Morning there! I made this a while ago before making the Demon Ears thing that is my technical main project, but I am just so done with that for the moment, so looking through my stories folder on Word let this pop up. I read through it, fucked around with some things, and decided that it was worth an upload.
Would love to know what people think, and if I should try and continue it.
I don't really know if Yu (Or anyone for that matter) is in character, but this is just my style of writing speaking for me basically.
Anyway, have fun...
It had been an average day in Inaba, A.K.A. rainy. The Investigation Team hadn't seen anyone on the Midnight Channel yet, but they would certainly check as soon as the conditions were met. Not that they ever had to wait very long for that to happen.
Said conditions were met relatively quickly, as to be expected. Everyone tuned in as one would generally do when ensuring that people don't die because of a psychological weirdo. Yu made sure that they were all awake after he sent a group text and got a reply from everyone. He only did this because once, Yosuke had fallen asleep on his couch waiting for midnight to come, missing that night's broadcast. Luckily, it was the after-show of the Kubo kid's abduction, so it wasn't anything to worry about, considering there hadn't been anything interesting on. Still, Yu didn't want that to happen at the time of a critical broadcast. As soon as the clock struck 12, Yu walked over to his TV, staring at it intensely.
The TV lit up, and what Yu saw was not a silhouette of a human, as he had been expecting. Instead, he saw something that was human-like, but there was something off about it. It could have just been the fact that there were no legs, as it showed the 'thing' head to toe, but it was obvious that it was missing them, and that was a little strange. It also held two long guns; at least, that is what it appeared to be. Though it was hard to tell, Yu thought that he saw two steel chains circling around its shoulders. The image on the screen was poor, and showed no signs of getting better for the rest of the minute that the Midnight Channel aired.
A voice inside his mind suddenly emerged and began speaking to him. "No one will appear, so long as I am here. I will block thy signal, you shall not see thou next victim in need of a save. Come play thy game, and I will stop. Should you win." The last sentence was added on like an after-thought, but not quite. It was obvious that the creature was trying to scare Yu by saying it like it was almost impossible. Yu was unmoved, however, like he generally was with most things. Usually when they encountered danger or something meant to scare someone, it didn't do anything to him, which was a little off-putting in the eyes of his friends.
'Who are you? What will happen should we lose your game?' Yu whispered, not wanting to wake him uncle and cousin, but the voice didn't reply. Yu knew it wouldn't reply, regardless of the things that he wanted to ask it. His phone then began to ring. Yu instantly knew who would call him the second after the Midnight Channel stopped broadcasting.
Picking it up, Yosuke started talking about it, almost too quickly for Yu to understand. Luckily, Yu had gotten used to Yosuke talking quickly when in a panic, and figured out what he was saying through the jumbled mess of words. "What was that, dude? I think it was a Shadow, but what Shadow has that kind of intelligence? Our Shadows were smart, but they couldn't telepathically talk to us, so it couldn't be the next victim's, right?"
"I don't know, but we need to go to the TV tomorrow, no matter what. It seems that we won't figure out who the next victim is if we don't." Yu replied calmly, hoping the calmness would spread over to his friend somehow. It didn't.
Yosuke agreed quickly, and hung up to call the others. As Yu settled into his futon, he couldn't shake the feeling that the team was going to bite off way more than they could possibly ever hope to chew with this Shadow. Considering it said 'game' in almost a mocking tone, it was going to toy with them, Yu was sure of it. They would have to suck it up and fight like they always did though, if they wanted to save the next person to be thrown in, whoever that happened to be.
The next day after school, everyone gathered and confirmed what Yu had though. All of them had heard the Shadow's voice inside of their heads, and it would block their ability to see the person that would be targeted next. With a sigh, Yu ordered the team to enter the TV, afraid that the Shadow they were going up against would prove to be more than a worthy opponent.
As soon as Yu landed on the platform, he was surprised to find that there was a sort of shadow of the creature that had called them into the world. It was waving at them, indirectly asking them to follow it to, no doubt, where it would hold its little game.
Everyone was looking at Yu, awaiting his command. He walking forward, and asked, "What do you hope to gain from this?"
The shadow creature seemed to smile, even without a face, and everyone heard the strange voice from the other night again. "I hope to help you grow; however, in return, I want you to keep me company. All of the Shadows are too afraid of me to talk to me, let alone keep me company. I think I appear frightening to them."
Yu wasn't sure if it was telling the truth, but he didn't have the time to argue with the thing to figure it out. "What will happen to us if we lose your game?"
The shadow creature then seemed to chuckle, seeming to smile in pure glee, again, lacking the physical features to do so. "My game has the same threat as everything in this world, there is almost no increase in danger than what you are used to."
Yu grimaced. "Right, 'almost' no increase. Anyway, who are you?"
The shadow creature again somehow did something that everyone thought was something that only one with visible feature could do. It scowled deeply. "That will be answered if you decide to play my game."
Yu sighed and motioned for the group to come together for a group meeting. "Well, I think that you should do it." Rise said. "I mean, you don't have any more of a likely chance of death than any other Shadow that you've faced."
"Rise-san," Naoto spoke up. "We discussed this a little earlier when I was asking about your support abilities. We agreed that the chance was at least 50%. This shadow of a Shadow is saying that there is an increase to that chance. Besides, you are never in any danger. You are on the sidelines the whole time."
"We don't have a choice though." Kanji said. "This damn Shadow won't have us saving anyone else without playing its damn dangerous game first. If we don't, someone will die for sure, when you remember that Rise can tell if someone is here, but needs to know a bit about them before we can find them."
"Right," Yosuke started. "The Midnight Channel is our only means of learning who the person that has been kidnapped is. Without it, we wouldn't have even been able to really form the Investigation Team."
Chie decided it was her turn to speak. "In the end, it all ends with Yu's say." Everyone turned to Yu, awaiting his response.
"Well, it may be dangerous, but it is also true that we don't have a choice." Yu stepped over to the shadow creature. "We will play your game then, what is it?"
This time the creature seemed to sneer, like 'Are you sure that is the decision that you want? You can't take it back.' It then started floating away; beckoning to them, never answer the question that Yu set before it.
Yu turned to his team, and saw everyone had put on a look of determination, despite the fear that he saw in some of the members eyes. He smiled a little, before turning back around, and racing after the shadow of a Shadow that was starting to disappear in the fog that was quite far away.
The group stopped as the shadow being phased though the door of a building that appeared to be a warehouse that hadn't been there last time that Rise had scanned the area. In the end, they were all panting and bending over in slight pain from the effort of keeping up with the creature, as it had moved so fast, they had to sprint just to keep it inside of their view. This had gone on for at least a minute, winding all of them.
"I was not built for this!" Rise somehow gasped.
"I don't think anyone could possibly hope to do that without hurting at least something. I'm surprised that none of us tripped on something and killed ourselves." Naoto added.
"I hope that it stopped inside, instead of just trying to lead us through it." Yukiko said worry in her voice.
"I certainly hope that isn't the case, if it is, then we lost it, without a single doubt." Chie responded.
Yu straightened up. "Regardless, we should get moving. It isn't polite to keep others waiting."
"Dude, it isn't nice or polite or anything of the sort to stop our progress of saving people from dying so we can play a pathetic game with some lonely Shadow!" Yosuke yelled, annoyed that Yu wanted to be polite to something that just made them sprint for a good minute or two.
Yu ignored him and started towards the door to the building. Everyone else sighed lightly and started moving as well. Yu pushed open the door to the building, and was greeted by empty space and a lot of dust. He coughed lightly as he breathed in some of the earth, and walked in, finding no additional exit/entrances, so he figured that this was the destination that the creature had been moving to. The warehouse wasn't very exciting. It was grey everywhere, and only had a couple boxes lying around here and there. 'If it was bigger, it could be used for a good arena.' Yu thought.
Yu called out, "Hey, where are you, isn't this where you wanted us to come to?" The sound of his voice echoed throughout the warehouse, but the response that he received was his own voice as it bounced back at him. Yu frowned and started looking around. He kicked at the dirt a little and found that there appeared to be something underneath, something that seemed kind of bright, like the sunlight reflecting off of a piece of glass. Then he had an idea. "Hey Yosuke, can you use a wind spell to get rid of the dust?"
Yosuke frowned. "Dude, there is nowhere for the dirt to go, it'd just cause us all to get a bad cough." Yu glared at him. "Hey, no need to glare at me! Who is the master at wind spells here?" Yu continued to frown at him. "Fine, fine, but don't blame me when the dust makes you wish that you hadn't." He pulled out one of him knives that he had hung on his belt. "Come on out and do your thing Jiraiya!" He slashed at the card that appeared before him, and his Persona appeared, using a light wind spell to blow away the dust, but not in such a way that it made them regret having the idea, though Yosuke was probably tempted to do that anyway.
What was underneath the dirt was something that was so incredibly blinding that closing one's eyes didn't help. When the light disappeared, Yu opened his eyes. What he saw shocked him.
He was in the middle of the warehouse still, but the exit was gone, the dust was back on the ground, the ceiling was higher, and it had many support beams all over. Plus it was just bigger. It looked like it was tricked out to be more of an arena than the warehouse it had been previously. Oh, and his friends were missing.
"Hey, what gives?!" Yu called out to nothing, as he was sure the Shadow wouldn't respond. "Where are my friends?! Answer me!"
The Shadow finally replied, "They are safe, don't worry. You see the thing is that this game is that it's required you to go at it alone. All of your friends are about to start their part, as well as you."
Everyone (in their different spots) tensed up, knowing that they were in for a hard fight with no backup. Rise, in her spot, which was a lot more closed in that the others, as the Shadow knew she wasn't a fighter, tried again and again to communicate with her friends, despite the Shadow telling her that she was only allowed to watch with her Persona's abilities. After a while, she sighed, giving up, and started watching all of her friends… Right as the Shadow used some ability to forcibly steal their Personas.
"One more thing, you can't use your Personas." The Shadow said to the fighters. Right as Yu was wondering what would happen if he broke the rule, 12 tentacles with hands at the ends came down, and stabbed into his chest, ripping themselves out a second later. Each of them was carrying a small orb that Yu could only guess was the 12 Personas that he entered the area with. The tentacles then disappeared into the ceiling, leaving Yu with only his weapon.
"Let the fight… begin." The Shadow said, as an enemy dropped before Yu, something that resembled the creature that was on the TV, with some mild differences. It held a giant sword, too big for Yu to use on a regular basis, despite his incredible strength, instead of the dual guns he had seen on the TV. It was also smaller than he expected, as well as the fact that it looked like it was wearing a cloak, that had a hood pulled over its face, hiding it from view. The final thing that was really noticeable was the fact that the two steel chains that floated around its shoulders were gone.
"I'm assuming I have to kill this little devil?" Yu questioned.
"Yes indeed. Please don't call him a devil though. He is me after all." The creature said to Yu through his mind. This shocked Yu, a lot, so much he almost got smacked by the monster's blade because he was distracted. He was able to avoid getting slashed in half by a hair, although getting a cut along his side. "Yes, he is one-eighth of my power. Six-eighths are waiting to fight your friends, one-eighth is fighting you, and the last piece is me, the part talking to you and watching. I am all the brains, and the other parts are all of the brawn."
Yu sighed and blocked out the creature that was talking to him as it started explaining about the technical answer of how it was possible for such a thing to happen. Yu started looking for weak points in the monster's defense, but there wasn't anything. It would block with its sword if he tried anything. He had long since started relying on his Personas as his main weapon, and stopped caring about his sword and its sharpness, so it wasn't in the best condition.
Yu then smiled, his smart and quick thinking mind finding that if he couldn't do the job with his current sword, then he would just have to get an upgrade. Then he realized that with just a glance, Yu knew that the Shadow had a death grip on the weapon. While formulating a plan to steal the sword, the creature in the background was still rambling.
"Would you shut it already!" Yu demanded. The creature did, seeming stunned at Yu's fierce nature. "If you are going to talk, make yourself useful and tell me who you are, first of all."
The creature sighed and said, "Yeah, I did say I would tell you if you played my game, correct? Well, you see, I'm the Reaper." The Reaper sat in silence as he waited for Yu to freak out or something along those lines. He didn't, instead staring at the Reaper's piece that stared back. "Nothing?" The Reaper questioned. "No reaction, no 'Oh no, I'm going to die'?" The lack of response was obviously confusing the Reaper, as well as shocked him quite a bit.
"I'm not afraid of you." Yu said, shocking the Reaper even more. "Most of it stems from the fact that almost nothing scares me, even things that shouldn't exist. Take this world for example; most people would be scared; I was only a little shaken at the sight. Now I'm perfectly fine with it."
The Reaper shrugged, metaphorically of course, and just told the mindless piece of Yu in front of him to attack. It did so, and Yu jumped out of the way, jumping forward and trying to pry the sword out of its hands as it slashed some more. With some sort of luck it flew from the Reaper's hands, coming right for Yu, who was prepared to catch it as he dropped his other weapon on the ground.
The sword started shining in mid-air, transforming into a smaller sword, that was perfect for Yu to wield, that looked like it couldn't get any more perfect, no matter what. Yu caught it, and dashed forward, slashing at the Reaper piece that looked to be at a loss of what to do, not expecting to lose its weapon.
After Yu had cut open his opponent, he watched as the Reaper seemed to scream and twisted in pain, before changing form into that of a ball, and floating away, the cloak it had been wearing floating down, forgotten. "Where is your piece going?" Yu asked the Reaper in his head as he watched the ball float away.
"He is going to wait to reform with the rest of me after they are defeated, and I come back." The Reaper answered. "Anyways, congratulations, Yu Narukami! You defeated me at one-seventh of my strength, by yourself, and with only minor injuries to boot. You are allowed to keep the sword, which has changed to fit you, now known as the Blade of Totsuka. You are also gifted the ultimate protection, the Godly Cloak. I will now teleport you to where your friend Rise is so she can treat your wound."
In a flash of light, Yu was sitting next to Rise, his new sword and cloak off in the corner. Rise almost hugged him, before thinking better of it, and started looking though all of the crap in her pockets as well as Yu's, finding some medicine, and other healing related things that the team had forgotten they ever had, as Yukiko could heal better than any medicine.
"Can I have my Personas back now?" Yu asked.
"Sorry, but for all I know, you might use them to try and bust out of here." The Reaper responded, sounding a little annoyed.
"Darn, you caught me." Yu stated sarcastically, as Rise pulled up a futuristic looking screen so they could watch the rest of the fights. "Hey, also, do the others know you are the Reaper?"
"Yeah, I told them the story after you questioned me on it. However, they didn't see the fight, can't have them already know how to defeat me, can I?" The Reaper relied. "Anyways, on to the next fight, with Yosuke as our next combatant!"
Yosuke sat in the chamber he was stuck in, pondering why the Reaper would want them to do this, a game as he called it. 'Didn't he say something about being lonely?' Yosuke thought, right as the Reaper derailed his train of thought.
"Alright, it's your turn Yosuke. Your time to fight." The Reaper's voice appeared as a piece of the Reaper floated down from the ceiling.
Yosuke smiled and stood, staring at his opponent. It wielded dual daggers, and possessed a cloak that hood hide its face.
Yosuke cracked his knuckles and pulled his daggers from his belt, spinning them around expertly as he got into a fighting stance. "Alright, finally, I thought you wouldn't remember me for a second there. Let's go, you mindless weirdo!"
If I get anyone saying that this should continue, then Yosuke's fight will happen. This probably won't have another chapter made if I don't get anything saying 'I want this to have another chapter!'
Unless I get real bored.