Chapter 23: The Culprit
Time of Day: ?
Weather: Foggy
Place: The Velvet Room
Normally when I enter the Velvet Room, I'm greeted by Igor or Margaret. They've even left small notes for me every time they weren't in the room. But he was the last person… Er, duck, I'd imagine being in here.
"Donald, where the heck have you been all this time?" I ask. "You disappeared ever since the the night we confronted Eraqus."
Donald won't face me. "I've been thinking all this time about who I really am. I brought you guys into this mess… Suddenly before I knew it, I was just wandering around the fog. I don't know how or when I got here."
"Donald…" I want to comfort him, but… I'm really at a loss of words right now.
"I… I remembered what I was."
"Really? Isn't that great then?"
"No, it's not!" he yells. "I… I was just a Heartless in that world." Donald is… Was a Heartless? "One day, a Heartless living in that world awakened to human emotions. He made himself believe that he was a Heartless. He wanted to meet people, he wanted to talk with people… So that's how he came to look like this. But…"
"But what?" I ask.
"But Heartless aren't allowed to stay in the human world." Donald sniffs. "When you meet with everyone again, please apologize… Tell them I'm sorry for being a problem… And I'm sorry that Usagi had to die…"
"But Donald, here's the thing… Usagi came back to life!"
"What?" Donald turns around, wiping his teary eyes with his feathered hands. "That's wonderful!"
"Oh yes, it certainly is," a voice from behind Donald says. I look behind him, and Igor sits on his chair. "Now Sora, if you could excuse me, I would like to converse with our… Surprise guest for a moment. You do have somewhere important to be… Or should I say someone important to confront."
"Sora, who's the scary fellow with the nose?" Donald asks.
I chuckle a little. "That's Igor, the head honcho of the Velvet Room."
"Ahem, but I prefer the term proprietor," Igor corrects.
"Anyway, he can be trusted. Just try to meet up with me and everyone else ASAP, okay?"
As darkness shrouds my eyes, the Velvet Room fades into fog.
December 5, 2015
Time of Day: Afternoon
Weather: Foggy
Place: Dojima Residence
"He's the culprit?" Yuffie asks in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding, Sora."
"I'm not saying he is, I'm just saying all the evidence we have points to him," I explain.
"That's practically the same thing," Roxas deadpans.
"Regardless of how unlikely it is, something about him has been bothering me for a while now," Xion says.
"What would that be?" Kairi asks.
"We're not sure," I tell her. "But if the possibility isn't zero, then we can't rule him out."
"I get that but… C'mon! Him out of all people?" Riku asks.
"Well, he did say he came to escort Ms. Yamano when the press flooded her," Namine says.
"Is this true, Namine?" Xion asks.
"Who knows, it could mean that he interviewed Larxene since she found Yamano's body too," Roxas says. "It fits the criteria, but it feels too much like a coincidence."
"Listen guys, just hear me out on this." I stand up. "Starting with Namine, the people who went missing had been thrown into mirrors by Eraqus who was disguised as a mailman. But Pence was the only one who went missing and tried to give a testimony to the police. He turned himself in, and during questioning he blacked out."
"Woah, where'd you hear that?" Roxas asks. "They never talked about that in the news."
"That's because I asked Zack back at the hospital. Anyway, no one took Pence's story seriously. So that's when he was interrogated by…"
Time of Day: Afternoon
Weather: Foggy
Place: Destiny Islands Municipal Hospital
"Hey! What are you guys up to?" Terra asks. "And what's with the scary faces? Geez, it's like you're some angry mob, or whatever. Anyway, I thought Usagi's room was in a separate wing, not here."
Our one and only suspect, Terra Adachi.
"Hey, Terra I- Oh. What are you guys doing here?" Zack asks. He's sitting on a wheelchair, but his overall complexion seems more… alive compared to when Usagi dies.
"Zack, what you doing out of bed, again?" Terra asks. "I hope you realize that the nurse is the one who's nagging me for you escaping your room all the time."
"That's not important," Zack says. "Where's Eraqus?"
"Transportation picked him up a while ago. I was actually on my way right now to tell you that."
Zack grabs Terra by his tie and pulls him down. "And how the hell did you let that happen? Who authorized the move? I haven't even gotten that chance to question him yet!"
"L-Look, cut me some slack!" Terra stutters. "I didn't know, okay?"
"Something still doesn't sit right with those first two murders," Zack says. "Eraqus' alibi was rock solid, and he didn't have a decent enough motive."
"Zack, put away the magnifying glass for a second! You need to rest, the guys at the station will handle it." Terra turns to us. "Anyway, you guys should probably head off. At this point, you're interfering with police business."
"Why are you here anyway?" Zack asks. "And why does everyone look so… angry?"
"We wanted to speak with Terra," I tell him.
"What would you need to talk to him about?"
"We want Terra to give us a full account of what happened before Ms. Yamano vanished," Xion says.
"Huh? Well, okay." Terra shrugs. "She was being hounded by the paparazzi at the inn, so I went to serve as a bodyguard, but my memory of back then is kinda fuzzy."
"Did you ever speak with Larxene Konishi?" Roxas asks.
"Yeah, of course I talked to her, she was the one who found the body after all. We spoke probably… I dunno, once or twice."
"What'd the lab have to say about the threat letter I received?" I ask. C'mon, we just need to get him to slip up and say one thing that doesn't match up with everything we know. Or maybe mention certain things he shouldn't know about.
"The threat letter? Oh y-yeah… Crap, I think I forgot about that."
"You what?!" Zack asks. "I told you my-goddamn-self to make sure that letter got sent to the lab! How the hell couldn't you not do such a brainless job like that?!"
Terra nervously chuckles. "Well right after you gave it to me, things at the station went nuts, and then you got into your car accident. Anyway, sheesh! Why am I the one still being interrogated, I have a bunch of work to do!" Terra starts walking off. "I'm headed back to the offices and filling out my report.
"One last question, Mr. Adachi," Xion says. "I… We know for a fact that Eraqus did not kill the first two victims, but someone else. And the murderer is still out there… Terra, do you know where we could find him?"
"Huh? Okay, now you lost me. What are you talking about?"
"Isn't it obvious?" I close in on Terra. "We're saying that we think you did it!"
"What?! Don't be ridiculous!" Terra defends. "I didn't do it! Eraqus was the one who threw them in!"
I grin. "Excuse me, but exactly what did you just say?"
"What do you mean he threw them in?" Zack asks. "Do you know something about his motive that you haven't shared with me?"
"Terra, you made a comment once that I wasn't able to fully understand or make sense of." Xion walks up to our culprit. "At the scene of Zack's accident, I read out loud the names from Eraqus' journal. Do you remember me doing that? I mentioned that everyone who was kidnapped was written down, with the exception of Vexen Morooka. You said, and I quote, 'That proves it then, doesn't it?' How exactly did that prove it was him? Don't you find it a little odd?"
"No one knew about that," I say. "At this point, we hadn't told the police about the kidnapping that weren't murders. But when Xion read the names, you seemed to know this already. How exactly can you explain this?"
"L-Like I said, I don't know!" Terra runs off behind us, entering a hospital suite. When we go through the door, no one is to be found.
"Dammit! Where the hell is he?" Zack tries to get out of his wheelchair, but he topples over.
"I've got you!" I prop him up and put him back into his chair. "Look, we'll take it from here, okay?"
Everyone has their focus set on a mirror hanging on the wall.
Time of Day: ?
Weather: Foggy
Place: Mirror World
"Damn… Looks like this world is even more messed up than usual," Roxas says. "All this fog is insane. Even with the glasses, I can barely see ten feet ahead of me."
Kairi groans in frustration as her Persona fades away. "It's no good! This creepy fog is so thick, it's messing with my Persona's tracking ability. If Donald were here, he could've used his magic to help me look for Terra."
"I wonder where he is right now…" Last time I spoke with him, Donald was in the Velvet Room. Igor even had to speak with him privately. I wonder what it was for…
"Over there!" Yuffie points to our left, and a silhouette of a large duck seems to be walking toward us.
"Hey guys, I'm back…" Donald looks at his feet as he walks. "Sorry I've been gone." His eyes won't meet any of ours, and he has a tight grip on his wand.
"What the hell, man? Where were you?" Roxas asks. "I was worried sick, y'know!"
Yuffie slaps him on the back and flashes a grin. "Geez you nut! You know I hate not knowing where my friends are!"
"Where were you anyway?" Riku asks.
"I was just figuring out a bunch of stuff. Like about this world, and what I am." Donald lifts his head. "I'd like to tell you everything about what I've found out." Donald goes onto to talking about how he was originally a Heartless, and how they're not supposed to be in the human world.
"What about the stuff Igor told you?" I ask. "Didn't he want to talk to you personally?"
"Yeah, he said to tell you guys as well," he says. "Igor said that I have a Persona because I developed… Whatsit called? An ego, I think."
"Then that means you're different, right?" Riku asks.
"Yeah, since you have a personality, it means you're practically human!" I say. "You're no different than us. Well, minus the feathers."
"Now c'mon, get out of your slump and help us out here!" Roxas grins.
Donald takes out his wand, and the blue orb on it starts blinking. "Follow me!"
Donald brings us to an extremely familiar place. The tall apartments and the empty clearing fill me with a weird sort of nostalgia. It's the place Roxas, Yuffie, and I ran away to when we first entered the Mirror World. We were even led into the room we ran into, the one where we found the noose and the torn up posters of Mayumi Yamano, the first victim.
Because it's such a place of importance to the case, I'm not surprised we found Terra here.
"Do have any idea of how annoying you are?" he asks. He's not facing us, but instead the wall opposite to us. It's covered in torn up posters of Mayumi Yamano, a noose hanging from the ceiling in front of it.
"Terra, is it true that you killed Larxene and Yamano?" I ask.
"Does it even matter if I was? This world and ours are about to combine. Will it matter who killed who then?"
"What do you mean?" Xion asks.
"This world will become our world. Humans will become nothing but Heartless…"
"Don't change subject!" Roxas says. "Did you throw 'em in here, or not?"
"Do you really want to know?" Terra asks. "Well, I guess there's no harm in it considering the world's gonna end. This all started because of an accident. I asked her to meet with me in order to ask her something. But when we met, the bitch went berserk on me."
"So what happened?" I ask.
"Wait… That's not him," Kairi says. "It's some sort of copy."
Terra claps slowly and laughs. "Bravo, bravo! I'm impressed little girl! You saw through my little trick." A dark portal opens in front of him, and he walks through it.
Yuffie moves past me. "Like hell you're getting away!" We follow her through the portal and… Woah.
On the other side of the portal is a destroyed version of the Islands. Large purple cracks break through the ground, buildings are in ruin, and the ocean surrounding the islands… Well, there is none. It's just an endless expanse of darkness. The area we're in right now seems to be reminiscent of the business district with all of the signs scattered on the ground and buried in rubble.
"Guys, there's something very… different about this place," Kairi says. "I have a feeling that unlike our Heartless, he's in full control of his.
"It's great, isn't it?" To our left, sitting on a pile of a destroyed building, is Terra sneering at us. "This place has really taken a real shine to me. It's like I'm the king of the world! I can go anywhere I want, do anything I please, and for whatever reason those monsters just leave me alone." Suddenly behind him, a gigantic portal appears behind him. As Terra laughs, an equally as large Heartless emerges from it.
It has six arms, white armor, and two gargantuan curved swords. Its brown hands are clawed, and it has a cobra for a head. It's bigger than any of the Heartless we've seen before!
"Guys, run for it!" Donald warns. Everyone scatters and runs behind cover as the Heartless swings its sword at us.
"C'mon now kiddies, catch me if you can!" Terra taunts. "The only real challenge will be making it to me alive."
"I think the time for talking has come and gone." Riku extends his arm, and his Arcana appears in front of him.
"I could say the same thing." Xion's Arcana appears in front of her as well. "PERSONA!"
"Go, Poppet!" Xion yells. Her Persona raises its sword, and swings it at the Heartless. It's able to block the attack, but was still knocked back a far distance from us. The Heartless then comes rushing towards us, only to get attacked by Riku's Persona.
Her Persona raises its sword, and rushes the Heartless with a flurry of slashes and stabs. It causes the enemy to stagger onto its knee. It knocks Xion's Persona away and attempts to get up, but Riku's Persona knocks it back into the ground.
"Go chase after Terra," Riku says. "I'll make sure Dark Follower doesn't let this monster past us."
I nod and everyone follows me down a battered road, leaving behind Xion and Riku to fend for themselves. When we get far enough away from Xion and Riku, we're only able to hear their fight, not see them.
"Wait… This place… Is it my family's inn?" Namine chokes. I look around, and a Japanese styled building, or at least what's left of it, is in front of us. To our right is a sign that reads, Amagi Inn.
"This hick town is so damn boring that I had to whittle away my hours watching TV, or streaming the web," a copy of Terra says. "Everyday, I'd come home, kick off my shoes, and rot on my couch." He looks towards a wall in front of him, where a cracked TV hangs. "I watched Yamano everyday, and developed a little crush on her. But not anymore…" Terra points back toward the area behind him, and… It's completely untouched?
Mayumi Yamano is backing away from… Terra? "Who exactly are you?" she asks, her voice distorted. "And what do you mean by something important?"
"The whole story about the affair, is it really true?" Terra asks. His voice is distorted too. He must be showing us the past or something. "Is it all a lie?"
"That is absolutely none of your business!"
"So it isn't a lie? And here I thought I had a thing for you?" Terra scowls. "Who knew I was just infatuated with another stupid bitch."
"Don't make me call for help!"
Terra grabs his head as he screams. "Like hell you will!" Yamano backs up. "I think what you need right now is a little pain to calm you down." Terra grabs her by the throat, and shoves her into a mirror. Her scream is deafened as she falls into it. "S-She fell in?" Terra starts to laugh. "Wow! I put the whore all the way in!"
"This happened in one of the rooms of my inn…" Namine's hands are clenched into fists.
"I'd heard rumors about the Midnight Reflection before," Terra says. "But it was sheer coincidence that I happened to shove Yamano into the mirror, throw her into this cesspit, and discover my power." Terra chuckles.
"So you used Ms. Yamano to test your power?" I ask.
"Hey, I didn't plan for it to happen, but I sure as hell found it hysterical." Another dark portal appears behind the clone. A large blue Heartless emerges from it, changing at us from a distance. It runs on four feet, each one with giant purple hooves. It has two large tusks, and one horn on its head.
Namine summons her Arcana. "I'm going to watch you burn!" Yuffie and Kairi follow suit. "PERSONA!" All three of the girls' Personas appear in a blue light.
"Incinerate him, Sakuya!" Namine commands. Her Persona lifts its hand, and bursts of blue fire shoot of of the ground, harming the enemy Heartless. It tries to run through the fire and get to us, but Yuffie's Persona grabs the Heartless by the tusks.
"That's right! Like hell Tomoe and I are gonna let you get away!" Yuffie grins.
"Scorch 'em Maleficent!" Kairi's Persona raises its staff, and bursts of green flames emerge from it, attacking the Heartless. Yuffie's Persona then lets go of it, and then slashes and thrust at the Heartless with its katanas. "We can handle this, you guys go on ahead."
"You better listen to Yuffie, Sora!" Kairi says. She steps forward, and her Persona raises its arms. A large thicket of branches sprout out of the ground, separating me, Roxas, and Donald from the girls.
After running through this destroyed version of the Islands, it makes me feel… Sick. Does Terra really want all of this? Why would he wish for everyone to become Heartless?
"Why even bother fighting?" Terra laughs like a madman. "You're wasting your time fighting me! This craphole of a town is gonna be nothing but darkness and fog!"
"Where the hell are you?" I ask.
"Wait... Look up there, Sora." Roxas points up a hill. In the distance I see a beat up and charred Moogle Co sign. "The store too? But wait, if that's up there, that means Larxene's store is…" Roxas runs down a hill, and I follow along with Donald. Roxas stops in front of another destroyed building, one with broken glass covering the floor. He looks through a window, and like Namine's inn, the interior is completely fine.
Inside is Terra and Larxene, in what seems to be an interrogation room. "Larxene!" Roxas yells as he bangs on the glass, to no avail. Larxene has a look of disgust on her face.
"That's enough!" Larxene asks. "What's going on here? I thought you called me in for questioning!"
"We just need to know if you had a fling with Eraqus!" Terra says. "So did you or did you not?"
"No! I barely even knew the guy!"
A Terra flashes a sly grin. "Hey, it's all cool. You can tell me." He back Larxene up into a wall. "Do what I say, and you can keep your secret." Larxene pushes Terra off and slaps him in the face. "So that's how it's gonna be, huh? Well if that's what you're gonna play, I know exactly what I'm going to do with you!" Terra punches Larxene in the head, making her drop the purse in her hands, its contents spilling out onto the floor. As her body falls onto the ground, Terra smiles with murderous intent.
"I threw her into the bathroom mirror after that little fiasco." We turn around, and Terra has a pissed off look on his face. "I was so lucky that the station was empty at that time of the night. If I was back in the city, I definitely wouldn't have gotten away with that."
"What do you mean?" Roxas says through his gritted teeth.
"Oh, I graduated first in my class at the police academy. But when I made one stupid mistake, I got dropped off here in the sticks. The only upside to this story is me getting these powers."
"You bastard… You're gonna pay!" Roxas runs at Terra, but the copy disappears.
"Hey c'mon, look at it from my perspective." Terra appears next to me. "I didn't have any idea of what the other side was at the time. I never did it thinking that I was killing them. And besides, those bitches were playing Eraqus like the stupid bastard he is. They got what they deserved. If anything, I've done a favor for everyone."
"What'd you do with Eraqus?" I ask.
"Well after Larxene's body showed up, he called the cops in the middle of the night. Of course, you already know what he told them and that no one believed him. So I did the simple thing and called him myself."
"And? What'd you tell him?"
"What else would I tell him? I told him to 'save' the people by throwing them into mirrors! It was too easy tricking the guy." Terra laughs. "Your good intentions of saving people made you go into a vicious cycle!"
A dark portal appears in the sky. Out of it, a large flying Heartless emerges. Its body is made of bones and violet plumage, with a golden collar around its neck. Its tail is made up of several skulls linked together, and its wings are made of golden cutlasses. Its head is a skull with yellow eyes and a crown, with a treasure chest full of gold connected to it.
"Time to face this ugly!" Donald says as his Arcana appears.
"I won't ever forgive you for what you did!" Roxas yells. "PERSONA!" Donald's and Roxas' Personas appear, in a blue light.
"Go get 'em, Merlin!"Donald points his wand at the Heartless, and his Persona flaps its wings. Spheres of ice magic fly toward the enemy, destroying some of the skulls that make up its tail.
"Obliterate 'em, Thorn!" Roxas' Persona creates a large orb of purple and blue energy. It then hurls it at the enemy, harming the main body. In retaliation, it opens the treasure chest under its head, and gold coins shoot at both of my friends' Personas.
"We can handle this," Donald tells me. "Get to Terra and beat him!"
"Make it painful, Sora!" Roxas gives me a thumbs up.
"Alright!" I hurry down an empty street, turning whenever debris blocks my path.
"Anything else you want to know?" Terra asks, his voice echoing across the desolate streets.
"What about Pence? You threw him into a mirror as well, right?"
"Oh, that fattie? He just appeared in the game too soon, that's all. At the time, the police didn't even have a clue as to who the perp could be, so luckily the idiots at the station gave him to me to deal with." Terra laughs. "I didn't think that someone would actually come turn themselves in because of the crime! Especially when they didn't do the deed themselves. If they convicted him, the case would be closed, Eraqus would stop saving people, and all my fun would be ruined."
"So you put him in here to shut him up?"
"Bingo! Right on the bullseye. Not a bad plan, right? I wanted my game to keep on going."
"So that's your reason? You think that this is all a game?"
"Of course! But then you guys had to go and ruin everything. Thanks to you guys, Pence was arrested, and people thought they were safe! What I find even more stupid is how everyone believed it. His copycat killing was poorly done. Thank god your cousin appeared in the Reflection, otherwise Eraqus would have stopped saving people." Terra laughs again. "Seriously, what the hell was wrong with that guy? I feel like that messiah-complex bastard gets off on saving people! What a freak!"
After running through what feels to be the the entire town, I encounter Terra sitting down at a table. Even with his copies being perfect replicas of him, I can tell that this guy is the real deal.
He starts clapping. "Nicely done, I'm surprised you made it this far. Seriously, I'm impressed that your stupidity has led you all the way here."
"Alright, enough," I tell him. "Why are you really doing this?"
"You mean my motive? I don't really have one. I did it because I could, and it was fun."
"You're a fucking sociopath."
"Hey, all I did was throw people in here. It's the world itself that kills them. This place reflects people's thoughts, so if that's true… Then it only means that the real killers are the people from our world." He pokes me. "Including you. Come to think of it, aren't you just a bunch of high school students? What are you doing here instead of worrying about grades and crap?"
"The things you caused have almost killed each one of my friends! That's why I'm here!"
"Well would these friends of yours be here if it weren't for me?" Terra asks condescendingly. "Friendship this, friendship that, it's all I'm hearing from you guys. Let me guess, it's what powers you? It's what keeps you going? Well then let me show you what real power is!" Terra grabs his head, and screams at the top of his lungs, pain echoing in his cry. A red circle of light appears around him. Is he seriously going to...
"PERSONA!" Out of the red light, a malevolent copy of Izanagi appears. His jacket is covered in dried blood, and thin purple veins stitched into its clothing. Instead of the Keyblade Izanagi has, Terra's version has longer reach, and more teeth. It's also has a flat blade, compared to my Keyblade's cylindrical shape. "Mangle him, Magatsu Izanagi!"
I extend my hand, and my Arcana appears in front of me. "PERSONA!" Izanagi appears in a blue light, battle ready to face off against the culprit.
Terra runs at me, his Persona readying its Keyblade. 'Now be a good little boy and die quickly!"
I run towards him, my Persona brandishing his own. "Let's do this one last time, Izanagi!"
OMG, I actually updated this damn thing! What's it been, two months? Hopefully I'll be able to finish this story before summer break!
But seriously, I hate myself for taking this long to update the story. There was a lot of things going on IRL that stopped me from working on the story. I really didn't want to take a short hiatus like that since I'm so close to finishing the story, but life happens. And by life, I mean school. School sucks. *Cough* Fire Emblem Fates too *Cough, cough* Oh I'm sorry, my allergies are acting up.
Also, if you guys haven't seen it, I've posted a new oneshot! It's the definition of perfection, and I doubt any of you will ever want to read this story again after reading that masterpiece.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and hopefully some questions have been answered. See you in the next chapter! Now excuse me while I continue to rage my ass off while I play Fire Emblem Fates Conquest! (Wish me luck)