The sun doesn't exactly "create" energy. We should be careful to remember the law of conservation of energy: energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed. However, they can be "converted" from one into the other via E=MC2. This is what would take place in an antimatter reaction. However, nuclear reactions are a bit different.
At quantum levels, the difference between matter, mass and energy get a bit blurry. To say that the product nuclei of a fusion reaction have less total mass than the reactant nuclei is not to say that the masses of the protons and neutrons themselves are changing. Rather, the energies binding them together are being adjusted as the constituents of the nucleus change. These energies actually contribute to the mass as well.
Mind that the difference in mass is incredibly small, and the energy output of a single hydrogen-hydrogen fusion reaction is very weak in terms of human scales of energy.
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