compnetwork | > 01. [text]

[She sighs. She's getting the feeling that this piece-meal story has made things even more confusing than before. She needs to get it all out before anything else can happen. He deserves that.]

I'm just... going to tell you everything now, okay? A lot of it you won't like, but... listen first, please?

[His mouth thins, turning to sit back down in his chair. He stares at the pocketwatch for a few more seconds, letting his eyes wander across its surface, before nodding.]

Alright.

We took you to the hospital after the Dark Hour. The doctors said then there wasn't a chance of you waking up. We had to keep fighting, though... so we did. We took out the Shadow on the next Full Moon on the Moonlight Bridge. Strega attacked us too, but we beat them and then Jin and Takaka jumped off the bridge.

We all thought that was the end of it. Mitsuru-senpai got us a giant sushi platter to celebrate... it was really delicious by the way. [...Side tracking... she can't help but inject some levity into the story even though she'd just told him it was dark.] Her father even came to the party. But Aigis and Ikutsuki were late.

[She pointedly doesn't call him the Chairman, or even add an honorific to the title, and the reason why is fairly obvious in another minute.]

We found out why once the Dark Hour hit. It hadn't ended when we destroyed the Shadows after all. We all headed to Tartarus, and found Ikutsuki and Aigis there - he'd taken control of her. Everything he'd told us before was a lie. Destroying the Shadows wasn't ever going to end the Dark Hour... It was just Ikutsuki's plan. He wanted us to bring them together. He even doctored the footage of Yukari-chan's father to make us go after them. Mr. Takeba was really trying to protect everyone when he released them... because he knew if they did come back together, it would mean the end of the world.

[She takes a deep breath, trying to collect her thoughts before she continues.]

[He says nothing as she begins to talk, just listens. His face is as expressionless as he can make it, taking everything in as best as he can—though when Takaya is mentioned, he twitches, because good riddance. Takaya was nothing but a sick bastard, and the world is probably better off now that he's gone. It wasn't like he didn't have a death wish anyway, so he got what he wanted in the end, and Jin followed. Jin was loyal that way—sounded like what Shinjiro knew of him. He had never wished death on him, but he hadn't ever liked him. Jin was just another messed up kid, just like the many others that wandered the streets.

The Chairman's betrayal, however, is a different story. He looks up sharply, a new light entering his eyes as his inner ire grows with every new bit of information he hears. It makes him angry, though his reaction is bridled, boiling underneath the skin. All this means is that all of them were nothing but pawns to use in whatever game he was playing, and it suddenly makes every damn thing he did reprehensible. He allowed a kid to join SEES. Allowed a bunch of teenagers to put their life on the line, getting hurt because of their solidarity towards a cause, all for a goal that was never a possibility.

He had known the Chairman for years, and Shinjiro had trusted him in his own way. Never close, he was never a friend, but respect was there. Now there isn't, just a sudden void.

But, just like he had agreed, he just listens, waiting to hear more of the many things he knows he'll never be able to change.]

[She would agree with his thoughts if he voiced them. She'd trusted the Chairman, too. Respected him, as someone who looked out for them, in a way few adults ever had in her life.

And then it'd all been a lie.]

He ordered Aigis to capture us, and brought us to the Observatory. He said he was going to sacrifice us to bring the Fall. We didn't know what that was yet, but he thought it was going to make him the ruler of the world, or something like that. Koromaru came, and Aigis managed to snap out of it, but before we could stop anything he and Mr. Kirijo.... killed each other.

[another deep breath. Then she continues in a steady voice.]

Things just went awry after that. Mitsuru-senpai was upset... It turned out Takaya and Jin hadn't died, either. Takaya was completely into what Ikutsuki had said, about the Fall. They broke Chidori-san out of the hospital and tried to get her to attack us. But in the end, Junpei brought her around. Takaya even shot him, but Chidori-san sacrificed herself to heal him.

[she sighs.] Strega disappeared again after that. None of us knew what to do. We couldn't stop the Dark Hour and we didn't have any ideas about the Fall Ikutsuki had talked about. So we just kept going to school.

[So when Mitsuru had arrived here, she had not only had to deal with him and Minato walking around, but got to add her father to the tally of dead men walking while she was at it. Well, shit. No wonder she had looked so tired. He doesn't recall a time when he had ever seen Mitsuru legitimately distraught over anything—at least, not for more than five or ten minutes at a stretch, which was about the amount of time it usually took for her to get a handle on things, for her to figure out how to deal with the situation as best she could, keeping that air of quiet professionalism about her—but he can imagine. Mitsuru's strong, but she is still human. And she's still someone's daughter.

He should've been the one taking her out for coffee, really.

His thoughts drift away from her, returning to the topic at hand, glad for a moment that the Chairman's dead and won't be able to toy with anyone anymore, but intimately aware of the growing unease starting to rise in his gut, as it usually does when he feels things are about to go wrong. Takaya being alive doesn't surprise him as much as maybe should—though then again, his apparent suicide was only ten seconds ago—and the things involving Chidori are about the same. He wondered what Strega would do with her being absent, and she had been with Strega for as long as he can remember consorting with them. They would have come for her eventually.

He had always been surprised Chidori had taken to Iori as much as she did—though the reverse was also equally true. Iori had gotten her to talk when no one else could, and visited her at the hospital more often than he could count. Stupid kid, he had probably been setting himself up for tragedy.

But then again, you couldn't really stop who you fell in love with.]

This all happen in November?

Edited 2012-09-16 05:06 (UTC)

It was... it seems like a lot, doesn't it? The rest of the month was pretty normal, though. A new student transferred into our class - Ryoji Mochizuki. [Well, actually he'd transferred in the middle of the previous stuff, but details.] And we took a class trip to Kyoto. That was fun... Well, except for how Ryoji-kun, Junpei-kun and Akihiko-senpai snuck in to watch us in the hot springs! Mitsuru-senpai took care of them, though. [Shinji, you should be happy you weren't around for that incident.]

[Aki wouldn't do that and you know it.]

[Which can only mean he got dragged into it like an idiot. Because he is one. He's not sure which one of the two remaining males to blame, but Junpei sounds like as good of a scapegoat as any, unless this Mochizuki kid is one of those morons who hadn't yet learned how asinine it is to be a slave to your hormones, following every stupid impulse it likes to flood your system with on a daily basis. He can only imagine Mitsuru skinned them alive.

They probably all went to bed feeling about as manly as a castrated dog.

Had he been around, he would have had the sense to skip the entire school trip.

In fact, he did.

He missed nothing.]

Edited 2012-09-16 05:29 (UTC)

[But for all the sudden change in tone, he's glad to hear everything could at least go back to some semblance of normality. He'd rather they all get into trivial, harmless, asinine things than have to deal with the shittier parts of the world, the bits of life he's been used to seeing day in and day out.

It meant that Aki had gotten over things and wasn't dwelling on the past like he could have been. It also meant that Mitsuru was able to get back up (something he never doubted) and keep on going even after her father passed away. And Iori continued to be himself, and so was Minako, for that matter. And everyone else. They were all able to move on in some way or another, something he always had trouble doing. Their sphere of life was so fundamentally different from his.

He shakes his head (bunch of idiots), and there's a lingering trace of fondness remaining in his voice when he speaks again, because for all their stupidity, they still sound like the people he remembers. Not that he'd ever say such things out loud.]

I believe you.

Edited 2012-09-16 05:52 (UTC)

[She grins at his expression, but then it fades. The last part of the month had been wonderful, but it ended quickly, much like the cheerful tone of her story.]

Ryoji-kun... was a sweet person. He was best friends with Junpei-kun. Nearly everyone at school liked him, especially the girls. I...

[This is so hard to say. She doesn't want to feel guilt over her decisions, for her emotions... but it's hard to stick with the justifications she'd made when Shinjiro is standing right in front of her. When she knows now he probably isn't terminally brain dead.]

I liked him too. And he was interested in me. ...We ended up getting close. That was the rest of November.

Edited 2012-09-16 06:14 (UTC)

[What she was trying to say wasn't all that hard to understand: she had started to date someone else. Moved on from the comatose invalid who was probably never going to wake up.

The knowledge hurts more than he ever thought it would.

The pain is a disturbingly familiar feeling, just harsher in its sudden, piercing intensity, like reopening an age-old wound that has never fully healed and setting it aflame. He had seen this coming a long time ago. This wasn't some new revelation. He knew she would end up finding someone else from the very moment he he began to realize that he was falling in love with her. He had never expected to be with her then—he was never going to let her know, and let what he felt for her die with him. He would just stay the silent observer, and that likely meant watching her fall in love and date other people that weren't him, which was exactly how it should have been, because he knew that, in the end, he would only hurt her. This was especially true as September drew to a close, and Amada's intentions towards him had been made increasingly clear. He had expected to die.

So even the mere thought of getting together with her was a selfish one. How could you validate dating a girl when you knew with almost complete certainty you would be dead in before the next month was through? You couldn't.

He had also known exactly what kind of person he was. He wasn't the type of guy any self-respecting girl dated.

He couldn't offer her anything. He couldn't give her the world or even a life. She was supposed to get married and have kids (if she wanted to), make a name for herself, and he… couldn't give her that. Can't give her that. Being a father was never in his stars, limited at the very least by his own mortality. All he is, in the end, is a delinquent orphan with too much baggage to his name and a lifespan you could probably measure on one hand. He knows this better than anyone, which is why he knew it would be far kinder to just let her go, even though it would hurt and mean facing each day wondering what could have been if he hadn't screwed up his life. He could deal with pain. Pain wasn't anything new or unexpected. He could take that if it meant not hurting someone else. That was (and is) the last thing he ever wanted to do.

And then she had badgered her way into his bedroom and made things complicated. He had tried to say no. Tried, but he had given in to every selfish particle that still resided in his body. Maybe he abandoned restraint because he was weaker-willed than he had thought, or maybe because he had been terrified about what was going to happen in the next few days. Or maybe he had given in because he had just wanted so badly to be happy for once. And was that really so wrong, to want to be happy for a little while? For five minutes? A day?

He couldn't say no. Couldn't give a valid reason for why they shouldn't be, because that reason was between he and Amada, and what would be, would be. And look how that turned out. He might as well have been dead.

She had done what he had expected her to do—wanted her to do. He's not angry, and he can't (and would never) blame her. They hadn't even been "together" for all that long. He just wished it didn't have to hurt so much, knowing that she did, but that's his own damn fault, not hers, and it will fade once everything isn't so raw. And he can deal with that, because only one thing matters.]

Were you happy?

...I was. Those weeks were a lot of fun.

["But so were the weeks with you--" It sounds like an excuse, even as she thinks it. She can't give him excuses. Even when they're true.]

But you've probably already guessed things didn't stay that way. Aigis never liked Ryoji from the moment they met. She kept calling him "dangerous." We never took it seriously because, well, he's flirty and you know how she is with me, anyway. But the next full moon, Aigis disappeared during the Dark Hour. Fuuka-chan found her on the Moonlight Bridge and we all went after her... only to find her and Ryoji-kun both. Aigis was in horrible shape. It turned out... that Ryoji-kun was really a Shadow. Aigis had finally figured that out and attacked him.

[He nods.

Then that's all he needs to know.

He could say other things now, and ask a hundred others, but he won't. He will wait for later, after her story is done, when he can finally take in the whole picture and see everything he needs to see. So for now, he continues to listen.

He still notices her use of past tense when she refers to Mochizuki, and guesses at the future that lies in store for him, but his suspicions are still far and away from the unraveling truth he's hearing, and his eyes widen in surprise when she mentions that Mochizuki was a Shadow. Not... human at all. But... that didn't make sense. He had always seen Shadows as beings that existed, but were never really all that sentient, if at all. Mostly mindless things that they'd probably never be rid of.

Guess he was wrong, and that added an element to the Shadows that made some things in Tartarus even more disturbing, considering the possible implications, but nevertheless, that would explain why Aigis would react to him so badly. She probably sensed just what he was in some way or another, even if she couldn't put that feeling into words. And if he had the strength to take her down—

Well, he wasn't an ordinary Shadow.

But that much was all ready obvious.]

[It just gets stranger, of course. Minako pauses as she tries to condense all of the main points.]

Aigis was unconscious, so Ryoji-kun told us the whole story. Ten years ago, the Kirijo Group created a Shadow called Death. But that Shadow was too dangerous. Yukari-chan's father realized this and so he let the Shadow escape. That Shadow split apart as it left and became the twelve Shadows we ended up fighting all year.

But Aigis followed the main part and chased it to the Moonlight Bridge. I don't remember this myself, but it happened that my family was there at the same time. Death was too strong for Aigis to destroy. All she could do was seal it away inside the one person watching the battle. Which was me.

...Minato told me it was the same for him. Whoever lived that night received "Death," and when we came back to Iwatodai it started attracting the other Shadows. When we defeated them all, Death was whole again and left us, becoming Ryoji-kun.

Edited 2012-09-16 20:02 (UTC)

[He's beginning to see where her story is heading, and the horizon he sees there guessed is a dark one. You didn't call something "Death" for no reason, let alone a Shadow who could assume human form, having been trapped inside a human body for years.

He knew Aigis was a robot—a being who didn't think along the same lines humans did; their grayscale morality was not hers—but why the hell would you choose to do that to a little kid?]

That why Aigis was so protective of you?

[Minako doesn't blame Aigis for any of it. What could have happened then, without anyone to stop it, was even worse. At least her gambit had given them time, enough time that she could grow up and actually fight back...]

Right. Her memory was damaged but she still sensed I was the same person.

Anyway, all that time with me... or with Minato, I guess, made Ryoji-kun more human. That's why he took a human form and even made himself forget he was a Shadow for a while.

[She sort of idly wonders if Ryoji had acted the same way after living inside a person like Minato. Had Ryoji absorbed her traits, or was his personality all his own? Maybe someday, she'd ask.]

He did all that because he'd remembered his real purpose when his pieces came back together. "Death" serves another being called Nyx. Nyx is... something like a goddess. Shadows are like pieces of her, and she brought death to humanity a long time ago. Ryoji-kun's existence then meant that Nyx was going to come back and cause the Fall Ikutsuki had talked about before.

Basically... when Nyx arrived, everyone on Earth would become part of the Lost and the world would end.

Edited 2012-09-16 21:32 (UTC)

[The lines in Shinjiro's face deepen into a hard grimace. It's hard to believe, but he there's no room for disbelief here, even if he can't fully understand why anyone would want to bring about the Earth's destruction. But that desire isn't normal, and you can't expect to pull out sane reasoning from deranged minds, like Ikutsuki's and Takaya's.

And if the information she just gave him is true—as undoubtedly it is—he can't imagine Minako and Aki and the rest were left with a whole lot of options.]

[She's on the home stretch now, and her tone becomes more confident and a little more boisterous. She's had enough of depression already even if the story is still very depressing.]

Ryoji-kun didn’t want the world to end any more than we did, but he didn’t think we could beat Nyx. He gave us a choice, though. We could ‘kill’ his human form to erase the Dark Hour and our memories of it. If we did that, we’d forget all about the Fall and wouldn’t worry about it until it actually happened. The other choice was to fight Nyx. ...I think it’s probably pretty obvious which one we went with.

[Even if it’d been far less than obvious back then. December had been one of the worst periods for all of them – but it was done with, and revisiting that time wouldn’t do anyone any good.]

Ryoji-kun told us Nyx would appear on January 31st, at the top of Tartarus. So, that was January. We spent the whole month climbing up there. Strega wasn’t helping much, they set up a whole cult for people to welcome Nyx. The city really looked awful... [All those flyers and weird graffiti everywhere. She’s sure Shinji wouldn’t have approved. ~~Also, around here she’d mention whether Chidori was revived or not, but we’ll leave that up to any future Junpei-players to establish.~~]

The 31st came, and we went to Tartarus. We had to beat Strega again, but this time they’re gone for good. Jin blew himself up, and Takaya... well, actually, I’m not sure what happened to him. [But from tone it’s apparent she doesn’t really care. He’d attempted to murder two of her friends - had murdered one, in another reality, and was generally a nasty person. She doesn’t wish death on him because she wouldn’t do that to anybody but she doesn’t need to spare any effort wondering what happened after Tartarus collapsed.]

At the top, we met Ryoji-kun again, only he’d turned completely into Nyx’s avatar and wasn’t human anymore. We fought him, and we won. But… it turned out what he’d told us before was true. We really couldn’t kill Nyx. She was coming regardless and it looked like we were going to lose despite everything. That’s when...

[she pauses. Explaining what exactly happened – what exactly she’d been able to do, wasn’t an easy concept. It’s still hard for her to grasp her own mind around it in some ways. But the things they’d learned since coming to Hinoto-ri might make it simpler.]

Do you remember how when we arrived here they talked about the Velvet Room?

Yeah.

[If Minako does not care, Shinjiro will do the imagining for her: Tartarus collapsed on top of him, and unlike his benevolent look-alike, he did not rise from the grave three days later. He will imagine that when given the information and opportunity and not feel too badly about it.

As for everything else, he can see everything she told him just as easily. He can see the graffiti lining the bricks, can almost imagine the flyers that she hadn't mentioned littering the streets. How everything dissolved into decay, like something that had been abandoned and left to rot. If she says it was awful, he believes her. He can imagine Hell. But he can imagine other things too. He can see them fighting, climbing that damn tower night after night after night, because succumbing to that inevitability—memoryless and painless as it might have been—would never have been an option for very long. That's what he would have chose if he had been there.]

Got an idea of what that place is.

[He doesn't know everything, of course. Not much at all, really. But enough.]

[she nods... that's enough for this, really. If he has more questions he can ask Igor himself whn he appears.]

...I've actually been going there all year. It has to do with my special Persona ability. But being a guest there also gave me another power, and that power gave me one miracle. I faced Nyx myself and saw what the real problem was. Nyx isn't really an evil being that's just out to destroy things. She came because people called for her. Like the people who joined Strega's cult... Everyone in the world who's suffering, and thinks they'd be better off just dying. It's all those feelings that brought Nyx here. And that meant just our small group wouldn't be enough to stop her.

So, I cut them off. I used the Universe and put a seal between our thoughts and Nyx. That way, no one can call her ever again.

[If their group couldn't defeat her together, and the only miraculous solution lay in the hands of one person alone, he finds it hard to believe it was accomplished by just wishing for a miracle. You can't make something from nothing, can you? Their Personas certainly didn't act that way. Using their abilities always cost something—a strain physically and mentally. If she had used this 'power' of hers to make her miracle, then what had the seal cost?

Though maybe he wouldn't have thought so much about her explanation, would have just taken it at face value, if he hadn't all ready heard some vague, mostly implied details from Aki. But maybe that's all the seal had been: a miracle and nothing more.

Hell if he knew.]

..So everything's finished then.

Edited 2012-09-17 00:17 (UTC)

It is.

[And then, she pauses. It would be so easy to leave things here. On the high note, saving the world, everyone free to enjoy a normal school life. But she'd promised to tell him everything. And if she doesn't say it all now, she'd keep going with the guilt that she's hiding something important from him.

So she continues.] The Dark Hour ended, and like Ryoji-kun had said, everyone forgot what had happened for a while... for all of February, actually. Even I forgot. Aigis remembered, though, and eventually I did too. [...]

We made a promise before we fought Nyx. That whatever happened, we'd meet up and celebrate on Graduation Day. I knew I had to keep that promise too, so I kept going until then, but...

...I made that seal with my soul, Senpai. I don't regret it at all but it means that I won't be able to see you when you wake up. [By the end, the calm tone and smile are wavering, just a little. She can't let it break now.]

....And that's the story. I understand if you're angry with me. I've caused you a lot of trouble...

Edited 2012-09-17 00:22 (UTC)

[But everyone must have remembered eventually.

Aki certainly remembered, or he wouldn't have been able to tell him that Minato had died. Aigis had. Minako had. Maybe everyone else on their side of the coin just had to catch up. Maybe they all had eventually remembered and made it there in time to say goodbye, and were able to fulfill the promise that they made. That's what she had been living for, hadn't she? Wouldn't she have made sure to see it through?

But he guesses he hadn't really made that promise himself, so maybe he wasn't there. Might have just woken up in the hospital with no idea why he was there. He'd finally be able to forget everything that happened during those years if he understood things correctly. No Dark Hour, no memory of it. But for all the comfort that would bring, he can't see that being true for long. If forgetting came with the price tag with no longer remembering the people who were important to you, he's not sure he wanted it, because those memories were one of the few things that kept him going all those years. It was like his own December offer: to forget and live out whatever life remaining to him before he died, oblivious, or to remember and have to fight through every day like he had been since two years ago. He knows what he'd choose.

And if he's never been able to do one thing, it's forget.

Why would that ever change?]

...I'm not angry with you. You did what you had to do.

[How the hell could he ever be angry?

Hell, he doesn't even know what he should be feeling right now anymore. Everything's just this sudden maelstrom of emotion he can't label properly that's coalesced together until it's no longer any one distinct thing, but a singular void of numb indecision, as if a you had mixed different colors of paint together until you couldn't see anything but black, unsure what emotion is supposed to stay at the surface, what color it's supposed to be.

So instead he asks a question:]

Where were you going to meet?

Edited 2012-09-17 02:23 (UTC)

[She believes what he says... and at the same time, she's sure not being angry doesn't mean he's not hurt. But she doesn't want to argue it. He's always wanted her to take him at face value and so this time, she'll do so.]

On the roof. That's where I was before... well, all of this.

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1/3 or something

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/done

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