The gunshot of the evoker rang out, but the sound barely registered before something else ripped into existence.
It was overwhelming.
A towering figure of midnight steel, a flowing tattered cape, a face obscured by the cold, unfeeling mask of a reaper. Blades adorned its form, massive, curved like the scythes of executioners—jagged, merciless.
And...the coffins. The coffins that the persona draped on itself like accursed wings soaring over the dead and the damned. Ruling over them. Existing beyond but wearing the skin of humanity at its core.
You will die.
From its core, a howling emptiness emanated, a deep, hollow resonance that tore into Maruki’s senses.
It wasn’t just power. It wasn’t just a Persona.
It was..."What even...?"
Maruki barely registered his own breath hitching. His clipboard threatened to slip from his fingers as his knees stiffened, his entire body caught between moving forward and fleeing outright.
And then—
A wailing, endless cacophony sliced through his skull.
A B E R R A N T. U N N A T U R A L. F O R E I G N.
Azathoth thrashed. Writhing, coiling in some unseen space within his mind. Maruki felt it—an overwhelming, suffocating discomfort.
It hated this.
It—no, he—had never felt anything quite like it before.
Maruki’s vision flashed.A sudden pulse of gold overtook his irises, faint but present, a glimmer of something deep and restrained, something lurking just beneath the surface.
But the battle raged on.
Thanatos struck.
The Raven barely had time to react before the Persona’s massive blade swung, cutting through the air in a violent arc. Deathbound landed with a shuddering force—the ground cracked, dark energy reverberated outward, and the Shadows caught in the attack reeled back, their forms distorting under the sheer weight of it.
They staggered.
And that was the moment.
The perfect moment for that attack.
Maruki knew it.
He saw the way the battlefield tilted in their favor. How the Shadows buckled. How Hamuko—so effortlessly, so naturally—moved forward to seize the opening.
And yet.
He didn’t move.
His fingers flexed, breath uneven. The echoes of Azathoth’s distress still clawed at his skull. His own body felt locked.
no subject
Thanatos!"
The gunshot of the evoker rang out, but the sound barely registered before something else ripped into existence.
It was overwhelming.
A towering figure of midnight steel, a flowing tattered cape, a face obscured by the cold, unfeeling mask of a reaper. Blades adorned its form, massive, curved like the scythes of executioners—jagged, merciless.
And...the coffins. The coffins that the persona draped on itself like accursed wings soaring over the dead and the damned. Ruling over them. Existing beyond but wearing the skin of humanity at its core.
You will die.From its core, a howling emptiness emanated, a deep, hollow resonance that tore into Maruki’s senses.
It wasn’t just power. It wasn’t just a Persona.
It was..."What even...?"
Maruki barely registered his own breath hitching. His clipboard threatened to slip from his fingers as his knees stiffened, his entire body caught between moving forward and fleeing outright.
And then—
A wailing, endless cacophony sliced through his skull.
Azathoth thrashed. Writhing, coiling in some unseen space within his mind. Maruki felt it—an overwhelming, suffocating discomfort.
It hated this.
It—no, he—had never felt anything quite like it before.
Maruki’s vision flashed.A sudden pulse of gold overtook his irises, faint but present, a glimmer of something deep and restrained, something lurking just beneath the surface.
But the battle raged on.
Thanatos struck.
The Raven barely had time to react before the Persona’s massive blade swung, cutting through the air in a violent arc. Deathbound landed with a shuddering force—the ground cracked, dark energy reverberated outward, and the Shadows caught in the attack reeled back, their forms distorting under the sheer weight of it.
They staggered.
And that was the moment.
The perfect moment for that attack.
Maruki knew it.
He saw the way the battlefield tilted in their favor. How the Shadows buckled. How Hamuko—so effortlessly, so naturally—moved forward to seize the opening.
And yet.
He didn’t move.
His fingers flexed, breath uneven. The echoes of Azathoth’s distress still clawed at his skull. His own body felt locked.