2026-05-16: Revelations: Persona
- Log: Revelations: Persona
- Cast: Penguin Sniper, Maki Sonomura, Minato Arisato, Masao Inaba, Suzume Fukura, Pernelle, Akihiko Sanada, Minako Arisato, Umie Akabane, Aigis, Hyousuke Suzuki, Yanagi Nagisa, Mitsuru Kirijo, Julian Marlowe, Eriko Kirishima, Ririka Kawase, Hitomi Mandai, Katsuya Suou
- Where:
- OOC Date: May 16, 2026
- IC Date: November 10, 2012
- Summary: The Hierophant Shadow has been taken, stolen away by Hisataka Shinjo, the secretary to Tatsuzou Sudou... but several youths that knew him three years prior know him by another name: Takahisa Kandori. And it seems he's not satisfied with merely taking the Shadow... can anything stop the man who became a god?
AS: Umie Akabane has readied for combat as Badb! She is now fully healed! AS: Masao Inaba has readied for combat as Ogun! He is now fully healed! AS: Aigis has readied for combat as Palladion! She is now fully healed! AS: Hitomi Mandai has readied for combat as Tyche! She is now fully healed! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo has readied for combat as Penthesilea! She is now fully healed! AS: Minako Arisato has readied for combat as Linos! She is now fully healed! AS: Maki Sonomura has readied for combat as Taishan Niangniang! She is now fully healed! AS: Minato Arisato has readied for combat as Orpheus! He is now fully healed! AS: Akihiko Sanada has readied for combat as Polydeuces! He is now fully healed! AS: Suzume Fukura has readied for combat as Atalanta! She is now fully healed! AS: Hyousuke Suzuki has readied for combat as Achilles! He is now fully healed! AS: Yanagi Nagisa has readied for combat as Giselle! She is now fully healed! AS: Pernelle has readied for combat as Anqa! He is now fully healed! AS: Eriko Kirishima has readied for combat as Nike! She is now fully healed!
<Pose Tracker> God Penguin has posed.
LAST TIME ON THE VELVET ROOM
The Hierophant Shadow feels like it must be on its last legs. It must be. Its entire form is sagging, like the masculine figure seated upon the feminine throne might fall off if they weren't grafted together.
And then, the Shikigami figures guarding the Shadow divide into two more Shikigami, the distinctions washing away. They encircle the figure, twirling, dancing.
And in the distance a bell rings. Chiming like a Priestess wielding a Kagura Suzu, but there's something wrong with it.
The Shikigami all take positions, their parodies of limbs joining together as they all bend strangely where their waists might be.
"I invoke the power of the Kimon Tonkou. Wander endlessly in your banishment from this realm, Shadow of the Arcana."
A feminine voice, from a figure in a stylish black dress and a veil that simply melts out of the shadows of Aoba Park.
Bringing forth a Paper Talisman, it catches fire in front of them as a gate of gray light opens beneath the Hierophant. Mist pours out from this portal to another realm.
The Hierophant Shadow lets out a burble of protest as it panics, trying to smash against one of the Shikigami, but the blow is deflected. It begins to become translucent. Then it vanishes entirely, the Shikigami do the same soon after.
Then it is gone. The navigators cannot even feel the smallest hint of its presence. Only the lingering absence.
Replaced by something far- different. Far worse.
The click of the footsteps of his well polished shoes sounds just as loudly. A man wearing an off-black business suit and a darker dress shirt, sporting a pair of sunglasses with jagged lines of black trailing down his face from each lens.
The Navigators may wonder if he's a man at all.
The man stops a short distance from the battleworn figures and speaks with a hint of sardonic irony. "The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed. It is said that to know the forces that guide one's self is a precious gift."
His smile is just a little too wide as the veiled woman stands behind him.
"It is past time you children learn what a curse it can be."
NOW
With the sunglasses on, one cannot see his eyes, but three in the crowd know he's looking at them.
"It would seem fate has decreed that we stand on the same stage once again." He remarks, "The curtain had fallen, but 'he' has demanded an encore performance."
There's a similar passivity to his words, an ambivalence. As if ambition had been completely stolen from him reaching the pinnacle.
To have the power to reach for the stars and blot them out of the sky, and to feel- nothing. An absence of desire, of drive now that he had achieved all he set out to do.
"And yet, so many new fresh-faced youths stand with you." He looks over the crowd in turn, "So many that have not the slightest concept on where the Fool's journey will take them." Faint amusement creases his lips, "What do you think? Are they worthy successors to your legacy?"
A fingertip adjusts his sunglasses, and it's like he's far away for several long seconds.
"My name is Hisataka Shinjo of the New World Order but it is little more than a nom de guerre for this performance. As for my true name... well..." He smirks, "... far be it from me to say it and steal their opportunity to be your Seniors."
Blink, and you'll miss it, that moment where he is suddenly standing in front of Mitsuru Kirijo, rather than where he was before.
"The pawns of the penitent, they who call themselves 'S.E.E.S.'... We will be taking the Shadow of the Hierophant Arcana. 'He' has decided you cannot be allowed to stumble about in the in-between time any longer, meddling with forces far beyond your ken."
There's a glimmer of cruelty, of malice in what part of his expression that can be seen, a shadow of his past self.
"But that is not all we will be laying claim to. 'He' desires that a certain meddler be dealt with. The Devil you don't know requires no introduction"
Pernelle in that moment gets an odd sense, that he means him. Despite no indication of such, he's not even looking at him. Perhaps it's simply his own tendencies.
Or perhaps it's some deeper survival instinct than that.
He turns to face one Minato Arisato and Minato feels something stir within him, as what's behind his sunglasses tries to hold his gaze.
"And the Fool- this young Wild Card will be coming with us."
And to those who have faced this man before, Maki Sonomura in particular, the horror of the implications of why they would want him speaks upon itself.
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
Maki senses something strange. Just in time--for the ring of the bell. There is something wrong there, and then the Kimon Tonkou is invoked. Maki frowns.
"What...?" It's gone. Not here--instead, there is--
The ichor at least is gone, but maki is not relieved; she sees the man. She does not need to speculate as to what he is, not really.
A curse...
"Takahisa Kandori," Maki manages eventually. "...Kandori-san!" she cries, and she knows him. She knows him perhaps better than anyone at this point, or at least, anyone living. The horror and dismay and complex emotion in her voice is plain.
Are they worthy successors? "...They want what my friends wanted, back then. To help. To save people. That's worthy. That means something!"
He moves. And 'he'... has decided.
'This young Wild Card will be coming with us.'
"NO!" Maki shouts suddenly, all the conflict in her heart suddenly channeled into certainty. "You can't! You saw all of this before--you saw how meaningless it was, in the end!"
"...I almost..."
"Wasn't it enough!? What we did before? ...When we almost destroyed everything?" Maki asks.
"Not again. NOT AGAIN!"
"I thought..."
"I thought we both learned. I thought we both learned how empty it was. So why!? Kandori-san, why!?"
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Five minutes -- though with all this power, they might just make it.
This wouldn't be the first Full Moon Arcana with a time limit, Minato knows. The High Priestess, too, tick, tick, ticked down to oblivion, as the train it had subverted hurtled down the tracks to mass destruction.
That also means... this wouldn't be the first time five minutes became three.
Two.
One...
(As the bell tolls, there is a shift, in the air; as if something no one had quite realised they were being watched by flinched. In this moment, it becomes easier to find one's way to the park -- a way which had been obscured. The Navigators in this battle might be too occupied to focus on it, but there's one Navigator SEES has on the back lines who's been trying to scry out the truth...)
Minato isn't focused on that, though.
Minato is looking at the Hierophant, the masculine mystique which matches the High Priestess's time pressure.
'Save us', they'd said; is this what they meant, as they hit the floor? The girl isn't choking on ichor, any more.
And there is a man, in grey and in black...
Are the bodies falling away from him, or did he just know where they'd fall?
Minato looks to him and the woman with him, his blank face betraying no real emotion as that man speaks. (Down to them, he supposes his team might say; Minato doesn't really notice the quality.)
'He'... huh. Passive voice. The boy listening called Minato does recognise that. The head he's in turns, when 'Shinjo' -- Kandori? -- steps before Mitsuru. Strangely, for once, he feels... something might even be stronger than her.
He takes a step forward -- to protect his Ice Queen? But then that man turns to him -- and he pauses. He is quiet, for long moments. It is easy to say that Maki's horror has moved even his dispassionate soul to terror, beneath his blank face. But... no. No: something inside him recognises that silhouette.
Then...
"I have one question for you..." Minato speaks up. What incisive observation has he noticed that will help them succeed?
"... why are you wearing sunglasses at night?"
we're all gonna die
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
Masao, growing exhausted from the usual strains of fighting in the Dark Hour and watching such a grisly thing unfold with those cultists, finds his loud-mouthed self speechless. 'What the fuck,' he mouths, because there's no volume loud enough to really capture the emotion here.
"You're r--" He's about to shout, when Maki cuts him off with her 'not again. NOT AGAIN!' He won't talk over her there. Everything that happened... even if he was one of the ones who fought through that ordeal with the rest, there are some things you just cannot claim to know, or feel, as closely and wholly as Maki does.
He shakes his head, as if he's still trying to sort his own feelings out, but-- not for long.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" Masao shouts over to Minato and the others of SEES. "Don't let that guy take you! Get outta here! Get outta here RIGHT NOW!" But could they run from him, with how quickly the once dead man has moved into position?
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
This is not the way Suzume has ever seen an Arcana Shadow defeated before. Pulled away to another realm by shikigami and a priestess' bell.
Suzume whirls around to look at the man as he speaks, almost in sync with Minato, though *she* wasn't the one precisely being addressed. She doesn't know him. Her eyes narrow slightly anyway. She's already amped up from the battle, and feeling like she failed from the cultist that collapsed into a Shadow.
She takes one step forward, then another.
"Don't call them fools," she says, perhaps not really getting entirely what he meant by that - because while Minato might not have noticed that he was talking down to them, Suzume certainly did. She's had enough of being talked to like she's an idiot... even if in this case she really is ignorant.
Her hand tightens around the grip of one of her tonfa's grips, clenching into a fist hard enough her knuckles whiten, as she steps forward too. She's supposed to be fighting for the rest of SEES. They're depending on her to keep them safe...
"Who're you, who gets to decide that?" Suzume is very obviously part of SEES - she put on her coat, it has the shoulder band attached - so she knows she was being addressed. "What did you want with the Shadow? And they're not going with you either."
Suzume darts forward, suddenly, as if trying to interpose herself between the man - Shinjo? Kandori? - and the Arisatos. It's Minato she goes toward first - she's closer to him, both physically and socially, he's one of her friends and she's not going to let him get hurt if she can help it. She doesn't *attack* - but she does raise her hands as if she was moving into a boxer's guard, protectively.
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
For all of Pernelle's dancing and flame -- to say nothing of the Persona users who were certainly putting in a lot more effort into the battle with the shadow -- it is a strange occurrence that sees the end of the battle. Pernelle goes uncharacteristically quiet, pushing his glasses back up his beak as he observes this man. His feathers ruffle and smooth out.
His long neck lowers, just a touch, as he squints out under the brim of his hat to listen to Hisataka Shinjo speak to the youths and to the Fools, and to...
Pernelle subtly, carefully, scuttles his way back to Yanagi one muffled fall of a clawed foot at a time while attention falls to Minato Arisato, and Minato meets that attention with a perfect question Pernelle would ordinarily be all too eager to bandwagon.
Instead...
"This has become truly fascinating," he whispers to Yanagi. "Wonderful adventure. Fantastic twists all around. The night has peaked beautifully and I have full faith in the ardor of the gathered. ... I think we should leave."
There's a twitch in the way his head turns to look to the man and back to her again.
<Pose Tracker> Akihiko Sanada has posed.
Akihiko isn't at all sure what to expect from this man in the suit, wearing sunglasses during the Dark Hour. There's at least one thing he realizes.
The moment he appears next to Mitsuru, this guy is bad news.
"Hey! Get away from her!" Akihiko lets out a yell.
However, it takes a moment for this 'Hisataka Shinjo' said to sink in. "Wait... You didn't kill that Shadow?" Isn't that bad? Wouldn't that mean the Dark Hour won't end ever now? "Hold on, that Shadow needs to die to end the Dark Hour...!" Will it even matter to the man, claiming to be apart of the New World Order...?
Then, the kicker. He wants to take Minato, their co-leader. Where? For what purposes? It doesn't matter. "Absolutely not! You'll have to go through SEES before taking our co-leader anywhere!" He rushes forward, aiming to get between Minato and this Shiinjo asshole.
<Pose Tracker> Minako Arisato has posed.
The Hierophant vanishes. But it not defeated; the shikigami around it seem to pull it somewhere. It vanishes before Minako Arisato's very eyes, and she feels her jaw slacken with confusion. She is kneeling from its last blow. She feels, for a moment, like she is somewhere else entirely. Like she is watching herself see this impossibility. This failure on the part of SEES, that they could never have predicted.
The click of footsteps echo hollowly in her ears. Like she is a million miles away -- like she watches it on television. The well-dressed man's words are distant, as if heard from another room. His true name?
She starts to tense, when he appears before Mitsuru, just like that. She feels it distantly; a tension in her neck, the muscles in her jaw starting to set. Then, Kandori turns his attention onto her brother. Maki's screaming is a distant, piercing cry.
LAST NIGHT
"You're back."
Inside of his greenlit room, Pharos looks up. It's a strange, featureless thing -- but the edges of the walls seem to fuzz and blur, and there is a window overlooking placid waters and capturing the reflection of the almost full moon. It is Dark Hour, but it is also a dream.
Minako Arisato knows that well. "It means the moon's almost full, doesn't?"
"Mm," Pharos says. "Yes. I'm surprised you still come to visit me, though..."
Minako tilts her head. There is a moment where she is quiet -- and then she smiles at the boy. "We're friends, right? Besides... it seems like it must be lonely here."
"Lonely... yes, I suppose so," Pharos says. "I never thought of it before. I only go to visit one other person."
"My brother," Minako ventures, her lips drawing into a line.
"...Yes."
"But never me," she says.
"No," Pharos says. "You're different. But... I'm glad you come visit me. And I'm glad I can see him. I worry about him though."
Her red eyes close, and she smiles. She exhales. "Don't," she says. "Everything I do... it's to keep him safe."
NOW
'...will be coming with us,' Kandori says, and the words come into sharp focus. Minako's crimson eyes come into sharp focus, looking straight at Kandori. As Minato steps forward, speaking to the well-dressed man with that flat affectation. And then Minako stands up from where she had been kneeling. Masao calls out in protest, and Suzume shoots forward.
Minako kicks her naginata off where it fell -- and grabs it, point leveled at Kandori. She stalks up, beside her brother. Suzume can see the point of the blade poking just past her shoulder.
Her voice is steel when she speaks. Her eyes blaze red.
"You're not going to lay a fucking finger on my brother."
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Umie should have realized her efforts to ignore everything but the massive shadow, _including the Shikigami_, would bite her in the ass. Shikigami multiply and surround the Hierophant Shadow, and a feminine voice employs the Kimon Tonkou. (Note to Umie Self: ask Shiryuu if he knows what the heck that is, that sounds like one of those archaic things a Shiryuu would know about.)
As the figure reveals themselves, Umie tenses, unsure of whether this is an ally or not. Could it be the Bride? ... Hmm, no, the Bride's never utilized these kind of abilities before. It's just the veil that makes her think of that comparison, really.
At least Umie didn't have to linger in thoughtful silence for long, as another joins in, impeccably dressed, with the confidence that can only come from a man who wears sunglasses at night.
But beyond that... "...." Umie is not a Navigator at all; most of her abilities partial at best, subscribing to a completely opposite philosophy: not being seen. The senses that could be seen as Navigator adjacent, limited in scope as they may be... they fire off with the only information that would have been necessary for Umie to survive, by herself:
'Get the fuck out of here.'
".... You missed it," she says, instead, filled with false confidence, as he strides in.
'Hisataka Shinjo.' Should Umie have been surprised? Her face remains stony, not wanting to give away the secret information that was shared with her from the three gathered here.
.... The three that the man has had his gaze on throughout his introduction, though Umie wouldn't have known, even when Maki cries out, and rips open that collective memory of those three open anew.
Why does it feel even worse that Umie can't feel her at all? No comments, no back-handed praise, not even a coy silence, like the times when Mai-chan punished her by letting her rot in complete isolation without a single snarky comment to hang on.
There's just that novel sensation of a hollow, impersonal vacuum.
"So what do you mean, by 'Wild Card'?" Umie asks, as she, as if freed from stone by Maki's cry, takes a single step towards the man.
But only one. She's still a coward, even in front of all these people.
Minako's own defiance stirs the masked blonde up just a bit further, to take yet another step. "... About what Sonomura-san said. You still feel that way, don't you," Umie says to the man, quietly. "Yet you're still letting your strings be pulled by the Order, and by 'him'."
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Earlier, Aigis had brought almost everything she had to bear to riddle the Hierophant Shadow with holes -- almost. Taking down the Full Moon Shadows is important --
-- but if either of the Arisato twins should fall, then all would be lost. That grim calculus constantly weighs heavy in her mind.
Thus the 'almost.' She needs a contingency plan in case something threatens either of them. There's always a part of her that holds back until an emergency requires the last of her reserves.
The moment that Shinjo's eyes settle on Minato, Aigis' right hand emits that telltale 'clack' of another round of ammunition loading into the chambers. Even as damaged as she is, she burns the rest of her energy into stepping in front of the twins, right alongside Suzume and Akihiko.
Aigis declares a stern warning: "You will not touch him. There will be no trouble if you refrain from doing so." It is not a request, but a statement. She turns her head back to Minato and Minako, then nods at Masao. "You two first. Please do as he says."
She levels her gaze back to Shinjo, keen on watching his every move. "That man ... is dangerous."
To Minato's later question, she tilts her head and quietly offers a possible explanation: "(... perhaps he has light sensitivty from a recent operation?)"
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
The pain, the panic, the warping of his mind - all of it had left Hyousuke exhausted. It was not an unfamiliar feeling. It was not even the worst he'd felt. A momentary lull in the action had allowed him to gather what little remained of his strength, and prop himself up on limbs that screamed for rest. He silenced them, and quelled the burning pain that seared his blood, with an unhealthy dose of whatever healing items he could drag from out of his pouches. He would pay for it in the morning, he was sure, but he could worry about that when morning came.
If it came at all.
The pain was not so much dispelled as it was silenced. He could feel a numb ache in his body, but it had been smothered beneath the properties of whatever he'd administered to himself. It wasn't much, and it certainly wasn't healthy, but it was enough for Hyousuke to peer through the black and see what had happened. Unfamiliar figures danced in the gloom, doing away with the foe they had struggled against with every fibre of their being - that he had almost collapsed under the might of - before someone else entered the fray. Or, rather, some*thing* else.
Hyousuke drew his fists into a guard and clenched his jaw, snarling like a guard dog faced with an intruder. He didn't know who the stranger was, or what they wanted, but something deep inside of him triggered an instinct that told him to defend. With rumbling throat and tightly-clenched fist, he drew towards the group, putting his body before theirs, as if the presence of mere flesh could stall for enough time for them to do something about that... thing. It was in vain, of course. They seemed to vanish in a heartbeat, appearing before people he did not recognise before he had the chance to blink. He snapped around in response, ready to summon his Persona, but his body could not match the strength of his mind.
There was still pain, and exhaustion, and fear. The Hierophant Shadow had taken all but the dregs of his energy, and the healing items had not yet given him time to recover. But he could still put on a show. Make a thread display, show this new figure that he meant business, brandish his gun if he had to. Anything to repel them. He did not know what them taking Minato would mean exactly, of course. He was not savvy tot hat kind of thing. But his gut told him it would be bad, and he told himself it would not be allowed to pass.
"Dunno why this asshole's wearing glasses..." Hyousuke snarled, speaking through clenched teeth. "...But I'm gonna knock 'em right off his smug goddamn face if he doesn't step back." That familiar fury began to flare in his eyes, threatening to melt the visor obscuring them with the heat of his gaze alone, and the fibres in his costume creaked with the strain of his grip. "Get away from them, or I'll drag you out of here myself."
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
LAST TIME
Pernelle confirmed that he loves Yanagi very much, just before getting blown up by a Mahama spell.
"Aww...!" This bothers Yanagi not at all, for the light truly only lets Pernelle dazzle the stage even more. She hurries over to him with a tup-tup-tup of her cane, drops to her knees, and wraps her arms around him in a squeezy hug that nonetheless remains mindful of his many gorgeous feathers. "I love you too, Pernelle! <3"
The scuttling back to her side will thus have to be in spirit. Everyone can appreciate that right now, surely, because this is when the shikigami encircle the Hierophant, and a woman's voice banishes it to another realm. Yanagi lifts her head, eyebrows furrowing as the powerful creature and its paper escorts simply... vanish, both from sight and from her senses.
They are soon replaced by a dark man in dark glasses with a dark purpose.
NOW
Yanagi's eyes narrow as he introduces himself as being with the New World Order. She sucks in a little breath at his sudden relocation in front of Mitsuru. How he will be 'dealing' with 'the Devil you don't know'--an odd phrase--and that he'll be taking Minato. She'd think little of the former, vague as it is, if Pernelle didn't start whispering to her.
What he suggests, and the way he twitches...
"..."
...is not especially Pernelle-like behavior.
But then Maki re-names this man--and that recontexualization means Yanagi recognizes him. ...and that means this strange, oppressive man also had something to do with what happened to Mikage-cho after she died. That's part of a past that she wasn't even present for. Yet...
She whispers back, "I agree. But slowly. Slowly, yes? Predators track movement." Pernelle, as an avaricious predator of all things he can possibly stuff down his gullet, would no doubt understand. "Let him pay attention to SEES instead of us." Between Minato's blithe question and how his sister and teammates all leap to his defense, he seems like he'll be all right.
As for Yanagi, she just wants to know more, and therefore wants the time to hear what else her former schoolmates have to say--while also getting further away from this... person... who has even her beloved Pernelle intimidated, who has Masao screaming at SEES to get away. She knows quite well it would benefit her to get away too.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuru Kirijo has posed.
This is it. It should be over.
It's not.
Mitsuru Kirijo knows there is something wrong before her heels even touch the frosty street beneath her. The Hierophant should be destroyed -- or if not, close enough to it that it the deed should be done by the time she looks back. And yet -- something feels amiss.
She notices movement from her peripheries. Her eyes widen. Why didn't she notice before??
"Wait! The shikigami--!"
She had assumed they were part of the Shadow.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid--
The Shikigami surround, imprison, and outright vanish the Arcana Shadow entirely before Mitsuru can even pivot around, her eyes wide in shock and confusion just as much as her teeth grit and lips peel in self-recriminating anger. She can't even register Fuuka's seemingly much-needed healing in the heat of the moment as her eyes affix -immediately- upon the apparent source:
A single, simple man wearing wrongness as naturally as he wears a suit and shades.
He looks -- familiar. Hisataka Shinjo, he calls himself, but it rings false to her. Who--
Takahisa Kandori. ...Kandori-san!
"--Kandori?!" Mitsuru exclaims, eyes widening in recognition if but for the name and the infamy attached to it. How could she not know? The notorious head of S.E.B.E.C., the man behind those events so many years ago that coincided so closely with the birth of the Dark Hour. A man who--
"But -- you should be"
She barely manages to get those four syllables out before
"d"
suddenly
"ea"
she's not alone.
"--gk?!"
Black lenses burrow into her soul. She's stumbling - stumbling - back before she even realizes what she's doing, a gloved hand falling to her Evoker and expression struck with the shocked alarm of an animal that has received an unexpected sensory overload.
His words, however, help sharpen her focus.
Pawns of the penitent. They'll be taking the Hierophant - the thing they need to eliminate, to right their wrong. Meddling in forces beyond their ken, as if this was his right to deny them, as if - as if--
And the Fool- this young Wild Card will be coming with us.
Mitsuru's pride stings. But it's nothing compared to the sudden, protective impulse that surges over her as the man threatens one of her own. Mitsuru shifts, backpedaling from Kandori -- but if one thinks it's a retreat, well--
They only have to look at how her trajectory is instantly placing her between Minato and Kandori to know it's anything but that.
"No."
The world comes flat. Tense. She, once more, has no idea what is going on here -- when even one unknown is too much for someone who has spent their whole life trying to control every possible variable, this many is existential in its frustration. But she doesn't think about that now.
"You will return the Arcana Shadow to us. I will not allow you to perpetuate this evil one moment longer."
He moved without her even noticing. Something about him screams TERROR into the most primal centers of her brain.
"And on my honor as a Kirijo, you. Will not. TOUCH him."
But she can't afford to lose any more of her people. Not one more.
"Try it, and I promise will make sure the hand that dared never touches a single thing again."
<Pose Tracker> Julian Marlowe has posed.
Not all of those who had been surreptitiously keeping watch on the proceedings in Aoba Park had been ready to act, the moment when those events came to a head. By the time a certain white-masked gentleman arrives in the area, he had found his way to the park barred, in a strange, indirect manner.
He'd have suspected it was an effect generated by the threat at hand, if this particular 'lost in the fog' sensation wasn't so eerily familiar. Last time, it just so happened to ensnare him into the very place he wanted to be. This time, it seemed bent on steering him astray. Try as he might - and try he did - forcing his way through was getting him nowhere fast. Until, finally...
For reasons unknown, the sound of a bell heralds the clearing of the way, the latest attempt at breaching through to the center of the 'maze' suddenly proving not only possible, but effortless. Might this be a trap? Regardless, the man proceeds without hesitation.
And so, with calm, methodical footfalls of crisp leather shoes somehow entirely silent, Vesper finally arrives on the scene. Fashionably late? Certainly not. A gentleman always arrives exactly when he means to.
"Hisataka Shinjo... or, Takahisa Kandori, is it?" He just heard those names spoken for the first time from a distance just now, but heck if he's not going to make it sound like he has any idea who this person is. "Rather brazen of the New World Order to act so directly, in the midst of such a large gathering. While I might normally say your business is your own..."
With a flourish, the grey-suited man throws his right arm up, flinging the umbrella resting on it into the air, caught by the handle on the way down. With a following twirl and a dull thud, the opposite end lands in Vesper's open left palm.
"...If I'm not mistaken, you threatened a child just now, did you not? That won't do. That won't do at all."
Vesper never shows any outside indication of anger. That doesn't mean there isn't anything that makes him angry.
<Pose Tracker> Eriko Kirishima has posed.
When the Shikigami move, Eriko's eyes widen- she had noted them before but she hadn't realized until now what they meant- the Shikigami weren't part of the Arcana Shadow. They were serving someone else- and when she hears the voice command, Eriko starts to decipher what it means.
"Kimon Tonkou... the Stone Sentinel Maze..." Eriko frowns. Does that mean-
It would seem fate has decreed that we stand on the same stage once again.
Her thoughts about the spell are cast completely to the side when she sees what he's replaced with. For a moment, Eriko is frozen in fear, seeing who stands before them. With the scars, you could almost mistake him for someone else- but Reiji's scar is much smaller.
It's Maki's cry that snaps her out of it, and Eriko moves swiftly, stepping between her friend and Kandori, blade drawn- for what little good it will do. "...Kei was right," Eriko says, despite herself. "You were brought back somehow."
But then he declares that they will be taking the fool- but why Minato, and not Minako? They have two, after all.
"...That's assuming his friend there will give us an opportunity." Eriko's eyes drill briefly into the veiled figure who commanded the Shikigami. She has her suspicions, but...
She hears the way that S.E.E.S. declare their resolve, and Eriko smiles- but it's a hollow thing, filled with sorrow. "...Please listen when I tell you this," Eriko announces, keeping her calm compared to Mark's frantic panic. "We are about face the power of a man who transcended his humanity and became a God." There's no excitement in Eriko's voice right now, it's flat. Empty. "A man who has returned from death. I am not exaggerating at in the slightest when I say this. The last time I saw Takahisa Kandori, he was a corpse missing everything below his chest."
Eriko's eyes flit to Mitsuru Kirijo first. "...Kei told you some of it, didn't he?" The time for secrecy is gone now. Anyone with the knowledge to put two and two together could make four, after Maki cried out. "When we last fought him, we were much, much stronger than we were then." It's clear to see the shiver in Eriko's body now, even as she holds her blade. "...and there were more of us."
Kei, Reiji, Yuka, Yukino, Brown... Naoya... and the other Maki.
Seven people who aren't here now.
Pernelle suggests retreating, and Eriko's eyes flick to him. It's a good suggestion.
She'd love it if it were that easy. Minako steps forward with anger, and Eriko waves her blade out to the side. "...Don't jump to his bait. We're nowhere near his level right now, isn't that right, Mr Kandori? It would be a repeat of our encounter in your office right now, wouldn't it?" It's strange- there's not total bitterness behind Eriko's voice. Not the hatred one would expect for their enemy. There's sadness, and anger- but not hatred. "I assume that the Crawling Chaos has a part to play in your reemergence on the stage?"
Masao orders people to run, and Eriko looks to her two friends. "...Mark's right. We'll do what we can to buy you an opening. You all don't know what you're up against." Eriko frowns. "Don't split up, and don't get isolated." She glances briefly to Yanagi and Pernelle- and she doesn't begrudge them their fleeing.
Still, Eriko smiles grimly as Kandori asks his question of their legacy. "...If they're our legacy, it's our job as adults to make sure they can keep going, isn't that right?" Still, Eriko gives a mirthless grin that bares her teeth. "But if you ask me, I think they'll do fine if they have they chance to reach their potential- and I think I can speak for the others who aren't here too. Right, Maki-chan?" She looks to her best friend, and the memories of another in one quick glance.
"...I want us all to survive this," Eriko whispers to Maki and Mark both, "but if it comes down to it... Maki-chan, I want you to get the kids out of here, okay?"
She didn't fight Kandori the first time to free Maki's heart to let it be crushed again now.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
"Just a little bit more," Ririka urges. She's focused on the civilians present--the ones they might, hopefully, still save.
She isn't ready for the interruption that comes next. When the doorway open she blinks in shock-- "Wait, you can't!" Though the portal it goes, and Ririka franctically tries to extend her senses out to find it. "I-- I can't confirm if it's been defeated" she reports to SEES and the Persona Users more broadly. She's trying to keep her voice calm, but after all the upsetting developments tonight...
She watches as the man approaches, worry etched on her face. "What even..."
Hisataka Shinjio... of the New World Order. Given how tense the fight has been, somehow she still manages to feel a fresh surge of tension to eclipse the old.
Suddenly in front of Mitsuru, and then he lays claim to to the Shadow and to Minato. "No..."
And Maki calls out his true name, which draws Ririka's attention. "Do you know this guy!?"
Minato speaks, and for a moment Ririka is hoping it will be orders of some kind... but it's a question, instead. "Arisato-kun..." This is so not the time. She focuses her attention back on that man. "We won't let you take him!"
She has, indeed, been too focused on on the battle and the civilians to notice the shrouding. SEES' other Navigator will ahve to attend to that.
She might /want Fuuka here in the moment too--she's overtaxed, with fraying nerves, and she's already spent a lot of focus tonight. Luckily, she's not the only Navigator here.
She closes her eyes for a moment and hums to herself to center herself, before opening them and reaching for her keyboard. "I don't know who you think you are, but Arisato-kun is with us! If you think we'd just hand him over without a fight, then you don't know a thing about us!"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
As is often the case for Hitomi, she was not greatly distressed physically by the battle. Or rather, she did not have to run around and exert herself -- others, better suited for that, have done that. But she *was* scared semi-shitless; and she did, just now, run, though not far enough for another of her patented slouching and gasping for breath.
It's not that big of a park.
By any measure, it was a harrowing battle, despite that. The shock of that strange world-weary inclination towards passive despair and simply accepting the end, not in the sense of embracing impermanence but just laying down and waiting for death. The horrifying manifestation of the sealed persons, who Hitomi had taken at first for some cognitive illusion thrown at them.
(At least, that's the kind of maneuver she'd probably pull, if she could.)
Instead, they were real -- even if the worst she had done was knock some of them over to get them off of Aigis, they were alive! Alive and with mere minutes to spare before their horrid conversion into Shadows. (And they already lost one; maybe she was predisposed? Hitomi barely saw her. A melting woman on the ground. That is one that will stick with her.)
And there is someone else, now. Someone who has *taken* the Hierophant Shadow. (Did that mean they failed? Is that basically as good? *Where did these people take the Full Moon Shadow?* **HOW CAN THEY DO THAT??** These questions all scream inside of her head.)
Even as that person - if it is a person, as she would understand the term - introduces themselves (kind of) and speaks at length. He speaks to Mitsuru, and Hitomi can hear him even as she herself is breathing heavily. And whatever he says or *does* is making *Mitsuru* flinch!
It is an escalation. He makes a clear demand-- and then one of the others, one of the older people who were joining in (is she with Umie?, thinks Hitomi, though she may not know Umie as Umie, exactly) - she identifies him as someone else.
Someone doing it AGAIN.
AGAIN.
AGAIN.
A thought pops into Hitomi's mind for a moment. Did any of it matter?
A beat passes. For some reason her jaw aches, a single brisk throb. And then Minato answers the man himself, distant but clear in Hitomi's ears.
And then it feels like weight is sliding off her back, a coat of lead she didn't know she was wearing, and Hitomi straightens up. In fact, straighter than she usually is; she brings her hands round to rest on her hips with enough emphasis to make a slight 'pap' sound.
"None of that is going to happen," Hitomi says, quietly, perhaps with a little bit of coaching herself in her tone, but clearly enough. She sucks in a deep breath through her nose; exhales through her mouth. Her mind is simmering over, but somehow all the terror and fear feels like an updraft. Am I having a psychotic break? she wonders, academically, and maybe she is, because she takes one step, two steps forwards with a deliberate theatricality. Even as Suzume steps up, as Minako steps up.
"Arisato-chan~, you shouldn't swear like that," says Hitomi as she walks forwards. She does not move to physically interpose, but she is *there* - she actually moves laterally for several paces, in order to be in a defilade position. (at least that is the word Hitomi remembers for the advanced strategic art of 'shoot from a different direction at the same time as the rest of the force.')
"They might think you're uncouth and crude!" Hitomi continues, clapping her hands together and lacing the fingers. She gives a rather open-mouthed smile that doesn't reach your eyes.
Her eyes are bright, but not in a wholesome way. "Though, you should listen to Kirijo-sempai, and Arisato-chan, and Aigis, honestly, everyone! You seem really scary,"
haha, I am bluffing so hard
this is incredible!
terrifying!
We're probably all going to die, especially me!
What's going to happen!?
"But so are they, so maybe you should try again, Shinjo-san! Or, is it Kandori-san?" Hitomi's fingers unlace and she puts a finger on her chin. She pouts.
I wonder what's behind his glasses.
I can find out! Even if we all die, that's totally doable!
Goal set! Hooray!
"This really is an awful way to meet!"
AS: Ririka Kawase has readied for combat as Amphion! She is now fully healed!
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
BEFORE
Is such a thing possible? A great monstrous shadow that simply... transmutated from human flesh like that? Katsuya Suou can say that in his rather short (all told: just since late spring) career as a Persona-user, and his even more shallow experience with the Dark Hour, that he's never seen a Shadow quite like this.
Worse yet, there's that familiar sense of bewilderment keeping him from reaching any of the afflicted people, let alone the great Shadow itself. All it seems that he can do is watch, never getting any closer to the point he aims for.
That is, up until the moment when the spell seems to break with the chiming of a bell.
"Kirishima-kun! Inaba-kun!" He has zeroed in on two of the faces he can identify within the crowd as he bolts forward, finally free of the curse that had bound him at the periphery of the chaos.
He draws his gun, turning it on the great Shadow as it lurches forward
as a woman speaks
and the great Shadow is simply drawn into the depths of a grey gate across the bottom of the park. Fight as it might, it's just gone in the end.
"What in the..." Katsuya utters, aiming his firearm at the asphalt path of Aoba Park. It's gone. It's just gone.
But that doesn't mean that nothing is here.
"...What is this...?" he utters, speaking of the sensation that crawls across his Persona's awareness of such things.
It's... coming from that man.
NOW
"...Who? Wait," Katsuya says, taking in the man with the fearsome aura. He jolts where he stands, as if he'd been about to start forward only to arrest that in the bud. "Hisataka Shinjo? The secretary to Tatsuzou Sudou?"
Who is, of course, also of the New World Order. He glances over at Maki as she calls out a different name.
"...Takahisa Kandori? But, didn't he die during the SEBEC Incident?" An accident during a prototype equipment test, or something like that, he thinks they'd said, but... ...is it possible he didn't actually die?
No, says Eriko, and Katsuya looks at her in shock. "But that's... that's impossible!" he utters, completely failing to grapple with the 'reality' of the moment. "Surely there's some misunderstanding! Even with a rumor, surely...?
Shinjo, Kandori, says that a certain young man will be coming with him.
Katsuya glances just the once at Minato and shakes his head. "Absolutely not! You-- whoever you are! Abduction of a minor by force is punishable by imprisonment for up to seven years!"
His grip on his firearm is white-knuckled, yet he does not yet lift its barrel from where it is currently directed, perhaps in the hope that this need not yet end in violence. But also because... he can already feel it. Fighting this person could be the end.
<Pose Tracker> God Penguin has posed.
Maki Sonomura calls his name right on cue. There is an echo of fatherly affection within him. Her desire for a Father made manifest within her, reflected in him. She might even swear he's still fond of her, in a sense.
"Does it?" He replies after a time, "Does it mean anything?" His head tilts high, as he stares at the Full Moon, shining bright reflecting eerily on his sunglasses.
'... Please listen when I tell you this, we are about to face the power of a man who transcended his humanity and became a God.'
He smiles as Eriko Kirishima and Maki Sonomura take him up on his offer, to be the seniors here.
'But -- you should be dea--gk?!'
'But that's... that's impossible!'
"What 'should be' or is 'impossible' matters little within the bounds of Sumaru City." He explains to the pair of them, as his eyes continue to bore into Mitsuru in particular. "What 'is' - was brought into being by the Kotodama."
'Wasn't it enough!? Not again. NOT AGAIN!'
"And that is why it means nothing." He adds quietly. "Again and again and again. You believe this is only the second time that you and your allies have faced me... but you are incorrect, ignorant of the truth of this world."
In Minato, he is looking for signs of Naoya, the Boy with the Earring, and what he says-
"Heh." He smiles, thinly. "All the better to see you with, young Fool." He quips, in regards to the Sunglasses, as if he were the Big Bad Wolf, wearing the skin of a man. Hyousuke's threat, as soon as he makes it, there's suddenly this unsettling feeling, like perhaps he doesn't want to knock them off.
The consequences might be more than he bargained for.
'Who're you, who gets to decide that?'
He smiles, because Maki Sonomura already spoke his name. Whereas Akihiko tells him the Shadow has to die. "Does it? Far be it from me to argue. Nevertheless, I'll be taking possession of it."
'... If I'm not mistaken, you threatened a child just now, did you not? That won't do. That won't do at all.'
"Heh. To be a child is to always be under threat from forces beyond your control." He says to Vesper, with a Predatorial philosophy that is so human, but so terribly twisted. He then nods to Eriko, "I would expect nothing less of you, Eriko-san. Perhaps you will survive this, but not without taking another scar, to add to the many you have collected since last we met."
'So what do you mean, by 'Wild Card'?'
"The number zero- it is so like infinity, in it's potential. Isn't the answer self-evident?"
'You're not going to lay a fucking finger on my brother.'
"Is that who you believe he is to you?" Kandori says, and there's an unsettling feeling within her. "Even an Empty Fool such as yourself knows better than that."
'You will not touch him. There will be not trouble if you refrain from doing so.'
"You act as if the threat of 'trouble' from you would be any deterrent."
'I don't know who you think you are, but Arisato-kun is with us! If you think we'd just hand him over without a fight, then you don't know a thing about us!'
"'He' knows everything about you- the grieving sister, with so little identity to call her own. I would expect nothing less of you, than to leap to his defense."
'You seem really scary, But so are they, so maybe you should try again, Shinjo-san! Or, is it Kandori-san?'
"You may call me what you'd like." He says, as he stares at her, growing more unsettling by the moment. "As I instruct you on why their bluster means less than nothing to me."
'You will return the Arcana Shadow to us. I will not allow you to perpetuate this evil one moment longer. And on my honor as a Kirijo, you. Will not. TOUCH him. Try it, and I promise will make sure the hand that dared never touches a single thing again.'
"Such fire." He says, as if in admiration, then tips his chin, "Even a god such as myself bows to the arrogance of one who would lay claim to some pretense familial honor, after their family nearly destroyed the world more completely than I." He grins at her, showing so many teeth, "By all means, try to take my hand. Try to protect this young Fool... it will be a sight to see, dashing yourself against the Wheel of Fortune that has already decreed the doom of the one you truly desire to protect."
Masao shouts that Minato needs to get out of here right now, while Pernelle whispers to Yanagi that he thinks they should leave. Despite the whisper, 'he' hears all. "You're under the impression there is any escape, from what is coming." Indeed, the words may unsettle Eriko and Maki, who are already plotting escape.
And then an arrow flies out of nowhere. A hand that is at his side has caught it in his hand, crushing it in two, the pieces disintegrating before they strike the ground. Follow the trajectory, and you'll see Yukari Takeba kneeling, having aimed one right at his chest, as she shouts, "So you think we're just going to STAND there waiting for you to take him!? Bring back that Shadow RIGHT NOW!"
Hisataka Shinjo's head turns to regard her like a bad kitten. A black aura surrounds her, a grinning effigy of a skull made of smoke, animated and laughing.
Yukari falls to the ground, immediately insensate and pale, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Shinjo frowns at her, murmuring. "It seems without the Father, the Daughter has grown quite impudent in the midst of her own journey. Perhaps 'he' should have seen fit to raise her."
What is he even talking about there? It's unclear.
The Veiled woman has not spoken since she conducted whatever strange occultist ritual she performed, until now.
"Heh. This should be brief enough."
The man standing nearby turns his head fractionally.
"There's no need for your assistance. Attend to the Shadow and I will be right behind you."
The woman behind him hesitates, as if she doesn't want to obey that order. Before she then nods and makes a slight bow. Then a similar grey portal opens beneath her, and she vanishes into the ground below, as if she merely descended into the underworld.
<Pose Tracker> God Penguin has posed.
There is a flash in that moment: a surge of resonance, a heartbeat within heartbeats. A sickening, festering feeling of dread about something beyond humanity. It is the feeling that was present in Tatsuya Sudou, only amplified tenfold.
Perhaps that feeling could even be called that of a 'god,' albeit a malicious one.
The smirk on his face doesn't alter; there is no shift in his stance at all. However, he is certainly not here to talk.
A dark aura descends, momentarily enveloping the entire world in absolute silence. It surrounds each of them, stealing their voices.
He makes a single gesture with his hand, as if predicting their action and welcoming them to attack.
Then a whisper is utteredthe first word each of them hears since the dread silence descended: "Nyarlathotep."
Deadline - P2 EP Version - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX5Ke5bxNjw
What emerges from him is a tentacled being within a fractured statue-like mass of a desecrated Golden Buddha statue. It is ever-shifting; a green, segmented exoskeleton clicks against itself as each sinewy tentacled limb appears to have joints but undulates as if anatomy matters little. Blue eyes. Far too many blue eyes on each limb look at them.
All of them.
Chains, writhing and golden in hue, descend upon each of them as if to bind them in place. A feeling like reality has fractured within each of their heads breaking the enforced silence and sending them to a realm of madness.
The world around them vanishes, in their perspective, into an oil blot stain of ever-shifting tangible darkness as strong as any barrier as he leads this mad dance, forcing them to follow him.
A tentacled limb caresses the air, and it feels like it slithers across each of their psyches. Each of them feels something snatched from their consciousness, partially sealing away their ability to heal.
The man and the Persona seem to smile in tandem, the Golden Buddha's expression fractures further, showing something resembling a smile. The man smiles and beckons. Towards a certain young man.
Towards Minato Arisato.
"Let us dance, little Wild Card. Show me if you can measure up to him."
AS: God Penguin has readied for combat as Nyarlathotep! They are now fully healed! Ready for 17 opponents! AS: Atk_Up added to your status! AS: God Penguin spends Limit on Broad! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Mafui on Katsuya Suou, Hitomi Mandai, Ririka Kawase, and Eriko Kirishima! AS: Pressure: God Penguin gains 1 Limit! AS: You still have 16 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Dark skill Deathtika on Yukari Takeba! AS: You still have 15 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Mafui on Julian Marlowe, Mitsuru Kirijo, Yanagi Nagisa, and Hyousuke Suzuki! AS: You still have 14 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Mafui on Aigis, Umie Akabane, Minako Arisato, and Akihiko Sanada! AS: You still have 13 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Take! Aigis takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Hitomi Mandai takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) added! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Mafui on Pernelle, Suzume Fukura, Masao Inaba, and Minato Arisato! AS: You still have 12 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Mafui on Maki Sonomura! AS: You still have 11 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: God Penguin spends Limit on Exploit! God Penguin can use another Weak skill this round! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Shibaboo on Katsuya Suou, Hitomi Mandai, Ririka Kawase, and Eriko Kirishima! AS: You still have 11 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Shibaboo on Julian Marlowe, Mitsuru Kirijo, Yanagi Nagisa, and Hyousuke Suzuki! AS: You still have 10 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Shibaboo on Aigis, Umie Akabane, Minako Arisato, and Akihiko Sanada! AS: You still have 9 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Shibaboo on Pernelle, Suzume Fukura, Masao Inaba, and Minato Arisato! AS: You still have 8 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Shibaboo on Maki Sonomura! AS: You still have 7 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: God Penguin spends Limit on Exploit! God Penguin can use another Weak skill this round! AS: Take! Aigis takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 231 damage! AS: Take! Minako Arisato takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Minako Arisato takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 231 damage! AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 226 damage! AS: Take! Pernelle takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) added! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Decover on Katsuya Suou, Hitomi Mandai, Ririka Kawase, and Eriko Kirishima! AS: You still have 6 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Decover on Julian Marlowe, Mitsuru Kirijo, Yanagi Nagisa, and Hyousuke Suzuki! AS: You still have 5 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Decover on Aigis, Umie Akabane, Minako Arisato, and Akihiko Sanada! AS: You still have 4 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Decover on Pernelle, Suzume Fukura, Masao Inaba, and Minato Arisato! AS: You still have 3 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Decover on Maki Sonomura! AS: You still have 2 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Take! Pernelle takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic removed! Explosion! 111 damage! AS: Take! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 230 damage! AS: Take! Yanagi Nagisa takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill I'll Play With You For A While on God Penguin! AS: You still have 1 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Take! God Penguin takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's I'll Play With You For A While. AS: Atk_Up (Damage Up!), Crt_Up (Critical Up!), Def_Up (Block Improved!), and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Take! Pernelle takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Yanagi Nagisa takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 224 damage! AS: God Penguin: Broad removed! Atk_Up added! AS: God Penguin's turn has ended. AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Suzume Fukura takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Masao Inaba takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Suzume Fukura takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 231 damage! AS: Take! Aigis takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Yanagi Nagisa takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Suzume Fukura takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Masao Inaba takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 230 damage! AS: Take! Masao Inaba takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Umie Akabane takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) added! AS: Take! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 229 damage! AS: Take! Umie Akabane takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Umie Akabane takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Julian Marlowe takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Julian Marlowe takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 228 damage! AS: Take! Hitomi Mandai takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) added! Panic removed! Explosion! 112 damage! AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 229 damage! AS: Take! Katsuya Suou takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: God Penguin sets off Yukari Takeba's trigger! 500 damage! AS: Take! Julian Marlowe takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Katsuya Suou takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 231 damage! AS: Take! Hitomi Mandai takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Katsuya Suou takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Akihiko Sanada takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Take! Akihiko Sanada takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Akihiko Sanada takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Ririka Kawase takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) and Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Ririka Kawase takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Panic and Sick removed! Explosion! 230 damage! AS: Take! Ririka Kawase takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Minako Arisato has posed.
"I don't care what he thinks," Minako says to Hitomi. "I just care what he does." She glances sideways, briefly, at Aigis. There is a moment of hesitation -- but she is glad that Aigis is here to try to stop this too. Maybe, with all of them, they can do this.
But she hesitates even as she thinks it. And then Kandori speaks to her, with that cold dismissal. An empty Fool. Her eyes narrow, before she shouts headedly: "Shut up!"
He dismisses even the veterans -- until Yukari's arrow flies and he catches it out of the air. She looks over her shoulder, back at her, and then she makes a strangled half-scream as Yukari falls to the ground in a heap. She looks back at Shinjo, her eyes widening with rage.
"Yukari-chan!" she shouts. That dark miasma washes over her; then, the tentacled being with so many eyes -- a Persona, maybe, or maybe something worse. She feels its touch on her mind, and then golden chains slam into her. She gets smashed down to her knees, as Nyarlathotep's power shoots through SEES -- through their allies -- through all of them.
Her crimson eyes are less fiery, now. There is a hollow look to them. "He's... he's my brother," she manages to say, weakly.
Her voice catches, as she lifts her Evoker in a shaking hand. The barrel presses against her temple, but it trembles. "Get... get away from him..."
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
Maki does not answer Ririka's question, in the moment, but it's clear that she knows this guy, all right. Maki should be more circumspect about all of this--more secretive--but Kandori is an open wound in her heart, the father she never had and her tormentor all wrapped up into one man.
And she looks wounded, the expression on her face surely the same as it would be as if he'd stabbed her instead of just walked up and spoken to all of them. She knew it would hurt, seeing him again... but she had to know. She had to see for herself.
Eriko explains to them. That hollow smile of hers tugs at Maki's heart, too. She feels inadequate to the task of supporting them for a moment--even though that other Maki is a part of her. ...Maki embraces the thought, and dismisses it to be on its way.
"You have to go," Maki agrees, and then looks to Eriko properly. "...Yes," Maki agrees with Elly. "They'll do well."
That whisper gets a nod. "I promise," Maki says. "I will."
Katsuya calls it impossible. The members of SEES assemble to protect their friend. But Maki can only wait for the answer. Why? WHY?
That 'fatherly affection' makes it worse. He asks if it means anything, and Maki insists, "It does. I believe that it does."
The kotodama...
Kandori says again and again, and Maki recoils. "What?" she asks. "...That's..."
There is something of truth in it that she cannot identify, though it too is impossible. Maki has no retort to this.
Kandori seems to know so much. An escape...
"No!" Maki cries as Yukari is brought down. But that aura comes, suffocating and horrid...
'I don't want to be alone! Someone get me out of here! It's so dark in here!'
The cries of her former self resound within Maki Sonomura.
'You and I are the same.'
A different set of words. But Maki presses herself upward, standing to her full height, such as it is, even as the eyes come and stare at them. Maki is bound, but still standing; the realm of madness is all that there is. It is not Maki's first time here. Across her psyche it slithers...
"I... I won't..."
"I won't give up on them," Maki breathes, and has to stop herself hyperventilating. Once again, the fear comes; once again, she tries to embrace it, let it pass. Her fear is just a feeling itself; it is not her, but part of her.
Maki breathes in, and out. "Persona," she calls, and Taishan Niangniang reappears, a figure of white and soft light in the chaos. She sets her hands down on Maki gently. Maki opens her eyes--and for a moment-glows, blue.
"Answer me," she repeats herself. "I have to know."
"Why? Not how... but why?"
Brilliant light shines down at Kandori--the light of truth. The light of knowledge.
Maki will have her answer, one way or another, and communicate what little she can to the others.
AS: Persona! Maki Sonomura has used the Almighty skill Full Analysis on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Maki Sonomura takes 90 damage! AS: Insight: Maki Sonomura gains 1 Limit! AS: Maki Sonomura: Loses 74 HP from Poison! Poison removed! AS: Maki Sonomura's turn has ended. AS: Take! God Penguin takes 0 Almighty damage from Maki Sonomura's Full Analysis. AS: Maki Sonomura's Strength Scan! God Penguin resists Light and Dark! AS: Maki Sonomura's Weakness Scan! God Penguin is weak against Earth! AS: Maki Sonomura's Support Scan! God Penguin has passive skills Ailment Boost, Auto-Tarukaja, Break Limit, Dark Amp, Dark Boost, Explode Boost, Peerless Skill, and Third Eye! AS: Take! Minato Arisato takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Mafui. AS: Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Minato Arisato takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Shibaboo. AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) and Poison (Damage on end of turn!) added! Sick removed! Explosion! 117 damage! AS: Take! Minato Arisato takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Exhaust (Damage when using Weapon/Tandem!) and Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Could it be the Bride? No, Umie, this is worse: It's the Bride's boss. She'll continue to offer her support from afar, even after Chizuru exits on a chthonic path... though it's far more a gesture than anything, with a man so powerful.
Before that, though, Chizuru, stands behind that man; the man who Masao pleads with them to flee from. Running away...?
If he notices that the Devil he doesn't know -- that peacock he's so fond of -- is trying to slink away with his delicate companion, he does not look to them; he does not betray their attempt to escape, with careful, slow movements. And at once two paths are possible, like a cat both living and dead: either Minato's completely failed to notice, or he is deliberately failing to notice.
Suzume rallies to Minato's defence -- and behind her, Junpei, who got completely destroyed in that last fight, grits out through clenched teeth: "Ugh... yeah, who you callin' a fool!? I... I'll kick your ass!!" ... but it's one thing to say that, and another thing entirely to rise up, and his anger is framed behind Suzume's protection today.
Minato, meanwhile, looks to Suzume, as she asks that man who he is. (Oh... right... that's the question you ask first, right?) She's standing in front of him... between him and...
And Akihiko brings up something else important, particularly in light of the way Ririka can't confirm the kill. "If you save the Full Moon Shadow, people will continue to slow down and die," Minato fills in, looking past his team to Kandori(?). "Does this mean the New World Order is working with Strega to keep the Dark Hour running?"
His sister is beside him.
His sister is armed.
His hand is lifting, to rest upon her shoulder.
"It's all right," he says, still calm.
"It's not time, yet... he promised me that."
Different 'he', by the by, to the one Kandori(?)'s invoking.
"That's what that man means," Minato says, "when he calls me a 'Fool.'" He has heard what Umie asked. "He's talking about the 'Wild Card'... my ability to summon multiple Personas." 'His', he says. Not 'ours'. Look carefully: he has elided his sister in the speaking.
Some part of him is still aware -- still operating to protect them.
But Mitsuru is operating to protect him, too. Even Ririka...
Hitomi is in motion, and Hyousuke is aggressive.
Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? He asks, distantly, inside himself. Everyone... is forming up to protect him. But, he is...
Distantly, he is aware she will die. Perhaps it's Vesper who helps drive that home, as he steps in and underlines the way he's threatened a child. He thinks of Mitsuru, being threatened, and not himself.
Perhaps Aigis would not die. She is stronger than all of them. "If the Full Moon Shadow has been taken somewhere else..." He starts a thought, as Aigis, too, urges them to flee.
But it's too slow. It doesn't get to the finish line.
Eriko makes the implicit explicit: he is a God, or at least was, once.
"A human being who became a God... isn't something like that just a tale?" Minato wonders, and the first shred of emotion -- just a ghost of something, really -- is surprise.
"What would drive someone to that...?"
He's supposed to be dead, Katsuya says. Even so, he's standing right here. Because of the 'Kotodama,' that man says. "Are Rumours that powerful?" Minato asks; he's never been a native.
Abduction... they're going to abduct him.
But it isn't time yet, so... how can that be...?
His friend in the Dark Hour isn't a liar.
The sunglasses... help him to see. "Light sensitivity..." Minato echoes, as that man speaks to him as the wolf who swallowed the rider.
"She is my sister," he says, plainly, when Kandori questions Minako's lineage.
He wonders what doom he has foretold for Mitsuru -- but this, too, is distant.
What is not distant:
Yukari is screaming.
All at once, the potential for harm concentrates into the exact: Minato's gaze focuses, his eyes widening in fear. "Don't touch her!" He cries, as he steps forward, to meet his fellows in their line. "Get away from them!"
Before he can attack, though, there is a word, and the word was with God. Reality fades into the arena, and tentacles writhe.
"All right," he says, his tone level again, as he lifts his Evoker to his head.
"I'll show you. And once you're impressed... leave us be."
If you're gonna dance with the Devil in the pale moonlight, you gotta cut a deal.
"Persona!"
Orpheus rises, and strums a tune -- daring God himself to blunt his claws.
AS: Persona! Minato Arisato has used the Almighty skill Tarunda on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Minato Arisato takes 90 damage! AS: Pressure: Minato Arisato gains 1 Limit! AS: Minato Arisato: Loses 73 HP from Poison! AS: Minato Arisato's turn has ended. AS: Take! God Penguin takes 0 Almighty damage from Minato Arisato's Tarunda. AS: Atk_Up removed! <Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke's threat had been like the snapping jaws of a hound, snarling and barking and growling at someone that should not have been there. Someone that had threatened people he had sworn to guard, or were with those he had sworn that oath to. How appropriate it was that he recoiled like one, then, when that feeling engulfed his entire being. He wanted to fight - to protect those that had been threatened, even should it cost his body and his mind - but something repelled him. A force that sent him stepping backwards like something bigger, stronger, and more powerful had barked back at him.
He had questions. Many questions. Who the man was, what the SEBEC incident had entailed, what had caused a man to rise from the dead and ascend to godhood... But he could speak none of them. They caught in his throat like cement, clinging to him no matter how he tried to force the words past muzzled lips. Even when he did finally speak, it was only out of desperation - and it was in a tone that was more a shriek of instinct than any active attempt to put his thoughts to words.
"TAKEBA-SAN!" He called out, at once furious and scared. He worried that he'd lost an ally. She was not quite a friend, but she was an ally, and someone his shield could have protected. He was furious because someone had seen fit to take her from him. At once, the fear that had gripped his mind was burnt away, like vines in a forest fire, and Hyousuke tensed like a wolf before the hunt. "You piece of shit..." He growled. The straps of his mask shifted with the motion, and changing muscles in his jaw betrayed the bare-toothed snarl that he wore in response. "You're going to pay for that! I'm going to make you pay for that!"
But every fire could be smothered. Even the mighty blaze of his hatred could not stand against the all-consuming power levelled against him. The cold of fear gripped his mind, stabbing into him with frigid knives, carving his mind apart and quaking his body. It did nothing to soothe the burn of poison in his flesh - the searing acid that felt like it would melt him from the inside out, and leave his body sloughing from its own bleached bones. Then, another kind of pain entirely wracked his mind.
The Hierophant had torn his mind apart, but whatever stood before them was nothing like that Shadow. There was power that rent his mind asunder, throwing its tattered pieces to the wind and carving the vitality from his body like a butcher's knife had been heaved through him. Even as he rose, exhaustion plagued him. His lungs heaved to try and feed oxygen into screaming limbs, themselves heaved into a defensive stance as he called upon the might of the general. Achilles rose, struggling under the weight of that battered bronze armour, and stood to attention behind him, awaiting a command.
"What the hell is this guy?!" Hyousuke called out, though his voice was as strained as it was angered. He didn't speak to anyone in particular, though his mind went to those smarter than him that might have had an idea. Minako, Ririka, the adults - anyone that looked like they might have been able to unfurl whatever secrets the god made flesh held. "And how's he so goddamn strong?! I can barely- Ngh!" Another surge of pain cut him off, and Hyousuke almost buckled under the strain. He stood strong, and he stood tall, but how long could it really last?
He didn't care to think about it. He'd consider it when it happened. For now, there was a fight to attend to.
"Achilles!" He bellowed, staggering to the fore and sending the general to his side, shield raised high. "Protect them!"
AS: Persona! Hyousuke Suzuki has used the Recovery skill Invincible General on Minako Arisato, Maki Sonomura, and Hyousuke Suzuki! AS: Charm results in party damage! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 90 damage! AS: Hyousuke Suzuki: Loses 65 HP from Poison! Exhaust removed! AS: Hyousuke Suzuki's turn has ended. AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 0 Recovery healing from Hyousuke Suzuki's Invincible General. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Take! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 0 Recovery healing from Hyousuke Suzuki's Invincible General. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
Suzume's anger rises as Kandori keeps talking to them. They're right - if the Hierophant survives, if they drag it off somewhere so it isn't destroyed, what they're trying to do is doomed to failure, isn't it? If they want to end the Dark Hour, they have to get *all* of them.
And she recognizes the New World Order. They're the ones who must have given Strega the Evokers, she remembers; Mitsuru and her father said as much at Yakushima. So they are working together. They must be planning something -
"I'm not letting you past," she growls, trying to sound steadier than she actually is. She's terrified, but she won't let herself show it; Suzume generally handles her fear by lashing out at the source of it, and she's twitchy now. Her voice threatens to rise up to the squeak it acquires when she's startled, though she fights it down, leaving only a catch to be heard at the end of her sentence. "You're not getting him, or her, or - or any of us!" (Did 'her' mean Minako or Yukari? Or both?)
Based on what Suzume knows (not enough) and how she expects people to ask, she expected to be thrown aside with that man's attempt to get to Minato - or at least for him to try, and her to resist, because that's what she does.
What he actually does is somehow worse.
Something about Nyarlathotep creeps her out more than any Persona she's ever seen before - and any Shadow too, come to think of it. She feels the touch of a psychic tentacle and she shudders -
"Get out of our heads!"
Suzume rushes forward, channeling panic and rage together into a forward rush. At first it looks like she's not even going to summon Atalanta, but at the last moment she fires her Evoker, the lionskin-cloaked woman appearing above her with her arms spread.
A windstorm bursts up around Kandori and Nyarlathotep. Less controlled than an ordinary Garu, a whirling ball of wind rather than the cylinder a tornado should be, churning and whirling in all directions. "I'll fight you if I have to...!"
He might be a man who reached to become a God, but in this moment Suzume is going to try to swing at him anyway, reckless and risky as it is. Consequences can come later. (Consequences *will* come later.)
AS: Persona! Suzume Fukura has used the Wind skill Vortex Garu on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Suzume Fukura takes 90 damage! AS: Pressure: Suzume Fukura gains 1 Limit! AS: Suzume Fukura: Loses 71 HP from Poison! AS: Suzume Fukura's turn has ended. AS: Block Best! God Penguin takes 25 Wind damage from Suzume Fukura's Vortex Garu.
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He's no sooner said it than Kandori confirms it. It's a rumor. A rumor has brought a dead man back. "That's..." he utters, all but speechless in the wake of such a revelation. How far can a rumor go? What else can happen?
He doesn't have time to consider it much further. An arrow flies through the air. It is itself ultimately the start of hostilities. Kandori responds by snatching it out of the air and rendering it to so much dust.
More immediately, Katsuya takes in first the person who had shot at Kandori. Yukari?! But--
Retaliation comes swiftly. Katsuya calls out in shock as she collapses, looking almost far too pale to still be alive, "Takeba-kun!" He turns his gaze back upon Kandori. "What did you--"
His answer comes in the wash of dread and malice that congeals from the place the man stands. Of all things, he's brought back to a discussion between Jun and Akechi about the nature of the thing in which Tatsuya Sudou and his own brother seemed to acknowledge in their dealings with one another. It was a 'god', perhaps... or maybe instead, a 'devil'.
In his heart, he can feel his Persona recoil at the presence and pressure of this man. In his own way, then, Katsuya has a good idea of how this encounter is about to go. Yet, to back down now and leave that young man to him, of course he can't do that as a public servant...!
So instead, his gaze resting on the man in the dark sunglasses, Katsuya slowly exhales a breath. Then, he says simply, "Persona."
Into this calm before the storm breaks steps Katsuya's own Persona, the well-dressed feline Helios.
It feels like he's been struck. No, not physically, as that chain strikes down. It feels like it's rooted into his soul. When it wraps tighter, tighter yet it feels like something within his heal shatters into a thousand pieces. He staggers and recoils with a grunt, yet he's unwounded: for a moment, all there is for him is a mind awash in chaos, of pieces set adrift on a wild sea.
It's the impression of touch, and the revulsion that follows from it, that bring him back to himself. With a sickening realization he knows that something essential has been taken from him: even the cards he had used with his Persona won't be enough to him or anyone.
Actually, it's worse than that. It's not that it's not 'enough'. Some critical part has been prized away that make it so it won't do anything at all.
"This... this is..." he says, shaking his head as he rallies from such an assault on his soul and senses. His attention shoots over at Minato. "Young man!" he calls out, and perhaps someday he'll learn that this is the person that taught Yoko the secret of cat-luring, "Run, if you must! We'll protect her!" Meaning Yukari, of course. "As an officer of the law-- I promise you that I will protect both of you!"
This is bad. This is all very bad. But it's far too late for him to run.
He's kept his firearm pointed at the ground until now, this point where he makes his own intentions clear. At last, he snaps it upwards, directing it straight at Kandori as he pulls the trigger twice. Dropping back a step on the recoil, he directs the barrel of his gun towards the darkened skies above, watching, waiting. If he can keep him distracted, maybe... there's still a chance.
AS: Weapon! Katsuya Suou has used the Pierce skill Handgun - Suppression Fire on God Penguin! 2 Hits! AS: Charm results in party damage! Katsuya Suou takes 90 damage! AS: Defense: Katsuya Suou gains 1 Limit! AS: Katsuya Suou: Loses 71 HP from Poison! Fast Heal! Poison removed! AS: Katsuya Suou's turn has ended. AS: Block Neutral! God Penguin takes 21 Pierce damage from Katsuya Suou's Handgun - Suppression Fire. AS: Block Best! God Penguin takes 10 Pierce damage from Katsuya Suou's Handgun - Suppression Fire. Critical Hit!
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Standing enfilade to Hitomi's defilade, Aigis has no audible response to Shinjo's retort. 'You act as if the threat of 'trouble' from you would be any deterrent.' She remains quiet, staring at him warily with her shining blue eyes as energy thrums through her circuitry.
Trouble, yes, but a threat? No, she's fully aware of just how outmatched they are. Trouble can come in other forms. She starts to formulate a plan --
(BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gRR8JePfwk Jane Remover - Experimental Skin)
-- and it goes entirely out the window as her sensory input feeds are overwhelmed with garbage, nonsensical data. She grits her teeth in pain as she tries to adjust and recalibrate to these new sights and sounds to the best of her ability. (Her 'best' won't ever, ever be good enough.)
While she's glad on some level that Minato is still well enough to try and impress Shinjo, cold fury drips from her voice in stark contrast to her normally measured tone. "I said. To run. Please do so at the earliest available opportunity."
Between the two of the Arisato twins, Minako appears to be struggling more ... but Shinjo had his eye on Minato from the onset. Here, Aigis makes her stand and plants herself firmly in front of the brother. Even if she's just a speed bump in the face of something incomprehensible, unfathomable, and impossibly larger than herself, she must try. "Commencing defensive maneuvers."
AS: Persona! Aigis has used the Recovery skill At All Costs on Minato Arisato! AS: Charm results in party damage! Aigis takes 90 damage! AS: Aigis: Loses 74 HP from Poison! AS: Aigis regains 3 SP from Invigorate! AS: Aigis's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuru Kirijo has posed.
...Kei told you some of it, didn't he?
Mitsuru Kirijo's gaze never leaves Takahisa Kandori's covered stare burning frigid holes into her soul. Dark reds narrow. Her hand on her Evoker-holster tightens.
"... He told me enough," she answers. "Of a pathetic and short-sighted man, undone by his own slavering, aimless greed."
Should she really be taunting a man who penetrated her defenses without a thought? Who Kei - and the others - described as achieving very literal godhood?
"But it seems you don't deserve death's relief from your own failings."
No; probably not.
But she needs that horrid attention still affixed firmly on her right now, for as long as she can.
Eriko mentions that this foe is beyond any of them; she invokes the name 'Crawling Chaos' and that, in turn, inspires a brief furrow of Mitsuru's brow. It's a thoughtful expression that endures, as Kandori continues on.
"..."
The things he says - the implications behind them - Mitsuru Kirijo is too cursed with a sharp and inquisitive mind not to pick up on the mysterious subtext that laces through every sinister syllable. That the exact meaning escapes her only serves to vex her further; they're words that she will be chewing over for months to come, presuming she survives that long to.
But in the immediate sense? The only words that matter are these:
Even an Empty Fool such as yourself knows better than that. The way he mocks Minako with that infuriatingly hidden knowledge - one of the very people Mitsuru swore to protect...
By all means, try to take my hand. Try to protect this young Fool... it will be a sight to see,
dashing yourself against the Wheel of Fortune
that has already decreed the doom of the one you truly desire to protect.
... and the way he cuts straight down to the very heart of her.
Mitsuru's eyes widen, livid.
"You're wrong--"
She hears her seconds before her arrow looses, and, wide-eyed, Mitsuru snaps towards Yukari in alarm.
"Takeba! No! This isn't--"
Too late. Blackness surrounds Yukari like a cackling skull. She falls to the ground almost lifeless and limp, and Mitsuru does not even hear the words that Kandori mutters after.
She lunges. The flourish of her rapier shines sickly green in the mockery of the moonlight.
Nyarlathotep.
Too late. Always too late.
What came for Yukari comes for all of them. It's a credit to Mitsuru's sense of pride that she manages to choke back a sound of agony as golden chains grip her -- and blotting, oily blackness rips through her, even as it leaves a slick, clinging feeling in its wake like it was clogging the pores of her soul. Mitsuru is on her knees in the aftermath; she isn't even sure how it happened, when her rapier fell to the ground, when her hands slapped still-cold pavement, but she's already heaving labored breaths, already feeling the pain in her soul radiate outward to every single muscle in her body.
Eriko is right. This enemy is beyond them. Any of them. They don't stand a chance. So why--
"Aigis -- Akihiko--" she calls out over their Navigators' lines of communication. To her family's last line of defense against the Shadows. To one of her only friends. "I... need you... to help me. To get his attention. Whatever it takes."
The ones she trusts to keep the others safe, who never asked for this.
"The second the opportunity arises -- the rest of you need to take Takeba and retreat. This is not a request."
Who never should have had any of this thrust on them.
"This is an order."
She rises, unsteadily. Her eyes track... and then fall on one person in particular. She takes one small, stumbling step forward, before she forces herself into a swift and unfaltering stride. And...
... when Hitomi Mandai looks up, she'll find a gloved hand reaching out for her, offering to take her hand.
"Mandai..." Mitsuru pauses. She hesitates. And, bringing Hitomi up onto her feet, she keeps the following words just for the two of them:
"... The second you see an opening, I need you to take the Arisatos and run as far as you can from this place. Do you understand? They'll try to stay here. We can't let the enemy take them. ... I..."
She hesitates, uncertainty briefly flashing in her features. There's so many things she would like to say right now. So many things she thinks she should. But instead, all she can think to say is...
"... I need you to do this for me. Please."
And with that? Mitsuru Kirijo's eyes are narrowed and sharper than steel as she draws in a breath.
And then she surges forward, rapier drawn backwards before thrusting--
--straight for that beckoning hand.
It is far from the most effective tool she could use in terms of damage. But she knows nothing she can do will last. This -- this commands attention. After all.
She swore she'd take that hand.
AS: Weapon! Mitsuru Kirijo has used the Pierce skill Full Pike Thrust on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 90 damage! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo: Loses 68 HP from Poison! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo regains 3 SP from Invigorate! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo's turn has ended. AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 33 Pierce damage from Mitsuru Kirijo's Full Pike Thrust.
<Pose Tracker> Eriko Kirishima has posed.
"Mr Suou!" Eriko is surprised to see Katsuya approaching, but Aoba is as much his turf as hers. And an extra ally is always useful- at least, that's what she'd normally think. But right now, with Katsuya's interest in the SEBEC Incident, he may just be exposing himself to more danger.
Minato asks what would drive a man to such a thing, and Eriko frowns. "...Belief in your own superiority," she says, flatly. "And all it does is leave a man empty, doesn't it Mr Kandori?"
Kandori's smile is not one she's happy to receive- and then he says something that gives Eriko a chill. There it is, the hopelessness in his voice, the same emptiness they heard in Kandori's divine kingdom those three years ago. "...Only the second...?"
And there it is again, the sense of loss, of fear... of Deja Vu.
"What can you want with that Shadow?" Eriko in Kandori's refusal to yield the shadow. "Surely... you aren't planning on doing more with that system...?" Eriko's concern for Maki only grows, fear ratcheting up.Still, Kandori yields even more information-
It appears, now, Kandori is on a first name basis with them, if not a friendly one, even as Kandori gives them terms, terms Eriko would want to find out more of. But she grits her teeth, grimly. "...You're awfully well informed for a dead man, Kandori-san." The switch to returning Kandori's Japanese honorifics is small, but not meaningless.
Kandori's words to Mitsuru too give her cause for concern. He's taunting them. All of them- and he dictates there's no escape. She feared as much.
And then someone declares her intent to stop them- "Yukari, don't!" Eriko yells- but it's too late, and Yukari falls. This was exactly what Eriko wanted to stop. She breaks formation. She has to check that the girl is still alive. Kandori could kill her as easy as that, even if she knows the S.E.E.S. members will be checking on her too. Eriko should have warned her more, made sure she knew the threat. As unusual as the circumstances that led to their meeting was, Eriko was eager to see her grow- to see her first steps into modeling, as well as her growth as a persona user.
It's then that God emerges to face them, and Eriko's breath freezes. She remembers.
She remembers the way Kandori's hand driven through Aki's chest, even though Kandori was unaware he was doing. Aki, a child for all her sudden growth, asking her 'Papa' why. The horror on Kandori's face as he realized what he had done to his 'daughter'. The horror they all felt. And now...
"Wh-what... Kandori, what are you doing!? You can't... why would you ever take on that form willingly?! You... you can't have forgotten!"
But the Crawling Chaos, it appears, is leaving Kandori lucid again- and she experiences it again. Back then, she had a different Persona. It wasn't Nike- and for all Nike can resist powers like this, she was never meant to face a power like Kandori. Silence, fear, charm and poison.... they all form up on her at once- and knowing the power Nyarlethotep can wield-
...they're going to die. After everything they went to, they're going to die. She's never going to see...
Let us dance, little Wild Card. Show me if you can measure up to him.
Eriko falls silent.
"...that's why you want this kid? Because you can't find Him...?" Something cold sears through Eriko all at once. "...after everything you, Aki, and Kazuya put him through, you're still not done?"
Perhaps, for a moment, the veiled figure can sense a similar feeling to her own.
"..You can't have the Wild Card. Not in his own right, and certainly not as a replacement for our leader." She raises her blade again, glaring straight at Kandori's face atop the god before them. "I won't let you near this young man as long as I draw breath." She raises her blade- now is not the time to hold back, or build momentum. Now is the time to survive.
"O Powerful Victory, by men desir'd, with adverse breasts to dreadful fury fir'd, thee I invoke, whose might alone can quell contending rage and molestation fell: 'tis thine in battle to confer the crown, the victors prize, the mark of sweet renown: for thou rul'st all things, Victory divine! And glorious strife, and joyful shouts are thine! Come, mighty Goddess, and thy suppliant bless, with sparkling eye , elated with success; may deeds illustrious thy protection claim, and find, led on by thee immortal flame! Nike, Victory Blessing!"
With a slash of her sword, winds fly outward from Eriko as Nike manifests in the air, the steel angel of victory- and through the winds her blesing is carried- to Masao, to Maki, to Katsuya and to Eriko herself.
"These kids are under our protection, Kandori-san- and through us, Philemon's protection too. I will die before I see one more of them fall."
Now, she looks to her friends and allies- Mark and Maki foremost. "We're protecting all of them. That's what our leader would choose." Her eyes swiftly look to Minako and Mitsuru. "Especially those who think it's their turn to fall."
And she has to hope that they would, even as her hopes reach to her friends- those in Sumaru and beyond.
Even if they aren't here, maybe she can still call on those bonds they had once.
Especially when Maki relays one crucial piece of information. A weakness to Earth...?
"...that wasn't how it was before." She says, the realization coming to mind. She knows they can't win- but maybe they can find a way to get a reprieve?
AS: Persona! Eriko Kirishima has used the Almighty skill Victory Blessing on Masao Inaba, Maki Sonomura, Katsuya Suou, and Eriko Kirishima! AS: Charm results in party damage! Eriko Kirishima takes 90 damage! AS: Eriko Kirishima: Loses 72 HP from Poison! Poison removed! AS: Eriko Kirishima's turn has ended. AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 0 Almighty damage from Eriko Kirishima's Victory Blessing. AS: Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
There was once a wonderful moment where Pernelle was getting hugs from Yanagi, and why should he mind if she mussed any of his feathers with such a gesture. This is its own form of beauty, like the worn velveteen of a plush rabbit! When he is set down, he tippy taps with his claws in a happy dance.
But the time for tippy taps has ended! ... Temporarily. A minor tippy tap set back, replaced by spiritual scuttling.
Yanagi, mercifully, agrees to flee the party.
"We were fashionably late at the previous affair. A mysterious early exit behooves us." He nods to her, once and firm. "Slowly," he says, the word itself slow. Would be a shame to vibrate the air too much and startle the predator's hunt.
For Pernelle is a predator, but a peacock can also be prey.
He glances back to SEES and the Arisato twins in particular, but he will simply have to stand by what he said: resolute hearts, brimming with passion to protect each other. A wondrous thing of beauty he is just going to have to hear about another time.
Because yes, Pernelle IS under the impression there is an escape. And he is quite content to let everyone else receive ominous replies until --
Heartbeat within heartbeats, and dread tightens like a noose. If Pernelle squawked, no one would hear it in the shroud of silence. But Pernelle does not squawk in that terrifying realm: he calls out for -- well, it doesn't matter, does it?
No one can hear him.
His little peacock chest heaves rapidly with panicked breathing, and his eyes open, unblinking. The impression that there is escape has just left the building, if the building were a peacock. In this metaphor, it is. Other thoughts are leaving that iridescent building as well. Mediarama is one of them, snatched by a tentacle.
"Aa," he says, rather than screams, every feather ruffled out of place as he finally regains the ability to blink.
"Aaaa," he says again.
"AaaaaAAAAAAAAAA!" he finally cries, his train feathers rustling as they fold open and raise like a shield between Yanagi and Kandori. He raises a clawed foot and stamps it to the ground, all three feet and ten pounds of him mustering every inch of bravado that such a body could provide.
It's force enough that his tinted glasses fall off, dangling instead by their chain.
"Be. Gone!" he demands with more than words, threatening with his own Persona's aura should he be denied.
... Provided it is not all devoured by the abyss before him.
AS: Persona! Pernelle has used the Almighty skill Precious Peacock on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Pernelle takes 90 damage! AS: Ruin: Pernelle gains 1 Limit! AS: Pernelle: Loses 69 HP from Poison! Charm removed! AS: Pernelle's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Akihiko Sanada has posed.
Akihiko turns as Eriko starts warning them away and... (Wait, is that The Kirishima Eriko??? Even Akihiko knows who that is!) "Do you just want us give up?! Run away, Kirishima-san?!" He can't accept it. "There's more of us right here! We can do this!" Is that blind faith? Or brute force?
Yukari goes down and Akihiko pales. "Yukari!" He yells in a panic, forgetting the honourific.
Then, the dark aura descends. His voice is gone for a moment. The tentacle being descends.
Akihiko Sanada remembers what Fear is. This isn't a test of strength. This isn't improvement. It might just be life or death, for everyone. Right now.
There's only one choice. Akihiko tears his Evoker from his holster, and points it to his temple. His whole body shudders with heavy breathes. He hasn't hesitated like this since he was 14 at least. He grips his handle tight. "You won't hurt any more of my friends!" He yells, like he's a child again, and he pulls the trigger. Polydeuces manifests and launches a Skull Cracker.
Thankfully, the brief feeling of strength that fills Akihiko brings him back. He's okay, it'll be okay. "You got it, Mitsuru."
Really... It's easier said than done. There's so many damn eyes. But it just needs to a moment. One second.
AS: Persona! Akihiko Sanada has used the Strike skill Skull Cracker on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Akihiko Sanada takes 90 damage! AS: Ruin: Akihiko Sanada gains 1 Limit! AS: Akihiko Sanada: Loses 68 HP from Poison! AS: Akihiko Sanada's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Eriko, however, has more to say about this man-including his last known state, and his capabilities. "Are you kidding me!?" Somehow, she knows Eriko isn't. His Resonance doesn't feel like anything she's felt before.
But she also says to stick together. "That's what I'm here for," she says, and she makes sure she has everyone linked up with the Navigator Link--though she might need an assist from those capable of doing so.
The next words she hears from Shinjo--or Kandori--feel like a blow to the gut. The grieving sister, and with no identity to call her own. "I--" she gapes out.
Don't listen to him, he's just being an asshole.
But it still hurts.
"I... I... I'm sick of everyone thinking they know my business!" But the bravado is only a shield.
Yukari strikes, and then falls. "Yukari!" She's worried for her teammate--well, no, she's worried for all of them, in the moment. He's speaking of her Father, of Mitsuru's family almost destroying the world. Who is this guy??
But a dark aura descends, followed by the emergenc of a presence Ririka, unfrotuantely, has too much familiarity with thanks to her senses. When Nyarlathotep emerges, she clutches at her head as that slimey presence intrudes, like something crawling into her ear. "Ahh--!" Her knees buckle and she drops to the ground, as chains and eyes come forth and something is taken from them.
"Fuck!" Sorry, Hitomi, this is definitely swearing time. Even if the unnatural silence means she can only say it to herself. But when she can pull her thoughts together and find her voice again, she shouts, "This is like the shit the Joker Killer's Persona was made of! It was at that Sanitarium, too!" Maybe that can be a partial answer to Hyousuke's question, but Ririka doesn't ahve the full picture to offer, yet.
But she can't miss the order from Mitsuru, who tells them to run, when they get the chance, especially since she's helping relay the message. Ririka grits her teeth, body shaking as she forces herself to her stand up again. "... If we're not abandoning Arisato-kun, why would we abandon you, senpai!?"
And yet, she is trying to look for an opening to escape, now reaching out to their other Navigator to try and find a path, any path, that might let them flee this place.
She tightens her grip on her Evoker and raises it to her head. "AMPHION!" Blue fire and glass swirl behind her as Amphion surges up from the earth anew, and Ririka reaches out to sweep her hand over her keyboard. "Until we can escape... I'll do my best to support everyone! Amphion! Let's bolster everyoe's spirits!"
Amphion and Ririka both begin to play a fast-spaced tune in tandem, something energetic and pumping. Amphion's magic goes out and settles on Minato, Mitsuru, Ririka, and Suzume, working to rebuild that missing piece Nyarlathotep stole, and to provide more power besides. Meanwhile, Ririka is searching for an opening to escape.
AS: Persona! Ririka Kawase has used the Recovery skill Victory Song on Mitsuru Kirijo, Minato Arisato, Ririka Kawase, and Suzume Fukura! AS: Charm results in party damage! Ririka Kawase takes 90 damage! AS: Insight: Ririka Kawase gains 1 Limit! AS: Ririka Kawase: Loses 72 HP from Poison! Charm removed! AS: Ririka Kawase's turn has ended. AS: Take! Ririka Kawase takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Victory Song. AS: Atk_Up (Damage Up!) added! Recovery_Wall removed! AS: Take! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Victory Song. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) added! Recovery_Wall removed!
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi stares at the man, if man he is, with two lenses between them. In that moment, despite the horrors, she has enough confidence to actually smile, though it is a false smile that doesn't reach her eyes.
This feels strange.
And then! It's Yukari who takes the first shot! Hitomi's head turns towards her with a widened surprise. Unexpected! But doesn't it make sense? she reasons, before looking back and seeing... crushed arrow - The smile, though false, falters for a moment.
Well, it's an arrow, and whoever this is, he isn't normal. Hitomi reasons: Aigis could probably catch an arrow if she knew it was coming, so this doesn't mean...
Doesn't... mean...
The man, Kandori, Shinjo, whatever his name truly is, dismisses his attendant, the woman who caught the Full Moon Shadow like it was a wandering fighting monster. He looks back to them. And something...
shifts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNcxtWEfPXE
Hitomi Mandai's glasses reflect the rise of the defiled Buddha and the introduction of a corrosive dharma. Her mouth is slack. She fell down, back, falling onto her abundant backside in response. She's making a noise in the back of her throat that's something like 'uuu', a steady plaintive whine. She's staring at the thing as golden chains lash down upon them, binding, restraining. The air slithers, something passes, and --
oh!
so that's what was behind his glasses!!
Hitomi shudders in place, even as the Buddha turns to give a teaching to Minato Arisato *in particular*. Her slack mouth keeps letting out that 'uuuuu' sound.
Uh oh.
Her eyes saccade wildly, focusing finally on the ground to the side for a moment.
This is really bad.
In so far as she can put a finger on the sensation, it is as if she had been in the bridge of a great starship, the JSSDF Hitomi Mandai, sailing through the often-surreal but ultimately manageable seas of an ordinary life that has crested into the extraordinary quite recently. And then, all of a sudden, she was astride a jet ski, just like that one time at that hotel in Lake Suzui!
That's probably bad too.
Come on.
Come ooon, me, you can do this.
That ululation stops, and her mouth closes. She swallows. She moves her right hand to rest on the ground. She's still shaking but she can look in that direction. Her glasses aren't in the way so the Shape is -- is still horrible, but the surprise is over. You can do this, she tells herself. She pushes herself to something nearer to a hunched seated position. She can see IT now.
For a moment she freezes again -- a golden light streaks down, though, shining revoluation. A true dharma even in this depth of corruption. Ah, it was that other adult, thinks that part of Hitomi, clasping hard on the metaphorical jet-ski's throttle. Maybe this is what she saw before. Which means *she* survived, which means survival *is* possible.
Hitomi tries to lurch upright but her body betrays her. The shaking tremble of panic is still there. She makes herself breathe through clenched teeth, swallowing a mouth of saliva. She narrows her eyes. Come on, she thinks, bringing her hands up. Fight sitting down if you have to but one more --
A hand takes hers. Hitomi's head turns to look at the person who did it. For a moment she is in a simple state of total calm. The tremble in her hand stops. She rises upwards, now that that obstacle has been banished. It's probably going to come back in a second. She looks at Mitsuru Kirijo. Her eyes widen. It's an innocent look. If it wasn't for the context, it would be the face of someone who received unexpected good news.
Hitomi begins marshalling a response but even as she's doing it, her mouth closes and she nods to Mitsuru: "I will," she says creakily, and then Mitsuru's lunging in, and the emptied hand curls into a loose fist. Her head rocks forwards.
Ahh.
Is this the opposite?
How absurd.
Then it rocks back and forth. Her eyes track Minako, who is struggling, and Minato seems calm enough to call out his Persona. Hitomi exhales, ending on a ragged little giggle. Her right hand comes up, and it's still shaking, enough she has to do whatever that little card-force she does to draw upon Tyche twice before it quite 'takes'.
The marble statue seems rotten and decayed in the horrid light of the defiled Buddha, but it is intact. Tyche seems imperturbed, although she is in a different posture now. Her hands are held as if to encompass something, perhaps a gift or a box? But there's nothing between her hands. Nothing at all.
What emanates is something hard to see. It looks like a burst of auroral light, perhaps? It is a curse of ill fortune, for even if this corrupt thing dwells from Outside, still it must come into this realm, and blind chance is something beyond realm or world: the same thing that controls the flip of a coin or the decay of an atom can plague the plans of gods and men alike.
AS: Persona! Hitomi Mandai has used the Almighty skill Submission on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Hitomi Mandai takes 90 damage! AS: Hitomi Mandai's turn has ended. AS: Take! Masao Inaba takes 0 Almighty damage from Eriko Kirishima's Victory Blessing. AS: Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
Tippy taps of love! <3 There will be time for more later. Now is the time for a slow retreat--but also to listen.
Eriko adds a lot more context on just who Kandori is, and what that means for everyone else, including and especially their 'seniors.' Yanagi purses her lips. A God who came back from death after losing half his body thanks to the power of Kotodama... That much is chilling enough, particularly with the way Eriko conveys it, but it all means a very different thing for her. He indicated no particular interest in Yanagi herself, but she knows agonizingly well what Minato will go through if Kandori does take him away.
An 'Empty Fool'? Yanagi tilts her head at that. Unlike Eriko, she hadn't initially thought it strange that Kandori seems to want Minato but not Minako; the twin Narcissi earlier made it clear that they aren't the same, so it must be that there's something about Minato specifically that he wants. But what does he mean by an 'Empty Fool'? And the implication that the Arisato siblings are not siblings at all...
Is there any truth to that, or is Kandori psychologically tormenting them, as so many agents of the NWO love to do?
Minato explains something else important, that Akihiko only implied: the Full Moon Shadows need to die in order to dispel the Dark Hour. That Strega is working to keep them alive and protect it. That's very good information to know, and Yanagi will share it with her dearest friends later.
Right now, an arrow flies towards Kandori's chest; the one who shot it, Yukari, is cut down with a Mudo. The veiled woman is sent away--Kandori seems to think he alone is enough, and Yanagi believes him, because Eriko, Masao, and Maki all believe him, and they would clearly know.
There is no escape. At one point, Yanagi would have believed that. Now...
Now, it doesn't really matter what she believes. The sheer psychic pressure of this man and his tentacled Buddha Persona, is like suddenly finding herself in the abyss of the sea. When Nyarlathotep sends forth his tentacles and golden chains, it's crushing, as if it might squeeze the breath out of her just to exist in his presence. She yelps, high and watery, with a frightened agony, and claps her hands to her eyes, dropping her cane at the same time, as if blinding herself might do anything to stop this nightmare. It really only serves to make her crumble to her knees.
At that moment, Maki rallies and calls forth her Persona to shine the light of knowledge on this dark man and expose the truth of him--to ask not how, but why. Yanagi can sense this light even without eyes, and slowly, she pulls her delicate fingers away. Before her, Pernelle screams his own screams and flares his train like a marveling blinking fan to curtain her from Kandori and stand up for both of them. This breaks that moment of terror, and Yanagi sucks in a ragged breath or two--in, out, in, out--and, grasping her cane where she'd dropped it, wobbles back up to her feet with its help.
"Giselle," she intones, before whipping her gun-cane up to shoot down an ephemeral blue butterfly fluttering by. (You love to see it, don't you, Nyarlathotep?)
Above her, the ghostly image of Giselle pirouettes into existence. Paper-like spirits surround her too, but unlike the veiled woman's shikigami, they look more like little origami angels. As Yanagi sets her cane down and sings a pure note into the air, some of those little Wilis carry her song forward to Maki and Eriko while others dance around Pernelle and Yanagi herself. It can't completely counteract the horror that is the Crawling Chaos, but it will at least mend some of the damage done to their souls and bolster them a bit too.
AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Recovery skill Victory Song on Yanagi Nagisa, Pernelle, Maki Sonomura, and Eriko Kirishima! AS: Charm results in party damage! Yanagi Nagisa takes 90 damage! AS: Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit! AS: Yanagi Nagisa: Loses 69 HP from Poison! AS: Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate! AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended. AS: Take! Yanagi Nagisa takes 0 Recovery healing from Yanagi Nagisa's Victory Song. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) added! Recovery_Wall removed! AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Almighty damage from Eriko Kirishima's Victory Blessing. AS: Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 0 Recovery healing from Yanagi Nagisa's Victory Song. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) added! Recovery_Wall removed! AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 0 Recovery healing from Yanagi Nagisa's Victory Song. AS: Crt_Up (Critical Up!) added! Recovery_Wall removed!
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
Masao is glad that Eriko can put further context eloquently in a time where he has to be clear at just how bad this is by skipping straight to the action in question - they got to go.
'You're under the impression there is any escape, from what is coming.'
"Ah shit," is what he can say as one already suffers the consequences of attempted defiance against the resurrected Kandori, because what else can you do when someone's on the ground. Especially as that Resonance surges, and his heart pounds in his chest. Something of far grander, greater scope than when they stood against the Joker Killer himself.
He grips the axe, and raises it as Nyarlathotep appears, matching far too many blue eyes with the only two eyes he has--
The chains grip, hold, and yank him psychologically from sense and reason. The continued frustration and challenges that come with living the life he's chosen for himself - an artist. A life that has taken some very interesting, even fateful, detours. A few more petty lost bets. A more concerned family that would be happy if he'd just take up the life they'd already set up for him. Being behind some levels.
"Come on," he says aloud, his axe feeling heavier. Maki asks everything he can't say with eloquence in the moment - why? Not how... but why?
The way Eriko remains exasperated on why he would invoke that form...
Masao fights through those chains as best he can muster, trying to power straight ahead - put himself up front, in center, in that incredibly narrow span of reach he can operate in.
"You think you can just... ask for a re-do on all that's happened?" He asks, as he finds that youthful aggression that defined him throughout that ordeal. Sucking in breath as Eriko finds her momentum and resolve, he knows what he's got to do here after Maki gets her read.
"If there's no escape, then... we're just gonna have to clear the way," in whatever direction that 'way' goes, hoisting the axe over his shoulder as the Victory Blessing is imparted. "Ogun!"
Once more, the blue column rises around Masao as he fights through the psychological and spiritual chains, even as it enervates him further to dare raise it to that Persona and the one who was wielded and overtaken by it.
The familiar form of Ogun, that spear-wielding warrior, touches down in front of Masao - just shy of overlaying - a thrusting motion with the man's axe which gives more to the actual spear of the Persona themselves.
...He knows Yanagi there, in that fancy way she's looking, is going to want to know just how deep into it he was if he's standing alongside Maki and Eriko, those so directly involved as to call the returned monster of a man's name aloud.
AS: Tandem! Masao Inaba has used the Pierce skill Dual Thrust on God Penguin! 2 Hits! AS: Masao Inaba takes 90 damage from Exhaust! AS: Charm results in party damage! Masao Inaba takes 90 damage! AS: Masao Inaba: Loses 75 HP from Poison! AS: Masao Inaba's turn has ended. AS: Take! God Penguin takes 0 Almighty damage from Pernelle's Precious Peacock. AS: Bomb (Attacker takes damage on damaging attacks!) and Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) added! AS: Block Neutral! God Penguin takes 39 Strike damage from Akihiko Sanada's Skull Cracker. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) added! Charm removed! Explosion! 110 damage! AS: Take! God Penguin takes 0 Almighty damage from Hitomi Mandai's Submission. AS: Crt_Up removed! AS: Block Neutral! God Penguin takes 37 Pierce damage from Masao Inaba's Dual Thrust. AS: Block Best! God Penguin takes 29 Pierce damage from Masao Inaba's Dual Thrust. Critical Hit!
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
"... Kotodama...?" Vesper and Katsuya arrive, drawing Umie's brief attention, as well as a flash of panic. "Guys, this is--!!"
Wasn't it for a moment like this that Umie shared what she did with Vesper, that one fine Dark Hour? So she could look at him and communicate just how dire this situation is.
It really was all for naught, because Yukari collapsing to the ground conveys it so much better, all without even betraying there's the barest connection at all. After all, what is Umie Akabane, in this situation? She's just another piece on the chess board, at this point, unwilling to let go of her self-importance, or the idea that she has the ability to change anything anything at all.
This is the power of Nyarlathotep.
This is the thing that knocked on the doors of reality, that itched and wormed through every thread of her life, only a heartbeat away.
She could have mistaken it for something personal, but it isn't.
She's nothing special at all. Anyone could tell a lie, or open a door-- especially a child.
Oh yes, Umie Akabane should think, like the little genius she is. She could break that resistance against Dark, but will it be worth it, if the next round she'll just succumb? Maybe it'd be better to just let things happen. What the hell could she do? She barely knows anything, hiding away in her little protective bubble. She didn't even know what a Wild Card meant, in this context, just that Minato and Minako possessed that ability, much like some others she has seen before.
All Umie knows is that the thing that slithers through her mind is more familiar than it has any right to be, while remaining alien to the point that it hurts all the same.
Isn't it strange, how Minato didn't mention his sister, like he was trying to protect her, at the same time Minako was trying to protect him.
She hears Maki's plea. She hears Eriko declaring SEES under their protection. Masao, resolving to do everything over again, and face the same God.
Isn't it strange, how her heart is beating? Like hearing about a weird little postcard proclaiming the end of a coach who later confessed his crimes.
Like it's worth it, to breach that bubble.
Isn't it strange, how she thinks of Shiryuu's lonely gaze, as he placed his trust in her to do one simple thing: 'Don't die.'
After all, she's doing something that would be the exact opposite, if she wanted that to be the outcome.
The one who is too late to be an April Fool, an oracle that tells the past and muddies the waters of the future, croaks back. "... You can't hide in the dark anymore."
"Badb."
As her jacket bellows in the spiritual updraft of her regained, if temporary resolve, Umie makes her stand. It's a small, minute step, but its intention paves the way.
AS: Persona! Umie Akabane has used the Almighty skill Dark Break on God Penguin! AS: Umie Akabane takes 90 damage from Panic! AS: Ruin: Umie Akabane gains 1 Limit! AS: Umie Akabane: Loses 65 HP from Poison! AS: Umie Akabane regains 3 SP from Invigorate! AS: Umie Akabane's turn has ended. AS: Take! Minato Arisato takes 0 Recovery healing from Aigis's At All Costs. AS: Full_Cover applied! AS: Take! Minato Arisato takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Victory Song. AS: Crt_Up (Critical Up!) added! Recovery_Wall removed! AS: Take! Pernelle takes 0 Recovery healing from Yanagi Nagisa's Victory Song. AS: Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! Recovery_Wall removed! AS: Take! God Penguin takes 0 Almighty damage from Umie Akabane's Dark Break. AS: Dark_Break (Dark Affinity Down!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Julian Marlowe has posed.
Soon after Vesper speaks, Eriko lays out exactly who this man Kandori is. It doesn't seem to faze the gentleman in the white mask, but few things visibly do. Which only means that he'd be a tough poker opponent. It doesn't at all mean that he isn't experiencing a sinking feeling right about now. There's no reason to assume someone would lie about the threat before them, so... up against the power of a God, then? Fine time to learn about that, moments after having already stuck out his neck.
Not that it ultimately changes anything, other than an adjustment of expectations. He has his principles, after all. Closing his eyes to threats of abduction was never an option. He'll just have to do however much he can manage, in whatever form that might end up taking.
If only this were merely a war of words. He absolutely know what his answer is, in response to the assertion that children have no choice but to be under constant threat.
"And to be an adult is to uphold the protective structure that children depend on to guard against such threats."
Somehow he doubts that this man would agree with him on that being the case. Or even count himself among them. To not just fail to deny claims of godhood but actually affirm them proves that much.
Unfortunately, bluster is not all it is. Before he can even think to react, Yukari has already collapsed. Once he has thought to react, the reaction fails to manifest. What is this overwhelming, dreadful feeling...?
Before he full well realizes it, Vesper is forced to his knees by a force physical and mental, the latter of which far more debilitating still. A bizarre mix of fear and allure fighting over his psyche, urging him to run in all directions at once, and in doing so, robbing him of all ability to move. And among it all, that name, Nyarlathotep, echoing and re-echoing as if taking pride of its handiwork. Until...
"...I... refuse... to listen... to you!"
It takes a herculean effort to force himself to stand up straight, let alone regain a modicum of focus to take stock of the situation. But straighten himself he does, and straighten his tie afterwards. Though somewhat strained, the calm in his voice does remain, in addressing the god in sunglasses.
"...And what does it mean to be a god to you, Kandori-san? Does it mean to define the very forces beyond one's control that constitute the threats that children face? If so... you are a most petty god indeed."
Indeed, there may not be much that be done to stand up to this directly. But that doesn't mean he can't take a stand. And the way he does is directly inferred by one Umie Akabane. She did indeed mention the name Nyarlathotep to him before. He has to assume that she would have more of an idea of what to do here than most. If her words, 'you can't hide in the dark anymore', mean what he thinks they mean, then... he'll take whatever opening he can get.
"Raffles!"
In a blaze of blue, Vesper's Persona takes shape, the mass of dark tendrils that make up its right arm slamming into the ground. From beneath Kandori, similar tendrils erupt, intent on direct restraint. If there is any chance to delay further response for even the shortest of moments...!
AS: Persona! Julian Marlowe has used the Dark skill Blackroot Curse on God Penguin! 2 Hits! AS: Charm results in party damage! Julian Marlowe takes 90 damage! AS: Defense: Julian Marlowe gains 1 Limit! AS: Julian Marlowe: Loses 72 HP from Poison! Charm removed! AS: Julian Marlowe's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Minako Arisato has posed.
For a moment, Minato's hand was on Minako's shoulder. For a moment, it felt as if everything might be all right. But then golden chains threw her backward -- pulling them apart -- and the promise 'he' made feels like a distant thing, now. Her eyes are wide, as he summons Orpheus.
It's like she is pulled back into the dark once more; like she is watching herself watch this. Watching Suzume rush to defend her brother, while she hasn't gotten to her feet yet. Watching Aigis stand before him, a shield between him and this thing. Watching Mitsuru order Hitomi to get them away, while she rushes in, in the place of the twins.
There are so many others -- those adults who knew who Kandori is. Hyousuke, promising to protect them. A peacock and his companion, even if out of necessity from a foiled escape. (Wait, what?) Vesper, questioning what sort of god Kandori would be.
Umie making her desperate stand.
Minako sees them all from a distance, like she isn't really here. Hitomi's eyes are on her, seeing her struggle. She feels too weighed down to move. Her hand trembles, the Evoker shaking in her hand as she does.
Empty.
Empty...
...Empty.
But she is here. This is happening. And if she doesn't do something, she might lose her brother. And this world... this world isn't one that she wants without him.
Minako pulls the Evoker's trigger. In the last moment, her hand steadies. The trigger squeezes back and there is a crack of a gunshot, and a burst of blue light and glass that showers out from the side of her head. She sways left, then right. Her eyes, once closed, open.
And they shone red.
Light surges up behind her. For a moment, it seems as though it might be the familiar form of Linos; there is a glint of gold, a hint of red. But then the light and shadow merge together, a veritable whirlwind behind Minako. She stands up, fist trembling around her naginata -- the pole slams into the ground as she pushes herself to her feet.
"PERSONA!" she shouts.
The light behind her shatters. Revealed is a masculine form, clad in a red and black coat with shiny gold buttons up each breast. A spiked, golden mask -- with an open mouth -- covers the whole of its head, giving the outline of a skull. Golden chains connect a harness around its body, and there are six coffin lids -- white, with relief sculptures of the interred on them -- with black edging. Those six coffin lids flare out like wings.
It is the inverse of the Persona that Minato summoned. Like Linos and Orpheus, and yet different. The sister of that mysterious, but terrible Persona0 rears her head back and SCREECHES.
The name comes to Minako's lips, unbidden; something she knows, instinctively. "Mors!" She stares at Kandori, embers of red light smoking away from her eyes as they lose their glow.
Mors rushes forward, with another screech. The coffins clatter as they rotate around her -- and then her hand goes to the sheathed blade at her side. She flies up -- before the full moon -- and the six coffin-lids form a ring that eclipse much of that moon. Mors draws the blade -- a long, midnight katana -- and SLASHES downward.
An explosion of force, making the very air ripple, shoots down as a narrow shockwave -- that drives down for Kandori and Nyarlathotep both. When they hit the ground, dirt and debris explode high into the air.
"I said," Minako shouts, then screams, "YOU CAN'T HAVE MY BROTHER!"
AS: Take! Minako Arisato takes 0 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Decover. AS: Recovery_Wall (Healing Down!) added! AS: Take! Minako Arisato takes 0 Recovery healing from Hyousuke Suzuki's Invincible General. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Persona! Minako Arisato has used the Slash skill Getsu-ei on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Minako Arisato takes 90 damage! AS: Minako Arisato: Loses 66 HP from Poison! AS: Minako Arisato's turn has ended. AS: Minako Arisato has readied for combat as Mors! She is now fully healed! AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 41 Dark damage from Julian Marlowe's Blackroot Curse. AS: Paralyze (Physical and Avoid Penalized!) added! AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 48 Dark damage from Julian Marlowe's Blackroot Curse. AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 107 Slash damage from Minako Arisato's Getsu-ei.
<Pose Tracker> God Penguin has posed.
His expression is patronizing, even in it's ambivalence, at Minako's assurance that he is her brother. "Denial it is. It matters little, what you refuse to acknowledge."
'What would drive someone to that...?' Minato asks. '...Belief in your own superiority,' Eriko answers him. 'And all it does is leave a man empty, doesn't it Mr Kandori?'
That one he doesn't answer from Eriko, like it stung in his current state, instead answering Minato more simply.
"Ambition. Desire. You feel it all around you don't you? 'This Side' has become distorted, twisted by it."
In the chaotic realm of mad darkness, Maki demands an answer. 'Why? Not how... but why?' "Because three years ago, all of you challenged me to understand there was meaning to life- in living."
Minato accepts his challenge, and he actually chuckles, as Orpheus strips the 'Big Bad Wolf' of his sharpened claws. He hardly seems concerned by it. "You'll never be left alone. Yours is a destiny of battle... young Fool."
The disgusting cracked Tentacled Buddha looks at him, it's mouth moving. Within his head he hears nonsensical whispers of something beyond the veil. And he knows that even the very name of Minato Arisato is being cursed.
It's only then that he turns to Eriko again, as she challenges him, so long as she draws breath, "Your words offer the cruel sting of nostalgia. ... So long as you draw breath?" That glowing effigy descends again, that impression of a laughing skull, as if to do just that, steal her breath with smothering darkness that blots out the threads of life. "So be it, 'Goddess of Victory'."
A windstorm from Suzume's Atalanta erupts from Nyarlathotep and Kandori, and what's eerie about the moment is he doesn't even try to move. The terrible wind merely causes his clothing to shift in the breeze, as he casually walks out of the spell, while it's still in progress.
"You have no choice."
The Golden Buddha headed horror raises its tentacles again, and there is a chill in the air, not from any cold. But from a plunge into the depths of darkness. The conceptual end of stars happens as lights twinkle within, then it goes blacker still, into the horror of a universe with nothing else but yourself, lacking bonds, in a liminal state between life and death. A state he thrusts Suzume, Aigis, Maki, Umie and Hyousuke into for two very long, seconds.
Gunfire. Two shots from Katsuya. Two bullets he'll have to account for, if everything in Sumaru City were by the book. One shot vanishes right before it can hit him. No spent casing, nothing. It is as if the bullet ceased to exist. His Persona does not move to protect him. The other- it strikes the man's raised palm. He grips the bullet, and crushes it, but Katsuya might notice a trickle of black from his palm, dripping out as he does so.
Not red. Black.
"Human laws means less than nothing to a god." He remarks, to Katsuya, "Consider this Divine Justice." And the same dark aura, with glowing effigy of a skull descends upon him.
Mitsuru gives orders, trying to organize SEES, to figure out a plan, a distraction, a retreat. Then she lunges forward, and his hand, rises to meet the rapier. The rapier, to its credit, pierces through the center of his left palm. Right before his fingertips clamp down upon it, with a grip harder than steel, he seizes the blade and holds it.
She finds she cannot move the rapier a single millimeter, no matter how hard she tries, as he leans in, still holding the blade and whispers, "If you truly wish to protect him, you must rule as more than just a Queen of Ice, but a Dark Empress- with hands stained black as pitch. Only then might you overturn the verdict of fate."
There is a whispering, a soft susurrus within her mind of alien voice, an offer. An offer of power. And she would know. It is not this god, Takahisa Kandori offering - but another. The hiss of a blade leaves its sheath, and he slices downward across her torso, pivoting and releasing her rapier only then to slide out of his hand with a splatter of black.
Polydeuces comes at him in that moment, as if taking it as an opening. The God takes the blow right to the head, as his head visibly jerks sideways, flinching beneath the assault. To which the Persona responds by wrapping it's tentacles around Polydeuces, time seems to shift- and a Supernova of light erupts from within its cruel flow, detonating violently in the Persona.
Auroral light from Tyche. A curse of ill fortune. Kandori smirks, and responds by withdrawing from his jacket pocket a firearm, and unleashing two shots towards the teenager with eerie accuracy, before three lightning bolts descend upon her head. Then he fires a third shot, purposefully wide, as if playfully missing with just the 'sixth' of his attacks upon her.
Like this were some game, with the stakes being her life.
'You think you can just... ask for a re-do on all that's happened?'
"Of course not, Masao-san. 'He' would be wounded at you thinking this whole event were unoriginal." Kandori's gun bats away the strike of the axe with a shower of sparks, even as Ogun finds its spear unable to pass much further, as if caught on something invisible. "Just like you, 'he' considers himself to be quite the artist."
And then he fires a single shot from his gun, towards his old enemy's axe arm.
And that's the moment that Pernelle tries to cry, only finally managing it, as his Persona's aura threatens retribution upon him. It's not Kandori that looks at him, but the writhing Persona in the air. Alien words enter their brain, undulating about as surely as any tentacle, which somehow he finds meaning to.
You should not have come here
And because Nyarlathotep is like that. He punishes Yanagi instead, drawing her into the blackest, most unperishable depths of the universe for several- far two long seconds. It might feel like validation, if it weren't so mind-wrenchingly painful.
Badb strips away a layer of protection from the all-devouring darkness, and then it feels like it curls around her, then more- then they begin to grow definition, like blackened hands, reminiscent of the Mark upon her. Drawing her down, drawing her in.
Just this idea of possession. No words, just that knowledge that she belongs to something far greater than her, reinforced.
'And what does it mean to be a god to you, Kandori?'
"To have the power to do anything and everything I desire. That is what it means. ...And that is why it is utterly meaningless." His response may unnerve Vesper just from this pervasive sense of ambivalence, as if he hardly even cares what he's doing right now.
Tendrils erupt, and curl around Kandori. He seems momentarily amused, and then, those tendrils are torn asunder by tentacles laden with azure eyes. Eyes staring into Vesper's soul- before two blasts of pure force in a row are launched at them, as if playfully taking him apart.
<Pose Tracker> God Penguin has posed.
He had been paying almost no attention to Minako, as if she were beneath his notice. He called her an Empty Fool, after all. Then- he turns suddenly- "... What?"
Mors slashes at Kandori, and this time, he can't defend in time, it cuts across his face, his actual face, and he grips it with a single hand, staggering backwards, and actually falling forward. This is the first time in this fight it seems that he's truly felt threatened, by the brutality of the Roman narrative of Death made manifest in front of him. Mors.
In that moment, the oily barriers of darkness around them in this dark realm seem to fade, drawing them back into the sickly light of the Dark Hour, as if they cannot be maintained in the presence of Mors. As if something intrinsic to it overrides 'this' realm.
Picking himself up off the ground, his shattered sunglasses are picked off his face, and cast aside. And those who look, will see there is no hollow concavity where eyes should be. There are no eyes with which he might look upon the world, in all of his power.
There are void pits of unperishable black.
"That an empty fool like yourself could bring this incarnation of death into the world..." He murmurs, as if it were indeed unexpected, despite all the knowledge he's shown so far.
And then he smiles, like something about its appearance, its threat has quickened something within him, causing his still heart to actually beat warm blood through his veins.
"But only when the universe itself lies cold and still could death ever be my equal."
Nyarlathotep rises out of him, tentacled hands writhing as they take position on either side of Mors. There is a crackle of energy, the ticking of a clock.
Then it is like a star goes Supernova inside of the creature, as the inexorable flow of time turns once more.
"'He' has decided not to suffer your unnecessary existence any longer."
AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Dark skill Cursed Name on Minato Arisato! 3 Hits! AS: God Penguin takes 180 damage from Bomb and Panic! AS: Pressure: God Penguin gains 1 Limit! AS: You still have 16 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Dark skill Deathtika on Eriko Kirishima! AS: You still have 15 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Dark skill Deathtika on Katsuya Suou! AS: You still have 14 regular actions and 1 bonus Weak actions! AS: Weapon! God Penguin has used the Slash skill Wolf Fang on Mitsuru Kirijo! AS: You still have 14 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions!
AS: God Penguin spends Limit on Exploit! God Penguin can use another Weak skill this round! AS: Weapon! God Penguin has used the Pierce skill Firefight on Hitomi Mandai! 2 Hits! AS: You still have 14 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Elec skill Rapid Zio on Hitomi Mandai! 3 Hits! AS: You still have 13 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Wind skill Duo Zan on Julian Marlowe! 2 Hits! AS: You still have 12 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Almighty skill Wheel of Time on Akihiko Sanada and Minako Arisato! AS: You still have 11 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Weapon! God Penguin has used the Pierce skill Aimed Shot on Masao Inaba! AS: You still have 10 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Dark skill Cursed Name on Pernelle! 3 Hits! AS: You still have 9 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Block Best! Hitomi Mandai takes 20 Pierce damage from God Penguin's Firefight. Critical Hit! AS: Take! Suzume Fukura takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Victory Song. AS: Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! Recovery_Wall removed! AS: God Penguin spends Limit on Reach! AS: Block Best! Hitomi Mandai takes 20 Pierce damage from God Penguin's Firefight. Critical Hit! AS: Persona! God Penguin has used the Dark skill Unperishable Black on Maki Sonomura, Suzume Fukura, Aigis, Umie Akabane, Yanagi Nagisa, Ririka Kawase, and Hyousuke Suzuki! AS: You still have 8 regular actions and 0 bonus Weak actions! AS: Block Neutral! Hitomi Mandai takes 44 Elec damage from God Penguin's Rapid Zio. Critical Hit! AS: Block Worst! Hitomi Mandai takes 61 Elec damage from God Penguin's Rapid Zio. Critical Hit! AS: Block Best! Aigis takes 88 Dark damage from God Penguin's Unperishable Black. AS: Avoid Worst! Hitomi Mandai takes 71 Elec damage from God Penguin's Rapid Zio. Critical Hit! AS: Avoid Neutral! Eriko Kirishima takes 186 Dark damage from God Penguin's Deathtika. Weak! Avoid Dark! AS: Eriko Kirishima is unable to continue fighting! AS: Avoid Neutral! Minako Arisato takes 194 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Wheel of Time. AS: Block Worst! Yanagi Nagisa takes 149 Dark damage from God Penguin's Unperishable Black. AS: God Penguin: Paralyze and Reach removed! Atk_Up added! AS: God Penguin's turn has ended. AS: Avoid Best! Akihiko Sanada takes 165 Almighty damage from God Penguin's Wheel of Time. AS: Suzume Fukura spends Limit on Brace! AS: Block Best! Suzume Fukura takes 129 Dark damage from God Penguin's Unperishable Black. Weak! AS: Suzume Fukura is unable to continue fighting! AS: Block Best! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 89 Dark damage from God Penguin's Unperishable Black. AS: Block Worst! Maki Sonomura takes 334 Dark damage from God Penguin's Unperishable Black. Critical Hit! Weak! AS: Maki Sonomura endures with 1 HP! AS: Take! Katsuya Suou takes 0 Almighty damage from Eriko Kirishima's Victory Blessing. AS: Atk_Up (Damage Up!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Eriko Kirishima is unable to continue fighting! AS: Avoid Neutral! Pernelle takes 45 Dark damage from God Penguin's Cursed Name. Critical Hit! Resist! AS: Avoid Worst! Pernelle takes 84 Dark damage from God Penguin's Cursed Name. Critical Hit! Resist! AS: Avoid Best! Pernelle takes 9 Dark damage from God Penguin's Cursed Name. Resist! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo spends Limit on Brace! AS: Counter Best! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 110 Slash damage from God Penguin's Wolf Fang. Critical Hit! AS: COUNTER! God Penguin takes 64 Slash damage in return for their attack! AS: Avoid Best! Julian Marlowe takes 32 Wind damage from God Penguin's Duo Zan. AS: Blast (Magic and Block Penalized!) added! AS: Avoid Best! Julian Marlowe takes 47 Wind damage from God Penguin's Duo Zan. Critical Hit! AS: Block Best! Masao Inaba takes 53 Pierce damage from God Penguin's Aimed Shot. Critical Hit! AS: Masao Inaba is unable to continue fighting! AS: Katsuya Suou spends Limit on Brace! AS: Block Best! Katsuya Suou takes 95 Dark damage from God Penguin's Deathtika. AS: Umie Akabane spends Limit on Brace! AS: Avoid Best! Umie Akabane takes 25 Dark damage from God Penguin's Unperishable Black. Resist! AS: Ririka Kawase spends Limit on Brace! AS: Block Worst! Ririka Kawase takes 267 Dark damage from God Penguin's Unperishable Black. Critical Hit! AS: Ririka Kawase is unable to continue fighting! AS: Block Best! Minato Arisato takes 71 Dark damage from God Penguin's Cursed Name. Critical Hit! AS: Block Worst! Minato Arisato takes 128 Dark damage from God Penguin's Cursed Name. Critical Hit! AS: Block Best! Minato Arisato takes 71 Dark damage from God Penguin's Cursed Name. Critical Hit! AS: Minato Arisato is unable to continue fighting!
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
Minato--it's not time. That boy is talking about that. He is wondering what would drive someone to become a God...
Until he talks of 'impressing' Kandori, and Maki does not think that's possible here. And Katsuya speaks as an officer of the law--to protect. It makes Maki's heart hurt more. But still, he tries.
She reminds herself of that. They are all still trying.
That system, Eriko says. But it's not her that he wants. It's... Minato. No, perhaps it's--'him', as Eriko says.
Eriko is still trying. That matters. And Maki inclines her head. "...It's what he would do," Maki agrees. "Believing in them, and standing with each other... it's our 'true mind'."
'Past, present, future. ...they're but a glittering dream, holding nothing for me. That's why I'm going to...'
Memory. So many. But Maki feels it; the invocation of that name, of Philemon, reminds her. "...Let's be our best selves," Maki says, telepathically again. "That's not nothing."
She doesn't know who that person MItsuru wants to protect is, but she can practically feel her pain. She can see it, despite her stoicism. That anger... That intense, powerful anger--
How much does one have to hurt, to inspire such rage?
But Mark has it said. 'Aw, shit' indeed. But Yanagi... yanagi wobbles, and invokes Giselle. The horror eases, just slightly. Those little angels ameliorate some of that pain.
"Thank you," Maki breathes. But before she can consider thanks--
Mors happens.
Maki recoils, Taishan Niangniang adjusting her posture to step with her protectively. 'Mors', Minako calls it, but there is something different about this Persona. "Death, but... strange, somehow..." She marvels at it. But--Kandori answers.
"...Three years ago..."
"I remember," Maki says. "At the time... I couldn't find it, either. We were... the same."
Were.
Not now. ...Certainly not now, as Maki sees the hollow in Kandori's eyes. With a gasp she brings her hand to her lips, in horror. "What... what happened to you...?"
The darkness comes. The end of stars; a state between life and death. It scythes into Maki's psyche, and leaves her alone with herself; it nearly, very nearly destroys her on the spot, so focused as she is upon her own bonds; Taishan Niangniang shatters in an instnat.
Maki screams in pain and sadness. And yet...
'I want to change!'
Maki, where she'd fallen, slowly rises to her feet once again. Through an unknown power she gets up. Her feet settle on the ground; her gun has fallen, useless. But her eyes are still full of life.
"...The face of divine love... the mask of demonic cruelty," Maki repeats. "This is what 'he' said belonged to all of us."
"So I call... PERSONA!"
Despite the venom in her veins, the ache in her mind of charm magic, Maki calls on Taishan Niangniang once again, and the Persona reappears, spreading her arms. The white-clad woman lets sparkles of light shimmer over the group.
Maki almost falls again--but only almost.
"Kandori-san!" she calls. "I won't stop searching for that 'meaning'! If you're here... then maybe you can still change, too!"
AS: Maki Sonomura spends Limit on Reach! AS: Persona! Maki Sonomura has used the Recovery skill Shining Recarm on Julian Marlowe, Masao Inaba, Yanagi Nagisa, Hitomi Mandai, Ririka Kawase, Eriko Kirishima, Mitsuru Kirijo, Katsuya Suou, Aigis, Suzume Fukura, Hyousuke Suzuki, and Maki Sonomura! AS: Charm results in party damage! Maki Sonomura takes 90 damage! AS: Maki Sonomura: Reach removed! AS: Maki Sonomura's turn has ended. AS: Maki Sonomura is unable to continue fighting! AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 223 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Suzume Fukura takes 185 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 185 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Aigis takes 230 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Hitomi Mandai takes 167 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 248 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Yanagi Nagisa takes 223 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Julian Marlowe takes 223 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Ririka Kawase takes 185 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Eriko Kirishima takes 223 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Katsuya Suou takes 191 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Persona! Maki Sonomura has used the Recovery skill Shining Recarm on Julian Marlowe, Masao Inaba, Yanagi Nagisa, Hitomi Mandai, Ririka Kawase, Eriko Kirishima, Mitsuru Kirijo, Katsuya Suou, Aigis, Suzume Fukura, Hyousuke Suzuki, and Maki Sonomura! AS: Charm results in party damage! Maki Sonomura takes 90 damage! AS: Maki Sonomura: Reach removed! AS: Maki Sonomura's turn has ended. AS: Maki Sonomura is unable to continue fighting! AS: Take! Maki Sonomura takes 223 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Suzume Fukura takes 185 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 185 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Aigis takes 230 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Hitomi Mandai takes 167 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 248 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Yanagi Nagisa takes 223 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm. AS: Take! Masao Inaba takes 230 Recovery healing from Maki Sonomura's Shining Recarm.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
There is too much going on, and a foe of overwhelming strength who seems ore intent on just playing with them all. Ririka is somehat used to working with a large group, but never under circumstances as dire as this, and she's already being stressed beyond her limits, vainly trying to keep that creepy crawly feeling from
Especially that last part. Nyarlathotep is unpleasant enough in small doses, and this... is far from a small dose.
So when the unperishable blackness of the universe comes crushing down on her it's more than she can handle. No matter how much she tries to pull herself together, to draw on her Persona to reinforce her body--
Her eyes roll up in her head and she drops down to the ground in an ugly heap.
But where there is darkness there can also be light, and Ririka goans as her body twitches, before she can get her hands under herself to get up to her feet. "Ugh... Thank you... Nevigator-senpai." She hasn't met Maki yet, that's the best she can do.
Her head is pounding still, but she forces herself to keep going. "Alright, then... o-one more time. Here goes... Amphion!" Her Evoker comes up, blue fire and glass erupt, and Amphion rises anew. "Let's do what we can-- Healing song!"
Amphion strums his lyre, and once again healing strands of melody are sent out to wrap themselves around herself, Akihiko, Suzume, and Pernelle to give them just that little bit more fight to continue the battle.
AS: Persona! Ririka Kawase has used the Recovery skill Healing Song on Ririka Kawase, Akihiko Sanada, Suzume Fukura, and Pernelle! AS: Insight: Ririka Kawase gains 1 Limit! AS: Ririka Kawase: Loses 74 HP from Poison! AS: Ririka Kawase's turn has ended. AS: Take! Ririka Kawase takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Healing Song. AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Suzume Fukura takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Healing Song. AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Akihiko Sanada takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Healing Song. AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Katsuya Suou has posed.
He glances at Umie, just once. His eyes narrow.
If it had been possible, he would have been there sooner to take on the great Shadow alongside all of them. Alas, he's arrived late, and that in this case might be worse than never showing up at all. Of course, by the way that Katsuya thinks about such things, even if he'd known it would have been like this he still would have come. To do otherwise would have meant willingly allowing these kids to face Kandori alone, and even if it should prove ultimately futile, he wouldn't be able to live with himself.
'That system'.
"Kirishima-kun... what are you talking about?" he dares to ask, even if this moment is not precisely the best for such revelations.
Again, Eriko says.
This form, again.
'Why', asks Maki.
You think that you can just ask for a re-do on all that's happened, says Masao.
This time, Katsuya doesn't have any questions. They're beyond questions now, flung into a situation where even their best might not see any of them survive.
Run, Mitsuru says to SEES, and though he might not know her in the slightest aside her public persona, Katsuya is of like mind. He would just add one more to the list: Mitsuru herself. "Kirijo-san, you as well!" he calls out. Those winds of victory feel to carry him aloft in the next moment, and briefly, Katsuya has the space to think about just what it is that he's consigning himself to.
This is death in the line of duty. He'd still hoped that he'd... that Tatsuya would... and his father--
It's too late to have regrets. Hasn't he already known that for years?
Which is why he shoots at Kandori. One bullet never connects at all. The other is caught as handily as Yukari's arrow, though, Katsuya realises with a frission of shock, not without a wound. Did it strike his palm in the process of him catching it? Except that doesn't make sense--
Kandori is, regardless, bleeding black. Black as ink, black as pitch. Not red.
'Kotodama', the sole thought burrows through his mind. Kandori has but a few words for him in retribution.
Human laws mean nothing to a god.
"That's wrong," he blurts out, more in instinct than in argument. Kandori has more than a few words for him in retribution: Kandori bestows upon him darkness and death, a pulse darker than midnight. For an instant, Katsuya sees the silhouette of Helios interposed before him: an afterimage against the darklight of the skull that descends towards him. The silhouette blurs. It's ripped to pieces, rendered to dust, reduced to nothing at all.
The destruction of his Persona is agonizing. He staggers backwards only to fall to his knees, his left hand planted on the ground to brace him as he breathes raggedly. His gun hangs limply in his right hand. He's... still alive, but...
Many others are not quite so 'fortunate'.
"Damn it..." he murmurs, his fingers shaking as they close around his gun. "Sorry... Tatsuya." He knew it would come to this.
"But I won't let you," he says to Kandori, pushing himself to his feet. Slowly, he trains his gun on the man. "Run," he says, "I'll cover your--"
But Katsuya isn't the only one here with a brother on his mind. In passing, of course, he had noted what Minako (not that he knows her name) had yelled at Kandori, but it wasn't something that was top of mind. Now it is: he doesn't see it when it first happens, but what he does see is that Persona tearing itself into reality. As much as Kandori's Persona had drawn him to feel a sense of dread, this Persona...
What Katsuya, still reeling from the disintegration of Helios, does do is stare at it, open-mouthed.
The face of divine love.
The mask of demonic cruelty.
Which of these is Mors?
All he knows is that it's Maki who might have saved him, saved all of them, if just for a moment more. With that spark alighting within him, he can, again hope.
The barrel of his gun swings back at Kandori. Just one shot more rings out in the night. If it can buy them all time, then that's enough.
AS: Weapon! Katsuya Suou has used the Pierce skill Tactical Rebuke on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Katsuya Suou takes 90 damage! AS: Defense: Katsuya Suou gains 1 Limit! AS: Katsuya Suou's turn has ended. AS: Take! Pernelle takes 0 Recovery healing from Ririka Kawase's Healing Song. AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 121 Pierce damage from Katsuya Suou's Tactical Rebuke.
<Pose Tracker> Suzume Fukura has posed.
"Screw that!"
On seeing that Atalanta's spell did almost nothing, Suzume dismisses her with a snap of her arm to one side, bringing her fists back up to protect herself as she plants her feet just so. They need to find an opening, which means she has to keep him busy long enough for someone - or herself - to do it. Nothing else is going to get through against him.
...but is even that enough? He's more powerful than anyone Suzume has ever fought before. She's not willing to call him a god, but she's not going to deny that he's powerful. He and Nyarlathotep.
Suzume tries for another opening, but this time it's Kandori that sees the opening, not her - or, rather, he's strong enough compared to her that he doesn't really have to wait for one, he can just force it through. A plunge into darkness, the horror of being alone, between life and death -
- and along with it, a terrible sense of deja vu, the feeling of *waiting to die*, the bitter cold of emptiness -
When it clears, Suzume is down. Down on one knee, trying desperately to rise and failing as Mors appears. Maybe she felt *that*, because she aches, somewhere deep inside, without knowing why. Or maybe it's the sheer creepiness of his empty eyes, feeling like they're staring into her with their emptiness. "Arisato-chan - " she gets out.
Suzume slowly pushes herself up. She's so unsteady that she almost falls again, and the only thing that saves her is the light from Taishan Niangniang and Maki. Suzume's head snaps over that way as if magnetized as the feeling inside her fades, giving her a thankful nod, then back toward Kandori.
He's out of her weight class.
But...
*Everyone* is out of Suzume's weight class.
When she showed up, that once, to the boxing club in Gekkoukan, she was turned away. They don't let girls enroll - but even if they had made an exception for her, they didn't have anyone small enough for her to fight, as she fell right off the bottom of the boys' weight classes, down at 153cm and mind-your-own-business kilograms. Everybody outreached her by inches and outweighed her by kilograms. It had been the same with wrestling, and karate. (They'd offered her aikido. She turned it down.)
But she hadn't let that stop her. When she'd joined SEES, she'd gone to punching anyway. She'd picked up tonfa, when she'd found them in Mementos, but she'd persisted anyway, practicing her punches, training as if she was a boxer when nobody was looking, sneaking in to hit the bags.
She'd worked out with Shinjiro, learning to fight people far bigger than she was and make the most of her strength. She'd gotten stronger, too. She'd worked with Reiya, to train her speed, and her technique, and take advantage of her gifts.
But the one thing she had never, ever done was give up. And even in the face of the darkness beyond death, Suzume refuses to surrender.
With another shout, Atalanta appears once again, spreading her arms as wind whips around Suzume. It almost picks her up (though that might be Ririka's song, too) and *does* accelerate her as she rushes toward Kandori, Atalanta running at her side until the two of them overlap, Suzume running *through* Atalanta, bouyed up by her winds.
It's reckless. It's stupid.
And Suzume still does it, driving in with a flurry of punches, every fist accelerated by Atalanta's winds. "Get your hands off them!"
It's the only thing she can do: to give the others the opening they need.
AS: Tandem! Suzume Fukura has used the Wind skill Race the Wind on God Penguin! 3 Hits! AS: Suzume Fukura takes 90 damage from Exhaust! AS: Charm results in party damage! Suzume Fukura takes 90 damage! AS: Pressure: Suzume Fukura gains 1 Limit! AS: Suzume Fukura: Loses 73 HP from Poison! Gains 70 HP from Regen! Exhaust removed! AS: Suzume Fukura's turn has ended. AS: Suzume Fukura is unable to continue fighting! AS: Block Best! God Penguin takes 16 Wind damage from Suzume Fukura's Race the Wind. Critical Hit! AS: Suzume Fukura is unable to continue fighting! AS: Block Neutral! God Penguin takes 33 Wind damage from Suzume Fukura's Race the Wind. AS: Suzume Fukura is unable to continue fighting! AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 59 Wind damage from Suzume Fukura's Race the Wind. AS: Suzume Fukura is unable to continue fighting!
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
They're upset he isn't running. Aigis... Mitsuru... they want him to escape.
"Against an enemy like this," Minato says, "there isn't anywhere we can run if he won't play along." It's not quite Akihiko's resolve... but the end is the same.
Still... he isn't just fighting to sacrifice himself...?
That man is nostalgic, is what Minato gets from Eriko.
And as Hitomi notes, he still looks... so calm.
Calm, despite the seething statues clawing at him from the inside out...
He's used to it, you see.
Even so, he does not know what Yanagi and Maki know too well.
But he's getting a sense of what he doesn't know, from the way the adults are talking.
Orpheus is not the only musician amongst them; he hears Amphion's song, too, just as he bears witness to Aigis's aegis.
He calls Minako empty, though. Is that fair... when he's the one who's hollowed out?
"There is so much inside of her," Minato says.
And a little more than that.
"...?" Minato's question, on seeing Mors, is voiceless; there is a part of him which doesn't recognise Mors, as she rises.
The same part of him which can't connect with...
Is Minako able to direct that power?
"... I'm here," he tells her.
And he turns to the man they call Kandori, his gaze level.
"A God is powerful enough to claim anything he desires," he says. "There must be some determination other than that... or is that why you've become empty?" There is the ghost of a frown, across his face. "I wonder if that's why you use the word as an insult... instead of a possibility."
He holds his Evoker firm.
"But I'm fighting because I want to," he insists.
"Because I made the decision to be here."
Whisper, whisper...
It's a valid question.
What decisions will Minato make in the dark?
He's not the only one who can see where that man is standing. Maki insists he can still change... is that the power of 'humanity'?
A power which defies God...
But God's power is not so easily defied. The reason that man wears sunglasses at night is to protect their minds.
Minato looks into his eyes...
Somehow, Minato looks into his eyes.
Perhaps he is a Fool -- to look. Time ticks down, and Aigis bears the brunt of Nyarlathotep's power. "-- Aigis-san!" Minato cries, seeing her struck.
If SEES were fighting him alone...
But SEES isn't fighting alone.
Maki's own determination not only calls her back to the fight -- but Aigis, too. Masao is determined to cut a path through for them all. And Eriko, who knows the shape of this unfathomable thing...
"Orpheus," he calls, as his Persona rises anew. "Protect them." He turns, as his Persona strums a Cadenza to bolster the wounded, joining with Amphion's music. Then, he calls to Eriko -- "Go for it."
She's not part of SEES, so he can't really order her to do anything, but perhaps the belief counts for something anyway.
There are some adults, he supposes, as he looks to Vesper and Katsuya, too, who are still reliable... even with the sins of their fathers weighing down.
(On the outside, there is a piece of the Bride who mourns, feeling that pressure which the man they call Shinjo brings against Yanagi, even though she thought she had escaped 'that place'. ... even so, knowing what horror she faces, she does not lift a finger to aid her. No... quite the opposite. It's quite a privilege for Chizuru to have asked her to assist today, and she'll not soon jeopardise it.)
AS: Persona! Minato Arisato has used the Recovery skill Cadenza on Ririka Kawase! AS: Charm results in party damage! Minato Arisato takes 90 damage! AS: Pressure: Minato Arisato gains 1 Limit! AS: Minato Arisato: Loses 75 HP from Poison! AS: Minato Arisato's turn has ended. AS: Minato Arisato spends Limit on Shift! Eriko Kirishima can use another Weak skill this round! Hyper (Next Attack Boosted/Incoming Damage Down!) applied to Eriko Kirishima! They both receive 8 SP and 30 HP!
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Ririka's explanation illuminated much, but at the same time, left him with more questions than he had answers. He was silent as he tried to parse what she'd said, turning the words over in his mind and attempting to understand the wider implications of such things, but it was a futile gesture.
"Shit, so now what do we do about it?!" He asked, hoping she - or anyone else in earshot - had an answer. Because as much as he loved the simplicity of gratuitous violence, it did not seem to be the key against whatever that *thing* was.
In amidst the chaos, he caught snippets and whispers of other conversations. He heard screaming and laments, declarations of protection and vengeance alike, comparisons drawn between man and god... but nothing made sense. Nothing aligned with what he knew or could surmise. Even with the information relayed to him by Ririka, he was in the dark. But why did that matter? He was their sledgehammer. Their attack dog. Their mindless hunting hound, sent to bludgeon problems where a scalpel was too delicate a tool. There was no need for strategy when brute force was all they needed him for.
Hyousuke staggered forward. His fist was raised in readiness, moving to bludgeon that wretched *thing* before him until it was a greasy smear on his fist, or until his hands had been worn down to bloody stumps in the attempt. But the glasses came away, and what stared back at him was nothing. It was not that there was nothing worth nothing there - it was simply the concept of nothing. An absence of life, of colour, of emotion, of anything. In those darkened voids, Hyousuke saw the end of stars snuffed out like candlelight without so much as a wisp of smoke there.
The man was the end, and he had come for them.
"The hell are you...?!" Hyousuke asked, summoning what strength he could to ask that question. He could barely force the words out, much less speak them - it was like they sloughed off his tongue, spilling weakly into the air before vanishing into nothing. "The fuck kind of god is this?!" Hyousuke told himself that he did not fear, and that he could stand against the dark and the obscene. But against that? He could barely stay upright, let alone make some valiant effort at repelling it. His body moved on instinct, twitching into a guard and tensing, but it was like rusted gears turning against each other. The great machine that was his body strained against itself, and only remained like that through great effort.
Yet, amidst the fear - amidst entropy and malice and darkness and the end of all things - some small spark flickered inside of him. Not hope. Things had spiralled too far out of control for that. Hyousuke felt, somewhere deep in his soul, that making it out of there alive was not an option for him. That spark was anger. Rage. FURY. That most human of emotions that send adrenaline burning through his veins, surging alongside the poison that stung at his flesh, repelling the exhaustion that left his body feeling leaden, against the haze that enshrouded his mind and plagued his every action.
And it was that spark that let him weather the blow Kandori levelled against him. He clenched his teeth and cried out from the effort. His skull felt like it would split into fragments as he fought to keep Achilles in the fore, with even that god-wrought shield threatening to buckle under the strain of that blow. A welter of superheated sparks exploded into the air, bursting flare-orange in the night as the great general staggered under the blow, and the canyon that had been carved into the metal was clear for all to see. Yet, though he was battered and panting and burning, Hyousuke stood.
"Hey asshole, guess what?" Hyousuke spat, lifting his head as he growled. "'He' doesn't get to choose if he 'suffers' us or not. You hurt them, so now I'm not gonna stop coming after you until I've got my hands around your GODDAMN THROAT!" It was unclear as to whether Hyousuke had let out a war cry, a threat, or some animalistic bellowing. But his anger was writ clear in the words he let loose, so intense that they threatened to burn the night air cinder-black. Battle-scarred but standing tall, Achilles readied his shield and spear, the red eyes in the black void of his helmet glaring bright.
His body eased as Maki's healing magicks descended upon him. He did not hear her words, and he did not know her as a person - but he had seen her before, fighting on the same side as he. That, in that moment, was enough to earn a glance from him in the middle of his rage.
"Thanks." He said bluntly, though more because it was all he could spare the strength for. "I owe you one." He knew it might not have come off ans genuine, or grateful. But they were on a battlefield. There was no time for bowing and scraping and thanking. That was all he had the time and strength for when faced with *that.*
"If you've got wounded, grab them and leave!" Hyousuke called out, anger in his wavering voice. It didn't falter from fear, though. Emotions surged in him, and no longer able to restrain himself, they forced themselves out and distorted his every word. Not that he had much more use for words. Deeds would speak for him. With an ear-splitting, bestial, roar, he surged forward like lightning, cannoning towards his foe. Heedless of the cost to his own body, mind, or soul, he flung himself into the fray, hoping that he could stall them for just one more moment and give those who mattered a chance to escape.
Achilles drew his spear back as his wielder charged in, and with a thrust that distorted the very air around it, he heaved the weapon's keen tip into the monster.
AS: Persona! Hyousuke Suzuki has used the Pierce skill Pelian Spear Strike on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Hyousuke Suzuki takes 90 damage! AS: Pressure: Hyousuke Suzuki gains 1 Limit! AS: Hyousuke Suzuki: Loses 70 HP from Poison! AS: Hyousuke Suzuki's turn has ended. AS: Block Best! God Penguin takes 26 Pierce damage from Hyousuke Suzuki's Pelian Spear Strike.
<Pose Tracker> Aigis has posed.
Mitsuru relays her order to draw attention to herself and Akihiko. "Understood!" Aigis nods to confirm receipt of the Kirijo heiress' command and starts to rush headlong towards Kandori, her eyes shining blue with the familiar blue glow that comes with Persona summoning.
Palladion doesn't show up, however. Instead, all that Aigis knows for two agonizing seconds (was it really only two? that's what her internal clock claims) is the void past the end of time itself. In theory, with enough repair and maintenance work, she could very well reach this point, outliving her non-robotic creators and friends, just as they routinely outlive the plants on the rooftop garden. Generations could pass by, and the people she's here with today could be nothing more than a distant memory while she still carries on.
Her perception soon catches onto the waking world again, outside of that dark dream, only to recognize the cursing intent that the Tentacled Buddha's mouth has for Minato's very name. In one last-ditch maneuver, she unsteadily lurches forward, her sense of balance thrown off by the damage to her gyroscopic sensors and leg components, and leaps towards the entity to try and cover its mouth with her hands. While this may manage to shield Minato, it does mean she takes the full brunt of the curse for herself as the sound resonates through her chassis.
That was it. That was all she could take. Her joints seize up, her processes freeze, and everything descends into static. "Systems-ems in-inoperational-al." Her head twitches as it turns to view Minato and Minako, to try and see if she managed to buy them some time. Minato's still standing, and Minako ...
...
Aigis beholds the form of Mors with a mixture of relief and horror, with some awareness of where the power that that man wants to see came from. She is somewhat aware of who, at least partially, is to blame.
Then for a few moments, everything goes black, just as it did moments ago, but without any consciousness left in her. This would be where she fell, if it weren't for ...
'... the face of divine love ...' 'PERSONA!'
In what seems like a miracle, Maki calls on Taishan Niangniang and Aigis becomes functional once more. There's no time right now to thank her; she still has to carry out Mitsuru's order. Anything to draw attention, right? Aigis takes advantage of the shimmering light to pull some sleight of hand of her own.
"Persona, actualize!" Palladion's form appears in midair and lands with a heavy 'thud' before it pulses with a faint shimmer in the air, shrouding the people who Mitsuru tasked with a timely getaway. Minato and Minako, of course, are the first two. Hitomi should recognize the sensation from the Strega raid on the SEES dorms. Finally, if anyone can help facilitate their escape, a Navigator can. Ririka's the last one to benefit from this cloaking spell. The four of them grow transparent and more difficult to see, fading further into the darkness. Aigis, in turn, prominently stands in front, still fully opaque, her arms now fully outstretched as if shrugging.
Trouble comes in other forms than 'threat'.
AS: Persona! Aigis has used the Recovery skill Madoronpa on Minato Arisato, Minako Arisato, Hitomi Mandai, and Ririka Kawase! AS: Charm results in party damage! Aigis takes 90 damage! AS: Aigis: Loses 67 HP from Poison! AS: Aigis regains 3 SP from Invigorate! AS: Aigis's turn has ended. AS: Aigis's Full_Cover tactic expires on Minato Arisato! AS: Take! Minako Arisato takes 0 Recovery healing from Aigis's Madoronpa. AS: Cloak () added! AS: Take! Hitomi Mandai takes 0 Recovery healing from Aigis's Madoronpa. AS: Cloak () added!
<Pose Tracker> Pernelle has posed.
Yanagi's thoughtfulness on the words being exchanged is not lost on Pernelle, either. Unease grips his instincts. These need to be later questions. But, oh, he does so love gossip! What does it mean, to desire on Fool and not the other? What does it mean, for the other Fool to awaken within the waking world? Alas, he may love existence more than mysteries.
Just a little bit.
Unfortunately, the horrors.
Pernelle has his own resolve deep in his avian heart, and he is steadfast, however delicate a shield for Yanagi he may be. But perhaps it is not so strange he stands guard when Giselle sends dancing shikigami to mend his psyche against the threat of a maddening abyss.
The peacock gazes into Nyarlathotep, and Nyarlathotep gazes back.
You should not have come here.
There has never been quite so much panic creeping into Pernelle's voice before:
"Yanagi!"
He is at her side, which does never little for either of them when a curse can seize him as long as the eyes see him. Pernelle's psyche is a wiggly thing, but it only wiggle so much as he reels under the force of it.
"I -- I am remembering that glittery meal we cooked up," he tells her. "My tongue sparkled for a week! ... It is helping, I think..."
This is a terrible situation. She asked him to escort her, and he ought to bring his friend home safely, shouldn't he? What manner of bird can he say he is if he does not? Before Pernelle can call Anqa, Maki and Ririka provide their own light to lift their wounded bodies and souls.
Well! They're all in this together now, aren't they!
Pernelle squints up at Kandori.
"Hm. Desire. Yes. Important thing, desire. ... I am going to light you on fire now."
Another butterfly flits past, and Pernelle devours it with a predator's rage. He refuses to be made prey today before this writhing mass of worms! That is for bird to eat!
Anqa appears in brilliant prismatic light and splits open at the seems, and a giant, suspiciously peacock shaped plume of fire explodes for Kandori with every desire to ruin his suit.
AS: Persona! Pernelle has used the Fire skill Adorable Agilao on God Penguin! AS: Ruin: Pernelle gains 1 Limit! AS: Pernelle: Loses 75 HP from Poison! Gains 68 HP from Regen! Poison removed! AS: Pernelle's turn has ended. AS: Block Best! God Penguin takes 54 Fire damage from Pernelle's Adorable Agilao. Critical Hit! AS: Charm (Attacker or Ally takes Damage!) added! Panic removed! Explosion! 115 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Akihiko Sanada has posed.
In a blink of an eye, Akihiko is barely standing.
In a blink of an eye, nearly every one of his allies went down.
It's a sobering moment, and Maki Sonomura must be thanked later. There's no time to hold back. Not if they want to survive to fight another day.
"Sorry to bring you back out again so fast..." Akihiko murmurs to himself, mostly. He brings his Evoker back to his head. With the shattering of glass, the Immortal Hero is once again summoned. "Polydeuces! Bolt of Judgement!"
For the second time tonight, electricity cackles to seek it's target... Then thunder cracks, slamming into the God. He won't go down without a fight.
AS: Akihiko Sanada spends Limit on Psych!
<Pose Tracker> Yanagi Nagisa has posed.
Yanagi does want to know more about all of this. She heard some of it from Maki already, but it really didn't prepare her sufficiently for this encounter.
To be fair, there is a lot going on in this encounter. Yanagi's intrigue in the cult and the power that was behind them led her and Pernelle to something even greater, far greater than that. The Hierophant, as well as the other Full Moon Shadows, are powerful but manageable with enough strength; Kandori is on an entirely other level.
Yet even he seems taken aback when Minako, the supposedly Empty Fool, gives rise to a Persona the likes of which Yanagi has never sensed before--or has she? Her vivid eyes widen at the visage of Death, so familiar to her. "Mors..." she whispers, lips shaping the name as if to caress it. Katsuya may wonder to himself which it is, but Yanagi knows immediately what she believes: a divine love expressed by demonic cruelty. That is Minako's Mors.
The sunglasses fall from Kandori's face. The black streaks across his face find their source in two voids in miniature where his eyes should be.
Yanagi clutches her chest and makes a sudden anguished noise. She doesn't hear the words that are sent to Pernelle, but she certainly feels that unperishable blackness. It is the blackness of an empty, uncaring universe that existed for billions of years before her and will exist billions upon billions upon billions of years after. Two seconds may as well be an eternity. Giselle shatters, and Yanagi swoons--
But before she might fall, Maki expresses her defiance again and again, both in words and in the incredible healing that emanates from her Persona. It washes over Yanagi, lets her snap her eyes open, and stabilizes her enough to catch herself with her cane before she can fall.
Pernelle is at her side, speaking of that glittery meal they made. Yanagi, hunched over her gun-cane, smiles as she pants. "A whole week? You must have been so glad. All those little sparkly bits you could still taste for so long after," she murmurs. "I'd like... to do something like that again..." She pushes herself upwards on shaky hands--her arms have been affected more slowly by her DMD, but they could still never be called muscular. "And we will. Tonight, even."
The kitchen of Peacock Silk is in for something in the witching hour tonight. Exactly what, we must leave to the audience's imagination.
"Thank you," she whispers telepathically to Maki. That healing radiances does much to bring her back from the brink, and she's grateful to her friend for it. She's grateful, too, as she sees Ririka call upon her own Persona to help not just her own friends, but Pernelle too. "And thank you!"
One good turn, or rather two, deserve another. Yanagi hadn't been able to reach Masao with her song a moment ago, but as she resummons her Persona with the crush of a butterfly, the shimmering waves of restorative energy wash over him and Yanagi both--then reach further towards Minato and Minako, both Ririka's friends and both targets of Kandori's, and also importantly, two people of interest that Yanagi would rather not see die or disappear just yet.
(Yanagi would appreciate the Bride's sorrow. She would also not hold her inaction against her. Ultimately, when their positions were reversed, she couldn't act either, and even Awakened, has anything meaningfully changed for the Bride?)
AS: Persona! Akihiko Sanada has used the Elec skill Bolts of Judgement on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Akihiko Sanada takes 90 damage! AS: Ruin: Akihiko Sanada gains 1 Limit! AS: Akihiko Sanada: Loses 73 HP from Poison! Gains 68 HP from Regen! Psych removed! AS: Akihiko Sanada's turn has ended. AS: Persona! Yanagi Nagisa has used the Recovery skill Healing Wave on Yanagi Nagisa, Masao Inaba, Minako Arisato, and Minato Arisato! AS: Charm results in party damage! Yanagi Nagisa takes 90 damage! AS: Insight: Yanagi Nagisa gains 1 Limit! AS: Yanagi Nagisa: Loses 73 HP from Poison! Poison removed! AS: Yanagi Nagisa regains 10 SP from Invigorate! AS: Yanagi Nagisa's turn has ended. AS: Take! Yanagi Nagisa takes 0 Recovery healing from Yanagi Nagisa's Healing Wave. AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! Minako Arisato takes 0 Recovery healing from Yanagi Nagisa's Healing Wave. AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Julian Marlowe has posed.
Though Vesper has willed himself to stand, it is a fragile state of being. Enough to ask a question and state his opinion on the matter, but Kandori's reaction to it is... unexpected. Did he just sound... bored, about godhood? Tired, even? Oddly, rather than unnerving, this may be the only thing Vesper has found easy to understand about Kandori's perspective. To have everything anyone could ever want, and yet feel empty inside...
"..."
Even the battle of words is lost with his lack of response there. The actual battle doesn't fare much better, holding back the aggressor for far less time than he'd hoped, and blown back by the following response. He could swear he actually felt the ambivalence there, zero care for how much or how little damage was done.
As it happens, just enough to cause the masked gentleman to stumble, his umbrella the only defense against taking a full tumble. Even so, he is in no shape to act, left to lean on the umbrella as he regards the sister of the boy being targeted go beyond her limits, taking a frightful form. A strong sibling bond is not to be underestimated, indeed.
Unfortunately, he has to acknowledge that he may not have a hand yet to play here... that is, until he is based in light - normally unwelcome to one such as himself, but this particular variety of it fills him with vigor. Head turning towards its source, he thanks Maki with a tip of the bowler hat, before taking a breath, and refocusing his attention where Kandori seems intent on directing his. That boy's words to this man calling himself a god...
"I could not have said it better myself. However..."
With a nod and wordless instruction, Raffles raises the diamond-tipped cane in its left hand, to defensively empower Vesper, the Arisato siblings, and their immediate protector Aigis, who he takes up position to stand side by side with.
"I hope you'll forgive this adult for meddling in your affairs. I simply cannot abide one who attributes so little meaning to anything in life to do as they please. Simply because one lacks the joy of living does not give one the right to rob others of it. I will not allow it!"
With that, Vesper firmly plants his umbrella into the ground before him, and Raffles mimics the gesture with its cane, sending out a weakness-causing ripple in the process.
AS: Julian Marlowe spends Limit on Exploit! Julian Marlowe can use another Weak skill this round! AS: Persona! Julian Marlowe has used the Almighty skill Shade Revel on Julian Marlowe, Minato Arisato, Minako Arisato, and Aigis! AS: Defense: Julian Marlowe gains 1 Limit! AS: Take! Julian Marlowe takes 0 Almighty damage from Julian Marlowe's Shade Revel. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Persona! Julian Marlowe has used the Almighty skill Tarunda on God Penguin! AS: Julian Marlowe: Loses 69 HP from Poison! AS: Julian Marlowe's turn has ended. AS: Take! Aigis takes 0 Almighty damage from Julian Marlowe's Shade Revel. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Block Neutral! God Penguin takes 77 Elec damage from Akihiko Sanada's Bolts of Judgement. AS: Sick (SP Damage on end of turn!) added! AS: Take! God Penguin takes 0 Almighty damage from Julian Marlowe's Tarunda. AS: Atk_Up removed!
<Pose Tracker> Umie Akabane has posed.
Vesper sees the opening Umie created, and responds, pushing through those chains to use the Dark against the crawling chaos. And not only that...
'PERSONA!' Something is screeching, but it's not Badb. It's at times like this that Umie remembers that seeing the Badb is a bad omen, depending on what side of a myth you were on, and whether it was the Badb, or something else. Umie glances at the once chipper young woman who walked into the Triple 7, who may or may not be dating her co-worker in that way that teenagers can and should be able to have. Does he know, what Minako is doing right now?
She shouldn't have to.
"To.... be an adult..." Umie's lips numbly pantomimes Vesper's words as she collapses to her knees, jacket pooling as she bends further down, lowering her head until she can feel the brush of grass against her mouth.
And it all doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much she hides, or runs, or laughs, or makes grand gestures. No matter how much she rebels, or refuses to give in...
Her soul, the collection of synapses, cause and effect, belongs to this thing far greater than her.
It is a pressure. It is a *weight*, making those blackened hands that curl around her seem like they're simply helping her down, like a noblewoman being helped down from her carriage.
What is there to do?
'Sorry... Tatsuya.' Looking up, Umie sees Katsuya collapse with impassive eyes, followed by others, who all fall, then rise, by Maki's resolve to put things right.
The face of divine love... the mask of demonic cruelty... A love of an older brother, while his younger suffers and struggles against a fate he can't understand.
.... like the hollow, eyeless face of Kandori, and the valiant, beautiful Pernelle supporting Yanagi.
She envies it.
She doesn't want to look at it.
She *hates* it.
Who the fuck cares if there's no use in struggling?!
What sort of Persona does that represent? Something graceful, that finds nobility in quiet suffering, while waiting for the end to come.
No, her Persona is of another caliber entirely, as tied to 'Him' as she is.
"BADB!" Umie shrieks, her call extending to the desperate, delighted, insufferable, violent blackbird in her soul that rises into being, following up on Pernelle's adorable attack with one of her own.
AS: Persona! Umie Akabane has used the Dark skill Final Warning on God Penguin! AS: Umie Akabane takes 90 damage from Panic! AS: Ruin: Umie Akabane gains 1 Limit! AS: Umie Akabane: Loses 73 HP from Poison! Poison removed! AS: Umie Akabane regains 3 SP from Invigorate! AS: Umie Akabane's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
Masao grinds his teeth trying to hold that blow against Kandori's gun parrying it, to little avail as the batting sends him staggering away from swinging range. 'Just like you, 'he' considers himself to be quite the artist.'
Before Masao has a retort, the gunshot that rings out is its own artistry as a bullet runs through his arm. Shock and bloodloss sees the young man come to a kneel, quieted by both the immense spiritual pressure and the more mundane issue of 'I just got shot.'
...
There is talk about what 'he' would do. The three of them know about 'him.' What 'he' woul ddo, standing with each other... it's their 'true mind.'
...
Taishan Niangniang comes to the rescue of all here - a reflection of Maki's desire to change, from a time of a truly dark place. One by one, everyone finds that rejuvenating, shining, healing force.
"Tch... ha ha, yeah," Masao laughs a bit, despite it all, the ache in his arm subsiding as he rises up again. "That wasn't that great a showing, huh, right... c'mon." From the depths of an already exhausted spirit, from one staring dangerously into the face of a terrible entity they once triumphed over.
After all, isn't there something Maki found out at a glance, earlier? Mischief spreads on Masao's face, a bit.
"Our best selves, yeah... and not just us!" Masao declares, as the blue light comes around him again. This isn't a matter they can laugh out of, but mischief is just one of those core emotions that help channel Ogun, and so he does, raising the other arm up.
"Ogun! Bring 'em down... let's get funky." Ogun appears, to that little choppy dance, as a larger cluster of purple spheres rush towards Kandori, with yellow ring emanations in which to try and weigh his ambitions back down lower.
AS: Masao Inaba spends Limit on Psych! AS: Take! Masao Inaba takes 0 Recovery healing from Yanagi Nagisa's Healing Wave. AS: Regen (HP restored on end of turn!) added!
<Pose Tracker> Eriko Kirishima has posed.
Akihiko asks if Eriko wants them to give up and run- and her answer is simple. "Yes. Survive, so you can fight another day- and keep your leader out of his hands. Numbers alone don't mean anything." It may sound cold but...
That constant fear of loss is on her.
She shakes her head as Ririka asks if she's kidding- which is made more obvious as Kandori uses that terrible power upon them. The mysterious Vesper, at least, gives her some confidence that others have the same thoughts she does- it is the job of adults to allow children to reach the future- even a newly minted adult like her knows that.
Katsuya wants answers, and Eriko can't blame him but right now is not the time. "I'm sorry, Mr Suou- I can't explain any more unless we survive." And she's explained so much already...
And then Minako finds her own strength- and even Eriko can feel the strengthened resonance. "Mors, the embodiment of death..." She did not expect to feel a Persona of that strength-
Kandori's silence is telling- it seems that some things haven't changed in the years Kandori has been dead- but then he invokes the cruel sting of nostalgia. The happiest and most dangerous times of her life previously were the same-
And then the Deathtika strikes her, and Eriko screams out as she falls to the ground in agony. Darkness has always been Nike's weakness, and Nyarlethotep doesn't merely wield darkness- he embodies it, he IS it, the chaos and the screaming dark.
Eriko collapses to the ground, her body wracked with drakness, the last of her consciousness leaving her.
...Another broken promise...
She looks over at Mark, her vision fading, as he falls too.
...At least... she can go first...
"...I'm sorry..."
Her vision starts to fade-
Until the waves of Recarm wash over her- just like they did long ago.
And with her strength restored, Eriko manages to stand, if painfully. "...thanks, Maki-chan. I don't know how much longer we can last but... I made a promise."
Her eyes settle upon Kandori- and she sees the void. The black void- and what it represents. "...did he even take away your chance to see that...?" It's horrifying, the sort of cruelty that Nyarlethotep could inflict. Back then, Kandori was ready to die- to accept his defeat. "...At least last time, you fought us of your own volition, Kandori-san." Eriko says, her voice quiet.
Then, though, Eriko hears Minato's question, of why Kandori finds the term god to be insulting. Eriko looks to Kandori again. "...because desires are what gives them drive, ambition, hope." It's a paraphrasing of what he said three years ago. "A god forsakes that part of their humanity, and without it those desires- there's no reason to exist. That's what you said back then. Are you truly without any desires left, Kandori-san?"
Eriko looks at him, and for a moment, there is a flash of pity. Minato tells her to 'do it', and Eriko smiles. "A man of few words, aren't you? That's fine. I'm impressed you noticed the trick up my sleeve."
Eriko reaches into a pocket on her outfit, and pulls a spell card from it- a spell card that looks different from any other, except in that it's a card. But the power in it...
"It's been a while, Michael- but it seems I have to call on our contract once again."
The spell card bears not a symbol, but the words of an ancient contract in latin. And as Eriko draws on it's power, Nike appears above her. "Maki-chan, I'm going to make the most of the opportunity you've given us. It won't stop him- but it might grant us the chance we need. Mark, Mr Suou, Akabane-san- if you see an opening, make them take it. Yanagi, Mr Pernelle- "
And then, Nike changes- her colours shift, the silver sheen of her body turning red, her wings a dark blue, and her head a dull gray. Masao might recognize those colours in her. For a moment- a greater energy channels through Nike- not her own power, but the power of something greater. A mask that Eriko no longer wears- but the imprint on her soul remains, and the Totem Philemon granted her allows her to remember how it felt on her face. "I know he's not a god, but prepare to face the power of an archangel, His Right Hand- and His Righteous Sword! Now! Judgment Contract!"
Nike shudders- and then a giant, flaming sword rises from behind her and into the air above her. It hovers there, aflame in the in the air for a moment- and then it swings down, as violent as it is holy, with the divine might of Heaven- setting alight the air with holy flames and scoring the ground as it strikes for Kandori. "I hope you will not mind a little more nostalgia, Kandori-san," Eriko looks at him, and her expression is different. For a moment, it is not the expressions worn by Eriko Kirishima the model, but Eriko Kirishima, the girl in her dangerous wonderland, fighting to save the heart of a girl in suffering. It won't be a finishing blow- but it might be enough to grant them the escape they need.
AS: Persona! Masao Inaba has used the Earth skill Gryva on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Masao Inaba takes 90 damage! AS: Aggression: Masao Inaba gains 1 Limit! AS: Masao Inaba: Loses 75 HP from Poison! Gains 71 HP from Regen! Charm, Exhaust, Poison, and Psych removed! AS: Masao Inaba's turn has ended. AS: Persona! Theurgy! Eriko Kirishima has used the Light skill Judgement Contract on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Eriko Kirishima takes 90 damage! AS: Pressure: Eriko Kirishima gains 1 Limit! AS: Eriko Kirishima: Hyper removed! AS: Eriko Kirishima's turn has ended.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuru Kirijo has posed.
SHUNK
It's an oddly meaty, oddly dense sound, as the tip of Mitsuru Kirijo's rapier pierces through Takahisa Kandori's palm. She'll remember how it felt tremoring in her arm. How even his flesh felt dense with surrender.
In the moment--
"--Merde--!"
All she knows is that weapon is stuck inside that density at a critical moment.
To her credit, she tries to rip it clean out of his hand -- and in a way that, vindictively, will leave more harm coming out than it did going in. But the twist of her blade never comes, nor does the bloody sound of it exiting its new sheathe. It's like it's stuck into a tar pit of hopelessness, and every yank of her increasingly numb arm just increases the futility of the next gesture.
Deep red eyes glare at him; she does not - can not - let the terror and uncertainty bleed into her expression.
But that was before something started whispering to her.
It's not Kandori. It's something -- something Else. Something writing her fate like prophecy etched in Shadows' deepest ink.
"Wh--"
Mitsuru's eyes widen. The gloved fingers struggling with her weapon go briefly slack.
The blade comes down.
Is it defiance or desperation that define her next act? It may not matter to some. But one is a resolve.
The other is contradiction.
Regardless: as soon as Kandori's blade unsheathed, Mitsuru's hand had fallen to her holster. By the time the shining, singing steel starts to drop, an Evoker's barrel presses to her temple. Her answer to that offer, in the heat of the moment, is shouted simply, in three angry syllables:
"PERSONA!"
That blade carves through her with such kinetic force that it knocks her off her feet even as Penthesilea comes to her protection. The warrior woman's own saber sweeps up into Kandori in one flash-freeze of slicing motion before the force of his blow causes the Persona to shatter into a thousand-thousand blue fragments, even as Mitsuru herself hits ground in an ugly, skidding rebound.
She ends up in a crouch, gasping for air, spittle falling from scarlet lips mixed with a touch of bright liquid red. Her entire body quakes. Her right arm feels useless and limp. Every breath burns. She feels nauseous.
But what nauseates her most is not the pain.
It's that she can't stop thinking of those whispered works, seeping into the corners of her thoughts.
It's a thought that is all the more pressing, all the more prevalent, as she looks up and sees--
A familiar, horrifying sight, yet not. Like that day, so many months ago, when Minato Arisato first arrived--
And something ripped out of him with such terrifying strength that it annihilated an Arcana Shadow, all on its own.
"A-Arisato...?" she exhales, voice hoarse, as she watches the rampage of that ungodly manifestation of Mors. Like Death's Head, brought to hideous life. She possesses that strength too. And yet it is not enough.
Mitsuru is still forced to rely on others, and it's still not enough.
No matter how she plans, no matter how she trains, it's not enough. How can she protect them from this hell she's brought them into like this?
How can she protect him, the whole reason she's here, when she's still so... so...
Inadequate...?
Aigis falls. Akihiko suffers for his attempts. All around her, people drop like flies. She feels like she is one breath away from her eyes slipping shut and never opening again. So how... why...
Against an enemy like this, there isn't anywhere we can run if he won't play along.
"Don't," Mitsuru gasps, her voice strained even through that connection, "I gave -- I gave you an o-order... wuh-we can still save you--"
Can they?
... Can they truly?
Mitsuru looks up. And as she does, she sees what lies behind those sunglasses.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
And for some reason...
"Nn..."
That fills her with overwhelming, unslakeable...
"... Ça suffit...!"
... spite.
Mitsuru drags herself up onto her feet. Drags. It is not any easy process. It's a stumbling, unsteady one, one that sees her choking a gasp of pain as she feels her left ankle inform her that it, too, has been injured. Gripping at her right arm, she presses forward. One step at a time, inexorably towards that nothing stare.
She refuses to accept something so squalid, so sad. She refuses. Even if she has a sliver of life left in her -- she'll use every ounce of it if only to show she has that much more than that stare.
Her fingers tremble, falling towards her Evoker. And then...
...The face of divine love... the mask of demonic cruelty. This is what 'he' said belonged to all of us.
So I call... PERSONA!
... something happens.
A drizzle of light falls upon Mitsuru; and dark red eyes flutter out a blink as all her injuries, all her exhaustion, seems to just... melt away within its shimmer.
She still feels the pain.
she still feels the doubt
But...
"... thank you."
It's enough.
Eyes once wide squeeze shut as Katsuya addresses her; she doesn't know the man, but by bearing and words alone she could reasonably guess what, if not who, he is. Despite herself, despite the situation, a wry smile touches the corners of her bloodied lips.
"... Don't worry. I have no intention of losing here," she says, even if she couldn't say if she will really see tomorrow. After all...
"... I have too much I have to see done."
The others mobilize. Others call to flee. And Mitsuru--
Mitsuru presses that Evoker to her temple, one more time, seeing an opening in the midst of the others' offensive.
"PENTHESILEA."
Penthesilea, who fought her doomed battle on the blood-soaked shores of Troy, slices into existence. And once more, the earth flash freezes beneath Mitsuru. Eriko's Nike ignites the air, ignites everything in raw, raging heat. And through the lingering haze of her inferno--
Mitsuru -sprints-. She -dives-. She -slides-.
And as she passes by Kandori, she -snaps- her arm out to grab onto her sizzling rapier and -slice- it across the back of his ankles like he were Achilles of old --
-- just as Penthesilea swings both her blades, erupting a massive cage of ice around the thing that was once a god, the god that was once a man.
Normally, there would be flourishes. She would leap. Snap her fingers. Shatter everything.
This time?
This time, Mitsuru plants gloved hands around that tomb of ice -- and just tries to hold it.
"RUN! NOW!"
Hold it for as long as she can.
"PLEASE!"
Knowing full well it will shatter all on its own soon enough.
AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 35 Dark damage from Umie Akabane's Final Warning. AS: Panic (Damage when using Persona/Tandem!) added! Charm removed! Explosion! 112 damage! AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 135 Earth damage from Masao Inaba's Gryva. Weak! AS: Paralyze (Physical and Avoid Penalized!) added! AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 177 Light damage from Eriko Kirishima's Judgement Contract. AS: Tandem! Mitsuru Kirijo has used the Water skill Blizzard Edge on God Penguin! 2 Hits! AS: Charm results in party damage! Mitsuru Kirijo takes 90 damage! AS: Ruin: Mitsuru Kirijo gains 1 Limit! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo: Loses 71 HP from Poison! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo regains 3 SP from Invigorate! AS: Mitsuru Kirijo's turn has ended. AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 37 Water damage from Mitsuru Kirijo's Blizzard Edge. AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 37 Water damage from Mitsuru Kirijo's Blizzard Edge.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi sees Kandori.
She hadn't seen him for a minute there. Perhaps understandably, she had assumed he got absorbed into or somehow transformed or just *left* but it would seem that he is still here, and present. And he's pulling out a gun, and looking towards her. The gun's coming around. Oh yes, he's saying hello to her. The giggling devil sees that tiny uttermost-black of a gun barrel.
She stares, and there is another of those moments of peace. If anything it's like a sudden great illumination, everything coming into terrible high-resolution precision for a moment. In that lightning flash she apprehends the situation. Her eyes shift minutely, her head tilting. She is not watching Kandori's gun.
She is watching his hand, and when it tenses, she leans to the left side.
It should not work at all, and it still almost doesn't. It is probably because Hitomi, even in some deranged cursed state of hyper-awareness, is still driving around a meat body and is seeing the world a few milliseconds late. She still topples to the right almost too late; the bullet trims through a few dozen black hairs, blowing like a hot breeze through her still-bound sweat-soaked hair.
The other round just hits. But what would have been a side or torso hit instead strikes the front of the arm-protector shell with the SEES logo on it. The ballistic plastic shatters but it takes a toll out of the round's velocity before it goes through the cloth sleeve. It takes a brief detour through the side of Hitomi's bicep (this, too, fortunate - didn't slow down enough to stop here) and manages to merely crack the back of the arm-guard. It remains lodged there; there is no second hole in the protector.
From Hitomi's perspective, things seem to suddenly slow and fade -- but it's back to normal, not whatever-that-was, and the sensation is as if she'd just gotten a square arm-shot from Akihiko-sempai.
Huh.
That's actually not as bad as the knife was.
Neat.
The pain rolls like a summer stormcloud afterwards but it is clarifying. Hitomi makes fists, and she can, even if she can also feel something wet down her arm. That's good, because she needs her right hand, or this will get *additionally* difficult. Hitomi forces out a breath and raises her head to look at Kandori a moment before the lightning begins to smash downwards. This is somehow more familiar; there is a flinch, Tyche is thrown upwards with that same imploring-offering gesture, struck once, twice, finally cracking and seeming to slough apart at the third as Hitomi staggers back and her legs spread. She hunches, to avoid falling.
But I didn't fall down!
Hitomi raises her eyes just in time to see Minako. For a split moment she wonders - is she about to die?? - but it is instead her Persona. A strange one, perhaps, but - wait, Hitomi thinks, eyes turning upwards, I didn't... is that... Her lips part as the icon of death and smashes downwards with enough force to throw up dirt.
Minako is screaming. Yet the horrifying wave of power from this manifested avatar of death... well, it's on their side, and so Hitomi turns her attention, even as Minako screams. There is a certain luminous tunnel to her vision. The full implications may come later.
She's not the only scream. Hitomi hears herself shrieking for a moment as she sees Mitsuru topple over. Mitsuru doesn't go easily, or quickly, but it wasn't a single mis-step or a brief knock-back. The determination redoubles in that operational center of Hitomi's mind, and then she hears another person's cry. Is all this lucky near-miss just going to let her see everyone die?
Now what will I do?
But that other lady isn't dead yet.
That older lady - the one who first named this man. Kandori. I wonder what *her* name is, thinks Hitomi (who has not met Maki, after all). She wants to change. And her declaration and her *own* call makes another ray of light wash downwards. It feels warm. (Unknown to Hitomi, the wound in her arm stops bleeding immediately. It's not as if it's healed, but perhaps it's eased... stabilized. This may be funny later.)
Her heart hammers once.
She tenses, instead of shivering, for a moment. It hurts, of course, but hurting is low on the list right now. There are other pains than that of the body. She could swear she felt her heart skip when she saw Suzume get hurled back, something she saw moments ago but only *sees* now. Where is Suzume. She's - is she - but she's getting up. It's conscious. Oh, Suzume, Hitomi thinks --
And Hitomi also sees Suzume throw herself into an attack against their implacable foe. Hitomi has other priorities, she can't stare. And perhaps she cannot help. Her heart nearly skips again when she looks finally towards Minato and sees *Aigis* is -- is getting up. Recovering. The same way she did.
So I'll do the best I can.
So Hitomi steps further - and comes up beside *Minato Arisato*. "Arisato," she half-shouts with low urgency. "I'm --" Her eyes flick momentarily towards the Thing, and Hitomi loathes it, so she looks back to Minato. "I'm getting you out but don't stay for me," she says, before her eyes cut back, her head turns, Hitomi looks back at Minako. "-- What happened to your sister??" Because whatever it is, in all of its liveliest awfulness, it *might* be good.
Or at least less bad. But then the rallying Mitsuru storms inwards and snaps her rapier. An Execution is declared, but perhaps all she can do - all *they* can do - is imprison the malefactor for a time, and not a long time at that. At about the please, Hitomi reaches out to try to grab Minato by the forearm, though her grip is poor right about now.
AS: Persona! Hitomi Mandai has used the Fire skill Agilao on God Penguin! AS: Charm results in party damage! Hitomi Mandai takes 90 damage! AS: Aggression: Hitomi Mandai gains 1 Limit! AS: Hitomi Mandai's turn has ended. AS: Block Neutral! God Penguin takes 129 Fire damage from Hitomi Mandai's Agilao. Critical Hit! AS: Haze (Physical and Block Penalized!) added! <Pose Tracker> Minako Arisato has posed.
Minako wishes she could explain to Maki -- to anyone -- what is happening. The explanations don't come, though. She doesn't know what is happening. She only heard about her brother summoning Thanatos that fateful evening; she wasn't present, then.
Before she can dissociate again, though, Aigis's spell washes over her. The cloaking spell shimmers about her. Minako turns her head to the android, then she nods. "Th-thank you, Aigis-chan."
And another wave, reaching further. The healing magic washes over her -- and the truth is, she is getting exhausted with trying to manage Mors. Yanagi's magic keeps her on her feet. Minako glances back at her. "Thanks, um--" A pause. A blink. "Friend of peacocks-san!"
Mitsuru calls out. Begging them to run. She looks at her -- and she hesitates. "Senpai, we can't leave you behind," she says. "I-I'm going to try to give us an opportunity to run, all of us! Please, don't... don't throw your life away!"
Minako looks sideways at Minato. She swallows, before she -- somehow -- forces a smile at her brother. It's cheerful. It's radiant. As always, it's also a lie. When she speaks, the exhaustion is apparent; her voice is halfway to a sob. "I know," she says. "I'm not letting him take you, Minato-kun."
Even if it kills me, she thinks.
Mors's slash gains Kandori's attention. She flies backward, just slightly, at the attention of both Kandori and Nyarlathotep. Minako looks at his eyes -- or the pits of utter darkness where his eyes should be -- and her own crimson eyes narrow. "I'm some empty fool," she says. "I don't know what you're on about... but I'm more than you think I am!"
She grits her teeth -- and then she cries out, with sharp pain, as light explodes inside of Mors. The blast throws her backward; coffins clatter against each other, loudly. Minako forces herself upright, exhaling a deep breath.
"Fukura-chan..." Minako says, quietly, as she sees Suzume rush forth with Atalanta. She makes an opening, though at a cost -- and Minako's teeth grit together. But she has to take it. "Kandori-san!" she shouts. "Death comes for everyone--and if you've come back from it... then it means you're not finished!"
She looks at Mors, hovering next to her. "Mors, open the gates of hell!"
The gold-helmeted Persona screeches. The coffin lids spin on their ring, then all go upright. Then, on each of the six coffins, a steady mixture of black and white energy forms. They cascade together into a spiral -- and then shoot up into the air. They become sweeping parabolas, before they rain destruction down -- all of it centered on Kandori and Nyarlathotep.
The light from the explosions is blinding. But Minako turns to the others and calls out, her breathing ragged. "We--we should go!"
AS: Take! Minako Arisato takes 0 Almighty damage from Julian Marlowe's Shade Revel. AS: Def_Up (Block Improved!) and Spd_Up (Avoid Improved!) added! AS: Minako Arisato spends Limit on Exploit! Minako Arisato can use another Weak skill this round! AS: Persona! Theurgy! Minako Arisato has used the Almighty skill Gate of Avernus on God Penguin! AS: Minako Arisato: Gains 71 HP from Regen! AS: Minako Arisato's turn has ended. AS: Block Worst! God Penguin takes 259 Almighty damage from Minako Arisato's Gate of Avernus.
<Pose Tracker> God Penguin has posed.
When Maki says they were the same, Kandori doesn't respond, at first, his gaze distant, remembering that aspect of himself that was drawn along with Maki by the Snow Queen.
"To tell me to continue to search for meaning. To offer hope in it's absence. It is less divine love and more demonic cruelty that you offer me Maki-san." And in her works, those who are defeated rise again, "And with a face of divine love, you offer them demonic cruelty in turn. Hope... such a tease."
This time, he touches his forehead and a card of the Arcana rises from his hands. From Nyarlathotep's tentacles, an inky blackness begins to spread, stealing the light from all it touches.
It feels like the preamble to something enormously dreadful. Something that must be avoided at all costs.
Katsuya opens fire to cover them. This time, it's his sword that tries to swing up, but the shot causes him to grunt, as it buries itself into his shoulder, as black blood spills down his suit.
How odd.
Could he be becoming 'more' human- the more he's forced to confront his feelings?
Suzume, newly arisen, comes at Kandori from an angle that he isn't looking, yet the eyes of the Persona see her. He turns in time, for the wind spell to shove him back two paces, with a look of irritation on his face as Suzume's fists collide against the flat of his blade, the final one striking his chin.
Then with a hand, he roughly shoves her aside, in her barely standing state.
'There must be some determination other than that... or is that why you've become empty? I wonder if that's why you use the word as an insult... instead of a possibility.'
It catches him in something of a logical bind. One that actually stings. He can't say that the context is different, because is it really? An empty existence, an empty god.
"Silence." He spits out the word, seeming angry for the first time, perhaps in this fight.
And that's when an adorable prismatic Agilao explodes around Kandori, and despite the best fire resistance his tailor can offer- it singes his suit even as Badb shrieks darkness upon him.
His baleful look to the two of them could sear them from reality, if he'd placed any of his power behind it, but his Persona will manage it on it's own. Whatever Nyarlathotep is doing seems like it's growing worse, tendrils of darkness snaking as if to utterly close off their presence from the outside world, in a different manner.
'Simply because one lacks the joy of living does not give one the right to rob others of it. I will not allow it!'
"Heh." As he's 'declawed' once again, he comes down from his anger. "You have not the eyes to witness it. The self-destructive spiral of mankind's desires." What is he talking about? "It is not an imposition upon others that I once offered, but freedom from the pointlessness of it all."
Ogun's gravity spell weighs him down, and his knees buckle under the weight. A God does not do well, being forced to grovel upon the Earth. "You should have stayed down, Masao-san." He grimaces, as Eriko calls forth the power of an Archangel. So like the power that brought him low, three years ago.
The searing light of the flaming sword descends, against his katana's sudden parry. Holy Flames surge around him, as he is depressed further and further in the ground between that and his gravity spell.
Even when he's finally getting up from it, Mitsuru slides, and slices it across the back of his ankles, "Nngh-" And then a tomb of ice forms as he tries to stay on his feet. It looks like it might hold- then it simply evaporates before him. "-then you should have handed him over." He says as he rises again.
And Mitsuru will have the eerie instinct that he doesn't mean her 'dying here today' as a consequence of handing him over. Hitomi tries to cover their exit, with an Agilao- and man his tailor is going to have a rough time today.
"You won't escape-' 'Kandori-san! Death comes for everyone--and if you've come back from it... then it means you're not finished! Mors, open the gates of hell!'
Black and White energy forms from Mors, and this is the only time that the twisted form of Nyarlathotep rises up to meet it. The tentacled monstrosity takes the brunt of the blow head on, as destruction rains down, it's tentacles crossing over its body as it's bombarded by the energy.
Its cracked statue like form seems even worse in many areas, several tentacled limbs distended and scorched and torn beyond their capacity to act. and then it makes an inhuman noise, the halo around its head beginning to whirl, as that blackened energy tries to close off their last escape...
And in the middle of it all, sounds of a motorcycle engine begin to roar through the Dark Hour. An unusual sound to be certain, given that Mitsuru Kirijo is here, fighting.
Yet, when its headlight can be seen in the gloom of the Dark Hour racing down the ramp into Aoba Arc, making a quick turn as rubber burns and shrieks- is, could that be Tatsuya Suou?
No. It's someone else entirely.
A young adult man wearing a white motorcycle helmet, leaps off his bike, wearing goggles over glasses that tears off. A blue scarf with a '1' imprinted upon it tied around his neck. His motorcycle leathers bear the words 'To the Number 1' on his back as well.
Strangely, his mere presence causes a deescalation within the figure in front of them. As he dismisses his Persona, Nyarlathotep snapping out of existence, without ever unleashing what it was trying to do with those devouring tendrils of void stuff- all of his works vanishing within an instant.
"Hnnh- Kei-san." Kandori grunts as he stands straighter, adjusting his suit, "You're late." Kei Nanjo replies with a strange self-assurance as he surveys them. "So you've returned, with all your godlike power, Kandori. ... Only to waste it flexing upon children like some schoolyard bully. Let them go."
Kandori stares at Kei with those void pits, frowning, "To be lectured by you again? There's no dishonor in playing the role I've been assigned."
Kei walks closer, unsheathing a long curved katana from a saya at his side.
"... I'm unpersuaded by your words. When we last met, your ambitions had made you a puppet." He points the Katana at him, "What I see before me now is a spineless one, without honor or purpose to call your own."
His tone takes on a greater heat, "Withdraw! Do so of your own accord. Prove to me there is anything of the man that we bested three years ago within you. ... Or show that in your rebirth that you aren't even worthy of my scorn."
For a time, Kandori's every muscle goes taut, like he's resisting the urge to follow this emotion stirred within him.
And then he reaches within his pocket, withdrawing a new pair of sunglasses, placing them on his face, to cover his eyes anew.
He looks then upon Masao, upon Maki... upon Eriko, from behind his sunglasses, his expression growing more neutral as he considers their words, even Minato's and Minako's- thinking upon it, as if weighing the sum of it all together. "Out of respect to those who defeated me three years ago, I will do as you ask. The young Fool will be allowed to walk freely. ...For now. But I will not return the Shadow of the Hierophant Arcana."
"... I won't thank you for this." Kei notes, as Kandori replies, "I wouldn't expect you to, Kei-san." Strangely enough, he begins to walk away. He doesn't vanish, doesn't transport himself elsewhere, he walks.
Kei Nanjo takes off his helmet, and looks to Mitsuru Kirijo, to Eriko Kirishima, to Maki Sonomura and to Masao Inaba. "Know that I typically take pride in my punctuality... you have my apologies for my tardiness, I can offer no excuse for it."
And just like that, they are gone from the dire situation they are in.
This doesn't solve the problem of several hundred people strewn about in Aoba Park during the Dark Hour, mercifully still insensate. Fortunately the Shadows have grown quiet after the Hierophant was banished.
Some will recover. Some will have a certain degree of apathy syndrome. One man and one w
<Pose Tracker> God Penguin has posed.
Some will recover. Some will have a certain degree of apathy syndrome. One man and one woman will be unaccounted for in the aftermath, after their transformations. What's clear though is, despite the Hierophant being currently beyond their reach... if they hadn't been here, this could have been far worse.
<Pose Tracker> Minako Arisato has posed.
Minako sags as the attack finishes. She stares for a second -- and then realizes, with mounting horror, that Nyarlathotep is still intact. And it's still blocking their escape. But intervention -- and salvation -- comes in a way she didn't expect.
Nanjo...?
She sags a little more -- and Mors vanishes behind her. Then, as exhaustion sets in, Minako topples forward, unconscious.
<Pose Tracker> Maki Sonomura has posed.
Yanagi thanks her, in that telepathic whisper. Maki hears it, and hearing her friend live enough to thank her is a reward all its own. Maki smiles, even if it only lasts a bare moment. A tip of Vesper's hat tells her another person feels hope. Suzume looks to her. Katsuya swings his gun. And Ririka... Well, Ririka calls her navigator-senpai, and Maki manages another brief smile to her. Seeing every person who stands up again gives Maki a little more hope. Maybe it won't matter. ...Maybe it can't matter.
But right now, there is something meaningful happening. She believes that.
She believes it while Mark is with her. ...She believes it while Eriko is with her.
"That promise matters," Maki tells Eriko firmly, her voice full of meaning.
"...Elly-chan--"
But she promised, too. She promised that if she could find the opening, she'd get everyone out she could.
And there are so many who are ready to lay themselves down for the others. Mitsuru, for one, rises. Mitsuru thanks her, too. And then--
Hitomi may not know Maki's name, but she may have a chance to learn. Even though... 'don't stay for me.'
Much as she feels hope, Maki feels pain; pain, for each of these people. Each person who seeks to help the others in turn...
Kandori remembers. And Maki hears his answer, in turn. "...Is it so cruel?" she wonders. "To want to hope?"
She sees the card starting to rise. That darkness--
Maki knows she can't do anything against it. She has used up what power she has. And yet...
And yet everyone is trying so hard. So hard.
"...Yes," Maki says. "Man can be self-destructive." She knows that's true. "...But that's not all we are."
And Minako's sheer power--
But suddenly... Suddenly there is--
"You," Maki says to Kei. No dishonor, and yet...
Kandori offers 'respect'. Maki blinks in surprise. "Kandori-san..."
He walks away. And Nanjo just apologizes for--
"..."
Maki smiles at Kei, but there are tears in her eyes. "..."
She finds that for all she was talkative before, now her feelings are too much for her to express.
<Pose Tracker> Mitsuru Kirijo has posed.
"Arisato-- Minako-- you cannot--!
Why.
Why do they keep...
Ice simply evaporates in seconds, and all she hears is Minako's refusal as she tries in vain to buffer this creature.
Even in this, she falls short.
She sees the familiar silhouette of Kei Nanjo exchanging words with Kandori. His voice is a numb, ringing echo in her ears.
"Nanjo... you..."
She told Hitomi once: 'I cannot allow myself worsts.' She cannot afford weakness. Failure. She has already had to endure it once. Another could cost her everything.
But as the light dimples out of the vision of Mitsuru Kirijo's rolling eyes, the only thing she can think of as she falls to the indifferent earth is,
Have I already failed--?
<Pose Tracker> Hyousuke Suzuki has posed.
Hyousuke wasn't sure whether or not he should have been angry that the god had ignored him. Part of him felt he should have been insulted by it all. Was the truly that weak, that his blow had not warranted a wayward glance, or a single word of dismissal? Was he that pathetic that all his rage and fury had amounted to little more than smoke in the wind? But another part thought that perhaps it was for the best he'd been ignored. If he was that weak, the attention of a being that powerful - man or god or supernatural manifestation - would have erased him from the face of the Earth.
Then tension in the air was thick enough that Hyousuke could have cut it with a knife. He did not know who the one on the motorcycle was - there was only Persona user he knew that rode one of those, and Kei was most certainly not her. But their presence seemed enough to banish the fathomless dark, and save them all from the wrath that had hung over them like a headsman's axe. He didn't know them, their motives, their relation to Kandori... but he was at least quietly grateful that they'd spared the group an ignominious end.
He looked slowly around, making sure there was nothing else to threaten his friends, and theirs besides. Satisfied that they no longer had need of him - if they had ever had need in the first place - Hyousuke dragged his tired, limping, body into the dark beyond. Every twitch of his limbs made it feel like they would give out from under him, or fall away completely. He couldn't conjure a coherent train of thought, and moved almost entirely on instinct. The agony of poison still wracked him like fire in his veins. But to show any of that - to collapse before them - was weakness he could not afford to display.
The steps grew quiet, his form grew distant, and Hyousuke limped out of sight.