole year training her swordsmanship, studying a little, and having to be on guard against every person she interacted with. In actuality, she spent a lot of time with Sunny, mostly instructing his strength training or his diet, but sometimes instructing him with the blade. She spent the rest training to be able to bear her flaw, which only made the breaks with Sunny more appreciated. And since Nephis was a decisive woman and had decided to trust Sunny for now, she was showing him her true swordsmanship. She was also pleasantly surprised by his ability to learn it, as his rate of growth far exceeded what she could have expected from him.
Nephis sat with Sunny during lunch. It only made sense, as they would enter and exit the cafeteria together, and the cafeteria had become packed in the past few days. After every winter solstice, any family who could afford it would hire a Saint to infect their children with the nightmare spell at the optimal time, so the couple days after the solstice were always when the highest volume of sleepers came flooding into the academy. That being said, she had made sure that no one else sat at her and Sunny’s table, no matter how many approached her.
***
After Sunny’s first training session with Nephis, he’d been called in to talk about his aspect. Having been warned about this by Master Jet he had already developed a plan: Pretend to be crazy. Unfortunately, there had been nobody to perform to so he couldn’t build up a reputation as crazy. Thus he had spent a bit of time thinking through a convincing script for the awakened.
“Fine, wondrous day! Greetings, little awakened! Standing before you is the greatest sleeper to ever live, though I can’t tell you why, it's a very big secret. A secret only shared by myself and the dead gods! Oh! If you were wondering about my aspect, It's only of the Divine rank. It's very disappointing, no?
“How about you take a seat. Remember, all questions are optional, and we would prefer no response to a lie.” The awakened said with a sigh.
Sunny calmly kicked the indicated chair away before lying down on his back perpendicular to the man, and began speaking loudly and rapidly.
“Yes! Of course! No, no, I mean! The questions are not optional, and I would never lie to you. But fear not! I will answer any query that you might have before you even ask it! As already stated, I have a divine rank aspect! I totally most definitely actually have a divine rank aspect! You can trust me on that, as I never lie! Speaking of lying, my flaw actually does not make me lie. No, no, my flaw would never make me lie. Also, my flaw has nothing to do with the fact that I am lying on the ground instead of sitting down as you had asked me. Anyways, as I stated, I'm just about the most special sleeper ever, really everything about me is unique, and there is a whole bunch about me that you don’t know. I hope you catch my meaning? Is it fine for me to leave?“
The awakened simply sighed and motioned that Sunny was fine to leave.
“Now, to be not lying with you Mr. Awakened, despite my flaw, I only had the worst intentions with this meaning.”
Sunny was exhausted after putting on such a performance, and was thankfully able to make his way to a quiet breakfast with Nephis.
Sunny felt conflicted about Nephis. She was just a sleeper, but had already decided to make herself his teacher, before even the teachers had started teaching. He was grateful for her efforts, but it still felt a little demeaning to be beneath your supposed equal. He was also a bit vexed by the way they kept getting approached by legacies. It had only happened a couple times so far, but they would always approach Nephis, and anyone else was too scared to come to their table. Not that he minded, as he had found his silent meals with Nephis quite enjoyable. Only because it was nice to be able to eat proper meals unbothered, there were definitely no other reasons.
That being said, he was mainly grateful for her teaching. She had demonstrated more than enough skill, and he was more than willing to learn, so they were very efficient as a master and disciple. Most of their time together was spent in silence, only broken by Neph’s occasional advice or correction. But today was the first of January, so Nephis brought up something else:
“What classes are you going to take? The selection is today.”
“Ah, I was planning on taking Wilderness Survival and a combat class, but I wasn’t sure which. And you?”
“Just a combat class. I was going to spend most of my time practicing on my own. Wilderness Survival?”
“Yeah, It was greatly recommended by the awakened who watched over me during my first nightmare. Since I grew up in the outskirts, I had no chance to learn anything like making a fire or what food is safe to eat, so I’d be doomed if I entered the dream realm with only what I know now. And sorry for eating into your solo-practice time.”
Nephis frowned, “No, it is fine. Also, join the same combat class as me.”
And just like that, they fell into silence again.
The induction ceremony came and went, just as class selection did, and eventually he found himself in a classroom with only two other people: An aging man with messy gray and bushy eyebrows standing at the front of the class, clearly the teacher, and visibly somewhat upset about something. And Nephis.
“Welcome, welcome. I’m Awakened Julius, but you should call me Teacher Julias. Take a seat. Your name?”
“It’s Sunless”
“An ominous name, though that's not a bad thing.”
“Um... Teacher Julias, Is this the correct time and room for wilderness survival?”
“Yes, as you can see a fellow student of yours is here already.” The gray haired man indicated Nephis.
Sunny took a seat next to Nephis, who was in the very front of the class, and they listened as the man grumbled a bit about only getting two students because the others were two worried about swinging fists and swords, provoking a slight reddening of the ears from Nephis, before proclaiming to them that he would make them the most knowledgeable sleepers before the year ended, and jumping into the lessons.
***
Nephis was gaining more from the wilderness survival class than she had expected. Of course, her decision to join the class had been made after calculations about how much information she had forgotten over the years, and how much new information about the areas of the dream realm and the nightmare creatures in them had been discovered in the year since she was last educated on the subject. It, in fact, had nothing to do with the fact that she would be able to spend more time with Sunny.
What Nephis hadn’t calculated was the fact that she and Sunny would be the only two students in the class, and were somehow still sitting shoulder to shoulder in the otherwise empty classroom. Or that Sunny would question why she was in the class. Thankfully, he had accepted her explanation easily, but Teacher Julias had seemed to see through her, considering his knowing smirk. Not that there was anything to be seen through, of course.
After wilderness survival ended, Nephis was glad to learn that Sunny had heeded her advice to join the same combat class. This arrangement was simply optimal for her to teach Sunny best. So they walked together to the class, which was full of students, making a wonderful contrast to wilderness survival. It also meant that they had to sit shoulder-to-shoulder again.
She was proud to see Sunny score an 11 on the punch test. When she had first taken him as a student she had tested him with the same machine, and he had only gotten a nine, but she had improved his form and he had put on a bit of weight since then. When combat came, she forced Sunny to be the first volunteer, where he found himself against a man easily twice his size. Sunny lost, but he put up a good fight, and his opponent had used his aspect while Sunny hadn’t. That same opponent went on to beat the next opponent while Nephis explained Sunny’s mistakes to him.
Then, Nephis entered the arena. One by one, she dismantled every opponent who stepped up using only her superior swordplay. She also noticed Sunny’s gaze, shocked by her skill, proud to be learning it. Her final opponent was a legacy, and had put up a decent fight by using their aspect, but Nephis still had the advantage, and eventually stood the winner. The instructor, a man named Instructor Stone, the same who had given the speech at the induction ceremony, only gave Nephis a nod.
She returned to Sunny, helping the boy understand the reasons behind her decisions in her fights and explaining how to look for the opportunities she had used. And while the other sleepers were making their way to the showers, she took Sunny to an empty dojo to help him consolidate what he’d learned and continue their training. Nowadays, he mostly knew what to do without her guidance, it had become a matter of repetition, so Nephis would secretly practice with her aspect between their spars. She still had to go very easy in the spars, but Sunny was gradually catching up.
***
Sunny was confused. Today, rankings for the class came out. Nephis was number one, that much he had expected, and while he was surprised to learn that she had a true name, he didn’t find it unreasonable. He knew better than anyone that sleepers could have true names. What he was confused about was why Nephis was helping him. Everything came with a price, nobody would help somebody else for nothing. But he had nothing to give to Nephis. If she had spent less time with him, and had interacted with the other students more, he would have assumed she just wanted to make allies for the winter solstice. But after rankings came out and everybody realised she was from the Immortal Flame clan, plenty of sleepers stronger than Sunny had tried to approach Nephis, but she was just as cold to all of them.
Well, cold wasn’t exactly right. She was cold, but mostly she was just awkward, which made her seem especially cold to those who were unaware. Which was everybody but Sunny. When he had figured this out, Sunny had almost burst out laughing.
Unfortunately, figuring out that she didn’t want or need allies had only perplexed Sunny further. No matter how hard he thought, he still came to the conclusion that there was nothing that Nephis could gain from him. In fact, he had been worried about her motive from the second she’d said she would train him. This scared Sunny, as his mind went further and further into the ominous possibilities. Perhaps she was going to cannibalize him as part of her aspect. Maybe she would benefit more from it the stronger he was, so she was teaching him and making him exercise. This was one of the more ridiculous ideas he’d thought of, but all the others were of a similar premise. She would almost never let him out of her sight, she had even joined Wilderness Survival and made him join the same class as her. Sunny knew he couldn’t fight her, but he still tried to keep his guard up while performing his katas, and was particularly fearful during their spars. Eventually, in the middle of a spar, she noticed.
“What is distracting you?”
Sunny paled, something hard to do for one of his complexion, and put out as little of an answer as his flaw would allow:
“You.”
“M-me?” Nephis’ ears turned red. “W-What do you mean?”
“I was wondering why you had decided to help me.” Sunny took a few careful steps back, watching for any sign of an attack.
Nephis frowned a little at his explanation, her expression showing both a bit of sadness and anger, which Sunny took to mean that his concerns had somehow been true. Immediately, he bolted for the door, but they were in the middle of the dojo, and Nephis ran with an Inhuman speed, reaching the door before him.
‘She’s using her aspect’ Sunny realized , cursing himself for not thinking to do the same.
In an instant, his shadow had wrapped around him, and he swung his practice sword at Nephis, more focused now than he ever had been before. At the same time, white sparks formed around him as he summoned Puppeteer’s Shroud.
***
The past few minutes kept running through Nephis’ mind. It had only been a standard spar with sunny, so why had things gone so bad? The first thing that she thought of was that this had been orchestrated by the Great clans in order to prod her aspect. That they had bribed Sunny with something- likely that awakened armour- in order to make him act the way he had. But that explanation didn’t make sense to Nephis, as there was no guarantee that she would use her aspect if Sunny ran away, and Sunny’s words and actions showed he definitely wasn’t trying to start a fight. It was much more like he was scared of her, though she had no idea why.
Eventually, Sunny woke up- she had knocked him unconscious earlier- and she immediately confirmed that he was scared of her. His eyes moved like he was cornered prey and she was the predator. He spoke up first:
“W-What do you want from me?” His eyes continued to dart around, but he kept his body still, like he thought any movement would make her pounce.
Nephis simply tilted her head. “What do you think I want from you?”
Sunny shook his head in reply. “ I don’t know. But there is no such thing as free lunch; you’ve helped me too much, there must have been a reason, and judging by how well you’ve hidden it, it must be quite sinister.”
“I just want to make allies, same as you did when we first met.”
Sunny shook his head again, “I’m not a fool, Neph. If you wanted to make allies there were plenty of chances. But you never took them. Just tell me, Nephis. You already have me trapped here, and you’ve proven I can’t run. What are you going to do to me?” his voice began to tremble near the end.
Nephis felt bad for the poor boy. To think that he would be even less trusting than her, It told of his upbringing.
She sat down in front of him, trying to look and sound as disarming as she could:
“I really just wanted to be allies with you, and so I decided to help you get stronger. That's it.”
“No, Neph, that's not it. Why me and no one else? Why join wilderness survival? Why stop me from leaving just now?” Sunny began to raise his voice, anger and indignance showing.
“It’s only you because you're the only one who could be trusted.”
“Then explain it. I’m the only one who can be trusted? Everybody here is equally strangers to each other. I’m just as trustworthy as the next. And you still haven’t explained about Wilderness Survival or trapping me here.”
Nephis really felt the headache now. Why couldn’t the boy, who was so smart about everything else, understand that she just wanted to help him?!
“I kept you here so I could explain. I already told why I joined wilderness survival, on the first day of class. I can trust you... I can trust you because I have enemies, but because you're from the outskirts, among other things, you can’t be one of them.”
“Among other things? And you have enemies, so much so that you are worried about every student in the academy? It still doesn't explain why you have spent so much time with me.”
Nephis was able to recognize the validity of his first two points, but only felt a mix of emotion at the third. Why didn’t he understand? Did she really have to explain to him?
“The other indicators... You are too weak, and you woke up too soon after the solstice. And yes, it is a risk to make allies with any other of the students, and there is not much to be gained in return.”
“And what have you done to have so many enemies? And I’ve spent damn near every moment with you, but never once saw anyone do anything that would indicate hostility toward you. I want to trust you, Neph, but you're not making it easy.”
Now, Nephis was having to consider how much she could trust Sunny. What if he had already been brought over by the Great clans, and was here to figure out how much she knew? ‘No’, she thought, ‘They tried to kill me in the past, they don’t care how much I know, they want me dead regardless. Besides, I’ve already decided to make Sunny my... ally. But telling him everything can still wait.’
“I’ve done nothing to make enemies. However, any large clan will have them, and I’m the only heir to the Immortal Flame clan, and the clan has no Saints to ward off those enemies. They won’t show hostility inside the academy, there are two many neutral awakened here to get away with a murder, so they would pretend to be allies until we reach the dream realm, where they would stab me in the back.”
***
As Sunny had mentioned, he wanted to trust Nephis. She had done a lot to help him ever since entering the academy, too much in fact, and she had given him good reasons for him to be the only one she interacted with. There was just one thing still troubling him:
“You still haven't explained why you spent so much time with me, even joining Wilderness Survival.”
Nephis took a moment to respond. During her pause, her ears had again shaded slightly.
“Why were you fine with spending so much time with me?”
Sunny understood she was implying that she simply had no reason not to be with him, and would rather be with him than be alone, but Sunny found this hard to accept.
“You helped me. I didn’t help you.”
Almost invisible to Sunny, and certainly invisible to anyone else, annoyance appeared on Nephis’ face.
“Is that it? Also, I had to make sure that you would be an ally, not just that you could be one.”
“N-no, that's not all.”
“Good.”
Sunny still didn’t trust her completely, he never trusted anyone completely, but he was satisfied for now that she wasn’t actively plotting against him. In fact, he felt like he was possibly the luckiest outskirts rat in the city, as with Neph as a teacher and ally, the academy’s support, and his own divine rank aspect he felt he had a pretty good shot in the world of awakeneds. Perhaps one day he could open his own business, maybe dealing in memories or running a cafe, and live a nice quiet life. Maybe he would even have a wife and kids at the time.
Sunny suddenly realised that he was still looking at Nephis, who was right in front of him, and instantly felt his face turn bright, tomato red.
‘No, no, no, I can’t even think of that. We quite literally could not be of social classes further apart.’
Shaking his head to clear his mind, Sunny said:
“Did you want to continue practicing? I’m sorry.”
“Yes, we will spar.”
A smile touched the corner of Nephis’ lips. She did not go easy on him.