The Fool - Chapter 7
The Nyx avatar had Ryoji's face.
You stared directly into its dead eyes. None of Ryoji's sentimental personality was left.
Your naginata stuck straight through its chest.
"Nice, Leader! Direct hit!" Junpei cheered from somewhere to your left. Shadows were swarming up from behind. Your friends were cleaning up the leftovers. Akihiko was at your side.
"I'm impressed," the avatar said tonelessly, in a voice that still managed to remind you of Ryoji. It pulled away from you and floated into the air. You'd seen plenty of Shadows do as much, but it never stopped getting creepy. Your naginata was back in your hands.
"You haven't changed anything, though," the avatar continued. "Nyx is already here. Everyone is going to die." You gritted your teeth. Like hell nothing had changed. You kept your eyes trained on the monster, its blood still dripping from your weapon.
Then, at some indeterminable height, it stopped.
Something was behind it. Your eyes widened. Nyx's body- it was-
"The moon?" Junpei shouted. "How are we supposed to kill the fucking moon?"
The bottom dropped out of your stomach. You began to realize, much too late, exactly what Ryoji had been talking about when he said that Nyx could not be killed. "There's no word for her in your language," indeed.
You heard a shout somewhere behind you, and Fuuka collapsed. Ken went down next, since he was smaller than the rest of you. The sheer malice belonging to Nyx was forcing all of you to your knees. Akihiko dropped next to you, and you could feel your posture bending.
No. No. The world's not going to end, you thought forcefully. You dredged up all of your resolve from the previous month. Your knees were beginning to break, but you forced them to stay straight. You glared at Nyx's avatar.
"Ryoji," you shouted. "Take me to her!" Ryoji looked surprised, both at your use of his human name, and also at your strange request.
"Is that really want you want?" he asked.
"Don't be stupid," Yukari gritted out. "You can't go by yourself-"
"Take me to Nyx," you repeated, more strongly. You were the only one of your group left standing. Your Personas, all of them, hummed just below your consciousness, desperate for this fight. Beside you, Akihiko tried to stand, grunting out your name like a curse when he was slammed back into the ground.
"Fine," the avatar said.
The change was instantaneous.
While everyone else was being pressed into the ground, for you, the pressure changed direction. You were being pulled toward Nyx, instead of pushed away. As if someone had hooked a cord into you behind your bellybutton, your entire body lifted off the ground, and began moving upwards.
Ryoji's lifeless eyes stared at you as you floated upwards. You stared back.
"No! Wait! Come back!" Your friends' shouts were incoherent. Not one of them asked how you were lifting into the air, but then, if Ryoji could do it, then so could you. You passed him in midair, and his wicked lips twisted into a smile.
"Good luck."
Your pace was increasing. The moon was getting closer. As you shot upwards, you were reminded of the elevator in the Velvet Room. The world around you began to blur. Your friends' voices were disappearing.
Soon, you had left Earth behind.
You couldn't shake the feeling that you had arrived somewhere where you weren't meant to be. Tartarus was child's play compared to this. You'd always felt so tough, exploring that labyrinth with your Personas, but really, it was only the frying pan. Now, you were walking directly into the fire.
You stepped across a barrier, and you were in Nyx's world.
You felt a shift in the atmosphere around you, the same way you did every time you entered Tartarus. This time, though, it was stronger. The faint glow you were so used to from Tartarus was amplified to a murky fog, so bright you could only see shapes, not details. You found your feet and stood, facing directly into the heart of the moon. Your hands were clammy. The floor and walls were pulsating with supernatural energy. Not sure what to do next, you took one step forward, then another, gripping the hilt of your naginata.
Nyx was there in front of you. A golden egg suspended in the mist.
How were you supposed to attack it? Just stab away and see what happens? That seemed like a bad idea. Ryoji's words about Nyx being immortal floated through your mind for a second time. What was in front of you wasn't the issue, though. The issue was what was behind you.
A vicious howl tore through your ears.
Almost serenely, you turned around.
Tartarus, the Earth, your friends were all gone. Instead of seeing where you'd come from, you saw more swirling yellow fog, the stuff that Nyx's world was made up of. This wasn't Nyx, though.
This was something else entirely.
The beast glared at you, furious that you were standing between it and its goal. Suddenly, you understood why Nyx had seemed so docile. This new creature, enormous yet so blurred it was nearly shapeless, roared with frustration and tore a claw through Nyx's side, so close you were almost hit by it, too. You froze. Someone or something provided you with a name.
Erebus.
Erebus, the embodiment of pure human despair. The longer you stared at it, the less you were able to move. You saw Ken's mother, killed by a Persona. You saw Shinji's guilt, and Mitsuru's burden, and Yukari's grief.
You saw Aki's little sister.
You saw your own parents, bleeding out on the pavement.
The pressure of it forced you down to one knee. Even while leaning your weight on the naginata, you were barely able to stay upright. Big, ugly Erebus reached past you a second time, and sank its claws into Nyx's body.
This is what you're fighting against.
Nyx's voice.
It appeared in your head, no longer sounding like Ryoji at all. She no longer needed her avatar, and instead, she spoke to your heart, the way the Shadows did. Nyx, the mother of Shadows.
Erebus is created from humankind's desires. So long as it can reach me, I shall destroy the Earth. That is what the human world wants.
"No it's not," you gritted out. It took a moment for you to realize you'd spoken the words out loud. You were reminded of the hotel where you'd been knocked into a trance by a Lovers Shadow. Where Akihiko had stumbled naked into your hotel room-
Ok, so not the best time to be thinking about that.
"No one wants to be eaten by Shadows," you said again, a little stronger. "That's stupid."
I have no choice. Erebus is telling me that this is what the world wants.
"So if I stop Erebus from hurting you, you'll stop attacking humans?" You struggled back onto your feet, and turned so that Nyx was squarely behind you. The sudden shift from attacking Nyx to protecting her was a little jarring, but you were willing to give it a shot. Erebus was coming back in for another strike. He was big, bigger than any Shadow you'd faced, but since he had to go around you to get to Nyx, you were hoping to get a good slash in.
Unfortunately, this time, Erebus decided to go through you.
You were able to do little more than stab him with the naginata before you were slammed back against Nyx. The weapon slipped out of your fingers. Your right arm was crushed. One of Erebus's claws had punctured what might have been a lung. In any case, you coughed up blood.
No one can stop Erebus.
"Thanks for the help," you rasped. More blood trickled out of your mouth. Your naginata was out of reach. The pain was so strong that your body rejected it, forcing you to feel nothing at all.
You were going to die here.
The Fall is inevitable.
"The Fall is inevitable," you repeated tonelessly. You were really sick of hearing that the Fall was inevitable. First Ryoji, then Takaya, and now Nyx herself. As the strength left your body, your mind retreated into a memory.
Before your team had left to climb Tartarus, Akihiko had pulled you aside. He gave you a hug and a kiss.
"You scared?" you had asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not at all. This'll be easy." He didn't let go of you, though. You could feel how hard his heart was beating. You weren't sure what to say.
"I love you," he mumbled finally.
"I love you too, Aki." You meant it, of course, but you hoped you sounded less awkward than you felt saying the words out loud. Akihiko continued, though. Apparently, that hadn't been what he wanted to tell you.
"We're going to do this," he said. "I know we can do it. Well, I know you can do it."
"Don't say that," you countered. "You'll do great." It was what Aki had said next, though, that was burning through your mind right now. He had stared directly into your eyes, and he said, with total conviction:
"The Fall is not inevitable. You're going to stop it."
And so you stared at Erebus, directly into Aki's pain.
Blood was gushing out of your body at an alarming rate. You didn't have much time. As your body reached its physical limit, though, your spiritual strength was rising. Your Personas twisted around inside your psyche. This was, after all, their playground.
"I'm going to stop the Fall," you said, your voice wet with blood. This was it. You were the last line of defense. If this didn't work, everyone on Earth was going to die. No pressure.
You fool. What can a mortal girl like you do against Erebus?
You crossed your working arm over your chest. Erebus hissed suspiciously and began to withdraw, its claw sliding out of your chest. You stared at it evenly, willing it to understand your last thoughts:
You're never getting anywhere near Nyx.
"This," you said out loud.
You released all of the energy from your body.
I had a lot of trouble writing the end of the game. I took quite a few artistic liberties, since the actual game is SO over the top it didn't translate well into a story, or at least not one I felt like writing. Seriously, I wrote out all the people talking to FeMC in her mind and it was just so ridiculous I substituted a memory instead. In any case, this chapter is kind of short, because I finally decided it was best to split the Nyx fight and the ending. So really, I could've posted this ages ago. SORRY GUYS LOL
There is one more chapter- the Epilogue! Ooo! Look at me, finishing fics sometime ever! Somebody give me a medal. Damn, I wanna play P3P again.