Teddie, Morgana, Shadows ( P1-P5, Other Megaten media used) 24/11
Shadows know their origins, even if they choose to consciously forget. Shadows begin when other life ends, and most exist to bring despair.
Shadows are part of the contradiction that is humanity.
But there are some exceptions.
Two such shadows, one who made himself, and one shaped from hope, met once in a labyrinth.
Humanity has a collective shadow. He calls himself Nyarlathotep. Where many other gods sleep, he walks among them. Stars are the suns of other planets, and Nyx is a planet destroyer. Humanity contains her psyche, and he walks free.
Rumors strengthen a demon. Belief bolsters ability. He is both something older and something younger. Time is irrelevant. He makes good use with his titles of crawling chaos and faceless god as he walks the earth.
Teddie is a shadow who shaped himself into a boy. He lives within the space in between. Something about the world changed in 1999 when the fall began.
Magic and demons have always on some level lived in a liminal space. The Expanse or Makai, has always sat somewhere between the material and spiritual world. Traditionally, to get between them, you need a key. Usually that key is a ritual.
Often it is words, symbols and dolls, a ritual. Long ago there were nameless shrines and priestess trained to help people step between. The shrines are few and far between now, the priestess a dying art in a world that walks away from its connections to magic in favor of science.
Of course just because the old ways are dying, does not mean the expanse has become isolated. After all, there is always a new way to make a key. And with it a new door.
No, what the fall did was bring a new type of being into the physical world. Humanity called them shadows.
Shadows have always been tied to humanity. A contradiction entwined in the psyche which shapes them. Shadows were meant to stay shadows, enclosed within humanities hearts.
A demon is shaped from humanity as humanity is shaped by demons, all a mess of darkest dreams and sharpest nightmares. A cycle supported by those who meet in the middle and form a partnership.
Shadows carved out their own kind of liminal space, of an extra hour. And so, to start with, they remained separate.
But after the fall ends, Shadows are as much a part of the liminal spaces on earth as demons. And like demons, there will always be a new key to access that space.
The first following the fall was television.
A Television is a machine that allows glimpse into a world that follows a different set of rules. It has characters, tropes, and sets. While people watch Television, the shadows watch it with them, as they watch back.
The midnight channel casts those who enter its realm as directors, and watch as they create their own demise through those parts of themselves they can not accept.
A young shadow witnesses this, and witnesses humans, and decides this is something he should change. He names himself Teddie. He takes the form of a bear that fits with the TV world, and looks curiously at the details of the humans who stay to talk.
He watches the humans who come into his life, and reflects them in how he builds himself. He grows himself a body within his suit, darkness and shadow mass becoming flesh and bone.
A soul is not made of plumes of dusk.
A soul is the experience of a body, but the spirit is what connects one with the universe. Teddie is already connected with the universe. It is a connection born of the choices he made, and will continue to make.
In contrast Mementos is a shared cognition of humanity's darkest wants and fears.
Igor watches it rise up with trepidation. Every realm has a god. Humanity will make a demiurge if none of the other gods claim it.
And sure enough Yaldabaoth comes. He comes seeking to turn hope into despair, and despair into stagnation.
In response Igor takes humanity's hope, all its pride, potential and curiosity and gives it a form, a spirit in the shape of a cat complete with a cat's pride and contrarian nature.
After all, if the form of a cat is enough for a once Raidou to guide other Raidou's, then a cat is good enough to guide other heroes.
He will grow a soul through connection. Igor hopes that the lessons he learns from humanity, that the way his soul grows, strengthen his hope. His ability to carry hope for himself, and for others.
He is both a shadow and a torch, the box of pandora given freedom of movement and will, the wind that gives speed to the sails, blowing in the right direction. It's a shot in the dark, but that's the nature of hope, when the cards are down and it is time to put your faith into the hands of another.
He wishes he had time to explain. To watch hope grow. To wish it luck. But if he had the luxury of time, he might not be giving hope a form. Igor has never surrendered Pandora's box in the past. Not even in Sumaru, when the world ended. Those that persisted past the end of the world faced their journey into the next one with rumors and sheer determination that had brought the world's destruction in the first place. He will not give up hope now, instead he lets it walk free, contained in a living being, who now carries the duality of both mementos and humanities hope.
Igor is smiling when Yaldabaoth arrives.