Sunny spat some blood, gritted his teeth, and slowly stood up.
'Screw this…'
The little girl glanced at him with surprise and tilted her head a little.
"Huh… still alive?"
At this point, Sunny and March's physical strength had finally equalized. Not only was he a Devil now, but he had a fourth shadow augmentation from the Creepy fellow. Not only that, but his current body was much more suitable to the strength of his soul than his original one.
…Of course, this was only temporary. If the two of them were able to survive the Nightmare, Sunny believed that March's augmentations would surpass him again. Her strength increases exponentially in colder weather, while Sunny's might only increases by multiples based on how many shadows he has. As a Titan, he would only ever be able to multiply his strength by eight, no matter what Rank he was.
On the other hand, it was very likely that the boost from March's Dormant Ability will reach a higher limit with each Rank.
Currently, if Sunny and March were equal in base strength, then March would certainly exceed him in pure augmentative power. He was only able to bridge that gap due to his multiple Cores and all his accumulated Shadow Fragments.
With a higher base, his multiplicative strength was much more apparent.
And there was another thing…
A split second later, March was already upon him, her leg flying through the air toward his ribcage.
In a burst of sudden speed and inhuman flexibility, Sunny slid under her leg despite his humongous height. Gripping her shin with Devilish might, he threw her away, watching as she tumbled and rolled away.
Sunny was quite convinced that his Essence control was much better than her own. He was much more efficient, and was able to focus the maximum amount of power into a single point with the minimum amount of expenditure…
Except, Sunny never had a maximum.
It was an interesting thing he came upon by chance, most likely a side effect of having multiple Shadow Cores. Normally, Awakened have a limit to the amount of Soul Essence they can use to enhance their strength. A common occurrence is that they'd blow open their limbs from saturating them too much.
However, while trying to find that limit, Sunny found that he never had one in the first place. And if he did, it was so high that it was unrealistic for him to reach it.
All his Shadow Essence had to go somewhere, and it seemed that his body had the unusual trait of being much more resilient to his own Essence than usual. However, Sunny didn't think it was that convenient… after all, he still felt excruciating pain when forming a new Core, even in this Shadow Devil body of his.
…Maybe the original Shadow Demon had a couple of medical problems. After all, it's well known that Nightmare Creatures don't seem to undergo pain while forming a Core. At least, that's the case for those that have been directly observed.
Anyways, the point was that it would be strange if his body was able to have no limit to the amount of Essence he could saturate himself with, but still be rejecting the extra Cores that form within him.
Instead, Sunny considered a major difference in his Aspect when compared to others. Usually, until Transcendence, people don't undergo major physical transformations when using their Aspects. Yet, Sunny is able to become a literal shadow. Not only that, but his Aspect describes him as a shadow, a Divine Shadow, at that.
It seemed that due to the strange limbo of his existence, being between human and shadow, conventional rules didn't function properly. He had an Aspect while being inside a Devil's body, so that was a major flag.
He briefly wondered if that was a shared trait between Divine Aspect holders, before remembering that he was in the middle of a fight. March was already back in front of him.
Unable to seriously hurt the girl, he had no choice but to retreat under the onslaught of deadly strikes, receiving several glancing blows that left him reeling and in pain. The scrawny girl was very small, but made up for it by being incredibly nimble and swift. The little imp was so wild and fast, in fact, that it almost felt as though she was in several places at the same time.
Sunny growled with unrestrained fury and brought the greatsword down, creating some space between himself and the advancing girl. He felt very, very... very frustrated.
All he had to do, for now, was to let March know who he was. That was not very hard to do… there were many ways, really. He could use one of his shadows, or summon a familiar Memory… if only she gave him a damned moment to breathe and think!
The problem was that March did not. She was also not fighting in any style Sunny was familiar with. He knew her usual technique pretty well, but this assault had nothing in common with it.
A Memory… a Memory was the easiest option, since summoning one took only a thought and several seconds. However, that was also the worst option, because doing so would reveal his ability to summon things out of thin air to the Maidens.
There had to be a better way...
Sunny deflected another devastating kick and took a step back, then froze for a split second… and threw his buckler away.
The thing was hideously bent by now, anyway.
With one of his hands now free, he made it into a fist, sent it flying forward…
And extended his middle finger with a vicious snarl.
With much more finesse than what she had displayed, in fact.
March, who was already preparing to launch another attack, blinked a couple of times, then looked up at the towering demon with confusion.
"...Huh?"
'Finally!'
Using March's momentary confusion, Sunny raised two of his hands to his face, shut one of his eyes, and squeezed his index finger as if he was taking a picture.
The little girl frowned, then lunged forward and delivered a crushing strike, but this time, her movements were a bit slower, allowing him to easily dodge out of the way... purposefully so.
Sunny raised his two hands above his head, used the Ghastly Hunger — which was disguised as one of the many gloves on his hand — to activate Kurt's Shadow Manipulation Ability. A small gap appeared in the shadows on the wall behind him, with the vague shape of a teddy bear forming within that gap.
From March's perspective, it looked like Sunny was holding the silhouette of a teddy bear.
She craned her neck and stared at the towering Devil with an inexorable expression, then blurted out in a soft, childish voice:
"S—Sunny?!"
Sunny pretended to attack her with the dagger, then dodged a similarly half-hearted kick, and gave the little girl a short nod.
March's face trembled:
"Why… why are you so tall?!"