20 - Into the Darkness
Outside of a large, towering city, a young boy can be seen walking through the area. His red hair swayed in the soft sea breeze, and his amber eyes glowed in the dark of night. Strangely enough, his face did not carry any type of expression.
His eyes were completely empty.
A small puddle slowly followed him. If one were to look behind the boy, they would have seen the corpses of horrific creatures. He did not carry any weapons, but he didn't need any.
After all, he is the weapon.
His empty gaze of steel scanned the area. It seemed that there were not any more abominations around. He relaxed, and suddenly, the sound of steel grinding against itself can be heard.
The boy's arm was previously in the shape of a sword, and was currently reverting to a human arm. The steel started to distort, and after a few seconds, it had become flesh and skin.
The boy turned to look at the puddle. He didn't bother to plaster a mask of normalcy on his face, and spoke with the same empty gaze.
"Let's go home."
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Shirou was walking through the Dark City. He encountered some Nightmare Creatures on the way, but he was able to easily dispatch them. Awakened or Fallen, Monster or Demon. It did not matter, as they were all equal to the edge of his blade.
Shirou saw a large cathedral, and decided to pay a certain someone a visit.
Shirou walked up to the side of the wall and placed his foot on it. He pulled on his foot, and now he was standing on the wall. He had created spikes to protrude from his feet, allowing him to scale the building.
It had been quite difficult when he first created this trick, but now he was able to casually stroll up the building. Once he reached a balcony, he hopped on it before reverting his feet back to normal.
Once he walked into the room, an obsidian blade had appeared from the shadows. Shirou leaned back before catching the blade with his steel hands.
"It's just me."
Once he said those words, the sword dissapeared in sparks of white. The figure in the shadows stepped out into the open.
"What the hell?! If you wanted to visit, you could have just knocked!"
"You don't have a door to your balcony."
"…Screw you."
Shirou let out a small smile for the first time since he had woken up that morning. He had spent the entire day in his "sword" mindset, as he was trying to kill as many Nightmare Creatures as possible while also looking for anyone that was in danger.
Luckily, he hadn't seen anybody while he was walking the perimeter of the Dark City. However, that could have meant that they had just died before he got to them.
Shirou decided that he he should ignore those thoughts, and listened to what Sunny was saying.
"Oh, I became a Monster a week ago. I had even gotten myself another echo! How do you like that?!"
It seemed that Sunny was bragging about his recent accomplishments, and although Shirou's brow twitched at hearing about a second echo, he wasn't too dissapointed, as he was currently almost an Awakened Demon.
It turned out that Sunny had a similar ability to Shirou, in which he can transform echoes into Shadow Creatures. The Carapace Scavenger had become even more useful than before, as it was able to strike out from Sunny's shadow without posing much risk to itself.
Shirou thought that the sight of a large pincer coming out of the shadows was quite menacing.
With the power of the Carapace Scavenger, Sunny was able to gain a lot of shadow fragments over the course of four months, finally becoming a Monster.
Although Shirou was slightly jealous of Sunny gaining another echo before him, he felt that Ingvild was powerful enough to make up for that.
She was currently an Awakened Monster after all.
This confirmed Shirou's theory that Divine Aspect users could gain multiple soul cores. Shirou guessed that his Blades could only grow stronger the same way they had in life. For example, if one of his Blades was a Nightmare Creature, they would be able descend into corruption while being able to grow multiple cores. If it was a human, they would be able to increase in rank, but not class. The only exception would be humans with Divine Aspects, who would be able to increase their soul cores.
On the other hand, Sunny most likely allows all types of beings to increase in power. It probably had to do with how shadows were ever changing.
As the two of them talked, Shirou learned that Sunny wasn't able to gain the prompt to turn his newest echo, Stone Saint, into a shadow before he had gotten his new core. It seemed that the amount of Blades and Shadows they were able to use were limited by the amount of soul cores they had.
Once they had reached their peak, they would could only have seven.
"I met this guy called Kai. Apparently, he's some sort of famous singer or musician in the Waking World. Nephis called him Night or something."
Shirou snapped his head towards Sunny. He had a dangerous glint in his eyes.
Sunny gulped.
"By any chance Sunny, did you happen to say Night? Does he happen to be "cool" and "handsome" when you saw him?"
"Uh… I don't know about cool, but I guess he looked objectively attractive?"
"I see…"
Shirou looked out the balcony with raw, unbridled determination.
"That bastard better not let me see him…"
Sunny didn't know why Shirou was acting like this, but decided to quickly change the subject.
"Let's forget about Kai for now! You know that guy that patrols this place?"
Shirou glanced back at Sunny with a curious expression.
"The black knight? Yeah, I remember him."
There was a Nightmare Creature who patrolled the ground floor of the cathedral. It never attacked anything outside of it, but if something got too close, it would immediately kill it.
It was a Fallen Devil.
Once a Nightmare Creature became a Devil, it would usually gain an ability. This made the gap between a Demon and a Devil much larger.
Most Sleepers have never killed a Fallen Demon, and if they did, they barely lived to tell the tale. A Devil was even worse, as it could probably defeat 20 Sleepers at the same time, without any struggle whatsoever.
However, Shirou and Sunny were the exception.
Not only were they both Divine Aspect users, but they also had two cores. Shirou's Blade was another Divine Aspect user, and was an Awakened Monster. Sunny had an Awakened Beast and an Awakened Monster on his side, and they both had an affinity with shadows.
Sunny smirked.
"I'll be having a guest staying over soon, so I wanted to ask if you wanted to help me with pest control."
"…Won't more Nightmare Creatures come here without the knight to guard the cathedral?"
"…I want to see what's in the basement before she gets here."
"…Of course you just wanted to check out the basement. Fine, let's go challenge him to a five-on-one."
"You mean four?"
"I know what I said."
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As Shirou and Sunny walked out of the room to look down at the Fallen Devil, Shirou noticed that Sunny's shadow was split in two. He saw them both move on their own, giving him the impression that Sunny can use them both to reinforce himself.
…Why don't I get something like that?
Shirou was dismayed at the unfairness of the world.
The Fallen Devil was completely enshrouded in black armor. It completely dissapeared in the darkness. Not even Sunny could see it due to the fact that it was elemental darkness.
Shirou had a Memory for this situation, so they were not to have to fight it blind.
Since the knight wielded a sword, Shirou was able to discern quite a lot from it's fighting style.
He then noticed something strange. He turned towards Sunny.
"The sword seems to be the source of it's power."
"Yeah, I thought so. I'm going to make Saint break the sword."
Shirou nodded.
"…So, are you going to go down there?"
"…I thought you would go first."
The pair looked at each other before smirking. They both hopped over the railing and dropped down to where the Fallen Devil was. Shirou immediately summoned a lantern with a green flame in the middle.
Instead of creating a light source, the lantern simply removed the darkness from the area. The [Ghost Consumer] was a memory that allowed him to absorb unnatural darkness from a certain area. Sunny's two shadows were not removed. Although they had supernatural abilities, the shadows themselves were considered as a simple extension of Sunny's body, so they couldn't be removed.
Once the darkness was devoured, the Fallen Devil had become visible. It immediately rushed towards them, which caused Shirou and Sunny to summon their weapons.
Shirou did not summon the [Washing Pole], but rather, a bow of the Ascended rank.
Memory Name: [Gandiva]
Memory Rank: [Ascended]
Memory Tier: III
Memory Type: Weapon
Memory Description: [Until he ceases to exist, he shall always find solace in destruction.]
Memory Enchantments: [Soul Arrow], [Flame Piercer].
The bow in Shirou's hands had a strange shape. In it's center, it coiled outwards into a spiral. There was a blue flame that served as the string of the bow.
The Fallen Devil had rocketed towards them at terrible speed. Shirou pulled the string, causing an azure arrow made of flames to appear. Once he released, the arrow had hit the Devil through the slit in it's helmet. However, the Demon simply continued to rush towards Shirou and Sunny.
Sunny pointed upwards.
"There are shadows above you too."
A moment later, the Carapace Scavenger had landed onto the Fallen Devil. It had kneeled on the ground, barely able to keep standing under the weight of the Scavenger.
Shirou kept shooting arrows at the Fallen Devil. He was able to keep shooting due to the [Soul Arrow] enchantment. As long as he had soul essence, he would never run out.
Blue flames started to spread across it's body, caused by the [Flame Piercer] enchantment. As long as the arrows weren't removed from the Devil, it would continue to slowly burn alive.
The Devil was able to escape from under the Scavenger, but was immediately stabbed by the [Midnight Shard] that Shirou had given Sunny. It seemed to have no effect, as it started to lash out with it's sword. Sunny jumped back with surprising agility and nimbleness.
The Fallen Devil started to protect it's body, and started to leave it's sword unprotected.
That was it's biggest mistake.
A large woman made of stone had exited the Devil's shadow, and immediately stepped onto it's sword. She lifted her weapon, and struck the blade. With the strength of both of Sunny's shadows augmenting her strength, the blade immediately shattered.
The darkness inside the Devil boiled, before expanding outwards. It could only reach towards a single point however, as the [Ghost Consumer] devoured the darkness, leaving nothing behind.
The Devil's armor rusted away, showing the ghostly figure beneath the armor. It turned towards Saint and radiated absolute bloodlust.
The devil wrapped it's hands around the shadow's neck. As it strangled her, a net of cracks started to appear. She stared down at the Devil in disdain, before dropping her shield and sword. She raised her hands and crushed it's wrists.
A harrowing scream could be heard throughout the cathedral, as the burning devil tried to swipe it's claws at the statue. She dodged with nimble grace, as it looked up at the Devil leaning over her. She sent out a heavy blow, and her gauntlet had pierced through the Devil's soul core.
Everything stood still for a moment, before the Devil started to crumble away. It's armor fell to the floor, and the rest was burnt away in azure flames.
Sunny had started to laugh. Of course, the Devil had gutted Sunny a few months ago. Revenge truly tasted sweet for the treacherous Lost From Light. It lasted until he saw Shirou looking at Saint in confusion.
Sunny looked back at the statue, and shivered after seeing what was in her hand. The Stone Saint was holding onto a black gem. It had four crimson flames in it's depths.
Shirou's eyes widened.
That's it's soul?! How the hell did it even do that?!
The Saint raised the orb to her face. She looked at it for awhile, before chucking it into her mouth.
"What the fuck?!"
"What the fuck?!"
Shirou and Sunny could not understand what they just witnessed. It didn't make any logical sense to them.
She stood for a while, before sinking into the shadows. Shirou turned towards Sunny.
"Did you do that?"
"Of course not!"
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Type_Sword
Type_Sword Volume 2 has been started, and Sunny seems to have gotten much stronger than he was in canon. Who would have thought that the survival of his echo would change so much?
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone