[You have slain an awakened beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[You have received a Memory: Azure Blade.]
At the chime of the Spell, Sunny blinked and woke up from his strange trance.
[... Your shadow grows stronger.]
The mortifying battle against the Scavenger and the sight of Yoru's pitiful state had left Sunny feeling slightly dazed.
'That thing was an awakened beast...'
Two sleepers should not have been able to defeat such a formidable creature and yet… they had done so anyways. The Scavenger was only a beast and therefore it was mindless, but it was still an entire rank above them, it boasted unparalleled power and possessed strength far beyond any mundane creature.
What the two had accomplished was nothing short of a miracle. But that wasn't to say the victory hadn't come without a price.
He looked from Yoru to the severed arm that lay just a few feet away and grimaced.
After confirming that Yoru was still alive, Sunny began to weigh his few options and made a difficult choice.
Even if Yoru were to survive the blood loss, without an arm he was useless and unable to fight any nightmare creatures. On top of that, if Sunny were to wake up and found that he had lost his arm, he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He had very few possessions in his life... if any at all... so losing a limb would scar his psyche deeply.
'He won't be able to go on after this...' Sunny thought regretfully.
They hadn't even reached their destination yet they faced such a disaster. The situation was much worse than before as well. Deep within the labyrinth, Sunny would have to drag Yoru's body, simultaneously navigate the abstract maze, watch out for anymore ambushes like this one and ascend the hill before the tide drew back in.
It was a herculean task.
After all, Sunny could barely look after himself let alone survive and protect Yoru as well.
It was obvious that he'd be better off abandoning him...
But as Sunny came to his decision, something within himself stirred faintly. The feeling was something akin to an intuitive urge and although it wasn't that intense, Sunny could only describe it as something vastly profound.
His intuition guided his gaze towards Yoru's unconscious body and for some reason he felt a stranger aversion to the idea of leaving him behind.
He had never felt such a way before but he had an inkling of a suspicion as to what it was.
It was [Fated].
He recalled the attribute description:
"The strings of fate wrap tightly around you. Unlikely events, both good and bad, are drawn by your presence. There are those who are blessed, and there are those who are cursed… but rarely both."
Yoru was drawing an invisible pull on him, or more specifically... his fate.
Sunny was not fond of the idea of bending to the whims of fate, but to have such a strong aversion towards abandoning Yoru couldn't be dismissed. Perhaps he'd regret it if he simply chose to walk off.
With a heavy sigh, Sunny knelt down and began to drag the cheapskate genie.
"This wretch better grant me all the wishes I want after this!"
***
When Yoru awoke, he opened his eyes to a dark and boundless canvas devoid of any light. The sounds of waves rushing over one another suggested that the dark sea had risen once again.
He groaned, immediately feeling a ruinous pain erupting from his left arm... or the stump that was his left arm. The lack of weight on that side of his body was startling, but strangely... he didn't panic, nor did his breathing become shallow.
He simply felt hollow.
As empty as his missing arm.
The pain was still unimaginable however. The agony was making it difficult for him to think and concentrate, yet he persisted with gritted teeth and his face contorting in a pained grimace.
"Sunny..."
"Im here."
Sunny had responded somewhere to his left, his voice sounded grave yet somewhat lighthearted.
"Try not to speak too much... After we beat that crab - the Carapace Scavenger - I dragged you through the labyrinth and we eventually made it to the hill. It wasn't easy though. I had to backtrack and retrace my steps a lot to find the right path. By the time we arrived, the Dark sea had already started coming back."
Sunny cleared his throat and added:
"I also tried my best to patch you up, but the best medical supplies this place has to offer is seaweed so... yeah."
After a long while of silence Yoru finally spoke.
"...Thank you."
"Uh... no worries."
The two of them settled into a silence which was accompanied by the ambience of the dark sea.
'Karma...' Yoru thought to himself wistfully.
His Flaw was severe and cruel. Surviving and besting that awakened beast was not just outstanding but a feat worthy of being called a miracle, and it was those very same miracles he would endure great pain for. In return for achieving the impossible… he suffered a grave price.
Still emotionally numb by the experiences thus far and the tragic loss of his arm, a thought entered Yoru's mind, eliciting both paranoia and hope.
'Where is Nephis and Cassie?'
Sunny should've encountered them by now and they should be sat atop the hill together.
But that didn't seem to be the case.
"Sunny... that flame we saw not too long ago. Did you find out what it belonged to?"
Sunny let out a sigh.
"There was ash and soot in the centre of the platform so someone was definitely here, but not anymore. I didn't see anything on the way at least so my guess is... whoever it was... they're gone."
Yoru's mind was stunned and for a second, even the pain from his left arm seemed to subside.
'They're gone!? They can't just simply be gone. That's not how things were supposed to go!'
If the two Sleeper girls weren't here then where were they? why had things changed in such a way? Was it because Yoru was now apart of the story, or more specifically, was it because of his flaw?
His mind whirled with thoughts and possibilities but all the conclusions he drew were to no avail.
Yoru had hoped that Nephis could restore his arm with her healing flames but now that she was nowhere to be found, that hope was completely extinguished.
He couldn't help but fear the worse. Nephis and Cassie may very well be dead for all he knew and it was because of him…
Perhaps the price of his flaw was never truly his arm at all.
Perhaps the absence of Changing Star and the Oracle was the real tragedy...
The loss struck him deeply, waning his very soul. That night, in the cold foreign expanse of the forgotten shore, beneath a lightless sky... Yoru wept.