.

.

.

In your mind's eye lies a memory
Hard to find, blinded by pain
And your father sings a melody, hear him sing
Hell frozen rain

Are her safe arms feeling dangerous?
Missing truth, frozen in lies
Are your loved ones just a memory burned in pain?
Hell frozen rain falls down

— Hell Frozen Rain, Akira Yamaoka & Mary Elizabeth McGlynn

7 / 26 / 2016

I turn to everyone else.

Niijima opens her phone, calls me, and I put the call on speaker.

Sakura will know this, whether she cares or not is something we've yet to determine.

This is all a safety precaution, in case she has fucking assholes in masks ready to kick my ass inside. Or if she has a knife, or some shit.

They're all ready to rush in in case anything happens.

I enter. Front gate and door are both unlocked.

Hallways are narrow. But well—kept, all things considered. Thought there'd be mountains of junk hoarded from top to bottom, but nothing of the sort. It's dark, though. Doesn't help that the sun's set. Switch next to me. Lights don't open. I open the flashlight in my phone and march forward. Feet creaking in the floorboards. Musty smell somehow growing stronger.

"Sakura?"

A message in my phone tells me to go upstairs — there's a flight of wooden steps on my right.

Though I am back in reality the whole place feels as cold as it was in the Palace. The further I go the more I wish I could leave. For every step I take I feel a hand gripping my throat and my spine, tighter and tighter, colder and colder. Left hand trembles, and by the time I once get to the door of her room my hand's gone violent. I know it's her room for it's the only room in the hall that has any kind of decor, any kind of light coming through the seams. There's a DO NOT ENTER sign nailed to the front, with police tape of all things wrapped over the wooden frame.

I think for a second to get angry at the knowledge that Niijima's fucked us over again.

But I see her now, holding both my hands in the nurse's office. I feel them — callused, but warm, and open, to an extent that I haven't ever felt once before.

The day I met her I never thought I'd end up caring for her as much as I do. I never thought I'd care about anyone the way I've come to care for them.

Is it in my nature to only appreciate what's come into my life far too late for it to matter?

I'm about to knock, but I pull my hand back. Instead I press my palm against the door, and say softly, "Futaba Sakura."

And I hear, from the other side, "Kazuya Hikawa." Slowly, I move my hand to the doorknob, only to be told, "This door stays closed."

"Okay."

"Awfully noble of you to go this far to save your little friends. I'll admit, I'm impressed you found out so much about me. About my mother. Are you gonna have me arrested now?"

"No."

"Why wouldn't you? I had you beat to shit and would have torn apart your friends' lives in a matter of weeks. You're lucky I was bluffing when I threatened to steal your girlfriend's cash. But what if I wasn't? What if I had hacked into each and every one of their accounts? Into all their phones? What if I had them all dismembered and cannibalized right in front of you? Bet you wouldn't let me go then, would you?"

"...no."

"I figured. You care about them soooo much. Why couldn't you care for Kana the same way?"

I lean against the door, slumping down with my back against it. "You found the police reports."

"I was so lost and desperate after Mom died. I tried to find out what happened to my...to Kana. I thought, maybe I could talk to her. Maybe... maybe we could be friends again. And once I found out that could never happen again, I wondered, I wondered who the fuck you were. That she would go into your house, after what happened to her mother. To her daughter. And then I saw your fucking face. How it looked like her stepfather's. You entered Leblanc and you said your name out loud, not knowing I'd had the place bugged to watch over Sojiro. It was like fate had laid out the red carpet for me to fuck your life up."

"And that involved killing puppies and threatening everyone I knew?"

"I didn't have the animals you saw in those gifs killed. Just stole those off imageboards. And I well and truly should have destroyed your friends' lives... I wanted to, more than anything. I wanted to break your whole fucking world in two."

"And you didn't, why?"

She laughs acrimoniously, "I don't know. I really don't. I could have. I could do it right now."

"If you really want to."

"I really want to. But I think... I think what I want more, is to know how you could fail her so badly. You loved her. Didn't you?"

"I didn't," I say, and she doesn't respond through the door. I lean my head back, "I can't say I loved her because I didn't even know her. You could say I loved the side of herself that she showed me. But she didn't tell me anything about her life before I knew her, about her stepfather, about anything like that. They didn't tell me — not her, not her mother. They didn't want to tell me. They had made that choice."

"Do you hate her for lying to you? Like how she lied to me?"

"I never could."

She plants herself in silence before breaking it, "Say I believe you."

"About how I felt towards Kana?"

"About how you told me my mother was right about her research. You said, when I first called you, that you tried to...save Kana. Did that have anything to do with this cognitive world bullshit you and your new girlfriend have been spouting at me?"

I don't answer for a time, because recalling everything I'd gone through makes my chest sink and my throat clench. Red skies. A monster that spans them, buildings sprouting out its back. Roaring violently, with each of its seven heads being mine.

She takes offense to this silence, perhaps as I would. Her next two questions crush me.

"Did you enter Kana's cognitive world? Did you... make her so depressed that you drove her to kill herself? Explain it to me. Now. Or else you all fucking burn."

Lie to her. Tell her the exact opposite of what you did. Say that you tried your level best to be the hero you weren't. That you tried the fucking cliche of just being there, for someone who didn't even love you.

But she hasn't the heart to be lied to again. And you don't have the heart to lie to her.

Lest she see right through you...and destroy everything you've ever known.

"After her mother killed Masako, Kana looked like she wanted to just... hide in some hole somewhere forever, and never leave. Every day I'd look into her eyes and see nothing there whatsoever. It was like she'd already died. I... went into the world inside her heart. I went there, and I thought... I thought I could save her. I did everything I could. I broke my bones. I bled. I did things I never thought I'd survive through. If I could have died in Masako's place, I would have. I thought, if I could die for Kana, I would. If I had to lose my life for her sake I'd do it."

"...and you didn't," she says spitefully.

"I didn't understand anything."

Through the door I hear her heave out breaths and within seconds she sounds like she's having an asthma attack. But she clears her throat, and all but growls out, "Why... would you tell me, any of this?"

"Because if I found the man who took away from me the person that I loved, I would have done exactly what you did to me. Perhaps even worse. I would have torn them to a thousand pieces." I hang my head low. "If you want me dead, there's absolutely no way I could ever blame you. But I beg you to leave them alone. They had nothing to do with Kana. She had nothing to do with Kana."

"Why shouldn't I just bury them all a thousand feet underground? Why shouldn't I take everything and everyone you have ever loved from you?"

"They're innocent. You know they're innocent."

"But you're not. You're guilty of too many things. The highest offense is that you think you deserve happiness, after everything you've done."

"I've never deserved any of them."

And I mean that completely.

Best—case scenario is they die.

Worst—case scenario is they become like me.

And I've dragged them back into the shit when I ought to have left them behind.

"Do you love her?" Sakura seethes, through the door. "That girl of yours. Niijima, whatever the fuck her name is."

I look at my hands, "I don't know."

"She seems to like you plenty, considering what she's risking by helping you get to me."

"She did this — they did this — because they wanted to help you."

"Help me?" she laughs. "They wanna help me? So why the hell're you here?"

I lift my head up and close my eyes. "Because you did more for her than I ever could have."

Many memories come at me now. The harsher, bloodier, gorier ones stick out especially in my mind — as they do. I see the seven—headed monster, all the Manikins filling the streets with their rotted flesh. I see Masako's skeleton, covered in rags. And then I see a memory I wanted to kill for months. Something I hammered down to the furthest end of my mind possible.

Something that all of this has wrenched out from the darkness.

I see her hairs dangling down, black and large and thick and messy like vines — I see her crying as she cups my face.

I feel her, kissing me.

"I slept with her," I say suddenly, and in saying it I feel like I'm breathing again.

Sakura doesn't know what to make of that. "You what?"

"It was early morning. Just past midnight. After I went into her cognitive world, I slept with her," I tell Futaba Sakura. "Once I returned from her cognitive world and saw her in my bedroom she looked at me in a way she hadn't since... since the day I told her I liked her. She just...pushed me into bed and kissed me. And I kissed back."

"I... you...?"

"I thought I had saved her. I thought I had brought life back to her eyes. She held my face and kissed me and told me that she was so happy she'd ever even met me. She wept over me with a smile... and once she laid herself down next to me I wiped her eyes with my thumbs. She burrowed herself into my chest and wrapped her arms around me, almost so tightly I didn't know if I'd be able to breathe. I thought I'd saved her. I thought I'd won. The next morning I found her in my bathtub wearing a nightgown she'd packed along with her other clothes."

Bang against the door, "Stop it."

"She'd left a note on the bed that morning, Sakura. A letter. It told me that she loved me and that she was sorry for hurting me... that the days she was with me were some of the happiest she'd ever had."

Bang, Bang, "Stop, you fuck —"

"If I had been a stronger man she might have lived. If I had trusted her to save herself on her own power she might have lived."

"I don't wanna hear this—"

"If I had been strong enough to fight off her mother none of this would have happened."

BANG BANG "STOP IT!"

"I got Kana and Masako out of that room and trapped the mother in there but it wasn't enough because she rammed a fucking crib into the door—"

BANG, "I SAID—" BANG, "—STOP—" BANG, "—TALKING TO ME...!"

"—she stabbed me, once in the shoulder and twice in the stomach and I bled everywhere, far too much to do anything to stop what was happening. She throws Masako down like a rock and beats the shit out of her own daughter, makes her unconscious — Masako is then tossed everywhere, into everything, is cut up into pieces that fall into floorboards and all over the walls and all over the windows. Kana would stop her but Kana's face is purple and her eyes are swelled and she can barely breathe through a broken nose and busted lips and..."

And I feel as though I'm wrenching my own heart right out of my chest. Slowly. Ripping it open with my bare hands, the arteries coming loose and undone as red dashes every which way.

I can say no more. Not while I'm still here, still looking through my own two eyes. If I do, I'll be dwelling in these thoughts and moments, so deeply I'm sure I'll kill myself the moment I'm alone.

So I fly up into the ceiling...and I look down at myself from up above.

I hear Futaba Sakura banging her hands against the door, more and more and more. I hear her screaming and crying, violently and loudly. My hand is shaking and a ringing noise goes in my ears as I see my mouth move, as I continue to say things I can no longer understand.

My memories of Kana are rushing at me now, like they always have and always do. She's lying in my bed now, desperately lonely, even though I'm right across from her in a chair. She's asking me if I meant it when I said I'd never leave her, and I'm saying yes. I'm coming, I tell her now. I'm coming home. She's crying as we hold Masako in our arms and she begs me to take care of a daughter who is already dead.

Then she and I fall in bed together, and I'm happy to the point where you could think I'm delirious. I'm embracing her, and my face is in her neck, and I hear her let out a cry as we tumble and I wish we could stay like this for the rest of eternity.

And then I see Makoto Niijima.

She's holding my face, trying to speak to me — looking on the verge of tears. Somehow, she's here right now, in the dark hallway of this small house.

I'm stroking her face as she cries in a jail cell, mourning the man who was her father.

She's holding my hands in the nurse's office of the school.

She's scowling at me, crying her eyes out terribly as she witnesses the beast tear my flesh to pieces and emerge from the shell that is my bones — this is not a memory, but a premonition.

It is inevitability, staring me right in the face.

Or is it just one possible future out of many?

"I didn't come to you to stop Kaneshiro just because I couldn't go to the cops with this," she said, such a long time ago. "I came to you because I know that you're more than what you believe you are."

When I return to myself I realize that the vision of her holding my face and looking on the verge of tears, isn't a vision.

I realize she's right here, in front of me, speaking directly to me. "Hikawa..."

Soon the others come from up the stairs, one after another. All of them terrified, worried. The cat shuffles through their legs and dashes up to me. "We told her to stay put, but she wouldn't listen."

Phones are on.

My God.

They heard all that.

And now, we all hear Futaba Sakura on the other side of the door. Sounding like the more she speaks the more her mind begins to splinter.

"How...? How is anything you're telling me even...? How could you, why couldn't you...!? I... I...!"

"S—Sakura—san...!" cries Niijima, rising to her feet. "Sakura—san, listen to us—!"

"GET OUT! ALL OF YOU JUST GET THE FUCK OUT, LEAVE MY FUCKING HOUSE NOW!"

We hear things crash against the door, one after another. Heavy things, massive things — so massive a crack bursts open in the wooden frame once we hear the third CRASH. Everyone backs away except Niijima and I, and we hear Sakura scream and scream as she continues hurling things against the door. She does this for some time and her howling grows louder, ever louder — so much so you'd likely hear her from the first floor. Her cries are vicious and she snarls like some vile infected animal, but once the crashing noises die down and she stops hurling things at her door, we hear her wailing like an abandoned child.

It's Niijima who takes the initiative to enter the room. A move I very nearly stop her from, but she goes and opens the door anyway, because the knob's fallen off and all it takes to go through is a tiny push. Of course the room is in shambles, but it's even worse off than we could've imagined. Garbage bags piled up in one corner of the room. Books scattered all over the place, along with broken pieces of figurines. At the foot of the door, at our feet, lie multiple desktop monitors, their screens caved in and shattered to pieces. Windows are completely sealed off with blackout curtains — the only light that this room allows is a table lamp at the desk, which itself is cluttered with empty soft drink bottles and junk food wrappers.

A black haired girl is slumped in the middle of the room, head hanging low to the point where her long locks all but veil her face. She looks as if she's prostrating when really she wants to sink into herself until she disappears entirely. Niijima lowers herself, grasps onto Sakura's shoulders.

This house, this place, it contains too many bad memories. So many Sakura's convinced herself it's her tomb.

So Niijima tries to get her out of here, at least. Tries pulling her up under her arms, "Sakura—san... come on. We need to get you — there's, there's a clinic nearby, you need to get up. Okay? Okay, we're gonna, you're going to stand up, and we're gonna get outta here, you're going to be—"

She stops because Sakura's wrapped her arms behind her back. The girl is sobbing now, burying her face into Niijima's shoulder. Niijima just sits there, with her, holding her close. Letting her cry her eyes out — for her anger has given way to unconscionable despair.

"I loved her...," Sakura heaves out, eyes red with a seemingly neverending stream of tears. "I loved her more than anything..."

Niijima says, voice breaking as she says, "We know... we know."

"I killed her. I killed her and I killed Mom. I couldn't be there for either of them..."

"Sakura," Niijima pulls away, cups her face — "Sakura, look at me. Look at me, you didn't kill anybody."

"My mother had a mental break because I kept demanding she leave work and be with me. All I ever wanted was for her to be with me. After she died I felt so alone that I couldn't be there for Kana when she needed me, either. I couldn't do anything, for either of them... and now they're both dead. Kana's killer is standing right here, in front of me, and I'm crying my eyes out — right in fucking front of him — instead of giving him what he deserves. I don't care about him. I don't care about any of you. I just want you all to go down with me. That's all that matters. They dying is all that matters and then, and then... and then..."

"You didn't kill your mother," Takamaki grunts, crouching down next to Niijima. "We saw what your heart is like. You've pushed down so many of your memories that you don't even remember... Hikawa, tell her."

"It might trigger something-"

"Just, tell her," Niijima grunts. "Please. Tell her what you know! About mental shutdowns! About...! A-about..."

She stops herself because she realizes I'll be treading on my own horrible memories as well. Once more. I feel someone tap my shoulder and it's Yoshizawa. She's looking at me like she's telling me I must do what I must do. Sakamoto's worried but he nods back, for he knows that this is the only path forward, as well.

I look at Niijima and she takes me by the hand, right here and now. Keeping it from shaking, keeping me from losing it right on the spot, and we both kneel down to face her.

I've no idea what I could possibly say.

Futaba Sakura has freckles underneath her eyes. Her black hair is messy and tousled and goes every which way, all the way down to her back. Black-rimmed glasses make her eyes larger than they ought to be and I feel if I take them off right here and now I'll remember what Kana looked like - for she looks so, unbelievably, painfully, core-cuttingly similar to the girl I never knew at all.

I'm crying too, as I pull up my phone and begin coming through files and news stories on mental shutdowns I'd bookmarked and saved. Everyone who's joined me, they all look like they no longer recognize me, for I'm crying so pathetically and so openly that I may as well have turned into an entirely different thing altogether. I cry so hard the tears dash upon my phone and it won't register when my fingers tap against the screen —

So Niijima buys us time.

"Medical science, information technology, biology, psychology... these are all technical books," she says, pulling up a red hardbound from the floor, and plying through it. "You've combed through all of these, Futaba. You'd read through everything you possibly could, because you wanted to know what your mother was so invested in. Because you were interested. Because... because you wanted to connect with her."

"She... almost never could find time for me..."

"And you wanted to at least find some way to be there for her. Right?"

She buys us so much time that I manage to come up with everything we'll ever need.

And the second I get everything we'll ever need I stop crying and turn to stone once more.

"Bleeding eyes. Droning noise coming out their mouths. Suddenly, randomly committing acts of violence upon everyone close to them," I show her my phone, thumbing through the open tabs and the news articles I'd downloaded. "This is exactly what happened to your mother. This is exactly what happened to Kana's mother. And it's what happened to dozens, upon dozens of people. Do you even remember what your mother even looked like on that day? What she had done?"

Sakura looks at my phone and suddenly recognition and light comes through in her eyes, she pulls it close to her as she sees every single symptom these people have suffered lining up with exactly what her mother endured. "What are you saying...? That—that someone made all that happen? You can't... this can't be... I—I killed Mom. I pushed her into the car to save myself, I...they, they linked it to maternity neurosis, she..."

We're losing her. We're fucked.

But Niijima just keeps on going. "That isn't true. You've pushed it so far down into the depths of your heart you don't remember—"

"If it wasn't for me she wouldn't have—"

"Sakura, Sakura-san look at me—"

"—if I didn't keep on pushing and giving her stress she might have—"

"LISTEN TO ME!" Niijima shouts now, pulling her face right up again. "Maternity neurosis!? Stress from work!? You think you could drive her so off the deep end she'd kill herself!? You remember whenever she scolded you, or disciplined you, or lost her temper at you—you've forgotten how much she loved you! How much she cherished you! You've pushed it all to the back of your mind, Sakura-san! Wake up! Remember what you know is true!"

"She hated me...!"

"You're the reason she committed suicide. You were just getting in the way of her research. Except... what made you think it was suicide?"

"Th-the letter, she... she wrote it in her own letter...!"

"Exactly," says Niijima. "Police read to you a suicide letter, and what was written on it...?"

"Yes. The shock and pain led you to avert your eyes."

"And they read it to your relatives. All of them," I say suddenly. "But your mother didn't write it."

Everyone turns to me.

Niijima's banking on Sakura finding it in herself to accept all the pain she's running away from.

A stupid, reckless, unbelievable plan that will most likely get us all killed. Through this, I find almost no chance of saving this girl.

But almost no chance is better than no chance at all — and she and I both know that there is no chance of saving her otherwise.

Goddamn you, Niijima.

This must be the terror Kana had felt towards me.

Say something. You stupid piece of fucking shit. Or else you up your body count in the worst way you possibly could.

Niijima says it for me. "Think hard. Was that note real? Would the mother you loved so much truly have written that?"

"I...I don't know...," Futaba Sakura says. "I don't remember."

"You do," says Niijima then. "We can show you—"

"No. We can't," I cut in.

"What? Why?"

"It's too risky. She's unstable enough as she is."

"This might be her only chance—"

"Or it could destroy us."

She turns to the cat, "Your thoughts?"

It blinks. Looking up at Sakura. "I don't know. Both of you make good points. Queen might be right to bring her into her Palace. After all, this is all about her inability to confront her own emotions and memories. Giving her that chance might help. But she does have a couple screws loose, so it's as irresponsible as it is ingenious."

I turn to Niijima, "I don't like leaving things up to chance."

"This is all up to chance. We have to give it a try!"

"Ask her what she wants." We all turn to Sakamoto. Almost embarrassed, he rubs the back of his neck. "I mean... it's her Palace."

Niijima turns to Sakura, takes her by both her hands. "Sakura-san. We could take you into your heart. Show you all the memories you're unwilling to face. Help you remember who your mother once was! We can help free you from this. But we won't do it unless you give us the go-ahead. We want to help you, and we know you just want to stop the pain. But if you keep resisting us, we won't be able to do anything."

"Why would you want to help me...?" she scoffs, through bleary eyes. "I nearly destroyed all your lives."

"Because...," Niijima exhales. "Because it'd be wrong to leave you like this, knowing we could help you."

Futaba Sakura says nothing. Just closes her eyes tight and clenches her face. Then she lifts up her head to us all, and nods slowly. "Show me."

And at once, I feel a deep, bottomless fear that everything that could possibly go wrong absolutely will, and I'm torn between wanting to curse Niijima out and asking her what the fuck she thinks she's doing and trying to come up with a thousand alternatives that will not work, as Niijima pulls open her phone and hits the Navigator.

I think to make her stop this before it's too late. A voice in my head that sounds like Satanael's or mine, I can't be sure - it demands I grab Niijima's phone outta her hand right this second and throw Sakura out before she has a breakdown and kills us all in her fucking insanity.

But I keep that voice down because I honestly don't know else any of us could fucking do. For I cannot save anybody. I can only destroy things. Every one of my decisions will invariably, inevitably lead to someone somewhere dying this horribly gruesome and undeserved death. Everything I ever do leads to death and misery.

Maybe trusting in Niijima will be just what we need. What Sakura needs. Hell, it might just be what I need.

Then we get there and I see Sakura clutching her head as she lets loose a scream, and I realize I'm getting ahead of myself.

We are in the first pyramid we'd entered.

The one with the piles of old and broken toys that stretch out in the darkness for miles.

The one where we fought Dante.

Luckily, the cat senses no one here. No Shadow nor Manikin. Down below it still is able to track Dante's presence... so we're good for now.

I'd propose we leave this place sooner. But that gets us in the tundra, where Kana's Manikin is. Past that is the Sphinx, which is likely coated in blood and a whole host of new Shadows. Then the other pyramids, which are a fair distance away and likely have newborn Shadows of their own filling their insides.

This place isn't safe, but it's safer than what we'll likely get elsewhere.

Cat should be able to point out to us if he's decided to come up the stairs or leap out of the Shadows and we should be able to get out in time.

We should be.

It took us some time to get Sakura to calm down. Even longer to explain what the hell the rules are. This whole shit must be utterly paradoxical to her and I wouldn't blame her if her Palace outright imploded from all the fucked-uppedness of this exact situation. But we're still here. The Palace is still here. Not turned into a Kingdom or anything of that sort.

Meaning while she's able to take everything in she hasn't really internalized or accepted it fully. And why would she? I still haven't really internalized this bullshit and I've been doing this for months. I doubt Niijima or the others have, either.

"So... this is the world inside my heart..."

"The world reflecting your subconscious," says the cat. "We call it a Palace."

She blinks at it. "Y'know, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-a-Bear."

"Well, maybe I am."

"This place was founded upon your unconscious mind," Yoshizawa tells her. "Everything you pushed down and wouldn't face about yourself, spawned all of this."

"Right... and, what's with your clothes...?"

"They protect us all from the distortion."

Sakura exhales. "So my mother was... right about the Metaverse?"

"We call it the Vortex World. But yeah, she was right about its existence. Unfortunate she couldn't have found evidence for it."

"...it would've been the discovery of the century," Sakura says sadly. "She spent years researching it. Her whole adult life. So much so she'd spend days just... at her computer. Not even really eating or sleeping, until she'd overwork herself. She worked tirelessly for it... I remember. My God, I remember... and you all just found it through an app on your cellphones."

She sounds both amused and unfathomably irritated.

I tell her, "It's supernatural in nature. Once you enter the Vortex World you should have it in your phone."

She checks hers. App's in.

"What a fucking joke. My mom died over trying to find out of any of this is even real, and you just had it handed to you on a silver platter. You said... you said someone caused her death?"

Niijima exhales, "There is a group out there we've come to know called Shijima. They... induce mental shutdowns under orders, and for profit."

"How'd you find out about them?"

Takamaki cuts in, "We went into the heart of a yakuza. Those two," she points to Niijima and me, "found out about Shijima through him. We then went into a police chief's heart and found even further confirmation."

"Jeez, you guys did some work, like damn...," Sakamoto shakes his head.

Sakura smirks, "What the fuck is wrong with all of you? How do I know you're not this fucking Shijima or whatever?"

"Because you'd be dead already," I tell her.

"Or maybe you plan to take me to your fucking leader or something—"

"Shijima's been active for more than two years now," says the cat. "Out of everyone here who's been able to access the Vortex World, Kazuya is the earliest—he accessed his first Palace in December of 2015. The Kana girl's Palace. Our evidence for that lies in the Palace logs that you can find in their phones — tracks their dates from the first Palace they entered to the last. But I suppose you want something more concrete, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, we don't have that. You only have our word."

"And I'm supposed to trust you to change my heart?"

"At this point, we can't do anything," I tell her, my back turned to everyone. "Only you can."

"What...?"

I turn to face her, "To put it bluntly, your head's all fucked. At the core of this cognitive world lies a manifestation of the distortion in your heart—called a Treasure. We steal the Treasure the Palace goes away. In theory."

"In theory."

"In practice there's a lot that could go wrong."

She glowers at me. "Like with Kana."

Niijima steps between us, because Sakura looks like she wants to devour me, but I explain plainly.

"I stole Kana's Treasure."

"And it didn't work out, I'm guessing."

I face the ground. "I tried to save her. I did everything I could."

"And you couldn't. Why?"

"Her heart was too... damaged," says the cat. "We could have either tried to save her and failed, or done nothing and let her kill herself. And she was going to kill herself. Kazuya did his very best to save her. I was with him. I helped him. He did everything right, or at least as right as he could make it. Whatever she did to herself, it was no fault of his own."

She narrows her eyes at it, shuffles her jaw as she glares again at me. There isn't as much ferocity in her eyes as earlier, though that can be chalked up to emotional exhaustion more than anything else. To say she's gotten over the fact I killed the girl she loved, would be an unbelievably stupid observation.

"And you're trying to help me now, to what, make up for your failure?"

"No. I'm trying to help you now, because I do the same thing over and over again and keep getting stuck in the same place, all the time."

"You selfish prick. How do you know I won't just kill myself if you steal my Treasure...?"

"You've a much higher chance of surviving than the Kana girl," cat cuts in. "You at least have your memories, as buried as they are deep under self-hatred. In her horror, Kana had forgotten so much of her past I couldn't even find a lick of her memories."

Sakura looks like she wants to cry. "That's horrible!"

"Those were the stakes. Kazuya did the one thing that had the highest possible chance of saving her life. The fact that she died anyway speaks volumes of how she-"

Yoshizawa grabs the cat, covers its mouth with her hand, muffling its voice.

I turn away, as Niijima gets us back on track. "It's your choice, Sakura. You can follow us and bear witness to the memories you've kept deep down... or you can go back to the real world and remain there. Do you want us to steal your heart, or not? It's all up to you. We go with whatever you say."

Sakura closes her eyes. Grips her knees. Considers her options.

"Either you steal my heart and stop me from feeling this way...or you steal my heart and I die."

Niijima's mortified by the prospect, but answers back, "Y-yes..."

"I just...," Sakura shakes her head. "I'm just so sick of feeling this way, every single day."

"I...," Niijima nods. "I see."

"You have my permission to do...," she exhales. "Whatever you want, I guess. I just... I hate feeling like I have so much on my shoulders. I... I see her."

"You what?" Takamaki asks.

I turn back to face Sakura. She breathes. "Everyday I see my mother. Flickers at a time. She hangs over me like she wants me to join her. And I want to join her too, but I'm scared. I don't. I don't know what I even want anymore, I..."

Takamaki keeps her steady. "I...can't say I know what that's like. But I know someone who does."

"You do...?"

"My friend...endured so much. And I wasn't there for her. I was too late to do anything for her. By the time she attempted to take her own life, she... I knew she didn't want to die. She just wanted to be..."

"To be free of the pain."

"Yeah. I couldn't be there for her. I wasn't there for her. But we're here for you, every step of the way."

"Even after everything I planned to do to you? You people really are fucking crazy."

"Maybe we are," Takamaki chuckles. "If the thought of it sounds crazy to you, then you weren't crazy enough to begin with. Means there's hope."

Sakura chuckles mirthlessly. Then her face turns serious. "Okay. I... I'll trust you guys. Do whatever you want."

"Do you want to come with us?" Niijima asks.

"With you...?"

"We really should send her home," I tell her. "No telling what showing her her memories might trigger."

"But what if that's the key to unravelling her distortion?" Niijima bites back. "What if it's the best chance we have at saving her? Morgana, what could happen?"

Cat removes Yoshizawa's hand from its mouth, "She could develop a Kingdom. And then be really dedicated to killing herself."

Niijima blinks. "Okay. Uh," runs a hand through her hair. "Okay. That's not good."

"Indeed."

"A Kingdom...?" asks Sakura.

"A Palace is the result of a distorted unconscious desire. There are two things that could happen once someone becomes fully conscious of their distorted desire. One, they could let it go of their own free will. Two, they could accept it as a part of themselves. A Kingdom is what happens when a distorted desire becomes conscious, and is fully embraced as an aspect of identity."

Sakura blinks, "I-if that's the case, then...," looks around, "shouldn't this whole Palace have become a Kingdom already, then...?"

"You haven't accepted it. You haven't manifested it into full consciousness yet. You're still resisting juuust enough."

She hangs her head in her hands, "My head really is a mess..."

"We can bring you back out at any point in time," Yoshizawa says. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

Sakura takes in a deep breath, and pulls her hands away from her face.

To the girl, the feeling of this understanding...soothing, strangely enough. It's something she doesn't deserve, nor ever deserved. She doesn't feel cold, doesn't feel sad or happy or any kind of emotion sinking in. It's all tranquil. Everything she's ever felt, one would think she'd be scared out of her mind right now. She should be begging the pain to stop, crying out for her father Sojiro, crying out for Mom or God or anyone else in the world to rescue her. But that isn't happening.

She doesn't think she wants it to. She knows exactly what she's doing, now more than ever before.

"I want to. I wanna see."

Oh my God. "Are you sure?" I ask her.

"Yes."

"Are you absolutely sure, Sakura-san?" asks Niijima.

"Yeah. I am. I wanna see for myself," Sakura declares. "I...I wanna know what my Mom was really like. I want to find her again. Even if I..."

"Sakura-san."

"I'm a burden and I know it. I'm so sick of looking at computer screens, sick of closing my eyes and seeing blue lines. My fingers make such annoying noises when they're tapping away at my keyboards, and the world's never been so cluttered and crowded. Sojiro's suffering because of me and I knows it. He raised me after Mom died, and he's tried his very best. But I've never been good enough, nor will I ever be. I was born broken, and it's just the way things are. It's nobody's fault but my own. I know this, and I've never really tried to move onward. Never tried to adjust for his or anybody else's sakes. Always the selfish little brat who does nothing but look at screens all day. I... want to see. With my own two eyes. If nothing else, for myself. I wanna see the days my mother was there."

Niijima turns to me, eyes defeated and sad.

Her plan's worked perfectly thus far.

Let us hope it produces something incredible at the end of it all.

"Okay. We should go to the other pyramids first. Allow her to see what memories she's got in store-"

Cat blurts out suddenly "Oh my God he's COMING UP THE STAIRS-"

"He's what-!?"

Suddenly something punches me right in the face so hard, my nose breaks and one of my eyes flies outta my head, hanging by a nerve.

The cat blurts out something as everyone gets into battle formation. Ear ringing. Disoriented. Stupid, stupid. Eye lolling down, I shove it right back in but it doesn't stop the disorientation, doesn't stop the dizziness - Whatever's here it appeared quick enough for the cat not to sense it until just the last second- I see fire and lightning and nuclear hell kick up everything in the world. I see Niijima screaming as I'm lifted up in the air by the neck and thrown into a pile of old toy parts. It happens so quickly none of it registers. I see Sakamoto and Takamaki getting manhandled, tossed into each other again. Niijima and her Persona carried twenty feet in the air and landing in a pile a couple meters away from us. Yoshizawa pelting whatever's here with bright arrows of light that mean nothing-

In seconds my vision goes clear and I try firing with Satanael at a large red shape but the shots do nothing-

I feel someone grab the collar of my coat and raise me up by the neck.

A man with bleach-white hair, a red coat, a sword that's almost as tall as he is.

"Rematch," he grins.

And then I'm headbutted into unconsciousness.

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Okay, NOW we have two chapters left for this arc. Maybe one?

Tune in next time for the rematch with the Son of Sparda.