April 27, 2013
Ikebukuro Hospital
"...Well. I see that you are awake."
Catching a glimpse and relishing in the fear that flashed across those half-dead chocolate brown eyes, the person who had spoken slid the door to the ward close. They were dressed in an oversized grey turtleneck, baggy black pants, and a black baseball cap atop their head, a rather strange choice of attire.
A smirk cracked on the person's face as they slowly walked to the side of the hospital bed, where a young girl – not looking any older than any ordinary high school girl – lied. She had a slightly unhealthy tinge to her skin, particularly her face, and there was a professionally plastered, clean bandage on her neck, concealing a hideous wound and an equally horrendous scar, the knowledge of which made the visitor spit out a dark chuckle.
"How is that going for you? Are you recovering well? Can you swallow and drink?" the person asked, not sounding the slightest bit concerned for the girl's welfare. As though already tired of the charade that they hadn't even tried to put up, the person's face fell into a scowl. "You shouldn't even be alive...if only I had ordered for you to be killed instead. I knew I should've done that. Why are you alive, when Seiji is..."
The brunet could only blink back rapidly. Then she looked to the desk by her bedside, and did not hesitate to reach out and pick up the pen and notebook that had been placed there. Her fingers were trembling as she wrote on the paper.
Who are you? The message read.
"Nobody you should concern yourself with any longer." The figure folded their arms. "After all, you're no longer connected to me in any way."
The young girl peered into the stranger's eyes, which were shadowed by the tip of the baseball cap, and then flipped to the next page in the notebook and wrote: Are you...a relative of Seiji-san?
"Just a 'relative'?" The visitor's nose wrinkled. "That's quite the crude description, don't you think?"
I'm sorry, I just thought that since you seem close to him...
"Well then, perhaps you ought to re-evaluate that. At any rate, since it's obvious you still haven't remembered a single thing, there's no point in me staying here any longer. I can't stand you, after all."
The girl on the hospital bed recoiled, maybe because of the jibe at her amnesia, maybe because of the last remark, maybe because of the astonishingly cold way her visitor said all of it. There were a few possible reasons, and the patient herself was probably not aware of which was the most likely one explaining her reaction, and what she did right after.
W-wait!
Once she was done scribbling, the girl slammed the notebook against the table repeatedly just as the stranger turned and headed for the door.
The visitor clicked their tongue, and spared the hospitalised high school student a glance that was devoid of any emotion, yet piercing and intense all the same.
Um... I don't know if it's okay for me to be asking you this, but... Are you the one who was responsible for my stay here?
"I thought I already made that clear," the figure spat.
The girl flinched, but recovered quickly and flipped to the next page.
You're...surprisingly blunt.
"And that concerns me, how...?"
I was wondering, if it's not too much trouble... Can you tell me more? About Seiji-san? Somehow, I get the feeling you're trying to hide your pain, and I don't think that's very healthy, so if I can be your confidante or any form of support to you, I...
The stranger's hand flew across the girl's cheek as the sound of the impact reverberated throughout the ward.
Following this, the stranger dressed in the oversized clothing crawled into the bed as they pinned the young patient down by pressing against her collarbone.
"...What do you even know about me?" the figure said, their voice growing a pitch lower. Their thumbs moved and started applying pressure to the bandage around the girl's neck, earning them a broken yelp. "How dare you say that in my face, acting all innocent when you're being so overconfident in your assessment of me? You don't even know about Seiji and me. You don't have a single clue about the hell you put me through. Even before all this."
As the stranger startled rambling and spilling the feelings that hadn't had an outlet like this since the day of a young man's death, the girl simply watched and listened. Now, the girl no longer flinched nor recoiled, neither did she pen down any more sympathetic words. She only kept her eyes on the pitiful-looking figure right before her who was trying to crush her neck, and listened attentively to whatever they were saying. It wasn't like she could do anything else, at any rate.
"It was you. Your existence, your fault that this happened. I saw, you know? That video clip. It caught you leaving the alley where Seiji's body was found, exactly twenty-three seconds after his death." The girl's eyes widened as the visitor laughed hollowly and pressed even harder. A patch of red was growing rapidly beneath their fingers, and the stranger looked like they delighted in that. "What 'Inaba serial murder case'... What 'killing people by pushing them into the TV'... Does he seriously think I'd buy that kind of crap? From a clearly deranged man, no less?"
The high school student whimpered, and had to close her eyes tight shut and bite and chew on her lower lip before giving into her survival instincts. She started kicking about and struggling against her prisoner's hold, shifting about and grabbing onto the wrists of the visitor's hands with a death grip, digging her nails into them. Yet the stranger was not deterred, and instead applied even more pressure, their eyes ablaze and storming, like a thick cloud brewing within those dark brown eyes.
"I'll kill him," the visitor snarled, "for giving me ridiculous information and forcing me into these ridiculous clothes and cheating me into making that ridiculous trip to Inaba, when all of these had nothing to do with Seiji. When the one responsible was you. He knew it, yet he sent me on that wild goose chase...!"
"...H...hel..."
The stranger, while grappling the young girl's neck, gave her a violent shake, silencing whatever little voice she had left in her. The wounded patient choked, and raised and swung an arm towards her assailant, swiping the baseball cap off in the struggle. Her eyes widened when she saw the long, brown hair pulled over and clipped onto the top of her visitor's head.
But Yagiri Namie, the former head of a pharmaceutical company remained perfectly calm in spite of her cover being blown, and seemingly did not even pay attention to the fact that the cap had been knocked off her head. Her intent was clear, and she focused on it so intensely as if her life depended on it, throwing off all things that could potentially distract her.
Which was why she eventually let go and moved off the bed, leaving the casualty panting and coughing.
"...I'll see you another day. After I'm done with that bastard, wherever he's gone to. It would definitely make my life easier if he's already dead, though."
As she said this in her usual icy tone, Namie bent down and picked up the baseball cap that had fallen to the floor, paying no heed to the coat of blood on her fingers that lightly stained the tip of the cap. Placing it atop her head, the woman turned and left the ward, and did not look back to the girl she had just lashed out on.
Harima Mika stared after the sister of someone she had once loved, and buried her face in her knees as she hugged them close to her chest.
Niflheim
In a split second and another, Naoto felt herself teleport from one world to another and back.
One moment, she was in the plain of white, confronting Orihara's Shadow, and then in the next all she saw was black. A blanket of darkness stretching even beyond her line of vision, in every direction she looked at.
There were no voices nor sounds, neither did she feel the familiar touch of her pistol in her hands. She wasn't breathing – or at least, she didn't think she was – and she couldn't sense the presence of her comrades, her friends, beside her like they had been earlier. Only blackness, and the cold from the eternal winter inside the TV world.
Before she could even come up with a coherent thought, an invisible force pulled her into a sea of images. Her heart gave a leap, and the moment the slither of shock grasped it, Naoto gasped; it felt like she had just swam up from the depths of an ocean and taking her first breath of air, and when she looked around, her eyes widened slightly.
It hadn't been a series of images, but of people in a bird's eye view. They came from all walks of life imaginable, crossing the busy streets of urban Tokyo, driving branded cars, walking to school, stopping by pubs and clubs, going to shopping malls – all at the same time, and in that vacuum that used to be occupied by nothing but darkness. Then, she felt the same inexplicable, unseen force tug her down, deep into the crowds, until she could see them clearly in her normal point of view.
Nobody had paid her any attention, and that was what took her aback. She had thought this to be the usual kind of illusions associated with the Fear spells, those that involved horribly convincing visual and auditory hallucinations, and Naoto had been mentally prepared for those, having had her share of experiences with the ailment – not that it made her feel any better, of course. But this sort of illusion...was relatively tame. A lot milder than she had been through before. In fact, it didn't feel any different from being in the real world Tokyo itself.
'...What could this mean?' The detective thought to herself, as she cautiously scanned her environment. People continued to drift by her, as though they hadn't noticed someone standing in the middle of a bustling crowd, yet nobody had bumped into her as of yet. Which, according to logic and experiences in a place teeming with people like this, should be nearly impossible. Being in the middle of a large group of people who were constantly on the move in all directions and not having even a hint of physical contact with any of them was hard to believe.
Naoto pondered further – while part of her was also wondering about how she could still remain her calm and composed self even as she was ensnared in a Fear spell – and decided to test an idea out. It didn't involve anything complicated, just potentially risky, but it was the quickest way to determine the nature of this illusion, and so she took up on it. She held her hand out, trying to reach for the person closest to her—
—and, with their eyes peeled to the front, they instantly moved away from her arm, and then returned to their original path.
As Naoto withdrew her hand in a mild startle, the scenery around her began to change again, and once more she was knocked into another world that was yet another close reflection of reality. Children now, instead of adults, were scrambling all over the place which looked like an elementary school playground, squealing with innocent joy and cheer. Everywhere Naoto looked, there would be a group of children having fun amongst themselves. Not one person appeared to be left out.
Then the familiar tug beckoned her again, this time engulfing her and pulling her into the sky. The playground and crowded crossroads appeared to shrink as Naoto had no choice but to ascend – in such a situation she could only frown, with no other way to deal with the undercurrent of frustration rising in her chest – and when the strong pull finally lifted, she found herself surrounded by towers of books. Although they appeared to be arranged neatly, there was no particular order in the way the books were stacked and placed together, with the genres, author names, and titles in a haphazard arrangement. There was not one person in sight, only one book already flipped open to the middle in front of her, on the floor she hadn't realised she had been sitting on.
'...Ah, I see.' A somewhat nostalgic look crossed Naoto's features as she leaned forward to scrutinise the book. 'No wonder this felt... Hmm?'
The young detective stiffened. Then, after what felt like a minute had passed, she reached out and flipped the page, only to find that it was in the same condition as the page before it: empty, with no words or pictures. Nothing about the exciting adventures of famous literary detectives as they went about solving crimes and mysteries, or about criminal psychology and the like. Just a piece of blank paper that looked like it hadn't even experienced the touch of a human. The puzzle that Naoto thought had been steadily coming together collapsed, and put itself back in a different manner when she realised there had been an extraneous piece in the pile of clues and hints this illusion had been throwing at her:
Herself.
The true anomaly behind this illusion had not been the fact that it did not elicit the usual fear in her, but that she had no relation to this illusion in the first place.
And if it wasn't her that this illusion had ties to, then there could only be one other person.
Naoto closed the book shut, and let her fingers linger on the hardcover until she was brought back to reality by the blaring sound of Hanamura-senpai yelling in her face.
"Hey Naoto, you back with us? Please say that you're back with us."
"Mm... What?" Naoto replied, still feeling in a bit of a daze.
Yosuke heaved a huge sigh of relief, and so did Yukiko, Naoto soon realised. "Oh man, thank goodness. For a moment, I thought you were gonna run on us. You were stuck in that state for pretty long."
"Run...?" Naoto tried to recall what had happened, and her mind slowly cleared. She remembered the Shadow, the smile, the people. The books. With brightened eyes back into focus, the detective turned to her high school seniors. "Senpai, what of Orihara-san's Shadow?"
"Over there," Yosuke answered, jabbing a finger in the Shadow's direction. It had fallen to the ground, body and wings sprawled over the snow, and struggling to get back up. Before Naoto could ask, Yosuke said, "Managed to land a crit on it. Miraculously. That's how I took the chance to wake you up."
"It's not going to stay like that for long, though," Yukiko added. "Its health hasn't really gone down much, either."
"Yeah, if only it had some kind of a weakness," Yosuke said, adjusting his headphones until he was satisfied with them. "At least we can keep exploiting that."
Naoto did not reply at first, until she gazed in the Shadow's direction, thought back to the things she had seen, and then a plausible plan struck her, like having a breakthrough when she was on a case.
"I thought of something that might work," she said as she reached into her coat and pulled out a small pocket mirror that was decorated with swirls and somewhat runic writing. As the Shadow gradually regained its consciousness and took to the air, Naoto handed it over in Yosuke's direction, letting the mirror fall to the ground and shatter to form a reflective barrier that encircled the brunet. "Amagi-senpai might need to use one as well."
"Eh? Ah, alright." The manager of the Amagi family inn grabbed hold of her only Magic Mirror, which she quite brusquely hurled to the ground stepped on. As a similar barrier formed around her, she looked to her right and then to her left, and noticed that her friends were staring at her. "Hm? What's wrong?"
"Well... How do I put it..." Yosuke scratched his cheek absentmindedly. "I'm pretty sure the thing would break without you crushing it like that, Amagi."
"Oh, that. I just happened to see someone do that in a soap opera the other day. Just felt like trying it," Yukiko replied with a somewhat proud smile.
"Here it comes," Naoto decided to cut in, reminding her senpai of the Shadow that was getting prepared to send another wave of attacks. With her gun in her right hand, Naoto shielded herself with her left arm as the Shadow's wings gave a violent flap.
Bolts of lightning struck the three of them at around the same time, and they all mostly got away unscathed, with the barriers reflecting the Maziodyne back towards the caster. The Shadow screeched, and Naoto had to bring up her free hand to cover her ear from the offensive noise as it fell to the ground again and curled into itself.
Yosuke and Yukiko's eyes slowly widened as their jaws dropped when they realised what had happened.
'...I was right,' Naoto almost wanted to declare that to the world, but she refrained from doing so.
"It's...weak to electricity?" came Rise's voice, who sounded more surprised than she was uncertain.
"Gah, of course," Yosuke muttered with a slap to his forehead. "It's not that it doesn't have a weakness, it's that we couldn't find it."
"That was really great thinking, Naoto-kun. How on earth did you know?" Yukiko complimented.
"H-huh? Well..." Naoto paused to reach again for her cap that was no longer there, and when she realised what force of habit was doing to her, she lightly swept away her bangs instead. "It was guesswork, really," she half-lied. It wasn't that she didn't have a reason for using the mirror, but she didn't base it on anything she considered concrete yet, and simply tried it because there wasn't any other viable alternative to finding the Shadow's weak point. Of course, now that her conjecture was steadily becoming more grounded, she could say with more confidence now, "After noticing an element of abnormality concerning the illusion the Shadow casted earlier, I thought about its relation to Orihara-san himself... Though, I didn't manage to think it through more clearly. I thought using the mirrors could help me on clarifying that. To kill two birds with one stone, if you will."
"...Wow, and you considered all of that in so little time?" Yukiko breathed, not questioning what Naoto had meant by "abnormality". It was most likely for the same reason Naoto didn't ask Yosuke about his own experience with the Fear spell Hachimenroppi struck him with.
"Huh, but for a Shadow to use a skill it's weak to..." Rise let the thought trail off before cutting herself off, "H-hold on, that actually ate up a huge chunk of its health! Or maybe it nullified the effect the blood had on it? I can't be too sure, but in any case, I think you stand a really good chance of taking it down now!"
"Whoa, guess it can't handle a taste of its own medicine," Yosuke teased before his expression returned to a more serious one. "But now that it's seen through Naoto's plan, I don't think we can rely on this tactic anymore. We could try some Balls of Lightning, but I don't think we have enough to last us."
"Should we dive in for an all-out attack before it gets up?" Yukiko suggested. Her eyes seemed to twinkle at the mere thought of charging in to give the Shadow a good beating.
Naoto thought it sounded like a good idea – after all, they should deal the Shadow as much damage in the quickest time possible – and Yosuke agreed, as well. So, with the consensus quickly arrived at, the three of them rushed towards the fallen creature and went on quite a frenzy using their respective weapons with Kujikawa-san sending her cheers over the telepathic link. When the Shadow started showing signs of consciousness, they instantly stepped back and retreated to their usual formation as they awaited its recovery.
The winged humanoid creature was obviously disgruntled, its usual twitchy smile having completely evaporated from its rather grotesque appearance. If it had eyes, or eyelids for that matter, they probably would've narrowed to slits.
"Rules or no rules, your game's about to be over," Yosuke said, pointing a knife at the Shadow. "We're taking you down, whether you like it or not."
"...Don't get all cocky now," the Shadow sneered, hovering at a lower altitude than it did before. "You have no idea how much that irks me. Or, what, are you asking for me to do unto you what I did that coward?"
"Nobody's asking for anything," Naoto retorted.
"Heeeehh, is that so," the Shadow drawled lazily as it directed all its attention to the fifth in the Shirogane line of detectives. "Then let me ask you this, Shirogane Naoto-chan. Why do you think I'm here right now?"
Naoto hesitated to answer at first, suspicious of the Shadow's intentions. It could be trying to drag this out, to buy time for itself, to wear out the chances of Orihara-san ever making a recovery from his Apathy Syndrome or whatever was ailing him. On the other hand, it could simply be curious, or it could genuinely be a form of a question Orihara-san himself wanted an answer to; it was, at the end of it all, a Shadow, after all.
'...That's it,' the thought hit her. 'That's what's been bothering me... I had thought of Orihara-san's Shadow as an anomaly, one that appeared to display some form of intelligence and independence – but, ultimately it is still what it is: a Shadow. Its prowess and tact in battle, the manner in which it speaks, the constant shuffling between keeping us out and luring us in – they're all a reflection of Orihara-san in some way or another. Except...in a more honest, exposed manner.'
With that in mind, Naoto settled on a decision which she hoped she wouldn't regret, despite Yosuke and Yukiko's light warnings as she took a step closer.
"...The same reason all of ours did," she said softly, and tried not to get caught in the memories of a child wearing a laboratory coat that didn't fit her and sobbing at the prospects of somebody abandoning her. "Rejection."
"Rejection, denial... They're all forms of escapism, aren't they? Wouldn't you also agree that humans are naturally capable of that, too?" The Shadow did not directly affirm her answer, and continued as it swayed in the air, "When they're faced with the ugly, ugly truth about themselves, humans have a natural tendency to turn away from it and pretend it doesn't exist, despite being aware of it on some level or another. It's not just with themselves, either, but rather, humans are naturally repulsed by things they find ugly or detestable. Of course, ugliness is subjective, but the desire to stay away from something that is considered ugly is the same for all humans.
"Say, things like death and the like." The Shadow deliberately chose to pause here, and Naoto flinched as she wondered if it was delving into the crux of the matter at last. "People don't enjoy talking about things like that, right? It scares them, the idea of death. Those who have experienced death can't possibly come back to life and tell you what it's like, so it's like an inescapable, unknown future that's out of mankind's control, and many have subscribed to the view that there's nothing left after you take your last breath. That's a few common fears rolled into one. Death really is quite the scary thing, being a representative of multiple fears at once. Won't you say so, too?"
Naoto and her companions did not respond, and simply let the solemn monologue sink in as the Shadow continued with utmost glee, "But say what if, to a person who never believed in the existence of a life after death, to a person who never even dared to think about his own death in the first place...something akin to proof of an afterlife's existence appears before his very eyes? Is it not a glimmer of hope to this pathetic coward? Is it not a message of sorts that this spineless excuse of a person, who chanced upon such a discovery, is fated to have the privilege to taste the heavens?
"To be able to live on in another world, where he can safely watch mankind for all eternity... That's what that boneless coward wished for."
"That's... Orihara-san considered those things...?"
Naoto hadn't expected that from Izaya's Shadow. When she'd learned about what Hachimenroppi could represent from Shinra and observed and paid attention to his behaviour while conversing with him, there hadn't been a hint towards Izaya's specific fear of death at all. And yet, didn't Hibiya once claim that Hachimenroppi was their "core"? If that was truly the case, and this Shadow that was before them – the Shadow that was supposed to have been complete, with all its fragments merged back to their wholesome – then, it wouldn't be too farfetched to assume that what Naoto was touching on at the moment was likely just the surface. That the "death" the Shadow was talking about could also take on another less literal meaning. Though she would also admit that it was a simplistic way of looking at it.
She had to dig deeper. And fast.
"But that's not all there is, is there?" Naoto challenged. "Earlier you mentioned that you had 'given Orihara-san what he wished for'. I asked you what that meant, and you still haven't answered me. So do allow me to ask you once again: what exactly did you do to Orihara-san?"
"Naoto-kun..."
Naoto could sense her senpais' concern, but she couldn't let that be a reason for hesitating now. Not when she was getting closer—
—closer to solving Orihara Izaya's, under the online handle Nakura, intentions with the suicide groups case two years ago.
Closer to understanding his reasons for approaching her grandfather, for approaching her, and doing the things he did.
"Please answer me," said Naoto.
The Shadow's shoulders trembled as a wave of giddying happiness and laughter spread throughout its shrivelled body. "Exactly as it says on the lid. I sent him to a new world. Funny how that works, isn't it? He invested so much time and effort – his whole being, in fact – into working towards this goal, and all that went up in smoke in the end."
"Escapism... Death and the afterlife... And now, a new world...?" Yosuke mumbled, mostly to himself, before adding some sort comment about the likelihood of the Shadow being in a state of fog-induced high. Well.
That aside, however, Naoto was indeed grateful to Hanamura-senpai for voicing out the key points of what the Shadow had revealed. It helped her in connecting the dots, not only between what the Shadow had just said, but also to the existing knowledge she had about Orihara-san, in order to form a clearer picture in her mind.
"...In other words, this is what you mean." Naoto paused to get her thoughts straight before continuing, "Orihara-san...fears many things. Those, to my knowledge, include death, the certainty of that death, the unknown that lies within the future...and also love, and betrayal. The weight of human emotions, and how that could affect or change him, staggers him greatly. To the extent that he would seal off his own heart within the fortress that is called Orihara-san's 'love for humanity'... It is what helps him draw people closer and keep them shut out at the same time. Am I...correct in claiming so?"
"..."
Naoto took the Shadow's silence as agreement, and resumed her explanation with a struggle in choosing the right words, "As for his desire to reach the 'afterlife' or a 'new world'... If I'm not misunderstanding something, I am inclined to think that means Orihara-san's true desire, is not to literally travel to that world, but rather to reach an emotional state where he would not be weighed down by those fears any longer. That way, he will be able to love humanity in the truest sense...or, so he wants to believe."
The detective lowered her gaze. "Since that love is primarily a form of escapism for Orihara-san, reaching that emotional state means having to discard it. Nobody can claim to be fearless without having first faced the things they fear the most. But, to Orihara-san, his love for humanity has long been part of who he is. To toss it away means having to relinquish something that has been so integral to his identity, and that's...that's unthinkable. Not just to Orihara-san. Anyone would be terrified of that."
And, of course, that was what it all boiled down to. Orihara Izaya might be a twisted man, who appeared like a friend to some and a devil to many others...but there was no doubt that he was simply human, who had fears and insecurities that any other person would have, who tried to deny having them like any other person would.
It was small wonder, then, that his dungeon often spoke of his cowardice, and questioned his desire to change. Most likely, Izaya himself was wondering if he was capable of that – capable of change – when he wasn't willing to let go of the thing that defined who he was. And his Shadow took this to the extremes, possibly with the aid of the Malevolent Entity...by attempting to erase all traces of his existence, under the guise of "sending Izaya to the world he had been wishing for".
In a way, Naoto could relate to him. She had once shared a similar fear, and though she successfully faced it and learned to grow from her experience, it didn't mean that concern was completely out of her life now. Like Orihara, Naoto, too, once believed that she had to dismiss a significant aspect of her identity in order to achieve her ideals, or to sacrifice those ideals in order to stay true to herself, but now she no longer thought it to be the case. It shouldn't have to be viewed as a burden or an obstacle, but rather a necessary stepping stone that she couldn't, and shouldn't, erase from her life. Naoto never particularly liked being wasteful, after all.
Pitiful and relatable Izaya's circumstances may sound, however, Naoto refused to let it completely influence her existing perception of him. His fears, though understandable, did not excuse his behaviour, which was still clouded in mystery, if Naoto had to be honest. She could offer no explanation for the things he had done, even after getting this far in deciphering the meaning behind his Shadow, and even then there were things she didn't comprehend – the fire that broke out at the fortress, the Shadow splitting itself up... But then again, it would be ludicrous to expect full knowledge of a person simply by looking at his Shadow alone, when it was impossible to have complete understanding of a person in the first place.
"...In that case, then all the more we oughtta take you down," Yosuke said, unaware of the thoughts that were running through Naoto's mind. With his usual grin and confident wink, he nodded in the Shadow's direction. "Nobody should have to live thinking like that forever. People can change. It's just a matter of whether you want to or not. And, yeah, it's definitely not easy...but it doesn't mean you'll lose sight of who you are in the process."
"Mm-hm, it's all a matter of choice," Yukiko added serenely. "How you change, and who you aspire to be... Even though the future may be uncertain, there are things that are still within your own control. There's no need to impose rules on yourself and remain trapped by them."
"...Heh, try saying that to Izaya. See if he'll take your advice." The Shadow sniggered. "Though, 'choice'...huh? 'How you change, and who you aspire to be', 'things still within your own control'... Those are some pretty words. But, I agree completely."
"...?"
"Why do you think I'm here?" the Shadow repeated its earlier question, which took Naoto aback slightly even though she knew there could've been more issues she wasn't aware of. "Yes, it was because of someone's 'choice'. By 'choice', this person closed his heart off to avoid facing it. By 'choice', this person turned his back on ordinary human relationships, and kept his love towards mankind a wholly unilateral, non-reciprocal affair. And yet, it was by 'choice' again that he kept delaying and delaying his plans – because he was afraid of severing the only normal friendship he has with the very person he aspires to be! Isn't that just pathetic?"
"A person Orihara-san aspires to be...?"
"Eh eh eh? By any chance, do you mean me?"
Naoto, along with Yosuke and Yukiko, jolted when they heard not Rise's but Shinra's voice coming from the intercom. He probably requested for Rise to project his voice – most likely to satisfy his own curiosity – like she was able to for everyone else on the team.
"Why, if it isn't Shinra," the Shadow said in a mocking tone. "If you want your ego stroked that much, yes, I mean you."
"Ahaha, there's no need for you to do that, but thanks anyway. Glad that even I can be a role model to someone."
The Shadow, however, was not as jovial as the underground doctor had sounded. "...You haven't the faintest idea, do you." The Shadow continued speaking in a low growl, the thread that kept its lips sewn together shuddering. "How big of an impact you really are... What you mean to the boneless coward – what you mean to me... You don't have a clue at all..."
"...Oh dear, what gave you that idea? I mean, I know I come off as a bit of an absentminded goof sometimes, but—"
"I envied you!" The Shadow's words were raw and shocking, unlike the roundabout route it usually took with its words before. "You were able to do what I couldn't, and what I can never do! I wanted to be like you, to be able to watch humans from a higher plane...to be able to keep loving them, even if they don't return it...!
"Even Shizuo... Even Shizuo...! Why... How is it that he can have what I can't, when he doesn't have to shut that power off and still have people flocking to him? He doesn't even have the body of a human, and yet he thinks he can strut into human society and mingle with humans as though he's one himself? As though he can lead a normal life like other people? And yet still be able to leave behind his mark on this world and live on in people's hearts forever? Hah...hahaha...! How, how can someone like that even exist...?"
Though Naoto didn't dare claim to fully understand, the Shadow's words still felt like a bullet piercing her gut, as though they were meant for her.
Having someone to look up to, envying the people who had what she didn't, pursuing a certain idealised version of herself no matter how impossible it seemed – Naoto was familiar with all of that. And for her senpai and friends, too, who all had their own weaknesses and struggles to confront with...
"Um, but I do know about everything you just said," Shinra said, in a tone that downplayed the gravity of the Shadow's words.
"And yet, you didn't do anything about it." The manifestation of Izaya's most private thoughts and emotions chuckled darkly. "Man, I knew you didn't care, and it's not like I was expecting you to, but...it pisses me off all the same."
"Izaya, you're not getting it."
"You're the one who's not getting it, Shinra. Maybe you really are just asking for it..."
With a snarl, the Shadow spread its wings and gathered its own energy into itself, withdrawing and tapping deep into the power it still had left. Before it could fully get itself charged and prepared for whatever spell it had in its arsenal, Yosuke flung a Ball of Lightning at it, which shocked it down splendidly.
"Talking to it's not gonna get us anywhere!" he exclaimed, mostly meant for Shinra to hear before raising a hand signal. "It's go time, guys. One for all, and all for one."
As they rushed in for another group attack, part of Naoto wondered if Hanamura-senpai had meant to say more to Shinra, and merely held himself back out of respect for the latter. It was probably the same reason why they no longer heard the underground doctor's voice, but Rise's as she resumed egging everybody on, and the reason why Amagi-senpai was hitting the Shadow harder than she usually did, and the reason why Naoto herself felt a brief wave of heat that had no relation to the battle sweeping over her body.
They repeated this process, over and over, until they were out of Balls of Lightning and returned to their usual fighting patterns. Naoto, at some point, suggested using another Magic Mirror, and that time the Shadow struck hard with a Mabufudyne that was returned to it in the form of additional health, to Naoto's utter embarrassment. Yosuke and Yukiko told her not to worry about it, but such a blunder was difficult to ignore, and the detective opted to remain silent for the rest of the battle as she continued to follow Yosuke's orders.
Just then, as the three of them focused all their attention on bringing the Shadow's stamina down, a screech in the distance that sounded oddly like the neigh of a wild horse reverberated throughout the area.
What followed was, in the simplest terms Naoto could describe, complete and utter chaos.
"U-um...! W-we're sorry for appearing like this..." said a bespectacled girl with shoulder-length brown hair and chopped bangs and dressed in what Naoto faintly recognised as the Raira Academy uniform, who was sitting atop a black motorcycle. Seated in front of her, who had been manning the motorcycle, and clad in a black jumpsuit and a yellow helmet, was...
"Ehhhhh? Celty?"
Shinra had conveniently expressed the confusion in everyone's minds.
"Hm...?" Naoto murmured, as she allowed herself to inspect the newcomers closer. Attached to the vehicle that was drenched in pure black was a smaller holder compartment that was large enough to fit another person, like the kinds Naoto often saw at police stations. And in that compartment, was a man. The man that was supposed to have been lifeless and delirious, bedridden in a certain underground doctor's apartment. The man who could be said to have been the cause of their current predicament. "O-Orihara-san?"
"Eh?" Yosuke choked, almost dropping one of his kunai. "What's he— Wait, did you guys bring him here?"
"Y-yes, it's quite a long story," the girl from Raira Academy replied. Her gaze then intensified, and for a second Naoto thought her eyes flashed crimson as she called out, "Ah, p-please watch out!"
"What...?" Yukiko muttered, before turning back, as did Yosuke and Naoto. The sight before them made their eyes widen.
The Shadow's aura, that had been weak and faint before, was now thick and suffocating all over again, as though the arrival of the three was entirely unwelcome and agonising to it. It had powered itself up without them realising it, and Naoto could tell because of the sheer magic and power that was centred in the Shadow's presence.
"You... How dare you bring him back..." It seethed, and the thread that had been stitched across its lips ripped apart. "I'm gonna wipe you all out in one hit, along with the bastard...!"
Rise gasped. "E-everyone, no! You gotta get away from there! Th-this power, it's—!"
"...You gotta be freakin' kidding me!" Yosuke yelped as he raised his head and saw the coagulation of bright violet energy above the Shadow's head. Naoto felt her blood run cold.
She couldn't let that happen.
That was all that she could think of.
Not to her senpais, or to Sturluson-san, or even to the girl who appeared to be her ally.
And definitely not to Orihara-san, who did not deserve this in the least.
If it was punishment, or what other people would call karma, for his crimes that he ought to receive, it shouldn't be like this. Not by his own Shadow's hands, not by the rules he had imposed upon himself.
If, to him, the right form of "punishment" would be for him to face his fears, to tear apart the defense he had built around himself and to look at himself straight on... If that, to him, was what he considered as painful and unbearable to face, then, although Naoto couldn't guarantee that it would be for the better, or if it would even be to his own liking in the end like how it worked for her, she wanted to give him that chance. Because that was part of her job.
Detectives didn't only live to solve crimes and mysteries. They had a duty to serve and protect other people, too, and that included the criminals themselves. By exercising objective judgement in handling a case and apprehending perpetrators instead of enforcing personal justice on them, detectives were also, in a way, giving them a chance to bear the responsibility of their doings. A chance to reflect, to evaluate, and to decide for themselves how they would face these challenges. A chance to change.
As long as people are alive, they are also capable of change – Naoto wanted to believe that.
And so, she couldn't let this happen.
"H-hang on, let me Trafuri the way out-"
"No," Naoto said firmly, and Yosuke looked at her as if she were crazy. She couldn't exactly blame him. "If we run now and leave the Shadow in that state, then we're not accomplishing what we had set out to do, Hanamura-senpai."
"Don't you think I know that?" Yosuke winced the moment those words left his mouth. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you, but seriously Naoto, that's a Mind Charged Megidoloan that's about to come straight at us! That thing hits like a nuke, and you know it!"
"I am aware," Naoto replied. She was surprised even at herself for this sudden surge of confidence. Like something in her had stirred and changed, giving her the strength and courage that was coursing through every part of her body. The fluttering in her head that she normally associated with Yamato Takeru had ceased.
Naoto momentarily lowered her gaze to the pistol in her hand. Then, she slowly raised it up, and pointed it at the Shadow.
'For the people who helped me stand on my feet, and walked with me as I discovered myself, and stayed with me even as I change, bit by bit... And for the people who I can aid in turn, in the unknown future, because I have been helped before...'
The card she had once grown familiar with, and would learn to grow familiar with again from now on, appeared before her in a bright blue flash.
"Naoto-kun, what—"
"Yamato Sumeragi!"
The blast that Yosuke described as equivalent to the devastation capacity of a nuke was rendered powerless before the Shield of Justice that was summoned to surround all of the people present, and in that moment the Shadow was stunned and distracted nobody took action except for Naoto, who shot it in the chest repeatedly. Then, her friends, who had recovered from their shock, joined in to attack the Shadow with their Personas.
It wasn't long before the shrivelled figure finally folded its wings, and crashed to the floor, giving off a thick, shadowy steam. When the gas cleared, what remained was a complete Izaya lookalike, right down to the long coat fashioned after his usual style, but with the hood covering the top of half of the doppelganger's face.
At that time, Rise and Shinra appeared, having teleported to the scene after the fighting was over. Instead of taking a look at the defeated Shadow, Shinra ran and wrapped his arms around Celty's waist, pulling her into an embrace she poked her way out of. Then he shifted attention to Naoto, who was standing with the support of Yukiko, and immediately flooded her with questions about the "astounding phenomenon" from earlier. Even when Celty stepped in, the doctor did not stop, and continued rambling even as Celty forcefully pulled him away with her shadows. Anri, at a loss, simply remained quiet, and kept her hands folded in front of her.
Then the Shadow stirred, and not long after Izaya did, too. Leaving Shinra to go over to check on him, Celty went to the Shadow instead, and lowered herself to one knee when she noticed that its lips were moving.
"Why...?" it said, its voice barely above a whisper. "Why did you bring me back?"
Celty raised a hand, and tendrils shot up from the opening of her sleeve to form words in the air. [Because you don't have to deserve being hated forever.]
A/N: As with the previous chapter, A/N at the bottom to avoid spoilers.
Like how I felt for Shizuo, I'm again insecure with my overall interpretation of what Izaya's Shadow could be ahahaha... I think it's a trial I need to overcome.
Anyway, I wrote this while still playing through Persona Q, and gosh that game gave me so much inspiration and reinforcement with regards to what I intended to portray. It was a really pleasant surprise, and I'm grateful to Atlus for this game (though I can't say I feel the same for what I had to go through in a particular labyrinth...). So in a sense, there are a few references to PQ in this fic without my intending to, but this chapter was slightly heavier on that.
On another note, quite a lot of things have been revealed in this chapter, which I hope does clear up a few questions. In particular, pertaining to "Nakura" haha. Although one big chunk was dedicated to a Shadow Izaya analysis, ultimately the greatest revelation in this chapter has to be "Nakura"'s identity XD I need to work on clearing up holes faster orz
Once again, thank you all for supporting Gameplay! :)