Eulogy
…The listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
—Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man
"I won't forget anything," Yukari declares, trembling with feeling, "even if they rob us of our memories," she continues passionately and illogically, "I'll remember you all!"
Fuuka nods her head in agreement, her face contorted in a new-found confidence, "I won't forget you either. Any of you!"
"Neither will I," Junpei volunteers himself, eager to join, pushing up his baseball cap with a finger, his face turned upwards so you can see the new layer of winter fat very clearly along his jawline.
"I will be here to remind us, even if you do," Mitsuru pushes her hair and tells the group, both corners of her eyes exposed for once, flicked upwards and tender.
You remain uncharacteristically silent. If you can see yourself, you imagine you would see a mixture of mockery and pity, but you know that in reality your face is expertly genial. You fail to understand why people feel the need to make useless promises—they are either unnecessary or complete lies. Although to be fair, you suppose that is exactly the way you are friendly and likable.
"Don't worry," Akihiko tells you, reaching his hand surreptitiously to cover the small of your back, his hand a large warmth that is also unnecessary. "It will be fine," he says, "I will be here for you."
You know that you should be touched that he can discern the unease in your face—and pleasantly surprised that he is actually cognizant of the myriad of things that could go wrong (the least of which is death)—but his attempt at comfort drives the drill deeper into your heart. It's his innocent confidence that makes you the angriest—why should he being anywhere matter to you? It has never helped you before—it won't help you now—so how can he say that as if that meant anything?
"But when should we meet?" the pre-pubescent voice of Ken slices through your brewing anger.
"Graduation Day!" Yukari claps her hands together, pleased with herself to have come up with such a clever solution. "So it will be once significant to our present, signifying our friendship, and also our future, where the experience of school and the Dark Hour will have made us better people!"
The crew was looking at Yukari with appreciation and fondness.
You turn your eyes away. That is a self-aware 'I-want-you-to-be-moved' play rather than genuine, gaudy sentiment. You don't know which would be worse. Whatever, you think and smile brightly, "Let's head and finish this once for all!"
They beam at you, their faces blurring into one another with the exact same look of trepid anticipation and mindless hopefulness. Well, fine, Mitsuru is determined to be hopeful, and Fuuka is pretending to be hopeful, but basically the same face on top of all their bodies. Your words sound like a badly-written action flick, or a Saturday morning cartoon TV show, but they are exhibiting the same easy happiness that makes you angry.
-.-.-
On the 258th floor, you see Strega again.
Correction, you see Jin again, first. He is holding a cigarette between his thumb and index finger, and when your group approaches, he flicks it your way. His hair is matted and oilier than he usually keeps it, but he still tilts his head left to swing his bangs, probably an unconscious habit. The same could be said about him following Takaya, but he is aware of that, so it can't be called unconscious.
"You can smoke in here?" you ask incredulously.
He shrugs. "Nobody ever said not to."
"Touché," you nod, mentally setting a note to bring a pack of Malboro blacks the next time you (inevitably) end up in this tower. You've never done a biker chick look yet, you think, although it's hard to keep track.
"So I'm here to fight you, and no I'm petulantly not going to tell you why," he continues over Yukari's indignant gasp and Akihiko's scoff. "There's no point, and Nyx is coming anyway, might as well just die here."
"You are under-appreciated," you remark, and it earns you a conflicting glance from Jin, who seems at once indignant and appreciative in an 'I-know -right-tell-me-about-it' sort of way. You shoot back a conflicting glance as well, being at once patronizing and 'exactly-let's-commiserate-and-whine-about-this'.
You still fight, of course, because there is nothing else you can do. He looks for your weakness, but you have killed him enough times to know what he's looking for, so he can only grumble about you being afraid of facing them.
It's not called running away if you don't have weaknesses to begin with, you smirk.
As he lay dying, he feeds the crap story about being rounded up by Kirijo and given medication and manipulated into exploring Tarturus. It's speckled with exaggerations and omissions, and is also not as brutal as the truth when he deserves it. Still, a wave of guilt immediately washes over Mitsuru, you can see it, and Yukari falls to sympathy.
"Doesn't Takaya care even in the least about Jin?" Yukari snapped hotly.
You just dispassionately tell her, "Let's go." Nobody here understands Jin's unwavering loyalty because none of them takes the moment to think in his shoes—he's just not important enough for them to take an extra second to think about it. That, you think, is the saddest thing about Jin.
-.-.-
You also fight Takaya, who is much more into this fight. Because despite his higher education (well, his potential for higher education, he got an offer from University of Tokyo), he is still a fervent aficionado for the demise of humankind. People who feel like the world has slighted them are always quick to fall prey to demagogues.
He has learned Megidolaon by this point, and as he summons the orb of almighty light, he cackles uncontrollably like one of those bad impressions of insanity that you see on television sometimes. Except Takaya is probably certified insane.
Kohryu rises behind you, his long, golden tail flickering in the outer corners of your vision, and breathes a heavy healing Mediarahan on all of you. Kohryu, unfailing and majestic, whose healing comes in long sighs. You wonder if they—your identities—remember as well. Then you decide that they don't, because if they do, why hasn't any one of them refused your call yet, futile as this all is?
(Why haven't you yet?)
One more fist leaves him gasping on the ground, the stupid smirk still on his face.
"You know nothing of death, if you think that it is something to fear. You fear it because you do not understand it," he says, unexpectedly sagacious.
You do not kill him, just to make a point.
-.-.-
Nyx descends, from the moon, like a dark, mangled moth, full of angles and edges, an ugly manifestation of the ugliness of the world. It takes the face of Ryoji, although it no longer takes the consciousness of him.
It runs through the full tarot card set of arcana, from Fool to the Hanged Man, until it reveals itself to be Death.
You have never seen a Charm more devastating than the one that Nyx casts—Akihiko was ready to summon the healing Diarahan on Nyx—fucking Nyx, you stupid piece of arm muscle—before you throw yourself on him.
"Aki," you grind out, your right wrist binding his, bending his arm beyond the point of comfort—and the point of pleasure, actually. He hisses, eyes still pitch black like some bad rendition of vampires on television, turning to you in fury. "Aki," you repeat, much less ferociously, "Aki, Aki-babe, Aki-senpai, Icki-Aki-Bear," you try his various nicknames, ignoring the horrified look of Junpei's. Akihiko tries to bite you, his teeth reaching for that familiar place on your shoulder, right where the collarbone melts into your flesh. "Not now," you whisper to him, your breath blowing into the cavity of his ear, "later."
He shudders. A good sign.
"C'mon," you tell him, sinking your fingernails into the tender skin at the underside of his wrists, where his veins bulge in pale blue-green. He struggles, trying to break free, but upon the sight of your nails, painted bright red, garish almost, in the almost florescent white moonlight against his skin, the streak of paleness that never goes away no matter how much he stays in the skin, the nail tips so close to breaking open the floodgate of blood—this sight calms him.
"Mhm," he grunts, then collapses against you, his full weight bending your knees. "Later," he says, absentmindedly, and you're not sure if he knows what you promised.
Meanwhile, Mitsuru, clinging to the last sliver of life after the last Almighty blow, brings down Nyx's Moonless Gown again. Akihiko, eager to cast the shame of being Charmed aside, falls into step with Mitsuru seamlessly, the two pairing up with years of camaraderie at their backs, and deals what you would call his best attack this year.
Nyx falls limp. For a second, the team is filled with false hope.
"Did we—" before Mitsuru could even finish her question, the moon starts swallowing Nyx, and Nyx slowly drawls out what a pity it is.
You close your eyes, heave out a disgruntled growl, and sink to the floor.
When you open your eyes again, you are face to face with Igor once more.
"Do you hear the voices on Earth? The voices of your effort, each one powerless, faint, yet with so much potential?" he asks you, in his hand holding a white pool of light.
"Of course," you roll your eyes, "must we do this every time?"
"If we are going to do this," he chuckles, "then what good is doing it halfheartedly, hm?"
Well, you suppose, if a show is produced every night, the actors do say all the lines and the audience a standing ovation every time.
"This is the ultimate end, the destination of your journey, from which you are reborn, and into which you will be born. Death is joined by the Universe, and you, my dear guest, are the link."
He is subtly probing you. Bastard.
"Now you will go back," he continues, unfazed by what must be a feral look on your face. "Go back to Tartarus, and save the world."
You think you hear a faint 'again' before you face away.
-.-.-
You are on the moon. Or in it. Or close by it.
You are somewhere, and you reach out your hand resignedly.