Sing for the Queen; She and her Trials | Chapter 2
Last Chapter: Everyone stands and falls, one at a time like dominoes, defending a ring Rise's learned to hate. When the dust settles, it does so around Rise.
"Lady Risette?"
Rise stirred, and felt gravel abrade against her as she did.
"Lady Risette."
She shifted again, and it felt like her bones were scraping against each other. As much as she'd rather fall back into what felt like a restless sleep, the dull screech in her ears made it feel like her mind was on fire.
"Lady Risette."
Rise opened her eyes to corroding metal bars and bricks lit by torch light.
"Wh-" she started, but the words were sand grating her throat as they fell. She coughed, then squinted and blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dim firelight.
"Sleep well?" asked Souji, perfect face outlined like a statue of polished stone.
Rise shook her head, then pulled her legs under her – only then feeling the weight and hearing the chime of chains buckled around her ankles.
She reached down to touch them - "W-wh– " - and saw the cuffs around her wrists as well.
Souji's voice – the only grounding thing right now – pulled her attention back. "I'm sorry about those. The lieutenants got to you before I did."
Rise swallowed hard, nearly sending herself into another cough. "Wh-what? What's going on, Senpai?"
Souji visiblyflinched, looking troubled. "I - ah, Lady Risette. I am Colonel Seta, of the Parish Defense."
That made things less clear, and Rise was trying to look through mud as it was. "What's that even mean?"
"It means," he said carefully, levelling Rise with an unfamiliar gaze, "you have been captured."
Rise used to think there was nothing worse than amateur truck tofu, but the grainy, rice-mush Souji –Colonel Seta – gave her was in its own league.
At least the water was normal. Nothing else here was.
Rise stabbed the spoon into what was left of breakfast and watched it stand there. She crossed her arms, numbly rubbing her wrists from under the rotting cuffs.
According to Colonel Seta, she was a prisoner of the Parish, locked away for her crimes, and was allowed to know nothing more than that until further council decision. But she could have breakfast if she wanted, which she only said yes to in hopes that he would come back with the rest of the team in some stupid surprise party.
Except she didn't know what happened to her friends, and last she remembered, was ambulance road-kill – but then this wasn't all that great either, even if she didn't know what this is, whatsoever.
Rise rolled the ring on her finger, feeling a bitterness at the fact that that was still safe as planned, when more important things – people – weren't.
A loud creek of metal hinges weighed heavy by door sounded a little ways off.
"Sen-Seta? Colonel?" Rise called out. A distant, distracted part of her mind thought it was kind of, really cool that in this dream-or-illusion-or-purgatory, her senpai was such an honourable colonel of all things.
When he came into view, he bowed his head slightly. "Lady Risette, Her Majesty wishes to see you."
Rise had no reason to fuel the sudden hatred that fired up inside her, but she decided that it was probably this Highness's fault that she was locked up. Maybe she even had a part in attacking the peaceful TV World.
"Well, she can come down here if she wants." Rise crossed her arms, with a disarming confidence for someone who just sassed their captor. "I even have dinner to share, if she'd like."
Souji looked at her with his detached stare – the one he used before – and spoke in a somehow disappointed voice. "You don't have a choice in that: you can only choose to do this by your will or against it."
It was the tone of voice he used that pushed Rise into silent submission: something in it she'd never heard from him, something uncompassionate.
He watched her, and maybe the way she felt showed on her face, because his softened.
"She will be just," he said as he opened the door, but she barely heard it over the creak of rust.
Rise stayed quiet as Souji fiddled with the chains and unlocked them from the wall. He held the length of the links in his hands, and they clattered as he motioned ahead.
"Shall we, Lady Risette?"
Well, she wasn't being treated like a lady, or much like even a person at all. But she stayed quiet as their footfalls echoed against the crumbling stone walls that followed them for the next few uncomfortable minutes if silence. When the stairs stood before them, climbing so steep they were lost under the canopy's shadow, Souji took the lead, two steps at a time while Rise had to skip to keep up.
After maybe fifty stairs, they reached a landing with a looming, wooden door barricaded shut.
"What else do you keep down here?" Rise asked in a low voice.
Souji looked like he was about to answer, but instead said, "We are about to enter the throne room."
It sounded like a warning more than anything.
As Rise tried to get some sort of answer from that, Souji placed his palm against the door, waited, and pulled it back as soon as the door began to swing open.
"Wait," Rise started as the pushed through the exit, "what did –"
"The barre is for show," Souji said, and maybe he took a bit of happiness from Rises surprise. "And the magic, even more so."
Rise was no stranger to magic – she'd seen it, and scanned it – but to see it applied to the real world was almost otherworldly.
Then again, she was in another world all together, probably. The sky could be the limit, or there could be none at all.
Leaving the dungeon was like entering an entirely new world: alabaster pillars lining white walls decorated with royal blue banners and nine-foot windows. They walked upon a blue carpet that ran the expanse of the porcelain floors that may as well be glowing for how clean they were.
Rise took the entire thing in with the same excitement she remembered walking into her first professional recording studio in.
Gee, did that feel like a lifetime ago.
Before she could see, scan, it all – If she ever could, it was so big – Souji spoke in a low, sturdy whisper.
"Look sharp."
As they turned the left and stopped, Rise pulled her attention back and looked ahead, staring down a long, windowless room lit by what looked like white fireflies gathered in glass torches strung along the walls.
At the very end, perched proud upon an intricate, golden throne, was a lengthy woman in robes of mercury. Her gaze, cold and detached, seemed to weigh Rise down more than the chains around her.
Souji bowed, low and long, and spoke without getting up. "Your Majesty, I bring you Lady Risette."
Every sense in Rise told her to run – run, like they did before, like only one thing could save them – but was held captive, frozen by the eyes of royalty.
A pause, one that held a corpus of power, and Izanami spoke in a self-perpetuating echo.
"Bring her forward."
Rise caught herself almost begging Souji not to; she caught Souji hesitating, if just slightly.
He walked her down the room, into the shadows that were parted by fragile white lights.
When they stopped, Rise could see Izanami's mouth, creased into a frown that almost disappeared, and her silver hair, shambolic despite tied into a high bun.
Even still, Rise couldn't sense anything human in Izanami, and that frightened her to the core.
They both stopped at the foot of her throne and waited, as if even dust couldn't fall without Izanami's permission.
She cocked her head, ever so slightly, and said, "Lady Risette. You stand before the law bearing crimes against the people."
Even if Rise could bringer herself to argue, she felt like words could do nothing in the presence of Izanami.
"You are guilty of theft of peace, of wealth, of hearts, and of lives. The blood of the innocent stain your hands, and their suffering stain your name."
By some miracle – maybe the disbelief in being held in archaic-style trial for things she'd never do – Rise managed to croak, "N-no. I did none of that."
Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Souji wince.
"Dare you speak, and speak in lies?" Izanami said, dangerously steady for all the malice in her voice. "You stand here not to defend yourself, but to face justice. For murder, and for corruption."
She paused, but the words lingered.
"Your only atonement is death."
For the length of a second, Rise felt the ground pull away from under her feet before it actually did. In quick succession, without a chance for her, the chains dropped to the ground in a heavy clatter, and the ceiling came down over her.
Something black, stiff, and void of life wrung her by the neck.
Rise had felt choked before: when she was kidnapped and that soaked cloth was stuffed in her mouth; when she first quit the idol life, leaving her with a choking feeling; when she met Senpai, who took her breath away. Running, singing, fighting, screaming had all left her catching her breath.
But suffocating was a feeling she never could have imagined: it gripped her by the throat and eyes and mind until black creeped over her vision and blinded her. For the agonizingly long wait, her mind was consumed by the single survival instinct to breath at all costs.
Suffocating, Rise decided, was the worst way to die, because it took away your final words and final thoughts in lieu of a gripping panic.
And, in a moment where Rise knew she was dead, she heard Izanami.
"May Hell show restraint on your wretched soul."
"Lady Rise?"
Rise stirred, and felt gravel brace against her as her bones scraped against each other. She felt air creep into her withered lungs, and, like a starved animal, devoured it until she choked and coughed.
"Are you all right?" she heard, just barely, over her hacking. She answered with more coughing until she could steady herself with one shaky breath after another.
She looked up, tears pinching her eyes, at Souji.
"Lady Risette?"
Rise shook her head, and spoke in a broken stutter. "Sh-sh-she, she – Izanami, she-she k-k-killed me, she killed me, she –"
Souji touched her hands, and wrapped them in his. They were firm, warm, unwavering.
"Nothing has happened. You are safe. The lieutenants are gone."
Rise hiccupped and drew their hands closer to her. "S-senpai?"
Souji made a face – strikengly familiar – and said, "I am Colonel Seta, of the Inaba Parish."
Though still shaken, Rise managed to pull her thoughts together enough to process Souji's reaction: the same one he gave her last time she called him Senpai.
"You-you already told me that."
Souji shook his head. "I can assure you this is the first we've ever spoken."
Something wasn't right.
Well, in this upside-down world she was thrown in after running for her life she lost, something else was wrong.
Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Souji added, "Do you know why you are here?"
No. She knew nothing right now.
"You are a prisoner of the Parish."
The walls and floors, blindingly white, greeted Rise like an omen.
She had half-heartedly tried to explain to Souji that this had all already happened, they had met and had the trial and she died for it, but it never translated over.
All it did was bring a disturbed Rise and unsure Souji before Izanami, who sat curled to her throne and watched them lifelessly.
It sent a panic, a magnified fear that shook her very soul, down Rise's spine to her feet that took a few shaky steps back.
Souji looked back at her, concerned, but when Izanami ordered thmn to, "Come forward," he turned away and gently pulled her chains forward with him.
He bowed, speaking without rising. "Your Majesty, I bring you Lady Risette."
And when Izanami spoke, it vibrated, resonated.
"Bring her forward."
Rise shook her head – hell, her everything was shaking – and spat out a sharp, "No!"
"Dare you try yet more to escape fate?" Izanami said, sounding spiteful. "Bring her forward."
Souji hesitated, gave Rise a side long look that was full of confusion and pity, and walked forward, pulling Rise's chains with him.
Rise, for her part, dug her feet into the ground, but could hardly expect it to hold when she was trembling from the spine down.
Still, she had resolve enough to appeal for her life. "I-I didn't kill anyone! I'd never – "
Izanami's eyes, half-lidded, looked down on Rise in scrutiny. "When she speaks, she lies."
"No –"
"So she may speak no more."
This time, Rise saw Souji stepped back and stare at her in – in fear? – before she was ripped off her feet and into air she couldn't breathe in.
Choking to death, it seemed, was no easier the second time.
Dying, none the easier done thrice.
"Lady Risette?"
This time, Rise bolted up, wheezing and holding her throat in her hands where fear and Izanami's darkness gripped her.
God, did she just die again? Killed? And back?
It was insane. All of this was, and everything that happened. It just didn't feel real.
Maybe she'd wake up to the smell of her Grandma's bland cooking, go to school and handle all the fans still scouting her, lose focus in class and doodle hearts in her notebook, and tease Kanji just to get this nightmare out of her head.
But her denial – her hope – was nothing more than a wispy cloud in the haze of terror and dread building inside her.
"I'm here," said Souji, and for a moment, Rise was on the floor of a club, blinded by fog and a Shadow.
Rise gulped, breathed in heavily, and looked at Souji.
"Senpai?"
He recoiled, opened his mouth, then frowned.
"I am – you've been – you're a prisoner of the Parish."
"I know," Rise said slowly, trying to find more clarity. She decided sharing her thoughts would be as good a start as any. Calmly, so that maybe this time he wouldn't look at her like some pity case. "And you're Colonel Seta, of the Parish."
He nodded, cautiously. "I don't believe we've met before."
"We have," Rise said, and drew her knees close. She hesitated, but told herself if she could trust anyone, it was Senpai – or the boy who seemed to be him. "We-we've had this conversation before. And you have to take me to – to Izanami."
"Her Majesty," Souji said solemnly.
"And there's some faux trial, and she kills me. And then – " she shrugged and motioned around her, but it came out as a shiver " – we go through this all over again."
Vague as it was, insane as it would be to believe, Rise knew Senpai would – and when Colonel Seta nodded once, silently, she just knew this was him, in some way. In the same way that all his Personas were still him.
"I would like to think she'd take mercy," he said steadily, almost warily, "but I know Her Majesty more than I owe her."
Well, that brought her back to where she was last time, and that ended the same way every time did. "Is that why you follow her?"
He shook his head. "I do not follow, I pledge my loyalty. I'm sorry."
Before Rise could ask why, Souji held his palm out, hovering just in front of her forehead, and blinked.
The air seemed to hover for a moment, and then stretch out thin. Rise, breathing, felt a sudden drowsiness overcome her, equal parts peaceful and petrifying.
"She will be just," she heard Souji say from far away, long ago. But Rise was already floating away, lost in a thought she couldn't remember.
Somewhere, some part of her screamed and tore at the fog around her, but the rest found tranquility in getting lost in the nothing.
She was floating, suspended in air, at ease. Forever, for a moment.
And then she was pulled down by the neck, back into the fray.
"Lady Risette?"
This time, Rise was pissed. Because there even had to be a this time.
"Just take me to her."
Souji – Colonel Seta – paused, and looked – had the audacity to look – bothered by her willingness.
He mumbled something, just barely, before saying, "She will be just."
"She will be cruel," Rise retorted, just short of a mocking tone – because she was still talking to Souji, even if he was on the other side. "And you are a slave to her."
While he unlocked Rise's locks from the walls, he stayed quiet. It wants until he opened the door, motioned her to go first, and sighed when she stubbornly stayed still that he said, "She's protecting the Parish; we want to protect the same things."
Rise could answer that, but her heart wasn't in it when Colonel Seta looked so much like Souji, honest and steadfast. As much as she hated it, she felt rueful for being so upset with him at all, and then upset with him for fighting something she had no knowledge of.
But that didn't mean she was walking right into her death again.
They walked the now-acquainted dungeon halls in silence, with Rise doing her best to keep her panic inside.
She was faced with two issues: very few choices to start with, and almost nothing to go off of in this strange new world. Did she have a limited number of revivals, and were they dependent on the same energy the Personas drew from, or was it a finite number of times? Where was she now, and why was she now? Who could she trust, what was the truth?
And: what could she do to survive?
She couldn't feel her Persona, and she felt as powerless as she did when she first returned to Inaba – she forgot how empty being so normal felt – but she remembered the way to the throne room.
Or, the way that didn't lead there. And she remembered how to run for her life, regrettably.
An anxious energy seized her, threatened to trip her up before she started at all. She continued to look over at Colonel Seta's back, and wondered just how far his magic tricks could reach if she did bolt for it.
But as far as she knew, she had as many shots at this as she could handle anyway, and maybe, just maybe, she would get some answers, finally. And her friends.
It was a desperate measure, but it was better than dying by Izanami's hands in a way that only got harder each time. So when Souji held his palm against the door and opened it, and once more offered her to go first, she acquiesced.
Almost too naturally, she said, "I'm sorry," before pushing Seta over the top step, grabbing the length of chains out of his arms and darting out the door.
It was an effort, carrying the entire weight of the shackles herself while running, but she hoped both that the stairs were as steep as the felt every climb, and that Seta would take some sort of sympathy and let her go.
It was less than a minute before Rise was gasping for air and going at no more than a trot down white halls that all looked the same. For all she knew, she could be running into some army-wing and into her death.
Doubt formed in her mind, and festered when she came to a four-way divide. With her streak of luck, she could have a 75-percent chance of choosing the exit and still run right back to Izanami.
But just thinking about Izanami, about her trial, snapped Rise back into her fight-or-flight mode, and she took the right.
Just as she entered the new corridor, she felt something grab onto her, and imagined black spider legs around her throat for a moment.
Rise heard a muffled, "Whoa!" and fell through what felt like a door before dropping to the ground, the chains landing with the loudest rattle she'd ever heard.
Just as she thought it, the voice – oh, if she weren't such a mess right now she'd be able to say exactly who it was – shushed the chains in what was a counter-productively loud, "SHHH!"
Rise pushed herself up, propped against her aching arms, and turned to look over her shoulder when she heard the door slam.
Yosuke stood with his back against the door. "Hey there, Risette!"
Rise blanched, stared, and – in a moment too much like the life she missed so much so soon – spoke up before he could make a comment about her staring. "Y-Yosuke?!"
"You know me?" he asked in awe, perching forward. Then he pulled upright again, grinning far too wide. "Oh man, they'll eat their words when I tell 'em!"
She should have started running again, but the surprise and the fatigue and the chains kept her rooted in place. "What's going on?"
Yosuke took a step forward, looked back at the door and fiddled with the handle, and then scurried up to Rise dropping beside her.
"What's going on is that the hero's found the renegade," he said, sounding excited. Then, reaching out to the cuffs around her wrists, said in a too-quiet murmur, "But you don't look like you could massacre a village, do you?"
A/N: And thus ends chapter 2, leaving more questions than answers. Chapter 3 should settle everything, though, and carry us into an entire epic of - whatever this will be.
Also, the Last Chapter summary piece is a thing I borrowed from zero-damage's The Shortest Distance (brilliant read, btw).