New Beginnings.

How long has it been since Elizabeth had last been here?

I stopped understanding time long ago.

Elizabeth stopped coming at some point, the last time I saw her she seemed tired.

Come to think of it, Erebus seemed weaker as well.

Was humanity finally healing?

I suppose it would eventually.

Come to think of it…

I haven't seen Erebus in a while either.

Or was it recently, and I can't tell?

What's that sound?

Oh, Elizabeth must be ba-

That's not Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is blonde.

This woman is pinkette.

Elizabeth is short.

This woman is taller.

Elizabeth still always wears velvet blue.

This woman is wearing some black and red dress with a spiky shouldered cape.

And a veil.

And a crown?

Who is this?

"So, you're the one sensei told me about." Says the stranger.

Her voice is deeper than Elizabeth's. If I had ears I'm sure they would be tingling at the new voice for thew first time in who knows how long.

"He said you were aware. That you could hear me when I found you." She said as she floated near me.

Suddenly I realize she's holding a 5-foot-long scythe. How did I miss that?

"I cant tell if he was joking or not. You look like a rock on a door." She said as she looked at me.

I wonder if I can still…

"But I can feel it. There's a soul in there." She caresses my face for a moment, as she says this.

That… felt warm?

How did I feel that?

"let's get you out of there, just one last soul to reap."

What?

Wait, I'm being pulled from the seal?!

NO

I fight the pull, but I've been stationary for so long that it's almost like muscle atrophy.

Soon I'm free. I'm mobile. I can move. It feels good.

But I can't let this strange woman take me from my duty.

I feel the weight of my evoker at my side,

I grab it and use it.

"What?!" she cries in surprise as I pull the trigger.

"Persona!" I cry, my voice hoarse from time unused.

Messiah and Thanatos rush to the forefront of my mind, ready to fight this woman at my desire.

"Fuck, I wasn't expecting a fight. Fine, whatever. The effort it took to get here just means I need to work harder to finish this." She parries a swipe from Thanatos as she weaves out of the way of a god hand from Messiah.

I reach for my sword and charge in to pressure her.

As I swipe at her, Thanatos aims a Die for me, at her and Messiah aims a Samsara.

She jumps back into the samsara circle and gets hit by both attacks at the same time.

I keep my guard up, but I hope it's enough.

"That would have killed me if I wasn't immune to both light and dark magics. I'm starting to see why Sensei spoke so well of you. Let's see how you handle this." She says as the smoke clears, and she charges me.

I duck under the scythe swing, while messiah boosts my evasion.

Thanatos intercepts her scythe, hooking the inside of the blade to change her trajectory, launching her right at me.

I lunge my sword towards her, and she twists enough to dodge it while getting inn a kick to my face.

While I roll with the hit I see her eyes widen as she realizes she's right in front of a god's hand from Messiah.

As the god's hand collides with her stomach I see spittle spray from her mouth, as she goes flying back to Thanatos, who has an Agidyne charged in his fist.

The hit connects and she shouts in pain as the flames engulf her, sending her into the door of the great seal.

For a moment I wait, once again hoping that it's over.

"I haven't felt flames like that in a long time. But fuck if that didn't hurt."

Of course.

She's floating in the same place I was crucified earlier. Her dress is tattered, her skirt reduced to a miniskirt, and part of her stomach showing. The beginnings of a bruise are visible as she takes the tattered veil and rips it off of her crown.

"I don't get why you're fighting. Surely you don't WANT to spend the rest of eternity on this thing?" she says as she looks at the seal.

I shake my head and say "It's my burden to bear. My responsibility. My sacrifice."

She looks startled for a moment.

"Your voice... You sound like him." She says to herself before shaking her head.

"it's pointless, let me reap you, everyone is waiting for you on the other side you know."

My heart clenches. Inside I already knew everyone was dead, as Elizabeth had told me so long ago. But hearing it again was painful.

I didn't respond verbally. Instead, I summoned Surtr and cast Ragnarök.

She dodged by a tight margin, before letting loose an energy slash from her scythe.

I parried it before replacing Surtr with Scathach and sending her in to do direct combat.

Meanwhile, Messiah was buffing me, and Thanatos had desummoned to allow Surtr to come in.

When Messiah finished buffing me I charged in at full speed, nearly too fast for her to see.

But she widened her eyes and parried my strike with the handle of her scythe.

The shaft cracked and her eyes widened as she kicked me back.

Her heel had dug into my leg, and I was bleeding a bit.

As Messiah healed me with a salvation, she looked at her scythe in wonder.

"You cracked the shaft… like, full on, there's a crack going along my scythe, cracked it." Her face was twisted in shock and pain.

"How the fuck did you crack my scythe? It's not an ornamental piece! It's the physical embodiment of the concept of death. This goes through your body; your soul gets separated from it! You die! You're just a soul to begin with, so how?" She is visibly confused.

I just stare at her. She's an aspect of death. Nyx wants me gone then.

"I've had this scythe since Death sensei took me under his wing! It was my first Rebirthday gift from him!" she said, eyes misty.

I feel a little bad about that now.

"Fucking damn it. Whatever. I'm pissed now. I didn't want to waste my strength, but you are way too tough for me to go easy on you."

I knew it, she was relaxed most of this time, now things are going to be tough.

"no one can escape time; it delivers us all to the same end."

What.

that's what…

her voice echoes as her eyes glow. "You can't plug your ears and cover your eyes."

Her body was fading into shadows as her face turned skeletal.

The remains of her dress became a shadowy robe, her hands turned to bone, her hair became a hood.

Soon she had become a living mass of shadows, pretending to be a robe, with skeletal hands holding her now much larger scythe, and piercing pink eyes set in a pure white skull.

"I didn't know why Sensei gave me this power as he died, but now I know it was to reap you."

Her voice sounded like it was coming from deep inside a cave. Echoed and distorted.

She was in front of me.

I blocked with my blade, but I was sent flying.

Messiah caught me, and Scathach tried to block her.

She disappeared and reappeared behind Scathach and sliced her in twain.

I felt a sharp pain in my mind, and as I reached for Scathach I felt an emptiness.

That's not good.

I called upon my persona, all of them.

One by one, they came out attacking, defending, buffing, debuffing.

I weaved in and out attacking her when I could.

My head was pounding, both from the stress of having over two hundred persona summoned at once, and from them getting taken out by her attacks.

As I felt Scathach reawaken, I sent her back, and soon I felt others come back.

Whatever that scythe did to them was not permanent.

I still had a chance.

For every persona she reaped, she was hit by ten more, the weakest shoved themselves in front of her blade to make her waste time on them. The strongest used the opportunity to assault her.

After who knows how long, she shouted. "ENOUGH!"

She suddenly grew to the size of a fully powered Erebus and bathed the battlefield in a black fog from her jaws.

I felt all of us weaken, as if we had been hit by the mother of all debilitates.

Then she swung her scythe across the field, rending my persona to bits.

My head felt for one brief moment like if I was alive, my skull would have exploded.

My sea of souls was empty.

Except for him.

As she fell to her knees, her power leaving her, I saw as she turned back to the human form from earlier.

Her dress was nothing but a few rags on her body. I could see her underwear, which was barely holding together.

Her body was riddled with bruises, burns, frostbite, electrical burns, and bleeding cuts and holes.

Her hair was a mess and half of it was burned away. Leaving her with an uneven bob cut.

As she panted, I could see her face was cut up a bit as well, and her left eye was black from internal bleeding.

Come to think of it, I would be dead…er, right now from using so many persona. So, I'm not much better.

"Never. In my whole existence, have I taken such a beating. You look like that took the wind out of your sails, but what the fuck dude. Why are you fighting me so much? You have nothing left to protect. They're all dead." She pants.

My own breathing is no better as I say "It's because I did this for them. I helped humanity survive so that the world could become a better place one day. So that Nyx would have no reason to cause The Fall."

She grabbed her hair and growled. "What aren't you getting about they are all dead?!"

I frown and say, "SEES has been dead for a long time. I knew that ages ago. And one day, when the great seal isn't needed anymore, I'll be with them. When that day comes, feel free to come back, and I'll go with you willingly."

She looks at me with a look of disbelief, before visibly shifting through more emotions than I can read at once.

Suddenly she starts giggling.

Then she starts laughing, and after that her laughter gets a bit out of control.

While she is on the floor laughing, I feel Thanatos come back to my sea of souls, and I ready him just in case.

I walk up to her and stare at her as her laughter finally starts reducing.

When she catches her breath, she says.

"I'm sorry, it's just, when Death Sensei spoke of you he mentioned how smart you were, but he also told me how clueless you can be. I just didn't think it was important till I had my ass handed to me over a total misunderstanding."

I blink and say, "Huh?"

As she pulls herself to her feet she suddenly falls back on her ass.

"Alright dude, either join me on the floor or help me up why don't ya?" she says with a friendly chuckle.

I shrug and sit next to her.

We stay silent for a moment, watching the sea of souls.

"you know what this place is right?" she asks.

I nod "The greater sea of souls. Where the essence of humanity's very existence takes root."

She nods. "it's beautiful. I've never been here before. Honestly, I thought it was going to be empty when I got here. Just a big black void. I'm happy it wasn't."

I frown and look at her.

"Why would it be empty?" I ask.

She turns to look at me and I see her face riddled with pain, sadness, and amusement.

"Because the last human being in the universe died and was sent on to the afterlife by me nearly half a billion years ago."

Whuh?...

"Like I said, no one can escape time, it delivers us all to the same end. The same goes for the universe. Eventually it dies too. But the universe cant be reborn until the very last soul has passed to the afterlife. Even Momma Nyx is dead."

Death… is dead?

"Momma Nyx?" I ask, in a daze.

"Yeah, she became my mom when I was chosen as Death Sensei's successor. When I was Reborn." She said.

I can't…

"When Death sensei told me that you might be the last soul I ever reap, I thought he was making shit up. When I couldn't sense any more souls in the universe, I spent millions of years searching every last corner of the cosmos. Eventually, I remembered his story. And here I am. After millennia of dealing with demons to find out where the hell you were, I came here, didn't explain anything because I had gotten so used to an empty universe that the idea of you somehow not knowing never entered my mind, and got my ass kicked."

She laughed and said, "I should have known better than to go in scythe a swinging."

Gone

"It sucks."

All gone.

"I had friends who were mortal."

The whole universe.

"My Wife was Immortal."

I'm alone.

"She died too."

No.

"Death Sensei died when he passed on that power to me. He said he was happy to retire."

We are alone.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to trauma dump on you, dude."

I finally speak. "it's fine. After I caused you so much trouble, I can't complain about such a little thing."

She nods and says, "You're damned straight."

We sit in peace for a bit longer.

"How does this work?" I ask.

She turned to me and said, "I'll give you the VIP treatment. Just let me heal up for a bit. I'm wiped."

I silently put my evoker to my head, when she noticed she panicked.

"Messiah," I said calmly.

Messiah appeared and cast salvation on us.

Her expression filled with relief as her injuries vanished.

She took a shuddering breath as I helped her to her feet.

"Woah, that was interesting. Thanks, man." She said.

She grabbed my hand and I saw a light.

"let's walk on through it together." She says.

"What happens next?" I ask.

She shrugs.

"Dunno. Maybe the moment we walk in, the whole universe resets and we get sent to the beginning. No memories, set to repeat everything.

Or maybe we get to sit by in the afterlife and watch the new universe. Together with our loved ones for all infinity.

I don't know.

Does that scare you?" she asked.

I thought for a moment.

"To maybe end up doing this all again?" I ask.

"Would you change your fate? Let someone else take the spot? Let the world end?" she asks.

I smile and shake my head.

"Not in a billion eternities, Shinigami San." I say.

She looks surprised for a moment. But chuckles.

"it's Mori. Not Shinigami San."

"I'll remember that name in the next life."

We chuckle together as we walk through the light.