personavelvetroomdr | Operation: Uncage the Sparrow!

Makoto had just been listening to music, withering away in his dorm room bed, normal King of all Shadows things, when he gets the text. Luckily he's not too far from the school and sends Kasumi a message back to wait just a few minutes for him to get there and help her. And it is only a few minutes before he gets there, running off the train to the school when he does.

Haru, meanwhile, has made an occasional habit of lurking in the vicinity of the school in a manner that'd see her questioned for loitering, if there were any actual police around. The cognitive ones can't be bothered, which is just as well. She figures if there's no sign of life by about quarter of midnight, there's not going to be an attempt that night.

She doesn't make her presence known until Makoto's approaching. "A little Crow mentioned you were planning something. You really shouldn't be doing this alone, you know."

Oh! It's... Haru-senpai? Kasumi stares for a moment, clutching her rapier twice. And—

Oh.

She winces.

"...Akechi-senpai told you, huh? And he couldn't even answer my text." Her cheeks puff up in a tiny pout, and she glances at Makoto. "But I'm not alone! Makoto-san's familiar with Tartarus, and Shadows can't really hurt me. Not that I'll turn down more help, but we tried really hard to prepare this time!"

Huh. Did he draw the attention of this other girl? She tells Kasumi that she shouldn't be going to Tartarus alone. Kasumi then points out that Makoto is going with her. "I didn't want her going alone, and the Shadows won't attack me either." Which he worries makes him suspicious, but he doubted the girl would let him go if she was aware that he was a civilian. Or at the very least couldn't summon a Persona.

"Well, annoyingly, my conscience won't let me go back to bed now that I'm here. And if something does get violent enough to attack, it'll be good to have the backup, won't it?"

It'd be so much easier if she could just leave them to their own devices, but nooooo.

"...Yeah, and I appreciate that you're looking out for us, Haru-senpai." She blows a small sigh, but makes no effort to fight back. "It might be a while before we find him, and we'll have to hurry."

She looks up at the very tall tower. "So I guess whenever you're ready..."

Makoto also would not like to out himself as the Nyx Avatar to two girls he's not that familiar with, so there's no need to insist that he's sure the Shadows will leave well enough alone.

"Ready whenever you are Kasumi," he nods to her.

Somewhere not too deep in Tartarus, perhaps on the second level and rather out-of-place, stands an upright wooden box. Okay, let's not beat around the bush—it's a coffin. It's a lot to take in if you're not used to it, the way coffins are. And nobody could say what—or who—is inside.

Other than its hapless occupant, at any rate. Who has been unconscious, now, for a very, very long time....

...but none of us are ever truly unconscious. Far away in time and space, in those cast-iron certainties that turned out to be so malleable, the coffin burns in the Shadow's awareness, at the end of the hairsbreadth silver chain that is all that's left between them.

What is it, to be a Shadow? If only he knew, when once he was so sure he knew it all. A repository of things chained and things denied? Sure. A place the forbidden goes to die? Ha, if only. Mainly all he knows is hunger, endless, ravening, driving through his days and nights like a hot poker. Something missing, something gone. Something he couldn't feed with Midnight's ridiculous cake—though she did feed him.

Even now, he laps lies from the palms of the others who visit, like he's as much a cringing dog as his pathetic ego surface-self. Even aft

He remembers himself, slowly, in pieces. Enough to coalesce into his human form, just as he was when the snow above Yongen-jaya gave way to the stars. Drawn in on himself in a corner of the Cognitive Control Room, his room, Maruki's room, he almost refuses to leave. Know your enemy? Sure. But he also can't look away from the cables all around him—from the knowledge of his past, of his inevitable future. From the horror that always, forever, he can only escape in death.

His ego's perpetual sleep allows him some limited peace. Even now, the Shadow knows what's going on around him—but all he sees is blackness; all he senses are thick, enclosing walls and the smell of pine and dust. His ego is shut up in a box, perhaps buried alive in a coffin. And long may it remain so.

* * *

Needless to say, it doesn't remain so. He is not best pleased when the lid of the box cracks, when faces masked and unmasked lift out his ego's lifeless form. He senses it again—panic, then awareness, then understanding, before the ego chains itself, never knowing it's done it. It's like a death every time.

Throwing back his head, losing his form entirely, he screams. Mementos shakes around him. And, perhaps ironically, he doesn't think at all; he just goes; he acts; he is. He coalesces behind the team, eyes on the prize, on the thing outside its box that he can now finally kill, to put an end to both their misery; to save them from that life of endless torture that he cannot stand. He shivers, blurring to strike in the blink of an eye—

Except then he senses Makoto. Who looks human, but isn't human. It buys them all seconds as he opens his mouth to whine, as his contorted features startle into a remarkably human frown.

"What the fuck. What the hell are you? How dare you?"

Something that looks human, but isn't human. Not at all.

Kasumi isn't sure what's going on. Why is that Shadow here? Is he really going to try and kill his counterpart? She takes Sparrow, carefully draping him over a shoulder and clutching him tight as she pulls out a grappling hook.

Normally, she'd say something, but with the Shadow distracted, this may be her only chance. But if she's not careful, it might hurt Makoto.

She sends Haru a look, then grapples overhead, clutching Sparrow close as she swings over the Shadow. When she lands, she tears away her mask. Cendrillon appears beside her in crackling black, gold, and crimson.

She doesn't want to attack him unfairly, but she will push her blessing outward, if nothing else to protect Sparrow.

"I'm not going to let you hurt him."

It had been a pretty straight shot to get to the thing that Kasumi wanted to rescue. Makoto had assumed it was going to be a straight shot back out. That is until there's a Shadow that looks just like Crow before them. So the friend was another Akechi.

The lid of the coffin would quickly reveal that was the case, but the Shadow locks eyes on Makoto. Asks him what he is and how dare he walk around with these people. All of a sudden the halls in Tartarus feel so narrow.

But it hasn't outright said what he is yet. It had asked. "I'm human," he lies back weakly. It was the only thing that he actually wanted to be while in this place. The only place he could still be human instead of a monster.

None of it works. Rapt amusement splits the Shadow's face. "I'm human," it mimics, with a nasty curl of its lip. "Something any human would say, I'm sure."

Taking a step closer, hungry to know what, and why, and how, it keeps talking. "You aren't human. Nothing like. You're like me. You stink of it." His eyes flare bright, little candle flames to mark him as inhuman, as wrong. "But how do you do that? How can I do it? I want to get out!"

To not be trapped in this prison... to be free to move, and choose, and act. He could kill his ego. He could kill himself, which would be almost as good. "Tell me how you did it, or I'll kill all of you!"

Shadows, even smart ones, are never the best at negotiation. He's ignored Kasumi and Cendrillon entirely; it's like a little yappy dog. Shadows can also be shortsighted.

Edited 2024-01-07 18:14 (UTC)

Haru sighs. Point one: This is why she insisted on coming along. Point two: She's still not convinced Yoshizawa has ever heard of a Goho-M in her life.

She doesn't tap into her own reserves yet, though; she's saving that for if this gets truly untenable, especially since Sparrow's Shadow has chosen to stir the pot (not that she entirely blames him). And while his point about the person she doesn't know is... interesting, it's neither here nor there for the moment.

Instead, she just pulls off her mask. Milady hovers behind her, awaiting her command. Sparrow's Shadow is liable to take a Psiodyne to the face if he doesn't stop another way.

"It doesn't matter what he is! He's still a good person, and I won't let you hurt him or Sparrow!"

To further emphasize this, she holds Sparrow closer. "I know you don't like my power, but if I have to, I'll use it more directly. So please just stop and let us leave."

She should really grab that Goho-M, but it's awkward when she has a rapier in one hand and is holding Sparrow with the other. "It's okay, Makoto-san. If you and Haru-san get over here, we can leave together."

That'll be okay, right?

The others had said something, but the Shadow Akechi's words are all that ring in his ears.

You aren't human.

Why did he ever ever let himself be stupid enough to think he was anything but the Nyx Avatar. A Shadow. A monster. The words make the room too small, his lungs too small, his skin too small.

"I don't know." When he speaks his voice is inhuman, something shifting until the Shadow Akechi is small enough to fit under his heel. And the ant had thought it was fit to threaten Thanatos with death. How puny. "I don't know and I'm not like you!" Thanatos smacks the Shadow to get it away from him.

It doesn't take long, at all, for him to realise he's fucked up. Rather than answers to his questions, all he gets is a sense of power, that builds, and builds, and builds....

Before he can dodge, before he can so much as vanish—which he wouldn't have done anyway, not with his ego here before him—the thing that was the puny Shadow boy, vast and towering in the rapidly-distorting chamber around them, bats him aside like he's... well, a doll.

He lands in a broken heap, eyes and mouth wide. The tiniest whine emerges from his throat, as he tries to remember how to move. Another blow like that will kill him—and Sparrow, of course, right along with him.

Edited 2024-01-07 19:04 (UTC)

...Well, that all went to hell in a handbasket rather quickly, didn't it?

Haru would rather not attack her ally in this rescue mission, and she's not sure how much she can do alone, but she's aware of the possibility (and gets her hand on a Goho-M just in case). "Yoshizawa, if you really can keep Shadows from being aggressive, this would be the perfect time for it."

"Right." It's... hm. Normally, her special ability isn't one she needs to exercise too aggressively. She can just let its passive benefits take effect, but this is different. Two Shadows of human-level ego and intelligence. One's life hangs in the balance.

So, fine.

Kasumi exhales slowly, and her costume glitters and shifts. Where before she wore the attire of a secret agent or spy, strange tentacles burst from her back, winding and weaving and stretching and forming what may at a glance look like a gorgeous, black gown, but closer inspection reveals something far more sinister.

The entire dress is woven from those peculiar tendrils, complete with eerie, cyan accents. More eerily, she gives off an uncanny aura of pale blue sparks. There's a power radiating from her that was more muted before.

She steps forward, letting that power fill the air. Both Shadows may hear a deep order to Stop.

"Heal him, Cendrillon."

Her Persona turns to the Shadow on the floor and complies, casting Diarahan.

Edited 2024-01-07 19:21 (UTC)

Thanatos lets out a howl before there's a voice telling him to stop. He has no choice but to comply with that and he isn't really sure why. All he knows his he can't attack. With the monster placated at least it retreats back into it's more human form.

And all Makoto wishes he could do was bolt before either Haru or Kasumi realized he was too dangerous to be around them.

—and the voice gets right into him, through every wisp of thought and will, through everything that passes for sinew and blood. He can't refuse it; cannot say no. The sound that's torn from him is like a child's sob in the dark.

Only then does he turn his head the merest fraction, yellow eyes wide and oh, he thought he knew what outrage was, he thought he knew terror. The things Midnight's wearing, the tendrils woven around her—

He scuttles back against the wall. He can't lift a finger; can't transform to fight. His voice trembles. "Let go of me."

Shit, he can't even yell. Can't do anything but cower, and he refuses. Summoning everything he has, he gets to his feet, eyes riveted on Midnight, and full of subdued hate.

...okay, that's...

That's. Certainly something.

"Maybe it's time we get out of here?" If there's good news, it's that Haru is well past panicking in the moment, when she's in a cognitive world. Panic isn't doing something about it. She can do that later.

Kasumi watches the Shadow sorrowfully, a deep frown on her face. "...I'm really sorry. I didn't want to do this to you, but I can't let anyone die tonight!" So she nods at Haru and tentatively makes her way back to her and Makoto. "Once we leave, you won't be under my influence again. I hope you know that I don't plan to do this again unless I have to."

And so, shifting her hold of Sparrow, she sheathes her rapier and grabs one of the Goho-M's and throws it down.

In a flash, Kasumi, Sparrow, Haru, and Makoto will find themselves transported back to the main foyer of Tartarus.

Not much seems to happen between Makoto resuming his human form and being brought back to the foyer in Tartarus. Nobody's said anything about him yet and he doesn't want them to. He knows that Kasumi and Haru both will probably only treat him like the Shadow he is.

"Sorry for bringing you here." It's a wonder that he can even get the words out before he gets himself to his feet to leave.

"You didn't bring either of us anywhere, though."

Haru doesn't know him well enough to try to follow, but the point stands. Yoshizawa decided to do this on her own, and Haru kept an eye out for her because cognitive spaces are blatantly unsafe.

She sighs. "We should get Sparrow out of here before he wakes up. He tends to blank out in cognitive spaces."

"Makoto-san, I'm the one who asked you to help me. It's not your fault, okay?" She won't make chase. Rather hard to when she's holding onto Sparrow, anyway. "Just... don't be a stranger."

That's all she can ask. As for Haru, she sighs, but nods all the same.

"We can take him outside, but I'm not sure he'll wake up until this place turns back into a high school." Still, she'll make her way toward the door.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

2/2

no subject

no subject

cw suicide

no subject

no subject

cw: panic attack/body horror

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject