"Have you decided to tread the path of strife?
Then drink of the wine of the wrath of God."
///
6 / 5 / 2016
The crowds we pass by look at me like I'm some three-headed half abortion with termites in its eyes. But they let us pass all the same.
The back of my head is bleeding, but not profusely, not enough such that I can't still walk. Something unbelievably vicious is searing through the space behind my eyes. The back of my head keeps groaning at me to go unconscious again as I try making my legs less like jello and more like steel through sheer force of will.
Screw you, you egomaniacal self-centered murdering psycho piece of shit asshole. You think you can just lie down and let him go unpunished? You are gonna march your crippled ass all the way to Shibuya Station and perforate everyone in your way. Change his heart, find all his associates, and have them throw themselves off the roof of whatever building they're closest to. Make every single clan under his control commit suicide en masse until they get the message to leave you and the rest of the world alone. Get Junya Kaneshiro even though every cell in your body's telling you just lie down and die, because that's all you deserve—
"H-Hikawa-san, please stop!" I whirl around and Niijima finally shuts up for once because my face is caked in dried blood and wine, and my eyes are wider than they've ever been in years. Still she manages the audacity to break out of her shock and tell me, "We have to get you to a hospital! You're bleeding all over yourself—!"
I just keep pulling her by the arm, pulling out my phone with my other hand. Constantly hitting the Palace Log button. I get an endless stream of ERROR. Currently out of Coverage Area of the Palace Location but to hell with it. I keep hitting it because as long as I keep approaching the station I'll be able to invade the Palace at least some point in the next thirty minutes.
But Niijima jettisons her wrist away from my grip and grabs me by the shoulders, "Hikawa-san would you please just listen to me I—"
"If you had listened to anybody from the start, none of this would have happened."
"I know," she grits her teeth, hands shaking in fury and self-hatred, "God, I know, I—please...please just let me call an ambulance, I can't, you're just—I wanted to be useful in some way, to someone. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault! I can't let you involve yourself in this anymore!"
I shout HA! "That's not up to you anymore."
"I-I'll do something about the money...! So can we just please drop the case with Kaneshiro!?
"You know exactly what he plans to do to us. He won't stop at the three million. I'm gonna change this fucking piece of shit's heart."
"What—now!?"
"You're goddamn right, now," I hit the group chat and thank God Takamaki and Yoshizawa are still online, my call is immediately answered.
Oh thank God, Hikawa! Takamaki cries from the other end, Are you okay!? Where's Niijima-senpai!? Where are you!?
"Where's Sakamoto? Where'd you bring him?"
Wh-what?
"TELL ME!"
Tokyo Metropolitan Hiroo Hospital. Yoshizawa and I are waiting for his mother—
"How far away are you from Shibuya Station?"
I-I don't know, the ambulance took maybe ten minutes?
"Meet me back at the bank as soon as you can."
What—why, what happened, where's Niijima, is she—!?
"We're changing his heart right now."
WHAT!? NOW!?
I switch off my phone and I see what Niijima's doing with her free hand, her phone out and I know she's trying to dial just three numbers because she pities me so much she wants to send me to a hospital and I am about this close to turning around, throwing her cellphone down, and crushing it underneath my shoe. Instead I just turn around and let whatever comes out my mouth do its magic.
"Niijima," my voice goes calm, far cooler and more collected than she deserves, so utterly and bizarrely relaxed that she and I both are surprised beyond measure, "Now that we've finally gotten somewhere, you want me to drop it?"
"You can't seriously be thinking of fighting back, are you!?" she cries, "How can you think you're in any position to try—!?"
"We don't have time. I see four of you every three seconds. It's only a matter of time before I pass out and my head spills open like an egg. I know what it's like to just want to do the right thing for once and fail so badly you want to kill yourself, but trust me when I tell you that now more than ever before you have the chance to actually make a difference. So please—"
Suddenly I collapse to my knees, my nose bleeding profusely as the lacerations cause popping noises in my brain. Niijima crouches and clutches at me, crying out, "Hikawa-san!"
I just grab her by the shoulder, heaving out words and trying to pull something genuine for once, "You want to stop me from destroying myself, because you're sick of doing nothing while the world around you bleeds because of your mistakes. I get it, more than you could possibly know. I'll go to a hospital. I'll do whatever you want from me. But before literally anything else... please. If you really care about justice, if you help me just this once... you won't ever have to bend yourself to the will of anyone else, ever again."
Niijima is silent for a few moments. Almost looks like she's on the verge of tears again. But I know that the last thing I said to her has struck something.
"What do you want me to do?" she asks.
"You need to bring me to Shibuya Station. Leave me in the square, just put me somewhere where there aren't any people within like ten, twenty feet of me."
"No. I'm not leaving you alone in your condition. And besides, you're seriously going to change his heart there, of all places?"
"You've no idea what it's even like. What, do you want to be there when I change his heart!?"
Again, like earlier today, her expression turns into steel, "Yes."
Oh, hell. Even now she wants to throw herself in a situation she doesn't understand. "Then on your own head be it."
She hoists an arm over my shoulder, asking me, "Shibuya Station, right?"
I nod, because that's all I can do.
By the time she's managed to get us to Shibuya Crossing, I've blacked out twice. Back of my head's stopped screaming at me and gone numb, and we're so lucky that the crowds are looking to keep at least ten feet away from the bleeding piece of shit collapsing to his knees.
Niijima's crying out for me again and she almost definitely will call an ambulance unless I do this right, so I get out my phone and for some reason the app still says ERROR. Currently out of Coverage Area even though we're right there, we're in front of it, like just maybe ten or twenty more feet will you just give me a chance here—
Roughly I grab her by the arm and pull her along, marching over to the station square and I keep tapping away at my phone, and finally, it comes up just as we cross the street and enter the station square—
Would You Like to Enter the Palace?
Y/N
So that's it. Judging from the distance we're at from the building currently, Palaces roughly have a fifty foot radius. That's why.
Niijima watches me laugh, still terrified my concussion'll be the death of me, but I look at her and smile, taking her by the hand and further into the station, until we're far enough away from everybody. No time to wait for Yoshizawa or Takamaki or anything else. Has to be now or I pass out or die. Please, God, if there's ever a time for a miracle.
Let the bank be open on Sunday.
Beginning Navigation.
.
.
.
The truth is that I could have dragged him and his cronies into my Kingdom right when I was there, and killed the whole lot of them.
But it is also true that I was so angry that I wouldn't have given a shit if Niijima died along with them.
Is that why I brought her here? Is that why I let her come with me, to this place, instead of having her murder him where he stood?
Niijima's too busy freaking out because of all the pigs to really pay that much attention to me, even as my clothes burn away and a mask forms across my face, I let myself smile even wider as two words I'd longed to hear scream in my head: VICTORY CRY
Blue fire bursts across my body, scrambling from my face to my arms to my legs and I never thought I'd feel so good back in these clothes. Stitches made of flesh mend the skin that'd been reduced to a wasteland at the back of my skull, and I let out a genuine feel good laugh because to cap it all off the golden gate at front of the bank?
FSHHHHHH
The vault door opens slowly, for some reason letting out a hissing noise just as it does so, a blinding white light through the open way. Smoke billows outward in an almost inviting fashion and I smirk, actually feeling like I can take on the whole goddamn world now, "Shoulda kept the bank closed, you son of a bitch—"
"Wh-what the...!? What is this!?" Oh, right. Niijima's still here. "Y-your clothes...! Wh-where are we!? Weren't we just at Shibuya Station!? How did we—!?" I take both of her trembling hands, clasping onto them as she tries finding it in herself to still them completely. She's breathing heavily, she doesn't understand what any of this even is, and I relax the urge to throw her back into Shibuya. "Wh-what is happening...?"
"You're not dreaming. You're not hallucinating. You haven't gone crazy."
She exhales harshly, "Then where are we?"
She wants to be useful. And when she's capable of level-headedness she's sharp. Worse yet she's stubborn as hell. I doubt she'll let me just send her back to Shibuya without an answer to all this. And if she's here, she's probably got the Nav in her phone, so she'll be able to make her way back if she really really wants to.
That dazed and confused look in her eyes reminds me of the first time I entered Kana's Palace, terrified, puking all over myself.
That's what makes me decide to go a little easy on her. "This place is in the depths of Junya Kaneshiro's heart. It is a world founded on his unconscious desires and beliefs about himself and the people he victimizes. Another reality where his subconscious materializes."
"A-another reality? Wait—" something flashes in her eyes, "is it like the application of optical illusions in social cognitive psychology?"
"She can read! What a surprise," I unhand her, and she scowls at me as I explain. "It's something like that, I suppose. Kamoshida believed the school was a castle, and that he was a king. Kobayakawa believed the school was a prison, and that he was another prisoner. Junya Kaneshiro, Sakahagi, believes that Shibuya Station is a bank. Customers, and potential customers, are pigs. I and the others spent four hours trying to break in, with no luck. But now, you and I are his customers. Now he has to open his doors to us."
She's still a little shaken, but she manages to recover herself well enough.
"I'm sorry, it's just... but, since all this really exists, I can't doubt it." She gives a once-over over her shoulder, regretting it immediately because her eyes meet the pigs'. "S-so...the act of changing hearts involves overwriting their cognition?"
"Brainwashing, basically. The process, if we're not careful, can be fatal."
It hits her then, "Like Kamoshida."
"Like Kamoshida."
She grits her teeth, "Like Kobayakawa?"
"Not sure about Kobayakawa."
"What do you mean you're not sure?"
"Like I told you. Sometimes I remember things, sometimes I don't. You can believe me or not, up to you. Now. There's one of two things you can do here. You can take your phone. There's hopefully an app inside which will transfer you right out of here, and get you back to Shibuya. You can walk away from all of this and forget it ever happened. Or, you can come with me, and help me put this bastard down of your own free will."
Her eyes light up again, "You're giving me a chance to help stop this...?"
I lie to her. "Every time I've tried to drive someone away from this shit they always just wanna re-insert themselves. I've already dragged you in here. You and I both know if I threw you back out into Shibuya, all that would do is leave you with a shitton more questions, and an even more irritating drive to find the answers. And besides. Considering how bad this shit's gotten, I can assume you'll pick up the pace and actually do something that matters."
"You really think I can help change this man's heart?"
"That depends."
"Depends on what?"
"On whether or not you're okay with spending the rest of your life getting stepped on."
She is shamed, all at once and so suddenly. But her hands curl up into firm fists and that fire I saw in her eyes so many weeks ago, the fire that'd been stamped away by feelings of uselessness and inadequacy, rises again and it's roaring brilliantly and loudly and refusing to stay clamped down. "Let's go."
.
.
.
It doesn't occur to me yet exactly as to why I'm letting her do this. What the truth of the matter actually is. Perhaps I can talk to Maruki about it, once all this is over with.
The inner lobby of the bank is large and wide and packed with pigs with varying degrees of hideous facial features. There are no chairs or waiting areas, for pigs can't sit down, so it's just another ocean of swine filling the whole place. Genuinely feels more like a mental hospital than a bank; walls are sterile white, the only colors being yellow and brown as a result of pigshit getting smeared along the walls. Any plants or decorations are all made of a type of plastic that smells like rubber, and a million small paper carpets that are torn and browned thousand-yen bills coat the floor.
A figure in a business suit looks at both myself and Niijima oddly, a clipboard and pen in its hands. Its body is tall and gangly, so skinny that its shoulders and waist are both about as wide as the distance between your tallest finger and your wrist. Its suit would likely be a tight fit on a lamppost. Despite its narrow frame its head is bulbous and massive, with large red eyes the size of bicycle tires, and it jitters around as a fly would. A proboscis juts out in the middle of its face, shaped like a baby elephant's trunk, long hairs sprouting out the back of its head.
The guards, the cashiers; anyone who actually works in the bank itself is a fly-man the likes of which Cronenberg would've taken as inspiration back in the 80s, if he could.
The fly in the business suit seems to sniff Niijima, of all things, the proboscis snaking all over her head and shoulders, curling and coiling and stroking her neck and she's so disgusted I'm almost certain that if she had the strength to do so she'd rip its head right off. After a minute of this it does the same to me, though it lasts just a few seconds. A buzzing noise emerges from its mouth, and it would sound almost like a proper sentence with words were it not for the gratingly loud static distortion that would put radio shows to shame.
The fly hands us both a single page pamphlet with an extremely detailed map of the whole bank. It specifically points its tarry fingers to where I assume Reception is; three doors down the hallway to our left. One of the guidelines is written in what at first glance is utterly unintelligible rubbish, but the more you focus your eyes the more you'll be able to discern it:
A̝͐W̘͊Ả̢̛̺̼̄I̛̤̠̟͛̓T͇̲͌̈́ ̫̥̩̏͆͞T̝̮̀̃͞ͅH̘E̳̣͋ ̣̱̔̋L͎͇̏͘Ó̢̺͍̾̓R̫̪̎͘D̡͐ ͈̠̎̓O͎͘F͙͓̅̎ ̥͞A͖̍͜L͚̃L̥͙̹̑̉ ̞̰͋̓ͅT̝͐H̫̓Ä̛̭͖̤́̏T̞͓͌ ̦͊F̺̍̃͜L̜̍I͇̎Ë͓̑͟S̮̫̻͆̑͡ ͔̤̭̿̋͛W̖̿Ì̙͖̄T̘͈̭̍͑̈́H̟̟̋͐I̢̦͛͆N̗̂ ͚͍͂͘͠ͅT͎̀H̫̖̹̏̿Ȇ̡͚̤̈́̂ ̨̙̒̃R̡̘̩̃̏̾E͎͊C͖̫͐͒E̲̼̽͒Ṗ̱̯̓T̡̖͓͂̎͞I͎̬͌̿Ȏ̯N̼̏ ̫̰̎̆͢R̫͉̽̅Ỏ̥͖O̯̝̼̾̂̈M͔̄
"Reception...?" shudders Niijima.
"Might as well do as they say."
On the walls hang the severed heads of actual pigs, cut so cleanly that no blood comes from the stumps below their chins, the skin at the neck folded and twisted around the poles upon which the heads stand. As we make our way down the halls, the pig heads turn ever so slowly and watch us. Turning an inch on their axis, per each of our steps.
The Reception Room (and you know it's the Reception Room because there's a bigass plaque over it that says it is) is far too small for comfort, to the point where it is just a few centimeters taller than we are, and about half as wide as Kobayakawa's already-modest former office. A television monitor hangs on the wall in the far end. A table in the middle of the room, with maroon leather chairs. Place is brightly lit only wherever the seats are, and when we do decide to sit down, the harsh flourescent lighting casts deep and strong shadows upon our faces and clothes.
Whatever fear Makoto Niijima's feeling only expresses itself in a slight trembling of the hands, a misstep here and there, a twitch of the jaw. The fire never leaves her eyes, but it sure as hell isn't easy for her to keep it lit.
"Unauthorized entry. Property damage. Other disturbances. That comes to three million yen in total. You're here regarding that. Am I correct, Miss Beautiful President?"
Out from the darkness he approaches us, and we see him in all his hideous glory. Rather than the rather tame suit we'd seen him wearing earlier in the day, he wears a gold-embroidered lounge jacket that glitters and gleams far too brightly to be made of any material available through legal means. His pants are black leather and his shoes bear silver accents along the tips. His chest is bare but pulsates every so often, and he retains that bizarre haircut of his where half of his head is a jungle and the other half is a desert.
We notice the eyes last; they're much like Kamoshida's, but there's a gluttonous hunger behind them that distinguishes it from Asmodeus' lustful narcissism. But something's wrong.
They're black.
Only thing that keeps me from making a new train tunnel in his skull right goddamn now is the fact he's probably got a thousand monsters hiding in the darkness as he speaks.
"It must be quite tough, gathering so much money," his voice oozes into our ears, gravelly and boisterous, and he leans over the table to cup Niijima's chin with what in all likelihood is the hand he uses to masturbate, "I'd be willing to give you a loan, you know. Ten percent interest a day."
"Get your hands off me," she seethes, the horror giving way to sheer unbridled rage.
"I like my women with fire, but there's no need to be so anxious," roughly he slides his index finger and thumb down along opposite ends of her jaw, before they both meet at the center of her chin. "I have a more manageable option for people like you."
"That was your plan from the beginning, wasn't it?" So furious is she her hands tremble, eyes sharpen, teeth grit and pupils narrow. Were she staring down anyone else they'd fold in an instant, but she's staring down a sick fuck who thinks he has the right to own people.
"Quite the impressive insight. Makoto Niijima, the lovely and bright younger sister of esteemed prosecutor Sae Niijima."
At that point fear returns to her eyes and she rises to her seat, her anger flourishing again in her tone, "How do you know that!?"
"Please don't underestimate our intelligence network. My, what wonderful goods have fallen in my lap. Smart, headstrong, determined and feisty. Some reason your names sound familiar to me... can't put my finger on it. There's a market for you both. Old, repressed withered business-type fucks who can't get it up in front of their wives anymore and want to feel like big men again. A rising sort of niche that doesn't care if you're eight or eighteen. I hope you won't mind being shipped off to Osaka."
"You bastard—!"
"Your home address is 10-2, Ebisu Minami 1-chome, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. Meanwhile, your sister works as a Public Prosecutor of the Tokyo District Special Investigation Department, at the Public Prosecutors Office. Did I get those little details right?"
"Oh my God..."
"There's also the fact that your contacts had quite the interesting lineup; Ann Takamaki, Kasumi Yoshizawa, and Ryuji Sakamoto."
She wants nothing more than to cave his head in on the spot, but she's already pulled enough stupid reckless shit for the day and since I'm here with her she doesn't wanna risk my safety again, so she does nothing but glare.
"A model, an honor student, and a delinquent. All exceptionally pretty in their own ways, though the blond guy could use some work. All I need do is say a single word to any of my people, and in an instant all these people will become the property of some sick bastard in a foreign country with a name you can't even pronounce. So if you think you can try shit, you've another thing coming. As for yewwww, Kazuya Hikawa. You, I'm far more interested in."
My guts tighten as I quell the urge to puke. "Do explain why."
"There's rising demand for young pretty boys with a strong and harsh voice. Demands mostly come from mature or aging women who wanna have a little irresponsible sorta fling here and there. Sometimes they come from guys who're sick of fucking ten-year-olds and want some new spice. Other times they're just people who want a hole that looks cute and young, doesn't matter to them what age or gender. But I've got something reeeal special comin' for you in particular. You know how much you cost me?"
"I didn't even know you existed until two days ago, what the hell did I do to you?"
"That bald prick whose skull you cracked like an egg two Christmases ago. Does Masayoshi Shido ring a bell, you skinny fuck—?"
BLAM.
Without even thinking, my legs push my torso up outta my seat and with the Tkachev in my hand I blow a hole in this yakuza fuck's head, splattering his brains all over the TV. Niijima cries out and screams because of course she does, even though none of the blood's gotten on her and he was just a Shadow.
Or was he?
BBRRZZZZTTT, cries the monitor as static screams and writhes and shudders, and we see Kaneshiro again in the flatscreen with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Haven't ya heard of body-doubles, kid? They'll work wonders when some upstart punk thinks he's assassinated you and starts flaunting his name around like a dumbass."
Bright lights flash our every which way and the room's gotten about thirty times as tall and wide as it had been before, and we the both of us are surrounded by dozens of six-foot tall fly-men wearing skinny SWAT gear.
"Oh my God...!" cries Niijima.
"You cost me money, you little shit!" he screams from the television, the monitor itself now floating in mid-air. "Shido funded most of my fucking operations and you bashing his head open set me back by half a goddamn decade! A third of the families under my grasp are gettin' all rowdy and pissed 'cause they're not gettin' the cash they were promised and they've had to resort to selling kids whose balls haven't even dropped yet to make up for their losses. Everyone fucking knows what you did, everyone's pissed and the only reason they won't bite the bullet and fucking END you is because your father's off-fuckin'-limits. But Daddy ain't here, is he? Can't bail you out no more! I'm gonna fuck every hole in your face and sell what's left of you to goddamn organ harvesters in China—"
"Satanael."
I remove the mask from my face in a motion almost too quick for her to register. Out from my skull he rises, his six wings spreading outward valorously. Satanael's face is stoic, his red eyes remaining as cold and piercing as ever, but there's something so fucking wonderful in the way he outstretches his arms along with his wings this time around. Perhaps the first time in a long time I've ever felt happy to see him.
Makoto Niijima, coated in red, rears back and there's not a single thing she can do or say in the face of the Devil, spreading his wings out and glaring at all the world like those around us are nothing but specks of dust.
Beyond the terror in her eyes I see the flies transform into bloated rotting half-corpses with knives for hands and worms for teeth and a few names blare in my head—Nergal and Pazuzu and a whole host of others I can't say without sounding like an ignorant American—and I blast a hail of gunfire from a rifle that shoots bombs instead of bullets.
Like he did just earlier in the day he blasts a path forward, causing the flies to burst into pieces and mounds, wings and heads and chunks flying yards ahead of me and alla the blood spreads everywhere and goddamn I know it wasn't long ago that I've done this but God somehow it feels far better now, better now that I can actually storm this place, reach in and wrap my hands around his neck, so close I can taste him.
My head's no longer in any pain whatsoever but I still feel like I need to take a bit of a breather. My legs feel like noodles again, but for different reasons than earlier. I feel like I heave out more than half my lung capacity each time I breathe. All of me is trembling, begging to lie down someplace. But not out of pain, more out of exhaustion than anything else.
"What...what have you done...!?" I hear Niijima cry out. She's horrified, on the verge of just breaking down in terror on the spot--perhaps once upon a time I'd have relished the sight. But I am not there, at least I don't feel like I am; I am somewhere else, seeing her face from up in the ceiling.
Some well of arrogance reverberates throughout my chest and I turn to the TV and grin so widely the sensation's absolutely alien to my cheeks, "In the past week alone, I've been stalked, blackmailed, and reminded of my greatest failures on a daily basis. I have wasted two days of my life trying to get into this godforsaken place, and because SOMEONE wanted to be useful in a world that didn't think she was necessary, my head got caved in by a goddamn wine bottle and I'm now a hot piece of ass to be sold to the highest bidder. So there is absolutely no hyperbole when I say I am going to do things to you that will make what you did to Taichi look like pussy shit."
He tents his fingers, a wide smile of his own across his face, his eyes half-lidded and giving an unimpressed look. "Looking forward to it, big boy. And so are my guards."
A thousand more flies burst into the room and Niijima's still too dazed and horrified to be in the headspace to summon a Persona, so I decide that I'm gonna steamroll past every single one of them and get her out before she's raped or murdered or both or worse.
Despite my weak knees, the sweat pouring down the back of my neck, my heart literally trying to jump its way out my ribcage—I've never felt as close as I have to feeling pure joy as I do now. In all the chaos I let myself go numb, my body turns to stone, and blood floods over myself and Niijima as I watch Satanael pour hellfire into walls made of monsters.
.
.
.
Flies of all shapes and sizes come at me screaming with their nonsensical sounding voices and Satanael eviscerates them all. Poor bastards that try to flank me in groups get ventilated, shredded open, undone, left beyond unrecognizable. If they're flies then he's a bugzapper. The instant my eyes land on even just one of them their insides become outsides, their wholes become halves, when the flies do as they do and feast on their dead he blasts them away as well, and the walls get a fresh new coat of red paint.
For the first time since God knows how long I'm actually so happy that a shitty little string of coincidences and fuckups actually worked out in my favor for once. If Kaneshiro's goons are such pieces of cake he'll be no problem.
But my exhaustion catches up to me and I fall to my knees and finally return to myself.
Seeing through my eyes again since what feels like hours ago, I've already decorated the whole lobby of the bank in recesses, marrow, entrails and limbs. Body parts slinking down to the floor and leaving thick red stains upon the walls. Not just the guards. The cashiers at the counters. All the pigs who had already been inside. A third of the corpses I've made are in pieces, another third are mulched and ground like the meat they use to make sausages, and the last third are just ashes. Some of their parts still move, others still scream and hiss and groan, some stammer out noises in a language I don't understand, others clutch at their opened selves in a futile attempt to put their bodies back together.
The bright white lights that had welcomed me into this bank now blare scarlet all across the lobby. The gore doesn't flood the place, but Niijima and I are both utterly coated in blood and from the look in her eyes, the red she has all over herself is the last thing on her mind. She hasn't said a word since our escape from the Reception Room, her eyes staring a thousand miles ahead, and her expression that of someone who's just seen the world end.
But we're back in the lobby. And the door's right there. And she seems too horrified to protest. So I put an arm over her shoulder, and the both of us try marching our way out the door, but her eyes flare wide again in horror as she sees something glowing bright blue and I see it too—
BOOM
—late.
"Hikawa-san!!!"
"AAAAARRGGHHHH!!!"
I realize while it happens that the person screaming is myself. My cloak and other clothes are undamaged, but my now completely red flesh is seared with cancerous tumors and sores, pulsating and festering with pus and malignant cells. On the ground I hiss and I seethe, my whole body now drenched in the blood of the pigs and the flies I've murdered to come this far. If I hadn't pushed Niijima out of the way in time, she'd be just as dead as I am.
A clapping noise comes from a balcony far and away above us both, and we see him, we see Junya Kaneshiro's Shadow standing tall and proud upon said balcony, his hands clasped together. Leaping over the railing he jumps what must be a distance of four meters just to land directly in front of us.
"I think it's about time you disappear," he says, blowing upon the index and middle fingers of his left hand. "I've a personal policy to get rid of clients who're more trouble than they're worth. Managing a bank is tough as it is. Shame you weren't old enough to become a businessman, boy. You'd have understood far sooner what it means to fuck with yakuza who have more money than they know what to do with. Your father won't take too kindly to hearing you've disappeared... but, well. I ran out of shits to give when you killed all my guards, my customers, my people—"
"S-stop it...!" Niijima cries, rushing between him and myself with arms outstretched. "You can't do this!"
"Oh, I wouldn't damage an asset like you. This kid has it coming to him. But you'll be just fine. Your sister, on the other hand? Quite a beauty, though," he smirks, stroking his chin along with his hand.
"My sister has nothing to do with this!"
"She's been hounding me and my workers ever since I got rid of Takeyama and made the underworld my ass-cushion. Didn't wanna cross hairs with her too much, too risky, but then her sister had to hand herself over to me on a silver platter. Now it's almost too good an opportunity to pass up."
"If you lay a hand on her...," Niijima's fists tremble and she marches forward with bloodshot eyes, too infuriated to continue that line of thought.
"If I lay a hand on your her you'll do nothing, because by the time I've gotten my hands on her she'll be somewhere in the city you don't even know exists. Locked away from civilization for the rest of her life. She'll be crawling naked, covered in her own piss and shit until I tell her to bathe. So if you want her kept clean and fresh and happy and unburdened, if you don't want her disintegrated—"
Sparks fly in his fingers as he forms a gun with his index and middle.A blue ball of light emerges at the tips of his nails, pulsating and frying the molecules around it into sheer void.
"—then just do as you're told."
"Do as I'm told?" My fried eyes see the rope snap in her head, right then and there. "I've been listening to you go on and on...," She shouts, the rage billowing outward now like a torrent, "SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH, YOU MONEY-GRUBBING ASSHOLE!!!"
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"Have you decided to tread the path of strife?"
"Yes. Come to me!" she says, her eyes having grown bold and fierce enough to strike terror even in the blackest demons of Hell.
"Then drink of the wine of the wrath of God.
Never lose sight of your own justice, even if in so doing you face a lifetime of suffering."
Her skull screams at her to lie down and die as she keeps her burning eyes locked upon the piece of shit standing there acting all smug—the only thing keeping her from collapsing from the pain is the sheer hatred and anger, anger at Kaneshiro, anger at me, anger at herself most of all for allowing all this horror to happen because of her own reckless desire to be worth something to the people she cares about.
"This world, populated by sinners and madmen, is on the verge of brokenness beyond repair.
In order to mend Fallen Humanity, one must pursue righteousness even at the cost of one's self."
She feels something cold along the upper part of her face. Something heavy, rough, cold, made of iron.
She grabs at the mask and she tries tearing it from her face but it's melded to her skin it's melded to her skin which means she'll just have to pull harder. She can feel her cheeks bleed and she can feel her eyelids tear, she can feel her temples throb and her fingers strain as she keeps pulling at the iron on her face—
"Teach the monsters who would dare blacken their souls with vice, to fear God and give glory to Him.
For the Hour of His Judgment has come upon us all."
The fire that she had kept sundered deep in her heart for so very long is now covering her entirely like a baptism. Something silver blares from underneath her waist and she sits herself atop it handily, gripping at its handles. It glows a heavenly light and it's enough to blind the common man but Makoto Niijima can see it as clear as day. The black wheels rev, kicking up fountains of guts and blood as her eyes burn red with a wrath she's finally brave enough to let herself feel.
"Thou art I, and I am thou.
From the sea of thy soul, I cometh.
I am Johanna, the Blasphemous Mouth of God."
And I realize, now.
Why I brought her here in the first place and didn't just kick her out back into Shibuya.
It's because, in her desperate desire to be useful and help the people she cared about the most, I saw myself trying to save the girl I loved from something I couldn't stop. Even though I hate her. Even though she's been nothing but a millstone around my neck throughout all this bullshit. Even though she thinks I'm the Devil and I deserve to die (not that she's wrong).
At the end of the day. It was so infuriating to see someone who'd driven me up the corner think so little of herself that she needs to get down on all fours for people who don't even care about her.
And, God. You'll never hear me say this out loud. But right now, the only thing I can think of, seeing all this glorious shit unfold right before my eyes, is how beautiful she looks riding that motorcycle.
"I can feel it...myself, me!" she cries out, sounding overjoyed since the first day I ever met her. "Don't get all cocky because I normally behave myself! I'm DONE playing nice! Come, Johanna!"
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NoRoleModelz Chapter Notes:
Lol when I was doing research on Pope Joan one of the google search results that popped up was "do they check the pope's balls"
Now. There's a reason why Johanna's the same when pretty much everyone else is gonna have a different Persona.
For one thing, I like the connection of this legendary priestly figure Johanna, to someone as straight-laced as Makoto. Despite their authoritative roles in their respective fields, they end up with a pretty rebellious reputation overall, given that Makoto becomes a Phantom Thief and Johanna took on a role ordained by the Catholic Church itself to be reserved exclusively for males.
I typically try to change Personas if ever I find a fictional/legendary villainous, rebellious, or societal outcast who I think would better suit the character. I admit I'm hit or miss when it comes to that stuff (Blackbeard was a good choice, I'm a little eh on Salome), but Johanna suits Makoto perfectly.
*coughcough* Agnes looks way cooler tho *coughcough*
Now then, throughout this whole arc the one thing I wanted to set out to do was make Makoto's failures a lot more costly to both her and her relationships with the other Thieves. The whole Kaneshiro arc rubbed me the wrong way because it played the threat and the stakes as though they weren't as bad as they actually would be in real life. Kaneshiro's just another piece of shit, and Makoto's easily forgiven because A) she got the Thieves a new Target and B) she's a total badass so it's all good guys :P
So all the shit you've seen in this chapter concerning Kaneshiro's Palace will ONLY get more messed up from here. Makoto's less strong and capable and can kick Kaneshiro's ass six ways to Sunday, and is now much like how Kazuya was back when he first entered Kana's Palace: green as shit, and realizing that she's gotten in something horrible wayyyy too deep for her own good.
In other news I finished Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan comic series in two days and Spider Jerusalem's way too awesome a character to not to be a new influence for Kazuya XD
There's a reason why Satanael's weak to Nuke, when he was practically unstoppable back in the OG game. Pretty sure you can guess as to what that reason is.