The forces of the great Dark descended like a black tide. Marching slowly and in order, they approached the city in silence. The sun itself seemed to retreat from the city, and before long, only a hollow radiance illuminated Lostfon.

Battle lines had been drawn. Vacuos County and the Lacuna Dukedom in general would soon become the frontlines of the war. While both sides had pledged to not harm the puny humans, this was predicated upon their neutrality. And when the great Dark descended…would the shadows pouring into the city still hold on to this promise?

Claud hoped so, at least.

He peeped at the shadows pouring through the city gate. Under the hollow, feeble light of the sun, these shadows seemed surreal, like they didn’t quite exist. He turned to his side, where a slightly-more-real shadow was staring out of the window, and then compared Lily’s puppet to the real deals striding around under the sun.

“Hmm. I think ours look a bit more real.”

“You think?” Lily replied, removing a thick metal band from around her head. Covering the nose, eyes and ears, Claud had to resist the urge to laugh whenever he looked at Lily when she had the Second Shadow on.

The metal band collapsed into a small box a moment later, and the shadow vanished. Lily looked at the box, and then poked it. “And this is one really odd artefact. How does this work? I can’t even disassemble it!”

“Moons if I know.” Claud returned to the bed and pulled out a Second Shadow, which in its stored mode looked like a box. It unfolded after Claud pressed a button, and he placed the contraption on his head.

His vision changed a moment later.

“Man, I look stupid,” Claud commented, referring to the sight of his own body wearing a metal band around his head.

“Get used to it already,” Lily replied, before reaching out to his body and prodding his sides. The sensation of being poked had been dulled, but it was still ticklish nonetheless, and his actual body squirmed a few times.

“I thought we agreed not to do that!”

“Aww, come on.”

“Stop playing around,” Claud unclenched his right hand — the gesture to deactivate the Second Shadow — and his world turned into a solid patch of black. Pushing up the metal band, he took a sip of water and said, “Anyway, let’s observe the proceedings with the Second Shadow. We just need to be a bit careful when talking.”

“Yeah.”

For the Second Shadow, clenching the right hand was key to controlling the shadow produced. If one wanted to move around or communicate as the shadow, the so-called Second Shadow — the user needed to clench a fist. Otherwise, they would regain control over their own body and senses.

Without any further ado, the two of them slipped the metal band onto their heads, and his vision changed once more. Their first movement, to slip through the window, wasn’t so much as hard, but rather odd.

The process of controlling a shadow felt somewhat surreal; there weren’t much in the way of sensory feedback, and Claud felt rather weak. Compared to his actual body — which, by the way, was thoroughly protected right now — the shadow’s movements felt clumsy and slow, like he was wading through water or something.

It was the safest way of observing things without putting his main body at risk, however. Fortunately, nothing happened, and Claud controlled the shadow to enter the streets.

Wind whistled down the deserted streets as the two of them moved from point to point boldly. The soldiers of the great Dark — the shadows pacing around the city aimlessly like a man without a job — had filled up the area, standing around without any discernible purpose.

Making a small sign with his Second Shadow’s left hand, Claud headed over to a nearby wall and stood there, before unclenching his left hand and pushing the metal band up. “What are those shadows doing?”

Lily lifted the Second Shadow from her eyes too. “I’m not sure. But I don’t think they’re doing anything yet. Also…maybe we should take turns doing this. It’s a bit scary when you aren’t talking to me.”

“Scary, huh?” Claud reflected on the odd sensation of being dislocated and nodded. “Alright. I’ll go first and you keep talking to me. It does make me feel odd or something. I get the feeling I might go insane if I use this alone.”

“Alright!”

Lily’s voice was noticeably more jovial, and Claud smiled. “Okay, I’ll activate the Second Shadow now.”

Pushing the metal band back down, Claud immersed himself in the view of his shadow. Making sure to keep his left hand open, he said, “It seems like they’re just waiting for something to happen.”

Clenching his right fist, Claud glanced to his side and then nodded once. Lily had probably deactivated her own Second Shadow, since there wasn’t a shadow there anymore.

“Waiting for the handover, I guess.” Lily’s voice carried a distant quality to it, but it was more than enough to keep these odd sensations he felt from disturbing his mind too much. “Are you still standing there?”

“Yeah. Gotta blend in with the other shadows, right? Still, they really don’t mind boredom or something,” Claud replied. “Right, place me on your lap. Sitting up and doing this feels a bit tiring. The Second Shadow is quite heavy.”

“Can you even feel its weight when your left hand is clenched?”

“I’m sure my body does,” Claud replied.

“Okay, okay. I’m laying you down now, happy? Sheesh.” An odd feeling of being patted assailed Claud’s senses a moment later, and he immediately understood that Lily was playing with his hair.

“Oh, they’re doing something.” Clenching his fist, Claud observed the other shadows, and then followed them to their destination. From the looks of it, everyone was gathering back at the city square…but if they were going back there, what was the point of spreading out?

A few shadows looked at him — probably, anyway — as he followed them, but if they detected anything off about him, they didn’t show it. Still, did this mean that the shadows were capable of independent thought?

He voiced his thoughts after steering his vessel to join the other shadows.

“I think they should be capable of independent thought,” Lily replied, her words slow and contemplative. “But maybe they can’t exhibit it freely. Have they said a single thing so far?”

Claud pricked his ears and waited for a few moments, but the city square was so silent that he really wanted to just stop his surveillance instead. “No, and it’s scary.”

“What’s scary?”

“The thick silence there,” Claud replied. “The shadows are all standing in neat rows and not moving at all. Like, I don’t know…corpses laid out after a disaster or something.”

“That description is a bit too graphic, alright?”

“I’m still going to take a break, though,” Claud replied, before lifting up the Second Shadow from his eyes. His senses returned in full a moment later, as well as the sensation of his original body. Wading through what seemed like oozy, sticky liquid was a very tiring sensation; now that he was back, Claud found himself appreciating the world around him.

“My turn?” Lily asked.

“If you want to, really,” Claud replied. “I don’t think there’ll be anything big happening for now. The shadows don’t seem to be doing anything extra-odd, and a few of them were looking at me oddly too. I think we should just use the Second Shadow for communication and scouting.”

“But we already have the Trading Board for the first bit, right?”

“Well, it won’t hurt to have more ways of communicating,” Claud replied. “Besides, anyone can use it to communicate. They just need to wear it, clench a fist and write. Far less troublesome than the convoluted verification measures that the Trading Board uses, right?”

“True…”

Other than scouting and risky activities, the Second Shadow was also used by nobles to issue orders to distant territories, if the records were accurate. This usually entailed activating the Second Shadow at a designated location to create a shadow, and then taking the metal headband without ever folding it back up. When there was a need to issue an order across huge distances, the noble could simply place the headband back on and they would possess the shadow left at that location.

It was something that Schwarz might just fall onto his knees and buy.

“Would using this allow for communication across the barriers put up by the Moons and the Dark?” Claud muttered.

“That would be too easy, right? And besides, we’ll need to see if those shadows created can pass through the barrier,” Lily replied. “But…”

“I think it’s worth a try, but I also think it’ll take a really long time,” Claud replied. “We can’t use mana in that form, after all. And not to mention the fact that the Second Shadow creates shadows…”

“Getting disintegrated or hunted down when we cross that barrier is quite likely, yes.” Lily cradled his head. “But should we give it a try anyway?”

“…Let’s not. We’ll just hand them to Schwarz when the barrier falls or something. Won’t take too long, I think.”

“There’s a war about to break loose,” said Lily. “I think that barrier’s going to stay up for quite the long time.”

Without warning, green light flooded the skies, illuminating everything it touched. Claud looked at the window once, before picking up the False Self. “Going back in now.”

Lily took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Placing the metal headband around his head, Claud’s vision changed once more.