Chapter 13
Mementos grows colder as they descend, growing not only larger, but darker as well as they fight through shadows. Each sobbing cry is tacked into his memory and he feels intrusive and alien as he explores the worst part of stranger's hearts; he doesn't know their names, only their sins, a complete contrast to Kamoshida, who he knows better than any of his teammates.
The wind screams, too, like the shadows they fight, only endlessly distant. Awful tragedies that he feels but cannot understand, leaving him thoroughly shaken, though he seems to be the only one affected by their voices. If they even are voices.
Akira blinks, again. His vision having long since blurred into a mix of red and black. He's not sure if Mementos is causing it, or the lack of light, or the lethargy that seems to begin strangling him tighter as Morgana ushers them into the van after each fight.
They turn a corner, as normal as every other within the endless subway, and he shoves his foot on the brake as quickly as he can before Morgana's transformed face is thrusted into an endless sheet of swirling blood and blackness.
He leans forward, resisting the urge to rest his chin on the steering wheel and gazes into the unknown; he doesn't know if it gazes back, and is certain he'd rather not find out.
The purr of Morgana's engine silences on its own accord.
"What is it, Morgana?" Panther asks, leaning over the seat to stare at it as well.
Beside him, Skull remains quiet, his mask reflecting the pattern before them eerily.
"This must be an area of heavy distortion." The voice around them says, "It's the beginning formations of a palace."
Akira swallows, attempting to soothe his drying throat to no avail.
"H-how do we… fix it?" Skull eventually asks, when the wind died down.
"There's a shadow in there; only one, but it must be stronger than the rest if it's forming these distortions." Morgana says instead, "If we drive into it and defeat the shadow, this area should return to normal."
He turns to the other two, gaging their responses, though he finds himself staring into the blankness of their masks more than anything.
Panther clears her throat, drawing Skull's attention, then his own, "Shouldn't we take a rest or something?"
The engine roars to life, Morgana shouting something that he can't decipher before they're thrust into the swirling veil.
His foot was still on the brakes.
Driving into the budding palace sent shivers down his body, replicating the sensation of first entering Kamoshida's palace and Mementos.
At the same time, the shield around them shifted away from them as Morgana reverted back into his original form, his sword drawn and gripped firmly between two paws before Akira could find the balance to stand up fully.
Pulling himself up, he looked past Morgana, into the distorted section of Mementos, though it looked no different than the other tunnels they had driven past. In the center of the small area, however, stood a human figure, a female, tall with dark hair and bangs resting atop glasses not dissimilar to Akira's own. Under them, smoldering yellow pupils glared towards them. She wore a school uniform, but he didn't recognize what school it might be from.
The woman—the girl laughed wickedly, vibrating the air around them supernaturally.
He covered his ears with his palms, though that only seemed to make the noise louder. Shrill, harping shrieks that bounced around in his ears until finally, it stopped.
Peering through his mask, Akira caught sight of the girl once more, looking more disheveled than she had moments ago. Gusts of wind rippled past around her.
"They don't understand!" The girls says, her fingers speaking for her, waving like twin swords. It took him far longer than he'd like to admit that the girl in front of them was using sign language. "Nobody understands!"
"Uh—" Skull started, only for the screams to start over, drowning out any reply the blond might have had.
Morgana stepped forward again, drowning out the sound with another whirlwind.
"All they do is bully me, that's what you all are here for, isn't it?" She accused, gesturing to them all with a sharp swipe of her arm.
Akira stepped forward until he was in front of their team, serving as a proxy between them. "No, we're not here for that." He replied, signing each word as his brain scrambled to grasp them. It felt like ages had passed since he'd actually held a conversation without a pen and paper.
The girl in front of him seemed to shrink down at his reply, her shoulders dropping as her head rolled forward, the manic yellow of her eyes concealed by a curtain of dark hair. She stepped forward.
"You're lying!" The screams picked up again, this time, only amplified when Morgana attempted to silence her. "Lying! Lying!" Her hands echoed as legs began oozing into a puddle of black tar. Smoke began to rise out of her unnatural form as the girl's body began to slowly melt into the blackness at her feet. Her hands, until they began to melt, only told him one thing. "Liar! Liar! Liar!" Her eyes, the last portion of her that remained outside of the growing mass of blackness glared out and towards him; only at him.
The room went quiet, both the wind from Morgana's persona and the screams from the girl had faded into nothing, leaving only the gurgling of the still growing mass in front of them.
It exploded with a splatter of flesh on concrete, a sound he was unable to describe but was unable to forget. The black ooze that had melted the girl curdled in thick chunks on the ground. In the center of the explosion, floating above the ground, a shadow emerged; a conglomerate of hundreds of stony arms that rested under a stony face, either side held a broad smile while the center oozed out a blackened figure, like a creature attempting to break free of its shell but failing in the process.
The mass between the two portions shifted, pushing the clay aside and birthing out a hole, revealing lines of jagged teeth. The rows spread apart, exposing its insides just before releasing another screech, one that, without doubt, echoed through the empty tunnels of Mementos behind them.
The shadow's hands shifted then, creating words that only Akira would know, yet couldn't find meaning behind. Hundreds of phrases and conversations played out before him and he sighed out, wishing there was something else that he could do to help before accessing the power deep within him.
One of his personas beckoned to his call, though he wasn't sure which one before he sent blasts of magic towards the girl—the shadow.
His teammates followed his action, stepping forward and summoning their strength as the girl continued to scream, only interrupting by the sound of gurgling and mumbling Japanese each time they managed to strike her.
"Enough already!" Sakamoto cried out, the lines of his face unobscured by his mask were tensed up considerably, twin lines of blood filtered down either side of his face, stemming from his ears and disappearing into the high collar of his outfit.
The screaming stopped again, and the shape behind the mask receded backwards, sinking back into itself until the two halves formed a whole face. It gleamed back at them, illuminated by the flames that covered the room from Panther's failed attacks.
Skull faltered, "D-did that work?" He questions, before his body goes still, his spine straightening almost unnaturally as a wave of pink mist flows into his mouth. "What the hell…" He mutters, turning his gaze towards the girl, then back at them.
The screaming continues, and Akira turns his attention back to the reemerging figure that lies inside of the mask before sending a lance of ice towards it. It shatters upon impact, leaving crystals on the floor, but otherwise seeming to have no effect.
He's just about to make another attempt when something gleams in his peripheral, and he has just enough time to raise his arm in reflex before a familiar metal pipe descends downwards.
Akira doesn't scream, but his mouth opens, and the muscles in his throat tighten until it feels like they might snap, and it might as well be the same thing.
The pipe descends again, sending him to the floor, though he wisely keeps his arm up as he's falling, just as the weapon crashes into him again, sending vibrations through the arm. Like glass to a powerful voice, he can feel the bone in his arm eventually shatter as another strike comes in.
He manages to look up, past his now broken arm, past the pipe that he can't move away from, and into the face of a new enemy; Skull's eyes are glowing brightly pink, the exposed mouth below his mask is moving quickly, as if forming words but isn't saying them out loud.
"Ryuji!" Two voices scream, the rush of wind and roar of flame both dying out, letting him know that his hearing isn't gone.
Pink gloves, not dissimilar to Skull's eyes currently, scoop under the flexing darkness of Skull's uniform, holding both of his arms back while Morgana calls forth Zorro.
Panther's hold doesn't last when Skull seems to notice this arm is no longer working. The blond stretches out on either side, breaking her grasp until he latches onto her, grabbing her by the wrist, and flinging her to the side.
The pipe returns to the sparking yellow that glows in his hand and Skull finally approaches Morgana. The cat seems infinitesimally small compared to Skull's straightened physique.
"Zorro!" He screams, just as Panther shouts, "Carmen!"
From either side, Skull is blasted with clouds of green smoke, they come together, surrounding the blond until he falls to his knees, the plate on his leg shooting sparks into the air upon impact. The pipe clatters to the ground as well.
The mask on the shadow comes together once again, and Akira focuses, pushes the pain aside, to send something barreling towards her.
The hands explode, sending bits of stone in every direction and extinguishing the flames that had managed to surround them.
The girl emerges from the shape, though he isn't sure how. She adjusts the pleat on her skirt, and glances up at him from behind her glasses. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She signs, saying the words out loud in thick, almost unrecognizable Japanese.
"Thank you." Is a sign he instantly recognizes before her form shifts from opaque to transparent into nothing. Something clatters to the ground where she had been standing, but one of his eyes won't open and the other has dust in it. He rubs at the latter with his working hand; attempts to ignore the all-consuming pain that spirals up the other.
Dust and ash make his tongue gritty and he can't resist spitting onto the ground next to him, not really in the mindset to be polite.
"Joker!" Morgana calls, looking distressed when the cat finally blooms into his field of vision. Zorro ruminates behind him, appearing in a flicker of velvet blaze before, as one, their arms extend outwards, Morgana merely raising his paw while his person raises an enormous blade until the rounded end is pointed towards him.
The same blinding green light emits from the end of the blade, and envelops him. The air around him cools quickly, despite the still dying flames lingering all around; the chill seeps into his lungs when he inhales, biting down his esophagus like a winter wind. It goes further than that, though, it sinks into the layers coating his body until he shivers, the burning numbness that had strangled his arm and face receded deeper within, away from the pervasive aura around him.
"Come on…" A voice called, Morgana's, from outside of the bubble around him. Akira opened his eyes, unsure when they had slipped shut, and found that both of them were painlessly operational. The air around him chilled further, the green that spouted from Zorro's sword grew more opaque until he could barely see past the fog being produced.
Minutes or seconds passed between each slow lift of his eyelids, the reflex forcing him awake to notice that the burn inside of him sizzled into nothing, leaving him numb; neither pained nor excited for the lack of.
The fog faded.
Akira lifted his arm, the same one that Skull had mutilated, but saw only the pristine blackness of his coat surrounding the limb. He formed a fist; experimenting with his shattered fingernails, only to find the sensation completely painless.
Standing, too, was painless, but certainly not effortless. His energy sapped from whatever it was that Morgana had done to him.
"Joker!" Morgana called out, no longer muffled and piercingly loud. "Are you okay?" The cat questioned at the same time that Panther piped in, stepping forward for the first time until she was standing right beside him, reaching for his seemingly uninjured arm.
Akira relented, letting her pull back the sleeve and exposing his skin to the briskness of Mementos' atmosphere. It bared no evidence of having been so much as scratched, let alone bashed in with a metal pipe.
He pulled the sleeve down and Takamaki let go. Glancing around, he spotted the plating of Skull's spine bent over the pile of stone the shadow had left behind.
Slowly, but steadily, he walked over to the other man. Unsure if this was wise, even if the blond seemed to be himself once more.
He peered over his teammate's shoulder, towards the pile of stones. He was able to pick out ligaments from her crumbled form, fingers trapped in phrases that would never be complete.
Akira tapped on the boy's shoulder, and the blond flinched, jerking his shoulders back in reflex before peering upwards at him. In a swift motion, Skull stood to his full height, towering over him by several inches before slouching down, creating a minimal distance between their eye level.
Skull avoided looking at him, staring instead at his feet. He kicked at an extended fist—you, turning into chunks that littered the floor elsewhere. Akira stared at his teammate, not into his eyes, but at the edge of his silver mask.
Pulling out his phone, Akira asked, "Are you okay?"
Skull glanced at him, his gaze sinking to the screen quickly. Yellow gloves extended forward, taking the phone into both of his hands, the pipe nowhere to be found.
With his phone shining onto his face, Akira was able to make out the details of his teammate's face; the twitches in the mask, as if it were a second skin instead of a thick working of metal, the creases and folds that spoke of frustration.
He looked away, feeling guilty or shameful; he couldn't figure out which.
Skull scoffs then, pushing the phone back at him, the glow pointed towards the floor, casting them both in shadow once again.
"Shouldn't—Shouldn't I be asking you that, d-dude?" Skull questions, lifting a hand. Akira catches the blur of the movement and watches as it pauses just shy of his mask. The blond sniffs loudly then continues, "I didn't mean to… O-obviously… damnit."
"I wasn't in control, is what I mean." He restarts, volume decreasing with each syllable until Skull's admission turns into a harsh whispering that's hissing into the empty space.
Skull looks at him, his mask gleaming even in the room's darkness; Akira nods, unsure but sympathetic, and the blond lowers his head once more.
"She did somethin' to me, ya know? When she did that thing with her face, I felt… weird, an' I didn't recognize you or Ann." He pauses, then presses a finger to his head, bright yellow sticking out of much paler shades, "She was talking to me. In my head, I mean; that she was controlin' me, that I had to…"
"Ryuji…" Another voice speaks up, breaking the intense spell that Akira had found himself in listening to Skull's story. Skull stops speaking, then stomps his foot onto another fragment of the girl's fingers, crushing it into dust.
Controlled… It explains that look then… Akira steps forward, towards the pile of stone that the girl had left behind and crouches beside it, fingering through the shards of stone until he finds something.
"It wasn't your fault, Ryuji." Morgana explains, stepping between the two of them. "Some shadows have abilities that—I should have warned you about it." Morgana's gulp fills the room, "I'm sorry."
Akira doesn't hear Skull respond, and with his back to them, he can't see if the expression his teammate makes. Instead, he finds himself wiping dust off a hearing aid. One edge is coated in brown and won't wipe off, despite his efforts, and he finds himself staring at it.
Could I have been like her? He asks.
"Possibly." Comes his response.
His fist closes around the device, then pockets it.
When he stands back up and turns around, he finds his teammates standing right behind him and he jumps a little.
Takamaki laughs, pushing her mask onto the top of her head. "Everything okay? I guess we should have asked earlier." She laughs again, but it's a far more awkward experience.
He nods, still reeling from the scare.
She nods back and opens her mouth, but no words are spoken.
They exit the area, Morgana silently shifting back into his bus form and carrying them out of the spiraling entrance; the purr of the engine was remarkably absent.
After the confrontation, shadows afterwards were easier to attack. They felt less human than the girl they'd changed the heart of, each of their consciousness screaming about the continuation of their ways or the lack of. He supposed he could have felt this way because she spoke like he did; their hands were their voices and hers were currently melting into dust while his…
He glanced down at his own hands, the crimson layer surrounding them, the steering wheel that was curling around his fingers instead of the other way around.
Akira slammed on the brakes again, but instead of a massive glowing entrance, there remained a stagnant, grey wall. It wasn't dissimilar to the gate that they'd drove through to access Mementos, but wielded intricate designs that reflected light that didn't exist.
Morgana shifted from around them, shrinking into his feline presence, and approached the door. Tentatively, he followed, brushing his fingers over the edge of a sanguine circle. It pulsed under his hand, but nothing else happened.
"What is this?" Panther questioned, stepping forward from where Morgana had left them with a click of her heel.
Morgana didn't answer, occupied with slamming his balled up fists against the stone to no success. "Open. Open! Open!" He commanded, crescendoing until his voice was echoing off of the pillars surrounding them.
Nothing happened.
Morgana's blade slid across the stone barrier, casting sparks onto the ground with thunderous skidding.
Nothing happened.
"Morgana."
The blade slashed forward again, coming from the reverse direction. Sparks splattered onto his shoes and Akira took a step backwards.
Nothing happened.
The cat continued slashing, the door soaking in the imprints of the razor thin blade only to fill them instantly with the same glowing material the wall's decorations were made of. In an instant, they faded back into the same bleak stone.
"Morgana!"
Morgana faltered, the sword clattering to the floor then dissipating; he fell to his knees, bowing before the massive wall. A loud, rhythmic panting flowed in and out of his curled up body.
Takamaki stepped forward again, the red of her presence coating Morgana's entire frame. He's not sure why she does it, or why Morgana's form heaves harder as a result of it; but moments later, he's baring witness to Morgana breaking down in front of him, together with Skull, they take spectator roles as Takamaki holds his shrinking form and shushes his screams.
Beyond that wall… He tears his eyes away from his teammates, to the emblazoned wall, sitting mute to both the scene and his discomfort.
Morgana's true form is behind there. Akira supposes he'd also face some distress at being as close as they were to his goal. He looks away from the wall, then, towards his group, and steps forward, edging over Takamaki's shoulder. His gloved hand falls down onto Morgana's sunken head just as Takamaki retracts hers.
Morgana's form freezes under the contact and he worries, for a moment, that he'd done something wrong before a small sigh comes from the shadowed lump.
The head under his hand squirms, and in the next moment, Morgana is staring at him between the gaps of his fingers. The darkness of Mementos does nothing to hide the glassiness of Morgana's gaze, just as the cover of his hand does nothing to conceal the liquid sliding down into the corner of one of his giant eyes, only to sink into the fur right below it.
"Sorry, Joker…" Morgana croaks, wiping at his face with either of his paws. He sniffles loudly, the same sound that Skull had made earlier, then looks back at him, and finally collapses into a small pile upon himself. If he had been in the form he took on while in the real world, he would have looked resembled a dozing cat; instead, on Takamaki's lap lie Morgana's unnaturally large head with his appendages curled around it.
He retracts his hand, and stands up.
For the second time that day, Skull is standing over his shoulder when he turns around, causing him to jump once again.
Skull's mouth opens when their gazes clash, but quickly closes, the edges of his face becoming as hard as his mask. "Did he… fall asleep?" He asks quite loudly.
Akira nods.
Skull sighs loudly, "I guess that means we're walking out of here?"
Panther shushes him, the sharpness of the noise louder than Skull's complaints. She takes to her feet, cradling Morgana's weight carefully as she does so. "I mean, it's only fair." She whispers, curving her lips into a smirk.
"What is?" Skull eventually asks, falling into step beside Takamaki as she begins walking off, towards the stairs far behind them.
"I mean, he's been carrying us all around this place, it's only fair that we carry him now; irony, and all that, I guess." Skull snorts.
"Uh… you comin'?" Skull calls out, standing at the edge of the stairs.
Akira blinks, then looks forwards, at his two teammates.
Waiting for me? He questions nobody in particular.
"Of course." Arsene responds, cryptic as always.
He paces towards them, and they wait until he gets there before they all start ascending the steps. Despite this, he finds himself falling behind. The adrenaline keeping him on his feet was starting to fade, and fatigue was starting to sink in, weighing him down; first on his head, then slowly towards his feet as if he were filling with sand, only in reverse.
When he reaches the top of the first set of stairs, he finds Panther and Skull waiting for him once more, looking marginally more annoyed than before. All three of them are panting heavily, however, which makes him feel a little less isolated.
Skull rubs at one of his thighs, just above the metal plating coating his knee. Takamaki's arms seem to be buckling under the weight of Morgana's frame, and he gestures for her to hand him over.
Her face expresses something he can't quite comprehend as her arms extend outwards and Akira finds himself saddled with Morgana's hefty weight once more.
He's heavier this way… He notices, tucking his arm to support Morgana's rope thin neck.
Panther cuts across from him, ducking herself under Skull's arm so she's managing some of his weight. Skull says nothing in return, and together they ease their way through the howling subways.
The shadows take less notice of them outside of Morgana's bus, something he's immensely grateful for, yet the lack of barrier between them, even one as thin as Morgana's windshield, makes sneaking past them much more intense.
The sun's lingering light shines painfully into his eyes when they finally ascend to ground level. Its warmth and intensity feel almost alien when he comes into contact with it, though he's almost too exhausted to notice it; Morgana hadn't woken up during their journey back to the surface.
They exit Mementos in a blur of his vision and the onset of a headache. At once, his stomach and bladder constrict painfully, causing him to lurch forward and over himself, Morgana's form clenched painfully between his chin and rib cage.
"You okay, Akira-kun?" Takamaki questions, dropping Ryuji's weight and stepping in front of him.
He sighs deeply into Morgana's now cat-shaped body, then lifts back up until he's standing normally; he nods.
"Just make sure you two—er… three get home safe, okay?" Again, he nods. Skull does the same when she turns back to him, just a few steps away from where she had left him.
"See you tomorrow!" She says, all too cheerful suddenly.
He waves when she does, and watches as she wanders into the heavy crowd of the train station.
Akira presses himself against the wall of the station, sinking lower on each tile until he's seated, Morgana's weight taking up the majority of his lap; still unconscious, despite their departure from the Metaverse.
Beside him, a blur of purple sinks down to the floor beside him. Sakamoto rubs at his knee, massaging the bone and muscle and hissing; the kind of pain that the Metaverse couldn't fix.
"I uh, wanted to talk to ya, about before…" Skull starts, still rubbing at his painful leg.
Akira nods helplessly, even if he wanted to run off—something his brain urged him to do as he relived the shattering of his arm for a moment. He swallowed, uncomfortable with how dry his throat had become.
"I think I should say sorry, I mean I didn't mean to—and I was out of control of what I was doing." Sakamoto stops massaging his leg, the nimble fingers melting into clenched fists. "It reminded me of what Kamoshida did, how I was just a puppet, I guess. That make sense?"
Akira finds himself nodding, though it doesn't seem right, to him. He understands that feeling in a way more than a shake of his head can convey.
Skull nods as well, a huff of air escaping his nose. "I get it if you don't wanna be around me, anymore; I break everything I touch anyway." The admission is tense, and equally as unexpected, "And I can't control any of it."
"That's not true." He's not sure why he feels the need point it out; the truth, that is. Sakamoto had been kind to him, even if it was only for their similarities. All of this was his own volition.
Sakamoto stares at his screen, and Akira feels almost uncomfortable with how much of the blond's face he can see outside of the Metaverse.
"Ya don't gotta lie to me." Sakamoto's rebuttal is short said, the words like chipping ice.
"You're nice to me, and Takamaki, and Morgana… sometimes." Sakamoto scoffs at his message, but his lips quirk upwards even as he rolls his eyes.
"Whatever, man." He takes to his feet, both of his legs seeming stable underneath him now, "Gotta get dinner before my ma gets off work. See ya tomorrow?"
Akira nods, waving Sakamoto off as he, too, disappears into the swarm of travelers around them.
He sinks back into the tiles, panting openly now, and remains there until the sky shifts into orange and pink, then finally into a deep, dark purple.
