[b]02 December 2009
Minatodai Dormitory, 4th Floor Control Room
Late Night[/b]
Force of habit brought SEES together in the room as the clock ticked towards midnight. Outside, clouds partially obscured the height of the full moon. The room was quiet, no one daring to break the spell of silence. "Almost..." Fuuka watched the clock most intensely, Evoker in her hand, ready for the moment the Dark Hour came into existence.
"What do we do if there really is a thirteenth Shadow?" Yukari asked, the worry in her voice expressed doubly by the wringing of her hands.
"Then we'll beat it up. Simple as that." Midori said, drawing an approving nod from Akihiko.
"Actually, where's Aigis?" The boxer asked of Mitsuru.
It was Minato who replied. "She was downstairs, the last time I saw her." He stood up. "I'll go get her."
Leaving the Command Room, he came across Chidori, who was sitting patiently. Gone was the Gothic clothes she usually wore, instead her shopping trip with the others had produced for her a simple white blouse and blue skirt, which she currently wore. Privately, he thought it looked better on her. "Walk with me?" He asked, "Just going to get Aigis, wherever she is."
Chidori, having nothing better to do as Koromaru was with the rest of SEES, agreed. "Very well."
They went down the first flight of stairs, where Minato stopped. "We should check her room first." He made a sharp right and began to walk down the girl's hallway, passing by Yukari's and Midori's rooms to Aigis'. The door was unlocked, and a quick peek showed that their missing robot wasn't present.
As they descended further to the main floor, Minato spoke up. "About Midori..."
Behind him, Chidori couldn't see his eyes. "What about her?"
"You told Junpei that she has a weird Persona. He told me, and I've been trying to figure things out on my end. I was wondering what he told you as well, as there may be a reasonable explanation."
Unsure of that, Chidori explained her observations about Midori's lack of a Persona; like she could turn it on or off at will, like a switch. "I have never heard of anything like that before. Even when I observed you switching Personas through the use of your 'Wild Card'," - the quote marks were nearly physical, the way she said it - "yours was a constant presence."
Minato pondered this. "What do you know about what happened in Tokyo over the summer?"
"You mean the religious attack on the one section of the city?"
"Yes. Midori was one of the people involved, and our research has indicated that during the Lockdown, the Shomankai cult forced the development of Personas, not unlike what was done with you." There. He made the connection between the two of them. Now to see how she would react.
Chidori didn't speak. The two of them finally checked the rest of the dorm, then climbed back up to the meeting room, this time she didn't wait outside, but rather stepped through the doorway and made herself like a fly on the wall even in the face of Yukari's exclamation.
"Almost time..." Fuuka said, and the Dark hour came.
[b]Moonlight Bridge, Apex
The Dark Hour[/b]
Aigis and Ryoji faced each other, confessing their failures. One, the failure to contain the other, the other, a failure to understand their own nature.
Death and the Maiden fought.
[b]Minatodai Dorm, 4th Floor Control Room
The Dark Hour[/b]
Yukari jumped as Minato opened the door, bringing Chidori in after him. "Don't scare me like that!" She returned her gaze to Fuuka, who was ensconced in Juno. "No Shadows?"
"I'm still looking." Fuuka said distractedly. "Please be patient."
Mitsuru turned her attention to Yukari. "Is there a problem?"
Ken spoke in reply for all of them. "It's just that we're nervous. What if there's another Shadow outside Tartarus?"
"I'm not scared! Magical Punishment to all evildoers!" Midori raised her hands in preemptive victory, but slowly took them down in the face of the sombre mood.
"And yet you're the only one who is actually looking forward to this." Akihiko added in a slight admonishment to Midori's developing annoyance that people weren't getting into the act.
"Still, why is Chidori here?" Yukari switched the topic to the newest arrival.
Minato shrugged, but his response was stopped in its tracks by Fuuka. "I think I've found her! Well, I think I did. I sensed a Persona on the Moonlight Bridge, but then nothing. But it was Aigis! I'm certain!"
"Then let's go." Mitsuru grabbed her Evoker and the rest of SEES followed suit.
[b]Moonlight Bridge, Apex[/b]
Aigis was motionless. With her motors and servos fried, there was nothing she could have done. Smoke filtered from damage to her chassis, while her mind was screaming from the warnings about possible danger. The warnings that were still working, that is.
Koromaru ran into her vision, though she couldn't focus on him. He was barking, she was sure of it, but she couldn't actually hear anything. She focused repairs onto her audio systems.
Then Minato was there, in front of her, kneeling to look into her face. He was safe! But she still had things to do. "I... I'm sorry." Aigis managed to stutter out, amazed that her vocal matrix was still working. "I... every... ever... remember... Ever. Everything-ing." Functionality improved with use. "Who I am. Who [i]he[/i] is." She tried to point at Death where he currently stood, but she couldn't.
Minato got closer to her to allow her to speak without stress. "I'm sorry. I failed. I wanted to be by your side and now I know why."
Ryoji spoke up, though quietly. "I am sorry too, Aigis. I never meant for things to come to this."
Ken and Midori reacted instantly to the new presence, taking a guard position between Ryoji and Aigis. "You!"
It was Fuuka who found purpose for her voice first. "Ryoji-kun! What are you doing here?" Then her gaze was drawn back to Aigis. "No! Aigis!"
The robot had stopped moving. She had powered down and no longer functioned. "It's all my fault." Ryoji admitted, ashamed.
Raising his Evoker to his head, Akihiko made his demands; "Who are you? WHAT are you?" Mitsuru pulled out her own weapons, stepping up to form a line with him, Midori and Ken. Here, in the Dark hour, even they could tell that Ryoji wasn't fully human.
"... I am that which you would call a Shadow." Ryoji finally admitted to both himself and to others. "I am their embodiment. That which was born from the union of the Twelve Shadows you have defeated. I am The Appraiser."
"That makes no sense!" Midori hissed, twirling her club in one hand. "What did you do to Aigis? Will she be alright?"
"I think she shut down to protect herself." Chidori commented from beside Fuuka. With no Evoker, she stayed back. But she could still sense about her with Helios. "That," she pointed at Ryoji, "is Death made flesh."
Mitsuru still held her doubts. "Does this mean you know the truth of the Shadows?"
Nodding his head, Ryoji carefully kept himself from doing something that would be considered aggressive. "Yes. I must tell you if you are to understand what is to come. We existences called 'Shadows' are here to facilitate the rebirth of our maternal creator being. She will awaken as she draws closer to me."
"What 'Maternal Being'?" Midori got the question out before anyone else, though they too wanted to say the same thing.
"There is no word in any human language for an entity of her compare. She is... No. I must start from the beginning." Ryoji backpedalled through his thoughts. "Ten years ago, a man collected to himself a great number of shadows an contained them. That is where I was born. But our..." he paused to search for the words he needed "... unification? Yes, our Unification was interrupted. I awoke from my fellow Shadows in an incomplete state. Not long after, I fell to Aigis, and she to me."
He looked past the wall of people guarding Minato. "She could not defeat me, here on this bridge all that time ago. In an act of desperation, she sealed me, my essence into a nearby child. The only suitable container. That child grew up, carrying me inside him. Then you came back, Minato Arisato."
Yukari was shocked, and she could see the look of sickness that washed over her Minato's face. "But that...!"
"Yes." Ryoji confirmed their fears. "I existed inside of him. I am the reason that his powers awoke as a Wild Card. And when he awoke, he let the rest of the Shadows out of their slumber. All to become one with me." He dropped to his knees, weeping human tears. "This is all my fault! All mine!"
He fell over. "Ryoji!" Minato broke ranks and rushed to his friend.
"We need to go back to the dorm." Mitsuru said, buying time for her to think about this. A Human Shadow? That was impossible! And yet she had seen too many impossible things over the past few months to dismiss the idea.
[b]03 December 2009
Minatodai Dorm, 4th Floor Control Room
Evening[/b]
Patiently, Ryoji waited for them at the top floor of the Dorm. He had been there ever since he had woken up earlier in the morning and between Chidori and Koromaru, he had been kept under constant watch. Mitsuru had taken Aigis back to her company to see what could be done for her, and was still away.
They filed in quietly and sat down. "Is that all?" Ryoji asked politely.
"Except for Aigis and Mitsuru." Minato calmly held Yukari back from snarling the same response as he apologized for their absence.
"I apologize for that." Ryoji muttered, clearly upset with himself.
"Then we should begin." Akihiko cut off the possibility of further delays. "What do you have to tell us?"
"Yes, more. There are many questions. Where to begin?" Ryoji muttered.
"What about this [i]maternal being[/i]? That sounds like a good place to start." Fuuka prodded the self-admitted Shadow.
Ryoji took a deep, steadying breath. "Nyx. That is her name. She is the mother of Shadows, and in ancient times, brought the concept of 'Death' into the world. It she awakened, she will once again cover all the lands and life will vanish."
Midori choked as the others raised their voices in alarm, not understanding what was being described. But she did. She knew. [i]Nyx was a Demon[/i]. That was the only answer that she could think of. She started to laugh.
Even for a group that had gotten used to her oddities over the past three months, this was a new experience. When faced with testimony from their final foe that the Fall that Takaya and Ikutsuki promised was real, and that the Lost would be everyone, laughing at it wasn't something they would have expected from her. A dramatic declaration of how they would be victorious, certainly. But not a pitying laugh of one who had seen through to the truth.
"What's so funny?" Ken asked in a tone of voice that he used when he was talking to people like they were idiots. He had a lot of opportunity to use it on Midori, and the practice had paid off.
"Everything! All this talk about the Fall and the Lost and now Nyx, and I now know that it can't happen!" She giggled some more as some of the people around her deduced that her psyche had simply cracked like an egg from the stress and truth.
"Why would you say that?" Ryoji asked, confusion in his voice. If there was something out there that could stop Nyx, it was his duty to discover more about it.
"Because the Great Seal is still intact! I helped fix it!" Midori held a triumphant grin on her face.
"What Seal?" This came from Minato and Midori realized that she had just screwed up again. She shouldn't be talking about that.
"Excuse me." She said as she stood up, only to find Akihiko's iron grip around her wrist. She looked down at him, pleading with her eyes to let her go, but he didn't relent. Not this time.
"What Seal?" Akihiko repeated the question, not willing to let her go until she had told everyone what she was talking about.
"Please," Midori begged, trying to escape the grip. "Don't ask that! I made promises!"
"A Great Seal in Tokyo?" Minato thought aloud, causing Midori to freeze, her heart skipping a beat or three. "What did you really do in Tokyo?"
"No... please... You don't understand." Midori watched as her world was threatened to be destroyed with just a few words.
"I do." Ryoji said. "I know of that which you speak, and why you are so afraid." He stood up. "I must speak with her about her fears, privately."
They looked to Midori, who only had one thing to say. "Prove it."
"I know of those crowned with the name of Bel." Ryoji spoke, knowing the weight of the words he had.
Her heart jumped to her throat. "Then you know you can't." Midori had forgotten that the rest were still there. "Nyx can't descend. He's in the way!"
Ryoji shook his head sadly. "But Nyx and her Shadows, they are a part of humanity. The rule of the Bel does not intercede against them."
Midori heard the words, but refused to listen. "No! He can still help! I'll tell him and he'll come!"
Ryoji put his hands in her free hand. "But he is still only human. No matter his name or his heritage, he too is part of the Death that Nyx brings. He cannot stop it. No one can."
Midori refused to believe. "No! I'll show you!" With a wrench, she ripped herself from Akihiko's grasp and ran from the room.