Aigis sensed an irritation of some sort, no, that wasn't the right word. It never happened. Nothing to compare this feeling, sensation, to.
Her legs never stopped moving since after school today. It was a full moon. No other members seemed to care. Something was wrong. She had to find the source and destroy it.
She looked up to the sky. The moon itself? Unlikely.
She looked back. The school? It was not the Dark Hour yet.
Then where should she go? Not the dorm. Not the city. But she wandered there anyway.
She couldn't relax. She couldn't remain calm. It was similar to her 'excitement' last full moon. Her guns preparing bullets and unlocking safety triggers. She locked them back.
The sky got darker and darker. They wouldn't be worried if she didn't come back. She kept walking.
Minato was with Junpei a lot these past few days. Junpei spent time with Ryoji a lot. Junpei was dealing with emotions, something she had yet to comprehend. He had recovered. He got stronger.
Minato had friends. His dorm mates were his friends. Aigis wasn't sure about her own relationship. She was Minato's friend. She should be. His friends should be her friends too. She would protect them all. Protect the lives she herself didn't have. That was what a friend should do.
Ryoji, Ryoji, Ryoji…
He's not her friend. They're enemies. The opposition. No matter how pure he seemed to show to the world, he was not.
Her friends should not be near him. No one should be near him. Minato shouldn't be so near…
Too late.
Aigis knew she had already failed, somehow.
It was inevitable, a mistake no one could erase. Everything was wrong since ten years ago. Everything was wrong.
Who am I...?
He had asked that question since the first day he had become alive, become human, set foot into this world where the sky was green and the moon was yellow. The full moon was just the day before. The bridge had some cracks and was under repair.
There was a gap in his memory. No, his whole memory was a void. He knew language. He knew many random facts such as how to cook an omelette or where the Iwatodai Dorm was, but he didn't remember living. He didn't even have a name.
He settled with Ryoji Mochizuki.
His life afterward was good. Even with the memory loss, he had made friends with people at Iwatodai Dorm. They were sensible and friendly. When he was with them, he felt at home, at peace.
It was a full moon today. Ryoji came to the moonlight bridge. This was where he woke up a month ago. The moon was yellow like that night…
Aigis interrupted his quiet time. He couldn't find it in him to be angry at her. She had always been so pure of the world. He found it endearing.
But she started talking, accusing him of being a Shadow.
Aigis, Aigis, Aigis…
He sensed the looming truth he didn't want to face. His head hurt.
"Your true name is Death… You are the Shadow I sealed away ten years ago!"
… That's right.
Last month was not the first time.
"The night I was born into this world… I set foot on this very bridge ten years ago." Ryoji remembered. He remembered because he would, because it was his reason for existence. "They said I was Death, the thirteenth Arcana that was never meant to be…"
"The only possible alternative was to seal you away…"
Aigis, too, remembered for that reason alone. Why they forgot. Why they remembered now. Their battle on the bridge under the first yellow moon. Destroy all Shadows. Defeat the embodiment of all Shadows itself.
However, no bullets hit him. No attacks reach. She felt powerless against this being in front of her.
Just like that night, Ryoji was too strong.
My… purpose…
As Aigis saw black and black and black, the bridge shook. The chains resounded. Her limbs collapsed.
Exist… for nothing else…
Sound of a dog barking.
Footsteps.
Gravity.
But she didn't hit the floor.
"... afr… aid"
Aigis saw him every day, but it's not every day she really saw his eyes.
"... Apol...gize."
His eyes were grey.
"I'm sc… are… d…"
Everything went dark. She could be repaired.
Like a dark lab at Yakushima.
Like a lab…
But those labs were white.
Too white…
"Good evening."
The sight of Ryoji, standing in front of him on the bridge and sending him a sad smile, was awfully familiar to Minato.
Ryoji started talking to Minato, or to himself, no one knows with how panicked he looked. "Seems like you all can see and hear me, yes? It seems you can be happy even without me, after all… I'm sorry. It is now winter. Thanks, but I'm sorry..."
SEES listened to Ryoji's brief explanation, tried to, at least, to not cut in at every chance or to walk forward and punch his face, or to grab his collar and ask for an explanation that made more sense. Aigis was unconscious now, on the floor behind them. Ryoji in front of them kept talking and everyone let him.
Minato wasn't sure what to think. Ryoji's current voice mixed with another similar yet different voice in his head. The green light from the sky seemed to shine through his room window, the surrounding overlapped with his dorm room's interior, and the air around him felt like the comfort of his own blanket on his own bed. He must be hallucinating, funny that he never thought of Pharos as a hallucination. It must be a dream.
"The end will come. The end of everything. It is drawing near..."
"No, I'm the embodiment of all Shadows, the Appraiser."
"I was rejected since the beginning of time anyway."
"... She will begin to awaken as she is drawn to me…"
"There are things in this world that cannot be changed."
"Ten years ago, a man collected a great number of Shadows and contained them in a laboratory…"
"I now know my role."
"... So in an act of desperation, she sealed me within a child who happened to be standing nearby."
"Is my existence something you are unable to accept?"
"And by a twist of fate, he later returned here… as a transfer student."
"I'm always right beside you…"
"... I lived inside him."
Minato blinked. The bedroom disappeared. He was on the bridge once more. Ryoji looked back at him and said nothing, then he wobbled.
"More I need to… tell you…"
Everything clicked.
The attraction he could not explain. The familiar smile. The courage to forge any bonds. Dark days after destroying the twelfth Shadow…
Is his life but a world for Pharos to play with?
Is his role just to be a good home?
His social links… source of power?
His happiness, just a wish, a contract he had signed?
Pharos always managed to make Minato acted as he wished.
What else? What else had been forced on him? Manipulated by an… entity?
Minato was so happy being with Pharos, Ryoji.
But that, too, was a wish.
Suddenly, Minato's dream all this time started to make sense.
Aigis did what she could do. She had to compromise. There might not be the right answer where everyone is happy.
Could he blame him? Death didn't ask to be born, nor does he ask to destroy humanity. It was humans who pull him in.
Death was there. Aigis was there. There were consequences. His family was one of them. His life afterward.
Aigis is innocent.
He was in the middle of it all.
Pharos is a good friend.
Minato found himself on the border. He didn't know which side was right or wrong anymore.