Animus
Welcome to Animus! You can find the Tumblr page at KageShirogane.
As well, you can also find the full spiel on Animus and its disclaimers back on Chapter 1.
Thanks and enjoy the show!
Naoto's heart pounded. Why… why would Isamu say that? Why would he phrase it that way? Meet this Shadow… Months… Suspicions? "No… no no…" she muttered under her breath as they turned towards another doorway, its handle barred shut with an extensive amount of locks.
Unlocking each mechanism, Isamu turned the handle and opened the door at an agonizingly slow pace. Naoto, at the same time, was opening her eyes after sending out a distress signal to Rise. All she could think to say was… 'please help me'. When the door was completely opened, she fearfully looked inside and in one split second, all of her suspicions became true. There, lying perfectly poised and upright on his bed was her Shadow. It was Kage. He was smiling, and his hands were folded so neatly in front of him that it was almost insulting how calm and collected he was, whereas Naoto was a completely different case. Her legs buckled once, and she held onto the doorway with a crushing grip. Just the sight alone seemed to knock the wind out of her.
"No…" Naoto whispered.
"Yes," the Shadow answered back.
Naoto quickly looked up, the amount of pure agony in her eyes burned almost as brightly as the gold in his, "NO," she huffed deeply, "Kage… you didn't…!"
"It's Kon," he flicked his name at her like a pebble to the forehead, folding his arms behind his head. The pillow he was resting back on was oversized and very comfortable looking.
"Y-you… I… How!?" Naoto breathed deeply. Her eyes glanced repeatedly between Kon and Isamu, fighting for a reason to understand. "The one… who pulled my Shadow from me… It couldn't have been my own Shadow, that's impossible…! You can't be in two places at once…!"
"But I was…" Kon answered with a soft smile, "I've been here for a long time now. I would say… almost four months now, if you include the time that I spent as your Shadow. This… 'Kage' that you speak of."
Naoto knelt down onto the floor and squinted her eyes, "Please… Please, I need to know why this is happening…"
"That's good, because I love story time," Kon smiled, also sitting up on the bed on his knees. He was garbed in nothing more than a standard hospital gown, allowing the twins tails behind him to freely sway about. The device that had been used weeks ago to absorb what remained of Kage out of his body had also been detached and the Shadow was now free to move around. But for his own reasons… Kon had decided to stay detained in this room. "Isamu-san, tell the poor girl how you found me."
Isamu nodded, "In the forests outside of Shinri High school, the police were dispatched to a scene after a Genkaku dressed student was reportedly injured there. Stabbed… apparently… And when we found the boy, I immediately recognized him. See… this Shadow of yours escaped from me months ago when he was brought to me by a certain… Goro Yagi. It was at that time that I believe Yagi-san was first Shadow Extracted. We saw… for a brief moment… his Persona. At that point, I was convinced that we needed to find this child again. Come April 9th, and there he was… lying in a pool of his own blood against a tree outside of your school," he explained. The chronology of all of this was difficult to absorb… "Now then… Tsuge and I both had very different thoughts. I had never met you before, Shirogane, but it immediately dawned on Tsuge that this boy… looked very much like you. Putting everything together, I realized that this creature was without a doubt… a Shadow. Your Shadow. We concluded that this boy would be left in our care and we took him to a 'hospital'. Here…"
"This isn't any old hospital…" Naoto shook her head, "You've done something to him… he isn't the same…!"
"No, it isn't," Isamu nodded, "And this most certainly isn't your Shadow anymore. See… inside your Shadow was—"
"Another Shadow," Kon immediately spoke up and interrupted Isamu. He was very much done with the other man now. "I am not your 'Kage'… That whiny child is no longer the holder of this body. In fact… I would enjoy going as far to say that he's never coming back. We sucked him out… It took almost a week… it was a very grueling process… but there is nary a trace of your Shadow left in this body. His memories, his consciousness, his… data…"
"Oh goodness, yes. We found a copious amount of MyPlace user data within that Shadow of yours. You had quite the little deviant on your hands…" Isamu laughed lightly, "Is the Internet delicious, Kon?"
The Shadow immediately struck a glare at Isamu and put the man in his place.
"I see now…" Naoto looked up with a glint of realization in her eyes, "That's how he was feeding… and that's how the data was recovered…" she looked over to the man, "Isamu… Have you been selling out my Shadow…? Is that why you kept him here?"
"If you're looking for a cut of the ransom money… then I might be willing to share. It was your elite hacker of a Shadow that made this happen, after all," he guffawed, arms crossed in front of him.
Naoto stared for a moment at Isamu. His casual-minded laughter… his complete and utter ignorance. She then looked back to Kon… There was a look in the Shadow's eyes. He wasn't comfortable with this conversation for some reason… "Yes, I see… He is an elite hacker, isn't he?" she asked Isamu, "And you've kept him within your facility for… how long? Nearly three weeks now?"
Isamu nodded with a soft grin.
"Then you're a terrible fool…" Naoto sighed, "Right under your nose… It wasn't Tsuge who was controlling those SSWs, was it?" She could see Isamu's expression going stale. "No… I'm willing to believe that this little Shadow of yours has had your entire facility tapped from day one… You thought you had him contained, didn't you? It's starting to sound like it might be the other way around… He's got your servers, your security, and your finances… all wrapped around his little finger."
Like pulling the trigger of a gun, Kon immediately sprung off the bed and lunged at Isamu, his jaw wide and unhinged. Naoto collapsed backwards and braced herself against a wall as the Shadow pinned the man to the ground, his teeth tearing past the man's clothes and through his skin. The reflex was so immediate… Kon never intended to keep this man alive, did he? What had just been said was probably the only information keeping Isamu safe. Now that Naoto was aware of Kon's involvement here… what else did he have to hide?
During that little spiel, the Investigation Team had scaled the side of the building with their Personas in flight. Within moments, they could be seen at the window to the room and after getting a glance of the horrifying scene inside, they were just as prepared to break through the glass and hold the Shadow down.
Kon stared up with a bloodied mouth at the approaching Personas. "Stop them!" he shouted to Naoto, a hand gripped around Isamu's neck, "Or I will kill him…"
"You were going to kill him anyways…!" Naoto battled.
"No, I'm simply knocking out his consciousness, there's something I need to tell you…!"
Flustered, Naoto watched as Chie's Persona, Suzuka Gongen, was braced to kick through the window. It was probably a bad move… but Naoto quickly hollered out and signaled for the Investigation Team to stay away. All at once, they stopped… Confused and worried, but they stopped.
The two conscious members of the room breathed heavily and stared hard into each other's eyes. Isamu was, as Kon stated, simply knocked out cold…
"I simply paralyzed his mind… he will awaken shortly…" Kon panted, rubbing off the blood from his lips with the sleeve of his gown. "I need your help… I need you to explain to me why your Shadow refuses to die…"
Naoto sat herself up and shook her head, "What do you mean…? Are you saying that he isn't dead?"
"Far from it…" Kon admitted, his eyes glancing down at Isamu, "I had this man convinced that every trace of your Shadow was long gone from this body… Believe me, it was something I wanted, too. But he refuses to leave entirely… There are parts of him that aren't being absorbed like they should be…"
Naoto felt almost a little proud of her Shadow knowing that fact… but she was still unable to explain anything. "I don't know anything about your methods, nor why you would be having trouble… If it's because Kage is somehow different as a Shadow, then maybe there's nothing you can do about it," she smiled softly, "He's too attached to this world… Maybe that's why he doesn't want to leave."
Kon glared, "Yes… There are certain fragments of his memory that I can't seem to remove. Memories that are almost… human. Separate from yours, I mean…"
"Sorry, but he never wanted to be human…" Naoto slowly shook her head, "Just because he developed his own memories while he was separated from me… I doubt that would be enough to turn him into one."
"No… these are memories from a long… long time ago. Not just from this year, but years previous. He's been holding onto such memories for a long time… developing his own consciousness apart from your own. He has been ever since… well, I suppose ever since he came to be," Kon lowered his gaze, "I was foolish to think I could live on in a body like this…"
Naoto lid her eyes and sat down in front of the Shadow, "Tell me something… How long have you been here? Within my Shadow, I mean…?"
Kon smiled lightly, "Again… ever since he came to be."
That answer surprised Naoto. It was her original thought that Kon had infested the body when Kage was Shadow Extracted that one night… by Kanji. But to think that this parasite has always been within him… it was hard to swallow. "Then… the Shadow that I met two years ago… in that 'secret laboratory'… that was you as well?" she questioned.
"Yes, that was both of us… it's always been the both of us," Kon shook his head, "You know about me… right? I am the Shadow of a man who died a long time ago… I was raised in a secret laboratory… the Kirijo Labs. I was experimented on, researched and altered… and then I was abandoned and forgotten when I was no longer needed. Yes, the Shadow that you met in the TV realm was very much the schizophrenic combination of our two minds… Your own, and a man who's name you know very well."
Naoto nodded, "Makoto Nakamura…"
"And what happened to this man? How did he die?"
"He died… in a car accident that consequently killed my parents as well," Naoto couldn't believe that this was actually coming together…
"Very good… Now it's story time," Kon spoke with a light smile, sitting up straight, "It was at that time… of Makoto's death… that I as a Shadow took the initiative to try and resuscitate his body. If my host died… then I would die as well. I couldn't let this happen… Although, I will admit that most Shadows don't exactly share that kind of common sense. I've seen my kind devour their hosts in order to fully enjoy their last seconds of life. Petty, and stupid…" he shook his head, "No… I saw that I was fading from this world and made that my advantage. Losing myself in this physical realm, I was able to freely escape my bonds in the Kirijo Labs. In my half-dead state, I sought out Makoto's dying body, but when I found it at the car crash… I made a brutal mistake. In my haste, I absorbed myself into the wrong body. I resuscitated the wrong person…" he stared up into Naoto's eyes, "I'm sure you're able to recall who the last person to survive that car crash was."
"My mother… She somehow miraculously lived for days after the car crash… in the hospital," Naoto answered.
"And when did she die…?" the Shadow's eyes flicked gold as he held out a hand.
Naoto stared down at it, a wash of memories coming back to her. Lifting her own hand, she locked palms with the creature in front of her, "When I visited her… I was holding her hand, just like this… and then without rhyme or reason, her vitals suddenly dropped. Within moments, she died in front of me…"
"I jumped…" Kon explained, staring hard into Naoto's eyes.
"To me…?"
"To you… and in that moment, your Shadow awakened and tried to fight me out. As a last defensive measure, I initiated my abilities as a cancerous Shadow and infested myself inside yours. I would stay hidden there for years… and thus, we bring ourselves back to the year 2013," he tilted his head to one side, "I've waited… And now, it is finally time for your Shadow to perish. He may act like a child… but when you think about it, he's actually very, very old… And in his wake, I wish to take over this body. But as you've seen… for some reason… he still refuses to die. Now tell me, why?" Kon let go of Naoto's hand and frowned, "What did you do to him? Why is he so persistent on living?"
Naoto brought her hand back to her side, "And what about you? What makes you think that you're above death…?" she asked, causing Kon's eyes to glare, "From your little story, I can summarize one very important fact… That you're much older than Kage. Shouldn't you be the one dying? Furthermore, since Nakamura-san died, what host do you have left…? Unless, ah… … yes, there's your problem…"
Kon sat up straight, "What is? What's my problem?"
Naoto couldn't help but smirk, "Did you really forget…? A Shadow cannot live without its host… Tell me, who's your host now?"
Kon's shoulders fell.
"That's right… it's Kage, isn't it? You can't erase him from this world… because the moment you do, you'll die as well," Naoto crossed her arms in front of her, "Shadow science…"
Kon's shoulders shook softly, and then even more so as a throbbing laugh developed and escaped from his throat, "Did you think that I was unprepared for that…!? What do you actually think that Shadow Extracting is!? Stupid… stupid human… The Shadows that die without hosts are those that starve to death. But believe me… I have all the sustenance that I need underneath this very building…"
Naoto lifted a brow, and Kon quickly put the tips of his fingers to his lips as if innocently saying 'oops~'.
"Did I just say something unsettling…? Hm?" Kon sat with a wicked grin crawling across his face, "That… haze… That substance that your kind has been spreading so voraciously for me. That is all I need to survive… It's powerful stuff, you know? You think that it's impossible for Shadows to survive in your world, when in fact, you humans have all the means to sustain us… This fact was the basis of Makoto's research. When he finally proposed it… and me… to the rest of the Kirijo Lab, his team was immediately disbanded and I was detained. Ah… how many nights I cried because of how lonely I was…"
Why? Why are you leaving me here? Why am I always left alone?
The words rung out in Naoto's mind. How frighteningly familiar… "You… could never stay here… You eat humans. Of course they would detain you."
Kon slowly shook his head, "That is what an unintelligent, untrained, imbecile of a Shadow would do… That is because in most cases, neither itself nor its host are aware that, even when separated, they can exist together in perfect symbiosis. That is the kind of world that Makoto would have wanted… one where Shadows and humans co-exist. To live together in a higher state of mentality with your Shadow… a perfect cooperation."
"Impossible," Naoto frowned, "Shadows are nothing more than a painful reflection of one's self. They do not have the means to aid humankind unless they become Personas."
"You're very caught up on that idea, aren't you…? I'm sure Kage would be insulted…" Kon smiled softly, "You see… we Shadows do not need to devour humans. Your bodies naturally produce everything that we need to live if we become separated… Think of it this way… When a mother is separated from her child via birth, she produces milk, doesn't she? When a Shadow is separated from its host… the host produces what we call 'kegare'. It is a form of negative energy… a highly toxic substance to the human body that must be drained or else the body will rot. We Shadows have the ability to absorb kegare. In fact… as I've already said, it is very powerful and quite delicious."
Naoto's pupils widened, "So… that's what the haze is?"
"Bingo~" Kon smiled innocently, "Human milk, for Shadows."
The concept of human-Shadow symbiosis was no longer as ridiculous as Naoto had first thought… But at the same time, it was a frightening concept. If such a world existed where Shadows prolonged the lives of their hosts by draining them of this… toxic kegare… then no matter which way you looked at it, Shadows would have complete monopoly over human life. They could live as companions, be smart enough to work, and have no other natural needs. But deep down… humans would become cattle, and Shadows would triumph as the dominating species on the planet. That… is what Shadow Extracting was trying to promote.
"You said… that you have all the sustenance that you need underneath this building. What did you mean by that…?" Naoto questioned.
"Ah, of course… I'm sure you were wondering what I needed all of those androids for," he rubbed the back of his head and shrugged, "See… I will need that kegare if I want to continue living. But at the present time, I don't exactly want to leave this building. So… I used the SSWs to bring the infected hosts to me instead. Simple enough."
"For fucks sakes, you're the kidnapper too!?" Naoto plastered a hand to her forehead, "The individuals that disappeared days ago…"
"- I kidnapped using the androids, paralyzed them, and brought them to this facility, yes," he smiled a little more. With Isamu knocked out cold beneath him, he was able to delve into this information without any worries. No one else had known about the situation with the SSWs… and that was because Kon was keeping it a secret the whole time. The moment it became obvious that Kon was using the facility to highjack Kirijo's weapons, that was the moment when he had assaulted Isamu…
"I see… There's definitely been a lot that you've wanted to tell me…" Naoto spoke, "Especially things that you wanted to keep hidden from Isamu and Tsuge…"
"Hm… you're starting to wonder… aren't you?" Kon looked up to the woman, "Why I'm so freely telling you all of this…"
"No, I know. You're going to kill me," Naoto answered, "All of this information would surely put a damper on your plans if it fell into the wrong hands. You plan to do away with me, and then shortly after, you plan on killing Isamu as well. We both know too much… don't we?"
"Oh, that's not the reason why I'm going to kill you," Kon shook his head. Hearing that coming from someone in her own body, using her own voice… it left Naoto trembling. Kon continued, "I believe I already verified with you that I do not need a host to live… I do not need your little Kage anymore. Since we've used up so much time thinking about it, I've come to realize that the only reason why I can't get rid of him… is because of you. You're still here… and therefore, so is he."
"I see… So you plan to get rid of Kage by getting rid of me. Sounds simple enough," Naoto nodded, lifting out her arms, "Well then… have at me."
Kon kept his ground, staring up and down at Naoto's challenging pose. "If I kill you…"
Naoto nudged towards the window where half a dozen Personas waited on the other side, "Then they will kill you."
"But not before I kill this man…" Kon spoke, staring back down at the floor where Isamu was supposed to be. But… he wasn't there. Surprised, Kon quickly stomped around on the spot and tried to figure out where Isamu's paralyzed body had gone, "Where…!?"
"You're quite the morbid little thing, aren't you…? You spent all that time talking about death and symbiosis and what-not… Through all of that, you didn't even realize it when Isamu came to his senses and slipped out of the room," Naoto smiled devilishly, "You can do whatever you want now… Either way… you won't live. All that matters in the end is who you plan on taking to your grave with you." Lifting a hand, Naoto raised an index finger and motioned for the Investigation Team to make their long awaited entrance.
As if they had been held back for far too long, all of the Personas humorously rushed through the glass and crashed onto the hospital bed and flooring. Some spread their wings; others lifted their arms and drew their weapons. They made cheesy poses as if they were super heroes coming to save the day.
Kon grit his teeth tightly, "Why do they have to exist…? These foul friends of yours…" Indeed, having an assemblage of ripe and ready to fight Personas on the other side of the room was the only thing holding Kon back now.
"Because I'm not alone…" Naoto stood up and stared down at the Shadow, "Now then… you still have one thing to explain to us. Now that Kanji-kun is in the room, I expect this to be answered promptly… Why, of all people… did you kill his mother?"
Kon was already getting rather sick of talking and question answering. His hands fisted in front of him as he spoke, "Heheh… that wasn't my choice. Kage was still in control of this body when it happened. I simply gave him the means to travel… Where he decided to end up was his own doing."
"Travel…?" Naoto blinked, "It was… in a way… some sort of time travel, wasn't it? There's no other reason for why he was there two months ago…"
"Yes… you see, with the help of Sousei, I temporarily rewired him and forced him to access your computer. While his mind was absorbed into the World Wide Web, it compressed into a simple electron formula. That rewiring of mine caused a little… shadowy science to happen, as you might like to call it. You see… some of us Shadows are very clever when it comes to time and space manipulation. In essence, he leapt backwards through time and felt for a brief moment, the speed of light. Must have been dizzying… I'm sure his memories got quite scrambled in the process. I'm amazed that it only took him a few weeks to recall them. Until then, he was quite mindless and silly…"
Kanji was having a hard time following that answer, but there was one thing he did understand… "Then it's your fault that he got all messed up… I mean, this ain't Kage, is it?"
Naoto huffed. She wasn't going to explain it all again to everyone, "No. It isn't."
Kanji look at Kon again and raised his fists, "So-… yeah! How could he think to attack my mother!? If his memories were all scrambled…"
"Easy… Tell me, ~~Kanji-kun~~ … don't you have a Nakamura in your family?" Kon questioned playfully.
"That's… my ma's side of the family… Daichi has that last name, too," Kanji blinked.
Naoto's mouth hung open.
"See? She gets it," Kon pointed towards Naoto, "And she's probably the only one who's going to get it… She knows what bloodline killed her own parents ages ago. I'm willing to bet that your little Kage mixed up those memories and thought that he'd be avenging Naoto's mother by killing your own family, ~~Kanji-kun~~."
"Y'can't be serious…" Kanji leered. There was so much necessary information required for that whole theory to even make sense. Makoto Nakamura… and Daichi Nakamura… They had the same last names, but were their bloodlines the same? Most likely not… Still, in his scrambled state, Kage might have not known any better.
"It's all very simple when you come to understand it… When Kage traveled back two months ago, he resurfaced as a simple electrolyte that seeped into a batch of pain relief medicine during the chemical manufacturing process. Maybe it was an accident… or maybe it was fate, but let's just say that your mother picked up a bad supply of pills the day before she died. Essentially, he infected your mother through her own medicine… Within her body, he shut down all of her systems and absorbed her vitals until he was able to reconstruct a new body… this one…" Kon lifted his arms and flicked his tails from side to side, "… and he emerged into the world again."
"That medicine…" Naoto's breath was shallow. She remembered Goro's words from his interview a long time ago… and the bottle of pain medication that Kanji had picked up for Daichi the night he was Shadow Extracted by their gang. She feared thinking that it had all been relevant from the very beginning.
"Now then… I think we've all had a good enough talk. You might not be able to tell… but I'm getting very eager," Kon spoke, shifting in his spot. "I imagine Isamu ran off to get back-up… and they could be here at any moment now… I'm sure we've wasted just enough time to let him do that. But believe me when I say that he won't be making it back in time. See, by the time he does get here… you will all be dead," he claimed, posing with his feet firmly planted into the ground and his fingers curled in front of him.
"Yer full of it…" Kanji snorted boldly. Standing all together on one side of the room, with Personas included, were seventeen people. On Kon's side… he was very much alone.
"I would hope to be so. I haven't eaten in quite some time…" Kon boasted, holding his stance. He didn't plan on moving. The two parties faced off as the ticking of the room's clock signaled the passage of time. Just how long had they been talking for…? Kon's eyes traveled towards the clock…
Naoto's eyes followed.
It was almost midnight. Seconds until it, actually.
55, 56, 57, 58, 59…
Kon stood up straight at the last second and smiled.