As the man who had none of his senses except vision kept falling between Black and White through a silent waterfall, he began to think.
He could see everything.
The violent cascade splitting the world in two. The sharp border running endlessly downward. The way Black swallowed light without resistance, and White reflected it without mercy.
But he could not hear the water.
He could not feel the drop.
He could not even sense the speed at which he was falling.
Only sight remained. And sight was cruel.
'Why should I choose a side?'
The current dragged him lower.
The world was divided with unsettling precision.
'Is this world truly just black and white? Or is that what it wants me to believe?'
His body rotated slowly in the air, giving him different angles of the same impossible divide.
On the White side, the light seemed almost sterile, as if nothing flawed could survive there. On the Black side, the darkness was deep but not chaotic. It felt structured.
Both sides looked complete.
Both sides looked suffocating and needed devotion.
'If Black is bad and White is good, then what happens when I choose?'
The waterfall narrowed, accelerating him further.
'If I stand with White, will nature balance it by raising someone just as good against me from Black?'
'If I stand with Black, will someone equally dark rise from White to oppose me?'
The thought unsettled him more than the fall itself.
A world obsessed with balance would never allow permanence. Every alignment would create its counterweight. Every choice would summon its enemy.
'What if I choose good while something ugly still lives inside my heart?'
'What if I choose evil while something gentle refuses to die within me?'
He tried to imagine stepping fully into either side.
White demanded purity.
Black demanded conviction.
He possessed neither.
The border between them shimmered faintly, a razor-thin line stretching endlessly downward. The center felt like the only honest place to stand.
But the center was not solid.
It was tension.
And tension could snap.
The ground below was no longer distant. He could see its details now, jagged shapes forming where the waterfall crashed into nothingness. The impact was approaching faster than his thoughts could settle.
'The perfect place for me is between them.'
'But.... The world does not allow between.'
***
Sunless had lived through worse than most people ever understood about good.
He lost his parents early, grew up as an outskirt rat, and learned that even the smallest hint of weakness would get him devoured.
He survived by reshaping himself whenever necessary, using his harmless appearance as camouflage more times than he could count.
If someone showed him kindness for a day, he wouldn't suddenly open up, start joking carelessly, or indulge in thoughts about "understanding himself."
That kind of softness belonged to people who had never had to calculate survival. If he were that easy, he would have died in the cave. But did he? No. He killed them instead.
So why was he being this open with two strangers he had met barely half an hour ago?
He had heard that Mental Interference did not dominate outright. It Made you believe the shift was your own decision. And now, for the first time, he suspected he was experiencing it.
But when did it start?
After becoming a Sleeper, his memory had sharpened unnaturally. He could recall everything from the moment he woke up with clean precision, so he began searching through it.
Was it when he first woke up?
Sunless's eyes darkened slightly as he focused, resisting the faint pull at the edge of his thoughts. Ayanokouji slowly glanced at him.
'No. I was thinking normally when I woke up. When Master Jet checked me, nothing felt altered.'
Did it begin after his Aspect activated?
'No. My thoughts were still sharp.'
When he returned to the room to test him?
'No… I was thinking clearly. I constructed a trap. My shadow cannot hit anything... yet, I realized only I knew that. Not that freak. I used it to deceive him into believing it could.'
If he had already been influenced, he would not have been able to plan deception that cleanly.
Maybe in the cafeteria?
'No. I could still restrain myself.'
His expression gradually emptied as he clenched his teeth, fully aware that the other boy was observing him. He did not stop analyzing. He knew trying to hide something physically from someone who has multiple eyes is just plain stupid.
'It started when he entered the cafeteria. My thinking did not slow my restraint weakened. I started joking at every opportunity.'
But how?
'Those eyes must consume essence. And that notebook as well. Can he really maintain three Memories simultaneously? No. A Sleeper should not possess that much essence.'
…
'Unless it is not a Memory. A flaw would not fit. it's either attribute or aspect ability.'
Sunless exhaled slowly and looked toward Ayanokouji with a faint, smile.
There was only one way to confirm it.
He would initiate.
"My name is Sunless. What about you?"
As the words left his mouth, his body felt lighter. His mood shifted upward, and there was an unnatural urge to continue.
"Uh, my name is Sunless because I was born during a solar eclipse."
It wasn't much. Just a little more open. A little more talkative. Slightly more extroverted. Cracking jokes. Analyzing less. Smiling more. Nothing dramatic.
But the fact that it was happening without his permission was enough.
It felt like invisible strings were tightening around his spine, guiding tone, posture, expression. A puppet with self-awareness.... And he would rather die than this.
He was trying to please this guy?
Over his dead body.
It didn't matter whether the change was minor or catastrophic. What mattered was principle. He was not a toy.
Sunless dove inward, searching himself with urgency. He pushed past essence, past instinct, past surface thoughts, returning to the strange senses he had discovered in the bathroom the ones that didn't belong to flesh.
As he approached the edge of that familiar internal abyss, his thoughts accelerated, sharpened by irritation and something darker.
Hatred was efficient fuel.
An interesting idea surfaced.
He shifted his shadow slightly until it peeled away from his body. The connection thinned.
They were no longer fully aligned.
Sunny applied pressure to those new senses. He didn't know this was possible, but the Spell never handed instructions. It planted seeds and waited for desperation.
And desperation made geniuses.
Another layer of perception opened.
In one vision, a petite boy sat casually in the cafeteria, eyes unreadable. In another, Sunless was looking towards Ayanokouji with a smile.
Disgusting.
Sunless disconnected further from his own body. In theory, a shadow had no brain and heart so... No manipulated chemistry. If he transferred his awareness there, even for a moment, whatever interference was nudging him would have nothing to grip.
He forced the shift.
It took less than a second.
His smile vanished instantly.
The lightness disappeared.
Silence returned.
He was free.
'Ha! Try harder, you creepy freak. If you want a puppet, go buy one!'
Relief flickered across his mind, sharp and victorious. His first experience with Mental Interference, and he had dissected it mid application.
He felt almost offended by how sloppy it was.
'Get fucked, You freak!'
He slid back into his body carefully, testing responses. No artificial warmth. No compulsive humor. His thoughts were once again razor edged and unpleasant.
'So it activates through communication.'
His gaze flickered toward Master Jet, who remained on her call.
'She's an Ascended. If she were affected, she would have noticed. Which means only I was under it.'
Interesting.
A notebook brushed against him. Ayanokouji's pen moved.
It worked now.
Sunless lowered his eyes.
It read:
My name is Kiyotaka.
A slow grin tugged at his lips, this time entirely his own.
'Well hello, Mr. Kiyotaka. I'm Sunless. And I already hate you.'
Somewhere deep inside, he cursed [Fated] for dropping yet another abnormality into his path.
Of course his first day wouldn't be simple.
Of course the universe couldn't resist giving him a psychic sociopath with freak eyes and a notebook.
Sunless almost laughed.
***
'No. Think properly, Sunless. There's no way Master Jet simply didn't notice how Kiyotaka guilt trapped her.'
No. That didn't sit right. Sunless barely knew her, but he was certain she wasn't soft enough to be maneuvered by a few carefully written lines in a notebook.
She was sharp. The way she watched, the way she measured pauses that wasn't someone who got emotionally nudged into compliance.
So if she noticed something was wrong… why was she still helping him?
A colder speculation surfaced.
'Did he expect her to help even after knowing he tried to use her?'
A faint chill crawled down Sunless's spine.
'Did he get caught on purpose?'
The thought lingered.
'Did he allow himself to look suspicious so she would feel in control? So she'd believe she was guiding the situation?'
Sunless wanted to reject it. It sounded absurd.
Unfortunately, it was the theory that aligned too well.
He slowly became aware that Ayanokouji had been staring at him for a while now.
He knows.
The realization did not frighten him. Infact he welcomed it, He realised that only such situation allows one to grow.
And anyways...
There was no realistic way to conceal micro expressions from someone with multiple eyes and a passive mental ability. Sunless had already accepted that much.
His shadow slowly lifted its hand, forming a fist near his face as he clenched his non existent teeth.
.
.
.
[.][ Hate this so much, Why can't I select it easily.]
.
.
.
'Even if he knows I figured it out, he still believes my shadow is tangible. And if anything escalates, Master Jet is right here.'
A stalemate.
Then Jet finished her call.
She slammed her hand against the cafeteria table, the sound sharp enough to slice through the silence. Her voice followed, firm and faintly amused.
"Before we begin, One warning... Save the acting for someone who hasn't seen it all before. I don't care about your secrets, but I do care about my time. You're going to give me the truth today because the alternative involves me getting the answers out of your souls directly. I'm a Master for a reason, kids. Don't make me tell you why."
Sunless felt it... The uncomfortable realization that he was sitting between two lunatics.
One interfered with the mind.
The other knew of his flaw.
Only he was the normal guy between them.
Ayanokouji calmly wrote something and turned the notebook toward Jet.
Are you taking our session?
Sunless blinked.
Session?
First Mental Interference. Now therapy.
Perfect.
Jet read it and snorted lightly.
"If I let some random hear the two of you out for psychological counseling, he might as well come to me for therapy afterward. No. We're keeping this in-house. I've seen enough corpses and cracked souls to not lose my lunch over whatever it is you're hiding. I'm from the Outskirts myself, after all."
She looked directly at Sunless.
For a fraction of a second, he froze.
"You are… from the Outskirts?"
All she gave him was a confident smirk.
Master Jet.
From the Outskirts.
She survived the same rot. The same hunger. The same invisible war.
And she became a Master.
'I'll become one too.'
If she could climb out, so could he.
But before ambition, there was confusion.
"But… why do I need therapy?"
His voice carried an edge now.
If she truly came from the Outskirts, she should understand. People like them didn't break easily.
He did not need therapy.
"Ignorance is mercy in this case, kid. Trust me. You managed to keep up with a human black hole and didn't get swallowed. That makes you just as dangerous as he is in my book. And after thinking more carefully, you need my help. Otherwise, you might get attached too easily and suffer in the dream realm."
Sunless stiffened.
She knew.
Not the details.
But she knew something had happened between him and Kiyotaka.
How?
'And what does she mean attached too easily? I am not like that. That was Mental Interference for God sake!'
Annoyance flared.
He needed something to blame.
Apparently the air looked strangely like...
[Fated].
Of course.
[Fated] had ruined his mask on the first day. Delivered him a psychic anomaly and a Master who could see through people like glass.
Wonderful.
If there was no exit, then he would prepare for the worst.
"Let me go to the toilet first."
Time for a Strategic meeting!
***
The door clicked shut, and Sunless finally let the mask collapse.
His shoulders sagged, the rigid confidence draining from his posture. The expression of someone who had just achieved a calculated stalemate melted into that of an irritated, exhausted teenager who was very tired of being surrounded by lunatics.
He walked to the sink, turned the tap, and splashed cold water over his face. The chill grounded him. He lifted his head slowly and stared at his reflection.
"Therapy," he muttered, venom coating every syllable. "Kiyotaka needs therapy. Master Jet needs therapy. Damn [Fated] needs therapy. I'm the only sane person in this entire godsforsaken building."
He looked down.
His shadow was huddled near his feet, one dark hand covering its mouth as if giggling silently.
Sunless narrowed his eyes.
"You," he hissed quietly. "You absolute, useless, bottom feeding traitor. We've been together since I was practically a fetus, and you forgot to mention we could swap seats? I'm out there humiliating myself, cracking jokes like some circus monkey, and you're just observing?"
The shadow tilted its head innocently, then glanced behind itself as if searching for the person Sunless was accusing.
Sunless stared at it in disbelief.
"Oh, don't play dumb. Mental interference. I was practically wagging my tail for that freak."
He began pacing the cramped bathroom, boots squeaking sharply against the tiles.
"And then there's Master Jet. 'Ascended' 'My responsibility.' More like professional child bully. She definitely knows my Flaw."
The shadow slipped behind him and awkwardly patted his own back in an exaggerated imitation of comfort.
The gesture was ridiculous.
And yet, after venting all of it, Sunless felt the tightness in his chest loosen slightly.
He had never had friends. Not real ones. In the Outskirts, friendship was a temporary alliance at best. Which he never had. But standing here, whispering insults to a sentient patch of darkness that listened without judgment, he felt something dangerously close to relief.
He had found someone who wouldn't leave.
Even if that someone was technically himself.
His expression gradually steadied. The humor faded first. Then the bitterness. What remained was calculation.
This therapy nonsense was inevitable.
Kiyotaka was a problem.
Sunless began issuing silent commands. His shadow peeled away and sprinted across the bathroom walls, skimming ceilings and slipping beneath stalls.
The shared sensation made him slightly dizzy, his senses overlapping unnaturally. After a few seconds, he forcibly severed the connection and shifted fully into the shadow for a heartbeat before snapping back.
The world flickered.
He exhaled.
His memory had sharpened since becoming a Sleeper. Every angle, every expression, every micro-movement was archived cleanly. But he doubt it's for long, He would probably need to become awakened or ascended to have perfect memory.
Well, Perfect memory of pain!
He leaned against the sink.
He had been warned not to act and be truthful alongside Kiyotaka. That alone meant Master Jet was already suspicious.
She probably won't question them separately, she would likely ask identical questions. His Flaw only triggered when someone directly questioned him but still he couldn't risk lying and making Master Jet use his flow giving Kiyotaka even a fragment of knowledge about his Flaw.
'Damnation'
Sunless frowned slightly.
Almost absentmindedly, he commanded his shadow to change form, anticipating failure.
It condensed.
Hardened.
Took the crude silhouette of a rock.
He blinked.
It held.
A slow grin spread across his face as mischief bloomed.
'If only I could throw this at Kiyotaka's shadow and end the problem permanently.'
The thought was half joke, half genuine curiosity.
His shadow slipped through the bathroom door and along the hallway outside, flattening beneath cracks and sliding under thresholds. Information flowed back to him footsteps, positions, angles.
He absorbed it calmly.
'This is a perfect spy ability.'
No eyes required. No essence cost worth mentioning. Just him and the dark.
For a moment, the earlier frustration felt distant.
Then reality settled again.
Therapy.
Master Jet's knowing look.
Kiyotaka's quiet stare.
Sunless straightened, staring at himself in the mirror one last time.
Behind the sarcasm, beneath the intelligence, past the constant calculation, the boy in the reflection looked far more exhausted than he wanted to admit.
Not weak.
Just tired.
He wiped the remaining water from his face, reassembled the mask piece by piece, and walked toward the door.
One thought appeared, Something Master Jet had said.
"You might get attached too easily and suffer in the dream realm."
He only acted that way because of the-, Fuck leave it he don't even wanna talk about that any longer.
Before going out he suddenly turned back and commanded his shadow to do a backflip.
'Hell yeah, Can his shadow do a backflip!'
A few minutes later, Sunless stepped out of the bathroom as if nothing had happened.
***
As Sunless got back to the cafeteria he took his seat, ready for whatever hell fate had prepared for him.
He took a glass of water and drank it while getting himself mentally ready for this therapy session.
He had never done something like this. He expected some cringe questions but doubted Master Jet would actually ask them.
He half expected questions like "What made you the way you are?" "How was it like?" And shit, Sunless was going to die of boredom.
He almost preferred being stabbed. At least that was straightforward.
Jet exhaled slowly, For a brief second her expression softened, She saw herself in the two kids front of her, But then she became firm again.
As she began speaking her voice was firm and demanded respect as she looked at both of them directly.
"Both of you are smart, so we will do this just once. Don't expect me to be some sort of babysitter who will personally help you, I am too busy for that. I will just do this once and you will revisit these questions once in a while. But before we begin, as I have already told y'all, You lie You die"
Ayanokouji who had been quiet for far too long finally wrote something in the notebook and showed it to Jet, making her narrow her eyes in slight annoyance.
Sunless read it and wondered if Ayanokouji was asking for a death sentence.
It read: I won't be taking it if a government official takes the session.
Sunless nearly choked on air.
'Is he suicidal?'
Ayanokouji had complied with everything so far, so it was perhaps a little strange that he had gone directly against Master Jet.
Nonetheless, Sunless wanted Ayanokouji to succeed so he could do the same. If one of them was jumping off a cliff, it was better to see whether there was ground at the bottom first.
Jet's eyes flicked toward Ayanokouji as she spoke with mild interest. "And why exactly wouldn't you take counselling from a government official?"
Ayanokouji just stared at her as he activated his third eye on his cheek and closed the other two before writing.
The thin slit opened slowly, the strange eye focusing on Jet without blinking. The atmosphere shifted.
He wrote:
I don't want my data to be given to the government in a world where the biggest enemies are none other than humans. That bodycam doesn't help in this case.
At first Sunless did not understand the magnitude of the situation before his vision slowly darkened and venom began covering his thoughts, Master Jet was wearing a bodycam which meant everything that happened here would go to the government.
Sunless had let his guard down far too much thanks to Kiyotaka. He slowly looked toward Master Jet as betrayal appeared in his eyes.
"You asked me about my aspect while wearing that."
If they were to review the footage multiple times and understand everything that had taken place he would surely be forced to join them and lose a lot of money.
He would not be rich.
'I refuse to become salaried.'
Jet looked at both of them as a vein appeared on her forehead before disappearing into an expression that looked almost impressed.
Instead of snapping she calmly unclipped the bodycam from her chest and placed it on the table. The plastic hit with a dull sound.
She turned it toward them. The lens was cracked. The indicator light was dead.
"It has been broken for some hours now."
Silence followed.
Sunless stared at it, suspicion still crawling in his mind.
"And we are just supposed to trust that?"
Jet leaned back slightly.
"If I wanted your data, you would not know I was collecting it."
There was no arrogance in her tone. Just certainty.
"I serve humanity, not bureaucrats looking for leverage. I left it on to see if either of you would notice. You did."
Her eyes moved between them, assessing.
"Good."
***
Jet and Sunless… They are interesting.
Jet cleared her schedule today to conduct our therapy, which is odd when I think about it. She appears to be of high rank, yet she is personally handling us.
More likely she is investing in us and intends to collect the return in the future. My [Embraced by Fate] does not seem to work on her. Perhaps the gap between our strength is too large.
And Sunless as well. He somehow managed to get rid of the temptation. But why did he show it to me so openly?
There is no point in asking how he did it. I do not have enough information to justify spending time on that variable.
The real question is why reveal it?
The optimal move would have been to act as if he had freed himself without confirming it to me. If I remained unaware, I would eventually lower my guard.
But by confirming it, he ensured the opposite. I am now more cautious.
Why would he do that?
He does not strike me as the type to brag about small victories.
Is he attempting to redirect my focus? Drawing my attention to the fact that he is no longer under temptation so that I overlook something else.
That would be efficient.
But if that assumption is correct… what exactly is he hiding?
I do not want anything to do with him to begin with yet. It is not my choice that [Embraced by Fate] is forcing him to open up.
And apparently both of them are originally from the Outskirts. It would be natural for Jet to feel a soft corner for him. Shared origin creates unconscious bias.
Before I could continue the analysis, Jet spoke. She confirmed that the bodycam was broken. Yet only minutes ago she stated that she would kill me if I became a liability.
Two statements.
On the surface, contradictory.
"So this is how we are going to do it, both of you will write your answers in the notebooks so no copy of the answers is possible."
The air around her shifted.
Just moments ago she was approachable. Now there is a subtle coldness.
My intuition advises against lying.
Is there perhaps a Memory functioning as a lie detector? Or is she simply confident in her ability to detect inconsistencies?
What if I mix lies with truths? Fifty percent fabrication layered over verifiable facts. That usually reduces detection probability.
"So, the first question."
Given the circumstances, she will likely ask something that appears psychological on the surface but forces self exposure beneath it. A question that demands logical dissection while simultaneously testing emotional reflex.
Or she could select something simpler. Something that strips away constructed personas.
"Ever since I got on the call, I could see that the two of you have been getting along quite nicely. My first question, Who would you be, If you were not trying to control the situation?"
…Interesting.
Not a question about trauma.
Identity.
Specifically, identity without control.
That is not a therapist's question.
That is an interrogator's.
She truly does deserve those three stars on her shoulder.
I will play along there is something I have to check too.
***
Ayanokouji Kiyotaka narrowed his eyes as he drifted inward.
What would he be without control?
The question did not feel accidental. He could have dismissed it the moment it surfaced. He did not.
His earliest memory was survival. Control had not been taught gently, It had been imposed until it replaced instinct. Over time, there was no clear boundary between who he was and the discipline forced into him.
If control was removed… what would remain?
He allowed the thought to linger longer than necessary.
Under normal circumstances, he would have redirected. Categorized the question as inefficient.
He did not.
He examined the possibility carefully, almost curiously. Strip away composure. Remove calculation. Silence the need to manage every variable in the room.
What would be left?
He searched for an answer that aligned with something decent. Something that could exist without structure.
There was none.
Every projection ended in something hollow. Without control there was impulse. Without restraint there was instability. Without calculation there was exposure.
A faint discontent surfaced.
At first it was subtle, A quiet dissatisfaction at the lack of a favorable result.
He did not immediately correct it.
The discontent deepened.
His thoughts, once precise, began to drag. The clarity he relied on felt slightly dulled, as if a thin layer of fog had settled over his reasoning.
His eyes dimmed without him realizing it. A trace of sadness slipped in, uninvited yet unmistakable.
Sadness.
The recognition came a fraction too late.
?!
Ayanokouji attempted to detach instantly. He activated all his eyes, heightening perception, then shut them off again.
Nothing changed.
The heaviness remained.
He forced his eyes open wider, willing sharpness back into place, as if awareness alone could suffocate the emotion before it spread further.
Too late.
His Flaw had already woven itself through the cracks he had left unattended.
It did not erupt violently. It amplified. The small, contained discontent he had permitted expanded into something more fragile.
The question returned, stripped of its intellectual framing.
What was he without control?
This time it did not branch into theories. It narrowed into something uncomfortably direct.
He saw not a strategist, not a prodigy, not an anomaly.
He saw a child shaped entirely by conditioning. A mind constructed around survival. A person who had never existed outside a system.
Remove control, and there was no hidden self waiting underneath.
There was only absence.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze to the notebook, no longer aware of Sunless or Jet.
The world around him dulled, fading into irrelevance.
He wrote:
I wouldn't be myself.
His Flaw was about Emotions and Emotions controlled Humans, Afterall.
***
Sunless had really expected this therapy bullshit to be just another waste of time, but that question… That question stirred something unpleasant in him.
Should he lie right now? He was using a notebook, So he could easily lie.
But for some reason he wanted to tell the truth to Master Jet. He could not help but feel that she was asking the kind of questions she had once asked herself when she was still a Sleeper.
Sunless sighed, knowing that if he tried to lie and even the smallest clue slipped through, she would not hesitate to use his Flaw, and that would only give Kiyotaka a deeper understanding of him.
The very thing he had tried to hide by dragging him into that mind bullshit would be exposed.
Sunless slowly wrote: I would be dead.
Without control he would have died long before even beginning his first Nightmare, perhaps from starvation, or maybe killed by other rats.
***
Jet just looked at both of their answers before pinching the bridge of her nose. This was worse than she had anticipated.
She first glanced toward Kiyotaka, who seemed zoned out, then to Sunless, waiting for the next question.
Sunless peeked at Kiyotaka's answer and narrowed his eyes as his thoughts raced.
After a long pause, Jet finally spoke, her voice steady.
She looked at Kiyotaka.
"Control is a skill, and if without it you wouldn't be yourself, then you have built yourself on something fragile."
Now she turned to Sunless.
"Yeah, you probably would have been dead in the Outskirts. But if you still think you'd die even now without it, maybe you left the Outskirts but the Outskirts never left you."
Sunless didn't reply. He was lost in his own thoughts, thinking about his choices.
He didn't care if Kiyotaka wouldn't be himself. Kiyotaka was a stranger. If a stranger died, got married, or whatever, it had nothing to do with him.
Jet moved on to the second question, shifting the concept slightly.
"Both of you seem to be isolating yourselves from others. I don't know what changed, but Sunless is not the same as he was a moment ago. So the next question… if someone truly understood you, What would you feel?"
Jet almost laughed at herself. She had asked an ironic question.
If someone from her workplace had seen this, they would be shaking in fear, thinking she was asking a child the same questions she should be asking herself.
Life had a strange way of working.
Sunless was deep in thought. These questions were not just for a single session. They could be asked to himself at any time. Master Jet's warning was accurate there was no need for repeated therapy specially because it was him and Kiyotaka.
But if someone truly understood him… if they knew how cynical, dark, and self-deprecating he was… what would he feel?
They would see his pain, his secrets, his insecurities. He would become their toy.
Sunless wrote: Hatred for them.
On the other hand… Kiyotaka wrote: They wouldn't understand me because I don't understand myself.
Something softened in Jet's expression as she saw Sunless's answer. She could see the scared kid behind the carefully constructed words.
"What you're describing isn't hatred but panic, Sunless. You're too paranoid. The answer should depend on whether they are your enemy or your teammate."
It had been a while since Sunless had allowed himself any expression. He made sure Kiyotaka could read nothing from him.
Yet somewhere inside, he agreed with Jet. He simply couldn't find the words to explain himself.
Jet turned her attention to Kiyotaka and remained silent for a moment, remembering how meticulous he was, how he noticed everything yet showed no hint of sympathy.
"You examine everyone but not yourself. You are unstable. I have no other answer. It will only come to you with time."
Sunless glanced at Kiyotaka's answer, then back at his own notebook.
"Alright, last two questions, then we end this. Third question: What would change if you stopped assuming the worst?"
The question was impractical. Everything required imagining the worst to prepare for it.
And yet… that was exactly why she chose it. It was the closest approximation to human thinking.
Even under his Flaw, Kiyotaka began to calculate. What would he be if he didn't consider the worst case scenarios? If he didn't prepare counterplans for a sudden attack from Jet? If he didn't think about how he would survive in an unknown world?
If he didn't anticipate betrayal…
There was only one answer he could find.
He wrote: I would be more human.
Humans were imperfect.
Sunless approached it differently. He reasoned like Kiyotaka, but the outcome differed.
He wrote: I would become vulnerable.
Jet looked at Kiyotaka for a moment. She wasn't impressed and told him flatly:
"If you think becoming human costs you strength, then you misunderstand both."
She felt the irony in her words but dismissed it.
Now Sunless.
This one landed differently. She knew the Outskirts, knew what it meant to survive through constant armor. She nodded once.
"It was a good answer. But you are no longer in the Outskirts. If the only version of you that survives is armored, you'll never know how strong you actually are."
A small grin escaped her, breaking the seriousness she had maintained.
"This question was impractical for the world we live in. Don't put much thought into it. It was just an experiment. Always take the worst into account."
She wasn't here to give them hope. This world was rotten, and she was showing them exactly that.
"Last question: Would you die for someone else?"
Both of them looked at her, incredulous at the simplicity of the question.
A "no" didn't even take a minute to form.
Now Jet spoke again. The four questions were over, but she wasn't done with the therapy.
"Now I want you to ask yourselves these questions every once in a while. See if your answers are still the same. See if they feel right or wrong. But for the last two questions always assume the worst. Never risk your life for others."
How ironic her guidance was…
She didn't stop. Time for her final lesson.
"This one is advice. Take it or leave it. Make a goal, but don't rush it. Take your time and refine it. Check it against these questions. Never let that goal change. Work toward it with everything you have. If it ever changes, remember that I am disappointed but that is just advice."
They remained silent, perhaps finally understanding.
***
Why does the world keep shaking? Why do my hands tremble whenever I look at them?
I am buried in grief and hesitation. What if I sacrifice myself for someone? I am terrified of losing my life.
The world shakes even more.
I will die in this world. Why am I even here? Who threw me into this? How am I supposed to return? Master Jet told me to assume the worst. That means I will die. A terrible death awaits me. I am doomed.
What should I do?
She wasn't teaching us. She laughed in my face. She showed no sympathy for my answer, only for Sunless. No one loves me.
I want to be human, but she laughed and said humans are impractical for this world. But I don't want to be the way I am.
Why is the world blurring? Why are tears gathering?
What if I die? What if I die? What if I die? What if I die? What if I die? What if I die?What if I die? What if I die? What if I die?
I don't even understand myself. I can't ask anyone for help.
What if I die? What if I die? What if I die? What if I die? What if I die? What if I die?What if I die?
The world tilts to the right. Am I dying?
Now up. Now left. Now down. Am I dying?
Am I?
…
Finally, it feels like I am dying.
I can rest. This was a terrible life. Oh heavens embrace me.
The sadness fades slowly. I wipe my eyes as my vision clears.
Well, that was… interesting.
I let myself fall into the sensation of Flaw, thinking deeply about that question. I wanted to see how deadly this Flaw truly is.
My vision drifts to the right again. Their eyes are wide. They probably realized I sacrificed four of my five senses.
I read Jet's lips. "You are one crazy motherfucker."
So the Flaw stacks the longer it's active. There has to be a time limit, right? Or am I just this unlucky?
If a hint of sadness almost drove me to wish for death, what would anger or happiness feel like?
Everything around me forces the way I think while the Flaw is active. Things move unnaturally smooth all of a sudden.
The way Flaw makes me feel dictates my entire body.
I glance down at the notebook. I've given them too much information. Not that it matters.
And I referred to Jet as Master Jet.
I wish I could sigh.
Oh yeah, And Sunless have you figured out a hint about my Flaw yet? Do you feel in control?
I wonder.
***
Welp, I really wanted to write from Sunless pov, Would y'all like to see more such chapters?
Might as well make a fic with him as the mc!
From other's pov ofc.
I feel like I am doing too fucking much, Like wtf did I mean by therapy????? I don't even know anything about it! I was just walking around all over the garden trying to figure out how I should tackle this.
I will be polishing the older chapters to not make them feel too ai ig, But not all at once, I did first two today, So might do 3 and 4 tmrw