Putting this story here on FFNET as well! I'm not sure if this can belong here because it's pretty dark. Somewhat of a character study as well as a further exploration of the P5 Velvet Room. Featuring every fusion process in a much more realistic and dark approach.
WARNING: LIKE SUPER WARNING: READ THIS: This fic contains gore, self-harm, dysphoria, death, blood, cannibalism, loss of sense of self, psychological trauma, psychological horror, mutilation, etc. If you are queasy with any of these, STOP READING.
I really wanted to put this above rated M, like explicit, but FFNET doesn't offer that high of a rating, so I'm unsure if I can even post this. If not, I'll take it down for AO3 only.
READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
So·ma
ˈ/sōmə/
The body as distinct from the soul, mind, or psyche.
To create more powerful Personas, you must sacrifice at least two. But a Persona is a reflection of your soul...so are you killing yourself?
When you fuse Personas, no matter their shape or size, they end up in a human sized body bag...why is that?
Waking up with a gasp, Akira slowly looked around the hard stone that surrounded him on almost all sides. The cot underneath him was hard, a far contrast from his lumpy mattress in Leblanc. Water dripped nearby, one drop at a time, slowly drilling into his ears and into his brain. Though there was no wind, it was chilly and dark, the only light coming from past his head.
Slowly sitting up, he grimaced when the heavy metal cuffs bit into his wrists and ankles, chaining him to himself. They jangled as he stood up and dragged his feet to the bars that imprisoned him from the rest of the prison. His thin and dirty inmate uniform did nothing to help shield him from the cold bite of the metal, and he stared out pensively as Justine and Caroline stepped in front of his cell.
"Inmate." Caroline greeted him with a sneer, her one yellow eye glowing like acid within the dark jail. "Our master wants to talk to you."
Tapping his heel against the plush blue carpet beneath his desk, Igor chuckled in his seat. He was a strange sort of man in a suit with a long nose. His bloodshot eyes were always wide open, and the grin of his mouth was ever present. Couple that with his deep dual toned voice, he presented himself as strictly non-human.
"Trickster..." Igor greeted him. "I have decided to bestow a new power upon you. You have discovered you can take Shadows into yourself to become your new Personas, but they are not the limit. No," He chuckled, the sound sending a shiver down his spine. "There are more possibilities than you can imagine."
"What...What do you mean?" Akira asked warily, gripping the steel bars tightly. He didn't like how he was at the mercy of these people, how they can just summon him in his sleep. He barely knew anything about them except their names and that the strange man had given him the power of Personas.
He had no idea what he was dealing with.
Igor chuckled again and laced his hands in front of him on his polished wooden desk. "I shall allow these two to explain it to you."
Justine turned to him, apathetic as always. "Our task is to rehabilitate you from your current self. That means we must help you become stronger. While we cannot physically affect you," Her eye hooded mysteriously, the other covered by a black eyepatch with a V stitch. "We can strengthen your Personas...By creating new ones."
His breath hitched. "What? What is that supposed to mean?" He demanded, trying to understand what they meant. Wasn't a Persona a person's inner self? How was he supposed to make new ones?
A resounding smack against the steel bars caused his heart to jump and he took a quick step back, away from Caroline's baton. She glared at him. "Shut your mouth, Inmate! You should be grateful we're spending our valuable time to help you since you're so weak." She crossed her arms. "You can combine two of your Personas to become another Shadow from the Sea of Souls. That Shadow will then become your new Persona. Got it?"
"But..." He began to protest but they ignored him. With a wave of her hand, Justine held his mask in her hand and Akira quieted, his eyes trained on the object. Pixie...
Caroline holds out her hand as well and he clenched his jaw. Arsene..! "Wait." He called out urgently, panic setting in as they held his most vulnerable part. "What are you doing to them?"
The brattier twin gave him a look. "Making you stronger. They're weak right now and frankly that's not gonna pass."
Justine looked up at him with a speculative frown. "Do not worry." She held up her clipboard that seemed to fade from reality for a moment, the words on the paper changing from whatever it was to a list of his Personas. "They are recorded in my compendium, and you can summon them back if you so wish to."
He quieted at that. That didn't seem too bad...His eyes slid to his main mask and his chest panged. Arsene was his first Persona, but if he wanted a chance against Kamoshida, he would need to be stronger. I'm sorry. "...All right." He reluctantly acquiesced.
He felt like he just made the worst and best choice of his life.
With a flick of their wrists, they threw his masks torward the center of the room and his Personas appeared in a sea of blue light. Pixie looked around, confused, while Arsene only inclined his head, as if he already knew his fate. "I am the other you who exists within you...Though I may disappear this moment, I shall always be at your side." He laughed mysteriously at his Human, and Akira slowly nodded. Even he was blase about this. Maybe it wasn't so bad-
With a snap of her finger, Caroline summoned two guillotines. The sharp blades gleamed blue in the dim lighting, slowly pulling up to the top of the contraption. The twins grasped thick sack-like blankets and threw them over the two Personas and Akira watched with wide eyes.
Time seemed to slow as Pixie finally understood and gave him a tearful look, as if he betrayed her and left her to die. Her small fairy like appearance faded away to be replaced by- That curly black hair, those angled brows, those gray eyes with thick lashes, the prison uniform that hung on his lean frame.
He was looking at himself.
He was frozen to his spot as his lookalike closed his eyes with resignation just as the fabric covered him, concealing him from seeing the horrors within. The two bundles struggled as it was their instinct for survival, but their fate was sealed.
Justine snapped her fingers and the blades screeched, falling down toward their targets- him. With a sickening crunch, black blood spilled into the air and the too human shaped body bags laid still, the fabric covered heads rolling off onto the floor.
Akira felt like gasping for air as against his will, his eyes were drawn to the darkness inside the fabric, and something in him snapped when he saw his own face, staring ahead blankly, neck cut off.
Oh my god...oh my god...oh my god...
The remains of his Personas glowed and twisted together, forming a new being from the Sea of Souls. Though Akira could see it was a Shadow he had never encountered, he couldn't get over the fact that he just killed his Personas.
He watched himself be beheaded.
He felt himself be beheaded.
His vision clouded as tears came to his eyes, but he refused to cry even though he silently trembled from the existential revelation. Just by observing the twins and how nonchalant they were, he realized this was supposed to be normal. But how..? How could killing himself be normal? He just lost his own Personas to this- this murder device..!
The new Persona transformed into a copy of his mask and flew to his face. He felt it rest inside his soul, in the very same place that Pixie used to reside.
What was his soul then? If he could just sacrifice copies of himself to become "stronger." No regular human could just cut himself into pieces and be perfectly fine.
What was he?
Future chapters will be much more explicit. Again, read at your own discretion.