.

.

.

"But I have dreamed a dreary dream.

Beyond the Isle of Skye,

I saw a dead man win a fight,

And I think that man was I."

- Excerpt from The Battle of Otterburn, unknown

Dumbstruck the Magician stands, in an almost human gesture; it dares not tread forward, for it gazes upon a creature far greater than it ever could even hope to be.

A storm burns through my veins, my bones, my muscles and arteries-it blasts outward from the spine to everywhere else like a pulse of agony. The pain is now more than it has ever been before but it's never felt so good, so right, so goddamned sweet.

I let out a smile and a laugh as blood pours out my eyes and my tongue and my ears and the higher my voice rises the higher the Pale Rider raises his scythe. Through an eyeless skull the Rider glares down the multi-armed beast like a lion to a lamb, and the scythe comes down in a motion so quick not even I could see.

The monster was not in range of the blade. Not even a shallow cut lay upon its mottled frame.

And it inches forward because it knows, it knows it knows it knows that it has to get to me-

A spark bursts from one of its arms and then another and another, like fireworks popping and crackling until within mere seconds the whole beast is aflame.

An all-consuming, all-destroying holy fire, ordained by whatever entity had given the Pale Rider his authority. The creature burns and flounders and writhes and screams, it bellows such horrified cries and yes. Oh yes they sound terrible, they sound so vulgar, so inhuman and so enraged; again like a whale, a dying wretched whale suffocating from plastic in its throat and guts-

But as the roars grow ever louder, as the bellows and the screams ring in my ears, I begin hearing other things in the creature's cries; for an instant, a brief instant, I hear the bawl of an infant, hollering for its mother.

Through the flames its eyeless mask remains locked on me. Though its body is burning and falling to pieces it faces me; not the Rider, not Mitsuru, not even Runako - me. The child's cries soon give way to an unyielding screech, like steel scraping against steel, and it charges on while it burns and as it burns the Rider raises its scythe again and as it burns it screams it looks me in the eyes and calls to me my name-

The creature - the multi-armed thing that a voice in my head keeps telling me is a Magician - even though it's literally burning alive, burning to pieces it comes at me and doesn't let anything stand in its way. The Pale Rider raises his blade again but in seconds the burning mass of arms wraps themselves around him and the horse-

I feel like a spear's run through my brain and that my body's collapsing in on itself. My organs are being crushed and my bones splintered but nothing's actually happening to me-the Pale Rider's being crushed and mangled and I'm feeling all of it, feeling all of it everywhere on me. I'm screaming and crying and I'm thrashing about in pain, I'm keeled over and shredded up and I can't do a single goddamned thing about it because I can't do a single goddamned thing about anything in my life-

And I realize too late that I've let go of Runako.

There is a crunching noise. You'd only be able to hear it from up close.

- 2000, Part II -

I Saw a Dead Man Win a Fight

An aria. An ascending elevator. A golden clock hanging overhead.

I have been here before.

"It's so nice to see you again."

I recall all of this; this hunchbacked creature standing before me, the little golden-eyed girl at his side.

"You became unconscious after awakening to your power. And my...what a tremendous power it is. I see that it was the Pale Rider that heeded your calling. I suppose it is fitting; you bear authority over life and death itself. However limited that authority might be..."

Whatever do you mean by that?

"So you recall nothing from the battle?"

The battle is but a hazy dream now; not even an image of it, faint nor clear, crosses my mind.

"Your memories are adrift...indeed, your victory came at a truly unique cost. But no matter. You defeated the creature, defended those around you, and returned to the land of the living. All shall be made clear soon enough."

The girl, Elizabeth, speaks up, "Pale Rider is a Persona. A manifestation of your psyche. A being, borne of humanity's inner consciousness - given life by your call."

Words I can half-understand; there is so much meaning here I fail to grasp, but I think I understand the barest essentials.

Igor continues where she left off, "Think of it as a mask that protects you as you brave many hardships. An aspect of your being which manifests into this world upon your command. The Pale Rider is an unconscionably powerful being; your summoning of him speaks wonders of your mental fortitude. It must have seen great potential in you, hence why it answered your call. Yet for all the benefits you have gained from your abilities, there are surely drawbacks to be had..."

Drawbacks? Such as?

Elizabeth replies, "You bear a hole in your very self that has the potential to swallow entire worlds, if left untempered. Grasp it, use it to the best of your ability. But never indulge yourself in its power. If you take up arms against the cruel hand dealt upon you, know that you shall not face your future alone. Remember that."

And she walks up to me again, imparting a small, sweet smile as she grasps my hands. "Time marches on in your world. The next time we meet, you will come here of your own accord. By then you'll have remembered everything. But until then... farewell."

I feel my heart first and foremost.

It does not pound or hammer away against my chest. It is not throbbing or thrashing violently. It is slow and steady, almost rhythmic to my breaths.

It's then that I awaken facing a pale ceiling, in a soft bed with cool sheets.

Wooden floorboards; shining, varnished. Curtains with floral patterns. Double casement windows, unlike the sliding windows of the hospital. Beige wallpaper. A small couch against the wall opposite the bed. No clinical smell, little to no airconditioning. There's a heart monitor, an IV in my left arm, and a bucket of water at the foot of the bed, but otherwise there's little to nothing that even resembles a hospital in this place.

I try sitting up but a wrenching feeling in my stomach keeps me lying down. Whatever fresh new wounds I've gained hardly register. The pain, imparted unto me by my parents, is still there, but it's duller now; almost not worth mentioning. But my head and neck burn feverishly, and my stomach growls and I hope for something that isn't goddamned hospital food.

I cough and the strain causes my chest to nearly crumple as I lean my head into sweaty pillows. My right hand trembles and my legs are numb below the knee. Though I can see my left hand, I can't feel it. Not numb; almost as though it's unattached. Like it isn't there at all, even if I can see plain as day that it is.

I feel my brain shudder as I recall what happened what had felt like just last night.

Raging, endless flame. The cries of an indescribable beast. Unending madnesses. Holding Runako in my arms.

I breathe deeply and raise my right hand to my face. I close my eyes and hope and pray and scream inside of myself. Arrayed on all sides are creatures with a million eyes, each peering from the darkness. Though it is day and I know it is day because the sun is shining through the windows to my left, I still see myself trapped in a world without light, gazed upon by a singing, undulating, dark god.

The wooden door opens, and I whirl around to see —

A redheaded girl my age, accompanied by a nurse carrying a tray of food. The girl has her left leg in a cast and she's using crutches. Our eyes meet and she stops dead in her tracks.

The nurse places the tray on the couch and rushes to me, patting at my shoulders and asking me questions I answer half-heartedly. Within seconds she's tapping at her cellphone and says something about calling a Mr. Kirijo, because he'd want to hear about this.

All the while the redheaded girl approaches me. Slowly, steadily. She's helped by her nurse because she's clearly not used to crutches.

The nurse pulls up a stool for her and the girl doesn't take it. She just keeps her eyes on me. Though she tries carrying herself still and stoic, like an adult, she's unable to quell the warmth in her eyes nor the shakiness of her breath.

I think of a great many things I could say at this moment. But beyond all else I recall us on that roof, that burning and horrifying carcass, and how at the end of all things we'd survived. So I leave behind thoughts of Runako, the monsters, my parents. I let a small smile emerge and I just tell her, "I'm so glad you're okay," in a voice that can rise no higher than a husky whisper.

Tears stream down her eyes as she throws the crutches down and embraces me on the bed. We both cry our eyes out, acting our age for the first time in what feels like years.

The doctors take their tests and their examinations. Checking my fever and my temperature and whatever scars I bear under the bandages. Little to no new ones; just a large gash on my stomach that I don't quite recall being there before the fight.

Once they're done Mitsuru talks to me. Tells me I've been asleep for four whole days.

After the incident at the hospital, Mitsuru arranged for myself and Runako to stay in guest rooms at her mansion.

Those creatures, which she called Shadows, would attack anyone within the 25th hour, the Dark Hour, who wasn't in a coffin.

We were lucky that apparently no one from Tatsumi Memorial perished, despite all the destruction I'm certain had taken place. But we couldn't risk another attack. Mitsuru had decided that, until I and Runako would awaken, we'd stay with her. Her, and others like her.

Others who can summon "Personas...?"

"That's what you and I possess," she said. "It's what we summoned four nights ago, to destroy that Shadow. We're fortunate no others have come for us since then..."

"What happened to your leg...?"

"After you killed the Shadow, parts of its body split and very nearly killed you. Plus, there was still a significant number of them still roaming the hospital. This broken leg," she gestures, "is the result of me putting them down."

I breathe. "I'm glad you're okay. Although, you know, I...don't actually remember much from that fight."

"What do you remember?"

It takes a moment for me to answer.

"A creature with many arms. A blue mask. Runako, sound asleep. A skeleton wielding a scythe, riding upon a horse."

"You remember enough, then," she smiles. "Your Persona...is remarkably powerful. It killed that Shadow within minutes. If I were fighting it by myself, it likely would've taken the whole Dark Hour."

"Hey, your Persona wasn't useless. She held it off for us, while we got to Runako. And it saved us on the staircase, from all those...creepy baby things..."

"What?" her voice rises.

I shrug. "I remember that much, at least...do you not?"

"I don't think that happened."

What? "No, I- your Persona, it was a blue knight-woman with an armored helmet and a small crown on her head. She swung two blades around and fought like she was dancing."

She just blinks at me. "How do you know what my Persona looks like?"

"Because I saw it! You summoned it to protect me! To protect all of us!"

"By the time I summoned her, you'd fallen unconscious," is all she says, frowning now.

I don't know how to answer that. "I'm sure at least that happened. I-I only forgot the last bit of the fight..."

"What else do you remember?"

"We were on the roof. Runako was in my arms. My eyes were bleeding. The Shadow was burning alive, it charged at me and then...a crunching noise. After that, nothing." She looks completely lost. "You don't remember any of that?"

"The instant the Shadow's hand broke through the window of the room we were in, you summoned your Persona." What? "Your Persona galloped through the wall and sent the Shadow tumbling to the streets." What? "They both landed on a car, which exploded-" What!? "-and from there you killed it-"

"That didn't happen," I tell her. "None of that happened."

She scoffs, folding her arms. "I'm certain that's what happened. Amada-san will back me up."

"Who?"

"Amada-san. The woman who contacted us through mental transmission."

"The lady who spoke in our heads?"

"Yes, exactly."

"She must have seen... One of us is misremembering things here."

"What else do you remember?"

I wrack my brain for an answer to try and convince her. But I realize there's only one that really sticks in my head.

"I was in too much pain. We were running through the halls...I was coughing up blood. Everything on me hurt. I begged you to leave me, take Runako and get away as fast as you could. You wouldn't... and you said you were experimented on too."

Her eyes widen and she's unable to find a single word to say.

"Do you remember that...?"

"Who...who told you that...?" she cupped her mouth as her eyes began to water.

"H-hey, wait-"

"I...I don't even...," she takes a deep breath, before straightening her back and making her gaze fierce. "I don't...remember telling you that."

Minutes ago she was confident and poised and happy to see me alive. Now she looks like she doesn't even wanna be alive.

"You...went through what Runako and I went through...?" is all I can really mutter.

Her lip quivers for a moment before she exhales, looking away from me and folding her arms again. "My father was on a business trip for the all of last July. Halfway through the month...my grandfather arranged for me to undergo an 'operation.' "My father returned two weeks later...and so did I."

"Why?" I growl. "Your father didn't even know...?"

Her voice shakes as she hunches over.

"...no. I..."

And in her I see myself, huddled up in a cold cell, waiting for everything to end. I see Runako on the table next to me, being torn apart and put back together. I see doctors and surgeons and medical practitioners stitching us up and doing terrible things to our insides.

The anger allows me to say something foolish, something I start out with a scoff, "He couldn't even tell his own daughter was-?"

Something she quickly rebuts with a slap.

My cheek turns sore as I see her eyes freeze into a cold hard glare. "Take that back!" And as the rage in her eyes simmers the room goes colder, so much colder it's like I'm stuck in a meat locker, I wrap my arms around myself and she leans closer and closer- "My father didn't know a thing. He couldn't. I chose not to tell him, to protect him! Don't you dare blame him for any of this!"

And I freeze, for the room has grown so bitingly cold I can feel my lips chap and my spine lock up and my fingers stuck in place-

"My grandfather...threatened me," she seethes. "If I told my father in any way, he would've done...so much worse to him."

And I can't bear to face her.

"Does he know now?"

"Once he procured files on you, he found some about me. And it's all just...," she puts a hand over her eyes. "It's just one more thing he blames himself for."

She doesn't sob. She doesn't breathe heavily or let any of the anger show. She just lets herself stay, stewing in this sadness. Unwilling to even look me in the eyes.

I say all I can say. "I'm sorry."

"No," she sighs. "I'm sorry. You and Shiomi...have both been through so much worse than I."

"Let's not compare, I mean...," I shake my head. "I'm sorry. I just...keep thinking back to my parents. Runako's parents. But your dad, he..."

"He isn't like them. Not even a little."

I nod. "I believe you."

And she turns to me. Though her lips are pursed and her eyes are watery, she nods back in understanding. Within moments the room no longer feels like the ninth circle of Hell.

"How did you even know...? Did I really tell you?"

"Yes. You did. You were...crying, then."

At that, we both feel there's nothing more to add upon the subject.

I ask her one last thing. "Can you take me to see Runako?"

She raises an eyebrow, "Can you walk?"

I swing my legs off the bed and stand up, perfectly fine.

I'm face-first into the ground seconds after I take my first step.

Mitsuru grabs her crutches, "I'll have them send up a wheelchair."

Runako is awake.

Still hooked up to a heart monitor. Quiet. But alive. She's wrapped in less bandages now than before, and from the hints of skin I can see on her, I see healed but gnarled scars; none are disfiguring in any way, but one would still be able to see them. Each tells a story on its own; though God help anyone unfortunate enough to listen to them.

This was when my parents decided to see how much blood they could siphon without killing me. Or, this was when the scientists vivisected me to get a good look at my intestines. Or, This was when they thought electroshock therapy would cause me sufficient levels of stress to-

to

to

to.

Her eyes are wide open. Staring at the ceiling. I've called her name multiple times. Not even a blink. She doesn't even turn to face me. She's just stuck still. Eyes blank and open, like she's already dead.

"I see something in my dreams," I tell Mitsuru. "Whenever I sleep, even if only for a second. It's something that...sings and screams, and has a million eyes. It never tells me anything. I just see it. I don't try to think about it during the day because when I do, my brain feels like it's collapsing in on itself."

"Even now?"

"Yeah," I grunt at her. "Have you...ever had these kinds of dreams...?"

"I don't dream," she says sternly. "At least not that much anymore. I'll make sure to inform my father what you've seen. If nothing else we might be able to understand more of the effects of my grandfather's tests..."

"Thank you," I tell her, turning to Runako. "Would she be seeing the same things I do...?"

"Apparently, she does exhibit rapid eye movement during evenings. A sign of...intense dreaming."

"Every night?"

"Most nights. Some nights, she's...peaceful. Inasmuch as she can be."

Immediately something cold burns in the center of my chest, and I begin imagining all the terrible things I'd do to her parents if ever I could get my hands on them.

"Will she remember anything...?"

"Probably not," says Mitsuru.

"Why?"

"We found her with...," she shudders, "shrapnel. Lodged in her brain. She's likely suffering from brain damage."

I don't say anything. Not for a long time.

"She and I played together. Her parents...they were so nice to me. They were all so...happy. I always enjoyed going to her house, eating the food her parents'd cook us. But after all that, almost every night, I'd hear her father's voice on the intercom, giving the surgeons a step-by-step briefing on the proper way to vivisect us. Every other night, I'd see her mother wiping down the blood off the steel tables with multiple small towels."

Her face softens.

"Her father was a schoolteacher." I clutch Runako's hand tighter. "There's so much I don't remember from before the experiments...but I remember that much. How could your grandfather do that to us?"

Mitsuru doesn't answer the question. She does, however, put a hand over my shoulder.

We go to our respective rooms and sleep early that night.

The pain in my raptured body remains dull.

The following night, just as I'm about to sleep, someone enters my room.

I see a tall man in a dark suit. He bears a hard-edged face and carries himself like a man deprived of everything that had once made him eager to live. One of his eyes is covered by an eyepatch. Slowly he approaches the bed, and the terror I feel gives way; for the closer he comes, the more something in me sees a wailing agony behind his remaining eye.

Following behind him is a man with long flowing brown hair, tied up in a ponytail. A plastic face and a half-insincere smile; he wears glasses and the way he looks at me is like how one would upon a slab of meat.

The eyepatched man speaks. "You are Sakuya Mochizuki, correct?"

At that moment, I know exactly who he is. "You're Mitsuru's father."

He just nods. "She's spoken of me?"

"Yes...," is all I can come up with in the face of him.

"What else has she told you?"

I take a deep breath, "There's a twenty-fifth hour in the day where people turn into coffins and everything turns green and bloody. We were attacked by a thing called a Shadow. I used something called a Persona to kill it."

Things stay silent for a few more seconds.

"Then you know enough," he sighs.

"Where is she...?"

"I told her that I wanted to meet with you personally, privately," he says. "But if you'd you like her to be here, I'll have her come immediately."

Something in me that hates all the delays that've come my way so far makes me say, "No."

"Very well," he clears his throat before gesturing to the man in the glasses, "This is Shuji Ikutsuki; one of my top advisors. He bears extensive knowledge on the Shadows and the Dark Hour. If you have any questions, you may ask him."

"Pleasure to meet you," he smiles, giving his hand out.

Hesitantly I shake it, and even then it's not so much a shake as it is a brisk meeting of my palm with his.

"You were awfully brave to put up a fight against that Shadow," He runs his hand through my hair, messing it about, and in seconds I feel like I've been touched by a slime monster - so I wriggle and recoil until he pulls back.

"Ikutsuki," the father pulls him back, "he's been through a lot. Don't push him."

"My apologies," he laughs, "I was a little caught up in the moment. Forgive me."

"I'm...alright," I tell them both. "But I have so many more questions."

"Do you think you're ready to hear the answers to them?"

I don't respond. For a time. For a long time.

I just keep my head down.

Because my heart's threatening to jump out my chest.

Because I remember so many things; all the gore all the sweat all the tears, the horrors they'd put us through for what seemed like no reason whatsoever. Runako on the bloody table. Runako stuck in her bed, catatonic and shell-shocked. The giant multi-armed beast that would've ripped us apart had it gotten to us. Mitsuru's eyes, full of tears, as she desperately tries to get me and Runako to the roof. My parents looking down on me and saying they love me while they make me feel pain I wouldn't wish on even them.

Ikutsuki tells me, "You can be scared. If this is all so much to take in, we'll always be one call away. Feel free to ask us whenever you're ready-"

"I'm ready."

He's surprised and says nothing more; Kirijo lets nothing show.

"I want to know," I tell them.

Kirijo moves forward, kneeling down such that our eyes are level. "Are you sure?"

I don't let anything show, either. "Yes."

The ensuing setup takes fifteen minutes or so. Ikutsuki's laptop wouldn't read the projector for a while, despite the cords connecting perfectly. All the while Takeharu Kirijo looks like he didn't want to be where he was, didn't want to even see me in any conceivable fashion. But they kept at it and once he had gotten the projector to shine directly on the white wall across from me, he opens a folder that's labelled OP.

Takeharu Kirijo begins, "You will know the truth, before anything else. It was called Operation: Paradox. The plan, at first, was to use it to help mankind…through the creation of a time manipulation device.

"Imagine if you could control the flow of time... eliminate unwanted events before they occur. With such a device, you could shape the future to your liking. Go back in time, cure any unwanted ills. Of course, it was dangerous. But the possibilities were endless. Potentially beneficial. There was so much that my father believed could have been done. We adults are to blame. If I could've atoned for it with my life, I would have done so."

It takes him time to respond. A long time. "Under my father's direction, the research began to stray from its original goal. In his later years, my father seemed to have only nihilism in his heart. Now that I think about it, his madness may have resulted from his struggle to break free from that. It's only natural that you want to know the truth...and it's my duty to tell you.

"Luckily, I was able to recover footage of the incident that led us to find you," Ikutsuki says, "It was recorded by a scientist who was at the scene. From here, we will discuss everything we know to you. Would you like to see?"

It takes me a moment. Only a moment. "Show me."

Ikutsuki opens a video from the folder titled a2034, and it plays from the projector to the wall.

"I pray that this recording reaches safe hands..."

There is a crack on the screen, as though something had broken the camera prior to recording. We hear screams and there are dark lashes of matter flying all over the place. Causing gashes in the steel. Steel panels fly by as more people scream, dark shades that resemble bodies flying in the air and crashing into the walls. There is a shape visible on-screen. Dark and glitchy, but a shape nonetheless.

"My employer has become obsessed with a loathsome idea. This experiment should have never even been conceived..."

He's coughing, hacking up pixellated shades of red.

"I'm afraid what I've done will result in an unprecedented disaster. But if I hadn't, the entire world may have paid the price. Please, listen carefully..."

He's gripping the screen now and he's struggling to breathe, struggling to make out words-

"...the Shadows that were amassed here have been dispersed as a result of the explosion. To end this nightmare, you must eliminate all of them! I am to blame for this. I knew the risks, but I was blinded by the promise of success. And so, I didn't raise any objections...it is all my fault..."

The last few seconds are the only moments I see his face clearly; almond eyes, stubble along his chin. He looks like he wants to die. And judging by how the film cuts out after a roaring noise, we can assume he does.

"His name was Eiichiro Takeba. He was the head researcher at the time, and a very talented man. But, we pushed him. Far beyond the point where we ever should have. The Kirijo Group is to blame for his death."

"The time-manipulation device would have been accessed through the use of creatures from another world," says Ikutsuki.

Immediately the thought registers to me: this should sound ridiculous.

But it doesn't.

I enter another world every midnight. And a creature from another world attacked me two nights ago.

"We call them...Shadows," Ikutsuki says. "We believed that use creatures such as this would have greatly benefitted us in future generations...but not even I knew the depths of madness Koetsu had been willing to stoop to. Right under my nose, he'd been kidnapping children in the hopes of breaching our realm and theirs."

"Why would experimenting on us help them in any way?"

"The realm from which they come...is not a physical one. It's something you access, largely through the human mind, the human consciousness," says Takeharu Kirijo. "Children were what my father determined were perfect test subjects in their attempts to access that realm; specifically children on the streets, and children the scientists were willing to...give up, for the sake of further research. Everything they had done to you, was done in an attempt to-"

"That doesn't answer anything. How would torturing us help them access this place?"

Takeharu clears his throat. "We can only hypothesize at this point. I don't know what my father had been planning or thinking, in his madness...but whatever purpose my father had for his experiments on all of you, it culminated in the creation of what we call the Dark Hour."

I look down upon my hands. Disgusted.

Takeharu Kirijo cuts in, "But his plans were halted by Eiichiro Takeba's intervention, culminating in the destruction of the facility...leading to us finding you and Runako Shiomi alone in the rubble, and a new twenty-fifth Hour wherein the skies turn green."

Thinking about it now causes bile and acids to rise up in my throat, and I manage to stop my hands from shaking when I growl, "How could experimenting on us lead to all of this?"

"You are kept alive through inhuman means," Kirijo continues, his voice wavering as though he's trying to stifle his emotion.

Ikutsuki cuts in, "The experiments conducted upon you and Runako Shiomi should have left you both dead within days. Yet here you are. Alive, though experiencing chronic pains in every part of your bodies. Koetsu Kirijo tried to create a time-manipulation device through research on Shadows; they are living paradoxes that transcend our meager understanding of reality. To sustain your viability as a test subject, they must have used their knowledge of Shadows to keep you from dying."

He says all that like he's reading off a grocery list, and all at once I decide I really don't like this person and hope I never get to interact with him for prolonged periods of time.

I grit my teeth then, some nagging feeling at the back of my head telling me things that were being unspoken. "What do you want with me and Runako?"

Kirijo's stare is firm, but there's something in his eyes he's trying quite hard to keep together.

"We no longer have time. Something went wrong, Sakuya Mochizuki. The Shadows are invading our world through the hidden Hour you see every night at midnight...and they're stronger than my father could have ever predicted."

I scoff at him, "So you want me to fix your father's mess...?"

"I want you to fight and help us protect this world. But it is still your choice. I cannot force you to fight for us, especially not after everything that's happened to you. But we are running out of options."

His eyes are so...desperate. "You want me to protect your daughter."

Takeharu closes his eyes.

"My daughter has dedicated herself to the task of ridding the world of the Dark Hour. She wants to redeem our family for the sins of my father. She is fully determined to see this path to the bitter end, even at the cost of her own life. I cannot let her go down this path alone. Not with everything I've seen, everything at risk."

"You people just want to use me again," I grit my teeth and tears begin streaming down my eyes, "Use me and use Runako and have us all choke and die for your sakes again-"

"It's your choice."

I pause then. My breaths are heavy, eyes red; Kirijo lets me calm down before speaking further.

"If you choose not to ally yourself with the Kirijo Group, you'll be sent off to a good family. I'll even erase your identity and give you a new one, if you'd like. You'll be recompensed immensely for everything you've suffered under my father's abuses of power, from now until the day you die. But if you choose to help us...you'll be able to stop the madness he left behind. Or at the very least stem the tide."

Of course the first thought that comes to my head is No. But the second is of Runako's little hand in mine, as she lays motionless in her hospital bed. The third, is of my parents watching coldly as scientists dissect my spine and drain out my guts. The fourth is of a million-eyed monstrosity whose whole body is the universe itself.

The fifth is Mitsuru, split in half, her guts exposed and purpling in the air, blood pooling under her, her eyes wide and watery and staring at a dark sky.

And I realize.

I realize why Mitsuru's memory of the fight was so different from mine.

"M-Mochizuki...?"

I keel over, cupping my hand over my face; something in me wants to scream. It wants to vomit and hurl and tear this cage I call a body apart. Kirijo grabs me by my shoulders and cries, "Mochizuki-!"

"If I join you," I seethe, just barely keeping it together, "and Runako comes to her senses, she stays out of this."

His eyes take a moment to harden. He keeps his eyes on me, firm and steady and stoic. Doesn't dare turn away.

"Very well."

"You send her to another family. One that'll take care of her. Have them adopt her. Raise her as far away from here as possible."

"All that can be arranged."

"You'll never ever have her come back here, not even if I or your daughter die in this fight. Can you do that?"

"Absolutely."

I glare at him.

I take many deep breaths.

I tell him, "We have a deal."

I don't tell him that I saw his daughter die, all those nights ago.

Nor do I tell him how I brought her back to life.

It takes me hours to go to sleep.

But it happens. When it does, everything that had happened all those nights ago, it all crashes into me at once.

First I hear the crunching noise again.

When the blood pours down it doesn't do so smoothly; it's viscous and thick, because along with it comes bits of flesh and bone. It pours and keeps pouring like a waterfall of red, pooling at the roof and sinking into the crevaces. I find the courage to tear my head upward but I find that Runako's body is folded in such a way a human body ought not to be. Her eyes are vacant and staring at me as the hands mold her like a potter to clay - pressing against her more and more and more, and as they keep crushing her the blood keeps pouring.

The Magician is coated in smoke and smells of burnt meat. Pieces of it have fallen away or been rendered into cinders; the fires were put out when the Pale Rider had been put down. As such Runako doesn't burn when she's being mangled to death, violated indescribably before my eyes. I am paralyzed - not because of the pain storming its way through my veins, not because of the terror of my imminent death, but because the one person I said I would never leave again is dead and crushed and made into a mess of blood and body parts that cannot even be recognized as a person.

I hear Mitsuru scream and I see a knightess barrel into the Magician, stabbing into it over and over and over again but it is not long before she too is consumed, before the arms pull her in an embrace and twist and turn and shatter her into blue shards that dissipate entirely. I hear Mitsuru crumple and see her keel over in her agony as the Shadow charges at her, too-

One arm grabs her by her long red locks and another, by her left leg.

Her death is nowhere near as theatrical or prolonged as Runako's. It is quick but bloody all the same. Mitsuru screams for a moment, only a moment, when a third arm shoves a blade through her spine and out her stomach, and the act of pulling her in two becomes all the easier.

It just drops her halves when it's done.

Her guts are exposed and purpling in the air. There is blood pooling under her, her eyes wide and watery and staring at a dark sky.

By the time it turns to me its other arms drop what it has made Runako's corpse into. And as it approaches me its arms grow back; four more for each one burnt up or stabbed into, procuring blades seemingly from out of nowhere. It no longer shambles or writhes in agony but it walks slowly, carefully, as though straining with every step.

Its arms grow so numerous they seem to encompass the sky itself, and I do nothing nor say nothing nor feel anything before a black hand reaches out and wraps its fingers around my small head-

death is not a hunter unbeknownst to its prey.
one is always aware that it lies in wait.

though life is merely a journey to the grave,
it must not be undertaken without hope.

only then will a traveler's story live on,
cherished by those who bid him farewell.

but your journey shall not end here.

Mo Chi Zu Ki

I hear again and again.

Mo Chi Zu Ki

The voice is feminine and I recognize it from another place, another time.

I see a teary-eyed girl with red hair.

"Mochizuki," she breathes, "We have to get you out of here."

"Mitsuru...!" I cry out, tears welling up in my own eyes, "Y-you're alive!"

"Are you alright!?" she exclaims, "Has anything tried to-!?"

A voice rings in my head; feminine and terrified and urgent, ~ Mitsuru! Mochizuki! Can you both hear me!? ~

"I-I hear you!" she cries out. "What's happening!?"

"Are there any up on the roof!?"

~ No! It - it might just be our only option...! ~

"Damn it," Mitsuru grunts. "We'll have to get up on the roof. Take the fight to them up there."

"No," I tell her. "We fight it here."

I scramble out of bed, my feet landing heel-first into the cold hard hospital floor - and then my knees, then my face.

"S-Sakuya...!"

Agony screeches across my frame, bolts of lighting blaring through every nerve and artery and neuron as I suppress what would otherwise be a scream so loud you'd hear it from the other side of the city.

Mitsuru hoists my arm up over her shoulders as I cough up blood and sweat floods down my back, "A-are you...!?" I say something she and I can't even hear, my voice murmuring when it should be screaming and she cries, "Wh-what!?"

"We have to fight it now...!"

The building shakes once more, and more things get shattered and more stones crumble and a thrashing sound occurs just outside of my room.

Then we hear the bellow of a beast. Screaming at decibels impossible for men to achieve.

I look right out the window because I've been here before. I've done all of this already. The sky is a deep, emerald green; red streaks of rain pour down upon the world; the endless music I've already seen this. I have been here before. I have returned.

And I very nearly freeze in terror because I don't know what this is or what's just happened but I am here and I am alive and so's Mitsuru, and likely so is Runako. We're all alive and not dead and whatever had happened up on that roof didn't happen at all or doesn't have to happen and I can make it so it never happens again.

do you dare wipe away the horizon?

do you dare drink up the sea?

A giant black hand places itself upon the glass of my window.

then judge, and be judged.

"PALE RIDER!"

A pale horse emerges from my skull. His name that sits upon him is Death, and Hell follows him. I grab his black cowl and follow him through, as he arcs his scythe in the air but once - instantly the wall is blasted away. Before long, the scythe hooks its blade into one of the Magician's many arms and the Rider pulls it away from the side of the hospital, the blade curves it downward and in moments it's under the hooves of the Pale Horse.

We are falling down down down to the bottom of the world and it's at this point I notice a car's down below.

So I jump away twenty seconds before landing-

BOOM

-by the time I return to my senses I see a smoldering, burning wreck of a car. In the flames I see a skeleton, cloaked in dark; he and his pale blue eyed horse stand over an unmoving mess of arms all mangled into each other and burning burning again, hopefully they burn forever and ever and ever, the arms still wriggle and scream and bellow with life and hatred and everything that should not exist.

"Stomp," is all I say.

The horse pounds its mighty hooves into the beast like a winepress to grapes. Black blood everywhere, scattering blindly; it stomps and keeps on stomping and I never tell it to stop and I keep seeing Runako's crumpled body and Mitsuru's corpse torn in half, I see my parents putting me under a knife and telling me they love me, I see a million eyes gazing upon me from all across the universe and

I

Hope

They're

All

Watching-

KRACK

I clutch my head and cry out in horror as the Pale Rider and his steed rear themselves up-though my brain's splitting apart I keep my eyes open and I see, I see I see I see the Pale Rider's robes consumed in dark fire, the Pale Rider lets out a scream with a voice that sounds like my own but it stops and goes deeper, stronger, viler and more violent-

Thou art I.

I am Thou.

To my eyes his white arms span the sky itself. Eight coffins hang over his back like wings, strung together by chains. His body is adorned in leather robes decorated with silver buttons, and he bears a helm like a dragon's skull - he throws his left arm back and brandishes a blade that could carve off the electrons from an atom. It cuts up the arms with no precision or grace, just mindless reckless violence and it screams, its screams could produce nightmares all on their own-

And I watch it as it tears apart the arms beneath it. I watch it use its mighty hands to rip and tear it until it is bits and pieces of sludge. I watch the arms splutter about and hear the Magician scream, scream so loudly and so wonderfully I could make the whole world my own. I watch all of this happen and as I do, the giant beast hunches over and breathes in much the same way I do; labored, carried by an ecstatic rage no one else can take away from me.

From the Sea of thy Soul, I cometh.

I am Thanatos,

Death Incarnate.

When I collapse to my knees in the dream, I awaken in the real world.

It is morning.

For what feels like hours I just lie there in bed and stare at the ceiling.

I do not know when or if I can tell Mitsuru or anyone else of what I'm capable of. It's impossible for me to tell her how she was ripped in half, or how Runako was crushed into her own body. Not without sounding like I've gone mad.

But perhaps I have gone mad. In some way that might be more comforting a thought.

Because for all my talk of how I wanted to protect Runako.

For all the hatred I felt towards the Magician for killing her and Mitsuru.

For all the horror my parents had put me through.

In the end there is really only one reason why I chose to accept Takeharu Kirijo's offer.

The Dark Hour must be put to an end.

And I am the only one who can die, as many times as necessary, in order to make that happen.

.

.

.

So basically, Sakuya can die and respawn.

And yes, I have heard of Re-Zero, but haven't gotten to watching it yet. This was more based on Dark Souls and Bloodborne than anything else, haha.

This was basically the major reason I wanted to do this fic; wanted to try out a P3 novelization where we see how an MC would react to being able to respawn upon death, and what actions he would take after the fact. How would this change or affect his personality? How would it affect his friends, and most importantly, how would it affect the Shadows?

The Bible stuff was added in because I just loooove me some Biblical symbolism. Plus it fits; Sakuya can resurrect himself, but it's hardly anything like Jesus' resurrection. It'll all be explained in later chapters.

Hope you liked this chapter, see you soon.