Prologue: Living Is Not Breathing
"The time has come."
The world turns black, like an endless void. It becomes a void instantaneously, giving me no time to process what is happening, what kind of deal I have just struck. And I feel nothing. I should feel something, but I feel nothing. I do not know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I want more.
And then a black shadow rises up from behind me, rises from my back and the pain is excruciating but I remain still. My spine is being torn, my shoulder blades splitting apart down their middles and it hurts it hurts so much it's bleeding it's bleeding out red and bleeding out black and I can't make it stop, I can't make it stop, I don't want it to ever stop, I want it to keep on bleeding and hurting.
"Hypocrite that you are, you seek justice and cry for mercy yet consign yourself to evil."
My brain starts snapping, there's an unquenchable noise rummaging around in the corners of my mind. The noise is loud and it's making my head shake and I don't want it to stop. I don't want it to stop because it feels good, too good, too unbearable to reject or ignore or cover my ears at.
"Hedonist murderer, you shall be my perfect vessel. You shall not die, not unless thine brain or thine heart touches steel. You shall not writhe in the pain humans oft cry out from, for I shall steel thine veins. You shall not fear anything, for I shall walk with you in the valley of the dark."
So as the noise rises louder and louder and my body grows blacker and blacker, as my face deforms and conforms and cracks the bone of my skull yet not letting me feel pain at all, a steel mask cups my face. Allowing only my eyes to shine through.
"Give thine soul to me, my cavalier. Say mine name, if thou wishest to fulfill the pact and obtain the power to defend those you love."
But the pact has been made between myself and the monster in my own mind. The voice of humanity that treats me as nothing more than a whimper. There is a vile blackness in my heart borne out of my determination to protect those close to me, and if I must rend the faculties of my mind and my soul to achieve my goals, then so be it.
There is a great dragon rising up from the bowels of my own iniquity—and he speaks with my voice, speaks my words, says things I cannot comprehend, things that would destroy me if I were to say them with my own mortal tongue—every mouth on the right side of the creature's face is speaking blasphemies, and every mouth on the left side says a different name—some names I know, others I don't. It is twelve thousand bodies tall and walks like an elephant with sixty-six thousand pillar-legs. As the lightning strikes it, it roars in a painful mire of its own sin and hatred and arrogance, falling to Hell and blaming the Heavens for its horrible nature.
When I ask him his name, he says Yours.
And so I say her name. I say the name of the creature who has given me the power to harness the darkness, and use it for my own gain. Condemning myself to Hell, so that my love may have a chance to experience Heaven.
"Nyarlathotep."
- SECTION XI -
"I love you, so much."
I've returned to the world inside Kana's head.
Things are exactly the same as they'd been the last time I made a visit. The world is burning. People are running around and dying from nuclear hellfire. There is a creature that is too tall and too large for its own good, causing havoc upon the world. A creature representing how Kana Kohaku sees herself, in this tempestuous death world.
The creature turns its gigantic lumbering head, turns to me and sees me even though I see no eyes on its "head," it turns and locks its gaze with me and opens its mouth and I see the eyes again, see the eyes along the walls of its gums and see the decayed teeth and the blazing blue nuclear fires building growing spawning burning in its gullet.
As the towering monstrosity nears me, lurching absentmindedly as it does, its mouth opens wider and wider, because it recognizes me, it sees me as a man who has not been touched by the fires in its mouth. I stare it down because all I can think of is how I can obtain the Treasure, how I can destroy this monster, and how I can escape this place without dying.
So that I may see her again, see her for the last time. And part on good terms.
So I call the creature's name as black envelops my form, wraps around me like black splotches of living charcoal, I feel things unhinge. And the creature rears its ugly head at me and the fire burns ever brighter I am compelled to say her name, say the name of the creature inside of my mind, binding to my soul, forever and ever.
"Nyarlathotep."
I want this pain to rip me to shreds. And as a cloak forms around me, a black cloak ornamented with silver accents that all resembled spirals, black feathers tore out my back and rose high enough to scrape the heavens themselves; higher than any skyscraper, than any human construct could ever hope to achieve. The hem of the cloak then ties itself into my skin, into my muscles, into my nerves. I should be feeling pain, I should be screaming out in abject agony as I feel an abomination seep into my veins, but I feel nothing. I can feel the tendrils sinking into my skin, into my pores, into my ears, into my nostrils, into my nails, into every orifice of my body except for my eyes.
Every feather hanging from the wings on my back is sharp enough to carve through corundum and their wingspan seems to stretch all over the world. I will need these wings, because there is absolutely no way I will be able to conquer the nightmare before me from the ground up. And when the monster that Kana believes is herself continues blazing nuclear flame in its wide mouth, I take flight for the very first time.
And I am fine with this. If it saves Kana, I am fine with anything.
"Faceless God. Lend me thine strength."
No. I do not know what kind of mistake I have just made.
Goro Akechi and I are silent.
We are sitting across from each other, in the restaurant. He's called me over to tell me something, give me something important. Something he found at Kana's house, while investigating the circumstances behind her mother's sudden rampage. But though he has called me over, he hasn't said a single word. Neither have I. And we're both waiting for each other to dispel this terrible silence.
Eventually he does, after a few minutes. "I'm sorry for what happened," he says.
I'm staring at my hands again. They are still. They are not throbbing, not shaking, not twitching, they are just...still. His words barely register because for a moment I wonder if that's all he has to say, then I realize there was nothing more he could have said. So I just nod pitifully, biting my tongue with that dull feeling settling in my chest. He closes his eyes, grabbing a little knapsack he brought in with him and unzipping it. "I...thought it best to give you this," he says, carefully laying a red notebook on the table. Right in front of me.
I wearily ask him, "Hers...?" my voice wavering a little.
He nods. "There's only one entry. It was written in winter. Right before the end of your trial."
I am shaking now. I am afraid. I grab the book and hold it in my hands. I've never seen it before. Never knew she kept a journal. She never told me.
"She didn't want you to read it. She didn't want anyone to read it."
"Then why give it to me...?" I mutter weakly, closing the book and grasping it carefully.
"It will help you," he says. "Twice now...you've been affected by the string of mental shutdowns taking place all over Japan. Tokyo's been a hotspot for these shutdowns. We've been looking into them for months now, but we're still nowhere."
I nod shamefully, meekly telling him, "Thank you," as my fingers tighten around the book.
Goro nods. Then he gets up from his seat, "I'm happy to have helped you in whatever way I could have. If you need anything, feel free to give me a call." I nod again, to which he comes over to me, laying his hand on my shoulder. "She's still here. You still have her. What I told you still stands."
"Hold her...," I breathe, "and never let her go. We are all we have."
He nods at me. Then takes his leave, letting me stay in my seat in order to read Kana's last memento. But I get to reading the first page and the first sentence hits me like a train. And all at once the memories begin to flood back. Memories I'm trying so desperately to quell in my fragile little brain.
I walk out of the restaurant and then I get in the car. Yoshida drives me home and the drive home is long enough to make me read the single entry Kana's written in her journal.
It was winter when I met her. And it was winter I lost her. I tell Yoshida that he has to bring me to the hospital, he tells me I've gone there twice this past week. But he doesn't say it with a scolding tone; he's worried, not agitated. But I ask him what a third time could possibly mean anymore at this point, and he falls silent. He reroutes the vehicle, swerving into a u-turn, and we drive.
Her handwriting is as bad as I found it before. And what's in her journal is exactly what I expected her to write, considering everything that transpired before the trial. But that doesn't make it any less deadening. That doesn't make this any less painful. It makes it even more so.
We buried Masako with her grandfather, away from her grandmother, because it'd just be horrifying. Even if Kana's mother was victim to a mental shutdown, how could we bury her next to her killer? No, no Kana was her killer I was her killer I said it was okay because she was in pain. She was in pain and that made it all okay it made it all okay don't you see that? It—
—we were supposed to be okay.
I'm flying. Because I have to fly.
She is there, the monster that speaks with hers and Masako's voice is there and it's shambling, it's alive. It's breathing, it needs to crumble to nothing. My eyes scan it, my golden eyes looking all over. Looking for weak spots, scanning for anywhere I can deal any form of damage.
My goals are clear. Get the Treasure. Destroy the Shadow. Get out. Return home. I don't know what I'm doing, what I'm thinking, what I'm wanting and how much these will end me. I fly and though my eyes see no weak spots necessarily, there is one statement that blares in my head, saying psi psi psi.
The creature I'm manifesting now is telling me it has nothing, it is just a lowly thief with the power of darkness on its side, and so I decide that will have to do as something innate calls out to me and shouts "Eiha!"
The blast of black and red is like a torrent of black arms striking the creature on its side, causing it to roar in its pain. The blue light begins to flicker in its gargantuan mouth but it is not dead, though it has been damaged. The creature continues to shamble though torrents of red begin beating down from the spot where I hit it, down from the spot the darkness scorched it, and I know I'm making progress.
More. Hit it more. Make it bleed more. Steal the Treasure. The Treasure is inside the Palace. The Palace is the creature the Shadow Shadow Shadow Kana's Shadow kill it to take the Treasure!
But then as I'm telling myself these things I look at a large looming shape that resembles the creature's arm and it's casting a darkness on me as it's moving closer, closer, close enough to hit me and it's quick too quick too quick for me to even move and it has the force of twenty thousand eighteen-wheelers—
I am on the ground and I want to get up I need to get up I don't even feel any pain how am I not getting up. How am I not getting up. How am I even staying still, why can't I feel anything. Why. Why am I like this.
I lift my head up and I see my limbs. They are bent in all manner of directions and they are bleeding in ways that would render anyone else dead and dead and dead like I'm gonna be if I don't get up and find a doctor find anyone to fix me heal my wounds I don't wanna die I don't wanna die.
I have to see Kana. I have to see her. There's a world out there without her mother or her father or her daughter I'm all she has left and she's all I've ever had. Everything else, all the money, all the privilege, all my studies, none of them matter. None of them have ever mattered.
She's told me she's a curse, but she's a curse I'm willing to bear. She's told me she's a bad person, but if that's the case then if she's bad I don't wanna be good. I told her promised her meant it that I would never leave her for anything else in this whole wide world because she is mine.
The world is empty, nobody could die for it or anyone else in it, but for her dying would be the greatest gift I could give I realize. My life for hers. This would be a good death but not good enough because right now I have to live—
My wings are gone. My body, my clothes, I'm myself again. I'm wearing a white shirt with black pants the same white shirt and black pants I entered this place with where is the power I've been given where is my power the creature the monster Kana is right there.
She's standing over me, moving closer and closer and though she's slow the fire in her mouth is beginning to flicker blue again. Burning, burning, burning get up you little fool my arms my legs they can't move they're too broken to move I can't feel anything why can't I move—
Then I hear the cracking noise. Arms. They creak and crack and sound like rattles as they reform. My right arm and right bicep start piecing themselves together, a thousand little black arms all thinner than a blade of grass gathering them from my wounds and acting as living breathing organic stitches made out of black chaos. The pain is blaring through me now and I'm feeling it it's almost too much to bear like my body is being circumcised I grit my teeth and endure it and make myself feel all of it because it is what I deserve. As my other wounds begin healing and once my leg reforms I stand myself up and I glare at it I glare at the monster and I tell it it won't take Kana Kohaku away from me, tell it with my eyes, through the agony of my bones and through the grrrinding noises my unsightly body makes as it reforms itself.
And as the fire burns and my legs reassemble the creature in my head lets out a lovely whisper, tells me another name, whispers to me a name I can use in this battle while I heal, and my voice is no louder than a dry wheeze and the words come out with anticipation as I say, "Dweller in Darkness."
A black shade sweeps over my form as the fire flickers out in Kana's unsightly mouth. Something hideous is forming around me now, something gigantic and dark and withered and indescribable. Something with a tentacle in place of a head. It is large enough to reach upwards, reach with its giant arms, arms longer than three train cars and it is able to grab the mouth of the creature and face the fires head on.
I see through the blue flames and I can feel malignant tumors popping up all over my body just from the proximity of it; even though I'm shielded, even though there's a giant abominable body shrouding my own, I feel the burn and I feel the pain and it starts searing through my skin like I'm in Hiroshima, in Nagasaki—
Then I see it, see something golden something bright something flashing in my eyes. Way down in the creature's throat, down the esophagus, hanging from some odd growth that looks like a beehive made of corpses. And the golden thing I see triggers something in my brain, a single word that says Treasure Treasure Treasure Treasure.
So I say the first name again: "Faceless God!" because I need to get in there and get it with my bare hands but the blue light flares up again and it hits me like I'm right next to the bomb when it drops—
It was a mistake the moment I'd entered that world. It was a mistake the moment I had agreed to the conditions of the pact.
I have the Treasure. It's in my arms. It's inside a glowing orb-like object as big as a basketball, one I managed to procure right from the monster's esophagus before I was promptly ejected from the ensuing blast of radiation. And I don't know how, I don't know why, but I am still alive.
I'm making a mistake. And I don't even know it. I should be getting up and out of here right now. But I'm on the ground. I can't feel my legs. I can't even talk because there's a mass in my throat as big as a baseball and I can't breathe and my throat hurts and I can't feel anything but agony.
I have to kill it kill the thing it's coming closer its mouth is burning brighter again again again again burning like it's another Hiroshima, another Nagasaki, it'll fry me it'll make me into nothing make me melt I can't feel anything anymore I'm healing but will it be enough? I'm suffering but can't it ever stop? I'm still alive and my body'll fix itself but will it last just as long as I need it to?
Are you going to give in? a voice in my head asks me, hers. Nyarlathotep's, Your body shall heal, but we will not survive the next attack unless you run.
But I can't run I can't run. Kana, Masako, Dad, I can't do it. I thought I could but I can't. I'll die here and I'll die for nothing.
You will run. You must run. Or else you shall die. And you'll never see her again.
My legs—I turn to them and I see they're still painful the pain is still insurmountable and horrible and agonizing and I can't move move you stupid idiot—! You promised her! You promised you'd be there for her, promised you'd never leave her, everyone else she has is gone and you're the only one left the blue is burning burning get up GET UP GET UP!
"Megidola."
That one word. That is a word I will remember from now until the end of my life.
Something white and black and all manner of colors flashes in the air, right on the creature's mouth for less than half of a second—and then all I see is red. Like several waterfalls all spilling downwards at once, blood rushes down from the open maw of the creature as pieces of black and red and dark meat crashes to the ground. The creature howls out a sad, horrified, torturous wail that is loud enough to be heard on the other side of the universe. The creature staggers, tries to stand, its front legs trembling. The towering monstrosity lifts what's left of its head up one last time before it too crashes to the ground, kicking up rocks and dirt and clouds of dust higher than any skyscraper in all of Japan.
The impact is like ten thousand meteorites crashing into the planet as I struggle, the ground before me caving in and very nearly taking me into the dark void below but as I worry I end up realizing I am worrying over nothing. Physics does not seem to apply in this cognitive world, not as much as it should, not as much as it does in reality and for that I am extremely grateful.
I stare through the smoke, through the dark clouds filling the red skies. There is a lumbering, guttural noise that sounds like a lion purring as it dies of old age. The sound then turns cacophonic and screechy; imagine what kind of sound your throat would make if you were to try sucking in as much air as possible without having a lower jaw. And then imagine that noise being amplified by a million octaves.
There is a clattering noise and I turn to it. There is a black gun, and it is right next to me and it must have been dropped it must have been wielded carried by someone but who? Who?
And then I see him.
He is a tall, lanky figure who is a little taller than I am and he is standing over me. He is shrouded in a darkness that even I cannot see through and he is wearing an extremely large black helm that resembles a wolf's head. He is looking down upon me, gesturing to the gun, as though telling me to use it.
I mutter out a "Wh-what are you...?"
Then he simply turns away, walking with his hands in his pockets. I pull myself up to see him as he pulls out his own phone and in a flash of red and white and black vanishes from this plane of existence.
Then I hear another noise, a new noise. A noise that sounds like a million worms squirming through intestines as large as sewer pipes that stretch over a thousand miles. The noise just keeps on growing louder and it won't ever ever stop and I want it to stop, please make it stop, it sounds like a baby, it sounds like a baby.
The noise just keeps on going and going because there's something emerging from under the giant corpse something large and unspeakable. It is withered and it is crawling, covered in liquids that are red and white and transparent and it has boils on its flesh, boils all over it, lesions that won't ever heal and wounds that never ever seem to stop secreting pus. This new abomination looks like it's a thousand years old even though there is a tube as long as a thousand men stretching out from its belly all the way to the underside of Kana's monstrosity.
The new creature looks up at the black sky with its withered head. Its arms and breasts and knees are blackened with something that resembles ash but isn't and it looks like a skeleton. The creature is at least fifty feet tall and it's looking at the sky like I said earlier and it's wailing, crying, weeping,
Mhaaamma, Mhaaama, Mhaaamma, Mhaaama
So I take the gun and I fire at it.
It screams.
Black tendrils envelop the gun as I keep on firing, keep on hearing it scream.
It screams again and I don't want it to stop screaming.
I'm firing at both it and its mother and I won't ever stop until they're both dead. I don't want them to live. I don't want to see them. I don't want a single trace of them left in this world. The gun keeps on firing.
It's screaming and I'm screaming; Kana's screaming, howling lowly behind me. I won't ever stop pulling the trigger.
But I should. I should be leaving. I should be getting out of here. I've taken the Treasure. The change of heart will be triggered. If I just leave them alone, it'll all be over. But I don't think about this and I don't care. Just make them both die.
Before I am aware, the gun begins blazing. There is a white light emanating right at the muzzle and it's bright enough to very nearly blind me. But it is beautiful and my hand is trembling from the new weight of the power I've got right in my hands, as a female voice tells me to do it, to fire, to take every single aspect of myself and put them into this single bullet, to imbue it with all of my sins and all of my agonies and use it to finish off every single last monstrosity I see right before my eyes in one final Sinful—
"—Shell."
And I fire. And as I fire I hear laughter. And as I hear laughter I see the two abominations before me with holes as large as the world having run through them. And the two of them scream as something in them burns, something white-hot and beyond nuclear something that can kill entire worlds if left unchecked something that isn't divine, something unholy and horrific and something that'll condemn me surely if I ever use it again and the world is turning white and black and red and everything I need to get out I need to get out I need to escape
I must get up. I have to get up. I have to get out of here. My phone. I need my phone. Transport me get me out of here now I need you now—
Do You Wish to Leave the Palace?
Y/N
I am sitting in a chair. And across from me is her.
I do not deserve to even be here. I do not even deserve to be looking at her the way I'm looking at her now. She doesn't deserve to be in the hospital, in a bed, in a coma. But here we are. Thus is the way of the world. Should I be grateful that she is not dead? Should I be grateful worse didn't happen to her?
I am in a hospital, and it's a little after 4:00 PM.
Just thinking about it makes me shudder and as I shake in my impotence I see the pale skin around her eyes twitch a little. She's breathing steadily but for some reason I see it as though she's going to finally awaken, that she and I would get to live our lives the way she and I wanted us to live our lives. But, like her daughter's in days past, her eyes don't open and I am forced to accept that her breathing's the same as it's always been since she'd been admitted to this dismal place.
You'd think there'd be no point to any of this.
I'm sitting here, in a chair. Waiting for the hours to roll by and hoping for her to come alive again. A million I'm sure she wills passing through my brain and a billion I'm sure she won'ts beating all hope back down into the bottom. Distorted and loud and wailing, I hear something crying out from inside my head and I know how melodramatic that sounds but it doesn't matter because nothing else matters but her.
She has no parents, she has no friends, she has no one but me. She hasn't even the hope of waking up, so I'll hope for her. I'll pray for her. I'll demand she wake up. And I'll hold the whole universe ransom if I have to. Because no one deserves to have so little and no one deserves to be so helpless in this unjust world.
"You said if her Palace was destroyed she'd...she'd no longer think of herself as a curse...," I mutter out.
"I was right, wasn't I?" she laughs. I turn to her. She's standing over Kana's body and she's looking at me with her insufferable topaz eyes and she's chuckling, "As I am now, I'd find it hard to think about anything let alone have any opinions on myself."
"You didn't say what would happen if I destroyed her Shadow," I grunt out to her, scowling pitifully all the while.
"I told you all I needed to tell you. Take the Treasure, the change of heart will occur. You were the one who chose to destroy my Shadow."
"You're not Kana," I snarl as I rise up from my seat. "You, you told me you'd help me!"
"I did help you," she smiles. "I gave you power."
"You took her away from me," I growl at her. "If, if I had known, if I had known killing her Shadow would have led to this...none of this would have happened..."
"You wanted it, didn't you?" she laughs. "To destroy it."
"I didn't know...I didn't know this would..."
"Not like you really cared," she smiles, marching over to me. "So blinded you were by your desire to save her that you ended up destroying her. The irony is almost palpable."
"You should have told me!" I shout right in her face. But then I hold my head, whimpering almost, "You...you should have...I should have..."
"You wanted to save her," Nyarlathotep says. "Your love for me is genuine. I'm touched, honestly. When I saw you face my Shadow I found myself admiring you all the more, grateful I found for myself such a wonderful cavalier as you. So passionate, so driven, so...powerful. Indeed...you truly are a remarkable human."
I continue holding my head, unable to keep myself inside anymore. Unable to hold everything in. I am afraid. I am cold. Why can she not wake up? Why can't she be here, with me, awake again? We were supposed to say goodbye. "We were supposed to say goodbye...and now we...we can't...we can't even...," I get out of my seat, clutching at the bars of her bed. "God, somebody, anybody tell me."
Nyarlathotep is gone now. She is not here. She is not watching. She has left me here, to keep watch over the girl I love, the girl whose mind I ruined, the girl whom I had promised to protect and never ever leave. And the gun I used, the weapon I used to end her...was a weapon given by a monster in a black mask. A monster who knew of the power of Palaces and the Metaverse. A monster who sought my end, because I had slain his father like a dog in the streets.
I am slumped in my seat now, looking at Kana and looking at the window. The world is standing still. The snowflakes dotting the windows won't melt at all now. I haven't even the strength to weep or cry or break down. I hold Kana's hand. I hold her hand and I remember.
I remember returning to the real world after destroying her Shadow. I remember awakening back in my room. With her, in my bed. I remember wearing my regular clothes, all the wounds I had endured back when facing her Palace gone. And I was scared to wake her. I remembered being so frightened, remembered being scared that if I were to break her out of her sleep now I'd end up doing something wrong, end up breaking her like I ended up doing anyway in the end.
I remember seeing her eventually waking up and turning to me oh-so slowly. In the dead of night she turned to me and my eyes had already adjusted and I saw her and she was beautiful. So beautiful. She was staring at me, while I was right next to her. Wondering what she was thinking. She smiled at me and said her last words to me, before her eyes rolled into her head, before the black started seeping out before she started spasming and writhing and groaning and crying out like a demon was trying to come out of her and I was holding her—
I was holding her I was holding her I didn't want this to happen I called out her name and I begged her begged her Kana, Kana please "Kana please stop Kana! Kana—Kana, I—KANA—!" all I did was just call out her name and hold her I didn't know what was happening I didn't know what I did wrong I didn't know I wanted to know I wanted to know what I did wrong God what did I do!?
And do you know what she said to me? Do you know her last few words?
Do you know what she told me, right before she shut down and writhed like an animal?
"I love you, so much."
And that is why I cannot face the Wolf. That is why I cannot ever use the Metaverse ever again. That is why I cannot ever fight this kind of fight, not any longer.
I hear her voice in my head and it's not the creature, it's not the abomination, not the demon I've made a deal with it's her. It's her, it's her, it's her, it's her. She and I are outside, talking at the front gates of the school. I am shrugging her off and getting in the car. Then we're on the rooftop, where I deduce she has a child keeping her from doing well from her studies. Then I'm with Masako, playing with her, reading The Little Prince as Kana sleeps on the kotatsu.
Then she and I are playing Gun About while talking about society. She and I are on the train. I'm telling her I like her and she's inviting me to Destiny Land. I'm happy. Singing in the rain. A red eye is in my phone now. Then the red happens. Red. All of it red. His neck burst open from the side, carotid artery torn open. Bleeding out, my feet. Painful, drunk, blistering. My first victim.
Trial. Her at my back. Her at the end, holding my hands and not wanting me to go. Not wanting me to leave. But I do leave and I have to leave and I don't want to leave. She is lying on the ground and her baby is on the ground and her mother and her father are also lying on the ground and it's a massacre it's a massacre of unimaginable horror. She's dying and her baby's in pain but we have to get out.
I'm watching over Masako's little body being shut down for good this time. Shut down forever. Never once even knowing the ending of The Little Prince. She needed to wake up she had to wake up her mother was there, if she'd have lived she'd have had Kana for a mother and that's the highest gift anyone could've ever given a child like her but she's dead now. She's dead, and she's buried in a coffin that had no right being as small as it was.
I'm removing a small picture frame from my backpack, the one I brought along with me and I stare into it, I stare into it because I deserve to feel the agony I feel. I stare into it because I need a reminder. I need something staring at me, staring back at me every single day of my life to tell me that I can never ever go back to that world ever again for any reason.
The photograph in the frame shows a woman and a man in their thirties, their teenaged daughter smiling with both of her hands in a V for Victory sort of greeting to the camera. The woman is wearing a red scarf around her neck. She and the man have golden rings around their ring fingers as they're huddled up, having posed for the camera as well. The man is raising his hand up while giving a weak smile, the woman giving a V for Victory like her daughter. All three of them are in front of the gates of an amusement park called Destiny Land.
Tell me. How can I fight again?
How can I, with her Treasure staring me in the face?
Journal Entry 11/17/20XY
This will be the only entry in this journal I know it because I'm not much of a writer but I need to do something I need to spill it all out somewhere or I'll just break apart. I want to scream and keep on screaming because there's something in me, I can feel it, there's something in me and it wants to come out but it won't and I don't want it to. It is loud and it is enraged and it's scary and frightening because I see it in my dreams, when I do dream. I see it always and it tells me it'll take away everything close to me, and I know what it is because it speaks with my voice. Mine and Masako's.
It'll kill Masako someday. Mom too, perhaps. And I don't even want to think of what it could do to Akira if I let it loose. It's wrong and evil and I don't want it in my body I don't want it in my body I don't want it in my body but it won't ever leave won't ever go away and I need someone to help me get rid of it. I need someone to tell me I'm okay. But then again I know it'll be a lie, I know it's just something they'll say to make me feel calm because I'm so stupid I think it's better to keep silent than to actually say anything.
Akira's already in trouble because of me, because of it, I don't know. It says I'm a curse because I say I'm a curse and I'm inclined to believe it I want to believe it I need to believe it because otherwise all this pain that everyone's going through is happening for no reason at all. That's the worst part. I want to believe it doesn't exist because I want to believe I'm okay, but I know it has to exist because there has to be a reason for why I was almost raped why Akira is going to jail why Keiichi left me and Masako why everything always always goes wrong even when something right is supposed to happen.
Akira's been the second best person I've ever met in my life besides Masako. And I don't want him to leave. I don't want him to go. I don't want him to suffer not even for my sake because he's not a bad guy I thought he was when I met him, thought he was a cruel horrible selfish jerk but he's not. He's not and he doesn't care how good he is he doesn't even know he's a genius and he doesn't know.
Masako deserves a better mom than me. I'm poor I'm unhealthy I'm stupid and I'm selfish. I'll drag her down when she decides she wants to grow up and do something with her life and I know it. I should be there for her being the mom I'm supposed to be but I know I'll never make it past high school, I know I'll never make it to Tokyo U, I know that everything I've been doing up to this point has just been delaying the inevitable. What kind of life will Masako lead? What kind of life can I give her?
I'm a curse who drags everybody down to Hell along with me what can I do for my only daughter? I can't even read a book to her without her wandering off. I can't even be there for her when she's sick.
I'm sorry Masako. I'm sorry for being a bad mom. I'm sorry for never being able to be there for you. I'm sorry I can't stop you from crying when Akira's not around, I'm sorry you have to live in my house, my squalid shanty of a house that barely counts as a house, I'm sorry you were ever born in the first place and I know how that sounds I know dear God in Heaven I know how that sounds but I mean it because not everyone deserves to have a legacy not everyone deserves to be a mom.
I don't know why Akira says I'm good. He tells me these nice things and I know he means them and I don't want him to go to jail because of me I don't want him to suffer because of me I don't want him to lose a thing because I'm here I'd rather we break up than let him suffer just by being next to me. He's given everything for me because he thinks I'm someone special but I just want him to live.
I want to hide in a hole, forever.
author's notes:
And so the die has been cast.
Akira Kanzaki's journey is only beginning.
Here we have our protagonist: imbued with the powers of Nyarlathotep, he has wrought the greatest tragedy he could have ever wrought upon himself through one simple mistake. And this mistake shall remain with him for the rest of his days. Kana Kohaku will linger over him, linger in his dreams and in his mind for the rest of his life. And every time he will use the Metaverse, he will only recall what he has destroyed.
If I had to pick one of the Deadly Sins for Kana, it'd have to be Despair. And you know that Akira's now sharing her sin, too.
When I saw previews of Persona 5, when I became aware that the P5 MC's Ultimate Persona was Satanael and that he was basically brainwashing people into being good, I ended up thinking, "Well, of course, he'd have to be evil."
Though not even I knew what I would end up writing him as. Initially I thought of him to be a selfish, bloodthirsty jerk who would be willing to do whatever he deemed necessary to save others. But now he's just really, really sad.
This is the only path he can go. Thank you all for reading the story thus far. Tune in for next time, when the real story begins.