P3: Bloodlust

by Nightlyy

Minato had been staring down into an abyss for as long as he could remember. He does not know if the darkness stares back, if it calls him in or if he, himself is the abyss staring up, reaching out for the light beyond. Will he be helped up by someone who shares the curse or will he be drowned? A more dark and brutal novelization of Persona 3.

118. The Battle For Everyone's Souls

This took a lot longer than I thought.

Hahaha.

Yeah, the word count is not botched.

This has to be a record, I'm sure.

30k words of nonstop fighting.

Well, this is the last battle I'll write so I went all out.

Also, do review.

This is a culmination of a whole year. Even tho I didn't write, I kept thinking and thinking and basically included everything I had in my mind for the finale.

I'll wait though. Anyone who reads this in one setting deserves a medal.

Now that this is done, the remaining chapters will be a breeze. I'm finally at the end now. Phew.

Here it goes.

---

The howl of hatred from Ryoji and the shout of concern from Hamuko reverberated through every corner in his psyche, nearly frying the neurons across his nervous systems but her voice prevailed in the end, begging him to move out of the way as the appraiser had his sights set on him-

"Fuck!" Minato snapped out of the two seconds of absolute hell and braced his body for battle, his confused and heartbroken look melting into the determined frown as he intended to see the battle through and ensure her safety, no matter what-

Ryoji attacked, cloaking his blade in streaks of red before he lashed the second he got close, catching the both of them in one swing, gashing Hamuko on the stomach and cutting Minato on the shoulder as he had ducked to the side-

Minato's feet skidded along the ground but he caught his balance and jumped on the appraiser, leading to another painful clash of blades and another brutal shockwave-

Ryoji shredded through his open stomach with his free hand and Minato hissed, collapsing in a bloody heap. He kicked the blade out of the hands of the appraiser as he got close and Hamuko struck from behind, cutting the tendons on his knee and dropping him on his right leg-

Ryoji ducked the kick meant for his neck and willed the blade back to his grip, finding her shoulder and opening up another shower of crimson. Hamuko limped back and Ryoji advanced, not able to see the fist coming from the side and the same struck the back of his head-

Crackle-

Minato kicked his mouth shut as soon as he saw the bubbling of purple energy between the jaws of the appraiser. The spell exploded inside his throat and came out from the back of his head, striking the ground and detonating into another resounding explosion of purple, and that was all that Ryoji needed-

The regeneration had been kicked up another notch and a second later, Ryoji was back to fighting shape in seconds. He knocked Hamuko to the ground with a swinging haymaker and sailed his sword for the neck of the male nearby-

Stab-

Minato grunted, opening his eyes and seeing lots and lots of purple, but he was able to catch the glimpse of the black shadow, as well as the massive blade in his left hand. His left limb had been absolutely abused and Ryoji powered on further, with his blade starting to slice his fingers off. His knuckles burned under the heat of the blade and Minato widened his eyes, a second away from losing his four fingers-

"Thanatos!"

The God of Death distracted Ryoji just in the nick of time, cutting off his lead hand with a swing of its blade, just a second before the appraiser could maim Minato permanently. The blunet quickly ripped his hand away from the blade and curled the same into a fist, focusing every last bit of energy and then rifling his punch forward-

Ryoji retaliated with the same motion using the opposite hand, and the knuckles clashed together for the hundredth time that night, spreading a wave of darkness and light, death and life until the impact forced the two to disengage, getting a couple of yards between them-

Minato decided not to look at his grotesque hand. Instead, he focused a few healing spells on the same limb and clenched his fist, feeling just a little bit of mobility to go for a few more minutes.

Ryoji glanced at Minato, and then at Hamuko, who stood on the other side. He was trapped between the two persona-users, two very defiant mortals and that was another fact that pissed him off. Even in the omnipotent presence of Nyx, the two were able to fight and displayed no signs of fear or hesitation. Hamuko was even able to summon her persona in a second, which was unthinkable as the mere presence of Nyx induced madness and insanity to whoever was unfortunate enough to glimpse at her true form-

Time was ticking for the two humans and Minato sensed that. The splitting up of the moon was definitely a sign that the Fall was around the corner. His head and heart were fully focused on crushing the mask but he spared a glance back, and his lower lip trembled at the sight of the city. He loathed Iwatodai for a long time, and wished nothing more than to see the place sink into the bottom of the ocean but now-

"All those people…" the blunet chewed on his bottom lip, clenching the blade tightly as he dared to imagine the amount of dead bodies lining the streets if the Fall were to happen. Those dead bodies included the corpses of his friends, and the many people he had come to know during the past year.

Putting an end to the vicious cycle of hatred and madness was one thing, but there was no way, NO FUCKING WAY that he was going to stand ideally by and watch Nyx slaughter billions of innocent lives as the Fall was the end of humanity, not just the people of Iwatodai.

"Are you finally able to comprehend the magnitude of the situation?" Ryoji spoke, glancing from left to red, from Hamuko to Minato, as the boy was trying to keep composure. "This is what awaits everyone at the end of the miserable road of life-"

"You can save your stupid speech," Minato interjected with a hiss, narrowing the eyes of the appraiser. "I have promises to keep but I'm not going to let you murder billions of innocent lives either."

Ryoji spat out at the heroic declaration, as every word twisted his innards and made his skin crawl out of sheer disgust. Every word was sick and cursed and the appraiser raised his blade again, ready to carve out the rotten vocal cords out of his throat. The same fool was yelling and screaming about cursing the world to hell just a couple of minutes ago and now, here he stood, like he was some kind of grand messiah-

"That bitch!"

Ryoji snapped his attention back towards the redhead standing on the opposite side and scowled at her, remembering her disgusting preaching about Minato being a savior. That boy was a vessel to an eldritch horror of cosmic proportions and the stupid mortal girl was responsible for pulling his vessel out of the abyss of hatred and insanity, the very essence of what he stood for-

The appraiser changed his plans in a second upon that train of thought and instead of carving out rotten vocal cords; he changed paths and rushed towards Hamuko, in order to slice her vile head right off her shoulders and stomp the same into the filthy soil of earth-

"Stupid!" Minato caught up to him in seconds and tackled the appraiser away from the female before he could even raise his blade to make do on his idea. After a brief tussle, Ryoji found his arms around the waist of the blunet and hurled him to the side, quickly conjuring up a sphere of Night Queen in his palm while Minato was somersaulting through the air-

Hamuko struck from behind, nearly cleaving his neck off his shoulder until a split second regeneration made her back off. The appraiser lashed out at the girl for her attempt, extra pissed off for her involvement in ruining his vessel to the point of no return-

Minato came running, holding back his power-charged fist. He rifled his fist forward and Hamuko saw her cue and unbolted a left kick to restart the chaotic and boisterous melee-

Ryoji suffered knuckles to his face and a shin to his gut, grunting as the impact broke his jaw and rearranged his stomach but he retaliated after another quick heal, catching both persona users and shredding through their bodies with his clawed hands. Minato broke free first and fired a kick from the top, catching the back of his head and snapping his face to the side-

Hamuko lunged with a left and she threw from the hip, catching the head of Ryoji as it came crashing against her fist after the roundhouse kick from the top. The Avatar of Nyx stumbled and shook his head but the two did not let up, swinging another slew of strikes and connecting on a fair amount-

Ryoji covered up after a dozen or so punches and started firing back with looping haymakers. Minato blocked the first punch with a cross and weaved through follow-up by tilting his head and arching his body to the opposite direction. Hamuko mimicked his method of defense and whiffed on the strike coming her way, retaliating with a counter hook from the blind spot of Ryoji-

Every haymaker he threw was dodged without too much issue, and Ryoji spared a glance at the ground after another missed attempt, noting the matching footwork and foot placement of his two foes, almost step for step and second by second. The two were moving in complete sync and just a small demonstration from the blunet was enough to get the technique across to Hamuko-

Minato nailed the God from the other blind spot and Ryoji gave up on engaging the two in a melee. He summoned the weapon back into his grip and hurled a cluster of red energy from the surface of the blade, directly for the two persona users-

Minato yanked Hamuko to the floor by her sleeve to save her from the burst of energy and Hamuko hurled him to the side to protect him from downward swing of the blade. She rolled backwards and Minato brushed past her a second later, handing her a blade as he carried his own and picked up the speed to clash with Ryoji ahead-

Hamuko pushed past the shockwave that emerged from the clash of blades and joined up her fellow wild card, deflecting the much larger blade of the appraiser. She matched his step and sliced through the armor on the forearm-

Ryoji howled and caught the blunet with a punch to the side of his deformed face and smashed the elbow of the same arm against the temple of the female, knocking them backwards for a second of relief-

Minato pushed himself off the ground with a hand to the surface and Hamuko rolled to her feet, not willing to let up the assault for a single second. The two took off at the same time, making good on the destruction of the armor by cutting the arms off his body to another haunting shriek of pain and insanity-

Ryoji discharged another stream of purple in desperation, and the explosion caught the two but only barely as the bulk of the force breezed past. The appraiser moved back as the two defiant persona users crowded him again, taking advantage of his disability and drilling another series of thudding strikes to the face-

The appraiser kept moving backwards, trying to get a second to restore his arms but Minato and Hamuko followed him, showing no mercy as another slew of punches spawned another minor crack on the mask, much to the horror of Ryoji-

Minato ducked under another wild swing and opened up the guard with a feint to the right side, leaving the opposite exposed to another kick from the top which rocked Ryoij down to his core-

Hamuko was thwacked to the side but Ryoji hissed the next second, enduring another brutal tackle from the blunet who kept ploughing the God backwards, quickly finding the underhooks during the grapple and hurling his foe into the skies-

"Susano-o!"

Hamuko summoned the ultimate persona of the Fool Arcana the moment she saw Minato securing the underhooks on the body of the Avatar. The persona exploded out of the mist and took to the skies but Ryoji was ready, holding his blade at the side to cleave the pest to-

"Come forth!"

Susano-o severed his left arm upon the second of distraction and the other persona, Siegfried of the Strenght Arcana, hacked off the forelimbs emerging from the back of the appraiser-

"Vorapl Blade-"

Ryoji widened his eyes, able to feel the heat of the two blades as the two persona users called upon the physical spells at the same time, with most of the focus directed towards the mask in particular-

"Moonless Gown!"

The unison spell was reflected right back at the two personas, while the users jumped out of the sight to avoid being shredded to pieces. Ryoji plummeted due to the loss of his limbs but the God was well in control, unleashing another deadly streak of almighty energy, from left to right, leveling the area and damaging his two foes as he made sure to target everything in sight-

The moment Ryoji touched the ground, Minato exploded out of pile of rubble and lunged at him, catching the fist of the appraiser on his face but the Fool connected with one of his own, managing to distract him for just a second-

Hamuko ran head-first to the fisticuffs, taking advantage of the distraction and slamming another shin to the side of his body, drawing out a hateful snarl-

"Keep moving!" Minato yanked the redhead out of the way of a counter and pushed her in the other direction while he started moving clockwise; catching the hollow stare of Ryoji and sneering at him to throw and the appraiser did, unbolting another looping punch and just missing Minato as he moved his head-

A cluster of support spells alerted him and he whipped in the opposite, getting rocked momentarily as a rushing punch connected on his jaw but even when dazed, he caught the clapping of hands and immediately turned towards Minato, not willing to turn his back on him for a second-

"Focus on the mask!" Minato gave the order and lunged ahead, with twice the speed, catching the appraiser off guard with a blistering right hand and knocking him a few steps backwards-

Hamuko carried the momentum with a series of shots but Ryoji covered up, determined to protect the mask but the offense did not let up for a second, with a barrage of punches connecting on his stomach, making him hack out ichor. A knee to his side finally broke his defensive shell and Ryoji started swinging back-

A melee was never his forte, especially when he was outnumbered but with the added spells, he was barely able to get a read on the position and the angles as the two kept moving around in circles, constantly exchanging buffs and assaulting the Avatar of Nyx with a seemingly endless barrage of strikes. The armor covering his body crumbled after just a couple of seconds and the punches started connecting on his bare flesh-

Ryoji's fist brushed past against the cheek of the Hamuko and the female fired back, leading him into a clockwise right hand from the blunet. Ryoji stumbled on the spot, hissing out pain as the two carried on the strategy of moving around him without pause, occasionally throwing with half the power to lead him into concussive blows-

Another exchange of buffs led to Ryoji pulling back, and he screamed out ichor upon the impact of two punches on his stomach. The force nearly punctured his gut open but appraiser thought fast, shooting a small sphere of purple energy at the ground and scattering several layers of dust and smoke around-

Minato nearly ended up punching Hamuko as Ryoji disappeared from his sight and the two almost lunged at each other. He hissed in annoyance as the effect of the buffs wore off, putting an end to joint blizzard of offense.

"Where the hell did he go?" Minato wondered; still keeping his fist raised as Hamuko looked over in the other direction. She caught a flash of red at the last moment of her turn and snapped back towards him-

"Look out-!"

BANG-

Ryoji drilled a bullet into the left leg of the blunet, dropping him to a knee as the shot pierced the back of his joint. The next bullet came for his head but Minato ducked to the left, and ended up on collapsing to the ground as his knee gave way, leaving his head open and Ryoji immediately positioned the barrel of the revolver to blow his face off-

Hamuko came rushing at him, connecting with a full force haymaker to make him back off but without the buffs, her own knuckles crumbled, making her wince slightly but she swallowed the pain and carried on, looking to keep the appraiser far away from Minato as possible-

Ryoji unloaded with another series of bullets and Hamuko picked up a blade from the ground, reflecting the slugs coming her way before she hurled the weapon towards the appraiser, getting clipped on shoulder during the last swing but she launched the weapon at full force. The blade sliced through the cheek of Ryoji, snapping his concentration just for a second and Hamuko took the chance, cloaking herself in blue mist-

"Thanatos!"

Ryoji braced himself as the roar of her strongest persona shook the area, the vibrations pulsing through the ground. The burst of darkness from the summon came crashing at him but the appraiser brushed the same off, bolting his feet to the ground and blocking the swing of the blood-stained blade with the revolver of the Reaper-

Purple energy began to bubble between the jaws of the person and Ryoji widened his eyes, hastily conjuring up the same as he was frozen at point blank range, with his revolver blocking the blade that was swung for his neck-

The Megidola came for his head and Ryoji countered with the same spell, rocking the ground again as the damage exploded both ways, blowing the persona into spirals of mist and the remaining bulk of purple battering the appraiser but he retained his grip on the gun, clenching it tightly to retain a semblance of sanity in the storm of almighty power. He struggled with the weight on the spell crashing upon him but slowly and painfully, he began to curl up his wings, giving himself a brief respite as the energy coiled around his wings, giving him one second of peace and that was all that he needed-

A forceful flaps of wing caught Hamuko by surprise and the storm of pulsing energy was hurled in her direction and with nowhere to duck, Hamuko crossed her arms and endured the torture, body contorted as a defense mechanism and her single eye shut until she heard a bang-

Ryoji shot three bullets in quick succession, looking to make good on his promise of ripping her into two as he fired each bullet with his essence imbued into the slugs. The revolver blew up in his hands upon the last shot but the bullets sailed, leaving streaks of red and black-

Hamuko widened her eyes, flashes of red blinding her vision as the bullets were strengthened a thousand times over with the same, deadly spell. She could not even duck her head as the strain on her body was still massive, the storm of purple still holding her in place and her focus over all the place, rendering her unable to summon even the weakest persona as a last defense-

The first bullet closed in on her eye and Hamuko gritted her teeth, praying that she would be able to tank the damage until someone grabbed by the neck from behind and hurled her out of the way at the last second. The second bullet went right by her line of slight, blinding her momentarily until the smell of gunpowder and death and sound of flesh getting blown off brought her senses back to her-

"Minato!" Hamuko was horrified as the last minute save left him open to the bullets and she froze up in horror at the thought of Minato slumping to the ground with a hole in his head. The redhead snapped back and let out a soft sight at the sight of her savior still standing but bleeding out black blood and dead cells from his left shoulder as the second bullet had blasted through and the third-

The mark of the last slug widened her eyes as it had blown his left thumb clear off his hand, with the digit lying a few yards behind the blunet who stood upon a pool of his blood, bleeding profusely from the hole on his shoulder and his now maimed hand. The sight left her bewildered until Minato hissed and tried clenching the same hand, managing to do so after a few tries.

Ryoji was as stupefied as Hamuko, unable to comprehend the fact that Minato was still able to use the same hand. The second bullet had surely dismantled the crux of the joint but the blunet was somehow able to work his battered arm and surely intended to punch his head off with the same mutilated fist-

"You aren't catching her in that spell, little boy," Minato promised, grimacing as he rotated his decaying shoulder, his own body protesting at the motions but he bit back on the shrieks of pain and continued, casting another healing spell to soothe the inhumane pain. "Ever again."

Ryoji grew irritated upon his words, shrugging off the surprise and wonder and narrowing his eyes at the sickening oath. "Is that a fact, Minato? You should know best by now, you do not provoke Gods."

"I won't allow that," Minato ignored his stupid threat and carried on with his promise. He flicked his wrist a few times and didn't give a crap about his missing thumb. He was still able to throw his left hand and that was all he needed. "And I swear that on you, Pharos."

The name pissed him the fuck off and Ryoji dove headfirst, coming into the blunet's line of sight with a barrage of looping shots, catching his on the end of his fist once until Arisato retaliated with his left hand, catching the appraiser on the neck-

Ryoji heard footsteps of the female persona user and then witnessed the clap of hands; covering up the next second as the duo came rushing towards him, putting him on the back foot once more. His blade was thrown into the distance when Hamuko countered the blade with a kick and Minato ran into the appraiser as he was left defenseless-

"Ugh!" The God of Death himself was feeling the fatigue as Minato wrapped his arms around the long neck of the appraiser and bent his spine with his left hand, throwing a slew of rapid uppercuts as the two grappled viciously, coated in a mixture of black ichor and crimson blood. Ryoji fought back, digging his teeth into the flesh of his foe whenever he could. He mixed up his bites with short punches to his gut, struggling to control his foe in the tussle as Minato, for some insane reason, was not slowing down-

Something crashed against his legs and Ryoji was flipped upside down through a grip on his ankle. He landed neck first and his head twisted a full 180 degree a second later when the soccer kick from Minato broke his neck. More bits and pieces came off the cursed mask and Ryoji lashed out with a burst of flames, burning the two persona users who were looking to stomp his head to the ground-

"Switch, Hamuko!"

His own spell came rushing in the opposite direction at upon the switch of her persona, reflecting the flames right back at the appraiser who immediately summoned a wall of ice to defend himself. The lava came down like a wave of heat, striking the barrier of ice and giving rise to a massive amounts of steam, obscuring the vision of the two again-

"Panta Rhei!"

Minato was not willing to make the same mistake twice as he called upon the ultimate power of the Fortune Arcana, trapping the appraiser in a vortex of green winds and blowing away the aftereffects of the previous elemental clash. The tornado picked up intensity upon command and reacted harshly to the struggle of Ryoji, shredding through his wings as the gales started opening up his body with gruesome lacerations-

"N-Night Queen!"

The moment Ryoji called for the atomic nuke of a spell, Minato swore under his breath and passed on the chance to reach for the mask. Instead, he grabbed Hamuko by the wrist and hurled the female to the other side of the floor, far away from the radius of the attack-

The last second surge made Minato face the obvious danger, expecting his face to take the bulk of the damage but the cluster of death cracked upon colliding with the wall of green, scattering small embers of reddish black energy across the area-

"Shit!" Minato suffered the lashes of the otherworldly force and bit on a loud scream as the lobe of his left ear burned off in the ensuring assault, followed by bucket worth of blood splattering on his shoulder. First his left thumb and now his ear but that did little to deter the blunet who charged right ahead, switching his persona back to Norn and tackling Ryoji back into the vortex of green-

Ryoji bit the same ear and picked Minato off his feet with a brutal punch to the gut but the mortal fought back, immune to the winds buffeting around whilst Ryoji suffered more bruises, getting clobbered with another series of quick uppercuts until a desperate swing of his blade made the blunet back off-

Minato's body gushed out blood the moment he disengaged, lacerations opening up out of nowhere as he was still inside the spiraling tornado, much to the confusion of Ryoji who thought Minato had lost his mind by switching his persona while caught up between his own brutal spell. He intended to take advantage of his stupidity but streaks of red surging in his palm stunned the appraiser and he figured out where this was headed-

"Ragnarok!"

Red blended with green and the unforgiving flames meshed with the howling winds, escalating the storm into a golden calamity and the temperature scaled upwards in matter of milliseconds, with the tornado of heat and wind spitting out embers across the top of the tower, following by smoldering winds-

Ryoji was set ablaze almost instantaneously, his entire body suffering the perpetual lashing of the winds and the burn of the flames which dug deep, festering and searing the prior wounds on his body but as the appraiser struggled to escape out of the spell, Minato went right for the mask, suffering the gales but immune to the flames raging around him-

Minato found his grip on the edge and dug his fingers into the little opening, clenching the edge tightly before he pulled with that he had, ripping open the face of the appraiser as ichor gushed out from the edges but the blunet continued his efforts, pumping a power charge into his fist and eliciting an incredibly painful howl the next time he tried yanking the mask off his face-

Ryoji was clawing and scratching, caught up in the ungodly fusion spell and unable to muster enough strength to knock Minato away and the blunet was remorseless and obsessed with getting the mask off, not batting an eye as the winds continued worsening his open wounds, nor when he found himself caked in ichor as each time he would exert force, Ryoji's face would continue to bleed and bleed and bleed-

For the first time in the battle, Ryoji was slipping, paralyzed from head to toe as the one voice, the one commanding voice which had been guiding him throughout his existence, retreated into the back of his mind, with the loud and authoritative screeches fading into cold whispers. The voice emerged one more time, commanding him to bit the head off the insolent mortal and eat it bit by bit but another brutal pull on the mask led to Ryoji breaking down-

The boy behind the mask wailed in sorrow at the top of his burned lungs, voice cracked and abused as if the inside of his throat was torn apart by constant screams of denial, and loud enough to startle Minato who lost the feeling in his fingers when the pitiful cry for forgiveness smashed into his psyche and brought back some fucking painful memories of his own past-

"S-Shit!" Minato backed off in surprise and horror, trembling and confused with his own mind going into overdrive as the memories of constant abuse at the hands of his shadow knocked away any semblance of thought and made him quiver in his foots, terrified after the glimpse into the old mirror as he had seen his old self for a brief moment-

The little flicker of his humanity, locked away by the God of Death feasting on his soul had been wailing just as loudly for the past decade-

Ryoji regained his senses and the evil voice returned to the middle of his head, twice as loud as before as the boy before him had committed the most unpardonable of all sins. Minato had interfered with divine providence and the appraiser lost it with another unearthly screech, no longer paying attention to the spiraling inferno as he stared right ahead at the dazed blunet, ready to hack him to pieces-

"Thunder Reign!"

Minato snapped back to attention upon the familiar shout, followed by another loud crash in the skies. The golden storm reacted to the call of thunder by growing denser and more violent, gaining more and more momentum with layers of red and green folding onto each other over and over again as the heavens split apart and a bolt of blue came crashing down upon the two-

Minato felt the increase in temperature and knew that his body would turn into ash in a few seconds under the heat of the thunder coming down for the two of them. He tried to gather enough focus to switch his persona but someone tackled him out of the nucleus of the fusion spell the very next second-

"Hamuko?" Minato saw her face briefly, eyes shut and her face cut up as she had knocked him out of the mixture of wind and heat just a second before the thunder from the skies smashed into the cyclone, blue smearing into gold and bolts crackling around the cataclysmic mixture of the three elements. The boom of the thunder was followed by another unearthly yell of pain as the appraiser was still trapped inside, paralyzed as the pressure of the three spells was far too much for even him to bear-

"You have to do it now!" Hamuko got off him as soon as they rolled to a stop. She looked ahead and saw that Ryoji was starting to move, his outline in the storm of gold moving ever so slowly, looking to get out of the hell of nature. She was more impressed than horrified at his strength and tenacity and was ready to finish the attack herself as Minato was out of-

"Skadi!" Minato was a second quicker than her and summoned the goddess of winter, calling upon the ultimate ice spell with a wave of his hand and the moment the blizzard came crashing into the ungodly mixture upon the gesture of the persona user, the little atoms raging around in the mass of gold detonated simultaneously, unleashing the wrath of nature upon the God trapped in-between the chaotic mixture of constituents, giving one final luster of gold before the explosion rock the entirety of the tower-

"Holy shit!" Minato cursed as he clung onto Hamuko, with the girl hanging onto him tightly, afraid that the winds would hurl her to the skies if she was on her own. The two kept their eyes shut but even then the surge of gold was witnessed across the entirety of their visions, a flash awful enough to fry the nerves in the eye but the gleam disappeared a second later as the onslaught of nature came to an end, leaving nothing but carnage and waste-

The roar of the elements died down and Minato opened his eye to take a look around, catching small embers and icicles scattered across the cracked pavement of the top floor. Nature had calmed down and Minato released his grip around the female, taking a few steps ahead to inspect what had happened to the appraiser who was caught right in the middle of the spell and Hamuko followed him, narrowing her eyes as there was still quite a bit of steam around.

"Yikes," Hamuko cringed when she saw what remained of the appraiser, genuinely disgusted at the sight as Ryoji was a pile of gunk on the floor, literally reduced to a disgusting pool of black liquid as every atom in his body was annihilated under the weight of their combined spell.

Minato scowled instead, locating the mask still intact on the disgusting pile of gunk. Even when he had burned Ryoji to ashes, the mask remained intact and so far, the damn thing was impervious to every attack as nothing destroyed it outright, not even quad fusion spells and heavenly weapons. However, the mask was definitely starting to accumulated damage bit by bit, as Nature's Wrath had destroyed more of the upper half, with a few more cracks going around.

Strangely, Ryoji did not start rising up from the pile of filth like the two had expected. Most of the time, Ryoji would regenerate almost instantly to get back at them but the appraiser remained as he was, splattered across the broken ground with the evil mask lying in the puddle of black-

"Is he dead?" Hamuko asked, still holding onto a blade just in case.

"I doubt it," Minato responded. As long as the mask was intact, the psyche of Nyx would continue to resurrect Ryoji over and over again, as a means to fulfill the prophecy of the Fall. Regardless, well over a minute had passed and the appraiser was still the same, unnerving Minato who took a look around to make sure they were not going to be ambushed from behind-

The top of the tower rumbled and Minato grabbed the blade, thinking that Ryoji was going to return and come swinging at them but after tremor that ripped through the ground, the blunet realized that Ryoji was not causing this particular disturbance. The appraiser had yet to rise and the shockwaves were coming from behind the two, the shockwaves of gravity trying to crush them to bits-

Hamuko turned around and faced the origin of the disturbances, nearly dropping her weapon in shock and gasping out loud when she saw the Moon hovering just above them, staring down at them with a demonic red-eye flickering in the previously vacant hole in the middle of the celestial entity-

"Nyx…" Minato whispered the name as the red orb stabilized in the dark abyss, spiking up the gravity on the surface of the earth multifold but the persona users withstood the harsh impact, not letting go off their weapons even as the weight intensified, threatening to shatter their bodies to bits.

"How are we supposed to fight something like this?" Hamuko wondered with gritted teeth, standing upright against the palpable rage of the moon. Even their mightiest personas were mere insects in terms of size and she doubted that even an army of persona users would have left a dent on the surface.

Minato was about to respond but a swell of absolute rage and insanity behind him halted his thoughts. The emergence of a fucking eye in the moon was a horrifying distraction but the real problem had emerged once again and their backs were wide open-

"Move!" Minato shouted at his partner but Ryoji took off a second before he had realized. The appraiser was quite a bit faster than before and he found their backs with a single swing of his blade, spilling buckets of blood in his wake as he shredded through their backs, knocking the duo to the side as he brushed past-

Minato got to his feet and Ryoji rebounded from the initial attack, coming back with a downward swing of the blade, promoting the blunet to push Hamuko to the side as the appraiser came within range, a good chunk of the left side of his face exposed but there was still a long way to go-

Arisato blocked the next swing all on his own, the impact knocking him down to his knees and the blade stopping close to his head. He noted the increase in physical strength and glanced up, gritting his teeth when he realized that Ryoji was starting to grow in size yet again, and he now stood two heads taller than him-

Minato disengaged when he felt the cold of the blade against his cranium and Ryoji lashed out, catching him with the edge of his blade and gashing up his chest, spilling more of his blood but the blunet did not go down to a knee. He sidestepped and Hamuko rushed past him, slapping his back to give him another boost in physical parameters-

Ryoji was ready for the vile bitch and he withstood the clash with minor difficultly due to the increase in size, shrugging off her attempt to cut through his defense and hurling her to the side by the neck but the redhead landed a few yards away on all fours and looked straight ahead, locking her gaze with the blunet who had his blade wrapped up in streaks of red flames, gesturing her to the do the same-

Hamuko summoned layers of blue electricity around her weapon and Ryoji frowned, looking from side to side, from Minato to Hamuko, sneering at them to come at him and they did, taking the first step at the exact same time and closing the distance in a matter of seconds-

The clash of blades rocked the area again, streaks of red and blue dancing around the point of contacts as Ryoji blocked the first attempt, with his own weapon and forearm, with the latter suffering the burns as the armor burned off upon contact. The impact startled him as well but he quickly overpowered the two persona users, knocking them backwards but only for a brief moment as after another exchange of support spells, the pressure came back on him-

Hamuko made sure to match Minato and kept up with him, step for step, mimicking his footwork and angles but holding her weapon in the opposite hand. She kept aiming for the same target, unleashing her blue blade just a second behind Minato but from the alternate side, catching Ryoji by surprise over and over even when Minato was missing, giving her an opening at the cost of his own body-

Ryoji coated his blade with reddish energy and swung for their heads, his massive weapon only barely reflected to the side by the combined efforts of the duo, leading to the elements exploding on the surface of the three blades and ensuring another violent explosion of red and blue-

The appraiser shrugged off the damage and freed the blade, slicing open the knee of Hamuko but Minato escaped, dragging her to the side as the blade came for them again, nearly cutting his neck until the last second duck to the side-

"GO!"

Hamuko exploded upwards with a swing of her blade, expelling the layers of blue that had been building around the weapon but Ryoji tilted his head, only catching a few bolts and punching her full force in mid-air-

His lead hand was hacked off upon the moment of distraction and the massive blade collapsed to the ground, making him curse the blunet who expelled the buildup of flames the second Ryoji focused on him, heat melting the armor across his chest and burning through his innards-

"Persona!" Hamuko regained her senses in mid air and held out her fist, evoking Thanatos once more in the skies and the persona took off in a dark blitz, beheading the appraiser who was without his weapon and burned inside out. His head came off with a single swing of the blade of Thanatos, toppling backwards and the body collapsed in a heap but only for the second as his neck began to sprout another head, spitting out more of the disgusting black fluid and mist-

Minato caught Hamuko as she fell from the skies, ruffling the back of her head as a soft gesture for she was doing extremely well, holding her own without his help and support for the most part. For a moment, Hamuko did nuzzle into his palm, allowing herself a second of affection as the future was still very much uncertain for the two of them but at the same time, she was adamant about one thing.

"I got your back, leader, to wherever this leads," Hamuko promised, flashing a soft smile before staring ahead at the God of Death, who was just about done with his healing.

"This will be done in a few minutes," Minato said solemnly, rolling his left shoulder constantly, much to the worry of Hamuko who had a terrible feeling about what was going to happen to the abused limb. "He is at the limit of his sanity and we are at the limit of our bodies."

"This is a war of attrition," Minato said, taking another step, putting himself ahead of the redhead as Ryoji finished his regeneration and reinforced the thought with another haunting screech, beckoning the two to come over. "Let's crumble her mentally before she finishes us physically."

Minato ran first, eliciting another snarl of hatred from Ryoji and the appraiser rifled his fist forward, forcing the blunet to cross block the strike from the much larger entity, suffering the whiplash but nothing too bad-

The God of Death grew in size instantaneously, putting a bit more strength behind his punch and eventually smashing Minato into the ground with no remorse, blood splattering across the ground as the pavement shattered upon impact-

A blast of flames from the distance made him back off and Minato stumbled to his feet, getting tackled to the ground by Hamuko as the next shot came a second later. The two rolled away, escaping the range of the fists but Ryoji locked on them from a distance, hurling a razor of flames from his blade-

"Move!" Minato shoved the redhead to the side and cursed as the flames went right past his face. He was still somewhat dazed from the assault earlier but a shake of his head later; the blunet started running for the appraiser who was now twice his size again, towering over the two of them. The size did not matter to Minato, as the only path to victory was through suffocating and never-ending pressure, that would, fingers crossed, lead to the God crumbling mentally before their bodies gave out physically-

"Kohyru!" Minato summoned the persona, glancing to his right side and witnessing another explosion of mist-

"Byakko!" Hamuko hastened her steps, gesturing the summoned beast forward at the same time as the draconic entity blitzed in the direction of Ryoji but the appraiser was ready, waiting with his bare hands as the two beasts came right for him-

The crash of the two personas rocked Ryoji momentarily, his feet skidding along the ground as the two entities attempted to maul him, shattering the armor on his left hand and biting through his shoulder before the appraiser shredded through the spiritual flesh with his bare hands, scattering the resulting mist all across the area-

The remainder of the blue mist reacted to the first step of the blunet as he came up a second after the personas were shredded through, shifting from blue to red as the mist morphed into flames, burning fiercely until Hamuko set them off with a stomp onto the ground-

The left arm of Ryoji burned away in the ensuring heat, up till the elbow but the appraiser threw his right fist forward as soon as Minato came into his vision-

Minato clicked his tongue and weaved through the strike, annoyed by the fact that the Avatar of Nyx was big enough to avoid getting punched in the face by the two, given the height discrepancy. He dodged another fist that came for his entire body and summoned a regular spear, hurling the same as a projectile for his mask-

Hamuko followed up the projectile by unleashing a sphere of flames, burning the side of his face a second after the spear found its mark in the middle of his head but only to minor effect as Ryoji shrugged off the hits and thrashed as soon as they came together, sending the duo flying to the side with a single swipe of his hand-

The two persona users landed on their feet a few yards away, hurling another slew of elemental spheres in the direction of Ryoji and after suffering a few burns and bites of the frost, the appraiser started moving, eventually summoning the ultimate barrier and gliding right towards them at breakneck speed-

Minato grabbed the wrist of the redhead and pulled her to the side as the blade came from above, blowing out the ground below as they got out of the range in the nick of time, but Ryoji was not done as he rebounded as swung for their heads again, the defense coming off and prompting the persona users to fire another torrent of red, white and blue-

Ryoji gained size yet again the next time he slammed the blade down and Hamuko planted her feet on the length of the sword, getting hurled up in the air when the appraiser jerked the blade upwards to knock her aside-

Minato caught his attention with a sneer, summoning dual blades to taunt him into another melee and his foe obliged, bringing the blade down on his head to another sickening sound of metal against metal-

CRACK-

His left arm fell limp immediately, unable to withstand the force and Minato strengthened his right limb with a desperate power-charge, digging his feet into the soil in order to hold his ground but Ryoji gave a sick grin seconds later when the difference is power became apparent, as the blade of Death came closer and closer to his head, one swing away from severing his-

"Siegfried!"

Ryoji shivered where he stood as the girl came crashing down, with her persona ripping open his flesh, from the back of his neck, and all the way down to his hip to splatter a gallon of ichor across the floor. The appraiser broke free from the melee with the blunet and located the little bitch who had struck him from above-

Hamuko taunted him over with two fingers and Ryoji whipped in her direction, screaming out moments later when Minato unleashed another searing torrent of flames when his back was turned. The heat burned into his back and exploded out of his chest, melting the armor yet again and dropping the God of Death to his knees, right in the range of their fists-

Hamuko moved upon the split second glance in her direction, curling her left hand into a fist and hardening the knuckles with another charge as Minato replicated the same for his right hand, fastening his steps the moment the appraiser began to stir, raising his head to stare at the two persona users-

"HAH!" Minato unrifled his right fist as soon as he saw the movement along the left shoulder of Hamuko, uncorking his punch at the same time as her and crushing the masked face of the appraiser between the brutal clash of knuckles to knuckles, fortified several times over-

CRACK-

More pieces of the mask came undone upon the double punch and the impact forced his jaw open, widening the eyes of the blunet as the same, cursed sphere of death and decay pulsed between his maws, as a last resort to blow them both up in a single blast-

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Minato kicked his jaw close, stuffing the sphere back into his mouth and occasioning a wild thrash from Ryoji as more fissures began to spread across the edges of the mask. The blunet kept his knee against the lower jaw of the entity to keep his mouth and kicked Hamuko off with his other leg, not too hard, but putting just enough weight behind his leg to kick her away to safety-

"Minato!" Hamuko literally clawed to grab something and hang onto him, to share the pain and misery together but Minato was just a second quicker and she grasp at nothing but air, breaking into a cold sweat as she plummeted, witnessing the evil surge of red and black just a second before the Night Queen burst apart inside of the mouth of the appraiser with another unholy explosion of decay-

Hamuko landed on her head despite the minor elevation, collapsing in another heap as her unblinking eyes stared upon the vortex of red and black surging upwards, and crackling with red and black bolts and surely eviscerating the last of gasp life out of Minato-

"Minato…"

Hamuko kept blinding rapidly at the storm of death, chanting his name over and over again as her eyelids began to droop, an old fear seizing her up completely and twisting her limbs, whilst her breath turned cursed inside of her throat, ripping through her lungs and going off like explosion across the entirety of her decaying soul as Minato was not coming out-

Was…

Was he….

Gone…?

A pained grunt gave Hamuko her life back and she regained her sanity, heartbeat picking up again when she saw a glimpse of blue emerging from the dome of hell on earth-

Minato came plummeting towards the ground but Hamuko was right there, catching him and almost squeezing the remaining life out of him when she wrapped her arms around him with a vice grip, calming down when she felt his heart beat against her. He reeked the same terrible odor but somehow, whether by a true miracle or his sheer willpower, Minato was alive, having survived another Night Queen and emerging from the blast with something in his hand-

Arisato finally got his breathing in order, giving a small gasp before he started getting the appropriate amount of air in lungs, inhaling and exhaling to the beat of his heat. He slowly sat up against the redhead and glanced at his right hand with a frown.

"Is that… a piece of the mask?" Hamuko blinked. From the way his fingers were clenched around the edge, Minato had most likely ripped it with his bare hand.

"Ripped it off during the explosion," Minato muttered out, chucking the piece of crap to the side at full force, making sure that it plummeted from the top of the tower. "Like I said, we're getting closer. Just a matter of who crumbles first."

The spirals of red and black energy evaporated completely, disappearing upwards and leaving the appraiser as waste on the ground, splattered across and smoking as his own horrifying attack was his undoing, having reduced him to liquid waste much like the fusion spell before.

Minato was waiting for inevitable resurrection and it came much quicker than last time, as the puddle of ichor began to bubble and expand, with the dark wetness creeping wider and wider, eventually spreading across half of the floor. Hamuko dragged Minato away from the foul liquid and braced herself for another nightmarish emergence of the God of Death-

A plethora of black arms and white extensions exploded out of the dark puddle, directly for the two persona users but Hamuko reacted the moment she saw the first blade emerging from the liquid, firing off a wave of flames to burn the bulk of the limbs heading her way but a few were left unscathed, still on the same trajectory, with a defenseless Minato on her lap-

Hamuko threw the blunet to the side and stood up, hissing in pain as the first blade dug into her right forearm, touching the bone and making her hiss in pain. She blocked the next second one with her bare hand and the steel cut into her palm, stopping just shy of the original target, her neck-

The hair-like extensions wrapped around her legs, bolting her into place, with her right forearm and left hand abused with metal and leaking out blood. She gave a harsh jerk to free herself but the blades did not budge an inch, tearing through the flesh and scraping against her bones-

Ryoji finally emerged from the same, disgusting puddle of black, and he almost lumbered forward, trying to hide his face during his walk towards Hamuko who was still trapped, panicking as he clearly had something planned for her. He grew in size during his walk and stopped next to her when he was almost three times her size, growling and hissing under his breath as her filthy boyfriend had given him yet another mark of shame-

Despite going through an intense amount of pain, Hamuko gasped out loud when she saw his face, and the sight nearly made her shiver when she pondered upon the implications. The upper left part of his mask was indeed ripped off, exposing more and more of his pale skin, with the exact same skin tone. The facial structure and shape was exactly the same as Minato and while the cavity stopped just shy of his face, she was able to catch a glimpse of his eyelash as it moved along with his blinking-

She was literally staring at Minato with black hair and a mask on his face-

His hand came down for her throat and Hamuko moved her head, biting down on his fingers to stun him momentarily and she freed her right leg the next second, tapping the foot and unleashing another searing wave of flames to burn off the shadowy limbs that held her in place-

Ryoji extinguished the puny amount of flames with a gust of wind, blowing the redhead backwards but he followed after her, sword back in his hand and his other hand wrapped around the exposed part of his face, in an effort to hide his shame. He swore, as soon as he was done with Hamuko, he was to rip the entire skin off the face of the cursed blunet-

Hamuko skidded to a stop and looked up, sighing in annoyance as he was growing in size yet again. She fared against him much better when he was her size, as the difference in height nullified her kicks and despite the clock ticking and time against her, she was not going to risk kicking the armor on the lower part of his body as that was just dumb-

She shouted to gain his attention, making sure that his focus was on her as she got ready to battle, contemplating on summoning Nyx as she was alone but she decided against the idea and jumped to the side as the blade missed her and struck the ground, the shockwave still rocking her backwards as Ryoji had drilled his weapon with every last bit of force-

Hamuko hurled a cluster of purple energy high up and Ryoji deflected the same with a counter of his blade, flinging the attack right back at her but she stood her ground and endured the battering, clenching her fist as soon as she heard the blade slicing through the air and coming for her head-

"Come forth!" Hamuko called, wincing as her persona exploded upwards to block the blade swinging down on her. Her persona roared in exertion, the white mask cracking under the stress but it managed to deflect the blade to the side, saving her life-

"Go on, Thanatos!" Hamuko commanded and her persona heeded the call of its master, taking off in another dark blitz and smashing into the appraiser with every last bit of strength, ensuring another explosion of dark magic, shaking the ground below as another tremor ripped through, intensifying and going up a magnitude as the similarly size entities struggled, unleashing more shockwaves of dark force-

The coffins cracked and collapsed in a heap on the ground as another bestial roared echoed in the silent and cold night, followed by a cluster of purple energy exploding at point blank range, overtaking the appraiser as the persona disengaged upon the discharge-

Ryoji sliced through the wall of purple and severed the head clean off the shoulders, reducing the disgusting persona to mist but as he rested his blade on the ground after the beheading, Hamuko hopped on and quickly ran up the length of the sword, harnessing a cluster of holy light around her fist-

Ryoji blocked the expulsion of light with his hand, saving his face but only for a second as Hamuko pumped more of her spiritual power into the spell, burning through the defense and smiting him from the neck and above-

The exposed section of his face melted under the heat of the heavens, revealing the flesh and bone underneath, with black blood drenching the pale skin and knocking the breath out of her lungs when she peeked at the bare skull, evoking another whiplash of cruel memories-

The bone mended together and the layer of flesh immediately spawned over the gaping hole, making Hamuko grit her teeth as the little glimpse into his head had stunned just enough, disrupting her next attack and Ryoji took advantage, firing an open slap towards the redhead still in mid air-

Hamuko countered by blasting away another sphere of flames as soon the massive hand came her way, large enough to crush her entire frame and while she managed to fend off the first attempt, the opposite hand emerged from her blind side-

Slice-

"Gack!" the bandages covering her mutilated eye were ripped apart by the clawed fingers and her face suffered another bad gash from the cheek and down to her neck and she pressed the wound with her hands, trying to stop the bleeding as she plummeted, soon crashing to the ground with another hiss of pain-

Ryoji pounced on her, not giving her a second of rest and he smashed a fist down, looking to cripple her exactly the way he had done to Minato. Hamuko attempted to lessen the damage with a cross-block but the massive fist easily broke her defense and pummeled her into the ground, breaking off the pavement underneath and leaving the female buried in the debris-

"D-Dammit," Hamuko struggled, vomiting out blood whilst struggling to keep her injured eye covered up by her right hand, constantly bleeding out of the new wound across her face but the shadow of his raised fist rang warning bells in her ear as the first punch had all but knocked her out and the second one was surely going to send her corpse to the floor below-

Ryoji geared up and swung the final blow, harnessing a cluster of Night Queen around his plunging fist to freeze her in place for the final blow. The scowl on his face twisted, eyes scanning the broken and defenseless female lying in a pool of her own blood, with the crimson liquid gushing out from the hole in her eye and the long gash down to her neck. She looked just like Minato as she laid for impending death and the appraiser swore-

She was not going to survive as he had done-

That he swore-

"Suffer in filth, you broken whore-!"

"MESSIAH!"

A pillar of light erupted from the middle of his chest and Ryoji gaped, as more photos gathered around the burning flesh and broke out of his entire front body in a hellish explosion of holy light. The force was as brutal as the burn he had sustained, strong enough to hurl him off of Hamuko as he was thrown to the side by the godly entity wrapped up in the light of the heavens-

"Messiah….?" Hamuko mouthed the word and took a peek, squinting her eyes to adjust to the light and sneak a glance at the God in the nexus of the light and heat, burning as fiercely as the sun in the awful and dark night of the Fall. She managed to get a small glimpse, leading to a soft sigh escaping her mouth when she realized that the beautiful and majestic persona had the exact same face as Minato-

Minato emerged from the shower of holy light, still rotating his left arm as he made his way to her, somehow able to walk on his own two feet despite the previous spell. Hamuko stayed on the ground to catch her breath as the single punch had crippled her badly and she could afford to get a second of rest with Minato around her.

There was a grimace on his face, with his lower lip squished by his teeth as he struggled not to lose it at the sight of Hamuko in a puddle of blood, holding onto her gouged out eye as she bled from the cheek and neck. He stopped next to her and visibly cringed at the nauseous sight of what had become of the girl he loved, making him clench his fist and bare his teeth.

"I'm fine," Hamuko said, letting out a few deep breaths and popping a small bead into her mouth, one of the few she had left, in order to heal herself as they were not done. "Don't get angry and blow up, please. I'm right here."

Minato nodded, heaving a low sigh as he crouched down to her level, gliding his warm finger across the new wound, moving the digit down from her cheek to neck to heal the gaping gash as well as he could.

Hamuko ripped off the sleeve of her shirt and quickly wrapped the bandages around her eye once more, standing up to face him as soon as she was done. She took a glance at him, and then another small peek at the illustrious being behind him, possibly his ultimate persona as nothing else was a better fit for him, that she knew in heart and soul, in every atom of her being.

"I want to kiss that persona," Hamuko admitted, finally making him smile a little, as she had intended. The rumbling and cursing from behind finally made her tear her eyes off of Messiah and she faced the appraiser for the hundredth time that night, once again standing shoulder to shoulder with her leader.

Ryoji swore that this would be the last thing he was knocked down to the ground and to make sure of that, he doubled in size yet again, looking to get every advantage he could get as the ultimate persona of his nemesis was staring right at him from afar-

Hamuko could sense this was indeed the final stretch and she hopped a few times, each bounce evoking black mist from under her feet as she gathered up the rest of her spiritual energy, unleashing a chaotic wave of dark matter into the skies when she called out to her ultimate persona-

"Nyx!"

The goddess of the night heeded her call, leading to another heap of decay and pressure descending from the night sky and upon the wielder of the persona, making her sigh in relief as the darkness closed up some of the wounds and formed a dense cloak around her body.

"Nyx?" Minato widened his eyes, with his jaw hanging open. Hamuko was able to summon Nyx? The very entity hell bent on wiping out humanity? He was genuinely confused as to the origin of the persona but the previous week of hell, where Hamuko was possessed by the haunted mask made him blink.

Of course-

Hamuko had harnessed the power of Nyx and made it her own, just as he had done before. The difference was the amount of time as the feat took him 10 years, while Hamuko did so in a matter of days.

Arisato was proud, even smiling despite being caught up in the first step to an incoming apocalypse. He reached out and ruffled her ponytail again, giving her one last affectionate gesture, something she eagerly returned, purring softly.

"You're amazing, you know that?" Minato whispered.

"What can I say? I've had one kickass leader all to myself," Hamuko whispered back at him, staring back at the entities in black and white, shrouded in darkness and light, two contrasting forces of nature always at odds against each other and yet, the sight was harmonious, as if light and dark were meant to be since the dawn of the universe. "Let's put a stop to this, Minato. I'm with you, all the way to the end, my universe."

Ryoji rose from his hunched over position, with a prominent vein throbbing on his head. He was constantly clawing at the exposed part of his face, upon command of the cruel voice in his head as he knew he looked no different than-

"Minato…" the low hiss of the name left a disgusting taste in his mouth. The audacity of him was unparalleled, as the son of a bitch refused to stay down despite suffering a half dozen Night Queens. Now, he was able somehow able to summon his ultimate persona and alongside him, the girl had called upon a mere reflection of Nyx, which was another pain in the ass to deal with.

"No…"

No matter-

The end was nigh!

The unholy wrath of Nyx added to his strength, nearly doubling the cruel essence and madness running through his veins as another surge of blinding darkness erupted from inside his body, exploding outwards and triggering another destructive shockwave-

Minato did not move, neither did Hamuko even as the shockwave crashed into them, merely messing up their attire and hair but not making them budge an inch. The blunet just kept staring ahead as the winds of decay breezed past his face, only making his fringe bounce around his bloodied face. He was aware that time was ticking and Ryoji was getting stronger and stronger-

"He's most likely at his peak," Minato warned, clenching her broken fist one last time and the redhead returned the gesture, holding onto his hand for a few more seconds as she still had no idea how the battle was going to boil over. "We're doing this miracle together!"

"As you command, leader!" Hamuko responded back, screaming louder to carry her voice over the noise of destruction and her voice was what set Ryoji off towards them, screaming bloody murder. Much like the two persona users, the God himself made the same vow, that this would be the last time they would clash-

Black and white exploded against him as soon as Ryoji got close to them, forcing him to put up the barrier and reflect the incoming beams, which dissipated as soon as they struck the persona users, nullified by the immunity and merely recollecting around their bodies as they took the first step at the same time, dodging his blade right down the middle-

Minato plucked an orb of holy light and rained the spears upon the appraiser, releasing over a dozen in quick succession, matching the attack of Hamuko as she blasted him with a staggering wave of pressure, setting off another loud roar as Ryoji swung his blade in an entire arc, making them back off but the blade soon caught flames and the fiery razor came for their heads-

Hamuko snuffed the flames out with her darkness while Minato just walked through them, rotating his left arm one before time before he bounded towards the appraiser, burning the massive body and making the entity hiss as soon as he got close to him, eliciting another howl of hatred before he lunged at the blunet, trying to grasp him in his palm and crush him into pieces-

Minato jumped over his attempt, throwing a quick glance to the appraiser as he moved to the side, letting out a soft exhale to calm himself down as the hatred on the half-fleshy face of Ryoji was so palpable, his exposed forehead scrunched and the scowl ever-present, giving the blunet another small glance into the old mirror-

Hamuko crushed the exposed back of the appraiser by another wave of darkness, crashing onto him like several tones and the Avatar screeched out, the shadowy arms slicing open his back and digging into the limbs and stomach of the redhead, keeping her suspended in mid-air-

Minato snapped out of the nostalgia upon her cry and growled, burning the head clean off his shoulders by an absolutely nuclear explosion of heavenly light. He did not let up the spell even when was sure that the head was ash, unleashing another violent expulsion to burn through his body, melting the arms of the magician to nothingness-

Hamuko finished off the attack by shattering the spine when she planted her feet onto his back, the weight of the darkness burying Ryoji into the ground until his regeneration kicked in, faster than they had anticipated as the appraiser capitalized on the moment of surprise, expelling another massive burst of purple energy to overtake and knock the blunet backwards while the female standing on his back was hurled into the nearby pillars at full force with a single strand of the whip like tentacles emerging from his back-

Ryoji glanced back and forth, hissing and huffing as his hollow eyes darted from one pest to another, and he contemplated, wondering which of the two he wanted to murder first. Minato was the first one to get to his feet and Ryoji decided his target, shooting another pulsing beam of deathly energy in his direction as a warm-up before he bolted, blade held at his side and his grip on the handle iron-like-

Minato sidestepped the red and black discharge headed his way and moved to his left, working his feet constantly as Ryoji snapped back to his direction after the missed swing, lashing out with his hand to grab his throat but the blunet ducked under, firing another slew of photos at his face to make the God back off-

The flood of darkness from the side crashed into the appraiser, hurling him off the ground and sending the entity somersaulting through the air as Hamuko struck with everything she had, making sure that her foe was a sufficient distance away from leader-

Ryoji kicked himself off the ground and flapped his wings, getting knocked down once again despite promising not to drop to the ever for the duration of the battle. He watched on as Hamuko walked on her own two feet and came to a stop next to the blunet, connecting light and dark once more-

"His regeneration is even faster," Minato said with annoyance, aware that he had regeneration during the middle of the roll; just a second after Hamuko had crashed her darkness into him with full force. "Be careful when in range; don't linger around too long after your attacks!"

The unholy stench of Death permeated the area and Minato hissed in disgust, slightly worried by the fact that his presence was starting to get even more oppressive than before, taking an almost physical toll on them-

Ryoji came back for them the next second, powering his way through the burn of holy light and the pressure of darkness without summoning his ultimate defense as he punched his way through the two elements and made contact with the duo, forcing the separation upon the first hit, crumbling their already broken bones-

His blade swung next, almost hacking off Hamuko's shoulder as the metal made contact with flesh, widening her eyes as even the defense of her darkness was sliced by the blade of the harbinger but the last second roar from the heavens diverted his attention upwards-

Another smoldering ray of light descended from above, smiting the appraiser across the entirety of his body and knocking him to the ground as the heat melted the armor around his back, keeping the entity glued to the ground, but only for a moment-

"LLA MEHT LLIK, THANATOS-!"

The wrath and power of Nyx added to his already godly strength and Ryoji shrugged the attack from the heavens, bolting back to his feet while holding onto his sword, body numbed to the heat of the light from above as he listened to the voice in his head, finding the cold and misery he adored so much in the cruel words of his possessor-

Yes, he was Thanatos-

The bringer of Death-

The bane of life and the entity tasked with separating loved ones-

Hamuko could sense the presence of Nyx building ever so quickly in the psyche of Ryoji and she covered up as another shockwave emerged from the place where the appraiser stood, swaying the tower back and forth under his godly might, with the shadows roaring out to him in the lower floors, beckoning the call to their purpose-

Minato swore he saw a flash of red in the hollow eyes of his foe and he readied himself for an even rougher battle, the mass of light around him picking up intensity and concentration. Ryoji and Nyx were one but so were him and Hamuko-

All a matter of which side has the stronger will-

Ryoji cloaked his blade in reddish energy and slammed the weapon down to unleash a tidal wave of the red towards the two persona users, leveling the area well before it came down upon the two, prompting Hamuko to counter the attempt with another flood of darkness, quelling the spell and giving rise to a wall of steam and mist-

Another chaotic stream of red energy tore through the wall of mist; catching the two persona users and making them roll backwards, smoking from their bodies and in a searing daze of pain, until Minato caught Hamuko by the wrist, just a second before they could plummet from the top of the tower-

His foot was right on the edge and he launched Hamuko to safety as soon as he heard Ryoji charging at the two of them, making him grit his teeth as the appraiser came at him with twice the speed, the moonlight reflecting of the blade as he raised the weapon up to cut the blunet in half and then dump his corpse over the edge-

Darkness wrapped around the blade, freezing the swing in mid-air as Hamuko called upon the mystical element and it latched onto the God of Death, but only for a second as the harbinger powered out of the binds, a second too late as Minato moved off the edge and bolted towards the appraiser in a blinding blitz, with the bulk of the photons clinging onto him-

The flashes of heavenly light going off in random intervals blinded the appraiser and Minato jumped over the sloppy swing of the weapon meant for his stomach, hurling himself off the ground and smashing into the body of the appraiser with all of his might, occasioning another blinding luster of white and gold-

The armor melted under the heat of the heavens and Minato nearly ruptured his stomach open but true to what he had theorized, Ryoji was much tougher this time around and his body withstood the attack much better than before-

The appraiser swatted the blunet away to the side and the armor grew back across his stomach with a wave of his hand, as if nothing had happened before but as he looked back, his scowl grew back into place as Minato had found his footing right next to Hamuko, bringing him back to square one-

Of all the loved ones he had torn apart throughout his existence-

No one-

Fucking no one inspired as much hatred and contempt in his being as much as the two wastes of skin and blood standing across from him. They had been battling well over for an hour now, and he had thrown everything at them, and yet, there they stood, shoulder to shoulder, somehow having survived his onslaught for the entire duration. And somehow, they kept coming back, and back, and fucking back for more.

"He really is a God," Hamuko breathed out, panting slightly as they faced off against the appraiser who had his breathing even, despite going through so much worse. They had annihilated him over and over again and yet, there he stood, as if nothing had happened to him as she could not locate a single scratch on his body. "As much as advertised…."

"There has to be a point," Minato said, glancing at his left arm and struggling to clench the fist of the same. "If not physically, then mentally..."

"We'll find one," Hamuko said, taking another deep breath before the next struggle. "We have to…"

Upon that, Minato took off, throwing another glance at the moon as the celestial body followed his every step, somehow making him sick to his stomach as if his soul itself was disgusted by the grotesque aura of the celestial entity. He rushed through the distance and the cloak around his body flashed once more time, dazzling the appraiser for a few seconds and allowing the Fool to close in, harnessing and discharging another stream of photons-

Ryoji withstood the full blast of the light, retaliating with a burst of darkness to cancel out the burn. He located the blunet the very next second, able to see through the fading mist but he looked ahead, aware that Minato was never going to be alone-

The mass of darkness whipping across his face felt like a brutal hook thrown from the shadows, knocking him down to a knee, stunned but able to catch Hamuko rushing to the side of his former vessel, igniting another surge of hatred and he reached out, slamming an open hand to crush both in one move-

Minato and Hamuko clapped hands, exchanging another series of support spells just before the single palm came crashing to the ground, missing by a mile as the two had dodged with double the speed-

"Now, Hamuko!" Minato ordered, slinging another series of spheres as he raced around the larger entity, with the same getting bounced back to him as Ryoji dismissed the attempt with a swipe of his blade, launching another cluster of reddish energy towards the blunet-

Hamuko made another attempt as the darkness around her battered the appraiser, keeping him in another ghastly bind, rooting him down to his feet but the entity quickly broke free, powering out of the hold and knocking the female a good distance away with a single smack-

"It's not working anymore," Minato said to himself, having witnessed Ryoji just powering through the blasts of black and white. About an hour ago, those same hits left the appraiser crippled but goddamn his ever building might and endurance. "Very well then…"

Fine…

He just had to take it one step further.

The roar of his personas echoed in the last night of humanity, diverting Ryoji's attention back towards him and giving Hamuko enough time to recover. The stress of a second persona raging at the forefront of his head almost dropped him to a knee but he held on, exhaling through his open mouth once last time before he took off-

Minato jumped over the reddish orbs headed his way, blue mist spreading throughout the area with every step he took towards the harbinger, blending in with the mass of light around him. He willed his way through another painful spasm across his forehead and held his fist up, teeth gritted as this was far more taxing than even a fusion spell-

"Seth!"

The draconic creature emerged from within the mass of light around the Fool, whitened and buffed up as the blitz breached through the defensive guard of Ryoji and the persona bit off a good chunk of his shoulder, leaving behind a mark of the burn-

The sizzling of magma behind him was followed by a torrent of hellfire from the mouth of Seth, flames burning through the back of the Avatar until a reverse swing of his blade severed the head, reducing the persona to white mist-

Hamuko escaped out of his sight and nodded, calling upon more and more darkness from the depths of her soul. The plan was genius, as expected from her leader and currently, this was the only way to deal any real damage as the bastard was heightening his strength by the minute-

Ryoji healed himself and was tackled instantaneously by another creature wrapped up in holy light, suffering more bites and cracks until the appraiser punched through the White Tiger, demolishing Byakko with a single strike. He quickly got his senses in order and lunged forward, reaching out to stop the union as Hamuko dove towards Minato-

"Unleash every last bit of it!" Minato said, grabbing onto her hand a second before Ryoji could put his own hands on them, missing by a mere second and allowing the union of light and darkness as the moment their hands made contact, the persona users expelled every last bit of what they had conjured up, blowing the appraiser backwards as heat and cold erupted around and across the two, quickly building up to a cyclone of white and black that swirled around and around-

"This won't last long!" Hamuko said, clenching his hand and cursing her own inability to summon two personas, unlike Minato. With that handicap, the finite cyclone of her darkness and his light was the best they could hope for and she prayed that her darkness would last long enough to put Ryoji down for good. "I'm sorry, Minato! This is the best I can do!"

"MOVE!" Minato snapped and evoked the blue mist as soon as he saw Ryoji getting up to his feet, slightly dazed as black and white spiraled around him, soon to disperse and wither away but Minato was determined to at least rip off, with his bare hands, another good chunk of the mask before the cosmic elements would fade-

"Persona!" the two persona users shouted in unison as they broke off in the middle, immediately summoning the entities and they emerged from within the cyclone upon command, blessed and cursed, illuminated and darkened, weapons loaded and spells charged-

"Aim for the mask!" Minato commanded-

Ryoji roared in pain as the wounds spawned on his body, burning with light and freezing with cold and he thrashed around, hitting spiritual flesh but the next wave of attacks bounced off his mask, tearing off the fleshy part and widening a crack ever so slightly-

The blow from earlier had left him dazed but he quickly recovered his vision and audibly gasped in surprise, finding himself surrounded by layers upon layers of black and white spiraling across the entire apex and he was face to face with the Gods and demons from the sea of souls-

A torrent of red, white and blue struck him head on but Ryoji shrugged off the fusion spell, swinging with his blade to cut the entities in half, despite the poor eyesight as each time he would move, a photon would detonate, covering much of his vision-

Another onslaught knocked him backwards and he narrowed his eyes, catching the two pests moving around him, panting and shivering as they were drawing upon the last reserves of physical and spiritual energy-

Minato panted, aware that Ryoji had located them but he wasted no time and summoned two more of his personas, burning with holy light as they crashed into the appraiser who grew in size and hurled the entities off his body, following it up by another swing of his blade-

"Come forth!" Hamuko did not waste a second and summoned another person as soon as Ryoji was done disposing of the prior wave. His head was rocked backwards by the blow from the shadows and Minato yelled, calling upon two more from the light and mist around him-

Slice-

Stab-

Crash-

Ryoji found it difficult to maneuver through the waves of personas with the added pressure and heat but the appraiser generally shrugged off most of the damage and tore through the personas with minimal effort. His stature was vast enough that each summoned entity was not too much of a bother individually but the bruises were starting to show on his massive frame, and each spell and weapon was starting to dig into his open wounds, burning and freezing as the cyclone continued raging around the two, strengthening the emerging personas several times over-

Photons detonated along the lining of his mask and Minato planted his foot, summoning Siegfried to hack off his left wing, eliciting a roar and another sloppy flail from Ryoji, beating backwards a few personas during the rampage-

"Surt!"

Black flames incinerated the remaining wing and Ryoji whipped in the opposite direction, suffering another battering blow to the side of his head, leaving him stunned. The shouts and roars of the users and their personas blackened out for a few moments until a yell from the blunet led to his personas cutting down his arms, widening his eyes as his arms collapsed in a bloody heap on the ground, rendering him defenseless-

"Strike the mask!" Minato said, running towards the appraiser-

Ryoji discharged the reddish stream of energy from his mouth to evaporate the personas coming for his head but the moment Hamuko saw the small protrusion of flesh beginning to grow out of his right arm, she took a look around and noticed that cyclone was decreasing in volume, darkness and light fading away into nothingness, putting extra pressure on the two of them as their trump card was fading-

"It's fading, Minato!" Hamuko yelled at her leader, drawing out more mist and power from the sea of her soul. The summoning made her stumble as the strain was immense across her entire being, but as soon as the mist blended in with the light around her, the redhead screamed out-

"God's Hand!"

"Pralaya!"

The white fist from the heavens shattered the crown on his head and hammered the appraiser to the ground, worsening the cracks across his mask and shutting down his body momentarily as heat of the heavens took over his senses, leaving him open to the storm of piercing hits from Shiva, empowered by the darkness of Nyx-

The armor was crushed within the few hits and Ryoji was silenced midway during his howl of pain when his throat was severed, sliced open and his body scattered into pieces under the never-ending rain of slashes-

"D-Dammit!"

Minato lost his concentration and the persona flickered out of existence, leaving a pile of flesh on the ground, with the mask resting on top of the heap. The healing was a tad slower to kick in but as soon as the blunet saw the first flicker, he signaled to Hamuko, already switching as they were finally a step ahead-

The scattered pile of fleshly pieces came together and merged in a gruesome display, with the appraiser rising back up after a burst of darkness that stabilized the structure of his body, making him whole once again-

"I summon you, Thanatos!"

"Come forth, Thanatos!"

The Avatar of Nyx was blinking rapidly, legitimately confused and uncertain as the darkness and light swirled around and around, leaving him with no way out but the bestial roars back to back forced him into the opposite direction, scowling as the personas started rising from the surrounding tornado-

The beast corrupted due to the darkness and the monstrosity blessed by the heavens. Ryoji had battled both but never at the same time and soon as the two entities emerged from the shadow and light, the appraiser summoned his blade to defend himself, still somewhat dazed and taken aback by what was unfolding around him-

"Annihilate him!"

Slice-

His lead hand crashed to the ground within seconds, alongside his blade and the appraiser moved back, hacking out ichor as the personas unleashed a brutal onslaught, depriving him of his armor and digging into his bare flesh with the extra pressure of the darkness and the burn of the light-

Ryoji defended himself with his other arm but the same limb was hacked off almost instantaneously from the shoulder and below, followed by a series of cuts down his neck and chest. Another slash across the face sliced his jaw open and the Avatar took to a knee-

Minato saw the collapse and yelled at the redhead to pick up the pace, the spiritual power boiling in the pit of his stomach as the strain was unlike anything he had ever experienced before but the persona users clung on, calling upon the same spell in unison-

"Megidola!"

The spells meshed together in the way down and struck the appraiser head on, blowing apart his lower jaw and most of his upper body and the personas came down in another wild blitz the very next second, akin to a gray comet plummeting from the skies-

Ryoji stared up at the twin personas swinging for his head and for a moment, the voice in his head disappeared and the harbinger of the Fall gave an audible gasp and despite all that was raging around him, the howl of the darkness and the sizzle of light, the little sound managed to get by through the chaos, making Minato look up in wonder-

Was Ryoji giving up…?

Was this finally the point of mental collapse?

"Aim for the mask!" Minato yelled over the deafening roars of the two personas and the entities obliged, changing trajectory slightly, with spheres building between maws and the blades catching the cosmic elements for a final strike to rip the mask off his face-

"Gack!"

Just a second before the definite blow, the cyclone broke apart and the mist and light scattered into nothingness, followed by both persona users collapsing to their knees, mentally and physically exhausted as the toll reached the breaking point, putting an end to the storm of black and white-

Just a fucking second-

Minato jumped back to his feet and raised his hand, collecting the dispersing light in his palm and he managed a fistful, mere ashes of what he had summoned a couple of seconds ago. He added the very last of his spiritual essence into the orb in his grip and called, locking his sights onto Hamuko when the redhead was back to her feet-

"Catch!" Minato hurled the last vestiges of his persona towards the girl on the other side and Hamuko blinked to regain her focus, setting her eye on the incoming sphere of light but she hesitated slightly, unsure about whether she would be able to handle the glory of a persona so holy and strong-

"Messiah…"

Hamuko took a step forward and snatched the orb of light coming her way with her right hand. She immediately felt the burn across her arm and hissed, clenching the wrist with her left hand in an effort to contain the volatile light that was threatening to burst out of her palm-

The rumbling made her look up and the decapitated corpse of the appraiser was starting to move, arms growing out of his shoulders and his armor clicking back into place as he rose up from his defeated position on the ground. The sight made her panic and she gritted her teeth, calling upon her ultimate persona and infusing the darkness into the sphere in her palm, occasioning another painful spasm across her soul-

"Aw shit, here we go again," Minato looked away from Hamuko who was struggling to control the light and shifted his focus yet again on Ryoji, as the final burst of evil mist brought him back in one piece. The appraiser was reborn after the merciless and breakneck assault and finally, Minato saw a glimmer of hope. The one gasp of fear from Ryoji was all that he needed to hear.

"You do have a weakness after all, little brother," Minato whispered, the little gasp echoing across his psyche and he wondered, whether that was Ryoji grieving due to the damage or Nyx gasping at the fact that her vessel was seconds away from a permanent knockdown. "Everyone does…"

The howl made him move, determined to distract Ryoji until Hamuko could merge his light with the remainder of her darkness and as soon as got close, Ryoji unleashed another cluster of red spheres, making him block and move through the assault, not missing a step and only increasing his pace-

The Avatar of Nyx noticed the presence of Minato beside him and he glared through the corner of his eye, left fist nearly crushing the handle of his own weapon as the smirk was back on the face of the blunet, inspiring another level of hatred within him and the entity haunting the mask.

"You can ramble on and on about how you are one with Nyx," Minato said, loud enough for him to hear as he wanted every word to stay in his head, as a constant reminder of who he was up against. "We keep getting better and better, despite our bodies failing on us."

"…."

"We are nothing less than a God together…"

The blade came for him the next instant and Minato moved out of the way, turning his body to avoid the shockwave emerging from the weapon hitting the ground. He steadied his steps and looked up, locking his gaze with the appraiser as he started to move, irate but at a loss for words at what the blunet was implying-

Was he suggesting that two mortals were on the level of Gods-!?

"Seethe," Minato said out loud, mocking him as he matched his movements, making sure he remained in the vision of the rattled entity as Ryoji struggled to respond to his words, unable to compose his thoughts due to the sheer rage that surged across every atom in his body. "Feel the bitterness in your soul, you waste of existence!"

The left fist of the appraiser caught the essence of Death and he readied his arm, ready to unbolt the punch and end the existence of the blunet once and for all but he caught something odd from the corner of his right eye, a flicker of gray and a second later, the little spark took on a massive burst of growth and spiraled towards the skies, spreading across the stratosphere in a matter of seconds-

Ryoji glanced back and hissed, able to feel the weight emerging from the spirals of gray energy, surely a mixture of light and darkness that the girl was struggling with a few moments ago-

The gray tempest exploded along the skyline upon command and the redheaded persona user emerged out of the fading storm, puffing out mist as she exhaled after the impressive feat of harnessing the contrasting powers together and crafting out a very familiar weapon from the resultant mixture-

Hamuko held the gray scythe in her right hand, ringing the warning bells in the head of Ryoji as Minato had used the same weapon to cleave him in half, in one fatal swoop. He pushed the hatred of the blunet to the back of his head and focused on the persona user with the means to harm him, the vile bitch who was no less a sinner than his former vessel-

Minato gave a small gesture, merely shifting his eyes towards the appraiser and Hamuko took off, agitating Ryoji and he started shooting off whatever he could call forth, hurling long and chaotic streaks of red, blue and white towards the charging female-

Hamuko jumped over the incoming torrents and combination of spells, holding the scythe in one hand as she got closer and closer despite the onslaught of power, forcing Ryoji to rain down an absolutely massive sphere of purple energy as a last resort-

"Hah!" Hamuko sliced through the gigantic orb of almighty energy with a single swing of the gray scythe, withering every last atom of the cluster and she did not stop her momentum, rotating her entire body for extra force as she launched the scythe again, going for the body-

His armor and arms were sliced off with the first swing, as the scythe passed through his godly flesh seamlessly, drawing out another painful screech which made her aim higher, shattering the protection around his chest before she finally went for the head, infusing the last bit of her energy to strengthen the construct in her hands-

The scythe flashed in her grip before the swing, blinding the appraiser momentarily as the construct of light and darkness made contact with the mask of the goddess which suffered another crack from the top down to the lower left side-

Hamuko saw more skin behind the crack, with a few strands of jet black hair poking out of the fissure along the entirety of the mask. She was stunned as last time but the commanding voice of her leader made her pull her arms back, hoping that the second swing would finally end the nightmare for good-

Ryoji regenerated his right arm in a split second and thwacked the redhead in midair with an open palm, knocking her out of his sight to get a fucking moment to rest but as Hamuko soared away, she blinked and rotated in mid-air, grabbing onto the weapon with both hands as she called out-

"Catch, Minato!" after one final rotation, Hamuko hurled the scythe like a boomerang towards her leader, and the weapon sliced through the air, going right past the appraiser and ending up in the hands of the other persona user who jumped up to seize the weapon, occasioning another dazzle of light-

Hamuko landed on her feet and moved towards the battle without wasting a second, drawing the ire of Ryoji as he started charging up another Night Queen to eviscerate the life out of the blasted female but the moment death and decay seeped out of his mouth, Minato swung for the body-

Minato severed his arms once more, leading to a scream of denial erupting from inside the throat of the harbinger as the one swipe had ripped off his arms, as well as his armor, leaving a deep gash across his entire chest. The second swing ripped open his stomach and shredded through the wings, and the third hacked off the legs, leaving Ryoji as a crippled and maimed victim, defenseless and in visible agony and concern-

"This is it…"

The Appraiser was left open, without his arms to defend himself from the last blow-

The last blow-

To the mask-

Minato exhaled through his open mouth, weapon still in hand and his eyes fixed on the mask, just a second away from the final swing that would put an end to the long and boisterous battle-

Ryoji dared to look at him and the blunet leaped into the air, stressing his arms with another bulk of support spells, swearing that this would be the last few seconds of the battle, the fucking battle which had reduced him and Hamuko to walking corpses-

"Grr!"

The pain and misery they had to go through fueled the persona user and Minato torqued his entire body weight when he threw the final strike, with perfect precision and scary accuracy, the edge of the gray scythe casting a shadow on the intended target; the middle of the cursed mask-

"Huh!?"

Just a millisecond to go and a mere centimeter away, the look of confusion on the face of Ryoji melted off, his hollow eye widening as the same, condescending look of hated spawned, with his lips moving, first giving him a small sneer before he called upon the last defense-

"Moonless Gown!"

"Fuck!" the scythe stood no chance against the unbreakable barrier and the construct of gray energy shattered upon collision, dissolving the look of closure on the face of Minato and putting on a face of someone who knew he was close to the limit, with a long road ahead of him, a look of defeat. He was able to taste the bitterness in his until a flicker of red inside the slack jaw of the appraiser reminded him of where he was and what they were up against-

Ryoji was just a step ahead as always-

The burst of almighty energy consumed him from head to toe and the blunet was blasted away in mid-air, blown far away from the appraiser as he began to heal himself up, protected by the barrier and cloaked in mist that began to soothe the damage that he had suffered, growing back the limbs and organs that he had lost during the last, foolish attempt to take the mask off his face.

Hamuko caught Minato from falling face-first to the ground and held him up, grimacing herself as the act brought her pain, her shoulders barely hanging onto the joints as the battle had taken almost everything out of her. She struggled with the weight but rested him down, reaching into her pocket to pull out the last few supplies she had left.

"I-It's as if we're fighting a wall," Hamuko said, chewing the Odd Morsel, barely able to bite with her broken teeth. "There is no end to this at all. He keeps getting stronger and stronger."

Minato chewed on the last healing item and stood up, grunting in pain as even taking a small step was pure torture to his joints. He clutched his left arm and squeezed the shoulder, with blood gushing out of the disgusting wounds, tinged black and purple with dead cells and whatever the fuck has festered inside his decaying arm.

"What do we do, Minato?" Hamuko asked, staring ahead at the appraiser who was content on taking his time, growing larger and larger by the second. This was indeed the final stretch of the battle but by each passing second, it looked as if it was the last stretch for them only. "My legs are broken; I can't go on much longer."

"We almost had him," Minato recalled the one second where he had heard Ryoji gasp in a mixture of uncertainly, and just an iota of fear. He was not fearful of death as he himself was the God but he was definitely aghast at idea of losing, something he was a second away from if not for their spiritual collapse which gave him an opening. "That cyclone almost had him, if only we were able to continue that for a few more seconds."

"Do you think we should try that again?" Hamuko asked, reaching into her pocket once more to dig out two Chewing Souls, with just one left in her pocket. "I think I can go for it one more time."

"No, that's too slow to put him down," Minato mused, rubbing his chin as he kept throwing glances at the appraiser ahead of them. He gritted his teeth as he knew he was going to come for their heads any second. Tch. There was only one option left. "There is only one thing left now."

"What's that?" Hamuko held in a deep breath, hoping that her leader had come up with some epic, last minute plan as they were in a death match against the clock.

Minato looked directly at her and took a single Chewing Soul from her hand, gobbling it down quickly. "The circle…"

Hamuko took a moment to understand what he meant but as soon as her mind clicked, she widened her eyes, turning her head towards her leader with her eyebrows raised in concern.

"The same circle?" Hamuko blinked, recalling the first time they had used it against Ryoji, during New Year's Eve. The second time, Sho and Minato had pulled it off against her when she was possessed by the mask and only barely made it work. "That barely worked against me the last time!"

"I don't think it will work now," Hamuko said with gritted teeth, as that left them with no alternative plan. "Against his size, we wouldn't be able to reach his face."

"It will work," Minato said, looking back at her and stepping close, holding a finger to her temple and whispering-

"We'll take it a step beyond…"

The howl of the appraiser alerted the two, making them snap towards the direction as the healing was almost done, with his limbs almost fully grown back and the armor building out of his flesh. He was close, and they were almost out of time.

"Tch. Even if we want to pull that move off, we need to charge those support spells," Hamuko said, stepping next to him as she watched on. "And he won't let us."

"That is why you will charge those spells," Minato rolled his shoulder once more time, knowing that Hamuko might just slap him across the face at the suggestion. "While I keep him busy…"

That broke something within her and Minato blinked upon the change in her eye, from confusion to misery. Her voice changed as well, cracking as soon as the first word left her mouth.

"I am not letting you charge towards your death," Hamuko shook her head, stomping her broken leg as a means to soothe the pain. "Not a chance."

Minato said nothing and simply gazed at his bloodied shoes, then at the appraiser, and then at the moon. He gave one small glance over his shoulder and caught the city he once detested so much, and finally, he fixed his stare on Hamuko at the very end, his lower lip quivering. He gave a tired sigh, visibly ruffling the feathers of Hamuko as the exhale barely came out of his mouth, sounding more like a wail of utter exhaustion plaguing not just his body, but his mind.

"Hamuko…" Minato whispered, wincing as the pain of his body and the toxic thoughts of his mind raced through his entire being, making him shudder down to his knees. Hamuko was right next to him, studying his face with her broken hand hovering over his.

"Are you okay, Minato?" Hamuko chewed on her bottom lip, knowing that he was exhausted, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to help in that regard. The battle was not over and there was no rest for the weary. Not a single second.

"Do you think I win this…?" Minato asked, staring at her single eye.

"I do…" Hamuko said, whispering her resolve into his ear.

"Do you think I pull out a miracle?

"I do…"

"Do you… think I can be a messiah..?"

Upon that question, Hamuko grabbed his bloodied hand and squeezed it, with as much force as her broken hand could muster. That was one thing she would take to the grave and beyond, as there was no other truth more deeply imprinted to the last atom of her soul than this.

"More than anything else, Minato," she spoke with utter conviction and utmost certainty, bringing a ghost of a smile to his lips but only for a second.

Thou art I... And I am thou...

This brings thee closer to the truth...

Judgement Aracna, Rank 5.

"Then trust me," Minato said, taking a long deep breath to prepare his already mangled body for another merciless beating.

"Don't do this to me, Minato…" Hamuko begged, horrified at the mere thought of Minato facing the appraiser alone in his current condition.

"Hamuko…"

"Please don't do this to me…" Hamuko pleaded, just a push away from a nervous breakdown as she exhaled rapidly and spoke as if she was out of breath, each word labored and exhausted to come out of her mouth. "I don't want to watch you suffer anymore…"

"Hamuko, there is no other way," Minato brushed his fingers over the busted knuckles on her hand, trying his best to soothe the look of absolute pain on her face. "Like you said, this is the end game."

"You'll die…" Hamuko shivered as she spoke, her eyes paling white momentarily when she realized what she had said.

Minato-

Die-?

"I'm not dying tonight," Minato said, taking another glance at Ryoji who was now staring at the two of them, quite delighted to watch the despair lurk on their faces, despite having no idea what they were talking about. "No chance…"

"I need you to promise me, if you think I can be a messiah," Minato looked her in the eye, making sure to keep his voice loud. "No matter how much I scream, no matter how much he abuses me, no matter how much I come close to dying; you will not stop charging those spells."

Hamuko barely breathed out, shivering down to her core as she gave his hand another squeeze, barely holding back the whimper threatening to burst out. She had accepted her death the moment the Promised Day dawned upon the world but there was no way she was prepared for this.

Somewhere deep inside her, she wished that she had died during the battle with Ryoji-

"I feel like if I let go of your hand right now…." Hamuko continued, taking more than a few seconds to pour her heart and emotions out. "I'll lose you forever."

"I'm not going anywhere,"

"You promise…"

"I promise,"

Begrudgingly, Hamuko brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed along his shattered knuckles, before letting go with a small sob finally leaking out of her-

"You better not break my heart," Hamuko warned, switching her persona and swallowing the Chewing Soul to start her work. "Not when you've stolen it for yourself over and over again."

Something stirred inside of him upon her words, an agony that surfaced the moment she yelled at him to not die. A single, horrifying thought burrowed into his head, to take Hamuko and jump off the top, so that they would be together-

Minato shook his head and dispelled the thought, instead, he looked her in the eye one last time and whispered the same promise-

"I'm not going anywhere,"

Ryoji beckoned him over and after one final look, Minato walked off, leaving the redhead behind to focus on the support spells needed for the tactic to work. Hamuko tried to concentrate but miserably failed, as a single thought raced over and over her mind-

She had allowed Minato to slip through her fingers-

Towards death-

HE WAS NEVER COMING BACK-

THIS WAS ALL HER FAULT-

HER UNIVERSE WAS GONE-

"No," the girl battled back the tricks of her mind and summoned the mist from under her feet, seeking out the powers of her persona as she had to make every second count. Anything less would be a slap in the face of Minato and she was not going to allow that, even with her brain against her heart.

"He won't do this to me…"

Minato came out alone to face off against the appraiser, with the mere idea amusing enough to make the towering Ryoji snort. Minato looked up and chuckled darkly, as his foe was now bigger than every single one of his personas.

"Back to square one, I guess," Minato lamented with another chuckle, as he was in a far worse condition than before.

"I'm going to get her too," Ryoji swore, his hollow eyes widening as he spoke of his promise of his shadows dragging her broken corpse through the filth of the earth. "You know that deep in your soul, brother."

"Yeah, sure, okay, whatever," Minato blew his fringe up to demonstrate how seriously he took Ryoji and his threats. "Get that knot out of your panties first."

The look of minute amusement shifted to his usual one of utter contempt and Ryoji spat out in disgust, not bothering with the small tricks and cloaking his massive blade with a Night Queen as he was through playing with Minato-

Minato ducked out of the way but the collision of the blade against the ground triggered the explosion, battering his back and knocking him on his face. He felt the cold shadow above his body and scampered to safety, barely avoiding the shower of cruel death blasting through the pavement-

"Ugh," Minato arched his back to get the feeling back across his spine. "This will be harder than I thought."

The moment Ryoji shifted his attention towards Hamuko, Minato summoned, calling out two personas to catch his attention as the entities glided towards the appraiser upon command-

"Do you really think this will work now?" Ryoji spat, shattering through their bodies with a single swipe of his blade. His weapon caught the same glow towards the end and the appraiser rained down another torrent of destruction, forcing Minato to dodge to the side-

"To hell with this cat and mouse game," Minato snapped, edging Ryoji to come at him again and the harbinger did, missing with a swipe of his blade and Minato leaped onto the weapon, sprinting up the length of the sword and rocking the head of the God backwards with another expulsion of holy light-

Ryoji jerked his blade and sent the persona users soaring through the skies, hurling him quite a distance away. He locked onto him from afar, his blade once again coated in black and red spirals and Minato hissed from the distance, clearly able to catch what was coming for him-

"Seth!" the roar of his persona resounded moments later and Minato landed on the back, barely avoiding the ungodly stream of the attack as his persona took flight, unleashing a torrent of magma upon the appraiser-

"Ugh!"

The armor began to melt under the intense heat and Ryoji hurled a volley of icicles in retaliation, slicing through the wings of the person and the last one cutting into his head, scattering the entity into mist and sending the blunet plummeting-

"Vorpal Blade!" Minato called, disposing of the armor around the chest on his way down but an open hand smack from the shadows smashed against his entire body, sending him crashing to the ground in a broken heap-

Ryoji followed it up with another open hand smash to splatter the much smaller male against the ground, nearly accomplishing the feat until Minato summoned twin blades and hacked off the fingers with a swift reverse swing, escaping the bulk of the damage as Ryoji roared out in annoyance-

Arisato gave a quick glance backwards, noticing that Hamuko was still doing her part, eyes closed and cloaked in mist at the very corner of the floor. The moment Ryoji followed his line of sight; Minato cloaked a single blade in flames and chucked the same for the eyes of the appraiser-

The blade found the target, cutting into the left eye and the mask of flames combusted, exploding out of the right side of his temple, staggering the Avatar momentarily but he swatted away the charge of another persona headed his way, unleashing a cluster of purple spheres from his fingers a second later to batter the dazed persona user-

The two regained his focus at the same time, grunting in unison and after another quick glance back at the redhead, Minato moved out of the way of another attempted Night Queen, infuriating the appraiser as the blunet gingerly got back to his feet after ducking for his life-

Ryoji dove in to get his hands around the annoying pest, suffering another burn across his face upon the luster of holy light but he caught Minato with the blunt end of his weapon in the blind thrash, knocking him out briefly as he connected on the head. He lashed out with his other hand as soon as the flash of light subsided, finally getting a hand around the entire body of his most hated nemesis-

Minato came to in the grip of the towering God of Death and winced, blood leaking out of the many lacerations as Ryoji wasted no time in squeezing the life of him, putting his thumb over the head of the blunet to crush his neck into his shoulders and squash him into a ball of blood and broken bones-

"M-Messiah!" Minato called upon his ultimate persona as a last resort, splitting up the skies and calling forth the light from the heavens as he was moments away from getting folded between the fist of the appraiser in the most brutal way possible. The instantaneous summoning burned off the hand threatening to crush him to paste and the entity lunged out of the mass of light for a quick second, knocking the Avatar backwards with a swift shot to the dome-

Arisato stumbled to his feet, trying to pop his right shoulder back into place but Ryoji did not allow him any respite, with another wave of Night Queen surging in his direction to take his life-

Minato gathered up the remaining light in haste and his persona exploded into photos, quickly gathering around the injured teenager as he gritted his teeth, able to feel the burn on his spirit as the unforgiving stream came right for him, blinding him with a flash of red upon detonation and he yelled at the very same moment-

"Alpha Blaster!"

Light and death clashed in the middle and the impact knocked Minato off his feet, his broken legs barely able to handle the pressure coming from the collision and he collapsed to his knee soon after, holding a single hand towards the mass of light in an effort to overpower the spell looking to take his life but as he looked ahead with his one eye barely open, he gulped at the sight of Ryoji just standing there, under no stress whatsoever, with a single finger pointed towards him-

"Rot in hell, brother," Ryoji whispered with contempt and disgust from the opposite side, flicking the digit and the sphere of death caught another massive influx of his essence, expanding several times over in a span of a second and shattering through the barrier of light without any resistance-

Minato felt the burn across his being and his short life flashed before his eyes as death rapidly approached, numbing his senses one by one until the cluster met his flesh and detonated in another ruinous explosion of red and black that raged across the floor, drowning out his scream of absolute agony-

Hamuko was able to hear his scream which was silenced midway through, indicating that something terrible had happened to him. Her left palm was pierced open and bleeding as she dug her nails deep into her own flesh, her heart pitifully beating as she felt the stupid organ down in her stomach, barely to function as her brain cursed her for losing the only person who mattered to her in life-

The mist around her flickered but she regained some of her sanity when she heard the gasp of life from the blunet buried somewhere in debris, somehow still alive. She focused on his breathing that echoed in her ears, crumbling once more as he gasping for air in-between his hisses of pain, surely suffering unimaginable amount of torment-

"Night Queen!"

That almost broke her out of her duty and she momentarily opened her eyes, catching a whole lot of blood splattering across the ground, followed by a thump of something hitting the floor. Her personas began to press against her skull, demanding her to step in and save him as she was a second away from losing him forever-

"Don't open your eyes,"

She heard his command and cursed him out under her breath, giving out a small whimper of utter agony until the irony of the situation struck her, twisting another knot inside her stomach when she realized-

She had done the same to him-

When she forced him out of the tower and decided to take on Ryoji all on her own.

So this is what he felt…?

"…"

Minato rolled onto his stomach and got up, running his limbs through a test check and by some miracle, his muscles and tendons were still functioning, sans his left arm which was just hanging limp by his side unless he really wanted it to move. After another quick glance at the female behind him, he began to move, making sure that he was as far away from her as possible, as he wanted her nowhere near the sights of Ryoji-

Just ahead, the appraiser advanced towards him. He was weaponless, with his hands clenched at both sides of his body, with another irate expression marring his already disturbing face, impatience and hatred plastered all over. He narrowed his gaze upon the battered teenager as soon as he came into his view and cloaked his bare hands with another Night Queen, determined to punch the life out of his him.

"Oh man," Minato hacked out but covered his mouth after a few coughs, making sure that Hamuko would not hear him trying to cough his lungs cells out. "Can't you let me rest for a second?"

The crackle and sizzle of death told him no and Minato stood up on his feet, arching his spine a few times as his nervous system had grown pretty numb after the previous blast. He had two options; either stall the appraiser all the way out in the distance and lead Ryoji to Hamuko or fight him head on and get his bones broken with a single, death infused punch.

Simple choice, really-

Ryoji deepened the scowl on his face when he saw Minato advancing towards him, not backing off and running back to cower behind the legs of the girl as Ryoji was expecting him to, given he was at the point of a total collapse. Speaking off, the bitch was unusually quiet, cowering away in the corner of the floor as her filthy boyfriend bled to his death at his hands.

She had realized that fighting against him was a painful and ultimately worthless endeavor and he was looking to put an exclamation mark on that particular notion by bringing her the head of Minato-

The moment Ryoji actually bothered to look in her direction, the energy around his fist flickered when he caught the copious amount of summoning mist spiraling around her. The stance of the girl was very the same position she took whenever she summoned her puny personas and after a few seconds of just staring at her, he really realized what the hell was going on-

"God's Hand!"

The golden fist materialized out of nowhere and hammered his chest, bouncing off the armor around his body but the impact did stun him momentarily and Minato took advantage, launching him backwards with another full-scale explosion of holy light, exerting as much as he could before he collapsed onto his knees, hoping for a little rest-

Ryoji shook off the damage and bolted towards him, the ominous shadow of his massive fist hovering above the blunet who looked at once and barely sidestepped the punch that smashed through the ground, waking him up fully as he realized that would have been a one-hit kill had it connected-

The appraiser hurled the energy around his other hand in the direction of his foe and Minato planted his feet along the ground and blocked the bulk, saving his face until the little clusters finally added up and shattered through his guard, with the attack nearly blowing his head off until he tucked his neck in at the very last moment and the screeches of the dead blared past his already ringing ears-

Ryoji was expecting him to fall dead on the ground but after panting on his palms, Minato picked himself up once more time, his left eye swollen shut and his right eye bloodied up, a small mark of death just across his eyelid. A blink saved the fool his eye, much to the dismay of the appraiser.

Before either of them could start throwing spells, the blue cyclone around the female in the corner of the floor started ascending towards the skies, as a testament to the volume of support spells she had casted upon herself and upon witnessing the surge of blue and the buildup of mist across the floor, Ryoji finally understood-

"Ardhanari!"

The shout from the blunet on the ground was followed by a bellow of hellfire, with the flames rising up as a molten shield, burning off a few bits of his body and making the harbinger backtrack to avoid any more damage. The moment he took a step back, the wall of flames detonated in his direction, camouflaging the advances of the blunet who crashed into him amidst the lashing of the inferno, hitting his bare throat-

Ichor splattered upon him as he crashed with full torque, immediately burning the throat to ash as the conflagration blazed through his innards. Ryoji howled when his organs started melting and he moved his shaking hand, trying to snatch the blunet looking to rip out of the other side of his throat. He backed off a few times due to the heat but eventually dug his claw somewhere on his body, forcing out a hiss-

"Fuck this!" Minato condescended the cloak of flames around his body across his right hand and punched forward, expelling the totality of the inferno right inside his throat and the heat finally melted through the godly flesh, blowing out the other side of his throat and exploding out of his neck in the form of embers and ash-

Minato was expecting him to fall on his ass but Ryoji acted the next second, hissing as he snatched the annoying pest out from inside his ashy throat and showed him no mercy, slamming the same hand down into the remains of the pillar on the side and then onto the ground, surely splattering his brains across the pavement as he had drove him into the soil at full force.

The rumbling continued as Ryoji did not let up on the grip and finally, he hurled the corpse down with such unbridled force, the pavement cracked open and Minato plummeted into the darkness below, not budging an inch as he disappeared from view. Ryoji quickly healed his tormented throat and coughed a few times, spitting out ash and embers.

The little bastard had been a royal pain but after the last crushing, Ryoji was sure that he was gone and for good. He was basically a corpse anyway and the last assault surely broke the last breath in his body and sent the vermin straight to hell. Now that he had crushed Minato, just one problem remained-

Ryoji began to charge the blade with his favorite spell and glanced at her direction, giving a dark chuckle when he realized that she looked no different than a corpse just bolted to the floor. Her body was stiff, as if rigor mortis had set in minutes ago, depriving her of the mobility in her body as she had heard every sound coming from the one-sided battle, from every splatter to every crack that her boyfriend suffered as she listened and suffered throughout the ordeal. The only semblance of life in her was etched onto her face, with her lower lip bloody and her expression a lovely shade of despair.

His blade shone a violent red and Ryoji raised the same towards the direction of the girl who was still rooted to the spot, refusing to open her eye. Either she was scared out of her mind or still had faith in Minato who had promised that he would not allow Hamuko to suffer that spell as long as he lived-

"Curse him!"

Ryoji decided not to wait any longer and hurled the buildup of Night Queen in her direction, watching on as his essence catapulted across the entire area and then divided within seconds, sure to swallow her whole and kill her instantly-

"Ugh!"

"Infinity!"

Ryoji did not even blink as his own attack recoiled upon colliding with the fusion spell and came back to blow off his armor and a good chunk of his body. That single shout was all that he heard and that was all the pain he felt, the pain of fucking failure and a shame so deep that he felt it down to his core.

Minato was still fucking alive!

Arisato collapsed on his face as soon as the barrier wore off and he laid still across the cold ground, trying to breathe in and out but ended up coughing out blood each time he tried to inhale the scarce oxygen at the top. He honestly had no idea why he was alive. He wondered briefly whether it was due to the powers of Death that he had harnessed or will-power but the boy blackened out for a few seconds during his line of thought, begging and pleading for a few moments of rest but the God ahead of him was still alive and he had no intention to let him rest, in the world of living or the afterlife as he had defied him far too many times for a peaceful way out.

He expected Ryoji to explode and he raised his head briefly to see what was going on, glancing out of his single eye to witness the appraiser just staring at him like a lost kid. That drew a small chuckle out of his mouth and he likened the horrified expression to the same look of panic he witnessed on his face when he was just a second away from being drilled into the ground by the twin personas-

"Very well, brother," Ryoji finally spoke after regaining his composure. He lifted off the ground and discarded his sword, letting it fall to the ground with a loud thud. He cracked his fingers one by one and slowly raised his right hand up in the air, defiling as the air as he began to summon his final attack.

Minato picked himself up from the ground after vomiting a massive amount of blood. He wiped his lip with the sleeve of his jacket and barely got up to his feet. His swollen eye gushed out blood but his working eye stared straight up at the skies, with the sight making his jaw slack down as if he was numb across his entire face-

Ryoji was building an absolutely massive sphere of his most deadly attack and while he was pretty high up, Minato lost his breath on the ground as if the oxygen in the air burned out completely, dying in the presence of the unholy orb of death and demise building up in the sky. He knew Ryoji was virtually limitless but what was happening before him was just ridiculous as the appraiser pumped out an obscene amount of death into his final attempt, and the stench of rotting corpses was thick and prominent even on the ground, burning through his throat and blurring his vision.

That was literally Death screaming right next to his ear, demanding that he knelt over and die-!

"This is how you choose it, Minato," Ryoji widened his eyes when he was finally done, with his own hand starting to decay as it lifted up the reddish black orb, an instrument of fatal destruction that he would down with absolutely no mercy to take both of those vermin out in one single second. However, that one second was going to feel like a wretched eternity for the two of them AS THOSE SPAWNS OF FILTHY BITCHES HAD INCURRED HIS WRATH-

FOR THE FINAL FUCKING TIME-

The audacity to his will led to Ryoji releasing another bloodcurdling scream and after cursing every fiber of his body, the God of Death hurled the sphere of ultimate destruction towards the ground, locked on the blunet who was fated to die. He demanded that his death this time, calling out to divine power BECAUSE THAT SON OF A BITCH HAD DEFIED HIM FOR THE LAST TIME-

HE WAS GOING TO SEND HIS FILTHY SOUL TO THE BOWELS OF HELL-

The sphere literally burned through the air as it came down upon Minato who was shivering slightly, afraid and unsure of himself but only for a moment as all it took was a glance back. He looked back to witness Hamuko absolutely terrified and broken, pale and stiff as a corpse, with her palms and lips bleeding due to self-mutilation and yet, she stood there as he had ordered her. Despite all she had heard, from every yell of agony to every whimper of pain, her resolve in his was absolute, even if her mind was dead-set on reminding her every two seconds that he would die-

"This isn't troubling you, is it, Minato?"

Hamuko finally spoke; eye still shut and her chanting of spells continuing under her breath. She spoke softly, trying to mask the unimaginable pain she was going through.

"…"

"You'll handle it, right?"

"You're going to save every one of us, right?"

"…"

"Messiah?"

Minato shook his head and the screeching of uncertainty in his ears faded into the darkest recesses of his psyche, as that was all everything he needed to hear from her, nothing more or nothing less. She had spoken those same words during the battle against Theodore, when he was just about done and ready to roll over in the face of seemingly unstoppable odds.

He had Pharos back then helping him but he didn't need him to keep her safe.

His two hands were enough.

"I will…" Minato promised and stared straight ahead, taking a few steps forward in the wake of the ultimate attack. The size and concentration of death inside the sphere ruffled him before but he proceeded to walk straight into the path of hell, not backing off as the sphere came right above his head, threatening to take him and her alongside.

"Two hands, huh?" Minato said, glancing at his bloodied palms for the last second. His left hand was darkened to a shade of disgusting purple and his right hand had suffered quite a bit of abuse too-

Ah well-

"Ugh!"

Minato grunted in pain and held in a scream, biting down on his lower lip when those two same hands blocked the massive sphere of death, bare, with not a single support spell aiding him as he had nothing left to give, except his bare hands. The collision bucked his knees as the boiling hot sphere was stopped in its tracks but only barely, exerting a huge amount of pressure up to his shoulders and then down below. He felt every bit of force down to his toes, with his knees burrowed into the bare ground by the stress that was being put on him-

"S-Shit!" Minato's voice cracked, the last syllable getting lost and then plunging down his battered throat, burning and threatening to come out his neck but he tucked his head down and piled every bit of force towards his hands, still keeping the sphere of Death at bay-

Ryoji watched on for a few moments before he flicked his finger in the direction, occasioning another increase in size and leading to Minato snarling in utter agony, with blood leaking out of his ears, eyes and nose, quickly drenching his clothes a complete red. He was caught dead in the middle, with his legs buried into the ground and his arms threatening to burn to ash under the godly might-

"T-To hell with this," Minato fought back the whispers echoing inside his head, and battled back the numbing pain surging across his body. "I don't need anything but my fucking hands to keep her safe!"

The volume increased yet again and Minato vomited out burning blood onto the ground, swearing that something was pooling up in the back of his head, altering his consciousness and blurring his vision, but to the utter surprise of the appraiser, he was not budging an inch-

"To hell with you!" Minato screamed over the noise of his attack, his coarse voice reaching the appraiser all the way up. The entity pooled another substantial amount of his essence into the raging sphere of decay but that only got Minato to scream at him louder-

Crack-

"F-FUCK-"

Minato yanked his worthless, left arm back and Ryoji caught a flicker of blue, widening his eyes as the mutilated arm flared, with the flash of light witnessed all the way up in the night sky-

"YOU!"

Minato howled out to the skies and called the blue flames across his useless left arm while holding onto the sphere with his right arm dug in the middle, holding onto the chaotic stream of energy with his bare fingers as he readied to blow the damn thing up-

"Armageddon!"

Minato clenched his jaw and shut his eye as he rifled his left fist forward, striking the very core of the sphere and letting loose the blue inferno and it burned through the sphere of red and exploded out of the other side. The flames picked up the essence of death in a span of a second and the mixture grew corrupted and vile, building up in heat and death before a flash of dark purple illuminated up the night sky and an absolutely ruinous explosion followed-

Ryoji was blown backwards into the skies upon the explosion of his ultimate attack against the strongest spell that Minato had in his arsenal. Even his godly vision was blinded by the purple luster and all he could witness now was a dense layer smoke on top of the tower, with scent of death and fire and brimstone prominent even down to the lower floors.

"That worthless excuse of filth," Ryoji growled, flapping his wings a few times to clear the dust off so he could finally have a semblance of happiness upon glancing at whatever remained of his corpse. Even if he was ash, Ryoji would be satisfied.

As the dust began to clear up, Ryoji descended down from the skies, having suffered no damage as he was pretty high up, and somewhat lucky as he was not looking forward to take a fusion spell of that potency.

He finally saw Minato during his descent and unfortunately, the fool was not filthy ash one with the cursed soil of earth. In fact, much to his dismay, the blunet was breathing very faintly, and that very nearly set him off into another range but those last few gasps brought him a little of peace-

Those were the last gasps as life ebbed out of his worthless soul.

Ryoji finally touched the ground and took his time inspecting Minato, watching on with great delight as he bled his way to death. The left side of his face was coated in ash and soot, with a good chunk of his cheek burned off and as he glanced down below, he witnessed what was left of his arm. And that finally drew out an evil chuckle from the appeased God.

His left arm-

Minato's left arm had been a constant target, having suffered numerous breaks and absolute torture but the last explosion had finally rendered it useless. His two fingers were blown off, with his forearm suffering the same fate, melting down to his infected bone. His shoulder had a gaping hole as if something had bitten it off and his entire limb was charred back due to the heat, burned to such an extent that Ryoji could see his broken bones even from a good bit of distance.

Arisato did not move, with his breaths being the only indication that he was alive. His face was obscured with his now red fringe and Ryoji was quite satisfied as he had suffered quite a bit thanks to his own foolish decision to mix the two most destructive spells together-

"It is done…" Ryoji spoke, taking a few steps forward but to his disgusting surprise, he heard the blunet laugh in return, but only barely-

"I-It is…"

A few feet behind him, Hamuko opened her eye and cleared off the glistering tears with her sleeve. She was done with her work and was able to feel every single spell on her fingertips, as if those existed on another plane of existence. She held the last edible healing item and spiritual drop in her grip and walked forward, catching the back of Minato who was not moving, down on his knees and smoking from every corner of his mangled body.

"Minato…"

That was the sight to bawl her eyes out but she shook her head, biting back on the river of sobs and the long wails of agony. She had listened to every word that he spoke before taking on the attack in order to keep her safe.

Her brain and her soul be dammed-

There was no way she was going to let his immense sacrifice go in vain-

This was truly the few minutes of the battle-

She felt that in every fiber of her being-

Hamuko took off with every support spell boosting her up, amplifying her agility several times over, and to the point that even Ryoji gasped out in shock. He looked around as she had disappeared from his sight, too fast for even his eyes to follow-

Hamuko felt her heartbeat slow down despite her speed kicking up and up. She swallowed the bottled up emotions as she picked Minato right up from the ground and held him close, nearly losing her concentration as she felt the last few beats of his heart going heading off to complete silence, making her put the last supplies in his mouth and he had enough sense to work his jaw and swallow the nasty edibles for the last burst-

Minato came alive from the brink of death and Hamuko transferred half of the support spells into his soul. He gave a small gasp at the sheer amount but quickly came back to reality, as he gave one last glance at his companion holding him up, promising her that this would be the end and after a final bump of bloodied fists, the two wild cards separated, heading off into the opposite directions-

Thou art I... And I am thou...

This brings thee closer to thy fate...

Judgement Aracna, Rank 7.

Ryoji had taken just one step and he was surrounded by the same tactic that dealt him a failure during New Years' Eve. The same purple circled brought on by an obscene amount of buff spells, likely the trump card of the two fools and a foolish one at that as he was several times larger and there was no way their fists were reaching him up in the skies-

"We're taking it a step beyond!" Minato roared from within the circle of absolute velocity and speed, switching back and forth constantly as he kept his pace with his counterpart, keeping his gaze locked with hers as they needed to pull this off perfectly in order to snatch victory-

Ryoji was about to unleash an explosion of Night Queen until he sensed something horribly wrong. He was expecting them to lunge out with sword strikes to pick away at his armor but as he spared the apex a glance, a substantial amount of blue mist was emerging from the purple circle, astronomically thicker and voluminous than ever before-

Hamuko gave one last glance at her towering nemesis and gave out a final sigh before they took the concept to a whole different level. She had never expected this much out of her old, worthless self but here she was, still fighting the hopeless battle with a broken and deformed body and she had only one person to blame for that-

"All for you, Minato!"

The mist scattered across the entire floor gathered around their bodies and spiraled upwards, rising up from the ring of spiritual power and trapping the massive frame of Ryoji as the mist reached up to the skies, with the howls and roars of numerous personas echoing inside, bellowing over and over again in the head of the appraiser-

"Persona!"

The users shouted in unison and the entities came to life from the mist around the harbinger, catching him off guard with a series of spells and strikes as the spawning was instantaneous, and Ryoji was nailed with a series of strikes and explosions, cracking the crown on his head and snapping his neck backwards. He started blocking the attacks after snapping out of the surprise and dismantled the personas with one punch each, scattering the vermin to mist-

More Gods and demons emerged as soon as he had dealt with the initial wave but Ryoji disposed of the same being in quick fashion, suffering a few more bruises but nothing too major-

The howls and roars picked up pitch and volume, drawing out a gasp out of Ryoji as the speed of the summoning and attacks was unlike anything to deal with before. The next slew of attacks brought him out of the spiral of panic and he started battling back, dismembering and beheading the personas with his bare fists and bursts of almighty energy-

Slice-

Stab-

Bang-

Minato and Hamuko kept summoning the Gods dwelling within them without pause, three at the same as each time they would break eye contact, the summoning would commence, building up a pattern with little to no discrepancy, battering Ryoji with the power of multiple entities as he remained trapped in the vortex of blue, pieces of his flesh and black feathers raining down from above-

"Keep moving!" Minato said, pushing Hamuko with his remaining hand and the redhead ducked low, focusing all her energy towards her legs and her soul. She screamed out the next second and summoned just a millisecond after Minato, her single eye glancing above and catching the personas unleashing a brutal coordinated attack upon the appraiser-

Ryoji was clobbered with a trio of tackles, and his armor began to crack, starting to show the wear and tear. He shattered through the personas but the sounds never stopped, with more entities emerging out from the mist to keep up the pressure, not giving him a second to even think as he fought back and remained on high-alert at all times-

"CURSE YOU!" Ryoji summoned his blade after another brutal knock across his skull and started lashing out his weapon, cutting through numerous personas with a single swipe but there was no respite for the trapped God, as another series of summons finally broke the armor and the personas started digging into his bare flesh, eliciting another confused roar towards the skies-

A ray of darkness descended from above and Ryoji gained another burst of growth and power, towering several hundred feet over, his renewed body brimming with godly strength. Minato clicked his tongue but not let up on the pressure, dual summoning every second or so, in tandem with Hamuko as the two raced around and around, constantly looking up to make sure that the plan was working-

Ryoji started to adjust to the speed and the number and while he suffered minor cuts and bruises, he efficiently disposed of each persona, letting out an occasional burst of red, almighty energy to knock the entities backwards. His sword was coated in the blood of numerous Gods and demons and he kept up with the abnormal pace of the two persona-users, shrugging off the roars of their worthless soldiers and responding with utmost brutality-

"Tch!" Hamuko clicked her tongue but then widened her single eye at the sudden spike in temperature. She summoned her persona and looked straight ahead, noting the flash of blue surging around the body of her leader and the fissures opening along the path of the ring, letting out steam and small embers as Minato called upon his most powerful fusion spell, determined to take the concept another step beyond-

"Armageddon!"

Ryoji was rendered stock still as the temperature in the vortex skyrocketed, with the blue flames exploding inside the diameter, not a single lick escaping out of the vortex, leading to the spell detonating several times over in the small space and burning his forelimbs to ash, drawing out another bloodcurdling scream of pain and hatred, heard across the entire Tower of Demise-

The boom and crackle of unforgiving flames was followed by the screeches of the personas as they emerged without a moment to waste upon the will of the masters, weapons and fists burning with the flames of Armageddon. Ryoji gave out another gasp at the sight, covering up as the assault was made worse with the added burns, with the entities smashing into him over and over again-

Ryoji dispelled the lingering flames with another brutal burst of darkness from within the gaping wounds, blowing the personas backwards and he seized the chance, letting out maddening screech and calling upon the arms of the magician, summoning dozens and dozens of extra limb, with each hand carrying a blade, ready to pierce and slice those rising against him in the skies and the pests below-

The final tackle led to Ryoji going berserk, lashing out with his many limbs over and over again, slicing through most personas even before they could charge at him. The wild lashing out continued uninterrupted, with a few limbs targeting the two personas users down on the ground, looking to kill them in order to stop the perpetual cycle of-

Minato ducked his head to avoid the blade coming for his head and looked up with gritted teeth as Ryoji was again getting comfortable, his numerous limbs lessening the pressure put upon him. Their personas were landing less and less as the appraiser severed their heads long before the attempt-

"Tch!" Hamuko was gashed along her knee by a damn blade but she did not retaliate, opting to keep up the same pace as before but as the glass shards rained upon the two, followed by the dying howls of their personas, the redhead widened her eye. She looked up and witnessed their personas being absolutely massacred, not putting up a modicum of a fight as the harbinger had summoned the shield of Strength around his body, and wielded the revolver of the Reaper in his other hand, shooting out several dozen bullets in a span of a few seconds, hitting anything that moved around him-

They were losing…?

After all that they had to go through to put this concept to work-

Ryoji was beating them…?

Every bang was followed by an absolutely dreadful dying screech as the heads started rolling every second, with Ryoji drawing upon the strength of the shadow to keep up and triumph over their last plan, doing so at the rate that was far beyond than their spiritual capacity-

She started to pant, only barely summoning as the writing was on the wall-

She had a few summons left in her-

Ryoji was going to outlast them-

Then rip their heads off their bodies-

She almost tripped, falling face first and coming a second away from rolling out of the circle as she felt her heartbeat in her ear, along with a vile truth ringing-

She was still not strong enough-

Ryoji was going to kill Minato-

The dying howls continued echoing in the skies, worsening her mental state and with a small step away from collapsing, she felt a hand on her shoulder, keeping her stable and giving her an iota of hope back as she felt his hand on her, squeezing her battered shoulder-

"Hamuko…" his voice was more of a plea than an order and she felt his lips next right to her ear, whispering slowly but pleading greatly, as if he had nothing else in the world.

"You have to help me…"

The howls washed over the two but Hamuko did notice the dreadful screeches of agony. Her single eye was wide open, a burning desire now surfacing out of her corrupted soul, tainted with the darkness and evil of Nyx-

Her mind flashed back to the time she was held a prisoner but his plea overrode the dreadful shouts, stirring and shaking up her soul-

"I can't do this alone, anymore…"

"…"

"Please…"

Her heart skipped a beat and she blackened out momentarily, as something dreadful cleaved her soul in half, with the last word in her mind echoing in her mutilated spirit-

Help-

Help-

HELP-

HELP-

The one word echoed over and over again as her soul laid across her spirit, cut in half but the calls of her numerous personas echoed in never-ending succession, building up to feverish pitch, resurrecting her mutilated essence with as they thrashed around the confines of her soul, demanding that she get up and help the only person who mattered in her life-

"Help…"

Sense and desire flooded back into her psyche and Hamuko pushed herself off the ground with her palm as she tripped, hurling her body forward with her teeth gritted and her single eye shinning a shade of demonic red-

She locked her sights on the appraiser and scowled in a mixture of hate and determination-

"Hamuko!"

He yelled at her again, screaming at the top of his scarred lungs, every word blaring into her psyche and staying there, building up a painful headache around her forehead-

"FUCKING HELP ME PLEASE!"

Hamuko blinked for a final time and called with all her might, reaching out to the very last drop of power lurking in her soul and the shout echoed in the dead night, piercing through the skies and overriding the dying roars as she finally ascended, cracking the ground below her feet with a single shout-

The little flicker of extra power quivered in her soul and Hamuko snatched it up, drawing on the extra boost with all that she had-

She heard a laugh retreating back into the back of her mind and a primal power exploded within her spirit-

SMASH-

The sound of shattered glass woke her up from her stupor and mist exploded out of her palms and from under her feet as she finally called-

"ARMAGEDDON!"

Ryoji lost his concentration and gasped when the shout reached his ears and that was not Minato calling for the attack-

Red flames escaped the fissures and Hamuko winced in pain, as the burn came close to incinerating her organs but she withstood the agony with gritted teeth and undying resolve, adopting the same stance as Minato as she called forth the red flames from the depths of her soul, harnessing the apocalyptic power of Satan and Helel-

The flames of her personas burned fiercer than the flames of the blunet, and red inferno detonated inside the confines of the vortex, melting off the armor, the shield and the extra limbs within seconds, rendering Ryoji confused and shaken up. He gave the same wail as before as the heat was brutal, and he was exposed, armor and forelimbs raining down in the form of ash and as he spared a look down, he caught another blue flash-

"Armageddon!"

Minato kept up the momentum and unleashed the fusion spell one more time, the blue flames combusting along with red and bringing the temperature to level of hell itself. The massive body of the God trapped inside the cyclone blazed to ash, silencing his wail as the horrific fusion spell disposed of his entire body in mere seconds, annihilating every atom to dust-

"Keep going!" Minato yelled as the movement of the resulting ash suggested a rebirth and he was determined to keep this up to the very end-

He finally had Ryoji exactly where he wanted him-

"Heh…"

All thanks to Hamuko who finally dual summoned, stopping him from a mental collapse at the last second-

Every single debt she owed to him was repaid a thousand times over-

And they had won-

Ryoji was resurrected as the ash meshed together but the duo resumed the onslaught as soon as his body started regenerating, catching him in the most vulnerable state possible. The purple flames raged mercilessly and Ryoji wailed in pain and fear as the personas dug into his frail body, ripping the flesh off without mercy as he did not a second to concentrate, and each time he would try to heal his wounds, four personas would lash and bring him back to square one, carrying out the torture ruthlessly as he had done to their masters-

Hamuko matched pace of Minato, exhausted by every twin summon but she was quick to adapt to her new power and kept her eyes fixed on the half-burnt face of her leader, fueling that one desire that brought her back from a spiritual collapse-

She had not repaid his debt yet-

That was simply impossible for her puny self-

In this life or the next-

The roars of agony were now one of triumph as the Gods dwelling within the sea of souls upped the already insane pressure, having disfigured the God of Death several times over, his body now a hideous mess of wounds that looked impossible to heal. The addition of one extra persona from Hamuko was the difference maker and Ryoji was lost, unable to deal with the spells, strikes and weapons, all buffed up by the purple flames that exceeded the heat of his ultimate attack-

The God tried one more time, letting out a scream in an effort to scare off the personas coming for him before he started swinging haymakers, with not a single one landing and the openings only providing his foes with more time and space to dig in deeper, to mutilate and abuse the previous wounds. He was losing his blood by the gallons, with every connection drawing out a literal gallon on ichor, spilling onto the ground below and drenching the area with his godly blood-

As he had done to them-

"Focus on the mask!" Minato called from below, locking his sights on the face as the body of the appraiser had incurred massive damage, far more grotesque looking than what he and Hamuko had suffered. This was the last few seconds left of the wretched Goddess of the night sky and his command to aim for the mask drew another terrified wail as the appraiser covered up in defeat-

His already mutilated arms were hacked off and a smash to the back of his neck crumbled the muscle holding up his throat, making his head collapse onto his shoulders-

The cursed mask suffered the next assault, each successive slew of attacks had dark mist escaping from the cracks which fractured deeper and started widening, beginning to cover the entirety of the face, bits and scrapes coming off as the attacks of Gods continued on, determined to fulfill the wish of the blunet down below-

The voice inside his head was swinging back and forth, with the goddess screeching something unintelligible across his dark psyche. Each time the mask suffered a hit, the voice boomed in hatred, demanding so much more of him and Ryoji was just a second from giving up, as even his godly body could not keep up the insane pace and pressure of the two persona users and the never-ending rain of attacks from the many entities that emerged from the sole purpose of protecting the human psyche from entities such as themselves-

HE-

HAD-

LOST-

The God howled in utter defeat and his pitiful screech echoed over the domain of Nyx, blaring throughout the night sky as he surrender in defeat, his arms falling down as a sign of his admittance-

"Do it now!" Minato yelled, summoning the last duo of his personas and directing them for the final attack, his working eye locked onto the mask and he did not blink once, determined to see the damn thing come off before he could give himself any peace or luxury-

The mask was on his face and held with only the slightest bit of force and one final swing was all that was needed. The group of four personas came swinging for the final blow and Minato watched on, still moving around in the same pattern but relaxing his broken body, allowing himself a second of respite as the final burst of blades and fists rained down, a millisecond away from the end of the battle-

Just a millisecond-

"GACK!"

Ryoji did not move but something happened in the skies as the never-ending shockwaves from the moon morphed into an earthquake of world-ending magnitude, making the entire surface tremble, spreading chaos across the globe as the will of the goddess was potent enough to eradicate the four personas, cancel out the buffs on the bodies of the two users and call humanity towards extinction, awakening the masses with a single shout sent down from the celestial body-

Minato was knocked dead for a few moments as the force crashed into his head and he tripped face-first, the momentum of the trajectory worsening his fall but he was quick to rise up to his feet, wondering what the hell had happened. Either Ryoji had been playing around the whole time, screaming his head off in total agony so he could crush their hopes, or Nyx had released her dying gasp in the form of the last, brutal wave from the moon-

He had no idea-

The little ringing in his ears was accompanied by another sound quite far off in the distance. The little rumbling had him confused by the same sound was magnified the very next moment, crashing into his drums akin to a gunshot going off right next to his head-

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"

"It's the end of the world"

"The almighty Nyx is here!"

The several thousand shouts echoing in the night nearly shattered his eardrums and Hamuko jumped to her feet, gasping in shock as Ryoji howled towards the skies, increasing the dreadful noise of humans screaming for their lives-

During the middle of the Dark Hour-

Half of the entire city had come alive-

Minato took a look back and just stared, his good eye widened at the horror of the situation as the city was alive, despite the conditions of the Dark Hour still in place. The stampede of humanity was raging across the streets, with the people horrified at the sight of the Moon peering down at their souls, looking to rip the same out of their bodies-

"T-This is…" the blunet took a step back, shaking his head slowly as this was what Ryoji had preached about. This was the start to annihilation and Nyx had finally begun to call forth-

Hamuko was rooted to the spot as well, her knees shaking when she realized what the hell was going on. People coming alive during the hour and earthquake that came from the skies, meant one thing-

She took a glance at the horrifying spectacle in the once dead streets and a cold shiver ran down her spine, and the unison of screams of drilled into her psyche continuously, painting a clear picture in her head-

"No way…" Hamuko whispered but the blunet was able to hear every word, despite hell unfolding across the world-

She looked straight up in the sky, fixing her single eye on the celestial body as her lips moved-

"Is this… The Fall?"

The little distraction from the skies provided the broken God with a flicker of rest. His head was spinning in circles as his body reacted harshly as he attempted to heal himself, too badly worn out and mentally damaged from the circle he was trapped into, something that was far worse than what they had pulled off during New Year's Eve. However, as the cries of humanity kept the persona users distracted, Ryoji once again found his focus and he screeched in the direction of the two who had reduced him to the point of a mental collapse. His advances were caught by Minato and the blunet gritted his teeth, grabbing the wrist of his counterpart and hurling her forward-

"Keep fighting!" Minato ordered, cursing his luck and enduring the torture to his ears as the shouting and begging down below had built up to a nauseating pitch but he sucked up the discomfort and charged right ahead, looking to take advantage of Ryoji as he was still dazed and mutilated, with the mask cracked all across. He gave one last look at the sky and hissed at the sight of the moon as he charged back into battle, his left arm still completely useless and his soul dangling on the edge of ruin-

The circle had disappeared and the buffs had long worn off but the two attempted to replicate the same pressure, knocking the God knocking with another quad summoning, refusing to give him a moment to gather his focus to heal. Ryoji saw them with his one eye closed due to the abnormal pain shooting through his body, and he managed a low growl as his vocal cords were torched, only making cough and hiss in absolute hatred towards the two for what they had done-

WHAT THEY HAD DONE TO A GOD-

The explosion of the blue mist made him back off in fear, far slower than usual, and the four personas knocked him over but the appraiser got up, swinging his bare fists in order to catch the two but his body failed on him midway through and he doubled over, getting blasted in the face with another torrent of red, white and blue, snapping his head backwards and almost severing his neck-

"Keep moving, Hamuko!" Minato ordered after a look around, and his subordinate obliged, dual summoning the entities within her sea with the last bit of spiritual force left in her body-

The personas tore into his back and Ryoji screamed out ichor, collapsing face-first to the ground as the two circled around him, intending on replicating the same cyclone of heat and cold as that was a quick way to end the battle. The chill of death and the warmth of the savior emerged from within and the entities were brought out instantaneously, despite the hell unfolding in the streets-

"Messiah!"

"Nyx!"

The two personas surfaced only for a brief second, splitting up their essence across the floor and giving rise to the typhoon of black and white, and the same quickly descended upon the Fallen God, making him growl in a mixture of fear and hatred as he remembered the helplessness all too well. He caught the boy in his crosshairs and punched his fist forward one last time but Minato, the once broken and bloodied corpse, with one good arm and a defiled body, dodged to the side, staring him in the eye and as he once again called his two strongest persona, and Hamuko switched the next second to follow his lead, bringing the two personas to the front of her psyche for the final fusion spell-

"ARMAGEDDON!"

The red and blue flames emerged from the fissures and scaled upwards, blending with the spirals of black and white and came crashing down upon the dazed appraiser at the same time, mixing in utter consonance and swallowing the massive entity whole as the purple conflagration matched the volume of the people screaming down in the world, and the mixture blazed akin to the sun in the sky, empowered by the darkness and light and far more ferocious than the blasts that he had endured in the circle of destruction. The two persona users gritted their teeth, withstanding the rumble of the ground and the noise echoing over and over again, in a continuous loop as concentration began to teeter, making them dig in deep-

The purple blaze melted the pavement and Ryoji gave one last screech but was silenced midway through as layers of purple flames folded upon each other over and over again, building up sky high and burying the harbinger under the flames of Armageddon. The remains of his left arm shot up from the purple hell but another searing blast of flames reduced his meager attempt to ash-

The last fold triggered the cataclysmic reaction and the conflagration collapsed on itself, resulting in a shockwave of intense heat felt across the skyline, blowing Hamuko into her leader and he held onto her to keep her close, forced to close his eye as well as the air current was vicious, worsening the torture to his eyes as the flames howled and the buffeting winds raged across, nearly lifting him off the ground. The two covered up as the attack blew up a mushroom cloud towards the night sky as the generated heat was nothing less than a nuke going off on the top of Tartarus-

"Shit!" Hamuko cried out, shutting her eye as the layers of dust and heat struck her bruised face, making her hold onto the single arm of Minato, tucking her head against his shoulder as her bandages were starting to burn off. She clenched around his forearm tightly, trying to sneak glances but the pressure was just too intense and she relented, fearing that the next wave would torch her working eye-

Minato was a second away from casting Infinity but the rage of the flames died out as the melted pavement finally gave in and the flames escaped into the lower floors, along with the appraiser. He waited for a few moments and the final detonation was felt across the massive structure, destroyed hundreds of floors in a single explosion, with the appraiser caught in the middle of hell, surely not even dust-

Minato coughed and released the hold around Hamuko after making sure that she was okay. The redhead stepped away and panted, putting her hands on her knees for a rest as she expected that the battle was over-

The moon did not let up the destruction, even after the apparent demise of its vessel as it was still shaking up in the skies, delivering one ruinous earthquake after one and the screams around him suddenly doubled in volume and number, nearly decapitating his nerves as his mind was already muddled, barely functioning after all that he had gone through-

Something was still wrong-

The people down in the streets were increasing in number-

The Fall was still underway-

Minato took a look around and widened his eyes at the sea of humanity running for their lives, attacking and trampling each other in a failed bid to escape the presence of the moon which was now hovering close to the edge of the Tower of Demise and Minato stared right into the red-eye, witnessing him the future in the cruel abyss. He knew for a fact that Nyx was somewhere inside there, cursing him out and wishing upon him a most painful death but his rivalry with the Gods did not matter. The rioting was nonstop down on earth, with the cultists running wild and people hurting each other for the sake of a futile escape-

"W-What the fuck is going on…?"

Minato slapped his head to get rid of the voice and took his stance, eyeing the moon next as he prepared to summon, despite knowing that the mere notion of waging war against the moon was futile. He was desperate, and the messianic entity residing within him was crashing against his head over and over again, demanding that it be summoned for the people crying and begging for a savior-

"Messiah-!"

The coarse roar took both persona users by surprise and the appraiser dug himself out of the hole on the ground one last time, clawing out with his bare hands and his body unleashing every last molecule of dark energy he had left in his mutilated form, with the powers of the shadows exploding out of the numerous, gaping wounds opened across-

"Look out!" Hamuko only had a moment to yell out her warning but the same was drowned out by humanity yelling for help and Minato turned around a second too late, only able to catch a glimpse of what was headed away and he was not prepared, broken down and out of breath, he only saw a glint of moonlight on the surface of the many blades headed his way before his vision was rendered black-

"F-Fuck!"

Ryoji heard his dying pant and unleashed everything he had in his body, drawing on the power of Nyx as he screeched as loud as he could, bending the fabric of time and space around him as hundreds upon hundreds of arms and tentacles burst through his back and his wounds, catching the duo entirely off guard-

Minato hacked out blood, still blinded and frozen in a haze of brutal pain and about a dozen blades cut into his chest and his arms fell limb without a second of resistance, as he was done, spent, and close to death. The hair-like extensions quickly wrapped around him, covering him from head to toe, and started to crush his defenseless body and he offered no struggle as the white extensions were drenched with red almost instantly-

Ryoji kept up the pressure, growing in size yet again and doubling the amount of limbs emerging from inside his body, with the numbers vast enough to cover up the entire top of the tower and he directed each extension with the intention to kill. He heard the dying gasp from Minato but kept his eyes shut, howling out to the shadows as the creatures began to crawl out of the gaping hole he had fallen into before, slithering across the floor and on route towards the two persona users as they built in numbers-

Hamuko widened her eye as the shadows emerged upon the desperate cry for help and she looked ahead to witness Minato buried under the sea of black and white, not moving as the blades dug deeper and deeper into his body and the tentacles squeezed the life out of him, with several layers wrapped around his throat, making him vomit out blood-

"Minato!"

He did not move and she could only see a corpse bundled in red tentacles with a dozen or so blade digging into almost every part, several inches inside his already abused flesh. She struggled to break herself from the binds while trying to move her neck towards the direction of Ryoji as he had been screaming in a loop nonstop, constantly growing out the mass of limbs from every wound on his body, all in a final attempt to rid himself of his two worst foes-

"Minato!" Hamuko kept fighting against the limbs wrapping around her, thrashing with her fists and biting through the many arms and tentacles attempting to cease her movements. "Minato, wake up!" she desperately called out to her leader, begging and pleading him to show any sort of response but she got nothing, not even a whisper to let her know that he okay-

Slice-

"S-Shit!" the little flicker of hesitance was enough for the shadows to capitalize, with a dozen or so blades digging into her limbs as the hair-like extensions began to pull on her throat, looking to snap her neck. Hamuko reached for the coils around her neck but another maddening shout from the streets had her gasping for air, defenseless as her stomach was shredded open, spilling more of her blood across the darkened arms-

She felt the splatter of blood on her leg and froze again, her struggling hands falling limp at her sides when realized that the entire floor was crawling with shadows, covering every inch of the massive area as Ryoji was not stopping his onslaught, determined to drown the two in a sea of his minions so they would get the hell out of his sight-

"Is this…?" Hamuko coughed, choking on her own blood as the pressure around her neck began to intensify, blurring her vision and dimming her senses, with more and more bruises opening up on her body. Every little cut rocked her senses alive but only for a few moments and she was quickly dragged down by the shadows, getting mauled relentlessly as she laid in the mass of filth. "T-The end…?"

The roar of the masses, desperate for survival, and the screech of Ryoji, potent with hatred and fear overrode her senses and Hamuko gave one last shiver, gurgling out blood as her working eye began to darken. She tried to locate him one last time and her heart skipped a beat when she did, catching a mummified corpse getting eaten alive by a multitude of shadows-

That cold shiver struck her differently, burning the muscles in her eye-

"M-Minato…?"

The pupil in her single eye narrowed and her eyelid widened, as the sight was forever burned into her cornea, flashing constantly and stirring something inside her, the last vestiges of her will to get the hell out of the mess and sacrifice her life so that he may live-

FUCK ALL THIS-

"To hell with you all!" Hamuko snapped, shutting her eyes and ripping off the hold of the limbs around her as she jerked her right arm free. She yanked off the tentacles around her throat and got her breath back, but only for a moment as hundreds of Ryoji's minions pounced on her to keep her away, looking to end her quickly but she fought back, constantly freeing herself out of the binds and biting through the damn things as the limbs came to gouge her eye out and disable her permanently. After dozen or so shadows pounced on her and Hamuko gritted her teeth, her fists clenched as she started reaching deep into the sea of her soul for one last dying gasp-

"Nyx!"

The mass of darkness tore the shadows around her into pieces, and she finally got to her feet, the dark cloak still blazing around her battered body, sending shockwaves of intense pressure to keep the shadows at bay. The appraiser heard the summoning and the call of Nyx, letting out a small gasp of fear when realized that one of them had broken free and she was the last person he expected-

Hamuko shook off the building fatigue and her blurry vision located the targets, all the damn shadows that were feasting upon the body of Minato. The darkness of Nyx held her body together as her joints had crumbled during the struggle to get out-

She took a deep breath and looked around for a brief moment, going through all the carnage and chaos festering in the madness of the Fall and she stood in the middle of it all. Hamuko dug out her evoker from her holster and eyed the device, the instrument that had started this all, with a gunshot that still rang in her head-

The night that Minato summoned-

Hamuko gripped the device in her left and wiped out the incoming shadows with a wave of other her hand, stirring up a series of buffeting winds of darkness which tore through the mess around her, reducing her enemies to mist. She looked straight ahead and expelled another burst of her element, ignoring the yells of the humanity and the undying screech of the harbinger and focusing on clearing a path open towards Minato-

Another explosion of dark matter blew the remaining shadows to bits and Hamuko bolted after one last look at the appraiser, hidden behind a layer of darkness as if he was terrified of coming out in the pain, constantly sending out his limbs and minions to fight for them-

Hamuko fastened her pace, looking around with gritted teeth as more and more of the pests came at her, limbs, tentacles and creatures emerging at her from all angles, as far and wide as she could as the entire floor was a network of evil-

She stomped upon her next step, evoking another shockwave to blow the hazards backwards, getting cut open and crushed as the unison of attacks and spells bounced off her body, nearly making her trip but she hurled herself off the bloodied ground with her palm, keeping her charge straight and wiping out whatever came in her path-

Hamuko kept her teeth gritted while on the path to him. Her vision blackened and swirled with each step, her lungs burning and her throat bleeding down to her heart as every step she took crumbled her joints, with only the darkness of Nyx keeping her whole. The shrill yell of the appraiser made her wince, her persona threatening to fade under the brutality of the escalating noises, but she did not look back once, leaving behind the appraiser, the celestial body, as well as the rest of humanity as she had only one concern-

"Hang on, Minato!"

She finally made it-

"Get off him!" Hamuko slammed the hilt of the evoker against the face of the shadow threatening to devour his head and set off another burst of darkness with a stomp, blowing the shadows upwards and eradicating the magician's arms within an instant. She looked up and panted slightly, horrified at the sight before her but she bit back on the sobs got her hands on the mummy suspended above her-

Hamuko ripped off the appendages with her bare hands, hurling another gust of wind at the building shadows to reduce each pest to bits of ichor. She clawed open the binds around the boy and dug Minato out as the last hold around him was severed and the blunet plummeted from above, barely alive and drenched in his own blood and the filth of the shadows-

She caught him and her knee crumbled, body reacting harshly to the weight collapsing on top of her but Hamuko held onto him, hearing him breathing very faintly as he was pressed up against her, ice-cold and listless, barely even in his senses as the knives had punctured more than a few organs and tendons-

The act of freeing Minato who was an instant away from slipping to the domain of Death drew the ire of the appraiser and the celestial entity gazing down upon the world, sending another shockwave as testament of her anger. Her other knee buckled under the tremor but Hamuko refused to release the hold around the unconscious blunet as the shadows were raging and hungry for his heart, shrieking in her direction for coming in-between divine punishment that the boy deserved-

Ryoji exploded out of his prior size, gaining severe more feet in height as he began to reach into the skies yet again, determined to finish it all during the next few moments. The extensions protruding out of his hollow body doubled in number and he cloaked each extra limb in the same reddish hue, corrupting the shadowy limbs with the essence of death as he hurled them in the direction of the two persona users, his defiant scream drowning out the sea of humanity yelling for the nightmare to end-

Hamuko looked away from impending death and clutched the evoker tightly, still holding up her battered leader with one arm wrapped around his broken back. Even in the face of impending doom, she was selfish for just second and hugged him tightly while he was still alive, kissing the side of his bloodied head softly and reveling in the iota of his warmth before she slowly raised the evoker to his temple, waking him up when she pressed the cold metal against his bare skin-

"H-Hamuko?" Minato uttered weakly, breaking her heart as he sounded so week and exhausted, silently pleading her for a rest as he was dragged down to his limit.

"Sorry, Minato," Hamuko choked out but refused to bawl in her last moments. She moved her broken finger over to the trigger, not sparing a glance at the hell burning through the ground to get to the two of them, shadows and limbs cloaked in evil essence and ready to rip the souls out of their mangled bodies-

"I leave this to you…" she whispered into his ear, the cloak around her body flaring for the last few moments as she prepared to sacrifice it all for his sake-

"My Messiah..."

Hamuko pulled the trigger for the last time, expelling the last remaining strength within her soul in a ruinous explosion of darkness as the bang rattled her nervous system, several times stronger than before and the glass shards exploded out of the other side of his temple, followed by a blinding flash of holy light flickering across the entirety of the sky-

"GAAH!"

Hamuko screamed out blood and her body finally crumbled, with the last bit of force holding her broken bones together dispersing as the last iota of power was plucked out the last drop of her blood, shattering her skeleton across her system and she fell backwards in a heap, limp, the roars of her enemies resounding over and over again as she collapsed towards her death, her single eye devoid of sight and her body a mass of shattered bones-

"…"

The pain was worse than she had expected, with her broken bones cutting out of her skin-

"S-Shit…"

After holding in her tears for the entire duration of the battle, Hamuko dropped her façade as the world spiraled out of focus, filling her single eye with tears as she prepared to let it all out in the last few-

All that she had suffered-

All the pain-

All that she had seen-

All the heartache-

All the hopelessness-

ALL THE DEATH-

"Huh…"

"M-Minato…"

A bloodied arm wrapped her waist at the last second, saving her from collapsing to her demise and Hamuko breathed out a sigh of relief at long last, at utter peace as warmth began to spread throughout her cold and abused body. She gazed up at her savior as he rose up to his feet the moment she fell, as she knew he would-

"Y-You're back…"

Minato breathed out life as he stood onto his feet, rising up for the last time after being brought back from the brink of death, his body rejuvenated from the clash of light and shadow and the fusion continued behind him, black and white once again coming together in perfect harmony and casting a grayish hue over the dull green-

"I got you, Hamuko," Minato said, oblivious to the roars of the shadows as he focused his eyes on the female in his grip. The very same female who had dragged him out of hell with her bare hands and entrusted everything that she had left to him. He eyed her softly, deaf to everything around him for a moment as he focused solely on her, intending on holding her close until the very end. "Thank you…"

"G-Go get them…" Hamuko breathed out, finally closing her eye in peace as she knew that their fate was sealed-

"I will…"

Minato stared ahead, and the mass of gray energy behind him collapsed over, occasioning a terrible quake that nearly crippled the structure from the very top and eradicated every last obstacle coming for him, blowing each shadow over to nothingness within a moment. The sound of the impact and the dying howls of the shadows drew a gasp from the appraiser hidden behind the wall of darkness and another pit formed in his stomach as the one rumble had burned off every single one of his extensions-

"This is…" Minato said, his eye wide and his hand trembling, shaking as he felt godly power running through his fist-

For the second time, Minato glanced back at the mass of light and shadow, catching a glimpse of the fusion from the corner of his eye, layers of black and white mixing continuously, adding to the mass of gray stretched across the remainder of the floor as their ultimate personas, Messiah and Nyx, fused upon command, corruption and purification continuing on in a never-ending cycle as the glint of gray blinded all but him as he kept staring, with the female still pressed up against him as he had refused to let her go. He caught a peek of the supreme entity starting to materialize amongst the harmonious fusion of life and death and he tightened his grip around the female when he realized the truth.

Messiah and Nyx-

"…"

"Is this…. Our bond?" Minato breathed out, at a loss for words when he felt the true apex of their power, a limitless and bottomless strength that was on another realm of existence to what he had experienced before. The mere presence of their ultimate persona was overwhelming enough to burn off the shadows of Ryoji and the appraiser himself was shaking behind his shield, refusing to come out as he too saw the entity emerging forth from the nucleus of gray and it was unlike anything he had ever seen before-

Hamuko moved her head just enough and held onto his shoulder as she rose to his level, teeth gritted due to the pain but his warmth had healed her to the point that she was able to move. She looked right at him, locking her single eye with his and then glanced back, making out the appearance of-

"That's our bond…" Hamuko muttered under her breath, at a loss for words herself but deep down in her heart, she somehow knew that their souls would come together when all hope was lost and pull off one last miracle to save the world and themselves.

Minato jolted on his feet when the fusion was completed, a fact that he knew deep down in his soul, and he immediately called upon the newly fused God-

"Come forth, Fallen Messiah!"

The supreme deity was awakened from within the chaotic mixture and let out a piercing cry towards the heavens, much like a horrible distortion of a beautiful melody of the heavens. The same sound reverberated through the dead night, even silencing some of the humans rioting below, blackening out their senses as the noise was unlike anything heard before in the world-

The gray mass scattered across the skies upon the shrill sound of the heavens trembling in hatred, the mask of energy melting away to reveal the form of the ultimate persona, born from the absolute darkness of Nyx and the burning light of Messiah-

Minato glanced back yet again, his eye tracing the height of the creature as it was truly monstrous in size, even quite a bit larger than the maximum height of Ryoji and it towered over the entire battlefield. The darkness of Nyx had corrupted his design and he was no longer a shinning mass of light, too blinding to comprehend, or too obscured in the shadows. The fused entity had a definite design, somewhat resembling his old persona at the same time; the entity was vastly different, clothed in a mixture of red and black, with the color of the coffins a blood-red and white. The golden hair had decayed to gray and the red eyes were now shinning an eerie blue and lastly, the holy cross was now a golden circle, strapped onto the back of the fused God-

Minato gently rested Hamuko on the ground, squeezing her shoulder as a reassurance to let her know that he would take care of everything moving forward. He rose up from the position and faced the appraiser hidden behind the wall of darkness, as if he was ashamed to show his face, and slightly fearful as to what the two would do to him-

"This is over," Minato declared and the God behind him released another piercing, maddening cry, cracking the ground below his feet as the vibrations crashed into the surroundings, blowing over the wall of darkness and bringing Ryoji into the open-

The darkness around him dissipated and Ryoji hissed in the direction of his sworn nemesis, panting and struggling to breath and every exhale was chockfull of curses for the blue haired teenager who stood a few yards ahead of him, deformed and beaten from pillar to post and yet he was standing, despite coming so very close to death a number of times. He located the redheaded bitch next to him, barely in her senses but secure enough that she was leaning back, content on leaving the rest up to Minato and finally, behind him-

The new persona was several meters taller than his maximum height, reaching into skies and just a head short of entering paradise. The power emitting from within it was monstrous, eclipsing the prerequisites several over. Ryoji glanced at the face, which was a mirror image of Minato reversed and distorted and yet looked so much more holy-

"It's over, Ryoji," Minato broke him out of his trance and the appraiser refused to back off, despite knowing that something was wrong with him. He had managed to heal himself whilst directing his shadows but even then, he was struggling to regain his breath and composure and he had no idea what had gotten him so rattled.

Despite being outmatched in size and mentally shook from whatever the hell had happened to him, Ryoji refused to let it go and back down, even in the face of the new persona. He gave another hateful glare to the blunet and his companion, the cracked mask twisted horribly as the scowl was excessively loathsome-

Minato watched on as the appraiser refused to yield and quickly conjured up another immense sphere of his own essence, quickly building the orb in his hands and swallowing the remaining oxygen left in the air but to his dismay, Minato was simply staring at him passively and not quaking in his boots as he usually did whenever he called upon his most deadly attack. He was confident in his new persona and raised his hand at the last moment, signaling to Ryoji that he was ready-

Ryoji hurled the immense sphere of death with another hateful shout, burning the ground due to the colossal impact but Minato remained standing with his single hand raised. He shrugged off the shockwave from the skies and flicked away a minuscule orb of gray towards the incoming sphere, awakening his persona once more as the eyes of the massive entity behind him shone a light blue-

The gray chunk of matter expanded in size several times over in a matter of seconds, exploding forward as a stream of a dull grey and shattering through the sphere of death like glass, scattering the deathly essence across the top and leaving Ryoji bewildered as the attack dissipated, leaving behind mist and nothing else.

"You're getting weaker," Minato noted, holding up the single finger he had used to counter his most destructive spell. He wagged the same finger, gesturing the appraiser to back off as he was not in the right frame of mind. "I wonder…. Are you scared…?"

Ryoji scowled at him upon his implication, clenching his fist as the expression on the cracked mask twisted again-

"Or is someone else there with you now?" Minato finished, widening his eye at the thought. "Someone you took away from me."

The harbinger stopped to think but the dying voice of Nyx commanded him to go forward and crush the insolent mortal for his blasphemy. Ryoji struggled, nearly clawing his own face as his consciousness started dangling but as the celestial body trembled up in the skies and the people of the world began to cry out for an end to the nightmare, the vessel of Nyx rose up once again, carrying the psyche of the entity capable of ending humanity with a mere thought-

Minato hardened his eyes when the appraiser gave in to the goddess of the night sky and with perhaps the last screech, he lunged forward, sword in his hand and on route towards the two persona users, intending to bring their heads as sacrifices for the goddess that would soon descend to wipe out humankind-

Another loud cry of the corrupted Messiah echoed in the night as Minato raised his single arm upwards, commanding his ultimate persona when the appraiser came rushing at him, blade again cloaked in red and black, empowered by the wishes of the people calling for death and the presence of Nyx that demanded so. He did not spare a glance at the persona as his attention was entirely on Minato, the only person standing between the world and its ruin-

The massive, golden circle strapped onto the back of the darkened Messiah levitated upwards, setting the target upon the incoming God of Death who did not stop for a moment, even when the golden ring began to move clockwise, reversing midway through as gray matter began to bubble between the cavity, ying and yang coming together for the ultimate attack-

Minato took his stance as his foe drew closer, blade raised for his head despite the fact that his massive body was shaking, confused as the two separate identifies fought for control. Each shiver made Minato widen his eye, adding to the strength of the mass of grey in the ring above as he exerted more and more of his spiritual essence, determined to take out the entity in one blow-

Death flashed on the weapon of the Avatar and Minato launched the spell as soon as he saw the cyclone of death beginning to burst, calling forth the attack with a wave of his hand in the direction of the Avatar-

"Chaos Degradation!"

Time frozen for an instant as the beam of gray erupted out of the circle of the corrupted Messiah, enormously wide and potent with the primal forces of the cosmos and the same forces zoned in on the harbinger as he swung his blade, blinding him with light and shadow as the attack collided with a massive crash, enveloping his entire body, overtaking the green of the surroundings with a dull gray and distorting the very fabric of time and space-

Ryoji's screech of untold pain died under the vortex of gray as his throat was crushed and then burned outright, setting off a chain reaction as his entire body was pulverized and then incinerated within an instant, spitting out small chunks of flesh and ash across the entire floor and drowning out his attempts as the attack descended upon him at the very moment he tried to step out, coming down like a hammer as the weight crushed his head and nailed him down, exploding his bloody remains throughout the floor-

CRACK-

The final flash of gray shone in the dark night was reflected off the mask collapsing to the ground and Minato took a step forward, eyes filtering out the black and white and locating half of the mask lying on the ground and what remained of Ryoji, with his torso crushed to bits and his lower body coated with his own blood-

Hamuko got up to her behind him, clutching her arm as she rose to her feet, eye narrowed as she blinded but able to make out what had happened and what remained of the appraiser. She staggered her way towards her leader, casting a quick glance around the world from the top as people were still alive, somewhat distracted as the last attack was ungodly but the longer they were alive, the more risk of them falling prey to the shadows-

She thought it was over but another nauseating uproar of humankind from below stirred up the celestial body, evoking another wave of decay from the corpse of the appraiser, blinding the two personas users until Minato brushed it away, stepping ahead to see what was going on-

"Someone save us!"

"Put an end to this!"

"I want to die!"

"All hail Nyx!"

Upon the demands of mankind, the corpse of the appraiser crumbled and Ryoji stepped out of the hollow body one more time, limping forward in human size as each shout made him take a step forward, so that he could fulfill the prophecy of the fall. His armor crumbled during the next step and he kept his head low, trying to hide the mark of shame until he stopped a few yards away and finally lifted his head-

Hamuko gasped and Minato inhaled sharply when they finally saw what the previous attack had done. Half of the mask had crumbled, revealing a familiar face that was frozen into a horrified scream, dry tracks running down pale skin and Minato blinked, taking a step back as he gazed into the blue eye that was widened and bleeding, giving him a whiplash of cruel memories as he could see so much agony and misery in his single eye, with the sight burned into his psyche and remaining in his vision even when he closed his eye-

"D-Dammit" the mighty persona flickered and Minato backtracked again, the voices of humanity finally getting him rattled as staring at the same, horrified face was nauseating and painful, reminding him of what he had gone through in the past. Another step back led to Ryoji standing upright, somewhat refueled by the sight of Minato almost cowering in fear. The evil side of his face twisted, harboring the same hatred that Minato had seen before while the other side remained frozen, the eyelid barely twitching-

"T-That face…" Minato breathed out through clenched teeth, unable to take his sights off the mirror as aside from the color of the hair and eye, he was staring at himself, frozen in horror and torment and staring ahead like a lost kid who had done something terribly wrong. "P-Pharos..."

Someone grabbed onto his shoulder and Minato steadied himself, wincing slightly as the pitch and volume of the noises of people began to pick up yet again, with shadows starting to devour the sea of humanity running for life in the futility of the Fall-

"You need to end this," Hamuko whispered, trying to squeeze his shoulder with her broken fingers as she pressed up against him, lips next to his ear as he shivered under her grip, letting out deep breaths as Ryoji advanced forward, broken in the same places as him, his left burned to a crisp and his body sporting the same wounds as Minato by cruel fate-

"T-That face," Minato breathed out and his persona flickered again, barely remaining in the outside world as his concentration was wavering at the sight. "That's… me…"

"Look on the other side," Hamuko said, raising her finger to point at the other side of the face, the fractured mask that remained on the opposite end, with the same twisted expression of the goddess responsible. "She did this to me too, remember?"

Upon that, Minato stopped shivering and his persona stabilizing, howling out to heavens as a symbol of his anger but the harbinger of the Fall still advanced, taking slow steps and making sure that his face was visible to the blunet. "I do…"

"You freed me, didn't you?" Hamuko continued, reminding him of the battle in the cemetery.

"I did…"

"Free him too," Hamuko released the grip around his arm and the massive persona exploded, showering the two persona users with bits of gray that rained down upon the two, gathering around the blunet who looked back at her weary face and watched her bloody lips move with a plea. "Please, Minato. End this…"

"I'm going to," Minato swore, holding out his right hand and collecting the residual power of his massive persona, forming a dense sphere of gray in between his palm and triggering another dull flash. He clenched the same hand and let out a deep breath at the influx of the godly might; almost making him topple over as the difference was immense, making him feel as if he could punch a hole through space and time as every bit of the power was concentrated around his right fist, igniting a gray flame around his hand-

Ryoji dropped his blade upon the sight and did the same, moving every bit of his essence towards his right fist, enveloping the entirety of his hand in a dense Night Queen, fueled by the wishes of humanity to see the end. He stared the two down and his face finally twitched, letting out a stray tear as the blue eye blinked once, deepening the abyss of horror harbored by single eye-

Minato looked around the sea of humanity running across the streets as he started moving forward, the flame around his right developing with every passing moment as the messianic soul within him desired an end to the chaos but at the same time-

Minato looked straight ahead and Ryoji held his gaze, hissing slightly as he was battered and on the last legs of consciousness as well-

He wanted to save the hunter of life as well-

Just for a second-

Thou art I... And I am thou...

This brings thee closer to the end...

Judgement Aracna, Rank 8.

"SAVE US!"

The shout of despairing humankind made Ryoji let out the last piercing cry and he took off, holding up his fist as he bolted towards his foe and Minato gave one glance over his shoulder before he started running as well, locking his sights on the appraiser as the two quickly closed the distance under the gaze of the celestial body and the fall of humanity, gray and red surging around their hands-

"Get ready to embrace oblivion!"

"GIVE HIM BACK!"

Ryoji lunged as soon as he saw Minato closing in on him and he lashed out, shutting his eye as he swung for the face, empowering the spell with all that he had left while Minato locked on his target, retaining his nerves as he closed the distance with footwork and kept his head off the center, catching the flash of red as soon as the appraiser moved his shoulder to throw-

"Gack!" Ryoji opened his eye when his punch missed by an inch, going over the shoulder of the blunet as he ducked at the last second while Ryoji remained exposed, his guard down, with the fist of his nemesis right across his face-

The human face on the appraiser moved ever so slightly as the pressure and heat radiating from the fist shifted the features and Minato ducked his head down and torqued his weight behind the final blow, throwing from the hip as he unbolted his last punch with pinpoint accuracy, landing the last haymaker to right side of the face-

CRACK-

The spirals of red and gray withered away as the strike made contact, unleashing a massive storm of black upwards as the reminder of the mask finally came off the face, clattering to the floor and crumbling to dust, followed by a thud of a body hitting the floor-

Hamuko was thrown off her feet as the structure rumbled again, in unmitigated fury and the moon above the tower trembled in rage, flashing a blood-red and concerning the female that the celestial body was going to plunge towards earth in order to wipe out the planet but after a shriek heard across the skyline, the glowing red-eye in the center of the moon disappeared, vanishing back into the shadows-

The constant shouting and screaming of humanity came to an end at the same moment, as the people transmogrified back into coffins, silencing the horrendous state of affairs in the streets of Iwatodai and Hamuko breathed out softly as her nerves calmed down after the most painful minutes of her life-

"He did it…" Hamuko whispered, glancing at the idle moon up in the skies, no longer shaking and ruining the world with quakes of world-ending potential. "He stopped the Fall..."

The storm of black dissipated, unleashing gales of darkness but Hamuko walked through, trying to focus her single eye as the cyclone boiled over, and she finally caught a glimpse of what had happened-

Minato was standing upright, looming over his fallen nemesis who had his face hidden, trying to cover up with his single hand and trembling as he laid across the ground, strands of black hair scattered across the floor as if he had ripped them out in sheer madness-

"That face…" Hamuko was not prepared to see what Ryoji was trying to desperately to hide but as she drew closer, she started hearing sobs and wails and she likened the sounds to what she heard from Minato when he stepped out of Tartarus a second too late-

Minato was at a loss for words as he stared down at the entity that had tried to kill and his friends so many times, had given him so much abuse and pain and was the only responsible for not only killing his parents, but the parents of Hamuko as well. There was something inside him that edged him to raise his boot and crush the head of the bastard against the ground that soaked in human blood and yet-

Those cries-

Those sobs that were felt down to his soul, reminding him of his own cries as Makoto tortured him by his will-

Minato lowered his head and turned towards Hamuko, looking at her for directions as Ryoji had brought her massive amounts of pain as well. He had singled her out as the cause of his problem and then mauled her relentlessly.

She had as much of a right as he did-

And he was going to follow her command-

"No…" Hamuko shook her head, trying to close the distance by dragging her broken feet along the ground where she had lost an obscene amount of her own blood, spilled by the appraiser who was now crying, defenseless and open to a vicious beating for what he had had done but. "Don't…"

"…"

Hamuko saw the look in his eye and searched her heart one more time before repeating her order.

"Don't hurt him anymore, Minato…"

Her order for forgiveness reached the fallen appraiser and something snapped, with a gong going inside his head and he shot up straight, leveling his face with the blunet and Minato widened his eye, glancing at himself with tears streaming down and his face mauled and mutilated by his own hands-

As he had done after waking up from his nightmare-

This was so painfully nostalgic-

And any intention of punishing him for all that he had done to him dissipated-

"Pharos…"

Ryoji opened his mouth and was ready to scream out his rotten soul in forgiveness until Minato would beat him to the ground brutally, punishing him for all that he had done to him and the people he loved. The voice of had Nyx was long gone and his voice was stuck somewhere in the horror that had risen up to his throat, dissolving away the will to speak as he was left with nothing but memories-

Memories of his sins-

He saw the beaten and burned face of his brother and clawed at his own throat, opening up a gash in self-mutilation as he remembered beating the same face black and blue, mercilessly, as he had systemically crippled and tortured Minato throughout his long nightmare-

Every punch that he recalled made him reach in deeper into his own throat, drenching his shoulders with the disgusting liquid that ran in his veins and he intended to spill every last drop in atonement and he wished, wished with all his heart that Minato would raise his fist and started beating him to the ground and-

His sight fell upon Hamuko and he blackened out once more, another torrent of horrid memories torturing him, reminding him of all that he had done to the girl. The same girl who had stuck beside Minato and had dragged him out of his venom and yet, she stood there, barely resembling the girl that her brother had fallen in love with-

ALL BECAUSE OF HIM-

His wail finally emerged from with burning throat and Ryoji shut his eyes, screaming out what was left in his head-

"JUST KILL ME ALREADY!"

Ryoji felt a hand on his shoulders and braced himself, ready to atone in blood for his sins. A softer hand cupped his opposite shoulder and he breathed out, bracing himself from the retribution from Hamuko as she deserved to beat the wasted life out of him as much as his brother did-

"It's okay…"

Ryoji opened his eyes when he felt the warmth, a feeling so much different than the cold shadow of Nyx constantly hovering about him. The hands on his shoulder went around his back and the appraiser found himself in the embrace of his former victims-

The black haired boy fell limp and was only supported by the two holding onto him, hands stroking the top of his head and ruffling his hair as a means to calm him down, as they used to do when he was a boy-

Ryoji was frozen, his eyes wide open and still leaking out tears, arms hanging at the side when he realized that the two persona users were hugging him tightly, having not thrown a single punch as he had wished. All he could hear were the soothing whispers, soft and full of forgiviness-

"It's okay…"

The next time he heard that, his base crumbled and Ryoji collapsed onto the puddle of blood. The splatter almost made him empty his stomach but his victims had refused to let go and followed him to the ground, not letting go of him just yet-

"You woke up, Pharos," Hamuko whispered, stirring something within him-

The voice of his old self-

Urging him-

"Welcome home, little brother," Minato continued, in the same tone of his voice in order to calm him down. He had gone through the exact tragedy and did not intend to see his sibling crumble as he did before. "You can breathe easy now…"

"The nightmare is over…"

Ryoji finally blinked, releasing the stinging tear in the corner of his eye and he raised his shaking arms slowly, wincing when a voice told him that he deserved nothing but suffering but he followed the whispers instead and hung his head low, bowing down in forgiveness as he reached out and finally returned the gesture by wrapping his arms around the only family that he had-

The family that had forgiven him-

Minato breathed out softly when he felt the arm coil around his shoulder and leaked out a few tears himself, despite promising not to waste them on Ryoji ever again. He had gone through hell, back and forth, from the start to the finish and yet-

Thou art I... And I am thou...

This brings thee closer to thy Death...

Judgement Aracna, Rank 9.

He had declared war on Ryoji and Nyx on New Years' Even and he had waged the same war without mercy, not looking back once but now as the voice in his head faded away, his heart calmed down in his chest, beating normally like it did before-

This started from the moment he lost the last piece of Death-

He suffered through the months but he got to see it through the end-

More importantly-

He saved the people he set out to.

Hamuko felt the arm of the blunet wrapping around her two and she glanced at his bloody face, noticing the track of tears as he shed a few drops, those that he had held in for so long-

The three huddled together, refusing to part and putting their heads together, finally at peace-

The nightmare was over-

They had won.

---

Phew. I made it.