The Black Knights were able to make their way back to the start of the Labyrinth without incident. Ariadne Picaro's thread faithfully led them through the twisting turns and blacked out passageways, and they faced little opposition, as they had already wiped out the Shadows whose patrols intersected their path, so the return trip was much faster than the original search for the scrolls.
Lelouch was grateful for that, and felt an enormous sense of relief as he finally dismissed Ariadne Picaro. The continuous summoning had left his reserves very low, and already he was feeling physical side effects from doing so. His brow was dripping with sweat, and he had developed a persistent and increasingly painful headache, which eased somewhat now that he was no longer aggravating it by keeping one of his Personas materialized for far longer than it had any right to be.
The Irregulars and the Glinda Knights were both already at the entrance to the Labyrinth, and reported that they hadn't encountered nearly as many Shadows along their routes as the Black Knights had. Perhaps Mastema had purposefully directed more Shadows toward their path, not enough to pose a significant risk of actually killing them, which would have denied Angel the Hostility the chance to personally do so, but carefully calculated to wear them down and thus make his job easier. Of course, Mastema had not counted on his own death at Suzaku's hands, but the angel had still succeeded in significantly tiring the Black Knights by the end of the Labyrinth.
That wasn't to say that the Black Knights' fighting strength had been entirely depleted. Lelouch estimated that most of them had enough left to make a final push to the center of the Labyrinth if necessary, while Kallen and Suzaku both had enough endurance to keep fighting long after the rest of them were spent. Kallen had taken some large hits in the last fight though, and while Euphemia had fully healed her, that didn't stop him from worrying.
Nevertheless, if it had been just the Black Knights, his own exhaustion would have been sufficient cause for them to turn back. But they had two other teams, and Marrybell was firmly of the opinion that they should continue to the center of the Labyrinth.
"I don't trust that bureaucrat," she said, giving a glance over her shoulder at the large Cognition seated at the central podium. It was far too absorbed in its work to notice that they had returned yet. "If we leave now, it will have plenty of time to invent who knows how many hoops that it will try to make us jump through before it lets us advance to the Acropolis level. We should present the scrolls that we've gathered to it while we still can." She scowled. "But it's probably already had enough time to figure out a way to double-cross us while we were busy navigating the Labyrinth."
Lelouch nodded. "I'll admit that you have a point."
"Euphy and Marrybell should approach the Cognition first," Nunnally said, "since it already recognizes them as nobility. That means it's more likely to respond favorably to them. But the Irregulars will be right behind them." She turned to Lelouch. "You should hang back, big brother. I can see how much maintaining your Persona through the Labyrinth took out of you."
The part of Lelouch that was prideful and still naturally overprotective of Nunnnally inwardly chafed a little. It didn't like the thought of Nunnally being directly in harm's way while he was relegated to the rearguard. But he knew by now that it was also irrational on his part. Nunnally was well-versed in fighting Shadows without his help, and some of her Personas were every bit as powerful as his own, while Chernobog exceeded most of his Personas in raw strength, at least for the moment. That she wasn't as tired as himself only further tilted the balance in her favor.
"Yes, you're right, Nemo," he told her. "I'll try not to push myself too hard. I'll still be there if you need any help... but it's probably for the best if I take a supporting role for now."
"Good," Marrybell said. "Now that we've settled that, let's get that bureaucrat's inevitable betrayal over with."
Lelouch handed the scroll that the Black Knights had collected to Euphemia. Nunnally did the same for the scroll that the Irregulars had found. With Marrybell holding the last scroll, the two princesses walked over to the podium.
"Um, excuse me again," Euphemia said as the large Bureaucrat Cognition continued to ignore them. "We managed to find the scrolls that you wanted."
That got the Cognition's attention, in that it was enough for the Bureaucrat to slowly look up slightly from its desk on the podium.
"Ah, excellent," it said, peering down at her and Marrybell, oily as ever in their presence, yet spoken perhaps just a tad too quickly, as if it wanted them to go away and stop distracting it from whatever self-important sounding bureaucratic task it was working on. "As promised, I can expedite your friends' passage to the Acropolis level now." It paused, thinking for a moment. "I'd say that they can move forward six places in line."
Euphemia didn't react right away, as if she wasn't quite sure that she had heard the Cognition correctly.
Marrybell was far swifter to respond. "It's just as I thought!" she shouted at the Bureaucrat. "You always intended to send us on a fool's errand!"
To Lelouch, it certainly seemed that way. The line had only grown longer while they had been searching for the scrolls in the Labyrinth, and by significantly more than six places. They would have been better off just staying put in the central lobby.
"I don't see what all the fuss is about," the Bureaucrat Cognition said to Marrybell. "I promised that I would advance her friends' places in lines if you brought me the scrolls. I did just that. It's not my fault that none of you asked how many places it would be. If anything, I was being generous in deference to your nobility. Otherwise, I would have moved them up no more than three places."
"You'll pay-" Marrybell started, reaching for her mask, but Euphemia held out her own hand, stopping her rosy pink-haired half-sister, so much like her in appearance, but so different in temperament.
"Allow me to handle this," Euphemia said softly. "After all, I'm the one who said I wouldn't move on until my friends were allowed to pass, and got us all stuck in that Labyrinth for so long. It's only right that I take responsibility for getting us out of this mess."
Marrybell gave Euphemia a look that was a mix of curiosity and incredulity, but after a moment she deferred. She clearly wanted to see what Euphemia planned to do, though it was also apparent that she didn't think that her half-sister was up to the task, and was ready at any moment to resume threatening the Cognition herself should Euphemia fall short.
Euphemia closed her eyes and took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she had to do.
When she opened them, there was a fury that was rarely seen in the gentle Euphemia. She quickly drew her sword and pointed it at the Bureaucrat Cognition. It was a weapon she rarely used these days, since her Persona's talents were largely magical in nature, and because the grenade launcher she had found in the Black King's Palace was very effective at dealing with crowds of Shadows before they got close. But then again, it wasn't just a sword. Like the weapon that Cornelia was known to favor, the blade was attached to a barrel of a gun. At the same time, her other hand went to her mask, removing it, causing Euphemia to be wreathed in phantasmal blue flames as her Persona, Eilonwy, appeared behind and above her.
Lelouch saw Marrybell break into a wicked grin, and he couldn't help but do so himself.
"I have had it with you!" Euphemia shouted at the Bureaucrat Cognition. "You're deceitful and corrupt! It's no wonder that my sister barely puts up with you!" She dropped the pitch of her voice, doing her best impersonation of Cornelia's. She couldn't quite replicate it, as her voice was naturally higher pitched than the Viceroy's, but it still added an extra air of menace to her words. "So let me make this very clear for you! I, Euphemia li Britannia, command you to let all of us pass!" She clenched the hand that had removed her mask into a fist, and at once the temperature of the room began to rapidly decrease, as Eilonwy started conjuring a large column of ice. "Fail to comply, and I'll execute you myself" she spat. "That's what my sister would do, and it's what I should have done from the start!"
"P-Princess... Noire!" Suzaku exclaimed, forgetting to use her codename at first with how brazenly she had revealed herself to the Bureaucrat Cognition. "Please tell me you're not really like that too," he then murmured, in a way that suggested he had meant to keep that thought to himself, though it was still faintly audible.
"Noire's not really like what, Knight?" Nunnally, who was standing nearby Suzaku, asked innocently. Or, at least, it seemed innocent at first. Nunnally's eyes had turned from their usual violet to a supernatural gold, meaning that it was really her Shadow who was talking, and her Shadow was anything but innocent.
Suzaku wordlessly sighed.
Shadow Nunnally smiled deviously, but then she blinked, and her eyes were back to Nunnally's regular ones.
"No, you can't be!" the Bureaucrat Cognition sputtered at the sight of how radically Eupehmia's demeanor had changed, and at that of the ever-growing ice crystals looming above him. "Everyone knows that Princess Euphemia is just a puppet, an idol adorning the Goddess's Temple... though of course, we'd never say that where the Goddess herself could hear it!"
"How DARE you!" Euphemia seethed, and Lelouch had no doubt that her fury was fully genuine now, whereas before Euphemia was at least partly putting on an act to intimidate the Bureaucrat Cognition into letting them pass. "When you get to that special place in Hell for flatterers, hypocrites, and the corrupt, tell them this 'puppet' sent you!"
She cast her free hand down, and her Persona released the magic that it had been gathering, encasing the lower half of the Bureaucrat Cognition's body in ice, preventing it from running away even if it wanted to. Euphemia then released the safety on her gun and tightened her grip on it, inching her index finger toward the trigger.
"Now, tell me," she said slowly to the Bureaucrat Cognition, pushing her voice to go as low as she could reasonably manage. "Are you going to let my friends pass or not?"
The Cognitions' eyes fearfully darted from the ice trapping it, to Euphemia's gun, to Euphemia herself.
"Please, don't hurt me more than you already have, Princess!" it cried. "I'll let your friends pass at once! Though I hope for your sake that they're ready for the horror of the trial at the center of the Labyrinth. None of those who I have let pass these doors ever return!"
"So not only are you sloppy, senile, and corrupt," Euphemia said, continuing to imitate Cornelia's manner of speaking, and likely words that she had heard her sister use before when dealing with troublesome bureaucrats, "but you're a coward too. Fortunately, my friends are not cowards, and neither am I. We'll deal with whatever waits for us there."
"Don't say I didn't warn you, Princess!" the Bureaucrat Cognition called after them as they passed through the enormous central doors on the far side of the chamber, which, as soon as its legs had thawed, it had opened for them without any further delay.
As soon as the doors had closed behind them, placing them out of earshot of the Bureaucrat Cognition, Euphemia let out a deep sigh. "As much as I look up to my sister, it's not any fun having to act like she would. I can only imagine how exhausting it must be for her. And I was sure he was going to see through me... my performance just felt so... wrong."
"That's because you're fundamentally a kind person, Noire," Lelouch told her. "It felt wrong because it was so against your nature. But I could have hardly asked for a better performance from you."
"I'll admit, I didn't expect much from you at first," Marrybell said, "but I'm glad to have been proven wrong in this case. We still should have done that from the start, but as they say, what is done is done."
"Noire did great!" Nunnally said all-too cheerfully. "I'd never give up the kind Noire that we all know and love, but it was still really cool how you were able to make that creepy Cognition back down!"
Lelouch, Suzaku, and Euphemia all glanced at Nunnally. While the last bit had carried faint traces of her Shadow in her voice, Nunnally had still been speaking as herself there; her eyes were still their normal violet color.
Lelouch supposed he couldn't be surprised. From his conversations with Nunnally's Shadow in the Velvet Room, he knew that Nunnally had once said much the same when she had seen their mother threatening one of the Emperor's other wives. Saying such a thing was within her character, Shadow or not. She was just more comfortable saying it front of others now.
"I suppose so," Euphemia said, "But I sincerely hope that I won't have to do so again."
xXx
The corridor that they had to travel through to reach the center of the Labyrinth was dimly lit, but it was impossible to get lost by that point, as it was perfectly straight. It still went on for far too long, but eventually, they reached its end, marked by a stone door. It was flanked by a pair of double-headed axes mounted on the walls, one on each side, and there was a stone carving in the shape of a pair of horns above it. The door itself had an inscription carved into it, which Nunnally read.
"Those who serve the Goddess, thou shalt not proceed beyond this door."
"We'll be ignoring that warning," Marrybell said.
"It should be needless to say, but I can detect a powerful Shadow within," Leila added. "Judging from the myth that this part of the Palace is based on, it should almost certainly be a Minotaur of some kind. That's reinforced by the symbols placed by the door - double-headed axes, often referred to as labryes, and the Horns of Consecration. Both originate from Minoan culture, and the latter usually represents the sacred bull."
"I had come to that conclusion as well," Lelouch nodded.
Lucretia and Sokkia both concurred the results of Leila's analysis.
There was a pause.
"It's up to the two of you and your teams," Lelouch said at last to Nunnally and Marrybell. "Just as we agreed on."
"Let's not waste any more time waiting then," Marrybell said.
Stepping forward, she pushed the doors to the center of the Labyrinth open.
Inside was a large, circular chamber, even more dimly lit than the corridor that had preceded it, though thankfully it wasn't pitch black unlike some of the passages that they had needed to traverse through the Labyrinth proper. The ceiling of the chamber was quite high, making it appear all the more cavernous.
There was a crunching sound under their feet, and glancing down, they saw that there were bones littering the floor. It was far from completely covered, but there were enough skeletons lying about that they would have to watch their steps carefully, lest they trip over them in the penumbral darkness.
The sight was unsettling enough that Shirley let out a small sound of dismay, though she quickly suppressed it, as if she was worried that she would give their position away. But it probably wouldn't have made any difference. Lelouch had no doubt that the Shadow lurking within the chamber had been aware of their presence from the moment that they had entered. The only question was when would their foe reveal itself?
That question was answered before long. "For humans to have the gall to step into the Hall of the Minotaur..." a deep and slight raspy disembodied voice said once they had walked about halfway to the center of the chamber. Behind them, an invisible force slammed the doors shut, cutting off any potential escape route. "You are either truly skilled or fools indeed to ignore the Goddess's warning."
Dark energy converged, and the Minotaur's form quickly took shape. It looked far stranger than Lelouch had expected it to. While it had the torso of a highly muscular, tan-skinned man, and the hind legs of a blue-gray bull, but the bull's skin had been torn down to the knee, revealing still-human legs within. Yet stranger still was the fact that a bull's upper body was also joined to its human one, with the bull's hind legs fused into its human shoulders. The bull's skin was also torn in the rear, creating the impression that it had been ripped in half before joining with the man beneath. Its head was mostly that of a bull, but its nostrils were the empty eye sockets of a human skull, and its mouth was similarly human. Overall, Lelouch estimated that it stood at just about nine feet tall.
The Minotaur wore a red sash between its legs, fastened to a large belt, not entirely unlike those that wrestling champions would wear, though more spartan in design. It had a harness across its chest, and small coins dangled from it, presumably trophies from Cognitions that had tried to bribe the Minotaur in the misguided and fatal belief that it, like many of the Bureaucrats in the Labyrinth, could be bought. A number of papers and scrolls were impaled upon its horns, and, now that his eyes had adjusted more to the chamber's lighting, Lelouch saw that there were fallen and broken scroll racks strewn about the chamber, in a way that suggested that they had been upended with great violence. It was hardly a china shop, but that clichéd phrase inevitably came to mind all the same.
"I'm not afraid of you," Euphemia said firmly, meeting the Minotaur's gaze. "Goddess or not, I will change my sister's heart, before she makes a terrible mistake. We all will."
"You should be," the Minotaur retorted. "If you truly are the Goddess's sister, I'm under strict orders not to cause you any permanent damage. But as for the others..." It let out a roar. "I shall dine on their blood before it can taint the Acropolis!" It assumed a fighting stance. "Now come, thieves! Put on a good show..."
The Minotaur charged, incredibly quickly for its mass, forcing the Irregulars and the Glinda Knights to scatter to the sides, lest they be bowled over. The Minotaur barely slowed down as it barreled toward the Black Knights, who suddenly found themselves on the front line against the Labyrinth's guardian.
Euphemia was directly in the Minotaur's path. While it had said that it wouldn't kill her, it showed no signs of stopping either, as if it expected her to break off to the side first, just as the Irregulars and Glinda Knights had done.
Headstrong as always, Euphemia would do no such thing.
"Eilowny!" she shouted, removing her mask with a flourish.
Euphemia's Persona appeared once more, quickly conjuring ice crystals and propelling them into the Minotaur's path. With as much inertia as its great mass gave it, the Minotaur was unable to slow down or change directions quickly enough to avoid the spell. It let out a roar of pain as the ice froze it in its tracks.
The Irregulars and Glinda Knights wasted no time in turning what had been a hasty retreat into a vicious pincer attack from behind. Nunnally had entered a berserker state as her Shadow took over, and being ruthless came naturally to Marrybell. Of course, with the Minotaur momentarily incapacitated and right in front of them, there was no reason for the Black Knights not to seize the opportunity that Euphy had given them as well, and so Lelouch ordered them to join the Irregulars and Glinda Knights in their all-out-attack.
"You seem to have some skill," the Minotaur said, rising once it was able to defend itself again, warding off blows with powerful swipes of its arms. "But it still pales in comparison to what the Goddess Cornelia is capable of. Do you genuinely believe that it will be enough to triumph over me... or her?"
"You underestimate our fury and determination," Shadow Nunnally snarled. "You're strong, but we'll send you yet to Hell!"
"Indeed. You represent the force that terrorizes all who would dare to rise above this Labyrinth," Marrybell said coldly. "And so I shall put you down, like the mad beast that you are!"
"Children you may be," the Minotaur said, looking from one of them to the other, "but your resolve and fighting spirit are clear, and that may make your formidable indeed. I may have misappraised you... If so, I must brace myself with all my strength as well."
Leaping backward, the Minotaur landed by a wall on the far side of the chamber. It then proceeded to grab a large labrys that was mounted on the wall, raising it high.
"I hope you are ready, thieves," the Minotaur said, before letting out a bellowing war cry. "Here I come!"
As they knew that the Minotaur was susceptible to ice spells, Sancia of the Irregulars attempted to repeat Euphemia's trick, casting Bufudyne as the Minotaur drew near. But the Minotaur had already shown itself to be far more intelligent than a mere brute, and it swung the double-bladed axe, cleaving through the conjured ice crystals before they could strike. What was left of them harmlessly shattered on the floor to either side of him.
The Minotaur prepared to bring its axe down upon Sancia, which would have surely been a killing stroke, had it connected. But suddenly, there was Tink of the Glinda Knights, coming in from her right as quickly as his frame would allow. He managed to push her out of the weapon's path... putting himself into it in her stead. There was a loud clang as the axe bit down through Tink's left shoulder, only for it to meet unexpected resistance as it struck metal.
"Stannum!" Oldrin cried.
"What is this?" the Minotaur demanded. "An automaton?"
Lelouch could see the damage to Tink's shoulder better now. It was heavily dented, and the arm below hung limply, its upper servos crushed by the force of the blow.
"No way!" he heard Kallen gasp. "His whole arm is prosthetic!"
"I lost more than 30% of my body in a Knightmare test piloting accident," Tink said, grimacing with pain. He had been forced to his knees, and was now slowly rising again, but the now-audible whirring sound of strained machinery suggested there was more damage along the left side of his body than was outwardly visible. "I'm what you'd call a cyborg now. But don't worry about me. My arm can be replaced; lives can't."
"A noble sentiment, but no tin man will keep me from carrying out my duty to the Goddess!" the Minotaur growled as it prepared to attack again.
The Irregulars and Glinda Knights weren't about to give the Minotaur the opportunity. Wielding lances, Alice and Marika moved in to keep it busy while Sancia helped the injured Tink withdraw to a safe distance.
The two girls couldn't possibly match the Minotaur in raw power, and would be unlikely to survive any direct hits from it, but Alice's speed was unmatched. Nimbly darting in and out, she inflicted a flurry of strikes upon the Minotaur, though most were shallow and only glancing. To the Minotaur, the stabs of her spear were more like the pricks of a needle - painful, but more of an annoyance than anything else. In contrast, Marika wasn't nearly as fast as Alice, and thus couldn't afford to be as aggressive, but she was more skilled in handling her weapon. Her thrusts were well-placed, targeting the muscles and tendons of the Minotaur's hindquarters, leaving it lumbering after them with a limp, no longer able to move as quickly as before.
"Ugh!" the Minotaur groaned.
Nunnally and Marrybell were quick to press the advantage that Alice and Marika had given them.
"Jack Frost!" Nunnally's voice called out, for the moment free of the unnatural reverberation that accompanied it whenever her Shadow was in control.
"Skadi!" Marrybell shouted.
While both Personas specialized in ice magic, they still stood in stark contrast to each other. Jack Frost was a living snowman with childish proportions, dressed in boots, a jester collar, and a cap with exaggerated tails, all in matching blue. Skadi was a figure who hovered and short distance above the ground, and whose body appeared as a living shadow, save for her eyes, lips, and white hair, styled into a tall and wavy pair of spikes, one on each side. A cloak that had gold and black stripes on the outside and a green inner lining was wrapped around Skadi, further adding to her air of mystery.
Since Lelouch had his own version of Skadi, and had once held Jack Frost within himself, he was familiar with both of their capabilities. Skadi was an innately more powerful Persona. But it appeared that just as he had engaged in a 'vanity project', as Tsu had put it, to keep Arsene relevant and exploit his original Persona's enormous capacity for growth, Nunnally had been doing the same with Jack Frost.
"Bufudyne, hee-ho!" Nunnally's Persona laughed happily, conjuring a large column of fractal ice crystals that began to rise up from the beneath the Minotaur. It stepped to a side, and swung its axe to smash the column, but its injured leg meant that doing so put the Minotaur off-balance.
Skadi immediately followed up, silent as she cast her spell on Marrybell's behalf. The appearance of the ice crystals formed was very similar to those that Jack Frost had created, but they materialized over a far wider area, preventing the Minotaur from escaping, and causing it to fall to the floor with a heavy crash.
Once more, the combined forces of the Irregulars, Glinda Knights, and Black Knights descended upon the Minotaur.
"Nngh... Have I met my match?" the Minotaur asked as it struggled to fend off their assault. "Do you thieves have no limits?"
"You're only just realizing that?" Marrybell said cruelly.
"I-I had not thought... that you thieves could be so skilled!" the Minotaur gasped in pain.
But, then, its manner changed.
"No... I was wrong to call you mere thieves," the Minotaur growled, its voice suddenly even deeper than before. The hall began to shake as a torrent of black and red energy flowed into the Minotaur. The energy then exploded outward, blasting the three teams of Persona-users back from the Labyrinth's guardian.
Braziers ignited along the perimeter of the Hall of the Minotaur, illuminating the walls with a red-orange glow. The Minotaur was nowhere to be seen, but its presence was palpable nonetheless.
"You are enemies of the Empire," the Minotaur's voice echoed throughout the chamber. "And so, I will not fight you as an individual warrior any longer. I shall wage war against you, with the full weight of the state behind me. Know the hell of the battlefield, and the unending wrath of Britannia's deathless legions!"
There was the rattling din of chains, and an eruption of flame in the center of the Hall, signaling the Minotaur's reappearance. But it had been transformed. Rising from a fiery portal that had opened in the floor, it was only visible from the shoulders up, but it still stood nearly twice as tall as before. Its hide had turned a brownish-gray, and deep metal nails were driven into it, securing chains that were the only things keeping it from fully emerging from the portal. A massive, grasping hand, even larger than its head, flexed its fingers, which were reinforced with thick bone. Its entire head had the appearance of a skull now, and it's mouth was lined with sharp teeth, which flames licked past with its every breath. The eyes were a glowing orange too, as if there as only fire burning within them, while the horns opened at the ends into crenelated metal smokestacks, from which gouts of flame issued, giving it an infernal and industrial look.
"My true name is Asterius!" the Minotaur roared. "In accordance with my pact with the Goddess Cornelia, I will crush you!"
But Asterius wasn't the only threat. Skeletal Spartoi warriors were rising from among the bones scattered across the floor of the chamber, and began shambling toward them. And it wasn't just a few Spartoi either. There had to be at least a hundred, and their numbers were rising by the moment.
It wasn't the first time that they had seen so many enemies in one place - Gao Hai's Cognitive army of terracotta soldiers had been similarly, if not even more numerous. But Gao Hai had been a full-fledged Palace Ruler. Lelouch didn't need Leila to analyze Asterius to sense the monstrous power that the raging beast commanded. It almost certainly exceeded that of any of their previous targets, even though Asterius was ultimately subservient to Shadow Cornelia, the Temple's true Ruler.
Her wrath would be far more terrible.
Focusing his attention, Lelouch knew that, as the rear guard, the Black Knight's first order of business would be to thin out the numbers of the Spartoi, and to do so in a hurry. The Irregulars and the Glinda Knights wouldn't be able to concentrate on taking down Asterius if they constantly had to constantly worry about being attacked from behind.
Lelouch quickly evaluated their options. Shirley's bless magic was known to be highly effective against the Spartoi, though obviously there were too many of them for her to defeat all by herself, and she would rapidly deplete her own reserves if they tried. The Spartoi were also known to be highly susceptive to electricity, which Nunnally and Marrybell's Personas would give them access to, outside of the few stun guns and coils they had left from Nina. However, doing so would mean taking their attention off Asterius. Suzaku and Kallen still had plenty of strength left to them. And while there wasn't any convenient mountain of gold to send crashing down upon the Spartoi, unlike with Gao Hai's terracotta army, there were still objects in their environment that they could use to their advantage...
Of course, Asterius wasn't about to let them just take their time against it. The frenzied bull violently raised its arms high, its chains going taut against the tremendous strain. "Know that my fury is every bit the equal of when the Titans themselves did battle!" its voice thundered through the Hall.
Though Asterius hadn't struck it at all, the floor suddenly began to crack along a line with alarming speed, illuminated from below by a hellish light.
That wasn't good. While its earlier form as the Minotaur had been a purely physical fighter, Asterius was capable of casting magic. That made their foe even more dangerous.
A split second later, searing pillars of flame surged through the cracks at an angle, along with tendrils of red energy, similar to those that appeared whenever Arsene cast curses at the enemy. It rushed along the length of the Hall of the Minotaur, forcing those in its path to dive out of the way, lest they be incinerated.
Fortunately, after a moment had passed, Lelouch saw that his fellow Black Knights had managed to escape from Asterius's spell unscathed, as had most of their allies. However, while Eurydice had managed to avoid being engulfed by the flames, she had been grazed by one of the tendrils that had accompanied them, and now the effects of the curse that they carried was clear.
Fear.
"No... the flames... please... you can't..." Eurydice began trembling uncontrollably, paralyzed by fright. "Don't-"
She wasn't being coherent, but Lelouch trusted that one of Eurydice's fellow Irregulars would come to her aid. The Black Knights still had a job to do, to eliminate the numerous Spartoi. The skeletal warriors had continued to close in on them while they were distracted by Asterius' ruthless combination of fire and mind-ailing magic, packaged into a flashy and extremely dangerous spell. While an individual Spartoi was not particularly threatening, the Shadows would find them easy prey if they allowed themselves to be surrounded by so many of them.
"Zero!" Leila said telepathically, with sudden urgency in her voice. "I used my Persona to examine our surroundings more carefully after Asterius's last attack, and the entire chamber is constructed over what seems, by all appearances, to be a bottomless, fiery pit. If Asterius causes too much damage to the floor, entire sections of it could lose structural integrity, plunging any standing upon them into the inferno below! We're on a time limit!"
That made Asterius's spell vastly more dangerous than it already was!
"Make sure the others know as well!" Lelouch thought back.
"I'm on it! And as you're dealing with those Spartoi - remember their legend! If you can somehow confuse them-"
"That's my plan exactly."
Lelouch began quickly issuing orders to his teammates. "Queen! Send your Persona to the right side of the chamber! Knight! Head to the left! Conserve your magic for dealing with the main threat! Grab those fallen racks instead, and release them when I tell you to!"
Kallen and Suzaku did as they were instructed, promptly summoning Guren Jigoku and Lancelot, who flew at high speed toward the nearest racks on their respective sides.
Lelouch continued giving instructions. "Tama! Head to the far side of the chamber! Slip between the Spartoi's legs, and try to to get them to follow them. Then, get out of sight as soon as I give the word!"
"A task that perfectly suits my talents!" Arthur replied, before scurrying away.
"Diamond, Noire, and Dame!" Lelouch called out. "Remain with me and protect Bishop, but be prepared to move and spread out when we have our opening!"
"Right!" the three of them chorused.
Lelouch, Milly, Euphemia, and Shirley each took positions on different sides surrounding Leila, ensuring that their backs were covered by each other, while freeing Leila to continue analyzing enemy formations, tactics, and vulnerabilities, and to share with the navigators of the Irregulars and Glinda Knights. Meanwhile, the Spartoi, seeing that their intended victims had grouped together, rushed forward.
"Now!" Lelouch shouted.
Several things happened at once. The girls around him, sans Leila, each cast spells into the clumped masses of Spartoi in front of them, them with fire, ice, and bless magic. Guren Jigoku and Lancelot dropped the scroll racks that they had lifted into the air into the midsts of the enemy Shadows that had gathered beneath them. And while they couldn't see Arthur, if all had gone well, he had led the group of Spartoi following him right into another.
Chaos immediately broke out among the ranks of the Spartoi. Many were destroyed outright, especially by Shirley's magic, as they were not particularly sturdy foes. The Spartoi were also not particularly bright either, given that they lacked brains of their own, and were only driven on by the rudimentary intelligence bestowed by the magic that animated them. From what Lelouch had observed from their earlier encounters with the Spartoi in the Palace, the skeletal warriors had enough intelligence to understand and carry out simple orders, but when faced with something unexpected, they defaulted to simple standing orders, which they would unthinkingly carry out, like robots following preprogrammed directives.
First among those directives appeared to be, "kill anything in front of you that moves."
When faced with an enemy, such an instruction would work reasonably enough, though it was still extremely crude. When faced with their fellow Spartoi, however... no distinction would be made.
And so the Spartoi turned their weapons against their comrades, and began hacking each other apart... just as they had been tricked into destroying each other in their legend.
For a moment, Lelouch was worried that Arthur might have gotten caught up in the indiscriminate slaughter, but then he saw his feline comrade dart out from amid the mass of Spartoi, relieving his concerns.
"They never saw it coming!" Arthur grinned.
"Stop, you idiots!" Asterius bellowed. "Fight the Black Knights, and kill the enemies of our Goddess!"
But the Spartoi were already locked into following their preprogrammed orders, and would not heed further ones until the targets in front of them were eliminated.
"Nngh! Useless things!" Asterius growled. Raising its fists as high as its chains would allow it to, it slammed them down against the floor with enormous force.
The entire chamber shook violently in turn, and hairline cracks started opening up in the floor, radiating outward. The bones of a number of the Spartoi closest to Asterius shattered, and the stone directly under the point of impact gave way entirely, falling into the fiery abyss below.
"The floor won't take many more blows like that!" Leila said. "They'll cause it to collapse even more quickly than that spell from before. At best, it can withstand another three blows of similar magnitude... and it could be as little as two!"
"Don't worry, the Irregulars are already on it!" Nunnally's voice said, relayed into his consciousness through Lucretia and then Leila. Shadow Nunnally's slightly deeper voice then took over, reverberating as it overlaid Nunnally's natural one with undisguised viciousness. "We're going to enjoy crushing Asterius!"
With that, Shadow Nunnally leapt back into the fray.
"Hey, don't forget us in the Glinda Knights!" Sokkia's voice cut in, entering the mental link between them. "I just finished analyzing Asterius's weaknesses. He's still vulnerable to ice, but just one frigid blast isn't going to cut it. But if he gets hit with several in a short time, that should be enough to stagger him. Just thought it might be helpful for you to know, before you go all berserker on him, Nemo."
"Noted, Scarecrow," Nemo thought back tersely. She then fell silent in the link for a moment, but Lelouch had the distinct impression that she was barking orders to be telepathically relayed to her teammates by Lucretia. As Nunnally's Shadow, it was hardly in Nemo's nature to be patient or to be concerned with observing niceties when there was a battle to be had.
Alice and Dalque began targeting Asterius' right shoulder with their Personas, trying to impede his ability to raise its arm again. They were joined in this effort by Leonhardt, Marika, and Oldrin, from the Glinda Knights, while Kallen and Suzaku, with their Personas' superior strength, went after the left. As concerted as their attacks were, they didn't seem to be causing much damage to Asterius, and wherever they managed to penetrate his skin, they ran into an armored subcutaneous layer that turned aside their blows.
Snarling with irritation, like they were particularly annoying gnats swarming around him, Asterius began conjuring fireballs, which he propelled at them rapid-fire. Most of the attacking Irregulars and Glinda Knights had to pull back to avoid being scorched, but the flames were slow-moving compared to the automated machine gun fire that they had faced in the battle against Gao Hai's Shadow, and so Alice dodged them easily and kept attacking with Bradmante and her own lance. Guren Jigoku and Lancelot were both a fraction slower than Alice and Bradmante's own blinding speed, but due to their aerial nature, they had superior vertical mobility, allowing them to rise out of harm's way.
Toto was next, causing a psychedelic swirl of colors to appear in front of Asterius as she cast Psiodyne. It barely caused any damage to Asterius, but it wasn't meant to. Instead, the spectacle, and the preceding attacks, had been meant to distract him as Nemo, Marrybell, Euphemia, and Sancia moved into position.
"Cynane!" Sancia shouted, summoning her Persona, the warrior-princess of Macedon, who promptly cast Bufudyne against Asterius. The beast roared, turning its gaze upon her, but Euphemia was ready to launch her own attack.
"Eilonwy!"
Materializing, Euphemia's Persona raised its golden bauble. It shone brilliantly as it it brought still more shards of ice into being, and propelled them into Asterius, causing him to groan in pain.
"Your turn, West!" Euphemia called out, performing a Baton Pass.
"Skadi!" Marrybell shouted. Her Persona appeared, and followed up with its own ice spell, sending Asterius further off-balance. Not wasting any time, she then promptly performed her own Baton Pass to Nemo.
Nemo grasped her mask and flashed a wicked look across his little sister's face.
And then, she did something entirely unexpected.
"Black Frost!" Nemo shouted.
Jack Frost appeared, but immediately, his body began to blacken and grow in size, while his eyes turned a malevolent, gleaming red, as if feeding upon Nemo's unchecked aggression.
At a glance, it was superficially similar to the process by which Kallen, Leila, and Milly's Personas had evolved into more powerful forms. But Nemo had triggered Jack Frost's transformation on command, and like many aspects of her powers, it didn't seem to be perfectly stable. Energy that could not be fully contained was leaking from the Persona, and its outline appeared to be flickering. Bereft of a constant input of power, it would likely revert to being Jack Frost.
"I've become hee-ho evil!" Black Frost announced in voice that was still high-pitched in spite of its much greater girth. "But magical punishment is deserved by the even greater evil, who prey on the weak, hee-ho! Diamond Dust, hee-ho!"
A cloud of tiny glimmering ice crystals, swirled around Asterius and converged. They then burst outward, forming fractal ice crystals like Bufudyne, but in all directions, and with far more force. And it wasn't just a matter of Black Frost's spell being inherently more powerful than Bufudyne, which it clearly was. It had been further amplified by the resonance of successive Baton Passes. So not only was Asterius sent reeling backwards, but he was frozen in place a moment later, extinguishing his flames in the process.
None of them needed any prompting to know that it was time for an all-out attack.
Asterius's subcutaneous armor had been made brittle by the intense cold, allowing the three teams of Persona users to penetrate it where they could not before. Before long, they had Asterius' left arm disabled, hanging limply at his side, and had done significant damage to his right, so that he wouldn't be able to raise it up all the way anymore.
But victory was not quite yet at hand, for the fires burning within Asterius flared back to life.
"Nngh! I will NOT submit to the likes of you!" Asterius roared.
Multiple pillars of flames erupted, forming fiery spokes across the length of the chamber, and Asterius began repeatedly slamming his right fist against the ground. While it lacked the same force as if he had been able to fully raise both fists, the cumulative effect was that larger chunks of the floor finally began to give way, filling the chamber with a red-orange light from below.
A female voice let out a sudden, panicked cry. While Eurydice had been quickly treated by her teammates for the mental interference caused by the Minotaur's earlier magic, it appeared that she had a genuine phobia of large fires, whether or not she was bespelled or not. And more to the point, she had been standing on the edge of one of the sections of floor that had plummeted into the fiery abyss. She had only just managed to arrest her fall by catching the ledge the remained, which she was now hanging on for dear life.
"Julia!" Marrybell called out, and in the next moment he saw her rushing over to Eurydice's aid with a burst of adrenaline. Needless to say, Oldrin was quick to follow. She was bound both by loyalty, which required her to protect her lady, and her ideals as a knight, which required her to help those in need.
Lelouch was too far back to be able to reach Eurydice himself, and even if he could, Marrybell and Oldrin were already on it. But that he was further back also meant that there was a way in which he could still help them. He saw that Asterius had already noticed Marrybell and Oldrin's attempt to assist Eurydice, and was preparing to attack them, taking advantage of their attention being diverted elsewhere. As such, Lelouch knew that he needed to give them some sort of cover before Asterius could strike. Yet he was still running on fumes after navigating the Labyrinth, so he could only get in a few spells at most before his reserves were fully depleted.
He would have to make them count.
"Norn!" he shouted as he pulled off his mask.
The triple goddess of fate appeared at his command, and cast a fire-resistant magical barrier over Marrybell. It wouldn't completely block Asterius's spells, but it would greatly reduce their effects, at least for a short time. He could have cast Makarakarn instead, but that would only be good for reflecting a single spell away from Marrybell, and would have taken a lot more out of him.
As it was, he felt that he only had enough left in him to cast one more barrier. And that left him with a choice between Oldrin and Eurydice. Though really, if it just came down to a matter of doing the most good, it had to be Eurydice. Unlike Marrybell, who had dropped everything in a single-minded drive to save Eurydice, he could see that Oldrin was maintaining her awareness of the combat situation around them, and was thus actually in a position to defend herself and others if need be. As Eurydice was struggling to avoid falling to her death, she could do nothing of the kind. Moreover, given the strong aversion that Eurydice had showed to fire, it was very likely that it would manifest as her Persona's weakness as well, leaving her exceedingly vulnerable if she were to take a direct hit from one of Asterius's spells.
And so, he quickly had Norn cast a second barrier, over Eurydice. He could immediately feel the toll that it took upon him. His earlier headache, from overusing Ariadne Picaro in the Labyrinth, returned with a vengeance, and it suddenly felt extremely difficult to concentrate on summoning his Persona. He knew that made him more of a liability now than anything else, but his decision was vindicated moments later, as Asterius launched several fireballs at Marrybell, Oldrin, and Eurydice.
The fireballs impacted against the barriers protecting Marrybell and Eurydice, just as the princess managed to pull the younger woman, who may or may not have been her sister Julia, up and away from the crumbling ledge. The flames themselves were deflected around the barrier, sparing them from the bulk of the spell's power.
Lelouch saw that Marrybell had pulled Eurydice in, sheltering Eurydice against her own body. As such, when the flames had passed, Eurydice was mostly unscathed. Marrybell, however, had a number of burns on exposed areas of her skin. They didn't seem to be immediately life-threatening, but they were still something that would require healing or medical attention, lest they become infected.
Fortunately, Oldrin, who had managed to dodge the fireballs, was there to provide that to her lady.
"Dorothy!" Oldrin said as she summoned her Persona. "Diarahan!"
Quickly, Dorothy clicked her silver shoes together. At once, healing energy converged on Marrybell, and the angry red burn marks rapidly began to vanish, as if they had never been there at all.
As for Asterius... well, the beast was in a world of hurt, to put it mildly. Nemo regularly fought as a berserker, but now she had gone absolutely ballistic, and was raining spell upon spell down upon the one who had dared to hurt Marrybell and almost killed Eurydice. That most of Marrybell's injuries had already vanished in no way absolved Asterius for inflicting them in the first place, nor for trying to prey upon the two young women when they were at their most vulnerable. And while Euphemia would never be able to match Nemo's unrestrained level of aggression, Lelouch could tell that she was furious, far beyond the anger she had shown in dealing with the Bureaucrat Cognition earlier.
Understandably, Oldrin was pissed too.
"What a cowardly tactic!" she shouted at Asterius once she had finished treating Marrybell and checking Eurydice for any injuries. "You have thrown away any claim that you might have had to honor!"
"So says one who has thrown in her lot with thieves," Asterius retorted. "But I care not for your hypocrisy. Let us finish this!"
Asterius continued to fight back fiercely, but faced with the unleashed fury of Nemo, Euphemia, and Oldrin, as well as the sheer firepower of Kallen and Suzaku, the already wounded guardian of the Labyrinth could no longer stand against their combined assault.
"Nngh!" With a last groan, Asterius collapsed, falling heavily on what remained of the floor. For a dreadful moment, none of them could be sure if it was going to give way, but the floor held, and Asterius did not rise again. And then, slowly, Asterius's body began to break up, dissolving into black wisps, proof that he truly had been defeated, and was not simply playing possum.
"As you see, justice was on our side, in the end," Oldrin told the vanishing Asterius.
"That's right," Euphemia added. "I'll become as strong as I need to be to protect those I care about from those like you!"
Asterius made a pained laugh, but even in his fatally weakened state, it sonorously echoed through the Hall of the Minotaur.
"You still insist on deluding yourselves... warriors? Yes, I grant you that title now... no mere thieves could have defeated me so. Your leaders proved better at wielding power and violence than even I was capable of. That is all. The strong go on to thrive, while the weak are culled. Might does make right. That is why you are even able to make the claim that justice was on your side.. because through your strength, you gained the right to impose your own idea of justice upon others."
"No, that's not right at all," Oldrin started. "Justice is an ideal that anyone can strive for! It's not just a contest of brute force!"
"And tell me, young Knight..." Asterius asked as his body continued to fade. "How do the weak see their justice done? By banding together to become strong enough to overthrow their former masters... just as you and your friends did here. And you have proved the truth of the Britannian way, as His Majesty has taught us, once again."
Asterius let out one last pained groan, the final vestiges of his body disintegrating. But his voice persisted to make one last taunt.
"All... hail... Britannia!"
And then Asterius was heard no more.
"He wasn't completely wrong, you know," Nemo said after a few moments. "As much as you can talk about justice, it's not something that exists in the face of the wicked unless you have the strength to make it a reality. And sometimes that means getting your own hands dirty."
"That's something I've become all too familiar with," Suzaku grimaced.
Nemo blinked, and her eyes returned to Nunnally's natural color, while her voice lost its unnatural echo and took on the slightly higher pitch that Nunnally normally spoke in. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep working to make a kinder and gentler world, with justice for all."
"That the recurring paradox that we face, Nemo," Lelouch said. "Even if we're not confronting Cornelia's armies head-on in the real world, we'll still have to triumph over her Shadow at the end of this Palace if we want to prevent her from carrying out a great injustice. As we've seen, no Palace ruler has ever been so careless to leave their Treasure undefended, and competent as Cornelia is, I'm sure that she'll be no exception."
Oldrin frowned. "It always comes down to that, doesn't it?" She sighed, shaking her head looking at the ground. "Fighting... I hate it... no matter how good at it I happen to be." She raised her head and looked over to Lelouch. "I do have to thank you though. Because of your quick thinking, my Lady and Lyra were spared from the worst of Asterius's flames."
"I'd do the same for any of my allies," he told her.
"I remain grateful nonetheless," Oldrin replied.
Nodding, Lelouch turned to face Marrybell and the other Glinda Knights. "Are you alright?"
Physically, he knew she was fine now, thanks to Oldrin's healing magic. For that matter, much of the damage to Tink's arm also seemed to have been repaired while they had been busy fighting Asterius, likely by a similarly powerful spell. But Marrybell's outward lack of injuries was an entirely separate matter from her state of mind.
Lelouch hadn't missed that she had breached Metaverse protocol by calling Eurydice "Julia" instead of her codename "Lyra", something that was clearly done in a very heightened emotional state. Did that mean Marrybell truly believed that Eurydice was her long-lost sister, as did Nunnally or Euphemia, and just been in denial until now? Or had she been simply been swept up in the moment, when someone with her sister's likeness was threatened, lest she see the tragedy from her past repeated before her eyes, without really thinking about what she was doing?
He left that unsaid though, so as to not put Marrybell even more on the spot.
"I... I'm alright," she said, getting to to her feet and helping Eurydice do the same. She glanced down in the abyss that had opened up in the floor. Its fires had been extinguished with Asterius' demise, but it still appeared to be just as bottomless as before. "But that was much too close."
"I am indebted to you," Eurydice said. She turned to Oldrin and Lelouch. "I thank both of you for your assistance as well. I am ashamed that my actions made it necessary. For a moment... I was not myself."
Eurydice looked like she was about to say more, but then hesitated to do so in the presence of so many people. And just as Lelouch wasn't going to put Marrybell on the spot, he knew that it would likewise be pointless to do so for Eurydice. If anything, she didn't seem to like sharing more details about her past than necessary, so she'd probably just clam up.
"Well... we won, and everyone came out alive," Marrybell said. "And that's what matters."
Lelouch did not miss that she was being reticent about her reckless actions to save Eurydice.
Before anyone else could think about pressing either Marrybell or Eurydice on the matter, there was a rumbling sound. Several of them looked around, quickly assessing their surroundings in case they might have to fight another foe or move quickly, such as if the floor began to collapse following the damage accumulated during the battle against Asterius. But after a moment, they saw that a spiraling series of steps was emerging from the walls of the chamber.
"It seems the way forward has opened," Nunnally said. "I know that we're all tired, but if there are no further enemies around, I think we should see if we can reach the Acropolis level now, and if we can find a safe room up there."
After a moment, Leila, Lucretia, and Sokkia all confirmed that there were no Shadows nearby.
Lelouch looked upward and felt himself blanch. While he was in far better shape than he had been just a few months ago, and was empowered by his Personas with strength and endurance far exceeding his normal limits whenever he was in the Metaverse, he was still exhausted from the trek through the Labyrinth and the fights against Mastema and Asterius.
He was not looking forward to climbing those stairs in his current condition.
But Nunnally was right, and the stubborn part of him wanted to see the Acropolis level too, after fighting so hard to get there.
Several minutes later, Lelouch was wheezing heavily, and his sore muscles were demanding that he stop. Thankfully, they didn't have any further to climb, for they had reached the top of the staircase.
A large tablet, set in front of a pair of heavy bronze doors awaited them.
As they approached it, the letters inscribed in the stone began to glow brightly. At once, Cornelia's voice began to emanate from it, though it was distorted, and had same reverberating effect that was typical of Shadows.
"You who stand upon this threshold: you have defeated a mighty enemy, and so have proved that you have the strength to stand among the proud warriors of my Acropolis. But if you would enter my own temple at the summit of the Acropolis, you must prove your devotion by visiting the four major shrines along your path. Then, I shall greet you as a worthy servant of the Empire." Shadow Cornelia's voice paused, and when she resumed speaking, she sounded far less magnanimous and far more wrathful. "But if you are thieves... then know that neither my warriors nor myself shall rest until you and the rest of the Empire's enemies are dead!"
Euphemia frowned slightly, but then said, "We'll change my sister's heart and get through to her somehow... I know we will."
Passing through the heavy doors, they entered a courtyard. Unlike the bowels of the bureaucratic levels below, it was open to the sky, but if anything, the atmosphere felt more oppressive.
"We're getting closer to the Viceroy's Treasure," Leila said, looking up.
The Goddess's Temple could be seen much more clearly now, perched atop a high, rocky outcropping that rose from the far side of the Acropolis level. Searchlights, of the same brazier and mirror design that they had seen earlier, roved back and forth around the Temple. The edifice itself had the exterior facade of a Greco-Roman Temple, but it lacked much in the way of extraneous ornamentation, and it appeared to be made of functional concrete, rather than the gleaming white marble and gold leaf of the rest of the Acropolis. The way that additional fortifications and ballista emplacements were built into it on all sides gave it more of an impression of being a citadel more than anything else. Such a military nature was of course in line with the defenses built into and hidden within the real Government Bureau, but they were plain for all to see in the Metaverse, befitting Cornelia's cognition of the structure as her stronghold in Area 11.
Yet in spite of the Temple's brutalist aesthetic, Lelouch could see a patch of green upon its roof. Judging from what he knew of the real Government Bureau, it was most likely a representation of the garden that Clovis had built there, which Cornelia had kept, itself a scaled-down recreation of those at the Aries Villa, which had been tended to by Empress Marianne.
Yet there was a curious addition to the rooftop garden. He couldn't see it as clearly as he would have liked due to the angle and a strange shimmering in the air, but there seemed to be some sort of giant, ornate golden birdcage at the garden's center.
"I see you've noticed it too," Leila continued. "As far as I can tell, the Distortion in the Palace is strongest around that cage."
"Is that really what my sister-" Euphemia started. Then she shook her head and sighed sadly. "No, I don't have to ask. I know exactly what we're going to find up there. She's always been protective of me to a fault, and that tendency has only increased after I was kidnapped at the Consulate. To Cornelia, keeping me locked in a gilded cage is the surest way of keeping me safe."
Lelouch nodded. He was still feeling quite tired, but in between catching his breath, he would offer his favorite half-sister what encouragement he could.
"When… we cross paths with our... older sister's Shadow… I know that… you'll show her… how strong… you really are, Noire."
She smiled faintly. "Thank you, Zero."
"Hey, look at this!" Sokkia called out. She was by a short pedestal placed near the center of the courtyard, and had touched a gemstone set into it. The gemstone appeared to have acted as some sort of switch, for a sigil engraved into the floor had come to life, and was now glowing gently.
"From what I can tell, this seems to link to another sigil earlier in the Palace, back before the Labyrinth," Sokkia said. "I can't say I blame the Viceroy and her soldiers for wanting to be able to bypass all those Bureaucrats, and now we'll be able to do the same."
"I'm also sensing that there's a safe room adjoining the courtyard," Lucretia reported softly.
"Good work, Land," Nunnally said. "Let's rest there and then make our way out of the Palace. It's been a long day for all of us."
Everyone could agree to that.
But as the temple atop the Acropolis reminded them, their infiltration of Cornelia's Palace was far from over.
A/N:
I am very sorry for the lengthy delay between chapters. The last few months of 2021 were a hectic time for me, which majorly cut into my opportunities to write, and I also sidetracked a bit to make some revisions to portions of previous chapters, particularly the hot spring scene in Chapter 46, which I had grown increasingly unhappy with in its original version for generally making everyone too out-of-character. Fortunately, things have settled down considerably since then, so I have more time to write again.
In discussing preliminary plans for the chapter with my betas, one at first favored the boss at the center of the Labyrinth being modeled after SMT IV's Minotaur, while my other beta advocated using Asterius from Persona 4 Arena and the Persona 5 DLCs. I then came up with the idea of turning it into a two-phase fight, starting with the Minotaur and having it transform into Asterius, which both of my betas liked.
It was important that Asterius pose a suitable challenge for the combined teams of Persona-users, as else their numerical superiority would easily trivialize the fight. A point of inspiration for me was envisioning the battle as if Asterius was a raid boss from an MMORPG, which are designed around large/multiple parties, and with numerous minions/adds in the form of the Spartoi. I also took inspiration from the boss battles in Persona 5 Strikers, in which the enemy must be struck by their elemental weakness(es) multiple times in order to stagger them.
As for the fiery pit beneath the boss arena, that is intended to be representative of Hell as the Inferno, as the continuation of the bureaucracy as Hell motif established throughout the Labyrinth.
Jack Frost's line upon his (temporary) transformation into Black Frost is taken from Midori's Jack Frost/Black Frost from SMT: Devil Survivor, whom she taught to fight for love and justice. Additionally, consecutive Baton Passes can greatly amplify the power of skills and spells, which the combined parties took advantage of in the fight against Asterius.
"Diarahan" is the single-target full HP recovery spell in the SMT series and its Persona spin-off. We see in Persona 3 that it clearly works on robotic characters, such as Aigis. That is, of course, a gameplay consideration first and foremost, but it serving to repair the damage to Tink's mechanical arm is a nod to that. And the fact that Tink is a actually cyborg is directly from Code Geass: Oz the Reflection.
Superficially, some may draw a connection between the presence of a large bird cage at the top of Cornelia's Palace, and the cages that appear in the Jails in Persona 5 Strikers. However, as Euphemia notes, the purpose of this cage is not to imprison the Palace Ruler / Jail Monarch, but someone close to them, as a twisted means of keeping that person safe from the outside world.
Once again, I thank everyone who has been following this story for your patience and support, and hope that you enjoy this chapter!