-P3 Eternal Punishment-

-Determination and Drive-

For a few moments, Minato stood face-to-face with the now heavily armed Metis, Shinji, Souji, and Kurosawa stood in awe at the mere presence of the two combatants.

"This guy had power like this the whole time?" Shinji said in disbelief.

"It's...It's incredible," the policeman stated, taking a step back, lest the boy's aura damage his mind.

"Its presence alone..." the silverette gripped his sword tightly, "is greater than any Persona or Shadow that I've ever seen before."

"Measuring enemy power levels," the brunette spoke quietly, "scan has returned no results, beginning attack."

The mechanical maiden lifted her arms and began firing heavy munitions at Minato. The bluenette effortlessly dodged most strikes and cut down the shells that came too close to dodge.

"Is that all you've got?" the SEES field leader taunted the girl, "I can do this all night long."

"Permission granted for high speed combat," Metis shifted her stance, the mobile weapons platform attached to her back reconfigured to reveal three small propellant tanks and two thrusters by the shoulders.

In the blink of an eye, the brunette boosted herself to be a hair's breadth away from the bluenette's face.

"Senpai, watch out!" Souji yelled out, calling Izanagi to summon lightning which the mechanical maiden dodged at the last moment.

"Multiple targets selected," a visor dropped on the girl's face, a HUD activating and focusing on the other members of the team, "firing hellfire missiles."

"Hey, your fight's with me!" an irate Minato yelled with fury as Skeith swiped at the mechanical maiden with its scythe.

Metis failed to dodge in time, the missiles having left their pods, met with the razor edge of the scythe, detonating on contact, and by extension, damaginf the girl.

"Overall combat ability reduced to eighty percent," the brunette winced, "enemy threat level raised, activating rail cannon."

"Rail cannon?" Shinji wondered, "Huh, I can take that."

With his impact hammer in hand, Shinji willed the modified Evoker system to life, summoning Castor and striking at the girl. However, the rail cannon was charging since the rough battle with Minato, the beam nearly obliterating Castor.

"Damn, bitch didn't even need to charge up," the boy clutched his beanie with one hand.

"Shinjiro-san!" the silverette called out, summoning a healing Persona to mitigate the damage the other man received.

Metis paid no heed to the others, Kurosawa was busy taking down the surrounding Shadows, Ken was already unconscious, Shinji being healed by the boy with glasses, which left the bluenette to face her alone.

"I might have been an ass to those guys at the dorm," the bluenette began speaking, his gaze cemented on the ground, "but in some weird way, I guess you could call them my friends."

"Resuming combat with primary target," Metis announced with vigor as she charged Minato once more.

"And I'm sure that you had a hand in killing them all," Minato clenched his fist tightly, fixing his gaze on the charging enemy, "let's do this, Skeith!"

Blow for blow, the two combatants were locked in a deadly duel, with each hit landed, the other exploited the openings generated. The battle continued on in such a manner that both Minato and Metis were covered in bruises.

"Didn't think a human could do that much damage to you?" the bluenette did not bother to suppress the sadistic grin forming in his face, the boy unaware that his hands were bleeding.

The mechanical maiden kept her silence, although the boy's words rang true, the brunette's armor was the only thing that kept her from keeling over on the floor.

"Tactical retreat order received," the Anti-Shadow weapon reported as she purged her armor, the smoke produced covered her escape.

Minato's new Persona, Skeith, stood over the boy, its presence sending Shadows into a panic. The others in the group breathed sighs of relief

"That's right, you better walk away," the normally quiet boy fumed at his enemies, his bloodlust remained unsatisfied.

The boy realized how grave his wounds were at that moment, taking a moment to see all the punishment he received at the brunette, at Metis' hands. The Terror of Death lowered its head, gazing at his summoner until the boy gave it his attention. After a few moments that seemed like an eternity, Skeith threw its scythe and let loose mighty rays of destruction that forced all the Shadows into a single corner.

"Drain," Minato ordered absentmindedly.

And the epitaph obeyed its master, turning its forearm into some manner of cannon and firing it at the Shadow collective and obliterating them completely. The normal dispersion of Shadows was foregone in this instance as the mass of darkness split apart and began converging at the boy's location.

"I see," the bluenette grinned, somewhat in defeat, "this is what has to be done."

The mass of darkness then violently crashed against Minato, the team members looked on in horror, Ken awakening only to view a nightmare. With each blast of darkness shooting thru him, the bluenette's wounds were closed with no signs of scarring, his face wincing at times when the forces were too strong.

"What's happening?" Ken asked aloud as he stared at that which he could not begin to understand.

"He's eating them," Souji answered as he righted his glasses, "he's draining their power and taking it as his own."

"Keep an eye on him," Kurosawa said suspiciously, "he might grow into a greater threat than what we set out to end."

"With power like that," Shinji growled at the wounds that covered his body, "he can finish this fight on his own."

By the time that the darkness had been fully taken in by the boy, the remaining humans realized that he was no longer the same person that they came into the Tower with. The boy's hair was now a chalk white, his irises a blood red and his skin had become noticeably pale. One could easily mistake him for the specter that resided in his consciousness.

"What are you staring at, are we heading up or not?" the former bluenette asked his comrades.

In dead silence, the rest of the group followed their field leader.

-Elsewhere-

Something else was happening at the higher floors of the tower, a distraught Ikutsuki was yelling at a group of youngsters.

"This is impossible!" the betrayer fumed, "there's no way that they could defeat Metis that easily, not after all the enhancements I had made."

"It looks like these promising individuals have surpassed your expectations," a shirtless man grinned.

"Medea says they're moving fast," a redheaded goth girl yawned without a care, "they will be hear in two hours."

"That's over two hundred floors! Takaya, we didn't sign up for this" a youth in a green jacket yelled in disbelief, "You better have a plan for this Ikutsuki."

"Don't be so rash Jin, I'm sure that Ikutsuki-san has a plan," Takaya grinned at the adult, a grin that the three teens would not tolerate another failure, "remember what you had us claim at Inaba Ikutsuki-san?"

The bespectacled man erupted in mad laughter at the reminder.

"Yes, yes," the man could not suppress his twisted joy, "I suppose there's no other time to use it and it should teach those misguided fools the meaning of despair."

"Wait," Jin opened his silver briefcase and drew out an inch thick mass of paperwork which he proceeded to read thoroughly, "isn't this incredibly dangerous?"

"But of course Jin," Ikutsuki answered, "our little friends are becoming quite a handful, there isn't a better opportunity to use this, you of Strega should understand this simple truth."

The three members of Strega and the mad scientist stared malevolently at the two Anti-Shadow Weapons they had guarding the room.

-Tartarus 17th Floor-

The Extinction Team was able to breathe a collective sigh of relief since the appearance of Minato's new Persona. Skeith's ability to absorb the Shadows' energy was not limited to his summoner alone, by allowing the remnants of power to simply flow around, anyone could absorb the power as long as they neared the particles.

"I find this all too unreal," Ken said to the others, "we're scaling an infinitely large tower, with magical powers and to top it all off, we're not even tired."

"You want me to stop draining them?" Minato asked coldly, "Skeith isn't even anywhere near exhausted, neither should you."

"Senpai, I think the anger is getting to your head," Souji blocked his pale upperclassman's path, "switch out with another Persona for a bit."

"You don't understand at all," the now silverette informed his unofficial second-in-command, "what happened wasn't like a switch that could be turned on or off."

"The hell're you saying!?" Shinjiro bashed the former bluenette's face with his mace, as the senior SEES member suspected, the damage just healed, "You aren't human anymore? Prissy shit like that is worthless, ain't no one that can decide whether or not you're human, not God, not the Devil, and not even you!"

"Shinjiro-senpai..." the leader stared emptily at his hand, "this, what the hell!?"

-Minato's mind-

"Aw, you're having an existential breakdown?" Gig spoke to the boy, "Look on the bright side, you're a splitting image of me."

"What is up with that anyway?" the boy asked, still a bluenette in his own mind.

"You're starting to accept my power, that fragment of Death that got split off when I fought Shadow Dragon monster ten years back," the psychopomp grinned, "takes your body's place as a sacrifice."

"Why?" the boy doubted, "Why turn me into some kind of god!?"

"Because I like you too much kid, you enjoy the same brand of chaos that I do," the Master of Death, "this fight, kid, this fight has no victory unless you give up your life to take Nyx's place."

"Take its place?" Minato asked once more, his mortal mind incapable of taking in too much in too short a time.

"Nyx is a force of nature, a necessity, taking her out of the picture needs a big sacrifice," the psychopomp's usually unhinged demeanor was completely absent at this point.

"..." the boy nodded before returning to reality.

-Reality-

"You okay son?" Officer Kurosawa stared at the youth, a pile of fallen Shadows behind him, Minato unaware that he had suddenly gone silent.

"Just had a talk," the now silverette eased his companions' worries,.

"What did the other guy say?" the little boy asked, his spear gutting another Shadow.

"..." Minato searched for a good excuse to avoid worrying the group, "He said...That this ends tonight."

-End-