Persona: the Triple-A Chronicles
A suffocating darkness that no one saw...
A scaled arm hidden under the sea...
An armored justicar whose sword pierces evil...
This and many other things were the ones that marked my life in an outstanding way...
Someone once said "Time is given once, and never again." I realized sometime ago that he was wrong. In the night, time lies hidden… available only to those gifted to hunt, cursed to be hunted… This is the story of three persons, two chosen to have a dire fate, one made to have it…
Chapter X: Enraged
Beliefs change so quickly...
Capital Federal
Buenos Aires, Argentina
June 5th, Dark Hour
- Sorry for taking this long, guys. We found a couple of shadows along the way. But Takaya took care of them.
- Hey, no harm done. - Said i, while i dropped my burning shield to the ground. The entire front of it had been completely charred, and the green dragon had turned into a bubbling spot. For just a moment, Takaya's face was bested by my own angry face.
Nanashi gripped his sword with both hands.
- Well, well, another false Persona, of innocence. How cute. And a true one, of endurance... I'll try not to hurt you badly.
Takaya wasn't paying attention to him. He looked behind, to the rest of us.
- Dodge him and stall him for a second. When i tell you, get out of the way... I'll attack him.
All three of us responded with a firm "Roger!". We were quite good at attacking from several angles. Not even a week ago, he had defeated a shadow that looked like a big wall with a three-sided attack. I briefly looked at Amy and Ashley, and their nods indicated me that we all agreed to use it again.
Nanashi didn't listen to us, or maybe he just didn't care.
- Maragi!
Belmoth's eyes shined again, but Amy was already prepared for the attack.
- Agilao!
Placed herself at the left of Belmoth, and her eyes shined as well. The rain of fire bursted from Belmoth's mouth, but from the hands of Nienna came a bright, clear line of flames, which parried Belmoth's flames away from the group. Now while his Persona was busy making the attack, came my part...
- Zionga!
Eargirith's eyes shined, and from his hands came his best arc of lightning that went directly to Nanashi's face. He let out a mild scream and covered his eyes, briefly paralyzed. We had our opening. And Ashley was very good as using openings to her advantage... as she was already running towards Nanashi with her blade.
He lunged towards and made an horizontal cut, but Nanashi pushed himself with the last bit of will in his body, pressing with his toes back and falling to the ground, but managing to dodge the attack just barely. A red line now divided Nanashi's clothes in the front side of his chest.
- Now! get out of there!
The three of us lunged away and got behind Takaya.
- Bufudyne!
Hypnos's eyes shined, and he flapped its wings violently. From the wings, a great blizzard fell directly upon Nanashi and Belmoth. The latter one once again placed his hand between the damage and Nanashi, but this time Belmoth let out a roar of pain. When the attack finished, Belmoth's hand was frozen solid.
Takaya's face was divided into a perfectly balance of joy and anger.
- I saw the security tapes of that day over and over again... studied your every move, in order to discover which was your weakness... then it took me even more time to force Hypnos to learn an attack of that kind... With your Persona in that frozen state, you don't stand a chance against us. I'm already holding myself from turning you into an ice statue, so i'm going to say this just once: Start Talking!
Nanashi didn't even flinch. His angry face had dissappeared, being replaced with his scary, smiling face.
- So you came all the way from Tokyo to avenge those people i killed... You honor me.
- "Those people" were my friends, you heartless bastard... and you killed them for no reason!
- It was them who got in my way! They stepped forward to defend those heretics!
- Bufudyne!
Hypnos flapped once again, and Belmoth placed his left hand to protect Nanashi. Now Belmoth had both of his hands frozen. Nanashi didn't seem to even bother. A small pool of blood was starting to form around him, from the wounds that Takaya and Ashley had inflicted in him. The blood merged slowly in the pools that were already on the floor.
- And "Those Heretics" are the people that is trying to fix this whole thing...
- Diarahan!
Belmoth smashed his hands against the floor, and shattered the ice covering them. Then his eyes glowed wih red light, and Nanashi's wounds closed instantly.
This took us by surprise, and so we flinched for a second. Takaya and Amy shot Nanashi again, but Belmoth protected him once more, and the bulets bounced in the scaly arms. Nanashi didn't even give Ashley and me enough time to react.
- Magarudyne!
Belmoth's eyes shined again, and his wings flapped, even with a greater strength than Hypnos. An inmense gust of wind filled the street, lifting glasses, tiles and ourselves. Takaya was at first shielded by Hypnos' wings, and Ashley was kept in her place by Kiros's telekinesis, but ultimely they also lost balance and got lifted from the ground.
Even quicker than how it started, the red light dissappeared from Belmoth's eyes, and the winds stopped. Takaya, Amy, Ashley and me flew in different directions, and fell on the floor, or in the unfortunate case of Amy, slammed against a building column, then fell to the floor.
A pain stronger than anything i had ever felt rushed over my body. I had fallen with my back, and after a moment i believed it to be broken. The pain was quickly making me dizzy, but i managed to kept myself conscious. I didn't know the state of the others, but i surely knew that wasn't Nanashi's last attack. I was able to hear steps. They weren't closing in on me. He wasn't coming for me. He was going to attack someone else first. Then the steps stopped.
Using the last of energy that i had left, i turned around and looked at where the steps had stopped. Takaya was lying on the floor, with his head looking at the sky. Nanashi was standing next to him. But strangely, he was off guard.
Then, even more strangely, he knelt over Takaya, said something i couldn't hear, and dropped something tiny on him. I forced myself to look closely, and saw that he had dropped a usb device.
- You have all proven to be stronger than i had anticipated. Train! Become stronger! Embrace your Personas! Only then we will all be saved on the upcoming Blue Moon!
The last thing i heard before everything turned black was a voice. I couldn't identify if it was Takaya or Nanashi, but whoever he was, he said "Mediarahan".
I remember having a strange dream during that time i was unconscious. I was alone, standing in the roof of the company building. The moon was shining over me. Then the moon turned blue, and it started to rain, and a giant black tidal wave appeared. Eargirith tried to give me his hand to lift me, but his scales damaged my hand, and i fell over. Then the tidal wave covered me, and everything turned black...
- Now what do we do? what do you think he's going to do?
- I don't know, there must be a reason why he left like... Oh, he's waking up!
I opened my eyes. The moon was still green on the sky. Amy and Ashley sitting next to me, and they seemed worried. as soon as i sat on the floor, both of them hugged me.
- We thought the spell hadn't gotten to you. Thank god you're alright...
- W... which spell?
- That last one, it healed us all. We still don't believe it ourselves, but it was Nanashi who used it.
- Nanashi healed us? Why?
- Beats me...but it's not him we're worried about. It's Takaya.
- What about him?
- After that spell, he was the first one who got up. Ashley says he just grabbed that thing Nanashi gave to him, then he summonned Hypnos and flew away.
- That's not normal... he wouldn't leave us like that... would he?
- No... well, at least i don't think so. But remember, Takaya's mission was to track Nanashi down and get information from him. Maybe there is something of value in that usb?
- Well, whichever the case, we have to do something.
We stood up, and took our weapons from the floor. I looked at my watch: 47:22. There was still ten minutes of Dark Hour.
- Ashley, you stay here, and as soon as the Dark Hour stops, get to miss Larrondo and tell her everything. Amy, we're going back to our houses.
- There? shouldn't we look for Takaya?
- There is only one place where Takaya can go with a usb device. To his computer.
- And his computer is in that hotel in front of your house... But there is no transport, how are we...
- Ashley, tell the owners of those two bycicles that they'll get them back tomorrow.
I truly must admit, even with the anger of having being defeated, the concern of what would happen with Nanashi and the curiosity of what would Takaya find, that ten minutes bycicle trip was beautiful. The coffins and the pools of blood weren't enough to match the absolute silence, broken only by an occasional shadow lurking, and the green moonlight that bathed every building, street, vehicle, and (I didn't mention this out loud, of course) Amy's hair.
Neither of us talked during that part, maybe for watching the scenery, or for having to dodge the stopped cars and coffins along the way. I accidentally ran through a group of three weak shadows that were digging on a trash can, but apart of that the trip went quick without any encounters. It seemed that the concentration of shadows was only high near Capital Federal...
We were around half of the trip when th Dark Hour stopped. The second half took us much longer than the first since we had to adapt to the traffic, but in half an hour we were already nearing our neighborhood.
It was Amy who broke the silence.
- What do you think that is in that usb?
- Well, whatever it is, it must be important enough for Takaya to stop pursuing Nanashi...
- But, don't you think he maybe didn't chase him for safety reasons? I mean, only he was conscious, maybe he knew he wouldn't be a match for him alone...
- Amy, you really think that would stop him? did you see his eyes when he even thought about him? He hated him.
- Well, i suppose that it is a justified hate... I don't know what i would do if someone killed you...
I couldn't stop myself from smiling with that comment. It appeared that Amy realized what he said briefly after saying it, because she suddenly blushed.
- Ok, we're not far no...
We both suddenly stopped, and looked at the same place. That night was a warm, quiet night. There were one or two clouds in the sky, with were lighted by the moon in a dim white glow. But one of them was different. It was black, and much more dense than the others, and was slowly rising from a house. A house that was only three blocks away, and that was right in front of mine.
We rushed to the scene. There was already a police line and one or two officers, which indicated that whatever happened, it already had happened at least twenty minutes ago. (No kidding here, it really takes that long for the police to arrive.) And despite the time, there was already ten or fifteen people looking at the scene. We got to the officer that seemed to be less busy, and took a second to catch our breath. It said "" on his jacket.
- What... What happened here?
- Can't tell you, kids, it's a police business.
- We're neighbors, please...
- Even of you are, this is a crime scene. Get out of the way.
When i started to think how to get inside, Amy used her other kind of powers.
- Please, officer, we know you're very busy, but my parents are very scared at home. And one of the persons that were here is a close friend of us. We would greatly appreciate if you could tell us what's going on...
Officer Suarez lifted an eyebrow. Nothing or no one could resist to Amy's favor face.
- Well, i suppose there is no harm in telling you... The thing is, we don't know what really happened. From the way everything blew up, it looks like an explosion, but we checked the room from where it came from and there isn't any explosive residues... And the weirdest thing is that no one saw it. Every witness that we got says that in one moment the place was fine and on the next second, it was like this... No noise, no fire afterwards or anything...
- So he got here before it ended...
- What's that, kid?
- Oh! N-nothing... um, listen, you didn't happen to find a usb drive somewhere, did you?
- Actually, we did. It was buried in the rubble.
- Could we please have it? It's very important.
- Sorry, can't help you there. I have to give it to one of the investigators...
I was going to ask again, but Amy was already working on it.
- Please, officer, that usb has very important notes that we have to use for a college work tomorrow. Without it, our grades are ruined... We assure you, there isn't anything suspicious inside, can't you make an exception?
Officer Suarez lifted his other eyebrow. He opened a bag he had right next to him, and took a plastic envelope. We both saw gladly that the usb drive was inside.
- I'm probably going to beat myself later for doing this, or maybe one of my superiors will, but here you go. Just don't tell any reporters about this. Or better yet, don't tell anyone.
- Thank you, officer. We really appreciate it.
- Yeah, yeah, just go before i change my mind.
We both got away from the crowd that was starting to form around the incident. Amy briefly shivered.
- What's wrong?
- Nothing, it's... he just winked at me.
- Well, at least we got it. Let's get to my house, we'll check it there.
We got to the door only to find it open. I looked to the crowd again and saw my parents and brother looking to the remains of the building. Well, maybe it was better that way. I didn't want to imagine what would they say if i showed up at home with a girl...
We crossed the yard and went to the main hall. the computer was on, as usual. I plugged the usb drive.
The device had only one video file, named "Shadow work". I looked at Amy, and as she nodded, i opened it. It started to show what seemed to be a normal laboratory, except for one thing. In a crystal box, and surrounded with antennae-like objects, there was one of the weak-type shadows. Two people in scientist coats were taking notes, while a third one was looking at the camera. When he started to talk, i inmediately recognized his voice.
- This is professor Ken Uehara of the Kijiro Group, Special research division. Under the request of our superior, today, October the 28th of 2003 we are resuming experiments.
It is true the consequences of these experiments in the past, which include the incidental uprising of shadows four years ago, which costed the lives of many of our employees, including my older brother, Takeharu Uehara, and the creation of the time and space disruption, also known as the Dark Hour, would actually indicate that these experiments are hazardous and shouldn't be executed. However, after the success of the experiments on the subjects of our group of artificial Persona users, we are now able to increase our security measures dramatically, and therefore we can continue. Also, our ability to capture and fuse shadows has increased too, with which we can expect to be able to either locate the Harbinger, or produce a new one in the next decade. If everything goes well, the will of our former president will finally come to reality and the rebirth of the world, "The Fall", will finally happen...
After he finished talking, Uehara grabbed a syringe and headed towards the shadow. Then the video ended.
Amy and I were still looking at the computer. We both stood there for a long time, even after my family showed up and i just yelled at them to go to sleep we still haven't said a word about it. We now knew what had outraged Takaya even more than the death of his teammates. Not only it had been the Kijiro group who caused the Dark Hour, they weren't trying to revert it... They were using it for another experiment.
We both had hoped that whatever was on the usb drive would show some answers, but it had only filled us with more questions. What was "The rebirth of the world"? Who was the superior that was organizing it? and what was Takaya going to do now that he knew he didn't have a way to finish the Dark Hour, and was therefore destined to keep restraining his Persona until death?
- End of Chapter X -