Shadow Slave

Now that he knew that he was — insanity! — going to act, Sunny had to decide how exactly, and do it very fast.

Sadly, the question was not as easy as it seemed.

His life was too complicated for anything to be easy…

Not only was the answer to the question not too obvious, but, what's worse, he had mere seconds to make a decision, which was not nearly enough to think things through with any sort of clarity.

But what choice did he have? None at all...

Sunny grimaced.

'Let's speedrun our options.'

The safest and most cowardly option was to Shadow Step into the classroom through the shadow spying on Rain, grab the girl, and bring her away.

At least it seemed safe on the surface.

In reality, though, such an action would cause all types of terrible consequences both for him and for his sister. Not only was he going to have a lot of explaining to do, revealing all the things he wanted to keep hidden, he would also leave countless witnesses, as well as digital evidence, connecting Rain to him and vice versa.

In the future, whenever he was going to end up having really dangerous enemies — which Sunny had no doubt would happen one day, soon — that evidence was going to come to light and lead them to her. Which was not something he was willing to accept.

So, he was going to leave that option as the last resort, and act on it only if the school's defenses were breached and Rain was in imminent danger.

With that out of the way, there was only one path left — doing his civil duty and going directly to the Gate, in hopes of stalling the tide of Nightmare Creatures long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

Awakened who didn't work for the government were expected and encouraged, but not technically obligated to respond to a call like that. Many, maybe even most, did not, and chose to run instead. And who could blame them? Not everyone with an Aspect was a combatant, and even those who were had not become one voluntarily.

Forcing these already traumatized people to go to their potential deaths under the threat of retribution if they refused was not something the government was eager to do. Or maybe, it simply couldn't — forcing Awakened to do anything was a dangerous idea, since they could potentially topple the government if pushed too much.

So, the government preferred to use a carrot instead of a stick when dealing with them. It was a delicate balance.

Sunny wasn't sure that he was even going to see that carrot, though. Because he was facing a dilemma.

Yes, he had decided to fight in front of the Gate, but this could also be done in several ways.

…Two ways, really.

Sunny could go into battle as himself, or… as Mongrel, protecting his identity from the prying eyes, and himself from any attention.

Using Weaver's Mask was not without risk, as every time he did so without proper preparations could potentially leave behind context clues that would allow smart people to narrow down the list of suspects.

But the alternative… right now, with not a lot of time to weigh all the pros and cons, Sunny felt that the alternative was worse.

If he wanted to have a hope of surviving for thirteen minutes, he was going to have to go all out, showcasing the full scope of his true powers. That meant that all his efforts to create an image of a talented, but not too dangerous or noteworthy young Awakened were going to be destroyed.

He was going to become really, really famous… and draw the eyes of entities he wanted to remain blind to his existence for as long as possible.

Perhaps even worse, he was going to create one too many coincidences for Rain to continue not noticing his secret attention. It was one thing to have a quirky neighbor… if he suddenly showed up near your school in your moment of need, and turned out to be one of the most deadly Awakened of his generation, though… that would most likely be enough to make her start asking questions that Sunny wasn't ready to answer.

So…

Awakened Sunless was going to have to cowardly run away from the Gate.

While Mongrel was going to have to stand and fight.

'What a messed up situation...'

One hundred and seventy seconds remained.

Sunny sighed, knowing full well that this decision was not ideal. At the minimum, Mongrel's persona prevented him from using some of his most powerful tools — anything that people knew and associated with Sunny, no less. Like the Cruel Sight…

Very few people had seen him use Saint, however. In fact, outside of Neph's cohort, Mordret was pretty much the only person who had. There were also the people he had fought the Lord of the Dead with, but all of them were gone now… with one notable exception. Seishan was still alive and out there somewhere, in the embrace of one of the three Great Clans.

So summoning Saint was not ideal, too. Even though someone else could have received a similar Echo, revealing her was really risky. He could only do it if things got really desperate.

'Uh… maybe I should reconsider…'

But there was no time to consider things anymore.

There were less than three minutes left before the Gate opened. He would just have to manage, somehow.

Sunny closed his eyes for a moment, then checked where the cameras monitoring the cafe were located, and walked into their blind zone. There, he summoned the Covetous Coffer, placed his communicator on its lid, and sent the box scurrying in the direction opposite of where he himself was headed.

After that, Sunny took a deep breath… and dissipated into the shadows.

A few seconds later and hundreds of meters away, an armored figure wearing a fearsome black mask walked out of the darkness, the blade of the great odachi resting on its shoulder.

Mongrel had arrived to the Nightmare Gate.

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