Beta'd by Crossovernaru
The fire danced, its swaying movements giving off an alluring feeling. The heat it produced felt both seductive and dangerous.
Ever encompassing.
Always hungry.
Never forgiving.
That's what Ann saw as her fire was unleashed towards the monster mockingly looking down at them from its toilet. Her blue eyes never wavered as the demon flinched, it's body revolting as the flames reached it and swallowed him whole.
An inhuman screech tore through the air.
Ever encompassing.
Always hungry.
Never forgiving.
This was her fire… this was her.
Her posture was stiff as she saw the demon fall down to the floor, covered in burns and screeching in pain. For the first time in her life… she felt empowered.
She felt all encompassing.
She felt hungry.
She felt unforgiving.
Nothing could stop her.
Nothing could stop the fire.
Nothing could stop her guilt…
Her fire wilted. They became sated—they became weak.
The demon noticed this and roared, the burning room suddenly growing cooler.
Ice began to overpower her fire. Her eyes remained focused on the enemy, her will trying to get the flames to heat up…
But it never happened. Her flames became weak as the demon rushed towards her.
The cool air felt invasive on her skin, like a hand groping her and making her weak.
She faltered.
The ice was nearly upon her as her body recoiled to the floor, her firm gaze moving away from the demon and towards—
Towards Kamoshida… the monster who had nearly raped her.
Her fire became ever encompassing.
Her fire became hungry.
Her fire became unforgiving.
And the guilt became like a sun.
The ice melted and the demon burned.
She turned away from the defeated enemy and towards the monster who had plagued her night with nightmares of a scenario of what if Shirou and Shiho hadn't arrived in time.
She snarled and the flames grew hotter.
The king could only squeak and backpaddle on all fours.
She took a step forward, but she was met with opposition before she could exact her revenge.
A mass of writhing and twitching tentacles jumped towards her, eagerly wanting to enrapture her within their disgusting grasp.
Her blue eyes focused on the limbs and a growl escaped her as she looked passed the dark tentacles and towards their master: the bug-eyed monster, Gilles.
Her fire burned even hotter as the mass of tentacles approached her, only to have their limbs utterly and completely bathed in her flames.
They should've been rendered to ash.
They should've ceased to exist through her fury.
But they persisted—like one bad nightmare.
The tentacles, now sizzling and bubbling lumps of flesh from the incredible heat continued to crawl towards her.
She only took a step back, her posture rigid as she readied herself to jump away from the danger and—
"Sforza!"
A voice that made her heart feel at ease and quell her fury called out to her. A bright light passed over her head as multiple white orbs collided with the tentacles, pushing them back.
The limbs recoiled from the blow, releasing horribly loud screeches that tore through the burning air past the roar of Ann's fire.
"All out attack!"
She looked back at the sound of the voice of Akira just in time to see five shadows dart above her. Once more she turned towards her front and saw the shadows come in and out, attacking the tentacles relentlessly.
Bouncing from all the surfaces with no restraint the tentacles were torn to pieces, reduced to nothing but a bloody mess that quickly burn to ashes from her flames.
She narrowed her eyes at the spectacle, until a single person dropped right in front of her—
"Ann!" Shiho's concerned voice and face made her heart melt, putting her more at ease.
"Shiho…"
Her words went unheard as she was pulled into a quick hug by her friend. She gasped at this, but she leaned in forward and took in her presence.
The fire danced.
The fire was alluring with its swaying. It's heat seductive and dangerous.
Ever encompassing.
Always hungry.
Never forgiving.
But…
It was safe.
Her fire cooled, but did not waver.
For once, her blazing fury dimmed as she let herself be consoled and wrapped in the arms of the one person she loved very deeply.
As long as Shiho was with her, safety and happiness would always be around the corner.
And she would keep that safety safe no matter what.
Nothing would stop her from doing just that.
Nothing.
.
.
.
.
"Alright! Look at that, you effin pervert! How do you like that!?"
Shirou landed beside the enthusiastic blonde as he continued to throw insult after insult towards the snarling Kamoshida. The dark trench coat wearing leader to his side grinned mockingly in amusement. The redhead looked around and noticed the flames dying out slowly. He turned his head back and saw both girls hugging among the chaos. He looked away from the tender moment and focused on the two enemies left standing.
"And that's that..." Akira took a step forward, his smirk widening as he adjusted his red gloves. "... Show's over."
"You arrogant peasant brats!" Kamoshida spat with an ugly snarl as he stood up with shaky legs, his skin red and aching from the heat. To the king's left, Gilles de Rais was kneeling as his body sizzled and bubbled from the burned injuries—yet his eyes were entirely focused on the two girls hugging, completely ignoring the fact that they were the only ones left to oppose the thieves or how badly hurt he was.
"My saint…"
"You're going down Kamoshida!" Ryuji growled as he pointed his yellow gloved hand at the king. "We're going to beat the shit out of you and steal your treasure!"
The king froze and raised an eyebrow. "What…?"
"Skull, you moron!" Morgana snapped as he jumped beside the redhead, his big eyes narrowing with displeasure. "Stop antagonizing the Palace Ruler so early on!"
"My treasure…?" Kamoshida sneered, his face red from rage. "You damn losers dare think you can steal my treasure!? Me!? The king!?"
There was shift that did not go unnoticed by the boys, a sickly pressure that screamed at them to move.
"What the…?" Akira trailed off as he looked around, the airs in the back of his neck stood straight as a bad feeling began to swell up in his stomach.
Morgana's eyes widened considerably as he felt the shift in the Palace. "Oh… oh this isn't good."
"You worthless losers! I'll have you all killed!" Kamoshida roared, his yellow eyes bright with hatred as he glared at the thieves. He turned towards his Servant and sneered. "Get up!"
Gilles turned towards the king with his bulged eyes. "My liege—?"
"I said get the fuck up Caster!"
Gillles pursed his lips as he stared at the maddened king. A soft sigh escaping his mouth as he stood up easily, as if his body was not injured. "AAA… I see, then the time for charades is over. What is your order, my Master?"
Ryuji gritted his teeth and turned towards Akira. "Hey, aren't they acting too serious all of a sudden?"
"What do you expect idiot!?" Morgana growled out with a small hop. "After so much commotion happening in the Palace, the Ruler is on high alert! That means that when you started mouthing off about stealing the treasure, you got the Shadows all flustered and ready to kick us out!"
"Oh shit! For real!?" The blonde male recoiled back and turned towards the Master and Servant duo who now stood side by side with their eyes set intently on them. "But we don't even know where the treasure is!"
"So…huh…" Shirou started as he looked at the rest of the team with uncertainty, not fully understanding the mechanics of the Palace yet. "Should we go and look for it now? Before getting kick out?"
"No." Akira said firmly. "That's not an option as of now. You and Takamaki will be getting tired after the awakening. We need to pull back and come for the treasure later."
Shirou looked at him, nodded and opened his mouth to respond—
"Pull back…?" The boys turned towards the king as he glared at them. "You damn peasants aren't escaping anywhere! I ain't letting you pieces of shit escape me! Caster!"
"Master?" The blasphemous being turned towards the king, his long face stony and awaiting for instructions. Kamoshida raised his left hand with a snarled, clenched into a fist until the room started flashing red.
"What the…?" Ryuji started as he stared at the scene in bewilderment. Behind him, Ann and Shiho had stopped comforting one another and turned to see the events unfolding before them.
"Obey me! Don't let anyone escape this castle!"
There was a sudden rush of power through the air—and in instance a red marking flashed on the king's raised hand. It was red and shaped like a rose divided into three portions of petals.
The thieves all looked in confusion at the sudden event.
"What was that!?" Morgana questioned with wide eyes. Ryuji turned towards him with incredulous eyes behind his skull mask.
"Are you for real!? What the hell are you confused about!?"
Kamoshida snarled at them and roared. "Caster! I want everyone who tries to escape to be killed or raped by your monsters! NOW!"
The room flashed red once more and the marking appeared again, but this time the right side portion of the petals had dimmed. The left side flashed and dimmed as well, only leaving the bottom side of the rose still glowing red.
The thieves all tensed.
"What's happening?" Shiho look around in confusion. Ann beside her sneered at the furious king.
"You're pathetic Kamoshida…you nothing but a loser who should burn!"
"Fuck you! Caster! Why aren't you obeying my orders!?"
Gilles looked up, his cold and empty bulged eyes focused on the thieves. He raised his human skinned book and let out a breath.
"OooOO—as you command of me, my Master."
As the words escaped the deranged Servant's mouth, the entire castle began to rumble violently. The debris and shards of the broken room began to shake uncontrollably. The chandeliers left hanging on the ceiling lighting up the room swayed erratically from left to right in a dizzying manner, their lights fizzling out and dropping from the violent seizure. Any art piece depicting Kamoshida that was left fell to the floor from the movement and shook along with the debris.
"Whoa—!" Ryuji grunted as he nearly fell to the floor, but caught himself in time by using the crowbar he used to fight as crutch. He gritted his teeth as he looked around with confused eyes.
"What the hell is happening!?" Akira dropped to his knees to keep himself from face faulting. His usual smirk had disappeared at the event and his hand instinctively went for his mask. Deep within him, Arsene's greed and urge for violence wanted to burst out at the sign of danger surrounding him.
"Is this normal….?" Shirou asked through bared teeth as he glared at the perfectly balanced Kamoshida and Gilles.
"No!" Morgana ground out, laid back on the floor after loosing his footing. He rolled so he could be on all fours. "This isn't normal at all—!"
His words were cut as at that moment, a wall of writhing and slimy tentacles appeared outside the castle. They rose slowly, hundreds upon hundreds swaying hypnotically behind the king and the Caster. The sky beyond the destroyed wall was darken by the mass of meat as they rouse up and covered anything beyond their horrific limbs. As they finished their show of appearance, they moved forward… like the ocean's waves moving in slow motion.
The thieves all froze at the sight of it, transfixed and in horrified awe at the spectacle…then—!
"RUN!"
Morgana's cracked howl snapped the teenagers out of their stupor and they turned towards him as he jumped and for the exit—away from the approaching tentacles. The human thieves could only watch as he ran off in bewilderment and surprise. The order to retreat barely registering as Morgana reached for a door on the opposite end of the approaching horrors, then he jumped, and kicked opened the door to escape for the hallway beyond.
"Did he seriously ju—!?" Ryuji started but cut himself off when he snapped his head back to the tentacles and saw them far too close for comfort. Like an avalanche they spilled all over the destroyed room at frightening speeds now, filling every inch as they spread everywhere—but taking careful consideration not to barrel both Kamoshida and Gilles.
The thieves wouldn't be so lucky.
"Shit! Book it!" Akira ordered now in full alert, turning tail, he ran after the thieves' feline companion. The others followed suit easily, running with their teeth bare and desperation to live as the spot they stood on was destroyed by the sea of writhing appendages.
Gilles watched them go with a frown, his eyes intently focused on the two girls. He reached with his free hand towards them until they disappeared through the door and outside of the room with the tentacles right in their heels. Kamoshida sneered in contempt and went to reach for his discarded and burnt cape underneath one of the tentacles.
"Damn brats…you'll fucking learn what it means to mess with me…!"
In the halls, the thieves ran for dear life. The teenagers all caught up to the much shorter Morgana who had stopped and waited for them with a scowl. Whatever he was about to say was cut off as the mass of writhing limbs destroyed the doors behind the thieves and filled the halls quickly, wishing to reach them and tear them apart.
Morgana turned around and ran alongside his team as they did the only thing they could—run as fast as they could.
"We need to get out of this place!" Shiho screamed as she looked back at the tentacles. She paled as she saw them grow closer and closer by the second. The sight of them giving her enough of a push to run even faster and ahead of the group.
Now following the thief in white, they took a right at the end of the hall—stumbling and crushing against the walls for the wide turn—and were met with a long corridor with ornate and colorful crystal windows, at the end of it was a tall white wooden door. Recuperating quickly they just let their legs move as fast as possible.
"What about the treasure!? Don't we need that!?" Ryuji screamed as he started to gain speed and pull ahead himself, he twisted back to look at the others.
"I don't think we have time to be worrying about that!" Shirou admonished as he too twisted his torso to look at the sea of meat behind them with dread.
"I'm going to make that perverted asshat pay for all of this shit! I swear to god—!" Ann furiously ranted, her tolerance for the day already at an all-time low.
If the other thieves were going to say something, it would be kept to themselves as ahead of them several of the ornate windows exploded violently. The shards of glass flying everywhere, making the thieves recoil, stopping their sprint and unconsciously cover their faces as the shards reached them. Shirou let his arms drop, noticing the shards embedded on his skin and the blood tickling down—his attention for his injuries went forgotten as even more tentacles poured in, filling the corridor ahead of them like waves spiraling out of control and heading for them.
"Are you shitting me!" Ryuji's not so subtle cry describing perfectly what they felt.
"What do we do!?" Shirou asked as he looked back and forth towards both approaching dead ends intending to crush them.
"Fight!" Akira cried out as he tore his mask off and Arsene burst to life above him with blue flames surrounding him and his black wings flapping in agitation. He turned towards Shiho. "Tiger! Use Sforza's bless attack to knock this things off balance now!"
"Understood Joker! Let's go!" Shiho responded quickly as she tore her own mask and had her Persona appear behind her, the tiger on Sforza's shoulder roared. Her Persona spun around and multiple spheres of lights were fired erratically. The ball of lights hit the mass of meat closing on them, exploding and causing the tentacles to recoil back from the strikes.
This was what the team needed as the horrors hit by Sforza's attacks lashed out in pain and retreated back in such a violent manner that they tore the corridor's walls and the other limbs beside them to pieces. It was enough to give the thieves the time they needed for their counter strike…
But it was also a very nauseating spectacle of gore and blood.
"Way to go Tiger! Very nice!" Morgana crowd as he ready his sword with a vicious grin.
"Whoa…!" Shirou looked in awe at Sforza before looking down at Shiho. Ann ripped her own mask off and gritted her teeth.
"Let's go Carmen! We can't let Shiho carry the burdens of others by herself anymore!" Carmen eyes flashed, snarling as she chomped on the cigar on her mouth. She twisted her body and sent a wave of fire towards the recoiling tentacles that had been following them and letting her fury burn them down.
Akira nodded at the fireworks. "Don't stand there! Let's get this show started!"
"Hell yeah!" Ryuji grin as his mask was ripped off and Captain Kidd was unleashed. Both him and Arsene began their assaults on the other side.
The gentleman thieve in red flew through the air, twisting its body to unleashed a devastating round house kick with his bladed heels. The red thief chuckled as the limbs recoiled at being cut, he spread his arms wide and black power was gathered in them, he unleashed the curse energy with gleeful and mocking laughter. Captain Kidd smirked viciously as he sailed with his ship at high speeds, pointed his cannon hand forward and let loose a torrent of lightning that had the recovering tentacles shocked—not even a second later they were rammed through.
Morgana watched the spectacle with gleeful eyes and jumped beside Ann, letting Zorro appear.
"Allow me Lady Ann!" The gentlemanly Persona swung it's blade in 'Z' pattern and powerful currents of winds were unleashed towards the burning tentacles, fanning the flames even more and pushing them even further back and burning even more of the tentacles.
Lightning, curse, bless, fire and wind were unleashed with powerful and determined cries. Each and every attack pushing the opposition back with the full fury that their rebel souls could muster. Shirou just stood in the middle of this onslaught and watched it all with awe.
"Incredible…!"
"Hey!" Ryuji called out and made the redhead turned towards him. Ryuji squinted an eye out at him. "What the hell are you doing standing there for, come on man! Help out!"
Shirou blinked behind his iron helm, blushed slightly as burning sensation of shame filled him.
"I—!" His response was immediately cut as the windows beside the group exploded into hundreds of shards of glass, each one falling dangerously and cutting the thieves up—but they ignored the pain and discomfort as an ocean of tentacles fell over their heads.
The thieves froze and all looked up with wide eyes at their impending deaths.
"Cra—!" Akira started to curse, his eyes focused on the writhing limbs dropping in and ready to crush them beneath their overwhelming weight. All the Personas move to turned and defeat the new problem…
But it was too late—
There was nothing that could be done.
Except—!
"Trace—!" Shirou's hands moved, as in one fluid move he ripped his black iron mask off, showing off his determined and cooled glare. Mordred burst to life and was already on the move. Fire burned the air surrounding the knight as it swung its blade towards the falling wall of limbs with all of his might and made them recoiled back with overwhelming physical might. Mordred reached with his free hand towards the spear in his chest and ripped it off—showering Shirou in fire as he jumped up with both hands open.
"ON!"
His empty hands were filled with metal and he swung with reckless abandon. The swords cut through and rendered seven tentacles useless and falling helplessly down to the void below as Shirou advanced forward and—
His instinct screamed at him to swing to his right and he did, Bakuya lightened up the corridor in its arc and cut the dozens of sneaking tentacles with a single swing. Shirou let the blade fly out of his hand, allowing it to continue with its mayhem. Behind him more of the limbs attempted to grab him and tear him to pieces—but this was not meant to be as the redhead twisted his body, dodging the incoming limbs and cutting them with Kanshou. Once more he let the sword slip through his fingers, cutting any tentacle attempting to sneak in and attack his team.
The wall of tentacles recovered from Mordred's parry and moved in, before Shirou had time to recover his body was captured by the tentacles. All of the limbs move to entrap him into a cocoon and crush him until there was nothing but a mangled corpse.
"Shir—!" An alarm Shiho screamed as she watched this, her Persona still on the move to her after the surprise attack. Sforza glared ready to unleash an attack and free the redhead, but—
An explosion of gore and blood ensued as Shirou, now once more carrying Kanshou and Bakuya spun erratically and freed himself. He moved forward, towards the opposing wall of tentacles and threw both swords. Kanshou and Bakuya moved flawlessly through the air, cutting and slicing anything in their way as the limbs attempted to get close to him. But their efforts where in vain as the appendages were rendered either useless or too short to do anything.
Shirou was now in midair and out of the corridor facing the shortening ocean of tentacles. The limbs realizing the danger all shot forward, like a hand trying to grab him and squeeze him to death. The redhead clicked his tongue as his glared with his golden-brown eyes at the tentacled hand closing in on him.
"This is getting repetitive!" At Shirou's cry, Kanshou and Bakuya appeared once more in his hand and he cut and sliced at anything that threatened to get too close. A single tentacle managed to sneak by his wall of slashes and speared for his back.
It never reached, Mordred joined its user and began slashing with its large blade. So they danced in the mayhem, keeping themselves from falling by using the same tentacles they attacked as footholds.
"Holy shit…!" Ryuji trailed off as he watched the spectacle.
Akira turned away from the show and smirked, he noticed that both dead ends were closing in on them far too quickly for his liking. He turned towards his team. "People!"
"What do we do Joker!?" Morgana asked as he jumped back alongside Shiho and Ann, tightening themselves into a small circle with their Personas acting as vanguards.
"Let's go outside and help out Shirou." Akira pointed out with a thumb towards the still fighting redhead. "We can't stay inside anymore, we need space."
"Whoa! You want us jumping off the castle!?" Ryuji asked in disbelief.
"No you moron!" Morgana spat as he jumped, landed on the blonde male's face and jumped off. Ignoring the sputtering and startled Ryuji, the cat landed on a cut tentacle as Zorro disappeared and turned towards the rest of the team still inside of the corridor. "We'll scale up the castle!"
After saying this, he jumped up and disappear from their view. Before Ryuji had the chance to retort in anger at having his face stomped on, Shiho took the initiative and followed after the cat.
"Come on!" She encouraged as she jumped as well, her Persona returning back to her face as a mask. Ann glared at the tentacles approaching, wanting more than anything to let her anger run wild—but even she started to realize the signs of fatigue building within her. She moved away from the potential battle, Carmen returning to her as her mask and jumped away as well.
Akira gestured for Ryuji to move on, the blonde grumbled and jumped towards a cut tentacle with Captain Kidd disappearing. The dark trench coat thief nodded and jumped just in time before he was crushed by the tentacles in the corridor. Arsene followed him as he landed on a limb and looked at the redhead.
"Shirou!" His shout caught the sword wielding teen off guard and made him look up from his offensive. Breathing hard and sweating profusely, he let out a startled yelped as he fell when he missed a step to keep himself in the air. "Damn! Arsene go!"
The red gentleman thief flew for Shirou at high speeds, the redhead gritted his teeth as he noted more and more tentacles appearing from below, all on the move to grab and kill him. He got ready to keep cutting—
White spheres passed by him, impacting the tentacles, making them recoil back. He looked up towards Shiho, who was holding on to the side of the castle with her Persona out. He grinned slightly at that, before his vision was obscure by Arsene, who grabbed his forearms with his sharpened hands, twisted and threw him up towards Akira who was waiting with a hand out to grab him while he leaned off a nearby ledge on the castle's walls.
Shirou let the sword fall from his grasp and grabbed the dark haired teen's hand, and with surprising strength pulled him towards the ledge. The redhead breathed deeply as his and Akira's mask returned to their faces. The two turned towards each other and Akira smirked.
"Didn't you just awaken? You're pulling some pretty fancy stunts here, you know?"
Shirou shrugged. "We've made it this far… I'm not going to let something as stupid as fatigue get us kill…"
"Guys come on!" Shiho's voice forced them to look up as the rest of the thieves were waiting for them.
Akira chuckled and looked at him. "Let's not keep them waiting then. We've made it this far… we can make it even further."
Shirou nodded and jumped up, followed by Akira as they left the severed tentacles twitching and lashing out violently behind them. Like dark shadows, the thieves climbed on the walls of the castle—away from the horrific limbs that attacked them. They stopped by a ledge, only one floor below the castle's roof to look down at the insanity below.
Everything had changed, instead of the abnormal castle that had greeted the thieves, it had become a nightmare of never ending movements—dark, slimy and writhing tentacles poured out of the castle's moat and sewers. The water becoming dark as the moving limbs climbed up in an endless hurl, enveloping the structures walls and spiraling up like a flower blossoming in reverse.
It was a disgusting and dispiriting sight.
"What the fuck…?" Ryuji cursed unconsciously as he looked disturbed by the sight below him.
"This is worse than I thought…" Morgana started. "I knew Servants had some level of control over Palaces…but this is much worse than what I could have ever imagined."
Everyone turned towards the cat, as Akira asked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that a Palace experiencing this much change in cognition is way too extreme! Who knows what this could cause in reality! For all we know Kamoshida can be dying back in the real world."
"Good riddance if you ask me." Ann callously said as she glared spitefully at the rising tentacles. Shiho looked at her and placed a hand on her arm.
"Goddamn…she's pissed off…" Ryuji muttered as he pulled on his red scarf. Shirou looked at the blonde, then focused on Morgana.
"So what now? You guys were planning on stealing the treasure before we messed everything up…so we pull back?"
The cat nodded with a serious expression. "Yeah, that's for the best."
"How!?" Ryuji's incredulous cry made everyone turned towards him. He gestured towards the entrance. "Look at that! We can' even get there at all! I bet we can't even use that hole we always use to sneak into this freaky place!"
"You're right, but…" Akira's calm voice made the blonde boy scratched the back of his head irritatingly. The dark haired teen gestured towards the wooden bridge connecting the castle's entrance and the street that lead towards the school, which was free from any influence of the tentacles. "If we can get to the bridge, we can jump out of the Palace."
"Wait, for real!?" Morgana groaned at Ryuji's disbelieving tone.
"This Palace stuff really gets way over my head…" Ann shook her head and winced, Shiho noticed this.
"Ann, are you okay?"
The blonde girl nodded. "Yeah… I'm just getting tired…"
Shiho frowned behind her mask and turned towards the silent Shirou, who's black iron face stared down below at the tentacles as they hugged the walls, pouring in through the windows and roused up like water in a cup. "Shirou-kun…!"
"Huh?" The redhead turned away from the spectacle to look at the girl.
"You must be feeling tired too, right? I guess you were the first one to awaken to your Persona, so you must be exhausted."
Shirou waved her off and smiled slightly. "Don't worry about me, really its no big deal."
"We should be worrying, idiot." Morgana cut in scathingly as he looked at the redhead with narrowed eyes. "Awakenings are incredibly tiresome. You pushing yourself more and more is only going to lead to you getting yourself kill."
"Then let's get out of here." Akira said with finality, everyone turned towards him as he put his right hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. "Let's try and find a safe room and use the App to transport ourselves to the entrance."
"Huh?" Ryuji crossed his arms and squinted his eyes. "You think that'll work? We kinda used it to go to the safe room we found to bust Suzui, Takamaki and Emiya out the first time, but you think we can use it like that?"
"I don't see why not." Akira said as he pocketed the phone. Morgana jumped up in agitation.
"You don't see why not!?" The feline thieve grabbed his big head with his paws and shook it. "How about all the stuff the Servant's doing!? How about when Kamoshida said that no one leaves the castle went into complete chaos!"
At that, the thieves got silent and look at each other. Shirou scratched his left cheek in discomfort.
"It's best we try and find that safe room first and see what we can and can't do."
Shiho nodded, she looked at Ann and helped her steady her footing. "Seems like a plan to me."
"The let's go." Akira said and looked at Morgana. "You think you can navigate us through the path of less resistance?"
"I'll see what I can do, because right now my smell is all messed up…though…" He took a few sniffs at the air and the cat jumped ahead of the team. He darted up until he was holding onto a set of railings and looked at a large tower with thorns adorning the very top of the structure. "I can definitely smell the treasure!"
Akira just shook his head and jumped to catch up to Morgana, the rest following after him. "Let's worry about that later!"
With that the team moved further up and away from the encroaching tentacles. They landed on the castle's roof, looked at the large tower that Morgana was pointedly looking at and—!
"H-Hey! What's the big deal you jerk!"
The team froze and let their eyes set on the scene before them. Hundreds of the monsters that Gilles summoned were everywhere, eating and battling the Shadows that resided over the castle. All the Shadows, differentiating in size and forms as they had shed their knight forms to fight to their fullest potential, fought with all their might against the never ending hoard of horrors. More and more massive tentacles broke through the walls greedily as they went for the many Shadows.
But it wasn't enough.
"Shit! Even all those guys are getting screwed over!" Ryuji growled, Shirou's hands were filled with his blades and he looked towards Akira.
"Where's the safe room?" Akira narrowed his eyes at the question as he observed the battlefield.
"I don't know…but I guess we'll have to find out by crossin—!" His words were interrupted as the castle trembled violently and behind them the floor exploded into ruble. The thieves flinched and looked back just in time to see a swarm of twitching limbs reach for them—
Shirou reacted quickly, his black and white blades moving at breakneck speeds and cutting the first wave of tentacles. As the blood and limbs fell down, more and more of horrors poured forward.
"Damn it! Carmen!" The blonde teenager roar, her red mask ripped off to let her Persona manifest and unleashed a wave of fire towards the approaching limbs.
"It's not enough!" Shiho yelled as the tentacles went through the fire and tried to reached for Ann who recoiled back—only to be quickly tackled by Ryuji.
"Got ya!" He grinned as the girl looked at him with surprise and then back towards the limbs that came in waves and quickly started to fill the roof. The blonde male thief cursed as he noticed that only he, Ann and Shiho were around. "Hey! Is everyone okay!?"
"We're fine!" Morgana shouted at him as he, Akira and Shirou jumped back to avoid a stray tentacle that nearly flattened them down. Shirou clicked his tongue and looked around frantically at the chaos. He saw crates that were stacked atop each other and were high enough to reach the high railings.
"Guys!" The redhead's voice made the thieves pay attention closely. "Get to higher ground! The railings!"
"You hear that Skull!?" Akira asked as he prepped himself for a jump.
"You got it man! Let's do this!"
With that the thieves quickly moved, getting to higher ground as the roof was fully engulfed and the fighting Shadows were crushed, ripped apart or swallowed by the tentacles and taken high to the distorted skies.
On the railings, the three male members of the team ran with careful footing to avoid falling. Shirou was on the lead with Morgana and Akira following respectively. The monsters noticed their prey on higher grounds and let out screeches as went on the move.
"We got trouble!" Morgana's warning made the two boys notice the fast approaching limbs. Gritting his teeth, Shirou ripped his mask off and allowing Mordred to appear. Already on the attack, the burning knight quickly slashed the limbs off, batting away the lifeless remains. The redhead readied himself to attack the rest of the appendages, but—
"Shirou watch—!" Akira's warning was cut short and forgotten as the redhead was quickly grabbed by one of the tentacles through his left ankle. He was lifted, letting out a surprise cry, he nearly dropped his blades as he was swung upward towards the sky.
"Whoaa!" Shirou screamed, his vision spinning as the tentacle manhandled him. He was brought to a stop in a very high altitude, looking around frantically he caught sight of Akira and Morgan looking at him with concern. His eyes went wide as he caught sight of the aquatic creatures sneaking behind them, he let out a cry of warning that never reached them as the railing they were standing on was destroyed by the swarm of tentacles and monsters. "No—!"
His grunt was cut short as another tentacle grabbed a hold of his neck. The air got stuck in his lungs as the disgusting flesh tightened up, then it started to pull while the limb around his leg did the same towards the opposite direction. His eyes widened at what was happening and his teeth were bared in frustration and desperation as he moved to free himself—!
"Captain Kidd!"
"Sforza!"
"Carmen!"
Light spheres mercilessly struck the tentacles attempting to rip him in two, forcing them to release him as they violently thrashed about in pain. The two flinching limbs were then embroiled in bursts of lighting and fire. He looked down towards the opposite side of where he and the rest were running and saw Shiho, Ann and Ryuji all jumping on top of the tentacles to avoid getting caught as they moved upward with each hop.
"Dude! Grab on to something!" Ryuji screamed as Shirou passed them in his fall.
"Shirou!" Shiho cried as she tried to dive for him, but—
"Zorro!" A gust of wind pushed him towards a tentacle that was on hot pursuit for Ryuji, Ann and Shiho. As the redhead was pushed, he caught sight of Morgana passing right before him and his gentlemanly Persona using his big and hulky arms to grab and then throw him towards one of the tentacles. Shirou landed swiftly, catching his bearings just as quickly as possible.
"Let's go!" Akira ordered with Arsene flying right beside him, using its bladed stiletto to cut any of the limbs that dared to approach him.
"We can get to the top of that tower!" Morgana pointed out as he reached Ryuji and took the lead. "If the treasure is up there, then there's most definitely a safe room too!"
"Are you sure!?" Ann question as she hurriedly jumped off the tentacle she jumped to as it tried to ensnare itself around her. Morgana just continued with his jumping and didn't look at her.
"Maybe!"
"Goddamn it man!" Ryuji growled out, ready to deliver another round of verbal assaults. His words were caught up in his throat as the tower they were trying to reach was quickly being enveloped with hundreds of tentacles all coming from below.
"Shit, what the hell!?" Akira cursed at the sight before.
"Fuck! Why are these things so disgusting!?" Ann moaned in distaste as they neared the tower with their hops.
As the tower was being enveloped, the tentacles started bulging. In between each limb the mouths of the aquatic creatures emerged. The tower, now completely covered by tentacles and gaping mouths all around the structure, met the eyes of the thieves. Before any of them could react at the disgusting sight, the mouths closed, swelled up as they swallowed and then opened up as hundreds of them released a gooey black substance directly towards the thieves .
"Whoa!" Morgana who was leading the charge jumped in between a crack of the wall of the slimy substance. The others tried to followed suit, but their bigger frames and slower reactions had them all get caught by the creatures black spit.
"KYAAH!"
"DAMN—!?"
"Shit! FUCK—!"
"GAH!"
"HRGK!"
The human thieves all howled in pain as most of their limbs and torsos were hit and burned. They fell down, Morgana watched from above as he hopped over another limb to stay on the move and desperately attempted to come with a plan to save them.
Shirou looked down at his exposed arms, as they fell forward toward the tower, and saw them sizzling and disfiguring as the wet slime burned like acid. He grimaced as he saw his right leg and most of the left side of his body armor following suit. He let his eyes wonder to the rest of his team and saw them in the same state as him. His eyes focused back on the tower and saw the greedy monster's mouths widening to swallow them and rip them to shreds.
Shirou's eyes flashed in anger as he ripped the iron helm off his face with a growl. Mordred appeared behind him, ripping the spear out of its chest with a violent tug and letting out a burning roar as he and his power of rebellion plunged forwards.
"What is he…?" Akira question with a grimaced as his dark trench coat burned. He focused on the burning knight as it held its sword, ready for a powerful swing and spear to thrust forward. Shirou himself held his two swords over his head he plummeted faster than the rest for the side of the tower and—
"SKULL!"
Ryuji, still grimacing in pain, looked at the dark hair thief who pointed hurriedly towards Shirou. The blonde understood quickly and ripped his mask. "Bash their heads in Cap'n!"
The pirate Persona burst into motion at ramming speeds, reaching the redhead just in time to help with his efforts.
What followed next was a giant explosion of gore and debris. It was an impressive display of power by the redhead, but it also proved to be a disgusting spectacle as flayed, burnt and severed monster flesh flew through the air alongside the dust of the destroyed wall. Dark blood fell down easily from the damaged creatures and tentacles like rain.
The falling thieves braced themselves as they fell through the hole made by the redhead and crashed. Their bodies tumbling and rolling awkwardly, as the pointy debris and shattered monster teeth dug into them. They howled and grunted, while a scream escaped Ann's mouth as she crashed head first into the stone wall. Ryuji nearly knocked himself out as the leg that had been broken in the real word impacted a column violently.
Finally their descent stopped and they were on the floor, bloodied and beaten—but not out yet.
"Oh… my god… I hate this place…" Ann cursed in a dizzy manner. Shiho tried to stand up, her body badly hurt and her white outfit now stained red.
"This was… a lot worse than I thought…"
"Guys!" The teenagers all turned to see Morgana run towards them. The cat's big blue eyes went wide in shock at the sight of them. "Oh hell! Zorro! Heal them!"
His Persona manifested and started healing Ann first as she was the closest to him, though, much slower than normal.
Akira got to his feet, his face scrunching up in pain. He slumped forward, hands on his knees to steady himself and observed the fallen group. He heard crunching steps behind him and turned towards Shirou who used the wall to keep himself on his feet. The redhead turned towards him and grimaced as he looked down at his right arm.
"Shirou…" The dark leader gasped out as he stared at the awkwardly bent arm. The redhead could only growl in response as words failed him due to the pain.
"S-Shit man…" Ryuji hopped with one leg towards them and fell down on his butt with groan. He turned towards Shirou and gave him a pained grin. "I know how much it hurts having broken bones man."
"Gah…" Shirou only winced and took a shaky breath. Morgana grimaced as he stared at the redhead, he jumped when a firm hand took a hold of his paws and forced him to look at Ann who got her knees. She looked somewhat healed as she gave him a firm nod.
"Go and take care of him."
"Lady Ann…" The cat stared at her in awe, he shook his head and nodded with a resolute gaze. He ran towards Shirou and had Zorro perform his healing on him. He looked up at the redhead. "You're pretty badly hurt…so I don't think I can heal you completely, I'm already pretty beat from that freak. I want to save enough stamina to heal up the rest…at least enough to move on."
"It's fine…" Shirou assure the feline as he took a deep breath and felt his body start to mend together. "Just get my arm fixed up…"
Shiho wobbled slightly with each step she took until she landed on the floor beside Ryuji with a huff. She looked at Shirou with worry. "What were you thinking when you did that!? Look at what you did to yourself!"
The redhead avoided her gaze. "I… I really wasn't thinking at all…"
"Well you should've." Akira admonished. "Not thinking seems to be Skull's shtick."
"Humph, ass…" Ryuji smirked at the words. Morgana stepped away from the redhead and nodded at his handiwork.
"You seem good enough for now." He then moved on towards Ryuji. "Let's get you hea—!"
A violent tremor cut the thieve off and the hole made by Shirou was filled with monsters and tentacles. Slime and screeches all directed at the surprise thieves as the adrenaline suddenly pumped in.
"Wha—shit! When is it going to stop!?" Ann nearly screeched. The injured thieves got to their feet, but Ryuji quickly fell face first thanks to the injured leg.
"Shit…! Not this again…" He cursed as he tried to get back to his, but failed. Akira moved in to help him, but his own unhealed injuries proved too difficult to do. He cursed under his breath and rounded on Shirou who had his swords in hands once more and was ready to face off against the monstrosity brought forth by the Servant.
"Shirou!" His shout caught the redhead's attention as he turned his head towards him. "Forget fighting! Help Ryuji!"
"Got it!" He trew his swords towards the mass of tentacles carelessly and made his way towards the fallen blond. He quickly grabbed him and hoisted him up on his shoulder. He turned towards Akira who was already moving forward, with wobbly legs, yet his steps did not fail him.
"Lady Ann do you need—!?" Morgana's concern question went ignored as the blonde girl helped Shiho up to her feet. The dark hair girl put her arm around Ann's shoulder and started running.
"Just tell us where the safe room is already!"
"I'm trying, I'm trying Lady Ann!" Morgana shouted as he ran forward and erratically looked around. He froze. "I think… I think I feel something like safe room nearby!"
"Then lets run for it!" Shiho shouted as they move quickly, the sea of tentacles hot on their heels.
Shirou, pushing his own body to the limit, went ahead, carrying Ryuji he saw that the entire room beginning to shift and changed in bizarre ways. With the floor pulling itself up and down, revealing a wet oily substance running on the walls and floors. The statues of female students bust and butts eerily turning towards them as if to show off their bodies.
It was all eerie and infuriating, but there was no time to let the emotion settle in. As the limbs and monsters behind them chased them with fervor.
"The safe room is beyond that door!" Morgana's scream made every thief run for their lives as their hearts were fueled with hope and great desire to escape.
Shirou gritted his teeth as he saw a door in the way of their escape. He skidded to a stop, raised his right foot up and kicked the door open with all his might. He felt Ryuji tightening his hold over him and hear him muttering something along the lines of him having a good kick. He pulled forward and—
"Grah!"
"Gyah—!"
Both teenagers were swatted away by a tentacle into one of the statues of female's torso, crashing into it. Both boys slid down with pained grunts.
"Shirou, Ryuji!" The concerned cries of their teammates made them look up despite the pain. Shirou shook his head as he stood shakily and glared at the opposition.
"You…"
"Kamoshdia!" Ann growled as she stared at the king, who glared at them and Gilles who stood beside the Palace Ruler. Tentacles and the lovecraftian creatures all filled the room twitching and screaming, but not moving to attack. Many of the tentacles had Shadows in their grasps. All of which were fighting to try and set themselves free. But it was to no avail—such was the power of the Servant.
Behind the king was a transparent door.
"The safe room!" Morgana hissed as he glared at Kamoshida.
"You're not getting away." The king sneered at them.
Shirou helped Ryuji to his feet and tried to make his way towards the team. The other thieves, seeing what the redhead was attempting to do met him halfway and united up. Being together was much preferable than being separated now that the odds were against them. Kamoshida and Gilles's gaze never broke from their forms as they moved.
Akira stepped forward, despite his injuries he grasped his mask and smirked mockingly.
"We're not listening to a third rate loser like you, so out of the way."
The king of the castle let out a strangled scream at the words. The already tense atmosphere became heavier and suffocating. The tentacles and screeching monsters ceased their movements as the room fluctuated red. The deranged Caster looked towards his Master in surprise as he shook—Gilles took a step back as he looked on.
"OOOooo…such fury…"
Kamoshida looked at the thieves and grinned, his eyes went wide.
"Hehehe…third rate loser huh…? I'll show you just how wrong you are to doubt the king!" His body began to distort. The temperature began to rise up as an uncomfortable heat escaped the kings twitching body until he was obscure by steam. "You fucking brats…I ain't letting you sleep tonight!"
As the words reached the ears of the thieves, from the steam a long and salivating purple tongue was whipped towards them at great speeds from above. The team barely had any time to gasp in surprise as they all jump to the side and avoided getting flattened.
"Crap! Shit—!" Ryuji cursed, with a snarl as his injured leg hit the floor. He looked up and froze as from the steam a large pink demon with multiple arms and legs came rushing towards him. "What the h—!?"
Ryuji's words were cut off as he was tackled out of the way by both Akira and Shiho. All three teenagers rolled through the floor as the wall behind them was destroyed by the pink demon. Akira got to his feet in mid-roll and stood beside Shirou who had jumped back in time. On the floor both Ryuji and Shiho stopped their stumbling and were shaking their heads to get rid of the dizziness.
"What is that thing?" Shirou asked incredulously as the smoked clear to reveal the demon that had charged at them.
"No way…" Shiho breathed out as she watched the familiar cape, crown and curly hair from the wide eyed pink demon.
"You better believe you no-good pieces of shit." The now transformed Kamoshida snarled disgustingly as his tongue swayed from left to right erratically, causing globs of saliva to spill onto the damaged floor. He stabbed a golden knife down on the floor and spun a similar fork with his lowers arms and balanced delicately the wine glass and pointed at them with his riding crop with his upper arms. "I'm going to show you why I'm the king you shitty brat—Argghhh!"
Kamoshida's intimidation tactic was quickly discarded as he howled in pain from the unexpected wave of fire hitting him squarely in his back. He leaned forward in pain, nearly crushing the thieves with his head—but they managed to avoid such fate when Kamoshida turned towards Ann, who had Carmen out.
The blonde girl breathed heavily, signs of her exhaustion from her awakening and battles already wearing her down—yet she stood tall, refusing to back down.
"Come on Kamoshida… bring it on! Or are you too much of a loser!"
Kamoshida screamed with fury as he swiped his thick tongue at her, forcing her to throw herself towards the floor to avoid getting hit. His tongue hit the floor beside her destroying it, Ann got to her feet and went on the move.
Morgana jumped above the rumble, gaining higher ground, before stopping and looked towards the thieves alongside Akira. He pointed towards the transparent door on the opposite side. "Move it! Get to the safe room!"
"No! Ann!" Shiho got to her feet quickly as she saw her friend getting chased by the demon Kamoshida.
Akira got over quickly towards Ryuji and helped him to his feet. "She's using herself as bait…damn it."
"I'll help her." Shirou offered as he moved forward, but was stopped by Shiho.
"No…!" She shook her head and gave him a firm look. "You're already tired and hurt! I'll help her an—ah!"
She yelped in surprise as Shirou shoved her roughly away from him just as one of the monsters that Gilles used jumped towards them—its gaping mouth ready to swallow the two whole. Akira seeing the danger pushed Ryuji towards Shiho to get out of the way faster. The monster smacked itself against the wall, denting it—yet the creature easily recovered and turned around to go for the downed Ryuji.
"Ryuji!" Akira exclaimed in surprised as he moved, but was pulled back—nearly falling to the floor—by Shirou just as three thick tentacles spear themselves where Akira would've been. "Damn it no! Ryuji!"
"Light them up Sforza!" The battle cry from Shiho and the ensuing rumbles, made the two teens freeze in anticipation. "Get to the safe room! I'll take Sakamoto-kun there and go for Ann!"
"Leave her to us!" Shirou shouted instinctively as he looked towards the deranged Caster who raised his human skin book towards them.
"Just go to the safe room!" Akira ripped his mask and Arsene was out. "Shirou! You ready!"
"Let's go!"
Gilles let out a shuddering breath. "You're not needed…I will have my saint in my grasp! AAAAAAAaaa she's mine!"
The floor around the mad Caster exploded as dozens of nightmarish creatures poured out and threw themselves towards the two thieves. Akira and Shirou bared their teeth as they jumped away and towards the rubble, gaining the high ground and a viewpoint towards the rampaging Kamoshida.
"We need to get to Ann quickly." Akira said but was forced to jump away just another one of Gilles monster's jumped in trying to consume him. Fortunately, Shirou's quick instinct helped him to react fast enough to cut it down.
"Damn it, we can't get to her wi—!"
"Just go!" Morgana screamed as he jumped into the group of monsters below, and with his scimitar slashed in and out between them and grabbing their attention in the process. He jumped back as one of the creatures lashed out towards him, he turned towards them with Zorro already out and ready. "Leave the bug eyed creep to me! Save Lady Ann!"
"You heard the cat Shirou!" The redhead turned towards Akira, and nodded. The two jumped down and ran through the trail of the destruction towards Kamoshida. Gilles caught sight of them and moved to intercept them, but his efforts were refuted as sharp winds forced him back. He turned his focus on the charging Morgana as he leaped and weaved through the aquatic monsters and tentacles attacking him.
Ann side stepped a blow from the riding crop, but the debris that blasted from the impact made her stumble and fall. Heavy breaths escaped her as she glared hatefully at the approaching Kamoshida who looked at her with a lustful gaze.
"I'm going to eat you up, you little slu—gragh!" Once more Kamoshida was caught unaware as he flailed haplessly with all four arms to relief the pain from his now slashed sides and cursed face—courtesy of both Arsene and Mordred.
Shirou and Akira landed before the downed Ann, the dark trench coat thief twisting towards her. "Get out of here now! Regroup with Shiho and Ryuji in the safe room!"
"B-But I can—!" Ann started but was cut off.
"Aargh! You pieces of shit!" Kamoshida glared hatefully at them as he screamed in frustration.
"Go!" Shirou shouted as he charged forward toward the recovering demon king, swords in hand and jumped up. He slashed at his face but was swatted away by kitchen knife in his foes hand and nearly crushed by the riding crop.
"Ann—!" Akira turned towards her with a serious look on his face, but stopped when he saw her resigned face. She nodded, got to her feet and looked at him with an encouraging smile.
"Good luck! And you two better make it out with us! Or I'll never forgive you!" Ann threatened as she turned around and ran, albeit with some difficulty, towards where the safe room was.
"Understood! Arsene, let's go!" Akira ran forward, jumping up and pulling out his gun. "You need to learn proper etiquette!"
"Wha—!?" Kamoshida grunted and turned around rapidly just in time to get his face blasted with the firepower of Joker's handgun. "Grah!"
Akira landed swiftly beside Shirou, giving a silent nod, and sharply turned towards the furious king as he lunged towards them with enraged abandon. The two thieves jumped back, avoiding the charge and lunged forward themselves as the king tried to quickly get back on his feet but got slashed in his chest by the swords of Shirou and stabbed on the thigh and shot at his kneecaps by Akira. The king roared and used the hand holding the fork to stab them, but to no avail as they jumped away and continued with their assault.
Little by little, wearing him down with injuries.
"We can do this!" Shirou exclaim in surprise as Kamoshida flail uncontrollably to hit them.
"Hell yeah!" Akira crowed with a grin. The king screamed and glare at them hatefully.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Slaves! Slaves! Get to work! Kill them!"
"Slaves…?" Shirou asked with disgust. "You're still on tha—!?"
He stopped as he noticed from the cracks and the dust of the destroyed battleground, stubby creatures with full metal helmets ran up towards the furious king and gather around as he sat down almost lazily and pointed at the thieves.
"Attack!"
At that the stubby creatures jumped up, with volleyballs appearing out of thin air and spiking them straight towards the two thieves. Their eyes went wide as the balls suddenly multiplied into dozens of balls.
"Oh cra—!" Akira grunted as he quickly brought his arms up to defend, while Shirou attempted to evade—the dark hair teen was hit multiple times, only being pushed slightly back as he received relatively little damage. The redhead on the other hand was not as lucky as his exhaustion caught up with him, causing him to fail his evasion and to receive a direct hit that blew him back. "Shirou!"
The redhead stumbled back and fell to his knees, a flash of pain on his face.
"Ghihihihihi! Idiots!" Kamoshida guffawed as he looked at them with wide mocking eyes. "Mere peasants like you can't possibly beat the king!"
At his words the stubby creatures once more went on to the offensive, spiking volleyballs towards the two thieves. Reacting quickly, Akira turned tail, grabbed Shirou and threw themselves to cover where the dozens of volleyballs hit. The two teens winced as the rubble they were using as cover was slowly but surely getting chipped away.
"We need a plan…" Shirou said with a wince.
Akira looked over slightly and saw Morgana running away from Gilles, while evading attacks by his monsters. Shiho and Ryuji were no where to be seen and Ann was reaching the safe room. He flinched back as a volleyball nearly hit his face and he looked up.
He froze as he caught sight of something which gave him an idea.
"Shirou… how about the Shadows?"
"Huh…?"
The dark hair thief pointed up and Shirou followed the direction towards the ceiling, where a mass of tentacles were still holding the struggling and cursing Shadows. The redhead looked at the leader of the thieves and Akira nodded with heavy breaths.
"We're getting pushed back and we're getting tired. All we need is a distraction. If we can get those Shadows free…"
"Then we get our distraction…but how do we know those things will even help us?"
"We don't." Akira responded with a tired smirk. "We just take a leap of faith."
"Huh…" Shirou couldn't help it as a tired sigh escaped him. However, he also acknowledged Akira's idea, and looked up at the tentacles. He winced as a volleyball ricocheted off the rubble behind him and landed by his feet. "So, we both go and start releasing those Shadows and see if they help us out?"
"No, you go." Akira said confidently as he stared at the black helm on the redhead's face. He smiled at Shirou's confusion. "I know you're tired, but your swords seem to have a knack for cutting creepy stuff up. So you'll have to be the one to go in and free the Shadows… as strong and useful as Arsene has been, he doesn't exactly have it in him to actually cut those things apart like you or make them flinch like Shiho. Sorry, but…"
"Don't worry about, I understand." The redhead responded easily as he took a deep breath and started to focus. "Let's go."
"Humph…" Akira grinned smoothly at him and held out his right hand to him, gesturing for him to smack it. Shirou looked at him in confusion, tilting his head to the side.
"What are you doing?"
"It's something me and the others came up with when we got here today. Baton Pass, I tried it out with Tiger…er, Shiho. Somehow she got a pretty high boost in her next attack against a Shadow." The dark thief smirked sinisterly. "I just want to give you the boost and confidence you need, partner."
Shirou looked at the red gloved hand, waiting for him to smack his own hand against it and receive the boost Akira had mention. The redhead's lip went into a straight line…as he felt something deep within him.
A confidant of trust and opportunity was forming with Akira Kurusu.
Shirou smiled as he smacked his hand against Akira's, instantly feeling a sudden fire providing him a much needed boost of strength to his tired body. He clenched his hand into a tight fist, staring at it and nodding in resolution. Whatever had occurred, he now knew that he could rely on Akira in this dangerous situation without fear of watching his back.
"Let's do this."
Akira grinned, pulled his gun and jumped out of his cover. He dived through the destroyed floor, narrowly missing the assaulting barrage of volleyballs as he rolled on the floor and before getting on his knees with both hands on the handgun. With a vicious grin he opened fire at Kamoshida's face—hitting him squarely on it.
"Guagh! AAAAHH!" The king flailed with his four arms, glaring hatefully at Joker. He smacked his riding crop on the floor where the stubby creatures jumped in fright at the sound of impact. "You damn good for nothing slaves! Get that stupid thief! Can't you morons see that your king is in pain!?"
The slaves all diverted their attention towards the now retreating Akira, as a renewed barrage of volleyball was sent his way. Shirou watched him duck and weave between the assault and nodded.
"Good luck…"
The redhead turned away from the diversion, sneaking through the rubble to avoid the gaze of the pink demon king. Thankfully Kamoshida was far too engrossed on Akira. This allowed Shirou to make it to the wall away from the action. He looked up and saw the rubble that would let him climb up and reach the tentacles which slithered through the air in search of new prey.
Who was he to deny them?
Shirou jumped using the rubble as a platofrm and landed on the tentacles. The action earned a startled reaction from them as they quickly move to ensnare him. Unfortunately for them, Shirou moved quickly, hopping between them before finally reaching the ceiling and where he landed on a thick tentacle. The limb tired to shake him off, but he kept his balance. Looking up, he saw a small fairy lady that was grasped tightly, with only her head free as she try to struggle her way to freedom.
The small pixie noticed as her eyes widened wit desperation. "Hey you! Help me!"
Shirou frowned, knowing he had to act fast. "Will you help us?"
"Duh idiot!" Shirou could not help but notice that the pixie's speech pattern was somewhat similar to the last one he spoke with. "That Kamoshida guy totally betrayed all of us for that creepy bug-eyed guy! You see how disgusting all of this tentacles are!?"
The redhead could not help but nod in understanding. With quick and a few well placed slices he freed her, jumping away onto another tentacle and turning towards the now free pixie as she looked herself over to make sure she was ok. "There you go, now help us fight Kamoshida."
"Okay!" The fairy said with cheery enthusiasm as she held her arms towards him. The redhead looked at her in confusion, before he felt a strange sensation all over his body. He looked down and saw most of his injuries were gone. He stared at the small lady in amazement and she gave him peace sign. "I can totally heal you! But that's kind of the only thing I can do in this situation… if you want more muscle and all that stuff, you'll need the others!"
The fairy gestured towards the other captured Shadows. Shirou stared at them—some having noticed his action and were also motioning for him to help them—all the while he observed the scene with stoic calmness.
But inside… he was smiling as he imagined what was to come for Kamoshida.
Meanwhile, Akira was running for his life. He jumped to his left just as another barrage of volleyballs came his way. He glared back, cursing his gun's limited amount of ammo. In no time, he had completley wasted them without noticing. He tensed as he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye and could faintly make out a long purple tongue heading straight for him. He ripped his mask off and summoning forth Arsene who in quick succession delivered a powerful kick towards the thick tongue—
"Gragh—!" The dark thief grunted as his Persona was pushed back and smashed into him with powerful force. The collision made the wind escape from his lungs as he sailed backwards. His back collided harshly with the floor scraping and dragging through the debris that had been thrown about carelessly in the midst of their fight. He winced as he slid across the surface and coming to a stop just a hair's breadth away from crashing headfirst into a huge piece of debris from the collapsed wall. "D-Damn it…not like this…"
Akira tried to get up, barely managing to get into a sitting position before he was pummeled by dozens of volleyballs. He grunted in pain as each ball hit him with the force of a punch from a fully grown and expert boxer. Once the assault concluded, he rolled onto his stomach and with great difficulty, tried to get up on all fours and twisted his body to glare at the laughing king.
"Gahaha! And the shitty wannabe-thief falls!" Kamoshida lumbered forward, his disproportional small legs carrying him as he guffawed loudly, his long tongue swaying all over the place. Akira found the sight incredibly disgusting. "At least, I'll finally get rid of one of you brats! Do you have any idea of how much trouble you've caused in MY school!? MY school is a place for winners! Not something losers and disobedient kids should be meddling with!"
A sneer appeared on Joker's face. "…do you ever shut up? You're voice is grating on my ears…"
Kamoshida glared down at him, growling with great petulance and pointing his fork at him. "You good for nothing loser… you wanna die that quickly? Then die already you son of a—AAAAAARGHH FUCK!"
The pink demon king roared in pain as the fury of the heavens dropped down on him from above. For Akira, he looked up in time to see the show as multiple forms descended down on the lustful king could. In that moment, he could not help but watch in awe—
It was nothing short of karmic beauty.
Lighting struck—
Fire burned—
Winds cut—
Ice froze—
Divine judgement descended—
And then the spear filled with vengeful fury from a Shadow in the form of a knight forced the mad king down to the floor.
A veil of debris and anger swept through the room, Kamoshida's screeching tore through the Phantom Thief's ears.
Following shortly after their assault, were the now liberated Shadows. Dozens of them stood around their former king. All of whom varied in terms of size and appearance, as well as legend and mythology, and in power and strength.
However, on thing that they all seemed to share, was their mutual hatred for their former master.
"King Kamoshida!" The horseman Shadow bellowed as he took the lead. "You will pay for what you have done! Betraying we who have sworn loyalty to you!"
An angelic knight with a severe expression glared at him with his unnatural gaze. "The corruption of thy heart as been noted. Thou hast chosen to allow the force of a blasphemous outsider to corrupt thou heart. Let the Lord's light vanquish thy sins!"
The other Shadows, a woman in skin tights and bat wings leaned forward with a dangerous smirk, a long nose demon with the same wings mirrored her actions with a vicious grin. Another woman in red silk, a green horse, small creature peaking out of its pot with a childlike glare, a jack'o lantern waving its lantern menacingly and many others got ready to fight their former king.
"Y-You…you ingrates!"
"Charge!"
Whoever screamed that command, it did not matter much. What did matter was the ensuing chaos that was brewed in a matter of seconds following the order as explosions and screams filled the room.
Akira looked at Shirou who now stood up and turned slightly towards him. "Shirou you—!"
"Hey!" The thief turned toward the small pixie hovered towards him with her hands raised towards him.
"Huh…hey—!? Wait!" Akira flinched back as his body glowed green and he was healed from all of his injuries. "I'm healed?"
"Well duh!" The pixie pursed her lips at him. "How else do you think you're getting away from this castle?"
Akira turned towards Shirou, giving him his signature vicious grin. "Heh…hehehehe! You really outdid yourself man, really, this is great…"
The redhead just gave him a tired smile and nodded. "It's the least I can do for everything you've been doing in the past few days."
"I think you went above and beyond to repay whatever favor you thought you had to pay back…because this is great." He turned towards Kamoshida as he was being pushed back. "All we have to do now is get to the safe room and—!"
"NYAAAAAAARGH!"
Both teenager's eyes widened at the familiar feline voice and turned around just in time to see Morgana flying and then crashing straight into the horseman who was moments away from delivering a powerful attack towards a kneeling Kamoshida. The cat and the Shadow both fell to the floor, and putting a stop to the Shadow's attack. This was more than enough time for the downed Kamshida to recover and to counter attack with his long tongue. Some of the Shadows reacted in time, ducking or flying above the offending appendage. Unfortunately, not all of the shadows were lucky enough to escape.
The Shadows that were hit by Kamoshida's attack were sent flying in multiple directions. Some of them went crashing into what remained of the walls and pieces of debris, but survived albeit with some disorientation. On the other hand, the other Shadows ended up exploding back into the red and black substance, having reached their limits as they ceased to exist.
The Shadows who dodged looked at their fallen comrades with ire, turning towards the angry king to resume their attack…but before they had the chance, more of Gilles monsters and their tentacles burst from the ground underneath them. Their limbs moving and spinning around in a chaotic manner, completely blindsiding every Shadow there and sending them flying.
Morgana had gotten to all fours with difficulty, his face set into a grimace of pain, barely having time to react as a tentacle strike him and the horse man beside him. The impact behind the blow was enough to send them flying towards Shirou, Akira and the small pixie, where they landed with a rough thud.
"Mona!" Akira went towards the downed cat and rolled him over to his back. The cat looked at him, struggling to open his eyes due to the pain he was in.
"D-Damn it… that creep is… way too persistent…"
Shirou looked up and frowned as he saw Gilles de Rais, walking towards the hulking Kamoshida's side with only a few minor cuts on his body. Akira clicked his tongue at the sight, touching his mask and feeling it ready to burn away.
"You think you can heal yourself Mona?"
"N-No…wasted…everything I…had…" Both teenagers winced at the pain in the cat's voice. A growl made them turn toward Kamoshida.
"You…you stupid losers! I'll…I'll definitely kill you! I'll kill you all for this! Slaves! SLAVES!" Kamoshida screeched as he smacked his riding crop around erratically. "Give me by ball! I'll spike this worthless pieces of shit down to fucking pieces!"
"OOOOooo Master…" Gilles looked up as the king breathed erratically, snapping his gaze down at him. "You're fury…you would end up destroying everything…"
"I don't give a shit! I want them gone! Where's my volleyball you fucks!? FETCH MY BALL YOU DAMN SLAVES!"
"Damn it!" Akira cursed, losing his cool as he removed his mask and letting Arsene appear once more. The Persona quickly sliced the floor with his blade heels sending rubble flying and creating a small fortification for themselves. A mound of debris stood between them and the king and the mad Caster. "We'll have to defend Mona! Shirou do you have enough strength in you to fight?"
Shirou looked down at himself and let out a tired breath. "I think… I think I have enough to make another pair…"
"It'll have to do…we'll have to defend and moved towards the safe roo—!"
"Hey!" Both teenagers turned towards the small pixie as she pointed at Akira. "You're totally different from red over here!"
"Huh…?" Akira raised an eyebrow at her.
"Yeah!" The pixie nodded enthusiastically. "I can… I can feel it…it's as if I've known you all my life or something… yeah… you're really someone who can bring out my full potential!"
"Potential…?"
"What is she…?" Morgana trailed off as he watched with awe as the small fairy began shining with a bright blue light. Beside him the horseman got to his feet, his horse neighing loudly while shaking its head.
"So this is that feeling…" The horseman's words made the thieves turn towards him, as it stared intently at Akira.
"Hey! I remember now! I'm not just a Shadow from this castle! I really don't care about being betrayed or whatever by Kamoshida!" The pixie said happily. "I came from the sea of humanity's soul…so, I am thou, thou art I…"
Morgana's eyes went wide. "No way!"
"The name's Pixie!" The fairy introduced herself. "Remember it and let's work together!"
"Wh—!?" Akira's question of disbelief from the situation was cut off as Pixie transformed into a mask identical to his. Hovering in the air for a few seconds, it moved forward and smashed itself into his face, once more forcing his face to be obscured by the owl-shaped mask. The action forced Arsene to flinch slightly before disappearing.
"Hey! Are you okay!?" Shirou questioned in concerned.
"I…" Akira touched the mask on his face and before his eyes widened with disbelief as he felt another presence deep within him aside from Arsene. "What is this…?"
Morgana managed to get back to his feet, gazing at Akira with amazement. "That's impossible… did you just absorb that shadow!?"
"Yes." The horseman responded, grabbing their attention. "For whatever reason… your presence somewhat draws me towards you… whatever power or strength in character that you possess, I feel compelled to fight alongside you… as your mask."
"As my mask…?"
Morgana gasped and turned towards Akira. "You can use multiple Personas…"
Shirou blinked in amazement. "Really…? Then that's good right?"
Akira closed his eyes, feeling the new possibilities burning within him. Smirking to himself, he began drawing out the latent potential within him.
"Pixie." Akira's mask burned away as the small fairy-like Shadow appeared behind him. He turned towards Morgana pointing a hand towards him. The cat looked at him in confusion before he felt his body heal and mend itself.
"Whoa!"
"You really did summon that Shadow…and used her powers!" The redhead gasped in awe. Akira looked back at Pixie in wonder. The horseman nodded, tightening his hold over the reins of the horse.
"Indeed, it is as I thought. You can use us as part of your mask. If that's the case, then let me share my power with you."
The thieves all turned towards him, Morgana frowning at the words. "Why? Kamoshida is this place's ruler…so why are you turning against him?"
The horseman sat a little straighter on his mount, looking straight at Akira as he answered. "Us Shadows understand that we do not simply belong to the heart of any single human, but the entirety of humanity. The moment the Ruler of this castle gave his Servant—the Heroic Spirit—more authority over this Palace, was the moment when the Ruler lost his hold over us. A Ruler who cannot control his own heart, cannot hope to control or even influence us. Since the Servant, an outsider who only belongs in the consciousness of humanity—but not in their subconscious, not in their hearts, is attacking indiscriminately and without care as to who stands in his way. We Shadows have chosen to stand against the king. So what say you thief? Will you let me share my strength—or are you confident enough to take on the maddened king with a nothing but a pixie?"
Akira looked at the Shadow, closing his eyes... all while grinning maliciously. "Let's get this show on the road then."
The horseman offered Akira his armored hand, which the dark-haired teen tentatively took within his own hand. He let out a yelp of surprise as he was pulled up and forced to sit on the horse right behind the spear wielding knight. The thieves watched Akira as he tried to keep his balance and—
"About damn time you worthless slaves!"
All four looked up from the rubble protecting them and saw the slaves skedaddling towards the towering king with a giant volleyball in their hands. It weighted down on them, and yet they moved to obey their king unlike the rebellious Shadows. Kamoshida smirked at the sight, taking a sip from his wine cup with greedy and messy slurps. Once finished, his body flashed red and the king crushed the cup.
"He is preparing to finish this." The horseman said as he watched the scene. "I will lend you my power, but first we must cut the distance between him and us. Once done I'll gladly become your mask. Ready?"
Akira watched with narrowed eyes as Kamoshida threw away everything in his hands to grab the ball.
"He needs a proper culling of his inflated ego. Let's go!"
"Then hold on!"
With that the two rush forward, leaving Shirou and Morgana behind. The cat turned towards Shirou.
"Let's do our part too! Joker will be busy with Kamoshida, so let's make sure the creep doesn't butt in."
"I can agree with that." Shirou nodded as they both jumped into action, going around to ambush their target.
Akira meanwhile held onto the horseman as they closed the distance. The horse darted from left to right, zigzagging past monsters and tentacles dropping in to stop them. Fortunately, the Shadow demonstrated his resourcefulness as they got in close. Kamoshida noticed them and grinned.
"Too late! Now you'll see—!" Kamoshida gloated as he jumped high, ball rolling up as the king pulled his right arm back in an exaggerating fashion to smack it down.
"Now!" The Shadow roared as the horse galloped with furious steps, stepping onto the floor with enough power to crack it. With a powerful jump, the two flew straight towards the king. All Shadows trapped, disoriented or cowardly hiding from their loss of rebellious will watched as the two sailed forward. "It is time for us to work together! I am thou, thou art I! My name is—!?"
The horseman disappeared in a flash of blue light and turning into a mask. Without the horseman's mount, Akira was left spinning uncontrollably through the air. The mask hovered in the air for a second, before it shot forward towards his face. It slammed down on him and he grinned as he regained control of his body in midair.
"—the spike that shook—!" Kamoshida brought his arm down preparing to strike the ball with tremendous power and—
"BERITH!" Akira ripped the mask off his face, revealing the Shadow-turned-Persona charging forward at lightning speeds. Berith lunged forward, thrusting his spear forward and aiming it at the demon king's leg. The weapon collided and the image of a mouth with fangs appeared on Kamoshida's left leg up to is knee.
"Gragh—!?" The king let out a strangled cry, flinching violently as he tripped in midair. Unable to stop himself, Kamoshida started falling forward and ended up hitting the volleyball with his inhuman face—
"—!" Akira's grunt of surprise was unheard as the room lit up by the resulting explosion. The volleyball the Demon King Kamoshida was preparing to spike blew up right as he touched the ball.
The shockwave pushed Akira back with a streak of blue fire following him as his mask returned. Meanwhile, the explosion expanded into a ball of fire, hanging in the air, like a sun. Kamoshida's silhouette could be seen from within the epicenter of the explosion as his screams carried out through a series of shockwaves. Akira sailed backward, clenching his teeth as the explosion knocked the wind out of his lungs. He looked back towards the fast approaching wall and his eyes widened in surprise. He needed to stop getting hurt, so he did what he did best—he focused.
In a swift, yet fluid motion, he ripped his mask off and once more called forth Arsene. The gentleman thief followed after him with ease and with a flicker of his hands, swatted his legs upward. The action made him spin in midair, but he quickly tightened himself into a ball to control his own speed. He then landed against the wall he was about to crash in with a swift heroic landing. It hurt his knees, but he didn't complain as he looked up— his mask returning once more—as the explosion released a burst of smoke and fire with Kamoshida crashing down on the floor.
Beside the collpsed king was Gilles who watched the entire event with his eyes bulging out even further with surprise, not expecting the king to be trounced so swiftly. Smoke, dust and debris flew at him, yet he did not flinch in the slightest. He moved forward, ready to use the tentacles to help his master.
"AAAHHH! My Master! Yo—!" His words went unheard as from out of the cloud of dust to his left, both Shirou and Morgana flew out of the cloud heading straight at him. Both fighters drew their respective blades as they prepared to go on the offensive. The mad Caster barely had time to react as he jumped back to avoid a spinning slash from the cat who hissed when he missed. The redhead landed beside the feline thief with both blades by his side glaring at his enemy. He lunged towards Gilles who raised his book, causing dozens of tentacles to burst to life from the ground up.
However, before any of them could so much as attack, Shirou had already made his move—slashing and cutting his way towards the deranged Caster without any rational concern for himself. Gilles took a step back as he realized just how fast the redhead was closing the distance between them. Raising his arms, a new swarm of tentacles came flying towards him and wrapped onto his torso and arms, pulling him back in hasty retreat just as Shirou swung his blades at him.
Out of frustration and desperation, the redhead released both swords as he brought them up and threw them towards his target with a force similar to a raging storm. He hoped with every fiber of his being that they would at least hit Caster…
Unfortunately for him, his prayers went unanswered as Gilles's tentacles swerved him to the left with a harsh pull. Both Kanshou and Bakuya, having missed their target, disappeared through the cloud of smoke. Gritting his teeth, he re-summoned his blades, while Morgana hopped to his side and looked at him.
"Shirou!"
"Last pair…"
The cat clicked his tongue and glared at the retreating Caster. "Then make them count! Let's go!"
As they went after the madman, Akira fell from the wall and landed on all fours. Looking up, he glared at the smoking crater where Kamoshida had landed. He got to his feet and tensed up, clenching and unclenching his hands as he felt his body was all strung up.
He knew that out of his entire group, he was the one who was the least exhausted. The others had used up too much of their magical abilities and exhausted their own resources, exempting Shirou and Ryuji, but even those two were at their limits. The former was tired and hurt from all the fighting, while the latter was so badly injured from his earlier fall that he could barely walk. He glared forward as he took a deep breath.
He understood that it was all up to him to defeat Kamoshida now.
"—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGHHH!" The loud screech reverberated throughout the room, dispersing the smoke and debris to reveal the injured and shivering form of the pink demon king, whose body was now severely burnt and injured. Blood oozed lightly from the sizzling skin, along with several other injuries like his missing lower right arm, his missing fingers from the other hands, as well as his shredded tongue that now hung limply down on the floor. Compared to before, Kamoshida looked down right pathetic.
"…humph, what a fitting look for a scummy loser like you, huh?" Akira asked mockingly. His words reached the shivering king's bloodied and torn ears. The moment they reached him, he stopped his whimpering of pain and forced himself to look up with wide bloodshot eyes.
"…y-you…! YOU! Damn brat! HOW DARE YOU! NO! NO! NO! I'm not allowing this—GRAAAAAAAAGH!" Kamoshida threw a temper tantrum, flailing his limbs erratically, before screaming even more loudly. Saliva spewed from his gaping maw screaming his head off, not caring in the slightest how much he had degraded himself to such a state.
"Bring it on then." Akira stated with smirk as he ran towards him in an attempt to cut the distance between them once more and end this battle. Kamoshida let himself fall forward, letting his remaining three arms keep him from falling. He drew his left arms back and swiped them against the floor, destroying it and sending a wall of rubble and boulders from the destroyed surface towards the young thief at frightening speeds.
Akira, surprised by how much strength Kamoshida had left, threw himself to the left, avoiding certain death as the wave of rubble destroyed everything in its path. The thief rolled across the destroyed floor, looking up just in time to see Kamoshida do the exact same thing and sent another wall of death towards him. Akira could not help but curse his situation, as he lunged to the left once more. He managed to evade the wave of deadly rubble, but…
His shoulder still crashed against a pile of rubble resulting from Kamoshida's last attack. His eyes widened as he looked back at Kamoshida who once more swung his large arms to send rubble his way. He quickly moved his hand, preparing to have one of his Personas take the brunt of the attack, but—
"Me not let it happen!"
A powerful blast of wind collided against the incoming rubble, dispersing it and pelting both tentacles and monsters in proximity. Kamoshida flinched and looked up in disbelief. Akira's eyes widened with surprise, letting his hand fall from his mask as he noted a green horse descend down from the rubble that blocked his path. He more heard footsteps and looked back to see that every Shadow that had been dispersed by Kamoshida was back on their feet and looking at him.
Out of the crowd of Shadows, an armored angel looked at him with a severe expression, while his hand was on his blade. "Thou hast shown thy will and thy power. I ask of thee, are thou willing to continue? To end this sacrilege?"
Akira just stared at the angel, looked away and clicked his tongue in disbelief at the question. "Of course I am…there's no way I'll let someone like him keep terrorizing innocent people."
"Then thou hast our support. Art I correct?" The armored angel asked at the surrounding Shadows, which all whooped in agreement.
"Let's go!"
"Let's show that asshole what's up!"
"I'll help you out dude!"
"Me blast him away!"
Akira smirked and swung his right arm dramatically, letting his dark cloak flutter behind him.
"Then let's get this show on the road!"
With his piece said, Akira took off once more towards Kamoshida. Kamoshida noticed his approaching form and growled, quickly swatting his arm on the floor to send another wave of rubble towards the thief.
Behind said thief, the green horse glowed blue.
"Me am thou, thou art me, me name is—?"
The horse turned into Akira's mask and slammed onto his face when he turned to look back. The thief smirked, as he twisted around dramatically to face the rubble and ripped his mask off.
"KELPIE!"
As the new Persona appeared neighing loudly and releasing a powerful gust of wind towards the incoming rubble. The debris stopped by the strong opposition of Kelpie's wind, which quickly overpowered the rubble and sent it flying back towards the now shocked Kamoshida.
"Shi—!" He didn't even get to finish as a large chunk of rubble slammed into his face, followed by the rest as they pummeled him down to the floor. His cries and screams of pain being music to Akira's ears.
A woman with a silky red dress flew beside him. "I am thou, thou art I. Dear, my name is—?"
The mask was slammed into Akira's face as he jumped, rolling midair for dramatic flair as he ripped the mask off—
"SILKY!"
Ice was released on top of the prone king who moaned in pain—but as the ice began to freeze his burnt body, a scream tore out of his mouth. Kamoshida attempted to flail about, but the ice froze his limbs in place. Kamoshida looked up in fear at the airborne thief.
Akira just smirked viciously at the downed king and behind him another Shadow spoke.
"Ho! I am thou, ho! Thou art I! What's my name ho—!?"
His mask slammed into his face, before he promptly ripped it off once more.
"Jack-o-Lantern!"
Fire was released and enveloped the still frozen in place Kamoshida. Kamoshida howled, as more burns appeared over his exposed flesh—though he did sigh in relief as the melted ice cooled his burning body.
"I am thou, thou art I! My name is—?"
"AGATHION!"
Kamoshida once more howled, his earlier relief changing quickly into torment as h felt himself get electrocuted as lighting struck the drenched king. Screaming and flailing, he slowly got to his feet in desperation. His body was twitching and his limbs failed to respond as he writhed in pure agony. Still he glared with pure hatred at the thief as he landed swiftly down on the floor, a mocking grin on his face.
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Kamoshida yelled in fury as he lunged forward, intending to crush the thief with his body and—!
"I am thou, thou art I… my name is what—?"
"SUCUBUS!"
While in mid-charge, Kamoshida was shot by a burst of pink energy to his head. Without warning his vision grew fuzzy and his desire to crush the thief disappeared. Instead, he felt the need to ram his skull against a wall as fast and as hard as possible.
So he did just that as he changed direction and violently exacerbating his injuries and running full speed towards a wall. Upon his collision, the wall collapsed on him, causing howls of pains to echo around the room as he was buried under the rubble.
Akira grinned at this and walked towards the king while fixing his gloves. "Let's end this."
"Me am thou, thou art I, me am—?"
"BICORN!"
Kamoshida cried out in pain as the Persona lunged at him and crashed through the rubble, injuring Kamoshida even further.
"I am thou, thou art I! I am what—!?"
"Andras!"
Kamoshida brought his arms up to shield his injured body from being pelted with ice shards—his screams ringing loudly with each shard that managed to pierce his body.
"I am thou—!"
"Incubus!"
Kamoshida suddenly felt deathly afraid, a horrified scream escaped his gaping maw as the spell from the thief's new Persona took hold.
"—thou art I!"
"Eligor!"
The screeching king was snapped out of his fear induced spell when the large horned knight rode forward with his horse, and then crashed into him like a speeding freight train.
"—! I art called—!?"
"ARCHANGEL!"
Akira bellowed with a vicious grin as he twisted dramatically while pointing his left hand forward, causing the new Persona to unleashed a furious and powerful barrage of divine light upon Kamoshida. The attack burned him, his sinful and lustful acts only intensifying the pain of the howling PE teacher. Akira watched as Kamoshida slumped forward, breathing heavily and looking up to glare at defiant thief.
Akira only responded with a mocking glare behind his mask and a flippant smirk.
"And now…for the finale of tonight's performance!"
Spinning around with dramatic flair again, he grabbed his owl-shape mask with both hands and ripped it off. The mask burned away into blue fire which encircled the dark thief and formed Arsene once more. Materializing above the teenager and with both arms spread wide in a mocking gesture, the demonic looking Persona grinned maliciously at his target as dark energy started to gather within the palms of his clawed hands.
Akira pointed at Kamoshida with his right hand, letting the smug smirk drop off as he glared with severity at the perverted teacher.
"Begone."
Arsene pulled both hands back and then threw them forward, unleashing a tidal wave of dark curses upon Kamoshida. The king's eyes went wide as all he could do was stare at the incoming attack with dread—a cry of fear escaped him as the attack reached him, resulting in an explosion of darkness that towered over the room and completely swallowed the king. Akira stood by as he watched the defeat of the Palace ruler with a passive expression just as his mask returned once more to his face.
Once the dark tower of Curses finally dissipated it revealed the defeated Kamoshida—laying face first, knocked out and with crippling injuries. Akira watched him and let out a sigh as a small smirk stretched across his lips as he adjusted his gloves.
Meanwhile, away from the defeated king and triumphant thief, the chase for the retreating Caster raged on. Shirou and Morgana sprinted forward, eyes focused and glaring with intensity as they jumped over and slid below the lashing tentacles attempting to stop their movements.
"We can't let him get away!" Morgana cried out.
"I know!" The redhead responded as he dodged another stray tentacle.
"If he gets away and has time to think! We're done for!"
"I. KNOW!" Shirou bellowed out with power as three monster manifested out of thin air and attempted to swallow him. They were cut down in one fierce flurry of slashes but the action made him lag. His furry companion moved forward but noticed a monster coming right for him.
Morgana jumped to his right, avoiding a creature that was just inches away from swallowing him whole, while Shirou got caught up as a wave of tentacles went for him—the cat looked at Gilles, wrapped in tentacles and being pulled back with the human skin book still in his hand. Hissing in frustration he lunged towards the frustrating enemy, abandoning all caution as he delivered a powerful downward slash towards Gilles. Caster's tentacles veered right, avoiding the attack and pulling him away from the growling cat—
However, it just so happened this action only served to put him right on Shirou's path.
The redhead, now free from the obstacle that had opposed him, charged forward like a bullet and swung his blade with all his might just as the madman was turning to get away from the feline cat. The blade, Kanshou, severed the limbs holding onto Gilles left arm—the action cause the madman to let out a surprise gasp and stumble, nearly dropping his book on the process. As the tight hold of the tentacles disappeared Gilles was left disoriented.
The other two tentacles holding onto his right arm and torso tried to balance him out and attempted to pull back faster, but—
"No. You. Don't!" Shirou cried out as he recovered from his successful attack. He quickly rolled on the floor to right himself, before jumping high to throw Bakuya at the madman. The white blade spun through the air like a maelstrom of precision and power and finally sliced off the tentacle holding Gilles' torso.
"Gh—!" Gilles grunted, as the now cut limb dropped down on the floor lifeless. He was now only being held by his right arm. He could feel the force pulling on the remaining limb, giving the feeling as if his right shoulder was about to be ripped off. All the while, Gilles could do nothing but look onward as the two thieves ran straight at him.
"We got him now!" Morgana bellowed out with a greedy voice, tasting victory with each step they took.
Shirou ran full speed, unconsciously moving his empty hand up and catching the now returning Bakuya. Too busy to notice his impressive feat, he continued to move onward. "You're not getting away!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAA!" Gilles let out scream fitting for a monster like him, and pointed his blasphemous book towards them. A sea of tentacles burst out from around him and heading straight for the thieves. Their eyes went wide as everything before them, including their elusive target, disappeared from their vision.
"Dodge!" Morgana cried, but it was an impossible task. No matter what they did, they couldn't afford to back off or move to the sides. This single moment was enough to once more prove just how dangerous Caster was. If given even a single inch of respite, they would lose.
So they forged on, ready to stake all of their remaining strength into overcoming the horde and—
"You're not getting away with this! Sforza!"
The two thieves barely had any time to look to their left as a rain of white spheres shot straight towards the river of tentacles. The writhing and numerous limbs either recoiled or were torn to shreds under the holy light, their blasphemous flesh too weak to resist the determination of the thieves savior.
"That's—!?" Morgana started, jumping over some of the remaining limbs. Shirou followed suit, looking off to see a familiar girl dressed in white, firmly looking at the two of them.
"Suzui…!"
Now that the swarm of limbs were destroyed or rendered too damage to move, a clearly visible Gilles looked towards them in shock. "W-What—!?"
"Burn him away Carmen!"
Gilles words remained trapped in his throat, as a tidal wave of fire illuminated him from behind. The madman barely had any time to look back before he was entirely consumed by the flames. The tentacle that was dragging him through the sea of fire withered and turned to ash. The fire gave away, revealing Caster in a painful and uncomfortable manner—his burnt clothes and skin scraping against the rubble.
The madman's fall finally ceased, on his back and with his body aching—he attempted to sit up. Looking towards his right, near the white clothed thief was Ann. The blonde haired girl glared at him spitefully and gestured for someone to do something.
Not even a second after she gestured—
"Blow that creep away! CAPTAIN KIDD!"
A shadow loomed behind him and he turned just in time to see the pirate Persona sailing straight at him. After slamming into the Caster with enough force to nearly crush all his bones, he was airborne once more, speeding straight for the fast approaching Morgana and Shirou.
"You're done for!" Morgana cried out as he and Shirou both jumped forward, ready to deliver the finishing blow. However—
"OOOOoo—!" Gilles bellowed out loudly, pushing the book upward with his still unbroken arm. The sacrilegious book glowed dark followed by the appearance of dozens of tentacles spun forward from it. Going in a spiraling manner, they erratically lashed out at anything close to them. There sudden emergence made the speeding thieves nearly skid to a stop as they were forced to dodge.
"Damn it! Is that all he does!?" Shirou growled in frustration as he leaned back and avoided losing his head. "This guy is—!"
"ZORRO!" Morgana's cry made Shirou turned towards him just in time for his arm to be grabbed by the meaty hands of the gentlemanly Persona. The Persona rushed forward, using his huge shoulders to take the brunt of the lashings from the limbs. Planting a foot down, he began spinning around gathering momentum and then launching a surprised Shirou over the tentacles and behind the Caster. "GET HIM!"
The redhead, disoriented from the wild ride heard the voice and looked at Morgana, glaring at him and growling as he was forced to jump back to avoid the attacks from the tentacles. Now over an unsuspecting and kneeling Gilles, Shirou landed uncomfortably on the floor, but held back the pain. He rushed forward with loud and powerful intent.
Gilles heard the crashing footsteps, and despite the pain he was in turned around to identify the source. His bulging eyes nearly popped out of his head as he hurriedly moved his book to shield himself, making all of the tentacles pull back and coil around him as a makeshift shield.
Shirou growled in frustration.
'I'm not going to reach him! I'm already past my limit and—!'
His thoughts were interrupted as he caught sight of something.
As the tentacles coiled to protect their mad master…Shirou saw it…
Black and white.
Yin and Yang.
Kanshou and Bakuya.
Everything slowed down for him as he saw them…the two blades he had thrown earlier were returning to him. Still spinning with the same intensity and frustration he had felt earlier in order to finish this battle.
They were still fighting.
Still coming back…
Together.
In his head something whispered to him as he saw the swords.
Kanshou and Bakuya—the married pair blades, they will always find a way to reunite.
Shirou leaned forward and bared his teeth with fire in his heart at the understanding that came out of nowhere. He did not question it or think about it as he was focused on the task in front of him.
'Who am I to deny them!'
His determination burned even brighter as his vision of Gilles disappeared completely, yet he didn't stop his charge. He readied his blades for the final strike, glaring forward for the opportunity that was about to present itself.
Not even a moment passed and screams tore through the air, the screeches of a human monster and squelching sounds of metal tearing through flesh reached his ears. From behind his iron mask, Shirou's eyes zeroed in on Gilles as his shield of tentacles fell away—as the hand holding onto the book was nothing but a severed stump thanks to Bakuya, while Kanshou was firmly stabbed into Caster's sides.
Seeing his opportunity, Shirou took it…
"GUUUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOGH!"
And he stabbed forward with all his might.
A shockwave from the mighty blow made all the dust and debris fly away. Both combatants were in the air, and moving through the impulse of Shirou's charge with the blades in his hands, he continued stabbing into Gilles's body and tearing more of it apart with each strike. Bakuya went through the madman's left thigh, while Kanshou broke and tore his right collarbone and shoulder blades. The madman looked at the redhead in utter shock, while Shirou only responded with a frustrated growl and pushed even further.
The swords cracked under the pressure, and Shirou's muscled arms bulged with power until—
An explosion went off as the blades shattered from the weight of the redhead's will to finish this. Gilles gasped in shock with his eyes open wide with pain as the destroyed blades pierced his body. His right shoulder was barely holding onto his body with nothing but the few threads of left over muscle tissue and clothing, while the now torn off left leg bounced violently against the floor.
Gilles de Rais was sent flying back, hitting rubble and anything in his path. A few seconds later, he passed an unsuspecting Akira, surprising him, and crashed violently beside the defeated king Kamoshida. The wall cracked and collapsed on top of the finally defeated Gilles.
Shirou skidded on the floor, stopping his own momentum and—just tripped and fell face first. His final attack sapping out all the energy from his body, he simply collapsed face first onto the floor. He was breathing heavily from his position, as much as he tried to look up, his body refused to obey his commands.
Taking large sums of airs for his greedy lungs, Shirou looked up and noticed that his vision had gone dark. Exhausted and finally out power to fuel his determination, his vision was blocked by his iron mask of rebellion. With a shaky right hand, he pulled the mask over his head and finally saw the destroyed room, the defeated Kamoshida and Gilles…and the approaching forms of his fellow thieves.
"Shirou!" Shiho cried out as she moved quickly, being careful with Ryuji who she helped move. Once they reached the fallen redhead, the blonde male patted her on the back and she let go to flip Shirou on his back. Ryuji stumbled slightly, almost falling but was stopped as an exhausted Ann appeared behind and balanced him out with her arm. The blonde fell down in a sitting position wincing slightly from the strain. He looked back at Ann and gave her a thumbs up.
He turned back towards Shirou who was being mothered by Shiho. "Dude! That was freaking awesome!"
Ann knelt beside Ryuji and let out a tired sigh escape her lips. She smiled as the redhead turned his head towards them.
"You really didn't like that guy, hmm Shirou-kun…"
"…humph…" Was his tired grunt as Shiho placed a hand on the back of his head and then layed him back down on her lap. The young man didn't even have the energy to blush in embarrassment at how affectionate the gesture was.
"Shirou…!" She said his name with a worried tone as a concerned frowned marred her face. "You stupid, stupid idiot! Why are you so reckless!?"
"I…" The redhead started as he looked at her face. A small groaned escaped him and he looked away. The sound of footsteps alerted the team of another presence and they look up just in time to see Akira walking towards them with a small smile.
"Hey! You did good."
Shirou let out a tired chuckle and just closed his eyes from the effort, he felt Shiho smooth out his hair. Ryuji leaned forward and swayed his arms in a grandiose manner.
"Yeah man! That was so cool! And you too dude! I mean, it was just so awesome how you were switching around between those shadow things and going in like a badass!"
Ann snorted and gave the dark haired thief a grateful look. "Yeah, you totally kicked that loser's ass. I just wished I was there helping you."
Akira nodded at her and gave her a small smile, he turned towards Ryuji as he moved to remove his mask again. "Pixie."
The small fairy appeared and gestured towards the fallen blonde boy, healing his bad leg. Ryuji looked down in wonder and got back on his feet.
"Whoa…holy shit man, you totally got me back on the game!" The blonde blinked and gave a wolfish grin. "So now that we totally kicked those two assholes faces in, how about we go and take that Treasure."
Shiho and Akira looked at the blonde, then back at each other before nodding. They looking back at Ryuji and nodding at him in confirmation. Ryuji opened his mouth to say something else—
"No, we aren't taking the treasure." Morgana's voice came from behind the two blonds, the two turned towards the feline thief as he waddle into the middle of the group. The attention set on him, he crossed his arms and looked right back at their confused eyes. "We simply just can't."
"What do you mean 'we just can't'!?" Ryuji's loud and abrasive question was something that Akira shared.
"Didn't we come here to take the treasure, Mona? Or where you lying?" Akira asked seriously, his stance becoming anxious. The rest of the thieves watched the cat shake his head and looked at them.
"I wasn't lying…I was just…withholding information…"
Shiho looked at him with a stern gaze. "That doesn't make it any better Mona. Holding out on information is just as bad as lying!"
Morgana's head drooped low at that and he let out a tired sigh as he looked up, meeting the thieves disapproving looks. "Look guys, I'm sorry…I really meant to tell you…well, Joker, Skull, and Tiger about how finding the Treasure isn't enough after we established our infiltration route to get in and out quickly. I would've told you after we did that, because the step necessary to actually steal the Treasure is pretty delicate, and someone even saying something back in the real world would screw everything up. That's why I kept quiet…"
"You didn't trust us…" Shiho murmured softly, making the cat swayed slightly in discomfort.
"What the hell man…!" Ryuji let out in disbelief.
"Oh what are you complaining about! You've been doubting me ever since the get go! So stop being so dramatic!" Morgana hissed angrily, crossing his arms. Silence fell between the group.
"So what now?" Akira questioned, his posture relaxed and his hands in his pockets as he looked at the feline thief. Morgana relaxed, looking back at Akira before he gestured towards the exhausted Ann and prone Shirou.
"We need to pull back. Those two have pushed past their own limit after awakening and having them strain themselves any further is way too dangerous. We'll return back to the real world and regroup." The cat looked up towards the cracked ceiling. "I can smell the Treasure nearby…its most likely right on top of us. So after we get our rest and figure out what to do next…we'll see if we take a gamble…"
"Gamble?" Ann repeated with a confuse look. "What do yo—!?"
"Grrrhh…d-damn it…"
All the thieves flinched at the voice, turning sharply to see Kamoshida shakily drag his massive body into a sitting position, he noticed the gawking thieves and glared hatefully at them. Shirou twisted his head to look at the snarling king, and clicked his tongue in apprehension.
"That guy…just doesn't stop…"
"You damn brats…! How dare you…how dare you hurt me like this! I'm the king... the damn king! I'm NOT supposed to lose! I ALWAYS WIN! ALWAYS!"
"Damn…what an annoying prick…" Ryuji grumbled, feeling miffed that the one person who had tormented him and was the bane of his existence was so pathetic. The others agreed silently as a concerned and guarded Shiho helped Shirou to his feet.
Kamoshida breathed heavily, drool and spit falling from his mouth as he finished his rant. He looked down at the knocked out Gilles and snarled.
"You useless son of a bitch! I knew I shouldn't have let you roam free… you couldn't even kill some idiot peasants you fuck! I should've…" Kamoshida trailed off as his eyes zeroed in on the defeated Caster. "Yeah…I should've done this shit a long time ago… if you want something done right, do it yourself. No need to rely on losers like you!"
Kamoshida bellowed out furiously as one of his hands darted forward and grabbed the buried Caster. Rubble was moved as the unconscious Gilles was dragged out by the big and meaty hand of Kamoshida. He pulled Gilles towards his face as he glared at the Caster. The thieves watched in apprehension, their stomachs turning for the incoming gore as Kamoshida would crush Gilles with his hand for his failure and—
"Down you go, you worthless shit—!" The king mocked as he threw Gilles down his open mouth and swallowed him.
"What…?" Ann question in surprise at the scene. Before any of the other thieves could voice their own surprise, the ground started to shake.
"…t-t-the hell!" Ryuji grunted, nearly losing his balance.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHH~!" A lengthy and disturbing moan escaped Kamoshida. His shredded and dead tongue coming back to life, swinging wildly as the king's eyes rolled to the back of his head. Beneath the demon, the floor erupted as hundreds of tentacles came forth. They wrapped themselves around Kamoshida's body, enrapturing him until there was a writhing and twitching mound of tentacles covering him completely like a cocoon.
"Why does he keep getting grosser and grosser by the minute…" Shiho ground out in distaste. The redhead turned towards her as she shook her head. "Seeing Kamoshida like this, makes me wanna puke after thinking about how close and how much he has touched us… it's disgusting."
"I know…" Ann trailed off with venom, her exhaustion lessening as her mask disappeared and Carmen appeared. Morgana looked at her and shook his head.
"Cut that out! You'll hurt yourself like that Lady Ann!" The cat's quick and loud hiss snapped the blonde girl out of her angered state and caused Carmen to return back to her. Surprised, the girl looked as Morgana frowned at the cocoon. "We need to leave… now."
"Mona…" Akira started, but the feline thief jumped up and landed harshly.
"No time we—!"
Morgana's words were drowned out as a large burst of dark and sick power erupted from the tentacles. The room turned purple as the torrent of dark power grew and from within the light, the darkened silhouette of a creature roared.
The thieves watched the twisted demon howl with power, and quickly stumbled to the side in surprise as a river of tentacles moved quickly towards the opened cocoon. Shirou winced as Shiho tried, to prevent him from nearly being run over. He focused his eyes on the tentacles and saw the dismembered hand of Gilles—still holding onto the human skin book. The tentacles holding onto the book reached the shadowed demon—and grew abruptly in size to fit the giant monster's left hand.
The dark energy gave out, dropping down like a deadly miasma of sacrilege and lust. Through the dark mist, two yellow eyes glared at the now frozen thieves.
Then—
"RRRRAAAAAAHHH! I'll have you peasants howling my name!"
Every surface surrounding the shadowed Kamoshida exploded, as anew swarm of tentacles rushing quickly towards the thieves.
"Shi—! MOVE!" Akira shouted, his control and cool façade giving away briefly to fear as death approached them. He was quite aware of the fact that he and the rest of his team were too tired to even fight anymore—so he turned around and rushed towards Shiho, helping her carry Shirou.
"To the safe room!" Morgana howled quickly as he to turned and ran for dear life. The rest of the thieves needed no more orders or warnings as they moved fast, ignoring any lingering feelings of pain or exhaustion as they ran. Akira had opted to carry Shirou on his back, deciding for it to be faster than dragging the tired redhead.
"Damn it! We ain't getting away from this!" Ryuji growled as they got closer to the safe room, but the tentacles were quickly closing in on them from behind. Ann winced as she put everything into her aching legs and ran.
"Just shut up and run!"
Ryuji bared his teeth, shook his head and grabbed his mask. "Screw this! Captain Kidd!"
The Captain appeared behind the running blonde, charging quickly as Ryuji jumped and landed on the bow of the ship. He quickly grabbed a surprised Ann and pulled her onto the ship. He turned to help the others, but Morgana and Shiho had already jumped to the side and held on. Shiho stretched her free hand when Akira ran beside the flying Persona and gave her Shirou, the redhead used the last of his strength to pull himself up, but Shiho held on tight. Akira now free from any burden, took out his own mask and jumped onto the back of the ship.
"Go Arsene!" The dark thief ordered as his persona quickly flew, surpassing the heavy ship in terms of speed and reaching the safe room's doors. With his talon claws, Arsene ripped the door open just in time for Captain Kidd to disappear and letting the thieves all stumble into the their destination with an undignified landing.
Groaning and in pain the thieves tried to get to their feet, as they all witnessed to the ocean of tentacles closing in. They froze, as the opened door was inviting in death. However, the approaching tsunami of tentacles disappeared from their sight as Arsene jumped into the room with the thieves and closed the door. The Persona let out an amused chuckle and disappeared in wisps of blue fire, returning back as Akira's mask.
As the mask was firmly put back onto Akira's face, the thieves each let out heavy breaths they didn't know they were holding onto.
"T-That was close…" A haggard Shirou let out, wincing as he righted himself—he froze as he felt something soft behind him. He looked back and saw a Shiho shaking her head, looking straight at him. She smiled wearily at him.
"Are you ok Shirou?"
He looked at her and let a small smile grace his lips. "Yeah…I am…"
Akira pulled out his phone, tapping the Metaverse Nav app and getting the synthesized female words to ask him for his next destination. He looked up. "Ready to head ou—!"
There was a loud thump, all the thieves turned sharply towards the door. They saw it vibrate as more and more crashing sounds began to invade their ears. Morgana's eyes went wide.
"This can't be happening! There's no way!"
"What's wrong!?" Ann asked the frantic cat as she flinched back, the door to the Safe Room cracking slightly with each crashing blow.
"There's no way anything from the Palace can affect the Safe Room! That's why it's a Safe Room! Because it's safe from the distortion that the Palace brings out!" Morgana screamed in apprehension, he round out towards Akira and pointed at him. "Use that thing to get us out of here Joker!"
The shout snapped the dark haired thief out of his stupor, shaking his head and quickly tapping on the interface of his phone he ground his teeth just in time to say—!
"Take us to the Palace entrance!" His words received an affirmative sound just as the Safe Room's door burst opened, letting in an entire flood of tentacles. The thieves all looked as the ocean of certain death approached them with fear in their eyes.
"AAAAAAAAAHHH!" Their screams went as one, closing their eyes and flinching away as they were about to die. Their screams faded out as they clenched their teeth and raised their arms to protect themselves and closed their eyes so that they wouldn't have to see any more horrific scenes. Tensed and ready to scream and claw their way to survival they stayed put.
A few seconds passed and Shirou opened his eyes, looking frantically for answers as to why he wasn't dead or severely injured. His posture relaxed as he saw what was right in front of him—
"Those are… the buildings at the front of the school… right?" Shirou asked uncertainly, the other thieves looked up at the same time. Akira looked back and allowed a sigh to escape him.
"We made it out…" The others noted that they weren't in the Safe Room any more, instead, they stood in the entrance of the castle.
"Shit… man… this was way too much…" Ryuj sighed as he scratched the back of his head furiously. Morgana fell to the floor on all fours and groaned. Shiho looked up at the castle, a look of disgust adorning her face.
"What…how can such a disturbing place like that become even more creepy…" The thieves stared at the castle, now sporting a new look.
The lavish and pretentious castle had disappeared completely, instead it was now replaced by dark swirling tentacles. Hundreds of thousands of limbs covered the castle walls, pouring from down below and through the castle's windows. The tentacles moved about, encroaching even more of the castle and not letting anything escape their grasp.
"Creepy son of a bitch…" Ryuji growled out with distaste. Morgana looked at them and gestured towards the exit of Palace.
"Let's go guys… we really need to pull back."
The teenagers nodded, and moved out—eager to put the disturbing events behind them and get some much needed respite.
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4/15 Afternoon, Afterschool
Five teenagers plus one cat breathed harshly in the alleyway that lead to the school gates. Shirou got to his feet, exhaustion riddling his body—but he still managed to stand upright regardless of his current condition. He looked at the other thieves, who had also returned to their normal attire.
"Did we make it?"
Morgana looked around and nodded. "Yeah… we did it…"
The rest of team got to their feet, breathing hard. They all looked around and relaxed. Ryuji slump forward, a winced on his face as he rubbed his hurt leg.
"What the hell happened…? Why did things get so freaking creepy?"
The cat looked at him with a glare. "Because you opened your big mouth and made Kamoshida angry!"
"What!? How's that any of my fault!?"
"Because you started taunting the Ruler way to early on! You were asking for the entire operation to go south! I mean, didn't I warn you about what happens if the Palace Ruler becomes too aware of our presence!?"
"Yes, you did." Shiho cut in before Ryuji could respond, the girl's brown eyes settled on a glare towards the cat who quickly backed down at the look. "But you have been feeding us incomplete information! How are we supposed to do anything right if we don't even know we're doing something wrong! You need to stop with all this dramatic thing of withholding information! Our lives are on the line in that place!"
Morgana slightly curled himself down to a ball at the tirade. "I'm sorry okay… I just didn't think things were going to get that bad…"
Ann scratched the back of her head, feeling a little conscious and happy at the return of her fiery and brutally honest friend. "So now what? We can't go back in there and stop Kamoshida?"
Everyone fell silent at the blonde girl's words. Akira's right hand went for his hair and started twirling it.
"Morgana, do you know of any of this?"
The cat shook his head, and gave them a serious look. "This is something that has never happened before. Whatever Servants are, they don't belong in Palaces. And since my expertise is with the knowledge of things inside of the Metaverse, I don't know anything of what a Servant does or will do! The only thing that I do know is that they can have a lot of authority! But that's it!"
"What!?" Ryuji ground out. "Seriously man! Your useless!"
"Hey!"
"Enough…" Akira's exasperated words got the cat and the blonde to settle down as he looked at them with tired eyes. "How about we talk about this tomorrow. We're not going to figure anything out about Servants or whatever it was that happened when we're all so tired. Especially after Takamaki and Emiya awakened to—Emiya?"
Everyone turned towards the redhead, who had a hundred-yards stared in his eyes. Shiho turned sharply towards Ann, seeing that she was okay and then looked at Morgana.
"What's wrong with him!? Is this a side a effect from awakening to his Persona?"
"No… at least it shouldn't be. The most he should be feeling is exhaustion…n ot this…"
"Hey! Man!" Ryuji walked forward snapped his fingers in front of the redhead's face, snapping him out of his stupor. "You okay?"
"I… I think I know how to find information about Servants…"
The group looked at him in shock.
"Seriously!? How would you know!?" Morgana gasped.
Shirou looked at them with a conflicted expression, he closed his eyes as certain words began to replay in his head.
…usually Servants like myself would have to settle for being summoned by the hands of mages for something like this to happen…
"He… Gilles said something… right before I awakened to Mordred…"
Ann blinked at that, she frowned as she tried to remember anything that the bug eyed Servant had said. "What did he say?"
The redhead sighed and shook his head.
'Mages… magic… Servants… everything is connected to da… to him… is that why he did what he did to me…?' The redhead let out a breath and looked at the group. "That guy said something that may have clued me in onto something… I think I know who to ask about this…"
Everyone stood in attention, Akira stepped forward and looked him in the eye. "Who?"
Shirou raised his hands in a placating manner and winced. "Give me a moment… I'm still trying to wrap my head over what happened yesterday… and today… let me handle this, trust me. If I find anything, you'll be the first to know."
Akira looked back at Ryuji, and the blonde nodded with a shrug. The dark haired teen looked back at Shirou."It's alright… trust me. It's still something that is hard to wrap my head around with. But don't forget you can count on us, the both of you."
He gestured towards Shirou and Ann. Morgana climbed up Akira's back and got into his schoolbag. "Yeah, with two new Persona users on our side, nothing can get in our way. We'll figure out how to get into the Palace and take that treasure. We'll be counting on you to bring us information, got it Shirou?"
"Understood."
"Then let's go."
The group nodded at that and began to walk away together. Akira walked at the back as the tired thieves marched on towards the exit of the alleyway that would lead them to the train station.
"Mrmm…" Akira looked back as Morgana popped out of the bag and looked back.
"What's up Mona?"
"…" The cat didn't respond as he stared back to where they had stood moments prior with narrowed eyes. A second later he shook his head and got back inside the bag, letting his tired body rest. "Nothing… must be my imagination."
Akira shrugged and continued to follow his team until they disappeared around the corner.
They didn't notice the pair of eyes that followed their every movement, and had heard their entire conversation.
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4/15 Evening
Shirou, Shiho and Ann walked slowly through Central Streets. The other half of the group separating and heading home through the train while they walked home to their apartments. The redhead rubbed his eyes tiredly, finding the mere action of raising his arm to perform the action to be to tiring.
He looked up at the night sky and sighed—noting his apartment complex just ahead when his eyes glanced over the building. He turned towards the girls.
"I guess this is it…you sure you don't want me to walk you home?"
Ann looked at him with a small smile and shook her head. "Nope. You already did way to much for me. So and rest up will you? You certainly deserve it!"
"I really don't min—!"
"Shirou-kun…" Shiho cut in, forcing him to look at her. "Seriously don't get so work up over this. Go and get some rest, we know how to handle ourselves."
"But…"
Ann groaned and started pushing forward. "Which one is your apartment!? That one!?"
"H-Hey! Quit it!" Shirou complained to tired to put a fight with the manhandling. An amused Shiho moved behind them.
The blonde kept going ignoring him. "You know how guilty I felt for all the trouble I caused you for being so dumb! So stop worrying so much for an idiot like me and go sleep! I know how hurt you got before you awakened to your Persona!"
Shihi's amusement faded away quickly at the words. "Ann…"
"No…" Ann shook her head as she stopped pushing as they reached the front door for the apartment complex, she glared down at the floor with her fists clenched. Shirou turned towards her with concern in his eyes. "I was so stupid…I nearly got you kill Shirou…I feel like crap just thinking that…so let me at least start making up for all the trouble I caused you an—!"
"Don't be an idiot." Shirou cut her off swiftly.
"Huh…?"
"You don't have to make up or owe me anything Takamaki-san. Even though it was reckless of you to jump into the Metaverse like, it was still my choice to go in and save you. And anyways…" The redhead looked away, placing a hand on his chest and closing his eyes as he felt the intense fire of his Persona within. "I couldn't leave you alone…I…I hate seeing people looking sad or crying…if I didn't move to help you…then I would still be stuck in the same miserable spot I was since this morning…"
"Shirou…" Ann breathed out in amazement, beside her Shiho snorted and slapped her forearm slightly. "OW—! What was that for Shiho!?"
"That's for being an idiot. And this…" The dark hair girl pinched the sides of the Ann, making her squeal. Shiho frowned and mercilessly started pinching her sides. "Is for being a dumbass and nearly getting yourself kill! You didn't even apologize to me!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! J-Just stop it—!" Ann gasped as the pinching cease. She groaned and grabbed her abused sides. "Geez Shiho…this is going to leave a mark…"
"Then don't be an idiot next time…in fact, so that you don't start feeling like blaming yourself again—how about making it up to both us, by not doing something stupid?" Shiho's words were firm and merciless as they poured out of her mout.
"I get it, I get it…I'll won't do something that reckless ever again okay…" Ann submitted to Shiho's ire, much to her delight.
"Good." Shiho nodded and crossed her arms as she turned towards a surprised Shirou. "As for you…"
"Me!?"
"Yeah, you!" Shiho pointed at his chest and glared at him. "I knew something was up this morning when you barely even greeted me in the morning! And then the entire day you had that depressed look in your eyes! Shirou…you know can count on me with anything right?"
The redhead was flabbergasted by her fierce words. His expression grew a little gloomy at the memories of last night conversation with his father. "I know…"
"You've been there for me when you really didn't have to be Shirou…you've helped me be able to fight back against Kamoshida and try to be a better friend to Ann…no, you helped me start to become an even better person that what I was before. You helped not to give up and to fight for what I want. So let me help you Shirou…I don't know what it was that got you so down in the morning, but if I had to take a shot in the dark…it's got to do with whatever you know of Servants, right?"
The redhead look at her with wide eyes. "H-How…yeah…but…I can't talk about it. Not yet…not until I myself understand just what is going on. But you'll be the first person I tell of why I was so down."
"You promise?"
"Ah, if it's a promise then I can't break it. I couldn't live with myself…but yeah I promise."
"Okay then…" Shiho breathed easy and gave Shirou a bright smile, one that he was forced to return with equal measure. The two stay focused on each other for a few seconds—both flinched when they heard a small giggle coming from Ann.
"Ah…I see how it is, hmm Shiho?" Ann smiled knowingly.
The dark hair girl frowned at her friend. "What's with that face Ann?"
"Well…I'm just wondering what I should call this ship, Shiho." The blonde's tired featured lightened greatly as she giggled at the confuse looks she was receiving. "I mean the two of you start out with Shi…so I wonder…?"
Shirou and Shiho both turned red at her words, both looked at each other and very abruptly turned away. The dark hair girl sent a dirty look at the amused blonde, stalked forward and grabbed her hand.
"I think we've stayed here long enough, Ann! Let's go to my place, you haven't visited in a while!"
Ann let out a full blown guffawed at the embarrassment from her friend, as she was dragged away she turned towards an equally embarrassed Shirou. "Bye Shirou! See you tomorrow! And again I'm sorry!"
Shiho turned back as well and smiled with burning cheeks. "Good luck Shirou-kun! And get some rest!"
"Yeah…" Shirou murmured as he weakly waved the two of them off. He stayed firmly looking at them until they disappeared into the night. He looked down, his cheeks red from Ann's teasing. "ugh, why is Takamaki's teasing getting me all work up…!?"
"You have had a busy day, Shirou."
The monotone words from the familiar voice of Maiya instantly made the redhead go cold. He turned towards the aloof woman and stared at her with fire on his eyes.
"You were spying on me, weren't you?"
"Spying would be the incorrect word to use. I was on surveillance duty, making sure when you would enter that 'other world' and what result you would bring forth."
"It seems like the same difference to me."
"And in the end it doesn't matter. Let's go inside the apartment, so that you may report about your newest expedition?"
Shirou's face crunched up into a frown, emotions welling up in him until—threatening to explode and…
His face cooled, a neutral expression glaring at the woman as he kept his emotions under his steely exterior. The woman raised an eyebrow at the change of behavior, her eyes scanning him and taking note of the newfound confidence and rebellious air around him.
Shirou ignored this and looked at her straight in the eyes.
"No…we're not going to talk about that."
"Oh?" Maiya's cold face remained the same, her monotone voice not even inflating at his defiance. He could see it clearly, she wasn't taking him seriously nor saw him as someone who could make a change.
But he would show her—if not now…
"Yeah. We're going to talk about something else…so, Maiya-san, tell me what's a Servant? And what does a historical figure like Gilles de Rais have to do with it?"
At her expression was the same cold and uncaring face she wore, but as a few seconds ticked by—it seemed as if the words he had uttered clicked and her eyes went wide.
"What…?"
Shirou looked at her intently, the sensation of fire burning deep within him making feel elated and nearly drunk with defiance.
Mordred demanded for rebellion—
And he was more than happy to answer that desire.
He gestured with his right hand towards the apartment complex front doors and threw her earlier demands right back at her.
"Let's go inside the apartment, so that you may report about your old magical expeditions?"
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Hello there! It's been a while I know, but life has gotten in the way and I had to place my priorities on what was important.
But enough about that, this has to be the longest chapter that I have ever written. When I was writing this chapter, I wanted to show the struggle and defiance of the thieves towards the overwhelming odds while they were at a disadvantage. I think I can say did it, hehe.
Anyways, this long chapter should satisfied all of you who have been waiting for this story to update, I know for a fact that it was fun to write it.
Now to answer a couple of criticism I received:
The pacing of the story, yeah, I know. I realized it while writing this very same chapter that I have some struggle with pacing. It doesn't help that I divide a singular chapter into multiple parts as way to get the story rolling and not have you waiting months for the next chapter. (Something that happened after being hit by two hurricanes might I remind) But I can tell that I'm getting better, so not to worry.
Another criticism that I read was about Ann stealing Shirou's spotlight and...well, yeah, it was obvious that it was going to happen. Ann's ordeal with Kamoshida is much more personal and intense than Shirou's. And I wasn't that worried about it either since I knew that in this chapter, Shirou would come up and show off some of his moves and help the group a lot. Originally the awakening of Ann was supposed to happened before Shirou's, with Shirou's awakening happening in the final confrontation with Kamoshida. But it wasn't that good and it felt contrived, so I scraped it and came up with this...which is much better and better paced.
So okay, I think that's enough for now. The anime of Persona 5 is coming out very soon and I can't wait to see how they hopefully don't butcher it.
Hoped you enjoyed and liked the chapter. Please review and leave your thoughts.
Until next time! Adios!
