All you have is your fire
And the place you need to reach
Don't you ever tame your demons
But always keep 'em on a leash
- Hozier, Arsonist's Lullaby
///
4 / 11 / 2016
Yoshizawa's eyes burn brightly, pure and violent and strong. Her gaze is piercing beyond all measure and Kamoshida scampers off from the sight, behind his guards.
"G-get her! Get her, damn you! Cut her into a thousand pieces!"
The four knights that entered this place with him have a seizure for all of two seconds before they each erupt in a mass of black, their armor falling off like shells from their bodies.
Two of the four transform into disembodied pumpkin heads, each wearing a wizard's pointed hat and a cloak. Their sole remaining body part is one hand, wrapped in a white glove, carrying a lantern. The other two transform into emaciated, purple-skinned hairless men with bulbous heads and massive eyes; flying on leathery wings, they keep a wide grin and laugh as they spread their legs wide to reveal four-foot long barbed penises—
"Wh-what the hell!?"
They let out their little laughs and their eyes leer at her, they long to grab ahold of her and do as they please, pierce through and into her in every single orifice she has and perhaps make a few of their own, and I hear a voice hiss in my head Jack-o-Lantern, Incubus, Jack-o-Lantern, Incubus—
"Doesn't matter what you do to her, just get her outta my sight—"
"Cendrillon!"
The Ash Maiden twirls in the air and lets out a little laugh and suddenly a blinding white light pierces through the world and flashes outwards. Its rays become spears and as they charge the pumpkins are shattered to pieces and the demons are disintegrated. Kamoshida's left shuddering, having raised his cape upward to shield his eyes from the light, and as he cowers Sakamoto takes this chance to charge forward while screaming HYAAAA—
A single dash into him sends Kamoshida off his feet and flat on his ass.
"How's it feel to be lookin' up at me for once, huh!?"
In the corner of my eye I see something silver after hearing a jingling noise, and I see a set of keys that one of the guards must have dropped in all the confusion.
So I grab it and yell "C'mon!"
Yoshizawa and Sakamoto follow me out the open cell door and I slam it shut. It's only by sheer good fortune that the first key I fit in the lock is the key we need.
"You guys okay?" I turn to the others.
"Holy shit holy shit holy shit I can't believe we're still alive."
Yoshizawa exhales, half-laughing, "M-my legs won't stop shaking...!"
"Dude, that was awesome! How the hell did you even...!? A-and your clothes!"
"I-I don't know, I...," Yoshizawa puts a hand to her head as her breathing grows labored. In seconds blue fire covers her and undoes her extravagant costume, and she's falling in Sakamoto's arms dressed in the uniform she'd been wearing earlier. "Oh my..."
"H-hey! You alright!?" Sakamoto cries out.
"I'm fine, I'm just—I'm very...tired..."
After I summoned Satanael the first time, I felt like I could sleep till I was sixty. Must be a thing with Personas. But can't talk about that right now.
"Damn you...!" Kamoshida rises from the dirt and grabs at the bars, practically frothing at the mouth, "Do you realize what you've just done!?"
I throw the keys in my bag. "Let's go."
"S-sure!"
I turn to Yoshizawa, "Can you walk?"
"How dare you ignore me, you little—"
"I-I'll be fine. I can't really run, but...I'll be fine."
We'll have to stealth our way through here, then. "Okay. Both of you keep close behind me. Sakamoto, you've got to guard her."
"Got it," he says.
"Hey! Don't you leave me here!"
But we do exactly that, and hearing his deranged cries as we flee the scene makes the world a beautiful place for just this once.
.
.
.
"What...was that just now...?" Sakamoto asks me.
The three of us are still in the dungeons of this miserable castle, but we're at least somewhere far away from Kamoshida and the rest of his knights. We're at the very end of a walkway with empty cells along the walls. Said walkway is really just a long path of earthen rock. No guardrails, no floor tiles. Just soil and mud and grass. Across from it is another walkway and another set of empty cells. Between the two walkways is a stream of water, flowing underneath the soil.
There seems to be a way to get over to the other side; a drawbridge of sorts, raised up. There's a statue of Kamoshida next to said drawbridge, a statue that's likely got something to do with lowering the bridge, but right now we hear the clattering of steel leggings and they're far too loud for me to be anything other than cautious.
And we all hear the screams of other innocent people trapped here, most likely being tortured and maimed or worse. There are multiple cages hanging from the ceiling, rusty cages that each contain a single person wearing a Shujin uniform. They're screaming things that don't make sense and muttering words that don't exist, and they're clawing and writhing in their prisons like madmen, trapped in this miserable place. Clamped over their faces are iron cylinders with three or four holes punched through, and their cries for help reverberate through the metal.
"S-senpai...," says Yoshizawa then. "What do we do now?"
"We'll have to stay quiet, for now. Keep your head down and your voice low. We can't risk running, might alert some nearby guards we're unaware of. If we're gonna have a chance at getting outta here, we need to keep ourselves quiet."
"Y-you serious?" Sakamoto asks. "We're not gonna...?"
"We don't know how large this castle is. We don't even know how many guards there are. If we release these people, we'll most likely just get caught. And we'll have made no progress at all."
And besides, these people are likely Manikins. One problem at a time.
"Running is all we can do...?" Yoshizawa grunts, breathing heavily.
"We can't risk drawing attention to ourselves, not when there's only three of us. We get these people down from their cages we risk giving away our position. You're exhausted as it is."
"This is...!" Sakamoto grits his teeth again in his rage, "We can't do anything but sneak around like rats!"
"Look, I don't like it, either. But do you wanna die here? 'Cause if we stay, then we all will."
"I'll come back here," Yoshizawa declares. "I don't know how or when, but I'll come back here. I'll help put a stop to all of this."
"We'll do it," Sakamoto suddenly cuts in. "I may not be able to summon a fancy monster lady outta nowhere, but...," then he shakes his head. "Can't let Kamoshida ruin more people's lives...," then he scratches the back of his head roughly, "this is all like some crazy dream...!"
And then we hear a voice, a small nasal voice, calling out to us.
"Kazuya...?"
The creature is small, up to their knees in height. Its round head is twice as big as the rest of its body and it's got the pointy ears, the paws, the tail; but it also has blue eyes as large as saucers, a utility belt with yellow buckles, and a yellow handkerchief wrapped around its neck like a collar.
"What is this thing!?" Sakamoto exclaims.
And all I can muster is a cold, "You."
"What...?" asks Yoshizawa.
I walk past the cage, "Let's go."
Yoshizawa mutters, "Let's go?"
"Leave it."
"W-wait, Kazuya! H-hold on! At least get me out of here! L-look, the key's right there...!"
"Do you...know him, senpai?"
"We have to go, now."
"H-hold on!" cries Sakamoto, turning to the cat. "What's in it for us if we let you out, cat?"
Suddenly its expression sharpens and it snarls, and it says, "I am not a cat! Say that again and I'll make you regret it!"
"Yelling at us. That'll definitely get us to help you," I glare at it.
"S-sorry," it mutters, but then it shakes its head and it cries out, "Look, you wanna know where the exit is? I can take you there! You don't wanna get caught and executed, right!?"
"What I want is to boil you alive—"
"Can you really help us?" Yoshizawa asks.
Confidently, the creature declares, "I never go back on my word!"
But Sakamoto shakes his head, "This thing sounds like it's all talk..."
"If you guys think you can get out on your own, then be my guest!" it replies.
Then we hear noises, steel clanking against steel. We turn to our side and we see lumbering shapes again, they're charging at us, marching. They're much larger than before, we see one of them with gold-plated armor and I turn to Sakamoto and he sees them too and he doesn't know what to do anymore either.
Sakamoto growls at the cat, "You seriously not messin' with us!?"
"They'll catch you if you do nothing!" Then the cat turns to me and says, "You may have a Persona, but you still need me to get outta here!"
I've been screaming at him, calling out and crying his name endlessly in my head.
But he's not coming.
I grab a set of keys lying on the ground as Sakamoto hisses in his fear and anger and guards Yoshizawa's body with his own, I fumble with the keys as the cat cries out, "Hurry up hurry up hurry up!"
So when the locked gate opens and the cat comes out of the cage it runs out and swerves to the knights running at the three of us. It leaps into the air, shouting a triumphant, "Mercurius!" as it dives down and spins and somehow brandishes a cutlass from out of nowhere.
"What the...!?" cries out Sakamoto.
One of the lesser knights is stabbed in its mask, black spurting out from the wound as something large and grand and magnificent barrels out of the cat's head.
A skinny figure, tall and lanky, with an inhumanly narrow waist. Dressed in black leather from head to toe, a hood draped over his head, he bears golden gauntlets and boots, and said boots sprout seven-foot long wings from their heels. With blazing yellow eyes and a golden staff in its hand, Mercurius rises upward and raises his staff once.
A forceful gust of wind sends the knight in gold-plated armor as far back as it'd come, the cat leaping off of the knight it had stabbed just a few moments ago.
As it collapses I see the third knight charging for the rest of us, ready to run its sword through all three of us but judging from the look in her eyes Yoshizawa won't even give it that chance.
"Cendrillon!"
In a flash her Persona's hovering above her head and the world's a blur and she's screaming madly as she rushes forward, and Cendrillon lets light flare outwards from the palms of her black hands.
The flash of light obscures my vision, but from what I'm able to see, the knight's armor is ripped apart by the lights —but once the light fades, all I see galloping towards us is a white horse, with blood-red eyes, and a horn atop its head.
Mercurius brings one of its long and lanky legs down on the Unicorn's spine, snapping it in twain. It neighs and it whinnies as Mercurius grabs it by the mane with his left arm and by its tail with his right, and Yoshizawa's shuddering from just all the shock.
Cat smiles widely. "Resists light. You should use physical attacks."
Mercurius pulls the horse apart in two as blood rains down from its body, and the Unicorn cries and screams and bellows its last, as its corporeal form liquefies into gore. We're lucky the most it gets on us is our shoes, though Sakamoto and Yoshizawa are far too dumbstruck at the sight to really care about their shoes.
"Anyway," cat says, turning to me, "you really gonna let a girl fight your battles for you?"
I narrow my eyes at it before kicking it in one of its own. It just pops out and dangles there, just like it did all those months ago.
Sakamoto cries "Whaa—!?" as Yoshizawa faints right then and there, her clothes reverting back to normal. "Oh no, hey—come on!"
"You're lucky—" pops the eye back into place, "—I don't feel pain when it's my eyes."
"I'll have to see how deep-frying the rest of you goes, then."
"You'll have to get outta here first! Only way you'll find a stove!"
I march on over to the statue and pull at the jaw. The drawbridge drops then, and I turn to the rest. "Sakamoto. Can you carry Yoshizawa?"
"I-I can't."
"What?"
"I have a bad leg," he tells me. "I put pressure on my knee and it'll blow out. Sorry."
"Alright then," I walk over to her and clap her lightly on the cheek. "Yoshizawa."
A few more claps and she awakens with a Hhhurgh noise, "What the--how, are we even--what--!?"
"It's okay. We're okay."
"Th-thank goodness," she exhales. "I--I was worried that--oh my, is anybody, nobody's hurt, right?"
"No. Luckily enough."
Cat suddenly interrupts, "There's a window I used to sneak in, I think you all can fit through to make your escape. But we can't rush things. We've made enough noise already—Palace's guards are most likely on our tails. Attacking 'em's no longer our priority. We need to sneak our way outta here."
.
.
.
"Quick!" exclaims the cat, still draping itself on the girl's neck. "We run up here, we get to the front hall of the castle!"
Wordlessly, I and Sakamoto and Yoshizawa run up the stairs as we hope with everything we have the knights won't catch up to us. When we reach the top of the stairs I kick the door down and we find ourselves in a large, open hall. Large red carpet stretching out and covering every inch of floor. Chandeliers and potted plants hanging from the ceiling. Ionic pillars holding the upper floors. Fabric drapes hanging from inner balconies and platforms.
No guards at all.
When we turn to our left we see a large set of doors, the doors I remember entering through to try and get Sakamoto out. When we turn to our right, we see a staircase leading to a platform, leading to a large painting hanging from a wall.
The frame is five meters wide and ten meters tall. The painting itself is of a muscular man without a shirt, a large red cape flowing from over his shoulders. The man's arms are folded and he's laughing madly, hungrily, pridefully. Bright roses surround the corners of the painting as Sakamoto grits his teeth.
The cat's trying to grab his attention, "Come on, we can't afford to just stand around!" but he's too angry to care, too infuriated to move.
So I tell him, "You can find him in the real world and take care of him there."
This gets his attention, but before he can even say anything something whizzes by our heads.
"Wh-what the—!?" the delinquent falls flat on his back because the steel just brushed against the bridge of his nose and it's now bleeding.
We turn. Crossbow bolt stuck in one of the pillars. We're too late.
Guards filling up the door we'd just come from, all raring for a chance to run their blades through our bodies. Another door, one in the main hall, floods open as well and even more knights come busting through. They lift their blades and hold them to our necks before we can even properly react, so we humans are forced to huddle together and stand our ground. Sakamoto grunts in both rage and fear, the cat turns its head as though surveying the situation, and though Yoshizawa's hands are shaking she's keeping it together as best as she can.
Sakamoto uses the last of his strength to look at the painting. Glaring at it like it's the Devil himself.
I soon realize it's not the painting he's looking at. It's the man standing at the bottom of the frame. The man whom the painting was made for, the ruler of this castle.
"Look what we've got here. Honestly didn't think you'd've made it this far."
"Kamoshida..." Sakamoto's fingers sink into his palms and he lowers his head, his glare fiercer and more animal.
I hear a voice in my head calling me, ripping away at my brain. It hammers nails into my skull and it screams, raging and raring to rise up and fight. Wanting to burn the whole world down to its cinders and I realize.
I realize that Satanael could have come out this whole time.
And that the only reason he hasn't... was that I don't want him to.
"Sakamoto...it really is a pity to see you cowering the way you are," the Shadow laughs as he draws closer to the delinquent, the latter glaring at him as well. "How far the star runner of the track team has fallen."
"That has nothing to do with this," delinquent grunts.
"Doesn't it?" he laughs. "You betrayed your teammates, crushed their hopes and dreams under your boot, and you still carry on as carefree as ever. Now thanks to you, you've gotten yourself and two others executed."
The delinquent wants to kill him, make him bleed, I can see it in his eyes. But he doesn't know what that means, what he'll end up doing to the Palace owner in the real world, none of them know what they'll end up doing to him in the real world, I have to stop them before they do what I did to Kana—
I hear a swarming noise and I feel insect legs tickling the inner walls of my skull. I remember entering a city ruined by hellfire. I remember killing the creatures within that city and destroying the life of the greatest person in all the world by doing so. I remember the tender taste of human flesh, I remember gleaming silver sinking into the meat of his leg, and I remember seeing a living cancer get his brains spread out onto concrete.
It's all coming back and it won't ever stop coming back and because it won't stop coming back I'm not letting myself summon my Persona goddamn it all—
The caped man then turns to me, looking right into my eyes, "And you; ah, you're the new transfer student. Sorry you have to die here, really. It's kinda unfortunate; you barely dodge juvie only to wind up here. Rules are rules, though; prisoners can't escape their dungeons 'til I tell 'em to. You'll have to face the punishment for breaking the law. You can't defy the king, after all."
And as I look at him a plan forms in my head. I remember the silver in my bag. All at once the air is clear, and I am somewhere else watching it happen.
The man's eyes scrunch up before widening, and he smirks, "You think you can look at me like that?"
Before he knows it I lunge at Kamoshida and have an arm round his neck and a knife to his eyeball and I'm staring at all the knights and I'm darting my head every which way. Knights can do nothing, delinquent and girl and cat all stand there stunned and the King is squirming in my grasp and crying out and screaming, "What do you think you're doing—!?"
"Back off, back off," I scream at the knights, pushing myself past them with an arm wrapped around the King's neck. I shouldn't be this strong, my eyes shouldn't be burning the way they're burning, I shouldn't even be using the knife why did I even have it in my bag at all but then I keep talking. "Let us go or I cut his goddamn eyes out."
"You can't do this to a King—!"
"Cendrillon!"
She saw the chance and she took it. Once I startled the guards, all she needed to do was summon her Persona and get everyone outta dodge. She didn't kill any of the guards, but knocked them down, got them out of the way, left open a wide enough gap for the door.
"Mercurius!" The cat's Persona then barrels into the world and fashions itself into an en garde pose, brandishing its rapier and letting the wind fly all over the world, sending the knights even further away from us. "Okay, guys! Let's move—!"
Then something sparks and splutters and flies through the air and hits Mercurius square in his chest and the explosion is as loud as a thousand grenades going off simultaneously.
The cat can't even scream as it falls from the ground like a rock.
Girl exclaims, "What!?" as the delinquent backs himself into a wall.
Another blast of fire comes forward and hits Cendrillon hits it makes it go up in flames in a bright flash of light—the girl screams in agony and crumples down, clutching at her chest.
"NO!!" Sakamoto runs to her but for all his trouble gets knocked unconscious when another knight bashes his shield into his face, and I turn to where the fires came from—
And then we see a golden knight at the top of the stairs, standing right at the base of the picture frame. The knight is pointing its blade forward and the tip of said blade is smoking. Once it lowers its weapon to its side, we see it writhe for a mere fraction of a second and then we see it for what it really is.
It has red wings. It is thirty-three feet tall and its armor has changed from gold to silver. It is brandishing a fiery blade as its red eyes glare upon us madly and there's a bright red light emanating from its form, as it hovers and looms over us like an angel passing judgment over our very souls.
There's a voice in my head and it's telling me to reach up and grab it and tear off its wings. Another voice still is telling me to get myself and everyone out of here. Push the King to the ground and grab the cat and the delinquent, get on the bike and drive out. But there's a third voice in my head, telling me something I absolutely cannot do under any circumstances.
My knife is right at the King's eye. Once the King's throat bleeds out I can grab every single one of us and get us out of here. What choice do I have?
I don't want to do it. I can't do it. Not again. But I'm not here. I'm not holding a knife to the eye of a Shadow. It's not me, doing any of this.
The knife is shaking. My hand is trembling. My eyes are wide and there's something hot running through my veins. I want to reach out and grab myself and tell myself I have to stop before I do anything drastic, before I destroy the mind of another man. But I also want it all to end right this minute. Fire's in my arm and my teeth are chattering and I'm remembering the alley, I think of that man whose head I burst open and I remember the girl I drove to suicide and I want to stop I need to stop I can't do this I can't do it I'm not supposed to I'm supposed to live—
And he knows this.
He smiles as he grabs me by my hair and before I know it I'm on the ground, the knife skittering out of my hands. I try to get up because I have to get up but before I know it he's stepping on my head and my mouth eats red carpet.
He's kicking me like a dog on the street, calling me names like Gutter Trash and other exorbitant insults as he watches spit and drool and blood cough up from my mouth. Each kick is harder than the last and I feel the next time I head to the bathroom I'll be pissing red, I'm twitching by the thirtieth time a kick lands and I won't be able to breathe properly or eat well for the next few days.
I want to end him, I want to get up and say its name and rip him apart and tear him to shreds and do to him what I did to Shido and not regret it a single bit. Somehow, someway, I will rise up from the floor and destroy him and this Palace and everything it is and ever will be.
Before he kills us, I must kill him. I must rob him of what makes him himself. I will destroy him and make sure he never comes back in any capacity, forget the consequences.
Or maybe I won't.
Stay down and lie here. Just lie here and die. It's only what you deserve.
"Stop it...!" cries out the girl. Covered in burns and ash, she's pushing herself up off the ground. "L-let him go...!"
"Why should I? The King's orders are absolute. Kid tried to cut my throat and you were willing to let that happen."
Yoshizawa's able to glare at him even as the other knights put their blades to her neck.
And the freak glares down at me, laughs at me, presses his heel down on me, "Look at you. Had an idea of what kinda troublemaker would come sauntering in the halls of my castle. Didn't think you'd be this much of a pushover. What were you even trynna do, huh? Whose bright idea was it to try breaking into my castle?"
But instead something rises up in my throat; a scratchy, rough noise that would sound like sobbing to the uninitiated, but soon enough it picks up and I laugh. I laugh and laugh and laugh so hard tears form at the edges of my eyes, I laugh so loudly that Yoshizawa and the knights all around us are left in shock, just watching the scene unfold.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" Kamoshida's Shadow smirks, but behind that smirk is a whole host of things he wants to do to me for this show of disrespect.
"Who the hell would be so bored they'd break into your castle intentionally!? Nothing here's useful to anyone! It's all just pictures of you and who the hell cares about that--!?"
He kicks me in the face, "Everyone in this place, that's who! All the little wormshits who look at me and heap their goddamn expectations on me, they fear me and they love me and they need me and I deserve it—!"
"You deserve to get your balls cut off, not that you have any—"
And he wraps his football-sized hands around my neck, "You think I need to impress you!? You think I need to impress any of you!? I'm king of this castle, I oughta be king of the whole goddamn world! You should be grateful I'm even here, sharing my air with you unworthy —"
And my knife sinks into his eye.
Blood spurts right out as I rip it right outta the socket and he screams and yells and cries and lets me go, and as I fall to the ground I begin wheezing out laughter again. Tears fall down my eyes as I see Kana's hollow eyes staring into my own, as I see the holes she'd carved open into her arms, and through the laughter and the tears and the blood I mutter out "Satanael."
And as he erupts from my skull and flares his six wings outward. I'm screaming now and the sounds escaping from my mouth are alien, animal noises that human vocal chords shouldn't be able to replicate at all. The fire burns my eyeballs, my face. It's seeping into my ears and I feel it burn through my skull, frying anything within and I'm laughing as he unveils his rifle. He blows apart the knights like they're nothing and Yoshizawa watches him carve and blast and burn through the whole world, and I'm laughing harder and harder and I feel so goddamned angry
"RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAGGGHHHH!"
I grab Kamoshida, I can see piss stream down his bare legs. I crush his windpipe and punch his ribs so he can't escape. I drag him with me, my eyes still burning and my teeth chatter as I hear a voice in my head telling me to rip his skull off with his spinal cord and swing it around like a flail. A nd then this whole nightmare will end. I can die too, I can burn in Hell forever and ever just like Kana would want—
I throw him to the ground, grab Sakamoto by the scruff of his neck, and take Yoshizawa by the hand.
We run the hell out of the front door.
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NoRoleModelz Chapter Notes:
Battles with Shadows are also gonna be gory, just so you guys know. Ain't just cuz I played Bloodborne way too much for my own good. Generally wanna make battles in this version of the story a lot less flashy and a lot more gritty. A basting of ultraviolence to really hammer home the dire straits the Thieves get into in the Vortex World.
Plus it's fun.