I'm sorry but not really. Hurting myself is something I do regularly lol

So, this is more or less some canon divergence with suicidal ideation, angst and whatnot. If you don't want to be triggered - and the chances are high - please skip this story. You have been warned.

If you think you want something mildly dark and angsty? You're welcome! I don't know when this will be updated, but I will post one as soon as I finished a chapter, unlike my other works. I'm more or less focused on them and the upcoming ShuYuka week, so please understand that it might be slow.

I'm not sure about the length. I'll update you as I go :D Cheers!

Makoto couldn't sleep.

Many things have happened, including Aragaki nearly dying after being shot twice, and it is only thanks to his powers — one that he strained to the very edge of his ability and almost collapsed himself — that the man has made it out alive. And to make matters worse, two of the Strega still remain at large, their whereabouts unknown, their motives strange and too deranged to understand.

He couldn't sleep, and he is tired, his psyche spent from the continuous usage of his power to prevent a death that would've been his fault, had it come to pass — because his heart is weak and his mind is a jumbled mess that he had allowed Strega's words to sway him, that he allowed himself to think of letting the Dark Hour continue.

He just wants time to stop for a moment, but time never waits. It brings all of them to the same inevitable end, because such is time's duty.

The clock nears midnight, and he hasn't had even the mind to bring anything with him but his MP3 and his coat to warm his hands and his feet and to cover his ears, so he won't have to listen to the little voices in him that keep saying that all of this is his fault.

(But it is. Aragaki wouldn't have had to get shot in the first place, had he been faster, had he not hesitated. It is because of him that Aragaki has to encounter such a mortal peril, and he has no one to blame but himself that he has to stretch his heart and soul until they all snap and makes him feel tired all the time to save the man.)

He finds himself at Naganaki Shrine, the moon shining all too brightly up in the night. It has barely been a week since Aragaki's shot, and he heard from Kirijou that he'd be discharged soon, thanks to him (no, don't thank him. He is to blame for this. It was his fault), and while Makoto feels relieved, the burdens still refuse to leave, the weight of his own mistakes like chains and shackles around his limbs.

He sits down on the tower Maiko loved to climb, his face tipping upward, trying to keep his mind away from itself and at some place far away, some place that is not here—

"There you are."

Makoto blinks, the haze that has surrounded him for days temporarily lifted when Yukari's voice reach him. He turns to see her looking up at him with a small smile that shines softly under the moon's light. He takes a few seconds to smile back, hollow and dry as it may be, before addressing her. "Hey. Sorry, I'll be back soon."

"I know you would," She says with a pout, and before he knows it, Yukari has already half-climbed her away up. She takes a place next to him, her smile soft and so, so kind. "But I'm not here for that."

He frowns. "Then what—"

"—Am I here for? I'm worried about you, dummy," She says, poking his forehead and making him yelp. When he recovers, she takes his hand into hers, fingers too carefully kneading away the knots at the back of his hand. "You look exhausted. Are you okay?"

He contemplates on the answer he should give her; she would know if he lies, and he doesn't want to tell her the truth (because it's his own damn fault and no one else's, and he doesn't want to be a burden). In the end, he settles for a half truth — better than none, he thinks (he hopes). "I'm just… I couldn't sleep. After…"

"You think you're at fault," She concludes, her fingers brushing gently under his eye, and he presses his lips together as he looks forward into the darkness. "Makoto, look at me. You saved him."

"He wouldn't have to go through that in the first place, had I not been so weak," He says, leaving a part of his explanation lost between the lines. He feels like he just wants nothing more than to disappear. "A thought of letting the Dark Hour exist crossed my mind, Yukari—"

"I know," She murmurs, pulling back slightly before her hands grip his cheeks, forcing him to look her in the eyes. They are soft and kind, and he feels his fear and insecurity melting away as she says, a small smile on her lips. "We all do. Don't blame yourself when no one does, Makoto. Please?"

He doesn't say anything. Couldn't.

"Come on, let's go back," She says, tugging gently at his hand as she climbs back down. "Or Kirijou-senpai will really have our heads for this."

"Mhm," He hums noncommittally as he follows suit, his body aching and groaning with the exhaustion that has never left, with the haze of darkness that returns tenfold.

(Somewhere at the back of his head, Makoto realizes something is wrong with him. Maybe it's the way he had put the Evoker repeatedly to his head without pause on October 4th, so much so that he had lost consciousness for a few seconds – brief as it is, that should've raised some issues, had he told anyone about it – or maybe it's because everything that has been plaguing his nightmares for the past week.

Somewhere at the back of his head, he knows something is wrong, but his heart is too tired to care. He hasn't said anything to anyone about it, and Yukari only knows the tip of the iceberg, and nothing more.)

"Makoto," She says again, and he blinks to see that he's been standing still for a while, lost in thoughts (and fatigue) on the spot. She smiles slightly before letting his hand go. "None of this is your fault, okay? Just… let's go back. You should get some rest."

Yukari has always been… driven. Persistent. She will not back down from anything – whether it be a fight or an argument – and it includes this, too. He isn't sure if she knows what exactly has been eating him (plaguing his every waking hours, making him want to curl up and melt back into the void because all things and everything hurts), but she couldn't possibly have realized just what kind of atrocity he has committed. Allowing the Dark Hour to exist? Almost killing a man because he hesitated?

He doesn't deserve forgiveness. He is—

Makoto is drawn out of his thoughts yet again when he notices someone at the corner of his eyes. The clock slowly trickles towards midnight, and he feels the pluck of unease rising in his stomach, Orpheus singing the tune of warning into his bones and making his heart sinks.

(He is tired, spent through the days of restlessness and nightmares. But that spark of clarity is enough, just enough, for him to notice the inevitable.)

"Yukari!" He snaps when he sees the familiar glint of silver and pale hair and golden eyes that hold a kind of fanatic reverence towards death. When Yukari turns, he pushes himself between her and—

Bang.

The first thing that registers is the sound of gunfire, and for a moment, there's silence and stillness. The next thing is something dull and warm and rancid soaking the front of his shirt, and he looks down as the world turns the shade of sickly green—

"Makoto!" Yukari cries, her hand on his shoulder in a second, and he is too tired and too exhausted for the severity of the situation to properly take hold. He instead reaches his shaking fingers (why are they shaking? What is wrong with him?) to touch where his dark shirt has clung to his frame, and a small, barely audible voice within him says that—

—Oh, I'm bleeding.

The pain comes soon after, not at all overwhelming, but heavy and numbing, sending him down to the ground and making his knees hit the path with a loud thud against the staleness of the Dark Hour. He takes a few more moments to acknowledge that he has been shot (just like Aragaki had been), and he looks up to see the man (who would soon become his grim reaper) standing there before him, with the eyes of a predator and the air of decay around him.

"So it was you who saved Aragaki, hmm?" Takaya states simply, waving his hand and gesturing towards nothing but the darkness and the silence. Makoto breathes, each draw of air accompanied by pain that pushes bile and blood up his throat. He feels Yukari's hand on his shoulder tightening slightly. "I have to say, I was not at all aiming for you, at first."

"What do you want?" Yukari grits out, trying to push herself forward – but Makoto can't allow that. He's almost killed a man once, and he will not let the person he loves take the fall for him like this. With cold fingertips, he tugs at her sleeve and pulls her away the best he could, making her turn to him with an angry and terrified look. "Makoto, don't—"

"It's okay," He murmurs, the words dragging through his throat like the acid in his lungs. It's getting harder to breathe, and his right hand has now been thoroughly painted with red (just like Aragaki's), but he can't allow her to risk herself like this. So he tries to push himself forward, swallowing back his own blood as he looks at those eyes – and it feels like staring down into the abyss itself.

And right now, the abyss is staring back.

"It is such a shame that I failed to find out who your navigator is. It certainly isn't that boy," The man says casually, admiring the instrument in his hand, fingers tracing along the silver barrel with care. When Takaya approaches, Hypnos surges forward, the rot escaping through its skin like miasma, and it takes everything that he has not to look away, instead keeping his hand on Yukari's, pulling her back away. "But the field leader would do just as well. And another member, too."

"I won't fight," Makoto says. He feels Yukari whipping her face his way, but he doesn't – couldn't – look at her. "I can, but I won't. So let her go."

He doesn't say please, because such a thing is meaningless in the face of someone who sees death as a form of deliverance.

"But you cannot fight. Not without your Evokers. Or can you?"

Makoto grits his teeth. He needs to convince Takaya, somehow – and if Yukari is harmed here, it would be his fault, too, since she is here because he is.

He knows Yamagishi could summon hers without the device, but he has never tried it before. Never sees the reason to try, but here, he has too.

(So that he won't condemn Yukari to death because of his own weaknesses.)

So he wills his mind, tired and muddled under the murky water of pain and fatigue, to think, to reach deeper into the crevices he has never tried to feel before. He knows that doing this now, when he's like this (has been for a week, unable to venture into Tartarus, unable to pull the trigger), would probably put a severe strain on his psyche. But what other choices does he have?

So he wills himself to call for his other self, feeling the incessant pull of Orpheus' lyre tugging at the edge of his soul, one that immediately sends his vision into a white haze as the familiar presence comes into the world again.

"…Oh-oh?" Takaya seems to laugh, and he frowns, trying to still his hands and pressing harder into the wound that's still bleeding him dry with every passing seconds. "I see. So you can do this, too? Marvelous. Taking you out would mean the Shadows would be left alone for good, then, wouldn't it?"

Makoto only nods, dizziness slowly creeping up the tip of his fingers. The bullet must have hit something in his stomach, something important.

"No!" Yukari snaps, rounding on him and pulling at his shirt, forcing his face up at her. She takes a pause, all the fury at the tip of her tongue melting away upon seeing his face (why?). "Makoto… why?"

"For you," He mumbles brokenly, letting Orpheus go back into the void and using everything that he has left to push himself up to his feet. "…Let her go, and… I won't resist."

There is some kind of mischief glinting in those eyes, but Takaya soon grins, Hypnos backing away. "Very well. It should be enough to secure the existence of the Dark Hour, after all."

His vision is getting hazy, darkness smudging the edges into deep, shadowed haze, and he's swaying on his feet, his shirt and a part of his pants soaked red and clinging to his torso like a second skin. He thinks he sees Yukari trying to move, but Hypnos flaps its decrepit, misshapen wings, forcing her away as the Strega leader walks closer, eyes deep in thoughts.

Makoto swallows the blood and bile that remain in his throat, the taste foul and sickening, but he has not enough energy to even throw up. And he knows that it's not just the bullet lodging deep in his flesh, either; he has been slow and exhausted for days now, and it seems that the last stunt he's pulled is making itself known through the string of his soul, pulling and tugging his consciousness between the waking world and the dream beyond.

"Such a brave soul like you deserves a worthy end, don't you think?" Takaya says, but his words contrast with the sheer malevolence within his tone. Makoto looks up to see a smile that draws out the most primal of fear from within him. For a moment, he fears that Yukari will have to pay for his mistakes (his weaknesses), but Takaya isn't looking at her. Those gold eyes remain on him, and relief washes over his skin, only for it to shatter into pieces upon the next sentence. "The braver you are, the slower you should go – just so that you could feel fear."

Something pierces through his left shoulder, the impact sending him sprawling onto the ground, hard and uneven. The feeling of his arm is suddenly gone, numb and cold as if submerged under frozen water, and after hearing an agonizing scream that is not his piercing through the air, he realizes that he's been shot again, and in a place where the wound won't be lethal.

Oh, a part of him, one that remains sound and ready, one that is not weary and exhausted, murmurs in between the staffs of his ribs as Takaya's true aim sinks in. He wants her to watch me bleed to death.

"You have realized what I am about to do too, haven't you?" The man asks, hovering over him and kneeling down, his gun waving dangerously about his torso, where the warmth is leaving him at an alarming rate. "I could surmise from watching that you two are close. And since you asked so nicely, I'm going to spare her, of course, but—"

The barrel digs into the open wound, and Makoto would've screamed had he the energy to do so. Instead, he writhes, his only working hand desperately trying to push the gun away. He distinctly hears someone – Yukari – whimpers weakly not too far from them, but her voice is drowned out by the pain that is growing and latching its claws into his flesh.

"—If that is a deal that you want to make, then you'll have to pay something in return. And this will be how you keep your end of the bargain."

"No! Please, please don't do this to him!" Yukari cries, desperation clinging to her voice like a shadow, and Makoto shifts just enough to see her crumbling on the ground, tears staining her face (no, don't cry for me, I'm not worth it). "Please, I beg you!"

"Yuka… ri…" Makoto whispers, his voice failing to gain volume with all the pain that has seeped deeply into his marrows. When she looks at him, he manages out a small smile against the strain of his injuries and the unseen exhaustion. "It's… okay, so please…"

"It's not okay! None of this is!" She shouts, she begs, she pleads, perhaps for him to change his mind. But what could they do? If he had been stronger, perhaps he could actually fight back. But bringing Orpheus into the world is hard enough as is, retaining his form within the confine of the Dark Hour nigh impossible with how little his psyche remains. This is the best he could do— "Makoto, please, you can't just—"

He turns back to Takaya, who's raveling in their exchanges. But Makoto will not allow him any more of this twisted satisfaction, so he breathes, slowly, quietly. "…Do what you will… just… leave her alone."

"Oh, I will, Mister Leader," Takaya grins.

For a moment, the world is silent, his other self's voice more distant and muffled than even what he had been experiencing for the past week. And when Hypnos comes into view, he knows all too well what the man has in store for him.

A breath of stale, rancid air, and his lungs burn.

He coughs, blood mixing with air as he gasps, trying to roll onto his side to ease the burden, only for the tip of the revolver to press him back down, drowning him on dry land with miasma that bites and bleeds into his veins incessantly. And after a moment he no longer knows how long, the gun presses into his flank and fires, leaving a graze deep enough for it to hurt, but not enough to hit anything else but skin and muscles, and the heat of the freshly-fired gunpowder burns deep enough for him to try to squirm away.

His vision is nothing but a fog of gray and ill-defined shapes, but they clear at least for a few seconds, just in time for him to see Takaya pulling him up by the scruff of his neck, forcing him to half-sit up against the pull of his wounds. The man then puts a finger to his lip as he says quietly, just loud enough for Makoto alone to hear. "Say, Mister Leader… are you afraid of death? You do not see it in its true glory like we do, but I don't think you actually mind dying?"

Makoto groans, the pain flaring up when the miasma creeps up his spine and strains his nerves with tenacity that disallows him a moment's rest. It takes him a while to form the answer, and the burn in his lungs worsen upon each and every word. "…No, I… don't."

"I see," Takaya says, amused. "But she seems quite afraid. Of your death, that is."

Makoto doesn't respond – doesn't know what to say and doesn't know how – only letting his body sag in the man's palm, tired and spent and confused.

"Ah, don't pass out just yet," Takaya warns, the scent of the miasma shifting just slightly, and he is brought back to full mental capacity against his own will, against the exhaustion sapping at his core. His Persona's power, Makoto notes, frowning just minutely as his eyes trail towards the hovering manifestation of dread, its covered eyes, and its twisted wings.

He then notices the way Takaya smiles, and hears the faint whispers of distress from deep within him as the man continues.

"The Dark Hour is far from over."

"Stop, please, stop. Don't do this anymore. Enough already."

Yukari's voice is the first thing that rouses him from his split-second lost of consciousness, and he stirs, every inch of his skin singed by invisible flame, his lungs smudged up by miasma and clouds of disease, his veins burn under the cold air Hypnos is still releasing out in waves. He tries to move his head, to look at her and assure her that it's okay (it's really not, but what else could he have said?), but his silent request is denied when his body groans and aches upon even the slightest twitch of his finger.

He then gasps, breathing in the frigid air and letting his mind wander aimlessly, pieces of memories bundled up together into one shapeless mass at the void in his chest. He remembers nothing and everything that has been done to him; the feeling of being set alight by flames that do not burn, the way his lungs ache upon each and every breath, wildfire spreading all over his veins, his heart pounding in time with the silent laughter in his head.

(A tiny, nearly destroyed part of him whispers a few words at a time, broken and static-filled, that there must be a reason why he's not yet bled out to death. He then recalls the eerie green that had made its way through his closed eyelids as he squirmed and cried in silence; and that, perhaps, is the reason.

Takaya is using his Persona to keep him alive, pulling taut the inevitability that is his death.

And another part of him… welcomes it.)

"Ah, the hour is almost over," Takaya says matter of fact-ly, as if he hasn't been burning and freezing and flaying him alive without leaving more wounds on his body with his Persona since the beginning. But Makoto is tired; he is exhausted, all the pain too much for him to retain much of his sanity or his senses, so he says nothing as he listens. "I should wrap this up, give you the last gift before I have to flee."

Takaya then stands, pointing his gun not at his head – which would've been a welcomed instant death that he will be denied, too – but at his chest. Yukari is half-hysterical in the background, but he couldn't quite fully hear her anymore, because all he could feel is his broken soul and the weight of the world clinging on his skin.

"Such a brave soul deserves a slow death. But don't worry; you will die. Rarely would anyone recover from a gunshot wound to the chest, after all."

Takaya then pulls the trigger, putting the bullet into his chest, ripping away the air he desperately needs.

Somewhere in his head, a voice whispers.

You deserve all of this.

Yeah? That just happened?

See you next time!