Okay, Okay... I can do this... I can do this

Y-

Shut it

IAmSoCleverWithMyNameLol : Uh-oh...

Stop reminding her god- *is throttled*

Oh, did you think you'd get away Scott free? Oh no... Time for some more pain, mwehehehe!

Nightlyy : *cracks knuckles* Here's hoping I haven't gotten too rusty in these types of battles. Christ, do you know how much fluff I've given all of you? How long it takes? God, I love all of you too much...

Kiss up- *is slapped in the face by Kotone*

Go for his right eye, Kotone! That's his weak point!

Thank you, Pharos!

clevernameeh : I'm glad someone appreciates me! And you're extra super duper ultra awesome!

What are you? A child?

*glares* Do I need to hurt you again?

Uh... No, that won't be necessary.

*smiles* I thought so.

Maybe she's the one with multiple personalities.


Abandoned Bunker

"Thanatos." Makoto whispered his persona's name as to signal the god of death to strike.

"Scotus." Sakuya did the same with his persona, he'd been warned by Ikutsuki that this wasn't an opponent to be trifled with.

Thanatos attempted to sever the Roman god in half, but was parried by the snath of Scotus' scythe.

Dammit... Makoto silently cursed as he tried to attack first and as fast as he possibly could.

However, even in his irate state, Sakuya hadn't forgotten how to fight.

Sakuya duck to avoid the attack, his reflexes having been honed from years and years of practice.

Taking full advantage of his opening, Sakuya bolted forward while slashing just below Makoto's left ribs. It was unlikely he'd be able to end this in just a few strikes, so it was best to take him apart one piece at a time.

"Krgh..." Makoto grunted as he felt the all too familiar pain of having his blood spilt.

Makoto took a few steps back as Thanatos pushed Scotus back and both personas retreated. Makoto was being too reckless, he had to focus more on his defence lest this end up like last time.

Still, judging from last time, Sakuya wasn't just going to run in without some sort of counter-attack prepared. His mind was had been developed with the sole purpose of battle, likely every possible scenario was playing in his head all at once.

There was one thing Makoto could give the brunette credit for, this wasn't going to be easy.

Channeling Thanatos' power into his sword, Makoto charged and left a faint black mist-like trail behind him as Sakuya stood still with a confident look on his face.

Sakuya easily parried Makoto's predictable attack, but was completely caught by surprise when a sudden small explosion formed in the second the two blades came into contact, the blast of which blew him away until he hit the ground hard.

Makoto raised his hand as the space between him and Sakuya started to become filled with column after column of fire which were quickly making their way closer to the injured boy.

Before a column could arise where Sakuya was, the area around the two was shrouded in a dark mist that made it hard to make out what was just a few feet in front of them and the sensation the boy's plume gave off suddenly disappeared.

Expecting that he'd perform such a maneuver, Makoto put his blade directly behind his back which parried Sakuya's next attack the moment he reappeared.

"Huh?!" Noticing he was caught by surprise, Makoto kicked backwards which hit The Puppet's chest hard enough that he was knocked off his feet.

When Sakuya landed on his back, Makoto charged forward again, ready to put an end to this.

Sakuya, however, reacted quickly and rolled out of the way as to evade the attack and even managed to get back up in a crouched position.

Seeing an opportunity, Sakuya propelled his blade forward towards Makoto's throat.

Knowing that such a blow would be fatal, Makoto waited until just the last millisecond to summon another sword in his off hand to parry the attack and followed it with another horizontal slash with his right hand.

Realizing the danger, Sakuya quickly jumped back as the blade cut through his shirt and even left a large but not very deep cut.

"Persona!" Both said simultaneously as both Scotus and Thanatos appeared.

Like a feral animal, Thanatos decided to forgo using his sword. The god of death rushed to the god of darkness and sank its teeth into his shoulder which caused him to bleed a dark blood-like substance similar to what came from shadows.

Scotus screamed as he detached the blade of his scythe and held it like a small sword or knife, utilizing its smaller size to stab the god of death's torso repeatedly in a desperate effort to get him off.

Thanatos let out a low grunt as he used his jaws to apply more pressure before tearing a large chunk of Scotus' shoulder off.

Scouts screamed again as he took advantage of the small amount of extra room provided from Thanatos' action, and jabbed his scythe's blade straight into Thanatos' metallic jaw.

Thanatos let out another grunt as he let Scotus go and performed an attack while drawing his sword technique which provided come distance between the two.

Sakuya clutched his head from his persona's pain bouncing back to him before jumping high into the air "Dark Verdict!"

Makoto looked up and saw a mass of darkness gather into a orb which exploded the moment it hit the floor.

The force of the blast blew Makoto back into a wall which caused him to impact with the wall as various pieces of shrapnel pierced various parts of his body.

Makoto coughed small amounts of blood, his body still in the process of recovering from the impact and shrapnel while left unable to repair whatever damage the blast itself did.

This is taking forever... Makoto thought as he tightly gripped his swords in vexation. At this rate, this was going to take all night, even with a persona as powerful as Thanatos.

Makoto could give an extra oomph to Thanatos, had it not been for the headache caused by Minato's lashing out in his mind. The pressure was so great that it was a miracle that he could even focus at all, especially with the dark shroud everywhere around the two.

"Grr..." Makoto grunted and his glowing blue eyes briefly flashed yellow before he began to slowly walk towards the brunette again.

Sakuya, meanwhile, was patiently waiting for the Dark Prince, his anger from earlier almost completely gone. Indeed, fighting was where he was comfortable and it was a great way for him to relieve stress.

Never before had either of them come across an opponent that could actually rival them in any regard. In a strange way, this was a very nice change of pace for the both of them.

Sakuya summoned a sword in his left hand as to match his opponent as his left eye which had briefly changed back to blue became grey once again.

"Demonic Decree..." Sakuya whispered as he curled his lips, using one of Scotus' the rather uncanny and uncommon abilities.

Suddenly, Makoto heard incomprehensible but ominous whispers all around him. At the same time, a giant scythe appeared seemingly out of thin air swinging its blade towards The Dark Prince.

Despite being caught by surprise, Makoto was able to side step just in time to avoid the attack that'd likely do massive damage. This wasn't intended to kill, this was just meant to distract him.

"Maeigaon!" The hooded boy ordered, knowing full well that Sakuya was taking this opportunity to attack him while his attention was diverted.

As expected, Sakuya was running towards him in speeds that made him almost impossible to track. However, this also meant that he ran straight into the circle of Eigaons that Makoto had cast.

Large amounts of energy gathered before bursting into multiple small black and red explosions. Said explosions were what caught Sakuya off guard as he was forced to take the full front of the attack.

Forced to greatly slow his speed in response to the damage, Sakuya was practically helpless when Makoto swung his right blade which through Sakuya's upper torso as if it was made of butter.

Sakuya screamed in pain as he recovered from the Eigaon and sidestepped the next attack from Makoto's off hand.

Even while injured, Sakuya was still fast enough to attack Makoto's left leg just as he had done with his right during their last fight and slide his feet across the ground as the friction halted his momentum and attempted to slash the boy's back.

While Makoto grunted from the pain of having one of his legs injured again, he still placed one of his swords behind him to parry Sakuya's next attack as to avoid the risk of being critically injured again.

After this, even with his injured limb Makoto managed to quickly twirl around while swinging his blade.

Sakuya ducked to avoid being decapitated or dismembered and attempted to retaliate with a slash of his own.

Makoto parried the attack and locked blades with the scarred persona user.

Sakuya stared into the eyes of his opponent as the rest of his face was shrouded in a darkness that even he couldn't see through.

"You're pretty good..." Sakuya complimented, his earlier hostilities seemingly gone at this point, "I haven't had this much fun since I trained with my little brother..."

"Do you ever shut up?" Makoto asked, thoroughly unamused. This was a fight to the death, not a game of sports.

"In that case..." Sakuya launched his head forward until his head collided with the bridge of Makoto's nose.

After he took a few steps back from the sudden impact, Sakuya took the opportunity to kick the boy in his left ribs as hard as he could which knocked the boy even further off balance.

With his balance gone and his defence essentially destroyed, Sakuya took the chance to rush Makoto and swing his swords rapidly to quickly inflict as many wounds as he could, focusing primarily on his shoulders, some of the upper chest, and legs.

Makoto was left with no other choice but to simply take the blows until he used a Garudyne exactly where the two of them are which blew them across the entire area they had been fighting in.

"Hack..." Makoto coughed as he knelt down as blood quickly began to form small pools around him. He had expected this to be a cakewalk with Thanatos, but this bastard was still tough as hell.

Makoto was still panting when he began to feel Sakuya's plume slowly moving closer again, his senses not being impaired in the slightest.

Feel like trading yet? Minato asked, likely doing his best to sound as dry as possible

Pf, and how would that change anything? Makoto asked as he slowly stood back up and clutched the weapons in his hands.

Two minds think differently, you know? Minato pointed out. Indeed, Minato's strategy in battle wasn't reliant on Pharos' ability to heal him which would be perfect for an opponent like this.

"Gr..." Makoto trembled in anger. He'd been relying far too much on brute force, but he was able to catch Sakuya by surprise a few times. However, his entire strategy had been based off him basically being unkillable and his time recovering had killed any time he had to reattune his senses.

Overstep your bounds and I'm taking over... Makoto demanded as Sakuya came into view again.

"C'mon, what's the matter?" Sakuya asked, ready to continue their battle "Come and get-"

Sakuya's words were halted when he saw The Dark Prince suddenly lower his head and his breathing slowed to the point it almost seemed to stop briefly.

Minato raised his head and glared back at the brunette "He's right, you really need to shut up."

What the..? Sakuya blinked rapidly as he noticed the various changes that just happened. The boy's voice while still disguised had a different tone to it, his posture had gone from standing straight to being slightly more forward, but most noticeably, he had perfectly mimicked an action that Sakuya had only saw once in his entire life.

"C'mon, what's the matter?" Minato asked using the brunette's earlier words as a small smirk formed and he completely ditched the sword in his left hand "Come and get me."

...

...

Kotone fired her Evoker and her eyes briefly glistened as Black Frost appeared "Marakunda!" she ordered, hoping that debuffing them would tip the scales in their favor against the veteran persona users.

Both Kotone and most of SEES had been forced out to stay back out of the range of their weapons due to Takaya's choice of a gun and Jin's grenades making getting close to either of them far riskier than it was worth. As such, the entire team had been forced to rely on their personas to do the fighting for them, lest they risk getting one of them killed.

The only thing that was actually good for them was the fact that they weren't in the area of effect of that strange shroud the hooded boy and Sakuya were fighting in.

"Initiate summoning sequence!" Aigis announced as she summoned her persona, Palladion which had a robotic appearance likely to reflect her master's origins.

Palladion looked up and seemingly fired bullet-like projectiles at the two members of Strega.

However, doing such an action had enough time to prepare that the two of them were able to telegraph and evade the attack.

"Hypnos." Takaya called has he clutched his head in agony from the pain of summoning his persona.

A strange almost humming sound came from Hypnos before an entire storm's worth of electricity began to fall from above them.

Aigis and Yukari, whose weaknesses were electricity were quickly taken out and SEES lost the two members they had whose weapons weren't effected by the distance.

Jin threw another grenade towards Kotone, likely as to take out the next most valuable asset to SEES.

It was at this moment that Kotone switched to one of her oldest personas as a knee jerk reaction "Angel!" she called and fired and the persona used a Garu spell to redirect the small bomb away. The fuse on the thing was so short that it exploded before it even hit the ground due to the extra time it was given.

Junpei summoned Hermes and attempted to burn the grenadier to a crisp, but was only caught by surprise as Jin's persona reflected the persona right back at him. Thankfully, Hermes' resistance to fire made sure that any wounds inflicted by the attack were minor at best.

"I've finished scanning them!" Fuuka told everyone "Don't use darkness or light attacks, and Jin reflects fire!" she warned everyone

"Do you have any ideas, Shiomi?" Mitsuru asked as she stood next to her leader

"Time to bust out a new one..." Kotone said as she took a deep breath and fired her Evoker again "Samael!"

A serpent known as Poison of God appeared symbolizing her link of the Death Arcana.

Samael hissed at the still floating Hypnos before quickly slithering through the air and biting into the god of sleep itself with its venomous fangs.

Jin summoned his persona Moros, but Samael merely used his snake-like body to wrap around and crush the god of doom like a boa constricting its prey.

Takaya grunted in pain, the poison coursing into his persona taking a great toll on his stamina while Jin was feeling Moros' pain bounce back at him.

Seeing the chance to do some damage, Akihiko summoned Polydeuces and sent the Gemini half to hit Hypnos as hard as he possibly could.

However, Takaya's persona was merely poisoned, not helpless.

He had learned from his previous observations that the boxer's weakness was ice based attacks, so when Hypnos surprised him and his persona by freezing the latter in a box of ice, the numbers of active fighters SEES had became even smaller.

After being crushed for several moments, Jin finally regained enough of his senses to order his persona to retreat.

Realizing her persona was out in the open, Kotone order Samael's retreat as well and did a head count. Right now, all that were left were her, Mitsuru, Junpei, and Fuuka, the latter of which can't fight.

Meanwhile, the number of Strega members remained the exact same as it was before.

To her left, from within the shrouded area she could still hear the hooded boy and Sakuya trying to kill each other.

Taking this opportunity to catch her breath, Kotone looked at the blood-like liquid that covered the walls which was the only sort of indicator as to how much time was left of this twisted hour. The liquid had already begun to recede meaning that they didn't have a lot of time left.

All she could do now was hope that she and the others could last until then.

...

...

"Dammit!" Sakuya cursed as Minato evaded another one of his attacks

"Megido!" Minato ordered and dozens of bright lights quickly made their way towards the brunette.

Left with no form of defence, Sakuya had no choice but to take the full power of the almighty attack which made Scotus from within scream in pain.

He was fighting different now, Sakuya noted. Now he was relying a lot more on mixing spells and sword combat then he had before.

His voice changed, his posture changed, his fighting style changed; This was almost exactly like with...

Sakuya jumped into the air again and seemed to hide himself with his swords as a black and red aura began to surround them.

Knowing what was coming, Minato focused Thanatos' power into his sword which caused a similar black and purple aura to surround it.

Together, both of them used a variation of Wings of Purgatory to launched two waves that intercepted each other.

Realizing Sakuya would need to land, Minato cast Garudyne on where the boy had been which caused him to crash down on the ground.

"Gr... Dammit, dammit!" Sakuya continued to scream in anger as he threw both of his swords into the ground and leaned slightly back with outstretched arms as Scotus appeared behind him and a dark portal beneath him.

Feeling what was coming, Minato raised his left hand as Thanatos appeared behind him roaring and a similar portal appeared beneath him.

Suddenly, both persona users summoned a mass of dark energy which materialized as blades that constantly intercepted one another. No matter how much pressure one side let on, neither made any progress and only stopped when everything became nothing more than a pure black even Sakuya couldn't see through.

Suddenly, both the black and the shroud itself disappeared as Thanatos' sword and Scotus' scythe clashed again, neither able to gain any dominance over the other.

Sakuya pulled his blades out of the ground and aimed one at his opponent "What... What the hell happened to you?!"

Minato shrugged like a child playing dumb with an adult "Well, I guess it all started when my dad and mom were together one night just after high school graduation..."

"Grrr..." In a fit of rage from the insult, Sakuya charged forward to cut the boy down.

Minato held his blade with both hands as he prepared for the potential onslaught that was about to ensue.

The bluenette side stepped to the left Sakuya's first vertical strike from his hand.

As soon as his blade hit the floor, Sakuya used his other sword to parry the next attack Minato made target at his back.

Sakuya counter attacked by horizontally swept his right blade, but it only hit air as Minato jumped back to evade the attack again.

"Gotta try harder!" Minato taunted as he jumped a few more paces back.

"You sonuva..." Completely losing his temper, Sakuya charged forward as fast as he could, ready to cut the hooded boy into pieces.

"Gotcha..." Minato whispered as he cast Maragidynes around both of them, blinding Sakuya in a smoke that he couldn't see him but he could still sense him.

Sakuya slashed the air where Minato had once been standing, completely lost and enraged.

"Where are you?!" Sakuya yelled as he continuously looked all around him, unable to see though the thick smoke that Minato had caused around them.

"Hiya..." Makoto who was just a few feet in front of him greeted with a smirk on his face and a sword in his right hand.

Catching him completely off guard, Makoto rushed the brunette and performed an onslaught similar to what had been done to him a few moments ago, targeting the joints in particular to slow The Puppet down.

Similar to what he had done to Jin before, Makoto slashed upwards and launched both of them into the air.

"Hurry up and die!" Makoto demanded as he slashed downwards, amplifying his attack with a Garudyne and sent the boy crashing towards the floor again.

Sakuya felt various bones in his ribs and his left shoulder snap like a twig as he hit the ground.

"Krgh... Hsshh... Fuck..." Sakuya cursed before coughing up a bit of blood. At this moment, he also took not of the beeping sound coming from his wrist.

"Dammit..." Sakuya said as he slowly got on his feet and noticed the liquid on the walls had almost completely receded.

"The Dark Hour is ending..." Chidori warned Takaya and Jin, the latter of which was using his revolver to shoot at the ground as to discourage any of the SEES members to get any closer.

The two members took notice of the gravely injured persona user and approached him.

"While our goals may differ, I trust the path we are on is intertwined..." Takaya said, speaking in that surreal tone of his "... Such as here, for instance."

Sakuya rolled his eyes, even he knew what the pale man wanted. He had no interest of associating himself with them, but now wasn't the time to make enemies.

"Umbra..." Sakuya ordered as a thick shroud of darkness appeared, giving the three of them ample opportunity to escape.

Makoto watched as he sense Sakuya's Plume getting further and further. He might've even gone after him, had it not been for injuries he had already sustained discouraging him from doing so. All he could do was try to catch his breath, while he didn't succeed in killing him, at least he didn't go mostly unscathed this time.

Eventually, Sakuya's Plume completely went dark and with it, the dark shroud that had surrounded the area went with it.

Makoto sighed, at least the shadow was taken care of now. The boy looked to his right and saw the members of SEES trying to wake up those who had fell unconscious during the battle.

Kotone reached into her pockets and pulled out one of the beads she'd found while exploring Tartarus on occasion.

"Please work, please work..." She silently prayed as she placed some of the beads in her robotic friend's hand.

Lo and behold, despite her robotic origins, Aigis was able to regain full function as the beads disappeared into a bright light and Kotone was left to take are of the rest.

Aigis' eyes focused on her surroundings before directing all of her attention to the unfamiliar hooded boy with a face shrouded in an unnatural darkness.

Despite their distance from each other, one could easily swear that the two of them were locking eyes with each other. It was almost as if they were two enemies that had been reunited after many, many years of inactivity.

"One day..." Makoto declared as he took his leave, wanting to be out of sight before The Dark Hour ended. As much as he loved to, today wasn't the day.

But soon... Some time this year, their blood would decorate the walls of this city for everything. It was all just a matter of time.


It's been awhile since I had to write a fight like this, hope I did decent enough. I've only been doing this for... *checks date* A year and one day now. That's right, one year (plus a day) is when I first started... Don't know how I got this far.

Mwehehe... Just little longer... Next time, I'll get to play with his liver... HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

... Okay, the more you talk, the more concerned I become.

Eh, the little dude has charm.